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butterflies-dragons · 4 years

Note

Hello! I love your blog. Your meta about women in Jon’s life and Lyanna was so good. Antis always try to ignore the Sansa and Lyanna parallels which is absurd because her story is so similar with Sansa’s... I guess they want to ignore those because they don’t want Sansa to be destined with a Targaryen prince (aka jonsa 🤭). So thanks for pointing them out. Are you planning to write a meta just about Sansa and Lyanna? It would be a good guide for our jonsa arguments. Have a nice day.

Hello Anon,

Thanks for your words.

Antis and haters gonna oppose and hate. That’s their thing. They questioned and denied every parallel that Lyanna and Sansa actually share, and proceed to attack anyone who dare to say they share those parallels. What’s knew about that?

Lyanna and Arya parallels are textual evident, they are easily spotted but they could be easily questioned as well, especially because most of the statements about Lyanna came from Ned, and he is not only an unreliable narrator, but his memories of Lyanna are embellished by love and trauma. If you contrast what Ned said about Lyanna with other sources, not so biased, Ned’s statements about her don’t look so evident and solid anymore.

Anyway, do you want me to talk more about Lyanna and Sansa parallels? Here you go:

Summary

Original Outline

Beauty

The wolf-blood

She-Wolves of Winterfell

Inner Strength

Sword & Armor

Knights protect the innocent

Singers & Songs

The Rose of Winterfell

Blue Winter Roses

Knights & Queens of Love and Beauty

Failed betrothal to a Baratheon

Pleading Ned to protect part of themselves

Targaryen Imagery

Dead before their time

Ladies of Winterfell

Bonus

LYANNA & SANSA

Original Outline & ASOIAF:

Sansa in the Original Outline:

‘Original Outline Sansa’ was very similar to Lyanna Stark.

Each of the contending families will learn it has a member of dubious loyalty in its midst. Sansa Stark, wed to Joffrey Baratheon, will bear him a son, the heir to the throne, and when the crunch comes she will choose her husband and child over her parents and siblings, a choice she will later bitterly rue. (...) Jaime Lannister will follow Joffrey on the throne of the Seven Kingdoms, by the simple expedient of killing everyone ahead of him in the line of succession and blaming his brother Tyrion for the murders.

[Source]

As you can see, the ‘Original Outline Sansa’ shares parallels with Lyanna Stark and Elia Martel:

Romantically involved with the King/Heir of the Iron Throne

Mothers of their sons

Dead while protecting their children

Unwillingly caused the death of family members

Tagged as members of dubious loyalty to their paternal families

Regretted their doomed romances

But ¿How marrying the heir of the Iron Throne/King of the 7K is supposed to be an act of dubious loyalty? GRRM has stated that in high nobility there is no marriage without the Lord Father of the bride’s blessing. Furthermore, from the wedding the bride belongs to her husband’s house, that’s all the fuzz with the cloaking ceremony, going from the maiden’s cloak to your husband’s cloak. You left your paternal house to belong with your husbands house. Sansa’s loyalty was with her husband, and more important, Sansa’s love and loyalty was with her baby boy. So, how choosing his baby over her paternal house could be seem as an act of dubious loyalty then? And even if she wanted to come back to her paternal family, does she really get a chance without the risk of being captured, separated from her baby, accused of treason and executed, leaving her baby boy motherless?

But according to the Original Outline, there was an enmity between Starks and Lannisters. So, or Joffrey abducted Sansa, or Sansa eloped to marry Joffrey. How very Shakespearean! Romeo and Juliet all over again. Or even better, Rhaegar Targaryen and Lyanna Stark all over again.

It is also implied by the fandom that this ‘Original Outline Sansa’ dies because the outline says that Jaime dethrones and kills Joffrey and “everyone ahead of him in the line of succession” (Sansa’s baby). Well, Sansa was not in the line of succession, but it’s probable that Jaime had to kill her to get to her baby boy, which reminds me of Elia Martell and her babies’ tragic deaths.

Sansa in Asoiaf:

Asoiaf Sansa never married Joffrey, never bore him a son, and she’s still alive. But she still shares a lot of similarities with her aunt Lyanna.

Both Lyanna and Sansa got infatuated by silver/golden princes, Rhaegar Targaryen and Joffrey Baratheon, and because of those romantic relationships, they unintentionally played a part in the deaths of their fathers and older brothers, Rickard and Brandon, and Ned and Robb. Later, both of them ended trapped in towers regretting their doomed romances.

According to GRRM, Asoiaf Sansa played a part in her father Ned Stark’s death. But I would say that Sansa’s fault lays more in trusting the wrong people than betraying Ned. The act of betrayal requires willful intent, and Sansa never wanted to betray her father. And we can say the same about Lyanna, she trusted Rhaegar over her family, ran away from her approved betrothal, lived a forbidden romance, and died after giving birth a son to her silver prince.

Sansa and Lyanna commit the same actions, but Lyanna gets more sympathy from the readers than Sansa, who is still considered a member of dubious loyalty or plainly a traitor to the Starks.

Also, as it was pointed out before, “Rickard Stark and Catelyn Stark both saw their firstborn sons murdered in front of them, while convinced that their daughters were far away being raped and abused by cruel princes, and then were brutally murdered themselves”.

Beauty:

Both Lyanna and Sansa are considered beautiful, but in different ways.

While Lyanna had a wild beauty:

“She [Lyanna] was,” Eddard Stark agreed, “beautiful, and willful, and dead before her time.” —AGOT - Arya II

Lyanna had only been sixteen, a child-woman of surpassing loveliness. Ned had loved her with all his heart. Robert had loved her even more. She was to have been his bride. —AGOT - Eddard I

"You never knew Lyanna as I did, Robert,” Ned told him. “You saw her beauty, but not the iron underneath”. —AGOT - Eddard VII

“The maid’s a fair one,” Osha said. —AGOT - Bran VII

The northern girl had a wild beauty, as he [Kevan] recalled. —ADWD - Epilogue

The crowning of the Stark girl, who was by all reports a wild and boyish young thing with none of the Princess Elia's delicate beauty, could only have been meant to win the allegiance of Winterfell to Prince Rhaegar's cause, Symond Staunton suggested to the king. —The World of Ice and Fire - The Fall of the Dragons: The Year of the False Spring

Sansa possesses a traditional beauty:

Sansa’s needlework was exquisite. Everyone said so. “Sansa’s work is as pretty as she is”, Septa Mordane told their lady mother once. —AGOT - Arya I

Sansa had the grace to blush. She blushed prettily. She did everything prettily. —AGOT - Arya I

Worse, she was beautiful. Sansa had gotten their mother’s fine high cheekbones and the thick auburn hair of the Tullys. —AGOT - Arya I

“I [Ser Cleos Frey] saw Sansa at the court, the day Tyrion told me his terms. She looked most beautiful, my lady. Perhaps a, a bit wan. Drawn, as it were.” —ACOK - Catelyn VI

Men would say she had my look, but she will grow into a woman far more beautiful than I ever was. —ACOK - Catelyn VII

“You are very beautiful, my lady,” the seamstress said when she was dressed. —ASOS - Sansa III

Ser Kevan told her she was beautiful, Jalabhar Xho said something she did not understand in the Summer Tongue, and Lord Redwyne wished her many fat children and long years of joy. —ASOS - Sansa III

“Ser Ossifer speaks truly, you are the most beautiful maid in all the Seven Kingdoms.” —TWOW - Alayne I

“Had we known such beauty awaited us at the Gates, we would have flown,” Ser Roland said. Though his words were addressed to Myranda Royce, he smiled at Alayne as he said them. —TWOW - Alayne I

The wolf-blood:

Lyanna:

"Ah, Arya. You have a wildness in you, child. 'The wolf blood,' my father used to call it. Lyanna had a touch of it, and my brother Brandon more than a touch. It brought them both to an early grave." Arya heard sadness in his voice; he did not often speak of his father, or of the brother and sister who had died before she was born. "Lyanna might have carried a sword, if my lord father had allowed it. You remind me of her sometimes. You even look like her."

"Lyanna was beautiful," Arya said, startled. Everybody said so. It was not a thing that was ever said of Arya.

“She was,” Eddard Stark agreed, “beautiful, and willful, and dead before her time.”

—AGOT - Arya II

Sansa:

“I’ve never seen an aurochs,” Sansa said, feeding a piece of bacon to Lady under the table. The direwolf took it from her hand, as delicate as a queen. Septa Mordane sniffed in disapproval. “A noble lady does not feed dogs at her table,” she said, breaking off another piece of comb and letting the honey drip down onto her bread. “She’s not a dog, she’s a direwolf,” Sansa pointed out as Lady licked her fingers with a rough tongue. “Anyway, Father said we could keep them with us if we want.” The septa was not appeased. “You’re a good girl, Sansa, but I do vow, when it comes to that creature you’re as willful as your sister Arya.” She scowled. “And where is Arya this morning?"

—AGOT - Sansa I

"It won’t be so bad, Sansa,” Arya said. “We’re going to sail on a galley. It will be an adventure, and then we’ll be with Bran and Robb again, and Old Nan and Hodor and the rest.” She touched her on the arm. “Hodor!” Sansa yelled. “You ought to marry Hodor, you’re just like him, stupid and hairy and ugly!” She wrenched away from her sister’s hand, stormed into her bedchamber, and barred the door behind her.

—AGOT - Sansa III

Jeyne yawned. “Are there any lemon cakes?” Sansa did not like being interrupted, but she had to admit, lemon cakes sounded more interesting than most of what had gone on in the throne room. “Let’s see,” she said. The kitchen yielded no lemon cakes, but they did find half of a cold strawberry pie, and that was almost as good. They ate it on the tower steps, giggling and gossiping and sharing secrets, and Sansa went to bed that night feeling almost as wicked as Arya.

—AGOT - Sansa III

After my name day feast, I’m going to raise a host and kill your brother myself. That’s what I’ll give you, Lady Sansa. Your brother’s head.“ A kind of madness took over her then, and she heard herself say, "Maybe my brother will give me your head.”

—AGOT - Sansa VI

She-Wolves of Winterfell:

Lyanna is literally the she-wolf in the tale of “The Knight of the Laughing Tree”:

But then they heard a roar. 'That's my father's man you're kicking,' howled the she-wolf."

"A wolf on four legs, or two?"

"Two," said Meera.

—ASOS - Bran II

Sansa went from a “wolf girl” to the she-wolf that killed a king:

He smiled at her. "Now, wolf girl, if you can put a name to me as well, then I must concede that you are truly our Hand’s daughter.”

—AGOT - Sansa I

“I forgot, you’ve been hiding under a rock. The northern girl. Winterfell’s daughter. We heard she killed the king with a spell, and afterward changed into a wolf with big leather wings like a bat, and flew out a tower window. But she left the dwarf behind and Cersei means to have his head.”

—ASOS - Arya XIII

“May the Father judge him justly,” murmured a septon. “The dwarf’s wife did the murder with him,” swore an archer in Lord Rowan’s livery. “Afterward, she vanished from the hall in a puff of brimstone, and a ghostly direwolf was seen prowling the Red Keep, blood dripping from his jaws.”

—ASOS - Jaime VII

“Your Grace has forgotten the Lady Sansa,” said Pycelle. The queen bristled. “I most certainly have not forgotten that little she-wolf.” She refused to say the girl’s name. “I ought to have shown her to the black cells as the daughter of a traitor, but instead I made her part of mine own household. She shared my hearth and hall, played with my own children. I fed her, dressed her, tried to make her a little less ignorant about the world, and how did she repay me for my kindness? She helped murder my son.

—AFFC - Cersei IV

What a kick-ass reputation: Sansa, the she-wolf that killed King Joffrey!

Inner Strength:

Lyanna:

"You never knew Lyanna as I did, Robert,” Ned told him. “You saw her beauty, but not the iron underneath”. —AGOT - Eddard VII

Sansa:

My skin has turned to porcelain, to ivory, to steel. —ASOS - Sansa V

Sansa lost her direwolf Lady, and with her, the possibility to develop her abilities as a warg. But GRRM has still made Sansa an skinchanger through poetry. Her skin has changed to porcelain, to ivory, to steel.

Sword & Armor

While Lyanna might have carried a sword, Sansa Stark is a lady armored in courtesy and she polishes her armor with her wits. As Tyrion Lannister said:

My mind is my weapon. My brother has his sword, King Robert has his warhammer, and I have my mind … and a mind needs books as a sword needs a whetstone, if it is to keep its edge." Tyrion tapped the leather cover of the book. "That's why I read so much, Jon Snow."

—AGOT - Tyrion II

Lyanna:

Lyanna might have carried a sword, if my lord father had allowed it. You remind me of her sometimes.

—AGOT - Arya II

Sansa:

Sansa felt that she ought to say something. What was it that Septa Mordane used to tell her? A lady’s armor is courtesy, that was it. She donned her armor and said, “I’m sorry my lady mother took you captive, my lord.”

—ACOK - Sansa I

Courtesy is a lady’s armor. You must not offend them, be careful what you say. “I do not know Ser Willas. I have never had the pleasure, my lady. Is he … is he as great a knight as his brothers?”

—ASOS - Sansa I

“Gods have mercy.” The dwarf took another swallow of wine. “Well, talk won’t make you older. Shall we get on with this, my lady? If it please you?” “It will please me to please my lord husband.” That seemed to anger him. “You hide behind courtesy as if it were a castle wall.” “Courtesy is a lady’s armor,” Sansa said. Her septa had always told her that. “I am your husband. You can take off your armor now.” “And my clothing?” “That too.” He waved his wine cup at her. “My lord father has commanded me to consummate this marriage.”

—ASOS - Sansa III

He wanted to reach her, to break through the armor of her courtesy. Was that what made him speak? Or just the need to distract himself from the fullness in his bladder?

[...]

Perhaps that would please Sansa. Gently, he spoke of Braavos, and met a wall of sullen courtesy as icy and unyielding as the Wall he had walked once in the north. It made him weary. Then and now.

—ASOS - Tyrion VIII

Ser Harrold looked down at her coldly. “Why should it please me to be escorted anywhere by Littlefinger’s bastard?”

[...]

A lady’s armor is her courtesy. Alayne could feel the blood rushing to her face. No tears, she prayed. Please, please, I must not cry. “As you wish, ser. And now if you will excuse me, Littlefinger’s bastard must find her lord father and let him know that you have come, so we can begin the tourney on the morrow.” And may your horse stumble, Harry the Heir, so you fall on your stupid head in your first tilt. She showed the Waynwoods a stone face as they blurted out awkward apologies for their companion. When they were done she turned and fled.

—TWOW - Alayne I

Knights protect the innocent:

Lyanna, as herself and as “The Knight of the Laughing Tree”, defended Howland Reed, a bannerman of House Stark:

“None offered a name, but he marked their faces well so he could revenge himself upon them later. They shoved him down every time he tried to rise, and kicked him when he curled up on the ground. But then they heard a roar. ‘That’s my father’s man you’re kicking,’ howled the she-wolf.” “A wolf on four legs, or two?” “Two,” said Meera. “The she-wolf laid into the squires with a tourney sword, scattering them all. The crannogman was bruised and bloodied, so she took him back to her lair to clean his cuts and bind them up with linen. There he met her pack brothers: the wild wolf who led them, the quiet wolf beside him, and the pup who was youngest of the four.

(…)

“Whoever he was, the old gods gave strength to his arm. The porcupine knight fell first, then the pitchfork knight, and lastly the knight of the two towers. None were well loved, so the common folk cheered lustily for the Knight of the Laughing Tree, as the new champion soon was called.”

—ASOS - Bran II

Sansa, as a lady armored with her courtesy and wits, defended and saved Dontos Hollard’s life, a defenestrated knight turned fool:

The king stood. “A cask from the cellars! I’ll see him drowned in it.” Sansa heard herself gasp. “No, you can’t.” Joffrey turned his head. “What did you say?” Sansa could not believe she had spoken. Was she mad? To tell him no in front of half the court? She hadn’t meant to say anything, only … Ser Dontos was drunk and silly and useless, but he meant no harm. “Did you say I can’t? Did you?” “Please,” Sansa said, “I only meant … it would be ill luck, Your Grace … to, to kill a man on your name day.” “You’re lying,” Joffrey said. “I ought to drown you with him, if you care for him so much.” “I don’t care for him, Your Grace.” The words tumbled out desperately. “Drown him or have his head off, only … kill him on the morrow, if you like, but please … not today, not on your name day. I couldn’t bear for you to have ill luck … terrible luck, even for kings, the singers all say so …” Joffrey scowled. He knew she was lying, she could see it. He would make her bleed for this. “The girl speaks truly,” the Hound rasped. “What a man sows on his name day, he reaps throughout the year.” His voice was flat, as if he did not care a whit whether the king believed him or no. Could it be true? Sansa had not known. It was just something she’d said, desperate to avoid punishment. Unhappy, Joffrey shifted in his seat and flicked his fingers at Ser Dontos. “Take him away. I’ll have him killed on the morrow, the fool.” “He is,” Sansa said. “A fool. You’re so clever, to see it. He’s better fitted to be a fool than a knight, isn’t he? You ought to dress him in motley and make him clown for you. He doesn’t deserve the mercy of a quick death.” The king studied her a moment. “Perhaps you’re not so stupid as Mother says.” He raised his voice. “Did you hear my lady, Dontos? From this day on, you’re my new fool. You can sleep with Moon Boy and dress in motley."

—ACOK - Sansa I

Singers & Songs:

Lyanna and Sansa are linked with singers and romantic songs.

Lyanna loved a singer and became a lady in a song, her own tragic romantic story:

The dragon prince sang a song so sad it made the wolf maid sniffle.

—ASOS - Bran II

The wolf maid was Lyanna Stark hearing her dragon prince Rhaegar Targaryen playing a sad song with the harp.

And curiously enough, a blue eyed redhead man called Jon also wept while hearing Rhaegar Targaryen playing a sad song with the harp:

At the welcoming feast, the prince had taken up his silver-stringed harp and played for them. A song of love and doom, Jon Connington recalled, and every woman in the hall was weeping when he put down the harp. Not the men, of course.

—A Dance with Dragons - The Griffin Reborn

Jon Connington was, of course, in love with Rhaegar Targaryen...

Sansa:

Once, when she was just a little girl, a wandering singer had stayed with them at Winterfell for half a year. An old man he was, with white hair and windburnt cheeks, but he sang of knights and quests and ladies fair, and Sansa had cried bitter tears when he left them, and begged her father not to let him go. “The man has played us every song he knows thrice over,” Lord Eddard told her gently. “I cannot keep him here against his will. You need not weep, though. I promise you, other singers will come.”

They hadn’t, though, not for a year or more. Sansa had prayed to the Seven in their sept and old gods of the heart tree, asking them to bring the old man back, or better still to send another singer, young and handsome. But the gods never answered, and the halls of Winterfell stayed silent.

But that was when she was a little girl, and foolish. She was a maiden now, three-and-ten and flowered. All her nights were full of song, and by day she prayed for silence.

—A Feast for Crows - Sansa I

Bran and his brothers and sisters sat with the king's children, Joffrey and Tommen and Princess Myrcella, who'd spent the whole meal gazing at Robb with adoring eyes. Arya made faces across the table when no one was looking; Sansa listened raptly while the king's high harper sang songs of chivalry, and Rickon kept asking why Jon wasn't with them. "Because he's a bastard," Bran finally had to whisper to him.

—ACOK - Bran III

Later, while Sansa was off listening to a troupe of singers perform the complex round of interwoven ballads called the “Dance of the Dragons,” [sung in High Valyrian] Ned inspected the bruise himself. “I hope Forel is not being too hard on you,” he said.

—AGOT - Eddard VII

She pulled a chair close to the hearth, took down one of her favorite books, and lost herself in the stories of Florian and Jonquil, of Lady Shella and the Rainbow Knight, of valiant Prince Aemon and his doomed love for his brother’s queen.

—AGOT - Sansa IV

After the meal had been cleared away, many of the guests asked leave to go to the sept. Cersei graciously granted their request. Lady Tanda and her daughters were among those who fled. For those who remained, a singer was brought forth to fill the hall with the sweet music of the high harp. He sang of Jonquil and Florian, of Prince Aemon the Dragonknight and his love for his brother’s queen, of Nymeria’s ten thousand ships. They were beautiful songs, but terribly sad. Several of the women began to weep, and Sansa felt her own eyes growing moist.

—ACOK - Sansa VI

So the singer played for her, so soft and sad that Arya only heard snatches of the words, though the tune was half-familiar. Sansa would know it, I bet. Her sister had known all the songs, and she could even play a little, and sing so sweetly. All I could ever do was shout the words.

—ASOS - Arya IV

Lady Ashara was my aunt. I never knew her, though. She threw herself into the sea from atop the Palestone Sword before I was born.” “Why would she do that?” said Arya, startled. (...) “Why did she jump in the sea, though?” "Her heart was broken." Sansa would have sighed and shed a tear for true love, but Arya just thought it was stupid.

—ASOS - Arya VIII

"Do you require guarding?” Marillion said lightly. “I am composing a new song, you should know. A song so sweet and sad it will melt even your frozen heart. 'The Roadside Rose,’ I mean to call it. About a baseborn girl so beautiful she bewitched every man who laid eyes upon her.”

—ASOS - Sansa VII

Lyanna and Sansa are also linked with the tale of Bael the Bard and the Rose of Winterfell.

The Rose of Winterfell:

This is the tale:

According to free folk legend, Lord Brandon Stark, the liege of the north, once called Bael a coward. To take revenge for this affront and prove his courage, Bael climbed the Wall, took the kingsroad, and entered Winterfell under the guise of a singer named Sygerrik of Skagos. (“Sygerrik” means “deceiver” in the Old Tongue.) There, he sang until midnight for the lord.

Impressed by his skills as a singer, Lord Stark asked Bael what he wanted as a reward, but he requested only the most beautiful flower blooming in Winterfell’s gardens. As the blue winter roses were just blooming, Brandon Stark presented him with one. The following morning, the maiden daughter of Lord Stark had disappeared, his only child, and in her bed was the blue winter rose.

Lord Brandon sent the members of the Night’s Watch looking for them beyond the Wall, but they never found Bael or the girl. The Stark line was on the verge of extinction, when one day the girl was back in her room, holding in her arms an infant: they had actually never left Winterfell, staying hidden in the crypts. Bael’s bastard with Brandon’s daughter became the new Lord Stark.

Thirty years later, Bael was King-Beyond-the-Wall and led the wildlings’ army south, and he had to fight his own son at the Frozen Ford. There, incapable of killing his own blood, he let himself be killed by Lord Stark. His son brought back Bael’s head to Winterfell, and his mother who had loved the bard, seeing the trophy, killed herself by leaping from the top of a tower. The son was eventually slain by the Boltons.

[Source]

Jon’s first and only lover, Ygritte, told him this story:

“You said you were the Bastard o’ Winterfell.” “I am.” “Who was your mother?” “Some woman. Most of them are.” Someone had said that to him once. He did not remember who. She smiled again, a flash of white teeth. “And she never sung you the song o’ the winter rose?” “I never knew my mother. Or any such song.” “Bael the Bard made it,” said Ygritte. “He was King-beyond-the-Wall a long time back. (...) “Well, long before he was king over the free folk, Bael was a great raider.” (...) “The Stark in Winterfell wanted Bael’s head, but never could take him, and the taste o’ failure galled him. One day in his bitterness he called Bael a craven who preyed only on the weak. When word o’ that got back, Bael vowed to teach the lord a lesson. So he scaled the Wall, skipped down the kingsroad, and walked into Winterfell one winter’s night with harp in hand, naming himself Sygerrik of Skagos. Sygerrik means ‘deceiver’ in the Old Tongue, that the First Men spoke, and the giants still speak.” “North or south, singers always find a ready welcome, so Bael ate at Lord Stark’s own table, and played for the lord in his high seat until half the night was gone. The old songs he played, and new ones he’d made himself, and he played and sang so well that when he was done, the lord offered to let him name his own reward. ‘All I ask is a flower,’ Bael answered, ‘the fairest flower that blooms in the gardens o’ Winterfell.’” “Now as it happened the winter roses had only then come into bloom, and no flower is so rare nor precious. So the Stark sent to his glass gardens and commanded that the most beautiful o’ the winter roses be plucked for the singer’s payment. And so it was done. But when morning come, the singer had vanished . . . and so had Lord Brandon’s maiden daughter. Her bed they found empty, but for the pale blue rose that Bael had left on the pillow where her head had lain.” Jon had never heard this tale before. (...) “Lord Brandon had no other children. At his behest, the black crows flew forth from their castles in the hundreds, but nowhere could they find any sign o’ Bael or this maid. For most a year they searched, till the lord lost heart and took to his bed, and it seemed as though the line o’ Starks was at its end. But one night as he lay waiting to die, Lord Brandon heard a child’s cry. He followed the sound and found his daughter back in her bedchamber, asleep with a babe at her breast.” “Bael had brought her back?” “No. They had been in Winterfell all the time, hiding with the dead beneath the castle. The maid loved Bael so dearly she bore him a son, the song says . . . though if truth be told, all the maids love Bael in them songs he wrote. Be that as it may, what’s certain is that Bael left the child in payment for the rose he’d plucked unasked, and that the boy grew to be the next Lord Stark. So there it is—you have Bael’s blood in you, same as me.”

—ACOK - Jon VI

This tale resembles Jon’s own story: Bael the Bard and Rhaegar Targaryen, both harp players, “abducted” a Stark maid, Brandon’s daughter and Lyanna, ‘the fairest flower that blooms in the gardens o’ Winterfell’. Rhaegar also crowned Lyanna as the Queen of Love and Beauty with blue winter roses, and they procreated a “bastard” son, Jon Snow. Lyanna died after giving birth to Jon, and the memories of that tragic even haunted Ned, who remembers the Lyanna bleeding and the blue winter roses:

"Promise me, Ned," Lyanna's statue whispered. She wore a garland of pale blue roses, and her eyes wept blood.

—AGOT - Eddard XIII

Promise me, Ned, his sister had whispered from her bed of blood. She had loved the scent of winter roses.

—AGOT - Eddard XV

Immediately after this chapter, comes ACOK - Sansa IV, where Sansa got her first period.

So after a chapter about ‘the fairest flower that blooms in the gardens o’ Winterfell’ it follows the chapter where Sansa Stark becomes a maid, Sansa literally flowered.

Next chapter is Jon again. There is a succession of Jon-Sansa-Jon chapters, that linked them thematically.

Also take note that Sansa was “abducted” by Petyr Baelish, a known deceiver, whose surname has a resemblance with the name Bael.

Blue Winter Roses:

Lyanna and Sansa are linked with flowers, but especially with roses:

Lyanna and the blue winter roses:

Ned could recall none of it. ”I bring her flowers when I can,“ he said. ”Lyanna was … fond of flowers.”

—A Game Of Thrones - Eddard I

"Promise me, Ned," Lyanna's statue whispered. She wore a garland of pale blue roses, and her eyes wept blood.

—AGOT - Eddard XIII

Promise me, Ned, his sister had whispered from her bed of blood. She had loved the scent of winter roses.

