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67impalaandwhisky · 4 years

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Destiny Is Heaven Sent

Summary: Knowing Dean Winchester since you were fifteen, you’ve always been pulled in his direction. Always wanting to open up the rattled and broken cage your heart lives in. But when the child you’ve been raising together dies, you find yourself closing up the cage of your heart again. And if destiny has one thing for you, it’s to break you down before bringing you back up.

Characters: Dean x You, Sam, Castiel, Bobby, OFC’s, OMC’s, (Ongoing)

This Series Is Set Through Seasons 1-6 With Knowledge That The Bunker Exists

Rating: 18+

Warnings (Ongoing and Will Be Updated): Grieving, Mentions of Rape and Defilement (As Per A Case), Show Level Violence, Swearing, Smut, Impreg Kink, Blood, Fighting, Drinking, Dean Being Dean, Fluff, Angst, Dom!Dean, Sub!Reader

Warnings For This Chapter: Show Level Violence, Drinking, Swearing

Chapter 7.

It's an odd sensation to have your best friend's hands all over you. It's difficult to get anything done during your morning routine with Dean constantly behind you.

"De." You murmur as his lips trail over your jawline. His hands squeeze tighter at your sides as he presses his chest to your back while you fix your hair in the mirror of the bathroom.

"Hmm?" He hums quizzically as he presses you closer to his body.

You can smell faint notes of cologne and whisky from his attire and it brings you a sense of calm as you turn to him.

"We have to go gank this ghost." You tell him.

You can hear Sam's feet shuffling impatiently outside of the bathroom as you look up at Dean's handsome face.

His eyes are lighter than usual today, the pretty moss colored flecks in his irises seem to pull you in as he smirks.

"I know we do. I just...I've never had my hands on you like this before. I've never been so close to you. It feels good." He whispers as his hand cups your cheek.

The rough skin of his hand makes your eyes flutter shut and you wish you could just take this day to be with him. Just to talk or to spend time with him but work comes first.

"It does feel good." You agree and his head bows down so his lips can meet yours.

Your lips move together, the kiss passionate and something close to longing as he runs his hands below your t-shirt.

"Fuck." He whispers against your lips.

Sam's hand slams on the bathroom door and you're both ripped out of your lustful gaze within seconds.

"Are you guys done fucking?" Sam asks loudly and you snort shoving his older brother away.

Rolling his eyes, Dean fixes his flannel shirt before opening the door.

"Relax Sammy. Not everything is about fucking." Dean says as he hoists the bag of guns onto his shoulder.

Sam stops moving, his head slowly lifts to look at his brother before it tilts.

"E-Excuse me? Not everything is about fucking?" Not a sentence you think would come out of Dean Winchester's mouth.

"You heard me. Candy girl, let's get a move on. I got ghosts to kill!" Dean calls to you and you emerge from the bathroom as you fix your shirt.

He stares at you for a second, the corner of his mouth flickers upwards before he gives a gentle chuckle.

"I want this bastard flamed and burned within the next hour." Dean says to Sammy as he heads for the door.

"Why such a rush?" Sam asks as he scrambles to grab his coffee and follow his brother.

"Because," Dean turns to him from the doorway before meeting your eyes, "He attacked my woman."

The ride in the car to the home of the nefarious ghost was silent. Which you were perfectly fine with. It gave you time to glance at your now boyfriend that you've been in love with since you were just a teenager.

It's so odd. He's pushed you away for so long and you know you have so much that needs to get said between the both of you but you wonder if Dean would be willing to talk about it.

He's so closed off from the world most times that you find yourself thinking that it would be hard for him to open up and tell you any semblance of the truth.

He's kept so much away from you for years.

You can tell he's in a happy mood by the way his fingers drum against the steering wheel as he listens to his cassette tape.

The autumn sun hangs high above the car, every so often peppering Dean's face in it's rays. The sun does a glorious job highlighting all of his handsome features. His nose is so perfectly straight, his lips so perfectly shaped and even from the right side of the back seat you begin to count the freckles you can see as always.

The small smile lines around the corners of his eyes just add to his handsomeness. He looks at your through the rear view mirror and his eyes linger as he stops at a red light. You seemingly become mesmerized by the deep green of his irises likening them to the forest before he sends a wink your way that has your gut fluttering and twitching like a mad man.

"So are you guys dating now?" Sam asks as he rolls down his window.

Dean clears his throat as he focuses on the tar lined road before him.

You don't want to reply, you want him to.

Sam looks at you through his mirror and you roll your eyes as he begins to give a devilish smirk.

"Yeah. We are." Dean mumbles and if you weren't in the confines of the car, you probably wouldn't have been able to hear his gentle voice.

"Good. About time." Sam says before sticking his tongue out at you.

"Bitch." Dean says with a chuckle only to hear the natural reply.

"Jerk." Your younger best friend says with a laugh.

With a giggle, you arrive in front of the haunted office of Morley Rosmund.

"Are you okay to go in?" Dean asks as he shuts off the car.

You can't help the chill that runs through your spine as you stare at the decrepit building.

"Yeah. I'll be alright." You reply, mustering up all of your strength.

Last night was a little more frightening than you guess you noticed. He was one angry son of a bitch and you just weren't ready for the sheer amount of anger he was radiating.

He ripped your dress clean off and was stronger than you could have imagined.

"Just stay with me. Okay?" Dean asks as he opens up his door.

Nodding to him, you open up your door as well before taking in a deep breath.

Sam wraps his arm around you as you round the back of the car.

"We got your back. You know that." He says in your ear as Dean begins to pull out shotguns.

"I still haven't kicked your ass for leaving me on my own yesterday. Don't tempt me." You tease as you take the sawed off shotgun from your boyfriend's hand and begin to load salt rounds into it.

Sam chuckles as he grabs his own and your eyes drift over to the building once more before swallowing thickly.

Dean swings the door open first. He casually glances behind him to make sure you're okay before stepping over the strewn, decomposing bodies that lay on the floor much like last night. With a grimace, you pick your shirt up to cover your nose before scowling at the dead women on the floor.

"This son of a bitch is disgusting." You hear Dean grunt angrily before he kicks open the office door with his foot.

"I wish we could just burn the building down. Make sure he's outta here for good." Sam mutters as he puts his large hand to the small of your back goading you into the office before him.

You spot your ripped dress on the floor from last night as you step into the office and you shiver at the sight.

Dean notices within a fraction of a second and he's by your side as he kicks the fabric out of sight.

"Come on, Candy girl." He whispers before pressing his soft lips to your temple and stepping out of the way to explore the shambled office.

Anything of any importance was being piled up in the middle of the room. Anything that was old and leathery. Anything that had a dull shine like a pocket watch Sam found in one of the top drawers of the desk you were forced to sit on last night. Even scraps of different cloth were all in the center of the office.

"What about pictures?" Sam asks as he leans in to look at an old painting.

"What, you think this dead pervert had a hard on for the arts?" Dean asks as he drops a leather briefcase onto the ground beside the pile.

"I don't know. Maybe. Just want to make sure we get everything." Sam mumbles as he continues to search.

"Yeah. I bet he really loved the ducks in a pond painting." Dean says before smashing the glass of the picture frame open.

Your eyes catch something sparkle beneath the woman that lays limp on the desk. It was a whirlwind last night but you managed to remember some things of Morley Rosmund's attire. Like the jewelled beetle that was on the lapel of his trench coat that is now situated beneath the woman's body.

"De. Help me grab this." You instruct him as you point to the pin below the dead woman.

"Oh God." He grumbles as he uses the barrel of his salt gun to lift her up just long enough for you to grab it.

You throw the pin into the pile on the floor before grabbing a hat off of the rack by the door that you remember the ghost was wearing.

Ghosts can be in multiple items and it's better to just get them all to be safe.

Suddenly as your boyfriend pulls open the safe in the corner of the office, your begin to see your breath in the small confines of the room.

"He's coming!" You say quickly as you pull back the hammer of your gun.

Dean holds up what looks to be a deed for the office before throwing it into the pile.

"Y/N!" Sam yells and you whip around just long enough to see Morley Rosmund behind you.

He gives a gentle smile before you're being thrown over the desk.

You groan loudly as you fall onto your back, your body shivering with dull pain as you lay your head back to the floor.

"Son of a bitch!" Dean curses as he throws gasoline over the contents on the floor.

"You little trollope." The ghost sneers as he wraps his hand around your throat.

You cough loudly, sputtering and whining as you claw at his hand. He picks up off of the floor slowly and you shakily lift your gun before shooting the rock salt into him, earning wisps of his body left behind.

Landing back down on the floor, you cough once more as Sam strikes the matchbook on fire and tosses it into the pile.

