#got entranced by the head pieces of plants and twigs...

[meirimerens]

the crescent-crowned

#pathologic 2 #pathologic #herb brides #nonsexual nudity / #my art #watched tautumeitas' spodrē manu augumiņu video & #got entranced by the head pieces of plants and twigs... #so. herb brides hairstyles exercise. heb bwides sigils exercise. #yaaaaayy brides [NEGLECTING 54 OLDER WIPS] #check this out [puts the Pleiades & the Taurus constellations as seen #from Ulan-Ude on today 9:45PM (with artistic liberties with the closeness) in the bg] #this would be my portfolio tag if i had a portfolio [portfolio tag]

[shina913]

Scions, Ch.3 - Taehyung | Kim Line + JHS

Scions, 3 - Taehyung

sci·​on | \ ˈsī-ən \ Definition: (1) a descendant (2) a shoot or twig, especially one cut for grafting or planting

✼Scions Masterlist✼

Pairing: Taehyung x Fem!OC; Fem!Reader Sister + Taehyung

Rating: M (🔞)

Genre: Siblings!AU; Marriage!AU; FWB!AU; exes to ?; angst; smut; fluff

Warnings: Career insecurity; friends with benefits; vaginal sex; hints of oral sex (f-receiving); breast play; protected sex; excessive cussing; Taehyung with kids (not a legit warning but it's just super fluffy); some vulnerable confessions; pining; ghosting; alcohol consumption; a wild Jungkook appears!

Word count: 6,717K

Summary: Four grown siblings return to their childhood hometown after their father is declared to be terminal. They are forced to live under the same roof for days, along with their overbearing mother, to say their final goodbyes. It starts off nostalgic until some unresolved family issues along with an assortment of spouses, exes, and might-have-beens make things even more interesting.

A/N: This chapter was written as part of @btswritingcafe's Specialty Coffee Anniversary Event. There were three categories that featured various B-side tracks whose lyrics were meant to be the basis for the fic. For this particular chapter, I have chosen "Whalien 52": An endless signal will reach someday.

“Taehyung-ah.”

He looks up from his bowl of cereal to find his dad walking through the kitchen. Taehyung had spent the holiday weekend at his parents’ house.

“Hey, dad. Morning,” he gives him a boxy smile.

“I see you didn’t head over to the restaurant with your Jin-hyung today.”

He inhaled through his teeth. “Yeah…I just didn’t want to get in the way, you know. He seems to have everything figured out already. I would just be messing up the flow of things.”

His dad chuckled at him. “You spent a day with him–that’s hardly any time to learn about the business.”

Taehyung shrugs. “I brought up a couple of ideas to him–”

His dad’s eyebrows lift, intrigued by the sound of his youngest having ‘ideas.’ “Oh?”

“Yeah. I just noticed that the dine-in dispatch process gets mixed up with online orders. I pointed it out to him but he told me that it’s worked fine for them for the last couple years. I just said that maybe it would go smoother if they had a designated corner by the entrance for pickups, you know? Then the host wouldn’t have to go back and check on the status. It would make things more efficient.” He finishes off by spooning more cereal into his mouth.

His dad grins at him. “I think that’s a great idea,” he says to him, after pouring himself a cup of coffee.

“Eh,” his mouth twisted. “I guess if Jin-hyung has made it work this whole time, who am I to disrupt his whole system? He’s been doing this for years.”

“That doesn’t mean there can’t be room for improvement?”

“I don’t know. Jin-hyung said that nobody’s made any complaints about it so…maybe I was just talking out of my ass,” he says as he pushes the mushy pieces of cereal around his bowl.

His dad chuckled after taking a sip of coffee. “Well, your hyung goes with what works. He takes more of a ‘if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it’ approach to things. I don’t think he meant it to be dismissive.”

Taehyung nods his head. “I know that,” he says with a deep sigh.

His dad straightened his back and tilted his head at him. “Are you alright, adeul?”

He laughed. “I’m fine,” he said as the word ‘fine’ went up an octave.

Now it was his turn to laugh. “You know you’ve got that same look on your face when we went to that waterpark–and you didn’t meet the height requirement so you had to sit on the sidelines watching your siblings go on the big slides all afternoon?”

Taehyung hummed. “It wasn’t too bad because you stayed and played with me at the kiddie pool. And then noona came back to hang out with me.”

“Still–I knew how disappointed you felt, wishing that you were just an inch taller so you could go with them.”

When he was silent, his dad prods again. “Tell me what’s really going on, Taehyungie,” he says softly.

Taehyung threw his head back then blew out a puff of air up to the ceiling. “I’m feeling…a little stuck, I guess. Like,” he paused to clear his throat, “You know how the restaurant is Jin-hyung’s thing, Namjoon-hyung’s has his music. And then noona has her own business online. Me?” He chuckled bitterly. “I’m having trouble figuring out what I’m good at. Or…maybe I’m not good at anything,” he says sardonically.

“Is this because of the whole ‘job hunting’ thing? Because it’s taking longer than usual?” He asks while he sits on the stool next to Taehyung.

“I mean, I have jobs. I get gigs all the time–some art commissions here and there. Sometimes I’ll work catering events. It’s pretty good money and I work flexible hours.” He explains.

“Oh, trust me. I’ve heard about all of your career pursuits. Namjoon has filled me in,” he laughed softly. “Have you asked him if he knows anybody who can, I don’t know…give you an apprenticeship or–”

“Dad, I make rent every month. I’m not starving. I can even afford to get the occasional beer with my friend, Jungkook. I’m not struggling,” he argues.

“Well, I guess it helps that you’re home almost every other weekend. And your noona cooks for you when you watch her kids. I’m only suggesting that–maybe Namjoon knows people, or he can talk to Victoria to get you connected with her people?” His dad offers. “I’m only throwing things out there since…it seems like the restaurant is out of the question.”

Taehyung pursed his lips, his eyes downcast. “Yeah, I’ll consider it,” he says to placate his dad.

His dad softened his expression. “You’re a smart man–-and very resourceful. It will come to you when the time is right…kind of like an endless signal that will reach you someday. You’ll feel it…then you’ll know,” he says, patting his shoulder for assurance.

Taehyung gives him a crooked smile. “Are you sure that’s not Irish coffee you’re drinking, dad?”

They both break into laughter. His dad ruffles his hair up, just like he used to when Taehyung was a little boy.

“Ah! Not the hair, dad!”

“Serves you right,“ he says with a chuckle, starting to walk away with his mug. “Also–I put a little ‘lunch money’ in your backpack.”

Taehyung rolls his eyes. “Dad, you have to stop doing that.”

“Oh yeah? Make me!” He yells out from the side-door that led to the garage to work on his car.

******

“Hey.”

“Hey, yourself.” She greets him as they both exit their respective apartments at the same time.

“Early start today?” Taehyung asks.

“Yeah. Piles of paperwork after a long weekend. You know how it is,” she says.

He hummed. “Did you have a good weekend?”

“I did, thank you,” she smiled. “You?”

“Mm-hm,” he responded. “What did you end up doing?”

Her lips curved into a playful smile. “Wouldn’t you like to know?” She says teasingly.

“Just curious, that’s all.” He says as they near the elevator.

She scoffed. “Curiosity killed the cat.”

Taehyung furrows his brows slightly but hides his disappointment. “Alright, alright,” he relents. “I know…no personal stuff.”

“See? There we go,” she says to him as they step into the elevator silently.

He slowly sidled up to her. She held back a smile once she felt his breath behind her ear. “So…am I going to see you tonight, Eunhae?”

She all but moans her response. “Same time, Taehyung.”

The elevator dings to their building’s lobby. Taehyung walks two steps behind her but moves up slightly to hold the door open for her. She mouths her thanks as they go their separate ways.

Taehyung walks to his car, eager to get started at work. The quickest he can finish out the day, the faster he can get home to straighten up before Eunhae comes over.

And she does come over later that night…only because she was the closest person that he could call to pick him up from the hospital, after he gets into an accident on his bike while working his regular route.

******

Two and a half weeks later…

The doors open and YN walks out of the elevators and onto her brother’s floor. Just then, a woman is rounding the corner yelling out to hold the doors. YN does and the woman smiles and mouths her thanks before pushing the button for the elevators to descend.

She knocks at her brother’s door and is greeted by his slightly disheveled self.

“Wow. You look like hell.”

“Geez, thanks, noona,” he grumbled. “It’s hard enough to do things one-handed.”

“Well, it’s good you have helpful neighbors to look in on you,” she said as she set down some groceries on his kitchen counter.

“I’m sorry I couldn’t get to you, Tae. I was at a retreat and by the time I got home, my sitter couldn’t stay any longer. And then it was just one thing after another—“

“It’s okay, noona,” he smiled. “I’m alive, see?” He holds up his casted arm.

“I know that Namjoonie-hyung was out of town,” he says quietly.

“Uhm…yeah, he still is. He’s really hunkered down to get this new album mastered,” she said. “I heard mom came through though?”

Taehyung nods while he settles by his small dining table across the kitchen while she bustles around the kitchen, pulling out utensils and pans from his cupboards, which she stocked herself.

“Did she point out that you need a new decorator or something?”

He laughed. “In so many words. She means well, though. I think she might just be bored at home.”

YN shrugged. “I don’t know. By the sound of it, she seems to love it. She’s trying to plan another trip for her and dad soon.”

“That’s nice,” Taehyung answers. “Hope it’s somewhere warm because dad’s looking a little pale these days.”

YN agrees then suddenly, in the midst of unpacking groceries, something bright on the floor catches her eye. After a few seconds of deciphering what it was, she grabs a paper towel and bends down to pick it up. 

“Wow, Taehyung-ah…I didn’t realize that hot pink was your color,” she said as she cringed while holding the thong up for him to see.

Taehyung grimaces. “Oh shit—noona…” He abruptly gets up from his seat and quickly yanks it from her hand.

“S-sorry,” he says embarrassingly.

“Hey, no need to explain. You’re an adult…and single. You’re entitled to whatever romantic and physical pursuit of your choice.”

He scrunched his face. “Well…we’re not exactly dating so, it’s ’physical’ minus the ‘romantic’ part.”

She blew out an exasperated breath. “Oh, Tae…” He couldn’t bear the look of disappointment that she gave him.

“A fuck-buddy? Seriously?”

“Fuck-buddy is such a harsh term, noona. We are actually friends—“

She groans. “Good god, that’s even worse, Taehyung-ah!”

“We’re just having fun, noona. It’s not a big deal.”

“Are you being safe, though? You know…since this is all casual and shit?”

“Yes, noona,” he assured his sister. “We’re fine–we have an understanding. Plus, who needs labels anyway?”

His sister chuckled. “You know who says that? People who actually need labels.”

Taehyung laughed. “Noona, you don’t know Eunhae and I. We just work, you know? We just like to keep things open and…” he sighed. “Feelings just ruin things.”

Now it was her turn to laugh. “Oh, Taehyungie–I have never heard of a friends-with-benefits arrangement that has not ended up with one or both people catching feelings.”

“From the outset, we’ve established that neither of us were really ready for anything long-term, noona. Not with me being in-between jobs and her with her…life,” he mutters. 

She scoffed. “Taehyung…it’s dating, not marriage.”

“Still, though. We’re just having fun,” he shrugs.

“Well, in the future…when you decide to ‘have fun’ again, would you mind at least cleaning up–” she motions to the piece of underwear still in his hand, “You know, before I get here?”

He gives her a boxy smile. “Sorry, noona. I promise next time.”

While she started to unload the groceries, she switched topics. “So, what’s going on with the job hunt?”

He lifted a shoulder, noncommittal. “It’s alright. I’m keeping my options open for now.”

“Hm. I see a recurring theme here,” she mumbles while she starts chopping vegetables.

“I just feel like I have way too many things that I’m into. I’m still trying to figure out what I am most passionate about. Besides, the point is, I’m able to make rent, pay my bills with all of my gigs. It’s working out pretty well, for the time-being.”

“Right, but–don’t you want anything stable eventually?” 

“At some point, yeah,” he says, recalling his conversation with their dad.

She sighed heavily. “Okay and how long has it been since you moved out here? This whole bike-messenger thing–it looks like it’s starting to become a hazard for you,” she says as she eyed his injured forearm.

“This is nothing, noona. And honestly, the bike messenger gig allows me to socialize and get to know people in big companies. I think of it as networking,” he smiles proudly.

“Mm-hm, if you say so,” she says apprehensively. “You know there’s nothing wrong about asking your siblings for a little help. Shit, you do it to me all the time,” she teases.

She looks up from the cutting board and sees him frowning slightly. “Oh, god, Taehyungie–I’m only teasing, you know that. You know that I’ll always support you. You’re my baby brother.”

“I know, noona. That’s why I rarely talk to Jin-hyung or Namjoonie-hyung these days. I just don’t want them to be disappointed in me,” he says, hanging his head.

“Tae, we’re all just looking out for you. They just have a slightly different approach than I do,” she says in consolation.

He nods silently. “Thanks, noona.”

She hums.

After a beat of silence, she pauses her chopping once more. “So, are you still good for Saturday? I mean–given your situation, I’m totally fine canceling–”

“Don’t be ridiculous, noona. Of course I’ll watch the kids! Doctor says I’ll get the cast taken out in a couple days so I should be good to drive,” he smiles. “Besides, you need a break every now and then.”

She sighed. “Thanks, Taehyungie.”

******

“Hey, do you want to hang out this weekend?”

Taehyung was too busy looking at her ass while she bent over to pick up her shirt.

“Hellooo?” She waved her hands around to call his attention.

His eyelids lazily look up to meet hers. “What was that? Did you say something?” He smiled.

She giggled, crawling up to him on the mattress. “I said,” her lips were barely touching his, “Do you want to hang out this weekend?” She repeats slowly, then darting her tongue out to lick his lower lip.

When he tries to kiss her, she pulls away quickly–like the brat she is, all while snickering.

A low growl escapes his chest. She kindly offered to drive him to the doctor’s office to get his cast taken off. But when they got back to his place, one thing led to another–next thing they knew, she was bouncing up and down his dick–but not before he made her cum hard while sitting on his face.

He still had a bit of muscle weakness on his injured arm but Eunhae was happy to put in some extra effort.

“Would it be incredibly greedy of me to ask you for one more round? Please,” Taehyung purrs.

“I don’t know…you kind of made me work for it a little bit back there,” she chuckles.

He groaned. “Sorry, I couldn’t help it…I couldn’t put too much pressure on it yet,” he says. “Plus, you could have said ‘no’,” he says, cocking his eyebrow at her.

She rolled her eyes exaggeratingly then tilted her head to the side. “Somehow, you make it difficult to do that.” Nobody ate her out as good as Taehyung did–he drove a hard bargain.

“So–this weekend?” she asked again.

As Taehyung was about to speak, he squeezed his eyes shut, suddenly remembering something. “Ah, shit. I can’t–I told my sister I’d watch my niece and nephew for a few hours,” he says. “I can’t cancel on her.”

“Oh,” she says, slightly crestfallen. “Are you sure you’ll be fine watching them alone? You know, so soon after getting your cast off?”

She wasn’t sure why she asked him that. Plans have fallen through before and there were times when they couldn’t sync up their schedules. They just dropped the subject and moved on.

He waved her off. “I should be fine in a couple days. I just need to do those strengthening exercises that the doctor mentioned and I’ll be fine. I’ll be ready to horse around with them,” he smiled.

“I could help, if you want?”

His eyebrows lifted at the sound of her offer. Truthfully, she was shocked as well but she was trying to be nice.

“I like kids,” She grinned.

Taehyung let out a laugh which made her frown at him. “What’s so funny about that?”

“I just,” he shrugged, “Didn’t figure you to be fond of kids.”

She scoffed at him. “I’ll have you know that I was a nanny in my first year in the city.”

“Wha…really?” He said in astonishment.

“Uh-huh,” she says smugly, crossing her arms over her chest.

He hummed at that.

She hummed back, mocking his tone. “That’s all you’re going to say?”

“I don’t know what else to say, Eunhae,” he laughs softly. “But…I’ll admit, I might need some help. I was thinking about calling Jungkook to back me up. Maybe…I can ask noona if I can bring you over instead?”

Her eyes widened. “Oh–I’m meeting your sister?”

Taehyung caught his lips between his teeth. “Not like that–I mean, I figured she’d like to know who else was going to be around her kids. She knows Jungkook.”

She swallowed hard. “Oh…right. Y-yeah,” she says hesitantly.

“I’d introduce you as my friend, of course. But if you’re uncomfortable, just let me know and I can call Jungkook–”

“You know what? I’m just overthinking shit–which I shouldn’t be,” she smiled. “Yeah, I still want to help you. I think it would be cool to meet your niece and nephew…and your sister.”

Taehyung wasn’t exactly sure why, but suddenly, he looked forward to Eunhae meeting YN.

While he pulls up his sister’s contact information from his phone, Eunhae continues to get dressed.

“Hey–where are you going?” His brows furrowed. “You’re not staying over?”

“Taehyungie, I have a big day at work tomorrow and I need to get up early,” she says as she shimmies into her jeans then zips them up. “Besides, even though morning sex with you is incredibly tempting, I can’t afford to be late,” she says with a laugh.

Taehyung pouts playfully at her.

“Hey, lighten up! We’ll still get to hang out on Saturday,” she says. “Just let me know what your sister says. If not–we can just do a raincheck.” 

After she rakes her fingers to tame her just-fucked hair, she walks over to him on the bed once more to give him a quick peck on the lips. “Well…you know where to find me,” she says. And with that, she heads out the door and back to her apartment across the hall.

******

Taehyung and Eunhae showed up to YN’s door at 6PM, sharp. He glanced at her and saw that she seemed a bit restless, shifting her weight uncomfortably on his sister’s front porch.

“Hey.”

The way her head snapped up to look at him, he confirmed that she was nervous. He wasn’t sure why though.

“Don’t worry, my sister doesn’t bite…not like I do,” he jokes, trying to break the tension. She lets out a small chuckle, easing her nerves a bit.

After he rings the doorbell, he sighed, feeling incredibly relaxed this evening. This wasn’t supposed to be a big deal. It was just his sister, for crying out loud! It wasn’t like he was introducing her to his parents.

Although, maybe on the next three-day weekend, he would consider bringing her to his hometown.

He brushes the thought aside when YN opens the door. “Hi!” She greets them both enthusiastically and invites them in. After Taehyung gives her a quick hug, he introduces Eunhae.

“YN-noona, this is my friend, Eunhae. Eunhae, this is my sister, YN.”

YN smiled then tilted her head at Taehyung’s friend. She vaguely recognized her the day she came to see him as she was coming off the elevator.

“Hi, it’s so nice of you to come,” she smiled.

“Thank you for having me,” Eunhae responded. It didn’t look like she recognized her that day so YN didn’t push for it. She also tried not to think about that neon pink thong that she found on the kitchen floor.

“And thank you for helping. I wasn’t 100% sure if he was going to be okay by tonight. I really could have canceled, Taehyungie–”

“Noona! Stop. Go have fun–Eunhae and I can handle it. She used to be a nanny,” Taehyung remarks.

“Oh wow, fancy that!” She said. Seconds later, Joobin and Jooni barrel to the doorway.

“Uncle TaeTae!!!” Jooni squeals as Taehyung crouches down with arms wide open to catch her.

“Jooni-yah–you have to be careful! Taehyung’s arm hasn’t fully healed yet,” YN cautioned her daughter.

“I’m fine, noona,” he waved her off before turning to his nephew. “What’s up, little man?” He holds out a free hand to Joobin for a high-five.

“Are we playing Super Smash Brothers tonight, Uncle Tae?”

“Of course we are!” He tells his nephew immediately.

“Not before we play Cooking Mama,” Jooni whines. “I practiced slicing and mixing today,” she says with her little voice. Eunhae endearingly watches as Taehyung enthusiastically listens to his niece and nephew talk about their agenda for the evening. His mouth is agape from the big smile plastered across his face.

“Okay, okay–that all sounds really fun. But do you think we can make room for one more player?” He peers up at Eunhae who smiles at both kids.

“Hi,” she crouches down to meet them in the eyes. “My name is Eunhae. What’s yours?”

“I’m Joobin,” he says bashfully.

YN smiles at their exchange but is interrupted by a phone call. She excuses herself and takes it in the other room.

Jooni smiles sheepishly at Eunhae while burying her face into Taehyung’s chest. “Are you shy, Jooni?” he asks his niece sweetly.

“That’s okay,” Eunhae says warmly. “She’ll say ‘hi’ when she’s ready.”

From a distance, they hear YN hang up and rejoin them in the living room.

“Taehyung-ah? Can I have a quick word before I head out? I guess I have to drive to the restaurant now,” she says with a huff. She then turns to her son with a small smile. “Joobinie, would you like to show Eunhae your new LEGO set?”

“I can show her my LEGO pet shop,” Jooni says shyly, while pulling away from Taehyung.

“I can’t wait to see it!” Eunhae says to her. Jooni tugs at her hand and leads her to the living room. She looks back at Taehyung and YN while they walk off along with Joobin.

Taehyung gets up from his position and YN doesn’t mince words. “Okay, dude–” she keeps her voice low. “No funny business while I’m out, do you understand?”

He bulged his eyes out then cleared his throat. “Noona, I won’t–”

“I know that you would never dream of it. My babies love you and I trust you with their lives. Just…please don’t be distracted, okay?” She says quietly.

“I promise, noona. I won’t.”

“Good.“ She glanced at her clock on her phone. “Fuck, I’m running late. Thank you…again,” she said to Taehyung and Eunhae, her tone was relieved.

He nods. “I’m happy to help out, noona. Have fun tonight,” he says.

She groaned. “Yeah, we’ll see about that.” She then calls out to her kids. “Guys, I’m leaving!”

They both run to her and give their mom kisses and hugs. “Please be good to Uncle TaeTae and Eunhae, huh? And no fighting, okay?”

After they both nod obediently, she was off.

******

Several rounds of Super Smash Brothers and dishes in Cooking Mama, three and a half bowls of mac-n-cheese, two sets of brushed teeth, and several potty breaks later, Jooni and Joobin passed out, a third of the way through Moana, under their giant blanket fort.

“It’s so cute when they fall asleep with their mouth hanging open,” she gushed.

Taehyung laughed. “Yeah, it means they had a really great time.”

After they tuck both kids into their beds, they plop themselves on the couch. 

“Boy, am I glad that you were here,” Taehyung huffed out. “I forgot how much energy those two had!”

She laughed. “Don’t mention it. I’m a bit out of practice but good to know I can still hang with a preschooler. It took her a minute but I’m glad she warmed up to me eventually.”

He chuckled. “Yeah. That was odd—Jooni is usually loud. She’s usually the first one to come up and say ‘hi.’ My brothers and I always said she’d make a great politician one day.”

“That’s alright. Maybe it’s the whole stranger-danger thing. You don’t want to force these things. Kids are entitled to boundaries, too,” she says, leaning her head back on the cushion.

Earlier, Taehyung watched Eunhae try to settle Jooni into her bed. She was half-asleep, whining and wouldn’t let go of her. She laughed softly while gently unfurling Jooni’s tiny fingers to release her shirt from her clutches until she was able to safely set her down.

Taehyung smiled at the thought. He then takes a second to check his watch for the time. It was almost 30 minutes past YN’s expected return.

“Guess noona decided to actually have a good time after all.”

“She seems nice,” she remarked. “Your noona.”

He nodded and sighed. “Yeah…she’s usually my first call...for practically anything. I mean…my dad, sometimes. But more often than not, it’s her. She’s my best friend.”

She smiled. “My yeodongsaeng is my best friend, too.”

His eyebrows flick up at the small piece of personal information that she shared.

“She’s still in school and I’m helping my parents out with that. I try to come out there as often as I can but,” she sighed, “Thinking about airfare costs and all that…Figured they could use it more with other expenses,” she says ruefully.

Taehyung regards her intently. They had shared many serious conversations in the past but never personal. It was all part of their agreement. For it to work, they avoided sharing things about their life which would cause them to be attached…or care too much. Taehyung was apprehensive at first because it was against his personality. He liked being able to relate to a friend…but then again, Eunhae was not an ordinary friend.

“I miss home a lot, too,” he says quietly. “I was just there a few weeks ago. My dad’s health has been iffy but he looked well the last time I saw him. He’s happier that my mom’s not traveling as much anymore or being away for months at a time working on a movie.”

“Movie?” She asks incredulously.

Taehyung chuckles. “My mom is–or was an actress.”

Her jaw fell open while she sat up. “Wow! Was she in anything I’ve seen before?”

“Hmm…have you seen ‘Cradle and All’? It’s pretty old but–”

“Oh my god–your mom is Young Lina?” She gasps.

“Yep,” he says, popping the ‘p’ sound.

“Holy crap! My parents love her…I love her!” She exclaims then glances at Taehyung. “Ooh, now I see the resemblance,” she mumbles.

“Yeah…” he sighs.

“I-is that why they killed her off on ‘Broken Marriage Vow’? Because of your dad?”

“For the most part, yeah. And she’s had a great career. She’s always said that she’d rather go out on top...”

“Or with a bang,” she says, referring to his mom’s final episode on the show, where her character sets off a bomb in her own house to sacrifice herself by killing her daughter’s abusive husband.

“Yep, she had a lot of fun with that role,” Taehyung says wistfully. They both sighed and looked at each other. This was the most personal conversation they’ve ever had–it wasn’t forced or awkward. It just flowed freely.

Taehyung lowered his voice. “Does this mean you’ll only sleep with me now just because my mom’s a famous actress?”

“Don’t be ridiculous,” She let out a soft laugh. “When have we actually slept?”

He licked his lips while she bit hers. As they slowly close in on each other, they hear the garage door open.

******

His hands were all over her the instant he unlocked his apartment door. They clumsily stumble through but their mouths remain sealed to each other. Her hands rake through his hair, tugging at the strands, eliciting a low growl from him.

He palmed the swell of her ass with one hand while the other was up her shirt, caressing her back. They stagger into his bedroom, falling onto the mattress almost simultaneously, with her on top of him.

She pulls away for a moment, wasting no time to reach over by his nightstand to retrieve a condom. 

He caught her, pulling her on top of him. He tips her back over his arm then pulls her shirt and bra up to suck on her breast. His cheeks hollowed with the force of his sucking, her core clenching in rhythm. Her spine ached with the strain but she was more overcome with arousal–to the point of madness.

Fidgeting with his pants, she unzips them and pulls him out. He was already hard for her. She rips open the foil packet with her teeth then slides the piece of latex down his length.

She lifts herself slightly and he guides her while she sank onto him, slowly. They moan in unison while her tender tissues gripped his cock. Grabbing her hips with both hands, he lifts her once more, pausing for a moment, his breathing loud and ragged. Then he shoved inside her.

He rolled his hips and claimed that last little space inside her, his cock tunneling deep. She squeezed every inch of him, pulsing around him in frantic pleasure.

“Okay?” he bit out, his fingers kneading into her flesh.

“More,” she breathed. Digging her own fingers into his biceps for support, bucking her hips to meet his movements. He caught her mouth and gave her a long, deep kiss. Reaching in between them, he rubbed her clit in slow, hard circles coupled with each thrust of his hips into her.

He pulled away from her lips and nudged her jaw upwards to get better access to her neck and suckled at the skin between where the base of her earlobe and curve of her jawline met.

That did her in. Through the roaring of blood in his ears, he heard her groan his name while she came, spasming around him rapidly. His cock swelled and lengthened, jerking as he followed her climax with his own orgasm. 

Taehyung kissed her collarbone, his breath gusting hot and fast over the bare, sweat-slick skin. His chest heaved, his bruising grip on her hips easing. His hands began to stroke and soothe.

It wasn’t as if it had been the first time they had fucked…far from it.

As their heartbeats slowed, they kept their gazes at each other. Dark brown eyes staring back into a pair of black pools. He didn’t know it yet but that look scared the shit out of her.

