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wallwriterstuff · 3 years

Text

Foundling ||Caius Volturi x Daughter!Reader

Warnings: Mentions of neglect and absent parent

Words: 4176

Taglist: @thelastemzy @kpopgirlbtssvt @a-avaunce @college-is-coming @alecvolturiswifeforever @broskibowser @volturidoll13 @raindancer2004 (hopefully this actually works this time!)

Summary: A request for @like-rain-or-confetti

Caius has done a lot of terrible things over the course of his life, and the one good thing he did do he was never allowed to keep. After centuries of waiting, she finally gets to confront him for all of his deeds, the good and the bad.

Most who knew Caius knew him for his rage, but not very many understood where that rage came from. It was like a chronic disease that plagued him always, the slightest things setting his volatile mood off. No, the blonde king was a ticking time bomb and whoever came across him knew all the while to tread carefully lest they lose a limb at best, their head at worst. His reputation proceeded him, his brutality well renowned, so the Cullen’s witnesses knew better than to cross Caius when he was busy warmongering, and he most certainly had tried his best to instigate something given that the Denali had had to inhale their sister’s ashes.

“We cannot know the child will not be dangerous!”

“Regardless they have been consorting with werewolves, our sworn enemies.”

Edward could only hold his family tight and pray for reprieve, watching Caius scrabble for any excuse to end those he held dear because of one mistake. Granted, that mistake had grown rapidly to be the very centre of his world and he would not trade his daughter for anything, but despite her lovable nature Renesmee was very much his creation and the very reason his whole family was now in danger. It was a difficult conundrum to wrap his head around and he still didn’t have all the right answers but he had people on his side to support him, and for Edward that was enough. Caius didn’t relent. Marcus spared him a pitying glance, Aro’s eyes less forgiving but nonetheless understanding, and Edward caught the briefest glimpse then of everything that made Caius what he was. The root of all of his anger and hostility stemmed not from his lack of gift as so many assumed, but from a small, infant girl.

He couldn’t quite contain his surprise. Aro was very good at controlling his thoughts around him but this one had slipped free. Caius looked so much softer in this memory, all of his rough edges filed away. For once, his eyes were not filled with hate and fire but wonder and trepidation, a bit of fear perhaps. Edward recognised those eyes immediately even if he didn’t understand how he had found them in Caius’s face of all people, because those were the eyes he had looked at Renesmee with when he pulled her free of his mate’s womb. It was the doting, adoring expression of a father who held his world in the centre of his palm. Caius was not voting to kill Renesmee out of fear for their species, but out of centuries worth of spite, spite that Edward had what he could not.

He had given up his daughter.

Caius was the first to leave the battlefield, his jaw twitching as he fought the urge to snarl, and even Athenodora didn’t dare follow him for a while. For those who knew him best they were able to feel the hurt radiating beneath all that rage, and for the weeks that followed even their own guard members felt unsafe in his presence. Demetri and Felix had caught one of the lower guard sneaking from the castle, his hand freshly reattached – Aro had let him go when he saw why the younger vampire had wanted to flee. Even Jane had been a little ashen once when she returned from the dungeons with him, Caius looking no more satisfied than he had when he went in while she all but collapsed in her brother’s embrace. As the weeks dragged to months, Aro couldn’t help but think it was time to do something. Caius had spent more time locked in the tower the week previous than he had with them, seeking comfort from his mate. It gave them plenty of time to talk.

“It has been centuries Aro, the man deserves peace.”

“I had thought time would heal this wound, that for the sake of Athenodora he might have moved on.”

“The love of a father is far stronger than the forces of time.”

So Demetri became the first of the guard to know of this well-kept secret the very next day. His shock was quite obvious, his curiosity to, but he knew better than to ask questions as Aro described the girl, thought of the infant she had been when they last saw her, and gave him all the information he might need to grasp her tenor.

“I trust your discretion can be counted on, dear boy?” Aro asked. Demetri had nodded once, then turned and left without so much as a goodbye to the others. The tenor was warm and vibrant, something he could easily get lost in. Demetri only paused in his searching to hunt here and there, rest briefly in a few hotels while he washed and traced the tenor in the forefront of his mind more thoroughly, but his feet carried him swiftly out of Italy and into Germany, through Eastern Europe and into Asia. He was surrounded by the colours and aromas of cultures he had not seen for a few decades. Usually Asia was quiet, the peoples having so many myths, legends and folklore that it was easy for a nomad to blend in, their slip ups often cleaned up by the humans that recognised the demonic nature of the mysterious deaths they left behind and tried to rectify the situation through prayer and ritual. It served as a better warning they were attracting too much attention than any Volturi visit could – they had trained the humans well in this regard.

Demetri finally stopped alongside a high rise building in Yokohama, Japan. The city was the second most populated in Japan, a good place to hunt and hide for a hybrid he was sure. The tenor was brightest here, many floors above him, and Demetri pondered exactly how best to go about engaging with his target for a moment. He could sneak into the building and into her apartment but he didn’t want to startle the poor girl, especially not since he had no clue whether or not she was gifted – he didn’t fancy getting his ass lit on fire to find out. He could always wait to see if she emerged, follow her from a distance, though that was another sure way to startle her if she caught him. Peeling away from the wall, he seamlessly blended into the human traffic on the pathway, pulling his phone from his pocket to search for a hotel as he walked along. He would withdraw for now, ‘bump’ into her on the street as a random passer-by and hope his obvious vampirism was enough to make her approach him.

It took her less than 24 hours to move and, dressed down in some casual clothes, he set out to follow her. Eyes covered by irritating contacts, he made his way through the Sankeien Gardens, following discretely as she took a leisurely stroll across the acres of land dotted with colourful spring blossoms and buildings older than most of the humans wondering the place. She seemed quite content to take her time, lifting her phone to take pictures here and there of flowers and views she liked. Demetri played the part of the awed tourist well, trailing her for an hour and a half before they seemed to have looped the entire expanse of the Gardens and ended up back at the pond they had walked around at the start. She sat herself on a bench, staring out over the water with mystifying blue eyes. She still stood out from the others around her though, her posture a little too straight, hands folded neatly in her lap, a child of her time out of place amongst modern mortals.

“You would look far less suspicious if you took a seat.” He had no doubt that she was talking to him. Lips twitching into a smirk, he did exactly as she asked. Hands in his pockets, he sat beside her on the bench, his eyes fixed on the pond before them. The shock of white-blonde hair on her head was almost proof enough she was Caius’s daughter, but he still had to check.

“The sakura blossoms make for a beautiful view, Carina.” He said. She visibly stiffened, her fast-fluttering heart pounding strongly in his ears. She had that vampiric twinge to her scent, something overly sweet that marked her as vampire and tangled nicely with the deliciously human side of her, much like Rensemee.

“Volturi.” She hissed quietly.

Demetri chuckled wryly. “So, my reputation proceeds me.”

“I have not been known by that name for many centuries. Only one coven would still recall it.” She griped, fists clenching a little in her lap. Demetri glanced at her then, taking in the sharp cheekbones and square jawline that he saw often in his Master’s face. The glare she wore was vicious.

“Do not make me use violence in a place as beautiful as this princess.” He threatened idly, gaze returning to the water as powerful lights threw beams across the surface, making it glimmer darkly. The sun had disappeared long ago or he wouldn’t have been out to follow her, the overcast day turning more quickly into night-time.

“So that is all, is it? I am to be hauled away from my home without negotiation or warning on the whim of a madman?” she sniffed. Demetri looked at her curiously.

“You speak ill of a man whom you barely know.” He mused.

“I know enough.” She retorted sharply, her eyes meeting his. The piercing blue made his curious mind race – because Athenodora could not be her mother so who had given her those eyes? – but he kept his expression cool and collected. Demetri stood to offer her a hand, one she eyed with distaste and distrust. He had no ill-intentions, but a little charm never hurt, especially not when he wanted to get his way with as little effort expended as possible.

“My contacts will not last forever, I will need to go somewhere more private to change them if we are to make the most of this evening before we depart.” He informed her. Her eyebrow arched high, her expression one of disbelief.

“What, pray tell, do you think we would be doing this evening?” she questioned. He smirked.

“It has been quite a while since I visited Japan, even then my last trip was to Tokyo. This is your city princess, show me why I should let you stay.” He invited. She scoffed.

“We both know your orders would not allow for such a thing…does your silver tongue work most other times?” she wondered, slipping her hand in his and letting him pull her up. He blinked in surprise as she dusted off the backs of her jeans. Most women took to his charm easily, but apparently Carina was as stubborn as her father.

“I…” he paused, wondering how to make her change her mind. She smirked, head shaking and sending silken sheets of straight blonde hair over her shoulder.

“It appears to be broken entirely now, I would get that checked this evening while I pack a few essentials, if I were you.” She was already moving away by the time his brain caught up, and despite her obvious disdain for the idea, she was packed and ready to acquiesce his escort to Volterra. For all her stubbornness however not even she could fight off the physical needs her mortality demanded, and Demetri found himself standing watch over the would-be Princess as she slept in a hotel in Florence. The even rise and fall of her chest gave him a pattern for his thoughts to echo, an endless ebbing and flowing of questions he couldn’t find answers to. Carina had not been forthcoming in giving any and he somehow doubted that the Masters’ would be either. She was clearly displeased to be here, her sleep interrupted several times and a small frown creasing her brow for most of the night. It was an expression he only saw when she was unconscious and let her guard down.

She woke to an unconscious man in their penthouse living space, the corpse of his wife already lay atop the glass coffee table while Demetri sat with an ankle resting on the opposite knee, newspaper in hand. With an ungracious snort, she dragged her prey back into the bedroom and slammed the door behind her for good measure, only opening it to toss the body out once it was drained for him to deal with. Demetri’s eyes rolled a little. He wondered if Caius knew his hybrid daughter was an eternally dramatic, angsty teenager, and questioned if putting them in the same room together was a good idea. It was bound to be like watching two fireballs collide. Trusting her not to run while he was away, he left via the balcony to dispose of their meals while she got ready for the day.

He returned to find her with her bag by the door, looking smarter than he had seen her during their travels back to Italy.

“How unusually refined.” He commented, stooping to swing her bag onto his shoulder. She scoffed.

“You are planning on offering me up like a pig on a platter like a good little toy soldier are you not?” she retorted icily, “I best look the part lest your silver tongue not be the only thing about you broken.” Demetri frowned slightly, watching her carefully as they played the part of happy couple departing their hotel suite. Gianna had sent a car, something with air conditioning and plush leather so they wouldn’t have to exhaust themselves with another run. For most of the drive the radio played quietly between them, her eyes concealed behind sunglasses and staring out over the luxurious rolling hills and fields of vibrant green. When he was certain there was not too long of the journey left, and therefore not enough time for her to throw him out of the car and turn it around, he finally broke his silence.

“You seem to believe the worst of your father.”

She heaved a weary sigh. “His reputation proceeds him.”

Demetri kept his eyes on the road, weighing his words carefully. He had been a member of the guard long enough to know Caius’s behaviour was not unusual, and he had been in the higher guard long enough to hear snippets of conversation amongst the wives, amongst the Masters’. Seeing the confrontation with the Cullen’s and sitting in a car with her now it was quite obvious to him the source of his Master’s vexation.

“And if his words and actions were fuelled not by anger, but grief?” he questioned, voice quiet. She showed no outward sign of having heard him but the most minute clenching of her jaw was enough to prove to him he had given her food for thought, and with that they lapsed back into silence. It was not entirely pleasant, and the air between them stagnated long after they entered Volterra. She kept her head held high, her expression aloof. It was obvious to Demetri how alike they were now – they both were grieving and wore their pain like armour. He paused only briefly at the doors, just enough time for her to steel herself with a sharp inhale, and then he opened the doors. She lingered behind him as he strode forward, bowing slightly and glancing among his Masters’. Aro waved him away without fanfare, his eyes fixed on the young girl behind him. She stood just a little taller than Jane, petite and lithe much like her father.

Caius seemed absolutely rooted to the spot, his nostrils flaring as he took in deep lungful’s of air that was rapidly becoming saturated with her scent, the scent he had inhaled like an addict off a baby blanket till it ran dry. Aro drifted down the steps to meet her, Caius’s fingernail’s scraping the wooden armrests of his throne as he struggled to keep a myriad of emotions off of his face.

“Dear Carina, how good it is to see you home.” He sighed, extending a hand toward her. She stared at it in disgust.

“If I recall you were the one who ordered me sent away in the first place. I did not return for you, so let us be done with this charade father.” She stepped around Aro gracefully, leaving him quite obviously dumbfounded and irritated, his hand slowly falling back to his side. Caius shot to his feet like he was ready to flee, but he remained stock still as Alec warily drifted closer to him, palms turned out and ready to defend his Master at all costs. The sight of him and Jane drifting to his side seemed to enrage her.

“Carina…”

“Do not dare call me that name!” she snarled, “How long did it take you to replace me?” she cast a filthy look in Jane’s direction and the young girl growled quietly in response. Demetri almost flinched.

“They were Aro’s acquisition, not mine.” He retorted. There was absolutely no bite in his tone, all his bluster gone despite his rigid stance. Caius looked more powerless than ever as she folded her arms, staring at him expectantly. She had worn a short-sleeved dress for the occasion and her skin shimmered faintly in the light drizzling in through high windows. The tension was palpable.

“Leave us, dear ones.” Aro ordered. Demetri hesitated, frowning slightly, and he could see Alec and Jane’s obvious reluctance to leave to. Another firm order got them moving however, and Carina glanced back at him with agonised eyes. Demetri paused, searching her face and finding nothing more than a terrified young girl who didn’t want to face a father she knew nothing about by herself. He gave her the slightest of nods, a small and encouraging smile twitching up his lips. They were barely out of the throne room when the shouting began, and it lasted for hours. Nowhere in the castle was exempt from the noise and it quickly spread like wildfire that Caius’s daughter had returned, and she had quite the mouth on her.

“So you refuse to even see me now?” Caius demanded. If his voice had wavered nobody was so idiotic as to comment on it. Fists clenched, she trembled with rage.

“Tell me what there is to see but a petrified old man who let centuries pass before he decided to step up as a father!” her words were precise and cut deeply.

“I thought of you daily!”

“Do not attach thoughts of me to the atrocities you have committed!” she spat. Caius had faltered at that. For hours she had done nothing but scream about what a monster he was, about the things she had heard he had done. He sank slowly to the steps leading to his throne, unable to meet her eyes anymore. His grip was so tight the marble crumbled beneath his hands and he was left grasping at air.

“I…I wanted this world to be made safe for you…I…I tried to do right by you…”his upper lip curled back over his teeth, his expression a mask of rage it had taken centuries to perfect, one that concealed an unimaginable amount of agony.

“Do right by me?” she asked incredulously, “You abandoned me! I grew up without you, with no caretaker who ever understood me, shunned from one place to the next because you had seen fit to throw me away! My own father could not bear to raise the freak he had created.” Caius’s head snapped up and for the first time in centuries, he took a deep breath. He tried his best to quell the rage that simmered in his core, to shove aside the guilt and the grief. His daughter matched him like for like. She was his reflection, a carbon copy of his rage, and fighting fire with fire was not going to work. He was finally defeated.

“My war against the Children of the Moon led me to your door. I watched, as the filthy beast stared through the window…stared at you…you slept so peacefully, entirely unaware that the coven I had tasked with protecting you had failed…when I, when I returned to glimpse you one more time you – you were already gone.” The mere memory pained him, shamed him. The Irish had moved on so fast he hadn’t even been able to track them, their scent confused amongst the stink of wolves. Carina swallowed.

“Why? Why not visit me?” she demanded. Caius remained silent. What could he say? “Answer me! You owe me this! I always wandered where you were, why you let me go so easily! You owe me these answers.” Caius could only stare at her. She had grown since he held her last, no longer able to fit in the palm of his hand. She was the size of a sixteen-year old with a mind a millenia older, capable of recalling every wrong doing and forming opinions on the level of injustice each one carried.

“You have your mother’s eyes.” He blurted. It was all he could think to say, but it stopped the conversation dead. The silence rang around them, deafening in the wake of their previous screaming match. What were they doing? Their sweet reunion sullied by such foul words…

“Who…who was my mother?” she asked hesitantly. Caius sucked in a breath.

“A peasant girl,” he confessed quietly, “One Athenodora took a liking to and insist we…play with, for a while.” His voice echoed back to him off of the walls, Carina’s flinch something he didn’t miss. She nodded slowly.

“So, I was not even born of love.” She whispered.

“Perhaps not, but that did not mean I did not love you, the moment I held you in my arms…you were so small, so fragile for this world…how could I keep you when our enemies lingered at our door? You had to be safe, and safe was…was far away from me.” He swallowed, unable to look at her anymore. He was surprised when she shuffled towards the steps, keeping a few feet between them but sitting beside him nonetheless. Even with the distance he could still feel her heat, her temperature radiating from her like he was sat by an open flame. Another prolonged silence prevailed between them once more, and Caius wasn’t sure how to chase it away. How did he own up to centuries of ignorance? Of wrong-doing? How did he make any of this better?

Carina sighed heavily. “We have really made a mess of this.”

He looked to her in surprise, his shoulders sagging slightly in defeat.

“We have,” he agreed quietly, “But I should very much like to fix it, if you will permit me to try.” Carina quietly contemplated what that might look like for them for a moment, trying to imagine a world where her father was in her life. It had been so long and she had grown up without him…it was difficult to imagine where Caius might fit.

“I don’t need a father. I have grown out of the need for one.” Carina said quietly. Caius snapped his gaze away, a stiff nod all the acknowledgment she received. What had he expected really? A happy reunion?

“I see.” He murmured, pushing to his feet. Demetri had left her bag by the door and he was quite sure she would have no trouble picking it up on the way out.

“I do need a friend,” she spoke up, making his head turn, “I am especially in want of one who might know more about where I came from, if you could point me in the right direction.” Caius swallowed, not quite able to believe his ears. A slow smile twitched his lips upwards.

“I believe I may be able to assist you.” He agreed. Carina gave him a weak smile in reply, and Caius silently vowed it would be the first of many she gave him.

“I shall find accommodation then.” She decided. Caius immediately shook his head.

“Not at all. You may have a room here, you are welcome to one.” He said hastily. He would not lose her so soon after he had found her once more. Carina’s eyebrows rose.

“Will Demetri be nearby?” she asked innocently. Caius couldn’t help the scowl that wormed its way onto his face.

“And why does the location of his quarters matter?” he retorted. Carina grinned impishly.

“Because the pretty boy is not as clever as he likes to think he is and I did, admittedly, enjoy tormenting him on the journey here.” She confessed freely. Caius tilted his head, a smirk playing on his lips. Oh, oh she was his daughter alright.

“Something might be arranged.” He agreed.

“Wonderful.”

“If he is not cursing you within a week of your stay I will class your mission as a failure.”

“I will have him begging you to move him elsewhere I assure you.”

“Excellent.”

#twilight #twilight fanfiction #the volturi #caius volturi #demetri volturi #x daughter!reader #aro volturi #edward cullen #a brief appearance where he may or may not admit his wrongdoings #tw absent parent #I have never written for the main three before #it was kind of fun!

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missdawnandherdusk · 4 years

Text

A Silent Night

Hufflepuff!Reader X Draco

Am I allowed to look at her like that? Could it be wrong When she's just so nice to look at?

I'd never tell No, I'd never say a word And oh, it aches But it feels oddly good to hurt

Chapter One Chapter Two Chapter Three

Summary: Winter break promises soft moments in the snow and laughter... or does it? There’s a darkness looming ahead and it’s harder to escape now than ever before. It doesn’t help at all with how you two feel about another.

A/N: Alright! Y’all told me to follow my heart so here’s about 7k words of a winter holiday that has fluff and angst. Also She by Dodie was on repeat as I wrote this (the lyrics are above). If you’re like me and need music to read, give that song a shot. Also I 100% stan Narcissa in this chapter. There were a lot more cute moments I wanted to add, and rewrote a lot of this, so if you want a headcanon list of things that were going to happen let me know! (Welcome to Christmas in the middle of the summer)

Miss Y/n,

It delights me that you have invited us to your home for the holiday. Draco speaks adamantly about you whenever his father is not around. I must apologize for having him keep you from his father’s knowledge. I know it pains him to have to keep you hidden, but I fear at the moment it is for the best.

I must thank you for your understanding and kindness. The burden that he bears is steep and I wish nothing more to see him through it and to keep him safe. You have taken years off of his eyes and heart and now I can begin see my young son shining through.

Draco and I will accompany you for the holiday. Lucius will be away all of the winter holiday and I feel as if it would do Draco some good to see you as it aided him over the summer holiday. I have written a letter to your mother as well, so she is aware. Draco will arrive in the morning of the 24th and I shall join him later in the evening for dinner.

You are a bright and wonderful young wizard with a heart so pure to see what I see in my son. The same thing that keeps us both fighting for him. Thank you for everything you have given. I am in your debt for bringing back my son even for a little while.

Narcissa Malfoy

I read the letter again as I sat in bed late at night. Tomorrow would be the day that Draco came for Christmas and butterflies had a permanent residence in my chest. I put the energy to good use and spent the few days scrubbing the entire house top to bottom and decorating every square inch. Mother taught me a few new cleaning spells to use and I was getting pretty good at them.

The morning came and I was up before the sun making sure that everything was perfect for when Draco would get here. Not that I thought he would judge me for anything out of place, but I had a sinking feeling that he hadn’t had a proper Christmas in a while, and I wanted things to be almost perfect if not completely.

Keeping myself busy with peeling and cutting apples for a pie, I heard the doorbell ring and almost tripped on my way to opening it.

Draco was there, an amused smile on his face as his eyes darted over my form.

“Hi,” I breathed out, grinning.

“Hello,” His expression was amused and his voice quiet. “Nice apron,”

I flushed, remembering I donned my grandmothers cooking apron that had tiny little snitches buzzing about the fabric.

It wasn’t fair that he looked so angelic on my front porch, almost at home among the snow. He was a bit more formal than I was used to seeing him: a blazer and turtleneck all in dark colors. It only enhanced the contrast of his pale features and the snow. I led him inside, closing the door. Shedding his jacket and setting down his bag, he followed me to the kitchen where I continued to chop apples. He took one, unpeeled from my pile and took a bite.

“Those are mine,” I baited. “Now you have to help,” As if it were the only option.

“Oh, I do? Do I?” He smirked, taking another bite and grabbing a knife.

He watched me for a moment, as if he wasn’t sure what to do before he began to slice the apples the way I did, narrowly missing his fingers a few times. I tried hard not to laugh as I finished chopping up two to his half of one.

It earned me a small pout from him. Laughing this time, I pecked his cheek and took our harvest and a large bowl filled with the rest of the filling ingredients and tossed them in, mixing them with my hands until they were all incorporated evenly. Draco studied me all the while.

“Can you hand me a pie crust from the fridge?” I asked, rinsing my hands. Frowning at the refrigerator he opened it and scanned the shelves.

“Middle shelf, blue ceramic,” I hinted.

He pulled the right dish out and set it on the counter. I lifted the bowl of filling and started to pan it into the doughy crust.

“Here,” I nudged him and nodded to the precut strips of dough on the counter. “We weave them to make a lattice.”

I showed him how to do the first few then left him to it, watching his slender fingers with such care create the woven pattern. Taking a fork, I pressed down the sides of the dough, sealing them then placing the pie in the fridge to be baked later.

