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mcfreakin-bxtch · 4 years

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Pairing: The Mandalorian x Reader

Warnings: Smut (slightly dominant reader in this one), swearing, some ptsd?

Word Count: 5.2k

A/N: Part five is finally out! I have about four or five more parts planned so far, if anyone has any ideas for future ones or any requests at all never be afraid to inbox!

The Mandalorian’s Love Series

(Oof)

...

Din had absolutely become insatiable since the last incident. His protectiveness over her and the baby had increased, that was for sure. Y/N had to talk to him about his constant eye, but at the same time she didn’t mind it, understood why he was more alert. He bought her a new set of armor, not nearly as good as his beskar, couldn’t find enough credits for it, but it would have to do for now, and even began training with her again; she actually really loved that comeback, for different reasons of course.

But most of all it was hard to get him off her. Din became more confident in that area the more time they spent together – although she was aware that it was mainly to ensure himself that she was still there – and it was getting to the point where he couldn’t even wait to get her back on to the Razor Crest. It sent a rush of excitement through her veins whenever he would pull her to an abandoned alley, push her up against the wall, and take her where anyone could see them.

The blaster shot not only affected Din, but Y/N as well, his words repeating in her head after their passionate lovemaking. The guilt from their fight from that night swept over her as she thought them over. The new nightmares that now plagued her mind daily showed from the dark circles under her eyes; the feel of the blaster shot piercing her skin, the face of the young, deceiving gunslinger was a constant reminder of what could have been. Din didn’t want to cause another fight between them, and so he did his best to comfort her, soothe the nightmares away with gentle touches and soothing words as she did with him, and to listen; she’d talk to him when she was ready.

This time Y/N stayed on the ship with the Child while the Mandalorian went to collect a small bounty. There were no problems on their end, she played with the baby most of the time before putting him down for a nap. When she heard the ramp to the Razor Crest open she got into a defensive stance, pulling out her weapon before she heard the familiar thumps of his boots enter the ship. With a sigh she set her blaster down and went to greet him. She found him down in the hull of the ship, barely getting a word out before the man was on her.

Ever since he felt her touch against his bare skin for the first time he hated putting his armor on around Y/N. It closed him out, closed out her inviting heat to his thirsty skin. But times like these would have to do. It was a stressful day, such a small job causing such a big problem for him, and it was barely enough money to get by and he needed her. Needed her to help him forget, to feel almost human again. And she was wearing a fucking dress today; the planet they were on experiencing a heat wave, even Din sweating horribly underneath his armor. He probably should’ve waited until he had gotten cleaned up, but he couldn’t find it in himself to care in the moment.

The dress was a plain gray, but it still looked so beautiful on her, hugging her curves in all the right ways. He could see some sweat glistening on her collarbone, between her breasts’, down the calves of her legs. He pushed her against the wall of the ship, being mindful of his armor as he placed one hand on her throat, barely putting any weight on it but the message was clear: stay. The other he placed at her mouth, pointer finger tracing her lips. Y/N knew what he was asking for and opened her mouth, tongue inviting and swirling and sucking on his finger, causing him to let out a choked groan. She finally took mercy and bit down on the glove, Din pulling back to slip his hand out of the glove and dive straight for her wet center.

Y/N moaned as he teased his middle finger around her swollen clit, coming close to begging before he circled it. She bit her lip, struggling to keep quiet as to not wake the baby. He trailed his fingers down to her soaking lips, almost moaning in response; usually he’d drag this out, making sure she was begging and withering under him for his cock, but that would have to wait until later. Pushing her panties to the side and helping her fumbling hands with his belt, he growled lowly as her hand circled his girth, swiping her thumb over the head of his leaking tip. Swatting her hand away, he swiftly turned her around, placing her front against the wall of the ship. Arching her back and running a hand down the length of her spine, he placed his forehead against her right shoulder and slid in, making them both moan sweetly. He immediately started a rough pace, gripping her hips as if his life depended on it. She deepened her arch, taking him in deeper as a result. The cool beskar armor felt amazing against her hot, sweaty skin and added more into the euphoria she was already feeling.

“Don’t stop,” Y/N begged, legs starting to shake. “Kriff Din you feel so good inside me.”

Din gritted his teeth, already so close to his orgasm, but he needed her to come first. Their breathless gasps and moans filled the ship,

“Fuck,” Din’s voice was ragged, desperate with release. “Touch yourself, babygirl. I want to see you.”

The words alone made her walls flutter around him. Before she could even move her hand, they heard the clatter of something dropping above them, followed by a small little coo. Scrambling to cover up, Y/N had barely fixed her underwear and pulled her dress down before the small little devil in question popped into view. The Mandalorian wanted to scream at the interruption as he fixed his belt, sighing heavily in frustration.

“We’re really pushing our luck with him,” he muttered. “He’s gonna catch us pretty soon.”

Y/N let out a tired giggle. He felt her hand caress his ungloved hand, giving it a comforting squeeze.

“Later,” she whispered.

…

Din hated this idea. But they needed the credits and this one of the closest options they had. Y/N had heard about the people the Mandalorian used to work with and knew that he wasn’t particularly fond of them now.

“This is a bad idea,” the Mandalorian mindlessly said to the Child next to him in the cockpit.

Once Ran’s space station came into view Din’s heart started to pick up.

“Before you say anything,” Y/N said when Din turned his seat towards her. “I’m coming with. You already said that you don’t really trust these people and we’re not going to have a repeat of last time.”

She did not want to tell him that she was also scared, scared that she might not be able to revert back to her old self, to the self that was able to stand in front of an enemy without the fear or flashbacks. How she couldn’t even enjoy a drop of the glittery drinks she would try at the cantina’s they would visit anymore. She needed to try, to take it into her own hands now.

Din had spent years being able to his emotions and even body language from the general public, but it was hard to with her, the woman who had broken down most of his barriers. She immediately felt guilty for the last part when she saw him audibly flinch, but it needed to be said. She couldn’t let him go alone again when he needed the help. She could see that he wanted to argue before sagging with acceptance.

It only took two steps for him to stand in front of her, placing a hand on the back of her neck and placing his forehead on hers before going to secure the Child into their room; Y/N only recently found out that that was the equivalence of a kiss, of showing his love for her.

To be honest, Y/N was sort of excited and nervous at the same time to see this part of Din Djarin’s life rather than just hearing it; she had wished, though, that it was under different circumstances.

“Mando!” They both turned, seeing an old acquaintance and a short man with long, shaggy hair all around.

“Is that you under that bucket?” Ran teased, reaching out to shake his hand, eyeing up Y/N as he did so. “I was surprised when I heard from you. And who might this be?”

“Y/N.” She introduced before Din could say. “Partner of his.”

“Partner huh?” the man teased. The Mandalorian said nothing, only waiting to hear the details of their job.

“Well this was supposed to be a five-man job, but one more wouldn’t hurt. Follow me.”

Din was a little tense next to Y/N as they followed Ran, and it took everything in her to stop herself from holding his hand; she had to clench her fist to stop the twitching of her muscles.

“What’s the job?” the Mandalorian asked, voice stoic as it used to be before Y/N.

“Got one of our associates in a foul of some competitors and got himself caught. So we’re gathering a crew to break him.”

Y/N wanted to ask who this associate was but remembered Ran’s ‘no questions asked’ policy he had been quick to remind once questions started rolling and pierced her lips in a thin line. Din grinned under the helmet, being with her for as long as he had been, he knew questions were brewing from the woman trialing behind him.

“And you got a ship too, only reason why I let you back in here,” Ran told him.

The Mandalorian and Y/N both tensed. “The ship isn’t part of the deal,” he said, a warning growl laced behind his words.

“That Razor Crest is the only reason on why you both have a job,” Ran argued.

Din was shooting glares that could kill, and Ran could sense his agitation. He answered it with a laugh, leveling with the silver man.

“Is that gratitude under there?” Ran pointed, squinting his eyes at him.

It took everything in Y/N not to punch him in the face and be done with the job. If it weren’t for the baby on the ship, she probably would’ve.

“I think it is.” Ran was still chuckling when he walked away, towards the direction they had just walked in.

The Mandalorian was still tense when he turned around, giving Y/N a look before following. Y/N should’ve just stayed on the ship.

“Hey Mayfield,” Ran called out.

A man bent over some sparks looked up, raising his eyebrows at the approaches’.

“Yeah?”

“This is Mando, and his partner Y/N,” Ran introduced to him.

Y/N ignored Mayfield’s trailing eyes over her body, doing a poor job of concealing his interest, but Din made a mental note to take care of him later.

“This is the man I was telling you about,” Ran continued. “The one we did all those jobs with then. We were all just young, trying to make a name for ourselves but travelling with a Mandalorian? Brought us our reputation.”

Mayfield crossed his arms over his chest, sizing the Mandalorian.

“Yeah? And what did he get out of it?” Mayfield asked.

Ran chuckled. “That’s what I used to think. You remembered what you said?” He turned towards Din, who Y/N could see was clenching his fists and – she had gotten very good at reading his body language, a seemingly whole new language Y/N had to create and learn – it seemed as though he was trying to hide from her, worried of her reaction.

“Target practice,” Ran answered for him, laughing.

Y/N let out a breath she hadn’t realize she was holding. She wanted to take it back immediately once seeing Din twitch. She was a little shocked, yes. She had seen him angry and frustrated before, and they had their little fights and arguments, but never once was she afraid of him hurting her; it wasn’t that kind of fear that sometimes washed over her when she saw Din in those moments; could see the ruthless bounty hunter most were afraid of. It was fear that one day it would get him killed, that one day it would consume him entirely if something were to happen to her or the Child. It was the fear that maybe she’ll never truly know Din Djarin, that he would always hide parts of himself from her. Y/N looked at these as irrational fears in some moments, it was just her anxiety trying to get the better of her. Besides, it’s not like she was completely innocent herself.

“We did some crazy stuff, didn’t we?”

“That was a long time ago,” Din finally said, voice a little hoarse.

“Well I don’t really go out anymore,” Ran sounded a little disappointed from the lack of the old Mandalorian he used to work with. “So Mayfield is the main point. What he says will be coming from me, do you get that?”

Y/N and Din looked to each other, and even without seeing his face, they could still have their silent conversations. Mayfield looked annoyed but still smug as they looked back to him, the Mandalorian studying him.

“You tell us.”

There was a small moment of silence, the tension so thin you could slice through it. Ran, the one who seemed to have the most fun out of this situation so far, broke it with another laugh.

“Haven’t changed at all, Mando. And your girl, I can sense some spunk in her too.”

“Yeah, well,” Mayfield interrupted. “Things have changed around here.”

Mayfield glared back at the Mandalorian was he walked away, stopping only to check Y/N out some more when Ran stole his attention away. Y/N met his eyes, wrinkling her face in disgust when he gave her a small smirk, carefully listening to Ran’s and the Mandalorian’s conversation.

“That’s not saying much.”

Y/N giggled at the joke, enjoying Mayfield’s offense to it. They were introduced to Berg, who was eager to show off his bulky body and powerful strength, not wasting any time in showing off and trying to intimidate both the outsiders. They were both unfazed, used to being in the face of danger on a daily.

“I thought you said there were four?”

Y/N knew it was taking everything in him not to scream. She told herself to stay calm and focused not only for herself, but for Din as well; she knew it took a lot for him to return to this part of his life and wanted to be there with him every step of the way. He would probably say this later, but a part of him was happy that she was there with him; her presence alone was a constant reminder of the man he bettered himself to be and the people he loved and needed to protect.

“There are,” a voice answered from behind.

They all turned towards the source. It was a woman – Twi’lek to be exact – twirling a small knife between her fingers with a smirk aimed only to the Mandalorian.

“Hello Mando,” she greeted.

“Xi’an,” Din breathed in shock.

Y/N looked back and forth between the two of them, not liking the way the mysterious woman was looking at him; like they were well familiar with each other and she was beginning to be hungry for more. She knew he had others before, he could feel his blush under her palms when she held his face as he told her before their first time; it didn’t bother her, she had others as well, but actually seeing them was a different ball game.

Xi’an started to circle him now. “Tell me why I shouldn’t cut you down where you stand?”

Not giving Din any time to answer, she rushed forward, placing a knife at this throat. Y/N flinched, hand twitching towards her belt that concealed her knifes and blaster. Din, on the other hand, didn’t move a muscle.

“Nice to see you too.”

They all gave out a chuckle, sans Y/N and Din, Xi’an’s being particularly pitched as she moved away.

“I missed you,” she almost purred.

Her eyes finally fell onto the new woman, making a noise of surprise before turning.

“And who’s this?”

“Partner,” Din answered curtly before Y/N could open her mouth. “Y/N, she’s my partner.”

Y/N wanted to glare at him, but kept her eyes trained on the woman in front of her as she grinned mischievously.

“Partner, huh?” Echoing Ran’s earlier remark at their play. She didn’t sound convinced. “Forgot about me so quickly?”

Din could see the annoyance and jealously radiating from Y/N, as he was sure the others could sense as well. He hated putting her in this position. It was killing him seeing her doubtful, and – though it would take some work to get her to admit it – jealous and hurt. In the beginning of their new relationship, friendship even, Y/N would have her doubts on whether she was good enough to be travelling with the Mandalorian; she used to feel so out of place in his world, so incompetent. It took several speeches to assure her otherwise.

…

The teasing didn’t stop even when they were on their way to the prison. Xi’an and Mayfield were doing everything in their power to make sure that Din and Y/N were both jealous and angry. And when Mayfield not only touched but dropped the baby when in turbulence? They never wanted to hurt someone as much as they do in that moment. Leaving the Child on the ship alone with the droid wasn’t easy, even for Y/N. She rubbed Din’s back as he looked back, feeling the anxiety of the situation settling in.

Once inside they showed the hunters why they were partners in the first place. Y/N couldn’t help but smirk when Xi’an would notice how Din stood over her, how their movements together were as fluid and swift as ocean waves. She received a hiss in response.

But really, considering everything leading up to the moment of treachery, they should have seen this coming. Xi’an pushed her in first, Din pulling out his gun and before getting pushed in himself, causing him to fire a round into the closed off cell. The red dot blasted off everywhere in the room, magically missing them entirely before finding a spot to stay in.

Y/N sat against the wall as Din stood by the cell door, cursing as they laughed and left. She was frozen, breathing heavily as she saw flashes of Calican’s gun pointed at her blindly, could hear the shot of it as if it was happening all over again. The old scar throbbed under her skin, she was starting to sweat, and she had to close her eyes to stop more of the flashbacks from reappearing. The Mandalorian turned around at the sound of her breathing and his heart sank when he put two and two together, quietly crouching down by her side.

“Y/N?” He asked softly, careful not to jolt her. “Y/N, honey. Can you hear me?”

His voice sounded like he was in the next room, like it was through the walls, but she nodded her head anyway.

“Okay, I need you to take a deep breath and focus on my voice. Can you do that for me?”

Another nod. She took a shaky first inhale and a shaky exhale, could hear Din doing the same thing next to her with a hand on her shoulder, guiding her. After a few more inhales and exhales she started to calm, listening to the soothes coming from his modulated voice, still lovely as ever.

“I’m gonna find us a way out of here,” he calmly explained. “Once I do, I want you to go back onto the ship. Please don’t argue with me about this.”

Y/N didn’t have in her to and didn’t want to leave the Child on the ship alone any longer, so she agreed. She let him help her up on shaky legs, making sure she was okay to stand on her own before going back to the door. She watched as he waited for a droid to walk back, whipping his rope out to wrap around the arm of the droid and reel him to the door, struggling while he pulled the arm off.

“Okay,” the Mandalorian breathed out once the door was open. “Good to go?”

Y/N grabbed the blaster, nodding in confirmation. He took a step out before stopping, quickly grabbing her wrist to pull her over, placing his forehead on hers briefly before disappearing down the hallway. Sneaking away to the Razor Crest was easier than she thought – though she did receive some help from the Mandalorian watching the cameras – and quietly entered the ship, ears alert for any signs of life. Hearing the quiet little gurgle of the baby prompted her to move faster, climbing up to the cockpit where the droid had its back turned to her, gun aimed at the Child. With no hesitation, she aimed her gun at the droid and shot. Seeing the look on the Child’s face made her want to laugh, and she assumed he tried to use whatever he had against the robot; she was just happy he was safe.

…

“No questions asked, right?”

Ran was taken back before he cracked a smile. “Girl learns quick,” he mused.

“Yeah.” Was all Din said.

Y/N boarded the Razor Crest after their exchange feeling drained but happy with the outcome all the same. Sitting in the co-pilots seat to his left, the Child on his right, she felt a breath of relief whenever the X-wings flew past them to Ran’s station. Sending the ship into hyperspace, Din let out a sigh as he leaned back in his chair, unscrewing the metal back from the handle to hand to the baby.

“I told you that was a bad idea,” he said to him. The Child reached his hand out, taking the ball graciously. Y/N smiled at the image in front of her.

“I’m going to clean up a little,” she said to Din, getting up from her chair.

“Are you okay?”

Y/N stopped in her tracks, nodding her head at him. “Yeah, I’m okay. It was just…”

“I know,” his voice cracked.

“We’ll talk after I get cleaned,” she said. “I promise.”

Din wanted to talk to Y/N, hoping that everything was still okay between them. He was afraid of her seeing his past self, and Xi’an didn’t make it any better, her words echoing in his head.

“I’ll make sure to take good care of you new toy, Mando,” Xi’an had threatened as he placed her in her new cell. “Spare her before you ruin her.”

He had to remind himself that Y/N and the Child were waiting for him. That Y/N was an adult, they had this conversation plenty of times.

And he knew what she went through in that cell, and it made him see red; it was hard keeping his emotions in check, this was about her, not him, but gods did his heart break and blood boil when he saw her pale face, frozen in shock from the blaster.

When he saw the Child blink his eyes tiredly, he got up to put him to bed, going back to his seat afterwards and thinking about what to say to her.

“You have nothing to worry about.”

Din jumped a little but hid it well, turning his head to indicate he heard her. She was in a comfortable long sleeve shirt and light pants now, barefoot as she walked towards his seat. He turned until she was in front of him and rested his head against her stomach, wishing that it was her hand running over his hair rather than his helmet.

“I’m sorry about Xi’an,” he croaked out. “And what happened in the cell. I should’ve known-.”

“Stop,” she told him softly. “None of that was your fault. I know it bothered you just as it did me, even a little bit more.”

He scoffed. “Yeah, not sure if I want to do anything like that again.”

“We’ll probably have to,” she whispered. “But we’ll get through it. We always do.”

He liked that she always said ‘we’, made it easier to get through the days knowing that she was always by his side by the end of the day.

“Din,” she sighed, climbing onto his lap. Din instinctively placed his hands on her hips, tilting his head at her.

“I know that was hard for you, going back to that and allowing me to see that part of your past. But I really do appreciate it, and so does the Child. And I don’t see you any differently than before. You’re still my Din Djarin. Nothing you can do will make me hate you or cower away from you.”

Din was always shocked to hear those kinds of words from anyone for that matter, let alone Y/N. She was his beacon of light, his love, his hope, and maker it felt as if all his worries and troubles evaporated from them.

Y/N then grinned mischievously, settling more comfortably in his lap before messing with the straps to his chest plate. She rolled her hips subtly against his, and she didn’t miss the quiet intake and the squeeze of his fingers on her skin.

“I do remember being rudely interrupted earlier,” she teased, unclipping the straps and pulling the piece off. Then his shoulder pads. It allowed her to scoot closer to him, her heat contacting with his hips, making his roll against it.

“That’s right,” he grunted, tightening his grip on her. He was about to get up to take her to bed, but she had other ideas, placing a hand on his chest to stop him.

“She never made you feel as good as I do, right?” She whispered sultry by his ear, rolling her hips hard against his again. She heard him gasp, was close enough to hear it unmodulated as well. It made her hips stutter, Din taking handful of her ass in his palms, encouraging more from her.

“No, never.”

“You know I have to laugh at her,” Y/N said breathlessly, wrapping her arms around his shoulders, getting increasingly wet from the ministrations.

“She thought she had you, thought she could get to me. But could she when I’m the one you wake up to every morning? How I’m the one you take pleasure from, who gives it to you as well. Who’s tasted those delicious lips and who’s always there for you no matter what.”

Din couldn’t take much more of this, placing his feet on the floor to ground his hips against hers harder and faster.

“Always you,” he fucking whimpered, making her cunt clench around nothing and juices sweep from her; she was sure he could feel it, heard him growl.

