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darkficsyouneveraskedfor · 4 years

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Ad Libitum I

Warnings: nonconsensual sex (series, to be warned later on)

This is dark!Loki and explicit. Your media consumption is your own responsibility. Warnings have been given. DO NOT PROCEED if these matters upset you.

Summary: You are face with the opportunity of a lifetime, however you might have told a rather big lie to get there.

Note: I promise my other series are still going. I have half chapters I’m chipping away at every day! For now I’ll post the intro to my first Victorian AU.

Thank you. Love you guys!

As always, if you can, please leave some feedback, like and reblog <3

‘For the consideration of one, Mister Everet Ede.

After a close and contented reading of your recent piece ‘The Oyster’s Wealth’ in Cornhill Magazine, I write you to present an offer upon your skills.

Your work does show potential and I believe, as an editor and an author myself, it would benefit both parties should I aid you in refining such talent. While your writing does prove adequate and at times, provoking, there is much a young writer might learn from one as esteemed and experienced as myself.

Under the marquee of my own publication, The Asp’s Tongue, and my name, I would extend to you an offer of residence and should it prove productive, a place upon my list of regular authors.

It was only two years ago that my journal opted to discontinue our bursary for writers but it is in my own purview, aside from those of my investors, that young minds require honing and it is upon my own coffers that I do make this offer of sponsorship for your development as an author.

Should you choose to accept, I would expect your arrival upon the first Sunday of June at my estate of Emerald Hills. You will come with all that is required for your education; nibs, ink, paper, et cetera, as well as any personal possessions required for daily existence. Your board will be allotted by manor throughout your residency. Aside from that, you would require only your wit and basic literary competency.

I expect confirmation of your acceptance by the last day of April so that I may have the manor prepared for your arrival. Tardiness in all matters will not be tolerated.

I anticipate a valuable and vibrant professional accord,

Lord Loki Laufeyson, Duke of Wynselm

Founder and Operator of Laufey’s Publishing’

You read the letter once more. The folds of the paper were deep and fragile, the corners curling from your repeated reviews. In the months since its delivery, you had memorised ever curlicue of its script. It was better than any letter of acceptance you’d ever received. The only flaw was the pseudonym across the top. One day, you hoped, it would be your true name that greeted you.

The coach rocked and you caught yourself against the side, jostled atop the hard wooden seat. You shifted in your stiff skirts and peeked out the window. There was still doubt. Still anxiety. You’d accepted the offer without a thought and without much explanation.

What would the great lord publisher think of you? A woman masquerading as a writer? Well, you hoped that he might overcome the shock and uphold his integrity. It was your work he had read. It was your words which had driven him to write. So why should your sex change the merit of your skill?

There was a sinking feeling in your stomach. It was a slim hope you had, truly. You expected him to laugh you back to your measly London apartment like all the other editors you had ever dared face beyond the stain of your inkwell. Had this all been for not? Another prospect dissolved by that feminine curse?

Besides, even if you were a man, the Duke was infamously misanthropic. It was reported in the papers that he hadn’t left Emerald Hills in several years. That he had grown cynical of society, not so much as submitting a sentence to his very own periodicals. So it was with great surprise that you’d received his letter and with greater hesitation. His reputation was not one of a fond patron but rather a unyielding despot.

Yet it was an opportunity you did not expect to ever occur again, so you leapt, without thinking, and now your fear bubbled in your chest. To have come all this way and to be told what you’d always been told. To be denied again. In the flesh, you could not be Everet Ede, you could not hide behind your pen. Perhaps his own penchant for artifice might soften his rigid spine.

The manor stood on the highest hill in Wynselm. The gates were locked and a solemn doorman appeared from a small shed to open them. You pulled the curtain shut, afraid you would be found out before even breaking the threshold. The coach rumbled up the winding and steep path and stopped just before the broad stone steps.

You peeked out as the driver stepped down from his perch. You waited a moment, watching the front doors of the manor. It seemed as if the entire place was dead. Abandoned, even. The driver opened your door and offered his hand to help you down. Though his service was the cheapest you could acquire, his manners suggested otherwise.

He unloaded your trunk as you clutched your valise. You thanked him as he set the heavy luggage beside your dark skirts and you offered him a coin from your purse. He accepted with a toothy smile.

“Should I wait and help you carry it in?” He asked.

You considered the offer. It might be best if he tarried in case you were swiftly dismissed. What would you do if you were stranded here? And yet, you were determined not to be turned away. Your best option might be to force your presence upon this man.

“No,” You answered staunchly and pushed your shoulders back. “You’ve been a great help, sir. You should hurry back to the city.”

“Miss,” He removed his hat. “Good day to you.”

“And you,” You nodded and watched him climb back up onto his seat.

He snapped the horse into action and their hooves clopped around and down the path until you could no longer see them. You gripped your valise even tighter and turned to the manor. The doors suddenly shifted and a man in a plain grey suit appeared. He pushed both open and stood aside as he waited silently.

You heard footsteps from within, the tap of leather sols upon the wood. A lithe figure emerged from the shadows and the sunlight lit his pale skin. His dark hair was pushed back so that his curls gathered behind his head and his high, starched collar made his features seem even sharper.

He stopped sharply at the top of the stairs and blinked at you. He peered around and squinted, slowly stepping forward to descend the steps. He stood straight across from you, a brow arched as he stared you down.

“Are you lost? I fear you sent away your valet much too soon, madam.” He said.

“My lord, Mr. Laufeyson?” You ventured.

He frowned. “Everet is a rather odd name for… a woman.”

“My apologies for my deception but you must understand as an editor yourself, a woman’s name doesn’t sell stories, does it?” You let out a shaky breath. “Not that I think it should matter when my physical attributes have little bearing on my writing.”

“Even so, I do value honesty in my writers. Foremost. A lack of such in life might reflect deceit on paper.” He challenged. “And I am not equipped to house… a woman.”

“Women hardly require more than a man. Often less.” You countered. “You made an offer on the grounds of my work, I accepted on the same. I see no reason why it should be an issue. I am determined, would have to be to have a story published, devoted to say the least, and by your own words, a competent writer.”

“I did not… I was not aware…” He sighed. “You can’t expect-- After being so underhanded… How could… I cannot…”

He cleared his throat and glanced over his shoulder at the man in the grey suit.

“I’ve taken two coaches and train. I’ve packed up my livelihood in this trunk, I’ve been nothing but honest other than… my true name. You cannot claim my work as ingenuine nor my intentions. I’ve come here to write.” You declared. “I see not how my sex should preclude me from these matters. Would you argue inadequacy based upon my physical stature after proclaiming me capable previously? Sir, I would argue that should suggest a lack of honesty on your part. Not mine.”

He tilted his head and his chin jutted out in irritation. His slender fingers ran the length of his jacket and fiddled with the button.

“Well, you certainly speak like a writer.” He said. “Very well. We shall see what we can mold out of you.” He gestured to the man in the grey suit. “Horace.” He nodded to the trunk. “But do not think my standards shall bend upon your favour, madam.” He warned as the man came down to lift your trunk, barely able to drag it up the steps. “Oh, and your real name, to begin with.”

You recited your name and he spun without acknowledgement. He preceded the man he called Horace through the doors and you hurried forward to grab the other end of your trunk, your valise clutched in your other hand.

Inside, the large foyer was barely lit by the candelabras in the corners. The chandelier above was dark and dusty. You struggled to keep hold of the trunk as you followed Horace. He set down his end and bid you to do the same.

“Madam, please, I will get proper help,” He waved to the lord of manor, already halfway up the staircase. “You might leave your valise and both will be deposited in your rooms.”

“Thank you, sir,” You said before you turned to hurry up behind Lord Laufeyson.

“Your rooms are in the north wing, mine in the south. You needn’t venture very far from your own. I have a maid in the kitchen who will set out meals and Horace oversees our maintenance and the cleaning servants when they are present.” He began. “You will only be required in the bureau where you will take your lessons.”

“Yes, my lord,” You felt completely out of place. You weren’t used to such an immense house, let alone such a prestigious host.

“Sir will do just fine,” He corrected. “Do you type, madam?”

“No.” You admitted. “I hand write my stories and they are often transcribed by the journals.”

“Mmm, well, then we should add that to the schedule.” He remarked. “I have written out your daily itinerary as you will find in your rooms. “You will wake at six, take your breakfast by the next hour as you will be expected at seven for your first lesson. Lunch will be at noon, you will be permitted recreation at three, tea the following hour, and we shall add typing practice to your evening exercises.”

