#yall just need not narrow your horizons
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i get it that some ppl may feel disappointed that the hand hold got changed to wrist snatch during the nebula announcement but besties look at the bright side for a second. a wrist snatch. A. Wrist. Snatch. let that sink in for a second. in orv context, i call this "Uriel Dinner"
#orv#joongdok#im half asleep but anw#your first thought abt what is happening with this post is probably correct#orv yaoi real#yall just need not narrow your horizons#kim dokja#yoo joonghyuk#also tbf i sensed it would be like this the moment i saw yjh drawn with his hands in his pockets lol 💀
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What Happens in the Dark
Genre: Angst | Vampire!au
Pairing: Baekhyun x Reader
Length: 4.6k
Warning: unfinished | 1st person (final product won't be I swear)
Summary: You were just trying to survive, but that get’s difficult after running into the wrong guys on your way home from work. Luckily, your knight in shinning armor came to rescue you, but as the saying goes ‘never trust a man in leather pants and a particularly pointy-toothed smirk’. Wait, that’s not the lyrics to Poison??? Hmm....
Author’s Note: Do any of yall remember back in October of ‘19 (yike) when I said I was going to write a vampire!bbh fic and never did?? Cause I do. But, wait, what is this??? A chaptered vampire!bbh fic??? Yes, you heard me right. I decided to turn it into a series (?) and hopefully will get my head out of my ass long enough to give it the attention it needs so I can post it during the dark holiday. For now, here’s what I have written so far, enjoy!!! (And yes, that’s the title, bb we going ✈️ kokokrazy, mmkay???)
MASTERLIST
(couldn't find the credit for the gif, if anyone knows please lmk, thanks!!)
I take a deep breath and hold it for a brief moment, deluding myself into believing that the lack of oxygen to my brain will bring me courage as I stare through the glass of the front door of my job at the book store. In the distance, the sun glows red as it dips into the horizon, dragging the light with it. It will be dark soon.
I let out the breath slowly through my mouth.
I don’t mind closing, I live close enough to my job that I can walk the few blocks to my apartment. The only time it is a problem is on the weekends. I work downtown, right next to a few night clubs, and walking past those on a Saturday—which is today—makes me anxious. It’s bad enough I am a foreigner, so I grab people’s attention easily, but add alcohol to the mix… the lack of inhibitions frightens me.
But it is time to go.
I reluctantly open the door and enter the chaos that is the city. Cars zoom past and people head to their respective destinations without a care in the world. I lock the building behind me and clutch my messenger bag closer to my stomach, playing with the frays of the strap distractedly as I make the journey to the safety of my home.
It is about a fifteen-minute walk, and any other day I wouldn’t blink twice about the trip, but as the sun continues to disappear, the city begins to spark with it’s night life.
Soon, the nightclub I have to pass appears. I hold my breath as I speed past, keeping my face forward to keep attention off of myself, but that isn’t the worst part of my journey.
I turn into the alley next to the club, my pace nearly a sprint as I try to get through the shortcut as quickly as possible, but my feet stutter to a shuffle when I notice a dark figure ahead of me.
It is around 10pm, and as much as I worry about it, I don’t expect the club to be that busy—being how early it is. I’ve made this late night trek a handful of times, I was always left anxious, but unscathed.
Something isn’t right this time.
I slow my walking, but continue nonetheless, I have to get home.
As I close in, apprehension thick in my throat, the shadow separates to reveal two bodies, long lean torsos and head’s pressed close together, deep voices quietly speaking.
My footsteps echoe in the quiet night air and they finally notice me. Stopping abruptly, and in eerie synchronization, they turn their heads from the huddle they are in to face me. They’re tall, much taller than I originally thought, although it is difficult to see with the dim lighting. They stand on the opposite side of a light post. They are dressed well, which I expect if they are party goers. But, it is obvious that the dark jeans, silky button downs, and gold rings and chains wrapped around their necks cost a pretty penny. Their dark hair is styled to perfection, the separate styles fitting their face shapes.
Why are two men that are definitely out to be seen huddled in a dark alley?
“Uh….” I grow nervous as the silence stretches. Their piercing eyes leave me frozen in place and I am overwhelmed with the feeling something is askew or that coming down this particular alley was a mistake. I quickly rack my brain for something to say so that I can be on my way, but am left blank.
I gulp despite my dry throat and open my mouth to say…anything, really, but then the two share a look before hovering over me, pressing me against the cool red brick of the outside of the club.
“What did you hear?” One of them, who has wide eyes and short black hair that is gelled back to reveal the manly features of his face, snarls.
“No—nothing!” I am quick to assure.
The other, who’s hair is longer and framing his face, tilts his head. “Her heart is racing. Are you nervous, Kitten?”
I am. There is something about their energy that fills me with dread, makes me want to scurry away without a further glance back and go home immediately.
“Come on,” the former, who’s voice I feel in the pit of my gut with how deep it is, coaxes alluringly. My eyelids flutter and my balance is off, feeling lightheaded all of a sudden. “Tell us what you heard and I promise, we won’t hurt you.”
“I already told you,” I push, finding words difficult to punctuate. It is as though I am fighting a deep sleep, eyes practically closed as I put all of my weight against the wall to hold myself up at this point. “I didn’t…hear…anything.”
One of them snarls—my eyes are sealed shut, so I am not sure which it was—and a shockingly cold hand grips my chin. I gasp, eyes springing open from the shock of pain as his dull nails dug into my skin.
“We didn’t want to do this,” the first talker, who is the one currently holding me, growls, not seeming particularly remorseful in the slightest. His huge eyes are blown out and I am captured by the frightening depths of his pupils. They are bottomless and it feels like I am on the edge about to slip into a never-ending fall.
“Chanyeol, stop.” A new third party urges monotonously. I didn’t hear him enter, but I am kind of distracted at the moment, trying not to think about the fact I might be murdered in an alley.
The Chanyeol fellow smirks crookedly, eyes never leaving mine as he speaks. It’s unnerving. The man doesn’t even blink as he holds my gaze. “She overheard everything.”
“No, she didn’t. You’re just hungry.”
The guy beside Chanyeol sighs as if bored, folding his arms across his chest and flicking some of the bang away from his eyes. “And so what if we are?”
The third man barks a laugh. “Well, you’re wanted inside, Sehun. Both of you. You can conspire in there.”
“We’re almost done here,” Chanyeol replies, distractedly. His grip on me has loosened some, but not enough for me to try and break out and make a run for it. Instead of his nails digging into me, he is now caressing the corner of my lip with his thumb. “We’ll meet you inside.”
I have a sinking feeling I’m not going to see the inside of that club anytime soon.
The newcomer joins our little party, finally coming into my eye line. He is about a head and a half shorter than the twin towers before me, but holds just as much, if not more, authority in his broad shoulders. He’s dressed similarly to the other two, but his eyes are an approachable chocolate brown, instead of the inhuman glittery black I’ve been trapped by.
“I bet you have places to be.” He addresses me, voice soothing and calm.
I nod frantically, wanting to be out of this situation.
“Let’s go.”
He reaches out to me, probably for me to hold on to, but Sehun swipes his hand away before he can fully stretch it out to me. “She’s ours.”
The shorter guy’s jaw jumps irritably. He definitely isn’t happy about being touched. “She is not.”
With that, he lurches forward, getting into a fight with Sehun. It happens so quickly, I nearly get whiplash from the drastic change of the man. Their moves are fast, I can’t keep up with what is going on, it is as if they are a blur.
Chanyeol uses the distraction to tilt my head back, making me stare at the indigo sky, twinkling lights beckoning me to join them.
“I’ll be quick,” he assures, voice raspy with want and low from focus. He closes in, lips a whisper against my sweaty neck and I wonder if he is going to kiss me. Wonder what torture I am going to endure.
I never find out.
He curses as he is yanked away and I shift my head back down to see what is happening, but can’t comprehend anything. Shadows moving against darkness and animalistic growls and snarls, things that didn’t belong in this setting.
A flash of white is in front of me and I scream. It can’t be helped. My heart races, adrenaline kicking in as the whole situation finally dawns on me.
“You’re okay.” Someone bends down to crouch in front of me—I guess I slid down to the ground at some point—and brings their face closer, into the spotlight of the full moon high above us, revealing his dainty features.
It is the third man that had stepped in.
“You’re safe now,” he assures.
“Those… those men.” My voice is shaking and I have to pause to swallow and steady myself. In fact, my whole body is shivering and it isn’t from the cold.
“They’re gone.” His voice is grounding, his words relieving. I let out a breath and press my lips together, feeling a tad nauseous. I check the narrow alley to confirm that they have indeed vanished into the night.
“You saved me.” I realize, taking him in with wide eyes.
The right side of his mouth lifts and he tilts his head to the side. “Would you like to go home?”
“Please,” I nearly beg, wanting that most of all. I feel exposed for some reason, feel as though I am still in danger as long as I am outside. What if those strange men decide to come back? I shiver at the thought.
“Cold?” He questions. His almond shaped eyes take in my curled body, his eyebrows furrowing in a pout. “Do you have a coat?”
“I didn’t need one,” I say with a small shrug. “I was supposed to be home by now.”
His expression is fixed on disapproval. “I left mine inside. I’ll run in and get it real quick and then walk you home.”
He goes to stand and I panic, my arms shoot out to latch onto his arm, trapping him in an awkward squat. “Don’t leave me out here!”
“Alright.” He pats one of my hands that dig into the thin material of his shirt, most likely leaving crescent marks into his flesh, although he doesn’t seem to be in any discomfort or pain. “We can go in together. Does that work for you?”
“Are they in there?” I ask in a whisper.
He shakes his head. “Even if they are, they won’t do anything as long as I’m with you. I’m sure of it.”
I take in his angelic face. He really is beautiful in a sweet boyish kind of way and I wonder briefly how old he is. It is almost comical, because he’s definitely going for the whole ‘bad boy’ look, what with his leather black pants, rose red button down, and smokey eye. Despite that, I truly feel safe with him there, feel that he will be my white knight and get me home unharmed.
“Okay. I’ll go with you then, Sir.”
“’Sir’?” Now he smiles, full pink lips stretch into a shape of a box revealing the loveliest set of teeth I have ever seen. A soft breeze hits at that moment, tousling the already messy, slightly curled, dark brown hair around his head and, despite myself, my breath catches. He chuckles lowly, the sound causing saliva to flood my mouth. “My name is Baekhyun. What’s yours?”
I waste no time telling him, needing him to know who I am.
He repeats it, making sure he gets it right and I want to curse my hormones for being so affected when my life was on the line only a few minutes ago.
“Well,” he takes one of my hands that still holds onto him into one of his, causing me to shiver from the crisp velvety texture of his skin on mine. “Let’s get you home.”
We slip into the club without any trouble, the security doesn’t even card me. It is as if, just being in Baekhyun’s presence allows me an in. I gaze at him in awe as we maneuver through the slightly crowded entrance towards coat check, but he doesn’t notice—either that, or he is pretending not to. He leans against the square glassless window, broad back exposed to the rest of the club, waiting calmly for his jacket. I lean against the wall, taking in everything I can through the haze and saturated lights, making sure I am clear from the other men I had the displeasure of meeting.
