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mamaskillerqueen · 4 months

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Have A Beer For Me || Jake 'Hangman' Seresin

A/N: This is sad, and short, and contains mention of Jake being with a woman. There is also a main character death. If you'd ever like more to this story, I'd be happy to add more to this world. Also! Got inspo from this song.

“Well, I have the most beautiful girl in the world waiting in my bed for me… and I don’t have it in me to make her wait much longer,”

All of the men around the table made a collection of noises. All are in the booing category. It made Hangman chuckle lowly with a shake of his head.

“I have one more cheers in me, and then I really gotta get going."

Everyone at the table quickly lifted their glasses, clinking them together as Jake started the speech he had dragged them all out to hear. Everyone knew it was coming but not a single soul was ready for it.

“Boys, I do gotta ask a favour… you know, if I don’t make it back from this one.”

“Hey man, that’s not going to happen. We all know you, you’re gonna pull through without a scratch,” Bob interrupted but with a singular glare from Hangman he snapped his mouth shut. Any protests that would have ensued were quickly shut down.

“As I was saying, if I don’t make it back, I need a few things from y'all. For starters, I don’t want any tears. My girl will have that covered. I want y'all to have a beer for me, and to keep my truck going. Big off-road treks that get the old girl dirty,” Jake laughed, trying hard to not think about how mad his girlfriend will be at his friends when they come to steal his truck.

This was the part he was dreading the most. This was where he was going to beg them to keep an eye on her. He was devastated to be going on this solo mission. It was surely a suicide mission, and prior to having met her, he was all for those. She had changed everything and he hadn’t had enough time with her. The little diamond ring that recently found its home on her finger was a testament to that.

“I need y’all to keep an eye on her, and when the time is right, you gotta find her someone who will love her like I would have. You know she deserves the world and more.”

No one acknowledges the break in his voice or the hint of tears welling up in his eyes. If all of the guys around the table were honest, they knew that this was what tonight was about. How could they not? Seeing the usually unshakable Hangman in near tears was messing them up more than they’d like to admit.

“And to end this sap fest… I’m proud I’ve gotten to be a part of this squadron. It’s been good to know y’all. Thanks for givin’ me a chance. I know I haven’t always been the best, but don’t you forget to cheer for them Longhorns on the away teams side any chance you get.”

As Hangman pulled his glass to his lips and finished off his beer the rest of his friends slowly followed suit. Rooster was the first to finish off his drink after, watching Jake carefully as he shrugged his jacket back on. They made eye contact, and Rooster couldn’t deny the sinking feeling this was the last time he’d see his newishly found friend. A nod was shared as Jake placed a hand on Coyote’s shoulder.

Javy quickly rose to his feet and followed Jake out the front doors. This was the hardest for him of everyone. He was doing his best to not let it show. Jake never talked like this. Then again, he was never ordered to a suicide mission by himself before either.

“We were gonna get married. Gave her Meemaw’s ring and everything. You’re my best man. Just needed you to know.”

Javy let out a heavy exhale, because of course he was. There would have never been a question of that. He appreciated the sentiment though, and as much as he knew he had to let his friend leave to see his girl, he really didn’t want to.

“I know, man. Always did,” Javy finally answered. His voice was a little more shaken than he would have liked it to be but neither of them acknowledged that either.

Javy held his hand out, waiting for his friend to shake it. When Jake slipped his hand into his friends they pulled each other into a hug afterwards.

“Take care of her while I’m gone,” Jake whispered.

“You got it, big man,” Javy returned in the same whisper.

Javy watched his best friend walk away, and climb into his precious truck. They used to joke that she was the only thing Jake would ever love. Boy were they wrong as ever. Javy watched as the truck disappeared into the dark, knowing it would be the last time he ever saw his best friend.

Jake’s plane ended up going down behind enemy lines. There was no rescue team. All that returned was a folded flag. Javy handed it off to his best friend's other half at his funeral. They both cried as the guns went off. In fact, there wasn’t a dry eye in the whole squadron.

