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littlejuicebox · 3 months

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Mindwinter Carol 6 / The Affliction

Pairing: Ascended Astarion x Female Elf Sorceress OC

Word Count: 2.7K

Story navigation: [1] [2] [3] [4] [5] [6]

Summary/Setting: Based on the prologue/premise from my OneShot "A Midwinter Carol."

Astarion and the OC broke up after his ascension. She left Baldur's Gate for fifteen years, only to return just recently. Following the events of "A Midwinter Carol," Ascended Astarion has been convinced to pursue a new beginning. Will he be able to change who he has become, with the help of his ex-lover? Or will he ultimately fall victim to his pride and desire for power?

Preview:

He’s weak, slow, moody… and above all, he’s hungry. His hunger makes it difficult to sleep. Eirianwen knows this. She knows he’s struggling. So every night she traces her fingers along his scalp and hums an old Elvish lullaby until he’s fallen into a trance beside her. When Astarion wakes in the night his hands always search for her, desperate to pull her close. And she is always there. * He remembers how easy and instinctual it had been to reach for Ani all those years ago. But now, the Ascendant cannot even bring himself to hold her hand as she trances through the worst parts of the poison’s wrath, forced into a slumber by Jaheira.

Warnings: This will be 18+ / in game spoilers / Eventual Smut / Angst, trauma, fluff / Gore

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“You don’t remember anything about your family, Astarion?”

Nighttime seemed eerily quiet in the Shadowlands; no animals or insects rustle in the barren woods and even the breeze is stunted in this horrifying, lightless place. The low, constant hum of Karlach’s snoring is the only background noise in camp.

Eirianwen is perched in Astarion’s lap, facing him, her warm limbs coiled around his torso like vines around a tree trunk as he rests his head in the crook of her neck and breathes in the scent of her skin. She smells both crisp and sweet, like fresh fallen snow. The scent clings to his shirt even when they’re apart; a constant reminder of his attachment to the woman.

Their nighttime activities have consisted of nothing more than cuddles and pillow talk for weeks and yet she’s still here.

Astarion still doesn’t fully understand why.

He pauses, searching through the blurred, fractured memories. Most are smattered with hundreds of faces he’s crossed along the way; almost all of the faces are discomforting. He’s hoping, despite the answer he already knows, for any sign of someone that could be his mother. His father. A sibling, perhaps?

Nothing. It’s always nothing.

“No, Ani. I’ve told you before, darling. I don’t have a single solid memory from my past prior to… him. Just vague, fuzzy pieces I cannot associate with a time nor place.” He sighs, his tone betraying his frustration as he nuzzles his head into the sorceress’s nimble hand, searching for comfort. She idly trails her fingers through his silvery curls, lightly scratching his scalp.

She hums softly but doesn’t say more on the topic. She knows when to stop pushing him. He loves that about her.

He thinks he loves her. He still hasn’t said it.

“Ready for bed?” Eirianwen asks with a soft peck to his cheek, and Astarion simply nods in response. He’s often much quieter when he’s not in front of the others; when he doesn’t have to perform.

She climbs off the male elf and quickly settles into the bedroll before patting the space next to her with an adorable, sleepy smile. He settles in next to the sorceress and she resumes running her fingers through his hair. Astarion is sure it’s incredibly disheveled by now, but in front of only Ani’s warm golden eyes, he doesn’t care.

The Shadowlands have been torturous. The vampire spawn has yet to catch a single living creature out here, and he refuses to drink from Ani more than once every three days, despite her protests. He jokes they can’t both be operating at suboptimal levels or the group would simply fall apart.

They can manage without him, he knows this. He also knows that, like him, they can’t manage without Ani.

He’s weak, slow, moody… and above all, he’s hungry. His hunger makes it difficult to sleep.

Eirianwen knows this. She knows he’s struggling. So every night she traces her fingers along his scalp and hums an old Elvish lullaby until he’s fallen into a trance beside her.

When Astarion wakes in the night his hands always search for her, desperate to pull her close. And she is always there.

He remembers how easy and instinctual it had been to reach for Ani all those years ago.

But now, the Ascendant cannot even bring himself to hold her hand as she trances through the worst of the poison’s wrath, forced into slumber by Jaheira. The average course of Delilah’s prior torture toxins had always been between three to five days. Most people give up their secrets after that. The ones that don’t undergo a second round of poison, and most of those unfortunate souls die; their bodies simply give up on them.

He’s sitting in a plush wingback chair not more than a few feet from Eirianwen, staring at the old metal ring he’d slipped onto her finger before rushing her to the Palace. True Love’s Caress and True Love’s Embrace. Two physical symbols of twisted, tainted love.

How fitting.

Though, this time around, he’s the shield and she’s the ward.

In the Shadowlands, when they first found the rings, it had been the other way around. Ani had insisted upon this particular arrangement because without regular sustenance, the vampire had been weak and sluggish. In his mind, he’d been useless. And the sorceress had refused to wear the matching rings otherwise, ultimately forcing his hand. Despite the fact Astarion hadn’t yet told her he loved her, he wanted everyone to know she was well and truly taken.

Fifteen years ago she was his. He was hers.

Now the vision of the beautiful, silvery-blue haired elven woman in his bed is entirely unfamiliar and he attempts, and yet consistently fails, to sleep in the adjacent office.

The Ascendant lounges idly on a velvet upholstered bench in a well-appointed room of Sharess’ Caress. A golden goblet dangles through his slender fingers as he surveys the salacious scene in front of him.

The Drow twins are there, as well as three other workers, all engaged in different aspects of bacchanalia. It’s been just over six months since Ani’s been gone; he rents this room and pays for this show nearly every weekend, mostly as a distraction. Astarion only watches, never engages.

He isn’t sleeping well, if at all. He thought performing the rite would make the nightmares cease, but the moment Eirianwen packed her bags and left the palace he was haunted by the visions. Many of them were of Cazador; many were of Ani. Both were tortuous in their own ways.

Every time the Ascendant looks at his still-unfamiliar visage in the mirror, the bags under his eyes appear deeper than before.

Delilah enters the room with another bottle of wine and a sumptuous spread of mixed fruit and chocolates on a platter. Her straight silver hair is twisted into ornate braids and she is nowhere near as skimpily dressed as the other workers. The half-elf elegantly places the tray in front of Astarion and then pauses to watch the debauched scene before her with mild interest. Sorn is in the middle of performing his Menzoberranzan Love Trick.

“I don’t pay you to stand there and stare.” Astarion warns snidely as he pops open the second bottle of wine and assesses the woman through judgmental scarlet eyes.

Delilah emits a haughty laugh in response as she turns her hazel gaze to examine the elf, wholly unphased by the Ascendant in front of her, “You don’t pay me at all, my Lord. I assure you, I’m far too expensive for you to have had the pleasure.”

She saunters away before the vampire can counter, and he stews at the insult for the remainder of the night, far too distracted by Delilah to appreciate any of the worker’s finales. What a waste.

A few days later, he enquires Mamzell Amira, the owner of Sharess’ Caress, about Delilah, intending to purchase her services solely to prove a point. He’d been ruminating over the insult for days.

Astarion is informed that the half-elf is a shapeshifter and her lowest rates for different experiences are already three times as high as the next highest paid employee of the brothel. Now that, the Ascendant mused… that was interesting. He could use her services.

Perhaps in more ways than one.

Edmund is held in the dungeons underneath the palace; convincing Wyll to leave the bastard here had been no easy task. But shortly after downing Edmund, the Duke had been called off to another emergency in the lower city, a riot of some sort, and he’d ultimately relented. Nowadays, the Blade’s dedication and loyalty always remained directed at the city. Even his closest friends, his precious Eirianwen, came second to duty.

Astarion is quite aware he has to interrogate the foreign, piece of shit spawn, but he cannot be more than sixty feet away from Ani or the enchantments on the ring cease to work. Plus, a few days without nourishment makes one more inclined to spill their most disgusting secrets. He knows this far too well.

The silver-haired Lord is signing some documents for his steward, Pascal. The love of his life is in a forced trance the next room over, and yet business must go on and money must be made. His control over the city had already slipped since he and Delilah went their separate ways a few years back; he cannot let past-due documents be his final undoing.

The rules of bureaucracy are asinine, but in many ways – far more than he likes – Astarion is still forced to follow them. What is the point of being an all-powerful Ascendant when you still have to dance around nobles and patriars, relentlessly pretending you’re part of a society you do not give a single shit about?

The elf sucks in a sharp breath and abruptly clenches the quill in hand as a burning sensation courses through his system. It feels like pure acid in his veins. The pain emerges from the thin band on his index finger and shoots up his arm in an arc before circling itself around his body, as if following the course of his blood circulation.

It’s truly agonizing. But as the Ascendant, neither a surge of fire through his veins nor the effects of Delilah’s poisons are as potent as they would be on a mortal. He’s certain the rings are not completely doing away with Ani’s suffering, he can see the discomfort strewn across her face, even as she trances. But between the forced slumber and the ring’s enchantments, they’re saving her from the worst of it.

He hopes.

Pascal collects the newly signed piles of scrolls and then hands a small folded note of parchment, sealed with red wax, to Astarion. The Ascendant drinks a simple healing potion in order to combat the effects of the ring.

“This arrived just now, as well, my Lord.” The human male, with eyes just a bit too wide and a scar running along his face murmurs. Pascal had been the elf’s first hire when he took over the palace fifteen years ago. Back then, the man had been a spry thirty-something; now Pascal is a graying human approaching middle age. He’d unfortunately rejected Astarion’s offer to become a spawn.

Seems immortality is not as alluring as one might think. Pity, though. Pascal had proven to be quite useful over the years.

Jaheira appears in the doorway of Astarion’s office. It’s clear she’s quite uncomfortable within these walls, but she’s continuing on for Eirianwen. The druid purses her lips and meets the gaze of the Vampire Lord, “There’s been a new development.”

Astarion leaves the small folded piece of parchment strewn upon his desk and Umber curled sleeping on a cushion underneath it.

“You will regret leaving me… more than anything else you live to regret.”

They are sitting across from one another in their old booth at the Elfsong, a few weeks after their break up. He’d been positive this meeting was called because the sorceress wanted to reconcile. The Ascendant thought he would make her grovel a bit, but then ultimately take her back. Astarion had to punish her, if only just, to ensure she never considered such a ridiculous stunt ever again.

But instead, Ani told him she was leaving the city and going to meet Halsin in Reithwin. Astarion is convinced this is an intentional goad from the elven woman, some sort of manipulation on her end. He said what he did in a pitiful attempt to goad her in return.

Eirianwen tips her chin up pridefully as she smoothly stands from the table and evaluates the Vampire Ascendant. He feels his fingers instinctively flex with nerves as he watches her. Ani is far too calculated and far too unemotional as she glosses her eyes across his face looking for… something, though he still doesn’t fully understand what. In this final, painstaking moment, the male elf realizes this is truly the end between them. She is done. He almost retches on the spot but his pride forces him to shove the visceral reaction down.

“You’re nothing like the man I fell in love with anymore. I don’t know who you are. I hope you find the pieces of him still within you, someday.”

She would regret leaving him, that much was true. But Astarion would regret letting her go far more.

