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valyalyon · 23 days

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July 2026 - March 2027

July scene includes a short description of sex, August scene includes some vomiting, December scene is cute, March scene is SAD :) Have FUN READING EVERYONE <3 Previous Post | Next Post DIE MASTER LIST OR #LYONDIE DIVIDERS

July 15, 2026

Raphael came home from work that night in a state. He walked in heated and found me feeding the boys dinner...

CW: Argument, descriptions of vomiting, vague descriptions of sex, dub con, explicit language. MDNI. 1.7K words.

He stopped for a second.

I was breastfeeding Leon, and overseeing a nearly 3 year old Theo as he ate the pasta I had made him. His eyes lit up whenever Raphael came in, and he waved at him, “hi, dad.”

Theo, the ever perceptive boy he was, seemed to notice something up with Raphael, and scrunched up his face, “you okay?”

Raphael had already fixed his face and much of his demeanor to present himself to the boys, his face was charming and sweet as he came to greet Theo, “yeah, bud. How are you? Did mama make you pasta?”

Theo nodded his head and smiled at Raphael, and then showed him that he could eat by himself, messing his face up in the process.

It didn’t matter, his mother would clean his cheek immediately without letting him know that he had stained himself. Little Theo didn’t even notice his mother wiping off the pasta sauce from his cheek, he just smiled up at Raphael.

Oh, yeah, I’m his mom. He’s cute. I love him. In the early stages of raising babies I felt very disassociated from everything.

I was an amazing mother according to everyone, and my sons were happy as can be, but I noticed the difference. Nearly dying with Leon shook me to my core and I heavily disassociated after the fact.

Sometimes it was hard not to see the world from the third person perspective. I was floating above, just watching it all happen to me.

…

We put the babies to bed…

The time dissolved…

Bed, again… Raphael says, “here… Open…”

I did, I always did, but I was well aware that this was the time.

He spread my legs and ate me out as I moaned helplessly.

Holding me by the ankles, he begins to fuck me. It feels amazing, each thrust goes in so deep.

I feel my head scrambling from the pleasure. I can never think when it comes to sex with Raphael. It was so mindlessly enthralling.

“I’m going to,” his voice came in through the fog.

“Deep,” I heard myself reply.

I held onto him, digging my nails into his back as he came into me. He pushed his dick as deep as it could go, sending the semen directly at my cervix.

I moaned and twitched, “Raphael…”

“I’m going to keep cumming in you every day this week,” he told me, “I checked your ovulation tracker.”

“As if I didn’t tell you about this in April,” I replied passive aggressively.

“Guess you need another pump of cum.”

August 8, 2026.

To celebrate my 26th birthday, Raphael invited over our family and friends for a party. During this party, they surprised me with an official celebration of Theo’s 3rd birthday and Leon’s 1st birthday.

I remember feeling overwhelmed much of the day. Everyone was there and everyone was being loud and some people couldn’t help but argue…

I watched as Raphael and Julius got in a heated back and forth across the dining room table. They exhausted me. They couldn’t help it, if they were around one another and me they had to argue at some point.

Today’s reason was: Julius and I greeted each other with a hug, during a long series of introductory hugs mandated by Raphael and I’s common Latin culture.

In between everyone in our families talking over one another, I heard Theo speak up, “mama.”

“Yes, hon?” I turned my attention to him.

The table quieted down a little, but Raphael and Julius were still staring daggers into one another, as Theo continued to speak, “I like this party much. Thank you.”

“Of course, Theo,” I told him with a smile.

“But, I’m tired, Leon tired,” Theo explained, pointing at his brother who was resting in my arms.

“I know, my sweet boy, mommy’s sorry. Come on,” I stood up slowly from the chair, holding Leon to my chest and coming to get Theo off his chair.

Raphael started to talk to his family and distracted them as I went away to put the boys to bed.

After Theo brushed his little teeth, I tucked him in, and put Leon in his crib after. Good night kisses galore, “I love you mama” a million times from the sweetest boys.

I went to the master bathroom, and vomited into the toilet. My eyes were full of tears and my chest hurt. I started to whimper a little, and wondered if I had lost track of the time.

Disassociating was so rough.

Raphael opened the bathroom door and looked at me carefully, “is that what happens when you hug Julius?”

I wanted to scream at him so badly. He drove me insane some nights, and after parties — fuck, he just knew how to get under my skin.

I threw up again just as he came in, and he came up behind me, grabbing my hair out of my face for me.

Raphael didn’t say a word for a minute or two after I had finished puking, when he finally spoke he sighed, “I’m sorry for the argument… I know you’ve been telling me to work on it.”

“The boys look up to you, stop showing them that negative competition between men is normal,” I responded, my eyebrows furrowing.

Shuffling off the floor, I opened the sink cabinet and pulled out one of the pregnancy tests. I flushed the toilet and Raphael was rubbing his arms, watching me.

I sighed and hovered over the test to pee on it.

“How long does that take?” He asked suddenly, but his voice was more nervous than anything else.

“Just two minutes,” I responded, getting off the toilet and setting the test down on the counter.

Kneeling back down, I returned to vomiting while Raphael held my hair back.

December 24, 2026.

We met our closest family and friends out for a day at the park. It was still relatively nice weather that winter, and I was starting to show much more being in my 26th week.

I sat beside Raphael on picnic blankets we’d set up. Theo and Leon were playing with Anthony and their other cousins. It was nice to see everybody happy.

“Dolores and I are happy to have you all here, this is the park we got married at years ago, and I am lucky enough to see Dolores carrying our third child,” Raphael announced in a lull of conversation.

A gift box was brought to us by one of my best friends, Natalie, and I kissed all over her in thanks, before sitting back down beside Raphael with the box.

We opened it in front of everyone and pulled out a soft pink onesie that said “Princess” and everyone around us cheered. Congratulating Raphael and I at every opportunity.

I was happy to be surrounded by family but I wanted private pregnancies and I hated the attention of these gender reveals. It was just overwhelming.

“Our Princess is due April 5, 2027,” I announced to everyone.

March 27, 2027.

Raphael scheduled a maternity shoot during my 39th week just as he had done with Leon. I was happy to have these photoshoots, they were beautiful memories of growing my children.

I wore gold for this photoshoot and was bare foot walking through the grass, posing for the photos. As soon as my individual photos had been taken, the photographer got Raphael to join me with the boys.

Theo, Leon and Raphael were all matching, wearing light trousers and white button down shirts.

Leon was so playful and excited to take pictures, reaching for me the moment Raphael came to my side. I took Leon in my arms happily, and nuzzled his nose with mine.

He was laughing as I did it, and he squeezed my cheeks with his little hands. He’d be two years old in August, and Theo would be four. They were growing so fast, my heart couldn’t handle it.

We posed for our last pictures as a family of four, and the boys were so good through all of it.

I wanted to break down though. The time was escaping me, I just wanted to be able to love all my children, and be there with them for their formative moments, but any day now, our daughter would be there with us.

I was worried about my labor, I was worried after a frankly tiresome pregnancy. I was constantly drained, I was constantly in physical pain, and even the photoshoot was causing a strain on me.

I had such an easy pregnancy with Leon except for cravings, but ended up nearly dying in labor with him. Prior to that though, I had an easy pregnancy and a normal labor with Theo.

There, I stand taking pictures for family albums but this pregnancy has been emotional and physical hell on me — and I don’t know if I will make it out alive from this labor.

So will I ever see those family albums?

At least I knew Raphael would still be around for them but…

Fuck, I don’t know if this makes sense…

I can’t die.

I don’t want to lose my daughter, but I don’t want my sons to lose me.

I don’t doubt that Raphael can love the children if left to care for them all. I don’t doubt he’d do his best.

But, why? Why do they have to lose me?

I have carried these babies within myself since my mother was in utero, they are immediately placed on my warm chest to calm down after birth, and every time, their screaming lulls and their sweet faces rest.

Does that make more sense? Every child I have ever had, has screamed in the arms of their fathers and calmed laying against my chest.

For months, my sons were distant from their fathers, and it wasn’t until they were nearly a year old that each one started showing any interest or friendship with their dad.

If I’m not there, who will calm her?

If I’m not there, who breastfeeds her?

If I’m not there, who will replace me and will they ever be enough for my daughter to feel okay?

For days, I would grapple with this…

Until…

April 3, 2027.

#dub con #jealousy #dark romance #dead dove do not eat #possessive love #lyondie #bluestlyon #first person #writeblr #booklr #original story #creative writing

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the11tailedwrites · 2 years

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Prompt: Killing in Self Defense

Character: Hinata Shoyo

Fandom: Haikyuu

Tw/cw: vomit, blood

@badthingshappenbingo

Hinata backed up on the sidewalk, hands shaking slightly. The man advancing on him waved a knife in the younger boy's face. Hinata glanced towards his fallen bike. If he could reach it and peddle away, he would be safe. The man lunged at Hinata, but thanks to the boy's speed, he was able to dodge him. Hinata took off to his bike, but before he could get within two feet of it, pain blossomed from his shoulder and he cried out in pain. He tripped over his own feet and crashed to the ground. Sudden pressure on his back pinned Hinata to the ground. Hinata struggled helplessly as the man wrenched the knife out of Hinata's shoulder. The teen screamed in pain, tears streaking down his face. Hands rolled him over and Hinata found himself flat on his back. Pain bubbled from his shoulder and he whimpered in pain. Hinata weakly sobbed, tears streaming down his face, making his attacker look blurry. The man raised the knife above him and Hinata, panicking, grabbed his arms, struggling to keep the knife from his chest. He managed to get his leg under the man and slam him back. The force knocked the man back and Hinata scrambled up, trying to get away. The man lunged, grabbing Hinata's ankle and drag him back. Hinata cried out in terror and his fingers closed around something. The man lunged and Hinata rolled onto his back, held the object above him and squeezed his eyes shut.

Something warm and thick connected with Hinata's finger and he opened his eyes weakly. Then he froze, blood freezing over. His attacker lay above him, impaled through the chest by a sharp piece of wood. Hinata screamed in terror and threw the stick aside, and the man with it, and backed up, eyes wide and tears falling down his face.

Hinata suddenly felt very sick and he turned to the side, throwing up whatever was in his stomach. He had just killed someone. Hinata started to sob harder as he fumbled with his phone. He flipped it open and dialed the emergency number.

"I killed him," Hinata sobbed once a woman's voice answered, "I didn't mean too, I swear,"

"Calm down, who did you kill?" asked the woman

"I don't know. He jumped me on the way home," Hinata sobbed, "I'm sorry. I didn't mean too. I didn't want to kill him. I'm sorry,"

Hinata kept repeating the same words, tears streaming down his face. The woman talked with his softly, trying to get his name, age, where he was, but all he could say was "I killed him" and "I'm sorry" and a few "I'm going to be sick again" which was followed with more throwing up his already very empty stomach.

Bright lights flashed suddenly and Hinata looked up through hazy eyes as police cars shot towards him, followed by an ambulance. Hinata offered no protest as the paramedics checked him over. Hinata had stopped talking then, his whole body was numb. He had killed someone. He was vaguely aware of a paramedic applying pressure to the wound on his shoulder, but nothing else.

The next thing he knew, he was in the ambulance on the way to the hospital. Once he was aware of the words, the paramedic stated that the police labeled this a killing in self defense. Hinata wouldn't be charged or fined. Hinata felt like he should have. The man may have attacked him, but he shouldn't have killed him. Hinata nodded mutely, staring silently ahead.

#haikyū!!#hinata shouyou #whump #killing in self defense #bad things happen bingo

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iamanartichoke · 3 years

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[please blacklist spoiler tags: #loki tv series spoilers, #loki series spoilers, #loki spoilers]

I need to talk about the Avengers.

I just want to express how much I hate that the Avengers aren’t on the hook for all their time travel nonsense bc they were “supposed to” do it and Loki is on the hook bc he wasn’t.

I mean, I am glad that they addressed it right away - that Loki was inadvertantly caught up in the Avengers' time meddling, and that apparently they were doing what they were supposed to and that's why none of them were on trial, but - there are two things going on here that I have issue with. One is, of course, the scapegoating of Loki once a-fucking-gain, but the other is that there's a legitimate problem inherent in framing the Avengers' deeds as The Right Thing So There Are No Consequences, especially because it directly leads to Loki (and only Loki) being scapegoated since, apparently, someone's got to answer for all of this.

Why Were The Avengers Supposed to Undo the Snap??

Of all the possible options they could have gone with (such as reversing time back to just before the Snap happened), going back through time to gather the stones and use them to undo things five years later is, like, one of the worst?? Best case scenario, it implies that the TVA is ridiculously incompetent in managing the sacred timeline and worst case scenario, it implies that the TVA is ridiculously adept in managing the sacred timeline, if their goal is to have it be the worst possible timeline anyone could end up in.

The Avengers may have done an arguably good thing in undoing the Snap - I don't disagree that those people should've lived - but they also royally fucked over a lot of things in the process and left Earth (and presumably many many other worlds) in total post-Snap chaos while fucking off to die be with their families and/or start new lives.

This goes back to the plan itself. One of my many issues with Endgame is that not only is the plan convoluted and, frankly, stupid, but also I have a real problem with the concept of the Avengers just saving the world as they see fit, regardless of whether or not that's actually the best thing to do. (If the Russos hadn't done such a shit job with explaining what the Accords were actually supposed to do, then maybe this could have been addressed somehow - like, okay, together we may have the brains and resources to carry off this plan but does that mean we're the ultimate authority on whether or not we should? Maybe we should check with, like, the UN or something about this? [and it’s entirely possible the UN was mentioned and I have forgotten it bc I’ll be honest, I watched Endgame once and have bitched about it ever since.] I digress.)

The narrative in Endgame and into the MCU beyond plays like the Avengers only care about saving the world when they stand to personally gain from it (they want their friends and family back, they want to feel like they didn't fail, they have unilaterally decided that what they want is the Best Thing for everyone) and once the Good Deed is done and the smoke clears from the battlefield, there's no concern with saving the mess of the world they created.

TFatWS addressed so many of the problems with the post-reverse-Snap, which implies that the MCU (both in-universe and out) is aware that things are fucked up now. People's lives were literally ruined by what the Avengers did. Refugees are displaced. Humans are coming back to a world where they've been dead for five years and their loved ones have moved on and their homes have been sold and their bank accounts have been closed and they have no jobs. And that’s just on Earth. Yet no one (again, both in-universe and out) feels the need to hold the Avengers accountable for any of this.

Plus, what about the people who died as a result of the Snap but not from the Snap directly? What about the planes that fell from the sky when the pilots turned to dust? The cars that crashed and collided when the drivers poofed? Etc. Like, fuck all of those people I guess?

And who, exactly, is "supposed to" clean up the Avengers' mess now that the actual Avengers are either dead, old and living on the moon, or retired? Is it on Sam's shoulders alone (or, rather, Sam and Bucky's)? Is Peter Parker (yknow, the 15 year old Nick Fury went and recruited bc there was no one else) supposed to be fixing things?

The TVA takes responsibility for none of this. They sit back in their nightmare DMV-esque office and claim that all is as it should be but my question remains: please explain to me how the outcome of the post-Snap universe is ultimately satisfactory to anyone besides the Avengers?

There's also the fact that Loki figures out right away that the Avengers were engaging in some time travel shenanigans ("the cologne of two Tony Starks is hard to miss” lmfao Loki you snarky shit). Loki recognizes that there's been an opportunity created of which he can take advantage, but he isn't responsible for creating it. The Avengers messed up and created that opportunity so, even if they were supposed to be doing what they were doing, there are still no consequences for the fact that they made a mistake that allowed Loki to then branch off and create a new timeline.

Let's also say that we accept that the Avengers were supposed to undo the Snap exactly as they did. Okay, sure. BUT:

- Was Steve, then, also supposed to decide to fuck back off to the 1940s and marry Peggy (which created two Steves, right? The one who was married to Peggy all along and the one who was in the ice?? The TVA is just okay with two Steves?)?

- What is the actual point of Stephen Strange having the time stone and using the time stone both to gain the advantage over Darmammushumuuyourmom (I’m sorry, I can’t remember his real name) and to look at all the possible timelines to figure out how to defeat Thanos?

- How is it possible that there are 14 million potential timelines in which the Avengers failed if the TVA’s entire thing is that there can only be one true ring timeline to rule them all? The fact that Stephen can look ahead and determine so many outcomes based on the choices they're making would mean that people do have free will and that their actions aren't automatically dictated by what's “supposed to” happen. They had to make the right choices in order to get to the one timeline in which Thanos failed.

- What’s the point of Stephen having to protect the time stone, anyway, if there are presumably a few others in Casey’s drawer?

- On that note, if there are a lot of infinity stones hanging around in the TVA’s desk drawers, what makes the original six the specific, correct ones that Thanos had to collect in order to pull off the Snap and why is it then those specific six the ones that the Avengers had permission to go back through time to get in order to undo the Snap as the Timekeepers intended?

- And actually, in fact, if there’s only one sacred timeline and anyone who fucks it up without permission gets “reset” (aka made nonexistent, along with their timeline branch) then, again, why does Stephen have to protect the time stone? Either anyone who steals it was supposed to, or their timeline gets eliminated and the theft ceases to matter.

- Less significant but also still kinda significant is how Agents of SHIELD figures into all of this. The TVA knows that Loki killed Coulson but they don't know (or don't care?) that Coulson was brought back to life and proceeded, with his team, to go on and get heavily involved in time travel and going back and forth and bringing people from the past into the present? So the TVA is okay with Daniel Sousa leaving his timeline but not with Loki leaving his?

... I have literally confused myself with all of this, so if anyone followed my train of thought here, congratulations and maybe you can explain it to me lmao.

But here's my ultimate point: the sacred timeline that the TVA is tasked with maintaining is not sensical or linear. It's full of gaps and holes and people taking matters into their own hands to determine both their own fates and the fates of others. As a result, a lot of people suffer kinda needlessly based on the events in said timeline, and apparently it's perfectly fine for all of this nonsense to occur so that everyone else has some element of control -

- but Loki is literally the only one who is told uh, actually, no, you are supposed to live a shitty life and die a pointless death and there's not a goddamn thing you can do about it bc it's supposed to happen.

What in the actual fuck kind of logic is that???

Thus, either the TVA (and the Timekeepers) are grossly incompetent, or else they're extremely competent and also really fucking shitty beings who just enjoy the needless suffering of others.

And somehow this is all Loki's fault!!

And then Mobius has the fucking audacity to say, to Loki's face, “you only exist to prop up everyone else and you, Loki Odinsonson Laufeyson mischief god and king of space lol, do not have any inherent worth or value as your own person. You were born to be a scapegoat and you will die a scapegoat and there's no getting around that, if we have anything to say about it.”

To quote Loki, in a very twisted way - yes, it's funny. It's absurd.

Does, uh, does this make sense? At some point I crossed over from meta-writing into straight up ranting and so, well, here we are.

#loki tv series spoilers #loki series spoilers #loki spoilers #loki series: glass half empty #loki series: glass half full #loki pokey artichokey #loki series meta #so. many. tags. ugh #i no longer know what my point was #i'm sorry #so it begins #the rambly nonsensical meta lmao #some of you tell me sometimes that you enjoy my meta and my takes and i just #i love you but srsly who is paying you bc #*waves helplessly at the above word vomit*#loki series negativity #not really negativity so much as criticism (that i think is valid) but yknow fandom #also i recognize all of this as issues that i - if no one else - have a problem with #but i still liked the show????#i am not hating at all #i am just acknowledging that this whole premise is fucked up and i'm not sure if it's supposed to be #or if the writers just don't realize all of the implications in their decisions #to be fair i'm sure that they're working with what they had - ie the original nonsensical endgame events #but is this really the *best* they could do? cause i beg to differ that they were written into this small of a corner #ANYWAY #i gotta go do some actual work now #tag rambles

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writemekpop · 2 years

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Say Yes | Qian Kun

Pairing: Qian Kun x Reader

Summary: Kun wants to propose to you on Christmas... but that's exactly the kind of soppiness you hate. Will this break you up for good?

Genre: Established relationship AU, angst, Christmas special🌲

Word Count: 0.9k

Gif: @wieshenkun

It was Disneyland on Christmas Eve, and even you could feel the love in the air.

Disneyland wasn’t your first choice of where to spend Christmas, heck, it wasn’t even your fifth. But when you saw the way Kun’s eyes sparkled as he told you about the trip, you couldn’t say no.

Red, blue and green lights sparkled above the street, painting the crowd in magical colours. Snow fell soft and wet on Kun’s pale blue suit - which he quickly flicked off with a handkerchief.

As you walked, his head kept turning your way - checking if you were okay. Glancing anxiously upwards, he pulled out a sparkly umbrella, as if to open it above your head.

“I won’t drown in a little bit of snow,” you laughed, refusing the umbrella.

You couldn’t not believe Kun was 25 - he seemed closer to 45. He was the kind of gentleman that would have fitted in quite well in Pride and Prejudice.

Kun gulped. “W-well, alright.” And then, his lips moved, and you could swear you heard him say everything has to be perfect.

“Where in God’s name are you dragging me anyway?” You smirked. “I could swear this was some scene off ‘Big Fat Proposals’.”

Kun froze. “And uh… what do you think of that TV show?”

His eyes were fixed on his watch, as if he hadn’t checked the time one minute ago.

You snorted. “Ha! Talk about vomit-inducing.”

Kun frowned.

"Kun… please tell me you don’t like that show…” you groaned. “Oh come on, fireworks exploding? A shower of rose petals? The clock striking twelve? Sounds like my worst nightmare! God… I think I’d rather not get married at all then have to face that.”

Suddenly, Kun turned around. His hand grasped yours. “Actually, let’s not go this way. I- uh- saw some delicious looking Churros back there..."

He was trying to pull you back the way you came, but you resisted, planting your boots squarely on the cobbles.

"You hate Churros! Plus, didn't you say you had an amazing surprise for me down there?"

“Please, Y/n. Let’s just leave!” Kun was practically vibrating, brown eyes wide as he helplessly tried to tug you back down the road.

"Stop it, Kun! Why are you-"

You stopped mid-sentence. Because just at that moment, as twelve musical bells declared midnight, the sky blossomed with light.

At least, that's what it looked like. Fireworks in a dozen reds, golds and purples burst into the night... carving into the air: 'MARRY ME Y/N'

The breeze sang the wedding march as every person on the street cheered, "Merry Christmas!"

Your mouth fell open. You literally couldn’t believe what was happening.

Kun was frantically waving at the security guard, trying to call the whole thing off.

You could almost imagine it: Kun, his hand cupping the phone as he whispered to firework dealers, repeating the spelling of your name three times, his heart pounding as he counted down the hours to midnight.

You should have laughed at the cliché of it all. You should have sneered at this sexist ritual. You should have kept your heart cool, detached. Safe.

You turned to face your boyfriend. He was half turned away from you, one hand on his hip and another gripping his fringe as he stared down in anguish.

Suddenly, you realised the care he'd put into his appearance. His hair was immaculately gelled, he was wearing a floral white pocket square and a literal waistcoat - he looked so incredibly handsome.

"I hope you can forgive me for my grave mistake tonight," he began, shaking his head. He looked mortified - like he'd run over your cat, not given you the proposal of most women’s dreams.

You spoke, and realised that your throat was tight. "When you turned away at the last moment... you were really going to scrap the whole thing? After all your effort?"

Kun met your eyes, as if realising you were there for the first time. "You didn't like it," he said, as if that explained everything.

Kun did all of that for you. And yet, he was willing to throw it all away if it didn't suit your tastes. His devotion... it made your chest ache. But you had to be true to yourself.

“No, I didn’t,” you whispered.

Kun nodded solemnly. “I understand.”

Then, he turned around, and started to walk away.

Your heart squeezed in your chest. “Wait, Kun!” You ran after him and grabbed his arm.

“You didn’t let me finish,” you said, your breaths coming out in clouds of white.

Kun stared at you, brown eyes clear and glassy.

You took a deep breath. “I-I… didn’t like the proposal… but… I like you. No, I love you. I do want to be your wife.”

Kun's eyes widened. "B-but I ruined everything! It was beyond cheesy, you said so your-"

Interrupting him, you squeezed your lips to Kun's. And even though there were Christmas carols decking the air, and fireworks exploding with soft thumps, and snow nestling in your hair... the only thing you could feel was Kun's warm kiss.