The whole squad, including Phoenix and Halo, had gone to almost every Longhorns home game just so they could sit on the visitor's side and cheer as loud as they could for the home team. And every Friday night, the first and last song played on the old jukebox at the Hard Deck is always Slow Ride.

Javy and the girl who had turned his best friend into the man they had all become so proud to know took that old truck out for a nice long joy ride at least once a month. He had even introduced her to a good ole boy Jake would have hated but was exactly the kind of guy he would have wanted for her. She hasn’t been ready though, and Javy wasn’t sure she ever would be. That dainty little diamond still sits nestled right where Jake left it.

Whenever the sun starts to set, and the sky is a brilliant shade of reddish purple, Javy finds himself with a beer that isn’t his brand down by the shoreline. He whispers the latest updates of life to his best friend, holds the beer up for a cheers, and tells Jake just how much he’s loved and missed with tears in his eyes.

#jake seresin x reader #jake hangman seresin #jake seresin #hangman x reader #jake hangman seresin x reader #jake seresin imagine #jake seresin x you #jake seresin angst #hangman angst #sad hangman #hangman fic #hangman imagine #hangman x you #top gun hangman #hangman fanfiction #hangman top gun #hangman #Spotify

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maggieswriting · 8 months

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My Girlfriends in a Band - James Potter

In which the marauders gang get to know the true side of James' rockstar girlfriend

Based off the ask by: @gfrttyuuuuuu

Warning: N/A

Faceclaim: nonsalemwitch on ig

James Potter x fem!reader

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❤️3.5k - liked by marymacdonald, your_username & 3498 others

prongspotter: well done to my amazing girlfriend you absolutely rocked that stage last night, and I hope to come and see more of your concerts in the future.

comments:

marymacdonald: maybe next time we'll come with you if black isn't too much of a pussy to be in the same room as her.

| thebestblack: hey i'm not the only person who's scared of her.

| lilyevans: yeah she can be quite intimidating.

your_username: it's no problems guys i get that quite a lot and i hope to see you again too jamie

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❤️2.1k - liked by themoonguy, your_username & 2098 others

thebestblack: okay so maybe she isn't so scary once you get to know her.

comments:

prongspotter: see i told you she wasn't scary, she just a little ray of sunshine once you get to know her.

themoonguy: your only find that out now, she's always not been scary especially since she brings me cookies before the moon fest.

marymacdonald: yeah black, you only thinks she's scary because she has tattoos and piercings you would never be able to pull off.

| thebestblack: well that's a bit rude

| regulusblack: but its the truth

your_username: glad to hear that, also thank you for the amazing day and taking me to the cat cafe i really had a great time.

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❤️10.1k - liked by prongspotter, lilyevans & 10098 others

your_username: thank you to james potter for showing me the best 2 years of my life I can't wait to spend even more with you, thank you for showing me what true love is and that every girl really does have a prince charming waiting for her out there, so happy two year anniversary to the man who has changed my life for ever.

comments:

prongspotter: no thank you angel for showing me true love that i could've only dreamed of.

|thebestblack: oh shut up you sap

|themoonguy: sirius you are literally crying at this post, i can see you curled up on the sofa next to me balling.

marymacdonald: aww happy anniversary sunshine and even bigger ray of sunshine.

#james potter x reader #james potter x y/n #james potter x fem!reader #james potter x you #marauders imagine #james potter #lily evans #marlene mckinnon #marauders era #remus lupin #sirius black #instagramau #social media au

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twistedcharismaaa · 6 months

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Ari Lennox 🖤

#ari lennox music #ari lennox #shea butter baby #dreamville fest #dreamville #my baby cakes #black women so beautiful #so beautiful #age/sex/location #away message #queen space #blackberry sap

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katyawriteswhump · 2 months

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Bed of Roses (steddie love month, day 17)

For @steddielovemonth, Day 17 prompt: Love is about a hand reaching out to you so you don't get lost (@yournowheregirl ) Thank you <3

Rating: M. CW: prostitution, unwanted kink/abuse/pet-names (NOT between Steddie) alcoholism, substance abuse. Tags: rockstar Eddie, rent-boy Steve, make-up fic, angst, shameless perversion of Bon Jovi lyrics. WC: 2,000.

