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papasbaseball · 8 months

Text

His Office of Propriety (Papa Emeritus IV x Reader)

+18 CONTENT NOT FOR MINORS. MINORS KEEP SCROLLING

Pairing: Papa Emeritus IV x F!Reader

Rating: Explicit

Warnings: All the warnings. Dubcon bordering on Noncon, Knives, Blood, Mention of Torture, Violence, Clothes Cutting, Rough Sex, No Aftercare, Office Sex and Boss/Employee dynamic.

Summary: Furious from a meeting where he is cut off financially by the clergy, Papa Emeritus IV takes his frustrations out on his assistant. He doesn’t know yet that his loyal assistant had more reasons to be loyal than just a paycheck. Too bad loyalty does not soothe anger and a wounded ego. She will have to learn from her mistakes the hard way.

Word Count: 3,470

Notes: READ THE WARNINGS. Translations are at the end.

AO3 Link

"Maledetta puttana del cazzo!" The door slams so hard you thought the bricks around it would come crumbling down. His brow hoods his mismatched eyes as Italian venom continues to pour from his lips. Barreling towards you, he looks like a bull that had been speared by a matador, his jacket as red as the fatal cape.

"Pap-"

"You think you can run your fucking mouth, hm?" Unable to look at him, your pen shakes as you try to go back to underlining an important number—it had to be important, must be important—for his upcoming quarterly meeting with the clergy. He snatches the pen and tosses it across the room. "Run your mouth now. What did you tell Sister Imperator?"

"I didn't-"

"But you did. Do you want to know how I know?"

Your whole body is shaking. Rage tries to escape the heavy paint on his face, reddening a patch of skin on his neck where the paint had rubbed off. His eyes are wild, lit red in the shimmering fire of that jacket. He snatches you by the back of your shirt out of your chair, the stitches on your chiffon blouse ripping barely audible above his ragged breathing. “No, Papa! No!”

“Only you knew! Now I am leashed!” The soft cotton of his glove wraps around your throat and he slams you so fast to the wall that one of his framed accolades falls, glass shattering with a pop. “I trusted you and you violated my trust, dolce.”

The pet name makes you whimper. It’s new and so perfectly wrong with how mad he is. You had fantasized about him calling you all kinds of pet names, but never like this. He would be on the phone, thinking you were too busy logging receipts and making appointments. You would watch his brow knit together as someone told him about plans for the new tour and you'd think of you and him curled up in his bed on a Sunday morning - nowhere to go, nothing to do- just the two of you. You imagined how he’d play with your hair and call you every beautiful diminutive under the sun, kissing and touching and fucking. You'd dream until he hung up the phone.

His lips twitch into a smile that would make Satan himself shiver. “Did you do it to make me mad, dolce?” He drags out the e in a gravelly tone. He slides his hand up to where your jaw meets your neck, pinning you to the wall like one of his accolades.

“P-Please,” you choked under the grip of his glove, “I would never try to make you mad. I'm sorry.” Tears stung your eyes as he pressed harder.

He throws you to the ground, the carpet stinging your palms and knees. Your back arches as you try again to stop thinking about him fucking you, here on all fours, in the middle of his office of propriety. The glass from the frame crunches as he steps around you to search for something in his desk. “Let me tell you about my day, dolce. Maybe it will jog your memory, hm?” You stay silent. “I finished my meeting with Sister Imperator and Papa Nihil at 4 o'clock - you know this, ma certo, you put it in my calendar.” His voice is calmer now, more measured. It's enough to make your bones grow cold. “She called this meeting for a very important reason, dolce. Do you know why?”

You shook your head, not wanting to anger him further with your words. Looking up, you see that he is holding up a pocket knife that he found in the drawer.

He sucked his teeth. “You are a very bad assistant, sending me into traps like this.” He holds the knife up to the sunlight streaming through the windows, watching as the glint glides back and forth. Your stomach churns and your legs beg you to run. Moving only millimeters at a time, you crawl towards the door. “I will tell you,” he says, continuing to search his drawer, knick-knacks knocking about, “Sister says to me ‘Copia, I’m cutting you off.’ This is news, yes? I ask her why. She says, ‘The clergy did not approve your new vestments.’”

Shit. It is starting to come together now. It was a passing conversation you had in the hall with Imperator the day the new vestments came in. You had told her just how regal he looked in them, leaving out how your heart raced when your fingers glided down the silky brocade that felt so good over his solid chest. You had dreamt of him fucking you that night, the fine fabric bunching over the small of your back, him so desperate to finally have his assistant that he couldn't even bother to take the damned thing off. You move more quickly toward the door.

"You see, dolce, that is when I knew. Only you had seen them. Only you had access to my receipts. They were supposed to be a surprise."

The door is within reach when the sole of his boot connects with your back and presses until you crack. Your elbows buckle and the floor comes up to knock the wind from you. He kicks you in the ribs to face up, but it’s the knife that has you scrambling backward, the carpet biting into your rug-burned palms once again. You try to ignore the heat in your core marbling with the fear in your stomach.

“Please, Papa!” “They cut me off. You need to be taught a lesson.”

“No, please Papa. I’m sorry, I’m stupid!" It's coming up and you can't stop it "I kept thinking about how good you looked in them and I was daydreaming.” The tears are pouring down your face. Was he going to cut your tongue out? Was he going to kill you? The room spun and you wanted nothing more than to pass out. Let this nightmare end and go back to the sweet dreams of him and you in that bed on a Sunday morning. “I shouldn’t have opened my mouth,” you sob, “but Sathanas has cursed me to think of you every night and my mind is not sane.”

You see the glint of one of his canines and he laughs.

“The little lamb has developed a crush on her shepherd, has she?” His knee had pushed up your skirt and you realize just how firmly it was pressed against your aching cunt. A nudge is all it takes for you to rock your hips against it like the pathetic infatuated creature you are, cooing in misery. You want to die, but you need him to keep going, and all you can do is whimper.

He presses the blade against your throat. “Use your words, dolce: Do you think of me when you touch yourself?” Sick satisfaction highlights those painted lips. You know the answer, you just can’t say it. The blade presses harder and the pain gushes them forward.

“Yes, Papa! Only you. Every night.” He hums seemingly with pride.

“Good girl. And how do you touch yourself?” The blade prompts you again with a bite.

“Ah! With my hands, Papa. I imagine they’re yours. I think about how good your cock would feel when I fuck myself with my fingers.”

“The assistant dreams of her Papa’s cock, is that right?” His knee grinds into your pussy and you have hope for a brief moment, hope that he wants this too and that he wants to see you writhe in ecstasy. It’s not in his bed, tangled in his arms and the sheets, but he might let you cum if you’re good.

“I can’t stop thinking about it.”

The knife pulls off your throat and you cry as he stands up, your dark desire craving the pressure of his leg. He runs a hand through his disheveled hair and points the knife to your cheek. "Beg."

"What?"

"Beg for my cock. Beg for me to use your worthless pussy."

"Papa-" The knife nicks the apple of your cheek and you yelp.

"Do it."

You swallow hard on your tears. The words that he wants to hear are turning your cheeks redder than the blood blooming forth from the knife. "Please let me have your cock, Papa."

“Do you think you deserve it? Do you think you have earned it when you can’t even keep your mouth shut?” He cracks you hard across the face with his palm, the gloves muting the slap.

Turning your head back to look into his eyes breaks you. You can see the faint glimmer of pain for the first time, how you’ve truly hurt and disappointed him behind all that rage. What good were you, the person he was supposed to be able to trust with his secrets, if you told them to anyone? The disappointment chokes your voice. “Please. Let me earn it. Let me earn you.”

He unlaces his pants, never breaking eye contact, and frees himself from their ripped confines. The knife ghosts down your cheek until it tips your chin up to look up at him. Any warmth in those mismatched eyes is now gone, replaced with sadistic want. “Worship me, troia senza valore.”

His cock is already half hard and looks too big to fit in your mouth. You place a hand on his leg to steady yourself, but he quickly swats it off. “Did I say you could touch me?”

“No, P-”

“Suck.” The knife guides you to the thick head, your lips trembling. You can’t help but to open your mouth as the bead of precum touches your lips, eager for the salt of him. His hand is in your hair quicker than you can realize and Copia is guiding you down the length of him. Your jaw aches as it struggles to wrap around his girth. You give up and relax the muscles, letting yourself drool like a mindless animal. He hisses out a stream of Italian you’d never heard before. In your pitiful heart, you hope that he is praising your mouth. You hope that he is telling you how hot and tight it is, how it's the best mouth he's ever had. Daring a glance up, you see that he isn’t even looking at you.

Steadying your hands behind your back, you take the initiative and hollow your cheeks while looking up at him in defiance. He looks down on you, smug as ever.

“Is my office slut finally ready to behave and cooperate? It is clear that I need to retrain you.” He guides your head faster and harder, occasionally touching the back of your throat. “Would you like that?” You don’t dare nod and break his rhythm, only batting your eyes up at him in agreement.

He pushes further and further until you are gagging on him. "Ah ah. Look at me. You will take it all, capisci?"

Digging your nails into your palm, you push yourself onto him again, trying to angle your head so you wouldn't choke again. That's enough. It will be enough. When you go to pull off he holds you head down on him. You choke and sputter, desperate for air as the pressure in your head pushes you closer and closer to passing out.

“That is a good girl. This is a very important lesson, no? Holding your breath, so you don’t spill my secrets again.”

You’re sure you’re on the precipice of unconsciousness when he finally pulls out. The deep gasps send sharp pangs to your lungs. Each breath hurts so bad, but the high they give you, oh the high. Your thighs tremble to hold yourself up. Something in your arms is begging for you to grab on and cling to his legs. Don't. The smack from earlier still stings under your skin. This is his office. His rules. You’re finally able to look up at him through your watery mascara stained eyes.

His thumb comes down to wipe away a mascara tear track. "So pretty. You are the prettiest when you follow my rules. Obedience looks good on you, dolce."

You lean into his sweet hand. The affection, even after choking you with his cock, is enough to make you cry tears of joy.

"Mi dispiace, Papa. Thank you for the lesson."

"I did not say we were finished." His fingers twist your hair, dragging you up to your feet and over to the red velvet divan. As he guides you to lay down on it, the fabric brushes and cradles your skin with the plush luxury. “A lesson must be permanent.” The knife is at the ready again and you can see the edge stained red with your blood.

The wind is crushed out of you once more in a horrible sob. “Please Papa. I’ve learned my lesson. Please.”

He is quick, slicing through the chiffon and pearl buttons with his knife. It is another cut in the series of slashes he has already made to your ego. You think about how you saved for so long to buy that blouse on your monthly ministry outing and how you’d picked it out just for him. There isn’t even enough time to process the loss before he has cut the straps and the front of your bra open, spilling your breasts out for him. “Ecco. This is much better, no?” You try to cover up, but he nicks a cut into your arm in response. “You will not cover up what is mine. If I wanted you to cover up, I would have told you.”

He slashes through your skirt but leaves your pantyhose untouched. The chill of the office air already has you shivering and your nipples puckering into hardened buds. “This is your new dress code, pet. Since I will be wearing less clothing because of you, so will you. As above, so below.”

“Yes, Papa.”

“Why did you do it?”

You hadn’t seen that question coming. Five little words and you can’t look at him. You can feel your slick leaking out to soak the inner thighs of your pantyhose. He tilts your face back to face him with the knife and you can see his cock is leaking precum again. “I did it because I was too busy thinking about wanting to fuck you,” you mumble.

“Maybe I should fuck you with my knife if you want me that bad.” The knife pierces the soft skin of your cheek.

The blood drains from your face and your body screams again to run for the door. If you did that he would shove the blade right through your pantyhose, mangling the soft wet flesh. The thought made your skin crawl and tears burst from your eyes.

“Please, Papa, anything but that. Please don’t hurt me.”

“I must hurt you in some way, pet. It is the only way you’ll learn. Daydreaming has become a bad habit for you.” His face and tone are sympathetic but his words are pure cruelty.

You sob even harder knowing that he can do whatever he wants to you, there is no escaping this room without the consequences.

“You must be a brave pet for your, Papa, d’accordo? I will let you choose where I hurt you if I am satisfied with how you please me.”

You want to please him. If you obey, maybe he will rethink his punishment. “Can I have the knife please?”

You’re so weak he doesn’t think twice. He places the blade in your hand curiously.

“I can be brave.” You slide the knife down the front seam of the hosiery, watching as the threads spring back with eagerness, exposing your soaked panties for him. It is a little more difficult, but you wiggle the blade from hip seam to hip seam across the front of the white soaked cotton. “For you, Papa. I can’t leave now.”

His lips are on yours, as he presses you further into the sofa. It’s real and your heart is beating overtime as he slips his tongue greedily into your mouth. His. His. His. He is claiming you as his. You moan and rock your hips up against him, desperate to feel him take you fully.

He takes his cock and teases it up and down your slit. Once. Twice.

“Papa, please.”

“How long have you wanted this, pet?”

“Since the fir- aah!” He’s sinking so quickly inside you that you can’t help but to clench around him. His eyes burrow into you, speaking to the undeniable fact that you are so thoroughly his and he knows it. He watches you intently, pushing and pushing until he bottoms out.

“Use your words, dolce.” He steadily pulls out again.

“Since the first day, Papa. Since I started working in your office.” He thrusts into you again and you cry in delight as he stretches you fully. It’s better than the daydreams. Little details you hadn’t even thought of like his warm breath against your collarbone, the way the sequins of his jacket lightly scratch their markings into the valley of your breasts, all become the focus of your attention as he fucks you for his pleasure.

“But you never did anything?”

“You’re Papa. I am just a sister of sin.”

“I am Papa.” He wraps his hand around your throat once more. “You are below me and you belong to me.”

The pressure builds in your head again and you drop the knife, the metal clattering on the floor. Your hands break your own rules as they claw at the soft leather of his sleeves. You’re not certain if it’s to pry him off or beg for more. His hips are now snapping into you at such a rapid pace, and occasionally they’ll catch in the right way, bruising your needy clit. The whimpering from you is uncontrollable.

It’s sooner than you want as he spills into you. All it would take is a few more thrusts for you to reach your own high, but he slips out of you and you can feel his unholy seed leaking from the gaping mess that he’s made you. Tears bud in your eyes, but it’s futile to ask.

He picks up the knife from the floor. “You learn quickly and I am satisfied. I will let you choose.”

“I want to make you happy, Papa. I have already upset you.” In truth you wanted it somewhere where it wouldn't hurt so much, like an arm, but you’re aching cunt wanted him to finish what he had started, and that meant making him happy.

His lips quirk up into a smirk. “You want your Papa to choose? Even after all of my punishment?”

You bite your lip, fighting the fear creeping in.

He takes the knife and guides it to the muscle of your thigh, pushing back the ripped edge of your pantyhose. You do your best to fight the pain, but still cry like a wounded animal as it slices through the skin. It’s like a paper cut on steroids, but it is over just as soon as it started. Five lines. The Roman numeral IV.

“You owe me, so now I own you.” He offers no remedy for the bleeding, simply getting up to put his knife away at his desk once more. Cleaning the blade, he collapses it and shuts the wooden drawer. “I expect you to be in the office 30 minutes early every day and you will stay 30 minutes late for the purposes of servicing me.” He tucks himself back into his pants, lacing them up like none of this had ever happened. “Since I now own you, I do not want you touching what is mine. Playing with yourself and fantasizing about me is what got you into this mess. You are only allowed to touch yourself when I tell you to, capisci?”

Your cunt drips at the thought of it belonging to him, contracting around the memory of the stretch of him. “Yes, Papa.”

“I will call for clothes so you can leave the office, but until then, get back to work. I have to make other plans for the tour.” He draws out the chair and is immediately punching buttons on the phone.

You get up in your cut pantyhose and underwear, walking back to your desk, mindful of the broken glass. The cold office air licks against your still hot skin and you almost slip your hands between your legs before you catch yourself. The pout creeps onto your face, but you look over to him, a ghost of how you used to daydream. He did say I would have to stay 30 minutes after. Maybe he’ll let me cum then… if I’m good.

TRANSLATIONS: "Maledetta puttana del cazzo!" - Damn fucking whore! dolce. - Sweet ma certo - But of course troia senza valore - worthless whore capisci? - Do you understand? Mi dispiace - I am sorry Ecco - There. d’accordo - Okay

#Evil Copia #the band ghost fanfiction #papa emeritus iv x reader #dark fic

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clotpolesonly · 2 years

Text

When Performance Matters

for @geekmom13 and the Stiles Shipping discord server’s Monthly Ficlet Exchange! in which Stiles wears the wrong slogan-ed t-shirt for his context, much to Danny’s exasperation 😂

(also on AO3)

Stiles whistled as he passed the front desk. Judging by the scowl the receptionist sent his way, he didn’t like the song, but Stiles wasn’t going to let that bring him down when super hot office sex was on the horizon. Well, probably. Danny wasn’t as inclined toward risk-taking as Stiles was, but the bag lunch in his hands contained nothing even vaguely kale-like, so Stiles figured his chances were good this time.

He bopped his way past a number of Danny’s coworkers, some of whom gave him grudging nods of acknowledgement and some of whom ignored him completely; all par for the course. By the time he finally arrived outside his boyfriend’s office door, Stiles was raring to go. Danny’s assistant didn’t tell him to cool his heels—though she did give Stiles a dirty look, not unlike the one the front desk guy had—so Stiles let himself in with words of enthusiastic consent already on his lips.

Danny looked up with a smile on his face, but it was immediately replaced with a very familiar expression that Stiles had long since titled Exasperation In Ab Minor. He didn’t even let Stiles finish with his very clever and seductive greeting.

“Seriously?” he cut in. “You wear that here? I thought you wanted my coworkers to like you.”

Stiles frowned down at himself. “These are my good jeans. No holes or anything. And they make my ass look great! You’re welcome.” He plunked the lovingly-prepared lunch down onto Danny’s desk with a flourish. “And besides,” he went on, “you’re the only one I need to like me. Which you do. I have it on good authority.”

Danny accepted the kiss Stiles offered even as he rolled his eyes. He was a multitasker like that. “Not the jeans, dumbass.”

“Then what?”

Danny let his eyes trail down Stiles’ chest, and not in the lasciviously appreciative way that Stiles had been hoping for. He raised his eyebrows with the utmost judgment. Stiles followed his eye-line to the logo and slogan on his t-shirt. They were faded, but not so faded that it made him look like a slob. A little suggestive, sure, but only for the dirty-minded among them, and if Danny’s coworkers read filth into innocuous things and then took offense to them, well, that was on them.

Stiles raised his eyebrows back.

With a sigh that sounded like it came from the depths of his being, Danny leaned back in his chair and snatched up the brown paper bag. He tore it open to reveal a grilled chicken sandwich and homemade banana chips—his favorite. His smile was as fond as it was unavoidable. He popped a banana chip into his mouth before pointing at Stiles’ shirt again.

“I’m just saying, it’s a ballsy choice.” He shook his head. “The VP’s boyfriend coming into the headquarters of a telecommunications company wearing a t-shirt supporting our biggest competitor. Kind of has some Benedict Arnold vibes.”

Stiles stared down at the shirt for another few seconds, and then he laughed. “Oh, that’s why Sydney gave me the stink-eye!”

Danny crunched another chip. “Why’d you think?”

Shrugging, Stiles invited himself to have a seat on the edge of Danny’s desk. Danny shoved the important things out of the way before his butt connected with the aplomb of someone who’d done that exact thing a thousand times before.

“Dude, I got this shirt from a thrift store, like, a decade ago,” Stiles informed him, still chuckling. “You think I had any reason to know what it was for before I started dating a techhead? I’ve been dating you for years and I still didn’t know what it was for! I just thought the slogan was funny.”

For When Performance Matters, in big bold letters across his chest. He’d joked many a time about how performance always matters. Danny had always rolled his eyes and made a quip back, usually a sarcastic commentary on Stiles’ performance, and never said anything about it being offensive to his ego on a professional level.

That wasn’t too surprising, though. If one were to look in the dictionary beside “level-headed” or “unflappable”, they would find Danny’s picture. Even now, he didn’t actually look bothered. In fact, there was a quirk to his lips that spoke of amusement as he grabbed Stiles by the thighs and dragged him down from the desk to his lap.

“You really don’t listen when I talk, do you?” he mused. “I’ve been bitching about XMA nonstop for the last three quarters, and you never put that together with the XMA t-shirt you’ve been wearing for your entire adult life?”

“I listen!” Stiles declared. “Yeah, XMA, with the…transistors and the 12G and the…stuff that does other stuff.”

Danny nodded gamely. “It’s 5G, but that was very convincing."

“Hey, I said that I listen, not that I retain.” Stiles stole the next banana chip out of Danny’s hand and chewed it defensively. “I don’t understand half the words that come out of your mouth anyway. I do a lot of nodding and smiling.”

“And you do it so well.”

Stiles let Danny kiss his pout away. It was hard to maintain when he could feel the grin on Danny’s lips. And he wasn’t actually mad—it wasn’t like Danny didn’t do plenty of blank-faced nodding and smiling of his own, especially when Stiles used him as a sounding board for one of his investigations. He was always happy to do some illicit tech wizardry when necessary, but the finer points of private investigation and all the intuitive leaps it required went over his head. Danny thought in ones and zeros and Stiles thought in conspiracy theories that usually turned out to be true. It all evened out in the end.

“You know,” Stiles murmured into the kiss, “I could take the shirt off. If it’s so offensive.”

Danny huffed a laugh, fingers tightening on Stiles’ thighs. “Oh?”

“It would be a professional courtesy.”

“I’m not sure Sydney would appreciate it.”

“I think the front desk guy would. You really should’ve seen the evil eye he gave me on the way in, I mean, woof. Honestly, babe, I feared for my life. I think it would only be reasonable, for the sake of my safety, if I did away with the offending garment and—”

Danny kissed him again, a bit deeper, but sadly he did not swipe all the papers off his desk and throw Stiles upon it like the heroine in a harlequin romance novel. He eased off with a teasing bite to Stiles’ lower lip and said, “You’re a menace, you know that?”

Stiles grinned. “So I’ve been told.” He swiped another of the banana chips and eeled his way out of Danny’s lap. “One of these days, office sex is gonna happen. Mark my words!”

Eyeing the wide wall of glass windows and the assistant’s desk right outside, where Sydney was typing away at her computer and studiously not looking in their direction, Danny shook his head. “It’s really not.”

“I keep telling you, Danny—blinds! Blinds are a thing that exist. They’re very cheap and easy to install, available in every hardware or home appliance store. We could set them up over the weekend, it would take twenty minutes, tops.”

With a groan, Danny crumpled up the brown paper lunch bag and threw it at him. “Get out before you get me written up by HR for indecent exposure.”

Stiles caught the projectile and threw it back. “You know, I think XMA is right? Performance does matter, Danny, and if you’re just worried that you won’t be able to perform to a reasonable standard, then I'm here to tell you that—”

Danny was up from the desk and across the room, pressing Stiles bodily up against that big wall of windows, before Stiles could finish his sentence. By the time Danny was done kissing him senseless, Stiles was panting and dazed and as close to speechless as he ever got. Danny pulled back to smirk at him with kiss-swollen lips, taking in his handiwork. He tugged pointedly on the hem of Stiles’ t-shirt to straighten it out.

“How was that for performance?”

Stiles swallowed and rallied what few brain cells he had left. “We can discuss it at your quarterly performance review. I think there are still a few areas where you could improve your—”

“Out,” Danny said again, close enough for his lips to graze the shell of Stiles’ ear.

Damn it, that was Stiles’ weakness and Danny knew it. If he didn’t want his walk of shame to include an obvious hard-on, now was the time to cut his losses. Sydney had gotten enough of an eyeful anyway to avert her gaze as he passed. Stiles couldn’t be bothered, not even when he got an even stronger dirty look from the front desk guy on his way out. Fuck that guy. This shirt was officially his new favorite.

#Stanny #Stiles Stilinski #Danny Mahealani #Teen Wolf #fics by me

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divine-mistake · 3 years

Text

this is our last stop, love — one.

Everyone knows you don’t leave the Organization. No one wants to anyway—until they do. Assassin AU.

Characters: Bucky Barnes/(f)Reader

Warnings: 18+ (no smut), mentions of death, guns, violence, mentions of suicide

Word Count: 3408

A/N: It's finally here! My baby is finally here!

SERIES MASTERLIST | AO3 | PLAYLIST

the place you exist you never call home, did you know that?

"More than anything, I want you to know that I love you. And I’m sorry."

The only beautiful thing about Neon City is that it’s lawless.

I’ve seen Neon City from the highest floor of the tallest skyscraper and I’ve seen it from the sewers so far underground you think you’ll suffocate, and this city looks the same from every single angle.

Fluorescent and dirty and lawless.

From up here, on the darkened roof of a crumbling hostel that’s been abandoned by everyone but the squatters ‘cause the walls have sucked up so many blood stains and bullet holes they’re threatening to collapse, the city looks exactly like that. The bright lights of Upperside pulse with every single color the universe could have created, tinting the darkness of the night like a kaleidoscope. Even on the eighteenth story, the thumping bass from the strip of clubs just a street over shakes the foundation underneath my feet.

Peering through the scope of the sniper positioned on the roof’s ledge, I zoom in on the street corner at the left-hand side of my vision with a lazy twist of my wrist. Two women, one with hair as dark as night that streams down her back like a river, the other with a short, platinum-dyed spiky cut, smoke rolled cigarettes. They’re dressed to the Neon City nines: a leather corset underneath a metallic jumpsuit unzipped below her belly button and a slinky dress paired with a buckled harness and knee-high platform boots. Leaning against a grimy street lamp with a busted bulb, it isn’t long before a man dressed in a white fur coat shows up, throws his arms around them, and walks them toward the nearest club.

When he adjusts his coat, it lifts just enough to reveal the assault rifle hanging from a shoulder strap. There’s a pistol just above the hem of the dark-haired girl’s dress, strapped to her thigh, only visible by the faint outline in the silk. I don’t even want to guess how much heat the other chick is packing; that hideous jumpsuit she’s got on is loose enough to hide an arsenal without suspicion.

In the distance, all the way from the Kill Zone, a rapture of gunshots goes off just louder than the EDM pouring from the strip. Or maybe it’s quieter down on the streets, air hazy with cloven smoke and threat of death. Maybe no one gives a fuck.

The ugly thing about Neon City is that it only has one law.

No one leaves Neon City. At least not alive.

A weak vibration against the inside of my left wrist, right above my pulse point, steals my eye from the scope. Fifteen minutes.

“Aren’t you supposed to be doing this?” I sit back on my haunches to glance at my partner.

“Why?” He’s laying flat on the roof, boots crossed at the ankle and an arm thrown over his eyes, not a care in the world. A prickling of annoyance makes its presence known at the back of my neck—not the first of the evening and certainly, definitely, unfortunately not the last.

“‘Cause you’re the sniper?” I hiss, but he only laughs quietly in response. The sleek black cuff that bumps against my radius flickers to life with one tap of my finger, an interface made of light projecting itself upon my forearm to show the countdown. Thirteen minutes.

“The World’s Best Sniper,” he corrects, sitting up with a grunt. His legs are sprawled over the dirty ground, black combat pants picking up a coating of dust that’s collected on the roof for what must’ve been ages.

I purse my lips. “World’s Laziest Sniper, you mean.”

“Hey, I resent that.” The heavy soles of his boots crunch gravel and grit beneath them, a grating sound, as he shifts over and bumps me out of the way. “Move.”

“Oh, now you want to do your job?”

Bucky doesn’t reply and it should make me feel better, but it only serves to annoy me further. I fold my legs underneath me and sit back to stare at the building across from us, the one he’s busy scoping out now, letting the irritation simmer through my veins as the cool air of the night rolls over my skin like toxic gas. The black stealth suit glued to my skin does nothing to keep the freezing air from chilling my bones. I envy Bucky’s tactical suit, the combat vest hugging his chest with all its bulletproof padding.

Not that it’s cold enough outside to hurt. Neon City is so alive with masses of squirming, sweaty bodies and drugs and guns and lights and music that I swear the air is always ten degrees hotter than it should be. I don’t even think the dead bodies stick around long enough to grow cold.

The buzz on the inside of my wrist alerts me.

“Ten minutes,” I say.

“God, you’re annoying.”

“How long have you known that?” I pick grit out from underneath my fingernails idly.

“Since the day I met you,” he mutters back. “When they told me you were my new partner, I almost choked one of the Exec’s out.”

I snort. “Which Executive?”

He doesn’t even glance over at me. “Not tellin’ you, snitch.”

My teeth grind together. He’s said it so easy, nonchalantly, like a joke, but it strikes a nerve in me that turns those prickles of annoyance into something more aggressive. Something that heats my blood. I’m not a snitch.

But everyone thinks I’m a little goody-two-shoes just ‘cause I’m on Pierce’s good side.

I take a deep breath and ignore him. “The mark is coming from Black Mamba—he’ll be here soon.” With a quick turn of my wrist, I check the time. “Eight minutes.”

“He own the place?” Bucky asks, twisting the scope and centering it on the fourteenth floor of the apartment building in front of us. The mark will arrive from the left side of the complex, just off the elevator, where the landing is lit with a soft yellow light. The glass windows give Bucky a perfect shot.

“Dunno,” I tell him honestly. “I didn’t read the file.”

Bucky’s head snaps back to look at me. “What?”

I recoil, eyes narrowing. “What?” I mimic. “What’s your problem?”

“You didn’t read the file? And you’re calling me lazy?”

“Calm down.” I wave him off, but he doesn’t turn away from staring at me, his eyes narrowed into a glare. “I read enough of his file to know when and where and how he’s arriving, as usual, so don’t get your panties in a twist. You do your job, I’ll do mine. As usual.”

It’s like I can hear the blood vessels in his neck pop and burst as his jaw tightens.

“Your job is to read the dossier,” he grits through clenched teeth. “The whole dossier. On every single mark.”

A new surge of anger rushes through me, drowning out the loud cacophony of the city beneath us. My fingers twitch and flex, heat pooling in my palms like an itch that needs scratching. Bucky Barnes, out of all people, shouldn’t be sitting here treating me like a goddamn child. Calling me annoying, calling me a snitch, calling me out for not wanting to read a full case file on a man who deserves to die.

I have to twist my fingers in the thin material of my stealth suit to keep my hands busy.

“I don’t need to know a single thing about these marks besides how to kill them,” I say, voice low, and Bucky presses his lips together. “He’s on our list for a reason. I don’t need, nor want, to know why.”

Bucky scoffs, blowing a stray lock of hair out of his eyes. “You really don’t want to know what he’s done to get the Org’s attention? To get a contract?”

The image of the stacks of files piling up on Pierce’s desk, threatening to fall over and collapse, worms its way into my head. Only a week ago I had seen the brown folders collecting in his office, strewn about his shelves, all filled with names and numbers and photos of people who need to be eliminated.

They’re all bad. I’m not going to sit around and read a dossier about what they’ve done; whose blood stains their hands for money or for fame or for shits and giggles and fucks. If Bucky wants his reading material to be covered in a thorough coating of Neon City squick, then by all means, he can read their files.

Not me, though. I just need to know how to kill them.

“No,” I answer honestly. “I don’t want to know.”

He shakes his head, like he’s disappointed in me, and his eyes fall on the apartment complex again. “Part of our job is reading those dossiers, y’know.”

Embarrassment spreads through me, the heat of an anger that threatens to boil over flooding my synapses. It’s like he’s scolding me. Like he’s insinuating that I can’t—that I’m not doing my job right. It makes my palms start itching again so bad that I curl my fingers into a tight, shaking fist.

“The only people who read the full files are the ones who don’t trust the Organization,” I snap, and Bucky’s neck nearly breaks from the speed at which he turns to look at me.

