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chickensarentcheap · 3 years

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Never Gonna Be Alone- Chapter 73

Title: Best Laid Plans

Warnings: some profanity, talk of domestic abuse, child death

Tagging: @tragiclyhip, @innerpaperexpertcloud, @ocfairygodmother, @lokitrasho, @miss-smutty, @raith-way, @ocappreciation

Link to Ao3: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28860450/chapters/85024549

He’s up at quarter to six; throwing on a muscle shirt and a pair of work out pants and slipping into the well worn sneakers he keeps by the back door. A run on the beach as the sun peeks over the horizon is exactly what he needs; his bad knees cushioned by sand beneath him, a steady, cool breeze blowing in off the ocean, and the sky painted in vivid orange and gold and stunning pink streaks. The two dogs run on either side of him; their tags clinking against their collars, each carrying a tennis ball in their mouths in hopes of play after the hard work is done. The excursion to his body is calming to both brain and soul; pushing all thoughts of Mark and his devious intentions onto the back burner and concentrating on nothing but his breathing and his heart rate and the sights and sounds around him. And once at the finish line, he bends at the waist and places his hands on his thighs; eyes closed as the sweat trickles off his forehead and runs down his nose and his temples and gathers at the nape of his neck. Chest heaving and burning; a familiar discomfort that serves to remind him of just how far he’s come. Fighting against the odds to complete the long and painful recovery after the incident with Nathan and coming out almost as good as he was before; strong, agile, his health better than it's ever been. He’d somehow survived and he’d long ago swore he'd never take another minute for granted; always grateful to wake up and find himself on top of the ground instead of below it.

After a half an hour of entertaining the dogs, he returns home; splashing cold water on his face and neck and running wet hands through his sweaty hair and then heading for the kitchen. Busying himself with the morning routine; brewing his coffee and the three shots of espresso he always adds to it. The smoothies are next; a wide selection of fresh fruit and various supplements and vitamins recommended by both his doctor and Esme’s fetal and maternal medicine specialist. And the moment he hears her footsteps above -small and light, but just heavy enough to NOT be a child- he begins preparing her breakfast; kettle boiling for her tea while he throws a couple of slices of bread in the toaster and gathers up a container of plain yogurt and a handful of different fruits to chop. He glances over his shoulder and smiles in greeting when she joins him; messy hair held away from her face and out of her eyes with a sparkly purple headband stolen from one of their daughters and her tiny frame clad in a pair of baggy Hello Kitty night shorts and one of his t-shirts. And before he can open his mouth to offer up a ‘good morning’, she’s wrapping her around his waist from behind; yawning loudly and rubbing her cheek against the fabric of his shirt before laying her head against his back.

“Babe…” he warns. “ I probably stink. Gonna make you pass out. Give the baby in utero PTSD.”

“Bullshit. You smell good. You smell like a man. MY man. “

“All the kids still asleep?”

Esme nods. “You already went for a run?”

“Just a small one. Took the dogs with me. Tired them out.”

“I thought you said Sunday was your ‘set in stone rest day’?

“I did. But that’s just for lifting heavy.” Turning around to face her, he takes her face in his hands, turning her head up towards him as he leans down to kiss her. “I’m still going to run every day.”

“You know how I feel about this; when it comes to you pushing yourself too hard.”

“I know you worry. I know you don’t blow out my knee or fuck my femur up somehow. I’m taking it easy; I’m not going full tilt and I’m not ignoring my body when it starts screaming at me. I’m doing a lot better; when it comes to recognizing the signs and paying attention to them.”

“I just want you to be careful. I don’t want you hurting yourself. And you've been spending a lot of time in the gym. You went from one three hour a work out a day to TWO. That’s a lot, babe. Even for a bad ass like you. I know you feel this need to be bigger and stronger and…”

“I’m past that. Maybe just looking to put on another ten. That’s it. That’s probably as big as I’ll ever get again. Sorry. No return to the thicc, lumberjack stage that you enjoyed so much.”

“I DID enjoy it. You had the big muscles and the extra weight in your tummy and your hair was short and your beard was really thick. It was a good look on you. A VERY good look.”

“But…”

“But I love you EVERY way. And how your body is right now? That’s how you looked when we met. When I fell in love with you. So it tends to be my favourite. It’s very sentimental to me. And you know what would make it even MORE sentimental?”

“If you want me to get the haircut, I’ll get the haircut.”

“You would do that for little old me? You’d do that to keep your pregnant and extremely hormonal wife happy?”

“I would do anything for you. Pregnant or not.”

“Best husband ever,” she declares, and stands on her tip toes as he kisses her once more; hands tightly grasping the sides of his t-shirt.

She’d long ago gotten used to that ‘after work out’ stench; the potent tang of sweat , the lingering remains of laundry detergent, and the cool, brisk, freshness of antiperspirant. It’s HIS smell. One that reminds her of safety and protection and love. Of HOME. When he’s away, it’s those combined, familiar scents that offer comfort; bringing solace to her aching heart and effectively relieving at least some of the fear and worry nagging at her. Sleeping with his pillow every night and often wearing one of his t-shirts or bundling herself up in one of his hoodies; soothed by the smell of him clinging to the sheets and clothes and subduing her rattled nerves just enough for her to fall asleep.

It never gets easier; kissing him goodbye at the front door or the airport and then wondering -as he walks away- if she’ll ever see him again. The job isn’t a life you ever really get used to; lying to yourself when you tell others that you’re completely fine with your husband being thousands of miles away, putting his life on the line in the hopes of saving another. But she copes; knowing he can more than handle himself when it comes to the physical aspect and that he’ll do whatever it takes to get back to her and the kids. But the ache is real when he’s not under the same roof; both her and their brood feeling his absence and both saddened and angered about it. And the worry and fear never disappear; feeling as if she’s holding her breath the entire time, never releasing it until the moment he walks back through the front door. Safe and sound.

Pressing his lips to her forehead, he turns towards the counter once more; snagging a knife from the butcher’s block and preparing the only breakfast her stomach has been able to handle. Dry toast accompanied by chunks of fresh fruit, a smoothie containing all the vitamins and supplements recommended by her doctor, and a tea that helps with calming both her tummy and her nerves. While the nausea lingers throughout the entire day, the mornings have been especially horrendous; unable to keep even the smallest sips of water down and struggling with both weakness and dizziness. All of the pregnancies have been the same in that respect; losing weight before actually managing to put it on, suffering from headaches and queasiness and even a handful of scares that sent them running to the hospital in fear there was something terribly wrong. But the sixth pregnancy is turning out to be an even bigger struggle; half a dozen different medications fighting to keep her blood pressure down, help her sleep, and keep her eating and drinking properly.

“I’m surprised you’re up,” Tyler remarks, as she moves to the stove to tend to the boiling kettle. Offering a mug with the tea bag already in it; his hand briefly resting on the small of her back as he places a kiss on her temple. “You were sleeping pretty good when I went on my run.”

Sighing, she sets the mug down on the stovetop and fills it with water. “I probably still would be if your spawn didn’t wake me up out of nowhere and send me on a mad dash to the bathroom. I’ve come to expect SOME sickness, but this?”

“This one’s giving you an extra hard time, huh? What did the doctor say? Something about making too much human growth hormone? I don’t know. She completely lost me when she broke out the science speak.”

“A variant of it. And it’s too much of ALL the hormones. Kind of weird; that the last pregnancy would be the worst. You’d think it would be the easiest; your body totally used to everything, able to push that sucker out with only two tries. I swear to Christ, Tyler. If this is another Millie labour…”

“You’ll cut my dick off?”

“That’s a little extreme. You need your dick. It’s still very useful. I’ll just chop your balls off. So you can’t make any more swimmers.”

“How about we not do that and just let the surgeon handle things?”

“I want a goddamn guarantee from him that this isn’t going to happen again; your penis remarkably healing itself and letting those swimmers of yours have free reign.”

“I’m going to jump in here for a second. You realize your body fucked up too, yeah? That it took BOTH of us to make this baby? Your tubes were tied. Right after you had Kota and Brookie. You’re not supposed to be able to get pregnant in the first place.”

She stares at him over the rim of her mug. “Even if I hadn’t gotten them tied, you weren’t supposed to be able to produce any sperm. Ever again. For the rest of your natural born life. But low and behold…”

“You…” He points the knife at her. “...need to accept some responsibility in all of this.”

She huffs, taking a sip of tea and then setting it on the stove; hands on her hips in a show of defiance. “I will do no such thing.”

“Come on, this can’t all be pinned entirely on me. Both our bodies had to screw up for this to happen. So be a big girl…” snagging her by the front of her t-shirt, he gently pulls her into him. “...and take some of the blame.”

She stares up at him; a smirk tugging at the corner of her mouth and those enormous, dark eyes sparkling mischievously. “No. You can’t make me.”

“Listen pocket wife, I’m a foot and three inches taller than you and almost a hundred pounds heavier. I can make you.”

“I’d like to see you try. You don’t intimidate me. Your muscles and your resting asshole face and all those tattoos and scars. They don’t scare me a bit.”

“You realize I have ways of convincing you, don’t you? Ways that don’t involve intimidation. “

“Yeah?” Both hands clutch the front of her shirt as her body leans into his. “What kind of ways are we talking about then?”

He swipes the tip of his tongue across his bottom lip. “Sexual ones.”

“You realize that sounds more like pleasure than punishment, right?”

“You remember that thing we did back in New York City. In the bathtub. The thing you claim to hate but always seem to love? The one thing that I always can count on to make you squirt? Do you know what thing I’m talking about?”

“I know EXACTLY what you’re talking about.”

“Well next time around, when you least expect it? I’m going to do that twice as much. Only this time there won’t be a happy ending. For you, anyway.”

Her eyes narrow. “You wouldn’t.”

“Yes. Yes I would.”

“You’re evil.”

“Most evil husband out there.”

“You may be the most evil, but you’re also the sexiest out there. So at least you have THAT going for you,” she chides, giving a tiny yelp when he brings a palm down on the cheek of her ass in a ringing slap. Giggling when his hand reverts to lightly pinching and squeezing before drawing her into him; body pressed against his and her hands tightening their grip on his shirt as he leans down to kiss her. Long and slow and deep; the brief contact between their tongues finding her curling her toes and sighing into his mouth.

When he pulls away he’s smiling down at her; blue eyes sparkling with a mixture of unbridled lust and pure adoration. Hand moving from her ass to the side of her cheek; knuckles grazing over the soft skin before gentle fingertips clear wayward strands of hair away from her face and tuck them behind her ear. “You’re beautiful.”

“You need glasses.”

“I already knew that. But needing them doesn’t mean you’re not beautiful.”

The smile she gives is shaky; tears welling in her eyes as a lump of emotion wedges firmly in her throat. It’s overwhelming at times; seeing his love, adoration, and affection laid so bare. This big, strong man with his myriad of tattoos and scars and a lifetime of trauma, guilt, and regret. So brave and fearless yet so vulnerable at the same time; possessing a heart that he’s even bigger than his body and a beauty to his soul that not even his father, Asif, Mahajan, or Nathan had been able to rob him of. Working as a team, she’d spent years helping chip away at the seemingly impenetrable walls that he’d built around his heart; patiently urging him outside of his comfort zone and encouraging that humanity lingering inside of him to make itself fully known. In the end, the reward was far beyond anything she could ever imagined; a man that loves her so wholly and completely. And profoundly. So much so it often takes her breath away; and all consuming and often leaving her feeling unworthy of such devotion.

He frowns when he notices the tears in her eyes and the tell tale wobble of her lower lip and chin. “What’s the matter? Why are you gonna cry? What…?”

Her voice comes out as a childlike whimper; reminding him of Addie when she’s been scolded or has had a particularly rough run in with Millie and the teasing was just too much to take. “I really need a hug right now.”

Setting the knife on the counter, he gathers her in his arms. One arm circling her waist as a hand settles on the back of her skull; palm lightly pressing her head into his chest. And when she stands on the top of his feet and perches on her tiptoes in order to return the embrace, he crouches down until she’s able to successfully wrap both arms around his neck. His beautiful, tiny wife; his best friend, truest confident, and his rock during his darkest and most dire of times. Always sticking by his side no matter how difficult he sometimes makes things; forever patient and attentive during the long and painful recovery after Nathan, always forgiving him for his sins and mistakes even when he can’t forgive himself. Suddenly seeming so weak and vulnerable herself; her entire body trembling and her tears seeping through the fabric of his shirt.

“You’re gonna be alright,” he promises, and presses a kiss to her ear. “It’s gonna be okay. It’s ALL gonna be okay.”

*****

He hates seeing her like this; face lined with worry and exhaustion, shoulders drooped as if carrying the weight of the world upon them, eyes dark and downcast instead of sparkling and playful. He’d long ago gotten used to her morning persona; overly cheerful and extremely talkative compared to his grumpiness and need for complete and utter silence until he’s at least finished his coffee. So it’s unsettling when she deviates from the norm; missing the familiarity and the routine of her chattiness and her teasing and witty banter. Instead completely silent as she sits across from him at the table on the back deck; her feet resting in his lap as she merely nibbles at the dry toast and moves the pieces of various fruits around on her plate.

He gestures at her plate with his fork. “You need to eat. Start putting weight on instead of it dropping off.”

“It’s not like I’m NOT trying.” She spears a chunk of watermelon and brings it to her lips, taking a tiny bite before setting it back down again. “I WANT to eat. My body is BEGGING me to eat. But it’s kind of hard when you just feel...I don’t know...off.”

“Something we need to worry about? Something to do with the baby?”

“No. I feel fine that way. Other than being crazy nauseous and already having insane heartburn. How much hair is this kid going to have? Because the only other time I suffered this bad…”

“We ended up with Addie. Hairiest damn kid I have EVER seen. Hands down.”

She manages a smile, then nibbles at a slice of dry toast. “Remember how it was practically head to toe? Because she was a preemie?”

“She looked like a little monkey. A cute one, mind you. But a monkey.”

“Don’t ever say that to her. It’ll be her new obsession; monkey this, monkey that. None of our other babies had much hair. If any at all. Well, Declan…”

“I will never forget seeing that head of hair. Bright red.”

“You looked so confused,” Esme muses, as she once more pulls her plate towards her and attempts to eat. “When he was crowning. It was like he had two heads or something.”

Tyler winks at her from across the table. “I was trying to figure out when you had time to get busy with me AND the cable guy.”

“Baby, he is all yours. Without a doubt. The cable man didn’t stand a chance getting close to me. So unless you can get pregnant just by breathing the same air as someone…”

“I hope you’d have better standards than that guy. If you’re going to do something like that, can you at least have the respect to go a notch higher than I am in quality?”

“That’s not even remotely possible. You’re already on the very top rung of quality. In fact, you’re in another league all your own. All by yourself. If you have the best, why settle for less?”

A grin plays on his mouth. “You are so good for my ego.”

“Besides, we both know I’m the last person that would EVER do something like that. I am way too hopelessly and madly and wildly in love with you. Always have been. Always will be. So unless you’re planning on going somewhere, you’re stuck with me. For the long haul.”

“I’m perfectly happy where I am. And with who I’m with. You know that, yeah? That I’d never do something like that. No matter who’s trying to get with me? I would never...EVER..cheat on you.”

“This is stemming from my insecurities, isn't it? Those women yesterday.”

“I just wanted to get it out there. I don’t care about any of them. There might as well not even be any other women on earth. The only one that matters? The only one I want? Is you. And that’s not going to change.”

“And you say I’m good for YOUR ego?”

“I mean, maybe it doesn’t need to be said. Maybe you already realize all that. Or maybe you’re going to tell me that you don’t need the words; you can see everything in my eyes anyway. I just think sometimes I should say it. Who knows, maybe I need to tell you more than you need to hear it.”

Well…” She reaches for his hand that rests on the tabletop, running her fingertips along his forearm and over his palm before lacing their fingers together. “...a girl DOES like to hear how much she’s adored and worshipped.”

“I thought you like it better when I SHOW you how much.”

“That too. But sometimes it’s a nice little bonus; hearing the words.”

Pushing his chair away, he stands and leans across the table; free hand reaching out to cradle her cheek in its palm. “I worship you. I adore you. I love you. And I can’t live without you.”

While tears sparkle in her eyes, her smile is genuine; filling out her cheeks and crinkling the bridge of her nose. “And you say you’re not romantic.”

He bends down to kiss her; the soft press and languid movements of closed mouth upon closed mouth. “I do have my moments,” he says with a grin, running the tip of a finger down the bridge of her nose, playfully tapping the end of it before returning to his seat.

They sit in companionable silence. Enjoying the crisp, refreshing breeze that rolls in off the ocean and the familiar yet calming sounds of the outdoors. The waves rolling up onto the shore, the rustling of the trees as they sway in the wind and the different melodies that come from Esme’s collection of wind chimes attached to the awnings of the pool house. It’s home. The familiar yet never boring sights and sounds of the where they’re the most comfortable; where they grow and nurture their family and take advantage of the many spoils given to them by such a beautiful and expansive piece of land.

Returning to Australia had been the best move they’d ever made. The start of strengthening not only their marriage, but every aspect of the life and relationship they share; making sure to nurture and grow each separate component that makes them, THEM. Often having to pull back from the chaos and stress of everyday existence to remind themselves that they’re not just spouses and people raising kids together; they’re each other’s confidants, best friends and devoted and faithful lovers. Two unique individuals that share a bond unlike many could ever fully understand; broken and in tatters when they’d first met yet somehow managing to comfort and heal one another. What had happened in Dhaka will forever remain the foundation their life together has been built open. A rather odd concoction of many things; shared grief and regret, adrenaline and fear, profound lust accompanied by the pangs of the heart that remind you that you’re still human. And a lot of blood, sweat and tears. All combined with the unforgettable stenches of raw sewage, blood and sweat, and spilled gasoline.

“Do you want to talk about it?”

He breaks the silence first, pushing away his empty plate and reaching for his smoothie. Satisfied with her attempt to get food into her belly; her own meal almost completely finished save for a couple bites of toast and a small handful of grapes. Her feet once more resting in his lap; both hands curled around the plastic tumbler that contains the thickened ‘super shake’ he’d made for her earlier.

“By ‘it’ I’m assuming you mean Mark?”

Tyler nods.

“What more is there to say? He’s in town. Not like there’s anything we can really do about it. Not until he at least makes a move.”

“I’ve got guys trying to track him down. Looking into every hotel, every bed and breakfast, every short term rental within a fifty mile radius. Unless he’s gone totally off the grid and he’s holed up in a cave somewhere, my guys will find him.”

“Is that really what you were doing last night? Taking care of all of that stuff? Getting people going on all this?”

“It was some of what I was doing. Not all of it. When you came in, I was doing exactly what I told you I was. I’d already gotten it all set up; guys already starting to dig. Told ‘em not to leave any stone unturned; Mark’s crafty and he’s slippery and he’s going to do everything he can to avoid me catching up to him. He wants the element of surprise; get to you when my guard is down. I’m hoping to get to him before that happens.”

“When do you ever let your guard down?”

“Even I slip up, Esme. You know that better than anyone.”

“Tyler Rake doesn’t make mistakes when it’s family on his line. He rarely makes them when it’s complete strangers he’s looking out for. You’re not the type to fall asleep at the wheel, babe. Especially when it comes to the kids. And ESPECIALLY when it comes to me.”

“I can’t be around you twenty-four seven. There’s going to be times I can’t be with you. As much as I’d love to be glued to your hip…”

“Do you trust the guys you picked? You don’t exactly hand that out lightly, Tyler. And you’ve always been very careful about who you bring into the business. You’ve always had the strictest hiring practices I’ve ever seen. You don’t just bring anyone aboard. And if you’re willing to put them in charge of keeping an eye on him…”

“I trust them when it comes to the job. They’re some of the best I’ve ever seen, actually.”

“Other than yourself, you mean.

“They’re good, Me. They’re quick on their feet and they’re strong as fuck and they will not back down. From anyone or anything.”

“But…”

“But I don’t fully trust anyone when it comes to you. That’s not something I can give; just hand over your life like that. No matter how well I know someone or how good of a merc they are. But I don’t have a choice, do I? It’s not possible to be around every second of every day. I wish it was. I wish I was the only one taking care of you. But…”

“If your gut tells you that these guys can handle it, then that’s what you go with. I trust you, Tyler. Whether it’s protecting me on your own or making the decision to hand it off to someone else. Your instincts are so strong. Some of the strongest I have ever seen. And if they’re telling you that this is right...that these men are right…”

“They’re telling me that I don’t have any other choice. That I NEED to trust these guys. And I want to Esme; I want to be able to sit here and tell you that I trust them one hundred percent. But other than you? There’s no one I trust that way.”

“If you say this is the right decision and that these are the right people, then I’ll go with that. Because I trust YOU. I always have. I always will. So if this is the move you need to make and you’re confident in it…”

“As confident as I’m gonna be.”

“Then there’s nothing more to talk about. If you trust them, then so do I. Simple as that.”

He nods slowly as he considers her words, then offers a small smile and once more takes her hand; lifting it to his lips and pressing a kiss to the inside of her wrist.

“I know you don’t have any answers. And to be honest, I don’t expect any. But I just don’t understand. Why is he doing this? Why now? If it’s a revenge thing, why wait this long? I haven’t been married to him for fifteen years. Why wait that long?”

“I don’t know, Me. I don’t even know if that’s his angle.”

“Everything says it is. What else could he possibly want? Do you think he’s a threat? To me?”

“Yeah,” Tyler reluctantly admits. “I do. He wouldn’t come out of the woodwork after all this time and play all those little mind games in New York and then make it a point to show up here IF he wasn’t planning something. I just don't know exactly what it is. Or when he’s gonna make his move. And hopefully the guys I have trying to find him will track him down. Sooner the better.”

“What will they do with him? If they do find him?”

“Found a little out of the way place in the northern territory. Somewhere they can keep him; until I can get there. Off the beaten track, no through roads, heavy bush. Not a single soul around. Figure that’s for the best, yeah? Keep him somewhere no one can hear screaming and pleading for his life.”

“You’re going to handle that yourself?”

“Hopefully. Told my guys that they can rough him up, but I want him very much alive. So he can feel every goddamn thing I do to him. And I know you’re probably thinking this is a throwback to McMann; taking him hostage and torturing his ass. But…”

“You do what you need to do, Tyler. You do whatever you feel he deserves. I’m not going to think any less of you. And Lord knows that I’ve had quite a few fantasies about how brutal I would love you to be if you ever got your hands on him. I’m not going to ask how and I don’t expect you to tell me. You just do what you need to do. To make him suffer and make him pay for what…” Her voice cracks; tears of both rage and insurmountable pain welling in her eyes. “...just make him pay. Promise me you’ll make him pay.”

Sliding his chair away from the table, he’s at her side in only three long strides; dropping to a knee in front of her and taking her trembling hands in his.

“Promise me, Tyler. Promise me you’ll make him pay.”

“I’ll make him pay, Esme. I promise.”

“Everything he did to him. Everything he said. It’s just all coming back. All those horrible, mean, degrading things he called me. All the times he forced me to do disgusting, horrible things to him. All the nasty, gross shit that HE did to ME.”

He feels the rage that immediately begins to take hold; his jaw setting and tightening and the blue of his eyes becoming much darker. Bile settling in the back of his throat; acrid and burning. He hates hearing about it; the horrific things that she’d been subjected to at the hands of someone who was supposed to love her, protect her, and give her a good life. The person he loves more than anything else in the world and would gladly lay his life down for. Not just his wife, but his best friend and the mother of his children and the centre of his universe.

“You don’t have to talk about this,” he says, and tightly squeezes her hands. “Nothing good will come from going there. Nothing…”

“He is an evil, sick, demented person,” she continues, words struggling to make it through the sobs. “He used to make me clean the baseboards and the grout with my toothbrush and then he’d force me to use it afterwards. If he was in a mood and didn’t like what I made for dinner, he’d throw it on the floor and he’d make me get on my hands and knees and force me to eat it. Like I was a dog! And when I tried to fight back, the beatings just got worse and worse and worse and…”

“That’s enough,” he gently orders, and releases his hold on her hands in favour of drawing her into his embrace. An arm wrapped around her waist and a palm resting on the back of her head; pressing a kiss to her temple and her cheek before drawing her face down to his shoulder. “No more. Don’t do this to yourself. Don’t go back to that place.”

One of her hands clutch desperately at the back of his shirt, the other clamping down on the nape of his neck. “How do I ever get over it? How do I ever fully leave all that behind? I thought I was doing okay with it. I thought I was finally putting it all past me. I thought…”

“Sometimes there’s things we don’t really get over. Not completely, anyway. And that was fucking hell; the shit that he put you through. I’m sorry, Me. I am so fucking sorry.”

“Is it weird that sometimes I think about ‘what if’? That I’ll wonder what it would have been like if we’d met some other way? Some other time. Some other place. Before all the bad shit ever happened. Imagine? If we’d met before all of that; if we’d found each other and healed one another sooner?”

“There’s nothing wrong with thinking about that stuff. But babe….listen to me….” He pulls away and cradles her face in his hands; thumbs swiping at the tears that continue to fall “...you can’t live the rest of your life thinking about that. Because if none of the bad ever happened? We wouldn’t have met. Because all the loss and the bullshit put us on the path that led us to each other. And yeah; it was fucking painful and I wanted to put a gun in my mouth and pull the trigger so many times. But in the end, all that crap? All the hard stuff? It brought you into my life. You know that. I KNOW you know that.”

“What if it was all for nothing? You spent YEARS trying to make up for all his mistakes. You didn’t care how messy I was or how messy my life had been before you. You just picked up the pieces and you put me back together. And you never complained ONCE; You just did it.”

“I did it because I love you. Because I couldn’t exactly go and find the guy and kill him with my bare fucking hands. And believe me, I’ve thought about it many times. About how I’d do it. And how I’d make it as slow and painful as possible.”

