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jawllines · 4 years

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He’s too far in thought, he realizes, when Ellie comes and waves her hand in his face, “Are you okay?” She asks quietly, eyes wide as saucers, “Maisey said you look like her aunt when she zones out and she’s depressed.”

Harry huffs out a laugh, one that expels the air from his lungs as he nods, “Yes, Ellie, I’m okay. What’ve you painted, hm? Can I see it?” She grins, her cheeks pudgy and rosy as she runs back to her seat and picks up the canvas she’d been working on. It’s a sun and a moon, both with rather cryptic looking faces on them, and Harry had never so perfectly had to manage his poker face, “Whoa!”

“I think that might just be the coolest thing I’ve seen in my entire life,” Y/N appears behind him, Oliver more or less clung to her pant leg as she’s reaching over his body to set a box of juice down on the oak table for him to disperse among his campers, while holding her hand out for the canvas, “May I see it, Miss. Ellie Bellie?”

Ellie smiles shyly at her — she always got so shy around Y/N, but never in the way where you would think she’s nervous. No, she gets shy the way you might when meeting an older sibling’s friend and wanting to desperately try to impress them. Harry knew as much, considering he would attempt to perform for each and every single one of his sister’s friends growing up (and each time, Gemma would make a few colorful threats to deter him). No matter how quiet Ellie gets with her though, she’s always the first to ask if they got to play with Y/N that day.

Harry still doesn’t like the other camp counsellors but Y/N’s an exception

part 1

(tw: mentions of suicide)

ii.

Psst.

Harry was typically a heavy sleeper. When he was younger his mum used to joke that he could sleep through an earthquake-induced tsunami if someone allowed him to. An alarm would have to be pretty loud to stir him from his slumber, and unless he was on edge, a mere call of his name would not drag him from whatever dreamland he’d submerged himself within.

Psst.

There had only been two things before that could notably wake him. His mum, who was the sweetest person on this planet yet managed to be the cruelest being on earth when he needed to be up for something, and his childhood cat Molly, who sits on his chest and makes it hard to breathe (which, from what he’s learned, encourages his brain to panic and wake him up so he could fix it). Other than that, he was blissfully unaware of the world for hours at a time.

Yet, there was something stirring him now. A low sound that puzzles him as he toes the line between consciousness and his dreams, aware of the blankets that cover him but still dancing on a stage with his limbs thrashing wildly and people shouting his name.

Psst.

Was it an insect? Maybe he was performing outside then -- a crowd of thousands in an outdoor field to see him for... .what was it that he did again?

Psst.

Oh, he’s dreaming, isn’t he? How deep in his dream is he? He thinks this is the first time he’s ever been asleep and realized that he was asleep...he could probably conjure something up, right? Manifest something that he’s always wanted, try his hand in lucid dreaming. If only he could focus apart from the insect zipping past his eardrum.

Harry, please wake up, we’re being haunted -- or murdered, or something.

Harry’s eyelids flutter like swallowtail wings, his gaze blurry and unfocused as he comes to. He’s confused, piecing together the puzzle that always presents to him when he’s just woken up and has to readjust to the world around him. The whole process of it took nothing more than 10 seconds, maybe 15 if he’s really out of it, but that’s only because thoughts run through his mind at a hundred miles a minute.

What time is it? The room around him his pitch-black apart from a very small amount of light illuminating beneath the curtain covering the window he’s beneath, so it couldn’t be morning. Potentially early morning, but he would say that would be 3-4 AM. Did he need to be up? He didn’t think so, actually, because there’s no alarm buzzing him awake and as far as he’s concerned, he hadn’t signed up for any early morning shifts at the bookstore as of late. The last time he went in at 5 to open up shop while the owner was on vacation and Harry was more or less ran down by a mother raccoon when he’d stumbled upon her babies after getting out of his car -- Harry had been reluctant to go before sunrise since.

Where was he? He knows he’s not at home, that’s for sure. The sheets smell like him but not him enough to be at his own place -- and the bedding isn’t as soft either. He knows he hasn’t passed out at someone’s house because he only does that if the person is close enough to him that he would recognize their scent, or if he was too drunk to get home, but that was usually accompanied by a wicked headache and a sour stomach. No, where he was smelled like wood and generic fabric softener. There was an air conditioning unit that rattled and rumbled from where it was fixed to the wall, he felt a tension in his neck that he only experienced at one place and, yeah, he was at the camp.

He was at camp, in a cabin with Y/N, who slept with the lamp on because she hated the dark, was the owner of the voice that had woken him up in the inky black room.

“Hm?” He hums, brows pinching as he lets his eyes shut again, only to open them a few seconds later, “Wha’s wrong? Why is your light off?”

“I don’t know,” her voice is still just a bit over a whisper, and Harry wonders why she doesn’t just speak up now that she knows he’s awake, “I woke up a little bit ago and thought maybe there was a storm that knocked the power out or something, but I checked the weather and it’s been clear skies all night. I think our power line was cut which is like -- straight out of a horror film.”

Harry sighs, a bit of him regretting the number of horror movies they’ve been watching once they finally got to watch Midsommar (in three days, they’d sifted through six different movies -- two movies a night and each one managed to horrify Y/N more than the last). He begins to press himself from the bed, his eyes adjusting to the dark around them, making out slivers of shadows, “I’ll go check --”

“No! Are you crazy?” He hears her bed frameshift with her as she moves, “That’s just asking for a maniac to come for us. Plus I keep hearing noises and I can’t tell if it’s like...like little raccoon feet or a one-armed hook man.”

“Alright, then go back to bed.” Harry begins to lower back down to the mattress but a sharp whine leaves her throat, “It’s dark when you close your eyes.” It’s silent for a moment, but then Harry feels a bead of guilt dribble through his body. He sighs, reaching up and wiping his hand down his face, “What do you want to do, yeah? If you don’t want me to go out there. Do you want to stay up?”

She’s quiet, Harry is straying further and further from the state he would’ve been in to fall right back into his dreams but he tries to wipe away the irritation the best he could. What he reminds himself is that four days prior, Y/N had trekked out in the forest toward a lake despite her unremitting distaste for the woods in the dark and slapped Jack clean across the face because he was being rude to him. And he was going to ignore her? Fall asleep while she’s frightened? Harry could be a prick, but he wasn’t the bleeding antichrist.

“I...um, well, I don’t want us to stay up, no, we’ll be so cranky tomorrow,” she shuffles in the sheets, “I dunno’, I’m sorry, you can go back to bed, I’ll be okay.”

Harry isn’t sure what to do but in his half-awake state, the next few words that leave his mouth seem like just the temporary fix necessary for them to get the last few hours of sleep that they can, “Do you want me to read you a story or summat?”

She giggles quietly, “No, it’s okay, really, go back to sleep, okay?”

What Harry could have said was I can’t now, knowing that you’re awake and scared, but instead he utters a simple, “No.” He sits back up, patting blindly for his phone in his sheets, slipping his fingers around it, and tapping it awake. His screen blinds him with its brightness, so he lowers it before finding the flashlight. It lights up the floor at his feet and subsequently at its edges, he can make out Y/N’s shadowy figure. She’s sat up, curled in her blanket, wrapped around her head, and giving her a pseudo-nun appearance. She waves at him lamely and he struggles not to roll his eyes, “Maniac be damned, I’m gonna go out there and look for the breaker. Maybe the arseholes broke their vow of integrity.”

He wouldn’t be surprised if Jack or one of the others came around and switched the breaker off, just to be inconvenient for the morning. They’d left them alone for four days sure, but Harry figures that it’s not so much four days of silent reflection and questioning why they feel the need to be such pricks to him, and more so four days for their anger to fester and brew. If not for the fact that Y/N slapped him then made him find laundry detergent and commanded the others to go get his clothes, then for the way she acted like nothing had happened the day prior. Jack’s cheek was still a stingy, red splotch, Oliver and Brandon were straight-faced looking irritated, and Y/N -- well, Y/N had never been more content with her day. She was having a blast with her kids playing bean bag toss, they did their little dance when one of them got it in the hole of the board, and when they were all getting drinks, Y/N offered to grab Harry his. He watched as she went to the cooler around the same time Jack did, they both reached for the last Dr. Pepper, and Y/N plucked it up and handed it to him before grabbing both her, Harry, and Mitch’s lemonades.

He thinks it’s the sincerity that she holds, that would aggravate him had he been in their shoes. Y/N was completely unbothered by the night prior and Harry could tell, just like when he doesn’t reciprocate their maleficent tendencies towards them -- it was digging under their skin.

(She makes Harry laugh when she comes back with their lemonades, handing him one and uttering, “I let the prick have the last Dr. Pepper, and I’m regretting it.”)

And while he’s hoping that they haven’t turned their target to her out of spite, he wouldn’t change what had happened for the world. It had made the two of them that much closer, and in the following day’s Harry had poked and prodded Y/N’s brain a bit more. Especially after what he’d seen on her page, he was intrigued by her. Intrigued by how she saw life, why she came at things the way she did, what built her up to be the person that she was in these very moments that he’s speaking to her. Harry hasn’t asked her about her old college roommate and he doesn’t plan on it either -- he doesn’t feel like he could, or he should.

Harry has lost people before and he thinks the worst thing someone could do was to bring it up unprompted. He knows that it’s probably always on her mind but even then, maybe it isn’t at the forefront of it. Maybe she’s just trying to have a good few weeks, separate herself from the real world for a while, and he would be cruel to dig up something that she may not be ready to just up and chat about. No matter how curious he is about the whole situation, and no matter how much he wonders if she treats him the way she does because of what happened. If the topic was brought up by her he would openly and freely discuss it as long as she was comfortable, but he wouldn’t give her the third degree.

So he minds his business and focuses on trying to get to know her better instead.

He can’t say that it doesn’t change how he treats her a bit though. Harry is much. . .gentler, than he had been. He tries to be less critical of her unwavering optimism and seeks to understand where it was coming from instead. If he’s in the right mood he’ll attempt to match it, which makes for a good day with their groups, who he finds -- despite the small age gap -- have begun to kindle very close friendships. Mrs. Graham had even commented on it one of the days after they had a riveting game of balloon tennis.

“You two make a good team -- putting all these other counselors to shame. And to think you were pouty about having to share a cabin.”

It was true, they did make a good team. Harry thinks that them sparking a friendship had made the whole experience much more enjoyable for everyone involved.

All of this together gives insight into why Harry is willing to stuff on his shoes at 3 AM and go out in the dark, muggy night to check and potentially fix a breaker. And no matter the number of times he assures her she does not have to come out there with him, she keeps hold of her ‘no man left behind’ mentality, pulls on a pair of flip flops, and pads out after him.

Had they been in any other cabin, finding the breaker would have been much easier. They’re typically on the backside in the upper right corner, surrounded by a little cage with a lock similar to that of an animal crate. The struggle with their cabin was that the backside was basically in the woods, so he had to dodge low hanging branches and tangles of ivy to get even remotely near it. He hands Y/N his phone and she shines the light over the metal box, her hand steady despite how she looks back and forth and all around them like she’s making sure there are no red eyes glowing at them. The world around them is silent apart from the chirp and groan of insects, the scutter of an animal somewhere in the far distance makes Y/N huff a weary sigh but otherwise, nothing comes out to attack them. Harry restarts the breaker, they go back inside, and the lamp on its dimmest setting is switched on how they had fallen asleep with it.

They both breath out in relief, Y/N dives back into her bed and Harry flops down atop of his covers, giving himself a second to feel the cool air from the conditioner fan over him.

“Theoretically,” Y/N begins as Harry lets his eyes fall shut, “If there were some creature in the forest --”

“There’s no creature in the forest.”

“I know, but theoretically --” She continues again, but Harry is quick to cut her off once more.

“I wouldn’t let anything happen to you,” he tells her, “Go to sleep.”

Once more, Y/N falls silent, but a quiet, “Thank you,” was the only thing to leave her mouth.

. . .

A summer thunderstorm wasn’t abnormal during camp, which is why the recreation center and the art building are beneficial. It keeps everyone preoccupied and entertained with well-insulated walls to mute whatever carnage is taking place outside, which makes for less frightened children and an easier time for everyone involved. Harry liked being active and running around with his campers, sure, but he also really enjoyed a nice, calm, relaxing day trying his hand at DIY projects and abstract paintings. Plus it gave him the chance to wear the camp hoodie that he had spent a pretty penny purchasing, which was made of the softest fabric he’s ever felt and was far more comfortable than the t-shirts that they normally wear.

Y/N had also bought the hoodie, Harry saw as she stepped out in it after her shower this morning, and she seemed to be drowning in it but in the best way. The fabric pools off of her, but she looks cozy, and well-rested despite them waking in the middle of the night. He thinks she looks pretty cute, but he kept the thought to himself and instead asked her if she wanted his extra granola bar for breakfast.

They alternate throughout the day, between the rec center and art building, and on the schedule, it appears that most the day he would be with Y/N’s group (which he prefers) and a few times he’s even with Mitch as well, which is nice. Mitch doesn’t grow to like many people, but he liked Y/N well enough -- he thought she was oddly entertaining (or so he’s told, Harry) and good for a chat. The only times he and Y/N were not with each other were when the activities were age-specific, but even then, it wasn’t like anyone was in a different room. They were all just at different stations within a big room in the art building and the recreation center was more or less free for all.

Harry wondered when he started basing whether or not a day was going to be good by whether or not he and Y/N were able to be around each other, but he decided not to think about it too much. Lately, he’d been a little more on edge with whether they were together, simply because of Jack and the others. He didn’t want them fucking with her, and even though she’d proven that she was more than capable of taking care of herself, he still worried, especially knowing he would be the cause of it.

Y/N doesn’t seem the least bit distressed about it, or as far as she was letting on -- she’d not expressed any thoughts or concerns that they would be spiteful towards her. Hell, the only thing she had told him the night after was that she hoped she didn’t make things worse for him. For him. Why was she so willing to defend him? What did she get out of being so kind?

“I especially like how multidimensional it is — purple and pink stars? Beautiful, I love those two colors together,” she places her hand on Oliver’s head, and it’s then that Harry notices he’s holding something, “Harry, Oliver here wanted you to see the flower he drew because I told him how much you like lilies.” As bashful as he always is, he holds out the paper toward Harry. It was cute — a singular, yellow lily and he could tell that Y/N helped him draw it, but the paint and crayon marks all over the page suggested she left the color duties up to him.

“Oh my goodness,” Harry gasps, looking at the painting, flipping it to Oliver and pointing at it, “You did this?” Oliver nodded excitedly, “It’s gorgeous.”

“I think our groups are the best artists,” Y/N motions to her table, only a meter away from them all working diligently on their projects, “Charlotte is over there doing an artistic interpretation of the both of us, we are not allowed to see it until she’s finished. Mikey is doing his own rendition of Disney world, I see Maisey is creating a beautiful tree -- Noah is that a cowboy you’re drawing?”

Noah barely looks up from his paper, very carefully dragging the tip of the marker in a circle, “Yes.”

“And Noah is drawing a cowboy! Modern-day Van Gogh’s, all of them.” Harry smiles as Y/N drags a stool up beside him, positioning it in a way so that she could watch both her kids and speak with him, “I heard they’re having one of them party things tonight, I didn’t know if you wanted to go or not.”

“Hm, I dunno,” his brows knit together as he lightly scratches a mosquito bite on the inside of his forearm, “Do you feel comfortable with going after what happened last time?”

She suckles her bottom lip into her mouth, gnawing on it as she nods her head, “Mhm,” she looks around them for a second, making sure that none of the kids are paying attention to them before she lowers her voice, “Mitch said that you used to go to all of them last year, and would like -- have a good time. I hope that I’m not ruining that for you.”

“How would you be ruining it for me?” It’s true, Harry hasn’t gone to any of the parties that they’ve been doing since the very first one he’d escorted Y/N away from. Not for any other reason apart from he was just spending time and hanging out with Y/N, or he’d be too knackered to even think about leaving the nice, cool setting of their cabin to be in the muggy heat with drunk college students. He had much more fun not attending, and other nights Mitch would come around and chill with them too. . .he had all he needed then. Didn’t need the booze for a good time.

“I don’t know, I just didn’t know if you weren’t going ‘cos of what happened the first time and you felt like you couldn’t leave me out or. . or something like that.”

Harry shook his head, “No,” he answers, “We can go tonight if you would like, but it’s unnecessary for me. I’m good either way.”

Although Y/N appears unconvinced, they have little time to go further into the topic because Charlotte is running up to them, a big grin on her face, “I finished!”

“Well give it here,” Harry holds out his hand, waving her over, “Let’s see it.”

On the paper are stick figure versions of he and Y/N, with big grins and 12 other little stick figures surrounding them. Above Harry’s stick figure, there’s a pink arrow and a very five-year-old esque writing of HUSBAD (Harry presumes it’s supposed to be husband), and above Y/N’s in the same fashion, she’s written WYFE. It’s then Harry realizes that Y/N’s figure has a veil on and Harry’s has a bowtie, “This is for you twos wedding! So thens when they take pictures you can has this one.” Charlotte chirps brightly and Y/N and Harry both cast each other a disbelieving glance.

“Whoaaaaa,” Y/N is the first to break their silence, a smile pulling at her lips, “This is really good Charlotte! I didn’t know Harry and I were getting married, though.”

Charlotte nods quickly, still grinning at them, her bottom canine missing as she gleams, “Me n’ Mikey thinks you should!”

Y/N turns toward him, nodding toward Charlotte, “Well, the god’s have spoken. Where’s my ring?”

Harry coughs on a laugh as he hands the paper back to Charlotte, “This is really good, Bug. Why don’t you and Oliver go help Josie finish her coloring pages, hm?”

The both of them head the short way back to their table, hiking up on the small stools and Harry makes sure they’re all settled before he turned back to face Y/N, who was biting down on a grin, “Don’t start --” he began but she’s already started, shaking her head.

“Listen, it’s okay to be in love with me, but you should really try to tone it down. . .the kids are starting to notice.”

Harry scoffs before he proceeds to tease her,, “How d’ya know they aren’t basing it off your actions, huh? Giving me love eyes every couple minutes like nobody would see.”

Y/N mocks offense to his words and he tries to keep up the facade, but his sheer delight for getting in a teasing match with her overcomes him and he can’t help his smile. Harry loved teasing people -- loved making them flustered or reducing them to a bashful mess by his words alone. Y/N, however, was much less into flustered gazes and sheepish tendencies, and more so ready and willing to give him it right back. He’d met his match -- if he teases her she’s teasing right back (if she hadn’t started it in the first place), and both of them found mutual pleasure in it.

“You can’t use my love eyes against me, I can’t help but give them to everyone I’ve ever met” she tells him, feigning sincerity before an additional anecdote, “You know my college roomie always told me they’d get me in trouble one day, and she had never been more right, ‘cos they did once at a party. She wouldn’t shut up about it weeks after it’d happened.”

Harry feels his body tense just a bit at the mention of her, and he tries not to let it show on his face that he’s surprised how she so casually brought her up, “Yeah? What’s the story?”

“The little ears around us suggest that I tell that story later,” she checks her watch, before looking back up at him, “Oi, we’ve got five minutes until we’re in the rec center. You get to pick what we all do since I picked the last rotation.”

. . .

This time when they’re on their way to the party, Harry lets Y/N walk in front of him as he directs where she was to go. Opposed to when they had first made this journey together, Harry feels far more protective of her than he originally had. Plus, he’d seen how clumsy she could be and after the earlier storm, the softened dirt and broken off tree branches from the billows of wind made for a much harder terrain to navigate, so he felt more comfortable being able to reach out to catch her if need be.

Harry was wary of going to the party tonight but Y/N had been borderline insistent that they attend, “Mitch says he misses you at these things and Niall told me he could only stand Shaun theorizing about the universe and us not being the only life form so many times before he snaps. I say we’re needed.” Harry never minded free drinks, and a potential fuck at the end of the night, so he wasn’t all too worried that he would be having a good time. He just hoped that the others would allow Y/N to have a good time. And he knows he’s being paranoid, because they hadn’t necessarily targeted her for anything prior to or after the lake incident, but he still worries. . .he can’t help but worry.

But he wouldn’t hover. Once they got to the clearing, he helped Y/N get her drink and she sought off after Niall while Harry went over to Mitch, the two of them promising to meet up again in a little bit. He didn’t hover, but he did watch semi-closely, eyeballing Jack and the others, making sure they were staying away from her. Apart from a few less than friendly looks thrown in his direction though, they seemed to be keeping to themselves which Harry was ultimately very thankful for.

The night goes by as these nights usually do -- he and Mitch drank, had a laugh, gabbed about music for a while, some of the drama going on around the camp (Y/N had an ear for gossip and eyes that could make anyone tell her anything, so Harry’s had a door to all the melodramatic events happening throughout the counsellors). It was a bit weird when Stacey -- one of the counsellors he’d only ever briefly spoken to -- had come up to them, and a little weirder when she borderline propositioned him for something more than a chat in the woods, but Harry politely declined. Told her that he was pretty exhausted after a long day and was probably just going to have a few more beers and retreat back to his cabin.

He passes it off as a fluke. . .maybe he’d been making eyes at her and hadn’t realized it. But then Mia makes her way toward him and Mitch, and this time Harry’s brows furrow when she starts chatting him up. This one he entertains for a little while before eventually ebbs away from the conversation, because he and Mia had a fling once, but Jack convinced her and the free world that he was a prick, so she called it off. He didn’t necessarily understand why she would want to start that up again, or what “little birdie” put a bug in her ear that he still thought about her (as she said one did).

It was after Cara had finally left after coming around to chat with him, that Mitch began to chuckle lowly at his side, shaking his head slowly, “Jesus Christ,” he tilts the nozzle of his beer against his mouth, and when he pulls it away, his lips are shiny from the liquid, “She really is working hard.”

“Huh?” Harry feels desperate for an explanation as to why three times he felt as if he were being propositioned for a romp in the woods when he was not actively pursuing one. He had a feeling that it was the others trying to get him alone so they could enact some sort of piss poor attempt at fucking with him without Y/N spotting and tearing them a new one over it, “Are you in on something that I’m not, ‘cos m’feeling pretty fucking lost here, man.”

Mitch nods his head, and Harry follows his gaze to Y/N, who is speaking with her brows dipped inward to Cara, “A few days ago she’d been asking me and Niall what you were like last year, and we told her just the same, jus’ a lot more ‘fornication’ is how Niall put it,” he smirks softly with a shake of his head, “And she seemed all concerned, asking us if we thought she was holdin’ you back or something. Personally, I told her if you wanted to sleep with someone you would have whether she were around or not but she didn’t seem very convinced.” A snort leaves him as he motions towards her again, still as amused by her ideas as he had been when she’d first explained them, “Guess she’s trying to set you up.”

“Oh fuck me,” he exhales so forcefully, it whips the delicate plumes of smoke from Mitch’s cigarette into a misshapen huff. Why was she so concerned with it? Harry hadn’t once expressed any avidity in needing to spend time with someone in that manner -- he could go without sex for three weeks. . .did she not think he could? Was he exuding nymphomaniac tendencies? He surely hadn’t thought he was -- a few quick handies in his nightly showers typically tide him over just nicely for a bit of a dry spell. And what was her business that he hadn’t slept with anyone since they’ve gotten here? Why was she speaking about him with the others what she could as easily ask him? What she had as easily spoken with him about, albeit leaving out a pretty large portion of it.

For the first time since they had begun getting along, Harry was irritated with her. He’d never been one to brood, however. He liked things to be up front and honest as soon as possible if the situation allowed for it, to stop his mind from taking an idea and running away with it. He held little interest in playing mind games with people.

Which is why he hands Mitch the rest of his drink, fixes his heavy cardigan around his shoulder, and sets off in her direction. He dodges many bodies, avoids an empty cup on the ground beside what he could only presume to be a sticky puddle of liquor, and narrowly makes it past a playful fight between Oliver and Brandon who were wrestling one another. Y/N doesn’t realize that he’s making his way to her until he’s just a meter or so away, when Niall catches a glimpse of him and attempts to be inconspicuous in the way he pinches her side. She gasps from the way his nails had accidentally bit into her skin, flinching from the pain before her gaze had settled on him, “Harry!” She cheered but his face doesn’t soften as it usually does when they see one another, which alerts her to his disapproving gaze, “Oh, what’s wrong?”

“Can I speak with you for a moment?” He inquires, motioning out past the trees. Enough trust had been built into the foundation of their friendship for her to not question him. Instead, she passes her drink off to Niall and follows Harry into the woods -- he wouldn’t go so far that they wouldn’t be able to see one another from beneath the curtain of leaves shielding away the moon, but just far enough that nobody would be eavesdropping. In any other situation he might wait to bring this up until they’ve made it back to the cabin, but Y/N’s intentions had been clear that the person he was taking home tonight wasn't supposed to be her.

She pauses with him at a particularly thick tree trunk, and places the arch of her foot against one of the jagged roots that carved its way through the earth, “Is everything okay?” She balances herself with a hand against the bark, wincing when it jabs into her skin, “I was keeping an eye on Jack n’ them I thought so they wouldn’t try messing with you, but did they say something?”

That does melt him some, Harry was strong enough to admit that. Just as he had been concerned with her wellbeing, she was just as much concerned for him, and he appreciated that. And while it does threaten to soften him down to his core, he still had questions that needed answers, and he wouldn’t let up until she responded to them.

“Why are you sending girls over to me?”

Her brows raise, but less in shock of learning the information, and more so with wonder how he’d found out she was the one sending them their way. The surprise dissolves into embarrassment quickly, her shoulders slump and she casts her gaze deeper into the forest, “Dammit,” she doesn’t hide her disappointment from being caught, or even feign confusion to try and pass the blame off coincidence that every girl who had come up to him had subsequently talked to her prior, “I was hoping you would be less observant.”

“Y/N.” He says her name sternly, and her shoulders drop dramatically further as she steps down from the tree root.

“Listen, in my defense I just felt awful!” She admits, waving her hand toward the party, “Jack had tried telling me a few times about how you just fuck people and leave them, blah, blah, blah, right? And I wasn’t paying any attention to him, but it made me curious to what you were like last year, so I asked Mitch and Niall. You came to these things all the time and you had fun -- then I come ‘round, ruin the first one, and you’ve been hanging out with me since. I just. . . I wanted you to be able to have fun and not feel like you have to worry about me, y’know?”

A ‘v’ sits between Harry’s brows, “What is it your business what I’m doing, hm?” He fixes his cardigan from where it slumps off his shoulder once more, “If I wanted to sleep with someone then I would. Do you think I can’t set something up myself?”

“No, of course not, I just thought --”

“You didn’t think,” he cuts her off, and Y/N’s arms curl over herself instinctively when a cold brush of air rolls past them, “You should have just came to speak with me about it, I could have told you that I didn’t need anything like that, and that would have been that. Don’t go behind my back trying to orchestrate things for me, okay?”

He wanted to say it -- he needed to say it, because Harry wasn’t some sex driven lecher that everyone at this camp tried to make him out as. He thought Y/N had known that too, but he guesses he was wrong.

But he wasn’t expecting her to look so fucking defeated by it. A guilt weighs on his being when she nods, tipping her head down, “Okay, yes, I won’t anymore. I’m sorry,” her fingers dig into her bicep, as she breathes out, a shiver rattles through her that she tries to be inconspicuous about it, “I wasn’t thinking -- I wasn’t thinking how it would look.”

Harry sighs, peeling his cardigan off of his arms, revealing his bare arms to the chill but he ignores it in favor of holding it out to her, “Put this on,” he wiggles it some, “I know you’re cold.” She takes it from him carefully, looking up, brows raised slightly as if to ask if he’s sure, “Go ahead.”

“I really am sorry,” she tells him, pulling the patchwork cardigan over her arms, it hangs off of her, and Harry swallowed thickly. She’s. . .cute -- Harry had always been able to admit that. Her face is sweet, her eyes exudes nothing but understanding, kindness, and such a soft glow that Harry couldn’t quite explain. He finds that those eyes give him great comfort and warmth, because now when they’re tinged with the contrition she feels and Harry feels cold.

“I know,” he murmurs, he holds out his hand for her, and very carefully Y/N slides her hand into his own, “Do you want to go get pudding?”

A small smile pulls at her mouth.

“Yes please.”

. . .

Niall lets them use the key after a few dozen promises to be careful with it. They trek the familiar way, mindless chatter fills the air around them until they get to the cafeteria and their voices quiet in case the security guard is looping around. Y/N reveals her hand from the shield of his cardigan sleeve, Harry watches as the fabric pools around her arm, toward her elbow, and produces the key (that Niall only trusted her with). They creeped into the kitchen, pulled open the large refrigerator door, and the pudding sat in rows on the bottom shelf.

They both choose vanilla this time, having tired themselves out on chocolate, and they sit at the spot they had last time, across from one another. He can tell, despite his peace offering, that Y/N still feels upset about what had happened earlier and it sullies his mood. She’s still chatting but not with as much heart as she typically has, and Harry couldn’t stand it. He just wanted her to giggle as she teases him again, without feeling like she’s tip toeing on eggshells around him.

“Hey,” Harry starts, dragging her attention towards him where it had previously been scooping the sides of her pudding container, “Would you stop being so. . .tense? Is this about earlier?”

Y/N clears her throat, opening her mouth and furrowing her brows like she was about to deny it, but she relents, shoulders dropping, “A little. I still feel bad about everything,” she shakes her head, dragging the edge of the spoon around the plastic, “About everything, not just that you aren’t able to sleep with someone. I came in late, ruined you having your own cabin, woke you up with my alarm, made you get out of bed ‘cos I’m afraid of the dark and -- I just feel like this massive burden. I feel like this massive burden on everyone.”

Harry is alarmed by this sudden confession, but his body ultimately rejects the notion that she could ever be a bother, “How are you a burden to anyone?” He inquires, shaking his head, “You’re such a ball of light that just swarms through rooms. The thought of you being a burden is akin to the thought of Satan being a saint. . .it doesn’t sound right.” Harry sets his pudding down, though he keeps his hands fixed around the cup and the spoon, “Don’t know what gave you that idea, but the last thing you are is a burden. Who gave you the impression that you were?”

She wipes tiredly at her eyes, “Nobody in particular, it's just,” she shakes her head, “Even now, I wanted to make your night good, and then I fucked it, and now you’re here with me instead of having fun at the party. I just feel silly.”

“Don’t.” Harry tells her simply, “I like to spend time with you, and I wouldn’t be here if I didn’t want to be.”

The tension in her shoulder releases, “Thank you for this, I’m sorry m’just saying the same thing again and again. Back at home it feels like everyone is just. . .so hyper aware of me -- they’re always being so careful, or overly concerned and I always wonder if it feels like a heavy weight on their shoulders, like I’m forcing a piggyback ride.” She shrugs her own, reaching for the second pudding cup, “It’s just shit, so I overthink everything all the time to try not to be a burden, but I keep making it worse. Or at least that’s how it feels.”

Harry tilts his head to the side some. He’s not usually someone who pries and probes people for information, but he’s never been more curious about Y/N than in this moment. When he thinks of Y/N at home, he thinks of sunshine pooling in the hallways through casement windows, her spinning around the kitchen in a dainty floral dress that billows around her as she stirs homemade jam. Harry imagines her amongst woodland creatures who coax her to the forest with songs, escorting her there as she gambols freely.

He could not imagine her going home and feeling like a burden. Hell, he would have thought that she considered everyone else a burden -- that maybe it was draining to be the absolute light of everyone’s life. Yet here she stood, seeming worn, and broken.

“If you don’t mind me asking, why is everyone hyper aware of you at home? You don’t have to answer if you’re uncomfortable.” He says it delicately -- he means it. . .if she didn’t want to share this with him, then he wouldn’t force her, but he wants to open up the possibility. He wants her to know that he’s an open ear if she so chose to utilize him.

“Um,” her gaze does shift downward -- she suddenly appears so small, “Are you sure?”

Harry nods.

“I just -- it's not that I don’t like bringing it up, I just don’t want you to treat me any differently than you would knowing it, yeah? I think that’s what I hate the most.” She notes, “So do you promise that you won’t -- you won’t start tiptoeing around me?”

“You’ve got my word.” Harry vows, but he has a feeling he knows what she is to say.

The sleeve of his cardigan covers her hand as she brushes the hair from her face, “In freshman year of UNI, my roommate was Mrs. Graham’s daughter, Penelope.” She straightens out in her seat, “We didn’t like each other much at first but we had grown very close -- um, once she threw away my fruit snacks and so I dunked her toothbrush in the toilet, but I felt guilty and went out to buy her a new toothbrush,” a laugh leaves her at the memory, as she rolls her eyes at herself, “That was what we had going for a while, but a late night heart to heart kind of made us closer. She told me things that. . .she’d been through a lot that nobody should have to go through, you know? She was bullied a lot growing up—in high school it was bad, people used to always gang up on her over stupid shit.” Harry hums, encouraging her to continue, and she stirs the pudding around mindlessly, “And we were just close after that. We had a flat together sophomore year and most of junior year, she’s my best friend,” she swallows thickly, “I didn’t realize how sad she was. . .I didn’t realize what she was still holding onto, and she -- we went home for Christmas break, and she never came back.”

Harry feels his stomach sour as her eyes bead with unshed tears, “Oh, Y/N,”

“It’s alright. I’m okay, I’m fine as I can be -- I’ve -- I’m mourning and I miss her, but I’m trying to be strong. Most days I am, but everyone at home just expects me to be this fragile thing, y’know? The days I’m happy, and chatty, they think I’m faking it. And some days I do, yeah, but. . .it’s just disheartening when everyone pretends to know what’s going on in my head.” She plants the pudding directly in the center, leaving it there and retreating her hands to her lap, “Mrs. Graham told me she felt the same. That’s why I came in last minute -- I’ve got all my volunteer hours settled and everything but she said it might be nice to get away.” A slow, easy sigh leaves her lips as she blinks the tears away, not one drop trickled down her cheek, “It is nice, but I still worry that I’m a strain on people around me, even if not for the reason I am at home. And I’m sorry to like, info dump all this on you,” she laughs a little in spite of herself, “You can’t ask me things, unless you want an hour long explanation.”

Harry reaches out his hand for her, for the second time that night, and once again she slowly slips their fingers together, “Thank you for sharing that with me, I know it must have been hard,” he squeezes her hand, “But I understand you a bit more now. I’ll keep my promise, I won’t treat you any differently, but before that --” she blinks at him, waiting, “I think you might just be one of the kindest, strongest, most caring people that I have ever meant. I know you would never do anything to intentionally hurt me or add stress onto my life, so you don’t have to worry about that. You don’t have to try with me. We can just exist together, yeah? We’ll exist without burdens and without worry.”

The look in her eyes, was one that Harry had never seen before. One that makes him melt in her touch.

“I would like that.”

. . .

“I can’t swim.”

Harry was crouched down to Maisey’s height, fixing purple mermaid floaties around her arms. The day was not unusually muggy, but there was an additional itch to jump belly first into the cool watered lake. He had woken with a revitalized need to pry a star from the morning sky as it shifted from an inky purple to an early, dusky morning blue -- and give it to Y/N. He had decided after their conversation last night -- after they’d gone to bed and Y/N fell asleep cuddled in his cardigan -- he had an overwhelming, and an all encompassing want to hold her.

Which made it hard to part ways this morning, but he managed. And maybe he played out an image in his head where he pressed a kiss to Y/N’s cheek before they went to wake their respective cabins, or maybe he didn’t (but if he did that’s his own problem). He is quick to convince himself it was because she’d shared a piece of herself with him that he doesn’t think she lets many people see, and Harry always develops a bit of a platonic crush on his friends at some point or another. He questioned whether or not he was in love with Mitch for a solid four days once. . .sometimes he just let his heart get carried away.

