Imagine trusting a man enough to let yourself be the perfect ✨passenger seat princess✨ at least 98% of the time.

Wonder what that’s like…

There's a Chat in OM where Satan shows concern over Beel because he saw Beel talking to himself, crouched down in the garden, which Beel later reveals to have been him talking to a very frail plant he found because Mammon told him that talking to flowers helps them grow.

And what I adore about this is that it shows things about the brothers involved that we don't always get to see in the main game, or that are sometimes overlooked for the funny hijinks.

- Beel notices incredibly small details. The flower is small and hidden enough that Satan initially thinks he's talking to himself. He doesn’t actually see the plant at all. And Beel is the tallest brother, so it's not as if his height would be any help to him noticing something on the ground that's small, hidden, and frail, especially when he’s doing a task like watering the garden. That’s just a job to be done, and most people would pay more attention to where the water’s going and how much there’s left to do than they would to each individual flower. He must have been paying genuinely close attention to his surroundings to even notice it to begin with.

- Beel's care for things extends even to nature. He talks to the plant because he wants to help it grow. It's just a small, dying flower, one of however many there are in the House’s garden; there’s no reason to fret over it when there’s probably plenty of other flowers around it, and maybe even flowers of the same species. 

But Beel’s genuinely invested in bringing it back to health. He’s seen this tiny, sickly, insignificant flower, and his first thought is to make it better. It's why he later clarifies the situation to MC, asking for more help, because the flower hasn't shown any signs of improvement.

(Very quietly, it makes me wonder if part of the reason he does this is guilt. Maybe Beel just doesn’t like to see things that are dying.)

- Despite how the brothers act towards Mammon most of the time, Beel fully takes on his advice. He spends days talking to the flower because Mammon told him that's something that might work, and it's only when the flower hasn't gotten better that he seeks more help.

At no point did he question this advice. At no point did he think that the “scummy” second-born would say something stupid, or irrelevant, or unhelpful. Mammon told him to talk to the plant, and he so did.

He says that he asked because Mammon was nearby, but at any time he could have just walked right past him, found someone else, and asked them. He could have completely ignored the fact that Mammon was there - especially considering how little the brothers tend to think of his ideas, to begin with - and found someone “more competent”. But he didn’t.

Which means he genuinely has no issues turning to Mammon for help. He genuinely thinks Mammon can give competent advice.

Out of all the brothers, Beel is usually the best when it comes to their overall treatment of the second-born, so maybe that isn’t surprising - but he can be derisive as well.

So it's nice to see, in a situation where it was just the two of them, without the antagonising influence of the others, Beel show he's more than willing to listen to Mammon as a voice of authority and knowledge - especially over something he's worried about. He respects and trusts what Mammon says, and believes it.

- Mammon saw Beel worried over a plant - something small and insignificant that has no greater purpose in the world and hosts no real interest for either of them - and gave him the best genuine advice he could.

Mammon likely doesn't actually know how to care for sick plants, but wanted to try and give Beel something to work with. We know he cares for his brothers deeply - almost (if not exactly) to the point of self sacrifice - so it's not a stretch at all to say he probably suggested talking to the plant in full seriousness, hoping it would help Beel.

It's a common piece of advice, after all. I've heard people say it all the time, from the most amateur gardener to the most professional; talking to your plants keeps them happy and helps them grow.

The bit that really gets me about it, though, is the fact that Mammon... knew it? Out of all things, you'd expect him to care about gardening the least - and to suggest talking to a plant even less. It goes completely against his image, but not against what we know of Mammon as a kind and caring (as well as emotional) demon beneath the facade.

Him, in a similar position to Beel, crouched down low and out of sight to murmur quietly to a plant he thinks needs an extra boost, is well within the spectrum of things Mammon would do but deny doing if caught.

And I just think it's sweet, imagining him passing on advice he's used in the past over a similar thing he might have done to try and help his clearly worried little brother.

- Satan, in a chat with Solomon and MC, shows genuine care and concern towards Beel.

His first instinct is to ask MC and Solomon if they might know what’s going on. He’s noticed a pattern of behaviour that’s unusual for Beel - “sitting out in the garden, mumbling to himself”, to quote him directly - and once it’s gotten to a point that he’s worried, he asks if anyone else knows what’s wrong.

It shows a fair bit of forethought, too. Satan didn’t immediately assume something was up, didn’t immediately dogpile on Beel; he let it play out, keeping a close eye, until it went on for long enough that he thought it might be something bigger. He’s often shown as being thoughtful about how others might react to things (at least, when he’s not enraged), but it’s interesting to see the actual depth of not only his caring, but his understanding of emotional states and how to handle them. 

Satan isn’t heartless. If he notices something wrong, he’s very likely to approach the person in question (or people he trusts) with his concerns in a very gentle manner explicitly to avoid overwhelming them. He actively cares enough to pay attention to the people around him, and to notice when someone starts acting differently. 

This is especially sweet when it comes to Beel. The brothers have a tendency to treat Beel as the big, gentle giant who doesn’t have a worry in the world except for what he wants to eat. He’s quiet, complains little, and shoulders so many burdens in stride that they often overlook his struggles - if they’re even aware that they exist, because Beel loves his family so much he tries to avoid troubling them.

The fact, then, that Satan not only noticed, not only inquired about his health, but then - when Solomon and MC suggest that maybe Beel’s stressed out and bottling up his emotions - openly says this: 

Just shows so much love. The game sometimes overlooks just how much Satan loves his family, but this? This shows it, without a doubt. 

- Satan messages the chat with Solomon in it. 

This surprised me when I went back to look over the conversation; I genuinely remembered it as him talking to Levi, for some reason. Beyond that, if you asked me who I thought it’d be that he questioned for information regarding Beel’s health, it wouldn’t be Solomon that immediately jumped to mind. 

In this situation, you’d think it’d make more sense for him to ask MC and Asmo (who he’s shown to have a very close and affectionate relationship with), or maybe MC and Belphie (who would probably be the first demon anyone should go to regarding Beel, and who Satan definitely gets on with). 

As far as I’ve seen - which, admittedly, I’m not caught up on any of the Human World events from the main game beyond spoilers I’ve looked up - there’s not a lot of, if any, interactions between Beel and Solomon? Most of them are Solomon trying to give Beel food, and Beel trying to foister that food off onto someone else because Solomon’s cooking is one of the few things he can’t stomach. 

So maybe it says more about Satan’s relationship with Solomon. Looking back through the chats, Solomon feels comfortable enough with Satan to outright ask him if he’s kissed MC (in the chat where Luke overheard Satan and MC talking about K.I.S.S.), and Satan doesn’t react negatively even though it’s a genuinely personal question.

Likewise, Satan, when furious over one of his dramas, immediately turns to the chat with MC and Solomon in it. He explicitly states that he doesn’t know what to do with the feelings he’s got left over from the cliffhanger, and wants to talk it over with the two humans. Which is interesting in two ways: 

+ It shows that Satan is comfortable enough when angry to go to Solomon and MC, confident that they won’t actively make it worse (which is always possible when it comes to Satan’s Wrath once it’s ignited). 

+ It shows that Satan’s more than happy to talk about how he feels in front of Solomon, and actively engaging him in that discussion. Yes, it’s only over a drama, but you don’t often turn to someone you don’t trust when you want to vent over something you’re passionate about. 

There’s a fair bit of trust between them, I think, regardless of how either of them are typically viewed. Plus, the chat’s called Cat (3). It’s almost definitely just a pun, but the fact that a chat with Solomon and MC in it is also named after the one thing that can soothe Satan from an outright rage (as we’ve seen both in OtakuFM and in the main game) is interesting in what it implies about their relationship with him. 

So, back to what I originally pondered: why did he go to Solomon and MC when he was concerned about Beel, and not Belphie (Beel’s twin, most likely to know what he’s up to) or Asmo (who lives at the House and is absolutely more likely to have seen Beel in the garden)? 

He trusts Solomon and MC enough to take the matter seriously, with discretion. 

Yuri x popular Fem!reader

summary: fluffy fic in which the reader sees Yuri while working at a coffee shop and intends to be closer friends with her.

word count: 2.1k

"Y/N!"

You stop in your tracks, turning to scan the tables around you for the source of the voice; it was kind of familiar, and your eyes fall on a customer that's a regular here at the coffee shop. A young man around your age, usually here with his friends but alone today.

You had been about to go make another coffee for a different customer, but you force a service smile onto your face and hurry over to his table. "Hello!" You wrack your brain for a second to bring a name to this man- it wasn't easy keeping track of so many different people, and not just at your job! You also tried to keep tabs on the majority of your peers from school, too. Fortunately, it clicks a moment later. "Hatsumi, was everything alright?" You ask, noting he's already finished his pastry and drink.

Hatsumi grins, clearly pleased you had remembered him. Customers tended to get really happy over little things like that... if only they knew you did this with all of them. It was no secret you were one of the favorites here at the little shop, consistently getting better tips than many of your coworkers. "It was great!" He answers you brightly.

You nod and inquire politely, "Would you like me to go ahead and bring the bill out now?"

A moment of hesitation, and then, "Oh- uh, yes, thanks." He seems a bit disappointed, but you don't have time to dwell on it right now, not with how busy today's rush hour is. The only good thing is you're hopefully going to be getting off in about a half hour.

You assure him you'll be right back and then flit off to the counter to ring up the items he'd ordered and print the bill. As you're doing so, you feel a tap on your shoulder.

Glancing up, you see your favorite coworker, a girl several years older than you. "Y/N," she begins, a bit of a pleading look in her eyes that means she's about to ask you for a favor.

Biting back a sigh, you push down whatever annoyance you have at being interrupted to look expectantly at her. "What's up?"

"Can we please switch tables really quickly?" She practically begs you.

Switching tables wasn't too terribly uncommon- sometimes when guests came in, the baristas would know them outside of work and might ask a coworker to deal with the order and anything else.

"Sure," you giggle, ever the people-pleaser. You had a reputation to keep, after all! You don't like to brag, but you do enjoy the fact that you have many different friends and are well-liked by just about everyone you know. "Who?"

She gives a hop of delight. "Can I take the bill to Hatsumi?"

You can't help but smirk mischievously. "Ohhhhh, I see."

She lightly smacks you on the arm, instantly blushing. "Nono, I just-"

You cut her off before she can defend herself, knowing the two of you don't really have the time to waste playing around. "It's no worries. And who's that order for?" You question as you point at the circular silver tray in her hands which is holding a cute polka-dotted cup of tea.

"Ah, this goes to table three, the girl with the purple hair."

You nod, exchanging the bill for the tray. You want to watch and see what will happen between your friend and Hatsumi, if anything, but when you look towards the designated table, already heading for it, you realize you recognize the girl sitting there.

You have no trouble recalling her name. One of the members of your Literature Club, Yuri...

You haven't actually been in the club all that long at all, maybe a week-ish, and you feel like you haven't had any time at all to get properly acquainted with Yuri. Part of you feels that it's a shame, because you get the sense she's a very interesting and sweet person beneath her quiet and distant shell. It's just hard when she's always reading, and even in the rare moments she's not, she doubts herself so much during conversations with you that it just ends up being a bit weird.

But not today! No, you're suddenly filled with a sense of determination to get closer to Yuri.

You consider playfully scaring her when you walk up, but ultimately decide against it; aside from being naturally timid anyway, she's also, as usual, reading, and doesn't seem aware of anything going on in the shop around her. So, yeah, best to use a more gentle approach.

"Hey, you," you say, putting all the friendliness in your voice as possible, stopping beside the table to greet her.

In spite of everything, Yuri still jumps a bit in her seat, violet gaze flashing up to you in alarm.

'So much for trying not to scare her,' you think unhappily. Pushing that thought away, you give her a reassuring smile. "Sorry, it's just me! Y/N. We're in the Literature Club together," you try to remind her, wondering with a pang of horror if she's actually forgotten who you are. That would be a first for you.

A second of silence, but at last Yuri's tense grip on her book loosens, and she glances down at it, avoiding making eye contact. "O-Oh, I'm sorry."

Another awkward beat of silence. This was what you meant!! It always went like this with Yuri, and you wished more than anything that you knew how to make her more comfortable around you. Hoping to carry the burden of saving this interaction, you laugh nervously, "It's no worries! But, you didn't forget me, did you?" As much as you're just trying to joke around, there really is a slight feeling of hurt that that may very well have been the case.

Yuri stiffens, quickly answering, "No, I- I didn't!" It's a rushed response, louder than you've ever heard her speak and yet still quieter than most people's normal speaking voice. As if embarrassed by her small outburst, she ducks her head to add quietly, "Uhm, that is- I just meant that... I wouldn't ever forget you, Y/N."

Oh. Talk about giving someone butterflies. You never knew what to expect with Yuri- sometimes she could never get her words out, but then other times she'd say something with such a deep meaning that it would catch you entirely off guard. What's odd though is you know for a fact how truly sincere she is; Yuri is the type of person that's much deeper than most people, and she wouldn't say something if she didn't really think or believe it.

"Thank you, Yuri," you say warmly, setting her tea down near her on the table. "Here you go! I like this kind, too." Truthfully, since you hadn't taken the order yourself or even made the drink, you weren't 100% sure what kind of tea this was, but you were willing to try anything to make Yuri more at ease. It also wasn't unheard of for you to make conversation with customers, even if it was busier than usual right now- for once though, you weren't aiming to make a good tip or secure a regular customer. You genuinely wanted to talk with her. "Hey, is that the same book you're reading at the club?" You question after catching a glimpse of the cover art.

She shakes her head, causing some of her bangs to fall into her face. Brushing them out of the way, she frowns and then nods. "W-Well, kind of. I finished that one yesterday... this is the sequel," she explains.

"It must be pretty good if you want to read the next part already," you comment. "What's it about?"

As predicted, Yuri noticeably perks up. "Oh, I think you would really enjoy it, Y/N. It's about-"

"Y/N!"

You flinch at the stern voice of your shift supervisor, who apparently hadn't realized Yuri was speaking when he cut her off.

You glance back to see him gesturing at you in clear annoyance, motioning to the line of guests waiting for their drinks to be made. You nod, signaling you'll be right over.

Focusing back on Yuri, you're unable to mask your disappointment. "I'm sorry, I've gotta get back to work. I'm supposed to be off in a little bit though."

Yuri seems to also be discouraged, apologizing for keeping you, even though you're the one who had intentionally kept the talk going. She bites her lip, and then, probably overtaken by a brief moment of courage, suggests, "When you get off, maybe then I could tell you about the books?"

You're stunned, but at the same time, this was precisely what you'd been hoping for! "Yes, sure! That sounds great. I'll see you then!" You chirp, hurrying away.

The last of your shift passes by rather quickly, and when it comes time to clock out, you actually have to tell your supervisor no, you can't stay another extra hour even if they are busy, because you have plans! Normally you would have, but not today.

You meet Yuri at the door and the two of you leave the coffee shop together. The sun is close to setting, but not quite there yet. "Thank you again, Yuri! I like spending time with you, I've just been a little busy lately," you say.

Yuri mumbles something you can't quite hear, but then adds more clearly, "I-I'm glad..."

"So," you begin, clasping your hands behind you and beaming at her. "About those books!"

That's all it takes for Yuri to dive into an explanation of the main plot points as the two of you walk side by side towards your home.

You're more than a bit tired from work and standing on your feet for so long, but it's nice to have company on the walk back, especially someone like Yuri. You hum and comment every so often, honestly thinking that they did sound like the sort of books you would enjoy. Full of fantasy and mystery and thrills... and of course, romance.

"So, the main character ditches his friend, who's been with him the whole time, for the new girl? And she's from the enemy's group?" You surmise.

Yuri hesitates. "I don't want to spoil anything for you if you're wanting to read them for yourself..."

"Such a tease," you sigh, pretending to be betrayed. "Oh, we're here- this is my house."

The two of you stop at the gate leading to the front yard of your home, and you're positive you aren't imagining the plaintive expression on Yuri's face. You didn't really want your time together to end either, but alas, you both have classes tomorrow.

"If- If you really would like, you can borrow the first book from me," offers Yuri. "And then... you'll see for yourself how it all goes."

You nod enthusiastically. "Yes, please! Thank you, that's really sweet of you! We can discuss it too after I'm finished reading it. I think I already know who my favorite character is going to be, though."

Yuri tilts her head curiously. "Who would that be?"

"Nope! It's a secret, for now." You pause, glancing up at the darkening sky. "Will you be okay walking home by yourself?"

Her violet eyes soften at your concern. "Yes, I don't live very far from here."

You find yourself unsure of how to say goodbye to Yuri, an uncertain quiet settling over the two of you, but she doesn't seem to find it awkward. "Okay, if you're sure. Do you mind giving me your phone number, though?"

She starts in surprise, a dusting of pink covering her cheeks. "U-Uhm- I- you-?"

"So you can text me when you get home," you quickly defend your reasoning, feeling a bit shy yourself at Yuri's reaction. She really was unique- most people tried to play it cool when asking for or giving numbers.

"R-Right," she stammers, reciting it off for you, and her phone buzzes at the quick text message you sent her so she would have your number.

"I'll see you tomorrow then, at the Literature Club," you finally say, already looking forward to it. "And don't forget to bring the book, please!"

Yuri steps back, her gaze on the ground but you still see her smile to herself. "Yes, I will. Bye, Y/N." She seems like she has something else she wants to say, but then she gives herself a shake and quickly turns away, her long hair twirling to follow her.

You watch her go until you can't see her anymore, partly due to wanting to make sure she was safe.

You couldn't help but admire her for her intelligence and beauty, even if she seemed to admire your social skills in return. Hopefully this was the start of a very deep relationship with Yuri.

Hjarta | Chapter 16

Fanfic summary: In an AU where Eivor was adopted by Randvi’s family instead, he ends up falling in love with the man his sister has been promised to despite the arranged marriage between their clans.

Point of view: third-person

Pairing: Sigurd Styrbjornson x Male Eivor

This story is also on AO3 | Previous chapter | Next chapter

A WHILE LATER

TEARS OF YMIR

Sigurd trudged through the snow-veiled woods, wishing desperately that he could veer off this path the gods had constructed for him. His mind was trapped in a perpetual state of fear, and the thoughts racing through his head only seemed to grow louder with every step he took.

He could feel it in his heart that Ulfar spoke the truth. There was merit in the accusations he threw against Dag, and Sigurd had even seen the man’s treachery for himself. He made it quite clear that he wasn’t on their side with the way he manipulated the assault at Kjotve’s Fortress, and the prince could no longer ignore the reality that was standing right in front of him.

But even then, Sigurd’s gut twisted at the idea of causing any harm to Dag. His entire childhood was formed of memories between the two of them, and he still saw him as the same little boy he once loved all those years ago.

He remembered the days they’d spend running around in the wilderness, only to end up covered in mud by the time they returned home. He hadn’t forgotten the way Styrbjorn would scold them for their reckless behavior, and how they’d make the exact same mistakes immediately afterwards.

The joy they shared, the sorrows they experienced, the burdens they had to carry -- it all stayed with Sigurd to this very day. He loved Dag like a brother despite the conflicts between them, and the thought of banishing him from Midgard tore a hole inside his chest. 

But he was a leader now. A future king. With Ulfar dead, Sigurd would have to step up and protect the people he left behind. His position as prince would no longer be a mere title, and he would have to do whatever it took to keep his clan safe. 

Even if it meant making a sacrifice as great as this.

“We’re here.” Sigurd said bleakly, stopping in his tracks once the waterfall came into view. He took a deep breath and gazed at the dreary environment, unable to even recognize the nature surrounding him.

This place once served as a sanctuary for the prince. It used to be a safe haven where he could take refuge when the troubles of his world proved to be overwhelming, and he often found a sense of tranquility in its earthly embrace. It always seemed to breathe with the spirit of the gods, and part of Sigurd even believed they walked with him sometimes when he ventured down this path.

Today though, the forest was barren of any life. The tragedies of the war had burrowed themselves into its very marrow, and it almost felt as if it could sense what was about to happen. The air was leaden with a suffocating anchor of dread, and it only seemed to crush Sigurd more and more the further he progressed.

He didn’t want to kill Dag. Every fiber in his being was screaming at him to stop. 

Part of even him was even considering simply exiling the man in order to avoid further bloodshed. Deep down though, he knew that wouldn’t be enough. He knew that Dag would most-likely run back into Kjotve’s arms once he broke free from the judgement of his clan, and cause their people a plethora of problems that they didn’t need.

It seemed like death was the only option here, and Sigurd hated himself for it.

“...Sigurd,” Dag said, approaching the man from behind. “Will you tell me what we’re doing now? Why have you brought us all the way out here? Is this about what happened between me and Ulfar?”

The prince kept his gaze on the view before him, leaving his hand close to his axe. His back was currently turned to the other man, and yet, he felt as if he could detect his every move.

“...Do you remember the day we met, Dag?” Sigurd asked. “All those years ago?”

The warrior noticed how his friend skirted the subject, but said nothing of it for now. “Of course. How could I forget? I was what, ten years old? Maybe younger? I had just given you a black eye during a training spar.”

Sigurd chuckled softly at the precious memory. “Indeed. And if I recall correctly, it wasn’t too long beforehand that I was boasting about how easily I’d be able to fell you. I was the king’s son, after all. Nothing could touch me.” The prince smirked. “...It seems that arrogance was my greatest enemy back then. The day I met you was the day I learned humility. It was the day I gained a brother.”

Dag leaned against a nearby tree, crossing his arms. “And do you still feel that way?”

The other man paused, his voice hardening with a cold edge. “...Yes. But I suspect that the sentiment is no longer mutual.”

Growing restless with anxiety, Sigurd finally decided to put this game to an end and shot an icy glare at his childhood friend, practically boring through his skull. He approached the older man and looked him in the eye, trying to keep his breath as steady as possible.

“...Dag,” he whispered, “you know how I feel about you. We may not share the same blood, but you are my family. No matter how distant we may grow, there will always be a link between us. And I will always see you as my brother. That’s why... I need you to tell me the truth.”

Sigurd took a few steps closer, barely shifting his gaze. “...Are you the traitor?”

Dag scoffed at the question and shook his head, reluctant to give a direct answer. “You can’t be serious. You actually believe in the nonsense Ulfar was spewing?”

“I believe his words held merit,” the prince persisted. “You can call it nonsense if you like, but that doesn’t change the fact that you stand as an accused man.”

The warrior stammered for a moment, taken aback by the preposterous notion. “What are you talking about, Sigurd? You were there! You saw what happened. I defeated Ulfar in honorable combat. I cleared my name. Isn’t that enough?”

“Enough for the Allfather perhaps, but not enough for me. Everything Ulfar said was true. The way you handled the assault nearly got all our people killed, and I know you well enough to know that you’re too smart to make such a grave mistake. You did it intentionally.”

Still, Dag remained in denial. “I don’t believe this. You would trust the word of a paranoid old man over someone you consider to be a brother?”

Sigurd raised his voice slightly, unable to hide his anger anymore. “I trust what I see! And over these past few weeks, I’ve seen you do nothing but traipse through the shadows like a thief in the night, hiding like coward whilst our men died on the battlefield. I saw you return from Kjotve’s Fortress without so much as a scratch on your armor, and I saw the apathy in your eyes when they fell on Thora’s corpse.”