“All the time and the work you put into fixing me. What if Mark puts me over the edge and I become a big mess again? What if all of a sudden I’m in a million fucking pieces again? What then? It will all be for nothing?”

“No. It won’t. And you know why? Because even if you fall apart a thousand times, each time I’m going to pick those pieces up and I’m going to find a way to make them up. I love you, Esme. More than I ever loved anyone. More than I even thought was possible. And if it DOES happen...you do fall apart...I’m just going to be here to pick you...and all those pieces….back up.”

“I don’t deserve that. I don’t deserve YOU.”

“Baby, you deserve the fucking world. And I’d give it to you if I could. Come here…” Pressing a kiss to her brow, he tangles his fingers in her hair and draws her head down onto his shoulder; other hand moving in slow, comforting circles in the middle of her back. “...everything’s alright. There’s nothing to be scared of. I won’t let anything happen to you.”

“It’s not that I’m scared. Not of him getting a hold of me. I know that you’d never let him get that close. You’d do anything to protect me. I’ve never...ever...doubted that. I just hate what it’s doing to me; him being back in my life. I feel like I’m drowning in all this stuff from the past and that there’s no way you’ll be able to pull me out of it. Like it’s going to suck me under and you won’t stand a chance of getting me back.”

“That’s not going to happen. I won’t LET that happen.”

“I don’t know how much more of this I can take,,” she admits. “Worrying all the time about the baby and trying so hard to take care of the other kids and now this crap with Mark and him being so close to us.”

“I know it’s really overwhelming right now, Me. I know it’s a lot of things being heaped on your plate. And believe me, I am taking as much of it off as I can. And this stress with Mark is just making everything else seem even worse. But I got you. I’m not going to let anything happen to you. I just need you to trust me.”

“I do. I DO trust you.”

“You got lots of help with the kids. You got me, you got Stel, Riley’s always willing to drop everything and lend a hand. And you know how much grandpa Koen loves to spend time with them. He’s always ready, willing, and able to step up.”

Managing a laugh, she pulls back and swipes at her tears with the back of her hands. “He was in fine form last night, huh?”

“He was definitely on top of his ‘shit talk Tyler’ game.”

“Everything he says, he says with love. He’s a wreck, you know. When he showed up in Dhaka. He was all laughs and jokes at first and I’m sure that was just to calm his nerves, because when he got to your room? He just lost it. Totally broke down. I’ve never seen him get that emotional since.”

“I guess he’s got a little bit of a soft spot for me. Considering I was an enormous shit head when I first met him and he threatened to beat the attitude out of me. And believe me; he tried a couple times. Tough love, yeah? He’s the guy that turned me into the solider I became. And tried to stop me from destroying myself after everything fell apart. Spent years trying to talk some sense into me. Never stuck.”

“Guess you just weren’t ready for that yet. You just had a bit more of your journey to take. I’m sorry it was as crappy as it was. That you had to go through what you did.”

“Lost my kid and my sobriety. And probably most of my sanity.”

“It’s not fair. That you had to go through so much. Starting right from you were a little boy. Not a single step of your path has been easy.”

“No. I guess it hasn’t. But every one of those steps was worth it. ‘Cause look where I am now. I’m a long way from The Kimberley.”

“Leaps and bounds,” she smiles. “Even in the last five years.”

“It was worth it. It was ALL worth it. And this? Whatever the hell THIS is? With Mark? That’s just another bump in the road we gotta get past. I just need you to trust me. That’s it.”

“I’ve always trusted you, Tyler. Always.”

“Everything’s going to be alright,” he promises, and once more gathers her into a tight, protective embrace. “I didn’t lose you in New York and I’m sure as hell not gonna lose you now. Especially not to him.”

The scrape of the screen door opening upon its track captures his attention, and he glances up in time to see his oldest son step onto the porch. Hair mussed from sleep and sticking up in several different directions; barefoot and clad in only a pair of blue, red, and white plaid pyjama bottoms. And it’s the first time that he’s noticed just how grown up that his namesake is becoming; only ten, but tall and athletically built with well chiselled ab muscles and noticeable definition in his arms and shoulders. All long limbs and torso and tanned skin; brilliant, expressive blue eyes and his once shoulder length dirty blond hair now chopped short. Despite his issues with impulse control, his diagnosis with ADHD, and his volatile temper, he always seems much older and wiser than his actual age; independent and detail and routine oriented and always willing to step up and lend a hand with his younger siblings or with chores and repairs around the house. And it’s bitter sweet; his first son after losing Austin growing up in what seems like the blink of an eye. Proud of him for the person...the man...that he’s becoming but missing the little boy he was; the one who’d be attached to his hip and who explored the world with wide eyed, breathless abandon and wanted nothing more than to exactly like his old man.

“Dad?” Worry tarnishes the ten year old’s voice; eyes darkening and narrowing as he observes the sight in front of him. “What’s going on? What…?”

“Nothing, mate. Your mum and I were just having a chat. She just got a little...worked up.”

“About what?” He finally approaches, a hand on the back of his mother’s chair as he leans in to check on her. “What were you guys talking about?”

“Just some adult stuff. Your mum’s just a little emotional today.”

“Mummy?” TJ lays a palm on her shoulder, gently squeezing and then pressing a kiss to her cheek. “Are you okay? What happened? What..?”

“I’m alright,” Esme assures him, and turns her face into his, pecking his lips. “Daddy and I were just talking and…”

“You don’t look alright. You’re crying. Why are you crying?” A mixture of panic, worry, and the beginnings of anger creep into his voice. And he fixes his father with a steely glare. “What’s wrong with mum? Why is she crying? What were you talking about that would upset her?”

“Just a couple serious things,” Tyler informs him. “ADULT things. Things you don’t need to worry about.”

TJ’s jaw clenches. “What did you do to her?”

“I didn’t do anything. Why would you…?”

“Daddy didn’t do a thing,” Esme assures him. “Like he said we were having a chat and things turned a little serious and I got emotional. That’s it. He didn’t do anything or say anything wrong. I got upset and I started to cry and he was just trying to comfort me. That’s it.”

“Are you sure? ‘Cause if something else happened…”

Turning sideways in her chair, she clasps her son’s face in her hand. “Tyler James. Listen to what I’m saying. Daddy did nothing wrong. I started crying and he got worried and he was trying to calm me down. He didn’t say or do anything. He was trying to help. He wanted to cheer me up. That’s all.”

“Mummy…”

“That’s all,” she insists. “I appreciate you worrying about me, but we’re telling the truth. I just got emotional about some things we were talking about. That’s all. Daddy would never...EVER...do anything to make me cry. Unless it’s happy tears.”

TJ sighs heavily. “If you’re sure…”

“I’m sure. But thank you.,” she presses a kiss to his lips and smooths a hand over his unruly hair. “I’m okay, baby man. There is nothing for you to worry about, okay? And good morning, by the way. Thought for sure you’d sleep in a lot longer; all the running around you did after the littlest yesterday.”

“Dad said we could go surfing. Before everyone else got up. I set my alarm.”

“Well the water looks perfect today. Or as you would say, the waves looking ‘bitchin’.”

Excitement replaces worry and simmering anger. “Dad checked the surf report last night. They said it was going to be perfect conditions. And that it could just be us. I like when it’s just us. It’s a lot more fun. And we sit on our boards and talk. A lot.”

“Then I’ll let you guys get to it. I’m sure you have a lot of boy stuff to talk about.”

Tyler pushes himself to his feet as his wife slips out of her chair; hand on the small of her back as she stands. “You good?”

“I’m good,” she assures him, standing on her tiptoes to return his kiss. “I’ll take the dirty stuff in and I’ll grab some towels and throw them out here for you guys. And maybe I’ll even crash on the couch; until the rest of the hoodlums wake up.”

“If you need anything, you know where to find us.”

“I’ll be fine, Tae. Everything will be fine.”

Nodding in agreement, he offers a small smile and presses his lips to her temple. Watching as she gathers the dirty dishes, mugs, and cutlery and carries them into the house. TJ gallantly holding the door open for her; a broad, beaming smile spreading across his face as she plants a kiss on his cheek.

“IS mum okay?” The ten year old turns to him once Esme is out of ear shot.

“She’s fine, mate. She’s just going through some stuff.”

“Bad stuff or…?”

“Just some stuff. Nothing you need to worry about. You’re mum’s alright. And you know I’d never hurt her, yeah? That I would never...ever...say or do anything to break her heart. Tell me you know that.”

“I do. But you used to. Do stuff like that. I know I was just little then, but…”

“I’m not that guy anymore, TJ. I haven’t been him in a long time. I would never hurt your mother. I love her in ways you can’t even begin to understand. And I would do anything to make her happy and to keep her safe.”

“Is there a reason to? Keep her safe?”

“No,” Tyler lies. “There’s not.”

*****

From the moment he first held Austin in his arms, Tyler had pictured these moments; introducing his son to surfing and forming a tremendous bond over their shared love of the water. Teaching him how to not only handle the waves, but to give himself over to the release and the escape that comes not with conquering them, but being submissive to them; gliding smoothly and confidently yet remembering that nature always has the upper hand and should never be questioned or underestimated. When he had first found out he was going to be a father, he’d often daydream about sharing his passions with his offspring; surfing, fishing, hiking, and camping trips. But military life had been all consuming, as had been his commitment to it; putting fighting the battles of others higher on his list of priorities than his wife and soon to be born child. And having the baby home hadn’t changed a damn thing; signing up for extra tours whenever he got the chance, putting his be all and end all into the army and having nothing left to give his family.

For his fifth birthday, he’d gifted Austin with two things; a custom made surfboard and the promise that he’d change his ways and become the dad that his kiddo needed and deserved. Neither of things ever came to fruition; Austin diagnosed with cancer just three weeks later and the board going unused and Tyler’s promise dying the moment the news had been dropped into their laps. And when Austin had died, so had all of the dreams and the hopes that Tyler had had as father; the loss tremendous and robbing him of both his heart and soul. The grief composed of many things. Not just the loss of his boy, but of all of those expectations, and fantasized moments, and the memories that would have been made during them.

He never dreamed that he’d ever be a father again; his marriage and his military career both disintegrating and finding him throwing himself headlong into mercenary life and a battle with booze and drug addiction. Wracked with so much guilt, regret, and profound grief that he truly believed he deserved his self imposed exile from the rest of humanity. He was a monster and not deserving of any form of a normal life; taking the most dire and dangerous of jobs in hopes one would kill him, drinking and popping pills in hopes of not just numbing the physical pain, but the mental anguish as well.

In the blink of an eye and in the midst of his deepest and darkest moments of suicidal ideation, everything changed. In the form of a tiny, tattooed and pierced brunette with the most beautiful smile and dark eyes he’d ever seen. Since then, every blessing has come with great sacrifice. Ones that he’s willing to pay over, and over, and over again for even a slice of the life that he has now. It’s a normalcy that isn’t normally rewarded to guys like him; a wife and children and a beautiful home in an even more beautiful place. So many bridges burned and toes trampled upon; exuberant coin in your pocket in exchange for scars that litter your body and enemies within all four corners of the world. It’s generally a short existence; catching a bullet in the midst of all the action or a bodyguard or a mercenary -contracted to take you out- catching you by surprise. Most never even attempt any form of domesticity; preferring the company of random women -or men- instead of committing and settling down. The job follows you. Stays with you. Remains embedded in your soul. Accompanied by long lists of evil people you’ve crossed and will forever seek revenge, debts that you can never repay and will forever be held over your head, and addiction and mental health issues. You’re never fully away from it; it will follow you wherever you go, keep you up at night, have you constantly looking over your shoulder or being wary of the smallest of bumps in the night. It’s easier to not get someone else tangled up in the madness; half the time it’s hard just to keep yourself alive, let alone a spouse and children. They’d be the first to pay the price for your misdeeds, and bringing them into that kind of world would be considered not just risky, but selfish as fuck.

Sometimes he still sees himself that way; a weakened, pathetic version of himself that opted to put targets on the backs of others instead of just dealing with his issues and his loneliness in a healthier, SOLO way. But love had found him. Somehow. In the midst of all the darkness and ruin and decay of his life, something...someone... so beautiful and bright had stumbled into his path. She’d effortlessly and easily saw past the hardened and fearless facade he’d created through an endless cycle of self loathing, sorrow, and regret; slowly chipping away at the walls he’d built around the remains of his heart and making him feel alive again. Opening his eyes to a different future and sparking a longing and a desperation and a hunger that he had felt to his very soul. Wanting her...ALL of her...in a way he’d never wanted anyone else. Trusting her in a way he hadn’t since the death of his mother; finding himself both soothed and ignited by the compassion in her voice, the kindness in her eyes, and the gentleness of her hands whenever she touched him.

His heart had been hers long before he’d ever gotten the nerve to tell her so. And he’d been both terrified and filled with hope when he’d even dare to think about a life...a future...with her. He has always felt that his time with her has been far more than he deserves; that kind of existence reserved for those who are morally stronger AND superior. But for some reason, fate had smiled upon him; giving a woman that so plainly wears her heart upon her sleeve and remains stalwartly devoted and faithful. Bearing him seven...eventually eight...children and building a home and a life beyond anything he could have ever imagined.

He’d spent the better part of an hour feeling tremendously grateful and unabashedly proud as he’d watched part of that life so confidently handling the waves below and around him. Ten years old but sometimes so wise and mature beyond his years; misunderstood by so many and not given the credit or the attention that he so rightfully deserves. A fearless, tough kid with an enormous heart; so much love caught up inside him that he’s sometimes unable to express or even cope with it. Exploring the world and the elements with near reckless abandon; always looking for adventure and forever staring challenge straight in the eye. And it’s bittersweet; the act of making the memories with THIS son that his mind had created with for the boy he’d lost years before.

“What do you think it feels like?” TJ asks, as they sit side by side. A hundred yards from shore where the water is calmer; perched upon their boards with their legs dangling over the sides. “To get bit by a shark.”

Tyler glances over; noticing small inklings of his wife inside the ten year old. The way his namesake tilts his head to the side and his eyes narrow as he contemplates a question. The smooth bridge of the nose and the shape of his jaw. But he’s definitely a ‘chip off the old block’; the brilliant blue eyes and the broad shoulders and the long, lanky body, the cheeky smirk and the smile that brightens his entire face. And there’s more. So much more. A strikingly similar personality; dry witted and quick with the sarcasm and the smart ass comments. And the temper; volatile and unpredictable, always seeming as if it’s on a permanent, slow boil.

“I don’t know, mate. But I can guarantee that it does NOT feel good.”

“Mick Fanning...the surfer that mum likes...he got attacked by one. During a competition. A great white. Hit him right in the face with its tail! Can you imagine? I would have been shitting bricks for sure! It would be kind of cool to see one, though. We’ve only ever seen a couple of dorsals in the water. When we’ve been hanging out on the beach. Kinda weird we’ve NEVER come across one.”

“I’d rather not if it’s all the same to you. I’ve spotted a few in my time. Long before you were even a twinkle in your mumma’s eyes. Wasn’t close enough to go one on one with ‘em. Thank Christ.”

“Sometimes I get this really weird feeling in my stomach. When we’re out here. It’s like something is just moving around in there; kicking at your insides and tugging at them and stuff. Like my body is telling me that there’s something underneath me. Maybe even WATCHING me. You ever get something like that? Where you just KNOW something is there?”

“Had that happen a lot. Always been too chicken shit to look down, though.”

“I like that, you know. That you’re not afraid to admit you’re scared of things. Lots of guys are. They act all big and bad and like nothing bothers them, but you know it’s all bullshit. You’ve never been like that. Even since I was little. You’ve always talked about being scared of things and how it’s okay to be afraid of stuff. And that we shouldn’t be embarrassed to get emotional. Cry and stuff. Do you still feel that way?”

“I do. I feel even stronger about it now. Nothing wrong with a guy being vulnerable. Doesn’t make them weak or pathetic or less of a man.”

TJ grins over at him. “Just makes them human.”

“You know, you sound a hell of a lot like your mum sometimes.”

“That’s a good thing, if you ask me. ‘Cause mum’s pretty awesome.”

“Yeah…” Tyler smiles wistfully, then glances towards the shore; his wife up from her nap and getting the littles settled for breakfast on the deck as the older kid’s lend a hand. “...she certainly is.”

TJ’s expression turns serious. “You meant it, right? When you said you didn’t say or do anything to make mum cry.”

“Everything we both told you was the truth; we were talking about some adult stuff and she got emotional. All I was trying to do was comfort her. That’s it. You know how your mum can be; when she’s feeling overwhelmed and hasn’t been sleeping well and she tries to take too much on.”

“She needs to learn how to rely on other people . And ask for help when she needs it.”

“It’s hard for her. Even after all the years she’s been with me. She finds it difficult to ask for help. Guess she’s so used to people letting her down, that she just can’t shake that part of her. We’ll just keep an eye on her and just chip in where we need to and hope for the best, yeah?”

TJ nods, then gives a bashful smile. “I’m sorry, dad. For kinda flipping out on you earlier. But I saw you kneeling in front of mummy and then I could tell she was crying and my brain just immediately went to think you’d done something wrong.”

“We’re a lot like, you and I. In a lot of ways. I tend to react a little too quickly, a little too soon. Old habits die hard. But I would never…EVER...hurt your mum. That is the last thing I want to do. Intentional or not. I love her, mate. In ways you can’t even understand. In ways I can’t even understand sometimes. I just hope that one day you get to feel that way about someone. Or close to it.”

“I just worry about her,” TJ sighs. “I don’t like when she’s upset. Especially when she cries. I hate seeing it; mummy sad. I wish I could find a way so she’d never be sad EVER again. Wouldn’t that be nice? If we could find a way to make sure mummy NEVER got sad again?”

“Yeah, mate. It would. But life isn’t like that. We gotta go through the good AND the bad. Unfortunately.”

“Mum’s been through a lot. I mean, I know you have too. But mum...I don’t know...she’s different. She’s...well...she’s my mum. I know you’re tough and strong and brave and all that. That you can handle things better. But mum puts on a good show for people I think. She lets on that she’s okay and she’s totally fine with taking care of everything one else. But sometimes? Sometimes I don’t think she’s okay at all. Do you ever think that? That she’s just pretending to be alright?”

“I don’t just don’t think. I know she’s doing it. And believe me, I’ve tried to get her out of it. But your mum…”

“And she has the nerve to call US stubborn? She is way worse.”

“She’s got a hard head,” Tyler agrees. “And in some ways, it’s a good thing. She never gave up on me. Even when everyone around her was telling her she should. She just ignored them. Had my back no matter what other people said.”

“It’s ‘cause she loves you. And you’re the first person to ever really love her. Other than her dad and he died when she was young, so ....” TJ rakes a hand through his wet hair. “...sometimes it must feel like it’s just you and mum against the world, huh?”

“I’ve felt that way. A few times. But then all you guys started coming along and our team got even bigger. I like to think we ALL have each other’s backs.”

“Of course we do. We’re family. We’re all in this together. And we’re Rakes. Means we’re tough and we don’t back down. From anyone or anything. We might be scared, but we’re still standing up for what’s right. That’s what you taught us. That even though we might be afraid, we gotta do the right thing. Always. A man isn’t measured by the things he has, but by the people he’s helped.”

Tyler grins. “Where’d you hear that?”

“I read it in a book at school. One of the grade eight kids left on the playground and I was bored and I found it and I just started reading it. I guess I liked that line for some reason. It stuck in my head. Even if there isn't much else up there.”

“Don’t you do that,” Tyler gently scolds. “I don’t want to EVER hear you do that. Talk shit about yourself.”

TJ frowns. “It’s kinda hard when everyone around you is doing it.”

“At school?”

He nods. “I’m the dumb, crazy kid. That’s what everyone thinks. Especially the teachers.”

“They ever say that to you?”

“Not to my face. But I walked by the staff room once and they were talking about that ‘Rake kid’. About how he’ll probably end up in juvenile detention by the time he’s thirteen. And in and out of jail when he’s older. You can’t tell me that it was about Takota or Declan. I might be stupid, but I’m not THAT stupid.”

“You’re not stupid at all. And I don’t want you ever calling yourself that again. You just need some help. Find different ways to learn. Not everyone learns the same way. I was like you in school; couldn’t focus, got ignored when I asked for help, that turned into me goofing off or getting frustrated. Lots of times I put a fist into a locker or a wall. A LOT.”

“Is that why you didn’t go to college? Like mum? Is that why you went into the military?”

“I suppose that’s part of it. Guess I liked the danger and adventure of it too. Going off and fighting bad guys and getting to shoot guns and all of that shit. Never thought about actually having to kill people and what that would feel like.”

“What does it feel like?”

“Not good, mate. Not good at all.”

“Even if it’s bad people? Like that Nathan that hurt you?”

“People like him are exceptions. But for the most part? I don’t like doing it. Not even if it’s in the course of helping someone else. But sometimes…”

“You gotta do what you gotta do,” his son finishes for him. “Sometimes it’s you or them, right?”

“Exactly. And don’t worry about school, alright? I’ll give them a call. Ask for a meeting. Get things sorted and get you the help you need. And deserve.”

“Man…” TJ grins. “...they are going to shit their pants when they hear from you.”

Tyler reaches out to ruffle his namesake’s hair. “Maybe. Hungry?”

“I could eat.”

“Wanna head in? See what mum’s cooking up?”

“I don’t know." The ten year old's nose crinkles in disgust. "Do you think it’ll be edible?”

“Is it ever?”

TJ laughs. “Dad…”

“Whatever you do, do NOT tell her I said that.”

“Don’t worry…” Leaning across his board, the ten year old wraps both arms around one of Tyler’s; squeezing tightly and laying his head against his dad’s shoulder. “...your secret’s safe with me.”

#Tyler Rake #Tyler Rake fan fiction #Extraction #chris hemsworth #extraction fan fiction #Tyler Rake fan fic #Extraction fan fic #Chris Hemsworth Extraction #Tyler Rake x OFC #Tyler and Esme series

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lala-ladybug · 3 years

Text

Healing Hands: Chapter 6

Boss level, here we go!

Jasonette Sword Art Online AU

Read here on AO3

Tag list: @iloontjeboontje

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Chapter 6: Stranger danger!

It was a good thing Jason hadn’t taken his weapons or armor out of his inventory last night. He opened his inventory and donned a crimson cloak. Approaching the midtown news stand, he paid for a paper advertising the location of the first level dungeon and continued on his way.

Skimming the headline, it sounded like he had to go to the northeast mountains to find the entrance. The team hadn’t been able to justify buying horses yet, so he’d have to go on foot. Fine by him, more time to walk off his bad mood. And work out a plan.

He’d be in and out, just to see what type of a threat they were dealing with. He wasn’t stupid, but he wasn’t about to just wait around for Dick if he wasn’t going to make a move until they knew exactly what they were facing.

Jason put the paper away and pulled his hood over his head, the red fabric concealing his face. He had reached the road leading north out of town. He took a swig of water from his canteen, which he noted was half-full, and set out.

The walk was almost pleasant, if not for the number of travellers-- both players and NPCs alike-- that he ran into. He couldn’t be sure of their intentions, especially towards a lone player, so he’d duck into the nearest ditch or bush for cover until they’d passed.

The sun warmed his dark cloak, but not uncomfortably so. It felt like springtime here in the game, with tulips and wild daffodils blooming in small clusters by the road. Jason knew he should be back before dark, but that was a long ways away. He kept checking his compass to make sure he was heading the right way, but the path was very easy.

In the distance, he began to see mountains. Pulling out the paper he’d gotten from that morning, he checked that the dungeon entrance was along the slope of one of the mountains. When he reached a crossroads, he adjusted his course accordingly.

By then, his anger had all but faded. He still didn’t agree with Dick and he definitely still thought he was an ass, but he didn’t want to rip his head off over it. Literally. God, what a mess.

He stopped to buy some fresh bread from a family farm of NPCs a few miles before the base of the mountains. What a thorough game it was to have given the three children dimples. He wondered how much information their programming gave them. Did they know the players were forcefully kept here? Did they live the same, simple day-to-day lives? Or did they simply stop moving when players weren’t looking, like cheap animatronics.

Jason shook his head. Too much time alone with his thoughts was never a good idea. He almost missed the company of the others. He’d even settle for Garfield, that obnoxious green punk.

He sighed and continued on his way. It wasn’t even halfway, but there was no way in hell he’d turn around now. Every step he took was a step closer to getting out of this... admittedly pleasant hellscape.

A flock of birds lifted off from a field on his right. They swirled about in the sky, fluid as fabric. Each one moved on its own path and yet fit in as part of the whole. He stopped, watching the ebb and flow as they journeyed to find the next field to settle on.

That would never be him, a cog in the machine, no matter how beautiful. He had put his faith in people before and quite literally gotten burned for it. He scowled at the memory, a crowbar and a grin flashing through his mind. No, he was better off fending for himself. Always had been.

He decided to count his steps instead of face his thoughts for the remainder of the trip.

732 steps to the base of the mountain. He picked the leftmost path.

1056 steps until he needed to grapple around a rockslide.

409 steps before the mouth of a cave. The cave.

Jason confirmed one more time that this was the suspected entrance to the dungeon. He put away the paper, took a deep breath, and plunged into the darkness.

It was cold and damp. He didn’t want to risk a light, so he put a hand to the freezing walls as he walked. He tested every step with his toe, trying to avoid potential falls into the darkness in front of him.

Silence drew in around him, heavy and expectant. It dared him to light a torch and rush forward to face the boss himself. He knew it was a bad idea, but it called to the energy humming in his blood.

He breathed and pictured colors.

In and out, he would be in and out, just like his breaths.

It was hard to think of the cave as anything other than the grave he’d once been confined to, but stretching out both arms helped.

In and out.

He pictured blue.

The ceiling seemed to press down on him, nausea rising in his throat.

Blue skies and blue waters. He wasn’t trapped in here, he was free. Free as the birds in the fields.

