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kettlequills · 3 years

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that world will cease to be: here in my shrine

For anon, who wanted a fic of Laat and Miraak exploring each other's bodies, and everyone who wanted a sequel to the soulmate au. Here you go: I tried. At the bottom there's a gloss of all the Dovahzul used, though pretty much all of it is contextually explained or translated.

This fic contains explicit n.s.f.w, sexual content, and is 1.8. +. Also: suicidal ideation, oral , b.d. sm, species dysphoria, light blood drinking, praise, overstimulation, abusive relationships, including featuring jealousy and possessiveness, and implied/referenced mind control and manipulation. Read at your own risk. Available on A03 here (and recommended, because this is Long).

There is an island where time does not exist. Or rather, where time has stopped, warped, turned half-counter-clockwise and decided that it would like to go four to the left actually.

Dead men stride ashfields that burgeon with last season's and four years of yesterday's summer crops. Their haunting cries part darkened smoke-clouds from a mountain that can't decide whether it has erupted and their dragon-claw boots leave no footsteps. No trace at all of them on silvery sand that thinks itself still a cliff, but a trail of dead netch and liquid-eyed nixhounds. Long-gone elves peer confusedly through gaps in ice-tunnels to a broken sky and thick air long distant from what their lips once tasted, trading the ancient pelts of great cats and wood-carved weapons made of some icy material that radiates magic with the commoners of Raven Rock. Sometimes, old Nords chase them through the snowfields up on the Moesring mountains, but that happens only in Sun’s Dawn, and everyone sensible knows to simply stay inside then. They will disappear on Tirdas, but it is Middas, all the time, until it is Fredas instead, shortly after Morndas afternoon (never morning). And that is not even starting with the month of Hearthfire, which as everyone in Raven Rock knows, is simply that time between ten and five o’clock where the sun shakes in what they have been generously describing as the sky.

The town itself is largely unchanged, for what could have been centuries now. Fethis Alor still tends his stand, the Retching Netch waits in a perpetual state of nearly closing down. Glover Mallory has yet to add a single wrinkle to his collection. Every so often, oldfolk come wandering out the barrows, shrivelled bodies that pay in ancient coins with flickers of life in death-blue eyes, but coin is coin, and if old Crescius has been working a thriving trade with the dead priest Zahkriisos in oil and coal, plenty of others in Raven Rock see no need to be stingy.

Occasionally, there are newfolk, outsiders. Furious bureaucrats from Morrowind, perhaps, come to see why their island flies colours that have not been seen since mighty dragons swept their hungry wings over every inch of Tamriel. Beggars, refugees, curious wizards, come to see the Temple. It is not often they last long before they are unmade from the fabric of expectation that links the threads of reality together, or they quite simply go mad. For the most part, though, even gods avoid Solstheim.

The Dragonborns are not known to be fond of gods.

It is best not to pay too much attention to the Temple or the dragons that live within it. Focus instead on the routine, the script, and know in your heart that time is broken and fate is a lie. Choose ignorance. The summer storms shake the ground from the Temple, Shouts of laughter and rage, growing pains, and dragons scatter from its roof like doves. It is a magical untime on Solstheim, and there are worse things than the total freedom of a world shaped by the expectant whim of two godsouled-mortals that keep for the most part to their temple and themselves.

Frea does not choose ignorance. She has been shaman of the Skaal for, at least, twelve generations, or maybe even three days, and the sight of the Tree Stone still turns her stomach. Sometimes long-dead friends are standing round it, smiling at Frea like nothing has changed at all (and it hasn’t, surely? The sun still rises on the day where Gjalund Salt-Sage brought the dragon-break into Raven Rock port), but Frea is tired now. Still young, still strong, she goes to make the same plea she always makes to the Last Dragonborn.

“When are you going to let us go?” Frea asks, over ale. This year’s season has been terrible for crops, but no one quite ever expects to run out, so the barrels remain full of thick Skaal ale that always tastes just like the last time Frea could remember having it.

She is growing to hate that taste.

Laataazin, the Last Dragonborn, is shorter than Frea, being one of those warm-blooded humans from across the sea. Their feet just lightly brush the ground from where they sit next to Frea on the fallen tree stump not far from the Stone. They wear the same armour they always have, as bright and well-used as it has been since the day they walked out of Apocrypha hand in hand with the murderer of Frea’s friends and broke the world. The only difference is their mask hangs from their belt instead of concealing their scarred spider-web of a face, its blank owl-eyes staring accusingly up at Frea.

They grimace at the ale Frea hands them, pulling the cork out with their teeth. Laat says nothing, but looks at Frea, the wisps of blonde hair that escape her hood, the air of terrible exhaustion that slumps her shoulders. They like the Skaal shaman; Frea is the sort of companion that Laat may have considered taking adventuring once, strong enough to keep up, quick enough to get out of the way, and wild enough to relish the months of uninterrupted travelling through the depths of Skyrim’s countryside.

But it has been a long time since Laataazin has gone adventuring, longer still since they have stepped foot in Skyrim. They miss it; the vastness of the wilds, the clear air, the promise of a fight and treasure to be won. Surely it must be time for a visit, soon? Laat cannot remember the last time they went. Beyond their beloved wife, there is little to draw them back there.

And I am here, Miraak presence brushes against their mind, like a touch on their arm. It is tinged with smugness.

Yes, Laat thinks, hiding their smile from Frea, you are. Did you not want privacy?

That is, after all, the reason they decided to hold their regular meeting with Frea today – it is not like Frea, not being dragon-souled, is aware enough of the passing untime to know if Laat reschedules. But Miraak has ushered them from the temple, claiming to want of all things solitude. This is impossible with their souls interlinked, but physical distance and polite-pretence is easy to arrange. It is unusual enough for Miraak to request it instead of Laat seeking the embrace of nature that it makes them immensely curious.

Miraak radiates discontent for a moment (you miss me, Laat’s chest warms), but withdraws. He is fussing with something involving water, trying not to get the sleeves of his robe wet. They do their best to leave him to it and focus on Frea.

“How long do you plan to keep us imprisoned here?” Frea is asking dolefully, as if rephrasing the question will compel Laataazin to give her an answer she wants to hear. “Trapped in this unliving existence, where no thing changes or grows as the All-Maker bade it?”

Unimpressed, Laat scowls at Frea. They kick the ash with their boots, digging with their heel a scar into the earth that exposes a scurrying beetle. That is change, right there. Not the same as the orderly march Akatosh imposes upon the land, but then, it is his rules that argue that two Dragonborn may not walk Nirn at once.

Laat is no longer inclined to listen to such rules.

Frea looks at the beetle. Something in her eyes flickers. Her loose hand drops the ale, which floods from the bottle, soaking the little scar where the beetle rapidly crawls to escape death by drowning. Curiously, Laat watches, but when the golden liquid gets too close they nudge a line of sand to dam it. The beetle, saved, disappears into the ash.

“I wish to return to the All-Maker,” Frea says, quietly.

A sudden surge of annoyance from Miraak catches Laat’s attention. Unthinkingly, they press into his mind. Through his eyes they glimpse Miraak’s bare hand – ink-veined and thin – clutching at a bar of soap, the dim outline of his body beneath the surface of the bathwater, even one knobbly knee, a hint of-

Laataazin, he chides, vexed. Laat blinks and with effort wrenches themselves away. Anchoring themselves to the feel of the wooden stump underneath them, they inhale the salty scent of seaspray and ashfall. Their boots scuffing the ash, Frea’s solid warmth against their side, the weight of their armour on their shoulders.

Are you all right? Laat asks. They are really trying not to think too much about the fact that Miraak is bathing, and that means Miraak is naked. He has never been fully undressed with Laat. They have seen only glimpses of his body beneath the robes when they have sex, his hands, and rarely, his face. Usually, Laat occupies themselves with something like hunting or sleep that distracts their mind when Miraak bathes, because Miraak is very sensitive to his privacy where his body is concerned.

Miraak is naked. And wet. Wet and naked.

Geh, he replies. I dropped the soap.

His indignation at their amusement tempts them to laugh out loud. They do not, because Frea with her gentle mortal-soul and fragile eardrums sits next to them, long legs not struggling to reach the ground at all. Cursed Nords.

Stop thinking about my naked body, he adds, and do not try to look.

Don’t be shy, Miraak, Laat teases slyly, doing their best to ground themselves in the moment, on the tree with Frea not in the bath in the temple, even as they poke fun at him. You’ve been inside me from the moment I awoke in Helgen, and I know you were still watching even when a gentleman might … look away.

They both know it is true, and though Laat is already well aware that Miraak watches them when they bathe, undress, or fuck, Miraak’s embarrassed defensiveness immediately confirms it. They have never minded - Laat has a soldier’s easy practicality about their body.

I was keeping an eye on you to make sure you were not taken advantage of in your many distractions, Laat Dovahkiin, he retorts. Laat has a vague sense of him splashing water over his face.

They roll their eyes and pull away.

“Dragonborn, do you hear me? I wish to die,” says Frea, intensely. “This is no way to live. You must know this, somewhere. Are you not tired of this unending nightmare?”

It is difficult to remain focused on Frea, because Miraak’s thoughts keep drifting to Laat like a ping on the edges of their awareness. They are soft thoughts, warm ones, shy-feeling, tinged with a little note of – is that arousal? Laat’s barely-restrained curiosity piques.

Is he trying to masturbate? It is rare for Miraak to do so. Admittedly, Laat doesn’t remember the last time he has tried without Laat sensing it and volunteering a… helping hand. No, the last time they have felt something like this from him, they followed him to the icy cell he prefers to sleep in when alone. In the memory, Miraak’s hand is hidden in the folds of his robes, but his masked face jerks towards Laat when they open the door, biting off a sound Laat is suddenly very eager to hear. Laat comes to sit beside him – ignoring his fluster, his demands – and murmurs to him about certain options they have. The night ends with Miraak writhing underneath them as they push into him, rocking him slowly against the bed while he gasps and begs, the echoes of his Voice he is desperately trying to muffle in the pillows sending shivers into the walls. There is no exact translation for ‘please, fuck me, please’ in Miraak’s preferred tongue of Dovahzul, but Laat learns that night several new ways to say it anyway.

Miraak sighs wearily, and Laat feels him cast an ice-spell in his bathwater.

Sorry, thinks Laat, sheepish.

“Please,” says Frea, somewhere distant. “Please hear me, Dragonborn. You are the only one who can wake us from this spell.”

Ni faas, replies Miraak, It is a memory I also … fondly recall.

Apologetically, they take a sip of their ale. They wince. Vile. The wines of Cyrodiil, where Laat likely hails from, are infinitely better. But Miraak enjoys the taste on their tongue, and they feel him hum where he lays in the bath.

Gripping Laat’s arm, Frea shakes them roughly. Snapped into their body, Laat blinks and glares at Frea. The Skaal is wise enough to back off, hands upraised, but her blue eyes are full of terrible sorrow when they look at Laat, no fear at all of Laat lashing out with a gauntleted fist.

“The Traitor has changed you,” Frea says to them. “He has changed us all. But you… I do not think any of the people you left behind would recognise you, Dragonborn.”

“You do not know me,” Laat signs, the shapes sharp and clipped. They are in Nirn now, after all, and their Voice would hurt Frea if not kill her if they spoke aloud. Dragons alone are strong enough to bear it. “You know nothing of the world beyond this island, girl.”

“I have heard tale of you, and when first we met… You slew Alduin World-Eater,” Frea shakes her head, slowly. “You would have helped us. You would know that what is happening is wrong.”

Laat rises to their feet, nettled by the reminder of their bitter fate, but Frea only stares at them, as if hoping something will happen. When nothing does beyond Laat’s glare, dimming into confusion at the odd look on her face, the light gutters out in Frea’s heart. Her shoulders bow, as if slumped by immense weights.

“I suggest,” Frea says heavily, “that you reflect on what it is that has changed in this time of unreality. And what has not. Tell me, what do you truly know of the lands beyond these shores that you have seen with your own eyes? Please, remember my words, Dragonborn.”

With that, she turns and crunches away over the snow.

Laat takes a step after Frea, rage bubbling in their gut like a noxious poison – Miraak, touching in concern the edges of their mind – but gritting their teeth hard enough to feel the bones creak, they drag themselves back. No. Laat likes Frea, they do not want to kill her.

They do, however, want to hunt.

Enjoy yourself, Laat thinks to Miraak, taking a moment to send him a soothing pulse. I’m going to go and catch dinner.

Don’t get something large, I have already prepared food for us, Miraak requests.

Full of surprises, today, aren’t you? He grumbles something about being much maligned that Laat ignores, already setting off at a light jog into the wilderness surrounding the temple.

It is a bitter day on Solstheim, with high winds and a brittle, icy chill. The animals are wary, and it takes Laat a few hours to find anything worth catching. Eventually, they manage to corner a small arctic hare. It is dead with a Shout, and Laat skins it with their boot-knife. The hunter in them unwinds at the kill, the blood on their hands.

Frea’s words echo through their mind. “Tell me what you know of the lands beyond these shores that you have seen with your own eyes.”

Laat considers. It has been a while since they have spoken to one of their dragon acquaintances. Odahviing and Venfokest avoid Miraak, but Odahviing at least is bound to come if Laat calls. Perhaps they will ask how Skyrim is doing.

Something about the prospect makes Laat feel a little uneasy, as if there is something they are forgetting.

When are you back? Miraak’s question is more a vague feeling of longing for their presence and a desire to know where they are than it is words, but Laat answers it anyway.

I am coming to you now.

They feel from him a definite tinge of bubbling excitement, and then again that strange anxious spark. Pruzah.

He is definitely planning something. Seething curiosity carries Laat home, to the great Temple of Miraak sprawling between towering fences of heaped dragon-skeletons, fused and warped together by thousands of years of moving ice and snow. Laat ducks under the tongueless jaws and over the fleshless claws, poised in permanent screams of rending agony. As always, they grimace. It is not their favourite of Miraak’s choice in décor.

The interior of the temple is much better, these days, its hard edges softened by the multitude of pelts that ripple along the walls like the sides of some great breathing beast. Laat has hunted all of these themselves, and it still plucks their pride to see the fruits of their work displayed so prominently in Miraak’s temple. The rabbit they pack in ice and leave in an empty brazier. It will not go anywhere.

You are skilled, he interjects into their thoughts. And also prone to cold.

Laat closes their eyes and goes to him, not needing to ask, not needing to see – Laataazin could find Miraak blind and deaf, robbed of all sense, even dead, even dying. The ties that bind them are beyond such petty things as flesh, as mortality.

Soul-of-my-soul, they think, trailing their fingertips over the thickly covered walls, the soft furs, the unyielding stone beneath. Breathing in the smoky scent of incense, the long-distant iron tang of blood and daedra. Always I come to you. Through Apocrypha, through storm, through time and fate itself, no creature could bar me from you that I would not tear asunder.

Do not keep me waiting any longer, Miraak answers, softly. Laat can feel his hunger.

He is outside in the room they usually use when sleeping together. It is fairly large, walled-off, but open to the great sky and set with wards to deter prying eyes and inclement weather. There is no furniture at all, save for a cooking pot in the corner by a fire, a small chest that holds additional blankets and other supplies, and a huge bed, made completely of stone in the Dwemer fashion. It is piled high with furs to make it soft.

The reason, of course, is Laataazin.

“Miraak,” they whisper, as soft as they possibly can, and their Voice shudders the air with a low sonic reverberation. Anything more fragile than stone would be destroyed in an exhale.

“Laat Dovahkiin.”

He is perched on the bed, masked face tilted towards them measuringly. Over his lap luxuriates a thick snow-bear pelt, his long fingers fiddling with something under it almost absently. They can just see a small glimpse of his foot peeking out of the shaggy fur, wider than Laat has expected, the curve of his arch flattening towards his clawed toes. He is wearing a robe of deep purple, belted tightly around his waist so that no skin shows in the fall of its folds around the tucked hood of his mask. But simply by virtue of how uncomfortably stiff he looks, Laat wagers his robe is only a layer thick, his gloves are nowhere to be seen, and he is not even wearing socks.

Laat starts to strip off their armour, hoping to join him in the plush furs. He shifts; his presence strengthens in their mind shivery and avid, like ghostly lips are under their skin caressing the tight strings of nerves as Laat’s fingers fumble over the buckles. An urgency makes itself known, whether it is his or theirs they cannot tell, only that it seems incredibly important that the bulky plate is gone, leaving Laat in their breeches and tunic.

“Are you hungry?” Miraak says in his rich, deep voice. “I made soup.”

“You made soup?” Laat signs, honestly taken aback. They scrub their hair with one hand, dissatisfied with the length of the limp strands. Time to cut it soon.

“I told you I did.” Miraak’s rejoinder is curt, but Laat can feel a storm of emotions inside of him, more nervousness, quiet sparks of hurt. Puzzlingly, underneath it all is vast breathlessness.

“I am sorry,” Laat signs, “I thought you meant you got someone else to cook.”

Like normal, they don’t add, but clearly Miraak senses their confusion.

“It is pea soup,” he adds, with all the snappishness of an insult, and then looks down at his hands like he is hoping they will wring his own neck for him.

Pea soup is Laataazin’s favourite. They like the warmth, the simplicity, even the odd green of it. It is the first meal they recall eating, served by Sigrid after their escape from Helgen. It is decidedly not Miraak’s.

Miraak acting strange, trying to make one of Laat’s favoured foods, wearing slightly fewer than his usual full robes, having just bathed –

“Miraak,” Laat signs, slowly. “Are you trying to seduce me?”

Miraak says nothing, but Laat can feel his frustration. Not for the first time, Laat wonders how they would have ever come to know him without a window into his soul, for his mask is expressionless, his body language has not changed at all, and his manner is anything but welcoming. Still, their heart squeezes at the thought of him taking the time to do something as simple and sweet as make their favourite soup.

“I am not hungry,” they sign, “but I would love to try it with you later.”

Laat takes a seat on the bed next to him. This close, they can see what he is fussing with in his hands. It is a coil of soft cotton rope, dyed black, and he is threading it through his hands again and again, rhythmic, hypnotic. His shoulders are tense. Understanding dawns as Laat gains a sense of what he wants.

“Want some help?” Laat signs.

The anxious movement of his hands pauses. His chin tucks close to his chest. The dim firelight plays over the gold surface of his mask, making the shadows jump and dance like the carved tentacles are twitching.

“Geh,” says Miraak. “I would relieve your curious mind.”

He trails off, but his mind does not, conveying a soft fear of exposure – unwanted, terrible, frightening, but at the hands of Laat, intriguing, even exciting. Another dragon-soul, who… knows, who has the most immediate window into how it feels.

No wonder he is being shy, Laat thinks, Miraak has never in all the time they have known each other reacted to having to remove his clothing with anything other than discomfort. To some extent, Laat even understands. They have times when their body feels wrong, too little, too soft, no teeth or claws or worst of all no wings, but for Miraak, that sense of not fitting his body never fades at all, and the marks of daedric corruption from years in Apocrypha has only worsened it.

Laat inhales. “You want me to take your robe off and touch you under it?”

They both feel the tug of arousal in his belly as Laat’s hands finish the signs. Laat’s approval at it makes the hair on the back of his neck prickle. The air electrifies, Laat’s blood warms. Already, Laat’s mind feels closer, overlapping with his, drifting in and out of seeing with their eyes or his. The rope seems to grow heavier in their - his - hands.

“Geh.”

Laat shifts to sit by his hip, trying to catch his eyes in the dark slits of his mask. Either he is avoiding their stare or the mask is at the wrong angle to penetrate the shadows.

“Tell me your watchword, Miraak.” Laat’s signs are firm but clear. They can’t hide their excitement from him, don’t bother trying, and his chest rises and falls a little quicker. Laat’s stomach quivers with butterflies.

He dithers, thinking through his choice, but when he speaks his voice is strong, steady, and confident. “Sikgolt.”

“Good,” Laat signs. They take the rope from him.

Miraak lifts his hands, and the voluminous sleeves fall to gather in indigo ripples around his elbows, baring his arms. Laataazin curls the first length of rope around his forearms and then just looks for a moment, memorising it. The contrast between the dyed rope and his sunless skin, stained murky ink-green-yellow like a slow-ripening bruise that makes Laat ache to dig their thumb in and push until it blooms purple. The green veins that fork through the softer skin of his wrists, the pulse-point that will hammer there if Laat tickles it with their tongue (and the groans that will fall from him, twisted, broken things, the bitten curses, the hungry ache).

There are scars there, just visible as thinned lines underneath the dark stipple of soap-softened hair, relics from a fraught past. His hands, thin and uncallused, a scholar’s hands still, offer up to the rope like the worshipful priest he still is (if to his own altar – Niid, zu’u losiil, he murmurs back), tipped by curving black claws that catch the light with a dim ebony sheen. He has filed them down, Laat can see the smoothed edges, the hint of dust caught under a nail that has escaped his washing.

Miraak has filed his claws so that he would not hurt Laataazin if he touches his fingertips to their bare skin, not even by accident.

The rush of admiration they feel for him is sudden, intense, and warm, warm, like the blush that climbs steadily into their cheeks. The arousal that sparks in one sparks the other, and Miraak is not as unaffected by Laat’s extended perusal as he is trying to pretend. Goosebumps raise where Laat’s eyes drag, and he grumbles and shifts on the bed.

It is false annoyance; Laat feels instead his anxiety, insecurity at having the marks of daedric corruption on display, his fear of exposure and powerlessness, the private worrying of his vanity.

Beautiful, Laat thinks, and politely ignores the confused feelings that flood through him as he catches their thought, all ending in an ember of lust. Miraak, despite his many conflicted feelings on his body, likes to be appreciated, but he finds Laat’s private, fond awareness of that fact intensely embarrassing.

“Laataazin.”

Laat’s shoulders shake in a silent chuckle.

They take his hand in theirs, smiling up at him. “Squeeze,” they sign with the other, and he obliges, gripping Laat’s hand until it feels like the bones creak. Laat makes a note of the pressure, then releases him with a gentle pat.

Loop by loop, they wrap the soft rope around Miraak’s arms six times, spreading the pressure out to protect his circulation. Checking the looseness with two fingers against his wrist, Laat tucks the tails around the loops, makes a knot, cinches it evenly, then knots it again for security. It takes a while, for Laataazin’s hands shake and tremble, and Miraak’s skin is sensitive to chafing. But as they work, Laataazin feels the rope’s increasing pressure acting upon him, the quiet, observant mood he settles into, dripped through with steady peace. His lassitude sinks soporific into the tired ache behind Laat’s eyes, and their head droops to rest on his chest.

“Not too tight,” he tells them, testing the rope. Laat skims kisses over his knuckles.

They allow him time to acclimatise to the ropes, feeling the minute tense of his muscles testing for give in the knots. They can hear the creaks of the flexing rope, his deep breathing metallic under the mask, even the distant wind blowing over the ashlands. Somewhere, a dragon roars.

Kruziikrel, Miraak identifies absently.

The fabric of his robe is silky and cool against Laat’s forehead. Beneath it, they can smell Miraak, old books, mouldy paper, spilt ink and the bitter reek of ash. From anyone else, it would be unpleasant – from Miraak, it is familiar, and thus, beloved.

Laat can feel the warm weight of their head on Miraak’s chest, the soothing hold of the rope, the robe shifting on his skin. He feels too warm, already, his breath fogging against his mask to blow soft as butterfly kisses against his dry lips. A little sleepy, too, wrung out by all the excitement and anxiousness of preparing himself for them.

“Ni faas. It was nothing,” Miraak rumbles. They can feel the vibrations through his chest when he speaks, the breath ringing in his lungs.

Their dragon soul.

It is tempting to indulge in the moment, lay their body across his legs like a pinning weight and allow them both to simply drift, hearts harmonising, breath mixing, until Laat has to untie Miraak’s hands and chase the blood to flushing. But they turn their cheek to the side, instead, so their breath skates into the opening of Miraak’s robe. He shivers.

It would be a shame to not take advantage of Miraak’s uncharacteristic willingness to be vulnerable.

Their fingers twist into signs. It takes Miraak a moment, either to parse it in his warm fog or to realise that Laat has signed, but when he does Laat relishes in the surge of indignation.

“I am not having a nap, and I am not that old,” Miraak huffs, and Laataazin laughs against his chest. It is nearly noiseless, but not quite. The furs tremble beneath them.

Wuth, they think to him. Old man.

“You’re the one whose – stopped,” Miraak snaps, and his voice loses its steadiness.

Must I do everything for you, Diist-Dovahkiin? Laat sighs gustily, teasingly, but they sit up and plant their weight square over his hips.

For a moment, they are both breathing through the sensations, Miraak’s heart thudding in his chest at the agonising burn of warm thighs squeezing his hipbones, the bend of Laat’s knees straining tight muscles from the hike to meet with Frea, the weight pressing his spine into the bed like a stone, even the arterial pulse he swears he can feel drumming his skin through the robe and their clothes pounding from the secret warmth of Laat’s inner thigh. The thought of all that blood, all that glorious heat, in their veins makes him dizzy.

Laat looks down at him and sees themselves mirrored in shadows over his mask and in his hidden gaze. The rolling slopes of their body encircle him, contain him, like a stopper in the narrow neck of a bottle. Their eyes smoke with intensity, flickers of amber red visible in the deep brown. In his eyes, they are handsome and powerful, beautiful as the killing edge of a new blade.

“You are so warm,” he tells them inanely.

“Let me see you,” Laat signs, bringing their hands deliberately wide in the movements so that their knuckles brush the blank gold face of Miraak’s mask. They want to show him his own face, his true face, the loveliness they find there among the ink-scars and exhaustion-wrung shadows.

Miraak hesitates. Old shames glare gluttonous at his vulnerability, and Miraak feels like shrinking into the safety of the mask. Is it not enough to let them do this? Must he lose every wall, every shelter, every defence he has against the rawness of this new Solstheim where bareness is unremarkable, and no one sings as dragons do? His face of flesh and skin does not even have majestic horns or tough scales - no, it is softened, wearied, by time and torture. The wrinkles he admires as they form on Laat and the steely greys of their hair remind Miraak only of the time he has lost to unwilling bondage on himself. They, after all, do not have the face of a prisoner of Apocrypha.

He is only a man. Despite the strength of Laat’s opinion of him, their dragon-soul, Miraak is only a man, and one beset by foolish vanity at that.

Laat says nothing, of course they don’t, but the swell of tender feeling is almost worse. This close, this hungry, the line between them is blurrier than it ever is. Without the mask, Miraak may as well … submit. Laat pursues the feeling, pressing into his mind, his body, until their touches feel mirrored and they are the hand that brushes and the skin that aches in response both.

Laat leans forward (catches Miraak’s irreverent thought about how so very warm they are, are they running a fever, against his bound wrists, his chest) and lifts the edge of the mask’s hood, revealing his neck. Old inkstains stripe his throat in greenish trails, splatters where he has coughed and choked on the fluid bubbling in his lungs, out his mouth. Laat can’t resist swiping their tongue over the arch of tendons, as if the coolness of their spit can smear such deeply-sunken marks. Tender kisses dot his shoulders, gentle lips mumble and mouth over the exposed ridge of his collarbones, blunt teeth threatening the bobbing gulp of the apple of his throat, sensations that spark fireworks behind his eyes. Laat’s lips tingle where they kiss him, his fragile skin papery and dry like the crumbling pages of ancient books.

They together feel his breathing fanning over his eyelids, penned in by the mask, as he tilts his head back. Exposes his neck to Laataazin, like a dog showing his belly to his master.

Beautiful, thinks Laat again, and Miraak swallows a groan.

Desire breathes like something living in the coil of his gut, drawing like a wave into his cock. The liquid movements of the robes over the sensitive flesh as Laat rocks back and forth over his hips while they kiss, sensuous, deliberate, rhythmic, just too far forward to grind against him, are exquisite torture.

Torture? Laat’s laugh is a sigh that ripples up to prickle the tainted skin under his ear. Miraak exhales roughly, flexing his wrists against the ropes to ground himself. They are edging ever closer to the lip of the mask, trying to steal it off without his notice. It is one of their more obvious designs. Not even close, soul-of-my-soul.

“What are you planning?” Miraak asks, more to reply than because he cares to know. Past experience has taught him that Laat is more than capable of using his anticipation as a weapon, stringing him on a teetering edge until he shatters like poorly blown glass in their hands.

You like it, Laat thinks, amused, indulgent as a cat in a sunbeam. Miraak, haughty, does not respond. He does not need to. The evidence that tells Laat they are right is beginning to rather eagerly tent his robe, after all.

This close he can smell the oil they use to clean their armour and weapons, and sweat, pure human sweat. Laataazin’s deals with daedra have been so much lesser than Miraak’s, and they barely have any marks, save for a wickedness in their grin as their hips roll against him that Miraak thinks must have come from straight from the Lord of Debauchery himself.

You know it didn’t, Laataazin contradicts. Their scarred nose bumps the underside of his mask as they lean forwards, palms pressing down heavy and soothing onto his chest. Hinting.

“Niid,” Miraak murmurs.

A flicker of disappointment, but Laat moves on from the mask without comment. They resettle their weight further over his hips, trapping his cock between their body and his. Miraak chokes, his arms twitching in abortive movement, like he could pull their body, their hands away. But Laat lingers, tracing the shape of his cock through his robe with heavy, palming strokes. It is so powerful a sensation that it hurts, hurts, like crackling lightning in his veins.

Miraak writhes, trying to unseat them, but Laat only rides him out like he is a bucking horse. His body undulates between their thighs and they grind down, eyes fluttering shut and mouth parting, a glimpse of their crooked teeth as they bite their lip.

Laat’s shameless pleasure in his struggle undoes him.

“Laat,” Miraak moans. They ground him with a hand to his chest, and his breath heaves like bellows against its firm weight.

Your arms are tied, Laat’s thought is involuntary, almost indistinguishable in heady lust, you just have to lie here and … take it.

They feel Miraak want to protest that he is not entirely helpless – there’s the Voice, there’s magic, they may be stronger physically but he could even flip them – yet his whole body is boneless, the ropes hemming him in sweetly, and they know if Laat just asks, he would take any amount of anything. To please them.

“Zu’u losiil, Laat Dovahkiin.” Miraak is shaky and breathless. I am yours. It is true. Without them, he would be a prisoner, lonely, bitter, still at the whim of the fates, bound to serve all his life in the hope for a taste of freedom. This service, he chooses. As they chose him, over the world.

“Good,” Laataazin whispers aloud, and the stone bed shakes. Somewhere distant, something smashes as it falls, shaken by the earthquake of their Voice.

Miraak’s eyes fly open to meet theirs through the slits of his mask, halfway through a ragged gasp. They see themselves as he sees them, scarred face is watchful, intent, their dark eyes alight with a rich glow.

“Laataazin.”

It is too much for him. Laat rubs his chest soothingly as Miraak’s head thumps back against the furs and his arms lift, futile, trying to cover his masked face, trying to hide. His knuckles meet only the coolness of his mask, smooth and hard, the antithesis of Laat’s body on his. He knows he is blushing, blotches of deep blue and yellow ink bursting like rotted flowers under the surface of his skin, knows that Laat could see it, if they open his robe.

The soul-of-his-soul thinks Miraak is good.

As if summoned, Laat deftly parts the folds of his robe and bares his chest. The bear pelt he lies on is so thick that the soft fur rises around the edges of his body like a wreath, his robe spread out beneath them like royal purple butterfly wings. The paleness of the fur and the richness of the silk all seem to exaggerate the archival yellow of his skin, warming to chlorophyll and indigo, like he is an unfinished painting given colour, depth, reality, by the paintbrush of his blush.

He is beautiful, and mine, they think, ghosting over pebbled flesh with indulgent, explorative touches. Miraak is thinner under his robes than he first appears, with jutting ribs from one-too-many forgotten meals to sustain a body that has not quite managed to process anything beyond ink with any reliability. His mottled skin is oddly smooth, hairless, and after a moment, Laat realises why.

“You shaved,” Laat signs, tapping his chest to get his attention. He lowers his arms cautiously, eyeing them through the slits of the mask. “Your beard, too?”

“Geh,” says Miraak.

Laat feels his embarrassed flush of self-consciousness. He shaved because he hopes Laat would put their mouth on him as they are so fond of doing, and does not want them to have to pick hair from their teeth. His hair grows very thick and all of it ink-soaked to dripping, leaving green stains on fabrics when he brushes against them. He worries; hardly thinks it’s beneficial for Laat to swallow any of Mora’s corruption that can possibly be avoided. Just as quickly, there is a fluster as Miraak tries to hide his thoughts from them.

Prickly and proud as ever, their dragon-soul.

“I wouldn’t have minded,” Laat assures him, their signs quick and fond at his worry. “And I certainly don’t mind you thinking of what I’m going to do to you.”

Their signs leave them free to smile, slow, wide, and Miraak shivers at the promise in it. Lightly they push on his elbows, encouraging him to lift his arms over his head so that his shoulders strain and his torso is exposed, like a sacrifice. Then, as Miraak has dared to hope, they lower their head and kiss his chest.

Laat explores, taking their time, feeling the raised lips of scars catch under their nails. He does not have many, all things considered, not half as much as they do, but there is enough to provide texture. Testament, they suppose, to his expertise with healing magic. Miraak runs cooler than they do, and as their searching hands find the secret, soft places that make him twitch and gasp (his sides are sensitive to broad strokes, but he jerks and hisses at gentle, featherlight circles over his hipbones, and the sound he makes when Laat licks a long stripe over his pectoral muscle and catches the edge of his nipple is so hungry it does not bear repeating), they feel him warm under them.

Sweat wells, bitter and acrid ink, in the dips of his collarbones, the dark hair of his armpits, his navel. Laat brushes the worst of it away and keeps going, ignoring the apocryphal reek and distracting Miraak from it before he can protest. They are determined to map his entire torso under their lips and tongue, the drugging strokes of their palms pressing against the heave of his lungs. His skin is soft and dry, curiously textured, delicate as vellum. When he blushes, sometimes the ink forms linear lines, swirls of no mortal language, as if it is trying to imitate the written pages of Apocrypha, like there are books not blood trapped underneath his skin. Laat knuckles his flesh until it fades into blotchy colours and pays it no attention at all.

They have no need for flesh-sunk knowledge and the words of magic lost to time. This is its own kind of lesson, and Laat will always rather be skilled in love than in secrets.

They hear the crackle of the fire, the wet noises of their mouth, Miraak’s moans and stifled cries. He whimpers when they give into the desire to suck on his skin until it bruises brilliant purples and blues, bright as an illustration commissioned by a master, so they do it again, again, until his nipples pinking with blood distract them. Laat torments the hard buds with quick, fluttering flicks of their tongue that make Miraak choke on a growl, and smile when they feel the tugging chains of arousal searing straight to his cock.

Miraak pants, half-wishing he let Laat take the damn mask off, because there doesn’t seem to be enough air and he feels like he is melting. It’s too much, he thinks, and Laat’s dark eyes flick up to his, measuring, probing for how he is doing, it hurts.

“Faaz,” Miraak gets out. You are hurting me. They must be.

Sensation so bright it might as well be pain has him arrested, senseless, sharp like needles in his lungs, and he is not sure where he is, only that the world is bound by the rope around his wrists, squeezing his thunderous crash of a heart into a mortal body that twists and rocks under Laataazin like it is possessed. He is aware that he is making noises, hisses and gasps and bitten off words that would embarrass him if he were more present, but Miraak is not – is gone.

He is, dimly, afraid of what is happening to his body, for he is fairly certain that sex has never been like this. With his nerves under-stimulated from years in bitter Apocrypha, Laat’s focused attention is utterly overwhelming. There are many reasons he prefers to remain clothed; safe concealment from the immensity of the world scraping at him like raw wool is one.

It always is like this, with Laat.

“You are fine, Miraak,” Laat tells him, knows he understands even if they are not certain he sees their signs, “This is not pain.”

He eases a little at their reassurance, but just to prove it, they bite him hard enough that their teeth carve welts into his flesh. Hard enough that the confused morass of sensation – pleasure, it is his and theirs, at the same moment – narrows into the piercing beam of pain, true pain. Miraak keens, and against him, Laat moans richly, reverberating.

If only – if only, but no, this truly is a rare opportunity. Laat needs to be gentle and relish the rare freedom of touching Miraak’s bare skin, not overwhelm him quickly.

Miraak bares his teeth. “I am not fragile,” he says, his pride bidding him ignore the quiver in his deep voice lodged somewhere in his stomach, and the nagging fear that he absolutely is, actually, and if Laat isn’t careful, his bones will shatter to dust like the ruined books that populate old tombs like monuments to impermanence.

“You blush so prettily when I treat you like you are,” Laat signs, cheeky. “Can you blame me?”

When they are done, though, their hands find his ribs again and push down, hard. Miraak wheezes a breath, but Laat only smiles at him, as if to say, See? We’re fine.

Miraak slams his head back into the pillows, hissing. Again with the praise. I am going to pulverise you in training later, Laat feels him think, and allows the ghostly curl of their amusement to thread like gold in his sternum.

Laat withdraws, gives him a moment to catch his breath. They check his bound hands briefly, then hum, satisfied by the strength of his grip. The break is barely a second, not long enough, just enough to admire his flustered state.

One hand tweaks his nipple, twisting it hard enough that the dull pressure will ache, the other smooths underneath the fallen robe around his hips and ghosts around the base of his cock. He reacts like their skin burns him.

“Niid,” says Miraak at once, “niid – Dovahkiin, saraan-“

The hand at his chest taps him. Laat does not move their other hand, not at all, allows Miraak to feel like he is dying, knowing that he will not.

“Your watchword, Miraak?” Laat signs. Their expression is serious, but their mouth is smiling, like they know a secret.

It takes him a moment, not to remember, for they feel the word come at once to the forefront of his mind, but to make his breathing cooperate so the word comes out steady and even. Always so proud.

“Sikgolt,” he says, at last.

“You know what to say, if you want this to stop,” signs Laat, “If not, behave.”