...

“'Cause a bottle of vodka's still lodged in my head…”

In his dressing room, pre-show, Eddie grasped his second bottle of vodka in an unsteady hand.

“…and some blonde gave me nightmares; I think that she’s still in my bed.”

This was NOT GOOD. Eddie had gotten sap-fest Bon Jovi lyrics slithering around his brain. He couldn’t for the life of him remember his own lyrics.

“Hey, Amigo,” he announced to the vodka. “I got a venue of ten thousand to entertain, and you’re literally my Obi-Wan—my only hope.” He caressed the bottle’s label. “80% proof, huh, Baby?”

I’m serious, Eddie, you’ve had enough. You WANT to follow Kurt Cobain into the 27-Club?

Riiiight. That was not a Bon Jovi lyric. That sounded more like Steve Harrington, in sensible-parent mode, hands planted on his slender hips.

The tears struck fast. Eddie clonked the bottle onto the dressing table then followed it, pressing his heavy head to the glass.

He seriously didn’t want to die. However, he was so through with this life. Of any life, without Steve. The cavity where his heart once lay veered between grating emptiness and an unbearable pain.

His fingers twitched toward the bottle. Screw it, the show must go on, and he’d lost his only light in the darkness…

“… as I dream about movies, they won't make of me when I'm dead.”

That still wasn’t one of his own darn lyrics. In fact, he couldn’t remember a single goddamn word of any of Corroded Coffin’s songs.

A sharp knock on the dressing-room door had him squealing like a little piggy. An old guy poked his head in.

“Who the hell are you?”

“You hired me, Mr Munson. Dirk Gordon—Private Dick?”

“Ah… Yeah, so I did.” Eddie’s rotten heart hammered way too fast. “Have you..?"

“Yes, Mr Munson. I believe I’ve found him.”

…

“What do you mean, you're not gonna pay me?” Steve wrapped his arms tight around himself. The only heating in his boss’s rundown office came from the guy’s endless chain of cigarettes. “I spent the whole evening simpering at that old dragon. You told me she liked music—I talked music endlessly.”

“You yammered on about some death-metal garbage. She likes Wagner.”

Steve wrinkled his nose. “What’s Wagner? That crusty old film-star?”

“Oh, Steve, Steve, Steve. What am I gonna do with you?” His boss sauntered around the desk and hooked an arm around him.

Jesus, you stink.

“You’re good-looking, kid, you’re charming, but you simply can’t cut it with that kind of high-end client.”

“She seemed happy.” Steve shrugged his shoulders, failing to shake the guy off him. “She paid you, right?”

“Not the full whack, and you got a fancy meal out of the bitch. Look, I’ll give you your cut, if you do better tonight.”

He squeezed the back of Steve’s neck. Steve tried not to shudder. When his boss produced a piece of paper and wedged it down the back of Steve’s skin-tight jeans, he stopped trying to hide his revulsion.

“Details are all there. He’s a banking exec, early forties—no more dinners and dances with Doris, you’re spending the night at his house.”

A dry lump clogged Steve’s throat. “Is he gonna want..?”

“Sex? Christ on a bike, what trade do you think you’re in?” He squeezed Steve’s butt.

“Jesus fu—” Steve bit his lip, fixed on his damp sneakers.

“Believe me, Steve, your hair ain’t your best asset. You’re gonna have to sell that plump lil’ ass for real, sooner or later.”

Steve flinched, then schooled his features as blankly as he could.

“This guy’s got a few kinks, but as Johns go, he’s a pussycat.” He lifted Steve’s drooping chin with his knuckles. “Show him what ya got, Sport.”

Steve couldn’t get out into the drab morning fast enough. He retrieved the paper from his underwear, shoved it in a pocket unread, then stumbled, zombie-like, into a diner. “Black coffee, please? It’s an emergency.”

