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bangtan-madi · 4 years

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All Of Our Lifetimes — Intro: Crimson Fountain

Pairing — Taehyung x Reader

Tags — boyfriend!Taehyung, husband!Taehyung reincarnation au, lovers to strangers and to lovers again, established relationship, implied soulmate au

Genre — fluff, angst, crime (ish)

Word Count — 2.8k

Summary — Does love ever truly end, or does it simply take another form in a new life? The cycle is like clockwork: your lives end and you’re reborn again. You’ve lived it over and over. Each cycle, one of you loses your memories and is tragically unaware until the other finds and awakens their lover. After all these eons, all these lifetimes, is it possible to find each other again—even when neither of you awakens with your memories?

Part — 0 / 10

Warnings — murder, death, lots of blood, the intro is pretty much the darkest of the entire series so if you make it through this you should be good

A/N — So I know my WIP List says this series wouldn’t start going up until late April, but I had a spark of inspo way earlier than I thought. I wrote it and loved it, so the intro is going up before the outline is even done! Just to get you a ‘lil taste of what’s to come ;)

— Next

With a grip of steel, Taehyung drags you through the darkened spaces of the museum. Footsteps echo through the adjacent hallways, and your heart pounds irregularly to the beat. Like war-drums announcing the start of a battle, your ears pulse with hot and heavy blood. You should be petrified, you should be a terrified mess, but all your mind focuses on is the carnage lying at the feet of Winged Victory.

She’s dead, you think to yourself. Your breath burns inside your lungs, like thick steam, as you both tear past the dimly lit corridors on your desperate way towards the exit. You talked to the woman ten minutes ago, and now she’s dead.

Taehyung glances over his shoulder, dark brown eyes showing surprising calm and control. The way he pulls you close to him, the way he shelters you as you run for your lives, it’s not out of fear. Or, at least, not entirely. His movements are calculated, precise, and methodical. Even in the chaos, he is in control.

And then it hits you: this isn’t the first time either of you has run for your lives. Pieces of your lifetimes come back, trickling in like raindrops down a window. It's taken you this long to find each other, to win each other over, to get back what time has taken. The last thing you want to do is lose it all over again.

Taehyung pulls you with him, taking cover behind a wide column. Before you have a chance to ask why you've stopped, Taehyung puts a slender finger to his lips. His mocha eyes shift to you in a warning manner.

Don’t make a sound. Not one.

You can see the words both in his gesture and glance. Shutting your mouth, you nod once.

Your hand tightens around his as another set of footsteps thunders down the hall, breaking into the open space. Though moving quickly, they move with purpose and passion. The man—no, the murderer—you saw standing over the artist's body still searches for you both.

“I know you’re here, Kim!” A gruff voice with a foreign lilt fills the void. “You aren’t doing yourself any favors by running. I think you know that.”

Your eyes shut tightly as your breath catches in your throat. The murderer’s voice reverberates across the marble floors and granite pillars, hitting your ears like a shockwave. The terrifying truth is that this man’s identity is a mystery, as is why he killed the artist or why he wants to hurt Taehyung.

You remember the woman's name clearly: Emilia Popescu. She was a friend of Taehyung's. Whatever the reason for her brutal demise, you can’t fathom it. A day that started with the love of your life in a city you now call home has ended with the grisly image of a corpse, one that will forever be burned in your mind.

He killed Emilia. And now he’s coming for you.

Taehyung brings your attention back to him as he peers around the room. His eyes move from one exit to the next. From where you're crouched behind the pillar, there aren’t many options for escape. The rear is the best option, the museum's Van Gogh Hall from where you came; however, running in that direction would put your backs to the murderer, giving him a perfect target. The only other way out is a large doorway to the right. It leads to a long hallway, which connects to the building's emergency exit. Again, going that way might as well be suicide; you’d have to run right in front of the mad-man.

The room is quiet now. Only the hefty footsteps beyond your hiding spot remain. Not even the museum's usual occupants remain; in the wee hours of a Sunday evening, the patrons and employees have long since left. It’s the day before the Vernal Equinox, 1995. The only people supposed to be inside at this hour were Emilia, Taehyung, and you.

Taehyung taps a finger on the back of your hand. When you turn his way, he gestures with a jerk of his chin to the wall behind you. At first, you don’t see what he wants to show you. It’s only when you look closer that you see it. Along the walls are portraits, but it’s not the pictures that your lover is interested in: it’s the glassy surface covering them. If you focus, the glass acts as a reflection, and from here, you can easily make out the man stalking you.

The murderer moves from one side of the room to the other, avoiding the ferns that line the spherical fountain’s edge. Though his movements are cautious, you doubt that they’re that way because of you and Taehyung. This murderer isn’t someone that fears anything. He did not hesitate to kill Emilia, and he won’t hesitate in doing the same to you. You doubt he’s even a man at all, only a beast playing with his prey, feeding on your terror.

He is a wolf enjoying the hunt.

Your brunet companion leans down to your level, his hand gripping your shoulder. His resolute expression gives you a smidge of hope that you might just survive this night. However, that calm lasts only a second. You whimper softly at the sound of a collision behind. The murderer crashes something into a nearby column. While you're grateful that it wasn’t yours, every noise he makes, even his footsteps, brings you closer to panic. Every sound is like a punch in the stomach. He wants you to know how close he is to killing you both.

The column takes another hit, and the ceiling overhead trembles. While most of the museum is made of concrete and brick, with some expensive granite and marble thrown in, this particular ceiling is entirely made of glass. It reveals a beautiful night sky, one that might make you stop in wonder on another night. The panels shimmer, coming all to close to shattering. Whatever this man is doing to the column, he’s breaking the structural integrity of the room. Anything more than another hit or two could send you all into a thunderstorm of glass shards.

“I will bury us all, Kim!” the murderer shouts. Another hit, and then another. The glass starts to scream and crack. “You know I will!”

Taehyung's grip on your shoulder tightens, and his lips close in on your ear. His next words, though a whisper, are sure and strong. “When I tell you to run, go for the exit behind us. Don’t look back, sweetheart. Don’t stop until you get to the street. Wait for me there, but stay out of sight.”

“What are you going to do?”

Taehyung's hand moves towards his hip, gripping something metallic and sleek under his coat. His wedding bang glints in the dim light, and you realize he's armed.

“I’m going to make sure he doesn’t follow us,” he replies with a growl. “I’ll lead him away. Do as I say, and we’ll be just fine. I’ll find you.”

Before he leaves, you grip his hand and make him turn back towards you. “And what if you don’t?”

His features stiffen, almost as if his face is made of stone. He pulls the weapon from his pants and holds it skillfully. “Then go to the police. Tell them what happened.” To break the intensity, he flashes a quick, boxy smile. “But don’t worry. I’ll be there."

Your grip on his wrist tightens, and your voice quivers. "I just got you back, Tae. I just found you, after all these years. I—Please, don't make me lose you again."

Taehyung's brown eyes soften, and he leans down to rest his forehead against yours. His dark curls hang in front of his eyes, but you know they're locked only on you. The connection you feel with him goes far beyond words or looks or touches.

What you have together crosses lifetimes.

"We prepared for this," he murmurs, hot breath dusting your teary cheeks. "We knew this was coming. I don't regret a single moment I spent with you, [Y/n], and I'm sorry I fought you all these months. I should have believed you when you told me what we were. You found me. You saved me. Now let me save you."

"I don't want you to save me," you cry over the sound of the glass shaking above your heads. "I just want you safe—!"

Taehyung shuts you up with a fiery kiss, forcing his mouth against yours with a near brutal intensity. Your hands move through his hair, the force of his lips forcing your back against the column. A tug on your lower lip, a slide of a tongue across the same, a whisper of, "I love you more every lifetime."

It ends far faster than it should, nearly as swiftly as it begins. Taehyung pulls away and shoves you in the direction of the escape while jumping out to shield you. He turns to look over his shoulder, ensuring that your shaky legs are in fact moving.

"Go!”

Before you can protest the terrible idea again, Taehyung turns back towards the murderer and fires multiple rounds. In the reflection of the portraits, you see his attention shift immediately to your husband. Taehyung moves speedily, eyes locked on his target. He continues to fire, forcing the mad-man to take shelter behind the fountain. As he ducks for cover, Taehyung changes out the used cartridge for a full one.

The murderer fires again, and Taehyung dodges the blasts with relative ease. As he rolls out of the line of fire, he lets another set of shots rain towards him. One of them grazes the mad-man's shoulder, but he doesn’t make a sound or expression of pain. He twists out of the way, throwing himself onto the ground to dodge. When he stands again, bullets erupt from his gun.

Taehyung attempts to run, but as he ducks out of the way, one of the bullets punctures his left shoulder. With an agonizing shriek, his right hand cradles his wound.

With a sudden burst of bravery, you start to move from your hiding place, wanting desperately to help him. When your husband sees you, he thrusts his hand up to stop you.

“Go!” he mouths. The murderer fires several rounds up into the sky. The glass ceiling shatters, and thousands of tiny shards start to rain.

When you don’t move immediately, Taehyung screams the word as forcefully as he can: “Run!”

The next ten seconds are a blur, stretched out into what feels like several minutes. Taehyung turns his weapon back to the murderer, but he dodges the first two rounds your husband lets off. His swift feet take him out of the line of fire. As he moves, he charges Taehyung, swinging a handful of glass shards in the Korean's direction. They make an impact, creating several gashes across the exposed skin on Taehyung's face, arms, and hands.

Flinching in pain, Taehyung fires another pair of rounds as he stumbles back into the fountain. He lands on his hands and knees, crimson blood trickling into the water.

In the split second between the two shots, the murderer takes aim. One of the bullets lands on the murderer's shoulder, while the other cuts straight into his neck. Blood pours profusely from his wounds, causing him to falter and his armed hand to lower.

You take that opportunity and make a mad dash for your lover. He's injured and vulnerable. If you were to do as he said, to leave him alone to fight off this intruder, he will die. There's not a doubt in your mind.

As you grab Taehyung's arm and begin pulling him to his feet, your lover's terrified eyes flicker up to yours.

You see the brown irises darken before you hear the shot. Taehyung's gun falls to the ground with a clank, hitting the edge of the fountain before scuttling away. His breath catches, and blood pours from the wound in his chest.

He tumbles over. You break from your stunned stupor and lunge to catch him. Both of you collapse into the fountain, water soaking your clothing. You cradle him close, arms around his shoulders. He stares up at you, those same brown eyes both wide and terrified. His chest spasms erratically as breath and blood fight to fill his lungs.

Tears burn your eyes as you clutch him closer, pressing your hands over the wound in a futile attempt to stop the bleeding.

“No! No, hold on, Tae!” You start speaking to him in his native tongue, hoping that, somehow, this will be the magic spell that heals him.