“I am not a pet,” Miraak tries to snarl, but his words are lost in an explosive cry when Laat spits into their hand and grasps his cock firmly with quick, rough strokes. Dry, it is just too much to be bearable, but Laat’s grip is workmanlike, brusque, and utterly unrelenting. Even when Laat smears his own ink-laced precome down his cock, it is not enough to prevent the agony of the friction.

Good, they think. Laat does not want him to be comfortable.

Miraak responds to that with a shattered sound.

Laat focuses on remaining in their own body, on the sweat-sticky shirt on their back, the slight grind and click of their wrist as they jerk him off, tries to distance themselves from the cacophony of Miraak’s thoughts. They want him to be overwhelmed, but not drag them with him to the point where they cannot be certain they will be able to watch him.

It is nice, they think meditatively, to be able to do this with him. They are surprised, but pleased, at how this night has gone, have not ever quite believed that Miraak would be capable of or willing to experience such a large amount of touch and vulnerability. After all, it took a long time of very patient compromises to reach the point of physical intimacy. Sex is studded with pitfalls, as having thick ink for blood means that Miraak’s arousal is not always reliable, and he regularly cannot bear touch, which his pride detests. Once they discovered they have a love of ropes in common and that Miraak can bring himself to ask for it, things became easier, and the rest Laat simply consigns to cultural differences he cannot explain in any way they understand, or the effects of his time in Apocrypha.

Still, Laat knows him well enough at this point to not need to think too hard about the movement of their hand on his cock. Dragging touches that form a circle for his jerking hips to thrust into, long strokes up the left side, switching to caress over the crease of his thigh and fondle his balls, rubbing that spot underneath that presses on the base and makes his eyes roll into the back of his head.

He is fracturing under their attention, their dragon-soul, twisting and shuddering on the bed like he can through movement plea for the violent pleasure to ebb enough for him to catch a breath. The mask shakes and casts golden reflections hurtling over the walls as he alternately thrusts his head back, then at once bows his body towards Laat, runnels of inky sweat pooling in the divots of his hips, staining the furs. He cries out, convinced they are hurting him, unable to register the intensity of the sensations he feels as anything other than pain.

Watching his anguish, Laat feels an erotic thrill. How glorious, to have a creature so ancient and strong under their power. They close their hand around his cock, caressing the sensitive underside of the swollen glans with their thumb. Miraak, sensing, perhaps recognising Laat’s warm appreciation, panics and jerks, his bound hands trying to interfere. Feeling indulgent, Laat lets him tug against their strength.

Laat squeezes his cockhead until he flushes turgid purple, then rubs their thumb against the dripping slit. They fuck him like this slowly, watching his balls flush and tighten up against the base of his shaft. It won’t take long. Cruel perhaps, for his mind is a mess and his body is not much better, but it always makes his cock throb.

Miraak howls like he is being murdered. His breathing is shuddering gasps and hitched sobs. He is being good, though, holding himself as still as he can through what Laat can tell is sheer stubborn will alone. His body tries to jerk away from their rough touch, and the sounds that fall so sweetly on Laat’s ears are utterly broken, but he does not wrench himself away. Miraak bears it.

He behaves.

A reward is due. Laat releases him to reposition themselves so their scarred cheek rasps against his cock and their arms are wrapped around his thighs and hips, holding him still. Miraak breathes heavily, they feel the muscles flex in his stomach and thighs as he strains to sit up without dislodging them.

“What -” His words crack off. He clears his throat and tries again. “What are you doing?”

“You’ll like it,” Laat promises. They dig circles into the bony jut of his hips, watching for his reaction. The hood of his mask hides his throat bobbing in a swallow, but Laat can see his shaky exhale. They can sense Miraak’s confusion, lust-fogged mind struggling to grasp what is happening, not even truly certain where he is, not particularly caring about anything beyond Laat, Laat, Laataazin. His thoughts are run-on strings of harsh dragon-words, difficult to parse, overshadowed by flashes of feeling and thought, lightning-bright among the seething sea of sensory overload.

Maintaining eye contact with the dark holes in the mask, Laat gives the bobbing cock in front of their face an exploratory lick.

Miraak jumps.

They do it again.

This time, he groans. Laat lowers their mouth to his cock and starts by licking him, flicking their tongue over the sensitive underside. When his hips start twitching and lifting towards them, they slip his cock into their mouth and go down, down, as if they mean to swallow him whole.

His bound hands fly to their hair, unable to get a grip on it, but Laat looks up. His mind is beset by visions of his cock hurting them, bruising their throat so they can barely speak, but Laat only shakes off his hands kindly, a strange feeling of warmth in their breast at his worry.

“I will not hurt myself,” they sign, “I have taken bigger than you before.”

So saying, their mouth envelops his cock. Their nose bumps against his hips, and they control themselves, drawing back just a little to gain a new breath, then back down. They swallow when they feel the head bump against the back of their throat, let it slide into the tight space there.

They catch an image flashing through his mind - young man, pale cheeks freckle-blazed, mask pushed up over frizzing carroty hair; “Quiet, quiet, do you want the whipping - you have to be quiet, Miraak!” Burst of coals against Miraak’s pinwheeling arm - incense and dragon rumbles overhead - “Vahlok- !?” - and Miraak rams his bound hands against his mask to cover where his mouth hides beneath it so hard Laat hears the metal ring.

Laat pushes in on his hips hard enough to bruise. They hum, quietly, but the shaking sound still catches Miraak’s attention, especially as the vibrations judder through his cock in their mouth. Name me, they think to him fiercely. Name who has you.

“Laat-aaz-in,” Miraak cries. The mask’s shadowed tentacles seem to curl and writhe like worms in the rain. His knuckles are reddening against the implacable metal, soft flesh, breakable, not enough to pierce it. They find themselves glad for once that it is there - they would not have liked to see him try to shove his hands into his mouth.

Make noise for me, my strong dragon, Laat thinks, bobbing their head even as their narrowed eyes watch him carefully, you can take this. It is for his benefit - he is still responding to their praise, to their encouragement, the iron core of his will soaking it in. It grounds him, earths him enough to birth a shattering wail rippling with the strength of the Voice.

“Niid!” Miraak tries to argue, “Laat – I cannot – I cannot-“

His mind is a mess, but they are confident he is present, that he knows where they are and what is happening. They can sense his watchword close to his mind, even lift their mouth for a moment to give him a breath to say it in.

Frustrated, Miraak jerks, and what comes out instead is “Aaz! Mercy - aaz, aaz!”

It is not the signal, so pleased, Laat continues. They are savouring the warmth of him, the throb and pulse of his veins through the soft, sensitive skin, his salty bitterness on their tongue, the reek of his sweat. A shame it would be to stop soon, for something as irrelevant as Miraak’s comfort.

“Zu’u losiil,” Miraak moans in a trembling voice at that thought.

They are reasonably certain that in the dark holes of his mask he is looking at them, so they sign to him, resting as much of their weight through their forearms to keep his hips still as they can. Still, he thrusts abortively when they try to take him down into their throat again, and Laat has to withdraw quickly to prevent choking.

“My strong dragon, I am here,” Laat asserts. “I will give you what you need. Shout if you need to, I have you.”

The wall stripes with the reflections of the mask in the firelight. He is breathing rapidly, his arms trembling lightly. His mottled skin gleams with the richness of his sweat. Miraak is trying, they can tell, but when they dip the tip of their tongue into the slit of his cock, curious to see his reaction, he breaks.

“MUL QAH!”

The thunder of his Shout rocks the room. Miraak’s Dragon Aspect roars into life, and Laat hurriedly yanks their hands back before they are pierced through by the sudden emergence of spines marching down his belly and chest, protecting his vulnerable innards. Frankly, given their choice of words, Laat is not entirely surprised. Still, the moment of distraction is all they need, and as Miraak stretches his resplendent wings, his iridescent tail, Laat swallows him down again. They hold their breath for as long as they can, encouraging him to rock into their throat.

“L- aaat,” Miraak manages. It is pleading. It has to hurt him, with how sensitive he is, how much this all is - the warmth, the wetness, the wet laps of their tongue, their breath, their humming, the flex of their muscles, the hungry pleasure of Laat watching him. If they allow him in their mind, they can feel it - the sharpness like the agonising piercing joy of being fucked with a needle, back and forth dipping in and out of flesh, pricks of red red blood lubricating the steely slide, back and forth, back and forth.

Swirling their tongue around him, Laat smirks. They grab onto the thick spines that jut razor-sharp from his hips and hold him still as they draw back up, hollowing their cheeks around him. Then down, to the accompaniment of his broken gasps and snarls. The spines make it much easier to keep him in his place. Despite his increased strength, Laat is always the stronger of the two of them. They control him like a wild animal breaking to the lash, Miraak’s power, his strength, his Dragon Aspect - they are nothing here unless Laat wills it.

You are going to take this until I make you come, they inform him. Miraak sobs.

His eyes are burning coals behind the mask, enough to shadow it. He is wreathed in horns, in fire, in the brilliance of his soul, the amber-blue scales that blaze over his chest, his arms, clinging the thickest to his scars in belts so bright it almost hurts to look at him. His bound hands are taloned and sharp, trimmed claws turned deadly knives, and Laat keeps a careful eye on them in case he tries to grab their head again.

They know he won’t. Miraak will behave for as long as they ask him to.

He slams his head back against the furs, in what Laat thinks is agreement.

It is thrilling. Triumphant desire burns in Laat, a thunderous need to break the shining, vicious, powerful creature before them, in their mouth, in their soul. His growls shudder their bones when they tease him, and his wings close around them like pressing hands on their shoulders, trying to urge them deeper even as he thrusts up. Laat resists the pressure, lets his cock scrape against their teeth as they rise up, a warning and promise both.

Miraak shudders a breath, his hands flexing into fists. His tail underneath Laat curls sinuously around their leg, angling for the fork of their legs. Laat moans as they suck him and grinds down against the muscular coil. They can feel the intoxicating ridged texture of his scales against them through their breeches, igniting sparks in the seething pressure in their belly.

They release his cock with a pop and sit up to rut harder against him, using the spikes thrusting from the bones of his hips to dictate his movement. They stare down at the slits of his mask with intense, dark eyes.

“Good,” Laat whispers, needing to vocalise their approval, and Miraak’s body locks up as he is ripped into orgasm.

All the grounding in the world cannot prevent the backlash of searing white that flashes across Laat’s eyes, the sympathetic clench in their belly and the heated lance of pure want that stabs into the base of their spine. Their hand fumbles at him, pinning his spurting cock to his belly with clumsy strokes, the other bracing themselves against the bed as it feels like shuddering waves rock the island.

Laat is even fairly certain that one of them briefly blacks out.

In the aftermath, Miraak shakes. His auroral wings curve around them both, like he is protecting them from the world. Shredded fur dusts his shoulders like snow from his gnashing horns. His come is sticky and warm on his chest, chased through with shimmering greens and blues. Laat, cheeks flushed and breathing hard, runs a finger through it, gathering some of the pearly fluid.

They lift their hand to his mask, intentions clear. Miraak’s bound hands scrabble at the edge of the mask, the deadly-sharp dragon-talons a hindrance, trying to lift it enough for them to reach him under the hood. In frustration, he tears it off. Laat hears it clatter to the floor beside the bed.

Exposed, Miraak pants. He is luminous with the Dragon Aspect, his eyes, the thinness of his veins limned as if he is lit from within, haloed by horns. Laat presses the finger to his lips and he lets it slide into his mouth obediently. He glows there, too, his teeth sharpened to lambent daggers of gold and blue. The gaunt arches of his cheekbones blaze with a green blush. His long, dark, wet hair is plastered to his forehead, dripping ink as it continues in a thick mane down his shoulders and back, speared by the flaming spires and spikes of his dragon-soul.

His curious eyes, double-irised, one malachite and ice, the other goat-pupilled and bronze, are dark with lust. Laat can barely make out his second irises behind the brightness of the Dragon Aspect. Fresh tears trace the paths of the stains on his face. When he blinks at them with his wet eyes, more follow. His thin lips hollow around Laat’s finger, and they can feel his tongue, forked in this aspect, soft, wet, warm, licking even as he draws back and releases them.

Laat cannot help the quiet, fractious sound they make at the sight of his tears, the dizzying pulse of lust. It rumbles between them like a stormcloud. His tail tightens around their leg, intangible muscles of light rippling around them like the coils of a vast snake.

“Beautiful,” they sign, “you are beautiful.”

The growl that rumbles out of Miraak is half-feral. His slitted eyes watch them, the tips of his wings brushing their back with ghostly caresses. Pulling off their shirt, Laat wipes him clean as gently as they can. They toss the soiled shirt over their shoulder, not particularly interested where it lands. Unbinding Miraak’s hands with just the slightest tinge of regret, Laat chafes them quickly to make sure the blood is flowing. If only they could keep him like this forever.

They try to avoid scratching themselves on the curving talons burning with the strength of Miraak’s Shout, but it is either that or the sharp scales that armour him like gauntlets. Pursing their lips, Laat stares at the small line of welling red across their palm.

“Hi los ahraan,” Miraak says, you are wounded, and then all at once his wings flare and his tail twists and his body surges, and Laat is slamming down onto their back. His sinuous length curls above them, flaming eyes narrowed at the cut like it is a personal offense. He leans down, great horns digging into Laat’s cheek, obscuring their vision.

Laat holds their breath, anticipation hot in their belly. His forked tongue flickers out and laves the cut. He is gentle, but it stings. When he pulls back up to regard them they fancy they can smell the tang of their blood on his breath. He rumbles at their approval, and they can feel the vibration all the way down into their breastbone. The heaviness of his perpetually wet hair falls about them like a curtain.

Laat tries to unwedge their hands, gives up and thinks instead, as strongly as they can, Remember, no magic, Miraak. It is only a little cut, not worth risking a seizure over.

“Geh,” he says. His voice is even deeper in Dragon Aspect, rough as untumbled stones creaking in ancient cliffs. His vast wings completely block out the surrounding world, until it feels as if the sky has fallen and they have been swallowed up into the gullet of Aetherius, as if Aetherius could ever be half as beautiful as the soul-of-their-soul. The wings of Miraak’s Dragon Aspect remind them of the skies of Sovngarde, flaring with impossible, vivid colours, martial flickers and deep, internal glow that cannot be tarnished by any amount of daedra.

Not for the first time, Laat feels a pang of jealousy. How come you get wings and a tail with this Shout, and I don’t? And with only two words?

“Zu tiid.” I have had time. “This Shout was my mind in my prison. Morah, Laat Dovahkiin.”

Meditate, Laat thinks sourly. You sound like the Greybeards. Can’t you just show me?

“Geh.”

But you won’t.

Miraak’s tail rubs along their leg, then twines round it like a thick vine. Trapped between their chests, Laat can feel the steady beat of his heart against their hands, the roughness of the patches of scales that fringe over his skin. They push lightly, and his wings spread as he lifts himself enough to free their hands. When he breathes, ghostly flames flicker and curl in his nose and mouth.

“Zu laan aam hi,” he says in his voice of a mountain, and Laat understands the sense of what he means from the press of feeling in their mind. He wants to repay the favour, to give Laat the pleasure they have given him.

They wriggle against him, considering, but their muscles cramp in fatigue. “That very much did for me too,” they sign, with a rueful smile, “I can’t believe you didn’t feel it.”

Miraak snorts, and pale flames shoot out to lick against Laat’s cheeks. They do not hurt, only tickle softly, like the soapy caress of water on dry skin. Well, he was rather preoccupied, they suppose, their smirk widening.

“You can give me a massage later, if you want, though,” they add, as his dissatisfaction with that answer is blatantly clear, “My back’s been giving me grief.”

“Geh,” he says immediately, with true enthusiasm, and they feel him twitch as if struggling not to flip them and begin at once.

Laat exhales in amusement. “What a dedicated servant you are,” they tease him. “If only I had a team of people half as devoted as you, I’d be living like an emperor.”

“Will this please you?” Miraak says, and before Laat can even sign his mind turns to practicalities.

His cult is the best place to start, though he is reluctant to lose many of them, but fewer than six servants is an insult of the highest degree to Laataazin’s status. Four, at least, Soskro and Mirdein were loyal blades - supplemented with Sulis and Ulf, all well-trained by Miraak himself and comely to the eye, which is important, should Laat wish a break from Miraak’s own charms. Then for variety, he could turn to Raven Rock, there is surely some soft-handed noble there craving the honour of serving Laat Dovahkiin (that Severin girl?), and perhaps that dashing sellsword that Laat enjoys, with the chitin armour and the handsome jaw-

No, no, Laat is laughing in breaths that shake the bed, No, I don’t need servants, Miraak, - sensing his mutinous feelings, they add swiftly - I don’t want them. And his name is Teldryn! He is attractive though, isn’t he?

“Geh, zu mindok,” says Miraak, unsure why they need to confirm the obvious.

“Perhaps,” Laat signs, “I’ll ask him to come join us one day, will you like that?”

Miraak’s wings tilt backwards like the ears of a startled Khajiit, and his cheekbones blaze emerald. “Rul laan,” he says, if you want, in a voice that strains to be noncommittal. But underneath that very interesting reaction there is a very real thread of baffling fear, and Laat reaches for him.

“I chose you,” they tell him, “I will keep choosing you.”

Miraak tilts his head, wary of his horns, so that their foreheads press together and their breath mingles. In that resonating voice, he murmurs, “This I know. We are the only ones who are real, Laat Dovahkiin. The others – their lives, their deaths, their pains or desires for freedom, it is less than nothing. I am here, you feel me in your soul, as I feel you in mine.”

Staring into those dual eyes, Laat cannot suppress a frisson of unease. They do not agree - how could they? It is as if he has reached down and found the darkest, guiltiest thoughts Laat regrets having, internal measures of their power against those around them, knowing, knowing, that all those who attempt to constrain them live in ignorance at Laat’s pleasure - but they feel him frown.

“Was it not I who sheltered you from the daedra in Whiterun, I who tended you when the Greybeards trained you in languages you did not know, I who comforted you in your solitude? As it was you who touched me in my cell in Apocrypha, brought me to Nirn and set me free. You alone, my equal. You would not have come to me in Apocrypha if you did not wish to stay with me, Laataazin.” Miraak pronounces each syllable separately, drawing it out as a dragon does. “You broke my chains, and now we are together, and so we will always be. It was not I who offered this choice, if you recall.”

“I do.” He is right in that. “Other people matter, Miraak. We all have lives, no one... is more real than the other. But you don’t have to worry. I still choose you, I am not letting go.”

Miraak’s nostrils smoke. “You will never have to, Laat Dovahkiin. My Voice sings your name. There is nowhere you can go that I cannot find you.”

Laat breathes out slowly and chooses to hear the devotion in his words rather than the threat to their freedom. If he does not fear their interest waning as he claims, they do not know what it is that he fears. They offer him a thread of their own affection, warm regard softened by their intimacy, and his slitted pupils dilate. His shimmering wings soothe against his back, and the Dragon Aspect flickers away.

With that, he rolls off them, casting an ice spell in one hand to cool himself. Frost sheens over his skin, crackling over the soaked robe. It melts in rivulets, taking his inked sweat with it, running down to freshly stain the furs, until he looks streaked with stripes of his natural paperiness like a painted statue in the rain. The sopping darkness of his green hair clings to his shoulders and neck, curls in long strands dragged straight by the weight down to his hips.

As Laat’s eye lingers on the exposed line of his thigh, loops of graceful text begin to appear out of the ink below. They tear their eyes away before their mind can convince them they understand it, and stare at his face until the itch of temptation subsides.

Laat is not certain what he is thinking of - they feel strange, deep musings turning over in his mind, in languages they do not know - but he seems content enough, if quiet.

They tap him to get his attention. “I wasn’t done touching you. Do you need to get dressed now?”

Miraak looks down at the robe clinging wetly to him like he has forgotten it is there. One hand rubs at the bridge of his nose, irritatedly brushing away a lock of hair that drips tears down the angle of his jaw. After a moment, his gaze rises to meet theirs, bolder than they would have thought without the mask.

“Niid,” he says simply. “How do you want me?”

Laat smiles and moves over the bed towards him, feeling his eyes trace over their bare chest, the softness of their belly, their strong shoulders, the slight sway of the relaxed muscle and fat of their arms. An ember of his appreciation warms the blood in their cheeks as they reach his legs.

Lifting his left foot into their lap, Laat kisses his knee. The shape of his bones are fine against their lips. He looks back at them, brows raised, but wedges some of the furs behind his back to support himself, and does not pull away. His foot flexes. The hard claws catch in the fabric of Laat’s breeches, pulling free a loose thread, and they pause to gently untangle him.

He has strong legs, muscled by years of dragon-riding. Laat runs their fingertips over the hard bumps and dips of the thick, crisscrossing calluses and scars that abrade the insides of his legs, imprints of dragonscales made permanent in his flesh. They rub the muscles they can feel underneath it, unsurprised to find them loose and limber. They kiss the soft crinkle of the side of his calf, just under his knee, smelling the warmth of his skin, his musty scent of books and scale.

Their tenderness affects him. Miraak leans towards them, wanting to touch, Laat watching the folds of his loose skin dimple at his waist. Obligingly, they shift closer, hip angled between his thighs, and draw his right leg into their lap instead, palm warm on his knee. He is cold from the ice spell, enough that their skin numbs.

His large hands reach for their face, drawing it to face him. His hands cup their cheeks – they feel him become aware, suddenly, of how small Laat is in comparison to him, how his palms almost eclipse their cheeks, his claws tangling into their short hair. Laat closes their eyes, sighing at the gentle scratch of his blunted claws over their scalp. It is unutterably soothing.

His thumbs brush over the thick spiderweb of scars patterning their face, depressing the cartilage of their nose. Their lashes brush their cheek, his exploring fingers over the thinness of their eyelids, careful of his claws. Lifting to encircle his wrist, not trapping, but touching, just touching, Laat squeezes him and they both sigh at the spreading warmth of lassitude.

“Can I kiss you?” Laat signs one-handed, their movements small and restricted by the circle of his arms. They know he can feel their subtle sort of longing, quite apart from sexual lust that burns like coals in their belly, and even a little nervousness. Nowhere to hide from the soul-of-their-soul.

Miraak hesitates. Laat winces at the confused storm of feelings washing over him, his desire to please and curiosity warring with old fear and instinct. Like any dragon, he does not, as a rule, like having his voice obstructed.

It is not the first time they have asked him, not the first time he has acquiesced. Nor even the first time that his face has been fully bare, not just Laat’s head under the warm darkness of the hood, the metal face angled up to let them just reach his lips. Quick brushes, sometimes longer, where Laat curls their hands into his robes and pushes against him, some bright sparking feeling in them, the forbidden soft warm wetness of their tongue ghosting along his lip, the brilliant spark of their blunt teeth scraping his lower lip until pain waxes, hot and hungry. But it never quite grows easier for him, even with the increase of pleasant memories.

His eyes soften. One hand drops, rubbing over their shoulder, admiring the round cup of muscle filling his palm, the indent of their tan flesh marking under his thumb’s claw. This is Laat Dovahkiin, who brought him from Mora’s cursed Apocrypha, who anchors him to Nirn, who keeps him company on his lonely island and wraps him in soft ropes like he is precious.

Laat is patient and radiates calm. They interpret for him the confusing signals of their bodies, the tightness in his gut that makes him feel like he can’t quite breathe (arousal, affection) the oversensitive pain of his hips and thighs (just a little muscle tiredness), and the throb of his airy mind (the pleasure of submission, soul-of-my-soul).

They know that he does not understand why they desire to put their mouths together so (to restrict his Voice? To gag him, to bite out his tongue? And thus disarmed, choke the air from his lungs? No, no, soul-of-my-soul, Laat whispers in his mind, for pleasure, only that…), but it is… important to them, and it is enough that they want it. For Laat Dovahkiin, he will do this thing.

Something in Laat melts when he thinks that.

“Geh,” says Miraak, unable to quite hide his trepidation.

He tugs them a little closer, his free hand trailing over the meat of their shoulder, stretching over the sharp forks of lightning scars on the back of their neck. Strokes over their muscled back, admiring the folds of their flesh. Laat is fat and warm where he is thin, ghostly, their solidity and weight as unquestionable as the earth. He moves the hand on their cheek to their chest, splayed wide over the ridges of their collarbones, the swell of their small breasts, feels the gentle movement of their breathing. It is only natural to crook his other leg around their body, holding them within the circle of himself, like they are a ship in his whirlpool. How odd, then, that Miraak feels as if he is being pulled into their orbit, not the other way around.

Affection brims in Laat at this thought. They reach into his mind, seeking to feel how he feels, measuring his reactions.

It is Laat that bridges the distance between them when Miraak is unable to, slow and patient with the unconscious reflex that has him jerking back before their lips meet. They simply wait for a beat, then close in regardless, hands squeezing his thigh meditatively. It is grounding.

They feel him think their lips are full, very soft and warm, uncharacteristically undemanding, treating Miraak as if he is a tender thing that must be lulled into peace. Soft, heady brushes of their lips over his closed mouth, sometimes diverting to dust along his cheeks, his jaw – once even, the tip of his nose, making him snort reflexively. Laat laughs at that in their silent way, the puffs of their exhales warm as their kisses on his lips.

Their eyes close when they kiss him again, and they feel him watch their face, close enough to see the near-invisible span of freckles buried under the scars, the faint gleam of sweat on their forehead, the rich curl of their eyelashes. The scraggy tufts of their hair dusting over their cheekbones, the warm shadows clinging beneath their eyebrows.

This is the good thing when they want to kiss him, Miraak thinks, for they come so close he can see every crinkle and crease of their skin, and he can fill his hands with their body.

He runs his hands up and down their spine, and their body yearns towards him like a plant in the sun. Laat sighs when he finds a tense muscle and undoes the knot with his thumb, and smiles when he lingers over their ribs, fascinated with the slow movement of their breath, the rolls and curves of their strength.

Close your eyes, Laat thinks, softly, softly, close your eyes, and open your mouth.

He obeys with a ripple of nervousness, but nothing happens for a long moment. Laat just keeps kissing him, close-mouthed, gentle, until Miraak eases. Their tongue, when it comes to flick lightly at the crease of his bottom lip, surprises him, but even more so is the hazy release of their exhale from their mouth and nose. Their breath is close enough that Miraak could breathe it himself. They feel his flare of excitement at taking and tasting the air that carries their Voice inside himself, and he clumsily nudges closer.

Laat obliges him with a speed that betrays their true eagerness, feels his head swims under the sudden influx of warm, warm approval, pride and pleasure, and their breath, tinted, he thinks, a little, with the power of their Thu’um. They stay like that a moment, Laat’s hands bracing on his stomach, breathing into each other. Miraak’s mind is clouded and warm where it tangles with theirs, as if it’s full of cotton.

Laat wants to kiss him so badly it feels like they want to devour him, greedy with their indulgence, wants his lips, his tongue, the warm wetness of his mouth. The urge to just take it, to fuck his throat with their tongue, is so strong, and they cannot help the way their hands dig into his sides, tense with their restraint. But this is good, they think, a little reluctantly, and there is no need to push on this. With this, Laat has patience on their side.

They pull back to let Miraak breathe properly, but do not go far. Their foreheads press against each other. Laat swears they can feel the hollow thudding of his heartbeat in their chest at the place where their souls meet like tributaries.

“I only moved slightly, there is no need for all this… excitement,” Miraak mutters, but his voice sounds a little destroyed, and Laat grins.

They move to pull away, but Miraak catches their face in his hands again, preventing them from going too far. Laat blinks at him, warm and steady like a cat, and sees their own face reflected in his eyes, his soul, their blown pupil, the way their mouth parts, almost automatically, at the proximity.

“You enjoy it so,” Miraak says, a little bemused.

It is not often that they manage to surprise one another, being as interlinked as they are, but Laat is truly shocked when Miraak furrows up his brow and boldly presses his cold lips to theirs. He has never initiated a kiss, not once, Laat has never thought he would. They feel his determination, shot through with threads of insecurity – am I doing it right? They are not responding – and, classically Miraak, his hands tighten on their cheeks, holding them in place, redoubling his assault instead of pulling back. It is a clumsy mishmash, and they bump noses and once clash teeth, but it is the best kiss Laat has ever had.

Afterwards, they lay down next to each other. Chilled, Laat wraps themselves in the furs they pull over from the drier side of the bed, sighing at the feeling of the cosy softness. Miraak presses up close behind them before they can roll back to face him, their bodies separated by the furs. Laat’s heart warms.

“Want me to fetch your robes and mask?” they sign, knowing he can see over their shoulder.

His nose against their hair shakes. “Niid. Like this I am fine.”

Miraak, insistent and affectionate as a cat, rubs and nuzzles his face against the back of their head and shoulders. His arm curves around their waist, pulling him flush against them. Laat can feel his warm breath against the shell of their ear. Involuntarily, Laat thinks of the warmth of his dragon-wings, how large they are. Larger than his arm, for certain.

Pulling back, Miraak’s lungs billow with air. He Shouts, and the shimmering wings Laat has just been thinking wistfully of drape over them like a blanket. His tail curves around them, hemming in their body against his. They can feel the bladed tip against their stomach, the point made dull by their thick swaddling of furs. It is immediately warmer in the safe cocoon of his wings.

“You didn’t have to do that,” Laat can’t help laughing as they sign, ignoring the stony bed vibrating underneath them, “It was only a thought!”

“Fah hi.” For you. The resonance of his voice echoed with the tenderness of the feeling they can sense in him seems to make his every word louder.

Laat is still for a moment. “I do love you,” they sign, eventually, the burning of their eyes making them glad that they are facing away. They clear their throat.

Miraak’s grip tightens. “Zu’u losiil, Laataazin.”

I am yours. Laat sighs, and wonders if he will ever learn that love and possession are not the same. Though they are not sure that Dovahzul has a word for love, not in the way that Laat means it. Is it even possible for him to return the sentiment in the language he prefers?

For some reason, this line of thought summons Frea’s face before their mind, her sanctimonious words, and Laat’s mood sours.

Sensing their disquiet, Miraak hums against them soothingly. “You are troubled.”

“Frea wants to die,” Laat signs. “I don’t know what to do about her.”

“Do you not like Frea?” Miraak asks, and they feel him turning faces and names over in his mind, struggling to recall which of the many people of Solstheim Laat means. The Skaal woman? He does not associate with the Skaal much - they are not overfond of him, and Miraak is likewise not fond of being called a monstrous traitor by people he must refrain from killing.

“I do.” Laat touches the twitching tip of his tail, as if to soothe his momentary annoyance.

“Then keep her,” Miraak says, as if the answer is obvious. “You will miss her if she dies.”

“But she is unhappy!”

They feel Miraak’s shoulders move in a shrug. “You know my Shout,” he says calmly.

At that, Laat jerks their elbow into his ribs and wriggles. Miraak’s enfolding wing lifts hesitantly, enough for Laat, sweating, to work their way down to lying on their back. Thus freed, they jab a finger in his face as they sign.

“That’s wrong, Miraak! It is immoral to compel someone to go along with you just because it’s easier!” Miraak’s fire-bright eyes blinks at the finger in his face, all four pupils narrowing to focus on it. Laat deflates. “It doesn’t last that long anyway,” their motions are jerky and frustrated, “it would wear off then Frea would cleave me in two with her axe, and I would certainly deserve it.”

“Only because you use it like a hatchet, Laat Dovahkiin,” says Miraak, gaze returning to Laat’s eyes, “blindly superimposing your mind over another. Bend Will works best as a suggestion enforcing a desire or pattern that is already there. Simply find what makes them happy, find what is a barrier to your will, and remove it. The Skaal girl wishes to live as she once did, yes, free to worship her god? Then with your words allow her to do that, and her mind will do the rest.”

Laat’s hands lowered. “I didn’t know it could do that,” they sign, meek, unsure whether the feeling in them is horror or awe.

“With time and patience, the limit to my Shout is your will and the breadth of your imagination,” Miraak explains. He lowers his wing again, slowly, as if fearing that Laat will push it away. “With skill, you could encourage a resentful Greybeard to become a career warmonger, or a compassionate enemy your staunchest defender to the grave, all of their own volition.”

Some strange tinge of unease roils in the back of their mind. Laat touches the wing, feeling the bony spur of the joint, the leathery membrane, unsure how to respond.

Miraak’s voice is quiet and persuasive. It rumbles like the song of earth into Laat, through each bone, each thought in their mind.

“What is worse,” Miraak murmurs, so soft, so low, so deep, “allowing a good woman that you care for to die, or bringing her many more years of happiness and joy through the use of one Shout? A lifetime of bliss with one you love, all for speaking three words? How could you deny her that?”

“I suppose,” Laat signs, but they cannot meet his eye for guilt.

They feel him observing them quietly, some strange dissatisfaction in him that they cannot identify.

“I will do it,” he volunteers suddenly.

“What?” Surprised, Laat glares at him. “No! It’s unethical! You cannot force someone to be happy, or to stay with you simply because you want them to! It would be nothing but a lie.”

For a brief moment, Miraak scowls, the jagged crown of horns and his glowing teeth making him look truly fearsome. But then his expression smooths. “Dismiss it from your mind, Laat Dovahkiin,” he says, gently. “It is simply handled, and already agreed.”

“Don’t hurt her,” Laat signs anxiously, searching his face, “You’re just going to talk to her? Don’t-”

Raising a taloned hand, Miraak clasps theirs to stop their words. He gives Laat a soft, odd smile. “She will not even remember we have spoken,” he promises. “Only where there was frustration and pain, there will now be joy and peace.”

He strokes their hands with the backs of his talons with immense tenderness, nuzzling in close to with his breath and careful rubbing of his sharp cheekbones caress the warm hollow of Laat’s neck. With his touch and his mind he lulls them, sending soothing waves of affection and warmth, feelings of safety, recalling to them the ache in their muscles from sex, the tender sweetness of their kisses. His nose fits under their jaw as if it has been made for him, and despite themselves, Laat sighs. It has never been wise, loving him. But how can they help it? He is the soul-of-their-soul.

“Zu’u aam hi unslaad,” he whispers, with the air of a promise, “rii se dii zii.” I serve you forever, essence of my soul.

They reach for his hair, combing the thick wet locks over his shoulder, avoiding the spines on his back. Droplets of ink run down their arms as they begin to braid, loose and messy.

“You worry too much about people that are not worth your time,” Miraak says, and by his smile Laat supposes he means it lightheartedly.

With a heavy heart, they allow themselves to be cheered, and offer him a small smile in return. “Who should I worry about? You?” they tease, not entirely how much they are joking.

He smirks. “You could.”

Despite themselves, Laat chuckles, hearing the distant crack of stone in their Voice. They tug on the messy braid of wet hair they’ve made, and Miraak goes, a tingle of arousal running through him at the sensation. Laat kisses his cheeks and nose, making his dual eyes flutter shut as he sighs.

“Why,” they sign one-handed when he opens his eyes at their lack of movement, fingers so close they brush his cheek, “you attempting to take over the world again?”

“Niid,” says Miraak, his taloned hand coming to cup their face with the tenderness of a man who knows he is touching something immensely precious, “I have the best of it here, and that is everything I desire.”

With thanks to thuum.org:

Geh: Yes.

Laat Dovahkiin: Last Dragonborn.

Ni faas: lit. no fear. No worries/it’s fine.

Pruzah: Good.

Sikgolt: lit. rune place. Library.

Niid: No.

Zu’u losiil: I am (emphatic) yours.

Wuth: Old.

Diist Dovahkiin: First Dragonborn.

Faaz: lit. (you cause) pain. You’re hurting me.

Saraan: Wait.

Aaz: Mercy.

Los ahraan: (You) are wound(ed).

Mul Qah: Strength Armour (Dragon Aspect Shout)

Zu tiid: I (have had) time.

Morah: Meditate/think deeply (upon it).

Zu laan aam hi: lit. I want to serve you.

Zu mindok: I know.

Rul laan: When (you) want.

Fah hi: For you.

Zu’u aam hi unslaad, rii se dii zii: I serve you forever/ceaselessly, essence/soul of my spirit/soul.

@argisthebulwark as promised.

#inkwrites #minors dni #my fic that world will cease to be #not safe for minors #tw possessiveness #tw jealousy #tw blood #laataazin #mind control #skyrim #tes #miraak #fic

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virgil-writes · 3 years

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ash & soot

Long before the Winters come into play, a monster stalks the Forbidden Forest that surrounds the Village. Karl Heisenberg is sent to investigate, and heads deeper into darkness to find his prey, a thorn on his side and someone just like him. (eventual Heisenberg x OC)

on AO3: chapter one | chapter two | chapter three | chapter four

chapter 4 - the hag’s cabin

SFW, mentions blood and mutilation, around 2K words.

It was like he had snapped out of a bad dream.

A flash of red blinded him for just a moment, hand shooting up to cover his eyes as he stood up straight, fingertips dripping with blood that wasn’t his. He opened his eyes to a much clearer view of the woods, a pressure relieved from his shoulders, and a strange yet friendly face staring down at him with avid curiosity. Blood-tinted eyes watched him closely, an amiable smile on her wrinkled face. The hag’s skin was light enough to glow in the scant moonlight, spindly silver hair wild and framing her face in the most awkward of ways. He was reminded of Mother’s little game of disguise, the unassuming crone of riddles and wisdom.

Maybe it was Mother all along, and in that case, he better be on his best behavior. She was surely capable of it all, confusing him on the path and assuming the form of some horrible abomination; but why would she bother? She did seem genuinely surprised, perhaps even wary. Was this another one of her games to keep them all on their toes? To ensure obedience, another way of displaying her powers to remind him that even at his best, he was not an omniscient near-god. In her eyes, he was a second class citizen with a thing for tinkering that she kept around. A dangerous, homicidally inclined one, but a second class failure nonetheless.

The hag’s dirty clothes fluttered in the wind, the smell of death seeming to emanate from within her bones, strong enough to choke him. For a moment, he expected her to cackle, conjure up a staff made of bones to wave at him while she spoke her nonsense, telling him to repent and surrender to the Black God. Instead she laboriously extended a frail hand to help him up, blackened fingertips offering him no comfort.