“Gods Din,” Y/N whined pathetically.

“Tell me,” he stuttered out, breathing picking up along with hers. “Tell me what you want to do to me. Fuck I’d let you do anything, anything for my girl.”

Y/N moaned, trying to keep it low as to not wake the baby. She couldn’t form any coherent thoughts, words near impossible from the friction of his hips against hers.

She cried when he stopped, stopping her from moving as well.

“Tell. Me.”

“Shit I – I want to ride you. Right here on this chair. Fuck I’ve imagined it so many times, imagined your dick in my mouth as you fly.”

The words were flowing out of her without much thought, the words themselves combined with her airy voice made him harder if that were possible.

“Good girl.”

Before the words could relay their effect on her he pushed her off, not too hard or rough where she would fall, but enough that he could work on his belt. She took the hint and started with her shirt before her pants, only able to get one leg out before he grabbed her hips again, pulling her to his lap. His erection brushed against her stomach, hot and heavy against her. She groaned at the feeling of it.

“Close your eyes,” Din finally whispered.

Y/N closed them immediately, hearing the clank of his helmet on the ground before his lips hungrily attacked hers. It was all teeth and tongue as he ravished her, hands squeezing her breasts and roughly trailing over her body. She moaned and rolled her hips against his girth, earning a satisfied groan and a nip at her pulse point.

There was no need for a blindfold or complete darkness this time, he trusted her enough to know that she wouldn’t dare open her eyes.

“Turn around,” he growled lightly.

Y/N was going to, but placed her hand over his mouth, trailing the other over his chest, his nipples – which earned a groan from the Mandalorian – and reached down to line her dripping opening against his length.

“Next time,” she breathed as she took him in, both gasping at the feeling of each other connected.

He rolled his hips up, sheathing himself to the brink. He helped her roll his undershirt up, stopping just above his rib cage. She started a fast pace, too impatient to wait until she adjusted; she loved how his girth stretched her every time they were intimate, loved the pain that came with the pleasure.

“You belong to me,” Y/N growled. This new take of dominance coming from her was turning Din on even more, making him moan and thrash under her. “Just as much as I belong to you.”

“Yes,” Din groaned. “Always.”

She buried her face in his neck, pulling down the neck of his shirt just enough to feel skin, inhaling his scent and kissing every inch of the skin before biting down gently on his sweet spot.

“Y/N,” Din whined, hips jutting up faster and harder into her, feeling her walls squeeze him. “You’re gonna make me come too soon if you keep it up.”

“Good. I want it, need it.”

He grabbed a fist full of her hair, roughly pulling her up to stare at her beautiful face, constricted with pleasure, and kissed her, taking her bottom lip between his teeth. Y/N moaned into it, walls fluttering and clit pulsing as the curls of his hair brushed against it.

“I want you to come baby,” Y/N breathed into his mouth as she felt him pulse and twitch inside her. “Let it go.”

It only took a few more hard thrusts and a pinch of his nipple to come deep inside her, hips stuttering and voice choking. She came soon after, moaning into his ear and clenching her thighs around him and the seat. She sagged against him once their hips stopped moving, both panting. After their breathing slowed he placed kisses to her bruised lips and cheekbones before placing his head against her chest.

“If getting jealous does this to you, I might just do it more often,” Din joked.

Y/N chuckled, pinching him lightly on his bicep.

“Don’t you dare.”

Tags: @momc95, @treehousemagicblog, @riverquartzuniverse, @beepbeepyabitch, @smol-flower-kiddo, @harps-for-days, @teenagedirtbagg2, @goththespian

#the mandalorian #the mandalorian x reader #the mandalorian imagines #the mandalorian smut #din djarin #din djarin x reader #din djarin imagines #din djarin smut #pedro pascal #disney plus #star wars #xi'an #ran #mayfield #bill burr #baby yoda #the child

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doginshoe · 4 years

Text

I’m Gonna Put a Spell on You

@thewritingstar Part two of your @kuroshironekoserver secret Santa exchange piece!!

summary: Witch Academy AU. Juvia is frustrated that her relationship with Gray hasn’t gone anywhere since they had started dating and plans to fix it with the help of Lucy as the holiday season sweeps over the school. However, these two young witches have no idea of the consequences that come with love spells. Fluff & comedy & hurt/comfort pairings: Gruvia, Nalu, BROtp Luvia (julu) part 2 of 7: Incantation Accident:

Lucy finds out just how finicky magic can really be as the situation gets progressively more... bright when Natsu is around :)

When Lucy had finally returned to her chambers that night, she had fallen asleep almost instantly. Though, the blonde barely felt like she had a wink of sleep. Part of her knew that it was because her and Juvia had stayed up too late - the two girls not coming into their dormitory until the sun was just about to peek its head over the horizon - but there was something different about this exhaustion. Her eyes stung as the light filtered into the room, her shoulders sagging as a weight rested on her shoulders and her magic could barely even offer up a spark.

The witch was absolutely drained.

Reluctantly, Lucy pulled herself out of bed to the dining hall, quickly clipping on her familiars vessel to the loophole of her belt. Most mages could form the entity of the soul of their familiar before them or had their familiar come to them in a physical form. Every skill level of witch and wizards was different as well as their familiars.

Lucy frowned as she felt Plue through her magic. The blonde could still only bring her life-long companion to her if she used an inanimate object. She was stuck at the basic level of familiar magic and the thought of it always irked her.

Natsu never missed a beat when he saw that look take over her features, telling her that it wasn’t her fault - She hasn’t been exposed to magic like the other students. Yet, Lucy always felt her mood deflate when the subject was brought up. Even if her father had forbidden magic from her when she was younger, she should still be able to conjure up Plue’s spiritual form.

The young witch shook her head as she saw her friends gathered at the end of the furthest table, not wanting Natsu to offer her another one of his ‘talks’. The dining hall was practically empty, but they still kept their own spot that they had sat ever since they had started at Fairy Tail Academy. Though, there were a few more spaces filled around them now, it still felt like that first day when Lucy had gravy splattered all over her robes and in her hair by Natsu and Gray.

Erza had apologised immediately and then the two boys had followed suit - with a fierce glare sent by their fiery friend to help them get on with it. The rest was history.

The blonde waved to the girls, a wide grin spreading on her lips as she took her seat beside Juvia, quietly whispering to her partner in crime. “So, did you make it yet?”

Her friend barely even looked at her, her blue eyes trained on Gray and the glass beside his breakfast. The raven haired teen was resting his head on the wooden table. He always took the longest to finally wake up.

“Yes,” Juvia murmured, her hand shooting out to grasp Lucy’s as soon as the young witch sat down. “ Juvia couldn’t sleep so she went straight to the gardens. I.. I poured it into his drink when he wasn’t looking.”

Lucy’s brown eyes widened. “Has he drank-”

“Yes,” Juvia cut in, “As soon as he sat down, but h-he just put his head on the table.. Does… Does Lucy think its failed?”

She frowned, her eyes slipping to the boy across from them who had still yet to greet her. “I’m sure-” Lucy started but she was cut off as two arms encircled her, the scent of ash and cinnamon filling her nose. She sucked in a short breath.

“Hey Lucy.” A familiar voice breathed from beside her ear and goosebumps began to rise on the back of her neck. “Nice of ya to finally get up and join us.”

“N-Natsu,” she stuttered, heat flushing her cheeks a light pink. The arms tightened around her chest as he gave her a light squeeze causing the blonde to squirm in his hold. “How many times have I told you about personal space,” she cried and his soft chuckle filled her ears before her best friend finally pulled away.

Natsu ruffled her blonde hair. “Yeah, yeah. Respect the bubble and all that. I got it.”

“Then,” Lucy growled, “Why do you insist on breaking that bubble?” She turned in her seat, her brows narrowed as she scowled at the boy who had his arms crossed behind his head. He was already grinning down at her, his uniform disheveled much like the rest of his appearance. His shirt was crinkled and had ridden up his stomach to reveal tan skin and his robe had been loosely thrown over his shoulders.

However, that wasn’t what made the young witch's jaw go slack.

“Come on, Lucy. Lighten up would ya,” he teased, but she had no response.

She blinked. Then again. She even rubbed at her eyes, but she still couldn’t believe what she was seeing.

Natsu’s smile faded. “Uh, Lucy-”

“W-Wha… What,” she sputtered. Her brown eyes still couldn’t believe what she was seeing. It was impossible. “What happened to you?”

“Luce, are you ok?”

Lucy ignored him, his voice faint as she still struggled to believe what she was seeing before her. “You’re.. You’re glowing!” She nearly yelled as she pointed at him.

The rest of the group turned to face her, except for Gray who kept his head down on the table. Usually they were used to this morning routine of flirting, as they all called it though Lucy refused it was anything of the sort, yet the blondes outburst had all heads turning to face the duo.

Natsu raised his hands in the air, a pink eyebrow rising as his face twisted into confusion. “Whoa,” he called out, “Are you sure you woke up on the right side of the bed this morning? You’re acting weirder than usual.” The mage laughed nervously, his green eyes looking to his friends for help as Lucy shook her head.

“No. You are definitely glowing, Natsu.” The blonde looked at her friends. “Tell him guys.”

The table all stared at Natsu, then to Lucy and finally offered each other a nervous look. They were hesitant as she waited on their response and the blondes face slowly became more desperate the longer they all stayed silent.

“Bunny girl has finally lost it,” Gajeel laughed and then yelped, his hand coming up to rub his arm as he glared at Levy beside him who kept her eyes trained on the blonde before them.

Lucy felt a hand on her shoulder and she turned to Lisanna who sat on her other side. “Lucy… are you sure you’re okay?” Her blue eyes were full of concern as she looked at her friend and Lucy narrowed her brows.

“Yeah, Lu,” Levy piped up, “Maybe you should go see Porlyusica.”

The young witch shook her head, squeezing her eyes shut. “I’m fine.” She looked back up to Natsu, to the illuminating glow that surrounded his entire body. It reminded her of an angel in movies where an ethereal light would surround them. Except, this was real. She could see it plain as day.

“Is Lucy sure she got enough sleep last night?” Juvia whispered from beside her as their friends all looked at her as if she was crazy.

“I.. I’m not- He.. He is.” Lucy fell over her words as she tried to comprehend what was happening in this moment. It was true that she was tired, but Natsu… She couldn’t be seeing things. Lucy had stayed up countless of times and last night was no different apart from her drain in magic after the-

The witch froze in place.

“Love a sleeping violet lay.”

Her heart skipped a beat and her palms started to sweat, the dread making her stomach feel like a void.

“Eyes still covered and wander.”

Her brown eyes widened and she shook her head. She refused to believe it. Those words weren’t meant for her.

“Show thy love to thee. Shine the star and open thine heart.”

Lucy looked up at Natsu and the shine that was definitely coming from the boy. Her lips parted as she fisted her robes to stop her hands from shaking. It couldn’t be.

“To illuminate the one tis meant for me.”

Her mind flashed to when Juvia had spoken the incantation that she had found. To the magic that had hung thick in the air and how she felt the spark shoot up her spine. The signs were all there and yet, she refused to admit it. Her brown eyes turned glassy and she bit the inside of her cheek to try and keep her emotions in check, but her cheeks were already turning a harsh red.

“This… This can’t be happening,” Lucy whispered. She tried to concentrate on her breathing, her chest felt so tight that she couldn’t take in enough air. The only thing ringing in her mind was the last line of the spell. She knew exactly what it meant, but it couldn’t be. Not him. He couldn’t be… her soulmate.

“Lucy.”

She blinked and the tears that had built up in her vision cleared before slowly sliding down her cheeks. He was knelt right there in front of her, his hand cradled her cheek and his eyes swam with… fear?

“Just tell me what’s happening. I can fix this.”

She stared at her best friend. His green eyes never left her, his lips pulled into a frown as his thumb wiped away one of her tears, and the glow around him seemed to shine even brighter.

Lucy pulled away from him, shaking her head as his words turned into white noise. “I-I can’t...” she whimpered, standing up from her seat. Natsu reached out for her, but she was already running out of the dining hall.

“Lucy!” Natsu shouted, ready to go after her. Though, Juvia quickly placed a hand on his chest.

“Leave her, Natsu-san.” Her blue eyes were cold and the mage visibly shrunk back as he remembered just how scary Juvia had been when she had arrived from Phantom Lord. Though, he still pushed, refusing to let her stop him from going after her. Even if the witch did freak him out.

“She needs me!”

“No,” She cut in and there was an audible gasp from the table of their friends. Juvia eyed them, watching as Gajeel placed a hand over his mouth in shock. “It is Juvia that will help her now. Just… wait for her when she’s ready.”

The witch offered him an apologetic look and Natsu opened his mouth to counter her, but she had already begun to walk away - leaving the table of friends in an uncomfortable silence.

“I should go after them,” Levy murmured.

“I’m coming too.” Lisanna nodded at the petite girl, the two quickly scurrying after their friends.

The rest of the table sat, pushing food around with their forks as they didn’t know what to do. No one could offer up anything to say. They had all seen their fair share of problems as the years had gone by, but never something this.. Strange.

Natsu continued to stare after where his best friend had retreated in tears.

Gajeel looked at his friends in thought, red eyes piercing each of them before he crossed his arms. “Don’t worry. Juvia has got ya sorted.” He nodded to himself, seeming to verify his own statement.

Though, no one paid any mind to the teen, their eyes turning to Gray.

“Ju…” He groaned from where he was face down on the table, “Juvvii…”

The friends looked at him surprised, seemingly forgetting he was there after what they had witnessed with Lucy and Natsu.

“Ju… Juvii… Juvia..” His voice was strained, muffled as he spoke into the wood.

Natsu turned to the raven haired mage, his eye twitching as Gray seemed only to be finally waking up. If he couldn’t go after Lucy then he would find a way to vent his frustration and that was on his rival-friend-enemy-guy-thing.

“Oi, Fuck-wit,” he called, “Ya girlfriends not here so shut up before I shut you up with my fist.”

Though, Natsu nearly fell on his butt when Gray shot up unexpectedly, his dark eyes were wide as he desperately looked around. Natsu’s eyebrow raised and both he and Gajeel stared at their male friend in pure, utter bewilderment.

Gray’s eyes watered as he finally stopped searching and his fingers bit down into his palm as he shook. “Where is she,” he cried, looking directly at Natsu, “Where is Juvia-sama?”

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vannahfanfics · 3 years

Text

The Measure of a Good Hero

Category: Hurt and Comfort

Characters: Shota Aizawa, Izuku Midoriya

Pain … Blinding pain pulsed across Shota’s face like red-hot lava as he lay prone on the ground. No, not lay; he was pressed, crushed against the pavement with hot sticky blood flowing out of his mouth and nose to smear across his cheek. The gray-haired young villain’s high-pitched cackles bounced inside his ears, only adding to the skull-splitting pounding in his head. Shota’s vision blurred as his brain withered under the assault, and he lapsed into unconsciousness no matter how much he told himself to hold on, hold on, hold on…

Shota jerked upright in bed with a gasp. The ghost of the searing pain ebbed into a dull ache as the remnants of his shattered eye socket lamented with phantom trauma. It took a few moments for Shota to recognize that he was not at the USJ but safe in his bed in the U.A. dormitory.

His heaving breaths slowly mellowed, the cold sweat slowly dwindled to coat him in a layer of perspiration, and his constricted pupils slowly dilated as his eyelids drifted over them. With an agonized groan, he drew his hand over his face.

“Damn...”

Shota’s muscles felt as if he’d boxed a gorilla. They ached and throbbed terribly, protesting as he flipped the sweat-soaked sheets off himself. The cold air blowing from the air conditioner washed over his body, allowing the sweat to sap even more heat from his system. He rubbed the bare skin of his legs as the coarse black hairs stood to attention, trying to force warmth back into his chilling body. After a few minutes, he slipped off the bed and padded barefoot out of the room towards the dormitory kitchen.

The moon streamed through the row of floor-to-ceiling glass windows framing the wall of the living room. The bushes lining the building gleamed like polished malachite as the stark contrasts of darkness and light clashed in their leaves. The wind whistled through the boughs of the skinny trees scattered across the courtyard to flicker against the windows like moths flapping at an illuminated dull yellow lightbulb. A peaceful night, for all intents and purposes…

A peaceful night for everyone but Shota that is.

Shota rubbed at his aching eye as he used his other hand to rifle blindly through a cabinet. Occasionally, he’d pluck a box from the depths to squint critically at it, using the soft white light to read the labels. After several failed attempts, he finally secured his desired midnight snack- chamomile tea.

Though Hizashi and Nemuri gave him hell for it, Shota consumed almost as much tea as coffee. He’d taken to natural sleep supplements after melatonin pills had failed to lull him into a decent night’s rest. Their resident tea connoisseur, Momo Yaoyorozu, had enlightened him to more adventurous blends of brewable sleeping droughts, but this night he settled for the classic.

Shota procured a random mug from the cabinet (Izuku’s, judging from the All Might hero suit patterning) and filled it with tap water before popping it into the microwave. Through baggy, lidded eyes, he watched the colorful cup spin slowly in the appliance, all while swinging the bag of tea lazily around his finger. The seconds counted down one by one, and he focused on the depleting neon figures, lest his nightmare seep back into his mind to haunt his waking life too.

A small squeak made Shota straighten up and squint into the depths of the living room. Through the shroud of darkness cloaking most of the room, Shota caught a glimpse of wild pine-green bedhead and gleaming emerald eyes.

“Midoriya,” Shota drawled in recognition. He looked back to the rotating mug in the microwave, trying to use it to distract from the humming in his nerves. Though the logical part of Shota knew that the odds of being attacked in a school dormitory in the wee hours of the night were slim to none, adrenaline has still gushed through his bloodstream upon sensing the young boy enter. His tensed fist slowly uncurled as he forced himself to relax, and he watched out of the corners of his eyes as the bashful Izuku shuffled into the room.

“Up late grading papers, sir?” Izuku asked with a wavery smile as he pulled open a cabinet. He bee-lined for the box of animal crackers on the top shelf, pulling down the red box along with a small plastic bowl.

“Not exactly,” Shota huffed in amusement. For several moments, the only sounds in the kitchen were the crackling of the plastic bag of animal crackers, the cookie-like snacks thudding against the bottom of the bowl as Izuku poured them, and the consistent humming of the appliance in front of Shota. “What are you doing awake at this hour? It’s well past curfew.”

Though Shota was mostly joking, Izuku jerked violently in surprise, spilling animal crackers all over the counter.

“W-wah! I’m sorry, sir, I just-!” Izuku babbled, hastily scooping up the scattered crackers to dump them in the bowl. “I just- I, um…” As he trailed off, his movements slowed until his hand rested on the counter, still clutching several of the snacks. “I… Had a nightmare about the summer camp incident…”

Shota watched Izuku through half-closed but scrutinizing eyes. Izuku’s fist clenched, cracking the cookies into small pieces as he stared glassily at the bowl of animal crackers as if it were now a foreign object. “I dreamed that… it went a lot worse than it did, and…” Izuku clenched his fists so tight that his scarred knuckles glared white in the gloom. “I couldn’t protect anyone.”

Even in the sparse lighting, Shota could see the frustrated tears blooming in the corners of Izuku’s eyes. The microwave beeped shrilly in Shota’s ear to herald the boiling of his mug of water. Shota inhaled sharply, then exhaled deeply and turned to busy himself with pulling out the piping-hot cup of water to dunk the bag of chamomile tea into it. As the yellow-gold flavoring diffused through the clear liquid, Shota idly stirred the bag around to speed up the steeping.

“I know how you feel,” he said after several moments. He kept his back to Izuku, continuously drawing the teabag around the bottom rim of the mug, but he could feel the boy’s widened eyes on him. “That’s one of the scariest feelings… That you can’t protect the people that you care about.” He reached up, ghosting his fingertips over the crescent moon-shaped scar decorating the underside of his eye.

Shota had grappled with that fear for such a very long time. It never seemed to leave him. As soon as he thought perhaps that he’d been able to move on, to grow strong enough that he didn’t need to be afraid before, reality reared its ugly head to squash him back into the dirt. Sometimes, quite literally.

“Do you have nightmares too, Mr. Aizawa?”

Shota smiled wryly, finally glancing over his shoulder to look at Izuku. The boy watched him adamantly; doubt and a need for reassurance swam in his bright green irises. Shota may not be the cuddliest, most fatherly man alive, but he was a teacher. Consolation was something he could attempt to give, at least.