—AGOT - Eddard XV

Ned remembered the moment when all the smiles died, when Prince Rhaegar Targaryen urged his horse past his own wife, the Dornish princess Elia Martell, to lay the queen of beauty’s laurel in Lyanna’s lap. He could see it still: a crown of winter roses, blue as frost.

—AGOT - Eddard XV

Sansa Stark:

It was enough that she could walk in the yard, pick flowers in Myrcella’s garden, and visit the sept to pray for her father. Sometimes she prayed in the godswood as well, since the Starks kept the old gods.

—AGOT - Sansa V

Her eyes were only for Ser Loras. When the white horse stopped in front of her, she thought her heart would burst. To the other maidens he had given white roses, but the one he plucked for her was red. “Sweet lady,” he said, “no victory is half so beautiful as you.” Sansa took the flower timidly, struck dumb by his gallantry. His hair was a mass of lazy brown curls, his eyes like liquid gold. She inhaled the sweet fragrance of the rose and sat clutching it long after Ser Loras had ridden off.

—AGOT - Sansa II

—ASOS - Sansa VII

So we have Marillion, a singer, composing a song for Alayne Stone, Sansa Stark in disguise, that he meant to call “The Roadside Rose”

And Loras Tyrell, The Knight of Flowers, gave Sansa a single red rose. I will expand on this next, because Loras giving Sansa a red rose is an allegory in reverse of Rhaegar giving Lyanna the crown of blue winter roses.

Knights & Queens of Love and Beauty:

Lyanna was a Mystery Knight AND was crowned Queen of Love and Beauty at the Tourney at Harrenhal.

Lyanna as the Knight of the Laughing Tree

Lyanna, as herself and as a mystery knight, the Knight of the Laughing Tree, defended the crannogman, Howland Reed, a bannerman of House Stark:

But late on the afternoon of that second day, as the shadows grew long, a mystery knight appeared in the lists. Bran nodded sagely. […] “It was the little crannogman, I bet.” “No one knew,” said Meera, “but the mystery knight was short of stature, and clad in ill-fitting armor made up of bits and pieces. The device upon his shield was a heart tree of the old gods, a white weirwood with a laughing red face.” […] “Whoever he was, the old gods gave strength to his arm. The porcupine knight fell first, then the pitchfork knight, and lastly the knight of the two towers. None were well loved, so the common folk cheered lustily for the Knight of the Laughing Tree, as the new champion soon was called.” —ASOS - Bran II

Lyanna as the Queen of Love and Beauty

Rhaegar Targaryen wearing an armor adorned with rubies (red) gave Lyanna a crown of winter roses (blue):

The Targaryen prince armored all in black. On his breastplate was the three-headed dragon of his House, wrought all in rubies that flashed like fire in the sunlight.

—AGOT - Eddard I

—AGOT - Eddard XV

Sansa as a “Knight”

During the Tourney in honor of King Joffrey’s Name Day, Sansa, as a lady armored with her courtesy and wits, defended and saved the life of Ser Dontos Hollard, a defenestrated knight turned fool, as I explained above.

Sansa as the Queen of Love and Beauty

Art credit: Loras Tyrell Gives Sansa Stark a Rose and the Hand’s Tournament by Jonathan Burton.

Sansa was the unofficial Queen of Love and Beauty at the Tourney of the Hand. GRRM wrote this passage as a resemble of the Tourney at Harrenhal, hiding hints and reversing colors.

Sansa attended the Tourney of the Hand at Kings Landing and met Petyr Baelish who told her that her mother, Catelyn Tully, was his Queen of Love and Beauty:

"Your mother was my queen of beauty once,” the man said quietly. His breath smelled of mint. “You have her hair.” His fingers brushed against her cheek as he stroked one auburn lock. Quite abruptly he turned and walked away. —AGOT - Sansa II

Loras Tyrell, the Knight of Flowers, wearing an armor adorned with sapphires (blue) gave Sansa a (red) rose:

When the Knight of Flowers made his entrance, a murmur ran through the crowd, and he heard Sansa’s fervent whisper, “Oh, he’s so beautiful.” Ser Loras Tyrell was slender as a reed, dressed in a suit of fabulous silver armor polished to a blinding sheen and filigreed with twining black vines and tiny blue forget-me-nots. The commons realized in the same instant as Ned that the blue of the flowers came from sapphires; a gasp went up from a thousand throats. Across the boy’s shoulders his cloak hung heavy. It was woven of forget-me-nots, real ones, hundreds of fresh blooms sewn to a heavy woolen cape. —AGOT - Eddard VII

During the second day of the tourney, Sansa wore the red rose in her hair:

The boy from Highgarden did something with his legs, and his horse pranced sideways, nimble as a dancer. Sansa clutched at his arm. “Father, don’t let Ser Gregor hurt him,” she said. Ned saw she was wearing the rose that Ser Loras had given her yesterday. Jory had told him about that as well. —AGOT - Eddard VII

The Tourney at the Gates of the Moon

And at this point in the Books, Sansa, as Alayne Stone, is organizing a tourney to elect the members of Robert Arryn’s personal guard, named the Brotherhood of the Winged Knights.

Alayne Stone’s betrothed, Harrold Hardyng, known as Harry the Heir, is competing in the tourney.

Since her betrothed is competing in the jousting and since she is daughter of Petyr Baelish, Lord Protector of the Vale, Alayne Stone has great chances to be crowned the Queen of Love and Beauty of the tourney.

The Tourney at Ashford Meadows

Sansa has also strong links with the Tourney at Ashford Meadows, but this is a matter for another time.

Failed betrothal to a Baratheon:

Both Lyanna and Sansa were betrothed with a Baratheon, Lyanna with Robert and Sansa with Joffrey:

If Lyanna had lived, we should have been brothers, bound by blood as well as affection. Well, it is not too late. I have a son. You have a daughter. My Joff and your Sansa shall join our houses, as Lyanna and I might once have done. —AGOT - Eddard I

There is also this parallel between Jenny of Oldstones, Lyanna & Sansa [I wrote about it here]:

Note the parallels between Duncan Targaryen, his betrothed Baratheon and Jenny of Oldstones & Rhaegar Targaryen, Lyanna Stark and her betrothed Robert Baratheon: A Targaryen prince breaking an engagement with a member of House Baratheon that then originates a rebellion.

And this: Sansa was betrothed with Joffrey “Baratheon” and the engagement was broken in the middle of a war with Robb Stark leading an army against King Joffrey, and Jon almost breaking his vows to join Robb’s army to avenge Ned’s death and rescue their sisters. All of which makes me think about these parallels: Sansa being a hostage in King’s Landing & Lyanna’s “abduction”, Ned’s death & Rickard’s death, Robb’s death & Brandon’s death. And that leaves Jon to possibly play the role of Ned Stark in the future.

Basically if Jon and Sansa happens, they will parallel two stories: Rhaegar and Lyanna, a Targaryen/Stark couple; and Ned and Cat, a Stark/Tully couple.

And right now in the Books, Sansa Stark, under the disguise of Alayne Stone, is betrothed with a Robert-like young man: Harrold Hardyng, also known as Harry the Heir:

Both orphaned boys

Both wards at the Vale

Both handsome and physically strong

Both linked to Jon Arryn and the Vale

Both fathered bastards in the Vale: Mya Stone // Alys Stone

Both involved in a conflict with a cousin: Robert killed his cousin Rhaegar and became King // If Robert Arryn dies, his cousin Harry will be new Lord Arryn.

Both betrothed to a Stark girl: Lyanna Stark // (Alayne Stone) Sansa Stark

Pleading Ned to protect part of themselves:

"Stop them," Sansa pleaded, "don't let them do it, please, please, it wasn't Lady, it was Nymeria, Arya did it, you can't, it wasn't Lady, don't let them hurt Lady, I'll make her be good, I promise, I promise …" She started to cry.

—AGOT - Eddard III

He could still hear Sansa pleading, as Lyanna had pleaded once.

—AGOT - Eddard IV

"Promise me, Ned," Lyanna's statue whispered. She wore a garland of pale blue roses, and her eyes wept blood.

—AGOT - Eddard XIII

Promise me, Ned, his sister had whispered from her bed of blood. She had loved the scent of winter roses.

—AGOT - Eddard XV

Lyanna was pleading to her brother Ned to protect her son, while Sansa was pleading to her father Ned to protect her direwolf, Lady, part of Sansa’s soul. Later, Ned regretted failing Sansa…

Sansa’s pleading and repeating the word “promise”, triggered Ned’s trauma over Lyanna’s death. That also happened when Robert asked Ned to protect his children.

Targaryen Imagery:

Sansa’s chapters hide hints about Lyanna’s son, Jon Snow, true parentage.

Indeed, Sansa Stark has a very interesting imagery of white/off-white fabrics stained with blood and fire. I wrote more about it here.

Sansa’s Ivory silk dress stained with blood orange juice and ashes

“Liar,” Arya said. Her hand clenched the blood orange so hard that red juice oozed between her fingers.

“Go ahead, call me all the names you want,” Sansa said airily. “You won’t dare when I’m married to Joffrey. You’ll have to bow to me and call me Your Grace.” She shrieked as Arya flung the orange across the table. It caught her in the middle of the forehead with a wet squish and plopped down into her lap.

“You have juice on your face, Your Grace,” Arya said.

It was running down her nose and stinging her eyes. Sansa wiped it away with a napkin. When she saw what the fruit in her lap had done to her beautiful ivory silk dress, she shrieked again. “You’re horrible,” she screamed at her sister. “They should have killed you instead of Lady!”

(…)

“Arya started it,” Sansa said quickly, anxious to have the first word. “She called me a liar and threw an orange at me and spoiled my dress, the ivory silk, the one Queen Cersei gave me when I was betrothed to Prince Joffrey. She hates that I’m going to marry the prince. She tries to spoil everything, Father, she can’t stand for anything to be beautiful or nice or splendid.”

(…)

“Sansa stalked away with her head up. She was to be a queen, and queens did not cry. At least not where people could see. When she reached her bedchamber, she barred the door and took off her dress. The blood orange had left a blotchy red stain on the silk. “I hate her!” she screamed. She balled up the dress and flung it into the cold hearth, on top of the ashes of last night’s fire. When she saw that the stain had bled through onto her underskirt, she began to sob despite herself. She ripped off the rest of her clothes wildly, threw herself into bed, and cried herself back to sleep.”

—A Game of Thrones - Sansa III

When the king’s herald moved forward, Sansa realized the moment was almost at hand. She smoothed down the cloth of her skirt nervously. She was dressed in mourning, as a sign of respect for the dead king, but she had taken special care to make herself beautiful. Her gown was the ivory silk that the queen had given her, the one Arya had ruined, but she’d had them dye it black and you couldn’t see the stain at all. She had fretted over her jewelry for hours and finally decided upon the elegant simplicity of a plain silver chain.

—A Game of Thrones - Sansa V

Take note that the ivory silk dress was a “betrothal gift” from Cersei, that Sansa later had to “dye it black” so the “blood and fire stain” couldn’t be seen at all.

Oh George! Your wording here is just genius!

Sansa’s bedclothes stained with her moonblood and fire

When she woke, the pale light of morning was slanting through her window, yet she felt as sick and achy as if she had not slept at all. There was something sticky on her thighs. When she threw back the blanket and saw the blood, all she could think was that her dream had somehow come true. She remembered the knives inside her, twisting and ripping. She squirmed away in horror, kicking at the sheets and falling to the floor, breathing raggedly, naked, bloodied, and afraid.

But as she crouched there, on her hands and knees, understanding came. “No, please,” Sansa whimpered, “please, no.” She didn’t want this happening to her, not now, not here, not now, not now, not now, not now.

Madness took hold of her. Pulling herself up by the bedpost, she went to the basin and washed between her legs, scrubbing away all the stickiness. By the time she was done, the water was pink with blood. When her maidservants saw it they would know. Then she remembered the bedclothes. She rushed back to the bed and stared in horror at the dark red stain and the tale it told. All she could think was that she had to get rid of it, or else they’d see. She couldn’t let them see, or they’d marry her to Joffrey and make her lay with him.

Snatching up her knife, Sansa hacked at the sheet, cutting out the stain. If they ask me about the hole, what will I say? Tears ran down her face. She pulled the torn sheet from the bed, and the stained blanket as well. I’ll have to burn them. She balled up the evidence, stuffed it in the fireplace, drenched it in oil from her bedside lamp, and lit it afire. Then she realized that the blood had soaked through the sheet into the featherbed, so she bundled that up as well, but it was big and cumbersome, hard to move. Sansa could get only half of it into the fire. She was on her knees, struggling to shove the mattress into the flames as thick grey smoke eddied around her and filled the room, when the door burst open and she heard her maid gasp.

In the end it took three of them to pull her away. And it was all for nothing. The bedclothes were burnt, but by the time they carried her off her thighs were bloody again. It was as if her own body had betrayed her to Joffrey, unfurling a banner of Lannister crimson for all the world to see.

—A Clash of Kings - Sansa IV

Even if the color of the bedclothes was not stated as white/off-white, it’s very probable that they were of white or an off-white color, like ivory. So, again, we find this very interesting imagery in Sansa’s chapters: white/off-white fabrics stained with blood and fire.

And this passage of a bed stained with blood that must be hidden makes me think about Ned’s dream of Lyanna’s death:

He dreamt an old dream, of three knights in white cloaks, and a tower long fallen, and Lyanna in her bed of blood.

—A Game of Thrones - Eddard X

So I think there is another pattern here: betrothal, marriage and giving birth.

As I said before, the ivory silk dress was a “betrothal gift” from Cersei; and, as Sansa stated, the bedclothes stained with her moonblood was a proof of her having reached her womanhood and thus able to do her duty and marry Joffrey and bear his children.

Moreover, after Sansa’s first moonblood, she had this conversation with Cersei:

“I don’t blame you. Between Tyrion and Lord Stannis, everything I eat tastes of ash. And now you’re setting fires as well. What did you hope to accomplish?”

Sansa lowered her head. “The blood frightened me.”

“The blood is the seal of your womanhood. Lady Catelyn might have prepared you. You’ve had your first flowering, no more.”

Sansa had never felt less flowery. “My lady mother told me, but I … I thought it would be different.”

“Different how?”

“I don’t know. Less … less messy, and more magical.”

Queen Cersei laughed. “Wait until you birth a child, Sansa. A woman’s life is nine parts mess to one part magic, you’ll learn that soon enough … and the parts that look like magic often turn out to be messiest of all.” She took a sip of milk. “So now you are a woman. Do you have the least idea of what that means?”

“It means that I am now fit to be wedded and bedded,” said Sansa, “and to bear children for the king.”

—A Clash of Kings - Sansa IV

An ivory silk dress, a “betrothal gift” from Cersei, that Sansa later had to “dye it black”, so the “blood and fire stain” couldn’t be seen at all, sounds pretty much like Lyanna Stark’s betrothal to Robert Baratheon being “stained” by Rhaegar Targaryen. And then, of course, of Jon Snow hidden in the Wall as a Black Brother/Black Knight of the Night’s Watch.

Again, Sansa’s bedclothes stained with her flowering blood and then with fire to hide the stain, sounds pretty much like Lyanna Stark’s bed of blood after she gave birth Jon Snow, the baby that had to be hidden so his Targaryen identity couldn’t be seem at all.

A white wool cloak stained by blood and fire

When she crawled out of bed, long moments later, she was alone. She found his cloak on the floor, twisted up tight, the white wool stained by blood and fire. The sky outside was darker by then, with only a few pale green ghosts dancing against the stars. A chill wind was blowing, banging the shutters. Sansa was cold. She shook out the torn cloak and huddled beneath it on the floor, shivering.

—A Clash of Kings - Sansa VII

Out of the three passages with this imagery of white/off-white fabrics stained with blood and fire, this one, the one you asked for, has the more evident references of Jon Snow’s true parentage as the son of Rhaegar Targaryen and Lyanna Stark.

Here we have Sansa huddled beneath a white kingsguard cloak stained by blood of the death during the Battle of the Blackwater and wildfire.

I think most of the readers get distracted from the Jon Snow’s true parentage hints here, because they romanticize this scene and believe it foreshadows some romantic future events for her involving the Hound, based in the fact that Sansa had covered herself with “the Hounds cloak” twice. But the relationship between Sansa and the white cloaks is -by far- larger than that; it has more to do with the ideals of knighthood and chivalry, than with the men wearing them.

As you can see, GRRM has plagued Sansa’s chapters with hints of Lyanna’s son, Jon Snow, true parentage.

Dead before their time:

Lyanna:

“She [Lyanna] was,” Eddard Stark agreed, “beautiful, and willful, and dead before her time.”

—AGOT - Arya II

Sansa:

And so many others were missing. Where had the rest of them gone? Sansa wondered. Vainly, she searched for friendly faces. Not one of them would meet her eyes. It was as if she had become a ghost, dead before her time.

—AGOT - Sansa V

Lyanna and Lady (part of Sansa’s soul) both died in the south, before their time.

Lyanna’s ghost has haunted Cersei over the years, Cersei wanted to marry Rhaegar but ended married with Robert. Both Rhaegar and Robert loved Lyanna.

Lady is mentioned in the Books as a “shade”, a synonym for ghost. And after Ned’s death, Sansa became a ghost at the Red Keep’s court.

Sansa and Lady also haunt Cersei, as she remembered them both during her walk of atonement:

The queen began to see familiar faces. (...) She saw Ned Stark, and beside him little Sansa with her auburn hair and a shaggy grey dog that might have been her wolf.

—ADWD - Cersei II

At the end, only the remains of Lyanna and Lady returned home, to the North, to Winterfell.

Ladies of Winterfell:

Lyanna’s and Lady’s bones are buried at Winterfell, what makes them literally Ladies of Winterfell:

“She was more beautiful than that,” the king said after a silence. His eyes lingered on Lyanna’s face, as if he could will her back to life. Finally he rose, made awkward by his weight. “Ah, damn it, Ned, did you have to bury her in a place like this?” His voice was hoarse with remembered grief. “She deserved more than darkness …” “She was a Stark of Winterfell,” Ned said quietly. “This is her place.”

—AGOT - Eddard I

Shortly, Jory brought him Ice. When it was over, he said, “Choose four men and have them take the body north. Bury her at Winterfell.” “All that way?” Jory said, astonished. “All that way,” Ned affirmed. “The Lannister woman shall never have this skin.”

—AGOT - Eddard III

Bran felt all cold inside. “She lost her wolf,” he said, weakly, remembering the day when four of his father’s guardsmen had returned from the south with Lady’s bones. Summer and Grey Wind and Shaggydog had begun to howl before they crossed the drawbridge, in voices drawn and desolate. Beneath the shadow of the First Keep was an ancient lichyard, its headstones spotted with pale lichen, where the old Kings of Winter had laid their faithful servants. It was there they buried Lady, while her brothers stalked between the graves like restless shadows. She had gone south, and only her bones had returned.

—AGOT - Bran VI

Lady’s death and his return to the North to rest in Winterfell is linked with Lyanna’s death and her own path back home. I wrote about this before:

Now, back to Lady’s death. We know that this event is a turning point in Sansa’s arc, but other than that, the paragraphs leading to the direwolf’s execution are laden with symbolism and foreshadowing, not only for Sansa, but for Ned as well.

During the “trial”, Ned decides that he will take Lady’s life himself, in order to avoid having a butcher like Ilyn Payne do the execution. Then, before he struck, he pronounced her name in the same fashion Robb and Jon called the name of their direwolves before they both died. This for me foreshadows Ned’s own death. Also, before Lady’s death, Ned pleads King Robert to change his decision on putting down the direwolf, appealing to the memory of Lyanna, the woman Robert loved. Similarly, before Ned’s execution at the steps of the Sept of Baelor, Sansa pleads King Joffrey to spare her father’s life, appealing to the love he has for her. As we know, both pleas fell on deaf ears and both Lady and Ned lost their lives; bringing the story full circle, as Ilyn Payne himself cut off Ned’s head.

Another interesting thing is that before Lady’s death we have direct and indirect references to Lyanna Stark. We have the direct reference when Ned appealed to the love Robert Baratheon bore Lyanna, in order to save Lady’s life, and the indirect one when he ordered Jory to choose four men to return Lady’s body to the north, to bury her in Winterfell. This order Ned gave to his men alludes to his own decision to take Lyanna’s body to Winterfell to be buried in the crypts, after her demise, brought on by her doomed love affair with Rhaegar Targaryen.

And to finish this post, here some gifsets that illustrate some of the discussed parallels:

Sansa Stark and Lyanna Stark + parallels

Pleading

She-wolves of Winterfell

Beautiful, Captivating Child-Women

Hidden Metal ft. hair parallels

Broken ‘Baratheon’ Engagements ft. more hair parallels

Fair Maidens

BONUS

Lyanna and Sansa in the first Show pilot:

In The Original, Terrible ‘Game Of Thrones’ Pilot That Never Aired, there was a scene where Cersei burned the feather that Robert left at Lyanna’s statue in the Winterfell Crypts:

The Cersei scene that might ruffle some feathers

Let’s begin with a defining scene between King Robert Baratheon and Ned Stark in the Winterfell crypts.

The scene that aired on HBO is slightly different from the scene in the Cushing script, but the gist is the same. Robert asks Ned to be his new Hand of the King, a position left open after Jon Arryn’s death. That’s when Robert places something small but highly symbolic on a statue of his onetime betrothed, Lyanna Stark: a feather.

And that pretty much sums up the sequence you saw in Season 1

But in the script found in the Cushing library, Queen Cersei plays a pivotal role in this exchange’s aftermath ― so much so that her involvement would have changed a Season 5 episode, the recent Season 8 teaser and possibly more.

The following scene is written into the pilot script found at Cushing and involves Cersei visiting the crypts right before the feast at Winterfell:

Cersei exits the crypts, crosses the courtyard and walks into the antechamber between the kitchen and the Winterfell great hall. The celebration for the king’s arrival is underway, and servants are rushing past her with food. The queen’s handmaidens make adjustments to her outfit and remove her heavy fur.

Then Cersei reveals something she has inside her sleeve:

“A word with the Stark girl”. I have no doubt this meant Sansa.

We didn’t get to watch this scene, Cersei never came down to the Winterfell Crypts, and she never took the feather Robert left there for Lyanna. But a few seasons later, we got to watch a scene of Sansa at the Winterfell Crypts, next to her aunt Lyanna’s statue, where she found the same feather that King Robert left there years ago...

...And Petyr Baelish told her the story of Lyanna and Rhaegar at the Tourney of Harrenhal.... I wrote more about it here.

I hope this is enough.

Thanks for your message and good night.

#Sansa Stark #Lyanna Stark #parallels #anon ask #Sansa & Lyanna parallels #Lyanna & Sansa parallels

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whitewolfandthefox · 4 years

Text

Call of the Wild: Part 7

Summary: Astarion continues his research as the pack searches for you.

Series Masterlist

Add yourself to my taglist!

Warnings: violence, major injury, unconsciousness, torture, violence, angst

Words: 2.7k

A/N. This... is not a happy one guys, sorry. I swear I’m not intentionally trying to kill you. Comments and reblogs are appreciated!

The Connection

You could hear the men getting closer as you ran, slowing from the pain of your wounds and the exhaustion from shifting so many times in such a short period. You tripped over a root as you looked back, chest hitting the ground and your body rolling through the underbrush. You scrambled to your feet, heart hammering from fear as you resumed fleeing.

You could hear the shouts getting louder behind you, the baying of a dog as it closed in. You desperately searched for shelter, spotting a low hanging tree branch off to the left. You darted towards it, before pain flared as you were dragged backwards, the dog’s jaws closed on your back leg. Turning, you slashed at the dog’s face, opening wounds across its muzzle. It yelped and dropped you before rushing once more. You dodged to the side, snapping at its shoulder as you moved, opening another laceration with your teeth.

Whimpering, the dog backed off allowing you to rush up the tree, digging your claws into the bark as you cowered against the trunk. The men filled the space behind the dog, carrying weapons and torches, all staring up at you. One of the men called the dog off with a sharp gesture, allowing it to slink to the back of the group. They stared up at you, faces full of malice. One stepped forward, a sword in his hand.

“Come on down, demon. We can do this the easy way, or the hard way.” You hissed at him in response, pulling your body further into itself, tail wrapped around your small body, ears flat against your head. At your actions, he grinned, baring his teeth. Turning to the man next to him, he gestured at you, “Light it up.”

He stepped forward, laying the torch against the base of the tree. Too late, you realized that the tree you had chosen was long dead, brittle and dry. As the flames caught and climbed its way up the tree, you frantically searched for a way out. None of the trees were close enough for you to jump to, you were trapped.

As the flames grew higher, you could feel the heat licking at your paws. You scrambled to one of the branches, creeping along it, silently praying that it would hold your weight. The men jeered at you from below as you gathered yourself to jump, hoping you could make it.

CRACK

You felt yourself falling as the branch broke beneath you, tumbling to the ground far below. You yelped as you hit, feeling your leg snap beneath you, wound in your side pouring hot blood as it reopened. You lay there stunned, shaken by the fall. All of a sudden, you felt hands on you, gripping your fur and legs. Your vision went white as they touched your broken limb, leaping to your feet, lashing out with your teeth in defence. You felt something tear, warm, coppery liquid filling your mouth as you clamped down on the arm near your injured leg, wrenching your head to the side as you tore a chunk of flesh, hearing the howl of pain from the man at your actions.

Something struck you in the side of the head and you went limp, pain suffusing every inch of your being. As you lay on the ground, you felt your body being manhandled, turned to your side. “Shit, it's bleeding. The boss said it wasn’t to be harmed.”

Rough hands shoved cloth against your side, a yelp drawn from you as you were jostled, thrown over a shoulder. Your vision faded in and out, time passing in a blur as you tried to manage the pain. You felt the air change, a shiver running through your small form as you entered the stone structure, air cooling off as the guards around headed deeper. You were dropped to the ground, whimper passing your lips as your wounds were jostled. A bitter smell filled the air, mixed with the scent of old blood. Your heart sunk, you were back in your original cell.

“Ah! Such a lovely specimen, such a magnificent colour.” You closed your eyes at the sound of Astarion’s voice. “I haven’t seen your kind before, such a rare subspecies of fox. This is so exciting!”

Curling into yourself, you took a deep breath before rolling to your feet, keeping your injured front leg off the ground, lips pulling back at the sight of the sorcerer. He looked delighted, hands clasped in front of him, excitement on his face. “This will be so informative, I will be able to do so much research with you.” His face turned vicious. “Especially now that I know how to make you change.”

Your ears pulled back at that, teeth bared as a low growl rumbled out of your chest. Your tail stood straight out behind you, knees bent as you were prepared to defend yourself. He studied you, eyes sweeping your side as he observed your lifted leg, a thoughtful look on his face. “We won’t start today, sweet, I’ll let you heal first. It will give me a better baseline of how exactly your healing works. You’ve had an exciting night, get some rest and we will get started tomorrow.”

With that, he turned and swept out of your cell, door clanging shut behind you. Limping into the corner, you curled up with your back to the stone wall, eyes closing as you let the darkness of unconsciousness wash over you.