“I think that was the most muggle thing I’ve ever done,” he muttered softly, pulling me into his arms properly for the first time since he arrived.

“Not too bad I hope?”

“Nothing unbearable,” he teased.

“Oh, Draco,” my mother greeted making us jump apart. “I didn’t hear you come in darling,”

“Mrs. Y/l/n,” Draco greeted politely.

“It’s so nice of you to join us. Y/n has hardly been able to keep quiet about your arrival,”

I flushed red and rolled my eyes nonchalantly and Draco chuckled, offering his hand for my mother to shake.

“Thank you for the invitation,” I recognized the tone he use: the same one that was present at the Ball from the summer, the one he used when he had someone to impress.

“None of that, really,” My mother scoffed pulling him into a hug that made me laugh. “You’re family here,” She insisted the turned to me. “Well cookies still need to be made before tonight, Y/n you know what to do. I’ll be out for a bit,” my mother gave me a hug before hurrying out the door.

“Cookies?” Draco mused sounding unsure.

I grinned and took out the ingredients to make sugar cookies from scratch and taught Draco how to make them. He padded around my small kitchen in cashmere socks. It warmed my heart to see him so domestic.

Rolling out the dough, I started to press the cookie cutters into the thin confectionary and Draco crowded next to me, taking another cutter and stamping the dough. Preheating the oven, I left him to cut out the little shapes as I began to work on peeling potatoes and sweet potatoes.

“Don’t you have house elves?” He asked, leaning against the counter, finishing his apple, watching me.

“No,” I spoke softly. “Father never liked the notion, and I guess mother kept it that way...” I took a breath in. “And these skills aren’t the worst things to know,” I smiled. “Will you start dicing these?” I gestured to the peeled potatoes with my peeler.

“I suppose,” He mused, picking up the same knife we had used for apples and began to cut the potatoes into small cubes.

When the oven went off, I got up and slipped as many trays of cookies as I could into the oven and set the timer. Throwing the cubed potatoes into a pot, I filled it with water about half-way and set it on the stove to boil.

Draco followed me around the kitchen all morning, helping where he could, confused about some things I did, but there was an explanation for everything. Around lunchtime my mother returned, arms filled with parcels and packages. Last minute shopping I supposed. She shooed us out of the kitchen and outside after lunch.

After a short argument—I didn’t see a need for things like gloves, a scarf or a beanie, but Draco put his foot down and bundled me up—Draco and I were both clad in winter gear and walking outside along the few acres that my mother and I shared together. Our hands intertwined; we didn’t speak much, just enjoyed the quiet moment together. The butterflies in my chest fluttered happily.

“Want to let Pinnae fly?” He asked, thoughtful.

“Maybe later,” I leaned against him. “Don’t wanna fly when you’re still on the ground,”

I caught his eyeroll in the corner of my vision and the redness on his cheeks darken slightly.

“My mother is quiet taken with you; you know.” Draco gave off-hand.

I hummed in acknowledgement thinking of the letter sitting on my bedside table. We meandered around the grounds, heading back to the front porch and inside to warm up.

“Reading anything riveting?” Draco teased as we curled up in the den by the fire.

I laughed softly and stood, taking his hand. I ignored his questioning and led him to the room adjacent from mine: my studio. The entire back wall was covered in floor to ceiling bookshelves holding all of the books, both muggle and wizarding, I had collected over the years.

_________________________________

Draco stared at the wall of books and trinkets. Some he recognized: old textbooks from prior years and items like a Sneakscope and Timeturner. Some things were clearly muggle: the pictures that didn’t move or the snow-globes that weren’t enchanted.

He had never seen so many muggle books resting so peacefully next to wizarding books. Some were new and the gold leaf still shined at him whereas others were dull and faded and he could barely make out the titles. Carefully he ran his fingers over the spine of the nearest book.

“Pride and Prejudice?” He muttered, frowning looking at the cluster of Jane Austen books.

“Sense and Sensibility is better,” You mumbled, and his eyes flickered to the well-worn book beside its sister. “And it’s too complicated for me to try and pay attention to right now. Get out of Jane Austen,” You advised, pulling him a bit further down.

“Of Mice and Men?” He mused, looking at the smaller book that was also well worn.

“Ugh,” You scoffed. “Awful ending.”

“Then why are you keeping it?” He gave you a pointed look.

“Not all books have happy endings, it would be stupid to only keep the ones that did,” You whispered softly.

His eyes followed the names of the books not being able to distinguish one from another— Animal Farm, The Princess Bride, Catcher in the Rye, Lord of the Flies, The Great Gatsby, The Scarlett Letter, The Crucible, The Phantom of the Opera, Fahrenheit 451. His eyes passed over your Chronicles of Narnia collection, one book missing—the one that he had.

“Romeo and Juliet?” His eyebrows furrowed.

The name was familiar to him for some reason. The book nested between Taming of the Shrew and Macbeth.

A laugh bubbled through your lips, a quiet amused sound.

“That’s worse than Pride and Prejudice,” You giggled. “Have you ever read Shakespeare?”

His eyes flashed to yours. You knew that answer. No, of course he hadn’t. Rolling your eyes, you took the book of the shelf and flipped to a random page of the wellworn book.

“Tis but thy name that is my enemy;

Thou art thyself, though not a Montague.

What's Montague? it is nor hand, nor foot,

Nor arm, nor face, nor any other part

Belonging to a man. O, be some other name!

What's in a name? that which we call a rose

By any other name would smell as sweet;”

You looked at him and he blinked, his mind unravelling the words. It was almost worse than Divination books.

“They’re plays,” You explained. “Takes a lot of studying and there are versions that have a bit more updated English, but well,” You shrugged and slipped the book back into its place.

“Are they all like that?” He asked, looking at the row of Shakespeare books.

“Pretty much,” You sighed. “Here,” You reached across him and next to your Austen books, pulled out a book. “This should be a good book to read.”

“A Christmas Carol?” He read the title off the faded cover.

“It’s a classic,” You took his hand again and he let you lead him downstairs and back to the small sitting room with the lit fire and curled up on the couch under an afghan.

You began to read A Christmas Carol, and again he was lost in your words and expressions:

“Marely was dead, to begin with. There is no doubt whatever about that. The register of his burial was signed by the clergyman, the clerk, the undertaker, and the chief mourner. Scrooge signed it. And Scrooge’s name was good upon ’Change, for anything he chose to put his hand to.

Old Marley was as dead as a doornail.

Mind! I don’t mean to say that I know, of my own knowledge, what there is particularly dead about a doornail. I might have been inclined, myself, to regard a coffin-nail as the deadest piece of ironmongery in the trade. But the wisdom of our ancestors is in the simile; and my unhallowed hands shall not disturb it, or the Country’s done for. You will therefore permit me to repeat, emphatically, that Marley was as dead as a doornail”

Just as you began to read of the first ghost that came to Scrooge on Christmas Eve, your mother came into the small den.

“Y/n, Draco’s mother will be here within the hour, you need to get ready,” She eyed your casual attire of jeans and an oversized sweater.

You huffed and handed Draco the book, he kept the page and watched you head upstairs, sulking only slightly. It was such a you thing to do—complaining about being taken away from your book and forced to prepare to socialize.

Your mother hovered in the den and took a seat at the armchair adjacent to the sofa he resided on. He tensed, ready for backlash against the something he must have done wrong, but an amused smile reached your mother’s lips—one that he had seen on you more than a fair share of times. You didn’t look much like your mother, the only thing Draco found was that you two shared the same smile.

“I have to thank you Draco,” She spoke softly. “She is my entire world since her father passed, and I always feared that she would never let herself open up. You have done her a lot of good, and I know that her father would approve of you,” There was your smile on her lips again.

“I must thank you as well,” Draco spoke in the same soft manor. “For allowing her to be with me and for Pinnae. I know she probably would have found a way to do it anyway, but it means the world to her to have your support, as it does to me,” His eyes met the same shade as your eyes as he looked up—another similarity. “And I must apologize for the last month of summer. I thought I was keeping her safe by keeping her away,”

“All is forgiven, darling,” The pet name on your mother’s lips reminded him of his own mother’s habit. “Merlin knows I’ve tried to keep her from things to keep her safe... but she has a way of finding herself there anyway,”

“She is stubborn like that,” Draco mused, thinking of the first night that he knew of your Animagus.

“Yes, she is,” Your mother sighed.

“Is she staying healthy?” He asked. “I know she has a habit of not keeping warm,”

Your mother mulled over the question then spoke.

“The winter has been affecting her more than before, she’s up half the night and sleeps half the day.” There was a soft sigh in her voice as worry blossomed in Draco’s chest at the new information. “She’s getting enough sleep and enough to eat, but I do worry about her. Ever since the change, she’s a bit more spontaneous in her sleeping habits.” The latter information pacified some of his worry.

“It’ll probably take some time for her to figure out,” He said mostly for his benefit. “But she won’t be alone in doing so,” He vowed.

“I know,” Your mother rose, smiling at him once more. “She might not have many friends, but the ones she does have are the most loyal I’ve ever seen,”

He nodded, thinking of Abby and even Pansy.

There was a chime from in the house and your mother rose heading to the foyer. Draco knew that it would be his mother at the door and stood as well. Greetings were made and just as your mother was about to call up to you, you descended the stairs, in a deep green dress he had never seen before. The fabric hugged you to your waist where it then flowed loosely to you knees. The long sleeves and high collar gave him comfort that you would be warm. The sheer black stockings you had paired with the dress seconded that comfort.

Draco gaped at you, deciding that he loved you in green. The night of the summer ball flashed in his mind and the green dress you wore then. He knew that it was stupid to give into house colors with you but Merlin you looked great in Slytherin colors.

“Mrs. Malfoy,” You greeted with the same decorum as the Ball.

“Miss Y/n,” His mother smiled. “It has been too long my dear,”

You flushed and looked down, coming to stand beside him, your hand slipping into his as your mother led the lot of you all into the dining room. It was just as immaculately decorated as the rest of the house, though nothing was overdone or gaudy. It was simple, classy.

Your mother must have taken over cooking to allow you to spend the rest of the day with him, explaining the heavenly smells that emitted from the kitchen all day. There was something different about the food at your home. It was a bit messy and not all of the dishes matched and not everything was perfect, but Draco almost preferred it that way. He had spent too long in perfection; it was nice to have something new.

His mother spoke respectfully to you, asking you about your classes this year and how they had gone. A few times he had to nudge you before you slipped up about Pinnae accidently. Draco would never get over how much his mother absolutely adored you. You had stolen into her heart the same way you had his. If only you could do the same with his father.

As dinner ended, you rose to clear the table, and he joined you, having never done such a thing in his life. You set things carefully on the clean counters of the kitchen and it only took a few trips to rid the table of dinner and replace it with dessert.

__________________________________

I kept my eye on Draco all throughout dinner, worried that something might go wrong. Narcissa proved to be no trouble and his father was never in the topic of discussion. I still knew that Draco missed his father the same way that I missed mine on the holidays.

“Well, I must thank you for your hospitality, but I’m afraid I must be off now,” Narcissa rose gracefully with a kind smile. “Draco, be home before too long yes?”

Draco gave a curt nod as my mother saw Narcissa to the door. Draco slumped beside me, both of our facades falling.

“Well, that could have been worse,” I mused.

He chuckled and rubbed his face. I could see the weariness in his features.

“Dray?” I asked softly.

“When did everything get so complicated?” He mumbled.

I sighed and laid my head on his shoulder. He pressed a kiss to the top of my head and wrapped an arm around me.

“At least there’s presents? And Christmas? And us?” I offered. He hummed in acknowledgment.

Now that it was the Christmas season, I could officially watch The Sound of Music—a Christmas classic at home.

Draco studied me as I set up the DVR and hit play, curling up beside him on the couch. Since it was winter, the sun had set some time ago, leaving us in a soft darkness. The credits began to roll, and I laid my head on Draco’s shoulder, curling under an afghan.

“This is ridiculous,” He muttered halfway through.

I shushed him. I felt him sigh as his arm draped around my shoulders.

“Are you two ready?” My mother asked, coming in with three mugs.

“Ready?” Draco murmured in my ear as I sat up.

“Presents?” I grinned. “We do them on Christmas Eve, it’s our tradition. Then we undecorate on Christmas Day.”

“What?”

“Her father always insisted that as soon as Christmas is over all the decorations should come down. So, we take them down tomorrow.” My mother explained, handing us both mugs.

With the parcels covered in shiny paper distributed, I watched Draco marvel at the number of gifts in his lap. I nudged his shoulder letting him know that it was alright to start.

I started with my mother’s present to me—a new cloak that was a silvery white, matching Pinnae’s feathers. I thanked her and undid the recognizable paper from Abby’s gift. It was a leather-bound photo album. Frowning, I opened the cover and saw Abby and I as little kids dressed up as princesses. I smiled at the photo and ran my hand over the giggling girls. I looked over to Draco, wanting to show him and I paused; he was lost deep in the delicate pages of my gift to him: the entire Narnia collection in one leather bound book.

“It’s charmed,” I explained softly. “If it’s not me or you to open the book it reverts to an old book of spells,”

“Really?” He sounded surprised, not looking up from the carpet pages of finely detailed artwork.

“Mom helped me with the magic,” I stole a glance her way and she was beaming at us.

She stood quietly and gave me a look, leaving us alone in the den to have a few last moments alone.

“You mean you didn’t read me the first book?” He muttered.

“Well, you walked in on me reading the second one,” I poked his side. “Here, this is from Abby,” I placed the photo album between us.

I opened the first page and he laughed at the picture of Abby and I. “You were such a dorky kid,” He chuckled.

“Yeah well,” I rolled my eyes.

The next page was our first day at Hogwarts, my hair was still impossibly long as Abby and I sat together on the Hogwarts Express. I laughed and pointed out Draco sulking in the background of the photo.

“Creep,” I teased.

The photos were a mix of muggle and magic, some moving, some static. Abby and I through the years: getting sorted into Hufflepuff, Christmases, summer vacations. Then there was a page that didn’t hold a photo, but a note:

From Ernie, Blaise, Hannah, Emme, Pansy and me~

The next page held a photo Draco and I at the third task, sitting in the stands. I felt secondhand awkwardness from the two of us in the photo. It was minutes before my entire world ended... or had just begun. The next photo was two of us in the hospital wing, fast asleep in each other’s arms. I ran my fingers over the photo.

Draco took the book from my hands and studied the photos, drawing the album closer to his face. I looked over his shoulder as he slowly flipped through the pages. Each of them was dated and titled:

Draco chasing off after Y/n, Yule Ball, June 21st

Draco and Y/n, Yule Ball, June 21st

Hogwarts Express, Draco and Y/n are prefects, Sept 1st

Draco staring at Y/n and smiling, Sept 13th

Draco and Y/n walking down the hall Sept 19th

Hogsmeade Trip, Oct 5th

Halloween, Hufflepuff Common Room, Oct 31st

Gryffindor v Slytherin Quidditch match, Nov 2nd

Draco fighting Harry, Nov 2nd

Y/n worrying over Draco after the fight, Nov 2nd

Draco and Y/n sleeping together again, Nov 3rd

Late night studying, Dec 12th

Draco and Pinnae, Dec 18th

There was another note at end along with the picture of the four of us the day Pansy found out about Pinnae in the snow:

Happiness can be found even in the darkest of times if one only remembers to turn on the light.

Tears well in my eyes as I rested my chin on Draco’s shoulder. He flipped a few pages back and untucked the photo of us sleeping together in the hospital wing. His slender fingers brushed over it before slipping it into the middle of his new book.

“That’s mine,” I whispered, pressing a kiss to his neck softly.

“Not anymore,” He smiled. “You have good friends,”

“We have good friends,” I corrected him softly, wrapping my arms around his neck.

“We do,” He shifted, closing the book and setting it with his before reaching into his coat and pulling out a small satin box. “This is from me,”

I stared at the box and with a shaking hand I took it, thumbing it open. Inside was a small locket with a shifting roaring lion engraved onto the front of it and familiar words onto the back:

“He isn’t safe, but he is good,” was written in a delicate script.

“Draco, I can’t take this,” I whispered, tears welling in my eyes at the emotions that rushed in my chest at the thought and love he put into the small gift.

“You can,” He pressed. “And will. Here,” He took it from my hands and released the locking mechanism.

A scene sprung to life before me, a halo of light. Balanced on top was a forest with dancing fawns and dwarves and centaurs around a bonfire. Lyre and flute music radiated from the scene. The sight shifted to a lion roaring atop a broken stone table. Then to a familiar ship on the high seas with a dragon circling it. A battle between a man and a snake in front of a silver chair. Then again, a lion, standing tall, proud.

“Draco,” I whimpered out, closing the locket and throwing my arms around his neck. “Thank you, thank you,” Tears fell down my cheeks as I buried my face in his shoulder.

His arms curled around me as he pulled me close.

“I don’t know what’s going to happen, or what the future holds,” He murmured. “But don’t give up on me.”

“Never,” I vowed. “Course he’s not safe,” I pulled away, running a hand through his hair. “But he is good. He is king,” My fingers softly stroked his cheek.

With the locket hung around my heck, Draco and I curled up together, watching the end the Sound of Music. My fingers toyed with the locket, rubbing over it again and again, afraid that it might just disappear.

I had to bid him a good night as the hour got later and we were together on the front porch alone. Wrapping my arms around his neck, I reached up and pressed a soft kiss to his lips. He responded immediately and pulled me close deepening the kiss, his hot breath mixing with mine. He tasted like tea and apple pie, a sweet intoxicating flavor.

Draco’s hand slipped down to the small of my back, pressing me against the warmth of his body. My fingers tangled and tugged at his hair earning a low throaty sound to emit from his chest. I responded with a soft mewl.

He pulled away, his hot breaths panting across my face.

“Happy Christmas,” He breathed out.

“Mhmm,” I hummed out. “Christmas, yeah,”

He chuckled and pressed his lips back to mine fleetingly.

“Goodnight, Feathers,”

“Night, Dray,”

___________________________________

Draco melted into his bed that night, watching the photo of you and him sleeping peacefully. There was an amity about the both of you, there was no worry or fear on his face and yours was smiling softly as you clung to him even in your sleep. It was almost as good as the book you had given to him.

Your mother’s present was lying beside him on the bed. He wasn’t supposed to show it to you, your mother had said: it was your father’s wand.

He sighed and looked at the note that came with it:

Draco,

This was her father’s wand. She doesn’t know that I still have it. And she doesn’t know that it belongs to you as soon as you turn sixteen.

Lucius Malfoy killed Walter Y/l/n.

Lucius forfeited the wand, but it will respond to you. It has been a burden to me all of these years but perhaps it can find some peace with you. This is a secret that I share with you. This wand is unique: it knows to protect her, and it is loyal to you.

Keep her safe, I pass her and this wand to you, one Slytherin to another. You will always have a home in among this family.

He sighed and laid back in bed, twirling the wand in his hands. It was similar to his own in length. Birch with a unicorn hair. He wanted to be bitter towards your mother for keeping this secret from you, but the words she said earlier stopped him:

“Merlin knows I’ve tried to keep her from things to keep her safe...”

Was this keeping you safe? This secret that he now held? He knew that if nothing else, it had kept you a pure heart. He couldn’t imagine you’d ever give him a chance if you knew what his father did. He wondered what would have changed...

The morning came along with the small Christmas that he and his mother shared together. It was a quiet affair. He had gotten her a new bottle of ink and a golden quill for her drawings.

“This is from your father,” Her tone held disdain as she handed him a small velvet box. “It belonged to his father and now he passes it to you.”

Nested inside was nothing like the gift he had spent months making for you. Instead it was a weighty silver ring with the Malfoy crest on it. Slipping it onto his finger, the enchantment took place and resized to fit him perfectly.

“Any word of when he will return?” Draco asked, somber.

“January 10th.” His mother sighed.

Draco nodded and drifted to the sitting room that held his piano and began to play familiar Christmas melodies before shifting into his mother’s favorites. She sat behind him on the sofa, working on her embroidery as he played. His melody shifted into something new. He frowned, knowing that it wasn’t anything that he had learned before.

“Composing?” His mother mused.

He didn’t comment. Instead he chased the melody that was fading from his mind, desperate to bring it back. Then he realized that his mind was chasing after you. You were his melody. With you at the forefront of his thoughts, he spent the next few days playing and writing the composition down. When he was certain that it was perfect and represented everything that you were to him, he smiled to himself.

Draco could still have you when his father was home. He would have no idea the melody was wrapped up in you.

“It’s beautiful,” His mother commended. “She’ll love it. You can play it for her tomorrow when she visits,”

And he did. With you sitting beside him on the piano bench, he played your song to you. You were absolutely mesmerized and asked him to play it again. Without knowing it, you had taken something else his father had forced him into and turned it into something beautiful.

Sitting in the rose garden as the stars came out, the year changed. A new beginning, and you were beside him. It was a muggle tradition, but he did kiss you when midnight came. Not that you’d complain.

When you pulled away from the gentle kiss, he about said something that he had forbidden himself from ever saying. No matter how sweet you were, how kind, how long you stayed, how loyal, no matter how much he cared for you, missed you when you were gone, and vowed to keep you safe, he couldn’t say what he wanted to.

He couldn’t tell you that he loved you.

He couldn’t trap you like that. He knew his future was dark and it loomed over him. He wasn’t going to tie you to him like that.

____________________________________

I held my tongue, a thousand confessions waiting to be unfurled. But I would wait. I would wait until Draco was ready to hear them. I didn’t let myself think that a few months would change everything that had him tied down and scared. I wouldn’t coerce him into anything. I would give him time to figure out his emotions and I would wait for him to heal.

Because I loved him.

And I would love him while I waited. I would love him while he healed. I would love him as he went through darkness and despair. I would love him as years of neglect and abuse untied him. I would love him until he was ready to love me.

So, I didn’t say a word.

I spent the next week over at Draco’s, like I had in the summer, but this time, we were working on spells. Everything that I had learned from D.A. I taught to him. His mother suggested to invite Pansy and Abby over as well during the afternoons to join our efforts.

It was a lot easier to cast Disarming and Stunning spells on Pansy and Abby than it had been on Draco. Narcissa joined us one afternoon, watching us, guiding and aiding where we were failing. Draco was losing focus too easily, Pansy needed to work on her wand movements, Abby needed to pronunciate more and I needed to put my heart behind wanting to perform the spells.

“You’re thinking about them incorrectly.” Narcissa stood behind me. “Think not about the intention to attack what’s in front of you, but to protect what’s behind you. Draco, come,”

Narcissa and Draco switched places, he was standing behind me and she was before me, her wand out and raised. I took a deep breath in, understanding what she meant. I had no ill will against her, but I would protect Draco.

We bowed, entering a proper duel. She cast a hex and I blocked it easily, before rebounding it with my own jinx. She deflected it effortlessly and almost knocked me down with a Stunning spell.

“Mean it Y/n!” She coached. “You want to protect him!? You want to save him!?”

“Mother!” Draco argued.

“No,” I panted softly. “I can do this. She’s right,”

I blocked her jinx that in my deflection almost hit Draco, who dropped out of the way thankfully. Enraged I turned back to her.

“Impedimenta!” I shouted.

And it worked.

She was frozen in the snow.

“Expelliarmus!”

Her wand flew from her hand. Beaming, I undid the Impediment Hex and picked up her wand which had landed in the frost by my feet.

“Very well, my dear,” Narcissa glowed. “There is a fighter in you yet,”

Draco picked me up in a twirling hug and Pansy and Abby were all cheering. We went back to dueling, now it was more for fun than work. Narcissa watched us still, encouraging and teaching us. Until she tensed, the color draining from her face.