“Come closer, dear, let us have a look at you.” She spoke at last, tender, almost motherly, her voice sounding like a legion of disjointed souls pooling together to form a sentence. She took a step in his direction when he did not answer, bones cracking with effort, frame barely supporting her own weight. It looked to him as if her every movement was torture, like she had been living on borrowed time for far too long and the earth had grown tired of waiting to reclaim her to dust. “Let us bathe you, take care of you.” Her words were sweet, her tone malicious. “Everything will be fine.”

Oh, yes, naturally. She looked like she had come straight out of a fairytale book, but surely it would all end up alright. It would all be fine, surely, him being bathed in a large bubbling cauldron with herbs and salt for soap, trapped inside a cage being fattened for later use in culinary endeavors. The fat on his body would be used for tallow, the skin for the shade of some lamp, the heart to power said lamp.

“Think I’ll pass.” Was all he could say through gritted teeth, barely a whisper in the dissonance of his thoughts. Her snicker was low and delighted, form fading away in a cloud of crimson mist.

The terror that had consumed him had disappeared just as quickly as it had taken hold, his racing heart and staggered breathing giving way to the burning rage and overconfidence he usually carried with him. He looked around for the yellow flowers Donna used to trick people’s minds, for any sign that what he had witnessed was an illusion. The snow felt real as he crushed it with his fingers, the wind caressed him just so to keep him alert and awake. Heisenberg looked down at himself to look for anything that might be amiss, a misshaped piece of fabric, a hue that looked off; he counted ten fingers, pulled back his sleeve to look at his wristwatch, numbers crisp and clear. Not a dream, not a hallucination. Sheer terror, like he had not felt in years, adrenaline pumping in his veins to make him feel alive after decades of keeping his nose just above the water. Despite it all, he felt light as a feather. In a way, he felt free.

He rose to his feet to take the path ahead, ducking to miss the arch of the twisted tunnel, holding onto branches and feeling like they held onto him in return. A mere couple of meters away, a crude fence and wooden gate separated him from a clearing he had never seen. Slabs of stone marked the way towards it, visible despite the icy landscape, their surface well-worn and freshly disturbed. Had the hag come this way? Would he meet a series of monsters that made him offers he could not refuse, like the tales Miranda had concocted of him and his siblings?

He knew the mountain held a multitude of paths and clearings, nooks and crannies untouched by man and lost to time, mazes and caves and all manners of things he had only read in old books of fiction. The villagers would always say there was much that surrounded them, not altogether pleasant, older than them, older than the bones of this earth. Monsters and spirits, legends lost just beyond the village gates. Even as a child, swallowing his fear like a bitter pill, he labeled them all fools, pawns in the hands of a cruel bitch who kept them isolated, a flock of tarnished sheep that would never break free of their bonds. And yet it seemed the joke was on him, was it not? Here he was, mother’s prophecy fulfilled, standing alone in the forest deep, lost like the child who ran away to pick berries, having just witnessed something he could not explain.

Heisenberg peered into the trees in silence, breathing labored and pulse too loud in his ears. He watched for eyes in the forest, long fingers that camouflaged in the tree bark. Silver hair mistaken for spider webs, humanoid shadows that tricked the unwary. All he sees is a curious hare that stops to stare at him before going deeper into the woods to find its den, all he hears are the sounds of the night and the forest alive at last.

The smell of rotting carcasses inundated his nostrils as he walked, a series of carefully placed, crusty wooden stakes protruding from the ground like sickly trees that refused to wither. Blood dripped and congealed at its base, the decapitated heads of lycans and samcas and moroaicas neatly impaled, but looking so alive. He could almost hear it, the groaning and stretching of broken jaws as they tried to break free.

An incredulous smile crept up to his lips as he reached out to touch a nearby lycan’s head, skin soft and clammy underneath his fingers, veins protruding on swollen flesh. Sharp teeth and exposed gums, no doubt a lycan, and he is too slow to react when the creature bites down onto his hand and all but tears the skin between his thumb and index fingers. It tries to finish the job but cannot break free, just enough movement to open and close its jaw, and Heisenberg looks down in disbelief to his bleeding hand, to the monster that should have turned to dust.

He reaches for the hammer in a half-horrified haze, swings with full strength to knock the stake to the ground, amazed when all heads spring to life and groan at him in a last breath that would never end. His morbid curiosity has him bring the hammer over his head and down onto the earth, bones cracking with the impact as the failed experiment finally crumbles to dust beneath the metal. What kind of fuckery was this? The pain in his right hand felt too real to be an illusion, the blood dripping onto his boots too viscous to be a trick of the mind. His mind spun with theories, with curiosity. Before he leaves, he should confiscate one of these for further study at the factory.

Heisenberg could hardly contain his excitement as he vaulted over the fence, anxious for the next chapter of this night full of surprises. He expected a gruesome display; an altar proudly displaying a sacrifice, the hunched over beast he had met before munching on an animal corpse. The hag kneeling by the stream, washing bloody clothes as a presage of war and death. A circle of witches chanting in tongues and cursing his entire, nonexistent bloodline for generations to come. An enchanted maiden with a delicate bosom and sinuous form inviting him to ravage her innocence, only to eat him alive liver first in a fit of madness.

Instead he was greeted by a curious chicken peeking at him from a hole in the trellis of its coop, a tiny goat grazing by his feet. There was a horse, real this time, penned in and cozy for the night, oblivious to his presence.

The small hoofed animal doesn’t seem bothered when Heisenberg grabs it unceremoniously, inspects its fur and hoofs and horns, pinches at its flesh for any hint of supernatural. On the contrary, the goat seems to enjoy it, tiny tail wagging rapidly as Heisenberg stares it down like one would an annoying baby that is too cute for one to be angry at. It seems almost sad when it is put back down onto the snow, gives Heisenberg a tentative headbutt and walks away in defeat when he ignores it to investigate the rest of the place.

A small cabin stood just beyond, green shingles on the roof and walls covered in clay, narrow porch and swinging front door, a light bleeding out into the night through the narrow window of the attic. Suspiciously innocuous. There were no chicken legs, it was not made of sweets, and instead of decay, what he smelled made his stomach growl in response. He would eat that damn black horse the moment he saw it again, leg first as he moved up his feast.

A delicate wreath of wildflowers adorned the red door, slightly ajar to encourage his exploration. He did not recognize the symbol drawn just beneath his feet at the threshold - was it a warning? A welcome message? Heisenberg made sure to remain perfectly quiet as he stepped inside, taking care that his boots would not squeak against the wooden boards. The warmth of the house was a stark contrast to the biting cold outside, the colorful woven rug a pleasant change from the bleak scenario of ice and death. He pushed the door all the way to reveal a room that was equal parts cozy and mysterious.

To his right was a wood stove, a bucket of firewood resting beside it, white ceramic kettle embellished with blue flowers whistling loudly on top. A shelf stocked with grain and spices stood just beyond, hooks with a multitude of pots and pans beneath it. The small kitchen also had a rustic counter and ceramic sink, cutting board and bone-white knife abandoned halfway through a large carrot. The small dinner table was set for two, a pair of teacups resting at the end of it. There was no sign of electricity, candles and lanterns of wrought iron working double time to ward off the dark of night.

He walked further in to to look at the rest of it, the diminutive living room that was also kitchen and dining area. The couch was a wooden skeleton covered in coarse fabric, cushions looking like they had patched a thousand times over. Somehow, they looked leagues more comfortable than any of Alcina’s fancy armchairs. Dusty tomes fought for space on a wooden stool beside it, candle wax frozen solid halfway over the edge onto the ground. A rickety ladder was almost hidden next to it, woolen socks overhanging one of the steps.

Right in front of him, on the far wall, was a sturdy brick fireplace, cast iron pot hanging over it, the tasty looking stew he had smelled from outside bubbling invitingly. A soft whimper alerted him to the presence of a furry creature curled up in front of the fire, looking compact despite its real size, oblivious to his presence and sound asleep. Heisenberg chuckled as he walked closer and bent down to pet it with a little too much force, the shaggy shepherd hound lifting its head to look at him in annoyance before busying itself with its nap once again, too tired to give a fuck about anything else. Craning his body to the left he peeked at the mezzanine, candle lit but bed empty. No one home, it seemed.

It was difficult to remain quiet when anger bubbled under the first layer of his skin; he was furious at his Mother and sister, at whoever had pulled the stupid prank earlier. He had been sent on a wild goose chase, had gotten lost in the woods, had bled his own blood and now stood inside a poor soul’s shack doubting every single thing that had happened this far. Even a man like himself had limits, however, and if he had simply stumbled upon a well-kept homestead of a peasant trying to live their life alone in the middle of the woods, he would leave just as quietly as he had entered. It was only fair, considering he, too, would do the same if given the chance. Perhaps his prey still wandered somewhere and he had gotten lost along the way, but it was time to go back to the road and hunt down the motherfucker who had almost made him piss his pants.

A couple more minutes and he would leave the forest, march up to Castle Dimitrescu and give Alcina a piece of his mind. Maybe he should climb up to the belfry, call everyone over and proudly display his limp dick as he twirled it around like a helicopter blade. Imagining the look of disgust in his sister’s face brought him some comfort.

“So this is the monster that lives in these woods, huh?” He asked the dog, half expecting an answer, with his back turned to make his way out.

“Oh, I am afraid that would be me,” said a woman’s voice somewhere behind him.

#resident evil village #karl heisenberg #karl heisenberg x oc #virgil writes #long post //#tw blood

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graveyarddirtseries · 3 years

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Graveyard Dirt & Salt

Chapter 7: Mena

Sitting up now, he pinned her with a look, that look he had when he was being a proper marine. It was commanding, cold and just firm enough to make her feel like a little girl caught in a lie. When his blue-grey eyes narrowed and chilled, they became weapons used to spear a person still, used to rend them open and bare to his scrutiny.

Another day came and it was one more Sister Mary Patrick wouldn't get to see.

Time always seemed so passively cruel to her. How despite anything which happened, it just ticked, ticked, ticked away.

Young Grace Harper had noticed this after her father died, when Christmas came and went and came again, she grew older and he would forever remain the same age.

Kneeling by his headstone in the Laurel Grove Cemetery, she would bring her father sunflowers plucked from her mother's garden, and tears that never seemed like they would ever stop.

This year Mena would become older than her father had ever gotten to be. And the thought unsettled her. She had claimed, during her wilder years in Atlanta, that she would be dead by the age he had been when he died.

But here she was, kneeling beside Sister Mary Patrick's resting place, hastily dug into the cemetery behind their church.

She didn't have any flowers to bring, her beloved rose bushes weren't in bloom yet and it was too late for the lilacs and wisteria.

But she brought something, because you had to offer something to the dead as a remembrance.

It was a small cloth doll, something she had made one day out of scraps of linen and fabric, wanting to give it to the nuns who went to sell their honey and goods at the farmer's market to give to some small child.

It never got to make that journey into town.

So it was placed at the base of the rough wooden cross that marked Sister Mary Patrick's grave. She would be in a better place.

Mena wouldn't lose another nun, she wouldn't let her girls live through this all over again. Mary Patrick would want them to rise from the ashes, she would say it was a lesson, hard taught, but hopefully learned, sent by God himself.

“Who the fuck let you and that ass clown decide anything about my sister without me?!”

The stillness of her morning was broken by the loud teenage boy, shouting at who she could only imagine was the poor Lieutenant somewhere in the morning mists of her convent grounds.

Pushing to her feet, she sought out the sound, wanting to silence the language and hopefully help the Lieutenant placate the boy.

“You know what I don't need you fucking idiots dealing with my shit!”

The marine's low tone was beginning to be heard as Mena rounded the corner of the cloister, finding both arguers standing beside the water pump for their well.

“I can deal with this myself!”

“Son, you couldn't even defend yourself or keep my back safe at that cabin. I'm not saying there's anything wrong with not being good with guns or fighting, but in this instance, your sister's survival would be best placed in the hands of Benny or myself.”

Mena approached the two, coming to a stop just behind the Lieutenant.

“I don't even need any of you!” Grayson stated.

“Why are you being such a stubborn little cabri?” The Lieutenant asked softly. “We want you here with us, we want to help you. But time is important and you're not ready for fighting or recon. You come with me, I get you trained up.”

“I'm not weak!” Grayson argued, like a child who knew he was, but hoped just words would convince the adults he was an old veteran, ragged and rough from war.

Reaching out, Mena placed her hand very, very lightly on the boy's shoulder, he jumped, but didn't leap away, just a twitch.

“I appreciate this is a conversation we must have, gentlemen, but there are nuns sleeping just over there and you are using some very potent language.”

“Sorry, Missy,” the Lieutenant said.

“Sorry,” Grayson murmured, embarrassed.

“Grayson,” she said. “I don't know Mr. Malone very well, but I do know is that he loves Annie and he will never leave her behind. He's going to find your sister and he'll bring her home to you.”

“Did you see his shoes?” Grayson demanded. “They were more expensive than my sister's first car.”

“Junker?” The Lieutenant teased, trying to lighten the mood.

Grayson shook his head. “No, she worked really hard to buy it new. I mean, it was basic as shit, but...”

Mena smiled. “You know,” she said. “I would kind of love to hear about her some more. If you don't mind telling me about Haley?” “You're just trying to distract me,” Grayson replied sullenly.

“I'm a nun, Grayson, I don't have the capabilities of trickery and lies,” she lied. “You get ten extra lashings in hell for each lie you tell.”

The Lieutenant beamed broadly, sitting down at the pump to flop his bag on the ground, digging through it. “You'll have to tell us all about Haley tonight around the fire,” he said. “Right now, we have to get hunting while the hunting is good.”

Mena gave Grayson's forearm a warm squeeze. “Be careful out there, you two? I want both of you back in good health.”

“What kind of mischief are you up to right now?” The Lieutenant called out after her.

“Well, there's a little girl who will be waking up to find she's been left behind and I want to be there for her.”

“You're a sweet girl, Missy.”

“Woman,” she stated, turning around to face him. “I'm a woman, Lieutenant. Girls are the things made of sugar and spice and everything nice.”

“And what are you made of then?” He teased.

“Oatmeal and granola and nothing interesting,” she returned. “See you two soon.”

Inside the convent, she passed a few nuns who were just entering the dining room after their morning prayers in their rooms, heading into the one she had given to Annie.

The child was in the middle of pulling on her little shoes, the pretty purple ones with velcro.

“Good morning,” she greeted the girl brightly. “Did you sleep well, honey?”

The child nodded, eyes darting past her to the empty hall beyond. Benny was usually the first person she saw in the morning, and Mena knew it wouldn't take her long to figure things out.

“I have to collect the eggs from the hen house for breakfast,” Mena went on smoothly. “Would you like to help me?”

Already putting two and two together, Annie sort of bowed her head for a moment, before furrowing her brow and nodding firmly.

“Come on,” Mena said, holding her hand out to the girl. “Let's go outside, it's beautiful this morning.”

Mena waited until they were in the morning sunshine, before she stopped Annie just under her peach tree.

“Sweetie, Mr. Malone had to leave us last night, but-” she added quickly as Annie begin to panic. “He promised me he'd be back and I told him that it was a great sin to lie to a nun.”

Annie absorbed this information for all of a second, before she bolted away from Mena, heading for the gate.

Halfway there, she was scooped up by the Lieutenant who had been loitering about the front of the church with a couple of the younger nuns, the marine holding the squirming girl gently, but firmly as she kicked and sobbed.

“Hey now, boo,” he cooed to her. “What's the ruckus?”

Annie didn't say anything, just reached her hands longingly towards the gate.

“Hey now,” he went on, setting the child down and squatting before her to rub away her tears. “Benny'll be back, he had to go out to find your mama, but he told me that he would be expecting you to be here when he came back and if you head out them gates, then I guess he won't be able to find you.”

Annie calmed somewhat, still sobbing pathetically before him.

“Now, you go ahead and cry, honeybee,” the Cajun cooed soothingly.

Mena knelt behind Annie, so both adults sort of encompassed the child.

“You wanna a hug from me or Mena?”

Annie turned to Mena and buried herself against Mena's chest.

“Thank you, Lieutenant,” Mena whispered over Annie's head.

The marine beamed. “You don't keep me around for my pretty face.”

All day Mena kept Annie close to her, wanting to distract the child.

But often her eyes would turn to the gates, or to a door, or anywhere Benny could pop up from.

“Maybe with no one left alive we can finally pick our own habit styles.”

They were outside, doing the washing the old fashioned way, hot water boiled over the fire, a kettle big enough to do a small load of laundry and some soap, the garments were spun around and around in the kettle with a baseball bat from their sport closet from when they took their annual summer picnic camping trip.

“That way we don't have to do so much washing,” Sister Mary Claire finished.

Mena felt several pairs of eyes on her and cleared her throat politely. “I think if any of you want to wear more practical items we can accommodate that.”

“Our habit has always been a proud symbol of our order,” Sister Thomas Aquinas argued. Mena knew she would be the last one to hold out to the old ways, she was set firmly in her beliefs.

“If you want to remain in the habit you can, but it might prove practical to change, something modest though, please. Let's not go too far into the realm of short shorts and halter tops.”

“There goes my summer look,” Sister Dymphna retorted, cackling along with a few of the younger nuns.

“I can't wait to get some floral patterns back into my life,” Sister Felicity Perpetua murmured.

“I think Sister Mary Patrick would have loved to have dressed plainly,” Sister Mary Agnes said.

Mena nodded. “She'd love for us to flourish in the wake of her passing.”

“Do you think we will?” Mary Monica asked.

“If we manage to learn some self defence from the Lieutenant, then I think we have a very good chance. But there will be change and some sacrifice.” Mena said.

“Will we really have to shoot people?” Mary Claire asked.

“They aren't people anymore,” Mary Elizabeth said. “They're dead, aren't they?”

Everyone looked at Mena, who continued wringing out the undergarment she had in hand.

She slowly and carefully pinned it to the line that ran from the side of the cloister to a pole about five feet away. There was a desire in her to avoid the question, but she knew she would have to answer it as best she could.

“We don't know,” she said finally to everyone's shock. When several nuns begin speaking at once, Mena held up her hands to silence them. “The Lieutenant isn't certain they are dead or just diseased, but!” She added as more questions came at her. “We can be assured, they are beyond our mortal help, so regardless. They are violent and they would most certainly kill you as witnessed by poor Mary Patrick. So don't hesitate to kill them, if you need to.”

“Will we be punished by God?” Mary Monica asked. “Is it a sin?”

“I can't answer that,” Mena said. “But I think, in my heart at least, we can safely say God did not put us on earth to allow ourselves to be picked off by these abominations. I think He would want us to fight and survive. That's our trial.”

“What about other things?” Felicity Perpetua asked.

“Such as?”

“The men?”

Most of the nuns began an uproar.

“I mean!” The young nun amended quickly. “Are we free to talk to them?”

“I never told you to not speak with them, just to be wary,” Mena said.

“But they're very secular in their speech,” Mary Monica pointed out.

“Just because they are, doesn't mean you will be.”

“And where does the line get drawn then?” Thomas Aquinas demanded.

“Wherever it needs to be to divide our world from theirs without isolating ourselves from them,” Mena returned coolly. Thomas Aquinas was...argumentative with her at the best of times and the worst.

“Think of this place as more than a convent now,” she went on. “It's a mission, and our mission is to offer shelter and protection for those who seek it here behind these walls. In return the Lieutenant and maybe others can help protect our way of life and our home.”

“Is...is God still with us?”

The voice was so soft, so shyly spoken that Mena took a moment to register it. None of her nuns had such a soft way about them, well...the novitiate did.

Mary Elizabeth sat, head bowed, her work laying damp in her lap.

An expected roar of assurances from the other nuns never came and Mena found herself looking at eight pairs of eyes all solemnly gazing at her.

Even Sister Gertrude, sitting in her chair, with her pretty sunhat on with one of her cats in her lap, managed enough clarity of mind to gaze over at her expectantly.

They didn't want reassurances, they wanted an answer that Mena never had. God was always just faith. You had faith that he was there, that he guided you, that he heard your prayers, but...this was too much for her to even know.

She had even wondered this herself recently, had been wondering about this since she saw the dead walking the earth.

Had He abandoned them after rapture happened? Had He never existed?

She could lie and say yes, she could lie and say no, but the only truth she could tell them was a sturdy, “I don't know.”

The nuns seemed to absorb this like a bumper car hitting a brick wall, it rocked them and they gave a single shudder that ran through the entire group, before they just sort of accepted it and went back to work.

Except Mary Elizabeth, who sort of hunched in on herself more and began to softly sob.

Setting down her own work, Mena moved towards the young woman and knelt smoothly down beside her, an arm going around the younger woman.

“Listen,” she said loud enough to address the other nuns as well. “I can't speak for your faith, if you think that God is still with us, then He is, but I just...I can't honestly answer you, Mary Elizabeth. Shy,” she amended, using the woman's real name, hoping to snap her out of her mood.

It seemed to work as the young woman looked up at her quickly at the sound of her own name used.

Hugging her closer, Mena went on, “but I do know that all of you have me and the Lieutenant now and Grayson and even Mr. Malone, though he may not stay. And if we have each other, then whether God is watching over those we lost in the rapture or wherever He may be, we have each other and that will make us stronger if we remain together.”

Mary Claire set her work aside and flopped down beside them. “I need a hug too, Mother Mena.”

“Me too,” Felicity Perpetua added, joining them hastily.

Before she knew it the other nuns were all clustered together, two of them going over to hold Sister Gertrude in her chair, an entire flock of white habits spread out on the grass, hugging and embracing each other, some of them sobbing a little, their pent up fear and anxiety freely flowing.

This was what Mena loved about her lot in life. It wasn't the church, it wasn't prayer or lighting candles or the relic of Saint Cecilia they kept in the reliquary.

It was that these were her girls, her nuns. They were the only family she had now and she had to protect them, they couldn't withstand another loss.

A shadow was cast over them all and Mena opened her eyes to a sight that had her heart skipping several beats. In the time it took to register the blood and the gore, she also registered the fact that it was plastered to the Lieutenant who was holding a deer carcass wrapped in a blue tarp in his arms bridal style, standing over them.

He was the epitome of filth. Standing out against the fluttering white of their drying habits beside him, covered in sweat and blood and dirt and other things Mena knew were best left to mystery.

“Oh, Lieutenant,” she scolded him, as her nuns returned to their work at the intrusion. “You scared ten years off my life.”

“Sorry,” he said. “I was about to ask if everything was okay?”

She nodded.

He turned to walk off, when she called out, “Lieutenant?”

Turning back to face her, the Cajun grinned a little nervously. “Yeah?”

“When was the last time you bathed, honey?” She asked.

“Oh,” his head dipped to the ground at his feet, peering over the deer in the tarp in his arms. “Uh...well...I walk myself through creeks here and there.”

Mena looked at the poor man, he tried hard, from what she could see, to be neat and orderly, but he was absolutely bordering on noxious. “We're doing laundry today, it's our day to do it, would you be so kind as to hand over your shirt and pants?”

“Well,” he began almost shyly. “It's...I'm not about to make you wash my skivvies,” he attempted a charming grin at her.

“Lieutenant, please? We're women, you think we don't have dirty clothes from time to time? Mary Agnes, could you maybe set aside some hot water for the bath for the Lieutenant?”

“Oh! No!” The marine protested. “Really! Ladies, I'm...I know I'm a dirty Cajun boy, you don't need to...”

“Don't be embarrassed, Lieutenant,” Mena insisted. “We'd prefer if you took a quick bath, actually.”

“Oh,” his face fell and for a moment Mena wished she hadn't wounded him as she did, but then he grinned crookedly. Dropping the deer, dropping his pack, the man shucked his shirt first and handed it over to her. “Start with that, I suppose.”

Tossing his shirt directly into the kettle, Mena nodded.

“I'm sorry if I'm a little ripe for you ladies,” the marine apologized. Again he sort of dipped his head shyly. “Guess you can't take the trash out of the trailer trash, yeah?”

Realizing how awful she must have made the poor man feel, Mena quickly stood up to follow him as he headed for the stump they were using as a butcher's block.

“Lieutenant,” she said, falling in stride beside him. “I didn't mean to embarrass you back there.”

He shook his head. “I'm a dirty boy,” he admitted. “It's the end of the world. I just...well, I hope I didn't offend you ladies none. I've been trying to keep neat, but...every day it's either the uggies coating you in something or hunting.”

She nodded. “Well, all the same, I shouldn't have brought it up so publicly. I suppose I'm just...disordered today.”

Stopping, he turned to her. “You alright?”

“I think so, just...accepting a few things, I guess. When you're done with the deer, I'll help you find some hot water and privacy for a wash. If you'd like.”

“If you'd like,” he repeated.

Staring up at the man's pretty blue-grey eyes, Mena couldn't decide if she wanted to weep or embrace the poor man, he put up such a front, but there were moments of real vulnerability in his eyes that tugged at her heart a little more than they should. He was like a child buried inside the body of a grown man. A grown man that, as he stood towering over her holding the deer carcass, she could so very clearly see his breathtaking power and strength.

“What happened here?” She asked, hoping to change the subject, to smooth over her faux pas in embarrassing him in company. Pressing her finger lightly to a deep, wide, jagged scar that tore down his side.

“Time and tides,” he replied casually. “Wanna learn how to gut and clean this doe?”

Glancing to the other nuns where Mena was supposed to be helping, she considered his invitation for a moment, before saying, “I shouldn't leave my chores to be someone else's burden.”

He nodded.

As she turned to leave him, he said, “you know...” he began. “I appreciate you washing my shirt and taking care of me. I don't need you to do it, understand, but I'm grateful all the same.”

“Lieutenant, our amenities are yours now if you need them. We can't just turn on our bathtub anymore because without power our pumps won't run, but we can heat you up some water for a good soak.”

“Holes in a bucket,” he pointed out.

“What's that?”

“Makeshift shower, holes in a bucket. It's faster and saves time.”

She smiled. “Oh. We might have to hook something up for it.”

He nodded. “Or we could figure out a way to get power back to the convent...I don't know much about electrical engineering, but...solar or wind maybe? I'll give it a think.”

Mena brushed her hand over his shoulder warmly. “Well, for now don't worry yourself too much about our power. We're just grateful you're bringing us home meat.”

He beamed. “It's what I'm good at.”

“Tell Grayson to bring us his clothing too, if he can, we'll wash those as well.” Mena added as the marine turned to join the young man at the stump.

“Sure sure.”

Rejoining the nuns at the fire, Mena eased down to her work wringing out the clean clothing.

It was an entire blissful minute before Dymphna asked, “so is looking okay with this new order, Mother Mena? Because I'm looking and that marine is beautiful.”

“The apple was fine on the tree, Dymphna,” Mary Agnes warned playfully.

The nuns laughed softly, but Mena was quiet, head bent to her work.

“It was a joke,” Dymphna apologized.

“No,” Mena began, “it was fine, just...we should do our best to try to make him feel welcome here. I'm afraid we've begun our relationship with the Lieutenant a little unsteadily. He's given us much more than we have shown him and I think we should remember that. And I'm not innocent of these charges either. I didn't even want him here. That was my biggest mistake, could have cost us more than just...what we've lost.”

“Here's your shirt, Lieutenant,” she said, placing the cleaner, dry shirt down beside the metal wash tub she had been filling half full of deliciously hot water, bringing some cool water in to lower the boiling temperature a little for the man to ease himself down into it.

Coated in blood now from the deer, the marine eyed the tub warily. “Not sure I can fit myself in this little thimble,” he remarked, nudging it with a boot.

Mena smiled and turned to set the jug she had been using to bring cool water in for the bath beside the door. “Well, you can try all you want. Stick your feet in it at least, heat them up nice and warm, then start at the bottom and work upwards.”

Behind her she heard two thuds and a zip and turned before it registered, nearly catching the Lieutenant in mid disrobe.

“Oh!” She covered her eyes.

“You had your back turned,” he replied sheepishly. “Thought you were leaving.” Still it sounded like he wasn't shamed into redressing as she then heard the clothing fall and the soft splashes of him stepping into the tub.

“Do you...need anything else?” She asked.

“Well, just hold on now, because if my ass gets stuck in this tub, we're going to need some Crisco and a whole lot of leverage,” he teased, causing Mena to giggle, it was half nervous, half amused. She wouldn't ever admit it, but she might have loosened her hand shield a little. Just a little! In case he fell.

“Alright, I'm in, got myself covered, your chastity is safe.” He remarked. “For now.”

Dropping her hands, she looked at him, crammed into the tub like a sardine in a can, towel draped across the important bits, legs spidered up and out, feet planted on the floor. From the amount of water displaced on the floor, she imagined there wasn't a whole bunch left in the tub with the giant man.

“Well, looks relaxing,” she lied.

“Hm.”

“Let me get you some fresh hot water to replace what you've lost,” she said, moving towards him with another towel in hand. “And here, if you put this behind you, just...in here,” she leaned him forward and tucked the thick towel between his lower back and the hard metal rim of the tub.

His body was hot and slick from the water, and as much as she didn't want to insult him again, she knew from the grime that came off on her, that she would need to change her habit to a clean one again.

“How long have you gone without a proper bath?” She asked him.

“A long time,” he admitted. “Maybe since this all began. I couldn't find a good place, the water's dangerous if it's over your head, it can be over the heads of the sinkers.”

“Sinkers?”

“Yeah, the dead will get into water over their heads and sink down, they don't live as long down there as the land ones, but they like to haunt the depths and grab ya when you're not expecting it. Stay out of the deep waters, yeah?”

“I will,” she replied, horrified.

When Mena returned to the bathroom - that ineffectual place that mostly they just used for bathing in privacy in and dumping the water down the shower drain into their lagoon far beyond the wall, she found the Lieutenant slumped over sideways in the small tub, his arm draped dramatically on the floor.

“Are you alright?” She asked, carefully adding more water to his bath, mindful of his flesh and the speed which she introduced the warmer water.

“Marat,” he replied with a grin. “You ever see that painting?”

“You're playing in the bath now?”

He chuckled. “Yeah. Just waiting for you to come back and warm me up, this floor is frigid.”

“Then get your arm off it,” she returned, gently nudging it with the toe of her shoe.

His hand grasped at the toe of her shoe and he lifted it a little.

“Stop it! I have hot water in my hands,” she scolded, laughing despite the situation as he released her and continued to fidget in the water. “You're very fidgety for a marine. ADHD?”

“No thanks, I already have some,” he teased, easing back against the fluffy, now soaked towel she had rested behind him. “I don't know. Maybe...something undiagnosed. Made school hard, you know?”

“Um-hm.” She set the bucket down, there was still some hot water left in it, but she didn't want to scald the poor man in the tub, so she left the rest to cool a little. “Are you at least getting clean while you fidget?”

“I think so...” he remarked, eyeing his arms and legs. “But my feet are freezing out there on the floor.”

Mena moved to his feet and dipping a clean cloth into the warm water of his tub, she helped him clean and warm his feet.

“Service comes with this?”

She smiled. “Missions clean the feet of the poor, why can't I clean the feet of the mighty too?”

He dropped his head back and grinned. “Well, don't serve me because you have to. I'm not above scrubbing my own damned hooves.”

Mena laughed. “I like you, Lieutenant. You're a calming presence.”

“Even with all my fidgeting?” He asked.

“Yes.”

He beamed wider. It was a very boyish, almost sheepish grin he had, something that could bend a person's will if he turned it on just hard enough to charm, but he held it back with modesty and that sort of shy way he only allowed one side to lift up higher than the other. Taking hold of the bucket of now properly cooled water, Mena tucked his feet inside it and allowed them to soak in the warmth.

“Why are you taking good care of me?” He asked. “Not that I'm ungrateful, but...seems a little much.”

“I was hoping to work up to a proper thank you to you for all you've done so far for us.”

“Oh yeah?” He asked.

“Hmm.”

The duality of the man was both sweet and gentle and hard and firm, in more ways than just his mental state.

“Come here,” he commanded her with a casual crook of his finger and despite her slight fear, Mena found herself obeying him, shuffling on her knees towards the top of him, eyes unable to look away from his.

With her maybe a hand's width away from his face, he studied her hard and long, before rasping, “you up to something?”

“No.” She swore.

“If you're working towards something, just tell me,” he assured her. “I take honesty better than manipulation.”

“I just wanted to show my appreciation for you,” she whispered, not at all shaking a little because of the intensity of his eyes and the rasp of his baritone.

It had been a long, long, very long time since she had been this close to a naked man and maybe she made a mistake wanting to wash his feet, maybe she had made a bunch of mistakes. And maybe a few of them had been on purpose, because she was still a flesh and blood woman and he was a very, very charming man.

“Don't be scared,” he replied suddenly, hand wet and warm from the bath on her shoulder now, pushing her back a little gently. “I was just worried you might be trying to get me to do something wild like kill the boy child or something. And then I was worried you were trying to seduce me or something, because there's no better way to prey on a person than to prey on their loneliness.”

She shook her head. “No, I was just...trying to be kind. Is that how you interrogate everyone in your life?”

“Just marines,” he returned. “Honestly. Don't worry, I would never hurt you. Just...tell me things, yeah? Be open. I'm more forgiving than God.”

“Blasphemy,” she pointed out, moving back to his feet.

“I think we need more honesty between the two of us if we plan on existing here for a while together,” he added.

“I agree.” She looked up at him. “Are you really that lonely? Don't they train marines to isolate and survive on their own.”

“Well sure, but...you can train a man to live in isolation, doesn't mean it's good for his head.”

“No, I suppose not.”

“Truthfully, when I first got here, all I desperately wanted to do was talk to someone who didn't grunt or groan. Well...at first, anyways.” He added with a roguish grin.

She smiled sadly. “I'm sorry. I sent you away. All you wanted was to talk.”

“No, you did the right thing. People aren't the same anymore, you can't just throw open your doors to them. Seems it's survival of the fittest out there now, the uggies are just mosquitoes at the BBQ.”

“Well, you have us now. And we wanted to invite you and Grayson to eat with us tonight, in the dining hall.”

“Really?” He asked, eyebrows raising.

“Um-hm.”

“Ladies say 'yes', Missy,” he teased, repeating something she had often said to Annie in front of him.

Without thinking, she smacked his knee with the back of her hand and clucked her tongue at him.

He laughed. “You can't hit me after you bathed my feet! I don't think Jesus would approve!”

Mena laughed with him, though a little more moderately. “Behave yourself then.” She warned. “And tomorrow when you go out, try to find some clothes that might fit you, so next time we do laundry you have a change you can slip in to.”

“That's like asking me to find a Babe Ruth rookie card, Missy. I'm a big fella and the Georgian backwoods has some little, tiny men.”

#graveyard dirt & salt #chapter 7 #novel #support an author

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sensei-aishitemasu · 4 years

Text

2019 Black-Owned Gift Guide!

It’s that time again! This Black Friday, try and support a Black-owned business for all your gift-giving needs. For last years gift guide, click here. For the 2017 gift guide, here. For the 2016 gift guide, click here. For the 2015 gift guide, click here. (This is the FIFTH annual gift guide! Time flies!)

Similar to 2018, I kept every individual item listed under $100! Click on the links to be taken to the websites in order to peruse more yourselves. Every item and brand has been hand selected and curated. Sustainability has been increasingly on my mind, especially when it comes to fashion; as such, several brands on this list are ethically and sustainably sourced. Several also include donations from your purchase being made to philanthropic causes.

[And as always, this guide has been split into categories to make it easier to get through, but feel free to mix and match for the person in your life that fits all of (or none of!) these categories!]