Just when he thought he couldn’t stand it anymore, he glimpsed a faint light ahead. It flickered around a bend in the cave, and illuminated the stalactites that were over twenty feet above his head.

The cold sweat that coated his back started to dry, the tightness in his throat loosening. Taking in a deep breath of stale air, he surged towards that light.

He rounded the corner, crossbow drawn and ready. The light came from a burning torch, barely a stub left. The sound of metal clashing on metal caught his trained ears and his head whipped up.

An enormous doorway stood in front of him, huge doors left ajar. He saw a flash of movement beyond them. The noises were also clearer now, shouting punctured by roars that shook the walls. Pulling the hood of his cloak further over his face, he silently advanced.

Peering through the gap between the doors, he made quick work of taking it all in. The room was a long hallway, lined with tall columns and lit by torches. There were some rocks scattered about, which would provide good cover from the massive beast before him.

The monster was about fourteen feet tall of ugly with a large, red belly. It wore armored greaves and wielded a huge axe and a round shield. Its face had a dog-like snout framed by a form-fitting helmet. Red eyes glowed from within the helmet, and slobber dribbled from pointed teeth.

So basically a medieval Killer Croc. This was doable.

Jason was about to leave and report back when he heard a shout. “Kitty, ‘Gami, cover me!”

Before he could unpack that hell of a battle cry, a figure in black armor darted out from behind a column. They blew a raspberry at the boss, then somersaulted and wove just out of reach from its enraged blows. At the same time, someone with red and gold armor drew a rapier and began slicing at the boss’s feet.

A slight person with red armor stood from where they’d been crouched behind a rock on the far side of the room. They fired a longbow with devastating accuracy, and Jason watched in profile as the arrow pierced the monster’s eye. They disappeared just as fast.

The boss roared and started swinging wildly. The red and gold fighter danced out of the way, but tripped over a piece of rubble. Jason’s eyes widened as the monster gleefully brought its axe down upon the felled player.

It never met its target. The black armored person dove over their friend and raised a shield. The blow sent the two flying back to the columns, where they quickly limped for cover.

From Jason’s vantage point, he could see a figure in blue armor dart over to the two injured fighters. They shook their head, then whistled a series of notes. Answering whistles came from the last place he’d seen the red archer, and the three people stayed put.

“Queenie, Maneuver 18!” The archer, a girl he now realized, yelled. A fifth person, this one in golden armor, leapt onto the monster’s head from the top of a column near the ceiling. They took a flail out of their inventory and bashed the boss’s good eye, then flipped down to find cover opposite of the archer. All the while, the archer ran along the length of the hall, firing shots into the monster’s gut.

She slid neatly behind the rocks in front of Jason and glanced at the boss behind them. It was blinded now, bellowing furiously. The girl’s chest heaved with the effort of running.

With three of their fighters out of commission, he didn’t like their odds. Well, so much for in and out. Dick was going to kill him for this.

Jason waved until the girl in front of him noticed the movement. Her mouth, the only part of her face that wasn’t covered by her helmet, parted in surprise.

He somersaulted to join her spot of cover and said quietly, “I can help.” The monster had quieted down now and seemed to be listening intently.

She nodded, then pointed at him and then to his right. Pointed to herself, then to the left. She looked at him to verify he’d understood and he gave a thumbs up.

She picked up a handful of pebbles and tossed them in front of the rocks they hid behind. The monster pricked up its ears and began advancing towards their hiding spot. She held up a fist to have them wait. The boss grew closer and still she held. Jason could feel its hot breath through his cloak before she finally whispered, “Now!” and launched herself to the left. Jason dove aside just in time. He fired his crossbow at the monster’s chest and could see the girl doing the same on its other side. It had left itself open in burying its axe in the rocks they’d been at mere moments before.

Damn this girl was good.

He watched her exchange her bow for a pair of daggers. The beast’s arms still busied trying to get its axe unstuck, she flipped onto them and ran up its back. Jason fired more bolts into it, keeping its attention while she--

Oh damn. This girl was really good.

She flipped her daggers around and dragged them through its skin behind her as she slid down its back. Then she danced away behind a column, switching back to a longbow and firing arrows into its exposed arms.

Jason grinned, letting the thrill in his blood take over for a moment. He exchanged his own ranged weapon for a shortsword, and started hacking away at the monster’s legs. Where the red archer went high, he went low. They accommodated each other perfectly. He glanced up to see the boss’s HP depleting to nearly zero.

While he swung his sword and dodged out of the monster’s reach, he noticed how much more focused he felt, despite having freed the roaring in his veins. It seemed that the Pit didn’t have as much of a hold on him while he was in the game. A small victory, but staying in control was more than useful here.

The beast turned around just as Jason swung his sword, and it broke against the monster’s shield. A rush of movement beside him was the golden fighter, sinking their flail into the beast’s back. They wrenched it free only to whirl around and use the momentum to plant it in the monster’s stomach.

That blow did it in. It staggered backwards, wounds glowing bright red, and shattered into fragmented pixels. A menu screen popped up in front of him displaying his share of the loot, which looked to be proportional to how many blows he had landed.

Jason looked at the other two. The golden one had already rushed back to where their injured companions were, but the red one remained.

“Thank you,” she held out her hand to him with a smile. He took it and shook once. “It was my pleasure,” he rasped, still catching his breath. He raised his broken sword and asked, “You don’t happen to know a blacksmith, do you?”

She held up one finger, then ran off back into the rubble, searching for something. When she returned, she held the other pieces of his sword. “I can mend it, if you’d like,” she offered, almost shyly.

He nodded and handed his piece to her, hilt first. She assembled all the fragments on the ground, then placed both hands over it and inhaled deeply. As she breathed in, the pieces were pulled inward to their original positions as if magnetized to each other. She breathed out just as deeply, and the cracks between the pieces glowed blue.

The glow faded when she picked it up and handed it back to him. He twirled it around a few times just to be sure, but it felt as good as new. Maybe even better. “That was... amazing. Thank you,” he said, sincerely grateful.

She smiled and replied, “It’s the least I could do. It’s a type of magic I learned called Restorative Alchemy, if you’re interested!” That was definitely something worth looking into. “I also put a little bit of magic in it, so when it’s hit like that again, it--”

“Lady!” A girlish, high-pitched shout came from the player in golden armor. She ran back over to the two of them and tugged the girl away. “Stranger danger!” she muttered pointedly.

The red archer tried to respond, “Well we wouldn’t have won without hi--” But the other girl cut her off, “Shush, we don’t even know who he is!” The archer gave a long-suffering sigh.

Jason took the opportunity to leave while their backs were turned. He’d intruded enough, and he didn’t really care to learn their names.

As he disappeared back into the cave, he thought he heard someone say, “Oh! He’s gone....”

* * *

Marinette watched the doors in the boss dungeon, wondering why that strange man had left so soon. She blinked and turned her attention back to her injured friends. Adrien had taken that hit for Kagami, and even though it was to his shield, he’d need a lot of rest before his arm was in working condition again.

The fight was costly. Luka had run out of healing potions, putting more than half of the team out of commission. It had just been her and Chloe left fighting. She wasn’t sure if they would’ve made it, let alone won without that stranger showing up....

“How’s it looking, boss?” Adrien’s hiss of pain pulled her from her thoughts. She crouched down beside him while Luka treated the arm with what simple herbs he had on hand.

Luka finished tying a sling and stood. “You’re going to be fine. Keep it still for a few days. We’ll get you some health potions when we get back to the house. Kagami, can you stand?”

The girl in question used to column to get up on her feet, but kept her weight off her left. That must have been the one she’d tripped on. “I can stand, but I’ll need help to walk,” she said through gritted teeth.

A costly fight indeed. Marinette moved to slide her arm under Kagami’s and supported her. “We just need to make it back to the horses,” she murmured to her friend.

God, her friend. Her friends had gotten hurt because her plan failed. They had no idea what they were walking into, and she had almost gotten them all killed because of it.

They just needed more time. More training.

The five of them started to limp back to the cave where the light from their torch had almost died out, when a bright light flooded the chamber. It came from behind them, and as they turned to look they saw an open door.

“That must be to the next level....” Adrien said softly.

Marinette looked at her Order, broken as they were, and made a decision. “Another time,” she said. “We’ve done enough for today.”

They still had to make it back and spread the word to the other players. A small smile fell on her face. They could give them this news, give them this hope.

* * *

“You did WHAT?” Dick’s voice cut across the room. Jason had returned to their base after dark, but he didn’t have much choice in the matter. He was tired from walking the entire trip and even more tired from the battle, so his pace on the return trip was a little lacking. But that didn’t mean Dick had to yell about it.

“I helped some people beat the first boss,” Jason shrugged. “I don’t see what the big fuckin’ deal is.” He put his pack down and grabbed some food from the counter.

Dick looked him over and, finding no major injuries, rubbed his hand over his mouth. “What part of ‘wait for recruits’ did you not understand?”

Ah yes, this again. He decided to tactfully dodge that shit. “I only meant to get a look at the boss. You know, do some reconnaissance and then report back? But a group was already there and fighting, and they needed help.”

“So you jumped in to help them?” Tim asked incredulously. “You? Mister Lone Wolf?”

“For fuck’s sake, they could have died,” Jason was getting annoyed now.

Dick gripped his shoulders. “So could you.” He glared as Jason pushed off the touch. “Look Jay, I know we don’t always get along, but I don’t want to... I can’t....” Dick hung his head. “Not again,” he said softly.

“Look,” Jason raised his hands in mock surrender. “I’m not looking to die anytime soon. Repeat performances were never really my thing,” he gave a crooked smile. “But I was fine. The monster couldn’t hold a candle against us.”

Dick didn’t look convinced. “Can you just... tell us the next time you go off on your own?”

Jason barked a laugh. “Not a chance.”

“You’ll give me gray hairs by the time I’m thirty...” Dick rubbed his temples.

“Then we’ll match,” Jason winked and ran a hand through his streak of white hair. Tim snickered and rolled his eyes. Bastard.

#healing hands #jasonette #sword art online au #virtual reality #maribat #maribat fic #batfam #batfam fic #yj robin #yj fic #young justice #young justice fic

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regulusfate · 3 years

Text

It Follows Us Home

I’m not entirely sure what this is but have some Rarry for the soul

word count: 1353

There’s a buzzing noise, and he doesn’t remember closing his eyes but he feels them flutter against his face, and a voice .. familiar , he liked it.

Ron.

“Hey come on , open those lovely green eyes of yours babe”

There’s a smile touching the corners of his lips, he can feel it, itching to curve upwards like one you cannot scratch away, and finds himself with a hum as his lips part to respond.

“It’s babe now is it?”

There’s concern, he notes a second too late, thick in the warm rasp of Ron’s voice, warm like the palm cupping against his face and he almost leans into it.

“Told you it’s the eyes”

“mmh .. ponds “

It slips out, ponds , and he has no idea why. But there’s a rumble close to his ear, a silent vibration he knew to be a chuckle, and something relaxed a little in the air.

“Yeah , I can practically see the fishes”

And Ron’s face is looming down, blinking brown the haze of his vision, freckles punching through the pale complexion and everything down to the way his eyes began to crinkle in the corners, inviting him in.

“No,” he mumbles, and his tongue feels dry, heavy in his mouth, as if he were to move the whole world would tilt and it would roll back into his head. “If anything it would be ducks”

Ron shifts with an eye roll, knee pressed into the grass and leaning backwards to slide against the base of a tree.

“Hope you don’t expect me to toss bread at you”

He muttered though he could catch the drifting humour in his words, Ron raked a hand through the strands of hair that now rolled past his eyes, pushing them off his face with a heaving sigh and Harry watched the rise and fall of his chest with some vigor. And some fear he can’t remember.

It hurts his eyes, the sun in the sky even as it drifts behind the clouds, but he hopes it won’t go, he doesn’t want to get cold.

“Shut up,” He grunted, and began silently wiggling his toes within his shoes. A meditation tactic actually, but one he found more useful when testing whether he’s still got all his limbs - and that was always a cause for concern.

Ron doesn’t move, his head pressed against the bark, staring pointedly up through the leaves that declared a small corner of his vision. Harry’s glad of that, and Ron knows it.

Declaring whether all his limbs were in tact took a little longer, around the warped pounding encroaching through his skin, like a knocking wall teetering on the edge of collapse. It occurs to him a moment later, he could’ve just asked, or indeed would most likely know by his friends expression whether nor not his leg was still attached, but it was silent agreement that he’d check anyway so what was the point.

“You’re the mother swan” he adds after a moment, like an afterthought he couldn’t quite trickle from his lips.

Ron snorts, as Harry begins to shuffle, and start his ascent upwards, using his elbows for support. The support is silently offered in a soft jerking movement of a lanky arm towards him, and he purposefully ignores it, gritting his teeth.

“I believe the term is mother hen,” there’s almost another smile, so Harry counts that as a win, watching those blue eyes shutter and fall tiredly in the shade. “And no I’m not.”

“Definitely a swan, bubs”

The world strings him along painfully, as his muscles burn with the pressure and he finally rights himself from the waist up. There’s a spinning sensation that overcomes his mind, and bubs feels thick on his lips, catching his throat. He takes a breath and tries not to throw up.

“Are you saying I preen?” There’s an incredulity to Ron’s voice, the exclamation ringing through the garden, an offence taken in his words even as a hand reached over to steady his shoulder and Harry couldn’t remember closing his eyes again.

“No”, he mumbled “I’m saying you’re .. feisty”

He tries to grin. He’s not sure he managed it.

“Watch I don’t hit you with one of my feathers, Potter.”

A warning, he knows that tone. It’s one that’s calling him, tugging him forward, making him listen, and he wants to sigh because another lecture is coming. He’s fed up with lectures. Or maybe he’s just fed up with people.

“Hey,” Ron starts, and this time he does sigh, but it comes out as more of a huff as he squints against the glaring sun. It’s promptly ignored.

“You’ve gotta stop-“

“You’re not my therapist-“

“‘Forgetting’ to care for yourself.”

Harry’s mouth closes with a click, because at least it wasn’t ‘ you’ve got to stop hiding away ! ‘ he wasn’t hiding, not really. He heard their whispers, like he was running away from something , as if he could ever run away. He never had that choice.

Besides, there was nothing to run from now. Only his dreams and that’s all they would remain, voldemort could no longer hurt them.

“You fainted,” Ron isn’t asking, but there’s still a blush rising to his cheeks despite that, as though they hadn’t seen each other in far more compromising positions. He wants to protest but he doesn’t know what to say.

So he focuses, and Ron is watching him too, with those crystal eyes and scar drawn lines, and his eyebrows are furrowed. It’s a little fuzzy, but he can see the crinkle of his skin drawn between his nose.

“Have you eaten? drunk?”

His voice is harsh, sharp, but not unwelcoming all the same. It’s tired, and Harry is so acutely aware of it all no matter how oblivious they think he is. He prefers to be in the garden, the house, it can be so stifling, there’s so much pain built up in the walls that would never be scrubbed out. He wonders sometimes if they can even feel it, because it’s their pain, it’s their pain , Ron , Hermione.

It’s fighting the urge to scream, the instinct to survive. To take their pain away some how. Sometimes, the war followed the home, and he wakes expecting to see little toy soldiers scattered about the yard. The dead comes in all forms.

Harry doesn’t want him to pry. It means opening woods where the flesh has not truly stitched in all of them. They think he’s not taking care of himself but he is , it's them he’s worried for.

“I was busy.” He responds shortly, feeling rather like a petulant child, but that thought reminds of Dudley so he pushes it away.

“What was so important that you-“

Burying the dead he wants to croak out. But the only dead were the flowers he’d been replacing.

“Gardening.” He sighs again, and there’s a noise, he finds Ron’s face again. His lips tremble and he’s moved closer, and Harry doesn’t like that but maybe it’s the voice sounding suspiciously like Mad Eye in his head going on about constant vigilance.

He lets the hand come, rest against the side of his face, fingers winding into the curls of his hair.

“I saw you lying ..” Ron muttered, and his voice is strained , coarse and shaking slightly “Your body was-“

He cuts himself off, and grips harder, lips coming to press on a tight line against Harry’s forehead. Against the scar, and it tingles a little in the way it always does when Ron touches it.

“I had toast.” He offers quietly, a compromise. Ron hums, throat bobbing softly and doesn’t move for a minute. Harry relaxes a little, his body slouching with clarity and drained, as Ron’s lips leave his skin his head folds into the crook of his neck. He likes the heat, the pressure of skin on skin, the palpitating reminder that they are alive, they are breathing, they are safe. They both do.

He likes the scent too, so undeniably Ron, that it is home all by itself.

“Good.” Ron answers roughly, clearing his throat as if to get up. But neither of them make a move towards the house, and they’re content for a little longer in the peace that surrounds them. Or as peaceful as one can be after all they had seen.

#rarry #ronarry #rarry fanfic #hp fandom #hp golden era #hp next gen #harry and ron #hp fanfic #I love rarry so much #i dunno if I like this #but also post war rarry is my favourite #they invented best friends to lovers trope

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clevercxs · 3 years

Text

Believer - Sigefrid Thurgilson [Ch 3]

[MORE CHAPTERS]

Pairing: Sigefrid Thurgilson x female oc

Word count: 7.5k ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)

If you read Sigefrid’s lines in his voice… *chef’s kiss*

_______________________________________________

By nightfall a blissful silence had bestowed itself upon the mead hall. After a night of revelation, the Danes were lulled off to sleep by the sound of rain drumming against the roofs of their homes. They dreamt of what fortunes awaited them come the day King Alfred and his men set foot in Beamfleot — a momentous occasion though dreaded by a certain Dane and his princess.

The sounds of their drunken snores were loud enough to wake the dead, had they not relished in horns of ale alongside the living, that is.

While vivid dreams of glory and great victories transpired beyond their wildest imaginations, Lady Blædswith was left wide awake to face the harshness of her reality.

If she had been born and raised as a Dane, worshiping Odin instead of God, such a celebration would have been a great honor. However, the princess’s ailments reminded her that she was no guest of honor, but rather a bargaining tool at Lord Erik and Sigefrid’s disposal.

Her ribs ached and groaned with each breath she drew; unsure if it would be her last. Her lungs, frail and winded, wheezed as if she’d inhaled plumes of smoke from the blacksmith’s forge. Her stomach growled like a ravenous hound starved from unsuccessful hunts despite the rations she was provided.

Her dirtied cheeks, stained with blood, sweat, and tears, were caressed by the emitted light of dancing flames, illuminating her pale skin with a golden hue of the gods. The tattered remains of her clothes hung off her limbs like those of a decaying corpse left to rot. She finger combed through the tangled knots and frayed ends of her hair, gagging in repulsion at the dirt and grime beneath her nails, and embedded in each crevice of her feeble hands.

King Alfred’s daughter looked, and felt, no better than a befouled slave girl.

Ghastly shadows were cast throughout the hall, dancing across the ceiling and hurdling over tables, chairs, and thrones alike. The shadows formed obscure shapes which taunted her weary mind, though not without providing her with a sense of calm; a distraction, even.

As her eyes adjusted, the fire became rather mesmerizing to watch; vibrant hues of yellows and oranges were a stark contrast from the cold, lifeless world around her.

For a brief moment she lost herself entirely. She was no longer a hostage, nor in any sort of discomfort. Her worries, her guilt and sorrowful prayers that went unanswered were no more. The rampant thoughts that coursed through her mind seemed to stop entirely.

The longer she gazed into the flames, the more her mind played devilish tricks on her...

Within the fire pit emerged a vague image of herself: fearless; unafraid and carefree. She wielded a blazing shield and longsword of fire, fighting alongside the Danes instead of against them. In the end they were victorious, as the sounds of bone-chilling battle cries echoed throughout Midgard; throughout her mind. Sigefrid jogged up to Lady Blædswith, wrapping not one but two hands around her waist, and spun her around before tightly embracing her warmth. The two of them pressed their foreheads together; thanking the gods, rather than her God, for sparing each others’ lives and guiding them to victory against King Alfred of Wessex…

“Agh! You are not real.” She growled in a panic, squeezing her eyes shut and tugging at the roots of her hair as tears dripped down her face. “That, that will never be real.” She gulped dryly, “Not for me.” The princess ran a clammy hand over her face and wiped away her resentful tears as new ones began to fall.

She wanted nothing more than to subside the affliction in her chest; within her aching heart that suddenly yearned for the impossible.

A throbbing pain surged through her shoulder once more, and reminded her of what she must do; the main reason she had sought to free herself from the cage that once confined her. A seething gasp escaped through her gritted teeth as she unwrapped her fur pelt and set it aside.

The princess found herself sitting on the long, rickety bench once occupied by the Thurgilson brothers. Her fingertips mindlessly traced over carved intricacies in the woodwork, stalling, until she felt the coolness of metal beneath her palm.

Taking the leather-bound handle in her firm grasp, she dipped the knife into the fire, watching as its blade glowed with an orange hue. Leaving it be, she ever so carefully tore away the rest of her blood stained blouse and fed it to the flames, pinching her nose at the foul smell of burning blood and sweat. With chills ripping through her exposed chest, she wrapped her arms around her core to preserve any remaining heat.

Out of the corner of her eye she saw something move beside the cage. Craning her stiff neck around, she surveyed the limp body of the Dane tasked with keeping a close watch over her as she slept. However, his own curiosities led him to an early demise, as he had ventured too close to the cage...

She was startled by the twitching of his leg; the toe of his leather boot seemed to repeatedly nudge one of the cage’s wooden panels.

Furrowing her bushy, unkempt brows, she steadily rose to her feet and tiptoed towards the guard to investigate while the knife heated up. When a couple of mice scurried out of his pant leg, Lady Blædswith nearly squealed like a pig, shooing them away before she could impale them, too, with the knife.

The mice found themselves inside her cage, willingly, as they sniffed around for leftover crumbs of bread.

Pressing a firm hand against her thumping chest, the princess sighed in relief that her foolishness hadn’t woken anyone up - and that the guard was, in fact, dead.

Kneeling beside the Northman she had slain, she retrieved a smaller blade from his pocket and began sawing off a piece of his leather armor. After all, what good was such armor to a dead man now enjoying the company of his gods, drinking ale within the Great Hall as beautiful valkyries fly overhead?

Surely, it would not be missed.

She then crawled over his lifeless, pale body and carved a sloppy ‘B’ into the side of his bearded cheek, before using the bars of the cage to get back on her feet.

Within her eyes was a hatred that burned brighter than the fiery depths of Hel. Lady Blædswith spat on his corpse and seethed,

“Te sunt a vili, preverted partem de stercore. Pedicabo ego vos!”

(“You are a vile, perverted piece of shit. Fuck you!”)

Making her way back to the fire, the bare-chested Saxon took a seat and braced herself for what would be the greatest test of courage and inner strength. Now biting down on the piece of leather, she retrieved the blade from the fire and took a deep breath.

Do it, God Damnit! Just do it!

Her stomach was in a queasy knot; her vision faded in and out of a blur the longer she waited.

Slowly, trembling, she raised the glowing knife to her gaping arrow wound and pressed it into her skin. The ungodly sound and putrid smell of her sizzling flesh caused her to dry heave. Her wailing sobs of agony were somewhat muffled by the coarse leather between her teeth...

She could taste hot, salty tears upon her lips as every tendon and muscle in her body strained and constricted in agony. Lady Blædswith, breaking out in a hot, sticky sweat, continued to force the blade against her skin until she could no longer handle it. When she had enough, the princess collapsed to the floor, gasping for air as she could feel herself suffocating.

“I-it’s almost over.” Lady Blædswith spat out the leather square and huffed convincingly with a breathy half-chuckle. “God damnit!” She writhed, instantly clutching a hand over her mouth to conceal her whimpers. “J-Just once more on the other side-” Just she began to hoist herself, unsteadily, back onto the bench - she stopped.

Frozen in time like a guilty thief caught in the act, she could hear a pair of quickening footsteps growing louder by the second. Snapping her gaze upright to the wooden balcony overlooking the hall, it was none other than a disturbed Sigefrid Thurgilson awoken from his much needed slumber like a bear out of hibernation.

“Dear God.”

Her hands briskly shot to cover either of her breasts as she scrambled for her pelt, immediately wrapping herself in it to preserve what remained of her modesty. Seemingly agitated, the eldest Lord of Beamfleot descended down the stairs like a bat out of Hell.

“S-Sigefrid.” She greeted nervously, not knowing how he would react to her newfound freedom. Her brown eyes were wide with sheer terror - that much he could see.

What were the odds that he of all people had heard her? Perhaps he was already awake, enjoying the company of a beautiful slave girl who, to some degree, reminded him of King Alfred’s daughter.

Sigefrid’s rather unkempt, bearded jaw had plummeted through the creaky floorboards revealing sharp rows of teeth. His dark and unruly brows were furrowed tightly together and turned upright with worry and utter confusion.

Except for a light cardigan over his arms and baggy pants hanging dangerously low on his pelvic bones, he too was without a shirt. His hand-blade, to no surprise, was strapped on tight and ready at his side.

“Lady-” Sigefrid began in a hurry, panning around the room until he spotted his most trusted hound gnawing on the cooked, severed arm of the guard he’d instilled to watch over her. “What… did you do?!” He cried in disbelief, now approaching the cowering Saxon who seemed worse for wear. “I… I heard your cries.” Frowning, Sigefrid took a light seat upon the furthest end of the bench after making sure she was out of harm’s way.

Ever so slightly pulling back the trim of her pelt, Lady Blædswith revealed her newly charred, cauterized shoulder and the haunting imprint left from the blade she used.

The princess watched as a look of horror overcame the Dane’s face, causing him to avert his gaze out of discomfort.

“My arrow wound became infected. It was slowly killing me so I… took it upon myself to handle it.” Peering over to the dead guard, she cleared her throat and attempted to justify herself, “Y-you should be grateful. After all, what good is a dead princess to a king? I-I had no choice but to save myself.”