Another shot rings through the halls, this one coming mere seconds after the last. The metal tears through your abdomen, causing you to fall on your side beside Taehyung. Your head crashes against the rim of the fountain.

"[Y—Y/n]!" Taehyung chokes, blood pouring from his torso and mouth.

The murderer hesitantly lifts himself off the floor, cradling his injuries with care. Crimson covers his entire body, and from his swaying movements, you can tell he's lost a lot of it. The mask he's worn the entire time is partially falling apart, revealing the heavyset eyes of a hunter.

He's barely able to stumble forward and point his weapon at the two of you, intending to finish you off.

"Time to die, you unnatural things."

Though fuzzy and confused, you reach for the weapon Taehyung dropped in the scuffle. You aim and pull the trigger with ease, praying to god that at least one of your last three bullets hits a vital region.

One misses. One hits his ribcage. One tears through his hand, blasting the gun to pieces and tearing several of his fingers off.

The murderer lets out an ear-piercing scream and falls back, trembling legs taking him towards the exit. Sirens blare in the distance. The police are closing in. The last thought you spare him is one of vengeance, of a hopeful capture, of justice served.

The gun falls from your fingers, returning to the water where you retrieved it. You fight against the urge to close your eyes, still dazed from the knock to the head. Turning to the side, you see Taehyung scooting over towards you. His uninjured arm is dragging his body the meter's distance between you.

Reaching out, your hand grasps his. You bring each other closer to the other as blood pours from your wounds and further infuses the water with a garnet hue. Taehyung's fingers are cold and shaky, just as yours are pale. All you can do is loop your fingers around his, making one small connection as the whole world falls apart around you.

Taehyung moves his hand to your head. With a small smile, he brushes your messy, damp hair from your eyes. They close on their own accord, and you lean into his hand. You feel the ghost of death sneaking up on you once again, and from the way Taehyung's breath is slowing and the amount of blood filling the water, you know it won't be long now. It seems like you'd just found each other again, after all these years of him not remembering. It was your curse to find him and make him remember, and now you're going to lose him all over again.

Whatever happens after this, you've found each other again. If that's the only good thing that survives today, you're okay with that.

You bring your forehead against his, the last breaths of this lifetime slipping into your lungs. Forcing your eyes to open once more, you offer a semblance of a smile to the childlike fear you see on your husband's face.

"Come—Come find me," you sputter, voice barely above a whisper. "It’s your turn. In the next one: meet me there."

Taehyung nods once, barely moving his head. The miracle that you prayed for, the one you begged for, never happens. Taehyung chokes on his own blood for another few seconds, and his hands clasp yours tightly. In that moment, there is no way to tell who is more petrified: him or you.

Taehyung opens his mouth slightly, as if trying to say something, but he can’t find the words. A heart-wrenching, soul-crushing moment passes. His chocolate eyes fog over. His chest stops heaving. His slender hand falls from yours.

If you had enough life left in you, you would have whimpered and cried and screamed. Instead, you allow your eyes to close on this life, your final breath escaping with those same words.

A request. An order. A promise.

"Find me."

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diredigression · 4 years

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38. A person’s weight as they lie on top of you

I didn’t get this as an ask, but I saw it in the prompts list and realized it worked perfectly for this wip I already had half done! So enjoy.

[64 Sensory Prompts]

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

The radstorm rages outside the ruined house they’ve sheltered in. Hancock leans against a boarded window, head fallen back, face relaxed, almost rapturous. Sole curls tight against the back of a couch.

The panic strangles her. Every muscle clenches, chest too tight to breathe. Even the desire for relief is fading as she succumbs to the temptation to just wallow in the pain, because why pretend everything is okay? Why pretend that the world is okay? Why pretend that there's any reason for joy?

"Hey, you okay there?"

The rasp startles her out of her reverie. But she doesn't want to be in the real world, she wants to bury back into her head. It's miserable there, but at least it’s not reality. She shrinks tighter.

"What's wrong, sister?"

He's not leaving her to her misery. She fights to surface, the grim satisfaction of wallowing traded somewhat for the shame of having to be herself, in real life, outside of her head and interacting with this other person who’s staring at her, head cocked slightly as his inscrutable black eyes analyze her face.

“Just trying to sleep.” With her lungs—her entire body—tight, her voice comes out strained.

“You look like you’re hiding from a yao guai. Can’t imagine that’s comfortable for sleeping.”

She drops her eyes back to the fabric of the couch. “Couch isn’t comfortable for sleeping.”

He chuckles. “Can’t argue with ya there.” But he doesn’t return to his post by the window, and instead murmurs, softer, “Talk to me. I know panic when I see it.”

She squeezes her eyes closed, suppressing an unwelcome sob. He waits patiently while she fights to school her breathing again.

“I’m—sorry about this. Don’t want you to think that I’m—not capable of—pulling my weight here. Of managing this work.”

“Hey now, don’t you start that. I’ve seen the hardest mercs panic like this. And then they go right back out and do their thing, good as ever. Hell, I been there too. Panic don’t make you weak. Just means you need some support for a bit.”

Unable to form a reply, she exhales noncommittally.

“How can I help you? Food? Booze? Jet? A hug? Maybe somethin’ stronger than a hug?” She can hear the grin creep into his voice by the end. She considers asking—no. Curls in tighter on herself.

She hears him sigh, then lean against the arm of the couch. A hand on the couch arm, bracing his weight, not invading her space but close enough for comfort. “How do you normally get through this? Might be we can brainstorm.”

Another pause, debating. There’s her usual coping method, but Dogmeat isn’t here. No solid warm safety pressed against her. A shake of her head, barely a twitch. They’re not close enough for this.

“That wild, huh? C’mon, sister, tell me. It’s just you an’ me here, and trust me, I ain’t gonna judge. I just wanna help.”

He’s really not gonna let it go, and judging by his statements, his mind is coming up with something even more embarrassing than the truth. Fine. She gasps in an effortful breath and forces herself to uncurl slightly. “Dogmeat…figured it out. Crawled up and laid down on top of me. Just stayed there. The…weight and warmth…it helps.”

“You sayin’ I should…lay on top of you?” The hesitation is clear in his voice.

She curls tighter again as the thoughts return to spiraling. Knew that was a bad idea. Should have just shut up and waited it out. It’ll go away eventually without having to drag this stranger into it.

“Hey, no, don’t you do that. If that’s what helps, that’s what we’re doin.” The couch shifts as his weight moves. “You tell me if it’s too much and I need to get off, okay?”

She nods stiffly.

“Alright, I’m comin’ in. No funny business. Here, I’ll put the coat on ya first.” She’s gently wrapped in the heavy fabric, and she clutches one hem to her, the scents of dust and gunpowder and bitter chems washing over her. He murmurs soothingly as he balances around her, the couch flexing as he arranges his limbs. “Gotta put my hand over here…Knees here and…here. Damn, these things really weren’t designed for this, were they? And…down.”

As soon as the pressure of his weight settles against her torso, she feels the anxiety smothered. Peace wraps around her like his coat, warm enveloping comfort to replace the crushing chains around her chest. Despite the ghoul's clear tension, his elbows dug into the couch on either side of her and his hips firmly lifted off her, she quickly sheds her own discomfort at the unfamiliar touch and allows herself to drown in the pressure; to let her muscles melt in his body heat, maybe more than Dogmeat gave off, intensely radiated even through the coat; to let the roiling storm of her mind quiet down to focus in on just the sensation of his weight and of his chest pressing rhythmically as he breathes. Nothing else has to exist right now. Nothing outside of this moment, this couch, the warm, living pressure transmitting through her body.

“Ya doin’ alright?” A gentle rasp near her ear.

“…yeah. I am. Thank you.”

#deep pressure therapy #it's good stuff #not included: hancock asking later 'will you pet my head and call me a good boy too?'#dire's sole #becoming sole #dire memes #fallout #fallout 4 #fallout hancock #fallout 4 john hancock

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smilingoceanlover · 4 years

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January 2020 - Fanfic Shoutout

My January 2020 fanfic shout out goes to @scapegrace74-blog. I would be hard pressed to find a more appropriate way to start off a new year and a new decade of XF fic than by dedicating a post to this talented and entirely underrated gift to this fandom. You guys, why is she not talked about all the time?!

I’ve been reading fic since the OG, yet I discovered her entirely by accident – or was it fate? – via a reblog of a post that mentioned she was writing a character study about Mulder (it’s called Perushim and is a WIP) with a link to her Ao3.

Someone is writing a character study of Fox William Mulder, FBI’s most flawlessly handsome unwanted? Yes, please! So I added her to my list of authors to check out.

In addition to achingly beautiful and melodic prose, smart in-character dialogue, and the ability to plot an interesting storyline (and then actually make it interesting while telling it!), the aspect of her fic that I am most impressed by is her Mulder. In an effort to highlight and make Scully more sympathetic, I find that many writers resort to emasculating, infantilizing, or dumbing Mulder down. I don’t see Mulder like that, so it is such a joy to find an author who really gets Mulder in the way David Duchovny actually embodied him. Thank you for bringing us fic that’s about Mulder, not some moronic overgrown child who looks like him and has the same name.

At this point in my shout out I ordinarily quote my favorite lines, but a great many of my most favorites would be completely spoiler-y. I’ve taken care to find lines that I wilted over for varying reasons, but shouldn’t spoil anything, and I will present them with zero context. These lines certainly don’t do her work justice, not even in the slightest, but I loved how they were written and the context they were in within the narrative. Thank you @scapegrace74-blog for sharing your talent, please, please, keep writing!

The Second Side of Light

AU that takes place on the Oregon trail, and is, without question, one of the most classically “romantic” Mulder and Scully stories I’ve ever read. Picture me with my hand over my heart under the covers in bed while the rain poured outside sighing “ooohhhhhh my goodness that is soooooo romantic!!!!” I’ve read about 5 or 6 chapters of this one over and over half a dozen times already.

“Miss Scully …” he was at a loss how to deal with this headstrong behaviour. If she were a man, he would simply tell her to go to hell and be done with it. He was used to operating alone, without the fetters that friendship or comity required. Their association was not getting off on the right foot.

“Mr. Mulder, let me put this to you plainly, so that there are no further misunderstandings. I mean to purchase two horses today. And as I will be spending roughly half of all that my sister and I own in the world for those two horses, and as our very lives will depend on the reliability of those two horses, and as, up until yesterday, I did not know you from Adam, I intend to ride with you to the Comanche camp. Now, shall we go?”

Completely nonplussed, Fox Mulder did the only sensible thing one could do when faced with a force of nature. He helped her onto the back of his horse.

* * *

She let out her breath. “That is beautiful.”

“I had a feeling you would understand.”

“And why is that, Mr. Mulder?”