**~*~*~*~**

Geralt looked at Yennefer, heartbreak clear on his face. She laid a hand on his arm, face full of sympathy. She knew what it felt like, losing someone you cared about. Her mate had been taken from her too soon, killed during a raid on a shape shifter village. It still felt like yesterday, holding the empty shell that used to be the love of her life. The agony, the loss, the pain that came with knowing she would never see them again. She knew the agony of losing a mate and she never wanted Geralt to have to experience that.

“We’ll find her,” her grip tightened on his arm, forcing the man to look at her. “I swear to you, Geralt, I won’t stop until she’s back with us.”

Ciri and Jaskier approached the pair, the former latching on to Geralt’s waist. Jaskier spoke quietly, “You have our teeth and our claws as well. We are with you no matter what.”

Geralt was silent for a moment, before his posture sagged. “Thank you,” his voice was soft, full of pain. “I will be forever in your debt.”

“Never,” Yennefer spoke, “This is what family does. Now, let’s go find a shapeshifter.”

**~*~*~*~**

Astarion had returned the next day to find you in your human form. You had stood to meet him, defiance clear in your face. He had scowled at you, clearly displeased that you were no longer a fox. He didn’t say anything as he approached you, driving a fist into your stomach as he grabbed your broken arm, pressing on the bone. A scream tore from your lips as the heat that came with your shift washed over you, leaving you curled on the floor, tail tucked in close. He had laughed, delighted to finally have access to his research. He had taken samples of almost everything, fur, skin, muscle, blood.

He would leave you on the ground after he was done, telling you to rest up and he would be back tomorrow. Each time you shifted back, but it was getting harder to do so. Everytime you shifted to your animal form, it took longer for you to find the power inside you, almost as if it was hiding from you. When he came back the next morning he would just send a guard in, telling them to beat you until you shifted. You tried to hold out, you really did, but it just became instinctual to curl in on yourself in order to avoid the hurt. Other times he would use spells and knives, would have you writhing and screaming before you finally gave in, shifting to your animal form.

It had been days, you think. You weren’t really sure, time passed oddly in this place. You drifted, almost as if you were having an out of body experience. You started counting the numbers of visits you received from Astarion in an attempt to pass the time. It broke up the haze of pain that you lived in, listening to him ramble. He would tell you about his research, how he was looking for a spell or a potion that was easily dispensed so that no one would die needlessly. He knew the key was hidden in your abilities, shapeshifters healed the fastest and could survive more grievous wounds than humans, and he was determined to find it.

You don’t know what caused it, but one day you woke up in an even worse state than you normally did. You had accepted the pain at this point, almost expecting it as part of your daily routine, but today you had had enough.

When Astarion came for his normal visit, he again sent a guard in. This time though, you were ready. You had found a sharp rock in the wall last night, and had spent hours honing it to an edge against the stone. As he approached you, you could feel the heavy weight in your hand, hidden behind your back. You stood firm, not shying away as the man approached you.

He saw this, saw the defiance in your eyes. He smirked, asking “You want to play today, eh?”

You didn’t respond, only gripping your weapon tighter. As he stepped into your reach, you lunged forwards, burying the stone in his neck before pulling it back, allowing his blood to spill forth. He staggered backwards, one arm reaching for the wall to support himself before collapsing to his knees as his other hand came up to press on the wound, blood bubbling from his lips. You turned to face the rest of the guards as they rushed in, stabbing at the hands that reached for you. Another guard drew back with a howl, a man stepping forward to take his place. You could feel the blows landing on your body, but you didn’t care. Your rage overwhelmed everything, removing the pain that had been your constant companion. You lashed out with disregard for your injured limb, arm protesting the movement. You had healed, yes, but it was not completely back to normal.

The guards began to overwhelm you, stunning you as they threw you to the floor, head bouncing against the stone. You curled into a ball, arms over your head to protect it, flashbacks of your village flying through your mind. The pain, the fear was back, overwhelming your every sense.

In your desperation, you reached for that string that seemed to lead to Geralt, taking it and wrapping it around your soul in an attempt to hide, to heal, to do what you weren’t sure. All you knew was that it had helped protect you before, had helped to take the pain away. You could almost feel his presence, it was almost as if he was standing next to you, protecting you, soothing the pain that ravaged your body. You could sense him, could sense his frustration, which quickly turned to shock and surprise. Help, you pushed at him, sending your desperation and hurt, your fear towards him.

You could feel a touch against your skin, almost as if he was embracing you, protecting you from the men who continued to rain down blows on you. You could feel your skin split under the impact, but it was quickly taken away, soothed as if a gentle cloth was washing over your skin, the pain melting away like soap washed away after bathing. You cried out as you felt your ribs snap from a kick, reaching with your mind, reaching for that thread that connected you to the Witcher. You felt him reach back, entwining your souls together as he sheltered you from the pain.

A warm feeling washed over you, filling every part of your being with a sense of belonging. It whispered to you in a low voice, let me in, I can help. You instinctively relaxed, you knew this presence. It had helped you before, and would again. As you let yourself fall into the feeling, you could feel Geralt falling with you, wrapping around each other as you went. As you fell into darkness, you could feel power surging through you. You looked for somewhere to send it, finding a shadowed figure filled with pain, hurt, blood, someone was hurt, you needed to help them. You were a healer, it was second nature for you to push the power towards it, telling it to soothe, to heal as you finally succumbed to the tug.

**~*~*~*~**

The pack had been travelling for days, having to stop everytime Geralt would falter, pain blooming across his face. The Witcher was frustrated, he was used to pain, but what he was feeling was increased tenfold. He knew why, and the thought filled him with terror. He had to push on, to find her, to protect her, there was nothing else for him to do. He needed to stop the hurt that she was experiencing, the terror that leaked through as she went through what, Geralt didn’t know.

Jaskier and Ciri had begged Yennefer to do something to help the man, to take away the pain she was feeling, but every time they asked she just shook her head, a sad look on her face before moving towards Geralt, herbs to soothe the pain in her hands. As soon as he was ready they would leave again, the Witcher determined to not let anything delay him from reaching you. On the fourth day since they had reached your house, a week and a half since he had left you initially, something changed.

Geralt felt a burst of warmth surge through him, stopping him in his tracks. “Geralt?” he distantly heard Yennefer calling his name but he was unable to respond. He was suddenly overwhelmed with fear, pain, desperation, forcing any other thought out of his head. He could feel you, could feel your presence. You were calling to him, pleading with him to save you. Blindly, he reached back, wrapping you in his presence, pulling the pain out of your body and into his.

A grunt left his mouth as his knees gave out, fingers curling into the dirt as another surge of pain came through. He could feel a hand on his arm but he couldn’t tell whose it was. He had no idea who was in front of him, where he was, what was happening, all he knew was that you were in pain and he needed to help you. Gently, he pulled your soul against his, putting his mind between yours and the pain he could feel rippling through you. You nestled against his heart; the warmth he had felt earlier was coming from you.

Do you trust me?

Of course.

He took the string that connected the two of you and wrapped it around his heart, his mind, and his soul, gently nudging at your own as he did.

Let me in, I can help.

Immediately your mind opened to him, sharing everything you were with him. Geralt paused, astounded at the trust you had immediately given to him, astounded that you had bared yourself to him so willingly. As he tied the string around you, he gently pushed at your mind, guiding you to the darkness that waited patiently below, welcoming you into its soft embrace, a space free of pain and fear. As its arms reached out to envelope you, a wave of power burst out of you, pushing Geralt back to awareness.

His eyes opened to see his pack on their knees in front of him, Jaskier holding Ciri against him as tears silently ran down her face, Yennefer with her hand on the Witcher’s arm. Slowly, he raised his head, seeing the terror in Yennefer’s eyes as he met her gaze.

“I know where she is.”

**~*~*~*~**

Add yourself to my taglist!

Witcher taglist: @riviawitch3r / @jensensjaredsandmishaslover / @ayamenimthiriel / @uncoolcloudyhead / @secretsthathauntus / @vintage-mind-young-body / @creamysacrilege / @hina-chans-stuff / @bastardfruitsandbasil / @shewritesinthethirdperson / @widowvinter / @unnamedmaincharacter / @thenocturnalsyren / @loudlycolorfulkryptonite / @whatawildone / @geraltmrwitcher / @psychosupernatural / @chickennooget69 / @widowvinter / @ronnieissupermegafoxyawesomehot

Call of the Wild taglist: @raspberrydreamclouds / @queenxxxsupreme / @achievementhunting-archangel / @alwayshave-faith / @afterthenightprevails / @a-door-into-my-mind / @msjjekyll / @ilovetaquitosmmmm / @bloo-moon-freak / @theblurplegirl / @mathle0matle / @agniavateira / @thedevotedwitness / @fandoms-and-sunshine / @sofiebstar / @emiwrites3reads / @shadok2015 / @chamomilebottom / @unlimitedd / @atozfantasy

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myforeverforlife · 4 years

Text

one and the same.

A oneshot as requested by an anon! Kyungsoo (superhero/villain au) and 56. "I don't do hugs."

Come send in a request here!

Pairing: Kyungsoo x Fem reader

Word count: 2,256

Masterlist

Kyungsoo hissed as you pressed him up against the wall, the rough concrete scratching at his skin through his super-suit. He glared down at you as you shoved your arm even further against his neck, holding him in place. Even Kyungsoo's superhuman strength was no match for you — not when you had the power to copy his ability.

"What's wrong?" you asked coyly, your free hand playfully booping his nose. "Copycat got your tongue?"

"Let me go, Copycat," Kyungsoo grumbled. Even with his super strength, once you copied his ability, it was a pretty even match between the two of you. Although now, Kyungsoo had the disadvantage of being held up against the alley wall.

"And if I don't want to?" you replied with a giggle. "You need to loosen up every now and then, D.O. Come out for a night on the town with me, the usual."

Kyungsoo swung out with his left leg, almost swiping your calf as you dodged out of the way. Instantly, you turned him around, pinning his hands behind his back. Kyungsoo yelped in surprise as his cheek hit the wall — he'd definitely feel that tomorrow too. You were standing right behind him, practically resting your chin on his shoulder.

"You know, I don't do hugs. Especially not backhugs, like this. But for you, I'll make an exception. Admit it," you whispered into his ear, fingers tracing teasingly over his wrists. "You like playing tag with me. It's why you never catch me, as much you know you could."

Kyungsoo's cheeks flared up, the pink color thankfully hidden under his mask. "You're being ridiculous."

"Oh? Someone's defensive. Where's your friend Kai tonight? Or Loey, the human flame? I'm surprised your friends aren't here to help you catch a little cat like me."

Out of all the days to be missing, it had to be today. Kyungsoo was currently cursing his friends for staying at home and gaming on their computers. Some stupid expansion packs, or updates, or something. Kyungsoo didn't have time for games. Both in the virtual and Copycat sense.

"They'll be here soon," he bluffed.

You hummed aloud, the sound much too playful for his liking. There was Chanyeol levels of playfulness, and then there was you. The most infuriating, confusing person he had ever set eyes on. And yet, he found himself being drawn to you more and more.

Even if you were a a thief, a villain.

"Right," you drawled. "Well, as much as I'd like to stay here and play all night, I have things to do too." A sudden blast of music cut you off, startling both of you as the opening notes of CBX's "Cherish" started to play from the phone in your back pocket.

"Shit," you swore under your breath. "Well, it was nice talking again, D.O. Maybe next time, you'll get me." You pressed a quick kiss to his mask-covered cheek before knocking him out, his body slumping to the floor. What a shame. Even with all of his righteous hero attitude, you had to admit that you had a soft spot for him.

You reached into your pocket, pulling out the phone and holding it to your ear. "This better be good," you said as you left Kyungsoo behind.

"Out flirting again?" the voice on the other end asked, sighing in exasperation.

"I'm not flirting. Not with you, at least."

"Y/N, just get the diamonds."

"Yes, sir." You gave a small salute, even though you knew your co-conspirator couldn't see.

"Make it quick. And get back safe."

"Alright, Xing. See you later."

Kyungsoo sat with an ice pack pressed to his head as he glared at his roommates. "I'm dropping the damn computers from the balcony. I wouldn't be hurt if it wasn't for you two. Stupid games."

Jongin and Chanyeol had the sense to look ashamed, the two lanky superheroes unable to look him in the eye. "Sorry, Soo," Jongin pouted.

"Yeah, really sorry. We'll take patrol tonight," Chanyeol added. "Just focus on getting better."

The other two superheroes stared at the side of Kyungsoo's head, wincing at the bump barely visible under his short hair.

"Copycat scares me though," Jongin mumbled. "I mean, she literally copies our abilities and uses them against us."

"That's why you're not supposed to let her touch you," Chanyeol added.

Kyungsoo gulped as he remembered the way your hands felt on his own, the brush of your lips against his cheek. He shook his head, wincing at the sharp pain that quickly followed soon after.

Jongin and Chanyeol fussed over him, forcing him to lie down and draping blankets over him like he was sick with the flu. Despite all of their attempts to help, Kyungsoo didn't feel peaceful until they left him alone, closing his bedroom door behind them.

Jongin was right — you were scary. But not for the obvious reasons. Kyungsoo was afraid of how much of a hold you had over him, the way you easily played with his heart. "It's because I haven't dated in a while," he reasoned to himself, although he knew that wasn't entirely it.

You were captivating, a mystery that Kyungsoo wanted to find out more about.

Even if it meant fraternizing with the enemy.

Kyungsoo grinned as Huchu, the freshly groomed dog that she was, licked at his chin while he cradled her in his arms. Much to his relief, she had gotten used to being dropped off and picked up at the pet groomers. The lobby was almost completely full, owners trying to bring their pets in as summer rounded the corner. Just as Kyungsoo was saying goodbye to the person at the counter, he heard the familiar notes of CBX's "Cherish" ringing through the air.

He could’ve sworn that he’s heard it somewhere before...

Kyungsoo was so focused on trying to remember how he knew the song that he didn't realize he was holding up the line, bashfully moving out of the way. Once he turned around, his eyes wandered over to a person sitting alone in a corner of the room, pulling out their phone and answering the call. Kyungsoo felt his blood run cold as he listened to the person speaking. He'd recognize that voice anywhere.

Before he knew it, his feet were taking him over to you. The hero waited, eyes blazing with determination until you noticed him.

"I think we've met before," he said lowly, trying not to attract attention from the other patrons in the room.

Kyungsoo knew right away that you recognized his voice, your eyes growing wide and mouth hanging open even while the person you were talking to tried to get your attention.

"Sorry, I'll call you back later," you hastily got out, ending the call and swallowing down the nervous lump that had appeared in your throat. "Hi. Out of all the places to meet," you laughed nervously.

"You... are you waiting to pick up your pet?"

"Hm?" You glanced at the counter, as if just remembering where you were. "Oh, no. I'm just waiting here for a friend. He should be on his way to pick up his cats," you explained when Kyungsoo only stared at you in confusion.

"Can we talk?"

"Uh, we are talking."

"Not here." Kyungsoo nodded towards the rest of the room, at the innocent civilians almost within hearing distance. It wouldn't be good for either of you to have your true identities aired out in public.

Your eyes flickered from the entrance and back to Kyungsoo, knee jiggling nervously as you sat. "Okay," you finally relented, standing up.

Kyungsoo led the way to the park nearby, Huchu walking with a bounce to her little paws while you and Kyungsoo followed behind in an awkward, tension-filled silence. It was strange for him to realize that flirty, agile Copycat was the same as this shy, flustered person walking beside him. Both of you settled down on a bench, Kyungsoo removing Huchu’s leash so that she could explore the grassy area close by.

"Listen," you finally managed to say. "Please don't tell anyone about me."

"Why would I tell anyone?"

Your eyebrows jumped up in disbelief. "Because that's what heroes do. They turn in the criminals, and save the day... right?"

Kyungsoo's mouth fell open as he fumbled over his words. "I... I don't even know your name."

You weren't sure how to respond to that. Not like you had been expecting this, anyways. "Are you asking for it?" you asked cautiously.

"No! Wait, I..." Kyungsoo groaned and put his head in his hands, his glasses in danger of sliding off of his nose. "I know that I should turn you in, but I don't want to, as crazy as that sounds."

He was met with even more silence, a chill running down his spine. Daring to take a peek, Kyungsoo turned to look at you. What he didn't expect was to see you grinning widely.

"Awww, you really do care about me! And here, I thought this was all one-sided." You laughed brightly, eyes turning to half-moons. It was still Copycat's voice that Kyungsoo was hearing, but the smile that you wore was much more innocent than any he had seen on the villain's face. It was a strange experience, reconciling the two personas into one person.

"It's not like that," Kyungsoo argued, despite the rapid fluttering of his heartbeat.

"Then what is it like then?" You waited patiently, head cocked slightly to the side.

Kyungsoo huffed in frustration — all directed at himself and the situation he was caught in. "What are you using the money for?"

"Paying off college loans. Helping my friend with his studio," you replied meekly. "He's the one I was supposed to meet today."

"So you can plan your next heist together?"

You gave a timid nod, unable to look him in the eye as the guilt washed over you. "I'm really sorry, honestly. But it's not like Macy's will go out of business if I swipe a few diamond necklaces, right?" You let out a nervous laugh, eyes trained on Kyungsoo's face as you waited for him to respond. His expression was unreadable — it was even harder to tell what he was thinking than when he wore his mask!

"Work with me," Kyungsoo said suddenly. "With me, Kai and Loey. Your friend can work with us too.

You could hardly believe your ears. "Are you serious? You trust me enough to work with you, your team? I'm nothing like you."

"You're gifted."

"That's all you're recruiting me for?" A pout settled on your lips.

Kyungsoo blushed. "I really don't want to turn you in..." he paused, realizing that he didn't know your name. Your lips quirked upwards in amusement, your name flowing like music as you spoke. It filled you with immense joy to hear him repeat it, to say your name, your real name.

"What about you? Or should I just keep calling you 'D.O.' in public?"

"I'm Do Kyungsoo."

You stifled a giggle. "I'm guessing D.O. stands for Do?"

Kyungsoo's face only grew warmer. "It's hard coming up with a good superhero name."

Humming in sympathy, you reached out to pat his knee. Both of you ignored the sudden rush of electricity at your touch.

"I mean it though," Kyungsoo continued. "If you keep doing things like this, someone will catch you eventually."

You tapped your foot against the ground as you thought. "I like your idea. It's been lonely, especially when everyone sees you as a villain. But I'll have to talk with Xing, first. I think he'll agree, though. Ironically enough, he's a big Loey fan." You rolled your eyes with a smile.

"Really?" Kyungsoo's round eyes grew larger, the sight brightening up your grin.

"Yeah. Just give me a day or two. Can I get your number?" Kyungsoo blinked owlishly, at a loss for words until you corrected yourself. "Just to get in contact with you. I mean, I figure it's easier than meeting up at the animal groomers."

Kyungsoo chuckled softly, the sound of it welcome to your eager ears. "Sure." He pulled out his own phone, both of you quickly exchanging numbers before you realized that you had left Yixing hanging.

"I'll text you as soon as I know." You hesitated, not wanting to leave but also excited to share the news with Yixing. "And, um, I really am sorry for... you know, the other day." You pointed at your head, both of you remembering how you had knocked him out cold. Without even giving him a chance to respond, you ran off, jogging back towards the pet groomers.

Kyungsoo felt a corner of his lips quirking up into a crooked smile as he stared after you. If he thought he was unhealthily drawn to you before, that was nothing compared to now. He glanced down at his phone, laughing to himself when he saw what you had put in for your contact name. While he had chosen to put his entire name in your phone, you had simply put a cat emoji. Cheerful, down-to-earth Y/N and mischievous Copycat were one and the same.

And Kyungsoo couldn't wait to see you again.

A/N: me, says I’ll keep everything under 2k words. also me, makes this slightly over 2k 😂 I had a few ideas when I was working on this, and had to keep restarting because I couldn’t stick with one. but! I was really certain that I needed to include the first scene 😉 I didn’t realize how much I missed writing a superhero au? it’s been years since I finished jongdae’s spiderman fic. it was fun to think of oc and yixing pulling off very small-scale heists, with oc doing the actual stealing and yixing being the brains behind the operations lol. and of course to have soo/jongin/yeol as the clumsy, but lovable superheroes.

#exo #kyungsoo #kyungsoo scenario #exo scenario #exo fanfic #writings #kyungsoo fanfic

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yanara126-writing · 3 years

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The Adventures of Hildraed Dawnsbane - Watching and Fucking Morals (4/?)

Farmer, Pirate, Menace, Captain, Dawnsbane. Hildraed has many titles, she really could have lived well without Watcher.

Read here or on Ao3. (1827 words)

Have fun! Comments always welcome! :)

I recommend listening to this song, as it was the inspiration for the fever trip that made me wright this. It’s really good, I promise.^^

Hildraed was mad. And she hated this town. Why was she even still here? Because fucking damnit she felt bad for these people. It had started with the damn cook, continued with the poor abused woman (had the fucker not been dead she’d have killed him herself) And then there was the blacksmith who’d promised her a discount, Aufra with her probably soulless baby (not that she’d told her that), and then the goddamn farmers. Because it always came down to farmers, didn’t it? And now she was slouching back in the inn, nursing some bad ale. And the stupid hunk was smiling at her. Fuck him. Eh, maybe later.

Aloth was far better to focus on, with his companionable grouchiness.

With a more desperate than enthusiastic swing she drained her cup and it slammed it down again, trying to pretend the ale wasn’t more water than alcohol.

“I hate this place.” Edér’s stupid grin only got wider. Hildraed glared some more at the cup. She wasn’t drunk enough for this.

“Does that mean we can finally leave?” Hildraed didn’t miss the desperation in Aloth’s tone and almost felt bad for him. Only almost though, she felt way worse for herself.

“Yeah. Yeah we can. In fact, we will right now.” Originally she’d intended to stay one more night and leave in the morning, but if she had to continue seeing Edér’s stupid, satisfied smirk she was going to punch him after all. She slammed a few coins on the table, not bothering with counting out the exact amount, grabbed her bag and stomped out the door. Behind her she could hear her new companions scrambling to finish their own drinks and hurry after her.

Outside she had mercy on them and waited a bit for them to catch up, grinning again at Aloth’s relieved sigh. It was too easy to play him. She’d have to teach him a bit to avoid having him be all to easy to manipulate.

Edér apparently wasn’t in quite as much of a hurry, and while waiting for his heavy footsteps to join them, Hildraed found her attention wandering through the miserable town. And of course, her gaze once again landed on the tree. Ever since her first meeting with the dwarf woman she drifted back to the fucking tree. There were no more souls left there, she’d checked far more than she would ever admit, and still her steps kept pulling her back there. And so now again.

The stench was in her nose before she was even aware what she was doing. Dangling, rotting limbs filled her vision as she stared up, wood and flesh melting together. All around her there were purple shimmers, whisperings that drover her mad all around the clock, but looking up there there was nothing, and somehow that was worse. She’d seen hangings before of course. She’d seen people she’d known and even liked hang much the same way. But something about this made her angrier.

This was messy. This wasn’t justice, it was a blood rage. The pirates she’d seen hung had known the risks. Perhaps they hadn’t deserved it either, some had been good people, some had absolutely asked for it, but all of them known. These people up in the tree had just lived, had perhaps never broken a law in their lives, had been punished for suffering a tragedy.

A hand landed on her shoulder and Hildraed flinched, cursing herself for losing focus. That was dangerous at the best of times, which this was not. Just this time the universe seemed to forgive her mistake though, and Edér stood next to her, chewing on his pipe. He didn’t say anything, only stood there, looking up as well, his rough hand, marred much like her own, on her shoulder.

Hildraed didn’t know what triggered it, maybe it was the sleep deprivation, maybe the weight of the last few days were finally drowning her, maybe it was that thrice-damned look of defeat in his eyes, but something in her mind clicked into place and she knew what she still had to do here. It was a terrible idea, would bare way too much to these people she barely knew, but she had to nonetheless.

“You know what my favourite song is? T’s about a boat.” Edér glanced at her, surprised and confused, but still amused.

“Don’t tell me you’re getting sentimental now? I thought you don’t do empathy?”

“Shut up, I’m drunk.” No she wasn’t, she hadn’t drunk enough of the water ale for that, but he didn’t need to know that.

“No, you’re not.” Well so much for her reputation then. She narrowed her eyes at him, glaring with all the intensity she could muster through all the aches of her body and constant buzz of soul fizzles pressing against her new senses.

“You. I don’t like you.” That didn’t seem to intimidate him at all, if anything he just got softer. Hildraed sighed and looked away again. What crew had she gotten herself here? One who was easier to play than a fiddle but had a wrong string and one who already laughed at her. And still…

“My mom always sang it when we were down on our luck. It’s about a crew saving their boat after it already sank. It was the first chant I learnt. I’ve sung it every time the universe hated me especially.” It had carried her through her 35 years of life even when nothing else had. She’d shared it every time she’d sung it, just as she’d been taught. This one thing wasn’t something to keep to herself. She had no intention of sharing anything else, the secret of her past would die with her as far she was concerned, but this one thing she’d keep throwing into the world as often as necessary. And right now it was very necessary.

With another look at Edér, and not the fucking tree, she turned around and stalked out of the pit. Aloth was standing a bit away in the shadow of a wall, trying to keep himself out of the public eye. Hildraed sat down not far from him at the edge of the pit and pulled her old lute from her back. She gave it a loving pat, before starting to pluck the strings in a familiar tune. Behind she could hear Aloth shift a little closer, in front of her could see Edér settling down next to her, but she ignored both of them.

“She went down last mid-winter in a pouring driving rain…” It had been a while since she’d last played it, and the familiar notes rang something deep in her, tugging at places within herself that she didn’t have a name for before.

“There were just us five aboard her when she finally was awash

We'd worked like hell to save her, all heedless of the cost…” It had taken her own boat to really understand it. In her youth it had been a nice story, and good tune with an inspirational message. Now as an adult it meant so much more. Her fingers danced over the strings with more elegance than she’d been able to work up in weeks, her foot tapped the rhythm, her body swayed with waves that weren’t there, her mouth formed the words that had accompanied her for so long.

“But we talked of her all winter, some days around the clock,

For she's worth a quarter million, just floatin’ at the dock

And with every jar that hit the bar, we swore we would remain…” Another foot joined in the rhythm, but Hildraed didn’t look up. Chanting was always exhilarating, but this was special in another way. She felt the words reverberate around her, felt souls stirring as the story continued to follow the melody. There was a clarity that had never been there before, an awareness that had nothing and everything to do with this song so dear to her. More souls were drawn closer, and it felt like drowning in life.

“All spring, now, we've been with her on a barge lent by a friend

Three dives a day in hard hat suit and twice I've had the bends

Thank God it's only sixty feet and the currents here are slow

Or I'd never have the strength to go below

But we've patched her rents, stopped her vents, dogged hatch and porthole down

Put cables to her, 'fore and aft and girded her around

Tomorrow, noon, we hit the air and then take up the strain…” There were people all around now, and somewhere the logical part of Hildraed knew she needed to be careful, to be aware of everyone around her, to not let herself be caught off-guard again. Unfortunately, that part was buried deep under the emotions and sensations flooding everything else. At this point she wasn’t sure what was hers anymore, she just kept playing and singing, surrounded by more whispers than ever. Whispers of pasts, of uncertain futures.