The hound began coughing and heaving until it hacked up a whole finger by Sigefrid’s bare foot, only to be shooed away out of sheer disgust. Sigefrid then grumbled with a slight grin, “Damn dog.”

“Well, I had to keep him quiet somehow.” She shrugged, now lifting a hand to warm it by the fire while the other held her fur in place so she wouldn’t reveal herself. “He prefers his meat well done.” The princess teased lightly, only for Sigefrid to sternly furrow his brows and ever so slightly cock his head to the side out of concern. At first he was unable to see the humor behind it, but as moments passed he began to lighten up.

Eventually, the corners of his lips cracked into a bright, toothy smile. He couldn’t help but chuckle after realizing that she was, in her own way, just as crazy as he was.

“I…” Sigefrid sighed, shaking his head in defeat as his arms dangled between his knees. “I underestimated you. You are clever, Lady.”

After finding a sense of comfort within his soothing words, she simply nodded into the fire, “I am resourceful,” whilst mindlessly sliding the knife towards Sigefrid by its handle. “Take it. I no longer have use for Erik’s knife.” She couldn’t help but bite her tongue, knowing her emphasis on his brother’s name would likely cause trouble between them. Perhaps, even jealousy.

“Erik’s? How did you get my brother’s knife, thief?” Sigefrid roared like a mighty brown bear standing tall on his feet, all whilst nearly knocking the bench, and the princess sitting upon it, over out of anger. He found himself, now, towering menacingly over the princess. Sigefrid’s dark, piercing eyes searched her face for any signs of untruthfulness yet deep down inside, he knew better than to not believe her.

She felt as if her heart had been startled back to life, almost as if struck by a high voltage of electricity. His sudden outburst sent her entire body into a numb, temporary state of shock. Any regained color in her cheeks had been drained out of fear for what he intended to do to her.

Sigefrid inhaled and exhaled sharply through flared nostrils, scowling down at himself for acting so irrationally towards King Alfred’s daughter.

“How did you get his knife?” He slowly reiterated in a calmer, more civil manner before taking a courteous step backwards to distance himself.

“Well… when an opportunity unfolds before you like a blooming wildflower ripe for picking… you do just that. Pick it.” She narrowed her eyes and smirked wickedly. “And I am not a thief. Unlike you, I have never stolen-”

“Say what you must, Lady.” Sigefrid groaned impatiently, running a calloused hand over his reddened, sleep-deprived eyes. “Go on.”

“Erik gave it to me himself. It was wrapped in the fur pelt,” She flapped her elbows beneath said pelt, which remained draped over her shoulders. “The one he placed inside the cage.” She chuckled lightly, though found herself wincing at her shoulder.

“What I do not understand…” Sigefrid paused, crossing his muscular arms over his toned, exposed chest sprinkled with faded scars. He now found himself sitting closer beside her on the bench, conscious of the remaining space between them. “Why would Erik do that?”

The princess carefully shrugged. “Your brother knew I would surely make use of it. Whether on him, my guard, or… you.” She slowly cast her gaze towards the Dane through glossy lenses. Shaking her head with a frown, she shamefully looked down at her lap. “But I-I could not have killed you. Even if I wanted to. I have every reason to, but… I can not will it.”

“And if it is not by the will of the Gods,” He quirked an eyebrow, “then it was not meant to be.” She suddenly felt the warmth of his calloused hand caressing the side of her cheek, guiding her to face him once more. She traced small circles atop his rough knuckles and closed her eyes.

Sigefrid Thurgilson seemed unable to stop himself from rambling like a love struck boy, “I believe the gods intended for us to meet. I wish… under better circumstances.”

To Sigefrid’s surprise, he could feel her nodding along beneath his hand. “Your gods deserve my thanks, for they have nearly saved me from marrying a stranger. They have prolonged the inevitable; given me a few final days as a… somewhat free woman.” She sighed, gently removing his hand from her cheek though it remained within her grasp.

Sigefrid watched her every move through sparkling eyes with such awe.

Changing the subject, for better or for worse, the princess confessed, “The knife was likely to pick the lock. You have nothing to worry about, Lord.”

“Yet, you killed a man with it.” He sighed and narrowed his eyes, scrutinizing her every last word. “To get the key.”

“I did not need the key. Killing him was not my intention, truly… but he made it very easy.”

“You better start making sense, woman.” He growled as she witnessed his short temper, once more, getting the best of him. The scorching influx of pain from his cauterized hand likely contributed to his hot-headed irritableness.

One thing was for certain: It doesn’t take much to get on Sigefrid’s bad side.

Slamming her hand down on the bench between them, Lady Blædswith leaned forward and growled, “He opened the cage himself, with the bloody key, because he intended to rape me. Is that what you want to hear, Lord? How your brother saved my life, and that a man you so ‘trusted’ to protect me nearly got away with such an act?” She leaned in close to the dark haired Dane, “Ohh,” She chuckled bitterly and bore her fiery gaze into his now softening, brown eyes, “How it must burn knowing he nearly humped me before you could!”

Scowling down at himself, Sigefrid muttered, “He...he was not thinking...”

She scoffed, “There does not seem to be much of that around here, Sigefrid!” Wrapping both arms around her stomach beneath the pelt, she leaned back on her tailbone and took a deep, calming breath. With the shake of her head, her body seemed to melt to the bench beneath his gaze. “I am sorry. I did not mean to wake you-”

“Lady.” Sigefrid suddenly interrupted. “I should have been there. Not him. Me.” He pressed his thumb firmly into his chest. “I am the one who brought you here. You are mine. It will not happen again.” He leaned closer to her and placed a warm hand upon her tender shoulder, mumbling rather darkly through gritted teeth,“I swear it.”

“I believe you.” She replied softly, giving his hand a gentle squeeze as she shyly looked down upon their hands - which seemed to fit perfectly together like the long lost pieces of a puzzle. “Do not make me regret doing so.”

“You will not regret it, Lady.” Sigefrid nodded to himself and repeated firmly. “You... will… not.” Sigefrid gently gave her shoulder a squeeze, causing the princess to wince in pain. Immediately removing his hand, he sighed and muttered. “Right, right. I apologize...”

“I never thought I would live to see the day when I asked a Dane for help, but...” Lady Blædswith shimmied the pelt down to her waist, turning to show him the open wound on the back side of her shoulder where she couldn’t quite reach.

Sigefrid, understanding what she had asked of him, furrowed his brows and ran a quick tongue over his thin, pursed lips. Though he was apprehensive of causing her further pain, Sigefrid knew it needed to be done in order to save her most valuable life.

He had no problem inflicting pain on others, but her? It was almost unimaginable. Almost.

After all, as Lady Blædswith put it: what good is a dead princess?

“I will do it...” The Dane nodded, causing her to frown when he set Erik’s knife aside, and away from the fire. “...and I will be careful. You tended to my hand,” Sigefrid drew out slowly and lifted his hand-blade ever so slightly, “so I shall do the same, for you. I do not wish death upon you, Lady.”

“I do not wish death upon myself, either.” She teased, cracking an unusually wide smile that seemed to hatch butterflies within the Dane’s stomach. Unmistakably, she could feel the warmth of her flushed cheeks beneath his tender gaze.

The two stared into each other’s eyes as if longing for something greater; something mutually forbidden and seemingly unattainable. It was a brief moment, rarely even shared between wedded lovers. There they sat, enjoying the sound of the crackling fire and the comfort of each others’ presence. They were finally alone, with no Danes to judge them nor intrude on their subtle intimacies.

There was a comfortable silence between Saxon and Dane that just felt… right. And for the first time, the princess was able to admit to herself that she felt safe and out of harm’s way, though couldn’t help but wonder why he had rid of Erik’s knife...

It had pained Sigefrid, seeing the woman he had grown to admire in such discomfort and disarray. He yearned to rid her of her inner demons and the burdens she carried upon her aching shoulders. To see her restored to her fullest potential, fighting alongside him as the shield maiden she was born to be - now that would bring an everlasting smile to his face.

The two couldn’t be more different, yet they both wanted the same thing. They were opposite forces of nature capable of destroying the other, no different than fire and water.

She watched as Sigefrid rose to his feet, now passing by her hunched over form.

“You said I was ‘yours’. Did you mean that?”

“Yes.” He mumbled bluntly. “I did. I still do.” Sigefrid nodded subtly before instructing her to stand up, and reposition herself so that she was facing the main doors with the fire burning on her right. There she sat, anxiously waiting for his next cue, as she straddled the bench between her jittery legs and began tapping her toes against the wooden floorboards.

Looking down at her lap as Sigefrid’s shadow was cast upon the wall opposite of the fire, she watched out of the corner of her eye as he paced around the hall rolling up his sleeves and repeatedly, anxiously, stroking his beard.

What if I go too far? What if it kills her?

“And you still intend to give away ‘what is yours’ to my father?” She dared to ask, looking up as Sigefrid neared the bench once more after he’d convinced himself to cauterize her wound, therefore inflicting an excruciating pain onto someone who’d endured so much already.

“I… have no choice, Lady” He pouted, taking a close seat behind her on the bench. Carefully, he dipped his hand-blade into the fire. His left hand gently gathered handfuls of her soft, dark curls that draped down her back, and brought the lengths of her mane to the left side of her neck, out of his way.

As chills ran down her spine - quite literally - she peered over her shoulder at him and whispered, “That is a lie even you do not believe.”

Sigefrid exhaled slowly and brought his body closer to hers, slithering his hand past her waist from behind, now gently resting palm up on her thigh.

Filling the gap between their bodies, between their hips, Lady Blædswith pushed herself backwards until her shoulder blades bumped into his bare chest. She could feel his warm, seductive breath down her neck, though she couldn’t help but feel self conscious around him in her current state of filth.

“How can you stand to be this close to me?” Sheepishly, she took Sigefrid’s calloused hand between her own and gave it a squeeze. “I am a filthy, broken, hideously burnt… sorry excuse for a princess.”

“We are not so different, Lady. My hand was cauterized, not unlike your shoulder. I, too, am ‘hideously burnt.’” He teased lightly, though not without grinning ever down at himself. “Life will go on.” After receiving a sigh and nod of approval from a very grateful princess, Sigefrid lifted his glowing, sweltering hand-blade from the fire. He could feel her hands beginning to tighten around his like a boa constrictor, although he hadn’t yet touched blade to skin.

“This is the only way.” She hummed. “I trust you.”

And with that, the scorching blade of metal was forever branded into her skin, serving as a permanent reminder of how the Lord of Chaos, Sigefrid Thurgilson, saved her life once more.

Her blood curdling cries echoed throughout the hall undoubtedly waking everyone in earshot.

After what seemed like an eternity of suffrage, Sigefrid unbuckled his hand-blade contraption and tossed it to the floor, before allowing Lady Blædswith to fall back against his chest - one that was panting heavily and sticky with sweat. Sigefrid wrapped his strong arms around her waist, pulling her impossibly closer to his heart as she waited for the pain to go away, and her rapid heartbeat to steady.

With heavy arms draped over his, she gently began to interlock their fingers. Sigefrid, well aware of her affections, leaned forward and gently pressed his lips to the top of her head.

Wiping away new fallen tears with the backs of her knuckles, Lady Blædswith spoke softly, “Thank you.” she then sniffled, “You have done more for me than any man ever has.” Slowly reaching forward as goosebumps and the hairs on her arms began to raise, she pulled her pelt to her chest. With Sigefrid’s careful aid, in a matter of minutes, she was back on her wobbly feet.

“H-how can you look at me like that?” She wept quietly, burrowing her face within the fur.

“Like what?” Sigefrid, teasingly, hummed and tilted his head to the side as she swayed before him. “You are a beautiful woman. Is it wrong, for a man, to stare?” Sigefrid, whilst still supporting her weight, moved closer to face her. “You have not seen what I have. You are a shield maiden like no other. Your grace; your beauty. It is all still there.”

“How can you tell?” She whimpered, shaking her head in disagreement, as flattering as his words were. “Look at me!” She violently grabbed a fistful of tangled hair. “I-I look as if I belong on a slave ship, o-or amongst the livestock!”

“You are wrong.” Sigefrid challenged with a smirk, chuckling in response to the naive Saxon. “You will see, soon enough, what I have seen all along.” Sigefrid guided her back to the bench, where she willingly took a seat. He motioned for her to wait there, patiently, for his return. “Do not move.”

“Where would I go?” She muttered sarcastically.

When Sigefrid returned, accompanied by three heavily armored guards and a frightened slave girl trailing close behind, the princess immediately stood up, defensively, eyeing around for the nearest weapon-like object.

“W-what is this?” She stammered nervously, watching as the menacing Danes, whom Sigefrid had alleviated from their nightly duties, surrounded her on three sides. “Sigefrid?” Frightened, she could feel her voice waver as she realized she was sorely outnumbered. Sigefrid had the power and resources to do whatever cruelties he wanted to her, yet he lacked the will.

“Shh. You talk too much.” He grinned from ear to ear, then focused his attention to the surrounding Danes.

“I want her bathed, fed and watered.” Sigefrid ordered, receiving definitive nods from those he’d chosen. “Nothing is to happen to her. Understood?” He glared from Dane to Dane, narrowing his eyes at the familiar slave girl before addressing the princess’s escorts once more. “Do not disappoint me.” He warned sternly, emphasizing the grave importance of keeping the king’s daughter out of harm’s way, seeing as he failed to do so once already.

With a tight, supporting hand clutched to either of her elbows, she was practically carried through the main doors, unable to see past the towering Danes to where Sigefrid stood. He chose to remain inside, not wanting to overstep his bounds, and shortly after was accompanied by his sleep-deprived brother, Erik.

Once the doors closed behind them, and the princess was out of sight, Sigefrid sighed in relief knowing she was to be taken care of. He would rather have her bathing in the lake, now, during this unusually cold night, then under the morning sun where all eyes would undoubtedly be on her bare figure.

When the time was right, mutually, Sigefrid was to be the first and only Dane to lay eyes on her nakedness. Sigefrid believed her to be a gift sent to him from the gods, one he wasn’t too keen on sharing. Her purpose was not to be ravished and disposed of like a common whore, but loved and cherished; worshipped, even, like the goddess Sigefrid saw her to be.

“You care for her.” Erik grinned softly, placing a hand on Sigefrid’s shoulder as they stood staring aimlessly at the closed doors.

“I do.” Sigefrid was hesitant, though accepted that he couldn’t lie to himself, much less his own brother. “The gods have played a sick game.” Sigefrid growled, walking away from his brother as the nearest fire tempted him closer. Erik, knowing better than to leave his troubled brother’s side, followed in his footsteps and sat beside him, rubbing his hands together over the dimming flames.

“What will you do about Alfred?” Erik asked, pressing his elbows into his knees for support as he leaned forward. “You made a great promise.” Erik eyed his brother sympathetically. “Do you intend to keep it?”

Sigefrid sighed, and rested his drowsy face within his palm, “I do not know what to do. I grow more fond of her by the hour.” He admitted gravely, now teasing his bottom lip between his sharp teeth.

“What do you truly want, brother?”

“You know what I want.” Sigefrid snarled with a distasteful glare, almost offended that Erik didn’t know him better by now. “The leaves have already fallen. I need her ransom paid in full by winter’s end. An army by spring.”

“And a king’s crown by summer.” Erik chimed in, recalling the conversation they last had. “Are you sure of this?”

Sigefrid narrowed his brows and raised his arms slightly. “Sure of what?”

“That you are ready to let her go?” Erik, trying his best to comfort his eldest brother, could see the look of hurt upon his face, therefore in his heart.

Sigefrid closed his eyes, now fighting a bit harder to stay awake. “I am not ready. I will never be ready... to let her go. I will think of her every night in my sleep. I will see her face in every woman, Dane and Saxon. She is both.” Now staring into the flames, as his beloved princess once had, he tried to imagine the rest of his life without her.

No matter how hard he tried, he simply couldn’t.

“I will never be ready.” He grumbled to himself once more, turning to face his kind-eyed brother before standing up, reaching into his pocket, and retrieving Erik’s knife. Holding it out for him to take, Sigefrid spoke in a low, hurt tone, “I do not blame you.” Before retreating upstairs where he would impatiently wait for Lady Blædswith’s return.

Erik, twirling the stained knife between his fingers, could feel guilt gnawing at his insides. Sigefrid knew he didn’t trust him around King Alfred’s daughter, and that the knife was Erik’s way of looking out for her. Erik realized, now, that he no longer had to do so.

She was more valuable to Sigefrid than any amount of the king’s riches, regardless of the cold front Sigefrid put up. Judging by the way Sigefrid has already treated her, Erik knew his brother would do everything in his power to ensure her safety. Everything.

Even if it meant turning against his own people.

____________________ ➴ ____________________

The night air was crisp and unforgiving. The moon, in its fullest bloom, illuminated their way through the darkness. Venturing down a steep, well worn path towards the shore, the princess aimlessly followed the glow of a single torch like a moth drawn to candlelight.

The trio of Danes waited atop a low, grassy hill, allowing the timid slave girl to lead Sigefrid’s pet the rest of the way down. Compliant to their Lord’s orders, the men turned their backs whilst the king’s daughter undressed, though not without sneaking quick glances over their shoulders with wirey, toothless grins.

Once the slave girl had staked the torch into the damp earth near the water’s edge, creating a dimly lit aura of light around them, she apprehensively stepped towards the shivering Saxon. Her hand, as it reached out to take Lady Blædswith’s fur pelt, trembled out of fear of mistreatment from her Lord. She was, very obviously, under tremendous pressure to please him. Her small, childlike hands were even dirtier and more bruised than the princess’s own.

With her arms folded tightly against her breasts, the princess tiptoed into the cold lake water, feeling it seep into the soles of her feet, then up her calves as she waded on. A light mist sprinkled on the tops of their heads, and a deceitful breeze often toyed with the princess’s remaining warmth.

Her arms were rough with prickly goosebumps as she descended beyond the shadowy waters, clenching her jaw and fists tightly as her teeth began to chatter like rattling bones. She began to adjust, very uncomfortably, to the lake’s frigid temperature.

There had been no words exchanged between princess and slave — for there was nothing to say. Lady Blædswith’s hot breath, like a dragon’s own, escaped through her chapped lips as did steam rising from her core.

The slave girl, fully clothed yet up to her shoulders alongside her, had dunked a piece of cloth and a metal bucket beneath the water. “I-it is time for me to bathe you, princess. Before we both freeze.” She practically whispered through a thick, Scottish accent that didn’t go unnoticed.

It had pleasantly reminded Lady Blædswith of a certain Irishman back home.

Sigefrid’s slave averted her gaze from Alfred’s daughter out of respect; out of fear, even. Lady Blædswith noticed this, and frowned before closing the distance between them. The young, blonde haired girl began to wash the princess’s lovely figure, mindful of her various bruises and fractured bones.

“You need not fear me.” She soothed motherly, feeling chills ripple through her entire body as the breeze began to pick up. “I will not let anything happen to you... as long as I am here. You have my word.” The blonde looked up at the Saxon, eyes sparkling with tears though her lips curled into a tight smile.

“T-thank you, Lady.” She humbly nodded, now tilting the princess’s head back before pouring a bucket of fresh water over her thick, curly locks. With their backs to the entirety of Beamfleot, Lady Blædswith couldn’t help but gaze into the distance, watching ripples along the water’s surface reflect the moon’s vibrant rays.

The bashful, fair-completed princess

smiled. “You may call me Blædswith. What is your name?” She asked the beautiful slave out of curiosity, and by the surprised look on her face, she was the first person in a long time to ask such a thing. The girl hesitated, almost as if struggling to recall what she had once gone by, rather than the cruel insults she was called on a daily basis.

“My name is Moira, Lady.” She then squeezed her eyes shut and corrected, “Blædswith.” She hummed as she worked her way around the princess’s grotesque, multicolored torso. “I have not been asked that in some time…”

“Tell me, Moira... what is Sigefrid like? You have certainly known him longer than I have.” Blædswith grinned as Moira began to scrub the dirt from her hands and face. Though reluctant, Moira felt the princess deserved to know the truth, seeing as her Lord had taken a particular liking to her in light of recent events.

“Lord Sigefrid is… an ambitious man.” She shook her head grimly. “He gets what he wants, n-no matter the cost.” Moira sighed to herself, almost shamefully. “If I am being honest…”

“Please, do.”

“He does not think with his head. That is what Erik is for.” She tapped a finger to her own scalp. “He thinks with his cock. Well, he did… until he found you. Now I’d say things are different.” Moira rang out the cloth and used it to gently dry the princess’s face. “It is no secret how he feels about you, Lady.”

“He has been rather kind to me. I even sat bare chested before him and he did not touch me. Perhaps he does not wish to.” She shrugged.

Moira couldn’t help but grin. “I can assure you, he would very much like to. Any man with eyes would.” She then rubbed down the princess’s chest, adding, “After all, you are Alfred’s daughter.”

“Sweet Moira.” Blædswith chirped and brushed a loose curl from the slave’s face. “What... if I were to live here? You could tend to me, only, and I would care for you.” She could see herself and Moira living together almost as sisters, if not like mother and child - despite her being a slave. She felt drawn to protect such an innocent soul who, despite being sold into slavery, seemed nothing but kind and gentle. “I would protect you.”

Caught off guard, Moira nearly burst into tears of joy, turning away before Blædswith could notice. “I… I would be grateful to serve you, Lady of Wessex.” She then looked up at Blædswith with a slight frown, “Or, would you be Lady of Beamfleot?”

“I would simply be Blædswith. No titles, if I could help it.” She shrugged, and once her shoulder and the rest of her body had been washed ever so carefully, Blædswith was instructed to stay in the water whilst Moira retrieved her fur. “Do not be long!” She called after Moira light-heartedly, having thoroughly enjoyed her company thus far and did not wish to go without it.

Aside from the Thurgilson brothers, this poor slave was all she had.

As Blædswith mindlessly overturned rocks with her toes and sliced through the still lake water with her hands, she’d become one with nature’s tranquility in waiting for Moira’s return.

“Sorry for the wait, Blædswith.” A distant voice rang out from beyond the darkness, though Moira was not yet visible. “Dagfinn hid your pelt in the bushes hoping to see you na-”

Moira had stopped dead in her tracks, her vibrant blue eyes wide with sheer terror as she dropped the pelt at her feet. A thick, crimson stream oozed down her mouth as she began to gurgle and choke on her own blood. Before Blædswith could react fast enough, or at all, Moira’s eyes rolled back into her head as her knees gave way, causing her body to limply topple over, revealing Hæsten with a bloodied dagger in hand and a devilish glint in his khol-smeared eyes.

“Princess.” The Dane greeted wickedly with a haughty, half-assed bow.

As he stepped out of the shadows and into the moonlight, seeming unable to stand completely still due to the excessive horns of ale he’d downed, he let out a low chuckle before walking across Moira’s body like a bridge, wiping his muddied boots against her back. Blædswith could hear the crunching of her frail bones beneath his heavy boots.

“No!” Blædswith wailed, immediately back stroking to distance herself from the drunken Dane who began stumbling towards her. As much as it pained her to do so, her arms began flailing in and out of the water in a panic. “Y-you bastard! She was just a girl!” Blædswith shrieked, unable to stop herself from hyperventilating as she swam further and further away from shore out of fear he would try to drown her, or worse.

Hæsten could see she was very naked, and very much afraid. “Ah yes. But she was a girl you cared for.” Hæsten then placed the tip of his dagger to his lips as if telling Blædswith to hush; as if saying “there is no point in screaming when nobody will hear you.”

As loud as she physically could, Blædswith began calling out for help; for her designated guards to defend her against such a creature bearing ill intentions.

They were nowhere to be found.

“You will freeze to death, princess.” Hæsten began walking along the water, now up to his ankles. “You can not stay out there forever.” He began to twirl the dagger between his fingers before wiping the remaining blood on his sleeve. “What a shame.” The blonde Dane looked over his shoulder at the crumpled body he’d slain. “She was a good hump.”

“Sigefrid!” Blædswith cried once more, “Sigefrid! Erik! Please! H-hear me!” The princess realized she’d swam out far enough that her toes no longer touched the bottom - they were not even close - therefore her voice would likely never penetrate Beamfleot’s walls.

“Sigefrid can not hear you. He is busy planning how to sell you back to Alfred.” Hæsten sneared, “And he has decided not to give me any of the silver.” His tone was rather accusatory as if she were to blame. “And do not forget; you humiliated me.” He proceeded to near the princess, the water now up to the soaked knees of his trousers.

“Hæsten. Sigefrid will never forgive you.” She warned breathlessly, feeling the cold waters numb her tender arms and legs. Her bruised, aching lungs felt impossibly heavier as she fought to keep her head above water. “Please,” she gasped, spitting out a mouthful of lake water. “Don’t. If this is about silver, I-I have plenty in Wessex.”

“I do not want your silver, nor Sigefrid’s forgiveness. I want you to suffer for what you did to me. You ruined me, woman!” Hæsten roared drunkenly, nearly falling over on his arse though he regained his composure.

“Anybody! Help!” She wept, forcing her body to stay afloat as long as she could.“Sigefrid…” Completely winded and moments away from slipping into the night, her voice had fallen to a mere whisper at the acceptance of her fate.

If she were to die tonight, it would not be at Hæsten’s hand. She would not grant him such pleasure; the satisfaction in knowing he’d gotten what he wanted. If anything, it would be the water’s icy depths that would take her to the great beyond — The Great Hall of Valhalla.

She could feel a dark shadow cast from above, as if the moon itself had already shut her out.

“S-Sigefrid I… I’m not ready…”

There was a large splash in the near distance. An eruption of violent yelling rang out in the night, as did the sounds of metal clashing upon metal. Though muffled, she could make out the loud, rhythmic grunting of someone swimming towards her. A pair of strong arms hoisted her above the water, throwing her good arm over their shoulders as they proceeded to swim her back to shore.