Like you, I let go unsaid.

From far away, but still close enough to send a shiver up my spine, the rattle of Neon City’s train tracks hits me as the cars speed past Upperside, never slowing, never stopping. If I look off into the distance, peer down past the rest of the skyscrapers blocking the view, I bet I could see it making its rounds, a black bullet rocketing through the brightly-lit city night, its horn never braying.

The black band on my wrist vibrates. “Three minutes.”

Bucky opens his mouth, closes it, and stares at me. His eyes look black tonight. With another shake of his head—in disappointment or frustration, I’m not sure—he pulls his goggles down from his hairline and sets them in place as he looks away from me. He palms his sniper rifle, back to adjusting the scope, and my hands are still shaky with a fury I didn’t think would rupture from inside me tonight.

“I don’t get how we’ve worked together for years and I never knew you didn’t read the files,” he grunts.

“‘Cause we’re killers,” I spit, “not Birdies. I don’t need to sit and read a dossier to know how to kill a man.”

He snorts. “Not Birdies,” Bucky mutters sardonically. “As if we don’t skirt the law the same way they all do.”

That’s the problem with being lawless. All the gray. Bucky might think we’re like the Birdies—the cops and the corpos and the politicians who walk around like they’re untouchable, like they’ve got a Get Out of Jail Free card in their pocket—but Neon City doesn’t have laws for people like us. All Neon City’s got is a morality scale weighted by cash. Neon City doesn’t care about the Organization.

‘Cause the Organization is who’s really in charge of this city. We’re the ones who keep the streets clean of Birdies, like tonight’s mark, for the right price.

“That’s him,” I say, nodding my head at the black car that just pulled up to the front of the apartment complex, disappearing around the corner we can’t see from our angle. “One minute.”

“Damn, you’re annoying,” Bucky says again, and he pulls his mask up from where it hangs around his neck, covering the rest of his face.

“Shut up and do your fucking job.”

Everything goes quiet and I shift forward, laying flat on my stomach beside Bucky. About the only time that he ever goes quiet is when he’s behind a scope—my favorite place to have him. In the darkness, Bucky looks like nothing more than a shadow. Dark hair, dark clothes, dark mask. But in the artificial highlights of Neon City, I could almost paint him as a god, with streaks of bright, holocene colors slicking through his hair like an oil spill.

He looks like a killer. A Neon City native.

But I guess I am too, since I’m right here next to him.

There’s only the slight squeak of the scope that Bucky adjusts and adjusts and fucking adjusts, whether in nervousness or in necessity, and the hammering of my heart as we watch the apartment complex from our vantage point. Bucky can probably see the numbers on the elevator as they light up, signaling our mark’s arrival. I don’t get much special equipment like he does with his sniper’s visor. All I have is my C-Link wrapped tight around my wrist as it buzzes with alerts. Infiltrators never get much—occupational hazards and all that. The Org never knows how long an infiltrator will last.

And even after a decade of doing this, of lying prone on rooftops watching Bucky aim for a mark’s forehead, of dressing in a disguise that isn’t my own to sit on the lap of a greasy-haired gang leader with rings on each finger, of slipping poison in my own drink and hoping its effects won’t just take my target—

Even after all these years, I still get nervous before the kill.

“Thirty seconds,” I murmur under the cacophony of Neon city and the twisting of Bucky’s scope, more for myself than for him.

“Can you stop staring at me?” he answers back, and a spark of irritation shoots up my arms like my nerves are on fire.

“I’m not staring at you anymore,” I hiss. “Please, for the love of god, concentrate.”

His voice is smug. “So you admit you were staring at me?”

“God no.”

Then, suddenly silence drapes itself upon us like a cold, tense air as the mark steps off the elevator Bucky has been watching. The bodyguard who flanks him is too relaxed, moving too languidly, and I can tell, even from a distance, that he barely glances out the big glass windows that we use to peek into their lives like a little kid pressing their face to a fishbowl.

A mistake like that is fatal.

“Count me in, sweetheart,” Bucky says, and I can’t help but scoff.

“A second ago you were telling me that it was annoying.” My eyes track the position of the mark as he speaks to someone—another one of his guards—on the landing just outside his apartment.

“I changed my mind. C’mon, doll, for good luck.”

“Yeah, alright Barnes. Like you need any luck.”

The countdown is quiet, breathy, and feels like a rollercoaster crashing straight into my stomach as Bucky squeezes the trigger and the shot rings out, deafening, the glass shattering upon impact, blood spilling all over the white tiling beneath the mark’s feet as he staggers back into the arms of his closest bodyguard, yellow light illuminating his dying face from so far away.

Easy. Quick.

Always so quick.

Then Bucky’s hand, a little warm from his hold on his rifle, is pressing down on my head and forcing me to duck down. We lay there for a few seconds, with only his gun between us, listening carefully for the sounds of someone rushing the building. My cheek is pressed against the cold, dirty surface of the roof, staring at Bucky as we wait the last few minutes.

When he’s sure that no one is coming after us, Bucky pulls his mask back down and shoves his goggles up through his hair, catching some of the chestnut strands in the straps.

His blue eyes flick up to meet mine and he flashes me a smug grin. “See?”

I snort. “Yeah, okay. So you did need the extra luck.”

“Hey.” He frowns dramatically, and I almost crack a smile.

“World’s Best Sniper my ass.”

Bucky breaks into a laugh at that, chuckling softly as he shifts onto his knees and grabs his rifle. A giggle nearly slips through my lips in tune with his own. He props himself up on his elbows to peer over the ledge of the roof one more time. I turn my wrist inward to check my C-Link, swiping past the map of our area to scroll over to the mark’s file. His bio-feedback uploads directly to my Link and a red word projects over the dark sleeve covering my forearm, blinking brightly.

DECEASED.

“Clear,” Bucky declares and I nod my head in agreement, the interface of my Link disappearing as I twist my arm.

Good job, I want to tell him. My lips feel sewn shut and my tongue is dry.

Instead, I watch as he takes apart the pieces of his rifle, slowly, carefully, fluidly. The hands that know where to shove a knife to neutralize a target, that know how to keep still in order to pull a hair trigger and still take the recoil, those hands know how to take apart each intricate section of his gun without hesitation. As if he’s on autopilot, Bucky unscrews each part and packs them in a padded case with a delicacy I only ever see him exert on firearms.

Maybe he uses such care when handling his weapons because he wishes someone would use such care when handling him.

Bucky’s always said he’s just a weapon, too.

In the background, the rattling of the train tracks bursts through the stagnant air of Neon City yet again. This will be its last circuit through Upperside for a while, making its way down to the Lowerside to loop around the gutters of the city instead. And by the time it comes back our way, we’ll be far enough away that the rumbles of the cars won’t vibrate through the concrete. In fact, on the top floor of the Org’s high rise, the black train is but a speck of speeding lights, nearly invisible.

I roll onto my back, the roof hard on my spine, cold seeping through the thin fabric of my stealth suit. The faint clink of fiberglass fades and is replaced by a snap of metal and the click of a lock as Bucky presumably closes the case to his rifle. Above me, the sky is as black as the train that rockets through the city, dark and unending.

“You haven’t always lived in Neon City,” I mention, hearing Bucky’s combat boots shuffle toward me.

“Yeah,” he says, but there’s something hesitant in his voice. He doesn’t offer anything more, and I breathe in the smoky, dusty air, my eyes searching every corner of the sky that I can see for something—for anything.

But there’s nothing there.

“What do the stars look like?” I ask him quietly. On the edges of my vision, the glowing lights of the nightclubs below us tint everything in red and blue and pink and purple, so bright, so sickening, and it drowns everything in the vicinity. I wonder if there’s a sky out there, somewhere, that can’t be drowned.

‘Cause Bucky might not truly be a Neon City native—and fuck him for that—but he’ll never leave it now.

And I’ll never know why Bucky traded a sky filled with stars for a city born of blood.

He never answers, and I never expect him to. Instead, Bucky’s hand appears in front of my eyes, his calloused fingers reaching out for me. And when I put my cold hand in his warm grasp, he locks our fingers together tightly, and a spark ignites when our palms meet as if my mind is still asking to see the sky light up, electric.

As easy as he pulls a trigger, Bucky pulls me up from where I lay on the roof. His arm slips around my waist to hold me as I gain my footing, and he’s so fucking warm it makes me shiver in response, but when I look up to meet his gaze, he tugs his hand out of mine and drifts away. Without a word, Bucky grabs his weapon case and nods toward the open hatch where a ladder leads us back down to the eighteenth floor.

“C’mon,” he says. “Let’s get out of here.”

No one leaves Neon City alive—and that’s usually why no one chooses to arrive.

#bucky barnes #bucky barnes x reader #bucky barnes x you #bucky barnes fanfic #bucky barnes series #enemies to lovers #bucky barnes angst #assassin au #assassin!reader #this is our last stop love #thanks for supporting me!

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mushroomlupin · 3 years

Text

Keeping Promises

Pairing: steve x avenger!reader (reader's gender isn't mentioned!)

Summary: steve's going on a dangerous mission and you can't go with him, so you make him promise that he'll return

Requested: yes or no (please feel free to send in some requests!)

Warnings: mentions of making out, brief mentions of wounds

Word Count: 1,633

Masterlist & Ao3

You were panicking. Steve was going on a dangerous mission tomorrow, and as the newest addition to the Avengers, you weren't allowed to go.

"But everyone else is going," you'd practically begged Tony the day prior.

"Exactly, therefore, we don't need you."

You rolled your eyes. You knew this was a useless argument; Stark wouldn't let you go no matter what.

He let out a sigh, bringing a hand to rest on your shoulder. "I'm sorry, kid. We just can't risk you going on a mission like this. Not yet." He gave you an empathetic look before walking away, leaving you to drown in your disappointment.

There were two reasons you wanted to go on this mission. The first was to prove to the others—and the world as a whole, really—that you really were a true Avenger. And the second was to make sure that Steve would be okay.

Steve was the one who had really made an effort with you when you had joined them. The others were friendly as well, of course, but Steve was...different.

When the two of you passed each other in the compound, he’d always say hello to you and ask how you’re doing. When you were reading in the compound library by yourself, he’d take a seat across from you and ask about your book. And when you trained together, he would give you constructive criticism: “Good, but a little more force this time, okay?”

You couldn’t forget the time when you were up at midnight making tea in the kitchen. Steve couldn’t sleep that night either, coincidentally, and headed to the kitchen to get himself a glass of water. When he entered the room, noticing the light was on, he froze at the sight of you. You were dressed simply in an oversized flannel and thick, wool socks. You turned around at the sound of his footsteps, flushing when you saw Steve’s figure. You couldn’t help but notice the sweat stains on his fitted cotton shirt.

“Nightmare?” you blurted.

His eyebrows furrowed. “How’d you know?”

You gestured to his shirt. He looked down at himself, his cheeks tinting red at your observation.

“What about you?” he asked, walking towards you and leaning his back against the kitchen island.

You grabbed a box of tea bags from a cabinet and held it up to him. Sleepytime, the tea was called.

“Can’t sleep.”

He nodded, watching as you grabbed a tea bag and dropped it into a mug. You turned around once more.

“You want some?”

He shook his head. “No, thanks. I’m not much of a tea person.”

Your eyebrows rose. “Really?”

“Yeah, I never really have been,” he shrugged.

You faced him, leaning your elbows on the opposite side of the island.

“What do you do when you can’t sleep, then?” you teased. “Drink warm milk?”

He rolled his eyes, pushing off of the island and grabbing the box of tea.

“Fine. Just this once, I’ll have some.”

He grabbed a tea bag as you went to grab another mug. When you handed the mug to him, he took it from you and dropped his tea bag inside. The kettle began to whistle, alerting you to turn the burner off. You poured the boiling water carefully into the two mugs.

“Do you have nightmares often?” you asked him softly.

He nodded. “Yeah, but I think everyone else here does too.” He grabbed his mug and blew into the steaming cup. “It’s hard, you know, constantly being in these situations. There are times when you can’t save everyone and you have to watch innocent people die, and you’re somehow supposed to feel like you did good enough. It makes me feel like a monster sometimes.”

You frowned. “You are not a monster, Steve.”

“How can you be so sure?” He put his mug down and rested his elbows against the countertop, rubbing at his temples.

You hesitated. You weren’t sure exactly what to say or do. The last thing you wanted was to offend or upset him somehow.

“Those words are coming from a man whose weapon of choice is a shield,” you put your own mug down to place the entirety of your attention on him. “Steve, you are a good person. You’ve chosen a job that allows you to fight for what’s right, to fight for the good in this world. You fight for people’s safety. Bad people do bad things, and you can't blame yourself for not saving a small number of people when you save as many as you possibly can. You can only do so much, after all.”

He looked up at you, his lips softly turning upwards.

“Thank you, Y/n.”

Thinking about this memory made your heart flutter. It felt like such an intimate moment between you two. It brought you closer, made it easier to talk about things on your mind and joke with each other.

It was the night before the mission—Steve would set out at dawn with the others onto a jet. You were crunched for time, but you needed to find him. Luckily, you knew exactly where to look.

He was in the training room, holding his suit in his hands—most likely thinking about the dangers he was going to face within a few hours.

“Hey,” you announced your presence.

He turned to you, giving you a soft smile as he set his suit down into a folded pile.

“What are you doing here?” he asked, taking a seat on a bench.

You seated yourself next to him. “I wanted to see you before you left tomorrow.”

He chuckled. “Yeah, I doubt you’ll be awake at six in the morning.”

You rolled your eyes, giving his arm a playful shove.

“I mean it, Steve,” you stated. “It’s bad enough that I can’t go with you guys.”

“Y/n,” he grabbed your hand, “I’ll be fine.”

You had too many things to say, yet you felt as though you couldn’t say anything at all. Jumbled thoughts were taking over your brain and nothing was registering coherently. You were worried that if you even attempted to tell him how you truly felt, it wouldn’t come out the way you’d want it to.

“Promise,” you said sternly, staring into the vast oceans of his eyes.

His eyebrows furrowed, his facial expression becoming more serious from your tone. “I promise I’ll be fine.”

You shook your head. “No,” your voice began to waver. “Promise me that you’ll return.”

He sighed, gripping your hand tighter. “I’ll promise you one thing, Y/n, if you can promise me something else in exchange.”

Your eyebrows knitted together.

“If I return to you, then you have to promise to not be mad at me.”

You cocked an eyebrow. “Mad at you? For what?”

He smiled again. “You’ll just have to wait until I return to find out.” He let go of your hand to hold up his pinky finger. “Promise?”

You had gotten him into the habit of doing pinky promises, even after he swore they were "childish".

You sighed nervously, interlocking your finger with his. “Promise.”

☽

You most certainly couldn’t sleep that night, but you couldn’t bring yourself to get out of your bedroom and watch them leave. Instead, you just paced back and forth in front of your bed. In fact, the next four days left you with barely any sleep at all. Peter stayed behind as well, so you busied yourself by helping him with his English homework. You spent a lot of time doing random chores around the compound as well; you washed the dishes, did yours and the others’ laundry, and took out all of the books by genre in the library and put them back in their usual order. You had nothing better to do, anyway. You needed to occupy your brain.

On the fourth day, though, at approximately four in the morning, the team came back. You rushed over to the entrance, watching as they all entered the compound with limp, exhausted bodies. Natasha had a gash on her thigh, dried blood staining nearly the entirety of that leg on her suit. Sam was holding his arm in a way that told you he’d dislocated it. And Steve...

You couldn’t move. You wanted to run over to him, to search his body for any injuries, but your feet felt plastered to the floor. The Avengers all walked toward the infirmary, but Steve headed towards you. Your heart was hammering in your chest, watching his blue eyes meet yours as he stopped in front of you.

“You kept you promise.” Your voice was barely louder than a whisper.

He smirked. “I did." He took another step froward, leaving about two centimeters between your bodies. "And now, you have to keep yours.”

His hands moved to your cheeks, cupping your face, as he leant down to bring his lips to yours. You didn’t have time to register what was happening until after his lips left yours as quickly as they came. His hands left your face as he frowned.

“I’m sor—“

You tugged on the collar of his suit, bringing his lips back to your own. Your lips moved together in synch, all of your hidden feelings for one another finally uncaged and let loose. Your fingers went to his hair, holding his head to yours as you stroked and tugged the blond strands. He groaned against you, bringing his arms around your waist and holding your body as close to his as possible.

Your lips parted as the both of you practically gasped for air, your chests heaving.

“You kept your promise,” he mimicked, his voice sounding raspier than before.

You smiled, pecking his lips and resting your forehead against his.

“I did.”

#steve rogers x reader #steve rogers fluff #steve rogers fanfiction #steve rogers one shot #captain america #captain america x you #oneshot #fluff

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notoriousjae · 2 years

Photo

Feel It All Around || Chenrich Fic (3/?)

Chapter Title: Let It Happen

Pairing: Alex Chen/Steph Gingrich

Rating: M

Fic Description:

Steph falls in love. To her amazement (despite an embarrassing number of successful roll-checks of the d20 in the studio)...so does Alex.

Chapter Description:

They have too many things, now, to list them all…and somehow–inexplicably and unreasonably–in this moment Steph’s as scared of it as she is the coming rain when Alex tangles their fingers and guides her up the second set of steps nearby–towards the clouds and the rain and the lightning that would be so easy to hide from in the shadows of this familiar stairwell:

She’s not scared, at all.

(That's a start.)

Chapter 1 | AO3 | Tumblr |

Chapter 2 | AO3 | Tumblr |

CURRENT: Chapter 3 | AO3 | Tumblr (Below):

The pages rustle beneath the gentle wind and a careful, tipping thumb, pushing back—back—back—

I can do this.

A page. Another. Two—

I can…write about just me, again.

Settling, fingertips skimming along the indentations of words like a painting. Hands treating words like something someone who values them might. Precious and sacred and hidden in the pillow-case suitcase they'd unearthed from.

I can do that…right?

“Ok, you seriously think you’re going to get away with disappearing into the crowd after this?”

The humidity is heavy in the air, wind rustling through the trees and bouncing waves off of the lake as their feet skirt along the water, toes dipping into the cold.

“It’s—” The laugh that bounces up Alex’s shoulders is easy and quiet, smile spreading so open and wide like it always does. It's kind of disarming. More than kind of super distracting. But she's used to it enough that Steph remembers to look towards the water—or the mountains—or the grass under their hands—anything other than Alex’s smile for a very-obvious lingering five seconds. “Kind of street kid charm, I guess? I just sort of blend in ,” Fingers tent in an airplane, smoothly gliding through the air as those laughing shoulders end in a faint shrug, shifting on the jacket laid out on the grass beneath her. It’s rare both of them have had a morning off that aligns in more than just hours spent at the other’s job, air crisp and clean.

It's kind of nice. Steph’s just happy she got to Alex before Ryan could convince her to go mountain biking again.

“It’s easy for no one to ever recognize me—people usually forget me, actually. Which…isn’t nearly as depressing as it sounds.” Alex leans up on elbows, idly blowing a piece of hair away, wind picking up just enough to dance its fingers through it leaving it scattered and disheveled, “Not to brag, but it’s a pretty impressive skill. I’m like one step away from working for the CIA.”

“I’m calling bullshit.” Steph scoffs, popping her last cold fry from yesterday’s takeout (and today’s breakfast) into her mouth with a completely unsatisfying lack of crunch, “Not that you’d work for the CIA—they’re always hiring guitarists.”

“I mean it Steph, you’re pretty much talking to Patrick Swayze in Ghost.”

“Ignoring the fact that CIA and Ghost don't really go together and the...classified images of you doing pottery with Demi Moore that you’re clearly trying to spread around—” It’s a thoughtless flirt but, surprisingly, Alex doesn’t blush. Alex, fearless and brave and more confident than Steph would have ever pegged her for, months ago, smirks like she knows exactly what she would do in a situation with Demi Moore half naked between her legs probably solely to needle Steph. And then laughs.

Now, it’s very disarming. Very distracting.

What point was Steph talking about, again?

For some reason, Alex gives her a weird, curious look before the smirk turns amused. Softer.

Steph settles into it like sheets of a bed that smell like something she still can't place—this box labeled Alex in the back of her mind.

“I don’t know how hot it would be watching a pot flop around. Char would kill me if she saw the total abomination I would probably create from a lump of clay.”

“People are into weird things, Chen. Don’t kink-shame.” Steph’s hand waves, “Everyone remembers you.”

A cloud passes overhead, shade cloaking Alex’s soft smile as it mutes—quieter—like a flame flickering out on a candle, breeze the only thing ticking up its edges.

“Everyone just knows me here because I’m Gabe’s sister.” It’s calm and gentle—factual—and Steph shifts on the grass to look fully down at her, brows knitting.

“Everyone knows you here because you’re freakishly helpful. It’s like running around with the main hero of an RPG doing everyone’s fetch quests.”

“What?” There’s another laugh, at least—

“Yesterday I watched you help fish someone’s keys out of the sewer, Alex. Not only did you know exactly where they were, but do you seriously forget that they apparently had a keychain that belonged to their Great Aunt Silvia from the war attached to—”

“It was their cousin Ruth who lives in Wisconsin.”

“Close enough."

"Not...even remotely close? But okay. She gave it to him when he moved away to college in Michig—"

"See? Most people do not know those things. It doesn't come up in conversation and not just because they wouldn't have helped them in the first place. Did he seriously tell you that when I wasn't paying attention?"

"Uh…" Steph shifts again, but this time her smile looks oddly…guilty. "That would be a plausible answer to your question?"

"Ignoring that really weirdly specific way to say yes, that means you somehow knew just what to ask. Hero fetch quests.”

“That doesn’t mean I’m memorable , Ste—”

“Why wouldn’t you be? Something like that makes someone’s day. You made their day Alex—” Steph remembers the way her own fingers slacked around the wooden dowel of a Foosball rod. Remembers taut shoulders easing—the gentle good-natured ribbing of a younger Chen—remembers the way Alex smiled and looked at her like…like she just knew, somehow. Like she knew what Steph needed, in that moment. “You make a lot of people’s days. Honestly? It’s kind of awesome. And is also probably totally killing my aloof untouchable DJ vibe, hanging out with you.”

“Yeah, right. Ryan told me all about your Psychic DJ show.”

“Yes, my totally believable, certified, Made-in-America bullshit psychic DJ show—” Steph recalls, leaning a little further over her on the grass to swipe one of Alex’s remaining fries.

“Hey!”

“I need this fry. I’ll be emotionally destitute without it. It reminds me of my long lost Great Aunt Silvia from the war—”

Alex rolls her eyes. But there’s that smile, again.

“Your show’s helped a lot of people.” Alex shifts on her elbow, fingers brushing hair away from glasses so that she can look fully at Steph—unwaveringly—a little more serious. “It helped Gabe.”

“Ryan told you, huh?”

“Yeah.”

Another long pause, fry colder beneath Steph’s thumb than it had been in the fridge, somehow—and definitely colder than it had been, freshly microwaved. How long have they been talking, here? Didn’t they just come out?

When she looks up, Alex is looking towards the clouds, settled so deeply into the ground that hair might be made of silk vines and a smile might be composed of grass curving towards the sun--reaching; reaching; reaching.

“Well, I never claimed to be forgettable.” Steph chuffs—placing the fry back on top of Alex’s stack when she isn’t looking. Hey, someone has to look after the hero, right? She needs to get all of her calories if Alex is going to keep solving all of Haven’s crazily mundane problems.

And…murders.

“You’re not, you know. I mean it. I feel like...you should know that. That you should hear that.” Steph continues, quieter, resting fingers on the soft, rain—wet ground near Alex’s knuckles, tips flexing before they curl in on themselves. Eyes track tensing muscles that seem to anticipate Steph shifting closer—like she’s worried Steph’s going to touch her. Like she’s not too used to the idea of people just…doing that. Still. No matter how much Steph (so thoughtlessly, sometimes) does it. “You’re not . Forgettable, I mean. You’re totally, 100%, absolutely memorable. Everyone in this town doesn’t just see you as Gabe’s sister. Okay,” Her head dips to the side, admitting, “There’s a lot of people that…that’s all they know, but anyone who meets you?” Fingers flex against that grass--the urge to ford the distance barely resisted--and Alex looks back up towards the sky and Steph and the beanie she tugs down when she doesn't, something…totally unreadable in eyes. Something…a little vulnerable. It makes Steph swallow.

What would Gabe say, if he knew Steph was here for her?

Does Alex know?

Does Alex know she isn’t alone?

“Anyone who gets to meet you is totally blown away by how good of a person you are. I mean it. I’m telling you, long lost aunt war guy wrote an entire essay on the community MyBlock page about you.”

The flirting didn’t make Alex blush…but somehow this does.

“I don’t think I could hold a candle up to you, Steph, but…thanks.”

Steph smiles, both of their noses ducking, and the smile spreads when Alex hands her the same fry she’d apparently totally not-so- slyly put back on the top of the pile.

“See? Actual super hero.”

“This isn’t a fetch quest. I’m just…making sure to look out for my party, right? Got to keep your HP up. Why don’t we split them?” Alex is already dividing up a line down the middle and Steph doesn’t have to be told twice. “Besides, it just means you have to buy me some, next time.”

“Buy you some, huh? That implies interest. Well-played, Chen. Maybe there’s some street kid in there, after all.”

Alex laughs and smiles and her shoulders visibly ease back into the grass.

The wind dances through the air and Steph dips her toes into the water as Alex passes up a fry towards her, their fingers brushing with a smile.

“Hey, seriously, how’d you know about those keys, anyways?” Steph asks much later, hands comfortably settled in pockets. Way later than she expected to be—it means she’ll be up all night in the record store arranging the new albums section that she was supposed to do earlier and (so only mildly) procrastinated through, but…it feels kind of worth it, somehow. It’s been weeks since she’s let herself actually relax outside of an apartment down the street.

“Not all of us need a d20 to be psychic, some of us are just cursed with it.” Steph doesn't think twice about the fact that their conversation is thoughtlessly continuing towards the record store, Alex a welcome shadow behind her steps.

“Okay, keep your secrets.”

“Hey, did you need help organizing those new albums?”

Did Steph—she doesn’t remember mentioning—

“Okay, seriously. ” Feet scuff along cement as she whirls around, holding up jingling keys with an arched eyebrows, “Do you get a toaster each boring side quest quota you reach?”

“Wait, are you telling me I…don’t get a toaster oven as a reward? I should’ve read the quest...deets?" Not what they're called at all, but Steph lets it slide. This time. A for effort, Chen. "Closer.”

“Nope, no toaster. Just cat gouges and a very thankful friend.”

Who doesn’t want Alex to go. She spent all morning with her—all the day before—all the day before that—and still doesn’t want her to go.

It’s the second time in the past few weeks Steph finds herself talking and walking and pausing when she realizes Alex’s stopped in the middle of a stride, but this time Alex is only looking at Steph. With…this kind of deer in the headlights look. This really unexpected, totally out of place, deer in the headlights look.

No panic. No anger. No yelling tourists.

Just pure...unadulterated shock.

“Alex?” Teasing turns to concern, “Are you okay? I was just kidding about the cat gouges.” A wince, “Uh…kind of.”

“I’m…yeah. Yeah, I’m cool.” A blink. A breath, like she's sucking up all the air in the city into her shoulders, pulling them confidently up and out before they settle.

“You sure?”

“Yeah. Hey…” Alex bumbles for only a minute before her chin dips upwards, gaze certain and voice…kind and gentle and serious , “Hey Steph?”

“Yeah?”

“I’m glad I met you.”

The smile crawls up Steph’s features so easily it would put Valkyrie scaling her apartment curtains to shame.

“Me too.” The attempt to hide her kind-of embarrassing smile with a cleared throat and a thrown-open record store door falls pretty flat, so she wears it with pride, instead. “Now who’s ready to Alphabetize?”

“Holy shit, Steph, you didn’t mention the 'New Record' stack was literally spread across the entire shop floor.”

“Just remember,” One hand clasps on Alex’s shoulder while the other gestures towards the stack with a sweeping, DM hand, Mufasa of bad news. One evening, this shall all belong to Alex Chen because she had the misfortune to offer her services. At least that's the vibe she's going for, “Tooooaster oooooven—”

Alex shoves her shoulder.

“It better come with toast.”

“Only if you like it as black as the depths of Grimdale’s deepest darkspawn trenches.”

“I never should have told you I started playing Dust and Daylight” Alex moves into the store, anyways, comically lunging over the overflowing stacks of records (barely makes it to the other side by her tip-toe) that, sure enough, are exactly where Steph left them the night before: avalanched over the entire floor. Mostly categorized, already—but still in need of some sorting and cataloging. “So are you seriously telling me all of the ladies you wooed have been served blackened bricks in the morning?”

“There’s a reason none of them stayed.” A long, dramatic sigh that turns into a chuckle—

“I don’t know, I think there’s plenty of reasons for them to stay.”

Steph blinks, looking up towards that…sincere look on Alex’s face. So earnest and calm and smiling as she stands in front of a sea of cover art. There isn’t a hint of flirt there as much as Alex is just—

Alex is just—

Heat rises up from Steph’s swallowing throat to clenching cheeks to lips where a tongue darts restlessly over them, nose ducking as she shakes her head—

Is she blushing?

(Fuuuuucccckkkk—)

“Hey, stop trying to charm your way out of the quest—” Steph tutts the moment she gets some sense to save some fucking face and Alex just smiles and keeps filing, humming the last song that had played in the studio across the room the night before, likely played in a bar a few hours to last call.

Steph watches her bouncing along, fingers effortlessly sifting through bins and bins as the mid-morning sun settles at her back, a few blades of grass still stuck to shoulders—and Steph just smiles as she slides up next to her, working in tandem.

I shouldn’t be nervous to write in my own journal, but here I am. Nervous. Like an idiot.

Ugh.

A series of scratches. A dozen different started sentences all muted after a single word, half a page of paper lost to quick slices. Names unknown—places—adverbs and verbs and nouns—

Until the next page where a calm, settled hand starts.

I can do this.

Gossip spreads faster in Haven Springs than the Colorado fires and it’s approximately five entire days before literally everyone in town (camera-happy small town visitors included) know that Alex Chen successfully stopped two tourists from beating the ever living shit out of each other on mainstreet. The recalling of Alex’s heroic deeds (all done by people who were not there ) range from stern finger-wagging to Bruce-Lee backflips—a mountain-legend growing each and every retelling in the hushed, drunken whispers of the miners’ corner in Black Lantern. No one really cares, but Alex still winces (for what Steph can only assume is more than one reason) every time someone claps her on the back for it. Usually while jostling the beers she’s carrying.

“Hey, no, I have total sympathy.” Steph reaches up to wipe some of the spilled beer off of Alex’s neck from her perch by the bar, “It’s got to be hard being an actual literal badass.”

“No offense, Steph, but I’m starting?” Alex’s brow dips as she gives Steph that look, “To think you really have no clue what literal means.”

“Oh you mean like the thing—the word literal—where it’s an actual representation of a situation and not an allegory? Say, like…if someone were to make the town gazette and I was just quoting it?”

Steph’s been holding onto it all day, small smirk turning to an absolute grin at the look of terror that washes over Alex’s features as the small little article bounces up from behind the bar, headline splashed on the top.

“‘Local hero stops violent crime’—” Steph slaps it down like a fiver on the bar-top, “Sounds pretty badass to me.”

“I hate you.” Alex groans, but there’s that smile, small and horrified and…a little soft at the edges.

“You’re going to make me blush, Chen.” Steph leans a little closer, elbows folding inwards on the bar. “I think we should roll this into your mic night persona—”

“Well there goes my plan of wearing a Zorro mask.” It's drawled, plucking up a nearby tumbler and tipping the edge beneath the tap.