“And you, to whom adversity has dealt a mortal blow

With smiling bastards lying to you everywhere you go

Turn to, and put out all your strength of arm and heart and brain

And like the Mary Ellyn Carter, rise again!

Rise again, rise again; though your heart it be broken

And life about to end

No matter what you've lost, be it a home, a love, a friend

Like the Mary Ellyn Carter, rise again!”

She played the final cord, sung the final tune, and her fingers and tongue stilled. The whispers were still there, ringing loudly in her ears and rising to a crescendo, making her head hurt even more- Wait, no, that was clapping. A few hands clapping around her, and Hildraed finally looked up, eyes a little bit clearer now. It wasn’t as many people as she’d thought, a few guests from the inn, a few people from the surrounding houses. And Hildraed stared.

It wasn’t so much that she minded the audience, quite the opposite really, she’d always enjoyed hogging people’s attention. But that had been before this stupid shit. Before she’d started noticing way too fucking much, while losing focus of everything else.

But then, as it always was, it didn’t take too long for the people to notice that the show was over, and they dispersed again, throwing strange looks in her direction that she didn’t bother to notice. She’d be gone now anyway, let them think what they want.

In the end only two were left, one on each side, though when Aloth moved next to her she couldn’t say. Her head still hurt, she was confused more than ever, and she still hated this place, and yet she felt a little lighter now. The tree was still there, and it was still abominable, but maybe now she could finally stop looking at it.

And maybe now they could finally fuck off.

#Pillars of Eternity #writing #Watcher Hildraed #Edér Teylecg #Aloth Corfiser #fanfiction #singing #the mary ellen carter #derina harvey band #'t's a good song

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thenicenamesaretaken · 4 years

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Whumptober 2020 Prompt #14 IS SOMETHING BURNING? -- Branding

So, this is pretty much pure self-indulgence.

This is set in a as of yet non-existent Western AU that I may or may not be writing starting next month. I was trying to think of how I could brand our boy in a way that hadn't already been done (aka by a cult) when I suddenly realized I needed to write a scene where John tortured him for this AU anyways... so here ya go.

Malcolm pulls against the ropes tied tight around his wrists, cutting deeper into skin that’s already rubbed raw and bleeding. His ankles are in a similarly damaged state, the rough hemp chords chafing and burning, but never getting any looser despite his struggles. That pain, though, is nothing compared to what he knows is coming. From the moment he’d woken up, laid out on the forest floor, bound spread-eagle, stripped of his shirt and boots and socks, he’d feared what he knew was to come.

The memories he has of his attacker are blurred by the darkness of pre-dawn, and the blow he’d received to his head, but he’d caught a good enough glimpse of the man’s face to know who has him. John Watkins. The killer Malcolm and his fellow Marshals have been hunting for weeks, for months.

They know everything about him, by now. How he’d been raised by his hateful grandparents on a small ranch, forced to do the work of three men ever since he was a child. How he’d tried to run away and become a cowboy, but couldn’t find an outfit that would take him because of his temper. How he’d started killing folks—whores and drunkards and cheats—bleeding them near dry, then branding them with a stylized cross to help them ‘atone for their sins.’ The man was proud of his work, writing in to the local papers after each of his kills to expound on the sins of his victims, and take credit for saving both the sinner, and the town, from their misdeeds.

Despite his boasting and the numerous wanted posters and hefty bounty on his head, Watkins has been a nearly impossible man to catch.

And now, he’s caught Malcolm.

And Malcolm fears he knows exactly what the man has planned for him.

He can smell a fire burning, though he can’t see it. He hasn’t seen anything but the trees around him since he woke, no sign of his captor or any clue as to where he may have been taken. There’s no sounds of a farm or ranch or mill, no sounds of the town. Just the silence of the woods.

A silence that is suddenly broken by the unmistakable sounds of footsteps, crunching across leaves and branches. Malcolm’s heart races in his chest, his breaths coming faster as John Watkins walks into view.

“Ah, you’re awake, eh, Lawman? Looks like you’ve been for a while I guess,” he remarks, gesturing to the bloodied mess of Malcolm’s wrists.

Malcolm doesn’t reply.

“Sorry it took me some time. I wasn’t quite expectin’ a guest so soon. But that’s alright, we’re all set, now.”

“I can always come back later,” Malcolm quips, his propensity for being a smartass in the face of dangerous situations getting the best of him.

Watkins doesn’t seem to be amused.

“You know, you’re very good at your job, Lawman. I’ve had to up and run more times than I’d like to admit when you came too close to catchin’ me.”

“Sorry to be an inconvenience,” Malcolm says, unable to take his eyes off the wicked looking knife Watkins has drawn from his belt and is tossing from hand to hand.

“What’s your name, boy?” Watkins asked, dropping to a crouch beside Malcolm.

“Bright. Malcolm Bright,” he replies, using the alias he’s used since becoming a Marshal. The last thing he wants is any vengeful criminal or their kin learning his family name and going after his mother or sister.

“Hmm. Fitting, smart as you are. Not smart enough to avoid gettin’ caught though, it seems.”

Malcolm grits his teeth, and manages to stay silent.

“Well Lawman, seems like that’s enough talk for now. Best be gettin' to work.” Watkins settles down onto his knees, kneeling next to Malcolm as if in prayer. “You know, you’re different than my usual guests. You aren’t a bad man, like most of them. But, I can’t let you keep me from my work. Now that you’ve been given to me, it’s my duty to do with you what I must.”

“You really, really don’t,” Malcolm presses. “You kill a lawman, Watkins, and this whole country's going to come after you, not just some local sheriffs.” He pulls at his bindings, but all it does is hurt. “You let me go now, you can probably get a few towns over before I get help, and we’ll go back to playing cat and mouse like before.”

Watkins runs a hand over the bare skin of his chest, poking and prodding seemingly at random, and Malcolm shivers beneath the touch. He tsks, frowning down at Malcolm. “I can’t do that, Mr. Bright. I can’t just let you go, now you’re here. Hush now, save your breath. You’ll need it.” He leans over, presses the knife to Malcolm’s chest, and cuts.

There are things you can’t tell from just looking at a dead body. Like how long the torture lasted.

Watkins spends hours cutting into Malcolm. Dozens of slow, methodical cuts, some deep when he can press into muscle, some thin where they trace along ribs and the sweep of his collarbones.

Malcolm runs out of breath to scream with. His throat is raw, his body exhausted, trembling in the chill of the evening air by the time Watkins stops.

The light is fading quickly when Watkins stands again, walking somewhere behind Malcolm where he can’t see, towards where Malcolm now knows the fire Watkins has been stepping away to tend throughout their time together.

He comes back with the brand in his hand. The metal is glowing a dull ruby in the halflight of dusk, and Malcolm can smell the unmistakable scent of heated metal. He jerks weakly against the ropes, though he can barely move, now, gasping and sobbing. He won’t beg though, not for his life, not to avoid this. He’d let himself scream in hopes someone would hear, would come, but no one had. He won’t let Watkins take all his dignity from him, no matter what he does to him now.

That doesn’t mean he doesn’t try to change the man’s mind.

“Watkins, wait,” he gasps, voice low, raspy. “Wait, enough. You can, you can still stop this.”

“No sir. It’s too late now. We’ve come this far, too far to stop now. I’ve got ta finish my task. Best stay still now, Mr. Bright.” He doesn’t give Malcolm the chance to say anything else.

Watkins had left one patch of skin clear of knife marks—low on Malcolm’s belly, just above his left hip. Now Malcolm knows why.

The searing hot brand pressing into his skin is more painful than the culmination of all the cuts Watkins had given him. He screams and screams, and starts to thrash, but Watkins leans down over him, pressing his forearm across Malcolm's stomach to hold him in place.

The smell hits him several seconds after the pain, and it makes him gag, the knowledge that it’s his flesh that’s burning adding to his panic. He starts to choke, unable to draw a full breath as he gags and cries. It lasts only seconds, but it feels like hours, his whole existence shrinking down to a few square inches of absolute agony.

He doesn’t really notice when Watkins pulls the brand away. It doesn’t make a difference, he still feels like his skin is on fire. He’s sobbing, tears streaming down his cheeks and blurring his vision.

Watkins reaches out towards his head, and Malcolm flinches away with a broken sob. Watkins brushes his hand across his forehead, a gesture that’s so strangely intimate and gentle that it makes Malcolm shudder, a touch that’s more frightening than soothing.

“You did good, lawman. You’re a better man than most. I can’t let you go, but I ain’t gonna kill you, either. I’ll let nature decide your fate, now. Nature, and the Lord.”

“W-what?” Malcolm gasps out, unable to think past the pain.

“I only kill sinners, Mr. Bright, and you ain’t one.”

“You’ll let… let me go?” Malcolm asks.

Watkins shakes his head, gathering up his knife and the brand. “I didn’t say that. It’s time to see how strong you really are, Mr. Bright. Maybe I’ll be seeing you again… but I don’t think so.”

With that, he walks away into the night without a second glance, ignoring Malcolm’s ragged cries.

Malcolm’s chest is heaving, and he can’t… he can’t breath. He’s… he’s tied out, bleeding out, fair game for the wolves and coyotes and bears. The pain is slowly overwhelming him, pain, and weakness from blood loss. He knows he won’t survive the night in these woods.

Full dark falls fast, and each rustle of leaves, each creak and crack of branches breaking sends his pulse racing, fear spiking through him as he waits for death to come. He starts to see things—eyes, staring out at him, reflecting the weak light of the moon shining down through the leaves. Shapes, slinking in the shadows.

He whimpers, tears of frustration and fear falling freely. He does not want to die here, alone in these woods, mangled beyond recognition, with no body to send back to his mother, no one to even tell her he's gone.

There's more noises, the unmistakable sound of an animal moving through the underbrush and leaves. His lungs seize in his chest, pure terror surging through him as he stares helplessly into the inky blackness all around him. Will he even see his death coming? Or will it fall upon in the darkness him faster than he even realizes?

He squeezes his eyes shut as the noise comes closer, and he can't breathe, but that doesn't matter now anyways. He can hear the panting of an animal, and…

And then a voice. He opens his eyes, and there's light piercing through the night. He cries out, weak and desperate, as loud as his heaving lungs and aching throat will let him.

"Help! H-help, I'm here. Oh god, please," he moans, praying to whoever is listening that the owner of the light can hear him, will find him.

The warm glow of lantern light falls across him a moment before a dog—just a dog, a hunting dog, just a dog—rushes to his side and bays.

The owner of the lantern is speaking, maybe to the dog, maybe to him, but Malcolm can't make out the words. His vision blurs, the light fading as his eyes blink closed, and he drifts into darkness once more.

#whumptober2020 #14 #branded #prodigal son #malcolm bright #fic #whump #western au #no. 14

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chershare · 4 years

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Snippet from Discord 34

(On Ao3)

Someone was playing the guqin, and the deep tones were shivering through Xuanyu's aching glass meridians.

The cold burn of remembered fear and pain was slowly receding, the heavy dark of repression and memory pressing down on his lungs less and less. Each breath wasn't as much of a strain on him, didn't take nearly so much energy to complete. His heart wasn’t crushed under the weight of a desire for the end but held aloft by sweet tones and gentle notes.

Xuanyu was tired, body heavy and soul weary, yet he didn't dream of the horrors of future's passed. Instead, each plucked string hummed through the marrow of his bones and shivered in his aching golden core, rejuvenating.

As if someone was washing a wound that had been left to fester for so long, he’d nearly had to remove the limb, like Xue Yang had been forced to so long ago.

Sometimes, he could feel his little Yuan curled up in his arms, patting softly at his cheeks and telling him about all the things he did, and he held him as tightly as his frail body could. Sometimes, he could feel the safety of Wei Wuxian's arms around him and leaned into it, soaking up that comfort and kindness.

Always, there was the guqin, a spring water well in an otherwise barren landscape, feeding water into a long dried out desert.

This was… oasis.

He wasn't aware that his eyes were open until he saw the flutter of gauzy white and blue, the glimmer of a fine silver hairpiece in midnight dark hair. The beauty of a man unbent by the trials given to him by a war not long won, with a steady and clear gaze, stalwart heart.

Oh.

Blinking slowly, heavily, he sank further into the bedding as he ran his gaze over the pale wood of the cultivation tool. This guqin was the most beautiful instrument that he'd ever seen so close, not having been permitted around Zewu-Jun and his xiao because of his half-brother. Each elegant movement sent sound and qi fluttering across his senses in a similar way to Wen Qing's acupuncture.

It took a moment of focusing through syrup and fog, but he eventually saw it, the disparity of color amongst the ethereal display.

Red.

Tiny droplets from long elegant fingers that bore musician's calluses, the tips splitting from the strain of continuous play. Hanguang-Jun had been playing nonstop for who knew how long, soothing the roiling mess inside Mo Xuanyu's meridians, inside his cracked mind. He was hurting himself for Xuanyu's sake – no, probably for Wei Wuxian, who fretted and cared so much – and he didn't want that.

He didn’t deserve that.

"Nn," words were beyond him, but he could reach out to set a shaking hand over one of those large, pale ones.

Despite what they looked like, cold and untouchable like the Jade he was likened to, Hanguang-Jun's hands were... Surprisingly warm. Xuanyu was trembling bodily as the Lan stopped playing, stilled beneath his touch.

His breathing felt loud in the sudden quiet.

The ache slid slow back into his joints, but he didn’t pull his weak, dirty hand back despite the wetness in his tired eyes.

"Mo Xuanyu," Lan Wangji's voice was cultured and low, hints of concern in his stern tone. "Alright?"

"You," a laborious breath as he dragged open eyes he hadn't realized closed to look up into concerned gold, a line of heat drifting from the corner of one eye. "H-hurt..."

His voice sounded rasped and thin, like old paper crumbling into ash in fire. As if he’d been screaming, but Mo Xuanyu had long ago learned how to be quiet in the face of suffering.

Screaming didn’t do anything.

No one would come.

Hanguang-Jun looked suddenly quite alarmed, his hand twisting to cover Mo Xuanyu's where he'd forgotten it sat. Oh, he really was warm. His calluses were rough, but his hold was gentle and the qi that filtered through him cool and sweet like the Cold Springs of his home were said to be.

"I did not – "

"Lan Zhan!" The beloved voice of Wei Wuxian called out, drawing that heat into his chest. "Is Mo Xuanyu awake?"

There was no time for the man to answer, seeing as the boisterous immediately bundled Xuanyu's too thin frame into his lap. Ah, he didn't deserve such kindness, such care, but he selfishly soaked in the protective affection of his Yiling Laozu. The mixture of resentment and echoing pure cultivation energy was a heady sensation that Xuanyu could gladly drown himself in.

"Pretty stranger~ pretty, pretty stranger~" was singsonged as one of those familiar ink stained hands tilted Xuanyu's face up to smile down at him with red warmed eyes. "Are you better now? I gobbled up the bad man and no one gets to hurt my Xuanyu," a thumb slid over his cheekbone, gentle and sweet. “And our Lan Zhan played you pretty songs to give you sweet sleep! Oh, A-Yuan has missed his lessons with his Yu-ge, we have so many knew things to learn!”

One trembling hand lifted towards a smiling mouth, and he felt his nearly numb face try to copy the expression, feeling brittle and shivery. Ah, he wasn't suited for smiling anymore, not as cracked and broken as he’d become, as a shadow of existence. Xuanyu hoped he didn't look too horrifying, trying to pretend to be a person.

"Hello, my Xuanyu," Wei Wuxian leaned into his thin, scarred palm, cradling it with his own hand as he smiled, that sharp, comforting thing. "Did you like our Lan Zhan's playing for you? He’s very talented, isn’t he?"

"H-he... Hurt..."

Red and gray eyes blinked in surprise before Wei Wuxian’s gaze was drawn to the little bit of blood smeared on Xuanyu's hand. Blood he hadn’t even realized was there until the Yiling Patriarch looked at it on his thin, spidery fingers and palm. Realization had those bright eyes turning to look at Hanguang-Jun, who shifted in discomfort, face almost pinched.

There was – regret?

Why was Hanguang-Jun upset?

"I – I did not intend –"

"Lan Zhan," the Yiling Patriarch interrupted with a smile and a free, clear laugh. "Lan Zhan! He doesn't mean you hurt him, but that you're hurt. Look at your hands, silly!"

As the man did as instructed, he seemed startled at the sight of his own blood; as if he hadn’t felt the skin splitting and nails cracking. Wei Wuxian turned back to Xuanyu with a fond roll of his eyes and that lovely cutting smile that only cut other people.

One of his Wei Wuxian’s hands was a comfortable weight against his side, the other still holding Xuanyu's as he smiled down at him warmly.

When he looked at him so fondly, Mo Xuanyu couldn't help but want for the impossible. Hanguang-Jun was right there, glancing between Xuanyu and his bloody fingertips with something softening in his shoulders.

Relief?

"Even when you aren't feeling well, you think of others," his Laozu commented warmly. "That's my pretty stranger."

And then, as always, Wei Wuxian did the unthinkable.

He felt his eyes widen as a hot wet tongue slid out of that smiling mouth to slide over the blood on Xuanyu's hand. Breath caught in heavy lungs as he felt his fingers twitch at the sensation, heart suddenly pounding hard in his throat. Wei Wuxian's hot breath felt cool against the wet lines he left behind as he cleaned Lan Wangji's blood from Xuanyu's skin.

Red eyes slid slyly to the side to meet startled wide gold, and qi shivered through the air like promise.

When the blood was all gone from Xuanyu's hand, Wei Wuxian simply breathed against his flesh for a long moment. Those bright eyes turned back to Xuanyu's and his friend – his – his – what even was he anymore – smiled against his skin, warmth and fondness and something – something else in his gaze.

"Wei Ying."

As if in a daze, he watched the Yiling Patriarch turn towards Hanguang-Jun and take one of his long fingered elegant hands in his own ink stained ones. The Lan looked as if he'd taken a blow to the head, face and ears flushed and pupils dilated as Wei Wuxian leaned forward to press his lips to cracked fingertips, tongue flickering out to taste.

He wasn't sure which one of them had made that punched out noise at the sight of it, but Mo Xuanyu felt hunger coil in his stomach. That was…

He could – he could still feel that?

What was... What was happening? Was Xuanyu having an especially pleasant dream that would ache like a cracked tooth when he woke up? Would he forget when he opened his eyes?

Was this real?

It couldn't possibly be real. Mo Xuanyu didn't deserve things like this, and as such never received them. There was nothing he’d done to deserve this, to have earned the regard of two such powerful, honorable people as this.

He'd never been wanted by people who he desired in turn.

Wei Wuxian's wicked tongue curled around one bloody fingertip, making Lan Wangji's hand twitch and Xuanyu's heart jump to his throat. Heat pooled in Hanguang-Jun's molten gold eyes and they traveled from the Yiling Patriarch down to where Xuanyu was still situated in his lap.

Like he was also –

"Wei Wuxian!" The familiar cutting voice of Wen Qing sliced through the tension like a battering ram through rice paper. "Come here!"

The feared, infamous Yiling Laozu yelped like a kicked dog and suddenly Xuanyu was in a very different lap. Well-muscled arms wrapped around him hurriedly and carefully, soft white silk a jarring difference from dark cloth.

Wei Wuxian scrambled to his feet and rushed out to the doctor's demand.

Swallowing thickly as his equilibrium struggled to find itself, he blinked rapidly, heart a heavy beat in his chest and throat. Without thought, he glanced up at Hanguang-Jun, meeting his stunned gaze with one of his own, uncertain as to what actually just happened.

It was automatic to duck his head against a broad chest in embarrassment to hide his face from the brazen eye contact, a familiar action with Wei Wuxian and his shamelessness.

His hair brushed against his cheek and for the first time he wondered just how dressed down he was.

Oh no.

Was he...

He was. He was in his simple sleeping robe, his favorite light blue one that Wei Wuxian had forced on him. His hair was improperly loose around his face and he was in Hanguang-Jun's lap like a - like -

"... Shall I play?"

Words seemed to difficult, so instead he shakily grabbed that powerful, graceful hand one again and shook his head negatively against that broad chest. Mo Xuanyu had long given up dignity, so there was little point in trying to extricate himself from the lap he’d so abruptly been deposited into.

Besides, Lan Wangji’s qi was… soothing.

“Then…”

A moment of silence, before that hand twisted in his once again and he was gently resituated in that wide lap into a more comfortable position. Cool, jasmine scented hair slid down against Xuanyu’s forehead, silkier and darker than his own wavy hair.

He kept his eyes closed and then –

Hanguang-Jun began to sing.

It was low and quiet, but it immediately settled into his meridians with a similar weight of cool consideration, even if the tune was different. His chest rumbled nicely, and Xuanyu relaxed the jittery tension he’d held in his too weak limbs at the sensation, familiarizing himself with different arms and sweeter qi.

If this was a dream… Mo Xuanyu didn’t want to wake up.

#mdzs #mdzs snippets #The untamed #Mo Xuanyu/Wei Wuxian/Lan Wanji #Mo Xuanyu #Wei Wuxian #Lan Wangji #Time Travel #Sweet Dreams

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my-brothers-corrupted · 4 years

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My Brothers, Corrupted

Chapter 1 : Section 3 : Oh Happy Day

We’re at the end of a difficult day. After his first real round of hypnosis, Marvin – or Blue, perhaps – became hysteric and had to be restrained by Red when his magic ran amok and flowers began growing up through the floorboards. Doktor, triggered when Trick grabbed him by the back of the throat, went into a state of confusion and ended up throttling Trick in return, but they’re doing their best to make up. As for Dapper, the youngest sits alone in the attic, staring up at the Northern Lights, and you see the lines between who he is and who he was blur gently, for a time traveler’s amnesia is never quite as strong as Anti would like it to be.

Trigger warnings: (not necessarily a complete list! Please tell me if you need others added up here because I’m just trying to remember what’s in here) blood, mentions of alcoholism, grief, hypnosis, discussion of psychosis, and abuse, including infantilization of a disabled character and abuse between brothers.

The masterlist for this chapter is linked at the bottom because I can’t get it to link here for whatever reason.

Part Three of Chapter One: Oh Happy Day

loganandoli asked: Carver, is that Poe? Is she finally back?

Carver darts out from underneath the bed, uncurling, a light returned to his eyes. “My bird!” he signs, clapping his hands together. “My Poe!”

There’s a huge black raven in the windowsill, her wings spread wide. Dapper leaps up onto the bed beside her, nearly weeping for joy, and she lets him stroke her beak, cawing softly in the evening light.

“There’s my good girl,” he signs, delighted. “Oh, oh, my good girl. Here to keep me company? Not alone. Not alone. Here’s my bird, my bird, my friend.”

optimistic-violinist asked: This is probably a dangerous question.... but could Dapper go back before they were all Anti's?

Dapper blinks. “I need frames of reference. I can’t remember the time before we were Anti’s, so I can’t go back to it. Even if I could, I’ve never turned back farther than a week. And that nearly… that almost… it wasn’t good for me. Anti says time travel is bad for the baby, and I am the baby.”

He rubs Poe’s head, considering.

“Not that I would go back so far, of course,” he adds quickly. “I’m quite happy with Anti, thank you very much.”

Anonymous asked: Maybe a little out of left field, but does Marvin still have his mask?

Marvin’s mouth pales and he turns away from you, touching his face, patterned in scars. “No,” he whispers. “Anti tore it off as he dragged me back to the house. I suppose it’s been thrown away now… I had that mask for years… I was born with it. The last little piece of Ja - of my old master that I had left.”

He stares down at his hands, then up at you, teary-eyed.

“But don’t worry about it,” he whispers, trying to smile. “We have bigger problems right now, don’t we?”

Anonymous asked: Who wants to hear a song?

Dapper frowns at you, confused. “A song?”

Anonymous asked: 🎵 Look to the stars my darling wonderful boys. Life is strange and vast, filled with wonders and joys! Face each new sun with eyes clear and true! Unafraid of the unknown, because I'll face it all with you! 🎵

Dapper melts onto the windowsill, putting his chin down. “Oh… pretty, thank you. You’re too sweet.” His cheeks are rosy red and he smiles easily, letting his contented eyes slip shut.

musical-in-theory asked: Ope, would you look at the time? It’s time for Anti’s daily reminder that he can kindly go fuck right off.

Anti ignores you. He’s got three laptops open around him and he’s so focused he’s lost most of his opalescence. The screens flash with color and letters, though you don’t see his fingers typing. He wears an old form he’s fond of, a younger Jack dressed all in black, with a lot of light green hair and big black eyes.

Anonymous asked: anti, do you know your carver is making friends with wild animals? i though he was being kept alone as a punishment

Anti glances up, frowning. “Wild animals? What’s he playing with now? I thought I got rid of his fucking mice. Filthy little things. He’ll make himself sick.”

Anti rises to his feet, glancing towards Dapper’s room. “And he’s not there for punishment. He’s just a little fragile. Needs more careful care than the others. I made sure they all keep plenty of distance from him. But thank you for letting me know.”

Anonymous asked: for anti. why did you tie him up? he could just untie it right?

“He could! He could, he certainly could. But he doesn’t.” Anti glances at you. “I mean, it’s tied up a little too tall for him and the rope is quite thick, so it wouldn’t be easy. But I’ll tell you a secret - it’s not about keeping him there. It’s about the shame.”

Anti stares out the window, his eyes momentarily clouded. “He was the first one I trained,” he tells you, almost wistful. “And back then I used real chains and kept him strung up for days on end, until he was crying to be allowed to move. To have the awful chains off his throat. To not be tied up like a dog, licking food off his plate when I gave it to him, whimpering for affection. I don’t know how much of that he remembers - but enough. Enough. It’s an awful humiliation for him. He hated it more than being tortured, even when he still belonged to his last master. So he knows, if the rope is there, that he has been a bad dog, and that, if he wants to be free, he must show me he can obey. So, you see, he doesn’t try to take it off. He remembers who his master is, and makes better choices in the future.”

He returns his focus to you, blinking. “Well! Should we go check on the little puppy? Sounds like my stupid little pet found himself a stupid little pet. Dogs shouldn’t play with nasty things.”

Anonymous asked: Why don’t you let him see the others or let the others see him?

Anti stares at you, considering.

“The boys downstairs need each other,” he tells you, carefully picking his words. “And so I allow them to have each other, because I do not have time to care for each one of them myself. They wouldn’t get enough attention, enough affection. But there are dangers to that too… an independence and a sense of self-worth that come along with it. So I decided from the start that the most precious one - the one I cannot lose - he must stay close, and I will care for him myself. That way he will never slip through my fingers.”

He smiles coldly, his eyes flashing with victory pride. “Dapper will never slip through my fingers.

“Beside, you’ve seen how rough the boys downstairs are with each other. Even twins will strike and bite. Why would I subject my powerful little Dapper to that? He gets preferential treatment and they all know it. He has proven time and time again to be the most valuable, the most vicious of all his family. The others are all so jealous, it makes me laugh so much! The hierarchy is good for them. It makes them work to be more like him. Gives them a little ferocity of their own. Nothing to match my Carver… my mean little Carver, with those cold sharp teeth… of all of them, he is the most like me. Shouldn’t he deserve the best for that?”

musical-in-theory asked: Is Marvin back to being Marvin again?