“Ready?” Baekhyun asks, drawing me out of my search and I find my body untensing with his close presence. I bring my attention up to him, his head is cocked slightly, an eyebrow raised in a question. I nod in affirmation and take the lead, with my back to him, I feel the pressure of a sturdy jean coat around my shoulders. Glancing down, I take in the rough black material and smile to myself as I slip my arms through the sleeves, peeking behind me once quickly to see him studying me like a hawk, eyes sharp and a pleased grin on his lips, so small I can barely make it out, and I wonder if he’s even aware of the action. When I face in front of myself again to watch where I am going (and to hide my reddening cheeks from him) I feel a private grin so happen to pull at my features and I wrap the massive jacket closer to myself, inhaling what must be Baekhyun’s scent.
It’s an indescribable smell. It’s luxurious and soft, yet also grungy, like the scent of a new car mixed with a bouquet of Jasmine and gasoline.
It’s intoxicating.
We finally make it out of the stuffy building and I don’t hesitate to turn left, leading us down the familiar path to my place. Once there is room, Baekhyun lazily falls in line beside me, matching my pace so closely, his arm brushes against mine every other step. We get to the alley immediately, since it’s beside the building we were just in, and my footing falters, causing me to trip.
Arms are around me in an instant, not allowing me to move forward, let alone to the ground and the momentum drags me to a hard chest. I huff, the air is knocked out of my lungs and everything stops for a few seconds.
Finally, I remember how to breathe and lift my head to see Baekhyun’s mere inches above mine, eyes wide from surprise and slight fear.
“Are you alright?” He breathes, startled.
The urge to laugh at his expression is strong, but I swallow it once I remember where I am. Clearing my throat soberly, I realize I am practically splayed over him. I tap the shoulder my hand is resting on awkwardly and he finally realizes the situation as well. I feel one of the arms he has around my waist tighten briefly, pulling me even closer, but just as quickly, he is pulling back apologetically.
“I’m fine,” I finally am able to muster. I laugh drily, rubbing my face. “Still not over the memories….”
Baekhyun bit his lip worryingly. “They really frightened you, huh?”
I let out another breathless laugh. “I’ve honestly never been more terrified in my life.”
My voice shakes and all I can think of is the Chanyeol fellow’s depthless eyes. “Something about them was just so…inhuman….”
“Those guys,” Baekhyun’s voice cuts through my horror flashbacks, closer than I remember, startling me. He tries to steady me with slender fingers on my bent elbow, but keeps it there even after I’m still. “They were just hungry.”
“Hungry?” I question. He is now using the hand on my arm to lead me through the dark trail.
“Yeah, they…. They get a bit cranky when they haven’t fed in a while.”
I scoff. “’Fed’? What is this? A Snicker’s ad?”
He chuckles at that, but you press on. “You sound like you’re on pretty friendly terms with those guys.”
He winces at that. We’ve cleared the alley at this point, so he drops his hand, losing contact with me, much to my disappointment. I’m back to leading, so I continue down the familiar streetlamp lit sidewalks.
“I mean….” He scratches the back of his head. “We’re… familiar. I wouldn’t go as far as calling them friends, by any means.”
“What do you mean by that?” I ask, genuinely curious as to his connection with those psychopaths.
He purses his lips as he stares ahead unseeingly, thinking about the right way to explain himself. “What I mean is… we share the same circle. Some of the guys… they’re rowdier than the rest. They have a few loose screws, I’ll be the first to tell you, but they’re a part of the group.”
I lift an eyebrow at that. “So…. You all just let them run around and act crazy without any repercussions?”
“That’s…not what I said,” he’s quick to defend, lifting a finger in a scolding way. “I kicked their asses for you did I not?”
“You did that for me?” I ask, not able to resist the urge to bat my eyelashes up at him. I’m not going to lie to myself, I like the idea of him fighting for me.
“I did. Because I knew they were up to no good. You’re welcome, by the way.”
I roll my eyes, but bump my shoulder with his in thanks.
“But, even though I think I already know the answer, I have to ask.” He’s grown nervous. “Did…did you hear anything they were talking about?”
I shake my head and shrug. “Not a word. I could hear voices, but they were talking too quietly for me to understand any of it.”
He lets out a breath he must’ve been holding in relief.
“What? Was it that bad?”
He smiles, his beautiful teeth on display. “No! No, no.”
“Are you sure?” I press, teasingly.
He throws me a look that causes me to laugh.
“Enough about them,” he dismisses and I laugh harder. He goes ahead of me, spinning around so that he’s walking backwards, giving me his undivided attention. “I want to know more about you.”
“Like what?” I ask, instantly flustered. Under the moon, the smooth bit of skin of his neck and chest shine pale, the contrast with his dark eyes and long lashes something to behold. Does he know how incredibly attractive he is? Well, if his fashion and confidence is any indicator, he surely did, and used it to his benefit.
“Like why you were in the alley in the first place? I’ve never seen you at the club before, and trust me, I would remember.”
The comment flusters me more and it takes me a moment to remember how to speak. “I… I work nearby. The alley is my shortcut home.”
“I’m pretty familiar with the area.” He hums. “Where do you work?”
“At the used book store down the road.” As soon as the words leave my mouth, I wonder if I should be telling this man such personal information. Yeah, he may be hot, but he’s still a stranger, whether he saved me or not, I didn’t know him enough to trust him with the information. Yet, what was done was done.
“Ooooh, so you’re a nerd?” He teases and I roll my eyes.
“I guess you could say that, Baekhyun.”
“I think it’s cute! I was never much of a reader….”
“Well, if you need any recommendations, I’m your girl.”
He grins and I think he may have liked that statement a little too much.
“I’ll have to visit you soon then, to get those recommendations.” His voice has lowered, deepened, coming from within his chest and my mouth utterly dries.
“M—maybe you should,” I stutter and then stop abruptly as I finally take in our surroundings. “Shit.”
“What?” He’s shocked again and I guess it’s because I swore. Maybe he finds it unbecoming of me.
“I…. We passed my place.”
His lips form into a thin line as he presses them tightly together—holding in a laugh, no doubt. I ignore him as I swiftly double back the half block to my apartment. “This is me.”
He takes in the brightly dimmed complex. “Are you sure you don’t want me to walk you in?”
I nod. “I appreciate all you’ve done for me tonight, but I think I can take it from here.”
“Ah….” He slides his hands in his pockets and finally meets my gaze, disappointment visible on his face. “Well then, I guess my work here is done.”
“I guess so.”
“It was nice meeting you,” he says my name and shallowly dips his head, although we both seem rather hesitant to move.
“Nice meeting you, too, Baekhyun. Thank you again, for saving me.”
“Anytime.” He grins boyishly and I can’t help but stare at his mouth, at his perfect teeth.
An awkward silence follows and needing to break it, but also not necessarily wanting to, I began making my way towards the door to my building. “Good night.”
“Goodnight.” His farewell is a mere breath, he watches me, eerily still as I slowly retreat, walking backwards as he had earlier. My back roughly hits the face of the door and he chuckles at my silly antics, shaking his head.
I embarrassingly try to save my ass, but I’m just speaking gibberish, barely making sense as I succumb to my mortification and slid through the mint green door, into the familiar lightly dimmed foyer, leaving Baekhyun on the sidewalk.
I get into my apartment, my roommate/best friend already retired to bed. I stand in front of her closed bedroom door, wondering if I should wake her because I just need to tell someone about what happened to me, but thought better of it, showered and got ready for bed.
Once in the protection of my blankets, the nights events replay in my mind. I find myself tossing and turning as those men keep swirling around my head, threatening me over and over again as I wonder what they thought I overhead was and what Chanyeol had planned to do to me if Baekhyun hadn’t intervened.
Baekhyun….
Despite myself, I find solace in his presence. I have never felt so instantly attracted to someone before and I regret not getting his number or asking him to come in, but I’m just not that kind of girl. Even though he is nothing but nice, there is a chance he could’ve taken my invitation the wrong way.
Or, maybe we would’ve just learned more about each other and started a blossoming friendship.
Well, no use dwelling on the past. I sink deeper into my blankets and finally fall asleep with the reassuring thought that if it is meant to be, then it will be. Plus, I know at least one place I can find him if I really want to.
I sleep rather well that night.
~*~
The next week flies by uneventfully. I’m busy enough that the thought of Baekhyun doesn’t come to mind until I find myself face to face with him inside my store.
He’s gazing down at me, eyes wide and alight with humor. Actually, the humor coats his face, lifting the corners of his red lips and wrinkling his nose.
Under the cool yellow of the lights ahead, he appears warmer, but still paler than one should be in the summer. Again he’s draped in tight black skinny jeans that wrap around his delicious thighs, rips at the knees and sporadically on said thighs. Tucked into the belt is an expensive looking silky button up shirt with random patterns of blacks, maroons, and golds. The top two buttons unfastened to give a glimpse of his firm chest—just enough to leave you wanting more. Between the V of the opening sat a ruby, hung from a bronze chain. It appears to be the only piece of jewelry he has on. His hair is parted on the side, thrown messily aside, exposing his round eyebrows and blemish-less forehead.
He looks wildly handsome.
Handsome enough to garner the attention of the few bit of customers wandering the store.
I blink up at him. He seems so out of place here, amongst the old tender pages of discarded books. He belongs within the walls of clubs, with beautiful women draped all over him, wine in hand, the world at his feet.
Godly.
That is the vibe he gives off. As if he were of a different species.
“Are you that shocked to see me?” He finally utters, head tilting to the side. “You haven’t said a word and have been staring for the past minute.”
“It hasn’t been a minute,” I finally mumble, taking my eyes off his glorious face and down to the counter that only holds my hands.
He chuckles lowly. “Well, it diffenitly was longer than deemed friendly.”
“What are you doing here?” I say. “You don’t have any books.”
“It’s Friday.”
He shrugs at my confused expression. “I know you walk home and decided that I could protect you from all the scary men out there during the busy night. I wasn’t sure if you closed tonight, but decided to check since I was in the neighborhood.”
I have to swallow all the fluttery gushing things that form in my mind at his words. He’s worried about my safety? Concerned enough to check on me and make sure I am protected? His words definitely have my heart fluttering.
“That’s… very nice of you,” I’m able to get out eventually, bringing out a large pleased smile from him. “I actually do close today, so thank you.”
“When are you off?” He asks.
I check the time. “Ten. We still have about two hours left.”
“I don’t mind,” he says, answering my unasked question. “I faintly recall you informing me of some recommendations. It looks like I have the time to get those.”
I take his outfit in. “But you’re dressed for an event. I don’t want to take that from you.”
“These?” He motions at his body before scoffing. “I always dress like this. No special occasion, other than walking you home, of course.”
“Of course,” I repeat, again trying not to get too giddy over the idea he wants to impress me. “Well, my favorite book that’s in right now is a classic, Interview With the Vampire by Anne Rice.”
“Ah….” He get’s a far away look for a moment. “I’m quite familiar with that story.”
“Oh, you are?” I am both disappointed and intrigued. “Didn’t take you much for a reader.”
That brings him back to Earth and he glares at me. “I’ll have you know that I haven’t, in fact, read the book, although I still do take offense with your idea of my intelligence. Are your books sorted alphabetically by name or author?”
“Author.” I inform. “But also by genre. Have fun.”
He throws a thumb over his shoulder. “I’ll just be over here if you need anything.” With that he turns on the heels of his fancy dress shoes, clacking down the hardwood flooring as if it was a runway in Milan and I watch his shoulder blades through the loose silky shirt, swallowing the saliva that has built in my mouth.
