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jean-does-not-have-a-horseface · 3 years

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Only Time Makes It Human 2

As promised, here I am with part two, hehe this is looooong and I'm really really proud of it 👉🏻👈🏻 part one here

Pairing: Levi/ Reader

Tags: college!au, angst, fluff, many smooches in this chapter I hope you enjoy

Warnings: mentions of cheating, smoking and Zeke being a little shit

Cobblestone streets and modern renovated buildings bathed in tiny multi colored Christmas lights decorated almost every side of Trost with Christmas creeping around the corner. Petra's eyes were gleaming golden as they landed on every store window, the smile on her face refused to fade. Her footing only became faster as they approached the turn to the familiar coffee shop.

Her cuffed up jeans swayed as she flickered her feet to the pedestral, expectedly catching Levi's attention, but not for the reason she'd like to. Today, Petra seemed too bright and bubbly to take notice of any puddle of water that was left behind from last evening's brief snow storm. Everytime Levi managed to open his mouth, in hopes of scolding her to prevent her from getting her feet wet she seemed to skillfully sway herself out of danger, leaving him with his mouth slightly parted while his unspoken words took a roote from the tip is his tongue back to his brain.

"Come on Levi! We're almost there!" Petra said enthusiastically.

Levi only managed to click his tongue in response. With a head that was begging to burst and hips that burned in soreness and superstitial scratches inside his sweatpants he couldn't possibly bring himself to catch up on Petra's enthusiasm. He even caught himself wondering how Petra was in such a good mood; as if she wasn't mixing any existing drink along with Hange last night.

His head was swamping him, drowning him with trillions of new questions with every passing second. It was merely impossible for him to ignore his point of view of last night's events. His mind was not even allowing him to take a breather, to enjoy a soul mending cup of hot tea before he could come up with any believable assumption as to how exactly he ended up in the position he woke up in.

As he sternly walked ahead behind his bubbly partner, his heart protested in his chest everytime he set his eyes on Petra's auburn hair. His stomach, much in a horrid condition as well threatened him to spill the alcohol poisoned insides it was welding; every aspect of his sore, hungover body deemed him unable to allow him to carry on.

Nontheless, as they took the inevitable turn the all too familiar coffee shop stood only a few meters away from him as he paced a few more steps, clutching his stomach along with each tap of his feet on the ground. Petra shot him a knowing glare before she set her hands on the vast metallic knob, a loving half smile lingered it's way across her full pinkish cheeks.

Winter time didn't suit Petra, she knew that as much as the next person. Despite the fact that the saturated rosy hue on her cheeks and nose made her look unbelievably sweet, her caramel like persona and choice of aesthetic screamed spring from miles away. It was a miracle that she could manage to get through wintertime somehow stylish and warm. With her lilac puffer jacket zipped up over her mouth and her wide leg jeans cuffed perfectly in order for her butterfly patterned socks to peak from her creamy Converse, she felt somehow confident enough that this could be a regular casual look for her.

However, with the holidays approaching in a week's time she knew she would have much more liberty to her clothing choices. She shot another warm look at Levi again, never loosing her small smile as she painted the picture of the two of them near Erwin's fireplace on Christmas day in her head.

Had it not been for his body pushing him over the edge of guilt be probably would have left his heart warm up by the small affectionate gesture.

Petra's attention seemed to deviate away from him for a few, mere seconds, with an ultimate goal to find a nice comfortable booth to sit in. Upon her eyes falling to the left she spotted one that looked decent, if not, the best booth in the cafe. Plenty of today's minimal sunlight was gathered on the spot; at the side there was a waitress, silently scrubbing the surface of the table with force, a tray with used cups and plates balancing perfectly on her other hand.

Amazing spot and recently cleaned? Levi's prayers must have been heard today.

She resended the fact that Levi would be too grumpy to let himself be bathed in light; with a grip of her hand around his wrist she pulled him towards the booth in fast movements. She couldn't have anyone take the perfect stand on her favorite cafe and plus, it would do good to both her and Levi to warm up under the nice morning light.

Petra loosened her puffer jacket off her frame, as silently as she could master; she knew by looking at Levi's face that he was in pain. It was unusual if him to get that drunk, she knew, but he had been particularly grumpy and almost too generous with his drink the previous night.

Not that Petra couldn't suspect the reason as to why Levi had managed to go to such extend. Her mind had been fast to put the pieces together when she saw you approaching their group and even faster to acknowledge that you seemed to ignore Levi and her completely. She had seen the effort and pain in your somewhat unfocused eyes every time you threw a small glance at them, she had seen the way Levi's face would fall with every passing second as your greeting to him never came and she wasn't one to judge.

When deciding to go after Levi after he had just broken up with you she knew she had to accept that maybe he wouldn't be able to recover from his past relationship that early as to get in one with her. Hange had warned her about it, her friends had warned her about it, but with her caramel sunshine personality and quick smart wits she had found her self in a promising position to Levi's future. In addition, they were having fun, joyous moments together, their linking had soon turned into what seemed like a blooming relationship.

"So." Petra beamed and shook her thoughts off her head, extending her hands patiently waiting for Levi to respond to the action by tingling his fingers through hers. "What's today's tea?"

Getting comfortable in her seat wasn't hard. The faux leathery material of the booth rubbed on her buttocks but with her jeans muffling most of the sound though she let it fall deaf in her ears. Still, her hands sat welcomingly extended on the table, her fingers occasionally motioning Levi to take a good grab at them to which he never seemed to pay attention. He seemed to distracted and anxious, too deviated of the world around him. But still Petra remained beaming, patient.

"Today." Levi sighed, burying his head between his palms, rubbing along his eyebrows with his thumbs. "Today I'll have coffee."

"Oh it's one of those days?" Despite not wanting to be too generous with her bubbliness to the point where she could irritate the man, Petra chose to simply lower her voice in understanding.

"Turkish, make it double and bitter."

Only on rare occasions did Levi drink coffee. He didn't despise the taste as much as warm lager though, what got him cringing with coffee was that he'd be moody and sad all day afterwards. But today sure had been an exception. No amount of painkillers would work for his head if he didn't get a sufficient amount of caffeine in his body. And since he already was in a shitty mood, how could coffee make it any worse.

With Petra out of sight for a few moments he was for the first time today, left alone with his thoughts. As his head throbbed memories roared their way to every corner of his brain, making his eyes squint. Anxiety would creep in and out as he thought of leaving you in his apartment confused and all alone, supposing you'd know what to do.

How could you know what to do?

In that moment leaving with Petra had seemed as the only possible thing for him to do; he couldn't expose you to her, for all that was worth you shouldn't have been there in the first place. But now? Thinking about it made him sick to the stomach. You were equally confused as lost in the moment and he had left you alone after spitting his anger for himself towards you, he made a mental note that a little self control couldn't harm him the next time he had to deal with promiscuous situation.

Most importantly though, he was facing an irrational inner conflict. He wasn't one to jump to impulsive decisions, but he wasn't one to be unfaithful either; his actions sat acute on his chest, sending dry gulps down his throat.

Petra arrived with two drinks in her hands before he had time to process his thoughts further. Sitting her self on the booth again she passed him the small white cup, the strong aroma of Turkish coffee hitting him immediately upon the action.

His chest tensed as he finally felt comfortable to shift outside of his jacket. The guilt inside him was tripping, lathering his stomach in vibrations and spending hot waves throughout his body. Suddenly, he couldn't bare to look across the table in Petra's direction.

She was sipping tenderly on her hot cup of chocolate cappuccino, her upper lip curled up in a sweetheart manner on the rim of the cup as she ogled at him with a feathery soft expression plastered across her face.

Though he loathed to be put in such position by his own self, the decision in the back of his mind seemed like the only rational one. As the time passed by and his coffee sat in the small cup, still as ever, his thoughts only roared louder. Was what he was thinking the right thing to do or was he just jumping into another heartbreak?

There was a sudden hunger eating away his insides, a need to see you and sit down to talk about whatever had happened last night. His heart was pounding at the thought of sitting across from you under a softer, humane setting, with your eyes starting into his. Maybe you could linger your hand into his, in the way Petra had prompted him to do so before and maybe he'd be able to somehow come up with particular words to solve the tention between the two of you.

But supposing that could ever be the case, that prompt left no room for Petra by his side.

"Maybe we should take a break."

The words left his mouth before he could manage to put an alt to his thoughts.

Without realizing, his eyes were now wide, starring deep into Petra's hazel ones. With shaky hands he grabbed his cup, deciding now that it was time to wet his dry mouth.

"No." Petra blinked her eyes erratically into Levi's, taken aback as she was.

It hit her like a truck.

One particular thing had struck Petra, back in the day when watching Mean Girls as a coming of age teen for the first time. The way Regina was slammed by the school bus was raw and unforgiving, perfectly fit to the nature of the scene and surprisingly it had looked realistic enough to make Petra -or anyone else- gasp. But had she ever thought she'd be in Regina's shoes?

"No?" Levi spoke as if he was right on time to answer the question in her mind. But Petra was still struck, mouth slightly agap as she stared back at him. Her mind was traveling on way too many places at once, sending anxiety to her stomach but she managed, despite all odds, to take a deep breath. Then, another.

"What's gotten into you Levi?" She asked.

"Last night was," he paused, averting his eyes with guilt.

Suddenly, Petra knew. She didn't have to try and guess what he was despairately trying to mutter. The evidence was everywhere, but she had deliberately chose to close her eyes. She should have known ever since last night when Levi left without informing no one. She squinted her eyes and furrowed her brows, by clenching her fists hard enough so that her nails were digging into her palms her knuckles turned white.

It was mostly his appearance that gave him away, more so than his behavior. When it was most likely for Levi to be unusually grumpy on many days, it wasn't like him to dress so randomly. His woolen black turtleneck didn't exactly match his sweatpants and his leather jacket. It wasn't like him to make such matches between his clothes, not even when he was in a hurry. In addition, she could see the marks behind his right ear, something he might have had no idea about, but she was going to spare him of the embarrassment.

"No, we're not breaking up."

It wasn't like her to mouth such statement; in fact, Petra would never on her right mind prevent someone from breaking up with her. She had seen it happening one too many times. Of course human relationships were made to fall apart at some point but her luck, especially when it came to romance, had never been kind.

She had been kind to everyone instead.

Whether people liked it or not that was her. Kind and considerate too much for her own good. She couldn't help that she was attracted to mysterious looking men with issues that would stand in her way of happiness; Levi was a tangible example. As much as she would like to mark her territory around him, she was aware he didn't belong to her. He had unbeknownst to him made sure to show on different occasions, whether it was by staring at you from afar for a lite too long or by finding her self being offered to wear your spare clothes that lived still in his apartment.

Maybe that was what was breaking her heart, urging her in turn to refuse his departure from her life. She didn't know why she shushed him in such way. Was it that her heart would tear in two if she heard an actual confirmation to her thoughts fall off the tip of his tongue? Most probably.

"I don't mind." She cut him off the moment she saw him opening his mouth to speak. "I'll help you get through this, I wouldn't abandon you for a slip up."

...

"(Y/n)! Where have you been we've been worried sick!"

The moment you set your collapsing feet inside the campus Sasha's eyes fell on your form, desperately shooting you simultaneous glares of terror and relief. The brunette practically run to your direction; with her feet stomping on the now discolored, moist grass that covered the majority of the campus yard she marched ambiguously. A worriedly frowned Eren who tried his best to contain his messy hair from getting in his eyes as he run, followed asuit.

"Jeez, why are you wearing the same clothes as yesterday?" Sasha inquired, her voice loud as it was rang through your throbbing head, lingering in any possible hurting crevice. "Are you alright!?"

"Sas, don't scream, my head is about to explode." You muttered with watery eyes, begging your self to ignore Sasha's and Eren's puzzled faces.

"You reek of alcohol and sweat!" Eren exclaimed. "Shit. Where did you stay the night?"

"Beats me, Eren, I could have slept at a bench for all I know," you exhaled below a tainted breath.

At the sight of Eren's hard, unforgiving gaze, you could feel your heart speeding up inside your chest, the small vital organ clenched on your lungs, preventing them from processing air normally. Your chest burned in anxiety and uncertainty, there wasn't much time for you to come up with any excuse of your nighttime where abouts, you knew that much, and Eren or Sasha weren't going to straight up digest any profound lie you could come up with on the spot.

"Where did you wake up though?" Eren inquired sternly, yet his voice wasn't exactly authoritative as he waited for your answer.

"Outside my apartment door, I really don't remember anything up to that though."

"Don't scare us like that!" Sasha playfully punched your shoulder as she spoke with worried eyes. Her expression though quickly changed comically into fright as she finally scanned you up and down. "Just! Where is your jacket? It's freezing! Are you crazy?"

"I left it at that house yesterday. And my keys were in it." You muttered, averting your gaze away from Sasha.

"Stay here, I have a spare jacket in my bag, I'll go get it from Connie."

You nodded in response ignoring the fact that Sasha was already running away on her tracks upon the words leaving her lips. Quickly, you noticed as the expression of disapproval deformed off Eren's face, his lips curling upwards into into a soft smug.

He leaned close to you, bringing his face to the crook of your neck tilting his chin upwards so that his lips were almost brushing against your earlobe.

"I sure did leave you a nice mark yesterday huh? Don't flaunt it like that people will get jealous that im with you." A chuckle escaped him as he placed a quick kiss at the side of your neck. Eren's words were slowly shivering their way through your spine raising every single hair on your body.

When you realised what he was referring to your eyes widened, the tender spot of skin on your nape he had planted a kiss on burned in spreading hot blotches. Your stomach growled in protest to your feelings, threatening to spill once again as anxiety tied the organ in a numbing knot.

You shot a puzzled look at Eren -or rather at his back- but you weren't sure for what exactly. Your head was spinning, processing his spoken words unevenly in despairate efforts to put the pieces together. Was he aknowledging that you were together or was he sassing you over hickies he hadn't been the one to make?

And as oblivious as ever he only shot you a wide ear to ear grin. The cold winter air blew his long bangs to all directions across his face, his eyes squinting in happiness as he pulled back from your neck placing his palms over your shoulders. He didn't really seem like he even knew whether the marks on your neck were made by him.

"You know, maybe we should go out next Saturday alright?" He batted his eyes on you once again "No labels, just us buying Christmas gifts. Maybe Zeke could come as well."

Ah yes, Zeke. As if your problems weren't big enough already while you had to deal with the fact that you were most probably ruining Levi's life again with yesterday's actions, you also had to tolerate Christmas shopping with Eren and Zeke. When the fact that Eren would avoid the two of you being alone together in any date-like scenario was a given it was only on rare occasions your so proud and self proclaimed wingman stuck along with you.

In the back of your head you could always think about Levi and how much he disliked that you would sometimes hang out with Zeke, especially due to the fact that the two of you shared a sculpture class.

But why exactly were you thinking about that now?

Nevertheless you needed to stop your mind from running back to Levi for only a moment. The way he had abandoned you in his apartment all alone was cruel enough and as you looked at Eren, worrying your button lip between your front teeth, you contemplated on whether you deserved it.

You had gotten up on your wobbly feet only to maniacally search for your clothes all over his floor. Your jacket, long forgotten in his car to which of course you didn't have access, held your apartment keys. You had opted to just dress up with the clothes you had and walk the short distance to the campus; what could have possibly happened in a ten minute walk? You couldn't freeze your arms off in such a short period of time.

Admittedly, you had taken numerous walks without a jacket after midnight during wintertime, but the freezing morning breeze of December in Trost was something you wished you had never underestimated.

If you could, you would have Sasha slap you for not borrowing one of Levi's jackets but in your last hungover braincell's defense, you didn't want to cause him any more trouble. Of course you'd put him in enough trouble when you'd ask him for your jacket and keys, you couldn't possibly imagine to have to give him back a piece of clothing you had burrowed without asking.

You were positive he had come to hate you enough that he could set any cloth you wore on fire. Was he going to do the same to the bed covers, you wondered.

Naturally, your thoughts were cut short as Sasha approached you with a hooded sweater in her hands. As the brunette whined, out of breath you finally awknowledged Eren again; his hand was wrapped around your shoulders, providing momentarily warmth as he worriedly stared at your shivering jaw.

"You must be so cold." Sasha mouthed as she wrapped her own arms over Eren's around you. "I'm sorry I didn't have a spare jacket snd, Connie didn't either but Reiner did, he gave me this and he said he'd search for your jacket at their frat alright?"

You simply nodded, slightly closing your eyes in acceptance of her gesture. Your own frozen arms came to wrap around her waist as you pulled her close to you. "Thank you baby."

"Don't mention it. Reiner also gave me a jersey, they're both fleece, you should be warm enough."

Eren seemed to shift uncomfortably as you ripped Reiner's black hoodie off Sasha's grip, despairately speeding up your movements to wear the warmth providing piece of clothing over your form. His lips puckered momentarily as he pinched his nose in what looked like annoyance from the corner of your eye. Quickly though you caught his face falling into a smug expression once again as he eyed you.

"I'll say thanks to Reiner for you." Eren said, clicking his tongue while pinching his nose once again.

Once Eren strolled away, Sasha widened her eyes dropping her mouth in an unbelievable manner of disbelief. She sucked the underside of her mouth, propping her lower lip even further to exaggerate the comical effect of her expression. Not that you were one to judge, you stared back at her with the same look on your face as well, puzzled much by Eren's mixed signals. The two of you continued to stare back and forth at eachother for a few silent moments as your temples throbbed, despairate to process what had just happened.

"Is Eren jealous?" Sasha finally uttered, finally putting the situation into words. "What the actual fuck?"

"You know he told me to go Christmas shopping with him? As in going out?" Sasha's mouth formed into an 'o' as she stared at you, her eyes lingering at your lips awaiting for your next sentence. "And what do you know, then he even said no strings attached and that he'd invite Zeke as well."

"And now he's jealous of Reiner giving you his clothes?" Sasha furrowed her brows at this, earning a reluctant nod in response by you.

"I need to have a smoke, or else I can't process this." You sighed, avoiding Sasha's disapproving gaze at your statement. As your eyes scanned around the campus you spotted Erwin and Mike sat on a kiosk. A mischievous grin of relief creeped onto your face as you thought of how Erwin would never run low on tobacco. "Wanna go say hi to Erwin and Mike?"

Sasha simply nodded, opting to keep her lecture about the hazardous nature of smoking to herself. This would have to wait for another time; she knew better than to go against her hungover friends. Connie especially was a pain in the ass to deal with. Everyone knew that much thus compared to him, your need to have a smoke felt almost irrelevant.

"Erwin!" You rolled your eyes, your face squinting in pain as you plopped yourself next to the blond, your head quickly coming to rest on his shoulder "Tell me you've got much needed tobacco and filters."

"Sure I... Uh.. I do."

"Great," you sighed "please roll me one."

Even if you missed the way everyone's eyes widened at your sudden presence, Sasha certainly didn't. With a quick, shy look at Erwin, she apologetically averted her gaze to everyone in the kiosk; she nervously cleared her throat next, attempting to get your attention as subtly as possible yet, you still sat with your eyes closed, leaning on Erwin's shoulder. In a way Sasha felt sorry for what she was about to do, but you'd be thanking her forever once you had gotten yourself out of the situation.

"Hi Levi, Petra."

"Oi"

"Hi Sasha!"

Your eyes shot open in terror as you heard the exchange of words. Your head almost immediately shot up from Erwin's shoulder; of course, as Sasha had warned you with her greeting, Levi and Petra stood before you, eyeing you up and down in judgemental looks. Automatically you placed your fingers at the nape of your neck, ready to mingle with the skin there in an attempt to cover up the bruised skin from Petra, not thinking about whether your nervous actions easily gave you away.

"Uh... Hey you guys!" You spoke. The need to to bite your tongue off and swallow it so you could never mouth anything as awkward ever again hit you almost instantly. Awestruck by your awkwardness Levi and Petra only nodded in response, causing a long sigh to escape your lips.

You seriously didn't know why you had to go through this. All you wanted was to actually process last night in a quiet friendly environment and then maybe you'd attempt to think about Eren's weirdly awaken jealously. But as Levi's steely orbs burned holes in your form, wide enough to indicate he could might as well be seeing someone come back from the dead, you disposed of the fantasy. Of course he had to occupy your mind I'm such way that your heart burned brighter than your hungover headache.

No one around you could possibly know what the look you shared with Levi meant. As far as everyone was concerned last night hadn't happened, not in their timeline at least, but for you and the onyx haired man it was an inescapable reality. It was almost telepathic, the way you knew what he was trying to tell you with his steely gaze, as if he was answering the questions inside your head.

We need to talk about last night.

Nervously you averted your gaze to Erwin's hands and they brought the rolled cigarette to your lips, wordlessly asking for you to sip the edge of the rolling paper with some saliva from the tip of your tongue to activate the glue. Once he handed the cigarette to you, you shot up, putting weight on your now week knees. With one hand you put the cigarette between your lips, you took a drag as you carefully lit it up with the lighter Erwin handed you. You waved everyone goodbye, rubbing your palm on Mike's back, earning a small smile from the blond.

Great, now there was no way you'd ask for your jacket back. You'd have someone unlock your door for you. So much for saving yourself from such embarrassment.

...

Saturday came before you could even have time to decide what gift you wanted to get everybody. As per usual, you'd be spending Christmas at Erwin's; it had became a tradition in your group even before you and Levi had hit it off as a couple. Erwin was living all alone in a huge, very non college student budget-y apartment. His father had bought it for him before passing away and you as his dear friend group, had made an oath to never leave him lonely on Christmas.

Except for last year you'd usually you'd have dinner at Erwin's. Levi had always been strict on spending at least half of the day with his mother, therefore Erwin had always had Christmas scheduled. You'd visit him on the 23rd, making all preparations for Christmas dinner and Levi's cake, so that you wouldn't have much work when the big day would finally come.

Naturally, you'd open gifts at Erwin's, therefore you always dropped your presents for the group at his place when you'd buy them, although today you didn't think you'd be able to do so.

While you were almost done with buying presents, Zeke and Eren were spending way too much time pestering each other for what gift they'd buy to their father; at first they had set their eyes on an expensive silver watch. You had to admit it was a beautiful accessory, the way it shone under the bright lighting of the store's window seemed magnificent and just like you had told Eren, you approved of such gift for Grisha, one hundred percent.

And right about then, Zeke has decided to stir things up. You knew he was jealous of Eren's and Grisha's father and son relationship, but you had never guessed it could go to such mischievous extend on the blond's behalf. With a sour expression and a poison dripping mouth Zeke had expresed his utter disgust over the watch, claiming that this was not the right gift for their father and that they should settle for something more 'doctor-like'.

Their bickering had went on for about an hour before you had decided to excuse yourself from the jewelry store. Now, you stood sat on one of the comfortable futuristic benches in between the stores, scrolling maniacally through Instagram. It was such a slow Saturday and if you were to say you were bored it would only be an understatement; almost nobody had posted anything interesting enough to catch your attention, no new music was announced by your favorite artists, hell you even missed people posting a bunch of stories with their Christmas trees.

You almost ignored the tall, dark frame approaching you as you were deeply lost into your phone. Destiny's Child - 8 Days to Christmas repeatedly blasted in your ears as you continued to scroll, still ignorant to the figure beside you.

Your own little Christmas bubble world was cut absurdly as a hand came to wave between you and your phone screen. Your heart skipped a beat as you jumped on your spot, taken aback by the sudden action. Wide eyed and looking to your left you finally came to identify the man who had startled you.

Now that could be a cure to your boredom. Even if it wasn't the best possible option.

"Kenny?" You exhaled enthusiastically slipping your hand between your locks of (h/c) hair, reaching for the small black ear buds. "I'm so sorry I was wearing my headphones. What are you doing here?"

"Ahh just buying Kuchel's gift. You got me thinking you were trying to ignore me runt."

"I'd never, be-" You playfully punched his shoulder as he eyed you, a smirk appearing in his face quicker than you thought it would.

"Besides I'm your favorite uncle, right?" He spoke, completing your sentence. A deep sigh escaped his mouth as he rubbed his cold hands together, hoping to create enough friction to warm up his fingertips. "How long have you been waiting for the midget runt?"

You turned your dropping face away from his direction as the words fell off his mouth. Your heart gradually started throbbing inside your chest, the tight knot of anxiety was forming and coming undone in fragments of seconds as you stared at the white granite under your feet. Kenny must had taken a while to realise the chance of aura around you, a steady chuckle came out of him as he commented on Levi's meticulous routine of picking gifts for his friends.

"And why the long face?" Finally, he turned his attention to you "Did you have a fight?"

"Not exactly, we haven't fought in a long time." You admitted.

Kenny's gray eyes worried over you before squinting in another smiling manner. His palm came to playfully slap your upper back as he left out another loud chuckle of amusement. "I'm sure you two don't have many things to fight about. Kuchel is so enamored by that, how do you even manage with this brat (y/n)?"

"I don't... Not anymore at least."

Kenny's chuckle was cut short absurdly by your soft, mumbling voice. There was no way he hadn't heard what you had just said, he was just struggling to comprehend the context of your words. You claiming you weren't dealing with him anymore meant you weren't together anymore and Levi had deliberately kept this secret from him and Kuchel.

"Wait, you're not together? When did that happen?"

"Kenny" you paused, deciding to set your eyes onto him all while still avoiding his gaze. "It's almost been a year."

"What? Wait, why?"

"Levi and I, how do I put this in the shortest way possible, Kenny..." You sighed, bringing a finger to the side of your lips and biting the inside of your cheek as you tried your best to concentrate on your summing up skills. "He became distant, too engrossed with studying and shut himself off and I guess I just, I felt excited for something else. Levi felt excited for something else too."

That could make up for a quick summary, it could be enough to make Kenny understand the quick narration of you point of view. It was unnecessary to go into further details, such as how you had came closer with Eren throughout your group, or how Zeke had tried his best to convince you that he was right on the fact that Levi was growing more distant with each passing day, every time you'd open up to him about your problems.

More over, you couldn't possibly go into the lengths as to how quickly Levi had hit it off with Petra, proving Zeke's assumptions on the fact that maybe Levi was just tired of you.

"Shit. I'm sorry, if it helps, care to gossip on Levi's new item?" Kenny shifted his hands inside the pockets of his camel colored trench coat, rubbing circles on his upper thighs through the material of the pockets. "I'm dying to to know to what he moved on."

"Kenny! I don't do that!" You bit back and lowered your gaze as you instantly second guessed your statement. You contemplated on whether talking lowly about Petra is the right thing or not to do; she hadn't done anything wrong to you, she was just dating someone she liked while you were turning into their bitter, regretful ex. You couldn't possibly have the right to be jealous of her. But as you looked at Kenny's disapproving expression, you realised that maybe, just maybe, you were. "But I guess I'll show her to you!"

With a double tap your screen came to life, the familiar unlocking page bubbling as it urged you to fill your chosen password. Your fingers ran quickly on the familiar numbers; you've typed them one too many times already. You bit your lip in newfound anxiety as you awkwardly scrolled your social media folder, your fingers found the fuchsia camera icon automatically. With another tap your white Instagram homepage popped up, accommodating a picture of Mike and Nanaba's hands, each holding a carton cup. With a quick doubly tap you liked the picture and set your self the task of on swiping through the story icon features, quickly searching for Petra's familiar profile picture.

"Ah here you go." You finally spoke, breaking the silence as you found Petra's icon. Tapping on it once her newest story popped up. You set your finger on the screen again, keeping your tap locked in place to pause the flow of the story.

The picture depicted her standing before her mirror dressed in a white turtleneck layered with a powder blue plaid dress and topped with a black flap pocket woolen jacket. You could make the creative 'outfit of the day' mention on the bottom left corner, although you were unsure if Kenny cared enough about Petra's Saturday outfit. Plus, you didn't really need him to compare her sophisticated style to you.