You find him lying on the island, sitting across from Red. They’re watching each other with a cool wariness, unsure of where they stand.

“I’m not sure who I am,” says Red’s brother finally, glancing over at you with a grimace on his exhausted mouth. A cut on his forehead drips a little blood as he turns. Red moves forward, as though to brush it away, on instinct - but before his twin even notices the movement, he has drawn his hand back and recoiled on himself, crossing his arms over his chest, blushing in the low light. He has re-bandaged his head himself.

musical-in-theory asked: You are Marvin the Magnificent. A smart man with a deeper understanding of things. A man who carved out his own place in the world. A man who never needed a master.

Marvin blinks, looking up. “Hey!” he laughs. “Who told you that? I’ve heard those words before! Someone who loved me - ”

The camera is snatched off its spot on the ground and thrown several feet off, leaving your view crooked and fizzing.

“You’re going to get him killed!” cries Red, and his voice breaks right down the middle. He could scream for the pain of his own weakness. “Stop, stop! Can’t you just let him go, and then things will be easier on him! What, you’re crying out now, trying to stop this now? It’s too late, don’t you understand? Where were you when I was shattering, huh? You call out for him! You don’t know anything! I can’t - ”

He stops himself short, startled by the look of fear in Marvin’s eyes.

“Jackie,” he whispers.

“I - ” Red’s voice shakes, he retreats to his corner. “Don’t goddamn say that name. Fuck, I wish you had never come here. I wish you had gone free, I don’t care if we spent the rest of our lives searching without ever finding you. I don’t need you, you know… Anti acts like I do, but I don’t. I don’t want you.”

He curls in on himself, panting; his body hurts him, his body always hurts him and he’s tired. He wishes hatred hurt less. Breathless, he turns to look at Trick and Doktor, curled up side by side, crying softly in the darkness. He does not know why and he does not care. He sees them cry often, and chances are only one of them was hurting - or only one of them would be hurting, if he didn’t care about the other.

“Twins are just weakness,” he cries, reaching up to grip at his hair. “I don’t want to feel sorry for you! I don’t want to feel scared and miserable for you! I don’t need another person to feed, I don’t need someone to be reliant on! I’m stronger alone! And if you’re not careful, I’m going to have to watch you die. I don’t want your pain! I wish you had never come here!”

Marvin has edged in close to him, calling “Red, Red,” and maybe there’s some truth to his words, because the truth is seeing him in pain makes him feel like his own chest is on fire. “It’s okay, it’s okay.”

“Not okay,” whispers Red, sinking down against his cupboards. “Don’t touch me, no - don’t touch me, I don’t want you, I don’t need you…”

“We were brothers once already,” chokes Marvin. “And, fuck, there were times that it hurt, but I can promise you - I swear to you, I swear - it was always, always, always worth it. I’m sorry. I’m so sorry you’ve been alone so long. But, I mean - you’re not now. I don’t plan to stay, but… I don’t plan to leave you, either. I promise that. I promise. And this brotherhood is always worth it.”

Red sits in silence for a long time, his eyes closed, his head on his knees, hiding his face.

“Life is different here, Marvin,” he whispers. “Stop believing in anything that ever made you happy. There’s only Anti now.”

Marvin puts a hand on his knee. Red takes his wrist, gentle, gentle in his cold scarred hand, and he pushes him away.

“There’s only Anti now.”

They fall asleep pressed against opposite sides of the island, huddled in on themselves, silent.

loganandoli asked: Carver. You need to trust me. Push Poe out, now. I know you won’t want to, but please. Please. For her and your safety, push her out and close the window. They told him.

Carver turns to you, stunned. “Push Poe out? Push her - told him! Who would tell him, they wouldn’t tell - ”

His head whips around at the familiar sound of Anti’s static growing in volume. He stares between you and the bird, who picks playfully at his ear, cawing. “I don’t - I don’t want her to go,” he stammers out, tears rising hot in his eyes. “I don’t want to lose my bird, my bird. What if she never comes back? She’ll be like my brothers and hate me. What if I never see her again? What if I’m just up here alone forever? Why won’t master let me keep anyone?”

Anonymous asked: It's all right, Carver, we'll keep you company!!! Now let the bird go!!!

You don’t know if he trusts you enough or if he’s just that afraid of Anti, but one way or another, he stands up on his bed and reaches up to close the window, shoving Poe out into the air. She gives an indignant cry, harsh and berating, and tries to land again, but there isn’t enough space to her feet. She wings away.

Carver stands on his bed, panting, staring out into the air after her.

“Hey, little man, what’re you up to?”

Anti stands in the doorway, his hand shoved into hoodie pockets. Flushed red, Carver turns to him with a trembling mouth, his eyes full of tears.

“Honey, what’s wrong?” murmurs Anti, instantly a picture of concern, moving forward to grab his hands and pull him to sit down on the bed beside him. He plays anxiously with a strand of Carver’s hair, touching his face gently. He glances around the room, but doesn’t see anything moving around. If Dapper has an animal here, he’ll find it and kill it violently enough that he’ll regret hiding it. If not, then he’s distressed enough already for one night. “Hey, hey, look at me. What’s wrong? You feel okay?”

Sniffling, Carver glances over at him, then up at the window, and then - exhausted, exhausted, exhausted, he tumbles against Anti’s chest and begins to cry in earnest, clutching onto Anti.

Clutching onto the only person he is ever allowed to hold on to.

Posted the next morning:

Dawn breaks cold over Doktor and Trick, wrapped up in blankets. It’s getting too late in the season for them to keep warm with their nest and jackets alone, but at least Trick has fallen asleep curled in Doktor’s lap, keeping him warm after their fight.

Red and Blue sleep across from each other, neither making use of the sleeping bag, a tension fallen between them. Red’s bandages have begun bleeding again during the night and he will have a pounding headache when he wakes.

Upstairs, Dapper has not slept. He lies in his bed in Anti’s arms, staring quietly at the wall. Today is one of his confusion days, which might come out as anger, grief, or a desperate, slightly insane sort of boredom.

Anti wakes up and kisses the side of his head, noticing his mood immediately and leaving him to his distress. He takes the rope off his throat and leaves a clean outfit - sweatpants and a t-shirt with a big black coat - on the bed. Moving downstairs, he greets Dok with a cluck of his chin and then shakes his twin awake.

“Want you to go into town today,” he says.

Trick sits up straight, wide-eyed, disoriented from sleep. “M-me? I thought I was only allowed to go to the laundromat - Red is usually the one who goes to the store, I - ”

Anti puts a finger on his mouth, silencing him, and then digs into his pocket, pulling out a huge wad of cash. He shoves it into Trick’s coat. “Red’s still not well. You go. Get food. And something nice, pick out something nice for all your brothers. Or Red and Dok and Dap and yourself, at least. I’ll get Blue what he needs on my own. Spend it all, Trick, I don’t want to carry it around anymore. Understand?”

Trick’s eyes are alight with joy. He nods enthusiastically, his mouth shaking around the words “are you sure?” just to double check.

Anti hums and runs a hand through his hair, brushing a curl out of his eyes. “Course, Stammer, I know you’ll do well. You’ve been good lately.”

“Can I bring Dok?”

“Sure, just don’t draw attention to yourselves. No names, no nationalities, no talk of home where anyone can hear it.”

Trick is panting slightly with relief. He nods, and for a second he reaches out, as though to touch Anti in return, maybe looking for a hug or at least to brush his hand along his sleeve, but he thinks better of it, his hand falling fearfully. Anti gives him affection anyway, leaning in to kiss his cheek and ruffling his hair playfully. “We’ll have a quiet day today, Alright? Okay, be good. Bye, Trick.”

“Bye, Anti,” whisper Trick, with reverence, watching as his brother disappears.

There’s a long silence.

“Fuck yeah!” cries Doktor, and Trick lets out a loud, bursting laugh, and tumbles back onto his brother’s lap, holding up the cash, delighted.

Anonymous asked: well little stammer, what are you going to do with all that? (theres no record with cash, so you could even get stuff anti doesn't want you to have :0)

Trick flushes slightly at the nickname and you see Doktor’s eyes narrow, but Trick is already sorting through the cash again. “Well, first - first priority is food, yeah? And the first aid kit - Dok, will you go see what we need? What else, um… is there anything else we need? Maybe new clothes, if anything’s left over? More soap, we’re getting low…”

He pauses, seeming to register the second half of your question, his cheeks reddening. He glances up at you and down at the cash several times, but doesn’t say anything, memories of hunger and cold stirring in the back of his head.

loganandoli asked: Trick!! What do you think you’ll get everyone? And what are your favorite foods? :)

“Um, um, what will I get everyone?”

He’s more excited than you’ve ever seen him, pacing around his nest, combing his hair with his fingers. “I have to pick things out, don’t I? I’ll have to see what’s in town, um. Oh, I could get Dok a whole coat, a whole winter coat… and gloves, maybe, for when he has to do his - for when Anti needs him. A book! Holy shit, a book, he hasn’t had a new one in weeks!”

He grins, fantasizing. “My favorite foods, wow… I like, um, those chocolate granola bars and mandarin oranges and… well, a bunch of junk food, we don’t need all that… and nothing that we’ll have to cook, really. But I can get maybe some chips or good bread. Could really go for a drink, but I don’t think that’s going to happen. What else?”

He glances over at the island and up at the ceiling. “Fuck, I have no idea what they want,” he frowns. He turns to you. “Any ideas for Red and Dapper?”

immabethehero asked: If Dapper still has his moustache, what about a moustache grooming set? For Red, a new red hoodie for the winter! For Blue, magic cards!

“Haha, okay, that’s pretty good! We have knives for shaving but I like the new hood!”

loganandoli asked: Oh!! Get dapper some markers or charcoals! Or even a stuffed animal! (maybe a bird? He seems to like those)

“A stuffed animal for the baby!” teases Trick, grinning to himself. “Spoiled pet. You’re right, though, he likes animals.”

He pauses for a second, the smirk fading from his mouth. For a second, he almost looks like he’s in pain.

“I think he always liked animals… I think we used to… no, I don’t remember…”

oasisofgalaxies asked: Dapper may really love a sketchbook and pencil set! Don’t forget a sharpener and eraser! Anon added: you could get dap some new chalks/colored pencils! I’m sure he’d love that

“Oh, okay, yeah! Sounds like he’s kind of an artist, fuck. I guess that’s what he’s doing up there all day, huh? Okay, art shit for Dapper, that’s good. Thank you.”

Anonymous asked: dapper wants pens and charcoal to keep him busy. anything you can get red for his pain would help too

“Hmm,” nods Trick, thinking. “Something for his pain, shit, yeah. Okay, I’ll look!”

Anonymous asked: Are you going to have enough money to buy all you want/need? I don't know, this seems a little bit too easy...

“I’ve got…” Trick flips through his cash. “2,400 krone.” He bites his lip and looks up at you, slightly stressed. “I don’t know how many pounds that is. It seems like a lot. I need - I need to make sure I get everything Anti wants, or I could get in trouble. Red usually does this. Food, presents, soap, clothes - is there anything else we need? I need to get everything.”

Anonymous asked: Do you look presentable enough to be in public? Wouldn't want to catch too much attention, now do we?

“Good point,” agrees Doktor, returning to his brother. “Let’s get cleaned up.”

They don’t have mirrors, but they do have twins. Trick needs to shave, so they go outside and Doktor pulls a long sharp knife out of his coat, holding it up to his face. For a second, Trick can’t help but flinch, reaching up to grab his brother’s wrist. Doktor stops immediately. They meet each other’s eyes.

“Is okay,” mumbles Dok, using his spare hand to touch his shoulder. Just gentle.

Trick swallows the sensation of tears, nodding, letting his wrist go. He knows the difference between the brother who loves him and the one who can’t recognize him as anything other than one of his victims.

Doktor’s eyes are sorry. They talked about what happened. He wishes he could say yesterday was the first time he has looked around him and seen nothing but violence, the first time he has woken up holding a knife or a scalpel or a syringe that he doesn’t remember grabbing, but the truth is he’s often confused, and more than once he’s hurt himself or somebody he shouldn’t have. It haunts him. He doesn’t like to admit that it happens. Sometimes he doesn’t tell Trick, and sometimes he forgets the episodes once they’ve happened, but one way or another, he is cognizant of the fact that there’s something wrong with him, and the fact that that something could be harmful to his brother is a nightmare becoming a reality for him.

He shaves Trick’s beard down carefully, carefully, holding his chin in his hands. Trick closes his eyes.

They wash their faces with washcloths and water and change clothes - somewhere in their blanket huddle, there are t-shirts and pants, which they share indiscriminately, most of their personal style having blurred into necessity and apathy a long time ago. Dok puts a bandage over a particularly nasty scar on Trick’s hand, they both tug on their jackets, Dok pulls a scarf out of his pocket, they tuck weapons safely away, push their trackers beneath their sleeves, brush through their hair, and finally turn to look at each other, checking that they could pass for normal in the city.

“We’re okay?” asks Trick without words.

“We’re okay,” answers Dok with a smile.

“Okay,” sighs Trick, grinning and shoving the cash in his pockets. “Anything else, or are we ready to go?”

There is a low thumping coming from upstairs. Red and Blue are still asleep. Anti is nowhere you can see him.

spicydanhowell asked: carver? you okay up there?

The connection’s still up, but he hasn’t touched the camera. You can only see the empty bed, the clean clothes still draped over the unmade sheets.

loganandoli asked: Carver? Are you ok??

There’s no movement on the video feed, just the thumping noise, steady, steady. Downstairs, you see Doktor glance up, a frown twisting his mouth.

“Okay, ready to head out?” asks Trick, throwing his backpack over his shoulder and holding a second one out for Dok.

“Umm.” Dok accepts the backpack without looking, listening for the thumping noise. It’s clearly not the sound of him fainting. Should be okay…

loganandoli asked: Doktor, Carver isn’t answering us. I know you are not aloud to go up to check on him, so should we ask Anti to check on him?

“Oh, I - I am allowed up there. Only to check on him, but I am allowed. He’s not answering? I should go check on him.”

Trick whines, reaching out to grab his brother’s sleeve. “Dok, no! I hate it when you go up there! Anti might get angry anyway, if it turns out that he’s fine, that you went up there for nothing. Besides, Anti’s home, or at least he didn’t tell us he was leaving. Let him handle his little pet, don’t go up there. This is supposed to be a day out, when was the last time we were allowed to go into town? Come on, bro.”

“Trick,” sighs Dok, stepping back from him. “Just real quick, alright? It’s my job to look after everyone in the house.”

Gritting his teeth, Trick shakes his head, snatching his sleeve again, a sort of desperation in his eyes. Frustrated now, Doktor pulls away. “What, you want me to just leave him? He could be hurting!”

“That brat has everything he wants up there!”

“You don’t know that! When was the last time you even saw him, Trick?”

“Just the other day!”

“Yes, when Anti was dragging him into the goddamn basement! Is that what spoiled looks like to you, or are you just jealous that Anti hasn’t let you sleep in the same bed as him since the first time you called him your master? Why do you hate the little one so much? Has it ever occurred to you that maybe you should give a fuck about anyone other than yourself and me?”

He doesn’t realize his voice has risen to a shout until he’s stopped yelling. Trick stares at him, wide-eyed, mouth trembling. Blinking, Dok sees Blue’s head rising above the island, his eyes wide and confused. “Why are you fighting?” he asks, sleepy and confused. “What’s that thumping?”

Flushed, Doktor turns away from his twin and heads towards the stairs. “Deutsch!” cries Trick, remembering all too vividly Blue’s body crashing down those stairs.

“Enough, Trick.” Doktor makes his way up the stairs, taking a steadying breath at the top, but nothing comes to drag him away. Turning the corner, he enters Dapper and Anti’s room.

Thud. Thud. Thud.

He steps gently in, looking around, glancing under the bed, opening the door to the bathroom -

“Oh, darling, stop, stop,” he whispers, rushing in to grab Dapper off the floor, dragging his head away from the leg of a broken claw-foot tub, where he has been striking his forehead hard enough to dampen his hair red. “Oh, poor thing, poor thing.”

All his anger, all his caution, all his resentment for the boy is gone. He holds him in his arms and tries to get him to respond, staring down at the glassy grey eyes as his head goes thump, thump, thump against the doctor’s arm.

Anonymous asked: carver stop hitting your head please? you're okay. everything's going to be okay

Carver whimpers wearily, curling in slightly on Doktor, seeming to register the presence of another living thing. He waits for the shock and the heat of Anti’s flesh, but… it never comes.

“You’re okay,” whispers Dok, rocking him gently. “Everything’s going to be okay.”

Dapper stares numbly up at him, trying to understand.

“It’s me, it’s Dok,” he murmurs, suddenly very aware of just how long it’s been since they interacted while the little one was conscious. Fuck, he remembers so little about him. He could have sworn there was more, but, now, Dapper is hardly more than the noises in the attic and the safety net that Anti returns to at the end of every day. “I’m your big brother.”

Dapper breathes stickily, knocking his head against his knee. “Stop this, now,” murmurs Dok, taking his head in his hands. “You’re okay. Just a little out of sorts, huh? Sometimes I get like that too… sometimes I lose track of everything.”

Carver nods, processing slowly the shared sentiment. He speaks so softly, with that nice warm accent. Carver can’t remember the last time anyone but Anti spoke to him - let alone touched him.

Wait, no, he can… there was a boy with charcoal and long hair, reaching out to him, smiling on the stairs…

“Did you take your medicine this morning?” asks Doktor gently, brushing the hair from his eyes. Swallowing, Dapper shakes his head no.

Leaving him on his side on the bathroom floor, Doktor gets up to get his prescription out of the bedside drawer, pouring two tiny white pills into his hand and returning to him. Carver instantly curls back up against him, gripping plaintively at his hands.

“Here, here,” murmurs Dok, helping him sit up. He presses the medicine to his mouth and Dapper takes them in his mouth with a groan, knowing better than to refuse his pills.

“What’s going on here?”

Doktor’s head jerks up, his body suddenly shaking as he registers Anti’s presence behind him, peering over his shoulder. “Master,” he gasps. “Scared me, Anti. He was hitting his poor head, look.”

Anti blinks, disconcerted, reaching down to brush his hand over his youngest boy’s hair. Dapper stares wearily up at him, expecting little pity, but, whether it be the blood on his head or the attempts Anti is making to keep them all happy as he breaks in Blue, he seems concerned. “Poor thing,” he murmurs, stroking his eyelids with his thumb. Dapper closes his eyes obediently. “Dok, what’s wrong? His medicine isn’t working.”

“I don’t think it’s that, Anti,” sighs Doktor, leaning back against his chest as his big brother sinks to his knees beside him. He takes any chance at comfort he can get. “He’s just…”

Doktor trails off, biting his lip.

“What?”

Doktor winces, trying to pick safe words.

“Deutsch,” mumbles Anti, putting an arm around him to rub his shoulder. “Sprich mit mir.”

“Anti, he’s bored. He doesn’t have enough to do up here.”

“Aren’t you and Trick going to get him some pencils and things?”

“Yes, we - ” Doktor blinks, trying to remember when he told Anti that. “We are, but he’s still stuck in this room all day, and he - I don’t know how often you’re here but - he’s lonely, Anti.”

Dapper hides his face against his stomach. Words like these he does not dare speak aloud.

Anti stares down at his little one, stroking his hair. His face is quiet and thoughtful.

“You’ve been good lately,” he murmurs.

“Yes, Anti,” replies Dok softly.

“You’re steady. Reliable. You do as I tell you. Take care of Trick. Keep the others functioning.”

“Yes, Anti, I do.”

Anti looks up at him. Brushes a strand of hair away from his broken glasses.

“Take Dap with you,” he says. “Take Dap with you into town. I won’t risk him snapping again.”

Anonymous asked: Aight, nobody get separated! Buddy system plus one!

Doktor watches Anti go, biting his lip. Once he’s disappeared, he turns to you with a deep exasperation in his eyes. “Trick will not like this,” he groans, running a hand over his face.

Someone squeezing his other hand brings him back to Dapper, who is staring up at him with a cautious, hopeful sort of confusion in his eyes. He’s not sure he heard Anti right…

Doktor sighs and gets up, reaching down to help the boy to his feet. He’s shaky and still a little distant, but he’s responding better and better with every moment that passes. “Well… Dapper.” Feels weird to call him by his name. “Would you like to go into town?”

Dapper stares at him.

“To town?” he signs.

“Yes.”

“Downstairs?”

“Yeah.”

“Outside?”

“Mostly, yeah.”

“And Anti said… that… I could?”

“You heard him as well as I did. You just have to stay close to me.”

Dapper stares at him.

“Dapper,” says Doktor flatly, frowning.

“Anti said I could go?”

“Yeah!”

“To town? Downstairs? Out - ”

Doktor sighs and grabs his wrist, leading him towards the door. “Put your clothes on and let’s go,” he says, turning around.

Confused, Dapper obeys, checking to make sure Doktor doesn’t turn to look at him, his hands scrabbling at his scars. He tugs on his pants and the t-shirt Anti got him - oh, it was a Shiba Inu on it! - and then throws on the coat, hurrying to follow Doktor into the hall.

“Doktor!” cries Trick, pacing anxiously at the bottom of the stairs. “Dok, are you okay?”

“I’m fine, um. Just - we’re, um. Trick, we’re taking Dapper into town.”

And with those words, it somehow becomes true in Dapper’s head. Panting with relief, he sets foot on the stairs -

And then he’s running.

Down the stairs, past the other boys, through the door, outside.

Outside, outside, outside!

He begins to laugh, kicking leaves into the air. What does it matter that the other puppets stare at him, that Trick and Dok are arguing behind him?

It’s been two months since he left the house.

Anonymous asked: What did you do the last time you were out of the house, Dapper?

Dapper grins up at you, his eyes almost wildly bright. He processes your question and his face twists up slightly with fear. “Anti didn’t come home,” he says. “First try or second try or third try, Anti didn’t come home. I went after him. Made sure he came home. And before that - the plane, and the running, the running away. But then we were here. Now we are here. Right? This is now? I’m outside? We’re going to town!”

He flips a cartwheel like a kid and laughs as he makes the birds fly up into the air. “Hopefully today is a better day than those days were.”

Anonymous asked: trick, you better not argue. it's what anti wants. but doktor you should probably hold onto him tight so he doesn't run off or get hurt

“I don’t understand what’s happening,” whimpers Trick, turning to you, chewing on the nail of his thumb. “I don’t understand, I don’t understand. He never lets Dapper go.”

“Trick,” sighs Dok, grabbing his sleeve and leading him towards the door. “Come on, don’t be so stressed! It will still be fun, yes? Come on, brother mine.”

“This is a trap!” shrieks Trick, yanking against his grip. “This is a trap! This - this isn’t right!”

Red sits upright, startling them all with the realization that he’s awake.

“Here’s something that’s not a trap,” he shouts. “If you don’t shut the hell up and get out of the house so I can fucking sleep, I’m going to dump your body in the ocean. Got me, Trickshot?”

Trick flushes red, his mouth open but no words coming out. Then he flees out the door, Doktor following quick behind him.

“This is fine,” he mumbles. “This is fine. Okay, okay. You’re right. I have to look after him. I have to keep them functioning. I should hold onto him, I - Dap?”

Dapper turns towards him, beaming. Doktor snatches his hand and pulls him closer, and Dapper is happy to go, squeezing his fingers tightly. Trick is hurrying along the path before them, panting.

“Let’s just calm down,” calls Dok, coming carefully after him with Dapper beside him. “Let’s stay calm, you know how you get when you’re too stressed. Come on, Trick! Nice calm walk, okay? Nice calm walk.”

Anonymous asked: Damn it, what did I just say? Dapper, I know you're excited but be mindful of the others okay? Stay close!

Dapper flushes, flinching slightly away from you, clinging to Dok’s shoulder. “Sorry,” he signs, moving closer to his brother. “Okay, yes. I will stay close, I can be good. Will you tell Anti if I’m good? So I can go out again?”

Anonymous asked: does... does anti purposefully lead you into situations where you're forced to disobey him and be punished? is that why you're afraid, trick?

“He wouldn’t do that to me,” sobs Trick. “No, no, no, that’s not what that was! I must have heard him wrong that day! And then - then Dapper couldn’t redo it, or - It’s my fault, it’s my fault, it’s my fault! He wouldn’t - he wouldn’t trick me… he wouldn’t, he wouldn’t, he wouldn’t…. I just heard him wrong. I just heard him wrong. It’s my fault. Why would he punish me if I didn’t do anything wrong? So I must have done something wrong. I must have, I must have. It’s my fault. Don’t say things like that, no, no.”

He grips at the bandage over the scar on his hand, trembling. “No, no, no… I didn’t mean to be bad…”

“Trick!” Doktor calls on the path behind him. “Stop, dammit! Can you slow down?”

Flinching, Trick stops short, like his obedience is a tangible thing holding him to his older brother. Doktor catches up to him with the boy holding onto his hand, and a rush of jealousy cuts through Trick’s distress.

“He shouldn’t have come,” he cries, whirling on them. “He shouldn’t - ”

“Trick!”

Doktor’s hand is on his shoulder. “Trick, Trick. Just… just breathe.”

He pulls Trick under his shoulder. For a second, he feels no different from Anti - but Doktor, unlike Anti, is not laughing at him.

“It’s okay,” murmurs Doktor, knocking their heads gently together. “It’s okay. Nice calm walk, right? Nice calm walk. Don’t think about that night.”

Trick stares at the forest floor, crying quietly, ashamed and angry. But at least he’s with Doktor.

“And we’re going into town,” soothes Dok. “You were excited just a few minutes ago. Yes? So let’s go back to that. No stress right now. Just going to town. Nice, slow, quiet walk. Okay?”

Trick swallows hard. He’s right, really. He doesn’t want to ruin this for Doktor. He’s going to get him a coat and maybe new glasses… something for Red, so he gets off his back… and even the kid doesn’t seem so scary now, staring in awe at the world around him, clinging to Deutsch’s hand…

“Okay,” he whispers, taking a deep breath. “Okay.”

It takes forty minutes to walk to town.

It’s pretty out and the leaves are falling in red and gold around the trees. The town is an old town, a small town, a quiet town, with cobbled streets and tiny shops with foreign writing on top.

“There’s the shop,” says Dok, letting Trick out from under his arm. “You know what you need to get?”

“Yeah, I do.”

“Okay then,” grins Dok, stepping back behind his little brother. “Lead the way, my friend.”

And Trick, gripping the cash in his hands, smiles right back.

spicydanhowell asked: (psst dok. wipe the blood off his head before you go into the store)

“Oh, scheisse! Good point.” Dok turns to Dap and pulls out a smaller canteen from his pocket, tugging Dapper’s head slightly down and washing out his hair. “I should have bandaged this, I’m sorry.”

But Dapper just has his eyes closed, enjoying having his hair touched.

Truth be told, Doktor’s surprised to find him so gentle. Most of his memories of Carver are stained heavily in blood.

“How did you manage to hit your head so hard?” asks Doktor, trying to sound nonchalant. “You were doing it because you wanted to hurt yourself, or just bored?”

Dapper looks up, his eyes cloudy. He reaches up softly to touch his head.

“Did I do that to myself?”