“Bellatrix,” She hissed, vanishing from the backyard.

Draco cursed and grabbed my hand, pulling me behind the nearest shrub. With the cloak that my mother had given to me for Christmas, I almost blended in with the snow. Pansy and Abby were crouched down with us.

“Y/n, you need to get out of here,” Draco’s eyes were fixed on the house. “Now.”

“But what about Abby?” I squeaked.

“She’ll be fine,” Pansy nodded to me. “Bella likes me, she’ll be safe with me,” I met Pansy’s stark green eyes and an agreement passed between us.

Nodding, I tried to keep my breathing under control.

“Pinnae!” Abby whispered at me as if it were obvious. “Get out of here Y/n!”

I looked at my friends and closed my eyes, morphing into Pinnae and taking perch deep within the shrub.

“Don’t go until we’ve cleared the house.” Draco ordered.

I chirped and watched them all head towards the house, disappearing inside. Then I took off into the sky.

_____________________________

“Draco, darling,” Bellatrix cooed wickedly. “You remind me so much of your father,”

“Aunt Bellatrix,” He greeted politely.

“Well, aren’t you going to introduce me to your little friends?” Her wild eyes flashed to Pansy and Abby.

“Bella,” His mother chided. “Draco was just seeing them off. And you know Parkinson. The other is a classmate.” Her voice left no room for more questions or argument.

His mother gave him a stern look and he quickly ushered Pansy and Abby through the front door. His eyes immediately scanned the skies for you. He thought he could make out your form perched on one of the barren trees, but he couldn’t be sure.

“Pansy,” He started.

“I’ve got it. Abby will talk to Pinnae. We’ll give word that she’s safe.”

Draco nodded and headed back inside, pacing the halls. He headed to his bedroom and slammed the door, casting a Silencing Charm on the room before letting out a roar of frustration. He didn’t know how much time passed as he paced the room but jumped when there was a chirp from his window.

He relaxed when he saw that the owl wasn’t you, but a screech owl, a letter tied to it’s ankle.

~ Malfoy,

Pinnae is home.

Parkinson

Draco sagged in relief and threw the letter into the fire lit in his hearth. Just once in his life he wanted a day where nothing would go wrong. He just wanted to be happy and safe with you. Was that too much to ask?

Apparently, it was for the last few days of the winter holiday.

Epilogue:

“The Dark Lord is adamant about his recruitment,” Bellatrix purred. “A fine young mind to mold into the ways of the Dark Lord.”

“He is my son, Bellatrix.” Narcissa snarled. “He is not of age until the summer. When that time comes the choice belongs to him and him alone. Until then, you have no business here,” A cold glare passed between them.

“Do I sense disloyalty?” Bellatrix tilted her head, mocking a pout. “The Dark Lord does not tolerate disloyalty, sister mine,”

“I do not belong to the Dark Lord, sister mine,” Narcissa gritted out. “Or have you forgotten?”

“No,” She scoffed. “A foolish mistake. Who else deserves loyalty but him?”

“My family,” Narcissa snapped. “And my son.”

“I am your family!” Bellatrix shouted. “Have you changed your mind about the war perhaps? Deciding to follow the footsteps of our dear sister? Or perhaps our outlawed cousin? You were admirable little sister, before you went off and married that foolish Malfoy.”

“I will not stand here and allow you to speak of my husband or my son in such a manner. You have no business here Bellatrix. Leave this place.” Narcissa’s tone was ice cold.

“His time will come Cissy, and he will belong to the Dark Lord,”

A loud crack and Narcissa was left alone in the cold house once more.

“I wouldn’t be so certain,” She whispered to the empty room.

Chapter 5

End Note: Please let me know what you think! Your words and reblogs are so important to me always! Don’t be afraid to reblog and comment! I’m nice I swear!

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gloryofluv · 3 years

Text

Order Up! (Coffee Shop AU) Chapter 5

Well, I guess Alex is going through the motions. I am really starting to love how well-rounded this is getting. Flirty fics are fun, but they always need heart and perseverance!

Chapter

1 - 2- 3 - 4

Fuck. Why did she do that? Alex wanted to toss her phone but knew she couldn’t afford a new one yet. Memories. Social media keeps track even if you don’t. She was bundled on the ground of the bathroom she just cleaned and sobbed.

All she wanted to do was look at this real estate agent that Lucifer texted her. She glanced down at the picture of her and her mother while she was getting dressed for prom. Would she be upset that she was thinking of selling their home? Would she be proud? She felt so fucking alone.

There was a knock at the bathroom door, and she stuttered on a breath. Fucking get it together, girl. She wiped her face and nodded. “I’ll be out momentarily,” she said in a cheery tone.

Breathe. Stand up. Bitch, buck the fuck up, you’re at work. Alex listened to her inner dialog, turned on the water to the sink, cleaned her hands and face, and fixed her makeup. After she was satisfied, she picked up her tool tote and walked to the door with a plastered smile.

Solomon was on the other side of the door. “Hey, Alex,” he said with a curl to his lips.

“Hey, Sol, how are you doing?” she asked.

“Not horribly. I’m a bit stuck on this formula, but it’s bound to come to me,” he voiced while walking in step with her.

She rocked her head and shifted at the entrance to the counter. “Let me just go put this away and clock out. We can chat a minute after I’m off the clock.”

He rocked his head and leaned on the wall nearby. “Want to take a walk with me?”

She tilted her head and hummed. “Maybe.”

“Good, I’ll order, and we’ll head to the park.”

“Oh, good, we’re taking a walk to the park?”

Alex glanced over to see Satan wander over with his tea and pastry bag. “Oh, hey, Satan. I didn’t see you there.”

He tilted his head and gestured to his messenger bag. “I was grading pages.”

Solomon crossed his arms before touching his chin with his fingers. “You want to join us?”

Satan rocked his head. “A little fresh air would be great.”

“Okay, let me just go finish up,” Alex smiled and walked to the back of the shop. Well, it was quite the variation, but after how interesting her Sunday had been, it wouldn’t be a bad thing. She turned to the computer after putting the tote away and clocked out. Shaking out her body and taking off her apron and hat, she rolled her neck.

There was something to be said about the smears on her uniform. Alex stripped off her overshirt and straightened her purple tank top, and pulled out her ponytail. After checking her face in the mirror and reapplying a few touches on her eyeliner and lip gloss, she was ready.

Better. Alex smiled and collected her bag before marching to the front again. Solomon and Satan seemed to be in a discussion about the book in Satan’s hand. Their hand gestures only confirmed the estimation as Alex walked over to collect her drink.

“Hey, babes,” Jess hummed. “Do you think you could do me a favor and take my Friday shift, and I’ll take your Saturday one. It's closing, and I have a date.”

Alex rocked her head. “Yeah, I can. You never ask me to trade, so they must be pretty hot,” she teased.

Jess smirked and rocked her head. “Yeah, Mr. Macchiato, who comes in the evenings.”

“Nice, well, I hope you have tons of fun. Text Jordan and let him know, alright?”

Jess beamed and blew a kiss. “You’re a lifesaver for my social life, hun.”

Alex waved and met up with the two intellectuals holding their beverages. “I’m just saying that Dickens wasn’t as extraordinary as we make him out to be,” Solomon huffed.

“Oh, no, we’re on about Charles again?”

Satan laughed and shook his head as they walked out the door. “Just Solomon’s primary dagger.”

“Solomon, do you just enjoy debating?” Alex asked.

Solomon smiled and shifted his head from side to side. “Occasionally, but so does Satan, so we have a mutual understanding never to take it to blows.”

“I think the Brontë sisters are probably a staple for every woman,” Alex added to the conversation.

“And men,” Satan nodded.

“Very true, but we need to selectively decide what mannerisms are dated in order to value the interpretation,” Solomon voiced.

Alex smirked and raised her hand to her chest. “'Do you think I am an automaton? — a machine without feelings? And can bear to have my morsel of bread snatched from my lips and my drop of living water dashed from my cup? Do you think, because I am poor, obscure, plain, and little, I am soulless and heartless? You think wrong! — I have as much soul as you — and full as much heart!'” She paused after the quote and laughed. “Imagine declaring equality to a man who was higher in rank and stature than you in that time. The dated behavior is only setting.”

Satan let out a stream of hearty laughter. “Oh, Alex, I would have loved to have you in my class today. There was a sexist animal who was definitely in need of a strong female to set him straight.”

“My little Jane isn’t very plain,” Solomon chuckled and waved his hand.

“No, she isn’t,” Alex laughed before sipping her iced tea.

“I was referring to you,” Solomon hummed.

Alex smirked at him and shrugged. “I do pretty well, I suppose.”

Satan cleared his throat, drawing Alex’s attention to her left. “So, you realized that half your customers are my brothers.”

Alex rocked her head. “Yes, I was informed of that by Belphegor in a rather creative way.”

“I heard,” Satan laughed. “We all live together.”

“So I’ve heard,” she smiled.

“Interesting dynamic,” Solomon voiced. “All seven of them together.”

“They also throw some ridiculous parties,” Alex said and then waved her free hand in a circle. “From what I’ve heard.”

“Oh, don’t worry. I know you live across the street,” Satan snorted with a smug smile. “I’ve known longer than Lucifer.”

Alex gasped as they walked on the sideway in the park. “What?”

Satan chuckled and rocked his head. “Yes, I knew from Jordan. I was the one to buy his motorcycle.”

She shrieked and gasped. “Oh! That’s why I’ve seen it around the cafe.”

Satan wagged his eyebrows. “So yes, I’ve known for about four months. He pulled it out of your garage and brought it over. When I asked why he moved, he told me about your circumstance and why he was torn, but family comes first.”

“It does,” Alex smiled. “His mother was great to me when my parents died. She practically lived with me for the first six months. Then Jordan moved in, and he got me a job at the cafe. He’s always been like my big brother. So when his dad got injured at work and couldn’t work, I told him to move home to help.”

“How did you both meet?” Solomon questioned.

“Oh, that’s a funny story, actually. So, in middle school, he was a grade above me, and I was super shy. He saw me being harassed by some asshole. He stepped in and smoothed the situation. I was so shocked he was able to do so without violence. Jordan took me to the bathroom, cleaned me up, and told me that the only bitches in our life are the beautiful bitches we can be, so I needed to learn to walk like it. From then on, he just started pulling me into his antics,” she explained and laughed while shaking her head.

“You were shy?” Satan questioned.

Alex stopped drinking her tea and nodded. “I actually am in general. I took his advice to heart. I’m friendly and enjoy people, but I don’t have very many people I consider close with.”

“Is this why you aren’t dating anyone?” Solomon questioned.

Alex narrowed her eyes at him and smirked. “Yes.”

“Liar,” Solomon smiled.

“Wait, I really find this fascinating. You aren’t close to any family?” Satan asked.

Alex shrugged and hummed. “My aunts and uncles all live in different parts of the country. I was an only child, and now that my parents aren’t here, the only people I see are Jordan and his parents. Jordan’s sister left for a university across the country two years ago. I see them probably once a month.”

“You live alone? Like no one ever comes to knock on your door or calls your phone?” Satan questioned with a scowl.

“Well, I won’t be living there much longer,” Alex sighed. “I have to sell the place, so I’ll have to clear it out in the next couple of weeks. The financial officer, my parents, left in charge, said that the funds wouldn’t cover the expenses this next year, so it would be a good idea for me to sell.”

“Hm,” Solomon murmured. “I could help.”

“No,” Alex shook her head. “It’s time. I don’t need handouts, Sol. I appreciate it, but no.”

“Why do you feel like you have to do everything alone?” Satan asked as they rounded the outside of the park.

Alex breathed and shook her head. “It’s such a long story.”

“Your parents?” Solomon voiced.

This analysis was cathartic in a way, and Alex felt this heavyweight being pulled from her shoulders. “Well, yes and no. I was telling my mother before she passed that I was thinking of taking a year off to go with my boyfriend at the time to travel the world. She was so supportive, even though it would put my education in jeopardy. When they died, he bailed with some other girl, so I kind of just stopped relying on others.”

Satan tutted and exhaled. “To be an idiot teenager who couldn’t handle grief. I’m sorry you had to go through that, especially at such a young age.”

Alex smiled and shrugged as they made their way back to the cafe. “I’m pretty good. I have a degree. I’ll have a decent nest egg to pay for my schooling for an even better education and my best friend. I’m doing pretty well.”

“I have an intrigue before we conclude our adventure into your life,” Solomon hummed.

Alex tilted her head as she grinned at him. “What’s that?”

“You are strong without someone, but it makes it so much richer to share your heart with others,” Solomon declared.

“Says the man who has done his fair share of that,” Satan snorted.

Solomon rolled his eyes. “Satan, don’t cast stones in glass houses.”

“You have been married three times now,” Satan snorted.

News. Alex raised her eyebrows. “Three times? Aren’t you like barely forty?”

“I resent that,” Solomon scowled. “No, I am not. However, marriage and love are difficult measurements in a formula very few understand. I’m difficult.”

“I actually like that about you,” Alex laughed.

Satan scowled as they stopped at the sidewalk near the cafe. “You enjoy that he’s difficult, but you won’t text me?” he questioned with a sly smile.

She puffed and pulled his phone from his bag’s pocket. It was sticking out and available. Alex then went to his keypad, dialed her number, and pressed the call. Her phone soon rang, and she hung up.

“Now, you have my number. Stop trying to make me do all the work, you pushy professor,” she snorted and handed his phone back.

Satan was grinning as he pocketed his phone. “I’ll keep that in mind.”

Solomon handed her his phone, and she groaned but did the same exact thing. “If you both call me all the time, I will block your number,” she teased.

“If you need any help with your house, please tell me,” Solomon nodded. “I am quite organized.”

“I will,” Alex smiled.

Solomon tossed his cup in the trash and smiled before walking to his car. Alex watched him wave and climb inside before driving off in the silver vehicle. Satan shifted and tilted his head when she turned back to him.

“Did you want to have dinner with me tonight? I’ll cook,” Satan offered.

“Just because we’re temporarily neighbors does not mean I’m a booty call, understood?” Alex questioned.

Satan snorted and straightened his shirt. “You’re far too interesting to blow on a booty call, Alex.”

“Just had to make it clear. I would take your offer for dinner, but I’m actually exhausted. Diavolo came in for a coffee tasting, and I hosted it. Since then, I’ve just been drained.”

Satan rocked his head. “Well, I’ll ask tomorrow then,” he smiled and shrugged. “You’ll eventually say yes,” he chuckled and walked over to the motorcycle.

Alex smiled and observed as he slid on his helmet, waved, and climbed on the bike. Bad boy, professor. Pretty sexy. That tickled her to no end. He pulled out with a roaring shift of gears and headed in the same direction she needed to go. Home. Even if it was just for now.

@rsmrymnt-tea @otome-scribbles

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route22ny · 3 years

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What My Korean Father Taught Me About Defending Myself in America

Born in 1939 during what would be the last years of the Japanese colonial occupation of Korea, my father, Choung Tai Chee, also called Charles or Chuck or Charlie, came to the United States in 1960. He was flashy, cocky, unafraid, it seemed, of anything. Wherever we were in the world, he seemed at home, right up until near the end of his life, when he was hospitalized after a car accident that left him in a coma. Only in that hospital bed, his head shaved for surgery, did he look out of place to me.

A tae kwon do champion by the age of 18 in Korea, he had begun studying martial arts at age 8, eventually teaching them as a way to put himself through graduate school, first in engineering and then oceanography, in Texas, California, and Rhode Island. He loved the teaching. The rising popularity of martial arts in the 1960s in Hollywood meant he made celebrity friends like Frank Sinatra Jr., Paul Lynde, Sal Mineo, and Peter Fonda, who my father said had fixed him up on a date with his sister, Jane, in the days before Barbarella. A favorite photo from his time in Texas shows him flying through the air, a human horseshoe, each of his bare feet breaking a board held shoulder high on each side by his students.

When I complained about my wet boots during the winters growing up in Maine, he told me stories about running barefoot in the snow in Korea to harden his feet for tae kwon do. His answer to many of my childhood complaints was usually that I had to be tougher, stronger, prepared for any attack or disaster. The lesson his generation took from those they lost to the Korean War was that death was always close, and I know now that he was doing all he could to teach me to protect myself. When I cried at the beach at the water’s edge, afraid of the waves, he threw me in. “No son of mine is going to be afraid of the ocean,” he said. When I first started swimming lessons, he told me I had to be a strong swimmer, in case the boat I was on went down, so I could swim to shore. When he taught me to body-surf, he taught me about how to know the approach of an undertow, and how to survive a riptide. When I lacked a competitive streak, he took to racing me at something I loved—swimming underwater while holding my breath. I was an asthmatic child, but soon, intent on beating him, I could swim 50 yards this way at a time.

For all of that, he was an exceedingly gentle father. He took me snorkeling on his back, when I was five, telling me we were playing at being dolphins. There he taught me the names of the fish along the reef where we lived in Guam. He would praise the highlights in my hair, and laugh, calling me “Apollo.” And as for any pressure regarding my future career, he offered something very rare for a Korean man of his generation. “Be whatever you want to be,” he told me. “Just be the best at it that you can possibly be.”

Only when I was older did I understand the warning about being strong enough to swim to shore in another context, when I learned the boat he and his family had fled in from what was about to become North Korea nearly sank in a storm. In Seoul as a child, he scavenged food for his family with his older brother, coming home with bags of rice found on overturned military supply trucks, while his father went to the farms, collecting gleanings. His attempts to teach me to strip a chicken clean of its meat make a different sense now. I had thought of him as an immigrant without thinking about how the Korean War made him one of the dispossessed, almost a refugee, all before he left Korea.

When I began getting into fights as a child in the U.S., he put me into classes in karate and tae kwon do for these same reasons. He loved me and he wanted me to be strong. I just wasn’t sure how I was supposed to take on a whole country.

We moved to Maine in 1973, when I was six years old. My father had taken us back to Korea after I was born, to work for his father, and then moved us around the Pacific—from Seoul to the islands of Truk, Kawaii, and Guam, in his and my mother’s attempts to set up a fisheries company. Maine was his next experiment, and not coincidentally, my mother’s home state. On my first day of the first grade, in the cafeteria, after a morning spent in what seemed like reasonably friendly classes, my troubles began when I went up to take an empty seat at a table and the blond haired, blue-eyed white boy seated there looked up with some alarm and asked me, “Are you a chink?”

“What’s a chink?” I asked, though I knew it wasn’t a compliment. I had never heard this word before.

“A Chinese person. You look like a chink. Is that why your face is so flat?”

This was also the first day I can remember being insulted about my appearance.

“I am not Chinese,” I said that day, naively. In a few years I would learn I was in fact part Chinese, 41 generations back, but at that moment, I tried to explain to him about how I was half Korean, a nationality and situation he had never heard of before. Half of what? And so this was also the first day I had to explain myself to someone who didn’t care, who had already decided against me.

He was a white boy from America, and he was repeating insults that seem to me to have come from a secret book passed out to white children everywhere in this country, telling them to call someone Asian “Chink,” to walk up to them, muttering “Ching-chong, ching-chong.” To sing a song, “My mother’s Chinese, my father’s Japanese, I’m all mixed up,” pulling their eyes first down and then up and then alternating up and down.

I was struck, watching Minari a few months ago, when the film’s Korean immigrant protagonist, David, is asked by a white boy in Arkansas in the 1980s why his face is so flat. “It’s not,” David says, forcefully—so many of us have this memory of someone saying this to us and responding that way. Why did a boy in Arkansas and a boy in Maine, in their small towns thousands of miles apart, before the internet, each know to make this insult?

When I got home from that first day at school, I asked my mother what the word “Chink” meant, and she flinched and covered her mouth in concern.

“Who said that to you?” she asked, and I told her. I don’t remember the conversation that followed, just the swift look of concern on her face. The sense that something had found us.

I was the only Asian-American student at my school in 1973, and the first many of my classmates had ever met. When my brother joined me at school three years later, he was the second. When my sister arrived, four years after him, she was the third. My mother is white, a blonde-haired, blue-eyed American, born in Maine to a settler family. I have six ancestors who fought in the Revolutionary War, but none of them had to fight this. I don’t know how to separate the teasing, harassment, and bullying that marked my 12 years of life there from that first racist welcome. It makes me question whether I really had a “temper” as a child, as I was told, or whether I was merely isolated by racism among racists, afraid and angry?

My father dealt with racism throughout most of his life by acting as if it had never happened—as if admitting it made it more powerful. He knew bullies loved to see their victims react and would tell me to not let what they said upset me. “Why do you care what they think of you?” he would say, and laugh as he clapped me on the shoulder. “They’re all going to work for you someday.”

“Don’t get even, get ahead,” was another of his slogans for me at these times. As if America was a race we were going to win.

Two decades after his death, writing in my diary while on a subway in New York City, I began counting off all of my activities as a child—choir, concert band, swimming, karate and tae kwon do, clarinet, indoor track, downhill and cross country skiing—and I asked myself if my parents were trying to raise Batman. Then I looked down to the insignia on my Batman t-shirt, and I laughed.

These lessons my father gave me—to be the best you can be, to fight off your enemies and defeat them, to swim to safety if the boat sinks, and in general toughen yourself against everything that would harm you—these I had absorbed alongside certain unspoken lessons, taken from observing his life as a Korean immigrant. To have two names, one American, known to the public, and one Korean, known only to a few intimates; to get rid of your accent; and to dress well as a way to keep yourself above suspicion. Did I need to train like a superhero just to be a person in America? Maybe.

But if I thought of superheroes, it was because my father was like one to me, training me to be like him.

One legend I heard about my father when I was growing up is the story of a night he was being held up at gunpoint, while he was unpacking his car. Whoever it was asked him to shut the trunk and turn around and raise his hands in the air. He agreed to, slamming the car trunk down so forcefully, he sank his fingertips into the metal.

By the time he turned around, the would-be stick-up artist was gone.

He would often ask me and my brother to punch him, as hard as we could, in his stomach. He was proud of his abdominal strength—it was like punching a wall. We would shake our hands, howling, and he would laugh and rub our heads. One time he even used it as a gag to stop a bully.

A boy on my street had developed the habit of changing the rules during our games if his team started losing. We had fights over it that could be heard up and down the street, and one day I chased him with a Wiffle bat, him laughing as I ran. My father stepped in the next time he tried to change the rules during a game and prevented it, telling him all games in his yard had to have the same rules at the beginning as the end—you couldn’t change them when you were losing. When the boy got mad, he said, “I bet you want to hit me, you should hit me. You’ll feel better. Hit me right here, in the stomach, as hard as you can.”

The boy hauled off and punched my dad in the stomach. I knew what was coming. The boy went home crying, shaking his hand at the pain. His mom came over and they had a talk. The rule-changing stopped.

I tried teasing my classmates back after being told to by my father. Stand-up as self-defense requires practice, though: During a “Where are you from?” exercise in the second grade, I told my classmates and teacher I had “Made in Korea” stamped on my ass, which elicited shocked laughter and a punishment from my teacher. I remember the glee when I called a classmate an ignoramus, and he didn’t know what it meant—and got angrier and angrier when I wouldn’t tell him, demanding that I explain the insult. When told to go back to where I came from, I said, “You first.”

Increasingly, I just hid, in the library, in books. When given detention, I exulted in the chance to be alone and read. I was an advanced student compared to my classmates, due in part to my mother being a schoolteacher, and I learned to make my intelligence a weapon.