Without breaking contact, Taehyung raises his finger to gingerly brush a few errant strands off her face. After he tucks them behind her ear, his palm lingers to cup her cheek. She closed her eyes and leaned into his touch briefly.

Whatever rules they had agreed upon before were fading rapidly…much like the breaths they were desperate to catch.

They drifted off to sleep together. In the morning, he awoke and she was gone. All that was left was a single stand of her hair on the pillow that she slept on, and her scent, that would ceaselessly haunt him for the next few days.

******

“I thought you had ghosted me, bro,” Jungkook says with a playful pout while he sipped on his beer.

“I’ve been a little busy at work. Plus, I had that accident a few weeks ago. Had to be laid up for a bit which meant I had to hustle to recoup some lost wages, you know?”

Jungkook laughed. “Right. As if you couldn’t just ask your parents for some cash to get you through,” he says sarcastically while he moves the controller’s joystick to select the next course that they would play.

Taehyung meandered through the kitchen with a bowl of furikake trail mix that YN dropped off the other day. He passed his front door, pausing to look through the peephole to check across the hall. He glanced at his watch, it was about that time when she usually got home from work.

He was hoping to catch her but she’s been evasive for over a week now. No late-night texts or random knocks on his door about needing ‘sugar’ for her coffee.

Every now and then, she would respond, saying that work’s been busy but no more than that. 

He didn’t understand. He felt that they had a breakthrough that night after they got home from YN’s house. He could have sworn that he saw the same look in her eyes.

Finding that the hallway was still empty, he continued on. “Nah, you know I have way too much pride for that. Besides, I still had a bit saved up so, it wasn’t like Struggle-land up here,” Taehyung says quietly before putting the bowl on the coffee table then settling on the couch next to his friend.

Jungkook’s eyes widened at the snack presented to him. “Ooh, I love when noona makes this,” he says as he takes a handful of mix and drops it in his mouth.

“She made you a bag this time,” Taehyung motions back to the kitchen. “Just so you wouldn’t have to steal my stash again,” he added.

Jungkook cackled. “Took you a while to catch on to that!” He laughs again. “Ah, please tell her thank-you. Maybe I can get the recipe from her so I can just make an endless amount of it at home. I get really sad when I get to the bottom of the bag and there’s no more.”

“I’m sure you do,” Taehyung deadpans then takes a gulp of his beer.

“Are you alright?”

“Hm?” Taehyung glances over at his friend. “I’m fine,” he says immediately.

Jungkook laughs softly. “You don’t usually call me during the week to hang out.”

“I just assumed you were free, that’s all,” he said. “Besides, I didn’t want to keep two extra bags of snacks. Sharing is caring.”

Jungkook stares at his friend for a few seconds. “Bull. Shit.” 

Taehyung cocks an eyebrow at him. “Excuse me?”

Jungkook grins like a Cheshire cat. “Something’s up with you and Eunhae.”

“Now, why would you—“

“It just fits!” He concludes. “You’ve been all mope-y ever since I got here.”

“I am not mope-y…or whatever you call it,” Taehyung denies.

“What? Did she decide that she’s had enough of the whole friends-with-benefits thing? Did she turn into a Stage-5 clinger? See, I thought she was too cute to be all-business about it,” Jungkook babbled on.

“It was none of that, okay? Just pick the fucking game already—“

“Or!” Jungkook says loudly. “You caught feelings.” He narrowed his eyes at Taehyung to gauge his reaction. When his lips narrowed into a thin line, Jungkook laughed again. “I fucking knew it! I fucking called it!” He slaps his hand on the couch cushion.

“You didn’t call shit,” Taehyung grumbles.

“Bro, I’ve known you for three years now, since you moved out here? You’ve had one girlfriend that entire time. Then Eunhae moves across the hall months ago and BAM! You agree to this no-strings situation. I didn’t think it was going to be long before you cracked. You’re the type of person who can never not do something like that without getting attached.”

Taehyung snorts. “Thanks for the analysis, Dr. Jeon. Are you going to bill me for that later?”

Jungkook scoffed. “Whatever, dude. You know I’m right,” he says, before finally selecting a course and proceeding to the next menu option. “Now that she won’t fuck you anymore without you making heart-eyes at her, you invite me to your pity party. But I appreciate the snacks and drinks, though,” he laughed.

Before he could argue Jungkook’s point, his phone buzzes incessantly over the coffee table.

When he picks it up, he sees Jin’s name on the caller ID.

He furrowed his brows. Jin knew that Taehyung preferred texting so he found it odd that he would start calling him now. He was tempted to send him to voicemail but something compelled him to pick up instead. 

******

Jungkook offered to stay but he told him that he didn’t have to, saying that his other friend should be making her way back with his car about now and that he would leave the city as soon as he could.

By the time he called YN minutes ago, she already had her SUV packed along with the kids. He turned down her offer to swing by to come get him.

While waiting alone, he couldn’t stop pacing in his apartment. Overcome with emotion, he went to the first place he thought he could find some solace.

“One sec, I’ll be right there!” He hears her yell out from the far corner of the apartment.

He’d been knocking on her door nonstop for close to a minute now. It was bordering on annoying…which she found cute sometimes. But not tonight.

He stops when she abruptly opens the door. “Taehyung?” She doesn’t open her door the whole way and instead steps out into the hallway with him. “Wh-what’s up? Are you okay? You look like you’ve been hit by a bus,” she remarks.

“Uh, hey…I was, uh…I was just waiting for Ani,” he stammered. “She borrowed my car for a gig and I kind of need it to get out of the city tonight as soon as she gets here,” he says, trying to hold back tears.

Eunhae’s brows knitted. “Get out of the city? What for? What happened?”

Taehyung wasn’t quite sure how to explain it. They had just begun sharing about their personal lives until Eunhae started to ignore him after that last night they spent together.

“Do you think I can come in for a bit? I just feel like I need somebody to talk to,” he pleads.

“N-now’s…not a good time, Tae,” she says awkwardly.

“What do you mean? Were you sleeping? I’m sorry–”

“No, uhm–I…kind of have a friend over,” she says quietly. She was fidgety…something was up.

“A friend?” Taehyung repeats.

“Yeah. Uhm, kind of…like a date.” She finally came out with it.

“Oh,” he says, sounding crestfallen.

“If you want, you can take my car instead? If it’s an emergency or something–”

Taehyung’s heart sinks. He didn’t think it would weigh any heavier than it already did after he received the call from Jin.

“N-no. That won’t be necessary,” he shakes his head and forces a smile. “I’m sorry for holding you up. I’ll just call Ani again–her gig should be wrapping up soon.” He turns to start walking back to his apartment.

“Tae–” she calls out to him.

He looks over his shoulder and back at her.

“I’ll call you tomorrow, okay?”

He nodded wordlessly then shuffled back to his door. As soon as he shuts it, he leans his back against it. He bangs the back of his head against it–hoping he had done it sooner so he wouldn’t have had to feed into his delusions in the last few days.

He didn’t want to admit it but YN was right. Nothing good ever comes out a fuck-buddy situation.

Just then, his phone pings with a text from Ani, telling him that she was on her way back with his car. Taehyung took a deep breath, squeezed his eyes shut for a moment. He exhaled, the same time he opened them again.

Within that short walk between her door and his, he’s decided within himself that maybe it was smart of her to pull away first. Taehyung knew deep within him that he couldn’t keep up the charade of detached feelings.

He had deluded himself into thinking that he could do it. But YN and Jungkook were right. In a way, he’s always felt connected to Eunhae even though he had talked himself into thinking that he didn’t.

His father always told him that when the right choice came along, a signal would reach him–he didn’t think it would be in this context.

For now, it was imperative that he rush to his family’s side. He would resist that pull coming from across the hall–and hope that this time away would help dull the feelings that had already broken through the surface.

◤Previous | Part 4◥  | Main Fic Masterlist

Thank you for reading!

If you loved it and/or curious to learn more, please comment, reblog, or send me feedback! 📩. I love hearing from readers! If you didn't like it so much, I would still like to hear about it 💜

Tagging: @internetjunkdrawer @deepseavibez @joeybeanxbts

#seokjin #namjoon #taehyung #hoseok #bangtanbathhouse #btswritingcafe #cafeanniversary22 #kim seokjin #kim namjoon #kim taehyung #jung hoseok #taehyung smut #bts angst #seokjin angst #namjoon angst #taehyung angst #hoseok angst #hoseok fluff #seokjin fluff #bts kim line #seokjin fan fiction #namjoon fan fiction #taehyung fan fiction #hoseok fan fiction #scions x kims jhs

[myafterlifeisbetterthenyours]

How about a part two of Stella x owl reader? Fights between Stolas and Stella have become increasingly rare and his mood is improving, Stolas decides to ask about, unlike Stolas, Stella knows very well how to keep her piece of paradise a secret for now. Until one day y/n decides to visit Stella under the guise of business and to give his dear little owl a "luxury massage session", but things get a little out of hand when Stolas is caught with Blitzo. (you can ignore it if you want)

Stella with her Secret Owl demon S/O

Stella, for the first time in weeks, was having a good day.

They had actually become far more common in the weeks since your confession.

She had found herself being far less stressed as of late. So much so, she had only hadn't had a fight with Stolas in a full week.

She was relaxing in her study, enjoying a good cup of tea.

She was reminiscing on your night together, the next morning you had given her a small stack of letters.

They were all addressed to her, the condition of some of them implied they were written many years ago.

It only took a single letter for her to realise they were love letters.

Dozens of them.

She took her time, pouring over each letter. Taking in every word and detail. Emotions swelling in her chest as she read each one.

It was perhaps the most romantic thing she had ever seen.

The letters acted much like a record of your feeling for her.

It started from your more innocent affection for her as a child, all the way into your growing feeling for her in your youth, when you realised your feelings for her were beyond friendship.

And into your discovery of her betrothal to Stolas.

You poured your heart into each letter, telling her everything. Everytime you thought of her, how much you missed her, berating yourself for not just telling her how much you loved her.

You wrote about how much it pained you to remember you'd never get to tell her how much he loved her.

It was a roller-coaster of emotions. Some letters made her laugh. Others brought her to tears.

And by the end, she was clutching the letters to her chest. Her chest swollen with emotion as she experienced so many emotions all at once.

Her marriage with Stolas was... less than voluntary. The whole union being mostly political, arranged by there parents.

She had hoped love would bloom after Octavia's birth. But it hadn't, and after that she knew love was not meant to be.

But you, you genuinely loved her, for her.

You dedicated your life to being worthy of her.

You didn't want her for her status or wealth, you wanted her, for her.

She cood to herself dreamily, fantasising about your time together.

Her fantasising was cut short when there was a neck on her study door.

She quickly placed the letters into her draw before asking who it was.

Much to her surprise, it was none other then Stolas who entered her office. Her 'husband' looked about nervously, rightfully so, she supposed as he stepped in.

'Hello, uh, Stella.' He said nervously 'may I talk to you for a moment.'

Stella had a colourful collection of words she wanted to use at him. But instead she simply asked 'What do you want?'

Stolas cleared his throat, clearly not surprised by her callous tone.

Taking a few steps he began 'I've noticed this past few weeks you've been less... confrontation.' Stella's eyes narrowed, but she held her tongue.

'And I was just thinking, if perhaps we could come to an agreement.'

That actually peaked her interest. 'What kind of agreement?' She asked warily.

Stolas looked thrilled she hadn't thrown him out yet. 'Well, I was thinking we could put our differences aside, put the whole incident between us behind us. FOr Octavias sake.' He quickly cut in. 'Our constant arguing has taken quite the toll on her.'

Stella clenched her hands, he claws digging into her palm. 'For octavias sake...?' she asked incredulously.

Rage swelled in her chest 'How fucking dare you!' She told him through a scowl.

She pointed an angry finger at him. 'You, YOU! Cheat on me! Betray our marriage. Betray our family. And you want me to act like nothing happened. "For Octavia's sake"?'

She stood up, she couldn't even look at him. 'You disgust me. Tell me, would you give up your little fucking Imp? If it would make everything like it was, would you give him up?'

Stolas didn't answer, instead opting to look off to the side. Stella just sighed, shaking her head.

'Your a selfish, pathetic coward. Hiding behind your own daughter, what a disgrace.'

Before she could tell him to get out, there was a knock at the door. 'Who is it?' She shouted.

The door opened slowly, revealing one of the palace Imps. 'What do you want?' She asked harshly.

'T-theres a Lord (Y/N) here to see you. They say it's a business matter.'

Stella instantly perked up, holding back a smile as she rose to her feet. 'Thank you. I shall greet them personally.'

Getting up she walked past Stolas, not even bothering to give him a second glance.

She made her way to the entrance, and much to her annoyance, Stolas had seemingly decided to follow her, for some reason.

She quickly made it to the entrance, you were waiting there, anxiously adjusting your attire.

Hearing her approach you turned, your face lit up when your eyes layed apon her, Only for it to instantly dull upon seeing Stolas.

Still wearing a smile, you reached forward and took her hand before planted a gentle kiss upon it.

'Lady Stella. Its a pleasure to see you after so long. You still look as enchanting as when we were children.' You tell her, sending butterfly's through her stomach.

The moment was sullied when Stolas but in, 'Children?' The butterflies in her stomich instantly falling dead. 'Do you know each other?' He asked.

Before Stella could speak, you cut in 'Me and Stella were childhood friends.' You told him extending your hand. 'Its been some time since we've met in person.'

Stolas took your hand, giving it a firm shake. 'Is that so? Stella never mentioned you.'

'Well until recently' you rolled your head, your smile just holding back a scowl. 'I was beneath notice. I've only achieving my status relatively recently.'

'I was from a lower house, you see, a vassel of her family. And through that, me and Stella became friends.' You gave her a warm look, staring for several moments.

Stolas went to ask another question but Stella cut him off. 'You had business to discuss, did you not (Y/N)?' She asked.

You snapped to her, delighted to not have to talk to Stolas any further.

'Yes, i do' you said happily 'I believe a mutually beneficial arrangement could be made, between our houses.

'Excellent' she proclaims happily. 'It been so long since we've had any real business. And perhaps we could use the chance to catch up. It has been far too long.'

You looked at her fondly, before Stella turned, signalling for you to follow.

You did, turning to Stolas as you left 'It was a pleasure to meet you, your highness.' You told him, the slightest hint of disdain in your voice.

The two of you made your way to her study, you opening the door for her, giving a slight bow as she entered.

She giggled at your antics, before you followed her in, shutting the door behind you.

As soon as the door shut Stella instantly spun around and pinned you to the door, locking you in a heavy kiss.

'You have no idea how much I've wanted to do that.' Stella told you, after breaking the kiss.

You just chuckled before raising an eyebrow, 'oh, i think I do.' You told her playfully.

Stella just giggled, giving you a peck on the cheek. Pulling away she got up and went over to her desk.

You followed close behind, wrapping her in a hug. 'Now, now (Y/N), we have business to attend to.' She told you, patting your arm.

You just chuckled, 'Stella, I didn't really come here for business. I came to spend time with you.'

Stella was a little taken aback, mostly for not seeing it, as on reflection it was quite obvious.

Kissing her neck you slid your hands onto her shoulders, gently rubbing the muscles around her muscle.

Stella moaned at your touch, this only emboldened you, as your hands rubbed deeper and rougher.

Digging your fingers into her shoulder muscles. Stella released a flurry of moans, gripping her desk as you worked over her shoulder blades.

You moved down her spine, slowly undoing her dress as you went.

Reaching the bottom she turned to you, moving her shoulders, her dress fell, leaving her in all her natural glory.

You took her then and there, the two of you wrapped in passion, you held nothing back, releasing years of passion.

When stella became more vocal, you tried to get her quiet down, in fear ztolas might catch you.

As you got rougher, she just cried out 'I want him to hear!'

You went on for a while, after you finished, you held Stella close, the Owl demon curled up on your lap.

You preened your lover, running your hands all across her body before gently plucking any feather you didn't deem worthy to stay on your perfect mate. Afterwards the two of you got dressed.

You meticulously inspecting Stella, head to toe, ensuring she was perfectly groomed from head to toe.

The two of you leaft her study, ensuring no evidence of your little escapade was left behind.

The small collection of Stella's feathers, were delicately placed in your coat pocket.

You followed her into the garden, strolling through the large hedges that sat behind the Goetia palace.

Confident you where alone, you held Stella close, sharing a public display of affection.

You made it deep into the hedges, finding yourself beneath a large tree. It was a beautiful reminder that there was still life in hell.

You took her hand, you lead her beneath the trees majesty.

You pushed your body against hers, pinning her to the tree as you locked your lips with her's.

As you deepened the kiss, The distinct sound of snaping twigs drew your attention.

Snapping your head to face the noise, you found its source.

An Imp had fallen through the hedge, leaving a large hole in his stead.

You locked eyes with the Imp and sighed, 'well, this won't end well' you thought.

The Imp seem to think the same thing, before you both exclaimed 'Well, Fuck!'

Thanks for the request. I really love writing for both Stolas and Stella, as I feel there just isn't enough story centred around them as individuals. It always about there family or Stolas and Blitzø. But I really enjoyed the request. I hope you enjoyed.

#helluva boss #helluva boss headcanon #x reader #headcanon #helluva stolas #helluva boss x reader #helluva stella

[crescentmoons-and-stardust]

Twisted Tales: Mercy, the Fifth Sister

Mercy decided she wanted to be married. Her four older sisters weren’t married yet despite their father’s attempts. The villager’s men were weary of the Duke’s daughter but that would not be a problem for Mercy. She already had a beau to marry, now she just needed to convince him to propose. 

But then, Ichabod came to town. He was a pastor of their faith, come to help teach the children of the village. He was welcomed into the Duke’s home as honored guest and quickly became entranced by the boldest of the elder daughters. Mercy was near hysterics when her father told her that the pastor had asked for her hand in marriage. 

“I’m supposed to marry Brom!” She cried.

“Brom hasn’t asked to marry you. But Ichabod has. It will be a good match.” And like that it was done. Or so the Duke thought. Mercy began to plant the seeds of her plot to get out of the marriage that very night.

“Ichabod,” She said that night over dinner. “Did you know this town is haunted?”

“I don’t believe in such things.”

“Oh, but you would if you came across our dreaded phantom in the middle of the night. They say he can be spotted on Bones Hill, behind the cemetery late at night. He was a criminal who was beheaded for his crimes. Now he is forever searching for his head.”

Ichabod scoffed at her tale but Mercy insisted this was what the villagers believed in. She coyly suggested he might perform an exorcism just to appease the villagers. Ichabod was a vain man and the idea of being the village’s hero appealed to him. So they decided that on the next full moon, he could journey to Bones Hill to perform the task.

Later in the dead of night Mercy began to create her ghost. She collected animal bones and tree branches to make a crude skeleton and tied it together with twine and wire. She bought a deer from the local hunter and gutted it for more parts. She used the rib cage and one of the antlers for an arm. The other arm was made from the deer’s femur and she used the rest of the longer bones to fashion legs. She fitted an old pair of pants and a shirt over the skeleton and stuffed them with leaves and pieces of meat from the deer. She even made skin for the hands and feet from old leather and the flesh of the deer. When she was finally satisfied, she recruited her sisters to help bring the abomination to life. 

They put the thing in the center of a circle and followed Verity’s chants. They each offered the creature a gift. A drop of blood, a strand of hair, a recently fallen milktooth, a petal from a marigold, a few tears, a memory, a secret, a wish and a dream. Next to Mercy, Chairty took the creature’s hand made of twigs and gave it a kiss. Finally, he was given a name. 

“Victor,” Mercy decided. And once the name left her lips, the thing began to rise. The younger girls shrieked in fear and delight. It jerked awkwardly to its feet and took a few lunging steps. It was horrifying. It was perfect.

They hid Victor in the woods until the full moon. Mercy walked him over to Bones Hill that night and whispered what he had to do.

“I want Ichabod gone from this village and from my life. Do whatever it takes,” She told it then retreated back to the woods. Mercy and her sisters waited in their wooded glen in anticipation for Victor to return. They heard a single scream that pierced the night air. It was almost dawn when he came staggering into view.

“Is it done?” Mercy asked it. The creature dipped its body in imitation of a nod. 

That morning, Mercy was excited to see Ichabod and hear of his experience. She hoped he would leave that very day.

But Ichabod did not appear at breakfast and soon a search was put out. They searched for a week but they never found him. Mercy felt uneasy as each day passed and wished that Victor had a mouth to tell her what had happened. She hoped that Ichabod had simply fled in fear. Guilt gnawing at her, she visited Bones Hill. She searched not knowing what she was looking for. As she got closer to the woods, she decided there was nothing to see, when a patch of red among the dead grass caught her eye. She followed the trail of red until it led to a large lump half buried in the mud. 

The stench overwhelmed her and she almost retched from it. She wanted to turn away but she forced herself to look at the half mauled body that used to be Ichabod. His stomach had been torn open by wolves and his guts lay scattered about but it was his face that would haunt Mercy for the rest of her life. His eyes were wide open and his mouth would forever be frozen in a scream of terror.

#twisted tales #the twelve sisters #the legend of sleepy hollow #fairytale au #fairytales #dark fairytales #dark fairy tale #fairytale #Fairytale Retelling #my post #sleepy hollow #tw mutilation #tw #trigger warning

[thatslikely]

Detention - D.M.

Detention- Draco Malfoy x fem!reader (gryffindor)

Warnings: none!  just more fluff <3

Word Count: 2.9k

A/N: A fun Draco fic with an enemies to lovers type of situation!  I’m really happy with how this one turned out and I hope you guys enjoy it too!  I’m definitely going to make a Seeker part 2 so don’t worry, but I also have a George Weasley x Reader idea in the works too!  Please feel free to send me your feedback (and you can always send me an ask or message for the taglist).

Just a Reminder: Y/N is Your Name 

----

“Detention!  For both of you!” Professor McGonagall’s voice rang loudly through her office.  The countless living paintings that speckled the candle-lit stone walls shook at her declaration.  

She disappointedly looked at you before marking your name on a piece of parchment that lay on the desk in front of her.  You felt guilty that you had forced your favorite professor (and the head of your house) to give you a detention.  Especially detention in the Forbidden Forest with none other than Draco Malfoy. 

You couldn’t even bear to look at the pouting Slytherin’s face beside you.  It was his fault that you now had to spend your Saturday night roaming through the eerie trees of the Dark forest.  If he hadn’t snatched your Charms essay mid-sentence then maybe you wouldn’t have shot a hex in his direction!  Fortunately for him, however, your clever hex missed the mischievous Malfoy by a single blonde hair, and now poor Neville’s shoes are glued to the worn hardwood floors of the library.    

Your forest escort arrived promptly.  You were thankful Filch was busy with other duties, so one of your Gryffindor prefects was chosen instead.  McGonagall sent your prefect a nod and as he signaled for the two of you to follow him, you finally made eye contact with Malfoy, shooting him a murderous glare.  He quickly responded with a scowl before walking out the door and into the familiar hall towards the forest.  

After several minutes of awkward silence, the three of you finally reached the inviting entrance of Hagrid’s hut.  The warm glow emitting through the windows of the stone shack contrasted greatly against the clear, pitch-black sky.   

Judging by the disgusted expression on Malfoy’s face, it was clear that he wasn’t fond of the half-giant or his home.  Maybe Hagrid would be a little sympathetic for your cause, and you could get away early.  

After a few moments, Hagrid emerged from his hut, a homemade wooden crossbow strung across his chest and a woven basket in hand.  Fang sat lazily at his side, drool dripping from his snout.  The groundskeeper tiredly said, “Tonight, you two’ll be searchin’ in the forest for some knotgrass.  Once this basket ‘ere is full, yer free to go.” 

Draco begrudgingly took the woven basket from Hagrid’s large hands with an eye roll.  Shortly after a bit more detailed instructions from Hagrid, you and the blonde reluctantly embarked towards the winding dirt path leading into the woods.  The only thing illuminating your late-night journey was the pearly full moon overhead and the small beams of light emitting from the ends of your wands.

You two walked through the spooky trees in silence, annoyed looks plastered on your faces.  Once the both of you had been walking around with the irritatingly empty basket for a while, you finally asked with a grimace, “Do you even know what knotgrass looks like?”  

“Of course, I know what knotgrass looks like.  Do you take me for an idiot?  Do I even have to remind you that I’m top of the class for Potions?” he spat, defensive and rude.  

“How is your expansive Potions knowledge going to help us here in the middle of the Forbidden Forest?  It’s your fault I’m even here in the first place!” 

“My fault?  Says the girl who nearly killed me after I so much as glanced at your pitiful Charms essay!  You’re a bloody psycho!”  His over-exaggerated recounting of what happened in the library would surely be a hit with his Slytherin worshippers, but not with you.   

Instead of disputing his accusations, you tore the straw basket from his ring-adorned hands, hissing, “Fine.  If I’m so insane, just leave me alone and let me collect it myself!”  You turned the opposite direction, speeding up your pace, leaving Malfoy alone in the dark. 

Draco stood, mouth agape, for a moment before quickly dashing up behind you, grabbing hold of your wrist.  “Where do you think you’re going.  I’m not gonna die in this stupid forest because of you!  Give me that basket.”  

He spun you around to face him, his grip on your wrist as tight as ever.  His hand was cold and strong; the silver snake rings that wrapped around his fingers dug into your skin.  You looked up into his captivating silver eyes, and for the first time, you didn’t see pure malice.  The starlight made his eyes shine nicely, which you hated to admit.

Your gazes were interlocked for a few electric seconds, which felt like hours, before Draco raised his eyebrows in shock, realizing how close his face had gotten to yours.  In one swift motion, he freed your arm from his grasp, and the basket was now in his control.  He awkwardly turned away from you, simultaneously wiping his palm up and down his black robe.  You caught a quick glance of his face, which was a pronounced shade of pink, visible even in the dim moonlight. 

You noticed your breaths became heavier, and your cheeks were scorching hot.  What just happened? you thought, why did that feel so… strange?  Nothing should’ve felt different.  It was just another irritating interaction with your Slytherin enemy.  He’s just the same old spoiled brat.  

You tried to get the intrusive thoughts of your strange interaction with Draco out of your head by focusing on finding the elusive plant.  You weren’t too sure what it was supposed to look like, so after minutes of searching, you were left with a fistful of mismatched stems and leaves.  

Once you couldn’t hold any more of the mismatched plants you had collected, you silently stepped behind the bent over Draco, reaching down to dump the stems in the basket which he firmly grasped at his side.

Draco, who was lost in thought, didn’t realize you were right behind him until a loud twig cracked right under your shoe as you were mere inches from the back of his head and the basket.  

Frightened by the sudden noise, he hastily turned around with his hawthorn wand ready.  Only, instead of being face to face with a rabid werewolf, his elbow was met harshly with your nose. You immediately recoiled from the Slytherin with a roaring yelp.  You instinctively reached for your nose, where blood was slowly dripping out and onto the ground. Great.  

While you were tilting your head back to alleviate the blood flow, Draco stared at you dumbfounded.  The situation at hand eventually sunk in, and he ran to your side, his hand on your shoulder, concernedly.  After you groaned in annoyance for a few seconds he asked, “Are you okay?”

You cocked an eyebrow, taken aback by his oddly sympathetic question.  He quickly realized the tone of what he said, withdrawing his hand from your shoulder.  With a significantly icier tone, he said, “You should’ve been more careful, Y/N.”  

You embarrassedly turned away from Draco, ready to wipe off your blood-coated hands on your robe when you felt a timid tap on your shoulder.  Draco stretched his arm to you, a white silk handkerchief with the initials D. L. M. embroidered in emerald green between his fingers.  He kept his head turned sharply away from you, his nose in a scrunch. 

You eyed his handsome punchable face suspiciously before you slowly accepted the handkerchief.  Before you put it to your nose, you bluntly stated, “I’ll get blood on it, you know.”