“Does this mean you’re doing it?” She's stretching fully over the bar, now, practically Alex’s height, like elation has crawled her entire spine upwards.

“This,” Eyes flick up from glass to slit playfully at Steph before focusing adamantly downwards, “Just means I’m humoring you enough to lull you into a false sense of security so that you don’t expect it when I totally disappear on mic night."

"Come on, don't wuss out—"

"No one said anything about wussin—"

“Alex!” Hector bellows the moment he walks in, roughly clapping her on the shoulder as he passes, “Way to go! I would’ve done it if I was there, but…y’know. Okay, I wouldn't have. That's pretty awesome!”

Alex winces.

“Hector, seriously?” Steph calls, gesturing down towards the drink now covering Alex’s hands, reaching forward to help her clean it up. Again.

“Oh, sorry.”

“Don’t worry about it.” Alex sighs and Steph raises up her hands in surrender before pointedly swiping up the article and dropping it in the trash.

“Fine, I won’t do a follow-up expose on the show. But I’m still framing a copy.”

Despite the amusement, an hour later a very pointed post is typed up onto MyBlock from the corner of the bar titled

"Maybe Instead of Assaulting People, Just Use Something Equally Lame Like Finger Guns To Say They Did a Good Job. [Topic by: Steph Gingrich]"

Stop smacking Alex. This has been my Ted Talk.

-Steph G.

People are smacking Alex?

- Riley L.

Yeah, guys, maybe tone it down. Everyone’s just really excited about the fight thing. But I agree with Steph, maybe we can just shake her hand or something?

- Ryan L.

And finger guns aren’t that lame.

- Ryan L.

They are when you do them.

-Steph G.

Good job fighting crime, Alex. <3

- Riley L.

Can I also get on the ‘don’t smack Alex’ train? Don’t know what people are doing, but already don’t like it.

-Charlotte H.

Guys, she’s shown she’ll smack back, don’t smack her first.

-Josh Q.

She’s not smacking anyone that doesn’t deserve it, Josh.

-Steph G.

It was just a joke. I figured everyone was talking about that shootout you stopped on Main street.

-Josh Q.

Shootout??

-Ryan L.

LOL. The legend grows

-Steph G.

There weren’t any guns, Josh.

-Riley L.

Good job, Alex!

-Eleanor L.

Thanks, Eleanor.

-Alex C.

How about next time someone spills a beer at the Lantern on my bartender, they have to pay double and only get half?

-Jed L.

And then no more beers were spilled in the land.

-Steph G.

Good job, dad! 👉😎👉

-Ryan L.

How do I delete someone else’s comment?

-Steph G.

The next morning, there’s a laminated, printed out copy of Ryan’s finger guns settled innocently on top of a greasy styrofoam container full of eggs on the Record store cashier desk. Maybe a thank-you—maybe revenge for bringing it up, at all, on the community board when both of them know Alex doesn't want the attention—either way, Steph laughs and tapes it to the wall by the bulletin board.

What Steph doesn’t understand is why Ryan thinks the not-shootout is somehow even mildly relevant to the time Mac got his face bashed in by Gabe a month and a half prior. He brings it up in the middle of the lunch rush while Alex is in the back, plaid shirt rippling underneath the rattling AC up above as he comically leans backwards to sneak peeks towards the door like he’s worried about a set of freakishly tuned-in ears overhearing. Which is stupid. Since Alex was there.

“Gabe tried to tell me in the car that ‘nothing happened’.”

“Did you just use air quotes?”

“What’s wrong with air-quotes?”

“Don’t even get me started, Ry.”

“Hey, I ‘rock’ air-quotes.”

“The fact that you just used air quotes for ‘rock ’ is only making this comedic gold. And the original point is, like…so beyond debatable that I might open up a poll on the show. It’s wrong.”

“No way, Steph—my MyBlock profile is still getting pinged from the time you polled the town on whether or not I should change from plaid. Which, reminder, they all said I look awesome in.”

“Hey, I wasn’t knocking it,” Acquiescing with a dipping head, “...for once. I just figured that someone out there had to want to see you in chaps or something. It was a slow news week. The air-quotes? I am knocking that. Just want to be clear. Anyways,” Steph’s eyes flick over towards the kitchen door, as well, because Ryan's making her paranoid, “He said nothing happened?”

“He said nothing happened.”

“Well…sounds like Gabe.”

“I figured he just kind of lost it on Mac.”

And then she suddenly realizes why Ryan thought this stupid conversation was relevant.

“Wait.” Brows wrinkle, “He…didn’t?”

“You don’t know?”

“Don’t know super juicy gossip that you’ve been keeping from your BF? No, dude, do I look like I know? This is not my ‘oh, I knew it all along face’.” Steph slaps his shoulder, taking an extra-long sip out of the corner of her drink, straw rattling against the edges.

Alex had slid a hilariously long bendy straw in her soda earlier, package complete with a complimentary super-tiny umbrella that Jed accidentally ordered an extra case-load of in preparation for tourist-aggedon.

Steph may or may not be really into it.

“Do you have to call it gossip?” The scowl above that suspiciously well-kept beard is evident, nervous eyes flicking upwards towards the kitchen door again. Okay, it's starting to make it obvious to everyone that they're gossiping about Alex, so she lowers her voice, not wanting them to overhear.

“Yeah, because that’s what it is . Spill!”

“It was Alex.”

“ What ?”

“Riley told me it was Alex that took down Mac.”

“You’re shitting me.”

“Cross my heart.” Ryan, of course, literally crosses her heart and Steph’s too blown away to even tease him for being such an earnest boyscout.

“No way , Lucan.”

“Seriously. Riley said Alex didn’t really want to talk about it, but when Mac tried to blame it all on Gabe, she called him out. Alex told her Mac barged into the apartment, started with Gabe, and Alex just…” A shrug—

“Became Dwayne Fucking Johnson?” A sweeping, wild gesture towards the staircase and the sparsely-filled bar in laughing disbelief. Even though…well, no, that actually kind of checks given what she saw on Mainstreet. It's actually...absolutely believable. “Mac sounds like he deserved it—”

“That’s what I said.”

A chipper voice, sly and a little amused , if tired, pipes up behind Ryan’s stiffening shoulders, eyes comically widening over his fries.

At least it’s not Alex.

“R-Riley–we weren’t—”

Steph smacks his back a few times once he starts coughing, inhaling half his lunch in the rush to look cool and aloof. A bit of fry comes out and lands on the table and she's not sure whether to grimace in sympathy or disgust.

“You okay?” She settles on sympathy.

“F–fi–” Ryan doesn’t fully make it out, but waves his hands anyways. Steph offers the super-long straw. “Fine.”

“We were talking about you.” She eloquently side-steps Ryan’s poor attempt at what was definitely going to be a lie, “Well, talking about Mac. And Alex kicking his ass. Seriously ?”

“Totally.” Riley affirms, leaning over the stool with a hushed whisper, eyes flicking up towards the kitchen after looking around the rest of the bar to make sure Alex doesn’t sneak up on them. Seriously, does everyone think Alex is the boogeyman? She does always seem to know everything. (Wouldn't that make her more like Santa Claus? Steph shakes her head). “Gabe avoided me the rest of the day—I think he was scared I was going to be mad at Alex. No way. I mean it, Mac deserved it. What an asshole.” A long sigh that barely trembles at the edges, Riley’s shoulders sinking beneath the muted browns of a dirt-stained apron, “God, I’m an idiot.”

“Hey,” Ryan’s finally stopped coughing, his own downward slouch from being caught gossiping like an issue of Cosmo seemingly forgotten in favor of reassuring, “No you’re not.”

“Agreed, you’re not the idiot. Mac is.” Steph leans closer, too. Riley’s still sagging but…she smiles, too, behind that rallying sigh, pushing forward.

“Thanks, guys. Alex didn’t say exactly what happened outside of calling him on his bullshit, but Mac told me—and obviously he could have, like…been exaggerating to try to win me over—but Mac said he ‘ just lost his cool for a minute ’—“

Yes, Steph would say to Ryan later, Riley’s usage of air quotes in a sentence was totally valid. His was not. It was lame. (And he looked lame doing it).

“But that she —” Ugh, Steph can just hear that man-splaining piece of shit trying to force blame of a confrontation that he started on someone going on the defensive—“Screamed like a bear before she tackled him through the door and started wailing on him.”

“Really?” Ryan’s brows barely furrow, fingers curving along the frosted rim of Steph’s drink, the faintest noise of a whistle lost beneath the jukebox nearby. “I mean…I think Alex has had…pretty good reason to be angry, any of the times I’ve seen her angry.”

“Even if she did do that, so what if ‘really’? Mac was beating the shit out of Gabe. Gabe, who did nothing wrong . Shit-beater should get the shit beaten out of . It’s the way the world should work.” A hint of annoyance swells in Steph’s chest, eyes flicking up to the door for a different reason entirely, lips thinning. Pressing. Fingers curling on a familiar bar.

It doesn’t help that she hasn’t been able to get the image of white wrapped around knuckles bleeding through, tinged with red as they curled around the scuffed wood of a door upstairs out of her mind—can’t shake the memory of Alex trying to shoo Steph away—can’t get the image of hair hanging over eyes in a sea of street-blue out, this haunting look settled deep— deep —there as Alex nervously looked up towards Steph.

Like she was…

Scared. Or something close to it. Something different than she’d ever been in front of Steph, before.

So what if Alex was angry?

So what if Steph thinks she deserves to be, sometimes?

So what?

“I didn’t know you got into a lot of fights, Steph.” Riley smiles, a hint of that exhaustion gone, a small twinkle replacing it.

“Um, hello—resident DM. Giving people their comeuppance is, like,” A wide gesture once more towards the bar before pointing both hands towards her chest, “My creed .”

“Ohhh right.” Riley laughs a little, eyes flicking towards Ryan, who's on another planet entirely, gaze scanning along the afternoon-sun tinted bottles behind the bar like he's reading star charts.

“Hey, you okay?” It’s a little more serious from Steph, this time, gently patting his back instead of smacking it.

“Yeah, I just…it's nothing."

"You sure?" Riley's fingers curve over his shoulder and he looks between them, brows knitting and hesitating—

"It's just…" A pause, voice dropping into something quiet and lost, "I...remembered something Gabe…did say in the car.”

“In what car?” Riley presses.

“I thought you said he didn’t say anything.” Steph shifts closer on the bar, smile falling as her stool skirts along wood. Just as serious—just as quiet—

“Yeah, he didn’t. I mean, about Mac. Or Alex. I thought. ” Looking up towards Riley to explain, “When I took him to go get first aid at the clinic—” His shoulders hang and Riley hums a soft oh , shifting on her feet and maybe that’s how all of them are anytime they think about it—different parts of them just shift and bounce and pop around like corn kernels burning in a pan. “Gabe wouldn’t tell me what happened with Mac—he was…pretty quiet the whole time.” Drink clinking as it’s set back down on the bar, tiny little umbrella rattling against the rim, its bright glowing fuchsia a stark contrast against Ryan’s knuckles. “All through the clinic and…smiling and laughing even though it was sort of off . You guys know how Gabe is—” The smallest puff of breath, “—Was . I just thought that maybe—I didn’t want to pry because Gabe didn’t want to talk about it. But after the clinic when we got back in the car, he—”

Ryan’s thumb curves around the straw—bends it—slides it back towards Steph, arms crossing on the counter even as his chin tips back, searching the lines of the old headlines on the walls like they might hold a memory in them. Like they might hold all of Gabe in the cracked paneling and scuffed wood and swelling beads of caulking peeling off near the drywall. Like Gabe's life might have left a bit of an imprint here—enough that Ryan can find the exact words—

“He said something like…he asked me—’

Steph imagines it like she’s rolling a d20, like the rattling of a die skittles along chipped, scuffed wood as she looks towards that closed-away kitchen, Ryan’s voice humming along her curved shoulders, lost in memory—conflicted:

The sun is setting behind the postcard-esque peaks of the mountains, the rattle of Ryan’s engine filling the empty space of silence in the cabin as they bounce along familiar terrain. Mountains that Ryan knows so well still torturous, winding roads to Gabe even after all his time here. And this is a fact they both know—he could get lost up here, all alone, without Ryan to guide him. Two of the windows are cracked—they always are in Ryan’s car—just enough so that fresh air can always sink into the stale monotony of a truck left in the same places in the same town every day.

Maybe he likes to take the sun in the mountains with him, wherever he goes.

Gabe is hunched in the passenger seat, fingers idly running along the edge of the window—pensive. Far-away. Every time Ryan’s asked about the day, Gabe’s smiled—deflected—pretended like that fading sunlight in the mountains has reached his eyes when it’s died somewhere along the glinting edge of his crooked smile.

He's not smiling, now.

“When do you think people change?”

They’ve sat in silence for the majority of the car ride.

“ When do you think a person goes…from breaking up every fight to being in them? What has to happen? How bad does it have to be? What makes someone go from always trying… so hard to like…to just… fix it—to…”

This time he does trail off.

Ryan’s voice is a poor match for Gabe’s, but Steph let’s herself imagine it, anyways. That rumbling, familiar rush of soothing sound. The quiet way he talked like there was a hush in trees. Steph could give a rat’s ass about nature, but she cares about the way Gabe sounded like wind when he talked—she cares about the way his whisper was like the shaking branches of the tallest trees in the mountains—she cares that sometimes, when she steps outside and a gust of wind brushes along her beanie, it reminds her of him.

Fingers skim along the bar, this pressure curling her chest tight as she looks up towards Ryan, watching him talk—explain through stumbling memories—

"I remember I said—"

“What?” Ryan looks away from the road towards Gabe’s quiet face in fleeting flicks, eyes mainly on the road. There’s a weight to his best friend’s words that’s unusual and burdening and Ryan, always wanting to help—always wanting to be the hero—probably immediately feels the urge to wrap it in his palms and bandage it like a cut lip and a bleeding nose.

“ It’s…nothing. I’m probably just…you know, overthinking—” Surprisingly, Gabe doesn’t actually cut himself off this time, turning in the chair to look Ryan over. It’s a shift in pace—an unnerving, brazenly undiscovered territory—so rare, Gabe Chen opening up. (Steph only sees it twice in all of the time she knows him). “Okay, I’m definitely overthinking. But maybe you never really notice how…how someone changes until you realize the things that they used to do are different than what they do, now. And maybe it doesn’t matter. Maybe that’s just who they are, now. Maybe no one has a right to that, anyways. Telling someone who they should be.”

“Are…we talking about Mac?” But Ryan isn’t dismissive—he never is. He’s so steady. He’s a rock—a kind, gentle warrior of a dude—and Gabe probably wouldn’t have turned away. Right? No. Not Gabe. He would look Ryan head-on—would never look away—

“No. But, like I said—it’s just…I’m overthinking things. I guess getting your ass handed to you in your entryway kind of does that.”

“ Hey.” Ryan shakes his head, the truck bumping along, “Everyone changes sometimes, Gabe. Even you.” Ryan misunderstands—leaps to conclusions to help like he’s jumping over a canyon to put out the forest fire he sees instead of looking below to the one raging in the fog below. “Change isn’t always a bad thing. You know? And I mean, I’m not trying to pry, but it sounds like you were just defending yourself.”

“ Yeah.” Gabe lets out that crooked smile, again, before turning to look out the window, “Yeah. You’re right. Everyone changes. So…maybe I should just try to let the guilt go—”

“That’s what he said?” Steph’s quiet, the scene still playing in the back of her mind, fake but as good as she'll ever have, now, outside of static-clung memories of Gabe, fingers curling in on themselves until they’re paler than the piss-poor IPA in the tap.

“Yeah, he said something about guilt and letting it go and knowing it wasn’t his fault. I thought he was talking about doing some serious damage to Mac. I…never thought—”

“He was talking about Alex.” Riley murmurs but all Steph can think about is the cold nip of the nighttime air in a lonely, empty studio near the end of the year.

All she can think of is the way Gabe’s voice trembled in its honest, kind laugh on the other end of the line, the d20’s lacquered edges glinting beneath the ghastly fluorescent lights overhead in the booth.

But then someday you’ll remember something a wise psychic said—

“You know…I think he would have wanted us to make sure she’s okay.” Ryan tries to summarize, visibly uncomfortable talking about things shared in confidence, at all, both women next to him stiffening, but nodding. “Support her."

“Yeah.” Riley’s lips barely purse, head hanging, "Alex has always been a total sweetheart."

"I didn't mean—" Ryan's features twist and turn and Steph reaches up to gently squeeze his arm, feeling it ease.

"Oh, yeah, totally. I know." Riley immediately offers, "I didn’t think you meant she was in the wrong, or anything. I just meant...I don't know what I meant."

"I think...she just feels what other people feel too much, sometimes." Ryan is tensing, again, but this time he's looking off towards that door like he's lost at sea within its chipped blue hues—like it's a heavy, strangling statement. Like he knows way more than Steph thinks to about a woman she thought she knew better than anyone in town, if not just as well as Ryan—"I guess I'm just...worried. And we're all her friends, right? And Gabe wanted us to look after her. I think we should just...make sure she's okay. That's all."

Steph looks from Ryan to Riley to the door, releasing a tight arm in favor of lightly flicking the edge of her straw, shifting in her rickety, familiar seat.

Steph—

Steph agrees. And swallows. And doesn't understand why the thought feels so heavy—so wrong—because maybe what Gabe wanted wouldn’t have been to do it for him , he would’ve wanted them to do it for—

Alex.

Who's doing it for Alex? Are all of them? Are none of them? Nothing's ever so clean cut in life. But...

But doesn't Alex deserve—

"Speak of the hot fighting devil…" The kitchen door shakes and swoops across the distance as Alex Chen, herself, reappears and Steph’s eyes flick down to the bandages around knuckles and remembers a matching set from...how long, now? A month ago? Two?—it seems like ages. Years. Millennia. Something Steph had just assumed came from the rocks—came from the quarry—came from only physical wounds to a horrible, much deeper-cut night. “Hey, Chen!” She calls out across the small distance between them and Alex looks totally distracted before their eyes meet.

Steph is the only one that manages not to look absolutely disgustingly guilty, the other two gossipers still managing to turn around and offer smiles and waves, regardless.

“Oh…hey, Steph.” That shuffle—those fidgeting hands at sides as she stays so far across the room, eyes flicking across them like there’s something that makes her want to walk the other way like some kind of spooked stallion. Which might be totally weird for a woman that can apparently tackle a full-grown man through a door and beat the ever-living shit out of him but somehow looks more familiar on Alex’s features than a well-worn shirt. “Guys.”

“Come over here—I'm pretty sure it's been unanimously decided you’re on our zombie apocalypse team so you have to help us prep.”

Alex’s brows barely knit, eyes skimming along Ryan and Riley before they seem to settle on Steph and for a moment, she feels like Alex is looking straight through her before that sheepish smile softens the room—nods. Whatever spooked her stepped aside as she strides closer.

“O…kay? Is there something I should know about a pending apocalypse?”

“Only that it’s totally going to break out from the CDC in Atlanta before spreading this way. It's probably going to be viral.” Riley offers, “So statistically we’ll probably have around a month to prepare and go into full lock-down mode. Just enough time to narrow down our weaknesses before the virus makes its way here.” Everyone looks towards her. “...What? Okay, you’re literally planning a town-wide LARP.” Riley points towards Steph, “And you can do every bird call." Ryan. "I can know things.”

Steph tips that super-bendy straw in her direction, “Right on. Hell yeah you can. So, to recap our very valid offer—so far we have: mountain man, freakishly knowledgeable tech expert, and me…whose phenomenal looks and high list of accredited skills goes without saying. So, you in, Chen?”

Alex looks between them before she smiles.

It’s that same sort of crooked smile that Gabe has—had—and it hits Steph like a ton of bricks. The sun cascades in through the rarely-dusted blinds and catches Alex’s eyes and her smile and the white cloth of those twice-bandaged, once-healed hands (hiding old wounds never once mentioned to anyone but Riley, here— and even then, she only mentioned it for Gabe)—

Fuck.

Steph will never get a chance to ask Gabe what he was talking about—what history was so thick between the two of them, broken and crumbled over time—

But maybe someday she’ll get the chance to ask Alex.

“Well,” Alex sits down on the open stool next to Steph and Steph smiles towards her, watching the way the other girl shakes some of the rain off of her shoulder from bringing the trash out back, “Guess…it’s lucky for you guys that my secret pastime is stocking up on 20 pound barrels of re-fried beans from prepper stores?”

Their laugh dances beneath Ryan’s rapping knuckles on the bar, “Well that’s my queue because you just reminded me I told Dad I’d help him unload the latest delivery truck before the storms come in. No, no—” Ryan raises a hand towards Alex, “You’re supposed to be off, anyways, right? Dad would want you to relax. I promise it’s totally okay. I’ll be right back, guys.”

“You know…” The sound of Ryan’s footsteps fade, “Mac actually had one of those…apocalypse rooms? Like, the actual apocalypse prepping rooms.” Riley sighs, once more, shoulders slumping as she shakes her head.

(But, hey—maybe next time Riley calls into a mystic-dj radio show and asks for her fortune to be read and the totally hot psychic DJ host tells her to dump her sack of potatoes boyfriend, she’ll actually listen).

“No. Way.” Steph’s laugh turns into a chortle. “You’re lying. Tell me you’re lying.”

“Nope.” Riley’s smile is nothing short of sheepish, settling towards Alex who just leans out from behind Steph’s stool and offers a commiserating look.

“I’m so sorry.” More than just commiseration, those condolences are real behind that rumbling laugh, Alex’s shoulders bouncing a little from trying to hold it in .

“He had this whole room in his garage—he called it his vault . He…also buried ammo. Ugh, I can’t believe I used to think it was, like…a quirk —” Steph is still laughing but she’s surprised by the soft shift of Alex’s voice—

“Hey,” Steph turns to see her, a little closer since she’s leaning over the bar to look at Riley. But she doesn’t touch Steph, at all. Even leaning closer—even shifting—even sitting next to her—Steph suddenly realizes that Alex avoids Steph's body and Steph's eyes and Steph's curious look— “You know it’s…” A small breath, “You know it’s okay if not everything was bad with him, right?”

“What?” Riley looks a little stunned, distracted gaze immediately blinking towards Alex like she’s been caught. Her shoulders tighten, only a little, and Alex’s fingers barely stretch towards Riley on the bar, but don’t ford that gap. Steph watches curling digits flex on the wood of the bar, off-white, dirtied bandages blending in with its dark hue, before they clench.

“I mean that it’s okay if you miss him, sometimes. You just went through a breakup. Those totally suck.”

A wince.

Right. Riley did.

Mac might have been a total Grade-A tool, but Riley was still with him for…wasn’t it like, a genuine half a decade?

Steph still remembers things Izzie said and laughs to herself in her apartment, all alone, sometimes...and the feeling of empty guilt might threaten to swallow her whole.

“...I’m sorry, Riley,” Steph offers seriously. Gently. “I haven’t been trying to make fun of Mac. I mean, I have , but you know I—”

“Oh. I—yeah. Yeah, I know. I mean—” A rumbling sigh, “I feel like I’m still defending him. He doesn’t deserve it. And I’m so… pissed about it, but…”

“You still loved him.” Alex acknowledges and Riley nods after a moment. Alex's palm flattens on the bar. “I mean, he’s a total asshole, but you still loved him.”

“I feel so bad about it, you know? Especially with everything...” Riley turns away, "With everything."

“Don’t. Everyone’s had their fair share of being in love with an asshole at some point, okay?” Steph immediately offers, shifting upwards in her stool. “Feeling bad for loving someone is just a way for society to invalidate you. Loving someone is a totally wonderful thing you should never apologize for,” Her thumb tucks in the edge of her straw, rolling it around to find the bottom of a half-full glass, “As long as it doesn’t hurt anyone and is consensual and not anything totally Single White Female, love is great. It sucks , but it’s great.”

“Thanks, Steph.” The last of that renewed tension seems to ease from Riley’s shoulders and when Steph leans back to grab her beer, she realizes Alex has been curiously searching her face since her palm flattened.

They seriously have to talk about this—the immediate urge to make sure there’s no burger in her hair ( again ) is overwhelming, shifting beneath that weighted look on her rocking, squeaking stool.

“Thank Alex, she’s the one that totally noticed I was accidentally going across the recent-breakup battlefield zone.”

“I didn’t do anything.” Alex protests.

“Says the girl who totally did everything awesome.” Riley ignores, “You know…Mac told me you talked to him when I talked to him, this morning.”

“What?” Steph’s brow arches and Alex shrugs as Riley fills in the gaps:

“Oh, yeah. Last week, before he moved back in with his parents to—he said he was trying to lay low from Typhon? I don't know. He’s going paranoid—he thinks they’re watching him, but…well, he told me he was only alive because you calmed him down. So I don’t know what the hell that meant, but I kind of felt the need to thank you, anyways. I mean, the way he said it…I don’t know. The way he said it made me feel like it was…serious. Like he meant it.”

That eyebrow creeps further.

“He was paranoid.” Alex murmurs, “But I…don’t think he was wrong to be.” Alex, herself, looks a little around the bar before sighing, shoulder brushing against Steph.

And doesn't pull away.

It’s always like that, isn’t it? Alex always sort of…eases into physical touch like someone stepping into a cold pool. But it’s coming into spring, heat starting to settle like dew in the trees outside, and it seems like Alex has started warming up faster to Steph’s cold waters, these days.

"Typhon is bad news. I mean, Mac’s a lot of things but…he did try to do the right thing for Gabe. Even when the rest of Typhon didn’t." Alex is quiet and serious, brushing hair from her eyes, and Riley swallows.

“Thanks, Alex. I mean it.”

“You don’t have to thank me, Riley.”

"Yeah. I kind of do."

The silence hangs a little too thick for Steph’s taste, waiting a solid ten seconds before offering:

“Anyways,” Steph doesn’t know why she’s happy that Alex hasn't shifted away from her, but she’s starting to get some sneaking suspicions. The d20 would probably say that none of the outcomes would look good for her on this particular path, so…she's just going to do the totally emotionally mature thing and ignore it for the time being. “Let’s come up with a cool name for our apocalypse team before Ryan gets back and tries to name us after an African Swallow.”

Riley and Alex both immediately nod.

An hour later, the rain has started to pelt down harder on the windows and for once, Steph doesn’t notice.

“Okay, serious question, do we conscript Duckie?” Alex asks. “He seems like he probably also kind of has a prepper basement somewhere? And I somehow don’t mean that as an insult. Also, he’s kind of really sweet?”

“Ooooh Duckie. Tough one. Tough one. I vote absolutely yes. Riley—thoughts? Opinions? Totally hilarious and seemingly irrelevant but great Duckie anecdotes?” Steph twists on the barstool, smirking towards their tech geek. “My favorite one is the time I found out he once was a backstage dancer on MTV for an episode of some obscure show shot in Portland, once. We can lay that story out later, it will blow. Your. Minds.”

“I’m both nervous and a little intrigued,” Alex laughs.

“How have I never heard that one? Definitely. Oh, Jed, too!” Riley immediately adds—

“My dad would be great in the apocalypse.” Ryan calls from the kitchen, door propped open, the sound of rain filtering in beneath the jukebox. The bar has fully cleared, now, only a few day-drinking, wobbling drunks left in the thick of the rainy afternoon.

“Well, duh,” Steph nods, “He’s a bona-fide total real-deal hero.”

“Okay, so, I know I’m kind of new, but isn’t this list just, like…half the town, pretty much?” Alex adjusts glasses, eyebrow hiking up over the rim. Their forearms brush and she doesn’t even tense.

(Progress. Total progress. Total progress that Steph shouldn't be paying this much attention to).

“Uh…yeah, kind of. Pretty much all the bar regulars but Diane—seriously do any of us know what she does?” Steph polls. “Like, what’s her job title, even?”

“Nope.”

“No clue!" Ryan calls from grease-Narnia. "Evil corporation stuff?"

“I literally have had three conversations with her that didn’t revolve around a drink order.” Alex reminds. “Oh, and not that bald guy who’s always yelling on his phone—”

“Who?”

“Just…trust me. No bald guy on his phone. The guy that’s always out on mainstreet—just…no. He can’t be on the team.”

“Oookay, freakishly specific request against Lex Luthor.” Steph whistles, jostling down on the grease-dotted Black Lantern notepad they’d stolen from behind the bar and underlining each word for dramatic effect and Alex’s benefit, “No. Bald. Guy. With. Phone. Got it—”

They all cheer when Ryan emerges with hot onion rings.

Another hour passes underneath the sound of laughing and rain before Ryan’s walking Riley home with an umbrella nearby and Steph nervously drums her hands against the heavy door, feeling the familiar wood beneath her palm. Listening to the rain.

Regretting literally everything in her life, for a minute.

She’s checked the weather alerts twelve times and flipped away messages from her old manager twice.

Lips press, thin. Tight.

It looks like the weather that suddenly was supposed to completely bypass them yesterday is aiming straight for them, tonight, and has started even earlier than projections. From the time Ryan’s left all of five minutes ago, the rain’s started to pound, and her heartbeat's kicked up along with it. A feverish, unfortunately contagious erratic rhythm.

“You okay?” Alex’s voice is calm and gentle, like she already knows something isn’t okay and Steph can practically feel the warmth from her as she steps up behind tense shoulders, radiating that sincerity and heat all the way to fingers tapping against the door.

Seriously, she always fucking knows when something—

“Yeah, I just…would hate to get my beanie soaked. It’s laundry day and I’m down to my last one.” It’s a nervous, shuffling laugh, wincing at the sound of thunder rumbling, a sharp crack lighting up the sky.

Steph is pretty sure she still totally sells it, though.

(She should, given practically half a decade of practice).

“Hey, look…I know that you’re literally just down the street, but why don’t you come upstairs? You owe me a movie and…worst case, you can crash here if it gets late. I don’t think the storm is letting up anytime soon. So you’re…kind of a while away from a dry beanie. No need to...get it wet, right?”

Steph tenses and when she turns around, she’s starting to figure out that curious look Alex is giving her, like she’s trying to figure out a word problem from things unsaid.

“I’ve even got clothes you can borrow. We can stretch out your laundry day.” Alex adds.

“Oh, rad—full-service at Chez Chen.” Steph bobs her head and Alex just shakes her head. Fond. Soft. It helps the nerves, just a little.

Tame Impala, of all things, plays listlessly from its last queue from the Jukebox—the remnants of Steph’s victory, for once, Alex’s cheeks still a little flushed from the bitter, lip-smacking shot she’d mixed herself behind the bar—and there’s nothing better than fitting music, is there? Nothing even like it. Nothing even compares.

Somehow, Alex makes it sound like it's not the worst idea ever, when when it totally is.

And Steph can’t help it, she shakes her head and smiles before flicking the shop lock and following Alex up the creaking stairs.

"You just want to see me in your clothes, Chen. Admit it, you're trying to overload our small gossip scene."

"Ohhh yeah. You know me, I love being the center of attention." That lilting drawl underlines the quiet drum of rain, outside, and somehow, it sounds more like a percussion accompaniment than anything else. It sounds familiar and quiet and…

Feet pause at the bottom of the stairs in donning realization that it sounds like...nothing else, at all.

When do people change?

Ryan’s voice had been so quiet—as quiet as Gabe’s had always been—and breath catches against tight lungs. Against the expanding confines of a prison of a chest, hand idly reaching up to skim beneath the heavy, jingling weight of a necklace pressed against her collarbone.

The rain is louder in the slim, claustrophobic confines of the steps ascending to the heavens and Steph pauses for just another moment—just another breath—stares at Alex’s back as she turns around at the top, smile soft and gentle and kind. Pauses, for just another moment as Alex’s bandaged hand curves around the door frame, patiently waiting without a single question as Steph's brows knit and a quiet, disbelieving laugh catches in her chest.

It sounds like nothing.