The day several boys held me down on my street and ran their bicycles over my legs, to see if I could take it, as if maybe I wasn’t human, that felt like some new horrible level. I don’t remember how that ended or if I ever told anyone, just the feeling of the bicycle tires rolling over the skin of my legs. The day I bragged about my father being a martial artist to my classmates, they locked me in the bathroom and told me to fight my way out with kung fu, calling me “Hong Kong Phooey,” after the cartoon character, as they held the door shut. This was the fourth grade. After I got out of that bathroom and went home, I told my father about it, and he told me it was time to take tae kwon do. I had to learn to defend myself.

I would never be like him, never break boards like him, but for a while, I tried. I still cherish the day he gave me my first gi and showed me how to tie it. I learned I had a natural flexibility, which meant I could easily kick high, and I took pride in my roundhouse and reverse roundhouse kicks. But after a few years, my father took issue with a story he’d heard about my teacher’s arrogance toward his opponents, and he pulled me out of the classes. “It is very dangerous to teach in that spirit,” he told me. And he said something I would never forget. “The best fighter in tae kwon do never fights,” he said. “He always finds another way.”

I have thought about this for a long time. For the ordinary practitioner, tae kwon do and karate prepare you to go about your life, aware of what to do in case of assault. They offer no guarantee, just chances for preparedness in the face of the violence of others as well as the violence within yourself. At the time I felt my father was describing the responsibility that comes with knowing how to hurt someone, but I came to understand it as a principled if conditional non-violence, which, in this year of quarantine and rising racist violence, is one of the clearest legacies he left to me.

Like many of us, I have been trying to write about these most recent attacks on Asian-Americans, some of them in my old neighborhood in New York, and I keep starting and stopping. How do we protect ourselves and those we love? Can writing do that? I know I learned to use my intelligence as a weapon to keep myself safe from racists, starting as a child, and suddenly it doesn’t feel like enough. The violence is like a puzzle with many moving parts, but the stakes are life and death. “You’re really going to homework your way through this one?” I keep asking myself. The people attacking Asians and Asian Americans now are like the boy I met on my first day in the first grade. They don’t care whether or not we are actually Chinese—the primary experience Asian Americans have in common is mis-identification. The person who gets a patriotic ego boost off of calling me a “chink” isn’t going to check if they’re right about me, and I don’t imagine they’ll stop their fist or their gun if I say, “You’re just doing this because of America’s history of war in Asia,” even though we both know this is true. And so I have been thinking of my father and what he taught me.

The most overt way my father fought racism in front of me involved no fighting at all. He founded a group called the Korean American Friendship Association of Maine, which helped new Korean immigrants move to Maine and find work, community, and housing, along with offering lessons on how to open bank accounts, pay taxes, file immigration paperwork, and get drivers’ licenses. For both of my parents, community organizing, activism, and mutual aid like this were commitments they shared and enjoyed and passed along to us, their children, and this led to much of my own work as an activist, teacher, and writer. I am not my father, but I am much as he made me.

There’s a difference between fighting racists and fighting racism. Where my father stayed silent, I have learned I have to speak out, which has felt, even while writing this, a little like betraying him. And as a biracial gay Korean American man, I don’t experience the same identifications or misidentifications he did. I am mistaken for white, or at least “not Asian,” as often as I’m mistaken for Chinese, and have felt like a secret agent as people speak in front of me about Asians in ways they would not otherwise. I learned most of my adult coping strategies for street violence from queer activist organizations after college.

Even as I write, “I wonder if he ever felt fear living in America,” it feels like a betrayal, especially as he isn’t around for me to ask him. I think again about how my father always made a point of dressing well, for example, but it always felt like more than that. Men wearing suits as a kind of armor, that isn’t so strange. He had his suits made at J. Press, wore handmade English leather shoes—shoes that fit me. I sometimes wear them for special occasions. Among my favorite objects of his is a monogrammed J. Press canvas briefcase, the name “CHEE” in embossed leather between the straps. After his father gave him an Omega Constellation watch when I was born, he eventually acquired others. For a time I thought he did this aspirationally, but most of his family in Korea is like this: Well-dressed, with a preference for tailoring and handmade clothes. All of my memories of my uncles coming from the airport to visit us involve them arriving in their blazers.

The first time I followed my father’s advice to wear a sports jacket when flying, I received a spontaneous upgrade. I didn’t have frequent flyer miles and the person checking me in was not flirting with me either. There was nothing but the moment of grace, and the feeling that my father, from beyond the grave, was making a point as I sat down in my new, larger, more spacious seat. Because I had never tried out this advice while he was alive.

Like much of my father’s advice, it came from his keen awareness of social contexts, and it worked. His wardrobe came from the pleasure of a dare more than a disguise. You don’t acquire a black and gold silk brocade smoking jacket in suburban Maine because you want to fit in with your white neighbors. Sometimes his clothes were a charm offensive, sometimes just a sass. The jacket advice may well have been an anticipation of racist treatment, of a piece with perfecting his English so he had no accent, and raising us to speak only English. My mother spoke more Korean to us as children than he did—a remnant of her time living in Seoul.

Now that I am old enough to choose to learn Korean, I still feel like a child disobeying him, just as I do when I dress too casually, or acknowledge that I’ve experienced racism. I know I am just making different choices, as you do when you are grown, but also, I am stepping out from behind his program to protect myself. I feel the fears he never spoke about, and instead simply addressed with what now look like tactics. At these moments I miss him as much as I ever do, but especially for how I would tell him, this may have protected you. It won’t protect me.

In my kitchen the other day, as I was making coffee, I fell into the ready stance, with my right foot back, left foot forward, and snapped my right leg up and out in a front snap kick. This is the basic first kick you learn in tae kwon do. And you do it again, and again, and again, until it is muscle memory. You move across the room this way and then turn to begin again.

I wasn’t sure if my form was exactly right, but it felt good. Memories came back of the sweaty smell of the practice room, the other students, the mirrors on the walls, the fluorescent lights. All those years ago, I had thought my father had put me in those classes in order to become him, but as I sent my practice kicks through the air, I remembered how even learning them made me feel safer, protected at least by the knowledge that he loved me. I could not have said this at the time, but after those attacks, I had feared I wasn’t strong enough to be his son.

I still fear that. I suppose it drives me, even now. It is dehumanizing to insist on your humanity, even and perhaps especially now, and so I am not doing that here. Each time I’ve tried to write even this, a rage takes over, and then the only thing I want to do with my hands doesn’t involve writing, and I stop. But I know from learning to fight that hitting someone else means using yourself to do it. My father’s advice, about fighting being the last resort, has given me another lesson: You turn yourself into the weapon when you strike someone else—in the end, another way to erase yourself—and so you do that last. In the meantime, you fight that first fight with yourself, for yourself.

You may never be able to protect what you love, but at least you can try. At least you will be ready.

Alexander Chee is most recently the author of the essay collection How to Write an Autobiographical Novel. A novelist and essayist, he teaches at Dartmouth College and lives in Vermont.

#asian-american #anti-asian hate #racism in america #alexander chee #long reads

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epiphany-of-a-madwoman · 4 years

Text

The Last Dragon | The Witcher & Game of Thrones

Chapter 10 | Cintran Ale and Lingering Ghosts

Summary: Visenya Targaryen is the eldest and only surviving child of Rhaegar Targaryen and Elia Martell. When Robert Baratheon’s rebellion was won, instead of being slaughtered by the Mountain like her mother and siblings, she was saved by Ned Stark and taken as his ward. Years later, after she’s killed at the Red Wedding, she wakes up outside Blaviken. Now she finds her destiny intertwined with the White Wolf on her quest to go back home.

Word Count: 5029

Note: Click here to read the previous chapters ♡ Also I finally decided on a faceclaim for Visenya and to no ones surprise I chose Katheryn Winnick. She does Targaryen too well to not!

💕 Shout out to my Beta: @thisbreakableheaven, I stan you so much! 💕

Splash.

The water pours out of the wood bucket, falling over Geralt’s hair and onto his body. The selkimore guts, now floating in the tub, the stench not nearly as burning as it had been previously. Like a dog, he shakes his head, droplets of water hitting the walls and Visenya. Without moving her gaze from the novel in hand, she wipes it away, turning the page immediately after.

“Could you be a dear Jane, and grab me more of that soap?” Jaskier asks, setting the bucket down on the ground, wipes away the water on his forehead, and pushes his puffed sleeves to cuff around his elbow.

“No.”

Flick.

“Isn’t she just lovely, and so helpful too?” Jaskier exclaims, sticky sarcasm coating each word like honey as he glides across the room, only two paces away from Visenay’s left side. He reaches up, standing on the tips of his toes- despite the shelf being within comfortable reach - and grabs a bar of soap, a distinct lavender scent following it. He twirls, like a dancer on a stage, his large sleeves lightly smacking Visenya’s cheek. She reaches up to swat him with the palm of her hand, but he’s already danced away from her, twirling and spinning his way back to Geralt.

“Oh I’m helpful alright, I help you empty your coin purse.” she mutters, pursing her lips into a tight line.

Flick.

Geralt snorts, a smirk on his lips as he watches Visenya, his amber eyes practically glowing in the dim light. Their eyes meet for a second before Visenya snaps her gaze back to the book.

“You know, maybe the two of you should travel together, you’re both so angry, like a pair of old people - you moreso, Geralt.” Jaskier says, his tone similar to that of a spoiled child groaning about not getting its way. “At least Jane cracks a joke and a smile once in a while.” He picks up the wooden bucket, filling it with clean water.

Geralt grunts, glaring at Jaskier, his white hair slick against his face; Visenya just shows Jaskier her middle finger.

Flick. There’s only ten pages of the book left, yet Visenya can’t remember the name of the leads in the story…, or even it’s plot.

“Now, now, stop your boorish grunts of protest.”

Water hits Geralt from above, his hair nearly clean of monster innards as they get washed away from him. The water pooling in the tub ripples, small waves flying out as new water takes its place. Instead of shaking his head, Geralt scrubs at his face, nearly growling as he does so.

“It is one night, body guarding your best friend in the whole wide world, how hard could it be.” Jaskier says, turning around, and tosses the diary rag from his hand onto a bench, before circling around the tub until he’s standing on the opposite side of his previous spot.

“I’m not your friend.”

“Oh, so you normally let strangers rub chamomile on your lovely bottom?” Jaskier’s tone is teasing, a smirk on his lips.

Geralt turns towards Jaskier, arms on the side of the tub, lips set in a thin line with eyes burning like hot coals.

Visenya bites her lip, and despite her desperate attempt to hide the smile that’s pulling at the corners of her mouth, laughter escapes from her tightly pressed lips. Immediately after, she coughs, a fragile and ill attempt to disguise the noise. Even a mute with a bad left eye however would see through the coverup. Jaskier turns and meets Visenya’s gaze, flashing her a wink before looking away.

“Right, that’s what I thought.”

“I thought you were paying Jane to make sure you don’t get stabbed or robbed?” Geralt asks, tone low and raspy.

Flick, eyes scan the book, only retaining every other word carefully written in aged black ink, keen ears intently listening to the conversation.

“I am, and she does a very good job at that. The only wounds I’ve sustained since hiring her are the ones she inflicts onto me. But this isn’t just any old party, my friend. This is a betrothal feast, hosted by the Lioness of Cintra herself! There will be suitors from all over the world, powerful lords vying for the chance at winning the hand of her daughter, who I hear is very beautiful.”

“And?” Geralt asks, raising a single ashen brow.

“And Jane won’t agree to go...but if you go, I’m sure she’ll agree to it!” Jaskier says.

“I’m right here.”

“Yes, reading a book you claim is stupid and frivilous. So pointless, in fact, you haven’t put it down all day.” Jaskier says, turning to face her, a smug grin on his face that’s short lived.

Smack.

The book flies across the room, narrowly avoiding Jaskier’s face by only a few inches. It hits the wall with a resounding thud, pages crinkling as it falls to the ground. Geralt curses under his breath, grip on the wood tightening enough that veins begin to faintly pop out. Jaskier however, remains unphased, simply turning away from her to face Geralt once more.

“Don’t mind her, she's just a bit cranky, she’s been having nightmares I think.” Jaskier says to Geralt, tone nonchalant and even, as if a book wasn’t just thrown at him.

“Shut up.”

Geralt levels his gaze to Visenya, raising both his brows at her, an unspoken question in his eyes.

‘Are you okay?’

She shakes her head, lips in a tight line as she rolls her eyes, not willing to delve into all of her childhood trauma that’s reared its ugly head since that first dream all those nights ago. She’d been successful, nearly all the memories locked away in that same box in the darkest corner of her mind, yet just enough remained to taunt her in her dreams.

Lingering only a second longer, Geralt shifts his eyes back to Jaskier, who bounces on the balls of his feet, watching the two of them as if they were the only entertainment he’s had in weeks.

“How many of these lords want to kill you?”

“Hard to say. One stops keeping track after a while: wives, concubines, mothers - sometimes.”

Both Geralt and Visenya look up at Jaskier, looks of equal incredulousness and annoyance painted on their faces.

“Oh, yes, there’s that face --” Jaskier sits on the small stool that’s pushed up against the tub. “-- scary face. No lord in their right mind would dare come near me with you there!”

Geralt’s jaw clenches just a hair, his eyes twitching ever so slightly that it could be written off as a trick of the light. He reaches over and grabs his mug of ale, bringing it to his lips, but Jaskier intercepts him, pulling the cup away from him as if Geralt was a child.

“Ooo, on second thought, might want to lay off the Cintran ale, a clear head would be best.” Jaskier pats Geralt on the shoulder, stands from the stool and moves towards Visenya.

“A gift for My Lady!” Jaskier exclaims, lowering into a deep bow as he passes Geralt’s mug to Visenya, amber liquid spilling over the brim as he carelessly carries the cup. Face void of any emotion, she grabs the cup...pouring out the entirety of its contents on the ground, far enough away that the liquid won’t touch her feet. Jaskier just huffs, feigning anger as he turns around and moves towards the small vanity pushed up against a wall. He grabs a jacket that’s dark blue, the fit and fabric suited for a party rather than travel, distracting himself by holding it up and then setting it down, only to repeat the cycle.

“I will not suffer tonight sober just because you hid your sausage in the wrong royal pantry. I’m not killing anyone, not over the petty squabbles of men.”

He sets it down a final time, refolding it, and turning back to Geralt.

“Yes, yes, yes, you never get involved. Except you do, all the time.” Jaskier says, huffing as he moves towards Geralt. “Is this what happens when you get old? You get unbelievably cantankerous and crotchety. Actually, I’ve always wanted to know, do Witchers ever retire?”

“Yeah when they’re slow and get killed.” Geralt says, his tone aggressive but lacking the usual ferocity and fire found in it.

“Come on, you must want something for yourself once all this monster hunting nonsense is over with?” Jaskier says, pressing the conversation further and further, fiending for anything Geralt will tell him.

“I want nothing.” Jaskier looks down at his nails, then moves his gaze back to Geralt. He walks forward, leaning down so his elbows rested on the edge of the tub, facing Geralt.

“Well who knows, maybe someone out there will want you.” Jaskier’s eyes flash to Visenya, but she isn’t looking at him, too busy pretending to be occupied.

“I need no one, and the last thing I need is someone needing me.”

“And yet, here we are.”

It's silent, each moment dragging on as the three of them wait for the other to break it. Geralt breaks eye contact, looking left and then right, eyes burning in the dim room.

“Where the fuck are my clothes, Jaskier?” Geralt says, snarling like a rabid animal.

“Oh, I had them taken to be cleaned, they were covered in selkimore guts, but you’re not going to the feast as a Witcher tonight.” Jaskier says, a mischievous glint in his eyes, ever present when Geralt is around it seems.

Geralt opens his mouth,a stinging response on the tip of his tongue, but Jaskier interrupts the words before they can fully form.

“But no need to worry about that.” Jaskier waves his hand, straightening his postures and gliding around the tub, and moving towards Visenya. “Now my dear Jane, will you agree to go with me now that our mighty, heroic Witcher--” Visenya just looks at Jaskier, face hard as stone.

“No. I already told you I’m not going.”

“But why not! Please, your presence is absolutely necessary with me!” Jaskier practically throws himself onto his knees, face like a begging puppy.

“I don’t like parties or weddings or betrothals.” She maintains the facade, not willing to break or show any weakness; cold and unfeeling, anything less and Jaskier will never let it go.

“Why not.”

“Because I was murdered at one.” the words are like oil on her tongue, always just a few seconds from slipping out, but they don’t. She won’t let them. If she says the words out loud, it means they’re real, and if they’re real...she doesn’t know what she’ll do.

“I just don’t.” It’s a lie, but an easy one, one she’s gotten good at telling.

“Leave her alone Jaskier, I’ve already been pulled into your mess, no need to drag Jane into it, I’m sure she’s dealt with her fair share of predicaments, thanks to you.”

“Whatever, I'll have you know all of my messes, both intentional and not, are lovely.” Jaskier tilts his nose into the air, sniffling like an injured child playing into theatrics for attention. “I’ll leave you two grumps to it, maybe you can convince her with a smoldering gaze or something.”

With one last teasing grin towards the both of them, Jaskier quickly exits the room like an actor leaving the stage after a staggering performance. The door closes behind him with a soft click, the sound echoing in the otherwise silent room.

Visenya looks at Geralt, who looks at her, neither moving an inch.

“Jane.”

In that moment, with Geralt saying the fake name she gave herself all those months ago, it makes her realise just how much she misses hearing her real name. And she wonders how it would sound coming out of his mouth, whether the word would be like honey, sweet and smooth, sticking to her brain for the rest of her life. Or would it be harsher, his tongue having difficulty wrapping around the Old Valyrian name she stole from Queen Visenya I, like a petty thief. She remembers how Renfri would say it, somehow making her own name, something she’s heard a million times in her life, like sweet Southern sweets melting in her mouth.

She remembers how...nice it felt, being able to be completely open and honest, when her life has been nothing but deceit and shadows for so long. And she almost breaks, pouring out everything from the moment she came into the world, banishing away the darkness that hung over King’s Landing, screaming and crying as she did. But she doesn’t. Fear claws at her mind, doubts that he would think her crazy or a deranged monster trying to work into his life assaulting her all at once. And it’s dizzying, so much so she nearly faints from the feeling.

“Jane.” Geralt says again, firmer this time, banishing away her inebriating fears and worries, everything clear within a single second.

“Geralt,”

She smirks at him, but it’s awkward and strange, looking more like a grimace than anything.

“You alright?” he asks, and even in the dim light, she can see the lines in his forehead, brows furrowing. And for the second time that day, she considers telling him everything. But the same fears hold her back.

“Aren’t I always?” she tries to joke, her voice going up three octaves as she tries to keep out the heaviness that always seems to follow her.

“Hmm.”

Silence washes over them, unspoken words and questions ricocheting off the walls and making everything feel smaller.

“Thanks for the broach by the way.” Visenya breaks the silence first, motioning towards the broach that’s pinned to the left side of her tunic, hanging above her breast.

“It looks better on you than it did me,” Geralt says, a smile that shows all his shiny white teeth on his face. Visenya nods her head, standing from the bench she perched herself on the moment Jaskier pushed them all into the room. Slowly and calculated, she begins to walk towards Geralt, each footstep ringing in the room until she’s by the tub, sitting on the stool Jaskier previously claimed.

“I know, does wonders for my eyes when the light reflects off the gems,” she teases, crossing her left leg over the right. “It was the least you could do after leaving me to wake up by myself.”

“I didn’t realise you wanted me to stay.” Geralt rebuttals, raising a brow as he waits for her next move.

“Oh don’t flatter yourself, I just wasn’t happy to deal with Jaskier’s prying questions alone. Do you know how many times I had to threaten to stab him, rob him, and then leave him for dead until he shut up? And even now he still makes subtle jokes about it.” Visenya says, rolling her eyes, resting her elbow on the edge of the tub, only a few inches away from Geralt.

“My apologies for leaving you in such a dire situation.” Geralt leans forward, mimicking her light tone.

“For shame Geralt, for shame.”

“Is there anything I could do to make it up to the Lady?” he asks, leaning just a hair closer, and like there’s a magnetic field around him that pulls her to him, begging her to close the gap and feel his steady breaths fanning over her face.

“The broach was a good start.” she replies, trying to not sound as breathless as she feels.

She’s burning, her body all over electrified in a way it hasn’t been since the last time she saw Geralt.

And then it’s suddenly cold, all the warmth being forcibly ripped from her body. The water hits against the tub as Geralt moves back, his body pressed against the other end of the tub, all coy smirk and smug eyes.

Payback for last time it seems.

Visenya rolls her eyes and straightens her back, eager for the flush that covers her body to disappear as quickly as it came.

“Yeah whatever, you're naked and vulnerable, I could take you.” she says, waiting a moment before her eyes widen a fraction, Geralt smirk widening. ‘With my sword, that is. I could stab you with my sword and leave you dead. That’s what I meant, nothing else.”

“Hmm, is that so?” Geralt’s eyes glint with amusement, the candles reflecting like roaring fires in his eyes. He’s beautiful in the dim glow of the flickering flames, skin glistening with droplets of water sticking to his body, further accentuating his rippling muscles and broad shoulders.

“I hate you and Jaskier equally, just so you know.” Visenya says, huffing like a child, rolling her eyes and glancing at the bare wall, eyes tracing over the wooden panels, counting each grain as she does.

“I’m sure. So what’s the real reason you don’t want to go to this feast? Jaskier drags you around to all his other parties, why not go to this one?” Geralt asks. Visenya’s eyes flicker back to Geralt. Her mind is blank, yet brimming with a million different words and phrases that jumble together until she can hardly find any words to speak.

“I guess I’m not a fan of weddings or anything related to them.” is all she can say. “It’s not a big deal, just a weird tick I guess.” She nods her head, trying to make the words seem convincing to both her and Geralt. But it’s impossible to swallow the lump forming in her throat, nearly suffocating as Westeros hits her mind, the calamitous memories physically painful.

“Bad experience?”

Her face still sour from the fight with Robb, nearly breaking her jaw from how tightly she kept it clenched.

Lady Catelyn looking shrewd and nervous, but slowly softening to Talissa and Robb’s relationship.

Everyone celebrating and getting drunk in the room.

“I’ve never been a good dancer,” she says, the words are soft and light, a tentative smile forming on her face.

Robb falling to the ground, like a pincushion for crossbow bolts, choking on his blood despite being dead the second he entered the keep.

The camp burning.

Everyone around her dying.

“And if I promised you wouldn’t have to dance?” Geralt says, leaning towards Visenya.

Her heart dropping when the slaughter started, frozen like a statue in the dead of winter, bolted to the floor and unmoving.

Screams lighting up the room, ricocheting off the walls as they were stabbed, bludgeoned, and strangled.

Greywind locked up outside, unable to help and dying alone, butchered like a pig.

“You seem desperate for my presence there, Geralt of Rivia.” Visenya teases.

The wail that ripped through her throat, leaving her drinking her own blood and tears.

The pit in her stomach as her legs gave out.

Their snears and taunting words as the world grew dark.

“If I have to suffer the night sober, I would prefer good company.” His lips pull into a smirk that’s lopsided, making his left eye crinkle an inch further than the right.

And that little piece of her who wished she had died with the rest of her family 17 years ago.

“And you couldn’t think of anyone else?” Visenya replies with a smile on her face that grows, eyes bright as Westeros and all it’s demons dim, leaning her chin onto the palm of her hand.