For better or for worse. Or in other words, forever.

—

MASTERLIST

Let us know what you thought in the comments or on anon! 💋

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gaysimpsstuff · 3 years

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Flightless Birds Chapter Four: Birds of a Feather

Chapter One Here

Chapter Two Here

Chapter Three Here

Chapter Five Here

READ THE WARNINGS BEFORE READING THIS FIC! THIS ONE GETS PRETTY DARK! I DO NOT CONDONE ANY OF THE ACTIONS OF HAWKS OR Y/N’S MOTHER IN THIS! IF ANY OF THIS TRIGGERS YOU, STOP READING IMMEDIATELY AND SEEK COMFORT! I WILL COMFORT ANYONE WHO GETS TRIGGERED BY THIS, SO DM ME IF YOU WANT A HUG!

Summary: Y/n wakes up in their new home, and learns the rules of living with Hawks. But it makes them sick to their stomach to have to keep their eyes open here.

Word Count: 3K Words

Warnings: abuse, mentions of drugs, gaslighting and manipulation, extreme toxic behavior, abuse, choking, crying, mentions of rape and sexual assault, vomiting, PTSD, abusive parents, PTSD flashbacks, physical abuse, cliffhangers

Other: I’m so sorry this took forever to come out, I had a shit ton of other drafts I was working on. Reader has enough hair to pull on.

Flightless Birds Taglist: @smolchildfangirl @combat-wombatus @cathy8taffy @1small-frogs @catcherisvibin @waffleareniceandfluffy @mandalorian-baby-bird @theblueslytherin @hawksadmirer @assassinslittlesister @deepcollectorphantom @thesubtlewhore

Ow.

Owwwww.

Sharp white snakes of fire were shooting up your spine, but the rest of your body was ice cold. You wanted to scream, but you just didn’t have the strength to. Your whole body was so heavy, you felt like a rock falling beneath the waves, drowning helplessly as the person who threw you in laughed.

Laughter…

Who was laughing?

Behind the laughter was music, you listened to all the notes, beautiful Cs, Ds, Es, and Fs tied together in half steps.

Of course it was in minor key.

It wasn’t a song or an artist you recognized though, and it didn’t sound like it was coming from a phone or speaker.

Someone was playing the piano.

You needed to open your eyes.

But fuck it if it wasn’t gonna l be difficult.

You felt like your body was made of lead, and opening your eyes was going to be like lifting a truck.

A bright blob of white light pierced your pupils as you peeled back your eyelids, finally seeing your surroundings.

There was a flat white ceiling staring down at you, and a silver fan was whirring away, white light burning your retinas.

The walls were light blue, clean and bright. It looked fresh, the room still smelled like paint. You hissed, pushing yourself up to a sitting position. As you moved, you felt something soft brush against your neck.

You slowly lifted one hand to your neck, grabbing at it. You felt leather and metal pressing against your palm. A soft feather was attacked to a small metal loop. You tugged on it, trying to detach it from your collar.

It wouldn’t budge.

You let go of the feather, letting your arm flop to your side. You felt exhausted, and everything was so foggy. What the hell was happened? Where were you? Where was Izanagi?

You heard a loud creak, and the realization hit you that the music had stopped. When did it stop?

“I-Izanagi?” You whimpered, trying to focus your eyes on the blurry figure in front of you. You saw tanned skin, something yellowish on their head, and two large red blobs behind them.

You heard the person coo, and felt their gentle fingers on your face, tilting you up by the chin.

“No no, Izanagi’s not here, my dear~” you felt your blood run cold, and you attempted to push the creature away. He was like a rock wall, unmoving and unaffected.

“No-“ you whimpered “please go away!”

“Tsk tsk tsk” your vision was slowly starting to clear, the only thing blocking you from seeing your captor clearly were the tears building up in your widened eyes.

“I’m not going to leave my love alone like this, now should I? That would be so irresponsible of me~” his voice was calm, smooth like honey, and it made you want to scream. “I’ve worked so hard to get you here, I need to make sure you feel so comfortable! That’s why I’m here~”

“Hawks.” His golden eyes lit up when you murmured his hero name. He nodded happily.

“Yes, yes you recognize me! The drug must have worn off for the most part by now… how do you feel?” His face was awfully close to you, and his hot breath fanned out over your face.

“Scared, please let me go.” You muttered. He sighed, shaking his head.

“Dumb little birdy.” He tutted. “You shouldn’t go outside, y’know. Too dangerous for a pretty little thing like yourself! Tell me how you feel.”

“I feel like leaving.” You were slowly regaining your physical strength, and your eyes darted to every corner of the room. There was a window, locked and boarded up. There was the door, wide open.

Just outside you could see a hallway, a little dark table with a vase on it. You could run out there, grab the vase and smash it. You could threaten him with it and maybe get to the front door, wherever that was.

You felt Hawks’ hand lower from your face to your chin, squeezing your cheeks together so your lips poked out in a cute pout. He pressed his forehead against yours, and you could feel him growling.

“I said, you’re not fucking leaving. Did I not make myself clear?” You sniffled pitifully.

“You’re scaring me, Hawks.” You whined. He softened again, letting go of you and leaning back.

“I’m so sorry, Baby Bird. Don’t you worry though, so long as you listen to me, I won’t have to be scary again.” You nodded, moving quickly to smack him hard in the nose and dash towards the door.

Your collar tightened around your neck, something pulling you backwards. You collapsed to the ground with a choked out gasp, arms flying to your neck to relieve yourself of the pressure.

Of course there was a leash tying you to the bed.

You tried to scream, but your throat was closing up from the pressure on your neck. Your tears finally flooded down your cheeks as you writhed pathetically on the floor.

Your eyes found Hawks, carelessly crouching above your wriggling, dying body. He sighed, wiping away one of your tears.

“See what happens when you disobey?” He lifted your head with his hands, pressing a soft kiss to your nose. “You get hurt. That’s why you gotta listen to me. Promise you’ll listen to me?”

“I promise!” You barely managed to get the words out between your sobbing and choking. You saw his face stretch into a lazy smile as he loosened your collar.

Your body fell limp as your lungs sucked in air. You gasped, coughing and crying as your hands reached for something to hold, eventually landing on his hands.

Hawks helped you to your feet, sitting you down on the bed. His hands rested on either side of your thighs as he studied your tear-stained face.

You kept your eyes on your lap, shaking. You didn’t want to be here, tortured by this sadistic bird. You wanted to go home, you wanted Izanagi.

“Please sir, I want to go home!” You cried. His face twitched.

“As much as I live for you calling me ‘sir,’ you’re not going anywhere. This is your home now.”

“I want Izanagi.”

“I’m not going to hurt you unless you disobey, so there’s no need to be scared.” He started. “And I must say, you should feel guilty. You shouldn’t have been staying so close to Kouten Yuu and Izanagi Fujikawa. You’re probably cold because I have the AC on. Now that light feeling is from that drug I gave you back at the police station.”

“Ask for another man again and I’ll kill him.” Well that sure shut you up quick.

“So tell me. How do you feel? And look at me when you answer.” You slowly lifted your head, rubbing your arms to stop your shaking.

You met his eyes.

“I… I feel scared. And- and guilty. And I- I’m so cold. And I feel- I feel kind of light chested? Like- like my lungs are full of helium and have lifted up sort of- I don’t know, I’m- I’m so sorry, please don’t hurt me!” You shied away from him, hiccuping as you covered your face with your arms.

He shushed you, pulling your arms down and wiping away your tears. He seemed merciful, but you knew better than to think that of him.

You swallowed, he was so casual about drugging you, as if it was perfectly normal to stalk and kidnap someone and expect them to love you.

“Now darling, I’m going to explain some rules and punishments. Pay attention, Dove, I don’t want you to forget any, okay?” Your hands latched onto his jacket, and you nodded slowly.

Rule one: Do as I instruct, always.

Rule Two: You will eat everything I give you.

Rule Three: You will kiss me good morning, goodnight, and whenever I ask.

Rule Four: When I come home from work, you will kiss me and take my jacket.

Rule Five: You will cook what I want you to, using recipes I give you.

Rule Six: You will wear the clothes I give you. You will not dirty anything.

Rule Seven: You will thank me for everything I give you, kisses, clothes, gifts.

Rule Eight: You will call me Keigo, Sir, Daddy, and Master. Nothing else.

Rule Nine: You will not mention any person or thing from your old life.

Rule Ten: You will not try to look out the window, and you will not leave here.

You nodded. This… was going to be your new life, and you feared what could happen if you ever had the gall to break one of Haw- Keigo’s rules.

“And now I will explain your punishments and privileges. I want to be merciful, so please don’t disobey.”

“Okay, Keigo…”

Punishment One: Revoking entertainment

Punishment Two: Starvation/ Dehydration

Punishment Three: Beatings

Punishment Four: Forced Intercourse

Punishment Five: Isolation

“W-wait, Punishment four is- forced intercourse- as- as in- as in-”

“Yes.” His face hardened. “But that’s one of the more intense punishments, only for when I’m very angry or you break a major rule. If you’re good, then I’ll back off when you say no. But do understand, eventually, we will have sex. You’re too fucking sexy for me to not fuck you.”

“I- um-”

“I gave you a compliment, darling. Rule seven?”

“R-right. Thank you… sir.” you watched Keigo shiver, his angry expression morphing into a sadistic smile.

“Oh baby, you have no idea how happy it makes me to hear you call me that.” He leaned in close to you, his hand running up your thigh. “Rule Three, give me a kiss baby~”

Hesitation rippled across your face, a chill spreading through your body. You didn’t want to kiss this man, who’d tried to kill your friends, who stalked you for weeks, who’d drugged and kidnapped you. You didn’t want his filthy lips touching you, his slimy tongue in your mouth. You didn’t want to kiss Keigo.

“Y-yes sir.” you whispered, closing your eyes as his face grew bigger, getting closer and closer to you. You remembered the mist that spread across your mind when he drugged you, how it left you immobile and blank. You grasped at the dark fog, pulling it forward and covering you, blocking him out.

After a few moments, you pushed it away. Keigo pulled off your face, and you felt a wad of saliva on your tongue. It tasted greasy and cheesy. Not your saliva.

You swallowed it, looking at him with wide, scared, eyes. Since you dissociated, you had no idea what he or you had done.

“Did- did I do a good job?” Your voice was hushed. It wavered like your shaking body under his gentle, loving touch.

“Yes, dove. That was the perfect first kiss.” He purred. “You did wonderfully.” You relaxed a little, and his hand lifted off your thigh. “Now I’ll tell you a few more things, then I’ll make dinner for you.”

Privilege One: You may watch TV and read, but you can’t use social media.

Privilege Two: You may listen to music and dance, but only with me.

Privilege Three: You may have hobbies, but I will participate in them.

Privilege Four: You are allowed to reject sex, unless it is a punishment.

Privilege Five: You are allowed to request objects and gifts.

Privilege Six: You are allowed to walk around the house, but you will wear a shock collar. Sensors will be located in certain rooms. They will shock you and knock you out for an hour and send me a notification.

Privilege Seven: Eventually, I might get you a phone. You will have no phone numbers but mine, and no social media.

Privilege Eight: I have a garden and pool, at some point when I trust you, I will let you outside for walks and swimming.

Privilege Nine: You’re allowed to cry, to scream, to fight back. I like the battle, just know I’ll always win.

Privilege Ten: You will be allowed a pet one day, maybe two pets, depends on how good you are.

There it all was. Everything he expected of you. Your eyes fell to your lap, to the hands you’d clasped together as they shook. The soft texture of your sweatpants calming you just enough to keep you from throwing up all over Keigo.

“For now, you will remain collared to the bed. I’m going to go to your old home and retrieve all the gifts I gave you.” He stood up, hand lifting up and tracing your body.

“Okay…” you whispered. Keigo cooed, finally lifting off of you. He left briskly,

shutting the door behind him. You heard a small click before his footsteps started to fade away. You put the book down next to you, taking the moment to examine the room you were being kept in.

There was a desk underneath a window, it was tinted dark so you couldn’t see outside. The desk was a pale brown, a violet vase decorated with little bees had seemingly been knocked over, and it was kept from rolling off the desk by the green book leaning against it. You managed to make out the words Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire. Part of you wondered if Keigo was a fan, or if it was just there for no reason.

A bookshelf was right next to the door, and on the lower shelves, there was a CD player and a box labelled toys. You could figure out what type of toys were in the box, and you were pretty sure it wasn’t LEGOs. On the other side of the room was another door, wide open. You could see a toilet and shower curtains, so it had to have been a bathroom.

Escape wasn’t through there.

Next to the bathroom door was a closet, the door was open a crack, and you could see a couple of dress shirts inside. Probably all his. Part of you wondered if he was going to make you wear some of his shirts, rule six said you must wear whatever he gave you, and that could mean his clothes.

Was… was this really happening? Were you really in the number two hero’s house? Was he really going to keep you in his house forever and ever? Would-

Were you fated to never see your friends and family again?

To never see an ice cream store?

Or a park?

Izanagi?

A moment before, it really all felt like a bad dream. Like you could pinch yourself and you would wake up in your bed, and go to the park with your friends.

Kouten would bring some more delicious food, and you would make a mess while eating it..

Izanagi would sit next to you, and hug you and laugh as he teased you or Kouten about something or another.

You, you would fly, you’d be free.

Slowly, you spread your wings. They bumped against the bed, against the walls and the nightstand with the pretty Viridian lamp on it. You couldn’t even open your wings all the way in this tiny room, this room wasn’t meant to house a free bird.

It was meant to cage a pet.

All the emotions that the fog had blocked out rushed in like a flood, destroying every little bit of peace you’d managed to build up in your life. It slammed into your memories, into your hopes and dreams, and tore them all apart until all that was left was the rushing water, roaring filling your ears. You grasped at your hair, yanking as hard as you could in the hopes of tearing it out. Maybe the physical pain of a thunderstorm could turn your mind away from the tsunami. Maybe if you had chunks of missing hair, Hawks would become grossed out by you and kick you out. The collar rubbed uncomfortably against your neck, reminding you that he was still there, choking you, restraining you, claiming you as his. He didn’t see you as human, just as a pretty little thing he’d collected, like jewelry or rocks. Everything swirled around, and you couldn’t see any more. It hurt, it fucking hurt. You felt something tug in your stomach, and then your body was pulled forward.

You closed your eyes.

You heard it all splatter on the floor, the meal you’d been served. You tried to make it to the toilet, but all the food in your stomach felt so gross, and you needed to get it out, out, out, out.

You heard a gasp behind you, and you spun your head around. Your eyes widened at the sight of her. Her face was rigid, eyes like knives through your skull. Your tiny hands clutched at your torn shirt. You’d barely finished vomiting and now she was here.

“Please, please no I’m sorry!” You cried, lower lip quivering. “Sorry isn’t going to cut it!” the walls spun, moving quickly away as the ceiling dipped down, you could see her hands, and you could feel sharp pain in your skull as the floor was dragged away from your body.

“I work so hard, day and night to get food for you, and you just barf it up all over my floors like the ungrateful little brat you are! My floors will stink and stain, and it’s because of your insolence!” You couldn’t see anymore, but you could feel ripping. Did your feathers not want to be on your back anymore? What was that wet thing you felt against your face?

“Your lucky your father isn’t around, I know for a fact he wouldn’t even tolerate this sort of behavior! You make my already shitty life so much more difficult! Be grateful I haven’t sent you away!”

Words bubbled up from your throat, you were barely conscious, and at this point you knew she was hurting you, but you were so tired, you couldn’t even do anything to stop it.

“Please don’t send me away, I’ll do better! I will!”

FInally, the warped darkness was tugged away from you, and you found yourself alone, sittin on the hardwood floor. The vomit had already been cleaned up, but there were bloodstains on your clothes.

You were small, terrified, cold, angry, guilty, sad, and so, so alone.

You closed your eyes.

You didn’t want to open them.

140 notes · View notes

sicjimin · 3 years

Text

A.N : plugging another draft .. a no sense and plotless fic of Jimin being sick in the early morning TT i hope u like this one. I want to do the request but my brain still won't let me, but i missed being here so maybe I'll put some of my drafts one by one if thats are okay.

TW : emeto

Jimin pants, gripping tightly to the sink as he rides the sloshing in his stomach. He opened his eyes slowly, greeted by brown mess splattering all over the sink, that it contains his dinner yesterday. His stomach twist, he jolts forward, gurgling up more liquid from his body. He gasps quietly before he retches again. Tears fall from his eyes, the water in his stomach is making its way out of his throat. He bends down further, his legs are shaking and he can’t stand anymore if it's not because of Jungkook's tight grip on his waist.

"Oh my god Hyung, you're so sick", Jungkook murmurs, his hand hasn't left the older back since the latter start vomiting. Jimin ducked his head down. It feels like he has been throwing his guts out for so long but why nausea hasn't subsided yet?

" I feel horrible, Kook", he whimpers. His palm pressed to his stomach, attempting to ease the pain. The younger fingers brush through his sweaty hair soothingly.

"I know. but it will pass", Jungkook hums, " Are you done?"

Jimin shakes his head. He didn't want to move yet, not when his stomach still wreaking havoc in there. They stay there in silence. Jimin fighting nausea and Jungkook just watch his hyung in sadness.

Jimin groans, lifting his head when he feels the urge to throw up crawling on him again. His head spins with dizziness. Jungkook looks at his tired boyfriend worriedly, taking a hold of his wrist softly, rubbing circles gently onto Jimin's palm.

"You're okay hyung", Jungkook whispers.

It didn't take long before Jimin's nausea morph into another round of vomit. Jimin's body jolts forward, ducking his head deeper into the sink, as water spurts out from his lips, spraying in a big stream, leaving the older chokes and gasps for air. The next session was more watery liquid, that he managed to get out and over more quickly than he expected. He spits after the last heave tapered down.

Exhausted is underrated to say what Jimin feels right now.

" Kook..", Jimin slurs weakly. His legs start to feel like jelly.

Jungkook holds onto the older tighter, holding Jimin steady.

"You're okay", Jungkook murmurs, "Let's take you to bed, is that alright?"

He doesn't reply. He's too tired to do anything. Jungkook helps the smaller lean on his chest as they make their way to their room. Once inside, the door closes behind them. Jungkook lays Jimin on the bed carefully.

Jimin sighs instantly, curling his body smaller and wrapped the blanket around him completely, drowning his small figure. He felt cold. He actually wanted nothing more than a warm nice shower because he feels gross all over, but he knew that he could possibly puke once more. Not knowing how much is going to happen again even he already feels empty. He didn't want to risk that, so instead, he buries himself beneath the covers.

Jungkook frowns lightly, his hand brushing the other's fringe away from his eyes. Jimin whines.

Jimin opens his eyes and looks at Jungkook , giving a soft smile. Jungkook returns the gesture, placing his hand against Jimin's forehead.

"How do you feel?", he asks, worries evident in his voice.

"I'm fine".

"No", Jungkook scoffs, moving Jimin's bangs away from his forehead, "Throwing up at 5 AM is not fine, Jiminie"

Jimin chuckles, "I know, i'm sorry i wake you up. My initial plan was just to drink some water"

Jungkook huffs, "How do you feel, now?"

"I feel like shit.", Jimin mumbles, " Dizzy, empty, cold .. everything"

"Well, you look like shit"

The younger jokes making Jimin laugh softly, throwing the nearest pillow he could get.

"I'll go get some water for you, then", Jungkook mutters.

Jimin grabs his wrist, " No, stay"

"Hyung, you need water. You haven't got anything in your stomach yet"

"No!", Jimin exclaims, "Don't wanna be alone, please",

Jungkook sighs, he plops himself next to the older, pulling the blanket enough to cover his lower body. Jimin cuddles closer.

"What is it?"

"My head hurts", Jimin mutters.

Jungkook strokes through Jimin's hair, "Your stomach does too".

Jimin nods and rests his chin on Jungkook's chest. It's comfortable.

"Do you want me to rub your stomach?" Jungkook asks softly, smiling softly as Jimin shakes his head.

"I don't think I can handle it yet."

Jimin yawns, burying himself deeper on the older's chest. He's feeling exhausted.

"Okay, then", Jungkook smiles, still running his fingers on the blonde hair, " Rest hyung", he mumbles before he let his body relaxed too, hoping he won't wake up to another episode of sickness.

Jungkook is stirred awake when he feels a constant shake on his shoulder.

"Huh?", he sleepily mumbled, his eyes still half-closed, but he's /awake/

" Kook", Jimin's voice is hoarse and Jungkook is fully awake.

"Hyung, what is it? Are you okay?"

Jimin shakes his head, "I think i'm gonna puke-", a gag cutting his words. Jimin squeezed his eyes shut, waiting for the wave to pass, "-again. Can you help me to the bathroom? I'm too dizzy to move"

Jungkook nods, helping the elder to sit up. He puts an arm around Jimin's waist, trying to stop any unnecessary movements. Jimin leans heavily against him, Jungkook supports most of his weight, trying not to drop him. Jimin pushes himself up until he can make it into the bathroom. His hand protectively circled around his stomach, keeping it from suddenly lurching out his content.

They are already in the doorway before Jimin's body gives up. The older suddenly heave into his palm, letting out a gut-wrenching moan. Jungkook flinches from the force.

"Hyung hyung .. few steps again, kay? Hold it hyung", Jungkook chatters panicky. Jimin closed his eyes, letting Jungkook guide his body as he's too busy to keep his stomach down. Jimin's stomach churns loudly, he grips his stomach tighter.

Once his eyes catch a sight of toilet, he let his body take control. His stomach didn't waste time, it emptied itself into the toilet.

He has never been a loud puker, but this time his gag and the sound of vomit splashing against the water feel too loud in his ears. It echoes. And it only makes him feel disgusted and his stomach twists further.

Jungkook watches helplessly, rubbing up and down to the older arched back that tenses with every heave he let out.

Jimin lets out a whimper as he feels liquid keep pouring out of his mouth. He hasn't eaten anything yet, why he has so much to throw up?

Jungkook's hands curl more around Jimin's waist protectively, " Hyung .. gosh, you're so sick"

"Nnghh.... I don't like this feeling", Jimin moaned before he back at it again. The sound of retching, coughing and the sound of liquid hitting water fills the room until finally it goes silent. Heaves follow afterward as Jimin falls back into Jungkook's embrace, exhausted.

" Kook ..", Jimin mumbles, his whole body shaking with exhaustion, "Can we.. lay down?", he stammers out weakly.

Jungkook nods, lowering himself slowly so they both sit down on the cold bathroom tile. Jungkook stretched his arms to flush the toilet, wiping Jimin's wet lips as the older seems to out of it. Jungkook sighs. He hates seeing Jimin in pain.

Jungkook pulls Jimin close to him, " Do you want to move to bed again hyung? It's too cold here. Your fever might be worse", he says softly, looking at the pale face of the older.

"I have .. fever?", Jimin mumbled weakly.

Jungkook hums, nodding. " You're warm. But its not too high, i think medicine will do"

Jimin gags at the mention of medicine.

"I don't want to"

Jungkook hushes him, "You have to hyung .. or you won't get better"

Jimin sighs, nodding slightly. He wants to argue, but he couldn't really find his energy within himself to fight.

"We'll get you to bed and some water first then", Jungkook says, guiding the older to stand up.

Jimin groans softly, swaying side to side. He feels lightheaded. Jungkook steadies him on his feet, supporting his entire weight with ease. They make their way to the bedroom slowly, Jimin stumbling slightly as he walks. He can hear Jungkook whispering soothing things to him.

"Almost there Jiminie"

Jungkook helps Jimin to lie comfortably on the bed. Jungkook sits beside him, grabbing a small bottle of medicine from his nightstand and handing it to Jimin. The latter takes it.

"Drink", Jungkook requests softly. Jimin sighs but complies, taking a big sip from the tiny bottle of pills.

Jimin sighs, closing his eyes. His breathing starts to become slower, his muscles relaxing as his breathing gets lighter.

" Kook", Jimin slurs quietly. He stares blearily at Jungkook who is staring back at him. Jimin reaches over, brushing his thumb across Jungkook's palms on his covered blanket thighs. A slight smile gracing his lips.