The waitress smiled. “You want breakfast, Steve?”

He shook his head, though his stomach grumbled.

He ended up slumped on the table, his face pillowed in his arms. Christ, ‘male escort’ had never seemed like a great idea, but he’d figured the pay would beat waiting tables. So how come he was still behind on his rent, and that he still couldn’t afford to eat some days, let alone buy his pain meds?

He muffled a miserable laugh in his elbow. He genuinely wished he could afford to get smashed, get high, because nothing could fill that gaping black hole of pain. Even worse, one of his fave Bon Jovi songs was playing on the radio, and SO not helping:

“Tonight I won't be alone, but you know that don't mean I'm not lonely.” Shit! He was fighting back dumbass tears already. “I got nothing to prove, for it’s you I’d die to defend.”

Why the hell did he run away? He can’t recall any reason that mattered anymore. “I’m sorry, Eddie,” he mumbled. “I miss you so much.”

Somebody touched his elbow, and he jolted up. “Sorry, hon,’” said the waitress, “we need this table for dine-in customers.”

“Right.” Steve swiped any tell-tale moisture from his cheekbones. “I’ll clear outta your way.”

...

“Ready for playtime, Bunny Rabbit?”

Steve’s skin crawled, and his face burned. He’d gotten his head in the client’s lap, and the guy was playing with his hair. It would be tolerable, he guessed, if he’d not so often laid in Eddie’s lap like this, and… Christ, Eddie! Steve shut out the unwanted touching and began to drift. He was so beyond tired. And that song from the diner crept back:

“Now as you close your eyes, know I'll be thinking about you. While my mistress—she calls me to stand in her spotlight again…”

The pinch on his cheek startled Steve back to the present. “You kipping there, Bunny Rabbit?”

“Uh… er, sorry, Daddy.” Uuuuuuurgh! “Whatever you want, Daddy.” He dared sit up. “I’ll grab a condom and, uh… stuff.”

“Hey, hey, hey.” When Steve went to rise, his arm was grabbed, and he was held in place. “I don’t like rubbers, Cutie.”

“You heard of this thing called AIDS?” Dipshit!

Steve wrenched his arm free. The guy raised his hand and slapped him. Which wasn’t exactly out-of-the-blue, because face-slapping had been listed among this repellent son-of-a-bitch’s kinks.

“I’m paying top whack for you.” He leaned over Steve, suddenly kinda huge and scary, not least because Steve now saw double. “Your pimp said you were clean, so I’m gonna have you any way I like.”

“I… uh…” Steve kicked the bastard’s shin and shoved him hard. “Go to hell, asshole.”

He fled out into the night, still dizzy from the blow. He pulled his mesh vest back on over his head. The icy wind bit, and he realised he’d left his only jacket behind.

“Jesus Christ! JESUS CHRIST!” He kicked a lamppost, holding back on venting the true force of his feelings. Still hurt.

He limped off up the street, fast as he could. The ache in his toes at least distracted him from the ringing in his ears. An hour later, he stumbled around the corner of his block, thinking only of throwing himself into his bed, while he still had one.

He was so close, when the hairs on the back of his neck stood suddenly on end. Through the haze of his exhaustion, he realised a car crawled up the gutter behind him.

Had Mr Happy-Slappy-Sleazebag come after him? Then again, Steve’s pursuer could be anybody. After all, he was walking through a red-light district, shivering his ass off. Dressed like the whore I am. Hahaha!

The car pulled up right beside him. A blacked-out window rolled down.

Steve ran, turning sharp up a dark alley, then… Shit, shit, SHIT AGAIN! He was only a hundred yards from his digs, and yet he was so messed-up that he’d sprinted up a dead-end.

He nearly kicked the bricks. Instead, he punched them, as if that would blast through the solid wall. He turned about, bit his grazed fist, and sank slowly onto his haunches.