Trick is waiting for them expectantly by the door. Doktor sighs and takes Dap’s hand, heading after him. “We don’t have to worry about that right now.”

Anonymous asked: whiskey? cigarettes? do you need infant formula or- oops, forget i said that :)

Trick blinks as he enters the store, his mouth falling slightly open. “Why would I need that?” he mumbles, trying to keep from looking like he’s talking to himself. “Oh, I get it, you’re teasing Dap? That’s funny.”

He gets a basket and starts picking up the things they need - food, soap, cough drops, gauze, vitamins, iodine. Turning around, he always finds Dap and Dok close to hand, and makes sure to shoot Dapper a few warning glares, hating the sight of his hand in Doktor’s and his kiddish delight with everything in the store. Dapper always cowers away from his looks, but Trick’s not about to fall into his sweet, innocent little kid trap. He scowls and turns back to his shopping.

“Look at this,” Doktor laughs, examining some foreign cookies with funny faces on them. Dapper grins and pulls away from him, wandering the aisle with a soft smile on his face. Trick’s relieved. He turns back to his basket, trying to focus.

And he’s still thinking about those fucking words.

Whiskey, why would he need whiskey? Henrik has disinfectant. He’s not allowed to drink. No one asked for it. He doesn’t need it.

Cigarettes, as if. He hates those fucking things - the nasty smell of the cancerous smoke, the taste of a kiss coated in tar, still sweet despite the poison, because it was her mouth and he loved her -

He bites down hard on his lip, staring at the shelves in the aisle before him, surrounding him with baby supplies.

Sippy cups. Pacifiers with monkeys or bears in tutus on them. Shampoo, sweet-smelling baby shampoo, warm and familiar, wafting. Rows of diapers with chubby, smiling infants patterned along the green boxes. Tiny outfits, tiny shoes, tiny socks in different patterns. Monitors, tubs, hygiene products, wipes, toys -

He’s stopped in front of the toys, shaking.

He can’t breathe. He can’t breathe. He’s just standing here, motionless in aisle six, staring at the toddler toys.

This feeling is familiar to him, though he wishes it wasn’t. The feeling that his heart is trying to benchpress a lot more weight than it can carry, that his lungs have gotten a fight with his ribs and made friends with his backbone instead, that his whole body is one great vessel of this terrible, terrible agony - the feeling that something is gone from him that he loved more than anything else that has ever drawn breath on the face of the earth.

He chokes. Sobs. Puts a shaking hand on his chest. No, no, why is he always so weak? He has to keep it together. He can’t keep crying so much. Everyone must think he’s so pathetic. No matter what he does, so pathetic. He’s never enough to earn any love. Never enough to have back what he wants, what he wants, this terrible ghost of a love he can’t remember, the wonderful warmth in his arms -

A hand touches his.

He jolts hard, recoiling.

Dapper falls back too, his hand drawing away.

His eyes are large and worried. His eyes are intelligent. Trick feels that he is staring a fox in the face.

“Why upset?” signs Dapper, tilting his head at him.

Trick backs off, panting, and lets out a sharp snapping scoff, turning his teary eyes away, fixating again on the toys in front of him. His eyes lock on a little sheet of crinkle paper and he sticks with it, trying not to cry. He won’t cry in front of Dapper. Won’t prove to him that he is better than Trick in every way.

Dapper reaches slowly forward and pulls the crinkle paper off the shelf. He holds it out to Trick.

Biting his lip to blood, Trick accepts it.

“It’s okay,” signs Dapper gently. “I think little kid stuff is really cute too.”

“Yeah,” chokes Trick, squeezing the paper in his hands. It has whales on it. “Yeah, cute.”

Dapper smiles and steps back, turning around to go find Doktor again. It is only after he is out of sight that Trick realizes he knew he was not crying because of the cuteness of the baby aisle. He gave him a chance to save face.

He should be grateful, but he’s mostly ashamed.

With shaking hands, he sets the crinkle paper in his basket.

There’s my gift for myself, he reasons, rubbing at his eyes. Now I need to get things for my brothers.

florenceisfalling asked: chase, why aren't you allowed to drink? and oh- what's doktor looking at now?

“Well, it’s not good for you to drink, you get sick and addicted and then you can’t function and shit - fuck, what is he looking at?”

Trick moves forward again and looks back at the last aisle, managing a grin at the sight of Dok happily shuffling through a bin of discount books. “How about this one?” asks Doktor, wheeling on him.

“What is it?”

“Thornton Wilder.”

“Am I supposed to know who that is?”

“I don’t know. I’ve heard the name so he’s probably famous. It’s 10 krone.”

“Fucking bargain. Get it.”

Dok beams, hurrying forward with the book clutched under one arm. He grabs Trick’s free hand and Trick tries to smile back at him, without much success.

“How about a coat for you?” suggests Trick.

“Oh, I’d rather get a coat for you.”

“My jacket is thicker than yours. We’ll get you one.”

“Gloves, at least, for you.”

“If we have money.”

“Red said I could get you gloves. That means you have to.”

Trick sighs, a small smile flickering over his mouth. “Okay, fine. Dapper, stay with us, we’re moving. Just a few more things before we head home.”

Anonymous asked: Dapper, how are you enjoying being outside the house! What's your favorite part? How's seeing your brothers again?

“I like it, I like it, I like it! I am a little scared because I don’t understand why Anti said I can go and usually only lets me out of the house for my chore, and he didn’t tell me if I need to do my chore today or not.” You notice that his hands, and even his smiling mouth, are trembling, but he still looks happy and bright-eyed. “My favorite part is probably when we were walking around, because I haven’t seen any trees but the ones right outside my window for a long time, and there were different trees today, and I liked them. I hope we will see a dog today! And seeing my brothers is - ”

He glances up at Trick and Dok, walking hand-in-hand in front of him.

“Well, Trick is not different from what I expected, but Doktor - ”

Dapper is suddenly wiping miserably at his eyes, a darkness returned to his face. “Well, Doktor doesn’t actively hate me, so… better than I thought. I really like having someone to touch other than Anti… I know that sounds stupid.”

“Hey, Carver,” calls Doktor, and Dapper hurries after him, reaching his side to find him standing in the school supplies section, complete with notebooks, pencils, and art supplies. “You want to pick something out?”

Dapper’s eyes widen. He stares at the pencils and paper for a long time. Doktor waits patiently, watching him with analysis in physician’s eyes, concerned with the boy’s erraticism. Finally, Dapper reaches out with shaky hands to take a small pack of charcoals and a big sketchbook with a windmill on the cover. 200 krone total. Not bad, Doktor figures, for a man trapped in a single room all day, every day.

“Come on, then,” says Doktor, reaching out a hand, and Dapper, smiling sweetly, reaches out to take it.

spicydanhowell asked: hey if you guys bought a coat for one of you, the other could wear both jackets at once? then you'll both be warm. (but also dok... why do you cover the scar on trick's hand? what happened to him?)

“Oh, that’s a good idea,” admits Trick, picking a pack of nice black gloves off a rack near the back of the store. “Sometimes Anti takes clothes away if we’re not using them enough or he gets tired of them, but maybe we could. That would be warmer, especially at night. It’s getting so cold.”

He blinks down at his hand as Doktor comes up behind him, adding neosporin to the basket. “We cover that up because, um… people have noticed it before.”

“It’s ugly,” Trick snaps, tired of mincing words. “Looks like my skin’s fucking tree bark. Disgusting-ass burn.”

“Hey,” snaps Dok, snatching his hand out of the air. “What have I told you about putting yourself down like that?”

“What, like it matters?” growls Trick, gripping at his hair. Doktor recognizes anguish in his movements and frowns, reaching out to touch his face, but Trick only shoves away from him, clutching at his crinkle paper, reassuring under his fingers.

“You want to hear about that night, do you?” he snaps, glaring at his scar. “I was just trying to keep us warm! It’s not my fault! Anti said to look after them while he was away and they - they were so cold!”

Tears spark in his eyes and he backs away.

“Enough,” demands Doktor, shoving the camera away from him. “Enough, let’s speak no more of this.”

“I didn’t mean to disobey,” whispers Trick, holding his own burned, scarred fingers in his hand. “I just didn’t want you to freeze… he told me to look after you…”

Anonymous asked: anti burned you? that doesn't sound like a loving brother

Trick flushes bright red, staring at you.

He glances down at his hand. Back up again. Down at his hand.

“Well,” he whispers, curling his hand into his chest. “Maybe that’s because Anti doesn’t love me.”

Uncurls his hand. Curls his hand. Stares at his hand.

“Not like he loves the others.”

His fingers were so burned he couldn’t move the hand at all for three weeks. Try handling a sniper like that. He earned plenty of abuse for his inability to do what he was supposed to, too, and every time, he faced it with more confusion, more distress. He was trying his best, he promised, he promised.

“Anti’s too good for me, really… I’m just the little fuck-up of the family. I know he doesn’t love me like the others, but… at least he keeps me, right?”

His hand opens, trembling.

“I started a fire,” he whispers. “To keep Doktor and Dapper warm, while Red and Anti were away on a mission. We were staying in this warehouse… it was January and freezing. Anti didn’t like the smoke. When he got back, he told me to put it out with my bare hands… so I did. Better a burn than what he would have done to me otherwise. And I was such a baby about it too. Couldn’t s-stop crying. He was so - he was so - so angry - so - so - ”

Trick snarls and backs away, angered by his own stammer. Ashamed. Clutching his hand to his chest.

“It doesn’t matter now,” he chokes out. “As long as Anti keeps me. I don’t think that I’ll ever earn his love. But at least he hasn’t thrown me out and taken my brothers away from me. I wouldn’t survive it.”

spicydanhowell asked: is red going to like what you all picked out? if i know him, he'd probably be mad if you forgot something... (also i think he has a thing for peanut butter so that might sate his rage a bit. ;) he seemed angry this morning.)

“Oh, peanut butter!” Doktor’s glancing around the store, trying to figure out if they forgot something. “Good idea, good protein! Let’s put one of these fruit cans back and get that instead. And I think he’ll like these?”

Doktor holds up a pair of good running sneakers, cheap but stylish, with blue laces and a white-grey pattern. “Not too expensive, either. They’re off-brand of course.”

“Not like Trick’s,” he adds, puffing up a little, grinning proudly at you. “He’s got real Converse. He loves those things. But Red, I suppose, needs some running shoes too.” He shrugs with fake modesty, grinning,

“Having money for once is going to your head,” grumbles Trick from an aisle away, and Doktor laughs.

immabethehero asked: Hey Anti! 🖕 Bitch. 🖕

Your cameras back home have lost connection, but the boys at the store hear you. Trick sighs and rolls his eyes, rubbing at his face. He wishes he could keep it together for a single day, but here they are. “They don’t have anything to say, let’s go,” he grumbles, heading towards the register, where a portly, cheerful-looking old woman is offering a smaller child a coloring book to play with on the counter.

“We got everything?” asks Dok.

“Present for me, present for Dap, present for Red. Food, all the medicine stuff you asked for. Got your coat?”

Doktor holds it up proudly. It’s green and thick, with faux fur on the big comfy hood, good for sleeping on. It’ll fall all the way to the backs of his knees. 370 krone. The most expensive thing they’re buying, by far, but worth it. Trick feels a rush of pride. It’s been a long time since he was able to get anything for anyone, let alone something nice for the person he loves more than anyone he remembers in the whole world.

Well, not more than Anti, obviously. “Let’s just check out,” he says, flustered.

The child on the counter ignores them as they unload their basket, cheerfully coloring in a picture of a storm trooper. Trick gazes at the gun in its hand while Doktor tries clumsily to make conversation with the woman at the counter. They usually pretend to be German when they’re out, so Doktor’s doing his best to make himself understood, while she only speaks a few words. She’s polite, though - interested, patient, friendly. She gives Dapper a big smile and he gives her a big smile back. Trick wonders idly if his little brother is always this friendly, even with the people he’s sent after - until, of course, he pulls out a knife. He’s a good little actor, he thinks, glaring over at him. Dapper blushes and looks away, scooting a little closer to Doktor.

Their total is close to 2000 krone, and Trick is so flooded with relief he almost faints. He’d been keeping track of the cost, of course, but he can’t help but always expect that something will go wrong. He counts out the cash quickly, smiling at the woman, who looks a little concerned at his enthusiasm. She pats his hand when he’s given it over with a comforting little smile and he tries not to flinch away, his burned fingers coiling up in his palm.

“Takk,” he says, grinning as he and his brothers scoop up their groceries and start shoving things in their backpacks. Doktor pulls the coat on and Trick beams.

“Takk,” answer the cashier and her grandchild, and then laugh at their synchronization, waving them goodbye. Trick is warmed by the fondness between them, by the presence of his brother, by the bags full of food and medicine and everything they need.

“That is everything we need, right?” he asks as they get outside.

“Umm,” says Doktor, thinking. Glancing around, he spots a pharmacy, a little tourist shop, a boat rental place, a fish and chips place, and a playground. “I think so? Is it?”

“We can’t forget something, Dok. Anti won’t like it.”

“I know. But I can’t remember if we need something else?”

“Well, we’ve still got like… 400 krone. Anti told us to spend it…”

Trick crinkles the cash in his hands, biting his lip. “So we…. could do that.”

Doktor glances at him, surprised, but he doesn’t say anything.

“We could… spend it if we wanted. Or… well, we could spend it. On something we need, if we can think of anything. Or, well. It’s midday, we haven’t eaten yet.” He glances over at the restaurant.

“Can’t remember the last time I ate something fried up,” he sighs, wistful. “Homemade. You think it’s normal fish and chips or something local? I guess it wouldn’t matter. Still be tasty.”

“So - lunch, something we need or save it,” Dok summarizes, pushing his glasses up on his nose.

“Shh,” hisses Trick, glaring over at Dapper. “But… yeah. Yeah. What do you think?”

“I’m not sure. I almost feel like we’re missing something. But I’d really like something to eat. Or it could be safer to… not spend it.”

Trick sighs and glances over at the camera. “Well, what do you think?”

Anonymous asked: Did you get something for Blue?

Trick glances up. “That’s a really good note, but Anti said he’d get what he needed for Blue. Thanks for reminding us anyway, we would have been in trouble if we forgot something for him otherwise. We’ll share food and stuff with him, of course, but I guess Anti has his own plans for the other stuff he needs. New pets sometimes get… different treatment than the rest of us.”

Anonymous asked: dapper keeps secrets from anti too. he likes to keep little animals as pets, so as long as you don't tell anti about his raven, he definitely won't tell anti about you stashing the extra 400 for an emergency... orrr you can buy yourselves a luxury haha

Dapper flushes white and staggers away from his brothers, his hands rising up in front of his chest. He shakes his head hard, trying to stay steady through the rising rhythm of his heart, shaking his whole body.

“You keep secrets from Anti?” hisses Trick.

“You keep a raven?” asks Doktor, bewildered.

“No, no, no!” Dapper’s back slams against the wall of the store and he shakes his head. “No, no, no, she’s gone now!”

“Oh, this is too fucking rich,” laughs Trick. His voice is bitter as rhubarb. “You’re Anti’s spoiled little brat and even then it’s too hard for you to follow his orders? Oh, wait til he fucking hears about this.”

Carver gives a little croaking gasp, his hands finding the knife in his coat pocket.

“Trick!” snarls Doktor, grabbing him and yanking him towards him. “Stop, now. Drop it.”

“What? You just think we should let him get away with - ”

“I don’t fucking care if Anti knows or not,” snaps Doktor. “It doesn’t concern me. But how about this hypothetical, Trick - Anti finds out you threatened his little one. How do you think he’d take that, huh? Or better put, how do you think you’d take another beating?”

Trick’s gone almost as white as Dapper. “Okay. Okay.”

“I don’t care if you tell Anti. But don’t threaten the boy. I don’t want to get my ass beat because of the stupid decisions that my little brothers make. Understood?”

Trick nods. “Yes, Doktor.”

Dapper stares at the ground, his mouth trembling.

“Okay,” says Doktor, releasing Trick. “So that’s one in favor of saving the cash… provided we don’t all snitch.”

Anonymous asked: Wouldn’t Anti be mad if you saved it? I feel like that’s the best option but I’m worried that he’d get mad and punish you if he found out you had some money left.

“Yeah,” sighs Trick, staring down at the krone. “He would be. It’s just… well, never mind. Okay. That’s one for spend it.”

Anonymous asked: Well, Anti did say specifically to spend it all. So at the very least, if you want to save it, don't give it back to him because he doesn't want it. Do you ever go into town and have not enough money so savings would be helpful, or would it be better to have something you can use? Or food, now?

“Yeah, sometimes we don’t have enough for anything,” murmurs Trick. “Red never says it, but I can tell, because he stops eating. So that’s two for savings.”

florenceisfalling asked: maybe you could get a gift for anti? he didn't tell you to, but he might appreciate it. that could help you out, trick.

“Oh, interesting.” Trick blinks up at you, thinking. “Guess I’m not sure what I’d get him, though. All he likes are knives and computers. If someone has an idea, let me know.”

loganandoli asked: Anti said to spend all the money and to get food and gifts! You said before you needed a first aid kit and some soap too, so if you got all that then I think you’re good! :)

“He did say to spend it all.” Trick sighs out a deep breath. “And we got all that… And I’m really hungry right now. I don’t think we forgot anything… did we?”

immabethehero asked: Get Anti one of those toy phones. They're cheap. Or a black scarf.

“Haha, that’s pretty good really! A black scarf, I bet he’d like that. He has a red one he wears a lot when he’s out in public. Well, maybe I’ll think about that. I guess I’m not sure how he’d take it. I don’t want him to think I’m wasteful.”

Anonymous asked: I don't know what 400 krone can but, but maybe a space heater?

“A space heater, holy shit,” groans Trick. “Can you imagine? That would be fucking incredible. But there’s no electricity back at the house. Plus I don’t think we’d have enough. I’m sorry, I’d like that too.”

immabethehero asked: Use Anti as your electricity

Trick laughs. “You think he’d waste energy on keeping us warm?”

Anonymous asked: More ammo for your gun perhaps?

“Anti gets that for me! I never have to worry about that.”

Anonymous asked: Hmm. I read that you can use things like duct tape and plastic wrap or towels along windows and doors to prevent drafts, maybe?

“Oh, yeah! I think we have duct tape still in the med kit, right, Dok?”

“Yeah, from that time we ran out of gauze.”

“And we do have blankets.”

“Yep, yep.”

“We should try that, though.”

“Yeah, might help. House is drafty.”

immabethehero asked: If he wants you, he should. Give it a shot

Trick grins a little sadly. “I’m sorry, but Anti just doesn’t have time to fuel a fucking space heater for us. It’s a nice idea, though. Thank you.”

spicydanhowell asked: trick! be fucking nice! he's your brother and he loves you. he wants to love you but you treat him like shit because you're jealous of him. there's nothing spoiled about how carver has to live. he gets left alone all day and he's not allowed to touch or talk to anyone but anti, and anti hurts him and ties him up and you think that's special treatment? that's fucked up.

“Well, at least Anti fucking loves him!” shouts Trick, whirling on you. “At least he gets held and coddled and told he’s wanted and shit! Maybe that’s not spoiled to normal people, but my family’s not normal! At least he - at least he - at least - ”

Trick screams his frustration, only to find himself yanked towards Doktor and pressed against his brother’s side. “Calm down, Trick, goddammit! Calm down, they’re right! He’s your little brother too, you know.”

“He’s my only little brother,” snarls Trick, hiding his face in his hands. “And I never, never, never even get to see him!”

His voice shatters and he slumps against Doktor’s shoulder.

“Never get to see him,” whispers Dok, confused, brushing patiently at his hair. “Why does that upset you?”

Against the store wall, Dapper watches wearily, exhaustion in every line of his face - but a certain curiosity too.

“It doesn’t!” cries Trick, gripping Doktor’s shirt. “It doesn’t, it doesn’t! It - I don’t know! I don’t know! If I’m not supposed to remember anything why do I still miss him? I’m so angry! I’m so fucking angry all the time! I’m so fucking tired!”

“Okay, okay,” murmurs Dok, leading him to a bench on the playground and sitting them both down. “Okay, calm down. Let’s just breathe.”

For a few minutes, they sit in silence. Doktor rubs his brother’s back. Dapper watches, something hungry in his eyes.

After a little while, Trick lets out a soft laugh.

“Maybe they’re right,” he murmurs, pressed to Doktor’s chest. “Maybe his life isn’t any easier than this, up there all day, all alone. Cause much as I’d like Anti to want me more…”

He looks up. The earnestness in his eyes surprises Doktor. “Much as I want that,” says Chase. “I think, at the end of the day, I’d rather have you.”

Warmth blooms in Doktor’s chest like a rising tide. His cheeks fill in rosy red.

“Little sap,” he whispers, shoving their foreheads together. “I’m going to punch you in the arm for that one.”

Trick laughs, hiding his face in his shoulder.

“Don’t you go saying anything like that around Anti,” murmurs Doktor.

“Okay, Doktor, I won’t.”

“I love you too, Trick.”

“I love you, Dok.”

“Feeling calmer?”

“A little. Yeah. Calmer.”

“Well, let’s just… let’s just calm down. Let’s just - Trick, let’s get some lunch.”

Trick draws slowly back from him, hope in his eyes. “Really?”

Anonymous asked: Anti said to spend it ALL and I think he meant it...

Trick nods slowly, counting through his cash a second time. Swallowing, he looks up to meet Doktor’s eyes.

“So… spend it?”

Doktor grins slowly. “You want fish and chips?”

Trick shifts, smiling. “Haha, really? Really really? I was sort of kidding… it’s been forever since we had anything cooked.”

“Yeah. It has. We deserve a treat, huh?”

Trick grins dopily, like a little kid. “A treat, wow… um, maybe… I don’t know, Dok…”

spicydanhowell asked: if y'all are already hungry... you've got a long walk back, just buy some lunch and stop worrying :/

“That’s a good point,” giggles Trick. “We do have a long walk. We do need something to eat. We are supposed to spend it all.”

He stares down at the cash. Up at Dok.

“We’re getting fish and chips.”

“We’re getting lunch?”

“Dude. Dude. We’re getting lunch.”

They’re both laughing now. Trick feels a little overwhelmed. This is the fucking best.

“Okay, well, come on, then!”

“Okay, man, okay! Haha. Let’s get food!”

Doktor calls Dapper over to him - pausing gently to push a strand of hair out of his eyes before taking his hand - and they head past the pharmacy, over to the restaurant. There are other people milling around and the sun has risen cool and cheerful, sending wind brushing through their hair. They can smell the sea from here, crisp salt making the air clean.

The restaurant is more like a bar than anything else, and there are local workers off for lunch crowded around the bar, talking and laughing and chatting. After so long cooped up in that little house, Trick finds there’s something very comforting about the old, familiar feeling of other people being happy and safe around him. He squeezes Doktor’s hand and then asks for a table from a nice teenage waitress, who, luckily, seems to speak good English.

They end up in the corner, exactly where they’d prefer. Dapper presses up against the wall, looking tired.

“You want fish too or what?” asks Trick, avoiding his eyes.

Dapper sits up uncertainly, wondering if he’s being made fun of. He glances at Doktor, who shrugs and smiles.

“Yes?” knocks Dapper, frowning.

“Okay,” says Trick, checking prices. “We can get fizzy drinks too and then we should be close enough to spending it all. Safely close. Sound good?”

Dapper stares at him. “Yes,” he says finally. Sounds really good. He’s not sure he’s allowed to eat anything without Anti’s permission, but… Trick’s in charge right now, so he’ll go with it.

He glances over at Doktor again. Doktor smiles back. Trick looks cheerful, bouncing a little in his seat. The sun shines through the window.

Dapper giggles and sinks down in his seat, resting his head on Doktor’s shoulder, and he isn’t pushed away or even glared at by Trick.

Today’s a good day.

Anonymous asked: Eat out and save your goods for later!

“True!” grins Trick, setting his backpack down beside him and looking down at all of his stuff, proud of everything he’s secured for his family. “Saving more food for later!”

musical-in-theory asked: To quote my favorite show: “Love, hate, they’re so close. It’s easy to mistake one for the other.” Trickshot. Hate is easy, but it’s wrong. Hate is easy, but it’s not the only option. Hate is easy, but that’s not what this is. You get a choice. He’s not your twin, but he is your little brother. He’s your family.

Trick and Dapper exchange uncomfortable looks and turn back to their food, gone quiet. Trick and Doktor are mostly done, but Dapper has only picked at his food, though he has looked pretty happy, if a little tuckered out.

nikkilbook asked: This has to be the most physical activity Dap’s had in... what did he say, two months? Given how small that room is and how often he ends up tied up or restricted, I wouldn’t be surprised if he ended with muscle atrophy. How’s he doing? He’s gotta be exhausted, especially with how out of it he was this morning.

Dapper giggles. “Anti and I tussle a lot, he doesn’t want me to get too out of shape. I roll around a lot and stuff. Sometimes Anti even dances with me.”

He puts his chin in his hand and stares dreamily out the window. “That’s the most fun, when he does things with me. But I am a little tired… I haven’t been sleeping well. Or I don’t think I have. Have I? I can’t remember what time we’re in. Is it still today?”

Doktor and Trick exchange quizzical looks over the table.

Anonymous asked: You know, Dap. You have the ability to keep reliving this day. This one good day. Anti wouldn’t have to know.

Dapper sinks down in his seat, avoiding his brother’s eyes.

“The thing is, he often knows,” he sighs. “I get tired within a couple tries and he sees… my eyes change and I wear down… and if I ever used too much power and then wasn’t able to reverse things later…”

Dapper pauses, clutching his shaking hands together, biting down on his lip. Trick frowns. He never noticed they shared that tic before.

“I think he would just kill me,” admits Dapper. “I wouldn’t be of any use to him then.”

Trick and Doktor have gone quiet.

“But, if I could pick a day to relive…” Dapper grins and takes a sip from his drink. “It might be a day like today.”

musical-in-theory asked: Oh and Anti. My “fuck you” alarm just went off. You know what that means! Damn you, you absolute pecan. You three-month-old stale potato chip.

Your connection back home fizzles. You catch sight of Dapper’s room. There is something red drizzling across the floor of the bathroom.

musical-in-theory asked: Wait, wait. Hold the fuck up. What?

“I’m the fuck up,” whispers Trick. “Hold me.”

He and Doktor dissolve into giggles over their fish. Dapper tilts his head at you, confused.

florenceisfalling asked: well, maybe look for some hand warmer packs? they might be hard to find, especially if you don't know the language, but they heat up really fast without electricity (they're just lil chemical things in a bag). i dunno, we use them for hunting and hiking here. irrelevant but how's blue doing? or have the cameras lost connection still?

“Hand warmer packs,” repeats Trick, popping his last chip in his mouth. “That’s a really good idea! Fuck, I gotta tell Red that. They don’t use electricity? That could be really good, especially if - ”

“Wait, hold on,” protests Doktor, sitting forward. “The cameras lost connection?”

Trick blinks and sits up, looking at you. Dapper reaches quietly into his vest.

“The ones back at the house?” asks Doktor. “All of them? Entirely?”

He turns to look at Trick.

“I think we should go home. Cameras being disrupted could mean Anti’s in danger.”