“Well I’d bring my horse, but I don’t foresee them allowing Roach into the palace.”

“No, I imagine that wouldn’t go over too well.”

Visenya sighs deeply, closing her eyes as she does, resolve breaking with each passing second that Geralt looks at her.

“Do you think Jaskier would give me any say in my dress?”

The door flings open, crashing into the wooden wall and causing it to shake for a moment.

“Have no fear, My Lady, I’ve already got the perfect one!”

o0o0o0o

The water is scalding hot, steam rising from the water and dissipating into the air. But it doesn’t burn, not in the way it should, instead every muscle in her body relaxes the second the it touches her skin. Small waves ripple through the water as her body twists and turns into a comfortable position. A small sigh leaves her mouth, echoing in the smaller room only to be swallowed by the door opening and closing.

“I don’t need help bathing.” Visenya says, weaving annoyance and mild anger in each word.

Just one moment alone would be nice.

“And I’m not here to offer it, I just wanted to quickly discuss a few things,” Jaskier says, completely ignoring any warning signs and moving further into the room.

“And then you’ll be out of my hair?” Visenya says, water splashing out of the tub and onto the floor as she pinches the bridge of her nose.

“Well funny you should say that, actually…” She doesn’t need to turn around to see how his brows are furrowed, eyes unsure and a touch afraid that Visenya might fly off the handle. He’s never fully learned all her triggers yet, but to be fair, neither has she.

She groans, loudly, sinking as far into the water as much as the tub would physically allow, wishing to be swallowed into an abyss. Always something with the hair, whether it’s pleads to let him style it or to tell him why she keeps dyeing it.

“No.”

“You don’t even know what I was going to say!” Jaskier exclaims, in an attempt to defend himself, feigning innocence he doesn’t possess when it comes to meddling.

“I don’t have to. The answer is still no.” Visenya’s voice is firm and stern, unmovable like a stone wall.

His footsteps echo in the room, the heels on the boots clicking against the wood flooring as he approaches, each step tentative and slow.

“Well that just isn’t acceptable, you won’t even give a gentleman the simple opportunity to--”

“Just tell me what you want so I can tell you no again” Visenya interrupts Jaskier, breathing heavily through her nose.

“Alright, alright, tough crowd--”

“Jaskier!”

“Okay, alright, your hair! I wanted to talk about that.” Jaskier says, voice raising in volume as many octaves it did. “How do I say this while still keeping my life… it looks, well-- like a wild animal lives there and has lived there its whole life.”

The water splashes and ripples as her hand breaks through the stillness, joining the rest of her body beyond her head and the tops of her shoulders underwater. Jaskier holds his breath, waiting for Visenya to either tell him to fuck off or pretend he doesn’t exist at all.

“I know.”

Jaskiers loudly exhales, physically deflating.

“So I was thinking, what if we made it not look like that for the feast? You really should look your best before a monarch.” Visenya turns her head and glares at Jaskier. “I know you dye your hair, heavens know why, so I was just thinking what if you...washed it out.”

“So you want me to wear my natural hair color for the feast?” Visenya clarifies, her voice not indicating anything she’s feeling.

“Yes, exactly!” Jaskier exclaims, tone becoming more jovial and ecstatic, bouncing on his feet as he does.

“No.”

“But--”

“I said no.”

“Why not?”

“Because I don’t want to.”

“Come on, it can’t be that bad.”

“I said no Jaskier.” Visenya growls, the edges of the wooden tub crack under the pressure of her grip, splitters getting pushed under her nails.

“Don’t be so dramatic, let’s see what color your roots are--” Jaskier moves closer, hands outstretched, desperate to see the silver hair shining under the dry brown. Visenya grits her teeth, anger pulsing under her skin, mind going white as all the sound in the room silences for a painstakingly long moment.

“I said, no!” The words are piercing and sharp, nearly leaving both of their ears bleeding. The walls shake, the structure of the building itself rejecting the shrill words rolling off of Visenya's mouth. Her eyes flash like fire, burning anything in its wake; it’s dangerous and untamed, wildfire barely contained in two eyes.

Her hand flies up in the air, palm nearly meeting Jaskier’s cheek, but he manages to duck out of the way, stepping back far enough to avoid the slap, the residual heat radiating from her hand nearly singeing his hair. With wide eyes, baby blues watching her with bewilderment and a small tinge of something else- something she never wants him or anyone else to ever look at her with again.

Fear.

Visenya inhales sharply, simply staring at her own hand with dazed eyes. It’s still hot, she’s still hot. The previously scalding water that had begun to cool, heats up again with a vengeance, boiling wildly around her. Small beads of sweat form at her temple, the room growing smaller with each sharp breath Jaskier takes.

“I’ll just-- I’ll just leave you to it, just… forget I asked, I guess,” he says, the words jumbling and melting together, nearly disappearing into the wooden walls that seem to close in.

Click.

Just as quickly as he entered the room, he exits, leaving behind nothing but the faint smell of his perfume and hair styling product. The room is silent, unbearably so. Visenya turns, water languidly splashing, her back facing the door as she stares at the bare wall, eyes glazing as she attempts to focus on every small detail of the wood. Her mind is blank, yet at the same time it’s a storm, ferociously raging in her head, until her ship is pulled under, thoughts drowning her.

“Fuck!” The palm of her hand smacks against the water, a barrage of droplets sticking to the sweat beads. A growl of anger and frustration leaves her mouth as she thrusts her hands forward, creating a wave that forces a large amount of water to spill onto the ground, forming a small puddle of anger and guilt.

Regret weighs heavily on her, like wearing a suit of full plate in the middle of the ocean. She shouldn’t have snapped at Jaskier that way, she wishes she hadn’t. He’s just trying to help, to pull Visenya out of this hole she’s happily buried herself in, clawing at the dirt with perfectly manicured hands and a velvet outfit, humming a sweet melody as he digs. She’d yelled before: threatened to hurt him in every way imaginable, screamed so loud her voice nearly vanished. She’d smacked his chest and shoulders under the guise of seriousness with a sly smirk playing on the corner of her lips. And he took it in stride, laughing it off with a charming smile and a witty quip, bouncing back instantaneously, because she never fully knocked him down.

She tries to believe this isn’t any different, that she’ll walk out of this room, only to be bombarded by Jaskier’s incessant teasing. But no amount of rose-tinted lenses can bury her in that delusion, because this time is different. She could see the way he looked at her, the way he crumbled under the fire in her eyes and rage simmering under her skin.

Her fury in that moment was harsh, but true, and very much directed at him with intent to harm. All because he wanted to see her hair. How could he ever understand that it’s more than that to her. How does she explain how the same silver strands that crown her a Targaryen princess, something that marked her a paragon of her ancestors, but a pariah to the living. She’d never be able to explain how it was the one unmistakable trait that marked her as the daughter of the man who stole away Winterfell’s princess, staining her a traitor to all of Westeros.

No one here knows who House Targaryen was or what her ancestors did -- both horrible and great. And maybe it’s better that way. To wipe her home and family name out of her memories, drown Westeros and all the hurt and pain and misery that came with it until she can’t remember anything prior to Blaviken.

Because what did they achieve, what did any of them really achieve? Aegon the Conqueror along with Rhaenys and Visenya Targaryen formed the Seven Kingdoms. They brought war and then peace, only for that to be lost 300 years later due to the madness of a single man, that apparently bled into his eldest son.

With Fire and Blood, they took what they wanted and bathed the rest in dragon fire as they reigned calamity upon their enemies. Some were kind and fair, but most were cruel and callous, seeing themselves higher than the rest because their eyes shone like amethysts with hair threaded from silver.

What did being the daughter of Rhaegar Targaryen ever give her, except for despair at the loss of the family he abandoned to the whims of a madman. What did being the granddaughter of the Mad King Aerys give her, beyond the crippling fear that would leave her awakening in the darkest part of the night covered in sweat, fears that she’d descend to that same madness that haunted him. That she’d lose the ability to control her own mind until she was put down like a dog, something Robert Baratheon would’ve done happily as the people whispered ‘What a shame she went mad.’

What did being a Targaryen ever really bring her if not scars and lingering ghosts?

The last time she fully embraced her blood, standing as tall and regal as a Targaryen should, how she believed they would, she burned down half a village.

No, it’s better this way.

Even if it’s just hair.

She sinks further into the boiling water, breathing in the steam like the smoke from a fire, praying and hoping she would just disappear. She continues down until her shoulders and underwater, then her neck, until the back of her head touches the bottom of the tub, eyes closed as her water floats around her face. And surrounded by the boiling water, washing away the day and all her mistakes, salty tears leave her eyes, being swept away into the water.

o0o0o0o

Tags: If your name is crossed out, it means I wasn’t able to tag you. Also I’m not 100% sure if most of y’all still want to be tagged, since it’s been so long since I posted a new chapter, so feel free to message me if you no longer want to be!

#geralt of rivia #geralt imagine #geralt fanfic #geralt x reader #Geralt #the last dragon #the witcher #the witcher fanfiction #game of thrones #game of thrones fanfiction #game of thrones crossover #the witcher crossover #house targaryen #targaryen!reader #targaryen!oc #Jaskier

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meikodenji · 3 years

Text

CODA

Part 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9:

Cobra Kai Never Dies

A drunk Johnny walked the streets, remembering.

He knocked on Miguel's door. Carmen opened it to see her son in utter pain in his arms. "Oh, Miguelito!" She exclaimed. Carmen was outraged, he told her the same thing to Joey's uncle after helping him to the door. Will's blood boiled and didn't want to face Johnny, not wanting to do something he would regret much later, instead he cleaned up his son. "Listen to me, stay away from Joseph." Jonathan told him with a very threatening manner. "His dad has been through hell and now his son? Don't ever come near him again."

"I'm sorry. I shouldn't have gotten involved." "It wasn't his fault, Tío! Cobra Kai never dies!"

The doors were slammed.

Johnny now groaned at the sight of another LaRusso billboard. "What are you smiling at?" The man got an idea and walked over to a guy with spray paint. "Hey, man." He held out the two unopened beers. "Wanna trade cans?"

---

Joey groaned as he reached out to help himself sit up. His ribs were throbbing something awful, his head too. Will came to him with an icepack, a glass of water and two Advil pills. "Here, Joey." He took the pills and placed the icepack on his sides. "What did we talk about? We talked about no violence, you know that. Why are you with a guy like him? Huh, Joseph?"

"Dad, he's a great man. If you really knew him."

"He's not a good influence, Joey. ¡Es un perdedor!"

"No lo es, papá. He helped me and Miguel stand up for ourselves!" He shut himself up from the raise of his voice. "Sorry about that, it's just-- you don't understand."

"I understand enough, Joseph. I can't have anything bad happen to you, okay? Never again." He held his son's bruised face. "No more karate. Carmen and I will call the school, we will find out who did this to you and Miggy." Joey kept silent, confused by the 'never again', he stood slowly, it won't help. "I have to go to school. I'll see you later." "Isn't it too ear--." The front door closed shut.

Daniel was driving down to the dealership, on the phone with his wife when he saw it. It was the billboard Johnny saw the night before with a spray painted pee wee. "Motherf--"

Johnny walked out of his apartment, heading to his car. Miguel and Joseph walked with the man. "Hey, Sensei, my mom says that I can't train with you anymore." J: "My dad forbids it. But we had this idea that maybe if we went to the dojo before--"

Johnny cut him off. "You don't get it, kid. There is no dojo." Both furrowed their eyebrows. "I'm closing it up. It's over." M: "What about us? We need you." "Sorry, kid. I gotta go."

Robby and his 'friends' watched some video of a girl shaking her junk on the laptop. "Sorry to interrupt your circle jerk." Johnny said, making his kid and the others stand.

"What the hell? Don't you knock?" "Been knocking for five minutes." Johnny retorted, "Guess you couldn't hear me over that trash in your boom box." The pale friend questioned, "What the hell's a boom box?"

Lawrence insulted, "What the hell's that thing on your face?" "It's a mustache." The other laughed.

After a brief moment of argue between Johnny and his son. He walked out of the apartment.

The boys were in the library studying and doing school work. Diaz and Byers had told the two about the sad news. "So, that's it?" Demetri questioned. "No more karate?" Joey shook his head as Miguel replied, "I guess so." "It's probably for the best." He explained. "It was starting to boost your confidence."

"Isn't that a good thing?" "No. What has confidence ever gotten anybody except for a black eye and their backpack thrown in the trash?"

Eli, on the other hand, thought otherwise. "Well, I thought it was kind of cool how you stood up to Kyler." He also mentioned about Joey attempt to save him. Demetri contrasted, "Are you insane? Let me ask you. What is the best superpower anyone could have?"

M: "Super strength." J: "Smarts?"

"Wrong." He corrected. "Invisibility. A distant second would be super speed to run away fast." As the boys were going back to their work, Kyler and his friends crept onto them. He put his hand on a now tensed Eli. "Run away from who?" Joey groaned.

"Whom." Brucks corrected him. "It's the object of a preposition. Remember English class." Yeah, like you pay attention. The boys quickly took the chance to escape them, Miguel spoke fast. "We're just leaving." Kyler got a hold of Moskowitz, holding him in place roughly and insulted him. "Oh, look at this freak." Brucks laughed as Joey was on edge of striking first. "What kind of girl would ever kiss this shit?"

Miguel spoke up, "Leave him alone, Kyler." He let go of Eli, getting into the boy's face. "What'd you just say?" Joseph was on edge, ready to strike despite his aching sides, "He told you to leave him alone. I'm sure as hell, you are not deaf." This time the blonde guy that taunted him back in the room, went right up to him. "You haven't had enough, freak?" He glared at him. "It's Byers, blondie."

After a short moment, Kyler pushed his head aside. "Yeah. Get the hell out of here, man." The boys started to head out, Brucks shoved Eli as the other took Demetri's backpack. "Hey, you don't want this shit." He held it right above the trash bin. "No, come on. Not the trash." He reasoned. "I just threw a--" The asshole let go of the bag. "a yogurt in there." He grimaced.

"Now it's double dip."

Demetri took the bag out, now covered in yogurt and walked out. At this point, Miguel was calming Joey down outside. The bullies walked out, joking about what just went down. Little did he know, his girlfriend, Sam, heard the commotion.

---

Joseph was heading for the school bus with Miguel when he heard the honking of a car. He turned to see his aunt Rae calling him, "JoJo!" She has called him that since he was four. He said his bye to Miguel who was also picked up by his mom. "JoJo!" The boy walked to his aunt's car.

He sat in the passenger seat as the woman, who he saw as his mother smiled at him, "Surprise!" The boy grunted as a response, quietly greeting her. "Your uncle is at the HQ, I get to have a day with you!"

"And to keep me away from karate, right? Dad told you?" "Sweetie, I insisted to pick you up. We can go to Pa and Nana's? How's that sound? Your aunt Jane and Yaya came back from the business trip, they got you some things." Joey smiled at her but shook his head. "I've got homework and Dad will be working late, so I'll have to clean up the house and cook dinner."

"Well, that's why I'm here."

. . .

6:34 p.m.

He kneaded the flour and eggs as his aunt was chopping a few things for a salad, listening to The Scorpions on the speaker. Joey continue to knead until it was like dough, cutting it up to even pieces to put on the pan. They spoke about his uncle, Will's brother-in-law, since he has not seen him for a week and that he'll be visiting soon. Just then, Rosa and Miguel made their ways into the apartment.

"¡Perdón por la intrusión!" Miguel's grandmother joked. They had a spare key of each other's home. Joey wiped his hands after washing as Rae greeted them, "Hola tía. Hey, Miguel. Where's tía Carmen?"

"My mom's coming. Oh, and we brought some llapingachos, hope it's enough." His aunt thanked him. Rosa helped Rene with the chicken alfredo, sharing laughs. The boys went to Byers' room to practice some moves and check out more classic songs.

Carmen had arrived, Will got home about 30 (something) minutes after. "¡Muchachos, venid a poner la mesa!" The teens moved two tables together and placed the full plates onto it. Soon, the six sat and said grace before digging in. They all talked and laughed together. This is the first time in a long time that Will had people, who were not blood, who he can trust with his son.

He smiled.

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primeemeraldheiress · 4 years

Text

Brönte's Forgotten Child

(You did say to keep it coming)

Her mother loved Emma. Those first lines were everything she ever wanted to be

“Emma Woodhouse, handsome, clever, and rich, with a comfortable home and a happy disposition... and had lived nearly twenty-one years in the world with very little to distress or vex her.”

She wanted that.

The life of the socialites. Of Gotham’s beloved children that seemed inhuman for their beauty.

They garbed themselves in riches that she couldn’t attain, couldn’t even afford to dream.

So she tripped.

She tripped hard.

She disconnected herself from the world and it’s cursed reality and pretended she was Emma Woodhouse being cathered and pampered instead of Catherine Todd laying on her own vomit in her run down little apartment in Crime Alley, new bruised eye from her Mr. Darcy, and her daughter trying to clean her up.

Her daughter.

Her Jane.

Catherine never wanted children.

But just like everything that involved Willis she either had to accept it or get bruised.

“All my heart is yours, sir: it belongs to you; and with you it would remain, were fate to exile the rest of me from your presence forever.”

Jane Petra Todd was every bit of Sheila and every bit of Willis.

Willful, stubborn, obstinate, tenacious, dangerous, cunning little devil child with a heart too damn soft for this world.

She had come to her as a little girl with a profound scowl and pretty bows in her hair.

Her mother had ran away from a lawsuit after a botched abortion.

Talk about a contraceptive method.

Catherine never wanted children.

She especially never wanted a girl.

If push ever came to shove (which it did most days with Willis drunk off his ass), she wanted a boy.

A strong, self-sufficient boy.

One she would make sure to raise right, away from the influence of her poisonous father.

Away from Crime Alley.

Away from this Hell.

He would be chivalrous and educated and well read and well spoken. He would be every bit the gentleman that managed to break through Elizabeth’s wall.

She always did like the name Jason.

“You — you strange — you almost unearthly thing! — I love as my own flesh. You — poor and obscure, and small and plain as you are”

Instead she got a Jane.

Soft, brittle, little Jane withe dark hair that fell in curls and bright blue eyes that made the Gotham sky seem dull.

Catherine never wanted children.

But she loved her Jane.

“I knew, you would do me good, in some way, at some time;- I saw it in your eyes when I first beheld you”

Catherine always knew she would die with a needle in her arm.

Rehab never worked.

It didn’t matter how many times she tried.

How many books she read.

What words Elizabeth, or Emma, or Jane, or anyone said to her.

Willis would always show up with a little white powder and once again she was lost.

Jane always forgave her.

Looked after her.

Cleaned her.

Tucked her into bed.

Made sure she drank water.

Soft, brittle, little Jane who cried because kids made fun of her name. Stupid, selfish Catherine who took her into her arms and showed her the miracle that was Jane Austen.

Catherine always knew she would die with a needle in her arm.

She thought everything would be cold and dark.

Instead it was warm and bright.

The image of her sitting on the couch, little Gothamite princess in her arms, reading at loud:

“I desired more...than was within my reach. Who blames me? Many call me discontented. I couldn't help it: the restlessness is in my nature; it agitated me to pain sometimes.”

Daddy dearest died not too long after, a job with Two-Face gone wrong.

She was officially an orphan, and ran away before CPS came for her.

Jane wouldn’t be caught dead in foster care.

She barely survived her family.

She wouldn’t survive another one like that.

She was better off alone anyways.

Soft, brittle, little Jane died the day she found Catherine overdosed on the bathroom floor.

Feral, menacing, savage Jay was born that same day.

She always did hate her name anyways.

“I see at intervals the glance of a curious sort of bird through the close set bars of a cage: a vivid, restless, resolute captive is there; were it but free, it would soar cloud-high.”

These glimpses of who she once was, of the life she left behind haunted her day and night.

Nagging, bugging, exhausting swarm of bees, that never fell silent, not even in her sleep.

Nightmares of mother, and ma.

Dreams of father and pa.

Ironic that two men so different could be the same.

Violent, and proud with their heads shoved so far up their asses they could never see how they hurt everyone around them….or was it that they didn’t care?

“Am I hideous, Jane?

“Very, sir: you always were, you know.”

She always hated her name.

Catherine appeased the hatred for a while, reminding her that Austen was an unbreakable woman. An unstoppable cyclone who wouldn’t budge at the circumstances.

Who wouldn’t budge, who wouldn’t bend, who didn’t just survive but THRIVE.

Then again, fate always seemed to like to play jokes on her. God (if there was one) always found her pain very amusing.

She wasn’t Jane Austen.

She was Jane Eyre.

“I desired liberty; for liberty I gasped; for liberty I uttered a prayer; it seemed scattered on the wind then faintly blowing.”

She was the ghost that haunted Wayne Manor.

The failed Robin. The wayward child. The lost daughter. The absolute scourge of evil.

The cursed mark upon Batman’s perfect record. The problem child of Bruce Wayne.

The fucking blemish upon the family name.

Her catastrophe etched on the walls of the place she once called home.

Her debacle immortalized in the cave that saw her grow.

Her fucking name forgotten, erased letter by letter and tossed in the air.

She lived now in the attic; Edward Rochester’s best kept secret, and burning shame.

Her screams and cries were ignored as they resonated in the halls. Her calls of justice silenced once for all.

“Something of vengeance I had tasted for the first time; as aromatic wine it seemed, on swallowing, warm and racy: its after-flavour, metallic and corroding, gave me a sensation as if I had been poisoned”

He locked her in the attic, let her memory haunt the place.

He locked her in the attic, let her memory fade.

He locked her in the attic, let her name never be displayed.

He locked her in the attic, let her go fucking insane.

“Remorse is the poison of life.”

Jane always hated her name, Bruce never once called her “Jay”

One more reason to hate him.

And hate everything he built after her.

The life that blossomed above her grave, flowers nourished by her corpse.

She hated him.

She hated all of them.

She hated Gotham, and her villains, hated her crime and her corruption.

But most of all she hated herself.

She hated her lack-luster hair, and the single white stripe on it, her dead eyes, with green specks bleeding through the blue. Hated her scars, covered by a million tattoos.

She hated herself.

Because despite it all.

She couldn't hate him too.

“I could not unlove him now, merely because I found that he had ceased to notice me.”

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

Em here:

Excuse me?

Excuse me, where the fuck have you been hiding?!

This god damn knock-my-fucking-socks-off-amazing!

Is there an AO3 account out there I'm missing?! Holy shit!

I need more of your writing, do you hear me? MORE!

#Jason Todd #Female Jason Todd #Angst #Catherine Todd #Gratuitous Lit References #JaneAnon #phyrric-victory2427 #submission

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cheatdeathsarchive · 4 years

Text

Her dress is the color of the sunset when it’s warm and bright and paints the world that pretty orange-gold. It goes well with her hair, her freckles, her eyes, her smile, and Six likes how light it all makes her feel. It’s not like Benny, not like House. She laughs and giggles and they walk arm in arm down the lit up streets. Six thinks about how Ronnie was in love once and wonders if it felt like this.

Cause she thinks she feels it, thinks she gets it. If love is a color maybe it’s orange. The dress catches the light in a way -- from orange to yellow to gold, and it’s better than any sunset, she thinks. She wants to tell Ronnie, too, but the butterflies in her stomach fly into her throat and she doesn’t know how to rightly say it yet. There will be time later.