Two figures approached up the alley, silhouetted against the lights of the street behind. Get up, Harrington! GET UP! His legs wouldn’t obey, and his breaths came only as rapid gasps. Nothing felt real anymore. Am I gonna die..? I’m gonna die!

A hand stretched out of the gloom.

Steve stared at it—at the familiar chunky silver rings, which couldn’t be real. He glanced up, and… wtf? It was Eddie, apart from it wasn’t Eddie. This dude looked more like Eddie’s ghost. Steve’s eyes fluttered closed.

Maybe I scored some Benzos after all, and totally ODd.

“Stevie?”

No mistaking that voice. If this was a trip, it was a good one. Steve pried an eye open, and Eddie’s hand was still there. Steve took it, let it help him to his feet, because… Why not? Suddenly, they were in each other’s arms, clasping each other tightly. This is real. You’re real! Eddie reeked of booze, and also of something devastatingly comforting and familiar. Somebody’s wretched sobs shook through them both.

“I’m s-sorry.” Steve sounded broken. “I-I honestly don't know why I left anymore. I was such an idiot.”

“No. I was the idiot. I’m sorry, too. So very fucking sorry.” Eddie sniffed hard, lifted his tear stained cheek from Steve’s shoulder. “I’ve not been doing so good without you.”

Steve blinked the moisture from his vision. He wondered if he looked as wrecked as Eddie—red-eyed and waxy pale, under the distant glimmer of the streetlamps. Probably. If he hadn't leaned against Eddie, his legs would’ve given out again.

He laughed, without knowing why. Eddie laughed too, and it warmed Steve’s soul. “Gonna be honest, Eddie—not been doing so good without you, either.”

…

When Eddie got out of rehab, Steve waited on the steps of the clinic, hand stretched out to take his. He pulled Eddie close, and then into a sweet, lingering kiss that renewed Eddie more thoroughly than even a lengthy booze-free sleep.

“I’m never going through that again,” said Eddie, his lips still brushing against Steve’s.

Not least because I never ever want to be parted from you again, even for a fortnight.

“Yeah, but you’re dry, Eddie, and you’re alive. I’d say that’s goddamn metal of you.”

They started back to the car, hands still clasped tightly. “Not gonna take credit, Stevie. You’re what got me through.”

“You might’ve got me out of a fix, so we’re even.” Steve’s sigh rode on a wistful sadness. “I mean, I was so lost. Thinking of you was all that kept me… I dunno, alive, I guess. You know, I kept on thinking about that Bon Jovi song.”

“Uh, you know how I feel about Bon J—"

Too late. Steve burst into song: “Well, I'm so far away, each step that I take is on my way home. A king's ransom in dimes I'd give each night to see through this pay-phone—”

Eddie pressed fingers to his boyfriend’s parted lips. “As much as I hate cutting you off in your prime—two teensy-weensy issues. Firstly, I had no idea where you were, and you never called! Second, what’s wrong with my blood-and-death drenched lyrics?”

Steve took Eddie’s fingers and kissed them: “Hurt too much to think about them.”

“You know what, Sweetheart? Hurt too much to sing them, without you around. Even though none of them are actually love songs.” Eddie raised his gaze to the heavens, and looped his arms around Steve. “Go figure.”

“You sure they’re not love songs? C’mon—they’re all secretly about me, right? Only coded or something. I’ll crack it one day.”

Steve’s gently mocking smile destroyed him, in the best possible way. They tumbled into a French kiss, and he resigned himself willingly to the only thing that mattered:

“And the truth is… Baby, you’re all that I need.”

...

Thanks for reading <3 Likes, comments and reblogs always much appreciated :)

(also part of my steve whump fic series on ao3).