Disbelieving, this quiet kind of acknowledgment settles over shoulders like a blanket, chin tipping upwards to look at the roof above them, knowing a second set of stairs barely twists above that to the rooftop door.

Years later, she’ll murmur against Alex’s shoulder something unimportant and thoughtless, skin wet from rain, hair dripping onto the pavement as the heat of her laugh sinks into Steph’s smile until all she can taste is dew and rain and Alex—

Alex will kiss her back and Steph will know everything changes when things that are terrifying turn into things that are safe.

Alex will bury her fingers in stringing, clinging hair that someone could wring like a mop and tug her close and Steph will know that not every bad thing about them has to be condemned to silence and shadows.

Alex will laugh as they stumble into a puddle, splash lost beneath a torrent of rain and Steph will know everything changes when storms don’t have to be weathered alone, palm snapping out to catch them with a sputtering, happy laugh of a noise, cheeks flushed and cold.

Alex’s voice will be softer than the heavy rain and the howling wind and the cement will feel so cold beneath Alex’s fingertips that for a moment, Steph will know it’s far better to hold Alex than to be away from her.

Alex will chase rain angels down the goosebumps of Steph’s cold skin with heater fingertips and Steph will know everything that matters beats like a drum beneath the thinnest sliver of skin above Alex’s wrist.

Alex will tell her ‘Everyone Changes When They Fall In Love, Steph’ and Steph will know it’s the truth.

Because Alex will tell her she loves her and everything has changed and will change and will probably change, again.

Alex will bury it against her mouth and her neck and whip her wet hair underneath them like a puppy as Steph hovers over her, bare shoulders pelted from the clouds above, tank heavy as it sticks to every inch of her skin and say it again…and again until the rain isn’t the only tracks chasing down cheeks.

Alex will tell her she loves her and Steph will know she means it without a single doubt in the world.

Alex will tell her she loves her and Steph will say it back.

But the future is opaque—a constantly-changing web of possibilities and scenarios haunted by endless memories of shadows before it. Steph doesn't know what the future holds. In this moment, she just looks at Alex and thinks—for this outlandish, totally inappropriate moment—that maybe if the world got its shit together, it wouldn't be too bad to want one with someone like Alex.

Today, Steph looks across these steps into Alex’s eyes and her heart skips like a rattling d20 along a dashboard before it settles into something calm.

Today, the only thing that’s changed is the way Steph looks up at the ceiling. This small little crack—this small little shift—because no one ever knows the world is turning underneath their feet when they’re turning with it.

Today, the apartment door shuts with a click as Steph follows Alex up into the rain and isn’t sure what they have, anymore—but she knows it’s not what it was when they first met. It’s different. It’s changed, somewhere along the line, even if Steph doesn’t know when. Even if she doesn’t know how.

They have too many things, now, to list them all…and somehow—inexplicably and unreasonably—in this moment Steph’s as scared of it as she is the coming rain when Alex tangles their fingers and guides her up the second set of steps nearby—towards the clouds and the rain and the lightning that would be so easy to hide from in the shadows of this familiar stairwell:

She’s not scared, at all.

Take two—Side B.

The last time I was on a bus like this, I was trying to leave town. I didn’t make it too far. I think I got all of maybe two cities over before an off-duty cop took one look at me and thought he was doing the right thing by personally driving me back to Seattle in his beat-up Honda Accord.

And…here I am, on a second bus a half-decade later and…I keep looking over my shoulder for the cop. I keep turning to see who’s going to step in front of the door on the next stop and gesture for me to leave. Who’s going to show up to drag me back?

No one, so far.

Instead, I’m left on the bus heading to…a long-lost future I’m pretty sure I was never supposed to have and a brother who I don’t really know (not anymore) to a town thats postcard looks a little too much like a Stepford Wives poster. Idyllic. Breathtaking. The sort of place that’s the set-piece for a Hallmark movie, not…Gabe. Not who I remember of Gabe.

Definitely not what I know of me.

But I’m still here. No cop’s taken me, yet. No one’s looked at me and told me I didn’t belong to sit here, at all.

Is it a bad sign that I feel like I’m faking it before I even meet him?

I don’t know.

All I know is that…he told me he’d like me to be there. He told me that I’d like it there. He told me I could build a life there.

I don’t really know what any of those things mean but…I’m excited to find out.

He sounds like he’s really made a difference, there.

I can’t help but wonder…

I don’t know.

Maybe if the cop doesn’t come to tug me off the bus, maybe I’ll find out what that looks like for me, too.

Like—

The pages of something precious crinkle beneath fingers, trembling and aching as they curl and curl before snapping open and almost apologetically smoothing out the wrinkles of the edges of what been disturbed.

On the corner, small little drops of moisture sink through the page, blurring a word. Two. Quick, fervent hands wipe beneath eyes to stop the damage.

Gabe sounded happy…maybe I can watch him actually be happy. There’s a crazy thought. Us...happy.

Maybe if I watch him do it long enough, I’ll figure out how to do it, too.

Why is that so hard to write? What does that even mean about me?

Why is it so hard to imagine that maybe I can be happy, too.

Barely scratched out by a shaking, brave hand. Resolute.

Why can't I be happy, too?

#chenrich #life is strange true colors #alex chen/steph gingrich #alex/steph #life is strange fic #fic #mine #fi2a

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snackleggg · 3 years

Text

City of splintering hopes: Chapter 4 "Meda-Lean"

~~~

Ao3

~~~

When Danny came out the other side of the cave, back into the Far Frozen, he turned around to confirm yep the bird robot is still following me.

"So why exactly has keeping me safe been 'added as your top objective'?" Danny asked, using air quotes when referencing what the robot had said earlier.

"Because you are a Halfa" It replied. Danny actually paused at that.

He turned around and started making the trek back to the yeti civilisation in the Far Frozen, following the route that Frostbite had led him through.

"Okay but I wasn't born a Halfa. I'm not a citizen of that city or even related to those Halfas in anyway so why did you activate?" Danny asked.

He heard the crunching of snow behind him stop and he also came to a stop to look behind him at the robot. It had it's head tilted to the side again, seemingly a common gesture for it when it was thinking or maybe confused?

"It does not matter if you were not born a Halfa. What matters is you are one now and that was proven by the activation once you stepped into the Hall of the Ancients" It stated and Danny could tell by it's abrupt blink that he was making a face because he did not understand half the things that just- well not 'came out of it's mouth', it didn't have a mouth but that last sentence definitely had him confused beyond all belief.

"Wat" Danny said "Hall of the what now? Activation? What are you talking about?"

"The Hall of the Ancients is the name of the structure atop the capital." It explained "The automatic pairing system was activated by your presence as it sensed you had not been assigned a droid and therefore assigned me to you" the robot finished and Danny needed a second to take all that in.

Instead of facing everything that sentence implied Danny turned back around and continued walking. He soon heard the crunching of snow behind him signalling that the robot bird was following.

"So... it only turned on because it sensed I was a Halfa?" Danny asked after a brief silence.

"Correct. All Halfas are assigned droids to assist and protect them in their everyday lives, especially those who travel outside of the Hidden lands" It explained and Danny was trying to wrap his mind around it. More questions suddenly started popping up into his mind, thankfully he finally had someone who seemed to know what they were talking about.

For some reason Danny felt relieved. The automatic system that the original Halfas left behind had recognised him as a Halfa and that made him feel very validated.

"Why'd it choose you?" Danny asked after briefly mulling over the question. He had seen many of those statues in the alcoves in the walls and there had probably been more he hadn't seen deeper inside the building. So why was this specific droid chosen for him?

"Each droid has a unique personality of sorts, unique responses to certain situations and when you stepped into the building it scanned your core and automatically found the droid best suited to serve and protect you" It replied.

"So there are just a bunch of pre-made droids laying around waiting to be assigned?" Danny asked, he couldn't help the sadness that tainted his voice. Those droids would probably never be activated, Danny sure as hell wasn't letting Vlad get his grubby little hands on one. He shuddered at the very thought of Vlad knowing about the ruins.

"Incorrect" It informed him "Halfa children typically have droids created and assigned for them at the age of 10. All droids in the Hall of the Ancients had already been created and assigned to a Halfa at some point and were all once active. Including myself." the robot said, there was something in it's voice but Danny couldn't place his finger on it.

"Wait so.... how long have you been deactivated for?" He asked.

"It has been roughly 247 years since I was last active" It replied, that strange tone in it's voice again.

"And that was when...." He could piece together what that meant but the droid answered him anyway.

"When Pariah Dark was launching his attack on the Halfas" Danny suddenly recognised the emotion in it's voice. Grief. Sadness. Hesitancy.

Even if it was a robot Danny could only imagine what it was like. Then another thought hit him and he stopped again in his tracks on the path. But only for a moment before he continued. He could sense the robot's worried gaze but Danny wasn't going to bring up what had caused him to stop. He didn't even want to look back at the droid.

Danny couldn't bring himself to ask more questions, not yet. Maybe another time when his core wasn't clenching in sympathy for the droid.

They walked in silence, every once in a while Danny looked back at the robot bird to see it was seemingly surveying it's surroundings. Danny thought back to how he had scanned the landscape around him when he had come through here with Frostbite and he bit back a laugh at the similarity. It didn't take long before the droid snapped it's attention back to him whenever it noticed him glancing.

Finally they made it back to landscape and terrain Danny was familiar with and it wasn't long before Frostbite popped out and greeted him.

"Great One! You have returned!" Frostbite exclaimed and then he took notice of the new face following behind Danny but instead of any number of reactions Danny had expected Frostbite just glanced at it with something akin to nostalgia in his eyes before diverting his attention back to Danny.

"You're injured!" Frostbite shouted, finally taking noticed of his broken nose. The blood, having dried up ages ago, now looked a muddy brown and felt flaky against Danny's skin.

"Yeah, I had a bit of a crash" Danny said, straining the last word as he glanced at the robot bird that simply blinked back at him.

"Come, let's get you fixed up then before your travel home" Frostbite insisted, ushering him towards the yeti tribe to get his nose fixed up.

Half an hour later and lots of assuring Frostbite that "I'm fine" "No, I don't have a concussion" "Yes, I will make sure to be careful to avoid faceplanting into anything", Danny was finally given the okay to go home but before he left he had one last thing to ask Frostbite.

"Frosty, why aren't you phased by the sudden stone robot bird following me around?" Danny asked, gesturing to said droid who was still hunched over as it stood behind him. Danny had noticed that the robot bird, while not hunching to the point of meeting his eye level anymore, was still not standing to it's full height. He also noticed that no one in the Far Frozen tribe batted an eye at the stone being.

"Oh! Sorry Great One, you must be confused by our lack of reaction! It's just these stone creatures always accompanied past Halfas. If anything we had been surprised when first meeting you that you did not have one. I had a feeling that you may gain one by visiting the sight of their origin" Frostbite replied thoughtfully, a paw held to his chin as he briefly examined the droid.

Danny felt his eye twitch slightly "And you didn't think to inform me that when entering the remains of a Halfa civilisation that some ancient automatic system would decide to give me some bodyguard assistant?" Danny asked, his tone becoming more hysterical as the absurdness of the situation sunk in.

"I apologise Great One. It had only crossed my mind after you had already entered the cave" Frostbite at least had the decency to look sheepish.

Danny took a deep breath before letting it out and giving a slightly strained smile "it's... okay. At least you didn't mean to leave out that semi important fact" He said.

Finally, finally! Danny started his flight home after one last goodbye to Frostbite. He also quickly discovered that bird like stone beings could apparently fly. The droid flew above Danny, stone wings spread and the occasional flap of them even though he was pretty sure that wasn't necessary but he wasn't about to rain all over the robot bird's parade.

Halfway home he realised that he will definitely not be able to explain a giant stone robot following him around to his parents.

"Hey uh... can you turn invisible?" Danny directed to the robot flying above him. The droid looked down at him, blinking once, before replying "Yes, I can but it is energy consuming so only for short periods of time"

"Cool cool cool coolcoolcoolcool, cause when we get to the portal you're gonna have to turn invisible so my parents don't see you" Danny said, a scenario of what would happen to the droid if his parents saw it played in his mind and he quickly shook it from his head.

"Portal? Are we travelling to the living realm?" The robot bird asked and Danny remembered that this was a robot two centuries and a half out of it's time. He would need to keep as close an eye on it as it was keeping on him.

"Yeah. I kind of live there but my parents don't really know about the whole being a Halfa thing so if you stay out of their sight I would really appreciate it. My sister Jazz is fine though, she knows" Danny dreaded having to explain this to Jazz. 'Hey Jazz! I went to the ancient ruins of the original Halfas like we talked about yesterday! I accidently triggered some automatic pairing system that gave me a robot bodyguard for the foreseeable future!' Yeah, that was not going to be a fun conversation.

"I will be mindful" The droid replied before they fell back into a comfortable silence.

Soon the Fenton ghost portal came into view and they both landed on the floating rock it was positioned on.

"Okay remember, invisible. I'll tell you when you can drop the invisibility. Just stay quiet and try not to touch anything" Danny said, making sure he got across how serious this was to the droid.

The robot bird nodded before disappearing from sight instantly.

Danny turned around and did the same, turning himself invisible as he walked through. He mildly panicked when the thought that the droid wouldn't be able to follow him crossed his mind but the feeling of three claw like stone fingers on his shoulder quickly got rid of those doubts.

As expected, his parents were working in the lab, focused intensely on their newest invention which of course was a blaster of some kind. Danny rolled his eyes, another weapon he would have to dodge.

As Danny walked through the lab it was unnerving to him how quiet the droid was managing to be. No heavy footsteps like when they had been walking through the Far Frozen and the cave. No sound of camera like clicking from blinking. The only indication Danny had that it was there were the cool stone fingers on his shoulder.

They made it up the stairs with out a single noise and as soon as they got through the doors Danny immediately dropped his invisibility.

"You can drop it now" He said when the droid didn't immediately follow his example. After the robot became visible again Danny moved around it to close the door to the lab and he sighed in relief.

Despite the fact that he had left in the morning it was evening now as Danny had spent roughly 7 and a half hours on his little side quest. He let the transformation back to his human form go over him and breathed a little in relief.

He saw in the corner of his eye the droid jerk back a bit and he turned to see it blinking repeatedly at him with that same clicking noise before suddenly stopping.

"Your clothes are different than in your other form" It stated.

"Yeah, what of it?" Danny asked as the droid stared at him, still hunched over but Danny was pretty sure it would hit it's head on the ceiling if it stood at it's full height.

"I am an information retrieval droid. Though my objectives have been updated for your safety as top priority I still must gather as much information as possible on everything around me" It stated. Danny made a mental note never to let it onto the internet unsupervised.

"Oh well, like I said earlier I wasn't born a Halfa. I kind of half died? Or maybe I died fully but was half brought back to life? Either way I died, whether half or fully, and those clothes were just the ones I died in" Danny shrugged.

The droid looked at him for another second before seemingly accepting that answer and turning it's attention to their surroundings.

"Right, if you're going to be following me around you should know the layout of the house" Danny said, rubbing the back of his neck nervously. The droid nodded absentmindedly, Danny could see it's thin pupils moving around rapidly, trying to take in as much information about the surroundings as possible no doubt.

"Well this is the kitchen. We eat food in here but you don't have a mouth and are a robot so I don't think you'll find yourself in here too often. You already saw the lab, in the basement. Don't go down there unless I'm with you because my parents are down there like 70% of the time" Danny said as he gestured around and then to the door behind them.

Danny started moving into the living room and the droid followed him, he noted that the sound of it's heavy footsteps had returned.

"Living room, we'll pass through here alot to get to the front door so if my parents are ever in here you'll have to turn invisible and be quiet" Danny said, again making a sweeping motion with his arm to show the room. It was weird, he kind of felt like he was showing around a secret roommate.

They went up the stairs. Danny quickly explained that the droid should never ever follow him into the bathroom. An off handed comment to avoid his parents room and the stairs that led to the Ops center. He also pointed out Jazz's room before ending the tour with his own room.

"Since you insist on being around me all the time you'll be spending alot of time in here" Danny said after he closed the door to his room.

The droid was looking around with great interest, examining the books he had on his shelf and all the different space themed things scattered around his room. Danny felt a little embarrassed and could feel his face heating up even though he knew the robot was most likely analysing everything so it could get a better understanding of the Halfa it had been paired with.

Then a thought hit Danny.

"This might be an awkward question to ask now but uh-" the droid turned to face him as he fumbled with something he should've asked from the start "Do you um, have a name I could call you?" Danny asked. He was getting a little tired referring to it as 'the droid' and 'the robot bird' in his head.

"Why yes, you may call me Meda-Lean" They said and Danny blinked.

"Medalean? Or wait- Meda Lean" Danny corrected himself and Meda-Lean nodded.

"Can I call ya Meds for short? Y'know like a nickname?" Danny asked.

"Yes, you may call me 'Meds'." Meds confirmed and the way their eyes seemed to half close gave the impression that if they had a mouth they would be smiling.

----

A stone statue stood tall in a ravaged battlefield. The land was empty and quiet until suddenly the statue moved. The grey stone fell apart revealing a ghost. A rumour that the worlds, both the living and the dead, had forgotten.

The tall figure stood and stretched out two large metallic wings from his back, being careful not to jostle the bow and bag of arrows also resting on his back. Despite not needing to breath he took in a deep breath before releasing it as a loud sigh that echoed throughout the long abandoned battlefield.