I catch the eye of a few girls hidden around aisles, catch both glares and curiosity and sink a bit lower into the counter.
The next two hours are both the slowest yet the quickest two hours of my life. I can feel baekhyun’s gaze on me heavily the majority of the shift. Especially when I am out on the floor helping a customer or restocking. It’s fun. Baekhyun sits at one of the side tables that has a decent view of the counter and some aisles and whenever I lift my head and accidentally get drawn to his dark and playful eyes, peeking over whatever book he has open, I feel myself get shy and have to quickly glance away, face red and hot.
Finally when I am officially ready to go, I head over to where he is lounging, one of his ankles rests lazily against his thigh as he scans the pages.
I readjust the strap of my purse as I wait for him to acknowledge me, cause I know he knows I’m hovering, but he ignores me, too entranced in the story.
Finally I clear my throat. “I’m done—“
The bastard shushes me.
My mouth drops as his eyebrows knit. “This is a good part.”
“That’s a picture book!” I scoff.
That draws him out of his act and he grins up at me before making a show of slowly closing the book and sighing heavy as he stands up and leans in close. “Shall we?”
I blink a few times, catching my bearings. He/s going to step ahead of me but pauses pointing at my chest. “Is that my jacket?”
If I wasn’t red before....
Yes I have been wearing Baekhyuns jacket everyday since that fateful night. It still smells strongly of him and is the only proof I have that that night actually happened.
#Baekhyun scenarios#Baekhyun#exo scenarios#Baekhyun scenario#exo scenario#Baekhyun oneshots#Baekhyun oneshot#exo oneshot#exo oneshots#Baekhyun drabbles#Baekhyun drabble#exo drabbles#exo drabble
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WITCHING HOUR, a john seed/deputy fic.
chapter eight: the living sea of waking dreams
word count: 10k
rating: m for now, rating will change in later chapters as things develop, tags will be updated accordingly.
warnings: emotional manipulation/some weird humiliation tactics (joseph is a fucker), some weird/uncomfortable relationships getting dredged up, john is a jealous little shit. some spooky scaries go on, blood and body horror (i think? tagging just to be safe).
notes: we've got some ~things~ going on here in this next chapter. i feel really excited about where this story is going and how we're going to get all these little threads put together, but mostly, i hope you enjoyed this chapter! we've got a lot going on but i promise, it will all (hopefully) be worth it in the end. and also, a tiny reprieve: some soft elliot, as a treat, because we deserve it.
thank you to everyone reading and giving me your feedback!! i love hearing from yall <3 special thanks to @shallow-gravy and @vasiktomis for listening to me slog through this chap : ))))
“Knock-knock!”
Isolde took in a deep breath, closing her eyes and willing patience to the forefront of her mind. It had only been an hour or so since she’d left the chapel, Joseph’s words ringing in her head, a death knell.
Not after the things I’ve done for you.
Even still, even now—he knew how to get under her skin. She thought she’d never wanted to kiss and throttle someone in equal amounts, in the entirety that she had known them; to think that once, she had let Joseph take her in an embrace, sweep the hair from her shoulder and bury his face in her neck and whisper sweet things into her skin.
He wasn’t the same, anymore. And neither was she.
“Come in, Santiago,” said Arden, from where she had set up her little space across the cabin’s modest room. The heater on the floor rattled laboriously, clicking and chugging away. Isolde swept her eyes over Arden’s space—a small makeshift bed on the couch, the table stacked with a few books and a notepad she was scribbling dutifully on. Isolde had politely offered her the bed, even though she didn’t want to, and the woman had waved her off and said it was no trouble at all, that she often fell asleep on the couch at home anyway.
It was still weird, thinking that someone was—with Jacob. For a long time. But, she supposed if there was any Seed boy she thought would be in a long-term relationship, then—
The door to the cabin swept open, revealing the dark-haired boy from before. Well, perhaps not boy, but young man. Certainly too young and good-looking to be wasting his time with the likes of Eden’s Gate, wasn’t he?
“You don’t have to babysit me anymore, do you?” Arden asked, not once looking up from her writing.
“No, no. Unfortunately, our time together has drawn to a close.” Santiago lifted his arms, spread in defeat. His eyes, a vibrant blue, turned to Isolde. “I am actually here for you.”
“Me?” Isolde’s eyes narrowed. “For what?”
“Joseph has asked me to fetch you.”
“And you’re a good boy, so you do whatever he says,” she replied tartly.
Santiago flashed a grin that was all teeth-pearly, perfectly bleached teeth. He was far more groomed than any of the others she’d seen trawling about the compound. “I am nothing if not loyal, princesa.”
Isolde sighed, passing a hand over her face as a headache began to fester and bloom behind her eyelids. She thought she might have been more willing to kick up a fuss if she thought it was worth the drama—but it probably wasn’t. As much as she didn’t want to admit it, Joseph was right; she couldn’t be of any help to them if she was being contrary just for the sake of her own spite. Even if she didn’t know where Joseph got off summoning her like she was part of the peasantry.
“Coming,” she sighed, picking her coat up off the bed and sliding it back on over her shoulders.
“A sweet word, coming from even sweet lips.”
“Alright, Romeo.”
She trudged out after Santiago in the snow, casting a quick glance around the compound. Though evening had fallen, the fluorescents surrounding lining the edges of the compound cast a cold, brutal light across it, highlighting every single pore of the place, every ragged inhabitant shuffling into their bunkhouse as watch switched and folks went to retire for the evening. Some of the roofs sagged with the weight of the snowfall, which trundled on without any kind of end in sight. Isolde couldn’t remember when she’d seen real, unadulterated sunshine last. In Georgia? Had it been that long?
None of it was anything like what John had told her. Of course, she had expected some differences—the man liked to embellish, to be sure—but the members of Eden’s Gate seemed to have lost their fire. They were wayward, adrift at sea, among waves of freezing cold water and what now seemed to be a resurgent threat that they had hoped to be rid of.
And Joseph, having comforted them so very little.
“Icy,” Santiago warned, offering her his hand as he opened the door inside with his other one. “Careful.”
“Thanks,” she muttered dryly. She took his hand anyway, pulling herself into the sputtering warmth of the chapel where—at the front—the silhouettes of Jacob and Joseph stood.
The two of them were suffused in a warm amber glow, but there was nothing warm about the mood in the room; the closer she got, she could hear Jacob’s insistent words—the firm, assertive gestures of his hands, the words, just didn’t feel like it was pertinent at the time, coming out of his mouth—the more she thought, I shouldn’t be here for this. Whatever they’re arguing about, whatever it is that’s gotten them to this point, I’m not supposed to be here.
Joseph didn’t respond to whatever it was that his brother was saying, but instead turned to look at her as she approached down the center aisle of the chapel. Despite the rattling warmth coming from several heaters placed throughout the chapel, Isolde felt a chill sink deep into the marrow of her bones.
“Thank you for coming,” he said by way of greeting. He lifted one hand and beckoned her forward when her feet slowed.
“I just hope this is something I need to be here for,” Isolde ventured cautiously, her gaze flickering to Jacob’s face. The redhead’s expression was drawn tight and hard, and not the way it normally was; it wasn’t calm and focused, but strained, like he was holding himself back from saying something to Joseph that he thought he might regret later.
She had never known Jacob to bite his tongue very much, but from her own experience with Joseph, well—he was apt at bringing out the worst in people.
“Did you know?” Joseph asked when she had finally come to a stop. “About my brother’s...” He wet his lips for a moment, his gaze darting across the empty space of the floor as he looked for the word he wanted to say. And then he landed: “Pursuits?”
Isolde blinked. “If you mean the woman he says is his partner—”
“Yes,” the blonde interjected, before she could finish—a thing he knew that she hated but he seemed unable to refrain from doing. “I do.”
Sol’s eyes narrowed. When she turned her gaze from Jacob to Joseph, she was greeted with the typical unreadable expression; as untroubled as the blue sky over a sunny sea.
But there were storm clouds. Somewhere, in there, on a horizon Joseph would not let her reach now and perhaps had not ever.
“I only knew of her today,” Isolde replied after a moment. “After we saw our little hunter out in Fall’s End, I imagine he felt it pressing that he retrieve her sooner rather than later.”
Joseph made a low noise. It was like a hm, but threatening. Hm, he said, interesting, that. But what it was he felt was so interesting about that particular line of information, Isolde couldn’t only venture a guess; and if she had to venture a guess, she would have said that it would probably be that he felt it was interesting that something was going on that he had not been aware of.
If there was one thing that she knew about Joseph, affirmatively, it was that he did not like not knowing.
“Isolde, why are you here?”
A familiar spark of anger lit, hot and fetid, in her belly. “Pardon me?
“Why are you here? In this compound? In Hope County?” Even as he spoke, Joseph’s gaze was fixed on the eldest Seed, the lines of his face peaceful and serene despite the idle venom burning in the timbre of his voice. “What did John send you here for?”
The anger burned up into soot, into dread, and sat just there, curled at the base of her neck. Isolde could not shake the idea that she had been brought in here to make a point, and that she really shouldn’t be there—that this was something Joseph and Jacob needed to settle between themselves, but that was never how Joseph had operated: fair had never been a stratagem in his playbook.
“Isolde,” Jacob said, his voice a low caution when she looked at him, shaking his head very slightly. It’s not worth it, he was saying, fighting, it’s not worth it.
“Joseph, this,” she plunged on pointedly, “is not something that I need to be a part of. I’ll go, so the two of you can—”
But when she went to depart, Joseph lifted his hand and pointed at her and ground out between his teeth, “Stay. Put.”
The poison in his voice was so potent it almost made her flinch. Almost. And then the indignation started to bloom: who do you think you are, to be talking to me like that? But they wouldn’t come; the words wouldn’t come, because when she lifted her gaze to Joseph’s and saw him looking at her, it was—
“I want you to say it, out loud, in front of Jacob,” he continued, the muscle of his jaw flexing viciously. “Tell him why John needed you here.”
Jacob said, raising his voice a little, “We all know why—”
“Because you are useless unless you are aware of what’s happening. Every detail. Isn’t that right?” he prompted. “Isolde?”
She felt her molars grind. It was clear, now, why he had asked her here. “Yes.”
Joseph turned his gaze to Jacob. “Is that what you want us to be? Want me to be? Ill-informed?”
The redhead was silent for a long heartbeat. He sucked his teeth, and said, “No, Joseph, I don’t—”
“No. More. Secrets.”
The blonde’s voice had pitched so low that she nearly couldn’t hear him, so close and low and intimate was it that he was speaking to his brother, so little space between them. Joseph looked to be controlling himself quite tightly; so very little of the leash available to himself, digging the choke chain deeper and deeper into him in an effort to remain intact.
“Joseph,” Jacob began, “I only—”
“A whole year?” the blonde bit out viciously. “An entire year you spent devoting your time to this—this—”
Isolde was familiar with the precipice at which Joseph was teetering. Right on the edge of saying something vicious and mean and unendingly cruel. She had pushed him there a few times before, in their brief few months together—had seen the way he pulled himself back time and time again, seconds away from grinding out some wretched insult.
“I won’t,” Joseph bit out, lifting a hand as though to temper himself, “tolerate it, Jacob.”
Silence stretched between the three of them for a moment, pulled taut as a rubber band. Though she knew why Joseph had wanted her here—to make a point, but also to put someone there to witness the verbal lashing—looking at the two of them now, she felt more than ever like an intruder on a world she knew so very little about.