#steddielovemonth #steddie #steddie fic #steddie fanfic #steve harrington #steve harrington whump #steve harrington x eddie munson #eddie munson #steve x eddie #rock star eddie munson #steve harrington fanfic #stranger things fanfic #steddie fanfiction #eddie x steve #steddie love month

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dirty-bosmer · 8 months

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Forgotten: Treacle

Here with my first and probably only @tes-summer-fest contribution of the year. I've been pretty busy this summer, but I'm happy to have participated at least once :)

Written for @atypicalacademic, who inspired me to continue Scar-Tail's story past his canon quest line. You were so right. He deserves happiness 🥲

summary: Scar-Tail, the wind calls, and the Hist remembers even if you refuse to. On the night you breached your shell, the Shadow blotted out the sky. It was to be your shroud for all your days, first to last, a gift you’ve disgracefully abandoned, and though you may run, the cold loving embrace of fate forever skitters in your wake.

Stop for only a breath. Look down, find it bloody, here, returned to you, blackened flesh under its claws, scrabbling at your heels.

warnings: non-graphic mentions of death and dissolution

Ao3 link: here

Scar-Tail doesn’t speak his name anymore, not even in his native tongue. He wonders, if enough time passes, will he ever forget its rhythm or will it quake within him always like a second bloodbeat? Some days he feels it trapped behind his teeth— the sibilant shape of it, the phantom weight of it, the gathering swell in the hollow pocket of his throat. The Hist still speaks it in his sleep where formless figures call him by the name his brother called him, and even in dreams the name is doused in venom. Even in dreams, the only ones who speak it want him dead.

The knife that sleeps beneath his pillow isn’t there when he reaches, but he feels it like the ghost itch of an amputated limb. His magelight flares. The looming darkness in the corner is revealed as merely shadow. Still he sleeps with the candle burning, for even shadow he is hesitant to trust these days as he was one once not very long ago, remembers that the darkness wears a sinuous smile, and he knows where it hides its teeth.

Two days, and he’s on the road again, a stranger bound to Nirn by a will and only a will. Rootless, unmoored, his body has become a foreign thing— spines ground down as the face sculptor recommended and belly fattened on unfamiliar foods. In Bruma, he discovered a taste for mead, and he likes it too much. The sweet amber color, the heady wave of its warmth. ‘Like drinking liquid sun,’ he told the barkeep, and it earned a laugh and another round on the house. These days he gets drunk on the smallest kindnesses. These days, he no longer feels like something trapped inside a jar.

If Ocheeva could see him like this, she’d recoil, wouldn’t recognize him. If Ocheeva could see him like this—

Citrine eyes in a face of jade scales. The memory sears sharp, but one day the fleshwork will heal the brand. He scratches at it, picks at it like an old scab, and strews the roadsides in eggshell and pale, stringy yolk as he births himself from the detritus of the life clinging to his heels.

Every new city demands that he is less of his past self, so he chokes it down and rolls new names on his tongue, hoping to forget the bitter taste of the Hist— Maheelus. Tanaka. Vetra-Mahei. Sings-in-Silver— but the sap runs through him like iron through a vein, and though Scar-Tail is fading, if the wind asked his name, what could he tell her? What could he offer if only breath?

—

Wake up one morning and find yourself dissolved beside the shadow left behind when Magnus pulled all darkness from the sky. When you leave the bed, you leave your old body too, a ghost peeled out from the pool that once was your lungs, and you wrangle its waters down a new stream, shape its banks to hold a new life. Touch the mirror. Touch your bare-faced spirit. Ask if it’s the same at the root now that you’ve stripped its branches clean. Become a new shape. Wear a new face that strangers wave to in the streets without fear, for you are a Saxhleel made of grafts. Look, all rough burls sanded down. Every scale is now smooth to the touch.

Yet the Hist still reads your scars, the ones you thought the magic had healed over, knows you bleed black sap when cut open. You are ku-vastei, cannot be gentled, will never be talcum soft, and when the Hist sees the man you’ve stuffed your soul inside of, it knows his smile required so many knives to be carved.

—

Salt crusts on his scales as the sea mist dries. “Haul,” the shipmaster says, and Scar-Tail does. He’s been in this town too long but the pay is good and the work is hard, and he’s come to find comfort in the foreign smell of human sweat. In the evening, his shift over, he wanders Taneth’s harbors for the breeze. There, Abrim finds him, always does. He guides Scar-Tail down to the taverns where the rest of his crew sits drinking away their gold, and Scar-Tail follows, drawn to his side like some heat-seeking whelp. Inside, he sits facing the door.