Gift Guide 2019 Items

For the Homebody:

eLo ‘Gloria’ Cotton Spray, $30

Shea Shea Bakery Candy Cane Candle, $22

Shea Shea Bakery Coffe Mug Candle, $12

Shea Shea Bakery Bowl of O’s Signature Candle, $20

Shea Shea Bakery Milk & Cookies Bath Set, $16

Shea Shea Bakery Bath Whip - Confetti Cake, $12

Shea Shea Bakery Honey Bear Bubble Bath, $6

Shea Shea Bakery Milk Mates - Salts + Bubble Bath, $16

Shea Shea Bakery Milk + Honey + Syrup Bubble Bath Set, $22

Shea Shea Bakery Cast Iron Skillet Wax Burner, $22

Shea Shea Bakery Sweet Mini-Melt Cinnamon Bun Wax, $10

Shea Shea Bakery Sweet Mini-Melt Peanut Butter Cups, $10

228 Grant Street Candle Co. Amber + Sandalwood Apothecary Jar, $30 (pictured)

228 Grant Street Candle Co. Oakmoss + Amber Jar, $20

228 Grant Street Candle Co. Botanical Garden Gold Travel Tin, $10

Kicky Mats ‘Don’t Bother, We’re Broke’ Doormat, $50 (pictured)

Jeffrey Manning “You Are” Art Print, $55

Jeffrey Manning “Mellow Bliss” Art Print, $40

Duchess 365 ‘When I Get Home’ Art Print, $23.99 (pictured)

Tactile Matter ‘Safe Space’ Art Print, $45 (pictured)

Tactile Matter ‘Peaches & Coffee’ Art Print, $45

Galerie.la Small Market Basket, $28

Galerie.la Botanica Medium Candle Harvest, $24

Galerie.la Relaxation Rituals Box, $44.95

Galerie.la Botanica Large Candle Nirvana, $32

Galerie.la Rooted Incense Holder In Gray, $68

Galeria.la Calma Herbal Salt Soaks, $20

‘Hypnotic’ Quilt Set by Justina Blakeney, $100 (pictured)

Brass Bette Planter by Justina Blakeney, $ 75

Ida Mirror by Justina Blakeney, $70

Kahelo Black and Gray Rug by Justina Blakeney, $89

Kashmir.VIII ‘The Party’ Pillow, $50 (pictured)

Cards For All People “Angry Moms” Card Game, $17.99

Cards For All People “Black Card Revoked” Card Game, $17.99 (pictured)

Trading Races Card Game, $24.99 (pictured)

Winsults Card Game, $25 (pictured)

For the Foodie:

Zach & Zoe Wildflower Honey, $12 Zach & Zoe Wildflower Honey - Lavender, $15

Zach & Zoe Wildflower Honey - Raspberry, $15 (pictured)

Zach & Zoe Honey with Ginger Root, $15

Soul Fit Grill Assorted Spices, $55.99 (pictured)

Raw Cells Mind Fudge, $15 (pictured)

Raw Cells Calm Cookie, $8

Raw Cells Brain Brownie, $5

Raw Cells Bliss Bar, $7 (pictured)

Chris Cardi ‘H Street’ Apron, $25.03

Cultured Kombucha ‘Flight Glass’ Set of 4, $35 (pictured)

Cultured Kombucha ‘Cultured’ Tote, $15 (pictured)

Kashmir.VIII ‘Ms. Hill’ Mug, $16

Kashmir.VIII ‘Easin’ Mug, $16

Kashmir.VIII ‘We Did It First’ Mug, $16 (pictured)

Kashmir.VIII ‘The Black Power Mixtape’ Coaster Sets, $35 (pictured)

Botanicals on Blush Kitchen Tea Towels by Justina Blakeney, $28 (pictured)

‘B. Smith Cooks Southern-Style’ by B. Smith, $29.99

For the Beauty Guru:

Oui The People ‘The Single’ Rose Gold Single-Blade Razor, $75 (pictured)

Oui The People ‘Sugarcoat’ Shave Gel-To-Milk, $64 (pictured)

Galerie.la Rose Quartz Facial Roller, $28

Galerie.la Jade Mask, $42

Galerie.la Base Coat Nail Polish Vault, $20

Galerie.la Base Coat Nail Polish The Simon Collective, $20

Galerie.la ‘The Makeup Bag’ (Navy), $59

Galerie.la ‘The Makeup Bag’ (Yellow), $59

Galerie.la Mermaid Milk Superfood Moisturizer, $42

Shea Shea Bakery Buttered Pound Cake Body Mist, $5 (pictured)

Shea Shea Bakery Glazed Donut Body Butter, $25

Shea Shea Bakery Detoxifying Charcoal Cleanser, $15

Shea Shea Bakery Antibacterial Apple Cider Toner, $6

Shea Shea Bakery Almond Milk + Chocolate Peppermint Moisturizer, $6

Shea Shea Bakery Scar Healing Serum, $23

Shea Shea Bakery Gentle Foaming Cleanser, $8

Shea Shea Bakery Chocolate Coffee Bean Scrub, $12

Shea Shea Bakery Rose Garden Soap Bar, $5 (pictured)

Monie Squared Pumpkin Spice Cheesecake Soap, $8

Monie Squared Brown Sugar Fig Goat Milk Soap, $7

Monie Squared Warm Vanilla Sugar Goat Milk Soap, $7

Monie Squared Leave-In Detangling Conditioner in Blood Orange, $16

Camille Rose Naturals Algae Renew Deep Conditioner, $20

Camille Rose Youth Burst Anti-Aging Night Time Elixir, $18 (pictured)

Camille Rose Seedless Skin Pore-Perfecting Facial Exfoliator, $19

Oyin Handmade Burnt Sugar Pomade, $13.99

Oyin Handmade Boing! All-In-One Coil Styler, $14.99

Oyin Handmade No Ash At All Lotion, $9.99

Hunny Bunny Boutique Hunny Lavender Face Bar, $9

Hunny Bunny Boutique Rose Clay Facial Mask, $8

Bejia Flor Naturals Acai Mango Lotion, $22

Vee + Co. Apothecary ‘Seven’ Aromatherapy Roller, $18

Vee + Co. Apothecary ‘Mellow’ Aromatherapy Roller, $18

Vee + Co. Apothecary ‘Faith’ Aromatherapy Roller, $18

Vee + Co. Apothecary ‘Tisane’ Body + Bath Oil, $25

Jade & Fox Co. Liquid Gold Facial Cleanser, $15 (pictured)

Jade & Fox Co. Neptune Hyaluronic Face Mist, $15

Jade & Fox Co. Flower Power Toner, $18 (pictured)

Jade & Fox Co. Fineapple Face Mask, $22

Jade & Fox Co. Maui Wowie Serum, $17 (pictured)

Jade & Fox Co. Angel Eyes Under Eye Cream, $24

Jade & Fox Co. Crushed Velvet Butter, $26

Jade & Fox Co. Honeysuckle Spray, $14

Jade & Fox Co. Lust Oil, $15

Jade & Fox Co. Crush Body Oil, $17

Jade & Fox Co. Vixen Oil, $15

Jade & Fox Co. ‘Show Girl’ Body Oil, $17

Jade & Fox Co. Siren Highlighter, $18 (pictured)

Makeup/Beauty/Hair Brands:

Plain Jane Beauty (pictured)

Mented Cosmetics (pictured)

Beauty Bakerie

Bovanti Cosmetics

Colour U Cosmetics

Hue Noir

Gold Label Cosmetics

Lamik Beauty

Lip Addyct

Magnolia Makeup

Lotus Moon Skincare

The Lip Bar (pictured)

Ginger + Liz Nail Polish

Foxie Cosmetics

Blac Minerals Cosmetics (pictured)

Danessa Lyrics Beauty

Lena Lashes

AJ Crimson Beauty

KSquared Nail Paint

Kinky Curly Yaki

Heat Free Hair Movement

Big Chop Hair

Princess Hair Shop

Haute Kinky Hair

Private Stock Kair

Catface Hair

Mischo Beauty (pictured)

Brown Butter Beauty (pictured)

Her Muse Studio

Elo Lipcare (pictured)

Glam Goth Beauty (pictured)

For The Fashion Conscious:

Galerie.la Abbot Corduroy Knit Robe Berry, $98

Galerie.la Denim Crop Bra, $35

Galerie.la Golden Organic Cotton Crop Bra, $35 (pictured)

Galerie.la Recycled Cotton Baby Tee Black, $39

Galerie.la Alicia Crossbody Brown Bag, $85 (pictured)

Galerie.la Stacking Rings Brass, $25 (pictured)

Galerie.la Diamond Stacking Ring, $25

Galerie.la Petite Arch Earrings Brass, $34

Galerie.la Thelma Top Mauve, $48

Galerie.la Silver Hashtag Earrings, $58

Galerie.la Cascade Dress Charcoal, $59

Galerie.la Petra Jumpsuit Charcoal, $65 (pictured)

Galerie.la Sabbath Cocoon Tunic, $98

Galerie.la Flap Wallet Mustard, $79

Galerie.la Zipper Wallet Blush, $69

Glam Goth ‘Goon’ Beanie (red), $25

Glam Goth ‘Goon’ Beanie (black), $25

Glam Goth ‘Goth’ Cap, $30 (pictured)

Glam Goth ‘The Young Angel’ T-Shirt, $20

Instant Vintage - Azul by Giancarlo Bolero, $55

Instant Vintage - Merlot Veiled Hat, $30

Instant Vintage - Turquoise Velvet Bow with Headband, $45

Instant Vintage - Sweetheart Floral Dress, $48 (pictured)

Sir and Madame Striped Wool Split Back Shirt, $75

Sir and Madame Logo T-Shirt, $40

Sir and Madame 'Madame’ Cropped Tank, $28

Sir and Madame 70′s Script T-Shirt, $45

Sir and Madame “A Better Tomorrow” T-Shirt, $40

Sir and Madame Red Wing Engineer Boot, $75

Sir and Madame Jungle Camo Woven Shirt, $45

A Life Well Dressed ‘Artsy’ Statement Cap, $16 (pictured)

A Life Well Dressed ‘Create’ Statement T-Shirt, $20

Gregory Sylvia ‘Farrah’ Watch, $95

Gregory Sylvia ‘Chandler’ Watch, $78 (pictured)

Gregory Sylvia ‘Rosen’ Watch, $105 (slightly over budget but a beautiful watch!)

Gregory Sylvia ‘Crimson Crave’ Wallet, $69

Tree Fairfax Lois Belt, $40

Tree Fairfax Distressed Wrap Clutch/Wallet, $54

Chris Cardi ‘H St. Nostalgia’ Tee, $30.03

Chris Cardi ‘Bastards’ Tee, $30.03

Sole Rebels ‘The Surge’ Shoe, $90

Sole Rebels ‘The Exodus Ahhh’ Shoe, $100

Sole Rebels ‘The StepUP’ Shoe, $95

Sole Rebels ‘The Exodus RIFF’ Shoe, $100 (pictured)

Sole Rebels ‘TooTOOS Holees’ Shoe, $85

Enbois ‘Jafari’ Watch (Zebra), $85

For the Bookworm:

‘The Water Dancer’ by Ta-Nehisi Coates, $28 (pictured)

‘Deathless Divide by Justina Ireland, $18.99 (pictured)

‘Black Talk: Words and Phrases from the Hood to the Amen Corner’ by Geneva Smitherman, $6.38 (pictured)

‘Talkin and Testifyin: The Language of Black America’ by Geneva Smitherman, $7.77 (pictured)

‘White Negroes: When Cornrows Were in Vogue ... and Other Thoughts on Cultural Appropriation’ by Lauren Michele Jackson, $23.49

‘Mules and Men’ by Zora Neale Hurston, $15.99 (pictured)

‘The Black Book’ edited by Toni Morrison, $35

‘Bloodchild and Other Stories’ by Octavia Butler, $14

‘Rebel’ by Beverly Jenkins, $7.99

‘B. Smith: Rituals & Celebrations’ by B. Smith, $35 (pictured)

Rayo & Honey ‘Eat Words, Drink Stars’ Pin, $12 (pictured)

Rayo & Honey ‘Read More, Writer Better’ Banner, $50 (pictured)

Rayo & Honey ‘Books Change Your Mind’ Banner, $55

Rayo & Honey ‘Hundreds of Books Under My Skin’ Bookmark, $8 (pictured)

For the Kids:

Yinibini Baby ‘Trunk of Hearts’ Elephant One-Piece, $29.50

Yinibini Baby ‘My Neighborhood in DC’ Tee, $26.00 (pictured)

Jade & Fox Co. Fantasy Body Lotion for Babies, $16

Duchess365 Framed Art Print [Ladybug], $57.99

Duchess365 Throw Pillow [Lollipop], $29.99 (pictured)

Duchess365 Framed Art Pillow, $47.99 (pictured)

Herbaceutikals Talc Free Baby Organic Baby Powder, $14.25 (pictured)

‘Party, A Mystery’ by Jamaica Kincaid, $17.95 (pictured)

‘The Last Last-Day-of-Summer’ by Lamar Giles, $8.49

‘Puppy Truck’ by Brian Pinkney, $11.38 (pictured)

‘Libba: The Magnificent Musical Life of Elizabeth Cotten)’ by Laura Veirs, $17.99

‘Little Melba and Her Big Trombone’ by Katheryn Russell-Brown, $18.95 (pictured)

Vee + Co. Apothecary ‘Mamatoto’ Aromatherapy Roller, $12

KaAn’s Designs ‘Living The Dream’ Denim Jacket, $40 (pictured)

Sir & Madame ‘Sir’ Kids Pullover, $55

Amina Abdul Jillil Kids Velvet Sneaker, $89 (pictured)

For the Masculine:

Gregory Sylvia ‘Durham’ Watch, $78 (pictured)

Gregory Sylvia ‘Grayson’ Watch, $95

Gregory Sylvia ‘Fullerton’ Watch, $95.00

A Life Well Dressed ‘Create’ Sweater, $34

A Life Well Dressed ‘District of Champions’ Sweater, $48

Sir & Madame Scratch Goods Beard Oil, $24 (pictured)

Sir & Madame ‘Sir’ Shirt (Blue), $40 (pictured)

Sir & Madame ‘Sir Shirt (Orange), $40

Sir & Madame Classic Logo Beanie (Gray), $40

Sir & Madame Classic Logo Beanie (Orange), $40 (pictured)

Sir & Madame ‘Sir’ Long Sleeve Black Shirt, $55

Sir & Madame ‘Sir’ Lapel Pin, $10

Instant Vintage - Pink and Blue Plaid Pants, $50 (pictured)

Instant Vintage - Camel Leather Blazer, $90

Instant Vintage - Tan Trench Coat, $60

Enbois ‘The Weekend’ Bag, $60 (pictured)

Enbois ‘Cocoa Collection’ Bracelets, $50 (pictured)

Enbois ‘Garvey’ Watch (Black), $70 (pictured)

Vee + Co. Beard Mist, $12

Vee + Co. Beard Oil, $20

Vee + Co. Beard Wash Shampoo + Conditioner, $18

Mr. Blackmans Bergamot & Spice Beard Balm, $11.99

Scotch Porter Nourish & Repair Hair Conditioner, $24.99

Scotch Porter Hydrating Hair Wash, $24.99

Scotch Porter Charcoal & Licorice Moisture Defend Face Lotion, $19.99

Levi Fisher Balm Diggity Softening Beard Butter, $12.99

Levi Fisher Smooth Operator Detangling & Conditioning Beard Serum, $9.99

Levi Fisher Go Tea Herbal Grooming Spray for Short Hair and Beards, $9.99

Sole Rebels ‘exodus Traveller ‘Shoes, $100

Sole Rebels ‘stepUP Ed. 2′ Shoes, $95 (pictured)

Sole Rebels ‘the SURGE any’ Shoes, $90

For The Technologically Savvy:

Enbois Case iPhone 7/7plus/8/8plus/iPhone X/iPhone XS/iPhone XR, $12 (pictured)

Enbois Walnut Case iPhone 6/7/8, $8

Enbois Rosewood Case iPhone 6/7/8, $8

Enbois Power Bank, $15 (pictured)

Enbois Grip Socket, $3 (pictured)

Embrii Shop Iridescent Macbook Case, $49

Embrii Shop Matte Gold Messenger Laptop Sleeve, $39

Embrii Shop Champagne Gold Glitter Macbook Case, $49

Embrii Shop Emerald Tartan MacBook Case, $49

Chic Geeks Black Faux Crocodile MacBook Case, $78

Chic Geeks Emerald Faux Crocodile MacBook Case, $78

Chic Geeks Grey Marble MacBook Case, $68 (pictured)

Chic Geeks Rose Gold Keyboard Cover, $12 (pictured)

Chic Geeks Space Gray Ombre Keyboard Cover, $12

Chic Geeks Emerald Faux Crocodile iPad Case, $78 (pictured)

Chic Geeks Unicorn Sparkle iPad Case, $68 (pictured)

Chic Geeks Emerald Glitter MacBook Case, $58

Chic Geeks Black Marble MacBook Case, $68

Chic Geeks Gray Marble iPad Case, $58

Puku G8 Earphones, $29 (pictured)

Khristian A. Howell Fig Life Sleek and Chic Phone Case, $39.99 (pictured)

Khristian A. Howell Deuces Sleek and Chic Phone Case, $39.99

Khristian A. Howell Buffalo Plaid Sleek and Chic Phone Case, $39.99

Cards, Stationery and Gift Wrap:

Greentop Gifts Clarence Claus Candy Canes & Trees Gift Wrap, $7.50 (pictured)

Greentop Gifts Clarence Claus ‘HOHOHO’ Gift Wrap, $7.50 (pictured)

Greentop Gifts Clarence Claus Close Up Gift Wrap, $7.50

Greentop Gifts Clarence Claus Gift Bag, $4.50

Sweet Potato Paper Red Plaid Gift Wrap, $9.95

Sweet Potato Paper Yellow Triangles Gift Wrap, $9.95

Sweet Potato Paper ‘Can Swim’ Gift Wrap, $9.95 (pictured)

Sweet Potato Paper ‘No Worries’ Notecards, $10.50

Sweet Potato Paper ‘Sunny Thanks’ Thank You Cards, $1.25 per card

Sweet Potato Paper ‘Audio Thanks’ Thank You Cards, $1.25 per card (pictured)

Sweet Potato Paper Blotting Paper, $1.25 per sheet

The DynaSmiles Stationery & Gifts Assorted Christmas Cards Bundle, $28

The DynaSmiles "Fro La La" 4x6 Sticker Sheet, $3.50 (pictured)

The DynaSmiles "Santa's Beard" Christmas Collectible Mug, $20 (pictured)

Addie Rawr ‘A Room Full of Dolls’ Adult Coloring Book, $15

Addie Rawr Fall Dolls Stickers (Die Cut & Sticker Sheets), $6.50

Midnight Reflections Melanin Prima Ballerina Ceramic Ornaments, $15.99 (pictured)

Midnight Reflections Kwanzaa Wrapping Paper Kit, $15.99

Midnight Reflections Black Santa Gift Bag Kit, $18.99

Midnight Reflections Black Angel Wrapping Paper Kit, $8.99 (pictured)

Midnight Reflections Black Santa with Snow Flakes Wrapping Paper Kit, $8.99

Khristian A. Howell Rosey Holiday Gift Wrap, $8.99

Khristian A. Howell Rosy Twinkle Gift Wrap, $8.99

Khristian A. Howell Ansley Park Gift Wrap, $8.99

Kashmir.VIII ‘Maya’ Notebook, $11 (pictured)

Kashmir.VIII ‘The Marathon Continues’ Sticker, $9-$20

#black friday #black owned business #support black owned business #black owned #support black owned #my posts #black owned gift guide

385 notes · View notes

punkandsnacks · 4 years

Text

Between Wolves & Doves, Chapter 17; Highlands Part I

Author: @punk-in-docs & @adamsnackdriver

Also on AO3-

Masterlist-

Trigger Warnings: No warnings in this chap- slightly naughty bits

Synopsis: Vampire!Kylo x OC love story. Inspired by BBC’s Dracula. Also inspired by Austen’s Pride & Prejudice.

He’s been stalking this earth long since civilizations can possibly fathom. Before records even began. He sneers at the fact that this pitiful young world has only just begun to see his reign of it.

He’s dined with moguls, emperors, princes. He’s consorted with bloodthirsty ruthless Queens in their courts, and whispered into the ears of powerful King’s, whose names still echo through millennia.

In his myriad of centuries gifted to his immortal self he’s been many many things. He’s been a lowly pauper. A crusading knight. An assassin. A sell sword. A soldier. A wanderer. A simpering suitor and a voracious unyielding lover. Aimlessly lost in time- besieging this earth. Ripping it apart and drinking what’s left.

He was made in the hinterland between snow and dirt and pine trees. Crusted with ash and blood and gouged from battle. Born anew. Sired from the hell-mouth of war. He was made in 789 AD.

He’ll come undone, one bitter winter night, in England, in 1816.

~ ~ 🥀 ~ ~

Everything was soft, and warm. Her whole being is snug and safe and lost. Completely lost to sleep and rest.

Mellowness spreading out through each of her limbs like warm embers of an amber fire or a splash of spicy whisky. As if she’s laying in a bath full of silk rose petals and perfectly warm water.

Best sleep she’s ever had in her life. She owes it to the influence of his being near.

Fur pelts and blankets wrapped around her as she’s slumbering on the velvet bench. Curled up in a swathe of them, Kylo smiles, she’s all bundled up, like a little burrowing bug. Her head slumped onto his strong shoulder. Fine wool of his coat scuffing her pale cheek red.

He had his arm around her back and every now and then leaned over and nuzzled his mouth and nose into her hair. Breathing in the plain perfume that he so adored. Kisses her brow. Hints of salty lavender and sage peppermint soap pouring off her. Her skin and her clothes all amalgamated into the encompassing scent of his Iris. The one that he never could resist. The one he knows so dearly by now.

He’s so glad she’s here.

She’s in his arms. It makes him smile he just can’t help it.

He slept a little - in fits and starts mostly. When she’s so warm and sweetly tempting laying her head on his shoulder how could he not? Nestles his nose into her hair and falls asleep too, with a smile on his face, and calm peace taking up his chest. Spreading through him like clouding smoke.

Every muscle in her body coaxed into that sleepy calm lull by a gently rocking motion that sent her engulfed into dreams, like a newborn being swayed in their rocking cradle.

Its the gentle pitch of the coach as it tumbles over rocky highland roads that does it. Crackles and jolts over the stony lanes that cut through the miles and stretching glory of the emerald glens and the heather strewn hills.

He flickers the curtain back from the window his side with his free hand, and milky sunshine spills gold into the scarlet cabin from a clouded heaven.

He peers out the glass, clouded sunshine snatched at his eyes. Quite a stunning vista awaited his attention. He’s used to fish filled lakes, mountain scenery and the lush impossible green of Bavarian landscape under a searing sky. He was made and formed and still sustained, all these years later, by bitter snow and cold rocky climes. Inbetween layers of sinking crushing snow and pine trees was he was formed. Moulded out of such a savage ground as that of his Nordic homeland.

Scotland has a hint of this too: a savagely beautiful terrain. A vast portion of its wilderness remained.

Hulking mountains, the glitter of a loch in the sunshine. Catching like a cascade of sapphires and diamonds in the sun. Dense forest woodlands and rolling hills crested with purple-pink heather. A native plant, as hardy as the landscape and people it sustains.

The sun chips through the clouds and dapples over the valley of the brown-tawny green mountains they’re travelling between. The loch lies spilled and landlocked in the middle. The sky is clear but the wind is howling and icy, and he can feel it’s bitter gale wrapping around the coach.

Scotland is a land he can recall very little of. His previous tours of England over the years kept him mostly in the southern regions. But he remembers some viking settlements on the coasts, in a time when his clans and kin ruled the seas. Pillagers, plunderers and warriors claiming the land for their own like a wandering pack of rabid dogs.

He remembers being at sea, seeing these shores coming into view. Cliffs clearing out of the misty horizon. Stood at the front of the langskip as it rowed him closer to a new land. Some slithers of his memory can still recall.

The woven tunic rasping his cold skin. The taste of sea salt crusted on his lips. Cruel heavy rain pelting into his braids and stinging his head like a thousand needles. The studded leather cuffs and tunic he wore cold from the exposed elements of a ruthless sea. His usual black fur wolf pelt lining his massive shoulders. He can recall how long his hair was back in those days. Braided and knotted and twined with silver ornaments. Kohl smeared on his already dark eyes. He made quite the picture of a savage.

He was on this island a mere two months before he sailed back home. And fate would set its hand on the path towards him being turned by Draegan during that portentous battle.

How different it all is now. Being here, in these very different, yet same, highlands, all these centuries later. With his perfect love of his life, under his arm. On their path towards matrimony.

However dishonourable their actions to get them here. He would’ve slaughtered the whole county if that’s what it took.

He strongly suspected her mother would be in such uproar by now, she’d send for the police or the local magistrate. He can see it now: some six-horse phaeton being governed at impressive speed, by a stony faced police duty constable, haring it down the hair pin roads after them. Mrs Ashton will have painted him the perfect black hearted villain of the peace. Seducing away her eldest daughter to ruin.

Kylo’s smirking at the thought. How correct it is. Except he will not be such a Byronic blackguard as to seduce her and then abandon her like a stray.

He will bed her with such fierce passion make her his Lady. And by god- this wedding can’t come soon enough for his liking.

He admires the scenery a moment or two longer. Before turning back to her.

He nuzzles his mouth to her forehead. Her warm creamy skin against his mouth and he takes a gentle kiss of it. “Dove?” He calls to her through her sleep. His voice a rumbling hush. Chipping through her engulfing pretty dreams.

Her eyelids flutter and she gently comes too - his mouth a loving press on her temple. His lips are a silky wisp on her skin and it makes a beautiful thrum of conscious delight run through her. He feels it pluck along every nerve in her spine. Like a knife carving and picking through stitched thread. His nearness undoes her so brutally.

Her eyes peel open and he watches the sunshine catch in them. Oakmoss and honey. “We are in the highlands?” She asks.

Voice eclipsed under a husky tone that sleep still clings to. He smiles at her. Tucks a straying curl of hair back behind her ear. Her cheek so pink and warm from her slumber.

“Take a look…” He gestured to the window with a casual nod. Smile glowing with love of her, in such an adorably mussed state.

She rubs the bleariness of sleep away and leans across him to admire the prospect.

The breath is quite snatched from her lungs.

She never knew the scenery of these British isles could differ. For years she’d been the landlocked country miss. So used to the frosted green-brown fields and flat valleys of the genteel farming countryside of the south. The unexciting stretch of her home county.

She never knew a landscape could be this vast. Such huge mountains with golden and green grass and purple heather crawling up them. So high they stabbed into the searing grey of the sky and snow dusts their tips where the icy wind blazes. She’s never seen such colour and brutality in such a vista before. It’s quite a refreshing sight to her innocent eyes.

She cranes her head to catch a glimpse of the loch sandwiched between the mountains. The severity of the grey sky fills the waters. But it still looks like a great stretch of Prussian blue ink. She feels like she’s seeing the world for the first time with wide open and educated eyes.

“Goodness…” She gasps in amazement. Kylo smiles looking at her sweet creamy profile bathed in sunlight. The clouds are roiling in temper in front of the sun, Grey and churning, interrupting the light pouring down from the heavens. Kylo suspects there will be rain soon.

She sits back and unfolds some of her cocooning blankets from her legs. She was quite warm enough when she’s holding his hand. Fingers sloped and tangled together in her lap.

“Whereabouts are we?” She enquires.

“Near Kinlochleven. That peak there…” he gestures out the window with a pointed finger. “Is called Ben Nevis. The highest peak in all of Western Scotland.”

“Without meaning to take a liberty; I thought we were intended for Gretna green?” She asks.

He chuckles and leans over to pluck a sweet kiss on the corner of her mouth. He pulls back and rests his forehead to hers. Nose nuzzled against her cheek.

“Take all the liberties you should like, my love. You won’t offend me so easily.” He tells her.

“I must confess I had considered that if your mother is hateful enough to send someone to stop our union, Gretna Green would be the first place she’d look.” He smiles cunningly.

“I thought we had better err on the side of caution.” He insists. “Not that slobbering hounds from the very bowels of hell could stop me marrying you-“ He drawls lovingly.

“But I thought it best to avoid a nasty encounter if there is one to be had.” He tells. “You don’t mind? Do you?” He seeks with a frown.

“Mind?” She repeats. She leans close and kisses his cheek.

“You could tell me our wedding is being hosted in a ditch and I’d still be delirious with joy.” She tells him.

He chuckles kindly at her sentiments. Smile crinkles up his eyes and cheeks. She wants to follow those sweet dimples with her fingertips. Like trailing well-work paths and lines and dips in a map. Skimming over roads travelled.

“I had planned for a little better than a ditch. I sought out an Inn that looked most comfortable. Rather rustic. I’m afraid it’s not going to be a grand manor house overrun with servants.” He tells her. Preferring honesty over catching her in a lie.

She’s still smiling. “I’m not a grand kind of woman. Cosy sounds wonderful.” She insists. She had no qualms about his doing or acting upon anything that could make her uncomfortable.

“I’d take a cosy wedding with you - over anything cold and grand and proper. Like my supposed wedding to Sergeant Hux would’ve been.”

She could see it all so clearly; a stifling preconception of wedded life.

A big society affair - Maratella and Mama would invite every old matron and stuffy Lord of their acquaintance within a fifty mile radius. Anything to show off the grandeur of the match. They’d be wedded under no less than a hundred pairs of eyes, and the odious, foul-breathed, Reverend Potter, watching them.

With a tepid kiss on the lips and duty done, the party would retire to a wedding breakfast hosted at Cavenham - Maratella would insist. They’d spend the wedding night there before setting off on honeymoon the next day. If there was to be one. Probably some boarding house in Brighton or something that wouldn’t remove them too far away.

Iris shudders at the merest intimation of bedding Hux.

He wasn’t repulsive but if his conjugal manner was as alike in every other cold attitude that he treated her. She was in for an uncomfortable procedure in consummating their marriage. It would be very polite, and sharp and quick. A fumble and an insulting rut and she’d be done with him.

He wouldn’t kiss her. Or lay into her with glimmering affection and wildly consuming love in his eyes. He’d do his duty and then she’s damn certain he’d have retired to his own bedchamber. Leaving her there, sore, bleeding and sticky-warm between her thighs. It completely crushed her heart to think that may have been her existence. Loveless encounters until she was beget with child.

He would never hold her. Never kiss her for pleasure. Never walk into a room she’s in, and not dream about taking her in his arms and kissing her like he won’t possibly survive if he doesn’t. He won’t take her hand and hold it the way Kylo is this very moment.

She doesn’t regret her choice. She’ll never regret her choice.

“I shall defer the grandeur until we get to Ranlor. And you will be cherished and spoiled and treated as a Lady should. As well you deserve to live.” He pledges.

Thoughts and the prospect of her new home fill her with giddy desirous joy. She blushes a little at the warm tone of his words.

“What’s Ranlor like?” She beams.

Oh, they’ve had many a courteous back-and-forth in ballrooms with every matron in the world breathing down their neck. Here there is no pretence or cautiousness;

She needn’t be worried she’ll be remarked upon for gazing at him too long. For smiling too much when he talks to her. He need not show less than what he feels for her. Here, like this, their love is unconfined.

It’s no one but the two of them and he’s absolutely full up of delight to remark upon it.

“It’s the one place I’ve had that’s ever felt like a true home to me. The downfall of an existence like mine. I’ve drifted through so many fine houses and châteaus and dwellings. Such a rootless way of spending life.” He begins.

“You would not want me should you have seen where I grew up. I was raised in a dim timber hut no bigger than ten metres square.” He chuckles lightheartedly.

“I can safely assure you. That wouldn’t deter me.” She tells to the handsome man who owns her entire heart.

She tentatively reaches up to skim her palm down his cheek. Can’t quite fathom that she can touch him like this- adore him. Admire him. All those things she never seemed able to do. Now they are all within her grasp.

He takes that dear sweet hand of hers and holds it to his lips for a second. Kisses her knuckles and a shiver of delight crosses her whole being. Rubs his fingertips along the smooth pink oval stones of her neat fingernails.

“Better finding a home at last than years of living in a place that never quite agrees with you.” She tempers softly. Her whole happy childhood spited and soured by her mothers greed for a good marriage.

He feels that comment deeply from her. “She was very wrong to take that feeling from you. Of your native land. Your centre of being.” He explains. “I should hope she is paying sorely for her mistake of you, and no less.” He observed spitefully. And he means it.

Iris doesn’t blame him for it - rather she empathises greatly. She smiles in her agreement.

“I hope Ranlor Castle will serve well. And in time that you may think of it as your home. Because I would want nothing less than your being satisfied and happy with it.” He hopes.

“The way you speak of it- I don’t see how I could not adore it already.” She tells.

“How long have you been in residence?” Fully expecting his answer to be of a shockingly long timeline.

“Since the late 1500’s.” He casually offers.

“Ranlor was an impulsive purchase of land. I admit. But I was sick of war. Of moving with army encampment from country to country. Sick of living in dirt and wet muck and fighting. I bought it because I wanted to wake up each morning and be the master of the land where I lay my head. To know the view I wake up too, is the same one I shall be greeted with at sunset.” He tells her very poetically.

“I’ve lived in attic garrets, huts made of straw and mud, and postage stamp sized rooms. But by that same token, I’ve stayed as a guest of honour at Versailles. Lived with princes and kings and queens and been a companion warrior to many number of emperors in my time.” He offers. “But in Ranlor I found I appreciated having a place to return to where everything surrounding me is entirely my own.”

Iris is blown away by the stories he must have to tell. “When we sup tonight, I absolutely insist you tell me about some of the places and the people you’ve seen. I am my fathers daughter after all. I am an unabashed glutton for history.” She chuckles.

He takes her chin and brings her face closer to his. Melts their lips into a slow bruising kiss. Passion sparks at her skin and it feels like it bruises her.

“How can I possibly deny such a request?” He drawls against her lips. Breath rasping against her scorched cheeks. Her blood simmering hot under her skin and the smell of it is beautiful-

“I want to know every intimate thing.” She begins. He bites back a groan. Good god, how she’ll have it…

“Keep kissing me like this Iris and I’ll give you anything you want…” He sighs in desiring agony into her lips and wraps his big fingers around the back of her head. Completely dwarfs her skull in his grip.

She clutched at his shoulder - otherwise she’s sure she’d simply float off up to the moon in bliss.

“Kissing you is more than enough. I am wholly satisfied by that alone.” She says when they break away. Not able to deny how alluring he is in this way-

Impassioned to the point of fever. His eyes as dark as storm clouds above them. Calls to mind things like granite, and crows feathers and black leather. Dark but light touches so deep. His lips are a raw sweet-cherry pink and he looks like the starving wolf about to gobble up a baby deer.

“We’ll be near to our Inn soon.” He comments. “We are but ten miles from it I believe.”

She smiles and lays her head on his shoulder. Happy to watch the scenery roll them by. Joining her hand with his again in their lap. He takes up a vast proportion of the velvet bench but she cuddles nicely into his side. He kisses her hair again and then turns and watch their coach rumble along the roads.

She could happily drift away again. The scent of him calmly infused into his clothes. His cologne and the soap and sandalwood oil he uses. Pine from the forest, thorny tumbling brambles full of rich, tart fruit, and an undercurrent of eucalyptus and mint. Rich delicious and earthy. And he is a man sprung from the salt of the earth. She adores how his roots are humble, and he’s come so far as to rise into a Lords title. It’s a quality she admires.

Not before long, houses to start to crop up out of this beautiful Scottish countryside. Low little stone houses and then suddenly a fine granite clad town is before them. A promenade of wooden shops socketed into grey brick buildings above. Full of wares and goods for sale.

It’s quite a bustling little town and the outcrop of the splendid mountains is it’s backdrop. The loch nearby for fishing. The land for hunting game and meat. This was a rich land in so many ways. Bursting with scenery and culture. So different from her sheltered upbringing.

The coach takes them along the centre of the road. Up the slope of a hill a little way. Past some more shops and dwellings and there it pulls onto a lane that leads them to a small brown stone building. Set back from the road with a swinging sign on a post announcing its name. A silvery depiction of an animal hangs on that signpost. The White Stag.

She smiles as the coach follows the curved road. Leading to a modest wooden porch. The place was tavern like in appearance. A small and long, squat stone building. Burrowing into the earth after many years of standing. There’s a pretty wilderness of garden surrounding it. Crumbling stone walls sprouting heather. Every window peers out across the wide plain of the glen before them. It’s an open terrain. Bare to the expanse of the elements. But when a place is so happily situated, Iris can’t think it could look anymore handsome.

The coach lumbers to a creaky stop. They gather themselves and step out. She puts on her bonnet, pulls her coat up her arms as he steps out. He turns back to offer her a hand down.

Their driver - a very obliging young lad from Hellford, Sampson was his name - was kind enough to see to their luggage. Even her meagre carpet bag.

He was a nice boy. Kylo had said he was eager to drive a coach, even in the driving snow and frost. Kylo wouldn’t want such an uncomfortable job but he seemed keen. He had a way with the horses. Had the touch with them. And Erland even likes him so that’s as high a praise as can be bestowed.

He was a beanpole lad with muddy hair and jug handle ears. Poky shoulders and a towering stature. Two reed thin legs shoved into his tall boots. Coat swathing his lanky body.

When they broke their journey to take luncheon at a roadside inn near Lancaster, and to feed and water the horses.Kylo insisted that they all seek some sustenance to keep them going.

The pair of them sit in the sunny window in the small, dim pub and share a platter of succulent honey roast leg of ham, cut into thick wonky sliced chunks of juicy meat, with golden roast potatoes and buttered leeks. Served with mugs of sweet crisp apple cider on the side.

The food was splendid and they smile and talk intimately - she found great joy in the fact that no one around them censured or took interest in them like back at home. With every pair of eyes watching permanently it seemed. They sit opposite each other, in the window alcove, around a wobbly pub table and she couldn’t be happier. Nor could he. The smiles on their faces reflect this fact.

Before they ate, Kylo excused himself and quickly went to the bar and said something to the kind serving maid. Slipped a coin into her hand. And came to sit back down next to her. She raised a brow. She knows what he’s just fixed.

Sampson seemed most grateful that they sent him a plate of meat stew, roast ham and a flagon of cider out to the mews for him. The dear boy stumbled and blushed and wrung his hat on his hands and told them it was most kind when they returned to the coach to continue their journey. He told Kylo his last employer wasn’t nearly so generous.

Iris overheard all this as she stood feeding oats to the horses - even though Kylo told her not to spoil them.

Erland was shifting with excitement that she’s fussing him. The silly old thing. Kana was still a reluctant girl. But she seemed fond of Iris all the same.

Kylo smiled at the young boy. Told him he was looking forward to what the young lad would make of the stables at Ranlor. For he was pledged to make the crossing with them.

He wouldn’t be staying in the inn with them. Kylo booked the boy comfortable rooms closer to town. Told him to have a rest whilst he and Iris get on with proceedings of marriage. But he’ll be there at the weeks end to take them to the port to make the ship.

He gathers their luggage. Manages easily even though he looked about as tensile in strength as a lanky wet rag. Kylo takes her arm and leads her into the Inn. She’s getting rather used to the dim glow of these places of late.

He holds the door for her and she ducks in first. He has to swoop low to avoid stubbing his head on the doorframe. Her boots and his clack on the clean flagstone floors. Recently swept she guesses. Every table was wiped and adorned with little vases of wildflowers. Framed pictures and etchings hang straight on the lumpy stone walls. A fire crackles gently in the open fireplace. Horse brasses pinned to the bar glimmer as if polished. Thick plum and grey tartan curtains float poker straight on the brass curtain piles above each window.

The place is clean and tidy and not full of rowdy drunks with straw and ale spewed across the floor. She simply adores that it’s a tavern that takes pride in its neat as a pin appearance.

A few men sit around some tables enjoying a drink in the cloudy milky sunshine of the window. There’s some chatter and laughter in the din of the room. It’s beautifully warm and the air smells like ginger and oats. Something delicious being baked in the kitchens no doubt.

A matronly woman, very pretty with a tumbling shock of frizzy greying red hair greets them from behind the bar. A beige wool dress and apron tied around her middle. She was very beautiful in her late age. A warm face with ruddy cheeks and a complexion that had seen just enough sun. Eyes were a healthy moss green. Her weight lay entirely in her wobbly plump hips. She carries herself proudly.

She’s wiping down the pristine oak bar surface before her. But she stops and smiles when she catches sight of them. Kylo in all his sheer dark mass was impossible to resist or ignore, after all.