He had been enmeshed in these thoughts as he got his campers ready for their time in the lake. At first glance, a ton of children in the lake seemed like a horrible, and faulty idea, but they took precautions so that everyone was safe. Every child wore floaties and/or life jackets no matter how proficient their swimming abilities. There was netting about ten meters out so that the children and counsellors couldn’t float out toward the middle, and they worked it so that only three children could be in per counsellor at a time, so that they could keep an eye on everyone. Harry wasn’t so nervous because he was a strong swimmer, and his kids were a little older, but he could tell Y/N had been a little jittery about it. It’s why Harry told her that while she was out in the lake with her little ones to let him know, he would come out with her to bring her some additional comfort that even the floaties could not provide.

Harry had been pretty sure all of his kids were excited to go to the lake and he was grateful for that, until he looked up to see the nervous, large blue eyes of Jackson, downcast after he had spoken the words. The unprompted admittance confused him as he turned to face him, “That’s okay, buddy, we’ve got floaties for that.”

Jackson did not seem convinced, shaking his head fiercely, “No, I -- I can’t swim.”

“J.J. is afraid of the water,” Noah exposes the truth just as easy as he takes a sip from his juice box, equipped with his own blue arm floaties, “He didn’t want to say though ‘cos --”

“Noah!” Jackson cuts him off, betrayal laced within his features.

“--’cos he didn’t want to seem like a wimp, but he almost drowned when he was little.”

Jackson looked as if he could cry, and Harry shook his head quickly, “Hey, hey, hey, c’mere buddy,” he motions him over, and he comes easily, stepping before Harry who had not bothered to leave his already crouched position, “Explain to me what’s going on, yeah?”

He shifts his weight from foot to foot, a frown prevalent on his mouth, even as he speaks, “When I was little little, my big brother pushed me into the pool and I went under the water and my mom had to come in and get me because I can’t swim good.”

Harry pulls his lips back, reaching out to squeeze Jackson’s shoulder, “I’m sorry to hear that buddy. I won’t force you to get in the water if you don’t want to, but I do want to tell you that if you feel more comfortable, we could try a life jacket instead of the floaties? It’ll keep you more buoyant -- more bouncy in the water.”

“Aren’t those for little kids?” Jackson inquires, brows pinched, but Harry shakes his head and points toward Y/N, never more glad in that moment that she had the age group she did, along with her views on not making them do, wear, or say anything that she wouldn’t herself. She’s got the life jacket swung around her arm as she clips Oliver into his own.

“Y/N’s going to wear one too, and she’s not a little kid. I’ll wear one as well if you’d like.” He promised him. Albeit looking reserved, Jackson nods softly with his hands in little fists, worrying his lip between his teeth. The poor thing, Harry thinks -- he used to be afraid of water too. Nobody wants to conquer that fear suddenly, let alone with a group of people that may or may not poke fun because they’re kids and kids are jerks sometimes.

Harry finds him a life jacket -- a cute one with a shark on it, that he helps him clip on, and fits it to his body with the straps. Next, he needed to find one for himself, but he wasn’t entirely sure where they kept the counsellor life jackets, so he called for Y/N where she’d been a few meters away and she popped her head up from where she was like a meerkat. Her eyes softened when she realized who had called her, and a gentle smile pulled at her mouth, “Hey hubby,” she greets him, much to the delight of Charlotte, who claps giddily, “What d’ya need?”

“A life jacket, please. Where’d you get yours?” Harry tries to be decent -- tries desperately to keep his eyes to himself, but he finds that this is surprisingly difficult when Y/N is in her swimsuit. It wasn’t obscene in any sense of the word -- in the pamphlet they get when they sign up, it is very clear that speedos and bikinis were not appropriate, and therefore not allowed. If a child couldn’t wear it, then you shouldn’t bring it -- was the apothegm that they chose to live by in reference to dress code.

This, however, doesn’t mean that Y/N’s swimsuit didn’t suit her well. It was fitted in a way that wasn’t too tight, yet wasn’t too loose -- like it might have just been made with her in mind. A simple one piece of nylon and lycra colored a powder blue, that barely showed off that much more of what she wears to bed, and yet his mind still flutters elsewhere. To unwise places, that he drags himself from before clearing his throat and forcing himself to look around the lake so it appeared his eyes were just scanning everything.

“You’re in luck,” Y/N jogged the short way from where they stood, back to where her kids were all gathered, playing happily in the sand. Beneath what Harry had assumed was just a cluster of towels, another life jacket was hidden beneath the fabric. She hands it toward him with a triumphant grin, “This was the last one. I grabbed it for you in case you just wanted to float rather than keep your legs kicking -- you had a big lunch, didn’t want you to get a cramp.”

Harry hates how his heart balloons in his chest. There was no reason to be a melt because she had thought of him -- that she had him in mind, so she snatched the last life jacket, and hid it beneath towels so nobody else could have it. No reason to feel all mushy from the way that she unfolds it for him, a silent prompt that she’s going to help him pull it on. And there was certainly, absolutely no good reason for how stupidly affectionate he feels when she strokes her finger along the heart tattoo on his forearm mindlessly, before murmuring, “You make me wanna get covered in them. Maybe I’ll just go and get all of yours.” She looks down at the ground, “Maybe not the toe, my feet are ticklish -- think I would kick the artist.”

He recruits Y/N for the process of easing Jackson into the water -- Noah and Elinor are floating and bobbing about happily at their sides, while Charlotte and Mikey playfully kick and float close to their older counterparts (if not practically on top of them). There was a chill bite to the water when they had first stepped in, but as they walked out further and sunk a bit deeper, the cold eases up. The cool air soothes them from the sharp bite of the scorching sun, Jackson holds his hand so tightly Harry thinks his fingers may go numb, and he figures Y/N is feeling the same way, if her soft, “Loosen your grip up a bit, Sweetheart, you’re gonna take off my hand.”

Eventually, Jackson relaxes. He finally understands that the life jacket will keep him afloat and holding onto Y/N and Harry wasn’t a necessity. Once the idea of this settles in his brain, he is more willing to let go and enjoy himself. It feels wonderful to see that he’s having fun, and even better when he sees the smile on Y/N’s face from this small victory. Last year, he hadn’t felt this parental over the children last summer, but something had changed. . .something that made him feel like he was a bit of a parent.

It has to be Y/N. There was something about her that just oozes mother figure for these kids, even if she wasn’t intending to do so. She kissed the bandages over their wounds to take away the hurt, she praised the ground they walked on, picked them up if they asked, danced with them, encouraged them, treated every single child as if they were her own. Harry believes she’ll be a beautiful mother one day, if that’s what she’d like, and whoever the father or mother was she had chosen to spend her life with, they were unbelievably lucky. He just hoped they would understand that.

Y/N floats into his line of sight, “Are you okay? Ellie said you look like Maisey’s aunt again, whatever that means.”

Harry snorts, before nodding, “Yeah, I’m fine. A bit tired.”

An understanding gleam overtakes her, “Y’know, I did think you seemed a bit snoozy,” she reaches out for him, squeezing his shoulder softly, “D’ya want to have a sneaky nap? I could watch the kids.”

“But I like having you both,” Jackson whined, shaking his head quickly, finding their hands once more, reassuring that his grip was tight as ever, “Please stay.”

“Yeah,” Noah splashes over to them, sliding his arms around Harry’s neck, wetting his hair with the water clinging to his life jacket, “You two are fun together! We always have so much fun -- Brittany said her counsellor always yells at them when they ask her to play with them.”

Elinor was quick to add, “And Ro’s counsellor falls asleep during art days! He doesn’t even help them stay in the lines, and they’re little like Oli, and Charlotte.”

Y/N’s bottom lip juts out in the prettiest little pout -- Harry finds himself wanting to pluck it with the pad of his thumb, “That’s silly, isn’t it? I have so much fun with you guys, I couldn’t imagine not playing. Right Harry?”

Nodding his assent, he reaches up, settling his hands around Noah’s arms and bring him along with him as he kicks them closer to Y/N and the other three, “It is silly. Some people just aren’t as fun as Y/N and I, Bug, it’s proven fact. They did the scientific method and everything.”

Oliver gleefully pushes himself up on Y/N’s shoulders, flopping back into the water and bobbing, “I love yous!” He chirped brightly, “Yous guys are my favorites! I love yous.”

The sight is adorable, especially as Y/N wriggles around and holds her arms out so they could hug, which Oliver happily accepts, “I love yous too, button.”

They have fun -- for hours, as they switch out which kids are in the water, spend time on the beach with all of them, making sandcastles, burying one another, chatting and playing. It was very freeing; Harry could easily tell that he and the others were having far more fun than any of the other groups were -- Mitch and Niall had gravitated their groups closer to them when Y/N and the kids began to pour sand over the top of him. Even Cassidy came around with her kids after they had heard them all giggling and laughing and wanted to know what was going on. Harry was having fun, and maybe he was just mushy, but he credited it to the joy Y/N was exuding. It was hard not to be in a good mood when he was around her.

By the time the sun sat a little lower in the sky, casting the shadows of trees over the sand and cooling them to the point of chilling. The kids washed their feet and hands beneath the rush of water from a yard hydrant, wrapped up in towels, and headed toward the dining hall for their dinner. There was a taco bar today, and Harry found that Y/N and he had a mutual love of tacos as a whole. She showed him how she adds feta crumbles, even let him have a bite of hers to see if he would like it so he could decide whether or not to put it on his own (it was delicious, she was right).

Once dinner was finished, everyone was exhausted. They all gathered around the campfire, one of the counsellors strummed a song on his guitar, they all had s'mores and then they dispersed. Not even the rush of sugar from the chocolate and marshmallow gave any of the children an umph in their step; they were all so sluggish and slow, dragging their feet through the dirt on their way to their cabins. Harry’s group barely kept their eyes open as they stalked to the showers, washing off the lake water and sand that had been clinging to their bodies. After they brushed their teeth, they all but face planted in their beds and snores soon filled the quiet air of the cabin. They only made him realize how exhausted he was from the day spent baking in the sun, floating and kicking in the water.

He trudges back to his cabin, where he finds Y/N had already showered off. She was face down in her pillow, her back slowly rising and falling with each gentle breath she took. She hadn’t covered in her blankets -- no, instead she used his cardigan as a makeshift cover over her body, and Harry thinks it might just be the cutest thing he’s ever seen. The patchwork swallows a good portion of her body, the sleeve flopped limply by her head. . .he could imagine her crawling into bed. Could imagine her putting her knee up first, dragging the cardigan that had been lying limply over the post with her and just letting it drape over her body. She probably wasn’t thinking she would fall asleep. . .probably thought she would just lay there for a minute before gathering the strength to get beneath her covers.

It’s adorable -- Harry hates how adorable he finds it, actually. If he could crawl in beside her he would, but instead he ambles to the bathroom, starts up the shower, and climbs in.

The water his hot -- boiling drops pelt his skin, washing away the grime and sweat that felt as if it’d been caked onto his skin. It felt good; to cleanse and scrub himself free of the lake, massage shampoo into his scalp, soften his curls with the conditioner, and just allow himself to revel in the feeling. Showers feel wonderful - a renewal that he deemed necessary by the end of the day. And when he gets the temperature just right, it soothes the aches and soreness in his bones, turning his muscles to softened jello. By the time he slipped out of the shower, he was practically boneless and thought he’d be lucky if he made it to his bed before dropping to the floor and falling asleep.

He expects Y/N to still be asleep when he leaves the bathroom, but he’s surprised to find her sat up in her bed, his cardigan pooled around her body and a deep frown on her face.

“Oh!” He’s started some -- he really thought she was out for the night, “Good morning, sleepyhead.”

“It’s morning?” Her face further turns to that of distress and Harry bites down hard on a chuckle.

“No,” he responds, “It’s not morning. Only about 10PM, so you’ve got plenty of time to rest still.” She looks around groggily, rubbing at her cheek with one hand while she fisted his cardigan in the other, pulling it closer around her body, “Why don’t you get beneath the covers, Babe?” He asks her, and she’s quiet for a little while. The only inkling Harry receives that she even heard him was how she tries to shuffle and wriggle the covers down with her still stretched out on the bed, stuffing her legs into the blankets first, then sliding the rest of the way smoothly. All the while she clings to the cardigan, holding it tightly, resting her cheek on it. Harry doesn’t know if Y/N’s just far more affectionate than he had even thought prior, or if she was just half awake and doing things she wouldn’t do if she was fully conscious. Vaguely does he remember her saying something about typically cuddling with a teddy at night -- how she stuffs her face against it because it always smells like her fabric softener.

He wonders if that’s why she snuggles with it -- he wonders if she likes the smell of him, so she buries her nose in the fabric and breathes it in as she rests.

Harry hates this. He hates how inconceivably soft he’s been feeling, but he can’t help it. Y/N had found him worthy enough to poke inside her brain -- she opened up to him in a way she expressed she’d not been opening up to many people about. It made him feel closer to her.

But he told her he wouldn’t treat her any differently after finding out. And if he suddenly started expressing more affection, he fears she would think he was only doing it because of what she told him. He just wants to be. . .he just wants to be gentle with her. Doesn’t want her to ever think that she’s a burden to him, because the anecdote had made him question and second guess how he’d been treating her their entire time here. Of course, he was never intentionally cruel, but some of the situations he thinks about the two of them in, and how he responded, makes him cringe.

He switches off the overhead light, her dimmed bedside lamp and muscle memory guide him to his bed. Harry climbs in, shivers as he adjusts to the warmth beneath his covers, and breathes a soft sigh of relief to have finished with the day.

“Harry?” Y/N’s voice startles his eyes open, which he’d not been aware he’d closed.

“Hm?” He hums -- he had thought she’d fallen back asleep already.

“You’re okay?”

A soft smile plays at his mouth -- she asks him every night before bed, he’s noticed.

“Yes, I’m okay. Are you okay?”

She nods, “You did really good today,” her voice is muffled from her cheek mushed against his cardigan, “The kids had a lot of fun, they were telling me. I had a lot of fun too.”

“Yeah? Me too,” he reaches to thumb the hairs of his eyebrow down, “And thank you. You always do really well with the kids.”

She’s quiet for a minute, and once more, Harry thinks she must have fallen asleep, but the shift of the mattress tells him she’s changing position and Harry notices once more that his eyes have closed, “I’m glad you’re my roomie.”

Harry utters the words, that two weeks ago he thinks he would have spit at.

“Yeah, I’m glad you’re my roomie too.”

. . .

Harry was drunk.

Typically, he didn’t allow himself to get very drunk at these little parties. He trusted the others so little, he had no doubt in his mind that any moment he was slightly impaired in some way they would take it upon themselves to prey on his weakness. This means he only ever gets mildly tipsy -- drinks enough to feel good but caps himself when he thinks he might start stumbling.

But he just didn’t cap himself today. Not for any reason in particular -- their day hadn’t been difficult. They helped their kids through a mildly strenuous obstacle course throughout the morning, cooled down with them drinking juice boxes and eating popsicles and by 2PM they were inside doing little DIY projects. Harry burned his finger with some hot glue, but otherwise it was a pretty easy smooth kind of day that they didn’t get often. He and Y/N hadn’t gotten to spend much time together, which he wouldn’t admit loudly was a disappointment, but he and his kids had all agreed that they missed her.

(And when they had seen her and her group walking into the art room, the lot of them had erupted in cheers, Noah, Eli, Maisey being the loudest of them.)

They had a pasta dinner that was surprisingly filling, they told “spooky” campfire stories and ate s’mores, he got his kids ready for bed and he went off to the cabin. He and Y/N were going to one of the parties tonight, not because they had such spectacular luck with a good time before, but because they were coming up on some of their last nights here at camp. It was a bittersweet feeling -- Harry remembered being more than ready to flee last year, counting down each day, each hour dragging on longer than the last. This time, it felt like it was coming too quick. He would miss the kids, he would miss the busy days some. . .and sure, he was happy to go home and take a shower that stays hot longer than five minutes and rest on his soft, cozy bed, but he would miss not having Y/N right across from him.

That was what he was having the most trouble coming to terms with, he thinks. The idea of them not having to spend every moment of every day with one another after doing it for three weeks almost sounds wrong. It's the same feeling he gets when he knew he and Mitch wouldn’t have such easy access to one another once they went back home. Being at this camp sort of felt like being stuck in a time loop where the outside world doesn’t exist, so it’s very easy to forget that they all have lives outside of here. They all go to class, go to work, go home, study, eat and sleep.

He and Y/N live relatively close to one another -- only about a ten minute drive up the street with only one turn and it's into her apartment building -- but he wonders if they’ll utilize it. He wonders if their friendship is tied to this camp and if that’s where it will remain, or if she even wants to be friendly with him after. Harry hadn’t considered that maybe she was only putting up with him because they had to live together and she didn’t want it to be miserable. Had he questioned if he was even enjoyable to be around? How does he ask her that without sounding entirely too desperate or needy?

So partially, he drinks to ease some of the worry in his mind. Harry doesn’t think he would “break down” or something like it if they weren’t able to continue being friends -- like a forgotten summer love that he might think about throughout the fall, and message her to see how she was doing -- but he certainly wouldn’t be delighted if that’s how it ended up. Harry thinks there’s so much more to Y/N that he would like to see, and know, and hear. Three weeks isn’t enough time, Harry decided, but in the same breath he wondered if she had thought it was more than enough.

Harry knows she cares for him, at least a little bit. He knows that he cares for her and her wellbeing; he was fond of her. From what he knew of who she was fundamentally, down to her core, Harry knew she was selfless and kind -- it was hard to find people like that, who were that, without it being cakey or clouded by something else. She was transparent in who she was and her feelings regarding most things, and Harry valued her honesty.

And she was just so damn fun. Every moment with her he spent, the air filled with laughter; she brought a slice of sun in her pocket wherever she went and Harry was consistently being warmed beneath it.

The fact of the matter is, Harry doesn’t know how he could meet someone like Y/N, and get used to the idea of her not being in his life after three weeks. If he could refuse it he would, but what was he going to do? Kidnap her and take her home with him?

He’s sat on the tree root, opposed to standing beside it like he usually is, with his back pressed against the bark of the tree and he ignores the jagged, uneven trunk against his skin. Mitch was beside him, leaning lower than he was with his jacket bundled up and stuffed behind his head, his legs kicked out as far as they would go and because of this, his foot rested against Niall’s lap. Niall was pleasantly gone himself, a bit louder than normal but also zoning out every so often.

He was a good guy, Niall -- he had good opinions, and he chatted him and Mitch up about guitars often (he was typically the camp’s go to for an acoustic guy if they ever wanted campfire songs). Harry thinks they could probably be really good friends, if not for the fact that Niall was so barefaced in his crush on Y/N.

It was obvious, Harry thought. He’d thought it was obvious from the first moment he spent a prolonged period of time with both he and Y/N -- his cheeks got rosy when she touched him, he stuttered over his gratitude if she complimented him, and if she went out of her way to do something (like when she’d stuffed her hand into a thorn-bush for his guitar pick that had flung from his fingers, and subsequently got all scratched up), he would look at her how someone might stargaze.

Harry doesn’t know why he doesn’t just ask her out, if he likes her so much. It almost irritates him how skittish Niall seems to get at the prospect of it; to run away from those warm, nice feelings that she provides is silly. It reminds him entirely too much of himself and he loathes it.

Tonight had been no different, only Y/N was dancing back and forth between them and a few other counsellors (Harry only recognized one of them , who was called Rosie and had been in his first year maths). Harry watched her most of the night, in the least obnoxious and creepy way he could, just because. . .well, she was nice to look at. He liked how her body animated as she spoke, or how she nodded her head as someone was speaking to her -- it was an encouraging nod, and her eyes locked onto theirs like they might be telling her where the fountain of youth might be located, or the secrets to the universe.

She was cozy today -- it was cooler out than most of the nights that they had experienced, with a chill breeze that had even stirred goosebumps on Harry’s arms (and he was all but swaddled in his hoodie). Y/N had a light fitted sweater that she sometimes slept in -- not heavy enough to shield her from the icy terrain that winter would provide, but enough to fight past the harsh summer night breeze that threatened to help a storm roll in within the next few hours. Loosely, he let the images of her cuddled close to him invade his brain. What it might feel like, how the knit would brush against his skin, if she would hide her face in his neck or spider around him as the big spoon and burrow against his hair. Y/N struck him as someone who liked to do more of the cuddling than being cuddled herself.

He would miss her when they had to leave. Harry worried who would just exist with her, like they had been doing. He worried about her going back to a place where she felt like a burden -- he would be around, wouldn’t he? If she allowed him to, he could be there for her, but he doesn’t want to seem pushy. By all definitions, they had really just met -- Harry had known Y/N for approximately 17 days, but it felt like so much longer. He wonders if he had known her in a past life, or if it was the fact that they spent almost every day all day with one another for at least 15 of those 17 day -- he finally understands how everyone in the Love Island villa always goes on about how a day in the outside world feels like a week where they are.

It’s not like he’s professing his love to her, for fuck sake. He just likes her -- whether it be platonic or not, Harry thinks Y/N is just delightful.

“Your little girlfriend’s not with you?”

Harry had forgotten how Jack’s voice sounded how grating nails against iron pipes might make someone feel, mostly because they hadn’t spoken in quite a while. After Y/N had slapped him, he had kept to himself, resorting more to disgruntled glares and probably pissy comments he was murmuring to his mates about him. If someone asked Harry, he would say that him and his friends were afraid of Y/N -- she posed a good threat to them. Sure, they hadn’t understood the extent of her words that night (like how and why she knew Miss. Graham), but they were enough to rattle them. No matter being in university, or within the range of 20-23 years old, nobody wanted to be scolded by a woman in her 40s, nor did they want to be kicked out of a camp counsellor position, or to have their volunteer hours revoked.

So they had left him alone, which Harry thinks may have been such a strain for them he would be surprised if they hadn’t popped a blood vessel. Even if they wanted to, he was always with Y/N -- they never really had the chance, and if they did, they didn’t really take it.

Which is why he is both surprised and incredibly annoyed with Jack’s sudden appearance.

“Piss off.” Harry responds, nursing his beer bottle closer to him.

“You’re always so ill-tempered,” Jack leans up against the tree, “Just wanted to have a chat. Like why Cassidy suddenly wants to break things off after chatting with you and Y/N. Got any ideas?”

Harry’s brows dipped in confusion, “What? What are you on about?”

“Don’t act like you don’t fucking know,” Jack rolls his eyes, “Cassidy and I are doing just fucking fine for six months, but we come here, she starts chatting with you and now all the sudden she’s ready to break up. What the fuck did you say, hm?” He nudged Harry’s side with his foot, “Fucking Y/N wasn’t enough, you had to fuck Cassidy too?” He kicked him this time, harder than before.

Harry, who did not take too kindly to being kicked, rolled his eyes and pushed himself to a stand, “Dunno why you’re so fucking insecure that you think me being around has anything to do with Cassidy finally seeing what a prick you are, but this needs to stop,” he handed his bottle to Mitch who took it wordlessly, “I’m not fucking Cassidy, I’ve never fucked Cassidy, so if you could just grow the fuck up and recognize that maybe she broke up with you, because you’re awful to be around, that would be great.”

Jack, which Harry had expected, took more of a physical approach, giving a shove to Harry’s shoulders, and Harry’s back slams against the tree behind him, “Fuck you,” he spit, “You all holier than thou ‘cos you’re dipping your dick in Miss. Rainbow Bright? What do you know about me, hm? You’re just a dumb fuck who has to be here because you’re a no good druggy fuck with anger issues. How does it feel knowing you’ll amount to nothing after UNI?”

There isn’t a lot that could get under Harry’s skin. A lot of people could say a lot of shit that he brushes off and lets go, but there are two things that he really just can’t. One of them is when people try to speak poorly of his mum, and the other, was when someone pretends to know his situation when they don’t have a fucking clue. Who was this trust fund bastard to tell him he was a druggy fuck? That he would amount to nothing after UNI? Harry worked two jobs to set himself through school and keep himself fed, with a roof over his head, just so that he could live the life he wanted to after university.

Maybe it was silly to punch him, but it felt good to. Harry reared back his fist and it collided with his jaw, making Jack stumble backward, his hand flying to his face, “You fucking --” he swung in return, only he catches Harry’s shoulder because Harry moved out of the way in anticipation. Niall narrowly dodged being caught in the crossfire as he rolled out of the way.

The fight didn’t get too far, however, because when Jack was gearing up to swing again, Y/N appeared and easily wormed her way in between them, “Are you serious right now?” Her brows were furrowed -- she looked legitimately pissed off, and, well. . .it made Harry take a step back at least, “Thought we had a chat about this, hm? You were going to leave him the fuck alone -- no, look at me, not him,” she grabbed at his collar, giving a sharp tug when his angry gaze had flittered back toward Harry, “I’m not an angry person, Jack, I don’t like being mean, or cruel like you seem to be so fond of, but I can and will be if I need to and I promise you that. Don’t you ever speak to someone like that again, yeah? What you were saying was just awful.” She lets go of his collar, taking a step back and sighing in a sharp huff, “I can’t speak for Cassidy, but if I had to guess she probably cut things off because you’re a jealous bastard who questions every interaction with another person and try this alpha male persona to scare other people away. It must be exhausting.”

Jack shook his head, “We were fine --”

“You thought you were fine. Things aren’t always what they look like, alright? The sooner you understand that, the easier your life will be.” She nods toward the center of the clearing they were in, “Go get some ice from the cooler, and go the hell back to your cabin. You’re not a fun drunk.”

Albeit reluctantly, Jack follows her orders and slinks his way to the cooler. The others around them had grown quiet as they had watched the confrontation unfold, but they soon all lost interest once they realized nothing more would happen. Y/N turned to face Harry, the anger on her face immediately dissolving, as she shakes her head, “What a dick. I’m so sorry he spoke to you like that,” she takes ahold of his wrist, the hand that he had punched Jack with, running her thumbs over his reddened knuckles, “I told him -- after the lake, I told him that he needed to leave you alone or I’d do something about it. Dunno what I was gonna do, but I was going to do something -- I will --”

“Hey, hey,” he cuts her off, “It’s okay -- it’s okay, come on, let’s. . .let’s go to the cabin, yeah? Should we go back to the cabin?”

Y/N looks at him like he was batty, “No shit we’re going back to the cabin! I’ve got to give you like a full medical look over. He slammed you into the tree, and honestly, you bruise like a peach.”

They make the trek back to the cabin, relatively quiet, Harry still attempting to process what had happened and what Y/N had said. Had she really spoken to Jack after the fact and threatened him if he messed with Harry again? The softest, probably sweetest person he knows, had taken Jack off to the side and told him if he didn’t leave Harry alone she was going to do something about it. Not only that, she grabbed him by his collar and told him off in front of everyone. It made his heart race, the thought of it, and his cock twitches in his pants at the moment on repeat in his mind.

Once they get back to the cabin, Y/N has him take his hoodie off with her in the bathroom so she could visualize his back and shoulder. Jack may be short-tempered and smaller than Harry, but his punches still packed a great deal, so a nice, reddening bruise was forming quickly around his shoulder. On his back there were scrapes from the tree bark, Y/N tells him, and a ton of little bruises that had begun to form as well. She makes him stay still as she retrieves the first aid kit from their medicine cabinet.

“Y/N,” he started, and she hummed to encourage him to continue, “When did you speak with Jack privately?”

She clears her throat, plopping the first aid kit down on the sink counter and unclipping it open, “The morning after the lake,” she answers without hesitation, “I wasn’t trying to like, fight your battles or anything, but I needed him to know I wasn’t bluffing when I told them I would rat them out, and worse if the situation allowed it. I hate bullies,” she pulls out a small tube of bacitracin, tutting her tongue as she squeezes it out on the tip of her finger, “And I hate how they treat you. I’m sorry if I overstepped.”

“You didn’t at all,” Harry remarks softly, jolting when her fingers very carefully graze over one of the tender areas on his back, “Thank you, actually, for sticking up for me again.”

“You don’t have to thank me. I think I’m pretty scrappy when I need to be,” she giggles to herself, “Like, if need be, I would take on the Queen for you. Might be an uneven match though, she’s pushing 100.”

Harry spins around to face her though, “Y/N, I mean it,” he tells her seriously, their gazes locking, “Thank you for everything. For dealing with my attitude, for sticking up for me, for helping with the kids, for making this experience bearable, for being such a positive light,” he sighs, “You’re amazing, you deserve amazing things.”

Y/N looks taken by his words -- he wonders if she’s as lost in his eyes as he is in hers. Her mouth falls open gently, like she may be searching for what to say back to him but can’t come up with anything. He worries that he’d said too much -- that he freaked her out or something. He wasn’t trying to, he was just so grateful for her, he didn’t know what to do. Didn’t know how to express it.

He is about to apologize for being too forward, when Y/N pushes the short distance and connects their lips together.

Harry’s confused for a moment as his brain registers what’s happening, but when he feels that she might pull away, his body finally seems to wake up. His hands find her face, cradling her jaw in his hands as he reaffirms the kiss and lets the butterflies in his body take over in hoards. He’d given thought to kissing Y/N, sure, but he’d never thought it would happen. Not only that, he’d never thought it would feel this nice. She tastes like the pineapple wine coolers she’d been sipping on that night, her lips still a bit sticky from the residue of the alcohol on her soft lips.

She’s gentle in how she kisses, like Harry would have guessed -- careful too, and cautious with how her lips parted from him only to fix back together. A pool of heat had formed in Harry’s lower belly and rose to his chest, stirring his heart in flutters when her tongue slid into his mouth and met her own. Harry hadn’t realized just how badly he wanted to kiss her until their tongues are sliding against one another, and his hands are slipping down from her jaw, caressing the delicate skin of her throat, skating down her chest to her hips. He squeezes her sides and pulls her closer to him, feeling the knit of her top rub against his bare torso. It was as soft as he’d imagined it’d be.

Had she been wanting to kiss him for as long as he wanted to kiss her? Normally, Harry could tell how badly someone wanted to kiss him by the act alone, but with Y/N he was so caught up he couldn’t focus. She was calm and soft, but the longer they kissed, the more ardent she became. It was the tiny moan that had left from her mouth into his own, that made him lightheaded. He had to pull away to breathe but his forehead pressed against hers as he breathed in, “Harry?” Her voice is low, she says his name like a secret, “Was that okay?”

His response is to press their lips back together, but this time only for a moment, before he withdraws. Harry loops his fingers around her wrist and brings her with him back into the main room, flopping onto her bed since it was the closest and urging her to climb into his lap. She straddles him, and just as soon as she’s within reach, he slides his fingers at the nape of her neck and pulls her back to his mouth.

It was good -- it felt so fucking good, Harry couldn’t begin to describe it. He held her close, and tried as he might to stave off his cock from ruining the moment, the longer they kissed the harder he got. How she was positioned at first made it so she couldn’t really feel him, but when she tried to get closer to him, she scooted her hips forward and rubbed up right against him. A gasp leaves her as she parts from him, looking down, having lifted her hips, “I’m sorry,” she apologizes and Harry gives a startled laugh.

“I’ve got a stiffy, and you’re apologizing?” He chuckles with a shake of his head, “I’m sorry, Sweetheart. I’ve got a pretty girl in my lap kissing me, s’kind of hard not to get hard. We can stop if you want.”

“I don’t want to stop,” she answers with no delay nor doubt, as she lowers back down, resting her front on his prick and with this she gives an experimental roll of her hips. Harry hisses in a breath as she does it again, her own little moan slipping from her mouth. She was only in a thin little pair of shorts, and Harry had chosen sweatpants for the night, so there was little fabric truly separating them. Harry was thankful for it as she continued to roll her hips against him, sponging kisses from his mouth, down his jawline, to the curve of his throat. She fixed her lips there, lulling her tongue over the skin before she started suckling at him and Harry’s hands danced along her back, stroking up and down it, feeling her, holding her closer. Each roll of her hips made him harder, and he was desperate to know if she was wet. If he pushed his fingers into her shorts, would they come back slick from her arousal? Would she watch him as he slid them into his mouth to taste her? Would she let him split her thighs and lick straight from the source.

His mind was overcome with filth, smutty images entangle once innocent thoughts as she brought the blood to the surface of his skin. When one of his hands left where it had latched onto her hip and slowly maneuvered around to her front, she paused, but left her face dipped in his throat, “Are you wet for me?” He asks her quietly and she nods through a little shiver, “Yeah? Bet you soaked through your little panties,” he murmurs as he slides his fingers past the elastic bands of her shorts and underwear, but left his fingers just past them, “Answer me.”

“Yes,” her voice trembles, she swallows thickly and the muscles in her abdomen contract beneath his fingers.

Harry hums low, slipping his fingers down further and he dips between her slick folds, “Oh, Sweetheart,” he presses a chaste kiss to the side of her head, “Is this your first time getting wet for me?” She shakes her head, “Hm, really? So you’re like this often? Do you take care of it?”

“I -- yeah,” she stutters over a moan as the pads of his fingers roll over her swollen clit slowly, feeling it flick beneath them, “At night, sometimes I will in the shower if I can’t. . .if I can’t wait anymore.”

He feigns a gasp, “Oh my goodness,” he speeds up the slow lull of his fingers, “Your showers are always so fast, doll, you’re really that quick to cum?”

Harry may not be able to see her face, but he can hear the pout clear in her voice, “It usually isn’t that fast! Just with you, it is -- when I think of you, it’s always quick.”

He thought it would be impossible for his cock to be harder than it already was, but her words make pre-cum bubble at the tip, and when he dips his fingers back into her slick little hole, he gets even harder. Gliding his fingers from her panties, he draws them up to his mouth and presses them past his lips as he’d wanted to. Y/N has withdrawn from his throat, watching him do it with glassy eyes, her hands resting on his shoulders, digging her fingers into grape sized dents at the muscle. Her mouth falls open as he sucks her juices away, his eyes fluttering and a groan torn from his throat.

“Get on the bed,” he instructed and Y/N followed without question, crawling from his lap and lying her head on her pillow as Harry stood, and repositioned himself. He takes a hold of shorts and drags them down her legs, wriggling them off her ankle and tossing them elsewhere. His lips finds her ankle first, before he’s peppering and sponging kisses down her leg, the parts that he had tended to throw over his shoulder. When he gets to her thighs, he makes the kisses slower, softer -- he suckles and nips at the supple skin until he’s right before her center, only to switch to her other thigh and push kisses up and down the length of it.

Y/N’s whole body trembles with each shaky breath she gives. She’d spoken no words until he was positioned right in front of her core, looping his fingers in the waistband of the little cotton pair she had on, pulling them up toward her hips so the fabric stretched out over her. He could see her pussy beneath it, made out the outline of her swollen lips and engorged clit -- it made his mouth water.

“You don’t have to, if you don’t want,” she tells him, and his gaze is pulled back up to her -- she looks apprehensive.

“What?”

She shrugs, “I know some guys don’t really like to so --”

“Do you want me to eat your pussy?” Harry asks her bluntly, and he revels in the way her eyes widen, and how bashful her face turns as she looks away, “It’s a yes or no question, honey, if you don’t want me to, I can come back up and kiss you while I make you feel good with my fingers. If you do want me to, I’m g’na pull those panties to the side and make you cum on my tongue -- either I’m good with.”

“I -- yes,” she answers, her voice meek, “Yes I want you to.”

Harry smiles softly, “Poor thing, How many stupid boys were refusing to eat this sweet little peach?” He runs his thumb up and down her slit, visualizing where the wet spot had grown and soaked her panties so that the fabric thinned. Leaning in, he nosed at her clit and she inhales, “God, I’m so excited — you’re okay with this? You’re okay with me eating this little pussy out? Need you to let me know because once I start sweet girl, I’ll be in heaven.”

“Yes, please, please lick me.”

“So polite,” he suckles a kiss at the very innermost part of her thigh, before licking one, long stripe up her center through the fabric. She moans, pushing her hips down toward his mouth as he drags his tongue over it again, and again, and again. He soaks it with his spit, teasing her — he wanted to pull her panties to the side and suckle and slurp between her lips until she came — but he wants her to beg for him. Wants to hear that she wants him just as much as he wants her.