When Jaheira and Astarion enter the room, Ani is drenched in sweat and speaking in strings of broken Elvish as old memories flicker through her mind. In the moments Astarion had spent sitting at her side, the sorceress mentioned someone named Calinion more than once. The Ascendant assumes it’s a lover from her travels and the thought makes his skin crawl; he desires to know nothing more about the man and therefore ignores most of her mutterings.

Astarion’s garnet-colored eyes immediately notice the marred flesh of Eirianwen’s right hand. Small pinprick ulcers are beginning to form along her inner arm; parts of her smooth, vitiligo-patched skin are turning black. It’s starkest against the spots on her arms where her depigmentation has made the skin almost as pale as his own.

Her vitiligo was beautiful. The appearance of this affliction was anything but.

Astarion had never witnessed this from any of Delilah’s previous concoctions. But the changeling was known to experiment with new tinctures quite often; she excelled at torture and seemed to delight in finding new, innovative ways to inflict pain. It had been one of the many reasons the Ascendant had remained involved with her for years; she’d been an excellent informant.

“Necrosis.” Jaheira explains, her voice clinical but grave, as she brings a plush towel to Ani’s face and dabs at bits of sweat along the sorceress’s brow, “I suspect that, despite the rings, this poison — or curse, perhaps — isn’t targeting you because as an undead, nevermind an Ascendant, you are highly resistant. Try as it might, it cannot touch you. But it has to enact its damage somewhere.”

“There must be something you can do.” Astarion responds, brow furrowing as he takes the cloth from Jaheira’s hands and gently resumes the task, mostly to distract himself. He’s angry, and frustrated, but he tempers all of it down because Jaheira is his — their — only hope.

As the vampire blots along the sorceress’s face, his eyes focus on the small patch of vitiligo underneath her left eye. He wants nothing more than to bend over and press a gentle kiss atop it.

If true love’s kiss were more than a silly notion in a child’s fairy tale, he would have kissed her already.

“If there were anything I could do, I would have done it by now. But as you said yourself, Delilah’s concoctions are unlike anything we have seen. The remnants along Eirianwen’s wound contain highly unfamiliar ingredients; your old paramour must source them from quite far.” Jaheira murmurs and then sighs dejectedly, “The most I can do is try to limit the spread. But even my magic and medicinals are struggling to compete against this… atrocity. The poison should be out of her system in another day or two; the most we can hope is that it simply runs the rest of its course with minimal damage.”

Astarion twitches his fingers as he assesses the ill elven woman in his bed.

“I would not think about turning her now, Astarion.” Jaheira warns, reading the Ascendant’s mind as his eyes roam across the sleeping sorceress’ face, “She would never forgive you, and you’re risking Eirianwen remaining frozen, damaged like this for all eternity. Is that what you want? And more importantly, is that what she would want?”

Astarion inhales a slow, contemplative breath. Moments of silence pass between the two conscious beings in the room and then the male elf simply responds, “No.”

Jaheira isn’t sure which question he’s answering. She hopes it’s both.

He leaves the bedchambers without another word. Enough is enough. The Ascendant may not be able to travel down the several flights of stairs to the dungeons, but Edmund can be brought to him. Some of the worst things that ever happened to Astarion occurred in the many halls and rooms of this palace, rather than in the dungeons themselves. Cazador found ways to torture and punish his spawn no matter where they were.

Astarion is certain he can do far worse than Cazador ever did to the bastard responsible for Eirianwen’s affliction in the first place. Because unlike Cazador, the Ascendant has little reason to keep this fucker presentable. Or alive, for that matter.

Edmund will not remain tight-lipped for long.

Special thank you to my friend and lore queen @chickywickers for telling me the owner of the brothel is, in fact, not Sharess. Edited to fix. 😊

#astarion fanfic #astarion x tav #baulders gate astarion #baulders gate 3 #astarion fic #bg3 fanfiction #bg3 fanfic idea #baulders gate tav #astarion x oc #astarion x f!tav #astarion x female oc #astarion x female tav #astarion x original female character #midwinter carol #ascended astarion arc #ascended astarion #ascendedstar #ascended astarion fic

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synthetickitsune · 7 months

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Hello! I don't know if your requests are still open, but if they aren't just ignore this. May I request some romantic, fluffy & emotional content for Gwi (Scholar Who Walks The Night) with a human s/o who loves him deeply and is always gentle, caring and kind towards him? Like she genuinely respects him, and treats him with so much love? Cause look, I have theories about Gwi and affection. Namely that he was always treated like a beast and basically betrayed by his loves. But I think he is both touch starved and affection starved. Legit I feel like he'd melt for someone who gives him their heart sincerely, and sees him as a wise ancient being worthy of respect, rather than a monster to be destroyed.

PLEASE i could go on and on about my takes on gwi and affection and everything, he literally deserves so much more than he got </3 tbh i definitely will write more about this prompt because i want to give him at least some sort of happiness

Gwi (Scholar Who Walks the Night) | Affection fluff | 1k | (kind of implied) f!reader

Their voices join the water and blood dripping in the expanse of the cave, so do their faces, all of them just the background. If you were told they’re only another rock growth in the underground palace, you’d accept it without a second thought. So insignificant they were. Maybe not for the palace, for the grand scheme of things, but it’s always been easy to detach yourself from the world.

You’re not really looking at them, perhaps through them would be a better word. But when he speaks, your eyes surely find his profile and you pay attention. Most of what he says is mocking the humans standing before his throne. He’s sneering at them, taunting them. They can’t do anything about it. They can’t do anything to him. Everyone in the room knows it. So they come after the obvious easy prey.

“Gwi, isn’t it about time you got rid of the toy?” you know without looking at them that the official speaking is pointing at you. You’ve heard them mutter about him playing with his food before. And if you heard, he heard too.

“What toy?” the vampire asks, and you know that to them his voice is nothing but amused. But you don’t need his enhanced hearing to take precaution. When the backs of his fingers brush against your cheek, it must look to them like you’re motionless. You lean your body towards him just enough that he takes notice of your weight shifting on his lap. Just leaning into his touch isn’t enough. He’s a creature that deserves more respect than that. “Which one should I get rid of?”

If he only could look at both you and the subject before him, you know he would. Jealousy was never your strong suit. Even less so in the face of Gwi. Sometimes you’d get the feeling he doesn’t appreciate that. Other times you think he seems relieved. Either way, he was not for you, or any human, anyone, to own. You keep your eyes on him. The officials are predictable enough, all of them plotting, trying to figure out how to get their daughters involved, how to get closer to power.

They sputter and back down as they always do. Trying their most to stay in Gwi’s good graces while crossing every boundary clearly set. It’s pathetic. And the vampire is as predictable as them, so you don’t flinch at all when the gentle caress turns into a death grip on your jaw while his fangs bury into the flesh of your neck.

They run away. Of course they do after the vampire’s mocking. They take it as a threat to their family, so you don’t blame them for closing their eyes and turning their back. It is a threat. Not a fully empty one either. But the officials and their petty palace drama and power struggle are irrelevant and definitely not the thing your mind wants to focus on as it grows fuzzy. Your body is getting weaker but you don’t panic. You hear your heart in your ears and it’s beating steadily.

“Your blood tastes so sweet,” his voice graces your ears, his bloodied lips gently pressing against your cheek not a second later, leaving a mark, “I never tasted anything like it. Is it because you’re not scared of me?”

It’s not the first time Gwi wonders aloud about your blood. Perhaps that truly is the reason, maybe panic ruins the blood, just like when hunters try to catch their prey unaware. It wasn’t always like this, and you entertain the thought of your will and desire overrunning even your instincts and biology. Your tongue feels like lead in your mouth, so you can’t respond and he doesn’t force you to. Instead he guides your head to rest against his shoulder, allows your body to lean on his.

You feel a sense of guilt for being so weak. You wish he could feed from you all the time, drink your blood until he’s sated. He’s tried that in the past. He kept feeding from you day after day - as a desert, he’d claim - kept feeding from you right until you were on the verge of death. The doctors barely saved you. You never asked how did it happen that you were nursed back to health. Then again, did you need to? It was about that time that you started noticing that the officials despised you.

“Should I get rid of you?” he muses, and yet his arm is wrapped around you so tenderly it’d make you sleepy with comfort if it wasn’t for your desire to listen to him, “Should I set you free?”

You don’t think he’s playing with you, but then again Gwi is unpredictable at the best of times. Either way, it’s all the same to you. Your answer would always be the same.

“I’d worship you still,” you whisper, gathering your strength only to be shushed by the vampire holding you. There’s a smirk on his lips. Proud. But it softens. He knows. He knows. And maybe that’s why you get to be held by him.

“Worship is not a word many would use,” he sounds amused, and you enjoy how freely he converses with you. Not too long ago he’d be much more guarded. He’d snarl at you, make you feel like he’ll attack any moment. It’s a little surprising he allowed you to stay alive. You meet his eyes with a questioning look that he answers with a curious smile before he shakes his head. So you stay quiet.

He picks you up and carries you to the space he made for you, where your bed is hidden away from sight. You know once you wake up there will be a meal waiting for you to get your energy back. He lays you down and covers you with a blanket. He strokes your hair, reassuring you that you’re allowed to rest now.

And so you slowly, obediently, fall asleep.

#scholar who walks the night #gwi #gwi x reader #lee soohyuk imagines #lee soohyuk x reader #lee soohyuk fluff #lee soohyuk scenarios #gwi scenarios #gwi fluff #drabble #fluff #requested

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snoozingredpanda · 4 months

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Lmao I’ve had this in my drafts for months and forgot to post it. I really like the idea of yandere!reader lol might do something like this as a series on my other blog when I’m finished with Fenix’s little story

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Benni Winters — The Hunter

GN!Reader

Warnings: yandere!reader, human!reader, werewolf!benni, reader is slightly larger/stronger than benni, violence, mention of death (minimal), kidnapping/forced captivity

—

• Benni had never met anyone that wasn’t a werewolf. Isolated from the rest of the world, her pack were diligent that all non-werewolf entities were cruel and sadistic.

• Despite this, Benni had always been curious. She’d seen small groups of humans before, and they didn’t seem that harmful, often eating sandwiches on a blankets and smiling and laughing. She’d always hidden in the bushes during her observations, not wanting to be ‘hunted down and put on a wall’ as her father had said.

• Benni didn’t know why werewolves were hated so much. Apparently, another type of creature — vampires — were completely accepted, even though they sucked human’s blood for food!

• It was all so strange to Benni. Why did werewolves deserve this? What did they do?

• She knew to be careful when she finally left her pack to start her own. She crept around the woods, trying not to be seen, but unfortunately, she stumbled into a village on the night of a full moon.

• She never meant to cause such destruction. She never meant to throw three men into a house, killing two. She never meant to knock over a torch, setting fire to a haystack. Her mind just gets so fuzzy when she’s shifted. Her limbs are just so heavy, they knock into everything!

• She roars out in pain as an arrow thuds into her shoulder blade. Her flailing claw smashes into a tree, making it fall down, landing on a hut.

• She tries to get out, but men are flinging rocks at her, just making her angrier and more destructive. She wants to go home! She wants to go back to her pack! She doesn’t like being an alpha all on her own!

• Just as she saw an exit, something small and sharp hit her on the bicep. She instantly whimpers and falls onto all fours, her head swimming. Soon, she’s out cold, laying on the ground in a heap of bloody fur.