“If Blue got loose…” murmurs Trick, remembering flowers bursting up through concrete.

“Blue didn’t get loose,” snaps Doktor. “Nobody ever gets loose from Anti. Come on, let’s just - I think we should just get home.”

“Okay, shit - I - okay.” Trick leaves the cash on the table and slings his backpack over his shoulder. Doktor grabs Dap’s hand and they head out together. The sky is beginning to cloud over.

Anonymous asked: Red? Blue?? ... Someone there?

Your downstairs camera flickers, trying to answer you. You’re fairly sure there is a body at the bottom of the stairs. Nothing is moving. The camera screen is glitching heavily. There is a soft but painful whining in the air - and maybe, if you listen, someone singing.

musical-in-theory asked: Guys hurry up!! Something bad went down back at the house and we can’t make out what happened!

“Fucking hell,” whispers Trick, picking up his pace along the trail. Dapper, on the other hand, is slowing down, his face dark with concern.

“I can feel his power,” he tells you, but his brothers are not looking at him. “He is dangerous when he uses this much.”

nikkilbook asked: Boys, I’m not sure what, but something’s gone sideways back at the house. I’d suggest you hurry, but be on your guard.

“We do need to be on our guard,” groans Dok, growing closer to the house. “Trick, maybe we should - maybe we should stay away.”

“The others could be in trouble, are you sure?”

“No, I’m not sure! We’re just not exactly the fighters of the house, are we?”

Trick pants, biting down on his lip. “Got your gun?” he asks.

Dok’s face steadies and he pulls from beneath his jacket a beautiful silver handgun.

“Well, there’s something, isn’t there?”

Doktor nods, face white. “Get your knives out. Both of you. Trick, you’re sure about this?”

“No,” answers Trick, grinning. “But I don’t think we have much choice, do we?”

“Well,” sighs Dok, resuming his march. “When do we ever, my friend?”

Anonymous asked: Goddamnit.... Anti, anything you can tell us?? (Two others asking after Anti were added)

The screens flicker as one.

“What,” read green words glitching across the screen. “Are you so afraid of?”

The body at the bottom of the stairs is not moving. From Dapper’s room, something blue has joined the red on the floor of the bathroom. There is movement inside, and then quiet laughter.

The screen steadies.

Anti steps out of the bathroom.

There’s a towel, stained red and blue, wrapped around his throat. He approaches carefully, leans down to the floor, and scoops the camera up.

He looks exhausted.

But proud.

“Well, hey there, puppets,” he purrs. “How was your day out on the town, huh? Do you want to see what I’ve been working on? Huh? Or are you too scared to see what’s happened to your favorite boy?”

musical-in-theory asked: We are not puppets!! Just fucking show us the damage!! FUCK YOU

Anti drops the camera on the floor, sniffing. “Well, you can wait for the other boys to get home and hope they have the courage to investigate if you want.”

ari-trash asked: I'm a bit scared of what we'll see but I do wanna see the boy

“Now there’s a politer way to ask,” purrs Anti, scooping up the camera. “Or at least the bare minimum. Of course you want to see him! He’s a good boy! He’s wonderful, he’s mine. I’ll consider it.”

nikkilbook asked: Is it too much to hope that they had a roaring good time and Good Boy A is just taking a snooze downstairs and Good Boy B is getting his hair dyed in the bathroom. Cuz like. What the frick else is that blue stuff.

Anti laughs aloud. “You guessed it, Nikki, good job! Hahaha! That’s too funny. Good job, you must be the smart one. I’m not sure Red’s sleeping, but, hey, he’s quiet, isn’t he?”

nikkilbook asked: Not sure how I feel about Concerningly Amoral Boy calling me the smart one, but okay.

“Concerningly Amoral should be the name of a band. I like that.”

Anonymous asked: Ooh, our favorite puppetmaster's been busy? Well, if you'd let us see, we'd be glad to see your latest project :)

Anti giggles. “Okay, someone knows how to have fun. Come here, I want you to see.” He carries you back towards the bathroom and knocks gently on the door. “Blue? I’m bringing someone in to see you, okay?”

A pause. Soft breathing in heavy air. Then, shakily: “Okay.”

Anti carries you into the room.

Blue is stretched across the floor, shirtless.

His long, neatly-kept hair is gone, or at least it is lying on the floor of the bathroom instead of clipped up on the back of his head. Anti cut it off with warm hands, shaving the sides, leaving it longer on the top, which is soaked in a fine blue dye.

Blue’s eyes are dazed and empty. He stares blankly up at you, shaking a little from the cold. He moves, but only very slowly. Anti crouches down and puts a hand on his shoulder, rubbing his bare skin gently. “That looks good, doesn’t it?” he murmurs, playing with a lock of his hair, leaving blue on the ends of his reddened fingers. “That looks nice. How are you feeling?”

Blue blinks and swallows. “F-feel sick, Anti.”

“Poor thing,” whispers Anti. “It’s okay. I told you I’d look after you, wouldn’t I?”

Blue nods slowly, tears in his eyes. Anti brushes them away and leans in to kiss the side of his mouth. “You’re okay. It’s okay. Hey, tell them you’re name.”

Blue stares up at the camera, his face very pale. “It’s Blue,” he says. “That’s what Anti told me.”

“Right,” murmurs Anti, stroking his shoulder. “Right.”

Anonymous asked: Wait, really? Why would you dye his hair?

“Oh, simple,” says Anti, standing up. “I fucking love character design.

“Isn’t it fitting that a new man should have a new haircut? New clothes? A new name? You know, in the Bible, when God would give a mission to someone he loved, a new purpose for living, he would rename them and send them away from the places they grew up. Simon becomes Peter, Abram Abraham, and so on. You have to destroy the old person to make way for the new.”

Anti pauses, tapping his lip. “Jack told me I was misunderstanding those stories, once,” he admits. “But I like to think my point stands. This is my new pet. He is no longer the man you knew. And he does not look it. You will see soon enough that nothing at all is left of your precious boy.”

Anonymous asked oh god, what have you done? What did you do, what did you do to them Anti? Was sending them out just a distraction? What did you do? WHAT DID YOU DO?

Anti smiles. “Hey, Blue,” he calls. “How long have you been with me, darling?”

Blue looks up, his eyes bewildered. He rubs dully at his face. “Don’t… don’t remember…”

“No? Can you tell me how many brothers you have?”

Blue frowns, squeezing his eyes tightly shut. “You,” he stammers out, trying hard to think. “And… the other boy… Red… right?”

Anti simpers, smirking at you.

“Anti, my head hurts,” whines Blue, sinking down against the bathroom floor.

Anti reaches down to help him up again, rubbing his back. “Let’s get you downstairs, huh? Twin’s going to look after you. Okay? Let’s get you down for some sleep.”

nikkilbook asked: While I agree that Biblically, the new name is associated with laying aside your old life, I think the real misunderstanding here is yOU AREN’T GOD.

“No one is,” sighs Anti, sounding disappointed. He helps Blue get to his feet, stroking the back of his head, and his little brother leans in to rest against his shoulder.

musical-in-theory asked: Fine. A punishment, slight or harsh, is far better than a reward in this case. To do right by you is to give in to evil.

“Evil,” sighs Anti, and then, distantly, “What is truth?”

Anonymous asked: Anti, I hope you realize that when karma comes back around, shes going to make you pay dearly for what you have done here

“She better hurry up, then, I’m tired of waiting for her. No one ever makes me pay for anything. Being unequaled can be boring, you know.”

musical-in-theory asked: Okay Anti. I knew you were a damn psychopath, but why did you have to cut the hair? His gorgeous hair! Imma start calling you Telly the Barber for this

Anti giggles and there is a flicker in his audio. A second later, his mouth is moving, but out comes the voice of Cecil Palmer, intoning, “He talks with an accent and sneers. Telly the Barber cut Carlos’s beautiful hair. According to reports. Telly. Now, while I gather myself, let’s have a look at traffic. Oh, wow! Well, that looks pretty good. Yup.”

Anti sneezes and cuts himself off, laughing, his voice returned to normal. Blue, close at hand, looks vaguely unnerved.

musical-in-theory asked: Nope you don’t get to wax poetic here with philosophical questions. You’re a damn brainwasher and torturer.

To your credit, Anti is in fact beginning to look tired of talking. He heaves Marvin closer to hand and strokes along his stomach, glaring at you.

ari-trash asked: Is the new look the "gift" you mentioned giving to blue or do you still have something left for him?

“Ah, there’s a good question,” purrs Anti, helping Blue to sit on Dapper’s bed. “In fact that was only the first part of the gift. I got him a lot of presents. It’s his birthday, after all! His and Red’s.” He leans down to kiss Blue again, self-satisfied to the extreme, and Blue doesn’t flinch away. “Stay here for a second, kitten.”

Anti leaves the camera with Blue, who stares blankly down at you.

Anonymous asked: Marvin....? Are you still there? I said once that I wouldn't let your forget who you were and I am desperately hoping I haven't failed you. please, Marvin, you have to remember! You cant let him brand you!

Blue flinches every time you try to say the name, rubbing at his ears as a sharp shrieking noise reaches him again and again. “That’s awful, please stop,” he murmurs. “I have such a headache. You’re going to help me? I could really use that, I - ”

Tears spark in his eyes and his mouth quivers. He turns away, angry for crying in front of strangers. “I can’t remember who I am and Anti - well, he’s not very good at explaining…”

Anonymous asked: My, my, what a thorough job. That’s honestly impressive :P What happened to the little redbird, if we may ask?

“Thank you,” hums Anti, sorting through his closet. “And good question. My little cardinal has been so anxious lately. I noticed he was having trouble getting on with his twin. And that won’t do. I made it easier on both of them. You’ll see.”

spicydanhowell asked: could you put some clothes on him!? it's fucking freezing

“Good idea! I sure can.” Anti slings a bag over his shoulders and hurries back to Blue, setting it down beside him. “You must be freezing, Blue.”

“Yeah, it’s cold…”

“Here, get dressed, and then we’ll get you downstairs to lie down with twin. Okay?”

“Okay.”

Anti pauses, tilting his head. “Okay?”

Blue blinks, swallows, remembers. “Okay, Anti,” he manages. “Yes, sir.”

Anti laughs, hard, stroking his cheek. “There’s a good boy. There’s a really good cat. Everything’s going to be okay. Get changed, now.”

Anonymous asked: Ah. Right. He can't be disagreeable if he's not conscious. A-plus logic in peace building there.

“Oh, no, no, nothing so shallow as that.” Anti shakes his head, tsking his tongue against his teeth. “What do you take me for? No, something more permanent for my red dog.”

nikkilbook asked: I take you for a toddler with very few positive conflict resolution skills.

Anti pauses, considers, shrugs. “I’m five, so. It is what it is. PMA, right, guys?”

Anonymous asked: Tenacity, maybe. But not pma sorry.

“Yeah, well, I never understood that saying anyway.”

Anonymous asked: Boy howdy am I afraid for what's gonna happen next :D

Anti giggles and looks at you, giving you a huge smile in mimicry of the emoji. A second later a “:D” flickers across the screen and Anti bursts into laughter, turning away. “Okay, enough, enough! You’re all fucking comedians tonight, huh?”

Anonymous asked: what the fuck have you done to red? specifically what.

“Check him out for yourself, fuck, I’m exhausted,” snaps Anti, suddenly irritable. “When are my boys coming home? I’m tired, I want Monochroma, the bed is cold.”

Anonymous asked: Red? Can you hear me?

On the stairs, a soft whimper. The body stirs, turning slightly on its side.

Anonymous asked: Are trick and doktor still far away from the house?

Doktor approaches the house with the others close beside him. He keeps them at his back - he’s the older brother and he understands that, despite the benefits of his birth order, this also means his job is to protect the younger ones.

The door to house is shut, or as shut as it ever is, missing its topmost hinge. As they get closer, Dapper begins to gag, shaking his head hard, yanking back against Doktor’s grip.

“Hey, hey,” hisses Doktor, turning to him. “What’s wrong, the hell are you doing?”

“Power, power,” signs Dapper, shaking. “Bad, bad.”

“Blue’s power?” asks Trick, clutching his knife tighter. “Did he hurt Anti?”

“No, no, Anti power.”

“Well, then, what’s the matter?” sighs Doktor.

“Bad, bad,” whines Dapper, tears filling up his eyes. “Don’t want, don’t want go. Hurt me too.”

“No, no,” murmurs Doktor, turning back to soothe him. “It’s okay, it’s okay.”

loganandoli asked: Hey Trick, Doktor, Carver, you’re all good. Anti was just dying Blues hair. He did do something to them both though, so be careful.

“There, there, see?” Doktor hushes Dap, reaching out to squeeze his shoulders gently. “Just hair dye! Just silly, fun stuff, yes? It’s okay.”

“Power, power, power,” signs Dapper, gagging, pulling away. It’s pretty clear that Doktor isn’t enough to reassure him.

Anonymous asked: Trickshot? You guys close yet? Where are you? We only have a vague idea of what's going on but I think the danger's passed for now.

Trick glances at you, nods, and stands up. There is a sudden light returned to his eyes, one you have never seen before. He turns to Dapper, hiding his face in his hands, and then reaches out, just gentle, to take his hand.

Dapper flinches at first, staring up at him with fear in his eyes, but a second passes, and Trickshot doesn’t hurt him. He’s finding it difficult to even meet his eyes, but he doesn’t pull away.

“I get it, okay?” he whispers. “It’s scary even when it shouldn’t be scary.”

Dapper stares, his face loosening slightly.

“But we can’t not go in. Right? It would be worse to try and run away than to stay and risk it.”

Dapper nods slightly, considering.

“If something goes really bad, you can reverse it, can’t you?”

Dapper looks exhausted. But he nods again, reaching out to touch Trick’s cheek.

Trick sighs but allows it, taking Dap’s hand in his own.

“And they say the danger’s past, don’t they?”

Dapper scowls, turning his face away. “Don’t trust them,” he snaps, baring his teeth. “Snitches!”

Trick can’t help it. He’s laughing.

“Okay, you’re right.”

“Told on me!”

“They did.”

“Twice!”

“I know, Dap,” sighs Trick. “I know. And yet…”

And yet, they have to go in. And yet, they have to trust you. And yet, Trick does not plan to tell Anti.

“We gotta go in there,” says Trick. “Don’t we?”

Dapper sighs and steadies himself, standing up straight. “What if I don’t get to leave again? For months, maybe?”

Trick bites his lip. Dapper copies him. Trick smiles, suddenly weighed down heavy by all the bullshit sorrow in his bullshit life.

“Well,” he says. “At least we had one day of freedom, didn’t we?”

Dapper’s mouth flickers in a smile. He reaches out to touch Trick’s cheek again, and this time, Trick takes his hand in his own, and squeezes it tight, staring him right in the eyes.

“Okay,” say Dapper’s exhausted hands. “Okay. Let’s go in. Come what may.”

loganandoli asked: Red? Can you hear us? Are you ok? What did he do?

The body turns over, revealing open blue eyes, staring right at you. A look of confusion on his face, a slight tremor on his mouth, red dye in his hair, cut short at the sides, left longer on top, just like Blue upstairs.

“Red,” he repeats wearily, his voice frail, and shaking, and very, very confused.

Anonymous asked: Red, are you alright? Can you move, buddy?

He blinks, swallows, and tries his best to sit up, managing to slump against the wall next to the stairs, panting hard. His head is unwrapped and he clutches at it, groaning. “I can move,” he manages thickly. “I can… Red…what’s…”

musical-in-theory asked: Wait, Jackie? Is that you?

“Ow, fuck,” he moans, clutching his head at the screeching. “Please…”

Anonymous asked: Dok, get your medkit ready. There's gonna be blood...

Dok rummages in his backpack to draw out gauze and disinfectant, so he at least has something ready. In his other hand, he holds the gun out.

“On three, okay?” he whispers, nodding at his brothers. “One, two…”

He shoves open the door and points his gun, staring around. Near the bottom of the stairs, Red jolts up, staring back at him, letting out a quick, panicked shout. Above him, on the stairs, a second man has gone still, frozen by the gun in his hand.

“Umm,” says Doktor, fixated on him. “What… uh…”

“What the fuck?” gasps Trick. “Blue?”

Blue stares back at them, his mouth slightly open.

He wears a long black coat, thin but sturdy, with sleeves drawn up to his elbows and the tail hanging at the back of his knees. His hands are coated in rings and bracelets, his ears glimmer with silver, his shirt depicts the turning cycles of the moon, he wears blue jeans and soft black boots.

“Um,” he chokes, backing up. “I think so?”

Dapper, Doktor, and Trick exchange glances.

Red staggers to his feet, pointing at the his brothers in the doorway, paranoid. “Okay,” he barks, panic in his voice. “I’m going to ask this once and once only - who the fuck are you?”

nikkilbook asked: Okay, this may sound horrible, but are we ABSOLUTELY CERTAIN which boy is which? Like, is the boy we’re calling Red the same boy we were calling Red this morning?

Anti laughs, his form flickering as he steps down the stairs, until he just ends up looking like a fanged Jack with his hood pulled up. “Haha, can you imagine? I just lose track of which is which? They lose track of which of which? So fucking lost in their heads they can’t tell where the old breaks and the new begins? Mind you, I might have with Trick and Doktor if not for the accents… needy, clingy little boys they were, pressed side-to-side in their little collars and chains, crying for Red to remember them… Funny. You’re funny.”

He staggers slightly and catches himself, anger flashing across his face. Straightening up again, he sets his feet down on the bottom step of the stairs, looking around at his puppets.

Red has pressed Blue protectively against the wall. He looks shaky and terrified - Blue just looks exhausted, his fingers curling around his twin’s hoodie. Doktor and Dapper and Trick stand in the doorway, staring at their brothers. Anti sees horror, grief, and confusion in their faces.

“Alright, everybody chill out,” he sighs, heading over to Trick and unzipping his backpack, pulling out a bag full of groceries. He walks over to the cabinets and begins putting food away, stacking peanut butter and canned fruit while his toys readjust to the situation. They’re so fucking slow sometimes. Not his Dapper though. His Dapper is already resigned, avoiding Red and Blue’s eyes, playing with the fringe of his coat. Sometimes Anti thinks he remembers more than the others. He is lucky to have not been in the house while Anti played with Red and Blue. He is lucky you sent Doktor to look after him.

“Anti, what’s happening?” pants Red. Doktor has lowered his gun, but he doesn’t look any more at ease.

“I told you,” sighs Anti. “You hit your little heads, you don’t seem to remember much.”

Doktor’s mouth tightens with a quick flash of anger, but he schools his face again immediately, drawing Trick closer.

“You know your twin. These are your little brothers, Doktor and Trickshot. They won’t hurt you. You need anything, you tell them, and they’ll do it. Right, boys?”

“Yes, Anti,” they promise in sync, twin faces white.

“And this is my Carver,” he adds, nodding to Dapper. “You leave him alone upstairs, he’s violent for such a tiny puppy.”

Carver blushes but offers no protest, staring at Red with sunken eyes.

What does it matter? He won’t see any of them again. What’s to say they’ll even remember him if he does? What’s to say any of this will still be real tomorrow?

Anti hums and closes the cabinets again, fighting off a wash of exhaustion to make his steps unsteady. Leaning slightly against the island, he glances over at you, considering turning you off, but another look at the confusion in Red’s face makes him smile again, and he decides to let you watch.

He yawns, licking his canines, and reaches out a hand. Dapper responds immediately, hurrying over to him to take his hand in his own.

“I need to sleep,” he admits, rubbing at his face as he turns back towards the stairs. He takes Red’s chin in his free hand and examines his frightened face apathetically.

“Keep your brothers in line tonight,” he says.

And Red, never washed clean enough to forget his training, responds: “Yes, Anti,” in a small, steady voice, the emotion draining from his face as he pulls himself back together.

Anti smiles.

The others watch him and Dapper walk upstairs, the shutting of the bedroom door leaving them alone and staring, confused and afraid, from opposite sides of the room.

Trick thinks Doktor is crying.

End Section 3 of Chapter One.

Find this chapter’s masterlist here.

#abuse tw #masterlist #oh happy day

29 notes · View notes

artiemoonqueen · 4 years

Text

Baby

By: Monica Lebron

I was part of a family that had very few pets. We had a turtle that was always there since I can remember but was never...never named. We had doves that my dad once built a coop next to our garage. We would have them in the house as they would sit on our shoulders and often lay unfertilized eggs everywhere. My brother and I were definitely too young to take care of doves. One perished from a night in said coop by a predator, the other was wounded and healed inside the house. We somehow...crushed this one during one of our rough housing. I know I know, we are heathens and should be sent to Peta jail but we were children. Being only three years apart from one another at ages 8-10, we were wrestling and playing on the couch with a comforter and one thing led to another. Our last friend from a pair seems to have gotten tangled up with us. We were very very mournful I swear to you all. After that, our parents had divorced(not because of the doves) and I was left to entertain myself without any responsibility to a pet. It was another story for my brother and mom but this isn;t about their many adventures with pets. This really isn't about the ‘previous’ pets we had in the past. This story is about Baby. In the year 2018, long before my 28th birthday I had to figure out a living situation.

1)find roommates that I knew

2)find roommates that I didn’t know

3)move back with my dad

4)live on my own

Since I had lived two years with roommates that I knew and some I knew too much. Before that I was living with my father that would sometimes ‘break my soul’. And I was a bit hesitant to move with people that were strangers at that time, I took the opportunity to live on my own for the first time. $650.00 for an apartment that has high ceilings, beautiful lighting that I will admit that I am currently kicking myself that I didn’t take enough selfies. Furniture and decorations of my own taste and pretty chill neighbors, the location was a little out of ways from anyone visiting and just down the hill was a large pharmaceutical company that was the ‘leading biotechnology company that invents life-transforming medicines for people with serious diseases’ in other words, high possibility that they are working on zombie-endulced material that a friend of mine who once worked there, would swear that that wasn’t happening but promise to text me ‘code red’ as a warning to get my ass far away from that place in anything were to happen.

So I was alone finally and I had really fucking felt it. I went through a winter before looking through websites for adopting an adult feline. I had no preference other than friendly, pettable, I pick up and hug when I need it, but independent. Spoilers(with tears coming down my face I was able to find that. Sorry I thought this was going to be easier) Before our paths would tangle as the dove with my brother and I’s wrestling match, I first looked on the local humane society website to look for potential companions. While I knew I wanted an older cat because of less time training and the idea of giving an older cat a better life, I saw a green eye, black cat with the christen name ‘Monica’. Now if you want to take this moment to go back to the top of this tale and look at the author’s name, I too am named ‘Monica’. What kinda psycho names a cat with a human name like ‘Monica’? I’ve heard names like Sprinkles, Scooby, Donut, Ringo, Chucky, and just about any reference to a greek god/goddess or dessert. Who was the previous owner that watched too many episodes of ‘Friends’ that decided to name a kitten Monica? I quietly laughed in my lonely one bed-room and moved along the website until the next day, on May 21, 2018. A week before my 28th birthday, my little cousin and I drove our way to the adoption center to look at cats that I had no idea whether I would go through with it or not.

“There’s a cat there named Monica?” my cousin had asked after I told her the musing I did the night before.

“ Yeah, she was cute but I can’t take her! I’d look insane.”

“ You don’t know Monica, maybe she is the one.”

“ Hell fucking no.”

We got out of the car and walked in. The front desk had a box of kittens that needed to be processed in. Their mewls were delightful to hear but were too young to be adopted out. I had signed in and asked ‘what’s your most friendliest outgoing cat here right now?’ The person attending us was quick to say all the cats were great but in her time there she had gotten to like a cat named...Monica. I could feel my cousin's smirking gaze on me. I was not going to subject myself to ridicule for having a cat with my same namesake thank you very much. There were many potential companions to see anyway. Some very old and very young. One with just an eye that I was close to choosing and others with large ears that reminded me of season 1 of ‘Girls’ Adam Sackler. But in the room with both a ‘mr and mrs. Incredible’ was also the notable cat named Monica. Let me tell you a little about the cat that will soon be renamed ‘Baby’. She knew how to get ya’ to want her affection. She knew that being present, unafraid. In the open, fluffy with hints of grey and a rich reddish brown coat along the black, open wide green eyes and a meow that was certain. She was her own saleswoman. In a true cliche, I was ‘hook, line and sinker’.

After $90.00 in cash, in a cardboard ‘cat carrier’ and her meowing away, I took a female, domestic longhair, black, eye color that was the color green. Birth Date 10/2009, formerly named ‘Monica’ home. Our first week, I thought she wanted to get close to me at night so when I awoke to a bat that brushed across my face and not her, that was fun. Eleven shots and two weeks of follow up maintenance shots for rabies, we had gotten familiar to one another. I would feed her half a can of wet food at 5:30 am before my morning shift at my part time job at the dmv and feed her the rest at night after my shift from my salon job. She lay on her back sometimes when we were both in the living room while I enjoyed binging on tv. And meow when I say ‘what?’ when we would eye at each-other. She will follow me to a basement apartment that I shared with my close friend David. We call her ‘pizza’ baby because of the time she climbed alongside the back of the couch while we were eating pizza from Pizzaroni. I felt a tug on my left arm that was holding up my cheese slice. When I looked, she was leaning far to reach my pizza to eat it. Not a successful attempt that time but she will try again. She constantly wanted the attention of David to which he would gladly and promptly pet her while she purred and then quickly turned around to bit his hand away. He always gave her the attention though. For that I am grateful for David. You made sure she ate and loved. You affectionately talk about her to your parents on your long distance phone calls with them and tell your two ideal brunch buddies about your time with Baby. You were the best coparent for her when I would leave for a week long trip to Europe or weekends away to work conventions. She loved you. You had to know that, and you Mike. She loved you too. But she didn’t love the dogs that would shit all over the backyard on the walkway to the trash. Those assholes.

Her next adventure with a month long excursion to my dad’s house before the final move together. While I worked my last few weeks at the salon to save for the time that I would become a true ‘City’ woman. She would find ways to break into my dad's room to lay on the middle of his bed and sleep. His heater would be right in her direction, while we sat unknowing in his recliner in front of his tv. He didn't want to like her. I know this. But who could meet a cat like Baby and not love her. Who would not love seeing a black cat go on her hind legs to look out the window that you have looked through to see the ongoings of the gentleman club next door. Yes, from grades eighth to age 26 I had lived in an apartment that was a stone throw away from a gentleman’s club that late at night, my dad would wake me up to see out the window and watch as the patrons would take pictures of topless dancers on the sign of the establishment before a game of ‘catch me if you can’ through the usual busy main street formerly known as The Bowery before 1867 however that should be left for another drawn out tale. Baby will have a final destination and despite her short time here, my dream of her sleeping peacefully near me while I lay on my bed on a raining day did come to fruition. Super Bowl LIV, February 2, 2019. Both my birth mother and I are hungover from separate nights from each other. She picks up my stuff, Baby and I. And we head to my current apartment in Brooklyn, New York. A dream that I have had besides the many others that will be done and accomplished, I swear. Baby is free to roam the car but she opts to explore little and sleeps most of the way to hear and then to Long Beach for two nights of rest. She walks around like the fearless cat that she is in any space she is in. Never cowers. Never shows fear or intimidation. She is fucking awesome in all her glory and we live together here for another six months until she seems to not to be herself.