“Sir,” You said as you followed him.

“This is the bureau where your lessons will be,” He opened a single door. “That…” He looked to the pair of doors at the end of the hall. “Is the library. It will be unlocked during your recreational hour though you might visit the gardens if you choose.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Did you attend college, madam? I understand they offer schooling for women now.”

“No,” You answered plainly. “I finished public schooling and the rest I did upon my own.”

His eyes strayed in his thoughts and he hummed.

“Well, that sort of discipline is promising, I suppose,” He said. “And you are… unmarried?”

“Yes.”

“Ah, to be expected. A husband shouldn’t allow a wife to live unaccompanied with another man. And yet, an unmarried woman should not allow herself the same discrepancy,” He remanded. “There are proprieties which must be attained. You understand?”

“Sir, I am not wholly unaware of our social bounds. I’ve travelled to write. I haven’t any interest in men to this point and I highly doubt this circumstance should change that.”

He gave a half-chuckle before he caught himself.

“I always found you urban poor had trite mouths,” He sneered. “The factories do allow for unfortunately low association. You lot do sell your morals for a penny.”

“I see no immorality in work,” You argued. “In fact, the poor can rarely afford immorality.”

He looked at you, sternly.

“Let me show you your rooms and you might accommodate yourself to the arrangements,” He gestured you back down the corridor.

Again, you trailed behind him. The walls were lined with portraits, their frames powdered with dust and canvas washed out with age. He must’ve lived a rather small existence in this immense place.

He stopped before another door, his fingers wrapped around the handle then he recoiled. He reached into his jacket and slipped out a key with a black ribbon threaded through its loop. He held it out to you.

“These are your rooms. Keep the time. It is late. At four I expect you to take tea in the dining room. The cook should have it upon the table by then.” He watched as you reached to take the key. “When you are finished, our first lesson shall commence in the bureau. Come prepared with a manuscript in hand. I trust you did not come without forethought, especially considering… well, I shall excuse you to acquaint yourself with your quarters.”

He bowed his head, his spine rigid and straight. He sidestepped you and you listened to his hard soles on the wooden floors. You turned as his silhouette disappeared around the sparsely lit corner, the glow of candles flickering along the columns of the rails that overlooked the foyer.

You unlocked the door, your hands unsteady as your nerves remained riled. You’d overcome the first obstacle but this man seemed greater than any challenge you’d known before. Stiff-lipped editors, boastful male writers, dismissive reviewers; you’d faced every kind of foe.

You shut the door softly behind you, the click made you jump. You were pleasantly surprised to find it the room with the least dust. The windows were open and the curtains were freshly pressed and hung. The bed matched in its tidiness and the roll top desk against the wall was faced with a leather-cushioned chair.

The afternoon sun streamed in enough to light much of the room. Tall candelabras stood on four feet in the corners opposite of the bed. An oil lamp sat on the desk and a smaller candle holder sat on the table beside the bed. A small stool with an embroidered cushion was nestled in the corner and a chair in the French style peered out the far window.

You turned and faced the vast portrait of a man and woman. The former was silver-haired and staunch in his bearing, the woman was seated and gold waves were confined atop her head as a few ringlets framed her face in a style favoured by the previous generations. You tilted your head as you admired the artistry. It was almost as if the elegant couple was truly there before you.

A knock came at the door and you went to it. Horace was there with the man who had opened the gates. They dragged in your trunk and placed your valise at top with overly cordial ‘my lady’s’ in your direction. You wanted to snicker at the undeserved address. You thanked them and they refused a coin from your purse. You were thankful for that as you hadn’t many left.

You took your valise to the bed then returned to the trunk. You unbuckled the straps that held your trunk closed and tossed the lid open. The monstrosity was older than you. You’d bought it used. The lining was torn and most of it gone. You took out the stacks of paper sheathed in leather and rolled up the lid of the desk. You left them there and unpacked your pens and inkwell.

You sat and allowed yourself a breath. You tried to calm yourself. You slowly unwound the strap of the first folder and shuffled through the leaves. There was the story you’d written about the widow left homeless by her dead husband’s gambling debts. The other about the officer who finds himself by a foreign people.

Then there was that one which you had yet to show any. The one which told the story of a woman; a fraud; a liar. She pretends to be a true lady but is found out. She is tried before the county though she never stole nor harmed anyone. Tried upon her birth and nothing more. You tucked that one away and set aside the one about the widow. Nothing so novel but good enough, you supposed.

You reached to your belt and checked the watch that dangled from it. Like the trunk, it was previously owned by another. It made you want to write a story, a fantasy of its former owner. Of how the initials etched into its back had come to be near indiscernible beneath a series of frantic scratches.

3:37. You recalled Lord Laufeyson had said tea was at four. Not much longer. Barely enough time to ready yourself for his frigidity. Oh yes, he was the very modicum of Victorian temperance. How very dull.

#loki #dark loki #dark!loki #loki x reader #dark loki x reader #dark!loki x reader #victorian au #au #fic #series #ad libitum #marvel #MCU #dark fic #dark!fic

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is-that-another-soulmate-au · 4 years

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Sun Touched Zuko AU!!

Tag list @chaoticidiott @mypureessence @fae-tales-personal

This won't be a soulmate AU but it will be Zukka for sure.

Zuko was born sick, so sick in fact that he was going to die. His mother prayed to Agni that he would live, prayed that the sun spirit would save her first born son. In the gardens she held him up to the Setting sun pleading. The suns rays caught in the amber stone on top of the alter set for worship and moved to Zuko's eyes. His hair changed from solid black to a golden blonde, he opened eyes and began to cry. He was touched by the Sun and lived.

Ursa couldnt have been more happy, her son was alive. "My little sunshine" she whispered with tears rolling down her cheeks as she held him close and rocked him in her arms.

When Ozai saw his son's golden hair he demanded that it be dyed black, but was willing to compromise when Ursa suggested they wait until he turns 5 so that the dyes don't harm him.

The first time they dyed his hair he asked his mom why, his bright molten eyes looking at her with confusion "because your father wants you to feel safer my sunshine, people will stare at you with that bright shining hair of yours"

"Oh, okay" was his only response that day. He never questioned it anymore when they touched up his roots weekly.

After his mother left him he felt alone in the world, his dad still staining his golden hair each week with more and more ink. All the while berating him when he couldnt control his fire well. Even with being touched by the spirit and having powerful fire he couldnt manage to control it, couldnt understand how to. Until master Piandou taught him swords and he applied his teachings to his fire.

The first time he used his swords to control the fire Piandou was more than impressed "Prince Zuko! That was amazing!"

"Thank you Master, thinking of the swords as an extension helped me control the flames better" his smile soon faded when his father appeared

"Yes, great work Zuko, I am pleased to see you have learned how to control your flames, however mixing these arts in this fashion is unacceptable. Come with me"

After that he wasn't allowed back at Piandou's unless he was accompanied by either his father, or an advisor to make sure he practiced correctly.

On the day of his fated Agni Kai Zuko had just gotten his roots retouched before entering the war meeting. When his father burnt him for speaking out of term his tears felt like lava running down his cheeks. He could smell the fresh dye burning and it hurt his lungs.

His Uncle immediately took him under his wing when he was banished "Zuko, my star," his Uncle pleaded when they were at the western airtemple "i need to dress your wound, the sun spirit would not want you to lose your eye"

Zuko reluctantly let his Uncle clean and dress his wound several times on their travels until it healed and scarred over. When it finally healed over Iroh smiled "there you go sunshine" he said as he wiped the tears forming in Zuko's good eye away "do not cry Prince Zuko, you are safe"

He still dyed his roots every week to uphold his place as prince. He did not know that his golden hair was his own symbol or royalty, that the sun chose him. Sure he knew the sun saved him, but he could not understand that it was because he was chosen.

When he arrived at the South pole and discovered the Avatar, he felt a breath of relief wash over him. He was going home, but he heavily underestimated the Avatar's abilities and lost him.

Soon he started a cat and mouse game with the monk and his two southern water tribe friends. After the northpole he slacked on dying his hair, not because he didnt want to, he simply didn't have the resources to do so. So his roots started to grow in gold.

"Well your looking golden Zuzu" Azula's voice startled Zuko when he walked into the hut they were staying in.

"Azula, what are you doing here" he glared at his younger sister

"You know, im my country. We greet one another before asking questions" she responded coldly "i was just passing through"

"To what do we owe the pleasure of your visit Princess Azula?" Iroh piped into the conversation

"No wonder you two click, always so quick and to the point. Father sent me, family is suddenly very important to him." She turned her head to look out the window "father regrets your banishment. He wants you home"

Zuko was frozen in place "father regrets?"