“Of course I do,” he said, turning so that his back now pressed against the counter. One elbow propped loosely against the tile, while his other bent in the air as he rubbed the nape of his neck. His eye twinged with phantom pain, remembering once more the feeling of his bones shattering against cracking concrete. “Anyone in this line of work who tells you otherwise is a liar.”

Izuku let out a tiny chuckle, and it seemed like his expression brightened just a bit. Shota smiled as he looked down at his tea. The golden brew had blended through the hot water. He grabbed a bottle of honey and stirred a spoonful of it into the tea. When he sipped it, the sweet flavor of the honey and the muted tone of chamomile spread over his tongue, filling him with a warm sense of calm.

He turned back to Izuku, holding up the All Might mug and supping casually at his beverage. With a wry smile, he tapped the edge of the cheesy smile adorning the bottom half of the cup.

“Take All Might, for example. I know for a fact that he has nightmares.”

Izuku’s face scrunched up in a mix of amusement and disbelief.

“No way!” the boy laughed and waved a hand dismissively at Shota. “He’s All Might !” However, as realization dawned on him, his entertained smile sagged into a sad one. “Though I guess… He has been through a lot, especially recently. I guess there has to be at least one thing that he regrets, and that haunts him…”

“Of course. Being the Symbol of Peace doesn’t make him perfect.” Shota shrugged. He then smiled when Izuku looked at him with knitted eyebrows. “Midoriya, the measure of a good hero isn’t how few mistakes you make or how few regrets you have.”

The mug gently clinked as Shota set it down on the counter. He walked over to Izuku to gently clap a hand on his shoulder, and the boy looked up at him with big emerald eyes. “The measure of a good hero is how well you can bear the burden of your mistakes and regrets, and how you can make them right by doing better.”

Izuku’s forest-green eyes stared intently into Shota’s face for several seconds as he articulated the solemn statement. Slowly, his head dropped until his chin dropped down against his chest.

“Yeah… I… I think I get it, Mr. Aizawa,” he whispered with a small nod. Shota smiled and patted Izuku on the shoulder, then snagged a few of the animal crackers to pop them into his mouth. As he sauntered off toward his room, swirling the chamomile tea and crunching on the sweet cookies, he shoved a hand in the pocket of his pajama bottoms. After a few steps, he stopped and looked back at Izuku, who had gone back to staring blankly at the bowl of animal crackers.

“Midoriya, you still have a long way to go,” Shota reminded him with an endeared smile. It was almost cute, how insanely ambitious his class of students was. Cute, but a headache and a handful sometimes when they got too intent on growing up too fast. “Take those feelings you have now, and use them to grow stronger.”

Clarity flooded Izuku’s dull eyes, returning that determined little gleam that Shota admired so much about the kid. He turned back to Shota with a bright smile.

“Yes, sir! Thank you, sir!”

“Great talk. Now, off to bed with you. I don’t want to hear complaints that you’re tired tomorrow.”

“Of course, sir!”

Izuku went to scamper off, making Shota chuckle.

“Midoriya, your animal crackers?”

Izuku whirled on his socks to see his bowl of crackers still perched on the counter, untouched and forgotten.

“Oh, right! Th-thank you!” he laughed sheepishly and scurried back to retrieve his midnight snack. Shota watched warmly as he scampered off, munching on the animal crackers and muttering self-motivating blathers under his breath. Shota took a healthy swig of the chamomile tea; it blended with his improved mood to stimulate the drowsiness currently rising in his system. “Goodnight, Mr. Aizawa!” Izuku’s hushed shout floated down the stairs several yards away. Shota snorted and turned to retreat back into the darkness of his bedroom.

“Sleep well, Midoriya. Pleasant dreams.”

As Shota collapsed on his bed, the finished mug of chamomile tea resting on his nightstand, he actually felt secure for once that he’d be gifted with pleasant dreams, too.

Enjoy this oneshot? Feel free to peruse my Table of Contents!

#shota aizawa #aizawa shota #izuku midoriya #midoriya izuku #my hero academia #mha #boku no hero academia #bnha #mha fanfic #bnha fanfic

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jungwooisms · 4 years

Text

pairing: kim jungwoo x female!reader genre: fluff warnings: minor swearing word count: 1.9k summary: A sedentary walk to remember, to greet and mourn a childhood transitioned into young adulthood. Though some things, some people, never change and you couldn’t be more thankful for that. requested!

The air is cool, washing over your skin like a renewal from Mother Earth herself, allowing gooseflesh to run up your arms and down your spine as you press yourself even closer to your partner. Jungwoo’s voice is soft, sedate, as he reads the verses, your hand intertwined with his free one as you walk. The wooded area isn’t large enough for his voice to reverberate throughout the trees, but it draws the sunlight to shine ever so dutifully through the leaves above. It’s almost like stars, the way the sun’s rays twinkle in through the thick canopy, a small universe hidden away in the dimness of the wild.

“As virtuous men pass mildly away, And whisper to their souls to go Whilst some of their sad friends do say The breath goes now, and some say, No:”

So let us melt, and make no noise, No tear-floods, nor sigh-tempests move; 'Twere profanation of our joys To tell the laity our love.”

Dead leaves crackling and crunching underfoot as the two of you trapeze your way through thickets of greenery and mazes of roots. A particularly muddy patch puts you in the forefront, making Jungwoo release you from his grasp as his hand reaches out to graze the ends of your jacket’s sleeve as you brush past him. He stops to watch you walk for a moment, only beginning to move again once you turn around at the lack of noise coming from his direction. A soft smile, emphasized with his cheekbones urging you to move forwards, to follow your own path. He’s light of step, ethereal in the morning sun as his eyes skim over the next few lines.

“Moving of th' earth brings harms and fears Men reckon what it did, and meant; But trepidation of the spheres, Though greater far, is innocent.”

His voice picks up, swaying gently just as the branches do overhead. It’s when you stop in your tracks, eyes peering over the short drop off into a small brook below, that he closes the paperback. Feet edging on the horizon of a land unknown, yet childishly familiar you hesitate to cross. It wasn’t momentous, you’d done a leap like this hundreds, if not thousands of times as a child. What was holding you back?

A blur, a jump and a thud as the taller lands on the other side of the embankment. He wobbles, hand reaching out to steady himself on a nearby sapling. There’s a small laugh as he notices your uncertainty, book cracked open with one hand, he begins to pace the small shore, reading aloud once again. It’s not a mocking tone, just veering onto a teasing playfulness as he catches your eye.

“Dull sublunary lovers' love, Whose soul is sense, cannot admit Absence, because it doth remove Those things which elemented it.

But we by a love so much refined, That our selves know not what it is, Inter-assured of the mind, Care less, eyes, lips, and hands to miss.”

Hands clenched, nails digging into your palms you stiffen as you begin to brace yourself for the landing. “Just take my hand already,” Eyes moving away from staring at the trickling water and towards Jungwoo, his hand lies in wait for yours, aching to be held and to help you overcome your apprehension. Once a hint of a smug smirk now washed away and a more endeared, soft fondness exuding from him.

Your own leap of faith taken when your hand grasps his, the comforting warmth back in your palm you breathe a sigh of contentedness before you do physically cross the stream. Soaring through the air for a brief second before your feet hit land on the other side, Jungwoo’s other hand coming in aid to help steady yourself on the uneven earth. The smell of soil rising up from the upturned ground where your steps had landed you, Jungwoo’s hand moving from your side as the other gave your hand a gentle squeeze. And so you would wander forwards.

“Thank you,” you smile at him as he bends downwards to pick up the paperback he’d discarded when helping you cross. He fans the book, bits of soil and leaves falling from its pages as the pair of you ventured forth into your great unknown. “Do you think you’ll have your lines memorized by next Thursday?”

Jungwoo doesn’t open the book again, instead he ponders for a moment, tucking the book under his arm as he finds his words. “I think so,” a mounting confidence as he nods his head, tilting it ever so slightly to the right to dodge a thin branch of a tree. It brushes against his hair, causing the dark mahogany strands to stand askew. “If I don’t then,” shoulders shrugging as he bites his lower lip, “I guess I don’t.”

Now your turn to laugh, “Do you even know what you’re reciting?” You turn as you walk, brushing the hair back into place, before falling back into line with him.

“Vaguely,” His eyes glance down to the book for a moment before returning his gaze to the clearing slowly coming into view. Subconsciously to him, his pace quickens with the anticipation of arriving to the small meadow. Your eyes trail along the ground, the every odd bloom of color from the flowers dotting the landscape capturing your attention as you try to keep pace. “It’s about love, obviously,” Jungwoo says as you break through the wall of trees into the more sunlit pasture.

This time it’s he who releases you as he nearly runs forward, the sunlight washing across his skin as if he sought to absorb it all. In sate silence you watch with a smile on your lips as he falls into the flowers and long grass, sweeping him under their blanket of morning dew. He doesn’t mind the chill, beckoning you over when his bearings were straight once again. With a shake of your head and roll of your eyes you join him, sitting next to him as he looks up at the gilded forenoon sky.

“It’s about not worrying if your partner leaves you for a little bit, if you’d read it already you’d know that,” He was supposed to have this memorized by now, but it’d be a little hypocritical of you to remind him of his lackadaisical attitude when you had one to match it.

“Our two souls therefore, which are one, Though I must go, endure not yet A breach, but an expansion, Like gold to airy thinness beat,”

You hadn’t realized the book was held in front of his face, the condensation of the morning beginning to curl the pages as he spoke. “Doesn’t this all sound a little,” he thinks for a moment, pulling the book away, sunlight falling back onto his face, as he looks to you, “soapy to you?”

A shrug of your shoulders as you look away to the oncoming horizon spanning out in front of you. You’d never wondered why there was such a large field encapsulated by a forest; but nature wasn’t the type to answer such questions. “It’s old poetry Jungwoo, all they had to worry about was love and not dying from consumption.”

“What’s consumption?” Eyes widened his props himself up on his elbow, eyebrows pert, “You can’t get that from eating too much, can you?”

A short puff of air leaving you in a laugh, “No, you can’t. It’s an old-timey word for TB.” A wash of relief across Jungwoo’s face as he falls back into the grass with a ‘Thank god’. “Although, if you really want to ace your audition maybe you should work on your ye olde pronunciation and you’ll blow them out of the park.”

“It’s a college production of Hamlet, I’m not too sure that it has to be too historically correct, right?” A small frown as he looks at the cover of the book, “Also, why have us read Donne instead of actual scenes from the play?”

Shoulders sagging as you read along the spine of the paperback, “Maybe to test your versatility?”

Sigh escaping him, “Maybe.” Hands opening the book once more he begins,

“If they be two, they are two so As stiff twin compasses are two; Thy soul, the fixed foot, makes no show To move, but doth, if the other do.

And though it in the center sit, Yet when the other far doth roam, It leans and hearkens after it, And grows erect, as that comes home.

Such wilt thou be to me, who must, Like th' other foot, obliquely run; Thy firmness makes my circle just, And makes me end where I begun.”

As he reads you close your eyes, slipping downwards until you lie next to him, feeling the warmth of the sun on your face contrast with the cool of the earth on your back. Fingers brushing along the tufts of long grass as the subtle echo of his voice now resounds gently across the soft slopes of the terrain around you. It’s almost enough to make you doze off, even when you’d only awoken an hour or so earlier from sleep.

“What if we just don’t go back? Stay here like when we were kids, not coming home until your mom sent your older brother out to get us.” Rousing from your dreamlike state you crack open an eye and turn towards Jungwoo. His voice wistful, wandering, “I don’t want summer to end.”

The elephant in the room beginning to stir as you feel the dull strings of your heart begin to pull. The pair of you had avoided this conversation like the plague for the past handful of weeks, the tryst of the break beginning to lose its sheen once more, as it did every time the season transitioned into autumn.

“Seeing as Johnny’s not even in the country I think we’d be out here for a long time,” You try to joke but you see and feel the bitter-sweetness oozing from him. “I’ll be back for Christmas, I’ll only be abroad for a semester, Jungwoo.”

“I’ll miss having you here though,” A frown tinting his lips as he looks to you, a longing that was all too familiar behind the brightness of his eyes. “Even if you were still going back to your school you’d be here on breaks. What am I supposed to do? Live boringly without you?”

A short laugh, “Or maybe torment Mark some more, I think he really enjoyed the last time you cornered him at that party.”

“You think so?” eyes looking at the gray-blue sky in contemplation, probably thinking about future plans to tease the younger.

Your hand finds his, rubbing small circles on his skyward facing palm with your index finger as you think. He didn’t want you to feel guilty for leaving, he was just processing it in his own way. If you could stick him into your suitcase and take him with you, you probably would, albeit it would be a hard time trying to bring that through the TSA.

“Promise me something though?” You ask, turning to also look at the heavens.

“Yes?”

“Try to memorize your lines- I really want to see you up on that stage when I’m back.”

“Alright, alright,” Hand pulling away from yours he sighs, pushing himself off of the ground and then offering you a hand. “I’ll learn my lines, ace the audition and be the best damn Hamlet you’ve ever seen.” A nod of his head as he pulls you to your feet.

“Promise?” You ask, brushing a few strands of hair away from your face.

“Promise,” he smiles, leaning forward to put a kiss atop your head. “As for right now though, can we get breakfast? I woke up super early to catch the sunrise and only had two pieces of toast and an apple, oh- and some eggs.”

Already aware of his eating habits you give him a nod, “Of course you can.” You begin to turn back to the forest, only to shout back to him once you were far enough away as he’d gone back to retrieve his poetry, “But you’re paying, it’s going to be my going away present!”

#cznnet #neowritingsnet #kim jungwoo #nct 127 #nct fluff #nct u #nct jungwoo #nct 127 scenarios

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izaswritings · 5 years

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Title: you are a memory

Synopsis: “Let’s go home, Earl. You’ll feel better after a little nap.” In the wake of that disastrous meeting with Neah, the Earl dreams of a life he never led.

Or: What if Mana remembered his son?

Notes: The title comes from this song, which is sad and pretty and works very well for Mana and Allen. It’s got a key sad/nostalgic feel to it. I recommend listening on repeat while reading this fic for the full dream-like experience.

AO3 Link is here.

Sometimes the Earl dreams.

Go to sleep, Earl dear, you’re just tired. The Fourteenth was really mean to you, wasn’t he? I’m sorry. Get some rest, all right? Things will be better once you wake up.

Go to sleep, Earl. Please, just sleep. We’re back in the Ark, Earl. We’re home. You’ll feel better after a little nap, okay?

Good night, Earl. Good night.

The London air is crisp and cold and burns in his lungs with every breath. The sky is clouded and gray with oncoming rain, and the gloom seems to seep into the city, sinking into the dirty streets and cobbled stone buildings, settling into the hearts of the people that roam through the sludge and ice. Specks of snow float down with dainty grace, resting light on his gloves and his hat and his shoulders, a white blanket that lasts only a second before the heat of his breath melts it away.

The man walks through the snow, black cane tucked under one arm, humming a melody under his breath. Fresh snowfall crunches under his threadbare boots. Cold wind blows through every layer and leaves him aching and numb.

The shops that line the street are cluttered close, pressed against each other like sheep in a herd. The old stone sags, held up by the next lopsided building, a street of leaning towers with all their treasures encased in frosted glass. Away from the crowd, a young boy stands before one of these shops, peering inside. His hands are in his pockets, his shoulders hunched. Even from afar, the man can see the boy’s curled lips, his pale scowl.

The man walks up to the boy, ignoring the crowd. His lips pull into an easy smile. He speaks to the boy without knowing why.

“What are you doing?”

The boy is rags, tatters, the grime of the street personified. His hair is a reddish-brown and falls in matted clumps around his dirty face, his clothes too big and starched so thoroughly that any and all color has been bled away. His skinny arms are clothed from shoulder to fingertip, hands shoved into gaping pockets. He looks up at the man, and his eyes are as gray as the London sky above them.

“Nothin’ at all,” says the boy, with a sneer. “It’s not like you told me to stand here or anything. No, that’d be stupid.”

The man thinks he should be angry at this, but all he does is smile. His heart feels light, full of clouds. “I made you wait,” he says, softly. “I’m sorry.”

The boy sniffs, but his shoulders relax. “Whatever, you stupid clown. Not like I cared.”

The man smiles. He does not know the boy. He does not recognize him. And yet he feels as if he should.

“I know,” he tells the boy, filled to the brim with an unfamiliar fondness. The boy mutters under his breath and looks away, but his cheeks burning red. He shuffles his feet in the snow.

He doesn’t know the boy, but the Earl laughs anyway.

…not anything wrong, it’s just—this hasn't happened in a long time. Yes, but Tyki, it doesn't make any—

Oh, Earl! You’re awake! That’s wonderful.

Ahh, Tyki? It’s nothing. He’s just worried, is all. You fell asleep so fast! For a moment, it was almost as if we couldn’t wake you… well, no matter. Are you feeling better? You must be; you were smiling.

...How was your sleep, anyway?

Know? Well of course I know. I may not be Road, but my Demon Eye can see that much. Still, it's always best to ask these things.

...Dreams, hmm?

How interesting.

“Wake up, silly clown!”

The man opens his eyes. The London street from the last dream is gone, vanished away into the gloom. Now he sits on a rickety old cart, lurching down a dirt road, his shoulder pressed against splintering wood and the boy’s muddy face peering down from above him.

The man blinks, smiles. “Ah,” he says. “Did you get taller?”

The boy’s small nose wrinkles at him, and the man bites back a very childish snicker. “Stupid clown, you’re sitting down,” says the boy, almost primly.

“Ah,” says the man. “So I am.”

The boy rolls his eyes, straightening up and turning away. His right hand rises to rub at his shoulder; his left stays stubbornly in his pocket. The man’s long black coat is draped over his skinny shoulders, trailing at his feet like a cloak. “You're so weird,” he scoffs, but it’s almost fond.

“It is,” the man says sagely, gamely shifting over when the boy makes to sit beside him, “what makes me such a good clown.” The cold bites through the thin layers of his vest, and the man smiles past the cold. He does not ask for his coat back.

The boy sighs, settling beside the man, muddy boots two sizes too big kicking out over the lip of the cart. His gray London-sky eyes are downcast and solemn. His shoulders are slumped, his fire dimmed. “Whatever.”

The man watches the boy carefully. He does not ask how he knows the boy, does not wonder who he is. The boy is a stranger but he does not feel like one, and the Earl has had dreams like this before, though never as vivid as this.

“Don’t worry,” he tells the boy, and keeps any questions he has to himself. “You'll be a good clown too! Very cute!”

He expects the boy to sneer, to deny this, to claim he’s gonna be a cool clown, damn it, stop it with this cute nonsense—

But all the boy does is huff and turn away, a tiny smile curling at his lips.

“Ugh,” he says. “Like hell.”

The man does not reply, but when the boy leans back against him—tentatively, fearfully, as if expecting the man to pull away—he leans right back, shoulder to shoulder, and smiles into the collar of his shirt.

Together they watch the snow fall, side by side on the wagon, the city behind them lost to the distant gloom.

Well, Earl? Any better?

Oh, I see. Dreams again…

Hm? Oh! No, no, it’s okay; I’m not upset or anything! Geeze, you’re such a worrywart!

—Ah. …You’re smiling awful wide there.

Was it something I said?

The inn is a small, cramped little place, with stuffy rooms and rotted oak walls and lone windows caked in grimy frost. The man opens the door to a tiny corner room, and has to ram the wood with his shoulder to get it closed again. The room itself is bare, blank—a tiny table in the center, two rickety beds. On the threadbare bed shoved against the farthest corner, the boy lies still, his skin flushed, his breaths wheezing. A blanket is pulled up to his chin, and his long ratty hair is damp with sweat.

The man goes to his side at once, his steps long, almost hurried. There is a twist to his heart at the sight of the boy so still and sullen. He sits on the foot of the bed, careful so the springs won’t creak, and reaches over to place a hand on the boy’s head. As the man had feared: the boy feels feverishly hot, burning from the inside out.

“Oh, dear,” says the man. “You aren’t looking better at all.”

The boy’s eyes open at that, a sliver of liquid silver. “Shut up,” he says, but in his sickness he slurs the words, stumbles, and it comes out sounding more like “Shhhhhhut up” rather than the bite he probably means it to be. “S-stupid clown. I told you, I’m fine, I’m just…”

“Completing your transformation into the world’s smallest, most temperamental oven?” the man says gravely, with terrible certainty, and laughs aloud when the boy kicks him. “Sorry, sorry! I know. You’re fine. But, ah… I’m feeling a bit tired myself, y’see, so I’m afraid we’ll be spending the night here rather than traveling like I promised.”