“Because, Miss Scully, you respect the journey as well as the destination. It is a rare gift to see beyond one’s viewpoint, and to open one’s mind to extreme possibilities. You appear to possess it.”

She blushed at this unexpected praise. She had not considered whether Mr. Mulder had formed any particular opinion of her. He was so inwardly focused, she assumed he barely noticed her existence, but apparently that was not the case.

Black and White and Red

The attention to detail and how she has woven the characters and scenes from the series into this early 1950s AU is amazing. I’m still trying to figure out how she did it and how it works so well. I honestly spent a lot of this one with my mouth open going “how in the hell did she even think of this?” I’m now hopelessly sold on trying other AUs, too.

“He was reading The Invisible Man late at night, the radio muttering quietly in the background for company, when there was a sharp knock at the door. At first glance he thought it was a homeless waif, begging for shelter from the heavy spring rain, but then the light from the stairwell caught a pair of enormous blue eyes framed by amber wisps of hair and he recognized her.

“Mr. Mulder, I don’t know if you remember me,” she began.

“Of course. Miss Scully. Come in before you drown.”

Instead of taking a chair this time, she sat on his couch, touching the open spine of his book with shaking fingers. As before, she scanned the room anxiously, and he realized she was looking for signs of degeneracy. Besides the fact that he hadn’t washed his dishes from supper, there were none visible. It was just a simple basement apartment: cheap, untidy and smelling of warm dust and coffee grinds.

She took a deep breath and released it as words. “I’ve changed my mind. About the pictures. I… I want you to take them. Of me.”

“That’s…” He didn’t get a chance to finish whatever thought he meant to articulate, because just then she stood, unbelted her knee-length coat, and suddenly there was a scantily-clad woman in his apartment.

She wasn’t completely naked, and somehow that made it worse.

Seventeen

This is the story of all of Mulder’s past sexual relationships. I do not read /other fic for a lot of reasons, primarily because I’m just not interested. However, I broke my rule because of how she consistently wrote Mulder in the other fics I’d read. I just needed to take a teeny tiny peek to satisfy my curiosity. An hour later, I had zero regrets. Again, this one is mind boggling to me at how well it works. I think because fundamentally this shapes the character of the Mulder that Scully fell in love with, so imperfect, intense, desperate, lonely, and utterly male.

He didn’t expect her to believe. It wasn’t her disbelief that stung. It was her unwillingness to listen. He spent more time at work, researching the alien abduction phenomenon, wandering further and further off into darkness with each case.

It wasn’t infidelity or contempt or ambition that ended them, although all three stood in the wings, licking their hungry lips. It was neglect. He loved her, but he loved his all-consuming search for the truth more. She loved him, but she could only love in a concrete, three-dimensional world that he had left behind. One subdued conversation, some tears, and she was gone.

He didn’t take off his ring. Not even when he was fucking another woman. It was proof that he’d made a place for himself in that three-dimensional world for a little while. A reminder that he’d failed at even the easiest love that could ever have been asked of him.

* * *

“A word of advice, Fox? As someone who has hundreds of hours invested in your mental well-being: until you’re absolutely certain that your feelings for Scully are real, for the love of god please don’t fuck her.”

#msr fanfic #fanfic shoutout 2020 #so much talent #everyone needs to be reading and commenting on her work #elevated fic

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writings-from-the-hart · 4 years

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Writebr Intro

Writeblr Intro Time!

Hiya! This is so overdue and I apologize for that lol. I’ve been meaning to write this but school seems to always be getting in the way of just that. Writing. But here I am finally writing this! And yes my username is a pun of my own last name but I just couldn’t resist.

So basically, I really want to surround myself with other writers and have stumbled across tons of writeblr’s (I think that’s what they’re called lol). Instantly I was in love and wanted more of what the community had to offer. I’ve been a self-proclaimed “author” or writer since my early years of grade school. I was that child in the back of the class with ADHD that couldn’t sit still (the cliche bouncing leg and always chewed down nails) and had what my mother called an “overactive imagination”. My notebooks in high school were often filled with wild stories about “galaxies far far away” or dystopias with cruel governments ruled by dictators. Now I’m in my second year of college swamped with classes about the Psychology of criminals (or I like to call the science of murder), and trying to find time to write a novel. So the struggle is real my dudes.

A little about Me:

Hana

She/Her

Pisces

Asexual

Forensic Psychology Major and English with a concentration in Writing Minor

Book hoarder

Dog Mom

Vintage AF

Low Key Emo Punk because I’m no average white girl!

History nerd (Love learning about the old wars and cultures)

Movie nerd (There’s an endless stack of DVDs in my house)

Fandoms:

The Mandolorian (or the ManDADolorian)

Star Trek

Star Wars

Hannibal

X-Files

King Falls Am

Welcome to Nightvale

Transformers (Obviously not the bad movies lol. Bumblebee is baby and must be protected always.)

Good Omens

Sherlock

Lord of the Rings

Marvel (There are so many shows and movies in this category we would be here all day if I tried to list them.)

Timeless (Not sure if the fandom is still alive after what the writers did to one of our ships lol)

DC (I’m a huge Batman geek and adore Wonderwoman, but I take the good with the bad when it comes to this fandom. Especially movie-wise anymore.)

And there’s probably more but my memory isn’t working currently.

Goals?. . . maybe:

Get my novel finished (This has literally been on my To-Do List for who knows how long.)

Meet more writers/new writers.

Improve my poetry (I suck at poetry so I bad I never let it see the light of day, so I need to work on it.)

Start my bullet journal.

Wips:

Okay by now you all know I have at least 1 Wip because I mentioned getting a freaking novel done, but just as a precaution as to what I mean by Wip or Wips. I get distracted quite easily, for some odd reason my brain absolutely loves to jump from one idea to another for no absolute reason. Like WTF dude we already have an idea we’re working on why do you keep bringing all these new ones to me like stray dogs. And like any good dog Mom or distracted writer, I want to keep all the ideas/stray dogs. So, when I say Wip I mean “Look at this cool idea I came up with” and I’ll make sure to specify which one is hogging most of my time.

Renegade: Dystopian, Thriller, Post-Apocalypse, and Science Fiction.

This is my baby. Most of my free time is dedicated to adjusting plotlines, character arc’s, fixing freaking plot holes, and other important stuff other than just plain writing. I’m hoping to finish this also monster of a story by 2020 and get it published. So big stuff!

“So tell me little wolf do you want to punish those who have wronged you?” An assassin known as the Crimson Ghost makes their way through the corrupt city-state of Ashton completing a job given to them by the Black Rose. What is a seemingly normal job though turns into something far more complicated when they stumble upon the fractions of an abandoned notebook from the past. A past the Republic is trying to desperately hide and bury no matter what. On the other side of the world in the Republic’s capital Eshar, plainly referred to as “The Prodigy” or “machine” by his superiors, Eric Coalwood has built a life upon the ashes of his family, striving to meet the high expectations set before him by his mentor General Wolfheart. However, his life falls out of its normal day to day routine when the unexpected is asked of him. Command a task force made up of the Republic’s most wanted or his life is over. Eric doesn’t need reasons for why he must do what he has to, all he needs are orders and the Republic is more than happy to give them. Either way the clock is ticking for both the Crimson Ghost and the Republic’s prodigy and with time running out they both have two options. Either get over their different beliefs concerning the Republic or allow the world to once again succumb to war but this time nobody is going to survive it. “Legends are slippery things. For the glory that coats them hides the pain, suffering and death that created them.”

The Trouville Files: Dystopian, Thriller, Post-Apocalypse, and Science Fiction.

Not my biggest priority but definitely one of them considering the plot of this story. I mainly use this wip as a reference for Renegade because it’s actually the prequel to it. Also, it’s great to use as writing practice when I’m plagued with writer’s block for Renegade or frustrated with a plot hole. So this is my double-edged sword that does a lot of good.

“Death in these black days is neither kind nor quick.” The year is 2153, the world we know is nothing more than a wasteland strewn with the dead and a sky being choked by their ashes, not glorious and thriving but desolate and starving. The Red Death, a pandemic with a steady progression and a gruesome countdown to the demise of those infected. No one outruns it or survives it. “United we stand, divided we fall.” The Allied Nations, a totalitarian superpower, promised a united people but all they gave this world was more death and destruction. The Red Death isn’t the only thing slowly killing humanity anymore, we are in the form of the War of Broken Pacts. The spark of revolution is lit, but if it will remain so is a question asked by everyone. Does it stand a chance against the iron-fisted government holding the people in shackles? “Rebel with a cause.” Genius Medical Officer for The People’s Republic, Cyprus Ramiro works day and night in search of a cure for the Red Death exterminating hundreds, at least before this war kills him first. But he is also a man on the run and the rebellion can only shelter him for so long. “Duty over pain.” Cunning Spy and Soldier, Orion Ultor is ordered by the Allied Nations to infiltrate and gather information on the ever-growing People’s Republic. In bold letters is Search and Destroy; make a ruin of the rebellion and ensure the Allied Nations remains as it should -- unquestionably in power. No matter the cost unless he wants to suffer the consequences again. “If we fall we shall rise from the ashes like a phoenix.” They should have never met, battlefields don't make good friends. It wasn't fate, it wasn't destiny, only war throwing people together. The Allied Nations is trying to stamp out something they fear, but can they before the Red Plague? Or will humanity find itself extinct.

Beyond his point is where I house my stray dogs/ideas

Hiraeth: Paranormal, Horror, Mystery, and Thriller.

Scooby-doo who?

Hiraeth means a homesickness for a home which you cannot return. That is how Arcane feels like she’ll never be home no matter how hard she tries to connect with her family. The closest she feels to being home is with her friends and in the worn leather seats of the van they all pitched in to buy. It all started out as a way to pass time and for all of them to escape their families because to be honest parents never understand, but it all turned sideways when a simple “ghost hunting trip” stirred something that was meant to remain buried. The truth never remains buried though, not really, somehow it will always creep back in ugly and twisted. Arcane has never felt “at home” but she’ll do whatever it takes to keep what she considers her family safe.

Sweet Dreams: Historical Fiction, Thriller, and Romance.

A literal dream turned into story plot and no I’m not kidding.

The Red String of Fate, The Lovers, and War. These are the three elements intertwined within the plot of Sweet Dreams but before anyone makes any assumptions this isn’t some chummy rom-com. There will be tears and heart strings may get yanked clean out because the angst is real. War and love never mix well, it leaves a sour taste in ones mouth and makes the mind question things it shouldn’t. Like is the woman in his dreams the same woman he sees in all his dreams? Constantly he somehow ends up spotting that same ruby red lipstick, honey golden eyes, and brunette hair laying in perfect curls. She’s everywhere except in his actual life. They say you and your soulmate share dreams, living proof of how intertwined souls are. She doesn’t believe in love or the idea of souls, not with the monsters roaming around the countryside and battlefield carrying assault rifles. Society tells her where her place is, but she disagrees and rather create her own destiny.