John had done nothing to prepare her. He had given her the rosy version of the story, and even that included the cult and the killing and the residents of Hope County. It still hadn’t been enough.
The silence broke when Jacob said, “I understand, Joseph.”
For a second, there was nothing; just Joseph, sweeping his gaze over Jacob for a long moment, like he was trying to wring out any deception or sign that Jacob was being disingenuous—and of course, he could find none, and that meant there was only the tense, uncomfortable silence wadded up between them, in their own fists.
Finally, Joseph said, “That will be all,” and turned, tilting his face to the lukewarm light of the candles at the front of the chapel and closing his eyes.
The eldest Seed lingered for only a moment longer before he left; his eyes met with Isolde’s for a heartbeat before he made his decision, turning down the center walkway and heading for the doors. It wasn’t until they clicked shut that Isolde felt a tiny bit of relief—if only because the source of Joseph’s ire had now departed, and she could get a better look at him.
It was her job to make sure things were under control. John had asked her here for that exact reason—and this kind of in-fighting would be the kind of thing that would, eventually, be their unraveling if they didn’t get it under control. She had only seen Joseph so angry once before, almost over a year ago now, back before he was the Father of Eden’s Gate. Back when they had been—
There are things that I want to accomplish, and they’re best done with a wife—
“Joseph,” Isolde said, leaving the memory somewhere else—somewhere dark and deep she would never find it again, “what’s going on?”
The blonde did not open his eyes when he replied, “I cannot have secrets kept from me.” After a moment, he added, “And in that vein of thought, I should get in touch with our wayward brother.”
“Do you really think it’s that big of a deal?” she prompted again. “To have started a fight with Jacob over a woman that he—”
“Even before a word is on my tongue, behold, O Lord, you know it altogether. You hem me in, behind and before, and lay your hand upon me.” His eyes fluttered open, the flicker of dark lashes illuminated by the amber glow, and he tilted his head to look at her. There was a hardness in his voice when he said, “God is perfect in knowledge, and I cannot be less. Not when He speaks directly to me.”
An unpleasant little thrill crawled down her spine when his eyes fixed on her, darting over her face like he wanted to savor her. “Then don’t use me as the whip you want to lash your brother with,” she snapped. “I’m not a humiliation tactic. You do know better than to do that to me.”
Joseph let out a little sigh. The corners of his mouth ticked upward, the shift in mood almost palpably changing the energy in the chapel—just like that, it was different. Not lighter, not better, but different.
“You’re right,” he agreed after a moment. “I do know you better than that.”
Isolde’s mouth pressed into a thin line. Deciding to forego that comment, she took a step forward, cinching her jacket in more securely around her waist. “You know what you cannot be, Joseph?” she asked. “You cannot be fighting with your brothers. Especially not the only one that’s here. Your people out there are disgruntled, and scared, and you can’t afford to be picking fights with the people who are the most loyal to you.”
“They are all,” Joseph replied, “loyal, Isolde." And then, after a moment of watching her: "Is this what you want to be doing? Herding us? Mothering us?”
“My professional opinion is that the image of your convent is severely lacking,” she bit out, once again ignoring the bait, “and the last thing you need to do is have them noticing that there’s a rift forming between the ones in charge. And yes—that is the only thing I can do for you lot at this point, and like an idiot, I agreed to come here and do it.”
Because I can’t say no to John, something tired inside of her said. Because I couldn’t say no to any of you, even if I wanted to.
The blonde reached up, and it took that gesture for Isolde to realize how closely they had drifted—it was so little effort, so little time between the movement of his hand and the time at which his fingers made contact with her cheek, brushing the hair away from her face and tucking it behind her ear. He moved so confidently and leisurely that Sol couldn’t think to pull back; and when she didn’t, the calloused fingertips trailed down the pillar of her throat, his eyes following their journey.
It was intimate; too soon her brain said, even though it had been so long since they had been in the same room, let alone regarded each other in even a passive capacity. But it was too soon enough that her brain fizzed out, the air moving thick as molasses in the journey between her mouth and lungs, the violent flashback of their closeness overwhelming her.
She said, “Joseph,” in a don’t kind of voice, and he dropped his hand from where it had come to a stop at the juncture between her neck and shoulder.
“It was smart of John, to ask you to come and shepherd us in his absence,” Joseph said, blithely ignoring the desperate little barb in the way Isolde said his name.
“I always thought you’d make a perfect Mother.”
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
It had been several days since their conversation in the hallway that night, and John had barely seen hide nor hair of Elliot.
Honestly, it would have been impressive how quickly she could make herself inaccessible, were it not so frustrating. He couldn’t help but wonder what the implications there were—had she known she could do this all along, and had been indulging in him for some reason? Had she simply decided to be done and that was it, meaning that she hadn’t been done before?
Not that she was done now, anyway. Not if John had anything to say about that. But for a few days, she barely spared him a glance—passed him in the hallway when she got home with a muttered greeting on occasion. She woke before him, left to the stables without him, and left him alone in the house. Left him alone without her venom, without her eyes on him. With her mother, no less.
Scarlet was, on paper, exactly the kind of woman that John felt confident in his ability to charm. Single, wealthy by inheritance, a little older and always with a martini in hand by ten? If he couldn’t impress her, he had to be doing something wrong. But in a way that seemed to be very typical of the Honeysett women, Scarlet remained veritably unimpressed and even disdainful of his presence—even though she had insisted he stay with them.
More and more, he was becoming convinced that it was not going to be to his benefit.
“Good morning, Mr. Seed,” Scarlet greeted him from where she sat at the table, perusing her magazine. Not once did her eyes lift to meet his, and not once did an ounce of enthusiasm enter her voice. “You are missing from the stables again today, I see. Not a horse person?”
“I might find myself to be one,” John replied with a leisurely sort of bitterness, “if Elliot would only allow me to come.”
“Yes, it’s very annoying, isn’t it?” The blonde mused idly, over her cup of coffee. “To not be handed exactly what you want when you want it?”
He sucked in a sharp breath, pouring himself a cup of coffee and trying to remind himself that this was all temporary. This house, this town, Scarlet and Sylvia and Wyatt—it was all temporary, and soon enough they would be the least of his concerns. All of his time and attention would be wrapped up in Elliot and the baby, and what their lives would look like once the end had come.
Because it would come, and then she would see. She would understand that everything he’d done had been for them, for her and their baby and—
“I only want to spend as much time with her as I can,” he replied, managing to keep his tone pleasant. “Before I go back home.”
“And when are you?” Scarlet idled. “Going, I mean?” And then, in what he could only think was a stretch of graciousness: “Not that you’ve overstayed, because I am sure you would never, and Delia is quite taken with you—”
“Surely.”
“—as is Elliot, despite her best efforts to act otherwise.”
“What?” John’s head snapped to where Scarlet was still browsing her magazine, and he cleared his throat at her arched brow to try and gather his scrambled thoughts. “What I mean is, has she—said anything to you about me?”
The blonde at the table, swathed in her silk robe and curls primly pinned back away from her face, made a sound that might have been amused. Might have been, anyway, had he not turned to look at her and seen the way her face remained serene and unexpressive.
“I am not blind, Mr. Seed,” Scarlet idled. “It takes very little investigation to find that my daughter is fond of you, against my wishes and her own.”
Before John could open his mouth to respond—and press for more information while his stomach did victorious little somersaults—she turned her head to the window, when the sound of a vehicle rolling up the drive spurred Boomer on to barking in the front room.
“Oh, would you look at that,” she murmured with a little sigh. “My prodigal child, returned home at last.”
He glanced out the window to see an unfamiliar car pulling up, a black truck that took the fresh snow of the unplowed drive to the Graves-Honeysett home with ease; from the driver’s side hopped a familiar face.
“Didn’t Elliot drive there this morning?” he asked, frowning as he watched Wyatt jog around to the passenger side despite Elliot’s waving from the front for him to stop. The man had been nothing but polite—even enthused—to meet him at the bar the other night, but that didn’t mean John had forgotten the way he’d gotten comfy enough to try and touch Elliot’s face and her hair. Even now, the man grinned, all sunshine, as he opened the passenger side door for her and offered her his hand.
Scarlet replied, her attention already having departed the window, “What a silly question to ask out loud, Mr. Seed. You're not stupid, so I would beg you—try not to give me that impression.”
His eyes darted to Scarlet for a moment, briefly grateful that she wasn’t looking at him to see the spark of irritation winding its way across his face; he could feel it furrowing his brows, drawing his mouth into a hard, tight line. Setting his coffee cup on the counter, John made his way out the front door just as Wyatt and Ell were nearly there.
“Oh, hey John!” Wyatt greeted him. His eyes swept over him briefly. “Boy, you’re really put together any chance you get, huh?”
“You can never be overdressed,” John replied as amicably as he could. “Watch the steps, Ell, they’re—”
“Icy, I know,” Elliot said. She puffed out a little breath of air and brushed his offered hand aside, instead favoring the railing with one hand and the top of Boomer’s head with the other, still refusing him the courtesy of meeting his eyes. It had been days. She had never once held such a grudge against him—not really, not where he couldn’t at least get her to give him the time of day.
“Where’s the Jeep?” he asked, his voice coming out a bit tighter than he would have liked as she brushed past him. “Surely you didn’t have Wyatt ferry you out here for fun.”
“Tire’s flat,” she snipped. “Would you prefer I walked?”
“You could have called.” He took in a sharp little breath, willing the accusation away. “I would have been more than happy to pick you up, Ell.”
“Don’t have a cell phone,” Elliot replied flatly. “And Wyatt was already there.”
“It wasn’t any trouble,” Wyatt interjected hurriedly, smiling at John with pearly whites on display. “I had to come into town anyway, and it was gonna be hours before the mechanic could get out there.”
“Well, it was very kind of you all the same,” John said with a smile that felt like it pulled too tight across his face, a smile that was harder and harder to maintain with every passing second that Wyatt West put his baby-blues on Elliot. And that was often; the blonde looked a little sheepish when his gaze met John’s, drawn away from the redhead who was readily retreating into the house.
“Like I said, wasn’t any trouble. Always happy to help,” the blonde insisted, hands tucked into his jacket pockets.
“Yes,” John replied pleasantly, “I can see that.”
Wyatt blinked, flushing. “Anyway, uh...Have a nice day, John. And you too, Freckles!”
He waved before turning on his heel and heading back to the truck. As soon as the driver’s door closed and he was starting to pull away, John turned to see Elliot watching him, her eyes narrowed.
“‘I can see that’?” She scoffed. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
“Oh, are we talking now?” His brows lifted, head tilting. “So kind of you, to grace me with eye contact when you’ve been storming around the last few days—”
“Don’t be a fucking baby,” Elliot snapped. “My life does not revolve around you. Especially when I can’t seem to figure out why the fuck you drove all the way here just to sulk around.”
“Perhaps it should at least be in my orbit,” John replied tersely, “considering that we are having a child together.”
“You—”
Elliot sucked in a sharp breath, clamping her mouth shut as she looked at him. There was a very brief moment where she looked like she wanted to say something, and very badly, but instead, the corner of her mouth ticked upward and she turned on her heel to walk inside without saying a word.
“It’s a cute nickname,” John continued tartly as he trailed after her. Don't walk away from me, don't, you owe me at least your attention. “Freckles. Do you prefer that one over Miss Honey?”
