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lemonhobgoblin · 3 years

Text

A Casual Night

Mothman x human reader (gender-neutral)

Word Count: 7k

(I remember saying I would have a fic done the same week I posted my other fic. Well, that was a lie. After dealing with work, creating new wips, and editing what started as a 2k fic became this long-ass post. I tried to keep this gender-neutral, but if there are any parts thats not gender-neutral, or if something doesn't make sense give me a message and I'll fix it. Anyway hope you enjoy!)

The faint sound of your car running and the sound of the wind whipping against the surface was muddled out by old tunes playing from a random radio station filling the lonely ride home. Your eyes trained on the dark empty road ahead, your headlights on full beam, lighting your way. The subtle notes of a box of cooling pizza wafting in your direction every so often.

You were driving from a city over from where you lived, coming back from a friend’s home who was having a small get-together. It was a great time, unwinding from the stresses of work and life in general, with games, movies, playful banter, and sharing a couple of drinks. As the night progressed, things began to slow down, one of your friends passed out on the couch while everyone else turned to some lighthearted conversation. Leading the host to pipe up if they were willing to spend the night given how late it has gotten and mostly due to how much some people drank.

While everyone was willing to stay the night and continue their night of merriment. You on the other hand as well as one other person had to leave for the night due to work obligations you both had tomorrow morning.

Regretfully, you made your exit not without being offered leftovers for the ride back. But halfway home, you received an email detailing how you were not needed for work tomorrow as you were getting gas.

With this newfound information, you had the choice of making a U-turn back or continue straight home.

Rather than driving back to your friend's home, you were just going to continue your way home. You already said goodnight to them, and you were almost home even though it was still quite a ways to go. Nevertheless, they probably turned in for the night by now, and there was always next time to make it up to them.

So driving down an empty two-way road, with no lights fixture to light the road. With no other cars passing through, keeping you company. Only the trees crowding around the road giving you some sort of haunting looming audience. This was a normally busy road; however, by how late in the night it was, it was understandably dead.

Fortunately, enough, you saw your first signs of life up ahead. It seemed to be a herd of deer passing by. You honked your horn to scare them away from the oncoming danger that was your car.

Except instead of dispersing, they stayed in place, it didn’t seem out of the ordinary why else did they have the saying 'a deer in headlights.'

But what was odd, was the closer you approached the herd of deer they seemed to be floating off the pavement, apparently, they were one entity and not a group and had a pair of red glowing eyes. It stirred an unpleasant feeling in the pit of your stomach.

Promptly, an undiscernible screech erupted all around, jolting you in your seat, feeling a pang of sudden fear washing over you. Convincing yourself it was only the radio going off the fritz, peeling your eyes away from the road you scrambled to shut off the device. During your haste to bring an end to the blaring otherworldly sound, you didn’t realize how fast you were driving.

"What the fuck?!" Seeing a flash of a large dark mass smashing against your windshield - shards of glass flying around and onto you.

Swerving your car over to the side of the road, feeling the right side slope down, the bumps of the grass making you rattle and jostle in your seat. Putting your car to a complete stop.

Frantically, you scrambled to free yourself from your seatbelts, ripping yourself from your constraints, you busted out your car. Not giving a single care to the state of your car or your frazzled state. Only concerned about what or who you hit.

Jogging down, you saw a crumpled figure on the ground, he was a good distance away from where you parked. "Oh my god," You exclaimed.

“I didn’t see you coming, I’m so sorry," you yelled, hurrying to aid the individual. You didn’t get a response or see any movement - he did hit your car pretty hard.

Scared for their wellbeing you slowed down and fished for your phone in your back pocket to call for help. But before you could dial for help, you saw something that put halt to your actions. You starred in disbelief as your phone locked out.

From the figure, a wing stretched out toward the sky before folding back in itself.

What the hell did you hit?!

Cautiously, you crept forward to get a better look, you could see he was wearing a fur jacket. No. He was furry everywhere, dull in color but with an interesting print on what you believed was the wings, the pattern was similar to a moth's wing. A costume perhaps? His legs were a digitigrade structure and his feet are similar to a bird's foot arrangement. The talons of which were scraping against the road like an animal in pain.

"A moth?" Perplexed at what exactly you were looking at, it still seemed human, but it was too large in stature given it curled up on the ground. This had to be some large person in a very convincing costume. Assuming it was someone dressed up, as what you could only think of as Mothman. A random tall person dressed head to toe in an extremely convincing Mothman in the middle of an isolated road, for reasons you couldn't conjure but there had to be a rational reason as to why.

The closer you approached, the more of your rationality began to slip. Carefully you squat down, putting your hands on its back, it felt real. Too real.

The wings felt warm, stroking your hand down, you felt the ridges, bumps, and what felt like a pulse, in the wings. You noticed it had a plush ruff around its neck that could’ve been mistaken for a scarf. And there were antennas on its head, it was featherlike and twitched every few seconds. You had no desire to investigate further, yet you had a gnawing sense of curiosity that compelled you.

Besides what if was someone who was severely injured and needed immediate help. And what kind of person would you be if you just drove off without a second thought, leaving them to die. You couldn't live with yourself if that was the case.

This is too unreal. But all the signs suggested otherwise.

Bracing yourself, you gently turned him over to face you, the moment you caught a glimpse of his face, you felt instant regret surge through your veins. You stumbled backward, landing on your back, trying to push yourself away from the massive creature with your legs.

"MOTHMAN!!" You screamed.

This in turn alarmed the cryptid, flapping his wings erratically in response to your sudden outcry. It was emitting these indiscernible sounds that you had heard earlier in the car, it provoked that familiar immense fear within you.

Except, this was louder than when you were in your car, the sound reverberated through you, chills traveling up your spine. You could feel your heart palpitating within your chest, your trembling limbs growing numb. You felt your senses heightened at an alarming rate it was nauseating that you felt your mind blur. If these disquieting sounds alone could trigger your flight or fight response, without the presence of the monster. It was nothing in comparison to the full show that was in front of you, it was overwhelming in all the senses, inciting you to get far as possible.

"Holy shit!" Pulling yourself from your state of shock, you turned over onto your hands and knees, pushing yourself up and away, making a straight beeline to your car without delay.

The screeching stopped behind you. Glancing back toward the monster curious if it was making a move towards you. But all you saw was a poor incapacitated being, pitifully attempting to lift itself away. One of its wings was flapping while the other was barely moving at all. When it tried to move its stiff wing, it wouldn't fully extend before retracting it back, making what sounded like a pained low screech.

In all honesty, even in your fear-driven state, it pained you to witness this distressing scene. Pondering back and forth between taking the car and leaving, or taking your chances with the monster.

Inching toward the car, all without removing your eyes from the scene. Then you heard a more distressing shrill, stopping you dead in your tracks. You couldn't leave him.

He still needs help.

Inhaling a deep breath, you shakily walked back, each step was challenging you felt so weak in the knees and you felt lighter than usual. Your mouth desiccated of any moisture but persisted in swallowing nothing. It felt as if you were walking down to your execution and it might as well be. You couldn't predict what it would do or what it was capable of doing if you got any closer. Regardless, you tried to push your fears aside and help him, even if it killed you.

"Hold on, I'm not gonna hurt you. Just don’t hurt me please." Easing yourself onto your knees, mindful of not doing any sudden movements to provoke it any further for both of your sakes.

Bringing a hand back to where you had it before, you delicately brushed your hand up and down in small strokes on its wing. Focusing on his state and not his appearance, you saw cuts and scrapes littering its wings and body.

You grazed over an open wound, causing the creature to flinch, silently apologizing to him in a hushed tone before continuing to pet him while avoiding any more wounds.

Its breathing began to slow, quelling its jitters. You took this as an indicator of the creature growing at ease at your presence. “See I just wanna help." You whispered as the Moth creature peered up, gazing into your eyes in a sort of mutual understanding. Ensuring a feeling of reprieve within you and within him, or so you thought. It was soon to be proven wrong. The moment was short-lived when the cryptid began to thrash around again, this time trying to keep you away from him.

"Wait I thought we had an understanding there." Pulling yourself into a ball to avoid the cryptid's violent flapping wing and arms recklessly whipping around. "The eye contact we had! The eye contact!" you screamed after being betrayed by this false sense of amicable trust you thought you both had shared at that moment. But this ineffectively did nothing to fix the dilemma, merely adding more to the chaos.

"Please I want to help you." Reaching your hand out to calm him once more, without the screaming and flailing this time. "This was my fault, I wanna help and then you can go on your Mothman way, okay?" You tried to coax. Once more the monster began to quiet down, its quick shallow breathing slowed. Weary of his soothed behavior, you waited a bit before wrapping his arm over your neck.

"Okay, I'm gonna pick you up or at least try to." You said, guiding him upward into a standing position.

"Christ, you’re heavy!" Bending under the weight, propping him against your frame, so you could get a proper footing and grip on him. You struggled to the car, trudging over, but not without one of your legs giving out from under the weight occasionally. What caught your eye was how his head lulled forward or side to side, he might be disoriented from the blow. Not wanting to move his head much, you trudged much slower than you already were and stopped every few seconds.

Arriving at you your vehicle, you rested against your car, before opening the car door and easing him inside into the backseat. Tucking in any stray limbs and wings fully inside the car. Shutting the door you looked at the heavily cracked windshield. It was damaged pretty well, you summarized that you had to slowly drive all the way home. Wait home.

"Wait, I can't just bring you to my house." You said, bringing a hand to your mouth, realizing a new issue. "Someone's gonna see you." Remembering you lived on a busy street near pubs and shops, and it was Friday night you could only assume there were still people out and about enjoying the nightlife. Peering inside your car, your eyes locked on your jacket in the front seat.

"Maybe I can disguise you, and it is Friday night maybe people would be too drunk to notice."

"As long as we don't draw too much attention." You said, getting into your seat and starting up the engine. But something about saying those words aloud, felt like it was going to bite you in the ass but what’s the worst that can happen, you had him handled.

….

Here you were driving back home with the low-volume melody playing like before. However, this was different, before you were alone and you welcomed the tranquil ambiance you had riding home. But now you were riding back with an elusive creature. Creating an unsettling silence within the vehicle. What was maddening was that you were unsure what he was thinking, making you unsure of what to do besides drive. Maybe you were overthinking this but you felt you had to do something to break this disorienting atmosphere because this was too hard to fathom as reality.

"D-Do you want gum? L-Leftover pizza?" Your voice cracked, quickly clearing your throat asking again in a stronger confident voice.

No response. You tapped your fingers on the steering wheel, sucking in your cheek prompting you to purse your lips in your endeavor of finding what else to say. Flitting your eyes back and forth from the road to looking around your car on what else to offer.

"My coat?"

No response again.

Looking at your rearview mirror to get a glimpse of the cryptid only to be met with its red eyes staring directly back at you. Hastily looking back to the road and sinking into your seat, alarmed. How long was he staring at you? Why was he staring? At least he seemed less disoriented now, but you didn’t need that right now, maybe you could draw his attention onto something else other than you.

"How about some air?" you asked, hoping he would stare out the window or put his head out, anything but him staring at you all the way home. Gliding your left hand over to the window control panel on the side of your door, you pushed down a button making his window rolled down. This captured his attention, redirecting his gaze towards the open window, watching the trees and road signs passing by. O thank god. but just as he turned his head to the outside, he took this as an invitation to spread his wings to catch some air.

"That doesn't mean you can start flapping, put your wings down." Whipping your head back and forth from the creature to the road, drawing a hand at him, swinging it around to get him to fold his wings down. "PUT YOUR WINGS DOWN! PUT YOUR WINGS DOWN!" Veering your car off to the side of the road.

.....

Back on the road, after sorting out the matter. "Okay, no rolled down windows." You remarked. Mothman looking like a perfect angel in the back tapping at the rolled-up window while you were in the front with your hair messed up and arms lightly scratched. You weren't a mother, but you now had a vague idea of what it would be like and further respect and admiration for them.

Needless to say, you rode the entire way back in silence without a single word being uttered.

…..

Steering your car on the side of the street in front of an apartment complex, you placed your car in park. You turned off the engine. Street lamps and other building lights were illuminating the street. The neon signs from the local business started to shut off, looked like some of them are turning in for the night.

You snatched your jacket from the passenger seat before slipping out and making your way to open Mothman’s car door.

"We need to move, quickly." Throwing your coat over him to conceal him in the event of someone walking by. Mothman pawed at the coat and clutching it closer to get a better look and smell of the material. After gathering your phone and keys, you whirled back toward Mothman. Fussing at him to not move the jacket, readjusting it over his head. You surveyed the streets for anyone coming down or seem like they are heading out in your direction.

Once more putting his arm around you, you strode as quickly as you possibly could to the complex without either of you falling over. Mercifully, you got to the door with no problem at all or bumping into anyone.

Until you heard something you’ve been dreading on the way home, something that made your heart sank down into the deep trenches of your stomach

"Holy shit! Is that Mothman!?!" A male voice exclaimed.

You whirled your head toward the stranger who was slowly approaching you two. Fuck!

Where did he come from and what made him so confident that he’s looking at Mothman. You glanced back over to Mothman noticing that the jacket that was covering his face, was now draped over his shoulders. Drastically you scoured your brain for an excuse or some sort of explanation to counter how this wasn't a cryptid. But he beat you to the punch before you had a chance to find a solid response.

"Dude sick costume!" He said excitedly.

O fuck. Relieved that it wasn't the worse, but you were surprised he didn't question any further especially how close he was to you both. Even you would've questioned, the details and just the overall realism of said 'costume'. It didn't take long for the answer to hit you square in the nose. When a waft of alcohol invaded your nostrils, the man was drunk, and you never were more grateful.

"Thanks." You nervously laughed.

"That’s crazy good man, you did this all yourself?” He asked enthusiastically towards Mothman, beholding every bit of intricacy on the creature.

"He can’t talk right now; he drank too much to function." You interjected. “We just got back from a party.”

"I gotcha, but is it okay if I get a photo though?"

FUCK! you blurted internally, but externally with faux delight, you said "Sure!"

" 'Chad' you cool with that?" you sheepishly asked your moth friend with the first name you could think of for him. And why were you asking him? As if he could make a cohesive verbal response. But you were hoping at this moment he could magically talk, alas all he did was blankly stare.

"I'm not hearing a no." You heard the man say and you woefully agreed.

"Gimme a sec." The man pulled out his phone and tapping it unlocked.

"Okay," your heart was racing in your chest and you could feel a layer of sweat beginning to form and pool in places. But by some sweet grace of some higher being, a miracle happened right before your eyes. You heard a melodious chime sweetly ring through the crisp early fall air.

"O dang getting a call, hold on" the man answered the call, turning his back towards you.

Maybe there was a god, after all, a fucking sadist with a sick sense of humor. Either way, you were not about to pass up this chance for a free getaway.

You took this God-given opportunity to jam your key into the lock swiftly to get the both of you inside. Twisting to unlock the entrance, you could overhear the man to what sounded like him wrapping up his conservation. Turning the knob, you ushered Mothman and yourself inside the apartment complex, but not without throwing a quick apology to the stranger. Slamming your back against the door shutting it closed, a wave of relief washed over you.

"Aw man, that was too close." leaning your head against the door, desperate for a quick breath from your ordeal. You hadn't felt this much adrenaline since, since. You were so winded you couldn't even recall a memory.

Peeling yourself off from the door, feeling ready to make the final steps home. Deceptively though your body wasn’t as ready to move just yet.

"Nope wait." still trying to catch your breath. Doubling over, leaning forward, and resting your hands on your knees. Mothman all the while just tilted his head at you, confused. While you were over there feeling like you were going to be sick. The wave of nausea quickly fading away allowing you to straighten yourself out.

"Okay, we're good." You said as you grabbed his hand leading him up the stairs. Unbeknownst to you, the large creature was zoning in at the unfamiliar contact.

During his entire time with you, he was just as wary of you as you were with him. He wasn’t one to present himself to people, only as a forewarning of what was to come or an indication that Mothman will be the very last thing they would see. He trailed and stalked others like you in your car but was never hit, that was a first for him. Albeit though, him getting hit with your car, leaving him cut up and bruised did give him another reason to be extremely defensive and antsy around you.

Yet, you were gentle, loud but gentle with him when he wasn’t. Risking your safety in an effort for him to get mended. Lightly ghosting his thumb over the soft skin of your hand, tightening his hold on you. But you didn't notice, you were too preoccupied with climbing higher up the stairs, vigilant for any neighbors.

"Come on we're almost to my place." Giving a reassuring hand squeeze.

"Try to stay quiet a little longer." Peering back at the cryptid flashing him a quick warm smile, before looking back straight ahead. The creature looked directly at you, then to stairs, and back to you again. He came up with a grand idea to help with your effort. But first, he had to gain your attention and for this to work, he had to disregard everything you told him not to do earlier. The cryptid started to emit his screech directly at you to get your attention. And to you, he was making a ruckus, that was echoing through the entire stairwell and halls.

"What part of stay quiet do you not understand?" Grimacing at the noise. You stopped your movement, aiming to cover his mouth with your free hand, you felt his mandibles tickling underneath your palm.

The creature pulled your hand away and into his own, clutching both of his hands close to himself, bringing you into him. This gesture was unexpected and left you feeling warm in the face by how close he was pressing you into him. But it didn't last long when he began to bend his knee and flap his wing readying himself to fly up.

"Wait don't" Pushing yourself away from him, you freed yourself from his grasp to stop his actions. He was still injured this would only cause more harm to him and to you if he tried doing what you thought he was about to do. In your effort to stop him, Mothman tried to reach out for you again, only for his wing to smack into you causing you to land on the hard edge of the concrete stairs; headfirst. “Shit."

Groaning, "Well, I deserved that." you brought your hand to your head, you winced at the touch. As you yanked your hand away you caught a glimpse of red in your peripherals. Bringing the hand in your line of vision you saw blood smeared on the tips of your fingers.

Mothman immediately brought his actions to a halt when he saw what he had done to you. His antennas drooped down, he came close, giving you a hand up. Gladly accepting the gesture, he brought you up to an upright position, he felt bad for what he had done to you. Tentatively, he brought a hand up, lightly swiping his claws over your forehead making a low pained screech.

“It’s okay, you just wanted help didn’t you.” He nodded in response, you pressed a hand to the wound preventing the blood from dripping down. You couldn’t be mad at him he didn’t know better, and you did hurt him first, it only felt fair. Disrupting this tender moment, you heard yelling and heavy footsteps approaching one of the doors on the floor you were on.

"Let’s go!" you rushed up the stairs, luckily for you both it was the final flight of stairs. Reaching the top of steps in record time when you heard the front swing door open.

"What's with all that commotion!?" A neighbor yelled upward toward the sound of your feet stomping up. Coming to an abrupt halt at your door, you whispered for Mothman to stay where he was, while you dealt with the matter below. But he decided to follow behind instead, not wanting to leave your side.

"Sorry I was just goofing" You admitted, showing your face over the rail, outing yourself to your neighbor.

"Sorry my ass, I got work early tomorrow, you expect me to sleep with this fucking racket outside, and now this." They argued back, and rightly so, who wouldn’t complain about an unearthly ear-piercing screech penetrating through the halls along with banging sounds hitting all around the walls. But you couldn’t help but feel annoyed

"I’m sorry, it won’t happen again, promise." You leaned forward resting against the rail while one leg was kicked up behind you, preventing Mothman from coming toward the railing. You exchanged a few more words with your neighbor to avoid the landlord getting involved. Finishing up, you pulled yourself away calling it wraps on the conversation as the individual below continued spewing profanities at you and about the building.

You unlocked and opened your door “In! In! In!" You shoved the imposing cryptid inside, already getting peeved by the neighbor's continuous rambling. It wasn’t anything new they hated everyone in the building, but it wasn’t something you grew used to though.

"Jesus Christ finally." you sighed, kicking the door behind shut.

Slipping off your shoes, leaving them by the entrance, your feet ached in relief from its constructing confines. Dragging yourself through the small hall leading the way to the main part of your home, it was small but cozy.

"Here we are home sweet home." you chimed, leading Mothman further into the living room, grabbing the jacket from him and tossing it to the couch. As well as turning on a lamp to properly illuminate the room. It didn't take long for Mothman to be drawn to the light fixture like the moth he was. He grabbed the lamp hugging it towards him, looking directly at the bulb. Chuckling at the sight, you could’ve given him a flashlight on the way home if he was going to be this mesmerized. You proceeded to make your way to the kitchen for your first aid kit.

"You can make yourself comfortable, but don’t wreck anything please," you shouted from the room over, but Mothman was unbothered, he was solely transfixed on the soft light, eyes wide and grabbing at the lampshade. "I'm gonna go find my first aid kit to fix you and my cut." You really hoped nothing else gets broken, there was already enough screaming and thrashing for the night.

Shuffling through the kitchen, trying to remember where you last placed the kit. You rested and slid a hand over the cool smooth linoleum counter, looking between cabinets for any sign of a small box. Coming to the last cabinet, you rummaged through before finally pulling out your first aid kit.

But you couldn’t help but stop and think about tonight’s events. It started as a fun night, then filled with pure dread, mothering, and now what felt like taking care of a drunk long-time friend. Except, what really dominated your mind was this odd feeling you started to feel, you recounted back in the hall the way he held you close. It made you feel bashful, to say the least. Up to now, you saw him as a friendly harmless dare you say, an unexpected friend. But that didn’t accurately describe what you were feeling. Shaking your heading, you had other pressing matters to attend to.

"Got it, let's see." And not to your surprise you saw the tall cryptid sitting on the couch, clutching the lamp close to him as if it was his lifeline. You contemplated whether you should take the lamp away. But he looked to be enjoying the light source, hearing faint happy chirps emitting from him. Sadly, you decided to ruin his fun, seeing as there were wounds you needed to tend to on his chest and you needed the light to properly see them.

You attempted to pull the lamp away so you could have better access to examine his injuries. In response, he chittered in objection to his lamp being taken, and nothing was going to separate him from his precious lamp. He was going to soon learn that the lamp was barely holding onto the outlet. Hugging it closer to himself, the plug came out, extinguishing the light. Perplexed as to where his light disappeared to, he presented the lamp towards you hoping you would bring the light back.

“I’ll bring it back, but only until I get a look at you.” He nodded vigorously as you grabbed the lamp and setting back on the mini table, blindingly trying to find the plug and inserting back into the outlet turning on the lamp again. You sat on the couch next to him, motioning for him to come closer so you could get to work.

......

"I don’t see any major cuts or anything broken." Scouting out the state of the injuries, they were honestly not that bad, you guessed it was probably due to the now dried flaky blood around his cuts gave the appearance that they worse than what they were. He got pretty lucky but it was probably due to his build that he was capable of taking on more than a couple of hits.

"Only just a sprain and a couple of cuts, that’s a relief" Thinking to yourself glad it wasn't any worse, you couldn't imagine the stress of trying to keep him at your apartment while he heals, and away from your neighbors’ eyes. The fear of him getting caught and taken away and dissected. Being bombarded by officials and Mothman lovers. And getting questioned or probed, maybe even both. You didn’t know if they would, but you knew deep in your heart they would probe you for answers. Stopping your paranoid-filled train of thought from delving any further. You finished tying up a couple of loose ends and sticking on on salve on minor areas.

"See all better. Don’t move too much, it'll heal quickly that way" Gathering any trash to throw away. Everything is fine now; you don’t have plans tomorrow so you could probably sneak him back out the next night.

Huh.

Letting him go. The idea of it should have given you some relief and yet you couldn’t help but feel conflicted. Would he come to visit again? No that would be reckless. Or you could convince him to stay longer to heal, no that would be irresponsible and selfish of you. He deserves to go back, and you're going to help him get back on his feet and let him be on his way. You walked back to the room.

“Feel much better?” you inquired to Mothman who busy was playing with the bandages on him.

He looked directly at you and nodded in response.

"That’s good, the sooner you get better the sooner you can leave," you told him, seating yourself back next to Mothman who hasn’t kept his eyes off of you. You peered up to catch a glimpse of what he was doing, only to capture him looking directly at you with his head tilted.

Not this again. you thought.

He’s certainly not making this any easier. You looked away trying to focus on anything else in the room before you resorted to looking at the floor.

"You know it’s still kinda crazy, that this is even real. Like I feel like I’m going insane," you jokingly confessed to Mothman, laughing to yourself. But you thought about it more, maybe you were, "O my God is this what a psychological break is?" You looked back at him, having an unfazed look on him.

"Can I?" you asked reaching a hand forward. He stared at your hand for a bit, until he leaned forward giving you permission to proceed.

"So soft" allowing yourself to fully feel him, combing your hand through his dark fur and traveling up his ruff. It was surprisingly plush for how it looked, it felt you were touching a cloud but with some tiny debris within it. You gathered more courage to let your hand wander up to his face, giving a couple of brushes before stopping your motion, cupping the side face. His eyes were a brilliant red color comparable to a lustrous gem.

"You really are real." You muttered, stroking a thumb over his cheek.

Mothman brought a clawed hand to your face in a likewise manner, curious of your own features. Where for him he found them peculiar and to other individuals such as yourself they found it normal. The universe was messed up, making it much harder for you to separate yourself from him when the time comes for him to leave, but you allowed this, forgetting your initial plan.

Feeling a sharp claw gliding up against your skin, perfectly capable of nicking you or doing so much worse to you than you could imagine. But he had no intention to do so, merely entranced by you.

His hand wandered up to your forehead, where your gash was, flaky and dried the blood was chipping at the edges. His antennas lowered and chirped in response, for what he did to you back at the stairwell, he didn't mean to. Even if you said it was alright, it still didn’t make him better, bringing a hand to skim the wound, you flinched at the sharp pain of your forgotten injury, knocking you out of your trance-like state.

Mothman drawing back in his seat, alert and worried thinking he hurt you again.

“It’s okay, you did nothing wrong.”

You reached a hand out to calm him, you aimed for his arm but managed to miss and land your hand on his thigh. Wow, that’s great! you internally cringed feeling a blush rush over you, instead of pulling back you still tried to alleviate him by patting his leg, telling him it was the injury that was hurting you not him.

Instead of defusing his concerned mindset, he only tried to push away from you to avoid causing you any further harm. Hand still anchored on his thigh, you launched yourself trying to stop him from hurting himself more.

Fortunately, with your luck, you ended up top of him, Mothman laying on the couch while you hovered over him, with both of your legs planted on either side of his thigh. Your left knee was alarming close to his crotch if you moved an inch closer you would be bumping your knee right into it. Your hands rested squarely on his chest, finger splayed out as you looked down at him with a similar wide-eyed expression.

You gotta be fucking kidding me.

Maintaining your effort of trying to console Mothman, you coughed to clear your throat and your mind of any dirty thoughts from springing up. “Hey, I know you didn’t mean to, and if you did, I would tell you and- and I’m sorry that I gave you the impression that you hurt me and I’m sorry for hitting you with my car, I feel like saying it doesn’t do justice for what I did.” You panted after your long-winded speech.

“Also, I’m sorry for tackling you down that wasn’t my intention. So, you good? I didn’t hurt you?”

He slowly shook his head, as a response that you didn’t hurt him. Startled yes. Hurt no. Bobbing your head in understanding, you carefully crawled off him.

"Well, I guess I should go get the blood washed off, I'll be right back." You informed the still cryptid who made no effort of getting up, just continued to lay on the couch staring straight ahead in shock.

Walking off to clean off the blood and to regain your composure. You were just going through too many emotions than you should for the night. On your way to take care of your problem, you could’ve sworn you heard something akin to a cat purring where Mothman was. But you blew it off and justified it as hearing the blood rushing and the beat of your heart pounding in your ears.

Striding down a hall and into the bathroom you turned the faucet on allowing the water to flow into the sink and onto your hands. Water pooled in your cupped hands before splashing the cold water onto your face, the water, and dried blood dripping together down around the curves and grooves of your face into the porcelain bowl below. It was a satisfying contrast to your heated face, splashing another round of water at your face but an intrusive memory replayed the moment that happened a few seconds ago. Leaving your face buried in your hands, groaning from sheer embarrassment. Fucking hell why am I like this?!

Unwillingly you slid your hands off and look at yourself in the mirror you looked like the accurate personification of a hot mess. You weren’t going to think too much into this, you are going to pretend what happened didn’t happen, you were going to disinfect and stick a bandage on your cut and not dwell on your emotions around the situation at hand. Allowing him to leave as soon as he is better and not have any other affiliations with him again.

Opening the medicine cabinet for an alcohol wipe and unwrapping the wipe from its small packaging.

"Now for the worst part." Quietly hissing at the contact with the antiseptic. Finishing up on cleaning the wound, you foraged through the cabinet looking for a bandaid. Noting there wasn’t one to be found, you sighed.

Guess I need to go find one.

Turning toward the door to walk out, you looked up and saw Mothman standing at the doorway, watching.

How long was he standing? And how the hell is he so silent for such a big guy and why wasn't he like this before? You were about to question him what he was doing here or if needed something when you noticed he was fiddling with a band-aid in hand. Slowly he brought it up, placing it over your cut.

"Thanks." Laying a hand over the band-aid, feeling not just your cheeks warming up but now a butterfly feeling in your stomach, solidifying your emotions for him.

So much for my plan.

Weaseling past him, before enthusiastically asking him, "Well, we got time to pass, so what do you want to do?"

…..

The sun rays bled through the curtains lightening up your home, the light seeping past your eyelashes and into your eyelids forcing you to wake up. Blinded by the light, you groaned in discomfort, pushing yourself up hearing a couple pops in your back. Rubbing a hand up and down your face trying to wipe away the sleep.

What the hell happened here? Why was there glass everywhere? Looking up you saw your window smashed in with only a few jagged pieces in place around the sides. Turning your attention away you looked around the room, wasn’t there someone else here. O yeah.

But the question was, how did you end up falling asleep on the floor, and where was the large cryptid. Wait a minute.

…

"No, you can't go out, you're still hurt." Trying to hold him back from going through the window. Everything was fine, you both were sitting on the couch, watching whatever, and snacking on fruit, and next, you found yourself asleep but woke up to a ruckus, the tv still on, and seeing Mothman trying to rip the curtain off the window nearby. Jumping to action to stop him, he successfully pulled off the curtains along with the rack, you assumed he was trying to leave even though he wasn’t better or so you thought.

And here you were struggling to hold him back, you thought he was difficult before but now that he fully adjusted and patched, you fully experienced that he was pure indomitable power.

"At least wait till the street is clear." You insisted, noticing some people walking or jogging down the street in the dark early morning. But he didn't listen he was adamant in making his exit. So, you made the decision to let him go.

"Okay, okay at least let me get the window, I don’t want glass on the floor." Racing in front of him to slide the window open. A quick gust of wind whipped against your face, causing you to squint your eyes in response.

"There! AH-!" the last thing you saw was Mothman coming at you and the last thing you felt was his frame bulldozing you down by fast approaching torso.

…

"O right." That explains how you ended up on the floor and the glass strewn all over the floor. More incredibly, even when you opened the window, the creature still managed to break the window in its haste to leave. Your head was pounding, he really is a force to be reckoned with. Bringing a hand to your head, you winced at the contact to your forehead but noticed something else. Delicately raising a hand back to your forehead and skimming along the surface. There was the band-aid from the stairwell and on the other side was another. You didn’t remember adding when did you?

Oh.

……

"My window," you muttered groggily, your vision fading out not before the moth creature gave his assistance to you for the last time and a thanks to you by sticking a band-aid on your sure-to-be bruised noggin as you lulled into an unconscious state.

……

At least bug boy was nice enough to get you another band-aid when he put you out cold, before making his exit. Slowly standing up to get started on assessing the mess and knowing full well that you needed to inform your landlord of the window. You peered out the window, curious of any indication of Mothman to spot, unfortunately, all there was to see the was hustle and bustle of the city around and below.

Turning your attention back to the mess, maybe you could make a fib of some large man drunk man pretending to be Mothman breaking into your home believing it was his. Sighing, you went to grab a broom to clean up the mess, at least you were able to encounter a real living and breathing legend. Made you wonder if other cryptids exist, but you’re pretty sure handling one creature was enough for now after last night.

Finishing up, you gathered all the shards and brought them to the trash. You didn’t have work for today, which gave you the opportunity to get a breather and get things done. Making your way to your room and getting ready for the day.

As you were getting clothes on and getting a good look at yourself in the mirror. There square above your eyes and your right eye was a bruise evident from last night's escapades. Shaking your head, laughing to yourself you weren’t going to be able to cover up the contusion. Bringing a hand to your head, you couldn’t help but smile at the cryptids' cute gesture. Walking out of the restroom deciding to let the shiner shine, ready to do some damage control.

Grabbing your keys, and heading out the door, and yet you couldn't stop thinking of that little moth guy. What are the chances of seeing him again? Probably unlikely, a mere once in a lifetime chance but you were grateful to encounter a sweet bug boy like him.

#mothman #mothman x reader #mothman x human #exophilia #cryptid #cryptid x reader #mothman fanfiction #mothman imagine #monster #monster lover #mothman my beloved #monster fucker #monster x human #monster romance

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bestiesenpai · 3 years

Text

I’m on more chikan shit but this time with slimy Getou-nii and Choso-nii🥰 femme reader

tw: incest, chikan, slimy jjk man getou, dubcon(?)

Choso couldn't stand how cute you looked, in your little skirt that swayed in the wind. He had bought it for you - well, more like he gave you his credit card after you had a hard day - and this was the first time he got to see it on you.

“Don’t you look cute!” And so did Getou.

“Thank you!” Giggling bashfully, you gave Getou a hug when he opened his arms to you, letting go of Choso’s hand that you’d been holding so tightly all the way to the station.

“Let’s get going, it’s gonna be crowded.” Grabbing onto your hand again, Choso descended the stairs to the platform. You’d asked to tag along with him and Getou to the fashion district of the city; they had supplies to get for an upcoming project, and who was Choso to say no? Maybe you’d like what they did so much that you’d want to work with them, maybe move in and-

“Getou-nii, stop!” Your girlish squeal ripped Choso from the daydream he was having. Whipping his head to the side, his brows furrowed at seeing Getou walking so close behind you.

“What? I don’t want you to have any accidents, baby.” Getou teased, putting his hands on your shoulders as you walked.

“It’s fine!” Shaking him off, you giggled as he tried to do it again.

“C’mon, the trains almost here.” Pulling you in front of him, Choso stood at the platform. Wrapping his arms around your waist in a tight hug, Choso laid his chin on your shoulder, heaving a sigh at the annoyance already sinking in from having you tag along with Getou.

But it was all made better when you kissed him on the cheek and whispered love you nii-chan. Everything was all better, Choso let a smile take over his face and a little hum left his chest and he kissed you back.