"Thank you", he whispers gently. " And i'm sorry for waking you up again"

Jungkook shakes his head, "It's okay. I would've woken up either way".

"Still.."

"It's alright", Jungkook assures. He continues running his fingers up and down Jimin's thighs.

A smile spreads across Jimin's lips, "Let's sleep again"

Jungkook agrees, "Yeah, you go to sleep. I will call Jin-hyung or Yoongi-hyung to look for you. I have schedule later"

"It's okay, i can take care-"

"I know you can", Jungkook cut the older words, " But i don't want you to. You barely keep your eyes open!"

Jimin pouts, "Fair point", he mumbled. " Argh, i hate being sick", he groans into his pillow.

"Blame your immune hyung", Jungkook teases.

Shut up", Jimin says with a chuckle. He throws an unamused glance towards Jungkook, who giggles lightly, "Sleep well, Minnie", Jungkook whispers. Jimin hums tiredly, shifting his gaze back to the wall above him.

" Good morning Kook", Jimin mumbled before slipping into his exhaustion.

#bts sickfic #bts emeto #tw emeto #tw vomit #sick!jimin #caretaker!jungkook

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olivinesea · 3 years

Text

A Mixed Blessing

chapter one: never watered down

a/n: Big warning on this: child abuse, vomit, alcohol. Believe me, I don’t feel great about it. But needs must be. ~2.2k

He’d never been asked to pinpoint when it started but if pressed he’d probably identify one particular night in the house he grew up in. That house, never a home, was full of memories that could have tipped the scales, started him stumbling down the path he later found himself on. But, no, upon examination there was, without question, one night that started it all.

That night, like most nights, his dad had fallen asleep with an open bottle beside him. With a child’s lack of foresight, Aaron crept close and brought it to his lips recklessly. The liquid made him cough, lungs burning with the harsh fumes that curled up into his sinuses. Undeterred, he took a smaller sip. It tasted foul but he was driven by an unrelenting curiosity to know what it felt like. He had observed the difference in his father’s behavior from when he came home tense and bitter to the point where he was passed out in front of the TV, his face smoothed of any expression. A few more sips and it began to go down a little easier. Mr. Hotchner shifted in his sleep, muttering something under his breath. Aaron slipped away and, without thinking about it, took the bottle with him.

Back in his room, he sat on the floor at the foot of his bed. Tucked in the small space between bed and wall he was just out of sight of the door. The world swam around him as he reached the bottom of the bottle. His eyes felt heavy. The bottle tipped over and he laid on his side so he was parallel to it. He giggled as he rolled it back and forth, the last sip sliding along the inner curve. He tried to roll it fast enough for the liquid to meet itself in the chase. For once he felt warm and slow, so slow. His senses normally on high alert, he was like a rabbit twitching at every sound but right now everything felt loose and distant.

He rolled the bottle too hard and it slipped out of reach. He stretched out an arm but it was too heavy to move. Instead he just let his arm drop to the floor. His stomach rolled unpleasantly as he watched the bottle come to a stop under the bed. He curled around himself, closing his eyes and breathing through his nose. To distract himself from the sudden nausea, he tried to go through his times tables. He had learned them a couple years ago in school but he always struggled to keep them straight. It had been the cause of more than one argument around the dining table. His father, who never had difficulty with numbers, insisted it was stupidity or, worse, laziness, on Aaron’s part that prevented him from being competent at math. He knew he should be able to do this, most kids in his class could recite these facts without a second thought. But for some reason, the numbers felt unmanageable, even at eleven years old. He knew there was something wrong with him, but there was so much wrong with him he wasn’t sure where his inability with math fell on the scale of his insufficiencies. It was impossible to understand how these things came so easily to others. It was the same sort of impossible as imagining himself as an adult, only a few years from now, less time than he’s been alive already. If time was to be believed, in seven years he would be eighteen and free.

He fell asleep somewhere in the six times table. He threw up on himself in the middle of the night, barely conscious as it happened. Unable to move as it made a mess down his shirt and pooled on the floor beneath his chin. He hadn’t eaten much so it was mostly a thin sort of bile at least. A small blessing.

Sometime before dawn rough fingers grabbed him around the back of the neck, dragging him from his hiding place. He had a hard time focusing his eyes but the anger was too familiar to miss. His head hurt, his stomach hurt, as his blood pulsed hotly through his dehydrated body. He couldn’t help the frightened tears that began to run down his cheeks. He was too disoriented to comprehend the insults, the curses being directed at him. His father shook him hard before throwing him down on the rough carpet. From here Aaron could see the worn cuffs of his father’s pants. He must have slept in his chair because he was still wearing his clothes from the night before.

“You think you can steal from me?”

Those words came through clearly enough. Aaron started to panic as his dad pulled his shirt up, enough that his small back was exposed as he tried to crawl away. He couldn’t see anything, the fabric bunched around his head, arms trapped uselessly by his ears. His breathing quickened, causing the spot where he’d gotten sick on himself to draw close against his mouth and nose, setting off a wave of nausea. Aaron cried helplessly for his mother as his father let his anger out in lashes against his pale skin. He made himself as small as he could, the wet shirt getting caught in his mouth as he screamed. The taste made him retch but there was nothing in his stomach so he was left choking on coughs that seared through his chest.

He could never gauge how long the beatings lasted. Always longer than he had the energy to cry for. He grew still and quiet while his father continued to strike him. But the hits came slower, the pauses between each one lengthening as his breathing became labored. That kind of fury wan’t meant to be sustained. Once tired of the action, he aimed a final kick at his son and cursed as he walked away, belt hanging loose from his fist. In the doorway he yelled for his wife, who hadn’t been drawn to Aaron’s room despite his begging for her.

Aaron lay motionless, gasping, his body painfully stiff as he waited for his father to leave. As soon as the man was gone, he clawed at the shirt to pull it the rest of the way off and pushed himself backwards under the bed as far as he could get. Tears still ran down his face, though his emotions had settled into numbness, his body reacted automatically to the hurt. His foot bumped against the empty bottle, making it roll a little. He kicked it, a burst of anger tensing his muscles, and it spun away, crashing against the corner of the dresser. He froze at the sound of shattering glass, a whimper he couldn’t suppress escaping his mouth. He prayed the noise wouldn’t bring his father back. Shivering now, he buried his head in his arms, muffling any more sounds he couldn’t control and tried to hear the warning of returning footsteps.

He stayed there, tucked into the dusty darkness, listening to the sounds of the house: his father showering, his mother making breakfast. He didn’t attempt to move until he was sure his dad had gone for the day. He started to slide out but then an overwhelming fear that he would return suddenly immobilized him. He shrank back again. He was hungry, thirsty, he had to go to the bathroom but he was just too afraid to move. He remained there for a long time, forever it felt like, before he heard soft footsteps moving through the hallway. Logically he knew that it wasn’t his father but his hands shook with fear anyway.

His mother’s feet came into view, approaching the bed. She knelt down, dress tucked under her knees. “Aaron?”

He held his breath.

“Aaron, baby, come out.” She leaned down to look under the bed. As her eyes adjusted to the dark she saw him, half dressed, eyes wide and and circled by dark shadows. Her concerned expression shifted, a flicker of anger appeared but was gone in a flash, a match too easily blown out.

“Come on,” she held out a slender hand, palm up in supplication. He looked at it, unmoving. Where had she been when he was screaming for her? Hadn’t she heard? Why hadn’t she come looking sooner? Everything hurt, outside and in. His own anger burned through him, resentment driving him to action. He ignored her hand, instead pulling himself out on his elbows, putting as much space between them as possible. She remained on her knees as she looked at him. They were almost the same height positioned like this, his head slightly above hers in a preview of their future height difference. He wrapped his arms around his bruised and sticky chest, glaring at her. Upright, the blood drained away from his face, his balance became uneven and he swayed a little. She watched him adjust his feet, her hands useless in her lap after he’d ignored her offer. She was afraid to touch him.

She pursed her lips. “You shouldn’t have done that.”

He narrowed his eyes.

“You know I can’t help you. You have to be smarter than that.” Her voice was apologetic, though her words were not. All he could think about though was the way his throat felt raw from the sickness and the screaming and how she’d left him there alone for so long. She was the adult, she was supposed to take care of him. He was too wrapped up in his anger to see the grey bruises on her neck, to be aware of the contradiction between her long sleeves and the warm sunlight beginning to stream through the window. She sighed and rolled back onto her heels to stand up, picking up his dirty shirt.

“I’ll run you a bath, come on.”

He chewed his lip, watching her leave the room, wanting to disobey if only to make things difficult.

“You’re going to be late for school,” she called from the hallway.

He followed reluctantly, every movement sending fire racing across his back, every step unsteady. He hissed as he sank into the hot water but once he was submerged, it reminded him of the warmth the liquor had infused through him. The haze had softened the world with unconcern. He closed his eyes to remember the feeling better, only a few hours ago he had felt weightless. He wanted that back. With his eyes closed, he missed how his mother’s tears dripped into the bathwater, mixing seamlessly with the soap bubbles and steam.

He rested his cheek on his arms, folded on top of his pulled in knees. His mouth hung open slightly because he couldn’t breathe through his nose, still too congested from crying. He could almost fall asleep if it weren’t for the stinging pain that he couldn’t quite push away from his consciousness.

As the water swirled pink, his mother’s expression tightened while she brushed the washcloth against him as softly as she could. The cuts from the leather were shallow, not a serious injury, weaving across old scabs, older scars. There were fine pale lines alongside thicker ones, the pink shine of new skin. It made her want to scream, to run away but she knew that wasn’t fair to him. She couldn’t protect him from the man, she couldn’t protect either of them. But she could at least help him now. So she stifled her tears as best she could. Once his back was cleaned of dried blood, his chest freed of dirt and vomit, she pet his head softly. Her fingers brushed back the thick dark hair, the dampness causing it to curl slightly at the ends. It was too long again.

He looked at her with sleepy eyes, all his anger gone. He was just a little boy who wanted to be held by his mom, the only person he could remember ever touching him lovingly. Maybe not as much now, less and less as he got older, as his father’s disapproval of him grew. But he remembered, distantly, moments of safety in her arms. He wanted that so desperately right now.

“Can I stay home, Mama?”

She wanted to say yes so badly but that was how rumors started. She would do anything to avoid that suspicion, even if it meant rejecting her son. Someday he would understand, she reasoned.

“You’re not sick Aaron, you have to go to school,” she did her best to sound firm, businesslike.

Disappointed but unsurprised, he knew better than to argue or pout, just looked down at the dirty bathwater. She got his towel and dried him off as gently as possible. He whimpered a few times when the towel met particularly raw patches. Each pained little sound tore at her heart.

“Go get dressed.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

He felt sluggish as he pulled on his clothes—the loosest darkest shirt he could find. It wasn’t hard, none of his clothes fit. They were all bought several sizes too large in the expectation that he would grow but that had yet to happen. His mother promised him it would happen soon but he had a hard time believing her. He had a hard time believing he would survive long enough to see himself grown.

chapter two

#criminal minds #tw child abuse #tw vomit #tw alcohol #aaron hotchner #young hotch #a mixed blessing

23 notes · View notes

satuguro · 4 years

Text

selfless

IN WHICH: you go out on a date and sugawara koushi can only be a supportive best friend, even though he wants to be so much more.

PAIRINGS: sugawara koushi x reader, akaashi keiji x reader

INSPIRED BY: coffee breath — sofia mills, bubble gum — clairo

WARNING: cussing, some angst if you squint

“i got a date with him! could you believe it?”

you let out a loud laugh, your nerves and excitement radiating off of you in waves.

he could only force a bittersweet smile.

“no, i can’t.”

“c’mon, koushi, show a lil’ more encouragement, yeah?” you squealed, falling back in the couch as you let your hands raise above your head. you were blissed out, so high on adrenaline and giddiness and that you didn’t see the regret that filled sugawara’s golden eyes.

he needed to just stop feeling. just for one moment.

“what’s his name again?” koushi asked, making you sit up straight immediately to regain your composure.

“gimme a sec.” you typed away on your phone, well aware of sugawara’s gaze over your shoulder. his breath was right next to your ear, sending shivers up and down your spine. you pushed away the feeling almost immediately; you had a date. you had a date with someone who liked you back.

“aha!” you handed him your phone shamelessly, smile never leaving your face as you awaited his response.

you could tell that he was reading him. it was a simple picture, one of him with an endearing smile towards whoever was in front of him. he wore a simple black turtleneck and a beige coat— he had good style. his black hair was ruffled and messy, nothing like the perfection around him. he looked like he fell right out of a drama series.

of course, he fell for you. you looked like you fell from heaven itself; you were both made for each other.

“akaashi keiji,” you announced, his name falling from your lips like a wish. “so? what do you think?” you were asking him for his opinion as if akaashi was a wonderful and spontaneous idea that you wanted your dear old friend to hear about. you were looking at him expectingly, eyes glimmering with hope— hope for what? for koushi to like him? for him to say, ‘that’s wonderful y/n, you’ll be happy with him, and he’ll treat you well.’

“i,” sugawara’s words died in his throat, and he was suddenly aware of how dry his throat felt. he struggled for words, the confidence he once held when speaking to others now replaced by utter panic and embarrassment. his mind was racing, rummaging and searching in the depths of his brain in a scramble to find some words that would save the poor boy from his pain. “i don’t like him.” and just like that, the words were spat out before koushi could grab them again.

like a dying flower, the light and excitement in your eyes faded into nothing as you blinked.

once. twice. three times.

“you... you don’t?” you stuttered, disbelief within your tone as you stared at him. your face was unreadable, the happiness and giddiness from before now murky within the black of your eyes.

“i didn’t mean it like that!” panic. pure and utter panic raced through his body like an electrical shock. “i just—“

“why’re you freaking out?” similarly to how a falling leaf would gently touch the water’s surface, the faintest of smiles graced your face. your hand reached out to koushi and found its solace on his shoulder. there it perched and stayed, sending waves of warmth and comfort to his rigid body.

“what do you mean?” koushi forced past the bile he suddenly felt like vomiting, his golden eyes suddenly set on his lap as if it was the most interesting item known to man.

“kou,” you began, thumbing at the pale beige of his sweater, eyes deep in thought, “your opinion matters to me. no matter the answer, i wouldn’t mind. because it’s you.”

god, koushi wished you had said those last words under different circumstances. his heart ached as he looked at you, the warmth of your eyes so inviting that he would fall in over and over again if he could.

maybe he had fallen. maybe he had done it more than once and ran back for more. he would run back to you a thousand times if he could.

maybe that was the dangerous part of you. no matter how welcoming, how caring, or how patient you have been to everyone, you were always able to get them wrapped around your finger and hanging off your every words. but you never knew that yourself. if you did, you’d stop speaking all together; you’d never accept it.

“so stop worrying!” you chuckled, allowing your hand to fall from its place at his shoulder. your head replaced it, gentle and affectionate as you stared at the movie that was playing out on the t.v in from tof both of you.

sugawara nodded numbly. “i’ll stop,” he said, and he could only hope that he’d keep his promise.

“y/n, you might fall!”

sugawara felt like he was going to lose his head. seeing you standing on a thick branch of a tree that felt like it stretched up to the sky for miles. this was it— he’d die from worry at the ripe age of nine. right before his double digit birthday!

he could see it now: sugawara koushi, wonderful and caring son, dead at the age of nine alongside his best friend, l/n y/n, who also caused his death.

“c’mon, koushi!” you jumped on the tree branch, and as it bent, another spark of wordy coursed through him. “be brave! be strong!” you encouraged, putting on a mighty voice as you placed a hand on your hip and looked out into the horizon.

“you don’t know what’s up there! like snakes and spiders and — oh my god, ew, spiders!” sugawara babbled, propping his colorful backpack against the tree. helplessly, he looked up at you; wind blowing through your hair, expression much too serious for an 8 year old, with your hand on your hip as if you were posing.

“suga, listen!” the heroic pose you were once in broke as you stared down at your worrisome friend. all form of intimidation and determination died when you saw the amount of worry sugawara actually had; his hands were twiddling together, his eyes were aide, and his bottom lip was quivering ever so slightly. you swallowed. “the world is full of the unknown. everything is unknown until you make it known.” you paused before tilting your head as you gazed down at him. “does that make sense?”

sugawara could only nod. your words echoed in his head like a mantra, and he pulled the sleeves of his hoodie up as he readied himself.

“i’m ready— pull me up!”

you twirled once for him, allowing your white skirt to lift up along with the wind.

the pleated skirt you wore showcased your legs perfectly, and the oversized blue college sweatshirt you wore was perfectly oversized on your body. under the sweatshirt was a white button up that peaked through the crew neck of the sweater. your makeup was different — did you add a tad more blush than usual? — but you looked as beautiful as ever.

“do you think this is good? we’re just meeting somewhere but still—“

“you’re beautiful.” his words slipped out, his tone nothing but serious and sincere as he looked at you.

you smiled at him, the flash of your pearly whites like a ray of sunshine. sugawara found himself smiling back, much too focused in forcing a facade to notice the sudden waver in your grin. his smile was like a rainbow on a sunny day; beautiful enough to catch everyone’s eye and mystical enough to bring a sense of excitement into your veins for a moment.

how odd.

“shit! i need to hurry!” you checked the time before swinging your white tote bag over your shoulder and hastily packing your items inside. you pulled out a drawer from your living room table, taking out an obnoxiously long roll of condoms that you struggled to control.

“how many rounds are you planning for tonight?” sugawara couldn’t help but tease (though it made his heart wrench), making you roll your eyes and stick your tongue out. you stuffed a few of them into your purse, blind to the way he looked at you longingly.

you pulled your shoes on, trying to calm yourself. you looked at yourself once more in your nearby mirror, offering yourself a nervous smile before turning to sugawara.

his mind seemed elsewhere, his eyes still set on you and your body practically sparkling with nervousness. yet he still gave you a beaming smile and a (half hearted) thumbs up that calmed your anxiousness almost instantaneously.

“make sure to lock up when you leave!” you sent him one last grin as you opened the door. the door slammed behind you, leaving only a shadow of where you once stood.

koushi continued to stare at the white of the door.

his last days in karasuno. sugawara could barely keep himself together; he was sure that he was crying and slobbering all over his friends when he was saying his goodbyes in the gym.

well, it wasn’t his fault. he was leaving— he had all the right in the world to slobber on them.

he needed to catch his train. he gave his team one last smile as they listened to daichi scold them all for being so, so, so stupid during their last year and how he still loved them all the same (asahi, tanaka, and noya were having a hard time keeping themselves together because of their retiring captain). sugawara stood next to him, taking in the comforting sight of his team.

“koushi!”

your scream, loud and out of breath, made sugawara freeze.

you were standing behind him, pure rage and sadness brewing in your eyes like a hurricane. yachi stood next to you, practically cowering under your presence, and sugawara knew you asked the blond for his whereabouts.

he had planned on saying goodbye at your house.

sugawara wanted to say something. he wanted to tell you that he’d say good bye in privacy, without the wandering eyes of his team and the knowing eyes of daichi, who knew completely of his feelings towards you. but he said nothing, for you had taken his breath away when you swiftly ran up to him and hugged him from behind.

your arms wrapped around his torso, your face pressed to his back as you held onto him like a koala. “i’d hit you if you weren’t leaving,” you said, words muffled against his shirt.

“just do it anyway!” tsukishima commented in the background withh a snort.

the snickers of the first and second years were drowned out by sugawara’s rapidly beating heart, the feeling of you being so close bringing butterflies — hell, not even butterflies, a whole tornado — to his stomach. he carefully turned to face you, and you took a step back, your eyes glassy with wet tears.

the simple sight of it made his own vision blurry, and the both of you said nothing as you finally met in the middle. your arms wrapped around each other, years upon years of friendship now teetering and being threatened with distance. the rest of the world faded to black, and in that moment, it was only the two of you.

“visit. call. text. send me letters— do whatever the hell you need to do just please, please keep contact.” you were both teary faced messes, that much was obvious, but the idea that your life long best friend was leaving was too much to bear. you didn’t want him to go; what would you do without koushi?

koushi asked himself the same thing about you. what would he do without you?

two weeks and three days.

that was how long it had been since you had gone out on a date with akashi keiji. you hadn’t gone out with him since— not for any bad reason, though.

“you and koushi?”

“what about us?” you laughed, finger playing along the rim of your glass. but when you saw that he didn’t laugh along with you, you frowned.

you were friends before akaashi had asked you out. you knew that he was deep in his thoughts; his brows were knit together, and a frown twitched at the side of his lips. “akaashi. what about us?”

“you like him, don’t you?”

you wanted to forget about his words. you didn’t want to hear anything about your ‘feelings’ for koushi— they didn’t exist. your feelings for him were never there.

you were reminding yourself of that fact even as you got shit faced drunk with him right by your side.

shitty boxed wine was laid out everywhere while you sipped a bottle of champagne, pretending not to see koushi’s pout as you finished half the bottle. lazily, you smiled at him.

“it’s good.”

“yeah, no shit,” suga snorted, reaching his out and making his fingers make grabby hands. you pulled it away from him with a musical laugh, one that made his already flushed cheeks bloom a deeper red. again, he pouted, his bottom lip jutting out. “y/n,” he drawled, reaching out again only to have you move it out of his way.

“koushi,” you mocked, sticking your tongue out as if you were a child. he was adorable like this.

“no. i don’t want to talk about this.” you laughed in disbelief as you looked down. how could he make such an accusation? how could akaashi just blurt it out out of nowhere as if you hadn’t agreed to go out with him when he asked? he had no right.

he had no right asking when he knew the answer.

akaashi looked at you, a ghost of a pained smile on his lips. of course, he was hurt. how could he not? he had pined for you since he first saw you, and sugawara...

sugawara had you and he didn’t even know.

he wasn’t selfish. akaashi keiji was not selfish in the slightest, and maybe that was why he was doing this for your happiness. he was doing it because he knew it was right.

even if he was going to be hurt in the process.

“you look at him like he’s your morning cup of coffee,” akaashi said softly. “your eyes light up and this beautiful smile dawns over your face,” he swallowed thickly. “the sight of him makes you happy. he makes you happy.”

you peered up at him, a sorrowful smile blessing your features. yet again, akaashi cursed his heart for beating so quickly upon the sight.

akaashi keiji was not selfish in the slightest.

“i’m sorry, akaashi.”

he was a selfless person who could care less for himself.

“i am too, y/n.”

that was why he was letting you go.

“i will commit a crime to end up on national news,” sugawara threatened with the most serious face he could muster, his hand still outstretched towards you expectingly.

“sangwoo much?” you retorted with a laugh, one that made sugawara join you. in that second of vulnerability, koushi surged forward and practically tackled you, his hand ready to meet the bottle.

instead, he ended up pinning you down onto the couch with himself on top of you. the champagne was long gone and rolling and spilling all over your hardwood floor, but you couldn’t care less.

“suga, the champagne!” you whined out drunkenly, completely unaware of the lack of space between you both.

sugawara’s hand was on one side of your head, which was keeping his body from smushing you. his grey hair, which he had chosen to grow out just a bit, tickled the top of your nose as he hovered over you. his other hand, the one that was supposed to grab the champagne, found its place on the other side of your head.

your laughter soon died out when you felt his breath fanning over your face. your heart was beating hard enough to make a mark on your chest.

your hand came up to touch one side of his face, your thumb stroking his cheek softly. koushi leaned into your touch, his eyes full of adoration as he looked down at you.

you leaned up just as he leaned down, and your lips found themselves in the middle.

he tasted like shitty boxed alcohol and smelled like vanilla. you could feel his hair brush over your forehead as you leaned up to meet his lips better. koushi was intoxicating, and his scent and taste filled your senses as you kissed him.

the champagne still lingered on your tongue, and koushi could taste it as your tongues swiped over each other with each kiss. he felt himself pour all his years of unspoken love in the kiss. more than a decade of yearning for someone who was so close but so far finally paid off.

koushi pulled away from you as he took a deep breath of air. he couldn’t help the contagious smile he had on his face, one that you returned instantly.

“i love you,” you murmured, your thumb brushing over his beauty mark.

dramatically, sugawara gasped. “say sike right now, no way.”