“Liar,” the boy mumbles. He sinks into the sheets, his eyelashes fluttering. His mouth twists like he’s tasted something sour. “‘M sorry.”

The words are so quiet he barely catches them. The man leans in. “Hm?”

“Sorry. I—I shoulda listened, when you said—when you said to get out of the rain. And to put on my coat. And dry off. I didn’t do any of that, and now—so, um. Yeah.”

The man does not remember saying that. He does not remember a day in the rain, the boy snubbing his instruction. He does not know what the boy is talking about. And yet, inexplicably, he smiles soft and fond, aching gentle, and says: “I know. It’s all right, my boy.”

“I’ll listen, next time.”

His smile grows wide, almost mischievous. “Oh?”

The boy immediately scowls. His tiny foot kicks the man from under the covers. “I will! Stupid clown. Just you watch. I can listen, sometimes.”

“Okay,” the man says, humoring him. He cannot stop smiling. He pats the boy’s knee and then pushes up from the bed, cracking his shoulders. “Are you hungry? I think we’ve got just enough coin for a big dinner, if you’d like. Get some rest, I’ll—”

“Wait!” the boy cries, and the man freezes, stone still, when a small hand snatches at his coat sleeve. “Wait, wait, I—I, I’m not hungry. Not yet. Um.”

The man looks down at the boy. His little face red with fever, those London-gray eyes wide and afraid. That careful grip on the man’s sleeve, loose enough to shake.

He sits down on the bed and watches as the boy slowly relaxes, settling back under the covers. He takes the boy’s hand from his sleeve and holds it, careful, in his own. Watches hope and understanding bloom on this wary boy’s strangely familiar face.

“Then,” says the man. He squeezes the boy’s hand and feels a similar grip wrap tight around his heart. “I suppose I’ll stay here with you.”

The boy smiles. Small and quick and shuttered. Bright.

It’s only a dream, the Earl thinks. And yet. He feels so warm.

—must be from meeting the Fourteenth. Tyki, did you hear what they were talking about? It’s never been this bad. Road is still too weak to help… and Tyki, I can’t see his dreams at all. They aren’t there. They shouldn’t be there. I don’t understand. I don’t—

O-oh, Earl! You woke up again. That’s good. That’s wonderful! Stay like that, okay?

Hm? Oh, Earl, everything’s okay. It’s fine. Just. Try to stay awake? I’ll make it better. I’ll make you better. I promise.

Just stay awake.

He blinks his eyes open into midday sun, bright and blinding in his face, past even the shade of his favorite top-hat. He is sitting on the steps of an old stone building, scissors in his hand. The boy is sitting in front of him, kicking bare feet over the worn stone steps, both hands tucked into his middle and hidden from view.

“Don’t make it uneven, stupid clown,” the boy is saying. “And—and not too short! I don’t wanna look like you. And—”

The man clears his throat and pats the boy’s shoulder with his free hand. The boy is wearing new clothes, a pastel purple and pink plaid clown costume. It’s adorable. The look on the boy’s face when he twists around to glare at the man is less so. His expression is sullen and his eyes are afraid. “I promise,” the man says, and his heart aches. “You will have the cutest hair in all of England.”

The boy’s face screws up in a pout. The fear fades from his eyes in favor of offense. “No!”

“You will be adorable,” the man vows. Thinks it over. “Even more adorable!”

The boy turns away, unimpressed. “I’m leaving.”

The man smiles. He takes a breath and says—

“A̶̛̝̭̞̽́͋l̸͍̘̀ļ̶̜͂̅͝ē̶̢̠̰̓̈́͐n̷̟͔̾̒̋”

—and the boy looks up, reluctant.

“I’ll be careful,” the man says, gentle again. His teasing tone fading into that softer warmth that comes so easily when speaking to this boy. “I won’t ruin your hair. Trust me?”

The boy stares at him. His eyes are very wide. “You said my name,” he says.

The man blinks. He brings a hand up to his head. Had he? He can’t—he can't quite remember. What had he said, exactly?

And yet, all he says is: “Yes, of course.” He is confused, despite himself. What else would he call the boy, if not his name? Not that the man knows his name, of course.

(But then, what had he…?)

The boy is still staring. Slowly, he sits back down on the steps, turns to his back to the man. His voice is quiet. “Okay,” says the boy. “Okay. Cut my hair. I—I trust you.”

“Please cut my hair,” the man corrects, because manners are important, and the boy heaves a loud sigh and suddenly the air is clear again, bright and warm as the midday sun, as if that terrible vulnerability had never been.

“Please cut my hair, stupid clown,” says the boy, with all the unimpressed scorn his small frame can muster, and the Earl grins ear to ear as he gently picks up one of the boy’s trailing locks and snips it short.

He is so warm, so content, so quietly touched by the trust this boy has in him. He is so happy to have this moment.

(And yet—in the back of his mind—he thinks—

What was it that he said, before? That name he cannot remember. He cannot recall. And yet—

It feels important. It feels as if he should know.)

Tyki, what do you mean, the Fourteenth called him—?

—Earl! You woke up!

Wait, wait! Don’t go to sleep. Earl, don’t go to sleep! Stay with me. Stay with us. Earl. Earl—

He is kneeling in a dark alley, his back to the busy streets, his footsteps sunk deep in winter snow. He is carving symbols into the earth. His symbols. The Fourteenth’s melody. The Ark song. His special symbol. He says, “Remember this, A̶̛̝̭̞̽́͋l̸͍̘̀ļ̶̜͂̅͝ē̶̢̠̰̓̈́͐n̷̟͔̾̒̋.”

“Okay,” says the boy. He is crouching too, watching the man draw with sharp eyes. His hair is short, now. Short and flat and fine. The cut of it makes something deep within the Earl quail in memory, strikes him with a flash of recognition. The snow that dusts the boy’s head like fine feathers, white and soft, blending with his eyes—it makes his heart go cold.

The Ark is special. The Ark is the Fourteenth’s, it is the Earl’s, it is theirs—it is not for anyone else, let alone this foul-mouthed human child. But he carves those symbols in the snow regardless, says, “Promise me you will remember this, promise me you won’t forget,” and marvels at the love he must feel for this strange little boy, to give him something so infinitely precious.

The boy looks up and smiles at him. It is a strangely sweet smile. Strangely mysterious. With the snow in his hair and his cheeks red from cold, the boy almost looks like someone else.

“I promise,” says the boy, and for a moment the Earl forgets this is a dream—forgets the boy is not real, that the boy reminds him of something else, forgets the name he cannot hear and forgets the Ark song should not be shared.

He forgets. He feels, for a moment, like someone else. And he says: “I know you will.”

Around them, the snow falls.

Don’t worry, Earl.

I’m going to fix this.

“Is your dog… dead?”

He is standing on ground gone cold with the first snows of winter, digging deep into the frozen dirt. The wind bites at his limbs and the shovel handle rubs raw at his skin with every strike. There is the weight of a wig on his head and make-up caked on his face; it feels as natural as if he’d been born in it.

The boy stands beside him, hands in his pockets, his eyes flat and dead. His hair is long again, pulled back into a loose tail; his clothes are threadbare and smudged with dirt.

Before them, beside the grave, a small dog lies in the snow. Eyes closed, chest still, as peaceful as a dream.

The man looks back at the boy, calm despite it all. “Well,” he says. “He was quite old, so…”

“Oh,” says the boy. He is staring at the grave, gray eyes shadowed and shoulders stiff. He doesn’t say anything else.

The man jabs his shovel into the snow. “By the way,” he says, light as the sun above them, “who are you, again?”

—rl.

The boy glances at him, a pale cut of his eyes. “I work as a chore boy here.”

The man smiles. “I see,” he murmurs. He looks the boy up and down, trying to place him—Who are you?—and his eyes go wide with sudden realization. “Oh! You’re covered in bruises!” He licks at his thumb and goes to smudge the stain away, a gesture borne of instinct and memory, but the boy hisses and jolts back—

—arl!

“Ugh! That’s gross—!”

Earl! Wake up!

The world wavers, rippling, fragile as a reflection in water. The whisper of snow, a small hand in his, a quiet voice, saying—

He blinks and the boy is sitting down, now, they are sitting side by side and the man says, “Do you have friends?”

The boy’s little face curls into a sneer, and he says—

Earl, it’s not real.

The grave is complete, dug and filled, the dog buried. He places a small ball on the top to mark the resting ground of his beloved friend. Beside him, the boy asks, “Why aren’t you crying?”

“Well,” the man starts—

Come back to us, Earl! Wake up!

“—his name?” the boy asks. His voice is so quiet, soft and unsure. “When I pet him yesterday, he—he licked my hand.” The man looks at the boy. At the edge of his vision, the boy’s hand rests in the snow, paralyzed and unmoving. His hand is—his hand is—

“So,” says the boy, and his voice is starting to hitch, starting to catch, breaking on the words, and the man watches him fight with understanding eyes, “I—I thought I’d—”

The world is shaking, curling in at the edges. Breaking like glass, cracking into tiny pieces. Blurry and light like the dream it’s supposed to be—

Earl. Earl! Millennium Earl, you are the Millennium Earl, wake up, come back, come back—!

—the boy is crying, deep sobs like he’s forgotten how to do it properly. Curled into and curled over himself, one hand twisted in the fabric of his shirt, right over his heart. He is shaking, shivering, his small face warped from the effort of his tears. The man looks at him then, understanding, feeling a strange and overwhelming fondness for this is boy that is crying when the man cannot, and he thinks:

Ah, I see.

EARL!

So you were Allen’s friend too.

The dream shatters.

The boy is crying. The boy is crying like his heart is breaking, his hands shaking at the man’s shoulders. Everything hurts, but most painful of all: the boy, his boy, is crying.

“Please,” the boy says. London-sky gray turned to liquid, streaming down his cheeks. His little face is red and ruddy. His hair, shorter now, combed neat and flat, is sticky and dark with blood.

“Please,” the boy sobs. “Please, please don’t go. I love you. I love you. I’ll be good, I’ll behave, I’ll be the best and you’ll never have to get mad at me ever again please, please—”

He reaches up to touch the boy’s hair. He says the name he cannot remember.

“Please—”

“I love you,” he tells his boy. “Don’t stop. Keep walking. No matter—no matter what. Keep walking.”

“Don’t go,” says the boy. “Please, don’t leave me alone.”

He tries to answer. Tries to speak, tries to assure him. But the world is growing darker, his hand heavier, and his words are running out. “I love you,” Mana says. His boy’s heart is breaking and he is breaking with it. “I love you. I’m sorry. I love you.”

“Allen, I love you.”

The Earl wakes up, and it feels like clawing his way out of a deep, dark pit. His head throbs, pounding like a drum behind his eyes. His mouth is dry, his throat sore. He gasps for air as if he has forgotten how to breathe.

“Earl!” Wisely cries, and he leans in close to the Earl’s face, his voice fearful. The three-fold eye on his head is stark against his gray skin and cracked right down in the middle. There are still tears tracking down the corners of his eyes. “Are you all right?”

Behind him, pacing by the Earl’s bedside, Tyki stops mid-step, whirling around with wide eyes. “Earl,” he says. “Earl, are you back?”

The Earl blinks, rubbing hard at his head. He feels oddly breathless, strangely gutted; his heart aches like an old bruise. “Y-yes,” he says, uncertain, but even as he says it, the pain eases, fading with every breath. Whatever fog clouded his mind has lifted, his thoughts clear once more. “Yes, I don’t feel tired anymore.” He brightens, eager to put their minds at ease. “Actually, I feel wonderfully well-rested! I can’t remember why I felt so strange—”

“The Fourteenth—” Tyki starts, and then Wisely says, “Ah!” very loudly, cutting him off.

It’s too late, though; the Earl’s smile has died. “…Oh,” he says. “That’s right. In that town, I—I saw Neah… and he said—”

He frowns at the memory of it, distraught despite himself. Something has gone wrong with the Fourteenth’s return… perhaps it is that blasted Walker’s fault. Why else would Neah say all those inane things? Nothing he said back then made any sense. It still doesn’t make sense. Perhaps the Walker boy did something to stall Neah’s return, something to hurt Neah, and that’s why…

And yet. Even this explanation doesn’t sit well with him. The things Neah had been saying—

His dear family is watching him now, dark behind the eyes, afraid. The Earl blinks blankly back and finally remembers to smile. “It’s all right!” he assures them. “I really do feel much better.”

Glances are exchanged, and then Wisely steps closer, strangely uncertain. “Earl, if I can ask…”

“Hm?”

“What—what did you see? Those dreams, I couldn’t peer into them at all, and even Road… I had to—to fight to even attempt to break it.”

The Earl stares at him, aghast. “Truly?” he asks. Wisely and Tyki both nod, their faces solemn. As they should be—something so invisible and resilient to Wisely’s Demon Eye should be impossible. “Well, that’s strange. It wasn’t really anything all that serious, I—I just dreamed of a boy, really.”

“Another Noah?” Tyki asks immediately, and the Earl—frowns.

“No,” he says slowly. The dream is… harder, now, to recall. Faint and distant like a memory. “No, I… I don’t think so. Human. Just human. He was—little and angry, and he swore a lot, and—”

The Earl stops mid-word, blinking fast, staring at the corner. “Oh!” he says. “Oh, there he is.”

His family goes cold and still. They whip around. The boy, long-haired and bruised and dressed in his tattered clothes, smiles sharply back. What, he says, and oh, he is just as the Earl remembers him. Are you telling lies about me, stupid clown?

“Of course not,” the Earl starts—and stops again, when his family turns around to stare. “Ah, what is it? Why do you all look like that?”

The boy, in the corner, is smiling. His hands in his pockets. His gray eyes quiet as the snow. Oh, Mana, he says, with terrible fondness, and the Earl goes still as the stone.

“Earl,” Tyki says. “Earl—”

Don’t you remember me?

“Earl,” Tyki says, and he sounds afraid, now, quiet and horrified and little uncertain: “Earl, there’s nobody there.”

I meant something, once, the boy says. He’s in front of him now. The Earl hadn’t even seen him move. No one else reacts. Didn’t I? You found me in the snow, you took care of me. You loved me. You named me, Mana. Do you remember yet? His smile is so sad. His red hair is cut short and fine, and snow dusts his small shoulders. Mana, Mana, you named me—

“Allen,” the Earl breathes, and the boy smiles, he smiles so wide, so bright, and around them the world breaks, shatters like glass and scatters into pieces, falling like snow, because—because—

Because the Earl has seen that smile before.

“Allen,” he says, “Allen—Allen Walker—my Allen, my Allen, no, no, you can’t—you can’t be—”

Hello, Mana, Allen says. His voice is so clear. His eyes are as bright as the sky. His smile is breathless and even now, even here, the Earl cannot help but love his smile. I came back, silly clown. I never forgot. Never ever.

“No—”

His family is speaking. Yelling, arguing, trying to call him back. But Allen is all the Earl can see. Little Allen, red-haired and sharp-tongued, who smiles wide with tears in his eyes.

Don’t cry, Mana, he says. It’s okay. I’m here. I’m right here.

Around them the snow falls, as quiet as a dream. Is he dreaming, still? But perhaps the Earl was never dreaming at all. Perhaps those misty visions have always been something else, something so much worse. The echoes of a memory, of a life erased, called back with a vengeance. Awakened at last by the whisper of knowing in the Fourteenth’s words, when he opened his arms and said, in Allen Walker’s voice: Mana.

Mana, Allen says. Mana, I’m right here. I’m still here. I kept my promise. I kept walking.

The Earl falls. But no matter how hard he tries, no matter how he fights—

Mana, I love you.

—this time, he cannot wake up.

#dgm #d.gray-man #d gray man #allen walker #mana walker #dgm fic #millenium earl #mana d campbell #red!allen #past allen #iza fanfic

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drabblemeister · 5 years

Text

the Promised Guide

Author: DM/Ladelle <-- click for Ao3 Pairing: JayTim Summary: Raised in the Golden Temple, Tim knows three truths to be absolute: he has a great power inside of him, is fated to save the Great Empire, and is meant for one person and one person alone - the heir to the Gray Throne. Lines begin to blur when his caravan is raided; he certainly doesn't expect to be saved by Jason Todd, a man who claims no allegiances and whose very presence seems to bring Tim's magic to life. It's impossible, Tim thinks, to be drawn anywhere but where the oracle prophesied. The magnetism, however, is even more impossible to ignore. Author’s Notes: I've has this idea for forever and even though I came up with it for JayTim I have often thought it would make an amazing original which is why I've never really posted anything I've written for it. Coming out of a year of writer's block, though, I thought to write what I felt like and as I came across a prompt labelled, "And so our heroes did what anyone would do, they stopped to get a bite to eat at a local tavern. However, this is where everything took a turn for the worse." It felt like the perfect time to write about the boys attempting their first night together having come across a town, shortly after Jason and Roy happened to rescue Tim. /D *~* “Looks like brown-eyes over there’s takin’ a liking to you,” Roy said, sliding onto the bench next to Tim. He’d been tasked with retrieving ale and when he clapped two mugs onto the wood-laden tabletop, thick foam spilled over their rims and onto his fingers.

Tim stared in both fascination and disgust as Roy licked them clean. After, he watched those same fingers slide one of the ales his direction. The sour smell of the liquor tickled Tim’s nose.

“This was a terrible idea,” he stated, though his voice was swallowed by the clamor surrounding him. The tavern was packed – crowded with travelers and townsfolk, the space hot and humid with body heat. Voices bellowed and dishes clanked and men and women alike disappeared upstairs, lured with come-hither fingers and whispers of promised debauchery.

As Roy drank, ale escaped from the corner of his mouth. His eyes were on fire – lit by the excitement around them. He was a man who came alive around people, and when his eyes danced sideways, catching Tim’s, he tipped his tankard back and said, “You gotta learn to lighten up, your highness.”

Tim didn’t hide his frown. At the same time, someone bumped him from behind. His stomach leapt to his throat when his hood threatened to lift; he’d never moved so fast, tugging the fabric tight to both sides of his face, quick to hide the slender gold chains that dangled from his ears, bubbling with raindrop-gems. He was nervous his sleeves would slip low enough to show the jewel encrusted cuffs he wore on his forearms. In Roy’s too-big boots, he could feel the golden bracelets he’d been gifted shifting awkwardly, pressing bruises to the skin of his ankles.

His heart pounded with the fear of discovery. He asked, “Where’s Jason?”

He’d been gone for a while. Too long, Tim thought, if he was simply securing a room for the night. Though it wasn’t as if Tim had travelled before, much less learned the customs of inns that lined the seedier parts of town. Out here, he had no concept of normal. The only thing he could trust - the only seemingly tangible thing – was Jason’s greed.

There was a reward, of course, for Tim’s safe delivery to the Royal Summit. A big reward. And Jason, having stumbled upon Tim doused in golds, jewels, and mineral-spun fabric, knew that he’d happened across an opportunity too good to pass up.

Tim was worth a lot and Jason, from what Tim could tell, favored money over anything else.

“Well?” Tim tried again, after Roy ignored him the first time – his eyes’d been darting across the room, lingering on the tables taking bets and wagers.

With a sigh, Roy shifted, dragging his gaze back to Tim. In a limber, fluid motion, he threw a leg over the bench they were seated on, coming forward to straddle it. His arms stretched like long strokes of a fine-tipped brush and Roy’s hair, unkempt in an unravelling braid, was the color of the firestone agate.

“Look,” Roy said, leaning into Tim’s space. “No’ne here gives a shit ‘bout anythin’. They’re ‘ere to get drunk. Or laid. Or both. So stop worryin’ and have some fun before you get shipp’d back to yer hoity-toity little castle, and—”

“Stop saying things like that,” Tim interrupted curtly. He didn’t want it to draw attention. Also, it wasn’t true. He wasn’t a prince like Roy had assumed.

He was a gift for one.

A belligerent sigh droned from Roy’s lips and he simply pushed the untouched tankard of ale closer to Tim. “Of course, yer majesty,” he said and with that, he tipped his head back and made to gallantly finish off his own mug.

Tim took the dismissal in stride. The elders had warned him about commonfolk; their priorities were themselves. To them, there was no bigger picture, an concept that grated on Tim, since he knew how important his union to the Gray Heir was.

It meant the end of the war.