"I can see you need time to think this through, ill be by to collect you in the morning" Azula smiled softly before a flash of worry flashed on her face for a split second as she walked out the door.

When Azula's true intentions were revealed Zuko and Iroh managed to flee from her and her soldiers. When they stopped at the river to cut their hair Zuko looked at Iroh when he watched the inky hair fall into the river "your gold hair will conceal your identity fairly well my nephew"

"Yeah, it'll hide me pretty well" nobody had seen Zuko with his golden hair before. He hadnt seen his hair fully gold since age five.

On their travels his hair grew fairly fast now that it wasnt being dyed so often. It would catch the eye of several earth kindom citizens when he passed through towns. When he and Iroh were sitting against a building with a hat in front of them a young woman approached them and slipped a few gold pieces in "I know this might sound creepy, and I'm only asking this because I cannot resist. But may I kiss your hair sir? You can say no, I won't take my money back."

Zuko flushed a light shade of pink and scratched the back of his head "uhm, s-sure?" He mumbled out and leaned his head towards her. She placed a tender almost motherly kiss to the top of his head.

"Oh, your hair is so beautiful sir, it's like a million rays of sun. I wish you luck, i can only spare a little but if you'd take these small meals Im sure they'd help you" she said while offering two wrapped meals

They accepted and thanked her with small bows "what a nice young lady, huh?" Iroh said and nudged Zuko's arm

"Yeah, she was very nice"

When Zuko and Iroh found Azula and Aang battling in an abandoned earth town Azula pointed out his hair "wow Zuzu! You look just like a star! Where'd all that ink go?" When the fight ended and Iroh was injured Zukos cheeks felt like magma was pouring from his eyes.

"Zuko, I can hel-" Katara approached them

"LEAVE!" Zuko cried out, turning to Katara with golden tears running down his face.

While on the Ferry to Ba Sing Se Zuko was angry, not angry at anyone or anything in particular, he was just angry. "Hey" the voice of a man at his right side broke his brooding "names Jet"

"Lee" Zuko muttered out how cover name

"Yknow Lee, I hear the captain is eating like a king while we're stuck eating all his left overs" he paused "want to help me... liberate some food rations?"

It didn't take much to convince Zuko to join him. They liberated the food quickly without getting caught. Zuko found himself wandering the the front of the lower deck, leaning on the railing. "You know, as soon as I saw your scar, I knew exactly who you were" he paused as he approached Zuko "youre a refugee, like me. Thing is though, I've never seen hair like yours, let along your eyes."

Jet reached out and brushed Zuko's hair out of his face. "The freedom fighters could use a starlight like you, what do you say?"

Zuko smacked Jets hand away gently "thanks, but no thanks, you don't want me on your team, trust me"

In Ba Sing Se Iroh and Zuko made a life for themselves. They managed to have their own tea shop and apartment. Things were doing great, until Zuko went after the Avatar's bison, mind you he went there originally to take the bison captive, but when he saw that the creature was hurt he sheathed his swords and removed his mask, letting his golden hair free as he approached the bison "hey buddy, are you okay?" His voice was much softer than usual "oh no, here let me help you, this is going to hurt and I'm sorry, but I need to pull out this thorn" he talked to him the whole time he was pulling out thorns, gently rubbing the fur near it to sooth him.

When he pulled all of the thorns out he took out his swords "alright buddy, dont worry about the swords, im going to use them to cut you out of these chains, shhh its okay, you're okay" he continued to talk him through each of the six shackles "there we go big guy, now you need to get out of here, go find your friends- ah! Hey!" Appa knocked him over and gave him a thanks with a big sloppy dog like lick across his torso and face before taking off.

"You did well my nephew" Zuko shot up at his uncle's voice

"Uncle?" His startled voice wavered

"Now lets get you out of here and back home." And that they did.

When they made it back to their apartment Zuko felt dizzy, he held his head in his hand "I dont feel good" he managed to get out before collapsing and breaking a vase

"Zuko!" Iroh shouted as he rushed to his nephew to make sure he didnt hurt himself on any broken glass.

In his Angst coma Sokka heard his mother singing

"You are my sunshine, my only sunshine. You make me Happy! When skies are grey. You'll never know dear, how much I love you, so please don't hide my sunshine away"

His sisters voice mocked his hair "youre hair makes you look like a dandelion, a weed can't take the throne!" Her cackling filled his ears.

There was a blinding light and a woman appeared with flowing gold hair and bright fire eyes "my dear star, why do you let yourself hurt so much?"

"I don't, who are you?"

"I'm Agni my dear, you do know I chose you right?"

"Why?"

"You are special my dear, your mother made sure to get my attention and I am so glad she did" the woman spoke as she placed her hand on his cheek. Filling him with the image of her reaching out to kiss his eyes as a baby. "You are meant for great things little star." Her voice faded as she herself did

He soon woke from his coma with a fresh breath. Taking charge in making sure his Uncle's tea shop did well, and helping him where he could. However Azula soon found them and summoned them to the palace under the guise of serving tea to the king. Things didnt end well and Zuko was thrown into a cave beneath the City with Katara.

"Why would they throw you in here!" Her angry and hurt voice filled his ears as he tried not to make her feel more uncomfortable by staying as far from her as possible.

when she mentioned her mother he turned around and spoke "thats something we have in common"

"What?"

"My mother was my only source of safety... she was the only one who defended me against my sister and my father. And one day my father was ordered to... do something terrible and my mother protected me somehow, I dont know what happened but when I was half awake she told me goodbye and when I fully woke up she was gone."

When they were separated and Azula had Iroh trapped she approached "Zuko, nows your chance to come home. Help me defeat the avatar and you can come home. Without inking your hair. Isnt this what you've always wanted? You'll have your honor back, you'll have fathers love back"

And despite all he had gone through he still chose the path of returning to his father. When he did return his father wanted to dye his hair but Azula spoke up against it "father, if I may. Zuko's hair is a symbol of the fire goddess Agni, if he were to take the thrown it'd be best to show that she has chosen him"

"Yes, that is true. Alright, off with you two"

Reuniting with Mai wasnt smooth, she confessed to him that her and Ty Lee connected and while he was saddened he just smiled "I'm glad you two are with eachother, you work well"

On the day of Black sun, with the information he had learned from Iroh and armed with the fact that his father was practically powerless without his bending. He approached him.

"Zuko, what are you doing here?"

"Im here to tell the truth"

Ozai let out a snort "telling the truth during an eclipse?" He waved off his gaurds "what do you have to say"

"First of all, Azula lied to you, she was the one who shot down the avatar"

"What?! Why would she lie about that?"

"Because the avatars not dead, he's probably leading this invasion right now"

"Get out! Get out if you know what's good for you!"

"Thats another thing, I'm not taking orders from you anymore"

"You will obey me or face the consequences!" As Ozai stood Zuko drew his dual swords and took a stance

"Think again. I am going to speak my mind and you are going to listen"

He went on to question his father "you knew Agni chose me as a child and that was the reason my hair turned gold. You knew this and yet you hid that from the world, you darkened my hair for years, and you have the gull to tell me I was lucky to be born. You! The tyrannical leader set out to destroy the world. you! My own father challenged me to an Agni Kai just for speaking out of term, how could you possibly justify a duel with a child!"

"It was to teach you respect!"

"It was cruel and it was wrong"

"Then you have learned nothing!"

"No! I've learned everything, and I've had to do most of it on my own" he paused "Growing up we were taught that the war was our nations way of spread joy, what an incredible lie that was, the other nations don't love us, they fear us, and they are right to fear us, we've brought the world to an era of hate and suffering, now we need to fill it with one of peace and joy"

"Your uncle has gotten to you hasnt he" Ozai laughed

"Yes, he has, and I've come to another decision, im going to join the avatar, and im going to help him take you down."

After announcing this he turned to leave but stayed to learn about what happened to his mother

"She's alive?" He said in a soft voice as a single golden tear rolled down his cheek

"Perhaps," Ozai paused "now i see that banishment is far too small of a punishment for treason" he said as he gathered lightning and shot it at Zuko who quickly redirected it right back at him before escaping.

After finding that Iroh had broken out of prison Zuko fled the firenation in a small war ballon and followed the Avatar's Sky bison to the western air temples. Their first encounter didn't go so well and he managed to burn Toph's feet but after helping them defeat the assassin and managing to form his words more properly and giving a genuine apology to Toph he was on the team.