• You smirk and stride over to her. You were the town’s best hunter, and most desired spouse. A big, beefy person, you had the strength of an ox and the intelligence of an owl. Everyone loved you, but you were yet to find that special someone.

• You’d saved your village. As the cleanup started, you dragged Benni to your house, not sure what to do with her. A lot of nearby villages loved to butcher the werewolves they caught — apparently their meat was great for the winter — but you… didn’t want to.

• She was sleeping so soundly, curled up in the spot you put her, a large heap of bones and flesh. You kneel down next to her, gently stroking her matted fur. God, she was a magnificent creature. So strong yet so adorable.

• You spend all night washing her unconscious body and combing her fur, bringing her back to the fluffy thing she once was. You fall asleep next to her, cuddled into her poofy chest.

• The next morning you wake up to squirming. You’re still hugging the werewolf, but she’s returned to her normal state. She’s a little shorter than you, but not by much, her hair cut to the shoulders and tied back messily. She’s got beautiful silver eyes and pretty pink lips. The only recognition of a werewolf was her gorgeous russet ears and tail. She was just utterly brilliant. And also naked and terrified.

• You coo as you stroke her hair, trying to calm her but she manages to get out of your hold, sprinting to the other side of the room, crouching and cowering.

• As you try and approach, she growls as a warning. Back off! She wants to leave!

• “I’m not going to hurt you,” you say sternly. “What’s your name?”

• She just snarls in reply.

• “I won’t hurt you. I promise…” You say softer.

• “Benni,” she mumbles. You smile at her.

• “Hello, Benni. I’m Y/n.” You move closer, and she gives you a disapproving glance. “I’m sorry that you had to go through that last night.”

• Benni fiddles with her tail, before murmuring, “My shoulder hurts.”

• “It will. You got shot with an arrow. I took it out and cleaned it for you, and patched it up,” you explain.

• She nods gently, but it’s clear she’s extremely uncomfortable.

• “Let me get you some clothes,” you smile, standing up.

• As you’re walking away she asks hopefully, “Can I leave after?”

• You’re silent as you rummage through your closet for clothes. You sigh. “No. You’re staying with me.”

• Before she can protest you glare at her. “Don’t make me tranquillise you again.”

• Your sudden change of demeanour makes her flinch. She whimpers softly, curling up tighter. “But—“

• “Don’t talk back to me. You’re mine. I claimed you the moment I defeated you.” You narrow your eyes, walking towards her with one of your shirts.

• Her pout is adorable, and you swore you’d keep her safe no matter what. This was your werewolf now. Your pet. Your alpha… omega. She was an omega, you were her alpha. Biology meant nothing.

• You pretty much had to wrestle the shirt onto her — and it looks very good on her.

• Licking your lips you pet her ears, as she’s biting and squirming, trying to get away. She’ll get used to it. She’ll have to.

#yandere #oc #x reader #oc x reader #yandere x reader #fem oc #gn reader #yandere reader #yandere reader x oc

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blossom-hwa · 1 year

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the things we lost along the way | k.th

remember when I was crying over rewriting lavender mist for my writing workshop? this is the rewrite that nearly killed me. hope y’all enjoy this as much (read: cried as much) as I did writing it

Pairing: Taehyun x Beomgyu (can be read as romantic or platonic, it’s up to your interpretation really)

Genre: angst, apocalypse!au

Warnings: cursing, character death, mentions of blood and guns, zombies

Word Count: 5.9k

As the world around him falls, Taehyun keeps moving on.

Lavender Mist | TXT Masterlist

The end of the world isn’t as barren as Taehyun thought it would be.

Every apocalyptic movie he remembers—and to be fair, his memory has gone a bit fuzzy after years of trudging along cracked sidewalks and empty streets, not a single movie to be seen—painted the world as something gray, dusty, bleak, as though with the collapse of humanity, the earth would collapse too. Taehyun would watch, heart in his throat as survivors did everything they could to continue living even though the warm embrace of Mother Earth had long turned cold as marble. With the loss of her favorite children, the human race, it seemed she had lost the will to live as well.

Taehyun thinks about this some nights, staring up at the glittering expanse of stars in the dark sky. In the absence of artificial light spilling through the abandoned cities, they sparkle playfully, cheerfully, a milky expanse of jewels against the blanket of night, oblivious to the destruction that haunted humanity just several years prior.

And that’s how Taehyun knows the Earth doesn’t care.

Which makes sense. The Earth survived perfectly well on its own for millions of years before humanity decided to encroach on its territory. One glance around at the overgrown grass and flowers and trees, greenery shooting up from sidewalk cracks and tangling around abandoned cars and homes, tells all. As soon as humanity was ruined, Mother Earth took her territory back with a vengeance.

She never needed humans. Probably never wanted them either.

The few stragglers left in the disasters’ wake bow to her will and turn their attention to survival—slogging through the vines that choke the streets, hiding from the predators who have grown bold at the sight of their mother’s beckoning hand, fending off the creatures of their own creation, cannibalistic flesh-eating monsters with no way to satiate their hunger. They forge on, trying to survive and perhaps trying to live, but the two are not equivalent and the Earth has certainly tried to make the latter more difficult than the first, so more often than not the first comes without the second and the remnants of humanity become zombies of another kind—jaded, weary, husks of what they once were.

And yet day by day, night by night, when Taehyun wakes from his slumber under a blanket of diamond stars, he only rubs the aches out of his neck, slings his bag over his shoulder, and continues trying to live.

. . . . .

There was a time when he wasn’t alone. When he was not one but one of a group of what felt like many, those who’d survived the initial outbreak and banded together in the beginning. It was a long time ago but Taehyun remembers it anyway, a time when he could still pretend things might be okay.

But as the weeks passed, their numbers grew fewer and fewer. People set out to search for food and disappeared. Sometimes they returned as the undead. Others left of their own accord while even more became sick, and without the aid of hospitals and medicine they wasted away. Slowly, the group dwindled, until Taehyun remembers being one of three—him, and two boys he’d known in the time before. Beomgyu, a boy he saw at school. Kai, his best friend since they were four.

It’s Kai who leaves first.

Taehyun remembers him clearly—for his bright, wide smile that never failed to cheer Taehyun up, for his dolphin laugh that had helped him through many a bad day in class. For the way Kai’s fingers could waltz across piano keys in the most enchanting dances, serenity painted in every feature of his face.

For their close friendship even before the apocalypse took everything from them, and for the bullet hole Taehyun shot into his forehead when he finally died.

It happens like this. Kai grows close with two boys in the days when they number more than three, Yeonjun and Soobin. Taehyun likes them. So does Beomgyu. Together, when they’re five, it sometimes feels like things won’t always be this bad.

But Soobin falls ill one day, racked with fever and chills they can do nothing to get rid of. Yeonjun sets out to find something, anything to help—some water in a ruined supermarket, a can of soup from someone’s pantry, a yet unexpired bottle of ibuprofen—and promises he’ll be back in a day.

He never returns.

Soobin goes soon after, his forehead burning in the last moments before he turns cold under the unforgiving night sky. And for a while, it feels like—betrayal, almost. Soobin’s terrible fever, easily treatable in a hospital but deadly in the then-wasteland of an earth. Yeonjun’s broken promise, spoken with so much certainty but disavowed anyway. It’s bullshit, obviously. There was no betrayal there. Soobin and Yeonjun would have stayed if they could. They just…couldn’t.

But then Kai leaves, and that’s real anger. Real betrayal.

I’m sorry. But everyone’s leaving, and I can’t take it anymore, so I have to leave first. Don’t look for me.

That’s it. That’s all he leaves behind, familiarly messy handwriting scribbled in pencil on a scrap of dirty paper. Taehyun doesn’t have the note anymore, having crumpled it up and thrown it as far as he could once he could process the words, but he couldn’t forget those three sentences if he tried.

Taehyun wonders, sometimes, if things would have happened the same way if he’d been more observant. Less consumed in his own grief. Able to see Kai, really see him in the days after Yeonjun and Soobin left, if the emptiness of Kai’s silences had been able to permeate the dull gray of his thoughts. Would Kai have come to him? Would he have been convinced to stay?

Would Taehyun still have had to kill his best friend, been the one to hold the smoking gun as a bullet bore a hole in Kai’s brain?

It had been a month or so since Kai left. They looked for him in spite of his plea not to, combed the neighborhood for days as the undead roamed and the sun burned fiercely overhead. But then Beomgyu had a close call—too close—with a zombie, and Taehyun forced himself to clear his sight. Kai chose his path. He wouldn’t be coming back. So they moved on—as five minus two minus one.

And then, on a day as hot as an inferno, a shadow moves in the corner of Taehyun’s eye.

For a moment, he almost marks it off as a hallucination, as a mirage in the heat shimmers rising from the ground. Not real, not worth his attention. But then Beomgyu gasps.

“Kai.”

Taehyun whips his head around, and there’s his old friend in the shadows, staring back at them with shattered eyes.

Everything in Taehyun screams for him to sprint forward, to grab Kai and shake him and hug him and maybe punch him a few times. Say a garbled mix of something like fuck you for leaving and how did you find us and I’m so glad you’re back and what happened to you—

But from the black veins creeping up his neck, Taehyun knows exactly what happened to his friend.

“Taehyun.” Kai’s voice cracks on the syllables of Taehyun’s name, but his shattered eyes are clear, so clear. He doesn’t step forward, but Taehyun has to fight the urge to step back. “Please.”

Please. His head spins. Please. Please what—

Kai’s eyes drop to the gun at his side, and Taehyun understands.

“No.” He shakes his head wildly, finally taking the step back. “No, no—Kai—I can’t—”

“Please.”

The word pierces Taehyun’s skull.

“For me.”

Beomgyu puts a hand on Taehyun’s shoulder. He barely feels it, but he does hear when Beomgyu’s whisper flutters past his ear. “You don’t have to.”

In a way, Beomgyu’s right. Taehyun doesn’t have to—in the strictest definition of the word. He doesn’t have to raise the gun, put Kai out of his misery the way Kai wants him to. The world will move on if he doesn’t. He could turn around and walk away and nothing would be any different. Besides, Kai was the one who left first.

But—he does, though, in a sick, twisted sort of way. Because Kai’s been bitten and if he doesn’t die, he’ll live forever in the worst way possible. Because if Taehyun does turn away, he’ll be condemning Kai to a fate they’ve both agreed is worse than death. Because Kai is still his best friend, no matter what, and who is Taehyun to resist a dying boy’s last wish anyway?

Taehyun’s hands are cold. He doesn’t shrug off Beomgyu’s grip, the only true warmth on this blisteringly hot day, but he does manage to shake his head. “No,” he replies, numb fingers wrapping around the barrel of the gun. “No, I do.”

Kai stares up at Taehyun as he readies the weapon, shattered eyes almost whole as a little smile glimmers on his face. “Thanks,” he whispers, and for a moment, Taehyun can’t do it. Won’t do it. This Kai looks too much like the old one, the one with a bright smile and a dolphin screech laugh and dark eyes that glittered with mischief—

Dark eyes marred, now, by blackened veins crawling across his pale, burned skin.

Almost on reflex, Taehyun pulls the trigger. Bang.

What remains of Kai slumps over, blood and brains pooling in a deep red puddle on the dusty ground.