The prince’s expression darkened with ire. “You claim you are innocent, but innocence always speaks for itself. I see no good reason why I should question Ulfar’s accusations, and I doubt you can give me one. So I’ll ask again--” he leaned in, “--are you the traitor?”

Dag rubbed the back of his neck and glanced at the waterfall, furrowing his brow in disbelief. It was evident that he had something to say, but the stone shackles of pride hindered his ability to come clean.

“How do you know Ulfar wasn’t trying to save his own skin by throwing me to the wolves? He was in a much more powerful position than I. He could’ve done anything he liked and gotten away with it!”

“What reason could Ulfar possibly have had to turn against Arngeir? You really think he would’ve been willing to endanger Thora’s life? Or Eivor’s? He saw them as his own children.”

“Who knows? All I’m saying is -- he was awfully quick to pass judgement on me. We had hardly set foot on Bjornheimr’s shores, and he was already prepared for a fight. The way I see it, Ulfar wanted to use me as a scapegoat. He was the jarl’s right-hand man, after all. He knew he could’ve said anything about me without raising suspicion. I mean, just look at how easy it was to fool you.”

Sigurd’s glare only sharpened at that. “You think I’ve been fooled, do you?”

“Am I wrong? I know you held Ulfar in high regard, but typically, the largest shadows are cast by those who stand the tallest. He may have been a good warrior, but that doesn’t mean--”

The prince shook his head in frustration. “--Enough, Dag! Enough with the lies. Enough with the deflection. Just give me a straight answer. I’m done running in circles with you.”

The other man fell silent, completely at a loss for words. “...You still don’t believe me, do you?”

Sigurd lowered his head in sorrow. “...I wish I could, Dag. Trust me. I wish I could. But if I’m going to keep this clan safe, I can’t allow anything to hinder my judgement. Not even when it concerns you.”

Dag let out a sigh and nodded in defeat, staring blankly at the ground. It was clear to him that his arguments were doing nothing in terms of swaying the prince’s mind, and he didn’t know what else he could say to divert the man’s skepticism. 

“...I see.” He murmured, looking back up at Sigurd. His demeanor had completely shifted compared to when they first arrived at the waterfall, and a grim sense of treachery clung onto his shrewd face. “...Very well then, old friend. If that’s how you wish to do things.” 

Dag pushed himself off the tree and straightened his posture, finally deciding to reveal the truth.

“...Indeed, your conviction is rightfully placed, Sigurd. I wasn’t sure how long I’d be able to keep up this facade, but I see no point in maintaining it any longer.”

The warrior paused for a brief moment, taking a deep breath. 

“I was the one who warned Kjotve.” Dag confessed. “I was the one who assisted him when he ambushed Bjornheimr, and I was the one who told him to flee his fortress before our clans could arrive. I told him of this alliance.”

Sigurd’s heart instantly shattered upon hearing the confession, and his jaw clenched in rage as a spark of betrayal flared inside his chest. He knew his suspicions had to be correct, but even then, nothing could’ve prepared him for the immense disappointment he’d receive from a revelation such as this. 

The prince wandered away from Dag in shock and began pacing along the waterfall’s edge, uncertain of how to respond. 

“...And why exactly... did you do it?” Sigurd questioned, his tone alarmingly quiet. “What led you to commit such... foolish treason?”

“I did it for the good of our clan.” Dag answered monotonously. “I did it to protect us.”

The other man threw a puzzled glance at him, bewildered by his justification.

“To protect us?” Sigurd gestured to the distant village, storming towards the warrior. “Bjornheimr lies in a bed of its own ashes thanks to you! The jarl’s daughter has been murdered, and you have the nerve to act as if this was an act of heroism? I grow tired of your deception, Dag. Just tell me the truth. What is the real reason you did this?”

The traitor’s nose crinkled in envy, and a newfound sense of contempt twisted his expression. He was behaving in a manner that Sigurd had never seen before, and yet, the prince felt as if he had known this side of Dag for his entire life. 

“We don’t need the Bear Clan,” Dag said. “All they’ve done is weaken us. They’ve even weakened you. Especially that boy.”

Sigurd cocked a brow. “Boy? What boy? You mean Eivor?”

“Yes. He’s turned you soft, Sigurd. Everyone can see it. Before we came to this forsaken village, you were a warrior. A leader. A man worthy of holding a crown. You led raids on our enemies, and you crushed anyone who dared threaten our people. You were a king in everything but name. But now? You’ve just become another pawn.”

“What are you talking about, Dag? How have I become a pawn?”

The traitor laughed. “Are you joking? I see the way you look at Eivor. That man has you wrapped around his finger. He’s distracting you from the war, and you’re allowing it to happen.”

The prince’s face was plastered with a look of dread. “You know about me and Eivor...? Who told you?”

Dag waved a dismissive hand. “No one needed to tell me. It’s as clear as day. You may be wed to Randvi, but we all know where your loyalties really lie. You’re only fighting this war for one reason, and that’s so you can take Eivor to bed while the rest of us do the hard work.”

Sigurd’s eyes snapped onto Dag with an iron grip, and his voice dropped to a dangerously low level.

“Watch... your tongue, snake.”

The other man chuckled. “The truth is painful, isn’t it? Nothing stings quite like the bite of a harsh reality you can’t accept. But please, by all means -- continue to ignore it. Ignore it like you ignore everything else, and let your kingdom crumble for your own selfish needs.”

Sigurd brushed off the traitor’s taunts and got straight to the point, eager to put this to rest. “So you’re a puppet for jealousy now? Is that it? You did all this... just because you envied Eivor’s position?”

A scoff escaped Dag’s lips. “Pfft. I want nothing that man has. Like I said before, I did this for the good of our people. Whether or not you choose to see it that way doesn’t change the fact that it’s true. The gods know this too.”

“The gods spit on oath-breakers like you! Odin has no need for men such as yourself in his company, and neither do I.”

“Then deliver your justice, my lord. Strike me down with the judgement that you deemed so righteous you had to hide it away from prying eyes. The people of Bjornheimr may not be able to see you here, but the Allfather does. And he will remember.”

Sigurd turned away from Dag and rested a firm hand on his axe, using every bit of his strength to stifle the tears that threatened to spill. He wanted nothing more than to scream at the gods for putting him in such an impossible situation, and he could already feel himself breaking down from what he was about to do.

But he had to keep his promise. He had to. Although no longer in this realm, Ulfar was depending on him to protect their clans, and Sigurd didn’t have the heart to deny the man his dying wish.

...But he loved Dag. In spite of all of his crimes, the prince still saw the traitor as the same boy he grew up with, and his memories of their time together only seemed to be resurfacing with every second he spent delaying the inevitable.

What was he going to do when the man was dead? Sigurd may have despised Dag for going behind his back, but a piece of his soul remained bound to him nonetheless. There was a link between them that couldn’t be broken, and the prince felt as if he was about to sever one of his own limbs. 

A part of him would undoubtedly go with Dag once the man departed from this realm, and Sigurd couldn’t imagine himself ever getting it back.

He just prayed he would be able to forgive himself someday.

“You... you were my brother, Dag.” Sigurd said, his spirit collapsing with every word. “I loved you. I did. You turned my childhood into something that I’ll always hold dear. I’ll never forget the time we spent together, or the joy I’d feel when you were around. Those memories are something that no one will ever be able to take from me.” He tightened his grip on the axe. “But I can’t let you walk free from this. I can’t let you hurt my clan anymore. I... I have to keep my promise. I’m sorry.”

Yanking the weapon out of its sheathe, the prince lunged at Dag without saying another word and buried the axe in his chest, immediately causing the man to stiffen in his clutch. The two of them toppled over onto the snow after a single strike, and within seconds, the traitor was already gasping for air.

He writhed in Sigurd’s embrace like a worm on a hook and desperately tried to pry the blade away from his heart, but to no avail. The other man simply held him down and forcibly kept the axe in place, pushing it deeper and deeper into his torso as tears began streaming down his cheeks.

Sigurd couldn’t believe what he was doing. As a child, he always pictured himself leading their clan into a glorious victory that would forever grace the lips of bards across the kingdom, and spread into endless sagas for generations to come. He thought his role in the war would be one of grandeur just like in the tales his father often told him, and he believed his path to Valhalla would be laden with silver and gold.

But now that he was actually here... he was finally realizing just how torturous the nature of war really was. He wept at the sight of Dag’s life vanishing from his eyes, and his stomach churned at the feeling of the man’s blood staining his hands.

There was also the fact that the traitor died without an axe in his grip. He left it with Ulfar back in Bjornheimr, and thus, paved the way straight to Hel’s gates. His soul would forever evade the magnificence of the Corpse Hall, and a part of Sigurd crumbled at the thought of never being able to reunite with his friend again.

Dag was gone for good... and it was all his fault.

Letting go of the axe’s hilt, Sigurd allowed himself to relax and climbed off of Dag’s body, taking a seat beside him as a series of breaths fled from his lungs.

...He did it. He actually did it.

The traitor had been removed from their midst, and their clans would be able to proceed without worrying about betrayal. Kjotve would no longer have an ally inside their walls, and Gorm would give them the last step they needed before taking him down at last.

Sigurd supposed he should’ve been relieved now that things were finally in their favor, but all he felt was emptiness. 

His closest friend lay defeated under the blade of his own axe, and his world remained shaken by the multiple losses it had just suffered. He experienced no pleasure in the face of this so-called victory, and the only thing he had left to hope for was the sight of Kjotve’s head.

He just wanted this war to end. He wanted the constant turmoil of these never-ending battles to become a thing of the past, and he wanted to cleanse the seas of the blood that stained their shores. 

Sigurd dreamed of a future where people wouldn’t have to share his clan’s pain, but deep down, he feared it would never become a reality. 

The war had already lasted for a couple decades, after all. He saw no reason why the gods would allow it to end anytime soon.

“Sigurd?” Someone said abruptly, dragging the prince back to his senses.

The man glanced upward from where he sat and gazed in the distance, only to find Eivor watching him from afar. 

“Eivor...?” Sigurd whispered, quickly wiping his face dry. “What... what are you doing here?”

The blonde viking stepped out from the trees and approached his lover, careful not to distress him even further.

“I saw you leave with Dag earlier,” Eivor answered softly, still drained from the shock of Ulfar’s loss. “The two of you were gone for a while, so I wanted to make sure you were okay.”

He paused for a second, allowing his eyes to wander towards Dag. “...You really killed him.”

The older man stared helplessly at the sky, peering into the canopy of branches swaying above him.

“...Yes. I did.” He said, his voice trembling slightly. “I had to.”

Sighing morosely, Eivor pushed his way through the mounds of snow and walked over to Sigurd, crouching down in front of him. He comforted the distraught prince by gently caressing his cheek, and flicked away some stray tears with a simple swipe of the thumb. Afterwards, the young man reached over to the axe protruding from Dag’s chest and carefully removed it, wiping it clean before laying it in Sigurd’s lap.

“You did the right thing. I know it wasn’t easy, but our clan will sleep better at night thanks to you.”

Sigurd loosely met Eivor’s gaze, entirely devoid of life. “...I feel like a monster. Dag was... he was my brother. I know everyone else saw him as a traitor, but to me, he was always that little boy I met in Fornburg.” His expression sank with grief. “...That little boy is dead now because of me. I killed him.”

Eivor held the prince’s face in his hands. “No, Sigurd. You didn’t kill that boy. Dag did. A long time ago.”

The redheaded warrior offered nothing but silence in response, causing Eivor to return to his feet.

“Come, my love.” He beckoned, reaching an arm out. “We should return to the village.”

Sigurd remained motionless on the ground, simply looking over at Dag’s body.

“Wait. Could we... bring him back with us? I’m aware of Dag’s crimes, but even then, I’d like to give him a proper burial.”

“Of course,” Eivor assured. “Many in the clan will question his presence at the funeral, but I’ll send someone to retrieve him once we return. Don’t worry. We won’t leave him behind.”

Sigurd propped himself up on one knee and grabbed the other man’s arm, rising from the snow. “Thank you, Eivor.”

The Wolf-Kissed guided his lover away from the waterfall and called for his horse, leading the prince back home.

“Come on.” He whispered lovingly. “Let’s get you out of here.”

Heya, I absolutely love your writing! Could I request a 13th doctor x reader with prompts #12 and #25 (from list 5) if that's possible please?

Warnings for extreme angst, blood mention, burn mention. yeah, I went all out on this one. SPOILERS FOR S12

There was a moment, on Gallifrey, with the smoke of your planet burning through your lungs, that you were sure the Doctor wouldn’t go through with it. Your companions sent away, the cybermasters stationary, and the three remaining time lords silent. But the moment did not last long. 

The Master, ever so eager to drag the Doctor down to his depths, commanded her to do it; activate the death particle and wipe out what remained of the time lords, of their shared history. You, too, would disappear with it all. But you were willing to go, if it meant being with the Doctor in such a time. Before the Doctor could go through with it, though, another figure entered. Ko Sharmus, offering to do it for her. Again, you were sure she wouldn’t do it- let someone else take on such a burden for her. Part of you wished she wouldn’t. This was something that, if done, had to be done by her or you- anyone who actually had a stake in the proceedings. Not a bystander, someone who should’ve listened to instructions and been safe. 

Yet, she did. Pulling away from the Master, she ran, like she always did. Hand in hers you followed, despite reluctance, as you always had and always would. Reuniting with the TARDIS was both extremely relieving and questionable. It felt as though you were returning home, to safety and beyond. Simultaneously, though, it felt like you were leaving far too much behind and carrying everything with you all at once. 

The Doctor and you did not speak for several moments, perhaps both acknowledging the conflicting concoction of emotion that sealed your lips shut. She floated over the console, poking and prodding, to mimic a reality in which she actually knew where she was going next. Neither of you knew, and you certainly weren’t expecting what would happen in the next following moments. 

When the Judoon arrived, somehow making their way onto the TARDIS, your first instinct was to step in front of the Doctor. Why you felt like she needed to be protected from them, you had no idea. The Judoon didn’t appreciate this defensive movement. The one on the far right held up a small device, pointing it at you. Before you could properly analyze it and make the necessary precautions, the end of it flashed, and there was no light after that. 

When you woke up, the Doctor was gone. Furious and confused, you worked with the TARDIS controls in a desperate attempt to get a trail on where the judoon had taken her. Unfortunately, it seemed as though their device had knocked you unconscious for quite a while. It had been too much time, and they had travelled too much distance, to properly get any sort of helpful reading. She was just… gone.

 There was only one option remaining to contact her. Neither of you had used it much, being around humans with little to no psychic capabilities. But ever since your recent run in with the Master, you’d utilized it multiple times. You could feel that your skills were sharper and felt that they might be tuned in enough to contact the Doctor wherever she may be. Finding your shared room was the first step. Having a special space that connected the two of you would help your focus. Curled up in bed, head resting against her pillow, you imagined seeing her again. Her voice, her laugh, her being. After a few moments past, you whispered “Contact” 

Despite the series of events that led you up to this moment, you weren’t quite prepared for the chaos that you found. Opening your eyes, you found yourself standing in a room made of rock. You were surprised that you’d managed to connect with anyone, given that you hadn’t even heard a contact in response. If it was the Doctor you connected with, she was in bad enough shape to let you in so easily. 

Sure enough, you turned to find your timelord banging her fists against the walls. Wincing, you watched her fists make contact with the solid rock over, and over, and over, blood staining the surface. 

“Stop!” you yelped, running over to her. Your hands passed through her, and you remembered that you were not actually there to help her. The sensation, though, was enough to make her jump back and swivel on her feet. Meeting her eyes, another piece of you shattered. Her own gaze was wild, afraid, her muscles tensed.

 “Y/n!” She ran closer to you, trying to get a proper grip on you. “Are you actually here, or just an image? Because I’m really tired of asking and really tired of trying to get out of here.” 

“W-well,” You stammered, not sure how to react to her frenzied state. “I mean, I am an image, but-” 

The Doctor made a sound that was almost akin to a growl, returning to pounding against the walls. “Seriously?!” 

“But I’m an actual image, Doctor!” You shouted. “I’m here, in your head, from the TARDIS” She leaned against the rock, shoulders shaking. Concerned, you stepped forward, wrapping your arms around her as if you could actually do so. Looking closer, you saw that she was laughing, with a few tears to join the cynical sound. “I’m being honest, Doctor. Make proper contact with me, and you’ll see.” 

“I don’t think I can do that,” She said shakily. “I can’t focus on so much at once!”

 “Okay, well, we just need to focus, right? Please, Doctor, I really need to find out where you are and I think we can do that if we can make a proper connection” 

“Focus on what?” She mumbled, sliding to the floor. Using the wall as her support she curled up, facing away from you. “What could I possibly want to focus on right now?” 

“You could focus on me,” You offered quietly, trying to put more effort into your hand stroking her hair, so she could feel it more realistically. All it seemed to do was make her shake harder, retreating into herself. It was almost as if she was trying to get away from you. Throat tight, you whispered: “Doctor?” 

“I saw how disappointed you were,” She admitted, shrugging away from your hand and the psychic comfort it brought. There was a small gasp before she continued, “On Gallifrey, you were..” 

“No, no-” You assured her, but even you weren’t sure of the validity of your words.

 “Please don’t lie to me now,” She cut you off. “I really don’t think I can take more lies” 

Shrinking back in guilty, you whispered: “I’m sorry” 

“ All of the lies, and loss and…” Her words were becoming more jumbled and rushed. “I feel sick…so anxious and sick and like my heart is trying to beat its way out of my chest and I can’t think about everything I just have to get out of here-” 

“Hey,” You cut in, trying to pull her to face you. It didn’t work, so you moved to where she could see you. Where she had to look at you, focus on you, hear you. “Stop, okay, just stop for a moment.” 

“You really think I could?” The Doctor bit back, standing and walking to the window. “I can’t stop because I’m here now and I need to leave now.” 

“Well you’re not leaving like this,” You scolded. She turned to you with a fire in her eyes and you knew that you had to find some way to calm her down before it burned through her entirely.

 “Well that’s helpful,” She said sarcastically. Reaching for the bars on the window she quickly pulled back, yelping in pain. You ran to her side, gasping as you saw the burn marks start to appear on her palms. The connection became more strong in your desperation to ease her pain. When you grabbed her hands, it felt as if you were right there with her. 

“Okay, we need to sit and focus for a moment.” The Doctor, exhausted from her attempts to leave and the pain flowing through her, nodded. You both sunk to the floor once again, your arms wrapped around her. 

“I’m just so tired,” She whimpered. “But I can’t be, can I?” 

“Yes, you can, Doctor. You’re allowed rest, reprieve. Especially after what’s happened.” She moved to rest her head against  your chest but passed through you, head hitting the wall with a small thunk. She groaned and you smiled. 

“I don’t think you’re going to be able to do much to get out of here like this,” You told her. “But that doesn’t mean you never will. It just means we need to tackle some other things first.” 

“Yeah, maybe,” She returned, accepting defeat. 

“You have to talk to me, Doctor.” and, much to your satisfaction she did. For a while, she went in circles, and you redirected her back. Soon enough, she came to the biggest peak standing in her way. 

“I worked so hard to bring Gallifrey back. They mistreated me, still, but I still brought them back. And I always imagined, someday, that I could go back too. Just for a little while, and it would be good. And maybe Mi- The Master would be there, changed. Better. All these plans, ideals. Now they’re gone. Now it’s over…I don’t really know what to do.” 

The confession seemed to be somewhat of a relief. She was no longer turned away from you, rather staring at the rock wall ahead of her emptily. 

“You do your best to move on. We all do. Because it’s all that we can do.” 

“I’ve moved on so many times, Y/n. Sometimes I don’t even think I know where I am now.” 

“But you’ll find that place, eventually.” You countered hopefully. “It might take a while, but every time you’ve had to move on, it’s been to a new place, a certain place. What makes you think it’ll be different this time?” 

The Doctor didn’t respond initially, lost in thought. “Not sure.” 

“That’s because there isn’t anything different this time. “ Your head poked upward, towards the door to her cell. In the distance, you could hear noises, footsteps, words. People were coming. Guards perhaps? But surely you had no reason to worry. You weren’t actually there. 

“Psychic activity detected” A low Judoon voice grumbled. Your eyes widened. How could they possibly know? Most importantly: what were they going to do about it? 

“Activating Psychic Barrier” Another voice broke through. The Doctor turned to you, just as alarmed. You only had a few moments remaining. “Listen, Doctor, it’s no different this time, okay? You can move on. You deserve to move on and you have to. I’m- listen, I’m going to find the others, okay? And then we’re going to find-” 

Before you could finish, you found yourself leaping off of the Doctors pillow. Suddenly, your mind was back in your body. Alone in the TARDIS. 

“Contact,” You said into thin air. But there was no sensation, no feeling. Like you’d never reached out at all, you were suddenly cut off from the Doctor entirely. 

Wet Cobblestone

The Apprentice works as Julian's apprentice, but they're having a hard time dealing with the reality of the Red Plague. They miss Asra and try to find comfort in... other forms.

Julian and GN!Apprentice

Word Count: 4,095

Warning: Drinking to cope and big sad

(Am I writing to avoid responsibilities? Yes)

---

Wet cobblestone. It's never really a thing you pay attention to, not unless you’re trying to forget something. Something so heart-wrenchingly cruel and painful that you’ll pay attention to the sounds of your boots sauntering across wet cobblestone. Trying to clear your mind after condemning someone to death. Life was easy when I was simply a magician, before the plague, before Asra, before I became a doctor’s apprentice. I didn’t think it would be this difficult, I thought I could cure the plague. But at this point, it’s become a wave, and it’s going to swallow this city whole. I should have left.

The bell jingling on the door of Julian's clinic snaps me out of my thoughts. I didn’t even realize I had already made my way across town from my house call. I was returning from a patient visit. It wasn’t a good one. I remove my mask and take a deep sigh, wiping the sweat off my skin, it may be cold out in Vesuvia but wearing a mask for hours takes its toll. I drop my mask onto Julian's desk as I walk into the back supply room. A wave of emotions overtakes me as I feel my heart racing in my chest. I take a deeply pained gasp trying to compose myself, but it only wills the tears into falling faster. The aching pain in my heart manifests itself in my sobs, I cover my mouth with my leather gloved hand trying to stifle it. Falling to my knees I sob silently. Mourning the victims, mourning myself, mourning my confidence. Did I really think I could cure the plague? Me? A lowly magician? One who couldn’t even manage a relationship, and drove my once chance away.

The wind howls outside, whistling as it makes its way through the drafts of Julian’s clinic. I continue to cry but not as hard. It always goes like this, I hide, I cry, I stop and I go back to work. Slowly standing, I sniffle and wipe my face with my sleeve. I then hear footsteps and start to frantically dry my eyes. I can’t let Julian see me like this, he always tries to take the burden of my pain and I can't let him do that, he’s already too busy. Still wiping my face I quickly walk out of the supply closet but run head-on into the man in front of me.

“Oh my! Oh hello there MC? Oh uh… are you alright?” It's Julian. I avoid looking at him, hoping he doesn’t see the redness of my eyes, stinging from my tears. I slowly nod.

“Yes… I’m alright Julian, thank you,” I slowly back away but he brings an arm around my shoulder.

“Come, I think we both deserve some tea, hm?” He guides me to the clinic kitchen. It's small and has an even smaller chair with a few tables. But it's cozy and a perfect place for tea, and for becoming existential on those especially hard days. I sit at the table and Julian approaches the stove. He fills the kettle with water and searches for matches to light the wood-fire stove.