“S-Sigefrid!” Blædswith, once conscious, gasped as she recognized the dark haired Dane who so valiantly came to her rescue. “Sigefrid you heard me…” She slurred out of shock and disbelief. After swimming them to shore, he carried her out of the water and wrapped her entire body in an oversized fur.

“I did.” He nodded windedly, pulling her against his chest for comfort; his and hers. “I heard your cries, and I was there as fast as I could.” Sigefrid leaned his head back and caressed the side of her pale cheek with his hand. His sorrowful, glossy eyes scanned over her face as his voice faded to a boyish whimper. “I thought I lost you.”

Sniffling, she shook her head and burst into tears of joy; of relief, and pressed her pruny hand against his cheek with a weak smile. “I’m here, Sigefrid. I-I’m alive.” Almost instantly, she could feel her body regaining its heat, though that didn’t stop her from shivering in his grasp.

“This,” Sigefrid shook his head and panned around the scene, where four dead bodies now littered the shore. “This is all my fault.” He then gritted his teeth and cursed at himself beneath his breath. “I let you down. I did not protect you, I,” He paused to run his hand over his beard. “I can no longer trust anyone…”

“Sigefrid, please.” She placed a calming hand to his chest, now standing on her toes to look him in the eye. “This is not your fault. But if it must be, then I forgive you.”

“How?” Sigefrid himself began to fight back tears of his own. “How can you forgive me? Tell me. I am not worthy of your-”

Blædswith cupped the back of Sigefrid’s neck and crashed her lips onto his unexpectedly, smiling into it as Sigefrid hungrily kissed back. She could feel the sweetness of passion; a million loving thoughts condensed into a single moment. Sigefrid and Blædswith were undeniably their most vulnerable selves.

It was as if time had collapsed into one tiny speck, then exploded at the speed of light. Her universe began and ended with him. As they embraced once another, the world - Midgard - seemed to halt on its axis. There was no time, wind, nor rain. There was no fear of what their futures entailed; no physical pain nor sorrows.

Lady Blædswith was, truly, at peace.

She did not worry about what this would mean for them; A fearsome northman had fallen for the Saxon daughter of his sworn enemy, and a princess had fallen in love with the Dane who kidnapped her. This would not be something either side takes lightly.

Sigefrid supported her lower back with his arm as she leaned against his bare chest. When their lips parted Blædswith whispered breathlessly,

“You talk too much.”

Sigefrid leaned down and placed a soft, prickly-bearded kiss to her lips once more as he tangled his hand through her wet hair.

He then whispered in her ear with a growing smirk, placing a hot kiss to the side of her neck as his thumb moved to cares her throat.

“I thought that was my line.”

_______________________________________________

A/N: I Hope you all enjoyed this longer chapter! If anyone would like to be added to the tag list, let me know :)

TAGS: @inforapound @cheapcakeripper @wildwren @metall-and-dust @eclipsedbymyheart @henrycavill19 @aesirharvorsson @finantheagile @onesaltyhunter @wessexcrown @destinysall @lauwrite1225 @lumxnously @chlomidgard @dagonet-ironside @marv-llous @littlebirdgot @curlyrat

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rextasywrites · 3 years

Text

Little Darling 5 - a Lady Dimitrescu x Mia Winters fanfiction

"Mia’s throat felt rough and sore, as if she had caught a cold. Her eyes felt swollen, a good hard cry had probably been the source of it. But when did she cry? Slowly, her vision came back, and she was back in the room she had spent the night in. To her surprise, Bela was standing in a corner, watching her with concerned eyes. “Mother told me to watch over you while she prepares something for you.”, she told the still confused Mia."

does Lady Dimitrescu finally show her real self? how does Mia cope with all the stress of the past few weeks?

thank you all for reading this series! it keeps me excited and on my toes to write for you! if you ever have any ideas or requests, you can hmu on twitter and tumblr under @ rexytasywrites ! love yall <3 <3 <3

Warnings: mental illnesses deluxe

Part 1 Part 2 Part 3 Part 4

Mia couldn’t stand the basement much longer. With a broken ‘sorry’, she ran to the staircase, up and into the garden close by, dry heaving against a thousand years old tree. The more things change, the more they stay the same. Mia couldn’t escape the past as much as she tried to tune it off, try to forget it.

On a good day, she woke up with a nightmare while Ethan was snoring soundly next to her. Well, he wasn’t locked in a basement for three years. She acknowledged his scars and his own trauma, but it pale to what Eveline did to the Bakers and her. Alan was a lucky guy, noping out the world before he could experience the pain and dread, getting away with a blue eye and vomiting his guts out.

On a bad day, Mia couldn’t leave the bathroom for hours. She felt the mold growing under her skin, turning her skin black and blue. It grew through her stomach into her throat, weak attempts to purge it out resulted in even more pain. Ethan always stayed by her side when she had a bad day, telling her that her skin wasn’t turning into all colours of the rainbow. Most of the time, her trustful pills helped her, the dizziness clouding her mind just good enough to let her forget what happened.

Ever since, Mia couldn’t eat meat anymore. It reminded her too much of the ‘food’ she had to eat in the basement, forced down her throat by Marguerite. Food poisoning was a monthly event she never looked forward to. Only thanks to Eveline, Mia didn’t perish a few months in. On one side, this monster saved her life - and that was the price?

“Mia.”, Lady Dimitrescu had shown up behind her, concern and worry radiating from her. “Mia, speak with me. What’s the matter?”

“The mold. I can feel it. It’s still growing. Oh Alcina, help me please!”, Mia whimpered out, burying her face in the dress of the tall woman in front of her. Cold tears soaked the fabric, and everything went black in front of Mia’s vision.

Mia’s throat felt rough and sore, as if she had caught a cold. Her eyes felt swollen, a good hard cry had probably been the source of it. But when did she cry? Slowly, her vision came back, and she was back in the room she had spent the night in. To her surprise, Bela was standing in a corner, watching her with concerned eyes. “Mother told me to watch over you while she prepares something for you.”, she told the still confused Mia.

“Thank you…”

“There’s a glass of water on the bedside table. And some painkillers. Selfmade by Daniela! Don’t take too much or you will be high as hell for the rest of the day.”, Bela warned her, a chuckle coming from Mia.

“I actually wouldn’t mind that. Hey, I have another medication in my bag. Can you maybe fetch it for me?”, Mia asked Bela as she didn’t trust her legs just yet. Bela looked through Mia’s bag and found the package with zoloft in them, handing it to her.

“Do you need anything else?”

“Something small to eat, otherwise my stomach will turn itself over.”

Bela nodded and disappeared for a few minutes out of the room. She came back with something similar to a bread roll with ham and cheese, probably the romanian version of it. Screw it, everything was a good meal compared to the toxic waste she got at the Baker’s house. Once Mia bit into the bread roll, she remembered that she hadn’t eaten yet and her stomach screamed for something to eat.

Lady Dimitrescu joined Mia after finishing her meal, sitting on the edge of the bed, “How are you feeling, dearest? While you cried into my arms you passed out! I was so worried about you.”

Mia chuckled in embarrassment, a faint blush spreading over her face, “I am feeling better now, thank you. Bela made me a good sandwich, I should thank her for this later on.”

“Here.”, Lady Dimitrescu placed a little bag in Mia’s palm, making her close her fingers around it. “When I was young, my mother made me little bags of lavender, camille and jasmin. I was a nervous child, and these smells helped me calm down. Whenever you are feeling angry, exhausted, or simply alone...smell the bag and know I am here for you when you call me.”

“Wow...thank you Alcina.”, Mia smiled and took a whiff from the bag. It surely smelt...comforting. The smell gave her body the same reaction as a good hug. And how badly she needed some comfort and touch… “You need to know, sometimes when it all becomes too much...my body just shuts down.”, Mia confessed, her eyes still on the bag. “I just pass out. Maybe it’s my body’s way of protecting me? I don’t know.”

“It is. Your body knows you are a precious woman with a bright future ahead of you. And I will help you achieve that.”, Lady Dimitrescu said, earning a raised eyebrow from Mia.

“What do you mean, Alcina?”

“Don’t you think we’d make a great team? My daughters, you, I...you are brilliant and clever. Just the missing link for us to make us unstoppable. Remember what you said about taking over the world? We could do that together...and nothing and no one could stop us once we saved Rosy and killed Redfield.”

For a moment, the lump in Mia’s throat felt like it was going to explode. What...what did she mean with that? Work together? Would she try to turn her into a vampire too? “I...I don’t know if that’s a good idea! I just want my old life back! I want to go home with Ethan and Rosy and cuddle in front of the TV while eating junk food…”, as the tears welled up in her eyes. She’d never come home at this rate. The closer Mia thought she was coming to a home, the further it was ripped away from her.

“It’s okay. Just...keep that in the back of your head. It’s always an option. And now come on. We need to make a battle plan to get Rosy back and Ethan out of whatever dumbassery he got himself into.”, but Lady Dimitrescu couldn’t deny that Mia smelt very invitingly. A neck to dive right into. Maybe she’d take her chance...

#lady dimitrescu #mia winters #resident evil #resident evil 8 #resident evil village

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whump-town · 4 years

Text

Psych 101

Defiance • Struggling • Crying

(Warning for language, torture, drugs, and just bad guy things)

The Hotch telling the team he loves them while being forced to shoot Garcia story

Waking up in his pajamas, strapped to a wooden chair, and surrounded by his friends… Reid doesn’t know what’s happening but he knows it’s not good. “Guys,” he whispers, fear creeping up his sternum. He peaks over his shoulder, leaning forward to see down the line of people. Morgan is to his immediate right, beside him his Garcia. On his left, it runs Emily, JJ, and Dave. “Morgan?”

The older agent lifts his head, eyes peeling open slowly. He can feel the sedative still working through his body but as awareness creeps in, his mind clears. “Reid,” he croaks, rubbing his chin against his shoulder-- his bare shoulder. He looks down and frowns when he realizes he’s sitting in boxers he’d worn to bed and nothing else. “Kid?”

“Oh fuck me!”

Reid and Morgan lean forward, catching the eyes of the very pissed Emily Prentiss. Well, it’s not hard to put two and two together here. She’s clearly not pleased about her dressing arrangements either. She’s got a shirt on even if it’s twisted beneath her and showering the ling of her underwear.

She gets over it fairly quickly when she’s able to see everyone. No, not everyone. “Where the hell is--”

They flinch as a sudden light comes on overhead. It’s bright and a broken kind of yellow tint that sinks into everything. More importantly, it puts Hotch right in front of them. He hadn’t been spared in the clothing of choice either. His green boxers are rolled up his thighs, his legs limply splayed out. The white shirt he customarily wears to bed is sitting on the ground at his feet. Having been pulled off to attach the heart monitor leads to his chest.

“Fuck… Hotch?” Emily mumbles. They’re all grappling to take this to the best of their abilities. It’s bad enough they’re tied down but… There are two bags of something clear hanging above Hotch’s head. It’s snaking into the back of his hand and judging from the light trail of drool and just how limp he remains while they sit up and become aware, it’s not good. “This is gonna suck.”

A large door hidden by the shadow of where the light doesn’t go, the UNSUB steps in. “You can say that again, Agent Prentiss.”

The power in the tone and statement are fairly lost as Garcia comes in, held by her elbow in the UNSUBs tight grip. “Honestly, your professionalism sucks complete--” Garcia stops when she sees them. She pales and her gaze nervously shifts between them until it lands on Hotch. A wall comes down and she scowls at the UNSUB. “If you’ve touched a hair on my bossman’s head, I’ll--”

The UNSUB pulls a gun from behind him, tucked into the back of his pants, releasing Garcia and stepping to Hotch. He presses the metal to Hotch’s temple, pushing Hotch’s head upright and smiling when Hotch remains limp and leaning into the metal. He smiles, “you’ll what? Huh? You’ll kill me?” He grips Hotch by his dark hair, lifting his head and making sure the other’s can see. “You can try but it won’t be before I kill him.”

He rolls his eyes, shaking his head as he releases Hotch.

They wince when Hotch’s head falls back and cracks against the table behind him. A sickening crack filling the air before Hotch breathlessly grunts in pain.

“Sit down,” the UNSUB points to a spare chair. It’s like he isn’t even bothered with her. He doesn’t say a word or even give her anything to bind herself to the chair with. His first and fatal mistake.

The UNSUB goes the tray pushed up against Hotch’s chair. It’s a sophisticated setup and surely someone’s noticed this equipment is missing. It helps that he has to be trained for some of this. So many bread crumbs… someone has to catch on.

From her spot Emily can see everything the UNSUB is doing. Watching him produce a needle and a bottle of medicine, her heart leaps. “Hey!” Emily shouts, her mind reeling as the UNSUB draws the clear liquid into the syringe. “What are you doing,” she kicks out at her chair. She’s not sure what that is or who he’s going to give it to but she knows it’s not good.

The UNSUB’s face darkens but he doesn’t look up from what he’s doing. “I’d stop all that nonsense, Emily.” He glances up at her, “one too many milligrams of this stuff and I’ll stop his heart. Now,” he says, “we wouldn’t want me to miss calculate would we?” He smiles when Emily stops. He pulls the syringe out and presses it into the port on Hotch’s hand. “Wakey, wakey Aaron.”

They all watch in silent horror as the medicine takes effect.

Hotch groans, shifting as he grows more and more uncomfortable. The heart monitor doesn’t sound off through the room but that doesn’t mean they can’t watch Hotch’s heart rate get dangerously high. His hands tremble where they remain in the binds, his face pinching in pain. He makes a soft choked noise and his chest stops rising with his breathes. His head falls limply to the right.

Dave curses in Italian, the sound of his deep voice enough to make the other’s flinch. “You bastard! You’ll kill him!” Dave falls silent as Hotch’s eyes crack open, his pale chest heaving as a thin layer of sweat spreads over his skin. “His vascular system is compromised! He can’t take too much stress,” Dave says, much of his previous fight gone as just how off Hotch looks. “His heart can’t take it. You’ll kill him.”

The UNSUB disregards Dave entirely. He steps up to Hotch, cupping his cheek and directing Hotch’s empty gaze to himself. “Are you with us, Aaron?” His cheek is cold and damp against the UNSUB’s palm. His bloodshot eyes are far off and unfocused.

Hotch feels a million miles away from his body. Through half-lidded eyes, he can see Reid. He feels an instant relief as he slowly recognizes each person before him. The team’s here, he sighs, everything’s okay.

“Aaron,” the UNSUBS calls again. Slowly Hotch’s eyes move over and look at him. “There you are. How do you feel?”

Hotch shivers, trembling as his body works through the drugs in his system. He’s not present. His mind is clouded by the number of drugs in his system. What he knows is that he can see the team before him and the man beside him is his therapist: John. While his heart beats so fast that it makes his chest ache and his body feel eerily cold, he trusts John and the team.

“My mouth’s dry,” he slurs softly. He struggles to bite down against the need to whine out the statement. To make it clear just how uncomfortable and poorly he feels.

The UNSUB nods his head and steps back, grabbing a bottle of water and carefully moving it to Hotch’s pale, chapped lips.

The whole display-- the soft, nearly kind way that the UNSUB is treating Hotch is startling. It’s even more unsettling.

“Look at your team, Aaron.”

Hotch’s heavy eyes move over to them. He’s told John a lot about them.

John smiles at the team, eyes moving over them one by one. “I want you to tell them how you feel,” John directs. “Tell them the truth,” John whispers, a malicious grin spreading across his lips. “Tell them how much you hate them. How you hate the team and everything they stand for.”

Hotch’s face pinches in confusion. He shakes his head. “No,” he groans, weakly pulling at the ropes keeping his arms securely bound to the chair he’s occupying. He lets out a soft sob, unable to control his emotions with the pain and exhaustion wearing him down. The drugs doing their job. Something has to be wrong. “I don’t hate them.” He shakes his head, voice cracking, “don’t. I don’t.”

The UNSUB grabs him by the back of the hair, jerking his head back.

Hotch lets out a soft whimper when the back of his sore head hits the chair. Tears flow over his cheeks, his confusion evident in the clear fear in his eyes as he looks at John. “Please,” he rasps.

Seeing Hotch’s tears, Morgan’s anger overflows. “Son of a bitch,” Morgan curses, hitting his hand against the arm of his chair. “Leave him alone!”

The UNSUB points the gun at Morgan, a silent threat. The two holding eye contact until Morgan bites his tongue and averts his eyes.

John turns his head back to Hotch. “Yes, you do, Aaron,” he croons. He trails the gun down Hotch’s naked chest. “They left you after Foyet,” he reminds Hotch. “They let Haley die.” He pushes the gun against one of the scars on Hotch’s chest. One left by Foyet. “Tell them, Aaron.” His temper is making itself known as he digs the gun’s tip into Hotch’s side until he grunts. “Tell them how you hate them!”

Hotch can’t manage to force any words out. He just weakly shakes his head, crying. He doesn’t understand what’s happening. It’s all too much. He’s cold and he doesn’t feel well and he doesn’t understand why no one’s helping.

“Tell them!” The UNSUB shouts. He draws back and hits Hotch across the face. He’s quick to move, aiming the gun back at the team when there’s a unanimous wave of outbursts.

Dave’s voice cuts clear the best. “Listen,” his voice wavers. His eyes are darting between Hotch and John. “Why are you doing this? You’re clearly upset. What---”

The UNSUB points the gun at Dave, deep voice burning in his chest as he grits out, “don’t.” He steps away from Hotch, attention diverted. “He needs to say. He needs to admit it or he’ll never get better!” His entire body shakes as he bites out that last word, making them jump back.

He shouts in fury, throwing his head back. “Fine,” he comes back down and looks down at them. “I’ll do it myself.”

Walking over to Hotch he carelessly rips a knife through the zip ties holding his bleeding wrist down. With a sharp pull that rips the IV from Hotch’s hand, Hotch let’s out a stifled shout. “Up,” he commands, pulling Hotch onto his feet with a rough arm looped under Hotch’s shoulder. They stand in front of the others for a moment. Hotch sways and leans into John, too weak to hold himself upright. John takes his time moving his gun down the line until he settles on Garcia and with a smile says, “come here.”

Garcia stands, looking to the others for some guidance. She’s choking back a sob when Morgan starts to thrash, hitting and making as much noise as possible. “No!” He cries, “no, baby girl. Come back here. Sit down! Don’t go to him! You stupid son of a bitch, if you hurt her I’ll kill you!”

The UNSUB it too delighted with his new plan to ever validate Morgan when a response. “Kill her,” John whispers, taking Hotch’s weak shaking hand into his own. He wraps Hotch’s long fingers around the hold, guiding it upright so Garcia’s at the end. “Go ahead, Aaron.”

Hotch can’t even hold his arms up. His body screams in agony as he stands and he wants to pull away but he can’t. He doesn’t know what to do.

Garcia sobs. “Oh please, sir.” She can’t even bother to wipe away the mascara running down her face. “I love you, Hotch. I’m your friend.”

Hotch’s knees give out from beneath him. John wraps his arm around Hotch’s hip and holds him upright. A single tear falls down Hotch’s cheek, as he wracks his mind for what to do. The obvious choice is to shoot Garcia. He thinks. Shooting Garcia… no, that’s wrong. He’d hurt and he doesn’t want to hurt Garcia. She’s never hurt a soul in her life.

With a shaky sigh, he knows what to do. He pulls in a breath and pushes with all his strength up onto his legs. Arching his back he throws John off and from there’s practiced ease. Two shots mid-center.

“Hotch!”

The world spins as he remains in place, his head blurring. His eyes have already rolled into the back of his head before his body hits the ground. Body pushed past its breaking point, the cocktail of messy drugs in his system, and hurting he starts to seize.

Garcia struggles to get them out of the chairs, torn between Hotch and the team. The team she needs fast access to. Besides while seizing she really shouldn’t touch Hotch to much. Pushing into the rescue position she has to leave him to get the others.

“Time,” Emily calls out to Reid.

“Fifty-four seconds. On average, most acute seizures stop at this point.”

But Hotch’s doesn’t.

The first thing that Dave does when he’s free is lift Hotch’s head from the floor and place it in his lap. Working his hands through Hotch’s cold-sweat soaked hair, he whispers to him in Italian. Soothing him through it. “That’s my boy,” he says, his own eyes tearing up as Hotch whimpers and cries. “You’re okay. I’ve got you.”

“One minute, thirty-seven seconds.”

Hotch’s seizure stops exactly thirteen seconds later.

Gently patting at his cheek, JJ leans over his shoulder and calls his name. Trying to rouse him. “Hotch,” she calls.

Emily leans down, roughly pushing at his cheek. “Get up, Hotch. You’re not quitting on us yet.”

Hotch groans, moving his head away from her hand. “Not,” he grumbles, opening two bloodshot eyes and shooting her the best scowl she can manage at the moment. He looks around at the other’s gathered around him. Each going through a different stage of working off their anxiety. Morgan is sitting back on his thighs, rubbing two hands down his face and Dave is mumbling a prayer to himself.

“Don’t hate you,” he croaks, softly.

JJ reaches down, soothing the tear that runs down his cheek. “We know,” she promises.

He turns his head into her palm. His body feels so heavy and he knows it’s the drugs. “ ‘s good.” But he’s struggling to fight his exhaustion.

JJ presses a kiss to the top of his head. “We love you too.”

Hotch feels his left hand being squeezed gentle before several other voices softly agree. His eyes move around the room until he spots Garcia. With a small grunt, he manages to move his head better to see her. “Sorry if I scared you,” he whispers, throat raw and body rapidly shutting down.

Garcia steps closer to him and he can feel her hand on his, squeezing. “Don’t be silly,” she says. “I have complete trust in you, sir.”

Hotch smirks. Unable to keep his eyes open any longer with Dave’s hand resuming its soothing trip through his hair and Emily and Garcia’s tight grips on his hand. He caves to the drugs and falls into the painless heat. Trusting that when he wakes up he’ll be home.

#criminal minds #criminal minds fanfiction #aaron hotchner #david rossi #penelope garcia #jennifer jareau #jennifer jareua #derek morgan #spencer reid #emily prentiss #whumptowninwhumptober #hotch whump

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peachnewt · 4 years

Text

Layla’s Spool: A Giant/tiny story

When Layla, the only sister of a house full of rough hunters and trappers finds a giant washed ashore after a storm, she takes pity on it despite knowing that helping a monster might get her burned at the stake as a witch. What starts as begrudging charity turns into affection between Samuel, the giant shipwrecked scholar, and Layla, the girl that can fit in the palm of his hand.

Layla’s Spool - by peachnewt

Clouds boiled over the sea, the wind whipping air and water into a cold froth and mist flashed in the distance over the sea, the wind whipping up Layla’s black locks and throwing them back in her face as she dragged her cart along the sand, looking for driftwood and possibly trinkets. She kept her skirts hiked up to her knees, freeing her bare feet from tripping over their ragged hems. A stray thread from her bodice and used it to tie her hair back. Despite the rough winds, she would dare not let another person get at the pickings before her. Already she had gathered a few lengths of rope.

A storm had raged along the sea coast for the last few days, breaking limbs and foundering boats. As it passed, it left gifts upon the beaches, driftwood, kelp, sometimes rope and bits of metal. Layla considered herself lucky that others were too afraid to approach the beaches so soon after a storm, afraid of disturbing beached whales or monsters from the deep. No such things would come to the quiet coast of Winchel.

A piece of carved wood, maybe a part of a ship’s bow stuck out of the wet sand. A little digging and Layla unearthed it only to stand back aghast. It was not part of any ship she had ever seen. A long cylinder, as big around as her waist longer than her arm, splintered at one end like it was supposed to be longer. On one side she saw a hole in it bigger than her fist. Perhaps a wooden pipe to one of those newfangled pipe-organs?

Layla heaved her finding into the wagon and kept moving. A large outcropping of rock poked out of sand ahead, she would either have to go around in the surf, or climb. Rather than get her skirts wetter than they already were, she climbed, leaving her wagon behind. A groaning rumble echoed beyond the rocks. More thunder?

At the crest of the rocks Layla froze.

***

Samuel shivered in his long-coat, the grit from the wet sand sticking to his face and hair as he collapsed on his chest from wading into the beach. How he had survived the swim from the wreckage with the coat on was beyond him, but now it weighed cold on his back. His temple still bled from a gash given to him when the main mast had split. The pounding in his head made his vision blur in and out. He kept his left hand close to his chest. At least two of the fingers were broken, the digits curling inwards towards the palm like a flower refusing to bloom.

Out of the corner of his eye she saw a flash of muted green. The skirt of a young woman sitting on top of a outcropping of rocks far away. She seemed frightened, as if she had never seen a man shipwrecked before. He reached out his hand, hoping to get her attention, his voice rough from the saltwater he nearly inhaled during the storm.

“Help,” he rasped. “Please.”

Help splinting his hand. Help to get dry and warm. Help with his hunger. Help to get back home. Heavens above, a kind face would be a grace to him. He reached his hand further to the woman, begging.

The dark haired woman shrieked and crawled away to the other side of the rocks. Why would she fear a nearly drowned man with less strength than a kitten?

When his fingers touched the rocks that were so far away, his mind sobered from his lethargy and pain.

Samuel realized the startling difference between his still muddled perspective, and distance. The outcropping of rocks no more than a foot tall, and the young woman no bigger than his hand.

Samuel jerked back his arm with a gasp. Had he been marooned on some fairy isle? Was he suffering some delusion caused by the knock to his head? Or worse, in a land where everyone was small?

The thumping in Samuel’s head deepened until the dark edge of his vision crept inwards. The shock had finally got to him. He managed to turn over on his side, still cradling his damaged left hand.

“God, help me,” he murmured as sleep took him.

***

Layla sat shaking, muffling her mouth with her shawl. A giant. A real giant had washed up onto her shore. She glanced over the rocks again. Albeit a very tired giant. One that looked hurt. Still a giant. Probably took to raiding the countryside and eating live cows on the weekends while it took care of it’s clothes during the weekdays.