Taehyun stands there for a while. A second, a minute, an hour—he’s not sure, even now. All he remembers is feeling cold, so cold despite the sun burning his skin, unable to tear his gaze away from the remnants of his best friend.

“Taehyun.”

When he finally reacts to his name, Beomgyu has definitely said it more than once. His grip has tightened on Taehyun’s shoulder but when Taehyun twitches, the warm hand slides down to his wrist. “Come on,” Beomgyu says quietly, tugging slightly. “We need to go.”

Blood and brains, still open eyes. Taehyun doesn’t move.

“Taehyun.” The grip tightens. “Let’s go.”

Go.

Let’s go.

“Taehyun.”

Taehyun forces his eyes away from the bloody hole blown into Kai’s head. Vaguely, he feels the gun being peeled out of his hand, hears the safety clicking back on. Beomgyu tugs at his arm again and with a final whisper of his name Taehyun follows, numbly, Kai’s bloody face all he can see.

. . . . .

How do you remember the dead?

Even now, Taehyun isn’t sure of the answer. The internet is gone along with electricity—pictures on devices are inaccessible, phones useless without their chargers and cameras useless without a battery. Photos are easily crumpled and ruined, soaked by rain or marred with dust and grime, and the time it takes to properly sketch and color a scene to remember is a luxury no one can afford anymore. It’s not as if Taehyun ever had the skill for it anyway.

Memory, then. But the brain is a fickle thing, impermanent and messy compared to the printed photos he once held in his pocket, the pictures he had saved on his phone. It remembers what he wishes it wouldn’t, and it lets go of what he holds most dear. The voices of his family, his friends. Their smiles, their laughs. Ghosts, all of them—so faint, so pale compared to the horrors that haunt him now. These are the things that leave.

Kai’s bloody face is one of the things that stays.

It haunts him in the days after, the vision of blood and gore. The gun barrel between his hands. The broken look in Kai’s eyes. The trigger beneath his finger, the shot exploding through the air, Kai’s body falling in an almost graceful arc before it thudded to the ground. Beomgyu’s shaking fingers wrapped around his wrist as he pulled Taehyun away. It’s so vivid in the way Kai’s last smiles aren’t. It isn’t right. It isn’t fair.

Which is why—why, when Taehyun’s ears finally stop ringing, when he finally starts breathing, when he stops seeing Kai’s bloody face in every one of his dreams—why he can’t take it when Beomgyu finally tells him how.

Beomgyu. It’s hard to believe he’d barely known the boy before everything fell to pieces—just another kid he’d seen hanging around at school, loud and playful and endlessly kind in an almost careless way as though he didn’t realize he was as thoughtful as he was. He’d scared Taehyun a little, so brash and cheerful all at once, sweet chaos personified in his lightning sharp smile and laugh. Never did Taehyun think they could become close—he was quiet, reserved, a little cynical, nothing like Beomgyu’s joyous raucousness and optimism. At least not until Kai died, and there was no one left.

It had been five days. Five days after the gunshot, five days during which Beomgyu kept their one gun wide out of Taehyun’s reach despite the fact that he was probably a better shot than Beomgyu would ever be. It didn’t matter. He barely remembers those five days, but he does know he wasn’t thinking much. Just seeing. Feeling. Reliving. A faint smile, a whispered thanks, the trigger beneath his finger…

He’s lucid. He had to have been or he wouldn’t have heard Beomgyu’s words, the words he’d probably been saying for several days to unhearing ears. But he hears this time. Hears it when Beomgyu says—

“They’re still with us.”

Anger. Or something. Taehyun remembers that much. Anger isn’t the right word, but whatever it was it took hold of him and wrenched the grief from his chest and he remembers thinking how dare you, how fucking dare you try to say that now when there’s nothing left to substantiate your stupid hope—

“How do you know?” He had Beomgyu’s dirty shirt collar in his grip, the older boy looking up at him with eyes wide in confusion, surprise, burgeoning anger of his own. “How do you fucking know? How could you say that to me, how could you try and say that after I killed him with my own damn hands?”

And then he was crying, and his grip on Beomgyu’s shirt was gone, and every single tear he hadn’t been able to shed over the death of his best friend apparently decided it was the perfect fucking time to release itself, and he was crying, and crying, and crying—

Beomgyu’s face swam in his vision. It’s one of Taehyun’s clearest memories now, that blurry view of Beomgyu’s face drawn tight with a pinched expression Taehyun recognized from his own few encounters with a mirror since it all started. Because that was when he remembered that Beomgyu was grieving, too. That he wasn’t the only one in pain.

Yet despite that grief, Beomgyu’s eyes had turned soft. No longer angry. And Taehyun didn’t understand. Because he’d killed someone, killed someone they both knew and loved, so why was Beomgyu still here and trying to comfort him of all things when he was still in pain?

“He’s dead,” he’d sobbed. “He’s dead, and I killed him.”

“He asked you to,” Beomgyu had said quietly.

It’s true. Kai’s eyes had been so clear, so lucid when he asked, despite the blackened veins. Nothing like the glazed grief when Yeonjun and Soobin went. Nothing like the empty silence he’d held the night before he left. But even then…

“It wasn’t fair of him to,” Beomgyu continued, just as quiet. “But he did.”

Not fair. Not fair—not fair not fair not fair not fair—

“None of this,” Taehyun had gritted out, “is fucking fair.”

“It isn’t,” Beomgyu agreed. “And they know that.”

Clear as day, unsaid words had hung in the air.

None of this is your fault.

Then Beomgyu’s words, quiet, carrying like a gunshot through the silence.

“That’s why I think they’re still with us. And that’s why I dare to say it.”

. . . . .

So maybe it isn’t remembering, then. Just…a sort of knowing. Knowing that they were there. Knowing that they lived. Knowing that he loved them, and knew them, and that they loved and knew him too. Because he was touched by them when they lived, and so long as he lives too, a part of them will still be alive.

That’s what Beomgyu says, anyway, when Taehyun asks. It’s a dark night and they’re lying in another abandoned house, desperately trying to ignore the picture frames of a happy family haunting the walls. Some of them have fallen to the floor, probably knocked over by some ransacking survivor too worried about food to care about a few smashed picture frames and panes of glass.

Or maybe the photos just unsettled them as much as they unsettle Taehyun, and they actually gave in to the urge to throw them on the ground.

“How can you think that?” Taehyun asks, and there’s no venom this time. He wants to know. Because he still sees Kai’s face whenever he closes his eyes, blood and a smile and stifling smoke rising from a gun in his hand, and he needs it to stop. He’d like to think that way. He just needs to believe in it.

“I don’t know,” is Beomgyu’s first response, voice almost snappish and uncharacteristically sharp. He softens, though, as he looks back at Taehyun. “I just…” He swallows. “I don’t think I’d be able to live if I didn’t believe in it.”

They sit in silence for a bit as Taehyun mulls over Beomgyu’s words. I don’t think I’d be able to live if I didn’t believe in it. He relates. It feels like if he doesn’t believe in something, the grief will drown him alive.

But for some reason, he still isn’t convinced.

“I feel like I’m dying,” Taehyun says quietly. “Every moment, even when I’m not.” Drowning in what was, what is, what could have been.

“So do I,” Beomgyu replies. “But believing it makes things easier.”

“How?” Taehyun asks again, because for all he tries he can’t seem to understand. “I just—”

Beomgyu nudges his shoulder, cutting him off. “Look at the stars.”

Taehyun looks out the window. The black night glitters with little diamond stars, so bright and so beautiful that his breath catches for a moment. How had he never noticed them before?

“Sometimes, when it’s my turn to watch, I look at them. And I pretend.” Taehyun follows the line of Beomgyu’s finger as he points to the sky. His eyes glitter in the starlight, soft and shining, all-knowing, so full of a lovely foreign hope. “Like, maybe that’s my mom. And my dad, and my brother in that little cluster over there. And maybe Yeonjun and Soobin and Kai right…there.” His finger shifts slightly before it lowers. “That’s how, Taehyun.”

Taehyun keeps staring out the window, at the glittering expanse of starlight streaking across the night. He stares, and stares, and tries to summon the hope that sparkles so beautifully in Beomgyu’s eyes.

Instead, all he can think is that the stars shouldn’t shine so bright when everyone he loves is dead.

. . . . .

It’s not the only fancy of Beomgyu’s that Taehyun doesn’t understand. Beomgyu sees so many stars in the sky, finds hope in weird little things—a tiny flower by the side of the road, a single whole lollipop in a dusty convenience store, wind breezing past his face at night as it sweeps through his long, unkempt hair. It’s fascinating to Taehyun, really—that Beomgyu can go through so much, can see Kai’s bloody face in his memories every day, and still find something in nothing and believe it matters. Patient, relentless optimism, even as the world grows harsher and more unforgiving with every day that passes.

(“We still have good in this world,” he says one night under the moon and stars. “We’ve survived this long, Taehyun. I have to believe that someday, things will come back.”)

There are so many strange things Taehyun remembers about Beomgyu, so many of those twinkling stars in the night sky. Humming melodies of old songs to empty air. Breathing in the scent of flowers so deeply he choked. Making bracelets of five colors of string braided together one night as Taehyun slept, then looping one around his wrist when he woke.

“I found the stuff in a random room and remembered making these when I was a kid,” he says by way of explanation when Taehyun asks, shrugging almost carelessly as he ties off the braid. “Got bored when you were sleeping.”

It feels strange, the soft, thin braid tickling Taehyun’s wrist, shifting against his skin as he turns it this way and that. Five threads messily twisted and turned together. Five colors, five boys, five friends…

He looks at Beomgyu, raising an eyebrow to hide the lump welling in his throat. “You sure this is a braid?” he asks, and neither of them says anything about the way his voice catches on the last word.

Beomgyu sticks out his tongue and Taehyun has to hide a smile at how ridiculous the older boy looks, eyes narrowed and glinting with mock hurt and mischief. “You don’t need to wear it if you don’t want to, jerk.”

Even as Beomgyu says the words, though, Taehyun knows that nothing could induce him ever to take it off on his own. Because for all he doesn’t understand Beomgyu’s stars in a dark, dark night, there’s still something about the stars in Beomgyu’s own eyes that makes Taehyun want to listen to everything the loud-mouthed boy has to say. A candle lit in the dark, a rope thrown to the drowning.

A single star in Taehyun’s black night, the only one he could ever say was truly beautiful.

Which is why, perhaps, when the bracelet falls apart several months later, Taehyun feels like something in his chest has been ripped open and torn out. It was bound to happen, he knows—the strings were already thin and faded before Beomgyu found them, and the dirt and dust and grime of every day under the hot sun couldn’t have helped in any sort of way. But still, when the broken braid falls from his arm to the dust on the ground, he tries to pick it up, to tie it back where it belonged against his skin, dirty and faded as it is.

It's Beomgyu who stops him, a hand on his wrist. “Leave it,” he says quietly, his fingers wrapping gently around Taehyun’s arm. “It’s done what it can.”

Taehyun cries that night, tears running hot and silent down his cheeks as Beomgyu breathes softly in his sleep next to him. And when Beomgyu wakes up to his quiet sobs, he doesn’t stop the older boy from wrapping his arms around him, bringing Taehyun’s head down to his shoulder, and letting the tears soak into his shirt.