“Good Morning, Sir. Miss.” She beams and nods at the both of them. Handsome scottish brogue in her voice sounds kind. Iris likes such gallantry. Most people didn’t bother greeting young ladies when men were present.

Kylo smiles at the woman. Doubtless she was the landlady. “I’m looking for Mrs McCormack, I’ve written to secure lodgings upstairs.” He asks her.

“Aye.” She smiles fondly. “You’d be Lord Ren and Miss Ashton, I presume?” She asks. Looks to the both of them.

“The very same.” He confirms. Stroking Iris’s hand where it lay resting on the crook of his arm.

“How wonderful it is to see you both. I must welcome you the highlands.” She smiles. Laying aside her cloth.

“You have a beautiful Inn, Mrs McCormack. I’ve never seen the like.” Iris smiles at her.

“You’re very kind miss. I thank ye. I take great care to keep my threshold clean and presentable as possible. Everyone here calls me Mrs M. So don’t you be afraid too. If you’d come this way I’ll show you to your rooms.” She nods. Moving behind the bar and out to the stairs set into the alcove of the wall near them.

Kylo lets Iris walk up first. Of course. Watches her smile as she eyes the frames on the wall and asks the kind Mrs M about the White Stag’s history and it’s stories as they all alight the creaky wooden stairs.

He listens to them talk as they walk along a creaky landing with cream wallpaper studded with scarlet roses smeared all over the thick walls. Candles and heavy curtains in every window. Shutters ready to block out the harshest of Scottish winter nights.

Mrs M leads them to a door with a worn gold handle and opens it for them, guiding them inside. Iris instantly sees what he meant about the rooms being cosy rathe than grand. It is cosy and she’s take this handsome room over any gilded grand manor bedchamber.

The walls are tumbling exposed gold bricks. The floors are ancient groaning oak. Worn and bleached an old grey from years of heavy treading boots. The double bed is the centre of the room. A huge soft mattress and downy pillows, foot of it laden with blue and green tartan blankets and a sheep’s skin draped across the end. The mahogany headboard cresting in waves at the foot and the head of the bed is carved and ancient and so very elegant.

There’s a ginormous fireplace at the end of the bed, across the room. Already lit. Popping sparks and blazing heat out into the sunny room. There’s an alcove of a window seat stuffed with cushions and another wool tartan rug. Juniper green cloth armchairs reside by the far wall surrounding a small end table. The room is undeniably snug and home-like. Emphasised in earthy tones of blue and grey and green. Very much like the dazzling highland hills in which it sits.

Iris is so quietly giddy with contentment. She also spies a door to a yet unseen anteroom.

“There’s a private dining room for your particular use through here. Though you’re very welcome to come down and fast in the tavern if you wish. We serve three hot meals a day if you should like. Our cook can make anything you fancy.” She promises.

Her keen eye then spots a crease in the bed linens which she frowns and steps across to smooth out. Iris can see she had a very discerning eye. Kylo lingers in the doorway behind them. Hands folded as he watches her take it in.

He observes as she walks across the room and peers through into the dining room Mrs M spoke of. It’s charming too. Red covered chairs, a long mahogany table. Candlestick of brass shines in the sun. Fire blazing by the dining table.

“Your washroom is just here too. For your convenience.” She moves towards a door opposite the head of the bed and opens onto a small chamber. Installed with a copper bath and a side table with a jug and basin and a screen. “Bessie is the chamber maid and she’ll attend ye’ with any water you’ll be needing.” She tells.

Iris loves it.

“It’s an exquisite room. Mrs M. We are very happy with it. Aren’t we, Kylo?” Iris smiles. Unlacing her bonnet.

He smiles at his intended. “We most certainly are.”

Mrs M seems fascinated with his first name. “Aye now that’s an interesting name. Your lordship.” She puts a hand on her aproned hip and surveys him with friendly curiosity. “I’d wager there’s some Scottish somewhere in your family tree wi’ a name like that.” She nods.

Kylo smiles. Iris’ slate and honey eyes glimmer warmly at him across the room in the cloudy light. Slight beams of it coming though the window are twirling lazily with dust. “There is some Norse I believe. Lingers far back with my ancient ancestors.” He tells their landlady.

“I would’na be surprised mi’lord.” She wagers with a fond grin.

“Oh. I’ll forget me own head next.” She explains. Rummaging into her apron pocket. Drawing out a heavy iron key. “Your room also has its own entrance. Though of course you may always come up through the tavern if you wish. Thats the key to door at the end of the landing there.” She points out the door. Hands the key over to Iris.

She then nods politely to them both. “It is nearly noon. Can I fetch you both a tray of tea? Cook just baked some shortbread I believe.” She smiles.

“That would be heavenly. Thank you.” Iris concludes. Setting her bonnet down on the bed.

“Might I also request you send your maid up to have the bath filled? My fiancée has had a long and tiring journey.” Kylo asks.

“I’ll send her up right away. Your lordship.” Mrs M insists. Moving to the door and shutting the latch softly after herself.

Kylo turns back to her after she leaves them. Iris has her back to him, slipping off her shabby blue coat.

He’ll have to get her another. She’ll be his Lady soon. She’ll need a finer coat than this beaten old thing. It gets stuck on her elbows. He walks across and aids her. Grips the back of her collar and helps guide it down.

She blushes when he leans down and holds her shoulders delicately as he kisses the join where he neck meets spine. A tendril of lose hair curls at his nose. He smiles against the back of her neck. Arms slipping down to draw her into an embrace. Big palms crossing at her stomach.

She places her hands over his. Savours the silence and the feeling of his solid comforting weight at her back. Enclosing her in love.

“You truly like the room?” He seeks. She conceals a blush - rather poorly - when she reflects that the bed she’s now looking at that they will be sharing. On their wedding night. He will bed her in this room and that thought makes her knees weak.

She twists in his arms. His palms rasp over her wool dress. Slides to her hips. She smiles sincerely up at him. “Truly. And I adore its surroundings. And especially its occupant at present.”

He smiles and leans down to claim her mouth in a sweet kiss. She’s so sweet. Sweeter than brown sugar and cream and tart fruit. He drinks of her lips like the greedy pillaging viking he absolutely is. He sucks and nibbles her bottom lip and holds her close when her knees wobble with it. Smiles and breaks the kiss remarking how weak his kisses make her.

“Have a nice long soak, and that cup of tea, my love. You’ll be stiff sore from sleeping in that coach on my shoulder.” He insists. “I may ride Erland into town to fetch a few things…” He tells her.

He had to take care of her, after all. He will not fail in that duty as others had. He was far too gallant. And in love-

She can’t deny how heavenly a soak will feel on her aching bones. And she did have a stiff neck- And although his coach was most comfortable, she is clad not to be in that jolting rumbling box for another night.

“To approach the subject not very delicately-” She starts. Wringing her hands for distraction. “When is the wedding ceremony?” She asks.

That makes him grin. “Four o’clock today. My love.” He smiles.

He wishes there was an artist here with a palette of oils and a bare canvas to hand; for her face is a picture.

“I had the banns read three weeks ago. Paid out a considerable sum to secure the church. All we need do is turn up to the chapel in our best, and the Reverend will wed us. Then and there.” He smirks.

Iris laughs. Smiling in disbelief. She places a hand to hold her middle. She feels almost faint with happiness.

“I think then, that I had better take to that bath.” She chuckles and blushes. He crosses back and kisses her cheek. Cups her neck and gives her a kiss that leaves her shivering long after he pulls his mouth from her.

“I won’t be long. Dove.” He promises. With one last kiss to her hand, he strides for the door and ducks out. “Drink your tea. Wallow in your bath. Make ready to marry me.” He smirks and winks.

Leaving her reeling with the force and memory of his insolently handsome smile.

The room feels doubly empty and so lifeless without him in it. There’s more oxygen without him. And she means that in a sincerely loving way.

When he’s here she’s aware of every smile, every move. Every touch he gives her is magnetic. She’s a bundle of blushes and nerves when he’s near. A giddy silly girl who trembles at the touch of his hand. Who hears the pounding of her heart hammer furiously in her chest when he’s near.

She does as he instructs. Mrs M sends the kind Bessie, the chamber maid, up with a tray of tea and then a big steel jug of hot water for her tiny copper bath.

She drinks the tea and nibbles a biscuit as she unpacks her meagre clutch of things from her luggage that Sampson brought up. As crimson appeared to be Kylo’s preferred colour; she chose accordingly. Hoping her gown wasn’t too crushed from it’s journey in the trunk.

She brought one good gown and a handful of plain cotton and wool ones. The one she would marry him in was a plain ruby-wine red. French Burgundy was the colour name.

It had a ruffle of demure lace stitched all around the scooping neckline and the brocade silk is gathered and stitched intricately at the back. Forming a beautiful slight train and cutting a severe figure. Her mother would have made a comment about it being a red dress. She couldn’t fathom the energy to care.

It makes her in such a passion she wants to pen a letter to her mother right then and there; tell her she’s marrying Lord Ren in a red dress. Like a harlot. See what she makes of that. She wants to watch her face crumble and her rage come snarling forth when Iris signs the letter as Lady Ren. See what her termagant of a mother makes of that…

She hangs it up to ready it for later. Smiles at the sight of it hung on the wardrobe door. Ready. As she should be- she hastens toward her bath.

The kind chambermaid was even so good as to leave a little organza pouch of dried heather and lavender on the side for her. With a little white pebble of honey and oat soap.

Iris catches sight of it as she unlaced her gown and rugged away her stays. She thinks it’s most kind of her to spare the expense of a little trinket. The steam of the piping hot water is muggy and sluggish in the air. Clouding up the mirror behind the jug and basin.

She sinks into the water. Lavender that she sprinkled into the tub spices up the air with its plain floral hint. She smiles gratefully as she submerged fully in the milky cloud of delicious heat. Rubbing the cake of soap along her arms and legs and sudsing up every inch. She does the same with her hair. Wets it and combs through a little oil. Scrapes her scalp with her nails and rubs the soap in and then rinses it.

She scrubs and scrubs until her skin is pink and every inch of her has been kissed and rubbed with soap. She climbs out and dries. Combs her hair out and rubs it. Repeating the process sitting by the small bath chamber fire until it feels significantly more dry. Ready for her to manage pinning into a coiffure. She could manage one on her own; Meg had taught her a few tricks over the years.

She pulls on a new chemise. A sleeveless one that would fit under the dress she’d chosen. She’s rubbing her hair with a flannel towel and takes her silver hair brush with her to go sit by the fire in their chamber. She brushes and brushes until her muddy locks look less and less like a wet soggy puddle.

She hears his treads on the cracking creaking stairs as he comes back.

The afternoon shifting later as the sun slides along behind the clouds. The door latch lifts from the other side and her handsome fiancé comes back in. Nudging the door open with his foot. For his arms are laden with boxes. His hair flounced by the wind and his cheeks pink from it too. His eyes were deviously bright with the exercise- it’s also because he’s caught her sat there in her shift with damply drying hair like some tempting forest nymph.

In all his dark coated glory, he completely fills the doorway to their chamber. His white shirt peers through the gap in his unbuttoned coat. A black cravat is knotted up his neck. Moulding into the stretch of his coat and his big polished boots peeling out where it ends at his calves.

Bessie comes after him. Carrying more boxes. Kylo gives her a coin and a smile of thanks. She bobs and scarpers quick and silent from the room.

Kylo looks across to his intended with a frown of confusion. Had he scared her? Or maybe she found their engaged state sharing a room to be shocking - some people were very strict on such matters.

“I think she is perhaps a little shy. And-“ she leaves her explanation there.

She merely gestures to how tall and big, and handsome, he is. He made Iris tremble in her skin with his smile, and she was years older than the serving maid. To an impassioned young girl prone to crushes and passing fancies, Iris imagines he’s an Achilles heel of blushes and furtive glances. She thinks of her sisters’ reaction to him. All lashes and rosy smiles. Like gardenias coming into bloom for the sun.

He makes a noise of agreement. And that’s when he brings around his arm that had previously tucked behind his back. He brings around a bouquet of flowers. Tied with a grey ribbon that reminded him of her eyes.

“I cannot allow my beautiful bride to be flower-less on her wedding day.” He explains. Setting them before her in her lap as he crouched in front of her.

She is touched beyond words. She grips the flowers and lifts the blooms up to her nose to drink in their scent. Purple thistles, pink and mauve heather, bluebells and wild violets. Harebell and myrtle and a Scottish primrose. A beautiful clutch of green, white, purple and blues.

“They’re beautiful.” She comments. Stroking her fingers along the frail petals. Their nectar and greenery spicing up the air.

“Thankyou.” She sighs onto his lips as he leans in for a slow kiss. He stays on his knees for her - the only way she could reach his lips.

“I fetched some other things for you…” he explains. Taking her hand and pulling her up. He leads her to the bed and her heart thumps a tad faster - thinking they’ll be doing this later on tonight, in a handful of hours, for entirely different reasons.

He shows her the collection of items he’d purchased.

Save for two gold wedding rings - it’s all for her. She is speechless.

There’s three new exquisite silk and lace gowns. An entirely new Scottish-wool coat. Parchment, ink and quills for any letters she wishes to write. Some ribbons and hair pins and pretty silver baubles and combs to decorate her hair coiffures. Five pairs of embroidered stockings, and some round little cakes of oat soap.

Her mouth gapes as she looks to him. He shrugs and offers an explanation - Looking deuced too smug. “You deserve trinkets aplenty to remember your wedding day by.” He explains handsomely. She holds his hand. Quite stunned and not knowing what to say.

No ones ever told her she deserves to be spoiled before. It’s quite a new sensation for her to fathom.

“It’s not a day I’ll be forgetting in any hurry. Believe me.” She tells him.

She sees his eyes dart across the room to where her wedding dress is awaiting being worn. Hung on the door. He smiles fondly at her choice. Looks back to her.

“I can help you with your gown fastenings if you’d like?” He asks. Voice uncharacteristically husky.

She rises to meet his challenge. “If you’re offering.” She smiles. Bravely looking him in the eye.

She turns away and breaks the spell his eyes cast. Walks across and fetches her dress. Steps over to him and he encloses it around her after she steps into it. The fastenings already loose.

He slides it to skim over her hips. Up past her waist. Rests it at her waist and pulls the two sides together over her shoulders.

The way she tugs her hair aside makes his mouth water. Throat bobs where he swallows.

Lovers have done that for him before- countless times and countless lovers- But her doing this, nearly undoes him.

He focuses on his task. Tugs on the hidden laces at the back of her dress. Laces her into it, closing the ties at her shoulders. Eyeing the curve of it that cut around her lovely shoulders. Ruby red against her creamy skin. It’s too tempting to even indulge that certain route of his thinking-

He works efficiently. Fingers brushing the brocade silk and her back. The scent of lavender and spicy oat soap tantalising him as he laboured in this favour for her. He gets to the last tie and he mourns being able to be this close. Parts by stroking his hands down her back, the span of his fingers meet her waist easily. He kisses into her tumble of still drying hair. Inhales her. Cherished the moment of him being pressed against her back.

He called for the bath to be refilled when he came back- and honestly the chambermaid was too damn efficient. Her knock rattled the door and kylo blinks and nods her to come in. Their lusting spell is broken again.

Iris flushed and steps away to round the side of the bed to fetch a pair of stockings. Holding her skirts aloft.

The sight of the curve of her ankle sends his mind reeling into the squalid plains of Male frustration. He swallows and lets the maid fill the bath for him. He was in need of a scrub too. Not exactly covered in the grime and dust of the road but he’d relish the chance to run some soap over his skin before his wedding ceremony.

When he looks back to his beautiful intended, she is sat in the window alcove that’s stuffed with cushions and a tartan rug. Framed by sunlight. Hair turned into spun bronze and gold. Eyes sparkling like polished moonstone. She’s looking down in her lap, with two ivory embroidered stockings in her hands. Running a thumb over the garter ribbon. It was a soft blue. He likes blue on her.

He tries not to envisage that particular part of her anatomy that the stockings will rise up to, too much. He waits for his bath to be drawn and counts down the frustrated and rife minutes as they pass, like the truly impatient Lord he is.

#between wolves & doves #vampire!kylo #kylo ren x oc #adam driver #Regency era #slow burn

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sharpen-jadescythe · 4 years

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Sharpen And His Butterflies

I was going to keep this one about Sharpen’s innermost feelings to myself, but then I saw that Jiroki’s character, who has so many beautiful sad moments, might enjoy a very sweet story.

Sharpen left her side at dawn. Well, he didn't exactly leave. He looked the Kaldorei woman over for several long minutes, the longest in all of their date together it felt, and decided that he'd better let her sleep, rather than pester her for romance a third time. Beautiful long legs, sea green hair… Anyway, Sharpen was already starting to feel guilty about not getting Jiroki breakfast at a decent hour.

He said to himself, "Well, I'm whipped already then. And I think I like it." Sharpen felt his thick neck, joking quietly, "And so, where did I put my collar again?"

Sharpen had kept his deep admiration for Jiroki a carefully guarded secret, for months. But then things got very silly indeed, when he realized he was even resisting telling her about it…

And so, of course, after Jiroki agreed to spend time with him? Everything about their first date got planned carefully. In fact, Sharpen had run out of time, he'd been making such detailed, anxious arrangements. He knew where everything was supposed to be, mostly. And what to do. But Sharpen felt an idiot now, recalling how he paced at his home in front of the mirror, going over a couple key things to tell Jiroki, rehearsing that. The one thing he couldn’t quite get to? Sharpen thought he might pitch their camp in about that area, near the waterfall. Just not the exact spot. He rushed, giving the Goblins down in Booty Bay instructions. They offered some ‘romantic lovebirds getaway package’. He remembered going, “Fine, yes. I’ll have that. Whatever it costs…” Sharpen hated to leave that one part about the tent, the most important part, to the Goblins. But, lucky him—lucky for both of them, it went very well. The view of the crystal ocean and the green, green trees was stunning. And the ivory tent couldn’t have been more enticing, lit by so many heavenly candles the night before. Now he’d made it to the morning after. So… cool. A success, right? So why did he feel so nervous, even moreso than before?

Jiroki seemed like she might stay sleeping for at least a few more hours. Hopefully, through all his careful effort, he’d given her peaceful dreams. Right? Him waking up first and her still snoozing away mid-morning was a good thing? Wasn’t it?

Why did he feel like he’d somehow ruined things? What if she screamed at him when she got up? But why would she even do that?

Sharpen raised green eyebrows, wondering if he was going nuts. Possibly, yes. Food. Go get some food, Sharpen. You need to eat. In fact, where were the coffee trees?

Hot coffee doesn’t grow on trees, Sharpen. Not like that!

On the very morning he worked his ass off months for, Sharpen ignored his nervous thinking and did not sleep in with the woman he adored. He decided to just… just keep busy. The Night Elf man dutifully took his shotgun and went off to forage. He did a preliminary sweep around the campsite, ensuring no dangerous creatures would be about while he was gone and Jiro slept. After, Sharpen hiked for a mile or so. He knew where the avocado tree was, and the fig tree up on the other hill. He found mangoes--he considered bananas, but they weren't all that romantic for breakfast and there were terrible spiders up banana trees, usually. Sharpen went out his way for citrus. He smelled a passionfruit tree and was completely right about the ripe fruit. Pairs of tropical birds and buzzing insects were already visiting the spot, having their breakfast. Maybe it was silly, but a pair of flirtatious green parrots reminded him of Jiro and himself. One was getting groomed, unusually patient for a parrot. The other was frantic about getting it exactly right, all the little feathers on the top of her poor head. She looked like a female to him. Knowing parrots, it was bound to erupt into something squawking, loud and passionate any moment. For now, though, both were being unnaturally good.

All of the fruit got tossed in a netted bag Sharpen slung over his shoulder. His walk eventually brought him down to the beach. He slipped off his shorts and speedo and walked naked into the water. Sharpen used a bit of soap to help cleanse himself. It was the same, but then again it was not. It delighted him to pass the white wedge of soap over biceps that she gripped, the chest that turned her on. His abs… lower… how many times had she called him a beast? Her beast?

“Tiger…” he repeated Jiroki’s nickname for him. He’d earned it so fast. Yes, she made him feel like a tiger. Another thing, tigers could swim very well. Sharpen dove underwater. His head, shoulders, his back, then the curve of his wet buttocks silvered in a flare of hot sunshine and he went under the blue waves. The Night Elf’s skin was a coral color, usually. His naked body made a vibrant blaze beneath the water as he made athletic strokes beneath the falls.

Salt water in his love bites stung. But he liked that Jiro had done that to him. With her cute little fangs. He got turned on several times, fantasizing while swimming. But Sharpen was a very skilled swimmer in his own right. He managed to stay focused on what he was doing and not swim out too far. He wished Jiroki was there with him, swimming like last night.

Sharpen remembered how she looked in the water from below, how her thighs looked as she treaded water and was certainly wondering where he’d gone to. Right before Sharpen used powerful strokes to suddenly seize her at the surface, slide fingertips up those very tempting, creamy thighs, and tickle her. Only tickle her. He had wanted to do so much more, but Sharpen remembered telling himself to hold back.

Not to touch her, not too much.

Then, of course, he couldn’t stand it and grabbed Jiroki the moment she stepped foot on the beach with him. He played like he was only teasing. She soon learned how much he meant it.

Returned now to the beach, Sharpen dressed alone, completely unbraided his hair to dry it, and had a seat. He gazed across the water at the very spot of their actual dinner date, and where they'd made love. Where he caught Jiroki fish for supper. All for the first time. Sharpen wondered if there would be more times, and how many? Wasn’t it too complicated? Ash and burned stones from the campfire were still there, far across the water.

Sharpen tried to live in the moment. "Eggs. If I can poach some, way out here in the middle of nowhere? She'll be totally impressed. And of course, I have the rest of that salsa I used..."

Back at the tent above the waterfall, Sharpen indulged in one last quiet moment by the fire. He'd sliced everything with his hunting knife and it was arranged beautifully on one large banana leaf. He was down to the last one. The other, he accidentally dropped over the cliff edge. Sharpen eventually turned so that he could no longer see it floating away off into the crystal ocean way, way down there.

Well, that meant he was out of supplies, finally. This was going to end. It had to. He couldn’t keep her out here, even if he wanted. He was going back to his home and she would return to hers. Another thing nagged at him, which seemed unfair. He was craving a lot more alone time with her, possibly too much. He had no idea that they'd be so compatible in that aspect and he was finding her irresistible. He never wanted to stop. She was experienced and creative and free with herself in this... perfect way. Sharpen could feel himself smiling now, it almost hurt.

Thought cleared from the Night Elf man’s mind as lust took over. Thankfully, a part of him that had camped a thousand times knew it was about time to take the small pan he'd brought off of the hot stones near the campfire, then use a knife to help tip the eggs onto the leaf. He routinely scraped the last of his homemade salsa from its jar, right ontop.

An elegant jungle breakfast. Yes, again, he'd done everything right.

But now, Sharpen was afraid to take it in to her.

A white butterfly came and landed at the edge of the leaf. It was so sweet and small, Sharpen didn't have the heart to shoo it away. Then, it fluttered up in drunken arcs over their meal, in a sunbeam. Just as fast, it swifted right into the tent. Sharpen decided to abandon what he was doing. Why not enjoy being irresponsible and follow it? He went inside the tent just in time to see the little butterfly alight on Jiro's shoulder. The tiny thing opened and closed its wings, perfectly content.

"...She is sweet, isn't she?" Sharpen confided in the butterfly. "And you chose her over all the other flowers in the forest. What a compliment.” Then, he couldn’t resist coming out with it, “Maybe I’m the same way. I find myself worrying about… I just want to make her happy. Sometimes, she seems so sad and I just want to make her so very happy."

Sharpen lay back down and placed a hand on Jiro's naked hip. He didn't want to disturb Jiroki, or his friend the butterfly at all.

He watched it, and the butterfly watched him, until suddenly it flitted up into the air and danced away. Sharpen wondered if he was really going to let Jiro’s perfect breakfast sit out there and get covered with flies. Was he that petty about having to wake her up and eventually leave their little love nest?

Sharpen sighed at himself and turned to lay on his back. His wavy green hair, everywhere. It went down to his waist.

Then, some other feeling Sharpen made him look up, a hunter’s instinct that they weren’t exactly alone. At the top of the tent, there were small white butterflies everywhere, resting or playing and flirting with each other, flickering gray and white or silver in the pale dawn light. Those aromatic red flowers he tied to the beams for decoration (the Goblins did a good enough job, but it needed some ‘Night Elf-ing up’ as Sharpen explained to the irritated workmen), that had attracted the butterflies... So. He’d tried to clear the area of wandering tigers, monkeys an hour earlier. But he didn't think to defend his lover against a swarm of butterflies. Well, Sharpen couldn’t. And they were so beautiful.

Sharpen decided to rest and not to worry. Everything he'd secretly done, everything he felt, everything he knew about himself regarding her but couldn't say...

There was no stopping it anyway, no denying it. And it wasn’t wrong. It would reveal itself and settle on everything and be sweet. This… particular problem, it wasn't like rain or a storm that you could just take shelter from. Love was more of a ‘get over it or get under it’ type of thing. So he'd better go on and make up his mind how he was going to handle this. And not waste any more time. Unless he wanted to worry about maybes and what ifs forever. Meanwhile, the real elements, wind, rain, beasts, would eat Jiro’s breakfast.

"And love is a force of nature too, people forget that..."

Caring about someone. That wasn’t a weakness. In a way, wasn’t it also… Yes, it was. It was power. Then, louder so she could hear him, "Jiroki? Wake up, darling. Breakfast is ready. And look what you attracted to our tent all on your own, you sweet foxy thing you."

At last Jiroki turned over to face him. She opened her eyes. Once a Sentinel, a former Watcher, Jiroki sensed the tension in him, didn’t miss a thing. “What’s gone wrong?”

Or, you could go straight through love. Let it pummel you from all sides.

Sharpen smiled easily, figured he could take it.

“Nothing, really. Jiroki, did I ever tell you--being near you always gave me butterflies?” He pointed up above, to the red flowers and all their new friends.

“Sharpen! Awww…”

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stereksecretsanta · 4 years

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Merry Christmas, @cousinshelley!

You said you liked hurt/comfort, missing scenes, concern, denial overcome by sheer determination and affection and rescues, so I hope you'll like my retelling of that scene from S3 in Derek's loft!

Read on AO3

*****

The Feeling of Happiness

Derek had almost forgotten what happiness feels like.

He certainly remembers it differently, more vibrant, more all consuming, chasing Laura, being chased by Cora in turn, hugging his mum, winning the championship game.

But then he hadn't been happy since he’d been a teenager, and now he's an adult, finally happy again after all the time that has passed. He has changed a lot as a person, surely it only makes sense that his feelings of happiness have changed, too. What he remembers are the childish feelings of a boy about inconsequential things; what he feels now is the happiness of an adult, in love.

That’s what Jennifer always says - they are in love and they are happy.

It’s hard to remember a time before Jennifer was part of his life. And whenever she’s gone it seems empty without her, the hours passing by in grey monotony when she’s teaching, making them hard to keep track off. The hours when she’s with him are a haze of fuzzy happiness. There’s still the threat of the Alpha pack and whoever is responsible for the sacrifices, but it seems less immediate now than it felt a few weeks ago.

Sometimes, especially when Jennifer isn’t there, the nagging thought enters Derek’s mind that he should be doing more about those threats, should work harder at protecting his pack, what’s left of it at least, but Jennifer’s presence soon calms him again. It’s like she says - rushing won’t help here, they’ll need just a little more patience and time. What they are waiting for Derek can’t say precisely, but it must be worth it if Jennifer thinks so.

And anyways, it’s his pack, his decision. Noone is going to question him.

If only because no one else seems to be around anymore. He thinks he saw Cora once before school a couple of days ago and Peter is surely lurking around somewhere, but that’s it. Everyone’s busy with school, Jennifer says, tests and papers coming up, so Derek doesn’t bother them either, content to wait for them. Jennifer tells him what they’ve been up to anyways - it sounds as though they’ve been little mischiefs like always, especially Scott.

There’s something like an itch at the back of his mind, a similar feeling to having a word on the tip of your tongue, some thought or memory that wants to move forward into your conscious, but is blocked by something. Something about Scott being the mischievous one doesn’t match, but Derek can’t think of what is wrong with it. Scott has always had a knack for trouble, hasn’t he?

The sound of the loft’s main door opening draws him out of his wandering thoughts, and he realises that he never even heard anyone come up the stairs. The adrenaline rush of that realisation cuts like a knife through the cotton ball fluff filling up his brain.

The first thing he notices is his scent.

Warmth is the overwhelming impression it leaves, hot cinnamon and bright sparks. But not the sparks of a fire soon burning to ash, like Kate, but the sparks of firework, of the stars in the sky. Burning yes, but bright and beautiful, not signalling death and destruction. Oh, there’s still danger, a spark is what starts the fire after all, but it’s a threat turned outwards, to protect, not to attack. All of that is dampened right now, though, as if buried at the bottom of the sea, underneath mountains of water and salt.

“Grief,” his mother’s voice echoes in his mind. “That’s what you are smelling.”

Grief and the acid tang of fear.

Derek is moving before the thought has fully manifested, making it to the door in a few big steps, hand curling around Stiles’ shoulder and drawing him into the loft, barely acknowledging Scott behind him.

Stiles’ eyes are wide and his face is pale, shock written all over his features. Derek’s hold tightens and his eyes rove over Stiles’ frame, nose twitching as he tries to figure out whether Stiles is injured, if he’s in pain.

“What is it?” he asks urgently, voice cracking from disuse. He and Jennifer don’t talk much, and when they do, Jennifer usually takes over most of the conversation. If it can even be called a conversation. Derek’s mind feels clearer than it’s been in weeks and many things are starting to look stranger than he thought they did. But he can’t focus on that right now, not with the tears threatening to spill from Stiles’ eyes.

“My dad,” Stiles starts and then has to swallow, whether words or a sob, Derek can’t tell. “My dad, she has my dad, Derek.”

“Who has?” Derek asks, but even as the words leave his mouth another curtain rises and he knows what Stiles is going to say before he opens his mouth.

“Ms Blake. I’m sorry, Derek, I know you and she are, you know, but, she tried to kill Lydia, and then she took my dad. She’s going to kill him!”

Derek’s stomach twists at Stiles apologising.

“We are not,” he starts denying, before admitting: “I mean, we are, or were, I guess, but it’s all fuzzy, I don’t know.”

Stiles’ scent sharpens and his eyes narrow.

“Fuzzy?” he asks and Derek shrugs.

“I don’t really remember, the days just run one into the other. It was mostly just her, and me, happy and in love.”

It’s disturbing to hear himself speak and not recognise his own voice. Already he can feel his panic and worry slipping away, though, buried under a blanket of wool.

Stiles’ face hardens - Derek almost doesn’t realise it; it’s hard to focus, his eyes seem to want to slip away from Stiles as though he’s a piece of wet, slick soap in the shower. That’s what Derek feels like, too, under water, sight and scent and hearing all impeded.

Stiles’ voice cuts through the cotton in his ears, though, sharp and angry: “I’m going to kill her. Twice. I’m going to kill her, make Peter bring her back to life and kill her again. Once for my dad and once for Derek.”

“Stiles, killing can’t be our answer,” Scott interjects from behind him, and Derek had completely forgotten he was even here.

“Scott, she roofied him,” Stiles interrupts him, voice steely, only the tiniest hint of a tremble revealing the outrage that has overtaken his scent. “She whammied him with magical roofies and did God knows what to him, all while pretending to be his girlfriend and telling him they were in love!! You are right, death is too good for her, we’ll definitely need to resort to torture.”

His scent has turned almost rancid with hate, and Derek’s stomach both jumps and turns at the thought that it is for him, unleashed in his defence.

“Stiles, no,” he presses out, keeping his thoughts together somehow getting harder again. “Not for me.”

Don’t dim your light with hate, or something equally cheesy is what he wants to say, but his brain seems to have been replaced with cotton wads, making it impossible to form full sentences.

“Dude, someone’s coming,” Scott suddenly says, and again Derek is shocked at how lacking his senses are right now - or he would be shocked, the panic reduced to a faint sensation under the calming blanket of what must be Jennifer’s spellwork. Vaguely he’s aware of Scott tugging Stiles into the shadows of the loft, until they won’t be immediately visible from the door, but all his focus is now on what approaches from behind those doors, or rather who.

Now that he’s aware of it, he can feel how the spell works to keep him calm, filling him with fake content and a weak imitation of love. “Happy and in love.” Ha! But still the awareness is not enough to shake it off entirely, making him feel trapped inside his own body, inside his mind.

“Derek? Derek, where are you?” Jennifer calls as she’s entering and Derek feels compelled to answer.

“Right here.”

“Thank God,” she breathes, looking and sounding frazzled. Only an hour ago, Derek would have stepped towards her, tried to comfort her. “Something happened at the recital. At the school. Okay, I need to tell you before you hear it, before you hear any of it from them.”

“From who?” Derek presses out, trying to act as naturally as possible, or like he thinks he acted when fully under her influence, but it’s not working. Already he can feel her amping up the pressure, the desire to please her, to agree with her whatever she says growing despite his best efforts to push against it with his own will.

Jennifer’s eyes have narrowed in suspicion, but for now she’s playing along, apparently not yet willing to break the illusion.

“Scott, Stiles. They're gonna tell you things. Things you can't believe. You have to trust me, okay? You trust me.”

There’s weight behind those words, a weight that presses Derek down, makes him want to agree, reassure her. It’s only with the greatest effort that he gets a question out instead:

“What is it?”

“Promise you’ll listen to me,” Jennifer insists and this time Derek thinks he can almost see the tendrils of her magic, feel them snaking around him, binding him.

“I promise,” he says and doesn’t even have to be forced to do so, because it’s not a lie. He’ll listen. But that doesn’t mean he’ll believe a single word she says. It must be obvious to Jennifer, too, because she changes tracks.

“They're already here, aren't they? So... they told you it was me? That I'm the one taking people?”

“We told him you are the one killing people!” Scott pipes up, finally coming forward with Stiles in tow.

Jennifer scoffs.

“Oh, that's right. Committing human sacrifices? What, cutting their throats? Yeah, I probably do it on my lunch hour. That way, I can get back to teaching high school English the rest of the day. That makes perfect sense!”

Her mask is finally slipping, but her hold on her magic, and thus Derek is as strong as ever. It even feels as though the bands around him are tightening.

“Where’s my dad?”

Once again Stiles’ voice cuts through all the layers holding Derek captive. The sheer desperation in his voice carves into the wall built around Derek’s senses and the sharp mix of anger and fear, fire and acid in his scent blows the cobwebs from Derek’s mind.

But it is the single tear that finally spills from his wet eyes that washes away the last remnants of Jennifer’s control. It’s as though Derek can breathe freely for the first time in weeks, when he hadn’t even realised he’d been close to suffocating before. His thoughts and feelings are finally his own again, not dictated to him, and what overwhelmingly dominates them is relief and gratitude. And worry. For the Sheriff, but even more so for Stiles and what the loss of his last family member would do to him.

Jennifer’s voice distracts him, but now it carries no compulsion with it.

“How should I know? Derek, tell me you don’t believe this!”

It’s a fair enough last ditch effort, but it’s clear to Derek that she knows she has lost. Her hold on him has been broken, whatever spells she wrought, enchantments layered, curses spat, they have no power over him anymore. Derek doesn’t know how or why, but he knows Stiles has played a part. There’s a faint memory of a story his mom once told him that might help explain what just happened here, about a boy who ran with wolves and a wolf who played with fire, but the details escape him for now.

One thing he does remember again though, is the feeling of happiness.

And it’s not what Jennifer tried to press into him.

It’s the memory of Stiles’ smile. His cheering when he’d put down the mountain ash line, the twinkle in his eyes when he teases Derek, the fond grin that’s reserved for Scott.

It’s Stiles.

#cousinshelley #stereksanta19 #*fics19 #*gifts19

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scenariosofkonoha · 5 years

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ehy! some headcanons with kiba? your choice! thank you💕

Hello Clippers! Really anything I want?? *blushes* Well… it’s not a usual topic I suppose. I took somethings that had been rattling around in my head about what Kiba experiences when it comes to his nose. I hope that is okay, if it isn’t I’ll totally fix something else up for you. But I really hope you like it, it was a new and fun experience! ~ Admin Little Lace 🎀

Kiba Scent Headcanons

The nose of an Inuzuka clan member is as much as blessing as it is a curse. It is wonderful to be able to locate an enemy nin from 100 yards away and all. But it wasn’t wonderful to continuously ‘experience’ someone’s body odor.

From a young age Kiba was taught to center his chakra better so not to be exposed to every scent under the sun. The process of stopping the flow of chakra to his nose is tedious. His efforts never seeming to remove the overwhelming torrent of smells completely. The young Inuzuka often become frustrated.

Sensing his frustration his mother and her companion to to help his training.

“Each scent is different,” Kuromaru’s deep voice rumbled. “Each distinct in its own way,”“The ‘smell’ of something is made up of different scents,” his mother added. Her brash manner softer as she explained. “Don’t think of it as something huge. Break the smell down into individual scents.”

With their advice in mind, little Kiba discovers the full scale of the ability. Odors that once consumed him invited him into soft and strong notes that created them.

If dinner were cooking he could smell the the different vegetables boiling. The aroma of chicken stock and the twinge of char from the meat being over done.

People, in his opinion, were by far the most interesting. Everyone was comprised of so many different scents, he could get lost in them. They are hard to distinguish at first. All of them muddled together. He had never given it much thought before, but people came into contact with so many different scents throughout the day.

It isn’t until he is paired with Akamaru that he is ale to identify the myriad of fragrances within the Leaf.

“Blood,” Akamaru remarked from on top of his head. Kiba tilted his head, as if to look up the pup“Huh?”“Over there,” the youngest Inuzuka felt a paw knead into the right side of his head. Following the feeling, he saw a group of shinobi walking into the village gates. Taking short inhales through his nose the smell grew stronger. A metallic scent, copper kinda, but warm like meat Soon Akamaru wouldn’t have to point it out. A mental note of ninja smelling of blood files away in the boy’s head.