"I smell Halfa"

~~~

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I'll be tagging all content do to with this story with the tag City of splintering hopes so if guys want to you can follow the story easier. You can also use that tag for any questions or content you guys make of the story!

#danny phantom #city of splintering hopes #chapter 4 #danny fenton #Meda-Lean #dp frostbite #danny phantom fic #danny phantom au #my writing #dp fanfic #fanfic

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fan-art-ic · 3 years

Text

Don't Stop Here

She's back. Anne is really back on Earth. She can hardly believe it.

(Picks up immediately after the episode ends) (ao3 link in reblog)

Anne can hardly believe it. Cars honked around her and every breath is heavy with unnatural smog. She meets eyes with a human stranger, who lifts a phone very quickly and stares bug-eyed at her. Not at her, no, at her family. She turns to Hop-pop, Sprig, and Polly, all scratched, bruised, tired, afraid, and looking at her with trust in their eyes. Hop-pop croaks and coughs and Anne notices her frog family's skin is graying. She has to get them out of here. Off the hood of the car, over five lanes of traffic, hopped over the guardrail, down the hill, through a sparse copse of trees, to the sidewalk under the bridge and-

"Anne?" A pink hand tugs on her wrist. "Anne, stop. Please." Her feet stumble to a stop and her socked foot lands on something sharp and cutting and she gasps.

"Anne!"

Two sets of hands catch her torso, and she faintly feels a wet touch pulling at her ankle. Her family carefully let her down, so she lands heavily on her butt instead of her nose. Anne's next breath is a punch of air and her lungs brighten with pain as she loses control of her inhales and exhales. Her eyes hurt and burn. When she wipes a dirty hand across her face, she winces as hot tears and snot sting her injuries. A light weight settles onto her back and rubs in a circular motion. Anne clings to the sensation. Between sputtering breaths, she begins to hear. "-in...and out...in...and out," Hop-pop's soothing, raspy voice repeats and then she can hear Sprig humming. It's a song Wally wrote about a silly snail getting lost and he had sung it at her Frog of the Year party. A laugh bubbles up into a sob and Anne reaches out her arms to pull all three of them close.

"I love you guys," she chokes out, and Polly pats her cheek.

"We love you too, Anne," says the polliwog, normally so energetic now wrung out and too bright-eyed. She needs to pull herself together. Anne releases her grip and her family takes a step back. She runs her hands through her hair and shakes her head, dust and dirt and surprisingly long twigs falling to the broken concrete.

"Alright, froggy fam," she begins, "I'm going to take you to meet my human fam." Sprig whoops, but he's clearly flagging.

"Yay!..."

Anne grimaces and looks at Hop-pop. The old, orange frog meets her gaze steadily, but she can tell how much he is missing his cane. "Hop-pop, you got Polly, I got Sprig?" He nods. "Alright. Let's make our way to the highway, follow along till we hit an exit, follow that till we hit town, figure out where we are, call my parents. Sound good?" No one protests and Anne helps Sprig up to her shoulder as Hop-pop collects Polly.

They're maybe ten minutes into their walk, and every step is a jolt to her nervous system. Her skin feels prickly, her jaw too tight, her muscles ache like never before. The pressure of her Newtopian breastplate, once reassuring, weighs her every step like a lodestone. The heron-leather straps pinch at the underside of her arms. Sprig's cool, damp skin is refreshing against the back of her neck, but it's not slimy enough and it concerns Anne. She bites her lip and tries to time her steps so that her sneaker hits the rocks and roots, while her socked-foot hits bare earth. She isn't always successful, and everything is starting to throb. Her temples pulse loudly in her head and her knees are weak and her mouth is parched.

"Shh, shh, it's okay, Polly..." Hop-pop murmurs behind her. She can't see him, but she hears the dragging footsteps crunch the dry grass and the low comfortings of the grandfather to the polliwog. A stabbing pain shoots through her chest, and Anne forces her legs into a march. Focuses on the act of raising her thigh, swinging her calf forward, shifting her weight, repeat ad infinitum.

In seventh grade health class, there had been only one day dedicated to 'mental health issues' and something mentioned was meditative breathing. In multiple P.E. classes, Anne heard the teachers talk about making sure to breath while exercising. One, two, three. In. One, two, three. Out. Anne can do this.

The clouds parted a bit as they walked and the sun is nearly blinding Anne, as she squints at the sign. DALY STREET EXIT, it read in giant white text on green. Okay, so now they can get out of the weird in-between highway area they've been hiking. She points at it. "This way."

Something is mumbled behind her back.

"Huh?" She stops to turn and looks at Hop-pop. "What's up?" The elderly frog's face is twisted in a very non-confidence inspiring way.

"Well...Anne, I can't help but notice you don't have your backpack. Or...or your phone. So-" All Anne could hear was a piercing, ringing sound. Her hands clenched and unclenched.

"Right," says Anne, interrupting whatever the old frog had been saying. "Right. I don't have my backpack or phone." She blinks rapidly and Hop-pop's brow furrows deeper grooves. Her fingernails dig grooves of equal depth into her palms. "Okay, so," she claps her hands and ignores Sprig and Polly startle, "we will keep going. We will find someone kind and nice who will be willing to call my parents. End of plan."

"Great plan," Sprig yawns in her ear, and she can't help the yawn in return. It stretches her neck muscles and she yawns again for good measure. Polly yawns, then Hop-pop, then her and Polly at the same time. They all smile and the moment of brevity gets the family going again, the plan -no matter how little Anne believes in it herself- solidly in mind and the goal spurring them on. Not too much further now.

The sign for 7-11 flickers and there is a closed down Redbox sitting stoutly next to a ash-tray/trash can. The ad in the window advertises Berry Glam Blitz Bomb and a two for four hotdogs sale. Her stomach rumbles.

Her family is crowded together outside the storefront, and Anne doesn't know what to do. She's loathe to leave the Plantars by themselves, but maybe the cashier won't be the most cynical soul in Los Angeles. Then the frogs won't go under the risk of wandering the streets, talking to strangers. She can't bring them in though, what if the employee freaks out (like...any reasonable person confronted by talking frog people would). A clammy, orange hand taps her arm twice. She looks down.

"We'll be okay for five minutes, Anne," reassures Hop-pop. "Hand me Sprig." She doesn't hand him Sprig so much as the pink frog melts off her back and flops down next to his grandfather, but either way transfer successful. Okay now it's just time to interact with a human who isn't one of her two childhood best friends. She can't be totally out of practice right?

Marcy's eyes had been so wide when she died. Her pretty, dark brown eyes glittering from the light of Andrias' sword. From the flashing blue of the portal home. From tears.

Anne swallows roughly and steps toward the entrance. She scolds herself when the self-automated doors startle her, and she glances around the store. Someone tall and bald by the coolers, someone on the phone in the back, besides them and Anne the place is empty. Well, and the cashier. She approaches the register before she can one-eighty out the stupid doors, and she clears her throat. The cashier, a young guy with bright green and black hair and a name tag reading 'Jared', looks up from his phone.

"Hey-o, ready to check out?"

"Um, no actually," Anne starts and stops. What is she supposed to say? "I...dropped my phone and it cracked badly," she lies. "I was supposed to meet up with my mom but I can't get the dang thing to turn on." She laughs, short and high-pitched, rubbing her neck. "Is there like, a store phone I could borrow to call her?"

Jared raises his eyebrows. "No, there isn't a store phone. If you buy something I could exchange dollars for quarters, I think there's a phone booth near here." The lights are buzzing really loudly, Anne notices. She takes a deep breath.

"Sorry, that doesn't work. Could I borrow your phone?" She sees how the older guy assesses her. She sees her dirty torn school skirt, her scorched copper armor, the twigs that she can't stop finding in her hair. "Or could I give you her number? Please, I just want to get back to my mom." Jared's frown softens and his mouth opens to speak, but is cut off by a voice behind Anne.

"Annie Bone-choy?" Her neck complains at the speed she turns to look. The bald person she saw earlier. Face contorted in open surprise, finger pointed in her direction, he says in a nasally SoCal accent, "Your parents have been looking everywhere for you."

"Do I know you?" Anne asks. Bald guy shakes his head. "No. I like your parents restaurant, amazing noodles by the way, and they have your missing posters all over the front. Yours and two other girls."

"I thought you lost your phone and were meeting up with your mom," Jared unhelpful interjects. Anne looks between both of them.

"Can I please use someone's phone to call my mom?" The two adults look at each other.

"Tell me your mom's number," says Jared tentatively. Anne rattles off the ten digit code with ease. She remembers sitting in the kitchen and her mom helping her arrange plastic magnet numbers in the order of her cell phone number. Jared puts the phone on speaker and the dialing tone begins to ring. Once, twice, three times, four...

"Hi! This is Madee Boonchuy. Not here right now, please leave a message!" The messaging system beeps and Anne just shakes her head at Jared. He ends the call.

"Can you please try again?" She pleads. Jared frowns, but does as requested. The dialing rings again. And gets voice-mail, again.

"I could call the restaurant," the bald guy offers. "It's not exactly rush hour but they are open right now, right?" Anne blinks away the stinging in her eyes. She has no idea what time it is, no idea what day or month or even if it's the same year. Who knows how Amphibia time lines up with Earth time?

"Can you? Please?" He nods and pulls out his phone. A minute while he finds the contact, and now for the third time, the phone rings on speaker. Anne knows what they say about third tries, and she crosses her fingers tightly.

"Hello? Delivery or pick-up?" Familiar, accented English, and Anne has to resist falling to the floor.

"Mom," Anne whispers in Thai, and the voice on the line speaks rapidly.

"Anne? Sweetheart? Oh my god, Anne? Anne?"

"It's me Mom. It's Anne," Anne sniffs and hiccups.

Some sharp, unintelligible yelling comes out the receiver, and there is a rustling and slamming sound before Anne's mom replies, "Where are you?"

Anne blue screens for a second. "I'm..." She struggles to remember. "I'm at a 7-11."

"What? Where? What street?"

"Daly Street," Jared pipes up.

"Who is that?" Her mother says sharply.

"That's just the cashier, he was, he was helping me. Well and another guy who comes to the restaurant apparently? I uh, he says he recognized me from my posters, huh, I didn't realize I'd have any," Anne rambles.

"I'm coming to you, Anne," Her mom promises. "I'm going to hug you so much. I'm coming to you. I have to hang up now, to get in the car, but do not go. Please."

"I promise," says Anne, and when her mom ends the call, she starts crying.

She exits the 7-11 once she gets the bald guy and Jared to distract each other (i.e. purchasing a bottled soda), and she spots the Plantars immediately. They're on top of a parked USPS truck. When Anne peers around the vehicle to see the other side of the street, she spies the mailman making his way towards the truck. Crap.

"Guys!" She hisses through clenched teeth. She raps her knuckles against the truck's side and hear Polly yelp. "Guys, get off the truck!" A moment later, Hop-pop and Sprig land beside her, Polly in her brother's arms. Anne pulls them over to the Redbox and huddles on the side opposite to the store entrance. She steps in front of them, hoping her body will shield enough of the frogs so nobody looks closer.

"Your mom is gonna be here soon?" Sprig asks. Anne nods.

"Yep, she'll...she'll be here soon." There's no response, and there is a take-a-tab paper taped to the trash can advertising singing lessons, and it's all Anne can do to not remember the time Sasha threw a karaoke party and they all started singing badly and together, and Anne blinks and keeps talking.

"My mom will come, and she's probably in her mini-van, oh man she's gonna tear through like twenty stop signs and scare other drivers so bad," she snorts, "and maybe there'll be a loose water bottle or a chip bag in the car, and oh man, you guys don't know what sour cream and onion chips are I can't wait to show you-"

"Anne," Hop-pop cuts her off. "Don't forget to breathe." She sucks in a deep breath and feels bile creeping up her throat. She tries to swallow but her mouth is so dry it just hurts. She can't imagine how her frog family's is feeling compared to her, they must be feeling so much worse than her, and they haven't said anything yet. Anne exhales forcefully. When a hand squeezes around her own, she squeezes back reassuringly.

They all jump as a dark red mini-van screeches to a halt in front of the 7-11. The driver exits the car, not wasting time to even park, and runs towards them. "Anne!"

"Mom!!!" Anne cries and she takes only a few steps before she's barreled over.

"Anne, oh my god, thank the heavens it's you! Anne, Anne, oh my baby," Anne's mom sobs into her shoulder before pulling back. Anne stares at her mother. Lets her eyes trace the deepened wrinkles, notice the shining, brown eyes the same shade as her own, the beauty mark on her chin. Her mom's glasses are new. Anne can't remember what they'd been, but now her mom wears tortoiseshell frames.

"I like your glasses," is the first thing to tumble out of Anne's mouth, and she nearly slaps herself. Her mom laughs wetly.

"Oh, Anne, oh, I've missed you so much." Her mother folds her back into her arms. Anne hugs back as tightly as she can for a second before her mom stiffens with a surprised grunt. "And you're so much stronger, when did that happen?"

Anne smiles. "I'll tell you about it." She steps back and grabs her mom by the shoulders. They're the same height now. "I'll tell you all about it." And that means... "Mom, let me introduce you to the Plantars," Anne steps to her mom's side and reveals her froggy family.

Her mother gasps and says something in Thai that Anne doesn't know. She would bet it's one of the worse swear words. "I know it's a shock, cuz, well, two foot tall talking frogs," says Anne and motions for the trio to come a bit closer. "But they protected me, fed me, and loved me while I was stranded in their world." Hop-pop shuffles the closes with Sprig and Polly poking their heads out behind him.

Hop-pop extends his hand. "My name is Hopadiah Plantar, it's an honor to meet you Mrs. Boonchuy." Her mom looks down at the wrinkly, orange hand and then back at Anne. She nods encouragingly and her mom steels herself before meeting the hand with her own.

She gingerly shakes it. "Pleasure to meet you...Hopadiah," Anne's mom says his name carefully. "My daughter says you kept her safe?" Hop-pop nods.

"To the best of my ability," and his face gains a wry look and he rubs the back of his neck. "When she and my grandkids weren't off chasing trouble."

Anne's mom smiles tentatively. "I'm sure. Are these your grandkids here?" Sprig comes out behind Hop-pop's back and puts out his hand.

"I'm Sprig Plantar! And this is-" A loud honk interrupts him and everyone in the group startles, moving to look at the source. A silver BMW is stuck behind her mom's mini-van and the one-way street doesn't give any wiggle around room. A shout filters out of the sports car. "MOVE YOUR CAR!" Except with a lot more swears. Anne's mom sighs.

"Introductions later, let's get in the car," she instructs and everyone moves.

All the frogs hesitate as they get closer, Sprig even flinching when Anne hauls open the back seat door with a slam. She gestures inside. "C'mon guys, it's just like a wagon," Anne says. Polly hops in first and settles into the closest middle row seat. She bounces a couple times.

"It's comfy," the polliwog reports. The jerk in the BMW honks again, even longer. Sprig and Hop-pop pile in and Anne closes the door behind them. She gets into the passenger seat and the feeling of air conditioning against her skin is like. Magic wind. Super relaxing. Like insane luxury. Oh, Anne missed technology.

"Buckle up." Her mom clicks her seat belt into the lock and starts pulling away immediately. Leaving Anne to explain what 'buckle up' means, and what a seat belt is, and no she doesn't know when they were invented. The questions continue as the mini-van pulls onto the highway, but the group soon quiets down. Anne blinks slowly and looks outside the window. The trees and billboards and other cars pass by her so quickly, so much quicker than Bessie could ever go. A pang strikes her heart as Anne realizes Bessie will be all alone. She hopes the Plantar's family snail is taken care of while they're gone. Anne looks away from the window as nausea grips her throat. She's almost home. She can hold off on falling apart for just a little longer.

"Anne, honey, are you awake? We're home."

Anne blinks and she squeezes her eyes tight and yawns loudly and long. She hadn't realized she dozed off. "I'm...home." She opens the door and doesn't let her twinging feet deter her from getting a good look at her home. The small bushes that lined the driveway, the slightly dented mailbox, the umbrella her dad always left outside the red door. Anne drinks it all in.

For the past several months she had been in a world with fantastical flora and fauna and shocking experiences every day, but Anne feels dizzy at the sight of her home. Her eyes catch on every detail, the once too-familiar not familiar enough. The bristly door mat; the unpolished brass numbers: 301; the creaky porch step; the small, pink, clay owl figurine Anne had given to her mom for Mother's Day in fifth grade and sat tucked in the corner. Her eyelashes are sticky with tears.

"Your house is SOOOOOOOOO BIG!" Anne snorts and is grateful for Sprig. She turns around to look at the small, pink frog.

"It's pretty nice! I've loved growing up here. Three-oh-one Silver Spring Lane." A gobsmacked look.

"You have springs made of silver?" Sprig's jaw drops. Hop-pop's head pokes out of the van.

"What's this I hear of silver springs?"

Surprisingly, it's Anne's mom who answers. She laughs, and it soothes Anne, before saying, "No, Hopadiah. It's just a nice name for a road." Anne tunes out what Hop-pop replies in favor of turning back to the door.

The metal door handle is hot to touch, searing from the oppressive California heat. She breathes out in a harsh whoosh and forces herself to yank the door open. It slams against the wall and the hinges squeak. Anne hears a sound of protest from her mom, but she can't acknowledge it when there's a bullet of fluff running towards the door.

"DOMINO!" The cat jumps into Anne's arms and she catches her, swinging Domino around and around and gosh, will Anne ever stop crying today? She hides her tears in Domino's soft, white belly, and laughs as the cat wiggles around to climb up her shoulders. Domino wraps around her neck and rubs Anne's check with her cute, little face.

Anne collapses to her knees and she pulls her cat around and holds her so carefully and so, so close. Domino allows this longer than ever before, but soon she does squirm and fall to the carpet on all four feet. She chirps and purrs vacuum-like. Anne's hands move on their own accord, stroking down Domino's back, scratching all her sweet spots, reacquainting herself with her Domino, her beautiful angel baby.

"Anne, could you move your reunion a few feet more into the hallway? So we can come in?" Her mom says, her tone telling Anne she's smiling. Anne kisses her baby's head one more time before standing up and moves to the side. Ugh, her knees hurt from carpet burn. That's one thing she hadn't missed.

"Sprig, Polly, Hop-pop! Remember the killapillar?" Anne scoops up Domino and holds her out. "This is Domino One!" Sprig steps closer, squinting. He pokes at Domino's paw and she mrrps! at him. He flinches back for a second before staring deep into her eyes. Anne watches this stare-off with no small amount of amusement.

Eventually, Sprig asks, "So this Domino won't kill us for dinner?" Anne shakes her head and a leaf drifts from her hair.

"Nope!"

Sprig oh so slowly reaches a finger to Domino's long-haired back. "Oh!" He says, curling his fingers through the fur. "She's even softer than peatmoss."

Polly joins her brother and jumps up and down on her new, little legs. "Let me pet her!" Anne leans back down, but Domino wriggles out her grip and runs down the hallway, disappearing around the kitchen corner. Polly pouts. "Aw! I wanted to touch Domino One."

Anne pats her yellow bow. "Don't worry. There's plenty of time for that later."

"I believe a good use of time right now," Anne's mom says, still lingering in the open door, "would be for you to change out of your dirty clothes. Go take a shower."

Anne stares at her mom stunned. "Oh my god...," she whispers. "I shall finally be clean." Sprig laughs.

"Are there no showers where you come from?" Anne's mom asks Hop-pop as Anne still revels in the very idea of pressurized water.

"I can't say I know what a shower-whatsit is, but we did bathe," Hop-pop says archly, half at Anne's mom and half at her. Her mom nods understandingly. Then frowns.

"Do you have any spare clothes with you?" She asks and all the Plantars go wide-eyed.

"We..." Hop-pop can't finish his sentence hands twisting his ascot. Sprig looks morose and he's holding onto his slingshot tightly. Polly is similar, tugging at her frayed and dirty yellow bow. Anne's heart twinges, and she cuts in.

"We didn't exactly have time to pack our wardrobes when we came, Mom," she says. "I have piggy bank money, we can go shopping guys! You guys have to see the mall. This time, my treat," she tries to cheer up the little frogs.

Sprig and Polly perk up at the mention of visiting the mall, but Hop-pop and her mom both protest at once.

"Anne, that's mighty kind of you, but-"

"Anne, that's very generous, but-"

Both stop and her mom motions for the frog to continue. Hop-pop waits a second more before saying, "Anne, you don't need to spend your savings on us. We can make do if you just show us to a wash bucket and a needle with thread. When these get worn out, we'll cross that river when we come to it." Anne's mom then lays a hand on Hop-pop's shoulder, slightly crouching to reach. Hop-pop nods at her.

Her mom smiles before saying to him, "I can certainly show you the washing machine, but we'll figure out another set of clothes for you." Her gaze casts over Sprig, Polly, and Anne. "For all of you. And Anne," her mom walks up to her and she smiles with glistening eyes, "when did you grow up so much?" She brings Anne into a tight hug before releasing her. And boops her nose. Anne squeals. Her mom smiles. "I will pay for the shopping. Now!" She claps. "Shoes off."

Everyone looked down at their feet and noticed the frogs didn't have any. "Ah well, shoes and...shoe off. Anne, what happened to your shoe?"

Anne waves it off. "Lost it a few months ago." Her mother grumbles and Anne suspects she'll be getting a new pair of sneakers in the near future. Then it occurs to her, "Where's Dad?"

"He had to stay to make sure the delivery went smoothly since Jackson quit and everyone else messes it up," her mom explains while running her hands through Anne's hair.

Anne gasps. "No! Not Jackson."

"Yes, Jackson," replies her mom. Her fingers tug painfully through Anne's hair and come away holding a handful of leaves and twigs. "Is there an entire forest in your head? Now off you go, shower. Get the dirt off," she commands. Anne rolls her eyes.

"Yes, Mom," Anne says in Thai and kisses her cheek. She looks to the Plantars. "You guys okay with my mom showing you around the house? Show you somewhere to sit and some water?"

Hop-pop nods and Polly wiggles. "I have a mighty THIRST," she yells. Anne giggles.

"Well, alright froggy fam. See you on the flip side," and she starts to head up the steps, her fingers trailing the railing, when a cough causes her to pause. She glances back.

"Anne..." Sprig says, "welcome home."

Tears spill over her cheeks and Anne half-falls down the stairs to give him a tight hug. Quickly, other froggy arms surround the two and are joined by a pair of human arms. All together, all safe, all alive. Anne takes a deep breath, and exhales heavily. She's back home.

#amphibia fic #amphibia #anne boonchuy #hopadiah plantar #sprig plantar #polly plantar #mrs. boonchuy #amphibia season three #my writing #if you enjoyed reading this as much as i enjoyed writing this pls consider reblogging

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shinsoukokuvalentine · 3 years

Text

What the Water Gave Us

Hi all! Time for a fic! This one was part of a zine and can also be found on Ao3. Warning for graphic depictions of violence.

The screaming. The screaming wakes him, shrill and agonized.

Ryuunosuke’s eyes shoot open, and in one swift motion, he jerks upright in bed and tosses his thin sheet to the side, chest shaking as if he had just experienced a nightmare.

But the nightmare’s claws remain deep in his mind, for he can still hear the screaming. It cries out again, very real and very loud, echoing from the cove. It almost seems to call to him, and shivers travel down Ryuu’s spine every time it splits the night. He’s never heard someone scream like that.

Swiftly reaching into his nearby chest, Ryuu grabs his clothes before even making it completely out of bed. He rushes through his motions, the screams piercing his ears, hurrying him as he throws on his trousers and boots.

The bright moon guides his path. He runs out the door of the mill, plain and modest, leaning a bit in its old age. He runs down the trail, through the thick pine forest, nightingales ceasing their calls in fright as he darts past their trees. He runs, and the screams grow louder, drawing him closer.

He reaches the cove as his heart, pounding in his ears, nearly drowns out those screams. Squinting, he looks down to the small, rocky beach, encircled by high cliffs. With the moon’s aid, he can barely see a figure writhing in the sand.

Ryuu wastes no time in running down the stairs carved into the cliffside. The screams compel him, even in their wild dissonance, begging for him, pleading for him.

Soon Ryuu can only see the figure. He has eyes for nothing else, charging straight towards the hurting man, the glass-shattering cries. He feels ready to give his life for-!

He stops. The illusion breaks as the man’s struggles slow and his screams die down. His voice quiets, dropping the spell, trading his cries for dry rasps and gurgles as he coughs up blood.

And Ryuu’s once-enraptured gaze quickly becomes one of pure malice.

“You,” he snarls.

The siren stares up at him with its mouth hanging open and its body convulsing. Ryuu instantly sees the source of its pain: a harpoon embedded deep in its side, fresh blood still flowing from the wound, turning the sand dark and wet beneath it. The siren’s scaled tail lashes, glittering like hundreds of opals, and its wide eyes stay fixated on Ryuu, deep purple and vibrant gold. It gasps for air. Ryuu scowls.

“You picked the wrong man to come to your rescue,” he snaps. “Give me one good reason why I shouldn’t wait here and watch you die.”

The siren only stares, twitches. It whimpers, possibly the only noise it can make, a far cry from its seductive song or its calls for aid. Ryuu scoffs.

“You’re pathetic,” he says. “Your song has haunted my dreams for months, and this is how you choose to show your face again?”

Its wide eyes reflect the moon, its choppy hair shines in the silver light. And it stares. It wheezes, it trembles, blood drips out of the corner of its pink lips, and it stares.

With a growl, Ryuu reaches down, scooping the monster into his arms in one motion.

“I swore to kill you, siren,” he snaps. “Not some fool with a harpoon.”

The siren’s eyes close as Ryuu carries it home, harpoon and all, holding it close even as its blood begins to stain his clothes. Its tail drags on the ground as he walks.

When they first met, Atsushi hadn’t eaten a human in moons.

His stomach growled as he stared up at the ship from the ocean floor. The bland taste of the fish in his hands still lingered on his tongue, its blood dissipating into the water around him, its dull scent unappealing even in his hunger.

Flashing lights to his right drew his eye, and floating there, Dazai raised one eyebrow.

“If you hate it that much, why keep eating it?” He asked, the bioluminescent stripes along his tail lighting up in patterns so he could “speak” underwater. Atsushi’s shoulders sagged a small bit, relaxing at the familiar presence, sinking deeper in shame.

“Because I don’t have to promise it anything to catch it,” he flashed back, dim lights flickering among his scales, an aquatic equivalent to mumbling. “Have you ever considered how bad that sounds? Seducing someone just to kill and eat them?”

Dazai, ignoring him, swam closer. His dark hair flowed around his face as he moved past Atsushi, and he looked at the ship above with growing hunger in his eyes, his scales lighting up to say, “I wonder how many humans it holds.”

Atsushi shrugged, continuing to nibble on his fish. It tasted like coral and sand ground into a paste.

“Wanna look with me?”

Dazai’s lights drew Atsushi’s attention once again. He stared at him, at the eager but cunning glint in his smirk, the way his tail wagged slightly. And Atsushi sighed, the gills on his neck ruffling.

“Just one look,” he flashed back. Dazai grinned and darted upwards, with Atsushi following in his wake. He left his half-eaten fish behind.

Their heads only barely broke the surface. The ship’s hull creaked as they looked up from its side, careful to stay in the shadow cast by the sails. Dazai’s eyes immediately resembled angelfish; large, bright, and flashing like diamonds.

“Atsushi,” he whispered, staring straight at the ship. “Those flags.”

Following his gaze, Atsushi saw them too; black flags, marked with a skull and crossbones.

“Pirates,” he breathed. Dazai nodded, but his following smile almost appeared giddy.

“Do you know what this means, Atsushi?”

Atsushi only stared forward. He watched the men on the ship, those he could see, scrambling back and forth like rats. Even with sea salt filling the air, he could still catch their scent when he opened his mouth.

“With the pirates around, less ships have been coming to the island,” Dazai said. Atsushi could see him from the corner of his eye, looking back and forth between him and the ship. “Less ships, less humans, less food.”

Atsushi closed his mouth when it began to water. Despite the fish in his stomach, it still growled when he began to imagine biting into a human again, its blood dripping down his chin, its bones crunching in his jaws.

He clenched his fists as if that could silence those thoughts.

“We wreck this ship,” Dazai murmured, “the humans - the food - will come back.”

Atsushi shook his head, squeezing his eyes shut. He could still smell them.

“We don’t have to eat humans,” he stammered. His body quaked when he heard Dazai’s low chuckle.

“Oh, but Atsushi,” he said, “you really want to.”

Atsushi’s eyes snapped open, his gaze whipped upwards to the ship again, and he breathed in their scent. His stomach growled again, louder.

“When was the last time you used your song?” Dazai asked. Sympathy oozed from his words as he cooed, “When was the last time you tasted human meat?”

Atsushi said nothing, eyes darting from man to man, as if tearing his gaze away from one would make him less hungry for the next.

“Why fight your instincts?”

Suddenly Atsushi’s eyes stopped. They stared, fixated on one man, unwavering. The man stared back.

He looked over the prow of the ship at the sirens. His mouth hung open, his white shirt billowed in the wind like sails. His gray eyes, like storms over the ocean, bored into Atsushi while his black hair danced around his face. They seemed to stare at each other for moons.

Then the pirate screamed.

“SIRENS!” Rang his warning cry. Atsushi’s song filled the air before the pirate even finished.

The next few minutes happened in a blur, whirling past Atsushi’s head in a song-filled bloodbath. He only remembered Dazai joining his melody, lending his voice, causing men to tumble into the sea as if begging to be devoured. He remembered the ship crashing into the rocks, splinters flying, more men screaming. He remembered many of them dying by his fangs.

He remembered the taste of man. Sun-hardened skin squished between his teeth, hiding large, juicy muscles beneath it, their bones and organs bursting with flavor in his mouth.

But none of them were him.

When his high finally fell, like a wave building to its peak only to break, he stared at the remains of his meals. He couldn’t fathom eating so much, but he felt full for the first time in a long while.

Even so, he was hit with the realization that his prize had escaped; the man he had truly wanted, the man who had raised Atsushi’s song from his throat. He was not among the dead, the loose body parts floating in the water like shark bait. Atsushi couldn’t smell his blood.

“Didn’t know you had it in you, Atsushi,” Dazai flashed his scales, beaming as he gnawed on a leftover bone, picking it clean.

But Atsushi only looked up at the surface again, watching the wreckage sink. The sky above had begun to turn dark.

His heart pounded, his stomach ached; his prize was still out there.

Their attacks increased in number. It became Atsushi’s addiction; eating whatever humans he could whenever the craving arose, although they could only satisfy him temporarily. None of them were him, and his cravings all but consumed him.

“Hello? Earth to Atsushi.”

Atsushi jumped a little when Dazai’s hand clapped onto his shoulder. The other siren grinned, rubbing his thumb on the fabric of his stolen tunic.

“We’re not here to think about him tonight, okay?” He said. “You’re relaxing if I have to force you.”

Atsushi nodded, faking a smile for him. His insides felt as if they were tearing themselves apart, collapsing inwards, but he smiled.

“And you like this place?” He asked as his eyes began to dart around. The humans walking around the port city each smelled delicious, and he had to resist opening his mouth, tasting the air for their scent. The days when he resisted eating their meat seemed years ago.

But none of them gave the pair of sirens a second glance, not when they looked completely human, even though Atsushi still wobbled on his new legs. A siren’s shapeshifting abilities could only provide the form, not the skill.

“Trust me,” Dazai said, holding onto his wrist to drag Atsushi’s tottering body alongside him. “Travelers pass through this town all the time. No one will bat an eye at this tavern.”

Atsushi’s lips flattened into a tense line, but he only nodded as Dazai pulled him into the inn. The sign above the door, reading “The Bucking Seahorse,” swung back and forth in the evening breeze.

Warm light filled the tavern, lit by a fire at the left wall and candles hanging from the balcony above. Tables sat scattered around the ground-level floor, with various townspeople and seafarers clustered around them, some laughing and grunting, others keeping quiet.

“You haven’t tasted human ale yet,” chuckled Dazai, pulling Atsushi to a table near the fireplace. “You’re in for a treat tonight, Atsushi.”

Silent, Atsushi could only nod. He let Dazai order, trying to ignore how his stomach growled, how the scent of humans filled his lungs until it nearly stifled him. When his tankard arrived, he chose to drink instead of breathe.

He couldn’t be sure how much he drank. It tasted vile at first, yet the more he downed, the better the ale tasted. It poured into his head and overpowered every feeling except a strange, warm buzz, spreading numbness from his fingers and up his limbs. It felt like drowning and breathing deeply all at once.

And for a moment, he forgot.

Then, like a bell ringing all around his head, he remembered when he smelled that scent once again.

Immediately his senses were flooded. He opened his mouth, breathing it, sure of it over the scent of alcohol and tobacco.

“What’s wrong?”

He heard Dazai’s voice, but he didn’t respond. The noises of the tavern filled his ears, loud and boisterous, growing rowdier and the night grew longer and the tankards emptied. Atsushi only stood and looked towards the door, eyes struggling to focus.

It was him. Atsushi could pick that dark hair out of a crowd, his storm-like eyes from a sea of gray.

He seemed paler than before as he walked forward, into the tavern, his hair pulled back in a small ponytail, his white-tipped bangs still hanging around his face. Eyes traveling, distaste pricked at his expression, his lips in a frown.

He bumped directly into Atsushi. Either because he hadn’t been looking where he was going, or because Atsushi’s body moved without his consent and he stepped in front of him. The man snarled.

“What do you think you’re-?!” He began to snap, immediately grabbing Atsushi’s shirt, but he stopped when he saw his face. Just like before, he stared.

Despite the ruckus of the tavern around them, everything seemed to silence. Atsushi could finally see his face up close, with his fair skin and pale, thin lips. Atsushi’s lungs held his breath captive.

Then the man’s features darkened. His brow furrowed, his lips turned downwards in a deep scowl, and hatred like Atsushi had never seen flared in his eyes.

“You,” he snarled like a wild dog.

Atsushi’s hands seemed to move on their own. They settled on the man’s cheeks, stroking them. They felt softer than sea moss.

And before the man could sputter out another word, Atsushi’s voice filled the space between them.

His mouth formed words, notes, a song spilling from him before he understood its meaning, and

the man’s eyes and body began to relax. His expression softened, almost melting in Atsushi’s hands. A smile even formed on his ever-so-slightly parted lips.

Atsushi reveled in it. He wanted him to keep smiling, to stay content in his touch, in his song. The look in his eyes almost seemed hypnotic, unfocused and turning upwards.

“Atsushi!”

Though he still sang, Atsushi turned ever so slightly to Dazai, who stared at him and grabbed onto his shoulder.

“What are you doing?!” He hissed.

Atsushi couldn’t answer without breaking his song. But as he looked back at the man’s face, to his own hands, he could see the scales forming on his skin, watched as his claws grew longer.

“Your transformation’s breaking,” Dazai snapped.

Atsushi could feel his breath hitch. His song faltered. In that split second, he saw everyone else in the tavern watching him with that same vacant look on their faces. Each of them had fallen under the spell of his song.

But he didn’t stop. If anything, his voice grew louder. He just wanted to watch his one human, watch the contentment and happiness on his face. Atsushi’s voice alone seemed to cause shudders of pleasure all throughout his body.

Atsushi’s mouth began to water again. He opened his jaws wide, fangs extending as his transformation shed off his body like dead skin. The trousers he had been wearing fell to the ground as his legs turned back into his long tail, and he leaned forward even though he struggled to stand, bringing his mouth to his human’s neck.

He jumped when the gunshot rang through the air. His voice broke, his song ending abruptly as he tore his gaze from his human and to the door where armed guards suddenly stood, guns in their hands..

“I TOLD YOU I HEARD A SIREN!” One of them shouted at the man directly beside him, wax filling their ears to block out Atsushi’s song.

Paralysis shot through Atsushi’s body like a lightning bolt. His human began to stir, Atsushi’s spell wearing off as he looked directly into the barrel of a gun.