Deciding to leave Roy to his own devices in favor of locating Jason, Tim stood – only to feel eyes follow him. He ached to lift his gaze and find the source, but he didn’t want anyone to actually see him. To notice him. His elders had warned him about that, as well: those with darker magic were drawn to Guides – and he could feel it now, simmering in the cacophony – the low pulse of a hell-dealer.

Tim moved with haste. He was agile, ducking between patrons, weaving around servers. He skimmed the room for Jason, heart pounding now that he knew the source of his fear. Someone bad had picked him out of the crowd. And, Tim – well, he didn’t have permission to protect himself.

There was a reason he’d been raised in seclusion – he was meant for one person, and one person alone. He’d been taught that his powers weren’t his – they belonged to the Gray Heir. He couldn’t use them for himself – he couldn’t let others know what he was capable of. It was bad enough two vagabonds like Jason and Roy had seen his presentation attire and the broken sigils inked on the underside of his wrists – thank the gods they weren’t learned or more astute – that they didn’t know what he really was.

It put them all in grave danger.

“Gods’ sky,” Tim muttered, feeling panic set in. “Where…” He trailed off with a turn, hoping he’d look back to see Jason with Roy, having somehow slipped past. His sight didn’t make it that far. A figure blocked his path.

Tim made the mistake of lifting his gaze.

Hell-dealers were a terrifying breed. To most, they looked normal. This man had a foot on Tim; his eyes were an earthen shade of brown and his hair folded in char-colored curls against his high-set rise of his cheeks. He had the build of a fighter, and presence.

Commoners would call it charisma. Tim knew it to be something else. He could feel it – cool tendrils of hellfire that curled out and around him, tracing his arms, legs, and neck like too-long fingers.

“What an unexpected surprise,” the man said, voice lilting. Tim lifted his chin as a wisp of hellfire forced it. “What’s a pretty little magi doing here, all alone?”

Tim had to concentrate on breathing. While his sigils swore an alliance to the elements, hell-dealers pulled their magic from beyond the veil. On the other side, there was only hunger, and so Tim could feel the hellfire sipping from his own wealth of power, tasting the energy he had coursing through his own veins.

“Unhand me,” Tim demanded, narrowing his eyes. He didn’t dare draw on his own power to fight – not with so many people around them. But he’d always struggled with controlling his emotions; even if he didn’t use his own abilities in a panic, the elements tended to react on their own.

When the man smiled and the hellfire pressed against Tim’s stomach, he snapped, “Stop,” in the language of the arcane, and around him, multiple tankards split and shattered, ale erupting everywhere.

The hellfire loosened, but only out of surprise. Tim took a step back, eyes wide, only to feel an arm wrap around his waist from behind.

“Can I help you?” came a drawling voice, and Tim, who’d frozen, immediately sagged in relief.

Jason.

The hell-dealer’s gaze left Tim, more interested in the newcomer. Around them, patrons of the inn danced around their tables, trying to towel up the mess and decipher just what had occurred.

“You should endeavor to be a better shepherd,” the man replied, tilting his head enough that his curls spilled over each other. “It would be a shame if you lost your sheep to the wolves.”

It was a threat, and one that Jason laughed at. For the second time, Tim felt something in him – a dark static, something he couldn’t place. It was as indescribable as a hum, lost the moment Tim tried to find it.

“You’re right, it would,” he said. “But also, I do love to hunt.”

The words sat for a moment; a thick tension building. Tim felt his heart begin to race again, wondering if this meant there’d be a fight – if he’d be forced to intervene. But the gravity broke the moment Roy sauntered long-limbed into the conversation, making a show of accidentally bumping into the hell-dealer as he drifted past.

“You say somethin’ ‘bout huntin’?” he questioned, and Tim felt a chill when he witnessed Roy’s eyes dance the stranger’s direction, narrowed and lethal.

Tim felt the hellfire withdraw. Aside from the obvious warning, eyes from surrounding tables were on them.

And then the man grinned. Tossing his hands up, he took a step back, laughing jovially. This time, his eyes did drift back to Tim – the hunger was still there.

“My apologies,” he said, but Tim felt the hellfire tug at him once more, just before dissipating.

“Told you brown-eyes had a thing for you,” Roy said.

Tim leveled a glare that never quite met its mark. Instead, Jason’s arm fell from his waist and linked around his arm, and before he knew it, he was being tugged out of the inn and into the night.

“What are you—” Tim said, stumbling to keep up. Jason was taking long, angry strides and since Tim was a good deal shorter, it was a struggle to keep pace.

“We’re not staying here,” Jason snapped, and it was as if all the calm he’d had before had faded, replaced by rage.

Roy, who pulled up the rear, said, “You spooked that bad? He was big, but all he had was this knife.” As he said it, he revealed the blade he’d pilfered from the cuff of his shirt and tossed it idly in the air, the moon catching the metal with a silver glint.

Jason rounded on him – Tim getting yanked in the process, which gave Tim incentive to shake himself free from Jason’s iron grip. He rubbed his arm, turning just in time to see Roy catch the weapon and dance backward, smiling nervously as Jason descended on him. And then Tim noticed the weapon – caught and held tight in Roy’s nimble fingers, held an inscription.

Tim’s stomach climbed to his throat. Panic filled him to such an extent that he thought the elements might come again and rip the blade clean from Roy’s hands.

Jason beat them to the chase. He smacked Roy’s wrist hard and unexpected and the weapon clattered sideways on crusted dirt.

“If you wanted it you could have—”

“It’s a Chaos Dagger,” Jason said, which caught Tim off guard. From what he knew, normal folks didn’t know about Chaos and its curses. He was right, though; Tim’s attention drifted to the weapon and he swallowed thickly.

He’d only ever seen one before. It wasn’t a pleasant memory.

Roy took a step backward, looking spiderlike in the shadows. “A what?”

Tim said, “A Chaos Dagger,” and then added, “It keeps the souls of the people whose lives it claims.”

This time, Jason’s eyes slid Tim’s direction. Tim ignored it. Instead, he asked, “Is there any place here that is safe for us to stay?”

Under the glow of the moon, the angles of Jason’s face found light. He had grown unshaven, which gave him a rugged quality – though his eyes had and aged look that once again brought back the hum of energy Tim couldn’t quite place.

Roy said, “I got an idea, but our princess here ain’t gonna like it.”

Next to Tim, Jason’s head lulled. “I think we’re thinking the same thing.”

Tim followed Jason’s eyes down the street, finding it focused on one particular sign, painted in bright pastels and doused with glow-flowers.

He went rigid.

“You are out of your mind.”

“Security and privacy,” Roy ticked off an imaginary list.

Tim stated, “It’s a brothel,” like it was a curse.

Jason said, “That it is.”

Tim felt the wind nudge him from the side; an elemental response to the dread that had filled him. The noise it made sounded a lot like laughter.

#jaytim #ladelle writes #sentinel/guide au #touchy feely magic #elemental magic #protective jason #thieving roy #i love roy #he is so fun to write

112 notes · View notes

chwepen · 6 years

Text

lilac hem | m

♢ pairing: hansol | reader ♢ genre: smut, fluff ♢ word count: 4.8k ♢ summary: an unconventional conversation about your relationship with a friend leads to a night filled with laughter and nothing less than love.

The last spoonful of Fruit Loops sat on your tongue the moment Soonyoung asked, “Have you and Hansol had sex yet?”

Soonyoung’s new romance with Minghao began a lengthy talk about past relationships and dating tips. The sudden turn to your own love life urged you to choke on the cereal as soon as the word “sex” left his mouth. Not because the thought left a bad taste, but only from the audacity he had thinking discussing you and your boyfriend’s private moments were up for casual discussion.

It had little to do with the fact you hadn’t gone that far with Hansol yet.

It was normal to want to be intimate with a partner, to understand one another physically and where you did and didn’t fit. Then again, neither of you pushed, and it was easy to pretend the topic wasn’t there. You knew him, loved him, saw him as a best friend as well as a partner; sex wouldn’t ruin that. Nevertheless, ten months in, you never took it past the intimacy you already shared.

You swallowed the cereal, responding with, “Is there a reason you’re asking me and not my boyfriend?”

“I mean, he’s really private about the two of you. He could just be a closed book like we all know he is, or it hasn’t happened yet.” Soonyoung wiggled his eyebrows while biting into his last piece of toast.

You pushed your hand into his chest on the way to the sink, draining the milk in your bowl and dropping the tableware with a clank. “You need to go out more often if that’s your idea of small talk.”

Soonyoung’s feet sagged when he stood up, as if he’d been scolded for eating candy before dinner. Setting his plate next to your bowl, he sighed. “Listen, I didn’t mean to pry, and I’m not trying to be a creep. Still, you can talk to me. It might be a bit weird but I love you both. And I see how you look at each other. But, if it’s too personal, I can shut my mouth.”

“You, shutting your mouth? I’m shocked.” He laughed before weakly shoulder-checking you. You had nothing to lose if you told the truth or lied. You went with the former anyway. “It’s not like there’s been no opportunity, we’re just taking things slow, you know? I mean, my first time wasn’t exactly perfect. I guess I’d rather wait than have it drift us apart, even if we’re both a bit frustrated.”

In the simplest terms, the first time had been a train-wreck. Little communication resulted in little pleasure, even if it was with someone who you cared for. Then again, that didn’t ensure satisfaction.

“You never...at all?” Soonyoung shook his head in shock. You stopped yourself from laughing with a hand to your mouth, a few soap bubbles popping on your fingers.

“Soon, we might not have sex, but we’re not prudes.”

In your mind, sex didn’t need to be the beginning and end of physical affection. Some nights, Hansol’s hands and mouth made you gasp and writhe around under him in the best way. And in turn, on other days, you offered your words and tongue to pull him into your shared bed with many grunts and curses.

“You’re telling me you’ve never thought of going for a home run instead of stopping quick at third base, coach?”

“If this is the mindset that stole Minghao’s heart, you either need more pointers on relationships or a boyfriend made of stronger stuff,” you joked. Washing the dishes to clear your mind, it made talking easier with your hands occupied. It helped you unwind, even if you owned a dishwasher.

“Don’t be mean! I was just thinking it!”

“You always speak before you think.” The voice wasn’t new to your ears, but it made your heart skip all the same. Turning your head, you noticed the rips in Hansol’s running shirt and the sweat rolling down his neck. His light-brown hair was getting longer, shaggier and slightly curled, and his bangs fell right before his eyes. It was damp like the rest of his skin, but you’d stare regardless. He looked incredible, even in his desperate need for a shower. “Hi, babe.” Hansol planted a kiss on your cheek, then rummaged through the fridge for a bottle of water.

“The man of the hour. Who knew you got your ass out of bed in the morning. Thankfully, your girlfriend hasn’t used the ‘water in the face’ method yet,” Soonyoung asked, crossing his arms and smirking.

“That was one time, and if I remember correctly, you were also sleeping in. The second reason why I moved out.” Hansol took a hefty gulp of his water, and sat it on the counter close to you. By the time you finished cleaning both dishes, he had his hand on your hip. “How was breakfast with the menace?”

“Good! Same old Soonyoung, buttering me up for information he should keep his nose out of.”

“Hey!” Soonyoung raised his hands in defense. “I’m just being a good friend.”

“And what information were you trying to extract from my girlfriend, exactly?” Hansol grinned. You never stopped adoring his smile, or how great the endearment sounded on his lips.

“Nothing too juicy. Just how you once plopped a pillow over my face to stop me from snoring.” You wrapped your arms around Hansol, loving the feel of his body. He could take a shower later and smell better, but hearing his heartbeat against your ear mattered more. “I missed you.”

“I left for an hour!”

“Still missed you,” you mumbled, coming close to his mouth before you pecked it. Wanting more, Hansol leaned in for another, deeper kiss. In the moment, being in the same room with your friend didn’t bother you. The fact Hansol missed you just as much showed in the way his kiss heightened all your senses.

“Okay,” Soonyoung muttered, “you guys can suck each other’s faces off. I’m going home, where I’m actually appreciated for my mouth.” He winked at you both and left the apartment, whistling the whole way down the hall.

Freshly showered Hansol snuggled on the couch beside you, flicking channels without much attention to the programs. You didn’t speak much after you both relaxed in the living room, but you picked having him close over small talk. “So, were you actually telling Soonyoung about my accidental pillow suffocation, or was it something else?”

You shrugged. The comfort of his chest under your head made the earlier conversation flit away. “Nothing really interesting.”

“Try me.” He paused the show he picked and turned himself to face you, genuine curiosity glimmering in his eyes.

Noticing the thin leather bracelet around Hansol’s wrist, you grinned. On your sixth date, conveniently in an arcade, you decided he deserved a gift. Nothing big, but something to remember the night. A claw machine with only bracelets and smaller trinkets caught your eye, and you spent the next two hours fighting for the bracelet, its little blue and purple beads in the brown lining capturing your attention immediately. Hansol’s smile as you put it on him made every cent you spent worth it.

The next time you saw him, out for his usual workout session without it on his wrist, he confessed he never wore it during his runs. He joked how he didn’t know which was worse: the fear of losing it or it not being there at all. When you said losing it was worse, he responded with, “I guess you’ll just have to hold my hand until I’m wearing it again.” On that day, you knew you fell in love.

You took a breath and placed your hand in his. “Soonyoung asked about us…and sex. It came up after we were talking about him and Minghao, and I guess he thought it’d be interesting to know. But of course, it’s ridiculous right? There’s nothing to say.”

You focused attention everywhere but on him. The gray fuzz of the blanket, the potted plants and striped rug the two of you bought once you moved in together, the wall photos from several dates and get-togethers with friends. A whole life you shared together, and you couldn’t seem to stare into his eyes and unbottle a fear you possibly didn’t understand yourself.

“Hey, look at me.” His other hand sat gently under your chin, but you turned your face on your own. His brown eyes stared back, not judgmental or confused. Only loving. “It’s not nothing, and definitely not anything to be embarrassed about.”

“I’m not embarrassed, I just shouldn’t have told you. I’m sorry.”

“There’s nothing to apologize for. We never really…” Hansol huffed out a breath and leaned closer to you, rubbing figure eights into your palm with his thumb. “Do you wanna talk about it now?”

With a shaky sigh, you knew it was time to speak up. “It’s this intense thing we skated past somehow, and we’re great. Better than great, and I thought that it didn’t need to come up. But now, I know it’s the one thing that we haven’t done and it could somehow ruin everything, you know? It should be nothing, but it isn’t.” Your stomach sank lower with every word. Each one felt like the search for an answer.

Hansol pressed a kiss to your palm, still interlocked with his. “You’re right, it isn’t. It’s completely terrifying and normal to be scared of, but I promise it won’t change anything you don’t already know about me, us, or how I feel about you.”

“How do you know? I mean, just because you go down on me or I give you a decent blowjob doesn’t mean we’re…compatible that way.”

He laughed loud before responding. “First, I understand the fear that maybe what I want and what you want in bed could be different, but that’s what couples figure out with practice and communication. Second, I love you, more than anyone. You’re incredibly beautiful, insanely and frustratingly sexy, and I don’t care how long you want to wait. When you’re ready, I will be too.” His kisses against your hand eased the tension in your body, if only for a little while. “Also, your mouth is anything but decent.”

Although you laughed, water welled at the corners of your eyes. “Still Han, what if it changes how you feel about me? Like, this could be the thing that proves maybe I’m just not—” You choked on the last words, unable to give life to your worst fear.

“Don’t think that way. There’s nothing you could do or say that would change anything that I think or love about you. Well, maybe joking with my parents about my baby photos again, but that’s the only thing. Cross my heart.”

You giggled, letting your head fall into Hansol’s neck. You wrapped your hands around him, and his scent reminded you of what mattered. Mint and sea salt. Home. “I’m sorry.”

“Stop apologizing, or Tickle War Part ‘I Don’t Know’ will commence.”

You shook your head and sank deeper into him, his body solid against your frame. “I love you.”

“I love you more, babe. Always more.”

It was a great week after that. The two of you continued with your normal routine, with work and long hours of touching and snuggling taking up the past seven days. Still, your mind wandered now and then to that talk on a late Saturday afternoon. How confident Hansol was and how sure you felt against him reminded you why you loved him. He had the power to lock away most of your worries, even if they came back. With or without you having to ask, he’d fight all your monsters.

The opening of the front door made you shoot up from the couch. A bag of groceries in one hand and a bouquet of flowers in the other, Hansol smiled wide when he saw you. Placing the bag on the counter, he met you in the middle of the living room with a tight hug. “Surprise? I thought you were still napping, and I could be dorky and leave them next to you to wake up to.”

“Very corny, but I would’ve loved it. I love it now.”

You kissed him abruptly, the plastic wrapping around the flowers crunching as he pressed you deeper into his body. He let go for breath, a laugh sputtering out. “Well, you’re very thankful.”

“I mean, I should be considering I don’t know why you got me flowers in the first place.”

“Just because?” A boyish grin spread across his face, accompanied by a shade of pink coloring his cheeks. “I hope you like them.”

Staring at the array of yellow sunflowers, sweetness bloomed in your chest. Sweetness and adoration for the man who took your heart so gently and never let go. The longer you stood there in his arms, the quicker the adoration burned brighter and into something deeper. Carnal. A desire, despite all fears, that pulled him in for another kiss.

When you separated again, you whispered, “Put the flowers on the coffee table. I’ll get water for them later.”

“Why later?” A pout formed on his lips, but it died the second he saw the gleam in your eyes.

“I want to do something else right now.” Before he could respond, you took his hand and led him into your bedroom. The little bits of sunlight at dusk colored the space, creating patterns on the comforter.

Your hands were shaking when you let Hansol go and stepped forwards until your legs hit the end of the bed. Grabbing the bottom of your shirt, you peeled it off without second-guessing yourself. Now, with only your bra covering your top half, your chest heaved with every breath.

The moment hung in the air for too long, until he held onto you with his hands on your hips. “Are you sure? We don’t have to—“

“I do,” you whispered. You smiled genuinely while studying his face, feeling more than vulnerable. “I want this with you.” Whatever came next, you knew it was a step you wouldn’t regret. Not when he gave you every reason to fall back into his arms without fear of landing on the ground.

It didn’t start as a clash of teeth and tongue, no haste of dropping clothes to the floor, or anxious sighs and groans. It started with hands on your cheekbones and the softest of kisses. Hansol whispered the most tender “Okay” before his lips met your own, and it was a wonder you stood upright at all. With his hands on your skin and his tongue, coaxing and welcoming a sigh from your mouth, you were lost and sinking into him.

Never breaking the kiss, he picked you up off the ground and wrapped your legs around his waist. The immediate reaction was to wrap your arms tighter around him for support, but once he laid you out on the bed, you both cracked a smile and laughed like nothing was out of place. You were still you, and he was still him.

The black tank top Hansol was wearing showed the best of his arms and shoulders, and while you knew every line of his body, you wanted to see the rest again. You wanted it off.

With enough looks between his eyes and the fabric, he removed it quickly and hovered over the top of you. Soft skin atop his muscle and bone, you outlined the curve of his shoulder with your index finger, quietly marveling at the edges of him.

“Like what you see?” He winked again, playing with strands of your hair fanning out on the comforter. Something bright and childish shined in his expression, and you felt like a teenager again, crazy and in love. Very much in love.

“I really do. Then you ruined it with that awful line.” You giggled and leaned your head into the junction of Hansol’s collarbones. He laughed whole-heartedly in response before you met his eyes again.

“I’m sorry.“ A blush crept onto Hansol’s face, a breathtaking sight.

“No. I like it. It makes me…less nervous.” His hand, the hand with his bracelet dangling from his wrist, dropped lower to the curves of your chest and the skin of your stomach.

“That’s good. I don’t want you to be nervous about this.” Hansol kissed your nose and both cheeks before linking his hand with your own. “I’ve got you.”

You nodded, certain nothing was more true. “I know you do.” You kissed the curve of his shoulder you touched with your finger. While you gave his body attention with your mouth, his lips kissed a path down to your neck. Unhooking your bra and throwing it somewhere in the room, you were too immersed in him and his skin against yours to care where it ended up.

No kisses felt as earnest. With your mouths pressed tightly to skin, it was an array of wanting and wishing for each other, melding and burning until there was nothing left but promises.

Hansol’s hands dipped into the waistband of your pajama pants, tugging them down gently until they were kicked away. Once they were off, he rested his hands on either side of your neck, proof he wanted you to know he was there with you like you were with him, experiencing everything and taking nothing for granted. “You’re beautiful, you know that?”

“So are you,” you whispered, the cool air hitting your legs and your words warming you in every corner.