"You know I can't really see her face, her phone is in the way."

You simply tapped over Petra's profile name as you sighed. Petra's feed appeared before your eyes, slowly loading all her highlights and posts. You gave your phone to Kenny next, deliberately choosing to look away and stay silent as he scrolled through the girls photos, curiously ogling at her for a few seconds.

"Ah runt," he spoke after sometime, his hands extending to give your phone back, "you ain't gonna stop being my favorite child, he'll come back around you know. He'll always love you, you have his heart and all that jazz."

Kenny tried his best to cut himself some slack from the awkwardness of the situation. Keyword; tried. As he sighed, his head spinner on what he could possibly say to you, he could exactly pinpoint if you needed to be reassured or comforted, or whether he was too late to be there for you.

There was something puzzling you, that was certainly written all over your face as you studied him. Your fingers were nervously mingling with eachother as you gripped on your phone, your hips shifting uncomfortably in the spot you sat. You were nervously thrusting around in your seat, that was much obvious to someone that knew you like Kenny did.

"He already did. But I'm not convinced he loves me, it's more like he has one more reason to hate me. We uhm we... You know, pfft, TMI Kenny, I'm sorry but I need to talk about this with someone."

"Shoot it!"

"We hooked up a well ago."

Oh shit, now that was new. Kenny's eyes widened in surprise as the words left your lips. His shifted himself enough to fully face you, his gray eyes worriedly meeting yours as you opened your mouth to explain. Words that were supposed to flow effortlessly ceased to exist as another, louder voice overshadowed your own.

"Zeke I swear I'll kill you if you- oh who's that (y/n)?"

You turned your head to the owner of the voice, your heart dropping the moment you met Eren's soft turquoise gaze. He stood there, clutching the small burgundy gift bag in his grip, as victorious smug adorned his features.

"Uh, finally you guys! This is Kenny Ackerman, he's," you paused, suddenly uncertain on how you should introduce Kenny to Eren and Zeke or whether you should introduce him to them at all.

"Levi's uncle." Kenny spoke, saving you from unnecessary fidgeting of information. He eyed Eren meticulously as his face slightly dropped in annoyance.

"I'm Eren Yeager, (y/n)'s friend and that's my brother, Zeke."

Eren smiled and extended his hand for a shake at Kenny's direction. Clicking his tongue, Kenny reluctantly gave his hand to the younger man before nodding knowingly in your direction. Eren didn't have to say anything else to prove Kenny he was halfheartedly trying to assert some dominance over you and although the older man tried his best to keep his laughter to himself, he got the message Eren was trying to convey.

Taking another breather to himself, Kenny picked his lips, allowing his face to fall into his usual stern expression.

"See you around (y/n)."

You laid on your couch, enthusiastically reading through a Greek epic you had burrowed from Hange a while back. Your hair dripped into the towel you had folded on the arm of the couch as you rested your head against it. You had wanted to slow down your thoughts before taking a change at blow drying your hair, there was a rage of overthinking going inside you that you refused to be left alone with.

You felt overly slow after your meeting with Kenny; the bath you had taken had done nothing to soothe down the wild nature of your thoughts, despite the fact that you had taken your time soaking in hot water and lavender oils.

The strangle fatigue you felt was feeling more indifferent with every passing second as you anxiously read bout Antigone's suicide, your heart was slowly being filled with grief as you though about her significant other, Heamon and how he could possibly react to her death. You were so enamored with the fact that Heamon was son to the king who had ordered Antigone's imprisonment that your eyes were ready to spill all the unshed tears that had gathered in the small corners of tender skin.

You set the epic down, burying your face between your palms as you let out a deep sigh. The air in the room felt heavy, you thought, thus you decided to get up from your couch and stroll around the room to reach for your hairbrush. Maybe now was the time to blow dry your head, your thoughts were completely off Kenny and Levi for the moment.

The sound of your doorbell startled you, though, making you freeze on your spot. You immediately unlocked your phone, hurriedly checking through your notifications for a sign on who it could be; it was rather unusual for someone to just visit you without having informed you about it beforehand.

Nontheless you marched over to the intercom, your finger shooting to press the metallic button to let your voice ring on the other side of the front door of your apartment building.

"It's Levi. I've got your jacket."

Panic run through you in throbbing waves. You simply stood there, feeling utterly and ridiculously puzzled with what you should do. You didn't know if you wanted to run down the front door and just grab the jacket on your own or if you just wanted to call Levi in. Grasping the situation seemed only fair, even in your panicked state you could admit you knew that much.

Your fingers immediately reached for the button underneath the one you were pressing causing a buzzing sound to ring through the intercom. You nervously opened your door and as on que, a few moments later Levi's frame emerged from the elevator doors, strolling to your direction, your black leather jacket neatly folded in his arms.

You wanted to speak, to greet him decently for once after all that time but you failed to find any prompt as to how to do that. Your mind felt at haze as you stared at him while he walked up to, the light from your apartment slowly illuminated his face more with every new step he took to its direction.

"Hey, sorry I came so suddenly, I'm on my way to the movies." He greeted, probing his head upwards to accentuate the action.

'Hey' you wanted to say, to establish some normal ground in your dynamics but still the words that left your mouth before you had enough time process what you wanted to say didn't exactly disappoint.

"Wanna come in?" The subtle look in your eyes as you fixated your orbs at his was at the very least, mesmerizing. If Levi was to describe it, he'd find himself quickly running out of sophisticatedly flavored academic words.

There was definitely a different kind of tention forming between the two of you. It was in the air, but whether it was caused by his own brain as he made the all too casual car ride to your place or by the way that you casually swayed your hair over your shoulder before prompting your head closer to him to speak up, he didn't know. All that he knew was that he was feelings his heart hammering in his chest as anxiety creeped in his stomach. The bold nature of his actions was having this profound effect on him and he'd be damned if he had to question himself one more time as to why he was in your doorstep now out of all times.

Still, your words somewhat lingered in his brain, despite almost falling deaf on his ears. His inability to pay attention to words was probably caused by his heart throbbing in his chest at witnessing this side of you.

"Sure" Levi found his mouth vomiting an answer.

You stepped aside, making room for him to entered the room as you gestured him to. Once he had walked in you closed the door behind you, your chest heaving in a despairately deep breath.

...

Did all kisses feel like that?

Your lips were soft and tender and tasting like burnt tobacco while Levi's were chapped dry and thus split, tinted in purple and tasting like dried blood. It was eeree to think about it, how it came to yours lips finding his once again or why it felt the way it did and why did it momentarily comfort you.

Your whole body was paralyzed with stress and agony; you couldn't move. The inability to speak caused by the burning guilt driven feeling inside your stomach was slowly taking a toll on how the rest of your internals liked to function. The efforts you were putting to regulate your breathing out of your nostrils were tainted and faint, as if not enough courage was laying underneath them and you hated it. You hated that your lungs were paralyzed like that under Levi's mouth on yours.

Maybe if you stopped existing or disappeared for just a moment everything would be normal when the next one came. Yet, things could never work like that and reality was always unforgiving to the actions you would decide to go for.

You still couldn't process how this had happened. One minute you were sat on your couch, angrily looking at each other as you spoke about how prohibited and dirty was what you had endulged in the previous week and the next your words had ceased to exist. His gray orbs had locked into yours, his breathing had quickened, much like yours, and your faces had been so close that your noses were almost touching.

You didn't know what had pushed you to act upon the tention in the air. Maybe it was your aching heart or Levi's eyes as they had begged you to kiss him. Now your own lips, in a similar way were begging him not to stop moving against yours.

Lost in your extravagant world of misery and heartache you didn't seem to realise that Levi's hand still hadn't left your cheek when you let out a long deep sigh escaped your mouth. Instantly though, with your brain acknowledging the moment and delving deeper into the reality of this situation, you jolted away, causing Levi to jump back on his tracks, as if he'd be electrocuted.

"Levi" you trailed off, softly mumbling the next words "I'm so sorry I did this, I should have known better."

Your heart was beyond hammering inside your chest; the cold dripping swear of anxiety had started to coat your palms and upper chest as he engulfed your lips again, this time much more gently. He gently tagged on your bottom lip, worrying it between his own lips. The mellow sounds of sucking filled the air as you tried to pull back, only to be attacked by his mouth every time.

Suddenly as you had just started melting under his hot touch on your waist, you heard what sounded as the most despicable sound that ever existed. Levi's phone buzzed in his pocket as it rang angrily, causing him to pull back from your face. The phone stopped ringing though, just before he could manage to swipe the answer button to the right, sending a huff of annoyance to leave him.

Petra's caller ID burned in his screen once again as his phone started ringing for the second time. This time, he hesitated to lick up. As he started at you apologetically his fingers trembled. He knew, eventually he would pick up the phone, judging by the time his phone read he was late to the very own screening he had decided to ask Petra to. Guilt formed in the back of his throat and he clicked his tongue to try and suck it up, even for a brief moment. With his finger on the acceptance button he turned to you again fixating his eyes at your bruised lips before he spoke.

"I have to go y/n I'm so sorry." He said and finally brought the phone to his ear. "Hey, I'm on my way, I had a mishap, I'll be there in ten, save a seat for me."

This all felt too familiar, once again you were forced into the third person's perspective, although this time you were fully aware of your intentions before and after the so called mishap.

"Listen, supposing you want this to work again we have to put an end to whatever else we have going on. I can't bear being the-"

"I know" he quickly cut you off, picking up his letter jacket from the pool it had formed around him as he hurriedly got up. "I'll call you alright? Have a good night." You blinked at him, not having enough time to utter a response as you watched him run to your door.

Your heart fell to your stomach as you stood frozen in your couch witnessing him exit your small apartment, not even bothering to look back.

You knew now that if Levi chose Petra your world was going to burn.

If you suffered along with my by reading one too many paragraphs in this chapter I'm sorry, thank you though for reading this fic in its entirety, please look forward to part 3 hehe, as always here are my tags: @ackermans-freedom-inc @sasageyowrites (my baby thank you for helping me SO much with this chapter I don't have enough words to explain how much I love you) @ladyofpandemonium @nobody-knows-anymore @levisbrat25 @papinaveensbitch @alrightberries

#levi ackerman x reader #levi ackerman #levi ackerman imagine #levi x reader #snk x reader #snk imagine #levi x reader imagine #aot #attack on titan #aot season 4 #snk season 4

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isimp4hawkz · 3 years

Text

The Apothecary

(Hawks x Reader)

100% inspired from this beautiful artwork I found on pinterest ^^

This is my first time publishing any of my fics. I hope it’s enjoyable.

*Skimmed for any mistakes but I may have missed a few*

Words: 2.5k

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"Tell me something birdbrain. Did you come here in search of a remedy or did you come here to snuggle with my owls?" You scold aloud, brow lifted at the scene before you. It temporarily drew your attention away from the herbs you were blending for the person in question. If he really even needed them that is.

The man was bent over, hovering over the counter and barely burying his entire face into the soft plumage of Gamma's snowy collar, rubbing his nose into its depths, small chuckles resounding from him in his own apparent delight. Simultaneously, Thaddeus perched himself daintily onto the golden locks of his hair, managing to keep himself in place as the man's head moved about beneath him.

What shocked you is that they seemed to be genuinely enjoying his company, whereas they hardly acknowledge your existence throughout the day. It was much unlike how they'd usually act whenever someone walked into the shop. As soon as they heard that little bell chime from the entrance, both birds would take off towards their high perches on opposite ends of the room, making it in their best interest to avoid anyone new.

You didn't mind, nor question their habit. They only preferred your lone company either way, though they'd hardly show it. Much like you'd rather be with their company rather than some other person.

On that slow, peaceful evening, you'd discovered that maybe you don't know your beloved companions as well as you thought. For some reason, Hawks was some sort of an exception to them. Much more than an exception, at that.

For crying out loud, he was snuggling into Gamma and cuddling her as if she were a puppy! And she was letting him.

And Thaddeus. Thaddeus' behavior baffled you on an entirely different level. That was a bird who never permitted you any petting privileges, any time you'd insinuate a head rub, he'd screech at you and fan his wings. Very territorial, he was. At least you thought he was.

Yet here he was, God damn nesting in the hair of a complete stranger as if he'd known the man for years. As if you weren't the one who took him in when he was but a weak, fraile hatchling on the brink of death.

"I think your owls like me." Hawks chuckled, his huge crimson wings ruffling giddily when Gamma had begun to coo at his nuzzles, adoringly.

Jealousy. Blatant jealousy is what you felt. You weren't even going to attempt to hide it. You've tried endless times to get those birds to see you as their loving caretaker, showering them with love and treats and sating their every need, but to no avail. If anything, you think they see you the way a caged tiger would view its neglectful keeper, just a source of food.

You huff out a breath, subconsciously putting in more effort to mash the herbs together with the mortar and pestle than you wished.

Hawks noticed your subtle change in behavior. The way you slammed a small jar onto the counter, flicked off the cap, and aggressively shook out whatever was inside onto the cutting board. Or maybe it was the way you were mashing those herbs with a force that made him wonder if they'd somehow wronged you.

Of course; being him, he'd jumped to a brash conclusion. "Oh? Are you jelly that I'm giving the birds more attention than you?"

You stop your relentless mashing of compounds, staring ahead blankly for a moment before shaking your head. "Don't be ridiculous, I-"

"Awoh, it's nothing to be ashamed of, I completely understand."

"I'm jealous of you, actually."

Hawks blinked in confusion, lifting his head away from the owl's downy feathers and looking over at you.

"Seems like they fancy you more than they could ever me." A half-hearted smile tugged at your lips, the morose tone in your voice was inevitable.

Gamma's wide, intelligent eyes shifted to stare at you. It was like she understood every word you said. Her wings lifted, and with a few swift flaps, she was in the air. You flinched when she landed gracefully into your hair, her sharp talons clenching your head as gently as she could.

Hawks chuckled at how frozen you were in that moment, bringing up a hand to scratch Thaddeus on the chin as he stared. He marveled at the way your cheeks faintly turned a darker shade when Gamma had cooed. She'd began to pick at your head softly in a grooming mannerism.

Thaddeus shifted in Hawks' hair, suddenly growing restless.

"Wanna get closer?" Hawks asked him aloud, rhetorically, obliging to the small hoot he received in response and carefully sauntering over to you, wary of the unstable balance Thaddeus had while being on his head.

By the time he got close, you'd managed to settle Gamma down onto your outstretched bicep, but the stubborn owl only flapped back onto your head. The look on your face almost made Hawks laugh out loud, you were distraught. Torn between salvaging the rare chance at bonding with your companion, and continuing the preparation of a remedy for a paying customer.

He knew how much you cared for those birds, so much that he was willing to let you relish in the moment completely.

The smile on his face was somewhat solemn. "Don't fret witchy. I'm sure I can find some other witch who can cook up what I need."

Your brow ticked at the way he addressed you. "Excuse you. I am not a witch. I'm an Apothecary."

Hawks blinked. "Same difference."

You ignored that. "And even if you could somehow find another suitable Apothecary in the general area, I've been told by several patrons that I am the best of the best." You stated proudly, chin held up high in accordance. "The odds of finding someone more skilled than I are low to say the least."

He always enjoyed how confident you were in your craft. That confidence stemmed from true experience and skill, mastery even. You were right for claiming your profession to be deemed that high of a level, there hasn't been a single time in the past where your restoratives had let him down, no matter what their purpose served. He's glad that your clientele have spread the word of your little place, though they're restricted to hushed exchanges of whispers and secret notes passed in inconspicuous areas, out of the sight of any authorities.

The way you obtained some of your ingredients could be considered illegal if thorough investigation was to prosper, but luckily for you, that was yet to happen. No one was dubious of the little flower shop secluded between two towering office buildings at the farthest corner of the longest street in Kyushu. Hawks wouldn't dare run his mouth about its true nature to anyone, he would much rather heal his battle wounds naturally with one of your blends rather than the harsh steroids they'd stick into his body back at the commission.

"Can't deny that fact." Hawks chuckled, looking at you with apparent appreciation gleaming through his hooded eyes. "You've helped me through some tough calls, I don't think I-" He cut himself off in realization of something.

"I...I don't think I've ever thanked you."

You were quick to bring up the fact that he in fact spoiled you. Tipping you thousands over whatever price you'd ask for, as if money was nothing but a nuisance to him and he needed to get rid of as much of it as possible, it had you wondering if he would flaunt it around so carelessly wherever.

"That's different. Of course I'm gonna pay you in exchange for your meds, I'm not some shitbag. But I've never thanked you before."

Now that you think about it, it's true. The majority of times times he's come here, it's been in an urgent burst through the door, with little time on his hands to so much as greet you. You really can't recall a single time where he's thanked you, since he's usually in such a rush. Here one second, gone the next. His reputation stands firm.

Rarely have there ever been situations like this, where he's able to hang around the shop and wait patiently for you to get his order ready firsthand. You'd looked over your shoulder at him while he was appeasing the owls earlier. He had looked so calm, so sweet and tender in that moment, totally relaxed. It warmed your heart to see him like that.

His concern brought a smile to your face, how adorable to think that it would trouble him this much. "Hawks, trust me, you're fine. I know you're thankful. The proof is in the way that you pay literally five times as much as I could ever ask you for—more than that at times!"

Yup. That sounds like something he'd do, even he'll admit it. He distinctly recalls throwing a fat stack of cash at you in several of his hurried instances, not even bothering to ask for the price, or check how much was in the stack. He tilted his head aside and stuck out his lower lip in consideration of his own antics.

But that doesn't stop him from genuinely thinking that you deserve way more than what you make. You're taking one hell of a risk every time you sell another product to some shady person. He thinks you deserve to be appreciated more for that fact alone.

"Well, for what it's worth, thank you Y/n. Really, I mean it. What you do means a lot to me, more than I can put into words." He held your gaze with an adoration in his eyes that you didn't quite understand.

You've never seen seriousness cross that man's expression as well as it did right then.

He's perpetually cheerful and carefree, flirty more oftentimes than he should be. It surprised you seeing him so lacking in that notorious, glowing charisma. Maybe you'd go as far to say that in that moment, it looked like true joy was something he'd never experienced before. You couldn't even form words, rendered a gaping fish.

And maybe you would've actually taken his word for it, if it wasn't for you being reminded of the fact that the two of you had two big ass birds on your heads when Gamma and Thaddeus unexpectedly hooted in unison.

You and Hawks simultaneously broke eye contact to glance up at each other's birds, locking eyes with one another again.

It went silent for a few seconds.

Hawks' hard expression wavered hesitantly, his lip twitching in a futile attempt to remain serious. You then snorted quietly, biting your lip, and that's all it took for the two of you to burst out into a laughing fit that made you to bend over to clutch your sides, causing Gamma to flee from your head hastily and settle on her perch, Thaddeus following suit towards his respective stand when Hawks stumbled backwards a bit.

They'd managed to both ruin the moment and save it all the same, made it into something you didn't quite know you needed until it happened. A good laugh, one that had your face heating up and your cheeks beginning to hurt as the two of you only grew breathless with glee, struggling to keep your balance as you pressed your weight onto nearby objects to avoid toppling over.

The old Grandfather clock at the back of the shop had begun to chime, signaling the passing of another hour.

The sound caused Hawks to gradually come back down from his laugh-high. He submitted to that professional state of mind that subconsciously clawed at his back at times like these, once he was reminded of where he was supposed to be.

It was like someone snapped their fingers and all happiness was wiped from his face. Other than the faint pink still dusting his cheeks, it looked like the laugh that the two of you shared had never transpired.

You didn't even need to hear him say it. After you'd wiped a tear of joy from your eyes and regained your breath, you'd whirled around, right back to where you'd left off before.

A strange atmosphere settled into the shop. It grew peacefully silent, the rays of the setting sun stretched generously into the stop, accentuating gliding specs of dust in their path and lighting the room in a warm honey glow.

Hawks rolled his shoulders, wings reaching out to their maximum length in a comfortable stretch, as you bagged his things.

He'd requested a strong set of numbing-based remedies and other blends crammed with sedatives. It reminded you of the prep for some sort of illegal surgery, but you weren't one to meddle in the business of your customers.

You'd turned to hand him his bag, but were surprised when there was no sight of the man where he'd previously been.

It took a few glances around the room, you almost missed him at first, but there he was, standing before the display window, gazing distantly at the outside world under the evening glow.

Sometimes you'd catch a deep-rooted hardship in his eyes that was nearly impossible to detect. A flicker of something more, something lost long ago that he longs to have again. At times it looked like he was carrying the weight of the world in his wings and nobody knew it.

Or maybe your seclusion in your craft has run you crazy and you're just imagining it all. That's way more believable, anyway.

You'd walked up to his side, eyes trained on the lively cityscape. The city never slept, always bustling with some sort of commotion, but it was oddly calm on that evening. Nothing but nature in all its shapes and forms, like the gentle autumn breeze that shook the trees, like the songbirds softly jittering in a musical dialect only they understood, plus the ocasional car that would stroll by barely exceeding fifteen miles per hour.

Your gaze drifted back on Hawks, who has yet to notice your presence beside him.

Sometimes I wonder what goes on in that man’s mind, what challenges the relentless day brings him, and how he manages to come out smiling in the end.

#bnha hawks #hawks #anime #built different #keigo takami #my hero academia #oneshot #fanfic #apothecary #keigo #fanfiction #idk what else to tag #hawks x reader #y/n apothecary #the apothecary

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maybedefinitely404 · 4 years

Text

Day 9: Intruloceit (Pt 1)

@tsshipmonth2020

Day 9: When you write something on your own skin, it appears on your soulmate’s skin as well.

Content warnings: implied abuse (nothing graphic), self deprecation, some internalized homophobia concerning polyamory, angst.

(Happy ending in next part)

Word count: 1.7k

Janus didn’t sleep the night before his eighteenth birthday. Instead, he sat curled up on his bed, wrapped in his blanket, watching the minutes pass in the dim light of his alarm clock. His heart pounded as it drew closer to midnight, feeling like the numbers on the display were a countdown to his death.

He didn’t have friends, and that wasn’t a topic he would ever admit to being sensitive about. Most people would spend the eve of their eighteenth birthday surrounded by their loved ones, count down the seconds until they reached the strike of midnight, and then huddle around the birthday person as they wrote a message to their soulmate for the first time. A little greeting, an introduction, something to begin the process of meeting the love of their life. In a decent amount of cases, probably half, Janus would speculate, they wouldn’t get a response until their soulmate also turned eighteen, but the first note was still a special moment; something to celebrate. He’d never been a popular person though, by any standards. Even back in elementary school, his general dark demeanor and habitual lying kept people away from him. Sure, it would be more fun to play at recess with the other kids instead of laying in the sun and watching the clouds float by, but his defense mechanisms were not something he was going to let go of any time soon.

When his bedside display finally read 12:00, he expected to feel something. A shiver up his spine, a tingling under his skin, anything. But nothing happened, and he couldn’t tell if he was more grateful or upset. He stared down at his skin, pen held in his shaking hands, debating if he should do it. The minutes ticked by, suddenly a lot slower than when he’d been fighting for breath in anticipation and fear, and the pen continued to shake.

Downstairs, the front door slammed shut, causing Janus to flinch so hard the pen clattered to the floor. His dad wasn’t supposed to be home for a couple more days, and he could hear his mom voicing similar confusion as she made her way downstairs to greet him.

“Darrel? Did the trip end early?” He could hear the hesitation and uncertainty in her voice even from behind his closed door. His father had left with the excuse of a work trip. They both knew that wasn’t true, and both had an unspoken agreement to not say a word about it.

“What are you doing awake?” The man’s voice was gruff, sleep starved, annoyed. He clearly hadn’t intended to run into his wife, the soulmate he had stopped loving years ago.

“The headlights shone through the window, they woke me up.”

“Well, go back to bed. I don’t want to be grilled by you right now.”

“Do you want some dinner? I think there’s some leftovers in the fridge-”

“I said, go back to bed!”

“Darrel, please! You’re going to wake Janus!”

Janus shut his eyes and ears as the yelling started, abandoning the pen and what little excitement he’d had previously. Like every night, his sleep was as restless and chaotic as the day time, haunted with flashbacks and nightmares that he had no way to escape. Words hit with as much impact as fists, reminding him of how he was meant to be alone. A soulmate could never love a royal fuck up like him. His dad’s words echoed and distorted as the blows landed, shouts of unlovable and worthless setting in his mind as tombstones. Images of his parent’s failed bond rifled through his mind’s eye at record pace. Whether they were a one in a million flaw or just a cruel reminder that soulmates are never as perfect as displayed, he’d never know. All he knew is that he’d rather be alone for the rest of his life than be submitted to the fate that had befallen them, abuse and hatred but unable to leave, not with the expectations and stereotypes they lived under. ‘Soulmates were perfect, never failing, an unshatterable bond.’ Bullshit. He knew he was also subjecting his soulmate to a life alone, but his fear easily outweighed his desire to be loved, or his sense of compassion.

He woke up the next morning with a new heaviness in his heart, glancing at the time habitually. It was ten minutes before his alarm, but the thought of going back to sleep was too daunting a quest, so he rolled off his bed and padded to the bathroom to get ready for school. It was his senior year, and no matter how much he would rather stay at home and mope in his room, zoning out as he tended to do, he needed his grades to stay decent. It was the only way he was getting out of here. Half asleep, he threw on his yellow comfort hoodie, a stark contrast to his mood. It had been a present from his mom a few years ago, given with the uncomfortable smile between two people who lived together but rarely spoke.

He clambered down the stairs two at a time, freezing on the last step as his eye locked on the person in the kitchen. His mom sat at the table, nursing a cup of coffee silently, barely acknowledging he had entered the room. Without so much as a word, he scooted by her, eyeing the bruise forming on her left cheek and slunk out the door. They didn’t talk much anymore, why would today being his birthday change that?

The day was nothing out of the ordinary, and Janus didn’t know why that made a certain hole open up in his chest. Boring classes followed by lonely breaks, a quiet lunch hour in an abandoned classroom and an uneventful walk to the park after school. He preferred doing his homework anywhere that wasn’t home, especially now that his dad was back in town. He needed to get these done, and who knew what would pull him away from his work there. Besides, the grass was soft and the sun wasn’t too overbearingly hot, and he desperately needed a tan. The darker his skin, the more unnoticeable was the huge birthmark that covered the left side of his face, a little something that just made him that much more avoided by his peers.

His pen had barely scratched the paper when a tickle over his right arm made him gasp, like a feather ghosting over the skin. It didn’t take a genius to figure out what it was, and after a moment of adrenaline and panic, it occurred to him that no amount of putting it off would prevent the inevitable. He’d have to acknowledge his soulmate’s existence eventually. With a deep breath, he tugged the sleeve of his hoodie up, eyebrows knitting together in confusion.

From wrist to elbow on his forearm, a deep blue ink had scribbled down bullet points that he must have not noticed throughout the entire day, since there were too many for them to have happened in the last few minutes. He started at the top, eyes drifting hungrily over the writing until he reached the last note, still being finished.

Chemistry test next Friday, study cephalopods

English paper on William Shakespeare, ask Roman for advice

Talk to Patton about moving movie night to next weekend

What far away is Andromeda from earth?

Fix V’s pin

Yell at V to stop breaking their pins

Get dad to sign detention slip

Extra credit for calculus due tomorrow

Do you want to get coffee?

Janus froze. That last one… what the hell? Sure, his brain was decently sleep deprived, but he was almost certain he hadn’t written to his soulmate last night. Except, damn, that question certainly didn’t seem to fit in with the rest of his notes; it seemed aimed at someone. Nevermind how they knew he was there, knew he had turned eighteen, they were trying to contact him, and that was more important. He picked up his discarded pen off the grass, twirling it in his fingers. What should he say? Should he even say anything? His original plan to ignore his soulmate was suddenly significantly more difficult, now that they were making the first move. They were a real person, not just a stranger, no longer a figment of his imagination twisted into something evil.