Because for all it seemed Taehyun never understood Beomgyu, it had always felt like Beomgyu understood him.

. . . . .

Material things don’t last. It’s one of the first things Taehyun learned in the days since his world fell to pieces—when the photos he carried of his family fell apart, victims of dust and rain and his sweaty pockets, when the mementos of home he tried to take became more burdens than memories and he had to leave them behind. When Beomgyu’s bracelet broke, leaving his wrist too naked, too bare, as if he’d lost a layer of protection against the weapons of the earth.

Beomgyu knew this. Taehyun was there when Beomgyu’s own photos became too crumpled and torn to salvage, when the braid he made for himself disappeared beneath the dust and dirt of the earth just days after Taehyun lost his. For all his sentimental nature, Beomgyu knows the world around him, knows that despite the hot sun, it is cold and unforgiving to those who have wronged it. There’s no space in their bags for luxuries, not anymore.

So when Taehyun finds the empty can of lavender Febreze in Beomgyu’s bag, he feels like he should be surprised. The last of the scent has long since been dispersed into the air, memories of the smell relegated to the back of his mind, so when it comes out in his hand he blinks a little and for a moment there is some surprise—he’d thought Beomgyu tossed it when it emptied. But then he blinks again, and Taehyun has to wonder how he ever could’ve thought Beomgyu would even think of throwing it away.

It had been a rare cool day when Beomgyu plucked the can off a barren supermarket shelf and shoved it in his bag, despite Taehyun’s raised eyebrows and obvious concern for the state of his remaining sanity. Taehyun hadn’t asked questions then, but when they found shelter for the evening, he’d raised a pointed eyebrow as Beomgyu produced the can from his bag.

“Don’t interrogate me!” Beomgyu had yelped, hands raised in mock indignation as Taehyun fought to hide a smile at his antics. “I’m innocent!”

“I wasn’t going to interrogate you,” he’d replied, giving up on hiding the smile. There was no point anyway, not when Beomgyu looked so carefree, so happy, so unchanged despite the cruelty of the world around him. “I just want to know.”

The hands came down, but Beomgyu’s smile stayed. “I don’t know,” he’d said, shrugging. “It was just there, so I took it.” Taehyun had snorted at that (the most Beomgyu reply ever), but he wasn’t done. “I guess I just…didn’t want to leave with nothing at all.”

Despite the previous levity, Taehyun remembers a tightness in his chest, a pricking behind his eyes as he stared at the almost garishly purple can in Beomgyu’s dirty hand. That was something he could understand.

“Do you even know how it smells?” he’d asked, ignoring the stupid lump in his throat. He’d never quite given up on that habit, not even long after Beomgyu proved he could read Taehyun no matter how he tried to keep his tears quiet.

But Beomgyu didn’t say anything, just looked at the can with a guiltily mischievous expression on his face. His finger rested on the valve as he looked back up at Taehyun, ready to shrug again as he grinned. “Look, it has to be better than everything we smell outside.”

It was better, but mostly because it’s hard not to be better than the stench of rotting corpses mixed with the tang of dried blood and coupled with the scent of blooming flowers in the hot wind that somehow makes it all worse. Strong, too—clearly a year of sitting unused on a shelf hadn’t done much to dampen the can’s scent. When Beomgyu sprayed it, more on accident than anything else, they had to stifle coughs and sneezes for too many minutes as the mist tickled their noses.

And yet they kept it.

Which is weird, because most useless things that Taehyun and Beomgyu, despite his inner child, would put in the same category as questionable year-old Febreze get left behind. It’s a luxury, and there’s no space for luxuries in their bags—not phones, not photos, not dingy string bracelets braided with threads of five different colors. Things like Febreze weren’t supposed to have held a place in their lives.

But as the days pass, Beomgyu carves a place for its too-strong flowery sweet scent. A tiny puff in the air nearby when they’re finally safe from a zombie attack, a small spray to freshen up their latest shelter after sweeping one too many piles of dirt out the door. And as they keep struggling through their barren world, emptying the can on their way, Taehyun begins to wonder—when humanity has completely fallen and another race takes up the earth, what will they be remembered by? Will it be the broken braided bracelets threaded in five different colors fallen by the side of the road? Will it be photos of the dead left in abandoned frames in abandoned homes, or stuffed in dirty bags and soiled by dust and rain?

Will it be an empty can of lavender mist at the bottom of a survivor’s bag, the strong, sweet scent of home still a wisp in the air?

Because for all the tickle of lavender mist grates on Taehyun’s nose at the start, slowly, subtly, it does begin to smell of home. Of rest. Of respite. Of Beomgyu’s comfort on the days when Taehyun can’t hold the gun for fear of seeing Kai’s bloody face in front of him, when Taehyun can only see death and disaster in every street they pass, when he can’t stand without the world crashing down on his shoulders. On these days, there’s always the weight of Beomgyu’s hand in his, the press of his body against Taehyun’s during sleepless nights, the brief dusting of lavender mist into the air…

And one day, the scent isn’t too strong. It isn’t too sweet. It’s a break, a respite, a piece of the old world that miraculously wasn’t lost even in the wake of disaster.

When Taehyun looks at Beomgyu then—really looks at Beomgyu—as he spritzes small bursts of mist into the air of their new makeshift shelter, it only takes him a minute to realize that Beomgyu feels this way, too. That he’s probably felt it for a long time.

So when Taehyun finds the empty can in Beomgyu’s bag, after the momentary surprise, he blinks once, and twice, and remembers the scent. Remembers the sentiment. Remembers this reminder, however, small, of home.

How could Beomgyu have thrown this away?

He tries the valve, even though he knows it’s empty. Nothing comes out.

It’s been three days since Beomgyu went. Three days since he showed Taehyun the bite festering black and red, three days since he drew the gun at his belt and weighed it in his hand, three days since he smiled at Taehyun, lips trembling, and raised the muzzle to his temple.

(“I won’t ask you to do it. I can give you that much.”)

Only then, with the empty metal can in his hand, does Taehyun finally cry.

For his parents, who were at work when the outbreak got to them and never managed to get out alive.

For his friends who passed first, three of the five strings that frayed over the years until the knotted bracelet fell off his wrist, one ill, one disappeared, one shot.

For Beomgyu, the fourth string and his only family left, his last thread of hope in this heartless world.

For him, Taehyun, the fifth string and the last one alive, so far from home and never to return.

Taehyun cries for the hope Beomgyu carried that was destroyed three days ago with a bullet Beomgyu shot with his very own hands. A bullet that took the last of everything he had, leaving him with—

Nothing.

(What will the world remember him by when he goes?)

When Taehyun wakes the next day, eyes red and cheeks sticky with tears, something in him begs to stay still. What use is there in forging on, in living when everything else has been lost, when there’s nothing and no one left to survive for?

(A crumpled family photo dissolved in the rain?)

Is there even a point?

(A broken braid of five frayed strings, buried under the dust by the road?)

Taehyun stares at the gun by his side. Loaded. Always within arm’s reach. So easy to lift, so easy to position, so easy to use. It would be so simple to mimic Beomgyu’s actions from three days ago. Lift. Point. Pull. Bang.

(Or the trail of bodies left in his wake, one ill, one disappeared, two shot with the very gun by his side?)

But he only rolls over. Stands. Places the empty can back in Beomgyu’s bag, picks it up along with his. Slings them over his back.

And starts walking.

(Perhaps a can of lavender mist at the bottom of a beaten-up bag, the remnants of a scent that came from home.)

In a world lost to monsters and the extremes of the earth, following the base human instinct to survive is all that is possible, sometimes. The dead litter the earth—bodies in the streets, memories in the air. To think of it all is madness. To try and comprehend it might be suicide.

But to forget, completely and entirely…

Many do. Many try. It is easier to shut off the part of the mind that loves and cherishes and remembers, to wither into a dry husk of what once was. But Taehyun remembers, bits and pieces. His mother’s gentle voice. His father’s booming laugh. Yeonjun’s reassuring grip, Soobin’s soft smile, Kai’s musicality woven into everything he ever did.

Beomgyu’s hand in his own under a night sky full of stars, fingers loosely intertwined with a promise of hope he will never understand.

So as others forget, Taehyun remembers, fiercely. Because while there is nothing left for him, there is still something left for those who have gone. A hope. A dream. A wish. A prayer whispered on lavender scented air, too sweet and too strong and smelling so much of home—a prayer that things will be okay.

And if they are, even if it only becomes true in the last moments of Taehyun’s life, he has to see it. For them.

It isn’t easy. It isn’t fair. Some days, his chest constricts so he cannot breathe. Some days, he can’t lift himself from the ground, so he tries to give up. But every day, when the sun sets and the moon rises and the stars come out to play, Taehyun remembers a hand held in his, starlight dancing in a pair of dark eyes. He remembers a cackling laugh beautiful even when it was hushed, the easy weight of a body pressed against his, the warmth of a smile that meant safety. He remembers an empty can of lavender mist at the bottom of his bag, its faint scent still perfuming the air.

He remembers a boy whose smiles never made sense, who found things beautiful Taehyun could never dream of comprehending, but whose hope was perhaps the most beautiful thing of all.

So when morning comes, Taehyun stands. Breathes.

And continues on.

The sun beats harsh on his brow. Branches catch on his clothes. The snarl of animals and the undead alike whisper faint in his ears. But day by day, Taehyun fights his way through the strangling embrace of Mother Nature, slogging through overgrown grass with sweat in his hair, cuts on his skin, tears in his eyes…

And the scent of lavender mist in his nose, no matter where he goes.

If you enjoyed, please don’t forget to reblog and leave a comment to tell me what you thought! Thank you for reading and have a lovely day <3

(1 reblog = 1 huge hug for Taehyun, and also a hug for me because writing this actually made me fucking cry several times)

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wafflesinthe504 · 1 year

Text

The Dragon Prince Headcanons

Lemon Tea: What are mornings like with them?

Janai/Amaya

After they finally admit they like each other and start dating mornings between the two of them are gentle even if communicating in the beginning is rough. In the beginning of their relationship Amaya often has to write to talk. She often leaves teasing notes for Janai in the morning as she gets up to check on her troops. Janai usually wakes up a few minutes later once the sun has fully risen and gets a good laugh at whatever note Amaya has left her. After they’re both done with their morning duties and responsibilities they’ll sometimes go back to their tent and have some breakfast together before facing the rest of the day ahead of them. In the beginning either Kazi or Gren would accompany them sometimes to make communicating easier.

Rosehip tea: How romantic are they? How do they show affection?

Rayllum

Callum truly is a romantic at heart. His romance style ranges from traditional to very cheesy. As soon as Callum and Rayla start to date he finds himself constantly drawing Rayla in different poses and situations. One of his favorite drawings of Rayla is one that shows Rayla sitting in the meadow in Silvergrove with the moonlight shining down on her with two fuzzy creature sitting one her shoulders. Its one of the moments where Rayla looked truly peaceful.

Rayla tries to be romantic, but things doesn’t always go as planned. She finds that she’s better at the more spontaneous moments of romance than trying plan something out weeks or months in advance. She likes to bring Callum to new spots in Xadia, different festivals, and back to her village. Rayla knows how much Callum loves learning about and experiencing different cultures so she always tries to make sure includes interesting tidbits of information while showing Callum around. Additionally, she starts carrying around a magical lantern that originated from the Sunfire elves that lights up with a bright flame at night. This is to help when Callum decides to capture landscapes and portraits of people at night. It doesn’t hurt that it also gives off enough heat to keep warm during the winter.