“kou,” you groaned, using your hand to playfully flick at his nose.

loudly, sugawara laughed. he felt his cheeks ache and his heart flutter as he did, the relief finally hitting him as well as the realization that holy shit, you loved him back.

“i’m sorry, i’m sorry.” he leaned back in, making your noses poke each other as he pecked your lips one last time.

“i love you too. more than you’ll ever know.”

202 notes · View notes

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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monst · 4 years

Text

Imposter: Coms

Part 2:Coms

An interactive bnha among us au:

Word count: 2,680

Warnings: This series contains descriptions of murder and dismemberment, Deception and morally questionable actions, Angst and betrayal.

Masterlist -> Here

Taglist: @redbeanteax @tspice283 @kurinhimenezu @simpforeveryone @ queenlibra134

Shinsou looked at each and everyone one of you, thought creasing his brows. His eyes bore into you the longest, vibrant plum hues narrowed in frothy suspicion. Everyone waited with baited breath, suits squeaking as the lot of you shifted uncomfortably. A slow thick puddle of lead settling in your bellies at the thought of being in a group with a Sticur. There was no other sound on the vessel save for the whirring of machinery and the dull hum of the oxygen pump filling the ship with air.

Remorse gripped at your trembling heart, there was a parasitic alien aboard. It had quite possibly slithered into someone’s body all because you forgot to throw out trash… You were slowly sinking into the quicksand of self-loathing only for your Captain to call you to attention.

“(Lastname) You're with me and Bakugou.” He ordered. Bakugou nodded curtly, vermillion eyes lacerating your form, he didn’t have to speak in order for you to pick up on why his hues were so sharp. You felt your heart plummet when his fingers flexed over the taser, you eyes quickly shifting towards the grey flooring.

“Hagakure, Kirishima, Kaminari and Shindo, your cafeteria. Make sure to clear the area and make sure there are no signs of another one.”

“Sir.” They nodded.

You heard the sound of their clunky boots hitting the metal as they walked towards the cafeteria, you had almost thought them halfway across the storage room when a heavy hand suddenly dipped your shoulder. Your feeble blood pumping organ almost lurched out of your throat at the contact but the sight of the hot pink suit allowed you to breath out a stream of air.

“Be careful.” Shindo nodded, his dark eyes glaring at the Captain and the head of security. “Most of these people grew up and studied together so there’s no telling who’ll cover for who.” The last bit was spoken in a rushed murmur and before you could question him he was rushing off towards his temporary team.

“Amajiki I’m going to need you to start setting up the lab, as soon as you get there you assess Midoriya and Mirio. The rest of us will follow as soon as we get done with our tasks.” Shinsou informed.

Midoriya visibly trembled, his mouth moving a mile a minute as he thought of the current predicament. “Oi you're going to be fine.” Bakugou...Reassured. You’d be lying if you said that it wasn’t surprising. Shinsou motioned for the both of you to follow him and soon you were back in the communications room.

“I need you to establish a secure connection to the tower.” He commanded, Your legs quickly carried you to one of the monitors in the room.

“Sir the connection is stable but no one is picking up.” You sighed.

“We’ll wait.” He huffed, crossing his arms. Static filled the room as you waited for those who were grounded to answer the distress signal.

“Why the fuck aren’t they picking up.” Bakugou growled.

“Lines are probably full.” You mumbled. “That and I gave Yaoyorozu an all clear before we found the...you know.”

Bakugou sneered at you, his lip curling to reveal his bared teeth. He was about to go off on you when you finally heard someone on the other side.

“Alpha 251, what is your emergency.” The stoic voice was immediately recognizable and you shared a look with the seething blonde when your captain visibly stiffened.

“Admiral Aizawa.” Shinsou stated. “There’s been a breach a Sticur has managed to get onboard.”

“Fucking hell.” You heard the Admiral cuss, he called over a couple of people on the end of his line, he demanded information from them, nonsensical scientific jargon that you couldn’t comprehend. He asked you captain a plethora of questions from the time of the incident to any suspicious parties…. Unsurprisingly your name was mentioned along with Mirio. With a final sigh the Admiral gave Shinsou one last order.

“You are in the clear to use procedure AFO.”

“Yes sir.” Shinsou sighed.

You and Bakugou shared another look, his confused expression was all you needed to understand that he had no clue what AFO was.

When the line cut off Shinsou motioned for Bakugou to come closer, you observed from behind the two of them, your heart hammering in your chest as Shinsou asked to see if the taser was in working order.

“This.” He licked his lips in trepidation. “This is our only weapon.” His purple hues connected with both of you.

“You can’t be serious.” You whispered. “Why is there only-

“To prevent mutiny.” Bakugou answered, attaching the item onto his belt. “....It was pretty

common back then.”

You could tell the blonde was holding his tongue, you were too, you had so many questions but your Captain was incredibly tight lipped. You only hoped he’d relay the essentials…

The purple haired man motioned for you two to follow his cyan suit shifting as he walked out of the room and turned right. Your brows furrowed when you found yourself in the Shield’s room. Gloved fingers waved over a hologram and the image of the ship's forcefield enlarged. There were various shades of blue and red and a quiet curse word slipped from your superiors lips.

“There’s a weak point near the Storage garbage chute.” He informed, WIthout a second thought he began to work on fortifying it. It looked like magic… the way he moved the holograms, he made them smaller, larger at times he’d vocalize a series of codes and you watched in mild fascination as some of the red areas bagan to turn blue. You watched him work until Bakugou cleared his throat, demanding your attention.

“Don’t trust that Shindo guy.” He ordered…?

“And why not?” You scoffed. ‘He’s been a hell of a lot nicer to me than you’ve been’ is what you wanted to say.

“He’s nothing but a no good liar.” He summarized. “I get that you might have gained a ‘liking’ for him but he has a partner back-”

“Woah, way to jump to conclusions.” You hissed. “First of all he’s not leading me on, I literally met him five days ago!? How the hell wou-”

“Would the two of you shut up.” Shinsou groaned. “..That’s weird.” He mused. “This looks like it was tampered with. I’ll have to check the logs.”

“Whose in charge of Shields?” Bakugou asked.

“Midoriya.” Bakugou perked up at that.

“Watch it, he’d never flub his job.” He defended, you shrugged. “That damned shitty nerd is great at his job.”

“What’s with you defending him.” You asked suspiciously.

“None of your business.” He retaliated. You did catch him grumbling something about ‘being the only one who can come up with something to get us out of this.’

You shuffled awkwardly, the sound of Bakugou breathing and Shinsou working the only things audible above the usual spacecraft racket.

“...Bakugou”

“Hm” He grunted his gaze set on the long hallway behind you, the one you had walked down so carelessly earlier..

“A-aliens aren’t m-my forte, I only know that Sticur’s are parasites but what exactly do they do.. Well besides destroying their host.”

“Ha.” He scoffed. “They do so much more than rot you from the inside out.” He grit his teeth, his eyes boring holes into air. “Those fuckers are despicable. Once they enter your body it’s like nothing ever happened. Your memory of it slipping inside of you, gone. Once it’s inside it latches onto your brain and begins to absorb everything.”

You shivered at the description, you were about to comment when he continued. “They’re smart little bastards and they consume the host’s memories so that they know everything that the host has done, they can recall names, activities, faces, hell they take control and they act no different from the person they’ve overtaken.”

“And that’s not even the worst of it.” Shinsou added, clapping his hands, his task finally finished. “They’re blood thirsty, once they’re in control they make a game out of killing any surrounding beings.”

“The motherfuckers don’t even need to eat so it’s all just fucked up fun for their kind.” Bakugou hissed.

“T-then how do you know-”

“You don’t.” Shinsou sighed, beginning to walked down the corridor, “Well you can… but

only in the first hours, while absorbing memories the Sticur will act unlike the host and throw up a disgusting gunk of putrid rot.”

You thought back to the garbage chute. “Depending on the mental strength of a host the Sticur will induce vomiting a couple of times.” Your captain added. You couldn’t even begin to imagine that, having such a corrosive liquid bubble from your throat…. It sounded vile. Once you got to the end of the corridor your station opened up in front of you, the large windows allowing you to see the weaponry attached to the front of the ship.

The lot of you didn’t dwell there as a symphony of voices rang in various tones in the cafeteria ahead. What threw you for a loop was that the rest of the crew was there, including Amakiki, Midoriya and Mirio. They stood helplessly near the other door as the four sent into the cafeteria argued.

“I just want an explanation.” Hagakure huffed holding up a biohazard bag with more of

the gooey rot.

“Well what is there to explain?! It was obviously a set up!?” You heard...Kirishima shout!? You’ve never heard the lovable redhead raise his voice, especially not to Hagakure…

“Shut up Kirishima this doesn’t concern you!” Shindo hissed, stepping up closer to the burly man. Kaminari’s eyes were frantic, fear highlighting his golden hues.

“Enough!” Shinsou shouted, stepping forward, he was quickly followed by Bakugou who wedged himself in between his friend and the aggressive brunette. “What’s going on?”

“We found more of this.” Hagakure answered, holding up the bag.

“Where?” He asked.

“In the Oxygen unit.” She replied. Your eyes darted to the last person you saw in there.

“....Why were you in there? Your job was to check the cafeteria?” Your captain asked, His eyes darting to Kaminari as he clenched his fist at the implication.

“We decided to split up.” Shindo answered. “I remembered that there was a chute in the Oxygen unit and we left Kirishima and Kaminari here to check on this one while me and Hagakure went to check out the O2 chute.”

“I specifically told you to stay together.” Shinsou frowned.

“It was better this way.” Hagakure added. “It’s a gamble but in twos it’d be easier to figure out who the imposter is. You know...If one doesn’t come back then it’s obviously the one who does.” She shrugged.

Your captain mulled this over. And even you could agree that even though it was risky life it would work in weeding out the Sticur….

“And both of us came back, with this.” She continued.

Kaminari hugged his mini-clone close, tears bubbling in his eyes at the accusation. “I-It’s not me, I swear it’s not. I-I was just cleaning out the filter. I didn’t even touch the chute.”

“...B-but what were you doing in the O2 room?” You heard Amajiki mumble. “You're an electrician…”

“Shut the fuck up.” Kirishima seethed, startling everyone. “It’s not him! It can’t be him! And he was only there because he was assigned that task!”

“Calm down.” Shinsou ordered, his eyes narrowing. “Before we continue with the accusations was anything found here?”

“N-no it looks like this chute was emptied earlier today.” Kaminari sniffed, his eyes visibly red beneath his visor. Kirishima put his hand on the crying blonde’s shoulder, a heated glare set on those who were accusing his friend. Kaminari was openly crying now, and Kirishima’s hostile expression softened as he kneeled down to console him.

“I still think it’s him.” You heard Hagakure whisper from behind you. You didn’t recall when but you had found yourself in the center of the cafeteria with your fellow crewmates. Silence reigned over all of you until Midoriya decided to say something essential.

“We need to come up with a plan. It doesn’t matter if the Sticur knows our moves so long as we stick to it, we can wait it out until it’s host decomposes.”

You way he dehumanized whoever was infected sat wrong with you but you were in no position to argue with one of the lead scientists.

“Or until we get the test results.” Mirio added. That was all everyone needed to hear and slowly, you all walked to the Medbay and filed in. Blood was drawn from everyone, your eyes were peeled, wide and watchful as you tried to catch any odd reactions to the blood drawing. When all of the samples had been collected you all sat down around the room, some on the floor others on a cot.

“I’ve decided our next step, this will be implemented until we catch the host. Hagakure and Shindo are right we can’t keep traveling in threes and fours, This ship requires too much maintenance for that. We’ll stick to pairs, everyone will know who is paired with who.” You all understood what that meant… But it wasn’t exactly comforting.

“..W-what do we do when it’s caught?” Amajiki asked.

“We eject the fucker.” Bakugou summarized.

“You mean the airlock?” Kirishima asked, when it was confirmed he paled. “B-but what if we’re wrong? Aren’t Sticur’s supposed to be tricky? You know what’ll happen to someone who isn’t-

“We know.” Shinsou sighed. “I was cleared to use AFO, meaning all for one. HQ doesn’t care how but we’re not to advance or go back until the alien has been dealt with. It doesn’t matter who makes it back so long as it’s not the parasite.”

It was then that the gravity of the situation hit you…. You could seriously die out here, If the alien didn’t get you, your own crewmates would literally shoot you out into the dust and gases of infinite space.

“Wouldn’t the ejected body just stick close to the ship…” You mumbled trying to distract yourself from the thought.

“Yes the ship’s gravity will have the body satellite the vessel, which is where you come in (Lastname).” Your captain replied.

“What do you mean?”

“Once ejected, it’s your job as the weapon specialist to get rid of it, the vacuum won’t affect the parasite, so you’ll need to destroy it.” Your blood ran cold. “I’ve decided…. And it’s fitting considering that this is your fault. You’ll be the one to give the final verdict on who we eject, and you will end them. We’ll consider it a merciful death to those who might be unfortunate enough to find themselves thrown out, it’s better than the painful end they’d meet otherwise.”

“H-How can you say that?!” You shuddered.

“HQ has abandoned us.. AFO is basically a last suicidal resort. So please (Name) please make the right decision.” He pleaded.

You hugged your legs to your body, the cot you sat upon no longer feeling comfortable. In your hands were the lives of nine people. If you deduced who the Imposter was on the first go you’d all live. If not you would have killed someone innocent and if you don’t choose then the Sticur will pick you all off one by one…

Your eyes scanned the room, everyone's eyes were on you. You would hold off on using the airlock for now, you weren’t sure if you were ready to outright murder a comrade. And you weren’t sure if you had enough information to make the call. But there was someone you had in mind who gave you bad vibes and you discreetly stared at……

(Who did you stare at?)

#bnha among us #bnha among us au #Also I'd love to hear your theories 👀#bnha x reader #bnha imagines #bnha insert #mha x reader #mha x y/n

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lookingthroughmirrors · 3 years

Text

I’m Not A Serial Killer - Chapter 1

Alex Centric - Willex & Jukebox

His dad was never there to cheer him on, his Mum was never there to wipe away the tears. There’s always been something about him that was just never enough, he was never enough. Not for the perfect family, not for their image, not for anyone it seemed.

‘I’m sorry I can’t be perfect’

Everything had been going downhill since the second he woke up. It spiraled until he wound up barely coherent in an alley that looked like it had walked straight out of a horror movie. He doesn’t remember much except for the yelling, and the pain. HOMELESS seems to flash like a neon sign above his head, maybe luck is why Julie chose to walk home through there but he’s not about to jinx the only good that came from the day.