As I live in a time of fear for my health during a pandemic, I don’t realize that Baby could be going through a decrease of quality of life with some kind of kidney failure. It was all too quick the deterioration in her appearance and behavior. I was quick to get her to a vet but the results showed more than we had thought and I had to bring her to an emergency vet. They were so kind but when the doctor told me the treatment that would be done to her, I agreed to then going to reception to find out that I would even have enough money to keep her there for a day of treatment. I paid for blood work, exam fees and medicine just to try and figure a way and she seemed to perk up again and walk her way to her favorite rooms to look out the windows or spy on us watching another extructating episode of White Lines. But she wouldn’t eat. For almost three weeks she wouldn’t eat and I had to force feed her food but she didn't want it. I would just get frustrated and I’m sure she was frustrated with me but why wouldn’t she just eat and take the medicine and be like another girls cat that has had kidney failure for years but the cat was still going? Why?

I knew what was going to happen if I made another appointment. I knew and I didn’t want to know. I just had to make the appointment because what if? What if, despite the week before she was back to her ‘old self’ she got even worse the following week, and couldn’t even walk in a straight line. What if her constant sleeping was just her trying to heal herself? What if I bring her one more time and they have a better option that I can afford and I can bring her home and she could lay right beside me on the bed like she use to and look at me with her beautiful green giant eyes that a kid once said were evil eyes but your are dumb kid, really dumb. What if? That’s not how it goes though. We know in our souls when it’s time to say that horrible and final goodbye. So we push through, kiss them more and hold them close and bring them to the vet. We will wait and listen with tears already shed for the answer we didn’t want. The answer that didn’t fit with the what ifs. And you try to say your goodbye while uttering so many I’m so sorry. This isn’t a mom in hospice or a phone call from the police saying your sibling has passed. It’s nothing close to seeing the numbers of people dying from a virus or you dad getting in an accident and obtaining horrible injuries. Those pains are harsh, and grasping air. Those pains affect the heart, and brain for the rest of your life. Baby is like one in a million pets that people have lost. There will be millions of pets to come and go after my time here. However Baby was mine for a short time, but mine. I love her. I miss her. I feel her but I know she can never be here with me again. Feeling her not in the room with us but still having her body left was eerie. She made me happy, and loved like a familiar to its owner. Her snores by my head will be missed. Her purrs and weight on my chest. Her constant knots in her long hair. Her allowances of my kisses on her head. Goodbye Monica, Goodbye Baby.

END

#personal #personal essay #animals #pets #memior #funny story #sad story #healing #writing #creative writing #essay #artiemoonqueen #writer #relatable #relatability #pet death

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fyrapartnersearch · 4 years

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Come End The World With me. Post apocalyptic 1x1 Long term roleplay.

My name is Margarette. I am a Twenty four year old transwoman and you can call me Marge or Shadow. I am one of the most Friendly partners you'll find and as long as you respect me I will show you equal Respect.

ABOUT ME

-I live in the Central Timezone US. I am active almost every day right now but I do have a life and I will be gone from time to time.

-I have been roleplaying for about eleven Years and it is one of the most important things in my life right now.

-I am here to makes friends and experience Worlds that we may never have the chance to see. (Honestly, That may be a good thing when it comes to this ad.)

-I am a proud dog Mom and she just got over being very sick.

HOW I ROLEPLAY

-I roleplay in third person past tense with proper Grammar and high detail.

-I use Multi-para and Novella style and my responses will never be less than three paragraphs and as many as ten or more depending on the situation and scene.

-I include Dark themes such as mentions of suicide and Depression in my post apocalyptic roleplays. If those and other dark themes trigger you, this may not be the ad for you.

-I will include smut and romance. Romance is a must for me and smut goes right with it. I am open to BDSM and some rough stuff but I am always in love with some passionate Love making. I will not however take part in necrophilia, toilet play, rape, underage, or blood play.

-I am currently only interested in doing M/F and F/F pairings. I am willing to play the male but I prefer to play female.

WHAT I AM LOOKING FOR AMD MY RULES

-I will only roleplay with people who are 18+. Non-negotiable.

-please don't ghost me. I have no intention of doing so to you and I would like if you tried equally hard to avoid doing it to me.

-I would love a partner that can reply at least once a day but I understand that it may bot always be possible.

-I need a partner that is capable of providing A Minimum of three paragraphs per response and roleplays in third person past tense with a decent grasp of the english language and proper grammar.

-if you are interested in OOC chat and sharing music and References. Then come on over!

-I roleplay using Faceclaims and I would prefer that you do the same. I prefer realistic Faceclaims But I in certain cases, Drawn ones work as well.

-I will not Carry the whole plot, if we are goingg to roleplay I require that you pull your weight when it comes to plotting and World building. Bring me all your ideas bo matter how Crazy or dark, if It's too much i will tell you but I doubt that will happen.

MY IDEAS!

-The Fractured World: this idea takes place in a near future setting Where an extraterrestrial Plague ravages the genetics of life of on earth and infects the world's weather and Disatlster control technologies. Due to this, the world is wild and broken with rugged and shattered landscapes. Horrible creatures plage the Broken wastes and the only truly safe way to travel is by Vehicles equipped with legs and the capability to climb known as Crawlers and Walkers. There are major Hubs of Society that began to crop up after the Cataclysm and smaller villages beginning to form. But bandits and madmen swarm the Wastes Like rats Scavenging for their next meal. This roleplay could be done with us Playing a pair of rangers Trying to find somewhere better or we could take the place of two people Struggling to live in one of the major cities.

-A World In Ice: In the near future, War Ravaged Everthing. Food was dwindling and lack of resources prompted Conflict. Eventually a man came forward with a plan to Fix our atmosphere and get the crops growing again. He was successful and rose to be the leader of the United World Government. But years later, the discovery of an ancient weapon buried in the Arctic caused the militaries of the world to begin Reverse engineering it and building their own. They did this against the Warnings of their top scientists. When the weapon was finally complete, the first test was at hand. A weapon that would output a wave of cold so great that anything caught in it's path would be turned to ice but they did not Heed the warnings and think about the risks. When the test took place, the Effects of the weapon piggybacked off of the Atmospheric Cleaners in our skies and the world was thrown into the next ice age but this one was without end. The People caught directly in the blasts were Blinded and some were driven mad. These People mutated at an excellerated rate amd Became known as the frostbitten. There are a lot of ways we can do this one and I would love to hear your ideas.

-Anything you can think of. Bring me your ideas and I would be willing to build a world with you.

CONTACT ME!

Find me at Shadow wind#4233 on discord. That is where is usually roleplay but I am willing to use Google Docs if that is your prefered platform.

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monsters-demons-and-ai-oh-my · 5 years

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What We Lost and What We Have: Chapter 2

May 18, 2000, the night Sam learned 3 things.

John had cheated on Mary. Kelly Kline was dead. And his younger half brother Jack was born…

Nearly 17 years later their family never really recovered. But after a panicked phone call from Jack's uncle Castiel, their family will never be the same.

"It's Jack, there's something wrong with Jack..."

AU somewhat inspired by Episode 2x20 - What Is and What Should Never Be, and the season 14 storyline concerning Jack's illness.

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AO3

Previous Chapter

Complete Tumblr Chapter List

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Chapter 2: A history of dumbassery, inadequacy, and definitely not a dog

“Dean are you still there?” Castiel’s voice was tilting away from fear into the realm of frustration and irritation again.

There was a long pregnant pause before Dean responded.

“What?”

He recognized the noises in the background of the call now. A tinny intercom with someone repeating a doctor’s name in a cool casual tone, distant the ringing of phones, a crying baby...the sounds of a busy emergency room.

“Jack he…” Castiel took a shaky breath trying to center himself, “we… we went back to our hotel after… what happened at the cemetery.”

He seemed finally balance himself on the rock that was being annoyed with Dean. Dean was too damn tired to care.

Castiel rambled “Jack said he was tired and had a headache so I gave him some Advil and let him sleep. I thought he was fine, upset…" he jabbed the word at Dean, "still getting over the cold he caught at school but fine…”

“Just please get to the point,” Dean groaned, he vaguely remembered the teenager hacking up a lung in the graveyard earlier that day. “So what? Does the kid have the coughing plague or something?”

Castiel went dead silent.

“We… we went out for a late dinner last night and he…” his voice broke, “Jack collapsed… he had a seizure.”

Dean’s mouth went dry “...Shit.” was all he could think to say.

Dean’s medical knowledge didn’t really go beyond the basic first aid needed for the occasional burns and bruises that came with working around hot engines and moving parts in the auto shop. But years of watching… certain soap opera’s told him that was very bad. Unless...

“Is that… normal for him?” Dean asked lamely, he wasn’t exactly an expert on Jack’s medical history.

By the time Jack came around Dean had already moved out, and he hadn’t been exactly been going out of his way to spend time with the kid in the few years Jack lived with John part-time. He’d only really seen Jack when John couldn’t first a sitter for work.

“Would I CALL you if it was?” Castiel nearly spat voice shaking clearly regressing back into panic mode.

Dean bit back a spiteful, “Then why the fuck did you call!?”

He wasn’t heartless. Even if the two people in question were people he’d pay good money to have not come within the same state as him ever again. A kid in the hospital… it was some rough shit.

When Sam was little he’d broken his arm jumping off the front porch railing of their house trying to be Superman. He remembered his parent's frantic frustrated arguing on the way to the hospital about who was supposed to be keeping an eye on Sam. His mother trying gently to get him to sit still for the x-ray. The sound of Sammy crying.

He settled on the slightly less harsh. “What do you want from me then?”

Castiel gave a long-suffering sigh, the one he inevitable heard whenever he tried to speak to the man, like he was trying to explain physics to an eight-year-old.

“They… they want to run tests, blood, an MRI, I know one thing they’re testing for is meningitis, and if it’s that’s what it is…” He let the sentence hang.

There was another voice in the background of the call. probably a nurse by their soft reassuring tone and Castiel’s uneasy thank you’s. He came back after a moment.

“Listen they're moving Jack to a room if it’s what I said... then the doctor will probably want to see you and your brother or… something. I’ll… I’ll call you later in the morning when he’s settled in, please just… get here alright…?” Castiel sounded as exhausted as Dean felt.

Dean suppressed a yawn, “Yeah… yeah sure just um… how about after the sun comes up this time eh?”

Castiel abruptly hung up and Dean blinked blearily at the phone for a moment before snorting.

"Typical..."

The combination of the liquor, lack of sleep and sheer bizarreness of the conversation were making the whole call feel surreal, like a bang on the roof in the dead of night you weren’t sure whether you imagined it or not.

Maybe whatever was going on with the kid would sort itself out by morning and he wouldn’t have to deal with this…

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Seven-ten the next morning Sam saw the big black muscle car pull up beside his hybrid in the parking lot of Lawrence Memorial. Dean exited the car wearing a pair of dark aviators despite the fact the sun had only just risen.

“Long night?”

Dean pulled off the glasses and shoved them into his jacket pocket shooting Sam a deadly glare, clearly not over what happened the day before.

“Did Saint Castiel tell you anything new?” Dean sighed draining the last of a cup of fast food coffee.

“I still don’t know why you insist on calling him that,” Sam said with a long-suffering sigh.

Dean tilted his head sardonically and tossing the cup in the bin by the door, “Yes... you do.”

“Let me rephrase that.” Sam's voice sharpened, “Maybe just don’t today okay Dean? Maybe for once act like a functioning adult, because this is neither the time nor the place for your bullshit…”

Dean stared at him eyes narrowed for a long moment before his posture relaxed and he shrugged.

“Okay.”

“Okay…” Sam said in mild disbelief.

Dean sighed and scrubbed at his eyes, wincing, “yeah fine, I get it. This shit it’s... crazy.”

There was a long significant pause.

“Castiel said he’d meet us up by the pediatrics ward…” Sam said after a moment studying the hospital entry’s diamond-patterned linoleum.

“Pediatrics?” Dean seemed to wince at the sound of the word.

“Yeah, Dean… Jack’s 16,” Sam muttered, turning to walk inside without another word. He felt like maybe it was time for Dean to stew on that fact for a while.

Things were quiet for the entire ride to the third floor, each Winchester fuming in their separate corner of the elevator.

The door dinged pleasantly before popping open to reveal a pacing Castiel his suit jacket rumpled like he hadn’t taken it off since they met the morning before.

“Thank god finally.” he breathed, “I was beginning to think…” he sighed and shook his head, “never mind I just… the doctor’s need you to answer some questions about... your family...”

Castiel trailed off seeming to lose interest in explaining turning on his heel and walking determinedly down the corridor to the ward entrance, Sam and Dean looked at each other for a moment before Sam shrugged and followed quickly behind.

“Is he… is Jack alright?” Sam asked awkwardly.

“He’s um…” Castiel sighed and paused to punch in a number in the keypad that kept random passersby out of pediatrics ward. “He’s been really out of it since we got here, he’s sleeping now.”

There was an electronic chime and he quickly opened the door, “he’s in the third room on the right…” Castiel muttered.

Something about the statement bothered Sam he quickly caught up with Castiel, “they’re keeping Jack on a normal ward?”

“Hmm?” Castiel blinked back sheepishly.

“It’s just… when you called you said they thought he might have meningitis,” Sam said carefully, “and if he did I doubt the medical staff would let us, let alone Jack himself near any of the other patients.”

Castiel stopped walking again but didn’t look at him, “No they um… he doesn’t have a high enough fever and or stiffness… they don’t think it’s that anymore…”

Sam nodded eyes narrowing slightly in confusion, there was something about that answer that made him uncomfortable.

It seemed Dean didn’t have any trouble putting his finger on what it was, “why didn’t you say that when you called this morning?”

There was an awkward silence inappropriately punctuated by the sound of children giggling in the distance. Castiel still didn’t look at them.

“I mean that was the reason you gave us to come today… right,” Dean’s words were deceptively casual.

Maybe it was his own vague hurt that kept Sam from telling Dean to shut up.

“What? did you think we wouldn’t come if we didn’t think It’d affect us?” Dean said cooly mouth twitching.

Castiel finally turned to look at him eyebrows drawn together in a warning.

“Dean maybe you shouldn’t…” Sam tried before being cut off by a hand, Dean’s eyes didn’t waver unphased by Castiel’s glare.

“Is that really what you think? That if you needed us we’d just let Jack, a kid, suffer? Do you think we’re that petty?”

“I…” Castiel’s eyes darted in the direction of Jack’s room. Through the window, Sam could just spot his blanket covered feet at the end of the bed.

“Do you really think we're that shitty of people!?” Dean’s voice rose.

Castiel’s eyes narrowed and he snapped back to Dean, “Think of you? I don’t think about you at all Winchester. I don’t know you!”

They both stared each other down for a long moment, sizing each other up. For a moment Sam thought they might start a fight right there in front of the wall mural of children of every race and color playing ring around the rosie, complete with a happy Sun.

But the seconds came and went.

“We would have come Castiel…” Sam said quietly.

Castiel finally looked up eyes watering slightly, and Sam could have sworn he saw the man’s hands shake.

“I couldn’t risk that…” he said softly.

The tenseness was broken a moment later by a sing-songy drawl.

“Well looks like the rest of the pissy party parade has arrived, so how about we take this little shindig out of the hall…”

Sam nearly leap a foot in the air, he hadn’t heard the nurse walk up, she stood behind him giving all three of them a smile that radiated the energy of someone who would just as easily disembowel them. With all their racket they probably deserved it.

“I’m sorry…” he glanced down at her name tag, “nurse Masters.”

She tapped her nails against her clipboard and gave him the same thin smile, “alright cupcake,” she tilted her head towards Jack’s room. “Right now there’s a very confused medical student sitting in there trying to figure out how exactly he’s supposed to get a history from RipVanWinkle, I figure he’d have more luck with you three.”

Cas moved first huffing softly quickly hurrying past the nurse seeming to forget the argument the second he was reminded of Jack.

Dean strolled slower behind the man still looking pissed off, leaving Sam alone in the corridor with the nurse who smiled at him expectantly.

“Right, sorry…” Sam unfroze and sheepishly followed.

Sam tried to look anywhere but at Jack when he entered the room, Castiel had automatically taken a seat in a chair on the far side of the boy’s bed his coat and a thin blue hospital blanket thrown across the back of it like he’d been camping there all night.

Dean was leaning against the far wall arms crossed, staring down a terrified-looking Asian kid in a lab coat clutching a clipboard to his chest.

By the time Sam took a seat beside the door and the nurse followed behind him the room was far too crowded for comfort.

In a room full of people he didn’t want to lock eyes with the unconscious kid in the bed suddenly became the least daunting sight.

There was an abrasion on Jack’s brow bone and a long bruise trailing down to his chin, like he’d fallen and hit head something hard on the way down.

Sam wished he felt more.

Jack was a pale stranger of a teenage boy, upsetting but...

Sam wondered if he was walking alone down the hallway and looking into the rooms if he would have even been able to pick Jack out of the other faces in their beds.

Seeing Jack like this made him feel pity and sadness, but seeing the deep-seated fear and worry on Castiel’s face

Jack was supposed to be family

Guilt bloomed in Sam’s chest. The only memory that he could pull up was at will was that Jack liked goldfish when he was two. He tried to look closer at the boy on the bed, pluck at the strings of his heart.

He focused on how Jack’s breathing was a little too fast and shallow, the heart rate on the monitor a little too rapid…

The kid was hooked up to an IV and about six different sensors, some wires trailing down the neck of his hospital gown one clipped onto the middle finger of his left hand. The opposite wrist and hand were strapped in a temporary splint, like his face probably a casualty of the seizure the night before.

The thought made Sam wince.

God this was a joke.

Someone cleared their throat “I uh… hello…” Sam broke out of his self deprecating reverie.

It was the medical student in the lab coat, gripping his clipboard and still nervously eyeing Dean. He yanked his eyes away to focus on Castiel.

“Are these the um… brothers you were talking about?”

Castiel didn’t look up from where he was straightening the blankets over Jack’s chest.

“They’ll be able to give you the information on his father’s side that I couldn’t,” he muttered distractedly.

“Half-brothers,” Dean said cooly from his position by the wall, “and I’m right over here.”

The nurse whistled strolling over to the side of Jack’s bed and picking up his chart.

“If nothing else…” she read, “Jack… will get a healthy dose of machismo today.” She frowned at something on the chart before clipping it back over the end of the bed and stepping closer to the monitor.

“Try not to make the med student piss himself okay? Bringing the janitor in here would put the room capacity over code,” the nurse said squinting at it.

“Is something wrong?” Cas asked her a little alarmed.

She gave him a smile no more sincere than her previous ones, but with worry and attempted comfort in the place of irritation.

“Don’t worry about it daddy dearest, nothing’s... changed.”

The way she said it didn’t seem all that positive when she immediately followed it up by leaving the room at a brisk pace.

They all stared after her awkwardly for a few seconds.

“A-about that history,” the med student said the tone of someone being forced to tell a joke at gunpoint.

Dean was still staring at guy though he looked more puzzled than threatening now. Dean had probably just been hungover in the first place and got the lab coat confused with the white wall when staring into empty space.

“Dude, I’m not going to eat you…”

The med student looked thoroughly unconvinced.

“Fine, you want history right?” Dean pulled one of the plastic chairs across the floor and leaned back against the wall, “ask away Kevin.”

The kid opened his mouth looking confused before glancing down at his name tag and turning red, “Right, um… your father?”

Dean turned to address his answer at Castiel. Castiel didn’t bother looking back.

“Died of a heart attack age 45, don’t know about his dad, grandma lives in Florida looking like she’s live to an ornery 105, anything else? I’m not here to hide anything” Dean shot the last sentence at Castiel before turning back to face Kevin.

The kid jumped.

“Y-yeah… your father’s heart attack, was it related to any pre-existing cardiac or pulmonary disease?”

Dean glanced up at Sam tilting his head befuddled.

“Heart and lung problems…” Sam huffed, “he didn’t have any I know of.”

“Yeah…” Dean looked down twirling his aviators in his hands, “he had high cholesterol, shitty bachelor’s diet and all that you know.”

Sam rolled his eyes and muttered, “yeah because that wasn’t his own choice or anything.”

“Bite me, Sam.” Dean grinned at him leaning back in his chair again.

“If you’re not going to be helpful then leave,” Castiel barked suddenly shooting both brothers a steely look.

The door slid open again and nurse Masters re-entered with her hands full.

"I leave for two minutes and you' start the orgy without me,” she dropped her armload of supplies down on the rolling table at the end of the bed and got to work.

“Listen I can and will use the skills I've gained changing the sheets of three hundred pound men solo to kick your asses out of here so behave…" she warned.

Castiel was quickly distracted hovering over her every movement around Jack.

Sam and Dean's faces mirrored mild shock.

"Did she just threaten us?" Dean said nonplussed plunking his chair back on four legs.

"I think so," Sam blinked.

"Can she do that? Like legally?" Dean asked.

Sam rolled his eyes, "I don't think she cares…"

Nurse Masters finished fitting a nasal cannula around Jack's face, marked down something on his chart, and left again flashing one last patent murder grin.

“Thanks…” the med student squeaked after her, quickly looking back to his clipboard when he realized everyone was staring.

“So um… is there anyone with a history of epilepsy in your family…” Kevin said not daring to look up again.

“Nope,” Dean sighed, distantly pissed again.

“Autoimmune disease?”

“Sam?” Dean said looked at him expectantly.

“No…” Sam sighed going to look through his emails on his phone, feeling more out of place by the second. He cleaned out his inbox to the tune of Dean’s repeated “no’s”

"Diabetes?"

"Nope," Dean yawned

Kevin tapped his clipboard with his pen, "Cancer?"

“Actually we did have a second cousin who’s died of cancer,”

“Oh?” Kevin’s head tilted up almost seeming relieved.

“Lung cancer, she smoked like three packs a day and worked in an asbestos factory,” Dean blinked and giving him a weird look.

“Oh…” Kevin trailed off.

“Cas?” a feeble voice broke the monotony.

Sam fumbled and almost dropped his phone, looking up.

Jack was waking up. The blanket shuffled slightly and he coughed hoarsely.

Castiel jumped and went almost immediately to hover over him.

The kid's eyes were half open glancing lazily around at the ceiling and Castiel like they weren't quite taking everything in.

"Jack?" Castiel asked voice quivered, "Jack I'm right here…"

The boy blinked dazedly reaching an exploratory hand up to feel the tube on his face tugging a little on the iv in his arm in the process. He blinked blearily at it for a moment and then his eyes snapped open breathing speeding up fearfully.

"Jack are you okay? hey hey, Jack… look at me…" Castiel said carefully laying a hand on his shoulder, "you're in the hospital."

Jack went stiff in his bed arms held awkwardly in front of him hovering over his chest like he was scared to move and accidentally yank on something important.

"No… no I…" he breathed looking around panicked, wincing, his eyes caught sight on the splint on his arm.

"I'm sorry…" he mumbled giving another hacking cough and tearing up, "did I… did I get in a fight? I'm sorry, please don't ground me…"

He didn’t even seem to notice Sam or Dean in the room.

"No Jack you're not in trouble you didn't do anything," Castiel quickly reassured him with a soft smile, "you… fell Jack…" his voice cracked.

Something in Sam’s stomach squirmed like he was invading something incredibly personal and private.

Castiel took a steadying breath that came out almost as shakily as Jack’s."Y-you had a seizure, Jack…"

The teenager’s eyes widened.

“Do you… do you remember anything about what happened?” Cas reached out to gently relax Jack’s arms back on top of his blanket.

“M-my head hurt… I…” Jack’s eyebrows furrowed in confusion, “I felt… weird, I went to the bathroom…” he trailed off.

Cas smiled sadly, “you did, and you locked the door…” he gently held the boy's non-splinted hand, “I really wish you hadn’t done that.”

Dean must have felt as out of place as Sam did because at that point with barely a sound he got up face unreadable and left the room.

Jack finally noticed his older siblings then roaming glazed eyes landing bewildered on Dean’s retreating back before shifting to Sam.

Sam’s chest jumped and he opened his mouth searching for something to say but Jack looked quickly away as if burned before he could get anything out.

It hard for Sam to resist following Dean right out the door after that. Instead, Sam tried to busy himself on his phone drafting an email to his work that he’d be a day late flying back.

“No no, I…” Jack face screwed up and he coughed again much harsher than before into his free hand, “I can’t,” his breath came out in a wheezy huff between coughs.

The medical student Kevin came to the side of his bed and picked up the control pushing a button causing the back to come to a half seated position.

It seemed to help because the coughing eased after a few moments and Jack was finally able to finish his sentence.

He cleared his throat, his pale face stained pink from the stress of the attack, “I… I can’t be in the hospital… we need to go home… I need to feed F-felix.”

"Felix? Did Jack have a dog or something," Sam thought.

Castiel comforted him gently, “Jack you fed him before we left, it’ll be at least another week before you feed him again.”

“Ah so… definitely not a dog then…”

“M-maybe you could bring him here?” Jack looked up at him hopefully.

Castiel blinked it was his turn to look confused, “Jack I don’t think they let pets in the hospital.”

“I… I’ve got school tomorrow…” Jack muttered conversation changing mid-stride looking unfocused past Castiel, “we… we have to go back.”

“Jack, you’re in the hospital I think they’ll understand,” Castiel shot the medical student a worried look.

“He’s um… they have him on morphine for the arm, he might be a little… confused?” Kevin explained looking a little unsure himself.

“Mr. Edlund hates me…” Jack muttered trying to push himself weakly up in bed, “he’ll fail me.”

Castiel sighed, placing a hand on his chest, “well then it’s good that I work at your school, I’ll just have to talk Chuck out of that okay?”

Jack seemed appeased by that and relaxed back against his pillows.

“I actually needed to ask Jack a few questions for the form,” Kevin said after a moment awkwardly clicking his pen.

Sam’s eyebrow rose, Castiel shot Kevin a look.

Kevin cleared his throat suddenly studying his clipboard like it held the secrets of the universe, “Um have you recently taken any drugs, Jack?”

Jack hunched up defensively giving Kevin a suspicious look, “Yes… but you gave them to me…”

“Okay,” Castiel broke in aggravated, “maybe now… isn’t the best time for that?”

“P-please don’t,” Jack cleared his throat, “call the c-cops…” he took a shaky breath and launched into another fit of coughing.

Castiel gently patted the boy's back as he curled in on himself coughing into his hands Castiel’s expression quickly turning to one of alarm as the coughing was broken up by almost choking gasps.

“Sh-should we call someone?” Sam asked nervousness sinking into his stomach. Kevin opened his mouth unsure.

It took a minute for the coughing to gradually ease, Jack’s face red and eyes watering as he shakily regained his breath…

“Are you alright?” Castiel asked, the hand not on Jack’s back gripping the bed rail like a lifeline.

Jack was squinting befuddled into his hand, “I… I think I coughed up a lung…” he mumbled before raising his hand for all to see, “look…”

The medical student turned dead white fumbling around for the call button.

Jack’s palm was coated in blood.

#Supernatural #SPN #fanfiction #Jack Kline #Sam Winchester #Dean Winchester #Castiel #angst #whump #illness #family drama #kinda a #sickfic

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