Dazai scooped him into his arms and ran before the bullet flew through the air, bursting from the gun with a deafening bang. Atsushi covered his ears as Dazai jumped out the nearest open window, landing in the alley, tumbling to the ground.

“I can’t leave you alone for a minute, eh?” He huffed as he sprang to his feet, hurtling onto the cobblestone road. Atsushi clung to his neck like a hatchling.

People in the street began to scream, shouting and pointing at Atsushi as Dazai darted past them, Atsushi’s tail failing.

“THEY’RE RUNNING AWAY!”

Heart pounding, Atsushi looked behind them. He watched as the guards burst back out of the tavern, their boots pounding on the cobblestone street, their bullets flying past the sirens’ ears.

“We just have to make it to the ocean,” grunted Dazai, scrambling in and out of alleyways to avoid the guards’ bullets. Atsushi could only nod, panic and confusion and dizziness overwhelming his body, flooding his head. He couldn’t taste anything but ale, couldn’t smell anything but his human.

They wound around paths, the smell and roar of the ocean growing nearer, yet still too far. The world seemed to spin around Atsushi, blurring in front of his eyes.

Then he could see it. Dark, glittering in the moonlight. Dazai gave a small, strained smile before a cry of pain split the air.

Dazai stumbled. His lips turned downward in a grimace, but he still hobbled out onto a pier, gripping Atsushi to his chest. The scent of siren blood began to spill from him.

Atsushi didn’t have the chance to see where he had been shot. Before he could even ask, Dazai tottered off the pier and into the ocean.

The cold water slammed into Atsushi, petrifying him. He could only see bubbles, could only hear the roar of the ocean, could only see tinges of red in the water. His head seemed to spin in circles.

He gasped when he broke the surface, looking around frantically.

“DAZAI!” He shouted, eyes darting back and forth. Nothing rose from the water.

One glance behind himself, and he saw they had been followed. The guards ran out onto the pier, pointing their guns at the water, shouting orders to the nearby ships.

“FIRE ON THE SIRENS!”

Atsushi dove back under the surface, darting back and forth. His blurred vision trailed behind him as panic rose in his throat like bile.

“Dazai!” His scales flashed.

That had been his mistake.

Pain suddenly flared up from his side. He screamed, bubbles pouring out of his mouth. The smell of his own blood mingled with Dazai’s.

He thrashed, whipping around to the harpoon buried in his side. Instinctively, he sunk his teeth into the rope, tearing into it easily before it could pull him back to its ship.

He could hear his own heartbeat now. Blood trailed behind him. He only thought of swimming, of swimming far away from the gunshots and guards and ships.

He swam until the pain overwhelmed him. His body fell still, feeling as if fire flared from both of his harpoon wounds, piercing beneath his ribs and out of his back. Only the tide moved him as he cried out, a sound absorbed by the sea.

He only knew he had washed ashore when he could clearly hear his own screams.

He wove his song into his cries. Perhaps instinctively, perhaps desperately; he couldn’t be sure.

He couldn’t tell how much time had passed. He simply blinked, and the sky changed, the stars moved. Blackouts washed over him with the frequency of the sea, rushing over and off his body, stinging his side with every salty wave.

Atsushi’s voice slowly gave out. Rasps and choked noises replaced his screams, and his wide eyes stared upwards. Dreams began to pile on top of him, dreams of seeing his human, of hearing his voice.

He stared upwards at him. Even if this were a dream, Atsushi only wanted to see his face, to imagine him standing close once more. He gasped for air when he meant to speak to his illusion, remembering the low tones of his voice in a faroff mumble.

Everything grew dark again as warmth wrapped around Atsushi. His head rolled back, the pain overwhelming his body until it enveloped him, pulling him down into itself. But at the same time, he thought he felt himself lifting into the air, something like arms holding him tight.

If only his human would truly hold him that tenderly, thought Atsushi as he could no longer keep his eyes open. Maybe that’s all he had wanted.

Maybe if he lived, he could fix things, he mused as his cruel dream carried him away, taunting him with his human’s voice, his touch. Maybe they could just be happy together. Maybe his human would forgive him.

Atsushi smiled sadly as darkness overcame him. Dreams could be cruel.

#shin soukoku #sskk #atsuaku #akuatsu #siren au #mermaid au

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beahasasideblog · 3 years

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At the Beach

My fill for the @starkerfestivals bingo card prompt 'At the Beach'! This one's a little short, so I won't be putting it on ao3.

In California, there is a town, and within that town is a cove, within which lies a small beach. The sand is coarse and dark, the kind that sticks between the treads of your shoes. The waves are dark and wild, thrashing into spindrift, into the air, and up, away from whence they came.

On this ugly beach- for, comparatively, there are many far more beautiful beaches in the state of California- there is a single, wooden staircase. This staircase is old, and worn, and tucked into the side of a hill. These steep steps are rickety, and high in number, and a strong deterrent for any who might wish to visit the cove.

A deterrent to most people- but Tony Stark isn’t like most people, is he? He stands at the edge of the tide, just close enough that the sand beneath him is packed tight from water and sediment. Sea glass shines with the final remnants of late afternoon, shimmering as the tide recedes with the day.

Tony has always loved this beach. Partly, it is for solitude. In all his years, he has never once seen another person along the stretch of sand. Who would walk down a cliff for a pathetically small beach? The other reason he loves the beach, however, is (ironically) the company he can find within it.

Small, cliffside coves, such as this one, are formed by the rising tide. As the waves crash against the side of a mountain, they wear down the walls. Eventually, after thousands of years, the cove is formed. When the tide is low, a stretch of sand is revealed. When the waves come crashing back down, all evidence of a visit is washed away.

“Tony?” A familiar voice calls out, sparkling and sharp like the sea glass crunching beneath his feet. “Did you really need to see me?”

That’s when Tony turns to look at the source of the voice, and sees him again. Peter Parker stands awkwardly to the side, with hands tucked into the pockets of his zipped jacket. His cheeks are tinged pink with the chill of the wind, painting him to look like a cherub.

“I know that you… that we agreed to stay apart from each other,” Peter continues, after not receiving a reply. His hands shift visibly in his pockets, but do not leave them. “I don’t even know why I’m here. I’m doing fine on my own, and you’re clearly doing fine, too, so you don’t need anything from me, and I might as well just leave, so I’m gonna do that before…”

“Before what?” Tony prompts, taking off his dark sunglasses and rubbing the lenses against the hem of his shirt. Even with the reveal of his red-rimmed eyes, Tony averts his gaze, as though that will mask anything. “Before Morgan follows you and sees us here?”

With that, Peter sighs. “Don’t blame this on me, Tony. I wanted to fix things, to make it work. You made the decision to break it off, because you’re so fucking stubborn. What is this, huh? Are you trying to get me to admit that I’m better off without you? Is this all some elaborate way for you to justify your own selfish actions? It’s not my fault that you keep wanting to hurt yourself!”

“You have no idea what you’re talking about,” Tony scoffs, an aching emptiness in his chest clawing at his ribcage. “Morgan is… I’m her father, and I need to do what’s best for her, and she doesn’t… Peter, you have to understand-”

“I understand it, but that doesn’t make your reasoning sound!” Peter interjects, doing his best to make his breathing steady. “Morgan would have gotten over it, eventually! She just needed some time to understand that we actually care about each other! She would have gotten over the age thing, and she’d have learned that I’m not, what did she call me, a ‘gold-digging twink’? Or was it a ‘selfish homewrecker’?”

“It’s not my fault that she was surprised to see her best friend in bed with me!” Tony shoots back, finally forcing himself to stare his former lover in the eyes. For a moment, there is only the gentle crashing of the tide, and the strained breathing of two men with conflict within their hearts.

It is only after a long, tense moment, that Peter finally breaks the silence.

“You were never going to leave your wife, were you?” His voice is small and fragmented, shards of glass only held in a mirror’s frame by tension of their placement. He speaks with a voice so weak that a strong breeze could bring it all crashing down. “I wasn’t ever going to be.. We weren’t ever going to be anything real. I was just there to keep your bed warm.”

“Peter, you know what you mean to me,” Tony chokes, taking an unsteady step toward the other man.

The man in question pulls back in response.

“I know that you kept telling me, ‘Just a few more months, baby’,” Peter spits, his voice becoming a sharp, angry thing. “You fed me empty promises for two goddamned years, and I-I was stupid enough to believe you! And where did that get me, huh? I’ve lost my best friend, the man I love, and… And you’re untouched by the fallout.

“I have to wonder if that’s what you planned, the whole time. Maybe you just needed an excuse to throw away your old mistress and find a new one. Tony… did you ever really love me, the way I loved you?”

If this were a love story, Tony would rush across the beach, pulling his lover into his arms and whispering sweet promises. He would press sweet kisses to Peter’s face, and resolve to change for the better. To provide a life worth living together.

But this is not a love story- not because the two men are not in love. Instead, it is because, quite simply, some men believe-

“Stark men are made of iron,” Tony says quietly. “I can’t… I’m not capable of loving anyone more than I love myself. I’ve hurt you enough, already. You should go.”

“You’re not even going to deny it?”

“Why would I? Some people just aren’t… we just aren’t made to love others. All I can ever do is take.”

#starker #sfsummerbingo21 #peter parker #tony stark x peter parker #starker fic #angst #morgan stark #cheating #my fic

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kitkat1003 · 3 years

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Tower Tales

3: Well, they’re not sad all the time, are they?

I posted this on AO3! Diversify ur platforms kids. Read the first two chaps Here, it’s kind of integral for ur understanding

@asilcorner sent me some ideas for this fic. Give them love! They have a great webcomic @ghostboyscomic that I love, and their art is so friggin cute. ANYWAY TO THE FIC

(also the Dot section lowkey has a song and im v nervous about so pls b gentle I’m fragile)

They’ve started drawing up plans.

For the Tower. Why not put it together better, why not make the space a home now that it has to be? Yakko refuses to let his siblings live in squalor, not when they have the ability to make it better.

Yakko is surprisingly adept at architecture, though Wakko can’t make heads nor tails of it.

“It’s just art with a little math,” Yakko shrugs off Wakko’s incredulous look with a smile, and Wakko frowns.

“I hate math,” He’s never had to do it in a classroom setting, but at this point he’s certain. He lets Yakko continue to try and figure that mess out, idly chewing on his mallet as he glances up at the tall expanse of the tower.

Yakko’s been thinking about expanding the kitchen and bathroom. Dot says she wants a space for herself, but there doesn’t seem to be room for it between everything else. Yakko tells her this kindly, though they can tell he’s not at all pleased with having to do so, and while she isn’t mad at him, she is upset at the situation.

“A proper lady is supposed to have a place to beautify herself,” She almost whines, but beneath the simple complaint is something closer to hurt, like this is another reminder that they’re trapped and they don’t have the luxury of comfortable space.

The frown lasts on her face longer than Wakko is comfortable with. She’s his baby sister, she’s not going to be upset on his watch, unless it’s funny and not from a place of real hurt. He glances up at the tall, tall ceiling.

Hmm....

Wakko grabs the lightbulb that appears above his head and tosses it into his mouth, crunching on it.

“Careful, if it isn’t funny you’ll cut your tongue on the glass,” Yakko calls over his shoulder. Wakko shrugs, and starts rifling through his gag bag. It looks like he’s got plenty of material, and while Yakko keeps writing up plans Wakko gets to work.

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

It’s a couple of hours later that Dot looks up from her book and she sees an entire second floor being built-scratch that, being finished. By Wakko. Alone.

“Holy Cow!” She can’t help herself from exclaiming, and Yakko jumps out of the intense scene of concentration he was in and looks where Dot’s pointing.

His jaw hits the floor.

The first floor, now.

“Hi guys!” Wakko waves from the entrance to the second floor, nailing down the last spiraling stair to it. “I got bored so I figured we could use a second floor!”

He skips down the steps and despite his rather hard stomping on them they stand firm. The craftsmanship is impeccable; Yakko and Dot meet in the middle of the first floor and glance at each other in shock.

“What have you guys been up to?” Wakko asks, completely innocent, as if he hadn’t just made an entire second floor on his own in the span of a few hours.

“How did you do that?” Dot asks, incredulous. Wakko looks confused, for a moment, and so she gestures wildly to the second floor. He shrugs.

“Just thought we had a lot of ceiling space, so we could use another floor. I think we have enough room for a third, but I thought I should take a break,” Wakko looks up at the new ceiling proudly.

“What measurements did you use?” Yakko asks, and Wakko stares at him blankly.

“Uhhhh...I kind of just started making stuff. I’m not good with numbers,” he responds.

“But how did you even get the materials for this?” Dot rebukes, and Wakko pulls out a burlap sack.

“It’s all in my gag bag, see?” He reaches in and pulls out a long wooden board, showing it off before shoving it back into the bag. “Easy peasy. And look, Dot, now we have room for your girly stuff!”

“I protest to the fact that looking good must be described as girly, but regardless-I’m so excited!” She rushes forward and wraps Wakko in a tight hug, spinning him around. When he’s set down he stumbles a bit, dizzy.

“Glad you...like it,” he mumbles, accent a little stronger, before shaking his head and coming back to himself. “Do you guys wanna see the upstairs?”

Yakko, who has been previously speechless, jumps into action.

“Heck yeah I do! C’mon!” He lets Wakko lead them up to the second floor, and they marvel at the open space. Dot keeps pointing at places where she wants her stuff to be, and Wakko rolls his eyes, but it seems her joy brightens his day more than he though it would. She was the reason he started building this, after all. Yakko is already dreaming up new plans, thinking of how to best utilize the space they now have. The kitchen, bedroom, and bathroom can stay downstairs, but they can make the living room smaller and put extra entertainment space up here.

“But, uh, yeah, that’s all,” Wakko has the audacity to look sheepish, and Yakko won’t stand for it.

“Wakko, this is beyond words,” He kneels down to his level. “This is a great help. Now, I think I should make something for us to eat, cause building this had got to have burnt up some calories, but do you think you might want to teach me how to build something later?” He smiles, and Wakko’s eyes go wide. Teaching his big brother something for a change? It’s a dream come true.

“Would I!” He tackles Yakko in a hug, and when Yakko catches him, just for a moment, he forgets the situation they’re in, and focuses on Dot’s giggles and the excited pattering of her feet on the new wooden floor, and on Wakko’s prideful expression and smile.

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

Yakko has never had an issue with food before. He’s learned to make it, because Wakko needs it and Yakko would never not be able to do something for his family’s needs, that’s ridiculous.

But right now he’s certainly regretting ever ingesting anything, because they’d had a sundae party to celebrate the third floor being made-a celebration type picked by Wakko, who had headed the third floor expansion-and now he can’t sleep, because he feels like he’s going to vomit.

His stomach feels like he just ate a bomb, and not for fun like Wakko sometimes does. He curls in on himself, trying not to make a fuss, but he opens his eyes and both Wakko and Dot are leaning over either side of him, mirrored looks of concern on their faces.

“Yakko, you look terrible,” Dot deadpans, but he can hear the slight tremor in her voice. She still occasionally hovers over Wakko, though has relaxed as he’s gone from eating like a normal person to his more “typical” unusually voracious appetite.

“It’s just some...,” he winces. “Some stomach pain. It’s nothing,” He smiles, even though he feels awfully sweaty and nauseous.

“I thought my problem was just stomach pain too,” Wakko rebukes, and, well, Yakko can’t really argue there.

“But we’ve been eating with you, Wakko, it can’t be that. And it couldn’t be bad ice cream, or we’d be sick too,” Dot puts a finger to her chin and thinks, but can’t come up with anything.

“Don’t humans have that thing where they can’t drink milk?” Wakko suggests, and, well, doesn’t that make too much sense.

“Thanks for the plot mover, Wakko,” Yakko groans from his place on the bed.

“I’ll go get you some water. Maybe if we flush it out with other stuff, it’ll go away quicker,” Dot hops off of the bed and off to the kitchen. Yakko’s stomach groans in displeasure, and Yakko curls up tighter.

“Guess this means no more milk, huh? Oh well,” Wakko shrugs, and Yakko half glares at him.

“I’m not banning milk from the house just cause I can’t have it,” He says, a growl in his voice. Wakko shrugs again.

“Who said you were banning it? I just don’t think we need it anymore,” He smiles, almost Cheshire. “Don’t have the craving for it anymore, right, Dot?”

“Right!”

Yakko almost jumps when he feels the bed dip down with Dot’s weight, surprised by her return, but he shifts to face her and takes the glass of water offered with a smile.

“Thanks, sis,” he takes a few sips, and while it doesn’t change much, he gives her a thumbs up anyway, so she’ll feel like she helped.

“Wakko, you need calcium in your diet,” he goes back to arguing, and Wakko leans back on his hands.

“Pretty sure toons don’t have certain diet they need.”

“Pretty sure toons don’t need to eat at all, but,” Yakko raises a brow and lets the sentence hang.

“Touche,” Wakko admits. “And hey, we’re broken body buddies!” He raises his hands up and grins, and Yakko tries for a smile, too, chuckling to himself.

“But I’m pretty sure we can get calcium in other foods. Just saying,” Wakko finishes, and Yakko gets it, but he isn’t going to deprive his siblings of pizza and ice cream just because his body can’t handle it.

But it’s an argument for another day, because Yakko’s stomach makes another very unpleasant noise, and he slowly sits up and starts crawling his way to the end of the bed.

“Where are you going?” Dot asks.

“The bathroom,” Yakko says, and his voice sounds weak even to his ears. “Don’t wait up.”

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

An hour and a half later, Yakko stumbles out of the bathroom, drained, and he slumps in on himself as he shuffles back to bed, only to stop when he sees the bed itself.

In the middle, where he typically rests, is a fort of sorts. Rather, it’s a perfectly shaped resting spot for him, lined with the softest pillows and with a blanket his favorite color, all as comfy as can be.

“Take a rest, brother,” Wakko gestures to the bed nirvana, though Yakko can’t help but notice him wince when he looks at Yakko. Makes sense.

“Yeah, we set it all up nice for you! See how it feels!” Dot adds, and Yakko smiles and makes his way to the bed, worming into the spot made to perfectly fit him.

He sinks into the softness and sighs. At the very least, while his stomach is a mess, he doesn’t have to worry about any other part of him being uncomfortable.

“Thanks guys,” He mutters, spent. He’s never going to even try and eat something with milk in it ever again, if this is the result.

“No prob,” Wakko waves off his thanks.

“You take care of us all the time. Turnabout’s fair play,” Dot quips, and Yakko chuckles, sighing and closing his eyes.

He’s asleep faster than expected, but he stays awake long enough to feel Wakko and Dot cuddle up on either side of him, like usual.

Despite his intestinal discomfort, he smiles.

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

Dot stares in the mirror.

Her new vanity is rather spectacular, and she’s been living on cloud nine since Yakko and Wakko finished it. They’d nearly gotten into an argument while making it-evidently, Yakko couldn’t understand how Wakko could see all the pieces and put them together without numbers or instructions, and Wakko couldn’t understand how Yakko couldn’t understand how the pieces fit together when looking at them as a whole.

Boys. She shakes her head and sighs, looking back at herself in the mirror.

She can see her brothers behind her. They match, of course, they’re the Warner Brothers.

The Warner Sister is alone.

She’s not unaware of why she was made. A token female character, eye candy, take your pick. She’s both. Made to fill in the tiny gap Hollywood makes for female representation while continuing the legacy that women are supposed to look and act pretty, and that’s it.

It makes her blood boil. And yet, isn’t she falling into it? She wants to be pretty, she likes being cute, but is that just because she’s supposed to?

She’s not even just cute, anyway! She can nearly go toe to toe with Yakko when it comes to word play, and Wakko barely has her beat when it comes to strength. So what if she’s cute? She was drawn that way!

So why does it still feel so weird?

Her brow furrows. It’s not like she can even prove to anyone that she’s better, anyway, because Yakko and Wakko likely wouldn’t care or know, and they’re stuck in this tower for forever.

“My name is Dot Warner,” She starts, a soft tune, “And I always get the final word.”

She misses musical numbers. She misses having fun outside of this place. She misses messing with people. Yakko and Wakko seem so similar-their names rhyme, for Pete’s sake-and she feels out of place here. But they were out of place together out there.

“I though your name was Princess Angelina Contessa Louisa Francesca Banana Fanna Bo Besca the third,” Yakko interjects, leaning a hand on her vanity. “Surprised you forgot, sis,” It’s all gentle ribbing, but now is not the time.

“Oh, put a sock in it, Yakko,” She responds.

“Which one?” Wakko comes up on her other side, holding out two similarly disgusting socks for her to pick from. She pushes him away.

“Leave me alone!” It comes out louder and harsher than she wants it to, and as a result Wakko looks bewildered, and Yakko lifts his hand from the vanity to move it to his hip. “Go be-be gross boys somewhere else,” She tries to cover up the actual frustration with a weak excuse, but Yakko just crosses his arms and raises a brow, and Wakko walks back over, sans socks.

“What’s the matter, Sis? Something’s bothering you,” She sighs at the question.

“You guys match better than me,” She grumbles. “I’m the cute one, and that’s it? You two get to be witty and strong and creative and funny and I’m just...,” She growls out the final word. “Cute.”

She sees Yakko and Wakko share a look over her head, and rolls her eyes.

“You seriously think that’s all you are?” Yakko sounds...confused. Bewildered. Like her worry is so unfounded it’s surprising she even is worrying at all.

“You’re way cooler than that,” Wakko agrees. “You’re smarter than me.”

“And you’re better at the physical jokes than me,” Yakko adds.

“I know,” She says, almost cheeky, but her mood refuses to lighten. “But-I don’t know. Iit’s not just that-I-I guess I miss doing stuff outside. Like songs.”

There’s a beat, and when she looks up, Yakko has a smile on his face that is nothing short of sly.

“Songs, you say?” He rubs in chin in thought. “Wakko?”

“On it,” She watches as he pulls out instrument after instrument from his gag bag, until they practically have an orchestra. Wakko also pulls out a conductor’s wand.

“Shall we, m’lady?” Yakko holds out his hand, and when she takes it, he pulls her to the middle of the room. A spotlight lands on them, and the music starts.

“Her name is Princess Angelina Contessa Louisa Francesca Banana Fanna Bo Besca the third,” He begins with a wink, “and no matter the situation or confrontation, she always gets the final word,” Yakko’s tenor is sugary sweet as he dances her around the room, and he passes her off to Wakko, who leaves the self playing instruments to their own devices.

“If you think you can beat her, just wait till ya meet her, cause you’ll realize that thought is absurd,” Wakko’s voice has a grovel from the accent, and he makes silly faces as they waltz, to make her giggle.

“Sure she’s cute,” Yakko starts.

“Quite the beaut,”

“But she’s got the strength of a brute!” They harmonize, and she pulls out her mallet. She watches as they cringe away in fake terror, and she does a fake swing before tossing the mallet away. “So watch out, because if you make yourself a target she’ll shoot!”

She watches them laugh at the end of the line, and they do fit each other, don’t they? But they’re going out of their way to do this for her, and so what does it matter? Being different and being special are the same, depending on how you phrase it, and they don’t mind her being different at all.

The music keeps going, the piano leading into verse two.

“Don’t make her mad, don’t make her sad, if you want to keep your limbs intact,” Yakko twirls her, and she imagines being at a fancy Ball or Gala, surrounded by admirers.

“She’s got all modes of attraction, and kneejerk reactions, it’s all just simple fact,” Wakko takes her for a spin himself, his movements more wild and less controlled than Yakko’s more straightforward dancing, but she loves it anyway, and is almost remiss when he passes her back to Yakko.

“She always tries her best,” Yakko dips her, low enough that her ears nearly touch the floor, and her tail presses close to her back.

“To be better from the rest,” Wakko continues.

“Because we all want to reach for the stars!” Yakko throws her up and she poses mid air before he catches her with his shoulders, letting her sit there. She can’t help but laugh at the whole thing.

“She’s Dot Warner,” Every time they go into unison, it’s perfect harmony, and she loves it. Them.

“Our giggling sister,”

“Does she know how much we’d miss her?”

The music pauses, and they look to her patiently, to join the song, and for a moment she hesitates. Because she’s never had such a ballad before. What if her voice doesn’t sound right? What if she messes it up?

But Yakko and Wakko are smiling at her, as if they know she’ll do it right, and you know what. Screw it.

“I’m Dot Warner!” She shouts, and the belting note rings as she jumps up. “I’m no one’s former!” The music swells, and she stands on Yakko’s shoulders, triumphant. “I’m sweet and I’m tough!”

“Always more than good enough!” Wakko and Yakko crow as back up.

“And I’m better than why I was drawn!” It’s like a warrior cry, like she’s daring the world to tell her different.

“She’s charming,” Yakko.

“And alarming,” Wakko.

“In every role I’m starring, no longer just the token girl!” She hops down from Yakko’s shoulder, taking center stage. This is what she is. The breaking of her own role, just as loud and proud and wild as her siblings, with a touch of cuteness that she loves. Because hey, what’s wrong with being cute?

“With wit and sass,” Yakko and Wakko start to finish.

“I’m the highest of class,” She interjects, giggling.

“She’s the best of our two worlds!” They all come together, Dot in the middle, the boys kicking out their outside legs and gesturing outwards with one arm as the music plays them out, and when the music number is over all Dot can do is drag her brothers together into a hug.

“Thank you,” because she needed this. A sense of normalcy, the constant reminder that she’s more. She knows why she was drawn, but who cares? She’s better than that.

She’s Dot Warner, Princess Angelina Contessa Louisa Francesca Banana Fanna Bo Besca the third, and she’s got her brothers behind her.

And when she has them, nothing can stop her.

#animaniacs #animaniacs 2020 #yakko wakko and dot #yakko warner #dot warner #wakko warner #kitkat1003

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contemplativepancakes · 4 years

Text

where to, cas?

Castiel hears Dean talking, sees his mouth moving, knows he should reply, but all he can do is stare at Dean blankly. The words rattle around in his brain, too empty now that it’s devoid of all the voices of his brothers and sisters.

Where to? It’s a reasonable question, a good one, but one Castiel has no answer for. Nora had just found his things at the Gas n’ Sip earlier that day, so he doesn’t want to try and press his luck there, but he has nowhere else. A shelter, maybe? He had stayed in a few while he was making his way to the bunker, and while they’d be okay for a couple nights, maybe, if they have room, it’s not a long term solution.

“Cas?” Dean prods, shaking Castiel out of his thoughts.

Castiel bites his lip. “I’ll…I’ll just tag along with you, if that’s all right.”

Dean’s not making eye contact, so he takes the chance to give Dean a doleful stare, admiring his profile and the way his stubble turns a reddish blond in the glow of the streetlights. “I’ve missed you,” Castiel admits softly.

Dean finally turns his head to look, really look, at Castiel. “I’ve missed you, too.”

Dean lets out a deep sigh, then. “Look, Cas, I—”

Castiel cuts him off. “You don’t have to explain yourself to me. I’m not an angel anymore. What use am I?”

A look Castiel can’t quite identify crosses Dean’s face. Even after several years, Castiel still isn’t the most versed in identifying human emotions. “What? It’s not about that. You don’t have to be useful to be worth something to me, man.” Dean huffs and runs a hand through his short hair. “And of course it’s fine that you stay with me for the night, but how about you show me your place, huh? It’ll help me sleep better if I know you’re doing okay.”

“Well, I don’t exactly have… a place.” Now Castiel is the one avoiding eye contact.

“What do you mean? Where have you been staying?”

“At the store,” he answers, glancing over at Dean as shame washes over him in a bright blaze.

“Oh, Cas,” Dean murmurs, before clapping one of his hands against the Impala’s dash. “Well, we ought to get you some better digs, then, right?”

Castiel coughs awkwardly, not wanting to upset the delicate balance of Dean’s now-forced good mood. He looks out the window and leans his head against the cool glass, closing his eyes and trying to pretend he has his wings again, but it’s a poor substitute. His wings never rumbled, or hit potholes, or expelled fumes. Castiel’s nose wrinkles in distaste when Dean cracks his window.

Eventually, after an amount of time Castiel has completely lost track of, the Impala rumbles to a stop and Dean reaches over to shake his shoulder. “Wake up, sleepyhead. We’re here.”

Castiel doesn’t bother to waste his breath protesting he wasn’t asleep. He’s not an angel anymore, so it was a reasonable assumption for Dean to make, he supposes. He squints out at the bright lights proclaiming vacancy refracting through the window. The driver’s door slams shut, followed shortly by the trunk squeaking open, and Dean presumably retrieving his duffle bag. Castiel opens his door and slowly gets out, feeling the crunch of gravel beneath his thin soled shoes.

Castiel trails Dean into the lobby, trying not to look out of place as Dean talks to the clerk. “One king,” he says gruffly, and Castiel’s head whips up in surprise.

keep reading or read on AO3 here!

“I’m paying for the month.” Castiel’s head drops just as quickly.

Dean’s just going to dump him here and move on, since Castiel is obviously no longer a worthy investment of Dean’s time now that he has nothing left to offer. To Castiel’s surprise, Dean doesn’t just press the key into Castiel’s hand, but brushes past Castiel and out the door, ignoring the questioning look the desk clerk sends the two of them.

Castiel stumbles out after him, the cool night air biting his skin. Dean looks down at the number on the key and mutters to himself, looking around before he spots the door and walks up to it. Dean pounds a hand against the door, as if testing its sturdiness, and he must be satisfied because he unlocks it and gestures for Castiel to go in.

Dean follows and closes the door behind him, tossing his duffel on the bed before pointedly moving it to one side. “I—I figured we could share for the night. That way you’d have more space to stretch out the rest of the time, when I’m not here.”

Castiel may not have angelic hearing anymore, but he can still hear Dean’s hard swallow. “Sure,” Castiel says awkwardly, turning away from Dean and unbuttoning his shirt. He drops his slacks as well before he climbs into the bed, using the covers as a shield for the uncomfortable emotions swirling around in his gut.

Everything is so much more intense now that Castiel is a human, but at the same time, it’s not. His emotions overwhelm him more than they ever did when he was an angel, but his head feels empty without the voices of his brothers and sisters constantly swirling around and the world seems dull and flat now that he can’t perceive souls. He doesn’t think he’ll ever be able to see a sight as beautiful as Dean’s soul again, and the thought is more than a little depressing.

While Castiel's thoughts have been occupied, Dean has slipped into the bathroom, and Castiel can hear the shower running. An urge possesses Castiel to open the door, pull back the shower curtain, and join Dean, like he’s observed many humans do in the years since they’ve invented indoor plumbing, but he stomps down on it.

Castiel lays there staring at the ceiling for what seems like hours, but is probably a few minutes. His patience is just one more thing that evaporated into thin air when he fell. Finally, the bathroom door opens, and Castiel wilts back from the cool air. He was expecting steamy warmness, but he’s left shivering.

Castiel tries to keep his eyes on the ceiling, tracing the cracks and water stains, but his eyes keep shifting towards Dean, tracing drops of water as they run down his back, highlighting the muscles. Castiel swallows hard. He’s lost count of how many times he’s cursed being human in the past day alone.

Castiel snaps his eyes back to the ceiling, turning over for good measure when Dean drops the towel, but not before he gets a good look at Dean’s ass. Castiel remembers shaping the curve of it, placing every freckle with care after he raised Dean from Hell. It’s different, though, now.

Everything is different, and Castiel hates it.

His throat is scratchy. Castiel considers getting up to get a drink from the sink, but then he would have to walk past Dean, and there’s a rapidly developing situation under the sheets that would make that mortifying. Castiel’s newly human body hasn’t seemed to have received the memo that Castiel is not a teenage boy. Castiel holds his breath as Dean lifts the sheets and slides in next to him. There’s a rush of cold air, and Dean shifts as he settles in the bed. “Is this okay?” Dean whispers.

Dean’s presence draws Castiel towards him; it always has, and now Dean expects Castiel to resist his pull when he’s less than six inches away from him. No, it’s not okay.

“It’s fine,” Castiel grunts.

“Just don’t stick your cold feet on me in the middle of the night, okay?”

Castiel always runs cold now that he’s human, and he can feel Dean’s heat radiating even from his spot on the mattress. “Of course, Dean.”

Castiel stays resolutely still, not wanting to bother Dean with his fidgeting. He can’t seem to fall asleep without tossing and turning, and it’s so pathetically human that Castiel hates himself for it. For not being able to fall asleep, and needing to sleep at all in the first place. It’s not until Dean’s breathing evens out that Castiel allows his body to relax. His back and jaw ache from holding himself so stiffly. His wrist throbs from where Ephraim had brutally twisted it. He thinks it has a slight fracture, and he knows he should do something for it, to make sure it doesn’t get worse, but he can’t seem to summon the motivation. He cradles it against his chest and stares at the wall.

The passage of time is marked by the headlights of cars sliding across the walls as they drive by and the slow turn of the flip number alarm clock. His heart pounds in his ears, but he can’t hear Dean’s, which is an uncomfortable change. He turns so he can see the rise and fall of Dean’s chest. Castiel lets the sight soothe him to sleep.

Castiel wakes to a pleasant friction. His hips are slowly rolling into the mattress, and his eyes flutter back shut. Since becoming human, he has discovered the peculiar phenomenon of morning erections, and although they can sometimes be an inconvenience when he’s running late for work, they’re largely enjoyable. He moans a little as he lets the sensation wash over him.

A choked sound comes from next to him, and Castiel freezes, stilling the movement of his hips. The last night comes rushing back to him, and he realizes he’s not as alone as he thought he was. Blood rushes to his face, making it uncomfortably warm. He cracks his eyes open and is relieved to find he’s facing away from Dean. Maybe he can pretend he’s still sleeping.

“Cas?” Dean whispers.

Damn it.

“Good morning, Dean,” he grates out, his voice sleep-hoarse.

The mattress shifts as Dean moves, and Castiel expects the dip of Dean’s weight to disappear, for him to go to the bathroom, or even more likely, say goodbye and take his leave, vanishing from Castiel’s life forever, but all of a sudden, there’s heat pressing against his back instead. Dean reaches over, and his fingers trace a path down Castiel’s chest, ghosting over his hip bones, down to his groin. Castiel stiffens, unsure of if he’s still sleeping or not. This doesn’t happen to him when he’s awake.

Maybe he got thrown against the wall harder than he thought.

“What are you doing?”

Dean’s hand stills. “What does it look like I’m doing?”

“Why, then?” Castiel is puzzled as to why Dean hasn’t left. He had had no qualms telling Castiel he couldn’t stay in the bunker, so he’s not sure why Dean wants to spend extra time with him now, and he has absolutely no idea why Dean would be trying to initiate this with him. Castiel is still new to feeling emotions in their most potent form, but he doesn’t know which cocktail of them could lead this.

Dean swallows hard, and his hand retreats. “I—I just thought—”

Castiel turns over to face Dean, to look at the microexpressions that flit across his face. Now that he can’t see Dean’s soul, this is all he has to rely on when it comes to gauging Dean’s mood. Dean’s eyes catch on Castiel’s for a second, before he looks away, staring at the curtain instead. He licks his lips nervously. “I thought you looked like you could use a hand. And, you know, you look sad. Sex always makes me feel better.”

Castiel raises his eyebrows. “Does it?”

Dean huffs. “Most of the time. Well, I just thought I’d help you out, but you obviously don’t want that, so that’s fine. That’s cool.”

Dean stumbles out of the bed, accidentally dragging the covers with him, and Castiel winces at the blast of cold air.

“I’m, uh, I’ll go, then. You probably have to be at work, anyway.”

Castiel looks over at the alarm clock. “I have until ten.”