She should run to the village and get the soldiers. Get away from trouble before the trouble got her. But something stopped her. Perhaps the glint of gold off the giant’s hair, or the way his brow furrowed while dreaming.

The breeze picked up again; another storm making itself known for landfall soon. Layla gritted her teeth and went back down her wagon.

***

Samuel woke to his broken hand on fire. He jerked it back to his chest and something small hit him on the shoulder.

“You keep movin’ it like that it’s gonna heal crooked. D’ya hear me?”

Samuel opened his eyes. The tiny, dark haired woman in the green skirt stood by the sandy indent where his broken hand had lay, a pile of rope and driftwood by her. She had been splinting his fingers. Cumbersome work for a such a tiny thing, but she had managed to get three of his fingers straightened.

“Sorry,” he said, shifting his hand back to her. Any fear he might have inspired had evaporated as she went back to work. “Thank you.”

“Yeah, I should be sorry.” The woman, pulled on his ring finger, straightening the bones with quick motions before lining it up with the driftwood. “Ya asked for help, so I’m giving it.”

“Why did you take pity on me?”

“Ya called out for God.”

“I supposed I did,” said Samuel. He blinked hard, trying to get rid of the sand in his eyes. “But how did that sway your decision?”

“Figured if a man is askin’ help from God, he’s hit rock bottom and begging. And I was taught to never look down on beggars.”

“I am not a beggar,” said Samuel. The nerve of that woman, thinking him a beggar when… well, a castaway was close to a beggar. But there was still a difference. “I’m lost.”

“You could have fooled me,” said the woman with a laugh, but the pitch of the laugh was off, as if forced. “Look, I can patch up yer hand, but if we say here any longer we’ll either meet up with the storm, or soldiers on patrol, and I’d rather not have either. Can ya get to yer feet?”

“Yes.”

The young woman tied off the rope and stood back. “Good, ‘cause we need to get moving.”

With a few pauses and a careful eye to make sure he didn’t step on anything, like his new guide, Samuel made it to his feet. He followed behind the tiny woman as she led him through snarling trees as tall as him. Despite her size, the woman moved nimbly and Samuel had to actually work to catch up. Though he stumbled a few times, she kept encouraging him to move, just a little further.

Just a little further. Right. He’d heard that before when he’d been told his new teaching post was just a short trip across the sea. Overhead the clouds kept rumbling as a light rain pelted down on his scalp. He was tempted to reach out and see if the sky was closer than he thought, but the ache in his body bound him to trudge forward.

During the walk he learned the young woman’s name, Layla, and that, indeed, everyone else in the country was the same size as her. Except her brothers; large, muscled brutes that could take him down if they wanted. Samuel assumed that last bit was more of a warning pointed towards him if he tried to do anything violent to Layla. He couldn’t if he tried, he was too weak.

Perhaps by accident, if he tripped and fell on her.

Oh, how he wanted to sleep. “I’m tired,” he murmured, resting his weight on the branch of a tree that creaked at his touch.

“A little further, giant” Layla said. “I promise.”

The “little further” turned out to be a glade big enough for him to lay down, trees curving overhead creating a shelter that kept most of the rain away. To the side of the glade bubbled a rocky spring. Within minutes Samuel lay back on the ground, asleep, the promise of Layla’s return echoing in the lull between dream and awake.

Samuel woke. The rain had stopped, and the rest of his hand had been splinted. The sun shined and birds overhead sang. A semblance of normalcy in this odd new world. But when would Layla be back?

He wondered what was worse; being a giant, or being at the mercy of a small woman.

She had been right, he was a beggar.

***

As the only living, and of age, female in the Winchel family tree, Layla had more than her share of brothers and cousins and uncles looking after her, even from afar. At any one time half a dozen brothers or uncles would be taking up space in the cottage, on their way from one hunting area to another, gathering furs and trading. She would receive bear hugs, bruising nudges at coarse jokes, but all done with affection. They left her with provisions and she kept the cottage from falling into ruin and occasionally making the meals.

As Layla looked at the larder, she wondered how much a giant could eat in one day. More than what she had available, especially when her brothers could make off with all the bread and cheese in one sitting. Though technically poor, they lived comfortably, but sometimes that comfort came way of poaching when the larder ran bare.

Layla huffed a breath as one uncle ruffled her hair and took a wedge of cheese from a shelf. She had to improvise. Over the afternoon she gathered all the dandelion greens she could find and boiled the bitterness out of them. She then added onions, garlic, and a few of the potatoes in the cellar that had dried too much for human consumption. A little salt and a lot of water left her with a broth too thin for a monk on a fast. It would have to do.

She had two of her brothers haul the heavy cast iron pot to her wagon, retrieved from the beach after the storm had died down.

“What you hauling this soup for?” one asked.

“You call this soup?” said the other, lifting the lid.

“There’s a shrine up in the woods,” said Layla. It wasn’t really a lie. Father Constant had once said nature was a shrine to God. “Figured I’d bring an offering for any beggars. Get up my good deeds.”

“What you need good deeds fer?” asked the other. “You praying for a husband? We can find you one.”

“No, thank you,” said Layla with a roll of her eyes. She knew the types they would find. More like them, thick headed and full of hunger. She waved off their offer to help with the wagon, saying it was a solitary pilgrimage to feed beggars.

***

The smile the giant had given Layla when she had returned made the glade seem warmer. The weak broth she brought gratefully accepted. He had laid out his coat in the sun to dry, a swath of dark blue that covered most of the glade. She could crawl through the sleeves if she wanted.

Layla lay in the shade cast by the giant, taking a longer look at Samuel now that the sun rose high. Though huge and pale, his features were pleasing. Eyes round and attentive, nose sharp, and lips full and proportional to the rest of him. He wasn’t muscled like her brothers. He stood tall and lanky.

“I don’t know how to repay you for your kindness,” said the giant, sipping at the broth. His splinted hand lay in his lap, a testament of her handiwork.

With her experience of binding up the legs or arms of her brothers, Layla figured his hand would be fine in a few weeks, but she didn’t know if giant bones mended faster or slower.

“I could think of ways,” said Layla, sitting by the spring. “But they would all end up with either me being burned as a witch or you being hunted as an ogre.”

“Still, I might be able to pay you, meager as it may be.” The giant put down the broth and reached for a pocket in his coat and withdrew a leather pouch. From it he took out a handful of large round discs and held them to the ground next to her. “Would any of these do?”

Each disc held a profile of a man’s face larger than her own. Coins, Layla realized. They were giant coins of copper, silver, and gold. Her eyes widened at such wealth. She crawled into Samuel’s hand and held up one of the coins polishing it with the hem of her skirt. With one gold coin she could buy a carriage, hire a team of horses and a man to drive her all the way to Joston and back in style.

Her smile dropped.

“They are real, I assure you,” said Samuel.

“That isn’t the problem,” said Layla, laying down the polished coin. “I know yer honest. But if I try to spend something like this, or have it melted down to sell as raw gold or silver, people will ask questions. I won’t have a good enough answer to back it up. And ya don‘t want to know what happens to those the Soldiers catch in a lie.”

The giant grimaced. “Forgive me. I did not think this through.”

Layla shaded her eyes as the sun glinted off the giant’s hair, making it glow like a halo of honey and copper. An idea came to her. “Giant, lay down.”

“Samuel, please,” he said. “And why?”

“Just do it. And lay your head somewhere I can get to it.”

She got a hold of a lock of hair behind the giant’s ear, passing it through her fingers. While a single strand was thick and a little bit wiry, its color was magnificent. Dark amber, copper, gold. And the giant--no, Samuel--kept his hair long, far past his shoulders. At least four yards in her book.

Layla grinned and leaned towards Samuel’s ear. “I think I know how you can pay me back!”

***

The next day Layla pulled her cart, laden with more dandelion greens, and a case of empty spools.

***

While giant gold coins would have raised questions, spools of “long-haired yak” thread simply raised a few eyebrows amongst the Textile’s Guild. Until she showed them the two spools she had brought as a sample; one a single pale strand from the top of Samuel‘s head, the other a dark amber from the thinner under layer. Then their eyes lit up. The touch of gold they could create in their embroidery, their weaving, more luxurious than the pale yellow and orange they were used to.

“How did you manage to get such thread?” asked the Head Dyer as she held the spool up to the light.

Layla, after thinking over her story a hundred times, had her lies lined up and ready. It wouldn‘t do to have the Textile Guild believe she could spin straw into gold. “My uncle in Joston came back from a trip to the East Nations and he brought a shipment of this stuff with him. Sent out a few spool to his nieces and daughters to try it out before presenting it to other merchants.”

A partial truth; her uncle had sent her cases and cases of empty spools thinking she could fill them with flax. He hadn’t realized flax grew in short supply in the village.

“This isn’t thread,” said the Head Weaver, pulling the thread out to circle his finger. “It’s a single fiber. That’s impossible. And it‘s so thin and wiry it could almost be made from metal.”

Layla shrugged, a not-quite lie ready for the question. “I don’t know how them Eastern folk make thread, just what it’s called.”

“How much of this do you have?”

“I can get a whole box of it if you’d like. I don’t do much fancy embroidery or sewing anyway, so it won’t do me much good. But uncle said I shouldn’t let it go cheap.”

The Head Weaver looked skeptical, but the Head Dyer looked willing.

“We’ll pay you for these two spools. If they are satisfactory, we’ll make a deal.”

Good enough for Layla. And for more than greens to thicken Samuel’s next pot of stew.

***

“They believe my hair was long haired yak?” asked Samuel aghast.

“I could have said moose,” said Layla with a smile. “If a place is far enough away, even learned folk in a small town will believe it.”

“Well, as long as it’s keeping your out of arrears,” said Samuel, sipping his broth. It tasted thicker, more vegetables and less bitterness. “I’d imagine the foodstuffs needed for this feast you’re making cost quite a lot.”

“Not as much as you think. It’s coming out of your hide anyway.”

Samuel laughed.

***

It became routine that Layla would come in the middle of the day with her broth. During her stay she would talk with Samuel and examine his hand, feeling around to make sure the bones were still lined up and healing correctly. Sometimes her fingers lingered in the swirls of the giant’s fingerprints. Samuel wasn’t a sailor or trapper or hunter, she had learned. He was a teacher. A learned man with stories of faraway places and new ways of doing things. Things with numbers and letters and people she’d never heard of before. And Samuel was more than willing to tell her.

Her brothers at first took her trips to the “shrine” with humor.

“Really hoping for God to come through with a husband, eh?”

She would shrug them off, tell them that she had to keep up the good deeds for the rest of the family. They let her go at that, rubbing at her tangled hair as she gathered more greens and vegetables for the soup pot.

Once, after a late night mending an uncle’s leather coat, and an early morning making meal packs for four brothers that would be out on a week long hunting trip, she fell asleep right as Samuel drank his broth. Samuel finished off the broth and then laid down beside her, head as close to her as he dared. His breath ripped warm over his small body.

Layla lay curled in a ball of faded green and brown. Gently, he pushed her dark hair away from her face. Though young, lines already creased around her eyes from the sun, hard work, and worry. Her eyes too heavy lidded and her lips small. Yet to Samuel she was beautiful, harsh language and all.

Here, lost in a strange land, he found some comfort.

***

Layla’s routine could only work for so long. One of her brother’s confronted her after breakfast.

“A runner came by from the Textile Guild, asking about golden thread. What’s he talking about?”

Layla shrugged. “Just some spools Uncle Tev sent a couple years ago. I’ve been selling them.”

“I thought he sent you empty spools?”

She shrugged again, hoping her brothers’ hunger would keep them from questioning more.

She should have known better than to go out when her brothers were suspicious. Though loving, they were fierce. There was a reason she had never had any suitors from the village, the threat of a dozen brothers, cousins and uncles unleashing their wrath kept them away.

As Samuel sipped at his broth the next morning, two arrows flew from the edge of the glade and hit him in the shoulder, going through coat, shirt and skin. He dropped the pot, nearly missing Layla in the process. Layla spun about and saw three brothers and an uncle running at her, bows drawn.

“Layla, get away from that thing!”

God, they were thinking wrong. They were going to kill Samuel. This shouldn’t be happening. Layla stood front and center, as if her small body could hid anything of the giant’s.

“Stop!” she yelled as another arrow shot over her shoulder. In an instant, Samuel picked her up with his good hand, holding her to his chest, shielding her from her brothers while he kicked at them. Samuel was not a fighter, Layla knew as much, and his kicks were about as effective as beating against a wild dog.

“No! Stop it both of you!”

“Let go of our sister you freak!”

The heartbeat under Samuel’s chest beat wildly, and Layla could feel each beat like thunder against her cheek. The volley of arrows started again, her brothers dodging Samuel’s foot with ease gained from hunting under the noses of game wardens. One held out a knife, going for Samuel’s heel, hoping to hobble him by cutting the tendon.

“He’s my husband!” she shrieked.

Her brothers and Samuel froze at that.

After a few beats one brother stepped forward, hesitant. “Your… husband?”

Layla’s mind grasped at straws for something to say. Her chest clenched. She hadn’t expected to back up her lies, but her mouth ran faster than her brain.

“You were the one that said good deeds might get me a husband. Well… I guess God heard you and… well. Here he is.” She gestured up at Samuel’s slack face. “Lot of good deeds. Big husband.”

Samuel stood still, chest heaving and arrows sticking out of him. Layla didn’t think the giant capable of lying, of going with the story she had spun in desperation. But he lifted her higher, cradling her in the curve between collarbone and neck, his face cleared in tired relief.

“We were hoping for a fall wedding,” said Samuel.

The tension in Layla’s chest melted away. She pawed her hand up towards Samuel’s face, his cheek rough from his beard, and he lifted her out before him, still cradled in his hand. Bracing hers arms on either side of his face, she kissed him. It was soft, unexpected, but she could feel his lips tilt up in a smile. And they were happy.

Her brothers were another matter.

“Can he at least hunt?”

I have a ko-fi!

Story originally posted on my deviantart for a fluff contest. ^_^

#peachnewt #Giant/tiny #SOFT GIANT #g/t #g/t writing #layla's spool #g/t fiction #g/t romance

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willadisastercry · 3 years

Text

Keith relapsing and not being able to stop once he starts... pt 2

(((( Once again: please, please, please read the trigger warnings and proceed with caution before reading this. I vividly describe Keith’s internal struggle after he relapses... if anything even remotely regarding self harming or someone discovering a person who has is sensitive to you I HIGHLY RECOMMEND YOU DONT READ ))))

tw: in depth depiction of acting on self harm ideations/urges, scars, relapsing, becoming ill from blood loss, someone discovering a person after they relapse, rationalizing their self harm because the alternative is suicide, contradicting oneself and later very much deciding they would rather be unalived, panic attack symptoms, reopening a wound, allusion to surgery (stitches)

Keith is still very out of it after having a full fledged panic attack and the last thing he wants is to invite another spectator into the mix to watch him devolve further. So Shiro agrees to do something he hasn’t had to do in a very long time... courtesy of his battlefield medicine training.

Also again... YES klance and NO klance. You can interpret it however but their questioningly less and less ‘no homo’ behavior uh certainly ramps up and I suggest that they’ve had certain discussions/interactions before... definitely still not the main focus of this fic but there for context bc it just happened that way.

Part 1 / Part 2

The tension in the air was palpable as it hung on all of them. Lance watched Shiro’s entire body visibly relax, the grimace on his face the only tell that he was working through something in his mind, remembering something unpleasant.

Keith’s wimper pulled both boys back after a minute of terrible silence.

Several of the hardest cuts to close had broken free of the glue that held them and were gushing steadily. Keith was paling by the minute as he continued to breathe rapidly and tremble as if he was cold despite the sweat on his forehead.

He just wanted this to be over. To finally be asleep where at least then he could pretend that it had never actually happened and it was just a horrible dream.

Without saying anything more Shiro pressed the bandage back to his side and moved Lance’s hand to hold pressure there while he stood up and scanned the room, his eyes landing on Keith’s towel. It was hardly even damp then with how much time had passed since Keith had finished his shower.

“Keith, I know you’re not going to want me to,” he started with his jaw set as he pulled Keith towards him for a moment to lay the towel beneath him despite his meager protests.

“...but I have to tell Coran so that he can—“

He stopped when Keith let out a desperate whine as he released his hand from his mouth to tug on Shiro’s arm, his fingers digging in like he was trying to anchor them to something so he didn’t drift away as his chest started working double time.

“No. You can’t! You’re n-not t-tell-telling him.”

“Keith, I know that this is—“

“No, you dont,” Keith rasped, “you d-don’t know anything and you c-can-can’t tell Coran.”

The fear in his wide eyes was enough to make Lance want to cry for the umpteenth time that night, his chest hitching painfully as he pleaded with Shiro, getting himself more worked up as he did.

“Calm down, buddy. You know how this works. You know we have to get you fixed up.”

He shook his head back and forth as Shiro tried to rationalize with him.

“Keith,” he paused with a lengthy sigh because the last thing he wanted was to do something that Keith didn’t want him to do.

“Keith it’s bad. You need stitches, we have to.”

His purple saucers met Shiro’s grey pinpoints for a long moment, fear and desperation glistening in Keith’s and making Shiro want to pull him up into a bone crushing embrace.

“Then y-you do it...” he all but whispered through a heave as he tried to take in enough air to satisfy the ache in his chest so he could talk.

“Ke—“

“You’ve d-done-done i-it-it before Sh-Sh-Shi—fuck. P-please, j-j-ju-just-just-j—“

“Okay,” Shiro agreed, his voice pitching higher as he tried to assuage the budding panic evident in Keith’s anguished expression and worsening trembling.

“Hey, it’s okay. I will. Shhh, I will.”

He repeated the words religiously after Keith began to choke on his own, his face reeling with frustration when the full body trembling made him unable to get a proper sentence out and the effort of trying sent him spiraling further.

Shiro carded his hand through Keith’s still damp hair as his hands rose back up to his face, his feet kicking against the bed as the terrible dropping feeling worked its way through his stomach, gasping as it did. Lance watched in horror as Shiro tried to comfort him but any point of contact made Keith struggle harder.

He absolutely hated being so vulnerable, so reliant on others in such a fragile state. He knew he sorely needed the affection but his body instinctively cringed away from their touches, at war with itself as his mind lied to him, told him he was pathetic for needing such a thing. Another part wanting to melt into even the faintest brush against his shuddering body. All while feeling the consequences of losing a pretty descent amount of blood, the loss fogging his mind to a point that made it immeasurably harder to not succumb to panic, especially since he was still bleeding.

It was truly the perfect storm and he hated every second of it.

His lungs felt like they were being dripped dry of every ounce of oxygen in them as the phantom sensation of spinning returned and disordered his heaving breaths further as he fought the urge to vomit. The bone deep exhaustion seemed to be rather helpful then, the physical symptoms of his anxiety fizzling out in minutes as he quite literally just lacked the faculties to accommodate them.

“I’m right here, Keith,” Shiro assured when his grip on his arm tightened and then wavered as he began to sink back into the mattress, his hands settling restlessly on his chest as they shook.

“That’s it, you’re alright.”

Shiro griped his shoulder securely now, the metal of his prosthetic arm weighing with an oddly pleasant pressure on Keith as his whole body shook still.

Closing his eyes seemed a tad less dangerous once he could breathe somewhat regularly again and the intense dizziness had somewhat dissipated. They were also swollen like hell and heavy from all the crying so shutting them became less of an active choice then as well.

Lance’s hand moved to his leg after a beat, just to peek and make sure that those wounds hadn’t met a similar fate. He watched as Shiro’s face dropped when he saw the second wrapping, swallowing thickly and shifting where he sat on the edge of the bed to speak to Lance.

“Will you get him to eat something while I go grab a few things?”

He nodded and made his way to the forgotten tray of snacks he’d nabbed as Shiro took off for supplies. The sobbing had died down after the climax of his panic did but the tears didn’t seem to ever dry up, evident from the sniffling every few minutes as he tried to clear his airways.

“Hey,” Lance nudged his arm where it had moved to cover his blotchy face again, “why don’t you sit up a little, gotta eat something...”

He didn’t even try, just shook his head.

“N-nauseous,” he stuttered, the shaking impossibly infuriating as he tried to relax enough to do anything other than cry.

“Hmmm, well you could also have juice, I can water it down a little. That sound doable?”

He just sighed and Lance took his indifference as a ‘whatever’ and went ahead anyway, nudging him again when he had a modified juice pouch for him.

“You don’t have to sit up all the way, there’s a straw,” Lance noted when Keith tried to raise himself up on shaking arms before they gave out. He grunted defeatedly and tried to scooch back on bent elbows and sit up that way but found he didn’t have the core strength then to do that either.

“Here, what if I...” Lance mused with a shy smile as he moved to pull Keith up enough to slide in behind him, bringing the pouch up to his lips where his now propped up head rested securely in the crook of his arm, still racked by tremors but seemingly more at ease with the contact.

“That better?”

Keith didn’t answer, just sucked on the straw of the pouch like he was dying of dehydration. By the time he’d finished the pouch Shiro was walking through the automatic door with a whoosh that startled Keith, his breathing picking back up as he nestled his head further into Lance’s arm like he was trying to hide under it.

“He finished some juice,” Lance stated proudly as Shiro laid out the haul of medical supplies he brought back.

“That’s good, something solid would be better though. Hm, how bout the bread?” Shiro asked, walking back over to the tray and picking up a roll from the batch Hunk had made with a type of alien wheat they’d found.

Keith grumbled but took it from Shiro’s outstretched hand because he knew that he wouldn’t be able to win that debate, but more because he knew what was coming next and he wanted that more than anything.

“What?! You just give in for Shiro but with me it’s like pulling teeth? I’m offended, mullet. Deeply offended,” Lance scoffed and Keith made a noise as he bit into the bread begrudgingly.

“It’s not personal, he just knows not to be stubborn unless he wants to be awake while I stitch him up.”

Lance’s heart sunk impossibly further into his chest because Shiro had fully found him like that before... and done this exact thing after. This wasn’t new to either of them.

God he wanted to cry too.

Once Keith had made a sizeable dent in the roll from the dinner he’d missed Shiro handed him three pills of which Lance assumed were some variant of a sleep aid that took him a while to swallow with how choppy he was breathing still. The high sort of buzz had never really gone away and only worsened when his anxiety took over, leaving him both feeling floaty and trapped in a constant state of shaking.

Lance tried to comfort him now that he seemed more receptive to being touched, tracing light circles on the shoulder not tucked against him and leaving his other hand out where he could reach it in case he needed something to squeeze.

In the time being Shiro had set up a sterile tray for what looked like a literal fish hook and a whole bunch of gauze. Oh, jeez. Lance wasn’t sure he could stomach watching and tried to manifest being able to just hold Keith in his arms while Shiro worked, ya know for moral support. For Keith obviously.

“How ya doing? Tired yet?” Shiro inquired as he continued to ready the tray, fiddling with bottles of medicine similar to what Lance had used before.

“Mhmm, getting... sleepy,” he slurred, his trembling dying down a bit as the medicine helped his body relax.

“Good,” Shiro let out a hollow laugh at the way he sounded like a kid again, “Lance will you let me know when he’s out?”

The altean medicine was working quickly, aided by the fact that he was already utterly spent and leaving his eyes fluttering as his breathing evened out. He didn’t want to fall asleep still worked up or he’d probably be restless, maybe even come to and be more disoriented than before. So he dragged out the relief of slowly being pulled to sleep by the flick of Lance’s fingers on his arm, forcing his eyes to remain open as long as he could manage.

“Yep, shouldn’t be long,” Lance noted when Keith let out a hissing yawn and turned his face towards Lance’s chest, his cheek resting against the squishiest part he could find and making Lance stifle a gasp.

Keith wasn’t known for being cuddly and the gesture, though not really a conscious one, made Lance’s stomach flutter. He wasn’t able to dwell on it long though because Shiro was addressing him again.

“Can you pinch his arm...?”

Lance obliged and Keith didn’t make a sound.

“Perfect, okay, you won’t get squeamish will you?”

“Uh... glue is a bit different than a needle but even that sort of freaked me out.”

“Alright then, you can clean and dissolve what opened up while I handle what’s already free,” Shiro determined as he ushered the familiar supplies closer to Lance.

He took up the needle which was already threaded and sighed heavily before pulling Keith’s desk chair flush up against the bed.

“Help me get him more on his side.”

They managed to by Lance pulling him by the shoulders and more onto his lap as Shiro pushed.

Shiro breathed deeply then, something in his eyes flickering as he removed the soaked through bandage from the younger boy’s hip. His entire side coated again, the skin visibly raised and puffy.

Lance took up the wound wash and showed it to Shiro who nodded, bringing the towel up to catch the excess liquid as he poured. Once he’d sopped up what had bled again Shiro started with the widest gash, the hardened glue was easy to pull off with how horribly it had been secured over such a large area. Lance looked elsewhere, focusing on removing the glue from the other reopened wounds.

Shiro operated like a robot after that, known quite literally for a precise hand but what happened next took that generalization to a whole other level. His fingers moved swiftly, tying off stitches almost faster than Lance could wash out the gashes but definitely quicker than he could remove the blue tinted glaze. He had to scrub and scrape at the substance from the open wounds, the bloody mess they’d become making the task harder than it ought to have been.

In actuality only a few had reopened, but they were also the deepest. Some of them took upwards of five stitches, others two or three. The proximity of them to each other, especially to ones that were still glued, made it difficult for Shiro to figure out where to place the needle.

They were done after ten or so minutes but when Shiro sat back to analyze his work, he frowned.

“What’s up?” Lance questioned dubiously.

Shiro didn’t answer, just brought his hand down to examine the glue that was barely holding about a dozen more wounds together. They’d grown darker, the amount of red beneath the generous amount of blue visibly greater than the lesser wounds as more blood gathered and threatened to burst out as well.

“Some of these look like they’re about to go too, they haven’t clotted. I don’t think they’d heal right if I don’t stitch them up, they’d leave worse, uh—worse scars.”