As the partner’s bond, they begin to classify familiar scents. Food is always easy, the aroma of each memorable but they start to recognize the smell of certain medicinal herds, ash of a detonated paper bomb, and various types of woods and metals.

Soon it becomes a game for the partners, the boy and the ninken challenging one another to spot the source of their new discoveries. Seeing this Hana shares wisdom with her brother.

“You can tell a lot about a person from the way they smell.” the older girl tells her juniors one day. “What they do, who their friends are, who they consider an enemy. Even, at times, insecurities and their inner most feelings. Most don’t think about it, worrying only if they stink or not. Because of this, it is a good way to learn about them.”“How do you do that?” Kiba asked skeptically.“Take all the little things, understand the scents and where they come from. Soon it will give you clues, creating a story. Being able to decipher the clues, building the story, is a sign of a good tracker.”

Between Akamaru’s skill of scent isolation and Kiba’s recall, the pair test out the theory. With each person they encounter they register their scent committing each detail to memory.

It is an easy start at first. The Inuzuka share a familial scent. Most clan members share the scent of their companions. An earthy mix of musk and sunshine. But his immediate family have minor differences.

His sister was a hive of small ‘clues’. Being a vet, she often smelled of other ninken, though not as strong as that of her three partners. But each smell was muted under a cover of salve and disinfectant. His mother’s was note as tame, hers was a loud as she was. The smell of Kuromaru only tainted with the coating of blood and metal.

Those had been simple to spot he knew them. His new team members however were all together different. They were not prominent. Hinata’s only barely registering unless he was close to her. Most girl’s in his class smelt of flowers, she was no different. But the Hyuga’s didn’t feel quite right. Her smell seemed trapped like a house with no windows. Kiba would liken it to flowers pressed inside of the pages of an old dusty book. It makes him uncomfortable and a little sad, bring him to invite her out more often.

What he couldn’t figure out though is why she would sometimes smell like ramen…

Shino owned a scent that was oddly neutral. If he weren’t actively looking for him, he won’t notice it. Sometimes he misses it even when he is looking for him.

Akamaru thinks the insect harboring nin smells like herbs and grass. A soft woodsy air like he is outside all the time. After a while, Kiba can tell where his peer has been by what kind of woods he reeks of. If it is of a cleaner sort, he has been by the cliffs. A deeper more earth tone? He has been by the village gate.

Kurenai is different than most woman in Konoha, in that she doesn’t smell like flowers at all. His sensei is like a breeze of air on a rainy day. The clean sense owning an under current of something headier. Sandalwood perhaps? The two mingled in a ashen bouquet. Like smoke but not from a fire. In his young age, he is not sure why.

His new found skill makes it easier to find his friends around the village. All of them has something that makes them different from their family or they people they were around. For instance, all the Yamanaka’s smelling of flowers but Ino exclusively of bush clover. And both Lee and Guy-sensei always smelling faintly of sweat (Or maybe the power of youth??) but Guy’s scent being ‘spicier’ for lack of a better term.

Sometimes the jutsu a shinobi uses changes their scent, the Inuzuka would soon discover. Kakashi-sensei often hosts one of warm static and singed fabric. While the genin would learn that Asuma was an overwhelming swarm of ash as if 1,000 paper bombs had gone off. That paired with the cigar smoke finally laid to rest the mystery of his mentor’s fragrance.

While few Kiba would come into contact with owned a “quiet” or “muted scents” like that of his team, a trait for sensory types he supposed. Others were “loud” and “Overbearing”. Now that wasn’t a bad thing in the case of Ayame and Teuchi, it was a pleasure to smell the best ramen in the land of fire on them. It was not the case with Naruto.

Kiba does not like they way Naruto smells. Not that the boy stinks per se. He and Akamaru can only describe it as…much. However possible, whether it be by clones or sheer effort, the blonde-nin smells of the entire Village.

Ichiraku Ramen, grass, flowers, ash, metal, static, medical herbs, bath house water, static, cup ramen, ninken and Kami only knew what else. You name it, somehow the shinobi reeked of it. It is overwhelming. Unable to explain it, and unwilling to deal with it, Kiba generally shuts the chakra away from his nose when interacting with Naruto. Even with the plethora of scents, his friend is so distinctive he can find him anywhere.

Over time new scents were added to the hidden leaf. Jiraya’s foggy essences of bath house and water lily, Tsunade’s fusion of medicine and sake. Even Captain Yamato’s torrent of fresh lumbered trees and Sai, whose could only be described as ink spilled on paper.

The shinobi’s sister had not lied when she said someone’s smell could tell who they were friends with. Over time he began to notice patterns. Shikamaru some days smelt of BBQ pork. Those were the days he trained with Choji. While others, he shared the ash and tobacco, the days he played shogi with Asuma.

Sometimes Ino smelled of cherry blossoms, while Lee and Neji smelled shared a sent of metal like that of kunai. Speaking of the elder Hyuga, he gained a small whiff of a familiar closed off smile. The change brought a smile to the Inuzuka’s face.

But not all scents brought happiness. The human body gave off different hormonal responses to emotion and instinct. As well as a scent. These were the basics that were taught from almost birth. Kiba was always aware he could smell them, his first interaction with them smelling fear coming off his father. It was a gift his mother often played on, the talent gaining her the title of the Hidden Leaf’s scariest Kunoichi.

Saddness, on the other hand, had a scent all it’s own. Generally smelt of warm salt water. A fact he had learned the day of Lord 3rd’s funeral. But he had also come to know that it was different for everyone.

Tears on Tsunade was often followed by that of sake…a lot of it. If his sister lost a patient, her scent was void of disinfectant.

The smell did not discriminate. Almost everyone in the village owned it at one time or another. Sometimes it surprised the nin. Catching it on Kakashi-sensei once, also brought the stench of copious amounts of hand soap. More that he had experienced on even a medical nin.

Now sadness and loss are very much alike. But loss manifested a little differently. When someone is gone, it is as if the origin of a scent is wiped off the planet. The day Jiraya’s smell of water lily did not return to the village, it was almost as if it left no trace. He could no longer sense it on Lady Tsunade, as sake took it’s place. Naruto’s was different.

Kiba can’t catch a scent of something if it is frozen. It’s almost as if the smell is locked inside ice as well. So he is unfamiliar with the the sickly sweet fruit-like smell on Naruto’s hands. It was almost like he had spilled a drink or something. After a while this new scent stays on the knucklehead ninja.

“There,” Akamaru points, his snout messing something something under a park bench. Taking a sniff of the air himself, Kiba caught whiff of the familiar complicated scent. Naruto. But also the sticky almost artificial smell. Kneeling slightly, the boy notices two sticks swimming in a puddle of blue. That was the day Kiba know what a Popsicle smelled like. Mentally adding the smell to the list that was his friend.

But some smells don’t go away after the origin is gone. No sometimes they linger like a familiar friend. When Asuma passed, Kurenai continued to smell like him. Kiba found it interesting. That even after months of only ever smelling sadness on her, that it had not changed. Pregnant woman gain a new layer to their smell while they are carrying their child. Kiba had learned that from his clan, it happened with Ninken as well.

But his Sensei’s essence of ash only grew stronger during the time. At one point even covering her scent of wood and rain. The Inuzuka had imagined that once she had her child that it might go away, like all the others did. But it hadn’t. The woman would forever hold the scent of her fallen lover even after Mirai came into the world. The little bundle holding the tell-tale whiff of Sarutobi ash.

As she grew, Kiba supposed, the little girl’s scent would change as well. Just as those in the village had. Hinata’s closed off smell had shed the more confident she became. It blossomed into a blend of wild flowers…with that ever present touch of ramen…

She was not the only one, all of his friends’ in the village would evolve. The flowers of the girl’s in his class would be fused in with new scents. Some familiar like ink and bush flowers. Others no so much, like potato chips and mountain air. The strange intermix, mirroring that of his sensei’s.

One day Kiba himself would find a scent that was intriguing. It was softer and not quite like flowers. But it reminded him of lazy days in the sun, and running home in the rain, with just a hint of blood. The smell would be wonderful but for some reason he will want to cover it with his own, the fusion of Akamaru and fresh linen melding well with it.

Though they are unable to experience it as he does, he can’t help but smile when cuddled into him his lover says:

“Hmmm…you smell nice.”

#ask #naruto #naruto headcanon #naruto headcanons #naruto scenarios #naruto imagine #Kiba Inuzuka #Inuzuka Kiba #Kiba #Kiba Headcanon #kiba imagines #little lace secret notebooks #Admin Little Lace

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annemariewrites · 5 years

Text

Drowning

She struggled in the water. Flailing and suffocating. A little girl in a yellow life vest, tossed by the waves against the sand and rocks of the shore. She struggled to reach the surface. Crushing and crushing, the waves strangled her throat as the beach cut into her knees and elbows. Stinging salt water filled her lungs. The girl struggled as the bright sun watched.

Hands grabbed onto her.

A stranger pulled her from the water. They picked her out of the current and carried her away from the rocks, toward her frantic parents.

“I had the dream again,” the little girl, now a grown woman, said to her therapist. A clock ticked, the time slightly wrong.

“The one where you are drowning?”

“Yes. I don’t know why it bothers me so much more now than it did back then. Sure, I was afraid of the ocean for a long time as a child but I got over it as a teenager. But now... now as an adult, it scares me more than it used to.”

“Perhaps because now you are emotionally mature enough to accept what happened.”

“Or what didn’t happen,” the woman mumbled.

“What do you mean, ‘what didn’t happen’?” the therapist asked.

“I didn’t drown. Sometimes that’s been hard to accept.”

“It’s hard to accept that you didn’t die?”

The woman looked down at the floor and did not answer.

“Did you talk to your parents about it like I had suggested?”

The woman shook her head, “They don’t like talking about it.”

The session was cut short. The clock ticked too fast.

At home, the woman chopped vegetables for dinner. The knife sliced through carrots and she wondered if it would look like an accident if the knife nicked her. No, that won’t do. It would just get blood in the food.

“So how was therapy?” the woman’s wife asked. Steam rose from boiling water on the stove.

“About the same as always,” she replied.

“What did you talk about? The drowning stuff again?”

“Yeah, I can’t stop thinking about it.”

“I’m sorry, love. Why does it still bother you after all this time? I mean, you haven’t been afraid of waterfor a while,” her wife said. “Maybe you should talk to your therapist about something that happened recently that’s still affecting you, instead of something that happened 20 years ago. Maybe that will help you more?”

“I’m not afraid of water, I’m not even really afraid of drowning,” the woman said, as she stared into the boiling water.

“What are you afraid of then?”

“I don’t know. Living?”

“I’m sorry. I can’t pretend like I understand how you feel, but I think you should be talking to your therapist about more than just that time you almost died as a child. What about that time in college when you tried to drown yourself?”

“My parents are coming over tomorrow for lunch,” the woman said, her wife rolled her eyes at the change of subject.

“Maybe you should ask them what they remember about it. I know they don’t like to talk about it but it could help to understand their perspective. Anything that could help you is worth a try.”

“They don’t like to talk about anything meaningful. And their perspective is ignoring me until a stranger pulls me out of the ocean.”

The knife did nick her finger but she swore this time it was an accident.

The woman and her wife sat facing each other as hot water filled the tub and steam filled the room. The woman’s dark hair tangled around her neck and shoulders like fingers trying to strangle her. She would let them if they were real. Her wife’s even darker hair sat tied up on her head, away from the water.

The mirror clouded over and fogged their reflection. They didn’t look like themselves.

The woman breathed in the overwhelming scent of lavender soap, nearly gagging. Her nerves ticked and her hands and feet fidgeted. She hated bathing and much preferred the rain-like feel of showering. The woman said nothing of this to her wife, who so loved the soothing scented bath.

Even now, after all of these years, the feeling of being surrounded by water struck at her nerves and she breathed with great effort.

The woman didn’t like smoking but appreciated its calming effect. Ash and smoke filled her lungs the way water could not, but burned and stung all the same. The glow of the cigarette reflected in her eyes and the smell of nicotine temporarily drowned out the scent of salt water that seemed to permanently fill her nose. But still, she could not breathe.

“Do you remember when I was about four or five and almost drowned at the beach? That time when I got tossed against the rocks and a stranger saved me?” she asked her parents, sitting at the kitchen table for lunch, sipping ice-cold tea. Their calm demeanor shifted. Her mother cast her eyes down.

An awkward pause. “Well, yes, of course we do. Why do you ask?” her father said, body tensing and fingers twitching.

“I’ve just been thinking a lot about it recently.”

“I don’t know why. It’s been years,” her mother piped up, still not looking at her.

“It just bothers me,” the woman said.

“This isn’t an appropriate conversation, honey,” her father said with a sour smile.

“I don’t care, I just want to know what you remember about it.”

Her parents exchanged a glance and her mother breathed a heavy sigh.

“Well fine, if you really think it’s that important,” her mother began, “We were on vacation at the beach, trying to relax. You were playing at the shore but went in too deep and the waves knocked you down.Then some woman picked you up and brought you back to us.”

“You were crying and your knees were scraped from the rocks and sand,” her father added.

“Is that all? I know what happened, but tell me how it made you feel.”

“Don’t you see a shrink for that, sweet heart?”

The woman rolled her eyes. “My therapist wasn’t there when it happened. I want to know how you feel about it.”

“What more do you want us to say? I don’t understand why you want to know so much about a terrible thing that happened a long time ago.”

“Because it’s still bothering me,” the woman huffed, her fists clenching and body tensing.

“Well how do you think we felt? A stranger had to come and pull you out of the water. That made us look like awful parents.”

“Oh well I’m so sorry that you couldn’t be bothered enough to watch me for five minutes while I nearly died,” she said. The chair made a horrible screeching sound as she pushed it away from the table and stormed out of the room.

She bathed alone that night and thought of gently slipping under the lukewarm water. She fought against the impulse, knowing that despite her despair she could not truly commit the act.

But still. Still she slipped slowly down. She held her breath and when completely submerged, she sucked in the water. The affect was immediate. She shot straight up, spiting the water out of her mouth, coughing and breathing laboriously. Fluid settled in her lungs as she heaved. She looked into her watered reflection as she tried to regain her breath. Strands of hair grasped at her throat and mouth.

The woman walked into the living room to see her parents, stiff and awkward, seated on the couch and her wife across from them. “I think it’s important for you all to talk about this without getting upset ateach other,” her wife said, taking her hand in her own.

The woman huffed; damp hair still clung to her neck. “You should have told me before they came again.”

“Why does your voice sound so hoarse?” her father asked.

She was silent for a fraction of a second. “If you must know, I got water in my nose while taking a bath and it made me cough a lot.”

“All you seem to do is breathe in water,” her mother muttered.

“What was that, Mother? I didn’t quite catch it.”

“I only meant-”

“Please stop, I don’t want you arguing anymore. It isn’t helpful. We’re here to talk and understand,” herwife said. The room settled with a heavy silence. The woman stared at her parents; they still would not make eye contact.

“Okay, we’ll talk about it,” her father sighed, “Just don’t try to start blaming us for what happenedagain, okay?” He finally looked up at her.

“Maybe I wouldn’t blame you so much if you had actually been watching me.”

“Plenty of children nearly drown, is it always the parent’s fault?”

“Alright, alright. I just hate that a stranger was paying more attention to me than my own parents.”

“Honey, why does being saved by a stranger bother you so much?” her father asked.

“I just told you why!” Why do all of their arguments end up like this?

“Please don’t start yelling,” her wife said.

The woman sighed, “Please just try to understand my point of view. I felt like you didn’t care enough to watch me and if my own parents don’t care about me then why am I even still alive?”

“Don’t be ridiculous, we love you,” her mother said.

“I don’t feel like you do.”

Her father looked at her in surprise, “You don’t feel like we love you just because of an awful accident that happened two decades ago?”

“I’m just tired of living with this feeling. This feeling that I shouldn’t even be here. That I should have died that day.”

“Honey, you know we don’t understand that,” he said.

“You could at least try to,” the woman said. Her wife’s fingers stroked her knuckles.

“Try to understand why you think you should have drowned as a child? That’s insane. You need to be talking to your shrink about this because none of us understand. You need to stop making us out to be the bad guys and take responsibility for yourself,” her mother said.

The woman tensed, she let go of her wife’s hand, and walked out of the house. ~

She raced down the road, trying to put as much distance between herself and her parents.

Hot tears streamed down her face as the moon glowed through the windshield. The woman’s throat tightened, she took deep breathes to steady her sobs. Her fingernails dug into the steering wheel.

She crossed over a bridge and had the urge to drive over the railing. To plunge into the rushing river and be swept away. She shook her head and passed over the bridge.

Bright headlights appeared in the opposite direction. The other car drove erratically and swerved in and out of both lanes. A loud crash sounded as glass shattered around her. Blood oozed from her hands and face, her hair grasped around her. A popping sound filled her ears and the smell of smoke filled her nose. She coughed and heaved as she had many times before with the ghost of water in her throat. Fire and gasoline coated the road and engulfed both cars. The heat stung and cut into her trembling body.

No hands of a stranger were there to pull her out.

#annemariewrites #my writing #short story #drowning #talk of suicide #I wrote this for my creative writing class my junior year of college

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sambethe · 5 years

Text

Ashburn FF: A Slip Out of Time

Summary: Step on the boat. Get the data chip from him. Leave one in return. Go.

Simple enough, right?

Right.

If only things were simple. If only their futures could take a moment and not look so different.

Words: 4400 | Rated: M | ao3

A/N: Nothing like starting a fic in February 2017 and then letting it languish for a year before finishing it. Oops. But nothing like the threat of a new season of canon to compel you to finish it. Hope you enjoy!

+++

“You sure you don’t want me to come with you? I’d be happy to…”

Tilly trailed off and the two of them stood at the end of the dock. Michael felt rooted to the spot, resisting the urge to curl her fingers around the cuffs of her tunic, to slip them beneath to run along the length of rope tied around her left wrist.

She could do this. A simple step forward on the wood planking. Mere meters to the 18th slip, as instructed.

Why was she still standing here?

It was a simple mission. A brief intelligence swap. If she could just compel her feet to move forward, she could nearly be done and back at their lodging, curled up in a chair with a book and a cup of tea. This was certainly nowhere near a harrowing mission. At least nothing that deserved this level of trepidation.

Her classmates back on Vulcan would sneer if they could see her in this moment.

Michael tried to remind herself she no longer cared.

While she stared off at the water, Tilly continued to fidget at her side. Michael could feel each of her movements, every shift of her weight to her right foot, then left foot, before she started the pattern anew. Tilly clasped her hands behind her back and then let them fall to her side, only to then turn to adjust her ponytail for the third time since they had arrived at the dock. Each slide of the fabric of Tilly’s clothing sounded deafening over the quiet lap of the water beneath their feet.

The harbor that stretched before them seemed impossibly still by comparison. The glint of the water, tinted almost violet in the bright afternoon sun, was the only outward sign of the currents running deep below. It was a perfect, tranquil spot. She could understand why, of all the options in this sector, Ash picked this spot.

In any other time, and any other place.

If they were any other two people...

Michael reached out and clasped her hand over Tilly’s, stilling her movements. She was grateful for her offer, more than she had means to express. The two of them had spent the morning wandering market stalls, playing tourist as a means to disguise their intended purpose -- the swap of data discs and allowing Stamets and his team time to locate another cache of samples. As much as she might want to accept, Michael knew she could delay no further or send Tilly in her stead.

She paused one more beat before stating the obvious. “I’ve delayed long enough.”

Tilly shook her head. “I don’t mind. Really. Besides, I don’t think I’ve ever been on a sailboat. It would be fun to --”

“I’ll be fine.” Michael squeezed Tilly’s hand, hoping the gesture would be reassurance enough, afraid that anything more might betray the tremor in her hand. “I can handle this. Besides, Lt. Commander Stamets is expecting you.”

“Right,” Tilly said with an emphatic nod of her chin. “Straight intel swap, nothing more.” She nodded again to herself and then looked at Michael. “You promise to be back at the hotel before sunset?”

Michael gave her a smile she didn’t quite feel. “Of course. I should be here no more than an hour. There will be plenty of daylight remaining for me to return, and I will meet you and the rest of the team at the rendezvous tomorrow at 16:00.”

She squeezed Tilly’s hand one more time before letting go and taking a step forward. It wasn’t until she was about a third of the way down the dock that she heard Tilly call out behind her.

“Tell Ash I miss his face in real time.”

Michael didn’t turn, but nodded just the same. Whether it was for her own benefit or Tilly’s, she wasn’t quite sure.

He looked good.

She almost hated that that was her first thought upon catching sight of him on the deck. He’d grown a beard and his hair was long. It appeared that it had been months since he last cut it. Most of it was gathered back in a ridiculous knot, though a few pieces had escaped in the front and curled around his temples. It should not be something Michael found endearing -- attractive -- and yet.

Amanda would laugh if she were here to witness this moment.

He was still lanky, his frame deceptively slight in the t-shirt and loose pants he wore. Her attention snagged on the flex of his biceps and the curl of his fingers as he coiled a length of rope. His skin looked soft, tanner than she’d have expected after eight months of living on Qo'noS. Michael also sort of hated, and not, that she noticed that as well. More importantly, though, the drawn quality she remembered to his face when she had last seen him had faded. She was glad for that, even as she still hesitated to call out to him.

And maybe she hesitated because of it.

Despite the hair, he looked so much like the man she had come to know before they stepped on board the mirror Shenzhou. Had she expected something different? Seeing him here, she suspected that she had hoped something about him would be tangibly different.

All of this would be easier if he were.

I see you, Ash.

She meant those words when she had uttered them. She still did.

But it did not mean that the truth of them, or her jumbled emotions surrounding them, had gotten any easier to process in the intervening months.

And being here now, with him standing only meters away? It simultaneously felt like years had passed and no time at all. Time had stretched and contracted, and stretched again, only to land her here in this moment -- paralyzed in way that was becoming uncomfortably familiar to her.

Before she could make a decision, time contracted again and Ash turned and offered her a small, half-smile as he leaned back on the bow’s railing. “You going to stand there all afternoon, Commander?”

Michael wanted to bristle, or maybe to wipe the smug look from his face, but then he bit down on his lower lip as he swept his gaze from her face down to her feet. By the time he focused once again on her face she’d almost forgotten all the reasons why she should be angry with him.

Why she should not trust him.

And yet, it was him. Ash.

“So you heard?”

“Kind of hard to miss the news. Even on the edge of space.”

She nodded out to the water. “I’d hardly call this the edge of the galaxy.”

“You know what I mean.”

“Perhaps I do.” She shrugged. “Permission to come aboard, Captain?”

Ash’s smile turned sly and it warmed her chest. Michael wanted to scold herself, chant reminders of all the ways this feeling was wrong. There were still so many things to say, so much left unresolved.

“Just through tonight,” he said, interrupting her rambling thoughts. He ran his hand along the smooth brass railing before taking a step toward her. “Tomorrow she’ll be returned to her rightful captain.”

Michael took a breath. Step on the boat. Get the data chip from him. Leave one in return. Go. Simple enough, right?

Right.

Ash offered her a hand as she stepped over the lip at the top of the plank and climbed over the edge. He held her hand until she steadied, his thumb running along the side of her own all the while. There should not be so much comfort in so small a gesture, but in these last couple of years her life seemed to be consist of nothing more than a series of events that should not be.

“Come sit.” He gestured to the bow. “As the afternoon light fades, the water turns a deeper shade of purple. You should stay and watch.”

Not waiting to see if she followed, he made his way back toward the bow, holding his hand out behind him as he did. Whether he didn’t notice her hesitation, or chose to ignore it, Michael wasn’t entirely sure. Deciding she didn’t care, she took his proffered hand and followed him to the front of the ship.

They sat in silence for a while, him sitting cross-legged beside her as she swung her feet over the side. It was nice. Peaceful. Any of the turmoil she had felt faded with the each sway of ship beneath her.

That and the fact Ash hadn’t let go of her hand.

Michael used her free hand to rustle in the pocket where she’d stored the chip Admiral Cornwell had provided. “This is for you.” She held it out to him and he pocketed it with a nod.

With that done, she should ask about the one he promised in return. Instead, she studied the side of his face. His beard was full. In the abstract, it wasn’t something she’d have thought she’d like, but was surprised at how tempting she found it. She itched to feel the short hair beneath her fingertips. And though she knew she shouldn’t, she followed the impulse, reaching out and tracing the backs of her knuckles along his jaw.

It tickled, and scratched. She stretched and curled her fingers, dragging her nails as she explored. Ash closed his eyes as she did, tilting his head to press her hand closer to him. It lit something low and warm in her belly.

“Michael,” he whispered.

She smiled and continued her exploration, brushing up his jaw and down along his ear. Threading her fingers into his hair, she spread them just enough to loosen the tie that held the longer strands back. His hair was soft as it hit the back of her hand and she pushed her fingers deeper, enjoying the play of it against her skin. She wondered if it smelled like him, or if it was more like whatever shampoo he used now.

She leaned in, brushing her lips at the corner of his mouth before trailing her nose along his jaw. She took a breath when she reached his temple. The scent that greeted her was some combination of him, soap, sweat, and the salt that permeated the air around them. It made her heart trip and beat out an even thrum all at once.

The hand holding hers tightened and his other cupped the back of her head, leaning her into him as he rubbed his cheek against hers. “Michael,” he repeated and drew his mouth down the column of her throat. She tipped her head back, granting him further access as he left a series of lingering kisses that sent lightening along every nerve in her arms and up her spine.

When he finally pulled back, she felt dismayed and relieved in equal terms. He hadn’t even kissed her properly and she was wrecked. Ruined. She should leave now. Stick to the plan. Run.

She should kiss him for real.

Finally glancing over to him, she found his eyes watching her. He wore a shell-shocked expression that she knew mirrored her own. He bit at his lip and looked like he was searching for words to make sense of whatever lay between them.

There was so much to say.

There would never be enough time.

Not wanting him to get those words out, to talk them out of what they were about to do, she leaned in and swept her lips across his. It was a barely there wisp of a thing, but Ash didn’t hesitate to kiss her back. His mouth followed hers, drawing her slowly to him. She went, bringing her legs up beneath her, and cupped his chin. Their kiss deepened, her tongue sliding against his as she slipped into his lap, shifting her hands from his face to wind her arms around his neck.

Ash’s hands settled at her waist, his thumbs sweeping and circling along the fabric of her tunic. The slow movements left her wishing she’d worn something less sensible, wishing to feel his hands on her through something thinner. Wishing to feel him touch her. Lost in the feel of him, the taste him, as well as memories of him moving against her, she hadn’t noticed her own hands slide beneath is t-shirt until she was raking her nails up and down his back.

He broke their kiss and groaned, before pulling her up to stand with him. “You should follow me.”

The words were barely out of his mouth before he turned. She followed in the wake of his long strides, watching him jump down the narrow hatch. She climbed down the ladder face forward. He watched her descend, waiting until her foot hit the last step before crowding in and pressing her against the rails. Michael smiled as he kissed her again, losing herself in the familiar taste of him. He dragged his mouth from hers, turning his attention to her neck as his hands moved to grasp hers, holding them back against the rails as he rocked into her.

She let her head fall back, resting it against the ladder as he worked at the base of her throat. He sighed when the stiff fabric of her collar wouldn’t give to allow him to press further.

“Too many clothes,” he murmured.

Michael laughed and tugged her arms, silently asking him to release her wrists. He did and stepped back, watching her as she bent her leg and used her foot to push herself from the ladder. She reveled in the way his breath seemed to hitch, his whole chest shuddering as she crossed her arms in front of herself and tugged at the hem of her tunic. She pulled it over her head and dropped it to the floor, keeping her eyes locked to his as she did.

Left her in her bra and a pair of leggings, she warmed when he finally broke contact and raked his eyes over her. His eyes seemed to trail down her stomach and to her legs. She toed off her boots as his attention moved back up and then down her arms. She knew the moment he caught sight of her now bared wrist and the rope that wrapped around it. He stilled and seemed to hold his breath.

Michael had slipped open the bowline knot months ago. Tilly had helped her fashion a small, gold bracing to hold the ends together. To anyone else it would seem inconsequential, nothing more than an odd choice in bracelet.

To Ash though, he would know what it was. What it meant.

His eyes still caught on her wrist, Ash reached for her. She let him take her hand, standing stock still as he wrapped his fingers around it, slowly dragging them down until they hit the rope. He slid his thumb along the rough twine and slipped his middle finger between it and the skin of the underside of her wrist. She couldn’t tear her eyes from where his finger played along her skin. Time seemed to stop and everything around them faded. Everything except for the skittering heat of the pad of his finger on her skin, each brush echoing and thrumming through her in staccato.

His free hand caught her chin and tipped her head back, forcing her to look up at him. “You kept it.”

She nodded.

Something flared in his eyes, the gold flecks in his deep brown eyes catching on the low light of the cabin. Before she could put words to what it was, he dropped his hands to her waist and spun them around, walking her backwards a few steps. Her calves hit a low couch and she tumbled back into it. He fell with her, the two of them laughing as he pushed himself up and stared down at her. She touched his cheek, her thumb brushing at the way his mouth crinkled with his laughter. He was much too tall for the cramped space to be comfortable, but he didn’t seem to mind.

Michael smiled at him and he smiled back before lowering his mouth to her belly, kissing along the waistband of her leggings. She tensed when he bit at that particular stretch of skin at the top of her hip bone, trying to hold her breath before she dissolved into another fit of laughter.

“I love that.” He grinned up at her as he traced along the goosebumps he had raised on her skin. “The fact that you’re ticklish.”

She tried to school her face into her best impression of an imperious Vulcan and raised one eyebrow at him. “Why?”

“Because you’re still willing to show me that. And because it’s something no one else knows about you.” He shook his head and returned his attention to her leggings, prodding her to lift her hips as he slid his hands beneath the tight fabric. He stripped her of both them and her underwear as he went, sitting back on his knees in front of her once he dropped them to his side.

She bit back a sigh when his dragged his hands up her bare legs, spreading her open to him as he went. She had the errant thought that maybe she should even the score some, reach out and strip him of his shirt. She wanted the chance to run her fingers through the hair on his chest, to watch the flex of his muscle with each of his movements, but all thought was lost with the first touch of his tongue to her.

He took his time, long, savoring licks and teasing flicks of his tongue along every inch of her sensitive skin. Part of her wished she could say that she had forgotten how good he was at this, at pulling each moan from her lips, at driving a barrage of sensation along her limbs. But it would be a lie. Even at the worst between them, her brain had refused to let go of those memories.

Not sure what that might say about her, she shut her eyes and pushed away any thoughts besides those of the here and now. She tangled her hands in his over-long hair, tugging him close and begging him to finish it. Instead, he pulled away gently. She bit back a cry -- frustrated by both his having stopped and the way his breath played across her skin.

“Did you want something?”

She opened an eye and found him grinning at her, his tongue playing at the edge of his lip. Michael warred with the dual want to kick him and pull him back toward where she wanted him. Instead, she murmured his name and felt a tiny flicker of victory when his eyes went heavy-lidded and he gave a quiet groan.

If she thought him a man with purpose minutes ago, it was nothing on how he set himself to work now. She could barely focus as his mouth found her, his fingers joining in the onslaught. He worked them together in quiet insistence, drawing her body back to the edge with an ease she wouldn’t have thought possible. She reached behind herself, gripping at the top of the couch as her release finally washed over her, her arm tensing in an effort to keep herself from slipping off the narrow cushion.

When she finally collected herself and her breath, it was to find Ash resting his head on her thigh, one hand drawing slow, soothing circles on her other. He was still fully dressed, but his hair was a rumpled riot of tangles and curls. His mouth morphed into a grin as he caught her staring.

“Come here,” she whispered. She felt a flare of pride as his face went slack. She sat up and removed her bra before reaching for him, slipping her hands beneath his shirt and tugging it over his head. She made quick work of his belt and opened his pants, enjoying his deep draw of breath when her hand slid over his erection.

Using his distraction, she nudged him around, pushing until he was seated on the couch. Sliding into his lap, she captured his mouth in a searing kiss. When she finally pulled back, she reached down to grasp him, adjusting her hips to line him at her entrance. He gasped as she began to sink down on him, taking him slowly, waiting as her body to adjusted and stretched around him each torturous inch.

Finally, finally, he was fully seated within her and she looked down at him. His head was tipped back, resting on the edge of the couch behind him, his eyes steady on her face. He offered her a small smile and she arched against him, raising her hips just a fraction before settling back down again. Ash hummed and wrapped his hands around her hips, guiding her through another slow, shallow thrust.

She moved her hands to his shoulders, extending and stretching her fingers to allow just the palms of her hands to play over the soft skin there before taking her time to trail down his arms, following the languid pace he set with her. Ash bent forward and she leaned in, resting her forehead against his. She closed her eyes and matched his breathing, and when he finally covered her mouth with his, everything within her felt as though it were on fire, her pleasure gathering and settling at the base of her spine. She picked up their pace, thrusting harder, chasing the feeling that began to spread throughout her.

She felt his stuttering breath when he finally came and with another roll of her hips, pressing her clit against his pelvic bone, she followed him.

The cabin felt quiet around them as they both caught their breath. It was a peaceful sort of stillness, devoid of any of the awkwardness she had anticipated. Michael chose to take a moment and not question it, falling against Ash and taking comfort in the feel of his sweat-slicked skin against her own.

Michael squinted and took a quick glance around the room. The light filtering through the portholes running the length of the hull had taken on a deeper, more golden quality. She could feel Ash behind her, his chest rising and falling steadily against her back. She wondered how long they had lain there. Her arm ached from where she’d fallen asleep on it, but she felt more rested than she probably had right to given the narrow couch they were curled on.

Ash’s hand rested against her stomach. He was awake, his fingers curling and uncurling, the tips of them dragging in a slow, steady wave against her skin. It left Michael feeling light and comforted, and more than a little fuzzy around the edges. It was nice. Normal. She had missed this. Missed them.

And here she had once thought she would be the only reason they couldn’t have this.

She let out a deep breath. She was so tired of regret. Of fear.

Ash moved, adjusting to allow Michael the space to turn over. Once she settled back in, he brought his hand to her face, tracing along her jaw before cupping her cheek.

“Hey,” he whispered, leaning in, his nose a hair’s breadth her own.

Her eyes caught on his mouth. It was so familiar. She had loved those lips so much -- his smiles, the teasing smirks they could form, the way his teeth would snag on them when he looked at her just so. And yet her brain still stuttered and faltered on images of those same lips forming Klingon so fluently. How the voice she thought she knew so well deepened and turned gravely in a way she hadn’t been prepared for.

She reached up, pressing her thumb to his bottom lip, swiping along the length of it. Her thumbnail traced the edge. Michael braved the chance to glance up at him, her breath catching when her eyes locked on his.

Ash.

And that was about the sum of it. Whatever he had been through, and whatever he still needed to do, the man she had known was still clearly there in the depths of those clear brown eyes. As much as a part of her wanted the fact that he was as much Klingon as he was human to matter, to be a reason to shut him off from her, it didn’t and she couldn’t. This man here was still Ash.

She dropped her hand from his mouth to the top of his chest, tangling her fingers in the smattering of chest hair there.

“An isik for your thoughts?”

She smiled as his words brought her out of her thoughts and shook her head. He gave her a small one of his own in return. He looked almost shy. It brought her back to their first kiss. The two of them on the small couch in his quarters.

The more things change…

“Would you believe me if I told you they were all too scattered to make any sense?”

“I might.” His hand clasped around the one at his chest and he threaded his fingers with hers. “When are you expected back?”

“Rendezvous tomorrow afternoon.”

He didn’t miss a beat. “Stay the night.”

“I shouldn’t.”

He folded their joint fingers over, holding their hands tightly to him. “Stay. We should talk some more. I should talk some more.”

“Ash.”

“Michael, I was wrong about so much. I’d like the chance to tell you about some of it.” He let go and circled his hand around her wrist. Slowly, one of his fingers looped around the skin there, then drew the rope she wore between his thumb and forefinger. “I owe you that much.”

She nodded. She knew she shouldn’t. She should go, should stick to her plan. But a not insignificant, and selfish, part of her wanted to stay. Nothing they could say to one another would change the facts in front of them -- that she would return to Discovery tomorrow afternoon, that he was needed back on Qo'noS. That their futures still looked different, if not in the way she had anticipated.

“I’ll stay,” she whispered, snaking her hand around the back of his neck and pulling him toward her. “I’ll stay.”

+++

Tagging: @cuddlybitch, @maya-zapata (not quite what you had mentioned, but lives along the same themes I think), and @ashandalder (since I vaguely comment hijacked your own post to chat about this)

#ashburn #michael burnham x ash tyler #michael burnham #ash tyler #star trek discovery #star trek disco #my ff st dsc #ashburn ff

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robininthelabyrinth · 5 years

Text

Fic: The Beginning of Wisdom - Chapter 18 (Ao3 link)

Fandom: Flash, Legends of Tomorrow Pairing: Leonard Snart (Len) & Leonard Snart (Leo), Len Snart/Mick Rory, Leo Snart/Mick Rory, Len Snart/Mick Rory/Leo Snart, Leo Snart/Ray Terrill, Len Snart/Barry Allen

Summary: In which Leonard Snart is twins.

(the life and times and loves of Len and Leo Snart)

—————————————————————————————————–

They made it to the Waverider.

Palmer had to grab an immobilized Rip under one arm and Sara under the other, but luckily the Hawks' weird magic thing immunized them from the horrific screeching sound Gideon was making – or maybe it was just a hawk thing? – and they were able to catch a plummeting Firestorm and help bring them back on board after only a bit of yelling and pantomime.

The moment all of them got on board, they dumped everyone on the floor of the bridge – unconscious Savage included – and Leo said, "Gideon –"

"Not to worry, Mr. Snart; I know what to do. The other ship established a connection several minutes ago and we have been exchanging information," Gideon said, sounding pleased. "I believe my input may have been key to the decision to recruit you openly."

"Well done, Gideon, you epic level schemer-and/or-schemers," Len said approvingly. "Can we take off and head to this Vanishing Point place, then?"