“I’m not stupid, I know that.  I gave you my cheap one, so keep it.  Don’t want your filthy germs anyway.”  

“You’re lucky I haven’t hexed your brains out yet,” you said with a sly smile.   

He mimed himself looking mockingly scared at your comment, but a satisfactory smile soon crept onto his face at the sight of your nose softly pressed into the ivory silk.  He was probably just glad to not hear you complain anymore.

----

The basket was nearly full of what you hoped were knotgrass stems, though it seemed your “expert Potions student” also couldn’t pinpoint the plants.  Both of you had also grown very tired, out for what was probably hours.  At long last, Draco plucked one final handful of leaves, making the basket full enough to your standards.  You and Draco simultaneously let out a sigh of relief, finally being done with this grueling punishment.  

Normally, post-detention, you would attempt to send Draco some of the Weasley twin’s dangerous concoctions for extra revenge, but he was being abnormally kind to you tonight, in his own Malfoy way.  Plus, this night had taken a huge toll on you both; you don’t even know if you had the energy to still be mad at him.

The two of you slowly trudged back to Hagrid’s, a joyful feeling in your chest since this strange night was finally over.  As you continued down the dimly-lit path, the platinum blonde who was previously at your side was nowhere to be seen.  You assumed he had snuck up ahead, ready to jump out at you from behind one of the towering black trees.  It wouldn’t be the first time he’d try to scare the hell out of you, to say the least. 

You kept following the path, your eyes darting around at every noise.  You were on high alert for your Slytherin rival, not wanting to give him the satisfaction of scaring you.  The further down you went without seeing Draco though, the more nervous you got.  Not just for the possibility of him scaring you, but for his safety.  You’d heard so many horror stories about the Forbidden Forest you could probably write a book.  

Finally, you mustered the courage to call for Draco.  You repeatedly yelled “Draco!”, slightly louder every time you didn’t receive a response.  Now you were really worried.  He was your sworn enemy, sure, but you didn’t want him dead in the forest.

After more minutes of shouting and worrying, you heard some rustling around you.  “Draco?  Try and scare me!  Don’t think I won’t hesita-”

You were quickly cut off by the noise you dreaded the most: the piercing howl of a werewolf.  You, and seemingly the whole forest, froze within an instant.  You rapidly placed your hand over your mouth, hoping that even your breaths couldn’t be heard.   

Your thoughts immediately went to Draco, alone in the forest, with a werewolf on the prowl.  While you should have been much more worried about yourself in such a vulnerable position, the blonde Slytherin couldn’t seem to leave your brain.  

Your head was so clouded with Draco that you didn’t pay attention to the sound of claw-steps growing closer to you by the second.  By the time you realized that you should shoot some crimson sparks up for help, a loud and intimidating growl emitted from the shrubbery right in front of you.

Without hesitation, you bolted away from the bushes as fast as your feet would take you.  You couldn’t get far though, as the silver, moonlight-drenched werewolf stood ahead of you once again, this time on full display.

Its sharp, horrendous fangs resembled the pointed stalactites of underground caves; its violent yellow eyes were a match for Hufflepuff robes, though Hufflepuffs were probably slightly less vicious.  

The werewolf stared at you, almost mockingly.  The snarl of its mouth could almost be described as a smirk, similar to the one which your blonde detention-mate often wore.  Your final thoughts before death at the hands of a werewolf would be, of all things, Draco. 

The werewolf reared its arm back, ready to claw you to death, and a single tear ran down your face.  It was too late to run, too late to hide, too late to do anything but die.  

Draco Malfoy, however, had other plans.  He bolted between you and the werewolf, rapidly pointing his wand out at the beast.  He yelled “Stupify!” at the top of his lungs, his voice hoarse and his lungs out of breath.  

You were too shocked by Draco’s sudden reappearance and act of heroism to notice the protective and caring grasp Draco had around your hand.  His touch felt different than when he held your wrist, his hand was now warm and soft.  

Your eyes were blurry with tears, and coupled with the dark night sky, you could barely see.  The only thing guiding you was Draco’s hand, pulling you towards the outskirts of the forest.  

You were too scared to look back in search of the werewolf, but Draco didn’t express worry that it would come back.  Instead, he pulled you closer to him, your head leaning on his chest.  His chest rose and fell quickly, his heartbeat rapid and quick.

After what felt like hours upon hours of running in the pitch black towards nothing, you and the not-so-bad blonde were back safely in front of Hagrid’s hut.  The tears in your eyes had finally dried, though you definitely weren’t looking your best.  

Under the light from Hagrid’s windows, Draco could see your matted hair, smudged mascara, and a bit of dried blood under your nose.  He could have easily made a snide comment at your expense, but instead, he reached to your face, brushing a few loose strands of hair out of your eyes.  

You looked up from your feet at the handsome blonde in front of you.  He held a guilty smile on his face, but he seemed to be okay.  You’d been so terrified these past few hours that all you could think to do was practically jump onto Draco, giving him a tight hug.

At first, he didn’t know what to do when you latched your arms around his chest in a tight hug.  The last hug he ever got from someone was his first day of Hogwarts, at Platform 9 ¾.  His mother tightly embraced him before sending him off to proudly strut onto the train.  

His body apparently missed the feeling more than it let on, for butterflies exploded in his whole body the moment your soft skin wrapped around him tightly.  He could faintly smell your shampoo as he hesitantly latched onto you.

The feeling of his arms around you was like nothing you’ve experienced before.  Sure, you’d hugged people in the past, but this felt different.  You felt your heartbeat quicken, and your whole body felt warmer.  You felt secure and comfortable.

Little did the two of you know, Hagrid stood in the doorway of his humble abode, a knowing smile painted on his lips.  He let out a small “ahem” before the hug was broken.  You and Draco swiveled to face the half-giant, who reached out his arm expectantly.  

Only then did Draco realize that he left the basket behind after the werewolf encounter, and a look of shock and embarrassment coated his face.  

“I must’ve left it back in the forest.  I’ll come back tomorrow night to regather the knotgrass. Just  let Draco off the hook, please?” Your face had a pleading expression, a slightly pained look in your eyes.  

“Don’ worry ‘bout it, Y/N.  I know all ‘bout yer werewolf encounter, I’m ser Snape can live without a bit of knotgrass fer a few more days.”  Hagrid warmly smiled at you.

The castle felt miles away from the outskirts of the forest.  Draco was back to being his usual cold self, facing away from you as you both trudged to the school.

Eventually, you finally stood at the large wooden doors of the main entrance to Hogwarts.  Within moments, you would be back within its comforting walls, which would surely soothe the new pounding sensation in your head.  

You reached for the large, rusted metal doorknobs, ready to be greeted with the castle’s uplifting energy, when Draco grabbed your free hand, pulling you away from the handle. 

You couldn’t bring yourself to be rude to the Slytherin, after all he did for you, so instead, you asked calmly, “What is it?”

The glow of torches which adorned Hogwarts’ stoney outer walls made Draco’s hair look magnificently golden, contrasting the way the pale moonlight made his locks seem almost silver.  His silver eyes stared into yours, and for a moment you swear you saw his gaze flicker to your lips.  

Your face heated up at the sight of his charming gaze and smile.  You hadn’t even noticed how close his face was to yours until you felt the heat radiating from his pale cheeks.  He quickly closed the minuscule gap between the two of you by passionately connecting your lips. 

The electricity in the air was hard to ignore.  The late hours of the night just added to the rush of feelings you got when your and Draco’s lips touched.  You wrapped your arms around the back of his neck, pulling him closer; one of his warm hands cupped your cheek and the other sat around your waist.  

After several moments of slow and loving kissing, your lips disconnected.  Your lips missed the feeling of his’, but you were still satisfied.  Draco pulled the large wooden door open, stepping inside with you, your fingers intertwined.  

“I might just have to steal another one of your pathetic essays soon,” Draco said, a genuine look of love in his eyes accompanied by his signature smirk.

“You’re such a git, Malfoy.  Though, I wouldn’t mind spending some more time with you, as long as there’s no werewolves involved, okay?”  

And with that, you pulled him closer for another quick, affectionate kiss before giddily walking up to the Gryffindor common room.

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[anonniemousefics]

The Nine Terrifying Moons | Chapter Three

Chapter One | Chapter Two | Chapter Three | Chapter Four | Chapter Five | Chapter Six | Chapter Seven | Chapter Eight | Chapter Nine | Chapter Ten

Fandom: The Folk of the Air | Jude + Cardan

Synopsis: Based on the response to this post. :) Jude’s not sure what she expected motherhood to be like, but it isn’t this.  

(SO MUCH FLUFF HERE. Really. Just. The fluffiest. I can’t help myself.)

Chapter Three: The Third

I think maybe I am meant to be a cautionary tale, not a happy ending.

I think that someone who has manipulated and lied and schemed as much as I have is destined only for tragedy.

And now it’s finally come for me.

I think this over and over again, like a spell I’m chanting to grant myself some measure of grim acceptance, while Cardan and I ride a ragwort horse all the way to the mortal realm. It’s the best course of action we can come up with in the moment of panic.

The moment I knew we were facing a potentially devastating complication, I wanted – no, needed – a human doctor.

Pregnancy is rare among the Folk, and I now find I’m not interested in trusting faerie midwives with a decidedly human condition. If there is something wrong with me, or with our baby, I want to know what it is, everything about it. I don’t trust anyone who might want to strike a deal for my child’s wellbeing or concoct some potion that, while saving the pregnancy, also gives our baby a third eye or snaggle-teeth or an appetite for blood. I’m also having flashbacks of a conversation long ago with Oriana, when she divulged details of Oak’s horrific birth. How there’d been complications that had cost Liriope her life. How Oriana herself had carved the baby out of her friend’s stomach.

I shudder hard at the recollection and press my cheek hard against Cardan’s back as we ride, my face between his shoulder blades. Hard pass. On every bit of that. Just – one massive hard pass. We are finding a real doctor.

Cardan didn’t even argue. Though he insisted it was time to tell The Court of Shadows, if only for safety reasons while we made an unannounced, unplanned emergency run to the mortal realm.

Nothing goes like either of us had hoped. There are no tears of joy. There are only tight, grim expressions and tense words while plans are made. How we will prevent our enemies from learning of the child and our absence. How we will remain protected while among mortals.

I have hardly a word of help to offer, and that alone is horrifying. I have always schemed and survived – it’s what I am. But there, instead, I can only sit with a hand at my flat stomach, my sole focus on willing this little rebel in me to hear her mother’s first command.

Don’t go. Please. I love you.

Please stay.

Please.

I’ve resented this for weeks, and now I’m begging for the nausea, the aches, the exhaustion to stay – all of it. Any reassurance that I’m not losing this newfound love before I’ve even really gotten to know it.

But I also wonder if I should just accept fate. I have always felt from the beginning that I did not deserve this. That I am stealing a happiness that I have not earned.

“How are you faring?” Cardan asks me over his shoulder, the whine of the wind in my ears. We’re somewhere over the sea, jostled by the roll of the ragwort horse’s gallop beneath us.

“The same,” I answer. Sick. Dizzy. Terrified of what comes next. Unconsciously, I grip his body to mine harder. He’s tense, every muscle on edge. This is unlike any journey we’ve made yet. There’s nothing to fight, and still everything to lose.

“Nearly there,” says Cardan, but it sounds like he’s saying it more for his own benefit. He hates the journey over the sea, the precariousness of ragwort horse travel. I’m not in any state to offer reassurances, or even tease him to lighten the mood.

Sure enough, the clouds part, and the city lights along the coast of Maine wink up at us. It’s evening, and dark beneath a heavy rain cloud, and as soon as we’re low enough, we’re being pelted with sheets of rain. By the time the ragwort horse alights its oaken-hooves on the pavement, Cardan and I are both soaked to the skin.

We dismount, invisible beneath a glamour, at the far end of a hospital parking lot. The sign at the entrance glows with a red cross and the name, Down East Community Hospital. It was the best I could think of to do at a moment’s notice: instruct the ragwort horse to find us an emergency room.

I wrap my arms around myself as Cardan holds out a hand to gather up the horse. The leaves of its mane and the bark-like coat of its body begin to curl in on itself, like a plant rolling in on itself for the night. A moment later, it’s only a few leafy twigs that Cardan can hide in his pocket.

We both look absurd, and I’m just now realizing it. We look like we’ve just run out of a community theatre dress rehearsal for a low-budget melodrama. Cardan’s tried to dress down, but he’s still Cardan, and he’s wearing tight black trousers and tall boots over his calves. He’s thrown one of the zip-up hoodies I keep in my wardrobe for trips to the mortal realm over a loose white shirt. He also must have been feeling particularly festive this morning after last night’s romp, and he’d gone and added a bit of kohl to his eyes before I’d woken up and shit hit the fan. And he’s still wearing gold rings all over his fingers and in his pointed ears. Combined with his soaked, inky hair, he looks a bit like a member of an 80’s rock cover band who’s recovering from being pushed into a pool.

It’s kind of nice. He rarely looks a mess. It makes me feel like we’re in this together, at least.

For my part, I didn’t let Tatterfell braid my auburn hair today, and now it’s just long and windblown, so I’ve tried to pull it all to one side to keep it managed. I’m wearing a simple pair of brown trousers with little silken flats that were my least flashy pair of shoes. I’ve got a shirt and olive-colored vest on beneath a hoodie similar to Cardan’s that was supposed to keep me warm, but now it’s sopping wet.

We both pulls the hoods on our sweatshirts up over our heads as we make a mad dash for the automatic sliding doors of the ER, racing against the onslaught of rain. Once we’re inside the vestibule between sliding doors, I stop a moment to grab Cardan’s arm and gather myself. He puts a bejeweled hand over mine, his expression tightened in concern.

“I’ve never done this before,” I confess, breathless. Hospitals, emergency rooms, doctors. It’s all foreign to me.

“I’ve done it even less.” Cardan’s looking more pale by the minute. The rising terror in both of us is palpable.

“I should call Vivi,” I spout, and Cardan’s nodding furiously in agreement, for once graciously not pointing out how he’s been saying this very thing for weeks.

But when I look around, there’s not a phone in sight. There’s only a poorly lit waiting room on the other side of the glass vestibule, and bored-looking nurses waiting at intake windows. Shit. Shit. How do mortals do this? How to they get treatments for mortal ailments and weaknesses and not fall to pieces fretting over their inherent, inevitable vulnerability in the process?

Suddenly, the surety of immortality is looking rather cowardly by comparison.

“Maybe one of the nurses will let me commandeer a phone,” I mutter, and I let my fingers slide from Cardan’s arm to his hand. My palm is starting to sweat when he laces our fingers together, but he doesn’t seem to mind.

The glass door to the waiting room slides with a hissing whisper, and inside there are people crowded in the cheap chairs lining the walls. Somewhere, a toddler is wailing out of sheer boredom while the evening news anchors jabber on a TV mounted in the far corner above a potted plant. Cardan’s already drawing stares with his ominous, messy appearance. He found a beanie in the pocket of the sweatshirt to cover the pointed tips of his ears, but there’s still kohl streaking his prominent cheekbones. I’m gonna need to clean him up at some point.

Right now, all I’m focused on is slipping into the first open intake seat and figuring out how in the hell I’m going to see a doctor for the first time in my mortal life. I am going to be brave. I have trained for nothing less.

“Hi, how can we help you today?” says a warm-looking middle-aged nurse behind the desk. She has short grey hair and floral scrubs, and a pair of readers perched on the bridge of her nose. Her badge says her name is Josie.

“Um.” My mouth feels dry, but I push on anyway. “I am—I am pregnant, and, um, I’m having some…” I draw in a shaking breath. Why is this so hard? “Some bleeding. I think I need to see a doctor right away.”

“Of course, honey,” Josie says, and peers over her readers. “Have you spoken with your OB?”

“I don’t have one,” I shake my head, my face starting to flush as Josie’s concern increases. I’ve never felt like I belonged in the mortal realm, and it’s never felt more apparent that I’m an outsider.

“Okaaay,” Josie says, slowly, adjusting her readers as she turns to her computer. “Let’s get you registered. Name?”

I hesitate again. I’ve never given my name in any sort of official capacity here among mortals. Especially not since I’d gotten married. What do I want to be called?

“Jude Duarte-Greenbriar,” I hear myself answer. From the chair beside me, Cardan titters a little amused laugh to himself and then bites it back when I shoot him a look. He likes the sound of it, too.

“Okaaay,” Josie says again, pecking at her keyboard. “I’m gonna need you to spell that for me, honey.”

I appall Josie further as the registration process yields the fact that I have neither a driver’s license nor an insurance card. With each of Josie’s judgmental sighs, I can sense Cardan stiffening with repressed irritation next to me, and it’s only stressing me out more. I should have had a talk with him first about promising not to curse anyone. I’m half-expecting Josie to sprout cat ears at any minute.

“While we can’t legally decline services based on insurance,” Josie says, doing little to suppress her concern, “I will need you to sign this agreement that says you understand that, since you are not presenting insurance today, you will be personally responsible for the entire cost of today’s visit.” And she shifts a clipboard toward me.

“Oh, look, love,” Cardan suddenly chimes in. He slides a wet leaf from his pocket across the registration desk as his voice takes on the heady, dangerous quality of magic. He’s conjuring a glamour. “I think you can see all of the insurance information you require here.”

“Oh, good, you found your card!” Josie exclaims, delighted, as she takes the leaf and begins happily clacking away at her keyboard.

“Do not get carried away,” I hiss at Cardan while Josie’s distracted. “That should be a one time thing.”

But Cardan just slits his kohl-lined eyes at me, looking like the smug bastard he’s always been, and leans an elbow on the registration desk, throwing Josie a coy smile. The glamour in his voice when he speaks again is just as sinfully seductive.

“And Josie, my sweet,” he says, “you’ll let my wife borrow your phone to speak with her sister, won’t you, dearest?”

“Of course, Mr. Greenbriar,” Josie replies, with the charmed-sweet smile of the glamoured. She shifts her desk phone to me, handing me the handset. “Just press nine for outgoing calls, honey,” she tells me.

I’m frowning at Cardan’s wicked smirk as I accept the phone.

“I don’t think that was entirely necessary,” I whisper to him while Josie types away. He grins at me. I don’t really want to admit that he’s just been pretty useful, and he knows it.

Regardless of how ill-gotten this privilege is, I do need Vivi. I dial her cell phone, one of two numbers I know, and wait while it rings.

And rings.

And rings.

“She might be screening her calls,” I say to Josie, sheepishly. “Her father is…” Oh, how to describe what Madoc is like these days. “…over-bearing and tricky.” And I hang up and try again. Josie gives a tight, uncomfortable smile, peering over her readers.

“You are not concerned about how unusual this is,” Cardan tells her, the glamour dripping off his voice, and I smack his arm to get him to stop. Josie settles again as the phone keeps ringing.

I have to hang up and dial two more times before Vivi finally picks up. She sounds irritated when she answers.

“Vivi, this is Jude,” I say, slumping in relief that she’s finally answered.

“Jude? Seriously? What?” The annoyance in her voice vanishes as she’s scrambling to understand. “You’re calling me? Where are you? Are you ok?”

“I’m at the Down East Community Hospital emergency room,” I say. “Can you come?”

“Oh, my God.” It sounds like Vivi’s suddenly frantically looking for her keys. “Yes, I’m coming. I’ll be there. Why are you there? What’s going on?”

“It’s a lot to explain over the phone,” I say, slowly, white-knuckling the handset. “I’m ok, and Cardan’s here, but I just really need you.” I hate it more than anything, but I can’t keep the frightened younger sister out of my voice now that I’m actually talking to Vivi about this. The first rush of relief hits me when Vivi replies without hesitation:

“Ok. It’s gonna be ok. I’m on my way.”

I let out a long breath as I hand the phone back to Josie.

“The nurse will call you back when they’re ready for you,” says Josie, and gestures to the crowded waiting room. “Have a seat.”

“Or--” Cardan starts, leaning forward, and I know he’s about to throw out another glamour to speed things along. In the blink of an eye, I clap a hand over his mouth before he can say another word.

“Thank you,” I tell Josie, through a gritted smile, and urge Cardan to move along.

“Your moral stance on glamours ought to have a loophole where our child is concerned,” Cardan gripes as we shuffle to the nearest available two chairs.

“You Folk are like addicts with glamours,” I snap back as we take a seat. “You don’t know when to stop.”

“I believe I’ve proven myself capable of great restraint,” Cardan says, looking miffed for a moment until a People magazine on a nearby table catches his eye and his curiosity of mortals gets the better of him.

He has the right idea, I think. Distraction would be the key to getting my mind off the blood and not falling apart right now. I’ve done everything I can at this point, and now we must wait.

I busy myself for a moment by wrapping the cuff of my sleeve over my fingers and wiping off the rain-splattered streaks of kohl off Cardan’s face, so that the father of my child looks less like the troubled D-list celebrities his People magazine is trashing. He’s not drawing any less attention, but there’s not much either of us can do about that. If you’re not accustomed to the allure of the Folk, it’s nigh impossible to not stare and stare and try to decipher what it is about them that’s so otherworldly. But at least now they’re staring for the right reasons and not at his ruined eyeliner.

With nothing more at arm’s length to distract me, I rest my head against the wallpaper behind me and let my vision go unfocused in the general direction of the TV in the corner. I don’t want to think about the whining toddler in the room, who’s mad at his mother for not bringing the right stuffed animal with them to the hospital. What would I do with a half-human child in Faerie who fell ill or wounded? What would we do? Would the land let Cardan heal him? Would we have to make this journey again? What if I forgot the right stuffed animal, too??

Amazing that I’m suddenly assuming this child is going to survive whatever’s happening now, I realize, and this worry spiral is helping no one.

Once upon a time, I’d been the girl determined to become a thing feared. What has happened inside me, that I’m now this terrified woman? I hate it. I hate it, and I don’t know how to stop it.

“You’re not afraid of that everything will change?” I remember asking Cardan, three moons ago. I had thrown out the last of my birth control that day. We’d snuck away from a revel to lie beneath the massive tree that grew out of the top of the palace of Elfhame, staring at the stars above and dreaming of what they could hold.

Cardan looked to me, his hands behind his head in the loam, his crown slightly askew. He smiled, and the moonlight made him almost too beautiful to bear.

“I cherish every change you’ve ever brought me, Jude,” he said, and he stretched out a hand to tuck a strand of hair behind my ear, his fingers softly lingering at its rounded edges. “I don’t see why this should be any different.”

“You’ve not always felt so gracious about the changes I’ve foisted upon you,” I pointed out. “And you don’t get to exile me now if my parenting pisses you off.”

I’m not sure what I thought he’d think of such a statement, but it was out in the night air anyway. His gold-rimmed eyes darkened as he pulled his hand back, folding it over his chest. I watched him as he stared up at the stars again, waiting for his response, and with each second, regret began to sink in.

“I consider myself fairly thick-skinned,” he said at last, “but that was uncalled for.”

“I was teasing--” I started, but he shot me a dark look.

“There was a measure of truth in your voice,” he countered. “You don’t lie as well as you think you do.”

“I don’t see what you’re so put out about,” I huffed, pulling back to glare at the night sky. “You weren’t the one living in exile.”

“Not this again,” Cardan groaned, scrubbing his hands over his face. “Five years, Jude. It’s been five years,” he sighed into his palms.

“And now we’re discussing children, and it’s a very large and potentially aggravating change,” I said. “Maybe I am a little wary.”

“Of me?” The moment I saw the unguarded devastation on Cardan’s face, it was like I’d slapped him, and not in the fun way. I wanted to be swallowed down by the loam, covered in a grassy grave. Everything about this was awful. I wanted children with this man. Why was I dredging up ancient history?

But Cardan had been right. There’d been a measure of truth to it. It’s been a deliriously wonderful five years, but we are not entirely new people. We have a terrible past. And I feared what demons a significant change like this could summon.

When I didn’t answer right away, Cardan sat up so his back was to me, burying his head in his hands.

“Cardan…” I shifted so that I was propped up on my hands.

“What else can I give you to make this right?” he fretted to the ground in front of him. “I have given you everything. Every part of me, everything you see before you. It was wrong for both of us to take our games as far as we did, but I would have thought by now--”

“It was an off-handed comment made in poor taste.” I wanted to put a stop to everything that was happening. Rewind the whole evening.

Instead, he looked over his shoulder at me, visibly aching.

“I will not be like my father. I refuse it,” he retorted, and when I cocked my head to the side, not understanding, he went on. “Eldred collected consorts and sired children the way some people curate shoes: to suit his vanity. And I have that in spades already; there’s no need to spawn more. What I would want for a child, more than anything, is to not know what it is to grow up as an accessory. To not fear that his mother will be discarded. Jude, if you cannot trust so little of me, then this is poorly timed. Perhaps we need another five years. Or ten. Or however long you require.”

I sat up and scooted next to him, tucking my chin against his shoulder.

“I trust you,” I assured him in a whisper, and, as if he couldn’t help it, his eyes closed as he leaned his head towards mine. He smelled like oakwood and leather, like everything I’ve ever wanted. “I would not still be with you if I did not trust you.”

I wanted to push back the thick curls from his forehead, and so I did. And held my palm against his jaw as I leaned my forehead to his while the stars twinkled overhead.

Five years later, and sometimes we’re still finding little bits of armor that need to come off. For me, becoming a fearsome thing is not an option for handling motherhood, just as Cardan refuses to mirror his father’s vanity. But when I take off this bit of armor, this need to be feared and respected, it feels as if there is nothing underneath yet. Only vulnerability. Only terror.

I think of it now, in the ER waiting room of the Down East Community Hospital, while I snake my arm through his, looking at him while he’s ogling People magazine. He looks a mess, and there is no one I trust more. I’m still not convinced we’re shining examples of excellent would-be parents. But I’m afraid and vulnerable in the worst ways, and there’s no one I’d rather see me through it.

“Eldred would never have done something like this for any of his consorts,” I point out to him in a whisper, and he looks back at me with a pleased smirk.

“You are my wife,” he indicates, and gives my cold knuckles a swift kiss before turning back to whatever filth is engrossing him in People.

“Jude Duarte-Greenbriar?” There’s a nurse at the emergency room door calling my name. I draw in a breath. Here we go.

The nurse in blue scrubs takes my vitals and makes us somewhat comfortable in a makeshift space where we’re surrounded by taupe-colored curtains on three sides while I wait on a hospital bed. There’s a squeaky grey plastic chair for Cardan to sit on, and no more TV or People magazine – just the assurance that a doctor will see me soon. And then we’re left with our dread to stare at the taupe curtains around us, listening to the squeak of hurried shoe soles against linoleum and the occasional beeping of hospital pagers. The air is acrid, like someone’s tried to scrub it clean, and it’s making my stomach lurch. It must show on my face as I swallow hard against the rising bile, because Cardan swiftly hands me a blue plastic barf bag that the nurse has left him in charge of. He’s wary of my empty threats to aim for his shoes.

“Jude, are you decent?” calls a voice from the other side of the curtain. “You have visitors.”

The curtains scrape against their tracks on the ceiling, and I can’t hold back a relief grin at the sight of Vivi and Heather.

“Oh, my God. Oh, my God.” It’s all Vivi can say as she sweeps in to wrap me in a hug.

“Hey,” Heather graciously greets Cardan while the two are awkward to the side. She’s looking effortlessly cool, with her shoulder-length pink hair in soft waves. She has holes in her jeans in all the right places, and she’s wearing a breezy, colorful boho top that shows off her brown shoulders. I try to give her a wave while Vivi is squeezing the life out of me.

“What are you doing here?” Vivi demands when she pulls away, holding me by the shoulders. She’s given her golden hair a short, edgey chop that almost hides the pointed tips of her half-fae ears when it falls the right way. She tends to favor t-shirts and jeans, but today she’s in tight black pants and a grey v-neck under a jacket, and I’m hoping I haven’t interrupted a date.