He smiles against her as he hears her getting impatient, little huffs between each moan. She whines, her hips bucking up against his tongue — he looks up to her, watching as her chest rises and falls quickly. The fingers of one hand are dug into the sheets beside her, while the others rest between her teeth. Her brows were tilted, lips pouted, whimpers come more frequently the longer he suckles and laps on the fabric, drenching it.

“Harry,” she finally works out, shivering when he pauses just over her clit and flickers his tongue over the top of it, “Oh, please just -- please.”

“Hm?” He hums against her, jolts, inhaling sharply, “What is it, baby? You’ve got to use your words.”

“Please stop teasing me,” she tells him, “Please take them off.”

And Harry may love to tease, but he wasn’t cruel. Wasn’t a bloody monster, was he? So he slides his index and middle finger in between the fabric and her core and tugs them over to the side -- he didn’t want to waste any time wiggling them down her legs. No, instead he dips his tongue in between her lips and slides it flat and straight up to her swollen clit. The groan that leaves her is sinful -- it makes his cock twitch in his pants, his heart slamming against his sternum as he suckles and her fingers find his curls. She digs her fingers within the strands, rocking her hips up to meet his mouth, and for a moment, Harry just leaves his tongue out and flat for her to grind against. Harry thinks, if he could spend the day just strapped to Y/N’s bed, willing, ready, and waiting for her to come use his mouth how she pleased -- he would be inconceivable happy.

Eventually he wiggles his face back into her, sliding his tongue back and forth before he latches his lips back around her silky folds. The swollen little button crying desperately for his attention was where he spent most of his time, lapping, or lulling his tongue in circles around it. She keens, her heel digs into the mattress and begins to slide down but Harry grabs a hold of her thighs and pushes both of them up, so her knees are to her chest. The new position makes her cry out his name raggedly, and Harry was teeming with carnal desire, and so horny he thinks he would barely have to hump against the mattress to cum.

“I’m close,” she warns him, mewling, “I’m g’na cum, I’m -- oh, please don’t stop, please don’t stop.”

Harry doesn’t think he’d stop if he was paid to do it. He doubles his efforts, sucking harder, sliding down to tongue at her hole while his fingers wrapped around and spun little circles into her clit. His other hand he reaches up with and slides his thumb into her mouth and she accepts it graciously, as it muted her moans that grew louder and louder the closer she got.

When she cums, it’s beautiful -- Harry wishes he would be able to see it on repeat, how her back arched upward and her hips bucked loosely as she pulsated around his tongue. Her mouth hangs open around his thumb, her eyes squeezed shut, the fingers in his hair tighten and her other hand wraps around his wrists and holds him tightly. The initial lurch of it subsides and she melts into the mattress, trying to catch her breath, her chest heaving beneath her sweater.

After he thoroughly cleans her (until she’s twitching and jumping away from his tongue), he crawls up her body, pushing her sweater up over her breasts, “Can I fuck you, Darling?” He asks her, a small smile on his mouth when she leans her chest closer to him so he can reach behind her and unclip her bra. Tugging the cups away, he grabs them carefully, thumbing over her nipple, “If you don’t want to, that’s okay, don’t feel bad about it, just let me know.”

“I want you to,” she rushes to tell him, nodding, “Do you have a condom?”

He dips his head against her chest, breathing out a sigh, “Fuck me,” he utters, shaking his head, “No, I don’t. I’m sorry.”

He usually does -- Harry always keeps a few on him, but he remembers very vividly he and Y/N had blown his last one up just a few nights prior and drawn a face on it. For a moment he feels hopeless, a sad pit forming in his stomach because the thought of fucking Y/N sounded like paradise and he only brought one bloody condom that he wasted.

“It’s okay, we’ll do it next time then,” she tells him, and Harry feels a joyful spike in his overall demeanor. Next time -- she wanted there to be a next time? And if she wanted there to be a next time, then they would have to see each other after the camp. . .they would spend time together, Harry could learn what she was like in her normal day to day. He was eager and delighted, and not even just at the prospect of pushing into her (which he was also pretty damn excited for), “I mean, if you wanted to do this again, then, yeah -- right? We’ll hang out after camp is through?”

A smile threatens to split his cheeks, “Of course we will,” he tells her, nosing at her jawline, “And not just ‘cos you promised to let me fuck you. I was hoping we would see each other still but was worried that you might be sick of me.”

Her brows pinch, “Sick of you? Dummy, I thought you would be sick of me!” She shakes her head, rolling her eyes at the both of them, “We’re so stupid, we ought’a communicate better.” Y/N presses at his abdomen, “C’mon then, I’ll spin around and you can fuck between my thighs. I did it once with a boy -- I just shaved in the shower last night too so it should be soft.”

Y/N flips over, scooting her bum in the air for him as she cuddles a pillow to her face, her ankles locked in place and her thighs squeezed together. Harry wiggles out of his pants and boxers before he lets a glob of spit fall onto his stiff cock that had soundly slapped up against his stomach, slicking it up nice and wet so the glide between her thighs wouldn’t be too dry. One hand he lays palm flat to her bum, stroking the skin there with his thumb while the other hand navigates his prick, tipping it down and fitting it between her warm, soft thighs.

It felt good; Harry groans wantonly as he pulls out and sinks back in, watching himself disappear between them. She wiggles her bum at him and Harry playfully swats it, chuckling when she squeals and giggles, “You’re so fucking cute,” he coos before bending over, stretching himself over her so his chest was pressed to her back as he started steadily fucking in between her thighs. One hand he uses to cup her breast and tweak at her nipple while the other he slides down to her pussy, finding her swollen little button and rubbing it.

Harry’s skin prickles as she moans, her legs falling open just slightly but he tuts his tongue, “Keep them nice and tight for me, baby,” he murmurs, and she nods, tightening the channel for him once more. He won’t last long, he knows it -- he can feel that pool of heat crackling in his lower belly. His blood buzzes in his ears as he fucks his hips forward, their skin slapping together sound in their little cabin. Her breasts bounce with each thrust he gives, she’s beginning to cum again from the ministration of his fingers, and Harry’s nearing the end of his rope.

“You feel so fucking good,” he’s just a breath away from her ear, “You’re gonna make me cum.”

He nibbles at the shell of her ear and lets his eyes flutter closed, his senses on overload. All he can hear, and taste, and smell, and feel is her. Dizzy and overwhelmed, Harry feels as if he may burst at the seams.

“Cum,” she murmurs, “Please, I want you to feel good -- I want you to cum.”

That’s all it takes -- the little push of her words has his hips stuttering as he cums, spurting long stripes between her thighs, some catching her skin, some landing on her sheets below them. His world fizzles out, static splinters through his body as warmth rushes through his veins, and his toes curl hard enough to lock up. As he comes back to, he giggles, the last of his orgasm drooling from the tip as he pushes a kiss to the back of Y/N’s head, “Stay still, lemme go get us a rag.”

His legs feel like jelly when he stands, fleeing arse naked to the bathroom and returning moments later with warm, wet rags. He cleans her first, careful in how he works her underwear down her legs before he pats gently around her thighs and at her center. She’s sensitive, so a few times she twitches and flinches from him but eventually relaxes as she holds tightly to the pillow. He wipes himself off a bit haphazardly, more concerned with getting Y/N somewhere to lie down as he gently tugs on her arms, “C’mere, poor thing, I came all over your bed.”

“Yeah, you jerk,” she says puckishly, letting him guide her over to his bed, climbing in and immediately snuggling beneath his covers. Harry is not too far behind her, and at first she snuggles up close to him, she hisses and squeals before trying to shuffle away, “Why are your feet like ice?” She asks him, her words accusing, like he’d come in the bed with intent to freeze her.

Harry shrugs, “I dunno’ I usually wear socks to bed to keep them warm.”

“Socks? To sleep?” She slowly wiggles her way closer to him, despite the words that follow, “I don’t think we can share a bed, you’re batty.”

“Guess you’ll have to go sleep on the jizzy bed then.”

Y/N laughs, and Harry feels it vibrate through his body as he holds her close to his chest, his arm wrapped around her shoulders. They’re quiet for a moment, as they both settle, taking deep, slow breaths, allowing themselves to slip towards sleep.

Before Harry could get there, Y/N murmured his name.

“Thanks for being my camp ‘husbad’.”

Harry smiled to himself, and held her a little closer before he teased her.

“You can say thank you next time with an 18 carat diamond.”

#WRITING #WOOOOOOOOOOO #I HOPE YOU GUYS LIKE IT #YAHTZEE :D #IT WAS FUN TO WRITE #IM GONNA DO A SMALL PART 3 TO TIE THINGS UP IN A LITTLE BOW #HAPPY READING #harry smut

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novelconcepts · 3 years

Note

Hi! I dunno if you‘ve been asked this before: what do you think would have happened if Eddie hadn’t appeared the first time Jamie and Dani kissed? How would that scene have ended?

Some brands of courage, Dani thinks, come to a person only because the stars have aligned to a particular degree. Grief has nested too deep for too long and there’s a ridiculous amount of wine in the bloodstream and there’s a pair of warm, understanding eyes inches away. It’s not an excuse, letting all of this wind together into here we are. It’s not even a drunken accident, a marker of her pain, a marker of how long she’s wanted to try something like this.

It’s just alignment. Beautiful, wonderful, unexpected.

That she’s finally kissed Jamie feels like a miracle--she’s wanted to, half a dozen times since coming to this place, and has talked herself out of it just as often. It simply hadn’t been the right time, she’d thought, or place, or situation. Not in the bedroom, with Jamie’s breath soft on her neck, Jamie’s hands gently guiding a zipper out of place; there had been too much in the air between them, an electric uncertainty bordering on home in ways Dani hadn’t been able to look at too closely. Not out by Jamie’s truck, either, with the watchful glow of the moon bearing down and Jamie’s hand curled questioningly around her own; there had been too many words waiting in the wings, Dani unable to find language for all of them at once. And certainly not on the couch in that room, Jamie drawing deep breaths, her throat working around a swallow that had seemed to carry secrets Dani so desperately wanted to understand.

She’d wanted, and she’d known it would crack something open--in Jamie, or in herself, or between them both--if she’d moved into that desire with open arms.

But here: here, in a shadow-speckled greenhouse, with Jamie’s collar firm under her hands, Jamie’s grin pressed to her lips, it’s different. Everything has lined up, finally, in a way Dani can understand. To form a path Dani can follow.

And following it, she is. Without thought. Without pause.

Without question.

“You sure?” Jamie’s already said once, and is repeating now. Dani isn’t looking over her shoulder this time, isn’t seeking the certainty of ghosts in this place. He has no place here, she believes with sudden fierce warmth. This is not his to intrude upon. It’s Jamie’s. Jamie, stamped into every table and window, Jamie’s hands having constructed everything about it that matters. Jamie selects which plants to grow and tend and weed. Jamie brought in the blanket draped over the sofa now, the watering can, the spare pair of boots. Jamie’s tools, Jamie’s coveralls, Jamie’s presence everywhere she looks.

If she was looking.

She isn’t.

Her eyes are closed, her hands skidding clumsily up to grip the shoulders of Jamie’s almost comically-oversized jacket. She hasn’t been able to bring herself to touch Jamie just yet--not her face, not her hair, not her hands. It seems like a bridge waiting just there, a bridge to somewhere warmer, safer, more comfortable. She’s not sure she’s yet earned rights to that world.

Jamie’s jacket makes sense. Like Jamie, it is sturdy. Like Jamie, there is no question of its purpose. Holding the collar in her fists, Dani feels as though she has been offered an anchor in a storm, concrete unfolding beneath her feet for the first time in far too long.

Jamie doesn’t seem to have the same qualms. Jamie, whose hands are so alive, as Dani has never seen--fingers sliding into her hair, cupping around her ear, gently cradling her jaw. Jamie, who seems unable to get enough of Dani--not the soft purple of her coat, but Dani herself. As though this is all Jamie has wanted since Dani first arrived.

They’ll talk about it someday, Dani is sure--about how much of that is truth, and how much is simply romantic mid-kiss fever. Jamie hasn’t wanted her since Dani arrived. Jamie has watched her with guarded eyes, small smiles, keeping her body just out of reach. Jamie has only, surely, started wanting her recently.

She doesn’t think that matters. Not really. Not with Jamie kissing her this way now, lips parted in a soft sound of acceptance. It was so easy, once upon another woman’s life, to believe love only counted if it was instant, if it was always, if there was no beginning and no end--an ouroboros of sorts she wasn’t to question.

That had been his way of thinking. Now is forever, and always was; don’t ask me for more.

She could ask Jamie. She could pull back now, meet Jamie’s eyes, and Jamie would wait. Patient. Curious. Jamie would wait, and Dani could ask--when did you decide, she’d say, to want me?--and Jamie would give her as true an answer as she knows how. She can already tell that’s just Jamie’s way. Truth is not softer than fabrication, maybe, but it is kinder, in the end, and it is easier to fall back on than trying to keep all those balls in the air.

Dani knows that much.

I don’t like bein’ lied to, Jamie had said only a few moments before, and Dani can’t tell her the truth with words. Doesn’t know how, not yet. But she can tell her the truth with the rest--with every piece of her not bound up in the fear, and the shame, and the guilt she’s been trying so hard to outrun since that squeal of tires on a slick blacktop road. She can tell her the truth with every piece of her not bound up in him.

She keeps her eyes closed, kissing Jamie, and lets herself go. Lets herself sink into the rough fabric of Jamie’s jacket between clutching fingers--into Jamie’s tongue sliding smoothly into her mouth--into Jamie’s palms pressing to her cheeks like she’s holding something sacred. She lets herself push into Jamie, her hands sliding around Jamie’s back to grip that jacket like a lifeline. She lets herself lean back when Jamie pushes in return, laughing a little when her shoulders hit the arm of the sofa.

“You’re sure?” One last time, for good measure, because wishes are always dosed out in threes. Because Jamie, leaning over her--looking, for the first time since Dani has met her, tall, almost expansive in a way that strips the breath from Dani’s chest--doesn’t want her to just say it. Jamie, leaning over her in this oversized work jacket and that tempting black dress, wants her truth--whatever that looks like.

The truth is, Dani is sure.

The truth is, Dani is terrified.

The truth is, Dani thinks if she were only one or the other, she’d know this was wrong. That she’s both--that she has never wanted anything more than Jamie’s thumb pressing lightly to the corner of her lips, Jamie’s body pressing her down into firm cushions, and has never felt quite so alive with fear at the same time--is right. It’s how it should be. It’s the good kind of sure, with every clamor of her heart singing its agreement, and the best kind of fear, adrenaline skipping spikes down her limbs.

If she looks past Jamie now, if she chances a glance at the starlight reflecting off the black greenhouse windows, she might find the other kind of sure. The other kind of terror. The ones still wrapped up in a man whose hands had gone from warm to imposing before she’d known it was happening. If she looks past Jamie now, all the good will rush out of her, and the grief will rush back in.

She looks only at Jamie’s face. Jamie’s crooked little smile. Jamie’s hair, falling out of its carefully-mussed bun, tumbling at last into eyes that seem to register nothing in this room--in this world--except Dani stretched out beneath her.

“I’m sure,” she says, and it seems to be exactly what Jamie needs. Not a nervous nod, not a swept-away laugh, but a promise given voice. I’m sure. I want to be here. I want to be with you. I’m sure.

If she’s got nothing else, she’s got this. It’s more than she could have dreamed, days ago, her hand warm with the memory of Jamie’s fingers wrapped around it.

Jamie is kissing her again, no hesitation at all, and Dani allows herself--inch by inch, breath by breath--to expand beneath the soft slide of those kisses. Her hands tease up from collar to throat, her fingers tracing the staggering speed of Jamie’s pulse. Her thumb finds the arc of Jamie’s jaw, blunt nail scratching a gentle path until Jamie’s lips part over her own in a sigh. Her tongue brushes Jamie’s once, twice, a hand reaching up to knot in Jamie’s curls, and there is no pause for reflection, no chance offered to whatever might be waiting in the dark to intrude.

She’s sure, and she’s wonderfully afraid, and she’s never in her life been both at the same time. Tomorrow, she suspects, there will be other feelings crowding in--guilt, maybe, that she’s forgotten him at last. Or a glee too intoxicating to escape. Or maybe there will be Jamie across the breakfast table, head down, eyes darting, too embarrassed to allow Dani back in behind her walls.

Maybe.

Tomorrow, Dani thinks. I can think of that all tomorrow. Tonight is its own triumph. Tonight is its own small victory. Tomorrow, she can stare into a mirror and tell Eddie once and for all she’s done--moved on at last, whether she wanted to or not, has found someone who makes her feel like she can brave every ghost the world could ever be haunted by. Tomorrow, she can deal with the pain of letting go, of the unsteadiness daylight might bring to Jamie’s smile, of whatever conversation will piece together the people they were this morning with the people waiting on the other side of sunrise.

Tonight, she is sure. Of one knee jammed against the back of the sofa, Jamie’s weight rocking between her spread legs. Of Jamie’s kiss sliding warm and sweet from her lips to her neck, Jamie murmuring things so soft and gentle, it sends an ache through Dani’s chest. Of Jamie’s hands growing bolder, Jamie matching every moment of exploration with questioning eyes: Is this all right? Are you all right? You sure?

Tonight, making urgent sounds into Jamie’s kiss, letting herself tip over from a woman burdened to a woman wanting, she is sure. As sure as she’s ever been. She is sure, and she is the right kind of afraid, and she understands Jamie will only go as far as the road Dani is paving allows. She understands Jamie will not hold it against her, if she presses a hand to her chest and turns her head away. Jamie will lean back, accept more of her story, accept whatever it is Dani is offering.

It won't matter. One way or the other, it’ll be closer than Dani’s ever been to freedom.

Tomorrow, she can unpack what it means. What everything aligning in this exact way has brought her. Tomorrow, she can decide where she stands, and find out how far Jamie wants to walk with hand outstretched.

Tonight, she is kissing Jamie, and she is wrapping her arms around Jamie’s neck, and she is memorizing the comfortable weight of Jamie’s smile against her skin. Tonight, everything has lined up just right.

She does not look away.

#fanfiction #ficlet #the haunting of bly manor #dani x jamie #damie #oh look at that there are a few words in me yet

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miracle-sham · 3 years

Text

Long for Who You Could Have Been.

| {Jasonette July 2021, Week 4, Day 19: Mistakes} |

———

| They might be monster hunters and that might mean their lives are fraught with chaos and danger. But there were moments in between the contracts and courts, fragile and wavering like the dying embers of a flame; where pasts, and hopes, and dreams were shared in the refuge of the campfire. |

| Word Count: 1,764. |

———

| A/N: So this is my second to last Jasonette July fic but the last to actually be posted in July since the other fic (Prompt: Loss) is taking longer than expected to write, whoops! Anyway here's a shorter Witcher au that's mostly fluff with a tinge of sadness here and there. Definitely feels weird to be using/needing so few tags for the first time in a long while! Lastly, thanks to my friend Saf whose reactions to the snippets I send her, absolutely fuel my will to write! |

| Also side note, Don’t Like? Don’t Read. Also also, please do not criticise any of my writing. This was written for fun and receiving criticism, even in a compliment/criticism sandwich, is the exact opposite of fun. |

———

The fire crackled gently, flames flickering in soft almost hypnotising patterns. The light and warmth were all that was keeping the chilling coastal mist at bay, from reaching their little makeshift camp.

Crescent moon and stars twinkled above, shining their silvery light down to mix with the ghostly mist below.

It was almost haunting, in the precious silence, punctuated only by the gentle lapping of waves against the cliff rocks not too far away. And the low hum of the local nocturnal bugs and other such creatures; the flap of bat wings, the cry of an owl, the flutter of moths and beetles, the scuttling of hedgehogs, mice, and foxes. The air was still, not even the faintest sea breeze and yet the fret rolled and crept and seeped into every nook and cranny outside of the protective glow of the campfire.

Jason sat on one side of the fire, on his bedroll and worked on cleaning his silver and steel swords with a rag, not quite humming as he quietly mouthed the words to a jaunty little tavern song, the Fishmonger's Daughter.

On the opposite side of the campfire, on her own bedroll, Marinette had a cloak splayed out across her knee with a needle and thread in hand. Tongue sticking out slightly, in concentration, carefully she darned away at the numerous little holes that had formed from walking through the thorny bush filled forest that their current contract had led them into entering.

With a huff, Jason threw the cleaning rag at the saddlebag on the ground beside him. He sheathed his swords and pulled out his favoured weapon, the crossbow with steel and silver-tipped bolts. Immediately he began checking the bolts for any potential damage and ensuring the shooting mechanism on the crossbow hadn't jammed.

“Something on your mind, Blue Jay?” Marinette asked, glancing up from her needlework for a moment.

He tipped his head back and sighed. “I've been thinking…”

“That's new.” She responded, mirth glinting obviously in her eyes and the bubble of laughter in her tone.

Jason gasped in faux offence, mindfully dropping his crossbow and scrambling for the cleaning rag just to throw it at her face.

Before it could hit her, Marinette plucked it out of the air with two fingers. She hummed mock-thoughtfully. “Your aim's off.”

“You take that back! My aim is impeccable. Alfred said so!” He argued back.

She snorted. “Alfred is biased because he's your grandfather figure. And I'll take it back next time we get through an entire contract without you missing a single shot.” To punctuate her point, she tossed the rag back at him.

He half-dived for it, grabbing it with both hands and with it safely in his grasp, placed the rag inside the saddlebag beside him. Throwing his arms up in mock-exasperation, Jason scowled playfully at her. “C'mon! That's not fair, you've never gone an entire contract without messing up or missing with your magic either!”

“Yeah,” Marinette agreed with a nod of her head and a smirk on her lips, “but I've never claimed to be perfect at magic!”

Her words caused him to falter slightly. “Right,” he swallowed a breath of air thickly, “That reminds me of what I was going to say before we got distracted.”

She frowned, furrowing her eyebrows and putting on a softer tone. “What is it? As much as we joke, I'd never actually judge you for missing shots or anything else, you know that right?”

“Yeah, I know… I just.” He huffed in frustration. Hesitantly, he held her gaze with his own but not a second later, winced and shifted his to stare down at the flickering embers of the campfire pit. Avoiding eye contact with her. He clenched his fists. “D'you ever, I don't know, feel like this was all… a mistake?”

Scrunching up her face in confusion, she squinted at Jason. “What do you mean? As-as in taking the contract?”

“No! Well, yes but no. I mean…” He waved an arm, gesturing vaguely around them, “just everything. Becoming a Witcher. Or I guess in your case, a Sorceress. Do you regret it?”

When she didn't immediately respond, Jason huffed again, hunching his shoulders up and practically bristling like a particularly grumpy and grizzling moggy. “Look, never mind. Stupid question.”

“It's not stupid!” Marinette retorted, “I just… wasn't expecting a question like that at this moment.”

He stared at her expectantly. “Well?”

Tipping her head back slightly, she fiddled with the needle still in one hand and sighed. “I suppose I do, I know I shouldn't… but I miss the easy days. Like before I knew what I was capable of. Before I knew what horrors the world could bring. Back when my only worries were getting stitches right and not messing up when dealing with expensive materials. Or maybe having to worry if the Alderman's daughter was going to harass me at some point during the day.”

Marinette tilted her head forwards again, a frown gracing her lips, and shrugged. “What brings this up?”

There's not an immediate response, as Jason casts his gaze away from the fire—towards where the sea could be heard but not seen. His fingers twitched midair, almost as though plucking the strings of an instrument. “I never wanted to be a Witcher. I was a Child Surprise, dunno who was the one that offered the Law of Surprise though.”

“Ah, I sorta get that. I'm also a Child Surprise, didn't get to choose to be a Sorcerer either.” As she spoke, she nodded in solidarity.

Jason jolted, gaze immediately snapping up to stare at her, completely taken aback. “Wait seriously? You're a Child Surprise too? How'd that happen?”

“Well, my parents' bakery was attacked and Félix, y'know my mentor, saved them. He invoked the Law of Surprise, expecting to get bread or some other baked goods.” She snorted, “he was awfully surprised to end up getting me instead. And when I accidentally cast my first ever spell trying to escape the Alderman's daughter, I ended up teleporting to Félix.”

“So, wait Félix fucking invoked the Law of Surprise to get food? And got you instead. Holy fucking shit that's hilarious!” He wheezed, doubling over in raucous laughter.

Huffing, she cast a spell, causing a vine to sprout up out of the ground beside him and slap him on the knee. “Yeah, yeah, laugh it up!”

“Ouch! Hey, no fair!” Jason mock scowled, choking back any further laughter. Quickly, in retaliation, he cast a weak Aard.

The telekinetic wave knocked into Marinette, pushing her onto her back from the weakened force.

“Wha—! Oh, so the vine isn't fair but throwing me to the ground is!” She griped, crossing her arms (carefully as to not prick herself on the needle) but made no attempt to get up.

Half-shrugging and grinning smugly, he replied, “you started it!”

She made an exaggerated groaning noise in response before slowly shifting her position to push herself back up into sitting cross-legged. “Well, now you know how I became a Sorcerer. How'd being a Child Surprise tie into you ending up a Witcher, if you don't me asking?”

“I dunno,” he shrugged with both shoulders this time, “I tried to steal the infamous Bat of Gotham's horse, he asked me my name. Reluctantly and after some bribery of hot food, I told him. Didn't think to give a fake one, at the time. He made a face, invoked the Law of Surprise owed to him and dragged me back to the Bat Witcher school.”

“Huh,” Marinette responded, “so if you hadn't… what would you have done with your life?”

Jason raised an eyebrow at her. “Seriously? This is me we're talking about. I'd have gone to Bard College, obviously. I'd have written poems and shit. And books, I'd have written books.”

Scrunching up her face once more, Marinette glanced down at the needle in her hand. “We're by the coast.”

“What?” He asked incredulously, giving her a bemused and questioning look. “What does that have to do with poetry and books?”

In a rush of words, she rambled, “we could take a holiday. I could find out about the spell to disguise your eyes… and uh hair too. That way no one will know you're a Witcher. And we can go to the bard college-town that's down the coast from where we are. We can scavenge together enough gold for you to attend, and you can write your poetry and books.”

Jason stared at her in shock, tears pricked at the corners of his eyes. Softly, as though anything louder than a whisper would cause the offer to shatter like his childhood dreams once had. “Oh, oh, could you really?”

As warmly as the fire between them, Marinette smiled, “of course! I'd have to ask Félix first of course. But he fell in love with Bridgette and she was a Witcher and he came up with a spell to disguise her whenever they weren't doing contracts or courtly politics. So I don't see why he wouldn't show me how to do it!”

Shakily, he wiped his eyes and smiled back. “Fuck, I'd love that!”

“Okay then! I'll contact Félix on the xenovox tomorrow.” As she spoke, a yawn slipped past her lips. “I think I'm gonna head to sleep now. I'll see you in the morning!”

“Good night, Marinette. I'm gonna stretch my legs real quick first.” He answered, hefting himself up and stretching his arms. “Sleep well, though.”

“Be careful!” Marinette yawned again and packed away her needlework for the night. She then wriggled into her bedroll. “And I'll try, g'night!”

“Night,” he whispered once more.

Quietly, so as to not disturb her, Jason slipped away from camp. Following the direction of the fret, he made his way down the safest cliff path he could find in the dark until his boots hit the sand. Step by step, he walked across the beach until the sea spray spattered against his clothes. He's close enough that the waves gently lapped at the toes of his boots.

Clutching one hand to his chest, just over where his heart was, Jason sighed and gazed longingly at the mist-shrouded sea.

“I never thought I'd get to continue my dreams after becoming a Witcher.” He whispered to the wind. “And now I can, thanks to her.”

He sighs again, heart warmed. And silently in the quietude of the beach at night, he cries alone. For his heart is too full with the kindness of another to contain the feelings any longer.

———

| Thank you for reading! I hope you enjoyed this little fic! Comments, Likes, and Reblogs are much appreciated! |

| Also feel free to send me any comments with any questions you have regarding this fic, I’ll be more than happy to answer! |

| @jasonette-july-event |

#Maribat #MLB x DC #DC xMLB #Jasonette #Jasonette July #Jasonette July 2021 #JasonetteJuly2021 #JasMari #MariJay #Marinette x Jason #Jason x Marinette #Jasonette July Week 4 #Jasonette July Day 19 #Jasonette July Mistakes #Long for Who You Could Have Been #LfWYCHB #Sham's Posts #Sham's Writing #Sham's Fics

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tokoyamisstuff · 4 years

Text

Betrothed - Illumi Zoldyck x Reader

Chapter 3: Blood

Summary: While treating Illumi’s wounds, you learn something about his past.

Warnings: Well...blood. Mentions of past abuse. Choking.

Words: ~1800

Story Masterlist

“You could at least try to relax when you’re at home, Lumi.”

As usual, every muscle on Illumi’s body was tensed as he shifted around on the small wooden chair, his upper half completely bare.

Running your hands over his delicate skin, you couldn’t help but humming happily while opening the first-aid-kit.

Lumi.

That nickname wasn’t really creative, you had to admit. Yet there were still many thoughts connected to it.

How it sounded a lot like ‘Luna’, for example - the latin word for ‘moon’. Illumi pretty much had a moon face anyway.

A wet and warm feeling on your fingertips got you down to earth again - it was your husbands blood, steadily running down his whole back. Quickly, you got a gauze pad to absorb it and started working.

Had it come to you fancying him that much that you already lost yourself in daydreams?

The deep cut on his shoulder would most likely leave a scar, no matter how well you’d treat it. Yet what bothered you more was the fact that he had acutally tried to hold the gap together with his way too big needles.

“Sorry...” you whispered as you tugged them out of his flesh, but he wouldn’t even flinch.

He insisted it was fine, and you knew that he was used to the pain. But he could still feel it, even if his face remained as cold and calm as always.

God knows what’s going on in his head...your husband was very hard to read, actually.

But you knew he wasn’t just a puppet for his family. Illumi had some thoughts of his own, and you burned to get through to him.

The flesh wound was still bleeding, and since it hadn’t been properly closed in hours, you needed to clean it first. “I’m so sorry” you repeated, pouring some disinfectant into the cut.

“Stop apologizing.” The way he emphasized the words made him almost sound irritated.

“B-But I-”

“You’re assisting me as I demanded, so there’s no rational reason for you to say something like that.” It were moments like this that made you think Illumi actually tried to calm you down - the best he knew how. Through choosing his words wisely.

After the bleeding stopped, you began stitching up the wound while your husband was still sitting as if frozen in place.

“I-I just don’t want you to feel more pain than necessary...” He was used to way worse. You were well aware of that fact, and yet-

“Y/N.” Hearing your name escaping his lips, you immediately got attentive. “Is that the reason you’re holding back while sparring with me?”

For a long while, the room fell completely silent.

Because both of you knew he was right.

“I see.” Before you could even think of an answer, Illumi jumped up from his chair, running his hand over your handiwork. “Thanks for the bandage.”

Oh god, he was preparing to leave again. Maybe forever this time.

Soon, he’ll tell his parents you were unfit for an assassin’s spouse - too soft and weak.

Death was a bearable punishment for your shortcomings, but simply being thrown out like a toy one has grown tired of?

How pathetic, being afraid of conseqences you now only imagined. Knowing very well that empathy was considered futile in this environment.

And yet you were shocked it came that way, only because of you speaking your mind.

“Illumi, wai-”

He cut you off right there, turning around with his hand reaching for your neck.

Illumi’s aura had always been intense, laced with a bloodlust that seemed like it was imprinted on him at his very birth.

You’ll never get used to seeing him like this.

“Are you scared?” he asked just before his fingers wrapped around your throat, repeating the question at your lack of reaction. “Are you afraid of me?”

Slowly but increasingly, the pressure on your neck began to become discomforting, making you wince a little.

Yet your look wouldn’t falter, rather decided taking on a staring contest with him.

“I’m afraid of you leaving me.”

Just like that, he retracted his hand.

The look in your eye gave it away. Every word, every syllable you spoke was true.

Even Illumi could tell just how much genuine affection they held - and he wasn’t immune to it either.

You cleared your throat and he only now realized just how much force he had used on you. Yet instead of apologizing as would be appropriate, he decided on continuing his interrogation.

“Why?” Illumi croaked, sounding a little bit broken. Hewasn’t able to speak any more, still baffled at your statement.

To ever think you could caught him off guard with such a simple sentence - but even through his poker face, you could feel his mind racing.

You sighed quietly, nervously tapping with your foot. “Do I really need to repeat that? It’s embarassing...”

No answer. Instead he stared you down even more intense.

“I like you, Lumi. This is my home, and I feel happy when I’m with you. Simple as that.”

Finally, he gave in to his exhaustion and took a seat on the sofa, with you following him closely after.

No matter what might follow, right now he needed some time. That much was obviously. So you just try to share your calming aura in silence.

You knew that puzzled expression way too well.

He’d put it on whenever something went past his comprehension, like when you once asked him about thinks he enjoyed or his dreams for the future.

“You look so sad...” you had once commented at an old photo of his. If you had to guess, he was about 4 years old at the time it was taken.

“Dunno” he tried to avoid further conversation back then, “Can’t remember.”

Just how often did you want to tell him that it was wrong? That his parents - no, his whole family - was full of sociopaths, and that they had stained his innocence through their wrongdoings and overeagerness?

And yet you had always kept quiet in the end.

Because you knew what it meant to him. The last bit of his sanity would probably break down if he knew all of the pain he had endured was wrong and abnormal.

Yes, their bonds were sure strange ones: They manipulated and harmed each other, all for the sake of the greater goal and the continuation of their bloodline.

That was probably how criminals beyond redemption desperately try to cling to their last bit of humanity - through the only people they can trust and be close to: Other murderers.

But at least you wanted to make him learn how to feele truly loved: For what he really was, and not only his obedience or achievements.

Right now, however, his elbows were resting on his knees, he was bent over and holding his chin with his hands. That position made it even harder for you to read him.

“I trust you with my life” you said without the slightest hint of hesitation in your voice. “It belongs to you ever since the day we married.”

Illumi cocked his head upwards, empty orbs staring holes into you.

“They think I’m a monster.”

Huh?

Usually, Illumi isn’t really a man of many words. That fact should change tonight.

“I heared them talk” he began explaining as if it was the most normal thing in the world. “About regretting training me so harshly. I was their first child, more like an experiment at how to raise an even more powerful assassin.”

You nodded in silence, trying to signalize him that you were listening - and that you cared.

So he kept on. “I’m the reason my brothers were allowed more freedom. Having the right to feel and think on their own. And now Killua has left us. If I hadn’t been a failure, they would’ve trained him stricter.”

He blamed himself, thinking he was responsible for being a failed experiment.

Dear god.

“Mother said she’s afraid of me. I was 10. Everyone else at the family at least bear certain, acceptable emotions. She said I’m dead on the inside and it freaked her out.”

Every single word of him shot needles into your heart, tears already filling the rim of your eyes. You grabbed the fabric tight, trying to hold yourself together for your sake.

“Illumi...”

You knew from the very second that many things were haunting that poor man’s conscience - but what he had just confided was just hard to bear.

In an attempt to comfort him, you instinctively shuffled closer until there was no gap between the two of you. It was an awkward closeness, but soothing nonetheless.

“It’s okay” he spoke in a tone that was unfamiliar soft for his standarts. “I understand how you all feel. I may not be able to emphasize with any feelings, but I can intelectually comprehend them.”

“Now cut it out!” This time it was you disrupting him, through a soft poke on his already injured shoulder.

"That’s bullshit and you know it. No person is absent of all emotions. You just shoved them into the back of your head and tried to surpress them. With your kind of childhood that was probably the only way to survive without completely losing it.”