There’s an... what’s the term? An Ellie Fant in the room. Six doesn’t know who that is or why her presence is so big, but she’s here and it is. Ellie is one they’ve both been happy to ignore. There were dresses to buy, drinks to be had. There was music and dancing and pretending like things were alright for a day. There was soft hair to rest their cheeks against, and the teasing of fingertips at calloused knuckles and sheepish glances that were safe from wry comments.

They paint the town red like Jane likes to say. They out-party the NCR troopers, watch people come and go and give them all a story which is usually the opposite of how Six likes to daydream. This is fun too, though -- to have a face and to wonder about all that is behind it. The sun is still waiting for its debut, but the horizon is turning a pretty light purple, and Six thinks that would be a pretty color on Veronica Santangelo, too.

Robert House is livid, still so livid, but Six still has run of the Lucky 38. Probably as an incentive. Probably because he knows she’ll go through with what he demands. Not on his terms, she thinks, Not when I’ve learned from Benny and fooled the Legion. Not when I could talk a dying man out of his last drop of water.

Her plan will work. It has to work. They sneak quietly down the hall in case any of their other companions are spending the night in their rooms. No doubt though their exaggerated whispers and giggling are louder than they think. Nobody bothers them all the same. Six turns the radio in her suite on, and Veronica looks around like she’s never been in here before even though she has.

Six loves that -- she does it too sometimes. One time they found a whole mess of old world coins in the couch cushions. Another time they found a time capsule of old world treasures hidden under a mattress. It’s fun to explore the places people haven’t gotten to in ages. Their party could keep going, but Ellie Fant is here and waiting, her arms crossed and Veronica is sick of her presence, too.

“Have you decided?” She asks with a conviction in her voice that Six is immediately aware that she’s practiced, “About what House said, I mean... you’re not going through with it, are you?”

Pretty brown eyes are staring her down. Six replies with a smile, though it’s demure. The Brotherhood’s got her all kinds of conflicted. She can’t imagine how much worse it is for Veronica.

“I don’t wanna kill your family, Ronnie. Family’s all we got out here.” That seems to put her at ease, “But Mr. House ain’t willin’ to listen to me. I tried. I’m thinkin’... I could talk to some caravans, get ‘em set up for supplies... There’s a whole mess of space between here and Tucson.”

Ronnie picks it up, and her appeasement shifts into a cold realization. Six bites her lip, gives her the best helpless look she can muster. Ronnie doesn’t bite.

“That’s not an option,” Veronica replies with a very pointed frown. There isn’t anymore happiness in her face even though it hasn’t been anything but fun this evening. Six sighs. Ronnie insists, “That bunker is our home, Six. It’s hard enough when we get sent out for supply runs under cover. Nobody’s going to help supply an entire chapter of the Brotherhood.”

That makes Six shake her head -- she has favors she can call in, but it’s time for a new approach, “Mr. House won’t listen to reason -- your Elder might, Ronnie. Maybe this is the push they need to adapt.”

“By making them homeless? By taking away the one place we can hide from the NCR, the Legion? By making them all open targets?”

“Better than all dead without a fightin’ chance,” And maybe those are the wrong words. Six takes a breath, “I wanna help you Ronnie, I do... but Mr. House, he --”

“Saved your life, I know. You know what else I know? That you’ve done whatever you had to do with that weird little poker chip he’s so obsessed with. You did your job. He might have saved your life, but why can’t you live it for yourself?”

'Cause she loves him is why. 'Cause she believes in him. Six keeps her mouth shut. She loves Veronica, too, misses the wrinkle in her nose when she laughs. Veronica continues.

“So what?” She fishes, and Six fidgets. Six can hear Benny tutting from whatever hole he’s crawled into, “You want my permission to... to banish the Brotherhood from the Mojave? Because your boss is a megalomaniac dictator?”

Elder McNamara is so much better, Six wants to say, Most the folks down there don’t like your attitude Ronnie, that’s another. Neither are kind, so she opts to say neither at all.

“Autocrat,” Six argues, steeled and frustrated and suddenly stone cold sober. Veronica can’t even look at her right now, “What he can do for the Mojave Ronnie... it’s a hell of a lot more than livin’ underground and hoardin’ weapons you don’t trust people with like you deserve the authority of who gets to have ‘em. It’s resource guardin’, it’s not safe, it’s --”

“Shut up,” Veronica mutters, “just... shut the fuck up.”

Six swallows. Bites her lip so hard she thinks it’s gonna bruise, and takes ten deep breaths. Veronica doesn’t say anything else. Six takes that as permission to speak again, “...I’m gonna get a drink, okay?” Veronica doesn’t answer. She’ll take it as permission, “...I’ll figure somethin’ out, alright? I promise. Nobody’s gotta die.”

Still, nothing. Six hesitates, a small step backwards before finally peeling her eyes away from that pretty orange dress and the woman wearing it. She moves to the kitchen. The medic in her knows water is what’s good. The hedonist in her reaches for a Sunset Sarsaparilla instead. the cap gets popped off and she takes a sip. The vice tastes good, but it’s not enough to make her smile. She’s gotta rethink her plan now.

The sounds of a pneumatic gauntlet rev up behind her. Six knows she can either turn around or duck, and she chooses to duck. Veronica cracks the door of the fridge so deep Six can feel the cold slipping through the crack where the door doesn’t line up right anymore.

“Ronnie --” Six gasps, turning around to see her winding her fist back up. Punches -- the gift that keeps on giving, “Ron, please, hang on. Please, don’t --”

“Shut. Up!” Ronnie screams, and Six is so afraid that someone who isn’t either of them can hear the shouting and the sounds of combat, “I won’t let you.”

The second swing comes, and Six feels it hit her hair just barely as she somersaults out of the way across broken glass and spilled soda and scrambles to her feet. The tiles on the floor shatter. She’s got a silenced .22 under her dress and it shouts at her in Benny’s voice -- never go into a casino unarmed, pussycat. You really fucked this one up, didn’t you?

“Please,” Six begs, and she can only turn around before Veronica tackles her, pins her down. Six kicks, tries to scramble backwards, tries to beg to get Veronica to listen. Veronica grabs her shoulder and sits on her, her gauntlet reeling back. Six struggles more as the first punch lands. She tastes iron, feels the hot sting of skin split open above her left eye. Veronica pulls her fist back and she paints the room red. Her grip loosens just a touch and Six isn’t sure when the gun made it to her hand, but it’s there and she pulls the trigger. Later she finds out it’s right through her heart.

“Don’t --” Veronica Santangelo says, and it’s her last word. There are a million things on her face. She looks... scared. Shocked. Confused. Scared. Scared, scared, so scared. Six gasps, and before Veronica falls on top of her entirely she pushes the still warm corpse to fall beside her instead, rolling away to rest her head against cool tile, and she closes her eyes. Just for a second, she thinks, but when she opens them again Boone is here and so is Victor. The sun is out and pretty shades of yellow and orange shine through the windows.

“Don’t touch her,” Six snaps, her head aching from the hangover. She spits blood out of her mouth.

“We’re just wantin’ to help you clean up a bit, Sugar,” the robot says, very placating, and when Six rolls over she sees he’s holding the body of Veronica Santangelo like a baby. Courier Six screams bloody murder. Boone helps her up. Walks her to the bathroom. Six can’t stop screaming.

She doesn’t know where Victor’s taken her as the sniper cleans her wounds. She never bothers to ask. She doesn’t know when she stops screaming, doesn’t know why she can’t cry instead -- probably because Boone is staring her down behind his aviators and she’s pretty sure she knows just how he’s watching her.

She blames the Brotherhood and slips on her vault suit. Blames them as she goes into Ronnie’s room to slip her scribe robes on top of her outfit. Six blames them as she walks to the Hidden Valley and slips in with the utmost care to be a shadow on the wall. This is a family and they know their people. The disguise doesn’t work if she stops, so Six doesn’t stop. Her head is down and she blames every single person in here for being so rigid, so stuck in their ideals.

It’s their fault that Veronica became disillusioned with them. It’s their fault they are not willing to bend. It’s their fault they are ruined. She sprints out of the Bunker as the sirens go off, throwing the caution and stealth she had been using to the wind along with the burlap hood and robes. The ground rumbles, and she can’t blame them anymore.

It’s not their fault. It never was.

It’s hers.

#here is an early bday gift for six :')#happy birthday bitch u ain't allowed to be happy #drabble tag pending.#tw violence #tw gun mention #tw gun violence #tw blood #tw death #pls ask for additional tags i am sure i'm missing some!#( ic. ) resume save file.#( arc i. ) war never changes; men do through the roads they walk / main.

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cchellacat · 4 years

Text

No Good At Goodbye

Darcy/Nat past

Angst. Heartbreak. No happy ending.

Darcy wipes her eyes, catching the tears before they can fall. She’s so tired and just wants to sleep because everything just hurts. It’s been two weeks and it’s silly to be so upset. She knows it is.

She hadn’t realised at first what she was feeling, it’s not like she was expecting it to happen. The idea of falling in love with someone hadn’t crossed her mind at all.

She and Jane had moved to the tower four months ago. Thor had decided to live permanently on Earth, baring any giant intergalactic threats and then Stark had insisted on financing Jane’s work and having her move to NY. It was great that the job now came with decent healthcare and a free apartment, not to mention the extra zeros on her pay-check, that had been a nice surprise. But the best thing about living at the tower? Getting to meet new people and make friends.

She hid it well, but Darcy wasn’t great at making new friends, she had always been a little too snarky and weird, but here? Here the weird and the snark was embraced!

She’d hit it off with the two science minded Avengers right away, Tony and Bruce were both funny in their own way and just as wicked smart as Jane. She’d gotten to know Pepper and Peter and settled into a happy little routine.

Just as she was relaxing into this new feeling of almost family, Clint and Natasha had returned from whatever hell hole they had been infiltrating. Clint was hilarious and easy to get along with, Natasha had been more difficult. But Darcy had figured she couldn’t give up at the first hurdle.

She wanted to get to know her, the red head had both fascinated and terrified her.

Sitting in the lab she tapped her pen off the desk. Thinking back, it had probably been too late from the first moment she had finally gotten the courage up to ask the pretty assassin a question.

They had talked some and Darcy felt like she’d succeeded in getting Nat to like her, at least a little. Over the next month she had slowly but surely started making a point of taking to her everyday. They had settled into an easy friendship faster than Darcy could have imagined.

The first inkling Darcy had that she was falling for her had been a text message. Nat must have put herself into Darcy’s contacts when she wasn’t looking because when the message popped up Nat’s name and picture appeared with it.

Butterflies flew in her belly and she’d felt breathless as she pressed her thumb to the pad, unlocking the phone. Reading the message a blush had crept up her cheeks as she smiled, thumbs dancing over the screen as she replied and agreed to meet for coffee and a chat.

After that they met up every morning for coffee and few weeks later, lunchs became the new normal within a few weeks if that dinner nearly every other night had followed.

Darcy knew then she was falling hard for her. Wanted to kiss her so fiercely it made her mouth water. That’s why when it finally happened she’d been so surprised.

It wasn’t her that made the first move. It was Nat. Threatening to put her over her knee if she didn’t stop teasing her. Darcy’s response had been out of her mouth before she could think It over. A Sassy, “yes Ma’am”, before arching her eyebrow. Natasha’s hand suddenly falling to her leg and caressing her skin just above her knee had shocked her silent and still. Her eyes wide, frozen as Nat slowly moved her fingers in circles along her inner thigh, a soft question from the red head, asking if she wanted her to stop. In response Darcy had let her knees fall open as she leaned in, kissing Nat for the first time. Fuck it had progressed quickly after that.

Darcy looks up as a commotion in the corridors has half the lab floor on their feet in concern.

She spots the bright red hair first, even among the sea of tall bulky men, the deadly assassin was always easy to pick out, even distracted as they were, there was a bubble of space around her.

There was a man on a gurney, shouting in Russian. It looked as though he were struggling to get away, the glint of metal as an arm breaks free and flails at Steve has her stumbling back a little in surprise. Shit. The Winter Soldier...

She seeks out the red head again with her eyes, Nat’s name forming silently on her lips, watching as she stumbles through the double doors, into operations, banged up and bruised and with Darcy unable to decide if she would welcome her help and company or push her away as she had before she left on mission.

Darcy wars with indecision, Natasha had slowly pushed her away over the course of a few weeks. Missed coffee dates, always busy and then the text messages and soft smiles had disappeared all together. Darcy had had no idea how to deal with it. She’s not stupid, she got the hint and she’s slowly stoped from leaving her once lover messages, she wasn’t going to push. But at the same time, she had been her friend and that meant something to Darcy. Maybe Natasha didn’t want her in her bed anymore, but Darcy had felt more than just lust for Nat. She genuinely liked her, cared about her, even if Nat no longer felt the same.

She put down the pen and followed. It wasn’t hard to get past security, some instinct told her where to look. She found her sitting in the locker room. Glassy eyed and staring at the floor.

“Nat? .... Are you okay?”

She feels like and idiot. Of course she’s not okay. The assassin looking shocked and a little like she might cry.

Darcy makes her way over and sits beside her. Not quite close enough to touch, but close enough to feel the heat radiating from her body.

She studies Nat carefully as the red head ignores her. She looks bone tired and grief stricken, Darcy’s heart aches for her. She reaches one arm tentatively around Nat’s shoulder and hugs her. At first all Darcy feels is the resistance, the way her body stiffens at the weight of Darcy’s arm, and then it changes. Nat curls into her side, let’s her head drop to Darcy’s shoulder and hides her face in her neck.

Darcy wraps her other arm across and hugs her tightly. She doesn’t say a word, feels tears prick at her eyes. She’s not sure if they’re for her or for Nat. Pain radiates off the other woman, Darcy bites her lip and presses a kiss into Nat’s hair.

She’s not sure how long they stay like that, her arms around her slender form as the red head cries silently into her skin, but by the time Nat raises her head and pulls away, her tears have dried and Darcy’s arms ache from holding her.

“Thank you...”

The words are a whisper of quiet, but she hears them.

“Always.” She returns simply. It’s true, it doesn’t matter that Nat no longer loves her that way, how she feels for the woman was never conditional on Nat’s feelings for her.

“Will you stay for a little while?”

Darcy knows how much is pains Nat to ask, can hear the reluctance in her voice, understands the why. It still doesn’t matter though.

“Of course, whatever you need.”

She averts her eyes as Nat changes, using wet wipes alone to clean off dirt and blood from her skin, then changing into soft black leggings and an oversized sweatshirt from her locker.

Darcy follows dutifully behind as Nat gestures her to follow, eventually leading them down the hall to medical where Darcy finally gets her first proper look at the Winter Soldier.

He’s in a bed, eyes closed, chest bare apart from the sensor pads and two good sized gauze pads taped to him where Darcy guesses they dug bullets out of his flesh. His skin is pale and grey, lips bloodless as his chest rises and falls to the slow steady beat of the monitor.

Nat curls up in one of the chairs by the bed as Darcy takes her own seat beside her. She’s thankful for the silence in a way.

It means she can’t ask the questions that even in her head sound selfish and bitter.

Is he why I wasn’t enough? You knew he was alive and I suddenly didn’t matter ? You pushed me away so cruelly because he was what you really wanted, was I just a fling? A shiny distraction to fill a space you were keeping for him?

She sucked in a slow breath and refused to let the hot tears leave her eyes. It doesn’t matter how she feels right now. She has to be better than that, she has to rise above her own selfishness and be there for her friend, because no matter the personal cost, she wants Nat to be happy, she deserves to find peace and love, nothing will change that and Darcy will do everything in her power to help Nat get that; a happy ending, at least one of them should have it and Darcy knows it won’t be her, it never will be.

They sit up the whole night, watching him sleep, listening to the sharp beep of the monitors. At some point Nat reaches out a hand and Darcy grasps it firmly in her own. She won’t let go, she holds Nat’s hand in hers, thumb rubbing soothing circles into her skin.

She’s not sure when it happened, but at some point her eyes had closed, heavy with exhaustion as she nodded off. The dream she fell into was one full of shadows, she felt trapped as she seemed to go in circles, never finding a way out. Every corner she turned, far into the distance she would see her, Natasha, the bright red of her hair flashing in the gloom like an ember, leading her on. Darcy keeps following the elusive apparition until she comes to a sudden fork in the maze. Before she can fully fall into a panic in her dream she startled awake.

The room is quiet and she blinks slowly trying to recall where she is. Natashas back is to her as she perched on the hospital bed, Darcy can hear the quiet murmur, two voice one baritone low speaking quietly. She stands slowly, feeling as though she’s out of place and utterly invisible. She backs from the room slowly, she knows she’s not soundless, not like they can be but Nat never turns her head, never even acknowledges that she leaving them to their privacy.

Darcy pauses in the doorway, eyes lingering one last time on her once lover. Her heart breaks a little more, her teeth sunk deep into her bottom lip before she turns and walks away, the long hallway yawning before her. Empty and as alone as she feels in her soul. There’s nothing left for her to do here, no unfinished business.

By the time she makes it back to her room she’s made her decision. It’s time to go, time to move on with her life. But she can’t do it here, waiting and watching as the love of her life forgets her existence. So she packs her bags, writes a note for Jane and one for Tony and she leaves. Maybe one day she’ll come back when it no longer hurts to breath. But until then she needs to go. Nat made her choice a long time ago, it was never going to be Darcy.

She’s not running away she decides, she’s just facing the truth. She fell in love but Nat didn’t and that was okay, there was no blame to be doled out, it simply was. If she was easily forgotten, well, she’d never really expected otherwise. She was and always had been replaceable. She knew though, deep inside, that nothing would ever replace Natasha in her heart, because she had given it to the woman freely, attaching no conditions or expectations: it was what it was. A part of life, another lesson learned, another loss. One more wouldn’t kill her, she’d survived the rest. Maybe one day she could look back and smile, but for now she let the tears fall as she boarded the train.

Now was the time to try and heal.

#darcy lewis x natasha romanoff #darcy/nat #darcy lewis #natasha romamoff #marvel #fanfic #my writing

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the-quiet-winds · 5 years

Text

Guiding Like a Lighthouse (part two)

[Sequel to ‘Between Angels and Demons’. Co-written with @ichlugebulletsandcornnuts]

[Part 2: Even Together, There Can Be Loneliness]

Jane, once she makes her way back to the kitchen, is greeted by a very confused Parr.

“I heard the door slam,” Parr says softly, “what happened? Is she okay?”

Jane sighs, closing the door to the hallway as if Katherine could hear them from her room.

“We had a little bit of an... incident,” she says, for lack of a better way of phrasing it. Parr’s eyebrows raise and Jane clarifies. “She accidentally said something, and she’s a little bit embarrassed by it, I think.”

“What did she say?” Parr asks, leaning against the wall and folding her arms.

Jane looks at her slippered feet as a blush begins to burn in her cheeks. “She called me ‘mum’,” she says softly.

Parr’s eyes widen but she gives a small, almost unseen smile. “Oh. How do you feel about it?”

“I loved it,” Jane admits, then looks at Parr. “I loved it, but she’s embarrassed about it so we agreed to not speak of it again.”

Parr tilts her head slightly, watching Jane for a few moments.

“I think she might come around,” she finally says. Jane frowns.

“What do you mean?”

“Well, it’s just something I've picked up on,” Parr shrugs. “She enjoys it when you’re acting maternal around her, so it makes sense that she genuinely considers you to be a mother figure. Even if she doesn’t know it yet.”

Jane hadn’t considered this, mostly because she wanted to keep herself from getting her own hopes up and ultimately getting hurt.

“Maybe,” she says with a shrug. “Now I think it’s time to eat, yeah?” she eyes the pasta she’d made, half-desperate to change the subject. “Don’t want it all to get cold, right?”

Parr gives her a small half-smile and thankfully drops the topic. Jane dishes out some of the pasta into bowls and then sets the rest aside for Katherine later.

Jane tries to make sure the subject doesn’t return to Katherine’s slip-up by bringing the conversation around to Parr’s current work, not wanting to dwell on the idea and potentially get her hopes up.

The evening quietly passes, and Jane, who settles on the couch to do some marking, never sees Katherine come down for dinner.

So at about half-past eight, she brings the bowl up to her room.

Katherine doesn’t even look in her direction, just mumbling a “thank you”, and continuing her work.

Two hours later, when Jane goes to say goodnight, the pasta bowl is untouched and Katherine is asleep on her desk, arms folded on her notebook and face more or less buried in the crook of her elbow.

Jane tiptoes into Katherine’s room, placing a gentle hand on her shoulder.

“Kat, love?”

Katherine mumbles something incoherent and presses her face into her arm even more. Jane smiles softly.

“Come on, love, let’s get you to bed.”

Katherine, still mostly asleep, lets Jane help her up from the desk and across the room to the bed. Jane grabs a clean set of pyjamas from the dresser and places them in Katherine’s hands.

Katherine’s eyes are still heavily lidded, a sleepy, dopey grin on her lips as she pitches herself into the woman’s arms.

Jane holds her tight, hoping the embrace provides the warmth and security Katherine was seeking, before letting the girl back. Jane brushes some hairs away from her face before pressing a soft kiss to Katherine’s forehead.

“Get some sleep, love,” Jane says. she makes her way to the door, but the untouched bowl of food catches her eye. “Why didn’t you eat, darling?” she asks. But she notices next the water droplets on the notebook, obvious tears, and the essay that just scrapes two pages but thankfully is done. She picks up the bowl, Katherine blissfully unresponsive as she tries to stay awake long enough for Jane to leave. “Goodnight, Kat,” she murmurs.

“G’night,” Katherine mumbles, followed by something else that isn’t quite distinguishable but still makes Jane pause.

She knows it’s just because she wishes she could hear it more than anything, but some traitorous part of her truly believes Katherine had sleepily mumbled, “g’night, mum.”

Jane’s heart hurts to think of it, that she’s tricking herself like this when it was probably nothing more than a sound, and she blinks rapidly as she opens Katherine’s bedroom door again and looks back at the almost fast asleep girl.

“Sweet dreams, love.”

---

The next few days, more or less, are absolute hell for Jane.

Katherine barely looks her in the eyes, even in class. Her participation is a little less each day, an embarrassed flush flooding her cheeks whenever Jane calls on her.

Jane doesn’t ask her about it, because she can’t bear to hear how Katherine messed up when she called Jane ‘mum’, how she probably didn’t even want that kind of relationship at all.

And it stings. But Jane keeps a smile on her face and a perfect “nothing is wrong” facade.

School was weird for Katherine anyway. it’s not like anything had been officially said, but still everyone seemed to know that she’d been taken out of her father’s care and now lived with their English teacher. It wasn’t exactly the kind of gossip that made Katherine fade into obscurity, that’s for sure.

Now, as well as hushed whispers and discreet points in her direction, she had to contend with how much she’d messed up in that stupid slip-up with Jane.

As a result, she spends a lot of time in her room with the door closed. She doesn’t want to face Jane, or even Parr. And while she can’t shut out the harsh whispers at school, she can stop sitting in Jane’s room during lunch and drawing attention to herself.

Only three days after the slip-up, Katherine is barely even eating lunch, sitting in the cafeteria, nose in a book.

She tries to distract herself as best she can from the fact that she has English last period today. This normally means that Katherine would hang around the classroom and talk to Jane about her day whilst Jane sorted out the last things she needed to before she left school.

Part of her contemplates whether Jane would stop her if she left at the end of the lesson and went to get the bus instead. Would she let her do it? Katherine isn’t sure.

She decides to try anyway.

At the conclusion of the lesson, without a single word to Jane, she packs up her bag and breezes out of the room, following her classmates towards the bus loop.