But before he could touch the tip to his arm to respond, to maybe introduce himself or ask where they were in the world (why were they offering coffee if they’d never even established where they lived, he wondered distantly), a barrage of green script exploded under his poised pen.

YES PLEASE! I was awake all night. I just saw your notes, you want help with the cephalopods? I can quiz you, I know everything about them. And I guarantee I know just as much about ya boi Billy Shakes as Roman, and I know the FUN stuff too! Not the prissy romancey stuff. Did V tell you their pin broke because they tried to stab me with it and hit my pocket knife? Because they did. What did you get detention for this time?

Even with the small writing, Janus had to rotate his arm to follow the messy scratching as the… new person continued to rant about their day. He sat in shock, not able to process what was happening. This had to be a mistake, right? It was astronomically rare to have more than one soulmate, and there was no way he was one of those people. He had never been special before in his life, in either a good way or a bad, so he in no way was deserving of… this. Maybe this was a mistake after all, just like his parents. Another cosmic fuck up, where he’d have to live out the rest of his life, watching the two people fall more and more in love while he looked on like a creep. Isn’t that what he deserved, though? The two other people obviously knew each other; two soulmates who must have turned eighteen before him and met a while ago, if their casual interaction was anything to go by. And… he couldn’t intrude on that. Even if he did, if he popped up out of nowhere like a bad cold, they wouldn’t want him to join their pre-established relationship already. They probably weren’t even polyamorous, and the whole idea would just make them uncomfortable.

His mind was too far gone for homework. So with a lump in his throat the size of a meteor and tears stinging the corner of his eyes, he capped the pen, rolled down his sleeve resolutely, and packed up his supplies. Anything his dad would do to him would surely hurt less than this.

#lywrites #tsshipmonth2020 #sanders sides #intruloceit #janus sanders #remus sanders #logan sanders #sanders sides fanfiction #ts soulmate au #soulmate september #soulmateseptember

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ayamari-no-goshi · 3 years

Text

A Leap in the Dark | (T)

ff.net | AO3

Fandom: Danny Phantom (DP)

Summary: AU. Daniel "Danny" Fenton tried to distance himself from anything that could possibly tie him to magic. However, his world begins to unravel when the powerful Vlad Masters brings charges of witchcraft against him.

Warnings: rated T for violence, descriptions of death

Warnings: Witch trail interrogation and execution by hanging

Parings: none

Notes: Cross-posted to AO3 and ff.net

This entire fic was inspired by a conversation I had on Tumblr

A Leap in the Dark

The old cart creaked and rocked as it slowly moved towards its destination. With the exception of the occasional instruction to the donkeys from the wagoner, the only sounds from its passengers were whispered prayers and weeping.

Daniel (Danny to friends) Fenton closed his eyes as he waited for the inevitable. No amount of crying or pleading would save him now, and he’d come to terms with it. Or at least that’s what he told himself.

Several days prior, town guards stormed his home and pulled him into the streets. He demanded an explanation only to be punched in mouth and knocked to the ground. Some of the guards grabbed him and forced him into a kneeling position as another took out a scroll.

“On behalf of his majesty, we the guards of Amity Park arrest Daniel Fenton, son of Jack Fenton, on suspicion of practicing black magic and soliciting with the devil.”

He tried to argue with them. The charges were insane. Sure, his parents liked to experiment with alchemy which often seemed like magic, but he’d done his best to keep his nose to the ground once he moved out of their home. What did he do to get someone so upset with him that they falsely accused him?

His words fell short as someone hit him in the neck.

The next thing he knew, water fell on him, jolting him awake. Glancing around, he found himself in a cell. Trying to stand, he found shackles binding his arms and legs. In front of him, a guard with an empty bucket sneered.

Soon after, he found himself brought before the hallmote. A representative of the town stood before those gathered and explained what the accusations against him were. The other villagers yelled and hissed. The representative waited until they calmed to provide the evidence which involved reports of him meeting with a dark someone in the middle of the night at the outskirts of town.

Danny jolted as he realized someone saw him meeting up with Samantha. She and her family were fairly new to the area and affluent. Her parents didn’t approve of him, and there was an issue of different religious backgrounds.

When he had a chance to speak, Danny explained just that. “I just wanted to spend time with my dear friend without worrying about the judgement of others,” he pleaded to them.

The crowd’s anger softened some. Another rose and asked if any further evidence could be provided. Hope welled within Danny. If no further false evidence existed against him, he might be able to walk away from this relatively unharmed.

The crowd shifted as they waited for someone to speak. When no one did, Danny sighed in relief. He’d be able to go home and live his life. He might have to let Samantha know they would need to move their meeting times to make it safer for both of them, but if that was the only thing he needed to do, he could live with that.

The sound of walking broke the silence. Everyone turned to see Vladimir Masters, another recent addition to the town slowly walk into the room. Danny didn’t know what to make of the man. He had more influence due to his merchant money then the local lord which caused some tensions between them. However, he’d managed to charm most of the villagers and the church with his donations and public improvements. He also seemed to have an unhealthy interest in his parents, particularly his mother.

“Ladies and gentlemen of this fair town, I bring you one final piece of evidence,” he announced as he opened his cloak to produce a large leather-bound book. He waited for the whispers to stop before he continued. “When rumors first started, I could scarcely believe the son of my two dear friends could possibly be involved in such things. So, I decided to follow him to one of his supposed meetings with the Dark One.”

Again, he paused for effect. “I watched as young Daniel meet with a strange man who appeared on a dark mist. Afraid for my life, I didn’t dare approach and instead hide behind a nearby tree. While I couldn’t hear their words, I did see the stranger hand the boy a book before disappearing back into the mist. The boy glanced through it before heading further outside of town.”

“Concerned, I followed at a safe distance. He eventually came to the hang man’s tree that grows at the crossroads and buried it before heading back to town. I waited until I believed he would no longer be able to detect my presence and dug up the book. Lo and behold, I found a tome written in a language I could not read. Images of death and sacrifice littered its pages. Horrified, I returned to town with it in my possession to report it to both the guards and the Church.”

“Are you so enraged that you can’t have my mother that you need to frame me?” Danny spat at the man. “Everyone knows the crossroads are dangerous at night. I have no desire to risk encountering the vengeful and dark spirits that make such a place a home. Besides, don’t we all know the Dark One is more likely to appear at the crossroads? Why would I go there after supposedly meeting with Him?”

Masters just gave him a sickly-sweet smile. “How is a simple man like me supposed to understand the logic of such evil? Besides, you have not denied ownership of this book.”

The rest of the crowd erupted. Even through the symphony of voices, he could tell many of them cursed and condemned him. His heart sang as the shouts grew louder. Everyone knew the if the crowd believed your guilt, your fate was sealed. He would be handed over to the Church. If he was lucky, their interrogation techniques would kill him before he would be hanged.

After the official ruling was given, officials from the church entered and took him. The last thing he saw before being knocked unconscious was Masters’ smug expression.

He came to in another cell. Sore and aching, he took stock of himself. Well, as best as he could due to the chains. He didn’t seem to be injured which the exception of a few bruises. The pain appeared to be from resting in the uncomfortable position. Shifting, he tried to find a position slightly more comfortable and warmer while he waited for his fate.

An unclear amount of time later, a couple guards came to retrieve him. They removed him from the chains in the cell and placed more compact shackles on his wrists. Once they were certain he wouldn’t be able to fight back, they led him to a different chamber.

He figured he’d see the vicar and maybe a deacon. Instead, Vlad Masters and some men dressed entirely in black greeted him. “I don’t… I don’t understand…” he stammered.

Masters clapped his hands. “My dear boy, I don’t expect you to, but I should explain, seeing as you are my most recent guest.” He closed the distanced between them after a few strides and began circling him as if he was a predator. “I’m one of those tasked with seeking out who have made unsavory deals with the Dark One.”

An icy chill raised through Danny’s chest. “Are you telling me you’re one of those moon touched under that Hopkins guy?” While Amity Park wasn’t part of any of the large cities, the stories of the sudden upsurge in witch hunts had reached them. Hopkins was the most prolific of the hunters.

“We have crossed paths on occasion,” Masters responded as he continued to circle. “However, we disagree on some methods and share little more than a profession. While Hopkins believes those he prosecutes are truly evil, I do things a little differently.” He closed the gap between them so he could whisper, “You see, I believe people need to fear evil, and to do so, I need to remind them of its existence, whether it exists in that location or not.” For a moment, Danny could have sworn the man’s features warped into something inhuman and evil.

Danny swore as the man moved away. “You… you monster! How many innocent lives have you destroyed?”

Masters just chuckled. “Not enough. My friends, could you please silence the boy? We need to begin our interrogation.”

The men in black quickly gagged him before ripping off his clothes. They gasped and muttered darkly when they spotted the large birthmark on his chest. When they found no other mark of interest, they poke and prodded the mark. They started lightly before beginning to scratch and jab. Eventually, they brought out a small knife and drew his blood.

“He bleeds,” the one muttered. “Surely this is no brand.”

“Perhaps it is an illusion, or his brand is one of those normally unseen,” another replied.

The first one nodded. “If that is case, then we must locate it.” He then made a series of cuts on Danny’s arm. “No evidence here. Please try his back.”

They continued this investigation for some time. Slices were made up and down his arms, his chest and back, legs, and even his face. All of them bled. All of them hurt. Displeased they could find no sorcery mark, they ordered the guards to take him back to the cell.

The cool stone of the dark cell gave him some relief from the stinging cuts. If any one of them refused to heal cleanly, it could mean the death of him. One of his uncles died from a cut that refused to heal, and it was not one he would like to repeat.

After that, the attempts to get some form of acknowledgement or confession from him worsened. The beat him with their firsts and with whips. They burned him with hot iron. They even tried to throw him in the nearby river, but someone interrupted that one. While it wasn’t much, he silently thanked the unknown stranger for the act of kindness.

While he never confessed to any of the false accusations, he did openly curse Masters. That apparently was enough for him and his cronies. The next thing he knew, he was standing in front of the Hallmote again with Masters announcing his confirmed guilt. As a result, he was sentenced to hang.

Danny spent the next few days in the prison’s cell. In a different cell across the hall, a few more condemned prisoners also awaited their fates. He heard they would meet their ends on the same day he would. One of the others tried talking to him, but he decided not to respond. Whatever the man did to deserve his fate, he didn’t need a chance to make it worse by speaking with someone accused of magic.

When the day finally came, the guards came to retrieve them. After their hands were bound behind them, they were led to the wagon to be transported to the location of the gallows.

While some of the other men prayed and wept, he just stared at the sigh. He’d made peace with his awful fate. As much as he wanted to blame the Lord, he couldn’t bring himself to do so. He learned at a young age that while the Lord could work miracles, He couldn’t always interfere with the evil acts of men. At least he knew he’d be welcomed in Paradise.

Once the wagon reached its destination, Danny allowed himself to glance at the crowd. Many of them were celebrating the day. He almost forgot how an execution could excite the townsfolk. Some were even taking bets on how long he and the others would last.

They were marched into a line underneath the scaffold. After the nooses were placed, the executioners gave the other men the chance to say their final words first. Then came Danny’s turn.

He glanced around in hopes someone might be brave enough to save him. No one stepped forward. Instead, most of the faces visible to him appeared to laugh and jeer. Except one, he spotted Sam who appeared to be weeping.

“I hope that you who falsely condemned me are haunted by your choices,” he stated while trying to keep his voice as even as possible. I know what awaits me on the other side, but can you say the same?” The crowd shouted obscenities at him as his words came to a close, but he didn’t care, not anymore.

With him being the last to speak, the executioner and his assistants began the process of covering his head with the characteristic hood and kicking the supports out from under their feet. Even though he was prepared for death, he didn’t want to die. His weight forced the rope to press harder against his neck, making it harder and harder to breathe. He struggled to free his hands in hopes he might be able to save himself, but with each passing moment, he seemed to be drain of more and more of his strength.

His last conscious memory was to hope Sam wouldn’t be targeted for her show of tears.

... … …

Consciousness came back to him slowly. Feeling groggy and stiff, he slowly sat up. As dirt fell away from his body, he realized night had already fallen. Why had he fallen asleep outside? Had he been stargazing again? After the first time, he decided to use his roof for that purpose as it was safer than sleeping outside the village.

“Danny?”

He jolted at the soft voice. Turning, he found Sam kneeling a couple feet away with her friend and servant, Tucker, standing behind her with a lantern that had an unusual intensity. Both of them watched him carefully. If he didn’t know any better, he would have guessed they were apprehensive of him.

“Thanks for waking me up,” he told them cheerfully as he stood and brushed some of the dirt off him. His voice didn’t convey his feelings though as it sounded gravely even to him. He must have slept much longer than he originally figured.

Frowning as he realized his feet were buried in the dirt, he glanced behind him to find what appeared to be a shallow grave. Disturbed soil with an arm of an unnatural bluish color sticking out of it could be found only a few feet away. He’d been buried.

“Danny?” Sam called out again as she slowly stood and approached him. “What’s the last thing you remember before waking up?”

As he thought about the odd question, flashes of his interrogation and the gallows came to the forefront of his mind. Scared at the implications, he rubbed his throat. The skin felt rough as if it had been injured and pain blossomed at his touch. He had been hanged. Falling to his knees, he thanked the Lord for a chance at a second chance at life.

Standing again once he finished, he glanced at his friend. “I’m glad you came when you did. I don’t know what I’d do if I woke up alone out here. Let’s get you home before something bad happens. Only one of us needs to be accused of practicing magic.” He gestured to the lantern. “You didn’t need to break out the good candles just for me. Actually, they might be too bright if we want to sneak back into town.”

Tucker glanced at Sam, who bit her lip. “Danny, they just seem bright to you. The candle in there is the dimmest I could find. We could barely see where we were going while getting here.”

She wouldn’t look directly at him. Instead, she kept her gaze lowered which was unusual for her. That by itself clued him in something was wrong.

“Sam, look at me. What’s going on? You’re not telling me something.”

“My lady, err… I mean Sam,” Tucker floundered as she turned to stare at him. Even though her parents bought him to be her personal servant, Sam refused to have him call her by an honorific. She wanted him to consider her his friend first and foremost. “Should I bring out that mirror?”

“That might be best,” she agreed as he hesitantly handed her the lantern while he dug through the sack attached to his belt. When he finished, he brought out a black stone and traded the lantern back for it.

“I thought that was supposed to be a mirror,” Danny joked as Sam took a moment to polish it.

“It is… It’s just a special type of mirror. Difficult to come across.” She held it up to him. “It’ll be easier to show you.”

Not sure what to expect, Danny stepped forward until he could see his reflection in the stone. However, whatever person it reflected, it certainly wasn’t him. The stone showed a creature with hair of moonlight and eyes of an unearthly green. Its skin reflected as the bluish pallor of death. Dark bruises were visible around the neck.

Cursing, he stumbled away. Grabbing at his hair, he found stuffs of whitish silver. The skin of his hands matched the color of the creature’s skin. “What happened? What did you do to me?”

“I was trying to summon your soul.”

“I get accused and executed for witchcraft, and you turn around and preform it?” Danny gave a hollow laugh. “Was my death not enough of a warning? And what did you plan to do once you summoned me?”

“I wanted to take down Masters, okay?” she snapped at him. Her gaze fell when they locked eyes. “Not all magic is evil. I just wanted to see if there was anything you could provided to help me make sure he didn’t take any more victims before your soul became beyond reach, but something went wrong.”

“What do you mean?”

“I don’t know if I did something wrong.”

“Don’t say that,” Tucker scolded as he placed a hesitant hand on her shoulder. “The crossroads hold strange powers as its one of those places where mortal and immortal can meet.”

Danny gulped at the implication. He forgot criminals tended to be buried at the crossroads. And even though he wasn’t as superstitious as some, he knew such places could be very dangerous. “So… what did the combination of this good magic and the crossroads do to me?”

“That’s something I don’t really know. It seems to have reanimated you, but you are clearly not as you were.” She fell to her knees as tears began to roll down her cheeks. The Sam Manson crying! Sam never cried.

Hesitantly, he crouched down in front of her and used his fingers to lift her chin. Her skin felt so warm to the touch. “While I can’t say I’m comfortable with what happened, I can say it’s not your fault. You had no idea this would be the outcome. You’re also right about Masters… There’s something wrong with him. During the interrogation, I could have sworn I saw the shadow of evil on him.”

Instead of responding, she lurched forward to embrace him. Not sure what else to do, he rubbed her back in a soothing manner.

“Sam, you’re going to get dirty. Neither of us will want to risk the wrath of your parents.” Tucker spoke softly as he tried to gently pull her off of Danny.

She didn’t respond. Instead, she buried her head deeper into Danny’s chest. Not sure what to make of it, Danny shared a look with Tucker. Eventually, she stated, “I can hear your heart beating. Danny, I can hear your heart! You’re alive.” She looked up and gave him the biggest and purest smile he’d even seen.

“But how? How is that possible? I couldn’t have survived the gallows, and my appearance is of some specter… What the?” As he spoke, a blinding light washed over him. As his eyes adjusted, everything seemed much darker. If it wasn’t for the faint light of the lantern and the visible sliver of the moon, he doubted he would have been able to see anything. Wait, he’d been able to see just fine moments ago.

“Tucker, the lantern!”

Seconds later, the lantern appeared within inches of his face. “Whoa! Watch it! Those metal ones hurt when they hit you.”

“Danny,” Sam’s smile somehow grew wider, “you look like you again! “

“Is that why I suddenly can’t see?” When she rolled her eyes, he quickly added, “I mean, that’s wonderful!”

“I doubt it’s that simple,” Tucker noted as he watched the two of them stand. “You touched death, and that always leaves a lasting mark.”

Sam brushed the dirt off her skirt before she began to walk. “That’s true, but for now, we should return to town. We can figure out what happened to Danny as we work on destroying Masters. He can stay at my place for now. It’s big enough we should be able to hide you for a few days.”

Danny acknowledged that would work for now. Even though he didn’t want to put either Sam or Tucker at risk, it would be easier to discuss the future once they rested.

Perhaps he could even stagger back into town in a day or two just to see how the townsfolk would react. Maybe they would consider his return to life as the will of God. Or, if he could take the form of that creature again, perhaps they’d consider him a vengeful wraith. The latter made him smile. Oh, Masters didn’t know what type of revenge he unleashed.

End of story notes. There are a lot:

Firstly, if anyone would like to expand upon this idea, please feel free. I have no desire to extend this. The plot bunny, now that it’s fulfilled its goal, has run off.

Now for the historical notes.

The hallmote is a court held in a Justice’s hall. In medieval England, this is the lord’s manorial court. For the lord, this primarily functioned for fees and land ownership. However, when it came to issues regarding laws, the villagers acted as prosecutor, legal authority, witnesses, and judge. The lord of the area rarely had anything to do with legal issues.

I know that when it comes to magic, usually that fell under the church’s domain, but I wanted to mention a trial first before he was handed over to them as the accusations against Danny were fabricated.

Moon touched is being used as a euphemism for being crazy.

Vicar is a term primarily used in the Anglican church for parson/minister.

Also, witch hunts and trails did still happen in the 1600s in England – they peaked again in the 1640s and the 1650s due to the English Civil War and the rise of the Puritans.

I did review the interrogation techniques of this time period. While they existed beforehand, the specific ones I mentioned were championed by a man named Matthew Hopkins, who flourished as a witch hunger during the English Civil War. He and his colleagues are believed to be responsible for 20% of the total people persecuted for witchcraft in England between the 15th and 18th centuries. His book is also considered a contributing factor in how the trials in Salem, Mass. played out.

The accused often had their bodies searched for marks which were said to be proof of their pact with the Devil. This was often a birth mark, mole, or other skin manifestation. The area was believed to be unable to bleed or feel sensation.

Hanging. The gallows with trapdoors (drops) weren’t invented until the 1760s. So, Danny is experienced it the old-fashioned way where they put the noose on and cover the head with a hood. Depending on the gallows, the condemned might stand on stools or be on the wagon at first. Then those were removed. Unlike modern hangings which were designed to break the neck upon the sharp drop, the original version had people die by suffocation. Most loose consciousness within 5-10 minutes and death occurs soon after. The title actually is a saying believed to have derived from being hung.

There are some instances where people simply lost consciousness and revived at a later time after they were cut down. Some considered that a pardon from God. Others thought the person made a deal with evil.

Executed criminals were traditionally buried at crossroads. Normally, they couldn’t be buried in a church graveyard, and there were concerns the dead could come back to haunt the town. Being buried at a crossroads helped confuse angry spirits.

Crossroads were considered liminal places where one could meet all manner of supernatural creatures. Some traditions state it’s the best place to contact the dead or conduct spells.

Sam is still Jewish (although secretly since this is the 1640s) in this fic. There are old Jewish spells, which fall under a specific type of mysticism, that call allow one to call forth the dead to ask a question. This is what she was trying to do.

#danny phantom #danny phantom au #dp #dp au #one shot #my writing #fanfic #danny phantom fanfiction #dark au #danny fenton #sam manson #tucker foley #vlad masters #folklore #supernatural #paranormal #historical elements

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leghorn · 4 years

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Strange days, friends. The world spins dizzily on its tilted axis, and nothing is the same even as it was a week ago. Seeds are flying off of our shelves, and even The Internet, that vast and ceaseless web of commerce, has run out of basic necessities or restricted their purchase. Seed companies are sold out of many popular varieties, and still, the orders keep coming in, as though a thing as simple and precious as a seed could be simply willed into existence. We are ordering three times as many vegetable starts as usual for this time of year, and despite the difficulties of taking orders over email and voice messages, the young plants are flying out the door. Will, there be enough tomato starts left by the time night temperatures are settled above 50 degrees, which is really the proper time to be planting summer crops around here? We hope so. Chickens, too, are suddenly more popular than ever. Do most of us even know what to do with those bags and bags of dry beans we have hoarded? How long it takes to raise a hen from an egg? We are all about to find out.

Let us take a breath. A deep one. And then another.

It is understandable to be afraid in these times, to be cautious, to be anxious. The sudden steep increase in sales of seeds and vegetables and chickens and dry beans is asking us to look at something difficult and real, and those deep breaths are going to help us face it, and move into it, as bravely and as wisely as we can.

Just one more breath, maybe. In recognition of the fact that something as basic and unconscious as breathing is also vitally important. Though many of these purchases may have been made in fear, let us imagine what that fear might be transformed into. Though this virus is brutal, it has much to teach us.

Sow the seeds, yes. Not for a single season, as something to do while you are in lockdown. Sow them as though the seeds themselves were gifts from the plant kingdom, evidence of a relationship that has been tended to as long as we have been human. Sow them knowing that nature is fickle and generous. We are not owed, but are given, this opportunity. What will you grow?

Plant a garden, do. Learn from it and let it teach you. It takes skill and patience and time and weather and luck to grow food. You have to water it regularly and pull the weeds that steal nutrition from the crops. Some of the weeds are medicine and have things to teach us, too. You may not grow enough dry beans to last you a year. But in growing a garden, may you be connected to the earth and to the work of farmers everywhere, who labor all year round for those commodities so easily taken from a grocery store bin. Cultivate appreciation of such a small treasure as an onion, unearthed for your table. You can hold it in your hand, the result of months of growing, buried beneath the soil. Drinking water, creating air, making seeds for the future.

Save some seeds from each year’s garden. The act will nourish and connect you, as surely as eating. If you save the biggest, the best, and the tastiest, you will be creating land races specific to your garden. This is evolution in action. It is the backbone of civilization, a curled embryo, the past, and the future entwined.

Raise chickens! They too need a safe place to sleep at night. Each one will have a unique arrangement of feathers, a warbled cluck, a particular habit. Each bird is an individual. You do not have to venerate them, or sing to them, or refrain from eating them if that is your need. You do not have to cry if you take their life. But true respect means acknowledging that each creature is an individual who wants nothing more than to exist. When we take life, may we do it in recognition of the seriousness of the act. When we consume the flesh of others, may it be done with open eyes, and a grateful heart. Every fragile egg taken from beneath a hen is a piece is a larger puzzle. Of living and dying. Of leaving enough to harvest next year. Of counting our blessings, like eggs still warm from the nest. The yolks are rich and orange when the hens have access to earth, stones, bugs, kitchen scraps. The yolks are pale and yellow when they come from the store. When they stop laying for the winter, as all hens do under natural conditions, where will your eggs come from then? Or will you abstain? Choose wisely, and do not look away.

Stock your pantry, of course! It is wise to prepare for disruptions of all kinds; weather or virus, politics, fires, or earthquakes. But do not take so much that others will have none. The food wants to be eaten. It will do no one any good, to molder forgotten on the shelves, when the immediate panic has passed. Share with those who were less quick to fill their cart. Trade with your neighbors. Reforge connections to those around you, and learn how we can support each other better. It starts with eye contact, or a smile, or a basket on the doorstep. A peace offering. A cardboard box labeled Free, Take Some. A donation to the local food bank. And, dare we say it? It starts with living wages, and access to sick pay, and health care for all people. This need not be a radical concept.

Mourn. For what we have lost, and what we have squandered, and what will never be. Mourn for our elders, whose wisdom is at risk of being lost too soon. Mourn for dreams hamstrung by circumstance. Mourn for your loneliness. How will you heal it? All pain needs first to be felt before it can be healed. The work is worth doing, but damn, it is hard, sometimes. Do it anyway, when you can. It is another way of tending the garden. Sometimes, we have to cut the raspberries back, hard, down even to the ground, before they will bloom to bear fruit again.

Though fear and pain and loss are all valid, it is time to look beyond panic to consider how we want to shape the world. We are being offered a brief moment in time, an anomaly, like a solar eclipse, or a comet blazing with news from space. It is a finite pause and it will not last, but in this brief window, we are offered a gift. What is real is thrown into stark relief, it stands out, it calls us. We are answering the call, by planting gardens, by saving seeds, by raising chicks, by reaching out to support our neighbors. When this is over (it will never be truly over), when we get back to normal (normal is a deviation) we will again be pressed to make more, earn more, consume more, stimulate the economy more, all more more more, and as quickly as possible. This pressure will be presented as inevitable, and even desirable, or patriotic.

This is not the way of a successful garden. Though we amend and tend the soil, infinite growth is not possible. Hens do not lay 365 days a year. Instant gratification is a mindset never satisfied, always groping for the next quick hit of dopamine. In this liminal time, it is worth considering how else we might structure our world, our only home, the earth that sustains us in every way. It is worth holding on to the feeling of possibility rustling in a paper packet of seeds. It is useful to consider how we might live if home were where we wanted to be, right here on this earth. The chickens in the backyard know, and they are scratching the damp soil for what they might find there, beneath the surface. They are taking dust baths and making shallow nests beneath the rose bush. They are pausing, sometimes, not to contemplate their ultimate fate, but to feel the sun beat down, just so, upon their bodies, or to listen to the leaves rustle in the wind. They take a moment to pause. And then they get on with the work.

CONSIDER THE CHICKENS by Jessica Tunis

#long post

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basicjetsetter · 3 years

Text

Part IV

♡ Pairing: Peter Parker x Black!FemaleReader

▹ Warnings: Little angst, Lot of anxiety, Fluff if you squint

▹ Words: 2.8k

▹ A/N: This chapter’s a bit on the short side, but it establishes a lot. Happy reading!

You’re not exactly sure how you pull it off, but you somehow manage to elude Peter for five straight days.