As the objects begin to catch fire, your body is thrown back to the wall as Morley reappears screaming furiously with red hot anger.

"Y/N!" Dean yells as he rushes towards you.

With a sharp yelp, you press your head back to the wall before the ghost's body begins to catch fire.

Being swept up into Dean's arms, you're instantly checked on. His hands press to your face, checking to make sure the ghost didn't inflict too much damage before he disappeared into thin air.

"You okay?" He asks gruffly as you gingerly press your fingers to your throat.

Your eyes flicker over to the burning pile of personal possessions before you nod.

"Yeah. I'm good." You whisper before standing up straight and fixing your jacket.

"That's my girl." He mumbles as he presses his lips to your forehead.

"I need a drink and food. Pronto." You say as Sam grabs the duffel bag full of guns and paraphernalia.

"A drink? It's like three o'clock?" Sam says as you step over bodies towards the front door.

"A woman after my own heart." Dean calls back to him and you giggle as he opens the door for you.

Knowing the job is done brings a huge weight off of your shoulders. It's not often you can appreciate everything around you when so many monsters and evil live in this world. But now, as you sit with your two favorite boys in this run down bar, the world feels lighter somehow. If only for a few hours, you're okay with that.

Dean has been so tried and true throughout the years and now finally you can call him yours.

Sam has always been your home. He's always seen to reason and has been a comfort in your hard times. You can always count on him to listen.

So when the food comes and you all dig in, there's something so peaceful with listening to the both laugh as Dean plants his hand on your knee.

You can take a few hours of comfort and calm before you're thrust back into the monster wielding world.

"Gotta hit the head." Dean says.

He plants a kiss to your hairline before he's up and walking towards the bathroom door.

"It's cute y'know. I'm really happy for you guys. Finally." Sam says before finishing off his beer.

You give him a gentle smile as he lifts his beer bottle.

"I'll go get us another round." He says, scraping his chair back loudly.

You pick at your food in the meantime while being alone. You're achy and albeit a bit sore from the attack but you'll heal in no time.

You can't wait to get back to the bunker and just relax for a few days. Wash your car, read up on things in the vast library.

"Hey there." The foreign voice draws you out of your calm daze. Looking up at the owner of the voice, you tilt your head at his handsome features.

"Noticed you with those two Backstreet Boy wannabes." The man says, taking Dean's seat.

You snort gently before shifting your chair away from him as he smirks.

"Those wannabes are my best friend and boyfriend." You say as you pick up your beer.

It feels weird to call Dean your boyfriend. A good weird. Like it was always meant to be.

"Wanna see what a real man can do?" The absolute gall of this lanky man is impressive.

You give a gentle laugh as you roll your eyes.

"Nah. I'm good. Thanks." Your voice is short with him and it seems to ruffle his feathers a bit too quickly.

"Come on, baby. I can show you what a real man's cock looks like." You blanch at his words and try to push your chair back uncomfortably as he catches you by your calf with his hand.

"I said no. Jesus. Fuck off." You bark at him.

His grip gets tighter and you sigh loudly before hearing a loud gruff voice that quakes your chest.

"What the fuck do you think you're doing?!" Dean yells from across the bar.

Flinching, you give a quick smile to the man as your boyfriend approaches.

He is so dead meat.

Destiny Is Heaven Sent Taglist: @roonyxx, @deans-baby-momma, @supernatural-love14, @winchest09, @flamencodiva, @indecisive20something, @that-one-gay-girl

Forever Dean Tags: @akshi8278

Forever Tags: @mariaenchanted

#destiny is heaven sent #dean winchester #dean x reader #dean x you #dean smut #spn book #spn fam #spn series

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southsidestory · 4 years

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Caged

RATING: Explicit

FANDOM: Hunger Games

SHIP: Odesta

WARNINGS: Rape/non-con, drug use, forced sex work

SUMMARY: Annie’s Victory Tour brings her to the Capitol, with Finnick at her side. He did his job as her mentor when he got her out of the arena, but he can’t look after her anymore. All he can do is play the part Snow has given him. It’s almost simple now, posing for the cameras and obeying his patrons, all with a smile on his face. Pretending is so easy that he can’t tell what’s real and what’s not anymore. But Annie might be able to remind him.

Read on AO3

With his lips closed, Dionysus looks plain by Capitol standards. Pasty skin, undyed and free of tattoos. Short brown hair, black shoes, dark suit. Colorless, except for the trio of yellow tablets in his palm. My throat itches to swallow down the promise they hold, but I have two questions that need answering.

First: “Will I be able to fuck?”

The dealer laughs, revealing a mouth full of gold and gems. “Like a damn rabbit,” Dionysus says.

Second: “I want to feel nothing, but a good nothing. Can this do that?”

Sapphires flash on his eye teeth. “You’ll see nirvana,” he promises.

I don’t know what that is, or where it might be, but any place would be better than this one.

Red. That’s all I see, at first. Waves and folds of the color spilling down the length of Annie’s skirt. Six feet of fabric fans out behind her, but the top of the dress is spare, sheer wisps that cling to her breasts and shoulders and throat.

“Inspired,” says Sabina. “Her stylist has an eye for drama.”

Her stylist will be lucky to have eyes at all when I’m done with him.

I take a flute of turquoise champagne from a passing Avox’s tray. It tastes like turpentine and sugar, the medicine that District Four mothers force down their children’s sore throats. I drink three glasses in ten minutes. Red still bleeds along the edges of my vision, and no matter where I turn, there’s Annie. Trussed up for Capitol appetites, tribute all over again. When I reach for another glass Sabina touches her too-long nails to my wrist. Tap, tap: bad dog. She kisses me, tongue sour blue slick, and I imagine what a senator’s wife might look like if three weeping mouths opened in the middle of her chest.

Something tugs at my shirt sleeve, jealous but gentle. Annie, drowning in all that District One silk.

“I need you,” she says. Splattered droplets dot her left cheek, a constellation of freckles that shine crimson-wet in the low light.

“Everyone needs me tonight.”

Sabina laughs and Annie pulls away, so I know I've said the wrong thing. That’s what happens when I put pills in my mouth; nothing but mistakes come out.

I say, “Teenage girls,” and give my date a knowing smile. Let her read what she wants into that.

Sabina twines her fingers around my arm and leans in close, smug and conspiratorial. “My daughter’s at that age now. It’s all me, me, me! And they want everything immediately. Nothing pleases them…”

How this is any different from the rest of the Capitol I can’t guess, but I let her go on, nodding and humming my sympathy where appropriate. Oh yes, they’re selfish little brats. Ungrateful, never satisfied. When Sabina pauses to sample a canapé I say how much I hate to leave her for even a moment, but I am Annie’s mentor. Duty calls and all that.

Sabina frowns prettily. “I hope you're this dedicated in all of your pursuits.”

She should know the answer to that already. This isn’t our first date. Still, I feed her a stock innuendo about finishing the things I start.

“Go on then, but be back soon!”

I find my tribute talking to the light crew. A woman with tattooed vines climbing the side of her shaved head shows Annie how to hold a sheet of foil. It’s a clever way to hide from the cameras and I wish I’d thought of it first. Too late for that, because Annie turns her silver shield, and then there’s a lens blinking closer to my well-lit face.

“Perfect,” says Vines. “You’re a natural.”

Annie shakes her head. “No. He’s just an easy target.”

I duck into the bright circle of the light crew’s equipment before the cameras can focus. The heat feels artificial, claustrophobic, like the solar beds my stylist makes me visit. Annie returns the foil to Vines and thanks her for the lesson. I can’t breathe again until there’s ten feet between me and the clicking insect sound of mechanical eyes.

“I thought you were busy,” Annie says. Her voice is so light and casual that, if I didn’t know her, I’d have no idea that she’s annoyed.

“I shouldn't have said that. I didn’t mean it.”

Annie shrugs. “You never mean anything you say in the Capitol.”

Sometimes I forget how much she sees, this girl who’s turned my world upside down in six months. “Where are your tokens?”

Annie grasps at the place over her heart where two sea glass pendants always rest. She looks mildly surprised to catch only empty air between her fingers. “Vibius wouldn’t let me wear them. Said the colors...” She shakes her head, the way you would to get water out of your ears after swimming. “I’m hungry.”

But when I follow her to a banquet table she doesn’t eat a bite. Instead, she stacks gingerbread cubes around a pink chocolate fountain.

“Who’s your date?” she asks.

“Senator Wexler’s wife,” I say.

Annie never looks up, too busy skewering blueberries on toothpicks. She sticks them in the topmost layer of her curtain wall, like heads on neighboring spikes. Two by two by two. Then she says, “Doesn’t the senator mind?”

“Only that he couldn’t come with us.”