The Prophet: Paranormal, Thriller, Post-Apocalypse, and Science Fiction.

A short story I can’t seem to let go or it doesn’t want to let me go, but either way, this story has the makings for something great. It also at times seems strikingly similar to Good Omens, so don’t be surprised.

There’s no anti-christ in this story, he already has a book about himself so let’s not make another one besides there are other stories that need to be told. Such as, have you ever heard of modern day prophets and I’m not talking about those people with cardboard signs saying “the end is near!” or giant churches with people preaching about the end times. No, I’m talking about a kid with messy hair and dark circles under their eyes because sleep is no longer a choice due to migraines that plague them every night. Migraines that bring weird cryptic messages that make one question their own sanity. And what happens when strange people start asking about said migraines and messages?

Virago: Fantasy, Thriller, Historical Fiction, and Romance.

I’m not a huge fantasy reader, for some reason I can’t stay invested in them, but here I am with a fantasy story in my wips. It has mages, knights, assasination plots, and one super badass general who takes zero shit from her king. That’s right women empowerment, my dudes! I don’t really have much of a synopsis inline or a plot because this is only of those wips I let rattle around in my brain from time to time. But I will say it does give me that LOTR vibe but also Game of Thrones.

Don’t be surprised if you see my stray doggos from time to time because I will admit I love to play around with storyboards. Even if I don’t have a fully planned out plot put together for it.

And that concludes this what was supposed to be short Writeblr Intro. I hope I have peaked some of your guys’ interests because the community definitely got a hold of minee. Feel free to send me a message about anything I mentioned (even if it’s just fandom shit I don’t care) and don’t be shy. I’m a huge introvert but somehow love talking, so don’t worry it won’t be awkward and odds are I’m equally nervous about conversation lol. Also, feel free to add me to any taglist and reblog/like if you’re active and would like more Writeblr mutuals!

Happy Writing,

Writings-from-the-Hart

#writeblr #wips #writer intro #my ocs

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saxonspud · 4 years

Text

OUTCAST

This idea popped into my head, so I thought I better write it down.

Includes period typical racism towards Native American Indians. Did some research but there is of course some artistic licence. Please feel free to comment. Happy to receive criticism, as long as its constructive. Maybe another WIP or maybe just a one shot.

The blizzard swept through the mountains, snow covering everything in its wake. You should have read the signs. The grandfather had taught you, many moons ago what to look for on the wind. You had no excuse, except that you were hungry and tired. You had eaten three days ago, when you had hunted the wolves. You thanked the great spirit for his bounty. You felt bad for hunting more than you needed to eat, but you needed the skins if you were going to survive. Now, you were wrapped in the wolf skins, in a rickety old building. Deserted long ago, when there was nothing left in the mountains for the white man to plunder.

The fire had burnt out, the embers were no longer even glowing. It was dark now. You were warm enough in your furs, you would gather more wood when dawn broke. You tightened the fur around your body, bringing your legs up to your chest, you closed your eyes.

You were woken from your slumber, by the sound of the door opening. A large man, built not unlike a stumbling bear, came in, a lantern raised in his hand. He stared at you with angry eyes.

“A fucking savage in our camp!” He hissed, “get out, you fucking red skin,” he growled, as he lumbered towards you.

You reached underneath the wolf skins, and pulled a knife from your belt, pointing the blade at him, in warning.

“You think that's gonna stop me, ya little bastard,” he hissed.

He had the advantage as he was standing and you were sitting, you still swiped with your blade, nicking him. You heard him cuss, before he kicked you, sending the knife flying from your hand. Within moments, one of his large hands was clamped on your throat, squeezing tightly, whilst the other balled into a fist.

The fist made contact first with your nose, and then with your mouth. Blood started to pour from your nose. It intermingled with the blood from your lip, as it split. You tried to pull his hand away from your throat, but to no avail. It was locked around you like a vice. Your vision started to blur, as lack of oxygen numbed your senses. You heard someone yell, another man.

“Bill, what the fucking hell do you think you’re doing?”

Then everything went black.

You gasped, as you sucked much needed air into your lungs. You could still taste blood, and you heard loads of voices which seemed to be chattering all at once. You opened your eyes briefly, your vision was still blurred. You closed them again and allowed the darkness to take you.

When you next woke, you were laying on a bedroll, they had taken away your wolf skins, and covered you in a blanket. You weren't cold though as you were close to a fire. The white men had also tied your wrists together behind your back, just like the soldiers had done to your sister.

You were pretty sure your sister was dead. If these white men were the same as the soldiers, you would soon be dead too. You were pretty sure you had managed to cut the first one, although not badly. You were confused though. Why didn’t they just let him kill you. Perhaps they wanted to use you first, like the soldiers had used your sister.

You watched as a man approached the bedroll, he knelt down beside you, and put his large hand on your forehead. He was dark, with black hair, and black facial hair. Even his coat was black. You tried to pull away, but there was nowhere to go. You cussed him in your native tongue. You could understand the language of the white man, but you didn't speak it too well. Enough to get by, or so you thought.

“Steady on my little Indian brave,” he smirked, “no one’s gonna hurt you,” he hesitated, as his thumb stroked your temple, “at least no one else is!”

Your breath came in ragged gasps, and your nostrils flared as fear and adrenaline kicked in.

You couldn’t fight in your current state, all that was left was for you to beg. That had never really been your strong point, and it hadn’t worked for your sister, with the soldiers.

Another man approached. He was lighter in colour. He wore a heavy blue coat, with a sheepskin lining. The thing you noticed about him, above everything else were his piercing blue eyes. He also had scars on his face, mostly covered by the rough beard.

“You reckon she understands what you’re saying, Dutch?” he questioned.

The darker man, looked over his shoulder.

“I don’t know, son. Guess we better find out!”

He looked back at you, his hand still gently touching your forehead.

“Do you understand me?” he asked, as he looked at you intently.

You nodded, “you let Nizhoni go,” you croaked, your throat still bruised from the previous attack.

“Is that your name...Nizhoni?” he asked.

You nodded, “you not use. You not kill. You let go.”

He looked at you and frowned. The other man leaned over and whispered something in his ear.

A look of surprise crossed his face, and he pulled his hand away. “Oh no Nizhoni, I wont let anyone touch you like that, or kill you!” he hesitated, “Listen, my name is Dutch, Dutch Van Der Linde, this is Arthur Morgan,” he turned and pointed to the man standing behind him.

“We’re just sheltering from the storm, us and our people. There’s no reason for you to leave, there’s room enough for everyone.”

You frowned, and shook your head.

“Nizhoni is...Hok’ee. Nizhoni go. Dutch Van Der Linde let Nizhoni go.” you rolled over and held your wrists out.

“I’m sorry sweetheart,” Dutch began, “I wont let you walk out into this storm, you’ll freeze to death!”

You rolled back over, and looked at him, tears beginning to pool in your eyes.

“Please Dutch Van Der Linde, I go. I go now,” you begged, “I am Hok’ee.” tears began to trickle down your cheek.

Dutch sighed, and put his hand to your cheek, wiping the tears away with his thumb.

“I don't understand,” he sighed. “What is Hok’ee? You reckon she’s ill or something, Arthur?”

Arthur shrugged, “She don’t look ill. Why don't I go and find Charles,” Arthur suggested, “he might be able to talk to her, make her understand we’re only tryin’ to help.”

Dutch nodded, “something ain’t right. Why the hell is a young Indian girl alone in the mountains in the middle of a blizzard, and why the hell is she so keen on killing herself!”

Dutch stood there, looking at you. You returned his stare. You couldn’t make him understand. It was probably too late now anyway.

You saw the other man, Arthur Morgan, walk over. You stared in horror as you saw who he was with. Another native man. This was the worst thing that could happen. You turned your head away, not even looking at him.

“Nizhoni, this is Charles, he needs to speak with you.” Dutch advised.

Charles looked at you, or at least the back of your head.

“She won’t talk to me Dutch, if what she told you is true.” Charles stated.

Dutch turned to look at Charles, “why? What the hell is going on, what is she even doing out here in this storm?”

Charles sighed. “Hok’ee means abandoned, outcast. Her tribe will have left her here. If she survives without any help, they may take her back. She must have done something bad. They don’t usually abandon women, especially not young women!” he added.

Charles knelt down and pulled off the blanket, and roughly turned you onto your stomach.

Arthur stared at you, with no wolf skins or blanket covering you, you were barely clothed. A short tunic, which finished just below your breasts, and a loincloth. Leaving your midriff bare.

“Charles! What are ya doin’?” Arthur challenged.

Charles glanced up at Arthur, then at Dutch. “I’m looking for a mark,” he stated.

You started to sob, it was shameful enough to have the mark, without one of your brothers seeing it.

“Charles! That's enough,” Dutch growled.

Charles stopped and put his hand on your shoulder. He started to speak in your native tongue.

“You realise its too late now, as soon as they gave you this blanket and saved your life, it was over?” he stated.

“I may as well die now, my life is over.” you sobbed, “I am nothing without my people.”

Charles squeezed your shoulder. “Not necessarily, these are good people. But...” he hesitated, “you must tell the truth, tell me what you did to be outcast...Abandoned.”

You sighed, “the soldiers demanded five women from the tribe, one of them was me. I managed to escape. I didn't return to the reservation straight away, when I did the soldiers had already returned. General Favours demanded five of the Chief’s best warriors be handed over. One of them was the Chief’s eldest son. They were killed. When I returned, the Chief wanted me killed, but the elders overruled him, and decided I should be outcast...Abandoned in the mountains for one year. If I survived, I could return.”

Charles nodded, “you were punished for saving yourself?”

You nodded, “I knew what the soldiers would do,” you turned your head to look at Charles, “did I do wrong, to want to save myself?”

Charles shook his head, “where did they mark you? Isn’t it usually visible?”

You looked away, and hid your face. “on my back as a courtesy.”

Charles frowned, as he ran his finger across your soft olive skin. A mark of a serpent had been burnt into the skin.

“What the hell is that?” Dutch asked angrily.

Charles touched the mark. As he did, you arched your back and whimpered. The mark was still recent and burned when he touched it. You started to sob, half with pain, half with shame.

Charles ignored Dutch for a moment, “Why the courtesy?”

You turned your head, and glanced at Charles, tears still falling from your eyes.

“The Chief...he was my father.”

You turned your head, and buried it in the bedroll, as you continued to cry. Your strength had gone, now that you realised you could never go back.

Charles stood up, and turned to Dutch.

Dutch looked at Charles angrily, “What did you say to her? Why is she crying? And what's that thing on her back?” He demanded.