Dean follows his gaze. It’s six. “I suppose you need a ride?” he sighs, tugging a hand through his hair.

“If you wouldn’t mind.”

“Of course not, just— Fuck, Cas. I don’t know what I’m doing here.”

Castiel looks on in alarm as Dean takes a heavy seat back on the edge of the bed, bringing his hands up to his head and burying his face. Castiel can barely handle his own feelings, much less someone’s else.

Nevertheless, he sits up and puts a hand on Dean’s back. “Are you okay?”

Dean laughs ruefully. “I’m pretty far from okay. I miss you, man, and Sam’s up my ass all the time, and—”

“And what?”

“Nothing, it’s not important. I’m just… stressed, I guess.”

“Ah. So you wanted a relaxation?” Castiel asks. He’s heard of humans using intercourse for anxiety management.

“What? No. Just forget it.”

“Forget it,” Castiel echoes. “Right.”

He turns away from Dean, swinging his legs off the bed and letting his toes wiggle into the scratchy carpet. He wrinkles his nose as the smell of cigarette smoke wafts up.

“Wait, Cas,” Dean says, and Castiel can’t help the way his mind jumps back to last night, when Dean had said the same thing. Castiel had thought Dean was going to tell him to stop, to not go to Nora, to quit his job, to come back home, but there was no such luck last night, and Castiel doesn’t allow himself to get his hopes up now.

He turns to look at Dean, and Dean wilts. “Nevermind.”

Castiel huffs and darts his gaze away, standing up and retrieving his clothes from where they’re a puddle on the ground. He pulls them on, and Dean clears his throat behind him. “Looking a little wrinkly there, buddy.”

Castiel shrugs. “This is all I have.”

“Well, here.” Dean reaches into his army green duffel bag and unfurls an impressively unwrinkled pair of jeans and a shirt. “This ain’t amateur hour, dude,” Dean says, responding to the questioning raise of Castiel’s eyebrows.

Castiel watches intently as Dean folds his clothes from the day before into his duffel, trying to learn the technique. He needs to be able to keep his clothes looking presentable. Dean finishes his folding and looks up to see Castiel’s eyes fixed on him. He grunts. “You ready to go?”

Castiel looks back at the clock, ready to protest and fight for more time with Dean, but he jostles his arm and hisses. Dean is on him in a second, his hands warm and gentle on Castiel’s arm.

“Did this happen last night? Why didn’t you say anything?”

Castiel shrugs.

Dean pokes at it with two fingers. Castiel flinches away.

“All right, all right. Let me wrap this up, okay? A splint probably wouldn’t hurt either,” Dean muses.

Dean pulls out his alarmingly large first aid kit and sifts through it until he finds what he’s looking for. He holds Castiel’s hand like he’s afraid he’s going to break it, and something shifts in Castiel’s chest.

Castiel crushes it deliberately, and as he waves at Dean from just outside the Gas n’ Sip after Dean drops him off, he knows he made the right choice. There’s no ember to be stoked from their ashes.

He wonders if he’s just seen Dean for the last time. He restocks the dairy case, and tries not to think.

“Boyfriend?” Nora asks, making Castiel jump as she appears behind his shoulder as he refills the nacho cheese dispenser.

“What?”

“That guy you left with yesterday. Is he your boyfriend?”

Castiel swallows hard. “No.”

“Oh,” Nora says knowingly. “Your ex.”

“Dean and I have never been together,” Castiel protests, his voice a little more high pitched than normal.

“Oh,” Nora says again. “Hmm. You know, I don’t know much about your past, Steve. I’m here if you want someone to listen.”

Castiel’s throat is dry. “Thank you.”

Later, he stands in the doorway of Nora’s office where she’s hunched over her desk doing payroll. “We were… in the military together.”

Nora looks up, and Castiel sees confusion cross her face, swiftly replaced by understanding. “You must have been through some real shit together, then.”

“You could say that,” Castiel hedges.

“You don’t have to hide from me, Steve. I saw the way you looked at him.” Nora squints at him.

“We’ve saved each other's lives.”

Nora doesn’t respond, just looks at him steadily with a knowing smile, and Castiel retreats back to the register.

He pastes on a smile as he serves the next customer.

That night, he goes back to the motel where Dean had paid for him, and he’s disappointed to find that Dean’s scent is already gone, replaced by the smoke that seems to permeate the whole motel. Castiel figures it’s fitting, at the very least.

He stares at the ceiling and wonders what life has left to offer him.

Nora catches on to his mood the next day. “What’s wrong?” she asks.

Castiel sighs and drums his fingers against the countertop before giving her a wry smile. “Boy problems.”

Nora doesn’t react, and Castiel doesn’t know how to feel about that. “Want to talk about it?”

“Maybe.”

She hums. “I’m not going anywhere. I’ll be here when you’re ready.”

After a millennia of impermanence, of empires rising and falling and everyone Castiel cares about leaving him or pushing him away, Castiel knows Nora can’t promise that, but he appreciates the sentiment.

Castiel’s days fall into a pattern. He scrounges up enough money to keep living out of his motel room and afford some canned fruits and vegetables to supplement his diet that largely consists of peanut butter and jelly and what Nora shoves on him from the Gas n’ Sip. She squints at him and says he looks like he’s getting skinnier, and that’s not going to happen on her watch.

Castiel can’t say he’s too surprised when the pattern breaks. He’s coming from a long day of work, and the door to his motel room swings right open. Castiel freezes. He knows he left it locked. He fumbles in his bag for his angel blade, his one last reminder of his old life. He has a feeling whatever is inside is going to want to compete for that title.

Castiel wonders if it’s too grim to speculate if this will be the thing that finally puts him out of his misery. Although, he supposes it’s not fair to say he’s living in misery. The amount of time he spends staring at the atrociously papered motel room wall might say differently, but Castiel prefers to think of it as monotonous rather than any of those other descriptors.

Angel blade in hand, he walks through the door, scanning for any disturbances. He’s never been more surprised to see Dean. Dean’s propped against the pillows, his legs crossed at the ankles. His flannel is draped over the back of the desk chair, leaving him in just a threadbare t-shirt.

“Hey, Cas.”

Castiel lowers the angel blade with shaking hands. “Dean. What are you doing here?”

Dean shrugs, and Castiel notices just how beat down he looks. Dean has always seemed to carry the weight of the world on his shoulders, but it finally appears to be taking its toll. He’s paler than Castiel remembers, more drawn, and even more worried looking, if that’s possible.

Castiel sets his bag down on the ground. “Do you need something?” Castiel asks, even though he doesn’t know what he has to offer now.

“Is it a crime to want to see you?”

Castiel lifts his chin. “I was under the impression you didn’t want anything to do with me anymore.”

Dean looks at him in surprise. “What makes you think that?”

“You kicked me out. You told me I couldn’t stay! All I wanted to do was stay,” Castiel says, his voice cracking on the last sentence.

Dean uncrosses his legs and stands up, moves into Castiel’s space. He puts a hand on Castiel’s shoulder, and Castiel realizes just how much he’s yearned for touch since leaving Dean last. The most he’s gotten is a brush of fingers as he hands someone their change, and his human body craves more than that.

Nevertheless, he jerks away from Dean. This way, it’ll sting less when Castiel is inevitably dropped from Dean’s life again.

Dean steps back, hurt flashing across his face. Castiel doesn’t let himself feel bad. He’s not the one who should be apologizing. “I missed you,” Dean says weakly.

Castiel desperately returns the sentiment, but he doesn’t voice the thought.

At Castiel’s stony silence, Dean points to the windowsill. “I brought you a housewarming gift. Well, motel warming.”

Castiel follows his finger to where a tiny cactus sits, soaking in the feeble rays of evening sunlight. “I can barely take care of myself,” he jokes, but it lands flat.

“Don’t worry. Sam says they’re impossible to kill.”

“How is Sam?” Castiel asks, seizing on the new topic.

Interestingly, Dean clams up. He’s never not wanted to talk about Sam before. “He’s fine. We’re fine.”

Castiel hums. “That’s why you showed up here, right?”

Dean’s glance flits away before it comes back, making eye contact with a vengeance. Dean’s always been a skilled liar, so Castiel doesn’t give it much weight.

“Can I stay?” Dean asks. “For the night?”

Castiel agrees, and tries not to think of the irony.

When he wakes up in the morning, Dean is gone, and only the lingering scent of his cologne betrays the fact that he was there at all.

Nora notices. “You seem… more melancholy than usual today,” she says carefully, and Castiel tries not to snort.

“Melancholy? Really?”

Nora waves a hand. “You know what I mean.”

Castiel bites his lip. “I saw Dean yesterday.”

“Oh?” Nora asks, keeping her voice carefully neutral.

“He just showed up. And now he’s gone again.”

“What did he say?”

“Not much. He seemed stressed.” Castiel shakes his head. “He brought me a cactus.”

Nora looks puzzled by that, and frankly, Castiel is, too, so he lets Nora redirect the conversation, giving him all the latest news about her daughter.

Back at the motel, he runs his fingers over the tiny spines of the cactus, and wonders.

Nora helps him get a bank account, and Castiel watches the numbers slowly add up. Dean drops by periodically, always topping off Castiel’s motel credit. Until, one day, it runs out, and Castiel begins to worry. He and Dean don’t text; Castiel doesn’t even have a phone. Castiel pays for the next week at the motel and frets through his day at work. Nora has the day off, so Castiel has no one to confide in.

He’s never been so relieved to see his motel room broken into, but his relief is quickly shattered when he sees the blood seeping onto his bed spread.

Dean is pouring whiskey on to a wound on his side, and Castiel feels affronted for a second at the disregard Dean has for his sheets, but he rushes forward to take the bottle from Dean. “What happened?” he demands.

“Werewolf got the jump on me,” Dean says weakly. “You got any floss around here? Preferably not mint? That shit stings like a bitch.”

Cas just stares at him.

“Well, you gonna stitch me up, or are you going to let me bleed out?”

By this point, Cas knows better than to ask where Sam is, so he lets his feet carry him to the bathroom where he finds a sewing needle and the requested floss. Unflavored, thankfully for Dean. He digs through Dean’s jacket pocket where he knows he keeps his lighter, ignoring Dean’s comment about buying him dinner first.

Castiel sterilizes the needle and soaks a washcloth in whiskey before wiping at Dean’s wound. Dean hisses. “Don’t be a baby,” Castiel says, and Dean’s mouth flaps up and down, but he doesn’t come up with a response because by then Castiel has the needle threaded and pokes it through Dean’s skin.

Castiel makes neat stitches under Dean’s close supervision. The only time it wanders is when he takes another swig of whiskey.

By the time Castiel has finished and takes the bottle back from Dean to douse the whole thing, Dean is nearly asleep. Castiel puts a bandage on the wound, taken from Dean’s painfully familiar first aid kit. Dean watches Castiel clean up with hooded eyes, and when Castiel curls up beside him, he pets his hand through Castiel’s hair. Dean mumbles something, but he slurs it so much that Castiel can’t understand what it was. He falls asleep with a hand fisted in the sheets.

For once, when Castiel wakes up, Dean is still there. He prods at Dean’s bandage-covered wound, and Dean slaps his hand away and rolls onto his stomach. Castiel gets up to start getting ready for work. When he leaves, he tries to memorize the shape of Dean’s sleeping form. Castiel doesn’t allow himself to hope that that will be the case when he returns.

To Castiel’s shock, there is still a Dean-sized lump in his bed when he finishes his shift. Dean notes his gobsmacked look and rolls his eyes. “Baby’s not exactly the smoothest ride. Did you want me to get all jostled around and open up my stitches?”

“Um. No?”

“That’s what I thought. Now what do you have to eat around here?”

Dean stays the night, and the night after that. Castiel can’t believe his luck, but he doesn’t want to let himself get too used to this, either.

Surprisingly, it’s not Dean that shatters Castiel’s idyll, but Castiel himself. Castiel jerks awake, panting, and Dean is right there with his hands all over Castiel, asking if he’s okay. Castiel flinches back, still seeing the Deans from his dream with their unseeing eyes. He hasn’t told Dean about how Naomi made him kill all those versions of him, and he doesn’t intend to now.

Dean runs a soothing hand down his back, and Castiel melts into the touch, deliberately slowing his breathing. “You good?” Dean asks softly.

“I am now.”

When Dean finally leaves, he presses a worn paperback into Castiel’s hands that he says he picked up at a second hand store. Castiel squints at the cover curiously. Stranger in a Strange Land, it proclaims. “Thought you might be able to relate,” Dean says, shrugging.

“Thank you.” Castiel sits it next to his cactus, and he almost misses the way Dean swells in pride.

Castiel buys a car, Nora by his side and glaring at the salesman until he lowers the price. Castiel smiles at her gratefully. He pats the hood as the salesman walks away to get the paperwork. “What do you think?”

Nora looks over the golden Continental. “It’s, uh, it’s nice.”

Castiel beams.

Castiel knows how Dean takes care of the Impala, so he tries to do the same to his new car. He buys a phone so he can learn how to change the oil on youtube. He carefully plugs in Dean’s number from memory and texts him, letting him know Castiel’s new number. He doesn’t get a response, and Castiel tries not to let it bother him.

His car never seems to become imbued with the same sense of home that Baby has, but he likes it regardless. It’s something that’s solely his, with no influence of his siblings or Dean carved all over it. Nora makes fun of him for it, but he doesn’t mind.

Eventually, Castiel gets a phone call that some part of him knew was inevitable. No one ever really gets out, that’s what Dean has always said.

“Cas, it’s bad. It’s Sam. Just… I need you.”

“Okay. It’s going to be okay, Dean.”

“I know,” Dean says, and Castiel graciously doesn’t call him out on the falsehood.

“You know I love you, right?” Dean asks, rushed and all of a sudden, like it’s something he’s been working towards for a while.

“I know,” Castiel lies.

Whatever happens next, he’s excited at the prospect of being able to learn that for himself.

tags (let me know if you’d like to be added or removed!): @urbankat82 @that-one-fandom-chick @youcancallmeanet @nineteensevetyfour @1stborneve @good-things-do-happen-dean @no-frigging-idea

#supernatural #destiel #ficlet #castiel #dean winchester #heaven can't wait #spn 9x06 #contemplative writing

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kelyon · 3 years

Text

Golden Rings 20: A Line

The Storybrooke sequel to Golden Cuffs.

Rumple and Jefferson explore some boundaries.

Read on AO3

It was still raining as Rumpelstiltskin drove Mrs. Gold back to the pink house. She had dried off, in the hours since she had come into the shop and seen him standing too close to Jefferson. Her clothes had dried, but her attitude was still as stormy as the thunder and lightning in the sky.

That morning, the silence between them had been sullen, resigned. The silence of two people who couldn’t speak to each other, even if they wanted to. Now, Mrs. Gold’s side of the car crackled with unspoken hostility. If he looked at her closely, Rumpelstiltskin could almost see her trembling. Poor woman was fighting to keep silent, straining to keep herself from saying any words that would finally sever the last fraying threads of her marriage.

Once the car was in the garage, Mrs. Gold burst through her door and bolted into the house. She didn’t even stop to pick up her shopping bags from the back seat. Walking around to her side of the car, he took as many of the bags as he could carry. There was one still left on the floor. He would have to come back for it.

He entered the kitchen just in time to hear her door slam shut upstairs. He sighed, and shook the rain off his coat.

Could he offer her an explanation? Would she care about what he had to say? Mrs. Gold already knew that there was someone else. He had told her Belle was a woman, but she had no reason to believe him about anything. Throughout all the years of the curse, Mrs. Gold had trusted her husband. She had trusted in his cruelty, in his rules, in his appetites. She may have been on her knees, but at least she knew where she stood. In only a few months, Rumpelstiltskin had destroyed that trust.

He made dinner, wondered if she would come down to eat. When she didn’t, he brought a plate up to the guest bedroom and knocked on the door.

“What?” Her ragged voice was at the exact midpoint between rage and despair.

“I brought you dinner,” he explained to the door.

“Leave it.” Even through the wood, he could hear her labored breathing. “Then go away. I don’t want to look at you.”

Wincing, Rumpelstiltskin set the plate on the ground. Then he stood at the door a moment longer. He should say something. He should apologize. He should be kind to her.

But the longer he waited, the longer she didn’t open the door because she didn’t want to look at him, the more he understood. The kindest thing he could do for Mrs. Gold would be to leave her alone. She was allowing him to provide for her--taking his money, eating his food. She wouldn’t leave her room, as long as she thought it was safe.

He would make her feel safe. As best he could, at least.

Limping, he headed for the stairs. Halfway down, he heard her door open, and the china plate scraping across the floorboards. She had been listening for him, to make sure he was really gone. She had been listening for the tap of his cane.

He heard the door shut. And the metallic mechanism of a lock.

Once, he had locked Belle in a library, in order to keep her burgeoning love for him from ever coming to life. Now Mrs. Gold was locking herself away, because any love she’d had for her husband had already suffered a messy, painful death.

With a heavy tread, he kept walking.

****

In his study, Rumpelstiltskin sat down at Gold’s desk and poured himself a tumblr from a sky-blue bottle. Johnnie Walker Blue Label. The liquor was a dark, golden brown, but the glass bottle was the same color as Belle’s eyes.

From his breast pocket, he took the paper where Jefferson had written his address and telephone number. He tossed it on the desk and stared at it.

Jefferson. His truest friend. The only person he had trusted, before Belle. He hadn’t been the first man Rumpelstiltskin had taken as a lover, but he was the only one who had been just as pleasant company outside of the bedroom. They had gone on many adventures together, fetching items from different worlds, running errands for kings and empresses, sometimes getting richly rewarded, and sometimes barely escaping with their lives. Jefferson had always been loyal, brave, and clever. A good man to have by his side.

He could have loved him, if he hadn’t been such a fool. If he hadn’t kept the boy at a distance in a thousand tiny ways. If he hadn’t insisted that he leave him after every adventure. Jefferson would have lived in his castle, if Rumpelstiltskin had asked him to. Jefferson would have traveled with him forever, if he had ever indicated that he wanted to. They could have stayed together. If Rumpelstiltskin had thought that anyone could have loved him.

As it was, Jefferson had found Leona Ogg, a woman who never doubted that she could love and be loved. They had married, and had a daughter, and Rumpelstiltskin had wished them well--from a distance. From the lonely darkness that he knew was all he would ever deserve.

Belle had changed that, of course. Too late for it to benefit Jefferson much. But now Belle was gone. And even Mrs. Gold didn’t want to speak to him. And Jefferson’s wife was in another world, alive but inaccessible.

Jefferson had spent the past twenty-eight years alone in his house, spared from the curse, but unable to interact with anyone in Storybrooke. Finally, he had come to Rumpelstiltskin in need of a friend.

Rumpelstiltskin hadn’t realized how much he’d needed a friend as well.

He dialed the numbers on the black telephone on Gold’s desk. He emptied the glass and didn’t pour another. After a few rings, there was an answer.

“This is Dodgson,” Jefferson’s voice said.

“Are you sure about that, dearie?” The alcohol had eased his tension, but talking to Jefferson had truly loosened him. Dropping the mask of being Mr. Gold felt like being able to breathe again.

Over the phone, Jefferson’s tone became softer, warmer. “Hello,” was all he said. One word, full of meaning.

It wasn’t flirtatious. Flirting was asking a question. But these questions had already been asked and answered long ago.

“Hello yourself,” Rumpelstiltskin answered. He heard his own voice as low and heavy, thick with want.

“I’d like to continue the conversation we were having earlier. Are you free?”

“Magic always comes at a price. But for you, I am free indeed.”

He heard Jefferson breathing into the phone. “Tonight?”

“I can leave right now. Your house?”

“I’d rather die,” the boy said quickly. “But come here to pick me up, and I’ll tell you where to go.”

“I’ll be there soon.” Rumpelstiltskin was already standing up.

“Good.”

****

The rain had stopped by the time he got to the winding forest road where Jefferson lived. He was waiting in front of the driveway, leaning against a stone pillar, hands stuffed into his coat pockets. Rumpelstiltskin stopped the car and he got into the passenger side.

“Now follow this road for another two miles.”

Nodding, Rumpelstiltskin drove. “Where are we going?”

“As far as I’m concerned, it’s the most interesting place in Storybrooke.”

Jefferson didn’t say more and Rumpelstiltskin didn’t ask. Unlike with Mrs. Gold, he could relax in the silence between himself and Jefferson. He knew the answers would come. He just had to be patient.

“You know the town well?” he said after a while. There weren’t many turns on this highway, just woods and darkness.

“I’ve had twenty-eight years to look around.” Jefferson stared out the windshield. “And six months to explore.” He sighed. “I tried to map it, you know. I tried to figure out the limits of this place. Find out if there were any… I dunno, weak spots.”

Trying to keep his eyes on the road, Rumpelstiltskin glanced over at Jefferson. “What did you find out?”

He scoffed. “If there was anything useful, we wouldn’t be having this conversation. There’s a spot over here where you can pull over.”

The tires crunched on gravel as Rumpelstiltskin parked the car on the shoulder. They were still in the forest. The road kept going on ahead of them. There didn’t seem to be anything interesting about this spot.

No, there was one thing.

“What’s that sign up there?” he asked Jefferson. They faced the back of a sheet of metal on a pole. “Do you know what it says on the front?”

“‘Welcome to Storybrooke,’” Jefferson sneered. “Three of the most loathsome words in this world.” He opened the door and stood up. “Come on, Dark One, I want to show you around.”

By the time he had gotten out, Jefferson was standing in the middle of the road behind the sign. Taking a deep breath, he began to walk forward. His pace was measured, careful. In the still night, Rumpelstiltskin could hear the boy muttering under his breath.

Counting.

“What are you doing?” he asked after a moment.

“Watch,” was all Jefferson would say. “It should happen any minute now. Thirty-nine, forty, forty-one, forty--FUCK!”

From out of the darkness, a deer came barreling down the road. It ran at full speed along the painted yellow stripes on the pavement. Head bent, antlers pointed, it was dead set towards Jefferson.

With impressive agility, Jefferson swerved from his path in the center and raced back to the car. Once he was behind the signpost, the deer also changed course. It leapt into the brush along the roadside and--utterly unperturbed--walked back into the forest.

Rumpelstiltskin looked over at Jefferson, who had braced his hands on the hood of the car. He was breathing heavily, but not too heavily to speak.

“I hate it when it’s deer,” he panted. “The moose and the bears just kind of stand there, being big and scary. But the deer are always on the attack, always out for blood.” Shaking his head, he straightened up and turned to Rumpelstiltskin with his arms spread wide. “So this is the town line, and that’s my parlor trick.”

He stared. “You knew that would happen?”

“I knew something would happen. Animals are a pretty regular method. A few weeks ago, this road was a sheet of ice once you got past the sign. If we had come out here while the storm was still going on, a bolt of lightning wouldn’t have been out of the question. Or a fallen tree. Something like that.”

Rumpelstiltskin said nothing, so Jefferson kept explaining.

“It’s actually safer when you’re walking. Whatever happens will just kind of shoo you back to the town limits. In a car is where it gets really bad, I guess because you have a better chance of actually getting somewhere. You ever hear the locals call this the widowmaker highway?”

“Mrs. Gold said something about that,” he nodded. He was beginning to understand.

“Funny thing, that. If you look at, say, twenty-eight year’s worth of newspapers, you’ll see that no one has ever actually died on this highway. Lots of accidents. Lots of previous fatalities. Every family knows somebody who’s died here, sometime in the past. But no one has been killed on this road since October 23, 1983.”

“Of course not,” Rumpelstiltskin said. “The curse wants to keep people alive.”

“It wants to keep people inside,” Jefferson agreed. “Trapped like animals in a simulated habitat.” He made his way over to Rumpelstiltskin, leaned against the car next to him. “Nothing is real in this town.”

He had worn gloves against the chill. Black leather driving gloves. The headlights reflected against the rain brought out the dull sheen of them, especially contrasted with Jefferson’s gray wool coat when he put his hand on his arm.

“You’re real,” Rumpelstiltskin said. “I don’t know how you managed it, but you are.”

Jefferson looked down at the place where they touched. “Are you sure?” he asked. “I mean, that’s the whole point of this world--this is the place where we only exist as stories. None of us are really real. We’re not supposed to be here, not walking and talking and--feeling.”

Rumpelstiltskin could only squeeze more tightly on the boy’s arm. Early in his own experience with immortality, he had spent a decade or two grappling with the potentialities of existence and non-existence. Whether or not anything could really be true. Whether or not actions actually had consequences. Whether or not every reality and every world he knew was nothing more than a grain of sand on an infinite, eternal beach full of other realities.

It was the sort of thinking that could drive one mad.

“I tried calling the real world once,” Jefferson went on. “The world without magic. I found the phone number for a chartered plane service in Bar Harbor.”

“Where?”

“Bar Harbor!” Jefferson snapped. “It’s a town, in Maine. A real one. Unlike Storybrooke, it shows up on maps! I called the airport there--and I was just so happy to hear another voice. This was after things started changing. Before that, all the phones in my house were disconnected.”

Jefferson rubbed his hand over his eyes, his forehead. The poor boy looked so weary, so defeated.

“I called. And I told the lady on the other end of the phone where I was, and that I wanted a plane to come get me. There’s over a hundred thousand dollars in cash in a safe in that house, I would have given it all and more besides. But the lady just laughed at me. She thought I was playing a prank. Because Storybrooke, Maine doesn’t exist! She’d never heard of it and it wasn’t in her database when she looked it up!”

He began to laugh, a wild, manic sound that could turn into sobs at any moment. “The next time I tried to call, I couldn’t get through! I called a hundred times one day and they’d never pick up!”

“Jefferson,” Rumpelstiltskin said softly.

But he couldn’t stop. “Then! I tried to rent a boat! Lots of boats in the harbor! I went to this grumpy drunk and gave him a thousand dollars to take his boat out for the day. It was a clear day--freezing, but not a cloud in the sky. I picked a direction and I just went. I motored out into the harbor until this town was just a speck in the distance.” He wiped his eyes with the back of his wrist. “I could see the open ocean in front of me. The horizon was limitless. It was beautiful. For one shining instant, I though I could go anywhere.”

Then the boy shuddered. He curled in on himself, head between his hands as he nearly bent over double.

“And then the fog rolled in,” he whispered. “One second you could see for miles, the next I couldn’t see past the front of the boat--the bow or aft or whatever it is. The next time I saw anything, I was back at the docks.”

“Jefferson,” Rumpelstiltskin said again. He put a hand on his shoulder, wished desperately that he didn’t have to use the other hand on his cane. Jefferson needed him, needed whatever strength he had. He couldn’t be crippled now.

He stroked his back. “Jefferson, my boy, I’m sorry.”

He looked up. His dark blue eyes glinted like steel. “You’re sorry?” Slowly, he registered Rumpelstiltskin’s hands on his body. He backed away. “You’re sorry?” he snarled. “Twenty-eight years of this hell and all you have to say is that you’re sorry?”

Rumpelstiltskin opened his mouth. Closed it. Then opened it again. “We have all suffered, my boy. Do you know what the curse did to--”

“To you?” The edge in Jefferson’s voice was sharp and jagged. “Or to Belle? Yes, I know both. I know all about the proclivities of Mr. and Mrs. Gold.”

“And I’ve had to live with that--”

“For six months! Oh boo hoo! It’s such a fucking tragedy that you’ve got a brain-dead bimbo begging you to fill her up in every hole!”

“Don’t.” Rumpelstiltskin spoke through his teeth to keep from shouting. “Don’t talk about her like that.”

For a second, Jefferson seemed taken aback. He looked at him, level and even. Appraising. When he spoke, the hostility had ebbed away. “You know I meant Mrs. Gold, right? Not Belle.”

Rumpelstiltskin unclenched his jaw. “Yes,” he said. He took a breath. “But even then… she is still a person.”

“No she’s not.” Jefferson turned away, to look up at the trees overhead. There were no stars in the sky, nothing but gray clouds. “Even if we’re real--if we were real back in our old world--the people in the town aren’t real. Not now.” He sighed. “Mrs. Gold isn’t any more real than Dodgson or Gold or little Paige Lewis.”

“Grace,” Rumpelstiltskin said. “Your Grace.”

He nodded. “She has different parents now,” he said softly. “At least they love her. They’re giving her a good life. I watch her, every day.” Jefferson swallowed hard. “I do have you to thank for that.”

Rumpelstiltskin raised his eyebrows. “Me?”

“You remember the telescope you gave me and Leo? The magic one?”

“Of course.” The enchanted spyglass could see across distances and worlds, to focus on any single person at any time of day or night. In the old world, Rumpelstiltskin had adjusted it so that Jefferson and Leona would always be able to see Grace, and she would always be able to see them. “Did it come with you?”

A slow nod. Jefferson stood in the road while Rumpelstiltskin remained by the car. “It doesn’t have magic, but it’s still damned useful. I can see her, even if I can’t do anything else. I know she’s alive, I know she’s happy. At least I have that.”

He covered his mouth with his hand, and Rumpelstiltskin understood.

“As for Leona...?”

Jefferson shook his head. “No,” he whispered. “Nothing. Not for twenty-eight years. I don’t know if she’s happy, if she’s safe, if she’s even still alive.” Tears brimmed in his eyes and ran down his cheeks as he looked at Rumpelstiltskin. “What if she’s grown old, Dark One? What if she’s outgrown me, forgotten me? What--what if she found someone else and got married again? I wouldn’t blame her for that. But what if she had other children? Her children could be older than I am now! What if Leo moved on and lived this full, rich life that Grace and I didn’t get to share with her? And what if I never know? What if I never see her again?”

He was sobbing now. The sound was a weary ache, an old wound that had never had a chance to heal. Jefferson, poor Jefferson, was giving voice to demons that had plagued him since the curse was cast. For twenty-eight years, his pain had festered in silence, in loneliness. There had been no one for him, the poor boy. Not a single human soul.

Until now.

Despite the uneven, rain-soaked forest floor, Rumpelstiltskin hobbled over to his friend on his cane. He wrapped his arm around Jefferson. He let the man lean against him, and silently prayed that he would be strong enough for the task. He rubbed his back, while Jefferson moaned out his agony.

“It’s all right,” he said, even though it wasn’t. “It will be all right, my boy.”

Jefferson didn’t answer, just shook his head and swayed to the rhythm of his sorrow. Rumpelstiltskin stood by him. He stayed, while Jefferson wept. He offered whatever support he could. The crying eased, though the pain would take far longer to abate.

A drop of water landed on Rumpelstiltskin’s ear. Had that come from a tree branch, or was it starting to rain again?

“Come on, my boy.” He shook Jefferson gently. “Let’s at least get into the car.”

With a deep, shuddering breath, Jefferson managed to stand. He walked on his own to the side of the road. Opening the backseat door on the driver’s side, he slid across the red leather bench. There was plenty of room for Rumpelstiltskin.

He didn’t wonder why Jefferson had chosen to go to the back seat instead of the front, why he wasn’t in a hurry to drive out of the forest, what he expected to happen next. Those were questions that had been answered already.

Jefferson was waiting for him. He had wiped the tears from his face, but when he tried a smile, it was too shaky to be convincing. His back was pushed up against the far door. His long arms and legs tried to sprawl out, but the car was too cramped for that kind of thing. They would have to be close, if they were going to be there at the same time.

Before he got in, Rumpelstiltskin took off his heavy coat and laid it over the front seat. He left his cane up there as well. He wouldn’t need it in such close quarters. When he took off his gloves, his wedding ring glinted faintly.

He hadn’t fucked Jefferson since he had married Belle. There hadn’t been enough time. The curse was coming, and every moment he had he wanted to spend with her.

But Belle was gone now.

And Jefferson was here.

Rumpelstiltskin sat down in the back seat of Gold’s car and shut the door behind him.

They stared at each other for a moment, as best they could in darkness. Rumpelstiltskin couldn’t see Jefferson’s eyes, but he knew them well enough. He knew how they could darken as they filled with want. How he could gaze, unblinking, lips parted, waiting for the next move.

But this time he didn’t wait. Jefferson made the first move. He leaned forward with his hands outstretched. Rumpelstiltskin felt his fingers on his face. Then his palms on his cheeks. Then his mouth on his mouth.

Jefferson had always been free with his kisses. When they’d first started, that had been a shock for Rumpelstiltskin. Many of his lovers had held kissing as something altogether different than fucking. Something far purer, more sacred, more meaningful. They would offer every part of their bodies to every part of his--all except for the meeting of their mouths. That would be too much of a violation. Jefferson had never seemed to think kisses were that important.

Or maybe he did, and that was why he gave them so generously.

When they broke apart, Rumpelstiltskin held Jefferson by the back of his neck. “What are we doing?” he whispered.

“Missing our wives,” Jefferson answered. Then he kissed him again.

It was thrilling, even to be this close to another person. To feel his heat and his weight, to hear his breathing in his ears, to smell the scent of another man’s body--the cologne and the sweat and the unique essence of Jefferson. That hadn’t changed. Even after all this time. Even after marriages and curses and resentments--Jefferson tasted just the same.

They began to touch. Shirts were pulled out of trousers. Buttons were undone. The boy’s body was so smooth, so firm, so strong. Jefferson’s hands started cold, but soon warmed on Rumpelstiltskin’s skin. Ties and scarves were cast aside. Rumpelstiltskin ran his lips over the scar on Jefferson’s neck, as he had done a hundred times, before the boy had started wearing the collar that marked him as Leona Ogg’s. The sigh Jefferson gave out at the sensation was the most erotic thing Rumpelstiltskin had ever heard in this world.

“Hey,” Jefferson rested his large hands on Rumpelstiltskin’s shirtfront. He was more or less on top of the boy now. His suitcoat was draped over the front seat, his waistcoat was unbuttoned and hanging open. “Did I see what I thought I saw in that plastic bag?”

It took a moment for Rumpelstiltskin to understand what he was talking about. Then he saw the pale shape of a shopping bag on the floor of the backseat. Mrs. Gold had left it there.

“I have no idea what’s in that bag,” he answered.

Reaching down, Jefferson pulled it up and examined the contents. “Yep.” There was a smile in his voice. “Condoms and lube. You are hospitable as ever, Dark One.”

Rumpelstiltskin let out a breath. “Why did she buy all that? She knows I won’t use them.”

Jefferson looked up from the bag, a black paper box in his hand. “Not at all? Because this world isn’t like the old one. You really should--”

“Not on her,” he clarified. “I can’t touch Mrs. Gold. It wouldn’t be fair.”

“To Belle?”

“No.” He sat back, a little away from Jefferson. “To Mrs. Gold. It would be too cruel to her.”

There was a crisp rustle of plastic and paper, then the quieter movement of cloth. “If that’s cruelty, I hope you won’t mind being cruel to me.”

“She doesn’t know who I am,” Rumpelstiltskin said simply. “You do.”

In the darkness, he felt Jefferson’s body shift again, leaning against him. Deft hands undid his belt buckle. Strong arms lifted him up, for just long enough to pull down his clothes. Smooth fingers glided over his legs, his thighs.

His cock.

“I know who you are.” Jefferson’s voice was soft as he stroked Rumpelstiltskin into beautiful hardness. “And you know who I am. You always have.”

He felt the needful, wet heat of Jefferson’s lips on the head of his cock. Then, in one skillful, fluid motion, the boy opened his mouth and swallowed him to the hilt.

“Oh, fuck!” Rumpelstiltskin moaned loudly enough that it echoed around the car interior. “Gods, boy! Give a man a bit of warning first!”

Without seeing him, Rumpelstiltskin knew that Jefferson was smirking when he came up. “You look different, but you feel the same in the dark. It’s been too long since I’ve done that to you. Or to anybody.”

Slowly, Rumpelstiltskin opened his eyes. “Have you had sex at all? In the past twenty-eight years?”

He shook his head back and forth between Rumpelstiltskin’s thighs. “Good thing I’m ambidextrous.”

“And I thought six months was bad.”

“We have each other now,” Jefferson said. “We may not have anyone else in this world, but we have each other. We have now.” He grasped Rumpelstiltskin by the shaft. “I have this. And I’m going to make the most of it.”

“Fuck.” Rumpelstiltskin threw his head back against the headrest while Jefferson set to his work. His hands felt for his body in the darkness. His bobbing head, his tense shoulders and arms, the sensitive shell of his ear. “You don’t have to,” he whispered. “I do like talking to you too.”

Jefferson came off his cock with a pop. “We can talk when I’ve got my cock in your ass. How about that, Dark One?”