Annie tips over the fountain, and chocolate bursts through her gingerbread dam. It creeps along the aisle of white cloth and drips onto the floor. Part of me wants to scold her, because some Avox will have to clean all this up after the party. I don’t, though, because I know how everything shifts after the Games. You might leave the arena, but it comes with you all the same. Alliances replace friendships. Sleep never really comes easy again, because too many things are still awake in the dark. Survival is tangled up with fighting, hurting, killing, and sometimes you need small destructions just to breathe.

“Dance with me,” Annie says.

The train on that fucking dress is longer than she is. “How could I, with you in that?”

I laugh. Everything and nothing seems funny at the same time. Annie jumps a little when I finger one of the slivers of silk covering her chest. Vibius didn’t leave much to the imagination, so I can see the shape of her. Small teardrop breasts, narrow shoulders, long waist. Her nipples peak beneath the fabric.

Somewhere in my periphery a camera flashes.

“Stop,” Annie says, and I want to shake her. That word doesn’t mean anything in this city. A victor should understand the rules by now.

I trace her collarbone. We’re too far away for Sabina to see us, but even if she does it won’t matter. This is what they want me to be.

The preps painted Annie’s lips too, and it makes her look like a working girl. Ripe apple mouth ready to be plucked. If I could I’d spit on a napkin and wipe it all away, same as my mother used to do to get dirt off my face.

She leans into my touch and asks, “Why are you with that woman?”

“Because she can afford my company.”

Annie’s red, red mouth frowns, but I simply smile and step away, tell her to eat something and enjoy the party.

Sabina welcomes me with a soft hello peck to my cheek. I turn it into more, the kind of wet, deep kiss that decent folk back home wouldn’t dream of doing in public. But that’s how I like it, even if I can hear the cameras snapping behind and beside and in front of me. Pretending is so easy that I can’t tell what’s real and what’s not anymore.

These sounds are almost lost beneath the snap of handcuffs closing: footsteps, a full skirt whispering across the floor, the creak of hinges.

The manacles lock around my wrists, pulling my arms taut, stretching until my shoulders lift from the bed and I can feel the blades angling outward. Like clipped wings opening, Sabina said, the first time she bought me. A caged bird poised to take flight. Now she leans forward and bites my neck, just hard enough to mark. It’s always hard enough to mark with Sabina, whether she uses teeth or nails or the back of her hand.

I hear feather-light fabric brushing the carpet, then see something in the gap between door and frame. The briefest flash of red silk. There, then gone.

Sabina strikes me hard on the cheek. Pain vibrates through my jaw and up the side of my face. Stars burst behind my eyes, then in front of them, but I don’t feel distant or dizzy. Everything becomes sharper, brighter. Needles made of sunlight prick my vision, highlighting it all with stinging intensity. If I ever come down I’m going to kill Dionysus for selling me those three little pills the color of daffodils. He promised oblivion but gave me this instead. With every blow the room grows brighter, until all I see is Sabina, haloed in white.

Her mouth closes over me, warm and soft, drawing out all the things I don’t want to give. Then she’s straddling my lap, hands clutching my shoulders, nails digging into my skin. Ten welts spring beneath her touch, bright as pink ribbons down my chest. It’s winter everywhere but between her legs, and there she’s fever hot. Cold snakes down my throat, chokes and burrows inside me until it’s snowing under my skin.

“Finnick,” she hisses. I grip the bedposts and snap my hips up to meet her. I’m shaking from the chill air, the pleasure where a warm body takes mine in and the pain everywhere else. I don’t stop, not until she arches and trembles, mouth open on a whiny cry.

One beat, two, and she climbs off. Leaves me aching, tied up, and filthy while she saunters to the bathroom to refresh herself.

The haze clears, unfreezes, and I remember where I’ve seen red silk tonight.

I scrub until the scratch marks on my chest reopen and the water blushes down the drain, washing away smudged makeup and sweat, fresh blood and Sabina’s come. Not mine, and even though I’m half-hard, I’m mostly thankful. Dates are always worse when a client makes me finish. Steam fills the shower stall, wet and suffocating. Flash-bulbs go off behind my closed eyelids and all I can hear is the endless snapping of camera shutters. I sit on the tile floor, head between my knees, until the water grows cold.

After I get out of the shower and dry off, I pull on the tight blue pants from my date with Sabina and go to Annie’s room. I don’t knock, and when I step inside she jumps. Her dress is curled up in the corner, wilting. All those red folds remind me of a rose, so I turn away. Free of make-up, Annie’s face shines brown and clean. Dark waves fall limply around her cheeks, weighted and damp. By the way she holds the robe over her breasts I can tell she’s not wearing much underneath.

Good. I hope she feels naked. Exposed and vulnerable, like I do.

“You watched us.”

Annie sits on the edge of the bed, legs drawn up close to her body. She whispers an apology I can’t stand to hear.

“Don’t,” I say. She flinches and grasps the sea glass tokens around her neck. Her eyes dart away, focusing on some point along the baseboard.

“Look at me.” I kneel on the floor before her, too close to be ignored. “You didn’t have any trouble looking before.”

The only small mercy I can find is that Annie left before Sabina actually fucked me. But she saw me handcuffed to the bed, and that’s bad enough.

Annie bites her bottom lip, and for a moment all I can see is this same skittish girl, more innocent and less broken, on a different train, blushing under my hands.

“I’m sorry,” she says. “When I saw you leaving with that woman—I didn’t really think, I just wanted to know what was so special about her. So I followed you.”

I thought she wanted to see me, and I don’t know why I’m so disappointed. It’s a good thing that she didn’t want a peep show, that she ran off before she saw the main event. A good thing—but it still pisses me off.

I wrap my hands around her calves and slide down, thumbs grazing the soft skin of her inner ankles.

“Finnick?” Her lips linger on the sound, not quite closing over the question she’s made of my name.

“Open your legs,” I tell her. Because whatever she’s asking, this is the only answer I have to give.

Annie’s breath hitches. She trembles all the way down to her toes, but she’s warm, my girl. I brought her home and that makes Annie mine. She belongs to me in the same way I belong to my sponsors.

When she doesn’t move, I kiss the inside of her right knee, flicking my tongue over a new scar there—a pretty pink thing that’s cropped up since her Games—until her legs shake and unlock. Just as she falls open and willing below the waist, Annie clutches the collar of her robe even more tightly, keeping it closed to me.

Eighteen isn’t so young, I remind myself. Not here, not in this place.

“Don’t stop,” she whispers, and that’s all I need.

Beads of moisture cling to the dark curls between her legs. She smells like the Capitol, flowers and spun sugar, but when I put my mouth there all I taste is salt and wet and girl. Her hands scramble for purchase, first on the covers, then in my hair, and she pulls with more strength than I expected. Not as sharply as Sabina, but enough to smart. That’s been done to me so many times that I know it means more and now and harder—though by the way Annie’s thumb brushes over my cheek, I think it might also mean please.

No, eighteen isn’t too young for this, but I might be.

I can feel her looking: eyes on me, on my body, on the things I’m doing. Just like before, when she peeked into that bedroom and watched Sabina getting her money’s worth, and it stirs something ugly and angry in the pit of my stomach. So I pull away, let my mouth part from her with a goodbye kiss cruel enough to make her whine and tug on my hair, to say my name again. No question this time, just a soft plea.

I’m sick of being on my knees, and really, there’s no reason I can’t do what I want. No reason at all. When I stand, Annie’s eyes go to my chest, flickering across the stripes Sabina’s fingernails left behind. I strip off my pants, and her gaze lowers, lingers.

Beneath the robe I find her pliant and panting. Skin damp, nipples hard, breath coming fast and shallow. Greedy, grasping, her touch falls with selfish hunger, and in this Annie isn’t unlike my other lovers. Long legs wrap around my waist, anchoring me to her. She’s warm and wet, whimpering in a way that might sound pitiful if it wasn’t making me so hard. I press against her, teasing. Those little mewling noises grow stronger, tighten together into a full-throated moan.

“Have you ever done this before?” I ask.

Annie shakes her head, then says, “Almost, once, but…”

Her eyes go distant, and she’s about to slip away from me. Retreat to some inner place where her district partner still lives and loves, but I’m not going to let her mind wander, not now when our bodies are tangled up together. I kiss her, our first, and that’s so backwards that I almost laugh.

Beneath my mouth Annie takes a deep, gasping breath. Then she peppers kisses everywhere she can reach. My brow, both cheeks, the tip of my nose. My lips, again and again. The curve from shoulder to neck and the hollow between my collarbones. When her quick tongue darts out to trace the shell of my ear, I shudder. The drugs must have finally worn off, because I feel myself warming for the first time tonight. “Finnick,” she whispers. “I love you—”

I can’t stand to hear that, not from Annie. So I kiss her quiet, slip a hand between her thighs, and slide two fingers inside of her.