Some time after joining and managing to break Sokka's dad, Suki and Chit Sang out of prison they were all sitting around the fire. "So.. uhm Zuko" Aang started

Zuko turned to look at him "yeah?"

"I have to ask, pretty bunch nobody in the firenation has golden blonde hair right?" Zuko absentmindedly ran his fingers through his hair at the question

"Yeah, and when you were first chasing us your hair was black, whats up with that?" Sokka added

"Oh, uh, well my hair was always dyed black because my father doesn't like my gold hair..." he paused "when I was born, I was sick, so sick that my parents thought I was going to die. But my mother pleaded with Agni to spare me, she took me to the sun worship alter in the palace gardens at sunset and held me up, pleading. When the last ray of light from Agni, my hair turned golden and I began to cry. So, in a sense the sun gave me my life"

"Like Yue!" Sokka piped up

"Like who?"

"Princess Yue! She was born sick just like you, and the moon spirit saved her. Well, she's the moon spirit now"

"Woah woah wait, is this the girlfriend you said turned into the moon?"

"Yep!"

"Well, just don't go falling for Zuko now, dont want to have your first boyfriend turn into the sun" Suki teased him

"Hey, at least I'd have a full set of spirit lovers"

Zuko's face turned beet red and the group laughed at him. Over the next few weeks of them being in close quarters Zuko found that he was growing feelings for the water tribe boy. Anytime he'd look at him he felt his stomach do a flip. But he didnt have time to think about his feelings.

Even though the sun touched prince tried not to think about Sokka on the mission with Katara, he couldn't help it. When they were returning Katara piped up "I know you like him" she paused to watch his surprised face "its okay you know, its fine if you like him. I dont have like you to let my brother like you. I may be cold to you but im not a monster like your father" she tied off the sentence by staring off "and besides, if Agni chose you, I think you would be safe for Sokka"

When they got back he heard sokka shout "You're back! Thank La youre safe!" Turning to Katara he expected to see Sokka running to hug his sister. Instead he was tackled to the ground with a hug from Sokka "how did it go Katara?" He asked from the ground while quite literally snuggling into Zuko with this hug that was still very much happening.

"I found him, and he was just so pathetic, i couldnt kill him"

Sokka then stood up and helped Zuko to his feet and placed a quick sneaky kiss to his cheek before moving to hug his sister, leaving Zuko frozen in confusion. He remained frozen until Suki came up to him "he's trying to confess silently, he's weird like that, corner him later if you want to hear an actual confession"

He however didn't manage to corner the now seemingly overly flirty blue boy until they were at ember Island. It wasnt until just before bed when Sokka was walking past Zuko's bedroom door. He reached out grabbed Sokka's shirt and yanked him into the room before slamming the door shut and pinning him to it. "What are you doing?"

"Wh-what do you mean? You're the one who dragged me into your room, what are you doing?"

"Dont play dumb with me Sokka, you've been flirting with me since I got back from my trip with your sist-"

"Actually ive been flirting with you since the temples, you just didn't notice until I kissed you"

"You mean until you missed"

"What?"

Zuko smirked "you missed" he mumbled before leaning closer "you went for a kiss but you missed"

They ended up spending the night sharing a room and a bed. When the morning sun peaked through the windows Zuko curled back into sokka who in turn pulled him closer. Both refusing to wake up until Katara knocked on the door and opened it "breakfast is ready, if you two love birds want some warm food you better hury and I better not see any hickeys"

"Ugh! Katara we just cuddled!" Sokka said as he burried his face in Zuko's hair.

Katara simply laughed "alright, but still, hury up."

When the day of the comet came and Zuko had to separate from Sokka he saw the worry in his blue eyes "Ive got this Sokka, Agnj chose me remembe, besides, I've got Katara with me and she's powerful" he placed a quick kiss to Sokka's lips "go take down those ships, and I'll see you by the timd the sun rises tomorrow."

And he was right, even though he was shot with lightning and Sokka broke his leg they both came out of the battle alive and together. When Zuko woke up to find Sokka curled up against him he smiled and let out a soft breath of pink fire. Relief.

"Woah, do that again" Sokka's groggy 'just woke up' voice rumbled against his shoulder

"Sorry I didn't mean to wake you, do you mean this?" He let out another breath of fire, this time a pale purple

"I didn't know you could do other colors of fire"

"Well, I couldn't until I went to the sunwarriors, Agni spoke to me there"

After Zuko's Coronation the firenation began righting their wrongs. It was a long struggle for sure. However two years into his reign with Sokka having practically moved in he found that he would soon have a partner to help him through these struggles.

The day had only just begun but Sokka was dragging Zuko to the turtleduck pond where they often sat together to simply relax. Sokka seemed a little antsy this time though "what's wrong Sokka?"

"Uhm, well, I have something I need to ask you," he paused and reached into his pocket while sinkning down to one knee. Zuko's breath caught in his throat as he saw Sokka pull out a betrothal becklace, the band was made with a fine red silk and the center piece was gold with a carving of a sun with a wave inside of it. "Zuko," he took a shaky breath "you've been by my side for two years now, you've held my hand through war and peace, quite literally, and you've done so while loving me whole heartedly. I can't imagine my life without you in it." Zuko could feel golden tears threatening to fall fram his molten eyes "Zuko, will you marry me?"

"Yes!" He heard himself responding before he could even think "Agni, yes Sokka, of course I'll marry you!"

Sokka moved from his kneeling position to lifting Zuko up into a kiss, holding him right under his rear. Zuko held his face in his hands as he pressed his lips to Sokka's as he was lifted up quite unceremoniously.

Once he was set down Sokka helped him put on the betrothal necklace. He reached up to touch the Golden pendant and smiled up at Sokka with gold tears falling down his cheeks.

Their marraige was held not long after, joining the southern water tribe and the firenation in a strong Union with a mixed culture wedding blues, silvers, reds and golds filled the wedding and reception as well as suns and moons.

Agni smiled down on the wedding that day, her chosen sunshine found his moon.

Yue smiled on them that night as they stood on the balcony holding one another. The boy who protected her finally found his light.

>Woo boy that was a long one! I sure hope you enjoyed it!<

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illusionlock · 6 years

Text

Silent Heartstrings

So, today’s fanfic is something special! This is a 6 page SamJack fic I did as a collab work with my lovely boyfriend @exoticennard. Working on it was a pleasure, and I don’t like to brag, but I urge you to check it out because I feel it’s very good, if at least, on my babe’s part, hehe <3

The ink sewers were dark, dreary, wet, and above all stinky. Good lord, thought Sammy. It really stank down there.

However, it was a sacrifice he was willing to make, to find a hidden prize among the dripping inky darkness and the stench that covered the whole place. Something kin to a hidden gem lay among the putrid sewers, singing, creating, composing. A timid mind that loved the quiet, although, more than often, that was not his true motive to come to the ink sewers, rather, something else pushed him to run from his feelings.

See, when you’re in love, it gets hard to concentrate. And Jack Fain was madly, madly in love with his composer, Sammy Lawrence. He had tried to work next to Sammy, composing together, but soon the proximity, everything about the man, his sweet smell, the way he’d give the corner of a smile as he eyed him writing, his little slips of compliments and absent-minded pats on Jack’s head, God, everything made Jack just want to throw away the lyrics and cling to him, begging to hear him sing his lyrics himself.

So, for now, he retired to the dark quiet of the ink sewers, where no one would dare to go, trusty violin, inkwell, pen and music sheets in hand. That was all he needed, the stench washing off his mind at least for a second the visions of a man he could not escape from, try as his jittery heart might.

Even though this plan was going very well for what seemed about two weeks, Sammy started to feel, lonely, like hearing the mumbling from the sewers made him want to just be there along with Jack, watching over him, entranced, not only by how well he wrote his lyrics, but also just, him in general, his cheeks whenever he smiled, his whistling in the late hours, stare into the back of his neck, just for a while to remind himself this place wasn’t all ...hell.

So that’s why he decided to get down there and get this barrier between them over with! He thought, finally standing up for what he really wanted, his best friend in work, his raison d’être, the words to his songs, plus… maybe he could just bring something for Jack to eat because man he really just was stuck there for hours in that stinky little desk he deserves a break, “I’ll give him a good break”, Sammy whispered to himself finally stepping into the ink.

“Lighter side of hell… for, you and me?” Jack tried to sing out, but still, something sounded, weird about the lyrics. Maybe he could still fit in something else, or change something before it so he could add another rhyme.