Charles stood and explained to Dutch and Arthur, about your tribe, the soldiers, the mark and you being abandoned. He explained, that you would now not be able to return to your tribe, and your family.

Arthur stood there listening, shaking his head in disbelief. With each revelation, Dutch looked more and more angry.

When Charles had finished, Arthur stared at him in disbelief.

“Why the fuck would anyone treat their child like that,” he hissed.

Charles shrugged, “its their way,” he stated, matter of factly.

“Well it ain’t ours!” Dutch growled, as he walked over to you. He crouched down and pulled his knife out of its sheath, swiftly cutting through the ropes that bound your wrists.

You lay still, just quietly sobbing into the bedroll. He gently rolled you over onto your back, then wrapped his arms around you, and held you to his chest.

You didn't struggle, but just carried on crying into the strange white man’s chest. The first time anyone had showed you comfort since you were taken by the soldiers.

“Now you listen to me, Nizhoni. What happened to you, may be your peoples way, but that don't make it right.” Dutch began, “I...we’re gonna look after you now.”

Charles frowned, “are you sure about this, Dutch? What about Bill?”

Dutch rolled his eyes, “Bill will just have to get used to it. I never turn anyone away who’s in need.”

Dutch held you close, gently stroking your hair, and rubbing circles on your back, in an attempt to comfort you.

It was always the same when some unfortunate crossed his path. This time, though, he watched as your heart broke in front of him. All he could do, would be the same thing he had done so many times before. Be there to pick up the pieces, and find some way to put them back together.

#rdr2 fanfic #dutch van der linde #arthur morgan #bill williamson #original native american character #period-typical racism #a little angsty

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endless-vall · 6 years

Text

Happy (?) New Year - Estela x Mc fanfic

Summary: The gang had planned out New Year’s Eve perfectly, but an old wound of Mc’s threatens to ruin the night. Author’s note: Anon requested a fic where Mc falls ill due to a wound, but hides it from the gang, set in book 2. I decided to write that in the “New Year” chapter. This marks my last request (from the last batch) & also kindof my last WIP! Woohoo! I’m excited! I also touched on a issue here, when Aleister accused Mc of hiding important things from the gang, like she did in the past. This is an aspect we see in Mc in the books, so I think it’s realistic enough. Mc also cares about the gang deeply, and just wants them to be happy (along with other things like... safe.) Anyway, I hope you enjoy this piece! Sorry for the long delay!

Mc clenched to her side, entering her bedroom. Good, She thought. No one saw her struggling. The wound was getting worse lately, and she wondered if it was time to come clean. A while ago, in an encounter with the saber-tooth tiger, she got a strike of his claws, resulting in an ugly cut in her stomach. Michelle had treated to her wound, and they managed to befriend the watchers (and as a result of that, the saber-tooth tiger himself), and Mc didn’t want to cause any drama. At first, it almost healed properly, but lately… She was getting these strokes of dizziness and nausea hitting her out of nowhere, followed by a pulsing pain in the cut. She wanted to tell Michelle and ask her to take a lot at it, but everything was happening so fast. She didn’t even get a chance to tell Estela…

And suddenly, a group called The Arachnids were after them and they had to flee. Maybe it was the snow… The cold could’ve made her more susceptible to infections, and she could’ve caught something. They were just on their way to find a shelter. We’ll just reach there, and I’ll tell her. Mc promises herself. The problem is… They arrive, and decide to celebrate the New Year, along with everyone’s birthdays. She could wait another day… It won’t hurt her… Right? Just so she won’t buzzkill everyone. So she puts on a brave face, and decides to wait for until after tomorrow. She can do it. Everyone spend the next day preparing. They dressed up nicely, put on decorations all around the house, and cooked an entire set of meals, for everyone. Everyone talks to each other, Immersed in complete bliss, forgetting all of their problems, just for one night. Mc, though, is a lot worse. She tries to hide it, but the pain is barely tolerable, and her head is certainly somewhere else… But everyone’s having such a nice time… “Is everything okay?” It’s Estela’s voice, that bring her back to reality. Mc ‘wakes up’, shaking her head, and blinks at her beautiful girlfriend. “I’m sorry, what?” She finally questions, back. Estela’s reaction grows even more concerned, and she furrows her brows, as she repeats her question. “Are you okay?” She asks, this time her voice is soft, her tone worried. “I- I’m? Yes, of course… I’m great!” Mc exhales. “Have you seen this party? It’s going to be amazing!” She fakes her excitement. It’s not that she’s not excited, it’s just that it’s hard to focus on celebrating when she feels like throwing up and never leaving her bed again. Estela nods, slowly, but it still looks like she’s not buying it. “Yeah, sure… But are you sure? You seem… I don’t know. Different.” Estela voices her concerns. “It’s just the weight of everything that happened lately.” Mc makes excuses. That seems enough to convince Estela, and she cracks a weak smile. “Hey,” She puts a hand on Mc’s shoulder. It’s supposed to be reassuring Mc, but actually, it just makes her realize how heavy Estela’s hand feels on her shoulder, and she spends a few moments praying she won’t collapse right there, right then. “I know everything seems crazy. Hell, it’s been that way since the moment we arrived… But this is exactly why we’re having this party. To forget about all of this and have a normal evening for a chance. Try to focus on that and have a nice time tonight.” Estela tells her, finally taking her hand off her shoulder. “Right.” Mc looks relieved – but for the wrong reason. Still, she smiles at Estela, the latter smiling back at her. “I’ll try.” She promises, and Estela heads to help with the last preparation of the party. Just when Mc thinks she’s off the hook, Aleister approaches her. She’s really not in the mood, but she forces a smile, anyway. “Hey, Aleister. How’s it going?” She makes small talk. Aleister looks her face over, squinting his eyes at her. “Spill it.” He hisses. She blinks at him. He couldn’t have noticed… Could he? “I don’t know what you’re talking about—“ She plays innocent. “Mc. Save the act for someone who’ll actually believe it. I’ve been watching you for the past few days and I don’t know what’s going on, but I do know that there’s something. And even your precious girlfriend doesn’t seem to know it, so I’ll repeat it just once… SPILL IT.” He tells her again. Aleister’s intentions are pure, this time, but Mc’s not planning to ruin the night. And she’s certainly not planning on telling him about her injury before she tells Michelle or Estela. “Listen.” She raises her voice. “I don’t know why do you think you’re seeing here, but I’m sorry to tell you you’re eyes been fooling you. I also don’t know why do you think watching me is a good idea, it’s creepy.” She tells him. Their bickering seems to catch some attention, around them, but she doesn’t notice. Her friends are yet to gather around them, but some are raising their eyes and looking their way. Especially Zahra, who’s most attentive to them. “Mc, I’m not playing your games. Something is up and you’re going to tell me what it is. We deserve to know. You have a habit of keeping thing to yourself, thing everyone around me, should know.” His voice is stern, and he makes some good points. It’s easy to agree with him, meaning her friends are probably going to take his side. “Aleister, It’s not what you think it is…” She pleads, people are starting to form around them. “THEN TELL ME.” He simply replies. “Hey! Leave her alone.” Estela steps in, clearly upset with Aleister. This was supposed to be a night that’s all about happiness, and yet, Mc already feels like she succeeded in running it. “Guys, let’s clam down…” Quinn and Diego steps in too, making Estela back away too, still wary for Mc. “She’s hiding something!” Aleister tells them. Grace approaches them too. “Mc… Is it true?” She asks, voice worried, and eyebrows furrowed into a concerned expression. “I…-“ She starts saying, finally admitting defeat, when the pain in her stomach reaches a new peak, and she clenches to her side. “Aggh-“ She falls to the floor, blood running down her dress. “Mc!” She hears Estela’s voice, her eyes fluttering shut. “Someone get Michelle!” She hears again, before everything grows dark. She isn’t sure how much time had passed, when she wakes up. She just sees Estela sitting beside her, half asleep on a chair. However, when she notices her moving, Estela immediately blinks awake, and reaches for her hand. “How are you feeling? What were you thinking? Mc?” Her voice is both accusing and worrying. Mc can’t blame her, though. “I just wanted everyone have one drama-free night.” She admits, her voice low. The truth is she’s feeling much better. She doesn’t know what Michelle did but that girl is a magician. Rising to a sitting position, Estela rushes to her side. “Mc?” She asks. “I’m fine, really.” Mc assures her, taking her hand in hers. “I’m so sorry for making you worry.” She can’t help but letting her face fall. “Hey, none of that.” Estela takes her face in both of her arms and pulls it up, towards her. “I’m not mad at you… I’m just… I was so worried.” She tells her. “I lashed out at Aleister, accusing him of doing something to hurt you… But then Michelle took care of you and she told us everything… how your wound got bad again.” Estela briefly tells her. “I should apologize to him.” Estela concludes. “Me too.” Mc admits. Aleister didn’t mean to harm her. And honestly, she probably would’ve passed out anyway. Both share a quick chuckle. “Yeah…” Mc notices Estela’s still in her dress. “Is the party still going out there?” Mc asks, looking towards the door. “Yeah…” Estela shrugs. “You were out only for a couple of hours. Michelle found some antibiotics and immediately started treating you, but after that… They resumed it. They didn’t wanna party when you’re so bad, but… I told them you’d kill us if we didn’t.” Estela chuckles. “Good.” Mc tells her, making her smile. “We should join them.” Mc tells her, trying to get out of her bed. “Oh no way miss! You’re staying right here and getting some rest.” Estela scolded. Mc chuckled. “I promise to behave!! I’m better. See?” Mc put on her best puppy face, with a wishful smile. Estela folded her arms on top of her chest, but after a few seconds, her gaze softens. “Fine.” She finally tells, and helps her up. Mc changes into a different dress, and they both head out to the party. It’s just a few minutes before midnight. Phew. Mc thinks to herself. They didn’t miss the entire thing. “Mc! How are you?” Diego is the first to jump up to her, as soon as they immerge out of the room. “You shouldn’t be out of bed yet.” Michelle said in a instructive voice. “I’m fine, I’m better.” Mc tells her. “Thank you for everything,” She said in an apologetic look. She knows she should’ve told Michelle sooner. “I’m not persuaded yet.” Michelle told her, scolding at her. “Michelle, please.” She pleaded with her. “Just for a little while.” She eyed the clock standing in the corner of the room. Michelle looked briefly into that direction, realizing it’s almost midnight, and that Mc probably just wanted to spend the new-year with her friends. Everyone turned to look at Michelle too, anticipating her answer. ... “FINE.” She finally lets out, everyone around her sighing in relief. “Yay! Thank you!” Mc jumps and hugs her, excitedly. “... And thank you for everything, I mean it.” She says after she breaks apart from her. “Of course, just... Next time, will you promise to be more careful?” Michelle asks, still worried for her. “Don’t worry, Estela already made me promise that.” Mc chuckles, and Michelle sends a thankful smile to Estela. “But sure.” Mc agrees, nodding. After that, the party resumes. Music echoes through the corridors, everybody mingles. Her friends approach, one by one, and sounds their concerns for her, as well as their relief she’s okay. Even the toughest sells, like Zahra and Aleister, are glad she’s okay. “About that...” Mc tells Aleister, struggling to meet his gaze. “I’m sorry for what I’ve said.” She faces him anyway. “You were up to something and you were right, and I tried reverting the attention from it, making things only worse... Thank you for calling me out.” She apologizes, sincerely. Aleister nods, Grace at his side, hands around his arm. “I’m sorry too.” He says quietly. It’s a rare event for him to apologize, but maybe it’s something about the festive feeling of the new year’s. “I should’ve trusted you.” He continues, Grace wears a proud smile as she looks up at him. “No, you were right to call me out.” Mc insists, and Aleister nods. “But I probably should’ve done it another way.” He adds, finally. Estela apologizes for lashing out at him, to which he just smiles. “I’d do the same for Grace,” He notes, so he understands, and they go back to partying. They go out to the outside lounge, everybody getting ready for the big countdown. It started snowing around them, as if to match the perfect atmosphere. “Guys, it’s time!” Diego calls excitedly, and they start counting back. “10... 9... 8... 7...” Mc holds Estela’s hand in hers, squeezing it lightly. Estela offers a smile, which she returns. “6... 5... 4...” They turn towards each other, both blushing for some reason. There’s something about this moment that’s magical, and they both feel it. “3... 2... 1...” And they share a passionate kiss, holding each other’s faces in their arms. Mc pulls Estela closer, and Estela leans down, deepening the kiss. Their tongues dance around in their mouths, in perfect harmony, like they were made for each other. A long moment passes, until they break apart from each other, beaming at the other. They look around, a few other couples kissing, and then turn back to each other. There’s a brief second of consideration, before both pull again, in the same time, into another desirous kiss. “HAPPY NEW YEAR!”