She finds and climbs on her normal bus, number 24, and doesn’t notice that she doesn’t recognize a single face on the bus until they’re pulling away from the school.

When they reach the first intersection, the bus makes a left, even though Katherine knows they should be making a right.

They changed the bus routes, she figures out very quickly, and wherever she’s going she’ll be a long way from home.

She knows she should probably get off the bus at the next stop and figure out a way to get back, but some petulantly fed up part of her stops herself. She just wants to be alone for a while, without Jane or Parr around, where she doesn’t have to think about everything she says and does in case something like that slips out again.

And so she sits there on the bus, crossing her arms and leaning on her backpack, resting her head on her arms.

Jane is immediately concerned when it’s past 3:30 and Katherine isn’t home.

She let Katherine take the bus, knowing the girl wanted some alone time, but even if she had taken the bus she would have been home by now.

She waits another fifteen minutes before grabbing her phone.

“Where are you?” she texts, followed by, “please let me know you’re alright,” then finally, “I love you, Kat.”

Katherine doesn’t even notice her phone vibrating in her bag; she’s too deep in thought to be aware of much that’s going on around her.

She’s finally shaken out of her reverie by the bus driver leaning out of his seat and calling to her.

“‘Scuse me, miss. last stop.”

Katherine slips her backpack on and makes her way off the bus. This place is familiar, she realizes, and it only takes a moment before it hits her.

They didn't change the bus routes.

She took the wrong bus.

Bus 24 took her to her old place, and she's only two blocks away from her father's house. She’d recognize these sidewalks she would run on all the time.

Unfortunately, this was the absolute other end of town from where she lived now, where home was.

And it was getting dark fast.

So she starts to walk.

It’s a chilly day, and Katherine pulls her school coat tighter around her as she walks, tucking her hands into her sleeves to try to ignore the brisk breeze.

Her stomach starts to rumble a couple of minutes into her walk, a remnant of her barely-touched lunch. She shoves her hand into her pocket and is delighted to find a pound coin; she knows there’s a little shop around here she could buy a snack from. It was the one she used to wish she could visit as she ran back to her house when she lived with her father, much hungrier back then than she was now.

It’s nearing five, and Jane is beginning to panic.

Katherine still hadn't come home, all of her calls going straight to voicemail and her texts going unanswered.

It’s growing rapidly darker and colder with each passing moment, and she knows Katherine isn't thinking straight. But she also has no idea where Katherine even is.

---

Katherine must have taken a wrong turn somewhere, because she really doesn't know where she is anymore.

By now, she should have made it back to the school, but she's in some sort of housing development project, with barely-working streetlights above her.

Finally admitting defeat, she reaches for her backpack and pulls out her phone.

Just as she does, someone comes barreling into her. before she can react, they rip her bag off her back and sprint off, all of her school work, her wallet, her keys, everything except her phone, gone in an instant.

She tries to yell after the person but they turn the corner before she can find her voice. She runs to where the person disappeared but they’d vanished completely and Katherine comes to a stop, staring hopelessly into the distance.

Her first thought, slightly bizarrely, is that it was going to be a pain to get all her school notes written again.

Her second thought prays that Jane won’t be angry with her.

Jane has bought her that backpack, that wallet, all the notebooks and the cute little keychains attached to her house keys. She’d given Katherine almost everything the girl now owned, and someone had grabbed it from her because she’d been stupid enough to get the wrong bus.

She’s snapped out of her reverie by a voice somewhere behind her.

"You’re in the wrong place, darling."

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

tag list: @percabeth15 @kats-seymour @qualquercoisa945 @jane-fucking-seymour @a-slightly-cracked-egg @justqueentingz @annabanana2401 @wolfies-chew-toy @broad-way-13 @tvandmusicals @lailaliquorice @aimieallenatkinson @sweet-child-why03 @gaylinda-of-the-upper-uplands @funky-lesbians @thinkaboutitmaybe @hansholbeingoesaroundzeworld @messanaa @beeskneeshuh @prick-up-ur-ears @theartoflazy @justqueentwo @brother-orion @paleshadowofadragon @lafemmestars @beautifulashes17 @jarneiarichardnxel @idkimbadwithusernamesandstuff @ladiez-in-waiting @mixer1323 @boleynssixthfinger @aimieallen @elphiesdance @boleynthebunny @krystalhuntress @lupin-loves-chocolate @bellacardoza16 @bluify @katherines-choker @why-only-have-one-fandom @missmarvelmixer @le-mlp-nerd @0-hufflepuffle-0 @drawinglinesinarbitraryplaces @lesbabe6 @wicked-books-101 @insertmusicaltheatrepunhere @toomanyfamdom @zoalis @rainbowmoose01 @broadwayqueer

#six the musical #katherine howard #jane seymour #julie and jess write #guiding like a lighthouse #the world was on fire and no one could save me but you

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wonderwomanfantasy · 5 years

Text

Sins of the mortal part four

part one part two part three

Slytherin!Reader x Sirius (eventually)

word count: 1,600 (about) this is short whoops.

warnings: Slow burn! Drinking and underage drinking, cursing,

Summary: Being trapped in the depths of Hogwarts with Sirius wasn’t how you wanted to be spending your night. maybe it was the fact that you were dead on your feet but you find yourself sharing with him. Gag just the thought of it makes you want to throw up again.

“I need you to help me to the Owlry,” you said as soon as you where done puking your guts up

“Sweetheart you are in no condition to go anywhere and I'm not going to drag you,” he snapped.

You grabbed your wand and cast a quick cleaning spell. The room cleaned itself of everything except burn marks on the floor in the shape of the seal, and of course, the book remained. you'd have to take care of that later.

“fine, I'll do it later, fuck I have to sneak you out,” you groaned leaning against the stone wall.

“what do you mean sneak me out? Where the hell are we?” he asked looking around the dark room taking It all in for the first time.

“beneath the Slytherin dorm,” you admitted. You were feeling better after you threw up, you hardly had to lean on Sirius at all as the two of you walked back up the staircase. You came to a stop by the mirror. You looked into the dorm room you gasped and without thinking slapped your hand over Sirius's eyes

“what the fuck was that for?” he asked trying to shake off your hand while still propping you up.

“Madison Haysing is changing her top and I'm not going to let you creep on her!” you hissed. He froze. “bloody hell, did the quidditch match end that quickly?” you sighed.

“what are you talking about? The match ended like three hours before I got sucked down into your weird sex dungeon. It's probably a little after midnight.”

“First of all normal dungeon, no sex. Second of all, are you kidding? Midnight?” you sighed. “dumb black magic, messing with time,” you grumbled. You held your hand over his eyes until Madison was safely tucked in bed.

“now what?” he asked. you sat down on the landing resting your back on the wall. Sirius mimicked your actions sitting across from you in the narrow hallway.

“we wait until everyone is back from the party and then we sneak back through the common room, you go upstairs and I go to my dorm.”

“ Looks like it's gonna be a long night then,” Sirius huffed. You bit your lower lip and thought about apologizing but you pushed the thought away, you hadn't done anything wrong besides black magic. you hadn’t known it would be Sirius.

“Can they hear us?” he whispered.

“No,” you said at normal volume. He laced his fingers together and stretched his hands making his knuckles pop.

“Grand, now I don't know about you but I have a few questions, mind answering them while we wait?” he said back to his normal obnoxious and loud volume. As it turned out you also had a few questions of your own, and you told Sirius so.

“Okay I'll go first, did you really think that summoning demons is an acceptable reason for missing Quidditch?”

“I'm not answering your questions if you're just going to make fun of me,” you snapped crossing your arms.

“Fine. Fine, does anyone know about the whole Black magic thing?”

“You, my mom, and Jane. She caught me raising a kitten from the dead. But that's it. Does anyone know about you,”

“My family obviously, Some of the boys, James, Peter, Remus, and-” it clicked suddenly

“and Moles, that's what he was holding over your head?” Sirius nodded. The conversation went on like that. He told you about how his mother had an affair, got pregnant, and then found out her lover was a demon. Holly water burned him. And he apparently he needed Sex to survive.

“sod off,”

“no really, I feed off of lust delicious shit that is,”

he, in turn, learned about your mother, and what non-Hogwarts approved spells you knew. And of course, you talked about Moles and the upcoming date.

“I feel like, we should address the big ticket question,” he said. Cracking his knuckles again, he did it quite often when he was bored you realized. The headache had started about twenty minutes ago and it only worsened with each pop of his joints. The small snapping sound seemed to echo around the room.

“and what would that be?” you asked rubbing your temple. All the girls were back in the dorm. You were waiting for them all to be deep asleep.

“how soon do you plan to break the bond?” he asked all traces of humor gone from his voice.

“I'm not sure, It'll depend on what my mother says, she may want nothing to do with you and I can break the bond then, with a spell,” you glared at him. You couldn't imagine losing your virginity to Sirius Black of all people.

“there is no spell I've looked,”

“My mother will find a spell,” you said flatly. You where sure Sirius had looked, for a total of three seconds before deciding that sex was as good as any other way to break a spell. besides, it wasn’t like he had access to any black magic books.

“Fine, whatever, what if your Mum does want to see me what then? We pop off for a holiday trip in the middle of the school year?” he asked. You thought about it. The plan had been to keep the captured demon in the basement until the winter holiday and you would take the creature home in the dead of night.

“you come to my house on Christmas I brake the bond then,” you said. His eyes bugged

“(y/n)! it's not even Halloween! I'm going to starve!” he hissed. Another thing you noticed about him, he never yelled when he was mad, he got quieter, It was kind of scary.

“what do you mean starve? I'm not your bloody girlfriend go fuck whoever you want,” you snapped back, you were too tired to deal with him right now.

“did you learn nothing about demons before summoning one?” he snarled. “I'm bonded to you I can't take a god damn piss if you don't want me to you're the master of my god damn universe!” he hissed so low you could hardly hear him. His harsh tone sent a shiver down your spine, or maybe it was the words 'master of his universe'

“then I give you permission to fuck whoever you want,” you said rolling your eyes.

“Are you daft?” his voice was barely above a whisper. You could tell you were getting on his nerves.

“we can talk about this in the morning. Let's go,” you stood up your head started spinning again. Sirius grabbed your hand to keep you steady. You pulled him out of the mirror, the two of your crept quietly out of the dorm you were almost to your own room when you heard the drunken giggles of two girls coming toward you. You froze like a deer in the headlights. Sirius spun you into his arms with the hand you where still holding.

“you're drunk (y/n)” he said loud enough for anyone listening to hear. You caught on quick. You pressed your body against his and flung your arms around his neck. he was clever, could have made a great Slytherin

“I'm just tipsyyyyyy don't leaveeeeeeeeee,” you whined in your best-drunk voice. The giggling stopped. Sirius laughed and pushed you up against the wall.

“Come on Love you should get to bed, you're gonna hate yourself if you don't go to bed now,” he purred.

“only if you come with me,” you slurred then let out a shriek of laughter

“Oi!” a female voice called “get your hands off her.” you recognized Jane as she yanked you out of Sirius's embrace. You fell on her letting her support your weight.

“Yeah Black, shoo we can take care of her,” Sam this time

“Alright Alright I'm leaving take care ladies,” he said with a wink and took off out of the Slytherin common room

“Honestly (y/n) letting a Gryffindor walk you here, and Sirius Black at that, who knows what would have happened if we didn't come along when we did.” Sam scolded as she helped you stumble into the bedroom.

“Yeah but did ya see the way he winked at us, I swear my heart skipped a beat.” Jane giggled. The girls probably would have noticed that you where faking intoxication, if they weren't shit faced themselves. Sam passed out the moment she landed on her bed. Jane staid up a little longer to 'help you' get changed. But Jane was an uncoordinated mess at the best of times and alcohol didn't help much. The end you helped her into her pajamas after she couldn't get her pants on.

“(y/n) can I talk to you,” Jane asked collapsing on her bed.

“what is it Jane?” you sighed annoyed. why couldn't you just go to bed already? you even simple dark spells made you tired. even though you were exhausted, but you felt bad for snapping at her. Jane was probably the nicest Slytherin there was, and she was one of the only people you actually coincided a friend.

“be careful alright? I know Sirius probably wouldn't do anything to hurt you but you never know. Next time you go drinking go with Sam and me okay?” she said softly, closing her eyes and snuggling deep under her covers. A wave of emotion washed over you. You would have to take care of her tomorrow morning to pay her back for everything. You assured her you would be careful next time and crawled into bed.

Just as you pulled the covers to your chin you remembered the Owl you still had to send to your mother. She was going to kill you. Maybe you would figure out what to say in your sleep. How bad could it be right? It's not like she could come to Hogwarts and strangle you. Could she?

Tag list: @booksaremymate @buckyos @drama-llama-04 @wonderholicc @peasantview @blackpinkdolan @can-i-just-like-it @monster-alien-chode @evilunicorns4minions

Remember if you want to be added just ask and I’ll add you!

#Sirius Black #sirius black smut #sirius black x reader #sirius black imagine #the marauders #imagine sirius black #marauders imagine #marauders headcanon #marauders x reader #marauders x you #Harry Potter

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darling-dontforgetme · 5 years

Text

Tight

You know the exact moment it happens. The way Jane just sort of freezes with a confused look on her face before her eyes go wide and fearful as she raises her head to find you. You are across the room in a matter of seconds, gently coaxing Frost out of the way so you can take her in your arms and promise safety. You move her out of the center of the room and behind her desk, using your body to block out everyone else in order to give her even the slightest bit of privacy. Having her water break in front of her fellow detectives is not helping Jane's already present fear of labor. You can feel her heart rate picking up and her breaths becoming shorter and faster as her fingernails dig into her palms.

"You're alright," you whisper, tucking your forehead against hers, "Relax for me. I've got you. I promise I'll take care of you."

"Maur-" She chokes out your name, voice high and unsteady and then grabs onto your hands. Tight, tight, tight.

"Shh, sweet girl, it's alright. Do you trust me?" You know that she does. Every ounce of her soul trusts you, even more than she trusts herself sometimes. She wouldn't have offered to carry the baby if she didn't know that she could depend on you when the time came to actually bring the child out and into the world.

Jane nods and whimpers, and you release one of her hands to pull her along to the car, keeping a steady hold on her other scarred palm. It is up to you to get her moving, to help her with this, to do all that needs to be done. She has done all of the hard work up until this point, and now it is your turn to offer a bit of relief and help shoulder some of the burden of creating a new life for your family. You know that without your insistence, Jane would have stayed, petrified, right over the place where her water had broken, stubborn until the very end of this entire frightening, albeit exciting journey into motherhood.

At the car, you pull a blanket out of your backseat and smooth it across the front chair, urging her to sit. She grabs for your hand again, tight, tight, tight the second you make it around the vehicle and into the driver's seat. She's still whimpering, gasping out breaths like she's forgotten the simple process of in and out she has known since birth.

You bring your joined hands up to your lips, holding hers against you to try and help her focus, help her calm down. "Breathe, sweet love. Slow, easy breaths. You're okay. Everything's okay. I've got you."

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

You have her home, cleaned up, and changed into fresh clothes by the time the midwife arrives, carrying in everything you might need in a matter of two short trips to her car. Jane has insisted it be you, only you, touching her, checking her, delivering her baby. Because of course you know how to deliver a baby, she'd said. "You're Maura, the dumbest genius I know. You know everything."

Apparently, not quite everything. Despite her open fear and the vulnerability she only ever lets you see, you still miss things. You know her contractions worsened shortly after getting in the car only because she told you, not because you were able to pick up on it on your own. It does not matter how afraid she is, Jane's high tolerance for pain is still persistent even in the height of her distress.

In the end, Jane had conceded to your idea of a midwife only so that you would never have to leave her side throughout the entire laboring and birthing process. After the child was born, the midwife could clean the infant and check her over, but Jane was persistent you do everything up until that point. She did not want the certified woman anywhere near her until she held her child in her arms, and she had made you sign a contract for the front of the fridge as proof of your agreement. You were aware, even without her admitting it, that a big reason for her demands was her dislike of being vulnerable in front of others, but you also appreciated the idea that only the two of you would be present for the moment your child entered the world.

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

By the time Jane reaches six centimeters, she is calmer, finally used to the routine of pain and release. You start to see each contraction in the way that she scrunches up her face, and when she reaches that seventh centimeter, she allows you to lie behind her and massage her lower back. Jane has been clingy throughout her entire pregnancy, but as her discomfort grows, so does her desire to have you closer, to have you hold her tight, tight, tight.

You listen intently as she distracts herself, marveling about how quickly the human body can make a whole other person. "Nine months. Ten fingers, ten toes, a heart, tiny arms and legs. Can you believe it, Maura? Just nine short months. That's all the time it takes to grow another human."

Shortly after her body stretches another centimeter, the two of you move to the large bathtub. Jane is leaning against your chest, hands still tight, tight, tight in your own. You encourage her to let go of one, reassuringly shushing away her reluctance as her pain builds to an almost unbearable strength. You slide around to her side, keeping your legs encircled around her waist while you gently check her progress and then return to your former position. You press a soft, comforting kiss right above her ear before resting your chin on her shoulder and smiling. "Whenever you are ready, sweet girl. She's ready now, too."

At your declaration, her eyes become wide and fearful once again, but she squeezes your hand tight, tight, tight, squares her shoulders, and pushes with every ounce of courage she can pull up from within herself. You whisper sweet nothings, promising love, an end to her pain, and best of all, your baby girl. Jane had clung to you for the entire nine hours and thirty seven minutes it had taken for her to gasp and shudder her way to ten centimeters. All of that time, all of that progress for this one moment.

Jane releases a sharp breath as the baby finally enters the world, then lets go of your hands to gather the child up onto her chest. She is so beautiful, both of them really, and already so loved. You wipe away your own tears and kiss away Jane's, reaching out to hold onto one of the newborn's tiny hands. Jane is so proud. "I did it, Maur. Look at her. We made that, this new tiny person. Can you believe it? She's our baby."

"I love you, Jane," you say instead, hardly daring to believe that this is your life. That everyone in this bathtub is yours to love and cherish and hold onto for forever. "I love you so, so much." You pull them closer and hug them just a little bit tighter, feeling as your heart grows for this new life, for Jane, for everything you have together.

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

Hours later, you are spooned up beside Jane in your bed, the baby sleeping comfortably on her stomach, and your arms holding onto both of them. Tight, tight, tight.

#just posting so I can add it to my masterlist #Rizzoli and isles #Jane rizzoli #maura isles #rizzles #Rizzoli and isles fanfiction #Rizzoli and isles fanfic #rizzles fanfic #jane rizzoli x maura isles

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like-rain-or-confetti · 5 years

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Fire (Alec Volturi x Reader)

You didn't know how long it had been since the fire started but your whole house was no engulfed in flames as you sat cross legged on your kitchen floor in complete shock. You didn't call anyone but weren't too surprised to see Carlisle, Emmett, Jasper, the Romanians, Benjamin and the Denali's through the hole where your door once was. "(Y/N)! Get out of there!" Emmett yelled. You looked up from the surrounding flames. "I didn't meant to..." You said. "(Y/N)! Get out of there now!" Jasper yelled. "They warned me about this..." You sobbed. "Alec was worried I'd do something." "(Y/N)! Listen to me!" Carlisle tried a different approach. "It's not safe for you to be in there!" "That's the thing Carlisle...fire doesn't hurt me." You put your hand in the closest roaring flame next to you. "I know! I know, but the house is going to collapse! It isn't stable in there, you have to move!"

In that moment, as though to prove a point, a chunk of the ceiling collapsed in front of you that made you jump. You suddenly understood and had snapped out of your daze. You scrambled to your feet as more of the ceiling above crashed down and blocked your exit. You heard glass shatter around you before locking eyes with Kate from the outside as she lunged and drove her first through the window, shattering it immediately. You were out of time and knew what you had to do. You took a running start and threw yourself out of the opening Kate had created. You landed on the grass, barely aware of the mild scratches you had from the jagged glass shards remaining of the window. None were deep enough to really draw blood, you were lucky. It was then that you heard sirens. "(Y/N), we need to get you out of here!" You heard Jasper call out but didn't catch who had picked you up.

Carlisle put you down as he locked eyes with Esme who stared wide eyed from inside the Cullen home. She hurried away from the window in a flash as Carlisle pulled you to the house. "Come and I'll see to these wounds." The others lingered outside but soon dispersed. "This was very lucky, you barely got a scratch." Carlisle dabbed at the long scratch down your arm. The cotton was mildly tainted with red but as he said, no drops of blood. "Why are the others here?" "Visiting Renesmee."

You were surprised by the response considering the Romanians were also there. You could hear the news in downstairs which you had no doubt was reporting the fire. Once you were cleaned up, you found you were correct. Emmett and Jasper were watching the news intently as it reported a house fire and ultimate collapse of the house. Your home was completely destroyed but they were happy to report there was no one in the house when it caught ablaze. However the cause of the fire was still unknown. "We could smell it." Tanya said to you as Emmett and Jasper acknowledged you with a nod on the sofa. "I don't even know what happened..." You trailed off. "Esme is calling Volterra as we speak. She's going to leave a message to let Alec know what happened." Rosalie said, her hands clasped in front of her with a gentle voice. "More than that, Alec's calling back right now." Alice declared and as such in as the sentence left her mouth, a ringing came from the other room. You heard Esme's heels head down the hall before the ringing stopped.

Later, Carlisle entered the room with Esme. "How are you feeling?" "Is it bad? Did anyone get hurt?" "No. We have planted a source of the fire." Esme took a seat beside you. "(Y/N), you need to tell us what happened." Carlisle joined you both, keeping his voice mellow. "I don't remember, I was day dreaming. One minute I was staring at a candle that was left in the kitchen, the next, everything was up in flames." You seemed helpless, just as eager for answers as they were. "Well, you should know that Alec has been in touch. The Volturi would like you to stay with them." Esme put a gentle hand on your shoulder to reassure you. "He's very worried." You nodded slowly. "I'll go."

Heidi locked eyes with you and beckoned you over with a smile. You were surprised to see her outside when the sun was beaming down but then again, she was completely shaded and the layout of the tour line didn't make it seem unnatural. "It's so good to see you, darling. If you wait in the reception, you'll be seen to once the tour is finished." You knew what that meant. That meant, you'd be seen to once they'd all ate, reducing the chances of someone taking a bite. You nodded, with a forced smile, uncomfortable to see the long line of oblivious humans gawking and pointing at their surroundings. You opened the door and stepped inside. It was cold, a complete contrast to outside, as well as darker but that wasn't too surprising considering the castles occupants.

You sat on a bench, looking around and no more than five minutes later, Heidi, followed by many humans walked by. "This way, please. Stay together!" She called back cheerily. When passing, she shot her smile at you. You tried not to think too hard about where they were going and that they wouldn't be coming back. You rubbed your eyes and you heard more footsteps. Felix and Demetri, turned the corner and it was only when Demetri looked back that the two noticed you. "Oh hello, (Y/N). I didn't expect you'd be here so soon. How was your flight?" Demetri asked as the two towered over you. "Long." You smiled weakly. "I hate planes." The two seemed to find that amusing. "Well, we won't keep you long. You know how it is." You nodded again. "Yeah, I understand." "Speaking of which, we better go or we won't get to feed." Demetri nodded to you before the two continued to the elevator. "See you soon, (Y/N)!" Felix called back with a slight wave on his hand.