She closed the door behind her, promptly and without hesitation, letting it rattle in the door frame and in his face. He sucked in a sharp breath, passing a hand exhaustedly over his face.
Impudent. Surly. Ferociously, viciously, wretchedly stubborn. He knew this about her—had known this about her—and yet at every opportunity, she proved his idea of her correct, and he found himself getting more and more frustrated. It wasn’t fair, that even those moments of her attention still felt good, that the sting of her venom held some satisfaction for him, like he was addicted to it.
If she would just, came the thought, rolling over and over. If she would, if she would just, if she would just—
But just what? Just stop being that way? Would he have even liked her if she were not this purposefully obstinate problem to solve?
“No,” he sighed to himself, raking his fingers through his hair. “No, I wouldn’t.”
The reward would just have to be all that much sweeter in the end.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Three hours later, Elliot had forced herself to come to a decision.
She waffled on it for a while—going back and forth as she showered, scrubbing her hair and trying to let the hot water ease some of the growing aches and pains—and did her best to ignore the way something a little wicked chattered happily inside of her at the knowledge that John’s eyes had been sparking with jealousy. It felt immature, to like watching him squirm; more apparent than ever, too, was that old habits died hard.
There was a sick kind of satisfaction that came with finding John’s buttons and pushing them. It had felt the same way, back in Hope County—when he’d been burning with irritation and jealousy that Joseph had gotten her confession, not him, that she wouldn’t tell him what it was, pushing and pushing and jamming her finger into that button until he finally snapped and—
Kissed her.
That’s not what I’m trying to do, she thought, a little defiantly as she looked at herself in the mirror of the bathroom; tracing the WRATH scar, looking down to realize that there was, in fact, a baby bump. Oh, God, wasn’t that something fucking dreadful? Too real, but even still she’d known it was coming—worn looser, heavier clothes. She’d tried so hard not to look at herself in mirrors as of late that doing so now made her feel like she was looking at a stranger.
I’m not trying to get him to kiss me—the opposite, actually, I’m just trying to get him to fucking lay off for a minute—
And yet, as she found herself standing outside of the door to John’s room, her chest felt a little tight and her heart was doing that funny thing it liked to do when he was around; fluttering, leaping against her ribs, begging for attention. Elliot could have argued that it was just muscle memory at this point, that she had spent enough time around John letting him touch her and kiss her and say sweet things into her neck that her body was only working off of its basest instincts, and that was why she was feeling this way.
Clearing her throat, Elliot knocked on the door and said, “John?”
There was the sound of shuffling on the other side, and then his voice drifting to her: “Yes, Elliot?”
“It’s time for my appointment,” she managed out lamely. It felt even more stupid, saying it now, after she’d made such a big show of marching off after he’d committed to his display of jealousy. “Since the Jeep’s still waiting to get the tire fixed, do you think you could—”
The door swung open; John’s eyes flickered over her for a moment, his head tilting just before his mouth curved into a pleasant little smile that was two parts triumph and one part spite.
“What’s this?” he asked. “You need my help with something?”
Her mouth pressed into a thin line. “Don’t be an asshole, John.”
“I would never.” He propped himself up against the doorframe, folding his arms. “Wyatt’s taxi services currently unavailable?”
Already, she was regretting her decision—it had felt important, to have him along, but now she thought maybe she had been too forgiving for having forgiven anything at all.
“The appointment might be the one we figure out the baby’s gender, fuckface,” she snapped, “and since Wyatt’s not the baby’s father, I figured maybe you’d want to come in for this appointment, because it wouldn't feel right not to at least ask if you wanted to. Don’t worry though, I wouldn’t dream of inconveniencing you.”
“Wait!” The exclamation stopped her mid-turn from his door, the feeling of his fingers brushing the palm of her hand making her jerk out of his reach instinctively. John exhaled through his nose, and when she looked him with narrowed eyes and her arms crossed, he said, “I do want to—I want to come.”
“You sure aren’t acting like it.”
“I—Ell, I haven’t heard the baby’s heartbeat a single time,” he insisted, a little frantic. “I’ve respected that you didn’t want me there the last time, and you know, when I wasn’t here before is another thing, but finding out the gender and getting to hear the heartbeat—” He stopped, sighing. “I’m...”
Though there was a bit of pain stinging in the cavity of her chest at his earnesty, Elliot steeled herself, keeping her expression tight. “You’re what, John?” she prompted. She half-expected another blow-up; I’m the baby’s father, that baby is mine, I deserve this, it’s mine.
But instead, John’s mouth twisted and he said, “I’m—sorry.”
Elliot blinked. Had she ever heard John apologize? For anything, ever? And sincerely? She couldn’t recall a day or time in memory—and though her memory was spotty at best these days, she thought for certain that was something she would have remembered. Even when they’d been going to bury Joey, she wouldn’t let him get the words out.
“Uh,” she said very intelligently, “what?”
“I’m sorry,” John repeated, appearing a little frustrated at having to repeat himself. He shifted on his feet. “I want to come to the appointment. I mean—” And then, in what surely must have been pure agony: “Please let me come to the appointment.”
It felt so odd to hear the words coming out of his mouth that she could only blink rapidly and say, “Um, okay,” before turning and quickly heading down the hall and to the stairs. It had been her intention all along to ask John if he wanted to come to the appointment, to see the baby on the screen and find out the gender together—because despite his petty jealousy over someone he didn’t need to be concerned about in the least, and despite his insistence that he was the only person capable of loving her, she did see him making an effort instead of yanking her all the way to the other side. Even if it was a minute, tiny effort; it was an effort nonetheless.
“We’ll have to take your car,” Elliot said uneasily over her shoulder, pulling on her coat quickly. “And it’s soon, so—”
“Making haste,” John agreed from beside her. He reached over her shoulder to pull his own coat off of the rack. It wasn’t lost on her, then, that weeks ago he had gone to reach for her shoulder and she’d about jumped out of her skin; now, the smell of his cologne and his voice close to her ear was almost comforting, in an entirely self-indulgent way.
If she just broke it down to the piece of John she loved the most—his voice and the way the cologne smelled when it was on him, and the way it felt when his hands traced the scars on her hips, and the boyish grin he’d flash her—then maybe it could work. Then, maybe, things would have been fine.
But that’s not love, something inside of her said, as she made her way out the front door and to the car. John says he loves all the wretched things about you. Did you forget?
No. No, she had not forgotten the way John had kissed her when she had blood on her mouth, or the way he’d said, I would’ve fucked you there, or how it felt when he buried his face into her neck and said her name in a voice so broken she thought she might be holy.
“Too hot?” John asked, and she realized she was sitting in the car—that she had checked out halfway out the door—and they were now down at the end of the drive.
Elliot swallowed. Her face felt hot, and now it was not only because of her mind’s wanderings but also because she had been caught daydreaming.
“No,” she said, sinking back against the passenger seat. “No, it’s fine.”
He watched her for a moment before pulling out of the driveway and onto the street. She took a quick glance around the car; it was older, and sort of a beater. The kind of shitty Honda civic she’d see peeling out on the highway at 3AM because some idiot teenager thought she wouldn’t pull them over if the roads were empty. He’d probably lifted it on his way out of town to keep a low profile.
Her foot nudged something solid as she stretched out. Over the sound of the radio rattling and fuzzing tiredly, she heard a dull thunk. She squinted. It was a book. Unconditional Parenting.
“Jesus,” John muttered, “for a town this small, this traffic is a nightmare.”
“What?” Elliot asked, quickly averting her eyes from the book, feeling like she’d just rifled through someone’s personal drawer. “Oh, um—it’s a tourist town. People come here for the Christmas lights. They do like a whole lighting festival with that big tree in the square every night for weeks before Christmas.”
“And that’s why I can’t find parking.”
“That’s why you can’t find parking.”
He shot her a wry smile, taking a second loop around the square and a bit slower this time. Elliot turned her attention back out the window, but she couldn’t stop thinking about it—Unconditional Parenting. How long had he been reading baby books? Why was he so confident he’d get the chance to be a parent, anyway?
When he finally pulled into a parking spot, he let out a breath of relief. “How are we on time?”
Ell glanced at the car’s radio. “Ten minutes early,” she replied after a moment. “Right on time.”
“Great.” John paused. When neither of them moved to get out of the car, he cleared his throat and said, “So, what do you think?”
“About?” Elliot prompted. “The lighting festival?”
“What do you think baby is?” he clarified. Absently, he worried his thumbnail into the rubber of the steering wheel. “The lighting festival in a tourist town is the last thing on my mind right now.”
“Well, it should be on your mind,” she replied, a little petulant. “I think it’s nice, for the record. All of the vendors come in from out of town and even though the traffic’s a nightmare, it’s good business for the town and everyone’s always been respectful of it. Plus, the lights are nice.”
She paused, and when she looked at John, he was grinning at her. He seemed to be enjoying her firm defense of the lighting festival.
“And I think baby is a boy,” she added after a minute, pulling at a loose thread on her sweater. “Just my gut feeling.”
He seemed pleased by her answer, but if he actually was she couldn’t have said why; it was nearly impossible to read John sometimes, but especially in moments like this, in uncharted waters for them both. She lingered for a moment before she unbuckled and said quickly, “Anyway, we should probably go,” pulling herself out of the warmth of the car and into the chilly afternoon.
She wanted to go back to being angry. She wanted to go back to hating John, to being disgusted by him, to relishing in making him suffer, even just a little—but it was like her brain had reverted back to her neanderthal roots. Baby daddy reads parenting books, makes him a good father.
The sooner the moment was over and done with, the sooner she could go back to wallowing on the ways John had wronged her, instead of the ways he made her happy.
By the time they were back in the room, Elliot sitting on the end of the little bed and John in the chair under a pregnancy poster—Pregnant or thinking of getting pregnant? 3 things to discuss!—she had nearly steeled herself. If she just sat there, and replayed the last three months in her head, and reminded herself of all the reasons why she had left John behind in the first place, she would be just fine.
And then the door opened, and Dr. Harding stepped inside, and looked between Elliot and John with surprise.
“Hello, Elliot,” Harding greeted. “I see we’ve a guest today?”
“This is John,” Elliot said, trying not to sound too miserable given the riotous state of her brain. “This is the, uh—he's the father.”
John stood quickly, holding out his hand. “John Seed.”
“Nice to meet you. I’m Dr. Harding,” she said, reaching out and shaking his hand. “Excited? Elliot’s told you we might find out the gender today, yes?”
“Yes and yes,” John confirmed, sounding more and more like the kind of man she had fallen for and less like the egotistical psycho she’d turned in to the government. Right, the one that had lied, and coerced, and perhaps knowingly drugged her. She couldn’t afford to forget that bit.
As Elliot went through all of the normal questions—have you been eating well, yes, I see you haven’t lost weight, yeah, how is the sleep, it’s fine—she held on tight to that little thread of knowledge. John was here because she was letting him, not for any other reason, and it did feel good to know that this whole time he’d played by her rules. As much as he could have, anyway, showing up at her house unannounced.
She settled back against the propped back, grimacing as she shimmied the hem of her sweater up and Harding put a generous amount of gel on the swell of her stomach. Between doctor’s appointments, it was easy to pretend like maybe she wasn’t pregnant. The morning sickness had faded, her appetite had come back, she was getting fine enough sleep; if she didn’t look at herself in the mirror, if she ignored the pervading aches and pains, the roundness to her features then she could pretend like things were normal.