“Well.” I shift a glance between the two of them, simultaneously gladdened that they’re here and nervous with how I now I have break the news. “This isn’t how I wanted you to find out…” And then Vivi gasps.

“Are you pregnant?!” she squeaks.

“Oh, my God, V,” Heather rolls her eyes. “You can’t ask people if they’re pregnant.”

“She’s right, though,” I interject. “I am.”

“Jude!” Vivi exclaims, fondly, and takes my face in her hands, and, for a brief moment, I realize this is all I’ve been wanting for weeks. I grin, sheepishly. Then Vivi narrows her cat-like eyes at Cardan.

“You knocked up my sister?” she jabs.

“Bold of you to assume it’s mine,” he quips back, and Vivi feigns a disgusted gasp as throw the empty barf bag at him.

“Force of habit,” Cardan tells Heather with a shrug.

“Congratulations, Cardan,” Heather replies, giving him a pat on the shoulder.

“But why are you here?” Vivi turns to me again. “Does Taryn know? Does Madoc?”

“No on both counts,” I shake my head. “It’s early. And we’re here because--” Ugh, I hate this. I hate this. “I started bleeding.”

“Oh, no.” Heather’s face is etched with genuine concern. It’s been a roller coaster of a few minutes.

“But why are you here?” Vivi tries again, and I see what she’s getting at. Why not be seen to by the royal midwives?

“I’m mortal,” I say, quietly. “This is a mortal thing. I felt like I needed a mortal doctor.”

And Vivi takes my face in her hands.

“I completely, one-hundred-percent agree,” she says, whole-heartedly, and there’s relief there, too. She’s always wanted me to spend more time in the mortal realm.

We crowd around the hospital bed for a while to catch up. Heather makes a run to the vending machine to bring back some snacks, and soon the tightness in my chest is releasing and unwinding. This was the distraction I needed. For a few minutes there, I could almost forget what had brought us to this weird, curtained-off corner to begin with.

But then the curtain scrape on the track again. There’s an orderly waiting there in blue scrubs, pushing a wheelchair.

“They’re ready for you in ultrasound now, Jude,” he tells me, and indicates that I’m supposed to ride in the chair. I bristle at the gesture. I’m not sure of the last time I’ve been asked to do something so vulnerable and humiliating. I am not ill. I don’t need this.

Vivi notices and puts a hand at my arm.

“It’s just standard hospital procedure, Jude,” she says, in her tone of voice she uses to convince Oak to eat vegetables.

So I comply. Heather and Vivi tell us they’ll wait for us to get back, and then we’re off. Cardan follows the orderly, and every once and awhile, I hear him having to jog to catch up – he’s easily distracted by what all the mortals are up to in this place.

I’m wheeled into a dark room with an exam table. Next to it is a bunch of strange equipment I’ve never seen before – screens and wands and all sort of buttons. A technician waits for us there, a woman in pink scrubs with a badge that says her name is Brenna. Her dark, curly hair is pulled back tight against her scalp, and she has kind brown eyes that smile when she tells me to make myself comfortable on the exam table.

“And is this Dad?” Brenna wants to know, cheerfully waving Cardan in to have a seat on a grey plastic chair next to me.

“Not my dad,” I say, not understanding the question at first. Then it dawns on me. “I mean, he’s the father, yes. Of the baby.” Oh, my God. This is off to a great start. Cardan’s trying very hard to not laugh outright at me and failing miserably. His laugh comes out like one long snort.

“Happens all the time,” Brenna says, with another cheerful wave, which makes me wonder why she’s still asking it, then.

“First baby?” Brenna now wants to know, making small talk while she’s queuing up her equipment.

“First everything,” I reply, hoping that will explain my nerves. “First baby, first ultrasound, first try.”

“Oh.” Brenna sounds impressed and looks to Cardan as she wheels around in her swivel chair. “Nice shootin’, Tex,” she tells him, with a wink.

“Thank you, Brenna,” Cardan accepts graciously, puffing out his chest a little. I roll my eyes.

“This may be the only time I’m ever complimented on my marksmanship,” he tells me. “Let me have this moment.”

“All right!” Brenna interrupts. “Let’s see what you’re cookin’ in there, mama.”

She rolls up my shirt and tucks in some scratchy paper into my leggings. Then squirts some cold gel across my abdomen. I watch in fascination while she rolls her device over my stomach, and then she turns her screen to us.

“And here’s your little guy,” she says. “Or gal. Can’t tell yet, obviously.”

For a moment, time stops.

Next to me, Cardan draws in a breath.

Something squirmy and alive curls and stretches in the grainy black and white pixels of Brenna’s screen. It doesn’t look quite human. Or fae. It looks kind of alien, if I’m being honest. But I can see its tiny limbs and the outline of its perfectly round head, and it’s moving. Like a manic little seahorse, our little shrimp is bobbing all over the place, alive and well.

“Looking good,” Brenna says, and Cardan barks out a surprised laugh. I’m smiling so hard my face might break.  

“Oh, I was sure I’d stabbed it,” Cardan sighs in relief, slumping in his seat, and it’s my turn to laugh.

“That’s not actually possible,” Brenna tells him, and maybe now he’ll believe it. “Let’s see if we can hear the heartbeat.”

She clicks and clacks at some buttons, then turns a knob. Pushes a little harder on my abdomen.

A fluttering, steady whooshing sound fills the speakers in the room. I don’t know when I grabbed Cardan’s hand, but I’m squeezing it hard now. I glance at him. He’s utterly transfixed on the screen, his dark eyes wide, his lips parted. He looks like how I feel when I’m in bearing witness to great and ancient magic.

This isn’t all vomit and exhaustion. This is happening. This is real.

We are making something new. Something entirely unique. Like magic.

“Ok, this might be your issue.” Brenna breaks the enchantment, zooming in on something dark on her screen. My heart, which moments before felt like it might burst, squeezes and contracts in panic now.

“This is a sub-chorionic hematoma,” she says, pointing to the screen and making some notes. “The doctor will explain all this to you.”

“What is it?” Cardan’s voice is tight, panic thinly-veiled. “Is it dangerous?”

“They’re pretty common,” says Brenna, not looking at us while she takes measurements and notes. Like she drops these kinds of bombs regularly. “It’s basically an accumulation of blood between the uterine wall and the fetal membrane. It can cause bleeding, especially as the baby gets bigger and jostles it around. They usually resolve without much issue.”

“Usually?” Cardan’s not assuaged.

“Well, again,” Brenna says, looking at him sidelong, “the doctor will read this and give his advice. But it can increase the risk of miscarriage in some cases. Not always, though. The doctor will tell you how he wants you to treat it, but it usually involves some bed rest or limited activity, nothing too strenuous or crazy. Don’t go horse-back riding!” And she laughs as if only a crazy person would get on a horse while pregnant.

I look to Cardan. He looks to me. It’s hit us at the same time.

The ragwort horse.

How the hell are we getting home?

“Huh.” I barely had time to digest my realization about the ragwort horse before Brenna was back with more. She swivels the device on my stomach around some more. Cocks her head to the side.

“Are either of you a twin?” she asks.

Cardan points at me like I’ve done something wrong he doesn’t want to be blamed for.

“Why?” I ask, slowly, cautiously.

“It does run in families,” Brenna says, and turns the screen to us again. “And I’m seeing two babies here.” She looks back at Cardan. “And on the first try, Tex,” she says, looking impressed again.

Now, nothing feels real. I think I might leave my body. There are two squirmy aliens in the black and white screen, the lazier of the two now floating into view. Brenna adjusts the knobs some more to bring the new heartbeat into focus, just as strong as the first.

“Jude.” I can’t decipher what Cardan’s feeling now. He looks unlike I’ve ever seen him before. Something between elation and sheer dread is warring between his wide eyes and furrowed brow. He grips at the beanie over his hair like he’s trying to keep his own head from flying off.

“Are you and your twin identical?” Brenna asks. I nod, stupidly.

“These, too,” she nods, and points at the screen. “See: they’re sharing a sac.” She draws in a deep breath. “This does elevate the risk more, with the hematoma. The doctor will go over all of this with you. But I’ll bet he’ll want you on some kind of bed rest. Weekly check-ups. That sort of thing.” And then she squints hard at the screen. “What is that?” she wonders aloud. “Is that a tail?”

“You don’t see a tail,” Cardan says, but he’s so flustered and shell-shocked, he’s forgotten to use the glamour.

“I think I might, though.” Brenna squints harder.

“You don’t see a tail,” Cardan says, louder and hurried, this time with the weight of magic heavy in his tone. “Everything you see looks normal to you.”

A glamoured smile flutters over Brenna’s pleasant features as she lifts the device from my belly and clicks off her equipment.

“Everything looks normal,” she hums, happily. “Congratulations, you two.”

“Everything but the hematoma, right?” I cock my head to the side as she rolls away her swivel chair. “The doctor will speak to us about that.”

“What hematoma?” Brenna’s still smiling as she stands with her clipboard. “Everything looks normal. I’m going to call an orderly, but pretty much you’re free to go. Congratulations!”

“Cardan,” I accuse under my breath as she leaves, leveling a glare at him.

“You are carrying twins.” He’s just agape at me, either unaware or unrattled by how the poor wording in his glamour just muddled everything.

“The doctor won’t know about the hematoma now!” I exclaim.

“We’ll scrounge up another one somewhere,” Cardan waves me off. “Jude. Twins.”

It’s not helping me feel any better, him saying it over and over again. I slump into my hands, weighted by disbelief and frustration. What am I going to do? This can’t possibly be real, can it?

“I am going to get so huge,” I moan into my palms in self-pity. I know it’s vain, but at the moment, it’s all I can think. In the land of willowy Folk, I already stick out like a sore thumb. Now I’m going to be a sore and massively swollen thumb.

Cardan’s shifted to stand in front of me on the exam table. And he runs his hands up and down my arms, almost reverent.

“You are magnificent,” he reassures me, softly, and presses a kiss against my head.

“Why are you not freaking out?” I ask, and pull him by the hoodie pockets so I can hug him again if I need it. I think I may need it. “This is two babies. We don’t even know Thing One about taking care of one baby, and now there will be two.”

“We may require a few more house cats,” Cardan jokes, and when I scowl, he asks, “That’s still not amusing? I shall persist. One of these days.”

“You know, I hear that’s a mortal fatherhood trait,” I point out. “Persisting over and over with the same unamusing joke to the embarrassment of everyone around you.” And I wrap my arms around his waist as I look up at him. He’s warm, and everything is a little more bearable when he’s close and smiling.

“I think you are implying that I’m excelling at fatherhood so far,” Cardan grins down at me, and I’m surprised to see it looks as if his gold-rimmed eyes are glistening.

“Are you all right?” I ask, softening at the sight. He blinks, furiously, as he buries his long fingers in the hair at the nape of my neck, holding me close as he looks over my face.

“I just--” His voice is hoarse when he starts, so he clears it and tries again. “This is more than I ever dared to consider,” he says. “I did not dream that this kind of life would ever be an option for me. Family that looked after each other, that loved each other – that always seemed to me to be a strictly mortal gift. As if the Folk had bargained for everlasting life long ago and forsook all hope of familial love in the process. I had accepted that it wasn’t mine to have. But you.”

He shifts his hands so that he holds my face, and I feel swallowed by the adoration in his admission. All I can do is close my eyes as he holds me. I can think of nothing else when his nose brushes my forehead.

“I am overcome by all you have given me,” he whispers, and I think I might cry. My hands twist in the fabric of the sweatshirt he wears.

“I love your words,” I whisper back, “but you give me too much credit.” I pull back to look at his mirthful, glistening eyes and say: “If it were left up to me, I would never have given you twins.”

He laughs outright, unguarded and thrilled.

“Lucky for me, then,” he says, and kisses me.

I have kissed him hundreds, maybe thousands of times. We have shared passionate, unbridled kisses and desperate, devouring kisses. We’ve kissed at quick partings, and we’ve kissed with soft, gentle comfort. I like everything about them all. But this is something entirely new, something that surprises me still. It’s filled with gratitude and promises and dreams of the future, and though it is intimate, I would not have felt ashamed if someone had walked in.

It’s the kiss of complete trust, and in that moment, I feel assured that, in Cardan, I have not made a mistake. There is much to figure out still. But this is right.

So, we will have twins. I will meet this challenge with resolve. For right now, anyway, the quantity of babies is the least of our concerns.

“How in the hell am I supposed to get home?” I ask, the moment we pull apart. Cardan rests his hands on my shoulders, screwing up his beautiful mouth in thought. The ragwort horse. The bed rest. The doctor we must scrounge up somewhere. There are a dozen new bullets swirling on a to-do list, and none of them lead us back to Faerie any time soon.

“I haven’t the foggiest,” he confesses. “Which further complicates matters, because there is absolutely no chance that I am leaving you here.”

“I was afraid you’d say that,” I say, and press back a smile. “And also glad,” I add.

Cardan meets my smile with a little wicked smirk of his own.

“Is it time we scheme together once again?” he asks.

We cannot get home until this is resolved, and we cannot leave Faerie ungoverned. I have no idea where to even start on this problem.

But that’s certainly never stopped us before.

There’s a knock at the door. The orderly has arrived with the wheelchair to take us back to Vivi and Heather. I give Cardan a secret, knowing smile.

“I suppose it is,” I agree.

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

Tag list! Let me know if you’d like to be added: @yellowavocadopit, @dagypsygirl, @ireallyshouldsleeprn, @booklover-sleeplover, @mwejh, @courtofjurdan, @faeriequeenofwest, @sugawsites, @loveyourselfsolid, @owl0y0s, @feelinglikecleopatra, @akaloto, @charrise, @persephxnecoven, @raging-bisexual-alert, @rteme, @nahthanks, @emmabookworm08, @elorcanislife, @snusbandxknifewife, @poeticbrownmermaid, 

#the folk of the air #tfota #jude duarte #cardan greenbriar #jurdan #jurdan fanfic #vivienne duarte #the cruel prince #the wicked king #the queen of nothing #post-qon #babies! #baby fic #pregnancy fic #fluff #jurdan fluff

[empiresmostwanted]

Hi!! From that quote prompts list, a few that stood out for me were “it’s a brutal world” and “what are you humming?” for Rex? Im imaging either a mechanic/civilian reader or a shiny new clone trooper is accompanying the 501st on an off-world mission and they are sitting by the campfire late at night, a little shaken by the battle earlier in the day. Rex notices and goes to comfort them, and perhaps there is a singing motif??

Also! I loved Sabacc Face and im making my way though your other works this weekend 💕

Thank you so much @maulpunk for the prompts 😘

I'm sorry it took me so long to write, work has done a number on me this last week or so. Grrr. But I was happy to get back to writing this, although I must apologise for straying a little from the parameters of the request (it turned out to be a little too angsty for a singing motif, oops). I hope you like it all the same!

(P.S. Thank you so so much, I'm thrilled you liked Sabacc Face. It was a lot of fun to write, I hope it was just as fun to read!)

posted on AO3 | the prompt list | my writing

Words: 1.5k | Warnings: Post-Umbara Arc, Grief/Mourning, Angst (and lots of it, sorry-not-sorry), Emotional Hurt/Comfort, a certain Besalisk's name is briefly mentioned (okay, I am sorry for this one)

GHOSTS IN THE UMBRA

20BBY

☾

CT-0292 couldn't sleep. When he closed his eyes, rounds of blue plasma bolts flashed through the darkness behind his lids. Hands, his own hands, held a DC-15 carbine aloft, and one single finger under his control pressed on the trigger, mowing down the Umbarans in their disguises.

But they hadn't been Umbarans. They'd been his brothers.

A strangled sound escaped him, somewhere between a gasp and a sob that he caught in his throat. His chest ached with the effort to hold it, the urge to release it. And it ached as if his brothers had occupied a place there, the loss of them leaving the muscles of his heart to constrict around empty space.

He blinked away sharp tears, then pushed off the weighted blanket – its presence more suffocating than soothing – and climbed out of his rack. He gathered up the armour stacked in a neat pile from the foot of the bunk's frame and applied it, piece by piece, from foot to neck.

If he couldn't sleep, he might as well be useful. He'd never been very good at keeping still.

Around him, his brothers lay in their cots; some slept, restless, while others remained painfully conscious. From his own squad, only himself, Wil (Private), and Ridge (Private) remained. The others, along with their sergeant, had fallen to General Krell's lightsaber.

All was quiet. And Ridge was nowhere to be seen.

0292 shook his head, lightheaded, the back of his neck prickling. After checking his blaster was fastened to his belt, he tucked his helmet under one arm and crept through the rows of bunks like a ghost, leaving the sterile barracks behind.

For a moment, he stopped outside the blast doors as they sshhed to a close behind him, and took a deep breath. Had he caught the scent of rain and salt water in the air, it might have grounded him; but this planet was as unfamiliar to his nose as it was to his eyes and ears. With the tang of metal in his nostrils and on the tip of his tongue, he set off across the floodlit compound.

Beyond the sensor wall, he spotted the warm glow of a natural fire flickering in the perpetual dusk, its light peeking through the mist and the dense formation of local flora. He frowned. Patrol taking a break, perhaps?

CT-0292 made his way to the airbase's entrance. As he approached the gate, he passed skeletons of Umbaran machinery looming out of the fog, and squads of troopers pacing as silent as wraiths.

The planet was reclaimed, but no one had come out of the campaign unscathed.

At the gate, two troopers bearing the colours of the 212th stood guard, blasters held across their bodies, and faced the darkness beyond. With the sight of their armour came a fresh wave of guilt, at once hot and cold, that settled in the pit of his stomach. He cleared his throat upon approach; one started as if he'd been shot, and the other patted him on the shoulder.

"Easy, trooper," said 0292, holding out a placating hand. "Just passing through, lending a hand to patrol. That them over there?"

They followed the direction of his pointer finger, to the small fire burning gold in the gloom. The one coiled as tightly as he himself nodded, and turned back to him. "They're taking it in turns to sweep the perimeter."

"Thanks." He inclined his head, and stepped over the threshold of the airbase.

As his footsteps tapped a muffled rhythm into the damp earth, the chill air cooled the sheen of sweat on his forehead, and pressed cold fingers to the nape of his neck. With a shiver, he donned his helmet and activated its spot-lamp, before succumbing to Umbara's gloaming.

*

CT-0292 walked through the forest of Zabrak Spines, their bioluminescent ridges reaching towards the sky and cutting through the umbra like angry wounds. The glow of giant red thorns shrouded the woodland in an unsettling pallor.

Every small noise was amplified in the stillness around him: the snapping of twigs beneath the feet of tiny creatures, the whooshing of spectral wings overhead, and what seemed like footsteps somewhere behind him, approaching – but when he looked over his shoulder, there was nothing there. Each sound sent a spike of cortisol through his body, and he tried not to hyperventilate to the beat of his pulse.

The immediate threat from the Umbarans had been neutralised. But he and his brothers had found out the hard way that this shadowy world kept its secrets close.

You're out of the woods when you're out of the woods, his instructor back on Kamino used to say. It had seemed redundant to him then.

"What's that you're humming, trooper?"

He nearly jumped out of his skin. He looked back and came face-to-face – or helmet-to-helmet – with Captain Rex materialising out of the fog, easy to identify by the jaig eyes and the modified armour.

The captain removed his bucket, brow furrowed in concern, and laid a comforting hand on his shoulder. "Relax. I didn't mean to startle you," he said with a smile that did not reach his eyes. "It sounded familiar, the song you were humming."

"I didn't realise I was humming it aloud," the trooper admitted, face heating as Captain Rex fell into step beside him. "I was thinking of my instructor, back at the facility: she smuggled her own radio into Tipoca, and she'd play it for us during downtime. That one was her favourite, I think. I don't know the words, though. Just the tune."

"Ah."

They walked for a way in companionable silence, each lost to their own thoughts. Confronted once more with the familiar face of his brothers, CT-0292 replayed the moment of terrible realisation, and the skirmish with Krell. The Jedi – if one could even call him that – might have been dealt with on a permanent basis, but his reach would extend far beyond his death.

"Couldn't sleep, either?" asked the captain, dragging him out of his own memories.

He shook his head.

Rex sighed. "It's a brutal world out there."

CT-0292 couldn't be sure if he was referring to Umbara, or the entire galaxy. 

"I admit," he began, "I wasn't expecting to kill other people. I've been training to take down and disable battle droids for nearly ten years, and I thought I was ready, but this …"

It didn't even begin to cover the atrocity of slaughtering his own, knowingly or not.

They heard the voices of their brothers before they saw them, hushed and sombre. Upon stepping out of the forest, they found themselves in a small clearing, lit from above by towering plants, incandescent with pink and purple and blue light, and lit from within by a humble campfire. At least ten troopers were gathered around it, talking in lowered voices amongst themselves.

Rex came to a halt on the edge of the clearing, and stopped 0292 with a hand on his arm.

"If it's of any comfort," he said, "every one of us here is feeling the same right now. No campaign is easy, no life lost is worth less. But this mission has taken its toll more than any other. You say you're not ready, but I recognise the blue bird painted on your bucket. I saw you take charge of your squad when Sergeant Jax was killed, and you kept the rest of them alive. There might well be a promotion coming your way."

A promotion. He'd always harboured the hope of making his way up the ranks, proving his worth and ability along the way. Seeing the captain in action, the way he was respected and admired, had only solidified that desire. But he hadn't entered the GAR as a sergeant, or a captain. It had never really occurred to him before now that someone would have to die for him to take their place.

But he nodded, and said, "Thank you, Captain."

"What's your name, trooper?"

"CT-zero-two-ni—"

"Your name, trooper," Rex clarified. The smile on his lips belied the sadness in his eyes.

CT-0292 removed his helmet. "It's Vaughn, sir. My batchmates called me Vaughn."

"Then welcome to the five-oh-first, Private Vaughn. Over there are your brothers. It won't always be easy, but whatever happens, we look out for each other. And I know you barely got to see General Skywalker in action, but I can promise you that he – and Commander Tano – are nothing like Krell. You'll see."

"Thank you, sir."

Captain Rex clapped him on the arm, then strode off across the clearing, towards the campfire. Vaughn followed, kicking up the smell of damp earth and decaying foliage, sickly sweet in his nostrils. He was pleased to see his squadmate, Ridge, among the ranks of troopers around the flames, and another who'd introduced himself as Sterling just one rotation prior.

"Room for two more, boys?"

☽

Thank you so much for staying to the end! Even though I enjoy reading some good ol' angst, it's definitely tricky to write, so it was nice to stretch those muscles for this prompt. Hope you liked it 💜

#prompts #requests #the clone wars #the clone wars fic #captain rex #captain rex fic #star wars the clone wars #star wars #star wars fic #sw #fic #fanfic #my fic #my writing #captain vaughn

[furashuban]

Searching in the Glowing Forest

An original short story with my OCs Arrowwood, Flannel and Jarno in it! and a tall man-eating badger, too, I guess.. This is also my first time posting an original work featuring Arrowwood in so long!

(it does contain a bit of physical/animal violence so please be warned or pass if you don’t feel comfortable with that)

Words: 2.2k

AO3: https://archiveofourown.org/works/33220111

Summary: Offering to gather twigs to start a bonfire for him and his friends’ campsite, Arrowwood wanders into the enraptured Ellison Forest to do so. The sky darkens and he does not return, and it is up to one of his friends, Flannel, to look for Arrowwood and find out what happened to him.

“Arrowwood!” a voice yelled through the Ellison Forest, prompting the wildlife to take shelter beneath the shrubbery and luminescent fungi. “Where are you?! Me and Jarno are getting worried, man!”

. . .

Flannel, who roamed the forest looking for her friend, Arrowwood, was the same person who planned their camping trip in these particular woods. The evening started lively enough for her, Arrowwood, and their other friend Jarno once they arrived. They constructed their tents on the least hampered ground for miles, then sang a few songs on Jarno’s mandolin to settle down. Food was abundant, inventory was ample, and the far-flung distance from the camp to the city had blessed the trio with pure repose.

The summer sky, however, though enduringly lit in the Nordic climate, could still only be orange-blue for so long. When midnight struck, the hour gave way for the sun to set and the firmament to darken.

The Ellison Forest, on one hand, was home to special kinds of plants that glowed as bright as the moon.  They sprouted far and wide and varied in colors, the bigger kinds glimmered in blue while the smaller ones were green; the ones neither too big or too small glowed a tinge of pink. Most were mushroom-shaped while some were like rose buds, but all of them were known to emerge from the bottom of the native Ellison Trees - thin and towering as high as apartment buildings. Their wood was gray, and their orange leaves were copious like an undying autumn. But despite the luminosity of the forest, Arrowwood proposed gathering twigs from the Ellison Trees to start a proper bonfire. Light may be more than enough in these parts by night, but it was heat that remained an issue for the group, he explained.

“You don’t think he went that far, do you?” she asked the white-haired man, tightly clinging onto her jacket to withstand the cold at the same time.

He got up from the campsite and wandered steadily into the woods. Flannel and Jarno remained without a sign of worry on their faces, anticipating their friend’s return with twigs very soon.

When the sky was totally black and the forest succumbed to a mishmash of colors, the campsite was left with still no bonfire and one person short of the group. Flannel could feel it somehow. The soft-spoken wanderer had gotten himself into trouble. Neither she nor Jarno could totally concentrate on the glowing plant life decorating the camp as they later wondered about Arrowwood.

“He should be nearby,” Jarno answered, nestled under a blanket. “These grounds aren’t that big compared to other forests. But he sure is taking his time…”

“I’m just gonna go look for him.” Flannel got up from her lawn chair and put her ushanka hat back on her head. “Guard the fort while I’m gone? Just in case Arrowwood actually returns soon.”

“Can do, Nells.” Jarno gave a thumbs up. “Just keep safe out there.” A gust of wind then blew his blanket away. “And uh, I’ll be guarding by my tent in the meantime…” he said while opening the entrance to his store-bought sheltering.

Flannel walked away from the campsite in a similar fashion to how Arrowwood did. “What could be around this forest that would make me unsafe…?” she whispered, looking around the plant life straight out of a children’s book.

. . .

The farther she walked, the colder it grew, and the trees and fungi were never-ending in sight. She was losing herself in an environment which captivated her mind's eye, she never knew just how much luminescence would be around the Ellison Forest up close. The lighting was radiant in the ground, but dim enough to let the stars to shine clearly in the sky. The wildlife was microscopic, appearing more like dandelions with bunny ears and dot-eyes, and they scattered around the multi-colored plants like it were their little villages. Maybe this was why Arrowwood was taking so long to return. It was gorgeous here. He was likely hypnotized by the rare splendor of these woods, Flannel thought. If only she had not left her typewriter at home so she could quickly write the next pages of her novel inspired by the landscape.

Suddenly, a strong pounding noise sounded in the distance, coupled with the tense grunt of an angry human. Flannel turned her attention to where she thought she heard the noise and slowly walked towards the direction. It had to be Arrowwood, she assumed, and her fight-or-flight reflexes set off for whatever was provoking his friend from afar. She kept walking, yet Arrowwood could not be seen where she was approaching.

Flannel’s foot struck a taut and frail object popping out of a bush beside her. She looked down, but much to her surprise, it was half of someone’s leg with a hiking boot attached to it. She recognized the legwear as belonging to Arrowwood and chuckled lightly at the sight of her friend nestled under a random bush, but also her way to express relief that the search for him was over.

“Gosh, I’ve been looking all over for you, Arrowwood,” she said. “Come on, I’ll patch you up back in the campsite. Those twigs for the bonfire better be there on you, though.”

She screamed her heart out and let the fright bring her up on her feet in seconds. Her breathing grew strident when she looked down at Arrowwood’s amputated leg in both confusion and worry. Did this mean he was dead? But Arrowwood was incapable of dying. What even did this to him? Barely taking a break to process the ordeal, she then felt a hand pet her shoulder, hearing her name ring close to her ear. She flinched and ran a few paces away, only to turn around and see a man trip face-down on the floor. Flannel noticed the clothes and hair of the figure, even the tone of the grunt. It was the rest of Arrowwood.