His eyes shifted between your face and the place where your shoulders would touch, soaking every word like a dry sponge.

“And you do care about your family, right?” Well, how couldn’t he? It was the only way of mimicking normalcy he could pretend to have. “You’d do anything to keep them safe.”

“I just don’t get it” he murmured as you softly caressed his hand. “My allies are usually also mass murderers and psychopaths. But you are almost perfectly normal.”

Normal? You were an assassin too, goddamn it!

“Most would describe you as a very kind and sympathetic person. You should despise or at least fear me. They all do.”

“Not everything has to be logical, Lumi. I don’t think it makes sense either, but I also doubt that you’re a bad person. You’re much more of a victim.”

“Is that so...” That question sounded more like he was highly doubting it.

Just now you were realizing how slumped he was leaning back on the couch. That whole conversation had probably drained his energy reserves more than any mission ever could.

“Rest now, dear.” Carefully, without alerting him, you wrapped your arm around Illumi’s head and gently led him to your lap. “We can talk later.”

Much to your surprise, your husband would slowly close his eyes, swiftly drifting into sleep at hearing the steady beating of your heart.

“I’m sorry for frightening you, Y/N” he whispered those last words barely audible, fingers squeezing the flesh of your thigh ever so slightly.

“You didn’t. You never do.”

___

If you want to get on the taglist or get removed from feel free to ask! ♡

@roseburry-jam @food-cures-all @oprah-winfriess @ullinic @sun-and-moon-elfingsmeme @chocolateislovr @sapphic-ghoul @coco724 @jessiejunebug @yukiwins @weflyinfluff @readlatersnowy @gibk @spasmodicterror @djgirl66 @pweeenis @trblsicheng @theromaniangirl @cluelessmxnd @s1sterofthemoon @spasmodicterror @note-reblog @tamxixxx @orophaea @frankenduffy @cinnamon-beans @8-ash @cherryyongs @destructive-memories @patheticgay69 @sappyisyourpappy @sadferalgremlin @selca11 @itsfakearies @djgirl66 @rizawantspizza @g-creevan913 @oprah-winfriess @actressania @rolo-at-midnight @slutforpapawise

Feedback is always appreciated!

#Illumi Zoldyck #HxH #Illumi Zoldyck x Reader #Illumi x Reader #Arranged Marriage AU #Writing #Fanfiction #Self Insert

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ultimatetornshipper · 3 years

Text

Daminette December Day 7

@daminette-december2019-2020

((Note: If you’re a confused little muffin who saw our ship in the top 100 list and you want to know what in the ever loving fuck we are, feel free to dm me or mention me in a post or even to send an ask. do be warned tho that if u send me hate i will block and report u (and not just to tumblr, to everyone I know who is part of this fandom). our little sub fandom is not a toxic space and no one is allowed to make it one or there will be a fucking war))

And we’re back to our anxiety induced in denial Damian. I love this kid. Tho I do wanna make him slightly more… how do I say this… like cold? I dunno maybe I can bring that in with other people and his interactions. I just wanna write him with his proper grammar and what not and like lbh this boi is already a simp for Mari. But I don’t wanna let things happen too quickly, y’know?

Anyway, maybe I should make the theme of this chapter the fact that he has absolutely no chill. Lmao, I think that’s hilarious ngl. Also I’m just gonna pretend certain things existed back then for the sake of my sanity I can’t keep coming up with words that make sense for explaining what a thing is without saying the actual word because it didn’t exist yet. The hologram in that one chapter was hard enough bruh

Ok here we go, thanks for reading! I hope u enjoy it

Princes and Pedestals

Chapter 7 – Chill

Damian rolled the ring between his fingers as the morning light filtered through his windows. She’d put the choice in his hands, it was a kind thing to do, smart too. It made sense, if this role was as important as she made it sound it needed someone who could commit to it.

The miraculous was the kind of black that seemed to stretch on forever. It had a bright green paw print on it. He hadn’t put it on yet but from what he could gather it’s kwami would appear as soon as he put it on.

He'd be one of the leaders of an entire Order. He had no idea how big it was. His mother had raised him to lead but that was an entirely different organization. How would Marinette react to that? Could he handle the responsibility?

These thoughts had been plaguing him from the moment he picked up the ring.

But that wasn’t what got to him the most. She was just so… good. She had even agreed to move her entire court to Gotham for his sake. To uproot her entire life and move everyone involved just so that he could stay with his family.

There had to be a catch.

There always is.

He sighed, overthinking everything wasn’t going to help him make this decision.

There was only one thing he could do.

He put on the ring and a bright light caught him off guard. A small floating cat like being appeared in front of him.

“Kid?” he kept his eyes closed as though he didn’t want to see who was in front of him, his voice breaking slightly.

Slowly, the kwami – Plagg if he remembered correctly - opened his eyes. Damian stared at him as disappointment flitted across the creature’s face.

He lifted his brow and asked, “Hope to see someone else, Plagg?”

He chuckled slightly, sadness lacing the sound, “My previous holder, thought maybe I'd get the chance to say goodbye this time,”

Damian frowned, “What do you mean?”

Plagg frowned, “You don’t know about my previous holder? Who gave you my miraculous?”

“Marinette did,” he said, simply, “She actually just gave me the chance to consider the offer of the position, I have the rest of the day to get to know you and make my decision,”

Plagg seemed to consider what he said, he then sat down on the bed in front of Damian. He explained the basics of the miraculous to him, the phrases he needed to use as well as what those phrases would do. The things he’d need as well as what behaviors he might pick up.

“Purring?” Damian said in a disbelieving voice, “You’re telling me I might start purring in my civilian form?”

Plagg cackled, “Yeah, don’t worry it’s not that bad,”

“Tt, what exactly is the purpose of it? In fact what exactly is my purpose? It seems like she has the leadership thing under control,”

Plagg seemed to sober up at the question, he flew up right in front of Damian’s face and looked him in the eyes, “Her job is to lead and look after her court,” his look sharpened and he narrowed his eyes, “Your job is to look after her, your job is to protect her, your job is to see her. Your purpose is to make hers as easy as possible. Don’t get me wrong, you’ll have other official responsibilities and you will rule alongside her, but your real job? Your purpose? You have to help her remember that she’s only human and that that’s okay,”

Damian stared at Plagg, the kwami stared back. It couldn’t be that simple, could it? There had to be something. Some kind of catch.

Before he could grill the kwami, Dick burst into his room.

Damian could see his brother’s clear panic and immediately stood. Dick’s eyes found his, “She’s gone,”

Damian felt himself spiral, memories flew through his mind. All the times he or any of his siblings had been taken. Cass didn’t speak for a month after the last incident. Jason’s “secret" panic attacks had increased tremendously. Tim stayed up for nights on end, only sleeping when he passed out. Damian sparred for hours and hours, hating the feeling of being useless.

His father and Dick weren’t in Gotham at the time and Selina was helping Harley with one of her ‘projects’.

When they got Steph back after a week, she was so shook up that she kept waking up screaming from nightmares for months.

They all blamed themselves.

“Her kwami showed us a letter she left but someone could’ve faked it to buy time, they’re searching the village,” Jason said, coming into his room, holding a piece of parchment.

Damian barely registered the way Plagg seemed to study his reactions. They needed to find her, it was already afternoon, who knows how far gone she could be?

They spent hours scouring the castle. Before he knew it the moon was rising and they were all gathered in the living room, going over possibilities.

“I’m going to go get Alfred and Bruce, this has been going on long enough, it’s time to call in back up. It’s already passed nightfall and she’s not back yet,” Dick walked out of the room, barely two seconds passed before he shouted something to them, ��Guys I found her!”

They were out quicker than a lightning bolt. He ignored his siblings as they all flocked around her. He took her in.

She was wearing a cloak, which Jason quickly took and gave to a passing maid. She wore one of her black dresses. Her hair was in a braid.

But the cloak was dirty, the dress had tears and the braid was messy.

But it was her eyes that got him. The blue irises looked like someone had taken every drop of sadness in the world and left it in them. They were red rimmed and puffy and there were black bags under them.

She’d been crying and she hadn’t slept. It didn’t take a genius to figure it out.

Somewhere along the line, they moved back into the living room. Cass was sitting next to Marinette on the couch and the others were arguing.

Damian couldn’t take his eyes off of her. She was here. She was safe. She wasn’t taken.

Cass tapped his arm, he turned to look at her and she started signing. (a/n ok yeah I know that sign language might not have existed but do I really care?)

Get her out of here, she’s tired, Cass signed.

Damian nodded and after asking her permission and scolding his siblings, he escorted her to her room.

Plagg whispered something to her that he couldn’t hear.

Then she apologized for scaring him and he explained his thought process. She explained that he would’ve been able to know via their miraculous whether she was in trouble or not. He made a mental note to ask Plagg more about that.

When they got to her room he opened her door. She was about to go in but he grabbed her hand, stopping her. She looked at him expectantly. He searched her gaze, he had so much he wanted to ask her, why she’d been crying was at the top of that list.

But she looked so tired, and Damian just couldn’t get himself to form the words. Instead he bid her goodnight and went back to the living room where his siblings were waiting.

All eyes turned to him when he entered. He didn’t know what to say. Instead of thinking his words through he blurted out the first thing he thought.

“She didn’t flinch when our eyes met,” he said. They all stared at him for a few seconds. Usually they would’ve laughed at his bluntness, Damian is certain, but there was something about the haunted look on her face that sapped all humor out of the situation.

Jason was crouched in front of the fire. Stephanie sat on one of the chairs while Dick leaned against its armrest. Damian was next to Cassandra on the couch and the five of them sat in silence.

Millions of questions danced through the air, the answers all just out of reach.

Little did they know that they weren’t the only ones with questions.

Outside, three pairs of eyes were watching the oblivious siblings closely.

Damian felt a chill go down his spine and turned towards the window. He walked over and stared out into the forest, he didn’t see anyone but the uneasy feeling wouldn’t leave him.

He closed the curtains.

The smallest of the three chuckled slightly, “She got herself a paranoid one, huh?”

“We need to head back,” the only guy out of the three said to the others.

They nodded and followed him deeper into the forest.

Taglist:

@animegirlweeb @loysydark @toodaloo-kangaroo @forgottenfriends @wolf-for-life @heyitsbugette @f-rget-lt @fusser90

#daminette december #daminette #utp writes #well would u look at that #me actually following a prompt pretty well #it's gonna snow in Egypt #does it snow in Egypt? i dunno man #anyway here's protective batsiblings again #sad plagg my poor baby #Damian's pov after basically ignoring him for a chapter #Bruce and Alfred weren't involved because plot #also antagonist?? do we smell a bad guy?? or am i a troll?? i guess we'll find out later because even I don't know lmao #mari was just chilling in a field and they all freaked tf out. can't say i blame em thoo #maribat #marinette x damian #marinette dupain cheng #damian wayne #medieval au #are my chapter lengths inconsistent and completely random depending on my mood and amount of inspiration? yes definitely #batman #mlb #mlb crossover #dc x miraculous #dc x mlb #Jason gets panic attacks but he tries to hide it fight me #also anyone else worried about how mari will interact with the fam she hasn't met yet? cus i am ngl still gotta figure that whole parade ou #thanks for reading #hope yall enjoyed~#also I just saw maribat made the top 100 lmao confusing the everloving fuck out of people is my jam #i hope we don't get hate we've been a pretty non-toxic fandom up until this point like srsly man we're nice don't hate us

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roman-writing · 3 years

Text

no great revelation (2/8)

Fandom(s): The Haunting of Bly Manor / Star Wars

Pairing: Dani Clayton/Jamie Tyalor

Rating: T

Wordcount: 7,223

Summary: Jamie just wants to enjoy a drink after a hard day's work on the Telosian Restoration Project. The last thing she needs is to get herself caught up in a mysterious woman with a lightsabre at the local bar.

Aurthor’s notes: Please don’t expect anything from this story. I’m just doodling in between writing ch11 and ch12 of ‘bring home a haunting.’

read it below or read it here on AO3

II.

—

Jamie laughed.

It wasn’t the best reaction, but it was an honest reaction. Sometimes in life you just had to laugh. With deep incredulity.

“I have a hard time believing you -” she gestured towards Dani, blonde-haired, pastel-silked, wide-eyed damsel in distress Dani, “- killed a Jedi.”

“I told you,” Dani insisted with a scowl which spoke volumes regarding how she felt about Jamie’s reaction. “It was an accident.”

“Even as an accident. No,” Jamie corrected, sitting up straighter on the couch. “Especially as an accident. Do you know how hard it is to kill a Jedi?”

“Well, I -”

“Don’t answer that. Because you’re wrong. Because you don’t know.”

Jamie pushed herself to her feet and crossed over to her bedroom. She shook her head and muttered to herself as she pulled out two pairs of pajamas from the drawers built into the wall. “Killed a Jedi. And I bet Telos has a moon now, too. Fuck’s sake.”

She began to strip down to change. Never mind that there was no wall to protect whatever virtue she had left. That had all gone out the window long ago. The Temple wasn’t exactly a place that left one with their dignity intact. Not when she’d spent her years crammed, tip to tail, in every other padawan’s space. One quickly learned to grow accustomed to the notion that ‘personal space’ was non-existent.

“Can’t you go into the bathroom to do that?” she heard Dani ask from the couch, sounding exasperated.

“Too late,” said Jamie, tugging the baggy shirt over her head and adjusting the soft elastic band of the pants around her waist. “Already done.”

She tossed the small mining laser onto a table without any care if it actually landed there or not. She smacked another panel on the wall, and her dirty boilersuit got shoved down the laundry shaft that flipped open. She closed it with her knee, then scooped up the other pair of pajamas on her way back to the couch.

“Here.” Jamie tossed the pajamas onto Dani’s lap. “We’re roughly the same height. Should fit you fine.”

Dani started slightly when the folded up fabric hit her legs. She stared down at the pajamas — the shirt dark-washed and splashed with a loopy neon print for Figrin D’an and the Modal Nodes — and her fingers slowly curled around the cloth, gripping it tight. She was so quiet that Jamie frowned.

“Hey. You all right?”

“I know,” Dani whispered, almost too soft to hear.

“What?”

“I know how - how hard it is to kill a Jedi.”

Jamie opened her mouth to reply, but the words died in her throat. Dani’s hands and shoulders were shaking.

“He just - He grabbed me in the transport, and then I - I don’t know what happened but he was suddenly on the other side of the cabin and -” Dani continued, her voice ragged and raw. “He drew his lightsabre and started yelling, and he kept looking at me like he was terrified and I didn’t - I was so tired and my head hurt - my head hurt so much. I couldn’t - I didn’t mean to - to -”

A broken note escaped Dani then, and Jamie just stood there, feeling like an asshole while a pretty woman started crying on her couch. And not the nice cute kind of crying, either. Soon Dani was pressing her face into the pajamas and trying to muffle great hitching sobs into the fabric, her whole body trembling.

“Okay,” said Jamie and she hesitantly reached out to pat the top of Dani’s head in what she hoped was a reassuring manner. One of Dani’s hands clutched at the hem of Jamie’s shirt like it was a lifeline, and she pressed her head into Jamie’s stomach so that Jamie could only stand there awkwardly while a stranger cried her eyes out and made a mess of it, too.

"I'm so tired,” Dani mumbled again, when the sobs had faded away into sniffles. “I’m so tired."

At some point Jamie had placed a hand on Dani’s shoulder, and her other hand had begun to absently stroke through her golden hair. "Okay. All right. Let's get you to bed.”

It took a bit of gentle convincing to get Dani to her feet. Jamie prodded her towards the bathroom to change and wash up. By the time Dani emerged, Jamie had already dug around in the closet for a spare blanket, which she was now tossing over her legs while she made herself comfortable on the couch.

Dani’s eyes were still red-rimmed, but the blotchiness had gone from her cheeks. She filled out Jamie’s pajamas better than Jamie ever did, and she blinked at Jamie from the doorway of the bathroom.

“You don’t have to -” she started to say.

“Just take the bed,” Jamie sighed. She lifted her hand and waved it for the motion sensor, and the holo feed turned off. “Be warned. I wake up early for work.”

Dani nodded and made her way uneasily towards the thin mattress, pulling back the sheets. “Do you -? I mean - Am I supposed to stay here while you -?”

Jamie spoke through a yawn and burrowed down into the lumpy couch cushions. “Dunno. We’ll figure it out in the morning.”

Another wave and the lights went out, plunging the room into darkness. With no light pollution bleeding through the barred windows, the little apartment was a mass of shadow and shapes looming in a jungle through the night. Jamie could have manoeuvred through it all with her eyes closed — and had many times before — but she heard Dani shuffling around before the mattress finally creaked.

Jamie shut her eyes. She tried to tell herself that it was a night like any other night. She tried to pretend that it was a day off tomorrow, and she had indulged in too much drink downstairs at Ho’kyn’s, that she had only managed to stumble to the couch, half dressed, before falling asleep to the dull sound of the holo feed. Except the presence of another person in the room was too unfamiliar to ignore. Dani tossed and turned. Every time Jamie thought she had managed to slip away into sleep, another shuffle of the blankets would jolt her awake once more. And worse, Dani started crying again at some point. Quietly. But not as quietly as she probably thought.

Jamie groaned. She scrunched up her face and pressed a spare pillow over her head in an attempt to block out the noise.

It was going to be a long night.

—

There was a dip in the cushions, as if someone had just pressed their weight against the couch. It was the first thing she noticed apart from the cold. Shivering, Jamie blinked awake blearily, her back sore, her hair a mess, her brow furrowed in confusion. Even through the blanket and the warm spring night, she could feel an icy edge cut near to the bone. It took her a moment to register where exactly she was. That she had fallen asleep on the couch. And that there was someone kneeling over her, holding a lightsabre to her throat.

That certainly got her attention. She was definitely awake now.

A kickstart of adrenaline sent her heart hammering into overdrive. Every breath plumed from Jamie’s mouth and nose in little bursts of white steam that clung to the cold. Jamie had to quell the urge to flinch, to move in any kind of way that might end with her neck a gaping cauterised wound. The lightsabre hummed gently. She could feel the heat of it against her skin, and she winced when she swallowed reflexively.

The blade was the only source of light in the apartment. It drenched the air with a deep crimson haze. Dani was crouched atop her, hands holding the lightsabre steady. Her face was illuminated in a wash of red light, and her eyes — both her eyes — gleamed an eerie unblinking gold through the night.

And with a smile that never touched her eyes, Dani slashed the blade down in a single fluid motion.

Jamie jerked awake with a gasp. She flailed against the blanket that had tangled around her legs in the night, and in an attempt to clutch at her throat, she nearly toppled right off the couch and onto the floor. Managing to catch herself before she collapsed in a graceless snarl of limbs and blanket, Jamie scrambled to her feet, fists up, ready to punch the absolute living shite out of some air molecules. When it was clear there was no present danger, she kicked the blanket away and reached up to feel at her neck.

Her unblemished, completely lightsabre-free neck.

Still breathing heavily, Jamie looked around. Sure enough, Dani was sound asleep in her bed, curled up beneath the sheets in a tiny ball, her mop of blonde hair barely visible.

Jamie closed her eyes and tilted her head back to breathe towards the ceiling in relief. Just a dream, she told herself. Just a really vivid fucked up dream. Running a hand through her dark unruly curls, she trudged off towards the bathroom. She didn’t bother being overly quiet while she took a shower and pulled on a fresh set of clothes for the day — a supposedly sweat-resistant pair of leggings and undershirt to go under a Corps issued boilersuit — and yet when she emerged from the bathroom Dani had not stirred in the slightest.

Jamie twisted her damp hair into a messy half bun at the back of her head; it wasn’t long enough for anything else. Then she zipped up the boilersuit to midway up her chest. Grabbing her work boots, Jamie sat on the other edge of the bed and stomped her feet into them one at a time.

“Hey,” she said, not unkindly but not softly either.

Behind her Dani stirred somewhat, the sheets shifting as she rolled over with a wordless grumble.

Jamie bent over to tie up the laces of her boots. “I’m going to work. There’s food in the fridge. Don’t leave the apartment unless you want to be spotted.”

No response.

Sitting up straight, Jamie leaned over and gently poked Dani’s shoulder. “I need an affirmative. Or I’m going to keep annoying you.”

That earned her a sullen noise. “Yeah. Okay,” Dani mumbled as she pulled the sheets completely over her head and burrowed further into the pillows.

With a shake of her head, Jamie rose to her feet. She had the front door open before she patted at her leg. She turned back around to grab the mining laser from where it had rolled onto the floor at some point during the night, and strapped it to her thigh before strolling out into the grey pre-dawn of Telos IV.

By all accounts, it was a day like any other day. Anybody watching her would have noticed nothing different about Jamie’s routine. She caught the railspeeder a few blocks down and rode it from Thani all the way to the forests just past the grasslands in quadrant two. Chodo Habat Parkway was empty at this time of morning, but in just a few hours it would be a bustle of activity. The railspeeder flew over the Parkway and Jamie watched it from the window with barely registered interest. The only other person on the train that she could see was a Rodian dead asleep on the other side of the cabin, his antennae drooping.

By the time Jamie made it to the edge of quadrant two, the sun had risen over the horizon and washed the planet in muted green and gold light. Far below the railspeeder, the grasslands rippled in a breeze. She eyed it with a touch more interest than for the Parkway. The previous generation of AgriCorps members had managed to get the grasslands to take, but only two species. It had taken Jamie and her team four years to introduce a handful of other grass species robust enough to cling to life in this dirt. She sat up a little straighter in her seat and tracked the varieties she could spot from this distance.

Turned out that even after three hundred years, an orbital barrage rendering an entire planet ground zero could still have an adverse effect on soil leaching.

God damn fucking Saul Karath and the damn Sith.

It was another half hour until she reached the drop off point. When the railspeeder slowed to a halt, Jamie dragged herself upright and hopped off. A few people passed by to get onto the railspeeder for the next stop, but the outdoor station on the forest outskirts of quadrant two was largely full of people coming to work, not leaving. She paid a few credits for a dietary supplement being sold by a dented droid vendor behind a small stall with a leaning canopy.

“You should eat actual meals sometimes, Jamie,” the droid admonished even as it deposited the tablet-sized supplement into her outstretched palm.

“I’ve tasted your swill before, C-87,” said Jamie. “I’ll take my chances with the supplement, thanks.”

C-87 gave an affronted sniff, but handed her a compostable cup that was filled with steaming stimcaf. “On the house.”

She took the cup and washed down the supplement with a heady swig. “You’re a legend, mate.”

“I am not at all well known outside of Thani,” C-87 said in obvious confusion.

She shook her head with a smile. “It’s just an expression.”

“Oh. Right. I will add it to my database with the others.”

Jamie continued down a ramp to the broad dirt path that served as a crossroads for the area. A turbo-tractor dragged piles of gear down the track, leaving a cloud of dust in its wake. A ruddy-skinned Ithorian was directing teams in shifts for the day, handing out new jobs and gathering feedback on the screen between his hands. Jamie walked towards him just as a small group departed with waves, their expressions tired but not unfriendly.

“Morning, Murr,” Jamie greeted.

Murr’s only reply was a deep reverberation of hello. It sounded more like the shifting of tectonic plates than actual language.

“I saw some patchy sections over the grassland outskirts of quadrant one,” Jamie said, jerking her thumb over her shoulder to indicate the railspeeder behind her. “Can we get the scrubs to take a look this afternoon?”

Murr was already tapping away at his screen. The translator device at the top of Murr’s long neck blinked, and through his rumbling subvocalisations a robotic voice said, “I will send a team to check the clay capping has not been permeated.”

“And make sure they don’t forget to test the aquifer this time,” Jamie insisted.

Murr’s throat sack expanded and he made a low booming sound that she had come to learn was a sort of derisive snort for his species. The robotic voice said, “You have little faith. You should consider revisiting your Temple.”

“Sounds almost as boring as one of your jungle Herd meets.”

He waved her away, but she saw him make an extra note on his screen nevertheless.

“Cheers.” She gave him a brisk pat on the shoulder before striding off towards the treeline.

From one of the pockets of her boilersuit, Jamie fished out a key. She hopped onto a rusting old swoop bike and turned it on with a twist of the key. As she sped off into the forest, she chucked the now empty cup of stimcaf over her shoulder, where it would dissolve into the nitrogen rich soil with the next scheduled rainfall.

Work was dull, repetitive, yet fulfilling. Technically Jamie supervised a team of new AgriCorps entries, most of them young idealists who’d chosen this Service out of a sense of obligation to the Restoration, as though it were some kind of symbol against the tide of red creeping across the galactic map with every passing day. They hadn’t been parcelled out to the other branches like loose change that never quite added up to a whole number. They found her dry pessimism inharmonious with their convictions, and so they only ever came to her for direction as a last resort.

And honestly it was the best for everyone involved. As far as Jamie was concerned, she was the last person who should be teaching anyone. Especially starry-eyed kids who looked like they’d only just graduated from being younglings at the Temple.

Even out in the far-reaching forests of Telos, Jamie felt like she was being watched, like someone would know exactly who she was hiding in her apartment. She kept a sharp eye on the treeline as she worked. At one point she nearly gave herself a second degree burn with the mining laser when a new entry snuck up on her with a question. Jamie sent them scurrying off with a gruff answer — ‘No, don’t plant them beneath the allelopaths, you prat’ — and returned to her careful pruning with a scowl.

By the end of the day, she was exhausted and paranoid and she still had a two and a half hour rail ride back home. To really spice things up, a huddle of officers shuffled into her rail car at one of the station stops. They went around questioning passengers about whether or not anyone had seen a woman of familiar description — blonde, pretty, mismatched eyes. When they reached Jamie, she shook her head. They glanced at the AgriCorps logo on her boilersuit, thanked her for her service and dedication, and went on their merry way.

She was bouncing her leg up and down when the railspeeder finally pulled into her station. She tried not to look like she was fleeing, but the officers had congregated at the far end of the rail car to chat amongst themselves, and the last thing she needed was to be pulled over for a candid discussion about the latest Restoration Project updates.

Telosians. Nosy fuckers. The lot of them.

The sun slanted towards the horizon as she walked home, her steps brisk, her shoulders hunched, her hands jammed into her pockets. Her boots rattled against the metal staircase leading up to her apartment. She held her breath while she punched in the passcode to open the door, half expecting the place to be empty, or to be a complete wreck. Dani gone. Dani taken. Dani just another strange memory to add to a list of strange memories.

Dani was, in fact, still there. Indeed, Dani was wearing a spare set of Jamie’s clothes and an apron, and she was puttering around the kitchenette. Her hair had been tied back in a braid and she was unpacking a few bags of groceries. Jamie recognised the logo stamped on the recyclable bags as belonging to a little market stall a few blocks down.

Jamie shut the front door behind her and locked it. “I thought I told you not to go outside. How did you even get back in without me?”

“I saw you enter the passcode last night,” Dani answered without looking up from what she was doing. She opened a cupboard and pulled out a pan that Jamie couldn’t even remember buying. It must have come with the apartment. “And you didn’t have any food.”

“There’s food in the fridge,” Jamie said.

In answer Dani opened said fridge, which was nearly barren. She gestured towards its bare shelves and said, “I’d hardly call dietary supplements and alcohol ‘food.’”

“Do you want to get caught? Because this is how you get caught.”

“Just -” Dani shut the fridge again and turned back to her previous task with a sigh. “Let me cook dinner. And then you can teach me some lightsabre forms afterwards.”

Jamie was in the process of tugging off her work boots, and she nearly fell over hearing that. “I’m sorry - I can do what?”

Turning on the electric stovetop, Dani pulled out some pre-packaged protein and sauce. “If I’m going to have it, then I at least want to know how to use it.”

“First of all,” Jamie finished taking off her shoes and left them by the door. Then she crossed the room so she could lean against the counter to talk to Dani. “Nobody just starts off with a lightsabre, all right? That’s not how it works. You need to do all sorts of inner peace bantha-shit before they even let you harvest kyber to make your own lightsabre. There’s a whole right of passage.” She gestured to herself emphatically, tapping her own chest. “I never got to make a lightsabre.”

There was a very attractive, very distracting curve to Dani’s smile when she replied, “Failed the inner peace part, huh?”

“Very funny,” said Jamie, not laughing. Dani moved to start cooking in earnest, but Jamie reached out to grasp her wrist. “Hey. Is this really what you want?”

Dani went still. There was no leap of electricity between them, not like that first night down at Ho’kyn’s. Still both of them hesitated, waiting for it to happen again.

When it didn’t, Dani’s jaw squared bullishly. “I want to be able to defend myself. Against -” she waved at Jamie with her free hand. “- you know.”

“Force sensitives.”

“Yeah.”

Jamie tapped her finger in a thoughtful manner; it took her a moment to realise that this meant she was tapping at Dani’s wrist while Dani watched her in confusion. Snatching her hand away, Jamie said, “Fine. C’mon.”

Pausing to rummage through one of the grocery bags for a bread bun, Jamie walked to the middle of the room and motioned for Dani to join her.

Dani blinked. “Wait - right now?”

“Are you gonna wait until I change my mind after dinner?”

Immediately, Dani switched the stove off and removed the apron. Come to think of it, Jamie couldn’t remember buying an apron either. Before she could dwell on that thought too hard, Dani had rushed over to the bedside table to scoop up the lightsabre, and was now standing before Jamie in the middle of her living room/kitchen/spare bedroom. She bounced eagerly on the balls of her feet, lightsabre hilt held unsheathed in one hand, awaiting instruction.

Fuck, but Jamie was bad at the whole teacher thing. Six months in the EduCorps had been enough to remind her — and everyone in her close vicinity — that she was Not Great at patience and bookishness. In fact, moving from the EduCorps had been her first Reassignment, and the Council had never put her back there. A decision which was met with universal relief. Especially from Jamie.

“Ground rules,” Jamie started.

Dani nodded to show she was listening.

“If I tell you to sheathe the blade, you sheathe it. If either you or I feel uncomfortable or in danger or — whatever — you sheathe it. If you hit something you shouldn’t, you sheathe it. If you drop it -” Jamie paused, then grimaced. “Don’t. Just don’t do that.”

Dani nodded again. “Okay.”

“Be careful,” Jamie warned. “Usually they start you off with a practice sabre. That -” she pointed to the hilt in Dani’s grasp, “- is the real deal. One wrong move, and you will kill someone. Probably yourself. Or me. Honestly I would prefer if it wasn’t me.”

“Okay,” Dani repeated, sounding exasperated this time.

Taking a step back so she was well clear of any sweep radius, Jamie bit into the bread bun and mumbled around a mouthful, “Go ahead.”

“What? Just -?” Dani gave the unlit hilt a little wave.

“Yeah,” said Jamie, chewing. “Go on.”

Dani’s thumb hovered over the silver activation button, and then she pressed down. The blade extended from the hilt, a deep and brilliant blue, blue as a Tythonian sky on a cold winter’s day, blue as an evening star. For a long moment Dani simply held it outright, the blue light washing out her face. Then she gave it an experimental slash through the air, the sound of the plasma blade like nothing else.

“It’s -” Dani said in surprise, “- heavy.”

Jamie hummed around another mouthful. She took the time to finish chewing before she answered, “You haven’t connected with it yet.”

Dani scrunched up her nose. “It’s just a fancy sword.”

“If that’s what you believe, then we should just go back to making dinner. Maybe you can use it to cook those steaks you bought.”

Dani pursed her lips. She lowered the blade, holding it loosely at her side so that the tip was pointed towards the ground. “No. Teach me.”

Studying the determination on Dani’s face, Jamie leaned back against the wall. She propped her foot back, crossed her arms, and said, “Lower your stance. We’re going to go through the forms, now.”

If nothing else, Dani was a quick learner. At least, that must have been the reason why this was going so well. It certainly couldn’t have been because Jamie was a decent teacher, because everyone from the Outer Rim to Tython knew that wasn’t true. Yet Dani, after an hour spent barefoot and wearing pajamas in Jamie’s living room, already looked more at home with a lightsabre in her hands than Jamie ever had after years of training in the Temple.

At one point, Jamie tore off a chunk of bread and threw it at the floor near Dani’s legs. Dani leapt back a step unsteadily and pressed the deactivation button so that the blade slid back up into the hilt.

“What was that for?” Dani asked.

Jamie jerked her chin towards her. “Pay attention to your feet. Look how narrow they are. Your opponent can put you off balance, take ground from you, force you to retreat.”

“You can just tell me that. You don’t need to throw food at me.” Dani knelt down to pick up the piece of bread and toss it into the sink.

Now that Jamie was actually looking at the floor more closely, she asked, “Did you vacuum today?”

“Yeah.”

“Since when did I own a vacuum?”

“It was in the supply closet behind your pantry.”

“I have a pantry?”

Dani walked over towards the kitchen side of the room and hit a panel on the wall that Jamie had never cared to fiddle with in the past. A whole section of the wall jutted out then slid sideways to reveal a whole host of kitchen items and cleaning supplies that Jamie had never even knew existed.

“Well, shit,” Jamie muttered, scratching at the back of her head. “I have a pantry.”

Hitting the panel again to make the wall shut, Dani took her place back in the centre of the floor. “Can we keep going?” she asked, and she already pressed the activation button to unsheathe the lightsabre once more.

Jamie lifted her eyebrows. By now she had crouched down against the wall, one leg outstretched as she idly fidgeted with the zipper of her boilersuit. “Start from the top. One. Two. Three -”

Eventually Jamie didn’t even have to mime the movements for Dani to follow along, and Dani — looking utterly pleased with herself, her smile radiant — finished a whole set without a single discernible flaw.

"This isn't so hard," Dani said. She gave the lightsabre a bold flourish as she turned on the spot.

Which of course meant that the blade cut right through Jamie's couch.

Dani scrambled to hit the deactivation button, nearly dropping the lightsabre in the process, but the damage was already done. The couch was cut cleanly in half. Slowly it buckled as they watched, slumping to the floor in the centre where it was no longer self supported. The cut through it smoked gently and smelled of burning hair.

Jamie glared.

Clutching the now unlit sabre hilt, Dani winced. "Sorry."

Jamie pushed herself upright, dusting off her hands. "I think that's enough lightsabre training for one evening,” she growled.

The worst part was how Dani kept apologising all through dinner.

“I’m sorry,” Dani said, hovering at Jamie’s elbow while Jamie loaded dishes into the automatic wash machine. "I can buy you a new couch.”

"Save your credits for the trip to Tython."

“I’m sorry.”

“Don’t -” Jamie cut herself off. She shut the front-loading machine a little more firmly than was perhaps strictly necessary, then turned to face Dani, whose expression was positively doleful. “Don’t be sorry. Be better. Don’t get cocky just because you got through one set of the most basic lightsabre form there is.”

“Sor -” Dani started to say, then changed course. “I won’t.”

The lightsabre itself was propped atop the counter on the far side of the room, where Dani had hastily put it down moments after the incident.

Reaching for a dish towel, Jamie shook her head and started to wipe down the kitchen countertop. “You need proper training. Not whatever rubbish I can offer you.”

“I don’t want to go to the Temple. I don’t want to learn about -” Dani’s mouth snapped shut and she frowned down at her own feet.

“Being Force sensitive isn’t just something you can run away from, you know,” Jamie said. She ran water over the dish towel and rung it out before continuing where she’d left off.

“I told you,” Dani grumbled. “I’m not Force sensitive.”

“Fuck’s sake. This again?”

“You don’t need to teach me about the Force. You can just teach me the basics of a lightsabre.”

At that, Jamie laughed. She stopped mopping up the counter and turned to face Dani. “Fuckin’ hilarious that you think those two things are different somehow.”

With a huff, Dani turned aside. She crossed her arms and glowered at the maimed couch.

When it was clear she wasn’t going to speak, Jamie tossed down the towel. “Nothing you say will change the fact that you’re -”

“Stop,” Dani said through grit teeth. “Just - stop it.”