He closed his eyes, trying to empty his mind, clog his nose… focus on the quiet. Yet, it wasn’t quite anymore, something stirred among the inky sewers. He could hear it, he wasn’t alone down there.

Jack put down his trusty pen and quickly crept out of his corner, slowly turning towards the corridor that gave in to the sewers. What he saw, however, was a surprise the world from outside had brought him, a surprise he couldn’t tell yet he was happy for or not. In the sense that, everything in him screamed to be happy, his body vibrated, his heart beat like a drum, ears ringing, cheeks red. And yet, he tried to remind himself, “No no no! I must concentrate, I can’t, I’m so close to getting it done now!”

Yet, he could only gently call out: “Sammy? What are you doing here?” His voice trembled, and he tried to hide the edge of his voice, almost like a whine. Oh just the sight of him… he was truly a handsome man.

“Jack! I.. I just wanted to uh, see you, you look like you could use-” he took a look at the paper bag he was holding , reminding himself he brought a sandwich and then managed to finish his sentence, holding out the bag and smiling awkwardly ,“- a snack! when was the last time you been out ha hah…”

“Oh.” Jack mouthed, truly grateful now. He could admit it was a while he hadn’t stopped to eat or take a break. “I suppose, it wouldn’t hurt.”

The short, round man, jumped off his corner, slightly elevated above the main course of the ink sewers, as if it had been carved for him, to go towards Sammy.

“I made two, well, alright I’ll have to admit I didn’t make them but I brought two and it’s the thought that counts right? “ Sammy just handed him the bag, not really knowing what to do now, his pants were wet and stained, great, but his heart felt like a really broken banjo, twiddling every time Jack looked at him, black eyes covered just a bit by the brim of his hat, he gulped down whatever knot on his throat was there, finding himself doing little embarrassed hums and groans.

“Sorry I haven’t, gotten down here Jackie, work has been...hard in both of us right? But..I don’t think it’s fair you have to work in the sewers and I get the office.” Sammy looked down at his drenched feet, it was all unfair in this studio , even Susie has been getting more bitter with every new rule and “improvement” Joey shows at least twice a week, and this was just the icing of the cake, why couldn't Jack be with him? Was he the problem?

“Do you think… I’m a hassle to work with too, Jack?” He thought, out loud.

Jack’s eyes widened, and he blinked in surprise: “Wh-what no, what? Uhm, firstly, thank you for the snack, you didn’t really have to but, I completely understand if you haven’t been able to get down here… I myself have… well, it’s been… I need to, uh, concentrate on my work and…”

Jack tried to find the words to tell Sammy but he found himself trailing off, getting tangled up in them, tripping over his own thoughts, unable to tear his eyes from Sammy’s sweet face, oh he wished he could just tell him how much he loved and truly appreciated him, but his shyness forsook him, and his fear played even greater tricks on his mind. Worse, he did not know how to explain his escapades to the sewers now without either revealing his true feelings to Sammy or without risking Sammy misunderstand how Jack felt about him. The last thing he wanted was to make Sammy feel unappreciated, God, not a man like him, the most talented man he had ever met, who could play every instrument he could name… and with such perfection too…

Jack realized he’d been zoning out, and Sammy just stared, waiting for the answer, patiently. Jack recoiled to himself, wanting to curl up into a ball, to disappear within his own self.

Fearing he’d already left his co-worker hanging long enough, he quickly switched subject:

“Why don’t you, join me then, come over here.” He gave a sheepish smile, patting at his small workplace amidst the sewers.

Sammy bit his lip, embarrassed he had made such a question, such vulnerabilities from a grown man, but slowly nodded, scrunching his nose remembering he was in the sewers but would never decline such an offer to be with Jack again, and jumped into the tiny “office”, cozy.

“Ah wait ..where could I, sit, there's only one chair.” He said, smiling nervously, realizing he was also, a bit tall too, oh these kinds of problems can only be found here.

“Oh! Well, I, do need to stretch my legs a bit…” Jack got back up into it as well, but just stood awkwardly near the table eating his sandwich, admiring Sammy in the low light, but trying to not oogle too obviously. “You just go ahead and sit.”

“Uh, alright...” Sammy sat down the chair, picking a bit of the sandwich too even though he felt a , different kind of hunger, when was the last time he's been this close to another person, in intimacy? He didn't think Susie counted , she was a good friend but she had a life outside the studio, other friends, people, maybe a boyfriend? He couldn't know, she didn't seem like a gal that went by the rules, now he was just there, feeling so much… warmth in a place so cold, so quiet.

Jack´s breathing softly near him felt like a song to him, he felt this song on loop, on his head, his very soul, what in the damn hell it meant, when you want a man so much, him just breathing near you makes you want to stay there forever. “Do i wanna find out?” He thought while looking into Jack's eyes, almost, doozy, how hypnotizing.

Jack could just watch Sammy forever, he wished he could capture it in a film reel, he wished he could be one of those big name rotoscope animators or just have a camera on him to capture the moment they were having, something as small as a snack break, but to Jack, it meant so much, only when Sammy finally came to him in the sewers he truly realized how much he had been missing, no, needing Sammy, he had just been repressing himself previously.

Jack could feel it too, he was staring back at him, but this time, Jack did not turn his head, blushing bashfully, or make excuses. Oh, for sure, he was still red as a tomato, but the silence was back again, and that was something that had always been calming for the both of them, and in that silence, in the quiet of the moment, a magic settled, almost supernatural, a force that seemed to just say they were made for one another, what is a song without lyrics or without music? “My Sammy… We were made to be together…” Jack couldn’t help but think, as they kept their eyes locked on one another as they ate, almost sensually at this point, Jack digging his sharp teeth into the sandwich and taking small but ferocious bites, as if he could be digging his teeth on Sammy’s neck, and Sammy in turn taking his time chewing every bit while looking at Jack, and every swallow was dry, provoking.

Sammy was about to bite his hand and realized this a bit late, getting himself out the trance of pure tension between him and Jack, finding his hands empty, he had what seemed like a great idea at first.

“Jack maybe you could sit on my lap!” As the words got out however, his face was soon flushed and started mumbling and looking at his hands, “Just what in the bloody hell did I ask?!” Great, Jack would think it’s childish, right?

Jack looked surprised yet again. “Ah… well. W-why not?” Jack could not stop blushing, but at the same time, he couldn’t truly deny it, after all, it was Sammy that offered it first. Technically, Sammy must’ve wanted it, right?

And so, Jack walked over to Sammy, and stood before him, gulping down while looking up at him, his charming, dark eyes beckoning him, and he couldn’t stop his heart from beating, but it was such a strong pull and before he knew it, he had hopped onto the taller man’s lap, and he felt immediately more secure, it was warm, very warm, and soft… Jack would be lying if he said he wasn’t loving every second of this.

The sudden weight made Sammy sit better into the chair, he wouldn't say he was heavy but well, it was still a grown man right on his lap, a very warm and almost, squishy man, like he was made out of those plushies back in the Heavenly Toys area much down the studio, but he didn't smell like ink, Sammy looked down on Jack again, he was red faced, darting his eyes everywhere in the tiny room.

“Am I making him nervous? Is he… scared of me? Is he too afraid of rejecting my gestures?” The paranoia was setting on again, he felt an immense guilt, he was most likely being creepy again, looking at him too much, at Jack's lips not forming words, oh how much he wanted to hear those words, even if they stung.

He gained the courage to ask finally, “Jack, do you not like being up with me?” He said, maybe he could have said it a bit better but it's what it was said nevertheless.

Jack, however, emitted a low hum of surprise and peered up at him. “No, not at all, I mean, that’s not it. I do love being with you, it’s just… it gets… hard to concentrate when you’re around. I’m sorry, Sammy.” He sighed, red faced, he felt so embarrassed admitting it still, he didn’t want Sammy to take it the wrong way.

Sammy put his hand on Jack´s cheek gently, feeling remorseful, pursing his lips and caressing Jack's face without realizing, “Ah, what can I do to fix it? I promise to be quieter if that's the problem…” He said, he would do anything to have him back there.

Jack looked back down, fiddling with his fingers nervously. “It’s not, that simple, Sammy, even if you’re just there, at your corner, not saying anything while you work I just find myself, looking at you, and it’s not just you either, I need the sewers and their quiet to drown out my thoughts because if I stay up there I’ll…” Jack trailed off, realizing how it might sound to admit that even just the thought of being in the same floor as Sammy made his thoughts race and ache to just be with Sammy, close to him, he just wanted him so badly the only solution he had found was to run and hide, but now confronted he couldn’t help but feel bad.