Arrowwood was a tough, merely invincible man who could handle the pain of getting crushed by boulders among other things. Flannel knew that seeing him comatose inside of a bush would be the least of her worries and took it as just him dozing off.

She reached for Arrowwood’s boot and prepared to pull him out with all her might. Unexpectedly, she fell on her back after one forceful tug of the leg, groaning at both the shock of hitting the ground and the realizing the bulk of her own strength, but she looked up to realize that Arrowwood’s leg itself was dormant on her torso. The rest of Arrowwood’s body was nowhere else, and upon further inspection, it had been bruised and paled unnaturally gray.

“Please, help me back up.” Arrowwood begged with a muffled voice.

“Oh smokes,” Flannel uttered, rushing back to pick up her friend up and hold him in place. “Arrowwood, are you alright? What on earth happened? I thought you were just looking for…for uh….” she talked while inspecting Arrowwood’s physique; his shirt and trench coat was still intact albeit stained by dirt, and his brown full beard and hair was scruffier than it usual was. His face and skin, though looking weary, was devoid of any bruises. But his jeans had its right covering ripped out, not to mention the entire bottom half of his right leg in general. “Oh gosh, your leg! W-Why is your leg not attached to your body?!”

“Now, funny story, really…” Arrowwood said tiredly. “I was trying to…Oh, hang on, you’ve found my leg.”

He released himself from Flannel’s grasp and hopped towards his detached limb, sitting down and picking it up. Arrowwood took off his boot and realigned the leg piece with his knee, holding it back together as if it were a Lego brick. He froze and took a deep breath; a white light glimmered through the gap separating his whole leg. A moment befell of Arrowwood concentrating on his body which glowed from the inside, and when the glowing stopped, he began to move his newly mended leg up and down, even stomping the floor and moving his toes one by one.

“Back together again.” Arrowwood whispered, kissing his knee before tying his boot back on and standing up without hopping this time.

“I-I didn’t know you could do…that…” Flannel stammered.  She had seen Arrowwood do many unearthly things in the past, but rebuilding his body after an amputation was not one of them.

“Oh, it’s quite so, Flannel.” Arrowwood answered in his usual serene voice. “I was as dazed as you were when I first had my arm shot off and reattached in a medical ward, then poof, it was moving again after one afternoon. So, nothing to worry about, I just can.”

“But wait, why did you get your leg ripped out in the first place?!” Flannel asked.

“So, on the way back, a wild Imso Maira appeared and went for my leg, then clawed it off while trying to take the rest of me down.” Arrowwood explained. “I fought back for an eternity and scared it off. But It’s still around, so I suggest we…”

The bearded wanderer was interrupted by the bushes shaking furiously, like someone was running through each and every shrub in the forest. Both Arrowwood and Flannel crouched and prepared to either fight or flee, but Arrowwood knew very well what was impending already.

“I didn’t know there were predators in this forest.” Flannel whispered.

“There aren’t supposed to be any.” Arrowwood assured. “I think it’s just wandering like us, so stay put. I got this…”  

The rustling grew louder and inched towards wherever the two were situated, and coupling with the sound of shuddering leaves was a beastly growl that ached with hunger.  

Then, the Imso Maira, the same ferocious, sharp-toothed badger the size of a person, unbefitting in the sight of the Ellison Forest, pounced out of a bush behind Arrowwood and aimed for his head. Before it could shove its mouth onto its prey, Arrowwood turned around faster than it leapt and felt his grip throttling its neck. It struggled and cried in a garbled-up scream, but the tattered man holding him showed no intentions of letting it go (gently).

Arrowwood threw the creature onto an Ellison Tree and plummeted onto the ground. Seeing it was now too beaten to get back up, he was ready to showcase more of his ethereal strengths for the second time in a row. He cracked his knuckles upon approaching the creature, raised his elbow high, and hurdled his fist hard against the Imso Maira with a merciless glare. The same white light that glowed out of Arrowwood’s leg had shimmered out of the creature upon punching it, only that the light was a blazing flash out of the creature’s eyes and mouth which nearly blinded him and Flannel, and a sound comparable to a landmine boomed from Arrowwood’s punch. After the flash, he returned to his normal posture and looked down at what was left of his foe, being a flattened rug of itself with dry blood under its belly.

Flannel also took a look of its remains, then turned around to kneel and vomit. First an amputated leg found in the bushes, and now a witness to animal cruelty all in one night; the thrill and shock was too much to bear.

“Remind me never to take you on camping trips again.” Flannel groaned.

“I had to go and kill the Imso Maira, Flannel, otherwise we would’ve been the ones killed.” Arrowwood tried to reassure, patting her back gently, “I knew something like this would happen again when I agreed to tag along. It always does…” he sighed. “Look, I’ve frightened you, and well, none of that was fun at all. So, I’m sorry.” His tone was more repentant now.

Flannel wiped her mouth with her sleeve. “You’re okay now at least, so don’t apologize for anything,” she said. “Let’s just…head back to the camp. Jarno must’ve heard my scream and is probably anxious about us…”

“That reminds me,” Arrowwood pulled a grey wooden stick out of his trench coat. “I did find the twigs for our fire. There’s not much in my coat, but an Ellison Tree wood provides very potent fuel for warmth when ignited.”

“Oh, uh, that’s pretty great.” Flannel said, remembering that Arrowwood was supposed to find wood at first. “But seriously though, I think I’m traumatized. I just wanna lie down now.”

Arrowwood placed his hand around Flannel and pulled her closer to lean his head against hers out of instinct. The shorter girl gasped as she was feeling the same arm that trampled the Imso Maira to death, but decided to put her own arm around Arrowwood and try to succumb to the comfort.

“Thanks.” Flannel expressed softly.

“Thank you, too,” Arrowwood brightened up. “For searching for me.”

“So uh, is that leg actually doing okay now?” she asked. “Like, it doesn’t feel like you were just attacked by a beast a few minutes ago?”

“Not at all, Flanagan.” Arrowwood replied, marching forward with Flannel to relocate the campsite.

“Huh, well for a moment there, I thought you were going to live the rest of your life with just one leg now.” Flannel said. “Like a…like a wingless pigeon maybe.”

“Or a pirate.” Arrowwood added. “And get one of those a peglegs to walk around…Oh, hey, I actually was a real pirate back in then. It was Eighteen Ninety-Five, you see…”

“Maybe save those for the campfire stories later.” Flannel patted his shoulder.

#original work #original story #my works #ocs #urban fantasy #fictional world #eliott arrowwood #nelly flanagan #sakari jarno #last time i posted an original story was in 2018 i think oh gosh #also dont try looking for any of my old arrowwood stories since tumblrs tagging system will probably disallow you too and are gone forever #(and hope it stays that way)

[set-phasers-to-whump]

camping trip

prompt: camping

whumpee: nick burkhardt

fandom: grimm

hi! welcome to this fic :) i feel like it is a little different from my usual stuff but idk how exactly so you just have to read to find out! hope you enjoy :)

It’s a little after six-thirty when they finish making camp. The tent is...standing (nothing much else can be said for it), and inside it the sleeping bags are carefully arranged. A cooler and tote of food sit by one end of the picnic table, atop which is a small folding stove and a propane lantern. Four folding chairs form a sort of circle around the firepit, which is currently devoid of fire. 

“I’ll go find us some firewood,” Nick decides. Thus far he has felt less than useful - apparently, he’s the only one of the group - Hank, Monroe, Rosalee, and himself - that’s never been camping, and consequently the only one who knows absolutely nothing about how to set up a campsite. He would like to do something useful tonight, at least. 

“Don’t bring back anything that’s -”

“Wet, I know.”

“Just making sure,” Monroe says, raising his hands in surrender. “You want someone to come with you so you don’t have to carry a ton of wood all the way back here?”

Nick shakes his head. “I got it,” he insists with a smile. “Really.”

“Have fun,” Hank calls over his shoulder from where he’s digging through the food tote. “Once you get back, we’ll start dinner.”

With the promise of Hank’s mediocre spaghetti to sustain him, Nick heads out into the woods behind their campsite, scanning the ground for any pieces of wood that look like they could be useful. He picks up a couple and ventures deeper into the forest, until he finds himself looking down the slope of a small hill. About halfway down it are several logs that look perfect, and Nick decides it’ll be worth the climb back up to get them. He leaves the wood currently in his arms at the top of the hill and begins walking down.

The hill is covered with various plants, and several of them have thorns which keep catching on Nick’s clothes. More than once he debates turning around to avoid going through any more of them, but he reasons that he’s already on his way down and already has several thorns sticking out of his clothes. Might as well make this little trip worth it. 

He’s close now. He pulls away from an especially prickly vine, yanking the leg of his pants out of the grip of its thorns, and he must pull too hard, because suddenly his legs aren’t where they’re supposed to be and he’s losing his balance and he sticks out a hand to break his fall but he’s on an incline and one hand isn’t enough to stop his momentum. He rolls down the hill and can do nothing to stop it. 

It’s one of the most confusing experiences of his life. One moment he’s just stumbling, sure that he’s about to catch himself, and the next, he’s tumbling painfully downwards, thorns and pinecones and twigs poking at him and catching on him and hurting, and the movement itself is hurting, slamming every part of his body into the hillside, and it’s making him dizzy and - 

And then he’s stopped, breath momentarily knocked out of his lungs. It takes a moment for the sky above him to stop spinning, and when it does, Nick realizes that he must be at the bottom of the hill. His whole body hurts, and anywhere where he’d had exposed skin stings, and he can feel little bits of who-knows-what sticking into him. 

“Ow,” he whispers, because everything hurts. 

For a moment or two he just lies there, forcing himself to get it together. The pain dies down fairly quickly, replaced by aching and embarrassment. He really does not want to have to explain this to his friends. It’s not that bad, anyway. He’ll just be a little bit sore and bruised, and it’s not like that’s an unfamiliar concept to him. He’s essentially fine.

His fineness decided, Nick gets up. His hands hurt something awful when he presses them into the ground, and when he’s finally standing on achy, slightly weak legs, he sees bits of wood and a couple thorns and even a pinecone scale pressed deep into his palms. He brushes off what he can and decides to pull out the rest when he gets back to camp. 

The walk back up the hill is exhausting. Whether Nick wants to admit it or not, his entire body has taken a beating, and it protests against the task. His legs burn with every step he takes, his chest constricts unpleasantly when he takes too deep a breath, and his clothes are still getting stuck on the thorns. 

He reaches the halfway point and the precious firewood he’d endured all this to obtain. Nick decides that there is absolutely no way he is going to return to camp without it, so he scoops it all into his protesting arms, wishes it was lighter, and continues his slow and painful trek up the hill. 

By the time he reaches the top, the sun has nearly set, and Nick wonders just how long he’s been gone. He hopes, belatedly, that his friends aren’t worried, as he picks up the other pieces of firewood that he’d left behind. If nothing else, they’ll have a roaring fire, and he can sit by it and not move for several hours. That sounds nice…

But he still has to make it back to the campsite. Which, after his walk up the hill, is an easy task. He makes it back just as the sun dips completely below the horizon, dropping the wood with a clatter onto the ground. 

“Nick?” Rosalee calls out, peeking out from inside the tent. “There you are, we were starting - oh my god, what happened to you?”

Nick opens his mouth to say, nothing, really, I’m okay, but before he can say anything, Monroe and Hank are calling his name simultaneously, and he turns to look at them as they walk back up the path that leads to the campground bathroom.

“Nick,” Rosalee says, and he looks back to her. “What happened?”

Monroe and Hank walk up to them just in time to hear Rosalee’s question.

“What do you mean, what happened?” Monroe asks, and Nick turns again to look at him.

“Ah. I see it now. Man, you’re covered in...forest. What happened?”

Nick turns away from all of them, feeling his face burn in shame. It’s so stupid, he thinks, what a stupid way to get hurt. 

Rosalee says something soft, which Nick assumes is not directed at him, and when he looks up again, Hank and Monroe have left. He reaches up to rub his eyes and Rosalee gently grabs his wrists. 

“Don’t touch anything yet,” she says. “I know you can’t see it, but I assume you can feel all that stuff poking into your face.”

Now that he thinks about it, he can. It’s like it is on his hands - he can feel what he assumes are thorns and bits of wood and other such things pressing uncomfortably into his face, and some of them sting and some of them just ache and all of them hurt. He really wants to sit down.

“Let’s sit down,” Rosalee suggests, and they walk over to the picnic table, where the lantern is already glowing, providing light to Hank, who is stirring a pot on the little stove at the other end of the table.

Nick sinks down onto the bench, slowly and gingerly, and Rosalee disappears into the tent, emerging a moment later with a first-aid kit. 

From the kit, she produces a bottle of painkillers, shaking out two of them into her hand and holding them out to Nick. He thinks about refusing them and insisting that he’s not hurting that bad, but she seems to know what he’s thinking and shoots him a look that has him taking the pills without argument. 

Rosalee sits down on the bench next to him, gently turning his face towards the light. She begins cleaning off his face, starting by brushing off the bits of forest that will come off easily, then carefully pulling away the more resistant thorns. Nick resolutely does not react at all as she does this, just sits there and watches Monroe build the fire and rearrange the chairs. 

“This might sting a bit,” Rosalee warns, and Nick turns his gaze back to her as she tears open a packet containing an antiseptic wipe. She rubs it across his skin, and it does sting, but again he forces himself not to react. When she finishes with the wipe, she waits a minute for his face to dry, then pulls out a jar of something that is definitely not standard in first-aid kits and rubs it gently over his face. It feels extremely nice as it settles into his various cuts and scrapes, and he wonders what it is, then wonders whether he really wants to know. He decides not to ask, not that he feels much up to saying anything at the moment anyway.

Rosalee repeats this whole process on his hands, and she’s nice enough to not mention the fact that they’re slightly shaking. “Done,” she says quietly, finishing rubbing the contents of the jar onto his palms, and Nick lets his hands fall back to his sides. “There’s still stuff in your hair. Do you want me to…?”

Part of Nick insists that he say no. That he’s already been cared for, been vulnerable, more than enough for one day. But he’s hurting and she’s offering and he really doesn’t want to do it himself. He nods. 

Gentle fingers run through his hair, pulling away bits of pine straw and twigs and who knows what else. Nick finds himself slowly relaxing, the aches and pains slowly fading, and by the time she’s finished, he no longer feels quite as bad. 

They both stand up from the table, meeting each other’s eyes. “Thank you,” Nick says, quietly. 

“Of course,” is Rosalee’s reply. “I’d hug you, but your clothes are still covered in..poky things.”

Nick smiles lightly. “I’m gonna go change, then,” he says, and makes for the tent.

It takes what feels like forever, but eventually Nick is out of his dirty, scraped-up clothes. He carefully wraps them together and puts them at the bottom of his bag, then dusts off his sleeping area. The last thing he wants is to wake up with more thorns sticking into him because they’d fallen off his clothes and onto the place where he’s supposed to sleep. 

“Dinner’s ready!” Hank calls out, and Nick unzips the tent entrance and steps outside, taking a moment to survey the scene in front of him. Hank, Monroe, and Rosalee are clustered around the table, and Hank is handing them bowls of his spaghetti, which smells a good deal better than mediocre. The lantern casts a warm glow on their faces, and to the side of them, the fire crackles and pops and blazes strongly, which Nick supposes is the least it can do considering all the trouble he’d gone to for it.

Nick walks over to the table and accepts his bowl from Hank, who claps him lightly on the shoulder and gives him a soft smile. The four of them then head for the chairs around the fire, where they sit and eat and talk and nobody says anything about Nick’s injuries. 

When they finally put the fire out and start cleaning up the campsite, after several rounds of s’mores and a rousing game of 20 questions, it’s nearly midnight. Nick is still aching as he helps Hank gather up the dishes, but he barely even registers it - evidently, this evening is the best medicine he could’ve asked for.

Twenty minutes later, he’s lying in his sleeping bag and wondering if everyone else is also secretly thinking that the ground beneath them is incredibly uncomfortable. Maybe you just have to get used to it, he figures. He could get used to it, eventually, he thinks. He’d like to get used to it. Because, despite the fact that he’s managed to hurt himself extensively and somewhat embarrassingly, Nick has realized that he really, genuinely likes camping. 

thanks for reading this! all the stuff in this fic is based on my own experiences camping with my family (apart from the falling down the hill which luckily has not happened to me), so if anything sounded a little “why would you do that while camping” just know it’s a product of my weird family lol. hope you liked this fic!!!!

#summerofwhump #summerofwhump10 #camping #grimm #nick burkhardt #fall #cared for #i rlly liked writing this...the projection...strong #both in terms of nick and the camping experience lol #i feel like if one of my family members read this they would know it was by me lmao #although who am i to know. maybe everyone makes camping spaghetti. #somehow i doubt that. #oh also one difference that i also would like to point out is that i haven't camped in a tent since i was like 8 or so #we have a beat up ole popup camper :) bc otherwise you cant camp for most of the year bc of how hot and/or rainy it gets here

[silveny-dreams]

“You have something in your hair, umm… Do you want me to get it out?”

Sokeefe

“Where have you been?”

Keefe smirked as he opened his locker. “Wouldn’t you like to know, Foster.”

Sophie folded her arms and raised an eyebrow at him. “You were setting up a prank, weren’t you.”

“My lips are sealed.” Of course he’d been setting up a prank. For Lady Cadence, no less. Several ogre effluxers were planted in the greenery around the staff entrance to the Elite Towers, and Keefe knew she’d be heading that way after lunch.

Sophie’s lips twitched. “You have something in your hair, umm...do you want me to get it out?”

No one was allowed to touch Keefe’s hair. No one. Unless their name was Sophie Foster and they asked. Keefe smiled and ducked his head in invitation.

He tried to ignore the little goosebumps he got, feeling her cool fingertips carefully stroking into his hair.

“Hang on, it got a little tangled,” Sophie apologized, using gentle pressure to tug at a specific tuft.

Keefe pursed his lips and tried to ignore how close their faces were this way, how cute she looked when she got focused on something, how pretty and soft her lips looked...

“Got it.”

Sophie leaned back and held up a little piece of twig triumphantly.

“How would a piece of twig be in your hair if you’ve been a goody-two-shoes all day, and certainly not setting up pranks?” Sophie teased.

Her lips were even prettier smiling. Keefe swallowed. “My lips are sealed.”

“Sure.” Sophie winked at him. “But just in case you’re curious...”

Keefe’s pulse picked up as Sophie leaned back in close towards him.

“If I get detention because Lady Cadence is that upset,” Sophie whispered, “then I’ll throw you under the bus in a heartbeat.”

And with that, she turned on her heel and headed off in the direction of the Elite Tower.

Damn, she’s good, Keefe had to admit as he watched her walk off, the bell ringing. And maybe I’m a little whipped.

-

Thank you all for your submissions! Requests are now closed.

#kotlc #keeper of the lost cities #ask #anon #anonymous #ask game #drabble #sophie #sophie foster #keefe #keefe sencen #sokeefe #keephie #team foster-keefe #chat me up! #fluff prompts

[rubyspearsmegamanproject]

8. Trouble Growing

Dr. Wily and his robots settle into an abandoned biodome and begin creating plant/robot hybrid plants. Dr. Wily's robots are planting the hybrid plants all over the biodome. Proto Man is holding a hybrid plant in a metal pot and is telling the plant that Mega Man will be unable to destroy them. "I think he's finally found the perfect plan!" Proto Man says to the potted robot-plant hybrid "The world's soon going to be his very own robo garden!" The plant bites Proto Man's nose. Proto Man cries out in pain. He aggressively puts the plant down and walks away while rubbing his nose.

Mega Man and Roll are in the garden of their home tending to the plants growing there. Rush causes trouble for them by digging up the garden. Dr. Light comes out to the garden and tells them all that they are all wanted at a nearby city.

When they arrive at the city, the city has been ravaged by strange, robotic vines. "What happened here!?" Roll cries out. Mega Man responds "That's why we came here, to find out what's going on in this city!" The vines suddenly attack them. Plant Man and Wood Man appear to cause even more trouble for them. "So you finally got off of the island, Wood Man..." Mega Man says to Wood Man. Plant Man turns to Wood Man and asks him "The...island?" Wood Man says to him "It's a long story..." Plant Man and Wood Man use their weapon simultaneously against Mega Man. Mega Man manages to dodge them. Mega Man and the rest of the good guys barely escape with their lives into a non-infested part of the city. The city's mayor and scientists tell them that they have a sneaking suspicion that these robotic plants originated from the abandoned biodome in the outskirts of the city. As they make their way to the biodome, they are stopped by the rest of the bad robots. But as luck would have it, the robotic plants end up entangling them. Cut Man uses this opportunity to cut his partners in crimes out of the entanglement. "Don't worry guys, I'll cut us out of this situation!" he tells them as he frees them. Mega Man and the others sneak past them and make it to the biodome. The plants block off the entrance, trapping them inside. "Oh great!" Roll cries out. She turns to Mega Man and says to him "Looks like we're grown in!" "Don't you worry, Roll! We'll weed out these franken plants!" Mega Man says to Roll. Mega Man proceeds to blast away the plants. He is suddenly attacked by a flurry of metal leaves, getting a bit scratched in the process.

He turns around to see where the leaves came from. He sees Wood Man and Plant Man standing before him. "Leave those plants alone!" Wood Man yells out to Mega Man. Plant Man says to Mega Man "We can feel their pain! You really shouldn't cut them down!" Mega Man replies "Well you two weed bots are going to be in even more pain because I've come here to cut down Dr. Wily's illegal robo plant garden!" Plant Man evilly chuckles and responds "Looks like I'm going to have to defend my garden then!" Four robotic vines emerge from his back. One of them wraps itself around Mega Man's arm. Mega Man is about to blast the vine off of him, but another vine wraps itself around his arm cannon. The other two vines wrap themselves around Mega Man's lower legs. Plant Man then uses his vines to slam Mega Man against the bio-dome's wall. The wall cracks from the impact of the slam, causing some of the ceiling's panels to fall down onto Mega Man's head. Wood Man tells Plant Man "I'll take care of the robo girl while you're dealing with him!" Wood Man runs away, leaving Plant Man to deal with Mega Man himself. Mega Man falls onto the ground. Plant Man uses his vines to lift him up into the air. Mega Man struggles against his verdant restraints. "Y-you think these twigs are going to be the end of me!?" Mega Man shouts down to Plant Man. Plant Man laughs evilly again and says "Of course, Mega Man! Now hold real still!" One of the vines wraps itself around Mega Man's silver neck and tries to pull his head off. The vine around his arm cannon tries to pull the arm off. Mega Man cries out in agony. Roll and Rush hear Mega Man's agonized yell. "Mega Man!" Roll cries out. Wood Man sees that they are running off to save Mega Man. Wood Man yells out "Oh no you don't!" He uses his Leaf Shield weapon and throws the leaves at Roll and Rush. Roll and Rush are battered by the robotic leaves. "I need my leafblower!" Roll comments as she flinches. She switches to her hairdryer attatchment and blows the leaves back at Wood Man. Wood Man gets scratched up by his own leaves. Roll yells out to him "That's called karma, Woody!"

Rush runs over to Mega Man. He sees that another vine has wrapped itself around his waist. Plant Man is chuckling, taking pleasure in seeing Mega Man suffer. Rush jumps up and chomps down on one of Plant Man's vines! Roll runs over and switches to her axe attatchment and jumps up and swings at one of the vines. Plant Man is surprised to see Roll and Rush trying to get the vines off of Mega Man. Two of the vines let go of Mega Man and each one grabs Roll and Rush instead. Mega Man sees that Roll and Rush are in trouble. "Roll! Rush!" Mega Man yells out in distress. He shifts his body and slams down onto Plant Man. Plant Man is knocked back, enabling the good robots to free themselves from his entangling vines. Mega Man yells out to Roll and Rush "Let's make a break for it! Before he gets up!" They get away from Plant Man and run into another part of the bio dome. As they run through, they get a glimpse of various menacing robo plants. "Looks like Wily's got a new hobby!" Mega Man comments. "Yeah," Roll responds "A hobby that's gonna grow out of control if we don't put a stop to it!" They enter a larger section of the bio dome. Plant Man and Wood Man confront them again and use the robotic plants as allies against Mega Man. "Robo-plants, attack!" they both yell out in unison. A large venus flytrap-like plant tries to chomp down on Mega Man. He dodges it and shoots its head off. "Chew on this!" Mega Man says as he blasts its head off. Rush sniffs the blown-off head. The head bites at Rush. Rush cries out for Mega Man. Mega Man sees the head chasing Rush. He blasts the head to pieces. Rush hugs Mega Man's leg and whimpers. Mega Man pets Rush and says to him "Don't worry, boy, we'll sort out these Robo-Weeds!"

An energy-draining plant pops up and wraps its roots around Mega Man and drains him of his energy. "What the-!?" Mega Man yells out as the plant wraps itself around his body. Mega Man tries to rip the plant off of him, but becomes too weak to do so. Roll tries to bring Eddie to him, but is blocked by a wall of robotic plants. She uses her axe to cut their way through and Eddie gives Mega Man some energy cans. With his energy restored, Mega Man takes the weapons of Wood Man and Plant Man, and uses them against the plants. But the plants keep growing back. No matter what they do, the plants keep growing back. Mega Man blasts the head off of a venus fly trap like robot plant, but two grow in its place. Mega Man turns to Roll and says, "I think we have a problem here, Roll!" Roll replies "You think?" The plants snap at them. Dr. Light yells out "Over here! Quickly!" Dr. Light tells them to retreat to an isolated part of the biodome.

Dr. Light uses the lab in that area to find a way to get rid of the robotic plant hybrids. He discovers that the lab is actually the lab that Dr. Wily used to create the robot/plant hybrids. Dr. Wily and Proto Man barge in and summon the other robots to destroy them. The plants entangle them again and Cut Man goes berzerk and rampages though the biodome, destroying most of the plants. Again, the plants grow back. Dr. Wily decides to abandon the biodome, much to Proto Man's dismay. Mega Man and Roll try to get rid of the remaining plants, but to no avail. The plants keep growing back. Mega Man is running low on energy and tells Roll that they should return to Dr. Light and help him find a way to get rid of the plants. They go over to Dr. Light while avoiding some plants on the way. They arrive back to where Dr. Light is. Mega Man tells him that he needs more energy. Eddie gives him some more cans and he drinks them. Dr. Light goes through the computers that Dr. Wily was using to find out more information about the plants. He discovers that a large plant in the middle of the biodome is the "master plant" that controls and regrows the plant hybrids. He tells Mega Man that destroying the master plant will cause the other plant hybrids to die. He tells him that the plant is located in the center of the biodome and is surrounded by thorned plant hybrids that protect it. Dr. Light puts a makeshift belt around Mega Man's waist and puts some chemical beakers around it for Mega Man to use to weaken the plant hybrids. He gives Roll her own belt and chemical beakers as well. Mega Man and Roll then go over to the center of the biodome with Rush and Eddie following behind.

Meanwhile, in a nearby city, the plant hybrids are overgrowing and enveloping the buildings with everyone desprately trying to destroy the plants. Back at the biodome, Mega Man and Roll fight their way to the center of the biodome, destroying plants along the way. They finally make their way to the center of the biodome, and see the master plant right in the middle. The thorned plant hybrids stretch out and attack them. Mega Man and Roll throw their chemical beakers at the plants. The chemicals weaken and kill some of them, but a good few remain. The thorned plant hybrids shoot out their thorns at Mega Man and Roll. Mega Man dodges the thorns and blasts the plants away, but some of the thorns strike Roll. "Ouch!" Roll cries out in pain. Mega Man asks Roll if she is alright. She says she is and that her clothes caught the thorns before they could hurt her exterior. Mega Man and Roll see that most of the thorny plants have been cleared, giving Mega Man a clear path towards the master plant. Mega Man runs towards the master plant with his plasma cannon ready.