Jamie didn’t stop it. Because if there was one thing Jamie knew about herself, it’s that she didn’t have a lick of good sense. “What do you think will happen if you try to run from it, anyway? Do you think nobody will notice? Forever? Because even I noticed, and I’m about as Force sensitive as a tree stump.”

While Jamie spoke, Dani’s jaw clenched. “You think I want some Council to dictate my whole life? You think I want -?” she asked with a broad sweep of her hand towards Jamie’s apartment without finishing her sentence.

Jamie narrowed her eyes. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

“Nothing.”

“No, go on.” Jamie took a step forward, and it was gratifying that Dani didn’t back down, that she held her ground. “If the Jedi don’t find you, the Sith will. You think my life is bad? What are you gonna do? Run forever? Why are you -?”

“Because! Because this will get worse!” Dani burst out, and there was a ragged edge to her voice that gave Jamie pause. “Because if I use it — if I do that then I’ll -!”

She stopped abruptly, hand flying to her head with a wince of pain. Concerned, Jamie reached out, but the moment she touched her, it was like being struck by lightning. Like a chorus of song branching out in all directions. Dani staggered away from her with a gasp, breaking the connection, and her eyes were squeezed shut, arms raised as though to ward off an incoming blow.

“I’m - I’m sorry! I didn’t mean to -! I didn’t -!” Dani was saying, apologising over and over, and all but cowering.

Jamie stared at her, hand still outstretched. Slowly she rubbed her fingertips together, half expecting a flicker of sparks to leap between them. The thrill of it still echoed around her ribcage and the roof of her mouth.

This time when Jamie reached out she was careful not to touch her. “Dani,” she said softly. “Nothing happened. It’s all right. Hey. You’re all right.”

Hesitant, Dani opened her eyes, peering around the room as if surprised that everything was still intact. She worried at her lower lip, her hands clenched at her sides. Finally she looked up at Jamie, and the fear was painted openly across her face, pleading and alone; it gleamed in her eyes.

"The Force isn't what you think," Jamie murmured. "You can't run from yourself."

Dani opened her mouth to speak, only to shut it again. She dropped her gaze and sniffed. For a brief terrifying moment Jamie thought she was going to cry again, but then Dani simply nodded. If anything her expression was a mixture between miserable and embarrassed. Jamie patted her upper arms, and for a brief second Dani tensed, only to relax when nothing happened.

“Now,” said Jamie. “Let me finish washing up. I’m afraid that if you help, you’ll cut my kitchen in half, too.”

Dani let out a watery laugh.

Jamie grinned in return. “I’m serious. My kitchen’s small enough as it is. Don’t need it drawn and quartered as well.”

Dani was biting back a smile when she looked up at her. “Has anyone ever told you that you’re kind of a jerk?”

Jamie pretended to look thoughtful and shook her head, but what she said was, “All the time.”

That earned her another snort of laughter. Dani wiped at her cheeks with both hands.

Picking up the dish towel once more, Jamie snapped it feebly in Dani’s direction. “Go on, now. Get.”

Dani lifted her hands in mock surrender and moved away, leaving Jamie to finish up in the kitchen alone. Jamie didn’t pay much attention to the sounds of rummaging in the apartment behind her. At one point the bathroom door shut, then she heard the hiss of water in the shower. She took the opportunity of Dani’s absence to strip down and get into pajamas without making her guest blush scarlet. As tempting a proposition as that was.

When Dani finally emerged from the bathroom, hair damp, pinning a towel to her chest with her fingers, Jamie was bored and flipping through the holo feed from the bed because the couch was — well, the couch still smelled like burning hair for starters. Bit unpleasant, that. Jamie wouldn’t be rid of the stench for weeks.

Getting to her feet, Jamie squeezed past Dani for her turn in the bathroom with a murmured, “‘Scuse me,” while Dani shied away from her, still looking guilty, like she was expecting Jamie to throw her out at any moment. Which, honestly, was a bit rude, to be honest. Jamie was an excellent host. Minus the whole ‘no food’ thing.

When Jamie emerged from the bathroom a few minutes later, scrubbed and tired and ready to sleep, she stopped dead in her tracks. On the ground beside the bed, Dani was fluffing up some of the couch pillows in a makeshift mattress. She had changed into the same spare set of Jamie’s pajamas, and was now settling herself atop the cushions.

"What are you doing?"

"Well, I thought -" Dani started to say, but she trailed off, her hands curling in the blanket she had drawn up her legs.

"Just -" Jamie sighed and went over to her usual side of the bed, where she pulled back the sheets. "Get in."

While Dani sat on the floor trying to make up her mind, Jamie waved off the holo feed and the lights. With a groan, Jamie clambered into bed, listening to the pop of her joints. She wasn’t exactly ancient, but maybe she was getting a little old to be scaling canopies hundreds of feet in the air for hours at a time. She might start training some of the new recruits in mass pruning tomorrow. Provided they didn’t display an alarming propensity for loss of limb when wielding a thermal saw.

Beside her, Jamie felt the mattress dip beneath a new weight. Dani slipped beneath the sheets and curled as close to the edge as she possibly could, far away from Jamie. Honestly that suited Jamie just fine. She wasn’t too keen on a cuddle, either. Grabbing a spare pillow, Jamie hooked it beneath her arm and rolled over. She wriggled deeper into the mattress and settled in for a kip.

Until the bed trembled slightly, that was.

Without opening her eyes, Jamie frowned. There was shuffling behind her, sounding like Dani was trying to wind herself into as tight a ball as possible. She was, Jamie realised, shivering. Jamie sighed. She sat up and swung her legs over the side of the bed. A quick trek across the apartment, and she returned with a spare blanket, which she threw over Dani without saying anything. Dani’s form went very still, and Jamie crawled back into her own side of the bed, punching her pillow into shape before resting her head upon it.

After a long moment of silence she could hear Dani’s soft voice through the night. “Thank you.”

—

She didn’t have the same dream again. Though she didn’t sleep well either. She wasn’t used to having another person in her bed. Especially when said person kept fidgeting and sighing and rolling over, unable to fall asleep.

And when Jamie did eventually sleep, the dreams were fragmented and red. They were shards of glass and metal in a clenched fist.

—

When Jamie stepped off the railspeeder the next morning, bright and early, she approached C-87 for her usual dietary supplement and stimcaf combo. The droid perked right up when it saw her coming.

“Jamie -”

“Mornin’,” Jamie said around a long yawn. “Don’t suppose you could make it a double shot today?”

“Jamie,” the droid said again in as serious a tone as it could muster.

“Yeah, that’s my name. What about it?”

In answer, C-87 swivelled its head around. With a frown she followed its gaze, and then she felt the blood drain from her face.

There at the end of the ramp stood Pillock One and Pillock Two. She didn’t need to see the Czerka logos on their kit to recognise them. Their backs were towards her and they were talking to Murr. Ithorians didn’t typically have what she would call expressive faces, but Murr’s large brown eyes were wide and he had retracted his neck like a turtle trying to hide in its shell.

“Shit,” Jamie swore and she ducked down behind C-87’s stall. Without question the droid reached up to adjust the canopy so that it hid her better. “Did they talk to you?”

“Negative,” C-87 replied. “They were questioning a few other AgriCorps members, and then they started speaking with Murr. I took the liberty of moving your swoop bike so that it was more easily accessible, should you require it.”

Shuffling around on her hands and knees, Jamie dared to peek around the edge of the stall. Sure enough, her swoop bike was within easy reach. Murr spotted her, his throat sack swelling up in surprise as he drew in a deep breath. Pillock One started to turn, but Murr pointed towards the treeline, where her swoop bike would’ve been parked had C-87 not moved it.

Pillock Two made a rude gesture towards Murr before setting off in the direction he had indicated. Pillock One followed after him, unholstering the very large blaster rifle slung across his back. When they’d gotten far enough away, Murr gestured sharply at Jamie in what was very clearly a shooing motion.

C-87’s head popped around the corner so abruptly that Jamie jumped with a curse. “I think you should take the next railspeeder back to Thani as soon as possible. Alternatively, you should drive your swoop bike,” the droid told her.

“Yeah, you think?”

“I have been thinking that for several minutes, in fact.”

“It’s just an expression,” Jamie sighed. “We’ll work on your sarcasm module some more next time, all right?”

“Very well, Jamie.”

She didn’t wait to see if Pillock One and Pillock Two were heading further into the forest. She jumped on the back of her swoop bike, started it up, and sped off towards the next railspeeder station. There was no way a short-distance bike like this could make it all the way back to Thani in good time. She had to wait at the next station along the grid, anxiously tugging at her boilersuit zipper, wishing she had a hood or something to hide herself even a little bit. The swoop bike she simply abandoned at the station, jumping onto the next rail service with the sort of pent up jitters that had her half vibrating out of her skin.

It was perhaps the longest two hours or so of her life. In recent memory, anyway. She spent the whole time folded up in a back seat in the rail car, trying to make herself seem inconspicuous. When a random ticket officer droid trundled by, requesting to see her ticket credentials, she fumbled with the laminated pass so badly that she nearly dropped it. And when the railspeeder finally pulled into her station, she bolted out as quickly as she could without drawing too much attention.

Back at the apartment, Jamie burst through the front door. Dani, who had been flicking through the holo feed from the bed, started with a yelp.

“You scared me,” Dani gasped, hand over her still heaving chest.

“Change of plans,” Jamie said. She rushed across the apartment, grabbed a rucksack from beneath her bed and started to shove clothes into it at random. “We’re leaving.”

“What? Now?”

“Yes. Now.”

For all the confusion on her face, Dani jumped to her feet and began gathering what little items she’d brought with her. “What happened?”

“Czerka.”

Dani’s eyes widened and she dropped her nanosilk cloak to the ground. “They know where I am?” she asked, swooping down to snatch up the cloak.

“Yes,” said Jamie. Then, “No. Maybe. They know where I am now, anyway. Showed up at work, and — Look. We have history, all right?”

“What kind of history?”

Jamie darted into the bathroom to gather up a few necessary toiletries for the trip. Dani followed, watching her from the doorway.

“Jamie,” said Dani, voice sounding both stern and worried all at once. “What kind of history?”

“I know their leader. Peter fucking Quint. I may have -” Jamie opened the mirror cabinet and just pushed a few rows of stuff into the open bag in her hand. “- gotten his arm chopped off at one point.”

“You what?”

“It was his own fucking fault!” Jamie hissed. “I just helped! A little! And he’s still, y’know -” She zipped up the bag and shrugged. “- sore about it. Some people just hold a grudge.”

“Oh, sure. Can’t imagine why he’d do that,” Dani said, and Jamie didn’t have to look at her to hear the roll of her eyes.

Jamie turned around and stomped past her from the bathroom. “At least he’s still alive. Which is a hell of a lot better than what you’ve accomplished.”

Dani glowered at her, still leaning in the doorway with her arms crossed.

“Do you want to wait around until Czerka finds us?” Jamie asked, pointing towards the front door. “Because they’re on their way.”

With a huff, Dani relented. She grabbed up her small bag and clipped the lightsaber to the belt at her waist. “No. I don’t.”

“Great. Let’s go.”

#the haunting of bly manor #thobm #star wars #dani clayton/jamie #damie #no great revelation #I know too much star wars shit don't @ me #roman writes

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moth-and-raven · 3 years

Text

CHAPTER FOUR

The rest of the day passes in a haze. Loud cheers met Nadia’s announcement and Portia slipped into the rush just in time to board the carriage, tear-stained but determined to fight through it.

I must have been imagining things. I don’t want to think poorly of Julian, but I have to face facts: people will do and say anything to keep themselves off the gallows. He’s smart. He’s charismatic. He knows I’m working with the Palace. I can’t help but think he was just trying to endear himself to me, taking advantage of how obviously attracted to him I am. I can’t blame him for that. It’s my own fault for chasing what was a pathetic pipe dream from the start.

I retreat to my room after we return to the palace. It’s not unreasonable, considering I haven’t slept much in the past few days. From my bed, I watch spots of sunlight creep across the ceiling until I fall asleep. At least it’s dreamless this time.

Portia comes to get me for dinner in the late evening, when the sky’s turned purple. She’s itching with curiosity, peeking at me from the corner of her eye the whole way to the dining hall. Before we enter, she clears her throat.

“So, um.”

“It was nothing.” If I keep telling myself that, maybe it’ll hurt less. “Did you—?”

“Safe and sound. At least as much as he can be.”

“How long had it been since—?”

She pulls her bottom lip between her teeth just like he does. “Ten years, give or take. The last time I saw him was right after his apprenticeship. He came back to Nevivon for a few months while he was figuring out what else to do. I was only sixteen, so he must’ve been… twenty-five?”

The same age I am now. I didn’t realize he was that much older than me, though I suppose it makes sense. He’s lived quite a life. Yet more reason for him to see nothing of interest in me.

Portia pushes on: “What will you say to—?”

“I’m not telling her anything.” I shake my head and look away. “I don’t have anything to tell her anyway.”

That’s not a lie. I may know more about him now, but nothing pertinent.

“She’ll ask.”

“I know.”

I must not be doing as good of a job hiding my sadness as I thought I was, because Portia rests her hand on my shoulder and squeezes gently. I don’t have it in me to say that whatever she’s imagining isn’t true.

I can’t do this.

“Could you tell Nadia that I—” Humiliated, I choke on my tears. “I'm— I’ll be in the library.”

I’m already around the corner by the time she agrees. I don't know what I’m going to do there, but at least I’ll be alone. Again.

I may not remember beyond the last three years, but I know in my heart that I’ve never been loved like I am in my dreams. I probably never will be. With all the beautiful people out there, who would choose me, the fat twenty-five-year-old virgin so gullible she falls for every man who looks at her twice? What could I possibly offer someone like him?

Nothing.

Painful, empty nothing.

I end up at the library eventually. At least I can navigate the palace better than I could the South End. My tears have almost stopped before I feel the metal arc of the crescent moon still hanging around my neck and break apart again. I manage to reach an armchair, nestled in an alcove near a half-flight of stairs, and curl up in it as best I can to weather the storm.

I’m so ugly when I cry. Thank god no one can see it. No one ever should.

When the waves settle and my breath doesn’t feel so foreign in my lungs, I press my palms to my eyes and sigh heavily. I have a headache now, as I always do after I cry like that. I know I should be hungry, but I’m not. I don’t know what I am.

But I made a promise. To Nadia and to Julian. Even if I never see him again, I’ll help him as much as I can. And with all of his research, all the palace staff who knew both him and Lucio, all the magic echoes swirling around waiting for someone to hear them, I think I can help him a lot.

------

I was always more comfortable at night. I sleep a little bit, curled up in the armchair, but it’s not very comfortable and I wake up sore. I’m glad I came to the library, though: Julian’s desk is a mess of torn papers and marked-up books, underlines and strikethroughs and question marks in the margins, and I have so little time to piece it all together. If I hadn’t slept yesterday away… yesterday. I shouldn’t be thinking about yesterday. It was nothing. It is nothing.

He’ll be nothing if I can’t figure this out.

Portia brings me something to eat in the very early hours, right before dawn. Without saying a word, she draws up another chair and starts sorting through things too. She can read his handwriting much more easily than I can.

And Count Lucio’s name shows up. And again, and again. Lucio’s temperature rising. Lucio says wine tastes metallic. Alchemical fluid in Lucio’s prosthetic turned red, wouldn’t survive replacement. Observations in clipped clinical speech, but scrawled with ever-increasing desperation. Lucio spitting up blood. Lucio not sleeping, complaining of bad dreams. Lucio too weak to eat, still alive.

Notes on the dissection of a beetle, a cross-section of a human brain, a map of the palace with large red Xs over half the rooms in the east wing. Peeking over my shoulder, Portia points at them.

“That’s the Count’s Suite. He had the whole wing, actually. No one goes up there anymore.”

I straighten up, my joints crackling from the hours I've spent hunched over. “Why?”

She shrugs. “Nadia had the whole thing blocked off. It’s really dirty, from the— all the ash and stuff. And people say it’s haunted.”

“By Lucio?”

“I guess. One of the other housekeepers swears they saw the ghost of a weird guy at the top of the stairs once. That it looked right at them with spooky red eyes. I think they’re full of shit, but maybe it’s worth a look?”

There could be a thousand things worth a look. If I had more time… “I don’t know. I have a couple spells that might be able to pin down a ghost, but I’ve never actually tried them.”

“If it is Lucio, though, wouldn’t he be able to say who killed him?”

“Hm. That’s true. Is the wing locked?”

Portia grins and fishes in her pocket. “Not if you have keys.”

The main staircase is close to the library. I feel the air get colder as we approach, and the hairs on my arms and the back of my neck start to stand up even before Portia unlocks the corridor that leads to Lucio’s bedroom. It’s eerily quiet, all gray and black, luxury gone to ruin in the wake of a disaster. I’ve seen reproductions of burned-out buildings that look like this, after heavy battles. It crosses my mind that destruction of that caliber had taken extremely powerful magic to accomplish, not the actions of a single man weakened by pressure and long hours in the midst of a plague. Julian can’t even do magic. He said as much during our long conversation at the Raven. I can’t imagine anything else that would do this much damage without bringing the entire palace down.

Interesting.

Cinders crunch underfoot. Charred paintings watch us pass. A primal fear creeps along just behind us, whispering then asking then screaming at us to flee. I can feel my heart in my throat and adrenaline in my blood, every sense heightened. Tattered curtains move at the corner of my eye: I’m terrified to look and even more terrified not to.

But I can tell without bringing magic to my hand that there’s nothing here. At least nothing that wants to make itself known. There’s just a spark of pure rage somewhere deep inside the wing, but it doesn’t want to be seen. No ghosts, no goats, no ghost goats. No spooky red eyes. Just soot and smoke stains and three years of neglect. The fear lurking in the back of my mind isn’t supernatural, just the normal human mistrust of the dark and abandoned.

We go all the way to the end of the suite to no avail. Part of me thinks I should stay, but I’m getting tired now and the idea of sleeping in these rooms isn’t appealing. Portia takes my sigh as an admission of defeat and pats my arm. It was a distant hope anyway.

Near the end of the corridor as we leave, a small glimmer catches my attention. If I hadn’t been looking that way to start with, I never would’ve noticed it.

“Hey Portia, what’s in there?”

She lifts up the lantern and peers into the room. “Bath chamber, I think.”

We see it at the same time, as the light catches the red gleam again: falling from the sink are drops of blood. More of it trickles across the floor. The walls are stained from it, up to the window.

“What the fuck?”

My sentiments exactly. What is this? It can’t be actual blood, can it? This is the top floor of the palace. Is it bubbling up through the plumbing?

“Nadia’s gonna want to know about this,” Portia says in a small voice.

“Wait. Let me check it out first.”

She turns to look at me, pale in the lantern’s glow. “This is way beyond whatever my brother might have done. It could infect the whole palace!”

“Do you think it’s infectious?”

Portia frowns. “Did you… Were you in Vesuvia back then? During the Plague?”

There’s no point in lying. “No.”

“Neither was I, but I heard about it. Before I left Nevivon, some sailors docked and told everyone what they’d seen. People died so quickly, there wasn’t space to keep their bodies. And they were all red, their eyes and their fingertips, everywhere you could see veins.” She shudders. “I can’t believe Ilya worked with it and… and…”

She must’ve been so scared, knowing that he could die any day.

“You know that big ugly crematorium out in the bay?” she asks.

“The Lazaret.” Everyone knows about that. You can see it from shore, a jagged silhouette reminding everyone of the toll the Plague took on the city. I don’t like looking at it: it makes my heart ache.

“Yeah. Even with that, there were too many bodies. So many people… There was a rumor that the Palace stored the extra ones, until they could be burned.”

“Where would they have been able to keep them?”

“Dunno. But there’s a huge tunnel system under here, all the way down into the cliffs. And the dungeon’s really big.”

I’d wondered how Julian could escape the prison cells, when the only way out was through the palace itself. Tunnels would explain that, I suppose. “So do you think there’s still something tainting the water?”

Her eyes are wide in the dark. “There might be. Kinda like here, no one’s been in the dungeons for ages. Probably since then.”

I frown. It’s unlikely, but I can’t deny the evidence right in front of me. I take another step into the washroom and trace the flow towards the wall. Some of the stones are loose now, after years of water damage. There’s more than enough room for it all to drain away between them.

Weak dawn sunlight floods the horizon as I stand up and glance out the window. I can see most of the city from here, out across the harbor to the Lazaret and down through the South End and directly into the lush gardens below.

And beyond the gardens, flowing from the palace along the channel of an aqueduct, is a stream of blood red.

------

Nadia scowls at the dripping red water, then summons her bodyguard to her side and dispatches them with a whispered order. Both Portia and I follow her out of the wing, but Portia splits off at the base of the stairs to see to her duties while Nadia invites me into the dining hall for breakfast.

A massive, gaudy painting hangs over the table, eyeing us as we pick over the array of egg dishes and sliced fruit. It depicts a celebration scene, I think, presided over by a muscular blond man with his arms spread wide over a crowd of adoring citizens. Nadia notices me looking at it and chuckles.

“Admiring my late husband’s art sense, are you, Reyja?”

I don’t want to offend her, but I think Count Lucio should’ve stuck to partying. “It’s, um, very vibrant.”

“That was typical of him,” she laughs. “Ostentatious to a fault.”

People don’t talk about Lucio much, unless they’re cursing his name for all the damage he did to the city with his warmongering and overspending. I’m trying to solve his murder, but now that I think of it, I don’t know much about the man himself. “What was he like?”

Nadia grimaces. “Much as you’ve heard, I expect. Loud, brash, insolent. Committed to his life of luxury. I would not have married him, had I been sober when he proposed.”

She must catch my surprise, because she fixes me in her dark eyes and raises a brow as if daring me to judge her.

Of course I won’t. “How did you two meet?”

“He was visiting Prakra,” she says. “To present himself to Empress Nasrin, my mother, as the Count of Vesuvia. He had been in power for some time by then, as I recall. I believe he told me that he’d first come to this city nearly twenty years before, on a mercenary contract.”

“He wasn’t from here?”

“No. He was of the Southern tribes.”

That’s confusing. “How did he get to be Count?”

“The former Count grew quite fond of him. Lucio was named his heir shortly after he arrived, and took the throne shortly after that. He spoke often of the battle in which he lost his arm—” She points at the painting. Lucio’s left arm shines, gilded in gold leaf. “—the same in which Spada was killed.”

Lucio may have been bloodthirsty, especially fond of the fights to the death at the coliseum Vesuvia used to be famous for, but everyone knew his roots as a successful mercenary. Even in his forties, when he died, he was strong and virile.

Which was why his death came as such a shock. Who would’ve thought such a man would die in his bed, ravished by sickness and weak enough to fall to an unskilled assassin?

“What about the Plague?” I ask quietly. People talk about Lucio a little bit, but no one discusses the Plague at all, as if the mere mention of it will cause its return.

Nadia nods. “It appeared nearly overnight, five years ago. No one had seen its like before. To my knowledge, nothing like it has been seen since, either.”

“Do we know where it came from?”

“I’m afraid not. Little is known of it, save that it killed thirty thousand of my people in two years.”

Her people. Nadia may have been Prakran by birth, but this was her city now.

“I had been visiting my sisters when it struck,” Nadia continues, gaze unfocused as she looks back through her memories. “As such, I was forbidden from returning until we were certain it had passed.”

I remember the parade that welcomed her back, but I didn’t realize she’d been gone that long. It’s been less than a year: she must be so busy, trying to pull Vesuvia together again. No wonder the search for her husband’s murderer hadn’t been her top priority until now. “I’m sorry.”

She tilts her head, looking at me. “Understand this, Reyja: if the Plague has not truly left the city, and what you and dear Portia discovered today is proof of that, then the search for Doctor Devorak must be set aside. I am eager to see justice done, but one man’s life, when weighed against the lives of thousands, will not tip the scales. I hope I may rely upon your services regardless of that outcome.”

Her visit to the shop feels very far away. I’m attached to this now, however big it gets. “I’ll be here.”

“Thank you. I have sent Yazakh to fetch an expert on the Plague from their estate. I hope they will return soon, but in the meantime, I urge you to rest. We may have much to consider in the coming days.”

I take a small pastry with me when I leave the table and make my way back to my room. I don’t doubt that she’s right, but even with this additional set of problems, I can’t keep my mind away from Julian. Thoughts of him cloud my head as I lay down for a nap and they’re still there when I wake up. My stomach isn’t happy with me, swirling with guilt and humiliation and anxiety, but I don’t know what to do about it.

The expert still hasn’t arrived when I go up to Lucio’s suite to check. I pass the library on the way back and my fingers fly to the silver moon pendant still around my neck, following the divot Julian’s own nerves wore in the metal. I suppose it wouldn’t hurt to look through his notes while I wait, if I can concentrate enough to get anything useful out of them.

I can’t.

When the sun sets again, I give up. Another day gone, and I’ve only discovered more things to do. I need something to focus on, something with a solution, something… something that might distract me from the fact that I’m no closer to clearing Julian’s name.

I can follow that water, if nothing else. I don’t know where it’s coming from, but maybe I can learn where it’s going. And I can get out of the palace, maybe work off some of this nervous energy. And I won’t be surrounded by pieces of him, distracting me from my mission. It’ll be perfect.

---------------

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#the arcana #the arcana fanfic #reyja north #julian devorak #moth & raven

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szopenhauer · 4 years

Text

Do you believe in any conspiracy theories? some

What trends do you refuse to give in to? basically all of them What types of perfume/cologne do you like on your preferred sex? none How do you get rid of anxiety? wish I knew! Are you a more of a homebody, or someone who’s always out with friends? homebody Are you materialistic? been told - in a sentimental way, not rich way Would you consider yourself open-minded? no Is there anything in your life right now that needs fixing? my body/mind Would you say that the simple things in life make you happy? they make me smile, I enjoy them Do you come up with your own words or sayings often? yes What’s the first thing you think of when I say ‘pearl necklace’?

Gummi worms: Yay or nay? nay What do you do when you have ‘me time’? why after the question before it sounds so... ekhem... What’s your opinion on Weird Al Yankovic? I liked his SW song Have you ever met someone online that you wanted to meet in real life? yup and met but only one person When was the last time you entertained yourself with shadow puppets? not that long time ago tbh as I like to do that randomly :D

What do you think S.H.C. stands for? school lmfao

Have you ever heard of Salad Fingers? mhm *I like rusty spoons

How do you feel about oldies (50’s-70’s) music? depends on the song

Ford or Dodge? Ford What’s your favorite element: fire, earth, wind or water? I think that most spectacular, in a movie/book, is fire, then wind, earth is most lame but I still dislike water, when it comes to real life then eart would be most interesting instead hahaha but I’m either wind or earth probably

Do you visit craft/hobby stores often? nope

How do you feel about spiked collars? cool

What’s keeping you from going after the person you like? I’ve been writing about it plenty of times...

Who/what brings out the best in you? depends on your definition of “best”

Have you ever watched or read A Clockwork Orange? no and don’t want/plan to

How do you feel about plastic pink flamingos? love

Do you like your ice cream super frozen or somewhat melted? in between

Fill in the blanks: I wish _____ knew _____. I wish I knew what’s wrong with me and how to fix it. I wish I knew what’s good and bad and what I should do. I wish I knew who I am and what I want/need.

Do you enjoy playing with magnets? :3 I collect them but don’t play with magnets

How do you handle an awkward moment? depends

The Beatles: totally amazing or horribly overrated? overrated

Have you ever felt like you belonged in a different century? not really

Pretend you just saw a shooting star. What do you wish for? health *not that it will work

Was your first phone a flip phone? nope What is an old website that closed down that you miss? polyvore forever <3 Do you listen to Grace VanderWaal? If yes, what’s your favorite song of hers? I know/like one of her songs - I don’t like you What is the grossest thing you have ever vomited up? everything about puking is disgusting so... If you had had a baby in high school, what would you have named him or her? omg...

Are you foreign-born? I was born and live in Poland Do you drink coffee with your breakfast? I don’t drink coffee at all

Did you know that dolphins & whales are mammals? I did Are all of your grandparents still alive? no

do you need to take a smoke break? I don’t smoke honestly, do you think that you’re going to be an overprotective parent? I won’t be a parent :P what kind of relationship do you have with the last person you kissed? uh... have you ever been tutored or tutored someone yourself? been tutored would you rather wear necklaces, bracelets, rings, or earrings? hmm... is everything you have on actually yours? sure when was the last time you wore a band-aid and why? wbiłam sobie metalowy drut w palec what would you do if you discovered that you had a 7 year old kid? ... how? moon sand or play doh? Playdoh do you honestly believe that someone will waste their time reading this? I know she will pfft what’s something you need to get done soon? don’t remind me... your grandparents just died in a plane crash, what are you doing? sit confused as why would they be in a plane in the first place? :o if i came to your house, could i find any kind of chocolate? ask my mother do your parents allow smoking in your house? hell no last person you left a voicemail for? I don’t like voicemails what is the last thing you charged? cellphone have you ever held a snake? I wanna describe to me the nearest stuffed animal to you. there’s shitload of those around me do you ever wear sleep masks when you sleep or shower caps when you shower? neither zebrah print, cheetah print, cow print, polka dots, or stripes? stripes would you rather go to a beach, and amusement park, or a water park? beach or amusement park, definitely not water park

Have you ever thought about becoming a crime scene investigator? yep

If I asked around, would people say you’re an actually good friend? doubt it

Where are your siblings at right now, if you have any? most likely her apartment

Do people say you complain too much? I know I do, sorry not sorry?

Have you ever considered changing your sexual orientation? there was a moment

Do you miss any of your past best friends? kinda

Have you graduated high school yet? If so, what color were your cap and gown? we didn’t have caps and gowns

Does your significant other complain about the way you dress? does she? XD

Have you ever been in an abusive relationship? would say so

What would you do if a stranger smacked your ass and whistled? dunno

Do you understand the game of Monopoly? why not

Do you ever make fun of short people? I’m short...

Would you say you’re reliable to be a good babysitter? I don’t like kids

Do you feel replaced in any way at all right now? when my dad plays with my niece :( also when I see/hear about my ex friends and exes in general?

Do you think it’s actually possible to have a ‘beautiful nightmare?’ yes

Have you ever held an intervention for someone before? I don’t want to participate in such a thing

Do you ever blame your problems on someone else? only if they’re at blame

As a child, were you ever made fun of? What about right now? I’ve been bullied my whole life

Are you more of an open, optomistic person or lonely and pessimistic? loner* and pessimistic but I’m also quite open about who I am, because I’m an introvert doesn’t mean I’m shy

What is the last thing you tried on in a store? not sure what was last

When did you realize you are no longer a child? this question makes me sad Is sleeping naked more comfortable then in clothes? no idea Are you comfortable enough around your friends to change in front of them? I don’t care most of the time anymore tbh Have you ever had a dream in which you were making out, or more, with someone? smth more more often than just kissing which is weird Do you prefer to fix the problems or just end the relationship? depends Have you ever accidentally stepped on a cat tail? possibly

Did you know that when a worm is cut in two both pieces grow again and continue living? been told Do veggies gross you out? why Have you ever dated someone in secret? :x Do you bring pillows and blankets on road trips? nope Does walking by yourself make you nervous? might When dog’s bark, do you think it actually sounds like ‘ruff’? no What about when cows moo? yup Do you kiss your pets? yuk Have you ever forgotten where you parked your car? I don’t drive Does your leg itch right now? not rn Would you rather marry someone repulsive or be alone forever? be alone When is the last time you saw a monkey on TV? I don’t watch TV Would you be sad if you were 50 and still not married? nope Is it dark out yet? mhm Do hugs help when you’re sad? sometimes Do you buy more things online or in stores? stores Do online dating sites ever work? not for me

Do you find kite flying boring? if for a long time Have you ever released a paper lantern? I’d like to

Do you ever listen to Jpop? not anymore What is the best summer camp you have ever been to? been to two and both had good and bad sides Is your bed next to a window? it’s not

Have you ever ran a cash register? I have

Does anyone appreciate your talents? what talents? Do you ever write letters and send them through the mail? used to Have you ever had an allergy test at the doctor’s? even recently

Skeletons or scarecrows? scarecrows

Do you own pumpkin earrings? - Have you ever walked through a haunted house? no thx Have you ever asked someone to be your Valentine? and they laughed at me?...

Do you like the name Ellery? sounds like Celery so no

Do you find cemeteries pretty? yeah Does your phone screen freeze a lot? could say so

Do you tend to wear the color blue the most? as a kid Did you kiss anyone on New Years? never Who did you spend your last velentine’s day with? by myself

Is there anything plugged to your computer? two pendrives and powerbank Anyone ever got you something while you were with them without you knowing? sort of Are you more of the indie or mainstream type? indie Where is your favorite place to be massaged? I don’t receive massages When did you last speak with your grandparents? years ago Don’t you hate it when something limits the amount you can type/write? very Do you live where there are a lot of cows? nope Have you ever went an entire day without looking at yourself in the mirror? as a person who avoids mirrors... Do you like the colors purple and orange together? depends? Honestly, do you smell nice at the moment? do I ever? my partner tells me I do but I’ve been told I stink several times before

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thewritewolf · 4 years

Text

Eating Habits Chapter 16: On the Rise

With the fashion show out of the way, our heroes finally get a chance to unwind. At least for a moment.

Happy New Year, everyone! :D

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 (Final)

Enjoy!

Read on Ao3

Letting out a long groan as her muscles relaxed in the sudsy hot water, Marinette tried to think of the last time she had gotten to take a bubble bath. It had to have been before she left the bakery since her tiny apartment didn’t have a tub big enough to relax in and she hadn’t used the one in this apartment until today.

Not for the first time, she wondered what her past self was thinking by settling for that terrible place.

She took a deep breath and settled back against the scented wet towel she’d placed along the edge of the tub. It didn’t matter, she supposed. Now that she was out of that place, she didn’t have to worry about it again. Today, especially, she was planning on not worrying about anything at all.

The music faded peacefully from one song to the next. The playlist had been a gift from Nino for her birthday - four hours of masterfully crafted instrumental music, each blending seamlessly into each other. No wonder he was doing so well working with Jagged Stone; Nino really understood music in a way most people could only hope.

Closing her eyes, she took another deep breath to help herself get lost in the sound, but ended up smiling at the scent of lavender in the air. The candles stirred up memories from the previous week - Alya taking her out for a day of shopping to help get her mind off of the fashion show. Their stop at the candle shop and how they’d accidentally ended up wasting an hour there. Alya had teased Marinette when she got the lavender candles, despite her protests about how it was a relaxing scent.

After all, lavender was also the favorite scent of Adrien, who wore it so frequently that just catching a whiff of it had been enough to bring a smile to her face since she was fourteen. Even now, the scent had her grinning to herself. Remembering Adrien reminded her of something else. She peaked open an eye to check the door - the comfy set of pajamas Adrien had gotten her months ago while he was in Milan were hanging on the knob, ready for her to change into them the moment she was finished with her bubble bath. She let out a sigh of comfort. Sure, it wouldn’t be that bad if she had to go and find it, given there wouldn’t be anyone else in the apartment, but that’s hardly how she wanted this to end.

Tikki phased through the wall, yawning. “Good morning, Marinette! How’s your bath going?”

Marinette curled her toes as she stretched under the water. “I haven’t felt this relaxed since Christmas, so I’d say pretty good. What’s up?”

“I was just wondering about that internship.”

“What about it?”

“Just… in general. What does it mean? How long is it?”

“Well,” Marinette said, rising a little to make it easier to talk. “If it is like other internships, then it’ll be a lot of busy work and helping their main designers. I won’t be doing a lot creatively for them, but I can still learn a lot, and meet some people in the industry.” A sly smile graced her face. “And get paid, of course.”

“That’s good,” Tikki said, perking up. “How long will it be? Is it going to interfere with your studies?”