AO3 Link

~~~~~~~ Chapter 1 ~~~~~~~~~~

Julie kicks a pebble and watches as it rolls along the pavement, the sun shining down harshly causing a bead of sweat to roll down her face. Normally she’d be in school but with the heat wave it was decided to have school break early so there isn’t a risk of heat stroke. Julie’s dad is stuck at a shoot and was unable to cancel when she called him to make sure he knew she wasn't skipping. Adorning sunglasses she strolls happily down the street despite the heat. Not paying attention she rams straight into somebody hitting the deck with a solid thud. “Shit, wait-er sorry?” the person she collided with rambles slightly frantic.

Looking up she met with a boy her own age grasping a helmet in one hand and an old, slightly dingy looking skateboard in the other. Dropping the helmet he extends his hand out and she takes it with an appreciative smile hoping she doesn’t look too pissed. His wrist is adorned with multiple cord bracelets complementing his darker skin tone, hair as long as her own cascading down his back as he effortlessly pulls her back up onto her feet. “Thanks um-” “Willie, I’m Willie” he introduces with a charming smile “Julie” “Sorry for running into you” he mutters sheepishly through a mischief filled lopsided grin.

“Don’t worry about it-shit, Flynn is going to kill me” she breaks off into a grumble forgetting about the guy that just flattened her scrambling to pick up the trashed sunnies. “Oh for fucks sake” she grumbles looking at the cracked lenses, one side of the frame snapped in half, a chuckle breaks through her mutterings and she whips round with a piercing glare. “Hate to break it to you but you can’t make me melt” the asshole continues to chuckle at her misfortune “ See ya Sunglasses” he calls cheerful getting the bird flipped in his direction, his laugh echoing as he skates off down the streets.

“Chivalry isn’t dead my ass” she grumbles, turning down an empty street only a few minutes away from her house, stopping short when a groan sounds in the desolate open street. A shriek escapes her mouth as she stumbles upon a boy her age looking half dead blood and dirt caking his body. He flinches at the sound but that doesn’t stop her from slowly approaching him, his eyes flickering open his gaze following her movements nervously. “Are you okay?” he lets a low groan at her words, clutching his rib tightly and she puts her hands out infront of her as she gets closer. “Will you let me help you?” Julie holds her breath realizing it after a few seconds pass and he gives her a jerky nod. Sliding an arm under his Julie helps him up, barely stumbling along as she tries to support most of his weight. It takes 10 minutes for her to stumble and limp to her house, knees nearly buckling under the other teens weight. Julie glances at the barely conscious teen with a huff “Here’s to hoping you’re not a serial killer” she mumble managing to get them inside the studio ignoring the wave of emotions that crash over her deciding to focus on the injured guy slumped over her lounge.

Since mystery boy is decidedly not going anywhere she deems it safe to leave him for a minute to track down the first-aid kit stashed somewhere. The only sound is Julie’s quietly muttered curses and the groaning from the injured boy every few seconds. Finally digging it up, it’s pretty trashy looking, washed out paint and a thick layer of dust making up the cover. Putting the case down and checking that he’s not dead she goes to get a bowl of water and a face towel. Coming back into the room she barely manages to skid to the side, nearly sending the bowl flying , as mystery boy barrels past emptying his stomach contents into the bin.

‘Mental note, get new bin for the studio’

“What is it with people and body slamming today?” she mutters with a roll of her eyes before her expression softens once again as she turns to the boy, arms hugging the bin close to his chest as dry heaves sounding in utterly pathetic. placing a gentle hand on the boy's shoulder, he still flinches but not as bad as before. “ L-lu-” the boys mumbles his hands shaking, “ R-reg-” filing the names away for later she bites her lip staring helplessly as he gets more frantic mumbling unintelligibly. Making a split second decision she drags her fingers through his hair and the tenseness seems to melt away.

She’s not sure how long they end up sitting there in the silence, tension melting away from the boy as more time passes. As the golden hue of the afternoon light starts to shine through the window the beaten up teen starts to become coherent, eye’s not as unfocused and cloudy as before. He never quite passed out, almost vomiting every time he seemed to relax but he wasn’t really aware either.

His eyes flutter open and Julie only has a split second to register his eyes widening in panic before she stumbles backwards and the other teen darts to the other side of the studio eyes scanning the room frantically. “Hey, it’s okay” Julie says and the guys eyes dart to her still wringing his hands together nervously “I found you in an alleyway looking pretty beat up, I only brought you here to patch you up” while still radiating nervous energy he seems to calm down slightly at her words while still extremely wary, eyeing her suspiciously “How do I know you are telling the truth” without missing a beat she responds “How do I know you aren’t a serial killer?” eyeing her warily for a couple more seconds he finally lets his shoulders sag slowly walking towards her.

“Thanks” he stutters out “I mean-um for uh h-helping me and-and not leaving me in that alley” he rambles out through one breath bouncing slightly on the balls of his feet. “It’s okay, I’m Julie” she tries to give him what she hopes is a comforting smile, he returns it with a faint smile “Oh uh, I’m-I’m Alex” Julie puts her hand out and he grasps it with his much larger one, shaking it gently.

“Um d-do you want me to leave?” Alex's voice squeaks at the end of his sentence, looking like he wants to do anything but leave and her mind flashes to what he looked like when she found him and she can’t find it in herself to make him leave when he obviously isn’t in a good spot. “Nah, we can chill out here if you want to, we can watch T.V?” he looks at her incredulously, obviously not believing her.

“Seriously it’s fine, as long as you don’t want to leave you don’t have to” she gives him a kind smile flopping down onto the lounge flicking the T.V on, Alex, albeit hesitantly, follows her lead sitting on the other end of the lounge. About 30 minutes pass of them mindlessly watching T.V before he speaks up, face littered in prominent bruises “You’re oddly cool with a random person at your house” he comments looking at her in slight amusement and she replies with a smirk “Well I figure if you planned to do anything to me you would’ve done it by now” he huffs out a laugh, stopping short with a grimace of pain Julie wincing in sympathy “I don’t think your ribs are broken, I tried to check but i’m not the best with this stuff so i’m not sure but i think it’s only bad bruised” Alex nods and they both turn back to the T.V talking back and forth.

“Julie!” her dad’s voice echoes Alex freezing panic, sitting up ramrod straight as Julie flounders “In the studio!” she calls back shrugging at Alex’s glare. Her Dad freeze’s when he sees that she isn’t alone, his gaze melting to concern when he sees Alex’s state, Julie immediately shooting up beelining towards her dad “Dad please don’t be mad, Alex and I are partners for a school project and I told him we could work here. When I was walking home I found him like this and helped him get here, I think he could be seriously hurt and I didn’t know what to do, please don’t send him away” Ray makes a shushing motion, placing his hands on Julie’s shoulder “Calm down mija, I’m not mad. Alex? That’s your name?” that jolts Alex making him jump up from the lounge that he’d previously been trying to sink into “Um. yes s-sir. Alex Mercer”

“Call me Ray. Why don’t you come in for dinner, you look like you could use some food, we can discuss everything afterwards, assuming you don’t have to go home?” his words end in a question and Alex ducks his head, scuffing his shoe against the floor “Yeah, uh, my parents aren’t exactly happy. They told me not to come back, they’ve never really cared, I guess” Ray looks absolutely heartbroken while Julie can’t stop herself from linking his fingers with hers.

“Come on, dinner’s getting cold. Let’s just eat first and talk everything over later” Ray nods towards the house, leaving Julie and Alex to scramble after him towards the house. Alex grips her wrist, tugging slightly to get her attention “Why’d you lie?” he asks and she looks at him with a raised eyebrow “You think he’d let some random person I just met stay in our house?” Alex rubs his neck sheepishly “Yeah, good point. If it helps I have actually seen you around at school before, I’m in year 10” Julie smiles at that, she thought she recognized something about him “I’m in year 10 too, at least we know it wasn’t a full on lie, only a white lie” Alex seems to relax at the idea of outright lying to someone opening their home to him “Thanks, I mean uh, again, yeah uh, thanks again” he stumbles on his words Julie laughs as they continue into her house.

Dinner passes incident free with everyone getting to know Alex, Carlos barely took a second to breath while asking Alex question after question. Carlos heads off to play some ghost hunter video game that he hasn’t stopped talking about while Ray moves the conversation to the lounge. “Okay” he claps his hands together in front of him sitting on the coffee table as Alex and Julie take a spot on the lounge, Julie hugging one of the throw pillows to her chest. “Now mijo, I’m not going to send you away but the spare bedroom isn’t set up so I was thinking you could use the pull out couch in the studio until we work out everything. You are going to need to talk to your parents, I don’t know you well enough to say anything about it but you will need to talk to them, I won’t push as it’s not my place but you get it. Both of you have school tomorrow so don’t stay up too long, Julie you can only help set everything up out there before coming inside, both in rooms by 11, no later. Now I’ll leave you to watch a movie or something. I promise we will work everything out” with that Ray shakes Alex’s hand and placing a kiss on Julie’s head before going to his office to finish up some photo edits from a recent shoot.

“That went better than I thought” Julie mumbles and is immediately swooped up into a massive bear hug blonde hair flying in her face. “Thank you, thank you, thank you” he mumbles repeatedly into her hair, she doesn’t say anything letting him hug her tightly. “Sorry, ‘bout that” he mumbles pulling back sheepishly “I get it, today’s been all over the place” Julie reassures, she knows his emotional outbursts are just from whatever happened to him that’s ended with him having to sleep in the garage of a girl he’s never met before, not exactly what you would call normal.

An embarrassed blush taints his cheeks, though Julie just gives him a smile and flicks on ‘ Ghostbusters’. Slowly they build up a conversation and in the end the movie is forgotten as the two are immersed in a debate of whose better ‘ lady Gaga’ or ‘Ariana Grande’, Ray could barely make out what they were saying with how fast they’re talking. He watches from the kitchen, he stuck his head out to check and his brain nearly short circuited when he heard the music discussion. Since his wife’s passing 2 years ago Julie never touched the piano and would never even mention anything to do with music, she would just shut down. Now there she was sitting and talking about music, a bright smile on her face with the bruised and beaten looking blonde teen.

Speaking of the blonde haired teen, Alex seemed more carefree too like he’s in his element talking about music. It’s the first time he’s seen Julie look so genuinely happy in so long then surely the kid can’t be too bad. Despite his beat up, border lining on homeless appearance he can’t imagine the kid was out getting into fights or a laundry list of other things he could be doing. It’s nice to see that light return to Julie’s eyes, sparked with happiness.

#alex jatp #alive phantoms #alex x willie #alex mercer #julie and the phantoms #julie x luke #julie molina #reggie julie and the phantoms #reggie jatp #alex julie and the phantoms #willie jatp #willex fic #willex #Julie and Luke #julie and the himbos #Julie and willie #Julie and Flynn

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ecoamerica · 22 days

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youtube

Watch the American Climate Leadership Awards 2024 now: https://youtu.be/bWiW4Rp8vF0?feature=shared

The American Climate Leadership Awards 2024 broadcast recording is now available on ecoAmerica's YouTube channel for viewers to be inspired by active climate leaders. Watch to find out which finalist received the $50,000 grand prize! Hosted by Vanessa Hauc and featuring Bill McKibben and Katharine Hayhoe!

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voorheehees · 5 years

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Just Being Nice

Lester Sinclair x Reader

1000+ words

The inside of his truck looked like something ripped straight out of an i-spy book. With all the old bones, assorted bird’s heads, and collection of colorful bottle caps, there was no way you could focus on just one thing. Not to mention, the whole interior smelled of rot and tobacco and God only knows what else. You shifted your attention to him, the man behind the wheel who had picked you up a ways back. He was every backwoods redneck stereotype rolled into one dirty man. There was a large bowie knife tucked into his belt, a detail that you couldn’t possibly ignore. It would be a lie to say the whole situation didn’t put you at least a little on edge. But at this point, it was either ride to town in a strange car with this even stranger hillbilly, or sit back on the side of the road with your broken down car.

“What did you say your name was again?” You asked.

The driver looked to you and smiled, exposing a row of yellowed teeth. He resembled a wild animal, yet somehow charming, innocent.

“I didn’t. It’s Lester.” He replied in a heavy, scratchy southern accent.

Your smile back was a bit uneasy, yet sincere. Although Lester was a... unique character, he also happened to be your knight in shining armor of the day.

****

‘Fuck.’

It was all your mind could think. Your car was parked helplessly by the side of the road, steam rising from it like a train, while fluid dripped menacingly below it. You didn’t know much about cars, but you knew that a leaking radiator was not something you could take care of alone. But there was no town nearby that you were aware of, and no cell service for you to call a tow truck. In some fit of frustration you kicked the front fender of your car, immediately regretting the action as you felt a surge of pain run through your foot.

You nearly began to weep when you saw a car heading in your direction, bringing a blizzard of dust with it. It looked as though fate was in your favor after all. Without sparing a second, you stepped out into the road, waving your arms above your head. You thought you must have looked pretty ridiculous, but at this point you didn’t care. The car began to slow down, proving your attempt to get the driver’s attention a success. Your joy was quickly snuffed out, however, when you finally got a good look at the vehicle. The first thing you noticed was the traces of blood that lingered on the front bumper of the truck, and you could see small tufts of fur and what could only be gut residue poking out of the grills. Then you noticed the smell, a smell that made you feel as though you would vomit right there on the side of the road. You were so distracted by the scene in front of you that you didn’t notice the man step out from the driver’s side door.

“You lost?” He asked, startling you enough to emit a helpless yelp.

“N-no!” It came out louder than you had intended. “I mean yes, well, uh…”

The man raised his eyebrows at you expectantly as you attempted to form a coherent sentence. You took a deep breath and continued.

“It’s my radiator.” You pointed towards the open hood of your car, which was still puffing out a steady cloud of steam.

The man let out a long, shrill whistle.

“Well that don’t look good at all.” He said.

“You wouldn’t happen to be a mechanic, would you?” You asked, half jokingly.

The man removed his hat, revealing a head of messy, light brown hair. He ran his fingers through it, gaze not breaking from your damaged car.

“Afraid not-”

Your heart sunk, although it was the answer you expected.

“But I know a guy. There’s a town about twenty or so miles from here, I can give you a lift if you’d like.”

The offer was intimidating, and seemed rushed. This man, Lester, he didn’t know you at all. And you sure as hell didn’t know him. For all you knew, he could be a serial killer, and all that blood could be from people and not unfortunate deer as you had originally suspected. Which was why you were so shocked by the single shroud of trust in you, telling you that you should in fact get in the truck with this odd man, and that he would help you out. And somehow, it overpowered the rest of your internal thoughts that were screaming out at all the red flags. Perhaps this was due to the fact that you didn’t really have any other option, besides sitting by your car alone and waiting for a more “trustworthy” person to drive by. No way that was happening.

“That would be great, thank you.” you said hesitantly.

The man grinned from ear to ear, obviously pleased with your answer. He made his way over to the passenger side door and opened it, giving a little arm gesture like he was imitating a chauffeur.

“Hop in!”

That was about half an hour ago now, and it seemed as though the entire duration of your trip had been filled with Lester going on about how collecting roadkill not only put a good sum of money in his pocket from selling antlers and deer heads to nearby bars, but it also cut his food costs by a landslide. Although you found it humorous that a guy like him was talking about finances, you tuned out when he began talking about how “It’s good venison, once you pick out the gravel”. However, as the time increased, so did the apprehensive feeling in your gut.

“Um, Lester? Are we getting close?”

You tried your best to not convey the ever growing fear in your tone. Lester was not convinced. He looked over to you with an expression you couldn’t exactly read. His brows knitted slightly, but he carried a somewhat phoney, or perhaps unsure smile.

“It’s just around the bend. Je-Sus! Don’t worry, I ain’t gonna kill you.”

You couldn’t help but smile despite the circumstances. For some reason, the strange attempt of reassurance was calming.

“Good,” you said, “I really thought you were going to turn me into a hood ornament.”

Lester chuckled, then snorted. In that moment, you thought he was sort of cute. In a weird way. Like a possum, or a feral child. You realised that he had dimples on his cheeks, they were soft but still noticeable. Catching yourself staring, you quickly changed the subject.

“So, what’s this town called again?” You questioned.

“Ambrose.” He answered, his laughter winding down to a giggle.

“I’ve never even heard of it.” you said.

“It’s not much,” the driver began, “Just a tiny town, don’t even think it’s on maps. But it’s got a mechanic, Bo.”

“Bo..” you repeated, almost in a whisper.

This time, it was Lester who looked you over. And yet it wasn’t in a perverted way, as was usually the case when he had beautiful people in his passenger seat. He admired how the afternoon sun cast across your figure like a painting. You turned to face him, offering an innocent, still somewhat guarded smile. Lester’s mouth went dry at the sight. He thought he could fall in love right then and there.

Due to his distraction, he had to slam on the breaks rather harshly when you finally reached Ambrose. Or rather, just outside Ambrose.

“Welp,” Lester said hoarsely, “here we are.”

He parked the truck and cut the engine.

“I hope you don’t mind me dropping you off here.”

“Oh no! You’ve done so much already I don’t mind at all.” You said.

Seconds, which seemed more like minutes passed, yet you didn’t exit the truck. The two of you sat awkwardly, quietly, each one trying to think of what to say. You glanced to Lester, who tapped anxiously on the steering wheel. With another deep breath, you gathered your wits and spoke.

“Thank you, Lester. Really.”

His face visibly went a shade or two more pink. He coughed slightly as you places a gentle hand on his arm.

“Oh,” he stammered, “Don’t mention it. I was just trying to be nice. Y’know, civic duties and shit.”

The words had to force themselves out past the lump in his throat as he watched you get out of the truck.

“Well, bye.” You said finally, almost wishing that he might ask you to stay a bit longer. You knew it was a useless thought.

“Bye…” he replied.

You shut the door and began walking towards the town, your travel companion waiting in the parked truck, face twisted with concern. When you reached the “Welcome to Ambrose” sign, you stopped suddenly, turning to wave one final goodbye to Lester. You regretted judging him, as he turned out to be a really sweet man under all that dirt and animal blood. You mentally promised yourself that you would not do the same to the people you met in Ambrose, no matter what. Lester’s heart skipped a beat as you waved to him. He gave a subtle nod back to you, guilt weighing on him like a ton of bricks. He wanted to stop you, but what would he say? What could he say? ‘Don’t go to this place that I brought you to, you’ll get turned to wax’? Yeah right. You would not only run away from Ambrose, but from him as well.

Unconsciously, he stroked the spot on his arm where you had touched him only moments earlier, a million scenarios running through his head. He could be a hero, he could run out there, grab you, kiss you. Then the two of you would drive the hell away from that place, with nothing but the small stash of money he kept in his glove compartment and each other. What a stupid thought.

He started his truck, which sputtered to life, truly showing its age and shape. Lester had never questioned what he did, never questioned his brother, Bo. Why now? He didn’t need to think hard to know the answer, for he already knew. Mother had always said he was a lover. He rolled down the window, letting the fresh air in and the stink of the interior out. As the crisp autumn wind blew onto his face, he wondered if Bo would let him visit the museum tomorrow. He just wanted to see you one last time.

#lester sinclair #house of wax 2005 #bo sinclair #vincent sinclair #lester sinclair imagine #slasher headcanons #slasher imagines #slasher fanfiction #slasher x reader #house of wax #lester sinclair x reader

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ephemeral-afterlight · 5 years

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Mourning at Midnight

(UwU so Hey. i’m back with some more trash)

Word Count: 7480

Summary: It’s scary, in a way, how in moments like this one, Logan feels as if his consciousness floats away from him, leaving behind only a wave of white-hot, searing anger that drains out of him just as quickly as it comes. There’s sleet running through his veins, and his brain has frostbite, and his fingertips are numb in the face of the ringing resonance after his outburst. The pain comes next, a simmering heat blistering below his fist until it’s coated and red and the beginnings of a bruise are starting to form. He can’t help but stare helplessly in front of himself, eyes burning and filling and blazing with how much they beg to close.

He doesn’t want to look up, to face the suffocating silence that’s fallen over the room. He doesn’t want to see their faces, their disappointment, their anger, their contempt. He wants to yell. He wants to sleep.

Logan sinks out.

Warnings (could potentially be small spoilers, nothing too big, but if you don’t have any triggers I’d suggest you skip reading this!):

There are no u!sides in this, nor does anyone have malicious intent, but the other main three (Virgil, Patton, Roman) and Thomas, to a lesser extent, treat Logan unkindly (not on purpose) and don’t realize their errors. This will be resolved! Just… not yet OwO

Being ignored/talked over

Mental/emotional breakdown

An unidentified illness with symptoms including: [extreme persistent nausea (lots of mentions), vomiting (once), bile, weakness/weariness, shaking, lightheadedness, double vision (once), headache, body aches/pains, breathing difficulties]

General negativity including: [self-doubt, self-deprecation/depreciation, feeling worthless or unloveable, self-hatred]

Anger management/temperament issues

Unintentional self-harm (not anything like c-tting, Logan gets a bruise as a result of an angry outburst)

Separate small, vague allusion to self-harm, but it’s not outright and not detailed in the slightest. Could be read as not even talking about self-harm

Potentially triggering descriptive imagery (metaphors and similes to describe how a character feels or percieves a situation, not anything that actually happens) including but not limited to: [glass, sharp things, blood, injection, live wires, loud noises, screaming, general mentions of pain, masochism, sound torture, knives/blades, wounds, drowning/suffocating, pressure]

Temporarily unresolved tension between Logan/Deceit/Remus and the other sides/Thomas (there will be a happy ending in the next fic, though, don’t worry!)

A few vulgar threats of violence (somewhat explicit, be careful) to the other sides from Remus (out of protectiveness; Remus means well but he does Not express it in a healthy way) that is not carried out or even humoured

Remus’ morning star and descriptions of its destructive capabilites

Loceit as a romantic pairing (for now…. UwU)

Sympathetic “dark” sides

That should be it for warnings! Let me know if I need to add anything!

A/N: So! This is finally done :D !! I’ve been working on it on and off for the past week or so, and although I know it could be way better, I think this is where I’ll keep it! This is technically a sequel to my other fic Tea at Twilight and it takes place in the same universe, and although you don’t need to read that before this to understand the story, I strongly suggest reading that first to get more of a feel for the dynamic!

This is inspired by @illogicallyinclined and her absolutely amazing Disaster Trio™ headcanons/au, and was prompted by this post so I just started writing! I meant for it to be a bit shorter, but of course my brain would Not let it go, even despite my ADHD, executive dysfunction, and massive amounts of writer’s block.

This is also unfinished! It is the second of three main works, all happening chronologically in the same universe. The first one is Tea at Twilight as stated previously, then this one, and there will be a third and final installment added to finish off this short little trilogy! I’ll be adding this to the series on AO3, so when the final fic is up, it’ll all be together for an easy reading experience. It is also possible that there will be other small fics in this universe (UA, as has been recently coined) that operate outside of the timeline of the main story, so be sure to watch out for that!

Thanks to Jay once again for creating these lovely headcanons that haunt my dreams every night, and for inspiring me to get back into my writing groove despite a writer’s block that’s lasted for over three years! Hope this isn’t too terrible, Jay! ilyy <333</p>

Also, a huge thank you to @illogical-anxieties for being such a good cheerleader/enabler! You really do help to keep me motivated and on track (and keep my ADHD in check), which is probably why this was even able to become a full-fledged story rather than a WIP to be buried where unfinished fics go to die T~T Love you tons <3</p>

(If I’m being honest with myself, this is just an excuse for me to live up to my IRL title of “Living Thesaurus”, coined by a friend many years ago and has since spread around to other friends and family. My title is thriving, and I suppose that means I should actually have proof of it, so there’s that.)

(Cross-posted to AO3)

(Read Part 1 here)

He can feel it building.

There’s far too much left to be desired when it comes to frustration. The natural helplessness that makes way for anger when you try so hard to do something or be something for someone and you’re pushed down by anything and everything between ignorance and antipathy. The fear that nothing you can do or say will ever be good enough. The buzzing, ticking, pinpricks upon pinpricks of heat injected into you until your blood and heart have been replaced with glass, fragile as a crumbling stone wall. It’s not as if he hasn’t had his outbursts before, spurred on by the familiar sharp pulse of rage that courses through him in a split-second whirlwind. It builds inside him, and he can feel the pressure in his limbs expand until it feels like his muscles are being squeezed out of existence and then he snaps like a rubber band that’s been pulled too taut. He’s not in denial of the fact that his impulsive, blinding reaction when met with frustration is not okay, and only detrimental to the demeanour he’s trying to retain. He knows it’s childish. He knows it’s immature, and pathetic, and wholly invigorating, at least until the adrenaline has worn off and he’s in the aftermath of his knee-jerk reaction to the tension coiled in his arms and legs and head.

It doesn’t mean that Logan is particularly in control of it though, despite his self-awareness being far above the level that most people with anger management issues are at. Maybe there’s a certain quality to it that allows for growth; it’s not as if Logan stays angry, or that he wants to hurt people. He loves the others, painfully so (as much as he loathes to admit it), to the point where he’s so desperate for their approval that he tampers down his passion, that spark that used to drive him to learn and speak and be happy just to avoid being cast out and abandoned, alone in the way he never wants to be. He wants to find a way to temper the fall into those dark, consuming waters, a way to mute the buzzing and ticking. He wants to seal those exposed live wires and release the tension to the point where he never lashes out ever again. He wants to, and he doesn’t know how to, and that fact infuriates him in an ironic, endless cycle of self-imposed and self-directed enmity.

Logan still thinks on this often, even now, wracking his brain for solutions to problems that realistically won’t be solved as easily as he wishes they would. Excerpts and quotes and data and statistics from many different studies about anger and temper management and irritability and everything in between seem to figuratively run amok through his brain, a screaming crowd of witnesses to the chaos and failure found in his ability to filter through the nonsense and come to a satisfying conclusion, any conclusion at all. He notices how his fingers tremble as they slip into the handle of his coffee mug, endures the dull ache in his mid-to-lower back from falling asleep at his desk for the majority of the day under the guise of work so important he holed himself up in his room to complete it. He ignores the way his head pounds, how he feels so dizzy that he might fall over and pass out any second from lightheadedness. He suffers through the loud conversations between the other three that are typical to the dinner routine that Logan cannot deal with today, not with this headache poking at him like figurative needles in his head.

When he senses the summons from Thomas stirring up the familiar but nonetheless odd ticklish sensation on the back of his neck, Logan can feel the tension knot up his muscles, and the combination of the two just makes him want to growl in irritation. The others, having also felt the summoning, seem to get impossibly louder, ringing and stinging and singing in his head. He still persists, despite the fact that he knows he shouldn’t be out doing anything today that’s likely to exacerbate his sickness, because Thomas is important, more so than Logan himself. No matter how much he wants to hole himself up in his room and sleep the day away, his host needs him, so Logan simply forces his mask of indifference to melt into steel. He refuses to budge, not for the first or last time, and he rises up in the real world standing straight and rigid and as put together as he’s always expected to be.

When he’s finally settled into his usual spot, as still as he can possibly be to not exacerbate the roiling nausea disquieting his stomach, he’s able to take in the other four arranged in their usual positions in Thomas’ living room, already having begun a conversation that Logan has missed the premise of entirely through his all-eclipsing, obfuscating malady. His vision doubles, like broken fractals of glass reflecting onto themselves, and then it pulls back together, merging back into something visible, something manageable.

“Well, I’m sure Danny likes you, too! You just gotta ask him, kiddo!” Patton exclaims, high voice pushing through the heavy, suffocating cotton in Logan’s ears, and the words snap the bespectacled side to attention. He needs context, needs to know what they’re talking about, needs to be able to help for once. Maybe he has to endure the bad to be able to put out the good, and this is where the climax is, the top of the rollercoaster at such a high altitude that oxygen is thin and dispersed before he shoots down the tracks in a rush of fresh air, relieving and calm and sanguine as he’s finally able to ground himself. A shiver runs through Logan’s body, between his shoulder blades and down his hip and through his leg, and his eyes flutter under the weight of consciousness. It recedes, the flow is ebbed, and his head clears to a more sustainable level.

“Oh, that’s so boring, Padre! Thomas should hire a band to play! And we can rig up streamers and confetti and there can be a cake and dancing and a party to celebrate!” Roman crows, throwing his arms and hands up into his signature pose to match his full, booming tone. Patton squeals, clutching his cardigan in his hands to pull excitedly at the sleeves as he bounces giddily on his feet. At the suggestion, as the polar opposite to Patton’s reaction, Virgil grimaces, hunching over even further in his jacket as he protests with every way he can think of that the situation could go wrong. Unsurprisingly, Roman takes personal offense to it and refutes Virgil’s points with the same intensity and fervour that’s been present in himself and his interactions with the anxious side since day one. Logan sort of understands, can infer that they’re discussing how to ask out Danny, a new friend of Thomas’ who has very quickly turned into a crush. In that case…

“If I may interrupt? While I don’t share all of Virgil’s worries, I do agree with his position in regards to the fact that there isn’t a need for such extravagance. It might embarrass Danny, for one, and for two, there are many ways such an excessive venture could backfire, such as technical difficulties or general human error. The idea is, while exciting, frankly outrageous,” Logan says, his role as the voice of reason renewed once more. It’s his job to sift through the conversations they have and get to the important parts, and he likes his job. He’s good at micromanaging, mediating the chaos, good at storing information to sort and consider and veto and bolster. It’s how he operates, how he copes. “We can think of something else to–”

“Oh, shut it, Pocket Protector. We all know you don’t care about romance, but this is important! Thomas wishes to find love with the second most handsome prince in the world! After me, of course,” Roman exclaims, in that boisterous, self-aggrandizing way of his, the way that hides his real insecurities he buries so deeply in himself he doesn’t know how to find them again. Oddly enough, it’s not Roman’s defense mechanism that throws Logan off, it’s the way that Logan stopped talking almost reflexively to allow the other side to finish his statement, as if the prince’s words were more important than his own, and it speaks as testament to how much Logan’s been conditioned (or maybe he’s conditioned himself all on his own) into putting everyone else before himself, even when it hurts him or Thomas. Logan is ignored in the face of his implicit trust, and he hates that even as it pours salt in the open wound, he finds himself taking a depraved, spiteful comfort in the familiarity of it all.