“Hrm uh, I can’t seem to find the uh… would you mind?” Before he can finish I give Julian a quick nod as I approach the stove. Opening the hatch I use my magic to create a modest fire.

“Ahh, thank you, my dear, I knew having a magician as an apprentice would come in handy,” Julian winks, it causes me to give a small smile, but in an instant, it's gone, and I turn to take my place back at the table. Julian takes to standing by the stove, almost like he thinks watching the pot will cause the water to boil faster. It does not matter to me, I’m still going through the motions of my solo adventure in the supply closet. A few minutes go by and Julian prepares two cups of tea. He offers me sugar which I accept, before placing my cup in front of me and taking the seat across. We sit in silence, sipping our warm beverages, listening to the wind howling outside as rain slowly approaches. The sweetness of the sugar is nice on my tongue, but I still feel the ache in my chest. Julian can’t seem to sit still. His eyes shift from me to his cup, me, cup, the wall, cup, me. I can’t take his fidgeting much longer.

“Are you going to ask me why I was crying?” Julian jumps a little when I break the silence.

“I don’t wish to impose but, not every day you find your apprentice crying in a supply closet,” he attempts to joke. Oh if only he knew.

“I made a house call, to a family of four. They’re all infected and very far along in their symptoms,” I circle my finger around the rim of my cup, attempting to keep my composure. “They’re all being sent to the Lazaret as we speak,” Julian gives me a knowing nod. Humming in response as he glares into his cup. We both know this feeling too well. Having to send innocent people to their demise, where they will be cremated, and buried. Without a marker, without a proper funeral.

“You know what they said to me?” My voice wavers. “They said that they were going to dress in the nicest clothing they had before they left for the Lazaret… so they could go out… looking their best,” hot wet tears start to fall down my face again. I bring my hand to my face, but I stop when the leather makes contact with my hand. These hands, they try to help, but all they can do is condemn people to death, and prolong their suffering by keeping them alive, occasionally aiding the pain. But it's only temporary. I rip off my gloves and send them across the room. As far away from me as possible. Bringing my face into my hands I begin to sob once again.

I hear Julian stand in his chair, and then I feel two arms bring me into the warm hug. The first hug I’ve had in… a while, not since before my fight with Asra. I turn into his chest, letting ugly sobs escape me, while I cling to him like a lost child. All Julian does is hug me, stroking my back with a hand. But it’s the comfort I’ve needed for a while.

“I-I’m sorry, I’m supposed to be working and here I am sobbing into your shoulder,” I finally pull away from Julian, my hands still on his chest. He keeps one hand on my shoulder, while the other rests on my hand placed over his heart.

“Well I didn’t think we were on the clock, I thought we were just having a tea break hm?” Julian's warm voice always seemed to soothe me in times of stress. But I’ve never broken down like this in front of him. Ever since taking up my apprenticeship with him, I’ve always tried to be the stronger one. Julian is definitely one for dramatics so I thought I had to be strong to compensate. For the sake of morals. What a load of good that did me.

I give Julian a nod, and stare at his hand, pressed softly on top of mine. Despite his gloves, I can feel just how cold his hands are. When I brought it up in the past he said something about it “matching his heart” but I know in reality Julian is a softy. I mean he made me tea and let me cry into his clothes. I flush slightly and pull my hands back. How long have I been holding on to him?

“Thank you, Julian,” I gaze into his kind, stormy eyes. He looks like he hasn’t been sleeping well. I probably look no better, however. I can't sleep. I spend every night haunted by my patients, their cries and wet coughs echoing in my head. I can't even sleep in my own bed, it feels empty and without life. Sometimes I sleep at my desk in the clinic. I wait until Julian has left, or has promptly passed out at his own desk, and try to get some sleep, but even then.

My eyes travel Julian’s face as he still crouches beside me, a hand on my shoulder. I reach my hand up and I tuck a strand of his auburn hair behind his ear, he shivers slightly at the contact. Is this ok? To be like this towards him? I’m his apprentice but… maybe I can be selfish. Just this once. I grab his other hand, lacing our fingers together. Julian’s eyes have gone wide, a flush of pink settling on his face. He stands instantly, pulling away, and clears his throat.

“W-well it seems the rain has let up? And oh! It must be half past 5, and you know what they say about 5 o’clock,” gathering our now cold tea and disposing of it. I suddenly feel cold at the loss of his touch. No, maybe I was doing too much. We work together this isn't some fling like we’re teenagers. Professional, yes.

“I-I could go for a drink,” Julian whips around from the sink and looks at me. A grin forming on his lips. I stand and awkwardly grab my gloves from the corner where I threw them.

“I’ll just change into regular clothing, I think seeing a doctor at a bar will damper the mood,” with a nod from Julian, I exit into the bathroom where Julian and I keep our personal items. I remove my protective gear, undoing the claps and putting it away along with my gloves. I grab my travel cloak and swing it around my shoulders. Exiting the bathroom I go to find Julian. A few drinks couldn’t hurt especially after the day I had.

“Ready to go, my dear?” He asks exiting the kitchen, putting his arm out for me to grasp. With a nod I take it and we exit the clinic together.

—- At the Rowdy Raven

How many tankards has it been? 3? 4? 6? I lost track. The world around me swirls, I hear people shouting because of an unfair card game. I rub a hand across my face, my lips are numb, just like my emotions. Good, I don’t want to feel tonight. I can't remember the last time I drank this much. Julian approaches with a glass of water and hands it to me.

“I uh, think you should drink this, and maybe I should walk you home,” I take the glass reluctantly and take a sip. It's cold and soothes the burn in my chest.

“Wow doctor, if I didn’t know you well enough I think you’d be tryna get me to take you home,” my words slur out. I don’t know if it’s the alcohol or my loneliness but Julian is looking extra… something. Shit, I'm not sure, my words are failing me. My eyes are blurry and sounds seem to echo but I think I can see Julian blushing.

“Just, drink your water, I don’t think you will be able to work effectively with a hangover,” he sits next to me and moves the glass closer. With a groan, I take the drink and slowly but eventually finish it all. Feeling a little bit more sober, Julian and I leave the Raven together.

Right out the door, I stumble, Julian catches me by the elbows.

“Woah there! Maybe I should’ve had you drink another glass,” he laughs putting an arm around me to support me, his embrace is warm in comparison to the biting cold wind outside. The walk back to my shop is quiet. There's no conversation, just the sound of our shoes tapping along the wet cobblestone, and me occasionally losing my balance. The wind starts to pick up, sending leaves through the air. I stumble a little against it as it whips my face leaving me shivering. That’ll sober you up. I then feel a drop fall onto my head. Julian and I stop mid-walk and look up at the sky.

“It would seem the storm has picked up,” I nod in response, Julian then looks at me, his usual smirk plastered on his lips. “Think you’re sober enough to run?” He asks.

“Run?” I tilt my head. Just then the rain starts to pick up, and a downpour approaches. “Run!” I shout. We both take off in the rain, headed towards my shop. I grab onto Julian's hand hoping to keep up with him and we laugh as we race through the streets. We finally approach my shop and I hastily open it so we can get warm and dry.

I close the door and lean against it, heart-pounding and breath heavy. Julian is leaning on the counter trying to catch his own breath. I watch as he runs a hand through his hair, sending rain droplets onto his shoulders. The moon shines through a window, illuminating his pale skin. My stomach starts to flutter with nerves, or maybe it's the alcohol. I gulp.

“My, I didn’t expect it to come down like that!” Julian laughs. He rights himself and walks in a circle, observing my shop. “I don’t think I’ve ever really seen the inside of your shop,” he glances at me.

“Oh yea, I um haven't been keeping it open lately cause I’ve been too busy so it’s a little messy… sorry,” I nervously fiddle with the seam of my cloak. Why am I so flustered? Professional! this is a PROFESSIONAL setting. Just two co-workers who went out for drinks… and held hands in the rain… and now he's wet... in my shop. Oh, he’s wet! He’s going to catch a cold!

“W-why don’t I make us some tea and I’ll grab you a towel dry off?” I head towards the stairs and stop before I go up, looking at Julian over my shoulder. Please follow please follow please follow. He nods and we both ascend the stairs.

After clumsily filling the kettle and starting the stove, Julian tries to make me sit, but I insist I am fine and that the rain sobered me up. However I am not fine, I can manage on my own but my emotions are all over the place, why is Julian making me feel so strange? Why am I feeling things towards him? Like I want him to touch me and... No! Professional.

I find a few mismatched towels and bring them over. I hand them to Julian as I take one myself and dry myself off. I technically have a spell to fix all this but… I don’t want him to leave. Julian wraps a towel around his shoulders as he sits in a chair at the table. And then silence falls upon us once again.

“Um, thank you again, Julian, you always seem to know how to cheer me up,” I stand awkwardly, shifting my weight and avoiding Julian's eyes.

“Well, what kind of boss would I be if I didn’t take my employees out every once in a while?” He tries to be suave, but I can sense some unease in his voice. Water drips from his hair to his shoulders.

“Oh! Your hair is still wet,” I approach the table and grab a smaller towel, placing it on Julian, covering his face. Without thinking I begin to dry his hair. Rubbing the towel all over.

“Oh um, thank you,” Julian says. I freeze in place. What the hell am I doing. I slowly move my hands from the top of Julian's head to the back, towards his nape, where I slowly pull off the towel so it falls on his shoulders revealing his face. However, never in all my days did I expect Julian to be gazing at me like he was. His eyes were wide, filled with surprise and wonder. His mouth agape as he looked up at me, still slouched in the chair while I stand between his legs. My arms rest on his shoulders as I look down at him. Neither of us speaks a word. Suddenly I feel Julian’s arms, wrap around my back, he’s not grabbing me, just holding me, keeping me in place. I catch his eyes flick up and down multiple times. And I would be lying if I said mine wasn’t doing so too. The moonlight once again beams through the window as it pokes through the clouds. Illuminating Julians face with a cool glow. But at the same moment, my eye catches a glimpse of something on the table. I look over Julian's shoulders at it. No, it can't be, it was too dark in here to see but now that the moon is out... I see it. The succulent Asra bought me a while ago. It’s dead. A wave of emotion overtakes me, I look down at Julian who stares up at me, confused and almost expectantly.

“Julian, I-I’m so sorry,” I pull away from him, turning my back to face him. Trying to hide my embarrassment. “I shouldn’t have done that, or any of the things I did, I’m sorry. I’m just a mess,”

“A mess? Whatever makes you say that” I hear Julian stand, the chair squeaking as he pushes it back into place. I turn around and gesture towards the potted plant in the center of the table.

“The plant it was a gift from… from a friend, and I let it die,” My vision starts to become blurry once again.

“Well I’m sure your friend would understand, you have been busy lately-“

“You don’t understand!” The flood gates open. “I can’t even keep a plant alive let alone my patients! And all day I’ve just been selfish trying to flirt with you when I could have been working!” The ugly sobs return, I cry into my towel, hoping I’ll open my eyes and all of this will be a dream. How embarrassing I must look.

In the midst of my cries I hear the kettle started whistling. Mid sob, I turn toward the kitchenette and prepare tea for Julian and me. No cream or sugar for Julian, a teaspoon of sugar for myself. I turn around to give Julian his tea but he’s already behind me, reaching for the cup. He takes his drink and sits back at the table, and I join him with my respective cup. Snapping my finger, I like the singular candle on my kitchen table. Once again we are sat in silence drinking our tea. I’ve stopped sobbing, but my tears continue to fall.

“I’m sorry again Julian,” I sniffle between words. “I cannot lie I had an ulterior motive to bring you to my shop, but I shouldn’t have done that,” I’m too embarrassed to even meet his gaze.

“It’s alright, I cannot lie and say I didn’t sense you were up to something, so in a sense, I should also be apologizing,” I meet Julian’s eyes once again, he’s staring at me with a smile that doesn’t meet his eyes. Taking a sip of his tea he continues.

“I understand it’s been hard for… all of us, because of the plague, but you can't allow it to overtake you and make you feel weak,” at this point I have calmed down, my cheeks stained in tears and my nose sniffly. I nod in response, gazing at my poor succulent.

“You said a friend gifted it to you?” Julian tries to strike up a conversation.

“Yes… he um loved to travel and would bring me gifts often,” I take a sip of my tea trying to keep myself composed.

“Were you close?” Julian asks. My eyes shift to his wondrous expression.

“Yes along the lines of that,” I pause for a second contemplating if I should tell him. “We got into an argument when the plague first became really bad. He wanted to leave, and I wanted to stay and help… So he left,” the last few words taste bitter in my mouth.

“Do you miss him?” I pause for a minute before I finally nod. Embarrassed to confess to Julian I was essentially trying to use him.

“I hope you don’t think ill of me… I should really stay away from the bottle,” I laugh bitterly. Julian quietly laughs in response.

“I could never think ill of you,”

“Thank you….” I glance out the window, the rain is still coming down hard. I don’t want to kick Julian out after I treated him so terribly.

“Would you like to sleep here, tonight? Just because of the rain and… I would feel awful sending you to walk home in that,” I gesture to the window. Julian gives me a smile and nods.

“Yes that would be lovely, I can sleep on the floor,”

“Oh no! You can sleep in my bed I insist!”

“I feel sleeping in your bed is a step backward from today,” he jokes. I flush with embarrassment.

“I suppose so,” I stand from the table and collect the cups and bring them to the sink. After cleaning the mess and gathering the laundry I hand Julian some pillows and blankets from my bed. Julian then goes into the bathroom to get ready for bed leaving me alone. I quickly change into my sleep clothes and stare at my bed before climbing in. I haven’t slept in my own bed in a while. I’ve been avoiding my shop like… well, you know. The memory of Asra and I fighting haunts me in my sleep. And now all I can think of when I’m here is how he would hold me in bed. I couldn’t bear to sleep in it alone.

“Well I don’t think staring at your bed will help you fall asleep any faster,” I whip around to see Julian, standing in nothing but trousers. I try not to let him see my flush.

“Yes of course,” I crawl into bed and wrap myself in a blanket and try not to stare while Julian approaches and lays on the floor beside my bed. He lets out a sigh once he’s comfortable and then there is silence. Had it not been for the rain beating hard on the windows, Julian would have heard my loud nervous breathing. I can’t remember the last time I slept in my own bed let alone while someone was here with me. I shut my eyes and try to will myself asleep.

Nothings working, my mind wanders worried about my patients, about my poor plants, about Asra, about Julian, about my shop. Anything and everything is causing anxiety in my mind. I toss and turn in bed trying to get comfortable but nothing works. After what feels like 2 hours have passed I finally open my eyes and let out a huff.

“Can’t sleep?” Julian’s groggy tone cuts through the silence. I let out a sigh.

“Yes… I haven’t had much sleep lately, I guess I’m not used to sleeping alone,”

“We’ll you’re technically not alone right now…”

“Yes I guess you’re right… But there's a difference between someone sleeping in your bed and someone sleeping next to your bed,” Julian lets out a short laugh.

“Yes I guess that is so, I’ve never had the best luck sleeping either… would you… would you want me to hold your hand?”

“What?” I quickly sit up and look over the edge of my bed at Julian. It’s very dark but I feel that I can see him blushing.

“Well you know, so you don’t feel like you’re sleeping alone,” his voice wavers slightly. I guess that makes sense.

“Ok,” I say. I then lay on my stomach and scooch to the edge of the bed and allow my arm to hang over the side, my hand finds Julians and we both lay there in silence. Our hands interlocked, listening as the rain comes down in the streets. Julian's hands are still cold as usual, but it’s soothing in a sense, against my hands that are usually hot and aching with tension like the rest of my body. I eventually hear Julian’s breath still into a sleepy rhythm. I keep my eyes on him, watching his chest rise and fall as tendrils of moonlight poke through the curtains. Eventually, I close my eyes, and slowly but surely I fall asleep into a warm comforting slumber.

@livingprophecy​​    /   mal’s letters aka zee choose death 🥰

i'm sure by now you know that i was reassigned to a new unit. i would have told you myself that i was leaving, but you didn't look like you wanted to see me. i couldn't blame you. part of me thought i'd be back soon enough, and maybe by then you'd stop looking away when we were in the same room. that's looking less and less likely by the hour. they say this new position might be more permanent than anyone expected. you know how these leader types are, they can never make up their mind about anything. i probably shouldn't tell you that, though. the last thing i need is you reprimanding me in writing.

shit, sorry. getting off topic. the point of this is, i don't know when i'll see you again. maybe i should have talked to you before i left. said something. i know you wouldn't have listened, but it would have been better to get it off my chest then. except you're too stubborn for your own good, and i didn't want you to hate me for pushing you more than i did that night. i couldn't help you the way you wanted me to, and maybe that's on me for being too willing to see what you didn't want anyone else to. i'm never going to regret the choice i made then, you needed someone to tell you to stop. you deserved to be able to grieve. you still do. i'm just sorry it pulled us apart.

there's a lot i didn't say then that i guess i should say now, but the trip was long, and daylight is ending soon. i'll write again. you haven't gotten rid of me yet, nik. looking forward to hearing from you too, if you can find time in your busy schedule to pick up a pen for me. but i'll understand if the masses keep pulling you down with a hundred more complaints about needing softer blankets and more salt for their slop.

best regards, mal.

p.s. sorry, that last part was a joke. i think i'm getting worse at them.

/

it's safe to say most of us underestimated just how long we'd really be here. the most "permanent" has ever meant is a few weeks, at most. just enough time to prove we've got numbers on our side, just enough to spill a little blood on both sides.

that was grim, sorry. i don't want this letter to be about that. here i was, ready to talk about the beauty of the mountains and how the air tastes different here than it did there. sometimes i forget this all leads back to war anyways, but it's easier to let yourself get distracted by the small pleasures in like. the first rays of sunlight and how they cast shadows over giants, the way plants bloom here that are strangers to what other forests have held. i wonder if you'd let yourself see this place the way that i do, if you'd love to lose yourself in it the same way. i remember you once said you wanted to see the ocean, and how your eyes lit up when you described it. i hope it makes you feel the way being on mountain tops has made me feel: at peace and just a little more alive. i think you deserve that, after everything. i know you do.

maybe we can see it together sometime, if that's not asking for too much.

speak to you soon, mal.

/

a few weeks passed since i last wrote. sorry, i guess i got caught up in everything. you know how it is, the work of a tracker is never done, etc. etc. not that i mind the work, of course. i'll take the fresh air and clear skies over being stuck in a stuffy tent with a bunch of soldiers any day. i still don't envy your meetings and boring talks of treaties that never go anywhere, or the way they always seemed to cut our mornings short at the worst possible moments. it's a miracle dominik didn't resort to anything worse than glaring at me for making you late, i always thought he'd get me thrown into the brig just for being annoying in his presence.

i still think about him sometimes. more than sometimes. i heard he had family close to the capital? you'd know more about that, i suppose. it feels stupid, but i feel guilty that i didn't know him better. did he laugh at stupid jokes, did he turn his head up towards the sky when it rained, did he see an end to this war? it doesn't seem fair that you're the one who has to carry him. someone else should remember him. i pray you learn you don't have to shoulder this burden alone.

but that's not what i was writing to you about. or, rather, wanted to write to you about. are you even getting these? i hope you are, but i know how tricky sending mail is. it once took five months for one of alina's letters to get to me, you know, so it wouldn't surprise me if you never saw these.

i met some people. well, if you could even call them people. they're idiots, really, the both of them. added onto my unit just last week, though i don't think they know a thing about tracking. that's fine, though, they're good guys and it's easier not to fall into thought with their incessant babbling going on in the background. it's hard to get close to people in times like these, but they seem too harmless to keep away. hopefully they get to stick around for a while, but we can't be sure of anything, can we?

that's all i had to say, i suppose. i'll end it here before this gets any longer.

take care, mal.

/

i think about how we left things. should i have pushed more, come to see you when i knew time was running out for us? it didn't seem to be within my right. we always knew this would end somewhere, just ships that pass in the night, but the tide seemed to carry us further away than i’d anticipated. it’s hard to wrap my head around how awful it felt when they gave out my orders, the way it seemed time was hacking me to pieces when all i wanted desperately was to help you keep yourself together. but you wouldn’t even look at me in the days that led to that moment. it was like i stopped existing for you, and you couldn’t see me as i floated away.

this isn’t to say i blame you. i don’t. saints, i don’t think i could ever place the blame on you for anything. but we were friends, right? if nothing else, we were friends, and now it feels like we’re nothing. the memory of your hands on me is a ghost that lingers, the proof that it wasn’t all just a dream. it’d be easier if it was. then i wouldn’t have to lie awake at night, wondering if you’re reading these. if you are, i’m sorry. i don’t blame you, i swear i don’t. grief is a monster that claws through all of us, and you lost the most important person that you had. if one day i got word that alina was gone from this world, i would destroy myself in that pain. but you had to watch him go, you have the memory of that now.

i’m sorry. if you get nothing else from this letter, just know that i’m sorry and i’m still here. if you need me, i’m still here, nik. i know it isn’t much, but it’s all i have to offer.

your friend, mal.

/

all of my writing seems to be reserved for you and alina. i don’t have anyone else, i guess, but that’s okay. they sent me out again, caryeva this time.  it’s only for a few weeks, but i don’t mind traveling to this one. alina’s here, said something about the cartographers trying to make sense of the caves. i don’t know how much sense they expect to make of her drawings, but, hey, she’s here. so that means that all of my writing is reserved for you, at least until i have to leave again.

i'm sorry about the last letter. i shouldn't have sent it. that's one i really hope you didn't get, but i guess you wouldn't know that if you aren't getting any of them. there's only so much i can keep bottled up, though, and it's not like i can tell anyone else about you. i've thought about telling alina, a few times, but then i look over at her and forget how to breathe and thinking about you gets a little harder to do. it's always been like that with her, though, but i can't put words to the feeling when she's the one i'm talking to. she's familiar, like you were for those few months. like you'd still be if one day we met back in the middle of this war.

princes go on to do princely things, and our story probably ended already, but i'm just unlucky enough to be stupidly optimistic. i see an end to this war, and i see you becoming a great leader,  and i see it all unfolding in front of my eyes. see? stupidly optimistic. it's alright, though. someone somewhere has to have hope. why not let it be me?

your stupid optimist, mal.

/

we left caryeva this morning. just me and the poor idiots who came here on their way to make the journey back to sikursk. i hugged alina so tight i think i would have broken bones if we'd held on any longer, but she didn't complain. just wiped the tears away and called me stupid, in that same tone she uses when she's not trying to make things sadder than they are. i missed her the moment my back was to her, my feet carrying me hundreds of miles away from her again. the ache never left me when i was with her, but she makes everything easier. now she's gone again, and i can't help but let the loneliness creep back in.

i'm an orphan, did i ever tell you that? it's hard to say, never comes out quite right. like saying "i have nobody who cares about me" or "everyone who should have loved me is dead." that's what people look at me like, at least. pity and sadness and the way the war keeps taking and will keep taking more. but that's not true. i have someone. her. we've always had each other.

i have alina, and i still feel alone.

you haven't responded, or you never got these letters, or you did and haven't even read them. i don't know which one makes this more painful. doubt muddies everything and the lack of answers rips away any security i had in what we had. but what did we have? a few nights of stupid choices, where i could have drowned my troubles away in anything but you chose me and that felt good enough to mean something? i said i wouldn't blame you and that's still true, i can't put this on your shoulders on top of everything else. mostly, i blame this war.

i've thought about not writing these anymore. they don't make me feel closer to you. they just make the distance seem longer. but i don't want to leave you alone. i'm sorry, i don't know what else to do.

i suppose i'll keep on holding hope for a little longer.

running out of things to put here, mal.