“You’re wetter than home,” I say, and it’s true. More so when I curl my fingers, beckoning her forward—closer to me, closer to coming. “Were you like this in the ballroom, when I touched you?”

“Yes?” It comes out a question, eager but unsure. Annie’s not fluent in pillow talk, and something about that sends a jolt through me. All at once I want her, need to fuck her like I’ll die if I don’t. Under me she’s subtle curves and rocking warmth. Open legs, cradling my hips as I push inside—and then I feel her. Tight, slick heat, stretched around my cock, gripping me, pulling me in.

Annie whimpers, but whether that sound is pained or pleased I’m not sure, can’t tell and barely care. “Yes,” she says, even though I never asked. Why didn’t I ask?

In the beginning I go gentle and steady. Then I slow our rhythm, stretch out the slide of skin on skin, and tell her to beg. Love me becomes have me, you can have me becomes fuck me.

For a moment all I can feel are handcuffs snapping closed, grabbing fingers and greedy cunt. I’m angry all over again but still aching, and Annie knows, because her hands untangle from my hair and dart down to cover her ears. But I catch her wrists, drag them over her head and let my weight do the rest.

I spread her arms apart, wide as they’ll go. Pinned, she’s a butterfly behind glass, pretty and splayed. Annie must like being caged better than I do, because soon she shivers beneath me, coming and crying at once. Back arched, small breasts thrust forward, toes curled and legs taut; she’s lovely like this and so tight it almost hurts.

On the low tide of our touch she says those three unwanted words, passes them from her mouth to mine like a hard candy secret.

“Don’t,” I say.

The camera loves me too. I’m sick to death of love.

But then my climax creeps up on me, sharp and sweet, and I can’t think anymore. There’s nothing but Annie beneath me, her body tight and wet around mine.

In the soft moment right after, I feel something new. A warmth, quiet and gentle, as Annie looks up at me with heavy-lidded green eyes. That love she promised is raw and open as a wound.

It’s terrifying. And tempting, which is the scariest part of all.

The knot around her throat unties easily, and I take a green sea glass token with me when I go. It’s all she has left of the boy who loved her, who died at her side. Stealing it is cruel, but I don’t do it out of spite or jealousy. The reason is simple: my patrons always pay, and Annie is no exception.

#odesta #odesta fanfiction #odesta fic #odesta fanfic #finnick odair #annie cresta #thg #hunger games #the hunger games #thg fic

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meghanpage · 3 years

Text

To the Stars Ch. 5 - Dinner...

Words: 2681

Also on AO3

---

“I was right!” Lucía exclaimed. “You and I are just about the same size.”

They were in her rooms, where it felt to Juliana like the woman had taken out about half of her wardrobe and thrust it on her. She had begun holding different dresses in front of Juliana in the mirror, examining them critically before trying another.

Despite the abruptness of the situation, Juliana found herself enjoying a bit of dress-up with high class clothing. It was wonderful to see so many dresses up close, and it was apparent Lucía was pleased by the commentary she felt comfortable voicing.

Finally, they narrowed it down to one choice, and after comfortably lacing her into a corset, Lucía helped Juliana slip it on. She was right, it fit like a glove, and as Juliana looked at herself in the mirror, she couldn’t help but gawk at how sophisticated she looked.

The dress was black, coming off her shoulders across her chest in a vee. A sheer black sash wrapped around her middle, leaving a wide swath to hang down to the floor. The bodice was worked with delicate embroidery, all done in black so it was practically invisible except when it shimmered in the light. It was the type of design she loved to sketch.

Lucía had helped her pin her hair up in a simple but elegant style, and fine wisps curled over her temples.

“You shine up like a new penny,” Lucía told her with a laugh.

Juliana couldn’t help but laugh as well, giving her an appreciative smile. “Thank you, Ms. Borges.”

“Please, just Lucía,” she said, waving away the formality. She handed Juliana a pair of long black evening gloves. “Now, you ought to go meet Miss Carvajal by the fore grand staircase. I’ll meet you there.”

Apprehensively, Juliana left Lucía’s rooms and made her way through the halls, towards the staircase that was the epicenter of first class society. As she walked, she couldn’t help but marvel at her dress. It was easily the nicest thing she had ever worn in her life, and her designer mind couldn’t help but note the way the fabric shaped against her body, the way it moved around her legs. She would have to find some way to pay Lucía back for lending it to her.

As she neared the staircase Juliana slowed, feeling very much out of place. With Lucía’s help she looked much more the part, but she felt certain the real upper class passengers would see right through her.

But yet, as she approached the door, the doorman on the other side opened it to her with no hesitation, ushering her through. “Welcome, madam.”

She stepped past, glancing at him through the corner of her eye to see if he would notice she didn’t belong here. But he did nothing to stop her, so she continued onward.

Slowly, she made her way down the wide, curving staircase, doing her best not to gape at everything around her. The room was panelled entirely in rich, honey-colored wood, bathed in light from the huge glass dome above them. Ornate details drew the eye this way and that, from the floral scrolls of iron and copper that held up the railings, to the intricate carvings that framed the clock which served as a focal point for the room. A string quartet played airy waltz from somewhere out of sight, lending an extra air of decadence to the scene.

Once she reached the bottom of the staircase, Juliana leaned against a pillar, turning her attention to the people in the room. She may have looked like she belonged there, but she had no idea how to act.

She studied both the men and women, the way the men held themselves stiff and straight, how the women lay delicate hands on their men’s arms. Who should she imitate? Was she Valentina’s escort, or was Valentina hers?

She held her bent arm up, trying to subtly mimic the way a gentleman held his arm out for his date, until she caught sight of some familiar figures descending the staircase.

Lucho and Eva walked down arm and arm, and Juliana stepped forward to greet them. But as she held out her hand towards him, Lucho simply dipped his head at her and continued speaking to Eva, not recognizing her at all.

Juliana stared after them for a moment, befuddled, her hand still held out to shake. Did she really look that different?

She turned back towards the staircase, unsure what else to do, when her eyes landed on the person she most wanted to see, and her heart skipped a beat.

Valentina looked gorgeous, clad in a lustrous silver and black gown. The top layer of dark, translucent fabric spiraled around her, worked with beads and embroidery in an intricate design. Below it, the underdress shimmered with fine silver thread. Her hair was swept back from her face, highlighting her fine cheekbones and bright blue eyes.

Juliana’s fingers would have been itching to sketch her if she hadn’t been so transfixed in the moment.

---

Valentina stood frozen at the landing of the stairs, struck by the beautiful woman waiting for her at the foot.

Juliana was stunning.

The black dress highlighted her lovely tan skin, spreading across her chest and down her arms. Her arms were bare, though she held two long black evening gloves in her hand. The open slant of the neckline showed off her elegant collarbones and accentuated the slope of her shoulders. A black sash wrapped around her slim waist, and Valentina had to force her eyes back up to Juliana’s face. Fine strands of hair delicately framed her features, her full lips and deep brown eyes.

Finally getting herself to move, Valentina descended the rest of the staircase, unable to tear her eyes away from Juliana. When she was just a step above Juliana, Juliana took her hand, bringing it to her lips. She pressed a soft kiss to her fingers, looking up at her through her lashes, and Valentina’s heart beat an uneven tattoo against her ribs.

“I saw that in a nickelodeon once,” Juliana told her, her playful smile still so, so close to Valentina’s fingers, “and I always wanted to do it.”

When Valentina didn’t respond, her smile dropped a bit. “What’s the matter?”

Valentina shook herself, willing her heart to stop thrumming. “Nothing, I just -” She gave a self-deprecating laugh, stepping down off the last step so she was even with Juliana. “You look very pretty.”

Juliana’s smile grew back to a grin, and Valentina couldn’t stop herself from saying it again. “You look beautiful, Juls.”

As the nickname slipped out, two spots of color appeared high on Juliana’s cheek’s, corresponding to Valentina’s own heavy blush. But Juliana only laughed happily, thanking her for the compliment.

Quickly slipping on her own gloves, Juliana held out an elbow for Valentina to take, raising her chin high as she teasingly mimicked the stiff posture of the gentlemen around them. Valentina giggled, feeling a bit giddy.

The feeling quickly fizzled as they approached Lucho and her sister. Reaching out, Valentina tapped his arm to get his attention. "Cariño?"

He turned from his conversation with an expectant smile.

“Surely you remember Juliana Valdés?”

Lucho looked at Juliana in astonishment. With a disbelieving chuckle, he said, “Miss Valdés? Well, it’s amazing! You could almost pass for a lady.”

Juliana’s lips thinned, but she simply shrugged and replied, “Almost.”