Playing the impromptu game of hide-and-not-be-seen was touch and go for the first two days, mainly because you weren’t sure what time you’d see Peter in the diner’s entrance. All you knew was that he’d show up early, whatever that meant. Almost every chiming bell sent your heart into overdrive, and whenever you thought you saw him, your stomach performed painful somersaults as you mapped out all likely escape routes.

No place in the diner was safe. Hal’s has a pretty simple layout: front entrance, booths to the immediate right, and bar with barstools to the immediate left, all in a shotgun fashion. If one were to try looking for someone, especially from the front entrance, all they’d have to do is marginally widen their field of vision, which is why the first two days were tricky.

The next day after the first run-in, about three hours earlier than his initial arrival, Peter came in through the front door, buddying up with Chris and asking for you.

You were clearing off an unoccupied table, piling dirty plates, when Chris called out, “Hey! How’s it hanging, Peter?” With the stack of dishes still clenched in your hands, you dropped down and crawled under the booth, coming face to face with an unsavory assortment of chewed-up gum underneath the table, holding your breath for dear life. Peter stayed for about ten agonizingly treacherous minutes as Chris failed to locate you.

On the second day, a sluggish Tuesday morning with only four regular patrons at the bar and no one in the booths, Peter had just walked through the entrance as you were coming out of the back, hand-carrying three of Hal’s famous Thin Mint Milkshakes. Without a thought, you spun right around and dashed in the opposite direction, busting through the employee door and colliding straight into Wendy. You’d never seen someone throw such a fit, but then again, you’d be pretty pissed too if someone coated you head-to-toe in milkshake.

That day was… eventful, to say the least, but it gifted you with the best estimate for Peter’s arrivals. Early meant 11:30 a.m. on the dot. Lunch. You tested out the time the next day, waiting behind the employee door and peering out the medium-sized port window. At 11:30 a.m., right on cue, was Peter, dapping Chris and ordering a slice of Banana Cream Pie to-go while also asking for your whereabouts, staying for only half an hour.

He left you a note each time he departed.

Can’t seem to catch you. I’ll try again tomorrow :) – Peter

Is this not a good time for you? I’ll stop by later if you want – Peter

Is everything alright? Text or call anytime you need me. I’ll be there – Peter

From the second note on, you found yourself captivated by his neat little scrawl and the way he always signed his name at the end, as if you’d forget it was him. You’d read them on your way home and right before falling asleep, trying and failing not to picture him smiling at you while you absent-mindedly smiled at his words.

Your friendly boy-next-door is so easy to fall for, but you just can’t do it. You can’t allow yourself to fall. Nobody would be there to pick you back up.

Some nights, you lied awake drafting a message that would effectively convince Peter that things wouldn’t work between you, that you’re a lost cause, and he should probably find some other connection if such a thing exists. But then, unfailingly, you’d think about his concerned little notes and sadly acknowledge that he deserves more than a measly text. After showing up to Hal’s for almost a whole week just to get to know you, Peter deserves the truth.

Your heart is not ready for a Soulmate, and it might not ever be.

By the fifth day, you spend a good chunk of time pondering over the right words to say to Peter while simultaneously hiding in the kitchen, pretending to prepare more fries. You never looked forward to hiding from him, but what other option did you have? Going out there and letting your coworkers and boss know he’s your Soulmate? They wouldn’t shut up about it, especially not Chris, the open romantic.

When your shift ended that day, and you walked up to Chris so he could hand you Peter’s fifth note, he emphatically shook his head.

“On behalf of my new friend, Peter, I can’t in good faith give this to you,” he stated, tucking the folded paper into his back pocket and crossing his arms. “Not until you tell me why you’re dodging him.”

You frowned, crossing your arms too. “It’s really none of your business, Chris.”

“True, but it’s his.” The little dig got to you, making you wince. Chris continued softly, “Look, he won’t tell me what’s up with you two, either. And, trust me, I've asked. It's just... I’m kinda involved now, being the messenger and all, so shouldn’t I know some of the situation?”

“No…?” you hedged.

Chris didn’t budge.

You couldn’t think of a lie on the spot, and a half-truth would only further complicate things. Treading the fine line of what’s too much information and what’s not enough left you frustratingly tongue-tied. What’s specific enough to still be vague? Chris stared at you expectantly with a petulant little lift in his brow, ignoring a customer’s disgruntled calls for a refill in the napkin dispenser.

In the end, you huffed out a resigned breath and hesitantly admitted, “Peter's someone I knew from high school—a really nice guy.” For Chris’s benefit, you added, “He just likes to check up on me every now and then. You know how I don’t get out that much…”

And in a heartbeat, Chris morphed from a tough enquirer to a softened pile of dough, sagely nodding his head as if he knew all too well how reserved you are and how much of a losing battle it is persuading you to venture out. Or maybe it was because he understood how difficult it is to reconnect with people you unwilfully lost touch with for five years.

How everything and everyone fell right back into step with everyday life, like five years was just five minutes, continues to boggle your mind. It’s not normal. You won’t ever pretend that it is.

The disgruntled man shouted, “Can I get any damn service around here?”

Chris immediately broke from the conversation and left you behind the bar, off to go charm the customer’s socks off and earn a nice $10 tip even though he clocked out ten minutes ago.

You went on your way home, the ever-present anxiety of confronting Peter growing by the second.

Hours later, dressed down to your pajamas and reading his words over again, you’re still thinking about it, dread now gnawing on your insides.

You couldn’t even enjoy your newfound peace of mind. Ever since the voice stopped, Peter twined into all of your thoughts: his notes, his visits, his smile, your connection to him. There had to be a reason why destiny paired you. Besides being your Soulmate, what is he to you? What are you to him?

Unrest barred you from sleep for most of the night, and when you woke up the next morning, showered and ready to tackle another day, it hit you.

It’s Saturday—your day off this week—and you’re not scheduled to go back to work until Monday.

You could put off telling him… but what would be the point? It’d only prolong the inevitable. You needed to come clean today.

Picking up your phone, you steadily tap in his memorized cell number, then type:

-Hey Peter, it’s Y/N. Can you come by my place? We need to talk.

Three minutes later, he texts back.

-On my way.

✦ ✧✦ ✧

A nice, early summer breeze billows around you, doing its best to calm down your erratic nerves as you wait for Peter on the roof.

Are you doing the right thing?

Will Peter be okay with this?

What if he isn’t?

You jump out of your skin at the muffled Thwip and sudden appearance of Peter standing a few feet away.

His chestnut hair is windswept, and he’s wearing regular clothes, a faded blue Midtown High hoodie and denim jeans. You weren’t sure why you expected him to come dressed in his suit. It could be because you heard the sound of his web-slinger first and immediately thought of Spider-Man, but it’s more likely that your brain hasn’t connected that they are one and the same. You don’t see Spider-Man when you see him. All you see is Peter.

He’s tense, not moving an inch closer and keeping his shoulders pinched up like he’s on the defense. You can’t guess why he would be.

Gulping down a hard lump lodged in your throat, you stutter, “H-hi.”

He gives you a polite smile that doesn’t reach his sullen eyes. “Hey”

You both begin at the same time.

“Peter, I—”

“Look, Y/N—”

Ice floods your stomach, freezing your veins and squeezing your pounding heart. He has something to say to you? About what? You subtly jerk your head up, signaling for him to speak first.

Peter clears his throat, looks down at his shoes, then back up at you. “I know you’ve been hiding from me.”

“You do?” you squeak, eyes wide.

“Yeah, and it’s okay.”

Your voice hikes an octave. “It is?”

He nods. “Yeah. It’s fine. I get it.” He stops to scratch the back of his neck and dejectedly rambles on, “I’m not the safest person to be around, and it’s all super weird and a lot to take in. Like, a lot. My Aunt May freaked out too when she found out. Anyway, I… I get it if you don’t, y’know, don’t want me.”

“Wait, hold on,” you interrupt, trying to wrap your head around what he said. “You think… you think I don’t want you because you’re Spider-Man?”

“Well, yeah.” He says it like there couldn’t be any other possible reason.

You lower your gaze to the ground, unable to meet his curious gaze. “No, Peter, that’s not it.” Tears prick your eyes, but you fight like hell to keep them from falling. Steeling yourself, you quietly confess, “It’s me. I can’t be your Soulmate because…” A rebellious tear rolls down your cheek. “Because I’m not ready.”

As soon as you spoke the truth out loud, laying yourself and your broken soul bare, you dimly sense the previously severed string quiver deep down inside your chest. It’s the first time you felt it in five years, and it’s not how you remember it. It’s not severed, but it’s not whole either. Its presence only reminds you of what you can’t have, what you aren’t ready for.

In the ensuing quiet, you swipe the tear off your cheek and look at everything except Peter. Yellow tulips are blooming on someone’s balcony in the neighboring apartment building. A handful of fluffy clouds float in the piercing blue sky. An orange tabby cat is sun-bathing in a window.

It’s such a beautiful day. Yet, here you are, struggling not to cry on a roof.

Peter breaks through the silence, murmuring, “To be honest, I’m not ready either.”

“Really?” You ask, a little too hopeful, bringing your eyes back to his. They look so weary yet resolute.

“Yeah. I was actually freaking out that night we met.” He timidly grins, and your heart flips. “I didn’t know what to say, then I screwed up and forgot to ask if you were okay after I had literally just saved you from falling. Not really a glowing first impression.”

Astonishing yourself, you laugh. You couldn’t help it. There was absolutely nothing remotely hilarious about that night, but the way Peter described it, as if it were a blunder solely on his part, was so ridiculous that it was funny. Peter joins in, too, his laugh coming out airy and wondrously addictive. That smile you couldn’t stop thinking about for a whole week brightens his face.

When the laughs fade, Peter soberly says, “Even if we aren’t ready, maybe we can try being friends, just to see where things go? I mean, we were meant to be together for a reason, right? This could be it.”

You unconsciously nibble on your lower lip, considering his proposal. It hadn’t occurred to you that he might want to be friends. Would you want to do that? These days, you aren’t really open to platonic relationships, and Soulmate or not, being in a friendship would require some sort of connection. You don’t like those much.

Be that as it may, Peter seems like the type to respect your many boundaries, and that’s exactly what you would prefer in a friend at the moment. Someone who doesn’t pry. Someone who doesn’t uphold generic expectations. You could go for a diner talk every once in a while.

Besides, it’s just a little friendship. Most are surface level, and some don’t even last a year. What’s the worst that could happen?

You sincerely smile at Peter, wondering about the last time your smiles were sincere, and say, “Okay. Let’s be friends.”

His face radiates joy. “Seriously?”

“Yeah, I think we can do that. But I have a few terms.”

Peter eagerly nods, waiting.

You try not to focus on how his happiness thrills you. “One, don’t tell anyone we’re Soulmates. I don’t really want any of my coworkers to know.”

His smile drops into a sheepish wince. “I kinda already told Ned. But he won’t tell anyone, I swear.”

“That’s okay. It’s mostly my coworkers I’m worried about,” you reassure. You weren’t going to berate him for telling his best friend. If things were different, you’d have done the same. “Two, don’t ask me to hang out with your other friends. I don’t do big friend circles.”

“Got it,” he militantly nods again. “It’s mostly just Ned and me anyway.”

“And three,” your grin broadens. “If Chris asks you what’s going on between us, be super vague.”

“Done.” He smirks back at you, then extends his hand. “Friends?”

When your hand touches his, and you shake on it, the warmth of his palm thaws out all your remaining anxiety. “Friends.”

✦ ✧✦ ✧

When Monday rolls around, a tiny ball of doubt weighs you down.

It’s not that you were afraid of talking to Peter. You were actually looking forward to getting to know him now that you officially became friends. It’s the future you’re stuck on. What happens if you get too attached to this friendship and want more? What if friendship is all he wants? What if it’s the other way around?

If you were honest with yourself, you’d know which way the gage is leaning, and it’s not in your favor.

You’re cleaning off the bar top when Peter comes in, doing his usual greeting with Chris before settling down on a barstool in front of you. He’s a little high strung, leaning his chin on his hand, then thinking against it, only to do it again. It was oddly comforting to know that he was overthinking too.

The corners of your lips tug up in a soft smile. “Hi, Peter.”

Your face warms as he smiles back. “Hey, Y/N.”

Chris barges in, leaning his elbows on the bar top and gaping incredulously at you and Peter. “Woah, woah, woah! Did I miss something? Since when are you two speaking in public?”

Peter checks his watch. “About thirty-seven seconds ago.”

“Oh, come on, dude. At least tell me what happened.”

You and Peter share a knowing look like two conniving co-conspirators sharing an inside joke, and you giggle as Chris huffs in annoyance. He glumly storms off when you two stay hushed, muttering, “Fine, next time you need a middle-man, count me out.”

“Does he hold grudges?” Peter asks after Chris walks out of earshot.

You’re still shaking with giggles. “Not at all. He’ll be back to his happy self in less than an hour.”

Peter only stays at Hal’s for twenty-five minutes, but they were the funniest and most intriguing twenty-five minutes you ever worked.

The conversation began slowly at first, but each question loosened the formalities. Peter asked about easy things: when did you get into art, when did you start working at Hal’s, and when was your birthday, all while digging into his slice of pie. He caught on fast enough to know the topic of parents was off-limits, and he thankfully chose to stay away from any talk of the blip.

When you asked him questions, he was open and responsive, jumping at the chance to talk about his passion for bio-sciences and Star Wars, sometimes covertly mentioning some of the duties he has a Spider-Man. Not a minute was wasted. You talked while serving customers and cleaning tables, keeping up the joke of staying quiet when Chris tried to meddle.

It all turned out smoother than you expected. Almost too smooth, and you’re not sure if that’s good or bad.

You are sure about one thing, though. You like having Peter as a friend.

...

Part V

#peter parker #peter parker x black!reader #peter parker x reader #spider-man x black!reader #spider-man x reader #soulmate au #post endgame #pre far from home #peter parker soulmate au #peter parker angst #peter parker fic #peter parker fanfiction #peter parker fanfic #marvel fanfic #black!reader #slow burn #how to trust a heart #peter parker fluff

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farouchelyoptimistic · 4 years

Text

HyunJi: Rekindle

Part 2

It was too good to be true. To beautiful and free. It was too easy. It felt too perfect. But in a world as cruel as the one we live in, nothing comes too easy. Everything great has a price, everyone has a hurdle to face. It was bound to head to a turning point, they both knew that. They never brought it up to each other, but they were fully aware of it. They thought, that maybe if they just try to ignore the flashing red warning signs, everything would remain to be okay.

It's natural to turn a blind eye to things that threaten our happiness, it's human nature. When we get a taste of something that makes us immeasurably happy, we long to protect it, to guard it so it's not taken away from us. We end up being liars, fooling ourselves that everything will be fine when it clearly won't.

Yea Ji eyes the hand that reached out to rest over hers. She stares at it for a second, releasing a bitter smile before she looks up at the owner of the warmth that spread from it.

Soo Hyun lets out a short breath, inching closer beside her on the couch. They were at a private area in a cafe, away from the rest of the prying eyes, sharing a couch and a table filled with sweets and coffee.

It had always been like that. Lunches and dinners in secret, private lounges, and private rooms. They spent precious time together away from the public eye, enjoying the privacy and the freedom they seldom attain. They weren't considered dates, they never acknowledged their meetups as dates. They also never acknowledged what they exactly were.

They weren't lovers, and the deep attraction they had for each other definitely made them more than just friends. All they know is that they enjoy each other's company and that whenever they were with each other they feel this certain type of happiness that they can't explain. They weren't in a relationship, but a part of them---buried deep in an unspoken pile---wanted to be. But they knew it was a luxury they couldn't have.

The first time they saw each other in that pudding commercial, the attraction to each other was undeniable. Shy glances and nervous laughter we're shared all throughout the shoot. They were walking on eggshells around each other, sharing curious looks from the corner of their eyes, smiling to themselves like giddy school kids.

It was new to both of them. Feeling an attraction as strong as the winds of a sunny spring day. It was so strong that every glance felt like a stare, every brush of a finger felt like a warm caress. It was so strong that when he finally gathered all his confidence to ask her to have coffee together, she said yes without even the tiniest bit of hesitation.

They could barely look at each other in the eye, but as the smell of freshly brewed coffee in that small studio cafeteria calmed their nerves and the afternoon transgresses to night, their conversation flowed in a synced momentum. Then it advanced to more coffees in hidden cafes, then it became lunches and dinners to mundane conversations that would last a few hours until the wee hours of dawn when her voice was as deep as the sun buried under the darkness.

But just like pretty things that seem too good to be true, the universe sends you a reality check to bite you in the ass. Telling you that you've been too complacent. That all pretty things must always come from something painful and horrible. Like diamonds morphed under the extreme pressure and painful heat of the ground.

They've been running around the bush for so long, and now it's burning, and it's starting to hurt.

"Mianhae." He gently rubs smalls circles on the back of her palm. He did it gradually, steadily. He was aware of the weariness she felt about intimacy and the sudden touches, and he respected that greatly. He always made sure he was careful around her, not to spook of her of his sudden hand-holding and other forms of relief for his longing of more of her.

"Hmm." She only replies with a hum. She didn't need to ask why he was saying sorry. She knew. It had been a month since she last saw him, filming ads, shows, and whatnot. The longest he's ever had without contacting her. It used to be three days, then sometimes a week. The longest would have been two weeks. Now it was a month.

Time was also a luxury they didn't have. He was a top celebrity, his career rising to the stars. And she was a rookie, a newbie even. She still had to fight tooth and nail to make a name for herself. He would be gone for long, he would disappear, and then at the most unexpected moment, he reappears. That's why she knew they wouldn't work. And he knew it too. And he felt guilty about it every single time.

He couldn't give her one hundred percent of his time. Even if he wanted to, he also didn't know if he had the right. They were just two people who enjoyed spending time with each other, unlabeled. In denial of all the feelings, they refuse to acknowledge because they both knew that they couldn't.

It was a dangerous risk to take. A deadly ocean to jump into. The media will eat them alive, it will feed on every bit of their souls. And she knew, she knew for sure that it will destroy them. And she wasn't sure if what they had was something worth breaking for.

They continue to go in this rollercoaster of internal lies. That it was okay if they go to another dinner together. It was okay to hold her hand because he wanted to. It was okay to stare at his eyes because she thought they were beautiful. It was okay to call her in the middle of the night because he wanted to hear her voice. It was okay to keep pretending that they would work. It was okay, when in fact it wasn't.

She knew there was more to his apology. It was time to stop pretending. It was time to put an end to the charade they have been playing, it was time to put an end to the game that only had losers---no winners. Before it destroys them more than it already is, they have to come to a decision whether to dive into the ocean infested with sharks or stay housed in a boat.

With an unspoken conversation, a decision was made. For the sake of skyrocketing careers, privacy, peace of mind, and unbroken hearts, they had to make the safest decision. To stay housed on a boat. On different boats, destined to sail towards different directions, away from each other. It was safe to stay in one boat, together, but it was safest apart. They couldn't be together because they could never give each other what they deserved.

"I wish I could give you all my time. All my attention. My all. I can't continue disappearing on you, that would be unfair. Seeing you maybe once or twice a month would be enough, for me. But it won't be enough for us." His voice falters, looking at her hand inside his. He lets out a sigh, stroking her hand with utmost gentleness.

"I wish I could give you my all too. Without being terrified of the inevitable. Without the weariness that grows on me in your absence, without the uncertainty." She sighs, looking at her hand in his.

They couldn't bring themselves to look at each other, because if they do, they might just back out and succumb to the cowardice of the feelings that have been demanding to be felt.

"It's time to wake up." She whispers, silent, but loud enough for him to hear. He could only nod his head. What they shared was too perfect, it was a dream. Too perfect for the reality of the world. They've been dreaming together for too long and now they had to wake up.

"Kinchana." He says in a soft voice, gently putting his arm around her shoulder, gently pulling her towards him. She allows his warmth to radiate towards her. She allows him for the last time. She lets out a breath and rests her head against him.

He looks down at her, he lashes long as it brushed her soft skin. He tried to memorize every part of her before he can't see her anymore. He had a feeling this was going to be the last time, and it ached. His eyes land on her lips. He didn't even get to kiss her. He wanted to ask if he could, but he knew he shouldn't. He wanted to tell her they should remain friends, but he doesn't want to. Because he could never live with being just her friend.

He decided not to do anything. Not to say anything. When she slides out of his hold and walks away without looking back, they had both finally woken up from the dream they desperately wanted to stay in.

What happened between them was like fireworks. It sent a rush of sparks all over; it brought colorful luminous light in the dark sky. It provided serenity in the loudness of its existence. Beautiful and electrifying, perfect even. Free. Yet, it was short-lived.

A beautiful dream you have to wake up to.

° ° °

"Annyeong." Soo Hyun politely nods his head, smiling as he greets a familiar face from his new company. He immediately eyes the two cups of iced coffee in the tray he was holding, and he immediately knew who it was for. He grinned, snatching both cups before he enters the room.

Everyone inside greets him, making him smile as he returned the greeting with a courteous bow of the head. It was the very first script reading of his new drama, and a few of the cast members were already there. He politely greets everyone, approaching them with a warm shy smile. He would've shaken their hands, but he was holding two cups of coffee.

He scans around the room until his eyes land on the person he's been meaning to see. His smile only grows wider. His feet glides towards where she was sitting, locking his eyes with hers as she stared at him.

"Hi." He muses with a shy silent voice, gently placing the coffee in front of her. She stares at the cup for a few seconds, before looking up at him.

"It's from the company." He quickly retorts, scratching the back of his nape. When she smiles, a relieved breath escapes from him. He chuckles, taking his seat beside her.

"Komawo." She turns to him in confusion, lifting her brows.

"Boya?"

He chuckles to himself, suddenly shy of the burst of confidence he had. He could barely look at her under his cap, but he did.

"For accepting the role. I'm happy to be working with you." She couldn't help but smile, looking away. She clears her throat and nods her head.

"I'm happy to be working with you too." It was a role worth taking a risk for. It was challenging and difficult, but it was something she was determined to take on. She was always one who loved conquering a challenge. It felt so much better to accomplish something remotely hard compared to something basic.

Before anyone of them could say anything more, the room is immediately filled with the rest of the cast members along with the writer and the director. Greetings, laughter and inaudible chitchat resonate as everyone delves into getting to know each other. Old friends meet again and new friendships form.

The reading was remotely fun. It was one of the best scripts they both have ever read. It was comical and theatrical, yet emotionally deep and engaging. It was a masterpiece. They immediately dive into the dynamics of their characters, getting know their emotions, figuring out how to tell their stories.

Soo Hyun was initially engrossed with his character's selflessness and kindness. The ability to mask one's real emotions in order to protect another's was moving. Yea Ji on the other hand immediately felt the challenge coming her way. Her character was like no other, unique and unnatural. The persona was so strong, powerful, yet vulnerable in deeply boxed silence. Other than that, everyone was hysterical at the vulgar abundance of cursing and innuendos. This was definitely going to be a long ride, not only for the mains for everyone else.

"Thank you, everyone!" The director expresses his gratitude at the end of the reading, a round of applause following suit. He personally gives everyone a warm handshake until he reaches the last two main leads who politely smiled and bowed to him.

"You two, wow! You surprised me so much. You look so good together! It's like you were meant to be in this project with each other." He clasps his hands, admiring the two actors who could only showcase shy smiles and grateful nods.

"I look forward to start filming." He shakes their hands before he proceeds to talk with a few others.

After a few conversations and photo ops, the room had slowly emptied until there was barely a few people left. The director and the writer had left, so we're most if the cast and staff. Soo Hyun was still there in his seat, glancing over Yea Ji who had scanned her copy of the script a few times, marking a few lines that she had found striking.

When she unconsciously looks up, she was surprised to find out that the room was almost empty. The only ones left behind were just her, three of the cast members engulfed in a conversation, some staff and Soo Hyun. She had totally got carried away with reading the script, it was just too inviting.

She scrambles to gather her things, neatly shoving them inside her bag as she stands up. Soo Hyun for the same at the sight of her swift movements. He grabs his belongings in a hash, stumbling over a chair as he stands up.

"Yea Ji-ah." He immediately calls to her, surprised at his own impulse. When she turns to him, bag already in tow, he has a loss for words. He takes in a breath and swallows an invisible lump before he manifests all the confidence he has.

"Do y-you want to have dinner?" She stammers, surprised at his offer. She tries to think whether to decline or accept his offer when he chimes in again.

"You know, to talk about the script. Uhm, get comfortable with each other before we start filming. Uhm, to talk? Just like old times?" He bites his lip after the last sentence. Just like old times. Idiot. He should not have said that. His heart suddenly starts to beat faster, his foot tapping on the floor.

"Okay." Her answer surprises him. He almost stumbles in his footing, making her slightly chuckle.

"We're friends, aren't we? Talking and dinner. It's what friends do." She says. They were friends. Finally, after years, they have found themselves a suitable label. Friends.

She was looking straight at him while he struggles to hold her gaze. She chuckles at his uneasiness. He never changed.

Enclosed by the four walls of the private booth, they enjoy their dinner in peace, away from the public eye. It almost felt like it was just like the old times. But unlike the endless flow of conversations a few years back, this time, the only sound that filled their ears was of silence.

Soo Hyun breaks it first by clearing his throat, making her look up at him. He gulps some water, setting the glass down on the table as he releases a breath, looking straight at her.

"This is so awkward." He says nonchalantly. Eyes wide, and lips in a thin line.

There was a pregnant pause between them as they stared at each other. None of them blinked, or moved, statued in their seats as they looked at each other's equally enticing eyes. When he breaks eye contact, blinking at his painfully dried eyes, she bursts into light chuckles.

"You're good." He laughs, wiping his tears with a table napkin. They look at each other again and laugh, filling the empty booth with the melody of the inherent laughter. It had been so long since they shared a laugh just like this, something they used to share so often.

"It is pretty awkward." Yea Ji admits, chuckling as their laughter slowly dies down.

"It was better when you were flicking my forehead." He muses, suddenly remembering one of their first few encounters over dinner which involved him getting flicked in the forehead and curling up in pain. It was one of the most memorable nights in his life because it ended with him resting his head on her lap as she iced the red mark on his forehead.

They share another banter of laughter with the memory. Just like old times.

"I wonder if it still hurts as much." He coyly suggests, immediately regretting it when she suddenly leans over and flicks his forehead. He lets out a pained gasp, clutching his forehead as they laughed in unison. He tries to endure the pain, smiling as he tried sit straight and lean against the table just as he did the last time. His quivering lips morph into a smile as his tears start to pool in his eyes.

"Oppa, kinchana?" Yea Ji giggles, holding in her laughter. When he couldn't hold it in anymore, they both hilariously cackle. She grabs the table napkin and passes it to him to wipe his tears.

"Glad to know it still hurts the same." He laughs, rubbing his forehead. Locking eyes with each other again, they explode in another wave of loud laughter, shaking their heads.

"How are you?" He says in between pained laughter, finally toppling down the invisible wall that had been built between them. She chuckles, leaning against her seat as she starts talking. He smiles. Because just like old times, the conversations flowed so smoothly and naturally that if the restaurant staff didn't inform them about closing, they wouldn't have left.

#its okay to not be okay #psycho but its okay #kim soo hyun #seo yea ji #hyunji #hyunjicouple

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skinsharpenedteeth · 4 years

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it’s some angst and smut time y’all! You can read it here or on AO3. AO3 includes tags such as drunk sex, mildly dubious consent and smut! I’m too lazy to re-list them all here. Just know everyone’s of legal age to be fucking each other up.

So without further ado, here’s 8+k of Malex during the interim years between high school and S1.