Janaya

Janai is extremely romantic. She loves planning dates and excursions for her and Amaya. For the wedding proposal Janai planned it out nearly down to the minute for months in hopes of getting everything right. Janai knows that Amaya doesn’t need all of the wining and dining but she just loves doing these types of thing for her fiancée because of how deep the fire of her love runs. Sure Janai has dated before but none of them have made her feel as loved, safe, and cared for like Amaya does. So Janai does her best to make sure Amaya knows how much she loves her.

Amaya isn’t nearly as romantic as Janai, but that doesn’t mean that she doesn’t show her love for her fiancée everyday, it just happens in the quieter moments of their lives. Such as in the mornings when she wakes Janai up with a few kisses anywhere and everywhere she can reach or at night when she drags Janai to bed when she’s burning the midnight oil with no end in sight reminding her even a queen needs sleep. On the nights when Janai simply refuses or can’t sleep Amaya brings her a few snacks and offers any help that she can give.

Rooibos Tea; What’s their favourite thing to do with their s/o?

Callum and Rayla’s favorite thing to do together is traveling around to different parts of Xadia and Katolis along with the other human kingdom. Rayla loves to show Callum all of the rare and interesting places in Xadia. She loves teaching him about the different customs and traditions that are apart of the moonshadow elf culture and Callum loves learning about it just as much. Rayla loves that Callum is always willing and ready to learn something new whether its some part of history that Rayla thinks is particularly interesting, to learning about the different creatures and plants, or even just something as mundane as a book that she read as a child. It’s the same vice versa Callum loves teaching Rayla about traditions and customs in Katolis and the traditions and customs there. He really enjoys explaining how humans manage to do certain tasks without magic. Callum also enjoys telling Rayla about the different sports that they have. They also find themselves in much funnier discussions talking about what a pinky is for and what having horns is like.

chamomile tea; what is their sleep schedule like? does it change around their s/o?

Rayllum Both Callum and Rayla have terrible sleep schedules. Its a simple fact. Callum often finds himself drawing and reading late into the night. Rayla is restless and has a hard time getting herself to stay still long enough to really allow her body to relax enough to fall asleep. Oddly enough though they both start to have a semi regular sleep schedule when they find themselves going on adventures. This is at least partially due to the fact any of their adventures tend to include a lot of running away from things or having to trek extremely long distances. It doesn’t hurt that during these trips that they sometimes find themselves on other side quests helping people they encounter along the way. As a result, by the time they are finally able to slow down and find a safe place to rest for a while their bodies are ready to give in to the appeal of sleep.

#the dragon prince #tdp #janai #rayla #callum #rayllum #the dragon prince amaya #janaya

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unicyclehippo · 2 years

Note

Hi! If you're interested and have the time, would you write what the first natural 20 or first death saving throw for the Hellfire club dnd campaign with the older teens? Really love that whole interaction with Robin and Will by the way, I hope they get to talk more as the game progresses.

eddie hadn’t expected it, that much is very clear from the brief horror that flicks across his face.

‘i’m dead?’ nancy says, and her voice shakes.

steve’s pencil breaks in his grip. the snap makes robin jump and he mutters an apology but can’t look away from nancy. he looks about as bad as robin feels; her heart is gonna get bruises from slamming so hard against her chest and her jaw aches from biting down so hard on her words.

‘you’re not dead,’ eddie says. ‘you’re just unconscious.’ his storyteller demeanour drops as easily as a cheap mask and he gives her a reassuring smile that quickly expands to all three of them. ‘talk it out, guys—harrington, you’re a cleric, buckley, you’re a ranger, i know you guys have healing spells—‘

‘yeah but she’s forty feet from robin and i’m even further back and cure wounds is a touch spell. we can’t make it, not this round,’ steve points out.

robin scowls at the map.

they’re fighting a pack of not-dogs. steve had gone pale when eddie first mentioned dogs around the ruins they were exploring; that was two weekends ago and robin had lingered afterwards, ostensibly to clean up but really because eddie didn’t know all the shit steve had gotten into in the years before. robin didn’t know much more than eddie, but she knew enough that having them fight dogs would bring back bad memories for him, and robin has been getting used to sleeping through the night again. so she stayed and told him about demodogs and no-faced man-things who drag people through portals and he had quietly added those to the list of things none of them wanted to talk about underneath vines and guns and clocks. which was why, when it came time to fight, eddie had been so fucking careful to describe something that wasn’t a dog. the creatures were blue and fuzzy and had stupid looking antenna instead of ears. bluffbears, eddie had called them—blue fluff bear monstrosities—and they had all laughed. steve especially hard.

they were stupid creatures and easily killed but nancy hadn’t rolled above a seven in hours and now her fighter was surrounded by three of them and unconscious. and robin is too far away.

a familiar pressure closes around her throat. the henderson living room kinda. flickers. everything goes hazy and bleak and desolate for a second—she’s alone, she’s alone, they’re gone, she’s alone—and robin swears she tastes ash. just as quickly, she’s back in her seat. she doesn’t think any of them noticed; steve is unfurling his hand from a too-tight fist, nancy is frowning down at her character sheet like she can make it work if she only frowns hard enough, and eddie is turning his skull ring over and over and over on his thumb, eyes flickering nervously over the map and their minis and his notes hidden behind the screen.

‘okay, okay, i can get within sixty feet to do a healing word next turn—‘

‘they’re going to try and eat her, steve, that’s not fast enough.’

‘but not a bad backup,’ nancy says, voice a little distant. she’s got a calculating glint in her eyes. ‘i have a healing potion.’

‘but we have to be next to you to give it to you,’ steve points out. the end of his pencil taps a frantic beat against his notebook.

robin scowls at the map. steve is down the other end from her—they had emerged from the ruins onto the rampart and nancy had insisted on scouting ahead of them as usual, and robin had lingered because frenchfry (her hyena) had smelled something weird—and now they’re staggered along this wall and nancy is on the ground in the forest and she’s too far away and dying and if she dies, the party will fall apart because they’re only here for him, for nancy’s character and his stupid noble lovely quest for redemption and—

‘i’m on a wall,’ robin blurts.

eddie nods. points with his marker. ‘yeah, the x’s mark the edge of the wall. you’ll have to get to the ruined part to climb down.’

robin looks him dead in the eye. ‘and if i jump?’

eddie blinks. robin doesn’t. all the way from the other end of the table, she can feel nancy’s eyes shoot up. boring into her.

‘robin, no,’

‘that’s a hell of a jump, buckley.’

‘how far?’

‘thirty feet.’

she doesn’t need to look at her health to know she’s doing bad. ‘okay.’

‘wait, wait, wait.’ steve plants his hands down, pushes nearly to standing. he’s scanning the map like there’s some secret on it, or way that he can do what she’s doing instead. ‘you can’t, dude! you got hit by those octopus things in the last room, you’ve gotta be hurt, right?’

‘i do it. i jump.’

#st tag #ronance #stranger things tag #tagging my stories #prompt fill #sometimes a dnd table is three bisexuals and a lesbian & that’s valid

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tsaritza-mika · 2 years

Note

Hey, if you’re taking HC requests, how about an MC who loves horse riding and somehow gains a foal as their familiar after the prologue ?

I can~ ^--^

The Main 6 with an MC w/ Foal Familiar

Asra

Immediately brings out all of the hair decoration things. Ribbons, beads, chains, charms, and a few fun hair pigments. That mane and tail is gonna be the most chaotic mix of odds and ends, but in all the best ways

Is so into this sweet little creature and how it just fits you so well

Only gave maybe about a half a second to thinking about how to keep it properly, then he heard just the cutest little whinny and it was right back to admiring them.

Yes, he totally bought some animal safe chalks and has drawn psychedelic MLP cutey designs on their haunch. Yes, he has also done a new one every day, and no, he will not apologize for art

Journeys are gonna be a breeze now that you have this adorable little guy! If they’re cool with it, they can help carry souvenirs from wherever you two travel. Oh yeah, and you can ride them later too!

Is just so happy and proud that you finally found a familiar to match your passion for riding, and that you can now have the same joy he feels with Faust

Nadia

You’ve always spoken of your love for riding, and while she had been planning to gift you a horse of your own, having discovered that one was your familiar is not only better, but now she doesn’t have to hope you’d like her choice to gift you

Honestly, some of your best dates and closest moments have been via horseback, and now with this little one, there’s sure to be more in the future

Blankets from her native Prakra to keep them warm, a comfortable stable to house them, and your own small team of people to help look after them as they grow

Of course after they’ve grown some, it’s only the best instruction to help them get stronger and even more stunning

When they’ve grown, the two of you go riding a lot more. Whether it’s just to get away for a while, or because they need their exercise, there’s nothing quite like the wind in your hair on a clear day to feel free

Her heart nearly melted when she found you sleeping with your familiar after a long day, in the stable she gave to you. You both looked so peaceful and happy, and to know she had a hand in that, lets her be happy too

Julian

Well that’s just fascinating... How exactly does this whole familiar thing work anyway? Is it based around favorite creatures in general, or perhaps the patron in question? Or is there some deeper meaning to all of this?

Still very happy for you, as now your familiar can enjoy your time together even more when they’re old enough for you to ride

Traveling will be a lot less complicated, since now you’ll have your own horse!

Gets along with it fairly well; he’s been around his fair share of horses and foals in his travels, so he’s excited to ride with you in the future

Instantly goes into mental logistics mode trying to figure out how to help you take proper care of it. It’s not like the clinic or the shop have enough room to house it, but he definitely wants to make sure you two stay near each other. And how much does it cost to feed it on a weekly/monthly basis?

His favorite thing is just how happy you two look together. To know that this spindly little foal is able to make you smile like that, it just makes him feel all fuzzy inside

Portia

Adorable, absolutely the best in every way! ...also keeps giggling whenever the poor thing stumbles cause it reminds her of her brother when he was young XDDD

Surprises you by building a little fence around the back of the cottage so you can keep them safe and close by

Absolutely wants to find a way to get Pepi to ride them!! I mean, can you imagine a more majestic looking scene!? And Pepi needs a hat!! They can both have hats!!

Braid party~!! Everyone is braiding everyone’s hair!! ...well, Pepi is supervising, but she’s the best supervisor, so it’s all good

The best at helping you take care of them. She loves nothing more than to help you brush them after a long day; it’s like brushing away all the stress and leaving a shiny, happy coat when you’re done

She could honestly talk riding and horses with you for hours. The way your face lights up, the twinkle you get in your eye, and just... you get so much more life in you when you talk about your passions, and she loves basking in that energy

Muriel

So chill when you bring the foal back to the hut. Before you even mention that it’s your familiar, he just starts building a little shelter for it nearby

Honestly just builds anything and everything you may need to help take care of it. Need a trough? Done. A chest to hold all of the brushes, tools, etc. to care for it? It’s in the corner

Muriel is honestly an undiscovered Disney princess, cause all the animals, even your new familiar, just fuckin’ love him without question.