“Extraordinary.” Lucho turned to go, offering his arm to Eva.

Valentina offered Juliana an apologetic smile, hoping to smooth over Lucho’s flippant attitude. Thankfully, Juliana returned the smile, and they stepped together after the others.

As they made their way through the rooms towards the dining saloon, Valentina kept up a running commentary of the important figures they passed, adding in little bits of juicy gossip she knew.

Eventually they came across Lucía, now dressed in her own evening finery.

“Care to escort a lady to dinner?” she asked Juliana warmly, pulling a laugh from her.

“Of course.” She held out her other elbow and sauntered forward, a woman now on each arm. Valentina had to smile.

“There’s nothing to it, is there, Juliana?” Lucía said conspiratorially, but still loud enough for Valentina to hear. “Remember, they love money. So just pretend like you have a gold mine and you’re in.”

With a chuckle, she stepped away to greet someone, leaving them to themselves again. As they navigated through the saloon to their table, Juliana held herself carefully, nodding politely to everyone they passed and making cordial conversation. Valentina could tell she must have been nervous by the way she held her arm close, but she never faltered. Those around them didn’t question her, probably assuming she was new money, but still part of the fold.

Of course, Eva could always been counted on to sour the mood.

“Tell us of the accommodations in steerage, Miss Valdés,” she called across the table when they were all seated. “I hear they’re quite good on this ship.”

On the other side of Lucho, Valentina cringed. Juliana was seated across the table, so she couldn’t put an apologetic hand on her arm like she wanted to. Lucho had likely orchestrated that they not be seated by each other, although that didn’t help Valentina’s desire to stare.

Appearing unruffled, Juliana replied, “The best I’ve seen, señora, Hardly any rats.”

This raised a round of chuckles from the table, and Eva looked away with a frown.

“Miss Valdés is joining us from the third class,” Lucho elaborated. “She was of some assistance to my fiancée last night.”

Quickly trying to steer the conversation towards more positive waters, Valentina commented, “It turns out Miss Valdés is quite the fine designer and artist. She was kind enough to show me some of her work today.”

Her chest warmed at Juliana’s small but proud smile, though it quickly turned to a frown at Lucho’s words.

“Vale and I differ somewhat in our definition of fine art.” Not wanting to seem gauche to the others, he quickly added, “That’s nothing to say about your work, of course.”

Juliana raised a hand to wave his comment away, but her mouth was set in an unhappy line. Was it truly impossible for Eva and Lucho to just keep quiet and act polite?

Thankfully at that moment waiters approached the table, breaking the tension. Valentina caught Juliana’s attention with a cough, signaling to put her napkin in her lap. She felt guilty for not thinking to review the minutiae of formal dining manners, but Juliana leaned to whisper to Lucía, and it seemed like the other woman had things well in hand.

Johny Corona quickly took the opportunity to bring the conversation around to the ship. “I may be the owner, but in the eyes of God she belongs to Camilo Guerra. He knows every rivet in her, don’t you, Camilo?”

Camilo looked quietly pleased. Valentina, who had seen more than her fair share of the ship during her search for and walk with Juliana, turned to him. “Your ship is a wonder, truly.”

He smiled at her kindly, his gaze almost paternal. “Thank you, Valentina.” With a pang, Valentina thought that her father would have liked this man very much.

Before the dart of grief could pull her down, her attention was caught by Juliana eyeing a dish of caviar offered to her by a waiter with thinly veiled unease.

“No caviar for me, thanks. Never did like it much.”

Valentina had to hide a smile in her own bite of caviar on toast.

“And where do you live, Miss Valdés?” Eva spoke up again, turning the table’s attention to their guest once more.

“Well, right now my address is the RMS Titanic." Juliana answered with a shrug. “After that I’m on God’s good humor.”

Eva smirked. “And how is it you have the means to travel?”

Juliana returned her gaze evenly, and her tone was matter-of-fact as she answered, “I work my way from place to place - you know, tramp steamers and such. But I won my ticket on Titanic here in a lucky hand at poker.” She glanced at Valentina, a small smile on her lips. “A very lucky hand.”

“All life’s a game of luck!” said another man at the table.

Lucho shook his head. “A man makes his own luck, Sergio.” He shot a superior look at Juliana, which Eva followed.

“And you find that sort of rootless existence appealing, do you?” Eva monotoned, raising her champagne to her lips.

Juliana’s mouth set in a line for a moment before she smoothed her features. “Well, yes, señora, I do.”

Eva bristled slightly at being called señora again, which made Valentina suppress another smile.

Juliana continued, “I mean, I’ve got everything I need right here with me. Got air in my lungs and a few blank sheets of paper.” Now she smiled, and Valentina couldn’t help but hang on every word. “I mean, I love waking up in the morning not knowing what's going to happen or who I'm going to meet, where I'm going to wind up. Just the other night, I was sleeping under a bridge, and now here I am on the grandest ship in the world having champagne with you fine people.”

She lifted her glass to the table as those around it laughed once more.

“I figure life's a gift, and I don't intend on wasting it. You never know what hand you're going to get dealt next. You learn to take life as it comes at you. To make each day count.”

“Well said, Miss Valdés,” Lucía remarked, nodding warmly to her.

The same gentleman who had spoken before, Sergio, called out, “Hear, hear!”

Not taking her eyes off of Juliana, Valentina raised her glass in a toast. “To making it count.”

The rest of the table echoed her, raising their own glasses. Eva and Lucho followed more slowly, and Valentina noted a sour look on Lucho’s face as he sipped his champagne.

It didn’t matter. Valentina felt almost giddy, in awe of the way Juliana had managed to skirt around Eva and Lucho’s barbed comments and win over the rest of the table. The others must have been able to see, as she did, how genuine, how real Juliana was.

Dinner continued much more pleasantly after that, as Eva sensed she could get no further with her snubs, and therefore stayed quiet. Lucía, whom Valentina respected more and more with each passing moment, regaled them all with humorous tales of her husband, until dinner began to wind down.

Valentina leaned over the table a bit, whispering to Juliana, “Next it’ll be brandies in the smoking room.”

As if on cue, Sergio stood. “Well, join me in a brandy, gentleman?”

With a smirk, Valentina said, “Now they’ll retreat into a cloud of smoke and congratulate themselves on being masters of the universe.”

Then men all got to their feet, gathering to move into the next room. Lucho leaned over the back of the chair, offering to escort her back to her room. Valentina declined, wanting to spend more time near Juliana, but her heart sank as she saw her rise as well.

“I’ve got to be heading back,” she said, coming next to Valentina’s seat.

Unable to help herself, Valentina asked, “Juls, must you go?”

Juliana gave her a wry smile. “Time for me to go row with the other slaves.”

Valentina laughed and took Juliana’s offered hand, allowing her to bring it to her lips once more. “Goodnight, Val.”

Valentina froze as Juliana used a nickname of her own, her cheeks tinging pink. Juliana smiled and turned to go, but not before shooting her a significant look.

It was only then that Valentina felt something in her hand - a piece of paper, left there by Juliana? As discreetly as possible, Valentina brought the paper to her lap and unfolded it, reading the words penciled there.

“Make it count. Meet me at the clock.”

#amar a muerte #juliantina #juliana valdes #valentina carvajal #fanfiction #my work #titanic au

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a-cai-jpg · 4 years

Text

this is how the story ends.

Sometimes, she can barely remember the way he looked.

She can still hear his voice—breath curling around her name and low baritones tickling her ears. Sometimes, if she closes her eyes and tries hard enough, she can trace his features with the tips of her memories—grasping at his eyes, the curve of his lips, the slopes of his cheeks—only for them to slip away like smoke.

He returns to her only as she drifts aimlessly between wake and sleep, teetering dangerously along the border as her eyes focus hazily on his smile. He fades in and out of her mind, and she thinks she can still feel the warmth his fingertips left around her wrist, on the curve of her waist, against the tips of her ears as he softly brushed back her hair.

As life shuttles her from one end of the hemisphere to the other, she wonders whether he had really existed. Whether they had really existed. But, even time and an aging mind can’t erase the scalding fingertips he had haphazardly left on her life.

[m a d r i d, s p a i n]

On the Amtrak from San Francisco to Los Angeles, she finds herself in Madrid, summer. He is next to her, an ice cream cone held loosely in one hand as he points with the other. They are laughing, her head thrown back as she lets the warm, slightly humid wind caress her cheeks. He pauses in the middle of suggesting Let’s sit at a café—the heat’s killing me to take in the way her eyes crescent and shine, like the blinking fairy lights drawing waves along their bedroom wall back home. She averts her attention from the scene around them—a street performer jubilantly strumming the strings of her guitar, a six or seven year old shrieking with laughter as his parents chase after him—and looks at him, head cocked to the side. He smiles and leans in.