The sun had been brutal that day. Every time he’d touched a surface besides his own skin, he’d felt like he was being blistered from the heat. It left his fingers feeling raw and all he wanted was some relief from the onslaught of fire and light. It didn’t help that an awareness kept nagging at him, like a lead balloon settling to ground in his stomach, making him cranky and on edge on top of dealing with the sweltering desert sun. The feeling was familiar enough for him to recognize that he’d had it before, but he couldn’t pinpoint what it was exactly and that made him irritable as much as the sweat stinging his eyes did. Usually, he’d be able to hide away somewhere during the hottest part of the afternoon to drink a cold one and take some time to meditate on his feelings, but that day Sanders had been around and ready to fire him if he didn’t finish a certain car before end of business. Consequently, Michael felt wrung out and thin skinned by the time he’d stumbled into the Wild Pony to drink himself into a giddy stupor. Maybe he’d find some trouble tonight if he was lucky. Maybe the buzzing in his brain would shut up if he poured enough tequila onto it. Maybe he’d even ask for ice in his whiskey to cool him off.

Michael felt his feet scrape the packed dirt of the Wild Pony parking lot as he drug himself still grease stained and damp from sweat into the dark, cool bar before the sun had even set. The car he’d worked on wasn’t a hard job, but it was a heavy one that took far too much effort and time and his body felt beat up at the end of it. Once he’d slammed the finished invoice on Sanders’ desk, he’d grabbed his hat off the rack and his truck keys, hightailing it straight to the bar with barely a look backwards.

The bar was almost empty in the early afternoon except for a handful of other afternoon regulars. Drunks that didn’t have day jobs or only worked enough to get money to pay for their place on the bar stool. Michael didn’t ever want to be like them, but he also recognized that a corner stool was open and looked inviting to the mean gremlin in the back of his mind. He shook his head and turned to survey all the open spots in the building, enjoying the blast of A/C that hit him as soon as the door had opened. It felt like walking into a meat locker it was so crisp and cool. That would change as the bodies piled in for beer and pool and the ever-constant search for companionship, but right now it felt like the North Pole on a winter morning. He waved towards Mimi DeLuca at the bar and sidled over to a booth along the wall where the air-conditioned vent would hit him straight in the face. As he sat down he sighed long and hard, letting contentment wash over him as the anticipation of being pleasantly blitzed later settled in his mind.

“Long day, cowboy?” Mimi asked, setting down a water on the coaster in front of him and eyeing him up and down. She wasn’t flirting, he knew, but just scrutinizing what kind of drunk he was going to be today. They’d done this dance a lot since he’d become legal and actively self-destructive.

“The longest. Give me five shots of your cheapest tequila,” he ordered, grinning at her disapproving look. She nodded and walked back towards the bar without a word though. She’d long since stopped trying to mother him over how he decided to destroy his body. He wasn’t worth her time and both of them knew it.

Michael slunk down on the bench seat and closed his eyes, enjoying the cool air on his face while he waited for Mimi to get back. The pleather of the seat creaked under body and he extended his legs out under the table and propped them on the empty seat across from him. He could almost fall asleep like that, his body ready to forget the tequila and just dream for a couple hours. If he thought that were a real possibility, he’d leave with his money and go back to the Airstream to do just that, but sleep never came easy to Michael. He could be so tired he’d be weeping with the desire to just not be for a little while and his brain would hum along with one mistake or memory after another until he sought an alternative route to Slumberland. He jerked when Mimi came back and set down his shots. He hadn’t been asleep, but he’d found that meditative half-consciousness that fueled him through most of his life.

“That’s twenty-five,” she let him know, waiting for him to dig out his wallet from his back pocket. He handed her thirty and picked up with first shot and downed it without much ado. When he sat back, fingers still holding the glass lightly and breath coming out hard from the burn of the cheap stuff, she started fishing in her apron for change. He waved at her without saying a word and she nodded back in acknowledgement. He wouldn’t say it was in thanks because Mimi Deluca never thanked him for anything. She might thank him for not darkening her doorstep again, but then he’d have to find a new place to drink where the staff knew to leave him alone when he was in a mood like the one he was in today.

“Alex Manes is in town,” she mentioned casually, taking out a rag and making a show of wiping down the seat across from his before pushing his boots off and taking a seat.

Michael felt his stomach lurch and he gave her a narrow look, picking up the next shot and downing it in response. She shrugged and looked out at the four other patrons scattered around the room. “Maria mentioned it. Just thought you’d want to catch up with an old high school friend. He’s only on here on leave for a couple days. Then he’s getting sent back to the Middle East for another tour.”

“We weren’t exactly friends in high school, I’m not sure he’d even want to see me,” he replied, knowing he sounded sulky and petulant. Mimi gave him a sharp look, seeing through his shit just like always.

“Well, you were something. He always looked at you like you were a problem he couldn’t quite figure out and you always looked at him like he was the only answer to any question worth asking. Maybe you should look him up while he’s in town,” she commented, stacking the two empty shot glasses and leaving him to think about her suggestion. He watched after her, starting to feel the fuzzy edges of warmth from the tequila take hold of his consciousness.

How did he tell her that he had seen Alex Manes every time he’d come back home on leave? Or that he’d actually visited him once or twice when he was stationed somewhere within a day’s drive? Seven years since that day in the shed and every time Alex came home, he burst through Michael’s heart like a cannonball leaving just as much shredded evidence that he’d been through as a real one would. And Alex would just keep moving forward, not a dent or scratch to show he’d torn through Michael once again. It made Michael feel like just part of the rounds. Alex would see Maria, endure his father, pretend to be straight with his bros and then find Michael, where ever he may be, and crawl under his skin to hide for a few hours while systematically breaking down all of Michael’s emotional defenses and raising another sexual peak for someone else to try and top. Then he’d leave. Michael would mourn like a faithful pet and have to slowly fill in the hollow spaces that Alex had made for himself while he was there.

He took another shot. Maybe if he was hammered Alex would turn around and go back to his father’s house? Maybe if he drove out to the desert and slept in the back of his truck for the next week he could avoid this round of heartbreak? But then maybe he’d miss his chance to see Alex smile the way he’d only smile for Michael. He’d miss the feel of his skin brushing against Michael’s as he turned over in that sweet sleep they’d find between rounds of pressing themselves into one another. He’d miss giving Alex the chance to say he’d stay and that he loved him and that it was more than some protracted high school fling that neither of them could bear to end.

But it felt inevitable, this thing between them. Hearing Mimi’s announcement that he was in town clued Michael into what he’d been feeling all day. Inertia. It didn’t matter if he got shit faced, the universe would still tumble his sotted ass into Alex because he was always in a state of heading towards him anyway. The same end always awaited him. All Alex had to do was exist and Michael would crawl over a lava field to press his forehead against the skin of his ankles and when Alex stepped away, Michael would move towards him once more trying to recapture their bond. It wasn’t healthy, this obsession he felt towards Alex, but no one had ever made him feel so needed or so desperate for love. No one could calm the frenetic energy in his bones while winding him up to bursting. No one else tasted like starlight and infinite possibility the way Alex did. No one knew the seams of all his pieces so blindly and left him quite so torn apart.

His stomach rolled and he thought maybe he should’ve ordered something solid with his liquid dinner. Michael drank down half the glass of water and looked out across the bar to distract himself with the way the tequila was starting to make him feel floaty. More people were filtering in. The after-work crowd was always loud and brash and high on that feeling of temporary freedom from responsibility. Normally they were his favorite people to hustle for free drinks or Texas rounders in the bathroom, but he no longer felt like seeing or dealing with anyone tonight. He eyed the last two shots in contemplation.

Shrugging to himself, he picked them up in quick succession and downed them. He’d paid for them after all. Now he just had to race them home before they made him sleepy or weepy or suicidal. He slipped out of the booth and waited for Mimi to be busy before heading to his truck. He didn’t think she’d stop him, but he’d never done 5 shots in less than two hours and then tried to drive home. He just couldn’t stand to be there anymore in the steadily more jubilant atmosphere, and he didn’t want anyone to save him tonight. He could go home and pass out and forget about Alex Manes. He could stop chasing a dream.

When Michael stumbled into the airstream half an hour later, he had no clue how he hadn’t just died. He remembered driving. He remembered feeling like driving was a terrible idea and that he absolutely should not be doing it in the condition he was in. He remembered waiting to see another car on the road or a deer or anything that would spook him into swerving and flipping his truck, but he hadn’t. He’d made it back to the airstream. When he’d opened the car door, he’d fallen out and found himself looking at the everything sideways until he turned his head and looked at the stars swirling drunkenly in the sky. The earth was hard and still hot under him from the sweltering day. The gravel and dust clung to the side where he’d landed, digging into his skin. For as drunk as he was, shouldn’t he be number than this to discomfort?

It had taken him way too long to navigate making himself stand up so he could stagger the five steps to the trailer door. His hand gripped the door handle hard and he’d lurched and crawled up the two stairs into the airstream’s interior. Once inside, he immediately began to undress. He no longer wanted to wear the dirty, sweat stained work shirt. He didn’t want to wear the rough, torn jeans or his ragged underwear. He didn’t want to feel the caked layer of dust, grease, and salt that covered him head to toe. And he didn’t want to think that when Alex found him later he’d be too gross to touch.

That thought had him pause, naked and swaying in the door to the bathroom. Maybe Alex should find him gross. Maybe Alex deserved to see what it did to him to know he was in town, acting normal by day only to find Michael after all the lights in the town had gone out and show his real skin. Maybe Alex should know that Michael was as filthy on the outside as he was being treated. If Michael was going to be kept like a dirty secret, maybe he should just stay dirty. Who was Alex Manes to treat Michael like he was something shameful? He should tell Alex that. Should tell him not to come and see him anymore. Not to expect any further special treatment from Michael.

Making a decision, he turned and tried to grab his jeans from the floor so he could get his phone. He fell, landing hard with his shoulder digging into the cabinet door handles. Hissing, he ignored the pain and scrambled to pull the hard rectangle from his crusty jeans. He opened the screen and debated texting or calling before realizing he didn’t think he could coordinate his fingers well enough to text while this hammered. The tequila was starting to give his body ultimatums on whether it too would stay or go. The pain where he’d fallen against the door handle was stinging and he looked over to see blood running down his arm. Groaning, he reached up and hauled himself off the floor and onto his bed. He surveyed the contents of the trailer for something that he could see to dull the ache. A couple empty bottles of acetone lay on their sides at his worktable. He’d forgotten to buy more. A half empty bottle of Jose Cuervo sat across from him on the stove. He reached over and opened the bottle one handed, unscrewing the top with his thumb. He sloppily poured some over the wound ‘to clean it’ and then took a hearty swallow ‘for courage’. Swaying where he sat, he looked down at the phone again and found Alex in his contacts, hitting Call before he could talk himself out of it.

“Hello?” Alex answered the phone. Michael stayed silent, listening to the music and laughter emanating from the background noise. It didn’t sound like the Pony. Maybe that new gay bar in town? Maybe Alex was trying to replace him, take up another so he didn’t have to put up with Michael’s melodrama. Did Michael want that? Alex sounded good though a little confused as to why Michael was actually calling him instead of just waiting around to his turn at Alex’s attention, but…. Still, so good.

“Michael?” Alex whispered his name into the phone. Michael could almost see him turning and walking away from whoever he was with so they wouldn’t hear him say Michael’s name, wouldn’t know who had called him. Michael was breaking the rules. Alex was supposed to come to him when he wanted and he wasn’t supposed to go looking for him. He was the bad thing that had to be done with no body else’s knowledge so they wouldn’t judge Alex.

“Guerin, are you there?” Alex asked again, voice a little louder but still hushed compared to the environment around him. Michael hoped that was concern he was hearing but decided it must be something more akin to frustration. What was he doing? Why had he called Alex?

“Don’t come over tonight,” Michael finally bit out. Then he waited, silent. He knew he should hang up and make his point. That’s all he’d called to say, right?

“Okay,” Alex replied slowly, drawing out the work and definitely sounding confused. “I’m in town for another couple days. Maybe tomo—”

“NO, ALEX. Don’t come over ANY NIGHT! I don’t want you to!” Michael yelled, hearing the slur in his voice and knowing he’d said too much. When he’d yelled, he’d apparently swung the arm not holding the phone and he heard the resulting crash of beer bottles hitting the trailer floor.

“Are you okay? You sound drunk. Are you at the Pony? Do I need to come get you?” Alex asked, voice sharpening with concern. Michael scoffed.

“Fuck you. I don’t need you to take care of me. And I don’t want you to come here. I don’t want to see you, Alex. I don’t want to know you. I don’t want to love you. I’m fucking over this shit,” Michael babbled, sinking backwards into the worn thin mattress of his bed. He’d misjudged how close he’d been to the window though and his cut arm scraped against the rough edges of the window pane. “Fuck, Ow!”

“Michael!” Alex’s voice trilled in his ear, sounding alarmed and concerned. Michael heard a muffled male voice ask Alex a question and the muffled scrape of Alex’s hand covering the receiver as he answered ‘It’s fine. I’ll be there in a minute.’

“Ugh, I’m getting blood all over my fucking blanket,” Michael said distractedly, sitting back up and looking around for a towel.

“Why are you bleeding? ARE YOU OKAY?” Alex asked, voice beginning to sound frantic or as frantic as he ever sounded. Disaster didn’t really touch Alex the way it would touch normal people. Not after his childhood. Not after what he’d seen with the military.

“I’m FINE. I just cut myself. It just blood, I’ll be fine. Fuck, why is there so much blood?” Michael asked aloud as he grabbed his dirty shirt from the floor to press against the wound. There were a few scattered drops on his sheets and he’d have to get the hydrogen peroxide to see if he could get them out.

“I’m coming over there, Michael,” Alex snapped. Michael felt himself jerk to attention. He’d forgotten he was on the phone. Alex’s statement made his irrational anger bubble up again.

“Noooo. No don’t come over here. I don’t want to see you. Haven’t you been fucking listening? I…” he breathed heavily, almost seeing the liquor vapors in the air from where he was huffing out his breaths. He tried to summon up the last parts of him that were sober to keep telling Alex to stay away, but instead he started blurting out whatever came to mind. “I haven’t even showered. I’m disgusting. Don’t come over. I’m fine, I’m fine. My bloods just thin from the tequila. You don’t need to care about me. I’m not worth it. I’m disgusting. I’ll be fine. I’ll either wake up tomorrow morning or I’ll choke on my vomit and die. It’s… whatever, really. Stay with your friends. Have a good night, Alex.”

If Alex replied, Michael didn’t hear him because his eyes drifted shut and he was not aware of anything for a while.

When Michael woke up, he was still aching from his shoulder and he was still very drunk…and he was alone. He looked around the airstream, hoping to see Alex somewhere doing something…something to take care of him. When he didn’t see him and after lying very still in the dark, didn’t hear him, Michael felt his heart shred and shatter in his chest. He was supposed to come save him. He was supposed to come take care of him. He was supposed to show up and love Michael and then tomorrow! Tomorrow he’d feel this way. But not tonight. Tonight, he was supposed to be loved.

The tears fell first, but the sobs that clawed out of his throat came soon after. He hated himself for calling Alex and telling him not to come over. He hated himself for wanting to see Alex more than he ever wanted to save himself from pain. He hated the weak, high-pitched sounds that pushed past his teeth when he tried to stop himself from giving into this despair and he hated the low, open mouthed howls that echoed into the stuffing of his pillow as he rolled into a ball to try and hold himself together even while he knew he was broken beyond repair.

Hands smoothed over his shoulders and started pulling at him to turn over, away from the muffled safety of the pillow. He fought those hands, trying to shake them off even as he tried to curl further into himself. This ghost needed to let him bleed everything out.

“Michael!” a familiar voice called, breaking through his haze a little. “Michael, stop! STOP!”

He stilled, following the command and waiting for something worse to follow. Something worse always followed. It had every time he’d given in to how much pain he was feeling.

“Michael, look at me.”

He slowly opened his tear swollen eyes and looked up at the shadowy figure above him. He didn’t need the dim lights of the trailer to know whose hands were gripping his shoulders even if he hoped he was wrong.

“I told you not to come,” Michael croaked out, embarrassed when his voice broke on the last word. He could hear the weakness and water in his voice. The creaking dam of emotion he still hadn’t cried out threatening to burst back through at any moment.

“Michael,” Alex said his name again, soft and chiding. One of his hands, the one on the uninjured shoulder, rubbed soothingly up and down his arm.

“I don’t want you here,” Michael said again, trying to ignore the way his body was already loosening its cramped curl in response to Alex’s skin on his.

“I know. I know,” Alex agreed, before crawling over Michael and laying himself down with his back to the window. His body faced Michaels on the bed and his hand never stopped its slow back and forth movement over his tricep. “But I couldn’t hear you like that and not come check on you. Where did all of that come from, babe?”

The pet name felt like a puncture in the last piece of his heart that had been intact. He felt his breath shuddering past his lips as he tried to contain himself enough to answer. He must’ve taken too long, because he felt Alex’s body slide closer and arms wrap around him, pressing him into the warm, herbaceous scent of Alex’s shirt. He rested his cheek against the top of Michael’s head and Michael felt their knees brush against each other. Michael’s fingers uncurled from where they’d been clenched tight against his own chest and he reached forward, wrapping the fabric of Alex’s shirt into his hands as he felt more sobs break free from his body. He tried to keep them quiet, but he knew he wasn’t fooling anyone anymore. At least no one in this trailer.

“Hey, I’m here. I’m sorry I’m here if you really don’t want me to be. But you’re obviously hurting right now. I can’t just let that happen and not see if I can help. We’re friends, right? Friends don’t let each other hurt like this without trying to comfort them,” Alex murmured softly into his hair. Those warm, gentle hands were now petting his hair and rubbing his back. He could feel his muscles loosening and the fight going out of him. He just wanted to melt into the man in front of him. He wanted to be the one who carved out a place under his skin and lived there for the few days they’d have together. He wanted to be the one who left the hollow spaces for once.

“You didn’t tell me you were coming back,” Michael murmured into the space between Alex’s shoulder and neck. “Friends keep in fucking touch. You never tell when you’re coming back and when you’re here, you never stay. You find an excuse and disappear. I always wake up used up and alone.”

“Guerin….” Alex started, sighing heavily.

“Don’t call me by my last name. I get it, I’m just… part of coming back here. A chore you check off your list. You don’t have to keep coming here if you don’t want me, Alex,” Michael finished, uncramping his fingers from Alex’s shirt and starting to pull himself away. He was getting a headache from crying and the liquor and the long day. He was ready to turn over and go to sleep. He didn’t want to do this anymore.

“Michael,” Alex started again, his tone softer than before even as his hands held Michael firmly in place, not letting him draw away. “I don’t know what to say here. You’re not a chore. I will never and have never thought of you as an obligation. I always look forward to seeing you, but we don’t run in the same circles. We never have. And this never goes anywhere because I’m always going to leave. I can’t stay here with you, Michael, I’m sorry. Coming back to Roswell always leaves me feeling like I’ve time traveled and gotten stuck in a time vaccuum.”

Michael felt the burn begin again behind his eyes and his throat start to tighten.

“But when I’m here, I’m yours. You’re one of the only good things I get out of coming home,” Alex finished, finally letting go of Michael and drawing back to lay his head down beside Michael’s on the mattress. Michael felt a tear drip off his cheek as he stared at the fathomless brown eyes staring into his. He hoped Alex hadn’t seen the tear because of the shadow on his face, the dark hiding how much he always hurt when Alex was with him. Sometimes it was knives, sometimes it was ecstasy, but always it was pain.

“I’m yours, too. When you’re here, I’m yours,” Michael finally responded in a small voice, sliding his hands over Alex’s chest and up to cup his jaw gently. He’d decided he had all he could handle of the knives for tonight. Now he wanted the ecstasy. He wanted to hold Alex on his tongue and under his fingernails and inside of him. He needed the memories to get through another three years of his heart being caught in a fist of anxious worry over whether he’d get to see Alex alive again. How much of the Alex he loved would be left after more witnessed atrocities in name of his country?

Alex leaned in, pressing their foreheads together, his breath brushing Michael’s lips and chin. Michael didn’t want Alex to remember him like this.

“Let me up, I’m going to take a quick shower. I really am… pretty fucking filthy right now,” Michael admitted, laughing weakly. Alex smiled and nodded, pressing a kiss to his mouth before sitting up to watch him. Michael sat up, noting that while not trashed, he was still a little floaty. He was sober enough to feel embarrassed about Alex having to come rescue him because he was naked, drunk, and emotional. He stood and managed the two steps to the bathroom, turning on the water in the cubicle shower. He walked in and let the warm water wash over him, the thudding of his heart in his ears as he leaned forward, setting his hands on either side of the shower head. He let his forehead rest against the back of the shower stall while he tried to wrap his mind around the night so far. Another fine mess he’d made. A breeze at his back made him look over his shoulder and he saw Alex stepping into the tiny space with him.

“I’m not sure this shower is big enough for anything athletic,” Michael commented trying to ignore his bodies near Pavlovian response to seeing Alex naked. Alex hummed at him and wrapped his arms around Michael’s wet torso, pulling their bodies flush together under the water spray.

“I’m just helping you wash your back,” he teased, reaching past Michael and pulling the bar of soap down from the inset shelf. Michael closed his eyes and nodded, trying not to feel overwhelmed at how easy this was when it shifted from emotions to sex. How his body was always ready to forgive the sins and slights his mind had tallied up between them. How starved he was for this feast of flesh between them.

Michael groaned as he felt Alex’s hands start to slide over his wet skin, the bar of soap adding a welcome pressure against his abused muscles. His cock which had started to perk up at the view of Alex naked was starting to harden and strain towards his stomach with every brush of Alex’s body against his. It was impossible for Alex to move without some part of him touching Michael’s in the small space of the airstream’s shower. Michael couldn’t even turn around without them having to negotiate intensely so as not to end up with an elbow in someone’s eye or a knee bruising.

While Michael tried to find his focus, he felt Alex’s hands going over everywhere on him. Those well-defined hands were sliding up and down his back and over his shoulders and arms. His square, thin artist’s hands massaged Michael’s sides and then slid down to dig into the muscles of his lower back, and again lower onto his ass cheeks, dipped his thumbs into his crack and back out and around. He’d replaced the soap on the shelf and then his hands were sliding up Michael’s stomach and over his chest, pulling his back flush against Alex’s body. He felt Alex’s teeth settle onto his shoulder, even as his hips ground forward, his hard cock sliding between Michael’s cheeks making him moan loudly. He reached behind himself and grabbed at Alex’s hip, trying to pull him closer and let him grind harder against his backside. He felt Alex push his cock down, angling it low and letting it slip into the space between Michael’s legs. The spongey, hard tip tracing over his tight pucker and perineum, teasing behind his balls before drawing back. Immediately he closed his thighs as Alex started to pump his hips with earnest, water and soap helping slick the way for Alex’s cock. With every catch of Alex’s cock on his hole, he felt his sanity slipping from him. He wanted to feel him stretching his insides open, pushing his way in and making a home for himself in Michael’s body.

“Fuck, Michael, you feel so good. I want to be in you, babe. I wish I could just slip in,” Alex gasped into the meat of his shoulder, a hand sliding between their bodies so Alex could press and rub his fingers over where Michael needed him most, “right here. I want to be right here with you. Do you want that, babe?”

Even as his other hand drifted down to land on Michael’s achingly hard cock, Michael was grinding back against Alex’s hand, letting the tip of one finger breach him. It wasn’t enough, but it still felt like being on a better plane of existence. Michael groaned, reveling in the slick soapy slide of Alex’s hand on him and the slow thrusting motions that had been taken back up behind him driving him insane.

“Do you want that, Michael? Can I get you out of this shower and lay you down and take you apart? Make you scream for me? Get you nice and dirty again?”

“Alex,” he sighed, body throbbing with his need for this man. His name felt like a prayer and a curse and he could remember all too well how good Alex was at making him come apart at the seams.

“What do you want, Michael?” Alex asked, stilling his movements and just hugging Michael’s body back against his. He didn’t sound angry, just inquiring, as if he cared what Michael really wanted from him. His breath was ragged against the back of Michael’s ear. He sounded as desperate as Michael felt. Awkwardly, Michael turned and maneuvered until here could partially face Alex. The water was starting to cool in the shower and it only heightened how unnaturally warm his skin was in the small space. Michael looked at the water dripping from Alex’s hair and down his glorious, golden body. He took in the intense stare those dark chocolate eyes had pinned on him and could suddenly see what Mimi had meant. Alex looked like he was trying to figure Michael out, like he was waiting for an epiphany to what all of this meant. Michael knew he must be looking at Alex like he was the answer, because he was. He was the answer to all the questions that Michael had.

He leant in and pressed his lips to Alex’s. He tried to give Alex some of the answer he was looking for in that kiss, using his lips and tongue to spell out the words ‘I love you’. Alex kissed him back, equaling his fervor and clutching at his back and neck to keep him close. When they broke for air, Michael reached back to the shower wall and shut off the water.

“Take care of me, Alex. Love me. Fucking wreck me. Do whatever you want,” he gritted out the last words feeling reckless as he was lunging forward to begin kissing again. Alex hummed his understanding against Michael’s mouth and they stumbled, dripping, out of the shower stall. Michael backed Alex up against the small sink and broke away from his lips to start kissing down his chest and stomach. His knees hit the floor hard and he ran his hands up Alex’s thighs while he stared up into his face. Alex looked down at him in hunger, hand cradling his jaw before Michael leant forward and took the head of his cock into his mouth. His eyes fluttered at the clean taste of his skin and the familiar firm length of him sliding over his tongue. He looked through his eyelashes up at Alex to see him gripping the counter and biting his lip as he watched Michael take him down over and over. This is what power felt like.

On a whim, Michael grabbed the back of Alex’s thighs and pulled him slightly forward as he dove his head in, letting Alex’s cock slip into his throat where he swallowed around it. Alex’s hand shot out, diving into the wet curls on Michael’s head, tugging as he groaned at the sensation. Michael pulled back and slowly worked his way back down the next time, letting Alex appreciate his gag control as his nose brushed the other’s pubes.

“Shit, Michael, if you keep that up I’m going to cum down your throat,” Alex gasped out, failing to stop his hips from a small fluid grind into Michael’s mouth as he looked down at him. Michael pulled back, wrapping his hand around Alex’s prick and continuing to jack him slowly while he answered.

“Better get the first one out of the way, Alex. I want you to be able to fuck me for hours,” he replied.

“Fuck, Michael,” Alex breathed his name almost reverently, tightening his hand in Michael’s curls momentarily. Michael took his hand away from Alex’s cock, letting it jut into the air between them. Then he opened his mouth, sticking his tongue out and looking up at Alex expectantly. Biting his lip, Alex used his unoccupied hand to grip his dick and feed it over Michael’s tongue and into his mouth. He wasn’t truly thrusting, just letting the hot flesh slide shallowly in and out of Michael’s open mouth. “You’re so good at that, Michael. You’re so fucking perfect for me. I love it when you’re cock hungry and needy like this.”

“Make me yours, Alex. I want you to claim me,” Michael replied after backing off for a moment. He stared at Alex, running his hands over any bit of skin he could reach. He’d never get tired of touching Alex this way. The smooth, tan skin showing off the now familiar muscles the Air Force had trained into him. He took Alex back in his mouth, tongue gliding liquidly over the silky skin and lips pulling him closer to orgasm with every deep swallow. Michael reveled in this feeling of giving Alex what he wanted, what he thought he needed, and knowing if he stopped at just the right time, he could have him begging. But he didn’t want him to beg. He only wanted him to keep wanting to come back.