#playchoices #playchoices fanfic #estela x mc #endless summer #estela montoya #fanfic #my writing #new year #I haven't replayed the chapter so I might've got some things wrong

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thedeadflag · 6 years

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I’ll Be Home For Christmas (WIP)

This is another one I’d put some work into in the past but haven’t finished. Figured I’d post it here to continue the festive feels

"...and I'm just saying, it's not good to be alone for the holidays."

Clarke rolled her eyes, wondering how many times she had to remind her mother of her plans. "I told you last week, and the week before, I'll be home for Christmas."

"And I remember the last three years, Clarke. Pulling your place setting from the table the day of, learning after the fact that you'd gone in to work an on-call shift after telling me you'd be home. At least this year you didn't keep repeating it like a mantra, but it's okay...I just...I'm a mom. I worry about you." The guilt pressed heavy against her ribs, ballooning in her chest as she remembered all the years of blowing her mom off for the holidays.

It wasn't fair, not really. She knew she wasn't doing the right thing, but Christmas had always been her, her mom, and her dad. Ever since her father passed away, the holidays had been a trying experience; when it was just her and her mom, it was hard, and it felt like they were lugging their dad's damn casket around every day of it, but they always made it work.

And then Marcus Kane came along.

First, it was him being invited to Christmas. She tried a year of that before she realized it was too much. The next year, he was invited again, so she found an excuse to stay away. The Christmas after that was a mere three weeks after her mother had moved into a new house with him after selling her childhood home, so she found yet another excuse.

Last year, she'd actually meant to give it all another shot, but the hospital had begged her to do an on-call in pediatrics after a third of the doctors on staff in that wing had inexplicably come down with the flu, hence her last minute change of plans.

Can't say she hadn't been a little relieved to have an excuse, though.

However, her mom deserved better than avoidance and excuses during the holidays, and as much as Kane would never be her dad, her mother deserved all the happiness in the world. Given the two of them had gotten married this past summer, it was only right of her to visit for the holidays

Of course, it didn't mean she couldn't halfway dread the whole thing. Marcus wasn't a bad guy, but without her childhood home, without her dad, without any real connection to anything outside of her mother, there was bound to be plenty of awkwardness.

"Like I've said a million times, I'm fine. I'm doing alright. There's not a major outbreak of disease or anything like last year, and the chief practically shoved me out of the building herself, so I'll be home. Stop worrying." Clarke insisted, checking her watch. "I'll be packed and out the door in forty-five to make the drive back up north. I'll get there late tonight."

"Clarke, there's going to be a bad storm rolling through tonight, it'd be safer to drive up tomorrow. I know it doesn't snow down there, so you're still using all season tires." Her mother was a hell of a control freak with top-end worrywart tendencies, which made for an insufferable mixture at times like these.

As if her trusty old Civic would fail her after all these years.

"Come on, mom, a little snow never killed anyone. As much as you used to worry, I did ace my driver's test on my first try, and I've never gotten in an accident. I'll be fine...I'll see you tonight, okay? Love you." Clarke ended the call before her mother could lob a flurry of other ridiculous concerns her way. How the woman could go from assuming she wouldn't make it down for Christmas to wanting her to take her time getting down there, Clarke would never know.

She was just entering her bedroom to do some last minute packing when a new text message rolled in, predictably from her mother.

Mom One last thing, you can always bring that girl you've been seeing, we would love to meet her. Love you, drive safe!

Her heart felt like it was being squeezed by a two-ton gorilla at the reminder of her most recent failed relationship. Luna had been great when they were together, but the woman was in the Navy and constantly out at sea. After nearly six months of long distance, they'd mutually called it quits in early September, but it still stung. Or, well, it was more like a deep, seeping ache that gripped at her heart and lungs, but 'stung' was a less depressing way to describe it, so she went with that.

Besides, it wasn't necessarily Luna in specific. Truth be told, she'd always been a people person in the sense that she really was never at her best without a nice flock of loved ones nearby. Having moved to a new city far from all her old friends, and now reluctantly single on top of that, loneliness was a pretty common antagonist in her life these days. Phone and video calls could help, but they could never replace having her people close by.

Okay, maybe she missed hugs, and maybe that was not an insignificant part of why she was making the trek back home for the holidays. It was normal to want affection, and to miss it when you go a few months without it.

Her mother had been beside herself with worry when she'd been out there in Polis without any friends or loved ones nearby. Luna brought with her a sense of security and hope for her mother that Clarke didn't have the heart to extinguish, not on Christmas. Besides, if her mother had remembered Luna's name, she would have said it, so Clarke at least had the benefit of not having to be specific when she got home.

Clarke decided against grabbing an extra set of cold weather clothes, figuring it'd be a waste when she'd only be outside for the walk between her car and her mom and Kane's home. It was always better to pack efficiently, after all. Besides, she planned on being indoors ninety-nine percent of the time; she really did look forward to seeing her mom, and to seeing whatever friends braved the western New York snow and returned back to Arcadia.

She had a good feeling about her little festive vacation. A really good feeling. Sure, maybe it was because she'd wished upon a star that she'd have a good holiday, it having been the first time she'd seen a shooting star since she was an awkward teenager, but still.

Christmas was going to be great.

Everything was going to be alright.

---

Everything was not alright.

At all.

Clarke knew that much as she came to, groggy and disoriented, but conscious enough to feel the deep, throbbing, full body ache, particularly around her face and neck. She could also feel the frigid sting of snow on her body, and it was impossible not to notice that more was flowing in by the second. Finally, the blood dripping down her face was probably caused at least in part by the sharp things on her face, probably bits of glass.

She took a moment to try and remember how she got here, but it was all too foggy. She remembered hitting the blizzard, the roaring winds sending her poor little Civic all over the road. Maybe a guard rail was involved? She wasn't entirely sure, but there had to be a reason her car was a few meters from the road, potentially having rolled over and over through the snow and ice given all the mess in her vehicle.

Clarke squinted her eyes open and tried to focus on where her car's phone dock was, but it wasn't hard to tell that her phone was gone. Glancing at her right and the large pile of snow and glass in her front passenger seat, Clarke was pretty sure it was down there in that snowy deathtrap.

So much for her shooting star-graced luck.

She wasn't so concussed that she was unaware of the dangers. She was already freezing, and as her vision started to clear a bit, it was obvious she'd been out for a little while given the extra foot and a half of snow. With her door wedged shut from the structural damage, she didn't have many options. She'd never been the most educated about cars, but she knew what winters up here could do to a person if they were careless.

If she stayed out there much longer, she was bound to freeze to death, that much Clarke knew, and maybe that urgency had adrenaline coursing through her body, pushing her past the pain as she angled herself in her seat and struck out at her driver's side window, throwing all her weight into the strikes and breaking the fractured pane for good.

It took some maneuvering, and maybe a torn rotator cuff, but Clarke managed to unbuckle her seatbelt and get her winter coat off, using it to clear the window of glass and snow, giving her something safe to crawl onto as she emerged from the wreckage of her car.

"Fuck..." She let out, the snow and ice pelting her relentlessly, the instinct to cover up bringing her to pull her winter coat free.

The loud tearing noise told her that her luck had only gotten worse. She didn't need to look behind her to realize she'd just gutted the only real shelter she had from the storm. Clarke shook her head; it didn't matter, it'd be better than nothing.

Clarke shambled her way to the roadside, the untouched snow telling her she hadn't had any company out on the road since her crash. She peered down each end, her mostly obscured tracks telling her which direction was which, at least, though with her head so foggy, it was hard to focus on where she was. Nothing ever looked familiar in the snow. At least, not when there was so much of it.

"Come on, think...think..." She urged herself, willing her mind to go through the moments leading up to the crash. Turning off the highway, passing the old rickety farm stand shanty the Jorgensons used in the summertime. Making the left after the propane fill-up station.

A memory of a bridge came to her, startling her with the knowledge of where she was, or at least a general idea. She hadn't passed the dilapidated church yet, so the bridge had to be the one over the old creek where her father used to take her fishing, which meant she was smack dab in the middle of nowhere for a few miles.

Or, well, maybe not nowhere, as another memory surfaced. One of a gangly girl reading a book by the water's edge.

"Anya..."

It was a long shot, to be sure. Hell, the town had given the girl enough grief over her years to run her out of town if Anya was smart, but at a time when she needed hope, Clarke decided to hope, steering herself due northeast, trudging through the snow towards the thicker trees.

Anya's family lived a good dozen miles out of town, off a beaten path in the middle of a thick growth of pines, or at least they had until the divorce. Then it was just Anya and her mother, something Clarke had in common with the girl in a sense, but due to various circumstances, some beyond her control and some not, she never quite got to connect with her back in high school outside of a brief few moments at prom.