/

it's late, and the stars are shining high above, and i can't sleep. dubrov's snores could shake the mountains, but that's not why i'm awake. i stopped believing you're getting these, so i guess it doesn't matter if i say it now. i miss you. being with you was easy, which is why i know it was never real. what we had only ever existed in my head, and you forgot about me the moment i wasn't around anymore.

were we friends, nik? were we at least that?

i have to believe we were. because if we weren't, what does that leave me with?

i never thought i'd get to keep you but a part of me was looking for a happier ending, a more satisfying conclusion. you were the first thing i didn't want to run from, that i didn't even realize you were never there with me to begin with.

all i’ve said in these letters is sorry, but i can't apologize for this one.

mal.

/

it'll be a year tomorrow.

by the time you get this, if you get this, it'll be longer than that.

i can't help but think about you sitting in your tent, alone, shoving that grief down as the time ticks by. or do you drown your sorrows in someone else, the next petty face that catches your eye? is it wrong to say that? i don't know. and you're not reading these anyways.

that's not fair to you. i told myself i wasn't going to be angry writing this one, and saints know i still ache to think about you feeling any of that grief alone. but it's been a year, and it could be two years, and i know that this is it. you're never going to write back, and i suppose that's on me for expecting you to.

i'm sorry. i'm sorry that i'm mad and i'm sorry about dominik and i'm sorry i let you push me away when all i wanted was to be there. i can't go back and change that, i don't even know if i would want to. were you always so stubborn, or is that what you told yourself you had to be?

please let someone in, nik. even if it's not me.

mal.

/

i should stop writing these, but you know how it goes. one more letter turns into two, two turns into a chest full of them. there’s no telling if i'm sending these to the right place anymore, if you've moved on. they said they'd find their way to you anyways, but that's hard to put any amount of faith on. there's too many unanswered letters for me to make up my mind on what's happening to them.

i keep thinking that you might have found someone else and can't help being jealous despite knowing it's probably for the best. maybe we can both find something to keep us feeling a little more human, a little more whole.

if i kiss someone and all it does is remind me of you, does that still count as trying to forget you?

swallowing the idea that one day you might disappear from my memory is hard, though i shudder to think of the alternative. nobody tastes like you. the only person who's ever made me laugh like you did is alina, and even my love for her is different. it doesn’t burn like yours did. like it still does.

what i'm trying to say is: i don't think i can forget you if i tried, but saints i wish i could. and i hope it’s harder for you to forget about me than it is to ignore these letters.

everything i have left, mal.

/

this was supposed to be an apology for something, but the words won’t come out right. here it is, nik. by this point, i’ve spent more time being ignored by you then i ever got to have you. if you never get these letters, i hope you spend the rest of your days thinking i forgot about you. if you did, i hope you never read this one.

you said i could keep you as long as i wanted, and i wanted to believe that was true. so much that i put my heart in your hands. even though we never called it love. there was always a part of me that knew it was a mistake. i understood then that it was a lie, just like i know now that you're never going to write back. i gave you my heart. i gave you everything. i should have asked for it back when i tucked my things away that final night.

i said i wasn’t going to blame you, but then that just means we’re both liars.

you should have looked away that day our eyes first met. you should have told me to leave when all i wanted was to spend every waking moment right next to you. if you knew we didn’t even get a chance, that you were never going to keep me, you should have pushed me away before i felt your teeth sinking into my heart.

maybe we were both naive and stupid, but you always knew, didn’t you? i did too, but you can’t tell a lovestruck boy what he can and can’t do with his feelings. that’s what it is, isn’t it? i cared too much and you cared too little, or you just didn’t care about me more than you cared about letting me go.

war has never been kind but it feels less cruel than what you’ve done to me, and if i were to die tomorrow at least i wouldn’t have to think about you anymore.

saints, let your memory be purged from my body.

/

this isn't a letter. this is a eulogy. and an apology.

i don’t want to hate you, but hate pours out when i write these. there’s nothing healing about wanting to say my piece to you, and getting nothing back. like arguing with a wall. at least i’d know if a wall was there. so, this is the last one, nikolai. there’s nowhere else for me to put my feelings down for you, so i’ll bury them in this ink and move on.

if i loved you once, i can no longer separate that love from the pain your absence has caused. there is nothing more empty than being faced with your silence, no greater frustration than knowing you’re out there somewhere and we walk the same earth on startlingly different roads. you were never mine, and i was always yours. but you didn’t ask for my love, and i’m sorry i gave it so easily. a lesson for next time.

i hope you get to see the ocean, nik. i hope whatever doubt that lives in your heart can be replaced by something or someone else. if one day i hear that you’ve done great things with your life, i want to hear your name from the mouth of a stranger and think only fondly of our times together. you deserve all of the love a country can give for a great prince, and an even greater man. but more than that, you deserve to be happy.

maybe someday, when we’ve both found a place to put our love, we can meet again. maybe by then we’ll be ready to call each other friend.

i won’t hold my breath, but i choose to believe there’s a silver lining here somewhere.

goodbye, mal.

try again | ten

title: try again pairing: ten x black!reader genre: angst, hurt/comfort, fluff request: “Can I ask a dark Ten and his black wife having a miscarriage and feeling like she failed him in being a good wife and making him a father so she wants a divorce so he can be happy with someone else but he persists on being with her not matter what happens. Thanks for taking it!” word count: 2.9k warnings: mentions of a miscarriage, depression/grief, marital troubles a/n: my computer/photoshop is being raggedy as hell so i don’t have an actual banner pic or paragraph separators for now 😢 god. i ended up watching a 15 min youtube video about newborns b/c of this fic, tho, so that was fun

Seeing those two little lines was one of the happiest days of your life.

After trying for nearly a year and thinking it was never going to happen, you finally got a positive result. You took 5 tests to make sure you weren’t imagining things, but it was as real as it could possibly be. The doctor’s confirmation only sealed the deal.

To know that there was a small life growing inside you that you could call your own, made from both you and Ten’s DNA, was astounding to you. There were many nights where you simply laid in bed tracing shapes over your stomach, wondering what your child would be like and if they already knew how much you adored them. You especially loved it when Ten would lay his head on your chest and caress your stomach, speaking softly to both you and your growing child.

Some hidden part of you had wanted to be hesitant about celebrating this developing chapter of your life, not knowing if things would turn out alright since it had been so difficult to conceive before. Soon, though, you let that worry fade to the back of your mind in the face of your overwhelming joy. You filled your hours with thinking about baby names and baby nurseries and baby clothes, wanting to create the best life you possibly could for your little one.

You willed your fears not to get the best of you for once and instead poured all your energy into creating that reality. A reality that, unbeknownst to you both, wouldn’t come to pass.

You can still remember that blissful feeling now, if you concentrate hard enough and try to push past the pain. You hold onto that glimpse of happiness very tightly, drawing what you can from its memory until you can receive nothing more.

Back when you first lost the baby, Ten had promised you he could never be mad at you about it, even though you asked him over and over again—nearly everyday—if he was upset with you. Even then, he didn’t get angry with you asking all the time, which somehow made you feel worse. Like even more of a burden. You tried to stop asking about it, stop thinking about it, but his words weren’t quite enough to reassure you.

Despite your best efforts—from both you and him—the seed of doubt implanted itself in your mind anyway and slowly began festering there.

Where your bed once was a place where you dreamed about your future child, and even conceived them there, it’s now become something of a prison. A constant reminder of what happened and what won’t happen. The sheets are more like arms that suffocate you in their hold and keep you confined in a cocoon of pain. Despite your desire to be free of this cage that’s sprung up around you, you find it impossible to escape.

Whenever Ten is off at work, you continually ruminate on the past year of failures. Your one tiny hope and the end of its brief light, so quick that it’s difficult to remember how it happened. No, you don’t recall much from the day you were rushed to the hospital or how the miscarriage itself occurred, though you think maybe it’s better that way.

You’re somewhat grateful for how the human brain knows how to protect itself from trauma. Sometimes it’s the only way to survive. You find it incredibly ironic, though, how things we don’t remember still imprint themselves on our minds and souls. You experience the pain as acutely as if you’d been mentally present for it all.

The dark thoughts press in more closely whenever Ten is not next to you, though you never feel completely whole even when he is around to comfort you. Your mood worsens in the day, when he’s gone at work. You don’t even have your own work anymore to take your mind off of things, having taken a month off to recover. The worries that plague you during these hours make it hard to do much of anything but lie in bed and sleep.

You’re more grateful for his presence than he can know, but you also feel increasingly guilty when he’s the one who has to do most of the housework. If you had the energy or motivation to do it, you would; but right now, those feelings are lost to you. You keep hoping to yourself that you’ll find your way out of this dark place soon, even though you are more suffocated by it by the minute.

On a day where you find it especially difficult to keep the thoughts at bay, you contemplate many things.

What would it be like if you were no longer here? If Ten could find another wife who could actually give him what he so desired, without failing this time? He deserves that much, doesn’t he? To have a family of his own, even if it can’t be with you. Maybe you can’t have kids at all, and your short pregnancy was the only chance you had of conceiving. In that case, you reason that he should be able to go off and find someone else instead of you clinging so tightly to him, unable to let go.

It pains you to do it, but you begin writing a note for him to find later, too afraid to tell him out loud what you’ve been thinking and what you plan to do. You don’t know if anything you’re writing makes sense, but you feel like you have to do it either way; there’s no point in staying and making you both more miserable.

That night, Ten holds you as he falls asleep, like every other night. You stay awake for hours after he drifts off, turning your plan over in your head. A few tears drop from your eyes, but you quickly wipe them away, ignoring your own heartache. You’ve already set your mind to it.

When Ten gets home that Thursday, he’s surprised and a little panicked to see your car not in the driveway. It’s been sitting there for weeks, but now that it’s gone, it must mean you’ve went somewhere.

Maybe you’ve gathered enough strength to go out today and go shopping, something you always liked to do. A part of him suspects that isn’t the real answer, though, which only increases his anxiety. Maybe he’s just being paranoid, but he decides to check just in case.

He calls you, but it goes straight to voicemail. When he tries a few more times with the same result, his nervousness turns into full-blown panic. Unsure what to do, he decides to text you despite knowing he probably won’t get an answer.

6:25 P.M. Y/N are you okay? Where are you???

6:26 P.M. If you decided to go out today just text or call me back please, I just need to know you’re okay

6:26 P.M. I’m really worried

Ten finally gets out of the car and goes in the house, rushing up the stairs to your shared bedroom. He’s doubtful he’ll find anything there, but he needs some kind of answer for what’s going on. To his surprise, there’s a note lying on the bed.

Chittaphon,

I’m leaving for a while. Please don’t panic or be upset, I’ll be safe where I’m going. I’m sorry I didn’t tell you anything, but maybe it will be easier this way. I’m not sure if I can continue on like this. I have to think about some things. I want you to know that I’ve loved you since the first moment, but I don’t know if that’s enough anymore.

I did everything I could to help us form a life together, but I failed anyway. I hate myself for it. I don’t blame you if you hate me too, or if you’re only staying with me because you think I can’t make it on my own right now. I just want you to find happiness again, whether I’m there or not.

Y/N

Ten shakily sits on the bed, covering his mouth with his hand and closing his eyes tightly against the tears. The absolute stillness of the house without you in it is overbearing, and he puts his head between his knees as he tries to block the quiet out. He doesn’t move from that spot for a long time, and his head pounds from the blood rushing to his skull, but that discomfort is nothing compared to the turmoil stirring in his chest.

A loud knocking on the door startles you out of your sleep.

It’s only been a few days since you left your home with Ten, and you’ve kept your phone off and buried at the bottom of your suitcase since then. You had no intentions of talking even if he tried to contact you, and you eliminated that line of communication so you wouldn’t have to. It’s been your small hope that your actions have built up enough to make him hate you, to not want to contact you anymore, to agree to a divorce—although that thought brings you more pain all the same.

You stumble out of bed and into the hallway, and there’s an ensuing commotion on the other side of the hall as your parents come rushing out of their room. Your mother comes to your side with concern and panic on her face, grabbing your arm. “Y/N? Are you okay?”

“I’m fine,” you say, though you’re trembling a little from the sudden noise.

“I don’t know who the hell is banging on the door like that at this time of night, but let me tell you…” Your father curses under his breath as he heads to the living room to peek out the window and see who it is. He quickly comes back into the hallway with a puzzled expression. “Y/N, it’s your husband.”

“Chittaphon? I thought you said you both agreed it’d be best for you to come home for a little while? Why is he here at this hour?” Your mom gives you a wide-eyed look, waiting for your explanation, and your head begins to hurt from the hurricane of emotions you’re enduring.

Your fingers fidget as you try to steady your nerves enough to respond. “Please, just let me talk to him alone. I-I know why he’s here, but we have to talk…”

Ten bangs on the door again, and your dad gives a skeptical glance. “Are you sure?”

“It’s fine, I promise,” you say, gently ushering your parents back to their room. “Please, just let me handle this.” They look like they want to say or do something more, but they relent to your request and leave you in the hallway alone. Your mother glances at you from behind the door before closing it, though you notice she doesn’t shut it all the way.

When you open the door, Ten stands there looking at you from behind the screen door with distress written all over his face. The mesh screen obscures his features a bit, but you can still read him from a mile away. You immediately feel guilty, though you don’t make any move to open the door. You’ve already made your decision—but mostly for his sake.

Ten drops his backpack—the only thing he has with him—and presses his hands against the mesh as if he could touch you through it. You back up a little when he does, standing further away from the entrance. He sounds like he’s been running a marathon when he speaks. “Why did you leave?”

“Why are you here?”

“Y/N, I know there is only one place you’d go for sure in a situation like this. And I was right. Why did you leave?”

You shake your head. “I don’t think this is a good idea anymore.”

“What isn’t a good idea? Us being together?”

“We should get a divorce,” you say quietly, somewhat afraid of his reaction, though you still think it needs to be put out in the air.

Ten is lost for words, and he has to think for a few moments before speaking again. “Y/N. Just tell me this one thing. Do you hate me?”

You’re quiet for a moment. You want to tell him yes, to make this separation easier so he can forget about you and move on. But your throat tightens at the idea of letting that word pass your lips. Tears sting the backs of your eyes even though you silently beg them not to.

“No.” Your voice wavers a little when you respond. “I just...want you to be happy. I’m sure you read the note.”

“You’ve forgotten one thing. I can’t be happy without you.”

“But you were happy before you met me. You can do that again.”

Ten presses his forehead against the door, knowing he has to keep his patience even if he’s upset. “But we’re together now, and now that you’re in my life I don’t want you to ever leave.”

“Chittaphon, please. You don’t need me. The only thing I’ve done lately is be a burden to you.”

“Y/N. You know, I considered just letting you go wherever you needed to go to make things less painful for you. That’s the only reason I didn’t come up here immediately. I thought maybe you’d fallen out of love with me, didn’t want to see me again, and that I just needed to let you be for a while...but Y/N, I can’t be without you. I’m not going to leave my wife alone when she needs me the most—whether you’ll allow yourself to believe that or not.”

The first tears drop despite your resistance to them, and you have to struggle to talk through the knot in your throat. “But I-I couldn’t—I’ve been a terrible wife, I couldn’t give you the child you w-wanted, that we b-both wanted…” You lean against a nearby wall for stability as your body grows weaker. “We tried so hard for a year, and…”

Ten clings more tightly to the mesh, his own tears dripping from his chin. “Please open the door.” At this point you are too shattered to deny him, and you seek his comfort even though you feel undeserving of it.

When Ten finally coaxes you onto the porch, he pulls you straight into his arms and holds you close, allowing himself to simply breathe in the scent of your hair and skin. You both end up sinking to the wooden porch floor, with Ten embracing you.

“Y/N, I’m begging you to trust me. There’s no way I could hate or blame you for this,” he says quietly, your tears wetting each other’s skin. “Sometimes things happen that we don’t understand. That just means we have to get through them together.” He pulls back a little to make you look at him, his hands cradling your face. “We can always try again. This doesn’t have to be the end, Y/N.”

You nod slowly, looking into his despairing eyes. “I’m sorry.”

You allow him to bring your head to his chest—the same as he often did with you. His heartbeat thuds under your ear, and the sound makes you feel calmer than you’ve been in weeks. You sit together like that for a while, listening to the sounds of wildlife all around you and letting yourselves mend the broken pieces of each other.

You wake up to the sensation of a small, wiggling weight on your chest, and you’re confused as to what’s going on until you hear the sound of a familiar set of giggles. A smile crosses your face before you even open your eyes, and you reach your hand out to feel a bundle of soft, curly hair.

“Are you awake already? It’s so early.” More happy laughter is your response, and you finally let loose a chuckle of your own. You open your eyes to the sight of your 1-year-old son nose-to-nose with you, his warm breaths puffing across your face. He smiles and squeals loudly when he sees you looking at him, and you scoop him up into your arms to cuddle him close.

“Good morning my little boy,” you sigh, kissing the top of his head. He smells freshly-washed, so you know Ten must’ve given him a bath already. Your son is more interested in treating you like a playground and climbing all over you rather than lying in your arms, but you’re more than happy to let him play to his heart’s content.

The door to your bedroom opens soon after, the smell of breakfast drifting into the room. The bed sinks behind you as Ten climbs on, and your son squeals even louder at the sight of his father. Laughing, Ten picks the small boy up and nuzzles his face into his hair before turning to you.

“Hey sexy, breakfast is ready,” he says, leaning forward to kiss your cheek.

“Don’t flatter me, I haven’t even brushed my teeth yet,” you say this with a grin as Ten keeps kissing your face, with your son trying to get in between you so he can give you kisses too. You wrap your arms around both of them and you all huddle up in a heap on the bed, laughing and falling over each other. In this moment, you have little doubt that you’re the happiest person in the world.

From Chin To Yon Rah (Part 22)

She is sick with over-exhaustion, with starvation and dehydration when they find her. She doesn’t have the energy to lift her head. She barely has the energy to part her lips when the man brings a waterskin to them. The woman hoists her up and tilts her head and Azula practically inhales the water. Suckling from the waterskin until it is as bone dry as her throat had been moments before. The woman helps her lay back and drapes a cool rag over her forehead.

She falls in and out of sleep and sometimes she finds herself in a state somewhere between. A state where the steady rocking and bumping of the ostrich-horse drawn caravan makes her feel as though she is a drift in the ocean. It comes with a sense of dread to think that she is somewhere floating in a vast, deep blue nowhere.

Sometimes when she manages to open her eyes the tarp is down and she can see the stars, can smell the crackling of a fire and something sizzling over it. Each time she is too fatigued to ask for a portion. The woman makes sure that she has a drink from the waterskin, even when she isn’t lucid--Azula is certain that the woman does so even when she is out cold. She never wakes up to a dry throat.

The man informs her that she is running a pretty decent fever when she comes around enough to sit herself up.

“Where am I?”

“We’re nearly across the plains.” He answers.

She tries to rub the fog from her eyes, shake the delirium and tiredness from her head. She feels as though she may just topple again. At the soft rumble of her belly, the woman holds out an apple. Azula takes it with eager hands. Only after several bites does she ask, “are we going to a village?”

“Little lumber and fishing town called Badgermole’s Hollow.” The man answers.

She nods and chucks the apple core over the side of the caravan. “Why are you…” she gestures to the waterskin and the blankets they have her swaddled in.

“Well we very well couldn’t just leave you there!” The woman exclaims as though that explained everything. Because the fact is, they very well could have left her, it would have been less of a burden to them. She recalls how many others have just decided to take her in as though she were a dear friend that they have just reunited with.

And perhaps this is something that the Earth Kingdom--or, at least, the more rustic parts of it--do better than the Fire Nation.

“Who are you?”

The woman laughs, “Min-Ta and this is my husband, Hao-Bai.”

“And you?” Hao-Bai asks.

Her mind wanders between Rikka and Azula before she finally settles on, “Azula.” She is too tired to keep on top of even a small lie.

She expects a question or two and she gets one, but it isn’t the question she had braced herself for. “You trying to get back to the Fire Nation?”

Azula nods at the man. She holds up a bag of coins that she has managed to hold onto. “I can get myself to Yon-Rah.” She isn’t sure what she will do then; Earth Kingdom coin won’t do her anything at all in the Fire Nation.

She lays back down and rolls onto her side, her eyes feel so very heavy. Min-Ta hums softly and carefully drapes another cool rag over her head, “you just rest now, until that fever’s run its course.”

She rests until they come to a stop that night. On slightly wobbling legs she comes to join the couple at their little fire. Min-Ta’s face lights up, “good to see that you’re feeling strong enough to join us.”

“Have some ale.” The man offers.

Azula finds herself a seat and silently drinks. Though it is somewhat bitter, it warms her belly. She isn’t sure what sort of meat the man is cooking, but it smells rather divine. She finds herself looking around. The grassland, now mostly behind them sprawls out endlessly waving and undulating beneath the stars. Dew catches in the moonlight and it brings a unique sort of sweet smell.

For the first time she truly deserves the couple and their caravan. They are a clean and well put together duo--it only just registers to her that they have kept her very clean and tidy. Their caravan is well maintained and she notices a second cart next to it. A team of four ostrich-horses graze nearby alongside another two--likely to pull the main caravan. They have a set of well cleaned and undaunted pots and pans and several other tools.

They themselves are in good condition as well. Hao-Bai is a burly man with a tamed beard. His muscles are so huge that she can see him pulling the caravan on his own if he must. He has a tattoo of a badgermole sitting on a tree stump inked onto his rather hairy chest. He looks as though he should smell musky but instead she smells only a fresh pine resin and the smoke of their fire clinging to his clothes.

His wife is decently muscular as well, her eyes are the brightest green that Azula has ever seen. Her hair is short and braided and she smells of the forest as well. With a second glance, Azula realizes that she is pregnant. She swallows and tries to put her mind anywhere else.

“Do you travel a lot?”

Hao-Bai flashes a grin. “It’s part of how we make a living.”

“I like to think that we’re experts at crossing the plains now.” Min-Ta adds.

“I wish I had the skills.”

Min-Ta quirks a brow. “If you came from Chin then you made it quite far. Most people don’t make it more than a week or so on foot. You have to know at least a little something.”

Or she simply has a strange dash of luck to cut through her misfortune. She sets her glass of ale aside.

Hao-Bai leaves the fire for a moment and comes back with a pipa. “How would you like to hear an Earth Kingdom traveling song.”

“That sounds pleasant.”

Min-Ta smiles. “Hao just loves to show off his pipa skills.” She leans in and whispers, “his vocals can use some work.”

Sometimes lessons are simple and light. That night she learns old Earth Kingdom songs.  

.oOo.

She sits in the grass with a pipa in hand. She doesn’t know how to play it very well, but it keeps her mind busy and it seems to delight the servants regardless. She wonders if she can work out the words to say if she forms them as a song first.

She thinks that she is only stalling but it doesn’t seem appropriate to just pound on Sokka’s door so late at night, now that she has put off talking to him long enough for the sun to have fallen completely.