You began to trail your hands down your hips to your panties, when he stopped you. He kissed your neck with fervor and murmured, “Let me.”

He stood, his breathing labored and struggling to stay even. His eyes lowered to your exposed center once he slid your panties down your legs. He could tell from past experience you were already wet from the small amount of touching. When he sank to his knees, you knew he’d take his time.

His lips slid slowly from your ankle to your knee, and the path to your thigh was slow, desperate, and aching as he spread your legs wider. You didn’t urge him to go faster, but the prolonged dance of his mouth would unravel you quickly. He pressed a kiss to the outside of one lip, then the other, until he was breathing against your clit. Your body keened under the small attention.

Then, his mouth sank onto you, and no words could explain any coherent thought. Your brain was empty of ideas. All you felt was feelings with his lips sucking and licking, then the teasing of a finger slowly pressing in. Songs at midnight, a body sleeping against grass, the flicker of a match ready to dance into flames. “Yes.”

He continued kissing and weaving his tongue into circles around and against your clit. A second finger had you moaning louder, encouraging his efforts. You were sinking into the bed and under his touch, building and searing any remaining doubts. It could have been hours bleeding into years, and it didn’t matter. The only significance of the moment rested in Hansol’s mouth against you, making the world fall away into a safe place only the two of you recognized.

“You’re so wet,” Hansol whispered, staring at your body rising and falling, and the mess he’d made of you. His fingers kept sliding in and out, and only when you moaned again did he press his mouth back to your clit.

The third finger bent your body like a bowstring, twisting and arching in all directions. The whisper of an “I love you” snapped you completely, the flutter of an orgasm blooming wildly in your stomach as you came. Nothing but a hollow breath fell from your lips when you came back down, eyes blinded by white and a body sweaty from exertion. And there was still more to come.

Hansol wiped his mouth with the back of his hand before leaning into you for a kiss, the taste of yourself against his tongue. His eyes were broken and put together again from lust and love, and it all reflected in yours. “You’re perfect.”

“So are you…but I have a problem.” He looked worried immediately, but you only grinned widely and with eyes half open. “I’m naked and you’re not.”

He chuckled and kissed your forehead. “I think I can change that.”

Standing up, he looked down at you with adoration before removing what was left of his clothes. all while you moved yourself under the covers. The waning sunlight hit his chest in the best way, bringing the brown out in his eyes like liquid amber. So shy and deserving and yours. If anyone could have beauty in every feature, it was him.

Unbuckling his belt, you quietly waited to ogle the rest of his body. Unfortunately, getting out of his pant legs seemed to be a challenge, kicking each one forward and backward until his leg was out of the denim after a good minute. He raised his hands to his face, almost in agony that it wasn’t sensual in the way he envisioned it. He still smiled anyway.

“Attractive.” You laughed dizzily, fighting the urge to help him do it faster.

“You bet it is. I’m a catch.” His smirk made you giggle again.

The laughter died on your tongue once his boxers fell to the floor. Hard and attentive, you knew his cock was aching to be touched, or be inside you. Either way, you knew you wanted his skin pressed against yours again. “Condom?”

Hansol walked towards the bedside table, opening the drawer to grab a foil packet and rip it open. “Prepared as always.”

You smiled up at him as he pinched the top and rolled it onto the base, concentrated and determined. You bit your bottom lip when he crawled back onto the bed and over your body. “I love you,” you said with your fingertips on his cheek.

“Always more.” He kissed you fervently, his hands pressing into your chest and grabbing your breasts with fond amazement. “So soft. Everywhere.” You blushed, a deep scarlet blooming on your neck and face. “Beautiful.”

Aligning your center with the head of his cock, he looked into your eyes with the last bit of confirmation he needed. With another kiss, a final kiss of assurance, he pressed in.

The pinch of pain and pressure of him didn’t override the soft groan shared between you both, or the pleasure of him being inside of you. He moved deeper, and you gritted your teeth as the pain lingered. You tried to hide it, but the sudden hiss as he went in fully stopped him immediately. “Hey. If it hurts, we can stop.”

Concern brimmed on his face, and you thought you could love him all over again with the care he showed you. A warmth you desired more than anything you ever knew. “No. I’m just adjusting.” He didn’t move, but you kissed him and pushed your hips, urging him to continue. “I promise.”

He nodded softly. A slow thrust fluttered your eyelids closed. Another combined with the press of Hansol’s lips against your shoulder, mixed in with the muffled sound of his own groans, brushed away any nerves or discomfort. The slow movement of his hips drove a breathless whimper out of you, loving how connected you were and admiring every moment that led to this moment. This bed. The laughter and the smiles, the promises and assurance this would ruin nothing.

“Are you okay,” he whispered while leaning closer. Feeling him so deep inside of you, you had to remember how to speak coherently.

“Yes,” you replied, followed by a kiss to the column of his throat. A gasp left his mouth with another thrust of his hips, slow and deliberately pushing you closer towards a beautiful fall. You pulled him closer, chest to chest. “You can go faster. I won’t break.”

“I like slow.” Another snap of his hips, and he bit the bottom of his lip to hold back a moan. With the sensation of you wrapped around him and the sounds you made, he moaned anyway. “I like being this close with you, feeling you.”

You gasped once he sped up, not too fast but enough for your cries to flood the room, drowning out any noises he made in response. “Fuck.”

Moving at a pleasurable pace, the two of you were building and breaking until the marks against his back and the pressure of his hands on your hips didn’t exist. Until the sheen on his skin, the shared curses, and the lack of breath in your lungs didn’t matter much. It wasn’t fucking, or anything you would describe as rough or labored. It was making love in every sense. In all the touches and in each and every sound and kiss. This is what it feels like, you told yourself, to be loved completely.

Fire licked and lapped at your senses, reading to consume everything with Hansol pumping into you and the sounds rising out of him, some almost dying on his tongue. The lazy crashing of his skin against yours showed he was unraveling like you were. “I’m…baby, I’m-”

“I know,” you responded, breathless and feeling waves rising high underneath your skin, waiting for the right moment to crash. Grabbing him by the face, coated in sweat, you pressed your lips to his before releasing a broken whisper. “Me too.”

With another full thrust inside, warmth spread through your body with a shiver and cry of Hansol’s name. It was blinding and blissful and all you could ask for as you fell deeper. Your hand clung to his shoulder as you rode it out, unrestrained sensations claiming your body and leaving you limp when you let go.

You came down to his hands still pressed into your hips and the image of fluttering eyelids as his body stuttered. He pressed his forehead to yours, lost in the sensation of his own orgasm. Attaching his lips to your own as he came, you let him milk out the last remnants of his pleasure before his hips came to a halt.

When he opened his eyes fully, you smiled against his lips. “Hi.”

“Hi.” He laughs. With another kiss, his head fell onto your chest. His own chest rose and fell with your own, a perfect tempo between your hearts.

The moonlight leaked through the curtains and fell onto the comforter. In his arms and with the peaceful quiet, you knew it was the only place you wanted to be. ”I love you, you know that?” His voice vibrated on your skin.

With your heart full, your body still buzzing, and your eyes drowsy, nothing was more right in the world. "I love you too.”

Slowly but surely, you wake up to his whole body draped around you. The droop of his open mouth proved he was still deep in sleep. You hated to leave him, but with a dry mouth, you knew the fridge was calling your name, if only for a glass of water, but not before you grabbed a shirt to put on.

Opening the fridge quietly, you grab the first bottle you see and pop the plastic cap. You remember the night before as you drink, the pleasure of skin against skin and reminders of how easy it was between you both, laughing and smiling the whole way through. The surprise of Hansol’s hands on your hips brings you back to the warmth you missed when you left your bed. “You could’ve woke me up, you know.” His lips attached to your shoulder,

You giggle. “Well, since you were so tired…” You turned your body to wrap your hands around his neck, curling the ends of his hair around your fingers.

“And when did I ever say I was tired?”

“You didn’t, but I thought you would be a little worn out…after everything.”

“Oh,” he said, a small grin on his lips. “Well, I’m fully rested now.” He kissed your temple softly. “It was perfect, if you were worried.”

With your heart thumping wildly in your chest, you smiled back at him. “It was, and I wasn’t.”

“Good. Now, go back to bed and I’ll make you pancakes.” His voice was so soft, you almost wanted it on your skin again like the night before.

You laughed. “How about we make them together?”

“Deal.” Sweeping down for a kiss, you felt it deep in your limbs. Numb and alive all at once, you wondered how a perfect night could turn into a perfect morning.

#seventeen smut #vernon smut #hansol smut #vernon scenarios #hansol scenarios #vernon scenario #hansol scenario #seventeen scenario #seventeen scenarios

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sopheronipepperoni · 5 years

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(because I’m a sucker for comfort after nightmares, and let’s be honest, they have seen a lot of stuff. also, can we talk about how upsetting it would be to see the potential love of your life die, even knowing that they would be okay?)

The crowd is caught up in the bloodlust, bodies pressing thick in the town square. Malak cries from a nearby roof, and she angrily thinks that the sun has no right to shine like it does, not today. Portia and Mazelinka are warm, comforting presences at her side, but not even they can stop the storm raging within her.

The gallows loom large in front of them, occupied by three figures. Nadia is resplendent as always, even with an executioner lurking in her shadow. But her eyes are only for Julian, as he stands up tall and straight on the wood planking, eye raking over the crowd before stopping on her. Even from the distance she can see the soft smile he gives her, gone in an instant as Nadia finishes her proclamation. Julian steps into the spotlight with ease, dramatic and passionate to the end, denouncing the Count one last time.

And then her fingernails are biting into her palms, and her heart nearly stops beating as the executioner slips the noose up and over Julian’s neck. She chokes out a sound halfway between a laugh and a sob as Julian stoops slightly, ever the gentleman, so quick to help. The crowd’s screams and yells reach fever-pitch as the executioner grasps the lever, and Julian meets her eyes again, refusing to look away or flinch from his fate.

She mouths the words she didn’t have the courage to say, wasn’t sure she was ready to say, and then the ground drops out from underneath them both as he falls, his neck jerking to the side.

Everything around her fades to silent shades of black and white as he sways slightly—once, twice, three times. And then she is running, running, running, desperate to get to him, to see the life surge into his eyes once more as he comes back—

But the square might as well be a chasm for how long it takes her to cross it. Heedless of those still lingering in the aftermath, she sweeps up to the gallows as they remove his body, grabbing for him so she can be the first one he sees when he opens his eyes, those beautiful dove-gray eyes.

It’s as she’s cradling his head in her lap that she realizes something is wrong. The angle of his neck is too sharp, the bruising too deep. He’s deathly pale, and she shoots out a breath of magic into his body, looking for life. Blood trickles from his nose and mouth, and she can’t understand it, this wasn’t part of the plan, it wasn’t—

He should be healing, but he’s not.

She begins to rock him back and forth, tears slipping freely down her face. Again and again she plunges her magic into him, fingers clinging as she tries to remember the healing spells Asra taught her. The sky goes dark, and she is alone with him, suddenly and painfully alone, with the hopes of their future together raining to the ground around her in shredded ribbons.

Something deep within her rips, tears open, and there is a howling void where her soul used to be. Wind screams around her, formless sounds shaping themselves into the words “no, come back, i love you, come back, no no no” echoing around her. She realizes that the screaming is coming from her, an inhuman sound, and she can’t stop shaking. She can’t. She’ll shake herself apart, still holding him in her arms, and they’ll have to bury two bodies today—

“Lydia!”

The word, foreign amidst the chaos, has the effect of a mirror shattering. She is able to surface to reality, clawing her way back to life with a shuddering gasp, eyes flying open. Dark sky is replaced by dark wall panels; the smell of death turns into the mingling scents of citrus and clean linens and him. Feeling returns in the same moment as sound, and she feels the firm hold of arms around her as she’s rocked gently, steadily, to the sound of her name.

She gasps again, turning into him, feeling the wetness on her cheeks against the warmth of his skin. Her fingers dig into him, scrabbling to pull him closer, to feel the rush of blood through his veins and the pull of air in his lungs. His arms tighten around her, as she struggles to reconcile that this Julian, very much alive, is reality, that they are living their future right now, and that the nightmare is nothing but a fiction.

The roaring in her ears drops away as her sobbing quietens, and she realizes that Julian has been saying her name this whole time. His voice sounds hoarse, and as he pulls back to look at her, she sees tear tracks dimly lining his skin. She cups his cheek, more tears falling from her eyes even as she tries to dry his. “You were gone.” Her voice is hoarse, too, and she wonders how long she was screaming. “It was the day you were hanged, and then you—you fell, and—“ her hands go around her own neck, the mania reluctant to leave her—“your neck, it was all wrong, and you wouldn’t wake up—“

He presses her into his shoulder, holding tight as another wave overtakes her. Even though she knows now that he is real, it’s like all of the grief still needs to be let out, all of the fear of what could have happened, and so they stay like that, her pressed into him while he strokes her hair and murmurs reassurances.

Eventually she stills, exhaustion replacing tears in the cavern that has opened inside of her. Julian takes her chin, forcing her to meet his gaze in the candlelight. “I am right here, Lydia. I am safe, and I am not going anywhere.”

She whispers something, too soft for him to catch. His eyebrows draw in, eyes shadowing again.

“I didn’t get to say I love you.”

His face softens, and he continues to hold her gaze. “You get to say it now. That was a nightmare, Lydia. That’s all it was—“ She cuts him off with a kiss, surging against him fiercely, needing to feel this part of him, now. He responds, lips moving firmly against her, curling his frame around her, anchoring her to him.

When they break for air, she rests her forehead against his, eyes nearly crossed for the looking at him. His fingers are tangled in her hair. Both are out of breath, and she revels in this breathlessness, in the sound of air passing between his lips. “I love you, Julian.”

He closes his eyes, fingers flexing against her scalp. “I love you too.” Spoken softly, it is a promise, and a prayer, and the last thing needed to tether her fully back into the here and now. She sags against his chest, and he sinks with her back into the blankets. His heart beats a steady rhythm under her ear, and she focuses on its sound.

He cards his fingers through her hair, and her mind begins to grow quiet. “I’m afraid to fall back asleep.” Even as she whispers it, her eyes threaten to drag closed.

He hears and understands her unspoken words as he replies, “Don’t you worry. I’ll be right here, love. I’ve got you.” She shifts, trying to gaze up at him. She feels his voice rumble through his whole body as he adds, “Unless you’d rather I regale you with a tale of wild daring do?” He feels her lips quirk up, just slightly, but the weight that settled on him from her first anguished cry lessens all the same.

“Please.” She keeps her eyes open, in the dark, as long as she can, not wanting to miss a moment of hearing tell of his adventures. It’s not their first time weathering this particular sort of storm, after everything that has happened; but together, they are strong enough to pick up the pieces, rebuild the wreckage, and journey forth into the new dawn.

The rest of the night, she sleeps. The sound of his breath is the sweetest lullaby she’s ever heard.

#the arcana #julian devorak #julian x apprentice #julian x mc #julian #okay but seriously you cannot tell me that the apprentice would not FEEL THINGS as they saw julian die #slight spoilers #angst angst angst #but also comfort

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laurabelle2930 · 7 years

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Forever at Odds~ Unexpected Discovery

Hello all! So here’s my contribution to @olicityhiatusficathon that was set up by @thebookjumper!

Prompt: Unintentional Discovery (I just liked Unexpected better!)

Read it here or on AO3

Chapter 3: Unexpected Discovery

Ten Months Ago….

“You seem agitated…”

A cocky, “You seem slow,” eased through Oliver’s curled lips as he slammed his fist forcefully through the chilled air.

John’s glove took the force of the impact, the man himself smiled knowingly and, adjusted his slightly shifted stance. “Nice try,” he breathed. Oliver cocked his head then with slanted eyes he panted, “I’m not here for a therapy session.”

“Yes you are,” John accused as Oliver’s left fist came barreling toward his right jaw. John dodged the blow and, even landed a parting one of his own against Oliver’s right side.

Laughing ruefully Oliver focused on John’s core. His sparring opponent was good but the body never lies. “Something happened last night and, I’ve spent all day avoiding the conversation okay?” he lamely threw out before he landed a parting blow to John’s rib cage.

Chuckling with bright eyes John punched at the empty air while asking, “You weren’t dumb enough to kiss her were you?”

Oliver’s eyes slipped to the ground. John lowly exhaled, “Oliver you didn’t…”

Instead of using his words Oliver slung the butt of his gloved knuckles towards the defined ridge of John’s left jawbone. The ebony skinned man didn’t bother using the speed afforded to most vampires to dodge the blow he simply let Oliver land the aggression fueled punch.

“I’m in love with her okay,” Oliver breathed when a line of sweat dripped down his chiseled profile and, towards the black cement beneath their feet. “I’m hopelessly in love with a woman whose sole reason for being here is to secretly kill our family…” he finished with venom lacing his dark words.

John’s fingers were gently rubbing along the invisible bruise while his dark, endlessly brown eyes dared to invade the inner solace of his very tormented King. He hissed in humor, “You’re more than just in love and she’s not that one sided,” then adjusted his stance and prepared his gloved hands for the next assault.

Oliver danced along the floors swiftly with practiced movements while his arms hung freely at his sides. He moved about the space, his feet danced over same faded fabric yet his arms remained like pillars along his sides. His head ached, thousands of forced words and pained looks invaded his empty body like the force of impending tidal wave. The water simply crashed towards him in varying hues of blue, gray and, green while he fought to cling to the dry sand just above his desperate reach. He felt John’s arms beginning to sag, his empty heart was fracturing all around him and, all he had were empty words and, false hopes of a future with a woman he’d grown to love. The fabric of his damp shirt slipped along the contours of his twisting abdominal muscles as his shoulders fell forward allowing him to finally fall to his knees in complete defeat, “John I want her,” he moaned in fury. “I want her heart, her body and most importantly I want her soul,” he groaned with rage as he began to undo the wrapping around his hands.

“You didn’t say blood,” the older man mentioned with a degree of veiled humor.

John’s gloves hit the floors with a dull thud while Oliver continued to wrestle with the fire of his tortured needs. “Oh I want that as well but, not for feeding purposes,” came his darkened reply once his right hand was free.

“Well have you tried to tell her how you feel?” John’s words licked at his tortured soul while he mulled over the question.

Oliver began to undo the other wrapping when a sharp almost frenzied hiss of annoyance floated through the stale cellar air and, towards his waiting ears… “He’s choosing to hide from me?” Oliver’s fingers froze over the half done wrapping. John’s brows rose with interest when another shrill, “He’s my husband Sara!” came wafting past the two men.

John’s croaked, “I think your wife would like a word…” made him frown but, it was Felicity’s, “If he wants access to his bedroom he’ll be in front of me within the next ten minutes!” that left him completely winded with internal fear.

“Care to explain her anger?” John asked almost quietly.

Oliver threw the used wrapping to the ground as his palm moved up and down the lines of his tensed upper thighs. His harsh gulp of panic made his muffled, “As I said it’s about the other night,” sounded like a squeak rather than the words of an adult male.

John patted his friend’s shoulder affectionately before he bent down to retrieve his dropped gloves. “Well if you ever want to have sex with your wife I’d make that requested meeting…” he whispered with mischief as Oliver gulped in confusion.

“Sex? Why…” Oliver scrunched his face and, shook his head as John’s fingers left his shoulder, “How could an argument about her secret agenda lead to sex?”

John’s entire aura glowed red as he let out a rarely heard rich, almost golden chuckle, “What really happened last night?”

Oliver’s sputtered, “I finally confronted her about the true reason for our arranged marriage,”

Of course that made the King’s chosen confident smile with mirth, “Yeah and I’m really 37 years old.”

Oliver’s jaw clenched, his eyes blazed and his fingers turned red as a gentle mumbled, “I might have also tried to kiss her in the heat of the moment,” passed through his tight lips.

Oliver’s confession made John’s rich chuckle shift into an Earth shattering roar as he carefully said… “I’d say you’re not the only one who's sexually frustrated…”

Oliver coughed uncomfortably, “That’s absurd…”

John shrugged knowingly, “Then why is she really irritated? I know this isn’t the first time that you’ve had the why are you really here discussion but, you’ve never tried to kiss her before have you?” Oliver sat there open mouthed while his friend’s chin fell to his chest in bemused wonder. “You know for someone in love you’re missing the bigger picture.”

Oliver gulped, “And that would be?”

John shook his head making Oliver’s undead heart quiver in his cold chest when he lightly replied, “That your wife’s in love with you too.”