[t o k y o, j a p a n]

She drags her suitcase through her apartment door in Los Angeles and ends up at the top of the Tokyo Tower, nighttime. The sweet scent of cherry blossoms wafts even to the height of over three hundred meters. The night chill is a sliver harsher up here than the central streets of Shibuya. She’s anxious, sweat pooling at her palms as she looks down at the twinkling city lights below. Her fingers inadvertently twist themselves into the hem of his loose, white t-shirt. He glances at her and wraps an arm around her waist, pulling her close. I won’t let you fall, he whispers against her ear as he lightly brushes her hair with his lips. She smiles and huddles closer to him, feeling the warmth of his chest radiating against her side.

The scene is picturesque—the hum of the city dimmed as the two of them lean against the floor-length glass separating them from the hurtling descent back to the winding streets of Tokyo. They watch the lights slowly blink off one by one as the city settles into its pseudo-slumber. Staticky music plays in the background. Her eyes drink in the miniature metropolis, and she feels “acrophobia” become just another foreign word she can’t understand in this foreign country.

She wonders if this is what forever feels like. She wonders if this can last into eternity—her steadfastly leaning into him, stealing his presence and the scent of his Calvin Klein cologne, watching time pass them by.

What are you thinking about? He asks, nudging her slightly. She cranes her head back to tell him, eyes crinkling as a chuckle bubbles in her throat, and falls.

[l o s a n g e l e s, u s a]

She lands in a building on the edge of the LA financial district. She brushes through the office, balancing a thick stack of papers and a Starbucks coffee. Recently, her sweet tooth has abandoned her, and she finds the words an iced Americano, no cream or sugar please tumbling from her tongue.

She reaches her cubicle and drops the papers onto her desk. Absently, she drags a finger across the thin layer of dust that has gathered at corners of her unusually neat, organized working area. It looks exactly like how she left it, one Thursday afternoon after mechanically organizing and re-organizing the objects on her desk. The uncanny feeling that someone has broken into the office and replaced every single one of her items with an exact duplicate settles uneasily in her gut.

It feels foreign. The sticky notes lining the plastic divider, the handful of her favorite pens gathered in a metallic mug, the photo frame placed face down, the PC monitor with the light blinking orange. It’s as if she is here to replace the girl who had previously occupied this space, a shadow of who she had once been.

She turns around, and he is behind her, grinning as he offers her a cup of coffee from the office Keurig. He’s wearing a light blue button down, the first two buttons undone because she always claimed, You look too stuffy with it buttoned to the top. His sleeves are rolled to his elbows because he never liked the way it interfered when he typed. She can smell the rich warmth of the coffee tempting her to reach out and grab it from him.

His eyes twinkle as he edges even closer, the coffee mug the only thing separating them. Her heart races, and she swears the vibrations are transmitted through the cup and into his fingers and up his arms until they are in sync with his own heart beat. Three creams and one sugar on Mondays, right? There’s a bit of a giggle in his voice, connotations of an inside joke, warm and familiar, lightly dusting his words. She doesn’t reply and stands on her tiptoes and kisses him.

“How was the business trip?”

The question registers too loudly, too jarring to her ears—like the lights of a surgery room switching on and glaring down at her. She reflexively lifts the corners of her lips, but the smile reaches her eyes a half-second too late. She watches her co-worker’s eyebrows furrow, her mouth pursing like it’s about to open and say something, so she beats her to it.

“It went smoothly,” she says. “A bit tiring, but fine.”

She tries for a small grin.

It must be lopsided, because her co-worker stretches out a hand and places it on her arm. She tries her best not to flinch and widens her smile despite the strain in her cheeks. One last sympathetic pat, and the hand is gone. There’s the sound of a chair wheeling away, the delayed “click-clack” of a keyboard, and she finally sinks into her own chair.

She feels strange. Like she has unzipped her skin, stepped out of it, and donned a replica that is slowly shrinking and suffocating her—figuratively-literally squeezing the life out of her.

Her computer shudders to life, the bright blue Windows screen doing nothing to startle her from her reverie. Her arms unconsciously wrap themselves around her torso, and she digs her nails into her side as if about to rip off this flesh-colored cloak she has sewn on.

The sight of her wallpaper forcibly drags her out of her mind. She scrambles for the mouse, fingers slipping—right click, personalize, change wallpaper, default. Her cursor hovers above save, entertaining a brief, wrenching moment of hesitation before she presses down on her mouse. The resulting click is dull with weariness.

The steadfast pain pounding away in the hollow area in her chest intensifies.

She ignores it.

They have lunch in a café a couple of blocks down from the office building. A chicken salad for me and a breakfast panini for the lady please. He orders without looking at the menu. He knows too well her idiosyncratic love for breakfast foods, no matter the time of the day. Why? He had asked once, as he amusedly watched her wolf down a McDonald’s hash brown at dinner. Because, she had replied with a cheeky wink, I don’t like endings. He hadn’t asked further—maybe he understood, maybe he didn’t—but he never forgot. Good thing this café serves breakfast 24/7. For weirdos just like you. He stresses the last word, eyebrows raised and lips parted in the faint beginnings of a laugh, and leans back in his chair. She looks at the way he lounges comfortably in the wicker-woven chair, the midday sunshine dancing across the dark crown of his hair and highlighting the warm browns and reds, and thinks she might be in love.

She reaches across the table to take his hand, but the scene fades to black and white, and her fingers close over thin wisps of smoke ghosting across her palm.

[n e w y o r k, u s a]

Her fingers ache as she presses them against her iced smoothie. The sun is partially hidden behind the clouds, its rays fighting futilely against the stubborn, autumnal, and distinctly New York-ian chill. She’s sitting on a park bench, staring straight ahead with contemplative eyes, as if she is trying very hard to recall a memory long buried in the abyss of her mind. She mindlessly rubs at the condensation dripping on her plastic to-go cup before placing it down on the bench, next to the sandwich wrap she’d nibbled around.

The white noise of the New York office rumbles at a higher decibel than the LA one, humming a constant reminder that the day is fading. She had arrived early this morning to a nearly empty floor, but the space quickly filled up with the sound of office workers going about their routine—sharp peaks of laughter, chairs screeching as they drag against the linoleum, heels echoing as their wearers rush from one end of the building to the other. The sounds crescendoed as they bounced off the walls of her mind, and suddenly, the world was thrown into a sharper contrast and everything was a little more saturated than before. She took a deep breath she couldn’t let out, and then someone made eye contact and was walking towards her and speeding up and opening their mouth and she turned and walked down eight flights of stairs to the front door.

She takes another sip of her smoothie and feels someone settle their weight next to her. Why did you leave LA? he asks, reaching for the sandwich sitting in between them. He pauses, seems to think better of it, and rests his hand back onto his lap. He looks at her expectantly, but she continues to squint at the skyline.

He waits patiently and counts the number of bikers and joggers he can see. The wind crinkles the edges of the sandwich wrap, and he shivers.

An eternity or two passes them. Time expands and crashes, the momentum shocking the core of the Earth and rolling off in waves of tremors imperceptible to everyone but her. She blinks rapidly.

“So I can stop seeing you.”

She gets up, tosses the sandwich and smoothie away, and makes her way back to the office.

[I N T E R L U D E]

She sits at her makeshift desk, bedroom lit only by the singular lamp standing in the corner. Her hand is sore from gripping the pen and pressing the nib heavily into the ream of paper in front of her. Ink splashes lightly from the tip, and she drags it angrily across the sheet.

I thought You promised

We were supposed to go to Taiwan this year

Your mom called the other day

I can’t go anywhere without

I think I’m cracking from the inside out

Why

You lied.

YOU LIED.

YOU LIED YOU LIED YOU LIED YOU LIED YOU LIED YOU LIED YOU LIED YOU LIED YOU LEFT YOU LEFT YOU LEFT YOU LEFT YOU LEFT YOU LEFT WHY DID YOU LEAVE WHY DID YOU LEAVE WHY DID YOU LIE WHY DID YOU DIE

The sun had long set. She remembers watching the sky bleed splashes of fiery orange and navy from the living room floor, arms wrapped around her bent knees. She had sat with her head against the window for an immeasurable period of time, listening to the hushed echoes of off-tune carols and the sounds of her neighbor’s children welcoming their father home. The digital clock on her nightstand is blinking, red numbers flashing warningly.

She takes a deep breath and loosens her fingers. Her knuckles creak as she stretches them. She wipes at her cheeks and starts over.

It’s Christmas Eve tomorrow.

Your mom called the other day to wish me a Merry Christmas and ask if I was going to return home for the holidays. She said she wanted to make me dinner. She said I should visit home often, and visit her, and visit you.