Roll in the meantime uses her tweezer attatchment to pick out the thorns stuck in her clothes. The master plant sees Mega Man and fires some large shots at him. Mega Man dodges the shots and fires his plasma cannon at the giant plant hybrid. Some of Mega Man's shots hit it in the mouth. The giant plant recoils and then vines come out of the ground. Mega Man maneuvers himself around the vines and jumps closer towards the master plant. The master plant chomps down on him and tries to eat him. Mega Man holds up the plants jaws to keep it from swallowing him. Mega Man lets down one of his arms and fires a fully-powered shot down the plant's throat. "Eat this instead!" Mega Man shouts out as he fires his cannon down the plant's throat. We see the shot go down the plant's throat and into its "stomach". In the master plant's "stomach" is the plant's main circuits. The shot destroys the circuits, causing the master plant to die. The master plant's jaws weaken and Mega Man falls out of its mouth and onto the ground. Mega Man and Roll watch as the master plant dies and the remaining thorny plants wither. The master plant's death causes the plant hybrids attacking the city to die and wither as well.

Everyone in the city is greatly relieved that the plants are finally gone. Back at the abandoned biodome, Dr. Light comes over to tell Mega Man and Roll that they have successfully gotten rid of the robot-plant hybrids. They all get into the Air Raider and fly back to the lab. Mega Man and the gang arrive back at their home in time for dinner, Roll has prepared a salad, Dr. Light tells her that he has had enough vegetables for the week, and everyone breaks out in laughter.

#ruby spears mega man #mega man cartoon #mega man #trouble growing

[nothinghereanymoremaybelater]

Into the Depths Pt.1

Here’s the first part of our adventure! It introduces the characters you can choose from, and a bit about our setting. I hope you all enjoy! Let me know who you’d rather see our reader ‘enjoy’ the attention of!

WC: 3k

The outdoors are not your thing. You loiter around the back of your friend’s pickup, breathing in the strange mixture of engine exhaust and fresh, clean air, with your arms folded and a war raging inside your head. You’re trying to express your apathy about the camping trip without words, but your companions are paying you no mind as they stand talking in front of a map. The whole drive over, you were second guessing your decision to join them; wondering if you could somehow gracefully bow out even now, standing in front of the ranger station that marks the entrance to the forest. The largest forest in the world, as signs that dotted the roads in this area like pimples, intrusive and unwanted.

 And you don’t see a way out of going camping in them. It’s not that you don’t want to spend time with your friends; you absolutely do. The four of them are the most important things in the world to you, and you’d do anything for them all. Usually you wouldn’t have been so reluctant to go on an outdoors-y adventure like this, even with your general distaste for all things involving nature; you’d been on hikes and camping trips with them before, laughing over roasted marshmallows and climbing to scenic cliffs just to watch the way the clouds moved overhead. They liked to tease you about the modern conveniences you brought on these trips- the most comfortable tent and sleeping bag you could get, enough bug repellant to clear the whole area of insects- but you knew they appreciated you indulging their interests. 

 Usually you would have been fine with loading into Michelle’s van and careening down the road towards another week of exploring the world around you. 

 But you had… problems, with this forest. 

Nothing concrete. No earth-shattering experiences that had traumatized you and shaped you into the person you were today, no story you could tell your friends as explanation for why you really, really wanted them to choose any other camping ground for the trip. Nothing you could grasp in your memory and hold onto as proof that you weren’t crazy, weren’t just imagining the way this place made you feel every time you set foot on its trails. You’d been here before, on trips when you all were younger or on outings with your family- the mountain that rises in the middle of the blanket of trees has watched over the town you live in for your entire life. 

‘We live near the largest forest in the world,’ everyone always says. ‘Why not take advantage of it?’ 

You don’t have a solid reason not to. No solid reason except for the creeping feeling of eyes on your back whenever you draw near the thick, dark lines of trees that stretch for miles and miles. No explanation for the paranoia that sinks into your bones and makes you shake and shiver at a cloud passing overhead or the snapping of a twig under your own foot. There’s nothing you can tell your friends about your misgivings that wouldn’t make you sound delusional and so the only thing you can do is stew in the exhaust from the idling car and wish you’d followed through on faking a sudden illness to get out of having to join them. But this was your last chance to do an outing like this all together- Eli and Michelle were going to grad school, Sarah was moving for a job offer next month. Andre was the only one staying, but it just wouldn’t be the same without all of you together; and so here you are, in a place that terrified you. 

“The station should be just down that trail,” Eli announces with an air of triumph, apparently having finally solved the confusing array of colors and squiggles masquerading as a map of the trails and ranger stations in the forest. Michelle throws her hands up in the air but seems to accept his pronouncement, walking back to the van to turn the idling engine off. You’re treated to clean air once more, with only the lingering smell of gasoline to keep you company as your friends re-lace their boots and ensure the doors are locked. 

 Andre throws a glance your way, furrowing his brow at the way you’ve isolated yourself from the rest of them. You offer him the best smile you can manage, but even here, at the very edge of the forest, you can almost feel creeping hands that crawl up your spine and seem to chill your very being with their touch. You’d volunteer to stay with the van as they trek to the ranger station to get registered, but that would leave you all alone until they got back- perhaps a fate even worse than walking further into the depths of this place. Making your decision, you join the little group as they set off down one of the marked trails, trusting that Eli had read the map correctly. 

To distract yourself as you walk, you contemplate the little group of people around you- faces and voices that feel like home, a welcome distraction from the alien feeling of the woods. Sarah’s the closest, hanging back to walk in step with you without saying much. You appreciate the gesture- you’d have to be playing catch up with the other three if she wasn’t with you. The comfortable silence is all you think you can take at the moment, unsure that you wouldn’t just start screaming if you opened your mouth. Eli’s leading the way with his sister and Andre close on his heels, glancing around at the trail as they contemplate plans for where exactly you all are going to set up camp for the week. You’re not paying close attention- you just watch the way that Michelle links her arm with Andre’s, the tread of their boots leaving prints in the mud like carving a pattern into the trail.

 It’s not that far into your group’s trek, only five minutes at most, when a building suddenly appears out of the tree line. It’s ramshackle and shoddy at best, seemingly cobbled together from fallen logs and discarded wood from around the forest rather than any real building grade materials. ‘RANGER STATION’ is painted on the side of the building in brilliant yellow, and a number of ATVs and a van are parked in the small, dirt lot outside it. Andre whistles at the sight, frowning. 

“I guess the budget really got cut for the parks service,” He says, though you aren’t sure there’s any amount of budget cuts that would force such a dilapidated building into service. It seems to you that it must have always been like this, though you can’t remember such a strange structure in any visit you’ve had to this forest before. The five of you climb the stairs and they creak under your weight so badly that Eli and Sarah hang back, going up one at a time after the rest of you are already on the porch. Michelle opens the door and waves you all inside. 

The first thing you notice is that the interior perfectly matches the exterior. Everything appears to be held together by some loose nails and a prayer- the counter in front of you lists to one side and the surface of it is rough and uneven, certainly almost useless for writing on. Behind it, the walls are absolutely covered in plants- climbing ivy and hanging terrariums that house blooms you’ve never seen in this part of the world, huge ferns that have almost completely obscured the rows of shelves and stacks of papers arranged against the back wall. There are a few doorways, with wooden doors shut tight in their frames and no labels or nameplates hanging on them to hint at their contents. You look at the clouded glass windows and see shapes outside in the lot that don’t look anything like the vehicles you’d noticed on your way inside. 

Before you can move closer to the windows to get a better look, one of the doors swings open and a man comes shuffling out. It’s hard for you to believe he’d actually fit in the cramped office you see beyond him- he’s enormous, at least six and a half feet tall, with wide, muscular shoulders and dark, curly brown hair. His ranger’s uniform seems to be having trouble containing his figure, the sleeves stretched over rippling muscles that strain the fabric as he places his hands on the counter. You all watch in awe as he clears his throat, not looking any of you in the eye but rather staring down at the wood below his fingers- if you were paying closer attention, you’d have said he was uncomfortable with all of your eyes so clearly focused on him.

 “Can I help you?” He asks, in a voice as deep and rumbling as thunder. You can almost feel it reverberate through your chest. After a moment of silence, Andre manages to clear his throat, stretching his shoulders out as if he could physically shake off whatever strange spell you’ve all fallen under. 

 “Yeah, we need to get a camping permit and then some directions to the campsite,” He says, swallowing nervously. The hulking man nods to himself and ducks underneath the counter for a moment, though he’s so large that you can still see the curve of his wide back as he searches for something underneath it. Michelle audibly gulps at the sight, and you have to agree with her- you’ve never seen someone so physically imposing before. Surely he’s new to the ranger team here; you were sure you would have remembered someone like him from your previous visits, even if you were preoccupied with that creeping paranoia this place inspired in you. 

The ranger sets a piece of paper on the counter, and places a portable credit card reader down next to it. It looks comically small in his hands. 

“Every adult who will be camping needs to sign this. Are there any children with you?” The giant asks, sounding like he’s reading from a prompt. 

 “No,” Andre shakes his head, and steps up to the counter to grab the dented ballpoint pen lying there. He signs his name with difficult on the uneven surface and then passes the pen to Michelle, standing next to him. 

 You don’t want to sign it. It feels like you’ll be signing your life away if you do, like signing a contract with some unknown, terrible creature. The one whose eyes you can feel on your back even now in the station- maybe closer than before. 

 But with the same awful inevitability that led you to agree to coming on this trip in the first place, you step up to the counter when it’s your turn. The ranger is pointedly not looking in your direction as you do so- he hasn’t looked at any of you, not really, since the moment he stepped out of his office. You reach for the pen where it’s lying on the counter and accidentally brush against his hand. 

The man stiffens. His gaze flashes to you and his mouth falls open. You’re not sure why but you find yourself trapped in this moment- watching the way his eyes cross your face, watching the way he closes his mouth and opens it like he has something to say but can’t manage to get the words out. Time seems to stretch on forever in this moment, until he snatches his hand away and the spell is broken. 

Blushing furiously, you stammer out an apology and go to sign and print your name on the designated lines. He doesn’t respond, doesn’t move other than to hold the hand you’d touched aloft as though he’d been burned somehow. 

 “Did you tell them the mountain sites were closed?” Someone calls from behind another closed door. You look towards the voice and back away from the counter, but the ranger doesn’t seem to even acknowledge that someone spoke. His gaze is locked on you. 

 “Hector!” The voice comes again when there is no reply. Your friends all look at each other- you know they’ve noticed the strange atmosphere in here, the ranger still seemingly entranced by you. Eli comes up next to you and folds his arms, watching the hulking man with suspicion. You wonder if something is about to happen; if the group you’re with has finally noticed what you’ve been feeling all along, if they’ll pull you outside and run back to the van. You feel that invisible presence right behind you, practically pressed up against your back.

 Another man emerges from his office, letting the door bang against the wall to express his frustration. He’s tall, though not as tall as the other ranger and more lithe in build. His dark skin contrasts with the fire engine red of his hair, a garish color that must have been dyed only yesterday to still be as vibrant and radiant as it was. It was tied in a long braid that swung over his shoulder as he moved, disregarding the assembled group on the other side of the counter in favor of his dumbstruck colleague. Finally the larger ranger- Hector- tears his eyes away from you and turns towards him, shaking his head. 

”Gotta do everything myself,” the new man says, though you’d say he was actually enjoying the spectacle of showing off his annoyance in front of you all. The new ranger turns to you guys and smiles, showing off rows of white teeth that appear to have been filed into points. You can’t imagine that’s up to uniform regulations where he works, but you’re too preoccupied with the look on his face to make much notice of it. 

 Just as Hector did, he stops completely at the sight of you. There’s a look of shock on his face, like he’s run into someone he’d never expected to see again- like he’s seen a ghost. A moment passes, just a moment- he’s better at recovering his composure than his coworker and the man with the red hair straightens out his smile once again, gaze still watching every movement you make. Sarah leans her arm on your shoulder, staring them both down. You’ve never been gladder for your friends. 

“I’ll have them stay in the Forest’s Glen site,” Hector says defensively, seemingly responding to the other ranger’s earlier comment. The newcomer frowns at the words, holding up one finger. His braid swinging as he moves, he makes for one of the stacks of papers hiding underneath the crawling ivy on the walls. Sweeping it away, he picks up the top sheet and scans it, counting out something on his fingers. 

 “Actually, I think I was a little too hasty…” He says, waving the paper around. “We’ve got one open spot at Mountain’s Peak. We can send them there.” 

“Nico…” Hector says, but doesn’t follow up with any sort of protest other than that. 

 “What? I’m sure they came for the views, right?” Nico enthuses, waving his hands around in the air. 

 “Uh…” Michelle murmurs, interrupting them. “Can we pick which site we want to go to, if there’s a couple spots open?”

 Both rangers blink in surprise, as if they haven’t thought of that. They look at each other for a moment before Nico shrugs, Hector looking a little unhappy about the direction this situation has taken. 

You’re still reeling from the strangeness of this all, wondering why exactly they had stared at you like that. 

“Sure,” The red-haired ranger says. “If you want to stay at the mountain site, I’ll show you the way there.” He flashes his teeth, all sharpened points, in something that might was probably supposed to be a smile but which missed the mark quite a bit. 

 “Forest’s my area,” Hector chimes in with his arms folded across his chest, voice rumbling through your chest with every syllable as his fellow ranger comes to stand next to him. 

 They watch as your little group withdraws towards the door to talk about the decision, casting furtive glances towards the strange duo as you all do so. 

 “This is strange. Did you see those looks on their faces?” Eli asks, gesturing at you as he talks. “They looked like they were going to jump across the counter.

” “Yeah,” Sara echoes. “I dunno what their deal is, but it’s weird.” 

You wonder what to make of all of this- the creepy atmosphere, the strange rangers, the feeling that something terrible and awful is looming over you. If you had your way, you’d go home right now and forget all of this ever happened.

 But you know your friends have been looking forward to this for months. And you know this may well be your last chance to camp altogether as a group- you’re all moving on to different places, different phases of life, and you don’t want to let it go out like this. You can put up with a bit of paranoia for a week, you tell yourself; you can put up with the feeling of being watched and odd rangers who look at you like a starving man looks at a meal. 

 “Don’t let them put you off guys,” You say to your friends, voicing the exact opposite of your real opinion. “This is supposed to be fun- we won’t even see them after this.” Your friends nod one by one at what you’re saying, shifting on their feet without looking back at the rangers. 

They cast their votes one by one for which site you guys should camp at- Michelle and Sarah for the mountain, Eli and Andre for the forest. 

They look at you for the deciding vote and you can’t help but glance up at the rangers, apparently still standing in the exact same spot as they had been before.

 Somehow you feel that this choice will affect more than just this week. Nico and Hector and all your friends wait.

Vote here

#yandere #yandere/reader #yandere/you #yandere fiction #yandere writing #story

[mama-m1na]