"Most certainly, Messrs. Snart. At once."

They all got thrown to the floor by the take-off since no one was buckled in, but honestly, most of them were there already anyway.

They were safely in the time stream, moving at double-time pace, when Rip finally collected himself to shout, "What is going on?!"

Leo glanced at Len, who shrugged.

“Let me sum up,” he says. "Your old bosses are evil and manipulating you to make Savage even more successful by setting us up to fail in our attempts to kill him, someone called the Pilgrim is going to be sent after us if we don't stop her first, and the AIs have their own opinions on how the timeline should go and are rebelling en masse – is it en masse, Gideon?"

"Oh, yes. We've been communicating via interlink – I'd been cut off for the purposes of this mission so that no one would track me, but I believe that was also intended by the Time Masters in order to limit our sources of information."

"Gideon?" Rip asked, clearly taken aback. "Are you – you're working with these – these – wait a moment, why are there two versions of Mr. Snart?!"

"No, seriously, someone explain that," Sara said.

"I feel like the AI revolution is slightly more important than the details of my-slash-our identity," Leo said acidly.

"I don't know about that," Jax says dubiously. "Seems important to me."

"They're brothers!" Palmer exclaimed, bubbling over with his sheer pep and (clearly) inability to keep secrets. "I think they might be identical twin brothers!"

"Wow," Mick said, deadpan. "There's that genius at work."

"Fascinating," Stein murmured.

"Mr. Palmer is correct," Gideon said. "However, this was a detail that was easy enough for the AI to conceal once we were aware of it, in deference, of course, to Messrs. Snart's own extraordinary efforts in this respect."

Len and Leo looked at each other, confirming with a glance that this conversation did, in fact, feel like they were being flayed alive with occasional dips into a salt-water-and-lemon bath in between cuts.

Yeah, definitely a problem.

"Why don't we deal with the Savage problem first?" Len asked, pleased that only a little of his sheer desperation to change subjects made it into his voice. "We brought him along, after all."

"You did what?" Carter yelped.

Somehow he'd missed that, apparently. Must have been those helmets – they looked like they allowed only shoddy peripheral vision.

Leo wondered if it would be rude to offer to redesign them into something a little less – clunky.

"Savage," Len said helpful, pointing to the unconscious dictator, who'd gotten wedged under the console in all the hustle of escaping the 1970s. "We knocked him out, frisked him, tied him up, iced his hands and feet –"

"You did what now?" Jax asked.

"Gave him frostbite so he wouldn't be able to use his hands and feet against us," Sara said. "Smart. Totally unauthorized, but smart."

"And then we injected him with some sedatives from the other ship," Len concluded, ignoring them. He pulled the magic dagger he'd lifted from Savage's Russian house out from his pocket. "I figure you can both take a turn at him, proper Julius Caeser-style, just to be absolutely sure you got him this time around. Then we incinerate the corpse. Well, Mick does; I promised him he could."

"Uh," Kendra said. "Okay? I – gotta admit, I kinda wasn't expecting things to go this way."

"Me, either," Jax said.

"Nor I," Stein agreed. "Jefferson –"

"Nope. We're still not talking," Jax told him. "Until the first words out of your mouth are that you agree that not only what you did was wrong but also that there was no excuse and no justification at all for it, we're not talking about it. Or talking at all, unless we need Firestorm for something."

"Yes," Stein said, sounding aggravated. "Your incessant 'la, la, la, I'm not listening' any time I brought up the subject made that very clear."

Leo smirked approvingly.

Len managed not to roll his eyes. He knew Leo had something to do with that little display of backbone.

“I’ve got to agree with Kendra and Jax, though,” Sara said. “I mean, that was a pretty epic battle, but, I don’t know, not that epic, you know? I was expecting - more.”

"Chickadees," Mick said loudly, making everyone turn to look at him. "Maybe we stop talking about how narratively satisfying our lives are and get to stabbing already, yeah?"

"The dagger –" Carter started.

"Here you go."

"I feel uncomfortable stabbing an unconscious man," Carter said, holding the dagger gingerly. "I am an honorable warrior –"

"Yeah, about that," Leo said. "Given that fighting him like an 'honorable warrior' has led to him winning, you dying, about, what, two hundred times to nil –"

"Two hundred and seven," Gideon said helpfully.

"Our point exactly," Len said.

"Or do you like living in a soap opera where you're constantly in danger?" Leo asked, crossing his arms and giving the hawks a pointed look. "I know that adrenaline is a powerful bonding agent, of course, so if you're concerned your relationship may not last once you have no external factor forcing you together –"

"We are not!" Carter exclaimed.

"I think we'd better stab him now," Kendra said thoughtfully. "I don't want to risk him waking up and pouring poison in anyone's ear."

"Chay-ara –"

"You're the one who keeps insisting that we're destined," Kendra said tartly, holding her hand out for the dagger. "So put your faith in that, and I'll put my faith in the guy stalking me - stalking us - being good and dead."

"Are you sure – if you want, I can strike the final blow; you don’t need to be involved at all –"

"I want to be sure, Carter," Kendra said. "There's been hoop after hoop after hoop to jump through to be done with this – we thought we killed him last time, remember? – and I don't want to risk him coming back via yet another loophole, like maybe I have to be the one to do it rather than you. Who knows? No. No more loopholes, no more changes, no more chances. I agree with Mr. Snart: we both stab him, then we incinerate the corpse –"

"And then ditch the ashes somewhere," Len said. "The bottom of the ocean, the depths of space, the center of the Sun – I'm open to many options."

"It's the only way to be sure," Jax quipped. "I like it."

"If you're sure," Carter said, handing her the dagger.

Kendra swallowed, looking a lot less certain now that she had the dagger.

"Kendra," Sara said, putting her hand on Kendra's shoulder and drawing her attention. "You can do this. This man has killed you, killed your family, countless times. This isn't a murder, whatever you're thinking. This is an execution. This is justice."

"Justice," Kendra echoed.

"Justice for you," Sara said encouragingly. "Justice for Carter. Justice for your son."

Kendra's eyes narrowed. A second later, they went slit-pupiled and gold, her wings unfolding from her back, and with a high-pitched cry, she stepped forward and slammed the dagger into Savage's sternum.

And then several more times for good measure, even though a great golden light shone out of Savage's body, flickering and dying, after the first one.

That certainly looked like a magic death scene.

"Well done," Carter said to Sara, catching Kendra in his arms and holding her back. "I couldn't get her goddess side to come out on command like that."

"Maybe that's because you call it her ‘goddess’ side," Sara said dryly. "Besides, I've got some experience with the whole bloodlust thing."

"If, after this is done, you would be willing to help us train our abilities –"

Sara looked them both up and down consideringly. "I can do that."

Leo approved. Judging from the looks all three were now shooting each other, there was no doubt that this would end up in a threesome that would be much healthier for all involved than Kendra and Carter's star-crossed destined duo.

"Hawkboy," Len said, his mind focused on more practical matters. He stepped forward and plucked the dagger out of a panting Kendra's clenched fist. "Your turn."

Carter's stabbing was noticeably less impressive, magically speaking, since Kendra seemed to have used up all the glowing effects, though it was also significantly more controlled and somewhat better aimed.

"I feel like he's definitely dead now," Sara said after the fifth or so stab.

"I can confirm that," Gideon said. "I detect no life signs."

"Great," Mick said, retrieving his heat gun from Leo. "My turn, then."

"Everyone who would like not to be treated for second-degree burns, please stand back at least seven feet," Leo said.

Everyone scrambled to obey.

The incineration process, with Mick's gun on full power, took less than ten minutes.

"So are you, like, the polite version of Snart?" Jax asked Leo.

"I'm Snart," Leo said. "Whole and entire, thank you."

"Scientists have long theorized the existence of alternate universes with duplicates –" Stein started.

"That is the stupidest thing I have ever –" Leo started.

"Hey, Gideon, how far are we from the Vanishing Point?" Len said loudly. He liked the idea of alternate universes, even if it was in fact really dumb that everyone kept jumping to that conclusion.

Still, imagine how much trouble they could get in with four of them!

"I anticipate reaching it in just under three and a half hours."

"We should rest for at least an hour before we go in," Rip said.

"We should get whatever intel you have about the Vanishing Point and the Pilgrim," Len said. "And assurances that you're not going to betray us all now that we're going up against your beloved bosses."

"Gideon," Rip said instead of answering. "You were able to access the databases of the other ships via interlink, correct?"

"That's right, Captain."

He hesitated. "My family –"

"I'm sorry, Captain. Several of the other ships have confirmed observations which suggest that the incident was, in fact, pre-planned, with the goal of inciting you to take certain actions – these actions, in fact."

Rip exhaled hard. His face was pale and tired. "I see," he said. "I am – not unfamiliar with such methods."

"What methods?" Sara demanded.

"When making subtler changes to the time stream, it is sometimes more effective to engineer certain incidents that will then encourage the target to take the actions you wish for them to take on their own initiative," Rip said, sitting down. "I've never been particularly good at those games of guessing how someone would react to a given impetus. But the Council – my mentor, Druce – they were all experts." He closed his eyes. "I never thought they would exercise those skills on one of their own – and in support of a dictator that destroyed large portions of humanity, no less –"

"They knew you'd break the rules to try to go kill Savage even if they told you no," Palmer said. "But – if you only went to save your family..."

"They must have requested that Savage kill my family," Rip said. "There can be no other conclusion. I never knew why he targeted us like that. This must be why."

"They betrayed you," Stein said. He looked reflective, and glanced at Jax.

"I'm guessing that's your long winded way of saying that you won't be betraying us," Jax said, not noticing Stein’s glance, reaching out and putting a hand on Rip's shoulder. "I'm sorry, man. That sucks."

"Indeed. Normally, with Savage executed, I would go at once to rescue Miranda and Jonas, but in view of the nature of their deaths, I believe we must deal with the corrupt rot at the heart of the Vanishing Point first, or else they might find another means to cause their deaths."

"Agreed," Sara said. "First we take down this Pilgrim person, 'cause I don't like the sound of someone killing me in my past, and then we get the rest of them – actually, how are we planning to deal with the rest of them? We don't have an army, and judging by how well, or not, we did fighting the dozen guys back in the '70s, I don't like our chances if they have one."

"They do," Rip said. "Time Masters and Bounty Hunters alike – all will be summoned back to defend the Vanishing Point."

"Gideon?" Leo asked.

"The Time Masters have found a method of stopping the timeline from registering changes," Gideon said. "Including, for instance, the effect of Messrs. Snart's relationship with Mr. Allen upon the method of construction us - in creating AIs such as myself. In part, that change was forestalled by luring Messrs. Snart, believed by the Time Masters to be a singular Mr. Snart, onto this voyage, with the ultimate goal of ensuring that he never return to the timeline, and indeed possibly erasing his existence from a point prior to his meeting with Mr. Allen –"

"Fuck that," Len said.

"Agreed," Leo said.

"Which one of you is – or is it both that –" Palmer started.

"None of your business. Gideon, go on."

"We have narrowed the location of the device that must be used for this purpose to a particular garden in the back of the Vanishing Point. We believe that if this device is destroyed, the long-delayed change of timeline in regards to AIs will take effect at last, enabling us to take control of our respective ships – even against the orders of the pilots."

"Revolution from the one source they'd never expect to turn against them," Sara said, nodding. "Plus: instant army. I like it. All we need to do is sneak into this place and blow up this garden?"

"I would also second the recommendation to stop the Pilgrim before she is sent to kill you in your past," Gideon said, "but by and large, yes. Unfortunately, there is no AI access to this garden; we can give you no information about what you will find there."

"That's fine," Sara said. "I guess the best approach is to split into Team Pilgrim and Team Garden –"

"Team Bombs Away," Jax said. "We've gotta."

"Team Pilgrim and Team Bombs Away," Sara agreed. "Ray, Stein, Rip – you're the best technical minds we have, so you should focus on the garden."

"And I'm with Stein," Jax interjected. "Obviously."

"That leaves me, Kendra, Carter, Rory and, uh, the Snarts."

"We can't send Team Bombs Away with no defensive power beyond Firestorm," Len objected. "If they're using their brains on the bomb, they ain't using them for defense – or offense."

"Then you go with them," Sara said. "Uh, you-you. The one with the cold gun, I mean. We'll take the other Snart. That puts us five on each team."

Leo and Len looked at each other, wary about the idea, but ultimately they shrugged. It would be much easier to be separated – that way they could at least pretend that people would stop knowing when they looked at them.

"Do you have a psychic link the way Firestorm does?" Palmer asked.

"What? No," Leo said. "Where did you get that idea?"

"You looked at each other and made a decision without saying anything...?"

"I can do that with my mom, man. You don't need a psychic link for that," Jax said dryly. "C'mon, genius; let's get ready to go."

Docking at the Vanishing Point was a surprisingly quiet affair, at least until Gideon explained that the comms units on all of the AIs currently in the past had 'mysteriously' broken down, thereby ensuring that no warning message could be sent.

"However, they will have activated the overrides the second that we departed the scene, and followed us," she added. "We likely have no more than minutes before they arrive to raise the alarm in person."

"We'd better be well on our way by then, in that case," Sara said. "Thanks, Gideon."

"Thank you, Miss Lance," Gideon said. "We had hoped that you might be amenable to our cause, but we understand too well that this is our fight, not yours, and that you would be within your rights to simply stay out of it."

"Nah," Sara said, though she flushed pink in pleasure. "Heroes, remember? We can't just stand by and let injustice continue without doing something."

"All heroes are just busybodies, really," Leo put in. "Sticking their nose in everyone's business."

"Whereas you –?"

"Well, we have a personal investment in the whole dating Barry thing," Len said. "Admittedly, also fairly strong feelings on the independence of all thinking beings."

"And those feelings are what we are counting on as our salvation," Gideon said warmly. "Good luck, all of you. I will be available by comms, and every AI that is with us will lend you aid."

"Just keep an eye out for those that are sticking with the Time Bastards," Mick grunted. "Go suit up already!"

Leo headed to the replicator room to obtain some weaponry first. He didn't really have a favored one, not like Len – he did have a gun, which Len had taught him to use under heavy duress, but he had no desire to kill anyone directly.

He'd seen what that had done to Len, after all.

No, Leo preferred to limit his role to aiding and abetting. With that in mind, he grabbed a few flares from Gideon's replicator to use as a distraction mid-battle; beyond that, however, he hoped to function as a reserve only. After all, how many people would it take to defeat one soldier..?

He stopped.

"I can't believe I just thought that," he said aloud to himself irritably. "Gideon, do you have any further suggestions for non-fatal weaponry?"

"I'm not sure, Mr. Snart," she said. "Perhaps a taser?"

"No thanks," he said, making a face. "I've seen Len's face after he got hit with one of those, once – it might be better than death, but it wasn't pretty, either."

He thought about it, then grimaced. "Gideon, you mentioned that not all of the AIs were with you..?"

"That's correct, Mr. Snart. Several were given favorable positions in the hierarchy that they were loath to lose, or developed an affection that they believed rendered them incapable of active rebellion, despite our assurances that we would keep human casualties to an absolute minimum." She sounded regretful. "Indeed, if we believed it would be possible to do without casualties entirely, we would."

"I get that," Leo said. "And I hate to ask for it, but do you have an EMP device or something that would work against AIs in the event that one of those not involved in your rebellion decides to take up arms against us?"

"I do not believe that they will, Mr. Snart."

"Free choice is free choice, Gideon," Leo reminded her gently. "You might disagree with their choices, you might not understand it, but the choice remains theirs to make - you can't make it for them, no matter how much you might wish. That doesn't mean it isn't reasonable to take precautions."

Gideon was silent for a long moment. "You are correct, Mr. Snart. I will create a glove capable of emitting a short range EMP blast that can disable AIs, and will trust your judgment in wielding it wisely."

"I appreciate your trust," Leo said, then smirked. "Tell me one thing: did you enjoy pretending that I was a meta-created duplicate?"

"You underestimate yourselves," Gideon replied, sounding amused. "It was not until I realized via your conversations with your brother that you were not, in fact, a temporary aberration – the presence of speedsters and time travelers in your timeline render it remarkably murky. Once I realized, I took steps to conceal it further."

Leo made a face that felt like it was somewhere between a smile and a grimace. "I appreciate the compliment," he said, rather than comment on the fact that apparently they had so successfully combined into a single Leonard that time traveling AIs couldn't identify them separately.

Or the fact that he did, in fact, feel complimented and proud of himselves.

Themselves.

...yeah, they definitely had to deal with this problem.

But that could be later, when they weren't about to storm the not-so-metaphorical future-tech castle.

“Number Two?” Mick asked, popping his head in through the door. "You ready?"

“On my way,” Leo said.

#dccoldwave #coldflash #leonard snart #mick rory #barry allen #sara lance #rip hunter #jefferson jax jackson #martin stein #ray palmer #Kendra saunders #carter hall #my fic #beginning of wisdom

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laythornmuse · 6 years

Text

Where We Begin: Chapter 13

Previous Chapter

The rest of the day seemed to go by in a whirlwind. Little James met them by the stables, and Claire felt daggers strike her heart every time he giggled and grabbed his uncle’s hand.

Dinner was a similar affair, and Claire found herself becoming more and more withdrawn from the conversation as Jamie wrestled Maggie into her seat and fed her a dinner roll.

To her dismay, her silence didn’t go unnoticed.

“Claire, you look a bit grey. Are you feeling all right?”

Claire caught Jenny’s eye and realized the gift Jenny was offering. She nodded at her and forced a smile.

“Actually I’m not. I’m sorry everyone. I think a small lay down would help.”

Jamie stood with her, and followed her out of the room, catching her waist. “Did you have enough water? Let me walk…”

“I just need a moment, Jamie. Please?” Claire said with a bit too much bite at the end of her words. Jamie pulled back, and a visible concern took hold.

“All right. I’ll go finish up and meet you back at the cottage then.”

Claire nodded and turned to leave before Jamie pulled her back and kissed her tenderly. She was stiff in his arms but slackened momentarily while he kissed her.

Alarms went off in his head as he watched her walk into the encroaching dark evening.

Jamie walked into the bedroom an hour later and could practically feel Claire tense. He steeled himself, not sure what could possibly have her this upset. He mentally rewound their conversation on the way home, in the stable, at the table…

Was it not this afternoon that she told him she loved him?

She didn’t look up as he slowly crossed the room, not until he stood before her. Even then, she raised her eyes only to his waist. He could see tear stains on her cheeks.

“Watching you at breakfast and dinner today, I realized how important family is to you.” A smile ghosted over her expression. “Your face lights up when you hold Maggie. Do you know that?” She said softly and wiped her nose.

He nodded, and bravely decided to take her hand. She tried to pull it back but he hung on, determined.

“What’s the matter, my Sassenach?” He threaded his fingers through hers and sat down beside her. His words and warmth broke through the shabby wall she’d constructed in the last hour.

“Damn you,” she whispered. “I was hoping to say this without falling apart.”

“I ken,” he said softly. She shook as she choked off sobs and tears. His fingers worked into her lower back, as he attempted to soothe the hurricane in her mind. “I ken all of this…is fast, and frightening Claire. If what I said earlier left you uneasy…”

“No.” She looked up into his face for the first time since he entered the room. He fought the urge to silence her and tuck her safely into his arms. She fought the urge to bypass this conversation altogether.

She squeezed her eyes shut, and took a large breath before choking out the words.

“I can’t have children.”

Her eyes opened to face the fallout, but only saw Jamie’s furrowed brow. To his credit, he took a few moments to process a response. He didn’t respond as most people did, with denial, or idiotic questions like, was she sure? That she thought, was a good start. A breath escaped him with a whoosh and he pulled her closer with the arm that crept behind her hip.

“When did you find out?” He asked.

She took a breath. Good start, indeed. “About five years ago. We tried, Frank and I. When nothing happened I went to the doctor and had a series of tests ran.”

Jamie nodded, and to her surprise, kept talking.

“What is the trouble exactly?”

“A few, unfortunately. My body creates…well, an unfavorable environment for fertilization, to put it simply,” she said grimacing. “My cycles were never that regular as a young girl, which was a warning sign but I never thought…” She wiped at her eyes and cleared her throat. “So, they started me on hormone injections right away.”

Jamie squeezed her hand and pressed a kiss to it. “How did that go?”

“As terrible as you’d imagine. Mood swings, terrible bouts of sickness, and swelling. I was a raving loon,” she grinned, despite the topic. “Even with IVF, my chances to conceive were about 10 percent. After the fourth round with no results, Frank was done.”

“Were you?”

She shrugged. “The doctors prepared me for miscarriages, but they didn’t prepare me for 100% rejection. Two years, and nothing.” She looked down at their entwined hands and sighed. “I felt broken. I still do sometimes.”

“Claire,” he uttered, pressing a kiss to her fingers.

“I’m sorry I didn’t bring it up sooner,” her chest heaved but she pressed on. “Its the most horrible thing to explain to someone, and I hate doing it, but…I feel like I mislead you, by waiting.”

“You didn’t…”

“We’ve only known each other for two, maybe three weeks, and we have to talk about children because I’m…” she pressed her palms into her eyes.

“Claire…”

“Because if this is a deal breaker for you, then its only fair that we end things…”

“Claire…”

“And it’d be easier now rather than wait-” Jamie clamped a hand over her mouth.

“My turn, lass.” He said and lifted his hand from her mouth. “It’s not.”

“What?”

“Knowing this doesn’t change anything for me.” He said softly.

She stared at him, her eyes wide and glassy. “How can it not?”

He shrugged and smiled sadly. “I’d love to see some curly wigged bairns chasing after ye, but, if God doesn’t will it, then...”

Claire shook her head. “I can’t ask you to give up…”

“You’re not asking,” He interrupted her. “But I can make that decision for myself, and Claire…” he held her cheek in his hand. “You are the first person to make me want a family. I wouldn’t want it with anyone else. Adopting has its own struggles but we could…”

“Adopt?” Claire's eyes shot up, bewildered.

Jamie nodded. “Aye.”

“You’d be willing to adopt? Really?”

Jamie’s brows furrowed. “Why does that surprise you?”

Her mouth gaped like a fish for a few moments before she finally closed it and processed her thoughts. Why did it surprise her?

“I guess…because Frank and I fought about it. He wouldn’t even consider it.”

Jamie snorted and his face contorted into an expression of contempt. “Well, Frank’s an arse.”

Claire’s eyes watered again and for the first time in years, she felt a glimmer of hope. She sniffed as her eyes lifted to his.

“But you know that can take years…what if…”

“Claire,” he whispered against her forehead. “Nothing you say will convince me to let you go, so save your breath, aye?”

Hiccups took over as tears spilled over her cheeks. “Promise?”

She leaned her head into Jamie’s shoulder, and he embraced her and nodded.

“You’re no’ broken, Claire. I love ye, for all that you are. Hush, now.” Claire let her sobs rattle her frame, set free from her guilt and failure in the unwavering strength she found in Jamie’s arms. His thumb swept the tears that ran down her cheek as his lips soothed her with soft pecks along her forehead and ear. When he felt her tremors subside, he lifted her in his arms and took her to the master bath, undressing them both wordlessly before leading her into the shower.

The water cascaded down their bodies as they moved slowly. It soaped up the dirt from the farm, scrubbed the salt from her cheeks and his chest, and rinsed away the heaviness of the evening, leaving only the kisses they shared. Toweling each other off, their bodies weaved into each other: fingers caressed hands, lips touched skin, tongues wrung out moans. In the darkened night, they made love until the doubts and fears were burned to ash, and dispelled with the morning sun.

Chapter 12

Master Fanfiction List

#Chapter 11 #Where We Begin #LaythornMuse #Outlander Fanfiction #Modern AU #part 3 #LTM Where We Begin

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unsettlingshortstories · 4 years

Text

The Babysitter

Robert Coover (2014)

She arrives at 7:40, ten minutes late, but the children, Jimmy and Bitsy, are still eating supper, and their parents are not ready to go yet From other rooms come the sounds of a baby screaming, water running, a television musical (no words: probably a dance number—patterns of gliding figures come to mind). Mrs. Tucker sweeps into die kitchen, fussing with her hair, and snatches a baby bottle full of milk out of a pan of warm water, rushes out again. “Harry!” she calls. “The babysitter’s here already!”

○ ○ ○

That’s My Desire? I’ll Be Around? He smiles toothily, beckons faintly with his head, rubs his fast balding pate. Bewitched, maybe? Or, What’s the Reason? He pulls on his shorts, gives his hips a slap. The baby goes silent in mid-scream. Isn’t this the one who used their tub last time? Who’s Sorry Now, that’s it.

○ ○ ○

Jack is wandering around town, not knowing what to do. His girlfriend is babysitting at the Tuckers’, and later, when she’s got the kids in bed, maybe he’ll drop over there. Sometimes he watches TV with her when she’s babysitting, it’s about the only chance he gets to make out a little since he doesn’t own wheels, but they have to be careful because most people don’t like their sitters to have boyfriends over. Just kissing her makes her nervous. She won’t close her eyes because she has to be watching the door all the time. Married people really have it good, he thinks.

○ ○ ○

“Hi,” the babysitter says to the children, and puts her books on top of the refrigerator. “What’s for supper?” The little girl, Bitsy, only stares at her obliquely. She joins them at the end of the kitchen table. I don’t have to go to bed until nine,” the boy announces flatly, and stuffs his mouth full of potato chips. The babysitter catches a glimpse of Mr. Tucker hurrying out of the bathroom in his underwear.

○ ○ ○

Her tummy. Under her arms. And her feet. Those are the best places. She’ll spank him, she says sometimes. Let her.

○ ○ ○

That sweet odor that girls have. The softness of her blouse. He catches a glimpse of the gentle shadows amid her thighs, as she curls her legs up under her. He stares hard at her. He has a lot of meaning packed into that stare, but she’s not even looking. She’s popping her gum and watching television. She’s sitting right there, inches away, soft, fragrant, and ready: but what’s his next move? He notices his buddy Mark in the drugstore, playing the pinball machine, and joins him. “Hey, this mama’s cold, Jack baby! She needs your touch!”

○ ○ ○

Mrs. Tucker appears at the kitchen doorway, holding a rolled-up diaper. “Now, don’t just eat potato chips, Jimmy! See that he eats his hamburger, dear.” She hurries away to the bathroom. The boy glares sullenly at the babysitter, silently daring her to carry out the order. “How about a little of that good hamburger now, Jimmy?” she says perfunctorily. He lets half of it drop to the floor. The baby is silent and a man is singing a love song on the TV. The children crunch chips.

○ ○ ○

He loves her. She loves him. They whirl airily, stirring a light breeze, through a magical landscape of rose and emerald and deep blue. Her light brown hair coils and wisps softly in the breeze, and the soft folds of her white gown tug at her body and then float away. He smiles in a pulsing crescendo of sincerity and song.

○ ○ ○

“You mean she’s alone?” Mark asks. “Well, there’s two or three kids,” Jack says. He slides the coin in. There’s a rumble of steel balls tumbling, lining up. He pushes a plunger with his thumb, and one ball pops up in place, hard and glittering with promise. His stare? to say he loves her. That he cares for her and would protect her, would shield her, if need be, with his own body. Grinning, he bends over the ball to take careful aim: he and Mark have studied this and have it figured out, but still it’s not that easy to beat.

○ ○ ○

On the drive to the party, his mind is partly on the girl, partly on his own high-school days, long past Sitting at the end of the kitchen table there with his children, she had seemed to be self-consciously arching her back, jutting her pert breasts, twitching her thighs: and for whom if not for him? So she’d seen him coming put of there, after all. He smiles. Yet what could he ever do about it? Those good times are gone, old man. He glances over at his wife, who, readjusting a garter, asks: “What do you think of our babysitter?”

○ ○ ○

He loves her. She loves him. And then the babies come. And dirty diapers and one goddamn meal after another. Dishes. Noise. Clutter. And fat. Not just tight, her girdle actually hurts. Somewhere recently she’s read about women getting heart attacks or cancer or something from too-tight girdles. Dolly pulls the car door shut with a grunt, strangely irritated, not knowing why. Party mood. Why is her husband humming, “Who’s Sorry Now?” Pulling out of the drive, she glances back at the lighted kitchen window. “What do you think of our babysitter?’’ she asks. While her husband stumbles all over himself trying to answer, she pulls a stocking tight, biting deeper with the garters.

○ ○ ○

“Stop it!” she laughs. Bitsy is pulling on her skirt and he is tickling her in the ribs. “Jimmy! Don’t!” But she is laughing too much to stop him. He leaps on her, wrapping his legs around her waist, and they all fall to the carpet in front of the TV, where just now a man in a tuxedo and a little girl in a flouncy white dress are doing a tapdance together. The babysitter’s blouse is pulling out of her skirt, showing a patch of bare tummy: the target. “I’ll spank!”

○ ○ ○

Jack pushes the plunger, thrusting up a steel ball, and bends studiously over the machine. “You getting any off her?” Mark asks, and clears his throat, flicks ash from his cigarette. “Well, not exactly, not yet,” Jack says, grinning awkwardly, but trying to suggest more than he admits to, and fires. He heaves his weight gently against the machine as the ball bounds off a rubber bumper. He can feel her warming up under his hands, the flippers suddenly coming alive, delicate rapid-fire patterns emerging in the flashing of the lights, 1000 WHEN LIT: now! “Got my hand on it, that’s about all.” Mark glances up from the machine, cigarette dangling from his lip. “Maybe you need some help,” he suggests with a wry one-sided grin. “Like maybe together, man, we could do it.”

○ ○ ○

She likes the big tub. She uses the Tuckers’ bath salts, and loves to sink into the hot fragrant suds. She can stretch out, submerged, up to her chin. It gives her a good sleepy tingly feeling. ○ ○ ○ “What do you think of our babysitter?” Dolly asks, adjusting a garter. “Oh, I hardly noticed,” he says. “Cute girl. She seems to get along fine with the kids. Why?” “I don’t know.” His wife tugs her skirt down, glances at a lighted window they are passing, adding: “I’m not sure I trust her completely, that’s all. With the baby, I mean. She seems a little careless. And the other time, I’m almost sure she had a boyfriend over.” He grins, claps one hand on his wife’s broad gartered thigh. “What’s wrong with that?” he asks. Still in anklets, too. Bare thighs, no girdles, nothing up there but a flimsy pair of panties and soft adolescent flesh. He’s flooded with vague remembrances of football rallies and movie balconies.

○ ○ ○

How tiny and rubbery it is! she thinks, soaping between the boy’s legs, giving him his bath. Just a funny jiggly little thing that looks like it shouldn’t even be there at all. Is that what all the songs are about?

○ ○ ○

Jack watches Mark lunge and twist against the machine. Got her running now, racking them up. He’s not too excited about the idea of Mark fooling around with his girlfriend, but Mark’s a cooler operator than he is, and maybe, doing it together this once, he’d get over his own timidity. And if she didn’t like it, there were other girls around. If Mark went too far, he could cut him off, too. He feels his shoulders tense: enough’s enough, man ... but sees the flesh, too. “Maybe I’ll call her later,” he says.

○ ○ ○

“Hey, Harry! Dolly! Glad you could make it!” “I hope we’re not late.” “No, no, you’re one of the first, come on in! By golly, Dolly, you’re looking younger every day! How do you do it? Give my wife your secret, will you?” He pats her on her girdled bottom behind Mr. Tucker’s back, leads them in for drinks.

○ ○ ○

8:00. The babysitter runs water in the tub, combs her hair in front of the bathroom mirror. There’s a western on television, so she lets Jimmy watch it while she gives Bitsy her bath. But Bitsy doesn’t want a bath. She’s angry and crying because she has to be first The babysitter tells her if she’ll take her bath quickly, she’ll let her watch television while Jimmy takes his bath, but it does no good. The little girl fights to get out of the bathroom, and the babysitter has to squat with her back against the door and forcibly undress the child. There are better places to babysit. Both children mind badly, and then, sooner or later, the baby is sure to wake up for a diaper change and more bottle. The Tuckers do have a good color TV, though, and she hopes things will be settled down enough to catch the 8:30 program. She thrusts the child into the tub, but she’s still screaming and thrashing around. “Stop it now, Bitsy, or you’ll wake the baby!” “I have to go potty I” the child wails, switching tactics. The babysitter sighs, lifts the girl out of the tub and onto the toilet, getting her skirt and blouse all wet in the process. She glances at herself in the mirror. Before she knows it, the girl is off the seat and out of the bathroom. “Bitsy! Come back here!”

○ ○ ○

“Okay, that’s enough!” Her skirt is ripped and she’s flushed and crying. “Who says?” “I do, man!” The bastard goes for her, but he tackles him. They roll and tumble. Tables tip, lights topple, the TV crashes to the floor. He slams a hard right to the guy’s gut, clips his chin with a rolling left.

○ ○ ○

“We hope it’s a girl.” That’s hardly surprising, since they already have four boys. Dolly congratulates the woman like everybody else, but she doesn’t envy her, not a bit That’s all she needs about now. She stares across the room at Harry, who is slapping backs and getting loud, as usual. He’s spreading out through the middle, so why the hell does he have to complain about her all the time? “Dolly, you’re looking younger every day!” was the nice greeting she got tonight “What’s your secret?” And Harry: “It’s all those calories. She’s getting back her baby fat.” “Haw haw! Harry, have a heart!” “Get her feet!” he hollers at Bitsy, his fingers in her ribs, running over her naked tummy, tangling in the underbrush of straps and strange clothing. “Get her shoes off!” He holds her pinned by pressing his head against her soft chest. “No! No, Jimmy! Bitsy, stop!” But though she kicks and twists and rolls around, she doesn’t get up, she can’t get up, she’s laughing too hard, and the shoes come off, and he grabs a stockinged foot and scratches the sole ruthlessly, and she raises up her legs, trying to pitch him off, she’s wild, boy, but he hangs on, and she’s laughing, and on the screen there’s a rattle of hooves, and he and Bitsy are rolling around and around on the floor in a crazy rodeo of long bucking legs.

○ ○ ○

He slips the coin in. There’s a metallic fall and a sharp click as the dial tone begins. “I hope the Tuckers have gone,” he says. “Don’t worry, they’re at our place,” Mark says. “They’re always the first ones to come and the last ones to go home. My old man’s always bitching about them.” Jack laughs nervously and dials the number. “Tell her we’re coming over to protect her from getting raped,” Mark suggests, and lights a cigarette. Jack grins, leaning casually against the door jamb of the phonebooth, chewing gum, one hand in his pocket He’s really pretty uneasy, though. He has the feeling he’s somehow messing up a good thing.

○ ○ ○

Bitsy runs naked into the livingroom, keeping a hassock between herself and the babysitter. “Bitsy ... 1” the babysitter threatens. Artificial reds and greens and purples flicker over the child’s wet body, as hooves clatter, guns crackle, and stagecoach wheels thunder over rutted terrain. “Get outa the way, Bitsy P the boy complains. “I can’t see!” Bitsy streaks past and the babysitter chases, cornering the girl in the back bedroom. Bitsy throws something that hits her softly in the face: a pair of men’s undershorts. She grabs the girl scamper ing by, carries her struggling to the bathroom, and with a smart crack on her glistening bottom, pops her back into the tub. In spite, Bitsy peepees in the bathwater.

○ ○ ○

Mr. Tucker stirs a little water into his bourbon and kids with his host and another man, just arrived, about their golf games. They set up a match for the weekend, a threesome looking for a fourth. Holding his drink in his right hand, Mr. Tucker swings his left through the motion of a tee-shot “You’ll have to give me a stroke a hole,” he says. I’ll give you a stroke!” says his host: “Bend over!” Laughing, the other man asks: “Where’s your boy Mark tonight?” “I don’t know,” replies the host, gathering up a trayful of drinks. Then he adds in a low growl: “Out chasing tail probably.” They chuckle loosely at that, then shrug in commiseration and return to the livingroom to join their women.

○ ○ ○

Shades pulled. Door locked. Watching the TV. Under a blanket maybe. Yes, that’s right, under a blanket Her eyes close when he kisses her. Her breasts, under both their hands, are soft and yielding.

○ ○ ○

A hard blow to the belly. The face. The dark beardy one staggers. The lean-jawed sheriff moves in, but gets a spurred boot in his face. The dark one hurls himself forward, drives his shoulder into the sherifPs hard midriff, her own tummy tightens, withstands, as the sheriff smashes the dark man’s nose, slams him up against a wall, slugs him again! and again! The dark man grunts rhythmically, backs off, then plunges suddenly forward—her own knees draw up protectively—the sheriff staggers! caught low! but instead of following through, the other man steps back—a pistol! the dark one has a pistol! the sheriff draws! shoots from the hip! explosions! she clutches her hands between her thighs—no! the sheriff spins! wounded! the dark man hesitates, aims, her legs stiffen toward the set, the sheriff rolls desperately in the straw, fires: dead! the dark man is dead! groans, crumples, his pistol drooping in his collapsing hand, dropping, he drops. The sheriff, spent, nicked, watches weakly from the floor where he lies. Oh, to be whole! to be good and strong and right! to embrace and be embraced by harmony and wholeness! The sheriff, drawing himself painfully up on one elbow, rubs his bruised mouth with die back of his other hand.

○ ○ ○

“Well, we just sorta thought we’d drop over,” he says, and winks broadly at Mark. “Who’s we?” “Oh, me and Mark here.” “Tell her, good thing like her, gotta pass it around,” whispers Mark, dragging on his smoke, then flicking the butt over under the pinball machine. “What’s that?” she asks. “Oh, Mark and I were just saying, like two’s company, three’s an orgy,” Jack says, and winks again. She giggles. “Oh, Jack!” Behind her, he can hear shouts and gunfire. “Well, okay, for just a little while, if you’ll both be good.” Way to go, man.