“Shit, Michael. Oh fuck, just like that, baby. I’m so close. Do you want me to come in your mouth?” Alex asked, breathless and desperate sounding. Michael could tell he was close, could feel the tightening of his body and the final swell starting in his cock before he blew his load. He nodded minutely, catching Alex’s eyes and winking up at him. Alex just whimpered and panted, hips started to stutter against Michael’s mouth, losing their rhythm as Alex’s body started to overload on sensation. Then Michael was swallowing, letting the warm, salty spurts from Alex’s body rest only a moment on his tongue before pulling it in. He held Alex in his mouth until he finished and calmed down, then slowly backed off, licking the skin clean as he went. Alex twitched from the overstimulation, but Michael was fully aware of how much Alex could handle before it become too much.

“Come here,” Alex breathed as he pulled Michael up from his knees. His kiss was sloppy and slightly uncoordinated since his orgasm, but Michael let him take control of it anyway. He liked Alex like this, sated but still hungry for more.

“Go to the bed, grab lube and a condom, and get on your hands and knees for me,” Alex commanded against his lips. Michael felt a shudder go through his body as he met Alex’s eyes. He loved it when Alex told him what to do. Alex held his gaze for a moment before leaning in towards his ear and whispering, “Go on now. I’ll be there in a minute.”

Michael turned and walked back into the main area of the Airstream. He reached into the drawer under his bed and pulled out the half-used bottle of lube and a condom. He threw them onto the bed by his pillow before crawling forward on his hands and knees to wait for Alex to come out of the bathroom. It wasn’t a long wait and it wasn’t a long walk before he felt Alex’s hands on his hips, thighs warm as they pressed against the back of his own. He pressed his hips back against Alex’s, back bowing and putting himself on display to entice Alex to hurry the fuck up already. A hand smoothed down his back, tracing his spine and then further down into the cleft between his cheeks, fingers once again resting against his hole.

“This where you want me, Michael?” Alex asked quietly, fingers rubbing small circles around the tight ring of muscle. Michael moaned and pressed his body back, needing more. “Use your words.”

“Yesss,” Michael hissed through his teeth, hands coming up to grip at his own damp curls. “Please Alex, I need you.”

“Okay, baby,” Alex said, bending hid body over Michael’s to grab the lube and condoms to have closer to him. He kissed along Michael’s back and ribs as he retreated, his teeth pinching small pieces of flesh between them and making Michael cry out softly with the exquisite pleasure-pain of it. He felt Alex’s body heat draw away from his and heard the scrape and shuffle of Alex moving behind him, but before he could glance past his shoulder to see what was happening, he felt Alex’s mouth on one of his ass cheeks, sucking and marking the flesh with his mouth. A wet finger prodded at his hole and he pushed back trying to let it sink in. Alex moved his finger away with Michael’s movement and he heard himself whining in frustration.

“I’m sorry, I’m being a tease,” Alex chuckled against the skin of his hip. He gave Michael a quick peck there and then Michael felt the pressure of his finger again. This time it didn’t stop, just slowly, inexorably pushed into him. He bit his lip to stop himself screaming in frustration. Alex slid his finger in and out, finger barely brushing over that bundle of nerves that would have Michael howling and feral if worked right.

“It’s not enough. More, Alex,” he begged. Alex’s mouth kissed the skin of his hip, then the dimple of his ass, and then closer still to where his finger and leisurely moving in and out of Michael’s body. Michael felt Alex’s lips then, a soft sucking caress on the skin stretched around his finger. Then the strange, erotic slide of his tongue. Michael’s body started to shake at the sensation, his cock giving a hard throb between his legs. Alex’s finger moved out of him and away, moved over to where it could splay over his ass cheek keeping Michael’s body pressed open wide for Alex’s mouth.

Alex’s mouth was a dream. His hot, wet tongue gave wide, long swipes from Michael’s balls to his hole. He felt his lips sucking on the skin of his pucker, his teeth scraping softly and making him cry out against his forearm. He felt the prod and push of the muscle working its way past the tight ring of Michael’s entrance and spearing into him over and over. Alex’s unoccupied hand came up and wrapped itself loosely around Michael’s red, angry cock. He could feel Alex working his pre around the crown, making his hand slick against the skin as he began working it while he ate Michael’s ass. It was almost too much. He could vaguely hear himself moaning and gasping, his body undulating between the tongue in his hole and the hand steadily milking his cock. He felt a tingle in his core, body starting to tighten on him in anticipation of coming.

“Alex, wait! I wanna come with your cock in me!” he cried out, even as he continued to thrust back against Alex’s face. The hand on his cock left him and he felt two fingers slip past Alex’s withdrawing tongue to start twisting and testing the muscles inside of him. Alex kept biting and sucking on the skin around his fingers, even as he hastily began to push a third on past Michael’s rim. It was a stretch and stung a little.

“More lube,” Michael gasped, his body hunching away from the invasion slightly. Alex paused and withdrew his fingers most of the way out of Michael’s body. Michael could feel the cold spill of more lube around his hole and onto Alex’s hand. With the next push inward, the third finger slid in easier and while still a stretch, it didn’t hurt. Alex was twisting and flexing his fingers, trying to make sure he wouldn’t hurt Michael when he finally pushed his cock in, and his knuckles finally skated over Michael’s prostate enough to make him seize up and cough out a shout of pleasure. He knew Alex had gotten the picture when he rubbed his knuckles over the same place again, this time with more pressure.

“Please, please, please, Alex,” Michael babbled, tears coming to his eyes as he fought down his body’s need to come. Alex was pressing on his spot with every thrust of his fingers now and Michael was fucking himself back on it even though it made him feel like he was about to shake apart.

“You think you’re ready?” Alex asked, his voice registering rough and strained even through Michael’s sex drunk brain.

“Yes, please Alex, I need you in me,” he cried.

“Okay,” Alex sighed, sounding grateful somehow to Michael’s ears. Michael heard the crinkling of the condom packet and then the blunt pressure of Alex’s cock pressing at his hole. He moaned, rocking backwards against the pressure and feeling the head pushing past his outer ring of muscles slowly. Alex’s hands came to rest at his waist lightly, not pulling or directing Michael’s movement, but simply resting while Michael did the work. Michael relished the feeling of Alex entering him, loved that first stretch and burn around the other man’s body. When he felt the head pop past the inner ring, he gasped, rocking forward and backwards over again feeling just the tip of Alex pulling at the edges of him. He heard a curse from behind him and glanced over his shoulder at Alex.

It was the first time he’d seen his face since they’d started this and he was glad it hadn’t happened until that moment. Alex looked wrecked. His eyes were glued down to where Michael was rocking onto him, lips red and swollen, face flushed, and abdomen muscles jumping as he tried to control his movements so as to let Michael play with him as much as he wanted. He was rock hard, but he wasn’t desperate the way Michael was.

His eyes flicked up and he saw Michael staring at him. He smiled and bit his lip, pushing his hips forward the next time Michael flexed back and Michael lost his breath as another few inches were pushed into him. His eyes fluttered closed and he turned back to lay his head on his forearms, overtaken with how good it felt to have Alex in him. Alex withdrew, leaving Michael feeling empty, until he pushed in again, giving him more. He continued until Michael could feel his hips flush against him and then he stilled.

“Shit,” he heard Alex curse softly behind him. He flexed his muscles around the mass inside of him and felt the responding, possibly unconscious, grind of Alex against him.

“How do you still feel like this? You always feel like you were made for this, Michael. You always feel like you were made for me,” Alex asked in wonder, pulling back and starting a slow, deep rhythm that made Michael feel like he was going to explode. A hand smoothed up his back and hooked onto his shoulder, pulling Michael’s body with Alex’s and making it feel as he were able to push deeper with every thrust. Then the hand was pulling Michael up, pulling him back so he was on his knees, back bowed and gravity helping to push him down harder onto Alex. He felt Alex’s mouth on his shoulder and neck, his arms wrapping around his chest, roaming over his skin, tweaking his nipples and dipping past his navel to stroke at his drooling cock.

“Alex,” Michael sighed, one hand holding Alex’s head behind him, the other resting on Alex’s hip. “I need more.”

“What do you need?” Alex asked, body still fluidly fucking into Michael’s in that slow, deep draw and push. This position was much better for Michael’s prostate, but it just wasn’t enough. He needed more.

“Harder,” Michael gasped on a particularly pointed thrust, “Faster.”

Alex’s hands went to Michael’s hips to steady him and then he was picking up the pace. Michael felt the moans tumble out of him as Alex’s hips started slapping his, cock pistoning in and out of him, running sharply over his prostate and bringing him back to the crescendo of pleasure.

“Oh fuck, like that. Don’t stop, Alex, fuck, don’t stop,” Michael cried, finally putting a hand on himself and jacking his aching cock in counterpoint to Alex’s thrusts. He could hear Alex’s huffing breath and occasional grunts behind him, could feel his fingers starting to dig into the meat of his muscles, could feel his own body tightening around Alex’s cock, trying to keep him inside of him. His orgasm hit him like a freight train. His vision whited out, his body seizing up around Alex and his cock swelling and releasing over his fingers and palm. He felt Alex fuck him through it, thrusts jagged and almost too much against his prostate, but then he too was groaning like he was dying and slowing inside of Michael. Michael felt pulled back onto Alex’s lap and enjoyed the wet pants of breath against his sweat sheened shoulder blade.

Alex was always languorous and tactile after he came. He would hold Michael against him until he was too soft to stay inside and then he would let his fingers play over Michael’s puffed hole. He would kiss all the sweat from his body and murmur sweet nothings into his skin. Then he could get hard again and they’d go for another round until Michael was too sore or the sun came up, whichever was first. After the last time, sleepy and wrapped around Michael like an octopus, Alex would fall asleep with his head on Michael’s chest, breath softly stirring the golden curls of hair, and Michael would try to stay awake as long as he could because if he fell asleep, like with most good dreams, Alex would be gone once he woke up. Alex would leave while Michael slept, texting him later that he was sorry he had to go before Michael woke, and then he’d leave the country to fight some rich man’s war for him. Michael would once again cover up the place Alex had made for himself in his body and heart. He’d once again drown himself in the arms of others or the bottom of bottles, but that place stayed hidden and safe and waiting for Alex to come back home.

#malex fic #personal #malex smut #malex angst #angst #malex #roswell nm #unhealthy relationships #sex instead of feelings

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writingithink · 4 years

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Tangled Timelines Chapter 1 Rated: T Wordcount: 5,895 Summary: The Doctor and Rose have some news to share with Jackie, but the trip doesn't go quite as planned. Notes:Hello! This is my fic for the Classic Tropes Event. Mine was Fix-It Fic. This one is going to be a multi-chapter, with more tags added as I go. For those of you who have been reading the whole series, I actually plan to finish up the honeymoon fics (they've just been giving me grief). So those will come later, with edits to series order etc etc. If you haven't read the series, I think you should be okay? They're bonded. It was an accident. That should be all the info you really need. All of the thanks ever imaginable to @hey-there-juliet for betaing <33 All mistakes are most definitely mine (esp since I did a lot of glaring at this thing after it was beta'd). I own nothing.

Multiple trips to the TARDIS' library and seemingly endless cross-referencing all culminated in the moment the large tome slipped from the Doctor's hands and onto the bed. It knocked against Rose’s leg and his eyes automatically moved to her face - still asleep. Since their bonding, his wife had gotten used to him bringing various things into bed with them for when he inevitably got bored while she slept.

“And you couldn’t alert me to this, because …?” he whispered to his ship, voice flat and eyes wide as his brain struggled to assimilate everything he had just read.

There was no answer from the TARDIS, not even a hum of acknowledgement. It figured.

The Doctor scrubbed his hand across his face before leaving the bed, heading straight to the infirmary despite the fact that he was only wearing boxers and a vest. This time he didn’t ask his inconsiderate ship for any assistance, simply pulled up every single file on Rose Marion Tyler that existed, on the TARDIS or not. It only took seconds to hack into Earth hospital files, after all.

Not that they helped much, as the technology used in Rose’s time was appallingly primitive.

“Level five medical garbage,” he muttered to himself, zooming past all of her records. Vaccines, minor illnesses, nothing that gave him a good picture of Rose Marion Tyler before she stepped onto the TARDIS. Which, overall, was a good thing - it meant that she had never been so hurt that she needed a CAT scan or an MRI. It would have just been nice to have the data, what with his near obsessive compulsive desire to have the most complete picture of his wife’s biological history.

It’s as if no one had ever heard of voluntary medical data filing. But so be it. The TARDIS had more than enough base scans, starting from the first moment Rose set foot on the ship. This time he wasn’t going to cut corners like he had before, when he’d looked at just her telepathic centers and absolutely nothing else.

Thinking about the last time he and his wife had been in here, weeks ago, the Doctor opened a new screen to check the progress of the six-dimensional comprehensive deep scan results. They were nearly complete.

A feeling of dread lodged in his stomach.

They should have been finished ages ago. The fact that they weren’t -

He shook his head, wiping a hand down his face as he swiveled back to the primary view screen. The base scans should be able to offer him an explanation. Would. They would, because he needed to know exactly what was going on.

The TARDIS had automatically compiled all base scans since their last visit, and his previous parameters were still in place, focused solely on what in humans was called the pineal gland. The Doctor wasn’t sure that name quite applied for Rose’s brain anymore - Epiphysis Cerebri seemed like a much more accurate name for her telepathic center, which was still showing slow, incremental growth.

Fingers moving quickly, he navigated away and started gathering new information. Graphs of brain capacity and function, cellular activity and health, levels of all hormones and neurotransmitters and molecules with a special search for anything that wouldn’t normally be found in a 21st century Earth human.

Waiting for the TARDIS to compile all of these graphs felt like torture, even though it took a relatively short amount of time.

And then he had screens and screens of data all vying for his considerable attention and painting a picture that had his hearts going into overdrive, adrenaline throttling through his systems. Terror. Elation. Fear. Hope. All of his emotions were muddled and changing by the nanosecond. Panic was a constant, however.

All of it was so overpowering that the Doctor soon found himself actively fighting his traitorous body as it tried to enter a completely unnecessary healing trance, confused as it was by his sudden inability to keep control of processes that he generally had a tight grip on.

Two hands fell onto his shoulders, shocking him into jumping up, nearly crashing into the infirmary’s computational system. He whirled around to see the confused and frightened face of his bondmate.

“Doctor?” she asked, hesitating.

He wondered how long she had been trying to speak to him, both verbally and through their bond. Covering his face with both hands, he finally got his breathing back in order and his hearts-rate down.

“Sorry,” he finally managed, once he was capable of speech again, though the single word came out hoarse and scratchy.

“What’s happening? What’s wrong?” Rose asked, still not moving, hands fisted at her sides.

Focusing on their connection, he could feel her overwhelming concern … for him. Well, it did make sense in the ironic way these things always tended to. Since she had been asleep when he left her, the Doctor hadn’t put any thought into shielding. All of his emotions must have barreled into her like a freight train. Couldn’t have possibly been a pleasant way to wake up.

Reluctantly he dropped his hands, palms sliding down his face slowly as he gave up their paltry defense.

“Nothing’s wrong per se,” he hedged, wincing as her mental disbelief permeated their link. “It- it’s more complicated than that. It’s-”

He didn’t know how to explain it. His normally ever-present gob seemed to be offline now that he desperately needed it. Telepathic communication seemed to also be out, as his brain was still in the process of resettling from the accidentally self-induced bulldozing of his basic systems.

“It’s what?”

As the Doctor took another deep breath, Rose looked around, seeming to just realize where they were. She must have raced through the TARDIS to get to him in her worry. He felt incredibly guilty.

“It’s something that we would probably be much more comfortable discussing somewhere else,” he decided, scratching the hairs at the nape of his neck and looking down, shocked to realize that he was nearly naked. “Maybe after getting dressed. And a shower. Breakfast. Not in that order!”

Rose sighed and crossed her arms. The Doctor took a moment to notice her clothing, which consisted of a housecoat and slippers, but he couldn’t tell what she had on underneath (if anything).

“And then we’ll talk?” she questioned, both eyebrows raised, getting his mind back on track.

“Yes. Definitely. How does tea in the library sound?”

Her lips were pursed, but she eventually nodded.

“Good. Great! And I- I’m really, truly sorry for worrying you,” he sighed, finally moving forward and wrapping his arms around his impossible wife. It took a few moments before Rose relaxed into the embrace.

“This is about me, isn’t it?” she whispered after a few long, silent moments.

“Shh,” he scolded. “Shower first. Shower, clothes, food, then talking.”

Procrastination really is just a different type of running, and no one knew that better than the Doctor. He also knew that he wasn’t fooling Rose for a moment. Their bond was still wide open, the contents of their impending discussion only hidden due to the fact that it was all categorized in his mind as ‘scientific information’, and therefore held back by one of the many barriers he kept permanently in place so that he wouldn’t inundate his bondmate with headache inducing amounts of information.

“Alright then,” she conceded, “let’s get going.”

The Doctor took her hand as she pulled away, allowing himself to be led through his time ship. In his current, nebulous state he doubted he’d be able to find their room if he tried. He was just grateful that Rose understood that his desire to put off this conversation didn’t mean he wanted to be separated from her in the slightest.

It was funny, sometimes, to imagine that all of the effort he had previously put into studiously trying to not overwhelm her with just how much he wanted to almost always be in her presence had been completely inverted now that all of their cards were forever on the table.

They got into the shower together and he began to wash his wife’s hair as if on auto-pilot, only refocusing on the present moment when feelings of relaxation and contentment began to pierce through the veil of unpleasant emotions tangled across their shared minds. Once the shampoo rinsed away, the Doctor couldn’t stop himself from cupping her face and pulling her into a relatively chaste kiss. Maybe, just maybe, he could convince himself that everything would all truly be alright (for once). Because one thing that had been clear while looking through her scans was that Rose was perfectly healthy. Her life wasn’t threatened in the slightest.

Things were just … different.

Before he was quite ready, they had finished showering, were both fully clothed, somehow tea and toast had been made (though he barely remembered being in the galley), and they had reached the library. Rose immediately sat down on the sofa, a fire already crackling away in the grate. He followed her, taking a large gulp of his beverage the moment he sat down. For all of the time he had spent trying to organize his thoughts, they were still less than refined.

The problem was, despite being bonded and therefore having an intimate knowledge of her thought processes, the Doctor still couldn’t predict how she would react to any of what he’d discovered in the hours his wife had spent sleeping. And despite the fact that she wasn’t actually saying anything, he did know that she was growing more and more impatient by the second.

“Sooo,” he began, hoping that the rest of the words would just happen, as it were, “this is cozy, innit?”

Obviously it didn’t work.

“Why don’t you start at the beginning?” she suggested.

“Oh, blimey, alright then. Well, billions of years ago, a cataclysmic explosion of a singularity caused what you could refer to as the Big Bang, Event One, or even just ‘creation’. It resulted in a very compact, tiny universe that was very dense and very hot, riddled with dimension pockets and full of space-time anomalies that are now considered exceedingly rare. These were the beginnings of the Dark Times, of which not much is known - time travel so far back was-”

“Doctor,” Rose interrupted, “does this have anything to do with what has you so upset? The, erm, results?”

“Ah, well, no … not as such. I mean, it’s tangentially related to absolutely everything, of course, but it … right, sorry.” He took another sip of tea, followed by a deep breath. The beginning, but not that beginning. “I finally tracked it down. Old texts, ancient, that had descriptions of telepathic marriage bonds. Took ages to find one that sounded right, though. Apparently most ancient Gallifreyans needed to have the assistance of an experienced telepath who specialized in this kind of thing in order to join their minds. Knew that couldn’t be right, so I kept on digging and when I-”

The words were flowing out now, faster than he could keep track of and for once he was aware of just how irrelevant they were. With a huff he stood up and began to pace in front of the fire, hoping that the movement would help.

“Very old, very rare, very specific. That’s what our bond is. There isn’t even a translation for what they called it, the word would be absolutely meaningless to anyone else, anyone who hasn’t experienced it for themselves. It’s the specificity, though, that made me realize that there was much more at work than just your growing telepathic abilities. When I went to the infirmary, it was really a toss up - either I was right or I was wrong and hadn’t found the proper information yet.”

“But you weren’t wrong, were you?” She bit her bottom lip, eyes tracking him as he moved back and forth across the sitting area that for once seemed much too small.

“No,” the Doctor sighed, running his fingers through his hair. “The 6D scans will probably be ready later today, but I didn’t need those. Just different graphs of your base scans to measure different things. The thing is,” he nearly shouted, “if I hadn’t been about to regenerate, and then freshly regenerated, and then unpardonably distracted, I should have done this all ages ago! Quick as I could after I’d taken the Vortex out of you.”

“Think we were a bit busy savin’ the Universe to bother with all that,” Rose pointed out, comfort and understanding passing over to him through their link, along with a few spikes of irritation and general chastisement for pointlessly blaming himself for something yet again.

“And what’s my excuse for after all that?” he drawled, unwilling to let her absolve him for this appalling negligence of her health and well-being. What kind of doctor was he, if he couldn’t be arsed to take adequate care of the woman he loved?

“Maybe, I dunno, the fact that I felt absolutely fine? That we were busy navigating all your new quirks and preferences while still saving planets? Anyway, you still haven’t even told me what’s going on.”

The Doctor scrunched up his face as he dug the heels of his palms into his eyes. She was right, obviously. Somehow he was still managing to procrastinate. His teeth ground slightly as he set his jaw and made his way back to the couch.

“You have a large amount of artron energy,” he began. “More than just background radiation. Way more. I would say life threatening amounts, except you also are absolutely riddled with huon particles. Also deadly.”

“Huon particles?”

“Eradicated by the Time Lords near the end of the dark times - oh, look at that, it all came back ‘round, sort of.”

“But you just said they were deadly,” Rose frowned. “Why does it sound like they’re a good thing? I mean, your people obviously had a reason for gettin’ rid of ‘em all. How’re they even there?”

Oh, his magnificent, brilliant, fantastic bondmate - always asking the right questions. A small smile lighted her face as she caught the thought.

“See, the TARDIS is connected to the Vortex, which goes all the way back - remnants of huon particles exist in her heart, which you opened up and used to merge with her, a whole fifth dimension running through the both of you. The huon particles are stabilizing the artron energy - it’s feeding them instead of overtly impacting the rest of your body. So in this case, this one case, the reemergence of deadly particles from the dawn of time is a good thing. Even so, that wouldn’t be enough, except you didn’t just merge with the Vortex alone but with the TARDIS. The TARDIS emits chronon particles, and one of the key differences between Time Lords and non-Time Lord Gallifreyans is that our bodies are surrounded by a bio-plasmic field of chronon energy, allowing us to bond with a TARDIS.”

“Oh. Right, that’s why when you were sick the TARDIS wasn’t working properly. Couldn’t translate for us.”

“Yes, yes, exactly.” The Doctor got back to his feet, the need to pace outweighing his desire to remain close to his wife. “Now, the thing about having a surrounding field is that it can, er, leach on to others. Infect them. Not in a bad way. It’s what provides me with protection from the time stream, helps with cell rejuvenation, etcetera. So actually, if a bit of it didn’t migrate away to those I’m close with, I’d never be able to bring anyone along on the TARDIS with me. Too dangerous. Thing is, you have your own now, not just an echo of mine. Which makes sense. You two became one, of course she would bond with you as well. Thing is, to do that - your DNA, Rose. Becoming Bad Wolf. It’s given you symbiotic chronon nuclei.”

“And what’s that, then? Something to do with the chronon particles?”

“In a sense. It’s only viewable with a temporal reading, which the TARDIS base scans do automatically, because that’s what’s normal for me. She doesn’t change protocols just because the other person she’s scanning happens to be human. I’ve mentioned before that I have TNA. Triple helix instead of double, yes?”

Rose nodded, taking a wary sip of her tea.

“Well, it’s actually a bit more complicated than that. Properly, temporally scanned it’s actually four strands. That symbiotic chronon nuclei is the physical, quasi-symbiotic link between the TARDIS and I. Now you have one too.”

“So wait, I’ve got four strands of DNA now? And we didn’t even notice?” Her mug clattered onto the table as she deposited it and stood quickly.

“No, no, no, just the three. No TNA. But this is where things get complicated.”

“You mean there’s more ?” she screeched, going paler than she already had been, thoughts becoming a whirl of panic. “Isn’t it complicated enough?!”

“Weeeeeell, let’s go back to that third strand I’ve got, yeah? It’s pretty much, and by pretty much I mean almost the sole reason, that regeneration is possible. Stores all the information for past and future incarnations, as well as other things,” he explained, waving his hands around, “and as far as I understood it, that’s what allowed for a Gallifreyan’s self-replicating biogenic molecules.”

“Your what?”

“Remember the nanogenes?” he asked, finally walking back to her in order to weave their fingers together.

“Yeah, ‘course.”

“Gallifreyan bodies have something like that. Biological nanites. Not only do they allow for regeneration, but on a daily basis they repair and prune any damaged or malformed cells. Hence why we age so slowly. I’ll look just like this for hundreds of years yet.”

She nodded slowly. “And lemme guess, I’ve got those too, somehow.”

“Yes. Though wired differently than mine, You’re still human , Rose. Just … with genetic modifications. Powerful genetic modifications. Obviously meant to keep you alive, because really, thinking about it properly, you shouldn’t have survived the trip back to the gamestation, much less been able to accomplish everything you did. A symbiotic self-renewing cell structure is really the obvious solution to the problem, and if you did have TNA like I do, the gigantic surge of artron energy would have triggered a regeneration, just like it did for me. But your body doesn’t work that way, so it just- just healed the damage, no mess, no fuss.”

“And they’re still there now, healing stuff?”

The Doctor nodded.

“So what does it all mean, then, exactly? Without all of the science babble.”

“Without it?” He winced at the way his voice nearly squeaked.

“As little of it as you can get away with,” Rose conceded, the smidge of laughter in her voice doing wonders for his frayed nerves.

“Alright. Well, your cell death is almost non-existent. Your brain activity, in addition to the new telepathic adjustments, has increased in both capacity and function. You likely haven’t noticed because you haven’t tried to stretch things more than average, and why would you? Despite all of these changes, it’s not like you really knew about them or have had any sort of training on how to incorporate them aside from our telepathy lessons. With the way you’re connected to the TARDIS, you could probably learn to sense time. That’s what allows for most of my time senses, by the way.”

“Doctor, less babble,” his wife helpfully reminded him.

“Right, yes, well,” he swallowed audibly, “the main thing is … you’re not going to age at the same rate as everyone else you know. Everyone human, that is. There’s no way for me to be certain how long your life might be, since our timelines are too tightly wound together.”

“They are?”

“Of course they are.” At this, the Doctor finally smiled, wrapping his arms around her. “That’s the thing, the crucial thing, about the bond. Why I needed to check the scans to make sure. It exists not just because we love each other, not just because we have compatible minds, but because our timelines were able to be synced. Literally able to be together forever, however long forever might be. This connection we have, it’s not the kind that can be forced, it can only happen spontaneously. In fact, from what I’ve read, the existence of this form of bond is exactly why the practice of making less deep and all encompassing ones came into being. Others who weren’t as, as destined for each other, for lack of a better word, wanted the same kind of intimacy. And of course it fell out of favor, not just because of Gallifrey’s abandonment of emotional ties in general, but because of the pain associated with losing a partner you’ve permanently telepathically merged with.”

“So that, us … we won’t have that?”

“I can’t view my own timeline and I can’t view yours, but I do know that they’re so tightly twined that you can’t tell the two apart. I can feel it, and maybe someday you will be able to on your own, but for now I can always show you,” he offered.

“I- I’d like that, but …” Rose trailed off, biting her lip and looking away.

“What?”

“’S just, you were so, so upset earlier. And it’s definitely a lot to take in, but, I mean, doesn’t it all seem like a good thing?” she asked, turning back toward him, eyes locking with his and broadcasting her pained confusion just as adequately as the bond itself was.