I think she’s lonely.

On March 21st, I cancelled our plane tickets to Taiwan. They wouldn’t refund the ticket price because it was too close to the departure date.

You know, I think I was waiting. I think I thought you would come back, and in April, we would be driving from Taipei to Kaohsiung. You always said you wanted to visit the motherland. December’s almost over.

It’s really cold in New York. I don’t think you would like it. The snow isn’t the soft, fluffy kind you see in Michigan. Do you remember when we went to visit Jackelyn? It was the first time I had seen snowfall. I ran outside at 8PM and you had to chase after me with a jacket and a scarf. It didn’t matter though, because you ended up stuffing a snowball down my sweater.

The snow in New York is grey. It turns into wet, slippery slush as soon as it touches the pavement, and by the time it accumulates into a pile, it becomes dirty ice.

The other day, I slipped on a patch right in front of my apartment and cut my palm against the jagged pavement when I tried to break my fall. When I got home, I realized I didn’t have any Band-aids, so I had to go back outside to buy some. You were always the one with the first aid kits and disaster kits. If an apocalypse hit now, I don’t think I would last very long.

Like right now, the world is ending. The world is falling apart, crashing down around me, and I’m sitting at this desk. I’m writing these words on this sheet of paper, and when I’m done, I’ll stick it in an envelope and scrawl your name on the front, and then I’ll drop it in the mailbox and pray that God will take pity on me and it will get to you. But I know it goes nowhere. It goes in the shredder, and then the trash can, and then the landfill, and then maybe it’ll become one with the earth, and I guess in one way or another it reaches you. The paper, I mean. I don’t know if the words do.

I hope—

I’ve been having a recurring dream. I’m in our apartment in LA again. It’s morning, maybe a Sunday because the sun is already filtering through our blinds. I feel it warm my cheek. I can hear the sound of the water boiler in the kitchen. I roll over to feel your side of the bed, but it’s cold. Something in me jolts, like my body is trying to remind me of something I have forgotten. I panic, but then I remember. You’re probably buying breakfast.

I like eating ham, egg, and cheese bagels for Sunday morning breakfast.

The doorbell rings, and I get out of bed blearily, grumbling under my breath about how you forgot to bring the keys with you. A small voice in my head asks how you got into the building in the first place, but my brain is still sleepy and slow so the thought filters away. The doorbell sounds insistently, and it feels like I’m dragging myself through sludge. When I finally yank the door open, the shrill ringing doesn’t cease. You’re not there.

Instead, it’s me. I’m pressing the doorbell again and again. There’s a desperate look on my face as I increase the frequency of the rings. Finally, it’s just one long, sustained pitch.

Then, it hits me.

I realize it’s always going to be me ringing the doorbell. It’s always going to be me opening the door.

Suddenly, the me outside the door stops the noise. She places her cold palms against my cheeks and says something I can’t hear.

This is usually when I wake up, sometime between late night and early morning.

It’s during these hours that I miss you the most.

Lately, I’ve been seeing you less and less.

When I see your face, it’s blurry, smudged around the edges. When I hear your voice, it’s a wavering pitch, like it’s trying to find the key of a melody it hasn’t sung in a very long time. When I feel your touch, it’s the ghost of a breeze the wind leaves behind.

She stops writing and takes a shuddering breath. Her hand is trembling.

I’m afraid I’m going to forget you.

The pen falls from her grasp. The clatter interrupts the dark silence but is quickly swallowed by the night. Ink smears where her tears splatter across the page.

k a o h s i u n g, t a i w a n

The camera clicks, and she pulls it away to inspect the photo. There’s a streak of blue across the bottom, and then it’s the green of Cijin island and the striking white of the Cihou Lighthouse. She looks back up at the structure on the other side of the water and sees a movie play on the television.

She’s in LA, sprawled across the couch with her legs over his lap. He grabs the bag of popcorn she’s hugging in her arms and stuffs a handful in his mouth. We should do that some time, he says. Don’t speak with your mouth full, she admonishes, kicking her heels lightly against his thigh. Do what? He gestures at the screen. Drive around Japan and explore every lighthouse.

She takes the popcorn back. You do realize she’s just finding the lighthouses in the Setouchi region, right? Not all of Japan? He shrugs. Well, we can do all of Japan. Or find a list of the coolest lighthouses in Japan and go to all of them. She laughs. But the coolest lighthouses are probably the hidden ones that aren’t on any tourist itineraries.

He ponders that for a moment, watching the screen intently as the female protagonist smokes a cigarette. They sit in silence for a moment, letting the sounds of the movie filter into the space between them. Then, he wraps his arms over her legs and pulls them close to his chest.

You’re right. I guess we have to find them on our own then. It’ll take a while, wouldn’t it? We can take a week off every year and just drive up and down the coasts of Japan. I feel like by the time we’re 80, we would’ve covered all of them.

Okay.

Really?

Yeah. But, why?

Because lighthouses are great. She learns the contours of his history through the landscape of the lighthouses. Even in a coma, he is helping her unravel the pain and fear and confusion, guiding her forward with each unexplored lighthouse on the map.

The horn of the ferry sounds. She hands her ticket to the attendant and boards the boat. She leans against the railing of the top deck, watching as the lighthouse looms closer. The spring, April air smells sweet and young. Soft sunlight glistens off the crests of the rocking waves and throws patches of brilliant blue and green into sharp relief.

As the ferry draws her nearer to Cijin island and the lighthouse, the wind caresses the side of her face and whispers a question in her ear.

Are you still afraid?

She smiles and closes her eyes. Her reply is lost in the sounds of waves lapping against the edge of the boat.

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lenalovesjasper · 6 years

Text

In Which He Does Not

https://archiveofourown.org/works/16330010

https://www.fanfiction.net/s/13095746/1/In-Which-He-Does-Not-Want

Summary: A door, a slightly less ass-holey Edward, and a whole new set of rules. Twilight, where Alice sees Bella coming, and tells Edward to Get His Shit Together. Where Vampires are ugly as their souls when they walk in the sun. Where Charlie's late nights and long hours lead to a friendship of opposites. Where Bella and Edward fall in love, without that first mess-up.

Chapter One

If Bella had been in Phoenix, she’d be paced the halls. Pacing like she meant it too—scuffing her toes on the hard tile floors and wishing she could walk back out the school doors undetected. There were lots of locks though, keypads and heavy metal doors that only lead down a series of halls back into the front office. Metal detectors. A security guard or two, thoroughly out of place in the relatively cushy neighbourhood. Not that there weren’t fights in Phoenix Central. But there were no fights here, there was nothing here. It seemed to her that the green simply stretched forever into the world, surrounded by the heavy grey skies and dotted with black raincoats and houses alike. She thought they must look alike, from above. Genderless black raincoats and houses with slate roofs, so wet they didn’t even grow green moss.

She missed the sun.

Perhaps moreso than that, she missed the feeling of the sun on her back, dragging highlights out of her dark hair like rays of gold in a sea of deep mahogany

In her truck, rumbling down the road, she felt as far from the sunny haven of Arizona as she’d ever felt. The tallest house around was three stories, if you generously counted the attic. She only hoped that her feet were carrying her into the correct building, because the school looked like an amalgamation of early 20th century houses in a museum. It looked like that, the only difference being that, despite being early for school, there was already limited space in the parking lot.

Her truck stuck out like a big, rusty, thumb. All the teachers drove reasonable little cars, Toyotas and Hondas, with all-wheel drive and carefully cleaned windshields and headlights. The students drove mostly mini-vans and trucks. None quite as old as hers. They all had either chains on their tires or dents.

The lot was mostly empty of students, she observed, people seemed to congregate closer to the buildings. That was what the school was made up of, maybe just under a dozen brick buildings in a loose grouping. The snow had mostly been cleared, snaking little paths of stone and ice melt that ran between buildings and small cleared circles where people chattered in groups. From above, it probably looked like drunken crop circles cut into snow by some lost alien.

She felt like a lost alien

Nonetheless, she toddled her way across the ice. It was in that moment Bella realized she wasn’t meant for carrying stylish shoulder bags—all it’d done for her was tip her further off balance and sent her grasping for the hoods of cars to stead herself. But, all in all, she made it to class and that was one hell of an accomplishment for her.

She’d gathered some papers from the “office building” as they called it, and she clutched them in nervous hands. It felt like a lifeline. Her mittens were on the table in Charlie’s house, and she wished for them, to hide the nervous jittering of her fingers. Actually, when she looked harder at the blue tint to her hands, it might’ve been cold making them shake.

Bella hated the cold.

She hated the papers she was holding. She hated lots of things.

Had she been less consumed by her hatred of things, she might’ve looked up before being pounced upon by the boy behind her.