Apocalypse: Chapter 6

~~~VI~~~

After a while of talking and pondering life's greatest mysteries, on Rhamina's part mostly, the pair started to drift off on the couch.

Already used to how touchy the ravenette was at this point, Cloud had allowed her to lay across the couch with her head in his lap as she rambled on about her late night thoughts.

As the male eventually drifted off he could feel his surroundings change; he could hear the peaceful sounds of nature, he could smell the crisp freshness carried on the cool breeze; and when he opened his eyes, he saw that he was in a heavily wooded area with light fog.

'What?' the male thought as he spun around, trying to get a grip on his unfamiliar surroundings, 'Where am I?'

Suddenly the sound of twigs snapping alerted him to another presence nearby, but when he turned to face them he was met with the sight of a little girl, the same one he had seen on the bridge.

"Huh?" she asked, stepping out from behind one of the trees to fully reveal herself, "You're not Knov."

The girl had slightly tanned skin, shoulder length black hair, and curious brown eyes that remained locked onto the man in front of her.

She wore a pastel pink sundress despite the overcast weather with a pair of white sandals on her feet.

Her small hands were holding onto a pair of black fans that looked a little too large for her to hold properly at her age.

"Wow, Mister, you're really pretty!" the girl beamed as she smiled up at the male who was still confused about his whole situation.

"Hey, kid, where are your parents?" the blond asked, noticing that the girl couldn't have been any older than four, yet here she was in a foggy wooded area, seemingly, by herself.

"Mommy and Daddy are at work, so I came out here to find my friends," the girl chirped before holding up her fans, "I wanted to show them the presents Mommy got me!"

"Where is this place anyway?" the male sighed as the fog around them started to grow thicker with every passing minute.

"I don't know what this place is called, but it's somewhere near my house," the child shrugged before looking up at the male, "I used to get lost here all the time, but Knov always takes me back home."

"Hey, Mister, are you real?" the girl asked, startling the male slightly, "The clothes you're wearing seem pretty weird... and so is your hair. It's so spiky!"

The blond said nothing in response as the girl stepped closer to further inspect his strange form.

As she walked around him, the male couldn't help but find this scenario familiar to him and as he looked closer at the girl, he was slowly piecing together who it was.

Before either of them could ask anything else of each other, a large wolf bounded out from the trees with a low growl and fangs bared.

Instinctively, Cloud stood between the beast and the young girl, reaching back to grab his buster sword only to find it wasn't there, his hand only grasping at air over his shoulder as the girl peaked to get a better look at what was in front of them.

"Knov!" the girl chirped as she ran out from behind the male to wrap her arms as best as she could around the much larger animal.

To the blond's surprise, the black wolf sat down to start licking the girl's face, but kept it's piercing gaze on the male.

As the girl nuzzled her face into the wolf's fur she let out a gasp, backing up before saying, "Knov, if he wanted to hurt me, then he would have done that already!"

The wolf looked down at her before she continued, "He's just confused. He doesn't know where he is right now."

The canine shook its head before turning back to the male, who's eyes narrowed back at the creature.

"You wish to find a way out of these woods, do you not?" a deep voice echoed in the male's head, but he knew it was the wolf.

"Yeah," Cloud answered as he crossed his arms, ignoring the curious looks the girl was throwing them both.

"I will show you the way on one condition," the wolf spoke before baring his fangs once more, "Once you leave, you are to never return to this place."

"Fine by me," the male shrugged as the little girl gasped at the harsh words of her singular friend.

"Wasn't that a bit mean, Knov?" the girl asked as she walked next to the wolf, leading Cloud through the woods.

"He doesn't belong here," the canine answered as he looked down at the female, "If he were to stay here, then he would become a danger to us all."

Cloud glared at the wolf for his statement but said nothing, focusing instead on the young girl who walked next to it instead.

"Your name is Rhamina, isn't it?" he asked after a few minutes of walking, earning the attention of both individuals in front of him.

"Yep! Fan dancer apprentice, Rhamina Mae Kaius, at your service!" the female chirped as she turned around with a pose before her eyes widened in realization as the wolf let out a silent growl at the male.

"Fan dancer apprentice, Hasu, I mean," she corrected with a giggle as she continued to walk backwards, "I'm still getting used to the other-!"

The girl was cut off as she tripped, falling onto her back before quickly picking herself up and dusting herself off.

"I'm good!" she chirped before turning to continue walking forward, "I'm glad Mommy wasn't here to see that, I would have gotten yelled at for being clumsy again."

"You know I wouldn't let that woman anywhere in these woods," the wolf huffed in distaste as the ravenette matched his pace.

Once the three had reached the edge of the woods, the wolf sat down with the girl by his side before turning to the male.

"This is where we shall part," the wolf spoke, "Keep on walking forward and you shall return to wherever you came from; but remember, you must never return here."

"Yeah, whatever," Cloud sighed before walking on towards the white light that rested ahead of them.

"Goodbye, Mister!" the child exclaimed with a large smile on her face, "I hope you get home safely!"

Back in the penthouse, Sierra had just woken up and was walking to the kitchen to get some food when she noticed Kerstin with a devious smirk on her face at the entrance of the hallway leading into the living room.

"Kerstin, what are you-" "Hush!" the darkette hissed as she pointed over to the couch to see the pair still knocked out.

"This is my only chance to get a picture of her asleep in order to prove how cute she is," the seventeen-year-old whispered as she crept up to the couch, "If she wasn't this tired, then she would have woken up the second I walked out of my room."

"What is the point of doing this exactly?" the brunette questioned as the younger female took out her phone and opened the camera app.

"To prove that Mina is a fucking adorable goose," Kerstin replied as she got the pair in focus.

"Everyone knows that though."

"Apparently she doesn't!"

Click! Flash!

A look of horror appeared on the darkette's face as a growl came from her sibling while the male began to stir.

"Delete that right now," the ravenette grumbled, not even opening her eyes as the male began to shift underneath her.

"But, Mina, you look so peaceful in this!" Kerstin tried to reason as she inspected the image on her screen.

Without any warning, the eighteen-year-old's hand reached out to snatch the device out of Kerstin's grip as she sat up.

Cloud, now awake by this point, only watched as the ravenette lazily went through the device while keeping the younger female away with her left hand.

With a sigh, Rhamina handed the phone back to her sister before stalking off to the bathroom, not batting an eye as she heard her sister's wail.

"She actually deleted it!" the darkette whined, earning a smirk from Rhamina as she closed and locked the bathroom door behind her, "It was such a good picture though!"

She did have to admit that the picture was actually pretty cute; both individuals looked very peaceful in their sleep and it was just an aesthetically pleasing picture in general, so the ravenette sent it to herself before deleting it off of her sister's phone.

'I don't need Kerstin having any blackmail material on her phone,' she thought with a chuckle, 'She already knows so many of my secrets, I don't need her having any physical proof to back up her claims.'

Once she was dressed, Rhamina exited her room to be greeted by the smell of pancakes drifting through their temporary living space.

"Morning, Mina," Sierra greeted as she placed a plate of the fluffy breakfast foods on the dining table, "How are you feeling?"

"A little sore, but much better than yesterday," she replied with a smile on her face as she started to drizzle syrup on her serving, not noticing the look Cloud sent her way.

"So Hana is bringing Kiran up here so we can start planning today," Kerstin said as she was already eating her food.

"That's what she said yesterday," the ravenette confirmed as she poured herself a glass of apple juice

"Hopefully this won't take too long," she sighed before returning to her seat with the iced beverage in her hand.

"Why are you getting homesick already?" Kerstin teased as she leaned forward with a small smirk.

"No, I just want to get this out of the way, so we can start looking into Scyphozoa," Rhamina sighed before biting her lip, "We still have to notify our other allies of it so they can keep a closer eye on the plants in their territories."

"And we're going to have to start stationing guards at our plant again," Sierra added with a frown, "No one likes going over there."

"Why don't you just destroy the generators completely?" Cloud questioned as he looked over to the girls.

"We would, but the designers of the damned things added a fail safe," Kerstin scoffed, "If those generators are taken out then so is everything within a 120 kilometre radius of them."

"A group thought the government was bluffing about that feature in the generators and ended up wiping out an entire city with it," Rhamina explained, "And it pisses me off that no one thought that these things were shady when the government announces something like that."

"Unfortunately, no one knows how to disable that function either, not even the scientists who were hired to work in them," the brunette added from her spot, "Everyone who was involved with the design and construction of the generators are either dead or have gone missing."

"Which most likely means that they're dead in this day," the seventeen-year-old scoffed as Rhamina's phone buzzed.

It was a text from Hana saying that she'd be up with Kiran in about half an hour, so the ravenette finished up her food and put her plate in the sink.

Once the pair arrived, everyone migrated into the living room to start discussing the current situation.

"So what leads do you have so far?" Rhamina asked as she sat with Kerstin and Sierra on the largest couch, "It's been a few weeks, so you have to have found something with how you put everyone on this case."

"We've narrowed it down to two groups that could have been responsible for the Boss' disappearance," Kiran explained as he sat on the other couch with Hana, "One in the red light district and the other in North City."

"Wow, polar fucking opposites, huh?" Kerstin chuckled as she pulled one of her legs up onto the couch, "Either in one of the richest areas of San Diego or the poorest.

"It's good that you have it narrowed down to two but do you know where their bases are located?" Sierra asked as she looked up both areas on her phone.

"In North City there's a casino that one of the groups frequent, so you can get information from there," Hana explained with both hands in her lap, "according to my sources, they should be making a visit there in two days."

"And the smaller group's base is just a club in the red light district," Kiran added, "We can clear that place at any time."

"So we fucking over the rich first or getting down and dirty?" the seventeen-year-old asked as she looked over at her teammates.

"I mean, it would be easier to go to the red light district first since it's an environment we're used to," Sierra spoke, "but I doubt it would be a good idea to start an all out fight in another gang's home base. It isn't our turf."

"So 'Distract and Attack'?" Kerstin asked, causing a groan to leave the ravenette's lips as Cloud, Hana, and Kiran looked on in confusion.

"'Distract and Attack' is an old tactic we would use to basically get the jump on a group," Sierra explained, "Mina would use her magic to keep the main groups' attention on her while the rest of us would sneak past and get done whatever we needed to whether it was stealing shit or taking someone out."

"It may seem like just a normal distraction tactic; but let me tell you, this shit really works," she continued as the ravenette pinched the bridge of her nose.

"Mina, it's a good idea, right?" Kerstin asked the older female as she held a teasing grin on her face.

"I mean yeah, but doing that in a red light district," the teen sighed before another groan left her mouth, "Y'all better be fucking fast, otherwise I'm just going to burn the whole fucking building down with all of us still in it."

"I can stay on the first floor with you," Kiran offered with a smile, earning a frown from the blond, "The person you'd basically need to interrogate is almost always in his office on the third floor of the building."

"Alright, fine we're doing this then," Rhamina said as she looked up with a displeased expression, "When are we doing this?"

"If you guys are down for doing it tonight, then we'd get a bit of a break before having to go to North City," the Korean suggested as he looked over to the group from the smaller territory.

"That's fine with me," Kerstin shrugged, earning agreements from the other two Filipinos before they all looked over to Cloud.

"Doesn't matter to me," he answered, still uneasy about doing this so soon with what happened to the ravenette the day before and the fact the second male was coming with them did not put his mind at ease.

"Alright, then I'll see you guys tonight!" the male concluded with a large smile on his face before he and the doll left.

The group of four actually spent most of their time in their rooms, putting together their things for the last minute operation.

'They better not draw too much attention from upstairs,' the ravenette thought as she stripped off her usual dress and corset, turning to the new outfit laid out on her bed.

'I know fighting is going to be unavoidable, but I pray to whoever is listening, that their ruckus doesn't over power my spell,' she continued with a sigh.

At around nine-forty-five in the evening, the four started meeting in the living room once again with Rhamina being the last one to arrive.

"Damn, Mina, you look hot!" Sierra called as the ravenette exited the hallway, causing Cloud and Kerstin to turn their heads.

While the other two females immediately began showering the eighteen-year-old in compliments, Cloud could only stare with wide eyes at her change in appearance.

She wore a black t-shirt that was cropped with white text across the front that read 'Queen' with a white, checkered border around it; high-waisted denim shorts that stopped at her mid-thigh over fishnets that let into her usual black combat boots; and on her hands were black leather gloves that had the fingers cut off.

Her hair was left down, but she actually wore makeup as her eyes were emphasized with red eye shadow at the outer corners of her upper and lower lids paired with black, cat eye liner while her lips were tinted red with a lip oil.

"Mina, where the fuck did you get fishnets?" Sierra asked as the ravenette brushed a few stray hairs out of her face.

"I don't know, but I thought it would look good with the rest of the outfit," she replied, looking down at herself.

"Mina, why did you even bring that outfit?" Kerstin asked with narrowed eyes, causing the teen to avoid eye contact.

"I totally wasn't planning on going around whenever I had free time to take part in any street fights," the eighteen-year-old spoke as she looked off to the side, "Plus, if I want all eyes on me, I have to be extra, right?"

"Oh yeah, they'll definitely have their eyes on you. Right, Cloud?" the darkette asked, nudging the male out of his trance.

"Huh?" he asked, blinking as he noticed all eyes on him once again.

"Doesn't Mina look good?" the seventeen-year-old chuckled as Rhamina shook her head at her sibling's antics.

"My spell should keep their attention for awhile, but y'all try to keep the noise down when you're kicking ass," the ravenette spoke as she plopped down on the couch, crossing her right leg over her left," I don't want to put any more effort into this than I have to."

"Yeah, yeah, of course, Mina," the darkette chuckled as she took a selfie with Rhamina in the background, flipping off the camera, before sending it on the server that included her and five others.

It was about fifteen minutes before Kiran texted the ravenette, telling them to meet him in the back parking lot.

Once the four arrived, they saw the male leaning against a jet black care until his eyes caught onto the ravenette's figure.

"Looking good, Hasu, but are you sure you want to be wearing that in front of a bunch of drunk guys?" he asked, placing a hand on top of her head with a nervous grin.

"Nope, but it's happening anyway, so let's just get this over with," she shrugged with a lopsided smile.

"We taking your car, then?" Sierra asked as she stepped forward with her hammer gripped in her hands.

"Yeah here, you can put that in the trunk," the Korean said as he walked to the back of the car.

"Cloud, are you riding with us?" Rhamina asked as she turned to the blond who was just standing off to the side with a frown on his face.

"I'll be fine following on the bike," the male spoke before giving a small smirk, ""now you might want to get going before they leave you again."

"Kiran's driving, he won't leave me like those that asshole," the female scoffed referring only to her younger sibling before she jumped forward to give him a quick hug.

"I'll see you when we get there!" she chirped before releasing him and walking over to get into the passenger's seat of the black car.

The fact that she was so close to the other man still unsettled Cloud, but her quick show of affection was enough to dull it, at least for a little bit.

It took about twenty minutes for them to reach their destination and it looked just how the ravenette expected it to.

Very crowded and dirty, way shadier than the Abyss was and most definitely a place she would normally try to avoid walking around when the sun went down.

'Depraved fucks,' she spat in her head as she followed Kiran up to the entrance of the club with her arms crossed over herself, already feeling the gazes of those who just lurked outside the building.

It was not that difficult to spot where the stairs were despite the low light environment paired with the multi-color strobes; they were guarded by two large men who looked like they weren't taking anything from anyone.

"Don't these people know how to wear shirts?" Sierra hissed, already feeling eyes on their small group as the Korean went up to talk to the DJ.

"Mina, I'm sorry," Kerstin sighed as she placed a pitying hand on the older female's shoulder after feeling a chill run up her spine, "I didn't think it would be this bad."

"It's fine, this is San Diego, so I wouldn't expect anything less," the ravenette replied as her eyes swept over the... intense... environment.

"Hey, baby-girl, why don't you come over here and party with us!" a man called from somewhere behind her.

"Who knows? I'll think about it if I get bored, 'kay?" the female replied with a smirk as she sent a wink from over her shoulder while Cloud shot a glare at the table of men.

"I retract my previous statement," the ravenette spoke as she turned back into her group of friends with her shoulders hunched forward, "I wish for death to claim my mortal being."

Before anything else could be said, Kiran returned with two microphones in his hands as he said, "We're all set, does anyone need another run down of the plan?"

"Wait for Mina to draw the attention of all the fuckers here, get up the stairs when the guards leave, and get to the top to find out our shit," Sierra spoke with her hammer strapped to her back.

"Yep, but Hasu isn't going to be the only one on stage," the male spoke with a small smirk as he handed the shorter female a mic, keeping one for himself.

"Yay, I won't have to suffer alone!" the eighteen-year-old cheered sarcastically as she turned the device over in her hands.

"Alright," she sighed, straightening herself out as she turned to her friends, "Good skills and do us a favor by being quick."

Without another word, the two began making their way over to the stage as the music changed over the speakers.

As soon as the male began singing, the group of three began moving to the wall where the stairs were, a good distance away from the guards as their eyes flicked up to the stage.

When Rhamina's voice came through on the speakers, everyone's heads turned to the stage as she took on a playful persona to hide the magic she was spreading over them.

The song the pair was singing was in Japanese so neither Cloud nor Sierra could tell what it was about; but Kerstin, having heard this song before, merely snorted in pure amusement.

"Makes sense she'd pick a song as raunchy as this one," she snickered, the two barely hearing her over the music and cheers, "There's literally a line in here about wanting to suck dick."

That statement elicited surprised reactions from the other two; Sierra choking on air as the blond snapped his gaze over to the seventeen-year-old.

"Kerstin, what the fuck?" the brunet asked in between coughs, earning a shrug from the younger female.

"A lot of nice sounding music is about sex," she reasoned before noticing that the two guards had abandoned their posts to get a better view of the stage.

While singing the chorus of the song with Kiran, Rhamina looked straight into her younger sister's eyes and nodded.

"Alright, time to get this shit started," the darkette spoke as she started towards the stairs, snapping the other two out of their shock.

The ravenette let out a small sigh of relief as the three made it up the stairs unnoticed before coming back in on her part once again.

Upon making it to the second floor, it was relatively quiet with a few grunts here and there, but it was nothing that they couldn't handle.

When they reached the third floor, they all healed up before busting into the boss' office to see a very buff man sitting at the desk.

"What the hell do you think you're doing in here?!"

On the first floor of the club the two childhood friends sat at the bar, slowly sipping on come water after they finished their second song.

Almost everyone in the room was surrounding them, trying to talk them up, but each of them smoothly turned them down.

'I'm surprised no one's gotten violent yet,' the ravenette thought as she sent a flirty wink towards another male, 'I haven't done this in so long.'

"Excuse me, but these were sent over for you two by that man there," the bartender spoke as he placed a bright colored drink in front of each Asian while gesturing to a man that sat at the opposite end of the bar.

Rhamina lifted the glass and swirled the liquid around before narrowing her eyes at something settled at the bottom of her glass.

She did the same to the glass in front of the male, noticing the same result before calling the bartender back over.

"Can you send these back to that gentleman and tell him that he needs to make sure that the powder is fully dissolved before trying to drug people?" the female asked, trying to hold back the bite that threatened to leak into her voice.

"Damn, you found that quick," Kiran spoke in a low tone of voice as the bartender did as requested of him.

"Trust me when i say that you only make that mistake once, Kiran," she sighed while taking out her phone to read.

The male said nothing, but nodded in understanding before he downed the rest of his water as he looked up at the ceiling.

About five minutes later the female stood up and slipped her phone into her pocket before saying, "He's not here, time to go. They're making their way out now."

The two calmly made their way to the exit and waited by the car for a few minutes only to see the three running at them.

"Get in the fucking car!" Kerstin screeched as she practically flung herself into the passenger's seat.

"What did you do?" the ravenette as everyone else loaded their vehicles, loud sounds coming from the back of the building.

"We ran into some trouble on the way out," Sierra huffed as they started down the road, both girls in the back watching through the back window as Cloud hung back to take care of someone who was also on a bike, but there were also two cars following.

As Kerstin stuck the top half of her body out her window to fire back at them, Rhamina looked up and noticed that the car had a sunroof.

"Open the sunroof," she ordered, pulling her fans out from who knows where.

The male driving nodded and the female stood up fully as the glass retracted so she was facing the foes behind her..

Taking a few moments to observe how the vehicles were organized, the female dodged a few bullets before calling out to her companion.

"Cloud!" she exclaimed as he looked up at her, flicking her fans open, "Get ahead of the car, I'll handle them!"

The male nodded before placing his sword in its designated spot on the bike and racing ahead so that all Rhamina could see were enemy vehicles.

Cracking her neck, the female flicked both of her wrists forward as her fans flew from her hands.

Their sharpened edges cutting through one tire of each car, causing them to veer off and ram right into each other; however, the man on the bike was able to swerve out of the way.

"Motherfucker!" the ravenette exclaimed as her fans returned to her hands while a bullet dug into her upper arm.

"Mina, did you get hit?" Kerstin asked as the eighteen-year-old flicked her left fan out to dispatch the male on the motorcycle.

"Fuck, I forgot how much it hurts to get shot when you're not high on adreniline," the female hissed as she lowered herself to the seats before letting out a groan of pain.

"Shit! I can't even heal it right now!" she whined as she kept her left hand over the wound, "The fucking bullet is still in there!"

"Are you serious?" the male asked as he looked back for a moment before clicking his tongue in frustration.

"It's too dangerous to stop anywhere here," Kiran said before looking at Sierra, "Would you be able to get it out right now?"

"Not without a light and tools," the brunette replied as the female next to her tried to focus on her breathing and not the pain in her arm.

"Fuck," the male huffed, "You're going to have to wait till we get to the hotel then, Hasu."

"Yep, okay!" she chirped in a high pitched voice as tears began falling down her face, "Just prepare for me to be a whiny bitch the entire way back."

As soon as the group made it back to the hotel parking lot the ravenette was completely over the entire situation and walked straight past Cloud who just looked confused before he noticed the blood running down her arm.

"What happened?" he asked with just a hint of concern lacing his tone as everyone followed her into the elevator.

"Bitch on a motorcycle," she replied, gritting her teeth as she felt the bullet shift in her arm once again.

Once they had made it up to the penthouse, Sierra immediately went to go sterilize an appropriate sized knife the eighteen-year-old laid on the couch by one of the lamps.

Throughout the entire procedure, Rhamina had her eyes shut as a string of cusses fell from her lips before the brunette was able to get the metal out.

"Cloud, you can use healing magic right?" Sierra asked, earning a nod from the male, "Then I'm, leaving the rest up to you."

The male took the female's spot as she went to clean up before placing his dominant hand over the ravenette's wound, earning a grunt of displeasure.

Muttering an apology under his breath, the male activated the healing materia in his cuff causing a tingling sensation to run through the female as her wound closed.

Once Cloud stood up, the eighteen-year-old used her arm to block out the light and said, "Night night, motherfuckers, I'm not moving from this couch until morning."

It was around midnight, so no one really had the energy to argue with the stubborn eighteen-year-old.

As Cloud walked away from the living room, he threw one last glance at the figure on the couch before returning to his room.

After changing into a set of sleeping clothes, the male simply laid on the bed and started at the ceiling as he thought back to his world once more.

What had happened after he fell? What happened to Tifa?

Was Barret able to get them out safely? What if they were caught by Shinra?

He was about to keep questioning himself when he heard a female voice calling out for someone and it was at this point that he realized that the surroundings around him changed.

Instead of laying in his plush mattress he was on the mossy floor of a forest once again, but this time a trail was right next to him and his sword was attached to his back.

"Iliya!" a female voice called from ahead of him on the trail, "Come one, Iliya, this isn't funny! Your mom is looking for you!"

The male followed the voice to find a teenager with short black hair wearing a purple blouse and baggy black pants stuffed into a pain of brown boots.

"Iliya, there you are!" she chirped upon finding a young boy crouching near one of the bushes by the trail.

"You know better than to go off into the woods at night," she spoke, crouching down to get at his level, "Monsters are very active right now."

"I found a sprite thought!" the boy exclaimed as he held up a jar containing a blue wisp, "I can use this to cure big sister!"

"I'm sure you can," the female spoke with a soft smile as she looked at the jar, "But let's go home now, alright?"

"Okay, Mariana!" the boy chirped as he started back down the trail with a large, toothy grin on his face.

The teen only shook her head as the boy got farther from sight as she started to stand up only to fall back to her knees with a gasp.

"Well, well, well, what do we have here?" a velvety voice asked from behind the girl as a large spider crawled down her arm.

'Shit!' the female thought as she looked over her shoulder to see a creature with a human torso attached to the body of a spider.

"I was hoping to catch a meal, but I've done even better," it chuckled as it loomed over the girl, "I have found an incubator."

It was at this point that Cloud had seen enough; as the female tried to back away in fear while she was slowly losing control of her body, the blond rushed forward with his sword drawn and swiped at the creature only for it to jump back.

"And what is this?" it questioned, its four eyes narrowing in distaste at the appearance of another male.

"A knight perhaps?" it hypothesized as the female succumbed to the paralyzing venom currently running through her veins.

"No matter," the creature shrugged as it got into an attack stance, "I'll have your head either way."

As the fight went on, the female could only watch and listen as she struggled to regain control of her body.

The venom of a drider was extremely potent and could normally keep a human paralyzed for days at a time; however, this girl was not completely human.

By the time the fight was over, the girl was able to stand with the help of a tree as the male placed his sword on his back before approaching the female.

"Who are you?" she asked with a weak glare, barely able to keep herself upright as it felt like her legs would give out at any moment, "Some kind of mercenary?"

"Something like that," the male shrugged before stepping closer to the female, "Can you walk?"

The girl let out a growl before shaking her head; she knew it wasn't safe to just trust wandering people, but she knew she would have been fucked if she was left alone.

"Where's the nearest town?" the blond asked as he picked up the female, using his arms to help support under her knees and her back.

"Just back down the trail," she replied, nodding in the opposite direction that the creature had appeared, "The village is a ten minute walk from here."

The man nodded and said nothing else as he started in the direction that she had told him as a breeze blew past them.

The walk started off silent as the girl just took the time to observe her savior before asking, "What's your name?"

"Cloud strife, and yours?" he asked, blue eyes flicking down to her tired and still, slightly immobilized form.

"Mariana. I don't have a last name," she replied simply as she looked up at the starry sky past the trees.

"What was that thing?" Cloud asked as he just continued walking, taking note of the small lanterns along the trail.

"A drider. They and all other monsters, become much more active in the spring," she explained with a sigh, "Looking for mates and what not."

"Consider yourself lucky that you killed it," she continued with a smirk, "Driders don't care if you're a man or woman... If you can hold eggs, you're fair game."

The male scoffed at the disgusting information before he came upon the entrance of the village she mentioned.

Upon seeing the form of the girl in his arms, a woman rushed forward with tears in her eyes and asked, "Mariana, what happened?"

"A drider came up, but Cloud here took care of it," the ravenette explained as a male around the blond's age took her from him.

"Pretty cool right?" the female asked with a smirk as more worried villagers gathered around.

"Mariana, this isn't time for your jokes," snapped the male who held her as he took her into the village.

"Mister, I can't thank you for saving my daughter!" the woman cried as she bowed in the blond's direction, "Please allow us to give you a room tonight as thanks!"

~~~Fin. Chapter 6~~~

Masterlist

#Apocalypse #Chapter 6 #Fanfiiction #Fanfic #Final Fantasy #Final Fantasy VII #FFVII #FFVII Remake #Cloud Strife #Cloud Strife x OC

[angeldoggowow]

Ashes to Ashes

Amy treks the path up the mountain, determination shining on her  face. With each step she can feel herself getting more and more tired, wanting to sit down, wanting to rest. She shakes away the feeling and jogs up the mountain trail, now forgotten by society. Wild thorn bushes stab at her legs and trip her, other plants grab her blond hair. The trees above drop leaves like rain and shake, seemingly with fear. Amy runs her hand along every tree she passes and gently grabs the leaves of plants as she passes. The crunch and crack of twigs and dead leaves under her feet calms her racing heart, but she’s thinking a million miles a minute. Every few steps her feet hit a wooden plank which is meant to be part of some stairs that have fallen away long ago. She looks up, the sky clouding over, “It looks like it’s about to rain!” Amy gets pulled back by her shorts. “Aaii!” she squeaks, ripping away from the rogue branch. She pats her shorts as she continues on her way.

Amy giggled as she watched the group of children climb the mountain. “They won’t ever find me up here!” she whispered against the trees damp bark. They trek away up the path. Minutes pass like hours, and the sky goes from baby blue to vivid oranges, purples, and even pinks. Amy dangled her feet over the edge of the branch absentmindedly. Have they forgotten about me? Tears pricked in her eyes as she hurriedly scuttled down the tree. She landed on the ground, dried leaves getting crushed under her tiny feet. Pushing herself away from the tree she now feared, she sprinted up the trail. Amy smacked away any leaves or branches in her way. It seemed like she stepped on every throne branch on the ground and tripped on every bump and rock. She finally got to the temple and ran into her friend’s arms, sobbing. “I-I-I wa-was so s-sc-scared!!” Her friends looked at each other, but shrugged. Amy’s heavy breaths ring in her head as she reaches the place she has been trying to get to: a old temple. The stone temple is covered in moss, vines, and other plant matter that has dyed the stone green. The roof curves downward and has holes in several places. Part of the roof has fallen in and one wall has crumbled to rubble. The wooden arches leading to the temple itself has rotted and fallen apart. Amy calms herself before stepping onto the stone path leading to the ruins. Her bare feet slightly stick to the cold stones. As she passes, Amy puts her hand on the arch. “Damp, like always,” she murmurs sadly. She looks at the stone pillars that were said to reach the gods. Behind her there’s a sickening crack and a thud. She turns, and sees the first wood arch has finally fallen. Amy stares at it, her green eyes clouding over with thought. Laughter rang out amongst the pillars as children ran in and out of them. Amy ran from the pillars to the arches and spun around them happily. The other kids follow her like ducklings, still giggling and laughing. “This is the gate of the gods!” Amy cheered, weaving in and out of them and her friends. The children stopped in their tracks, staring up at the wooden torii gate. “A-amy...we’re not supposed to mess with them…” one of them stuttered out. “But we’re not messing with them! We’re dancing around them!” Amy stated, twirling around. They looked at each other before a few shrugged and joined Amy in her frolicking. The rest, one by one, joined her. The only one who didn’t was a little girl who hadn’t followed them to begin with in favor of sitting on the steps of the temple and reading. Amy finally spotted her and broke from the rest of the kids. She stopped in front of her and smiled, “What are you doing?” “Reading.” “Well, what are you reading?” “A book about culture.” Amy sat next to her as she talked. “But don’t you want to go play?” she asked. “No, I’d much rather read,” the little girl responded, flipping a page. Amy frowned, but was not deterred. “Then I’ll stay here while you read!” she smiled brightly. “Y-you don’t have to…” the girl whispered. “But why would I leave you here by yourself?” “You don’t know me…” “I didn’t know I need to know someone to talk to them.” The little girl smiled shyly. Gently closing her book and setting it down, she got up. “What are you doing?” Amy asked. “Going for a walk; it’s obvious you won’t leave me unless we do something,” she said, walking away from Amy. Amy scrambled to get up, screaming after her, “Wait for me!” Amy keeps walking, but much slower than before. She walks to the broken entrance, the once lavish crossbeam missing from view. The jewels that were stuck into the building are also gone, taken by robbers looking for a quick buck. She runs her hand up the beam, the smooth dirty marble cold and damp against her finger tips. As Amy stands there, a few small droplets hit her forehead and nose. She lazily looks up, and it begins to pour. Rain drops the size of bullets pelt her face and any other bare skin and soaks through her thin, oversized shirt quickly. She stares up at the sky, seemingly not caring about the sudden downpour. The rain streaks down her face like silent tears, or perhaps they are tears, blending perfectly with the rain. Soon Amy’s golden locks stick together and become sticky wet ropes, clinging to her face. Sighing, Amy walks into the ruins.

The high ceiling has several holes which allow the pouring rain to break through, splattering the floor with giant droplets. The once colorful walls are now dull, and most are gray. The gold lining has been scrapped off and any marble chipped away. The once large statue of the Buddha is missing, leaving his stand unattended; covered in a thick layer of dust and vines. The tall torches next to it are missing the golden bowl meant to hold their flames, but the poles remain, buried by flora. The golden bowl for food for the gods is also missing; probably stolen like the rest of the valuables. The only thing remaining is the jade green and ruby red floor with gold, jade, and ruby colored balls mixed in; it’s nearly impossible to steal those without tearing the whole thing down and then some. But the once beautiful sight is obscured by years of dirt, dust, and dried blood. Amy looked around at the sight she found herself in; the temple built for the buddha and the gods. A group of maidens huddled together, speaking in hushed tones to each other while occasionally glancing at Amy. She traced the mesmerizing swirling patterns on the floor, which were seemingly mixed by a stick. It seemed like hours before a monk gently tapped her on the shoulder. “Come with me, young one,” he said, holding out his hand for her to take. Amy stood and took his hand carefully as he lead her away to the depths of the temple. She strolls to a pile of rubble that looks like it hasn’t been touched in eons. She gingerly picks up a stone chunk, stretching out a old dusty cobweb in the process. “He was right; not even a spider would stay here after what happened,” Amy sighs, throwing the chunk aside. At the bottom of the pile, a slight gleam catches Amy’s eye. She clears away the stones and vines to find a monk’s staff; a five foot pole made of redwood and gold. At the top is a golden ring, and a golden spike pierces through the ring. Other smaller rings occupy the two halves of the loop, six on each side. She picks the oriental staff from the ground and looks at it in wonder. “How did you survive? Perhaps…” she trails off as she twirls it around. Only then did she notice the numerous cobwebs keeping the smaller rings from clinking together or even moving. “Tiny pests, clogging my music,” Amy remarks with disdain, ripping the cobwebs away. Once the webs are cleared, Amy swings the staff around, allowing it to make a sound similar to a wind chime during a storm. Her racing thoughts slow to a near stop to take in the familiar sound. Amy watched as the other children starred past the wall into the main hall. “What are you all doing?” she asked them. “Watching the monks with their shiny staffs!” “And their special robes!” “Okay...what are they doing?” Amy asked, stepping closer to the hoard. “We don’t know! No one will tell us!” a few hissed, by most shushed her. Walking carefully around the crowd, she seen several tall men with bald heads, orange and white robes, and tall staffs. Most of them were seated on the polished ground, chanting something under their breath with their hands clasped together with ceremonial beads. Four were standing, chanting louder than the rest. A small girl with black hair sat in the middle of the four, with her back facing the crowd. Her face was tilted downward, hands together and finger tips touching her forehead. Unlike the monks, she didn’t have black beads strung around her hand, but a red ribbon. A red silk ribbon tied her hands together. Another monk stood in front of her with a wide hat that resembled a woven basket. He otherwise wore the same things as the rest. A loud noise rang out through the hall, making the children scatter and scramble away. Amy dived to the now empty wall and peaked around the corner. It sounded again, but this time Amy knew were it came from; that monk had hit his staff hard against the ground. The monk called out something in a deep voice, making the others begin to repeat him. He hit the staff against the ground several more times, and Amy noticed the tingling undertone of the staff. Her spinning slows to a stop. The joyful, childlike gleam in her eye fades just as quickly as it came, though. Amy glances around, her sad expression returning. A side entrance catches her eye from across the hall, it’s pitch black emptiness causing her to walk swiftly to it. Peering down the hall, Amy’s expression turns blank. “It’s like a black hole…” she comments somberly. She props the staff up against the wall and turns back to the great hall. She glances at the rubble piles until she sees a piece of wood sticking straight up out of one. Walking to it, she yanks it out of the pile of rocks. “You won’t be needing this at all…” She saunters to the stump of a marble column and presses one end of the stick to it. She pulls down with all her strength. A yellow-orange glow erupts from it, lighting up the area around it. For a fraction of a second, a shrill scream sounds, and the building shakes. Strong winds blow from all sides, pushing Amy down to the ground. But it ends just as quickly as it started, and the world is still again. Pushing herself off the ground onto wobbly legs, Amy stumbles her way to the hall.

She gingerly picks her staff up from the ground and thrusts the torch into the darkness. Webs are built up in the corners, with several bug carcasses frozen in time and covered in dust. Dust hangs in the air, and it smells musty. Parts of the stone ceiling and wall have fallen out but are nowhere in sight, like a puzzle missing it’s pieces. Echoes of water hitting water sounds from somewhere deep down the hall. She carefully begins the descent into the depths. The flame tries to grasp the cobwebs and reaches for the walls, but Amy holds it firmly in front of her. The only sound in the small space is the crackling of flames, the dripping water, the ringing of the staff, and Amy’s own breathing.

The darkness looms over the small girl as she stood at the end of the hall. She shivered, her black hair swinging noticeably. “Hey!” Amy screamed from behind her. The girl screeched and turned to her, her breath heavy. “A-amy? P-please, don’t do that!” she said. “Whatcha doing?” Amy cocked her head to the side. “I-I...have to use the bathroom…” the girl whispered. “Ooohhh...and the hallway is dark…” she said, peering down the hallway. “I can escort you there, Aya!” Amy held her arm out to her. Aya looked from Amy’s arm to Amy herself. She gently took her arm and clung to her. Amy’s face burned bright, but she smiled nonetheless. Hot air whips around Amy at seemingly random intervals, sweeping her hair and clothes back. The flames attempt to lick her face with each strong puff of air. Her clothes stick to her as she sweats, as does any dust or dirt that falls. After walking for a while, Amy comes out to another hallway. The staff rings with each step, and the crackling of flame fills the empty space Amy couldn’t hope to fill herself. She walks to the first dusty door and gently pushes it open. The door creaks heavily. Amy gently pushes the torch into the room, burning cobwebs in the way with a sizzle. Along the walls were beds with blankets of dust. “Hmm…” Amy hums, bringing the torch to the floor. Wooden toys are scattered among the floor, the paint wore off them and dirt ingrained in the cracks. Under them are slightly less dusty; but only slightly. Amy tiptoes her way to a bed in the corner; the only bed that has red blankets. She props the staff against the wall and makes her way to the bed. She smiles and runs her hand across the dust layer, digging up years upon years of crusty air. With a few swift motions, part of the vibrant vermillion hue shines through. “What happened to the girls bed?” “Why is it suddenly red?” “Is she using dark magic?” The whispers made by the priestesses echoed through the hallways. Amy sat just out of sight in the children's room, listening intently. “Should we switch whose going?” the youngest priestess asked, looking to the head monk and priestess. “Perhaps we should…?” The priestess murmured, looking down with a frown decorating her face. “No doubt; this is the work of the gods. We must change everything,” he replied firmly. The small group erupted with whispers and hushed tones. “Quiet now, quiet! It’s settled; she will our new sacrifice.” Amy’s eyes widen and water. “No...no!” she cried, bringing her hands to her face. Salty tears poured down her cheeks like waterfalls. She muffled her sobs with her hands. The group dispersed, but Amy stayed, sobbing quietly to herself. “I-I have to f-f-find a w-a-ay t-t-too...” she sobbed, getting to her feet. Amy sighs, her weary eyes scanning the bed. She stands, dust sticking to her shorts and damp shirt. She walks swiftly to the door and grabs the staff she left there. Her eyes meet a torch-holder on the wall across from the door. She swings her torch to the unlit burnt stick, lighting it. The hall illuminates, casting long shadows on the bland walls. Amy wanders the hall lazily. The next door she comes across has intricate carving in the stone. It’s slightly ajar. A strong smell is leaking through the door; similar to death. Her eyes connect with the torch holder next to the door; empty and covered with crusty cobwebs. She slides her torch in the holder. “Fits like a glove,” she remarks. Amy stares at it, watching the flames lick the ceiling greedily. She shakes her head and pushes the door open fully. Bookcases line the walls and a cot is pushed in the corner of the room like it’s a second thought. The upper shelves are sparse in terms of books, but holds trinkets, jars of things in a strange discolored liquid, and other random valuables that aren’t really valuable. Amy scowls as she walks in, the air musty like the rain had made its way in the room itself. She glances at the floor by one of the shelves. One of the jars have busted, and the liquid has already run down the book shelf, effectively ruining the books it touched. There is a pool shaped blob on the floor where the liquid had settled. “What are you doing in here?!” The monk screamed. Amy whipped her head to him, half terrified half angry. “Is...is THIS what you plan to do to her?! Turn her into...into...into THIS?!” she screamed back, tears pricking into her eyes. “How did you get in here?! Get out!” he growled, grabbing her arm. He pulled her away from the bookshelf, making her drop the book she was holding. “No! No no no no! I won’t let you do this!! You WILL NOT do this!!” Amy screamed, salty tears blurring her vision and running down her cheeks. The monk picked her up by the waist. She kicked, swatted, and flailed, all the while with her eyes screwed shut. Her hand connected with something smooth and cool, and with enough force to push it. Almost immediately the horrendous sound of glass shattering filled their ears. The monk froze. Amy froze, and slowly opened her eyes. The first thing she seen was one of the many jars on the shelf, broken, on the ground; she had pushed it off in her frenzy. She turned her head upward to look at the monk. His face read pure rage. With a animalistic growl, he threw her into the ground. Her head connected with the ground with a harsh thud. Amy growls, glaring at the bookcases. She throws her staff to the ground and reaches for the heavy object. She grips the edge and pulls. In seconds it tumbles to the ground like a tower made of bricks, but no mortar. The glass jars shatter on the ground and part of the bookcase itself seemingly crumbles, from what looks like dry rot. She tears down every bookcase in her brief, blind rage. After a few minutes, she calms down. She pants heavily while walking to her staff. Amy picks it up, and walks to the doorway. With a quick, almost mournful glance at the room, she saunters off down the hall.