“That’s not what I–”

“Awe, c'mon, Logan! Thomas deserves to have a happy relationship and someone he can live out the rest of his life with! Doesn’t that sound nice, to grow old together with someone you love? Isn’t that romantic? Oh, it just makes me so warm and fuzzy thinking about it!” Patton interrupts, hands clutching each other over his heart as he swoons. Logan knows Patton doesn’t mean to be rude, but he still can’t help but be a little hurt by it, especially since he’s now been ignored twice consecutively. He’s just trying to help, and if that means reigning in Roman’s exorbitant ideas that border on egregious at times, then Logan knows it must be done. Although he encourages Thomas to seek a relationship to improve his mental health and provide more financial stability, there is a limit to how much he can disregard himself and others in doing so, and that doesn’t mean that Logan is the bad guy for pointing that out. He knows that. He knows that, so why does the dismissal still feel so sharp in his chest?

“Yeah, romance is cool and all, but what if it doesn’t work? What if Danny actually hates us? What if we ask and he laughs at us or says no and then we’ll be standing there like an idiot and then he’ll never wanna talk to us again because he thinks we’re pathetic and stupid and–”

“Hey, now, don’t be such a Debby Downer, kiddo! I’m sure it’ll go just fine! We’ll just ask him. The worst thing that can happen is he’ll say no, right? Shouldn’t we give it a shot?” Patton consoles before Virgil can go into a spiral. Although his well-meaning reassurances are meant to be comforting, his voice just grates on Logan’s ears, tinny and hollow and misdirected.

“That’s what I’m afraid of!”

Logan wants to keep listening, he really does, but the noise is rising to levels where it’s too much to handle. He’s already sensitive from his illness, but the discussion that is very quickly turning into an argument falls in pulses through his head, sound torture to the broken, hopeless masochist. He’s barely holding onto himself at this point, consciousness like a dangling thread that swirls and dances and twirls with even the tiniest breeze, a hint of movement sending it shivering and quivering as it spins. It wouldn’t take much for the thread to fray from the weight pulling it down, or to saw through it in a clean slice that leaves it floating feather-light upon air currents, petals spiraling to the ground.

Petals. Flowers. Thomas could bring Danny flowers! It’s perfect! Danny is especially predisposed to gardening, and he frequently talks about different flowers and what they mean based on the type and colour. His interest in botany could make this a sweet gift, to show that Thomas pays attention to what Danny enjoys, and can be the perfect segue into asking him on a romantic outing. Yes, this could work! It would appease Roman’s inclination to classic romanticism while still being practical and not unreasonably expensive, give Patton his ideal relationship fantasy (and a “warm and fuzzy feeling”, apparently), and allow Virgil a little more breathing room, so-to-speak. This is something they all should be agreeable towards, and that confidence is enough to supply Logan with enough energy to push past his lightheadedness and offer a solution. He’s proud of himself for taking the others’ feelings into account, something he knows he’s not always been the most proficient at, and for coming up with a compromise that will likely satisfy everyone’s wants and needs.

“What about bringing him flowers?” Logan asks, pleased and antsy as he feels hope well up in his chest. He doesn’t push it down this time, and he thinks maybe, just maybe they’ll finally listen to him, that they’ll tell him that he did well, that he’s being considerate and maybe even say thank you–

“How would you even know, Roman? It’s not like we just go out and hire mariachi bands every Saturday!” Virgil says with furrowed brows, and Roman huffs in indignation, and Patton sighs as he looks between the two of them, and Logan’s words fall on deaf ears. They didn’t even hear. They didn’t listen. They didn’t care they didn’t care–

“Uh, hey, Virgil, what if–” Logan tries once more to speak, nausea rolling angrily in his gut, head spinning dizzy round and round and round and round and Virgil flinches.

He flinches. Because of Logan.

Virgil hasn’t been afraid of any of them for a long time. Sure, in the beginning, when they fought one another on nearly a day-to-day basis, there would be a moment before he could pull on his figurative mask that a flash of fear would go through Virgil’s eyes, and the sadness kept within wouldn’t subside even when he growled and snapped and blustered whichever side had the misfortune of picking a fight with him during a time where his first instinct was to keep away the pain and longing and loneliness the only way he knew how. Over time, that flash of fear dulled, morphed into something more manageable, more trusting. The sadness never really went away, but it was met with warmth, a soft contentedness that danced in his eyes when he realized he had a family to turn to. He hasn’t been afraid for a long time. And yet, he flinches away from Logan, just from him speaking.

Is he really that bad?

Does even simply the sound of his voice have such a negative association for Virgil that it prompts genuine fear and discomfort? Has he really scared Virgil that much? What did he do? How can he fix this?

Maybe he shouldn’t.

Logan’s felt disconnected from the others for quite a while now. He loves them, of course he does, but he doesn’t feel like he fits. He’s the metaphorical jagged puzzle piece, the one that should snap into the final vacant space but is so broken beyond repair that it doesn’t fit quite right. He wants to belong, to feel at home whenever he’s with them, but he doesn’t. He yearns for the acceptance that Virgil earned, the support that Roman is held up by, the respect and adoration Patton seems to acquire so casually and naturally that it’s like he doesn’t even have to try. Logan wants to be like them. He wants to be loved, but… that isn’t really his place, is it?

Love is not an inherent thing. It’s something that’s earned, by doing good things and being important enough to someone that they give it freely. It’s something Logan doesn’t understand, but despite that, still desperately, painfully yearns for. He wants to be loved, the way he loves the others. He wants to be a part of their famILY, to have that implicit trust in each other that only comes from acute, profound, deep-seated love. He wants that fondness directed towards himself, that devotion borne from hapless, radiating appreciation. The humbled esteem, the maudlin, theatrical longing, the passion and yearning and helpless, acquiescent love that bursts from the seams in a manner that will never diminish or fade. He wants that. Badly. And he’s finally ready to accept that he will never have it. He’s okay. He’s okay. He just needs a moment. He just needs to breathe.

The others must have continued with their arguments long ago, seemingly unaware of anything outside of themselves. Logan supposes he shouldn’t really berate them for that since he often falls victim to getting lost in debate as well, but something is wrong with Thomas, going by his expression and demeanour and the logical side can’t ignore it anymore. It’s highly unlikely that the other three will come away from themselves for long enough to notice, and it doesn’t sound like they’re anywhere close to coming to a conclusion amongst themselves, so Logan is perfectly fine with bearing that responsibility upon himself to check up on his host and make sure he’s okay. He’s the most important one here, after all, and it’s Logan’s job to help him, guide him in his life and decisions.

“Thomas? Is there something wrong?” Although the words come out clear and precise as usual, Logan’s throat burns, and he can barely breathe. He wants to sleep, he wants to sleep, but Thomas needs him, and that doesn’t happen often nowadays, so Logan does nothing but wait impassively. His host bites the inside of his cheek, then sighs as he stares off at the wall, lost in thought. Since he says nothing, the logical side assumes he will continue to say nothing for a few more moments, and decides to give him a once-over to gather more information and any possible context. Thomas’ eyebrows are furrowed, and his posture far from adequate. His expression is troubled, and his arms are crossed loosely, a pointer finger scratching at his elbow unconsciously. There is no obvious cause for his confusion and/or upset in himself or anywhere in the room, apart from the current dilemma, but he was fine before, so something must have changed to distress him now. Logan cannot ascertain what Thomas needs simply from observing him, so he concludes that the best thing for him to do is wait.

So he does. And he does so for a minute, two, five. Every second that ticks by feels like a needle is being shoved into his eyes, his brain, his legs, his everything and it takes more effort to stand than he’s used to. Breathing is difficult, but that isn’t exactly a new development, so at least he knows how to ignore it. Eventually, ten minutes pass with only the sound of the other three arguing in the background, and it doesn’t seem like Thomas is really all there. Although the action makes him want to throw up, Logan shifts forward, moving out of his usual spot and into Thomas’ own. He still doesn’t acknowledge any kind of input outside himself, so Logan lays a hand on his host’s arm gently, which snaps him out of his trance in a slow, unhurried kind of way. Thomas gives him a glance when his logical side sighs, tampering down any audible signs of his nausea in a manner that is unbeknownst to the host, but returns to staring at the wall without a second regard.

“Thomas?” Logan murmurs, bile rising in his throat and shoving his hidden suffering even closer to the forefront of his mind, as though it hasn’t been there all along. It’s hard to think, through all of the white noise and weary irritation and the tiniest sliver of hope that he crushes immediately, but thinking is his job, and he needs to help. “Are you alright? You can talk to me.”

And then Thomas is shrugging him off, turning away as he tells him he should “just stop” with piercing words, that he “can’t do anything to help”, and the rejection feels like a metaphorical knife has been shoved into his gut. Logan can feel the pain and the heartbreak and the insecurity materialize into a cold blade, twisting and twisting just to make him hurt more. Logan is ignored for the fourth time today, by the person it hurts to come from the most, and he can feel the sun whipping and screaming in his chest. His breath is stuck, sucked down into his throat, a sharp pain localizing in his neck, and he can’t help but bring his hand up to rub at the spot with trembling fingertips as he unsteadily lurches back to his regular spot. The others don’t notice, of course, or if they did, they don’t care. Then the nausea he’s been fighting against surges like a violent wave at full force, drowning him and the hurt is forcing its way into his mouth, his throat, his lungs, and he can’t breathe–

His fist flashes down from his neck to the banister, punching the railing so hard it echoes in the reverberation created from his vicious, angry snarl.

It’s scary, in a way, how in moments like this one, Logan feels as if his consciousness floats away from him, leaving behind only a wave of white-hot, searing anger that drains out of him just as quickly as it comes. There’s sleet running through his veins, and his brain has frostbite, and his fingertips are numb in the face of the ringing resonance after his outburst. The pain comes next, a simmering heat blistering below his fist until it’s coated and red and the beginnings of a bruise are starting to form. He can’t help but stare helplessly in front of himself, eyes burning and filling and blazing with how much they beg to close.

Logan sinks out.

There’s a very short window of time where the logical side rushes into the en-suite bathroom after rising up in his bedroom, trembling legs aching with exhaustion. Barely a second passes between him falling to the floor and emptying the meager contents of his stomach into the toilet, the bile burning in his tender throat as a reminder of his failure. The floor is cold and hard beneath him, ridges of tiles pressing unrelenting into his knees through his wrinkled jeans. His head spins, unbalanced as it whirls through itself, words and thoughts and ideas that mean nothing and everything simultaneously existing hollowly in a falling echo. There is pain, and aching, and soreness, and exhaustion, and Logan wants to sleep.

It’s hard to rise to his feet, head throbbing and knees shaking as he wipes the spit from his mouth on a folded square of toilet paper. The pain nags at him, persistent and irritating in its attempts to shut Logan out, almost clear in a way that belies the foggy haze blanketing his nearly incoherent thought process. Marking a clear vantage, a faultline to anchor onto is no easy task, and all Logan wants as he stumbles over to his bed is a landmark to pinpoint and find his way back to. He careens toward the mattress once he’s close enough, finally letting his legs give out underneath him when he’s as near as he can bear. It’s so difficult to stay upright in stiff misery, pangs and twinges of sharp pain coursing through his limbs and his back as his muscles are forced together under pressure.

In another familiar, frustrating bout of anger that seizes his breath before it can escape his lungs, Logan shoves his fingers in the knot of his tie, yanking it forcefully even as the motion jerks his own head forward uncomfortably along with it. His fingers run down the length of the fabric, and it falls apart at the end of its cycle, much like Logan has, and he snaps his arm back to chuck the dark blue, silky length to the ground in a motion that does little to relieve the rage built up inside him.

He can feel it building. The buzzing, the pressure, the glass in his veins running on shards. He feels the pinpricks upon pinpricks, the fire burning in his lungs, and the stone crumbles, and tumbles down, and he’s like a rubber band pulled taut.

He cracks, shrill pressure in his knuckles and head and torso, and nothing happens.

Then Logan hears the telltale squeak of his door swiveling on mildly rusty hinges, and a familiar voice echoes right through his bubble, shatters the stone wall like a bulldozer running at full speed, and then the wetness spills over his lashes and over his stony, impassive face.

“Oh, Lo,” Deceit murmurs, sad and tender as the breath rushes out of him and Logan can’t do this. He wants to throw out his fist in a wide arc and pummel the wall next to him until his knuckles are raw and bloodied and bruised beyond repair. He wants to scream until his throat is torn and his voice is gone, lost in the uncaring, empty void that coldly swallowed up his passion. Happiness has never seemed further away, and he knows he deserves it. But then he remembers all of the times where the pressure in his limbs and the buzzing in his brain forced him to lash out, to hurt others, and he thinks that maybe it’s okay for him to hurt right now to even the score. With the last of the metaphorical wall around him in tiny pieces, fragments of a life he never wanted to live but he desperately fought to keep, he lets his guard down for the first time in years.

Logan’s face crumples under the weight he’s burdened his being with, body immediately drooping under the heaviness that he’s forced himself to fight through. He finally submits, and the tears come in an endless stream over his cheekbones, itchy and hot and terribly, mindlessly relieving. It feels so good to finally let the negative emotion he’s pent up inside him out, to fall out of his cage he’s lived in high above a swirling ocean of release and fear and freedom. And he’s so, so lucky because he has someone to save him from the fall.

Deceit’s kneeled down in front of him, wiping away the tears as they fall with uncharacteristically degloved thumbs, and Logan can feel the smoothness of the scales twisting and trailing down his fingers. Every so often, Deceit’s pointed thumbnails catch lightly on the skin of Logan’s cheek, and it just causes him to cry harder. The vulnerability in the room is palpable, a wispy breath of worry and insecurity and trust trailing over their skin, blanketing the room in a warmth that runs even warmer when Logan reaches up to gently lay his hand over Deceit’s own. He shows his appreciation through tactility when the words he so desperately wishes to say are lost in his throat, blocked by the barrier that separates his newfound submission and the part of him that’s still clinging to the feeble grasp at acceptance he craves so dearly.

Logan can barely tell what’s in front of him through the kaleidoscope in his vision, but he doesn’t really need to see to throw himself forward off the bed and bury himself in Deceit’s chest, of whom lets out a surprised noise but doesn’t hesitate a single second in wrapping his arms tightly around the other side. He strokes Logan’s back comfortingly and offers him whispered reassurances through the heart-wrenching sobs and broken, croaky whines that disappear into his cloak, hand coming up to cradle his head in the overwhelming reflexive instinct to keep the logical side safe and happy. It feels like a dagger has gone through Deceit’s chest at the knowledge that Logan has been suffering for so long and hasn’t been able to let it out or just simply be held, the self-preservation that is at the core of his function as a side going off like alarm bells with every sniffle. Logan curls into the first person who’s ever offered him physical affection and emotional safety, and his fists clench the fabric at the snake-like side’s shoulders as tightly as he would if he were to never, ever let go.

Logan is out of breath even as his heart begins to calm, beating and beating in his ribcage and in his lungs. The lump in his throat prevents him from speaking, but he figures it’s okay to not be heard audibly, just this once, and speak with his actions. Although he doesn’t know what he’s saying when he pulls back and wraps his arms around Deceit’s neck, laying his face in the crook of other side’s neck like a small child would, not really, he hopes that his intent still comes across in some sort of intelligible, hopeful way. Deceit seems to take this as a request, a promise, and slides his grip to a point where he can hoist the smaller side up in his hold, carrying him just like a parent carrying their kid to their bed after they fell asleep during a visit to a friend’s house. This situation is much more loaded, stained with impurities and unsure withering, but it’s just as raw, just as real, and Logan finds himself feeling safer than he ever has before.

At some point, they end up on the bed, Logan having been manhandled into a more comfortable position for both of them, which is laying across Deceit’s lap without ever having let go of his neck. The logical side feels small and vulnerable, something that he would normally hate, squash down, bury so deep within himself that he doesn’t even have to acknowledge it. But honestly, right here, right now, he’s so goddamn exhausted, and forcing himself back into the state of repression he’s been in for so much of his life would take too much of a toll, more than he already has on himself. The wetness rolls down his cheeks, bold, blue precipitation falling in droplets onto his skin and the fabric of Deceit’s cape, sinking and spreading and thinning out into airy nothingness. And the nothingness enraptures him, pulls him in even as he breaks and whimpers and spills wisps of forgotten feelings into empty space, at least until his bedroom door opens once more with a loud click, because nothing Remus ever does is truly quiet.

“Hey, are you guys having a sexy party without me? How c–… are you… crying?” Remus asks, suggestive tone split and watered down into something confused, and surprised, and angry. The younger twin kicks the door shut behind him with his foot, more out of muscle memory than conscious forethought, something that stands with nearly every action Remus executes. Logan turns his head wearily, not lifting it from where it rests on Deceit’s collarbone. The latter of the two takes that chance to clear away some of the tears that didn’t get absorbed into his clothing, hoping that since the stream is slowly dispersing, his cheeks will stay dry this time. Remus slowly approaches, body tense and eyes piercing as Logan’s face is wiped off for the nth time, offering no other sounds or words as he crouches down to examine how the bespectacled side’s skin is rubbed red and sensitive.

Logan just whines softly, stare falling to the bedsheets, observing nothing in particular as he tries to figure out why words are failing him. Something that’s such an intricate part of himself, the communication of thoughts and ideas and knowledge that defines so much of who he is and how he exists, it’s dwindled and diminished into nothing. Deceit seems to understand, he always does, and reads him so perfectly it’s a wonder the two didn’t become closer in the beginning, with how much they truly are alike. A scaled hand makes it’s way up to Logan’s head and cards through the soft, disheveled hair there, scratching lightly at his scalp in a motion that seems to draw the aching tension caused by his distress out of his body, leaving his muscles to relax and melt into the chest that holds him upright.

“Something happened before I came in here. I assume it has to do with the others,” Deceit murmurs into thick, heavy air, stale with shame and tired hopelessness. Remus’ eyes flick to Logan’s own, actively searching for some sort of confirmation or denial. There’s a beat of silence, and Logan’s eyes flutter in a fatigued attempt to stay awake, and the nausea creeps its way into his stomach once again like a predator stalking its prey. Deceit repositions himself quietly, pulling the smaller side impossibly closer, as if he knows that he’ll need the added comfort. With his body squished into a protective embrace, and his tie laying flat on the floor below, forgotten and scorned for what it represents, Logan swallows hard around the sharp block in his neck and nods through his nonverbal affliction.

At the minimal admission, something in Remus’ eyes darkens, bathing the bright craze that typically resides there in something hateful, and vicious, and dripping with chemical absolution. He shifts away, rolls onto his haunches in a way that doesn’t read as entirely intentional, as though he’s been physically forced back with the weight of the confession. There’s so much there, in the way his breath comes out shallow and gravelly and low like a beast biting and snapping at the bars that contain it, fighting against the cage it’s locked inside. Nostrils flare, and jaw sets, and fists clench white as bone, and Remus straightens up to his full height, intimidating and looming and dangerous.

“Who?” he spits, venom coursing through the single word in molten streams. It’s a protective fire, serious in a way Remus rarely is, and the storm in his eyes and aura only becomes more turbulent and intense and solid as he reaches behind himself to slowly seize his morning star from where he keeps it at the ready. Pulling it to the front of him is an unexpectedly slow event, yet still ferocious in its quiet, cold fervour. The silver weapon swings in a steady arc around the side of Remus’ body, catching the dim light in a threatening glint, the gleam alluding to its deadliness in a way that’s almost unexplainable. The spiked mace finally comes to its resting point, hovering in the air just beside the fierce side’s leg, unassuming and ready to drive its way into an unlucky antagonist’s skull.

“I’ll cut their fucking throats. I’ll rip off every single limb from their bodies until they’re nothing but a pile of flesh and blood. They’re gonna pay for this,” Remus snarls, each threat bathed in acrimony and malice and choked by fury ripping through the tempest. Logan stares through misty eyes, half-lidded and concerned but too out of it to muster much of a coherent thought. Thankfully, Deceit is still there, soft and warm and well-equipped to deal with Remus and his behaviour. The snake-like side sighs, reaching out to just barely snatch up a frilly black sleeve, tugging him closer and meeting surprisingly little resistance despite the rigidity of the tallest side’s posture. Each breath from Remus comes out like a bullet, brisk and arduous and punctuated by a pang of impermeable guilt.

Even as Deceit motions Remus to lower himself onto the bed in front of them, the latter of the two is still apprehensive, terse movements and restless eyes that flit between anything and everything they can to avoid stagnation. It’s almost fearful, in a way, primal in its aptitude to think, and cultivate, and vindicate a wrongdoing that was never his fault or responsibility in the first place. Logan hates that they need to save him, hates that he doesn’t truly believe they actually care. There’s a level of certainty with himself and with others that the logical side hasn’t reached yet, and it feels too close and yet too far, kept obscure and secluded and almost clandestine in the way it’s ostensibly unreachable.

With the help of Deceit’s hand to guide his way, Remus slowly lets go of his morning star, tossing it to the side with a pensive, trembling swallow. It clatters to the ground, metallic clang resounding in vibrations, tilde-shaped waves that bounce off the façade and yell out to one another. Muted shrieks upon perfect, flat, neutral paint, sepulchral oscillations attacking the drywall.

“You can’t hurt them. I know you’re angry. I am too. But hurting them won’t solve anything, Rem, you know that more than anyone,” Deceit says meaningfully, smiling in a way that’s sad and distant but caring and compelling and relaxing for the tension wrapped so tightly around the three of them. The snake-like side lifts the hand that’s not in Logan’s hair and reaches out to grab Remus’ own, firmly but gently as he squeezes his fingers in a way that reassures, and consoles, and reprimands, not unkindly. He admonishes, and breaks that anger and frustration, and builds up positivity and alleviation and reprieve from everything that allows that buzzing, ticking, those pinpricks upon pinpricks. His care and concern washes over you, paternal in a different way than Patton operates, and it’s why Deceit is so comforting to be around. He manages a respite from vexation, a refuge in sanctuary, discreet freedom for the flawed, defeated dreamer.

“I’m mad. I’m mad that they hurt you, Lo-Lo. I want them to feel the pain you’re feeling,” Remus mutters, frigid and defeated, head bowed and gaze distant in that transparent manner of his that easily broadcasts all of his thoughts and feelings and wishes. Logan feels the pride welling up in his chest without even realizing it, quietly delighted at the progress Remus has made in being clear and forthcoming with his emotions and impulsivity. A weary grin makes its way onto his face, predictably aggravating the soreness in his cheeks, yet he finds himself indifferent to it, unperturbed by the plight that’s ravaged his body for the day, and probably longer without his notice. He wants to reassure the younger twin, to smile and laugh and brush all of it off, but his eyelids droop, and a pathetic mewl is the only thing able to escape his lungs. Of course, since there’s something Logan wants to say, Deceit somehow knows how to communicate it, just as prompt and courteous and perceptive as always.

“We can talk about this later after Logan has slept. Don’t worry too much, Rem, and don’t do anything stupid. If you get angry again, please go to your paints instead of your legs,” Deceit instructs, more of a suggestion than a demand, but he hopes Remus will listen and be mindful anyway. The latter of the two bounces his leg anxiously, grumbling unintelligibly under his breath as he stands up in one swift, fluid motion. As Remus makes his way over to exit the room, Logan nudges Deceit’s hand with his head gently, trying to bring his attention back to the massaging motion that ceased sometime during the conversation. The snake-like side’s eyes flick downward to meet the smaller side’s own half-lidded, teetering gaze, and he huffs a laugh after a moment of searching. Logan doesn’t know what he finds, but he realizes that he doesn’t really care that much about worrying over every little interaction anymore.

Remus finally turns and glances back as he swings the door open, brows still furrowed and shoulders still hunched, but simply shakes his head and leaves. The door closes much softer than before, thankfully, so as not to be too harsh on Logan’s migraine, an unusually conscientious thought from someone that rarely shows consideration to the needs of others that the logical side appreciates that much more. As the sound of Remus’ footsteps slowly fade with his retreat down the hallway, the two of them left are bathed in silence, one that is marginally less heavy and thick than before.

A small while passes afterward, only punctuated by soft breathing and light scratching noises from nails trailing through messy hair. Logan feels like he might pass out any minute, what with the comfortable, quiet understanding the two have come to rest at, but some part of him says to wait, to push through the mind-numbing exhaustion for just a little while longer. That part of him is probably just being considerate toward Deceit, who Logan can’t imagine would be very comfortable with another side falling asleep on him and laying on him for an extended period of time, but he figures that it’s a good of a reason as any. It’s not about him feeling like a burden. It’s not.

Eventually, Deceit must start to get tired as well, or maybe he’s sore from Logan’s weight on his legs, so he sits forward, apologizing quietly for disturbing the peace, and he moves them into a more comfortable position. The new arrangement is far more snug and cozy than the previous one, Logan thinks drowsily, as his head hits the pillow across from Deceit. They lay there on top of the blankets but make no move to pull them up, just content to stare lazily at one another in the dim, ambient light cast by the desk lamp in the opposite corner of the room.

“Why?” Logan finally asks, and although he loathes disrupting the silence, he needs to ask. The words are scratchy in his tender throat, a charcoal whisper on a steel canvas that scratches and sketches away with nothing viable left to keep through the wind that blows the dark dust off the surface. “Why are you helping me? Why do you care?”

Deceit just hums, sending Logan a weak, distracted smile. He mulls over the words, tossing about the meaning and possibilities in his head and on his silver tongue, rushing in an uncertain river through valleys of golden sand.

“I am self-preservation at its core. I exist to keep Thomas safe and healthy and thriving, and that also means you and the other sides by extension. But… it’s not just that. Even though I feel physical pain whenever one of you or Thomas is hurt, I specifically want to help you because… I care about you, Logan. I love you, and want to see you healthy and happy. I haven’t really been doing a good job of that lately,” Deceit mutters, gaze somewhere on their shared pillow, and there’s a quality to his tone that’s bitter beyond the line of frustration. Although Deceit doesn’t expand on it, doesn’t offer up a single clarification despite the heavy air and his resigned demeanour, Logan gets it. He understands, and he wants to prove him wrong.

So he does.

And that comes in the form of surging forward, fighting against the current, the pinpricks in his stomach and shoulders and abdomen, disregarding the exhaustion for just a little while longer so that he can let Deceit’s lips meet his own. Logan’s so close he can feel the shocked rush of air leave Deceit’s nose, feel the vibrations through the air as his body trembles in fear and anticipation and relief. The other side eases in, sinks closer, closer, and finally moves his lips in a careful, emotional dance that leaves Logan dizzy and breathless, for entirely different reasons that have plagued him for the past day.

“Lo,” Deceit breathes, low, wanting, and he pulls back to give Logan a chance to catch up. A scaled hand comes up to caress the logical side’s cheek, a soothing, cool balm for the raw skin beginning to heal there. “I didn’t… I didn’t think…”

“I love you,” Logan breathes, the words he’s refused to say, to acknowledge, to confront welling up through his throat and for the first time, he lets them spill out. The dam has broken, debris left to descend and submerge in the depths of the sentiment crashing through in a roaring, passionate rapid at the narrowest point yet. The words come, and they don’t stop, and Logan almost can’t believe how right they feel on his tongue. “I love you, I love you, I–I love you so much, Dee.”

Logan is like a rubber band, pulled taut and still and trembling under the pressure. And maybe he’ll split, shoot apart, torn in two pieces that will never fit back together again. But maybe he won’t. Maybe instead of snapping in half, he’ll snap back, and that thought alone gives him a quiet comfort that he’s not used to allowing himself. He’s waiting, hoping, and he’s okay enough for now.

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erinaceina · 4 years

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Lymond Fanfic: Febricity

Massive thanks to @notasapleasure for encouragement and help with this.

Spoilers for Checkmate.

Fever came to Midculter as 1558 wound itself to a dreary, a sodden, a lightless close, clad in blowing fog and gusts of leaden rain. Throughout that momentous year, the rheum had blustered and wheezed across Europe, una grande influenza di lunghe e mortali infermità, and now it crept on swift feet through the kitchens and the door-yard, and sank with a biting chill into the bones of Francis Crawford of Lymond and Sevigny. Running before it as herald and handmaid, it brought an exquisite, drumming pain that swelled and battered in all the echoing chambers of his skull.

No stranger to hemicrania and the diverse pains of body and mind, febrile, high-strung and worn to new delicacy, Lymond paid it no mind. Lately Voivoda of all Russia, lately Marshal of France, former outlaw and former galley slave, accustomed to ignoring the exigencies of the body, he threw himself into the counsels of Scotland with all the vigour that France and Russia had commanded. If a tremor that he could not quite master shook the slender, elegant hands and an unusual degree of pallor deepened the purple shadows beneath the vivid blue eyes, they were well concealed by the gloom of the winter’s day and the brisk, spare grace of his every movement.

Islanded amidst a welter of papers in the Earl of Culter’s wood-panelled cabinet, attended at every moment by the fuss and hurry of secretaries and messengers, the brothers laboured over the business of the realm of Scotland, fair head and dark bent together in refutation of the years that had separated them. Exhilarated by this new and fragile accord, Richard Crawford did not perhaps notice as he might have done that his brother’s acidulous commentary came more rarely as the day wore on, or that a rasping burr sounded occasionally in that light, melodious voice. The untouched goblet of wine at Francis’s elbow told no strange tale, and it was with a start that Richard realised that even the dim light beyond the many-paned windows had faded to night and the candles were guttering and his own gut was gnawed with hunger.

‘Come on, Francis.’ Richard stood, stretching against the ache in his back with a monstrous yawn, and disentangled his younger brother from a teetering pile of maps. The hand that he touched so briefly was chill and clammy, but the fire had burnt low in the hearth and the heavy brocade curtains hung open against the bitter night. ‘Philippa will have my head if we don’t go down to dine.’

A brief, enchanting smile lit Lymond’s face and lifted for a moment the pall of weariness that hung about him. ‘Should we not be like the Artotyrites, enlumined by bread and cheese alone?’