“You’re playing off key!” The man in question accuses. “You have to tune it before playing it.”

“Have you ever played a pipa?”

“No, but I watched Aang play a few times.” Sokka smiles. “He, Katara, and Toph are gonna be here soon.”  He notes more to himself.

“Exactly how soon is soon?”

He shrugs. “I guess that depends on the sailor.”

Azula once again finds herself at least slightly perplexed. He has approached her with such ease as if nothing has happened between them at all. As if there were never any tension. She looks up from her pipa and into his soft blue eyes.

She wishes that he would just get it over with, that he would demand to know why she had been leading him on. Instead he asks, “want me to try to tune it for you?”

Azula nods and passes him her instrument. He twists a peg and gives the pipa a strum, repeating this several times until she finally asks, “shouldn’t you be mad?”

“Why would I be mad?”

Azula shrugs. “You haven’t talked to me since…”

“I thought that you’d want some space to think about things.”

She nods.

“Well?”

“Well what?”

“Did you think about them?”

She nods again.

“And…”

“I have decided that it isn’t fair.”

Sokka’s brows scrunch and he sets the pipa aside. “What isn’t fair, Azula?”

Absently her fingers reach for the stone until she remembers that it is safely sealed up in Bao. “I still think about Hajime when I’m with you.” Even if she doesn’t mean to she often finds herself drawing parallels between the two of them.

“I don’t mind.” Sokka reassures, his hand comes to squeeze her shoulder. “Hajime is important to you, he isn’t just going to go away.  Yue didn’t, even when I was with Suki.” He pauses. “She’s still here and so is Suki. They were both so different from each other and you’re much different than both of them.”

She doesn’t think that she is different is a good way. And yet Sokka holds her as though she is. “I don’t want to compare you to Hajime all the time.”

“I don’t mind, Hajime was the first person to really love you, wasn’t he?”

Azula nods affirmatively. There was Seyhyuk, but that was much different. An example of forced love that was meant to be a friendship. That isn’t how Sokka feels.

“You can compare your relationship with him if it helps you navigate a new one.”

She is quiet for a while, simply staring at Sokka with parted lips. He laughs and tucks her hair behind her ear. “It you need some more time to think about it…”

“I don’t.”

He gives her the most delighted grin. “Great, I was hoping that you wouldn’t because I’ve been meaning to give you something.”

She tilts her head, “and what would that be.”

He tilts her chin up and offers her lips the softest kiss. When he pulls back he is still stroking her cheek with his thumb. She thinks that her face might be slightly flushed. “If you want to take it slower, just let me know.”

Azula nods again. “This is fine.” More than fine really. It is nice to be loved again. Nice to be kissed again. Nice to have someone who is willing to wait for her and work through her hesitations.

Sokka motions for her to sit on his lap. She picks up her pipa and makes herself comfortable with her head resting against his chest and her hands resting atop the pipa. He cups a hand over hers. She makes a point of ignoring TyLee and Mai creeping about in the bushes.

A Place To Call Home (Fam ILY) Chapter 1

Read it on ao3                                                                                              Rating: T                                                                                                  Warnings: Age regression, implied abuse Summary: Virgil is an age regressor. Patton, his best friend, is the only one that knows. Things change very quickly when Patton starts dating Logan, and Virgil slips hard.       

Ever since he was a kid, Virgil knew he was different. He knew he thought things, felt things in a different way than other kids. He tried making friends, talking with people, but all his words came out jumbled and awkward. He tried being positive, but it was hard when all he seemed like to other people was a disappointment. His thoughts were like a tight ball of knots that could never be worked through. This always left him feeling isolated and alone, and his neglectful parents didn’t help.

Things started to change a little when he met a boy named Patton in high school. He was new to the small town, and picked an isolated corner in the cafeteria as his designated lunch/hiding spot.

That didn’t last long, as soon a short, chubby-cheeked boy with curly blonde hair, golden freckles, and the brightest blue eyes he’d ever seen come up to him. “Hey there, you’re the new kid, right? I’m Patton, it’s nice to meet you!” He said with a smile, holding out his hand.

Virgil was taken aback. No one had ever come up to him like that before, especially of their own volition. He always seemed too bitter and angry to approach, and he honestly learned to like it that way.

“Virgil.” He said cautiously, taking Patton’s hand. Patton smiled even wider, and shook it gratefully. Virgil didn’t even know that that was possible.

“Hey, can I sit with you?” Patton asked, not even waiting for a response as he sat down next to him. Virgil shifted away slightly, out of habit, and Patton got the hint, not getting too close.

They sat in silence for a while, eating their lunch. Well, Virgil was in silence, Patton was rambling about a million different things at once.

Then the lunch bell rang, their signal to go back to class. Patton stood up first. “Well, I gotta go to my fourth period, math. But thanks for letting me sit with you!”

“Huh, I have math too.” Virgil noted quietly.

“Oh, that’s great! We have a class together! Here, let me walk with you!”

And by Virgil’s side Patton stayed, for the entirety of high school and beyond. It didn’t take long for them to become the best of friends. They could always count on each other for anything, whether that being keeping secrets or standing up for one another. They could finish each other’s sentences, and sometimes it felt like they could read each other’s mind.

Patton seemed like his exact opposite; cheerful and friendly, and always looking on the bright side. He was amazing with people, and somehow always knew how to make a new friend. He was caring and kind, and was always willing to lend a helping hand. Virgil figured that was why they got along so well, opposites attract.

There was something else in Virgil’s life that only Patton knew about. He was an age regressor, someone who adopted the mind of a child to help cope with stress, trauma, anxiety, and a multitude of other things. Trauma was his biggest reason, with help from his parents, and him.

He figured he had always done it, he just didn’t have a word for it until a little after high school, when he told Patton. Patton actually had heard about it before, since he was both a regressor and a caregiver himself. They did their research, and quickly decided that Patton would be his carer.

“Are you sure? I don’t want to be a burden…” Virgil mumbled.

“Don’t worry kiddo, you'll never be a burden to me. I’ll always be here for you, no matter what.” Patton reassured. Virgil needed a lot of that, since he wasn’t very used to healthy relationships.

It had been several years since then. They had grown up, gotten their own places, and started work. Virgil worked at the Hot Topic in the mall, and Patton worked at a local animal shelter down the street from his apartment. They considered moving in together, but Virgil figured he would appreciate the space of living alone more, and Patton understood.

It was late summer. They both had to work overtime, considering the onslaught of kids that would be coming to and from during their break.

Hey there kiddo, how’ve you been?

Virgil looked down at the text on his phone and smiled. They hadn’t been able to see each other very much recently, being so busy and all, so being reached out to by Patton felt nice.

been good, kinda wanna regress, but ive been too busy

Awe, I’m sorry about that kiddo! Are you free to come over? You can if you want!

sure, be there in a min

They’ve had this agreement since forever that whenever Virgil needed to regress he would always go to Patton. Virgil rarely regressed without him, only letting himself under dire circumstances. If Patton wasn’t able to be there, he would hold off and be big until he was.

He grabbed his backpack with his little gear in it and headed to the bus stop. He put his earbuds in and got lost in the sound of 2000s punk rock bands until he stopped by Patton’s apartment.

It didn’t take long for Patton to open the door. “Hey kiddo! Come on in!”

They hugged, and Virgil was rushed in, but stopped dead in his tracks when he saw that there was another man in the room.

“Oh, I’m so sorry! Virgil, this is Logan, my boyfriend!” Patton chuckled nervously, motioning to the stranger. He was tall and lanky, and his dark brown hair was cut short and slicked back. His striking dark eyes seemed to stare straight into Virgil’s core.

“Pleasure to meet you.” He said, holding out his hand. Both his words and his movements seemed almost robotic, emotionless.

“Virgil.” He took his hand cautiously, suspicion quickly rising.

Patton watched this exchange warily. “Uh, Logan, sweetie, why don’t you get us some snacks and drinks, yeah?”

Logan nodded his head. “I suppose some refreshments are in order.” He stated before going into the kitchen.

“Hey, what’s wrong hon?” Patton stepped toward Virgil.

“How long has this been going on? Why didn’t you tell me?” He hissed quietly, straining to keep his voice low.

“I don’t know, I’ve just been really busy, that’s all! And I know you’ve been busy too. Besides, we’ve only been going out for a couple of weeks-”

“A week and a half.” Logan corrected

“See! A week and a half, it hasn’t been that long!” Patton reassured, putting his hand on Virgil’s shoulder.

“Does he know?” He mumbled. Patton furrowed his brows. “Know about what?”

Virgil rolled his eyes, motioning to the backpack slung over his shoulder. Patton’s eyes widened in realization. “Oh! Well, I told him about myself as soon as we started dating.”

“Did you tell him about me?” He whimpered, anxiety only rising.

“No! Oh, no, of course not! I wouldn’t out you to anyone without your permission, you know that!” Patton said, squeezing his shoulder. Virgil huffed, crossing his arms.

“You know that you don’t have to talk about me behind my back, right?” Logan walked in with a tray, with a bowl of popcorn and three cups of soda on it, since Patton didn’t drink.

Virgil shuddered, looking away. He scrunched up, making himself look as small as possible. Patton smiled nervously. “Logan! I’m sorry, we were just clearing up some things, that’s all.”

Logan stared at both of them for a second, but shrugged and set the tray down on the coffee table, not caring enough to get into it.

“I should go.” Virgil murmured, quickly shuffling to the door. Patton stopped him. “You don’t have to! You can stay if you want.”

He shook his head. “It’s fine, I’ll leave you two alone.” He shoved past Patton and walked hurriedly down the stairs and toward the bus stop, trying hard to stop the tears pricking his eyes and the lump in his throat.

Patton sighed. “I should go after him.” He said, biting his lip.

“I don’t know, maybe he just needs some space.” Logan countered, picking up a book and flipping through to where he last left off.

“Yeah, maybe…”

“I have a feeling he doesn’t like me very much.” He stated after a moment of silence had passed between them.

“He doesn’t mean it like that!” Patton said, turning around. “He’s just, been through a lot, and doesn’t do well with people.”

“I can understand that.” Logan adjusted his glasses. “But it’d be best to give him his space. He can probably handle himself.”

“Yeah, you’re right.” Patton smiled sadly, sitting next to him and digging into the popcorn, knowing deep down that that wasn’t true.

Virgil burst into his apartment, stomping to his room and slamming the door. He threw down his backpack in a huff, plopping down on the bed. He grabbed the nearest pillow he could find, squeezing it as tight as he could.

The thoughts started pouring in. This can’t be happening. He’s gonna leave. He found someone new and now he’s gonna leave me.

He dug his face into the pillow, tears staining the pillowcase. He looked at his backpack with disdain, knowing that he was gonna have to be all by himself.

He put the pillow down, and crawled over to his backpack. He opened it carefully, and pulled out a small beanie baby bat stuffie named Vlad. He held it tight, feeling himself getting smaller and smaller.

He took a deep breath and sighed, opening the small front pocket. He pulled out his single pacifier. It was lavender with black rhinestones on the guard, the words ‘baby bat’ on the handle. A little bat charm was the centerpiece. Patton decorated it himself.

That’s when Virgil broke down. He sobbed quietly, tears falling down his cheeks. He held onto Vlad like he was holding on for dear life. He started rocking back and forth, his breath getting shallower and shallower.

The walls started closing in around him. The shadows were towering over his small frame. His field of vision was darkening, and static started to fill his ears. He could feel his heart hammering in his chest.

Flashes of the past swirled in his mind. Parents, school, but most frighteningly, him.

God, why are you like this? Jesus, why do I even put up with you? You’re worthless, you know that? I shouldn’t even be here, I’d be a lot happier if I wasn’t.

Then he stopped himself, reminding himself that nothing would get solved this way. He took big gulps of breath, trying to remember those breathing exercises Patton had taught him. In for four, hold for four, out for four, hold for four.

He did this several times. The static had gone away, and his vision was a lot clearer. But there was still this heavy, empty feeling in his chest, and the lump in his throat was still there.

He stood up shakily, grabbing his sippy cup from his backpack and going to fill it with milk. It was a bit bad, but he didn’t care at that point.

He shuffled back to his bedroom, grabbing Vlad and his pacifier, and climbed into bed, burying himself in a pile of blankets. He got out his phone and went to Spotify, putting on his special littlespace playlist. He let his eyes flutter close, trying his best to go to sleep.

It seemed like the minutes ticked by slower and slower. Every time he shut his eyes, they would just pop open again. He groaned, taking his pacifier out of his mouth and sitting back up. The thoughts were coming back again.

He tried, he really did. He tried to be big, he tried to take care of himself. But he just couldn’t do it. He needed someone there, someone to take care of him. Specifically, he needed Patton, he needed his Papa.

The tears started forming again, and this time he was slipping hard. He grabbed his phone and scrolled through his contacts, tapping Patton’s name.

The phone seemed to ring forever, but he finally picked up. “Hey kiddo, what’s going on? Are you okay?”

“No.” Virgil sniffed, voice getting smaller. “Need you, miss you.”

“Oh, honey, I’m so sorry, I should’ve come with you.” Patton sighed, silently cursing himself. “How small are you love?”

“Dunno, baby I think.” Virgil was really slurring his words.

Patton let out a breath, biting his lip. “Alright little one, I’m coming as fast as I can. Can you hold out until I get there? For me?”

A few more tears slipped down Virgil’s cheeks. “Mhmm.”

“Thank you, baby bat. I'll be there as soon as I can, I promise.”

Patton hung up the phone. He grabbed his wallet and his keys, and headed for the door. “I should’ve gone with him.” He said, facing Logan, who was still sitting on the couch.

“It’s fine, I shouldn’t have kept you. I didn’t realize how bad it was.” He said, looking up from his book.

“Are you sure?” Patton stepped towards him. He stood up, towering over him. “I’m sure. Go, he obviously needs you.”

Patton smiled. “Thank you.” He said, kissing his boyfriend goodbye before heading out the door.

They lived relatively close to each other, and Patton was able to get to Virgil’s faster, since he had a car. He ran up and knocked on the door, before realizing it was unlocked. He opened it carefully.

“Virgil? Are you here?” He called out, looking around warily. He stepped in, listening to any sign of movement.

He soon heard sobbing coming from the bedroom. He rushed in as quietly as he could, finding that the huge pile of blankets on the bed was shaking.

“Hey there sweetie, can I come in?” He asked, stepping towards the bed. He slowly pulled back the covers, revealing Virgil’s wide, scared eyes.

“Oh, oh baby…” Patton cooed, gingerly touching Virgil’s hair. “Can I climb under there with you?”

Virgil hesitated, but nodded his head. Patton smiled, pulling back the covers and getting in, pulling them back over them.

He noticed that Virgil was biting his thumb out of habit. He looked around, finding his pacifier near the edge of the bed. “Here, can you put this in, please?”

Virgil whined, looking away. Patton sighed. “Can you do this for me? I just don’t want you biting your thumb and hurting yourself.”

Virgil huffed, begrudgingly taking his thumb out of his mouth. He opened wide, letting out a relieved sigh as Patton put his pacifier in.

“Thank you, sweet boy.” Patton smiled, holding him close. “Do you wanna tell me what’s wrong?”

He burrowed his face in the crook of Patton’s neck. “Gonna leave.”

“What?” Patton asked, looking down at him.

“You’re gonna leave.” He sobbed. “You’re gonna leave just like DeeDee did. He’s gonna take you away from me.”

“Oh, oh honey, no no no. Look at me.” Patton gently held Virgil’s face in his hands, bringing their eyes to meet. “I would never abandon you like that, okay? Never, in my entire life. I’m here for you, always, and I’ll never let you go, okay?”

Virgil nodded, closing his eyes and touching his forehead with Patton’s.

“I, I like Logan, I do. But we’ve only been together for a short while, so we’re not really in the ‘I Love You’ stage yet. Besides, I could never love him as much as I love you.” Patton assured.

“Really?” Virgil asked, wide eyed.

“Really really. I pinkie promise.” Patton held out his pinkie for Virgil to take, which he did with a small smile.

Patton laughed. “Now, what do you wanna do? Do you wanna watch some TV, or?”

“Take a nap.” Virgil mumbled, eyes finally heavy enough to close.

“Alright kiddo, you take a nap. I’ll be right here with you.” Patton murmured, holding Virgil close and gently petting his hair.

Virgil hummed, snuggling up as close as he could. His breathing steadied, and he fell into a safe lull of listening to Patton’s heartbeat. His smell and his touch filled him with a cozy feeling of warmth. “Love you Papa.”

Patton smiled, heart melting. He knew he would stay with his baby boy for as long as he could, and he had a feeling he could do it forever. “Love you too, little one.”

TIMELINE OF PAST AND CURRENT EVENTS

Some dates are inaccurate from the posted date and some don’t have dates, BUT I’ll be changing dates around just to fit her story a bit better and hopefully make sure things are more easier to understand. If I’ve forgotten to add any importantance between your muse and mine, please shoot me an IM!

-----

Arrived in Isola on January 24th, 2021. 

Upon arrival these are things that Ismael has gone through

On her first day arriving, Spirale was covered in sheets of snow with diamond creatures and diamond anything that would block the way. 

She was rescued by someone from those diamond yetis!

She found out that you can actually break diamond with diamond, and also FOUND KYRIE!

On January 26th, 2021

Curious about the hole, she decides to revisit it. 

This is where she meets the unpleasantries of the shadowy figure. She never got his name, BUT that shadowy figure looking thing is the cause of her first death. He pushed her into the hole.  to this day, no one knows. To this day, Kyrie does not know that Ismael has a tiny fear of heights now. 

{CAN’T FIND DATE} Was hired to work at Lovelyloaves by Mizi

On February 21st, 2021 she joined Big Dipper Talent!

Ismael has met and befriended plenty of people!

On April 1st, 2021

Game time? It’s weird and Ismael still doesn’t entirely understand what was going on, but it was fun. On her birthday, as part of the game, Ismael and Kyrie went diving....from the sky. Certainly a big step in that little fear of her’s!

She got a present afterwards! She hasn’t taken them off since!

She met someone shortly after. Nero. 

He’s looking for a way out, and despite hearing that it is impossible he seems extremely hellbent in returning home. Says he’s got someone waiting for him. Someone waiting for him shares the same name as her friend Kyrie. WHAT are the odds, huh! She has been searching for answers since to help aid him in this quest.

On April 6-20, 2021

On her way in search for parts for Nero, she decides to expand her searching by going to Yesteryear, attempt at Mistwood, and going through Fibonacci’s Shadier sides. 

 April 6 - In Yesteryear, she didn’t find anything, but instead met a man with a strange looking bird. Is it a crow or a raven? She still doesn’t know, but she’s beginning to think the bird is....pretty cool. 

April 10 - In Mistwood she didn’t even go in to check it out. This place will have to wait until she’s either with someone who can get them out in a pinch or just...when she feels she’s ready. Badou says there’s Deatheater? Deadeaters? Whatever the fuck. She’s not about to be eaten by no eatereaters. 

April 18 (Afternoon close to Eveningish) - Ismael tells Nero she wants to fight alongside him when he brings up that he might actually have to change his plan a bit. Says he’ll have to face the Stars first in order to prevent being brought back here. He won’t let her fight and that upsets her. They have a small argument about it. She’ll have to check up on him. Make sure he got home safe and make sure he’s okay. 

April 18 (Nighttime) - Ismael miscalculated the time and got overly cocky. If that’s what you can call it. She got stuck in the crowd and was rescued by a rather tall and scary man. He showed kindness, despite her screaming and lashing out because of fear. Same man decided to show her who he truly is by taking her to some building. 

IN an attempt to save the three men that were unlucky enough to meet Yamazaki in the same building for some shady business???? Ismael may have failed and may have actually been the result in them dying. 

During the time she is captured and held captive, forced to watch whatever unfolds before her eyes with Yamazaki and these poor unfortunate men, Nero sends in a text about finding someone who is willing to make his arm. She’s unable to get to the message until 2 days after in the evening. 

On April 21st, 2021

She finally steps out of her lone house to finally go grocery shopping that she’s been trying to avoid for the past couple of days since she got back from that night. A lot of stuff that she’d suppose to get done neglected.

In her attempt to be quick, in and out of grocery store, she meets Grimm. Someone she’s spent a lot of time with talking about music, playing, and listening.  .....If Grimm can see that something is wrong.... She’s really going to have to avoid seeing everyone else. 

On April 24th, 2021

It’s proving difficult to be at the house, let alone just the ward entirely. She used to actually enjoy being in Fibonnaci. Some of the people there are nice, but...Well, now she just wants out. No where is technically safe, but man, she really wants out of Fibonacci.

She’s been crashing at....one of the Branches. Yesteryear is one of them. She’s beenn sleeping outside in her makeshift camp for a little over two days. She will stop by her home to get more supplies and the things she needs, but only then. 

She’s more than likely going to check with the Stars. See if they will let her move houses.

She wants to ask the stars to move her, but again, the thought of ‘nowhere is really safe’ lingers at the back of her mind. She can move anywhere in the Wards or branches if that’s the case, but....HE will be there....Even if he isn’t. 

On April 27th, 2021

Ismael finally gaining the courage after talking to Dune, decides to text Grimm and Nero.

She tells them what happened that night with Yamazaki. She’s not ready to talk to Kyrie about the event and isn’t quite sure when she will be ready. 

Currently she is crashing at Grimm’s. Occasionally will crash at Nero’s, because she doesn’t want to just burden the one. Sometimes, she’ll be outside, in one of the branches. Sometimes she’ll tell the two where she’s going and other times she will not.

Kyrie remains to be in the dark about the whole situation, as through text, Ismael can pretend that everything IS fine to a perfect T. 

On April 30th, 2021

She hits V up in hopes that he and his friend would be available to help her with a task. She’s been working on her archery skill and decided that in order to work on the small fear of heights, she’d pick up parkouring. Makes sense, right? Let’s see how this all goes.

On May 1, 2021

Ismael was once again debating on if she should venture into Mistwood or not. Only this time, instead of it being Badou to stop her in her tracks, it is none other than V. Where did he even come from? And will she ever actually check the woods out?

Don’t remember exact date

Ismael’s purchase of her Bow and fire elemental fragmentation were delivered to her. She’s been practicing more often. She also received her hoverboard as well.

On  May 2nd, 2021

Ismael has once again come across Yamazaki. This time nothing happened and weirdly enough, it...was as if he was trying to help her get rid of that fear? Too bad he’s extremely unpredictable and what’s done is done. Though, she can’t deny that she hopes that ONE day she can actually look at him without fearing. That one day she can say his name without the memories of what happened...Or even if the memories are still there, she’s able to hold her ground and stay strong. 

Until then, she’s practicing. She’s working on bettering herself, strengthen herself both mentally, emotionally, and physically. 

She is getting a little better. Still nightmares plague her during the night, but she’s able to talk about what happened. May not be in full details, but it’s enough to understand ‘ah, so that’s what Ismael went through.’ 

Trying to face her fears is a lot harder than she thought. BUT she’s working on it. She’s hoping that even through fear she will be brave. 

And every day, Ismael is reminded that she does have people here who cares for her and her them. It just makes these little horrible moments just a tad bit more bearable. She has so many people to thank!