It was a little hard to be friends with the school outcast when she was the president of the student association and all of her friends were popular and accomplished and lived in town. It was hard when a lot of them just weren't open minded about Anya no matter how much Clarke tried to push the issue, which she probably could have done a better job on in hindsight.

As awkward as she'd been, Anya had maybe been even more so, but the girl's smile...at least the rare time Clarke was graced with it...could probably light up the night sky. Anya had always been a bit reserved, controlled, but that didn't stop the girl from constantly wearing her heart on her sleeve. Just the thought of that smile, especially the one she'd last been graced with all those years ago under their school's tacky set of mirrorballs, had Clarke feeling a little warmer in her snow-soaked boots as she staggered her way through the thigh-deep snow and through the trees, spotting a narrow road a few meters ahead.

Her breath was rattling out of her lungs by the time she spotted the dark cottage at the end of the road, the barest hint of light flickering in the front window. Her legs were lead-coated icicles, feet stabbing their way roughly through the snow in sharp, harsh steps, nothing but pain in her limbs as she shivered her way towards the possible sanctuary.

It was getting harder to focus and even harder to breathe as she trudged forward, slipping in and out of consciousness with each blink, finding herself ever closer to the door and death, not enough air in her lungs or strength in her tongue to speak, her head colliding against the door before her hands as she stumbled into it, the more sheltered porch offering less resistance for her newly clumsy frame.

"Anya..." She tried to wheeze, but all that escaped her was a harsh grating noise. It took every ounce of energy to raise her hand to hit the door, and with the wind and snow whipped around her ears, with how frigid her body was, she couldn't really expend the focus to hear much of anything, not that she probably could have in better health.

One last knock had her slumping hard against the door, depleted and desperate, knowing she was so close. She just needed a little help. Just a little. She couldn't have her mother lose the rest of the Griffin family. Not in the early hours of Christmas Eve.

Just as she was clinging to the last of her hope, the door swung open, and nothing in the world could stop her descent back down to Earth.

---

It was a weird thing, to wake up shivering uncontrollably for the first time. After apparently not dying of hypothermia, it was hard not to feel a little grateful despite the groggy aching frigid mess of sensations wracking her body, but while she'd been cold before, she'd never felt it so heavily and deeply, as if there were hidden caverns inside her ribs just full to the brim with ice. And then there was the splitting headache. It was all a little terrifying.

It was only when she managed to peek her eyes open and see a large lump laying on her chest that she realized the weight wasn't from the entirely alien chill saturating her body.

She'd only just let out the tiniest of grunts in confusion at the large lump under a larger mound of blankets when Clarke felt a hand gently grasp her chin, pulling her face and focus to her left, and suddenly she had a problem on her hands, wondering if maybe she had died after all.

What other rationale was there for an angel to be kneeling at her side, staring down at her with soft concern, eyes shining with reflections of a lit fireplace behind Clarke?

None, that's what.

Except in a blink, albeit a slow blink, the angel's features twisted in anger. "You idiot." The angel grumbled, a new fire burning in her eyes. "Clarke Griffin, you absolute idiot! What were you thinking?!"

Everything hurt, everything was freezing, her body wouldn't stop shaking, and the angel was yelling at her. "Car crash. Needed help." She managed to get out, trying to be economical with her words given how it felt like each word was using ice-climbing spikes to ascend up her throat and out into the air.

She'd hoped the angel would understand, but she only seemed angrier, the beautiful blonde getting to her feet, one hand knit tightly in her own hair in exasperation. "You were driving?! In the worst blizzard our town's seen in sixty-eight years?!"

Clarke wanted to speak, but just had no gas in her tank. Thankfully, the lump on her chest responded for her, an annoyed huff sounding out from under the blankets.

"Oh, you be quiet, Tris. You don't even know her." The angel grumped, arms folding across her chest.

Her focus was sharp enough now to recognize the strange half-baked vocalizations of a dog in response to the angel, which in hindsight sort of made sense. What with the heavy weight on her chest and all; some dogs would do that to keep people warm in cold weather.

"Unbelievable. Un-friggin'-believable." The angel muttered, pacing by her makeshift bed. As Clarke looked around herself, she noticed she was pretty intensely covered up with blankets, and there was definitely a large heating pad or three underneath her as well as the dog resting on her body.

And maybe as those details sunk in, and she loosely managed to wrap her arms around the pup atop her, her brain finally clicked that she'd made it to Anya's.

Thank heavens she hadn't embarrassed herself by putting to words what she thought Anya was. Even if the woman did look inexplicably angelic. With her eyes more open now, not straining so much to see anymore, it was clear as day that Anya was clearly hitting her stride in her late twenties, and Clarke's heart lunged at her ribcage at the tiniest notion of maybe getting a chance to connect with her in some way this time around.

Heaven help her.

"Sorry. Promised mom I'd be home for Christmas." She let out, a rattling cough bursting out of her after the struggled to get that last word out, hoping she wasn't too debilitated by her trek through the blizzard for there to have been any permanent harm.

Anya deflated at that, all the anger swiftly seeping away as the woman let out a lengthy exhale, slumping back down to her knees at Clarke's side. "Still an idiot."

Clarke tried to shrug, but she was pretty sure she just winced from the pain that moving her body caused. It was when Anya grabbed the nearby first aid kit and started replacing the bandage on her forehead that Clarke stilled in thought.

Her face had been a little cut up from the crash, but she didn't remember a gash across her forehead. "My head?"

Anya's cheeks took on a pink glow as the woman put her intense focus on the duty at hand. "I didn't expect you to fall when I opened the door." Anya spoke quietly, taking a moment to gnaw at her lower lip a bit. "You might have hit your head on my side-table on your way down after bouncing off me."

"I whaaaat?" It didn't seem realistic. Anya had been their high school softball team's catcher. She was literally tasked with catching blazingly fast balls. A sluggish human popsicle should have been nothing. "You didn't catch me?"

"That's....that's not the point! The point is, you're recovering. You're alive, and you're an idiot." Anya insisted, stumbling over her words a little as the blush on her cheeks deepened. "You still should have waited until tomorrow. Your mother didn't need you arriving at two in the morning on Christmas Eve. You could have waited the six or so hours for the storm to blow through and taper off."

Maybe Anya had a point, but Clarke was the wounded party, it was her right to complain. "I can't believe you let me fall. Always thought you had magic hands." She mumbled, only realizing what she'd said a second or two after she'd aired that thought out. In true Clarke Griffin fashion, a diversion was due. "You know, I'm a doctor now."

"I heard. Maybe you're the one with magic hands now." Anya noted all low and teasing before taking in a sharp gasp. "Oh my god, why am I like this?"

Anya's follow-up was barely audible and quickly spoken as the woman walked off towards the kitchen. However, the words were more than understandable to a doctor with a history of many patients who liked mumbling and speaking softly.

Truth be told, she'd gone to Anya for aid, but the girl had always been compelling. She'd always been beautiful. Lying there on the floor, wrapped up in evidence of Anya's efforts to protect her and heal her despite the woman thinking she was an 'idiot', it wasn't too difficult to let herself be a bit flattered.

Hell, maybe more than that. She'd always been a bit of a risk taker.

"Mmmn, nope, I think I want to give those hands another shot." Anya just scoffed at her remark, a scoff that fell away to a hard laugh, but Clarke fought like hell to hold her sharp focus on Anya as long as she could despite the quickly encroaching exhaustion taking over her. And as soon as Anya met her gaze, and held it second by second, Clarke watched that stark befuddled denial transform to something else, something approaching astonishment. "Always did like your sculptures in art class."

"That was ages ago, Clarke." Still, Anya's voice was softer now, taking small slow steps as she ambled her way back over. "Don't pretend you noticed me back then. You're hurt, and I helped you, but that doesn't mean you're obliged to sweet talk me."

Of course Anya would see a conspiracy. Honestly, after all the bullshit the woman put up with in high school, Clarke didn't blame her. "Hindsight may be twenty-twenty, but I saw you back then. You were always so distant, though...even the times I tried to reach out and see about you, you always managed to keep away. Every time but at prom, at least."

"Well, being the lone trans girl in a school seemingly full of cis straight people can do that. I had to be careful. Being seen around you would mean having a lot more eyes on me, more scrutiny. Wasn't worth the risk. Not...not until that night, at least." Anya explained, making perfect sense given their former context, the woman stopping a foot and a half away. "And now, you're half delusional from the cold, and you don't know what you're saying."

Given the way the haze of exhaustion was sweeping over her, she wasn't entirely sure Anya didn't have a point. "I know I'm cold...and I know I hallucinated that you were an angel..." Clarke mumbled, too far gone towards the edge to really care what was slipping out of her mouth.

Anya was kneeling by her again in what seemed like a second, face all fuzzy around the edges and unfocused, but she could see her smile. God damn could she see that smile from anywhere.

"I'm not that easy, Clarke." She heard the woman turn up the heating blankets a few clicks, and then there were soft lips pressed at her forehead, extinguishing the last shred of effort to stay conscious, confident Anya would keep watching over her.

Maybe she hadn't hallucinated after all.

---

Anya watched Clarke fade away again, the fresh sting of the woman's words bringing tears to her eyes, feeling them as if they were branded across her body. Here Clarke was, wounded and freezing, and it was her fault. It was all her fault.

"If I hadn't wished on that stupid star..." Anya muttered, fingernails digging into her palms as she stared down at her guest for the night.

Her mother was wiser than Anya had ever known; she'd spent her whole life routinely surrounded by superstitions she'd written off as nonsense, but her mother's words rang clear in her head now. That she should have been careful what she wished for, ones granted never came without a counterbalance.

Of course, she understood Newton's third law: for every action there must be an equal and opposite reaction. She'd just never processed silly superstition through that lens, and now Clarke was paying the price of her naiveté and desperation.

"All I wanted was for the woman I loved to come back to me." Anya sighed, slumping down at Clarke's side, brushing the hair out of the doctor's face. "I never expected you. Not now."

In truth, she'd succumbed to a moment of selfishness, wanting her most recent girlfriend back, who had left her before moving halfway across the world to take care of her father. It'd been four months, and the holiday season has always been particularly lonely ever since her mother passed, so maybe she'd had a moment of weakness.

Clarke Griffin was a surprise, though. Hindsight allowed her the clarity to know she'd felt more than just some infatuation for the student association president back in high school; that much was pretty firmly established at their senior prom when Clarke swooped in to her rescue and salvaged her night with a single dance.

It was nothing she'd ever forget, but that love had always firmly been rooted in the past. Ever since then, she'd never been able to think of Clarke and not see her as her beautiful eighteen year old self, in that midnight blue dress, spinning her across the floor and dancing away with her heart.

And sure, sometimes she'd idly wondered where Clarke was over the years, how she was doing, if Clarke ever thought of her. Usually, she chastised herself for it, knowing they'd only shared a single dance at the end of prom; the last dance, certainly, but still just one before they all went their separate ways.