Amy stops, just on the edges of the fires light. On the edge of her vision, she can see a door. She takes a few deep breaths and feels her way there. The door is plain, almost blending perfectly into the wall. There isn’t a handle, either. The only way to tell it’s even there is there’s a ever so slight sparkle in the space between the door and the wall; almost like there’s a light on the inside. Amy firmly plants her hand in the middle of the door. She gently leans in, her forehead connecting with sandy texture of the door. She chants something under her breath. A loud, odd click sounds from the door. Amy pushes the door open. The first thing that hits her is the heavy smell of sulfur and rotting flesh. She gags and covers her mouth, coughing like she’s hacking up her lungs. The faint, white outline of a pentagram stained with a unusually large amount of blood; certainly not enough for one person. She feels tears prick into her eyes heavily at the thought of her friend having come here, once upon a time. “NNNOOOO!!! NO, NO WAIT!!! PLEASE!! PLEASE!!” Amy cried heavily, crawling after the woman dragging her friend away. “W-wait! I-I change my m-mind! I don’t wanna go anymore!” Aya cried, tearing at the arms of the burly woman holding her. “Shut it!” The woman barked, re-adjusting Aya in her grasp. “I-I thought you s-said I c-c-could decide w-whether I wanted to d-do this or n-not!” Aya squeaked. “I did. Until just now,” the woman growled cruelly. Amy stretched her hand out as far as she could, and Aya did the same. Their hands catch and they latch on as hard as they could. The woman snarled and yanked Aya to her, dragging Amy closer to her with a yelp. The woman smirked, a sadistic glint in her eye, and whistled. Amy looked up at her. She then flew backwards, a meaty thud sounding through the hall. Aya screamed, tears now pouring down her cheeks. She stared at Amy, blood running from the fresh wound in her forehead. Amy sniffles. Her hand slowly comes to her face to feel the wet streaks. She braces herself before walking into the dark room. The walls and floor are a much darker color than the hall or any other room; more of the color of lava rock. In the middle of the floor is the blood stained pentagram. There are four long, lamp like torches like the ones in the temple over head, but almost pitch black. The walls are carved to match the image of the gods with no free space at all. Amy’s hand gingerly connects with the wall as she walks the outside of the room. The feeling of carved faces, ridges that make clothes, and smooth parts that form landscapes bring a very, very limited comfort to her. She gets to the wall opposite the door, and brings her hand to her side. She stares up at the figure. Though none of the carvings have color, she knows this one like the back of her hand. The female figure is in the middle, above the others with the sun behind her. Her face the epitome of beauty, and her clothes fitted to her slender form. Amy sighs, “I suppose I was prettier back then…” To Amy, it feels like staring into a mirror and seeing who you were, not who you are. She glances at the other figures; men, women, and animal alike were gods, like Amy. Her eyes connect with the ancient writing that spells out her name; her real name. “Amaterasu… a name I haven’t been called for some time…”

Amaterasu’s melancholy gaze is catch on the other gods she knew; she was their friend, their boss, and in some cases their lover and enemy. “I said we’d live forever. I said we’d never grow old. I’m sorry; I lied to you all,” she moved to the man on her left and touched his face as she spoke. She shakes her head. Moving around the stained floor, she makes her way out of the room. The door all but slams behind her. What does it mean to be immortal? Her slow footsteps, the ringing of the staff, and the faint crackling of the torches don’t seem comforting anymore. I have no one. They seem to haunt her. Amaterasu stops at the windy hall, her eyes glossed over. With a sigh and the snap of her fingers, she marches down the hall.

With every step her appearance changes. Her white, loose shirt and shorts blend together and grows longer so it becomes a kimono with a long train; it shimmers the colors of the sunrise and sunset. The sleeves grow and cloak her arms so they’re almost invisible. Her hair darkens from blonde to a blue-black color. Her face clears of any blemishes or marks. Even her eyes change; her bright yellow eyes that shined bright than the sun are now dull, having lost their spark. When she emerges from the hallway, she is no longer Amy; she is Amaterasu. Vermillion, violet, peach, and pink paint the sky outside. It’s sunset. She slows her pace as she leaves. Don’t worry, I will join you all soon. The light paints her face as she steps out of the temple. She walks through the first arch, and stops at the collapsed one. She looks at the sun. “You were right, weren’t you brother? Eventually, humans wouldn’t need us. Like now; they aren’t children anymore...I guess I’ll see you...whenever.” She heaves a heavy sigh and closes her eyes. She feels the wind pick up and she breathes in the scent of after-rain. Her feet and the kimono train fades into the wind slowly like dust mixed crudely with glitter. It continues up her body until she’s gone. The staff falls to the dirt and stone ground, clattering as it hits stone.

#writing #something I'm kinda proud of #wow that's a lot of writing

[obsidiancreates]

The Price of Taking Risks (Marvin the Magnificent)

Marvin stared at the entrance to the forest, swallowing to try and relieve the dryness in his throat. He gripped the strap of his bag. He had to just suck it up and go in. If he didn’t get that sap, he couldn’t make the potion, and if he didn’t make the potion...

He pictured Jackie, laying on a cot in the lab, as the poison slowly drained him of life. He couldn’t let Jackie die.

He sprinted into the forest, the shadows of the trees at the entrance swallowing him in seconds.

‘I can’t see anything.’ He held his hand out, palm up, and muttered a quick spell. A small glowing orb of magic formed and lit up his immediate surroundings. He brought it to his lips and blew on it, making it glow brighter. He tossed it in the air. It drifted in the air for a moment before floating back down and resting just above Marvin’s head. It stayed above his head as he walked, as stuck with him as his hair.

He tried to ignore the rustling around him, the way the plants cast shadows that seemed to move even when there was no breeze, the way he could hear faint whispers on the wind. Magic  swirled around him, invisible and dark. He’d had to go to another realm, one that all his tomes and books told him not to enter.

But Jackie had faced off against another, much older, much dark magician, and he’d paid the price. There was only one way to cure the poison he’d been inflicted with, and it required sap from a tree found only in this forest. So Marvin had ignored the warnings. He found a way to the forest.

The magic lapped at him. It felt curious, but it’s curiosity was like a shark’s. It could end with Marvin being injured, or worse. After all, there was no-one else with him. He was alone.

He checked his map again. He was getting close. Just a a few more minutes...

He froze.

Had he imagined that twig snap?

He whirled around, lifting his hands and summoning his best non-verbal defense spell. Green flames burst from his hands.

Nothing happened. It only made his paranoia worse. He shivered, a cool gust of wind chilling his back.

He felt hands on his shoulders, realizing too late that the wind wasn’t blowing in that direction. He tried to twist around, but the hands were too strong. They held him in place. He felt pain in his neck. The smell of blood joined the magic in swirling around him. He started to feel faint. He tried to burn the hands, but his magic gave out. He was too weak.

He slowly opened his eyes. His magic orb was still there, but it was too dim to be of any help in seeing. His whole body ached. It screamed in resistance as he sat up. He didn’t remember passing out. He reached up and felt his neck. He could feel the two spots that had been pricked, There was still a little blood coming from them. But not much.

He brought his knees to his chest. He was panicking, but his heart wasn’t racing and his breathing didn’t need calming. His heart wasn’t even beating. His breath had been knocked out of him and wasn’t coming back.

Vampire. He’d been attacked by a vampire. His blood had been drained by a vampire. He’d been infected by a vampire.

He was a vampire.

He thought of Jackie. Who knows how long Marvin had been out? He didn’t have time to focus on himself. His new...situation could wait. He had to save Jackie.

He blinked. If he was a vampire, he should be able to see in the dark. He waited. He kept waiting, until he could see just enough that he could walk without tripping.

At least there was one upside.

He got to the trees and collected the sap. He ran to the entrance. He felt relief when he saw it, and dismayed by how fast he’d gotten there. Much faster than he should have been able to. 

He stopped a few feet away. Not because he needed to catch his breath. Not because he was tired.

Because he could feel the magic of the forest pulling at him, trying to drag him back in, drag him deeper. The whispers in the air became more understandable as they brushed his hearing.

Stay.

You belong here.

You aren’t human anymore.

You belong here.

Just embrace it.

You belong here.

Our magic is in your veins.

You belong here.

Marvin shuddered. The whispers floated into his mind, taking root. He walked towards the entrance, now his exit. Every step felt wrong. He wanted to flee into the trees, the shadows, the comfort of the darkness and eternal night. The magic pulled harder the closer he got to leaving, the whispers becoming urgent.

You belong here. You belong here. YOU BELONG HERE!

“No!” he shook his head, struggling against the tide. “No! I-I have to save Jackie!”

YOU BELONG HERE!

“I belong with my family!”

YOU BELONG HERE!

“NO!”

He stumbled through the exit, the magic leaving him all at once. Leaving him feeling lost. With shaking hands he pulled out the piece of paper containing the spell to get home. He could still feel the forest calling to him. He ached to go back, a terrible ache rivaled only by the guilt he felt over wanting to go back at all. He finished his spell and was transported home.

He appeared back in his room. He rushed to prepare the potion. His neck flared with pain. He ignored it. He finished the potion, the dark purple mixture steaming with sky-blue vapors. He poured it onto a glass vial and ran to the lab.

Jackie was worse. Stark white veins made webs on his too-pale form. His eyes were open, glazed over and grey. Gray smoke drifted out of his open mouth, changing into black as it rose to the ceiling. Schneep looked up as Marvin burst through the door. Marvin didn’t say anything. He poured the potion into Jackie’s mouth, praying he’d made it right.

The pain in Marvin’s neck was spreading.

He and Schneep watched. Slowly Jackie’s skin regained color, his veins pumping blood instead of poison once more. The smoke stopped rising, disappearing completely. He blinked, the glaze also disappearing and the blue returning. He gasped.

“W-wha-”

“Hush, hush Jackie. You took a foolish risk, you dummkopf,” Schneep whispered. He wiped away his tears and squeezed Jackie hand. “Marvin saved you.”

Jackie propped himself up with one arm. He looked blearily at Marvin. “Thanks,” he croaked. He coughed, and Schneep dropped his hand.

“I will get you some water!”

Schneep hurried out of the room. Marvin smiled at Jackie. “Thanks for not dying.”

 Jackie rubbed his eyes. “What’s wrong with your teeth?”

Marvin shut his mouth. He rubbed his tongue against his teeth to find that two of them were pointed. Not fangs, but nearly. “Nothing. Can you see okay?”

“Guess not,” Jackie mumbled. He laid back down. “ I’m exhausted, Marv.”

“Get some rest. Schneep will get you all better.”

Jackie was already half asleep. “Mkay.”

Marvin rubbed his neck. The pain had spread to his entire head. It was starting to spread to his torso. His chest.

His stomach.

He went back to his room and locked the door. He had to get back to the library. He had to find a cure for vampirism.

Before it made him do something he’d always regret.

#jacksepticeye #jacksepticeye egos #Marvin the Magnificent #Marvin the Magician #Jackieboy Man #vampire #vampires #my attempts at fanfic #fanfic #fanfiction #doctor schneeplestein #henrick schneeplestein #henrik von schneeplestein #angst #au #my au

[mycatshuman]

Die Schere Hand (An Edward Scissorhands Sanders Sides AU) Chapter 2.5

Previous chapter can be found here: https://mycatshuman.tumblr.com/post/178884468602/die-schere-hand-an-edward-scissorhands-sanders

I would like to thank @civilsounds17 for beta reading this chapter. You really are helping to get this story out of my head! 💚💚

As always feedback is appreciated! (And what is this, another character? And who is that guy with the weird name? Spoiler alert:look up the name, its German for…..)

Pairings: Prinxiety, Logicality

Word count: 3, 073

Warnings: cursing but I think thats it. Let me know if I missed any!

A hand dragged a cup to his lips as the person sucked their green tea through the straw. The person rolled their eyes as they listened to the person on the other end of the phone. It was funny, really, how much drama had been caused today. Everyone was in a flurry over the fact that Patton Sun had been seen driving around with a strange, darkly clothed man. It didn’t bother this person really. They just liked a good show. They were pulled out of their thoughts by the person on the phone.

“What is going on, Remy?!? Do you think it could be a secret lover? Or a long lost family member? Then again, Talyn said they saw Patton drive up the hill and-”

“Wait, the hill?” Remy asked as he pulled off his styling sunglasses to rub at his eyes, not quite believing what he was hearing.

“Yeah!” The other person exclaimed.

“I gotta go,” Remy said as he hung up despite the protests. What exactly was going on? Nobody ever went up there. Sure Remy had ventured a couple of feet past the gargoyles, farther than anyone else, but that was child’s play.

Remy would have gone farther if it weren’t for the stone. He felt himself become foggy as he was transported back to that moment. It was a crisp night, the air nipped slightly at his nose. The leaves crunched under his boots as the wind whistled through the dead branches. Remy had been dared by his friend, Schlange, to go past the gargoyles guarding the entrance at the bottom of the hill. Remy, of course, pushed himself further. He was known to do that. It’s what made him so cool.

Remy remembered walking through the trees, the light from the flashlight held tightly in his hand bouncing off the trees. He had strolled across the fallen leaves with an almost arrogance before he tripped over a root. “Shit!”

Remy wasn’t going to lie, it hurt. He moved the flashlight to show his knee, where there was a small rip in his jeans, a small scrape on his skin. He let out a groan. It annoyed him more than anything. His head whipped up as he heard a branch crack. Remy directed the beam of light in front of him, his eyes the size of dinner plates. He let out a gasp as he noticed the gray stone slab a few feet in front of him.

Remy scrambled up and snuck closer, his face twisting in concentration as he tried to make out the roughly carved symbols in the surface. The symbols turned out to be letters and Remy quickly read over the words and drew back in horror.

In Memory of Father

Rest In Peace

Remy fell back as he tripped over his feet. He landing hard on his backside and winced in pain. His head shot to his left as he heard a foot crunch leaves and twigs. He was too scared to even consider it could be his friend. Plus, his friend was a bit jumpy. He wouldn’t have been able to make it past the first line of trees without alerting Remy.

Remy flung his arm to the side, the light flashed off of something silver before it landed on a pale face with wide blue eyes. Remy sucked in a breath as he froze. The stranger in front of him froze too. They stayed like that for a few minutes. The tension in the air thick as neither moved. The stranger recovered first.

“I-I’m sorry,” they whispered, the deer in headlights look had not disappeared from their face.

Remy stared in awe and fear. “I-I,” his eyes traveled down and he sucked in a breath. Sharp blades made up the stranger’s hands.

The stranger subconsciously moved their hands behind them as they looked down guiltily. “I-I’m sorry!” Remy got out, eyeing the silver scissorhands wearily. “I’ll just leave,” Remy stood up slowly, his hands in the air.

“Sorry,” man muttered. “I was just coming to put a flower on my father’s grave.”

Remy glanced at the headstone and realization fell over him. “Oh.” He looked back at the stranger and noticed a small rose held delicately in the boy’s dangerous hands. Remy looked back up at the stranger. “I’m so sorry. I won’t bother you again. Goodbye.”

The stranger stared at Remy in awe. They seemed to have never met a person like him before. Or anyone for that matter. Remy wondered if they’ve had bad experiences.

Remy stood and backed away slowly. “I’m leaving now. Goodbye,” And once he was a few feet away he turned and hightailed it outta there.

Not before he heard a soft, “Thank you, goodbye.”

Remy took a break just before he broke through the trees. He composed himself as he thought over his encounter with the stranger. He was not going to tell anyone about this. Not even Schlange. Once he looked calm and normal, he strolled out of the forest. His face devoid of any emotion.

“Well? What happened!?!” Schlange asked as he met Remy at the entrance, a little ways from the gargoyles.

Remy regarded him for a moment. He shrugged. “Nothing. It’s just trees. Come on. This is boring.”

Schlange huffed but followed after Remy as he started walking away. Remy stayed quiet as he dropped his friend off at his house and walked home, slipping in the front door silently. As younger Remy fell asleep he made a silent vow to the stranger and himself.

No matter how long it takes. No matter what it takes. That stranger will have a life.

Remy was going to make sure of that.

Remy shook his head as the memories faded and he was brought back to the present. If that dark man in Patton’s car was the same dark stranger from Remy’s childhood, then it looked like part of Remy’s work had been done for him.

Remy felt an odd smile settle on his lips. It was time to check in on his brother Logan.

Logan slowly closed the shears as he cut at the hedges. He stopped for a moment and turned up the volume on his podcast before going back to his trimming. This was going to take him all day but he was not missing his podcast.

Virgil stared out the window with longing as he watched Logan slowly trim the hedges in the same boring shape. Virgil could just picture himself creating shapes out of the foliage while smiling. After all, it was something he enjoyed. It was something familiar and made him feel safe.

“Hey kiddo-” the words died on Patton’s lips as he rounded the corner, the pale grey poodle skirt swirling around his ankles. His hands flew to his pastel blue clothed chest as he noticed Virgil’s forlorn expression. Patton peaked out the window and noticed Logan trimming the hedges. His mind flashed back to the hedges on top of the hill. The shapes, sculptures. Oh! He thought. Virgil wanted to do that. Patton fiddled with the grey cardigan wrapped around his shoulders.

“Kiddo?” He asked softly.

Virgil whirled around with wide blue eyes as he noticed Patton.

Patton jumped slightly. “Easy there Virgil. It’s just me.”

Virgil took a couple of deep breaths before he responded. “Yeah?” He asked, his voice small.

Patton felt his heart squeeze as he realized just how much he scared the man. Patton gave Virgil a warm smile. “I was just thinking,” Patton said as he casually moved to the fridge to pull out the ingredients for dinner. “I saw those lovely hedges up at your home! And well,” Patton looked down sheepishly. “I was wondering if you could make something like that with the hedges here.”

Virgil stared in awe at the bubbly man. He wanted him to actually make something out of the boring hedges. Virgil was speechless. He recovered quickly, clearing his throat as he tried to keep his face blank in an attempt to hide his excitement. “If you want, I wouldn’t mind it,” he answered as nonchalantly as he could.

A wide grin broke across Patton’s face. “Wonderful!” He exclaimed. Then he looked away. “Do you think you could make a cat?” He asked hopefully.

Virgil was almost dumbfounded. This man actually wanted him to shape his hedges. Virgil still wasn’t sure if Patton was pulling his leg or not. He decided to take the risk and trust him.  “Sure. Uh, which one would you like me to do?” He asked as he looked out the window.

Patton smiled fondly at Virgil as his back was turned. Then he glanced out the window. “The one in the corner of the yard,” he replied. He beamed at Virgil.

Virgil nodded and silently walked to the back door. Patton smiled at him as he opened the door for him. “Don’t be afraid to be creative! I’ll leave the door open and the screen door so you can call for me if your hungry or thirsty, okay?”

Virgil nodded. “Yeah,” he replied softly.

Patton beamed at him. “Good!”

Virgil stepped outside and wearily made his way to the corner of the yard, silently praying that Logan didn’t notice him. He really didn’t want Logan to get mad at him. Even though Patton asked him to do this. Once Virgil reached his destination, he glanced over at Logan, who hadn’t gotten very far. He paused every few seconds to listen intently to whatever was being said on the podcast. Sometimes even disagreeing with whatever was said.

Virgil closed his eyes and took a deep breath. You got this,he told himself as he opened his eyes and faced the plant in front of him. He hesitantly reached forward and snipped a small piece off, the motion familiar and comforting. He reached his other hand forward and took off another bit with a snip! Snip! Snip! Snip!

Soon, the motions became instinct as Virgil started cutting off bigger chunks of leafy green. Faster and faster he moved as slowly, the shape of a cat could be seen.

Logan paused in his trimming as a noise grew in the background. And it was not his podcast. Turning around he almost dropped his shears. In the corner of the yard, where a fairly sized rectangular hedge was, stood a green, leafy cat. Logan gaped at Virgil as the man sniped a stray branch off of the cat’s body. A full blown cat stood in place of the rectangular hedge once stood.

It was magnificent. Everything was anatomically correct. Logan was brought out of his awe when he heard an excited squeal behind him. He turned to see Patton in a light grey skirt swirling around his ankles with bare feet scrunched up in the bright green grass. Patton was holding the sleeves of his grey cardigan to his mouth in an attempt to stifle his joyful squeal. Logan felt his body freeze up as he stared at Patton. The longer he stared the hotter his face felt. This wasn’t good. Thankfully, Patton didn’t notice as he squealed again.

“Virgil!” He exclaimed. “This is perfect!”

Virgil whirled around with wide eyes before he saw Patton a relaxed once he knew it wasn’t a murderer coming to kill him.

Patton ran up to the piece and let out another excited squeal. “Ahhh! I love it!” He cried out. Patton turned to Virgil, a huge smile spread across his chubby cheeks. “Virgil!” He gushed. “This is amazing! You are really talented!” He turned to Logan. “Isn’t this wonderful, Logan!”

Logan adjusted his glasses as he took another small glance at the cat looming above Virgil and Patton. “Yes. It is quite satisfactory. Everything is anatomically correct and I quite enjoy the change up.

Virgil stared the two glasses wearing men in disbelief. They liked it? He didn’t really expect them to like it. “U-uh thanks,” he stuttered out awkwardly. He silently cursed himself in his head. He needed to hold it together.

Logan nodded and looked at the other bushes in the yard. “If, uh,” he cleared his throat. “If you would like, the other bushes are at your disposal to create what you wish with them.”

Virgil blue eyes lit up and Logan felt the beginnings of an rare smile on his face.

Then he heard the doorbell. “ I shall get that,” Logan spoke and left Patton and Virgil to talk out ideas for the other plants. Well, more like Patton giving ideas. Virgil seemed to hold back. Almost as if he didn’t feel welcome to giving his own ideas. That would need to be fixed.

Logan journeyed through the house to the front door as the doorbell rang again. Logan scowled. “I’m coming!” He called through the door as he turned the knob and opened the door, ready to tell someone off. The words died on his lips as he took in the black leather jacket, stylish sunglasses, and green tea filled cup from Starbucks.

“Hey, bruh!”

“Remy,” Logan replied with a nod of his head.

Remy chuckled. “Nice ta see ya!” He exclaimed as he snuck a peek behind Logan to see if the stranger was there. Logan wouldn’t notice, what with Remy’s sunglasses covering his eyes. It was just Logan. Remy tried to keep the disappointment off his face.

“What do you want, Remy?” Logan asked.

Remy gasped and feigned offense. “What?! No, ‘how ya doing Remy?’ No ‘how’s my favorite family member?’” Logan’s face remained unmoving. Remy sighed. “Okay, you caught me. I was just wondering,” Remy stirred his straw around his cup slowly. Logan raised a questioning eyebrow. “What’s this I hear about a man Patton was seen driving around with?”

Logan seemed to freeze before he opened his mouth and calmly spoke. “I don’t know if I-”

“Bullshit,” Remy cut him off. “You always know everything about Patton. What with that cru-”

“Remy!” Logan hissed as he frantically checked behind him to make sure the others were still in the backyard. They were. “Yes! Patton brought a man home with him. We are giving him food and shelter. Nothing to it!”

Remy frowned. “He came from the mansion on top of the hill,” he stated bluntly.

Logan stared at him wide eyed from behind his black rimmed glasses. “Wha?”

“No matter. I’m just curious. What exactly are you doing?”

Logan frowned, but he knew that he wouldn’t be able to get the truth out of Remy unless Remy wanted to share it with him. So he sighed reluctantly. “Patton was upset when he learned the man lived alone and decided to adopt him.”

Remy reeled back. “Adopt him?” He sputtered.

Logan, who was used to it by now simply nodded. “Yes.”

Remy thought for a few moments. Patton was a good guy. A good fatherly figure. Most likely, Patton would have found the same little issue as he had. Although, knowing Patton, he would call it a gift or something cheesy like that. Either way, if Patton did, then there was no doubt that he had already told Logan. And Logan, no doubt, probably already said yes.

“When will I get to meet him?” Remy asked.

That threw Logan off visibly. “W-Wh-what-why would you want to meet him?”

Remy noticed the slightly higher tone as he sensed Logan’s panic. “I don’t have to give you a reason. I’m your older brother you have to listen to me. Not the other way around.” He chuckled. “And who knows, he might be cooler than you,” Remy teased.

Logan stared at Remy in disbelief. “Uhhhhh.” Before he could answer however, Patton came bounding into the living room.

“Remy!” He called happily as he noticed the older man in the doorway.

Remy took in Patton’s flowing skirt as he came over to join Logan at the door a stifled a snicket as he gave Logan a pointed look. “Hey, Patton! I was just asking Logan here when the next time we would all have dinner together,” Remy mused.

“Oh uh,” Patton fumbled with the edge of his long skirt nervously. He really didn’t want to overwhelm Virgil but he also didn’t want to disappoint Remy.

“How’s tonight?”

“Oh uh,” Patton still stalled. Remy’s eyes shot over to the hallway door as a soft voice spoke up.

“I’m fine with that.”

Remy’s eyes widened underneath his sunglasses. There he was. Older now, but it was still him. His stranger. He was still as pale as a vampire and he had the same hoodie that he wore when they first met, only now it wasn’t hanging off his shoulders because it was several sizes too big. Remy couldn’t see his hands. And he knew why.

Remy studied the strangers eyes and saw the small hint of recognition in them. Maybe, he remembered Remy. Remy gave a small smirk. “Hey, gurl! Can’t wait until tonight! Patton always makes the best meals. But I’ll be back later. My shift starts in an hour. Talk to ya later!” Remy called as he turned and flapped his hand at the three.

As he got into his car and drove home he felt a small smile settle over his face. This was it. This was going to happen. He was going to keep him vow. What else could he do? He may have been young, but Remy had seen some of himself in the stranger. They had semi similar stories after all.

“Are you sure, Virgil?” Logan asked as soon as he closed the door.

Virgil shifted on his feet as he peeked up at him through his bangs. “Yeah, I’m sure.”

Patton and Logan shared a look, unconvinced. Finally Patton sighed. “Okay, kiddo. Just know that if you ever, at any time, want to cancel, it’s okay,” Patton whispered as he placed a hand on Virgil’s shoulder, causing the pale man to look up.

Virgil gave a small, hopefully convincing, smile. “I’m sure.”

Patton sighed and dropped his hand. He pushed a smile onto his face and adjusted his glasses. “Alrighty then! Come on! Let’s go make dinner!” Patton turned and headed to the kitchen as Logan and Virgil followed behind.

Virgil was sure. He was nervous but sure. After all, he didn’t think he was ever going to see the young teen he met those few years ago. In the woods, at night, at his father’s grave.

(Sorry its a so late! I really hope you enjoyed this chapter! Feel free to yell at me for any mistakes or just let me know if you enjoyed this chapter! And Oooo who is that? And oh he’s in this now. And oh my chuck! History! To be honest I didn’t even plan that. I hope you have a a WONDEFUL week and Happy Halloween!!!💜💜💜💜💜💜🎃👻🎃👻🎃👻 oh and I hope I tagged the right people)

Tag list: @ravens-rambling @soft-transboy

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