But his smile fell upon seeing the packed train car pull up in front of him.

“For fucks sake.” Straightening up, Choso slid his hand into yours and pushed through the crowd, to the far end of the train car.

“Little sister, c’mere.” Leaning against the wall, Getou pulled you against him, your back flush with his chest as the doors closed. Choso stood in front of you, leaning against the other wall and blocking off anyones line of sight to you.

“It’s so bumpy!” You whined, trying to stay steady on your feet as the train jostled on the tracks. Your ass kept bumping into Getou, pressing down on his crotch.

“I don’t mind it.” Getou grinned, wrapping one arm around your waist to keep you upright. Grinding your ass against him, Getou let out a shuddering breath. “(Y/N), what kind of panties do you have on?”

Choso’s eyes shot open at the question. He knew no one else had heard, but it still made his ears tinge red. You looked surprised as well, hiding behind your hand and mumbling something.

“Aw, lemme see.” Getou’s hand grabbed the front of your skirt and pulled up, exposing more and more of your legs.

“Getou-nii, no!” You hissed, trying to push his hands away to no avail. “Choso-nii!” Your eyes shot over to his, but Choso was no help either. He couldn’t find it in himself to move, it was like time had stopped. He could barely breathe, made even harder when Getou pulled your skirt high enough to expose your panties to him.

“So cute!” He cooed, bunching up the skirt in one hand and cupping your sex with the other. “You wore these just for me, huh? How’d you know that was my favorite color?”

Your face was on fire with embarrassment and you were still trying to fix your skirt. Choso shuffled over a little, using his broad shoulders to block out any potential witnesses to what was happening.

Biting your lip hard, you threw your head back onto Getou’s shoulder as he started to rub along your slit. Clenching your thighs together didn’t do anything to slow him down.

“Are you getting wet, naughty girl?” Getou chuckled and slid his hand into your panties, pressing two fingers on your clit and not wasting a moment in circling the bud.

“Choso-nii...” Reaching out a hand to him, you intertwined your fingers together and pulled him marginally closer.

“Be a good girl.” Was all he had to say in response. Choso couldn’t meet your narrowed eyes, his focus entirely on your cunt. The sight of Getou’s large hand stretching out the fabric, playing with what lie underneath, captured him.

Even though his voice was distant, it still brought you comfort. If your brother was okay with it, then so were you. Resting your hand on his chest, you spread your legs a little for Getou.

Immediately seizing the opportunity, Getou took his fingers from your clit down to your entrance, pushing in with surprising ease right down to the knuckle. Taking a brief glance, you were surprised at the stretch the fabric had; surely it should rip with his hand stuffed inside.

Both men held their breath to hear the soft wet clicking of Getou’s fingers thrusting inside you, and you tried your best as well, but with every push in his knuckles rubbed against your clit.

“Getou...big brother...” Slapping a hand over your mouth, you couldn’t fight some of the whimpers coming out.

“You plan on letting the whole train hear you?” Getou teased, grinding his hand against your cunt. It made your legs twitch horribly, and a squealing moan came from your throat, covered up by a loud cough from Choso and the train going around a curve.

“Fuck.” Choso grunted beneath his breath, not so subtly adjusting the front of his pants. “Let’s hurry this up, we’re almost at our stop.”

“Aw, what a shame the fun is over so soon.” He sighed yet you could tell Getou wasn’t disappointed. If he was willing to do this right now, he surely had other plans for the day as well.

Making sure your skirt was up and out of the way, Getou stretched the fabric of your underwear as much as it could go, pistoning his fingers and angling them higher.

With a few expert flicks of his wrist and a hard grind against your clit, you came with a choked moan behind your hand, pushing against Choso’s chest and stamping your feet a little to try and control yourself.

“Good little sister.” Getou cooed, taking his fingers out and rubbing your clit. “Cumming all over your big brother, you deserve a reward.”

“It’ll have to wait.” Choso snapped, yanking Getou’s hand out of your panties and saving you from overstimulation. “Our stop is next.”

And like magic, it was announced that your stop would indeed be coming up. Choso helped fix your skirt as Getou took a cheeky lick of his fingers before wiping them off on his pants.

Helping you out of the train, Choso slid his hand into yours, feeling you slightly tremble as you tried to regain some semblance of control over your body.

“You did good.” Choso mumbled as he kissed your temple once you got outside the station. You did really good, if the evidence of Choso’s cum filled boxers had anything to say about it.

#tw: incest #choso #geto suguru #tw: dubcon #nii-chan fuckers rejoice #tw: chikan

163 notes · View notes

btsmosphere · 3 years

Text

Across the Tracks | KTH

~summary: Don’t cross the tracks. Never once did you question what you had been told your whole life – at least not until a certain boy makes that a bit more difficult...

Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | drabble

~pairing: taehyung x reader (she/her) ~word count: 7.3k ~dystopian au, strangers to lovers, angst, fluff, inspired by lady and the tramp ~rating: pg15 ~warnings: adoption, dystopia, fictional slur, violence, arrest, police brutality, car accidents, near death, swearing

~a/n: the finale has arriiived!! I can’t thank you guys enough for the wonderful comments this series has got, it means so much to me! Please come chat with me about the last chapter🥰and enjoy.. xx

Light streamed into your eyes with the click of the van door opening, but that wasn’t what you flinched back from. It was futile to try and escape the controllers grasp though, and you were soon being tugged out and towards the front gate of a large, grey building.

On the short journey, you had managed to control your tears and your shaking, but your knees felt weak again as you stared up at the looming building.

Your eyes hadn’t even roamed its whole front when a beeping sounded, large black doors grating open before the entrance swallowed you whole.

Taehyung’s fingers trailed over the small metal barriers around every tree he passed. Who put fences around trees?

Huffing, he whirled around for the fifteenth time, ignoring the ache growing in his feet. Surely he should be near your area soon? The problem was, all the houses over here looked the same. Same neat lawns, same cute little window boxes, same front doors-

And a man leaving his front door. Someone he recognised.

“Hey!”

The guy started, alarm taking over his features as he saw the ragged boy barrelling towards him.

“Aren’t you-“ Seokjin spoke as Taehyung slowed in front of him, “what are you doing here? Stay away!”

“Listen-“ Tae panted, holding up his hands, “it’s about Y/N.”

Clattering shut behind you, the door remained steadfast in the face of your pleas.

“I have papers, I promise! I’m adopted by a Mr and Mrs-“

“Spare us the story, we’ll see what happens when we look up your name in the system,” the controller cut you off, not even looking your way as the key clanked in the lock.

“No-“ you clutched at the bars, “they gave me this – mother and father – when I got my papers. I’m not lying!”

Fishing your bracelet, the symbol of your adoption, from your pocket, you held it up-

Only for it to be snatched straight from your fingers. Yelping, you lunged for it back, but the controller held it out of reach.

“Might as well just admit to stealing this,” they smirked, “sentence is the same for strays either way.”

Words could barely form as you gaped, outraged.

“S-stealing?!” you spluttered, “but- that’s mine!”

“Sure it is.”

Losing the patience to hear you out, the controller was already walking away, your bracelet slipping into their pocket.

Jaw slack in disbelief, you stayed on the spot even as they left your line of sight. It wasn’t until the sting in your eyes became unbearable, vision fuzzing, that you clamped your mouth shut to bite down on your lip.

Slowly, you turned inwards to face the rest of the cell.

The other residents looked as shocked as you, staring back.

Hurriedly blinking, you were surprised to find you recognised some of them.

Voice cautious, Namjoon stepped towards you first.

“Y/N?”

“Namjoon?” you whispered, not trusting your voice at a higher volume, “what are you doing here?”

Looking around him, you found the mysterious Yoongi eyeing you. Beside him stood Jimin, with a boy you didn’t recognise.

“They caught onto us stealing the medical supplies,” Namjoon sighed heavily, wandering the few paces to the edge of the cell as he rubbed the back of his neck.

“I’m so sorry…” you winced.

“It’s alright,” he shrugged, looking around, “looks like they had a field day today, half the city’s in here.”

“Our half of the city,” Yoongi spoke drily for the first time.

“But what can everyone have done so wrong?” you frowned. Turning around, even among only those cells that were visible from here, you could easily see they were as packed as yours.

“Exist.”

The small voice came from the boy you hadn’t met.

“This is Jungkook,” Jimin nodded to you, “he was… staying at the restaurant with me. They found out.”

At your puzzled look, he sighed.

“They don’t take too kindly to anyone not paying rent. Any strays,” Jimin scowled darkly.

Pressing your lips together, you were at a loss with what to say. Silence falling stiffly over the group of you again, Jimin sat back onto the small bench fixed to the wall. Following suit, you sunk with your back against the bars, lungs deflating.

“It’s alright,” Namjoon’s hand landed on your shoulder, sending a grimace your way, “we’ve all been in here at some point. Well, all except one,” he added with a chuckle.

“…who?” you enquired.

“Taehyung,” Yoongi chipped in.

“Oh.” You cast your eyes down.

“Wasn’t he with you?” Jimin frowned.

You grimaced.

“Yeah, he was… but I- I lost him.”

“Just like him,” Jimin chuckled. Despite his mirth, you were only confused. “I thought something might be different this time,” he carried on, “but I guess some never change.”

“What are you talking about?” you insisted.

“Well…” Yoongi slid down where he sat, scratching at his ear, “don’t take this the wrong way, but Tae often has girls around, if you catch my drift. I thought you’d know that.”

He looked genuinely curious, tilting his head in the face of your bafflement.

“No.” you spoke. “I had no idea.”

Seokjin had been staring at him wordlessly for a disconcertingly long time. Taehyung was about to open his mouth again when the other man exploded, arms flying as he yelled, making Tae jump back.

“You did WHAT? HOW- HOW DARE YOU?! YOU JUST LEFT HER-“

“I never meant to!”

“-you should have brought her STRAIGHT BACK HERE-“

“She can choose what she wants to do!”

“She should have stayed well away from you! I can’t believe y- I hope you’re happy now-“

“Of course I’m not!” Taehyung pleaded, “just – please – just get her family to call the station and get her out of there.”

Seokjin’s ears were practically glowing red, nostrils flaring as he breathed heavily.

“I will,” he snapped, “but you had better stay away from now on, okay? You’re nothing but trouble.”

Taehyung chewed at the inside of his cheek, heart sinking. Eventually he lowered his head, nodding.

“I will.”

“Are you really licensed, though?” Jungkook asked, steering the conversation back to safer territory after the earlier revelation.

You nodded mutely.

“You don’t have anything to worry about, then,” Namjoon assured you, “they’ll see it on the system and have your family pick you up.”

“What about you?” you looked up then, at all of them.

Exchanging glances with the others, Jimin was the one to reply.

“We’ll figure out something. Maybe if Taehyung wants to show his face sometime, we’ll get out-“

Cutting himself off mid-giggle, he seemed to realise the risky topic he had just breached again. Nonetheless, it peaked your interest.

“Why would Taehyung help?”

“He knows every trick in the book,” Yoongi scoffed, “always manages to get away. Saved us from a lot of trouble, too.”

Simply nodding, you returned your gaze to the floor again when a sharp blow knocked you forwards.

Righting yourself hastily, you found the controller from earlier unlocking the door and throwing it open.

“Miss L/N, we found your file, follow me.”

Startled, it took you a moment before you kicked your body into action, stiffly standing with one more look back at the others. As the bars closed, this time separating you from them, you could only offer them a grimace and a small wave as you were led away.

But soon enough, you were occupied with different concerns.

At the end of the corridor, Sarah was waiting for you. Glaring at you from the moment you came into view, her severe expression twisted your stomach with dread. You forced yourself to keep walking, despite your legs protesting as if you were wading through treacle to meet your fate.

Piercing eyes trained on you to the last moment, she finally turned on her heel, nodding briefly to the controller before walking away. Hurrying to follow, your heart jittered at her silence. You knew you were still in trouble.

Huge globs of water spattered harshly against the windows of the summer house. This small building in your garden wasn’t built for the cold, and if you thought you had had it bad in the back room, it was ten times worse locked up in here.

All you could do was huddle away from the rattling windows and bunch the thin blanket around your shoulders as a meagre shield against the wind. Rubbing your fingers together despite the fact feeling was rapidly draining from them, you stared out into the darkness between you and your house.

The lights streaming from the windows looked so warm, you could almost imagine some phantom of heat wrapping itself around you.

But in the jumble of other thoughts in your head, you couldn’t focus and it would soon fade.

Jostling the blanket around you once again, you were alerted to a movement at the side of your house. Sitting straighter, you squinted into the night as two shapes grew closer.

A breath left you as you recognised them.

Rushing forwards and letting the blanket flutter onto your makeshift bed, you dropped to your knees in front of a window. The door was locked, but the windows would crack open a few inches. Following your lead, Jin and Hoseok sat down cross-legged on the porch, pushing down the hoods of the coats they were wearing.

You knew Sarah had left the key hanging from the doorknob, but it would be best to leave it locked so as not to risk any more punishments.

Through the raindrops clinging to the glass, you could see the cautious looks on their faces, sympathetic smiles as they tried to look reassuring.

“Y/N, aren’t you cold in there?” Hoseok frowned.

“It’s not too bad,” you lied, “thanks for coming to see me.”

At the sight of your friends, an unexpected lump was welling up in your throat and you surreptitiously swiped at your eyes.

“Y/N, we’re so sorry about what happened,” Jin was saying, “but it wasn’t your fault. They shouldn’t be keeping you out here.”

“When mother and father come back, it should be okay,” you sighed. Folding your arms against the windowsill, you rested your cheek on them.

“Well, if you want to come and stay with one of us, I’m sure you’d be very welcome,” Jin assured, “even if it’s just until then. You know how my parents are fond of you.”

Hoseok nodded vigorously.

“Thank you,” you said earnestly, “I’ll have to think about it. Just- so much happened, and I don’t know what I’m thinking anymore.”

“That’s understandable,” Jin smiled, looking like he didn’t understand at all.

“At least you have a story to tell!” Hoseok changed tack, and you couldn’t stop yourself smiling, dry laugh falling from your lips.

“Yeah, I got thrown in jail, I’m sure everyone would be thrilled to hear that,” you scoffed.

“It isn’t your fault,” Jin insisted, “I knew Taehyung was bad news…“

You stayed silent, biting your lip. Though you knew you shouldn’t, you almost wanted to defend him. He had changed your entire view of where you were, opened your eyes on the short adventure.

The conversation swiftly moved on, your friends dancing around your ordeal, but you couldn’t bring yourself to be annoyed by it. Talking to them brought some comfort, some familiarity that you needed right now.

Eventually, the night had worn colder and you insisted that they get home, especially considering Hoseok was practically falling asleep on Jin’s shoulder.

Giving a small wave as best you could through the minute gap in the window, you watched them stand up and leave, huddling under their coats again to step out into the rain. But barely three paces away, they stopped again.

With a frown, you sat up, trying to make out what was going on from their illuminated silhouettes. It was then that you could make out the shape of another person.

Even obscured as he was by your friends standing between you, it was clearly Taehyung. Your chest felt tight, not knowing what to feel on seeing him again. There was an undercurrent as you looked at him, some bitterness knowing what you did now.

But you wanted to see him again.

“Taehyung?” you called.

The three men all spun to look at you. With a glance between them, Hoseok and Jin started warily forwards to within earshot again. Hanging back, Taehyung waited with his hands folded, fingers fidgeting as he looked between each of you.

Hoseok fixed him with a glare while Jin walked right up to you, crouching so he could speak through the window, voice low enough that the others couldn’t hear.

“If you don’t want him here, Y/N, we can easily get rid of him.”

“No,” you shook your head firmly, “I want to talk to him. Thank you, though.”

Despite his uneasy look, he nodded slowly. Sharply inhaling, he turned back to Taehyung. Without a word, he led Hoseok away, although the two of them sent glares enough for Tae to turn his eyes down to his feet, bobbing his head to them.

When they reached the corner of your house, Tae deemed them far enough away to approach you.

Steeling yourself with a breath, you stayed in place as he pushed his hair out of his face. It was soaking wet, plastering itself to his forehead and sticking up in various directions after he slicked it back. His skin glistened with rain too, and he shook his head lightly to rid himself of some.

“Hey pidge…” he panted, finally sitting down opposite you.

“Hey,” you choked out.

“Listen,” he leaned his elbows on his knees, hands spread open, imploring you, “I’m really sorry for what happened. I thought you were right behind me, and when I saw that you weren’t… well…”

“Thank you for helping me before,” you kept your voice level, “and trying to get me back home, but-but being taken by the controllers-“

“But you’re back now!” his grin showed itself again, “they would never hurt a cute thing like you.”

“A ‘cute thing’ like me?!” you exclaimed, “Tae, I was so frightened! A-and what does it matter, when your friends are still in that awful place? Or do you not care as long as it’s not you in there?”

“Pidge, listen, they’ll be alright, it’s you I was worried about. I swear I never meant to lose you.”

“Like I said before,” you sniffed, “I appreciate you helping me. But if that’s all-“

“Pidge!”

You stared back at his desperate eyes through the flecks of rain on the glass. The ache in your heart wouldn’t let you break away from his wide, pleading eyes.

“Pidge, please,” he begged, shuffling closer, “don’t be like this. Don’t shut me out-“

“And why not?” you swallowed against your voice as it threatened to spill over in tears, “did any of it even mean anything to you?”

“What do you mean, pidge, of course I-“

“Your friends told me all about you. They said I was just another girl to chuck away-“

“No,” his palms pressed together, beseeching, “I’ve been with people before, that doesn’t make you any less special.”

When he broke off, you found no words to speak. Your mind was wrapping around itself as he let out a rough breath, raking a hand through his saturated hair.

When he fixed his eyes on you again, he held them intently.

“I know we’re from two different worlds, but… I didn’t want to let you go. I still don’t. You’re the first person I’ve wanted to chase so bad, and I just- I can’t accept letting you go so easily. I know things can be different, and I want them to be, pidge. I want to make it happen, and I want to make it happen with you.”

As his words washed over you, tears burned unbidden in your eyes. You could barely breathe as he spilled his heart out for you.

Letting his words hang between you once he stopped, he watched you for a reaction.

And you realised as you looked back that his eyes were filled for the first time with fear.

“Okay…” you breathed, cursing yourself at the first word to escape your mouth. Taehyung was still hanging on your every word, and he didn’t look too encouraged by that opener. You tried again. “I… want you too, Taehyung. But I don’t know how we can be together.”

You shared a sigh.

“That’s all I needed to hear, pidge.”

“But right now, I need some time,” you continued, ignoring the way your heart squeezed as his face fell, “and I think you should go.”

He gulped, but nodded, accepting his fate with downturned eyes.

“O-okay. I’ll… see you, then.”

As he stood up silently, you clamped your lower lip hard between your teeth. He walked slowly, but didn’t look back. As carefully as you could, you pulled the window shut, fingers now almost fully numb.

You couldn’t even lift yourself from the floor so you pushed yourself back and away from the window, watching him go with a growing weight in your chest.

He rounded the corner, out of sight, but you stayed where you were. Blankly staring across the garden, the dark stayed still for a short while, besides the rain still streaking through the air. At some point, Sarah’s children must have gone to sleep because the only light coming from the house was now from her bedroom.

A shape darted across the single ray of light.

Blinking, you shifted slightly, some stupid hope rousing within you that it was Taehyung. He hadn’t left very long ago – maybe he had come back?

But as you located the new person, to your alarm you found it wasn’t anyone you knew. In fact, they seemed to be utterly unaware of your presence as they jogged around the edge of the house, looking up at it, all the while clutching at a backpack slung over their shoulder.

Taken aback, you didn’t move for too long, simply watching as the person doubled back around the corner. Their hand was covering something tucked into a pocket.

It was when they stopped, both hands gripping the pipe that ran down the wall, that you finally found your feet.

Eyes widening, you crossed to the door of the summer house, bashing your palm against the window as the figure began to climb.

“Hey!” you yelled, but they only moved faster, looking around in alarm.

Not ceasing in your shouting, you hammered on the door intermittently with rattling the doorknob. Of course it didn’t give way, sending you further into panic, throwing your whole weight against the door when you saw the thief climb higher.

They had made it to the upstairs window. Your brother’s room.

Yelling with all your might now, you frantically bashed at the door. They were getting in! The window wasn’t locked, and the thief had no trouble lifting it open.

Just as they swung their first leg over the sill, footsteps thundered closer. In an instant, Taehyung stood in front of you, breathless.

“What’s going on?”

“A thief, a thief!” you shouted through the glass, pointing urgently at the window.

Spinning, Taehyung immediately found the threat.

“Shit- what do we- how do I-“

“The key!” you exclaimed, quickly hurrying on at his confused expression, “the key, it’s just there-“

While you struggled to point to the doorknob, Taehyung thankfully understood and quickly dived for it, shoving it into the lock. The moment it clicked open, you dashed out, not slowing once as you sprinted to your house.

The thief was now inside, and you wasted no time throwing the back door open, taking the stairs three at a time with Tae hot on your tail. Over the hammering of your feet down the hall, you could hear a crashing from your brother’s room.

Without a second of hesitation, you were inside, luckily finding the thief throwing drawers across the floor in their hunt for whatever they wanted – nowhere near your brother.

Even so, you launched yourself at them, seeing their eyes widen as you crashed against them bodily, shoving them further from your brother. All the noise had woken him, and his screaming joined the ruckus at the same moment Tae joined your fight.

Catching the thief from behind, Tae pulled them backwards in a headlock, grunting as they struggled, face scrunched up.

Meanwhile, you were frantically trying to grab them, to stop their arm that was clawing at Tae.

But you had left yourself vulnerable. Before you could blink, the sole of a shoe booted firmly into your stomach, sending you backwards, lungs suddenly parched of air. Free of you now that you were gasping some distance away on the floor, your opponent dropped their weight, escaping Tae’s grip.

Grappling to tackle them again, Tae was too late to stop the thief turning around. But it wasn’t just fists he had to deal with now. Struggling up from the floor, trying to heave air into your lungs, you caught sight of a silver glint as the thief pulled it from their pocket.

“Tae!” you tried to yell, but could only manage a wheeze.

Instead, you settled for dashing towards them again, but you were too late. The knife escaped your grasp and Tae cried out in pain, the two tumbling to the floor, catching the curtain at the same time, fabric cascading over them as the rail crashed down.

Not giving up, you pulled at the attacker before they could raise the knife a second time, succeeding in dragging them backwards. But they used your momentum, throwing you off them and into the dresser, sending you sprawling with it onto the carpet.

You had no time to extricate yourself before your opponent was back at the window, only just evading a dive from Taehyung as they abandoned ship and fled.

Tripping over the dresser in your haste, you started towards Taehyung. You couldn’t help but notice the hand pressed to his thigh.

Only you never made it another step.

The crack of a gunshot cut through the air.

Instantly crouching, hands thrown over your head, you didn’t initially spot who had fired. The first place your eyes travelled was to Tae, also ducked down, but otherwise unharmed.

Whirling towards the door, your heart dropped through the floor at the sight that met you. Sarah stood in the doorway, illuminated from behind. And in her hand, the gun.

Open mouthed, you stepped forward as she crossed towards the crib, your brother’s wails having doubled in volume since she had fired.

“Get away from him!” you begged.

But her gun was trained on you, and all you could do was send panicked stares between Tae and your baby brother.

“Who are you?” Sarah’s voice was high, wavering wildly as she turned the gun to Tae.

“No!” you rushed forwards, only to be stopped again as the barrel locked onto you once more.

Eyes wide and nostrils flaring, Sarah looked between the two of you, frozen in the wreckage of the room.

“Don’t you know how dangerous these people are?” she hissed, spit flying from her quivering lips.

“No, Sarah- you don’t understand-“ you held your hands up, pleading.

She was having none of it. Marching forwards, you let out a whimper as the barrel pressed briefly against you before she had you in her grasp. Wrestling you back by your shoulder, the pistol’s aim returned to Tae as the distance between you grew.

“Get over there. Hands up,” Sarah spoke, voice calmer now she had Tae at the other end of a gun. Gesturing with it, she pointed Tae in the direction of the wardrobe set into the wall.

Locking eyes with you where you were held in a vice beside Sarah, he silently obeyed.

Sidling through the door without a word, he disappeared from view, making your heart constrict in your chest. With sudden and alarming ferocity, Sarah barged forwards, slamming the door on him. Grabbing the nearest piece of felled furniture, she shoved it roughly against the door.

“Don’t you dare move, boy,” she hissed, “you’ll never see the outside of jail after this.”

But as you opened your mouth to protest, her grip was back on you, yanking you backwards, heels clunking down the stairs as you scrabbled for purchase. With brutal speed, she had reached the rarely used cellar door, managing to rip it open.

And just like that, your back was hitting the dusty floor, another slam ricocheting through the space, lock clicking before you could make it to your feet to pound against the door.

Sarah’s footsteps had long gone. Instead, the muffled sound of her speaking leaked through the door.

She was going to hand Taehyung to the controllers.

Letting your fists fall limply at your sides, your forehead fell against the door as you caught your breath. Sarah wasn’t going to pay any attention to you, no matter how much noise you could make. You had to come up with something else.

Turning your back on the incomprehensible babbling of Sarah on the phone and the screaming of your brother upstairs, you faced the towers of junk in the cellar. You had never been in here much, but you were fairly sure…

Skirting around stacks of things in the dark, inevitably sending some scattering across the floor, you hurried to get to the opposite wall.

Finally it seemed you had found it. Squeezed between teetering boxes with coats slung over the top, your fingers found a wooden surface above your head. Pushing up, it gave way until the clack of a lock stopped you, only a tiny crack of light falling over your face.

But the doors were clearly old and you persevered, jumping up and down to jostle them. They were certainly opening more than before, but you could now make out a chain linking the two trapdoors. It jangled as you shoved at your only exit, until another sound grew, filling the night and drowning out your own struggle.

A siren.

The faint crunch of tyres on the road accompanied what you recognised as the controllers’ vehicle through sound alone, confirmed by flashes of orange light that briefly illuminated the other side of the doors. You were already panting from exertion as it pulled up at the front of your house.

But you didn’t let up.

The sirens shut off. Soon enough you had kicked over the stack of boxes, tentatively stepping up onto the lower two to continue your struggle.

But it wasn’t necessary.

Your heart leapt in your chest when you heard two familiar voices nearby.

“What if it’s dangerous?”

“Then Y/N will be in danger too!”

“Wait. What’s that noise?”

“Jin!” you called out through the gap, “Hoseok! Over here!”

A moment later two pairs of feet were slapping against the ground, drawing nearer until they fell in the thin gap you could see through the doors. Soon, Jin’s face filled the central space, squinting into the darkness.

“Y/N? What’s going on?”

“Quick, help me get out of here,” you urged, leaving his question unanswered.

Not seeming to mind, the two boys’ fingers were quickly hooked over the edges of the doors. Jin unwound the chain that had been stopping you and the trapdoors fell open at last. Each taking an arm, your friends hoisted you out of the cellar. Now they didn’t want to wait any longer for explanation.

“One of my dads saw a burglar jumping from your window,” Hobi was talking immediately, “we came straight to check, but we saw the controllers are here. Did something happen?”

“A burglar broke in, yes,” you were tripping over your words, “but Tae let me out of the shed and helped me, we tried to get rid of them, only, they ran away but then Sarah came in and now she’s calling the controllers for him. And he hasn’t done anything! We need to stop them!”

And with that, you set off for the front of the house.

A bewildered look shot between your friends behind you, before they took off on your tail.

“Y/N!” Jin called, “what are you doing? Are you crazy?”

Catching your hand, he stopped you just behind the corner of your house.

“What?” you tried to pull away.

“What’s got into you!” he gestured wildly, “those are the controllers. We stay away from them.”

“But Tae-“

“Y/N, you need to think about this. You’re putting yourself in danger too.”

Next to Jin’s intense stare, Hoseok looked a little more hesitant, gnawing at his lip.

“Y/N…” he spoke quietly, “does he really mean that much to you? After everything that happened?”

You sighed. Maybe you couldn’t quite explain it, but you had to be honest.

“Yes. Yes, he does. And I’m going after him, whether you two come or not.”

Eyes softening, Hoseok nodded. Both of you looked back to Jin, though you couldn’t help your eyes slipping to the side, impatient to help Tae.

Just as the thought ran through your mind, the slam of the front door.

Jin’s hand dropped away from yours, and you shot a panicked look back at him. His lips were pursed, watching the scene warily, but as Tae came into view, stumbling down the front steps with the force the controllers pushed him, hands fastened behind his back, the reality seemed to strike.

You couldn’t wait to check if Jin was following, stepping hurriedly from behind the wall and rushing towards Taehyung. Two sets of footsteps followed behind you.

The sound bringing his attention, you saw Taehyung’s eyes widen as he caught sight of you, but your gaze was broken as a broad-shouldered controller stepped between the two of you. A shout of your name came from the front doorway, where Sarah stood, but you didn’t even acknowledge her.

“Please, you have to let him go!” you pleaded with the indifferent controller.

“Let’s get him moving,” they growled over their shoulder to their colleagues. The lights of the controllers’ vans were practically unheard of in a neighbourhood such as this, and people were beginning to take notice. Curtains were pulled aside, some stepping from their front doors.

“You can’t!” you cried, the gathering crowd doing nothing to deter you, “he hasn’t done anything!”

“Alright miss,” the looming controller held his hands out, “calm down. We’ve been after this one for months.”

“But-“

“Pidge-“ a low warning from Tae was soon cut off as the officer restraining him shoved him forward, knees hitting against the stone path.

“Tae!”

Outraged, you dived for him, not paying any mind to the controllers until large arms were muscling against you, forcing you roughly away as Tae was dragged from the floor. You were flung back unceremoniously, and would have hit the ground too if you didn’t collide with another chest.

Jin’s arms steadied you.

“Don’t touch her,” his firm voice was loud in your ear as he glared up at the controller.

“Why you…”

Turning on him instead, the controller only got those words out before a new voice was cutting through the commotion.

“What’s going on here?”

Whirling around, you found Jin’s mother storming through the still growing crowd, hurrying up the path, his father not far behind. In shock, her wide eyes moved between her son and the controller berating him.

But as she bustled towards you, Tae was being wrestled further away, a brutal hand forcing his head down and into the waiting car.

“Tae!” you yelled again, ignoring Jin’s parents as you raced towards the gate, ducking under the controller that lunged at you.

But though your feet strove forwards, the engine rumbled, tyres setting into motion. The lights whirred further away, and you couldn’t make it as Tae was ripped away from you…

“Stop!” you were shouting. They had taken him right in front of you! You were so close, eyes fixed on the car, filtering out the shocked spectators who drew away from you, “come back! Please! Tae! No…”

Behind you, Jin’s mother was giving an earful to the controller, his father steadfast beside her as Jin stumbled to meet you.

“Y/N,” his hand landed on your shoulder, light and ready to spring away at any moment, “Y/N, I’m so sorry-“

An ear-splitting screech cut through the cacophony. Eerie silence smothered the scene as a toe-curling crunching filled the air, every eye travelling to the car spiralling across the middle of the road, lights washing like crashing waves over pristine lawns until it ground to a stop.

Gaping, heart in your mouth as you saw the scene unfold, you were the first to recover enough to move. Without your command, your legs were carrying you towards Taehyung. His head emerged in the car window, looking about in alarm. He must have ducked down when they swerved.

Mumbling conversation rushed to your ears again, sparking to life between the onlookers as you finally reached the car, throwing the door open.

“Tae!” you gasped, voice ragged as you pulled him out. Though he looked a little dazed, a soft smile curved his lips as you threw your arms around him. Unable to embrace you in return, he pressed his face into your hair.

“Jin’s explained everything, dear, don’t worry now,” the familiar voice of Jin’s mother approached behind you, “we’ll sort everything out, just-“

“No!”

Silence shot like electricity from the cry. It was Jin, but-

It hadn’t sounded like Jin.

His voice grated with the ferocity of the yell, and you whipped instantly away from Tae, locating your friend.

Only he wasn’t looking at you.

Dread seizing at your being, you dragged your gaze to follow his, looking down the road.

Your throat closed, choking any breath you had been taking.

This time, you found you couldn’t move. Jin’s feet were pounding away on the asphalt, the crowd’s silence not lifting as everyone stared on in horror. Your feet, on the other hand, wouldn’t – couldn’t – move.

Vision funnelling dizzyingly, you watched the stationary figure sprawled on the tarmac.

Your stomach churned, everything lurching sickeningly as you finally persuaded your leaden legs to move, utterly numb as you drew closer, denial running rampant in your mind.

Hoseok lay on the ground, unmoving. There was blood.

That was where the car had swerved. The car. Swerved. Hit him. It must have hit him; look at the way his shirt had torn, pushed along the ground. The way his normally lively eyes were shut in an unusually pale face, arm splayed out at an awkward angle.

“Hoseok…” you tried to say, but not even a whisper made it beyond your lips.

Jin was crouching beside him, saying his name over and over and over… his hand clutching at his friend, pressing at his face, his wrist. Commotion had returned at some point to the street around you, but you could barely hear it, locked in place.

The world shifted around you, people moving, noises and shouts and more sirens and hands on your shoulders until your feet moved, but you could only stare at your friend.

He had done this for you. For you and Tae.

Was he even breathing?

You hadn’t even noticed the brimming in your eyes, hardly blinking when it finally cascaded down your cheeks.

Jin’s mother hadn’t let you go back into the same house as Sarah. She had taken you in with her own son, and Tae alongside. You stayed clutching his hand, readily accepting his warm arms.

Despite the uneasy looks from bystanders, and Jin’s parents themselves, he had stayed by your side, unusually demure as he thanked the Kims for their generosity.

They let you two keep to yourselves. You could hear through the quiet house though, as you curled into Tae’s chest, the two of you trying to take up as little space on Jin’s bed as you could.

“I can’t believe it! That boy got unlucky with those controllers,” you could tell she was shaking her head.

His mother said this a lot. That they were ‘unlucky’. That the controllers were there to protect them, that their behaviour the night before was out of the ordinary, that you mustn’t worry.

“Maybe they didn’t want to listen to him because he was… well, because of where he’s from,” Seokjin’s reply was cautious, much more muffled than his mother’s assurances, “they didn’t want to listen to me either.”

“Don’t think like that,” his father chided, “it’s understandable given what most of the people there are like. They just made a mistake this once.”

A costly mistake, if it was one.

You closed your eyes.

Trailing back into the room, Jin squeezed onto the other side of the bed, sighing heavily.

None of you slept.

The curtains in Hoseok’s house were closed. Since everything had happened a few days ago, you had only caught a glimpse of his teary-eyed fathers, coming home from the hospital.