He gets this cute little smirk on his face when the foal plays with Inanna right outside the hut. Just watching them run around and have some fun, and the fact that they’re such different species but are putting that aside, he just finds it beautiful

Surprises you by hand-making a saddle when your foal gets big enough. Also made sure to stain some of the leather to add some color, and press in some designs and a few metal studs for accent

So happy for you that you have a special connection with an animal friend like he has with Inanna. You’re important to him, and even if he’s never had a connection with many people, he really doesn’t know what he’d have done if he didn’t have Inanna

Lucio

OMG YES!! IT’S SO FREAKIN’ CUTE!! WHAT’S ITS NAME!? DOES IT HAVE ONE YET!? HE CAN HELP IF YOU NEED HIM TO!!

The best thing is how stupid excited he got when he realized that M&M and the foal were about the same size. He kept asking you if you knew for like a whole week, and it would have been annoying if it wasn’t so damn sweet

You’d be lying if you said he didn’t absolutely get them a pair of golden horseshoes

Nothing but the best for them, just like he does for you. He makes sure the best people he can find are hired to help you take care of them, and when traveling on the road, you have the most comfortable blankets, brushes, combs, feed, everything

He’s never really understood the whole... familiar thing, but he does get the feeling of bonding with animals, and since it’s not only adorable, but also a passion of yours, that just makes things even better!

He might not understand all of it, but he could honestly listen to you talk about your love of riding and horse knowledge for hours. Not much out there makes him feel calm, but watching you care for your foal, talking about caring for them and why, it just makes him feel so happy

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aqp799 · 2 years

Text

Segawatober 2022 Day 1 - Dreams

It's ya boi back at it again with the segawatober prompts. Really trying to do every day this year hopefully. Anyway, enjoy!

TW: Talks of death and mourning

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

Fukuro’s memories of their mother are fuzzier than Eddie’s, and she knows it. She wasn’t around for as long, and while she learned much from her, she still doesn’t come as easily to mind. And yet, in her dreams, her mother is still there. Fukuro dreams of soft, terracotta hair that she learned to braid with. She dreams of a melodic voice and work-hardened hands guiding her on how to make the best soup she’s ever produced. Of learning languages and ingredients and how to check for poison. Learning about spirits and other planets. Of simple, but important moments that shaped who she is. In the beginning, she would often wake crying as her brother comforted her through her tears. They both dream of mother, as she was in life as in death. It hurt in the beginning, but now it is bittersweet. She never wants to forget, but time is cruel and already she has become fuzzy like an old painting. But Fukuro knows she will never forget the most important thing, for she remembers the reason they started this journey of mourning. Her mothers whispered wish for them to go through the cosmos and cook for its people and learn from them too, to finish teaching them what she couldn’t. Owuls are active creatures, and their versions of mourning are no different. And so, as she nods off and dreams often, she sees her mother and remembers why she is doing this.

Eddie’s dreams, ever since mother passed, have been bittersweet. He can see her clearly, almost as if she was still there. He feels her warmth and her comfort, and it soothes the thing that hurts inside of him. He knows that Fukuro is much of the same, even if the memories aren’t as clear for her due to her young age. He dreams of her teaching him to cook, to take care of injuries, and to read. Her hands guiding him through the motions of building and repair. Her gentle smile and the wrinkles that softened her face. Her hands in his hair when she decided it wasn’t laying right. He remembers her stories of traveling before she settled down in her homeland again, of the many many places she’d been. He remembers her, even when it hurts, and he sees her in his dreams. And for that reason is he so set on their journey, because he knows that’s what she wanted most. Because even if she is gone, she is with them as they travel and see the things she always wanted to show them. They keep her alive, in the waking world and not.

And that’s all she ever could have asked of them. To allow her to watch over them, even when she is gone.

#segawatober2022 #woasu #walking on a star unknown #fukuro #eddie #dreams

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cloudbattrolls · 1 year

Text

Nowhere to Hide

Jameth Abnale | Present Night | Civitrecce

This drabble is set during In All I Am, Retrace Me.

Trigger warnings for ableist talk, internalized ableism, and addiction symptoms.

Jamie slept hard. He liked that kind of sleep, where he didn’t remember his dreams. But it made him groggy as he slowly came back to wakefulness, fumbling for his glasses.

He cut his hand instead, swearing. What…?

The rims and temples were razor sharp.

He snatched his hand away, taking a bandage out of his sylladex to wrap around the cut - clumsily, he couldn’t see well, everything fuzzy. What the hell?

Cautiously, he reached for his crutches too, using only the wary tips of his fingers - and was glad he did, for they too were sharp. He took his hand away, lying in his bed, still half-covered in his sopor filled sheets.

He began to feel…woozy. Lightheaded.

What was going on?

“Wondering what’s happening, Jameth?”

He froze.

He’d only heard that voice once before, but he would never forget it.

“Izanam!” He snarled.

Was she actually here somehow? He couldn’t even tell.

“What do you think you’re doing? You lost! Jikiro hates you, and he’s away right now, off to cure me!”

“Oh, Jameth. I don’t care if you’re cured or not.”

Her tone was chiding and impatient, as if he were a slow wriggler in a schoolfeeding crèche.

“It would have been convenient if you died, but it doesn’t matter if you live. All you need to do is end your relationship with him.”

He laughed spitefully. “No! I will fuck your signmate until he screams my name and you will get to live with it, old hag, though I hope for not much longer! Chew on that.”

“A vulgar retort that betrays your poor taste.” She said boredly. “Surely even you should think better of such activity with an undead creature of unfit body. You always seemed an intelligent boy, Jameth - it was a pity you were reduced to such a state.”

“Oh, thank you.” Jamie said sarcastically, fumbling in his sylladex for his spare glasses and crutches. “This means so much coming from you, really plucks on my old heartstrings.”

“Is it really worth all this fighting?” She chided. “Do you not think Jikiro will find a spade of better quality? Save yourself some pain.”

“He could.” Jamie whispered, his head swimming. “I know it every time I kiss him, every time he sees my broken body laid bare. He hates me anyway, and if he leaves me it will be because he chose it, not you.”

“Does it matter?” Retorted Izanam impatiently. “The end result is the same.”

“How little you understand, old woman.” Murmured the blueblood, finally finding his glasses, putting them on with a shaky hand.

She wasn’t here. The voice he heard must be nothing more than a magical projection. Clearly he needed wards for his apartment too.

“You really think tormenting me will get you anywhere? As if I am a wriggler to be scared so easily? Please. You don’t know me.”

“Don’t I?” She said with amusement.

The whole room changed to a scene Jamie knew in horrible, vivid memory.

His old friends.

Evrett. Lastha. Ayakko.

Him. Lying on this very bed.

He’d overdosed on pain medication. He’d barely lived. He’d screamed at hallucinations, clawed at his own skin and accidentally hit them too in his unaware flailing as they’d attempted to keep him from hurting himself.

They’d tried to help him. They’d tried when the others had dismissed him entirely. But they didn’t know what to do. No one did.

Lastha clutched her wombat lusus, frightened. Ayakko tried to hide their disgust. Evrett looked deeply uncomfortable, a purple bruise forming on his face.

Sorry, Jamie.

We can’t, Jamie.

Good luck, Jamie.

One by one, they all left.

He’d screamed and cried and begged to their retreating forms, done so until his throat had turned raw.

More medication. He’d scrabbled for it weakly. Anything but this. Oblivion. Even hallucinations. It was better than the real world.

A firm, thick hand on his.

Jikiro’s determined face.

No, Jamie.

No.

He gasped as the scene faded away, shivering, hugging himself. Had it been an illusion? Or had she poisoned him with something to make him relive his past?

“Is that…is that all…you’ve got?” He tried to taunt Izanam, but his voice cracked, weak and shaking.

Silence.

Her voice was gone, as if it had never been there at all.

As if he was hallucinating again.

Oh god, was he?

Had he slipped without even realizing it?

No. No. He refused. He’d beaten it, he’d won! He’d never go back! He was not weak!

Jamie’s claws dug into his trembling hands. He was real. He was here. He bled.

He could not force himself to grab his spare crutches, to get up.

But at least he could bleed.

His lusus flew over, making concerned hooting noises, fluttering his wings in concern as he noticed his charge’s self-inflicted wounds.

“It’s all right, father.” He murmured. “It’ll be all right. Stay with me and it’ll be fine.”

He shakily stroked the kookaburra’s feathers with his bleeding hands, leaving blue smears on the white feathers.

His lusus nuzzled him, then flew away.

Jamie didn’t know why.

He closed his eyes, slipping back into sleep once more as the moons rose outside his window.

#Jameth Abnale #cloud writes #yeah. not much to say for this one. sorry for Jamie's terrible sex joke but for once I think he's entitled.

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nyotasaimiri · 2 years

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Arc Two (redux) 55

The mech moved well under her touch, but the incoming meteor creature moved better. Hadley gritted her teeth as a bruise darkened over her left eye, souvenir from being knocked around hard by its first pass. “Right, eat synthetic lead, you rocky bastard,” she snarled.

Her shots smashed it right in half and Hadley cheered, fierce smile catching in her eyes.

“Watch for the pieces!” Lumen’s voice burst through as almost static. “That’s a masteroid, it’ll keep comin’ at ya until it’s dust!”

“What do you—aw hell.” Hadley pivoted the mech and brought up a metallic arm to knock the rock away again. The other rock slammed into the mech’s back and knocked her against the restraints. Hadley’s head spun too much to swear. She locked on as best she could and fired again and again until things stopped flying.

The silence crept in again, slow and merciful under her ringing ears. She dimly registered someone calling her name and snapped the mic back on. “Ow. I’m fine.”

“Knew I shoulda asked Arjun to put some kinda bio-sensors in there,” came Lumen’s grumble. SAIL’s whirring was distantly audible in the background. “Then again I ain’t sure those thing’re bio. Livin’. Ya know what I mean.”

“Your mech took a good hit there,” Nyota said. The whirring quieted; she must have been running a scan to assess the damage.

“We can get Arjun to beat out the dents later, right?” Hadley asked. “Bribe him with some coffee or mushrooms or something.”

“I am more concerned about the dents that put in you,” Nyota replied. She still sounded calm despite the implied worry in her words. Hadley still hadn’t figured out the tones in her almost-eternal calm and right now her head was a bit too fuzzy to try.

“I’m just a bit dizzy from them spinning the mech,” she insisted. “No harm done. They didn’t even do lasting harm to the mech, look.” She pointed at the energy readout on her screen before remembering they couldn’t see inside with her. “This thing can pick up ambient energy from them to fix itself.”

A few seconds of silence passed. Hadley had a feeling Nyota had muted the microphone to talk things out with Lumen. “Just be careful,” the captain said after a moment. “We’re ready to beam you out of there, but it will be safer if you make that call yourself before the worst happens.”

“Yes, mom,” Hadley quipped, registered what she had said, and face-palmed. “Right, forget that, you heard nothing. I’ll be careful. Right.”

“Of course.” That was Nyota’s carefully diplomatic flavor of calm.

Nyota let out a long breath as she switched the microphone back off and turned to SAIL’s display screen. She could see the pixelated icon representing Hadley’s mech in the center of the grid, and faint, fast-fading energy signals that were all that remained of the asteroid monsters. Debris was marked out in thick grey lines. There were no other life signs in sight.

“She didn’t do half bad for a first time,” Lumen said as he studied the readings. “I’ve seen those things do lots worse if ya ain’t prepared.”