“For me? Of course it is, and the selfish part of me has never been more happy. But Rose, you have to understand that I wasn’t trying to be dramatic that night, outside of the chippy, when I said that my lifespan was a curse. You’re going to outlive everyone you know and love, aside from me. You won’t age at the same rate that they do. And I know that it’s expected for children to outlive their parents, but you’re going to spend far longer without your mother than with her. This … it was never something I wanted for you, the pain of so many goodbyes.”

Rose shut her eyes before burrowing her head into his chest, holding him tighter. For a long time they were silent, though the Doctor could hear her racing thoughts as she tried to process all of the information he had shoved at her in such a short period of time. He was content to just hold her, rubbing a soothing arm up and down her back until a singular thought rang out across their bond that had her gasping and him groaning.

We have to tell mum.

The Doctor spun around the console in a whirlwind, Rose clinging to the jumpseat. He could feel her trepidation as they landed, her worry about her mother’s reaction to their news. So he wasn’t surprised in the slightest at her shock upon opening the TARDIS' door and finding them very much not on Earth.

“Think your driving’s a bit more off than usual,” she noted vaguely as he finally stepped away from the console to grab his jacket.

“Is it really?” He gave her a look of wide eyed bewilderment, just as his thoughts inevitably revealed that he had had no intention of making the trip to Jackie’s - yet.

Rose crossed her arms, giving him an unconvincing glare as the Doctor finally met her at the door and stuck his head outside.

“Ah, perfect!” he exclaimed. “Right where I wanted to be.”

“Oh, really? And where’s that then?” his wife asked, finally stepping out of their ship and having a look around. There were rows and rows of stalls and booths as far as the eye could see.

“It’s a bazaar. On an asteroid. Moves around every four cycles to a different asteroid in a different sector. Used to just be a handful of merchants and artisans and performing artists, a sort of circus, if you will, only without the mistreated animals and exploited people. Was called Mz’trak’s Marvelous Moving Menagerie - gotta love that alliteration, absolutely amazing. But as you can see, it grew. Doesn’t have a name now. Too much going on. Still, organized enough to make it’s trip across the quadrant. They span galaxies, Rose Tyler! This is the place to go to find anything you could possibly imagine!”

“Okay,” she said slowly, drawing out the word as she turned back to face him. “And what, exactly, are we lookin’ for that’s so important that you’re putting off visiting mum?”

“Oh, right, see, about that - I thought, maybe, just maaaybe, you’d be able to find something for her here. To, erm, soften the blow, as it were. Butter her up a bit.” Make her less likely to regenerate me, he didn’t say, but he didn’t have to. The thought was pretty much blaring on a loop that his bondmate was unlikely to miss.

“Seriously?! Doctor, if you hide away again and force me to have this talk all on my own, I swear-”

“No, no, I won’t! We’ll do this together, I promise!” he hastened. No need to have two angry Tylers on his hands.

“Honestly, I don’t know why you’re so afraid of her,” Rose said with a roll of her eyes before taking his hand and beginning to walk through the market.

Normally she buzzed up to nearly every stall, wanting to see as many strange and novel alien things as possible, but this time his wife was quickly passing them by, categorizing everything in their immediate vicinity as ‘too alien’. Admittedly, the Doctor hadn’t given that much consideration when he decided that a gift for his mother-in-law would be a good plan.

“It’s a premonition I have, really,” he told her, “that your mum will be the death of me. Unlikely, I’ll give you that, but you never know. Sometimes these things have merit. I was once very good at that kind of thing, seeing the future. Well, not really. More like an unconscious tracking of future timelines that seems like a form of prescience but is really-”

“You are so full of it,” Rose laughed. “But speaking of past yous, I’m not going to regenerate, am I?”

While the Doctor had thought that he’d been very clear in the library earlier, perhaps he hadn’t explained very well. Too much ‘science babble’, probably.

“Nope,” he assured her, popping the ‘p’ and giving her one of his best grins.

“So Bad Wolf didn’t make me into a Time Lord. Just …”

“Bad Wolf didn’t do any such thing,” he frowned. “If you want, I can show you the second by second time stamps of the scans the TARDIS took of you during all that - constant state of danger, there’s hundreds of them. But no, the TARDIS did all of that herself so that you two could become Bad Wolf. If you recall, our ship is a multidimensional alien being that even I don’t completely understand. And she likes you. A lot. Didn’t want you to die.”

He stopped himself, barely, from continuing on (again) about how he should have realized this all ages ago. There was really no point to it, just his wounded ego. Plus, who had time for brooding, anyway?

“Sure she doesn’t just like you a lot?” his wife asked with a smirk. “Y’know, making sure the girl her pilot likes so much has a matching lifespan?”

The Doctor abruptly stopped his near-skipping and pulled Rose into his arms with a growl.

“Oh, I much more than like you, Rose Tyler.”

“That so?” his cheeky wife asked him with a tongue touched grin.

Minx, he chastised telepathically, his mouth now busy as he dipped her into a snog that was likely inappropriate for public, but for once she wasn’t complaining.

“Also,” he added, after breaking the kiss so that she could catch her breath, “it would be Time Lady, you know. And that is a little complicated, now that I think about it. Because you’re not Gallifreyan, but not all Gallifreyan’s are Time Lords or Time Ladies. Then again, you have the bit of genetic jiggery pokery that makes a Gallifreyan a Time, er-”

“Let’s just go with Time Lord, yeah?”

“It’s a hypothetical political correctness jumble,” he muttered with a grimace.

“So I’m a bit like a human Time Lady? Kind of?”

“Kind of. Eh. Doesn’t really matter, though, does it?”

Rose had gone back to scanning the booths, but was quick to turn her sharp gaze back to him. “How could it not matter?”

“Well, I mean, you’re still Rose Tyler. Doesn’t matter to me, what kind of species you call yourself. The important thing is that you’re you, and I get to keep you.”

And the Doctor could tell that she didn’t exactly agree with him, all of the ramifications of this still buzzing around in her head and the impending talk with Jackie making her permanently anxious. But still, she smiled at him and squeezed his hand.

“Yeah, I suppose you’re right.”

Finally some stalls came up that looked promising and his bondmate began looking at things in earnest. As he watched her flit about, the thought began to really settle in. They would be able to stay together, not just for the very short human forever that he had struggled to come to terms with, but for his forever.

The weight of the Universe on his shoulders had never felt lighter.

It suddenly did seem a little bit ridiculous, all of his worries about Jackie’s reaction. At least when it came to him . Over 900 years old, he could (probably) take it. If anything, he was more concerned for Rose. If (or really, it was more likely to be when) her mother reacted poorly, she would undoubtedly be hurt.

Flashes of their ‘marriage announcement’ briefly passed through his mind.

This time, though, he would be there for her. Absolutely no swanning off or hiding or cowering of any sort. Well, minimal cowering. Can’t set the bar too high, knowing he was about to get a smack (even if none of it was actually his fault). It would all be worth it in the end, being able to spend the rest of his life with the woman he loved.

“Do you think mum would like this?” Rose asked, interrupting his chaotic stream of thought.

“What’s that?” The Doctor walked closer to the booth, finally taking notice of his surroundings instead of blindly following his wife. “Oh! These are all made of bazoolium! That’s brilliant!” he exclaimed, touching a large piece that was either intended to be abstract art or a Raqkle Bear about to attack, unsurprised by the neutral temperature. After all there was no weather to speak of on the asteroid.

“Yeah, he was just tellin’ me that they could predict the weather,” she said, gesturing toward the shopkeeper. The Doctor barely spared him a glance before investigating the ones that were combined with wind chimes, surprised when the chimes were actually made of bazoolium as well.

“They’re not incredibly unlike the barometers you lot have, only much more accurate. The truly impressive part is the fact that this property is naturally occurring in the mineral. Plus there’s really not much interpreting to it - if it’s hot, you’ll have a nice sunshine-y day, and if it’s cold there’ll be rain. Or snow, I suppose. But all you have to do is touch it. Definitely simple enough for Jackie to get use of-”

He winced when Rose telepathically zapped him, which he really should have seen coming.

After apologizing, the Doctor (for the most part) kept his mouth shut as she selected a small one that looked as un-alien as possible, something that any of Jackie’s friends would look at and think was some random tchotchke, just a thing and then think nothing of it. As soon as she finished her purchase, he took her hand and reluctantly headed back the way they came.

In a private corner of his mind he had come up with thousands of different ideas for putting this next trip off, but eventually discarded every single one of them (even if some were astonishingly brilliant). His wife wanted to get this over with, so that’s what they were going to do.

If anything, he regretted putting all of their efforts into getting her mother some bauble to put her in a good mood when they should have also been coming up with a plan for distracting her after this ‘talk’.

“Distracting her? How would we possibly distract her?” Rose wondered aloud.

The Doctor felt strangely giddy, knowing that she’d been paying attention to him over the bond. They were starting to get pretty good at not constantly acknowledging all of the thoughts that were projected without real intent, so much so that he sometimes wondered if his wife was listening most of the time. His thoughts were very interesting, after all, so he wasn’t sure how she could ignore them if she wasn’t just tuning it all out.

She rolled her eyes, making it clear that she’d caught all of that as well.

“I don’t know,” he went on, “I’m not sure what would hold her attention, aside from gossip and telly. Maybe we should nip into the future, get some Eastenders DVDs. Or some tabloids. Then again, I doubt your mother could keep her future knowledge a secret and next thing you know, we’ll have a paradox on our hands. Can’t have that.”

Rose laughed as they entered the TARDIS.

“Dunno if it’s really much of a distraction, but I do have some laundry I’ve been meaning to bring over.”

Now it was his turn to roll his eyes. “I refuse to believe your mother actually enjoys doing your laundry. There’s a perfectly good laundry room in the TARDIS. You don’t even have to do much of anything. Just put your clothes down the chute and she’ll do all the rest, even the folding.” And yes, he had told her all of this before, on multiple occasions - every time she had laundry to bring back, in fact.

So the Doctor wasn’t surprised when she said, “It makes her feel useful. She likes doing mum stuff for me.”

She said something along those lines every time. This time, however, his responding ‘fine’ was telepathic, rather than verbal as he began piloting them into the Vortex and she disappeared down the corridor to gather said laundry.

Since he was going to have to wait until Rose was finished before flying them to Jackie’s (let it not be said that he can’t learn a lesson) he almost followed her to their room. But just as he moved away from the console, he sensed that his bondmate could use some privacy while she got her thoughts in order, trying to decide exactly what she was going to say to her mum, not wanting to get into absolutely everything.

So he sat down on the jumpseat, kicked his feet onto the console, and focused on sending soothing emotions over their bond. Eventually, Rose reappeared with her giant red duffle, looking plenty nervous but definitely less so than she’d been before.

“Ready?” he asked, hopping back to his feet.

“No,” she sighed, dropping the bag onto the newly vacated seat before flashing him a wary grin. “Let’s go.”

#dw fanfiction #ficandchips #ten x rose #timepetals #tenrose #dw classic trope event #fandom: doctor who #pairing: rose x doctor #my fic #fic: tangled timelines

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afy2018 · 3 years

Text

Take These Ch. 1

“Take these,” Xavier offered his colleague. He wrapped Svane’s personal journals in twine. “Ask Eliza if you wish to know more about Bulshar… just be careful.”

Nicole accepted the old books then continued their search around the camp. Bodies were strewn around the bloody pass, preserved by the frozen morning and the freshly fallen snow. The remaining Purgatorian soldiers took note of their fallen, carrying them to the front of the jagged pass for the caravan to take. It was the lasting effects of adrenaline that kept Haught from collapsing in the wake of their fief’s mass mourning. By mid-afternoon, everyone returned to the castle, recouping from the previous night’s entanglements. In a weird way, everything felt quite normal as the residents fell back into their previous patterns. De Behr’s men travelled back to London with their minor scrapes and bruises. Doll’s peers seemed to take their time, though as they mourned their colleague’s noble death. Eliza spent her time in the Atrium, the silent heart of the Earp manor recently cleared for usage in the middle of winter. Nicole joined her, awkwardly shuffling through a narrow path of snow.

“How may I help you, Dame Haught?” Eliza inquired, barely acknowledging her presence.

“What do you know of Bulshar?”

“Ah, Xavier told me you’d be asking sometime before I left. I’m surprised that in your training you weren’t informed about his existence,” she continued. “Bulshar Clootie-”

“Clootie?”

“Yes, he’s a cult leader from a prominent family in London who has been executing royal and historical lineages for the past three decades.”

“Is he still active?” Nicole asked, still standing at relaxed attention.

“Very much. He is responsible for massacring many old families mostly in Wales and Ireland. While I was still working in the Royal Army’s special forces, we raided his fortress and found a room filled with various trophies from his victims. We were able to identify eight of the twenty crests.” Eliza informed her. She took a deep breath and asked, “Dolls refused to explain why you were so keen on asking me about Bulshar, so you tell me.”

“I just need to know why his name has come up so frequently in my life.”

“You know, I thought I recognized your last name and colours. The Haughts are an Anglo-Irish family which we believe to be mostly safe from Bulshar’s tirade as the families we’ve identified are Gaelic or Welsh.”

“Does he have any heirs or wives?”

“Most likely yes, but nothing official.”

Nicole’s shoulders slightly slumped at her answer. “If you raided his base, why is he still active?”

“He’s slippery. We’ve lost many a spy by his hand, so when he inevitably found out we were raiding his base, he fled and we still have no clue as to his whereabouts.”

“Any feeling about where he might be? Or anyone who could be connected to him?”

Eliza reflected for a short while and said, “If you find Robert Svane he would know the most… maybe even your friend John Henry Holliday?’

“Why would John know anything?”

“Dolls told me that he was close to the Revenants, he might know a few secrets he hasn’t shared with anyone.” Nicole shifted her weight to the other foot, relaxing from her attention stance even more before finally leaning against the gazebo. Eliza then warned in a slightly more hushed tone, “Be vigilant and careful about who you share information with, Dame Haught. Bulshar has agents of chaos everywhere. Once you begin to investigate him, you’ll find that you can no longer trust anyone, not even the ones you love.” With that last piece of advice, Eliza lazily sighed, her demeanor completely shifting from just a few seconds before, “Anything else you felt you needed to know?”

“No, thank you, Dame,” Nicole bowed, then retreated to the castle.

John Henry Holliday, that’s who she needed to find. She hated searching for him as he was the laziest busy-body she knew. Nicole scoured the manor, first in Wynonna’s office, then down the Eastern wing, North, then South, but he was nowhere to be found. She did, however, happen upon her partner approaching their room.

“You look lost, Cesario” Waverly teased, wheeling her around.

“Cesario?” she questioned. Nicole couldn’t help but smile at her suave action and pecked her forehead.“I’m looking for John.”

“Oh, he’s playing dice at Shorty’s, currently getting rich at Shorty’s,” she remarked. “Is he in trouble?”

“No, actually, he might have some information about Bulshar…”

“Who told you that?”

“Eliza,” Nicole nodded towards the atrium. She mulled over her words and admitted, “If he knows about Bulshar, you may have been correct in thinking that he wasn’t as trustworthy as we originally thought.”

“Well, if he isn’t trustworthy, then why ask him?”

“I mean, he’s bound to say something true,” she guessed.

Waverly bit at the inside of her lip, “Why don’t you hold off on asking him. Wynonna’s known him longer and might help you prepare to call out his fibs when you question him.”

“Yeah, that’d be helpful…” Nicole agreed, fixing her partner’s St. Michael necklace and shirt. “So, if I’m Cesario, then who are you, Olivia or Orsino?”

“I would hope Orsino,” Waverly assured with a reaffirming peck on the lips.

“Where are you off to?”

“Gary needs help with the survivors, so I was going to get some bandages and salve.”

“How is Paul?”

“He’s very shaken. We had to amputate his leg and now… I’m not entirely sure what’s next for him,” she honestly sighed.

“Do you think he’s glad to be alive?” Nicole whispered.

Held back, Waverly asked, “Why? I’m… I’m sure he is.”

“I… don’t know. I was just curious. What would you do if you lost your leg?”

“I would continue my daily activities. Why, what would you want?” she carefully inquired, reaching up to her jaw.

Nicole pulled away, for a brief moment. “I don’t know. I think… I’m going to go ask Wynonna about John.”

Waverly watched her retreat into herself as she escaped their conversation to hide in her sister’s office for the time being. Despite their concerning conversation, she went along with her duties, collecting apothecary supplies to do her part in the reconstruction of their fief. Nicole found her way back to the office where Wynonna was still penning a letter to the Carlo brothers. She glanced up at her with a weak smile.

“Please tell me you brought something.”

“Just myself, and Svane’s dirty secrets,” Nicole explained, pulling the diaries from her satchel. “Wanna take a peak?”

“I’m a tad busy with the dead and all, but make sure to tell me the juiciest bits,” Earp remarked, going back to her letter.

Nicole sat down in the corner and began to pour over the old journals. There were seven in total and they spanned from 1601 to what would most likely lead into this past week. Svane’s writing in the first journal instantly began mentioning not only his father, Björn, but a cultist mentor Nicole assumed to be Bulshar. His writing was mostly chicken scratches, which made reading too difficult in certain passages. Sitting out of the way, Haught caught the various conversations between the ruling Lady and her citizens. Two of which, Pastor Williams and the local gravedigger Jones, were worried about last rites and proper burials in the dead of winter. It became all too real for her, though; and judging by the side glances she earned from Wynonna, it was getting to the young leader, as well. Earp kept a level head throughout the meeting and dipped into the treasury so Jones could bury the dead before they began to decay.

Once they left, Nicole asked, “How are you?”

“Considering I haven’t slept for the past three days, I lost Svane who’s probably going to attack us again, and this battle left three families with dead kids and another four considerably injured, I’m faring quite well,” she huffed. Wynonna locked them in the office and turned to her friend. “I- was it worth the bloodshed? Really, don’t bullshit me like everyone else.”

“I never do,” she admitted, thinking about her words. “I think it was. You dealt with an old foe who has been attacking and slaughtering your family for the past, what, four generations?”

“Six.”

“Exactly.”

“But was it worth doing that? I was prepared to execute a man. Could I really live with that blood on my hands? I know he killed my sister and father, but was he actually a bad man? I can’t help but think there was another way to do this and now I don’t think we can ever go back. You know in all of the years, the treaties and agreements, disarmaments and land disputes, the Earps have never attacked the Svanes like this,” Wynonna spiraled.

“I think there were only a few possible outcomes to your situation. In his anger and bloodlust, Svane could have changed his mind, but considering the ultimatums he gave you that really didn’t seem like an option, you offer your line and give your people over to a new unstable rule, you give yourself over and he returns to eliminate your issue, or you fight back and rid of him.”

“But I didn’t do that. I could have just killed him right there and then, but… I wanted to make a spectacle of it. Am I as bad as Robert?”

“If Svane were to return in any capacity, what would you do?”

“I would offer an agreement to co-rule over this land.”

“Do you think he would accept that?”

“I don’t know,” Wynonna pondered.

“I don’t know either. For the first time, I feel rather lost. I have another lead to who I really am, but I feel like I’m floating around in the ocean like a bottle with a deadly message inside.”

“What have you found so far?”

“According to everyone I’ve asked, Bulshar is a dangerous man with an ever-growing cult that has massacred many important families back home. He knows Svane, according to the journals, and somehow, there’s a link to me.” Nicole wrapped the diaries back up and placed them in her satchel. “I’m going to take a break, I just need to clear my head. I suggest you do the same. You need to sleep and clear your mind if you plan on leading your people through this.”

“Maybe it’s just insomnia, but I’m already missing Robert. He made living here exciting,” Wynonna joked. “Hey, can you keep this between us? I don’t need people knowing their leader is weak.”

“You are not weak, Wynonna.”

“I feel weak, then.”

Nicole went to open the door, the lock getting in the way.

“It’s locked,” Earp informed her.

“Yup, I know.”

“It’s also pull not push when you’re ready,” she chuckled.

“You ass,” Nicole joked on her way out.

“I’m gonna take that as a compliment!”

“How is that a compliment?”

“Because I have a great one!”

Nicole shook her head with that vibrant smile as she walked down the now candle-lit hallway to her room. The afternoon sun set by her shoulder, casting bizarre shadows into the old manor. In the tranquil building, every emotion began to rear its ugly head. In all of her years arresting, fighting, and inevitably killing, Nicole had never felt so affected by her actions. It may have had to do with the sheer intimacy she had with the people she was not only fighting for but sleeping alongside. Her fears suddenly came back with the dwindling light and she no longer knew how to cope with the losses. Returning to her room, Waverly stood by her side of the bed, pulling up a bundle of bandages and a jar of salve.

“Hey, sweetie!” she brightly exclaimed. “I know you’re going to say you’re fine, but we should really bandage you back up.”

“Thank you,” Nicole smiled, dropping her satchel on the floor and locking their door.

She approached her partner, taking the objects out of her hands to embrace her. Waverly stumbled back for a moment before fully wrapping her arms around her, too. The youngest Lady of the castle clung to her, their hearts being the only sound besides the crackling fire.

She slipped her hands to the back of her nape and waist. “Are you okay?” Nicole let out a deep sigh and tucked her head further against her neck. “It’s going to be okay, whatever you’re worried about.”

“I know because you’re safe.” Haught pulled back enough to regard her deep Caribbean sea blue eyes. Her eyes darted around her features, wishing she had seen them their first time together. She tucked a stray hair back behind her ear and directed to the medical supplies, “Is it okay if we save this stuff for later?”

Waverly glanced at the items on the table. “Oh, yeah, of course.”

Nicole leaned over to blow out the candle, getting tugged down into another chaste kiss by her partner. She smiled against her lips and wrapped her hand around the back of her neck to play with the soft hairs at her nape. Her hands roamed back under Waverly’s jaw before finally pulling away and extinguishing the candle, now the only source of light being from the dim fireplace. She settled back into her place in bed, spooning against her side. Waiting proved more virtuous than she would have thought, even with their first encounter being slow and awkward in the dark.

“What have you learned about your past?” Waverly whispered into the quiet room.

“Eliza told me that his reach is far and effective, so I should be careful of whom I trust,” Nicole nonchalantly answered. “And now realizing that his reach is more permanent in this area than I had previously known, I’m not entirely sure who I can trust here.”

“Well, is Eliza herself trustworthy? What if she’s just making you run around in circles?”

“Well, if she isn’t worthy of trust, then who is? She worked on his case, so if anyone knows the unbiased facts, she would.”

“I’m just saying, his own spies may reach into the army.”

“Hm,” Nicole considered.

“Nicole?” a wary voice called with a brisk knock on the door. “It’s Wynonna, we need to talk. I know you’re awake still so get dressed and come to my office, okay?”

“Yes, ma’am,” she instinctively responded.

“Don’t,” Waverly quietly begged with an enticing kiss.

Between pecks, she chuckled, “I don’t want to anger your sister.” Pulling on her pants, Nicole shuffled around the dim room, taking her satchel with Robert’s diaries. “I swear I’ll be back in a couple of minutes, okay?” she promised with a firm tightening of her belt.

“Hair.”

“Oh, thank you,” Nicole responded with another brief peck as she pulled it in a tight regulation bun.

Haught escaped her room, quietly closing the door behind herself and walking down the candle-lit corridor to her friend’s office. She could hear hushed voices trickle down the hallway, their words completely unintelligible until she stood in the open doorway. Augustine, Seanan, and Gareth the apothecary standing in a semicircle behind the desk with Wynonna twiddling her thumbs in the corner. They all had stern faces, even their local tavern owner’s normally bright demeanor was far more severe than Nicole would have liked. Various situations raced through her head, maybe they were going to send her away? Did they not like her relationship with Waverly? Was Robert already back? Was she getting framed? The last scenario proved much closer to the issue they seemed to have.

“We were told that you got your hands on Robert Svane’s personal journals,” Augustine began.

“Yes, madam,” she confirmed.

“Would you please hand them over, young knight?”

Nicole began to reach into her satchel, then stopped, “Why?”

“Those are revolutionary contraband and must be destroyed,” Gareth nodded. Nicole furrowed her brows at his response as he was chastised by McCready.

“May I please hold onto these? I have some personal matters that these may appease. I swear only my eyes will see these words.”

“Knight Officer Haught, I am commanding you to hand them over,” Augustine repeated with an even more demanding tone. Her dark eyes were like a void, their severity thickening the tense air that already clouded the room. Nicole glanced at Wynonna for help, receiving no reaction to the scene unfolding before her. “There should be no hesitation to my order, soldier.”

“No.”

“Wynonna,” she shifted to her niece with an expectant nod.

She approached her friend, reaching for the satchel until Nicole tugged it out of reach. “Don’t do this, Nicole.”

“What is going on? Why can’t I study these? I just need a day with them, then they can be destroyed,” the young knight pleaded.

“We cannot trust that you may not copy them, Haught,” Gareth ruthlessly explained.

“This may be the only chance for me to find out who I am, please, just twenty-four hours, and I’ll destroy them in front of you.” Seanan glanced at Nicole with somber eyes before looking at his friends. “Shorty, please!”

“Wynonna,” Augustine commanded.

Doing as her aunt commanded, the older sister tugged at her satchel once more, trying to unbutton it to retrieve the books. Nicole shoved her away with a firm hand against her sternum before racing to the safety of her chambers. She heard loud footsteps echo down the corridor, gaining speed and encroaching upon her as Nicole fumbled with figuring out which door was hers.

“Nicole!” she hissed in the darkness. “Wait!” She firmly took her wrist and yanked her from the door. “Stop.”

“I need these, you know I do. It’s the only way I can find out who I am, what Bulshar has to do with me.”

“Stop,” she commanded in a louder tone. Wynonna glanced around their position and whispered, “Find some random journals to burn instead of Svane’s. I don’t understand their significance either, but obviously, there’s dirt in there about the Earps that they don’t want to see the light of day.”