But then John pulled the chair over to the side of the bed, his fingers brushing hers, and nothing felt even remotely close to normal.
“Alright, let’s take a look at baby, shall we?” Harding said, settling in as she began to glide the instrument across Elliot’s stomach.
“Okay,” Elliot said, feeling uneasy. John’s eyes flickered to her, and while she chewed the inside of her cheek, her fingers curled around his—a thoughtless, absent-minded gesture, like she was a heat-seeking machine and the only heat that would do was his.
He didn’t say anything, but laced their fingers together just as Harding said, “Oh, there’s baby!”
The dull, steady heartbeat echoed. When she stole a glance in his direction, John’s eyes were transfixed on the screen as Harding went over where the features were, pointing them out on the screen to him.
“Your little one is about the size of a peach right now,” Harding was saying, “and let’s just see here...”
Oh, God, she thought, feeling her stomach roll. It was so real. Too real, to be laying there, after all of this time feeling so disconnected from her own body—like a vessel, but now with John’s fingers tangled with hers and the baby’s heartbeat and a fruit analogy regarding the size it felt too real. She could no longer act like it wasn’t happening.
“It looks like we’ve got a perfectly healthy baby boy,” were the words coming out of the doctor’s mouth when Elliot’s eyes drifted from John’s face. “It might be a bit early, but that's my educated inference. Congratulations, Elliot. And daddy too, of course.”
A boy. A boy. I’m having a boy.
A perfectly healthy baby boy.
The room felt a little like it was swimming, her throat tight and a steady burning behind her eyes and nose. She sat up a little and swallowed thickly. John had come to a stand too, to get a better look at the screen, but when she squirmed and moved he looked at her.
“Ell?” he asked, sounding very far away, or like he was talking to her underwater. His hand not interlocked with hers came up to her face, and she couldn’t find it in herself to pull away—not only because of the effort it would take, but because of the way it felt to have him right there when she thought she needed him the most. “What’s wrong? Hey, baby, are you—”
“I’m okay,” Elliot managed out, her voice thick and wobbly. “I’m f-fine, I just—um—”
I’m having a boy. Oh, God, it felt so fucking real, too fucking real, but in a good way—for once, her nerve-endings felt alive, and not with anxiety and dread but with happiness.
Sounding panicked, John tilted her face up and asked again, “What’s wrong?”
“Nothing,” she said, a wet, raspy little laugh bubbling out of her, “nothing’s wrong, I’m just—I’m just really happy—”
It took his thumb sweeping wetness from her cheek for her to realize that she was crying. Some unshed emotion hiccuped in her chest, and she swallowed thickly, fingers wrapping around his wrist in what she understood too late was an effort to keep his hand there; skin to skin, pulse close to pulse.
I want a home with you, she’d said to him, that night, and he’d looked at her and said, You have it, Ell, I told you.
He’d said, I’m all yours.
He’d said, Take what you need from me.
Dr. Harding was saying something, speaking softly to John. It was another reminder that it had been idiotic not to let him come in the first place—there was something so inherently endearing about John mmhming and nodding along, listening raptly as the doctor went over what they would be expecting in between this appointment and the next while his thumb swept affectionately over her cheek. She was sure that she heard the reaffirmation that she needed to be getting good sleep, staying as relaxed and unstressed as possible, but she couldn’t think about that. Her brain was going on loop, on repeat.
I’m having a boy, she thought, a perfectly healthy baby boy. My baby.
When Harding patted John’s shoulder and said, “I’ll give you two a minute,” before exiting, she felt John’s fingers threading through the hair at the nape of her neck; in a gesture that was painfully intimate, his forehead pressed to hers.
“Holy shit,” he whispered. “I can’t believe that—”
“I know,” she said, sniffing. “I can’t either.”
“You were right.” He grinned, their noses brushing, giving her hand a squeeze. So close to a kiss; she felt her lashes fluttering, the warmth of his hand spreading along the slope of her neck. “We’re having a boy. My God.”
Yes. We are having a boy. A perfectly healthy baby boy. Without her permission, the thought populated, permeating her brain.
Our baby.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
“Yes, I have him right here.”
Staci blinked. A quick intake of his surroundings reminded him that he was sitting in the cab of one of Eden’s Gates trucks—lifted from the F.A.N.G. Center. Footage of him with the cultists—the other cultists—would now be available. Footage of him walking past the corpses of Jacob’s gutted chosen would now be available.
Jacob is going to kill me, he thought, lifting his eyes from the back of the seat to look at Helmi. The woman was watching him as she spoke on the phone, with Dani sitting next to him on the backbench. Helmi had been on the phone with someone for quite a while; he’d stopped paying attention what felt like eons ago. If he just let his brain drift off, he wouldn’t think about the bodies. Fucking God, their bodies—
Jacob’s going to fucking kill me.
Helmi's hand moved. On instinct, Staci flinched, and she rolled her eyes.
“Say hello, doggy,” she said, shoving the phone against his ear. He fumbled with it for a minute before he swallowed thickly.
When he looked at Dani frantically, she frowned, her brows furrowing, and she whispered, “Don’t embarrass me, Staci.”
“Um, h...” His mouth was painfully dry. “Hello?”
“Hello. Is this Staci Pratt?”
The voice on the other end was painfully pleasant. She had the same kind of accent Dani did—Norwegian, maybe, or Swedish—but her voice was a bit deeper, a rich timbre to it.
“I am,” he replied uneasily. “I-I mean, yes. It is.”
Helmi had faced forward in the driver’s seat again and started pulling away from the F.A.N.G. Center, turning the heat down low. As the truck pulled out onto the snowy highway, she flicked the headlights off and slowed to something close to a crawl.
“S-Sorry, but—”
“You do not have to apologize to me, Staci.”
“I just don’t know—um, who you are,” he managed out. As soon as he said the words, Dani dug her elbow into his ribs; he barely stifled the yelp, looking at her as she mouthed something he couldn’t understand.
She hissed, “I told you, she is—”
“My name is Kajsa. Helmi, and your Dani, and many of our brothers and sisters are...” Her voice trailed off, and she made a thoughtful hum. Pratt tried to ignore the way she said your Dani made his heart jump in his throat. “They are my charges. It is my responsibility to take care of them.”
“Oh,” Pratt said. “So what...What do you want with me?”
“Helmi says that you have made a very good impression,” Kajsa replied sweetly. “You have important knowledge, and I want to make sure that you are safe, and taken care of. Just as I would any of the others.”
He fought back a grimace. The words sounded sweet and enticing, but he couldn’t shake the way Dani had looked at the gutted corpses on the screen and said delightedly, It will happen to us all. If we are lucky, Helmi will be the one who does it for us.
Pratt’s gaze darted up to the front. Helmi’s dark eyes fixed on his in the mirror, like she had been watching him all along.
“It is my understanding that the Seeds have not endeared you to their cause? That you know what your colleague did, that your friends have left?”
“No,” he replied quickly. “I mean—that’s right. Um, I was working for Jacob, but it was more like—”
“Do not trouble yourself with recounting. I believe you,” Kajsa interrupted. And then, gently: “It must have been horrible.”
His chest tightened. Oh, no, he thought, shaking his head and pressing the heel of his hand against his left eye. No, fuck no, don’t listen to her, Pratt, you fucking idiot.
“By now you must have some grasp of what is going on,” the woman continued, “but in case you do not, I will tell you. Are you listening, Staci Pratt?”
Pratt’s head pressed against the back of the seat. He didn’t want to; he didn’t want to listen to her sweetness, her sympathy, the way she clicked her tongue and the timbre of her voice warming him down to the marrow of his bones when he felt like he’d been freezing this whole time.
“Yes,” he whispered. “I’m listening.”
“We are well-armed. We are organized. We have a common enemy with you. And a common friend, too.” She paused, and he thought that he could hear a smile in her voice when she said, “I can tell that you want to live, my darling. That you don’t want me to have Helmi pull over and gut you open, leave you for the crows and the wolves and the woods to take you.”
Opening his mouth did nothing to inspire the words to come out of him. Nausea rolled violently in his stomach—but there was nothing left to puke up, even if he’d wanted to.
He did want to live, but not like this. Not terrified. Not. Like. This.
“I want you to live too,” Kajsa murmured on the other end.
“But you’re going to have to do something for me.”
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When Elliot opened her eyes, it had gotten dark outside.
It took her a minute to collect her bearings, sitting up in a bed in a dark room. At her feet, Boomer huffed and sighed at the disturbance, and then she remembered; she was in her bed. Back at home. John had driven the both of them back to the house, and she’d said that she needed to lay down—and he’d let her, without protest or complaint. He hadn’t even tried to insinuate she could use a napping companion.
Pulling herself out of bed, she rubbed her eyes tiredly and glanced out the window. Everything felt a little foggy. How long had she been sleeping? Had she really been out until late into the night?
She reached absently to her bedside table, blindly fumbling for the lamp switch; after what felt like an eternity of not being able to find it, Elliot sighed and skimmed her hand over her face, looking out the window. The night outside was brighter than it had been in a while, with no clouds in the sky and the moon illuminating the snowy landscape in an unforgiving blue-white, stretching out far and far and far until it hit the treeline.
Something darted on the horizon. She blinked rapidly, taking a step closer to the window and pushing on the glass pane until it started to slide up, grinding laboriously. The longer she looked, the longer Elliot thought maybe she had just been zoning out—but then she saw it again; a flash of something, pale and long, like spider bone-white in color skittering up the dark wood of a tree in the distant treeline.
A glimpse of pale limbs. Tangled, dark hair—she couldn’t make out the color, it was too dark—but it looked wet, it looked matted, like someone had hurt it. Like someone had blown its skull open.
Something metal rattled. The trash can, she thought, her attention snapping to the front of the house. When the sound of metal crashed in the night, the motion-activated light in the front kicked on. A shadow stretched along the snow, cast long and deformed by the warping of the light.
“Hey!” Elliot shouted, but the shadow did not twitch or move in response; just the sounds of rustling, like whoever it was found themselves too preoccupied with digging through the trash can. Her heart was pounding violently in her chest; the terror that had been knotting in her stomach was doused by something hotter, redder, angrier.
Rage.
She pushed herself away from the window and out the door into the hallway. As her feet hit the stairs, there was almost no noise—just the rushing of her movements as she pushed the front door open and hurried down the front steps, turning the corner to where the garbage can sat.
“Hey, listen to me!” she snapped, propelled by the anger when she saw the figure hunched over the garbage can. “You can’t be in—”
The figure lifted its head. From the back, her eyes swept over what looked like fur, a tail, up and up to the back of a head that had two ears perched on it, until the figure’s head turned—
Fury disappeared. It was now only dread, only pure, cold dread and terror sitting in her, gutting her, washing her out as the dog with a man’s face turned and looked at her and smiled.
The square teeth, gapped and pearly, oozed with the same dark liquid as she had thought she’d seen before. In the yellow light from the porch, it glittered dark as garnets, dropping into the snow and spreading out crimson.
Move, she thought, I have to move, I have to fucking move, I have to go I have to run I have to—
“Hey!”
It was her voice. It was her voice, but it wasn’t coming out of her—it was thrown, echoing from somewhere in the trees, the dog with the man’s face spreading its mouth wider. Somehow, she knew deep in the marrow of her bones that It was making that sound.
“Hey? Listen to me?”