Lance nodded transfixedly, not sure if his heart could take hearing more things like that, more direct acknowledgments of how one of his best friends had hurt himself so badly... how it hadn’t been the first time... how he couldn’t make sure it was the last if even Shiro had failed to.

“-nce. Lance, hey, don’t let me lose you now. I need you to work on dissolving the rest of the glue,” Shiro said, his tone gentle again as he brought Lance back from the depths of his weary mind.

“Right,” he affirmed more for himself as he brought the dissolving liquid back down while Shiro rethreaded his needle.

Opening a just about to burst wound was admittedly a lot harder on Lance’s stomach than freeing one that had already. There was so much more blood because when he was done with one side it’d spring open and pool immediately as he fought to dissolve the rest before it spilled out and got everywhere.

Both of them were coated then, the only saving grace that kept Lance’s nerves at bay was Shiro having the forethought to have them both wear gloves, but that just made it seem like a literal operation. And with the amount of black threading Keith back together it was seeming more like one each horrible minute it droned on.

Shiro had lost his vest and jacket somewhere around the third time he had to rethread his needle, Lance’s discarded too after some time, both of them uncomfortably warm as they poured over stitching Keith back together.

Oh, oh god.

That did it for him.

Lance huffed shakily and turned his head away as he nearly lost it again over how much he wished he could do more than just help heal his wounds, he wanted to mend every one of his broken pieces, put the parts of him back together that you couldn’t see.

He couldn’t stand the thought of slapping a bandage on what had happened and ever going about normally again.

“Lance...”

Shiro looked at him with sorry eyes, wanting to hug him as he blinked back tears but Keith was very much preventing that from being possible.

“I’m okay, sorry—it’s just a lot.”

“I know. We’re almost done if that helps, just need to finish up on this one and then I want to take a quick look at his leg,” Shiro offered as he got back to the gash that was almost closed.

“It wasn’t as bad, only a few were deep,” Lance noted, his eyes glossy as they stared at Shiro’s busy hands, not even registering the way they pulled on Keith’s skin as they tied off the last knot.

Shiro nodded, sneaking a worried glance over at Lance who didn’t meet his gaze as he finished applying an ungodly amount of tape over top the gauze he’d put on the area. He then manhandled Keith’s leg so he could get at his thigh.

Lance looked down at his arms. There wasn’t much blue of the medical gloves on his hands showing, blood smeared past even that and up his arms. He hurriedly yanked at them, peeling one off within the other and folding the outer one over itself.

“Just toss it, I’ll clean this all up later.”

Shiro suggested noticing how dangerously close Lance was to unraveling and hoping to delay it until he could actually help.

He was right though, only a handful required stitches and half as many as the ones on his hip had needed at that. Shiro was done in record time, taking over Lance’s job of removing the glue and cleaning up the mess that followed, finishing by wrapping a thicker bandage around his leg and taping it in place.

When Shiro finally sat back and started to clean up he was dimly aware that Lance was silently crying and had scooted further down the bed to hold Keith more securely in his arms. Though he was definitely out he had never fully stopped shaking, but now it seemed more like a nervous system response to the nowhere near healthy amount of blood he’d lost. Lance moved his hands up and down his arm in attempt to soothe him anyway.

Shiro brought the throw blanket at the foot of the bed over the two of them after he’d removed all of the trashed medical supplies from it. Lance’s eyes had fluttered shut but were open now.

“He shouldn’t be up anytime soon but you look wiped, figured you’d want to stay...”

He nodded absently, eyes bleary but understanding as Shiro moved about the room for a little before sitting down at the foot of the bed.

“I’ll handle talking to him about all this tomorrow but in the case that he isn’t entirely dead to the world when the morning drill alarm goes off, tell him that he is not only excused but barred from training and piloting Red until his stitches are out.”

Lance just nodded again and yawned, pulling the blanket over the rest of his upper body.

“And Lance... “

He eyed Lance with a sort of fondness then.

“I know how fucked up tonight was, it couldn’t have been easy. You didn’t have to help him, you could’ve just gotten me, but you did. And I don’t know what kind of headspace he’ll be in when he wakes up but I do know he’ll be grateful you were there for him... even if he has a funny way of showing it.”

The lump in Lance’s throat bobbed threateningly, his eyes stinging again as he whispered a meak ‘thanks’ as Shiro stood up and leaned closer to ruffle his perfect hair before he turned to leave, shutting the lights off before he did.

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justherebecausemackenzieboyd · 3 years

Text

Finish it then you can leave!

summery:Mackenzie acts like a child when he and seb make Father’s Day breakfast wonder what Robert does about that..

Some Father’s Day Senainigans for the Robron family’s feat my favourite childish uncle Mack 😂❤️

This is mostly based off ideas I got from myself, @madden-mackron and @sugdenlovesdingle so enjoy guys it’s short and crap but eh it’s all I can do 😂❤️

“Right that’s about done!” The Scotsman grinned sinisterly.

Father’s Day morning was never a thing in Mackenzie’s house. His father was either always to hungover from drinking,or out somewhere from the night before...

In other words not his favourite ‘holiday’,but to Sebastian White it was everything.so to celebrate for the little tots two fathers. They made breakfast together.

Well he ‘tried’ to anyway, and this was in no way any evil plot to get Robert back for ‘stealing’ his beloved plaid jacket pfft nope. He was not petty or childish about it at all!

What he and the Toddler has managed to throw together was some toast and coffee,But the toast was practically cremated and the coffee was so cold it could form to ice by itself. Mostly because Mackenzie had managed to get through an entire loaf of bread before they could even salvage a few pieces of toast,Because he ended up burning every slice!

Not that they where exactly edible but it might not kill anyone..

Mackenzie picked up the plate of toast and coffee mugs.

“Come on sebbie lets go wake up daddy Aaron and Robert”

The toddler squeals happily the excitement of bringing his dad’s breakfast in bed was making him happy. He waddled besides his Uncle. As they both went upstairs together to feed the two husbands.

————

“Come on uncle Mackenzie eat up” Robert said smugly across the room. Sipping freshly brewed coffee. Aaron sat smiling at his friend who had gladly betrayed him!

Mackenzie was beyond pissed how could this happen?

You see when they had gone upstairs Robert saw right through this plan, and convinced little seb that Uncle Mackenzie should eat it as well.

Unfortunately under protest Mackenzie was sat at the dinner table in the kitchen refusing to eat it. Being watched by seb until he did said task. How embarrassing!

“No up till eat!” Little seb demeaned. knowing from experience of not eating his vegetables that you can’t leave the table until you finish your food!

Mackenzie grunted picking up a piece of the toast grabbing a knife and smothering it with jam.

He stared at it hoping that it would disappear. Unfortunately it wasn’t going to.

“I’m not hungry” The Scotsman tried to insist to the little boy.

Seb just shook his head.

“Eat then up!” He repeated again.

“You heard him!” Robert laughed. Flicking through his morning tv shows.

Mackenzie was completely baffled that he was actually letting a 3 year old tell him what to do.

“You’re not leaving until it’s eaten mate” Aaron said trying not to laugh. Finding this whole situation hilarious.

“Yeah and who’s gonna stop me!” The Scotsman said childishly.

“I am” The Blonde replied trying to sound sinister. it was clearly meant to be a joke, but for some reason Mack didn’t see it that way...

He gulped looking down at the toast on his plate. Sod it he thought just wanting this whole weird situation to be over.

Mackenzie was quick to shove it in his mouth. Gagging on the charred toast and strong fruity flavour of the jam combined was just awful.

He tried not to throw up on the spot but ended up coughing from trying to keep it down. Dry heaving dramatically. Even though it’s clear he was over exaggerating.

Seb just smiled and patted him on the back.

“Good now you play!” The toddler proclaimed letting him know he could finally leave the table.

The Scotsman pouted walking over to sit on the floor ti watch the tv. Trying to ignore the outburst of laughter from Aaron in the background.

Robert grinned triumphantly at his friend who sat crossed legged pissed exspression on his face. He reached over to whisper in his ear.

“Better luck next time Boyd”

Needless to say The kick to the blondes knee Mackenzie gave was completely justified. Despite how childish it was then again nothing ever really is ti Mackenzie is it?

And that’s just how Seb, Aaron and Rob like him.

#mackenzie boyd #aaron dingle #robert sugden #robron #seb white #friendship #Mackenzie is a more of a child than seb..#fanfics #meh #emmerdale

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owillofthewisps · 4 years

Text

soak you to the bone

notes: @witchernonsense posted these prompts a while back and the ‘reader drunk and sobbing over loss, Geralt utterly unsure of how to approach’ caught me but i left it alone for a bit. and then i came back to it. and immediately deviated a bit.

title is from the amazing devil’s ‘welly boots’ (because leave it to me to be prompted by a specific lyric and then use another lyric from a different song)

please be a lil bit gentle with me on this one, folks.

rating: teen. (warnings: angst, grief/mourning, parental death, unhealthy coping mechanisms, reader being cruel while drunk, brief mention of vomiting, no happy ending)

pairing: geralt of rivia/reader

word count: 1.5k

sometimes, grief can make you cruel. sometimes, it’s easier to hurt instead of be hurt.

“You’re drunk,” Geralt says, softer than you’d like.

“Mhmm.”

The wine has left you hazy, flows tacky through your veins and burns warm beneath your skin. You tilt your head back, feel the faintest kiss of pain as the back of your skull hits the wall behind you. The sting of it is veiled, shrouded by the wine. It doesn’t matter. There’s pain anyway, growing like brambles around your ribs, sinking thorns deep between the gaps in the bones. It stings even through the cotton wrapped around you, bleeds through the bandage of the alcohol.

Geralt is at the threshold of your room. He hovers ghostlike, at the edge of your world and lost with no map. He’s wispy at the edges, the white of his hair like rolling fog, bleeding and blurring as you blink against the saltwater of your tears. A specter all your own.

Am I not haunted enough, you think, the thought rising from the murky deep. Your head feels like a stone dropped into a pond. Sinking, too heavy to keep up. There’s a hollow little thud, and you realize that you’ve banged your skull against the wall again. Your head spins, the world tilting, and you close your eyes, shut them tight against the whirl of it all.

Cloth rustles.

You open your eyes to meet Geralt’s gaze. His golden eyes flicker over you like sparks from a forge, pricking against you. He’s hunkered down in front of you. The space between the two of you is a chasm, the thin bridge of hard-won affection that crosses it wavering with uncertainty. Through the veil of the wine, you watch his hands flex into fists, knuckles whitening, and then relax again.

You know he wants to touch you. Have learned to recognize the hesitation that comes before his fingertip traces across your skin. He looks small like this, somehow, like a predator caught in a steel trap meant for something else, something bigger.

“What is it?” he asks, each word slow. You know what it has cost him to string even that simple question together.

It’s skin cooling against yours; the slack of her mouth; the way her fingers droop even with yours wound between them; it’s the sobbing swelling in you and the way ‘mother’ slips from your lips like a tide; how that tide of ‘mother’ crashes against her empty shore over and over, waves breaking upon the shell of her, like you can call her back and tuck her into her body again because you are still so young and you need the home of her; it’s the way something in you goes cold, cold, cold. It is all of those things and more, but you cannot find the words, cannot dredge them out of the sludge of wine, and so you don’t.

Instead -

“I saw her face in the mirror,” you tell him. You curl up like a fern, pull your knees to your chest. “Her face instead of mine, something hazy and sharp, pieces of her stitched together in my likeness, in my form. I have her mouth, you know.”

“I know,” Geralt says, and the unusual tenderness in him makes you wild inside, makes something mad in you throw itself against the jagged cliffs that rise high in your chest. There is heat streaking down your cheeks, and you realize that you are crying, tears trickling unsteadily against your skin.

“I want all of her, every piece I can have, want to swallow it down and build her again between my ribs,” you rasp, the words slurring together. “I want all of her. Even the pieces that were never mine to begin with. But I still want to be me, too. It hurts so terribly.”

Vaguely, you realize that the keening, animal whine that is filling the room is spilling from you. Geralt’s hands flutter just shy of your skin, like moths circling light. A sob claws its way out of your throat. It tears merciless from you, rasps against your throat and slides bitter against your tongue, and then you cannot stop it. You heave and shake apart into the wine’s tender, sour grasp, its fingers closing around your chest until you are drowning in your own tears.

Geralt does not touch you. You feel the gap between his hovering fingers and your skin like a void, a canyon yawning between you. You want to push into his touch; you’ve grown used to it. In the few months you’ve spent together, it’s become a common thing, the brush of his hand against yours, or the press of your lips against his collarbone. The Witcher has let you peek between the gaps in his shield. There is something delicate between you, each of you treading careful and slow in new territory.

“I know,” Geralt says again, but you can see the uncertainty. “It will pass, as all emotions do.”

Something ugly starts to unwind in you.

“What do you know of emotion, Witcher,” you snarl, the words ripping from somewhere deep inside you, from the feral little creature that’s been curled inside you with its teeth sunk deep, deep, deep, cracking the bones of your ribcage until it aches to take even the shallowest of breaths, “you have none.”

You are drunk, you know, but there is clarity in cruelty. Wine has always given you sharp teeth. And you have always known where to sink them in.

“Grief is just a word to you,” you hiss. “Just a word, a jumble of letters on a page that you pretend to understand.”

Geralt’s expression doesn’t change, but suddenly - suddenly he is closed off like a shuttered window, wood over delicate glass, solid instead of opaque, a void where the soft light used to spill from him.

He rises to his feet without a word. He lingers for a moment, stays in place near you, but you cannot find it in you to apologize, can feel the anger and the grief buzzing in you like a wasp’s nest and know you will only continue to sting.

The door clicks shut behind Geralt.

You rest your forehead against your knees and sob. You can taste the wine where it coats your tongue like oil, sweet and dry and roiling in your stomach. It will come up soon, you know, will spill from your mouth as bile, dark from the rot it absorbed in you.

That ugly thing purrs. It is satisfied now, free from where you’d trapped it when it first gnawed and snarled at the idea of caring for someone new.

Apologize in the morning, you think. Find words for the terror of letting him close, the terror of gaining someone else to lose.

Beneath the wine’s fog, some part of you whispers that there are things that apologies can’t heal.

You crawl to bed.

You wake in the morning with stones in your head, rumbling against each other every time you shift. It’s like a sword beating against a shield. By the time you stumble down the stairs of the inn, nausea brewing low in your stomach, breakfast is half-done. You glance around before you settle into a seat with a greasy sausage and a thick hunk of bread.

The bread settles your stomach, just slightly, and you stay seated, your bleary gaze wandering the room. You idly toy with a small dagger, sharply honed by Geralt’s steady hand, gouging the point into the thick wood of the table.

Finally, you find the courage to ask the innkeeper the question you already know the answer to. And you are right.

Geralt left in the night.

It’s fine, you think, packing up your saddlebags. If you unconsciously leave space for the few things Geralt has you carry, it’s not as if he will ever know. It’s fine, you think again, shouldering one of your bags and stepping out into the empty hallway.

“It’s fine,” you tell yourself as you push coin to the innkeeper, who raises a brow but keeps his mouth shut.

You step out of the inn and into the sunlight. The road is bustling, merchants with their full carts and children darting about between the houses that line the street. You turn to Geralt to point out the herbalist’s cart, piled high with herbs - you can just see a tuft of white flowers that you know he is running low on - and stop. You take a deep breath and turn away from the empty space behind you, and orient yourself towards your next destination. Each step makes something in you rattle.

The crowded main road has never felt so empty.

---

taglist: @writingstudent @hina-chans-stuff @1950schick @msgeorgiarae @nonamejustshame @stretchkingblog97 @fairytale07 @alwayshave-faith @sageandberries-png @tutuwho @beautifuluniversityhoagieslime @ayamenimthiriel @bumblingandblooming

#geralt x reader #geralt of rivia x reader #geralt imagine #the witcher x reader #the witcher imagine #the witcher fic #angst #does this?? even make sense to anyone but me??#lmao

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lordoffiction · 4 years

Text

Thor’s Lightning: Prologue. __________________________

☞: Here it is! I hope this does well and you guys enjoy it until I post chapter one tomorrow. This is the first time I’ve wrote something in three years, so I was a little rusty when I was writing this. But I promise it’ll get much more exciting and longer in the next chapters.

Please give me feedback if you can so I can improve! ♡

warnings: none.

word count: 2,229.

gif doesn’t belong to me! all credits to the owner.

_______________________________________________________________________

The sky was dark, riddled with clouds by the time you finished work. It was late, 1am by the time you managed to close the cafe up for the rest of the night.

Cleaning the whole place by yourself was a mission itself, the drag back to your place was the cherry on the top.

You lived 20 minutes away from your work, you’d get the bus in the mornings but by the time you’ve finished closing up, the buses have stopped for the night and you couldn’t afford getting a taxi every night.

You lived in a small town, you have been for the past 2 years. It was a struggle after your parents passed away, a terrible car accident when you were 18, something you’d never be able to forget. Your dreams made sure of that.

“Shit.” You cursed, feeling a raindrop splash against your forehead as you stepped outside the cafe.

It had to rain when you didn't have an umbrella, didn't it?

You used your backpack as a makeshift one, quickly walking in the direction of your apartment.

“Shit, shit, shit!” Your back was soaked, sending a chill down your spine.

When suddenly, you stopped moving from the ground-shaking thunder that roared from the sky.

Your E/C drifted up towards the flashing lights that rippled through the night sky, dancing through the clouds. It was breathtaking, you’d never seen lightening look so beautiful before.

You pulled your backpack off of your head, reaching into it to grab your phone to try capture some videos or pictures.

But everything turned white as soon as you looked back up to the sky, a deafening ringing boomed through your ears.

________________________________________

Your eyes opened slowly, wincing when the bright light shone directly down onto you. The sound of birds and trees blowing in the wind made you sit up quickly.

You were outside. Why were you outside?

“Where... am I?” You said to yourself, taking in your surroundings. “Why am I in a forest? I was going home and then...” Your words trailed off, remembering the rain, the night sky and the lightening.

It was daytime now, though.

“Oh fuck, I'm dead.” The words felt foreign against your tongue and lips, like it was taboo.

You looked around again, seeing the forest of green, dirt underneath you as the wet soil seeped through your trousers. It was quiet, just the sound of wildlife. No cars, no buildings or people. Just... nature.

Was this hell or was this heaven? You couldn't really tell. It looked peaceful, like heaven, but it was like you were alone. You didn't see your parents or other family members who had passed on anywhere.

You pushed yourself up, groaning as your whole body felt like it was bruised to the core.

Perhaps you’re in a coma, you thought. A really fucked up coma that feels real.

Your belongings were next to you, your phone crushed and destroyed from the lightening.

“Fuck!” You whimpered, knowing you have no way to contact anyone now. “God!”

Bending down to pick up your backpack, you chucked your broken phone into it, slinging it onto your shoulders. Your work uniform and the oversized cardigan you wore barely stopped the cold air from nipping at you, causing your arms and the back of your neck to raise up in bumps.

Sticking to the theory that you were in a coma, you began to walk into the direction that you looked in first, the twigs and brown leaves crunched under your black boots.

Hours had passed. Then days.

You had been in this god-forsaken shit show for three whole days. This must be hell.

Your hair was greasy, matted from dry blood and full of things you didn't even want to think about. Your trousers were torn and ripped from falling over and getting caught on things, your top ripped at the side where a gash laid on your rips, a result of running from something you heard in the night and having a branch slash into the side of you.

You had small cuts on your face along with dirt, making your E/C eyes stand out amongst the rest of you.

You had been living off of leaves and berries you had found, that might you add, some of them had given you the worst sickness you’d ever had. You’d drink from the river you had found, using your water bottle to drink from. Making fires with the lighter you had in the bottom go your bag and dry leaves and twigs.

But it wasn't enough for you, your body couldn't do this anymore. The aches and pains, the hunger and sickness. You wanted to give up.

“C’mon.” You grunted to yourself, using a large stick to drag you forward. You had fallen last night when you had to go to the bathroom, not seeing the roots of a tree and twisted your ankle. You’d often talk to yourself now, seeing as there was no one else around to talk to.

“You can do this! You’re a strong, independent woman!” You said loudly to yourself. “I will not let a fucking coma kill me!” Your voice boomed through the forest.

Snap.

You stopped in your tracks, head turning quickly to where the sound came from.

A woman, in her mid fifties looked at you, fear on her face as she held tightly onto her basket of herbs.

Why was she dressed like that? Was she homeless?

Your head spun was thoughts, you couldn't even put together a sentence. You felt dizzy.

“Help me.” You managed to drool out before hitting the ground, vision going black.

___________________________________________________

What’s that smell? Bread?

Your eyes blinked open, but this time you weren't in the forest, you were in a hut or something. A fire burned in the middle of it, a large pot hanging above it with something brewing inside.

Looking down at yourself, you saw your clothes were missing, your body covered in bandages and ointments.

“You’re awake, I see.”

Your turn to look at the woman you saw earlier, grinding something up in a small stone bowl.

“I... Where am I?” You asked, groaning as you used your elbows to sit yourself up slightly. The hut was small, furs of animals all around you and the woman.

“You are in Kattegat, child.”

“How long have I been here for?”

“Two days. I don't know what you’ve been through, but you clearly needed the rest from it all. You’ve been in and out of sleep. The healers been to see you, tended to your cuts and ankle.”

You couldn't believe what you were hearing or seeing.

“Healer? Do you mean a doctor?”

The older woman frowned, that word was foreign to her.

She knew there was something strange about the girl sitting in her bed, she knew by the clothes and the belongings she kept in her bag.

“I need to get home, I need to call someone. Do you have a phone? Or a laptop I can use to contact the police?” You asked, rubbing your eyes.

“I- a laptop? Ph-one? I don't know what you're talking about.”

“A phone! You know, something call... people... on.” Your words faulted to a stop, as you took a look around the hut again. No electricity. No glass windows. No tv. Nothing.

No. NO, it can't be.

You got up quickly, the only thing on you was your trousers and shoes. Your torso covered in bandages.

“Child! You mustn’t get up so suddenly!” The old woman yelled to you, standing up herself to follow you.

But you didn't listen, you had to see. You had to know.

Walking towards the hut door, you grunted as you threw it open, a low gasp leaving your lips.

There was other huts, a market. Everyone dressed the same.

“Holy fuck.” You whispered.

People close to you turned to look at you, whispering and pointing at how you were dressed.

Your chest heaved under the bandages, your chest felt tighter and heavier.

“Oh god, oh my god. Where the fuck am I?”

Panicking now, you stumbled out of the hut, you couldn't believe this.

Were you in the past? No. No no no.

People around you moved out of the way for you as you tripped and fell to the ground from your swollen ankle taking all of your weight as you walked, earning a small yelp.

“Child!” The old woman called after you, pushing past the crowd of people that circled you. “Come back to the hut, you must rest. This is no place for you to be right now!”

“No, no. I have to get home.” You sobbed, the tears falling down your cheeks. You stood up, pushing yourself past people in the market. “I have to!”

People gasped as you barged them, you thought if you could get back to where you had woken up at a few days ago, you’d somehow be able to get back home.

Your ankle throbbed in pain and the gash on your side began to bleed through the bandages, but you pushed on.

You looked back, seeing the woman still chase after you.

You ran into something hard and sturdy when you turned back around to face ahead, causing you to fall back onto your backside.

“Shit-” you groaned as pain from landing on the hard ground stung your rear end, looking up to see the reason why you fell down so hard.

You half expected to see a wall, or a tree. Instead you saw a man, well, four men staring down at you in confusion.

“I’ve never see a woman fall so quickly for you, brother.” One of the men snickered, bringing a piece of bread up to his mouth to bite into.

“Shut up.” The one with crutches snarled, his blue eyes glaring daggers down to you. “Are you blind, woman? Can’t you see where you’re walking?” He spat at you, he looked at you as if you were shit on the bottom of his shoe.

“Woman?” You questioned, a slight rage bubbling inside you. How dare he talk to you like that!

You hadn’t noticed that most people had gone quiet, some making comments on how you’re dead for bumping into them, especially into him.

You opened your mouth again to speak but the old woman interrupted you.

“My apologises, my princes. This child is hurt and confused, she meant no harm. Please, forgive her!”

Why was she begging for forgiveness? Princes? These pricks were royalty?

“She can talk, can she not?” The one with crutches questioned her, turning his devilish gaze back to you. “Apologise.”

“No.” You said rather quickly, earning a gasp from the people around. It actually made you worry for a bit, why were they so scared of these people?

“No?” He repeated, slowly, stepping closer to you.

“Can’t you hear as well as I can see?” You said sarcastically, standing up onto your feet again. You wouldn’t let some man talk to you like that. The man with the bread smirked down at you. You had balls.

A rage burned so brightly in his blue eyes that you almost wanted to backdown. But you stood your ground, glaring right back up at him.

“You dare speak back to me?” He started, raising his hand to you.

You almost flinched, but you stayed standing tall. He was intimidating, taller than you by far and you had wondered if he would kill you.

But you had survived three days out in the wild, you refuse to back down to a man who could barely stand.

“Ivar.” A blonde man spoke sternly, grabbing Ivar’s arm. “She’s injured and confused like the woman said, don’t belittle her anymore.”

Ivar stared down at you little longer, contemplating whether he should punish you or listen to his older brother. Lowering his hand, he let out a scoff as he walked off, making sure he pushed past you. A sigh left the lips of the blonde man, looking down at you with gentle eyes.

“Take her back home and make sure she gets her rest.” He said to the old woman before following Ivar into the crowd of people.

“Thank you, my prince Ubbe.” She said as he walked by.

The rest of the princes followed after, the one who had been eating watched you for a moment, his eyes scanning over your body before walking off.

You came to the realisation that you only had bandages to cover yourself with. Shit.

The old woman took off her fur coat, slinging over your shoulders to shelter you from the cold air.

The old woman held onto you, taking you back into the direction of her hut, shooing people away with her hand that had their prying eyes set on you.