And yes, this very same day she’s made her way into the woods. It may have been because she wasn’t thinking where she was running until it was too late. Whoops. Here, she’s met Mew. The pink cat that Nero helped. 

On May 4th, 2021

Ismael decides to ask Nero a favor. She asks him if he would be okay in going to that building where she had been held captive and check for those bodies that she had left behind. 

Nero ended up sent to the hospital when an unexpected turn of event led him and another guy there. 

She feels guilt and blames herself for Nero’s injuries. 

At the hospital on the same day while waiting for Nero, she meets Yamazaki again. 

On May 8th, 2021

Ismael takes Nero’s words to heart from before when he got injured. When they were at the park he had said something along the lines of not holding something from someone. That being honest was more better. She decides to tell Kyrie of the things that she had suffered through. 

Ismael is significantly getting better at not just archery, but handling things that has been happening in her life. The nightmares are still there. Sometime she catches herself in tears when she wakes, or a yelp in the middle of her sleep. Still, Ismael is doing her best!

On June 4th, 2021

There was an art museum that Ismael decided to attend to. Upon seeing a portrait, she finds out from Kyrie that the art is Yaira. 

That very same day, everything in the museum comes to life and starts attacking people, including there being monsters added onto the chaos. 

Ismael does not make it through. She ends up being injured fairly badly and passes away from said injury by the very hands of Yaira (an evil portrait.)

In the moment of her passing, she gets to meet Yaira (The good portrait that Kyrie made.)

On July 10th, 2021

Ismael undergoes a extremely life-changing situation. The stars manages to throw Ismael back into her world but reverse time with Ismael’s memories of Isola intact and was told that she’d remember bits and pieces and the more she continued onward the more memories she’d remember.

With the option to leave at any time, Ismael continued through her memory to the end and found out that Yaira was her sister all along. 

Currently Ismael suffers from guilt, anger, self-hate, and so much more. She hasn’t been taking care of herself but still continues on with music, training,  and her faith....If only to try and push through. 

On July 21st

Ismael decides to contact Kyrie after a few days of just sending them texts to ask them about Yaira. She has a lot of questions and hopes that Kyrie can help her with them. She’s not entirely sure how she’s going to take any information if it turns out that Kyrie knew something and kept it from her. 

MORE TO BE ADDED

will be updated accordingly!

From Suramar to the Winter Court

"We… don't normally get your kind here. Then again, the living are hardly expected to be where the souls of the dead dwell. What you've shown me makes me think you would normally be… elsewhere. Perhaps among the Venthyr."

"Why is that?"

"They're the sort who help people work through their pasts."

"I don't need my past. I need a future. So I've come here, to find one. To make one."

"I don't understand…"

"Then let me explain more clearly…"

***

I was born to a family of musicians in Suramar, long after the Sundering. We lived in the grandest city on Azeroth, but could never leave it. The dome we lived beneath was our salvation as much as our cage. It was a tradeoff accepted by our ancestors; we had no choice but to live with it.

My parents were not rich. They had enough money to ensure all their children were tattooed, but only with the simplest patterns. Still, we did not struggle in my early days. Music brought joy, and everyone wanted more joy. We played and sang and did not starve.

As I got older, my voice changed. Never quite the singer my family needed, I became far worse as I progressed through adolescence. It wasn't technique; I know how to breathe, how to shape my mouth, how to project. My tone, however, and range… Well. They were of little use. I became accompaniment at best. I took up needlework to minimize the burden I'd become. Cunningly patched garments are no match for a soulful aria, though.

If I hadn't grown entirely out of youthful beauty, they could have at least hoped to gain by my marriage. Instead, my voice and face and body achieved unity in ugliness, none betraying the others by achieving. This would not have been an issue in the year of my birth, but life had become ever more lean in the city.

The poorest are always aware that they are, and we had become increasingly close to being among them. Our art paid the same as ever, but the cost to survive had grown. People had begun to disappear, though it was always those who you might expect: the lonely, the bitter, the rebellious. Perhaps, we told ourselves, they had finally committed a grand crime and gotten exiled. That was the punishment, you see -- banishment from the city. It meant you were cut off from the Nightwell. You would wither away without its magic to sustain you. The lucky went to sleep and never woke up. The others went mad.

As we were becoming progressively nearer to the bottom rung of the social ladder, the demons returned. We -- my people, not my family, even my great-grandparents were too young to recall this -- had fought them before. The shield that was our sky had been created then. This time… things were not so easy for us. The High Magistrix traded our sovereignty for our survival, and so the Legion came to live among us.

There was an outcry, of course, even some small acts of rebellion. None were successful. The leaders were either jailed or exiled, not executed. I think the idea was that death created martyrs, while exile simply made animals. Life changed little, is what I am getting at. The major difference was the Legion walking our streets, presumably making demands of our leaders. We were more concerned with surviving, so I can't say we worried too much about all that.

It was difficult, though. Those who could afford to purchase the joy of song were fewer and fewer, yet they were increasingly wealthy. If there had ever been such a thing as a middle class, it had effectively disappeared. The rich sacrificed nothing; the rest of us scraped by.

Except those who didn't. There were more disappearances. Sometimes there were raids. Usually the families taken away were related to someone known to be a criminal of some sort. It was easy not to notice or care. We were much more concerned with our own lives. The bottom was coming quickly, we knew.

My family tried with me. I know they did. Nobody could have guessed I would betray them by ending up a collection of flaws held together with collective disappointment. They would not miss me, I was certain, so I decided I would do some good for them. I left one night while they slept, heading down to the docks.

The demons were most common there. Intimidating though they were, I often felt their presence to be… not soothing, exactly, but more tolerable than others. At least when I stood beside a flayed-skin husk that fed on souls I could feel almost pretty. They ignored me, mostly, so I sought out those of my people who worked among them.

There was work to be had, you see. The Legion needed portals opened and maintained, portals that required someone act as the conduit to maintain them. It was not very skilled labour, but that was good. I lacked skill, possessing nothing but my relative youth and determination to no longer burden my parents with my disappointing existence. I became what the later rebellion called a collaborator. In exchange for helping the Legion to destroy our planet, I could improve my family's lives. It seemed a fair trade.

I was surprisingly good at the work. I learned quickly, and I tired far less easily than others. The demons and my supervisors taught me runes and cosmology that were typically reserved for those who could afford tutors. I was rewarded quite decently for my efforts, and I passed that along to my family. They lived better than ever because of me, but believed me dead. I'd requested that, you see. I wanted them to profit without knowing I was a collaborator. Let them think I had died in service to something useful or whatever, and that in so doing I had made sure they would survive. They didn't need to be any more disappointed than I'd already made them.

The problem was I finally understood where people were going. We brought the Legion in, maintained paths from the Twisting Nether and other Legion worlds, but that was the most innocuous of what was happening. The disappeared, those too far gone to be of use to Elisande's regime… they were taken elsewhere. They would be loaded onto boats or carts or cages mounted on the backs of horrible beasts I never learned the names of. And then they would be gone. I didn't know exactly where, though I learned the name: the soul engines.

What happened there was beyond my understanding. I knew as much as I needed: the poor went in, power came out. My work… well. I don't know if they were related. The Legion handled it, so I suppose I helped in that sense, but doing what I did was the only thing that kept me and my family from finding out more about the "process" first-hand. Perhaps I was involved in the murder of thousands? All I know is I saved at least seven lives.

…

I'm sorry, I'm not used to talking about all of this. It seems important to be honest here, so I'm trying. In all honesty, I don't take any responsibility for what was done. How could I? It wasn't my decisions that caused any of those things to happen. I did what I had to to survive. And I made them pay in the end.

Once the… second, I suppose, rebellion started in earnest, the system became increasingly strained. My hours lengthened. Several others became so burned out they were "sent home early", almost certainly a euphemism for being fed to the engines. Some were murdered for collaborating with the Legion, or Elisande, or whoever the rebels were mad at that day. I couldn't help them, any of them. My life -- and others' -- depended on keeping my head down. So I did.

I considered, though, and I thought. I was becoming very senior, at least by maintenance standards. The portal builders were under pressure as well, their numbers thinning or being pulled for other priority tasks. That left space for opportunities. I didn't want to be them, but I was capable of learning. That made me an apprentice of sorts, something I never would have been a decade earlier. My family lacked the resources to get me a mentor; the Legion invasion had given me one for free, while providing for their needs.

My education on runes happened at an aggressive pace. Every day was multiple practical exams, and if I failed it was likely to kill me. I didn't. I wasn't allowed many questions, so I made them count. I learned a great deal in those days. For instance, I discovered that a small instability introduced by a slightly malformed rune could cause a devastating energy backlash. Can you imagine what might happen if a system under strain began breaking down while under heavy use? People could die, especially if the portal structures are being kept constantly active with no downtime for repair.

…

I said I was trying to be honest, didn't I? I knew what I was doing would kill them. That was the idea. I only did it because I thought I could get away with it. While nobody would think a lowborn technician was smart enough to do it, they would still prefer to punish the "unskilled" over someone who went to the same academy or whatever. That made me safe, even if I was an obvious suspect. They needed me, and I wasn't like the others. I benefited from their system and never dissented. Would I have done it if I thought they might be less blind? I don't know. I'm not willing to die over principle. It won't prove a point to anyone, won't change the world. Nobody would remember my sacrifice, so no, I don't think I would. The world hasn't earned that from me, and I don't deserve to die. We all do what we must to survive.

***

"...So no, I'm not pursuing "redemption". I don't have sins weighing me down. What I am is… curious. This is the world my people once knew, back long ago, isn't it? Where the only magic is that of the world around? We kept the night for millennia, but missed out on what that meant beyond our walls."

The fae hovered for a moment on her great wings, what could have been a shiver rippling through her fur. "I-I'm still not sure you're going to like it here. You don't seem the sort to laugh."

"There hasn't been much to laugh about in my life," the shal'dorei snapped. She took a breath, continuing on more softly. "Besides, I don't plan to stay forever. We are helping each other. Perhaps you can help me laugh."

Blinking several times, the creature was clearly hesitant, but desperate times did come with special rules. "We… can certainly try! Um. Come along, let's get you introduced to everyone, Miss…?"

"Ciscandra," she answered, deliberately omitting a surname. "Thank you."

“Call Me Back” Finale

* Patch Maternity Ward *

Ruby always knew that labor and delivery was going to be one of, if not, the hardest and most excruciating part of her pregnancy. She vividly remembered the tired faces of when Winter, Weiss, Blake, and Nora had delivered their babies and how happy they were after they got to hold onto their babies for the first time. But Ruby also remembered the seemingly endless amount of screaming and curses she heard from down the hallway of the maturity ward each time one of her friends went into the second stage of labor. When Ruby tried to ask for any ideas for how she could make the delivery stage easier for herself (that was the time when she learned she was carrying twins). However, all four girls just looked at her and collectively said one statement.

Past Winter/Weiss/Blake/Nora: “Practice breathing and pray.”

Ruby had greatly underestimated the counsel of her close friends and was convinced that they were trying to spare her the terrible truth about childbirth. The truth being that no matter what, childbirth is the most intense and painful experience that a woman can experience. How Mrs. Arc was willing to go through this experience five times (two of those resulting in twins) was truly a mystery to Ruby. But if Mrs. Arc could make it through all that amount of pain and struggle, then so could world savior Ruby Rose right? Oh poor, poor sweet past Ruby, how foolish she was to think that optimistically about the stages of childbirth.

Ruby: “GAAAA-HAAAHHHHhhhh!!!” *she screamed in utter agony, sweating profusely*

Taiyang: “It’s ok sweetie you’re doing great. You just need to wait until the head starts popping out. And by then it’ll be- Gah!” *feels his hand crushing under the pressure of Ruby’s grip on it.*

Ruby: “‘huff!’ If you say... it’ll be a piece of cake. ‘Huff!’ Or any other stupid birthday pun. ‘Huff!’ I’m going to kill you Dad!”

Taiyang: “Yeeep! Read you loud and clear sweetie!” *groaned as his grip was once again under the pressure of a mother birthing her offspring*

Doctor: “Ok Miss Rose you’re doing great, just keep breathing and PUSH!”

Ruby: “AAAAAAAHHHH!!!”

* Waiting Room Area *

Yang waits anxiously in her seat along with the other members of her team, their husbands, and Ren and Nora. Yang was trying to find something to focus on but came up blank. She was gripping tightly on chairs arms and ponders about how her baby sister is doing... well for lack of a better term ‘birthing babies’. She tries to calm herself through any means, but when a family member is expected to wait until the end of more or less a twelve-hour process is done, then calm is the last thing she wants to be right now. Yang has spent a good portion of her life fighting monsters and many groups hellbent on the destruction of humanity as a whole along with other things. However, if there was any situation that she dreaded the most was the feeling of helplessness when someone she cherishes is in pain or hurting. But then again, this isn’t normally like any of those cases, this was supposed to be a special day for both Ruby and...

Yang: ‘God damnit.’ *internally trying not to start any waterworks*

This was supposed to be a good day for the two of them, where they would start a new chapter of their lives together. Now there’s only her sister, who’s now all alone on this supposedly special day. Yang felt something in her boiling, a rage she had felt only a few times before in her life. She felt hatred, hatred towards whoever deemed it fit to take away not only her baby sister’s fiancé, but her happy future as well. A future that everyone worked and fought so hard for was taken away from Ruby without her knowledge.

The parallels between her own childhood and right felt so unbearably similar that all Yang wanted to do was hit something. A happy family who was robbed of someone who was so loved and admired by everyone that was close to them, only to never see them alive again. To that was the most painful part, he-Jaune did not deserve to be taken away from his family, friends or his soon to be mother of his children. But someone sought it fit to do just that, and now his parents lost their son, they lost a friend or brother, and Ruby lost the love of her life, the father of her soon to be born children. Just like Summer and so many others were taken away from them, a tragic repeat of history in their family.

Yang: ‘why...? Why?...WHY DID WHENEVER SOMETHING GOOD WAS GOING TO HAPPEN TO RUBY DID SOMEONE HAVE TO TAKE IT AWAY?!’ *She didn’t notice when tears started to trail down her face before shaking her head*

Yang had come to terms with the fact that Jaune was gone, they did have a body after all but that didn’t make it any less painful to know. She tried to remain strong for her sister who was no doubt going through the darkest part of her life, and she knew that it would only persist if not addressed. But Yang felt that she lost a friend and a brother many months ago, the saddest part was that it wasn’t something she’s not used to feeling. The sad cycle of their family was supposed to end with Ruby and Jaune’s union but maybe they had placed too much hope in their happily ever after. But whatever the result was, there was nothing that could be done to change it. That to her was perhaps the most painful thing about it.

Blake: “ Yang are you ok?” *places her hand on her friend’s shoulder*

Yang: “Hmm? Oh sorry, guess I was lost in thought. Got a lot on my mind I guess. Hehehe... ‘sigh.’”

Weiss: “Yang Xiao-Long. If you think for a moment that we’re going to believe that poor excuse, then you clearly do not realize who you are speaking to.”

Yang: “Heh. Yeah I should’ve figured that wasn’t gonna go pass through you Weiss-Cream. Well... I guess I’m just thinking about how Ruby’s doing right now.” *she leans back into her seat*

Neptune: “Yeah, by the way. How has she doing? Before right now I mean!” *adds in quickly*

Yang: “Honestly, not too good. Ok that’s an understatement, she was a mess, had to keep my eyes on her almost all the time. I’ve... never seen her look so defeated before. There’s been bad times before but now... it just brings back some bad memories.” *drags her prosthetic hand over her face*

Blake: “Yang...” *Looks at her old partner sympathetically*

Sun: “Sorry to hear.”

Neptune: “How’ve you been holding up?”

Yang: “What do you mean?”

Neptune: “Well you’ve been there for Ruby all during this time, but I can’t imagine it will be easy for you when you have to... well go back to doing your ‘other’ job.”

Yang: “Wha-? Do you actually think I would leave Ruby all alone during this time!” *eyes briefly flash red*

Weiss: “We’re not suggesting that Yang. But we do need to address this matter, because we have noticed that you haven’t been to Mistral since this... we found out what happened. That’s why we need to talk about it.”

Yang couldn’t deny what Weiss was saying and she had to admit that she has been slacking in a duty she’s neglecting for sometime. Although she would prefer not to do this today if all days. But rarely did they ever have time to hang out with one another.

Yang: “‘sigh’ Okay. Let’s talk.”

Weiss: “Well from what we remember you telling us, you spent most of your looking after Ruby. Even as a child back then you placed yourself with a lot of responsibility. So now after everything that has happened, you may not notice but we see how you are reverting back to the position of a helicopter sibling. However, as you know, you’re also in a position where you have to uphold a duty to the people of Mistral, so you cannot be in two places at once.”

Yang: “So what’s your point Weiss.”

Weiss: “The point that WE want to make is... we want to help easing up the burden you’ve been holding for so long.”

Yang: “...What?” *her face displaying confusion*

Ren: “It’s true Yang. While you are Ruby’s sister, the responsibility of helping her shouldn’t be on your shoulders alone. Nora and I are the godparents of these coming children, so it’s our responsibility to be there for them and Ruby as well.”

Nora: “That’s right.”

Blake: “You and Ruby are one of the best friends I have, who have fought many personal battles alongside me. So let Sun and I return the favor.”

Sun: “Yep.”

Weiss: “Yang, do you remember what I told my father when he tried to force me back home all those years ago. Your not just friends to me, you’re family. So as part of my family, I want to be able to help out as best as I can. Plus I refuse to not help with expenses she may need.”

Neptune: “‘laughs’ What she says.”

Weiss: “So what do you think.” *gives a small smile*

Yang: “..... Y-You guys would really be willing to do all this... for us? *moving her gaze to look at all of them*

Weiss: “Of course. Did you really expect to go any other way?”

Yang: “I-I don’t know what to say.”

Nora: “There ain’t nothing to say, you can’t get rid of us that easily!”

Yang: “Guys..... ‘sniff, sniff’ ....thank you.” *bows her head a little, mostly to hid the fact that she couldn’t hold the tears she had built up earlier at bay any longer*

Blake, Weiss, and Nora group around Yang so that the girls could have group hug around their blonde friend. Soon enough the husbands of the group also formed another layer of hugging to show their support as well. Yang felt as if a large load was taken off her shoulders that she had no idea she was carrying but was just happy to have friends and family such as these. Maybe with them around, she wouldn’t have to worry as much to care for her sister. Even if one of them was gone, there were still others there to help carry the load alongside her, as one big happy family.

Female Doctor: “*Cough, cough*”

Everyone: ‘⁉️’ *They all look up to see a doctor standing in front of them in scrubs*

Female Doctor: “Sorry to interrupt this special moment but I wanted to inform Miss Xiao-Long that her sister has completeld her delivery.”

Yang: “‘gasp!’ Oh my gods, is Ruby ok! Did everything go ok! Please tell me everything is ok!” *she knocked everyone off of her to get up close to the doctor pleadingly, hands clasped together*

Female Doctor: “*laughs* Yes Miss Xiao-Long, everything went off without any problems. Would you like to meet your niece and nephew?”

Yang: “Do I?!”

Weiss: “Ahem!”

Yang: “Eh?” * turns around to see the others picking themselves up after Yang unceremoniously pushed them off after a such touching moment*

Yang: “Oops. Sorry guys, got a little too excited there. Hehe...” *raises hands in a defensive manner*

Weiss: “‘Hmph’ I will forgive you right now but only because it’s a special occasion.”

Yang: “*laughs* Thanks.”

. . . . .

Nora: *sprints past the two of them* “FIRSTONETHEREGETSTOSEETHEBABIESFIRST!”

Female Doctor: “Mam, please no running in-!”

Yang: “Ohhh Hell No Lie-Valkyrie! Those kids are my blood so I get first dibs!” *follows hot on Nora’s trail*

Female Doctor: “Miss Schnee could you please-!”

Weiss: “Damn Brutes, you get there before me I will have words!” *uses Glyphs to boost her speed*

Blake: *Uses Shadow to follow after*

Female Doctor: “NO RUNNING IN THE HOSPITAL!”

Ren/Neptune/Sun: “So sorry about this.” *starts lightly jogging to catch up to their respective wife*

Female Doctor: “...... ‘sigh’ It’s always like this with Huntresses.” *shakes her head*

*Few Minutes Later*

Nora/Weiss/Blake: *sulking in defeat*

Nora: *pouting* “Using special powers in the last lap is cheating Yang!” *forms an X with her arms*

Yang: “Hey, you got a good five seconds head start on all of us so I don’t wanna hear it.”

Ren: “Nora, you can still see the babies today. You’ll just have to wait your turn.” *he says but internally is just as upset that he can’t see his godchildren first*

Yang: *looks at the door* “Ok. *breathes* Here we go Yang.”

*Door Opens then closes*

Yang enters the room and hears a small tune playing that sounds almost like a lullaby. Just as she does she sees her father standing on the right Ruby, with what seemed to be the biggest smile on his face she’s ever seen. Her dad turns to look to see that Yang had entered and signaled her to come over quietly. She gently walks over to the opposite side of Ruby’s hospital bed and after moving the curtain that was blocking her view Yang stood still, holding her breath. There she saw Ruby, her baby sis, holding two bundles of white blankets in both arms that only showed two tiny, squishy, baby faces. Ruby’s hair was damp with sweat and seemed very tired but was awake enough to soothe her newborns with a lullaby.

Ruby: *stops humming and looks up to see Yang, then smiles* “Hi Yang.”

Yang: “Ruby... They look... I mean just look at them.” *says with a hushed quivering voice, barely able to contain her smile*

Ruby: “*giggles* Yeah. Aren’t they just perfect. Took awhile getting them out but... they look so beautiful don’t they.” *she smiles tiredly*

Yang: “I-Is it ok if I...?” *hold both hands out*

Ruby: “Sure. Dad, could you?”

Taiyang: “Sure sweetie.” *he grabs onto one baby with blonde hair*

Ruby: “Here you go Sis.” *gently holds her other baby with reddish hair*

Yang gently takes one baby into her arms from Ruby and takes the other from her Dad. She looks at both of the babies up close and her lips were trembling with tears threatening to spill out.

Yang: “They’re so precious! Did you decide on names yet?” *says quietly so as to not disturb the tiny babies*

Ruby: “Yep. If one was a girl Me and Jaune wanted to giver her both Mom’s and Pyrrha’s name. Then if we wanted a boy we would name him Rowan... named after Jaune’s favorite fairytale character as a kid, ‘Rowan the Red.’”

Yang: “... Wasn’t that story about a squirrel?” *starts to giggle*

Ruby: “Yeah. But it was so cute that I couldn’t think of anything better than that. Plus I actually like the sound of it. My little Rowan.”

Yang: “Wow. Summer *kissed the redhead* and Rowan *kissed the blonde*”

Taiyang/Ruby: “....*holds in laughter*”

Yang: “What?” *face becomes confused*

Taiyang: “Yang, Rowan’s the one with red hair and Summer’s the blonde one.”

Yang: *eyes widen drastically and looks down at the two babies she just mixed up* “Whoops. Rowan *kisses redhead* and Summer *kisses blonde*”

Ruby: “That’s better, almost thought you were gonna check just to be sure.”

Yang: “To be fair if I wasn’t holding two bundles of joy in my arms, I would have tried that.”

Ruby: *shakes head while giggling*

Yang: *Looks fondly at both babies once more* “They’re amazing Ruby. How’re you holding up?”