The pitch was all wrong. Elliot felt a moan bubbling up in her, and It turned on its hind legs, feet hanging loose around its ribcage, and faced her fully. She managed one step back before It tilted its head, as if to say, where are you going?
“Hey, listen to me!”
There was something else in its teeth. Something else, wiry and golden, and even when she willed herself a step back
(whereveryougowhereveryourun)
her body would not move; she was trapped, frozen, watching as It stepped closer
(ItwillwaitforyouItwaitsforusall)
she realized that it was hair, in It’s teeth
(ITWAITSFORYOUITWAITSFORUSALLITWILLHAVEYOU)
her hair.
A hand landed on her shoulder, and she screamed.
When she lurched and twisted around, she was not met with a familiar face. It was a woman, hair dark and bundled up in winter clothes, watching her with concern furrowing her brows as the headlights of her car made Elliot squint. She immediately jerked away.
“Are you alright?” the woman asked, her hand dropping back to her side. She was tall—she had to be at least six feet tall, and her face was sharp and angular, her eyes nearly black without any light to show their color.
“Where—” Glancing around wildly, Elliot forced a swallow. She was not in front of her house. She was not even close to the front of her house. She was all the way at the end of the drive, standing in the—
“—found you in the middle of the road,” the woman said, the lilt of her accent jarring Elliot back to reality. “I was on my way home when I nearly hit you. Are you quite well?”
Her gaze snapped back to the woman. The dog; where was the dog with the man’s face? Where had she—
Every nerve-ending felt fried, like they had become pure static; she felt like she was vibrating. She stared at the dark-haired woman with the strange, rich accent, wondering why it itched at her. Weyfield was small. Too small for her to not know about someone with an accent living there.
“Who are you?” she asked after a moment, nails digging into her palms. “You don’t live around here.”
A smile stretched across the woman’s face. She had pearly teeth, and the kind of full mouth that looked pretty, sculpted—but in the smile, Elliot only thought, broken glass, her smile looks like broken glass.
Vaguely, she was aware of John’s voice; he must have heard her scream, or seen her down the driveway, the headlights of the unfamiliar car illuminating her in the dead of night. And yet, she couldn’t shake the feeling. Paranoia spread along her spine, worming into her lungs, a most effective parasite.
“I know you don’t live here,” Elliot managed out, her voice trembling as she took a step forward. There was a tiny pinprick of relief when she realized she’d regained her mobility. “Why are you driving around this neighborhood? Who are you?”
The woman turned and headed back towards the driver’s side of her car, hands tucked politely into the pockets of her coat.
“You should be more careful of your sleepwalking. Someone else might not have been so kind as to stop,” she called over her shoulder. “And—”
The woman paused, the smile still rooted firmly on her face as she opened her car door.
“I hear stress is bad for the baby.”
Something wretched and vile twisted in her stomach, hot as a branding iron. The panic that shot through her system was so vicious, so potent, that for a second she felt like the air had been sucked out of her lungs; it crashed over her in a wave so powerful that her vision swam and she thought, I’m going to pass out.
But there was another thought, too, squirming around in there, blinking its little emergency light:
My baby, my baby, you stay away from my baby.
“Ell!”
John’s hands landed on her before she thought think to pull away, even if she’d wanted to, as the headlights of the woman’s car turned away and began to drift down the drive. The idea that she ought to chase the car down occurred to her, but the tremble in her legs and the hitch of her breath reminded her that it would only serve to make her feel worse.
The brunette frantically checked her over, panting and out of breath as though he’d just sprinted down the drive; when his hands finally came to a stop, they were cradling her face, his eyes searching hers. Over his shoulder, she watched the receding red light of the woman’s car drifting in the dark, aimless in a sea of inky black, and she wanted to throw up.
“I heard you scream,” he said, breathless as his brows knit together at the center of his forehead. “What are you doing all the way out here? Baby, look at me, what’s wrong?”
“She knew,” Elliot managed out. Her voice felt like sandpaper grinding out of her lungs. “She knew I—she knew about our baby.”
“Who?” John looked over his shoulder, and then back at her, his thumbs smoothing over her cheekbones. “Elliot, who?”
I don’t know, but the words wouldn’t come.
I don’t know who she is,
but she knew about our baby,
and she has a smile like broken glass,
and a mouth as red as blood.
#my writing#fic: witching hour#john seed x female deputy#john seed/female deputy#far cry 5 fic#fc5 fic#tw blood#tw body horror#uhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh#ch: elliot honeysett#ch: john seed#ch: isolde khan#ch: joseph seed#ch: jacob seed#s/o to santi and arden one day your time in the sun will come#also: poor staci#that is all i have to say on THAT#: )))))))#thank u thank u thank u!!!
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TPOV: Chapter 1 Sneak Peek
Hey guys! I’ve been working on the first chapter of my wip The Pursuit of Valor, and I thought I’d give yall a sneak peek into what I’ve been working on! So here goes!
Photo by Maria P on Unsplash
She was a master of fire. She alone could control the flames licking up her arm as she created a blaze beginning at her fingertips. She was Favored by the Gods with the gift of fire. The gift of chaos. The gift of life. And ever since she was a kid, Reign was able to command the fires in the fireplace, the candles, and at her fingertips.
The blaze on her arm grew and grew, feeding off of her, until it licked at her shoulders. She turned her golden eyes on the man before her and they glowed in the light of the flickering flames. In a flash, the flames were gone, leaving her skin glistening with sweat, perfectly intact.
“Roar,”
With a single step forward, she reared her head back and let out a roar. Flames burst from her mouth, licking at the ceiling far above her. They illuminated the dark room in an orange light and let off a blazing heat that would scorch anyone nearby. Her voice echoed off the walls and only added to the chaos she unleashed. When she was finished, her voice hoarse and the breath in her lungs burning, the flames faded away and her gaze fell upon the man before her, awaiting his next order.
“That’s enough. You’ve been training.” Her father said. She nodded her head, not daring to speak. “Very good. I have some important matters to attend to, so I’ll be sending you to guard the latest shipment from Naclium. Someone has been stealing our hard-earned trades and selling it to gangs around the city. Someone needs to keep it under our control and I don’t trust anyone else.”
Reign bowed her head and left the room as quickly as possible to avoid his ire. The hallway was narrow and dark, it seemed to stretch on forever, with dull, flickering lights every few feet. Doors marked the hallway’s branches, and at the very end there was a fork. Reign came to the fork and marched quickly down the right side towards her own quarters. When she came upon a plain-looking door with bronze hinges, she opened it and quickly closed the door behind her.
She stepped further into the main room of her quarters, past a raggedy grey couch with a long coffee table and a roaring fireplace before it. The flames made up the main source of light in the room, warm and flickering along the barren stone walls. A clock ticked on the mantle above the fire, she needed to remember to wind it later. She wandered towards the bathroom, conjuring a flame at her fingertips to play with as she readied a bath.
She was lucky, she knew, because she could simply sit in a vat of cold water, and only a few seconds later, heat it to nearly boiling with just a passing thought. It meant that they didn’t need to retrofit her bathroom with the latest steam-powered gadgets to warm her water. Metals were hard to come by lately, and Reign knew that her father needed those metals to mass-produce weaponry for his employees.
After a quick bath, she dressed herself in mostly black, simple clothes. Loose pants, along with a simple black tank top, and a worn-down leather jacket. Leather was expensive and difficult to get, and it showed off her status among her father’s employees, so it was only appropriate she wore it when she could. She knew it wasn’t exactly as practical, it limited her range of movement, but she didn’t need to fight today, just intimidate and demand respect.
After she was done, she strode from the wardrobe back to the main quarters and out into the dim hallway again. Not too long after her bath, she found herself emerging from the dark mansion her family lived and operated out of, and into the busy city streets.
It was always hot in the streets. Between the movement of people, the mid-summer heat, and the automobiles, it was warm. But the sidewalks and streets were heated from beneath, where the city’s steam-powered engines ran to keep the electricity flowing to all of its citizens. Reign took her jacket off. After all, it was sweltering. She let herself meander through the streets, smarting at the way the people parted in awe of her. She was infamous in this city, her father being who he was, and her Favor was common knowledge as well. Her golden eyes gave away most of her identity, but the leather jacket in her hands was just as important in discerning her as important and powerful.
Reign liked to go to the pier and count the ships her father owned as they came and went in the water. Their boats were unsuspecting trading boats, but everyone knew that the flag beneath Zielza’s green and yellow flag, the gold and blue of the Empire, was not to be touched. Her father’s touch reached beyond the shores of Zielza, even beyond the southernmost point of Naclium. Not even Reign knew how far her father’s reach went.
The salt from the water hung in the air, clinging to every surface near enough. Reign breathed deep, falling a little in love with the pier with every breath. The dock her father had instructed her to guard was on the far end of the pier, where the larger steam ships docked. Her father’s ship was waiting for her there, the crew at work securing the boat to the dock and the captain ordering inventory checks at the helm. When she boarded, the captain took notice and gave a deep bow.
“Is everything accounted for?” She asked.
The captain looked up at her from her bow and nodded quickly. When she stood, the captain was quite a bit taller than Reign herself, but she seemed almost afraid. Though, Reign supposed, that wasn’t particularly unusual.
“And the security forces, have they arrived?”
“No, ma’am.” The captain answered crisply. “We’re waiting on reinforcements for the crew before we unload, as per your father’s orders.”
“Very good.” Reign turned to look out over the busy pier, picking out three more golden flags in the distance. “I will be accompanying the shipment to the warehouse personally.”
The captain’s eyes widened almost imperceptibly, but Reign caught it. “So there is a threat.”
“My father is concerned, so I am concerned. Iron and copper ore are extremely expensive, and we cannot afford any more losses.” Reign explained, eyes scanning the horizon. “I expect no trouble today.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“Go ahead and finish your duties, we will unload when the security force arrives.”
#tpov: chapter 1#tpov#my wips#my wip#my work#my writing#writing#writeblr#writing stories#storytelling#All names and shit are working names and titles#still don't know what direction I'm going with this but I'm going
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Inspired by @thunderpot‘s BEAUTIFUL art...I’m working on a birthday present for her. I have an outline. I’m 50 pages in. I’m powering through this like no other and it’s been a BLAST.
I can’t keep calling it Atlantis though, or else the name is going to stick...So...I need help.
Kagome and Sango are scientists and treasure hunters, looking for a new clean energy source. Kagome’s hair-brained idea? Let’s find Atlantis! Little does she know the world she’s about to fall into... (horrible summary but I’ll deal with that later)
Unedited excerpt below!!
“I wouldn’t do that if I were you.”
Kagome paused, adjusting the strap on her purse as she looked up from the trashcan. It was a lovely day - the salty ocean air filled her nostrils and the warm sun caressed her tanned skin of her exposed back. A gentle breeze ruffled her midnight tresses, and she nervously tucked a strand behind her ear. His accent was thick and indiscernible. Not quite Greecian...but...something more. Mysterious.
“Excuse you?” she replied, confused by the man before her. Long, thick, inky hair…deep, cerulean eyes with just a fleck of gold in the left iris. His body was lean - his muscles ropey, as if he were an experienced swimmer.
Made sense given that this was an island over a hundred miles away from Santorini. Nothing but vivid blue seas for miles.
She had been getting lunch with her fellow colleague, researcher, and best friend, Sango, when this man just…Came up to her out of nowhere!
“That dive you’re planning to do with your friend,” he continued, his eyes serious. “You shouldn’t do it.”