‘Not unless you want your wife to serve my eyes on a plate like Lucia as garnish to your cheese,’ Richard retorted, crossing the room. ‘And I’m afraid the bread is gone and the cheese is fit only for the mice.’

‘For shame, Richard! Is there no Pangur Bán to haunt your castle and prey fiendlike on your vermin?’

‘None as fiendlike as the vermin.’ Richard grinned. ‘And anyway, I’m afraid Philippa has been teaching the cats to eat cheese.’

Swinging the cabinet door open, Francis let out a shout of laughter that dissolved into a hoarse, hacking cough. ‘A poison enemy of all cheese,’ he gasped, regaining control of his breath with an effort of pure will, even as the band of fire drew tight around him, shearing pain along the spaces between every rib.

Richard started, finding his own heart suddenly hammering in his chest as the raw blood suffused his brother’s face. He reached for Francis, one hand closing over a shoulder that felt suddenly, terrifyingly fragile through the thick cloth, the old resilience a gossamer-spun illusion that he had learnt too late, but Francis waved him off with a sharp gesture. ‘The Cornecraik in the croft, Richard. Count it as long-overdue penance for my damnable tongue, if you will.’

Richard retreated reluctantly, tucking his hands into the waist of his breech hose, and, seeing the ferocious expression on Francis’s face that he could, at long last, diagnose as wounded dignity and desperate pride, he spoke no further, but contented himself with a sceptical frown to match Francis's. But there was no recurrence of the coughing fit as they made their way through the corridors of Midculter, speaking desultorily of the business of the day, and the high, fierce colour ebbed slowly from Francis's face.

As they settled themselves at the board, charm and wit were alike in full flower in Francis's voice and in the swift, eloquent movements of his hands. If Richard found himself distrusting their intensity, he dismissed it as an old, rotten kernel of fear buried deep by the second Baron Crawford, his father. And if he caught Philippa's eyes lingering more often than not on Lymond's face, there was no novelty there.

Francis ate little that meal, the ornate Italian fork lying idle under one ringed hand, but touched the bright linen to his lips with fastidious frequency and drank sparingly from a goblet of well-watered wine. The marks of long strain and grief and captivity were perhaps stamped more deeply on his face than they had been for some weeks, but they were overlaid nonetheless by a patina of new joy that blurred them to insignificance. As the courses came and went and the wine and conversation flowed as freely around him as the waters of Saturnia, his voice, light, amused, only a little hoarse, rose from time to time above the chatter and burble, recalling some incident or joining Philippa's in scurrilous verse that painted Mariotta's cheeks with colour and made the dowager snicker into her shawl.

It was no surprise, then, when Kevin and the other children, wheedling, begged for music and would hear no demur, or when Francis, yielding, set down his wine. 'Enough, brat. A pype thou shalte haue also, In true musyke it shall go.'

He made to rise, but the enduring will that had sustained him throughout the long day as so often before faltered at last. Flesh, tested this year beyond the brink of endurance and snared now in webs of pain and the grip of a rising fever, betrayed him utterly. His soft-shod feet stumbling on the polished floor, Francis Crawford fainted, and slithered, quietly and unobtrusively, under the long table.

The dowager made a soft noise of distress. Kevin Crawford, eight and sturdy, froze, rebec clutched in one slightly grubby hand. Richard sat stock still at the head of the table, his mind filled with a soundless clamour no, no, no and the blood draining from his face until his pallor matched his brother's. For a heartbeat, nothing moved in the hall save for the dancing echoes of the firelight and the overturned goblet rocking gently in the dregs of spilt Bordeaux wine. Then, with a screech that set all the tableware jingling in sympathy, Philippa thrust back her chair and sank down beside the prone figure, her rich skirts unspooling around her. Her fingers, finding the bright gold of Francis's hair, trembled slightly, and she compressed her lips into a severe line. 'Oh, Francis,' she complained. 'What have you done now?'

The napkin that had fallen from his uncoiled hand was lightly but unmistakably stained with blood.

*****************************************

The faint was not, after all, a deep one, and Lymond awoke to the hazy echo of Amiens, and a blur of familiar faces ringed like the nodding heads of summer flowers about him, and the realisation that he no longer possessed the strength to stifle the outward manifestations of the fever that gathered force within. The cat lapping hopefully at the spilled wine was not, perhaps, the stuff of high tragedy, but Lord Culter, steadying his brother's slight, listing form with one broad shoulder and hoisting him unceremoniously to his feet, began to panic in earnest, feeling the concatenation of tremors rattling through the chest braced so close to his own despite the intervening layers of silk and linen and lace. For a moment, the golden head lolled slackly against the neat ruff encircling Lymond's throat before the dazed blue eyes snapped wide and the slender, elegant frame straightened in a fair imitation of insouciance. A sudden, shocking memory of the spring warmth of the Loire valley nearly eight years before and his brother vomiting helplessly behind a curtain in a stinking chamber in Blois arrived like a cuckoo in Richard’s mind. He could recognise now, as he had not at first then, the vulnerability and sheer stubborn will stamped in every line of Francis's body, and see it echoed over and over in the depths of Philippa's solemn dark eyes. With the inner shrug of a habitually sensible man confronting the inevitable, Richard released his brother and stepped away. Lymond favoured him with a slight nod that he would once have seen as cool, mocking condescension, and in which he now read a depth of relief that still held the power to shock him.

They stood for a moment, simply regarding one another, and Richard felt the weight of all the words unspoken bear down upon the air between them like Master Dee’s angels. Then, with a flutter of movement that scarcely disturbed the exquisite lace at his wrists and the fall of his yellow hair in the candlelight, Francis wilted like pot herbs in a stew. This time, at least, Richard caught him, the panic swelling now to uncontrollable proportions as he saw all his brother’s vaunted control stripped away. Philippa’s face was very pale, but the painted crescents of her brows were undisturbed, and Richard wondered at it until he saw that the hand cupping Francis’s elbow trembled over and over with the finely honed anguish of the caged songbirds of Constantinople.

‘Right, my lad,’ Richard said in the no-nonsense tone he had used so often with children and livestock alike. ‘It’s to bed with you.’ For a moment, it seemed that Francis would surely argue, would shrug off concern and command alike with some familiar, acidulous retort, but he merely acquiesced with the same slightly damp, boneless meekness as Kevin after a dose of physick.

They departed the great hall trailing a wake of dogs and servants and children, Lymond supported limply between a bride with worry in her eyes and a brother preoccupied with alternating visions of poison and a fatal decline. Between these staunch bulwarks, Lymond himself swayed with each achingly slow step like an overladen carrack caught in a crosswind, his head drooping, his feet dragging, and the blood ebbing and flowing fitfully beneath the fine skin of his face. Progress ground to an irresolute halt, however, at the foot of the tower stair, when the tangle of onlookers proved too great for the width of the passage. Richard, momentarily distracted by the demands of a small child in petticoats and jam stains, loosed his grip upon his brother, and Lymond, staggering between the competing forces buffeting him within and without, slipped his anchor completely, and fell hard into the window embrasure, dragging Philippa with him and sending a majolica statue of dubious artistic value shattering to the floor.

Silence fell like a cloudburst around them and even the dogs and the children quieted as the last glazed splinter shuddered to rest. Sprawling crook-legged against the bruising stonework with Philippa’s fingers laced in the disordered silk of his hair, Francis Crawford looked up at the Dowager with beseeching blue eyes. ‘Mea culpa, mother, mea maxima culpa…’

‘It’s only poor Leda and her appalling swan, darling.’ Sibylla, who had found herself relegated rather unceremoniously to the back of the Crawford gaggle, moved forward with brisk decisiveness that belied her age. ‘I never understood what Gavin saw in the wretched thing and I can’t imagine anyone will miss it. I’ve been hoping that the cats would dispose of the thing these past five years, but they will do as they wish, no matter how much one asks.’

She made to place her hand on his forehead, but he wrenched away with an effort that nearly tumbled him to the floor, and she realised that he did not quite see her and that whatever the shockingly blue eyes beheld was no comfort to him. ‘I’ll keep my promise, mother. I swear, I’ll keep my promise, whatever you ask of me. Mea culpa…’

Sibylla recoiled in horror and saw Philippa fingers clench reflexively in the golden hair. Gathering her composure about her like the thinnest of veils, she smiled down at the dazed face of her youngest living child. ‘No need for promises now, Francis, I’m sure. Just rest and sleep, my darling.’ But the tears were standing in her eyes and she could move neither forwards nor back, leaning instead into Mariotta’s comforting embrace as Richard once again scooped up his younger brother and, stooping a little to avoid the concussive potential of the winding stair, began to climb. It was not, all told, the most graceful progress that the Earl of Culter and the Comte of Lymond and Sevigny ever made together, accompanied as it was by a ceaseless volley of bruises and glancing blows on walls and stair as Lymond fought again and again to regain some control of limbs as leaden and unresponsive as cold pudding. Nor would he release Philippa’s hand, even as his sweating fingers slipped against hers. Once, as they took the turn to the final landing and Philippa sidled to avoid an elbow to the eye, her hand slipped completely free of his and a low sound of utter despair escaped his bloodless lips.

‘My dear, my dear.’ Philippa caught up his hand again and pressed it to her lips. ‘I am here.’ They stood, the three of them braced together and breathing hard, while the rain lashed at the windows and a half-muffled sob died in Lymond’s throat.

The last steps to the tower room were the worst, for Philippa dared not release Francis’s hand, and the moved together like some many-legged creature from a bestiary of nightmare. Nor was the clammy and uncooperative figure of Francis Crawford, deposited at last on the high bed, a helpful partner in his own divestiture. The boots presented little enough of a problem, but anxiously twisting fingers tangled themselves in points and lacings and the prone figure exhibited the distressing tendency to flinch at any but the lightest touch. The strings fastening the neat ruff tangled in the golden hair and had to be cut; silk and linen clung damply to sweating skin; paned hose tore under the force of injudicious tugging; and every inch of skin seemed blotched with fresh bruises or burning with fever. Richard, working methodically to unlace his brother’s tight cuffs, froze, looking down at the limp hand laid gently in his own, at the livid scar that bisected the pale flesh of his brother’s wrist. With shaking fingers, he unlaced the other cuff and laid bare the matching scar. Philippa, hearing a change in his breathing, glanced up, and caught the look of incandescent horror burning in his eyes. ‘When?’ He swallowed and tried again. ‘Jerott told me but I didn’t know this…’ A helpless gesture at the jagged, slowly healing flesh that his brother had once laid open in the depths of despair, while he himself had been so far away and unknowing.

‘In Lyon, when he was blind,’ Philippa said, in a calm, quiet voice, but the bones of her hand, resting on the warm, tensile flesh over her husband’s heart, shone yellow-white through the skin.

‘And if he is blind now?’ Richard gave voice to the fear that had been growing within, that Francis had bought a scant few months of health with the blow at Dourlans, that it was starting again, the blindness and the despair, and, for all who loved Francis in Scotland and beyond, the helpless, unending loss.

Philippa’s dark eyes snapped with sudden fire and when she spoke it was in a tone that rang with decision. ‘He won’t be blind; this is no megrim.’

Unreassured, Richard felt no unkind impulse to disillusion the brown-haired girl whom his brother had married. Together, they stripped Francis and bundled him between blankets and quilt, and drooped, exhausted and speechless, in the chairs that stood sentinel beside his bed.

*****************************************

The guttering candlelight lying on Philippa's hair like hoarfrost, trembling in the jewels set at wrist and ear and neck, was the first thing that Francis Crawford saw when he woke, muzzy and unpleasantly clammy, in the great bed. There was little else to see in the confined circle of light, and the ache behind his eyes only hardened into bands of ringing steel when he tried. Taking swift catalogue of his body - or as swift as his numbed and muzzy thoughts would permit - provided little reassurance. His head screamed, his throat burned, and his chest was ringed with Aeolian fire; every limb felt as it was trying with all its might to disjoint itself from the next. What little in his body did not pain him felt stuffed with buckram and sawdust, and when he answered the question in Philippa's eyes, he heard his own voice as if from a great distance.

'So sair the magryme dois me menyie,

Perseing my brow as ony ganyie,

That scant I luik may on the lich.'

He broke off, coughing, and did not speak again until Philippa had lifted a cup of water to his lips and he was sweating profusely, his face the colour of fresh-dyed cramoisie. 'I thought it was a return of the old malady, yunitsa.' And was afraid to contemplate it went unspoken.

'And the cough? And the fever? Did you think that they were some novel aspect of your megrims?' Philippa enquired tartly, but there was real fear glittering in her brown eyes.

'The cough?' Another voice. Richard's. His brother's somber doublet and hose had concealed him against the dark panelling beyond the candlelight, but now he sat forward, his elbows braced on his knees. Tiredness bracketed his serious grey eyes, and something that looked horribly like grief. 'What cough, Francis?'

'The cough that kept him awake half last night,' Philippa said, fixing a stern and unbending glare on her lord and master. 'Francis thinks that I am quite deaf. I should imagine that he has been wheezing like the bellows of Hephaestus all day, every time you left him alone.'

Francis contrived to look sheepish, even as the runnels of sweat crept through the tangles of his hair like worms and his vision swam with a sudden surge of appalling heat.

'Francis!' Richard expostulated, looking so confounded that his brother would have laughed if he could. But the fever that had come upon Francis in dizzying waves as he sat at table was worsening now. He could not concentrate, nor could be find the words to reassure Richard, but could only clasp Philippa's hand and mumble something contrite into the pillow. And when sleep came once more, he was glad to escape for a while the prison and confine of his body.

*****************************************

It was not, of course, a restful sleep. In the carmine darkness between the world of sleep and the waking world, the hydra-headed horrors of past and future writhed together before a transfixed mind that could neither blink nor flinch. As so often before, the serried ranks of his dead rose before Francis Crawford of Lymond and Sevigny like dragon's teeth in the green grass of summer. The ghastly parade of grim, dear faces loured before him as he sweated and twisted in the entangling sheets - Will, Christian, Strozzi, Oonagh, Eloise, Khaireddin, always Khaireddin... Then the living and dead twined together, hopelessly entangled, each with the other, until he could not tell who was living and who dead and the scent of the grave and the poppy rose up around him in a cloud of heat. Philippa fled from him through the traboules of Lyon, horror engraved in every line of her face and the soft, brown eyes huge and cold, and when he looked down at himself, he saw that he wore the heavy, reeking clothing of Leonard Bailey and there was a sword in his hand.

Graham Reid Mallett raged at him, dressed in the robes of a lord of the court of session and so close that he could not avoid the touch of his breath upon his face, and became the Cardinal of Lorraine and Margaret Douglas and Ivan of Russia with eagle's wings rising behind him. A tide of blood swelled around him, flowing like the four rivers of paradise from the wounds of the slain and the lost, from Salablanca and Güzel, from Will’s lost arm and Marthe’s shattered face beneath the ruined cap of amber hair. He screamed and cursed and begged as he had not in waking life, until every breath he forced through his wrecked and bleeding throat was an agony of effort and despair.

Philippa had gone; she could not stay; she must not stay, or the fire would consume her and the mutes would smother her and his arrow would pierce her through and through. Again and again, she turned from him and he knew that this was fitting and proper, even as the Russian winter burnt in his bones and the very marrow of his being sang with pain.

Reaching for his sword, fumbling for boots and spurs, he felt soft, firm hands press him down and something cool and wet against his brow. The trickling of iced water followed him once more into sleep, and he was drowning, drowning in the roads outside Calais as Richard and Sibylla and Diccon Chancellor gasped and flailed in the roiling sea beside him. Again, he reached for his sword, and again was pushed back against the sheets that tried to swallow him whole. This time there were hard hands marked by sword calluses, hands that drew his mind back and back to childhood, weeping in the tower over some childhood sorrow while his brother held him against a worn jerkin that smelt of sweat and horses. And then he struggled through mire in the house on the rue de la Cerisaye, and his horse foundered under him, and an eagle screamed and a child whispered, 'Say goodnight to the dark' in a voice that made him cry out in horror.

Throughout it all, he knew that if only he could get up, if only he could finish this, then he could make amends, could save Philippa and Will, Joleta and Christian, Eloise and Oonagh, Robin Stewart and Turkey Mat, could save his son, his only son. If only the sick heat and chill would leave him; if only he could breathe properly without sawing pain in his throat and nose; if only he could settle and finally sleep.

At some point - although he could not say whether it was deep night or the wan light of the winter's day - Francis Crawford felt Philippa's hand slip from his own, and knew that she was gone forever, although he could not have said why. The bright tears pressed at his eyelids, but he could not let them fall, surrendering instead to the desert dryness that filled his mouth and the raging torrent running through him like the falls of Engedi - my beloved is unto me as a cluster of camphire in the vineyards of Engedi - and let the fever sweep him away from the clammy, suffering body set amidst the damp, twisted sheets like a jewel of no price.

*****************************************

Philippa woke with her head resting on the edge of the high bed, her neck a jangle of nerves and stretched muscles and her nose pressed crookedly into the goose down. The lute had half slipped from her lap and hung precariously from the stiff fingers curled around its neck. Her toes were cold in their embroidered slippers and her head radiantly hot where it had been veiled like an idol in the bedcovers. Stretching, she settled the lute more firmly in her lap and ignored the percussive click in her aching neck, but her hands remained still on the strings, too tired even for music. A quick glance at the occupant of the bed revealed that he was sleeping, breathing in great, fretful gasps but not crying out as he had when the delirium had shaken him like a ragged poppet of flesh and blood and he had not seemed able to bear even the touch of her hand against his flesh. Throughout the long watches, night and day commixed in noxious alchemy and every sense reduced to this man, she had sat here, listening and watching, hoping only for the fever to pass and the brief moments of lucidity to return.

The dowager, banished to fretful safety, had reappeared again and again with a pottle of chicken broth or a peck of willowbark and a child or a cat or a viol in tow. Relieved of her burdens, Sibylla was swiftly repelled by Richard, who said that Francis was quite enough of a handful as an invalid and that the Crawford family had no need of a second. Richard himself would scarcely leave even to sleep and Philippa could not be moved even by the wildest of imprecations. Looking across at Richard now, Philippa could see her own weariness and fear graven in his face and she tried again. ‘You don’t need to stay here, Richard. Go and sleep and I’ll wake you when the fever breaks.’

‘No.’ He turned away. ‘I cannot…’ He trailed off, but Philippa knew the thought the he could not speak aloud: that he could not sleep in case Francis did not wake; that fever had killed enough men in Europe this year who had not endured all that Francis had endured; that, although vitality had returned in full measure, Francis was not yet as strong as he had once been. And that, once again, he had driven his body beyond the limits of endurance, a tool to be used until it bent or broke. ‘I should have seen that he was ill. I should not have expected him so soon. I knew the state that he was in at Amiens…’

Philippa flinched, an almost imperceptible flicker, but said briskly. ‘Nonsense. Francis is like a cat with a sore foot when he’s ill, and we all know it.’ She paused, glancing down and letting one finger tap against the lute’s strings until they hummed softly. ‘And he was so glad to come here again – at last.’

Even in the scarce light, Philippa could see the high colour climb in Richard’s cheeks and he smiled a sweet smile so like Francis’s that she could have cried. ‘Well then,’ Richard said in a voice marked by strong emotion. ‘If neither you nor I will sleep and Francis will not wake, at least permit me a turn with the lute.’

Philippa blinked and, surprised, yielded up the instrument without the least hint of resistance. The strong, brown swordsman’s hands gripped the lute, perhaps not with Francis’s innate grace, but with a skill and dexterity that had no shame in it, and he began to play, slowly and quietly, a rollicking, filthy drinking song from the stews of Glasgow.

And, sometime in the grizzled half-light between day and night, the fever ebbed like the long, broken sigh of sea on shingle, and, although still wracked by a cough like the voice of the cù-sìth and assailed by an excess of phlegm, Francis Crawford of Lymond and Sevigny settled into a dreamless sleep.

*****************************************

Philippa, in a fresh kirtle miraculously free of both creases and the stale odour of the sickroom, smothered a yawn against the back of her hand and nudged the door of the tower chamber open with her hip, a brimming bowl of chicken broth balanced in her other hand.

‘Washe them with his owne broth till whit he become,’ she sang out cheerfully. ‘Hepsibah’s recipe, although sadly lacking in cumin, I’m afraid… Francis?’

Through the part-drawn curtains of the bed and the scented steam curling up from the bowl, Philippa looked in alarm at the huddled figure of her husband. Far from the content and sleepy invalid that she had left to wash and dress herself, propped up on an extravagant mound of pillows with the Decameron at hand, an embroidered cap tugged primly over yellow hair and a fresh nightshirt tied with a neat knot at the hollow of his throat, the figure of the bed was coiled snail-like around his bent knees. His head had been buried in the crook of his arm beneath a tangle of sheets; at the sound of her voice, he raised it with aching slowness. The pallid afternoon light revealed blue lips set in pale face whose only other spots of colour were shadowed eyes and a reddened nose like a beacon in fresh snow. The book lay discarded on the floor, pages spraddled and bent, half-hidden under the slide of the richly embroidered coverlet, mute testament to a patient who was rather more ill than she had imagined.

‘Like the common escargot unshelled,’ Francis said, in a voice like something living at the bottom of a well, and essayed a faint smile.

With exaggerated care, Philippa set the bowl of broth aside and settled herself on the high bed by Francis’s shoulder. ‘Francis, my dear, what’s happened?’ She brushed the tangled hair back from his face, and felt the deep, waxen chill of his skin.

The smile took on a rueful tilt that did nothing to assuage the worry gathering in a hard lump behind Philippa’s breastbone. ‘Like the men of Vardø, I seem to dwell in eternal winter.’

‘Awake, O north wind; and come, thou south; blow upon my garden, that the spices thereof may flow out. Let us see if we may banish the winter perpetual.’ With her mother’s customary brisk competence and no small measure of forced cheer, Philippa set to, stirring the fire up to a roaring blaze, procuring hot bricks and caudle from her brother-in-law’s hurrying servants, chivvying the cat from Francis’s discarded nightcap, and unearthing blankets and woolly socks from kist and wardrobe. In the heat of the room, the sweat soon began to prickle at the nape of her neck and dampen the loose strands of hair straying from her braid, but even as she worked and chattered, tucking the bricks snugly at the foot of the bed and rearranging blankets and pillows, Francis’s replies grew softer and more abrupt. Nor did the shivers that wracked him abate, and, as the flow of inconsequential nonsense dried up, she could hear his teeth chattering in the stillness of the room.

Her heart beating a fast counterpart to the crackle of the fire, Philippa arranged herself cross-legged on the bed, a spare featherbed overflowing her lap, and looked down at Francis’s prone form from under severely lowered brows.

‘Francis, what’s the matter? Should I find Richard?’ She availed herself of one long-fingered, beautiful hand, the nail beds still cold and grey-blue, her thumbs stroking the sensitive flesh of his palm. ‘You’re still like a block of ice, and if I put any more bricks in the bed you’ll have all the castle cats in there with you.’

‘Her hat and ceald hwilum mencga��.’ Francis made to withdraw his hand, but she would not release it. ‘I shall be well again presently. You need not concern yourself.’

Once, perhaps, that would have been sufficient to make her recoil as he intended, to shut the gates of her mind against him, but that had been before Sevigny and before these last glorious weeks at Flaw Valleys and here at Midculter. She clasped his hand more tightly, tracing her fingers over the thin, faded lines of the old scars, and saw the shudder of tension run through him. ‘There is nothing about you that does not concern me, Francis, my dear. And when my husband looks as though he has been wandering through a Russian snowstorm, I find myself very concerned indeed, will it or no. What do you need? If you will not tell me, I will find all the dogs in the castle and they can bounce it out of you, or I will tell your mother.’

For a long moment, Francis did not answer, merely sat looking at their clasped hands. When at last he spoke, he did not raise his eyes, keeping his gaze fixed on the gentle movements of her fingers. The fall of his hair, less clean than was its wont beneath the linen of the cap, nonetheless shone dully against the line of cheek and brow, and his voice was very quiet.

‘Disordinat desiryng for to kissen and embrace,’ he said in a voice that was almost soundless, and, looking up at last, saw the flash of surprise and relief in her face. ‘A cold is upon me whose only cure lies in the compass your arms, but I should not ask it of you. In the fever… in the fever, you fled from me and I lost you beyond recall; I am content that you are here in the waking world. That is a sufficiency beyond price.’

Philippa felt her face crumple with an excess of emotion and schooled it into a tremulous smile. ‘Why should you not ask what may be gladly be given? There can be neither debt nor sufficiency here, for I will never grow weary in this touch.’ Watching his face carefully, she saw the startled joy flare in his blue eyes, suddenly wide and shy and very young in the face of the man who had been Voivoida of Russia and Marshal of France. Laying his hand down on the coverlet, she arranged the spare featherbed over him, tucking in the edges until he was safely nested like a cat in a basket of fresh linen. Toeing off her slippers, she slid in facing him, her kirtle rucked up and her stockinged legs twining around his. For a moment, he was still and silent as some ancient monument in her arms, but then he melted into the warmth of her touch, his head resting on her shoulder and a sound that was almost a sigh escaping him as his arms drew her close in turn. He was very cold, still, but as she held him, the shivers faded and the face so close to her own grew flushed and rosy and his breaths deepened on the edge of sleep. Remembering his fears, she let the quiet words flow from her, words of love and desire and longing, of loss and discovery, and of her joy in his presence.

‘Douce playsence est d’amer loyalment,

Quar autrement ne porroit bonement

Amans suffrir cele dolour ardant,

Qui d’amors naist.’

The sleep that finally claimed him was shallow but content; Philippa held him close, his skin warm against her own and a smile lingering on his lips, and it was enough and more than enough.

*****************************************

Francis Crawford lying in the grip of a burning fever had been a figure of anguish and of pity. Francis Crawford, recovering little by little his former strength, was a menace, so said Philippa his wife, and they would all go and live in the byre with the kine if this went on much longer.

The yellow hair had emerged first, spiked and streaked by dry sweat into a head of pure thistledown. The bleared blue eyes set in heavy lids. The fine, pale skin, blotched and reddened by illness. For as much as a day and a half, he had been content to lie ensconced in his cocoon of blankets, sneezing into a square of linen like a mappa mundi and listening to the strains of soft music, his gaze resting upon Philippa's face with a look of new wonder that made her blush and drop her eyes.

But, a querulous and a restless invalid, unused to yielding to the demands of his own body, Lymond could not sustain such a languorous state, even as sleep washed over him in great waves of exhaustion. The linens, he announced in a carrying and acerbic voice, should be transplanted to the pigsty if the pigs would lower themselves that far, and he must bathe to rid himself of their reek, regardless of the ice growing in cracking sheets at the well head. Bathed, he would dress and see his lady mother, and was only prevented from doing so when he fell asleep in the midst of a cutting riposte to Richard's curt denial. He summoned his brother's secretary, and was affronted when no such individual appeared. He could not countenance that a mere fever had achieved what swords and shipwreck had not, and was found, collapsed and sweating profusely in a huddle of brocaded silk and embroidered vine leaves, and carried back to bed by Richard, swearing at every step. If Philippa was not near, he grew anxious and fretful, his hands plucking restively at the covers until she returned. If she stayed, he grew ashamed of the weakness that kept him confined to the bed.

He must correspond with all the great men of Scotland and of France, even though his hand shook too much to hold the pen steady and Philippa removed the ink pot to prevent oakgall disaster overtaking the fresh sheets. He wished to read, but no book pleased him and the close-printed text pained his eyes, although he would not admit it. The rebec should be consigned to the fires of Tartarus; the lute was a monstrous, ill-tuned thing and he would defenestrate it forthwith.

At this last, Philippa, who suspected that Francis's headache had more to do with his refusal to sleep than the poor, maligned instrument, lost her temper, and removed herself and the lute both to her mother-in-law's warm parlour, where she devoured a piece of cheese the size of a man's fist, slept for twenty minutes, and, waking, vented her wrath on a well-thumbed copy of Chrétien de Troyes. Embarking on a long catalogue of Arthurian follies with a cat in her lap and her hair falling in disarray around her shining, pink face, she only broke off when she saw Sibylla's gentian eyes grow wide and round. Swivelling to stare over her shoulder, much to the cat's displeasure, she saw Richard's broad frame filling the doorway and, draped over him like a bundle of limp and unsavoury Yule greenery, Francis, swaddled in a sheet and with an entirely incongruous stocking cap on his head.

Richard met his mother's eyes and shrugged wryly. 'There was no help for it. It was me or the dog cart.'

'And that would make a horrid mess of the stairs,' Sibylla finished for him. 'Oh dear.'

One shaking hand, white-knuckled, clutched the linen at Francis's throat. Above it, his face was waxen and sweat-sheened, but the open blue eyes beneath the bruised lids were, for once, quite guileless, and fixed on Philippa's face. 'I've got the temper of Cerberus today,' he said at last, 'but at least I've only got the one head to bark with. I'm sorry, yunitsa.'

Philippa sniffed inelegantly. 'Well, poor Richard certainly doesn't deserve to carry you upstairs again.' And, giving way without warning to the strain of the last days, burst into a storm of weeping that thoroughly embarrassed her. Somehow, without either of them unbalancing or Francis losing control of the straying sheet, he and Philippa ended up tucked together on the day-bed, his damp cheek lying against the fall of her hair and their hands tangled together, while Sibylla sat enthroned in the great chair like Zeus in glory and Richard perched on a low stool, his long legs thrust out before him and a look of deep and abiding satisfaction on his face.

When the hiccuping subsided, Philippa read Boccaccio aloud, doing all the voices, until Francis fell asleep. And when she, too, drifted into a light doze, Richard retrieved the sliding book from her lax hands and read on in the warmth and contentment of the winter's afternoon.

*****************************************

‘Douce playsence est d’amer loyalment...’: ‘It’s a sweet pleasure to love loyally, / For in no other way a lover truly could bear / That burning pain / Which is born from love’ - from a motet by Philippe de Vitry.

‘Her hat and ceald hwilum mencgað’: ‘Here heat and cold sometimes mingle’ - from the description of Hell in Christ and Satan.

I will try to post the sources of the other quotes and references as well when I have a moment.

In case other people are lucky enough not to have experienced this, I can promise you that it is entirely possible to cough until your throat bleeds; it’s alarming but not usually as serious as it looks.

#lymond chronicles #lymond fanfic #my fic #lymond/philippa #lymond spoilers #mention of death cw #mention of violence cw #suicide mention cw #whump fic #hurt/comfort #illness cw

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rueitae · 5 years

Text

Within a Wisp of Your Life

This is a gift for @rosieclark, my contribution to the @langstron gift exchange 2019. (I hope you like it.)

Read on Ao3