“No, it’ll just be for the summer. At least, that’s what the letter said. It also said they might extend it. They’ll be sure to keep my classes in mind, but I’d definitely have to cut back on the university clubs and stuff.”

Tikki frowned. “That’s too bad.” She landed on the side of the tub, tentatively sticking her feet into the hot water. “At least you had fun while you were in them, right?”

“Yeah… at least there was that.”

They sat and listened to the music in silence for a few minutes before Tikki spoke up again. “When does it start?”

“Really soon, actually. Next week is orientation, then I get assigned to a designer and I get right into work.”

“Wow! That really is fast! I wonder what they would have done if you turned them down?”

Marinette shrugged. “A big name like that? Either they don’t expect anyone to turn them down or they can easily find someone who won’t, no matter how short notice they give.”

The conversation drifted along, Marinette slowly being drawn out of her pleasant stupor until she was ready to get out of the bath and start the day. A day which would mostly be consisting of watching her favorite shows until Adrien showed up… at which point she would start watching her favorite shows while cuddled up against him.

Marinette smiled. It was good to have a plan.

------------------------

“It’s just… this is absolutely huge and I’m so happy for her, you know?” Adrien stopped pacing as his tail continued to flick back and forth behind him. He looked back at Carapace, who was leaning against the brick wall with his arms crossed, a patient smile on his face. “But at the same time, it feels like I’m standing on sand. Its like everything is changing and I think for the better, but…”

Carapace cut him off with a chuckle. “Don’t worry, I get what you mean. We went through something similar when we both got the jobs we have now.” He shook his head. “It was all so rough to start off, but we got into the swing of things. Now we’re feeling better than ever.” He put a hand on Adrien’s shoulder. “My dude, I know it’s scary right now, but it’s gonna be great. Just wait and see.”

“Thanks.” Adrien smiled, a little nervously. “And yeah, I know, I know. I’m excited, but… nervous too. She does tend to throw herself into things. Maybe this time-”

“-This time she’ll have you right by her side,” Carapace finished. “Just be there for her and you’ll both be fine.”

“Right.” Adrien sighed contently and sat down to look up at the full moon. “The future is looking pretty bright, huh?”

“Well, to start with, that’s the moon not the future.” Carapace snickered as Adrien smacked him on the shoulder. “...But yeah. You’re not wrong.” There was a long pause as they stared up at the inky blackness of the sky. The stars were drowned out by the light of the city below, making the moon look lonely as it shone above them. “You know, I’ve been thinking a lot about the future lately.”

“Is this the prelude to you proposing to me? ‘Cause I’m flattered, but I’ve already got a girlfriend, so I’ll have to pass.”

“Well, you aren’t totally wrong…”

Adrien blinked at his best friend in surprise. Then his mouth fell open. “No way…” His eyes lit up and he turned to face Carapace. “Did you already get the ring? Where are you planning to do it?” He gasped. “We’ll need a band - and roses! I’ll-”

Carapace held his arms up in an x shape. “Woah woah, dude. As of right now, I’ve got no ring, no plan. It’s just been something I’ve been thinking about a lot lately.” He settled back against the wall, head tilted up at the sky as he closed his eyes, a smile at his lips. “It’s just… I love this girl, man. I can’t imagine ever wanting to be without her. It’s not time just yet, but… not a lot longer. Soon.”

Adrien deflated a little. “How long is soon?”

“I dunno,” Carapace said with a shrug, still not opening his eyes. “A month? A year? Maybe a little more. I don’t want to rush this, and I’m more than happy to wait for just the right time.”

Considering this, Adrien leaned back against the wall and frowned. A few minutes of silence passed between them.

“So… is that a no on the band then…?”

Carapace snorted, which quickly turned into a laugh. A laugh which proved contagious as soon enough, Adrien was laughing along with him.

----------------------

A few days later and they were visiting their parents. They tried to have dinner with them once a week if they could manage it. It usually gave them the opportunity to catch up and swap stories and just recharge after doing their own thing. And it would only get harder to do once the internship started or when Adrien would start picking up more photoshoots during the summer fashion season.

At the moment, Adrien and Marinette were in the kitchen with Tom, helping to make dinner. They were just putting the finishing touches on it when Adrien heard Sabine call from the living room.

“Tom? Kids?” Immediately, her voice put him on edge. There was an undercurrent of worry to it. Given how calm and collected Sabine usually was, it had to be something big to affect her. “Can you come in here? There is something on the television I think you should see.”

Adrien exchanged a look with the others. From the looks on their faces, he could only assume that they had reached the same conclusion as him. They hustled out of the room and entered the living room just as Sabine was turning up the volume.

There on the screen was Adrien’s face looking right back at him, with the headline, “Last Scion of Disgraced Agrestes paired with Rising Star of Fashion Industry.”

It felt as if a pit had opened up to swallow Adrien, that the very ground beneath his feet had betrayed him. All at once he was reminded of the days, the weeks, the months that he had spent hounded by opportunistic journalists without a shred of dignity. His every waking - and often even sleeping - moment stalked, all in the hopes of selling a few more papers.

He still had nightmares about that. But now it looked like that nightmare hadn’t ended. Not really. It reminded him that maybe it would never end. That he’d forever be haunted by the sins of his family.

All that passed through his head in the span of a few moments, a downward spiral like a rocket crashing from orbit. It drove him to his knees, gripping fistfuls of his hair as tears ran down his face, muttering to himself in a quiet droning:

“Nononononono…”

#Miraculous Ladybug #Marinette Dupain-Cheng #Adrien Agreste #Adrienette #Tikki #Nino Lahiffe #Carapace #djwifi #ml fanfiction #my writing #Eating Habits #The Lucky One series

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goliath-de-senfina-sango · 4 years

Link

HAPPY NEW DECADE MY DUDES! IT IS WODENSDAY AND I BRING YOU GHOSTS!

Nerds chat, big sisters are consulted, ghosts are fought, magick is performed

“You know, Danny, one day you have to do something that isn’t mind-blowingly awesome,” Tucker said. “One of these days it’ll happen. You’ll say something plain and boring, not ‘I’ve been to the moon’ or ‘I found the ghost that was haunting my locker and made fast friends with him’.” Tucker didn’t really mean that of course, he wasn’t sure Danny was capable of doing something that wasn’t impressive. Then again that might’ve just been because Tucker thought everything Danny did was impressive. They were flying over Amity Park on hoverboards controlled by their gloves, all because of Danny.

“Tucker, please,” Danny scoffed, “It’s not that what I say will be something dull and normal, it’ll just be what our new normal is pretty soon.” Danny had his hood up, somehow, and didn’t both wearing his helmet. Unlike Tucker, he didn’t actually need it to keep safe in the air. He wove around Tucker in circles before diving for the park, a cheer on his lips. Tuck dove after him, and soon enough a monochrome figure came into view, blurry at the edges but his face matched his yearbook photo easily enough. The two skidded to a stop and hopped off their boards - which took more effort than was convenient, he’d have to figure out a way to fix that - and Danny held up a hand for a high five. Sidney flinched back a bit and Tuck cleared his throat.

“Danny, high fives were invented around the ’70s. Sidney is from the 50s.” Tucker slapped Danny’s hand to demonstrate and grinned. “It’s just a greeting, like a handshake but faster. Hi, I’m Tucker Foley.” He held out his hand and Sidney stared at him. “I’m the furthest thing from a bully.”

“Tucker is the geekiest guy in the world.” Tucker stepped on Danny’s foot for that, grinning at the yelp he received. “That’s a compliment you dork!”

“Sidney Poindexter,” he finally shook Tucker’s hand, and smiled.

“So, Sidney, how’s it been, finally being back on Earth?” Leave it to Danny to ask the awkward question.

Sidney just lit up like a christmas tree though and spread his arms out to gesture at the park. “It’s been amazing! Everyone looks so different and all the cars are so much faster and sleeker than before - colorful too! I’ve never seen so many different kinds of people just hanging out with each other! Though there’s a lot I don’t understand, and I guess that’s just how the future is supposed to feel but goly these rectangles people are tapping on seem to do a lot .”

“Yeah, different time periods make for pretty different experiences,” Danny mumbled, rubbing the back of his neck. “Speaking of experiences, what’s it like on the other side?” On one hand Tucker wanted to smack Danny with his hat for that, but on the other he understood wanting to know. They weren’t exactly about to go through the portal to find out and get lost.

“Oh. Well uh, for a while I was just floating around in the green void, passing through doors and islands and buildings and even other ghosts. According to some Will O Wisps I wasn’t really a ghost yet, just a soul that got stuck in the Infinite Realms.” Danny had pulled out his journal, looking at Sidney intently and Tucker knew the look on his face. Danny was hyperfocused by now. “That’s what it’s called, by the way, the Infinite Realms. Cause it goes on forever n ever and apparently anybody from everywhere can end up there. It felt like I was in there for years before enough of the uh…”

“Ectoplasm?” Danny held up a hand and with visible concentration silvery green light jumped between his fingers and wrapped around them like a blanket.

Sidney snapped his fingers. “Yeah, ectoplasm! Enough of it bonded to me that I could touch things around me again, which was swell! It was pretty scary too, though, cause anything can become a ghost…”

“Huh… like dragons, and jersey devils and chupacabras?” Tucker snorted at Danny, rolling his eyes.

“What, have you met bigfoot?”

“No, but I did meet the Fiskerton Phantom, and a komodo dragon that can turn invisible.”

“Like I said, scary stuff. But uh, ghosts can make these things, places, called Sanctuaries where they can be safe, which is what most of the islands and stuff in the Realms are. And I managed to make one, and I was safe from most of the more dangerous ghosts out there! But… that safety didn’t really last.”

“Did you go through a portal and end up trapped in your mirror somehow?” Sidney flickered like static and laughed, a hollow sound that made Tucker shiver and his skin crawl.

“Oh wouldn’t that’ve been better? No, I messed up. I hadn’t listened to the ghost with the blue dress and blonde hair that told me how making a sanctuary works - or I guess I didn’t ask enough questions about it.” Sidney’s eyes flickered red and Tucker felt a tug in his hand, looking down to see his helmet was glowing green. “It was based on my memories . The most recent ones too, so I ended up in my own Casper High with a bunch of… I dunno, echoes or shadows of the bullies from my life and by the time I realized what had gone wrong I couldn’t get out.” Sidney wrapped his arms around himself and Tucker was absolutely about to lose hold of his helmet.

“Sidney, would you like a hug? Cause you sound like you need a hug.” Danny spread his arms wide open for Sidney, and over the din of insults and jeers and horrible laughter that Tucker could hear from Poindexter, he could hear the ebb and crash of waves on a beach coming from Danny. Sidney blinked, looking up at Danny with wide eyes and for a few moments he didn’t do anything. Then he nodded and was being pulled into the inescapable warmth of Danny’s hug.

“Dang, that sounds like a job for Jazz. She can use her super psychology powers to help you out.” Tucker set down his helmet, which was no longer about to fly away, and pulled the Fenton Finder™ out of his jacket - which Tucker had figured out how to add a porta pocket to while he was building the tangibility modulator. When he looked up, Sidney was far more solid looking and Danny was staring at him like he’d handed him the moon and said it was his. “What?”

“Tucker Foley, you absolute genius! ” Danny’s arm swung out and Tucker was dragged into the hug.

“Okay, I absolutely am a genius, but what did I say?”

“Sidney, I have an older sister named Jazz - who you cannot tell about my ghost half by the way, that’s a big secret - and like, a hug is good for a lot of things but having someone to talk to is way better!”

Sidney squirmed in the embrace and phased out of it, leaving Tucker to his fate of being pressed against his best friend like a teddy bear. “I uh. I dunno about that. Last time I had someone to talk to it was the guidance counselor and that uh. Well let’s just say my death was more than just bullies being too rough.”

Oh, Tucker did not like that at all. “I promise you, Jazz is 500 times better than that. She’d never hurt anyone that needs her help like that.”

Sidney still looked sceptical but Danny let go of Tucker and lowered his voice to something soft and sure. “Sidney, Jazz is my big sister. She’s literally always trying to make sure I’m feeling as good as is humanly possible in the face of all the weirdness our parents have put us through. When I was 7 and she was 9 the christmas turkey came to life and she fought it off because I was too small to fight at all and then she taught me what she knew about martial arts. There’s not a thing in the world I wouldn’t trust Jazz with, and you should trust her too. But, I can’t make you trust her and I still have to ask her if she’ll do it.”

Sidney took a breath, fully opaque for once, and gave Danny a shaky thumbs up. “Sure.”

“Awesome as that is,” Tucker said, raising the Fenton Finder. “I need to scan you so we can make sure that the security system doesn’t shoot you if something bad happens in the school.”

If there was any one chore that Jazz would happily dump on her little brother were he there for her to give it to him, it was moving boxes of scrapped experiments to the shed. Danny very clearly needed the exercise and Jazz didn’t, and it was tedious. She was a good older sister, she deserved a bit of pettiness. Besides, it meant that she could only give Spike half of her attention as he complained about his little brother cryptid hunting. “Tell Wes that even if he’s right, he shouldn’t endanger the cryptids by trying to show them off to humanity. If you appeal to his empathy he’ll probably either actually stop, or at least stop coming to you about it so that you don’t try and guilt him for what he’s doing.”

“Wouldn’t expect that kind of manipulation from you, Jazz. Is that what you do to get your brat to be quiet for five seconds?”

“First of all, I’m studying psychology Spike. I know how people work.” She set down a box of broken tools and failed devices that would only see the light of day as melted down and repurposed scrap in some other experiment. “Secondly, how dare you insinuate I don’t find Danny’s info dumps about space interesting. It’s adorable and he’s very informative.”

“Uh, rude? I’m not cute, in the slightest.” Jazz turned to see Danny pouting in the doorway with his arms crossed over his chest. “I’m a total badass.”

“Badasses can carry all this scrap from the lab to the shed, shorty.”

“Heck, aren’t you clever? Like, the best at thinking up any response to anything. You know, I uh. I have something you might not have the perfect answer for.” Danny’s hands were stuffed in his pockets now and his shoulders were hunched. This was important.

“Spike, I’ll talk to you later. Remember, morality!” Jazz hung up and ruffled Danny’s hair, grinning at the pout he gave her. “So?”

“So,” he said back, rocking on his heels. “You don’t like, agree with Mom and Dad about ghosts, right?”

“Well, it’s kind of hard to disagree they exist when I shot one off of you, little brother. I’d be pretty bad at the scientific method if I ignored proof right in front of my eyes.”

Danny huffed a laugh and shook his head. “No no, I mean like… what they think of ghosts. You don’t think they’re all ‘evil’ for being ghosts, right?”

Jazz rolled her eyes. “Danny there’s no such thing as evil. I may have been… less than correct about ghosts existing but I do know that Mom and Dad know nothing about psychology.” She watched some of the tension in Danny’s posture die down and poked his stomach. “Why?”

“Right,” he said and took a breath. “So, if I were to show you, hypothetically, someone in need of therapy who may or may not be a bit deceased-”

“Can someone only be a bit deceased but otherwise ok?”

“You’d be surprised,” he huffed. “Enough that it’s obvious anyway? Would you, hypothetically, be able to help?”

Jazz rolled that over in her head a bit. Danny had found a ghost that disproved their parents’ hypothesis - or prejudiced stereotype, a toss-up if any - and felt they needed psychiatric help but didn’t trust any Amity doctor not to call the Fentons or try to charge the dead a fee. That or he was fucking with her, but Danny was bad at hiding his distress and the longer she stayed silent the more he fidgeted.

“So whose ghost are you asking me to help out? I’m not Mom and Dad but I do have every right to worry about a stranger you’re inviting into your life.” Danny sighed and relaxed more than he had in a while around her. Jazz couldn’t help but smile, even as she was crushed in a hug. “Lungs.”

“You’ll be fine and his name is Sidney Poindexter.” Danny squeezed her one more time before letting go. “According to Tucker, he’s the guy who used to have my current locker.”

“You have a haunted locker at school… why am I not surprised?” Jazz shook her head, covering her face with her hand. “Sidney Poindexter, that kid who reportedly suffered the most bullying in the history of the school and … ok, wow, he really would need therapy if he were to hypothetically come back to the land of the living. I wonder where I might find him?” Danny didn’t need to hear any of the less pleasant details of that story unless Sidney chose to tell him.

“No clue. When I finish coming up with that hypothetical part of the situation I’ll tell you.” Danny fired her a pair of finger guns and backed away slowly, somehow not tripping over his own feet like the last time she saw him do that. “Later Spazz.”

“Remember not to smear your weird UV paint all over your jacket, Picasso.”

“THOSE WERE NOT SMEARS, IT WAS ART,” he said, and Jazz held onto the door while she laughed.

“I’m worried about Danny.” Jazz had to wait until lunch and sped through eating just to find him, but she’d tracked down Vice-Principal Lancer and he agreed to walk and talk. “He’s been through a lot lately, what with tests and bring hunted by a robot like an animal and social pressures and I know it’s getting to him.”

Lancer arched a brow and sighed at her as they turned a corner. “Have you tried talking, Jazz? It’s the staple of human survival, communication, and all kinds of relationships.”

“I’d talk with him if I could, Mr.Lancer, but I’m his older sister and I’m afraid Danny’s reaching a point in his life where you keep things from your family while you try and figure it out on your own to be more independent.” If Jazz noticed Lancer giving her a pointed look, he hadn’t verbally acknowledged her glasshouse so she could throw as many stones as she so pleased. They stopped and Lancer fished out a ring of keys. “He wouldn’t talk to me about this, probably wouldn’t even listen when I try and tell him to open up to someone. Also, why are we heading into the guidance counselor’s office? Have you gotten a license in that as well?” It was a joke among the upperclassmen that Lancer was at least vaguely equipped to substitute teach literally every class in their underfunded school.

Lance snorted and flipped through keys. “No, Jazz, we’ve actually finally managed to grab a guidance counselor. You know I can’t do everything around here.”

“You most certainly seem to.”

“Be that as it may, Jazz, he may listen to me and I’ll try talking to him but have you considered this all is- Great Gatsby!” Jazz turned away from Lancer to see what startled him and felt every muscle in her body lock up in shock. The room was a mess, burn marks reminiscent of Dad’s latest weapon going off randomly at home littered the walls, the desk was flipped upside down and acrid smoke met her nostrils nearly choking her. Or maybe she had simply stopped breathing when her eyes landed on the figure in the center of the room, green light radiating from their form in all directions casting eerie shadows everywhere and wide green lights bright as torches shone from underneath a cloud of white and above a mass of black and white material. They pulled a black hood up over their curly white hair and a masculine voice hissed out a quiet, forceful and slightly reverberating, “ Shit. ”

Holding up his hands, the figure’s eyes dimmed slightly and Jazz could make out bright blue skin tinged with a bit of green. “Now I know what this looks like, but I promise there’s a perfectly logical explanation.”

“You’re a ghost.” Jazz wasn’t asking a question, her voice pitched up in a desire to be horribly wrong more than curiosity.

“Lab Safety is important.” The green light flickered, a blue face made indistinct by the light show and the shadows of the hood visibly cringed and Lancer gasped in horror in front of her. “I know that maks this illogical by default.”

“That depends,” Jazz said slowly while reaching into her pocket and fishing for a small tube of what would look like lipstick to anyone else, “on why you trashed the room. This does look pretty-”

“Jasmine what are you doing!?” Lancer hissed, and while Jazz was certain he meant the talking in general, the light in the boy’s eyes shifted toward her hand. He sucked in a superfluous breath and vanished from sight while Jazz let off a litany of swears in her head.

“I was trying to get some information from him, Mr. Lancer. He had an explanation apparently and I wanted to hear it.” Jazz dropped the lipstick tube back into her pocket and crossed her arms. “Didn’t you just tell me that communication is important?”

“Important as it is, Jasmine,” Lancer said with what Jazz recognized as a lecturing tone and decided that she already didn’t like what he had to say. “That was a ghost and I do believe the experts - your parents - have advised us all to avoid grabbing the attention of a ghost unless we want to become one.” Of all the times for anyone to actually acknowledge her parents’ work and knowledge and it was now?

“With all due respect, Vice Principal Lancer, I think that of all things to listen to my parents about for once, their biased prejudice against all things ghost is hardly the one to believe. If everyone that died was malicious then the second they got a way into the living world we’d be overrun and there wouldn’t be a living world anymore.” Gesturing to herself and a staring Lancer she drawled, “I’d say we’re proof that my parents are wrong.”

While Lancer tried visibly to come up with an intelligent response to that, Jazz flicked on the lights and gave the room a closer look than she had before. Walking around she noticed the tiniest drops of ectoplasm lingering near where the burn marks were, and just under the desk. Pulling out a vial or three and some cotton swabs, Jazz put away a few samples to check over later. Even if she didn’t want to so much as acknowledge that her parents were right about ghosts existing, or fight them, she wasn’t going to bury her head in the sand and ignore all the evidence that said she needed to either get someone else to do something or do it herself. What’s one more thing to steal my sleep away?

She turned to a puzzled Lancer and cleared her throat. “It looks to me like a fight was happening here. A teenaged boy venting his anger over being d-” Breathe and don’t think about it. “In his particular situation would go somewhere he probably won’t get caught, not a school with a security system made specifically to shoot until he’s a bubbling pile of green sludge upon activation. I wish I knew what he was fighting and why but unfortunately he saw me reaching for a weapon and bolted.”

“Reaching for a weapon, Jazz?” Heaving a sigh she met the arched brow on Lancer’s face with a very practiced look she gave teachers that tried to paint her as being wrong about something.

“Principal Ishiyama said that we can use them in emergency situations and while I hardly share my parents’ opinion that all ghosts are malevolent mindless creatures, a teenager made of thoughts and emotions that just finished fighting isn’t someone I want to talk to without an option to defend myself. I’m safe around other human beings because I practice several martial arts, not because everyone is harmless.”

“That’s rather… pragmatic of you, Jazz.” Lancer let out a breath and the tension left his shoulders. He clasped a hand on her shoulder and Jazz was lead out of the destroyed room. “I personally feel that you need to speak with someone about all of this as much as Daniel does. After all, it is happening to you too.”

“I appreciate your worry, Mr. Lancer, but it’s not necessary.” Jazz smiled at the man. “As much as I’m sure this guidance counselor will be great for the other students, I have someone I can talk to already.”

“That’s good, Jazz. Still, if you need any help I’m certain that Ms. Spectra will be happy to give it to you.”

"She saw me. She saw me in a busted up room with my hands glowing, and I shit you not, she reached for a weapon." Danny paced in Tucker's room with his hood down and hands wildly gesticulating. “Now she and Mr. Lancer probably think I’m some destructive monster. There’s no way I could’ve made a worse impression.”

“Well,” Sidney said from his spot reclined in the air and watching Tucker play God of War, “when I first met you I thought you were bullying someone.”

“Plus,” Tucker chirped as he attempted, fruitlessly, to fight a Valkyrie, “you could’ve accidentally shot them. Much worse impression.” Kratos died on screen and Tucker growled to himself, lifting his controller to toss it and dropping it with a grimace instead. “That thing really fucked up my arm, huh?”

Danny sucked in a breath and held up a hand, pulling out bands of silver and green light from his center, gathering it above his palm as best as he could. It flickered and slipped out of his grasp every few seconds, like trying to hold water in a barely cupped hand. “I could try healing you?”

“Danny,” Sam drawled while putting down her book, “are you sure you know how to do that? It looks like your ectoplasm is glitching through you instead of listening to you.” Danny observed his arm, focusing on the first plane of existence as hard as he could, and huffed a sigh in agreement that it did look like a patch of glitchy green and white around his hand. “Hold out your hand, and Tucker hold out your arm for me.” The boys obliged and Sam held out a hand of her own, eyes closed, and pinched the ectoplasm haphazardly flowing around Danny’s hand. Danny’s eyes widened as she pulled the silvery light out of him and into her own aura, a few words being muttered in Hebrew as it flowed through her body to the other hand, and into Tucker’s arm. When the light faded, Danny felt tired and hungry, while Tucker looked far more relaxed than he had in a while. “Viola.”

Tucker looked from his arm to Sam and back several times, flexing and stretching the appendage. “Sam, I cannot emphasize this enough, holy shit. ” Sam grinned smugly at them while Danny, Tucker, and Sidney all stared at her in awe. “How did you do that?”

“I put forth some effort and actually looked into this ghost stuff from an angle that wasn’t the Fentons’ research. That lead to magick, which leads us to this.” Sam held up her book Magick: the Life Blood of the Earth. “I had a feeling that using Danny’s ectoplasm might warrant immediate effects, especially since he was focusing on trying to heal Tucker.”

“Right,” Danny drawled. “Next time ask me first? I feel hungry enough to eat a whole pig right now.”

“Mom ha-

“But with like, vegetables and stuff because I value my health.” Tucker stuck out his tongue and Danny laughed.

“Tucker, do you have a flashlight?” Everyone turned to look at Sidney and Tucker shrugged, pulling a miniature flashlight out of his pocket and handing it over. Sidney turned it on and pointed it at Danny’s face. “I’ve got an idea.”

“Care to share that idea with the class, Sidney?” Tucker picked up his controller and chuckled as he started up the fight anew. “Is Danny supposed to photosynthesize?”

“Basically, yes!” Danny blinked a few times and tilted his head. “Ghosts are all made of ectoplasm, which drains pretty much anything of energy around it like a plant taking in sunlight, but some ghosts use particular forms of energy to sustain themselves, and when you were trying to heal Tucker everything got all dark, so I thought you might run better on light than just on the heat in the room. Better for your body if your ghost half isn’t sucking all the life-sustaining heat from it, right?” Everyone stared at Sidney for a long beat, trying to process what he’d said. Danny held out his hand and pinched the beams of light coming toward him. After a moment of consideration, he imagined himself drinking the light and the flashlight immediately went dark as it flowed into his hand. “See?”

“Sidney, you’re a genius!” Danny pulled Sidney into a hug and beamed. Then he started pulling on the strands of light racing through the air that he was sure no one else could see, absorbing what he was certain were the higher frequency gamma and uv lights around him. In moments the room looked the way it had before he’d gained his new Sight and for a moment Danny felt like he was going to vibrate out of his skin. When he looked around the room however, he couldn’t help the pang of sadness that came with the lack of all those beautiful colors that only he (and Sidney he supposed) had been able to see. “I think I’ll save doing that for when I’m desperate, but that’s awesome to know!”

“So not only are you ghosts, but you’re also plants.” Tucker snorted. “No wonder Sam likes you so much.” Sam bopped him on the head with her book as he picked up his controller and he made an offending noise, which everyone ignored.

“Speaking of ghosts, I think I’ve just figured out a way for you to kill two birds with one stone, Danny! If we go on patrol with the Fenton Finder™ to find the blob ghost that tried to kill us and catch it before it hurts anyone, we can capture an aggressive ghost and show the public - and your family - that ghosts aren’t all evil.”

Danny frowned, watching Tucker get his butt handed to him by Kara on screen for the 28th time, and considered that. The shapeshifter was definitely going to hurt someone if they didn’t do anything about it and Danny knew his folks would jump on any amount proof that ghosts were all evil, likely to claim that this second malevolent spirit was a clear pattern of spiritual behavior. They didn’t need more help sowing anti-ghost sentiments among whoever thought they weren’t entirely crazy, and he didn’t need more harassment from the asshats who thought they were and that he probably was by extension. Ugh. “Tuck, where are you on figuring out who the guy is?”

“Did you seriously think I could find out who this sentient blob of green slime with fangs and glowing red eyes that apparently shapeshifts is supposed to be? With what, ghoulgle?” Sidney chuckled and Sam laughed, shaking her head. “I’m a genius, obviously, but I’m not a wizard, Danny.” Danny’s shoulders slumped and he sighed. “Unless..”

“Unless?” Sidney and Danny echoed. Tucker looked at Sam’s book and so did the other boys, the idea sparked in their minds.

“Danny and Sidney combined aren’t going to have enough power to help me see through space and time to find out who this shapeshifter was. If we really wanna know, we’ll have to catch them and ask them through the thermos.”

“Alright, that’s fair.” Tucker lost in the game once more and turned the HorrorStation off. “Y’know what, sure. Let’s go hunt a ghost. I’m up for a fight we can actually win. Sidney, you in?”

“I-uh I’ll leave the fighting to you guys. I’m gonna give this youtube thing a try and see what I can learn.” He smiled and waved them off, and the trio shrugged, heading down the trap door to Tucker’s room and waving his parents goodbye.

While Sam and Tucker took their hoverboards to the air, Danny found the nearest alleyway and made sure no one was there to see him. He took in the sight of the vivid indigo surrounding him and reached inside for the ectoplasmic green and pearlescent white inside of him, watching it unfurl over his body in a flash and carve away at the ties between him and the Earth. He lifted off the ground and shook himself, sure that he’d never get used to it, before flying up to where Tucker and Sam were waiting for him with the Fenton Finder™ already out and his ectosignature blocked from it. At his insistence, they decided to search together in a group since splitting up was for the idiots getting picked off in a horror movie. Danny let himself slip into the space between spaces, where the background light of the world was blue and violet refusing to blend properly into indigo but just as intense as the indigo had been, if not more.

After an hour of searching, Danny saw a green dot at the edge of his full-body vision and the radar picked up on an ectosignature. They all dove toward the music store where people were beginning to run while screaming their heads off, and Danny dove through the illusion people called a wall foot first, slamming into the shapeshifter mid snarl. “Whoa there, flubber!” Danny ducked a swipe of claws and smirked. “I know jello can dance if you play loud enough music in front of it, but I didn’t know you wanted to. Screaming isn’t music unless it’s a Metallica song, man.”

Tucker and Sam burst through the doors and Sam opened fire, striking the blob while charging it like the crazy person she was. It lunged at her, knocking over a shelf on its way, and Sam barely avoided a bladed arm cutting her head off, though her leg was nicked and she fell to the ground with a litany of swears that Danny couldn't understand. Tucker shot the arm as it retracted into the shapeshifter and Danny dove between the angry monster and his best friend just in time for a fist the size of both of them to knock them into another shelf full of CDs. “Damn, we just fixed my arm and now my back is fucked up, Tucker groaned as he and Danny stood. Danny saw red.

Light and heat and power gathered above Danny’s palm like a raging river into a whirlpool, while Sam shouted insults at the shapeshifter. “Did anyone order a snot rocket?” His blast connected, knocking Discount Venom back into the help desk. An arm whipped out and caught Danny by his leg, slamming him into the ground and dragging him toward the ghost, bumping his already pounding head against every surface it could on the way.

“Aren’t you just the cleverest little bloodthirsty mutant?” Well, they finally heard it’s high masculine voice and Danny already hated the sound of it. “I actually felt that, you little freak.”

“If you think I’m the freak here, then you haven’t looked in the mirror lately,” Danny spat. “I know it’s hard, but you have to acknowledge that some people have actual bodies.”

“Such a sharp wit to go with those sharp teeth, too! Oh, but don’t worry, ghost kid, being a ghost isn’t what makes you so violent, clearly.” Danny heard the whine of an ecto pistol and sucked in a gasp as he was chucked into the air at the same time that a blast was fired. PAIN . “Just ask your little murderer! That’s twice she killed you now, isn’t it? You really should let the other kid get a shot if you can, would-be witch.” The blob’s voice grew distant and muffled as pain filled everything inside of Danny, and while he didn’t remember returning to human form, he knew that it was blood on his back, not ectoplasm. His vision went dark, indigo, then blues and purple, then everything was a beautiful and impossible Lilac, and he could see and hear the stars calling out to him. He reached out and accepted their pull away from the pain in his body.

#Danny Phantom #Tucker Foley #Danny Fenton #Sidney Poindexter #Jazz Fenton #Sam Manson #bertrand #fanfiction #fanfic #Phanfiction #Phanfic #fanphiction #fanphic #PhanPhiction #PhanPhic #Monstrous Chosen Spellslingers #MCS #Rexy Writes

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inexchangeforyoursoul · 5 years

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Hello, hello, here’s my piece for the Halloween minibang organized in courtesy of the Chicken Tendies and Bacon Bits DabiHawks server~ and have the link to a more sensible reading experience (as t gets rid of formatting, too, and I’m lazy to put it all back in, at least for now): ao3

I was paired up with pineapple hair boy (dunno his url still rip) and our promt was haunted maze! \o/ I kinda included the other two we were gunning for, devil deal and ghost stories, so... multitasking, yo. Also put in my suggested fog, because as time passed, I realized how good it was even though I just put something into the box lmao

I’ll link pineapple’s accompanying piece as soon as they’re done with it, right here, in this line!! AND HERE IT IS!!! 👀

(Some of you may note... that I was supposed to be the artist. Well, it’s a long story, and likely on me tbh; I spent p much the entire week working on my piece, but I also started writing this one, and suggested doubling down on content, but unfortunately timetables are evil, and pineapple got mobbed enough as to likely run out of time if he also wanted to finish writing, so, um... yeah. This is not to say that we won’t do our original project, though, so stay tuned for the bonus round, hopefully soon! \[T]/)

(... also, I may or may not be considering to make this a full story, so there’s that)

Keigo trips for what feels like the millionth time on this way through the undergrowth- by day, the manor labyrinth is fairly easy to navigate, the kids frequenting it has kept it threadable. Nobody has legitimately tended to it for years, though. Or rather a decade, actually, it’s been a while he was here. Honestly, who cares, because--- oh, for fuck’s sake, more rose or blackberry or whatever vines to untangle his legs from. Great. Just… great.

He squints at his watch; still on time. Catching his breath after getting free surprisingly fast this time around, he takes a look at his surroundings. Not that he sees much, bear you. It’s near midnight and pitch dark. To top it off, the thick-ass fog often present, source: right damn here, has also crept into town. In fact, this is the worst it has gotten this year yet. There’s also barely anything he can hear from the dying-off autumn festival two streets and half an estate over.

It’s only him, his phone's flashlight, and the camera around his neck that also keeps getting caught in shit. That, and his own breathing that's getting his lungs numb from all the cool, wet air they are being exposed to.

Fooling around for so long has made him feel… antsy. Just a bit. The fact that his goal, that is to say the family crypt of the moneybags who used to live here is so close doesn’t help, either.

The entire plot is the stuff of local legends. The mansion is-was infamous for its… flammability, so to speak. Every few years, at least one room got totalled. Some believed that the last master had been a pyromaniac, up till the umpteenth house fire snuffed his line, and himself at the age of 60-something, out for good. But old folk said that the building had been ablaze just as frequently before his time- and truth to be told, there had been two more fires ever since, although those could have been the aforementioned kids or the occasional squatter. Two fires in about ten years is pretty normal in an abandoned place like this.

A few of those old people said the mansion had been built on hallowed grounds in their parents’ time, and the fires were punishment for disturbing the church ruins and the dead it used to house. Even fewer said the church must have been built on the very gates of hell and the ruins had kept the flames at bay.

And old geezer Giran in particular said that you could see the devil himself on the night when spirits roam free, around where the isolated belfry’s foundation stands still with walls crumbling- the place around which the crypts were erected on top of upturned graves. To be frank, the dude himself looked as if he escaped from hell, so what better myths to bust as an aspiring photographer? And even if the devil won't drag his ass outside, this will still make one hella Halloween photoshoot. He has loads of candles and some lampions in a backpack to get the mood right as well.

If anything remotely threatening pops up, though, like a mean stray dog… or a horde of drunk homeless, he's so ready to run for the hills, you have no idea.

He’s pricking his ears good as he closes in on the center of the once-upon large cemetery. One has to acknowledge the effort those rich bastards put into this dumb maze layout just to hide their own dead. It’s as if they feared a zombie apocalypse and concluded that they wouldn’t be able to get out if the hedges grow in a pattern, like, seriously. Then again, if the ‘horde of drunk homeless’ situation comes true, it will feel and work just the same, so who’s he to judge.