They hadn’t spoken to you.

You squeezed Taehyung’s hand tighter as you walked past their home.

Mother and father were coming home today. It had been less than a week, but everything had completely changed since you saw them last.

Not wanting to return until Sarah had gone, you waited with Tae by your garden wall. The place you had been sitting when Taehyung first burst into your life.

While you waited, Tae was… quiet. Noticing the pallor of his downcast face, you ducked your head to catch his eye.

“Tae…” you whispered, “Tae, it’s going to be alright.”

“Sorry,” he murmured, then let out a sigh, “I’m… I’m worried- that- what if- they’re not gonna like me!”

“They will!” you hushed him, smoothing your hands down his cheeks, his hair, “and if they don’t, it doesn’t matter to me. We’ve been through a little too much to let go so easily, don’t you think?”

Turning his honey-eyed gaze back to you, a smile quirked the corner of Tae’s mouth, much to your relief.

“You sure, cub? I know I’m not exactly a fairytale prince-“

“Oh, shush!” you laughed, “I couldn’t wish for anyone else.”

Tightening his grip on your hands, he pulled you against him in lieu of a reply. A kiss landed gently on your crown.

Just then, you became aware of voices floating from the garden.

Twirling from Taehyung’s embrace, though you kept a hold of his hand, you steeled yourself. They were back.

Making your way, with Taehyung in tow, towards the front, you ignored the neighbours peering not-so-subtly out of windows at you and your returning family. As your parents stepped through the gate, they noticed you, but the smiles on their faces dimmed when they found Taehyung beside you.

Their frowns only increased as they noticed the way you ignored Sarah, who stood at the door with her two children, already packed. The moment she spotted your parents, she was ushering the children down the steps without a second glance, making her farewells very brief as she hastened to leave.

“Y/N, dear?” your mother tentatively asked as you moved forward to greet them, “what-?”

“I’d like you to meet Kim Taehyung,” you smiled. Hopefully it came across as a smile, not a grimace. “there’s a lot I have to tell you.”

The grass under you was soft, rejuvenated by the sunlight smiling through the smattering of clouds. Your usual park was empty of any others, save for the four of you.

Yes, four.

Between blades of grass and budding buttercups, Taehyung’s fingers danced across your own where he reclined, eyes creased in hopeless mirth at one of Jin’s jokes. Jin was squeaking at his own joke, definitely getting grass stains on his shirt as he fell back, rolling on the ground.

And opposite you, loud, joyous laugh finally filling the space, was Hoseok. Beside the bench he leaned against, a couple of crutches were stacked, but the cast on his ankle was the only reminder left of the awful price he nearly paid that night.

He wouldn’t be able to have full mobility again for a few more weeks, though, which is why you were still here. This park, the backdrop to so much of your upbringing, was no longer where you belonged.

Knowing its emptiness only owed to it being a school day, that the true children of this side of the tracks would always be above you, tinged it with some bitterness.

This place would always be part of your life, but it was somewhere you wanted to move on from. And after learning from you, protesting against their parents, who, it turned out, all held the same beliefs deep down, Jin and Hoseok also felt the need to make their own way. To seize the life they had never been offered.

The way the neighbours looked at you now had certainly helped persuade your parents that it was time for you to fly the nest. For weeks, your scandal had been the only thing on the lips of the gossip in your neighbourhood.

Of course, you would always come back to visit, and to watch your brother grow, but you were ready for your own life.

With Taehyung at your side, of course.

When Hoseok could walk, you travelled to the tracks together, certainly closer than Jin and Hoseok had been before. There weren’t parks here, so you waited on a dusty corner.

“So the days of living free are behind you, then?”

Turning, you found a grinning Yoongi. Pulling Taehyung into a hug, he patted him on the back.

“I’m still living free,” Tae winked at him, “free to be where I want, with who I want.”

He pulled you into his side as a startled laugh escaped you.

“So cheesy,” Jimin grumbled next, embracing you both all the same.

Namjoon and Jungkook were also introduced. Taehyung so wanted your friends to get along with his, and you were overjoyed to see him grinning the whole time. Just as you suspected, they all fit right in together.

“You’ll come and visit us, right?” you made them promise as you left.

“We’ll join you as soon as we can,” Namjoon assured with a smile.

You weren’t sure if you should feel sad.

Turning your back on the car that pulled away after a brief final wave, you found nothing holding you back. Light as a feather, you raced up the steps, breathless by the time Taehyung reached you. A few strands of his midnight hair fell into his eyes as he laughed at you, that stunning grin lighting up his whole face.

But you were the same, unable to smile any wider.

“Here we go then, pidge,” he spoke, sweeping forward to press a kiss to your forehead.

Grasping your hand, the two of you stepped further onto the platform side by side. Every glance at your wonderful boyfriend showed his exhilarated grin never let up.

The train rolled in, hissing to a stop. For most of the people bustling along the station, it was as ordinary as anything, but you were practically bouncing, eagerly awaiting as the doors groaned open.

No sooner had you stored your small case overhead, Taehyung was tugging your hand. Falling onto his lap, neither of you wasted a moment finding each other’s lips, all smiles and hands on your cheeks and in his hair as the carriage heaved into life.

The tracks whizzed by below you, taking you to a city where they wouldn’t divide you.

Thank you so much for reading!💜let me know if you enjoyed it!

This series is done, but if you like my writing I have a permanent taglist too! Contact me to be added😊

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dinpascal · 3 years

Text

No Good Deed — Din Djarin

No Good Deed — Chapter One

➥ There’s an unconscious Mandalorian outside your door, along with some tiny, green thing clutching at his cloak. There has to be some sort of manual that tells you what to do in this situation... Right?

There were many things to hate about Nevarro. The miles and miles of just-barely crusted over magma, the Rebels that tended to brush through every now and again, acting all high and mighty and as if they were too good to set foot on such a planet. However, without a single doubt, the thing you hated the most was the damn Guild.

You had never been the type of person to judge another for their method of survival. You had done many... unsatisfactory things in your lifetime, just to see another day. A few of those still kept you awake at night, debating whether you were deserving of what you had, no matter how miniscule. The Guild, however, was an entirely different thing.

Perhaps it was the mere fact that at least seventy percent of the people you served were hunters from the Guild. And if not already in the Guild, aiming for opportunity to be. They were a cocksure group, always carrying themselves with an aura of arrogance and as if they were allowing you the privilege of surviving. As if your little, insignificant life was balanced between their fingers, because they were all so skilled in the art of bounty hunting.

A lot of mudscuffers, in your opinion.

You wiped your palms down your apron, which did little about the stickiness that was present from hours of drink-making. The hairs were no-doubt spilling from your braid, hardly remembering to breathe in-between each order and the chaos that surrounded you. Creatures of all kind called out to you in many different languages, some you understood and others you required your “partner” to translate. The droid was good for nothing apart from that, perhaps apart from being perpetually in your way. It reached the point where you no longer felt guilty for bumping it out of your way.

Today, evidently, was Greef Karga’s awaited return from some mission, leading to the assembly of many (impatiently) awaiting their next bounty. In other words, the bar was way past its capacity limit. Many patrons were shoulder-to-shoulder, filling the building with endless, buzzing chatter that made the ache that much more present at your brow.

“C’mon, I’ve been trying for months. Why don’t you let me take you out? Just one night?” You eyed your suitor as you collected empty glasses and bottles, eyeing him with a thoroughly practiced smile that gave him the impression you enjoyed his company. It was something you were forced to learn early in this occupation, if you were even remotely interested in tips. Customers, males especially, enjoyed feeling wanted. As if they had any semblance of a chance with the “pretty thing” that served them drinks behind the counter.

“Cardon, you know I don’t date bounty hunters.” You replied, taking a moment to take another order and busying yourself with making it. Luckily, very few (if any) frequenters drank anything complicated, often preferring spotchka and even simple shots of hooch.

The dark-skinned hunter smiled, moving to brush his hair back with a gloved hand. “And why not? Don’t think you could handle one?” If you had to decide, Cardon wasn’t the worst of the bunch you could choose from. He had ebony hair that touched the top his shoulders, the top half often twisted into a bun. He was tall enough, but quite lanky compared to many of the other hunters that frequented the cantina.

You bit the inside of your cheek to stop from laughing. If you had to guess, the majority of the hunters you served only had one head. Instead of commenting further, you motioned towards his glass. “Want another, Cardon?” He waved a hand in silent agreement, seemingly coming to terms that he was, yet again, striking out with you.

“I think I’m your relief for the night.” You turned, positively beaming at the sight of olive skin and black eyes. “Alejad... My savior.” He grinned wickedly and threw a rag over his shoulder, lightly tsking at the mess you’d made of the bar.

“So very messy. Have I not taught you a thing?”

With a roll of your eyes and slight scoff, you began fingering the knot of your apron. “We’ll see how lucky you end up tonight. Karga isn’t even supposed to be showing up until second sundown.” You brushed your hand over his shaved head as you passed behind him, an act of affection you’d picked up in the time you’d worked together. Alejad had been the one to train you, considering no one else apart from the two of you seemed to want to work in this hunk of junk somehow considered a “proper establishment”.

Stepping out of the back entrance with your day’s tips firmly shoved in your pocket, the silence of the alley was almost dizzying compared to what you’d dealt with for the last seven hours. Despite the distant sounds of the hustle and bustle of the market, it was much more preferable. Almost anything was preferable to being cat-called and yelled at all day.

With a sigh and a brush of the back of your hand across your forehead, you finally made your way home. It wasn’t a far walk, just a few twists and turns that made it a comfortable enough walk to and from work. Your home was nothing exciting, nothing more than what you absolutely needed — the absolute bare essentials. It had once served as some kind of building for the Imps that were once stationed on Nevarro and eventually separated into two, unconnected homes once the Imps were chased (or killed) out. A little family had moved into the home above yours, made up of a young Twi’lek couple and a little, rose-colored girl you doubted had seen more than five cycles. You often found her crouched outside your home, digging through the dirt to find new additions to her rock collection. On the rarest of days, when you’d either be leaving or just returning from the bar, she’d already be outside as the first sun was rising and would offer you a toothless smile that made your heart warm.

However, given the first sun was only just beginning to set, there was no young girl parading about the property. Hopefully, she was busy eating a plentiful dinner with her parents and had a nice, warm bed to look forward to tonight.

The door creaked as you stepped inside, double-checking that you’d locked it behind you before making your way (all three steps of it) to the kitchen. With a quick look in the conservator, it seemed for the fourth night in a row now, you were having broth for dinner. With a sigh, you discarded your dirty apron aside and flipped the oven on to reheat your soup. It seemed you were in dire need for a trip to the market.

There were a dozen and a half things you needed to do around the house, including a deep clean of your floors, as well as stripping your bed and washing the linens that you’d ignored for much too long. Taking the trash out was sufficient enough for the night, right? Right.

The evening air was cool against your skin, the first emergence of the first sunfall of the night beginning to appear. In a matter of hours, the cool air would soon become too cold to bear without some kind of protection. It was an interesting contradiction. While the ground beneath your feet was warm, almost hot to the touch because of the molten lava beneath it, the air was often cool and bleak the moment the suns began to sleep for the night.

A soft noise behind you drew you from your thoughts, nothing more than a gentle, sad coo. You immediately turned, worrying a young babe had dodged their parents and was now exploring with no supervision. While Nevarro was now exponentially safer now that the Imps were gone, it still was no place for a child to be roaming at first sunfall.

The last thing, actually very last thing you had expected was the sight before you. A Mandalorian slumped against your home with a little, green creature clutching at the frayed ends of his cloak. It regarded you for no longer than a moment, big eyes quickly returning to the hunter and cooing softly once more, as if urging him to get up. It tugged at the cloak again, its free hand bumping against his shoulder as if the tiny jostle would wake him.

You stood there a moment, almost afraid to take another step towards the pair. Though you’d never met a Mandalorian yourself, their reputation was enough to make your legs shake a bit under your weight. None too long ago, one had caused the entire town to burst into gunfire and killed dozens of other hunters. Undoubtedly, he (was it a he?) knew more than a dozen ways to kill you. And the creature? While it looked harmless enough now, how could you know if it would begin spewing venom at you the moment you took two steps towards it? If you’d learned anything growing up, it was to not trust a species you didn’t know. And you’d learned that lesson the hard way.

As if aware of your thoughts, its eyes turned towards you once more and made another sad sound. It pulled at something deep inside you, something dormant and untraveled. Whatever it was, it urged you to move your damn feet and make the poor thing stop giving you those big, sorrowful eyes.

“Okay...” Hesitantly, as if standing eye-to-eye with a Nexu, you braved a step forward. When it didn’t abruptly move or hiss, you took another. “Hey... little guy,” you murmured, eyes flickering from gleaming silver to the little one’s, “What happened?”

It whined pitifully, turning towards the Mandalorian with a three-fingered hand as if motioning towards him and saying, ‘help him, will ya?’.

If it were any other situation, you may have found the little creature amusing. It didn’t seem to be able to speak, but its body language and big, bug eyes were expressive enough.

Once you were close enough to touch the Mandalorian, you slowly kneeled and made sure it stayed in your peripheral. You doubted it would suddenly sprout wings at this point, but you could never be too sure. Maybe it enjoyed playing with its food.

“I’m gonna... Take him inside, okay?” Much to your surprise, it nodded and backed away a couple paces to give you space. Okay, so the green thing was intelligent. Good to know.

With a steadying breath, you maneuvered your way around the Mandalorian so you could (attempt to) lift him. You imagined his armor couldn’t be light by any means, meaning you were going to have to carry a man already twice your weight, along with that much more in armor. “Knew I should have bought those weights...”

Sliding your arms under his armpits and securing your hold through intertwining your hands over his chest, you figured this was the best chance you had. There was no way you were getting him up over your shoulder and you figured dragging him by his feet wasn’t the best method, in case of a possible head injury.

The breath immediately whooshed out of your lungs as you straightened, using gravity to your advantage and using the force to drag him backwards, instead of back down like it wanted. The little rag-covered bean waddled after you, apparently not willing to allow the Mandalorian out of his sight.

The helmet lulled forward as you mostly-dragged him into your home, most certainly and unquestionably out cold.

In the middle of your kitchen, you paused. Where the hell were you going to put him? The kitchen certainly wasn’t spacious enough for him. It was hardly enough room for you to comfortably move about.

That left your bedroom.

“Just a little farther, alright?” You huffed, suddenly very keenly aware of the heaviness in your shoulders and triceps. The creature stumbling after the Mandalorian’s feet cooed in response, seemingly more content now than before.

It took you much longer than you would’ve liked, but eventually, you somehow managed to get the damn guy on your bed. His feet hung over the bed and no doubt was coating your sheets in dirt and blood and who knew what else. At least they already needed washed.

After taking a moment (minutes, really) to catch your breath and watching the bean climb its way up your bed and back to the Mandalorian’s side, you once more found yourself at a loss. What the hell do you do now?

Checking him for injuries was probably the best next course of action. You didn’t want the guy to die right here, on your bed, right?

With your hands on your hips and a sweat breaking out over your brow, you looked in the what you now mentally referred to as the bean’s direction. “These guys have something against taking off their helmet, right?” Your response was a sound you couldn’t quite differentiate between amusement and agreement. Nevertheless, you nodded. “That’s what I thought.”

After another few minutes of heavy consideration, you decided starting from the bottom-up was probably your best bet. If you were lucky, he was just incredibly sleep-deprived and absolutely nothing else was wrong with him.

The little bean at his shoulder watched as you methodically undressed the Mandalorian, beginning with the armor as his shoulders and then moving to his chest plate. You made a small stack of it just beside your bed, being careful to not add any dinks or scratches that weren’t already on them.

With shaky fingers, you began lifting his shirt to inspect any possible torso wounds. You were met with caramel skin etched in paler, puffier skin in various places where he’d been wounded and scarred over. A trail of dark, nearly black hair drew your gaze below his belly button and disappearing into his trousers.

You swallowed. This was not the time.

“Stomach looks good.” You mumbled, mostly to yourself. You pushed the fabric up further until it was under his chin, fingers delicately brushing across an angry, red line just below his left clavicle. It didn’t look serious and most likely just a result from his armor pressing into his skin, but it gave you an excuse to feel his skin beneath your fingertips. His chest was faintly dotted with hair, nipples pebbling at the sudden exposure to the air. “Chest looks good too.”

That left on more thing to check, the one thing you were hoping you wouldn’t have to do.

You sank back onto your haunches for a moment, teeth anxiously worrying at the inside of your cheek as you considered your options. You didn’t have to do anything — you’d already given him and his... pet? Child? Friend? Somewhere to rest and checked him for any serious, deadly injuries. On the other hand, however, what if he did have a head injury? Without aid, a head injury could easily and quickly result in death. And you certainly didn’t want a dead Mandalorian on your hands.

“Second option it is.” You murmured, brushing your palms down your trousers and taking a soothing breath. “But,” you began, pointing a finger in the air as you looked towards the bean. “I am not being that person.” You disappeared out of the room for a moment, quickly returning with a clean rag and making a show so the bean could see it. “See?”

The bean, seemingly content, made an inquisitive sound. With one hand, you curled your fingers under the helmet’s edge and searched for the locking mechanism. Once you felt the tiny button, you nudged it and released a breath as it unlocked. “Okay, okay... Just gotta do this quick...”

With one, shaky hand, you gently tugged the helmet free from his head, immediately snapping your eyes shut the second you no longer felt the weight of his head. Discarding the heavy thing aside, you took the rag and, as efficiently as possible with your eyes firmly shut, placed it over his face. Though it wouldn’t make breathing especially easier, it at least would preserve some of his modesty.

Once finished, you took a deep breath and regarded your work. You turned towards the bean with a triumphant smile. “Not bad, yeah?”

The bean regarded the rag with something akin to distaste but you couldn’t be sure. It was difficult to distinguish every emotion with its tiny face. The majority of your basis was just on its eyes.

You maneuvered your way around the pile of metal on your floor, as well as your own things to the head of the bed, eyes settling on the head of brown, presumably thick hair that stuck out from under the rag.

When was the last time someone so much as had seen a strand of his hair? Had anyone ever? Yet there you were, looking at not only it, but nearly everything else aside from his face.

You eyed the creature currently tracing a three-fingered claw up the Mandalorian’s arm. It seemed... Conflicted. As if the whole world rested on its little shoulders, now that the Mandalorian was no longer protecting it. Its tiny features were pinched in worry, shoulders slumped forward and ears drooping at the corners.

You wanted to console the little thing, except you still weren’t completely sure it wouldn’t nip at you if you got too close.

Turning your attention back to the man (because at the current moment, he seemed to pose less danger), you cautiously slid your fingers around the back of his head. There was nothing but thick, course hair, even as you rounded the back of his head. At the very least, there were no external injuries.

Until you looked down.

And found that his foot was twisted at an angle that it most definitely wasn’t supposed to.

“Well, kriff.” You mumbled, mostly to yourself. You regarded the said appendage for awhile, unsure quite what to do now. It wasn’t that you didn’t know what to do, but moreso the fact that you weren’t sure you wanted to go snapping a bounty hunter’s leg back into place. It was usually something a person informed another of before doing.

With a sigh, you turned your attention back to the little bean. Though you had little to no clue if it was capable of understanding you (though it had somewhat shown it could), it made you the teensiest amount less nervous to talk to it. “Maybe it’s better to do it while he’s out. What do you think?” The bean babbled something incoherently. You nodded. “Yeah, that’s what I was thinking too.”

✷ - ✷ - ✷ - ✷ - ✷ - ✷ - ✷ - ✷ - ✷ - ✷ - ✷ - ✷ - ✷ - ✷ - ✷ - ✷ - ✷ - ✷ - ✷

Surprisingly, the Mandalorian hardly flinched when you snapped his ankle back into place. Most surprisingly, he hadn’t woken up either. Hours later and he was still completely dead to the world. Numerous times you had to check to make sure he was still breathing.

After about hour five, the bean decided to venture from his side. It appeared at your feet just as you were elbow-deep in washing, first inquisitively watching you scrub at your clothes, as if you were doing something it had never quite seen.

“Hey, little... Guy,” you finished lamely, pausing to eye the green creature as its head tilted to the side and those big eyes blinked. It made a soft sound, as if expecting you to easily understand. When you didn’t immediately react, it’s features pinched and it threw its arms up as if it were exclaiming something as it spewed into further coos and babbles.

You stared blankly.

What would a small, green creature want? A new, preferably clean rag for clothes? For you to throw something so you could chase it? Something to sink its little teeth into?

You faulted for a moment in your thinking. “Are you hungry?” It nodded immediately, fingers touching its belly and watching you with a look that clearly said ‘that’s what I was saying!’. “Okay, well, what do you eat?” It blinked as you stood from your washing, little feet tapping against the tiled floor as it followed you. “All I really have is broth, so it’s either broth or nothing.” It didn’t make any sound of disagreement or disappointment, so you took it as enough agreement and poured the still-warm broth (which you’d forgotten about until the stove beeped indignantly at you, still preoccupied with snapping a literal bone back into place) into a bowl. When it took the bowl you offered it, it blinked at it for a moment. Then it blinked up at you.

“What? It’s all I got, little guy so I—,” It cut you off as it set the bowl down, before lifting its arms up that very plainly was uppity arms that babies were known for doing. It left you to stand there for a moment, mouth falling open and eyebrows shooting upwards. “You’re a kid?”

It babbled impatiently, big eyes looking at its meal before back up at you again. “Okay, um...” Slowly, still not completely sure you trusted it, you picked it up and then its bowl of broth. “You need... Help?” It cooed in what you assumed was agreement.

That was how you found yourself sitting at your table, some kind of child creature sitting in your lap as you spoon-fed it broth and occasionally pausing to let it babble something or burp.

It was quite the character, you were learning.

And quite the conversationalist. If only you could understand a word it was saying.

Then you felt the atmosphere change... Shift. Where calm once sat, something you could only describe as charged replaced it. The child seemed to notice as well. Its head turned toward your bedroom, softly squealing and clapping its hands together. The Mandalorian was awake. There was a moment of silence as the dread pooled in your belly and a chill ran down your spine.

This was the moment you hadn’t really considered. Many people, especially a Mandalorian, wouldn’t like waking up in a strange place with their armor stripped and their damned helmet off.

Dank farrick, you just had to go and get yourself involved.

The seconds stretched as complete silence filled your home. Not even the child made another sound, though it was evident its feelings were a stark contrast from your own. Of course, it hadn’t dragged a Mandalorian into its home and practically stripped him bare.

There was a flash of silver at the doorway of your bedroom.

No good deed goes unpunished indeed.

#ok you do NOT understand how HARD it was not to refer to grogu as 'he' throughout this #i had to fix SO many mistakes #the mandalorian #din djarin #din djarin x reader #din djarin x you #din djarin imagine #mandalorian #mandalorian imagine #mandalorian x you #mandalorian x reader #star wars #star wars imagine #grogu #pedro pascal #pedro pascal imagine #pedro pascal x reader #pedor pascal x you

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rreyie · 3 years

Text

Fight for Us

Chapter i- the reunion

summary- it’s been a long time since you’ve last seen reiner, one of your best friends from your childhood. but he’s changed. a lot.

genre- some fluff, angst, comfort/hurt

warnings- mentions of trauma, alcohol, readers feeling getting hurt, death. major spoilers for those who have not watched aot. eventual smut, not in this chapter- this is mainly just background info.

a/n- i told y’all i would be giving you a reiner fanfic for 500 followers, so i delivered and now it’s probably a series lol

For the past hour, you had been waiting at the train station for the Warriors to arrive once again. You had heard about their recent victory at Fort Slava, which everyone seemed to be giddy about. Another step towards victory.

You hadn’t seen them since you were about fourteen or fifteen, when you used to hang out with them in their free time when they weren’t training. You would all chat about who would be getting each titan and why and what the future would hold for you all.

It was always peaceful except for when Porco and Reiner had their usual clash, a few of which quickly became violent. It would usually end with Reiner having a bloody nose which you would always have to tend to, telling him to tilt his head back as you dabbed a tissue under his nose and on his clothes to wipe off the remaining blood.

Your parents lectured you each and every day about how you shouldn’t be hanging out with Eldian scum like him, that he and the others were spawns of the devil and not to be trusted around their innocent daughter. They scolded you each time you checked on them or decided to bring them bread to eat, and sent you to your room for hanging around them. They claimed it was out of love, but you knew better at this age that it wasn’t out of love- it was out of fear.

But they gave in on the day they were leaving for Paradis, and let you say goodbye one last time. You and Reiner talked for a while about how he will make his parents proud of him and save the world.

———

“So you think you can do it? You can really turn things around?”

“Of course I can!” Reiner chirped. “I’ll be a hero.”

“But you only have thirteen years, Reiner”, you warn him. “Your life is cut short now. I, I just...”

“Just what?” Reiner asks you, hazel eyes looking your way.

“I just... don’t want to lose you that early.”

You felt your cheeks start to warm, and quickly hid your face in your shirt to save yourself from the embarrassment. Reiners gaze was soft now, mouth slightly agape. You could easily see a pale pink form on his light complexion.

“You’re that worried about me?” He questioned, slightly raising his brow.

“Yeah, sure. You’re one of my best friends and I don’t want you dying early like that. It’s not fair to you”, you said, almost muttering those words.

“Y/n...” Reiner said. “I’m not just doing this for my parents. It’s for you too.”

Your eyes stop staring down at the ground and now avert to Reiner, who’s blush was deep now.

You had no clue what to say. It seemed like this comfortable silence was the best option, just sitting there trying to process your emotions.

The sun was starting to set, and Reiner had to leave at sunrise with the others. He slowly got up from the pavement of the sidewalk and brushed off his uniform pants in case any dirt got on them. You got up with him, wanting to spend every moment you possibly could with him before he left.

“I think this is goodbye, y/n. I should get some sleep before I leave in the morning”, he murmured.

“Okay. Guess I should let you sleep then”, you say. “Just...promise me you’ll come back alive. Fight for us, Reiner.”

Reiners expression turned warm, a smile curling on his rosy lips. “I will. I’ll come back, I promise.”

You both knew what was coming next. Reiner put his hands out for you and pulled you in close, your lips landing on his. You put a hand on his cheek, rubbing at his skin as both of your lips clashed against each other. It wasn’t a rough kiss, but not timid either. It was somewhere perfectly in the middle. Something you both were going to need to remind you of each other.

———

Now the time had finally come to meet eyes with him again. This was the last thing you thought about before the train came rolling in, coughing big clouds of black steam as it entered the station. Cheers could be heard from the crowd on the platform as passengers from inside waved to their families, likely for the first time in years.

You jostled through the crowd once the train came to a stop and started to unload its contents. Soldiers ran to embrace their mothers, fathers, siblings and spouses, some reunions making tears fall from their cheeks. This was the most happiness you had seen in a while.

Nearby, a short brunette girl quite literally flung herself out of the train, shouting into the air about how happy she was to be home. A man with slicked back hair had a rosy-cheeked blonde, clearly intoxicated, slung around his shoulder. For a moment you thought it was Reiner, but you thought otherwise when you continued to observe his features.

“Reiner! I’m so glad you’re home!”

You heard what sounded to be an old woman talking in another direction, the mention of his name making your head instantly turn towards where it was coming from. A woman with short blonde-grey hair was hugging a much taller man, with pale skin, hollow cheeks and noticeable dark circles under his eyes.

No fucking way that’s him, you thought to yourself. The solemn expression on his face did not match what you last saw, the old Reiner you used to know. What the hell had happened while he was in Paradis? Did the island devils get to him?

You gulp and decide to go and see for sure if this was really Reiner. Pushing through the dense crowd again, you walk the direction of the familiar voices.

Once you finally get a clearer glimpse of the old woman and who you assumed to be Reiner, you came to the conclusion that this was in fact him- just a tired, potentially malnourished version of him.

“Reiner!” You call. His head spun around, eyes widening when he saw your figure running towards him. You swore you could see a tiny smile form on his face, a contrast to his exhausted features.

You run into his chest, and wrap your arms around his buff figure. But for some reason, you don’t feel his arms hug you back. It felt strange, but you were going to take what you could get.

“Y/n?” Reiner asked, making you tilt your face up to confirm that it was you. “Oh fuck, I missed you, how are you?”

“Language, Reiner”, the old woman scolded. You could recognize her now, it was his mother- Karina Braun.

“Excuse me mother”, he said. “But really, how have you been?”

“I’m okay, but shouldn’t I be the one asking you that?” You question him. “You’ve been at war for years.”

“Yeah, sure”, he responds. “Just tired.”

You pull away, and see Karina starting to smile, making her dimples appear on her cheeks. “This must be y/n, the girl you wouldn’t stay quiet about when you were little!” She exclaimed.

Reiner scoffed. “Not the time, mother. And I didn’t talk about her that much.”

The dispute between them made you giggle. Karina sighed, slightly exaggerated.

“If you like, you can come over for dinner tonight”, she offers. “I’m making beef stew and my sister and her family will be over to talk about what happened. Her daughter is a warrior candidate too, so I bet Reiner and her would have some interesting stories to tell.”

“Sounds wonderful!”, you say. “I’ll be over whenever.”

“Is seven alright for you?”

“Yes, that’s alright”, you reply. “In that case, I’ll see you two tonight!”

Karina beamed and nodded. Reiner was clearly starting to get bored of the conversation, observing some of the architecture of the station. It looked like he was in his own world, telling from the foreign look in his eyes. They didn’t seem as bright as they used to.

“I should go. I need to run some errands for my family before tonight, but I’ll be over! See you two later!”

“Goodbye, y/n!” Karina yelled as you waved and began to walk away. For some reason, Reiner did not say anything to you before you left, which you found strange. You chose to not question it out of being polite, he may still be adjusting to being back in Marley.

A couple hours had passed since you left the train station. You went to the market to negotiate the high prices of nectarines and plums, to the bank to cash a few checks, and back to your parents house to drop off groceries and a little bit of spare cash to buy toiletries for the week.

But Reiner didn’t leave your mind while you were doing all of this. You were almost scared to ask what happened to the others who went on the mission, in fear of the truth. Perhaps minding your own business was the best thing to do right now.

You walked into the Braun household at exactly 6:55, a smile on your face. Karina hurriedly walked to the door to greet you, a bubbling sound in the distance along with the scent of meat, garlic and rosemary.

“Welcome, welcome!” Karina chimed. “I’ll take your coat, it’s rather warm in here.”

“Thank you”, you say. “It smells delightful in here!”

“That would be the signature Braun family stew”, she said. “My sister is tending to the stew. Reiner and Gabi are in here waiting for you.”

You walked though the hall that connected to the dining room and small kitchen, where the smell was coming from. Reiner and Gabi sat at the table along with a middle aged man, who was Gabis father.

“Is this her?” The man asked. “Nice to meet you, y/n. This is my daughter Gabi, and I bet you know Reiner. I’ve heard a lot about you.”

Gabi gave you a toothy smile, while Reiner just looked down staring at his empty bowl.

“Sit down, Reiner and Gabi are about to tell out about their experiences”, he said and pulled out a chair.

The other woman in the kitchen brought in a steaming pot of a red stew, chunks of meat, carrots and celery floating around in the thick broth. She dished you some, then gave some to the others.

Gabi seemed to talk for hours about how she single-handedly took out the rest of the Allied Forces from a grenade she constructed, Reiner not saying anything and only staring at the stew, occasionally poking the contents.

“It was amazing!” Gabi said. “After this it’s just those island demons!”

“Speaking of”, her father said. “Reiner, how was your stay in Paradis?”

“Dad, you shouldn’t ask that stuff!” Gabi yelled. “Most of it is probably classified anyways!”

“You’re right, Gabi”, he sighed. “Reiner, forgive your uncle.”

“Actually”, he began. “Not all of it is a secret. There was this girl who had the courage to eat a potato at the opening ceremony... what was her name again? Sasha Braus? Yep, that sounds about right...”

“That’s wonderful, but I mean the battle. Did they find out? About you know... the titan thing?”

The slight smile on Reiners face soon disappeared and turned into one of terror, his pupils getting small and eyebrows furrowing slightly.

Gabi elbowed her father. Karina flashed a nervous look to her sister, and you looked back to her for guidance.

“Reiner, are you okay?” She asked.

“Y-yeah, just need to step outside. I think the air is getting to m-me”.” He quickly got up and left his seat and hurried out the door, slamming it shut behind him.

You all sat in silence, growing uncomfortable by the second.

You weren’t hungry now.

———

After failing to make conversation due to the recent events, you get up and excuse yourself, only after putting your bowl in your sink and thanking them for dinner. Gabi promised she would tell you more about her adventures before you headed out the door.

The Braun’s had a small porch on the house, and you assumed that Reiner would be sitting there when you came out. But you were shocked to find him nowhere to be found. You told Karina that you would look around for him, and left the house.

You were out for two hours looking for him. The night was starting to become darker, stars twinkling above you and shining down on this messed up world you were a part of.

But after hours of searching and worrying that you may not see him again, you found him on a bench outside of a pub in Liberio.

“Hey, Reiner!” You yell to him. His reaction wasn’t as sudden as the last time you called his name at the train station. Instead, his head was hanging low and slowly lifted up, his eyes reminding you of a stray dog.

You walked towards him, and stood in front of him once you felt that he noticed your presence.

“Your mom is scared, she doesn’t know where you ran off to”, you lecture him. “You should really come back home-“

“I’m not coming back home tonight, y/n.”

“Huh?” You ask him. “Reiner, it’s almost midnight. I’ll take you home if you need someone to walk you home.”

“Stop worrying about me. I’m staying here for the night, gonna have a few beers. Just... go away.”

These words take you by surprise. You can feel your throat tighten, and you try and swallow the feeling down so you wouldn’t have to deal with it right now. You couldn’t cry, not with him in front of you like this.

“I said fuck off. What do you not get about that?” His gruff voice growled. There was hostility in his expression, like you had never known him, or even worse- he was your enemy.

“O-ok, I’ll be going now”, your say as your voice cracked. You did your best to stifle your tears but you couldn’t stop them from collecting at your lash line. “Um, have a good night, Reiner.”

Swiftly, you get up from the bench and head in the direction of home, where you would probably spend the incoming day crying in embarrassment for making Reiner pissed. This was the exact last thing you wanted to do, make him feel uncomfortable to the point where he was pushing you away.

You stopped at a nearby lamppost to collect your thoughts, slumping against the cold pole and letting a few tears trickle down your cheeks. You grab a tissue from your pocket, and try to soak up your salty tears. You felt like absolute and utter shit.

A few footsteps are heard in the distance, and you are quick to reach in your other pocket and pull out a small pocketknife. After all, Liberio after dark wasn’t a safe place for a woman to be. Especially in this lighting.