He left a very confused Oliver sitting on the hard, cold cement floor looking like a lost puppy while his wife fumed angrily from just beyond the closed cellar doors.

The first night Felicity had spent in the castle had been awkward but, not entirely unpleasant... for him that is. That evening she walked with the grace of a stone statue through the long unending halls until they reached the door of his sleeping quarters… Now he was the one walking like a statue made of pure granite as he lumbered with a heavy heart toward his very angry wife.

He expected angry rants, and harsh insults but never did he expect to hear a hushed, “Just remember Felicity when he get’s here don’t hold back, let him have it,” through the heavy oak doors. Oliver listened to her soothing voice as he slowly lumbered down the halls with a smile gracing his ageless face. “So greet him at the door with an even tone…” His face fell into a mask of emotions while she continued to plan out her next moves. “Disregard that adorable smirk and, forget how he makes you feel when his eyes do that downright sexy twinkling thing and, focus on the task at hand.” Oliver pushed his hands into the pockets of his gym shorts and continued walking slowly. Hearing her use words like adorable and sexy made his head swim and, his usually solid stomach knot. “Just be honest. Tell him today’s behavior was unacceptable and, completely insane, yes last night things were said and….well,” her dropped sentence made his motions still. Felicity was never short for words but, she was also never left unable to express her thoughts. Something was churning within her just as it was within him and, for once he wondered if John was right. He wondered if magic was more than just chants and spells, he wondered if love could be magic as well.

His forehead fell towards the floor when a hurried, “Oh shit what the hell is wrong with me?” fell from what he knew to be her graceful lips.

Her last words froze the butterflies fluttering aimlessly through his stomach. He was at their door, she was just beyond the small barrier and, yet he couldn’t bring himself to walk across the threshold. She whispered in vain, “He was supposed to be a monster dammit,” towards the emptiness that surrounded her. Oliver’s aching fingers slipped along the carvings over the door’s rough surface. The splintered wood running in rivets along his frozen skin made his body ache for so much more than a fading distraction of invisible pain. He bumped his flawless knuckles along the door. The wood suddenly crackled like it’d been touched by an endless burning flame. Slowly the dark wood began to glow dimly as the space before him began to warm.

His smile grew into one of honest pride, “I thought you wanted to talk,” he finally muttered as the door before him began to glow with the heat of a thousand rising suns.

A small, “I do but, the idea of burning you alive still has some merit,” hit his racing heart with it’s cold and, calculated intent. The barrier of fire fell swiftly after her voice died, the door cooled, then opened as if by pure magic.

Oliver’s temple fell until it was lodged along the door’s frame. His broad smile of admiration was only intensified when she flipped her wavy, blonde hair over her shoulder and scowled darkly, “Stop looking at me like that.”

He crossed his arms over his chest like an invisible shield. “Like what Felicity? Stop showing you that I care for you? Or would you prefer my smiles of kindness shift into one’s of carnal lust because I can satisfy that need as well,” he volleyed back toward her stammering lips.

“Well…” she gulped uncomfortably, “If I could come up with something better than bastard I’d be slinging it like a tumbler of whiskey but sadly you’ve once again left me verbally beguiled.

He motioned with his chin, “Can I come in or would you prefer to have this discussion with the barrier of the door between us?”

“Awfully rude considering you’ve been hiding from me since last night,” she stammered as she slowly began drifting towards his bed.

He swung back forcefully, “That coming from my wife the firestarter is a tad bit amusing.”

Felicity did little more than shrug before her words flowed freely while her back was turned towards his amused face. “Well then perhaps the next time we coriel you’ll consider how I might choose to react.”

He swallowed the low gluteal laughter of a man whose sole goal in life was to bed the woman before him and, instead observed first mentally her chosen sleeping attire. “Panda’s?” he soothed once she’d begun to crawl over the red and black bedspread with bent knees.

She tossed him a wicked look of fury before her eyes traveled across his completely beguiled face. She flushed until her cheeks were the color of fresh blood. Oliver licked his lips instinctively, she pushed herself towards the black frame of his headboard before a feeble, “They remind me of home,” reached his twisted heart.

He let her cross both her legs and, arms so she felt safe before he even dared to step over the open threshold. Her blue eyes were wild, her blonde hair was a mess of tangled waves, her skin was alive with the color of her swiftly beating heart but, it was her pink flannel panda sleepwear that cracked his cool veneer. “How do they remind you of home?” he asked softly with his silent apology layering every syllable that was sent between them.

She cocked her head and smiled before she mouthed, “Thank you,”

He nodded timidly as he stepped forward and began to close the door. “I was about three when I found out how my father died,” she exhaled with sadness.

“You never told me that,” he offered as he moved towards his bathroom.

He caught her nervously biting along her bottom lip before she disappeared from his line of sight. “Yeah well my mother isn’t a fan of explaining herself,” she croaked in annoyance. Oliver’s lips slipped into the ghost of smile as his eyes slipped from the mirror and, then towards the bathroom sink.

“So how do the pj’s relate to this story exactly?” he called out while he brushed his trembling fingers along soft lines of his faded Harvard sweatshirt and, a set of boxers to match.

“Well,” she replied softly, “When she had one of my instructors tell me the truth I was getting ready for bed and…”

“And the pj’s were flannel with panda’s on them weren’t they?” he guessed almost instantly.

A hushed, “Yeah so whenever I see a pair I buy them and hide them in some drawer until I need them to feel safe again.”

While he carefully disrobed he asked almost abruptly, “But they hold such a painful confession how could that make you feel safe?”

He heard the soft smile in the lithe tone of her perfect voice, “Because for the first time I had the truth. It was the first time I didn’t fall asleep wondering what I’d done to make him leave me. It was the moment when I realized he didn’t leave me…”

He slipped the sweatshirt over his head while he mumbled apologetically, “No one who's ever loved you would choose to leave you baby...no one..” he added almost silently to himself while he waited for her verbal reprimand.

To his shock all that followed was a soothing, “The same could be said for you…”

He swiftly finished changing into the clothes she’d left for him, brushed his teeth and shut off the bathroom light. When he emerged she smiled shyly, “You showered in the cellar again didn’t you?”

If he could have his skin would have flushed until his hue was that of a ripe tomato. “I didn’t want to offend you any further…” he teased while her shy smile shifted into one he’d yet to catalogue.

“Actually you sort turn me on after you come back from the sparring sessions with John,” she babbled before her brain could silence the errant thought. He was about to press for a more expanded explanation but Felicity’s lips were as always just a tid bit faster. “So ummm did I pick the right one? You had about three that looked like they’d seen better days so I wasn’t completely sure.”

He tugged at the ratty sweatshirt with genuine affection at her stammered question, “This was buried at the back of my closet,” he noted then added, “and yes it’s the one that I told you about when we first got married.”

She grinned in victory, “Good,” she giggled sweetly before her more tempered, “that’s what happens when you leave me alone all day…” filled the space between them.

Oliver’s head bowed in remorse, “How much of my past did you dig through today?”

Felicity chuckled darkly which caused Oliver’s stomach to drop down to his tapping toes. “Oh you mean what did I manage to dig up while you were off brooding?”

“If that’s what you’d like to call it yes,” he smirked while she continued to tease him in an arousing mixture of sweet and snark.

“Well if you must know I also found some old pictures that I have some questions about along with a few textbooks that make me wonder if you’re smarter than you claim to be,” she mentioned while he slowly lumbered to his side of the bed.

He brushed his fingers over the faded material where the insignia of Harvard used to be before his let out an affected, “I was expecting something along the lines of a burning door and perhaps even a hex or two as my punishment for “brooding” as you put it but not this…”

Felicity gulped, “Well one out of three isn’t too bad…”

Sighing internally Oliver let out an exhaled, “Felicity not to shatter this tender moment but we have to talk about what happened last night.”

She patted the still empty space beside her, “Yeah we do,” came her quiet admission moments after he took the offered space beside her coiled form.

HIs ragged, “I meant what I said last night…” left his caged lungs before she could barely open her quivering mouth.

Her strained, “Why do you think I spent all day rummaging through your past?” Made them both nervous as they each took a step closer to the edge of a never ending cliff. “Why do you think I dug up some old sweatshirt for you to sleep in? Why else would I search for the last happy memory you have if on some level I didn’t believe that your words were true?” she finally declared once they’d both reached the edge of their emotional limits. “Why would I choose to stay if I hadn’t decided that I enjoyed being with you?

“When did you decide that?” he managed to mumble while they both remained frozen in metaphorical stone.

“This morning when I woke up and, realized it was to an empty room,” came her hushed confession.

“So you’re saying what exactly?”

He felt the eyeroll in her next words, “I’m saying that I enjoy being here because, I enjoy being with you.”

He picked at the token absentmindedly choosing to divert his focus from her very dangerous words, “This is the only proof I have of the lone time that my sister Thea found happiness,” he croaked.

Felicity scooted closer. “You know we’re not dropping our other conversation,” she muttered before she placed her delicate hands over his forearm in an attempt to silence his tortured thoughts. “Also I know I saw the note she sent with the sweatshirt.”

Oliver mumbled somberly, “Did you see the wedding pictures too?”

“Yes, she looked perfect.” came her kind words. He felt her grazing her thumb gently across his forearm as a way to keep his anger at bay, “He died when she tried to change him didn’t he?” she finally whispered once his body began to shake.

He shifted so her blue eyes were linked to his. He fingers ached to caress her soft cheek but, the memories of his last attempt to touch her held him at bay. He kept his fingers knotted then breathed, “Thea didn’t prepare him for the change. She didn’t feed on him before that day…”

Felicity understanding their world nodded grimly, “He couldn’t handle the venom?”

Shaken Oliver nodded just as grimily, “No he went into cardiac arrest before she’d even taken her first sip.

Felicity slipped her fingers down to his tangled ones and, gingerly began entwining her fingers around his own. “Oliver that wouldn’t happen to me,” she soothed as his chin fell to his chest.

His chest heaved, “You don’t know that and, besides,” he breathed nervously, “Our marriage isn’t real. It’s all based on a lie.” His mangled confession left him emotionally destroyed. “As I told you last night Felicity, I’m in love with you,” his croaked words slipped past his fumbling lips as her fingers slipped along his own trembling ones. “I’d give up my life for you but, you’re never going to feel the same way…” he admitted in sadness. “You might see me as a monster but, you’ll never love me, you’ll never want me the way I want you.”

Felicity pressed her forehead to his shoulder sighing with a mangled heart, “What if I did?

Oliver pressed his cheek to the crown of head and huffed in quiet humor, “Honey I tried to kiss you after my shouted confession of love and, you sorta freaked out.”

He felt her smile along his skin before her affected words touched his soul, “It’s not like I hexed you or something…”

“No you just summoned a hurricane in our bedroom,” he chided as she buried her face into the crook of his neck.

“Only because I was taken by surprise!” she shouted against his skin.

Oliver squeezed at their joined fingers, “So this morning if I’d been here what would have happened?”

“Would you prefer a verbal or perhaps maybe a more physical answer?” she seemed taunt from his slumped shoulder.

She had her lips edging along the skin of his neck. Their fingers were bound and, she was rubbing her nose against his jaw suggestively as she toyed gently with their linked hands. “If I say physical are you going to send me somewhere via a monsoon?” he taunted back with a weary gaze towards her hidden snicker of internal delight.

She pressed her lips to the column of his neck then whispered, “That settles it then, I’m going to straddle your lap.”

Oliver’s eyes blazed when she managed to slip her small form over his crossed legs. She kept their hands joined while she very carefully uncurled her toned legs. She then pressed a timid kiss to his scruff covered cheek while she slowly inched her way across his chest until the edge of her buttock was resting along the sharp angled curves of his bent knees. Oliver couldn’t help the small gasp of elated surprise that wormed it’s way through his rough throat when she slipped her nose along the line of his own. Felicity’s gentle laugh made Oliver groan painfully, “If you’re not careful my more animalistic nature is going to take control…”

Felicity rubbed the underside of her upper thighs over his knees suggestively. She kept their hands linked between them, she kept rubbing her nose along his face while her smiling lips continued to ghost dangerously over his parted mouth. When she mumbled, “That’s the idea,” darkly Oliver felt something spark until the low ember in the pit of his stomach became a raging flame.

Oliver licked his lips slowly, she snaked her tongue along his bottom lip until their tongues touched. Oliver froze beneath her rocking hips but, Felicity didn’t miss a single beat. She kept tracing the line of his bottom lip with her eager tongue until Oliver’s throaty, “I’m tempted to taste you,” filled the remaining space between them.

She squeezed at their still joined hands as she whispered roughly, “Then put us both out of our misery before I come to my senses and, change my frenzied mind.”

Oliver snaked his tongue along her upper lip teasingly then smiled when her lips grazed his left cheekbone, “You do realize I’m intending to feed on you,” he remarked with a primal urge to mark her soft, delicate neck.

Felicity bumped her forehead along his own as a breathy, “Then bite my damn neck already!” escaped her quivering lips.

Oliver rubbed his nose along her jawline as she slowly shifted closer. Oliver gasped when their chests bumped. The soft flannel of her sleepwear made her seem innocent but, her grinding hips erased any innocence from the shared impulse of their dark yearnings. He felt her thumb brushing along his knuckles, he could smell the lavender undertones that raced through her veins, he could feel the heat off her skin as she arched her back and, readily exposed the column of her swan like neck. Oliver pressed his nose to her pulsating artery inhaling deeply whilw muttered words such as, “So fucking perfect,” floating past his smiling lips.

Felicity rolled her hips until they both shuddered with frantic need. He squeezed at her hand in a wordless plea, she gasped, “Oliver please…” as his lips slipped along her pale skin.

His chest heaved as her pert, covered nipples bristled along his chest. “God I love you,” he grumbled as the tips of his white teeth grazed along the small blue line of her pulse point.

She nearly fell backwards when she screamed, “Then prove it….”

He pierced her skin slowly, her entire body shuddered before her temple fell along his relaxed brow. Her skin tasted of lavender, lilacs, and freshly fallen snow, she smelled of vanilla, and linen and, she felt like hot molten iron as her body pulsated around him. He pressed harder once he felt her racing pulse beginning to slow. Her lowly whimpered, “Fuck…” hit his groin as his tongue slipped along her skin. She quivered once his mouth began to devour her whole…

A flurry of images rushed through him once her blood began to coat his ready tongue. Images of her first birthday made him feel warm, images of her first battle made him feel rage, images of her first kiss made him feel envy but, it was the images of her birth that made him see red…. Oliver continued to sip from her slowly as his mind raced. He was seeing her, he was seeing her entire life story and, it wasn’t possible unless…

His heart faltered once he realized why she tasted so forbidden....Felicity’s loan moans of pleasure raced through him, her desire to keep the connection spurred him onward as his mind fought with the hole in his soul. When a vampire fed off a mortal they saw nothing, they just felt the warmth of their souls filling the emptiness of their stomachs until the pain of hunger ended. However if a vampire fed off a fellow vampire the connection of two very isolated souls formed a bridge…. He just never expected to form a bridge with someone of his own kind...

He swallowed thickly before he began to pull away. His feeble heart raced with thousands of questions while his mind begged for an answer that made sense. Felicity panted longingly, “Baby please don’t stop…” once his teeth were once more only grazing along her skin.

He rubbed his nose along the wound emptily. His body shuddered once he found his stricken voice. “This isn’t possible,” he finally whispered in shock. “It’s not possible,” he repeated once more along her heated skin.

Felicity gasped, “What’s not possible?”

Oliver shuddered as he replied, “I saw you…” He felt Felicity’s body freeze. “I saw your soul,” he panted. “I saw your darkest demons because your soul is just like mine…” he seemed to realize as the pieces of a very fragmented puzzle began to slowly align.

Felicity nearly collapsed over his broad chest as she groaned in complete defeat, “As I told you earlier I knew it wouldn’t happen to me…”

Oliver finally sputtered, “Why didn’t you tell me?” as his forehead fell to her shaking shoulder.

“How do you tell the person you were forced to marry oh by the way I’m really a true born vampire like you but, I’m under a spell that makes my human?” she sighed in resignation.

Oliver rubbed his skin along the comforting flannel of her sleep shirt grumbling in shock, “You’re really a vampire like me?”

Felicity’s body deflated as she slowly began to mold herself along his chest, “See why I summoned a hurricane?” she rasped meekly as he untwined their hands.

“Felicity I have so many questions…” he answered once he’d begun to wrap his arms around her slender waist.

All she did once she’d locked her fingers along the slope of his shoulder blades was reply, “Yeah and, I think that it’s finally time I answered a few…”

Present Day…

“Ummm baby are you going to join me before the water turns to ice or should I just enjoy my bubble bath alone?”

Oliver smiled at her reflection in the bathroom mirror as she winked suggestively with her dripping wet fingers dancing along the edge of the soap covered tub. “Sorry honey I was just letting my mind wander that’s all,” he chuckled as she flicked a few water droplets towards his bare skin.

“No you were remembering the first time you fed off of me,” she accused lightly.

His head fell, “Am I that obvious?”

He heard her snicker lightly, “Only to me…”

He smiled with downcast eyes. “Do you know why I love you?” he asked quietly while she swished her fingers along the surface of the soapy water.

“Well I’m beautiful, I’m smart and, oh yeah I’m completely crazy about you so yeah I’m guessing I can comprehend the reasons,” she giggled modestly before her easy “Why?” filled his soul with endless light.

He lifted his head until her reflected eyes were dancing into his own, “I love you because you trusted me with your truth,” he admitted almost gratefully as her smile bloomed into a heart stopping grin.

“When I let you feed off of me I sorta knew the jig would be up,” she laughed coyly as Oliver’s eyes danced with longing.

His hands slipped from the bathroom counter when he slowly began moving towards the edge of the overflowing tub. Felicity reached for his outstretched hands as he moved to sit on the tub’s ledge. He leaned forward once their fingers were twined. She pecked his lips gently with a smile while Oliver uttered, “You knew once the visions started that your secret would be discovered so why did you really let me do it? Why didn’t you just opt for sex instead?” he half teased as their lips met once more.

Felicity’s words ghosted across his lips contently, “Because in that moment I wanted the man I loved to see me for me… also having sex would have tipped you off as well.”

Oliver felt her pulling him forwards as the suds from the bubbles began to tickle the delicate skin of his abdomen. “That’s interesting because, you didn’t tell me you loved me until you found out you were pregnant..” he stated in false anger.

Felicity yanked him towards her chest, he fell with a loud splash into the large, clawfoot tub. Their lips touched forcefully as their hands searched for the other’s waist. Felicity’s knees rose to his hips while his throbbing erection began to brush along her quivering nether lips. Felicity gasped with lust when she mumbled, “No I told you without words when I let you bite my damn neck…”

Their lips met with rushed force as he muttered, “You realize that you can’t distract me forever don’t you?”

He slipped inside her slowly. He felt her walls contracting along his length as he slowly began to fill her with his warmth. His lifeless heart sprang to life when she screamed, “Oh but I can certainly try can’t I?”

He groaned just before she rocked her hips along his rock hard cock, “I love you Felicity…”

Her throaty, “And I love you,” was lost against his tongue but her soul would once again be his once he dared to drink her blood...

Tagging: @emmaamelia95 @pleasantfanandstudent @coal000 @memcjo @lesancha @mrsbubblelee @olicitylovemaking @miriam1779 @love2luvyyou @almondblossomme @diggo26 @rivaroma @vaelisamaza @befitandchase @pimsiepim @andjustforthismoment @anonymiss118 @thelockpickingvictorian @yet-i-remain-quiet @lexi9515 @kathrynelizabeth89 @marniforolicity @marytagus @cjjingram @myhauntedblacksoul @myuntetheredsoul @blondiegrl00 @independent-fics @felicity-said-just-in-case @relativelyobsessedfangirl @i-m-a-fan-world @mel-loves-all @danski15 @green-arrows-of-karamel @malafle @emilyp05 @oliverfel4 @alemap74 @vicky-vale @charlinert @hope-for-olicity @missafairy @arrows-4ever @jaspertown @sweetzcupcake @captainolicitysbedroom @nalla-madness @smoakingarrow19 @bwangangelic @ccdimples88 @lalawo1 @ireland1733 @quiveringbunny @scu11y22 @detbensonsvu1 @tdgal1 @cinfos @xxliveyourlife @onceuponarrow @supersillyanddorky06 @wherethereissmoak @olicityinmyheart @all-things-olicity @bitchwhwifi @thebookjumper @missyriver @olicitysmoaky @olicityhiatusficathon

#OHFAT #olicityhiatusficaton #olicity hiatus fic-a-thon #arrow #arrow fic #olicity #olicity fic #au #week six #prompt #discoveries #scifi fic #soulmates #vampires #witches #arranged marriage #pregnancy #fun

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high-as-a-pretty-star · 7 years

Text

In spirit of Halloween and a terrifying dream, this story was born. It’s been a long time since I’ve posted much, but it’s been a refreshing hiatus. Happy Halloween!