The torchlight throws dizzy shapes on the wall. The tavern churns, and all around him is a froth of people as thick as the head on his ale. He won’t feel the buzz until the fourth beer if he feels it at all, but even without it, he’s content here. Here in the briny stew of the seaport with the salt smell and the raucous laughter, the human heat wrapped around his shoulder. Willing himself to weightlessness, he lets Abrim rock him side to side in the rhythm of shanties he never had the chance to learn the words of. Even when he tries, the melodies don't fit in his mouth, but Abrim’s smile is reassuring. Abrim is gilded in the torch flame. Every part of him is a different shade of brown such that Scar-Tail needs only look at him in flickering light to feel he’s travelled all of Tamriel’s woods, seen every kind of tree there is.

—

Two weeks, and new callouses have formed on the pads of his palms. He relishes the rope burn, the way the thick braids abrade compared to the slender wires of a garrote wrapped tight around each fist. Staring at the old knots on his knuckles, he thinks, this is honest work. This is good work, and at night the only part of it that follows him to sleep is the vision of a stained shirt, gleaming skin in the sunlight, the sweat rolling off like beads of oil.

Abrim’s ship is packed and set to leave Taneth, and the next time Scar-Tail sees him, he knows it will be the last. The thought floods him with a new kind of fear. It sloshes cold in his chest, clings thick to every branch of his lungs. He thinks, this must feel like drowning.

But the evening air is dry and spiced in sunset reds. Scar-Tail breathes, regains his footing on solid land. At the taverns, Abrim is as he always is, and he is warm in color, deep in scent, rich in sea-spun stories that fill Scar-Tail with as much envy as they do wonder for the sailors and storm-weavers that long ago swam these waters. Scar-Tail wonders if the villains in these tales were star-made as he was, if their cradles were lined in rot like his nest was with razors. If born on a different day under the light of a different constellation, would they have been heroes? Would they have lived on forever in the hearts of men?

The tavern roar grows muffled at his ears as the crashing waves lull him into dream. He imagines himself a new life, resplendent in the awe of those who survive him, those who love him enough to sing his name to strangers too. In this life, his hands are bloodless. In this dream, he’s never held a knife. Could he have it one day? Can he live a small legend, erase enough of who he once was to one day hear his name spoken with full use of the tongue?

The wondering is ripe, ripe enough to overwhelm him. In the ale’s reflection, he sees the palimpsest he’s become. The pitted wound that is Scar-Tail forms a craggy mantle beneath his skin, and there is little give when he presses, the tissue tough beneath. He is still there no matter how hard he’s scraped, Scar-Tail, full of pride, a mutinous tremor through the din. Though it reaches him as only whisper, that name is wreathed in wire, and the recurved fang of its echo sinks deeper with every twist.

What will it take to strangle this voice that has stitched its dying breath inside his ears? When he hears it, he feels like a missing person, like a part of him has ceased to exist. A sickness rises inside him; he tastes himself decaying. For all the poisons he’s swallowed, now immune to, it’s the acrid tang of dissolution that sends him rushing into the night to spew his dinner into the sea.

Scar-Tail retches, turned over in a bout of vertigo. Abrim walks over and pats him on the back. “Uta-’mei, what’s wrong?” he says. “Can’t handle the drink? Come, let’s get you home.”

Scar-Tail coughs. “What did you call me?”

“I’ll explain it another night.”

“When?”

Abrim’s smile is a sliver of opal in the sandstone. “The next time,” he says, “Come on now. Stay close to me.”

And even if Scar-Tail never learns what Abrim meant, he knows that this name fits better than any he’s given himself before. He likes the feel of it, Uta-’mei, the liquor kick of it rising beneath the sour spit in his mouth, and decides that if he dies tomorrow with no one else to speak it, his ghost will scratch it into his own headstone before he completely disappears.