Ruby: “Well the Doctor gave me some painkillers to dull the pain so right now I am doing greeeaaaat~”

Yang: “That’s good to hear.”

. . . . .

Ruby/Yang: “There’s something-.” *both laughs*

Ruby: “Sorry you go first.”

Yang: “Nah it can wait, there something on your mind?”

Ruby: “Ok... So I’ve been thinking for a bit while I have been here, thinking about what happens after I get out of this hospital with my children.”

Yang: “Oh?”

Ruby: “Well you’ve been helping me a lot since what happened to.... after the incident. I reminded me a lot of how things were when we were kids. Then I thought about how these two are going to be living once there back home with me.”

Yang: “Right.”

Ruby: “So with that thinking in mind I realized something that I hadn’t thought of before. How do I wanna raise my kids. Sure I’ve thought about it a lot since I had.... Jaune with me. But now he’s gone, and these little ones only have their mother left in the world. Their mother who is a sworn protector of Remnant...”

Yang: “...Where are you going with this Rubes.”

Ruby: “It’s come to my realization Yang that with Jaune no longer here with me, I’m all my babies have to rely on to care for and nurture them as a parent. But I can’t do that as a Huntress sworn to protect others. So it’s with that I’ve decided...”

Yang: *starts moving closer to Ruby with the babies in tow* “Ruby wait please, before you say anything else-!”

Yang was having a bad feeling about what her sister was going to say next. She hoped, no, prayed that Ruby wasn’t going to do a Raven and give up her kids. Sure these babies had Ren and Nora as godparents but Yang’s seen how that road ends with Raven and she didn’t want Ruby to-!

Ruby: “I’ve decided to retire being a huntress.”

Yang: “.......what?” *her face is one of disbelief and shock*

Ruby: “Yang I love being a huntress. It’s all I ever wanted to be when I was little, it’s what I’ve worked towards my whole life. *holds a hand out playing with Rowan’s hair* But in the short time that these two came into my life, these wonderful things of purity and innocence, I’ve discovered something that’s worth more than all those years spent slaying monsters and stopping the bad guys.”

Ruby: *moves up slowly to retrieve both of her little ones from Yang, who let them go gently* “That’s being these two’s mommy. I don’t want to miss a single moment of either of their lives, I want to see them grow, learn to walk, say their first words and be normal kids with a mom they can come home to who will be there. So that’s my decision, I choose to be my children’s mother..... my little blessings.”

Yang: “...And you’re sure this is what you want Rubes?”

Ruby: *nods* “I know I can’t prevent every hardship they will face, but I at least want them to have a better childhood than what we had.... No offense Daddy.” *turns to look at her father*

Taiyang: “*sniff* There’s no need to apologize sweetie. I’m just so proud of you right now.” *he says as small tears fall from his eyes*

Yang: “Yeah. *sniff* So am I sis.”

Ruby: “Thanks... so what is it you wanted to talk about?”

After much time spent having each and every member of her team and friends see her little blessings they all took time to explain and establish what would be their plan of action to move forward. Nobody could change what happened, Life is filled with hardships and struggles but together they could rise above it. They all had done so many times before and together they would do so again. Ruby was touched that everyone wanted to help so much with caring for her babies, she almost wanted to cry again. She was so happy to have friends and family such as these, a true blessing in her life.

*Knock! Knock!*

Female Doctor: “Miss Rose you have more visitors. They said they’re family to the newborns.”

Ruby: “Were we expectanting anyone else?”

Yang: “Weeeell I might’ve sent a late invitation to one family.”

Saphron: “For the love of- Move out of the way! I want to see my darling niece and nephew!” *pushes by the Doctor*

Female Doctor: “GAH!” *almost trips*

Saphron: *looks around and sees the four couples in the room* “Oh come on! You all got here before me!”

Terra: *entering holding up a five year old Adrian* “Well we would’ve gotten here sooner had someone NOT send us a notice at the very last minute. Then we would’ve been here sooner.”

Adrian: “Hi Everyone!” *while waving*

Ruby: “Hehehe. Sorry it happened so suddenly that well we kinda forgot make a big announcement about it.”

Saphron: “*snort* Ok I guess that’s fair. Now where’s those darling little angels!”

Ruby: “Well they’re right here but they’re sleeping so I would be- *Saphron swiftly takes them* careful with them!”

Saphron: “Oh my gods! Terra look at them! They’re so cute! Rowan has blonde hair like an Arc and Summer has the her mommy’s hair~ Oh could just eat them up!~” *says in a hushed tone*

Terra: “....Saphron. The red haired ones a boy and the blonde is a girl.” *smiles at her wife*

Saphron: *eyes widen and looks at both babies, who she just mixed up* “.... I knew that. I totally knew that I was just saying that to test you.”

Terra: “Sure. Look Adrian, it’s your new cousins. Don’t be like your other mommy and get their genders confused, ok~”

Adrian: “Sum-Sum and Rowen.” *pokes Summer’s cheek*

Summer: “pfff-! Hehehehehe!~”

Everyone: “Awwww~”

Yep. Everything was starting to feel right in the world again.

*One Year Later; Unknown Destination*

Dark Figure 1: “Is he awake?”

Dark Figure 2: “Not yet, but he should awaken soon.”

Dark Figure 1: “I still can’t believe the Master wants to keep this one alive, it took a lot of effort to take him down and we lost too many of our own. We even had to sacrifice brother Nil in order to make a convincing corpse of this one for the Huntsmen to believe.”

Dark Figure 2: “Brother Nil chose to make that sacrifice, his shapeshifting semblance allows him to become the perfect copy of one’s body and blood. Without him we would never had been able to make those heretics believe that £^%3 ^~< was dead.”

Dark Figure 1: “You maybe willing to follow his bold ideas but I do not. I serve only the command of the True Queen, not him.”

Dark Figure 2: “Patience Brother, we will have justice for Nil soon enough. This only serves as a means to fufill the Queen’s Will. Once we have all the pieces of the puzzle, then we can awaken her from her eternal slumber.”

Dark Figure 3: “Quiet! He awakens...”

A man’s eyes open from his deep slumber, he brings one hand up to rub his temple so ease his piercing headache. He tries to raise himself but feels that he is still too weak. What was he sleeping on? He looks around and sees three distinct figures wearing dark robes and were looking at him from different spots of where he was laying. Alarmed by them he tries to get up but the one closest to him places his hand on his shoulders to keep him in place so not for him to go thrashing around.

Dark Figure 3: “My brother, you must not push yourself. You’ve been asleep for a long time, and your body is still too disoriented to move around freely.” *a scraggly male voice*

Awaken Man: “What’s happening? Who are all of you?!”

Dark Figure 2: “Brother, you have been greatly injured in your last mission. You need to be put in a temporary deep sleep in order to heal your wounds. It has been a little over a year ago. As to who we are, we are your companions.” *voice reveals to be a females, who’s sounds like silk*

Awaken Man: “... So I know you all?”

Dark Figure 2: “Yes my friend, you know us all very well. We’ve fought together for many years.”

Awaken Man: “Years...? I... do not recall.”

Dark Figure 3: “Yes. A side effect of the deep sleep treatment I’m afraid. You were dealt a rather heavy injury from the warrior you faced last.”

Awaken Man: “I was fighting someone?”

Dark Figure 3: “Yes, you were fighting against one huntsman named ‘Jaune Arc.’ He was a formidable enemy who had slain over thirty of your own men.”

Awaken Man: “He... killed my men? That bastard! Where is he?!”

Dark Figure 1: “Dead. Slain by your own sword.” *the last member with them stepped in, his voice sounded deep but calm and cold*

Dark Figure 2: “It’s true brother, you had defeated your adversary but soon afterwards you succumbed to your wounds. We had to take you back to our home in order to help you survive.”

Awaken Man: “Yes, I think I’m starting to recall now. I was fighting against a strong warrior, he... had others with him...” *holds his head in an attempt to remember*

Dark Figure 3: “No you are mistaken brother, he was alone when you fought him. But his battle power was vast.”

Awaken Man: “Was he truly? I could’ve sworn...”

Dark Figure 1: “What’s done in the past is done, there is no changing it. You fought Arc, you prevailed and he died. Now come, the Master will be expecting you to fully recover within the next two days.”

Awaken Man: “The Master...?”

Dark Figure 1: “Yes he will be expecting you to come see him, he will want a full report on your mission, Abel.”

Awaken Man: “Abel?”

Dark Figure 1: “Yes, that is your name, Abel Gris. Do you not remember at least that much?”

Abel: “My memory is still not too clear right now, I must have been more injured than I thought.”

Dark Figure 2: “Have no fear brother. We will help you fill in the gaps.” *she runs her hand through his blonde hair*

Abel: “I... thank you my sister.” *it felt odd for him to say that for some reason*

Dark Figure 1: “Well I hope for your sake that you at least remember the events that occurred to you last year before the week is done. The Master is not as understanding as we are and he will expect the full report soon.”

Abel: “Of course... brother.” *why did it feel like there was a spike in his throat to say that*

With that all three of his companions left the healing room. Soon when he felt he was able, he stepped off whatever he was laying on. It looks like a opened metal egg with dark purple crystals sticking out on the sides. He walks forward to wear he sees a mirror at the left side of the room. Slowly he walks over, holding onto what he looks to be injured side that presented the most pain. As he walks up to the mirror he takes a look at himself.

His appearance looks to be young, lean physique despite being in bed for over a year, and what looked to be more than a long horizontal scar to the left of where he supposed his heart is located. A nearly fatal wound indeed. The last thing he looks at is his face. Abel looks at himself as he sees his unkept blonde hair, his pale complexion and his what looked to be dark purple eyes that seemed to have a glow to them. He places his hand ver his reflection in the mirror and narrowed his eyes.

This was the face of Abel Gris. The man who killed Jaune Arc.

- Fin -

Switch 

(Gravity Falls one-shot, 3487 words) --

He has never set out to actively harness the town’s Weirdness, but, sometimes, Ford tinkers.

It’s helpful, he finds, in those moments when he inevitably hits a roadblock—as seems to be happening more and more frequently these days—to temporarily shift his focus. Build something—let everything else, the big question mark at the center of this town and of his Unified Theory of Weirdness, percolate in the background of his brain like the coffee he probably drinks far too much of, in the hopes that when he returns his active attention to it, he’ll have something of a breakthrough—and build something.

It’s been working less and less lately, though, as that question mark grows and gets larger and larger, and there is little to no empirical evidence left unturned that seems to hold that key. Ford feels this hole like an electric shock, like static buzzing and buzzing louder and louder in his head with every day that the mystery remains. It’s more than curiosity or scientific inquiry, it’s compulsion, he has to discover what is at the root of the weirdness of this town, has to complete his unified theory…because he’s…if he doesn’t, he’ll…he needs…

A Unified Theory of Weirdness. He has to complete it.

(It taunts him from every one of his twelve fingers.)

He pours over the journals, every day and most nights, looking for something, anything, he might have missed, finds nothing.

He reads about the gnomes.

Nothing.

More coffee.

The Eye-bats.

Nothing.

Coffee.

The Undead.

Nothing…

Eventually, and he cannot say precisely when, he falls into a fitful sleep at his worktable, head plastered to the parchment, and dreams of seashores and backyard taunts, smirks on bullies’ faces…

When he wakes, hours later, he’s clenching his hands pale.

Tinkering. He’ll build something. Anything. Take his mind off of…bring clarity, yes.

But what to build?

His fingers are still numb from the grip. Nothing nimble or requiring too much dexterity. (And he’s still groggy so those decades-old voices still ring out in his head: freak, freak, freak…)

His eyes scan the room, and eventually they settle on the carpet. It’s hideous—a shag area rug, and bright blue, with astonishingly clashing yellow accents. He’d purchased years ago it at a garage sale he’d passed on his way into the county—and when had he ever been one for aesthetics anyway? It served its purpose, kept his feet warm as he paced during those cold Oregon winters.

And, Ford decides, it would serve its purpose now—give him something to do with his hands. (It always comes down to his damn hands!) He leaves his chair to kneel beside it.

What to do with it? He runs his fingers through it and finds the decal in the center: two circular arrows pointing at each other—he’d never really noticed it before—runs his hands along it. The bristles brush his fingertips, he can scarcely feel it…

(Freak, freak, freak…)

“Gah!” Ford pulls back, suddenly, as the carpet releases a static shock. It jolts in his fingers—spits the feeling back into them all at once—and it dawns on him. Isn’t the brain, every aspect of the nervous system—surely the very sense of self—fundamentally an electric charge? This carpet was a festering ground for static electricity, and if he could harness some of the town’s natural Weirdness to amplify the charge…

If two entities with electric nervous systems—two humans stood here at the same time…

If they touched the moment the field was maximally amplified, when the static charge released…

(How many times, for how much of his childhood, had he wished…he was odd, and Stanley…if they could just switch…It wasn’t as though Ford’s fingers were the only thing that made him strange, and Stanley was…Stanley would be able to bear…)

(Freak.)

(They were twins. Stanley wasn’t a freak. Stanley wouldn’t mind an extra two fingers. And even if he did...And their bodies were similar enough, or they had been as children…It would hardly like having a different body at all...)

It’s a fantasy, of course. He hasn’t seen Stanley in seven years, and may never again. And even if he did, why would Stanly agree to… But, then again, he is just tinkering. Why shouldn’t he indulge in some fantasy?

Ford fetches his tools, and puts his hands to work on the carpet.

*** As it happens, he does see Stanley again. After a short, blissful period in which he thinks he gained two friends—one in the form of a college acquaintance willing to become a colleague and then compatriot, and one in the form of a so-called muse—and after he then subsequently loses both of them—Fiddleford to Ford’s own hubris, and Bill to never having truly been his friend in the first place—Ford is desperate. He doesn’t need anybody. He can’t trust anybody, because no one would ever accept him. The bullies, and then the voices in his head—both the recollections of Crampelter and the very current, very real Bill—have been telling him as much since he was a child. And yet. And yet. And yet. His own mind can be compromised. Bill could—can—penetrate it, (was able manipulate him so easily, he’s such a fool, how could he be so stupid…) If he hides all the journals himself, even if he hides them in separate places, they’re all vulnerable. No, he needs someone else to hide the last journal somewhere remote and not tell him where. That way, if Bill breaks into his consciousness again, if he pries open his memories, he won’t find all of them. The instructions about how to complete the portal would be incomplete. It’s the only way… And yet. And yet. Everyone in this town could be Bill, and Bill could be anyone in this town, and he wouldn’t know because he doesn’t know anyone in this town, and they don’t know him—he’s made sure they don’t know him—the only person he could remotely trust would be Fiddleford, but he has no idea where Fiddleford is and even if he did, Fiddleford wouldn’t help him now… The only other connection he has—though can he even call it a connection when they haven’t spoken in ten years?—is Stanley. When Stanley answers the call and arrives on his doorstep, Ford is admittedly preoccupied. But, after Ford shows him to the portal like it would mean anything to him at all and makes his request, after Stanley flies off the handle and has the gall to compare their experiences, to insinuate that he had suffered more, something in Ford’s brain snaps into sharp focus. “You think you’ve got problems?” Stanley shouts. “I’ve got a mullet, Stanford! “Meanwhile, where have you been? Living it up in your fancy house in the woods! Selfishly hoarding your college money because you only care about yourself!” And this reference to how their physical attributes now differ notwithstanding, Ford wants to drag Stanley upstairs, to yank him onto the carpet, and let it activate like he had fantasized once upon a time. Let him see who has it worse. And of course not everything would change, Ford would still be the freak, even if Stanley had the anomalous fingers. But other people wouldn’t know that. They would see Stanley and think…See how Stanley liked being alone! And their brains wouldn’t switch. Ford would still be the one burdened by the weight of the knowledge of what he had created—Stanley wouldn’t understand it anyway—but Bill wouldn’t know that. Bill would still be under the impression…Would Bill attempt to enter Stanley’s mind? In the end, it’s just a theoretical quandary. He doesn’t have time to think through the implications of this line of thought, because suddenly Stanley is attempting to burn the journal, and Ford has to stop him—because yes, he wanted his research destroyed, but not destroyed, because it’s dangerous, but it’s also his life’s work, all he has to show for…all he has… But of course, Stanley—normal Stanley—would never understand that. It was a mistake to ask him here, Ford knows now. He dives for the journal, but Stanley counters, and then they’re on each other, fighting like they might have if they hadn’t liked one another as children, ugly hand on ugly hand, a kick, a punch, a burn…then somehow the portal is activated, another shove, and Ford is in the air... And then he’s gone. *** When he returns, decades later, his above-ground study—that had, in the years before his disappearance, served as his primary room of residence, certainly more than his actual bedroom—is almost entirely untouched. The rest of his house (his house!) is transformed into something else, some unrecognizable commodity to dupe unwitting out-of-towners—and if Ford weren’t so bone-achingly tired, or if there weren’t so much else to be furious about, this might enrage him. But, save for the layers of dust, his room is almost precisely how he left it, down to fact that the calendar still shows July 1982—(several months before he learned of Bill’s betrayal and was flung into the multiverse, and probably the last time he been engaged with or aware of the outside world enough to change it). The only noticeable difference is that the carpet is conspicuously absent. And it’s not as though he would use it now, at least not in the way he’d fantasized when he’d constructed it. For one thing, he doesn’t see Stanley enough for it to be feasible. True, Ford stumbles up from the basement for meals on occasion, but most of the time it’s only a quick stop—he brings the food back down to his lab with him, eats it alone with his eyes in his journals or on the remnants of the portal. And if he encounters Stanley in these moments, they flit their glances away from each other, hardly acknowledge one another at all. They look similar again, he must admit, more like twins than they had decades ago. They’d both aged to look like their father. And there are differences, between them, of course—beyond the obvious on their respective hands—their physiques are different, Stanley had clearly not spent the past thirty years with an intensive exercise regimen. But even this is not insurmountable. With the right clothing… But it’s no longer only about their bodies. Though he’d never admit it out loud, Ford wants Stanley’s life, the life in which he has an adoring family, a great-niece and great-nephew who love him, who sit with him in front of the television, and who laugh with him over pancakes and bacon and eggs in the morning. And Ford knows, somewhere in him that’s even deeper than instinct—in the same place that he still feels the ghost of Bill pulling at the shadows of his mind even around the metal plate, that he still feels himself falling through the portal and being buffeted through the multiverse despite all rational knowledge telling him that he’s back in his home dimension and stable—he knows that he could never have what Stanley has. This being the case, it’s easier to remain below ground, away from the mocking presence of a happy family. There’s a moment, though, when they’re all away—at that diner, or fishing, or doing whatever it is that normal people do in this town—when Ford’s poking around the rest of the house, looking for something, anything, that might make dismantling his life’s work either simpler or more palatable—that he stumbles into the attic, and sees, amongst the girl’s stickers and the boy’s novels, the carpet rolled up and stashed away in a corner. His eyes settle on it. If Stanley moved it after leaving so much of the rest of the room untouched, he must have somehow, at some point, deduced what it was for. Ford wonders when that was. At what point, precisely, did Stanley realize just how much Ford had tried, once upon a time, to steal from him? *** Dipper and Mabel will perish, and the culpability rests entirely on Ford’s shoulders. Though, Stanley seems intent on monopolizing the blame for himself. “I can’t believe this!” he exclaims, sinking to the ground of their pyramidal cage. “The kids are going to die, and it’s all my fault! Because I couldn’t shake your stupid hand!” Ford’s stupid hand, indeed. But that isn’t the point now. No, there’s a particular moment of clarity here, at the literal end of the world—the literal end of the world that he is about to cause—in which, even if the voices in his head don’t quite settle, he’s able to suddenly move past them in a way he has never been able to before. He’s a freak. He caused this. The world will end. But none of that matters. He will shake Bill’s hand, let him inside his head, gift him the equation, if it will save the kids. “What?!” Stanley bursts, when Ford vocalizes as much. “Are you kidding me?! Are you honestly telling me there’s nothing else we can do?!” “Bill’s only weak in the Mindspace,” Ford explains. “If I didn’t have this darn plate in my head, we could just erase him with the memory gun when he steps inside my mind.”(It’d be akin to something like suicide—he would be erased from his body, even if the body itself were unharmed—but that wouldn’t matter, it would be a way out, a way to save both the kids and the world…but it’s impossible, and so there’s no use dwelling on it…) “What if he goes into my mind?” Stanley asks. And clearly, Ford thinks, his brother doesn’t understand the implications, what he is suggesting. He opens his mouth to explain, but then his twin continues. “My brain isn’t good for anything!” So he does understand. And it’s almost funny. But it’s also futile. There’s no reason for Bill to enter Stanley’s head, no equation or key there to lure him, and Ford tells his brother as much. “There’s nothing in your mind he wants. It has to be me. I need to take his deal. It’s the only way he’ll agree to save you”—(because saving Stanley matters, too, of course it does)—“and the kids.” “Do you really think he’s gonna make good on that deal?” “What other choice do we have?” “Simple. We make him go into my brain. And then you erase him.” “But I told you, Stanley, there’s nothing in your brain he wants. He has no reason to—” “But we’re twins, Poindexter. We look almost exactly the same, even more now than we did as kids! And I know how to pretend to be you—I’ve been doing it for the past thirty years! We swap clothes, I put on your nerd gloves, and do that nasal-y voice of yours, it’ll be just like we switched bodies. Bill won’t know the difference. At least not until he gets inside my head, and by that point it’ll be too late for him. Right?” “I..But…” And all at once, that the clarity, the shocked calm shatters gives way to a lurch in his stomach, shocks even more violent than Bill’s torture. How many moments over the course of that decades-long one-sided feud that seems so pointless now, had Ford fantasized about switching bodies with Stanley, thought about bringing Stanley to the carper with various degrees of coercion? But not…it was never…he never… It was never supposed to be like this. Never supposed to end with Stanley gone. “Look,” Stanley says. “This is the only way to save the kids without destroying the world. And you can’t do it cuz of that plate in your head. It’s gotta be me. Go on, Poindexter, tell me I’m wrong.” “Stanley…” “Then let’s just do it already! Before he comes back with the kids!” And before Ford can protest further, his brother is already stripping off his hat, his pants, his suit jacket… What choice does he have but to acquiesce? *** Even though he’s slept better the past few nights than he has in forty years, Ford nonetheless rises early the morning after the kids leave. Such that, a few moments after he does, as he stands beside the Bottomless Pit, the sun is only just beginning to rise and peek through the pine trees. “Yeesh,” says a voice approaching behind him. “You’re not one for lazy mornings, are ya?” “Did I wake you? I tried to be quiet on the stairs…” “Eh.” Stanley shrugs. “Gotta get up sometime.” He gestures to the object rolled up in Ford’s arms. “Whatcha got there?” As if it’s not obvious, Ford thinks. Even if it’s faded over the years, the carpet is still a distinctive, hideous shade of blue. “A mistake,” he responds at last. His brother grunts inscrutably. “Stan…when did you realize what this was? What it did?” “Not until a month or two ago. The kids found it in your room. I pretty much stayed out of there the past thirty years, and I tried to keep everyone else out of there too, but Soos found the door, and then Dipper and Mabel wandered in, and turned the carpet on or whatever…” “They activated it?” “Yeah. Some shenanigans went down that day. It all turned out okay though, so, ya know, whatever. Dipper told me to get rid of it after that, but I could never bring myself to throw out anything that had been yours, so I just stashed it away somewhere.” Ford’s eyes flit toward the ground. “Mm.” “Ford, why’d you make that thing?” “I don’t know. I wasn’t happy. And there were moments I thought I would be if I were…if I wasn’t...” He clenches his hand absentmindedly. “If I were someone else.” “You mean if you were me.” Another glance away. “Well, lemme tell ya, my life wasn’t all sunshine and rainbows, pal. And I’m not saying I had it worse, cuz I don’t think I did with what Bill was doing to ya and with what you were doing to yourself in your own head even before that. But I also don’t think I had it better.” “I know that.” He pries his gaze back to his brother’s eyes, a breath, and then: “I was wrong, Stanley.” There’s a weight to these words—this admission wrenched out of him, utterly novel though perhaps it shouldn’t be—and they both hear it. They stand in it, silently, for a moment, then, Stanley breaks the tension, nodding at the carpet. “That’s why you’re getting rid of it, then? Chucking it down the pit?” Ford nods. There are more serious things he could elaborate on. How it represents a jealousy that was a part of him for so long even as he remained unaware of it. How, once planted as a seedling in the back of his brain, decades of anger and resentment had watered it, and it festered and grew, until it was part of the fabric of his mind itself, and he hadn’t even seen it until the events of the past several days. And how now, if they’re going to live a life together as brothers, he has to—wants to—uproot that envy from every inch of inside him, cast it all away. Ford could elaborate on any of those things. But instead, he looks at the carpet, says in a voice flat and deadpan: “Besides, it sure is ugly.” Stanley ogles at him for a minute, then his features break into a grin. “Hah!” He slaps his brother on the back—and Ford tenses for a moment, then smiles and leans into it. His brother keeps his arm around his shoulder, and they both approach the edge of the pit. Stanley doesn’t move his hand as Ford hesitates for an instant, or as he closes his eyes and lets the shag carpet fall. They both stare after it until it disappears from view. Then, they turn to each other. Stan’s arm still sits firm on Ford’s shoulder, and it feels, Ford thinks, like the promise of a new beginning, or at least a return to the way things always could have been. “So, uh, ya hungry?” Stan asks. “Cuz I could go for some eggs, and Susan’s probably open by now…” Ford smiles. “Breakfast sounds wonderful.” He slings his arm around his twin’s shoulder in turn, so that they’re both holding each other as they turn back toward the car. And if any static is generated by Ford’s sweater or Stanley’s socks as they go, it dissipates into the ground before it’s able to shock either of them.