“Wait.” Rumpelstiltskin pushed him up. Jefferson went along, but his hands kept moving. “Don’t call me that, Jefferson, please.”

He was still stroking him. “You told me once that your name has power.”

“It does, but not here. Not in a land without magic. And besides, we’ve been through so much together. I think this is a power I can trust you to wield.”

Jefferson chuckled a moment, and looked down. One of his hands was still pumping back and forth along the length of Rumpelstiltskin’s cock. The other was gently cupping his balls, rubbing them ever so slightly. He placed a kiss on his groin, around the base of his shaft.

“Alright,” he whispered. Then he gave him another kiss. “Rumpelstiltskin.”

The shudder began at the base of his spine. Perhaps there was a hint of magic in it. Emma had brought magic to Storybrooke, it was possible he was feeling it. Perhaps it was only that Jefferson was the first person to touch him since Mrs. Gold’s failed attempt to pleasure him on their anniversary. Perhaps it was that this was the first time he had heard his own name--his true name--in more than twenty-eight years.

“Again,” he breathed. “Please, my boy.”

Jefferson was moving faster now, his caresses were rougher. His voice was more sure when he said, “Rumpelstiltskin.”

“Oh fuck,” he gritted his teeth. He felt his body tighten. His hips jerked up erratically, but Jefferson was there. Jefferson was with him. Jefferson would make this so good, he always did. “One more time.”

It didn’t have to be three times, but it was such a nice number, and people expected this sort of thing.

Knowing what was coming, Jefferson clenched his grip into a choke-hold. He moved his face into the dim light coming through the car window.

Rumpelstiltskin could see the boy’s eyes as he looked at him. He could see his plump lips begin to form the word that would make him come undone. He could even see the smooth stretch of skin between Jefferson’s cheek and his nose and his mouth. That was where his semen would land.

“Rumpelstiltskin!”

The name was a roar, and he roared back--hungry and desperate and heart sore but not now. Not in this moment. Now he had Jefferson. Now he had completion. Now he had peace and satisfaction. Now he could rest in oblivion.

He breathed. And he heard Jefferson’s breathing in the darkness. He collapsed against the leather seat, and Jefferson settled in beside him. Blearily, he felt the boy take his wrist and put his fingers to his face. Hot, sticky fluids dripped down Jefferson’s cheek. Moving Rumpelstiltskin’s hand for him, Jefferson coated his fingers in semen, then sucked them into his mouth.

“You’re delicious,” Jefferson murmured. “But this is very much why I said we should use a condom.”

Dazed from the intensity of his orgasm, at peace for the first time in months, Rumpelstiltskin chuckled. “You can put one on,” he sighed. “When you stick that massive cock of yours up my arsehole.”

#golden rings #rumbelle #mad gold

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lochrannn · 3 years

Text

AU_gust: Guards! Guards!

Read on AO3

CW: Canon-typical violence

prompt no 23: Historical Fantasy

Relationship: Lila Pitts/Diego Hargreeves

Characters: Lila Pitts, Diego Hargreeves

Lila is unceremoniously shoved into a cell and as she whirls around to throw insults and maybe her fists at her captors - she’s been unfortunately relieved of her weapons - the cast iron bars are slammed in her face and the dungeon master sneers at her with blackened teeth, now that he’s no longer in danger of getting kneed in the balls. Again.

She slaps her hands against the bars anyway, making sure to hit them with the heels of her palms so the door rattles on its hinges as she shouts a string of threats about how she’ll carve every single one of them up and that they’d better let her out right the fuck now if they want to live.

In all honesty, she hasn’t the slightest idea why she is in this jail, for once.

She’d been making her way along a road through the forest, not on a mission, not even with any particular destination in mind, when she was jumped - completely taken by surprise - by five burly men, who knocked her half unconscious, took her weapons, bundled her up, and then dragged her to a fort and straight down into the dungeons.

And right now she’s far too furious at her captors, and a bit her own lack of wariness, to let the uncertainty of her fate get in the way of her anger.

“D’you mind keeping it down a little?” a voice behind her grumbles and Lila nearly jumps out of her skin as she whips around to see a figure sitting on a low bench in the far corner, half shrouded in the shadows.

She’d completely missed him when she was brought in.

Her fellow inmate seems to be a ranger like herself, she realises as her eyes adjust to the low lighting inside the cell proper. Long legs kicked out in front of him clad in practical leather trousers. A short leather tunic covers broad shoulders and an equally broad chest that he has his arms crossed over, only a bit of a linen shirt peeking out between leather gauntlets and empty knife straps, and Lila doesn’t think it’s a trick of the light that his skin seems darker than most people’s around here, but matching her own.

“Who the fuck are you?” she asks, at least doing a decent job of keeping the startled wobble that she feels out of her voice.

“Gods, you’re a charming one, aren’t you?” he asks sarcastically, pushing off from the bench and getting stiffly to his feet and Lila realises that he’s even bigger than she’d assumed he was sitting down.

She doesn’t let it show, but she is immediately on high alert as he moves. If she were armed she could probably take him, but if the scar she spots in his brow as he steps into the light is any indication, he knows how to fight just as much as her and Lila tries to push away the sudden fear of all number of terrible things he could do to her while none of the guards would bother to come to her aid.

Then she’s momentarily distracted when she sees his pointy ears stick out just a bit through the shaggy brown hair that frames his face, and she can’t hold in a surprised snort.

That is by far the bulkiest fucking elf she’s ever come across.

Indignation makes its way onto his face as he seems to realise that she’s laughing at him and he protests with a whine that really contrasts his earlier growly tones, “Hey, what the fuck are you laughing at me for?”

There’s an insecure vulnerability she might be able to exploit for her own safety if she plays her cards right, so Lila says, putting a brittle edge into her voice that comes a bit more easily than she cares to admit, “Not laughing at you, sorry! I’m just a tad stressed out about being locked up with someone who could be a brutal murderer for all I know!”

She’s surprised at how well her ploy works when there’s an instant shift in the elf’s energy and he actually takes a step back, giving her a lot more space, and his expression softens from irate to pensive.

“Uh, yeah… sorry,” he mumbles, fingers twitching at his sides as if he feels more uncomfortable than she does right now, “not gonna murder you. Promise…”

Oddly reassured by that, Lila stifles another laugh at his discomfort and instead asks conversationally, “What are you in her for, then?”

“Fuck if I know,” he replies exasperatedly, his frustration clearly not directed at her, though, “I was following a band of thieves through the forest hoping they’d lead me to their den and next thing I know, I wake up in this place with a headache and, I’m pretty certain, a crack in my skull. You?”

“More or less the same,” she answers with a shrug, then she goes on, hoping he’ll get what she’s offering, “Show me?”

It seems he does because he - tentatively, she notes - makes his way over to her and leans down a bit so that she can examine the right side of his head.

She hadn’t noticed it earlier, probably focussed a lot more on her own concerns, but now she sees the long gash that starts on his cheek and when she gently pushes strands of his hair out of the way, she sees that it’s matted with blood, originating from split skin that reaches all the way to above and behind his pointy ear, which is also a bit bloodied and swollen, clearly having been injured by the same blow.

The wound looks painful and like it will scar, but she doesn’t think it’s life-threatening as long as it doesn’t get infected.

“You’ll live,” she informs him tersely, but for some reason she can’t resist carding her fingers through his hair reassuringly before letting her hand drop. He grunts at her touch and blinks slowly and there’s suddenly an odd warm feeling in Lila’s chest.

She tries to dispel the tension developing in the cell, takes a step back, crosses her arms, and asks, “What’s your name, anyway?”

“Diego,” he says neutrally. She hopes he hasn’t picked up on her sudden embarrassment.

“Well, Diego, I’m Lila,” she offers with a bit of a sigh and then brightens, “You wanna get out of here?”

Diego looks at her sceptially, “You got a plan?”

Lila grins at him, giving him a quizzical once over, “As a matter of fact, I do!”

“Uh, guard?” Diego calls out not loud enough, and entirely unconvincingly, seeing as he’s supposed to be distressed and Lila can’t help but press her face between his shoulder blades in fond exasperation.

She’s known him for all of ten minutes, how is she already fond of this hopeless fucking idiot? Gods, he can thank his lucky stars that he ended up being locked up with her or he’d never get out.

Lila is standing right behind Diego, hands fisted into the material of his leather tunic at his back, pressing as closely against his ridiculously solid body as she can, making herself practically invisible to anyone who might happen to be looking into the cell even if they came up close.

“Fuck, you’re a terrible actor,” she wispers and feels the muscles in his back tense.

“Shit, woman, stop nagging! You do your job, I do mine, if you don’t mind!” he grumbles out of the corner of his mouth and then takes a deep breath.

The next time he shouts, Lila has to stop herself from startling, because his voice echoes off the walls and there’s a decidedly dangerous edge to it. It’s a voice that will not be ignored.

“Guards! Guards! The fucking ranger’s escaped! She just disappeared from the cell!” He slams presumably his fists into the bars and makes them rattle loudly and the commotion has its desired effect, because Lila can hear hurried footsteps thundering down the hall towards them.

Good, it sounds like two of them, that’s what she was hoping. She was expecting at least two, but three would have already made her plan a bit more difficult to pull off.

She focuses intently on the task at hand, dragging her subconscious away from the warmth she feels radiating off Diego’s body and the not overpowering but decidedly distracting smell of his skin,

“What the fuck?!” she hears one of the guards shout as he arrives at the cell and can apparently indeed only find one occupant.

There’s a rattling of keys and the hinges of the cell door squeal as it is opened.

Diego’s muscles shift against her, it feels like he’s lifting his arms. “Careful where you point that thing,” he says evenly.

Right, so she assumes he’s being kept in check by one of the guards, but that’s ok, that’s part of the plan.

One set of footsteps tentatively enters and Lila readjusts ever so slightly, face still firmly pressed against Diego’s back but she can now see the guard as he passes them, gaze fixed on the far side of the cell, sword raised defensively, and he completely misses her as he edges past.

Lila spots the hilt of a knife sticking out of his belt and in a flash she slips away from Diego and up behind the guard, pulls the knife out of his belt, and slits his throat with it.

Confident enough in her skills that she doesn’t have to bother checking she’s done the job thoroughly enough, though she does register the thud as the guard’s body hits the stone floor, she twists around to assist Diego.

But there’s no need as she just catches him grabing the short spear, the tip of which is still resting against his chest, pulls it out of the other guard’s hands and slams the handle hard enough into the man’s face that Lila can hear the sickening crunch of multiple bones breaking.

She doubts he’s dead, but this guard will also not cause them any issues in the foreseeable future.

“Holy shit,” Diego breaths out in surprise, “I didn’t think that would work!”

“Oh thanks for the confidence!” she says, more exhilarated than miffed, really, and grabs his hand.

On some absolutely batshit impulse she interlaces her fingers with his, but then decides against just dropping his hand like it's a hot piece of coal, lest she make things even more awkward.

She ignores the wide eyed stare he gives her, though a part of her brain registers how he clasps her hand right back, and starts pulling him out of the cell, urgently saying, “Come on Diego, we need to go!”

#au_gust_2021 #fanfic #tua #the umbrella academy #diego hargreeves #lila pitts #dielila #diego x lila #diego/lila #lochrannn lxd au challenge

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fallen-gravity · 4 years

Text

Safety in Numbers

A surprise gift fic for @artsymeeshee, because the art she recently posted of the Stan Twins cuddling warmed my heart and apparently inspired me to write..uh...almost five thousands words.

Don’t you dare tag this as a ship.

Summary: Every great thing that ever happens to you is usually followed by something much, much worse.

You save the world from the apocalypse, you're convinced that you've lost everything and everyone you've ever loved.

You gain your memories back, you have nightmares so vivid that they fuck with your sense of fantasy versus reality.

It's a lose-lose, if you ask Stan.

AO3

Stan awakens to an alarm clock he doesn’t remember setting. Groaning, he sits up, eyes not quite open yet, and his back makes an ugly popping sound he knows he’s going to feel as soon as his body is fully awake. He blinks his eyes open slowly, and takes a few moments to re-familiarize himself with his twin brother’s old study room. He turns, to check the time and stop that infernal beeping sound, but his neck is so stiff that it makes him want to blow chunks. That’s what he gets for sleeping on a couch, he supposes, but he’s certainly slept on worse, and even if Ford did have a bed somewhere in the mess of a shack he chose to call home, Stan certainly didn’t deserve it, because people who are probably responsible for the death of their family don’t deserve nice things.

Grunting, he swings his legs off the couch, and stands so he doesn’t have to bend his neck in any more weird directions just to turn the alarm off. Its obnoxiously bright red letters blink 5:31am, and Stan scrubs a hand down his face as he punches the clock’s OFF button with the other.

That’s right. The only reason he set the damn alarm in the first place is because a stubborn customer who couldn’t speak a lick of English refused to leave the gift shop until she found the perfect gift for her little kiddo back home despite the Shack having closed nearly half an hour prior. It’s the only time in his life he’s ever been grateful for the year he was trapped in Colombia, because he’s sure if he wasn’t able to heckle with her in Spanish her into leaving with one of everything, he has a feeling she’d still be wandering back and forth across the shop. Stan laughs to himself at the thought, and makes a mental note to make that sort of thing an attraction someday if he ever gets a customer as stubborn as she is again.

But no, that’s not what matters right now. He bends over to pick up a hairbrush that’d been carelessly tossed to the floor the night prior and runs it through his soft brown hair that he promises he’s going to get cut as soon as he has the time and money, and as soon as his hair manageable enough to brush through it without snagging on any tough knots, he carelessly tosses the brush over his shoulder and heads out of the room, navigating himself around the place with a flashlight. He’s aware that it’d make things much easier to just turn the lights on, but keeping the gift shop lights on all weekend is already burning a hole in his wallet, and he’s not sure he could afford the electricity bill if he left the lights in the study room on by mistake for even ten extra minutes.

When he reaches the staircase leading to the basement, he flicks the flashlight off and sets it down on the counter by the cash register. It’s much easier to navigate down the winding steps with both of his hands free in case he falls and needs to catch himself, and the faint blue hum of the portal is enough of a light source to show him the way to the basement anyway. He sits down at the desk, adjusts the framed photo of himself and Ford at boxing practice in high school, and pulls Journal 1 out from the hidden shelf in front of the monitor. He’d spent all of last week desperately looking for 2 and 3, but the harsh winter snowfall had cut his search short and he didn’t want to waste any more time when he could just try to get the damned thing working without them.

“C’mon, Poindexter, y’gotta give me something to work with,” he mumbles, opening the desk drawer and pulling out a pad of paper and a pen. “I spent weeks memorizing all of your fancy shmancy ciphers. That’s more than I ever studied in high school. You can’t ramble on for two whole pages about how to crack them and then switch to this…” he squints at the squiggles scattered across the portal’s blueprints. “...Cooky alien language, or whatever. This is real life we’re talkin’ here. This is your life we’re talkin’ here. It’d be a lot easier if you didn’t write this thing in Klingon, or whatever”

Stan knows, at the back of his mind, that talking to the journal like it’s Ford himself isn’t going to get him anywhere, but in a weird kind of way, it makes him feel less alone. Helps a guy out from feeling too lonely, y’know?

He chuckles to himself at his own joke, taking comfort in the fact that if Ford were here he’d probably be rambling off about how Klingon is one of thousands of different intergalactic languages and how he obviously wrote it in Hqjolvk, thank you very much, and Stan can’t help but roll his eyes fondly as he flips through his notepad. He’s tried everything, he’s tried translating them to whichever letter in the English alphabet they just happen to look closest to, he’s tried throwing sentences in gibberish into three different ciphers at once to see if he could get anything even relatively close to whatever it is, and even when he “bought” a book at the store on ancient hieroglyphics and ancient symbolism the closest thing he got was just a bunch of dumb numbers. And even then, translating all of those dumb numbers back to English from a1z26 just hit him against another dumb wall.

Frustrated, he throws the pad of paper against the desk and kicks off from its edge, sending his swivel chair flying backwards across the room. When the chair finally stops rolling, his gaze fixes on the portal through the window in front of the desk he’d just been sitting at, and it’s really only now that he’s looking at it from this distance, from this angle, that he notices….the same weird squiggles from the journal carved all over the circular ring in the center of the portal.

But...if the weird squiggles in the journal came from the portal, and translating those numbers from the Egyptian book through a1z26 just gave him gibberish...could...could it be that easy? Could it be-?

“Coordinates!” Stan yells, jumping to his feet, and tears build in his eyes at the epiphany. “Sweet Moses, they’re coordinates! How could it’ve been so obvious?” he cries, and nearly trips over himself in excitement as he scrambles back over to the monitor, and his hands are shaking as he flips through his notepad. Once he finds the page he’s looking for, he forces his hands steady as he enters the number into the keypad.

The tiny, logical voice in the very back of his mind is screaming at him that it’s never going to work, he only has a third of what he needs, he really shouldn’t get his hopes up, but the slamming of his heart against his chest drowns that sound out as he frantically enters and re-enters the numbers when he’s sure he accidentally entered the wrong ones (damn his chubby fingers), and when he’s finally, finally certain he’s gotten them all entered correctly, he presses the dark red SEND button, takes a few steps backwards, and waits.

For what couldn’t be longer than two minutes but feels like six hours, there’s nothing. Stan’s about to sigh, call it a good stopping point for the day and kick himself for getting his hopes up too high, but then a flash of blue lightning sparks from the portal and strikes the ground.

“HA!” Stan exclaims, pumping his fists in the air. “I knew it! I knew it! Nothing can stop Stan Pines!”

He sprints into the portal room, pausing only briefly to grab the toolbox on his way in. Two more bolts of lightning strike against the ground with a loud pop as he enters, and the grin spread across Stan’s face rivals them in brightness. Kneeling down in front of the lever, Stan opens his toolbox and pulls out his lucky red screwdriver that’s gotten him out of his fair share of car trunks, and goes to work on fixing up loose bolts and that awful crunching sound the lever kept making the last time he tried turning it on.

Three bolts emerge from the portal, and Stan is too ecstatic to notice their uncomfortably close proximity to his head. He stands, once he’s absolutely certain he’s got the lever all fixed, and puts everything he has into shoving the lever from its off position to the on position.

He can hear the gears turning in the machine, and his heart is pounding so hard against his chest it makes his ears ring. He’s tearing up again, but he doesn’t care, just as long as he gets to punch Ford in the shoulder and tell him off to never scare him like that again when he emerges in the next couple of minutes. The circular ring in the center of the portal begins to spin, slowly, and those weird symbols carved along it start to glow blue.

Stan nearly drops to his knees, but no, he can’t let Ford see him at rock bottom, and maybe that’s a little selfish, considering all of the places Ford’s probably been the past two years, but the last thing he needs Ford to see is how much he’s been killing himself working to get him back. The ring spins faster, and faster, and where there was once a hole in the center of the portal that leads only to the back wall of the room, there’s now a blindingly bright flash of blue light, and Stan is knocked to the ground by the kickback.

He goes to stand again, but the sound of shattering glass turns his attention elsewhere. He looks behind him, and the lightbulbs in the other room are exploding like it’s nobody’s business. He’s lucky his hearing was heightened from the ten years on the street, because he’s just quick enough to hear the cracking of the bulb right above his head that he’s able to dodge out of the way of the shattered glass as it rains down towards him. He jumps to his feet, brushing his clothes off, but he’s horrified to see that the portal’s ring is beginning to slow to a stop with no twin brother in sight.

“No!” he cries, and sprints back into the other room to reenter the coordinates into the monitor. But it’s just his luck, because the monitor’s glass is shattered to pieces as well, and there’s a thin line of black smoke rising from it. “No, no no no! I was so close!” he shouts, and sprints back into the portal room. He switches the lever from on to off and back to on again, but nothing changes.

When the ring comes to a complete stop, the bright blue light fades away, an ugly kind of rage boils in the pit of Stan’s stomach. “This is all your fault, you dumb machine!” he yells, and launches at the portal like it was a thug trying to rob him of his wallet, and starts punching it like there’s no tomorrow, like if he gave it enough left hooks it’ll obey him and spit Stanford right out to his side.

He’s about to go in for another punch when he hears the sound of the machine’s gears turning again. He grins, rubbing his hands together, and steps backwards to watch the process in its completion. Four bolts spark from the portal this time, but rather than strike the ground, they lunge for him, and Stan screams in agony as they jolt through his whole body. He takes it as a sign that he’s probably better off watching the process from the desk in the other room, but when he tries to turn heel and run, five bolts of lightning reach out and snake around his leg before he can take another step further, and he collapses to the ground. Gritting his teeth to avoid letting out a choked cry of pain, Stan tries to inch himself towards the lever for support to stand up, but it’s as if the damned lightning has the power to read his thoughts, because it shocks the lever with such a thick bolt of lightning that it fries the thing black.

The charge from the lightning gives the lever just the right amount of static charge it needs to reactivate properly, and Stan doesn’t notice the hum of the portal’s gears getting louder and louder until he finds himself floating off the ground. “W-whoa, hey! Hey! Hold on a minute!” Stan scrambles around at nothing in particular, hoping his feet or arms will snag on something and prevent him from getting pulled in. “Let’s talk this over! We can work together!” He must be losing his damn mind if he thinks bargaining with the portal like it’s sentient is going to do anything, but it’s the only option he’s got left. “I just want my brother back! You want to stay on, yeah? You don’t like getting turned on and off at random, right? I’ll-I’ll keep you on! As long as it takes for my brother to find his way home, I’ll keep you turned on! I promise!”

The machine, of course, does not respond, and the higher Stan gets off the ground the blurrier his vision gets. Damn fear of heights. He flaps his arms around as if he could fly, but nothing seems to work. He starts kicking, as well, to see if swimming towards the ground could work any better, but he still doesn’t budge.

But that does give him the idea of kicking off of the portal itself, since it’s the only solid thing left, save for the ceiling, and Stan curls himself up into a ball to try and get himself to flip over. It works, thankfully, but when he turns his glance back towards the portal his heart drops to his stomach. Curling himself up had helped his body change directions, yes, but it also changed his course entirely. Rather than being sucked towards the edge of the portal’s entrance, like he’d been when he was hovering above the lever, he’s now heading right for the center of the portal with nowhere to kick off of.

“N-No! No!” He shouts frantically, kicking his leg away from the cold blue substance the portal emitted. When he spares another glance backwards, his feet are already sucked inside, and the rest of him is quickly following. “No! Somebody help! Somebody!” he shouts, his own words painfully echoing those of Ford’s when he’d been in the same situation.

Ford,

If the portal manages to stay active after he gets sucked in, Ford’s gonna be able to find his way home, but he’ll be all alone, left to wonder what could’ve happened to him. Vaguely, Stan remembers Ford had been saying something about shutting it down for good, and his panicked flailing at the thought that he may be the one never coming again only makes his descent into the portal quicken. “Stanford!” he shouts, in the odds that his brother can hear his cries from the other side of the portal. “Stanford, do something! Stanford!”

The blue substance within the portal is thick and flavorless as his head is sucked in. He closes his mouth, because he doesn’t want to risk suffocating on whatever the hell this stuff is made of, and closes his eyes for impact for the same horrors that swallowed up his brother just two years prior, and…

…

When he forces his eyes open again, he’s lying on a bed. An actual, decently sized bed with fluffy blankets and at least three pillows supporting his head and neck. He’s not sure he’s slept on one of those in….what, thirteen years, give or take, if he’s not including the bug-infested hotels?

All of his burns from the lightning strikes have seemingly vanished into thin air, along with that gnawing hunger that never seemed to leave his stomach even when he had the time to eat more than a single meal a day, and though the air feels cool, it doesn’t feel humid and stuffy like Ford’s old lab had felt moments ago.

The rest of his aches are gone, too, he realizes as he sits up, replaced now by a dull pain in his hips and knees that he supposes he could credit to getting sucked into a portal and falling thirty feet to the ground to...uh, wherever he is now.

Is this where Ford’s been stuck all this time? It’s no wonder he never tried to find his way back on his own, because all things considered, this place is actually pretty comfortable. Maybe he wound up on a friendly alien planet, and some locals rushed him to the hospital to get him fixed up. But there’s no calamity outside his door like there usually is in most hospitals back on Earth, and there’s no weird tubes attached to either of his arms and not a sight of ace bandages anywhere on his body. And...is he…swaying back and forth?

Stan glances down at his hands, and the rest of his body still wrapped in a thick comforter. No, it’s not him, he realizes quickly, it’s the room that’s swaying back and forth. If he squints hard enough, he can make out the foot of his bed gently rocking back and forth. Scratching at his head, he goes to stand up and investigate his surroundings, until he notices a round window next to where he’d just been laying his head, just outside of his current line of sight. He lies back down, and his breath nearly catches in his throat at the sight.

It’s the biggest cluster of stars he’s ever seen his entire life, and if he looks close enough, he can see streaks of what he can only assume must be the galaxy itself. It certainly looks like the Earth’s skies, and when he looks again he notices the stars are reflecting off of… some kind of body of water?

Ah, so he’s on a boat. That explains the swaying. There’s a twinge of warm nostalgia in chest at the realization, of the days two scrappy little boys from New Jersey would spend their afternoons working on a sailboat of their own, musing dreamily about the day they’d finally sail away from the dumb town.

But...no. That couldn’t possibly be right. He got kicked out at seventeen, and Ford is god-knows-where in the universe. This must be some sort of sick joke, or an optical illusion that plays on his greatest dreams, or something. He turns away from the window, covering that half of his face with the blanket, and fully intends to fall asleep so he can bug the boat’s captain in the morning about where the hell he is and how the hell he wound up here in the first place. Just as he’s about to close his eyes, though, he notices a bulky, bright pink book sitting at his bedside table next to the lamp.

Well, he’s got nothing to lose, right? Maybe this thing’ll have some answers. He flicks the lamp on and sits up. The book is called MABEL’S SCRAPBOOK, and the title written in glitter pen in a child’s handwriting.

He snorts in laughter. Maybe the book belongs to the captain’s daughter, and she left it in here by mistake. Still, it could help to learn more about the family keeping him captive, and it’s not like she’ll know he ever read it, right? He chuckles to himself at the thought, but as soon as he grabs for the book to place it on his lap, the feel and smell of the dried glue and paint on the cover makes him feel dizzy, and his head’s suddenly swirling with so many thoughts that he feels like he’s drowning.

Grunkle Stan, it’s me! It’s me Grunkle Stan!

There has to be something we can do! I know my grunkle’s in there!

This is our first day in Gravity Falls, and this is when you let me take the grappling hook from the gift shop! Dipper thought I’d never use it, but he couldn’t be more wrong. Zing!

Over and over, all at once, the voice of two….wonderful, incredible rascal little nuisance kids keep yelling at him in his head, and he slams the book back down against his nightstand.

Damn memory relapses. Ford warned him they could happen, since McGucket had experienced a few of them himself before Stan and Ford left Gravity Falls, but Ford never said anything about the nightmares. Yeah, yeah, he could see it as a good thing, extra proof that his mind’s intact and they don’t need to worry that it’ll ever be gone for good, but nothing sucks more than nightmares that are so based in reality that they fuck with your sense of what’s real and what isn’t.

Stan rubs his eyes, and stands up. He figures it’d be a good idea to step out on deck and get some fresh air. He has no idea what time it is, but maybe if he goes and stares at the stars long enough he’ll eventually feel tired enough to crawl back into bed. He flicks his lamp light back off, and he’s maybe three steps out of his bedroom door before he notices that the light in Ford’s bedroom next to his is still on.

Stan pinches the bridge of his nose. He wants to be mad at Ford for staying up this late, and any other night he would tell him off and guilt him into sleeping by lying about how his light and excessive scribbling is what woke him up, but tonight he’s actually relieved by his brother’s dangerous sleeping habits, because talking out loud about his relapses and distinguishing real memories from fake ones always seems to widen the gap between his next relapse, and it certainly doesn’t help that tonight’s nightmare was about Ford’s disappearance. He creaks the door open slowly, to avoid activating Ford’s flight-or-magnet-gun-in-your-face response, and his mouth closes just as quickly as he’d opened it to speak. Ford’s desk lamp is on, yes, but his nerdy brother is not, in fact, hunched over with a thousand stacks of paper covering his face like he usually is this time of night.

Oh no. The lamp, it seems, was left on by mistake, because Ford’s curled up in his bed, fast asleep with his face half-buried in the pillow and his glasses tucked away in the drawer of his nightstand that he must’ve forgotten to close. Rolling his eyes, Stan sneaks into the room as quietly as he can and flicks the light off so he doesn’t have to replace the lightbulb when it subsequently dies out in the morning.

He turns heel, and he’s set on going back to his original plan of staring up at the sky until he feels tired again, but as he turns to close Ford’s door he gets another close look at his brother’s sleeping form and his chest warms with nostalgia at the sight as another memory, one from his childhood, resurfaces itself tonight.

When they were kids, Pa was...never the comforting kind of parent. And yeah, while that was pretty obvious in that it was always Ma who helped patch up their skinned knees and splinters from the boardwalk and the occasional bee sting, there were times he’d be...more subtle about it, if that’s even the right word to describe him. If either of them came poking their heads in their parents’ bedroom after a nightmare, asking if they could crawl in bed and sleep with them for the night, Pa would always brush them off and send them back to their own room, giving them some excuse about the shop opening early tomorrow and how he can’t afford to lose any sleep in case someone tries to come in and rob them.

From a young age, Stan and his brother learned that it’d be easier just to stop asking Pa at all, and instead they’d resort to climbing into each other’s bed instead. They shared a bunk bed up until they were about fourteen, and they had this unspoken system going where if the other poked them awake or tried to crawl under their blanket in the middle of the night, they’d have to comply and let them in without asking why because it usually meant they were having bad dreams. Ford learned very early on never to hesitate for Stan, because he knew that if Stan was willing to climb to the top bunk despite his fear of heights that his nightmares must’ve been bad.

Stan pauses, and wonders if Ford still remembers those times as well as he does. He hesitates, his grip still tight around the doorknob, until he recalls that it had been Ford who had asked him to accompany him to the arctic, and Ford who kept their childhood photo tucked away in the pocket of his trench coat.

Well, here goes nothing.

Just as quietly as he’d been before, he tiptoes over to Ford’s bedside, and he’s thankful to find that there was still enough room for him to crawl under the covers without squishing Ford uncomfortably against the wall. Slowly, as not to jostle the blankets too much to wake his brother, he flips a corner of the blanket up, crawls underneath, and as soon as his head hits the extra pillow he’s out cold.

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

If Ford had to complain about anything from his thirty year trip around the multiverse, besides, well...all of it, he’d have to credit the worst of it to his heightened hearing.

Ages ago, when it’d just been two weeks since he was sucked into the portal, he taught himself to sleep with his eyes open, and he taught his ears to pick up on the tiniest of movements, even the wind blowing the leaves off a tree branch. He couldn’t afford capture, and if that meant he had to sacrifice sleep to assure it wouldn’t happen, then so be it.

He’d lost the habit of sleeping with his eyes open after all the time he spent with Jheselbraum, thank god, but he could never quite get over the habit of listening. Every time something creaked in the Shack, every time Stan or one of the kids awoke in the middle of the night in search of the bathroom, it’d wake him up in a jolt, and it’d always take him longer than necessary to fall back asleep.

The nights on the Stan O’ War II are usually the quietest and most peaceful nights Ford’s ever experienced since his childhood. Though he and Stan always spend their days tracking and hunting monsters, they’re always able to find quiet little seaport towns to dock their boat when they need a place to rest for the night where nobody makes a peep until sunrise.

That is...until tonight. He’d been awake just a few minutes prior, mapping out the coordinates for the next monster they needed to track down and how long it would take for them to find it, but he finally got to a point where he had been so tired that his handwriting was starting to give up on him and he decided it was probably for the best that he just go to sleep. Standing to stretch, he places his glasses in the drawer of his nightstand and didn’t bother with the lamp light because he could just replace the bulb in the morning if need be, and practically collapsed face first onto his bed and fell asleep.

He heard mumbling coming from the thin wall to his brother’s room, and since their departure from Gravity Falls he’s become so used to Stan’s constant presence that it no longer bolts him awake. In a way it’s almost comforting, knowing he’s never alone on the vast sea. He shifts, when he hears his brother’s slippers lightly slapping against the deck, but dismisses that just as quickly.

He can feel himself dozing back off to real sleep when he hears his own lamp click off and his bedroom door closing. Ah, Stan was probably coming in to check on him but left when he saw that he was already asleep. That’s fine; he did that a lot the week before they left for their trip. He’s used to it.

What he’s not used to is the blanket getting ripped from his shoulders, and the bed making a dull creaking sound of...something sitting on it. Baffled, he pops his eye open, ready to reach for his weapon in case some sea creature managed to slip on board and into his bed, but his heart rate eases when he makes out the familiar shape of his brother fast asleep in the other half of his bed.

The sight of it makes Ford want to laugh.

He can’t believe Stan remembers.

Closing his eyes, Ford shifts his position ever so slightly, like it’s a maneuver he’s been practicing for ages, and scooches himself closer to Stan without shaking the bed. He snakes an arm around Stanley’s shoulder, whose whole body seems to release itself of tension at the gesture. Unconsciously, Stan shifts himself closer to Ford as well, and snakes his own arm around Ford’s chest, like he, too, had been practicing the maneuver since they were separated all those years ago.

#my writing #gravity falls #stan twins #sea grunkles #artsymeeshee

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