“Fine, but I am not going to hand them over,” Nicole finished, rushing to the other side of her door and locking it. She rested her head against the old wood, waiting for Wynonna’s footsteps to fade away.

~~~~~~~~~~

Nicole walked down the main street, feeling as if everyone was looking at her. She clutched her satchel tightly, glancing at her surroundings to search for John. With the previous night’s concerning meeting, she wondered even more about Wynonna’s reflection if Robert was a purely bad person. He may have ruled his people as a dictator, but were his people or his action in the wrong? Haught pinched the bridge of her nose and continued to Shorty’s inn, catching Holliday playing dice. He and his opponent were playing for peanuts as the mere achievement of beating John Henry was enough to build a good rapport with the middleman. Nicole patiently waited for the game to end to question him.

Beating out yet another young farmer, John turned to his colleague, “Would you like to try your hand, dear knight?”

“I have some other things in mind. What do you know about the Revenants, who are their allies? Who were they as a people?”

“Are,” Holliday corrected, flipping his dice to show the same number of pips. “But this isn’t the safest place to talk about them. I swindled some extra coin, why don’t we share a pint. I think we all deserve a drink for the horrors we endured. What do you say?”

“I would say I need a beer,” she huffed, calling over the barmaid for a round of ale.

“Why the sudden interest?”

“Maybe I feel remorseful for the deaths we totalled.”

“I hope this doesn’t offend you, Dame Haught, but you would be terrible at poker.”

“It does, but it stands true,” she smirked as they were served. “I do, however, think that we may have made a mistake and now I am being scapegoated.”

“How?”

Nicole pondered how much she should divulge before answering, “I spoke with a few of the town's elders and now I may be a target of future harassment.”

“What do you suppose you’ll do about it?”

“I’m not sure.” Haught briefly paused and looked up at John. “I have many questions for you, Holliday.”

“Ask again in a more private venue,” he warned. “That is if it pertains to your initial question.”

“It does.”

“Day drinking, I see,” Wynonna interrupted. “Can I speak with you, Haught?”

“Can it wait until I’m done with this?”

“Yes,” she nodded, plucking the stein out of her hands and finishing it off for her. “Ready to go?”

“Yeah,” Nicole huffed in annoyance. “I’ll be seeing you around, John.”

“I would hope so,” he briefly nodded as a new opponent came to try their hand.

“Did you really have to chug my beer, it was free.”

“Wait, I’ll explain later.”

“I miss when everything was public knowledge.”

Wynonna nodded in agreement as they silently walked to her office where she produced several old novels she had taken from various rooms in the manor.

“Hide Svane’s journals… somewhere and have these ones on hand for when we burn them,” she explained.

Nicole took the stack and asked, “Do you have any further explanation for why your aunt is so protective about these?”

“No, but I really do not want to be on her bad side, and neither should you.”

“Yeah, Lady McCready, is, uhh… fucking scary,” she agreed on her way out. “Thank you.”

Nicole went through her room and began tearing through the various bookcases to hide the real journals. She wrapped them up and placed them under the bed, now going back through their spots to blend them in with the other books. It was an obvious place but hidden well enough that even Nicole knew that she would have to search through the novels to find Svane’s. She popped up from her spot by the bed when Waverly entered, going straight to the wardrobe.

“My dear Orsino,” she called out, making Waverly jump.

“Oh! What are you doing? Wait, you’re sober right? Not playing drunk hide-n-seek again?”

“Sober, yes. Are you going somewhere?”

“Yes, I was going out for a ride, would you like to join me?” she invited, approaching her partner.

“I wish I could,” Nicole smiled, standing back up and pecking her. “But I still need to talk with John, you know, figure out some truths… but maybe another day.”

“Okay, I’m going to hold you to that, then.”

“I hope you will,” she smiled, anxiety finally leaving her system when Waverly wrapped her arms around her waist. Nicole took a deep breath even as her heart fluttered when she glanced down to peck her forehead. “But I must speak with John, so I would love to help you get ready and ride out of town.”

“Is he expecting you at a specific time?”

Nicole sucked her teeth then remarked, “No, he is not, Gary isn’t needing your assistance any time soon?” Waverly backed away to lock their door with a cheeky grin on her lips. “Alright then.”

“Are you sure you need to go?” Waverly bargained

“While I would love to spend all day with you, I really do want to get some answers out of Holliday,” her partner blushed even as she was trapped between the desk, hands still gently meandering over her ribs and chest. Coaxed into another amorous kiss, Nicole chuckled against her lips as she was pressed into the desk again. “Okay, okay, I need to leave before it gets dark.”

They dressed back into their outer clothes, Waverly now dawned in her riding attire. “Just a quick question, because I hate to ruin a moment, but are you okay? You seemed a bit shaken by last night’s… whatever that was.”

“Yes, I’m fine,” Nicole affirmed, slinging the satchel over her shoulder and standing before the door. “I love you, just so you know.”

“I love you, too.”

“I mean it,” she smiled on her way out.

“Wait, I thought you were going to ride out with me?”

“Another time.”

She found her way back through the manor and to the main street, spotting John talking with a young bath maid. Nicole felt a sudden tug on her shoulder, making her wheel around, face to face with the reigning lady of their land. Wynonna had a firm grasp on the satchel, looking up with a weirdly calm demeanor. Haught pulled the satchel back with surprising difficulty.

“What are you doing?” she questioned with another tug.

“Staging a fight,”

#wynonna earp #wayhaught #waverly earp #nicole haught #knight au #renaissance au #wayhaught fanfic #wynonna earp fanfic #fanfic #fanfiction #wlw #lgbt #lesbian #sfw fanfic #sfw

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zenonaa · 4 years

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Fandom: Dangan Ronpa: Trigger Happy Havoc, Dangan Ronpa - All Media Types Rating: Teen And Up Audiences Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply Relationships: Fukawa Touko/Togami Byakuya Characters: Fukawa Touko, Togami Byakuya Additional Tags: plus the rest of the cast post chapter 3, togafukaweek2020 Series: Part 1 of TogaFuka Week 2020

Comments: Day 1 for TogaFuka Week! I tried to hit both prompts with this (Pining and Enclosed Spaces). Enjoy! :-)

***

‘Stir-crazy’ is an informal term referring to when a person becomes restless or distraught due to prolonged confinement or routine. For example, to use the term in a sentence, ‘being trapped in Hope’s Peak made several students go stir-crazy’.

Alternatively, ‘Celes went stir-crazy because she couldn’t stand having the same routine every day, so she orchestrated the murders of two of her classmates’.

And, for a final example, ‘Byakuya was absolutely not going stir-crazy, but that would explain some thoughts he began to have’.

After the third trial, the fourth floor of the school opened up, which one would have thought would help. Maybe not the classrooms, not without actual lessons going on, but the chemistry lab proved a little more interesting, offering vitamins to make one healthy and chemicals to make one dead. Potted flowers sat on desks in the faculty room where computers used to be - Monobear once quipped ‘plants are way better examples of how to grow up than computers’ - and the music room housed a stage, a piano and other instruments Byakuya knew how to play.

Makoto even found a strange photograph of three of their deceased friends messing about with a camera. Yet, those pieces of excitement didn’t stop the strange, intrusive thoughts scratching at the walls of Byakuya’s mind.

In the faculty room, Byakuya rubbed a silky petal of a sunflower between his thumb and forefinger, a shadow carved into his brow in thought. The flowers seemed out of place. No, they were out of place, and not just because of their location. No matter how many times he came here, they didn’t blend into their grey surroundings. They stood out. Seemed perky. Bright. Healthy.

Did they regularly get exposed to sunlight...?

He released the petal. Within seconds, a chill pattered down his neck. When he turned around, a solitary figure in the doorway confronted his view. His lips pursed.

“Fukawa,” he acknowledged in monotone.

By now, he had become accustomed to her following him like his shadow, to the point where he thought he could sense her whenever she lurked nearby. Touko jolted and stood to attention. The blank look in her eyes cleared, an invisible hand smearing away the condensation in her clouded gaze.

“Y-Yes, Byakuya-sama?” she said, licking her lips and prompting him to grimace. She had been drooling.

His mouth remained condensed as he watched Touko’s tongue sweep over her lips, lips that caressed each other, and when she gulped, sheening saliva, a weight in his gut was knocked out of place, like the lights in a dark room suddenly flicked on.

When they first became acquainted with each other, he nearly always sent Touko on her way after exchanging only a few sentences, but more recently, Byakuya permitted Touko to be in his presence for greater lengths of time, so long as she was on standby in case he wanted something, or at least didn’t disturb him too much. They even had sane conversations sometimes. Interesting ones, in fact. Byakuya even let her feed him candy once at his bedside while he read.

However, that had been then, and even more recently than that, just her existence crept onto his nerves. Inevitable, what with them all having to spend so much time around each other. Inevitable, what with her doing things like this in front of him.

Like now, that stupid grin of hers had returned to her face, and he had to clench his fists to distract heat away from his face. He adjusted his glasses. Stuck up his chin. Pushed his shoulders back.

“Instead of loitering, why don’t you make yourself useful?” he asked her in an authoritative tone. She stirred.

“Use... ful?” repeated Touko, still partly submerged in whatever thoughts had her entranced.

“Yes, the word, not a random noise that sounds like it,” he said. He placed one hand on his hip and slightly jutted out his hips to that side. “There might be something lying around the school that could prove beneficial to me. Who knows, maybe you’ll prove yourself useful.”

For many, his remark would have got under the recipient’s skin, or pierced them in the eye and caused it to twitch, but Touko nodded and clasped her hands together. Her twitching didn’t stem from annoyance. Something quite the opposite.

“Of course!” she said, and her lips stretched out to create a nauseating-sized crescent. She cupped her cheeks with both hands. “I won’t disappoint you. I’ll prove I’m not a piece of coal, but a diamond in the rough. I’ll-”

As she spoke, her lips sprung from one extreme to another, from wide like the wingspan of a bird of prey to puckered together like a rose and back again, and Byakuya felt motion sick just watching her. Like he was losing his balance, like the ground would slip from underneath him and he might lean forward, fall into her, land his hands on her shoulders, land his chest against hers and land his mouth on her chapped pink petals of lips, even though he was standing very, very still.

Suddenly, one of his feet lurched forward, but he stopped himself from overbalancing. Something akin to pain shot up that leg to his chest. He tore his eyes off her writhing mouth and glared. Apparently, she hadn’t noticed the flicker in his demeanour, continuing to gush at him.

“Today, preferably!” he demanded, with a slight crack halfway through that he hoped she wouldn’t notice.

Touko squawked, and after a bow, she sped out of the room. Byakuya strode over to the door. He could no longer see her, and as he shut it, he let out a breath he hadn’t realised he had been holding.

Honestly, that girl was a pest. Creeping on his nerves like that...

The next time he saw Touko in the cafeteria at dinnertime. For a while, he had avoided joining the other students to eat, and though he ate with them more regularly now, he didn’t do so because he felt any sense of camaraderie with them, but so he could check on the remaining competition.

Sakura wasn’t in the cafeteria, to his approval. Monobear had recently outed her as his mole, and Byakuya had no interest in spending time around her. Whenever he was outside of his room, he had to keep checking the map on his Electronic Student ID Card to make sure she wasn’t too close by.

Aoi, Sakura’s close friend, was in the cafeteria though, and when Byakuya entered, she glared but said nothing. He needed to monitor her too, someone so easily swayed by emotion, but with the others present, she couldn’t do anything he needed to worry about. Makoto and Kyouko offered glances at him that he rebuffed, Yasuhiro chirped his name, which he ignored, and the gloomy cloud over Touko’s face parted as her smile beamed through.

Byakuya didn’t greet any of them, obtaining his dinner from the kitchen and walking straight back into the cafeteria where he seated himself at a neighbouring table to the others.

“Togami-chi!” Yasuhiro called out, even though they weren’t that far apart. “Back me up here.”

When Byakuya just continued to frown, Makoto spoke instead, raising a crooked finger.

“Hagakure-kun, I don’t think your idea will work. You’re more likely to harm yourself than corrode through anything.”

“Yeah,” went Aoi, her brows knitted together. “Why would Monobear leave us chemicals that can help us escape?”

“Because he doesn’t know the makeup of certain corrosives,” replied Yasuhiro, flapping his hand. “The mastermind probably thinks it’s not possible, ‘right? But if we get the right chemicals, we can melt through the plates covering the windows and escape.”

Touko glowered. “If you really believed that, why haven’t you already done it?”

Byakuya’s attention drifted over to Touko. Her eyes were narrowed, but he could still catch their colour - grey, tinged with violet. As she gestured with her hands, her head bobbed about, and light bounced off the lenses of her glasses, sometimes hiding her eyes from view for a moment. For such a mopey girl, she sure could flaunt a range of expressions in such a small amount of time. Then there were the times she didn’t mope. When she was with Byakuya. Those smiles. Those blushes. Those laughs, like nails down a chalkboard.

“Anyway, I looked at the contents myself,” said Touko. She wrinkled her nose. “There are supplements and poisons, none that can damage thick sheets of metal. Of course, you’re entitled to try...”

“Aw, thanks, Fukawa-chi!” said Yasuhiro brightly. Aoi growled, but it sounded a lot like a whine.

“Don’t thank her!” Aoi scolded. She angled herself toward Touko, looking annoyed. “As usual, Fukawa-chan, you’re being a big downer. At least Hagakure’s trying to help.”

Yasuhiro’s grin wavered. He hesitated. “... Um... Am I supposed to thank you, Asahina-chi?”

Touko snorted.

“Thank you?” Touko repeated with scorn.

“Wait, you’re thanking me now? Okay, I’m officially confused,” mumbled Yasuhiro, scratching his head.

“Hagakure wants praise for having this idea but doesn’t have the balls to try it,” she explained. She rolled her eyes and shifted her weight on her chair. “In fact, could it be he’s discussing it here where there are surveillance cameras because he desperately wants Monobear to overhear and stop it? Then he can think to himself, ‘my idea would have worked’ and no one would be able to dispute it.”

Everyone considered what she suggested. Touko finished up her rant by shooting a chilly look at Yasuhiro, who cowered.

Kyouko inclined her head, resting her chin in her hand. “I’ve also browsed the stock in the chemistry lab and though I’m not a scientist, I don’t think there is anything that can help us there. If anything, Monobear would want us to try for its own amusement.”

Up to this point, Byakuya had stayed out of the conversation, but now he turned his gaze to Kyouko.

“You say that, but none of us know what you are,” he said. No one knew her title. For all they knew, she could have been another mole. Kyouko glanced at him and gave a vague shrug.

After that, the conversation seemed to draw to a close. Yasuhiro pouted and resumed eating, deflated. The rest of the group followed suit. Touko huffed, and Byakuya’s eyes drifted back over to her again. She picked up her chopsticks but rather than pick at any of the rice, she twitched them in her grip, staring into space. Byakuya, holding his own chopsticks, pinched a tofu block, but he didn’t eat it, hovering it in front of his mouth while his other hand propped up his cheek. Instead of eating it, he surveyed Touko’s features. Rather than investigate what she might have been looking at for himself, he tried to figure out what she was stewing over by looking at her.

Not out of concern, of course. Curiosity. And he had a good reason for it. When he first met Touko, he dismissed her as a stuttering high school girl with a persecution complex, who wrote frivolous romance novels that many people lapped up. But there was more to her. She had an alter called Genocider Syo, who murdered various men without getting caught, but even then there was more. Much more. Despite her strange ramblings, Touko was intelligent and could even be insightful, and he had to admit she had to have talent - her novels could and did make society fall in love with fishermen, for one thing. Not everyone could create a trend like that with written words.

“Togami-chi?” said Yasuhiro.

Touko picked up a piece of tofu with her chopsticks, popped it between her lips, and returned her chopsticks to her bowl. Today, dinner was mapo tofu, a simple dish to make that could be served in one bowl. She chewed, unfocused. The sight wasn’t a pleasant one - he reasoned that was why his stomach knotted the more he studied Touko. Her lips rubbed together, her cheeks bulged and caved in at intervals, and she didn’t always close her mouth completely.

“Togami-kun?” said Makoto.

It was a disgusting sight. Disgusting, from her mole to her fluttering lashes around her grey eyes, to the grain of rice abandoned next to her lips, to -

“Togami-kun?” said Makoto again, and this time, Byakuya tensed. He looked around.

Everyone else in the cafeteria stared at him, includingTouko.

“What?” said Byakuya.

Yasuhiro draped his hand across the back of his neck.

“I think you zoned out there,” remarked Yasuhiro with a lop-sided smile as he scratched at his neck. “We were asking if you’ve been through the chemistry lab yet.”

“Is something on your mind?” Kyouko chimed in, flashing a smirk.

Heat rose to Byakuya’s face. He gritted his teeth, told them he was trying to tune out their idiocy, and resumed his dinner, contributing no more to any conversation.

Though Byakuya had Sakura and to a lesser extent Aoi to be aware of, if he hid in his room all the time, they would think they scared him and consider him an easy target. If he showed them he wasn’t afraid, then they would be wary that he was prepared for an attack.

In theory.

Byakuya planned to spend the rest of the evening in the library, but first, he took a cold shower to rejuvenate himself after getting so distracted during dinner. When he arrived at the library, he saw Touko at one of the desks. Both were avid readers, so her presence didn’t surprise him, but he paused for a few seconds.

She seemed not to have noticed him, focused on the notebook she was writing fervently in. He shut the door quietly behind himself and walked over to a bookcase, careful of his footfalls, and soon found the book he had started on his last visit, the back half of the dust jacket tucked between the pages to mark where he had last read up to. Taking it off the shelf, he seated himself at a different table where Touko lay just outside his field of vision.

However, even though he positioned himself to hide her from his view, that didn’t mean he couldn’t hear her.

One would think Touko of all people would know how to behave in a library, but she mumbled unintelligibly under her breath. Her mutterings would warble, in pitch, or volume, or both, grating like the squeak of fingers down a window. He tried to concentrate on the shallow detective novel in his possession, but his mind kept resurfacing. Peppered in were coughs, and as time wore on, each noise throbbed in the back of his head. Sometimes, she sniffed or gulped and he could visualise her lips twisting, see her stubby-nailed hand nudging up her glasses and her face scrunching up for seconds at a time.

At one point, she panted, and his mind conjured an image of Touko, pink and sweaty, licking her lips before leaning over the desk toward him, their eyes shutting slowly...

Byakuya set down his book. With his shoulders slightly slouched forward, he wiped the heel of his palm up his forehead, trying to scrape off the mental image manifesting in his mind. Touko released a whine, low, bubbling. Bubbling in her throat, bubbling in his chest. The noise coiled around him. Gripped his neck and tightened, and then he realised his thighs were clenched together. Had been. Still were.

He soared to his feet. His chair rasped and fell backward. She shrieked and popped into view.

“B-Byakuya-sama!” she said, a pen clasped tightly in her fist. Fear dissolved into elation. “I t-thought I smelled you...!”

“You obviously knew I was here,” he snapped. “That’s why you were making those disgusting noises.”

She clapped her hands over her mouth. Whacked herself in the face with her pen by doing so. “I-If I’d known you were here, I would have controlled myself!”

Byakuya jutted out his chin. The back of his eyes burned.

“You knew what you were doing the whole time. I’m telling you, you won’t get to me so... so just give up!” he snarled.

And with that, he trounced out of the library. Trying to concentrate in such a dusty, dim environment was hard enough without her spluttering and snivelling too. Those noises disgusted him. Still did. As they should.

As he approached his room, he slowed down. Almost stopped halfway down the last corridor.

Touko’s noises hadn’t always provoked such vivid imagery.

For the next few days, Byakuya did his best to avoid her, but that proved difficult with everyone forced to share the same facility, the same space. The only places he could be sure to avoid her were in his dorm and in the male changing room, but he could only spend so long sitting on his bed or a wooden bench in a tiled room. Therefore, every day, they both bumped into each other in the same dining room, where she contorted her face and slurped on her own saliva, they met in the same classrooms where she cooed his name and drooled, and they sat in the same library, where she licked her lips and giggled to herself. Him getting distracted by her was bad enough, but the situation worsened when she realised he was watching her. When that happened, she would set her eyes on him and grin widely and babble and squeeze her hands together.

One night, he went to the sauna to unwind after finishing a book in his room, but when he passed through the noren and emerged into the locker room, feeling sure he would be alone here, he halted and lost all thought.

Across the room stood Touko, her hair freed from her practical braids, now a dark, shimmering sheet hugging her skinny frame.

Her hair, right now, was not straw-like, not wild or tamed into braids, but smooth and unrestrained. He could run his fingers through them with ease. Curl a lock around his finger, if he wanted.

The room was properly lit, and he stiffened as he noticed Touko was in just a towel. Touko lacked her glasses and seemed to squint as she fiddled with the top of the towel that covered her chest. He stared, frozen, silent. Blank.

She lifted her head a smidgen, though she still didn’t appear to have perceived him despite her previous boasts about her sense of smell, and the movement, to his horror, made her towel shift. Drop slightly. Thankfully, not enough to show anything.

Byakuya swallowed. Correction. All this was mostly to his horror. To a certain part of his body, it seemed to be to the opposite of that. Horror.

He backed out. All throughout this, she didn’t indicate that she had detected him, and he wanted to keep it that way. On his way back to his room, striding as fast as he could without running, he didn’t cross paths with anyone, and he closed the door behind himself as soon as he got inside.

At least now he could be by himself. Be somewhere she couldn’t get to. Byakuya took his glasses off and lay down on the bed, facing upward, not bothering to change out of his uniform. He shut his eyes. His chest heaved like the sea before a storm.

Here, in the dark, alone, he could rid himself of Touko. Touko... with her long, mahogany hair, styled in twin braids that together with her owl-eye glasses and dark purple sailor uniform, was entirely fitting for someone enrolled at the school with the title of Super High School Level Literary Girl. Not only that, but she smelled like an old, damp book too, now that he was thinking about it. He had found her stench putrid at first, and his insistence that she washed herself was not unjustified, but, he thought, he had since become used to her aroma, a consequence of them being in close quarters for so long. One had to adapt to survive.

So while before he spurned her smell, though it still made him wince, he could stand it. Even if it was still just as disgusting, musty...!

Byakuya paused. Her trip to the sauna would have stripped that smell from Touko’s body, and as he lay in bed, he thought about her standing in the locker room, clad only in a... a towel. Even now, he could see her, with her furrowed brow and trembling lips. Could see her hair cascade forward, pile either side of him. See her face light up as her gaze fell on him, as she drank in his presence. He reached up but his hands phased through where she was, because she wasn’t there. The apparition of her relaxed and smirked, straddling him, and stooped her head.

The towel slipped. Byakuya flinched.

Too much. He imagined her back in her uniform. Even slapped on her braids. And yet, that didn’t deter her. Him. She smiled coyly, drawing a circle on his chest. Smiled that disgusting smile of hers, that oozed saliva, and laughed a low and throaty laugh.

Byakuya swallowed. Shivered. She glided her hand lower.

With a sigh, he pushed the back of his head deeper into his pillow, then froze. The saliva from Touko’s ghost receded from his face and she disappeared from over him. Byakuya jerked his hand away from his crotch. Revulsion dug its claws into the back of his throat. He stumbled out of bed and went to the adjoined bathroom where he splashed water on his face.

This couldn’t go on. Something had to be done. Byakuya couldn’t let himself fall victim to any more of her ploys.

Even after he gulped in air and steadied himself, grasping the edge of the sink, his heart still hammered away. And because he was locked up inside this place, he couldn’t go out for fresh air or even open a window.

He tried the corridor, but it felt almost as oppressive as his room.

Everyone would probably be in their rooms now. Byakuya decided to prepare himself a cup of tea. That would at least give him something to focus on, if only temporarily. The cafeteria was shut, but he knew there were tea bags in the storage room. His footsteps echoed a bit, but he didn’t falter. Kept his eyes forward.

When he arrived outside of the storage room, he squared his shoulders, trying to flake off the tension in his body, and opened the door.

Any hopes of distracting himself were quashed when his gaze fell on Touko.

Fortunately, she was fully dressed in her sailor uniform.

She rose sharply out of her crouched form and turned toward the door, eyes wide. Frightened. Relief flooded through her features as she realised who had made the door creak.

“Byakuya-sama?” she said, some surprise still lingering on her face. Apparently, she wasn’t completely put at ease.

Of all the spots she could have stood in, she had stationed herself at the shelving unit where he recalled there to be boxes of rose hip tea bags. His eyes stayed on her as he sauntered over. Touko didn’t retreat, dodge to the side or cower, watching him just as closely, even as he stopped in front of her. She tipped back her head to fit his face in her vision. Had the audacity to blush.

“It’s late, isn’t it?” she said, loosening up enough for a smirk. “Everyone else will be asleep... unaware of what transpires here...”

He breathed in. Her usual smell of books was gone. Of course it was. Touko had been at the public bath. In its place, he picked up a faint scent of lilac, mixed with a creamy, vanilla and almond-like fragrance.

Now, in theory this should have been an improvement. People preferred a fresh, floral smell to an old, worn book left out on a rainy day. Yet, when her new smell wafted up his nose, it felt acidic. Wrong.

“Are you okay, Byakuya-sama?” she asked, losing the smirk. She kneaded her fingers. “Y-Your face... You look unwell...! Do I need to nurse you?”

The double entendre must have been intended because her lips squirmed with pleasure, curling up at the ends. Byakuya’s face tensed. Touko always had some quip or remark ready for him that often left him at a loss for words. Also, she was in no position to comment on his face when she had hers, with wide, bulging eyes, chapped lips and a twitching nose. She even had the nerve to chuckle and continue twiddling her fingers.

“What about your face?” he sneered. “Your wide, bulging eyes... chapped lips... and twitching nose.”

That knocked her grin off. Concern troubled her features now.

“S-Should I get plastic surgery?” she asked, fidgeting more.

“It’s not just your face, it’s your personality too.” Byakuya raised his voice slightly. “You think you’re clever, trying to seduce me. And stop playing with your fingers like that!”

He grabbed her wrists. Touko jumped. The skin under her wide eyes was stained the colour of milk tea, shadows that stood out on her pale face. His hold on her arms slackened, but she didn’t even attempt to shake him off. A shred of teeth peeked out between her lips, and that familiar sensation of nausea rolled in the pit of his stomach. Fogged his head. Made his nerves vibrate with electricity.

She was disgusting. Vile. Sickening, and absolutely irresistible.

Acting on impulse, he leaned in.

Byakuya led with his tongue and slipped it into her mouth, and it was perhaps luck that she didn’t bite down in surprise. Touko gasped. The inside of her mouth tasted sour: her tongue, her teeth and her hot breath, yet though he shuddered, he didn’t withdraw. She didn’t shy away either despite the painfully amateur kiss, rooted in place.

Their glasses unceremoniously clacked together and remained askew afterwards. He wrapped an arm around her, pulling her closer and knocking their glasses even more out of place. From the onset of the kiss, his skin crawled at how bits of plaque fell loose from her teeth, how already too much saliva crashed together in their mouths and how everything was warm and moist, but rather than deter him, he melted into her. She hugged him back, breathing noisily. For a third time, their glasses got in the way, but this time, Byakuya had enough sense to remove his glasses, then hers, placing them on a shelf while maintaining the kiss, and he eagerly returned his hands to her body.

Touko adjusted her angle. Her nose bumped against his but they took it in stride. Panting, she shifted more, pulling back a little to give them a second to breathe. His tongue receded from her mouth.

A second was all that both allowed.

Their lips reunited within moments, slobbering over each other. Revolting. Incredible. He could only taste saliva. A lot of it. As they kissed harder, they grew clumsy, and their lips fell in and out of place. At one point, some of her hair slipped between them. To remove it, he licked and scratched lightly at her face with his hand, all while continuing to kiss her, and once he could no longer feel it tangling on his tongue, he pushed his lips more firmly into hers.

Touko’s lips stayed shut, and his tongue remained in his mouth. This way seemed to work better, without the tongue. Both of them groaned, clinging to the other. He opened his eyes briefly, but he couldn’t see anything in particular, just her face within a haze, so he shut them again. Besides, he didn’t need to use his eyes for this. His eyes being closed didn’t prevent him from feeling her hands slither up and cup his cheeks. Didn’t stop him from rolling his lips over hers.

They stood still, barely moving, just breathing, existing, with Touko’s back pressing against the shelving unit behind her, but after a while, the buildup of saliva became too much and he withdrew. He rather ungraciously released her and swallowed without thinking, cringing immediately at all the saliva.

Opposite him, Touko placed her fingers lightly against her lips.

“What...?” she mumbled, dazed.

Byakuya’s breaths racked through his body, and he wanted to say that he had slipped and fallen for her. Into her. Fallen into her.

He really needed to get some sleep.

“There. Are you satisfied now?” he asked curtly, and he grabbed his glasses off the shelf. Then he seized a box of tea bags. “That’s what you wanted, isn’t it?”

His footfalls barked as he stomped away. The door creaked as he opened it.

“W-Well...” Touko went, and he made the mistake of hesitating. “If... I wanted to just kiss you... I’d have asked, got rejected and picked up the pieces… or j-just stayed in my room and imagined it. B-But I just want to be with you... really... even if we don’t kiss...”

Byakuya shuddered. She just had to go say something gross like that.

“Shut up,” he said, and he left.

He kept a kettle in his room and after half a cup of tea, he lay on his bed again, staring at the ceiling in thought. After getting all of that out of the way, he had thought he would be satisfied. That maybe the uneasy feelings in him would subside.

But after a sleepless night, he realised his feelings had just got worse.

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