“Were you listening in on us?” she replied, incredulously as she took a step back, away from him.
“Kinda hard to not,” he shrugged dismissively. “You’re rather loud.”
“Excuse you?” she repeated, trying to not let him grate her nerves. She didn’t know who the hell he thought he was, but he had no right telling her what she could or couldn’t do. And, on top of that…how fucking rude is it to…to…eavesdrop on a random stranger’s conversation and then snidely comment on how loud they are!
“You won’t find it,” he continued, unperturbed. “You think you’re the first ones to come here looking for Atlantis? Hardly,” he scoffed. “You should just go home.”
“Yeah?” she bit back, now more than a little annoyed with this rude stranger. “And what makes you so sure we won’t?”
He just smirked and turned away from her.
“Just am. Go home while you still can, Kagome.”
“That sounds like a threat,” she yelled after him as he started walking away.
He paused, looking over his shoulder back at her.
“Not a threat. A warning. Take your friend and go home.”
***
“Take your friend and go home,” Kagome mumbled under her breath, slipping a tank top over her head as she thought back to earlier that day.
“Still upset, huh?” Sango commented, an amused smile tugging at the corners of her lips.
“You weren’t there Sagno,” Kagome bit back as her friend squeezed a dab of toothpaste out onto the dry bristles of her frayed toothbrush. “He was so...cocky...and... condescending! And! And! He was listening long enough to know not only my name, but also the fact that we’re looking for Atlantis!”
Sango just rolled her eyes, allowing her friend to rant about this mystery man as she brushed her upper teeth, watching Kagome’s arms wave around animatedly as she retold the story. Again. For the tenth time.
Kagome watched her friend pull her hair around to the side of her neck, leaning over the sink to spit the white foam of her toothpaste into it. “You’re obsessing,” Sango finally replied, pointing her toothbrush at her friend. “Men have, and always will, be condescending to us. We’re treasure hunters, Kagome. Not teachers. This is a male dominated field. They are always going to look down on us. Why do you suddenly care what this one random guy thinks?”
“I don’t care what he thinks!” She shot back, pulling her hair into a bun at the top of her head. I’m just...pissed at him! He doesn’t know us and he’s just...just assuming that we can’t do it? Who the hell does he think he is!”
“No one,” Sango sighed. “He’s a no one you are spending way too much time and energy on. Forget him,” she encouraged, beginning to brush her teeth until a thought struck her. “Do you like him?” she gasped, her words coming out garbled as she spoke around the toothbrush hanging limply from her mouth.
“O-of course not!” Kagome sputtered, brushing off her friend. “He was rude, and condescending and--”
“--And attractive and you haven’t stopped talking about him like...once since you got back. I think you have a thing for assholes,” Sango smirked and Kagome reached out, grabbing a damp towel off the rack and threw it at the other woman. Sango just laughed and caught it, chasing after Kagome as she stomped out of the cramped bathroom into their small room, turning on the fan. Even at night, the humid air clung to them like a sticky sap.
“I do not have a thing for assholes!”
“Yeah? Then what word would you use to describe Hojo?”
Kagome was silent for a beat before snapping back, “cheater. I would describe him as a cheater.”
“So...Asshole?”
Kagome just glared back at her friend, her ire raising with each passing second.
“Listen, Kags...Don’t let this guy get in your head. You’re a smart, strong, determined woman. We’ve ignored nay sayers all our lives. Why stop now?”
“I know,” she sighed, thinking back to the serious look in the mystery man’s hauntingly blue eyes...All blue, except for that one, beautiful fleck of gold. She wondered why he had it...Genetics?
Sango was right.
She was spending far too much time focusing on this guy when she should be getting sleep.
***
“Fuck!” Kagome swore, sitting back down on the bench in the small boat they had rented, next to Sango, peeling out of her wetsuit. The sun had almost set, the last warm rays of light nearly hidden beyond the horizon. “I thought we would find more out there than that…”
Sango handed her friend a towel, raking her fingers through her hair to work out the knots in her long black tresses.
“Bad dive again ladies?” their skipper, Miroku, asked in his thick Grecian accent. They would have preferred to have done this without him, but unfortunately...he came with the boat.
“Yeah. I’m disappointed too,” Sango bemoaned, nodding as Kagome stood, running the terrycloth towel over her wet body. Her skin puckered, turning into gooseflesh as a breeze swept over the ocean water, caressing her body.
“I’m not giving up hope yet. Everything we have researched so far has told us that the gate should be here.”
“I know,” Sango sighed. “Hey...did...did that place kinda give you chills?”
“Chills?” Kagome pressed, raising her leg onto the bench to dry it.
“Yeah...I don’t know Kags...I just...I felt watched down there. I know it’s crazy, but I swear I felt like something was watching our every move. Maybe we should...just...move on to the next site. The place is so creepy anyways…”
Kagome just rolled her eyes. That place? Creepy? And what would be watching them? Fish? She loved her friend dearly, but Sango was overreacting. It was a little unsettling looking around ruins, sure…but she didn’t think for one second that it was creepy. Besides...They had planned to spend two more days exploring the area before moving onto the next spot.
“Nonsense,” she soothed, tossing the towel back to her friend. “It’s nothing we haven’t seen a hundred times before. Our permit is good for a few more days...I think we should stick with the plan. Head back first thing in the morning. Maybe breathing in all that air from the tanks got to you? I feel it in my bones, Sango. This is the place. I just know it!”
Sango shot her an uncertain look, but just shook her head as Miroku moved inside the cabin, reappearing a second later with a bottle of champagne and three flutes.
“Enough of this! You are starting your adventure!” he grinned. “Why don’t we pop some champagne in celebration? What do you say ladies? It’s a perfect night to drink a little bubbly at sunset! We can all get to know each other better, since we will be spending quite a bit of time together,” he finished cheekily.
Sango just narrowed her eyes at the man, and told him they were not interested in drinking at the moment. Instead, she sent him to turn on the ignition and begin the trip home. She hoped they could make it back before the sky completely blackened.
“Hey,” Kagome soothed when they were alone again. “I promise...two more days. I’ll be with you the whole time. Everything will be fine. It always is, right?”
“Yeah,” she sighed, still unable to shake the eerie feeling that they were being watched.
Little did she know how right she was...nor did she notice the black haired head poking out of the waves, watching the unwelcome explorers pull away from the sight. Keen, blue eyes narrowed as they disappeared from sight, a single golden fleck glimmering in the last rays of light.
That’s it for now...Hopefully it’s enough to spark some ideas?!
It was supposed to be a one shot. Then I wanted to keep it under 60 pages. Then 100. Now I just want it to stay under 130 pages. I’m already 50 pages ( 17478 words) in...I should stop pretending I can keep things short.
ART:
https://thunderpot.tumblr.com/post/617420192100827136
https://thunderpot.tumblr.com/post/617850310848872448/idk-kags-i-felt-watched-down-there-maybe-we
PLZ HALP GUYS I SUCK SO HARD AT TITLESSSSSSSS AND YALL CAME UP WITH A WORTHY SACRIFICE LAST TIME WHICH IS DOPE AF!
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Part 1
{a/n} hey yall! so this was a story i was writing on my wattpad but i’ve decided to base this story of that book! i’ve changed a couple things so its x reader soooo have fun!
prompt: the reader is the daughter of Leia Organa and Han Solo. shes spent the early years of her life training with her uncle Luke at his temple until her older brother turned to the dark side. coming out as the only survivor, she blocks away from the force. now, her mother wants her to use it again. poe dameron seems to be the only one who has a problem with this.
warnings: mention of kylo’s massacre.
The sky burned auburn above the D'Qar base, illuminating the troops down below. All was quiet, except for the occasional tapping of boots on the black tarmac.
She could feel every breath, every vibration, every thing around her. The Force flowed through her, like a breeze on a hot Corasaunt day.
The sound of landing of X-Wings hummed in her ears, alerting her to what was about to come.
Y/N could feel him especially. Every day, and she meditated under the sun of the rebel's base, he came to annoy her.
"Hey, Y/N/N!" The gruff, excited voice exclaimed at the other end of the tarmac.
She let out an inward sigh and tried so desperately to ignore him. As much as she loved him, she needed her tranquillity.
She tried to cling to her moments of peace, her balance within the Force, but her concentration shook under the words called out to her.
"Y/N/N!" The voice called again, now much closer.
Her piercing Y/E/C eyes snapped open, immediately narrowing onto the orange-clad figure bounding towards her. Standing from the ground, Y/N set a hard scowl on her face, all too alike to her mothers.
Poe Dameron, pilot-extraordinaire, skidded to a stop in front of his best friend.
"Y/N Organa, just the woman I was looking for." He said with a smirk, placing his hands on his hips.
Y/N only furthered her scowl at his words, crossing her arms over her chest.
"Poe, haven't I told you not to interrupt me while I’m out here?" She practically hissed, but Poe remained indifferent at her tone. He surveyed the D'Qar grass around them and placed a bright smile on his face.
"This planet is a beaut, ain't she?" He said, turning his head to the woman next to him.
"What do you want, Commander?" She joked, forgiving the man for his interruption. He stared into her eyes, causing the womans stomach to tumble.
His eyes held a certain dark beauty, reminding her of the wild aminals that used to run through the fields near her Uncle Luke’s temple. She could stare into them for hours.
He turned to the horizon again, this time the smile faded from his face.
"She's got a mission for you, your mom. Something about your uncle and a "sword"?" He said questioningly, words saturated with worry for his best friend.
Y/N’s smile faded as she, too, stared at the horizon.
“Oh.” Was all she could muster, hands gripping the standard-issue Resistance pants. It wasn’t her “sword”, as her best friend had called it, but her saber. She sighed.
It had felt like eons since she had blocked out the Force. She had good reason, too. After seeing what Kylo Ren had done to the other younglings in his lust for more power in the Force, Y/N felt almost sick when she used it. She resented the saber, and had promptly given it to her mother, so she would never have to see it again. Her mother giving it to her was a sign of the worst.
“I don’t think this is a good idea.” The commander mused beside her, cratching his stuble. Y/N scoffed lightly, emotions over-running her.
“You think I’m thrilled?” She asked, voice slightly cracking with emotion. As tears welled in her eyes, Poe wrapped her in his embrace.
“Hey, hey. We’ll figure this out, we always do. I bet its not even about Luke.” He said, almost trying to convince himself. She sniffled and Poe kissed her head affectionately, trying to calm the girl in his arms.
“Sure.” She whispered, looking up at him, almost in adoration.
As the sun set on D’Qar, tensions began to run high inside the base.
#poe dameron imagines#poe dameron#star wars#poe dameron x reader#finn x reader#rey x reader#star wars imagines#kylo ren imagines#ben solo imagines#han solo imagines#han solo#leia organa#kylo ren x reader#luke skywalker#luke skywalker imagines
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i can never keep my feelings a secret because i have to write about them. if u wanna be in my life ur gonna get songs written about u, that’s just the way this shit goes.
세젤귀 #월드스타 BT21의 특별한 #슬리퍼 컬렉션을 만나러 가자구ᕕ( ᐛ )ᕗ https://bit.ly/2tFnoYO _ #MUSINSA #무신사 #무신사스토어 #BT21 #쿠키 #타타 #치미 #망 #슈키 #알제이 #코야 pic.twitter.com/b6jkzeitYQ
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this how yo ghost followers be hatin jss tryna watch yo moves
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