“What will you do? What, do you want to do?” Sammy’s eyes kept darting onto Jack´s slightly parted lips, When did he get this close? He doesn’t remember. He wanted to, somehow he had an idea of what he wanted to do but he just couldn't say it, not on his dear life, this wasn't like the movies...maybe it was better than those. “Jack, tell me, what do you want to do with me?” His hands had moved from Jack's face to his hips, pulling him closer.

Jack did not protest, and instead shifted in a way that he was now facing Sammy up front, and looking up into his eyes, finding himself getting lost in them, hypnotized and pulled in again. “Sammy… I wish, I could be with you, all the time, at work and not at work, but at the same time, whenever I’m with you I just get this urge to… I don’t know what it is, but it keeps me from working, and if I’m at work but not with you I still keep thinking of you. Coming here is my only chance because at least then this fuckin’ goddamn stench drowns out all the thoughts I have of you, of you having me, being with me, I mean, just like how we are right now, yeah? Close… I mean, you want this too, don’t you?” He hesitantly reached for Sammy’s chest and caressed gently.

Sammy found himself nodding and looking at Jack's hands caressing his chest, those bruised palms from playing around with the fiddle so much, now it feels like he's playing with his heart, it beats louder and louder and the heat going to his face is starting to make his mouth dry, hungry, yet again, was this what they were looking for? Sammy´s hand started going up yet again, pulling Jack's face close this time, lips brushing against each other, the breathing not on loop anymore, hearts like a choir , finally starting that wonderful song, that somehow they both felt, they had waited all their lives to sing.

Jack felt his heart race and beat louder and louder, like a drum, percussion following in place, he placed each of his hands on Sammy’s hip, pulling himself up and closer to his face, strings, or rather heartstrings, shuddering and plucking nonstop, then finally, Jack closed his eyes, and Sammy did too, wind instruments ready to give the big finale, as the two kissed each other deeply, hungrily, with a force that they put all the love they had been repressing into, intertwined in a loving embracing, singing a quiet, wordless song that filled the ink sewers and gave beauty to an otherwise dark and dreary place.

#bendy and the ink machine #sammy lawrence #jack fain #samjack #batim #don't be scared. i am here with you.

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jackfollmanwriter-blog · 6 years

Text

The Yearbook

All Luke left in our old apartment for me was a single banker’s box of what he considered to be “my possessions.” One of those white cardboard boxes with the handles built into the side, the box truly signified that I had been fired from my seven-year relationship.

The move was cruel and calculated, but it was factual. A Texas vagabond who never left owned enough possessions to where she couldn’t pack up and move to another town at the drop of a hat, the few things which were truly mine sat cased in that box.

I tipped the contents of the box out onto the floor to take stock of my arsenal. A hairbrush, a stick of Secret with only 25% remaining, a frayed toothbrush, a half-filled pint of cheap vodka and a few changes of clothes (unwashed) fell out onto the stiff carpet. Stuck in the bottom of the box were my only non-essential possessions that Luke returned to me - my high school yearbooks.

I laughed out loud when I saw the yearbooks lying there next to a pair of stained socks. The yearbooks were the only possessions of mine recovered from my mom’s house after she died, mailed to me by my aunt Helen along with a note which scolded me for my lack of sobriety at my mom’s funeral.

Nothing else to do on a Winter’s Sunday afternoon and a pinch of sad nostalgia coursing through my veins, I sat down on the floor and started combing through the yearbooks. I never could have imagined my early adult life would get so sad that I would yearn for the days of acne, broken braces, 7:50 a.m. bells and my fickle group of friends from East Lubbock High School, but that’s where I was. Sad. Sad. Sad.

The yearbook at the bottom of the pile was not mine. Bound with leather, full-color and featuring a golden emboss of a stately-looking manor on the front, I figured it had to be from Luke’s private school in Dallas - Worthington Academy.

A few turns of thick pages confirmed my thoughts and sent me flipping through endless headshots of well-put-together teens bound for success or at least inherited money and inane messages written in permanent marker.

I stopped on the Class of 2000 which produced Luke Hanratty, a thin bastard from third-generation money with jet black hair that always perfectly fell to the side, dark eyes and years of suppressed rage he hid behind passive indifference. I found his portrait and stared into the face that I loved for almost seven years and felt those same emotions I had before he sent me a text saying it was over. I still loved the guy, even if I hated him.

I found the messages scribbled next to the portraits more interesting than Luke’s senior portrait. It was like an ancient Facebook - portraits of people’s best looks next to their names and their activities, but the best part was the photos which had comments written on them in black ink.

Luke had a lot of thoughts about his classmates and none of them were nice.

FAG...FAT...HORSE FACE.... BITCH....ASSHOLE….

I couldn’t believe I had attached myself for so long to a man so vile. Luke was known for having a caustic sense of humor, but this was over the top. He almost never went home to visit his parents in Dallas. Maybe it was because he hated everyone he grew up with, or vice-versa.

I skimmed through most of the insults, but one particularly caught my eye. A black-haired girl with a pale face and dark makeup named Kirsten Butler drew extra hate from Luke’s pen.

SLUT was written above her head, but that was just the start of it. Her entire profile was covered with a dark X, her name was crossed out - I could only actually read it because the ink had faded, and her eyes were dotted with red marker.

I at first assumed Kirsten was just one of Luke’s high school exs that we never really talked about, but I also recognized that name and that picture of the dark-haired girl half-smiling with the dimpled cheeks. I hit up Google on my phone for Kirsten Butler from Worthington Academy.

The results sucked the breath out of me and confirmed that I was vaguely familiar with Kirsten.

Kirsten Butler went missing from her dorm at Texas Christian University just a few weeks into her first Fall semester in October of 2000 and was never seen or heard from again. No body, no rumors of popping up in another country with a different name, no clothes found on a desolate country road out in West Texas. Nothing.

Kirsten’s case was before the days of social media where she would have become a national celebrity, but she was a brief regional celebrity around Texas and I was vaguely familiar with her case from back when it happened. I had no idea that she went to school with Luke though, let alone was in his class and a most-hated figure of his.

Google produced a little on Kirsten’s case. I found some old Dallas newspaper articles, a missing person’s report, even a few posts on Reddit in a section for Unsolved Mysteries, but not much information.

The yearbook ended up unearthing more clues than the Internet. I noticed a message from Kirsten scrawled in the back pages of the book in the signatures section.

Luke - Creative Writing rocked with you in it. Let me know if you want to swing over to Fort Worth sometime next year if you get bored sticking around in the big D at SMU. 214-555-3116. Kirsten.

I called the number. No one answered. I thought nothing of it.

I received a call from a 214 area code I didn’t recognize when I was walking out of a depressing job interview.

“Hello.”

“Who is this?” An elderly woman’s voice crackled through the phone sounding confused and accusatory at the same time.

“Um. Who is this? You called me.”

“You called Kirsten’s pager.”

It took me a few seconds to register what a “pager” was, but I eventually journeyed back to the call I made to Kirsten’s number in Luke’s yearbook.

“Ooooooooh. Yeah, I’m sorry. I found that number in a yearbook and called it. Uh…”

I really didn’t know what to say. I never thought my random sleuthing would produce anything and I didn’t really have anything that I wanted to accomplish.

“Well, I’m Kirsten’s mother, Susan. No one has called that pager in seventeen years. You understand how I could be a little tuned up? Whose yearbook was that in?”

My first thought was to protect Luke. Then I thought about the breakup. The other woman. The horrible things he said to me in fights.

“Luke Hanratty.”

The other end of the line was silent for a good five seconds.

Susan’s confrontational abrasion melted away into the sweetness of a Southern grandma, sweet as molasses.

“Now sweet thing, do you think you could bring that yearbook to me up in North Dallas?”

“Can I just mail it to you or drop it off?”

“I can fix you dinner and explain you why it has to be this way if you can do that. There are some things you probably need to know I can only explain in person.”

Susan lived in a little house in a part of Dallas that will probably be cool in five years, but is just shitty now. I had to avoid 10 landmines of dog feces as I walked up to the faded and rotted pink front door. I knocked on the door softly as to not disturb a hornet’s nest which bustled above the door frame.

The yips and clawlings of what sounded like a dozen lap dogs erupted as soon as I knocked.

“Heavens,” I heard Susan growl from the other side of the door.

The door opened and five different dogs all only a little larger than your average squirrel darted at my feet. I tried to act like it didn’t bother me, probably failed.