“Who’s there?” You ask. “Show yourself or I’m drawing my knife.”

“Calm yourself, y/n.”

The familiar deep voice came closer to where you were standing, and a tall figure showed itself in the shadows. The red armband was crimson in the faded yellow light from the lamp, the man wearing a beige uniform.

“Reiner?” You ask, hoping for an answer. “Is that you?”

“I followed you back. I’m sorry for yelling at you”, he grumbled, and scratched the back of his head. “It’s about time I told you what happened.”

You nod, and sit on the curbside of the dimly lit street. He came and sat with you, just like you two did when you were young.

“So are they like people say?” You ask. “You know, the whole devil thing.”

Reiner shrugs. “They’re not evil. But they’re not good people either. It’s... hard to describe.”

“I understand.”

“You do?”

“Well, that’s a stretch”, you say. “I don’t, but I know how you feel. Um, I know you probably don’t want me asking but... what happened to the rest of the people who went with you? Marcel? Bertholdt? Annie?”

Reiner puts a hand to his face and shakes his head.

“Marcel died first. Bertholdt died a year ago I think. His titan was passed down to some blonde boy with a bowl cut in Paradis. And Annie, god who knows where she is? I’m not sure if she’s alive or dead.”

This information was something you were struggling to process. Marcel was a quick thinker, how could he not survive? And Bertholdt- he had what may have been the strongest titan, and who would want to kill his poor gentle soul? Annie though, you still had a bit of hope for.

“Before he died”, Reiner began. “Marcel told me I wasn’t meant to become the Armored. It was supposed to be Porco, but he interfered to protect him. I’m seeing what he means by I wasn’t meant to do this.”

“Don’t say that”, you order him, but not in a pushy tone. More like a gentle one. “If you’ve made it back alive, that’s enough for me.”

“What would you have done if I died?”

“I wouldn’t know”, you say. “I don’t think I want to even think about that.”

He nods. Death was too familiar to him now, it had almost become his friend now. It wasn’t an uncommon thing to see nowadays.

“And you kept that promise to me”, you utter. “You came back in one piece. I’m proud. This entire country is too.”

Reiner doesn’t look to you. Instead he gives a hum of approval, indicating that he heard you. You could see his chiseled features in the moonlight shining down on him to create a perfect shadow. God he was beautiful, he always was.

#attack on titan #shingeki no kyoujin #aot hcs #aot headcanons #snk headcanons #reiner x reader #reader x reiner #reiner braun #reiner braun x reader #aot reiner #reiner aot #snk reiner #reiner snk #aot #snk #aot fanfiction #snk fanfiction #attack on titan fanfiction

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writing-gifts · 3 years

Text

part 9 of the incubus!doppio au aka we'll make it work

its been a long while since the last update so super brief recap: reader found a frog transformed gio in the forest and is currently on their way to one of his relatives to reverse it!

AO3 Link

List of parts

tag list: @wasabi-mommy @mistabrainr0t @the-average-mastermind @risottosplug @ohohimhere @ppribcess-br1 @greatpostunknown @cremaopinios

------

You gather your few belongings while Doppio readies himself in the bathroom. Once he was finished all of you would be heading straight for the train station. Abbaccchio watches you from the bed like cats tend to. However, the end of his tail twitches back and forth signaling that he’s agitated about something.

You zip up your bag and smirk. “You’re already annoyed and the day just started.”

“Hmph, I’m not exactly looking forward to hiding in your bag again,” he says.

“Oh please. You can get out as soon as we're outside and then it's 5 minutes tops when we get to the station. You’ll be okay.”

You move your backpack next to the dresser where Giorno still sits content in his container of water. You'd clean that up right before leaving so he could get as much moisture as possible.

“About last night--” Abbacchio starts.

Giorno opens an eye at that, but you barely react because of course he knows. You and Doppio weren't exactly being very quiet. You had just thought the cat wasn't interested in bringing it up (and you preferred it that way), but would he really be Abbacchio if he didn’t?

“Doppio has it under control so can we not argue about the same thing again?” You ask without looking back at him, though it was more of a plea than a question.

Before the feline can dissent, Doppio exits the bathroom. His hair is done up, though a few strands stick out from his braid.

You quickly switch your focus over to him. “Ready to head out?”

He moves a piece of hair out of his face. “Uh huh.”

“Okay, let me just get Giorno.”

After you move the frog out of his container and into your jacket pocket, you quickly clean up his makeshift “pond” and herd everyone out of the room. The walk from the hotel to the station doesn't take too long though you're very hungry by the time you arrive. You didn't have time to eat a full meal beforehand, but fortunately you packed snacks.

You chew on a granola bar on the train. You try to be careful but stray crumbs litter your lap. “You sure you don't want any?” you ask Doppio. He sits next to you, staring outside the train window at the passing landscape.

Your friend shakes his head. “I'm not hungry.”

You continue snacking on the sugary bar before speaking again. "Do you even need to eat food? You said you don't need sex and I’ve obviously seen you eat, but how does it exactly work?

Doppio leans back in his seat and places his hands in his lap. “Both sex and food give me energy, but the energy from food doesn't last long. I could overfill myself and be hungry 2 hours later. And food doesn't help with sleepiness either so I need to actually go to bed. Sex cures both and lasts longer.”

The explanation was clear and concise. He must have explained it many times before. You purse your lips still confused though. You had sometimes seen Doppio go most of the day without food so things weren’t adding up...Unless he was still having sex sometimes?

“...But the last time you ate was yesterday?”

"Yea but recently I've had energy that seems to come out of nowhere. I even feel fully rested though I wasn't able to get back to sleep last night.”

“That’s strange. Do you remember when you got these boosts of energy?”

He thinks for a moment. “...They were a while ago, so other than yesterday and right now, not really.”

“Yesterday?”

“After we got off the train and were walking to that fast food place. I still felt exhausted but it was definitely way better than before."

He did seem more awake and less irritable after you had finished eating, but other than the food you didn't know what had helped.

"Well try to keep it in mind. There's most likely a connection,” you say.

You finish up your bar and put the wrapper in one of your backpack's pockets, jostling Abbacchio in the process. You ignore his displeased grumbles and continue speaking to Doppio. “You know you're very different from what I’ve read about incubi. Like with how all this energy stuff works...Is this how it is for all incubi and succubi?”

“Most likely not.” He pauses and starts to jiggle his leg. “‘Er...I’m actually only part incubus.”

Your brows raise. “Wait really?”

“I'm half human, half incubus. It's just easier to say I'm an incubus though with how I was raised.”

That has you reconsidering many things, especially about Diavolo. He wasn't a demon possessing a demon, he was a demon possessing a half human! You need to tell Bruno this as soon as you get back.

------

Early afternoon your group reaches its destination. You and Doppio walk outside of the station into the fresh air. The sun shines down directly on you but luckily it isn't unbearably hot. A distance from where you both stand is a gravely road cutting through the unruly grass.

Once you get far enough away from the small group of people leaving the station, you let Abbacchio out of your bag and move Giorno out of your pocket and onto your shoulder. You then pull out your phone and open your GPS to get directions to the farm.

It’s an hour and half of walking along the road and taking breaks under the shade of the sparse trees before a small house in the midst of a field comes into view. There’s also a barn not too far away.

You plan to go up to the house and knock on the door, but part way there a man calls out a greeting to your group from a fenced area filled with chickens. His size is almost intimidating but his face is kind. He seems to be in his mid to late 50s but looks very fit. He jogs up to your group before glancing at Abbacchio who is sitting a small distance behind you. He then raises a brow at you most likely due to the amphibian on your shoulder.

"I don’t believe I’ve seen you lot before, but what can I do for you today?" the man asks. You notice his light English accent.

"Are you Jonathan Joestar?” you ask.

“Yes, that's me.”

You glance at Giorno and move the shoulder he sits on forward. "Okay this’ll sound crazy, but this is your nephew and he was turned into a frog."

Giorno readjusts his position and looks up at Jonathan. "Uncle it's me Giorno. I ran away from home."

The man's brow furrows and he steps back involuntarily. "Giorno? What happened to you?”

“I'll explain later. I need you to change me back first.”

He collects himself (as best as he can) and nods. "How do I do that exactly?"

“He needs a kiss from royalty,” you say. “Like the story but it doesn't have to be a princess or prince.”

Jonathan rubs the back of his neck. “But I'm no longer royalty.”

“That's fine, the person just had to be at some point. I don't know how it works but Bru--the witch told us it would still count,” you say.

“Well if it’ll help Giogio then there’s no point asking any more questions.”

You let Giorno climb onto your palm and pass him over to Jonathan. The farmer lifts Giorno up with both hands and places a kiss on his small froggy head.

Before you can really take in the silly scene, Giorno begins to glow. A glow that increases in intensity to the point that it feels like looking at the sun. He jumps off Jonathan’s hand just as his body starts to take a different form and size. For a moment there’s a lull and then suddenly a firework of sparks shoots off him. Everyone around him shuts their eyes.

When you open your own, the sparkles are gone and their place is a well dressed young man with immaculate styled blond hair flowing part way down his back. He looked laughably high class next to the rest of you.

You’re still taken aback by the display of magic you had just bared witness to and end up wordlessly gaping for several seconds before you can properly speak again.

“I-I did not expect you to look like that!”

Giorno looks at you, unbothered by your inappropriate outburst. “What did you think I'd look like?”

“Um I don't know, but the blonde hair wasn't there...”

Unlike you, Doppio and Jonathan look mostly unaffected by Giorno’s transformation.

Jonathan gives the blonde a relieved smile. “Erina is going to be so happy to see you, Giogio. It’s been so long since your last visit.”

“I would visit more often but you know how Father is.”

Jonathan's smile becomes forlorn. “Yes, unfortunately.” He turns towards you and Doppio. “Thank you for bringing Giorno here.”

Unsure of how else to respond, you smile and accept the thanks.

Doppio doesn't verbally reply but also smiles.

“Can I get your names?”

“I'm _____ and this is my friend Doppio.” You point over your shoulder. “And Abbacchio is the cat that's following us. He’s the witch’s...pet.”

Doppio gives his own greeting and Abbacchio continues to stare silently.

“What an interesting group,” Jonathan says most likely in reaction to Abbacchio.

“_____ found me in the forest and convinced the witch to reveal how to reverse it. Then they made a 2 day trip to get here.” Giorno looks at you, his smile kind and genuine. “Thank you.”

“Oh you're welcome. It's no problem really...” Your statement feels unfinished as you had started it but didn’t know where it was going.

“It means a lot to me though. Who knows where I’d be right now if you hadn't found me in the forest.”

You can feel yourself grinning way too hard. So much praise could be overwhelming at times. In an attempt to try to force it down you look elsewhere and end up locking eyes with Doppio. He looks like he wants to say something but he just turns away instead.

“Well now that that is taken care of, why don't we all head inside,” Jonathan suggests. “I’m sure you're all tired from traveling here so you can stay as long as you need.”

“Just the night is fine. I have work on Monday so we need to head back early in the morning.” You hadn't really thought about work the whole way here, but now that you did, it has you wanting to stay longer.

“That’s too bad. The least I can do is ask a friend to drive you to the train station in the morning so you don't have to walk back.”

“That would be great, thank you!”

-----

As typical for you, you lay wide awake.

When you first hit the bed the dregs of your energy seeped out of you and you were out cold. Unfortunately you had woken up randomly a few hours later and couldn't get back to sleep. Abbacchio had even run off when you wouldn’t stop moving around to get comfortable again.

You get out of bed to leave the guest room and make your way quietly to the living room.

Doppio lays asleep on the sofa. You tiptoe towards him and gently poke his freckled nose. It immediately twitches before he rolls on his side to face the back of the couch. You hold back a giggle and instead gently shake him awake. He grumbles before laying on his back again.

His eyes open a sliver, but it takes a moment for him to process your presence. “....____? What’s wrong?”

“I can't sleep. Soooo I was thinking: Why not invite Doppio?”

The incubus doesn't get flustered like you expect. “Huh--Invite where?”

“Do you want to share the bed again?” you ask more clearly.

His stutters bring a pleased look to your face, but eventually he manages to answer.

“Um okay.”

He gets up with his blanket and pillow and follows you to the guest room. The lamp light in the room reveals Doppio's flushed face. You then both get into bed, Doppio a bit awkwardly but it’s a much bigger improvement from the hotel. Once he lays next to you, you tell him to turn around. He nods and lays on his side, his back facing you. You throw your arm over him before settling up close behind him. The hair that sticks out of his messy bun tickles your face.

“Woah, your hair smells really nice!”

Doppio smiles to himself. “I’m trying this new shampoo…”

Even though you still weren’t sure what to do about your feelings, you did know that you wouldn't mind being able to do stuff like this more often.

------

You hadn't had breakfast yet since Erina insisted on feeding all of you. She let you know that the food was usually ready around the time Jonathan finished his morning chores. So you decide to wait outside while Doppio gets ready. It was going to take awhile for him to finish styling his hair in that complicated braid he usually wore.

You gently sway back and forth on the porch swing while watching Giorno help his uncle tend to some of the cows. They’re too far away for you to hear their conversation but they seem to be enjoying their time together. Abbacchio lays curled up next to you sleeping. You wonder what cat things he had gotten up to last night since he didn't return to your room.

Half an hour later, you’re all inside eating. Doppio didn't want to, but Erina wasn’t having any of it so the incubus tries to eat enough that it looks convincing. The incubus appears well rested so you assume he must have gotten good sleep, but maybe the surge of energy was happening again. You’ll have to ask him about it later.

After a delicious fry-up and nice conversation that you and Doppio mostly listen in on, you start preparing for the trip back home.

“Giogio you have everything?” Erina asks.

“Yes aunty,” Giorno replies.

“Ah I still can’t believe how much you've grown since I've last seen you. I'm sorry we couldn't be around more often and I really wish you could stay.” There’s an underlying sadness in her voice.

“It's not your fault...”

You and Doppio sit together in the living room waiting patiently for your ride. The walls are thin so the two of you are unintentional auditors of the conversation taking place in the dining room. Either way you thought it was nice how Giorno’s aunt and uncle were so caring of him.

Before the family can join you and Doppio, ringing sounds from the kitchen. You hear the phone being answered and a moment later everyone walks into the living room.

“Speedwagon's outside,” Jonathan informs you.

Giorno picks up the bag full of items his family had packed for him--food, a phone, and hygiene items along with some clothing that was quickly bought yesterday--before walking outside. Doppio follows out next with his own stuff.

You’re about to yell out for Abbacchio since he hadn’t been waiting with you and Doppio but you see him brushing against Erina’s dress. She bends down and pets him on the head. You almost roll your eyes at the sight knowing the type of cattitude you had to put up with from him. Even before you found out he could talk! Guess he was more fond of older folk.

While loading everything into Speedwagon's truck you ask Giorno a question. “Are you sure you don't want to stay here with your uncle and aunt?”

You had talked with the man the day before about living arrangements. For now he would be staying at your home, but you felt he would be more comfortable staying with family.

“I'm sure. If my father finds out that I'm staying here--which he would eventually--he’ll cause a commotion.”

You pause what you’re doing. “Does he really dislike Mr. Joestar that much?”

“Yes and he’s unreasonably petty. It would be better if I reside somewhere else until I can get on my own feet. Or until he’s properly dealt with.”

Jonathan really didn't seem like the abrasive type at all so it sounded like a one sided sibling rivalry to you. But it wasn't really your business so you don't pry anymore.

Your group says one last goodbye to Jonatahn and Erina before getting on the truck and departing. Giorno and Doppio insisted on you sitting in the only passenger seat. And Abbacchio joined you, but you can tell he hates being in this loud and shaky truck. It was better than being in the cargo bed though. Speedwagon opened the back window so you all could still talk.

"My home is pretty small. I hope that it isn't too uncomfortable," you say. Along with Doppio sometimes staying for days at a time. It would definitely feel crowded.

“I feel slightly ashamed to say this, but I might be somewhat sheltered so it’ll take me some time to adjust,” Giorno replies.

“Well if you're anything like your uncle im sure youll get used to it Giorno,” Speedwagon chimes in.

The more you learned about Giorno, the more curious you became about his life.

“Well I have to work a decent amount of the time so you'll at least get some space, if Doppio isn't there. But there’s a guest room that you’ll have all to yourself.”

Doppio frowns. He spent more time in your house than you knew, and it wouldn't be as relaxing with someone who wasn't you there. Unaware of your friend’s disapproval, you stretch your arms in front of you, careful not to disturb the overstimulated cat on your lap. This not so small adventure was a nice change in your usual surroundings and schedule, but you were ready to get back to your own home.

#doppio x reader #vinegar doppio x reader #jjba #jjba x reader #incubus!doppio #reader insert #if this fic doesnt actually post in the tag 🤦🏾‍♀️#idk i dont have the patience to deal with tumblrs tagging system anymore

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theseshipsshallsail · 3 years

Link

There’s a new club in the Village - Infinity emblazoned in bright, neon letters - and naturally, the building is jam-packed with society’s outcasts on its opening weekend. Oliver grimaces, pressing his third beer to the side of his face, yet the condensation does nothing to soothe his overheated skin. It’s like a furnace of writhing bodies, and with every bead of sweat that bisects his neck to soak into his collar, he can’t help but wonder why he ever agreed to come in the first place.

“Drink up,” Vanessa says, brandishing a bright amber concoction as she slides into the booth opposite him. “You look like you need something a little stronger.”

Oliver raises an eyebrow as he returns the bottle to the table, then plucks the wedge of orange peel from the rim of the proffered glass. It’s been three years since he tasted a negroni, and the potent combination of gin, Campari, and vermouth sends his mind reeling in directions he usually fights tooth and nail to avoid.

“Remind me again why you brought me here?” he asks, trying not to wince at the bitter aftertaste. “This isn’t exactly my scene.”

Vanessa scoffs. “Well, if you ever left your study...”

“I’m up for promotion!”

“You’ll be up for an ulcer if you don’t slow down. Besides, you deserve to let loose after... you know.”

You know, meaning his divorce, and the eighteen month shit-storm that preceded it.

Vanessa has the office next to his, and in between general grousing about University politics they’ve become close friends. It helps, of course, that she understands his situation all too well, and even though her parents never tried to strong-arm her to the altar, she and her girlfriend still have to hide their relationship from the rest of their colleagues.

Oliver sighs as he takes a second sip of his drink. “It’ll take more than a one night stand to loosen me up,” he tells her, and the filthy smirk that curls Vanessa’s lips has him tempted to bang his forehead against the table.

“Whatever tickles your pickle, Professor.”

“Why do I put up with you?”

“Hell if I know.” Slurring somewhat, she taps their cocktails together, and Oliver laughs as she leans forward, poking him in the chest. “Listen, Ollie, you and Micol did a spectacular job of making yourselves miserable, but at least you stayed faithful ‘til the end. Why not enjoy yourself, yeah?”

“Why not indeed?”

He’s aiming for sarcastic, yet his tone falls somewhere short of exhausted. She’s right, he realises, but Oliver hasn’t had much interest in men or women for a while. He’s not so deep in denial to admit his heart still belongs to another, and being hopelessly in love with someone he can’t have has done a real number on his libido.

“Damn! This place is heaving!” Simone says, slumping in her seat when she returns from the bathroom. Slinging an arm around Vanessa’s shoulder she drops a quick kiss to her cheek, and Oliver averts his eyes, the casual intimacy leaving him yearning for the impossible. “A few too many student-types for my liking, though. Makes me feel like I’m back in the theatre department.”

“Makes me feel like I’m pushing thirty,” Oliver mutters, painfully aware of the significantly younger crowd as he tugs at the cheap material of his shirt. Too many curries and not enough exercise has made him self-conscious of the few extra pounds at his waistline, and depressingly, twenty-eight feels ancient in comparison.

“You wanna call it a night?” Vanessa asks, and Oliver nods absently as his gaze catches on a couple in the middle of the dancefloor.

Caught in a world of their own, they make a striking picture. The taller of the pair is bleached-blond and athletic, his arms wrapped tightly around the slim waist of the man in front of him in a surprisingly protective gesture. Oliver can’t see his partner clearly from this angle, but his skin is pale and shimmering as they move to the beat, dark curls falling in a tousled mess. Whether it’s by artful design or sweat-damp from dancing, he can’t quite tell, yet Oliver is hypnotized by the way they bounce as he loses himself to the music, obscuring his vision until the other man reaches forward, gently brushing them away.

The bass pounds in his rib cage, and Oliver’s throat feels constricted as he watches the brunette link his hands behind his lover's neck. Profile half in shadows, he raises up on tiptoes to whisper in the shell of his ear, and Oliver experiences a crisis of tenderness when he butts their temples together. Something squirms in his stomach. Something raw and envious. Memories flare, unfair and brutal, and he immediately blames the burning of his retinas on the relentless assault of the strobe lights surrounding them.

“Oliver? You okay?”

No.

Definitely not.

The jostling crowd causes the blond to alter their position, and Oliver’s head spins from more than just the alcohol as his blood runs cold in his veins.

“Elio…” he murmurs, vaguely aware of Vanessa’s stifled gasp when she tries to get a better look.

“Your Elio?”

He wants it not to be - wants his eyes to be deceiving him - yet there’s no denying the truth. All that he’s forgotten - all that he’s clung to - coalesces in a rush of unslaked longing, and between one blink and the next, Oliver remembers everything.

“Not anymore,” he whispers, but then, why would he be?

Elio was seventeen when they first met, and Oliver isn’t naive enough to think he hasn’t fallen in and out of love many times since then. He’s beautiful, intelligent, talented beyond measure. Was he really so arrogant to imagine he would still be single? Pining for him, maybe? Saving himself? And for what? A six week romance one too-hot Italian summer? Something his cowardice cut short with a long-distance phone call?

He was, wasn’t he?

Arrogant.

And so very stupid.

“Of all the gay bars in all the world…” Vanessa takes a swig of her piña colada as he continues to spiral. “I thought you said he lived in Italy?”

“He did,” Oliver replies, picking at his thumbnail. “He moved here for school.”

“And you didn't contact him?”

“To say what?” His ears ring from the shrillness of her tone. “Hey, Elio. Remember that time I broke both our hearts ‘cause I’m a gutless schmuck? How about I buy you a coffee to make up for it?”

“It would’ve been a start.”

“It would’ve been selfish,” he says, tearing his eyes away. “He has enough on his plate with Juilliard. I’d only get in the -”

“Juilliard?” Simone’s low whistle interrupts his self-reproach. “Impressive.”

“Son of a professor,” Oliver explains. “I always knew he was a genius.” He gathers himself with a quiet huff. “Though he’ll probably say he knows nothing.” The spark of nostalgia is crippling, and it takes everything he has not to break down on the spot. “I should go,” he says, draining the remains of his drink as he rises to his feet.

“Oliver -”

“Why don’t you come back to ours?” Vanessa offers, making to follow, but whatever expression is on his face causes Simone to catch her by the wrist.

“We’re here if you need us, alright?”

“I know,” he says, eternally grateful for their support as he pushes some cab money into her hand. “Get home safe. I’ll call you in the morning, okay?”

“You’d better,” Vanessa tells him, obstinate in her concern, yet all he can focus on right now is leaving.

The swirling thoughts inside his head are all-consuming, but Oliver is determined to reign in his emotions for a little while longer. Ignoring the way his shoes stick to the tacky vinyl flooring, he grits his teeth as he snakes his way through the crush of humanity. He needs space. Fresh air. Hell, a damn time machine wouldn’t go amiss. He has nobody to blame but himself, and he’s halfway to the exit sign when his pace grinds to a halt, his masochistic streak unable to resist one last glimpse.

A flash of irrational panic makes him breathe in deep - hold it for a count of three - and when he turns to scan the roiling bodies that fill up the dance floor, he finds them immediately. The shock doesn’t lessen, and if Oliver thought his heart had broken when they’d clung to one another on a train station platform, it’s naught compared to when Elio tips the other man’s chin up with the same fingers that used to play his body like a finely tuned instrument. White noise fills his ears as he ghosts a kiss to his lips - two chaste pecks at first - and then harder. Hungry. Mouths open. Tongues swirling. Deep and dirty.

Just the way he likes it.

Fool that he is, Oliver doesn’t turn away. But he’s not the only one. Their bawdy display has garnered a small audience of the jealous and horny, and when the cat-calls eventually die down he notices a clearly disappointed red-head stalk past them on route to her table of friends.

Time has not domesticated him, it seems, and Oliver feels like crying as the world returns frame by frame - the oscillating pulse of the dance track. The lightning burst of colour from the laser system above. An innate sense of powerlessness floods through him - the depths of which he hasn’t experienced since Elio sobbed against his chest in an attic bedroom - and a heavy weight settles in his belly as he recognises the cues and rituals that were once directed at him alone.

Elio has obviously flourished in his absence. His body language is looser, more relaxed, assured in a way his younger self could only dream of, and Oliver allows an almost-smile as the couple laugh for a moment before turning to walk away.

His fingers itch for a cigarette - a habit he’s struggling to waive - and the next thing he knows he’s taking a seat at the bar, a double shot of bourbon in his hand he doesn’t remember ordering, and a screaming admonishment from his better judgement to not do anything stupid.

All I had to do was find the courage to reach out and touch, Elio said once, rife with self-mockery, and Oliver’s advice was to try again later. Was this it? Their later? And if not now, when? Because whatever his feelings of bitterness - whatever his misguided envy - if he lets this opportunity pass him by, he will always wonder. Always look.

In truth, he already does.

Ever since Samuel mentioned Elio was moving to the States, he’s carried the idle fantasy of crossing paths in some random book store, eyes locking across a busy street, a name - his, theirs, both - shouted across a bustling coffee shop. Of all eventualities, though, he hasn’t prepared for an Elio who might not be happy to see him. Who might dismiss him. Cast him aside like some ill-fitting chapter in the editing process. The context is all wrong, and for it to happen like this is akin to being plunged into the icy waters of the berm.

“Accidenti!” an achingly familiar voice says from somewhere behind him. “Are all Americans incapable of taking a hint? Or is it just an East Coast thing?”

“It’s the accent, mio amico. Fries their brains.”

“Never mind their brains,” Elio replies in the same lazy drawl. “I think you’ve sprained my tonsils.”

There’s a snicker to his left, and like a moth to a flame, Oliver peers up into the mirror behind the bar, only to find his living nightmare mere meters away, sharing a cigarette. Elio’s still wearing the same bracelets he did that summer, and three years of sleepwalking collapses around him as Oliver hunches over, palms sweating.

“Seriously though,” the blond continues. “Look at this place! Wall-to-wall entreés, and you won’t so much as skim the menu. You’re spoiled for choice, compagno.”

Elio scoffs as he brings the filter to his lips. “Didn’t I tell you choice is an illusion?”

“As is time, according to Adams.” The man slings an arm over his shoulders. “And here you are, free as a bird, wasting the perfect opportunity.”

Elio flips him the middle finger. “Stronzo,” he says, leaving Oliver more confused than ever as he studies him over the rim of his glass. “It’s a curse.”

“Self-inflicted, maybe.”

“So what’s the answer? And don’t say forty-two.”

The guy chuckles. “Variety,” he says, signalling the harried bartender. “Things didn’t work out with the violinist - I get it. È la vita! You’re not in the mood for pushy red-heads? Fine. But don’t sell yourself short. Trust Fund Tina’s not the only one checking you out.”

“Perhaps.”

“What perhaps?” A knowing smirk shoots in Oliver’s direction. “See for yourself.”

It’s like experiencing the first tremor of an earthquake. Elio was always a force of nature, and bracing for disaster, Oliver feels the fault lines buckle beneath him. He thought he was done letting fear and shame dictate his life, yet even now, at peace with his true self, he can’t bear to witness the seismic shift between past and present. Instead, he falls back on avoidance, tearing strips off a frayed beer mat until the hair prickles at his nape.

He can feel it - the instant his fate is sealed - and taking a deep breath Oliver returns his eyes to the mirror, meeting Elio’s stunned features. Dark brows climb towards his hairline as the happiness on his face shifts into something else. Something measured. Unrecognisable. A blank slate, almost. For a moment, Oliver fears he’s going to ignore him completely, but then Elio straightens his spine, offers the half-smoked cigarette to his friend, and with a few whispered words strides forward with purpose.

His daring is a law unto himself, but the look he’s giving him now exudes superiority - omniscience, almost - as if he can read every thought that’s going on inside Oliver’s mind, and has already deemed them wanting. It shouldn’t be such a turn on, yet his heart skips a beat regardless. Then another. Every instinct in his body tells him to reach out, to hold Elio’s hand, tuck those wild curls behind his ear, but it’s no longer his place - if it ever really was to begin with - so Oliver takes a deliberate sip of his whiskey, scared and aroused simultaneously, before swivelling towards him.

“Oliver.” His name on Elio’s lips - three smooth syllables - and he feels reborn. “Long time no see.” Hesitating, he offers up a pack of Luckies. “Fumo?”

“I shouldn’t,” he says, dragging trembling fingers through his hair. “I told myself I’d quit. God knows it won't take much to -”

“Tempt you?”

Heat rises to Oliver’s cheeks. “Yes,” he admits, and Elio’s smile is a shallow, brittle thing.

“Well, you know yourself,” he says, returning the cigarette carton to his pocket. “Don’t let me ruin your good intentions.”

His flippancy is like a red rag to a bull, and Oliver’s hackles rise as he sets his drink on the counter, irritated enough by Elio’s calm exterior to try and provoke a reaction. “Is your boyfriend not the jealous type?”

All he receives is an eye roll. “Bruno’s not my boyfriend.”

“Could’ve fooled me. From what I saw earlier.”

“You saw nothing,” Elio replies, defensive. “We’re friends. Roommates.”

“Roommates?” Rising from his stool, Oliver takes a step towards him. “That kiss -”

“Is none of your business. Not anymore.”

It hits him like a punch to the gut. Oliver’s lips part, but no sound passes between them. He’s being irrational, he’ll accept, but old habits die hard, and through sheer force of will he quashes down his guilt, knowing better than to use it as a weapon.

“Of course,” he says, chastened. “You’re right.”

“I usually am.”

“Elio…” This isn’t how he wants the conversation to go. “I know it’s too much to expect your forgiveness, but please don’t be angry with me. We were friends, once. Before anything else.”

“I’m not angry.” A beat. “Not anymore.” Tipping his chin, Elio folds his arms in front of him. One more barrier despite the brush-off. “I’m processing.“

“Processing?”

“Yes, processing. Originates from the Old French proces. Related to the Latin processus, and from the verb procedere in Middle English.”

“Wise ass.”

“Sempre.” Elio shrugs, watching him openly. “What are you doing here, Oliver?”

“My friends saw the flyers,” he says, bypassing the here, specifically, when Elio’s attention drops a few inches lower, and he realises he’s staring at his ring finger.

At the white line that’s all but vanished since he signed his way to freedom.

“You’re…”

Oliver clears his throat. “Divorced,” he manages, shuffling his feet. “Almost three months now.”

“Divorced?” Elio’s mask slams back into place, the distress in his voice palpable. “Why?”

And there are so many things he could say to that - the stress of his job, money, differing expectations - but this is Elio. His first love. His forever love. He, above anyone, deserves the truth.

“I think you know why.”

“Do I?” That same phony indifference. “What the eyes see, and the ears hear, the mind believes.”

“The truth is never that simple.”

“Not for us, it seems. Not in this world.” Elio gives his head a small but firm shake, blowing out a frustrated breath. “You know, tonight was supposed to lower my stress levels, not raise them,” he says, granting them a temporary reprieve. “But then, you always were hazardous to my blood pressure.”

“Trust me. The feeling’s mutual,” Oliver tells him wryly. “Might I recommend some deep breaths?”

“Deep breaths?” Elio rocks back on his heels. “If I had any peaches I’d be using my right hand.”

It catches him unawares, and Oliver can't help it. He snorts. Overcome by relief. Then he laughs - a weak sound, and damn near helpless - but a laugh, nonetheless. Cupping a palm to his mouth. Moving it to his eyes. Feeling the tears he’s been fighting since this whole debacle began.

“My God you’re incorrigible,” he mutters, the sharp stab of regret cutting him to the core as he glances over his shoulder, and the blond - Bruno - shoots him a wink. “When you said I saw nothing...”

The hesitant curve of Elio’s smile lights a fire in his chest. “There was a girl on the dance floor who wouldn’t take no for an answer. Lucky for me, Bruno’s never been shy about putting on a convincing performance.”

Oliver winces. “Well, I bought it.”

“Mission accomplished, then.” Elio edges closer. “I could’ve said the same for you, once upon a time.” The air between them grows charged. “Do you ever miss it?” he asks. “Italy, I mean?”

“Every single day.” Oliver finds himself captivated by the smattering of stubble along Elio’s jawline. The touch of smudged kohl beneath his lashes that turns his gaze smouldering. “Do you?”

“In a way.”

“Just a way?” He’s not entirely certain they’re talking about the same thing, and Vanessa’s advice seems all the more pertinent. “Let me buy you a coffee?” Oliver asks, and Elio frowns.

“What? Now?”

“If you like.”

“It’s gone midnight!”

“Tomorrow, then. Whenever you’re available.” Suddenly desperate, he closes the gap between them. “I can’t excuse my actions, Elio - I know I can’t - but at the very least I owe you an explanation.”

“Oliver...” This time it’s Elio who reaches out, his usually steady hands uncertain as they entwine with his. “I was young, not stupid. What’s there to forgive? You left because you had to. You married because -”

“I was weak.”

“Cazatte!” The tension in Elio’s body snaps back like a coil. “My father would have carted me off to a correctional facility,” he murmurs, squeezing his fingers tightly. “I’ll never forget those words.”

“I’m sorry...”

“Don’t be!” Elio sounds furious on his behalf. “Weak, you say? No. Control over others is the true weakness. Coercion. Conformity. All it does is breed hatred. And that’s not you. Not my Oliver.”

“Am I still?” he asks, laying his cards out on the table. “Your Oliver?”

“I guess we’ll find out, won’t we?”

Oliver swallows thickly. “I guess we will,” he says, dropping his forehead to Elio’s crown.

He’s braver at twenty-one than Oliver could have dared imagine, and for the first time in years the dull ache beneath his ribs is replaced by a different sort of craving. The way they fit together so easily, like no time has passed, fans the banked passions within him - the desire to press his lips against Elio’s neck, to nip his way along countless freckles until he can fist those unruly curls and guide his mouth back to where it belongs.

Flush against his.

Devouring.

But not yet.

This isn’t leading to sex. Not tonight. This is about reconciliation. Reassurance. Redemption.