[ao3]

What You Do To Me - Part 1

Fair Game Week 2020: Day 5 - Hurt / Comfort

TW: relapse.

Qrow has a fight with Jimmy and goes back to his old ways… but this time there is a hand held out to lift him up and warm arms to hide in until the pain finally fades.

Addiction, relapse, truth… and hope. A ballad in two parts.

Part 2 is HERE

For @shitluckebi hurt / comfort. I’m hella nervous. Thanks for all your encouragement... Here we go!

Rating: M

---xxx---

 “Ruby?” Clover put the scroll to his ear, “What’s happened?” he sat up in bed.

 She didn’t waste time with small talk. It wasn’t a good sign, “It’s Uncle Qrow… he’s gone. He always comes back by ten but it’s… really late. We think he might have… gone to a bar…”

 Shit.

 “Ah, yes, ok. I’m getting up right now. Do you think he’s down in Mantle?”

 “Yeah, that’s where he goes to… walk. I’m… sorry to ask you but he’d be so mad if I told Winter or…”

 “Yes, of course, it’s fine. I’ll go right away ok? I’ll let you know as soon as I find him.”

“Thank you,” her voice sounded so small at the other end of the line. She was always the one to lead and guide, forced to be old beyond her years. At least this was one burden he could carry for her.

 Clover threw the covers off and grabbed some clothes; jeans, t-shirt, sneakers, hoodie… he pocketed the scroll and looked at Kingfisher. He can’t be in that much trouble? Surely?

No, this is QROW.

 He picked up the weapon, threw open his door and headed off into the night.

 He walked for about an hour, sticking his head into this bar and that. He didn’t stay long enough to ask if anyone had seen a gorgeous, wiry huntsman with perfect hair… there were only so many bars even licensed to be open this late and he was going to check every single one.

 The night kept getting colder and colder. Clover started to seriously worry. The longer Qrow had been away from alcohol, the lower his tolerance would be. If he drank like he used to and went out into the snow…

 He raced down street after street, checking every door way. Every alley.

 He’d nearly run out of names on the mental list he still carried from his patrolling days, when a deep gravelly voice cut through the icy air.

 “Well looky here, if it isn’t Atlas’s finest.”

 Clover slowly turned.

 At least he’s upright. Kind of.

 Qrow was leaning against a lamppost very shakily; his eyes bleary. One hand clutched a bottle; a large bottle that was only one third full.

 “Hello Qrow, fancy finding you here. You enjoying the Mantle night life?”

 “It’s shit,” Qrow waved his bottle for punctuation, brown liquid sloshing.

 “Well… that’s a shame I guess. How about we get you out of the cold?” Clover glanced at his scroll and pressed send on the message he had hopefully pre-typed for Ruby: Found him, he’s fine. I’ll take care of him tonight.

 “I’m not cold,” Qrow said, using his drink to toast the sky, “I don’t even feel it. That’s the point,” he grinned. It made Clover angry and sad in a way he hadn’t expected.

 I know it hurts but you can’t keep just killing yourself slowly... the kids need you… and I…

…have no right to put my needs on someone who is hurting this much.

 Come on, Clover.

Do better.

 “You want to head home? Seems like you’ve got enough there to keep you going,” Clover gestured to the bottle and tried to smile.

 “This? I haven’t even gotten started,” Qrow slipped off the lamppost, flailed a little then regained his feet.

 Think!

 “Maybe I could have a swig? It’s nicer to drink if you have company,” he looked at Qrow, his eyes pleading.

 “That’s where you’re wrong. Company is exactly what I don’t need. Now go away. You’re harshing my buzz,” Qrow made eye contact and then, slowly and deliberately, he lifted the bottle to his lips and gulped half of what was left.

 “Qrow…” Clover’s chest hurt like he’d been hit, “Come on… at least sit with me. I’ve come all this way just to see you. You wouldn’t leave a man hanging like that would you?”

 “Leave you… hanging? You!? Ha!” Qrow barked, his eyes flashing, “You’re the one who leaves people hanging! You’re all winky and tight pants but you don’t even follow through!”

 Clover had a lot of thoughts all at once but none of them were helpful.

 “I didn’t mean to do that, Qrow.”

 “That’s what I’m saying! You don’t even know what you do to me!” Qrow kicked the snow, nearly losing his footing again.

 Clover just stood, blinking. What you do to me…

 Oh, Qrow…

 Qrow waved his bottle and continued, “Why’d you even come down here anyway? Just wanted to see me… like this? Want to tell all your little Ace Ops friends what a fucking mess I am!? I’m sure Jimmy would love to know that he’s upset the great Qrow Branwen soooo much! Man lives to make fucking waves after all…”

 So that’s what this is about…

General Ironwood.

 It wasn’t surprising. Clover used to admire the General so much… he still trusted the man with his life but he seemed to be going too far down a dark path. What Qrow had gone through for the General… what he had suffered… He probably expected to be welcomed by a great man with a great plan… a leader at the height of his powers. But when Oz died, a big part of the General went too.

 It had been hard on all of them but Qrow… he’s suffered alone for too long.

 “Qrow… Qrow… I didn’t come because of the General…”

 “Yeah, yeah… you probably even believe that but he gets in your head. He makes you believe that what you’re doing is right but it’s not right! He’s a megalo… megala… he’s an asshole!”

 “Yeah he is,” Clover sighed, looking at his shoes.

 “What!?” Qrow growled as he slowly slid down the pole and sat heavily in the snow.

 “He’s an asshole. Sometimes,” Clover conceded.

 “He’s an asshole all of the damn time!”

 Clover approached slowly, feeling the rage in the air start to dissipate. Finally he was standing above the crumpled figure. One of the greatest huntsman in Remnant and his only weakness was that he cared too much. It was just so… unfair.

 Clover shook his head and sat his ass down in the snow. He reached out his hand, “Come on, give me a drink. I’m fucking freezing over here.”

 “I didn’t know you even knew that word,” Qrow looked at him unsteadily.

 “There’s a lot of things about me you don’t know.”

 Qrow scoffed, but he passed Clover the bottle.

 Well, I have no idea what this is but… bottoms up I guess.

 Clover took a big swig and burst into a coughing fit, spraying cheap scotch on the sidewalk.

 “What the hell Qrow!? How can you drink this?”

 “Lots and lots of practice,” Qrow sighed.

 Clover took another big hit and got it down this time. Every drop I drink is one he doesn’t.

 “You be careful…” Qrow looked at him with eyes full of haggard suffering, “This shit’ll kill you.”

 “I know.”

 The heavy silence engulfed them. The heat in Clover’s stomach just made the ache in his chest more obvious. Every time he looked at Qrow it just hurt.

 “So what now?” Qrow asked, taking the bottle back and clutching it to his chest.

 The red eyes looked at him, willing him to act… What do you want from me Qrow? I would do anything… Come on, Clover… “Would you… come back to my place maybe?”

 “Your place?” Qrow’s eyes narrowed. Not what he was waiting for, then.

 “I… left my tight pants at home because I thought I’d have to arrest you,” Clover joked, awkward.

 “Arrest me!?” Qrow laughed a mocking, loud and guttural laugh, “You and what army, Hot Stuff?”

 “It only took cuffs last time,” Clover tried a tentative smile.

 “You had the pants on last time,” Qrow looked at him, his unfocused eyes sliding over Clover’s face, his lips.

 “I didn’t know they were such a hit.”

 “Yes you did,” Qrow’s eyes cleared and just for a moment, Clover felt like he was really looking at him. Seeing genuine hurt and rage. “You’re a fucking show off.”

 Clover swallowed around the knot in his throat, “I guess I… did know. I’m sorry I never did anything about it. I’m gutless when it comes to men.”

 “Gutless? You got no taste! Who could say no to aaaallll this?!” Qrow gestured at his crumpled form, wet with dirty snow and spilled cheap booze.

 Clover shook his head. Even in the depths of his depression, Qrow could still manage a self-deprecating joke. It was the armour that kept the world at arm’s length. Such a habit that it was natural as breathing.

 Qrow’s words struck home but not how he’d intended them.

 I’ve never seen a man so strong and so broken. Burning with a fire of self-destruction but still spending every breath on those he loves… hiding his doubt. Hiding his fear. So that no one else will have to bear it.

No wonder Ruby is so selfless… so strong.

Who could say no to all this?

 Clover smiled, a sad and wistful smile, “I am struggling to restrain myself.”

 “If it’s so fucking hard to hold yourself back then why would you? I could sure as hell use a distraction right about now,” Qrow sighed heavily. He lifted the bottle and tipped it up, his throat opened and he emptied the last of it in a single gulp.

 “Qrow…” Clover felt the cold wind freeze the tears as they formed.

 “No, don’t say it. I know. I’m a fucking mess. Should’ve kept my damn mouth shut but I guess I must just hate myself that much.”

 Something deep inside Clover just snapped. He grabbed a fistful of Qrow’s waistcoat and yanked the man towards him. He pressed his lips to that scotch covered and stubbled face and focussed on kissing the pain away.

 Please Qrow… know how much I care about you. Let this tell you what I can’t say.

 Qrow returned the kiss; eager, desperate… then he suddenly broke away and lunged forwards, past Clover, onto his hands and knees, and threw up in the snow.

 Clover put his head into his hands and grinned.

 Out of everything that had happened tonight, this was the only thing that seemed right for them.

Typical Qrow.

 My beautiful bad luck charm.

 “Oh fucking hell, that is not nice,” Qrow huffed.

 Clover moved tactfully away as he finished emptying his stomach.

 Finally the cramping and groaning was over and Qrow sat back against his sturdy lamppost companion and sighed, “Thank you and goodnight.”

 “You going to let me take you home now?” “You want this,” he gestured to himself in all his drunken glory, “in your room? You sick fuck.”

 “I want you out of the cold and also, if I don’t have someone to hug then I may freeze to death so… your choice.”

Qrow looked at him, finally he seemed to decide. “I don’t think I can walk very good.”

 “I can help.”

 “You carry me and I will puke on you. With intent,” Qrow grumbled.

“Ok tiger, I’ll just…” Clover bent over and draped one of Qrow’s arms over his shoulders then he straightened up and lifted the other man to his feet. This way they could stumble along together without offending Qrow’s dignity any further.

 Slowly, with cold, wet hips bumping along, they wended their way back to the hanger and found a transport willing to take them to Atlas. By the time they got back to Clover’s room, Qrow was all but asleep.

 “Here we are…” Clover set Qrow down on the couch gently, “I’m just going to take your wet things off so you don’t get a chill, ok? Don’t panic.”

 “Imma not gonna panic I told you I want you bad…” Qrow muttered, eyelids fluttering to closed.

 Clover smiled and shook his head. Why now?

 “Well, you might have to wait until morning. But I promise that I’ll be here, ok? You can sleep in my bed… with me… keep me warm, ok?”

 “I’ll do more than ke… keep you warm…”

 Clover laughed, “Sure. Come on then…” he slowly peeled the wet clothes from Qrow’s shivering body. He left his underpants on, of course, despite them being wet from the snow. By the time he had finished the man was completely asleep, the gentle rasping in the back of his throat threatening to build into a snore.

 Oh Qrow… at least I have you here.

Clover slowly changed out of his own wet things and then carried Qrow to bed. He was shivering pretty hard now and it made him seem even slighter, more vulnerable.

 He would hate that I saw this…

I’m sorry Qrow. I just couldn’t leave you there.

 He placed Qrow tenderly in bed and lay down next to him. Am I allowed to hug him? Can a drunk person give hug consent? Of course not. Not bed hug consent.

Anyway, you kissed him. You’ve done enough for one night…

 Qrow groaned in his sleep and rolled over, his arm flailing. One hand landed on Clover’s chest and then the whole of Qrow followed it. Suddenly Clover was completely wrapped in freezing long, long legs with cold fingers clinging tightly to his chest. Qrow “hmpfhed” and nuzzled his face into Clover’s neck and his breathing immediately got deeper, more even.

 Well… I guess that’s that then.

 As he lay in the dark, surrounded by the smell of wet hair and whiskey, Clover smiled.

 Not the first date that I would have chosen but… I’ll take it.

 He swept one strong arm around Qrow’s waist and just held him against the world.

 No matter what, Qrow, I’m here.

 I’m here.

 ---xxx---

Part 2 is HERE

Rose and Talbott #2 (fluff), Clara and Barnaby #1 (angst)

SYDDD ACK

It’s been too long since this was requested, but I finally got it done! Prompts below the cut!

“Is there a reason you’re blushing like that?”

He glanced up from his parchment to see Penny tilting her head at him, her blue eyes gleaming with concern, and he quickly slipped the parchment under the table out of sight. “What?”

“Talbott, your face is flushing,” Penny told him quietly. “I doubt it’s from the Charms homework Professor Flitwick assigned us today.”

“Charms--oh, no,” Talbott said with a shake of his head. “I could stand to read about Cistem Aperio later, anyway. No, I’ve been…”

He trailed off, partly because he didn’t want to see Madam Pince round on him with a “shh!” at the ready right now, and partly because he was unsure whether whatever he was working on was worth telling anyone right now. The last thing he wanted was for someone to openly boast about him and his secret talents, and for everyone to run after him when his heart ached at the thought of only one girl.

What chance did he have, though? It was probably foolish to think that she would like him when she took another boy out once for the Celestial Ball that he sat out on. She knew Ben Copper much better than she knew him--probably grew a softer spot for him now. Even now he was unsure whether she meant what she said the day after their first date.

His lips tingled at the phantom memory of their first awkward kiss.

“It’s about someone, is it?” Penny finally asked, a small teasing smile spread over her lips.

“N-no!” Talbott protested quietly. “Don’t be ridiculous--”

“Aha! I knew it!” Penny cried, the smile widening into a crazed grin. “You like someone!”

Talbott felt his cheeks burn now with embarrassment as Penny began to laugh in spite of herself, and he slid the parchment onto the table now, burying his face in his hands.

“What gave it away?” he finally asked her, his voice muffled against his robes. “You know I normally keep my emotions to myself.”

“The blush, the slipping of parchment away from my sight--Talbott, the signs!” Penny said. “So who’s the lucky person?”

“I--why?”

“Just want to know!”

Now Talbott shook his head at Penny’s sudden change in demeanour--she went from considerate to teasing, and it wasn’t something he was used to seeing at all. He sighed and raked a hand through his hair, combing it back further out of nervousness. “Well...it’s probably someone you know pretty well--”

“Hey, guys!”

Talbott’s head snapped up at the girl who had just arrived--her dark blue hair cascaded in waves down her shoulders, and her dark brown eyes sparkled like the dew on the grass after a fresh summer rain. His eyes were fixed on her lips pulled into a bright smile--the same pair of lips that gave him his first kiss--and he felt his stomach do a backflip.

“Hey, Rose!” Penny greeted her with a wave. “Thank goodness you’re here. Talbott’s been having a hard time focusing on Charms.”

“What--no!” Talbott denied quickly, shaking his head. “No, I’m doing fine, I--”

“Oh, really?” Rose asked, tilting her head in concern. “Well, that’s not good. I suppose I can help, if it’s no trouble?”

She sat herself down on Talbott’s other side, and instantly her eyes locked on the piece of parchment sitting in front of the boy. Hastily scrawled on it were the words: The petals of a fresh and youthful blossom cannot compare to the enchanting beautiful rose in a midnight garden.

“I’ll leave it to you two, then!” Penny suddenly said, getting up from her chair. “Don’t want Madam Pince to catch me giggling for too long!”

As Talbott watched her go, he felt his stomach twist into a thick tight knot, words jumbled at the tip of his tongue as he looked at Rose reading his writing. When she was done, her eyes glimmered with the beginnings of fresh tears, and he braced himself for the worst.

“It’s beautiful, Talbott,” she finally said. “This piece of prose--who is it for?”

The relief that washed over him did nothing to ease his nerves.

“It’s for you,” he finally forced out. “I’m sorry, Rose--I know you mentioned you brought Ben to the Celestial Ball so I don’t know--”

“Talbott. I meant what I said that day,” Rose reassured him. “I’m willing to write this new story with you and I will wait if I have to. Ben and I...I don’t know. I don’t think I ended up liking him that way after the ball. Besides, if there’s someone I’d rather have look out for me, I’d rather have it be you.”

“Not because I got eagle eyes? Or dorky handwriting?”

Rose laughed and shook her head. “It’s new for both of us. I’m willing to take as much time as we need to start this together.”

As he felt her fingers lock with his, he felt the tension in his stomach ease, and he relaxed as he leaned on her shoulder, feeling her thumb trace over the back of his hand.

Perhaps he did have a chance with her after all. 

---

“I can’t do anything right.”

She threw herself onto the bed, eyes fixed on the ceiling of her bedroom as the daily reminder of Rowan’s death sank in like her body sinking into the mattress. It had been so many years, and yet she felt like everything was spiralling out of her control.

It was her fault Rowan died. It was her fault her best friend wasn’t in this world anymore.

The last two years had been the worst of Clara’s life. Not only did she have to live with that reminder haunting her every night, but she had to fight through every day as a result of it. There was no time for her to rest. The longer time passed, the more useless she felt. Even now as she was going through the Auror training she still felt like she was fighting a losing battle, and that was long after R’s eventual downfall.

R was just one small part of the wizarding world’s dark forces slowly arising, however. The more she thought of the evil she had yet to face, the worse her self-esteem became.

“Clara? I thought I heard you come home early--what’s wrong?”

She heard the door to her room open, and Barnaby was standing by with two steaming mugs of hot chocolate in hand and a Puffskein sitting on his shoulder. As he crossed the room and sat by her on the bed, she rose to a sitting position and gratefully took the light blue mug from his hand, carefully blowing the steam away as it rose from the surface of the drink. Somehow he knew that hot chocolate always made her feel better--and he remembered it too.

“Did Mad-Eye let you go?” he asked her tentatively.

“No. I’m still working hard,” Clara reassured him. “It’s just--you ever find yourself thinking back to one important moment in time where your whole life changed forever?”

Oh no. There went one of these important talks. Barnaby carefully sipped from his hot chocolate now--the hot liquid burned his throat, but he didn’t complain. “Not all the time,” he admitted. “But sometimes.”

Clara nodded at his response, her hands clutching tightly around her mug of hot chocolate. “I just--every day I feel like I’m fighting a war, Barnaby. I thought I’d be over it but I can’t help thinking back to the time Rowan died--I felt like I was there again. Sitting uselessly on the ground while Rakepick delivered the blow and Rowan pushed Ben away--”

R got what they wanted. It was the force of evil that won that battle. Such a small sliver of time, a single moment lost in the fold of many more that preceded and followed it, and yet she still felt like everything that happened since then was her fault.

“I can’t do this, Barnaby,” she finally said. “I just--I feel like I’m mucking everything up right now--none of this would have happened if I could have just done something more to protect her--!”

Barnaby’s eyes widened as Clara broke down, years of holding her frustrations and guilt in finally letting go in one whoosh and a cascade of sobs. He took the mug from her hands and put them down on her night table, and then wrapped his arms around her in a tight hug which she returned without any hesitation, gently rubbing her back with a hand.

“Rowan meant a lot to all of us, Clara,” he murmured. “What she did wasn’t your fault. She loved you so much. She was willing to protect you because of that.”

“I know, but I shouldn’t have left her in the dark! If I hadn’t, she’d still be here!”

“Don’t you get it? She knew she had a future, but she gave that up so you could have it,” Barnaby said. “Selfless and brave, that’s what she was. What did it matter if she knew about your fate back then or not? She did what any loyal friend would have done. I know I would have done the same in her shoes.”

“Yet you’re still here. She isn’t.”

“I can’t speak for her, but she would want you to live your best life. She would want to see you grow and be happy, and that’s better than living a life full of guilt thinking too much about the past.”

It felt like an eternity had passed when she finally calmed down, breathing deeply as she felt her heart beat in time with Barnaby’s. He had a point--Rowan wouldn’t want to see her be sad. She sacrificed herself for a reason, and even if the fight was won, she shouldn’t feel reason to wallow in her regrets. Her mind went to the pendant Rowan’s mother gifted her not too long ago, and she nodded--as hard as it was to break free from the moment that haunted her, she knew she had to if she was to keep moving forward.

“There’s so much evil out there,” she finally mumbled.

“And we’ll fight it together,” Barnaby whispered back.

“Just--just promise me you won’t--” Clara inhaled shakily. “Just don’t leave me right now, alright?”

“I’m not going anywhere, Clara. I promise.”

It sounded so selfish, but she couldn’t face this alone anymore. As the sun eventually set, she felt the burdens of her past slowly lift from her shoulders, the pressure dissipating into thin air. The comfort of Barnaby’s arms around her and his steady warmth was enough for her to feel at ease--a small step on the path of recovery--and she relaxed into him as she laid beside him at night, after begging him to stay with her for the night.

There was no point in thinking about regret. There was only the future that laid ahead--a future she knew she had to make good.