The scenery, too, is something to behold still. The entire area is surprisingly… not very foggy. One can see just as far as there is anything relevant to see, nothing more, nothing less. The waning moon even came out to play for a bit, shedding some decent light on his surroundings.

What catches his attention is not the excellent lighting to make photos, though, but rather someone sitting on the ruins of the old belfry, right under where the plump planet is working her magic.

He checks the display of his watch again- two past midnight. He’s late. Well, bummer… maybe next time.

That… guy, though? He doesn't look like any devil he knows of, but rather a human figure. One he also doesn't know of, actually. Which is remotely more interesting than Satan himself, because… that’s a goth silhouette if he’s ever seen one, and he’s seen all in town. All three of them.

They are a chill bunch, so he figures he might as well go up to this one. May be an acquaintance of Tokoyami and company’s who was also told about this spooky deal.

"Hey. Have you seen the midnight devil, or did he not get the memo this year?" He lifts a hand over his eyes to let him have a clearer look.

Just the way the other looks over to him, even while slouching quite a bit, is in a manner that’s nothing bar… uh… majestic, should be the word? Sublime? Yeah. That's peak cinematography. He’s… a bit at a loss of words here, because? People have waxed lyrical about the positively blessed relationship between him and sunlight, but this guy?? Has legitimately the most beautiful pair of eyes ever, period???

Before he could get too entranced by the sight of the sky blue pins of the overshadowed figure sitting between a moonlit sky and milky deep sea of mist, he notices that said eyes skim over him. Slowly, creeping down, and then up. Um…

Did… did he just check him out?

A hardly concealed grin can be heard out of his voice as he speaks up. “Hey there, angel."

… that's a yes.

This… coming from someone with eyes and a voice like… that, is actually… hm.

Like, look… he’s been looking forward college to maybe… find someone he genuinely clicks with. But he has been through this immediate infatuation thing a hundred times already… and knows from experience that falling for mere potential is a grave mistake. What even are the chances that he’ll be the one? Put the aesthetic boner away and think rationally, Keigo. You don’t even know his name.

However, if, and IF he plays his cards well and this is not a total asshole… he could get both a photoshoot and a phone number out of this endeavor, which sounds like an excellent deal.

“Straight to the point, eh?” he acknowledges with a grin that's almost genuine. “Witching hour stuff aside, I don’t think I’ve seen you around…? A friend of Tokoyami’s?”

The other hops off the wall as he’s talking, stirring up some fog. Keigo could swear to hear absolutely nothing upon him hitting the ground. Must be the grass, but still, confirmed for cat. Not having to deal with the moon’s flare, he can now also tell that he’s about as old as expected.

The young man pauses to think for just a second before walking up to him. Nonchalance and weariness mingle in his steps.

“No, but I think I do know who you’re talking about. The kid with the raven.”

“Oh? Yeah, that’s him. Just visiting, then?” So he’s somewhat familiar with the area. Huh… how in hell did he never notice someone so obvious? Maybe he should come out here more often.

Also, is it just him, or did it get really cold all of a sudden?

“Him and his friends spend a lot of time here, I know enough. And yeah, something like that.”

As he stops in front of Keigo, an odd sensation trickles down his spinal cord, raising every hair on his nape. He’s had this once or twice when watching a legitimately good horror movie or catching a glimpse of an especially beautiful scene, or at least something very similar. It’s just the cold and being out in the middle of nowhere with a handsome stranger this time (which is kind of a combination of both), but still.

… this is not the time to be thinking ‘but what if he’s a serial killer and you are stuck out here with him alone’, brain. Thanks.

“Family business, gotcha.”

He’s onto something, because a certainly troubled look flashes over the hot--- the goth’s face as he reaches up to his own nape to rub away at it. “... yeah. That.”

The train of thought is seemingly swept out of the way after short consideration and his attention returns to Keigo. His neutral staring face is actually a little unnerving, no lie. “What about you, coming out here? Didn't quite catch what you first said.” He eyes him in a way similar to when he was sitting up on the wall, as if measuring him up.

“Oh, I wanted to take some photos,” Keigo starts, lifting the camera and the first candle he can grab from the bag, swinging it playfully around a few times with a smile to mask the nerve building up inside. “I figured it would be a nice opportunity even if the hearsay tale of the ~devil~ coming out at midnight was total humbug. This place is very atmospheric.”

What he says rouses a chuckle from the other. “Oh, so I wasn't imagining things. Been a while since I last heard that one.”

For someone deadpan he really has a cute smile. We are on a schedule here, but please never stop?

Keigo presses the tip of the candle into his cheek in contemplation, trying to steer his thoughts back on topic. “You mean, that local legend thing? I heard about it fairly recently… from the most suspect old dude." He rolls back and forth on his heels, watching out for reactions; "Giran, if the name is telling. But asking other old folks made them ring a bell, too, so I guess I was just ignorant.”

The other raises an eyebrow in amusement as the fading smile pulls into a smirk. "Maybe you are, a little bit."

Oh, come on. "Nobody is born cool, wise, or a folklore expert, okay…?" He pouts.

"I could already tell you were born without a trace of those things, alright."

"..."

He just said that. Looking him dead in the eyes.

Wow.

Dude's lucky his smile is cute, because that was so uncalled for and he's way too proud of himself. Sheesh. Anyway…

"Said the one who wouldn’t know manners if they hit him in the face…” He sighs. "Before we go down the name calling path, though… I’m Keigo." This was getting a little awkward without throwing it in, although he doubts the cocky asshole deserves it.

“Touya. My pleasure.”

Keigo hums as he moves to rummage through his stuff for the lighter he definitely threw in the bag before setting off. That’s not a very common name, but… “I think I’ve heard of you before…? Beats me where, though.” He’s pretty sure the conversation happened years ago by the crypt here, though.

Everything he says seems to amuse the other to no end. “It’s probably for the best. You seem like the type to run for the hills.”

Keigo gives him the side eye; being right aside, the hell is that supposed to mean…? And he’s so smug about it, too. About everything, really.

And no, it really wasn’t a line even remotely connected to serial killers, shut up, brain.

“Cryptic, are we?” he sighs, lighting the candle with a flickering click at last. The gentle flame sheds some dim, fog-broken light onto Touya’s face, and Keigo hates himself for being charmed by what he sees once more. That pale skin looks too perfect to be true… should feel like silk under one’s touch. If he ever gets a proper close-up look, he swears he’ll get a heart attack.

Touya blinks once, resetting his expression to nearly a default. “It's the two of us in a haunted, abandoned graveyard, inside a fog ridden maze, on the night after the 31st of October. You are basically begging to wind up dead. Coming off as cryptic and creepy as possible right now is elementary, angel.”

He… he legitimately can’t argue with that. The guy's almost as good at this as the bird kid is. “... touché.”

Stunned for words, he places his candle where planned instead. It's so stupid, but makes… so much sense. Is this why they all are like… that?

As he moves on like that without a word, Touya seems to get weirded out himself. "... You okay there?"

"I just had… an epiphany." He says, putting the first lampion with pinpoint precision. This guy just accidentally revealed some kind of arcane goth knowledge too advanced for him to begin to understand and doesn't even know it.

Touya heaves a deep sigh. "... you obviously got the wrong one out of that, but congratulations nonetheless."

“Maybe? I have not the foggiest what you were trying to imply.” He’s not that thick, but the dude’s being ~cryptic~ or whatever, and he’s not in the mood to write an essay on what edgy goths mean by what they say.

“Ah… figure that's why it's so clear out here this year… all the mist from the glade must have relocated to your head.” concluding that, Touya’s eyebrows pull closer upon seeing whatever else the blonde pulls out from his backpack while shooting a glare in his direction. “… what are those for?”

Keigo considers not answering at all, but decides against it. Being the bigger person by default is such a chore sometimes, but… “There’s some decent moonlight to work with, but these umbrellas help me get the little extra I need right where I want it. See?” With that, he turns the flashlight on and blinds the other with the sudden brightness.

“Ow, seriously?! I haven’t seen daylight in decades, turn that shit off…!”

… but, he can multitask and still be an asshole while answering the question. And laugh at the reaction, then laugh some more the decades comment as the other rubs his eyes, because he positively has the looks of a display-tanned indoor hermit. A hermit who is having a bad time.

“Wanna help, or would you rather brood somewhere the umbrellas won’t be able to reach you?”

A mechanical click can be heard in the distance; now that there’s no music playing in the streets, the bad (and always slightly ahead of time) clocktower bell can be heard signalling quarter past midnight. This seems to catch Touya’s attention and remind him of something as he stares into a nondescript spot for a while. At the very least, Keigo is certain he’s not thinking about the question that slipped out and which he will regret- if he says no, it’s gonna be the disappointment… if yes, then it’s because of all the things that will definitely go wrong.

“... well, it’s not as if I had no time to kill,” comes the apathetic answer a few seconds later, although the wrinkling eyebrows are telling of his misgivings regarding the idea.

“...”

Now, hold on… hold on, he may have an even worse idea that he’s definitely going to regret…

Keigo taps his pointing fingers against the camera anxiously. “Actually… say, what would it take for youuu… to be my model tonight?” He takes out his best puppy eyes as he looks over to him with the tiniest smile, blinking slowly.

It’s as if Touya had another light induced migraine immediately. He looks almost disgusted, which… is hilarious. “For that I'll take both your life savings and your soul.”

Keigo stifles both a giggle and a sigh at that, resulting in somewhat of a snort. He must be put off by those umbrellas quite a bit. "Really…? If that’s all, fine by me."

The answer brings back Touya to a much more reserved, if not vaguely sceptical stance. “You… sure are ready to jump the gun for that, huh.”

"Well I, too, am asking a bit much of you out of nowhere, aren’t I?” He asks, shrugging. “I figured it was worth asking, at the very least… you fit the mood a little too perfectly, one doesn’t get an opportunity like this every day. If all it takes is my birdie bank, that’s fine by me. … We can also talk about the soul part later if you want to.” It takes him every ounce of self restraint not to throw in a wink at the end.

“...” Touya stares in contemplation before taking a deep sigh and scratching his head. "Fine. I guess it’s going to be much less bothersome than posing for hours to have a portrait painted."

Keigo’s ears perk up at that. Like, a lot. "Y---you… there's a portrait?!"

Whaaa?!? A professional-ass painting, of him?? And, even more importantly, where?!?

"... I know what you're thinking of, and no, I have not the slightest idea. Who knows, maybe it even burned along with---" he cuts himself off right there. For the first time that night, he seems upset, or rather angry; whichever it may be is the strongest emotion the blonde has seen him display in these past minutes, affecting even him quite a bit. His hairs stand alert once more--- but the sentiment goes as it came, along with Touya’s stifled ire.

"... never mind. Let’s just… get on with this."

"..." He figures that being nosy would be straight-down rude, having just met and already asking for quite a bit… so he lets it slide as if nothing happened.

Keigo turns around to the lampion that he placed before the convo started.

Huh… that’s weird.

He doesn’t remember lighting it.

Overall, Touya seems to pay quite a bit of attention to what he's doing, visibly taking mental notes of the processes he goes through. First, it's a little embarrassing to be watched so closely, but eventually Keigo gets used to it and just does his thing. He soon finds himself in the zone, in fact. Hell knows how much time goes by as he keeps clicking away, barely even instructing, but rather just basking in whatever the other does, giving the okay to everything. He’s not even bothered by the bone cutting cold that’s now heightened by a breeze, because Touya seems to be a natural, and by god, does his presence do things to him. He’s had phases of architecture, mixed media with cutouts and shadow play, birds, and abandoned places, but this… this must be what finding a muse feels like.

When he's looking for the misplaced lighter for the hundredth time again, it's already shoved into his face.

"You should just keep this in your pocket, angel."

"Ah, thanks." He takes it, then turns to Touya sheepishly while pulling his jacket tighter as the light wind blows especially cold air down his collar. "I've been… stupidly quiet for a while. It must be really awkward, uh… am I really not bothering you?"

"It's fine. I like having the company."

Maybe his voice is softer than before… or maybe he’s just imagining things.

“I, uh--- same.” Keigo feels blood creeping to his face, so he quickly moves on; “I have enough of these candles left for like about one more location. Any ideas?”

It takes Touya only a second of consideration before he nods towards the belfry ruins.

He flashes a smile; “Gotcha.”

In barely 10 more minutes, Keigo is speeding through the hundreds (whoops?) of photos he’s taken, walking circles around the ruin. His breath hitches over the one where Touya looked directly into the camera right by the wall. He’s gonna frameit and putitonhiswardrobedoor andmmmakeit his ppphone wallpaper---

He can hear a chuckle behind him, and remembers that whoopsie daisy, he’s not alone. “You're pleased as punch over a few pictures… It’s adorable.”

Keigo gets red to the eartips this time around, realizing that he’s got that goofy-ass smile Rumi keeps teasing him for. Unfortunately for him, once it gets pointed out… it always sticks. “I’tsjustthat---…!! I… didn’t think I’d get such nice photos at all? Moody scenery is nice and easier to sell, but I prefer lived-in spaces and models, anything that feels alive. Especially when they’re so pret...ty. Patient.”

Someone kill him.

“...”

The thin eyebrows twitch the smallest amount and for a torturous, silent pause Keigo wishes for some kind of deity to strike him down and grant a merciful, immediate death.

“I suppose I’ve had a few years to put some patience practice under the belt.”

He fights the urge to run away crying. There’s no way anybody exists who wouldn’t see right through that… at least he gets to see that cute smile once more.

He forces one on, too. “... I can tell.”

The wind starts picking up, distracting the other. Touya takes a look up to the moon, which has made quite some progress on its route since they’ve been there. Then there’s three clicks echoing through the night, signalling that it’s nearing 1 a.m. “Well… you were babbling about showing me, too, so you better hurry. I don’t have much time left.”

Keigo snaps out of the shameful frustration only to be legitimately ashamed. “Oh… sorry, I… hadn’t even considered that you had other business tonight.” Shit. He just assumed he had all night, but Touya was just humoring him until he had other business.

The other shakes his head. “It’s no issue, just get your fidgety ass over here already.”

As he makes his way over to him, Keigo feels something grab onto his leg and the familiar itch of thorns scratching up skin through his jeans.

Fucking vines again.

He should have expected this, shouldn't he. As he stumbles forward, he sighs in immediate acceptance.

He would have never expected being caught, though.

Nor Touya’s hands being as cold as a frozen piece of meat that can be felt even through his jumper and jacket. His touch sends shivers down his spine, freezing him in surprise first; if the strap didn’t get caught around his arm, the camera would hit the ground as his hand loses its hold on it.

What he’s definitely not ready for, however, is the arctic chill radiating from every inch of Touya’s, the same icy presence that he’s been feeling ever since… since he got close.

The thing that makes him break into cold sweat and brings even the blood in his veins to a halt, however, is the pair of forget-me-nots staring into his soul from mere inches.

Those beautiful, blue eyes, that… that are glassy and clouded and definitely not… human.

His lips part, but the scream dies off in his throat.

The realization flashing in his eyes draws a lenient, gentle smile onto the pale face. “You’re slow, angel.”

Keigo's paralyzed in what he can only guess is sheer terror, his body's last resort in hopes that the threat will just leave if it's not interesting enough to investigate. His mind, however, is racing and panicked as his inevitable end leans in for the kill.

Fuck.

Fuck, he's… dead.

He's dead, he's dead, he's dead---

He’s dead.

At least, that’s what he remembers thinking before passing the fuck out… not knowing who exactly he was referring to anymore. Because he feels positively not alive when waking up on the belfry’s cold ground, on the patch of concrete that lay behind where the catafalque used to be, surrounded by what remained of the candles and lampions he had brought along, and some of the flowers that people decorate graves with.

The spot where everyone suspected a former hidden path… or another grave.

He turns around, because now he remembers where he last saw the name Touya- it’s barely legible, but there it is, crudely chiselled into the stone right above the grey ground.

At first he supposes that the cold, empty feeling that seeps through his entire being must be the nasty cold and pneumonia he gets after the deed. As the days go by, however… the shivers and cold sensation persist and his dreams are plagued by endless mazes, fires, and haunting, blue eyes all the time.

His second guess for the cause of it is lingering fear: on the camera, he finds creepy photos of himself lying in the grave once he gets better. When going through them all, he considers to delete the ones he took of the other or use them for digging, (there’s no fucking way he actually hung out with a ghost, is there?) but… they all pop up as vaguely distorted landscapes, with light spots where a pair of eyes may or may not be.

Having stared blankly for like an hour at the one he really liked back then, he throws the camera into the corner of his armchair and doesn’t touch it for weeks.

This carries on through winter, in spring, and he's convinced of how badly he fucked up when even in the suffocating summer heat he feels the veil of an icy embrace.

Once leaves start catching rust again, the chill makes his bones ache, much like they did after the encounter. And it only gets stronger by the day. He hasn't shown the pictures, developed or otherwise, to anyone. Somewhere down the line he figured… that he should just give him the photos and trade them back for his soul, because hell if that dementor did not help himself to it right along with the kiss he definitely got but doesn’t remember. Trauma alone cannot possibly cause this.

It's midnight again. This time, he's already there, waiting for the toll of the distant church bell they had fixed and reset sometime in spring. The autumn fog is as thick as ever.

His grip tightens on the envelope; deals like this are notoriously hard to break or undo. Hell, the guy agreed to have the photos taken, creating a nice little loophole. Whether he printed them, deleted them all or whatever might be a moot point.

… no. No, he can't start thinking about this right now, if he comes he'll get this thing annulled, get his damn soul back---

As the last gong dies off in the night, a pair of lean arms slink around his aching chest and pull him against a body so cold it's scalding his skin.

"Hello again, angel," greets the voice, sounding a hundred times sweeter than he remembers.

…

Or maybe… he'll just let him keep it forever.

#DabiHawks #dabi #Takami Keigo #ctabb halloween bang 2019 #toukei #hawks #bnha fic #Kate writes

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feferipeixes · 5 years

Text

Innocence Is Not Knowing That You’re Innocent (4/5)

Belle knows her brother pretty well. He likes comic books, he cheats at board games, and he wants more than anything to be human again. So, when he wakes up one morning with no memory of the fact that he’s a demon, she figures there’s no reason to remind him just yet. He deserves some time to just enjoy being Dipper, and not have to be Alcor.

Unfortunately, she can’t hide Dipper from the demon forever.

Chapter 4: Night of the Living Dead (link to chapter 1) (2) (3)

Shout out to @toothpastecanyon for being a super helpful beta reader!

(See the most updated version on AO3!)

===

“Come on out, you look great!”

Dipper groaned. “This is humiliating! How again did you get me to agree to this?”

“You’re getting my ice cream for a week,” Belle answered gleefully. Was it a bribe? Sure was, but making deals with a demon so often had taught her that a good bribe can solve almost anything. It had also taught her how to craft a loophole, and since Dipper didn’t have his demon powers right now, he hadn’t noticed that if their dad bought popsicles for dessert that week instead of ice cream, she wouldn’t have to share any of it. “Now come out!”

Dipper made a noise that was clearly intended to convey just how displeased he was with the entire situation, but mostly sounded to Belle like an adorable, yowling cat. He shuffled out of the closet looking sullen. “Happy?”

“Yes!” Belle squealed and jumped around, the bangles on her arms jangling loudly as she did so. “That costume looks really good on you!”

He turned around, and flinched when he caught sight of himself in the mirror. He was wearing a long, sky blue poncho with pictures of birds flying across. He had grass-green pants and shoes, and a plush headdress that looked like the sun. It covered most of his head, leaving only a very nonplussed Dipper face sticking out. “I look ridiculous.”

Belle clapped giddily. “Nonsense, you look great, and it works because we match!” Her poncho was black, and studded with white little LED lights that looked like twinkling stars. Her long skirt and shoes were also black, and her headdress was shaped like a crescent moon. “It’s great, because we’re so different, we’re like... day and night!”

“Why do you get to be night?” he humphed. “At least you’ll blend in when it’s dark out.”

“I get to be night because I’m dark and brooding, and you’re sunny and delightful!”

“Belle, that’s the opposite of -”

“Well, you’ll be bright and sunny when we go out! You’ll have to be -- it’s Halloween!”

Dipper facepalmed. “Aren’t we a bit old to go trick-or-treating?”

“Yeah, we are. And it saddens me greatly! But we won’t be going trick-or-treating. We’re going to be going…” (she imitated doing a drumroll) “to a haunted house!”

He gaped at her. “What?”

“Onika told me there’s this old apartment building her family owns that no one lives in anymore because it’s full of ghosts and stuff! That’ll be fun, right? Ghost hunting, looking for mysteries, and all that?”

“That does sound fun…” He seemed to think it over for a bit, and then nodded. “Alright, sure. I’m in. But I’m not going outside in this outfit unless you make it two weeks of ice cream.”

“Deal!” She raised her hand for a high five, but Dipper had already turned around and was walking out of the room.

Oh yeah. This was just normal bribery -- no demon magic involved.

---

Belle was pretty pleased with her plan. A haunted house was the perfect thing for Dipper on Halloween. His powers were locked up, so he wouldn’t get summoned away in the middle of their fun. He always loved mysteries and exploring when they were younger, and since he didn’t know he was a demon, he could fear for his life just like everyone else! Yes, she thought, this was the perfect thing for him to get to enjoy while his Alcor memories were gone.

As for her? She honestly wished she could be going trick-or-treating. It wasn’t really true that they were too old, because she knew Alistair was taking his younger brother trick-or-treating, and that’s still technically getting to go trick-or-treating because adults usually give out sympathy candy to the teenagers who have to chaperone little sugared-up kids around town at night! But she knew Dipper wouldn’t enjoy it correctly -- sure, he had a sweet tooth like no other ancient demon she’d ever heard of, but scaring strangers into giving him candy was something he didn’t need to be human to do.

Besides, he was starting to figure things out. She was going to have to tell him soon enough. Might as well make sure he had some extra special fun before she does.

“Are we almost there?” he asked.

“Yeah, it’s just at the top of this hill.” She stuck her tongue out. “What, is Mr. Sunshine getting scared out here in the dark?”

“No!” he replied indignantly. “I’m just excited. Why again does Onika’s family own a haunted apartment block?”

“Oh! It’s a good story!” She pulled out her phone, turned on the flashlight, and held it under her chin. “Legends say that Onika’s family promised a group of construction workers that if they built a building for them, they’d get invited to fancy apartment dinner parties all the time. But when the building was finished and Onika’s family sent out the first invitations, the workers were left out! Then, a big piano hanging from a girder 15 stories up suddenly fell down and squished them! They swore to haunt the apartments and get their revenge on rich people forever!”

Dipper scoffed. “Come on, you just stole that from the legend of the haunted Northwest Mansion in Gravity Falls.”

“Who knows? It could be true!”

They came over the crest of the hill, and there it was: an old apartment building.

“...is this it?” Dipper asked, nonplussed. “Seems a little underwhelming.”

“Yeah! Come on, Onika gave me the keys.” She skipped up to the front door, and pulled out a jangly keyring. “I think some of these are to public pools, country clubs, celebrity houses… aha! Creepy apartment block key!” She unlocked the door, and the two of them were hit with a wave of stale air. Belle sniffed in enthusiastically, and then coughed. “You smell that, Brolock Holmes? That’s the smell of mystery!”

“More like the smell of mildew,” he responded, also coughing. Still, he edged past Belle and into the building. Smiling, she skipped after him.

“I think I found a light switch,” he said. There was a click, and the room lit up. The hallway looked positively from another era -- carpeted floors, wooden doors, a chandelier with incandescent light bulbs in it. There was a layer of dust over just about everything.

“Hallway seems pretty not-haunted,” he remarked after a minute. “You wanna take a look in some of these rooms?”

“Sure, but there’s no chance on earth that we’re splitting up! You’ve seen horror movies!”

“Yeah, yeah, I know.” He went over to the nearest door, and activated the opening mechanism. It was unlocked, and swung open with a loud creak. “Belle, can I have your flashlight?”

She hugged her phone to her chest. “Use your own, goober!”

“Sheesh, fine.” He pulled out his phone, turned on the flashlight, and shined it into the room. Not much of note immediately jumped out at them -- a dusty sofa, dusty coffee table, dusty chairs, dusty TV. He signaled for Belle to follow him, and they tiptoed together into the room. Once inside, they both shined their lights around in a wider arc, trying to get a better look at the room.

“Huh,” Dipper said. “Kind of a letdo-”

There was a loud noise, and the door to the apartment slammed shut. The twins both yelped and jumped about a foot into the air.

“Dipper? What’s going on?” Belle asked, voice shaking.

“Dunno, but the door’s not opening. Lights aren’t turning on either. Let’s, uh… let’s take a look around.”

“Alright…”

He set off toward an old bookshelf, looking more excited than anything else. Belle settled for poking at the kitchen table. It had some weird old cables clamped to the underside of it, but nothing else so strange as to call haunted. Which was just as well -- at this point, she wasn’t sure whether she really wanted the apartment to be haunted or not.

And then she felt a tap on her shoulder, which she hoped against all hope was just Dipper pranking her, but she knew her brother was awful at pranks, and furthermore she could see out of the corner of her eye that he was on the other side of the room, looking at books on a shelf. She gulped, resigned herself to whatever fate would befall her, and turned around.

There was nothing there. She didn’t know whether that made things better or worse.

“You were a fool to come here.”

Belle’s heart sank. “Aren’t you having fun, bro-bro?”

He looked up from the dusty tome he was nose-deep in. “It’s alright. Kind of eerie, but I was hoping to see a ghost.”

“Oh. Why did you say I was a fool to come here, then?”

“What are you talking about?” He dropped the book and rushed over to her, his noodle-y arms flailing everywhere. “I didn’t say anything. Maybe it was a ghost? What exactly did they say?”

She opened her mouth, and then a voice that Belle could now tell definitely wasn’t Dipper’s hissed “You’ll pay for what you’ve done.”

“You heard that, right?” she asked.

He nodded, and pulled his notebook out of his costume. Of course he’d brought his notebook -- he’d spent a lot of time researching ghosts and would want to have that research on him in a potentially haunted situation. “Let me see what we’re dealing with here. There’s the disembodied voice saying foreboding stuff -- that puts us at at least Category 3. Has anything else happened?”

“I felt a tap on my shoulder, but when I turned around, there was nothing there.”

He started to chew on the end of his pen. “Hmm, partial corporeality. Doesn’t really tell us much.”

“D-do you think it’s a ghost?”

“Definitely,” he replied, without a hint of nervousness in his voice. “I wonder if it’ll do anything else.”

“Do you want me to put on a show for you? Is that what you want?” came a voice from behind them.

Dipper and Belle swiveled around instantly, and found themselves face-to-face with an old man, which ordinarily wouldn’t have been too frightening, because it was Halloween and he might’ve given them candy, but this old man was pale white, glowing, and almost definitely a -

“GHOST!” they both screamed, and the old man started to cackle. They turned around and raced for the door, but the ghost got in their way.

“I’ve waited too long for you to show up! You’re not getting away that easy!”

The twins skidded on their heels and changed course, heading for the window.

“Nope! That won’t work, Sterlings! You’re mine now, and I’m never going to let you go!”

Belle’s heart was racing at the speed of light, and she felt like she was going to be sick. Beside her, Dipper was vibrating, and she couldn’t tell if it was from fear or excitement. He opened his mouth and the voice that came out was high-pitched and squeaky. “Wh-what did we do? Why have you been waiting for us?”

The ghost cackled again. “You don’t even know what you’ve done! That’s so rich. Here, why don’t I give you a reminder?” He started to float toward them, and Belle’s mind short-circuited.

“Simia arcu impetum ignis!” she cried, thrusting her palm forward.

“No, Belle -” Dipper started to yell, but it was too late -- a pulsating fireball shot from her hand and exploded halfway between Dipper and the ghost. Searing pain stretched over Belle’s arms, and the room was filled with screaming. Then, everything went black.

---

Belle’s eyes sprang open. It took her a moment to remember where she was and what was going on, and then she scrambled to her feet.

“Dipper?” she asked cautiously, although it came out as much more of a yell. She couldn’t hear anything over the ringing in her ears, though she wasn’t sure whether that was because he wasn’t moving or because of the explosion that had just happened. She tried to look around, but the room was too thick with smoke. She pulled out her phone, which was thankfully still in her back pocket, to see if the flashlight would help her see, and then she heard it.

A moan, low and warbling, coming from somewhere near her feet. She yelped and jumped up, readying herself to launch another fireball if she needed to. “Whoever’s there, show yourself!”

“Belle…” came Dipper’s voice.

Belle shined her phone toward the ground, and waved away some of the smoke. Dipper was lying on his back, face contorted in pain. “Dipper!” she yelled, kneeling down next to him. He didn’t look good, but she couldn’t immediately see any wounds so she figured he was probably at least okay for now. “I’m so glad you’re okay!”

“Belle… Ugh, you’ve gotta watch out next time. That… that spell was right next to my head, owww…”

His words were a little slurred, and she panicked for a moment that he was more hurt than he seemed. His body falling apart would be the absolute worst way for him to remember that he’s really a demon.

“What hurts, what can I do to help?”

“It’ll be fine, it’s just a headache,” he said, words interspersed with winces as he attempted to lift himself to his feet. “You know I’m sensitive to magic.”

She rushed to help him while mentally yelling at herself because actually she had forgotten that he was sensitive to magic because it had been a while since it had been relevant.

“I think we’re in the basement,” he said once he was steady on his feet.

“Let’s get out of here. This was a disaster.”

“No, this was awesome!” He bounced in place despite his obvious pain. “That was a real ghost! I can’t believe he has a vendetta against us -- we should find out what’s going on!”

“Are you serious? He was threatening to hurt us! We should go home!”

He looked at her up and down, and then at their surroundings. “Okay. Maybe a little recon would be good.” He didn’t sound particularly scared, but his hand mysteriously reached down to hold hers.

They made their way over fallen wooden beams and around broken furniture to a rickety staircase, which led directly outdoors. Belle let out a sigh of relief. They were out of there. They were going to go home, and she was going to call Onika and babble about the ghost that tried to kill them, and then Dipper would get his pinboard out and start drawing lines and conspiracies everywhere, and everything would be okay.

Then a familiar voice broke into her thoughts. “You stupid kids! Where do you think you’re going?”

They both swiveled around. The ghost was standing in a large hole in the side of the building -- apparently Belle’s fireball had a greater range than she thought. However, the ghost seemed a bit… different. He wasn’t glowing anymore, and was coughing through the still-settling dust, which seemed like a weird thing for a ghost to have to do.

Dipper’s eyes boggled. “You’re taking human form! How is that possible? Not even the strongest ghosts can do that without outside help! Are you working with a demon?” The last word felt like a kick to the stomach to Belle, but she clenched her teeth and said nothing.

“I’m not a real ghost, idiot!” The man broke into another coughing fit, and stepped out of the building. In the moonlight, Belle could see a sickly substance dripping off of him. “Haven’t you ever been to an arranged haunting before? You weren’t in any danger, you didn’t have to destroy the apartment!”

Belle’s jaw dropped. “An arranged haunting? Y-you’re not a real ghost?”

“No! This is just stage ectoplasm, and the door and furniture were all hooked up to a remote control! Did you even read the contract when you hired me?”

“Belle?” Dipper hissed. “What is he talking about? Did you know about this?”

“No, I swear I have no idea what he’s talking about! It… it must’ve been Onika! She’s the one who told me this place was haunted!”

Dipper facepalmed. “Stars above, why?” He took a deep breath, and turned to the not-ghost. “Sir? We’re sorry for uhh blowing up your apartment! We weren’t told that this was an arranged haunting, and also we’re only 14 so please don’t sue us!”

“Are you serious? You’re going to pay for what you did to me!”

“Okay. Plan B. Run for it!” Dipper hollered. Belle didn’t need telling twice -- they both started sprinting toward the hill.

“Stop, you hooligans!” The old man ran after them, surprisingly quickly for someone that old.

Belle glanced behind them. “He’s going to catch us!”

“No!” Dipper replied. “We can do this!”

“I can’t run that fast -- my costume is too long!”

“Gotcha!” came the man’s voice. He grabbed Belle’s wrist in a weird, twisting motion, and she shrieked in pain. She almost fell over, but the man held her upright.

Dipper skidded to a halt up ahead. “Belle!”

“Why’d you do that, you big meanie, that really hurt!” she gibbered at the old man.

He glared down at her. Standing directly beneath a streetlight, and still dripping with stage ectoplasm, he lit up with an ominous aura. “That’s what criminals like you get for destroying my business!”

“Let go of her, you… you monster!” Dipper yelled. Belle could barely see him in the dark, but something was making his eyes glow. She really hoped it wasn’t what she thought it was.

“Monster? Watch your tongue, young man! It’s you who’s the monster here! You’ve got no respect! I’ve seen your type before -- one minute you’re vandalizing private property, next you’re out there spilling blood and running from the law! You’re coming with me down to the police station. Some time in a holding cell will do you good -- knock some sense into you so you can be a decent human being!”

Belle gaped at the man’s ridiculous spiel. “Please stop, we’re sorry, please just let us go!”

“You should’ve thought of that earlier! You’re coming with me, princess!”

He jerked her forward by the wrist, and the pain made her vision go blurry.

“Stop right there!!” Dipper yelled, and his wobbling voice reverberated through the area. “Let her go now… or else!”

“You’re nothing but a miserable hoodlum, kid, and you’ve got some nerve threatening me after what you did!”

Belle managed to focus her eyes, and peered over toward her brother. He was definitely glowing at this point -- light flooding from his sun-shaped headdress, though whether he was aware of this she didn’t know. He pointed a finger at them, and Belle fell to the ground, released from the man’s grip. She scrambled away from him -- less because she was worried about what the man would do, and more because she was worried about what Dipper was about to do.

“Dipper, I’m okay -” she started.

“Why, you little gremlin! I’ll get you!”

“T͎̹͓̝͈̬̟͔̅͂͑ͩ̑͜h͎͕͎̮͍͙͍͔̎͊͑́̕͟ǎ͖̄̋ͧ̅ͬ̄ţ̛̼̤̖̙͎͖̦̬̽̆̃́̑ͅ'̶̢̨͚͚̮̐͊̾͊ͪͦ̃s͕͚̮̫̺ͪ̉̃͝ ̢ͭ̂̈̅͢͏͇̭̻͇̬̦Ė̦͓̥̹̠͎̈͊̇͗̍̕͟͞ͅN̶̳̮̜̫̭̣̝̣ͭ͌̉̈̃ͫ͌̚͞O̬͖͙̝͕̦̟͍̅̾̌͢U̷̞̰͕̞̗ͩͬ͑͊̄ͪ̈́͘͘G̛̫̞̱̍Ĥ͖͔̥͇̠̬͇̾ͩ!̛̗̥͆̆̋͐ͩ͊̽” Dipper screeched.

For a moment, the world seemed still but for the sound of Dipper’s voice echoing through the air. Belle heard a creak behind her, and rolled over to see the man almost over her. Then she heard the creak again, and looked up just in time to see the streetlight above them swing, once... twice… and then snap.

Belle screamed. The man paused, his expression twisting from anger to confusion, and he looked up to see what had frightened her. He barely had time to jump out of the way before the streetlight hit the ground and exploded, right where he’d been standing not a moment ago.

There was a blinding light and a wave of heat that seared Belle’s skin. She braced herself and squeezed her eyes shut in pain, but she couldn’t block out the image burned into her retinas. Through the ringing in her ears, she could dimly hear the man swear and stumble back, but she could barely concentrate on that, not with her heart beating so fast and her senses completely overloaded.

What felt like minutes passed as the heat of the fire and the ringing in her ears gradually lessened. When she opened her eyes, the man was a good twenty feet away. His arm was raised to point at her -- no, at someone behind her -- and he had a look of pure terror on his face.