“There’s a late-night diner on the corner…”

It’s a whisper against his cheek - so quiet he barely hears it - and Oliver leans down, pressing his face to Elio’s collarbone, breathing him in. He knows this won’t be easy - knows there will be dark clouds before the dawn - yet here they are, older and wiser, and three years might as well be yesterday as the parting crowds provide a temporary island in which to weather the storm.

#cmbyn roll the dice challenge #fanfic #oliver pov #elio and oliver #cmbynrollthedicechallenge

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actual-lea · 3 years

Photo

BUT WAIT THERE’S MORE

AO3 | First chapter

The train ride is largely uneventful; Daniel idly taps two fingers against his leg in rhythmic patterns and watches the buildings and trees and countryside fly past in a blur of dull greens and grays. The exact directions from the station are just as much of a blur in his head, but he's sure that he'll know where to go once he arrives, that muscle memory will take over and he'll be on his way in no time at all.

By the third time he wanders back into the station to stare at the map, he's started to doubt that theory.

“Lost?”

He nearly jumps out of his skin and whirls around to face the source of the voice, a tall man in a suit watching him with amusement from behind a pair of thick glasses.

“Uh, y– No. I'm...” Dan gestures helplessly to the map and finally manages to stammer out, “Queen's College.”

The man chuckles and reaches past him to point at a spot on the map. “There,” he says simply, and he takes a small step back as Daniel fumbles with his pack, rummaging around for a pen and scrawling the relevant street names onto his hand. “You a student, then?”

Daniel freezes. “...Yes.” He reaches for a tie that he isn’t wearing and ends up awkwardly fidgeting with the placket of his shirt instead. “Yeah, that’s right.”

“Right.” The man clears his throat, like he's covering up another laugh, before he turns to walk away. “Good luck, then.”

Dan waits until he's fully out of sight before letting out a heavy exhale. So much for not drawing attention to himself. He's just being paranoid, of course, and he knows it, but it still takes a not-insignificant amount of willpower to keep himself from hopping the first train back to London and flying far away from here without looking back. Instead, he takes a deep breath and forces his feet to start moving in the right direction, because there's nothing to worry about. He can do this. He can do this.

------

“I can't do this.”

Daniel shakes the man again, uselessly, like he’ll start breathing on his own if he just waits long enough.

“Come on, I can't do this, you have to wake up now.”

He knows what to do in theory, but a single week of CPR training in an undergrad health class, well over a decade ago, hardly qualifies him to actually do it.

“I can't do this, don't make me do this, please don't make me–” He squeezes his eyes shut and drags both hands through his wet hair, twisting his fingers tight to pull at his scalp, and mutters through a quick assortment of curses.

“Okay.” He opens his eyes and takes a deep breath, in and out. “Okay. Okay. I can do this. Okay.” His hands hover nervously over the motionless body beneath him. “Okay...” He tilts the man's head back and concentrates on his own breathing for a few seconds, forcing himself to take steady, even breaths despite the residual burning in his lungs. Finally, he leans down, pinches the man's nose, and directs two of those even breaths into his mouth before sitting back up and placing his hands, left over right, in the middle of his chest.

He counts aloud, his voice unsteady, with each compression. It's almost impossible to keep a consistent pace when the float is constantly moving, rocking from side to side and bobbing unevenly in the waves; he might as well be trying to perform CPR on a waterbed.

He makes it all the way to twenty-eight before he's suddenly pitched forward by a particularly rough wave; he catches himself on the edge of the float as water floods over the top of it and then quickly recedes, nearly dragging the two of them off along with it.

The platform stabilizes after a few more seconds, and Daniel carefully re-situates himself before leaning down to give the man another two lungfuls of air. As he sits up, he checks for a pulse again, holding his breath to stop his fingers from shaking. “I really need you to wake up, now...” He closes his eyes and waits a few more seconds before reluctantly moving his hands back into position.

“One, two, three, four...” He watches the man's head jerk with each push – God, is he even doing this right? – and counts in his head, whispering a breathless mantra to the same rhythm, “Please, let, this, work, please–” –fourteen, fifteen, sixteen, seventeen, eighteen– “Please. Let. This. Work. Twenty-three. Twenty-four. Twenty-five. Twenty-six. Please. Let. This. Work.”

He swallows, and inhales, and bends down for two more breaths, pausing for a moment to catch his own breath in between.

One, two, three... There's an awful sense of dread rising in his chest and clenching tight in his throat; if this doesn't work – if he's doing it wrong or he's not using enough force or maybe if he's using too much force if there is such a thing as too much – if he screws this up, this guy is dead, and he's going to be completely alone out here, in the middle of the Pacific fucking Ocean without so much as a life vest. “Please. Don't. Die. Please. Don't. Die. Please. Don't. Die. Twenty-eight. Twenty-nine. Thirty.”

Another breath, and another, and Dan sits up and coughs into his arm. How long is he supposed to keep this up? “Come on, come on...” He runs one shaking hand through his hair to push it out of his face and places his other hand flat on the man's chest to feel for a heartbeat, a breath, anything. “Don't– don't do this, please don't do this.”

Nothing.

He exhales and starts again. “One. Two. Three. Four. Please. Wake. Up. Eight. Nine. Ten.” His arms are aching, already, and breathing isn't getting any easier. Fourteen, fifteen, sixteen–

Water explodes out of the man's mouth in a sudden burst, and Dan flinches back, nearly falling off the float. “Whoa–” He slips a hand beneath the man's neck and helps him twist to one side as he chokes, his whole body convulsing violently with the effort. “Hey hey, you're okay, you're okay...”

Finally, he collapses onto his back and starts breathing again; loud, gasping, uneven breaths, but he's breathing.

“It worked,” Daniel says, and he laces his fingers behind his head and laughs. “It actually worked!”

“What...” The man's eyes flutter open, bleary and unfocused, and he starts coughing again.

“You're alright. You're alive, and you're gonna be okay.” It's probably not the time or place for it at all, but Daniel can't seem to wipe the triumphant smile off his face.

His gaze finally fixes on Dan, and he blinks a few times. “You, you're...” He gags, and sucks in a sharp breath. “You were on the Zodiac,” he rasps.

“Yeah, I'm–”

He's interrupted by another splash of water from the man's mouth; he moves to help, but quickly backs off as the man grips the edge of the float and leans over to vomit into the ocean.

Daniel exhales. Briefly, he considers trying to reposition himself in such a way that he isn't more or less sitting in this stranger's lap, but it's glaringly obvious that there simply isn't enough room; the float isn't designed to be ridden, after all, so it's hardly large enough for even one person to sit comfortably. Instead, he places his hands on either side of the platform and allows himself a moment to relax, to breathe. His pulse pounds heavy in his ears, still, but it's finally slowing down now that oxygen isn't in such short supply.

After what seems like minutes, the man collapses onto his back again, his chest rising and falling with labored but even breaths. “Daniel, right?”

Dan looks up, surprised, and nods. “Yeah, yeah, that's right.”

“Thought so.” He holds up one hand in a quick wave. “I'm Peter.”

Daniel nods again. “It's– it's nice to meet you. Formally. Uh...” He clears his throat and shifts uncomfortably. “Sorry about the, uh. Personal space...situation.”

Peter glances down and laughs, weakly. “Hey, I'm alive, I'm not gonna complain.” Then he squints up at Dan and adds, pointing to his own head. “Y’know you’re bleeding?”

“Oh.” He brings a hand to his forehead, then blinks at the smear of red on his fingers. “That’s…probably alright,” he mumbles, pressing a palm over the sore spot on his temple with a slight wince. “Um. Are you– How are you...feeling?”

Peter closes his eyes and coughs, then swallows with obvious difficulty. “Feel like I scrubbed my throat with sandpaper.” His neck tenses and he moves to sit up, but quickly abandons the motion with a grunt. “And my leg hurts,” he adds, through clenched teeth.

“Oh, uh... Which–” Daniel turns, and the question quickly becomes unnecessary. “Oh.”

“How bad is it?”

“It’s…” He tries to keep the panic out of his voice as he loosens his tie with one hand. “It’ll be okay.” He wraps the tie around the bloodiest part of Peter's leg and pulls it tight, careful not to jostle the thick piece of metal buried in the skin just above his knee. “Just...try to stay still, okay?”

Peter doesn't look convinced, but he nods anyway and stares up at the sky with a small cough as Dan lets out a shaky sigh, his excitement from before finally dampened by the reality of their situation setting in.

“Daniel?”

“Hmm?”

“I gotta ask you somethin'.”

Anxiety jolts through him at those words, just out of habit. “Yeah...?”

Peter coughs again and clears his throat. “I know that there was an explosion, and I got thrown in the water, and I just drowned and was maybe dead for a second and everything, so I'm probably just crazy or remembering it wrong, but...” He pushes himself up on one elbow to squint at Dan. “Did the island...disappear?”

“Well...” Daniel exhales, and lets out a single breathless laugh. “Good news and bad news,” he says, and he looks out at the empty horizon, blinking against the too-bright sunlight reflecting off the waves. “Good news, you're not crazy. Bad news...you're not crazy.” He turns back to Peter. “The island is gone.”

He sighs, and relaxes, resting his head on the surface of the float. “Super.” He coughs a few more times and closes his eyes. “Now what?”

Daniel looks around; the largest remnants of the Kahana are barely visible now, almost entirely submerged in the distance. There's still a considerable amount of debris around them, floating in bits and pieces, but nothing that looks particularly useful.

And here and there among the wreckage, he can see a few bodies – or pieces thereof – bobbing in the waves, most of them facedown and all of them motionless.

He tries not to look too closely at those.

“We need to find where the helicopter crashed,” he states, and he looks down at Peter. “It– It was still in the air after the island moved, so it must have just gone down somewhere. There should have been a life raft aboard, and if there are any survivors, that's where we want to be. And even if– if no one made it out, the raft should still be there regardless.” He scratches his head and shrugs a bit. “Either way, it's our best chance.”

“What, and leave all this luxury behind?” Peter waves a hand to their surroundings with something between a smile and a grimace.

Daniel laughs a little as he scans the horizon to the east, toward where the island used to be, guesstimating the distance to the helicopter based on his brief glimpse of it from earlier. “Looked like two, maybe three miles, you think?” He pauses, then adds, “I guess you're not gonna be able to swim, huh,” and it's not really a question.

“No.” Peter closes his eyes and shakes his head. “Sorry.”

“It's– Hey, don't worry about it, alright? It's not a problem, I just... I need a minute to catch my breath, first.” He lets out a heavy sigh. “I am not, exactly, the most fantastic swimmer in the world.”

“If you...” Peter begins quietly. “If you have to leave me behind, I wouldn't hold it against you.”

Daniel blinks, and turns to face him. “Oh... No. No, I'm not doing that.”

“Oh, thank God, because I didn't really mean it,” he says in a rush, visibly relieved.

“Yeah, no, I'm...” Daniel shakes his head. “And besides–” He places one hand on the side of the float. “I'm gonna need this anyway, for breaks.”

“What, you mean you don't wanna swim three miles without stopping?”

He chuckles and gestures to himself. “I know, I definitely look like the super athletic type, don't I?”

Peter's laugh turns into a string of coughs. “So, once we make it to the raft,” he says after catching his breath, and then, “If we make it to the raft... What then?”

“I don't know.” Daniel swallows. “I don't really...have a plan, after that, but...”

Peter nods slowly. “Might as well die on a raft instead of a box,” he sighs.

“Something like that.” Dan looks out over the waves again with a heavy exhale. It's not going to get any closer; if anything, it might be drifting further away while he wastes time. “Okay,” he says finally, shrugging off his backpack. “Would you mind, uh...”

“Got it.” Peter takes the pack and hooks an arm through the straps as Dan carefully lowers himself into the warm water.

The rope attached to the perimeter of the float provides an easy handhold, and Daniel loops it around his wrist to secure it, then pauses and turns back toward Peter. “East, right?” He points, not trusting his own sense of direction, especially with the disorienting waves all around.

Peter cranes his neck to find the afternoon sun, still high in the sky but slowly setting in the opposite direction, and gives a confident nod. “Right.”

And Daniel takes a deep breath and starts swimming.

(next chapter)

#lost #fanfiction #daniel faraday #lost show #abc lost #yeah this is another repost #is it leading to something new? ONLY TIME WILL TELL

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cuttoothed · 4 years

Text

Written for @aspecmartinweek, for the prompt “First”, for which I am overwhelmingly late. Featuring sex neutral ace Martin, sex averse ace Jon, brief discussion of sexual boundaries. and every first date cliché I could think to cram in.

Jon brings him flowers, on their first official date. They meet at a little park not far from the Institute, and Martin’s been waiting there almost ten minutes when Jon appears, walking hurriedly towards him with one arm tucked oddly behind his back.

“About time,” Martin is about to say, when Jon’s hand sweeps forward, and the words are lost in his throat.

The flowers are bold white daisies, their heads nodding gracefully, with sprays of small yellow blossoms peeking out in between. Jon presents it to him with near schoolboy awkwardness, his cheeks red and scarcely able to meet Martin’s eyes.

“They reminded me of you,” he says, obstinately, as if daring Martin to deny it.

Martin doesn’t know what to say. Nobody’s ever brought him flowers before. In fact, he’s not sure he’s ever had flowers. There are a few succulents in his flat, and an aspidistra that he bought ironically during his Orwell phase and has been stubbornly keeping alive since, but he’s never had the knack for blooming plants. And he’s always been too embarrassed to buy cut flowers, as if the salesperson might know he was buying them for himself and judge him accordingly.

There’s something charming and old fashioned and utterly Jon about the gesture, and Martin scolds himself as he feels tears start to sting his eyes.

“What are they?” he asks as a distraction, lifting them to his nose. The blooms smell sweet, like honey, with an earthy hint.

“Oxeye daisies,” says Jon, “And goldenrod. I—you don’t mind, do you? I know it’s a bit of a cliché. We can get rid of them—”

“No!” Martin is surprised by his own vehemence. “No, they’re lovely. Thank you. At least now I know why you didn’t want to leave work together—I thought you were trying to keep it off the Institute gossip vine.”

“Why would I want to do that?” Jon frowns, genuinely confused, and a tender warmth swells in Martin’s chest.

Jon’s made reservations at an Italian restaurant. Once they’re seated, Martin places the flowers carefully down by his feet, and looks around. The place is cozy and intimate, the tables set with candles, warm lamplight and low music.

“This place is nice,” he says, picking up a menu. “Have you been here before?”

“Oh, no,” says Jon. “But I’ve walked past it plenty of times, and I always thought it seemed like a date sort of place?”

It is, Martin supposes. Most of the tables are two-person, and most of the other patrons appear to be couples, leaning close to each other in the candlelight, laughing and drinking wine. It’s all very traditionally romantic, and Martin is suddenly extremely aware that he and Jon are on a date. He feels a bit foolish, because of course he knew, but until now it’s been easy to think of it as just...him and Jon. Walking somewhere to eat, like they do for lunch a couple of times a week, talking about unimportant things.

This isn’t that, though. This is flowers and a candlelit dinner, and all of this with Jon, and Martin has no idea what to do. He’s never been any good at dating. Relationships, sure—for a certain value of good—but the bit at the start, where you talk about interests and share details of your lives and gauge if this is a person you want to actually know better? Not his strong suit. Martin never knows how much to share, and when, and whether the first date is the right time to have the “so...about the whole ‘sex’ thing” talk or if he should wait for the third, and—

“Everything all right?” Jon asks.

“Yes, fine! Why?”

“You just looked a bit...wild eyed there. Like you’d seen a ghost.”

“I thought you didn’t believe in ghosts?”

“It depends what you mean by a ghost,” says Jon, his brow furrowing seriously, and then he’s off explaining theories of psychic trauma manifestations in specific locations, which is entirely different from the concept of an actual human soul lingering in the world, his hands cutting the air to illustrate his point, and it’s just them again, and honestly Martin could listen to Jon talk like this all day.

It’s lovely, after that. The food is tasty, and the glass of wine Martin drinks softens away any lingering nervousness, and Jon looks extraordinarily good by candlelight, the shadows sketching his cheekbones and jaw, the light sparking in the depths of his brown eyes. The only thing that Martin takes exception to is when Jon tries to pay for the entire meal.

“Don’t be ridiculous,” Martin tells him, “We’ll split it.”

“I invited you, so I pay,” Jon persists. “You can pay next time.”

In the end he gets his way, because Jonathan Sims is possibly the most stubborn human being Martin has ever met, but Martin wins the concession that he will buy ice cream afterwards. He takes them to the little ice cream shop a few streets from the Institute, and Jon looks flustered and pleased when Martin, feeling bold, places the order for both of them.

“I can’t believe you remembered,” he says softly. His hand touches Martin’s as he takes his cup of rum and raisin, lingering for just an instant, and Martin feels his face go hot.

“Of course I did.”

They walk along the Embankment as they eat their ice cream. The sun is beginning to set, the street lights flickering on, casting bright shards across the surface of the river, and Martin realizes it’s been over three hours since they met in the park. It feels it’s been no time at all, talking easily, sharing little pieces of themselves back and forth. It feels like Martin could stay like this forever.

He stops to toss his empty ice cream cup in the bin, the flowers tucked into the crook of his arm, and when he turns back, Jon is looking at him oddly. The way he looks at a document that he can’t quite figure out, intent and curious.

“What?” he says.

“Could I kiss you?”

“Oh,” says Martin intelligently. “Yes, please?”

Jon huffs a surprised laugh, and then he takes a step closer, his hand pressing to Martin’s cheek. His eyes are dark and depthless in the twilight. His lips brush against Martin’s, dry and soft and still tasting of sweet rum flavor. When he pulls back, Martin tries to remember how to breathe, Jon’s palm still warm against his skin.

“Was that—”

“Yeah,” Martin says before Jon can even finish. “That was good.”

They get on the Tube together, since they’re in the same direction for a while. It’s busy, so they stand gripping the handrails, close together in the press of people. Martin holds his flowers against his chest, doing his best to protect them from jostling bodies. There are a lot of things Martin wants to say, things he wants to whisper in Jon’s ear or tell him while looking deep into his eyes, but this isn’t the right place, so he holds them against his chest as well.

The intercom scratchily announces the next station, and Jon clears his throat.

“Well, this is me,” he says. “I’ll...see you tomorrow?”

His voice is quiet and hopeful, as he starts to shuffle towards the door, and that warm feeling is filling up all the space behind Martin’s rib cage. He doesn’t want this to end yet.

“Hang on,” he says, as the train slows to a halt. He moves towards the exit as well, ignoring Jon’s startled glance, and when the doors slide open, he steps off onto the platform. “Coming?”

The doors shut behind them and the train glides away. They stand there for a few moments, while the other disembarking passengers disperse, and then Jon says:

“What are you doing?”

“I’d like to walk you home,” says Martin. “You’re not far from here, right?”

“But this isn’t your stop.”

Martin shrugs. “It’s not that much out of the way. And I want to. After you bought dinner, and brought me these,” he lifts his slightly battered flowers. “Maybe I get to do the cliché thing for this part of the date? If it’s okay with you?”

Jon huffs a breath, and the look he gives Martin is halfway between defensive and apologetic. Martin knows that look, the “this was nice, but…” look, and god, he can’t have been so wrong about all this, can he?

“I...this has been a—a lovely evening, Martin,” says Jon. “Truly. But I—I don’t want to give you the wrong impression, so I have to tell you now that I...don’t do the, ahh, the sexual aspects of a relationship. I’m sorry, I should have been upfront about this sooner—”

“I know that,” Martin says.

“Sorry?”

“I know, Jon. Or, well, not know, but there was some...office gossip?”

“Oh.”

“Sorry, I should have probably said something earlier. I, umm, I don’t either? Not much, at least. I mean I can, if it’s important to the person I’m with? I don’t mind sex. But I’d just as soon not. So, yeah.”

“Oh,” says Jon again. He looks stunned. Martin gives him what he hopes is an encouraging smile.

“I really do just want to walk you home, I promise.”

“R-right. I see.” Jon still looks a little stupefied, but relieved along with it, the tension in his jaw relaxing. “In that case...thank you, Martin. I’d like that.”

They walk the quiet suburban streets towards Jon’s flat, meeting no one but a startled looking fox that bolts into the bushes. They don’t talk for a while, but it’s a comfortable silence. At some point, Martin feels Jon’s hand brush against his, and Jon’s fingers tangle with his own. He looks across, and Jon is smiling shyly at him. That warm feeling inside his chest surges, fizzing up and over and spilling out as a laugh of pure joy.

“I can’t believe you thought I was planning to seduce you,” he says. “As if I’m anywhere near suave enough for that!”

“I happen to think you’re very charming,” says Jon with mock affront, frowning, while a smile twitches at the corners of his mouth. “I’m sure you could seduce someone if you put your mind to it.”

“I’ll keep that one in my back pocket, then, just in case I ever have to become an international man of mystery.”

“Good idea,” Jon says solemnly, twining his fingers further with Martin’s.

At last they reach a three storey house with a little patch of garden in the front, and buzzers at the door for the different flats.

“This is actually me,” says Jon. “Unless...you’d like to come in for a cup of tea?”

“Isn’t coffee the proper convention here?” Martin asks, and Jon laughs.

“Traditionally I don’t think the beverage is the point,” he says, “But if you fancy an actual cup of tea…?”

“That sounds lovely,” says Martin. It sounds more than lovely, if it lets him spend more time with Jon; it sounds like the best idea in the world.

Their hands are still clasped together as they walk to the front door, and Martin pauses, tugs on Jon’s hand to stop him too.

“All right?” Jon asks with a tiny frown.

“Just one more first date cliché I think we should respect,” he replies seriously. “The kiss on the doorstep.”

He leans in, and Jon moves to meet him, and it’s just as soft and heart pounding as their first kiss on the riverbank. Jon gives him a little smile when they part.

“You know, the kiss on the doorstep usually signifies the end of the date,” he says, unlocking the door. “But in this case, I think we can break the tradition.”

“Sounds good to me,” Martin laughs, and follows him inside for tea.

#the magnus archives #tma #aspecmartinweek #aspec martin week #jonmartin #my fic

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kaibacorpintern · 4 years

Note

yuugi and kaiba... platonic... maybe a lil angst like kaiba doesnt know how to have friends and yuugi just accepts him as he is and kaiba can be a kid for once.. for the minific prompt pls? :) thank u.. luv ur blog btw

just thought you should know that when i read this prompt i instantly turned into this and wrote almost 5,000 words. it’s a little angsty and about friendship, but it’s also about loneliness and food and depression, with a few jokes peppered in here and there. DSOD didn’t happen but atem is alive, because i say so. i want kaiba and yuugi to be friends so freakin’ bad.

long story short: i went nuts. thanks for the prompt!!

***

Every day, little by little, Kaiba looked greyer. The lines of his shoulders slouched. The hollows under his eyes deepened, like holes being dug in the dirt, on hands and knees; a slow, miserable burying. To hear him speak was worse. Yuugi heard his voice from thousands of miles away, like he was on a different continent, a different planet, and the light of every thought was crossing the staggering empty silence of space. It terrified Yuugi, to think of Kaiba as fading, that someone who raged with all the thrill and fury of a storm could slow down like this. But he was fading.

“Hey. Are you alright? You seem down lately,” Yuugi tried, on one of the rare mornings where he caught him alone in the elevator, on his way up to the game design department. With no one else around, he usually felt emboldened to drop the act: not an employee with his boss, maintaining proper deference, but someone who’d known Kaiba for a very long time, and knew him like few others did.

The glass-walled elevator whirred as it rose. Kaiba stood there with his arms crossed, impassive, his back to Domino. The city streets unfurled below them.

“The elevator’s going up, Yuugi,” he said, after a full seven seconds of silence. A weak dismissal, by his standards, made even weaker by a toneless delivery.

“Sure. But - ”

With a polite ding, the elevator opened onto the game design floor.

“You’re running late,” Kaiba said, nodding him pointedly out the door.

“Bro, I’m fifteen minutes early,” Yuugi said.

“Don’t fucking ‘bro’ me, ” Kaiba snarled, with all the sudden, twitching ferocity of a nervous dog. Yuugi smiled and slowly backed out of the elevator, his palms turned out, long enough to make his point: he'd come in peace. Kaiba frowned at him, bristling, until the elevator doors started to close. The last Yuugi saw of him, before they touched together, were a pair of blue eyes, their fiery energy winking out like a popped spark, falling shut with a sigh.

At his desk, Yuugi toyed with his phone for a good ten minutes, ignoring emails and his coworkers’ good mornings, his thumb hovering over Mokuba’s contact info as he rehearsed in his head. Hey, how’s Stanford? You enjoying your classes so far? Making friends? Of course you are. Great. Well, so, I’m calling because I’m worried about your brother -

A call like that would put Mokuba on a plane within an hour, honestly. But maybe Mokuba would want to know. Maybe he shouldn’t. Maybe if he left his first quarter of college and returned to Japan, just because his brother had a few bad nights or something, Kaiba would punt Yuugi off the top of the building.

Maybe Atem? The only person Kaiba ever “talked” to about anything, if pummeling each other with card game holograms could be called a conversation. Which they did.

YUUGI What’s eating Kaiba? Is he alright?

He stared at his phone a while longer until remembering it was the middle of the night in Egypt. He put his phone away, put Kaiba out of mind, and got to work.

***

Atem texted back mid-afternoon.

ATEM I don’t know. Go find out

YUUGI Okay but i’m not you lol he won’t tell me. even with a duel

ATEM GO

ATEM FIND

ATEM OUT

YUUGI OKAY I'LL DO MY BEST

ATEM And tell that stuck-up bastard to answer his fucking phone one of these days

Odd. Kaiba never ignored Atem.

YUUGI I’m on it

He finished work late, packed up his things, and headed downstairs to the lobby, moving quickly to catch his train. He had most of a mind to save the Kaiba question for later, go home, and flop face-down on his bed until he roused himself enough to pick at leftovers. The elevated metro station was awash in a crisp dusk light, the navy purple night descending on the day’s final line of gold. His train was coming in three minutes; the next on the same line in thirty-four. He'd just made it.

If he stood at the far end of the platform, craning his neck, he could see the long strip of windows at the top of the KaibaCorp tower. Dark. Kaiba had gone home early. Yuugi frowned, biting his lip, as his train arrived.

He let it go, jostled and swaying in the flood of people flowing in and out of the carriages. The next train took him far from home, flying with sleek electric ease through the glittering glassy black monoliths of the city, and into the leafy, overgrown estates beyond the far edge of town.

***

Kaiba's estate was a brisk walk from the last station on the line, along the side of a road without sidewalks, and through a tunnel of trees that laced their branches together over the road. By the time Yuugi got to the gates, his feet aching in his sneakers, night had fallen. The trees were thick with shadow and wind, whispering to each other in fairy tale voices. It was the kind of night that urged people into their homes, with the doors locked, away from the ancient things that lurked in the undergrowth, wild and forgotten and stronger for it. He was relieved to reach the gates, on the edge of the illumination around Kaiba's mansion, held in the center of the light like a toy castle in a snow globe.

The gatehouse was empty. A security camera peered down at him from the top of a wall, nestled in a thick swell of vines. Ignoring its glossy little eye, Yuugi studied the door in the wall beside the gates, pushing more vines aside to find the keypad. If he called ahead, the chances of Kaiba buzzing him in were next to nothing. They were next to nothing on a good day.

YUUGI do you know the key code for the door?

ATEM 445241474F4E#

ATEM that took me literally years to get

ATEM go around the back. he won’t open the front door

YUUGI you're the best <3

He tapped in the code, carefully. What if he got it wrong? Would a trapdoor open up below his feet? With his back to the quiet road, and the dense, rustling woods on the other side, he swallowed his laugh.

The door opened with a faint click. Yuugi slipped through and began the long walk up the drive to the mansion, sneakers crunching the gravel underfoot. On either side of the drive, the lawns were pristine, every petal of every flower and every leaf on every hedge perfectly in place, holding the poses nature’s hand had fixed them in with effortless ease. Somewhere across the grass, shrouded in the night, came the distant murmur of a fountain.

The mansion itself was an ugly, graceless brick of a building, so rigid and square in its design that its position in the center of this wooded estate seemed an oppressive intrusion. Per Atem’s instructions, Yuugi skirted the front, with its twin dragon statues and Roman columns and imposing front door, and went around to the back, padding silently through the grass. Like the top of the tower, the windows were dark. Every glance through the glass, checking for life, made him feel like he was looking into the bottom of a well, deep and cold and watery, a tomb for hopeless wishing.

At the back of the house was a large patio, with a view of the sprawling grounds, which rolled downwards in a gentle slope, all the way to a line of trees. There, the grounds gave themselves back to the wild. Even on a shivering night like this, it was easy to imagine what the patio was like in the full splendor of high summer, drenched in sunlight and everything shimmering in golden-white heat.

A thin light cast a hazy cloud onto the patio through a pair of sliding glass doors. Yuugi stopped, halfway across the patio, questioning himself for the nth time that night. And if he was overreacting? So what if Kaiba was in a mood? Kaiba was always in a fucking mood. Yuugi had no doubt Kaiba would thunder at him for a while over the arrogance, the audacity of his presumptions or something, and then throw him out by the scruff of the neck. Oh, god. The embarrassment burned in his face already.

Yuugi firmly shoved his own feelings aside. He was a gamer - a gambler - by nature, and he’d learned enough over the years to bet on his own instincts. He gamed it out, in his head, shuddering into the warmth of his jacket as the breeze rolled through him:

He checks on Kaiba, and everything is fine: he goes home feeling awkward and Kaiba avoids him at work for the next three weeks. Acceptable outcome.

He does not check on Kaiba, and everything is fine: he goes home, and the whole night gets written off as a weird, secret little adventure. Acceptable outcome.

He checks on Kaiba, and everything is not fine: unacceptable, but now someone knows. Acceptable outcome.

He does not check on Kaiba, and everything is not fine: Unacceptable outcome.

He stole towards the sliding glass doors. They led into a glossy modern kitchen, as pristine as the grounds, and full of clean, gleaming surfaces. It was completely free of clutter like mail, or keys, or coffee mugs, or any of the other odds and ends that usually piled up over the course of normal days. A bowl of flowers sat on a kitchen table in a breakfast nook, starting to wilt. At the end of the kitchen island was a bowl of fruit. A still-life painting split in two.

Sitting at the island, perched on a bar stool, was Kaiba, his head resting in his folded arms atop the counter. His face was mostly hidden in the crook of his elbow; through the limp tangle of his bangs, Yuugi saw his eyes were closed. His black leather satchel leaned against the leg of the bar stool. The rise of his back as he breathed was slow and subtle, the only thing that convinced Yuugi Kaiba had not turned to stone in his seat. Asleep?

No.

A small blue light rose up from Kaiba's phone, lying on the counter. One hand slowly unfolded, silenced the call, and refolded itself. A gesture that made less than a ripple across the still water of this tableau.

Awake.

Lifelessly, doing nothing. Not even staring into space, but retreating into the space behind his eyelids, a space Yuugi knew intimately well: shallow and lukewarm and wordless, a space for letting hours and days drift by, uncounted. It had been a long time since he’d visited - not since he’d solved the Puzzle - but it was a space he never wanted to revisit. It was a space that stayed with you for the rest of your life, once you’d been there, and yet a space more distant than the farthest star in the universe, beyond the boundaries of both light and love. A place of perfect solitude.

Quietly, carefully, Yuugi tried the handle of the sliding glass door and found it unlocked. He slid it open.

Kaiba startled, pulling himself upright as though yanked by a puppet string on his neck. He turned to Yuugi, still and alert, not quite comprehending. As he understood who stood there, the pieces clicking into place, his eyes hardened in his pallid face, speechless, furious.

“Before you say anything,” Yuugi said, as Kaiba opened his mouth, “I have a story. Let me tell you, and then you can kick me out.”

“This is my fucking house. I can kick you out whenever I damn well please,” Kaiba snapped.

“It’s more of a puzzle, actually. I don’t think you’ve ever solved this one,” Yuugi said.

Kaiba looked at him sideways, now more confused and suspicious than alarmed.

“And if I solve it?” he said, because ah, yes, of course, stakes. Nothing ever for the joy of it.

“Bragging rights.”

“If I don’t?”

“Nothing happens,” Yuugi said.

They stared at each other. Yuugi ventured a smile. Did he dare walk in? He was still standing on the threshold.

“Fine,” Kaiba said, a word more like a sigh. “Come in and tell me your stupid puzzle.”

***

Every house has its own particular smell, its character, its self-contained story about those who call it home. Yuugi took off his shoes, setting them beside the glass door, and frowned. Kaiba's smelled like clean linens, a touch of dust, cool air. A muted smell with no character. He didn't know what he expected. Something else, something thick and wet and heady, like oncoming thunder, or concrete after rain.

On this side of the glass doors, the kitchen was even more exquisite, temptingly so. He knew, from his lusty late-night Internet searches, that the knives in the wooden block alone cost more than several thousand dollars. Untouched! He refused to let them go to waste. Such things were more beautiful when they were held and used and loved, doing what they were made for. And despite the marbled silence, the thin white lighting, this was a house, not a museum. Yuugi dropped his backpack on the floor next to an empty bar stool and turned to Kaiba, who was sitting upright, hands atop his thighs, watching him.

“Uh - do you have anything to eat? I haven’t eaten since lunch,” he said, slinging his jacket over his backpack.

“No. Every night I just plug in and recharge,” Kaiba said dryly. “I believe that’s called a fridge. Those have human food.”

Yuugi bit his tongue, hiding his smile as he went around to the other side of the island. At least Kaiba was still capable of snark. He opened the massive fridge - sparse offerings, sparsely touched - and rooted around, not quite sure what he was looking for between the limp carrots and slabs of smoked salmon. Only the cheese drawer yielded interesting spoils, unspoiled and exotically European.

“The pantry?” he said, nodding at the door next to the fridge.

“Presumably.”

Yuugi found a loaf of sourdough bread on a shelf in the walk-in pantry - a fucking walk-in pantry! - and returned to the counter with his haul: the bread, the butter, a wedge of Gruyere, and a brick of Emmental. “I’m making a grilled cheese. You want one?”

“If it makes you happy,” Kaiba muttered.

“It does, yeah,” Yuugi said, unsheathing one of those glorious, mirror-polished knives from the wooden block. He rolled up his sleeves and attacked the cheeses with relish. “So - the puzzle goes like this. You’re fifteen years old. You’re small for your age, underweight, painfully shy. You get shoved around a lot at school. Before school, after school. Whenever, honestly. No one really sticks up for you, although you try to stick up for them, when you can, and no one really talks to you, because you live in your own little world. Your head’s always in the clouds, and you get really excited over a lot of things no one else really cares about.”