Now, here Clarke was, all grown up and a doctor, challenging that perfect memory, that untainted love she'd felt for her. All the other women she'd been with across the years had ended differently, often in tears or pain or disillusionment, but the image in her mind of Clarke had been the one pure bit of love she had left, and now fate saw it fit to take that from her as well.

Her mother had been right to be superstitious. Wishing for a woman she loved to come back to her, only for circumstance to ruin that love through the lens of reality, was quite a fitting bit of karma for her, apparently.

Still, she wasn't just about to resign herself to fate.

Anya didn't have much, but she did have a cozy fireplace, some good comfort food, and some music. There were worse ways to cast herself in a nicer light, like rambling at length about the endless hijinks her students got up to in her classes. A dozen kids competitively eating spaghetti-o's and vomiting in near unison afterward wasn't exactly the sort of story to endear Clarke to the idea of reconnecting with her.

Of course, she didn't expect they'd spend Christmas Eve slow dancing to 'You're The Inspiration' like they had back at prom, that brilliant three minutes and forty-seven seconds being a bit difficult to match all these years later, but she'd settle for Clarke promising to keep in touch after she got the wounded woman home for Christmas.

"What do you think, Tris? I already wished on a star...do you think I have a Christmas miracle in store?" She asked softly, earning a huff from her pupper who was clearly not optimistic about her odds. "Yeah, figured as much. I have to try, though."

She watched her dog's tail wag under the thick covers, something Tris wouldn't do if she wasn't sure Clarke was out of the woods, something that gave Anya all the relief in the world.

"I probably have time to get in a bit more holiday baking before I need to hit the hay. Maybe that could help soften the blow of losing her car and me not catching her at the door...even if just a little..." She mused openly, rolling her eyes at her dog's warbled half-barks of disapproval. Tris always did hate when she stayed up long past her bedtime.

Still, cherry cordials and peppermint Oreo truffles, to add onto what she'd already made, might be worth her pup's frustration.

"I promise I won't take long, Tris. You just keep her warm for me until I'm done in the kitchen, okay?"

She allowed herself a laugh at her pup's disgruntled huff before making her way into the kitchen, knowing she needed to be quick, but that come the morning, they'd have something sweet to take away some of the sting.

She just hoped her measures to get Clarke warmed up kept working their magic. Hard as it was to let Clarke out of her sight, she trusted Tris felt the woman was well enough to only have one of them watching over her.

At least until she returned to keep her company for the rest of the night and re-up her bandages.

---

The light against her eyelids was what welcomed her back to consciousness; well, that and a full-body ache. Better than she expected it to be, after the crash and all, but as thankful as she was for the lack of major injury, it all still hurt.

Still, the sun's warm rays against her face after yesterday's blizzard had something more resembling a smile forming on her face than a grimace as she opened her eyes.

Pain in her neck flared up a little as she recoiled, Anya's face much closer than she expected. Hell, she thought Anya was asleep in the bedroom somewhere else in the house, but the woman was curled up just outside her mound of blankets, laid out across the rug, head resting on an insultingly tiny throw pillow.

Preposterous wasn't a strong enough word for how ridiculous it all was, but it was kind of really sweet that Anya was watching over her so closely.

It took a few seconds of sober thought to recognize that she wasn't shivering anymore. That, hell, she wasn't even cold anymore.

It was the second time in her life that Anya had managed to light a fire in her heart. All those years ago, it'd been a shy smile and Anya resting her forehead against hers on the dance floor; it had been the closest she'd ever been to Anya until then, the closest to kissing her, and she'd been able to feel the girls heartbeat as clear as day.

Now, though, there were a few extra inches between them, but Clarke couldn't help but hope that maybe it was a sign that they'd be closer from now on out. That maybe Anya could be open to that.

As strong as her urge was to kiss Anya, even if just on the forehead, she knew she'd need consent for that, so Clarke slowly slipped out from under the covers and got to her feet, deciding that maybe avoiding temptation would be best.

On instinct, her hand lifted to her head to check her bandages, a frown pulling at her mouth as she realized her bandages were fresh. Meaning, Anya had stayed up all night re-dressing them and watching over her. As in, hours and hours of first-rate care when leaving her bandages for a while and letting her warm up over time would have done the trick, more or less.

If she hadn’t made the effort to stand up already, she would have crossed that distance to at least nuzzle her nose against Anya’s in appreciation for what the woman did for her. In all reality, Anya hardly knew her anymore, and yet she’d treated her with the greatest hospitality she could have ever wished for.

Any doubt of Anya being a total sweetheart was entirely obliterated. Maybe she needed a bit of air.

The cottage was chillier than the veritable furnace of blankets, but not so much that it had Clarke shivering as she took step after deliberate step into the kitchen, Tris following her in with hardly concealed excitement.

“Easy, girl. I’m just getting some distance so I can think about something other than your mama’s lips.” Clarke noted to the happy Samoyed pup. “Still, it is officially morning. I bet you haven’t been fed yet.”

Clarke looked around the room, taking her time to scour the kitchen for the dog food, having noticed the bowl off by the small dining table. Eventually she found a large bag hidden in a pantry cabinet and poured out a cup of it for the eager, cute little goober.

Besides, she owed Tris a bit for warming her up. Feeding her was the least she could do after Anya had a long night.

“Okay, cutie, eat up.” She petted the hungry pupper, taking a moment to consider her own rumbling tummy and what options she had to sate her hunger. Not that she was literally starving, but it’d been a long while since she’d eaten, and the crash had taken a lot out of her. Some food would do her good.

“I’ll pay her back for whatever I eat...” She mumbled to herself as she wandered over to the fridge, pulling it open to peer inside, immediately spotting a tray of candy cane crusted truffles. “Oh my god.”

Clarke picked one up, admiring the craftsmanship for a moment before taking a bite, knees feeling like jelly briefly as she let out a loud moan. “Oh my god!” It’d been a long time since she’d had a treat that tasty. Sure, it wasn’t super fancy, being peppermint chocolate with Oreo inside, but still, very tasty. Enough for her to take a second without much thought.

And maybe a third after a half second of guilt.

She wasn’t about to mow down on all of Anya’s baked goods, at least not one specific bunch. Luckily, Anya had some eggs, bread, jam, and a Tupperware full of sugar cookies. While her body ached like never before, Clarke knew she was capable of making a simple breakfast so long as she took her time and went about half the speed she usually did.

Tris was finished her meal by the time Clarke started up, the pup standing by her side while she worked away, tail wagging happily against her leg. While waiting for the bread to toast, she spotted a portable sound system not dissimilar to the one Anya used to set up in the art room back in high school after classes.

The girl had always seemed a bit thorny and ran with a gothy-emo vibe way back when, so when she’d discovered the music Anya rocked out to, she’d been surprised to say the very least. All these years later, she wasn’t surprised when she powered it up and found a familiar song waiting for her.

“Nice to see some things haven’t changed.” She mused aloud as the chorus hit, smiling at the memory of Anya singing and dancing to the song while working on one of her sculptures. She hadn’t intruded on the moment, she’d barely allowed herself to enjoy it back then before sneaking off down the hall back to her locker, abandoning her impromptu plans to work on one of her paintings in the art room instead of heading to the usual Friday after-school dinner at Grounders that the student association’s council members.

She’d learned that Anya spent Friday evenings in the art room, and that she was a closet cheeseball.

“Fair warning that there’s no mockery of Roch Voisine or Richard Marx under this roof.”

Clarke turned around to see Anya in the doorway, wiping the sleep from her eyes and looking exceedingly cute.

“Never, babe.” She smiled, taking the eggs off the frying pan and plating them. “I’d say there’s a breeze on the water blowing time back to me, given the last time we saw each other, but...”

Anya just blinked owlishly at her, so maybe she’d stepped a bit too far there. While it was absolutely the song she’d heard Anya singing and dancing to in the old art room, it also reminded her of prom night, of finding Anya outside in the rain, face angled up to the sky, rain washing away her tears.

Kissing Rain, so to speak. Not that she’d make that pun and potentially ruin the song for Anya.

“Babe?”

Oh.

Her cheeks burned at the casual slip, but it didn’t escape her attention that Anya didn’t seem upset. If anything, there might have been the hint of a smile at the corner of her mouth, which was what had Clarke stepping closer. “Can’t help it after everything. Are you hungry? I’m sorry for poaching your food, I’ll pay you ba...”

Anya waved her off, blinking heavily at her. “I’m fine. Ate breakfast two hours ago with Tris.” Clarke shot the Samoyed a disbelieving glance, realizing the pup had tricked her. It was a rookie mistake, and maybe one she deserved given how Tris had helped her, but still. "But don't worry about the food. Take what you like, and then get back to where I left you...you need to rest and stay warm, Clarke."

"Worrywart." Anya cocked an eyebrow at her remark, even if it was entirely on point. "Okay, I'll come back if we set up somewhere more comfortable together. You need the sleep, and I need the warmth, and we both could use a softer surface."

Anya's eyes grew wide, jaw dropping ever so slightly. "Was your section not padded enough? I just wanted to have you as close to the fireplace, and I don't have one in my room, so..."

She waved Anya off, though Anya didn't seem the least bit reassured by her gesture. "It was perfectly fine, it's just that I don't think I need to be close to that much heat anymore, and I think you could use a better sleeping surface than your floor. But if you're not comfortable with using your bed, I'm sure the couch would be good enough."

The laughter that escaped Anya was weak, and a little stilted. "I'm sorry, that sounds like you were....that you want me to share a bed with you." Anya let out, turning her head away, focus shifting across the kitchen, clearly trying to look at anything that wasn't her. "I told you I'm not that easy."

"I never said you were. Like I told you way back when, you can trust me to keep things above board with consent. It's just you've been taking care of me all night like a total sweetheart, and you deserve a good rest, and at this point, I'm pretty sure a nice duvet and your body heat would be enough to keep me nice and toasty. It's a win-win." She watched Anya's teeth descend into her lip, the woman's hand lifting to scratch at the back of her neck a bit, weight shifting from one foot to the next.

"Eat up, and then head down the hallway and to the room on the left. I'll get the bed set up."

Anya wandered off at a brisk pace and left Clarke to her breakfast, Tris happily following her mama through the home. As flustered as Anya seemed, she hadn't rejected Clarke's proposal, meaning she had a nice, warm bed waiting for her after this.

Which, despite the minor effort involved in making breakfast, really did seem like a damn good idea with how her body was aching and energy flagging. Maybe one more bit of resting could help her get to where she could head home for the holidays. Getting to snuggle with Anya would just be a very nice bonus.

Well, I hope you enjoyed this glimpse! Happy holidays!

#clanya #clanya fanfiction #thedeadflag #i'll be home for christmas #long post #writewritewrite

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