He saw her move and jumped back. “Call off your demon!” he yelled. “I’ll leave you alone! Please just stop!” Then he turned around and ran away as fast as he could.

Belle’s heart sank. She didn’t want to know what was going on behind her, but she knew she’d have to get up eventually. She rolled onto her stomach, and finally dared to peer into the night.

Dipper was lying on the ground up ahead -- the glow was gone but she could see him easily because of his costume. She struggled to her feet and wobbled her way over. His eyes were closed, but he was still breathing. Whatever happened -- whatever he did must’ve taken a lot out of him. She planted her butt on the ground and buried her face in her hands. This wasn’t meant to happen -- it was just supposed to be a fun treat that Dipper would enjoy in a human capacity. And now…

There was a choking noise, and she picked her head up. Dipper, eyes still closed, spluttered for a bit, and then went back to slow, steady breathing. He looked so peaceful -- she tried to imagine he was just resting on the grass after a long day. He looked so harmless, too -- just a regular human boy wearing a silly costume and claws -

She felt something inside of her snap. Claws. Stupid claws! What was she doing wrong? Why did something have to blow up in her face at every turn? She balled her hands into fists and punched the ground, trying to hold back the tears. Why couldn’t her dumb brother stop being a demon for a single second and just be happy?!

She took a deep breath, in and out, and unclenched her fists. She reached a hand toward his, but before she could make contact, the air twisted weirdly, and then his nails matched hers. Dull and human.

Something hitched in Belle’s throat. She laid back on the grass, and let the tears fall.

(AO3 link)

#gravity falls #transcendence au #dipper pines #alcor the dreambender #belle sterling #dipper sterling #rrr #fic #long post #getting close to the end! ^_^#my stuff

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true-neutral-earth-elf · 5 years

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Tdp Crack Theory/fan lore: Avizandum and the Seven Cakes of Xadia

Avizandum is actually a very popular protagonist in Elven folktales, like Jack and Hansel who both appear in various stories irl. Their appearance is unknown and will often be attributed different features, and genders, depending on the story origin.

At some point after entering Xadia and getting past Sol Regem, Rayla and Callum find themselves getting roped into a production of the most popular of these stories, “Avizandum and the Seven Cakes of Xadia.” Callum is singled out to play the daring hero by the eccentric director, while Rayla works with the special effects. Zym watches the whole thing from beneath one of the bleachers, occasionally sneaking some elven equivalent of popcorn from the distracted children.

The story opens with Avizandum sitting upon a rock, pondering the meaning of existence. A cloaked stranger approaches them, asking why it is that they sit there staring into space. The hero shares with the stranger their confusion. Why are they here, what is the purpose for which they were born (“Elves are, apparently, quite fond of stories depicting existential crises,” Callum notes). The stranger listens carefully, then calmly answers, “Dear child, that is quite the conundrum! If you are, indeed, bent on finding the answer to your query, then this I shall offer you.” The stranger tells them of the Seven Cakes of Xadia, magical goodies concocted by the wisest of the archmages many centuries ago (“What kind of preservatives were those things pumped with?!”); each one granted the consumer absolute knowledge of a single part of life. The stranger hands Avizandum a map made of riddles which would direct them to each of the cakes. Avizandum considers the offer (“guess the only trait everyone can agree on, is his need to take time to think,”), to which the stranger prompts him to decide, “My child, I have a long journey ahead of me and little time to waste; yay or nay?” They accept, and go on their way to find the first cake.

The first cake, a red jelly filled delight which almost seemed to pulse, contained the knowledge of body. Avizandum had to endure a hike through the mighty dessert and traverse the tallest mountain, and suffered from starvation, dehydration, and sleep deprivation until they came to the place in which the cake was kept. They now knew what it meant to hunger and want for nourishment, which they had taken for granted living a comfortable life.

From there our hero began the search for the second cake, which granted knowledge of the world. The elf ventured through a vast grassland, inhabited by ferocious creatures of darkness and was constantly berated by violent lightning, hail, and wind storms. It was in that place that they learned of true terror. They found the second cake, which was filled with dry nuts, berries, and was decorated with edible flora, hidden away in an underground cabin with a heavy door. Avizandum now knew what it truly meant to feel safe, secure, and what peace that brought to the mind.

To a small, old town was where their journey led them. The elves of this place were cold to the adventurer as they knew not of this being’s character. Avizandum felt out of place amongst the close knit townsfolk; an outcast in the crowd. Loneliness, that draining specter, haunted them. But then, a child, of all living things, befriended them; the little one showed Avizandum the ways of the village and convinced their kin to open up to, and accept their new friend. Eventually the subject of the third cake came up, to which the townsfolk were thrilled to answer all questions of. They brought forth the cake and shared it with the adventurer. A welcoming scent wafted forth from the soft, warm, buttery cake; eating it reminded the hero what it meant to love, be loved, and accepted. The cake granted knowledge of companionship, friendship.

The fourth riddle guided Avizandum to a grand manor, in which a contest of streangth and wit was being held. The master of the manor had promised the competitors that the winner of every contest could claim any prise from his treasury; the fourth cake being amongst them. The hero struggled greatly with each challenge, and met defeat with anguish and despair. But their competition faired no better; they were on equal footing. So, Avizandum began training harder and harder, gaining recognition amongst their peers. They took each victory in stride and shared their celebratory spirit with the others. Finally, they had succeeded in every challenge laid before them and claimed the cake as their prize! This cake provided knowledge of achievement, what it was to fight and be respected. (“Interesting prospect..”)

The elven hero was puzzled by the fifth riddle as it did not give way to a location, but appeared to urge them to reflect on themselves (“Finally, something they’re really good at.”). Avizandum chose a place beneath a mighty tree and recalled the events of their life. Their memories came forth like water through a damn, first the recent uneventful ones, then the sorrowful ones, the fearful ones, the ones that filled them with range, and, worst of all, the regretful ones. The hero began to weep from the the bombardment of emotions until there was nothing left to weep for. Within that time the daylight had faded to night, Avizandum gazed up towards the full light of the moon. “Who am I,” they wondered, “Am I as pitiful as these memories doth testify? Or is this only part of what makes me a reality?” They thought back on their memories, but, this time, examined each and every one separately; carefully, they considered why these memories impacted them so much, why that one person from before said claimed something about them, how a certain event caused the others to occur, and it had shaped them. Avizandum closed their eyes and whispered into the night, “All this life I have lived and all has become a part of me. Though, I know and regret much of it, I shan’t purge it from my mind! No. I shall do better. Be better. Many more mistakes will be made, but I will face and accept them as a new part of me. I shall reach for my full potential!” Their eyes fluttered open, and right in front of them was placed the fifth cake. Avizandum took joy in slowly eating the cake, appreciating the bittersweet mixture of flavors that made it truly unique, and gained the knowledge of self.

Avizandum set out upon the road once the sun had reached its peak. The sixth, and final riddle asked nothing of them other than to simply walk and watch the world around them. So they did. No flittering bird went unnoticed, no ant forgotten, nor breeze unappreciated. But it what truly caught The elve’s eye was the people they passed along the way, for now that they knew themself they could now recognize the “self” in others. The other elves, though very much strangers, were alive just as they. Suffered in ways Avizandum could never truly know but empathize with. Lived their own lives as they learned how to in their youth. And loved their home in their own way, as they would have it. At the end of the trail waited the cloaked stranger who had sent them on their journey. “My child, it is good to lay eyes on you once again!” The stranger clapped them on the back, then asked in a cheerful manor, “Have you learned anything from this trip of yours?” Avizandum gleefully shared with their friend the details of their journey. Just as before, the strangers listened intently and waited until the young elf was through to speak, “And, what have you learned this day?” “My dear friend,” the youth spoke in a calm tone, “today I have have found that we, let’s say you and I, are different, yet the same. We are, to each, our own. Both on our own paths with our own understandings, which may coincide at moments like this, but shall remain ours alone...and that is fine. We shall walk our own paths, side by side.” The stranger smiled, and from his cloak brought out the sixth cake. This one was rather simple, it surface was covered in smooth, light blue frosting and had no real taste but sharpened the elf’s mind. The hero now had knowledge of things beyond themself.

Once finsished with the cake, Avizandum turned towards the stranger, “But, what of the seventh cake? There is no riddle for it, nor can I imagine anything greater than what I have learned.” The stranger shook his head, and replied, “My child, the seventh cake is one you will find on your own eventually. I could tell you now...but I wish not do so. Your journey has taught you what it is to live, and thus what to maintain in life. If I shared with you the seventh cake, it’s knowledge would either frighten or excite you. Are you willing to face the possible consequences now?” The youth wanted to reply with an enthusiastic “yes” but could not bring themself to do so. “If it is truly something I will learn later on, then I shall wait until then.” “Very well, my young friend, very well indeed.”

The curtains close, Callum and the other actors take a bow along with the director then exit stage left. After most of the audience cleared out, Callum, Rayla, and Azymondias were relaxing in the bleachers, comparing notes on how they nearly botched their jobs.

“So, what was the seventh cake?” The words of the fabled stranger still lingered in Callum’s mind.

“Dunno,” Rayla shrugged, “I never thought it was worth wasting time over. Avizandum didn’t need it, why should I?”

“I guess that’s one way of thinking about it.”

“Might I be of some assistance?” The two snapped their heads towards the direction of the unknown voice. A tall, robe clad elf softly approached them. “I’m sorry for disturbing you both, but I couldn’t help but overhear your question.”

“That’s ok,” Callum gave a welcome smile, blissfully unaware of the the look of caution on Rayla’s face, “Do you know what it is?”

“Yes dear...but do you really want to know?”

The human thought for a moment, “Yes.”

The older elf smiled. “The seventh cake is the knowledge of the hereafter; death.”

Callum blinked, and shared a questioning look with Rayla.

“Knowledge of death entails the cruel reality of life; that it has no inherent meaning. There is not a higher purpose, nor a universal truth to be found. In death our “selves” perish, and eventually the memory of us follows suit. The stranger in the story feared that this truth would destroy Avizandum’s view of the world, that they would lose their will to live, as many do.” they leaned back a little, gazing thoughtfully at the fielding, “Some people find comfort in this truth. No pressure from a greater power means that we alone possess the power to define our lives, as we see fit. In this way, we are free.” With a sigh, the elf returned their gaze to the surprised teens. They chuckled, “Come now little ones! Does this news change anything?”

Rayla hummed, “I suppose not.”

The stranger nodded, then turned to head off, “Then think nothing of it! You’re young and full of life, embrace and appreciate that. Go safely dears!”

(A/N: This was so not meant to be this long. Well, hope y’all enjoyed anyways!)

#tdp theory #tdp fan lore #tdp fanfic #the dragon prince #tdp #tdp elves #tdp headcanon #ask true neutral earth elf #writing #tdp avizandum #tdp callum #tdp rayla

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dracox-serdriel · 5 years

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Orion - Chapter Thirteen: Bird Snare (The Flash)

Title: Orion [AO3] [LJ] [FF] Chapter: Bird Snare Universe: The Flash Pairings: SnowJay (Caitlin Snow/Jay Garrick), SnowHunter (Caitlin Snow/Hunter Zolomon) Word count: ~5,000 Spoilers: All episodes through 02x18 Versus Zoom and all comic books that feature Zoom/Hunter Zolomon. Rating: NC-17/MA Chapter summary: Caitlin and Hunter both make their next moves.

Canon-divergent as of 02x18 Versus Zoom. Caitlin Snow and Jay Garrick meet under strange circumstances, but the attraction between them is immediate and the connection, real. Stranded on Earth-2, Caitlin fights for her survival against Zoom, the seemingly unstoppable meta-human who has fallen in love with her.

Set immediately after the events in 02x18 Versus Zoom, Orion includes flashbacks to missing scenes during canon episodes of the season when SnowJay was developing.

Read Orion from the beginning.

Orion Chapter Thirteen: Bird Snare

Caitlin was in the kitchen preparing breakfast for herself and RJ. Somewhere between cracking eggs and reaching for the toast, a sudden wind rushed through the room, rattling plates and dragging with it a lingering chill.

She should get a sweater.

She turned, and a man was there. He hadn't been there a few moments ago. Had he? Yet, here he was, this man with a painfully familiar face. Who was he?

"Caitlin?" he spoke. "Can you hear me?"

"Of course I can hear you," she replied. "You're right in front of me."

"Hold up, you can - you can see me?" the man asked. Before she could say anything, he blurted, "Oh, man! It finally worked! I'm dream-Vibing you, girl!"

Confusion followed this pronouncement. Why was he surprised that she could see him? Who was this guy, anyway? Wasn't she supposed to be cooking?

"Look, I dunno how long this will last," he kept speaking. "Caitlin, we're working on something, okay? We're gonna bring you home."

"What are you talking about?" she asked, confused. "I am home."

RJ started to cry.

-----

Caitlin jolted awake, disoriented by the sheets wrapped around her and the wailing from the crib beside her bed.

The image of that man's face - his horrified expression - remained fixed in her mind.

Cisco.

Caitlin couldn't remember any substance from her dream. Had she been eating with Cisco? Walking with him on the beach? Working together back at STAR Labs?

She couldn't focus, not with RJ's sobs. She pulled herself out of bed and lifted the toddler into her arms. His cries dropped to sullen whimpers. Her first thought was that he simply wanted attention, but he remained clearly distressed when snuggled against her chest.

She checked his forehead with the back of her hand. No, he didn't seem to have a fever. She glanced at the clock. Twelve past three in the morning, not a time he was normally awake. At least, not since she started caring for him. Was it normal for him - or toddlers in general - to wake crying like this?

Probably not.

As she walked down the stairs with a fussing RJ, she reminded herself that she could do this and that this was good practice. In a few more months, she'd be dealing with an infant. Frequent nighttime disruptions were definitely part of her future, so she might as well get a handle on it now.

On the chance that he was hungry, she ducked into the kitchen. When she took a sippy cup out of the cupboard, RJ reached for it, which she decided was a good sign. He must be thirsty.

She filled it about halfway with milk, and soon, RJ was busy sipping from his cup.

Please let this be enough to make the crying stop.

They both needed to go back to bed, so once he was finished, she carried the now-much-happier RJ back up the stairs, exhausted out of her mind, and all thoughts of her dream forgotten.

RJ settled back down almost immediately, but Caitlin was not so lucky. She curled up in bed but couldn't get comfortable.

At some point after Hunter had brought her back to the Comet, she returned to her room with a gnawing, rolling numbness that had taken hold of her. She had stared out the floor-to-ceiling window that made up one of the walls to her room for... how long, exactly? Minutes? Hours? Days?

However long she stared, her eyes never really adjusted to the dark. The moon was barely a sliver in the sky, and clouds blotted out the stars. Still, the ocean mesmerized her. Outside, not far from where she stood, sprawling waves collided with a pristine beach, falling back only to resurge again, swallowing a little more shore each time.

And here she was, hours later, lying in bed, and all she could do was think about those waves.

Was that what was happening to her? It felt like it. It felt as if she was slowly losing herself to an inevitable tide, sure and certain to consume her. It was only a matter of time before she, too, disappeared beneath the salt and sea.

Maybe she'd be better off that way.

With that thought, she fell asleep.

-----

About two hours ago on Earth-2, Hunter sped across the world, checking each of the former breech sites for any signs of activity, save for the one deep in the jungle near Gorilla City. It was never wise to trespass on the Great Ape's territory, but it would be particularly problematic now, when it might alienate them from allying with the Cause. They'd soon learn of the horrors Gorilla Grodd suffered, and they'd be out for blood. Preferably, the MTU's blood.

That was a matter for another day.

He could use the breech Vibe opened to draw Zoom back to Earth-1, but Team Flash actively monitored it. The last thing he needed was to become the target of yet another one of their blundering, desperate plans. Any interaction between him and them could result in their injury, and Caitlin already had enough reasons to hate him.

That's what happens to monsters.

No matter what, this monster needed to get to Earth-1 and back without any interference. So he identified the most fragile of the patched-breeches.

Vibe would sense his arrival immediately, and there was nothing Hunter could do to avoid that. But he could enter and exit from two different breeches, depriving Team Flash of any opportunity to intervene.

As he raced into his entry breech, he wondered what Caitlin would think of his tactics to evade Team Flash. Would she see them for what they were - her influence on a broken and angry yet reborn man? Or would she read it as weakness, as fear?

She wouldn't believe it at all.

A patched breech was similar to an opened breach; it just took a bit more effort to punch through to the between to cross to the next universe. Within a few seconds, Hunter burst into Earth-1 Central City.

Part of him envied this universe. Here, metahumans had a future unencumbered by elements like the MTU. In one of the futures he'd lived, he'd even witnessed this universe banning together to protect their metas from the encroaching MTU army of Earth-2. He had given serious consideration to abandoning his own universe in favor of Earth-1.

But then, Caitlin had died in that future. Hunter realized then that Team Flash couldn't keep her alive. He would have to do it, and he couldn't protect her, not in this universe, anyway.

He arrived outside her apartment complex, deciding to enter without his speed. Caitlin had given him - or, rather, Jay - a key, and it'd be nice to walk in, just like old times.

Hunter wasn't sure what he'd expected. A flood of memories? An overwhelming sense of longing? Whatever it was, he braced himself for it, and it never came.

Instead, he was in a very familiar apartment with the ghost of some other man's past joys haunting his footsteps.

As he collected photos from the living room, the phantom was the countless times they'd curled up with one another on the couch.

When he gathered items from the bathroom, the specter staring him down was the bathtub, where they'd spent more than one romantic evening unwinding after a particularly rough day.

As he made his way back to the bedroom, he felt the weight of the next spirit awaiting him long before he opened the door. He hadn't fallen asleep with - let alone, woken up next to - many people in his life. He never let anyone get that close to him. Not until Caitlin.

He packed her photo albums and her clothing in a room full of another man's memories with Caitlin. He felt the whisper of every touch, the sensation of every noise, the ripple of everything spoken here. But it was like all of that had happened with another man, a man he longed to be. A man who had let her in.

And she, in turn, had let him in. Into her life, her arms, her home, and even into her body. She hadn't just let him in, she'd welcomed him, wanted him. This was the first place he'd ever really known that feeling.

And he wanted it back.

But Hunter couldn't catch a ghost. The memories churned up, but he was no closer to getting Caitlin back. He refused to delude himself into thinking she would soften because he'd brought her some of the comforts of home. No, one act of kindness wouldn't be enough. He'd need a hundred - a thousand - acts of kindness before she'd even budge.

It was a good thing he was the fastest man alive. A thousand acts of kindness - even in the middle of a brewing war, soon to erupt - were well within his grasp. And this would be the first.

When Hunter walked out of her apartment and locked the door behind him, he sensed something inside himself shift. The joys of this place did not belong to an apparition; no, they were his now, like they always had been. It was up to him to make sure that they stayed that way.

Despite three heavily packed bags, he paced himself as he exited the building until he found enough cover to conceal the blur of his blue lightning.

He needed to clear his head, so he ran freely, zipping over the Rocky Mountains and down the west coast before returning to the outskirts of Central City. He had one more point of business before he returned to Earth-2.

Reverb had been a problematic minion, but he had had his uses before he overstepped his authority for the last time. He'd designed all kinds of meta-tech, including assistive devices that could, in theory, work across the multiverse, though he constantly lied about the scope and objective of his work to conceal his plans.

Of course, Reverb had been unaware of Hunter's background in physics and chemistry. Had he even an inkling of Hunter's genius, he would've known how feeble his subterfuge had been.

That was why Hunter knew that Reverb had invented a multidimensional communications device under the guise of a "Breecher Detection Alert System." It hadn't been fully tested, but it was based on fairly sound theory.

And unlike Earth-2, this universe still had a metahuman with multidimensional abilities. What Reverb started, Vibe would surely finish. He had the motivation; all he needed was the opportunity.

Earth-2 Linda Park, aka Doctor Light, had arrived at the meeting spot early. She looked pale and generally unwell when he blazed into the dark alleyway.

"You said you'd leave me alone," was the first thing she said.

It was strange how brave she sounded, but the quiver of her lips gave her away.

"Did I?" he asked in his modulated Zoom voice. "I told you, so long as you continue to work with STAR Labs on this world, you and your family will be safe from me. And that deal remains."

She visibly relaxed as she realized he had not come here to kill her.

"I have something for you," he continued. "Something I want you to finish, and a message to deliver."

"A message?" she repeated incredulously. "Am I just supposed to tell my new 'team' that I had a chat with their old buddy Zoom?"

"Tell them whatever you like," he replied. "Tell them everything about our arrangement. Tell them nothing. It doesn't matter."

"It doesn't matter?" she repeated, clearly confused. "Is that because you're going to... are you going to kill them?"

He considered her question. Doctor Light hadn't been a killer before she came to Earth-1, and her crimes had never been violent. She used her metahuman abilities to pull off bigger and bigger heists without any kind of physical harm. He once assumed that she did all this it because she knew that violent crimes attracted more heat, more cops, more retaliation.

Yet here she was, asking if he planned on killing her newfound team as if she genuinely cared about them.

Light had defied him. He couldn't let that stand, yet he also admired her for it. He decided against killing her when he realized he could use her to monitor Earth-1's STAR Labs, but that didn't mean he couldn't punish her just a little bit more. He'd let her stew with whatever unsettling thoughts she had.

For now.

"It doesn't matter what you tell them," he said. "Because soon they will know the truth for themselves."

With that, he left her with the package and raced back to Earth-2.

-----

Caitlin woke far too early in the morning for no reason at all. RJ was fast asleep, so she wandered into the bathroom to get ready for the day.

As she stood under the searing hot spray from the showerhead, she became alert and aware in increments, as if she hadn't quite finished waking up yet. Even so, accusation after accusation inundated her, refusing to abate.

She'd been so certain that Hunter had known about the baby, but his reaction had been all wrong. He'd been concerned and curious, but most of all, surprised. There was only one plausible explanation: she'd been wrong. He hadn't known about her pregnancy, and in her anger, she'd essentially locked her - no, their - prison forever. Whatever excuses Hunter made about holding her captive to protect her would be pale in comparison to the rationalizations he'd invent under the pretext of safeguarding his child.

No, not his child. Yours. Never his.

She tortured herself, reiterating those same thoughts until the water turned cold. But, as she toweled dry, she faced a particularly bitter truth: nothing had actually changed. If Hunter really was keeping her prisoner out of some twisted emotional connection - and she was starting to believe that was the case - then he was never going to let her go, pregnant or otherwise.

And how long could she have kept her pregnancy a secret from Hunter, anyway? Even if she could've concealed her test results, he would've cottoned on soon enough, either from all the adjustments she'd be making over the next few weeks or when she started showing.

At worst, her misstep had clued him in a few months early.

Assuming he hadn't already known.

Caitlin hadn't brought a change of clothing, so she returned to her room clad in the largest towel she could find. She fought the urge to collapse on her bed and sleep the day away. Now wasn't the time to give in or to give up, so she turned to her closet for something to wear.

She gasped - literally gasped - when she saw her favorite sweater. She pulled it out, and her fingers found the slightly loose right cuff and the wear spot at the right elbow. This was no replica; this was hers, from Earth-1.

Tears pricked at her eyes as she felt overwhelmed at the gesture.

Damn hormones.

Nothing had changed, whether or not Hunter had known about the pregnancy before. But she had successfully manipulated Hunter into crossing a breech to acquire some of her Earth-1 possessions.

She thought it'd feel like a victory, but instead she felt horrible. This wasn't her. This wasn't her.

Before she finished dressing, RJ woke up, unhappy and not afraid to express his dismay, so she carried him downstairs with her hair still damp, hoping breakfast would settle him.

And she spent the entire meal dreading Hunter's arrival.

Like always, food had been set out before her arrival: blueberry waffles - one of which was diced into very small pieces - and yogurt.

RJ fussed the whole time, unwilling to eat anything in front of him, but crying vehemently when Caitlin tried to take any of it away. It was enough to make her wonder if she was ready or motherhood. She had no idea what was wrong with RJ, and her patience for all the incoherent screaming was quickly evaporating.

She resigned herself to the sound of sobbing after fifteen futile minutes, leaving the inconsolable two-year-old to his own devices while she sat down to her now-cold meal.

Maybe she should run a few tests on RJ. He showed no signs of fever or congestion, but he could still be ill.

Or he might just be a two-year-old.

She decided she'd speak with Killer Frost just as RJ threw the remainder of his meal on the floor. Surely his mother would have some insight.

Thus, she rode down to the Comet, bypassing her "office" in favor of the second floor. She slipped into Unit C, but Frost wasn't there. Undeterred, she went to the floor's nurse's station, which was staffed by a familiar face: Roy Harper.

Not your Roy Harper. Earth-2 Roy.

"Where is Killer Frost?" she asked.

He seemed amused by her question. He sat back in his seat and asked, "What, are you, like, her sister or something?"

"You could say that," she replied. "Where is she?"

"Who wants to know?"

"Bellatrix," she answered.

Her response elicited an immediate reaction. His slouch vanished, and the smug half-smirk fell from his face.

"I'm sorry, ma'am," he said. " I didn't recognize you without your suit. Let me look up that patient for you."

Did Roy Harper just call you "ma'am"?

Roy typed something into the computer before he continued, "She's been moved to an intensive care floor for critical patients."

"Critical patients?" she repeated.

"Yes, ma'am. Level seventy-one, unit A. And, uh, children aren't allowed on critical floors - that's seventy to seventy-nine - not unless they're patients. But levels sixty-five and eighty-five have short-term day care for visitors."

"Thank you, uh - I'm sorry, I haven't asked your name."

"Berserker, ma'am."

"Thank you, Berserker."

Caitlin returned to the elevator and punched the number for level sixty-five. She didn't like the idea of leaving RJ in someone else's care, but she'd have to if she wanted to speak to Frost. So she dropped him off with a young woman who recognized him as soon as they stepped off the elevator. At least he wasn't with a total stranger.

"It's just a few minutes, Frostbite," she explained to him. "Just a few minutes."

She felt supremely guilty as she got back inside the elevator without him.

There were only two open units on level seventy-one. Most of the floor was a dedicated to Unit C, a biocontainment unit with an attached decontamination unit.

Caitlin spotted Doctor Midnight - one of them, anyway - working on a chart at the nurse's station. Unwilling to be held up by more questions, she ducked into Unit A.

Frost had been weak but definitely stable and improving yesterday, yet today her vitals had gotten weaker. Her first instinct was to consult her chart, but the patient was awake and starting straight at her.

"What are you doing here?" Frost snapped. "Didn't I tell you to get out already?"

"You did."

"You didn't bring him, did you?" she asked.

It was clear she meant her son.

"No," Caitlin replied. "What happened? Why did they move you here?"

"You mean the reject floor," she replied. "According to Doctor Midnight, I stopped breathing last night. Not sick enough to be on life support. Not well enough to get better."

"Don't say that," Caitlin said. "You just need time to heal."

"What for?"

"What for?" she repeated, indignant. "For your son."

"He's better off without me."

"How can you say that? He needs his mother."

"A mother who can't even touch him?" she shot back.

"You don't freeze everything you touch," Caitlin pointed out. "You're not freezing the bed you're lying in or any of the equipment touching you."

"No, just everything living," Frost said. "The only one who could survive my touch was Deathstorm. Our son didn't inherit that ability. My mother was a cold-hearted bitch, but she could hug him and wipe away his tears without freezing his skin."

"So that's it?" she asked, getting angrier by the second. "Ronnie dies, Mom dies, and you - you just give up?"

"You think I want to die?" she snapped. "I don't do make believe. I'm not getting better."

"But - "

"Remember your promise to me," she interrupted. "And whatever you do, don't bring him here. I don't want him to see me like this."

"You're not dying," Caitlin said stubbornly. "Not so long as I can help it."

"Tell me, why would you waste your time trying to save me?" Frost asked. "I'm a murderer, you know that, right? I've killed dozens of people. Possibly hundreds. A few of them were bad people that needed to die, but most of them were just in the wrong place at the wrong time... near me when I needed a nice, warm snack."

Caitlin asked, "If you're such a horrible person, then why did you save me? You could've used me as a battery like anyone else, but you didn't. You stopped that man from killing me."

Frost had no response for that.

"Maybe you think you're not worth saving, but I'm going to save you anyway," Caitlin said before she stormed out.

She made it to just outside the elevator before she realized that she'd said nearly the same thing to Jay - no, Hunter - only a few months ago back on Earth-1. Why was it that she was so dedicated to saving other people? Was it because she couldn't save herself?

No, saving Frost was strategic. She didn't have a clue - let alone a plan - for escaping, but she knew she'd need allies. A murderous ice queen with common decency and possibly a heart buried under years of detachment and resentment wouldn't be her first choice, but something told her she could trust her doppelganger.

Besides, she had worked with plenty of less-than-desirable people back on Earth-1, like Captain Cold and Heat Wave, and even Harrison Wells - or, rather, Eobard Thawne - after discovering his true identity. Even Team Arrow had worked with Malcolm Merlyn when times became desperate enough for such an alliance.

Screaming abruptly drew her attention. No, not screaming, an alarm. It was coming from Unit C.

She ran to help, but a flash of silver hurtled into her path, forcing her to come to an inelegant halt halfway to her destination. It was Hubris the fox.

Had he been following her this whole time?

Caitlin tried to go around him, but he kept adjusting his position to block her. When he started to growl and looked ready to pounce, she relented and backed away.

All she could do was watch from a distance as the alarm continued to howl. Doctor Midnight was in the decontamination area, donning some kind of helmet before his voice boomed over the intercom.

"All patients must be gagged before I enter."

What the hell kind of protocol is that?

The alarm went off because one of the patients was enduring a prolonged seizure. One of the healthy patients unceremoniously shoved a rag into the seizing patient's mouth - which was not safe or remotely acceptable for anyone having a seizure. Doctor Midnight didn't open the door until the other two patients were both gagged in their beds.

By the time the doctor entered to administer diazepam, the patient had been seizing for over five minutes, increasing the risk of status epilepticus and other dangerous complications.

But, why? Why did the patients have to be quarantined? Why did Doctor Midnight insist on gagging them before delivering even the most basic treatment? It didn't make any sense.

It makes sense if they're MTU employees. Maybe this is Doctor Midnight getting some revenge.

That wasn't right. She couldn't just let this stand.

"Bellatrix," Totem said as she entered from the elevator. "You are needed elsewhere."

"You expect me to leave after what I just saw?" she asked. "What kind of medical protocol requires patients to be gagged?"

"I understand your concern," she said calmly. "But the precautions here are all necessary. If you come with me, I shall explain on the way."

Caitlin wavered a few moments between standing her ground and leaving, but ultimately, staying here wasn't going to help anyone. Before she could remedy the situation, she needed to know what was happening.

So she went to the elevator, led by Hubris and followed by Totem, with an especially nasty bit of suspicion embedded in the pit of her stomach.

Before the doors even closed, she asked, "What was all that? With the gagging?"

"Those patients are all biologically related to a metahuman with speech-related powers," Totem explained. "The Metahuman Tactical Unit experimented on those three for over a year. We do not yet know the full effects of those experiments, so precautions are being taken."

It hadn't escaped Caitlin's notice that Totem had not only omitted the metahuman's name but was also vague about the meta-ability in question. But she'd recently let her anger drive her to some unfortunate choices lately, and she didn't want a repeat of that.

After all, the Comet had just been inundated with patients. Was it fair to expect Totem to know the name of every patient off the top of her head? Probably not.

Caitlin would consult the digital patient charts once she got back to her "office."

So, on to the other business at hand. She asked, "Where are you taking me?"

"To a patient only you can treat," Totem replied cryptically. "But before you meet her, you must put on your suit, Bellatrix."

-----

Hunter had unpacked Caitlin's Earth-1 possession as soon as he returned, sneaking into her room as she slept. His watched her for a little while, hoping that their next conversation would go better than their last. His plans to speak with her over breakfast, however, were foiled by reports of increased MTU activity along the west coast.

He couldn't ignore it, not with the proximity to the Comet. So he left to deal with it himself.

It was much worse than he'd thought.

In response to the Siege, the MTU had initiated global mobilization. And it wasn't just the MTU. All kinds of government agencies and private corporations were suddenly moving weapons and personnel. Even local law enforcement was out in full force, collecting any associates of known metahumans.

Zoom ordered the Cause to retreat completely underground. He couldn't risk his metas being caught, which meant desperate rescue missions needed to be taken off the table entirely. As a result, the Cause's network abandoned its intelligence gathering work, even the most remote monitoring posts.

Only a handful of metas could collect the kind of intelligence they needed to prepare for their next move. Totem's familiars could assist and blend in, unnoticed by counter-intelligence agents, but they wouldn't be enough.

Zoom spent the majority of the morning reassigning resources and crippling enemy supply lines. Slowing the MTU down would buy the Cause enough time to prepare.

Though, part of him knew he was also stalling. He was dreading the conversation he needed to have with Caitlin. It was far easier to burn cables and smash caravans than to face her again.

Which was why he was standing in her room in the middle of the day, knowing that she would be down in the Comet. Why is it that everything had to be coming to a head all at the same time?

"Hunter?"

Her voice made his heart jump into his throat. He turned to see her heading for her closet.

Somehow, she was even more beautiful then she had been just this morning.

"What are you doing in my room?" she asked.

"I came to drop something off," he replied.

"If you mean my clothing, I've already see it," she said. "Thank you."

"You're welcome," he said. "But, Caitlin, we need to talk about what comes next."

She crossed her arms, but otherwise didn't respond.

"If you are plan to keep it - the baby, I mean - there are things you should know," he said. "I thought it'd be easier to... I put all the data on this."

He held out a slim laptop, and she reluctantly walked over and took it.

"So, what?" she asked. "This is about genetic disorders in your family?"

It was a shrew question, and, admittedly, one he hadn't even considered.

"No, it's more general than that," he hedged. "And that laptop has been set up with an inter-dimensional intercom. It's not fully functional yet, but when it does - "

"I'll be able to talk to Earth-1?" she asked. "Why? Why would you suddenly be okay with me talking to my friends?"

He knew she was going to be suspicious of his motives. He couldn't blame her for that, but he also wasn't expecting the accusation in her voice to hurt him so deeply.

"Because, after you read what's on that computer, I think you're going to need them," he replied. "Caitlin, please, I - "

A blaring alarm interrupted him. Moments later, Blink appeared, running up the stairs to Caitlin's room.

"Sorry to interrupt," Blink said. "But Gigawatt and Geomancer have gone insane."

"I'll meet you at the usual location," he said to Blink.

She nodded before she ran back down the stairs.

"I have to deal with this," he said. "Whatever other work you have today, Bellatrix, it can wait. You need to read that first."

With that, he followed behind Blink, down the stairs and probably into the Comet, leaving an incredibly confused Caitlin in his wake.

Chapter notes: The title of this chapter, Bird Snare, is from the Maori name for the constellation Orion, Pewa-o-Tautoru, which means "Tautoru's Bird Snare."

Author notes (somewhat spoiler-y): This fic has previously mentioned dissociative disorders, specifically from Caitlin's perspective as a possible diagnosis for Hunter Zolomon/Zoom. While Caitlin, as a character, considers this a real possibility, I want to state here that that is simply not the case. Caitlin Snow considers the possibility that Hunter has a dissociative disorder because those were the insights inspired by her limited background in psychiatry/psychology.

I'm writing this note because I know that dissociative disorders are poorly represented and very often mishandled in pretty much all forms of media, and it's important to me that anyone reading Orion understands that this story is not meant to represent or describe someone living with a dissociative disorder.

#orion #flash fanfic #caitlin snow #hunter zolomon #zoom #snowhunter #snowjay #jay garrick #the flash fanfic #darkfic #caitlin x jay #caitlin x hunter #caitlin x zoom #caitlin snow x zoom #caitlin snow x hunter zolomon #caitlin snow x jay garrick #orion the hunter #it was written in the sta

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