As he spoke, he unearthed a frying pan and set it on the gas stove, slicing off several pats of butter. As they melted, soft and yellow-white, he carved several slices off the loaf, shuddering with secretive pleasure at the fresh crunch of the crust.

“Next time, just bring me your high school diary,” Kaiba said.

Yuugi snorted, buttering the slices and laying them carefully into the pan, where they began to sizzle. He draped the slices of cheese on top. “So you can read everything I wrote about you? No thanks. Anyway. You have one friend, but she’s not always around - her family travels a lot for work. So here you are, a bullied, lonely little oddball, and one day someone gives you a gift. A puzzle.”

“A puzzle in a puzzle.”

“Right,” Yuugi said, pressing down on the slices of bread with a spatula. The butter crackled and spat; a thick, warm smell wafted through the kitchen. “And if you make a wish on the puzzle, it grants your wish when you solve it. So you make your wish, and you solve your puzzle. You know the rest.”

He turned back to Kaiba. “Now I’m here in your kitchen, making you a grilled cheese. So. What did I wish for?”

To his credit, Kaiba was taking it seriously, offering no snide comments about magic or wishing, leaning forward with his arms folded again on the counter. Yuugi let him study him, eyes narrowed and thoughtful, knowing he was running back through all eight years of their shared history, doing the math.

“Well, no one shoves you around any more,” Kaiba said. “Not even me, judging by the fact that I can’t even get you to leave my house. I should’ve known better than to try.”

“Ooh, a compliment. Thanks, I’ll treasure it forever,” Yuugi said, grinning, flipping the sandwiches. Melted cheese oozed from the sides. The bottom slices had toasted to a golden brown. His mouth watered. “Plates?”

“Up and to your left.”

Yuugi opened the cabinets and, standing on tiptoe, eased out two matte black stoneware plates. Fancy.

“You wished for strength,” Kaiba said.

Yuugi slid the grilled cheeses onto the plates and severed them in half with the spatula.

“Nope,” he said, leaning across the island counter to set the steaming grilled cheese in front of Kaiba. The semantic point that his friends and his strength were one and the same seemed irrelevant. He was speaking to Kaiba. He needed to speak in Kaiba’s language. “Strength wouldn’t have solved anything for me.”

“You just said you were getting shoved around - ”

“I wished for friends, Kaiba,” Yuugi said. “Yeah, I was tired of getting shoved around. But I was even more tired of being alone.”

“I - “ Kaiba cut himself off, pressing a sigh through his nose with a tight, pinched expression. Within seconds his face soured. “You make a wish on your magical little trinket, and you get just what you always wanted. How fucking fantastic for you - ”

“Don’t do the aggressive-aggressive thing, it’s not cute,” Yuugi said. “And don’t test me, either. You and I are way past that. Just look me in the face and tell me, honestly, you want me to leave.”

Kaiba turned that ferocious blue gaze on him, silent.

Yuugi waited, holding his gaze.

Thin, languid tendrils of steam rose from their melting grilled cheeses and folded away.

“Don’t tell me you think of me as one of your magic wish friends?” Kaiba said.

“There’s nothing magical about our friendship, no,” Yuugi said, and to his delight Kaiba snorted with amusement. “Now eat, before it gets cold.”

***

They ate, the evening quiet of the kitchen magnifying every fried, crunchy bite. Yuugi had hoisted himself onto the bar stool next to Kaiba, congratulating himself on a well-made grilled cheese. He would’ve made it work even without the expensive knives.

"Don't tell Mokuba," Kaiba said, dabbing at crumbs on his plate with a greasy scrap of bread, "or Atem."

"Don't tell them what?" Yuugi said.

"How you found me. On hour six of staring at a wall.”

"I won't," Yuugi said.

"They don't need to worry about me. I can take care of myself," Kaiba insisted.

"You can, but are you?" Yuugi said.

"Mmh," Kaiba murmured, resting his elbows on the counter and his chin atop his laced hands. “Don’t tell them that, either.”

His eyes rolled sideways, his gaze drifting around the kitchen, through the arched doorway, through the rest of the house, where all the lights were off. Yuugi slid off his stool and selected two pears from the fruit bowl, heavy with ripeness, rinsing them in the sink.

“Did... something happen? Did you get in a fight?” he ventured. “Atem says you’re not answering his calls.”

“No. Nothing like that.”

“Then what?”

The kitchen swelled with silence.

"They left," Kaiba said finally, as Yuugi considered how to cut the pears. A basic wedge cut was too childish. "And I told them to go, enjoy it, make the most of it. They have their own lives to live. Mokuba must've asked me a thousand times if I'd be fine without him if he went to California, and I said yes, go, because I don't need him around. I'm fine. And there's no point in getting angry with someone for leaving if you don't need them in the first place."

The effort must've been massive, Yuugi realized, slicing into the pears, to keep the anger at bay. To dig into the wound and wrench the thing out whole, raw and throbbing, without duels or rubbled islands, and without the help of the people who loved him the most. No wonder he looked so exhausted, so limp; no wonder he was again sinking towards the counter, arms folding, his head dropping like there was a hand on the back of his neck, guiding him down with animal docility.

“How long have you been feeling like this?” Yuugi said.

“What the hell do you know about it?” Kaiba said, semi-muffled by his elbow.

“It feels like there’s this dark little pit in yourself that you can’t stop digging,” Yuugi said, “and when it’s deep enough, you’re gonna curl up and bury yourself at the bottom and sleep for a year. Right?”

Kaiba said nothing, heaving another sigh.

“Sit up. Eat this.” Yuugi thunked a plate of pear in front of Kaiba, each slice wafer-thin, almost translucent, dripping with light. Kaiba dutifully pulled himself up and removed several slices of pear, with jenga-like precision, careful not to damage Yuugi’s artful pinwheeling. “Well?”

“I always feel like this,” Kaiba said, a startling confession, all the more terrifying for the blithe, dismissive tone with which he confessed it. “So what if it’s a little worse than normal? I’ll find my way out of it.”

Yuugi leaned over the counter, hands clasped atop it, business-like.

“I have no doubt in your ability to get out of this,” he said. “But I don’t think you should do it alone. See, I don’t want you to leave, either.”

“I’m not going anywhere.”

“Yeah?” Yuugi said. “I challenge you to a duel. My deck’s in my backpack. I have some new strategies I’m dying to test, and you’re the only one who makes me really fight for it. How about it? Wanna duel?”

Kaiba exhaled, resting his elbow on the counter, his cheek against the back of his hand. He plucked out another pear slice, not eating it; instead just letting it dangle from his fingertips, watching a tiny pearl of water roll off the edge and break apart on the plate with monumental indifference.

Watching him, Yuugi allowed himself a brief, private moment of grief, for Kaiba, knowing he wouldn’t want it, and he’d be insulted if he knew. To have your heart broken by what you love was one thing; to swing from love to hate was another; but to stand still and feel your love go, leaving nothing in the hollow it left behind, was the worst.

With a light flick, Kaiba released the slice of pear, his gaze drifting again.

“No. I’m tired of fighting,” he said sullenly, so dull a sound that Yuugi sucked in a breath, two dueling thoughts colliding with concussive impact in his chest. Good, stop fighting, why don’t you finally get some rest, and the urge to grab him by the shoulders and shake him and shout no! keep fighting! I know you’re in there!

Kaiba lifted his head, looking at Yuugi with an air of steeling himself. “Okay. What... what do you want from me?”

Yuugi almost laughed, but caught himself. No good things came from laughing in Kaiba’s face.

“Other way around,” he said, drawing a circle in the air with his finger. “This is about what you want from me. Whatever you need. Whatever you want.”

Kaiba frowned, thinking.

“Do you seriously believe the magic of the Millennium Puzzle helped you make friends?” he said.

"Um. Well, it was more like a domino effect, you know? A chaos theory, butterfly hurricane kind of thing - “

“Magic had nothing to do with it. It was all you,” Kaiba said, with more heat and passion than he’d shown in weeks. “But you have to understand I’ll never be your ‘bro’ - ” couching the word in air quotes, a disdainful pair of twin finger twitches - “and I’m not one of your little pals, like Jounouchi, or whatever. That’s not who I am. That’s not how I do it.”

“I know,” Yuugi said. “Listen - ”

“I don’t - ” Kaiba huffed and scowled at the counter, at his blurred, misty reflection. “I prefer to handle things on my own. I always have. I don’t - know how - ”

“Kaiba.”

Kaiba looked up, shoulders stiffening, his face tight and stricken.

“I know,” Yuugi said. He let that hang between them until Kaiba’s shoulders had eased out of their anxious coils. “Don’t worry. I’m not adding you to the group chat or anything. I don’t expect anything from you except the occasional bitchy comment, and maybe a good, boisterous laugh, from way deep down in your chest, like when you draw Blue-eyes in a duel. You know, the ‘I got you now, fucker’ laugh.”

Kaiba laughed - a laugh at half-power, lacking his usual trumpet blare of triumph, but a laugh nonetheless. “You are an oddball.”

“Birds of a feather,” Yuugi said smugly, and checked his phone. It was getting late. “Okay. I think I’ve bothered you enough for the night - ”

“You’re not bothering me. Are you taking the train back into the city?”

“Yeah.”

“What line?”

“Red line,” Yuugi said, and was struck by an idea. "Why? Somewhere you wanna go?"

"I'm in the mood to get out of the house for a while," Kaiba said. "It's too fucking quiet in here without Mokuba."

Yuugi fixed him with a look. "Yeah, so one of the interns was telling me about a new arcade that just opened off the Ishibashi station. I was gonna go after work with the guys to check it out some time, but..."

He didn't even need to finish the thought. Despite his best effort to hide it, something hopeful had bloomed across Kaiba's face, rich and warm. It made Yuugi ache to see that look, and to wonder what he would've wished for at fifteen, freshly cast from the forge and still hard and brittle and white-hot with rage, burning everyone who touched him.

"Get your coat, let's go," Yuugi said, and Kaiba almost sprang off his bar stool. "Wait - finish the pear. I cut it fancy for you and everything."

Kaiba rapidly ate the pear. "The grilled cheese was excellent, by the way."

"Really?"

"Yes. If you come back and make me another, I'll make all the bitchy comments you want."

Yuugi laughed. "Deal."

***

ATEM did you talk to him?

Yuugi leaned against the polished wooden edge of the pool table, his thoughts whirling in his head lazy and kaleidoscopic. He was halfway through his third beer. They'd gone through air hockey. The racing games. The shooting games. Foosball. Kaiba had spent fifteen minutes at the claw machine, winning a plush Kuriboh for a middle schooler and pressing it into her hands with a firm explanation of how the machines were rigged against her.

Then they'd found the pool tables, in a dim little corner, the green felts shining like tropical islands in a shadowy red-brown sea under the hanging lights. Yuugi was still smarting from the whipping, which Kaiba had delivered with almost careless ease, drink in hand.

"Yuugi. Look," he said, leaning over the table, aiming the pool cue at some bizarre constellation of pool balls, his long shadow falling across the felt.

"Give me a sec," Yuugi said, and swiftly rescued Kaiba's sweating old-fashioned from the edge of the table.

YUUGI ya. now he's showing off

YUUGI trick shots at the pool table

ATEM so he's fine?

"You're not looking," Kaiba said, lifting his head. "Look."

"I'm looking," Yuugi said.

The cue moved smoothly between Kaiba's fingertips as he aligned his shot - sleek, frictionless, silent - with a quick, sharp thrust he sent the pool balls smashing into each other, cracking like lightning across the table and vanishing into the pockets. The last ball rolled towards the last pocket with slow, melodramatic flair, teetering over the lip, like it knew exactly who had struck it, and what kind of show it needed to put on.

It dropped in, clattering into its fellows at the bottom of the pocket.

Kaiba laughed, triumphant, glowing with youthful glory, catching the victory by his hip with a yank of his fist.

YUUGI he will be

"Did you see?" Kaiba said, turning to Yuugi. The lines under his eyes were still there; the seams that held him together, pulling apart. Those would take some time to repair.

But for the moment he was radiating with energy, beaming, star-like in the dim electric gloom of the arcade. Not hidden in the blackness of space, but brighter for it. Despite it.

"I saw," Yuugi said.

#shark-platinum #fanfiction #rivalshipping #it's not romantic but it gets the tag because *ben wyatt voice* its about the dynamic

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thewidowsghost · 3 years

Text

The Unknown Muggleworn - Chapter 3

3rd Person POV

The next month went by very quickly. (Y/n) and Hermione had spent a lot of time studying their spell books.

(Y/n) took a lot of time trying to learn defensive spells and as well as some simple ones like Reparo, the repairing spell, Alohomora, the unlocking spell, and Lumos, the wand lighting spell, and Wingardium Leviosa, the levitating spell.

The night before the journey to Hogwarts, Hermione and (Y/n) pack up their trunks and carry them down by the front door.

The next morning, Hermione, (Y/n), and Mr. and Mrs. Granger get into the car and make their way to King's Cross Station.

Once they get there, Mr. Granger and (Y/n) pull the heavy trunks onto two trollies, Marvel's cat carrier sitting on top of (Y/n)'s trunk.

"So, if I'm correct, we need to run between Platforms Nine and Ten," (Y/n) says once they reach the two platforms.

"Or we could ask someone," Hermione suggests.

The four look around to see a plump woman walking by with four boys and a young girl, all with flaming red hair, and the four boys are pushing trollies with trunks on it.

"Come on," (Y/n) says, stepping forward towards the family.

"Hello," (Y/n) says, rather shyly, the others though.

The plump woman turns to the group. She studies (Y/n) thoughtfully, catching sight of her scar - (Y/n)'s hair had been pulled into a low ponytail.

"Hello dears, need to get onto the Platform?" the woman asks, continuing to watch (Y/n) thoughtfully.

"Yes ma'am," Hermione answers and the plump woman's gaze wonders to her.

"All you have to do is run into the wall between Platforms Nine and Ten," the women says and (Y/n) shoots a triumphant look at Hermione.

"Ha, I was right!" (Y/n) says, nudging her sister affectionately. Hermione rolls her eyes as the plump women laughs.

We start towards the platform, Mr. and Mrs. Granger starting up a conversation with the plump woman.

(Y/n) jumps slightly as two voices, almost identical, speak up from behind her, "Hello -"

"We're Fred -"

"And George -"

"Weasley," they finish in unison.

(Y/n) and Hermione turn at the same time to study two identical boys, about two years older than the two.

"Hello, I'm (Y/n) (L/n)-Granger, and this is my sister, Hermione Granger," (Y/n) says.

"Twins?" Hermione guesses and the two red haired boys nod.

"Yes -" Fred, (Y/n) thinks at least, begins.

"Of course we are," the other twin, (Y/n) believes was George, finishes.

The group gets to the barrier and (Y/n) catches sight of the black haired boy from Diagon Alley.

(Y/n), Hermione, and Mr. and Mrs. Granger pass through the barrier.

(Y/n) takes in the Platform quizzically.

A scarlet steam engine is waiting next to a platform packed with people. A sigh overhead says, Hogwarts Express, Eleven o'clock.

"Wow!" Hermione breathes, her brown eyes full of wonder. There were so many people on the Platform that (Y/n) nor Hermione could count them all, as well as cats and owls of so may colors it was hard to believe so many existed.

3rd Person POV – With Harry

According to the large clock over the arrivals board, Harry had ten minutes left to get on the train to Hogwarts and he had no idea how to do it; he was stranded in the middle of a station with a trunk he could hardly lift, a pocket full of wizard money, and a large owl.

Hagrid must have forgotten to tell him something you had to do, like tapping the third brick on the left to get into Diagon Alley. He wondered if he should get out his wand and start tapping the ticket inspector's stand between platforms nine and ten.

At that moment a group of people were just behind him and he caught a few words of what they were saying.

"— packed with Muggles, of course —"

Harry swung round. The speaker was a plump woman who was talking to four boys, all with flaming red hair. Each of them was pushing a trunk like Harry's in front of him — and they had an owl.

Heart hammering, Harry pushed his cart after them. They stopped and so did he, just near enough to hear what they were saying.

Now, what's the platform number?" said the boys' mother.

"Nine and three-quarters!" piped a small girl, also red-headed, who was holding her hand, "Mom, can't I go . . ."

"You're not old enough, Ginny, now be quiet. All right, Percy, you go first."

What looked like the oldest boy marched toward Platforms Nine and Ten. Harry watched, careful not to blink in case he missed it — but just as the boy reached the dividing barrier between the two Platforms, a large crowd of tourists came swarming in front of him and by the time the last backpack had cleared away, the boy had vanished.

"Fred, you next," the plump woman said.

"I'm not Fred, I'm George," said the boy. "Honestly, woman, you call yourself our mother? Can't you tell I'm George?"

"Sorry, George, dear."

"Only joking, I am Fred," said the boy, and off he went. His twin called after him to hurry up, and he must have done so, because a second later, he had gone — but how had he done it?

Now the third brother was walking briskly toward the barrier — he was almost there — and then, quite suddenly, he wasn't anywhere.

There was nothing else for it.

"Excuse me," Harry said to the plump woman.

"Hello, dear," she said. "First time at Hogwarts? Ron's new, too."

She pointed at the last and youngest of her sons. He was tall, thin, and gangling, with freckles, big hands and feet, and a long nose. "Yes," said Harry. "The thing is — the thing is, I don't know how to —"

"How to get onto the platform?" she said kindly, and Harry nodded.

"Not to worry," she said. "All you have to do is walk straight at the barrier between platforms nine and ten. Don't stop and don't be scared you'll crash into it, that's very important. Best do it at a bit of a run if you're nervous. Go on, go now before Ron."

"Er — okay," said Harry.

He pushed his trolley around and stared at the barrier. It looked very solid.

He started to walk toward it. People jostled him on their way to Platforms Nine and Ten. Harry walked more quickly. He was going to smash right into that barrier and then he'd be in trouble — leaning forward on his cart, he broke into a heavy run — the barrier was coming nearer and nearer — he wouldn't be able to stop — the cart was out of control — he was a foot away — he closed his eyes ready for the crash —

It didn't come . . . he kept on running . . . he opened his eyes.

A scarlet steam engine was waiting next to a platform packed with people. A sign overhead said Hogwarts Express, eleven o'clock. Harry looked behind him and saw a wrought-iron archway where the barrier had been, with the words Platform Nine and Three-Quarters on it. He had done it.

Smoke from the engine drifted over the heads of the chattering crowd, while cats of every color wound here and there between their legs. Owls hooted to one another in a disgruntled sort of way over the babble and the scraping of heavy trunks.

The first few carriages were already packed with students, some hanging out of the window to talk to their families, some fighting over seats. Harry pushed his cart off down the platform in search of an empty seat. He passed a round-faced boy who was saying, "Gran, I've lost my toad again." "Oh, Neville," he heard the old woman sigh.

A boy with dreadlocks was surrounded by a small crowd.

"Give us a look, Lee, go on." The boy lifted the lid of a box in his arms, and the people around him shrieked and yelled as something inside poked out a long, hairy leg.

Harry pressed on through the crowd until he found an empty compartment near the end of the train. He put Hedwig inside first and then started to shove and heave his trunk toward the traindoor. He tried to lift it up the steps but could hardly raise one end and twice he dropped it painfully on his foot.

"Want a hand?" It was one of the red-haired twins he'd followed through the barrier.

"Yes, please," Harry panted.

"Oy, Fred! C'mere and help!"

With the twins' help, Harry's trunk was at last tucked away in a corner of the compartment.

Thanks," said Harry, pushing his sweaty hair out of his eyes.

"What's that?" said one of the twins suddenly, pointing at Harry's lightning scar.

"Blimey," said the other twin. "Are you — ?"

"He is," said the first twin. "Aren't you?" he added to Harry.

"What?" said Harry.

"Harry Potter," chorused the twins.

"Oh, him," said Harry. "I mean, yes, I am."

The two boys gawked at him, and Harry felt himself turning red. Then, to his relief, a voice came floating in through the train's open door.

"Fred? George? Are you there?"

"Coming, Mom."

With a last look at Harry, the twins hopped off the train.

Harry sat down next to the window where, half hidden, he could watch the red-haired family on the platform and hear what they were saying. Their mother had just taken out her handkerchief.

Harry had also spotted the two girls from Madam Malkin's Robe Shop.

He could see the mother and father of the two girls, but there was something off about the taller one.

She doesn't seem to belong with them, Harry thinks. Not in a bad way, but she looks nothing like the brown haired girl or the mother and father.

Harry is caught off guard as he overhears the conversation-taking place between the red haired family.

"Hey, Mom, guess what? Guess who we just met on the train?" One of the red-haired twins says.

Harry leaned back quickly so they couldn't see him looking.

"You know that black-haired boy who was near us in the station? Know who he is?"

"Who?"

"Harry Potter!"

Harry heard the little girl's voice. "Oh, Mom, can I go on the train and see him, Mom, oh please. . . ."

"You've already seen him, Ginny, and the poor boy isn't something you goggle at in a zoo. Is he really, Fred? How do you know?" The mother asks, turning to Fred.

"Asked him. Saw his scar. It's really there — like lightning."

"Poor dear — no wonder he was alone, I wondered. He was ever so polite when he asked how to get onto the platform."

"Never mind that, do you think he remembers what You-Know-Who looks like?" One of the twins asks.

Their mother suddenly became very stern.

"I forbid you to ask him, Fred. No, don't you dare. As though he needs reminding of that on his first day at school."

"All right, keep your hair on."

A whistle sounded.

Hurry up!" their mother said, and the three boys clambered onto the train. They leaned out of the window for her to kiss them good-bye, and their younger sister began to cry.

"Don't, Ginny, we'll send you loads of owls." Fred says.

"We'll send you a Hogwarts toilet seat." George adds. "George!"

"Only joking, Mom."

The train began to move. Harry saw the boys' mother waving and their sister, half laughing, half crying, running to keep up with the train until it gathered too much speed, then she fell back and waved.

Harry watched the girl and her mother disappear as the train rounded the corner. Houses flashed past the window. Harry felt a great leap of excitement. He didn't know what he was going to — but it had to be better than what he was leaving behind.

(Y/n)'s POV

Hermione and I rush to haul our things onto the train.

We find a compartment but there was someone already sitting there.

I slide the door open, "Mind if we sit here?"

"I don't mind," the round faced boy says. "I'm Neville," he says.

"(Y/n)," I hold out my hand and the boy shakes it. "This is my sister Hermione."

"It's nice to meet the two of you," Neville says, then he continues, "Would you mind helping me find my toad?"

"We'll help look," I answer after exchanging a nod with Hermione.

Time Skip – Still (Y/N)'s POV

We all meet back up in the compartment we started in.

"Did anyone find Trevor?" Neville asks and we all shake our heads reluctantly, not wanting to give the poor boy any bad news. Neville groans.

"What about we all look together?" I suggest, and the others nod.

"Just give me a moment," I say, digging through my trunk, looking for my robes.

I find them, then dart out of the compartment to the bathroom, changing quickly, returning to the compartment.

"Okay, off to find Trevor," Hermione says, a twinkle of amusement evident in her eyes.

All three of us walk down the passages asking everyone if they had seen a toad anywhere.

We reach a compartment where Harry and one of the red-haired boys that we had walked through the station with.

Hermione slides the compartment door open, and we all step in.

3rd Person POV – Harry's Perspective

Ron raises his wand just when the compartment door slides open again. The toadless boy was back, but this time he had a girl with him, and the two girls from Diagon Alley. The two of the girls were already wearing their new Hogwarts robes.

"Has anyone seen a toad? Neville's lost one," the shorter girl says. She had a bossy sort of voice, lots of bushy brown hair, and rather large front teeth.

"We've already told him we haven't seen it," said Ron, but the girl wasn't listening, she was looking at the wand in his hand.

"Oh, are you doing magic? Let's see it, then."

She sits down. Ron looks taken aback, but the tall girl didn't, her green gaze sparkling with amusement.

"Er — all right." Ron clears his throat. "Sunshine, daisies, butter mellow, Turn this stupid, fat rat yellow."

He waves his wand, but nothing happens. Scabbers stays gray and fast asleep.

"Are you sure that's a real spell?" says the girl. "Well, it's not very good, is it? We've tried a few simple spells just for practice and it's all worked for me. Nobody in our family's magic at all, it was ever such a surprise when we got our letters, but we were ever so pleased, of course, I mean, it's the very best school of witchcraft there is, we heard — We've learned all our course books by heart, of course, I just hope it will be enough — I'm Hermione Granger, by the way, who are you?" She says all this very fast.

Harry looks at Ron, and is relieved to see by his stunned face that he hadn't learned all the course books by heart either, but the other girl looks at Hermione, nodding in agreement, clearly meaning that the two of them had learned all the course books by heart.

"I'm Ron Weasley," Ron mutters.

"Harry Potter," Harry says.

"Are you really?" asks Hermione. "I know all about you, of course — I got a few extra books for background reading, and you're in Modern Magical History and The Rise and Fall of the Dark Arts and Great Wizarding Events of the Twentieth Century."

"Am I?" asks Harry, feeling dazed.

"Goodness, didn't you know. I've found out everything I could if it was me," says Hermione. "Do either of you know what House you'll be in? I've been asking around, and I hope I'm in Gryffindor, it sounds by far the best. I did hear though that Dumbledore himself was in it too, but I suppose Ravenclaw wouldn't be too bad. . . Anyway, we'd better go look for Neville's toad. You two had better change, you know, I expect we'll be there soon."

Hermione leaves, taking Neville with her leaving the other girl behind, a glint in her green eyes.

"Sorry about her," the (H/c) haired girls says. "My sister's just excited about going to Hogwarts. I mean, if you couldn't tell. I'm (Y/n) (L/n)-Granger."

"Are you really?" Ron asks (Y/n) curiously. "Do you have a scar too?" he then asks.

(Y/n) pulls her hair back, exposing an hourglass shaped scar on the left side of her neck.

"Why are your glasses broken?" (Y/n) abruptly changes the subject, turning to look at Harry.

"Cousin . . ." Harry explains and (Y/n) walks over to him, pulling out her wand.

"Let me try something," (Y/n) says, pointing her wand in his face, his eyes crossing slightly. "Reparo!" she says, and the glasses mend themselves. Harry takes them off, looking in wonderment between his glasses, Ron, and (Y/n).

"That's better, isn't it?" (Y/n) asks, laughing slightly.

"Uh, yeah, thanks, (Y/n)," Harry says.

"Well, I'd better go find my sister," (Y/n) says, walking out of the compartment, closing the compartment door on the way out.

Time Skip - (Y/n)'s POV

A couple of hours after meeting Harry and Ron in their compartment, we arrived at Hogwarts.

A voice echoed through the train, "We will be reaching Hogwarts in five minutes' time. Please leave your luggage on the train; it will be taken to the school separately."

The train slows down, and finally stops. People push their way toward the door and out on to a tiny, dark platform. A lamp came bobbing over the heads of the students and a loud voice calls, "Firs' years? Firs' years over here! All right there , Harry?" It must have been Hagrid, the man who was with Harry in Diagon Alley.

"C'mon, follow me – any more firs' years? Mind yer step, now! Firs' years follow me!" Hagrid says.

All of us slipping and stumbling, we follow Hagrid down what seems to be a steep, narrow path. It was so dark that I thought there must be thick trees here. Nobody spoke much, the only one making any noise was Neville, we still hadn't been able to find his toad.

"Yeh'll get yer firs' sight o' Hogwarts in a sec," Hagrid calls over his shoulder, "jus' round this bend here."

There was a loud, "Oooooh!" I didn't realize that one came from my mouth as well.

A narrow path opens suddenly onto the edge of a great black lake. Perched atop a high mountain on the other side, its windows sparkling brightly in the starry sky was a vast castle with many turrets and towers.

"No more'n four to a boat!" Hagrid calls, pointing to a fleet of boats sitting in the water by the shore.

Hermione and I follow Harry and Ron into a boat.

"Everyone in?" Hagrid shouts, who has a boat to himself. "Right then – FORWARD!"

Then the fleet of little boats moves off all at once, gliding across the lake, which was as smooth as glass. No one spoke as the little fleet of boats carries us through a curtain of ivy that hides a wide opening in the cliff face. We're carried along a dark tunnel, which seems to be taking us right underneath the castle, until we reach a kind of underground harbor, where we all clamber out onto rocks and pebbles.

"Oy, you there! Is this your toad?" Hagrid asks, who was checking the boats as all of us climb out of them.

"Trevor!" cries Neville blissfully, holding out his hands.

We all clamber up a passageway in the rock after Hagrid's lamp, coming out at last onto smooth, damp grass right in the shadow of the castle.

We all walk up a fight of stone steps and crowd around the huge oak front door.

"Neville, still got Trevor?" I ask, my (H/l), (H/c) hair flying back over my shoulders as the door opens.

3rd Person POV

The door swings open at once. A tall, black-haired witch in emerald-green robes stood there. (Y/n) instantly recognizes the woman and nudges the Hermione, muttering, "Professor McGonagall. "

The brunette nods in acknowledgement.

"The firs' years, Professor McGonagall," says Hagrid.

"Thank you, Hagrid. I will take them from here." Professor McGonagall says.

Professor McGonagall opens the door wider. The entrance hall was so big, Harry thinks, you could fit the whole of the Dursley's house in it. The stone walls were lit with flaming torches like the ones at Gringotts, the ceiling was too high to make out, and a magnificent marble staircase facing them led to the upper floors.

The new students follow Professor McGonagall across the flagged stone floor. Harry hears the drone of hundreds of voices from a doorway to the right – the rest of the school must already be here – but Professor McGonagall shows the first years into the small, empty chamber off of the hall. The students crowd in, standing rather closer together than they normally would have, peering about nervously.

"Welcome to Hogwarts," Professor McGonagall says. "The start-of-term banquet will begin shortly, but before you take your seats in the Great Hall, you will be sorted into your Houses. The Sorting is a very important ceremony because, while you ae here, your House will be something like your family within Hogwarts. You will have classes with the rest of your House, sleep in your House dormitory, and spend free time in your House common room."

"The four Houses are called Gryffindor, Hufflepuff, Ravenclaw, and Slytherin." Professor McGonagall says. "Each House has its own noble history and each has produced outstanding witches and wizards. While you are at Hogwarts, your triumphs will earn your House points. At the end of the year, the House with the most points is awarded the House cup, a great honor. I hope each of you will be a credit to whichever House becomes yours."

"The Sorting Ceremony will take place in a few minutes in front of the rest of the school," (Y/n) and Hermione's gazes all meet at Professor McGonagall's words. "I suggest you all smarten yourselves up as much as you can while you are waiting." Professor McGonagall's eyes linger for a moment on Neville's cloak, which was fastened under his left ear, and on Ron's smudged nose.

(Y/n) looks over and sees Harry nervously trying to flatten his hair.

"I shall return when we are ready for you," Professor McGonagall tells the nervous first years, "Please wait quietly."

She leaves the chamber, and Harry swallows.

"How exactly do they sort us into Houses?" Harry asks Ron.

"Some sort of test, I think. Fred said it hurts a lot, but I think he was joking." Ron answers, and Harry's heart gives a horrible jolt.

A test? In front of the while school? But Harry didn't know any magic yet, what on earth would he have to do? He hadn't expected something like this the moment he arrived. He looks around anxiously and saw that everyone else looks terrified, too, except (Y/n), who seemed to be holding an a face of calm on her face for the benefit of everyone else. No one was talking much except for Hermione Granger, and (Y/n) (L/n)-Granger, who were whispering very fast to each other all the spells they had learned and wondering which ones they might need. Harry is trying really hard not to listen to them. He had never been more nervous, never, not even when he'd had to take a school report home to the Dursleys saying that he'd somehow turned his teacher's wig blue. Harry and (Y/n) kept their eyes on the door. Any second now, Harry thinks, Professor McGonagall would come back and lead Harry to his doom.

Then something happened that made Harry jump about a foot in the air – several people behind him scream.

"What the -?"

Harry gasps, and so did the people around him. About twenty ghosts had just streamed thought the back wall. Pearly-white and slightly transparent, they glided across the room talking to one another and hardly glancing at the first years. The ghost seemed to be arguing. What looks like to be a fat little monk says, "Forgive and forget, I say, we ought to five him a second chance –"

"My dear Friar, haven't we given Peeves all the chances he deserves? He gives us all a bad name and you know, he's not really even a ghost – I say, what are you all doing here?"

A ghost wearing a ruff and tights seems to have noticed the first years.

(Y/n) raises her hand nervously, and the ghost in the ruff turns to her.

"Yes?" He asks.

"We're new students, we're about to be sorted," She says, shaking a little.

A few people nod in agreement.

"Hope to see you in Hufflepuff!" says the Friar. "My old House, you know."

"Move along now," a sharp voice says. "The Sorting Ceremony's about to start."

Professor McGonagall had returned to the hall, and one by one, the ghosts float away through the opposite wall.

"Now, form a line," Professor McGonagall tells the first years, "and follow me."

(Y/n) felling nervous, falls in line behind Ron, Hermione behind her. Professor McGonagall leads the first years out of the chamber, back across the hall, and through a pair of double doors into the Great Hall.

(Y/n) had never imagined such an amazing thing could exist. Thousands and thousands of candles that were floating in midair over four long tables, Probably the House tables, (Y/n) thinks, where the older students were sitting, light the Great Hall. On the tops of the tables, there were glittering golden plates and goblets. At the top of the hall was another long table where the teachers were sitting. Professor McGonagall leads the first years towards the table, so that they come to a halt in a line facing the other students. Hundreds of faces stare back at them like pale lanterns in the flickering candlelight, and dotted among the students, the ghost shone a misty silver. Mainly to avoid all the staring eyes, Harry looks upwards and sees a velvety black ceiling dotted with stars. Harry hears Hermione whisper, "It's bewitched to look like the sky outside. I read about it in –"

"Hogwarts, A History?" (Y/n) asks her sister with a smile.

It was hard to believe there was a ceiling there at all, Harry thinks, and that the Great hall didn't simply open on to the heavens.

Harry quickly looks down again as Professor McGonagall silently places a four-legged stool in front of the first years. On top of the stool, she puts a pointed wizard's hat. The hat was so patched and frayed, and extremely dirty, Aunt Petunia wouldn't have let it in the house, Harry thinks.