“She will still need your attention when she gets back,” Nyota said. She didn’t take her eyes off the screen. Hadley was moving again.

“Sure. But so did ya, plenty of times, Captain,” Lumen chuckled. He patted her back. “And ya ain’t too much worse for wear for it.”

Nyota sighed. “It is easier to put myself in danger than it is to knowingly send others.”

Lumen hummed in agreement. “Makes ya a good captain, don’t it? Don’t trust a sheriff who’s scared to get their feet wet, that’s somethin’ one of my ol’ regulars used to say. ‘course, he ain’t gonna have an easy time getting’ his feet wet on Mars before they started terraformin’. But the thought counts. And sometimes ya gotta let the deputy earn their stars.”

That drew a small smile to Nyota’s lips. Somehow Lumen always knew exactly what she needed to hear, even through deciphering his odd turns of phrase. “I will try,” she promised. “Though as first mate, doesn’t that make you deputy?”

He hummed again. “Guess it does. Well shoot. Ya get the gist though.”

“I do.” Nyota glanced back at him long enough to offer a smile, and see his glow warm in response. “You will want to have that bruise cream ready, though. She wasn’t swearing, which usually means there was harm done, whatever she might claim.”

Lumen saluted. “Yep, I’m on it.” He patted his supply kit, then shook his head and chuckled.

Nyota tilted her head. “What is it?”

“Nothin’, nothin’. Just… thinkin’ how alike the two of ya are, that’s all.”

#repost #arc two

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allclonesneedkisses · 2 years

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Chapter 1: The Mandalorian, The Child and The Woman

General Summary: He doesn't take passengers. Unless they're paying him a small fortune. She's running from everything and willing to foot the bill of a six month long expedition across the galaxy. If that wasn't bad enough he's starting to fall in love. She's a sex loving chef he's a battle hardened Mandalorian, can I make it more obvious.

Chapter Summary: A woman propositions Din to guide her safely across the galaxy. Unfortunately right after they set out it becomes clear that his new passenger is going to be more work than he expected.

Pairing: Din Djarin x fem!OC (name revealed later)

Word Count: 2.3K

Tags: hurt/comfort, character introduction, Grogu is the child because they haven't met Ahsoka.

Masterlist

“I don't take passengers.”

She couldn't say she was surprised but right now she needed to get off world and off the grid and the Mandalorian was her best option. They were standing in the shadowy hallway just outside his hanger where she’d been waiting for him to return. She’d heard of Mandalorians, knew they were fierce fighters and known to keep their word. When she’d spotted him leaving the hanger it had felt like fate. Someone who had no ties to the empire nor the new republic. She’d stopped haggling with a twi'lek merchant, much to his frustration, to wait for the Mandalorian to come back.

She knew she looked shady but in this space port everyone did. She needed safe passage and protection and it looked like the Mandalorian would be able to provide both.

“Then don't think of me as a passenger, think of me as an employer.” He didn't move, his helmet eerily still. In the shadows there was little reflection off of his beskar giving him the appearance of a statue. Her eye twitched in annoyance and her headache throbbed but other than that she was as still as him. She gritted her teeth in annoyance. “I’ll pay for all the fuel too but we have to leave now.”

He shifted slightly, readjusting his pulse rifle on his back. “Rations as well and we have a deal.”

She gave a silent sigh of relief. She didn't care what he asked from her, right now she’d give him everything if he’d promise to take her. “You give me your word you’ll get me there alive?”

His helmet gave her no hint at his expression but after a moment he held out his gloved hand. “I give you my word.”

….

Only after they’d jumped into hyperspace did she relax, letting her fear and relief work their way out of her through shakes. The Mandalorian had retreated to the cockpit, leaving her alone in the hold. She’d found a spot between some cargo containers and curled her knees up to her chin resting her back against the cool hull, her body burning.

She woke with a start to the sound of babbling. She blinked her heavy lidded eyes trying to get them to focus with little luck. Her head ached fiercely and her wounds were throbbing and everything seemed a little fuzzy.

“Eh?” She felt tugging on her sleeve and she blinked again and looked down next to her. Big brown eyes stared back and big green ears twitched at her sharp intake of breath. She had no idea what this tiny creature was and in her confused state of mind she couldn't even begin to guess. It stared at her and she stared back before it pulled on her sleeve again.

“Uh, Mando?” She didn't want to risk upsetting it by moving. It might be cute now but what if it was actually dangerous?

“Mando?” She called louder this time, still not taking her eyes off of it. There was a curse from the cockpit and she could hear heavy boots approaching. He stopped just in front of where she sat but she didn't dare look away. At his arrival the creature looked towards him but its tiny green claws dug into her shirt.

“Eh!” The creature said pulling on her sleeve while still looking up at the Mandalorian.

“She’s a passenger.” She looked at the man, hearing the controlled calm in his voice, but all his focus was on the little green creature. When the Mandalorian didn't say anything else, the creature turned back to her and without warning smacked her on the chest. Somehow it had hit her right on top of her wounds and even though it’s hand was tiny she hissed in pain.

“What have I told you about hitting?” She looked up to ask what was going on and only then did she realized he had his hand on the blaster at his hip. She swallowed and focused on his blank visor; whatever this creature was he was more afraid of her hurting it than the other way around. At least that was a comfort. The little green hand smacked her in the chest again and she winced but made no move to pull away. At that the Mandalorian went down on one knee and she flinched away but his focus was on the small creature.

It was an odd sight, the heavily armored Mandalorian grasping the creature's tiny hands. “No hitting.” The modulator in his helmet made his statement sound flat but it was obvious he was trying to be stern. Carefully he pulled at the claws still attached to her shirt but the thing had punctured the cloth and twisted it tightly in its little fists.

“What do I- can I help?” She hadn't moved yet, and she wasn't about to move without his permission, not with him so close. The visor turned fractionally in her direction and he seemed to be mulling her question over, gauging her threat level. He dipped his head slightly and removed his own hands from the tiny tangled ones. She moved slowly not wanting to startle either of them and worked on untangling the little fingers.

“Bah.” The creature said, craning its head to look into her face. For being so small it sure had a strong grip. As she carefully pulled, she realized what its claws were actually hooked on.

“It’s uh. It’s stuck on my bandages.” She muttered.

“Bah!” The creature nodded vigorously at her, pulling again. After that discovery it didn't take too long to get the little hands free. It would have gone faster if the Mandalorian hadn't been watching her so intently and if her hands hadn't been so shaky. The moment it was free, the Mandalorian scooped the creature up into his arms and retreated back into the cockpit without a word.

She didn't move, too tired to really react to the whole thing. Her chest still stung from the small smacks and she wouldn't be surprised if one of the wounds there had opened back up. She licked her chapped lips and closed her tired eyes finding it almost too much of an effort to keep them open. She was hot under all her layers but she was so tired she couldn't be bothered to take any off.

The next time she woke up it was in a confusing daze, the only thing she was really aware of was someone roughly shaking her. “Hey.” A voice called out but it sounded muffled and she couldn't tell where it was coming from. Her head was roaring and she couldn't seem to open her eyes. Through her muddy sensed she felt something cool placed on her forehead before she passed back out.

….

When he’d gone to check on her later she’d been in the same spot, except sprawled on the floor unconscious. He’d made sure she was still breathing but when he checked her heart rate with his bare hands he could tell right away something was wrong.

Her skin was burning hot and her heart was racing. He shook her but she didn't respond besides a slight flutter of her eyelids.

“Hey.” She still didn't react and he placed his hand on her forehead trying to figure out how bad her fever was. He sighed and straightened before heading back to the cockpit. He pulled up the lightspeed trajectory map to see if there was a safe place to land and find a doctor. Their best bet would be Mos Eisley, about six hours out. He checked where they currently were and dropped out of hyperspace with a sigh. He turned all the ship sensors as high as they would go as the computer plotted a new route. At the drop in speed a small coo came from the closed pram to his right. Without looking he tapped the control for it to open.

His eyes were fixed on his instruments but he was listening to the child move around beside him. There was a ding from the computer and he quickly punched in the new course and they jumped back into hyperspace. He looked over just in time to see the child slipping out of the pram. Gently he scooped him back up before he got very far.

“I want you to stay up here for now okay?” The brown eyes looked at him blankly as the child tilted his head. “Stay here.” He said firmly. He had no idea what was wrong with the woman but he wasn't going to risk the child catching something from her.

The next six hours weren't fun. The child seemed insistent on going down to the hold with him every time he went and checked on the woman. While this wasn't one of his original reasons for not taking passengers, he was definitely adding it to the list. Here he was playing nurse when she hadn't even paid him yet, let alone told him her name.

As annoying as the situation was, he couldn't really find it in himself to be mad at her. Frustrated yes, mad no. He’d seen how afraid she’d been back in the hanger, though she’d hidden it well. Putting on a fierce facade that would have probably fooled anyone else. She didn't beg him to let her come, she’d bargained with him, even paying the hanger fee to prove she was good for it.

Even if she ended up being trouble he was confident he’d easily be able to deal with her and if worse came to worse he could always put her in carbonite. Although that was a last resort since the trip would take the better part of six months to complete. He didn't like sharing his limited space with a stranger but her offer had been too good to pass up. Fuel was too expensive these days, especially when you were paying to be left off the port records.

If he finished the job he’d have enough money to last them for at least five years. Longer if he was careful with it and that prospect was too tempting. Work wasn't always consistent, sometimes not worth the danger and he knew his savings would continue to dwindle as he searched the galaxy for the jedi. Better to put up with her for half a year and earn big than to deny her and keep struggling to make enough to keep them going.

....

They were almost to Mos Eisley and he was once again checking on the woman. He’d removed her cloak and hood after seeing how hot she was. But now he wasn't sure what to do. There were blood stains on her shirt. Mostly on her chest that he knew should be looked at but if they were going to be stuck together he didn't want to start their trip with her waking up half naked while he worked on her so he left them for now.

She was only a handful of inches shorter than him. Obviously Pantoran with her blue skin and white hair. Her figure was generous to say the least, all curves and soft edges that had been well hidden under her cloak. She looked to be early to middle aged, with tiny creases at the corners of her mouth from smiling.

His silent observations were interrupted by the sound of small running feet and then the child was clinging to his leg as he looked down. “I told you to stay.” He said, trying to sound firm but without much luck. The child simply gazed at him before motioning towards the woman with one small hand.

“I don't know what's wrong with her.” The brown eyes continued to stare and for the hundredth time he wondered how much the child really understood. He set her cloak and hood down on a storage crate and picked the child up cradling him against his chest plate. The child snuggled closer to his neck as he walked back to the ladder and up into the cockpit. As soon as they dropped out of hyperspace he commed Peli.

“Did you forget something? You were just here.” He ignored her question and waited.

She gave an annoyed sigh. “Yes you're good to land. So what’s up? You don't usually come back so fast.”

He drummed his fingers on his thigh glancing down at the child who was obviously listening. “I’ve got a passenger that needs a doctor.”

There was a beat of silence. “I’m an engineer not a doctor Mando.” More silence on his end and she sighed. “You know you could just ask me if I know a doctor you can go to instead of trying to be all mysterious.”

More silence and then he spoke. “Do you know a doctor that can meet us at the hanger?”

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