—

Wake up one morning and find the world you lived in gone to dust. You lay shipwrecked, bare to the bone, alone in the silver light of dawn. New flesh will have to be sculpted onto your frame, but you’ve paid someone do it before. You’ll do it again. This time, even your shadow has left you. ‘Good riddance,’ you say. You will have to remake that too.

The sand of your past life clings to your soles, chafes between every toe. You count the grains knowing it will be the last time its coarse edges erode you. Soon, you will bathe in cleaner waters, be free of it, be glistening, yolk-filled and new. Now that you’re here, and he’s gone—

No, now that he’s here, and you’re gone—

Scar-Tail, the wind calls, and the Hist remembers even if you refuse to. On the night you breached your shell, the Shadow blotted out the sky. It was to be your shroud for all your days, first to last, a gift you’ve disgracefully abandoned and though you run, the cold loving embrace of fate forever skitters in your wake.

Stop for only a breath. Look down, find it bloody, here, returned to you, blackened flesh under its claws, scrabbling at your heels.

Sweet child, the wind calls, have no fear. This shade was to preserve you from the blinding harshness of the day that will turn your eyes to water in your skull. Sweet child, look at you, so lost now. Look, curled up, all fetal, how your own reflection cows you. This shade was to serve you as much as you were to serve the god who wove it, and even with your claws clipped and your teeth hidden behind hand-carved grinning lips, your bones retain their shape, always will until you break them. Raise a hand. Press it to the foamy shoreline to obscure the rippling image beneath. Find each finger whittled to such a sharp point that your touch will forever bear the risk of drawing blood.

—

The shop windows taunt him from his periphery, but he will pass one hundred more if that’s what it takes to prove his presence. His footfalls are heavy, yet he persists, learns how to walk again, how to exert his body upon the world if only to feel it press up against his feet.

But it is enough to be above ground, free to float like a loosed leaf, released from the mire he was hatched into. The wind tugs on the knobs that are left of his spines, and if Scar-Tail lives, it is not in name but in this ever-changing shape, this new boundary layer surrounding each limb. And he chooses to live here. Here where the sun bakes the earth and the water pulls all moisture from his lips. Here, tasting the salt in the air, the sunshine golden-sweet, like mead. Drunk on its light, he chokes, spills past the brim, and when he laughs it’s because the first breath he ever took was smothered in darkness; all light he’d drank before had been drawn in through gasps.

One hand in the ocean, the water moves freely through his fingers. He couldn’t divert it, couldn’t destroy it if he tried. To his reflection, he offers the jagged slash of his smile, and he doesn’t care what gnarled image stares back. He says, “Name me. Call me by the sigh that leaves your lips when I’m within you. I shred myself apart to stand before you here, reborn, and did I tell you how it hurt, to push air out of these new lungs?”

The sun sets over the Abecean, bleeds a burnt orange that reminds him of the light that lived in Teinaava’s eyes when they were young. It is by some secret alchemy that a longing still brews for the brother who asked for his heart ripped clean from his chest. Yet he still feels it, yes, love for the brother who believes him now dead, who believes Scar-Tail had been the one to betray him. He will feel it always, he thinks. It’s the gift he’s given himself, to love unbidden, to love when no one wants it, to thirst for life in great bursts that swell within him like sap bubbling out of a wounded tree.

He cannot quell it, not even if he tried. It will ooze from him in the next life too.

Tomorrow, he will travel north to meet Abrim in Sentinel, or maybe he will cross the deserts and find another town to welcome him home, but when he leaves Taneth, he will shed his last skin, and he considers the last person to speak his name was a woman who had been hired to kill him. When she offered up his heart, what did his brother feel in return? Joy to have fed him back to the soil? Relief to return him to the root?

He hopes so.

#Scar Tail #the elder scrolls oblivion #tes fanfic #dark brotherhood #tesblr #I wrote most of this in the rainforest with @dumpsterhipster #wrote the rest on the plane home :D #treacle

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