Harry think wildly, Maybe they had to try and get a rabbit out of it, It seems the soft of thing. (Y/n) then notices that everyone is staring at the hat, and she looks towards it too. For a few moments, there was complete silence, then the hat twitches, a rip near the brim opens wide like a mouth – and the hat begins to sing:

"Oh, you may not think I'm pretty, But don't judge on what you see, I'll eat myself if you can find A smarter hat than me. You can keep your bowlers black, Your top hats sleek and tall, For I'm the Hogwarts Sorting Hat And I can cap them all. There's nothing hidden in your head The Sorting Hat can't see, So try me on and I will tell you Where you ought to be. You might belong in Gryffindor, Where dwell the brave at heart, Their daring, nerve, and chivalry Set Gryffindors apart; You might belong in Hufflepuff, Where they are just and loyal, Those patient Hufflepuffs are true And unafraid of toil; Or yet in wise old Ravenclaw, If you've a ready mind, Where those of wit and learning, Will always find their kind; Or perhaps in Slytherin You'll make your real friends, Those cunning folk use any means To achieve their ends. So put me on! Don't be afraid ! And don't get in a flap! You're in safe hands (though I have none) For I'm a Thinking Cap!"

The whole hall bursts into applause as the hat finishes its song. It bows to each of the four tables and then becomes quote still again.

"So we've just got to try on the hat!" Ron whispers to Harry. "I'll kill Fred, he was going on about wrestling a troll."

Harry smiles weakly. Yes, trying on the hat was a lot better than having to do a spell, but Harry wishes they could have tried it on without everyone watching. The hat seems to be asking rather a lot; Harry didn't feel brace or quick-witted or any of it at the moment. If only the had had mentions a House for people who felt a bit queasy, that would have been the one for him.

Professor McGonagall now steps forward holding a long roll of parchment.

"Abbott, Hannah!" Professor McGonagall calls the first name.

A pink-faced girl with blonde pigtails stumbles out of line, puts on the hat, but before the hat falls over her eyes, (Y/n) shoots her a smile, and Hannah smiles thankfully back. The hat falls over Hannah's eyes, and after a moment's pause –

"HUFFLEPUFF!" shouts the hat.

The table on the right cheers and claps as Hannah goes to sit down at the Hufflepuff table. (Y/n) sees ghost of the Fat Friar waving merrily at her.

"Bones, Susan!"

"HUFFLEPUFF!" shouts the hat again, and Susan moves to sit next to Hannah.

"Boot, Terry!"

"RAVENCLAW!" shouts the hat and the table second from the left claps this time; several Ravenclaws stand up to shake hands with Terry as he joins them.

"Brocklehurst, Mandy" went to Ravenclaw too, but "Brown, Lavender" becomes the first Gryffindor, and the table on the far left exploded with cheers; Harry could wee Ron's twin brothers catcalling.

"Bulstrode, Millicent," then becomes a Slytherin. Perhaps it was Harry's imagination, after all he'd heard about Slytherin, but he thought they look like an unpleasant lot.

Harry definitely looks sick, (Y/n) thinks. Harry remembered being picked for teams during gym at his old school. Harry had always been last to be chosen, not because he was no good, but because no one wanted Dudley to think they liked him.

"Finch – Fletchley, Justin!"

"HUFFLEPUFF!"

Sometimes, (Y/n) noticed, the hat shouted out the House at once, but at others it took a while to decide. "Finnigan, Seamus," the sandy-haired boy that was standing next to harry in line, sat on the stool for almost a whole minute before the hat declared him a Gryffindor.

"Granger, Hermione!"

(Y/n) smiles warmly at her sister as she runs to the stool and jams the hat eagerly onto her head.

"GRYFFINDOR!" shouts the hat, and Ron groans.

A horrible thought strikes Harry, as horrible thoughts always do when you're very nervous. What if he wasn't chosen at all? What if he just sat there with the hat over his eyes for ages, until Professor McGonagall jerked it off his head and said there had obviously been a mistake and he'd better get back on the train?

When Neville Longbottom, the boy who kept losing his toad, was called, he fell over on his way to the stool. The hat took a long time to decide with Neville. When it finally shouted, "GRYFFINDOR," Neville ran off still wearing it, and had to jog back amid gales of laughter to give it to "MacDougal, Morag."

Malfoy swaggered forward when his name was called and got his wish at once: the hat had barely touched his head when it screamed, "SLYTHERIN!"

Malfoy went to join his friends Crabbe and Goyle, looking pleased with himself.

There weren't many people left now.

"Moon" . . . , "Nott" . . . , "Parkinson" . . . , then a pair of twin girls, "Patil" and "Patil" . . . , then "Perks, Sally-Anne" . . . , and then, at last —

"Potter, Harry!"

As Harry stepped forward, whispers suddenly broke out like little hissing fires all over the hall.

"Potter, did she say?"

"The Harry Potter?"

The last thing Harry saw before the hat dropped over his eyes was the hall full of people craning to get a good look at him. Next second he was looking at the black inside of the hat. He waited.

"Hmm," said a small voice in his ear. "Difficult. Very difficult. Plenty of courage, I see. Not a bad mind either. There's talent, oh my goodness, yes — and a nice thirst to prove yourself, now that's interesting. . . . So where shall I put you?"

Harry gripped the edges of the stool and thought, Not Slytherin, not Slytherin.

"Not Slytherin, eh?" said the small voice. "Are you sure? You could be great, you know, it's all here in your head, and Slytherin will help you on the way to greatness, no doubt about that — no? Well, if you're sure — better be GRYFFINDOR!"

Harry heard the hat shout the last word to the whole hall. He took off the hat and walked shakily toward the Gryffindor table. He was so relieved to have been chosen and not put in Slytherin, he hardly noticed that he was getting the loudest cheer yet. Percy the Prefect got up and shook his hand vigorously, while the Weasley twins yelled, "We got Potter! We got Potter!" Harry sat down opposite the ghost in the ruff he'd seen earlier. The ghost patted his arm, giving Harry the sudden, horrible feeling he'd just plunged it into a bucket of ice-cold water.

He could see the High Table properly now. At the end nearest him sat Hagrid, who caught his eye and gave him the thumbs up. Harry grinned back. And there, in the center of the High Table, in a large gold chair, sat Albus Dumbledore. Harry recognized him at once from the card he'd gotten out of the Chocolate Frog on the train. Dumbledore's silver hair was the only thing in the whole hall that shone as brightly as the ghosts. Harry spotted Professor Quirrell, too, the nervous young man from the Leaky Cauldron. He was looking very peculiar in a large purple turban.

"Thomas, Dean," a Black boy even taller than Ron, joined Harry at the Gryffindor table. "Turpin, Lisa," became a Ravenclaw and then it was Ron's turn. He was pale green by now. Harry crossed his finger under the table and a second later the hat had shouted, "GRYFFINDOR!"

Harry clapped loudly with the rest as Ron collapsed into the chair next to him.

"Well done, Ron, excellent," said Percy Weasley pompously across Harry.

There were only two people left to be sorted, (Y/N), and a tall boy with black hair.

"Zabini, Blaise," was made a Slytherin, and at last, (Y/n)'s name was called.

"(L/n)-Granger, (Y/n)!" Professor McGonagall shouts, and the (H/l), (H/c) steps up to the stool. She turns around, and nervously looks around, Hermione meets her gaze from across the hall, and Hermione smiles at her sister softly.

(Y/N)'s POV

I sit on the stool, and the hat falls over my eyes.

I jump a little as I hear the Sorting Hat starts talking in my head. "Well, your ambitious, and a strong leader, I see, qualities of Slytherins, ah, but there is something else here, patience and loyalty, also qualities of a Hufflepuff. But there's something else here, wisdom, wit, and a lot of creativity, all qualities of Ravenclaw. But also courage, bravery, and daring, so where to put you?" The hat asks. "Brilliantly smart father, daringly brave mother."

"You know my dad?" (Y/n) thinks. Though she knew little about her mother, she knew absolutely nothing about her father.

"Your father was a famous muggle," the Sorting Hat says softly, only loud enough for (Y/n) to hear. "Extremely witty and intelligent beyond his years."

"So he wasn't a wizard," (Y/n) comes to this conclusion.

"No," the Sorting Hat confirms.

"What about my mother?" (Y/n) thinks.

"She was a Gryffindor, a muggle-born like yourself."

Hermione's POV

"She's been on that stool for like ten minutes," Harry murmurs to Hermione, who was sitting Percy, across from Harry.

"She's a hat stall," Percy Weasley says softly. "The first since Peter Pettigrew about twenty years ago."

There's a silence for another five minutes before the hat finally shouts, "GRYFFINDOR!"

(Y/n) takes off the hat off her head, then grins.

(Y/n) jogs over to sit beside her sister.

Hermione smiles widely at (Y/n).

"Can't get rid of me that easily," (Y/n) teases.

Professor Dumbledore had gotten to his feet, and he was beaming at the students, his arms open wide, as if nothing could have pleased him more than to see them all there.

"Welcome!" he says. "Welcome to a new year at Hogwarts! Before we begin our banquet, I would like to say a few words. And here they are: Nitwit! Blubber! Oddment! Tweak! Thank you!" Professor Dumbledore finishes, sitting down.

Everyone claps and cheers, (Y/n) and Hermione didn't know whether to laugh or not. Sitting beside Percy Weasley, Harry was thinking the same thing.

"Is he - a bit mad?" Harry asks Percy uncertainly.

"Mad?" Percy answers airily. "He's a genius! Best wizard in the world! But he is a bit mad, yes."

"Potatoes, Harry?" Percy asks.

Harry's mouth falls open. The dishes in front of him were now piled with food. He had never seen so many things he liked to eat on one table: roast beef, roast chicken, pork chops and lamb chops, sausages, bacon and steak, boiled potatoes, roast potatoes, fries, Yorkshire pudding, peas, carrots, gravy, ketchup, and, for some strange reason, peppermint humbugs.

The Dursleys had never starved Harry, but he'd never been allowed to eat as much as he had wanted. Dudley had always take anything that Harry really wanted, even if it made him sick. Harry piles his plate with a bit of everything except the peppermints and begins to eat. It was delicious.

"That does look good," says the ghost in the ruff sadly, watching Harry cut up his steak.

"Cant you -?"

"I haven't eaten for nearly five hundred years," says the ghost. "I don't need to, of course, but one does miss it. I don't think I've introduced myself? Sir Nicholas de Mimsy-Porpington at your service. Resident ghost of Gryffindor Tower."

"I know who you are!" Ron says suddenly. "My brothers told me about you – you're Nearly Headless Nick!"

I would prefer you to call me Sir Nicholas de Mimsy —" the ghost began stiffly, but Hermione interrupts, (Y/N) looking over her shoulder.

"Nearly Headless? How can you be nearly headless?"

"Now, Hermione dear, that's not polite," (Y/N) says, and Hermione grins at her sister before turning her attention back to the ghost.

Sir Nicholas looks extremely miffed, as if their little chat wasn't going at all the way he had wanted.

"Like this," he says irritably. He seizes his left ear and pulls; his whole head swings off his neck and falls onto his shoulder as if it was on a hinge. Someone had clearly tried to behead him, but not done it properly. Looking very pleased at the stunned looks on the first year Gryffindors' faces, Nearly Headless Nick flips his head back onto his neck, coughs, and says, "So – new Gryffindors! I hope you're going to help us win the house Championship this year? Gryffindors have never gone so long without winning. Slytherins have got the cup six years in a row! The Bloody Baron's becoming almost unbearable – he's the Slytherin ghost."

(Y/N) and Harry look over at the Slytherin table and see a horrible ghost sitting there, with blank starting eyes, a gaunt face, and robes stained with silver blood. He was sitting right next to Malfoy who, Harry was pleased to see, didn't look very pleased with the seating arrangement.

"How did he get covered in blood?" Thora and Seamus Finnigan ask with great interest.

"I've never asked," says Nearly Headless Nick delicately.

When everyone had eaten as much as they could, the remains of the food fades from the plates, leaving hem sparkling clean as before, then, a moment later the deserts appeared. Blocks of ice cream in every flavor you could think of, apple pies, treacle tarts, chocolate éclairs and jam doughnuts, trifle, Jell-O, rice pudding, and an assortment of fresh fruits.

As (Y/N) helps herself to a couple of strawberries and some chocolate éclairs, the talk turned to their families.

"I'm half-and-half," explains Seamus. "Me dad's a Muggle. Mom didn't tell him she was a witch 'til after they were married. Bit of nasty shock for him."

The others laugh, and Ron turns to Neville.

"What about you, Neville?" Ron asks.

"Well, my gran brought me up and she's a witch," Neville begins, "but the family thought I was all-Muggle for ages. My Great Uncle Algie kept trying to catch me off my guard and force some magic out of me — he pushed me off the end of Blackpool pier once, I nearly drowned — but nothing happened until I was eight. Great Uncle Algie came round for dinner, and he was hanging me out of an upstairs window by the ankles when my Great Auntie Enid offered him a meringue and he accidentally let go. But I bounced — all the way down the garden and into the road. They were all really pleased, Gran was crying, she was so happy. And you should have seen their faces when I got in here — they thought I might not be magic enough to come, you see. Great Uncle Algie was so pleased he bought me my toad."

"What about you?" asks Seamus Finnegan.

(Y/n) looks up, startled, but then speaks. "My mother, that I know of, was Muggleborn. My father was a muggle. I grew up with Hermione here for my whole life. My real parents are dead, well, that I know of."

Harry glances at the (H/c) haired girl as she turns back to Hermione and Percy Weasley, who were talking about lessons.

"I do hope they start right away, there's so much to learn, I'm particularly interested in Transfiguration, you know, turning something into something else, of course, it's supposed to be very difficult –" Hermione rambles.

"You'll be starting small, just matches into needles and that sort of thing –" Percy says.

"What about Charms?" Hermione asks. "What's that like?"

"Well, in Charms, you learn to cast spells that alter an object without changing it's nature." Percy says.

"Wait," (Y/N) interrupts, "so if we were given, like, a teapot, would we have to make it dance across the desk?"

"Yes, exactly (Y/N), that doesn't change how it looks, if you wanted to turn it into a tortoise, that spell would be taught in Transfiguration." Percy explains.

Harry, who is beginning to feel warm and sleepy, looks up at the High Table again. Hagrid is drinking deeply from his goblet. Professor McGonagall is talking to Professor Dumbledore. Professor Quirrell, in his absurd turban, was talking to a teacher with greasy black hair, a hooked nose, and sallow skin.

It happens very suddenly. The hook-nosed teacher looks past Quirrell's turban straight into Harry's eyes - and a sharp, hot pan shoots across the scars imprinted into (Y/n)'s and Harry's skin.

(Y/n) slaps her hand to the hourglass shaped scar on her neck. Harry does the same, letting out an "Ouch!"

"What is it?" Percy asks, Hermione turning to study her sister.

"N-nothing," Harry mumbles.

The pain had gone as quickly as it had come. Harder to shake off for Harry was the feeling he had gotten from teh teacher's look - a feeling that he didn't like Harry at all.

"Who's that teacher talking to Professor Quirrell?" Harry asks, and (Y/n) and Percy's gazes turn to the Head Table.

"Oh, you know Quirrell already, do you? No wonder he's looking so nervous, that's Professor Snape. He teaches Potions, but he doesn't want to – everyone knows he's after Quirrell's job. Knows an awful lot about the Dark Arts, Snape." Percy says.

(Y/n) and Hermione turn their attentions back onto each other and start up a quiet conversation. (Y/n) notices, out of the corner of her eye, Harry watching Snape for a while, but Snape never looked back at Harry.

At last, the desserts disappeared, and Professor Dumbledore gets to his feet, the hall falling silent.

"Ahem – just a few more words now that we are all fed and watered. I have a few start-of-term notices to give you." He begins.

"First years should note that the forest on the grounds is forbidden to all pupils. And a few of our older students would do well to remember that as well." Dumbledore's twinkling eyes flashes in the direction of the Weasley twins, as he says the last part. "I have also been asked by Mr. Filch, the caretaker, to remind you all that no magic should be used between classes in the corridors. Quidditch trials will be held in the second week of the term. Anyone interested in playing for their House teams should contact Madam Hooch. And finally, I must tell you that this year, the third-floor corridor on the right-hand side is out of bounds to everyone who does not wish to die a very painful death." Hermione's and (Y/N)'s eyes meet at Dumbledore's last few words, while Harry laughs, but he was one of the few that did.

"He's not serious?" Harry mutters to Percy.

"Must be," says Percy, frowning at Dumbledore. "It's odd, because he usually gives us a reason why we're not allowed to go somewhere – the forest's full of dangerous beasts, everyone knows that. I do think he might have told us prefects, at least."

"And now, before we go to bed, let us sing the school song!" cries Dumbledore. Harry notices that the other teachers' smiles had become rather fixed.

Dumbledore gave his wand a little flick, as if he was trying to get a fly off the end, and a long golden ribbon flew out of it, which rose high above the tables and twists itself, snakelike, into words.

"Everyone pick their favorite tune," said Dumbledore, "and off we go!"

And the whole school bellows:

"Hogwarts, Hogwarts, Hoggy Warty Hogwarts, Teach us something please, Whether we be old and bald Or young with scabby knees, Our heads could do with filling With some interesting stuff,

For now they're bare and full of air, Dead flies and bits of fluff, So teach us things worth knowing, Bring back what we've forgot, Just do your best, we'll do the rest, And learn until our brains all rot."

Everyone finishes the song at different times. At last, only the Weasley twins are left singing along to a very slow funeral march. Dumbledore conducts their last few lines with his wand and when they had finished, he was one of those who claps the loudest.

"Ah, music," Dumbledore says, wiping his eyes. "A magic beyond all we do here! And now, bedtime. Off you trot!"

The Gryffindor first years follow Percy through the chattering crowds, out of the Great Hall, and up the marble staircase. Harry's legs were like lead again, but only because he was so tired and full of food. He was to sleepy even to be surprised that the people in the portraits along the corridors whispered and pointed as they passed, or that twice Percy led them through doorways hidden behind sliding panels and hanging tapestries. They climb up more staircases, yawning and dragging their feet, and (Y/N) was just wondering how much farther thy had to go when they came to a sudden halt.

A bundle of walking sticks was floating in midair ahead of them, and (Y/N)'s eyes narrow in suspicion. Percy takes a step toward them as they start throwing themselves at him.

"Peeves," Percy whispers to the first years. "A poltergeist." He raises his voice, "Peeves – show yourself."

A loud, rude sound, like the air being let out of a balloon, answers.

"Do you want me to get the Bloody Baron?" Percy asks.

There was a pop, and a little man with wicked, dark eyes and a wide mouth appears, floating cross-legged in the air, clutching the walking sticks.

"Oooooooh!" he says, with an evil cackle. "Ickle Firsties! What fun!"

He swoops suddenly at them, and they all duck.

"Go away, Peeves, or the Baron'll hear about this, I mean it!" barks Percy.

Peeves sticks out his tongue and vanishes, dropping the walking sticks above (Y/n)'s head. (Y/n) slides instinctively out of the way, catching the walking sticks in one hand.

Harry and Ron look slightly impressed as (Y/n) sets the sticks on the ground silently, then walks over to stand beside Hermione.

"You want to watch out for Peeves," says Percy as they set off again. "The Bloody Baron's the only one who can control him, and he won't even listen to us prefects. Here we are."

At the very end of the corridor hangs a portrait of a very fat woman in a pink silk dress. "Password?" she asks.

"Caput Draconis," answers Percy, and the portrait swings forwards to reveal a round hole in the wall. They all scramble through - Neville needing a leg up - and find themselves in the Gryffindor common room, a cozy, round room full of squashy armchairs.

Percy directs the girls rough one door to their dormitory and the boys through another. At the top of a spiral staircase - (Y/n) figured they were in one of the towers - they find their beads at last: four four-posters hung with deep red, velvet curtains. Their trunks had already been brought up and, too tired to talk much, (Y/n) pulls on a pair of emerald green pajamas, the color matching (Y/n)'s eyes.

Marvel jumps out of her basket, eyeing Hermione then (Y/n) then hopping up into Hermione's bed, curling up onto Hermione's stomach.

Word Count: 8327 words

Bye!

Love y'all! Kaitlynn❤️😍

#hermione granger #hermione granger x sister reader #harry potter #ron weasley #fred weasley #george weasley #harry potter various x reader

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hayleysstark · 3 years

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I always wondered what would have happened if Merlin hadn't ducked the chair in the tavern brawl (S3 ep 4-Gwaine). A sort of delayed response like in more severe concussions. Maybe a coma or some of the other serious side effects. I'm excited to read your work.

Thank you

okay okay i would like to preface this by saying i have been fortunate enough that i’ve never experienced a delayed concussion, and all that comes with it, so this is probably not 100% medically accurate, but consider, Merlin has magic and if we can believe in magic, we can believe this is how delayed concussions work. okay?? okay. thank you.

"What happened to your head?" Arthur asks, on the way back to Camelot, with Gwaine—passed out cold, probably still drunk, and absolutely dead to the entire world with the knife lodged firmly in his thigh—slung over his saddle. "Looks like you took a bad blow back there."

"I didn't," Merlin waves him off. It would be a lie to say the impact didn't rattle him a bit, but he's sure he'll be all right when he's had some sleep—his magic usually heals his everyday bumps and bruises in the night, and there's no reason to think it would let him down now. "I'm fine. I got lucky, he only just clipped me."

Or, well, he supposes the man only just clipped him, because he has to suppose that, because supposing is all he can really do about it, because—if he's being completely and wholly honest with himself here—he doesn't know for sure. He doesn't know what the chair did. He doesn't even know what the man with the chair did. All he knows is the moment right before—a real big muscly fellow, as Gwen would call him, with long, scraggly blond hair hanging limp and greasy around his filthy, sneering face, clutching a truly enormous wooden chair in his massive, meaty hands, and his mean, dark eyes narrowed, and locked firmly on Merlin—but that's it, that's all, that's where it cuts out, that's where it fades to black, in that tiny handful of seconds between one heartbeat and the next.

He didn't pass out.

And he knows he didn't pass out.

But he opened his eyes, and he was on the floor, with the chair some ten feet away, tipped over on its side, one of the thick legs snapped off in a shower of sharp splinters, and that's all he knows, that's all he remembers.

"Well, it is bad form to hit a girl, you know," Arthur tosses a quick, smug glance back over his shoulder, but the minute his eyes fall on Merlin, his face does a funny little spasm, and the smirk slides off his lips like water. "Merlin, you're bleeding."

Merlin hastily rubs away the wet, warm, bright red trail streaking down his temple with the edge of his jacket sleeve, until the blood smears into a dull brown stain on the thin cloth. "I'm fine. He just scraped me when he—" I suppose he just scraped me, but if he says it like that, Arthur will ask, and he's sure it'll come back to him, he's sure he'll remember, there's no need to fuss about it right now, "—head wounds bleed a lot," he says, instead, a little too quickly. "It's normal. Gaius told me."

"Gaius said that?" Arthur's wrinkled brow smooths back out. "Oh, that's all right, then." He pokes lightly at Gwaine's limp frame, sprawled slackly out in the saddle in front of him, and adds, "Reckon he'll have his hands full with this bloke, anyway."

"Yeah," Merlin nods, "I reckon he will."

As it turns out, Gaius does have his hands full with Gwaine, and Merlin feels fine, so he just doesn't bother to bring it up with the old man at all.

When he finally scrubs off the last of the dried, sticky blood still clinging to the side of his head in dark streaks, he sees the scrape runs far deeper than he thought—less of a scrape, and more of a cut, but it's fine, it's nothing, it will probably be scabbed over and well on its way to healing up in the morning—one of the many benefits of magic—so he rinses the red stains out of the clean white rags he used, and he goes to bed, and he thinks no more about it.

From the minute Merlin opens his eyes, he knows something's wrong.

The world feels wrong—uneven and off-center, like the earth's off its axis, and when he stands up, he feels almost lopsided, like a little girl's doll, too limp and loose to hold himself up, but that's nothing to the way the chamber spins and spins and spins around him, like a child's top. The cut hasn't scabbed over, and he's got what has to be the worst headache he's ever had in his entire life, with a dark, furious bruise on his brow, purple and swollen and painful.

But he hasn't got the time to wait around here for Gaius and tell him about it—he's got far too much to do today to bite his nails over a headache of all things—and anyway, his magic has never let him down before, so he's sure he'll be fine in an hour or so, it's probably just taking a bit longer because, well, a chair clipped him 'round the head, it's not so simple as a bad fall or a brutal spar with Arthur.

He doesn't bother with breakfast—he feels a bit sick, honestly—but he does take a plate up for Gwaine and check the man's leg while he's at it (one less thing for Gaius to worry about when he gets back) before he heads down to Arthur's chambers.

"You're bruised," Arthur says, the minute Merlin walks in the door, like he thinks maybe Merlin hasn't got a mirror, or a pair of eyes in his head.

"You take a hit like that to the face and see how you look," Merlin fires back, and that's the end of that.

Merlin thinks, maybe, it was a mistake to not talk to Gaius.

Merlin thinks, maybe, it was a mistake to come in to work at all today.

The everyday noise of the castle is just such a nightmare—the quiet chatter of the busy servants going about their work, the boisterous prattle of the bored guards stuck at their stations, the click and thud of high heels and heavy boots on cold marble floors and hard stone stairs, the soft clinks of the dishes down in the kitchens, it all makes his head pound like a drum, until it feels like his brain might burst with it—but the courtyard is nothing short of murder.

The sun stabs into his skull like a knife, even when he shuts his eyes and turns his head, but it's the sound that really does him in. The snorts and whines of the horses fresh from a hard ride, the clank and clang of swords and shields, the groan and grunt of the water pump as a thin, nervous maid fills up her bucket, the shouts and hollers of the knights and squires out on the training grounds.

It's all so loud, and it's all so much, and he can hardly think past the sharp shocks of pain up and down his brow, and maybe he should just tell Arthur—he knows Arthur will be fair about it, he knows Arthur is a good man, he knows Arthur will give him a few hours off to see Gaius, he knows it, but the melee is only a few days off, and Arthur needs a servant to see to him while it's going on, and it'll all go a lot smoother for him if he's got his servant, who already knows everything, his schedule and his preferences and his quirks, seeing to him until it's over.

Where Arthur strolls down the wide stone steps to say hello to Sir Oswald, Merlin stumbles—his legs feel funny, shaky and weak, and he's sure he'll trip over and fall flat on his face any moment now (and won't Arthur love that) but he makes it all the way to the ground without a single nosedive.

"—my servant, Merlin," Arthur claps a hand on Merlin's shoulder—

—and he has to bite his bottom lip to hold in a gasp, because it jostles his neck, sore and tender from where his head snapped back when the chair hit him and that—

—that—

—that can't be right, can it?

No, no, that simply can't be right, because the chair only clipped him, remember, because he was all right on the ride back to Camelot—a little dazed and a little dizzy, sure, but who wouldn't be after a blow like that?—and he was all right that night, too, nothing but the slight sting when he cleaned the cut, when the edges of the broken skin stretched with the scrub of the cloth over it. No, no, he's all right, he's fine, it didn't hit him in the face, it did not hit him full in the face, because his head would hurt a lot more if it had.

It clipped the side of his head a bit hard, that's all.

"—loves hard work," Arthur says, with another painful clap on Merlin's shoulder, and he bites back a wince this time, "so, anything you need, just give him a call."

"Believe me," Sir Oswald says seriously, "I will."

Sir Oswald is as bad as his word.

Merlin's ears ring louder than the biggest bells in the Camelot cathedral, and it feels he's got a blunt sword stuck in his skull, and he's shaking all over, dripping with sweat and shuddering with cold, and little white stars pop and pop and pop before his tired eyes, but he stays on his feet, and he finally shoulders the door open.

He hauls the heavy trunk inside.

"What took you so long?" Sir Oswald, leaning elegantly back in his chair, his dirty boots up on the table, pops a blueberry in his mouth.

"What?" Merlin rasps, because it takes him a second to really hear it, takes a second for the words to make sense to him. Everything is taking a second to make sense to him today. "It—it weighs a ton," he points out, rather fairly, in his opinion.

Sir Oswald stares coldly back at him.

"The stairs," he adds quickly, because he knows what it means when a knight looks at him like that, he knows it means if he doesn't come up with a damn good excuse, he'll be in the stocks—or in the dungeons, or tied to a whipping post—faster than he can blink. "It's seven flights." He's so exhausted, it might as well have been a thousand.

"That's very kind of you," Sir Ethan smiles at him, almost kind, so he musters up a small, tired grin of his own before he pushes himself back up on his feet—the room spins and spins and spins, like Gaius' chambers, around him, and he thinks he might really be sick, here on Sir Oswald's pristine floor—

"—but you can't leave it there."

Merlin turns—the room spins and spins and spins like Gaius' chambers, like a child's top, and his stomach churns and his head hurts. "I-I can't?" he says, uncertainly, mostly to make sure he's heard right, because everything sounds different with the funny ringing in his ears, because everything is taking a second to make sense to him lately, because the world is wrong, because the world is uneven and off-center, because the earth is off its axis.

"It's in the way," Sir Oswald jerks his chin at the trunk—which is, admittedly, very much in the way.

"Okay," Merlin nods, but it hurts, and he has to stop. "Where do you want it?"

For the first time all day, Merlin doesn't feel sick, so when he gets home, he downs an entire bowl of soup, and he thinks, maybe, he should wait for Gaius to get back, so he can tell him about his head, about how awful he feels, but he hasn't even rinsed his bowl before the door swings open, and Gwen peers inside.

"Merlin," she says, seriously, "I think you need to come with me."

Merlin follows Gwen all the way down to the tavern, where he finds Gwaine in a stupor, with a tab longer than his own leg, and a red-faced, furious barkeep.

He drags a very drunk Gwaine back home and gets him settled safely in bed where he can't hurt himself (or drink anymore) before he goes back downstairs, to a dark and empty room, and vomits up that bowl of soup.

"S-Sorry," Merlin rasps out, the next morning, as he comes into Arthur's bedchamber and puts his breakfast down—even the light little thud of the plate on the desktop makes his head ache, and he doesn't think he'll ever remember what it's like to not be dizzy ever again. "I-I know I'm late."

"Not at all," Arthur says easily.

"Um," Merlin says, blankly. Is he not late? He certainly feels late. But Arthur's not looking at him like he's late, so that must mean— "Good." He takes a small step back—his skull screams at the sudden move, but his skull screams about everything lately—and turns away to make Arthur's bed.

"You're not sick?" Arthur says, all of a sudden, out of the blue. "Unsteady? About to burst into song?"

Merlin thinks this must be one of Arthur's jokes (like how he says shut up, Merlin at least a hundred times a day, but God knows he'll get all huffy and pouty and moody if Merlin ever actually does shut up) so he doesn't say, yes, my head hurts so badly I can barely think straight anymore, and I think that chair might have hit me harder than I realized. He only pulls the blankets up higher and tucks in the edges and says, "No, why?"

Arthur snatches up a sheet of parchment off his desk, shakes it out with a soft rustle, and reads off, so loudly it makes Merlin's skull scream again, "Fourteen quarts of mead—"

Oh. Merlin's stomach drops. Oh, so that's what this is about.

"—three flagons of wine," Arthur drones on, relentless, "five quarts of cider—"

Merlin comes 'round the bed, head ducked down so the light won't hit his eyes. "I—I can explain," he says, weakly.

"—four dozen pickled eggs," Arthur never looks up from the paper in his hands, but he raises his voice even more, and Merlin has to wait until the pain—so sharp he sees the white stars again—dulls down enough to let him talk.

"That was Gwaine," he says finally, and a little shakily. "He went to the tavern, and he couldn't pay for it."

"So you said I would," Arthur says, in a huffy sort of tone that leaves no doubt as to his opinion on this decision.

"You know, if I hadn't," Merlin says, quickly, but he can already tell Arthur is well past listening, "th-that innkeeper, he would have strung us both up."

"I fail to see the downside," Arthur says harshly—which feels, just now, tremendously unfair, so Merlin fires back with the first thing he can think of.

"You said he should be given anything he needs."

"Four dozen pickled eggs?" Arthur wails, incredulously.

Merlin squeezes his eyes shut and swallows back a wince. "I'm sorry," he says and, before he can stop himself, before he can really think about it, before he can tell himself to shut up, to have some sense, to stop making absurd and impulsive promises he knows he can't possibly keep, he adds, "I'll pay for it."

Arthur sits up in his chair and flings the paper back down on the desk with another soft rustle. "You most certainly will."

Well, on the bright side, Merlin has to admit, it could be far worse than a few hundred pairs of filthy boots.

Gwaine disagrees. "Arthur is a thoroughbred little braggart."

Merlin has to swallow back a laugh—if only his head didn't hurt so much, he's sure he wouldn't mind the work at all, now he's got Gwaine here to crack his usual jokes. "Why?"

Gwaine peers down at the boot in his lap like he thinks the tough, cracked leather will tell him what he's supposed to do with it. Hasn't he ever cleaned his own boots? "For making us do this."

Merlin shrugs—it's easy work, even if it is, admittedly, a touch tedious, certainly repetitive, and hopelessly mundane, and it's a far lighter load than he expected in the face of Arthur's fury this morning. "I think it's fair."

Gwaine throws him an incredulous look and jabs a finger at the endless line of grimy boots stretched out ahead of them. "For the entire army?"

Merlin clicks his tongue. "If you admitted your father was a knight, you wouldn't have to."

Gwaine tosses his head to get his shaggy hair out of his eyes. "Maybe," he concedes with a little huff, "but I'm not making the same mistakes that he did." He runs the brush lightly over the boot—oh, so he does know how to do it, and thank God, Merlin thought he really might have to teach the poor man—and a bit of dried mud crumbles off and floats down to the wood floor below.

Merlin turns back to his own work without a word—he's not going to push it—and the quiet swish of the soft brush on the dirty leather is a faint but familiar music to his ears.

"How's your head?" Gwaine asks, finally, with a quick glance over at Merlin. "Looks pretty bad to me."

"It's fine," Merlin says, and he's not sure what shuts him up, what holds him back, what makes him say it's fine when he's almost certain he's never felt less fine in his life, but there's simply nothing else for it—he has to be here for Arthur until the melee is over, so there's no point in whining or moaning about it when he's got no choice but to grit his teeth and get on with it, anyway. "I'm fine."

Merlin isn't sure what makes him pull back the red silken cloth on the table—he's only here to take the dinner plates back to the kitchens—but he pulls back the cloth, and the glint of the swords beneath fascinates him, in a way swords have never fascinated him before. The cold gleam of steel is murder on his throbbing head, but it's like he can't look away, and before he knows it, he's picked them up, the hilts cool and heavy in his hands, and he stares and he stares and he stares.

He's not sure what's wrong with him. It feels like his mind is moving too slowly, all of a sudden, like a hand has ripped his skull open, and poured thick, sticky syrup inside, gumming up his brain until he can't think straight, until he can hardly think at all, and it takes him far too long to remember he's only here to pick up the dirty plates, he shouldn't be playing with the swords, he has to put them down and get on with it and—

—and the blunt blade slips, and cuts him, much deeper than a blunt blade should.