Manuel

Manuel was found guilty of first degree murder six days after my eighteenth birthday. On the first day of his arraignment he walked into the courtroom, head held up high above his shoulders. He took an eye-locking stare at the people in the room before happily announcing that he had never been guiltier of a crime. He sat before the judge with a crackling laugh and a haunting smile on his face.

Two weeks prior, my family lined up before Judge Sullivan, who hand-picked the members of the family that would be allowed into the courtroom. “I didn’t really know him that well” I told her, but she pointed a steady finger towards the rest of the chosen group. We were the first to see him after his voluntary arrest. A white wall and impermeable glass stood between us. The others sobbed over the receiver, attempting to console their son, nephew, and cousin. The receiver muffled my voice into an electronic mess, and in the five minutes that I was given I only managed to ask him how he was feeling. He clicked his tongue and leaned forward, “I feel great.”

There was something off putting and wild about his eyes, they were somehow darker and emptier than anyone that I had ever seen. I hung up the phone and walked away from the window. His eyes followed me until I left the room; this behavior thrilled him.

“I told him he was going to be okay.”

“I told him God would forgive him, that he needed to pray to him.”

“I told him that I wouldn’t look at him any different, because accidents happen and we have to learn to forgive.”

I was given an involuntary and overly tight hug as soon as I joined my family. Their words made no sense to me. Had I seen something that they had not? Did they not see the satisfactory smile painted across his face?

“He told me he was doing okay” I reworded.

“He’s always been so strong” his mother replied.

–

My grandparents’ apartment was taped across with yellow crime scene tape. The other families peeked out of their windows and doors, watching the police and investigators like a televised crime series. The rusted stains were still splattered on the concrete below the stairs. Teeth and matted pieces of hair near the crimson stains, circled in black chalk. Her mangled body was found last night and placed into a large plastic bag. Her condition had been no accident, both the police and investigators made this clear. But the killer was also “family” and therefore, allegedly misunderstood.

Her body had been twisted into a fitting position. The bare body had been stuffed into the floor of my grandparents’ kitchen. Knees up to her chin, hands behind her back, neck facing in the wrong direction, a scream trapped on her mouth. Pieces of her scalp and skin are still missing. Her left eye had been incinerated shut, bubbles of hardened purulent drainage rising from the once open wound. Her right one was placed on the palm of her shut hand. “Resembling deflated plastic” I heard one of the crime investigators whisper to another. Traces of blood peeled off from her sagging skin and the tips of her fingers and toes had been inhumanely charred to the bone. She had been perverted into nothing more than a nest for carrion-feeding pests. This was not the work of a beloved son, nephew, or cousin. And it was most definitely not an accident, but a carefully crafted murder; one that only my eyes seemed to witness.

I watched the crime scene cleaners step in and out of the narrow apartment door. The white of their hazmat suits eventually stained with the remnant blood of an innocent girl. They shut the door after the day’s work, replacing the yellow tape, and attaching a sign over the front door. LA Aftermath Services typed in large black print.

–

Manuel was given five years for first degree murder. His parents smiled wider than I had ever seen. He sat silent before Judge Sullivan, who had become aware of his high for ill attention. He placed his handcuffed hands over the table, a deep frown taking over his face. He let out a low animalistic growl before slamming his handcuffs against the edge of the table. Security made their way to his side, restraining him to his chair. The jury stepped back in fear. His parents stepped forward in worry.

“Five years in solitary confinement beginning August 1st at 5:00 am in Pitchess Detention Center of Los Angeles.”

The sound of Judge Sullivan’s gavel echoed through the room. The jury quickly exited the courtroom, releasing long breaths when they stepped outside. My family lingered over their seats, still processing Judge Sullivan’s words. Manuel’s fingernails dug into the wood of his chair, bringing up small amounts of blood.

“Mr. and Mrs. Delgado are allowed a quick goodbye; another trial is about to begin soon and I need the room empty.”

I caught a glimpse of Manuel’s bloodshot eyes as I left the room, his hands were bundled into fists at his sides, and he stared at nothing in particular. His mother pulled him into a forceful hug, but he stiffened his body in return. She sobbed against his shoulder as his eyes locked with mine. He held up the palm of his hand in a slight wave. I thought I saw him mouth the syllables of my name. I felt disgusted at his motion, refusing to return the gesture of goodbye.

–

I found myself staring at the floor of my grandparents’ kitchen more often than before. The tiles had all been replaced from gray ceramic to pearly white porcelain. A heavy wooden table had been relocated and placed directly over the crime stained space. The second time that I visited, a black rug was rolled out under the table.

“The table is old. It slides on the new floor.” My grandmother lied. “Come on in, I just finished making some buñuelos, they’re still warm.”

She placed a large plate stacked with the sweet treats at the center of the table. A typical conversation started to flow, and despite the small kitchen space, the six chairs of the table remained empty.

“I asked for three days off” I heard my father mention. “I wouldn’t mind staying here if you would let me” he continued.

My grandmother turned to the stove, stirring a large pot of spiced pork chunks. The color drained from her skin as she stirred more frequently. No one else noticed the ghostly look that overtook her or the nonexistent flame at the bottom of the pot.

–

She hauled three oversized mink blankets into my arms. “It gets cold at night, you’ll need these.”

“In the middle of August?” I questioned. Her hand lingered over the doorknob of my temporary room. She touched three fingers to her forehead, chest, and shoulders, whispering a simple prayer.

“This room is the coldest of the three, we don’t really use it because of that. The cold makes my bones ache, but it’s understandable with my age.”

She looked around the room, as if expecting to find something missing. She peeked into the closet before quickly shutting it. That ghostly look had returned to her face, drenching it of any color.

“This room makes a lot of noise, I hope it doesn’t bother you.” She traced the sign of the cross over my body before making a quick exit.

Cold was an understatement. The three mink blankets nearly crushed my body, but the cold somehow managed to creep in between them. The rambunctious city sounds continued throughout the night, but it was the creaking of an open door and the thumping on the ceiling that left me restless.

I startled myself awake in the darkest hour of the night. My body was immobile and heavy. I braced myself for the enhanced senses and malformed creatures that would soon appear before me. My heart raced against my chest, despite having experienced it all before. This would be the third paralysis episode this month. The doctor would like to know that. I told myself.

The ceiling caved inwards and I tried to press myself deeper into the bed. I felt it touch the tip of my nose, dropping fluid into my nostrils. I catch a faint smell of wet pennies before gagging at the tingling in the back of my nose. The fluid travels into my mouth and I taste the metallic saltiness. The inability to breathe causes my body to convulse, but these motions are not in my control. I feel the pressure of a human hand on my ankle and hear the creaking of added weight on the bed. She’s moving abnormally, quickly. In my head, I am shaken with terror, I am sending out unheard prayers, I am unsuccessfully consoling myself. I can see darker depressions where her eyes should be and her almost-silent cries are now at my ear. She moves her crooked body under the covers, brushing her distorted limbs against me. She feels like the point beyond freezing.

I’m caught in between the horrid sensations and a conversation from the past.

Dr. Zimmer sits in his coffee-colored recliner, a few minutes before the start of my session. The clicking of his pen is like the buzzing of a fly to my ears. Irritable and frustrating. I kindly tell him to stop.

“Julia, your anxiety has returned” He replies. He sits patiently, waiting for me to tell him why. He reads into my body language, and deciphers the disturbing thoughts jumping around in my mind. “It has to do with your cousin, Manuel?”

I curl into my chair, like a leaf on hot pavement. “This whole investigation has me on edge” I admit. “My aunt says he’s rarely around their house, he leaves in the middle of the night.”

“I believe the police is doing their best to conclude the investigation, do you?” Dr. Zimmer asks.

I open my mouth to speak, then hold back on my words. I want to say no; to admit that there are details that my family are holding back from revealing. Someone saw Manuel arrive with his girlfriend. Watched them walk up the stairs, possibly already bickering at one another. Heard the pounding of the walls as she struggled against him, unsuccessfully.

“Julia, do you have a reason to believe that he committed the crime?”

“I don’t really know” I reply.

The mass of her body weighs down on my chest, she pushes me further into the bed.

“I can’t feel my body” she says in between sobs. I try to shake the paralysis away, despite knowing that I am never in control.

“What did I do to him?” she shrieks. Her tears fall onto my neck. “Get me out of here” she pleads.

My body is covered in a sickly coat of sweat. My eyes follow the walls of the room until they reach the closet door, which has been slightly opened. The morning rays of light draw a line in the center of the room, separating day from night. I swing my legs over the edge of the bed as the closet door slams shut. I sit in silence, watching the sun rise as my eyes become heavier. The thumping continues above me and my ears capture the distant sound of her cries. She appears to me in the corners of my eyes until the room is filled with light and the night has disappeared. The door of the room gradually opens and I meet my grandmother’s eyes. I know she sees the dark circles beneath my own and the dead weight on my face. “Oh honey” she says with an all-too-quick smile. “Come get some breakfast.”

I don’t reply, but I hear the sound of the door closing and her footsteps drifting away. I stand in front of the closet, already turning the handle before I can stop myself. I feel a tug on the other side. I pull harder. I hear the latch unlock as I pull the handle down. A black box sits in the corner of the floor. She hides somewhere in the shadows and watches me as I remove the lid. There are photos tucked in between a white blouse and jean shorts. Manuel wraps his arm around a girl’s waist, they smile. The picture is dated May 24 2010, complete with the outline of her painted lips, and signed Jackeline. They pose, kiss, and hug one another like normal couples do, but his hands always look like they wrap around too tight. She wears a blindfold in the last of them, looking upwards at the camera in her black stilettos and plum colored set of lacey lingerie. I realize that I’m looking down at her through his eyes.

An uncharged phone is tightly wrapped in a matching set of underclothes. Diamond earrings glisten at the corner of the box. A black plastic bag lies outside of the box, it feels like a bag of water in my hands. I undo the tight knot and find the missing pieces of Jackeline’s skin. I can feel the rising vomit in my throat as I close the box and push it to the corner. I see her in the corner of my eye, she holds her knees up to her chin, she’s crying. “Oh God.” I say as I close the closet door.

The smell of pork lingers in the kitchen. It’s pungent and meaty, and rises the bile in the back of my throat. I’m draped over the sink, as my father hands my mother his keys. “I’ll have someone drive me home in two days” he says.

–

There isn’t a day that I don’t think about Jackeline and the black box. The usual creatures of my sleep disorder make their way into my life once more, and as my body wakes in paralysis, part of me wishes to find her at my side. An unspoken apology lingers in my mind; something that I feel she deserves, but that no one else will give.

It’s now late October and I have found that Temazepam makes my eyes heavy, but doesn’t stop me from drifting out of sleep.

–

Multicolored balloons adorn the stairs leading up to my grandmother’s apartment. A “Welcome Home” banner hangs over the door. I can’t help but frown at the decorations and at the spectacle they’ve made of Manuel’s release.

“I’m making him a cake. He likes Tres Leches, right?” I heard my grandmother say. She has the biggest smile on her face as she opens the cans of sweetened condensed milk. The woman on the other side of the phone sounds just as thrilled.

“Have you picked him up yet?” she asks. Her eyes are now brimmed with tears. “Remember when he used to eat the spoonful’s of frosting and avoid the cake?” She recalls with a nostalgic laugh. “I miss those days, I miss my perfect little boy.” A brief silence takes over the conversation.

“Tell him I love him. Tell him grandma will always love him.”

–

I pick at my fingernails while everyone crowds around the apartment’s entrance. Their faces are pressed to the windows, trying to catch a glimpse of him. I watch them swarm around the room, attempting to fix everything to perfection. If it was not Manuel who had made Jackeline suffer, would they be so willing to accept the killer with open arms? They are gathered around my grandmother now, who flips through the pages of an old photobook, pointing to Manuel throughout the years. Three knocks sound at the door.

Manuel towers over everyone, a scruffy beard hanging from his lower face. They throw themselves at him, squeezing him back into normal life. The attention he receives thrills him, causing a smile to deepen across his lower face. “We’re glad to have you back” I hear countless of times. The last five years never happened, Manuel continues to be the family’s favorite, and “forgive and forget” will always apply to him.

He’s alert and awake, and moves with ease. He takes a seat at the end of the table, directly over the forgotten crime scene. His appetite is ravenous and messy. He prefers the hardy chunks of beef over the moist layers of cake.

I try to function properly. I find myself focusing on his every movement, beyond attentive, beyond frightened.

He’s given the guest room and three mink blankets. He’s tucked into bed like an innocent child. I turn the lock of my room’s door, feeling both guilt and safety at the sound of the click. I sit at the edge of the bed, carefully focusing on the sounds around me. I return the two Temazepam pills back into to their bottle.

The sound of shuffling feet and closing doors lets me know that everyone has gone to bed. Silence consumes the room until I can only hear my heart beating softly against my chest. Jackeline is still trapped within these walls, I can almost feel her anger as she watches Manuel drift off into sleep.

“He’ll never say it.” I gently whisper. “You don’t deserve this, I’m sorry.” I continue.

She throws herself against the wall separating the rooms, whimpering a reply that I can’t make out. My tears puddle against my left cheek. I hear the familiar squeak of the closet door, muffled by the wall that separates me from him. He’s awake.

I hear him open the door to his room, his footsteps drifting away. My teeth chatter uncontrollably at the intensifying sounds. I hear the switch of a distant light and the rumbling of his hands in the kitchen drawers. The cutlery clinks ever so silently. He’s cautious and noiseless with his work.

I force myself to stand and walk towards the hushed clatters in the kitchen, preparing to strike or be stricken. The lights flicker over Manuel’s crouched body. His bare back faces me, his protruding muscles working hard against something out of my sight. He sets a crusted knife down, picking up a fork. I cover my mouth to soften the sound of my breaths. He grunts in pleasure, chewing loudly and unnecessarily. I catch a glimpse of the black box in front of him. I want to retch at the sight of his hands tearing her remains into appetizing pieces; at the decaying odor that has now reached me. I stumble over a small table, instantly grabbing hold of the ornament above it. I catch the insanity in his eyes before he falls to the floor. My weapon shatters into pieces, falling over Manuel’s unfinished meal.

I curl myself into a ball. “I’m sorry Jackeline. I’m so sorry” I repeat.

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marcoacesabo · 7 years

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Little Cup

@pinkfluffycookie-chi

The fairy is small in a world that is so much bigger, so much wider than his little nest. He knows this but, he doesn’t know how he knows it. When he first came into existence the knowledge was already there inside his little head.

It sits in his mind, informing him of simple things- that's a tree. that's a rock. Oh that a berry! You can eat that- but it leaves out anything else. Leaves out what fills this large world that he was born into.

It fills the young fairy with dangerous curiosity. What could this world- this terrifying world- offer him? He wants to know, wants to leave his nest and see it himself.

But he is no bigger than one inch, leaving now would put him in danger. He had to find a fallen star to grow, big and strong first then he could explore.

Usually, his kind waited a few hundred years to go out looking for a fallen star and bath in it’s stardust gathering little energy from the ones still hung in the sky at night in the meantime. This helps them fly, glow and bring to life flowers.

The knowledge tells him, that other fairies wait patiently for their glow to become as bright as a firefly, helping Mother keep the greenery alive in the forest before setting out.

He doesn’t want to wait.

So he doesn’t.

With a little huff, the fairy forces it’s tiny wings to bat. They left him up, not too high since he hovers over his nest instead of soaring through the air but they work. The little one giggles at the sensation, making tiny circles in the air until his wings bat with confidence.

He leaps off the side of the tree without a second thought

He comes to a strange place. It’s like nothing the knowledge knows, so the fairy is at lost of what to do.

The area is just outside the forest, he had stumbled upon it by going straight from his nest for two sky changes. It houses so many new and amazing sights.

Mother doesn’t feel as strong here as she did in the forest, most of all the trees and flowers are gone. Large beasts that roar loudly rush by following a black path in lines take up a lot of space and they never seem to be stopping.

There are colorful glows- not a fairy or fireflies- with colors he’s never knew existed before sitting behind an invisible force of some kind. And last but not least, there are beings who look like him but already bathed in stardust to reach full growth and wingless walking around creating noise.

It's odd.

It’s different.

It tells every single part of his body that there is danger here.

They fairy wants to explore everything.

He hovers over the black path making sure no beast is coming his way before rushing over to the other side. Once there the fairy takes a look around, dodging the feet of the wingless beings with great care, wondering which way he should go.

The choice is taken from him when a strong gust of wind blows the magical creature through the air ripping a tiny scream from his lips. His wings sag uselessly, not strong enough to fight Mother’s breath so he tumbles around and around until he lands into a hole, filled with black liquid with a splash.

“Shit. I think a bug just landed in my coke.” A voice boom over him and the hole starts moving upwards. It shakes the black liquid around, pulling the small fairy under waves. Squealing in fear the fairy starts kicking as best he cans with his legs until and he raises his hands desperately in order to not drown.

His palms slam against one of the walls of his trap much to his great relief and with more strength than he thought possible, the tiny one pulls himself up. Holding on to the edge of the hole for dear life, the fairy coughs some of the liquid out.

He is soaked to the bone, making tears rush to his eyes as his wings will no longer work anymore and he just got to this new place.

“Oh. That’s not a bug.” The same voice from before shouts above him causing the little one to swing his head upwards in fear. The firs thing he notices is the sprinkles of stardust. They set in a face of a male who is staring at him in wonder, gray eyes fixed on the tiny body. The fairy is confused for a few seconds- even if the being had bathed in star dust it shouldn’t stay on him. No star dust last long on Mother so why does this creature have- he gasps. A fallen star! He found a fallen star already!

“Ace!” Second voice booms worriedly from somewhere behind him. The fairy stops gaping at the star long enough to glance over his shoulder. A second being sits before him staring at the tiny creature with sky blue eyes and sunlight rest in his hair- just like his! He must have been born from Mother’s light too. “Pull him out! He’s going to drown!”

“I know Sabo. Hand me a napkin” The world tilts as giant fingers pull him out of his containment gently and the fairy lets a little sigh of relief. He hugs the star in gratitude placing soft kissing on the skin that he can reach.

The fairy is placed on something soft, and he is wrapped up very carefully to help dry him off. It’s not enough for his wings to work again but he is no longer wet to the bone and the fairy purrs in delight.

“Hey, there little guy. Are you okay?” The Star whispers to him once he emerges from the cloth.

“I’m okay! Thank you for saving me, yoi!” He cheers – the first time he uses his voice and he loves how high-toned it is-, reaching one hand up to his star while nodding his head.

Gray eyes crinkle as the dust carrier smiles, causing the fairy to blush. “you're very welcome.”

The magical creature rubs his head against the palm of a figure that the star brings down for him, before climbing into a hand. He pats the skin of the star’s hand gently, flopping down between fingers and makes himself comfortable. All the while the two larger beings watch amusedly.

“I think he likes you Ace.” The other Light creature mumbles. There is a smile pulling at his lips from where the fairy can see of him.

“I think so too.” The one holding him, answers. He gives the sun-kissed hair man a grin before turning his attention back to the fairy who slowly stands up to get a better view of them both.

“My names Ace little one, and that’s Sabo. It’s nice to meet you. Got a name?” Ace asks holding the fairy up to his eyes.

The tiny creature frowns. “No.”

He left his nest before a name was assigned to him. It’s a bit sad to think he’ll never get one now. He has to live knowing he will exist nameless for the rest of his life but he’s fine with that. After all, he got to meet a star in his first week of existence and what other fairy can say that?

“No name? Would you me to give you one then?” Sabo asks after a moment pause. The tiny creature jumps in shock, twisting around to give Sabo a wide eye star. He gapes for a few seconds before he starts chipping excitable. He bounces in place while the other sunlight male laughs. “I guess that a yes. Well okay…how about…Marco?”

“Marco for a fairy? Really Sabo-“ Ace starts but he is cut off by a bright glow.

“I’m Marco! I’m Marco!” The fairy cheers as he grows half an inch before their eyes. “I have a name! My name’s Marco!”

#MarcoAceSabo #Little Cup

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