“Hi!” Cried a voice, and Bella startled, dropping half of her papers on the floor. She imagined they made a ‘whoosh’ noise as they fell. “You’re Isabella Swan, right?” The boy was Asian, with dark hair that fell over his forehead and excessive acne. He smiled, and she added another adjective: over-eager.

The papers had scattered all over the linoleum floor. Damnit! She stooped to gather them, but they were already soaked in ice melt and dingy snow-water. They ended up in a nearby bin, which the boy doggedly followed her to.

“Sooo..” He began, eyes crinkled with a barely contained smirk. “you’re Isabella, right? Chief’s daughter?”

“Um, just Bella.” She brushed a chunk of hair up behind her ear. It fell immediately.

“I couldn’t help but notice you looked lost—” was it the map topping her pile of papers, or was it the look of hopelessness in her eyes that gave it away? “—and I’m Eric, your unofficial tour guide.”

Eric. Great. “Unofficial?” She questioned.

He flipped the fringe that brushed his forehead, and smiled even wider. “Newspaper duty. You’re front page news!”

Her heart gave a small palpitation. “Oh, no, no.” She rushed to explain, tripping over her words, “I’m not really, uh, news. Please.”

Instantly he raised his arms, losing the smirking edge to his grin. It was now soft, and slightly comforting. “Hey, hey, don’t worry about it!” he pulled out a black phone and typed rapidly for a second across the dimmed screen. It was a wonder he could see it at all. “No feature. Done, nada, never even happened!”

Bella let out a small puff of air. She could see the vapour, warm in the icy air.

“Well, paper or no paper, I have to show you the school! Welcome to Forks High, the finest collection of school buildings in the Olympic Peninsula. What do you have first?”

“Building four?” There was a big ‘4’ next to her listing for Precalc.

“Me too! Wow, that’s convenient. Walk with me?” He talked so fast she didn’t notice that she was walking until she was tripping, chasing after him as words spilled from his mouth like water. “Precalc is super hard, but don’t let it get you down. I think everybody who goes through this school fails it once, you know. Just part of the school life here, like, you gotta fail one class in the math department…” After that, she shut her dazed mind off to his talking. Also, hearing “fail” on her first day here didn’t exactly make her want to listen.

They walked into the building, and he held the door open; catching it with the edge of his hands so she could walk through behind him. They went up a flight of stairs and down a hall, and when they reached a blue door with a large window he marched through, once again holding the door for her to enter behind. She smiled at him, but he had twisted around to greet someone in the class—and that was the mistake. Eric’s fingers slipped from the edge of the door, the moment she paused to look in.

Sometimes, time slowed down when she was about to be met with some new horrible bruise. Not very often, because not every bump could be special, but when the collision was bound to be painful, the world slowed so she had time to dread the impact. Like now; she could see the mechanism above the door pulling it closed, she could see Eric’s clammy fingers sliding one-by-one off the door edge. She could feel herself tense, and her eyes clench shut. There was a faint breeze behind her, cold and close to her back.

Wow, time really had slowed down. Shouldn’t her nose have been mushed by now?

Maybe this hit would be the one to finally disfigure her. It’d be kinda lame, to have fallen down stairs and out of cars (been hit by cars, but only lightly) and fall to a damn door. Charlie’d be mad. She’d have to call her mother. If she wasn’t frozen, she’d tap her foot impatiently—might as well get it over with. On her first day, and she was already getting involved in collisions with doors.

But the collision… didn’t come?

Bella hesitantly opened one eye, then blinked. The door window was not even two inches from her face. A strong looking arm, pale as snow, was pressed to the glass, just to the left of her face.

Bella froze. That was no cold breeze she’d felt, and she was suddenly very aware of the cold, tall person behind her—so close they were almost touching. A cool breath blew across the top of her head. It was like the first hint of snow in November.

She sensed the person shift behind her, and there was a moment before the words, spoken almost hesitantly, brushed her ear. “Be careful, Isabella.”

She whirled around at that, and there he was, leaning above her, hand still firmly planted on the window. He was so tall. The kind of tall that she had to crane her neck to see, until he tilted his head towards to. Hair fell to cover his forehead, and caught the fluorescent light. His hair was… like sunlight flashing on a bronze sculpture. If a hunk of bronze had perfectly mused bedhead, the kind that no amount of fussing could ever fake. It was a little long, a little curly, and a lot attractive. The face matched her statue theory, only made of marble. Every feature seemed chiselled from stone and made directly to cut into the softest parts of her heart; the high cheek bones, the full and rosy lips, the long black lashes that nearly brushed his heavy dark brows, creased in the centre of his forehead. She wanted to smooth that crease, reach up and rub it away with her thumb. But his skin, the impossibly beautiful and white skin, looked like marble. Even the slight suggestion of blue veins seemed merely lines in the silky stone of his being. And his eyes—oh god, those eyes. Gold. Golden, like two shining coins in the brightest eyes she’d ever seen.

Oh.

So this was what love at first sight felt like.

Dimly, her inner voice of reason chimed that she should ask the stranger his name. Instead, she watched a single curl, just a wisp of his tumble of bronze, slide into his forehead. He huffed a breath and tossed his head.

The moment broke.

“Watch the door.” He said, voice soft. Not deep, yet low. Clear inflection.

Bella sighed. “Oh, yeah.” Then, afraid to move too much, she reached up and pushed an errant chunk of brown hair behind her ear. Her eyes closed for the briefest of moments, and she gathered her mind together from the millions of fragments his brilliant eyes had shattered it to. When the pieces did come back together, they seemed all the brighter for having been broken by his beauty. “Thanks, for, um, the door.”

The corners of his mouth lifted. She remembered to breathe, but only with sincere effort on her part. “No trouble, Isabella.”

“Bella.”

“My apologies.”

The bell sounded, and she heard someone huff angrily. Breaking away from the glory of his face, she spared a moment for the window, where Eric looked at her. Irritably.

“I’ll let you get to class,” he smirked. “Bella.”

His arm withdrew from over her head slowly, and she missed its presence before it even moved. She didn’t move when he moved, instead she watched his form retreat down the hall. He was tall and a little lanky—but the way he moved, tall and purposefully, made him seem all the more different from the shuffling, hunched masses. Dressed in a button up, the softest shade of green, like the colour of a slightly scuffed emerald. A centre stone on a wedding ring, worn from decades of loving use. The dark trousers lovingly caressed his slender but defined legs. Warm brown lace up shoes, and a black backpack. He disappeared around the corner, taking her heart with him.

Bella sighed, and sank back into the door. Only she leaned too far back, and tipped through. The thud hit her before the pain did and—oh, there it was. It shuddered up her back and her palms stung from their harsh slap to the tile.

The floor and her were destined to meet, it seemed. Even as she sat up and rubbed her abused tailbone, she was glad that she hadn’t fallen when that handsome stranger was here. A bruised butt was worse than a bruised ego, in her opinion. (They often went hand-in-hand.) When she looked up, Eric was helpfully holding the door now, staring at her with raised eyebrows and an open mouth.

“Thanks for holding the door, Eric.” A blond called from the back of the classroom, snickering.

Eric’s already ruddy face flamed at the words. He began to stutter out an apology.

“Don’t worry about it,” Bella said, shrugging her shoulders. “at least I didn’t hit my face.” Face. Thinking about her face made her think of high cheekbones and haunting honey coloured irises. She picked herself off the floor gingerly, noting idly the blue and grey tiles. Eric didn’t offer her a hand up.

“Yeah, Eric—don’t worry about, Cullen’s got it!” Yelled the same blond from before. He hopped his seat on the desk of a brunette with heavy foundation, and strolled over. “Mike Newton.” He smiled warmly, dimpling his face. He was youthful, like a broad-shouldered cherub. Someone from elementary school that never quite outgrew the face. Eric’s cheery demeanour soured rapidly. He’d smiled when she walked behind him, shocked when she escaped her brush with the door, upset when she fell and Cullen was mentioned, and lastly outright bitter, when Mike introduced himself. Was it her? The girl with the heavy foundation looked upset that she’d lost Mike to her.

“Bella.” She nodded. He looked at her for a moment, a furrow between his brows but the same grin on his face. She shuffled her feet a little, trudging to the far side of the room, where she spied an empty desk. He watched her the whole way there—she knew, because she darted glances at him as she picked her way between the desks.

The teacher walked to the front of the room and began to speak, ignoring her and her newness completely. Bella thought she felt gold eyes on her every time she turned around, but it was only her mind. He’d walked off anyway. It didn’t stop her subconscious, that useless reasoning of hers.

It was a great day, so far.

#twilight #fanfiction #twilight fanfic #In Which He Does Not #Bella Swan #Edward Cullen

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