He stares at the blood on the tip of his finger, bright and thick and red—

"What are you doing with that, boy?"

He whirls around—he knows he shouldn't, he knows it will only make his head hurt, and it makes him look guilty besides, like he's doing something he shouldn't, like he's doing something he knows he shouldn't— "Uh," the sword slips from his slack fingers, and he presses his bleeding hand, on reflex, into his chest, so the knights can't see the cut, but—but why's it is so important that the knights can't see—? "I-I was just tidying—"

"Keep away from things that don't concern you," Sir Oswald snaps, sharp and cold as the sword at Merlin's feet, and his eyes like ice as he glares, and for the first time since he met the man, Merlin feels the tiniest thrill of fear.

He gathers up the plates, and he leaves, and he's much happier than he should be, to get away from Sir Oswald.

Merlin tells Gaius about the sword.

It takes him the entire walk down to the kitchens, and the entire walk back to his chamber, to work out what the knights want with blunted-sharp blades, and that feels unbelievably, embarrassingly long, and he's sure if this horrible headache would just go away, he could think much clearer, he's sure if he could just stop stumbling and tripping, if the world would stop tilting, if those white stars would stop popping—

So Merlin tells Gaius about the sword—or, he means to tell Gaius about the sword, but the minute the old man sees him, he lets out a little gasp, steers him over to the nearest cot, and pushes him down onto it, and Merlin is far too tired to fight him on it.

"What happened to your head?" Gaius demands at once.

Oh. Oh, that's right, isn't it, Gaius hasn't seen him in days—the old man is always out when he gets home at night, and he's just too tired lately to wait up the way he usually does. He rubs lightly at his temple, where the pain burns hottest, with a little wince, before he forces himself to shake his head, to shove it down. "It's nothing," he says, and he tries to sound firm about it, too, but his voice sounds slow and slurred and small in his ears, "it's nothing, I'm fine—listen, I was in Sir Oswald's chambers just now, and I—"

"Merlin," Gaius says sharply, "what's happened to your head?"

"Yeah, I'm no physician," Gwaine tosses out, from his spot on the bottommost step in the dark, narrow stairway, "but you really don't look so good, mate, you should get yourself checked over."

Merlin throws him a glare.

Gwaine stares back, entirely unrepentant.

Gaius raises his brow.

"Okay, fine, I-I hit my head," Merlin concedes, because he knows he can steer the talk back around to the sword much quicker if he gives a bit of ground here, "in that fight in the tavern, but it's not important, it doesn't matter—I have something to tell—"

"The fight in the tavern?" Gaius echoes, like he hasn't heard about that already, like Merlin and Arthur didn't fill him in when they brought Gwaine to him, except they did. "Merlin, that was days ago!"

"It's fine," Merlin says, again, except he sounds worse than ever, weak and wavery, and he balls his hands up in fists on his knees so Gaius won't see he's shaking, "it's not a big deal, it doesn't matter, it'll heal up soon, I'm sure the chair didn't even hit me that—"

"The chair?" Gaius' brow has never jumped so high so fast.

"The chair?" Gwaine squawks and leaps up off the stairs.

Merlin realizes far too late that he's said far too much. "It doesn't matter, it was just—" he shakes his head, "—some madman chucked a chair at me, all right, but some other madman is going to—"

"A chair?" Gaius says, again, his pale eyes very wide. "Merlin, you could have died from a blow like that! Why didn't you come to me and—?"

"Please, Gaius!" Merlin blinks against the sudden burn of furious tears behind his eyes. "Please, listen to me, this is important. Sir Oswald's using a trick sword! He means to murder Arthur in the melee!"

And Merlin has never, ever been more grateful for the old man in his entire life, because Gaius listens. He sits up, a bit straighter, on his stool, and he drops his withered white hand back into his lap—out of the corner of his eye, Merlin can see Gwaine edging a bit nearer—

"All right," Gaius says at last. "All right, Merlin. Tell me everything. But let me have a look at your head while you're here."

Oh, thank God. Merlin drags in a shaky little breath of relief, and hastily gabbles it all out as quickly as he can. "H-He's got a sword in his chambers, and to the eye, it appeared—" it takes him too long to come up with the word, because thinking too hard makes his head pound, "—blunt—but when I touched it…" he holds up his bleeding finger for Gaius to see.

The old man clicks his tongue. Like it's Merlin's fault he thought a blunt sword wouldn't cut him.

"Trick sword?" Gwaine frowns. "Then you were lucky it was just your hand. I've seen those blades in action. They're forged using sorcery."

Gaius lets go of Merlin's hand and stands up to prod at his bruised head again instead. "But what would they want with such a blade?"

"To kill Arthur," Merlin says, because it's obvious, now that he's finally realized it. "In the melee."

"But in front of all those people?" Gaius says, doubtfully, his brows pinched, and he presses his finger lightly to Merlin's temple.

"—perfect cover—" Gwaine's voice, quiet and loud and quiet again, rings suddenly through the room, "—nobody will suspect—"

"I-I need to warn Arthur," Merlin pulls back from Gaius' touch with a little wince, and hegets up, but he is so dizzy, and so tired, that the minute he's on his feet, he crashes right back down to the cot in mere moments.

"Not so fast, Merlin," Gaius says grimly, like Merlin was making any great leaps and bounds to the door, "—bad shape—no fit state to—"

"—I-I've got to!" Merlin tries to stand up again, but it's so hard, and his head feels so heavy— "—I've got to—I've got to tell Arthur—"

"Sir Oswald's a knight—from a well-respected family—" Gaius says, "—good friend to Arthur—can't accuse him without proof—"

"—then—" a sudden shock of pain pulses through his head, and Merlin rubs at his brow, "—then I need to—to get the sword from Sir Oswald—"

"No, Merlin, absolutely not—completely ridiculous—no fit state, as I said—a chair to the head, and you still—foolish boy—" Gaius' voice goes quiet and loud and quiet again, too, like Merlin's slipping in and out of deep, dark water, over and under the rolling black tide of pain.

"I'll get it," Gwaine says, suddenly. "I'll get it, Gaius."

And the last thing Merlin hears—before the stars flare up in front of his eyes again, big bright bursts, radiant and blinding and almost beautiful, before he slumps down sideways onto the cot, and passes out—is the quiet creak of Gaius' door, and the thud of Gwaine's boots as he leaves the room.

Merlin wakes up slowly.

The room is dark. The windows are shut, the curtains pulled tight over the dirty glass, and the candles on the table burn low.

It's cold. Gaius has taken his jacket from him while he slept—he can see the rough brown cloth flung over the back of the nearest chair—and his shirt is wrinkled from where he slept on it. He's not sure he wants to go to all the hassle of straightening it.

He still feels funny—fuzzy and bleary, like he's lost in a thick fog, like he's looking out at the world through dirty glass, like he's looking out at the world through a dark veil—but there's only the barest ache at the back of his skull, and when he opens his eyes, the room only slopes a little to the left.

He's still so exhausted, and he already wants to go back to sleep, but he can't go back to sleep—he's supposed to be with Arthur right now, or he's supposed to be doing something for Arthur, isn't he? Isn't that right? Hasn't he got something to do for Arthur? Hasn't he got something really important to do for Arthur? Isn't there something really bad he can't let happen to Arthur—?

It hits him in a cold shock of ice, and he bolts upright in the bed. "Sir Oswald."

"Merlin!" And, all of a sudden, out of the blue, utterly inexplicably, Arthur is there, his hands on Merlin's wrists, gentle but firm, his brow pinched, his face pale. "For God's sake, you idiot, lie back—!"

"S-Sir Oswald," Merlin gasps, breathless, frantic, "he's got a—a sword, and it—it looks blunt, but it's actually—"

"Merlin," Arthur says, sharper now, and he shoves Merlin back down to the bed, hard, "for God's sake, stop being an imbecile. Everything's all right, Gwaine showed me the sword, Sir Oswald's been dealt with."

Merlin almost doesn't believe it, but he can't think what would make Arthur lie to him, either. "H-Has he?"

"Yes." Arthur's blue eyes darken. "And it wasn't Sir Oswald. It was that thug from the tavern, Dagger."

"Oh." Merlin slumps down a little deeper into the pillows—now that he knows Arthur's not in danger, he's sorely tempted to go back to sleep again.

"Wonder if Dagger was the one," Arthur says, in that casual sort of voice that means he's actually seething with sheer rage, "who threw a chair at your head in the fight."

There it is.

Merlin winces. "Look, Arthur, I—"

"You know, there's one thing I'm a bit curious about," Arthur cuts him off, talking deliberately louder than he needs to. "Are you really stupid enough to think you can take a chair to the face and just walk 'round like nothing happened?"

Merlin flushes. "I thought I was all right, I-I felt all right—"

"You don't just take a chair to the face and feel all right!"

"Well, I did." Merlin feels he has to point this out, if only to see if it will finally shut Arthur up.

"Well, that's not normal!"

Apparently not. Merlin rolls his eyes. "What are you doing here, anyway? Haven't you got the melee to worry about?"

Arthur waves him off with an impatient little flick of his hand. "The melee's over."

"Over?" Merlin echoes incredulously, and he looks at once to the window, but it's still shut, and the only light in the room is the faint glow of the candles, so he whips back around to face Arthur. "H-How long have I been asleep?"

Arthur shrugs. "About five days. Give or take."

"Five days?"

"Well," Arthur says, in a rather sanctimonious sort of way, "that's what happens when you take a chair to the face and walk 'round like nothing—"

"Whatever," Merlin says, and it makes him feel sixteen all over again. "So," he adds, quickly, "so, the melee's over with, and Sir Oswald—Dagger," he corrects himself, "is gone?"

Arthur nods. "Dead. My father had them hanged for attempted treason and, once the life left them, the sorcery wore off, and their true faces were revealed."

"Right," Merlin says. It's rather hard to feel sorry for the brutes. "Right. Good." He nods, and he's surprised it doesn't make his head hurt. "How's Gwaine?"

The corner of Arthur's mouth ticks up in a small smile. "Highly offended. My father's just tried to give him a reward for his part in all this."

Merlin laughs. It's hard not to—he can already see Gwaine's outraged face in his mind. "He hasn't got much love for nobles."

"So I gathered," Arthur says peevishly.

"Well, you can't blame him," Merlin says fairly. "Hard to like nobles when they're all arrogant, supercilious prats—"

Arthur yanks one of the pillows out from behind Merlin's head and stuffs it in his face. "Shut up, Merlin."

The door creaks open and Gaius shuffles in. Merlin hastily peels the pillow away from his nose and mouth.

"Merlin!" Gaius tears the empty basket off his arm and tosses it onto the nearest chair before he hurries over to the bed. "You're awake!" He grabs Merlin's wrist to feel the pulse there. "Any pain? Nausea? Dizziness?"

"No," Merlin says, truthfully, "no, I'm fine."

Gaius' eyebrow creeps up an inch or so.

"Just tired," Merlin admits, a bit sullenly.

Gaius nods. "Right, then, that's good. Thank you for staying with him, Sire," he adds, over his shoulder to Arthur. "You may leave now."

"Of course, Gaius," Arthur nods and gets up on his feet, stretching his arms over his head. When the old man turns away to pull a few glass bottles down off a higher shelf, Arthur leans in and adds, in a low whisper, "Don't run into any more chairs while I'm gone. You really haven't got the brains to lose, you know."

And, with a light little pat to Merlin's shoulder, he's out the door.

#merlin #bbc merlin #fic #filled prompt #anonymous

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ghosttotheparty · 4 years

Text

something underneath these stars

something underneath these lights (part I)

Jens doesn’t know how long it is until he hears Lucas’s voice again, somehow almost quiet, surrounded by the deafening bass of club music. Lucas’s hand grasp the back of Jens’s neck and he pulls him down so he can put his lips close to his ear.

He shouts something, but it blends with the music and Jens makes a confused face when he pulls away, so Lucas scrunches his nose (Jens feels like there’s glitter in his heart) before leaning back in. Jens can feel his breath on his ear when he speaks again.

“Are you hungry? Do you wanna get food?”

Jens grins excitedly at the prospect of a date with this boy, this boy he’s never seen before but Jens could swear he’s met before, he’s known for years.

“Yeah,” he shouts so Lucas can hear him, and Lucas smiles back, grabbing Jens’s hand and turning away, pulling Jens behind him. They weave between people, shoulders bumping, jostling as people continue to dance. Jens usually does enjoy watching people dance at parties. He loves watching how peaceful they become, how careless they are as their hair flies around them with the music, how free they seem as they twirl with their friends, laughing and singing. He loves how effortless existing seems in these moments.

Jens expects Lucas to lead him to the bar, but he follows Lucas to the exit, the sign glowing neon green above an open door the leads out to a nearly empty sidewalk. Lucas is still holding Jens’s hand, their fingers laced together tightly. It’s colder outside than in, the heat of moving bodies and alcohol dissipated into the cool, night air as they pass through the exit.

“Do you like chips?” Lucas asks when they’re outside, turning and clutching Jens’s hand with both of his own. Jens likes his voice, hearing it at a normal volume, in the quiet for the first time. They can still hear the music from the club, though the thudding of the bass is muffled now. “I feel like you like chips.”

Jens cocks his head at him, smiling.

“Have we met before?”

Lucas laughs, tugging him in by his hand.

“Come on, I know a place, I think you’ll like it.”

Lucas is light on his feet, like there’s a pair of invisible wings keeping his lifted in the air, just enough to not be noticeable to passersby, to normal people, to people who aren’t magical.

Jens ends up walking beside him, one hand linked with Lucas’s between them, the other stuffed into the pocket of his hoodie. Lucas’s thumb brushes over the skin on the back of Jens’s hand, softly and gently, leaving fairy dust in its path.

“So you never told me what you’re doing in Utrecht,” Lucas says, looking at him, raising his eyebrows.

“A guy can’t visit a city randomly without reason?”

Lucas snorts and squeezes his hand, looking forward again as they move down the sidewalk. The sky is dark, and Jens is just able to see stars when he squints, the glowing faint and obstructed by light pollution.

“Just getting away, I guess,” he says after a few seconds, even though he wasn’t planning on saying anything at all.

“From what?” Lucas asks softly.

“Eh.” Jens gestures vaguely with his free hand before pushing it back into his pocket and Lucas laughs quietly.

“Understandable.”

It’s quiet again. It feels like Lucas is waiting for him to continue.

“It’s just…” He sighs, the air cool in his throat. He hadn’t been planning on telling anyone this, this struggle dancing around his head for a while, for the past few years. This struggle that’s made him push his friends away, made him anxious and irritable, made him desperate for some release, some loneliness. This struggle that made him just… hop on a train to another country, just for a break. This struggle that faded as he danced, as he danced with Lucas. As he kissed Lucas, as he holds Lucas’s hand. “A sexuality crisis that’s been brewing since I was fourteen.” He feels Lucas look at him. “And I think just…” Lucas waits, patiently. The gentle brush of his thumb over Jens’s hand speaks for him. There’s no rush. “Just general anxiety I guess. Feeling… weird.”

“I’m like that too,” Lucas says after a second, swinging their hands gently between them.

“Like what?”

“Anxious. About like... everything and nothing.”

Jens hums in agreement and squeezes his hand slightly.

“I’m–“ Lucas cuts himself off and Jens glances at him. His brows are furrowed at the space in front of them, focused and thinking. Jens waits, brushing his thumb over Lucas’s hand, listening to distant traffic and music, to city sounds that sound that same as in Antwerp. “I’m gay,” Lucas says finally, and Jens snorts, holding back a You don’t say.

“Shut up,” Lucas laughs, swatting at his arm as though he said it out loud. Jens giggles, pushing him away before pulling him back in by his hand. Their shoulders bump and Lucas snickers, grabbing Jens’s wrist with his free hand and holding on.

“Keep going,” Jens says, elbowing him.

“I’m gay,” Lucas continues, “but I’m like, gay gay, you know? Like I…”

Jens squeezes his hand as he looks both ways at the crosswalk, tilting his head to look around Lucas. As they cross the street, Lucas sighs.

“Like I love gay stuff. Like glitter, and flowers, and makeup, and…” He sighs again, looking somehow simultaneously distraught and relieved. “But my friends…”

“Are they homophobic?”

“No, they just, I don’t know. They’re bros.”

Jens chuckles, nodding.

“I don’t know how they’d react if I showed up to school one day wearing eyeliner,” Lucas adds.

“I think you should be able to do it if you want,” Jens says, glancing at him as they walk, their footsteps almost synced. “If they’re really good friends they won’t be weird about it.” He smiles when Lucas drops his head onto Jens’s shoulder for a second. “And for the record, I think you would look pretty with eyeliner.”

He hears Lucas laugh and feels him press his smiling lips to his jaw.

“I kind of feel the same way,” Jens says. “Like, I feel like I don’t know how my friends will react. Even though they’ll probably react just fine, I mean, one of them is gay and we all hang out with him and his boyfriend all the time. It’s just… not knowing.”

“Yeah.”

“Stressful.”

He turns and looks at Lucas, smiling, and Lucas tilts his chin up, looking at Jens’s lips, and Jens leans down, kissing him softly, easily, like they’re used to it.

“You don’t seem stressed,” Lucas says after a second, a smile in his voice.

Jens hums, looking back at him. His eyes are sparkling under the streetlamps.

“Maybe not with you. You feel…” He trails off, not knowing how to explain it.

“Familiar,” Lucas fills in for him.

“Yeah, exactly.”

“Right? It feels like I know you already.”

“Maybe we knew each other in a past life.”

“I bet we did.”

“Who were we?”

“Fucking, uh…” Lucas laughs at himself, tilting his head back and looking at the sky. “Romeo and Juliet.”

Jens laughs. “They’re fictional.”

“Fuck, you’re right. Uhm…” He sighs. “I have no idea. Who do you think?”

“Fuck if I know, this isn’t history class.”

“You asked me!” Lucas laughs and shoves at Jens, who catches his hand, laughing with him.

“I can’t think of anyone!”

“I don’t think there’s been anyone in real life as star-crossed as Romeo and Juliet,” Lucas says, stepping in front of him and walking backwards, still holding his hand with both of his own.

“Except us.”

“Except us.” Lucas snaps and points at him, grinning, and Jens takes a second to look at his face under the moon and streetlights. He catches sight of freckles across his cheeks and nose, a mole above his lip that he saw earlier but didn’t get to appreciate under the flashing lights.

- - -

“So you’ve never been to Utrecht?” Lucas asks Jens before shoving three chips into his mouth. Jens shakes his head.

“Nope. Just looked at the schedule at the Antwerp station and saw that it was leaving soon so I went for it.”

“Oof.” Lucas swallows and Jens watches his throat move. “Audacious.”

“Mm-hmm. I’m adventurous as hell.”

“Clearly.”

They laugh, leaning into each other’s space absentmindedly, bumping shoulders and foreheads.

After a few more silent second, Lucas stands, startling Jens.

“Come on, I wanna take you somewhere.”

Jens swallows the chips, looking up at him.

“Where?”

“You’ll see.”

Jens looks at him, his cheeky smile, raised eyebrows, sparkling eyes, and stands.

“Okay.”

“Ooo, daredevil.”

“I trust you.”

Lucas’s smile softens at this, and he reaches out, grabbing Jens’s hand and pulling down the sidewalk, his other hand carrying a little paper box of chips.

- - -

“Woah,” Jens breathes when they arrive.

Lucas has taken him to a canal, a small one, and Jens can hear the water moving, sloshing up against the stone walls. It’s dark, the light from the moon and lamps reflecting and shifting on the surface of the water, looking like stars have dropped out of the sky, floating on the water.

“It’s one of my favourite places, especially at night.”

“I get why,” Jens says softly, looking around. He can hear light wind rustling in the trees, shaking leaves like rattles, and he glances at Lucas.

Who is looking at him, his head tilted as if in wonder.

They look at each other for a few seconds, seemingly forgetting about the water and sky and the trees, and then Lucas tugs Jens’s hand.

“Come on.”

Instead of leading him to a bench, Lucas pulls him to the water, letting go of his hand and sitting down at the edge, his legs swinging. Jens joins him, putting a hand behind Lucas’s back and staying there, leaning back onto his hand and looking up at the sky, listening.

“So peaceful,” he whispers and Lucas hums.

“It feels like living in a painting.”

Jens smiles, nodding, because, yes, that’s exactly it, and he sighs, closing his eyes.

He doesn’t know what time it is, but it must be at least two in the morning; the moon was already hung high when he found the club, when he got a drink, which he never actually finished.

But he isn’t worried about it.

He can sleep on the train tomorrow.

And Lucas doesn’t seem worried about it either.

So they stay there, sitting, breathing, existing.

Jens feels the wind rustling his hair like the leaves, letting his legs dangle like a child on a swing.

After a few minutes, he turns his head to look at Lucas.

He’s staring in front of himself, his eyes glassed over, unfocused, and Jens can’t tell what he’s looking at. He can’t read the expression on his face either, his brows furrowed slightly, his mouth relaxed, his breathing shallow and sharp, eyes unblinking even in the wind.

“Lucas?” Jens sits up straight, tilting his head to look at him. Lucas takes in a breath and turns to look at him after a second, but his eyes don’t seem to focus on him, still dazed. “Are you okay?” Jens’s brows furrow and he reaches up, pushing a fallen curl out of Lucas’s face.

Lucas looks at him, his eyes going up and down his face before he nods slowly.

“Just…” He takes another, deeper, breath, lifting a hand and dropping it on his lap. “Spacey.”

Jens expression must deepen, because Lucas smiles softly and he lifts the hand again, touching his forehead, just between his eyebrows, pressing and rubbing lightly.

“It’s usually not that bad, but…” He pauses, dropping his hand, and it lands on Jens’s leg. He blinks repeatedly, like a camera shutter trying to focus. “It’s disorienting.”

“Is there anything I can do?” Jens asks softly, brushing the backs of his fingers over Lucas’s cheek.

A slow smile spreads across Lucas’s face and he leans in, pressing his lips to Jens’s. Jens’s eyes shut and he sighs, pressing his hand against Lucas’s warm skin, feeling as Lucas’s hand tightens on his leg, gripping the fabric of his sweatpants. Jens’s hand lifts from the ground and presses against the small of his back, pulling him in, as Lucas’s tongue brushes against his lip.

Lucas pulls away and Jens opens his eyes, watching as he shakes his head slowly.

“Not really.” He sounds sleepy. “I just have to wait it out.”

Jens kisses him again, catching his bottom lip between his, pulling away slowly, brushing his fingertips over Lucas’s freckles, scattered across his face like the stars in the water.

“I’ll wait with you.”

#:)#vds #van der stoffels #jens stoffels #lucas van der heijden #wtfock #skam nl

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sophisticated-creepy · 3 years

Text

Lola’s mind was swarming. Although one thought seamlessly bled into the next, there was a supreme lack of a single thread with which to follow, and completely lost in the void of her own mind, she hadn’t noticed she’d walked passed her destination, realizing halfway down the next block she had to double back to reach Curios and Oddities. She was stepping up to the main entrance as Modesta was walking out, holding the door open wide for a customer who had finished purchasing an order of candles and dreamcatchers, the lady’s arms draped in large shopping bags.

“Thanks again, and have a pleasant day,” Modesta told the satisfied shopper. “Lola! I thought I saw you walking by.”

“Hi, Modesta,” Lola chirped, perhaps a tad too sharply to even her own ears. “How was inventory?”

“Fine,” Modesta answered, her eyebrows knitting together in question. Lola’s energy was sporadic and fluctuating, sending out an unsettling vibe despite standing perfectly still in the middle of the sidewalk. Maybe that was the issue: Lola was merely standing. Lola didn’t “stand”, she fluttered, like an overly caffeinated butterfly. If Modesta did find her friend by chance to be in a state of rest, some other part of her was usually moving, whether it were her arms gesturing about grandly during some ostentatious storytelling, or her eyes dancing to absorb the scenery around her. Lola was like the wind, and rarely remained stagnant, so when she noticed the eerie calm in the way Lola remained motionless, staring at nothing, she was immediately on edge and completely creeped out.

“Look, I know Halloween is right around the corner, but you are really starting to freak me out, Lola. Do you need help or something?”

“Sorry,” Lola spoke. She then blinked, her shoulders slouching downwards naturally, shifting back into a more fluid realm of movement and mannerisms. “Sorry,” she repeated. “Yes, actually, I was wondering if you could help me. Are you busy, or can we talk for a moment?”

“I’m not too terribly busy, come on in. What’s on your mind? You were a total zombie on the sidewalk just now.” Lola was ushered into the warmth of the shop, the scent of vanilla and cookies instantly had her relaxing, feeling once more at peace and in control of her rampant thoughts and imagination.

“I’m processing a lot of information,” Lola began as she stepped into the sacred space. “Actually, I’m trying to get some research done on a new story for a writing contest I’m entering.”

Modesta gave a light laugh. “Oh! Another story, huh? That explains your zone-out. What’s your theme this time?”

“The Hobblin’ Goblin.”

“Of course it is,” Modesta laughed harder. “Why did I even bother to ask?”

“Anyway…,” Lola transitioned, giving her friend a look that clearly meant she herself was not amused. “I have a deadline in little over a week, so I need to get as much research done as possible before I can do any actual writing.”

“Do you really need to do research? I thought you knew all there was to your loveable Hobblin’ Goblin.”

“It’s rather quite shocking on how much I don’t know, except for the everyday basics: he’s a goblin, he hobbles, walks with a crutch, and plays pranks. I don’t know the real, tangible origins, so I’m looking for the deeper meaning. I’m looking for his story.”

“I’ve never thought about it from that angle before,” Modesta admitted. “It’s a unique way to portray the legend, that’s for sure.”

Aggrievedly, Lola leaned her hip against a tall table stacked with candles and heaved a sigh. “I want to get some personal testimonies of people experiencing a real run-in with Mr. Goblin as part of my research to get a truer feel of his hauntings, but I’m coming to realize it’s going to be near impossible to sort the differences between a Hobblin’ haunt and a regular haunt.”

“I can help with that!” Jack sprung up from behind the furniture piece Lola and Modesta were talking next to, his boisterous appearance scaring the living daylights out of the two women, having the whole shop of customers stare in their direction as they each let out a scream of fright.

“Jack!” Modesta scolded after catching her breath. “Have you been waiting behind that table this whole time to scare us?”

Laughing, Jack nodded. “I was. But, do you at least get my point?”

“What are you talking about?” Lola asked, still trying to get her racing heartbeat under control.

“I heard you talking about the Hobblin’ Goblin. He pulls pranks, just like me, and like any other prankster, his jokes are mainly for his enjoyment,” Jack informed. “You can’t rely on the typical moans and groans and rattling of chains. You need to look for the fun.”

Lola snapped her fingers in confirmation. “That’s exactly what I said to Stacy. I’m looking for what makes the Hobblin’ Goblin so special, and I believe it lies in the fun. Do you mind if I record you saying that, Jack? From one trickster to another, I’m sure you’ve got some great insight I could borrow.” Eager to get a new perspective on her favorite goblin, Lola began digging around in her purse to renew her quest of investigation.

“Did you hear that, Mo? I get to be recorded,” Jack smugly stated, plastering on a cheesy smile a charlatan of yore would envy.

“I don’t think the world is ready for your mug,” Modesta sarcastically shot back. Lola emerged from her handbag, holding her tape recorder towards Jack’s face, his smile swapping out for a confused pout as he stared down the microphone of the handheld device.

“Tell me again about the motivation of tricksters, Jack,” Lola sweetly requested.

“Yes, Jack,” Modesta agreed, stifling her laughter to the best of her ability. “Tell the audio world all about it.”

“Uh, Lola, when you said ‘record’, I assumed---.” Jack trailed off, not wanting to hurt the wannabe reporter’s feelings, as Lola’s innocent expression at recording him with her archaic equipment weighed heavily against his conscience.

“Oh, shit, hold on,” Lola cursed. “I need to take notes.” Lola’s quick movements to try and free up her hands in order to get a pen and her notebook caused her to jumble and jostle the items in her arm, and she dropped her notepad along with the newspaper straight to the floor in a flurry of commotion. Modesta bent down to help Lola retrieve her items. When her fingertips brushed the newspaper, she hissed, jolted by the sharp sensation, and yanked her arm back, the feeling as if she had touched the coils of a stovetop scorching into her fingers. Looking at the periodical, her eyes fell on the front page, the grainy image of the train yard staring back at her, and Modesta could have sworn she had been punched in the gut.

“Oh, no. Nope. Not okay, and not today. Nada, nope, not happening,” she stammered furiously, and shoved the paper away from her. “I don’t know why you brought that newspaper into my store, but you need to take it outside now.”

Lola reclaimed the newspaper, slowly picking it up off the floor. “Well, that helps answer some of my questions,” she softly stated.

“Everything all right?” asked Jack.

“I was hoping Modesta would take a look at this picture in the newspaper. Even I got a weird vibe from it, and I wanted to get her opinion on the photo, too.” Lola gave the paper to Jack so he could take a look at the cause of excitement.

“Is this the train yard where that attack was made?” he asked, and Lola nodded.

“What attack?” Modesta asked, unconsciously staggering away from Jack as he held the paper out, studying the photo intensely. The residual tingle of being burned lingered on her fingertips, and her hackles were prickling in warry foreboding.

“I heard about it on the radio last night. A security guard was attacked by a demon,” Jack informed, dropping his voice at the end to whisper so as not to alarm nearby customers.

“A demon?” Modesta repeated, crossing her arms and raising a skeptical eyebrow. “Really? Someone approved that statement to be broadcasted all over local radio?”

“Hey, there’s no mention of the demon in the paper,” Jack stated, turning the pages to try and find the rest of the story.

“Why would there be? The article said it was the work of some kids’ prank gone wrong,” Lola interjected.

“What I heard,” Jack began, “was that the security guard was attacked by a hunched over shadow creature he saw lurking just outside the trees of the forest.”

“How would the radio station know that? The newspaper said the guard has a concussion and a fractured skull. He couldn’t make a statement. His partner found him after he fell,” Lola surmised.

“The dates are wrong, too,” Jack continued, his gaze sharp on the paper. “I heard about the attack happening two nights ago, not last night.”

“Maybe the radio got it wrong,” Lola theorized. “Or, maybe the paper has a misprint. Wait!” Jack’s words began to poke at Lola’s mind, helping to fit pieces of the puzzle together from her earlier haphazard thoughts. “Did you say something about a hunched over shadow creature? Here, let me see that again.” Lola reached for the newspaper and turned to the front page, squinting hard once more at the blurry image. “I can’t tell for sure,” she said at last.

“What are you looking for?” Modesta asked, still standing on the outskirts of her friends thanks to the uneasy item of interest.

“I think the photographer caught an image in the forest, but I can’t make it out. I’ll understand if you don’t want to, but could you please take a look for me, Mo? I get the feeling something’s there, but I need you to validate it or not.”

“Oh, there’s something in that photo, all right,” Modesta confirmed, not even having to look at the image, refusing to touch the newspaper.

“Let me take a look in a better light,” Jack requested, and leading the others to the main checkout counter, spread the pages out on the glass surface. Leaning over the image, he peered closely at the tree line. “I think I can make out a shape. Here, right?” Jack pointed to the same shape that first caught Lola’s attention. "It looks cut off, but that might really be a picture of some kind of figure.”

“Oh, my gracious!” Lola gasped. “What if this is proof of the Hobblin’ Goblin?” she asked in a burst of delight. “Isn’t he rumored to have lived in the forest? What if, what if,” she stressed, “this is him?” Her heartrate had picked back up several faster beats per minute, and the pleasant prickle of goosebumps began crawling up her arms, her earlier disposition melting to give way to the wash of excitement lighting her features. “We’ve got to check this place out!”

“No, Lola,” Modesta cut in harshly. “Absolutely not.” Lola turned to her sour friend, the brusque declaration confusing, and her expression must have read as much, for Modesta pointedly tapped a firm finger on the counter where they all hovered above the newspaper. “This is not safe,” the consternated brunette stated evenly.

“I don’t understand,” Lola spoke. “Why are you so spooked?”

“You wanted my opinion? This is it: stay away.”

“What exactly are you picking up on?” Jack questioned.

“I’m all for Lola doing her research on the legend of the Hobblin’ Goblin,” Modesta began to elaborate. “Since you’re looking for the ‘fun’, I suggest you stick to that route. This,” she indicated, waving her hand over the newspaper, “is not him.”

Lola’s excitement quelled as she stared down at the shape in the photo, her bottom lip trapped between her teeth in contemplation as she considered Modesta’s words compared to her impulse to investigate. This article was a tangible lead, a jumping point for her story to breathe life and take flight. She trusted her friend’s opinion, but nothing short of her own prodding could satiate Lola’s curiosity once it had been roused.

“I trust your judgment,” Lola began carefully, “but maybe we should check things out for ourselves. Come out to the train yard with me tonight.”

“Even if I wanted to, I can’t. I’m leading that workshop tonight and Jack is helping run the store, so don’t even bother asking him,” Modesta replied.

“Sorry,” Jack apologized, shrugging his shoulders in pre-obligated surrender.

“Besides, you’d be trespassing. You don’t have the authority to go traipsing around on private property after hours anyway,” Modesta reminded. If it were anymore possible, Lola’s exuberance and spirits deflated with the realization that she wasn’t, in fact, allowed to do her investigating after hours. A rebellious side of her stayed hopeful, however, and the back of her mind was already formulating plans to get the research she so desperately sought.

“Lola,” Modesta drawled in warning, seeing the gleam of trouble brewing behind her friend’s eyes. “Give me your word you’re not going to go after this figure. Leave it alone.”

Lola rolled her eyes, but still held a smile, always appreciative of Modesta’s caring and cautious nature. “I give you my word I won’t go seeking this figure,” she promised.

“Thank you. Now, if you don’t mind, I have customers to tend.” With that, Modesta flicked her eyes upon the newspaper one final time before turning away. A moment passed before Jack cleared his throat.

“You’re going to go after this figure, aren’t you?”

“Now, Jack, I gave my word, you heard me promise,” Lola reiterated.

“Just…please take Raph with you. I know you are more than capable of handling things on your own, but…if there really is something demonic out there, it’s best if you don’t face it alone.” He gave his friend a comforting squeeze on her shoulder before going to help Modesta with the store. Lola remained silent, thankful of her friends’ concerns, however, the desire to figure out this growing mystery of ghosts and goblins staring back at her from a newspaper headline had her solidifying in her mind what she needed to do in order to properly tell a story.

~~~~~~~~~~

Oh, that Lola. Always getting into trouble.

#newberry at night #adventure #fantasy #romance #love #magic #witches #ghosts #goblins #ghost stories #paranormal #paranormal investigation

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