~~~~~

The ground hits Lance hard, and he cries out in pain as the uneven stone floor cuts into the exposed skin on his face. His helmet lay somewhere far away, long since lost somewhere on the battlefield.

He rolls, shoulder over shoulder until finally coming to rest on his stomach, bracing his forearms against the floor. Lance breathes hard, exhausted. The dirt stirred up by his fall makes him cough.. It springs his, likely, broken ribs to cut his innards like a sharp knife. Bruises plague him all over under his armor and he wants nothing more than to lie down and rest and ease his scrambled mind. But he cannot, not yet. Not when his enemy seeks to take everything he loves.

Slowly, he places one palm on smooth stone and begins to lift himself. A shooting pain hits his forehead as he does, and if he hadn’t been familiar with these awful headaches he’d have assumed his assailant struck him again. But death blow or magic it was not - he knew what those felt like too.

Lance forces himself to his knees. His arms wobble, struggling under his own weight, and he falters, leaning to his side. His shoulder makes contact into more stone - but even with his body and mind in shambles he can tell he’s not lying on the floor..

With a gasp, Lance realizes he’s on the other side of this ancient temple. He sits at the feet of and leans against the stone altar; the very one he’s trying to avoid. Getting out of here is imperative; he hasn’t given Pidge nearly enough time to complete her spell. Fists clenched, his resolve returns to him.

Wait. Blue! Where is his sword?

“Looking for this, brave knight?”

Ventos; the greatest of the dark mages, scourge of the Outlands, destroyer of realities…

And Pidge’s great-great-great-really great grandfather.

The man (Beast? Immortal? It was difficult to know what was truth or fiction with a living legend.) floats slowly towards him, pinning him with a predatory gaze. He shrouds himself in a tailored dark robes with only his scarred face to show; the picture of villainy itself.

Hovering above his outstretched and thin gloved hands - Blue, one of only five weapons capable of inflicting damage against the ancient magic Ventos wields. Lance’s sword.

A pale-blue glow surround Blue, flickering inconsistently. Lance can feel it in his soul, Blue is just as exhausted as he.

“A marvelous weapon,” Ventos remarks casually. Lance’s heart sinks, he sounds as if he’s not wasted breath at all on their battle.

With a twist of his wrist the sword rotates in mid-air. “Objectively, of course,” Ventos says. “The Voltron swords are persistent, if anything. But I have no more use for interruptions.”

A simple flick of the wrist and Blue speeds downwards, embedding into the floor with such force that it shakes the ground. All that remains is the very tip of the hilt, hardly enough to grip and attempt to dislodge it.

Lance wraps an arm around his stomach while using the other to brace against the floor as he lurches forward, his last meal now on the floor before him. A hole throbs painfully in his heart where Blue’s presence once gave him power and warmth. It’s been so long; he can’t remember life without the comforting pulses of energy from his sword.

“Ohhh, poor knight,” Ventos says, falsely sympathetic. The air grows cold as he approaches. “You have fought valiantly, but your defeat was inevitable.”

Lance rolls back. His shoulder hits the altar and he swallows deeply, eyes closed as if to ignore the taste of his own vomit, gathering what is left of his strength. He may be down a magic sword, but for this battle, he still has a weapon at his disposal.

“What good is this world for you anyway?” Lance snaps, glaring as if the action alone would cause Ventos to fall over dead. “Surely with being immortal and powerful you have everything you could ever want?”

Ventos chuckles darkly. “Mortals are short sighted.”

Lance gasps as wispy apparitions fill the immediate area. They mill about in a ghostly marketplace, trading wares as children play with a ball in the street.

“Look at them going about their meaningless lives, the same dull routine day after day; many of them struggling to survive.” Several of the illusions, mostly those between market stalls, turn a dark purple. “And a good many others ignore their plight.” More figures in fancier dress turn the same dark purple as they walk the streets. Lance yelps as one walks through him.

“Their hearts are hard, their quintessence poisoning the earth; they do not deserve this world.” He sighs, falsely sad. “But I need more power, I must take unto myself the most pure quintessence from strong individuals. It falls to me to find them.”

Lance tchs. “How noble,” he says dryly.

“Though you serve the right noble house, I can hardly expect a simple knight to understand the importance of what I do,” Ventos chides.

Lance growls at the slight, blood simmering to a boil. “I serve the Holts; you’re just a distant blight in the family history.” A smirk tugs on his face, delighted to throw an insult back at this all powerful being. “They care more about the flowers in the garden than your ambitions.”

The dark mage merely smiles unpleasantly, sending a shiver down Lance’s spine. That… hadn’t gone exactly how he’d planned.

“And that flower would be you, Lance of Blue Beach? Tell me; where is my dear granddaughter?”

All sense of soreness and pain departs to the back of his mind and no longer is he tired. Lance springs from his spot and launches himself at the most powerful being in the world, with one a curled fist as a weapon. He swings, and when Ventos dodges Lance stumbles forward - though he hardly cares as he turns to face his foe, shoulders rigid in anger.

“You do not get to call her that!” Lance rages.

Ventos laughs, one that echoes off the walls of the empty temple. “Such life!” The dark mage’s eyes stare him down hungrily, arm outstretched. “Your quintessence will be a feast!”

Lance lunges out of the way of a lightning bolt, heart beating so fast it throbs in his ears. Achy limbs move on their own, muscles reacting more out of survival instinct than clear thought. His fingers stretch out, tips nearly on the hilt of his beloved sword…

A soft purple glow fills his vision and though he has no flying capability, he hovers agonizingly close to Blue. He strains, but his fingers - his body - refuses to move on its own.

Dark magic.

“You won’t get away with this!” Lance growls. His scowl of defiance dissolves when his body is tugged backwards; his heart pounding harder and harder as Blue falls out of reach.

Ventos rounds him, his hand cupped upright as if he holds the invisible strings keeping Lance in the air.

“I have seen you with my granddaughter,” he says as Lance is dragged helplessly further from Blue… and though he can’t see, it cannot be anywhere but the altar. “How precious the two of you are - walking in the gardens and holding hands as if you are sweet on each other.”

Lance’s heart freezes. How long has this madman been watching them?

“It’s a pity a descendant of mine wields the Green of Voltron; but no matter. She will join with me like so many of our kin before her. Her body will make the perfect vessel for my magic once this one is destroyed.”

A sharp laugh escapes despite his captivity. “Pidge would never join you. She’s way more clever than you are.” And beautiful and funny and loving and loyal, also far kinder than he deserved after initially butting heads back when he’d been a squire in her father’s court.

His vision blurs when his body is sharply turned. A cool, hard surface greets his back above the main floor and glowing purple cords of energy pin his arms to his sides and his body to the stone. The air feels thick like tar.

The altar.

Ventos waves a hand over him. An ethereal aura surrounds him, a thick white, with droplets of blue hovering around in it.

Ventos breathes in deep, a contented smile upon his face, and ushers a handful of the aura and blue droplets into his nostrils.

Lance’s eyes close, the feeling of sleep pouncing on him suddenly amidst the adrenaline of battle. That simple realization is enough to startle him to full awareness. This aura is his quintessence and Ventos is taking it.

The man is taking his life force and he can’t do a thing about it.

“Ahh,” Ventos sighs. “Delightful flavor, full of humor, love, and idealism. Oh?” he wonders, as if a connoisseur. “A hint insecurity? Wonderful.” Lance winces as Ventos takes another whiff as if he tastes fine wine. “There’s that bravery and selflessness.”

Lance squirms, testing the limits of his bonds. With each breath, more quintessence leaves his body as does his strength. Never has he felt so utterly exposed, he may as well be naked. He closes his eyes, trying to calm his nerves though he Ventos could take his life at any moment.

“I digress, I have uses for you before I can take all of your quintessence. Tell me, where is my granddaughter?”

He still has a job to do.

“I’ll never tell you,” Lance spits.

The saliva lands lamely on his own cheek.

Ventos seems all too pleased at his pathetic effort. “Your loyalty is commendable,” says the scourge of the Outlands as he gently glides a gloved finger down Lance’s cheek, wiping the spit in a creepy sense of paternal care. “Though you are misguided by infatuation. No child of my line would choose a common-born knight over the power and knowledge of the universe.”

Lance knows he’s wrong. He knows Pidge will fight tooth and nail for her loved ones; it’s Ventos who has underestimated her.

But he has to keep the conversation going - he has to buy Pidge more time.

“Well,” he ponders aloud, breath labored with each word. He scrutinizes Ventros’s features and smiles, eager for his own punchline. “I suppose she does share some relation to you.”

Ventros smirks cruelly. “You continue to surprise me with your cooperation, child. Go on. If I like what I hear, perhaps I can spare your life to live at her side.”

The snarky smile dissolves from his face and a sick queasiness stirs in Lance’s stomach. The thought of being in Pidge’s service while she turns into a power-hungry tyrant would break his heart.

Likely Ventos’s point.

All the more reason to prevent Pidge from becoming someone even she can’t recognize.

So he makes his gulp of fear as shallow as possible, “It’s clearly the eyebrows. It took me a while to figure out because her’s are actually cute when she gets cocky.”

Ventros’s face turns dark, nose upturned and lips snarling. “Petulant child,” he says, fingers outstretched and—

Lance screams. Magical lightning courses through his body as every muscle clenches and burns. It lasts only a moment, but the pain lingers, every breath a stab against his lungs. The residual heat is itchy and continues to burn.

A clammy hand grabs his throat, squeezing as Lance chokes desperately for breath.

Ventros leans over and whispers harshly in his ear. “I will greatly enjoy sucking your life away as slowly and painfully as possible.”

“You’ll leave him alone!”

It’s the voice Lance so longs to hear, but dreads at this moment. Pidge, Lady Holt of the Green Meadow - his liege of sword and heart. She stands atop the grand staircase of an entrance to the underground temple, her green tunic and armor just as beautiful as a ballroom gown. Her sword is sheathed, but she holds aloft a much more dangerous weapon.

Ventros turns from him, placing a viled hand over his missing heart. “Katie,” he purrs. “It is a pleasure to have you join me. I’ll give you the boy and power unlimited once you take up your sword for my cause.”

Even from this distance, Lance can feel the rage building beneath her skin. “I would never,” she declares. “Return to the dark world from whence you came, or I will destroy you now forever!”

She lights the candle before her.

Ventros shivers. “My dear, sweet child, surely you would not do such a thing to family…”

“You are not my family,” Pidge growls. Slowly, she descends the staircase, letting wax drip down the side of the candle. “My family is my mother and father and my brother, who care and support me.”

The dark being drops to the ground, weakened as the candle burns, his hand outstretched. “Ka--”

“My family,” Pidge continues as she steps off onto the ground floor, “are the Voltron Knights, and all my friends at the Castle.”

She stands before Ventros, who coughs and wheezes, the candle halfway melted. In one quick, fluid motions she draws her sword, Green, and points it at him. “You may be blood, but you will never be family.”

Lance’s heart swells with pride. That’s the Pidge he loves.

The triumph is short lived. Ventros cackles through his difficult breath. “Foolish children. If I cannot have what I want, neither can you!”

It takes Lance too long to realize that he is the want in Pidge’s case.

His quintessence reappears above his body, exposed for all to see. Like a punch to the gut Lance feels his life hanging by a thread, tired and slow of breath.

“Extinguish the candle if you want him to live,” Ventros threatens, his shaky form blurring between a man ready for a fancy party and a disembodied ball of black smoke.

Moving his head to face Pidge is a difficult task and he wants nothing more than to close his eyes and sleep when he’s done it. He forces them to stay open, pleading with her, “Don’t, Pidge. Fin--” Deep breath. “Finish hi--”

Ventros breathes in his quintessence. It thins him, like wrung out wet towel.

“St-stop!” Pidge cries desperately. Lance hates that look in her eyes, the one without hope. She sets the candle down and backs away. “It’s all yours, just don’t kill him.”

In a heart-stopping moment, Ventros glides as if a ghost and extinguishes the candle. He slithers around Pidge, draping his hands over her shoulders. Lance shakes in rage, quelled only by how utterly spent he feels.

Ventros leans in and whispers in her ear, “That’s a good girl. Now, the damnable sword.”

Pidge is paralyzed, anger and frustration written on her face as Ventros slides his hand down her arm and twists her wrist, forcing her to drop Green. The sword clatters to the stone floor, the sound reverberating across the empty temple.

Tears swell in his eyes. Even if he survives this, he’ll live in suffering, watching the love of his life carry out the will of an evil menace. He doesn’t want that for Pidge. Though she can harden her heart on the surface and make it believable for those who don’t know her, the pain will be unbearable for her. She’ll die on the inside well before she draws her last breath.

“So much for the famed Knights of Voltron,” Ventros sneers. Lance winces in disgust as he gently strokes Pidge’s cheek. “Now, child, take part of my soul.” A black wisp toys at his fingertips and floats deceptively harmlessly towards Pidge’s nose. She tries to hold her breath, but a pinch of her arm from Ventros forces her to inhale, sucking the wisp into her.

“Let it fester,” Ventros says as Pidge bites her lip, face scrunched together in pain. “Let it help you on the path to become a most perfect being like your forefathers.”

Pidge opens her eyes with a start. They are pitch black. Lance lets out a whine.

They’ve lost.

Ventros lets out an uproarious laugh. Lance’s quintessence falls back into his body and though he feels his energy return, he can’t find the will to do much but glare, his face already stained with tears.

“You won’t get away with this,” is all he manages to say.

It turns Ventros’s attention back onto him, the evil grin seemingly permanently plastered to his face. “Your defiance is amusing,” he muses. “I’ll keep you alive for a bit longer, for an experiment. We will see if Katie remembers how much you mean to her. Love can be so easily warped for all the wrong purposes.”

His cackling laughter makes Lance sick, and renews his determination. Though fruitless, he struggles against his magical bonds.

“You can struggle all you’d like, boy. Those chains are constructs directly tied to my power, they will not break.”

And yet...

The chain by his shoulder snaps and the shackles dissolve. Lance sucks in an astonished breath. How?

“What?” Ventros gasps. “Where are you finding such strength?” He summons a dark sphere, launching it directly at him.

Lance rolls off the altar, body screaming in pain. The magic blasts off slivers of stone that rain down on his head.

“It is you who needs to reevaluate his strength!”

Allura’s voice carries down from the top of the temple. At her side are the other Voltron Knights. In her hand, a candle nearly spent.

Lance smirks as he realizes this was the plan all along. Pidge came only to stall for more time - with a decoy candle. Allura drops the candle, the remainder of the wax glittering in the waning fire.

“No! Curse you all a thousand fold!” Ventros screams. His body stretches, thinning to the width of a quill before poofing out of existence.

They are free.

Pidge gasps and stumbles forward, her eyes returning to their beautiful amber color. Though he’s still sore, Lance reaches on his knees to catch her in his arms.

“You are so brilliant,” he says into her hair. “I was so scared for you.”

Pidge chuckles, returning his hug. “What, you didn’t think I could do it?”

Lance bites his lip. “That’s… that’s not it. I saw your eyes turn black as night. I couldn’t feel Blue or the other swords. I thought I’d have to watch you destroy all you love. That’s not you, Pidge.”

She plants a gentle kiss against the side of his mouth, stroking the hair behind his ears reverently. “I know. I’m sorry to worry you, Lance. I couldn’t risk letting him on to the plan.”

“I know,” he echoes, kissing her lips lightly. “I’m not angry, just relieved and glad you’re in my arms now.”

The sides of her mouth curl up, eyes shining with delight. “Me too.” She settles her head into his chest. “Let’s go home, Lance. For real this time.”

Lance holds her tighter, heart fluttering with joy. “Your wish is my command, my Lady.”

#plance #pidgance #voltron legendary defender #langstronexchange2k19 #vld fanfic #rueitae #my writing

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