It was a long wait, yet it wasn't long enough. Your mind was turning over the many humans who were dying in that moment and you gave nothing of a warning. The receptionist didn't say a word, the only sound being her typing on the keyboard with light taps. You didn't even realize when she had gotten up and was bent over you slightly, holding out a plastic cup of water. "Thank you." You took the cup gratefully and she nodded at you with a smile before turning to her desk. The water helped a little. After thirty minutes, you were stunned to see Heidi lightly jog up to you but you caught her discreetly wiping the corners of her mouth. "Our sincerest apologies, we'll be taking a little longer but we are aware that you must be feeling tired. If you come down this hall, we can take you to a more suitable area to rest."

Heidi led you down a hall and into small room. It was well decorated, modern, and had a few soft sofas. However, the Volturi had no need for this so you wondered if this was more of a pointless room that needed to be filled. You sat on the furthest couch as Heidi encouraged you to rest, setting a nearby folded blanket beside you with the final assurance that they'd try to be as quick as they could. You couldn't stay awake when you buried yourself under the blanket and left alone in silence. You told yourself this was no time for sleeping but you continued to fall into a dreamless sleep.

You heard hushed voices. "Yes, Jane. I'm going in now...very well." You were driven out of your sleep when the door shut even though you weren't awake enough to have heard it open. You cracked your eyes open to see Alec steadily moving towards you. He pulled a grimace. "Oh, I'm sorry. I was hoping not to wake you." "Alec?" "Who else, sleepy?" Alec sat in the space by your stomach, just in front of your curled up legs and smoothed your hair. "How long have I...?" You trailed off. "The safe estimate is about two hours. We hadn't fed for a while prior which made quite a mess." Alec absent-mindedly tucked a lock of your hair behind your ear. "You don't need to worry about that. It's all clean now and my attention is on you. Which brings us to the point, are you alright? No burns? No physical injuries?" He looked you up and down. You lifted your sleeve and sections of your top to show him your scratches. "No burns, fire can't hurt me but a few cuts from the glass." You said nervously. "Glass?" Alec's brow furrowed. "I threw myself out of a window to get out. The building was going to collapse." You immediately jumped at his alarmed look. "Don't worry though. These make it look a lot worse than it is." You had meant for it to comfort Alec...but it didn't seem like it did much comforting. "What's going to happen to me?" You asked Alec, your voice quiet. "Aro will inspect you and you'll be changed. Your in a better environment with people that could help you. All we ask is little trust." He explained looping your arm on his before leading you to the throne room.

Aro was determined that changing you would be the best course of action and working from there. However, once changed, you completely lost control. It was like trying to use your talents in a body that wasn't your own. It was out of sync and awkward. The biggest flames occurred when you were in a trance like state, forcing yourself to day dream.

Caius then wanted you under supervision at all times-after you nearly set one of the rooms ablaze-which meant you were there when trials went ahead. This guy, whoever he was, really made you uncomfortable. Something just didn't sit right about him. The prisoner lunged at you. Somehow you felt more than prepared for him. In fact, you loved that he had chosen to pick a fight with you. Just as he grabbed you by the upper arms you had locked your own grip on his arms. A sizzling was heard and the prisoner screeched trying to wretch himself away from you but to no avail. You were a newborn and so much stronger than he anticipated. Your stare was locked onto him as he suddenly was engulfed with flames. He screamed as you let go. He flailed around in agony as you watched stoically, seemingly in a trance.

The Volturi watched the scene in slight alarm, their gazes racing back and forth from the burning vampire to you until finally he vampire collapsed to the ground. Alec stepped in front of you, pressing his cold hands to your face. "(Y/N)?" His hands and the sound of his voice slowly broke your trance. You blinked a few times, trying to remember what had just happened. "Is he gone? Is-" You gasped in horror to see the charred remains of a vampire behind Alec. You staggered back but was quickly halted by Alec who had taken hold of your upper arms. "What did I do!? What have I done!?" Alec shushed you calmly. "Look at me." You couldn't tear your eyes from the charred remains. "Sweet face, look at me." Alec quietly pleaded. "Calm down. Everything is alright. Focus on me." "I'm sorry! I didn't meant to!" "I think we've found a use for (Y/N)." Caius said darkly with a sickening grin. "(Y/N), stay focused on me. It's alright, everything is alright." Alec pressed his hands to your face making sure you looked no where but him. "I'm going to take you somewhere else okay?" Alec began walking you out the room, releasing your face and wrapping his arms around around you.

The next day was rather peaceful until Felix burst into your room. "Alright kid, ready to work some magic?" "This is a terrible idea." You shook your head at the candle in front of you. "I've been setting fires as tall as doors since I got here. What makes you think I'll ever be able to light a candle?" "because you've done it before." Demetri walked around you and bent down to your level of the chair you sat on. "You’ve been distracted since you got here. The more distractions, the less focus, the larger the flame to anything. Those curtains last week can testify to that. You didn't get a new body, (Y/N). Your body got better. This isn't about expanding you power. It's the opposite, it's limiting it, bending it to your will." "I've never lit a candle with my eyes though. I always did this." You lifted the candle out of it's holder and sure enough with your palm at the bottom a very large flame grew upon the candle." "So don't use your hands and use it with your eyes." Demetri didn't budge and so you sighed, putting it back. You didn't know where to even begin. How was anyone certain that you wouldn't just be embarking on a staring contest with a candle? One that you could now never win nor lose. You huffed but focused on the candle as best you could, using the silence to your advantage.

"(Y/N), that's your left arm." Demetri said. "What?" You looked down and sure enough a large flame was dancing up your arm. You huffed and batted at the flame, extinguishing it. "Try again, don't think about us. Forget we're even here." He might have been on to something, they were on your left and you were very aware of their presence. You focused again. Your brow furrowed before slowly relaxing something felt familiar and gradually a small flame sat on the wick of the candle. You gasped. "I did it! Aww.." your celebration was over quickly for it went out immediately. Demetri chuckled. "Again." You didn't see Demetri mouth something to Felix who smiled and left. You flapped your hands, preparing yourself. "Right screw the candle. I need something a little bit bigger to work with." You moved onto your knees and held out your hands, staring down at them. "What are you doing?" "Shhh!" You hushed him brashly, not taking your eyes from your hands. Slowly, a flame as wide as your palm grew. "Are you using your hands?" Demetri asked. "No. It doesn't feel the same. I feel it in my head. If I was using my hands, I'd feel it in my hands." You became aware of another presence to see both Felix and Alec in the door way. You gave them a small smile before looking down. Alec saw how the fire danced in your eyes. The flame in your hand was oddly calming, flickering ever so slightly. Your progress picked up quickly after that. The more you understood of your new body, the easier it had become to use your gift.

50 years later...

Caius turned to you with a nod. Both Alec and Jane on either side of you. You stared at the vampire that lay in pieces and within a second. A fire reflected in your eyes and immediately after, a fire grew on the body parts and continued to do so. The fires light reflected in your gold Volturi crest which lay just an inch below the ribbon of your black as night cloak, which you had most certainly earned.

#twilight #volturi #reader #one shot #oneshot #alec volturi #the cullens #carlisle cullen

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nomadthor · 3 years

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SNAKE CHARMER STORY SYNOPSIS: ON A MISSION STEVE AND BUCKY STUMBLE ON SOMEONE THAT WOULD CHANGE BOTH OF THEIR LIVES DRAMATICALLY. OC X BUCKY

SNAKE CHARMER — CHAPTER 2: CAUSE FOR CONCERN WORD COUNT: 3,452 CHAPTER: 2/?

Monotone buzzing drilled through her ears as she eventually fell back into consciousness, and vision hazed as she slowly blinked away the blurriness. She became aware of her surroundings: the overhead light gleamingly bleaching its already bright surroundings. White padded walls and floor made up the tiny room excluding one wall which was a one-way mirror where a group of astute SHIELD operatives was sat behind. The petite girl didn’t budge from her fetal position as she sat with her back against the wall, arms tightly folded across her legs as she desperately tried to keep every inch of her body as close as humanly possible. Gently cascading down the loose-fitting ivory jumpsuit she’d been supplied with, her dishevelled sable hair stuck out like a sore thumb against the washed-out surroundings.

Ever so slightly, the heavy door to the dim observation room creaked as Bucky and Steve tiptoed their way in as they found empty office chairs to seat themselves in. Maria Hill rotated her head towards the boys knowing what they were there for considering they’ve been interrupting for the past half a day for any updates at all, primarily on Bucky’s request. “She’s finally awake,” she offered a meagre smile as she softly announced the news whilst reclining in her seat with a hot coffee in hand. It definitely wasn’t the answer that they were hoping for but it was something new. The blond super soldier glanced over to his best friend anticipating a response afore the room fell under a stymied silence, all that could be heard was the soft rasp of the chairs as people adjusted their seating position and the subtle humming of the air conditioning above their heads. Bucky didn’t offer a response, he just looked over the director's shoulder through the mirror with glassy eyes and a sincere frown. “Do you have any information on her yet?” He queried with a sombre tone, catching a glimpse of Steve who did nothing but stare at him with a perturbed lour.

The brunette exhaled deeply, peering at the files in front of her which was simply a pile of uncrinkled paper due to the fact it had barely been updated or touched, “all we know is that she has American citizenship.” Maria exhaled, slightly chided and displeased due to the fact that after all this time this is the only knowledge they had. “Then what was she doing in Norway?” Bucky accidentally muttered out, to himself for the most part but it was loud enough for everyone else to listen. Maria weakly shrugged her shoulders as she took a delicate sip of her coffee, hissing from how hot it was. That’s when the atmosphere fell stagnant once more as nobody had anything of importance to offer, it lingered for a while before Steve firmly tapped Bucky’s shoulder, sympathetically and faintly commanding him to leave them alone for now. A despondent and defeated look fell on his face whilst forced a nod, acknowledging that Steve was right. Bucky left his seat feeling shamed and hesitantly followed his buddy out of the room.

Gradually the hefty metal office door shut with a thud as the pair loitered just outside. “Why are you so worked up about her?” Steved asked out of genuine curiosity with a furrowed brow and unfeigned concern on his face, standing with his arms folded over his chest which was hidden by a large roomy pewter-coloured fisherman knit sweater. “What’s different?” He persisted when Bucky remained tight-lipped. Bucky shrugged but not out of uncertainty but for the fact he didn’t want to be derided by his friend. As a matter of fact, he felt kind of stupid. “Don’t worry about it,” he regretfully stated, planting his hands in his pockets of the same trousers he was wearing just the day before as he began to wander off down the corridor. Steve trailed his footsteps like a loyal puppy.“Bucky I trust your intuition, I always have,” he admitted as they continued to walk down the minimalistic corridor which had huge contemporary windows that lined the walls; the rain gently pattering on the glass.

The hallway fell under a delicate indigo hue on account of the midnight sky. They took a few more steps prior to Barnes slowly and hesitantly halted, swivelling on his heels. He bit at his sore and chapped lips for a brief moment as he tried to thoroughly think out what he was going to say in an attempt to sound serious and not delusional.“Every time we do a mission like this, they’re not good people,” he began to trail off prior to Steve urged him to continue. “I don’t know, Steve, the way she was sat there she looked hurt. She looked like she'd been kidnapped. She looked like she needed help, y’know. It kind of reminded me when.” Steve stopped him from continuing the sentence, holding his hand up and softly shaking his head knowing what else was about to come out of his friend’s mouth. Bucky seemed helpless and just stood staring at Steve doe-eyed as a sour and mournful expression stained his face. Steve looked grave, a firm lip and his eyes strained, it was obvious he was concerned about the Jane Doe in the padded cell but seeing his best friend so anxious made his heart ache. Especially when he knew they had little to no say about what happened from here on out. “Maybe you should hit the hay,” Steve suggested as he noticed the dark circles under Bucky’s eyes were a lot more bruised than what they were earlier.

“Maybe you’re right, maybe you’re not. But you should really get some sleep, I’m starting to get concerned, pal.” He glanced down to Bucky’s unwashed clothes, “and put something comfy on, you’ve been wearing those darn things before we even got here.” Steve jested in an attempt to lighten the mood as he smiled at his doleful friend. A hesitant smirk surprisingly made an appearance on Bucky’s face as he pulled his friend into a hug, holding him tighter than he ever had before.“Oh, and maybe a shower too,” Steve teased as he pulled back resulting in a soft punch directly to Rogers' shoulder from Bucky, followed by a huge grin.

They said their goodnights and they parted ways, stepping out of the huge glass office doors of the building and into the crisp night air. Rain droplets dampened Bucky’s hair that was hurriedly tied into a loose ponytail. His boots splashing in the tiny puddles that littered the tenebrous tarmacked outdoor parking lot which was enclosed by daily tended to tree planters and a densely wired fence. Since the Triskelion was so cut off from the rest of the teeming animation that is New York City, it was refreshing to step out into the open air and ears not instantly be harassed by the intrusive honking of horns accompanied with the loud and obtrusive conversations anyone with a sane mind would try to ignore. He sauntered across the lot towards his motorcycle which was engulfed beneath a pumpkin orange glow from the overhead lights that just about made the silhouette of his vehicle visible, it being one of the few vehicles left he wasn't left second-guessing whether he'd approached the right bike. He gathered his helmet from the top box and firmly planted it on his dampened head, slightly squashing the ponytail as he did so. Steve backed out of his parking space and shot a quick wave to his buddy preceding the gentle rolling towards the electric security gates and vanishing into the frigid night. Bucky soon followed suit.

After a sedate and somewhat peaceful ride, he tiredly stumbled into his dark apartment, flicking the light switch upon entry. He was extremely tempted to throw himself on his couch and just pass out from exhaustion but he decided against it and ran himself a scorching bath. It was one of his pleasures that he'd try to add into his daily ritual as much as possible as a suggestion on his therapist's behalf. As he ambled through his apartment, the floorboards that creaked were amplified due to the quietude of the night causing him to blench in hopes that his grouchy downstairs neighbours wouldn’t complain like they always did whenever he would do as much as just walk through his home. Not later than the bath reached the point of overflowing, Bucky turned off the taps. He was already sweating from the steam permeating through the air. He left his metal arm on his bedsheets beside his fresh sweat pants and t-shirt he planned on wearing once he cleaned himself prior to completely stripping and sliding into the boiling, soapy tub. He gasped out of satisfaction as he submerged himself beneath the bubbly water. Every single muscle in his body that was previously aching was now throbbing out of pure relief. It was a dull ache but one he enjoyed nonetheless. Bucky was scared of the blackness that would shroud him when he would always close his eyes.

For the majority, closing one's eyes is meant to be a form of escapism - you close your eyes when you don't want to see something. However, it was contradictory for him. Whenever he closed his eyes the gutwrenching sickening feelings would emerge from the darkness and deepest parts of his mind and provoke him, tormenting him beyond the point of sanity. He was afraid and often would become inconsolable. Despite this, he shut his eyes and sank fully submerged himself beneath the sweltering water in an attempt to allow the uncomfortable prickling of the heated water to distract his mind, and it worked for a while. It wasn't long before he resurfaced, throwing his head back with a throaty grunt. Face cerise and rather sore, he let the tub nestle into the curve of his neck as he relaxed back taking deep breaths which filled his lungs with the humid, steamy air. Despite the unrelenting urge to reopen his eyes, they were firmly shut. Faint and vague swirls of different colours materialized from the gloom and the wearisome irritation of his eyes finally got the better of him. Needless to say, the mindfulness and the tranquillity of his brain did not last long.

Single fragments of his past hurtled back at terrifying speeds and replayed in his mind similarly to if a record got stuck. He felt like a prisoner in his own head and reliving the memories was his form of mental torture and anguish. Albeit being an involuntary and detested part of his daily life, he heard screams of which were not his own. A woman, agonizingly screeching with a hoarse growl. It was bloodcurdling and nauseating to even begin to imagine what she was going through. Her face made a swift appearance before everything became too mentally exhausting and overwhelming.Quicker than one could blink, his eyes shot open and his body flailed in one swift motion as he awoke. Water from the now moderately cold bath had now been propelled all over the tile floor. His chest heaved desperately as he attempted to steady his breath out of sheer panic, though he was so focused on his respiration that he hadn’t even realised that the power had gone out and everything was enveloped in darkness. The only thing lighting his apartment was the moonlight peering through his windows which was ever so slightly concealed by his slatted blinds. Slowly but surely, Bucky managed to drag himself from the uncomfortable water and stumbled around in the shadows to find a towel, promptly wrapping it around his wettened skin.

Chilly droplets descended from Bucky’s water-logged hair and slid down his back, sending shivers down his spine as he traipsed to his bedroom where he hurriedly got changed. Although his apartment was for the most part barren, he did have most of the essential furniture; luckily enough one of his cabinets was home to some candles that he had laying around. A few scented, some just plain. He rummaged through the alder cupboards, pushing lofty piles of documents and paper, books, and boxes of trinkets aside to get to what he was looking for. He briskly lit a few of the candles with a match and lay them around his room because as much as he hated to admit it, the dark scared him. Evermore now that he’d frequently get haunting nightmares. He tucked himself beneath his cotton sheets and eventually fell back to sleep.

What felt like seconds but was only a few hours later, he awoke to the smell of burnt wick which momentarily panicked him before his eyes darted around his room and confirmed nothing had caught ablaze during the night. He felt groggy, swiping at his eyes, yawning and clambering out of his mattress completely calmed by the sound of birds tweeting as they perched on his windowsill. Taking his time, Bucky got ready and made a tea before heading back to the building he was just at only hours prior. It would be a complete fabrication if Bucky said she wasn't the last thing he thought of prior to closing his eyes, and was the first thing he thought of when he opened them. Completely succumbed to guilt and culpability due to the fact he couldn't intervene sooner, the ride to the facility had his stomach churning with anxiety and anticipation.

The fairly short journey he had yesterday now felt long and onerous. Bucky's broken hands twitched as he gripped the handlebars.In no time, the sound of the receptionist greeting the man, the clattering of keychains against various employees that would stride through the lobby, indistinct and distant chatter, it was unusually satisfactory. His eyes naturally drifted over towards the rather large monument that was the chrome SHIELD logo that overlooked the modern foyer. "Was expecting you to arrive a bit earlier I'm gonna be honest," Steve jested as he meandered towards the rugged gentleman, "but you're looking better," he admitted with his signature half-smirk. The two men stood out amongst the crowd of employees who were wearing debonair and unsullied suits as they were wearing considerably much casual attire. "I've actually got something to show you," Steve motioned as they headed towards the escalator, their shoes distinctively clicking against the polished and well-maintained brit stone floor.

To Bucky, it felt like Steve was leading him through a maze and was astonished that anyone would ever remember their way around the facility. The pair eventually turned down a quieter corridor but equally as sumptuous as the rest of the building, and found an empty meeting room and locked the door. The striking skyline was the first thing they were greeted with as the entire back wall was made out of glass: acres of green which were dappled with large concrete office buildings on the horizon were gleaming gold from the early morning sun. In contrast to the lighter walls, the office table and chairs were a harsh obsidian black although they still adhered to the charming yet insipid minimalistic theme. A brown folder with the words PRIVATE AND CONFIDENTIAL printed on it in red ink slid from Steve's hands and along the table, a soft smack as it hit the surface. "You shouldn't be looking at this but I pulled a few strings," he smiled once more as he watched Bucky's eyes enlarge out of a mixture of disbelief and curiosity, "so you owe me one, pal."

Bucky reached forward, pulling the folder with his extended fingers so it sat perfectly in front of him. To say he was anxious to open it was an understatement yet he was filled with so much hunger for comprehension of the situation, he was hoping for answers. He flipped the tab, revealing an extensive profile of the young woman he saw yesterday. He skimmed through as he gradually felt his stomach sink. "Neve Douglas, who also goes by the code name Echis, member of the Serpent Squad." Steve summarised as he pulled back one of the sleek chairs and seated himself. The room fell silent as Bucky redirected his gaze to Steve who was staring at his pal in a sorry manner, "I know this isn't what you thought, but it's for the better. You don't have to worry anymore."

Bucky hesitantly nodded as he looked back at the documents and thoroughly read through each sentence. As much as they weren't the answers he was expecting he knew Steve was correct, but there was a profound itch at the back of his brain that despite all of the information that was displayed in front of him, a tiny portion of him thought otherwise. "I saw her in my dream last night." Bucky softly announced, finally and delicately shutting the folder and pushing it towards Steve. "Uh, you know those nightmares I get," Steve nodded in acknowledgement, "I heard her screams," Bucky stated as the forlorn expression returned to Steve's face. A gentle sigh exited Steve's lips as he leisurely grasped the folder and leaned his back into the chair, "the information's right there Buck. I know you're constantly at war with your brain," he grimaced slightly, "but there's nothing to worry about. You need to focus on yourself pal. Take a break, I don't think that mission's done ya any good."

He stayed a while longer, catching up with Steve who attempted to lift his spirits. Afterwards, he strolled through the courtyard as he practised his introspective nature and reflected for a few hours before he reached a calm and headed out towards the city where he shopped for fresh fruit and vegetables. Bucky grabbed a bite of brunch: A freshly baked blueberry muffin with a strawberry lemonade which he grabbed from a small boho cafe just off Greenwich Avenue. Taking this time out of his day to just relax and review himself, he'd realised how much he'd worked himself up and gotten frustrated over nothing. He didn't beat himself up about it nonetheless, he rounded up his outing and decided to head home.

The sirens which were wailing were soon hushed as the doors to the apartment stairwell shut with a thud and a strident creak. He nonchalantly climbed the steps; his plastic bag of fresh groceries rustling against his leg, each step hitting the icy concrete steps with a thud that echoed through the barren and dingy flight of stairs. Every day he'd have to squeeze past someone loitering amongst the stairs whilst they smoked a cigarette or drank and today was no exception. As he reached his floor he pulled out his keys and looked up to see someone stood at his door, banging with all their might. Upon further inspection, he noticed it was his elder downstairs neighbour. With the energy she was using it wouldn't be a complete shock if she ceased and perished right in front of him due to exhaustion. "Can I help you?" Bucky curiously asked with a furrowed brow, the petite senior lady recoiled out of surprise as she swivelled on the spot and let out an exasperated sigh. "I've been trying to do my crosswords this afternoon but I can't because whoever you've got in there will not stop stomping around!" She exclaimed with a thick and moderately sonorous Brooklyn accent, her silvery grey hair bouncing as she angrily shook. His eyes shifted between the short woman and his door several times before a frown eventually landed on his lips. "I'm sorry," Bucky uttered out plainly despite wanting to say a lot more however he was taught to respect his elders. "You're no better either always waking up my pissin' cat! Get some manners will ya," She retorted with a glower and hobbling past Bucky's tall stature and steadily descending the stairs.

Bucky stared at his door for a few seconds wondering who was making all the racket that was abhorred by his neighbours, but he shook his head and fumbled with the keys as he stood and attempted to unlock the dilapidated and stained door and was curious as to what Steve was doing. After all, he was the only other person with keys that had access to his apartment. The lock clicked finally after very aggressive twisting and pushing to get it to turn, Bucky thrust the door open prior to him being greeted by his whole apartment being upturned. Reluctantly he stepped in and observed the mess; cupboard doors opened and packets of food strewn across the tiled kitchen floor, mattress aggressively ripped from the bed and bedsheets inspected. Everything out of place and tarnished. MASTERLIST

#marvel #mcu #bucky barnes #james buchanan barnes #bucky barnes fanfic #bucky barness x oc #bucky barnes fanfiction #mcu x oc #bucky x oc #steve rogers

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