Susan looked better than I thought she would. Thin, but healthy with a head of long blonde hair (dyed, but dyed well) and a classy outfit of black leggings, a black and gray cardigan over a plain white shirt and hipster glasses. She was far from the obese, elderly pile of ash I expected to find.

I handed Susan the yearbook, but she made no move for it.

“No, no, no. I made short ribs and peach pie for two, not one.”

Susan gave me a warm smile. The kind I yearned for from a parental figure my entire life. I relented and followed her into her home and held my breath, fighting against the burn of pet urine mixing with the scent of baking food.

Susan cooked the kind of food I always wished a parental figure would cook for me - gourmet, but down home, hearty and filling. I felt over-indulged about three bites in, but couldn’t stop eating.

“I’ve been waiting for someone to dial that pager for seventeen years,” Susan turned the conversation to the real reason I was there after about 10 minutes of small talk while I was in mid-bite.

I had forgotten why I was even there for a second.

“We got that pager for Kirsten as a compromise. She wanted a cell phone, but we didn’t want to give her everything we wanted, so we met in the middle with that thing. I liked that it helped us keep tabs on her when she headed over to Texas Christian, but Dave wasn’t sure.”

Susan nodded her head sideways at a headshot of smiling middle-aged man in a Sears photoshoot who I assumed was Dave. His mug was pinned up on the wall next to a toaster.

“Dave passed just a couple years after Kirsten went missing. Pancreatic cancer. Awful. I think he was poisoned by the awfulness of what happened to our only daughter. We spent all the money we had on his no good pancreas and the pursuit of any clue we could with Kirsten. Had to eventually downgrade to this jalopy, move out of the community we raised Kirsten in, but, the good news is, we got our first god forsaken clue, for free, fifteen years after I had given up, right?”

I didn’t know how to react.

“It’s okay. I’m as happy about it, as I can be,” Susan went on. “And I’ll give you a break. I had you come here because things aren’t as simple as you might think they would be.”

“Okay…”

I couldn’t help but be pensive, and not just because one of Susan’s dogs was licking my ankle.

“We believe someone was actively working against us in the Dallas Police Department. Anything we ever, I mean ever, turned in as evidence always seemed to go missing. Any question we had, we never got an answer to. They blamed everything on Dave putting the investigation into his own hands early on, saying he crossed a lot of boundaries that negated evidence, but it was bull. Dave only made a few calls. Checked out Kirsten’s dorm room, talked to her roommate, because the police weren’t. Kirsten’s roommate called us up one day asking if the cops were ever going to talk to her because it had been weeks and they hadn’t even contacted her.”

“Wow.”

“But supposedly, Dave inviting Kirsten’s roommate over here for salad one night was enough to poison the whole investigation. So...that’s why I don’t want you to just turn over that yearbook to someone. I also want you to know that...this is hard to say...but...you might want to be careful with how you handle this as well. We had some early potential leads from a couple kids at Texas Christian who may have saw something, knew something, but they quickly fell off into the ether, and we never found out why. So...I don’t know what in the world it is, but just know that dialing that number, may have changed your life.”

“Okay, well, thank you, I guess.”

“I’m sorry. It is what it is. I want to ask you if you are comfortable answering some questions though?”

“I guess I might as well.”

“You said the yearbook you found belonged to Luke Hanratty?”

“Yeah.”

“And what is your relation to him if you don’t mind me asking?”

“Ex-boyfriend.”

“Oh, sorry if I opened a wound.”

“It’s okay. It was already still open. It’s only been a few weeks.”

“Well, I hate to say it, but he might be Jake Doe. You see, we know there was a boy in Kirsten’s life around that time, but we have never had a slight inkling as to who he might be. They did everything in heavy secrecy, because she was technically still with her high school boyfriend, Brady, even though he went to A and M. They were trying to do the long distance thing, but her friends at TCU said they think she was hanging around with another boy. He would block his number before he paged her. She would call him from the phones in common areas around the campus. Maybe it was your Luke?”

At this point, I didn’t know what else I could do for Susan. I wanted to help her, but I didn’t want to spend anymore of my life doing anything that had anything to do with Luke Hanratty. I was ready to move on.

“I can give you the yearbook,” I said.

“I looked up Luke online before you came too and it looks like his parents own Hanratty and Hanratty, the big law firm downtown. They’ve worked defending the police in big cases. They might be blocking evidence through their connections knowing their son might have something to do with it.”

That made sense based on the soulless, yuppie, workaholic, only care about what people think image I got from Luke’s parents every time I met them. Luke told me once they would murder a baby if they thought it might help them get a big new case.

“Can I see it?”

Susan finally asked for the whole entire reason I was even there. I blushed when she quickly flipped to Kirsten’s picture and read the horrible things scrawled in there. I played with the last of the food on my plate.

“Well this is certainly interesting,” Susan whispered across the table.

I looked across the table and started to see tears form in Susan’s eyes behind her thick glasses.

“It’s just…

Susan had to stop and let out a few sobs.

“It’s just...I know Kirsten wasn’t a bad girl. She didn’t do these kinds of things. She was a good girl. She didn’t deserve this.”

As bad as I felt for Susan, the situation was just too much and too awkward for me. I wanted to get out. I figured I had helped her as much as I possibly could and I had my own problems. I was beginning to think my boyfriend of more than five years may have killed someone. No matter how good that peach pie in the oven smelled (and it smelled really, really good), I wasn’t going to stick around for it.

I thanked Susan for her time. Told her she could keep the yearbook and excused myself before dessert. I took the 20 minute drive to my home on my friend’s couch with the plan to not do a single thing more and hope everything just blew over and took care of itself. It was basically a smaller version of my overall life plan.

A few days passed with nothing. I held some brief relief that the whole thing would be over.

Then the calls from Luke started.

I ignored the first few. Let him leave vague voicemails about how I needed to call him back about something “serious.” This was his usual MO for when we were about to break up. He would start a horrible fight or do something really bad and then try to pull the romantic comedy move of doing something over the top romantic, or would buy me some piece of jewelry and the wounds scabbed over enough to drag our doomed relationship onward. Not this time.

The calls from Luke kept coming and coming and coming and I kept ignoring and ignoring and ignoring, but I knew he was going to do something drastic, I just didn’t know what. An oozing sense of dread seeped into me and stuck me on my friend’s couch for days where I was crashing, unable to move anywhere but between the couch, bathroom and refrigerator.

Luke made that drastic move in the middle of the night during one of my trips to the bathroom. I heard his voice whispering from outside the open window as I washed my hands in the near dark.

“Hey, Kayla.”

I screamed as loud as I ever have in my entire life. I looked out the half-opened window and saw the shadow of Luke standing in the bushes outside my friend’s ground-floor apartment. He looked at me through the cover of a dark hoodie, with his shaggy hair jutting out the front.

“Sorry, I knocked on the door, but no one answered and you won’t answer your phone,” Luke whispered.

“So you fucking go Norman Bates and look at me through the bathroom window? Get out of here!” I screamed back.

“No, you don’t understand. You did something you shouldn’t have done, now these people are after me.”

“No. You did something you shouldn’t have done!”

I slammed the window shut.

“If I see you again, I’m calling the cops,” I yelled at the closed window.

The texts started to come in from Luke as soon as I got back to the couch. I deleted them without reading them and eventually blocked Luke’s number after about the tenth call and text.

I covered myself in a blanket on the couch and planned on staying right there until the day I died.

I started to ease back into life as the days past without communication attempts from Luke. I got back up off the couch and started my job hunt again, went on walks to the park, went shopping for food with the little money I had a couple of times and even went for a couple aimless drives around town to clear my head after my friend said she had to move out in two weeks because she was going to move in with her boyfriend.

One of those blank-minded drives took me out to the edge of the city, to the parts of town where the urban sprawl started to melt into the hints of rural America. Little patches of woods and lonely gas stations dotted the roads.

Officially lost, I pulled over so I could load up directions to get back home on my phone. I slowed down next to a little patch of woods between run-down houses on a dark road.

A knock came at my window before I could get my phone out. I screamed even louder than I did when Luke confronted me in the bathroom.

I looked up at the aged face of a woman that I knew, but couldn’t quite put my finger on why I knew her.

“Can I talk to you really quick?” The woman asked, her voice also vaguely familiar.

I stared at the woman for a few seconds and it started to register. It was Luke’s mom, Nancy. She had aged a lot since the last time I had seen her.

I rolled the window down about two inches.

“What do you want?” I asked.

Another long look revealed exhausted eyes in Nancy’s skull and a coat of sweat.

“Have you seen Luke?” Nancy asked.