“You’re lucky you were spared, child. You wouldn't want to get on the wrong side of them.”

“Who are they?”

“The princes of Kattegat, sons of Ragnar Lothbrok.” She said.

“Oh.” You said simply. “Is that was this place is called? Kattegat?”

“You really aren't from here, are you?” Her eyes met yours, curiosity and sympathy circled through her brown orbs.

“No... I’m from somewhere far from here.”

“Well, you can stay at my hut until you find your feet and get better. What’s your name, child?”

“Thank you,” you mumbled out. “my name is Y/N Y/L/N.”

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scavengerbird · 3 years

Text

TJ & the Angel

The angel’s got a thousand eyes and they’re all looking at TJ.

He guesses it’s an angel. That’s what it said it was. Or that’s what it told him it was. It didn’t really say, TJ guesses, ‘cuz it didn’t make any sound. There were just words in his head, all a sudden, without any kinda sound or sight or shape except an understanding of their meaning. It sorta burned, but not in a bad way.

He figures it can’t really speak with sound ‘cuz it hasn’t got a mouth as far as he can tell, just all those wide brown eyes, movin’ and spinnin’ round each other and never blinkin’. It’s like a Ferris wheel got tangled up with a couple other Ferris wheels but the cars are eyes and the whole things on fire. Kinda.

TJ’s all soaked through and shivering still, ‘cuz apparently the angel can pull his body outta the river and pull the riverwater outta his lungs, but it can’t dry his clothes off. Or maybe it could, if he asks, but he can’t figure out if that would be rude or not.

He wants to get home before Dad, so he can sit by the radiator and have a cigarette in the house and not have to explain why he’s got half the water from the Missouri with him. But it’s bad manners to leave when someone’s in the middle of talkin’ to you, and he figures it’s probably double bad if that someone just saved your life, and triple bad if that someone is an angel of the Lord. He can’t even imagine what Ma would say, if he just up and walked off right now.

So he tries to pay attention.

Hearing the angel is hard, but in a way that feels good. Like the burn in his legs when he runs, except instead of just his legs, it’s his whole body, or, more than that even, his whole self. The angel’s sayin’ lots of grand sounding things, about destiny and purpose, a higher calling and his own free choice, watching over him and waiting for the right time and love and repeating history and hope.

TJ’s brain is starting to go a little fuzzy trying to hold it all in. It’s like being drunk, on the good whiskey Cecily lifted from her grandad’s cabinet that one time, not the cheap shit beer they usually get Armani’s older brother to buy them. Everything feels far away and a little funny. An angel pulled him from a river. He was dying and then he wasn’t. The angel wants something from him. He wants to laugh, but he doesn’t have to think about if that’s rude or not, he knows it is.

Something warm is dripping from his nose, and he thinks it must be runny from the cold, except when he wipes at it with the back of his hand what comes away is red.

TJ wakes up in his own bed and tries to pretend to himself the angel and the river and the blood was a dream. He lies there for a moment, tellin’ that to himself over and over, but he’s never been much good at lying. Always gets caught, even by himself.

When he finally gives in and opens his eyes, he just about shits himself. There’s a boy’s face hovering over his own, just a few inches away. The eyes are wide and brown and very familiar, but that doesn’t stop TJ from startling so bad he rolls back and off the side of his bed, knocking his head on the hardwood.

“Jesus,” he mutters, once he’s got his breath back. The angel tilts its head at him. It looks like a boy now, instead of a burning storm cloud raining eyes. A boy about his age, scrawny and brown-skinned and with those same eyes, just set still in a face under thick eyebrows and a few pimples. It’s followed him, crawling onto his bed to keep peering at him by leaning over the side.

“NO,” it says, “NOT QUITE. NOT EVEN CLOSE, REALLY.” TJ can’t tell if it’s serious or if that’s supposed to be a joke. He doesn’t know if angels make jokes, doesn’t know if they can. He wonders if it’ll smite him, for taking the lord’s name in vain. Ma’d say it’d serve him right.

It’s making actual sound now, but there’s still something about its voice that burns on the way down, makes him feel warm all over. “ARE YOU OKAY?” it asks, forehead wrinkling in concern.

“Yeah,” TJ sighs, “I’m alright. Just hit my head.” He tries to sit up, but the world spins a little and he has to catch himself on the bedframe to keep from flopping right back down.

“HERE,” the angel says. And then it reaches out to cup the goose egg growing on the back of his head, and before he can even finish wincing from being touched there a white-hot flash sears through his skull, and he gasps and his whole body jerks and he sorta notices that the angel has to reach out and grab his arm with its other hand to keep him mostly upright. And then the heat is gone. So is the dizziness, and the pain, and the goose egg.

TJ gently touches the back of his own head, where it felt like he got stabbed and then felt like nothing had happened at all. His fingers brush against the angel’s and he pulls back.

“What was that?” he asks, voice ragged.

“I HEALED YOU,” the angel says simply.

“Then why did it hurt?” TJ asks, trying to swallow something down, but his throat is dry.

The angel shrugs, looks sad for just a second, and says, “HEALING USUALLY DOES.”

TJ hasn’t really got anything to say to that, so he just shrugs outta the angel’s arms and heaves himself to his feet.

TJ’s starvin’, so he makes the angel follow him down to the kitchen. He musta slept for hours, ‘cuz it’s dark outside the window. He pokes his head outta his room real quick to make sure the coast is clear. The door to Dad’s room is firmly shut, and the house is quiet, so TJ gives the angel a thumbs up and waves it out after him.

Downstairs, TJ doesn’t bother with the kitchen light switch. He likes the nighttime too much, feels safer in the dark. The soft yellow slice of light that comes out the fridge when he opens it is good enough. The angel wanders over to stare out the window above the kitchen sink while TJ digs out grape jelly and bread and peanut butter. He can tell it’s gettin’ antsy, that its just waitin’ to give him the speech it started at the edge of the river. He’s not sure what it’s waitin’ for. Maybe it feels bad about him passin’ out and thinks he’ll have a better chance with something in his stomach. Maybe its waitin’ for him to ask.

He asks it, “Do you want one?”

The angel turns to look at him and the sandwich he’s holdin’ out. Then it just keeps lookin’, so he repeats himself, and then he starts to feel like maybe he’s askin’ a dumb question, so he starts rambling. “I mean, uh, I guess I don’t know if you eat, really. But I thought’cha did, or, I mean, thought angels did, you know? In the bible. The Old Testament part. At Sodom, I think? Or Gomorrah. One of ‘em. Or maybe that was God. Or maybe I’m just remembrin’ the whole thing wrong,” he mutters, huffing a quiet laugh that he hopes doesn’t sound too nervous.

The angel blinks, finally, real slow, and then holds it’s hand out. TJ puts the sandwich in it, relieved, then turns back ‘round to make one for himself. “YOU ARE NOT REMEMBERING WRONG,” the angel says, slow and quiet, the way you talk when you’re bein’ gentle. “IT HAS BEEN MANY CENTURIES SINCE A HUMAN LAST OFFERED ME FOOD.”

“Oh,” TJ says, turnin’ back to the angel as he finishes spreading jelly and slaps his two pieces of bread together. The angel’s still holdin’ its sandwich, just starin’ at it like it’s made of gold or some other precious thing. TJ feels like maybe he did something wrong, except he’s pretty sure the opposite’s true, and he doesn’t know why anyone would look at PB&J he made on wonder bread the way the angel’s lookin’ at it. He kinda can’t stand it, so he shoves his own sandwich in his mouth so he’s talkin’ with his mouth full when he says, “Ya gotta bite it, ya know.”

The angel laughs, just a small laugh, but TJ didn’t know angels could laugh at all. The sound makes his bones feel ‘bout as sturdy as the jelly in his sandwich. He leans against the counter. The angel finally takes a bite, and it closes its eyes again, the way you do when you’re eatin’ somethin’ real good and all you wanna focus on is tastin’ it. It’s ridiculous. It chews real slow, swallows, and says “THANK YOU” in that same quiet voice.

“Don’t mention it, uh-” TJ says, and then realizes suddenly he doesn’t even know what to call it. Ma really would cuff his ear if she could see how bad his manners have slipped. He pushes that thought away.

“You got a name?” he asks the angel. It sorta smirks at him, and he doesn’t get why ‘till the angel opens its mouth and makes a sound it shouldn’t be able to make with a human’s mouth, one that sounds the way honey tastes. “Right,” TJ says, noddin’. Angel will have to do.

He watches the angel eat the rest of its sandwich in those same slow, savorin’ bites. Makes himself another and wolfs it down before the angel’s half done and hopes that’s not rude of him, but he really is hungry. It looks so happy eating that he makes himself wait ‘till its finished the whole thing and licked the stray smears of jelly off its fingers before he lets himself say, “I didn’t know you could do that, ya know, make yourself look different,” with a wave at its body.

The angel looks down at itself. “YES,” it explains, “I SHOULD HAVE DONE THIS BEFORE I APPEARED TO YOU. I SHOULD HAVE KNOWN YOU WOULD NOT YET BE READY TO BEAR WITNESS TO A TRUE ANGELIC FORM. MY APOLOGIES.”

TJ sniffs, remembers the copper tang of blood in his nose, says, “No harm done.” Then he thinks for a minute about the parts of what the angel just said that weren’t an apology and says, “Wait, what do you mean I’m not ready yet?”

The angel snaps its head up and TJ’s heart sinks. This is the question the angel’s been waitin’ for him to ask. He’s not real sure he wants the answer.

“AS YOU GROW INTO YOUR ROLE AS PROPHET,” it answers, “YOUR MIND WILL EXPAND. YOU WILL BECOME CAPABLE OF PERCIEVING MUCH MORE OF THE TRUE NATURE OF THINGS. AREADY YOU CAN SEE MORE THAN THE AVERAGE HUMAN. ONE LOOK AT MY ANGELIC FORM WOULD HAVE KILLED MOST OF THEM.”

“Oh,” TJ says, ‘cuz he’s not real sure what else to say. And then, “Sorry, uh, my role as – did you say prophet?”

“YES. CONGRATULATIONS.”

TJ lets himself slide slowly down the kitchen cabinets behind him, sinkin’ to the floor. He puts his head between his knees and breathes. Tries his best to count sevens while he does.

He feels the angel’s hand light on his back, its fingertips ghostin’ over him through his t-shirt. “ARE YOU HURT?” it asks, and all TJ can do is shake his head.

TJ doesn’t know how to turn down bein’ a prophet. He’s pretty sure he remembers at least one of ‘em tryin’, in the bible, but it didn’t do ‘em much good, in the end.

He thinks he mighta freaked Angel out, just a bit, ‘cuz it didn’t really say much else about the whole prophet thing, just kept a hand on his back ‘till he got his panicked breaths evened back out to a normal rhythm, then took his hand and guided him back upstairs to his room. It tucked him into bed like a kid, but he didn’t really mind. It was kinda nice, feelin’ like somebody was lookin’ after him again.

It’s less nice now, with the angel just hoverin’ over him while he’s tryin’ to fall asleep. He’s got as many questions for it as it has eyes in it’s true form. He thought it might have somethin’ better to do than watch him sleep, but it seems content to just stand next to his bed and keep those brown eyes fixed on him.

He sighs and cracks one of his own eyes open to look at it. It shoots him a small smile. He gives in. “Do you sleep?”

The angel looks surprised. “I DO NOT THINK SO. I HAVE NEVER TRIED.”

“Try now,” TJ suggests, scootin’ over to one edge of the bed. “It’s too weird, tryin’ to sleep with you standin’ there and starin’.”

“OH,” the angel says, and starts to reach for the bed before it hesitates, like it’s not sure TJ really meant what he said. He sighs and pulls the covers back, pats the mattress.

The angel gets into bed slowly and settles on its back, eyes still wide open, limbs stiff at its side. It’s kinda unsettlin’, like that. Looks like a corpse. TJ pokes it in the arm.

Touching its bare skin gives him a little static shock, but in a nice way. It turns its head to look at him, and TJ realizes that it’s very close to him again. He swallows. “C’mon then,” he says, “Get comfortable.”

The angel’s brow furrows as it studies him, like it’s not really sure what he means, and TJ feels kinda sad for it. Finally, it nods and rolls over so it’s lyin’ on its stomach, turnin’ its head again so it keeps lookin’ at TJ. And then it reaches out the arm closest to him and takes one of TJ’s hands in its own. His breath stutters.

“I FEEL COMFORTABLE KNOWING YOU ARE SAFE,” the angel says, and then it closes its eyes. TJ really thought he was gonna have to tell it to do that part, what with all the unbroken eye contact and refusing to blink. He gently rubs the back of the angel’s hand with his thumb and it does something he wants to call purring, even though it’s not a cat. TJ nestles down in his blankets and falls into an easier sleep than he’s had in months..

Dad’s already gone when he wakes up, and the angel’s still there, layin’ right where he left it like it hasn’t so much as twitched all night. TJ swears when he gets a look at his clock, manages to catch himself in time to switch from “Goddamnit” to “shit,” though. Then he hauls his ass outta bed and digs around his dresser for a t-shirt without anything too stupid written on it.

“I gotta go to work,” he tells the angel, as it watches him get dressed. He thinks about tellin’ it to turn around, but he’s pretty sure that just ‘cuz he can’t see any eyes in the back of its head don’t mean they’re not there, and he hasn’t got anything it hasn’t already seen a billion times before, if it’s been watching over humanity since the beginning of creation or whatever.

“OK,” is all the angel says.

TJ glances up at it as he ties his shoe. “So, are you just gonna hang out in my bedroom all day or…?”

The angel does another one of its quiet laughs and then says, “NO. I WILL GO WHERE YOU GO.”

Grover gives the angel a funny look when it shows up with TJ, but he doesn’t say anything. Grover’s never cared too much what TJ does while he minds the roadside stand the old man sells his vegetables out of, as long as he’s polite to everybody who comes by. He’s pretty sure Grover doesn’t even make a profit with the thing, or need to, just has it ‘cuz he doesn’t know what else to do with all the tomatoes and squash he grows. He’s also pretty sure Grover only offered to give him a few bucks an hour to keep an eye on it so he could keep an eye on TJ, at least a little bit. He always liked Ma a lot, definitely enough to try watchin’ out for her son after she couldn’t anymore, but TJ tries not to let himself think about that too much.

The angel wanders around for a while, pickin’ up all the tomatoes that have gone just past the right side of ripe, and when it sets them back down they look perfect again, so TJ doesn’t have to go around chuckin’ any of ‘em over the fence. Since he didn’t have time for breakfast, TJ picks out a watermelon and busts it open on the corner of one of the wooden tables.

“C’mere,” he calls to the angel, and it does, quick and curious. TJ scoops the heart outta the melon and offers it. “Try this.”

The angel does, and its eyes go even wider than they already are and it sucks the juice off its own fingers. It plops down in the dirt with him and they scoop the rest of the melon outta the rind with their hands.

TJ thinks he should feel weirder about watchin’ an angel dribble watermelon juice down its chin and onto its shirt, but he doesn’t. It just feels nice, to sit here with someone. Everyone looks at him different, since Ma, it’s like they can’t really see him, behind this big-awful thing that happened to him. He can’t say he doesn’t feel seen by the angel.

But he knows it can’t last. Grover’s out in the fields, ridin’ around on his tractor, and no one ever comes by this early, so TJ feels safe enough to pull out a cigarette and take a few drags, get himself steadied. He offers it to the angel, half ‘cuz not sharin’ feels rude and half just to see what it’ll say.

It just shakes its head, but TJ raises an eyebrow and says, “What, you gonna tell me angels can get cancer?”

The angel glares at him, but there’s no heat in it. “I DO NOT WANT TO SET A BAD EXAMPLE.”

TJ snorts. “A bad example for who? Me? Don’t’cha think it’s kinda late for that? I’m already smokin’ ‘em.” The angel still hesitates, but TJ can see the curiosity on its face. He grins, “I know you’re wonderin’ what they’re like.”

The angel shakes its head even as it’s reachin’ out to take the smoke from TJ’s hand. “WONDER CAN BE A DANGEROUS THING.”

TJ laughs. The angel puts the cigarette up to its mouth and breathes in. It hasn’t really got the hang of it, keeps its mouth too open, but it coughs anyway, and TJ laughs again and claps it on the back.

“I PREFER THE WATERMELON,” the angel says as it hands his cigarette back, so TJ reaches up and swipes a peach off the table they’re leanin’ against.

“Here,” he says. “You’ll like this better. ‘S lot closer to the watermelon. Promise.”

The angel takes the peach and TJ lets himself watch it enjoy the first few bites before he takes a deep breath and makes himself say “So, about this whole prophet thing.”

He can’t look at the angel straight on while he’s sayin’ it, ‘cuz he’s a coward, but he still sees it straighten up in the corner of his eye. Sittin’ at attention. Didn’t it say somethin’ yesterday, about bein’ a soldier of heaven?

He keeps his eyes fixed on the orange tip of his cigarette as he talks. “Thing is, my Ma made sure I knew my way ‘round a bible before she…” he swallows, gives his cigarette a bitter smile before he keeps talking. “Well, I’m sure you know, you said you been watchin’. ‘S what you do, right? Hang around prophets before they become prophets.”

The angel nods in his periphery. He wants to ask it how long it’s been watching him, how many others came before him, if it likes what it does, if it even has a choice in somethin’ like that. Instead he shakes his head, makes himself focus.

“Point is,” he forges on “I read ‘bout the prophets. And bein’ one? Well, it kinda sounds like a shit gig.”

The angel doesn’t say anything, so TJ keeps talking. “I mean, I can’t remember anythin’ good ever happenin’ to any of ‘em. They’re always watchin’ their city get burned down, and everybody they know get tortured, and gettin’ treated like a loon ‘cuz the Lord’s got ‘em runnin’ ‘rond lightin’ their own hair on fire and shit.”

His voice is shaking now, in fear or anger or both, and the angel still doesn’t seem like it’s got anything to say. He turns on it.

“And here’s the thing about all that. I don’t got a city for y’all to burn, and I already watched the person I loved best die, slow and awful with her lungs full o’ tar, so nobody here would be surprised if I went loony. Sometimes I think they’re all just waitin’ ‘round for it to happen, so none of ‘em would listen to single goddamned word I had to say, even if it was prophecy from on high.”

His face is warm and wet. He wonders if he’s bleedin’ again, but when the angel reaches out and brushes his cheek there’s no red on its fingers. It’s just tears. He flinches back from it. And it looks sad.

“What?” he asks it. “Aren’t’cha s’possed to be down here convincin’ me or somethin’? Where’s that grand speech o’ yours? You ain’t got anythin’ else to say to me ‘bout destiny and plans o’ higher powers and shit that’s more important than lil ol’ me?”

“YOU ARE IMPORTANT, TJ.”

He laughs, and it comes out wet-sounding. “Yeah? Well maybe I don’t wanna be. Why’re you here now? Why not six months ago? You could’a saved her. Don’t tell me you couldn’t’ve. Why wasn’t she important enough to save? She prayed for it. Hell, I prayed for it. Every night. And nobody answered. She fought right up ‘til the very end. ‘Til your stupid god let her die. Took her.”

His whole body’s shaking now and he has to stop talkin’ ‘cuz he’s chokin’ on sobs. The angel’s looking at him with those big eyes, sad and somethin’ else too. It’s not pity. He almost thinks it’s understanding.

“WHY DID YOU STOP SWIMMING, TJ?” it asks. And that brings him up short.

“What?” he manages through his tears.

“YOU FELL INTO THE RIVER YESTERDAY. YOU DID NOT JUMP. BUT UNDER THE WATER, YOU STOPPED SWIMMING AND LET THE CURRENT TAKE YOU. YOU STOPPED FIGHTING.”

TJ stares at it. He remembers the cold rush of the water all around him. The way his clothes pulled him down, like all the metaphorical weight around his neck suddenly made physical. He remembers the moment he wondered what would happen if he just gave up, let himself be too tired to keep trying to push his head above the surface. When he let go.

The angel’s the one who looks away for once, like whatever’s on his face is too much for even it. It turns its half-eaten peach over in its hands.

“IT IS IN THE MOMENT WHEN YOU STUMBLE, WHEN YOU CAN NO LONGER WALK, WHEN YOU LAY DOWN READY TO DIE, THAT THE LORD OFFERS TO CARRY YOU.”

TJ doesn’t even think he feels angry anymore. Just hollow, and tired, and bitter, and oh, he guesses, actually still a little bit angry. He spits in the dirt.

“Well, what happens if I decide I can walk just fine after all? You gonna toss me back in the river where you found me?”

“I DO NOT UNDERSTAND.”

“What happens if I say no? ‘Cuz I’m sayin’ no. D’you just fuck off back to heaven now?”

The angel frowns at him. “YOU WILL NOT SAY NO.”

TJ stiffens. “I know you said somethin’ yesterday about this bein’ a choice so-”

“IT IS A CHOICE,” the angel interrupts, “I WILL STAY ON EARTH WITH YOU AND WAIT UNTIL YOU CHOOSE TO ANSWER YOUR CALLING, BUT YOU WILL CHOOSE TO ANSWER IT.” It sounds almost sad, when it says, “THEY ALWAYS DO.”

TJ doesn’t have anythin’ to say to that, just spits in the dirt again.

TJ hates the idea of thinkin’ anything good coulda come outta what happened to Ma, but he has noticed that most o’ the kids who used to pick on him at school have slacked off. Nobody’s heartless enough to shove around the kid whose mom got lung cancer, even if he is queer and bad at pretending not to be. Well, almost nobody.

TJ lets himself swear good and hard when he sees David comin’ up the dirt road towards ‘em. It’s dusk and they’re halfway home, him and the angel, and he knows he’s faster than David, could probably go across the field and up Ms. Feldman’s fence and loop around the back way and make it, but he doesn’t know if the angel’s gonna slow him down. Its human body isn’t what he’d call athletic-lookin’.

David smiles at him, big and wide and mean, and TJ decides they’re just gonna have to take their chances runnin’, grabs the angel’s hand and starts to pull it outta the road, but it doesn’t budge. TJ looks back at it.

It’s standin’ there starin’ David down. “YOU FEAR THIS BOY,” the angel says.

It’s not a question but TJ answers anyway. “Well, yeah, he’ll do his best to beat the shit outta us if he catches us. So let’s not get caught.” He tugs on the angel’s hand again. “C’mon.”

The angel looks at him and then it lifts its free hand up to his face, brushes its fingertips gently along his cheek. He holds his breath.

“BE NOT AFRAID,” it tells him. Then it lets go and steps forward, towards David.

And then it explodes.

Maybe bursts is a better word. It comes outta its human skin in flash of heat and light. It’s a pillar of fire and TJ can taste ash. Its thousand eyes are back and each one is a million swirling shades of brown, like churning earth, and looking into them feels like falling. The air around the angel is electric and there’s lightning dancing over TJ’s skin. TJ thinks this is not just an angel, this is an avenging angel. And this is the most terrible thing I have ever seen. And also the most beautiful.

And then it’s over. Just as sudden as it expanded, the angel shrinks back into a boy’s shape at TJ’s side.

TJ’s brain doesn’t feel quite so liquefied this time. More like it’s turned the consistency of silly putty and its bein’ stretched out. It doesn’t hurt, though. And TJ realizes he could keep lookin’ at the angel. That his brain, or maybe its his soul, could keep stretchin’ to make this glimpse of the infinite fit. That this is what’s bein’ offered to him. That if he stops fightin’ it, stops tryin’ to live his life his own way, gives in to this calling, he gets to see this. He gets to see more. Not just a split second’s glimpse of one angel, but whole visions of Truths. Revelations. He can taste them on his tongue and his mouth is watering.

The angel’s lookin’ at him, it’s eyes just the one shade of brown again, and it looks sorta resigned, like it knows what hit’s comin’ and it’s just waitin’ for the blow to land.

TJ touches his own face, under his nose, checks for blood. There isn’t any.

“He still alive?” TJ asks, jerking his chin at David where he’s lying in the road, curled on his side like a baby in a womb.

The angel looks surprised. TJ knows this isn’t what it expected him to say.

“YES.”

“He gonna be okay?”

“THAT DEPENDS ON THE DEFINITION OF ‘OKAY.’”

TJ rolls his eyes. “Are you even allowed to do stuff like that?”

“NOT EXACTLY.”

TJ frowns. “Are you gonna get in trouble?”

“NOT RIGHT NOW.”

“Right. I guess we should drag him outta the road, at least.” He starts toward David, but the angel flaps its hand abruptly, and David vanishes. TJ makes a stuttering noise.

“I SENT HIM TO HIS HOME,” the angel explains.

TJ huffs. “Well, if you can teleport people then why the hell are we walkin’ home?”

The angel makes a noise somewhere between distress and desperation. It’s starin’ at TJ with its big eyes full of confusion and disbelief and maybe hope. He’s gone off script.

TJ understands now, why the angel was so certain he’d say yes to bein’ a prophet. He can feel a pull in the back of his brain, the tips of his fingers, the soles of his feet. He can feel how easy it would be. How enlightening. He could stop worryin’ ‘bout how late Dad gets home every night and how even though he doesn’t get pushed around much anymore he’s still only got the two friends and Armani can’t even look at him without pity on her face anymore and how he’s gonna get lung cancer and go in an awful way just like Ma but he can’t quit smokin’ ‘cuz the smell reminds him of her. He could stop missing her. He could let himself be emptied of all that, become a vessel for knowledge of things so bright they burn. Fulfilled. And it would be so easy. So much easier than living his own life.

TJ knows all that, and he also knows Ma never backed down from a challenge. Knows she said the right thing to do is almost always the harder thing to do.

He knows the angel said it could stick around ‘til he caves.

TJ smiles at the angel. It’s a tired smile, but it’s real.

The angel stares at him for a long moment. And then, slow and careful, it smiles back.

#writing #writers on tumblr #original fiction #fantasy #angels #short story #origina work #original characters #prophets

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