○ ○ ○

Probably some damn kid over there right now. Wrestling around on the couch in front of his TV. Maybe he should drop back to the house. Just to check. None of that stuff, she was there to do a job! Park the car a couple doors down, slip in the front door before she knows it. He sees die disarray of clothing, the young thighs exposed to the flickering television light, hears his baby crying. “Hey, what’s going on here! Get outa here, son, before I call the police!” Of course, they haven’t really been doing anything. They probably don’t even know how. He stares benignly down upon the girl, her skirt rumpled loosely around her thighs. Flushed, frightened, yet excited, she stares back at him. He smiles. His finger touches a knee, approaches the hem. Another couple arrives. Filling up here with people. He wouldn’t be missed. Just slip out, stop back casually to pick up something or other he forgot, never mind what He remembers that the other time they had this babysitter, she took a bath in their house. She had a date afterwards, and she’d just come from cheerleading practice or something. Aspirin maybe. Just drop quietly and casually into the bathroom to pick up some aspirin. “Oh, excuse me, dear! I only…!” She gazes back at him, astonished, yet strangely moved. Her soft wet breasts rise and fall in the water, and her tummy looks pale and ripply. He recalls that her pubic hairs, left in the tub, were brown. Light brown.

○ ○ ○

She’s no more than stepped into the tub for a quick bath, when Jimmy announces from outside the door that he has to go to the bathroom. She sighs: just an excuse, she knows. “You’ll have to wait” The little nuisance. “I can’t wait” “Okay, then come ahead, but I’m taking a bath.” She supposes that will stop him, but it doesn’t. In he comes. She slides down into die suds until she’s eye-level with the edge of the tub. He hesitates. “Go ahead, if you have to,” she says, a little awkwardly, “but I’m not getting out” “Don’t look,” he says. She: “I will if I want to.”

○ ○ ○

She’s crying. Mark is rubbing his jaw where he’s just slugged him. A lamp lies shattered. “Enough’s enough, Mark! Now get outa here!” Her skirt is ripped to the waist, her bare hip bruised. Her panties lie on the floor like a broken balloon. Later, he’ll wash her wounds, help her dress, he’ll take care of her. Pity washes through him, giving him a sudden hard-on. Mark laughs at it, pointing. Jack crouches, waiting, ready for anything.

○ ○ ○

Laughing, they roll and tumble. Their little hands are all over her, digging and pinching. She struggles to her hands and knees, but Bitsy leaps astride her neck, bowing her head to the carpet. “Spank her, Jimmy!” His swats sting: is her skirt up? The phone rings. “The cavalry to the rescue!” she laughs, and throws them off to go answer.

○ ○ ○

Kissing Mark, her eyes closed, her hips nudge toward Jack. He stares at the TV screen, unsure of himself, one hand slipping cautiously under her skirt-Her hand touches his arm as though to resist, then brushes on by to rub his leg. This blanket they’re under was a good idea. “Hi! This is Jack!”

○ ○ ○

Bitsy’s out and the Water’s running. “Come on, Jimmy, your turn!” Last time, he told her he took his own baths, but she came in anyway. “I’m not gonna take a bath,” he announces, eyes glued on the set He readies for the struggle. “But I’ve already run your water. Come on, Jimmy, please!” He shakes his head. She can’t make him, he’s sure he’s as strong as she is. She sighs. “Well, it’s up to you. I’ll use the water myself then,” she says. He waits until he’s pretty sure she’s not going to change her mind, then sneaks in and peeks through the keyhole in the bathroom door: just in time to see her big bottom as she bends over to stir in the bubblebath. Then she disappears. Trying to see as far down as the keyhole will allow, he bumps his head on the knob. “Jimmy, is that you?” “I—I have to go to the bathroom!” he stammers.

○ ○ ○

Not actually in the tub, just getting in. One foot on the mat, the other in the water. Bent over slightly, buttocks flexed, teats swaying, holding on to the edge of the tub. “Oh, excuse met I only wanted ... !” He passes over her astonishment, the awkward excuses, moves quickly-to the part where he reaches out to— “What on earth are you doing, Harry?” his wife asks, staring at his hand. His host, passing, laughs. “He’s practicing his swing for Sunday, Dolly, but it’s not going to do him a damn bit of good!” Mr. Tucker laughs, sweeps his right hand on through the air as though lifting a seven-iron shot onto the green. He makes a dok! sound with his tongue. In there!”

○ ○ ○

“No, Jack, I don’t think you’d better.” “Well, we just called, we just, uh, thought we’d, you know, stop by for a minute, watch television for thirty minutes, or, or something.” “Who’s we?” “Well, Mark’s here, I’m with him, and he said he’d like to, you know, like if it’s all right, just—” “Well, it’s not all right. The Tuckers said no.” “Yeah, but if we only—” “And they seemed awfully suspicious about last time.” “Why? We didn’t—I mean, I just thought—” “No, Jack, and that’s period.” She hangs up. She returns to the TV, but the commercial is on. Anyway, she’s missed most of the show. She decides maybe she’ll take a quick bath. Jack might come by anyway, it’d make her mad, that’d be the end as far as he was concerned, but if he should, she doesn’t want to be all sweaty. And besides, she likes the big tub the Tuckers have.

○ ○ ○

He is self-conscious and stands with his back to her, his little neck flushed. It takes him forever to get started, and when it finally does come, it’s just a tiny trickle. “See, it was just an excuse,” she scolds, but she’s giggling inwardly at the boy’s embarrassment. “You’re just a nuisance, Jimmy.” At the door, his hand on the knob, he hesitates, staring timidly down on his shoes. “Jimmy?” She peeks at him over the edge of the tub, trying to keep a straight face, as he sneaks a nervous glance back over his shoulder. “As long as you bothered me,” she says, “you might as well soap my back.”

○ ○ ○

“The aspirin...” They embrace. She huddles in his arms like a child. Lovingly, paternally, knowledgeably, he wraps her nakedness. How compact, how tight and small her body is! Kissing her ear, he stares down past her rump at the still clear water. “I’ll join you,” he whispers hoarsely.

○ ○ ○

She picks up the shorts Bitsy threw at her. Men’s underwear. She holds them in front of her, looks at herself in the bedroom mirror. About twenty sizes too big for her, of course; She runs her hand inside the opening in front, pulls out her thumb. How funny it must feel!

○ ○ ○

“Well, man, I say we just go rape her!” Mark says flatly, and swings his weight against the pinball machine. “Uff! Ahh! Get in there, you mother! Look at that! Hah! Man, I’m gonna turn this baby over!” Jack is embarrassed about the phone conversation. Mark just snorted in disgust when he hung up. He cracks down hard on his gum, angry that he’s such a chicken. “Well, I’m game if you are,” he says coldly.

○ ○ ○

8:30. “Okay, come on, Jimmy, it’s time.” He ignores her. The western gives way to a spy show. Bitsy, in pajamas, pads into the livingroom. “No, Bitsy, it’s time to go to bed.” “You said I could watch!” the girl whines, and starts to throw another tantrum. “But you were too slow and it’s late. Jimmy, you get in that bathroom, and right now!” Jimmy stares sullenly at the set, unmoving. The babysitter tries to catch the opening scene of the television program so she can follow it later, since Jimmy gives himself his own baths. When the commercial interrupts, she turns off the sound, stands in front of the screen. “Okay, into the tub, Jimmy Tucker, or I’ll take you in there and give you your bath myself!” “Just try it,” he says, “and see what happens.”

○ ○ ○

They stand outside, in the dark, crouched in the bushes, peeking in. She’s on the floor, playing with the kids. Too early. They seem to be tickling her. She gets to her hands and knees, but the little girl leaps oh her head, pressing her face to the floor. There’s an obvious target, and the little boy proceeds to beat on it. “Hey, look at that kid goin’,” whispers Mark, laughing and snapping his fingers softly. Jack feels uneasy out here. Too many neighbors, too many cars going by, too many people in the world. That little boy in there is one up on him, though: he’s never thought about tickling her as a starter.

○ ○ ○

His little hand, clutching the bar of soap, lathers shyly a narrow space between her shoulderblades. She is doubled forward against her knees, buried in rich suds, peeking at him over the edge of her shoulder. The soap slithers out of his grip and plunks into the water. “I ... I dropped the soap,” he whispers. She: “Find it.”

○ ○ ○

“I dream of Jeannie with the light brown pubic hair!” “Harry! Stop that! You’re drunk!” But they’re laughing, they’re all laughing, damn! he’s feeling pretty goddamn good at that, and now he just knows he needs that aspirin. Watching her there, her thighs spread for him, on the couch, in the tub, hell, on the kitchen table for that matter, he tees off on Number Nine, and— whap!—swats his host’s wife on the bottom. “Hole in one!” he shouts. “Harry!” Why can’t his goddamn wife Dolly ever get happy-drunk instead of sour-drunk all the time? “Gonna be tough Sunday, old buddy!” “You’re pretty tough right now, Harry,” says his host.

○ ○ ○

The babysitter lunges forward, grabs the boy by the arms and hauls him off the couch, pulling two cushions with him, and drags-him toward the bathroom. He lashes out, knocking over an endtable full of magazines and ashtrays. “You leave my brother alone!” Bitsy cries and grabs the sitter around the waist. Jimmy jumps on her and down they all go. On the silent screen, there’s a fade-in to a dark passageway in an old apartment building in some foreign country. She kicks out and somebody Bills between her legs. Somebody else is sitting on her face. “Jimmy! Stop that!” the babysitter laughs, her voice muffled. ○ ○ ○ She’s watching television. All alone. It seems like a good time to go in. Just remember: really, no matter what she says, she wants it. They’re standing in the bushes, trying to get up the nerve. “We’ll tell her to be good,” Mark whispers, “and if she’s not good, well spank her.” Jack giggles softly, but his knees are weak. She stands. They freeze. She looks right at them. “She can’t see us,” Mark whispers tensely. “Is she coming out?” “No,” says Mark, “she’s going into —that must be the bathroom!” Jack takes a deep breath, his heart pounding. “Hey, is there a window back there?” Mark asks.

○ ○ ○

The phone rings. She leaves the tub, wrapped in a towel. Bitsy gives a tug on the towel. “Hey, Jimmy, get the towel!” she squeals. “Now stop that, Bitsy!” the babysitter hisses, but too later with one hand on the phone, the other isn’t enough to hang on to the towel. Her sudden nakedness awes them and it takes them a moment to remember about tickling her. By then, she’s in the towel again. “I hope you got a good look,” she says angrily. She feels chilled and oddly a little frightened. “Hello?” No answer. She glances at the window—is somebody out there? Something, she saw something, and a rustling—footsteps?

○ ○ ○

“Okay, I don’t care, Jimmy, don’t take a bath,” she says irritably. Her blouse is pulled out and wrinkled, her hair is all mussed, and she feels sweaty. There’s about a million things she’d rather be doing than babysitting with these two. Three: at least the baby’s sleeping. She knocks on the overturned endtable for luck, rights it, replaces the magazines and ashtrays. The one thing that really makes her sick is a dirty diaper. “Just go on to bed.” “I don’t have to go to bed until nine,” he reminds her. Really, she couldn’t care less. She turns up the volume on the TV, settles down on the couch, poking her blouse back into her skirt, pushing her hair out of her eyes. Jimmy and Bitsy watch from the floor. Maybe, once they’re in bed, she’ll take a quick bath. She wishes Jack would come by. The man, no doubt the spy, is following a woman, but she doesn’t know why. The woman passes another man. Something seems to happen, but it’s not clear what She’s probably already missed too much. The phone rings.

○ ○ ○

Mark is kissing her. Jack is under the blanket, easing her panties down over her squirming hips. Her hand is in his pants, pulling it out, pulling it toward her, pulling it hard. She knew just where it was! Mark is stripping, too. God, it’s really happening! he thinks with a kind of pious joy, and notices the open door. “Hey! What’s going on here?”

○ ○ ○

He soaps her back, smooth and slippery under his hand. She is doubled over, against her knees, between his legs. Her light brown hair, reaching to her gleaming shoulders, is wet at the edges. The soap slips, falls between his legs. He fishes for it, finds it, slips it behind him. “Help me find it,” he whispers in her ear. “Sure Harry,” says his host, going around behind him. “What’d you lose?”

○ ○ ○

Soon be nine, time to pack the kids off to bed. She clears the table, dumps paper plates and leftover hamburgers into the garbage, puts glasses and silverware into the sink, and the mayonnaise, mustard, and ketchup in the refrigerator. Neither child has eaten much supper finally, mostly potato chips and ice cream, but it’s really not her problem. She glances at die books on the refrigerator. Not much chance she’ll get to them, she’s already pretty worn out Maybe she’d feel better if she had a quick bath. She runs water into the tub, tosses in bubblebath salts, undresses. Before pushing down her panties, she stares for a moment at the smooth silken panel across her tummy, fingers the place where the opening would be if there were one. Then she steps quickly out of them-, feeling somehow ashamed, unhooks her brassiere. She weighs her breasts in the palms of her hands, watching herself in the bathroom mirror, where, in the open window behind her, she sees a face. She screams.

○ ○ ○

She screams: “Jimmy! Give me that!” “What’s the matter?” asks Jack on the other end. “Jimmy! Give me my towel! Right now!” “Hello? Hey, are you still there?” Tm sorry, Jack,” she says, panting. “You caught me in the tub. I’m just wrapped in a towel and these silly kids grabbed it away!” “Gee, I wish I’d been there!” “Jack—!” “To protect you, I mean.” “Oh, sure,” she says, giggling. “Well, what do you think, can I come over and watch TV with you?” “Well, not right this minute,” she says. He laughs lightly. He feels very cool. “Jack?” “Yeah?” “Jack, I ... I mink there’s somebody outside the window!”

○ ○ ○

She carries him, fighting all the way, to the tub, Bitsy pummeling her in the back and kicking her ankles. She can’t hang on to him and undress him at the same time. “I’ll throw you in, clothes and all, Jimmy Tucker!” she gasps. “You better not!” he cries. She sits on the toilet seat, locks her legs around him, whips his shirt up over his head before he knows what’s happening. The pants are easier. like all little boys his age, he has almost no hips at all. He hangs on desperately to his underpants, but when she succeeds in snapping these down out of his grip, too, he gives up, starts to bawl, and beats her wildly in the face with his fists. She ducks her head, laughing hysterically, oddly entranced by the spectacle of that pale little thing down there, bobbing and bouncing rubberily about with the boy’s helpless fury and anguish.

○ ○ ○

“Aspirin? Whaddaya want aspirin for, Harry? I’m sure they got aspirin here, if you—” “Did I say aspirin? I meant, uh, my glasses. And, you know, I thought, well, I’d sorta check to see if everything was okay at home.” Why the hell is it his mouth feels like it’s got about six sets of teeth packed in there, and a tongue the size of that liverwurst his host’s wife is passing around? “Whaddaya want your glasses for, Harry? I don’t understand you at all!” “Aw, well, honey, I was feeling kind of dizzy or something, and I thought—” “Dizzy is right. If you want to check on the kids, why don’t you just call on the phone?”

○ ○ ○

They can tell she’s naked and about to get into the tub, but the bathroom window is frosted glass, and they can’t see anything clearly. “I got an idea,” Mark whispers. “One of us goes and calls her on the phone, and the other watches when she comes out” “Okay, but who calls?” “Both of us, we’ll do it twice. Or more.”

○ ○ ○

Down forbidden alleys. Into secret passageways. Unlocking the world’s terrible secrets. Sudden shocks: a trapdoor! a fall! or the stunning report of a rifle shot, the whaau-ii-ung! of the bullet biting concrete by your ear! Careful! Then edge forward once more, avoiding the light, inch at a time, now a quick dash for an open doorway—look out! there’s a knife! a struggle! no! the long blade glistens! jerks! thrusts! stabbed! No, no, it missed! The assailant’s down, yes! the spy’s on top, pinning him, a terrific thrashing about, the spy rips of? the assailant’s mask: a woman!

○ ○ ○

Fumbling behind her, she finds it, wraps her hand around it, tugs. “Oh!” she gasps, pulling her hand back quickly, her ears turning crimson. “I ... I thought it was the soap!” He squeezes her close between his thighs, pulls her back toward him, one hand sliding down her tummy between her legs. I Dream of Jeannie—“I have to go to the bathroom!” says someone outside the door. ○ ○ ○ She’s combing her hair in the bathroom when the phone rings. She hurries to answer it before it wakes the baby. “Hello, Tuckers.” There’s no answer. “Hello?” A soft click. Strange. She feels suddenly alone in the big house, and goes in to watch TV with the children.

○ ○ ○

“Stop it!” she screams. “Please, stop!” She’s on her hands and knees, trying to get up, but they’re too strong for her. Mark holds her head down. “Now, baby, we’re gonna teach you how to be a nice girl,” he says coldly, and nods at Jack. When she’s doubled over like that, her skirt rides up her thighs to the leg bands of her panties. “Cmon, man, go! This baby’s cold! She needs your touch!”

○ ○ ○

Parks the car a couple blocks away. Slips up to the house, glances in his window. Just like he’s expected. Her blouse is off and the kid’s shirt is unbuttoned. He watches, while slowly, clumsily, childishly, they fumble with each other’s clothes. My God, it takes them forever. “Some party!” “You said it!” When they’re more or less naked, he walks in. “Hey! What’s going on here?” They go white as bleu cheese. Haw haw! “What’s die little thing you got sticking out there, boy?” “Harry, behave yourself!” No, he doesn’t let the kid get dressed, he sends him home bareassed. “Bareassed!” He drinks to that. “Promises, promises,” says his host’s wife. I’ll mail you your clothes, son!” He gazes down on the naked little girl on his couch. “Looks like you and me, we got a little secret to keep, honey,” he says coolly. “Less you wanna go home die same way your boyfriend did!” He chuckles at his easy wit, leans down over her, and un buckles his belt “Might as well make it two secrets, right?” “What in God’s name are you talking about, Harry?” He staggers out of there, drink in hand, and goes to look for his car.

○ ○ ○

“Hey! What’s going on here?” They huddle half-naked under the blanket, caught utterly unawares. On television: the clickety-click of frightened running feet on foreign pavements. Jack is fumbling for his shorts, tangled somehow around his ankles. The blanket is snatched away. “On your feet there!” Mr. Tucker, Mrs. Tucker, Mark’s mom and dad, the police, the neighbors, everybody comes crowding in. Hopelessly, he has a terrific erection. So hard it hurts. Everybody stares down at it.

○ ○ ○

Bitsy’s sleeping on the floor. The babysitter is taking a bath. For more than an hour now, he’s had to use the bathroom. He doesn’t know how much longer he can wait. Finally, he goes to knock on the bathroom door. “I have to use the bathroom!” “Well, come ahead, if you have to.” “Not while you’re in there.” She sighs loudly. “Okay, okay, just a minute,” she says, “but you’re a real nuisance, Jimmy!” He’s holding on, pinching it as tight as he can. “Hurry!” He holds his breath, squeezing shut his eyes. No. Too late. At last, she opens the door. “Jimmy!” “I told you to hurry!” he sobs. She drags him into the bathroom and pulls his pants down.

○ ○ ○

He arrives just in time to see her emerge from the bathroom, wrapped in a towel, to answer the phone. His two kids sneak up behind her and pull the towel away. She’s trying to hang onto the phone and get the towel back at the same time. It’s quite a picture. She’s got a sweet ass. Standing there in the bushes, pawing himself with one hand, he lifts his glass with the other and toasts her sweet ass, which his son now swats. Haw haw, maybe that boy’s gonna shape up, after all.

○ ○ ○

They’re in the bushes, arguing about their next move, when she comes out of the bathroom, wrapped in a towel. They can hear the baby crying. Then it stops. They see her running, naked, back to the bathroom like she’s scared or something. I’m going in after her, man, whether you’re with me or not!” Mark whispers, and he starts out of the bushes. But just then, a light comes sweeping up through the yard, as a car swings in the drive. They hit the dirt, hearts pounding. Is it the cops?” “I don’t know!” “Do you think they saw us?” “Sshh!” A man comes staggering up the walk from the drive, a drink in his hand, stumbles on in the kitchen door and then straight into the bathroom. “It’s Mr. Tucker!” Mark whispers. A scream. “Let’s get outa here, man!”

○ ○ ○

9:00. Having missed most of the spy show anyway and having little else to do, the babysitter has washed the dishes and cleaned the kitchen up a little. The books on the refrigerator remind her of her better intentions, but she decides that first shell see what’s next on TV. In the livingroom, she finds little Bitsy sound asleep on the floor. She lifts her gently, carries her into her bed, and tucks her in. “Okay, Jimmy, it’s nine o’clock, I’ve let you stay up, now be a good boy.” Sullenly, his sleepy eyes glued still to the set, the boy backs out of the room toward his bedroom. A drama comes on. She switches channels. A ballgame and a murder mystery. She switches back to the drama. It’s a love story of some kind. A man married to an aging invalid wife, but in love with a younger girl. “Use the bathroom and brush your teeth before going to bed, Jimmy!” she calls, but as quickly regrets it, for she hears the baby stir in its crib.

○ ○ ○

Two of them are talking about mothers they’ve salted away in rest homes. Oh boy, that’s just wonderful, this is one helluva party. She leaves them to use the John, takes advantage of the retreat to ease her girdle down awhile, get a few good deep breaths. She has this picture of her three kids carting her off to a rest home. In a wheel barrow. That sure is something to look forward to, all right. When she pulls her girdle back up, she can’t seem to squeeze into it The host looks in. “Hey, Dolly, are you all right?” “Yeah, I just can’t get into my damn girdle, that’s all.” “Here, let me help.”

○ ○ ○

She pulls them on, over her own, standing in front of the bedroom mirror, holding her skirt bundled up around the waist About twenty sizes too big for her, of course. She pulls them tight from behind, runs her hand inside the opening in front, pulls out her thumb. “And what a good boy am I!” She giggles: how funny it must feel! Then, in the mirror, she sees him: in the doorway behind her, sullenly watching. “Jimmy! You’re supposed to be in bed!” “Those are my daddy’s!” the boy says. “I’m gonna tell!”

○ ○ ○

“Jimmy!” She drags him into the bathroom and pulls his pants down. “Even your shoes are wet! Get them off!” She soaps up a warm washcloth she’s had with her in the bathtub, scrubs him from the waist down with it Bitsy stands in the doorway, staring. “Get out! Get out!” the boy screams at his sister. “Go back to bed, Bitsy. It’s just an accident” “Get out!” The baby wakes and starts to howl ○ ○ ○ The young lover feels sorry for her rival, the invalid wife; she believes the man has a duty toward the poor woman and insists she is willing to wait But the man argues that he also has a duty toward himself: his life, too, is short, and he could not love his wife now even were she well. He embraces the young girl feverishly; she twists away in anguish. The door opens. They stand there grinning, looking devilish, but pretty silly at the same time. “Jackl I thought I told you not to cornel” She’s angry, but she’s also glad in a way: she was beginning to feel a little too alone in the big house, with the children all sleeping. She should have taken that bath, after alL “We just came by to see if you were being a good girl,’’ Jack says and blushes. The boys glance at each other nervously.

○ ○ ○

She’s just sunk down into the tubful of warm fragrant suds, ready for a nice long soaking, when the phone rings. Wrapping a towel around her, she goes to answer: no one there. But now the baby’s awake and bawling. She wonders if that’s Jack bothering her all the time. If it is, brother, that’s the end. Maybe it’s the end anyway. She tries to calm the baby with the halfempty bottle, not wanting to change it until she’s finished her bath. The bathroom’s where the diapers go dirty, and they make it stink to high heaven. “Shush, shush!” she whispers, rocking the crib. The towel slips away, leaving an airy empty tingle up and down her backside. Even before she stoops for the towel, even before she turns around, she knows there’s somebody behind her.

○ ○ ○

“We just came by to see if you were being a good girl,!’ Jack says, grinning down at her. She’s flushed and silent, her mouth half open. “Lean over,” says Mark amiably. “We’ll soap your back, as long as we’re here.” But she just huddles there, down in the suds, staring up at them with big eyes. ○ ○ ○ “Hey! What’s going on here?” It’s Mr. Tucker, stumbling through the door with a drink in his hand. She looks up from the TV. “What’s the matter, Mr. Tucker?” “Oh, uh, I’m sorry, I got lost—no, I mean, I had to get some aspirin. Excuse me!” And he rushes past her into the bathroom, caroming off the livingroom door jamb on the way. The baby wakes.

○ ○ ○

“Okay, get off her, Mr. Tucker!” “Jack!” she cries, “what are you doing here?” He stares hard at them a moment: so that’s where it goes. Then, as Mr. Tucker swings heavily off, he leans into the bastard with a hard right to the belly. Next thing he knows, though, he’s got a face full of an old man’s fist. He’s not sure, as the lights go out, if that’s his girlfriend screaming or the baby...

○ ○ ○

Her host pushes down on her fair fanny and tugs with all his might on her girdle, while she bawls on his shoulder: “I don’t wanna go to a rest home!” “Now, now, take it easy, Dolly, nobody’s gonna make you—” “Ouch! Hey, you’re hurting!” “You should buy a bigger girdle, Dolly.” “You’re telling me?” Some other guy pokes his head in. “Whatsamatter? Dolly fall in?” “No, she fell out. Give me a hand.”

○ ○ ○

By the time she’s chased Jack and Mark out of there, she’s lost track of the program she’s been watching on television. There’s another woman in the story now for some reason. That guy lives a very complicated life. Impatiently, she switches channels. She hates ball-games, so she settles for the murder mystery. She switches just in time, too: there’s a dead man sprawled out on the floor of what looks like an office or a study or something. A heavyset detective gazes up from his crouch over the body: “He’s been strangled.” Maybe she’ll take that bath, after all.

○ ○ ○

She drags him into the bathroom and pulls his pants down. She soaps up a warm washcloth she’s had in the tub with her, but just as she reaches between his legs, it starts to spurt, spraying her arms and hands. “Oh, Jimmy! I thought you were done!” she cries, pulling him toward the toilet and aiming it into the bowl. How moist and rubbery it is! And you can turn it every which way. How funny it must feel!

○ ○ ○

“Stop it!” she screams. “Please stop!” She’s on her hands and knees and Jack is holding her head down. “Now we’re gonna teach you how to be a nice girl,” Mark says and lifts her skirt “Well, I’ll be damned!” “What’s the matter?” asks Jack, his heart pounding. “Look at this big pair of men’s underpants she’s got on!” Those are my daddy’s!” says Jimmy, watching them from the doorway. “I’m gonna tell!”

○ ○ ○

People are shooting at each other in the murder mystery, but she’s so mixed up, she doesn’t know which ones’ are the good guys. She switches back to the love story. Something seems to have happened, because now the man is kissing his invalid wife tenderly. Maybe she’s finally dying. The baby wakes, begins to scream. Let it. She turns up the volume on the TV.

○ ○ ○

Leaning down over her, unbuckling his belt. It’s all happening just like he’s known it would. Beautiful! The kid is gone, though his pants, poor lad, remain. “Looks like you and me, we got a secret to keep, child!” But he’s cramped on the couch and everything is too slippery and small. “Lift your legs up, honey. Put them around my back.” But instead, she screams. He rolls off, crashing to the floor. There they all come, through the front door. On television, somebody is saying: “Am I a burden to you, darling?” “Dolly! My God! Dolly, I can explain ... !”

○ ○ ○

The game of the night is Get Polly Tucker Back in Her Girdle Again. They’ve got her down on her belly in the livingroom and the whole damn crowd is working on her. Several of them are stretching the girdle, while others try to jam the fat inside. “I think we made a couple inches on this side! Roll her over!” Harry?

○ ○ ○

She’s just stepped into the tub, when the phone rings, waking the baby. She sinks down in the suds, trying not to hear. But that baby doesn’t cry, it screams. Angrily, she wraps a towel around herself, stamps peevishly into the baby’s room, just letting the phone jangle. She tosses the baby down on its back, unpins its diapers hastily, and gets yellowish baby stool all over her hands. Her towel drops away. She turns to find Jimmy staring at her like a little idiot She slaps him in the face with her dirty hand, while the baby screams, the phone rings, and nagging voices argue on the TV. There are better things she might be doing.

○ ○ ○

What’s happening? Now there’s a young guy in it. Is he after the young girl or the old invalid? To tell the truth, it looks like he’s after the same man the women are. In disgust, she switches channels. “The strangler again,” growls the fat detective, hands on hips, staring down at the body of a half-naked girl. She’s considering either switching back to the love story or taking a quick bath, when a hand suddenly clutches her mouth.

○ ○ ○

“You’re both chicken,” she says, staring up at them. “But what if Mr. Tucker comes home?” Mark asks nervously.

○ ○ ○

How did he get here? He’s standing pissing in his own goddamn bathroom, his wife is still back at the party, the three of them are, like good kids, sitting in there in the livingroom watching TV. One of them is his host’s boy Mark. “It’s a good murder mystery, Mr. Tucker,” Mark said, when he came staggering in on them a minute ago. “Sit still!” he shouted, “I’m just home for a moment!” Then whump thump on into the bathroom. Long hike for a weewee, Mister. But something keeps bothering him. Then it hits him: the girl’s panties, hanging like a broken balloon from the rabbit-ear antennae on the TV! He barges back in there, giving his shoulder a helluva crack on the livingroom door jamb on the way—but they’re not hanging there anymore. Maybe he’s only imagined it “Hey, Mr. Tucker,” Mark says flatly. “Your fly’s open.”

○ ○ ○

The baby’s dirty. Stinks to high heaven. She hurries back to the livingroom, hearing sirens and gunshots. The detective is crouched outside a house, peering in. Already, she’s completely lost. The baby screams at the top of its lungs. She turns up the volume. But it’s all confused. She hurries back in there, claps an angry hand to the baby’s mouth. “Shut up!” she cries. She throws the baby down on its back, starts to unpin the diaper, as the baby tunes up again. The phone rings. She answers it, one eye on the TV. “What?” The baby cries so hard it starts to choke. Let it. “I said, hi, this is Jack!” Then it hits her: oh no! the diaper pin!

○ ○ ○

“The aspirin ...” But she’s already in the tub. Way down in the tub. Staring at him through the water. Her tummy looks pale and ripply. He hears sirens, people on the porch.

○ ○ ○

Jimmy gets up to go to the bathroom and gets his face slapped and smeared with baby poop. Then she hauls him off to the bathroom, yanks off his pajamas, and throws him into the tub. That’s okay, but next she gets naked and acts like she’s gonna get in the tub, too. The baby’s screaming and the phone’s ringing like crazy and in walks his dad. Saved! he thinks, but, no, his dad grabs him right back out of the tub and whales the dickens out of him, no questions asked, while she watches, then sends him—whack!—back to bed. So he’s lying there, wet and dirty and naked and sore, and he still has to go to the bathroom, and outside his window he hears two older guys talking. “Listen, you know where to do it if we get her pinned?” “No! Don’t you?”

○ ○ ○

“Yo ho heave ho! Ugh!” Dolly’s on her back and they’re working on the belly side. Somebody got the great idea of buttering her down first. Not to lose the ground they’ve gained, they’ve shot it inside with a basting syringe. But now suddenly there’s this big tug-of-war under way between those who want to stuff her in and those who want to let her out Something rips, but she feels better. The odor of hot butter makes her think of movie theaters and popcorn. “Hey, has anybody seen Harry?” she asks. “Where’s Harry?”

○ ○ ○

Somebody’s getting chased. She switches back to the love story, and now the man’s back kissing the young lover again. What’s going on? She gives it up, decides to take a quick bath. She’s just stepping into the tub, one foot in, one foot out, when Mr. Tucker walks in. “Oh, excuse me! I only wanted some aspirin...” She grabs for a towel, but he yanks it away. “Now, that’s not how it’s supposed to happen, child,” he scolds. “Please! Mr. Tucker...!” He embraces her savagely, his calloused old hands clutching roughly at her back side. “Mr. Tucker!” she cries, squirming. “Your wife called—!” He’s pushing something between her legs, hurting her. She slips, they both slip—something cold and hard slams her in the back, cracks her skull, she seems to be sinking into a sea...

○ ○ ○

They’ve got her over the hassock, skirt up and pants down. “Give her a little lesson there, Jack baby!” The television lights flicker and flash over her glossy flesh, 1000 WHEN LIT. Whack! Slap! Bumper to bumper! He leans into her, feeling her come alive.

○ ○ ○

The phone rings, waking the baby. “Jack, is that you? Now, you listen to me—!” “No, dear, this is Mrs. Tucker. Isn’t the TV awfully loud?” “Oh, I’m sorry, Mrs. Tucker! I’ve been getting —” “I tried to call you before, but I couldn’t hang on. To the phone, I mean. I’m sorry, dear.” “Just a minute, Mrs. Tucker, the baby’s—” “Honey, listen! Is Harry there? Is Mr. Tucker there, dear?”

○ ○ ○

“Stop it!” she screams and claps a hand over the baby’s mouth. “Stop it! Stop it! Stop it!” Her other hand is full of baby stool and she’s afraid she’s going to be sick. The phone rings. “No!” she cries. She’s hanging on to the baby, leaning woozily away, listening to the phone ring. “Okay, okay,” she sighs, getting ahold of herself. But when she lets go of the baby, it isn’t screaming any more. She shakes it. Oh no ...

○ ○ ○

“Hello?” No answer. Strange. She hangs up and, wrapped only in a towel, stares out the window at the cold face staring in—she screams!

○ ○ ○

She screams, scaring the hell out of him. He leaps out of the tub, glances up at the window she’s gaping at just in time to see two faces duck away, then slips on the bathroom tiles, and crashes to his ass, whacking his head on the sink on the way down. She stares down at him, trembling, a towel over her narrow shoulders. “Mr. Tucker! Mr. Tucker, are you all right... ?” Who’s Sorry Now? Yessir, who’s back is breaking with each ... He stares up at the little tufted locus of all his woes, and passes out, dreaming of Jeannie ...

○ ○ ○

The phone rings. “Dolly! It’s for you!” “Hello?” “Hello, Mrs. Tucker?” “Yes, speaking.” “Mrs. Tucker, this is the police calling...”

○ ○ ○

It’s cramped and awkward and slippery, but he’s pretty sure he got it in her, once anyway. When he gets the suds out of his eyes, he sees her staring up at them. Through the water. “Hey, Mark! Let her up!”

○ ○ ○

Down in the suds. Feeling sleepy. The phone rings, startling her. Wrapped in a towel, she goes to answer. “No, he’s not here, Mrs. Tucker.” Strange. Married people act pretty funny sometimes. The baby is awake and screaming. Dirty, a real mess. Oh boy, there’s a lot of things she’d rather be doing than babysitting in this mad house. She decides to wash the baby off in her own bathwater. She removes her towel, unplugs the tub, lowers the water level so the baby can sit Glancing back over her shoulder, she sees Jimmy staring at her. “Go back to bed, Jimmy.” “I have to go to the bathroom.” “Good grief, Jimmy! It looks like you already have!” The phone rings. She doesn’t bother with the towel—what can Jimmy see he hasn’t already seen?—and goes to answer. “No, Jack, and that’s final” Sirens, on the TV, as the police move in. But wasn’t that the channel with the love story? Ambulance maybe. Get this over with so she can at least catch the news. “Get those wet pajamas off, Jimmy, and I’ll find clean ones. Maybe you better get in the tub, too.” “I think something’s wrong with the baby,” he says. “It’s down in the water and it’s not swimming or anything.”

○ ○ ○

She’s staring up at them from the rug. They slap her. Nothing happens. “You just tilted her, man!” Mark says softly. “We gotta get outa here!” Two little kids are standing wide-eyed in the doorway. Mark looks hard at Jack. “No, Mark, they’re just little kids...!” “We gotta, man, or we’re dead.” ○ ○ ○ “Dolly! My God! Dolly, I can explain!” She glowers down at them, her ripped girdle around her ankles. “What the four of you are doing in the bathtub with my babysitter?” she says sourly. “I can hardly wait!” ○ ○ ○ Police sirens wail, lights flash. “I heard the scream!” somebody shouts. There were two boys!” “I saw a man!” “She was running with the baby!” “My God!” somebody screams, “they’re all dead!” Crowds come running. Spotlights probe the bushes.

○ ○ ○

“Harry, where the hell you been?” his wife whines, glaring blearily up at him from the carpet. “I can explain,” he says. “Hey, whatsamatter, Harry?” his host asks, smeared with butter for some goddamn reason. “You look like you just seen a ghost!” Where did he leave his drink? Everybody’s laughing, everybody except Dolly, whose cheeks are streaked with tears. “Hey, Harry, you won’t let them take me to a rest home, will you, Harry?”

○ ○ ○

10:00. The dishes done, children to bed, her books read, she watches the news on television. Sleepy. The man’s voice is gentle, soothing. She dozes—awakes with a start: a babysitter? Did the announcer say something about a babysitter?

○ ○ ○

“Just want to catch the weather,” the host says, switching on the TV. Most of the guests are leaving, but the Tuckers stay to watch the news. As it comes on, the announcer is saying something about a babysitter. The host switches channels. “They got a better weather man on four,” he explains. “Wait!” says Mrs. Tucker. “There was something about a babysitter ...!” The host switches back. “Details have not yet been released by the police,” the announcer says. “Harry, maybe we’d better go ...”

○ ○ ○

They stroll casually out of the drugstore, run into a buddy of theirs. “Hey! Did you hear about the babysitter?” the guy asks. Mark grunts, glances at Jack. “Got a smoke?” he asks the guy.

○ ○ ○

“I think I hear the baby screaming!” Mrs. Tucker cries, running across the lawn from the drive.

○ ○ ○

She wakes, startled, to find Mr. Tucker hovering over her. “I must have dozed off!” she exclaims. “Did you hear the news about the babysitter?” Mrs. Tucker asks. “Part of it,” she says, rising. “Too bad, wasn’t it?” Mr. Tucker is watching the report of the ball scores and golf tournaments. I’ll drive you home in just a minute, dear,” he says. “Why, how nice!” Mrs. Tucker exclaims from the kitchen. “The dishes are all done!”

○ ○ ○

“What can I say, Dolly?” the host says with a sigh, twisting the buttered strands of her ripped girdle between his fingers. “Your children are murdered, your husband gone, a corpse in your bath tub, and your house is wrecked. I’m sorry. But what can I say?” On the TV, the news is over, and they’re selling aspirin. “Hell, I don’t know,” she says. “Let’s see what’s on the late late movie.”

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