“No. I’ve been avoiding him, and I think you’re pretty disgusting, personally,” I spat back.

“What are you talking about?”

“I found out about Kirsten. The missing girl from TCU. It seems pretty clear Luke was involved, and you helped cover it up.”

“What?” Nancy shot back, sounding offended. “You have no idea,” she then muttered under her breath.

Nancy returned the long, hard look I was giving her.

“You probably don’t realize this, but you’re in serious danger. I need to know what you did, and who you talked to.”

“What are you talking about?”

“Just listen,” Nancy cut me off. “I’m guessing you talked to Susan for some reason.”

“Yeah, um.”

“That was a bad idea,” Nancy cut me off. “You have no idea what you did.”

A pair of headlights drove up behind us and stopped to the right of Nancy’s car which was parked behind mine.

Nancy looked over to the headlights. The last drops of life flushed out of her face.

A bang sound rang out in the night and Nancy’s SUV started to sink to the right.

“Shit,” Nancy seethed underneath her breath.

Nancy turned to me with her eyes wide.

“Let me in the car,” Nancy said.

“Why would I let you in my car?” I asked.

I was interrupted by the sound of a car door closing behind us, over by Nancy’s SUV.

Nancy started wrenching on the door handle. The door wouldn’t open. I already locked it.

“Please,” Nancy pleaded with a depth of desperation I had never heard come out of a human being.

I heard heavy footsteps come up towards the back of my car from behind.

“Pleeeeeease,” Nancy whined out.

I flicked the unlock button.

“Go to the back door,” I said.

Nancy jumped over to the backseat door behind me and slipped in the car. I hit the doors lock as soon as she opened the door.

“Go. Go. Go,” Nancy yelled as soon as she was in the backseat.

I floored it. My Ford Focus jetted off. The force snapped my neck back.

I didn’t let up off the gas until we were well away from the scene.

“What was that?” I screamed.

“What did you do?”

“I found Luke’s old yearbook, saw that he had written slut and all this horrible stuff on Kirsten’s yearbook picture and then found her phone number written in the back of the thing. I called the number, an old lady called me back and said I needed to bring the yearbook to her. I did.”

“I can’t believe you made it out of that place alive,” Nancy said with a laugh.

A pair of headlights entered my rear-view mirror.

“I think they’re following us,” I said, frantic. “Is that her?”

Nancy looked back, then back at me.

“Just keep driving.”

“Why is she...

I hadn’t been paying attention to the road, distracted by Nancy and the headlights. I stopped talking because the curve of a road was just feet in front of my car. I slammed on the brakes, but it was too late. We careened into a ditch and smashed into the hard ground.

The world went into slow motion for a few moments. I saw my cell phone fly by my face. I heard the sound of glass breaking. I felt something hard smack against the back of my head. Then the lights went out.

The coppery taste of blood stung my tongue when I woke up. I gagged and coughed before I opened my eyes and threw my body forward to hit the ground, but couldn’t. I was suspended by something which tethered me from behind.

I opened my eyes and saw nothing but a blank, white wall in front of me. I had never been so terrified in my life to see just a blank image. I screamed out without even knowing exactly what I was screaming about yet. My body had a thick, dull ache, my core tingled with sharp pain when I screamed.

“HELP!” I screamed. “Please, please, please, please,” I punctuated my bellar with pathetic pleads.

“At least you’re up,” a voice whispered from behind me.

I jumped from the sound of a voice, but calmed, once it registered in my brain as belonging to Luke.

I tried to wiggle in my seat and turn around, but couldn’t. The lashes of rope tied tight around my wrists and feet wouldn’t let me. I was stuck staring at the blank wall.

“Don’t fight. Save your energy. There is no use trying that yet, and you’re probably really hurt,” Luke said.

I stopped and took in a few huge breaths.

“What is this?” I asked with sobs building in my jaw.

“She locked us somewhere in her house, I think. She had me blindfolded when I got brought in here. Someone must be helping her, because someone carried me in here and I’m pretty sure she doesn’t have that kind of strength,” Luke explained.

“What is the deal?”

“This woman has always thought I was responsible for the disappearance of her daughter, and she is right, but not for the right reasons. I helped her daughter disappear her freshman year at TCU, but only so she could get away from her, and her sadistic husband. We were semi-dating and she told me all about the awful abuse she suffered and she worried because it was getting worse as she got older, more physically mature. The truth was the cops knew they could never prove anything against her parents and they believed me and my parents when we told them about why and how she ran away, so they didn’t care.”

“What does she want with me?” I screamed back.

“My parents were able to keep it so she never knew who I was, but now thanks to my wonderful ex-girlfriend, I’m tied up in this psycho’s basement while she probably prepares a Hansel and Gretel marinade for us. Congratulations.”

Guilt burned in my stomach. Or maybe it was just the overall pain from the wreck?

“But why did you write slut, and all those horrible thing on Kirsten’s photo?”

“Oh Jesus Christ. That was Daniel. Daniel tried to date her in high school, but she wasn’t having it and he vandalized the shit out of my yearbook one drunken night. He wrote horrible things on like a quarter of the school’s photos. You know him. He’s a ten times even bigger caustic dick than me.”

I believed Luke. I had met his friend Daniel around 10 times and he had greeted me with a passive aggressive semi-insult about my hair or outfit pretty much every time. He was one of those guys that thought every day was one of those Comedy Central roasts.

“Well, what do we do now?”

My question was answered by a creaky door opening from behind us and what sounded like above us.

“Too late,” I heard Luke mutter under his breath.

The lights went out. The room went into complete darkness. I shivered. The sound of footsteps descending wooden stairs squeaked out from behind.

“Please…”the word quietly leaked out of my lips.

My soft pleading was answered by the sounds of gut-wrenching screams from Luke which started just a handful of feet behind me. The steps went back up the stairs and I heard a door close again.

I let out a deep breath. I listened to Luke’s screams fade away. I held my eyes closed tight even though the room was still pitch black. I think I hoped that if I closed them long and hard enough that it would all go away.

Wishful thinking. I opened my eyes and still stared at the darkness.

I started to cry. I wiped the moisture which trickled out of my nose from the top of my lip and tried to suck it back up into my nasal cavity with a hard snort.

“Don’t cry,” a voice whispered from behind.

I jumped up in my chair. Probably got the whole thing a couple of feet off the ground I was so startled.

The chair hit the solid ground hard on the way down and I felt both of the back legs fracture to where my seat was now wobbly. I leaned back against them to test them. They hadn’t snapped yet, but I felt I could make that happen if I worked at them hard enough now.

“You remind me of her,” Susan whispered from behind me.

The lights came on. I squinted tight against the burn for a few seconds. I slowly opened my eyes and saw that a large mirror had been stuck up against the blank wall in front of me.

I looked back at myself with a dark wig stuck on my sandy blonde hair, a pale shade makeup and purple lip liner caked on my face a late-90s outfit of loose jeans and a jean jacket wrapped around my shoulders. I was pretty sure I recognized the jacket from Kirsten’s yearbook picture. The white makeup looked familiar. I looked like a Kirsten impersonator.

Susan stepped into the field of vision provided by the mirror. She walked up behind me and put her hands softly on my shoulders, looking like a hair stylist who is about to ask “how does it look?” After a haircut.

“I couldn’t help but think it once you walked into my house. I can see why Luke had such an attraction to both of you,” Susan said, locking eyes with me in the mirror.

I looked off Susan’s eyes and leaned back in the chair, felt those back wooden legs flex just a little bit. It would only take one hard lean to snap them and make an attempt at a bolt.

“He may have taken her from me, but he can’t take you,” Susan whispered into my ear.

I put all of my weight against the back legs of the chair. The wooden pegs gave out and threw me hard against the floor. I grabbed hold of Susan’s coarse hair on my way down and dragged her down with me.

I ripped my tied hands off of the back of the chair and pulled Susan’s frail neck into my chest with a strength I had never felt come out of me. I squeezed Susan’s neck as hard as I could until I could feel the bones in her neck flex just like the pegs of the chair had below me.

“You’re going to let me go right now,” I whispered into Susan’s ear. “You deserved whatever happened to you. Luke told me what you were doing to Kirsten. You’re not a victim.”

“That’s not true,” Susan gasped out.

“Cut these ropes off of me,” I screamed into Susan’s ear.

“You gotta let me move my arms,” Susan yelped out from the vice grip of my squeeze.

I let Susan’s arms get clear just enough to move, but to where she could only make a small range of motions. I felt her pull something hard from her pocket. I looked down and saw a thick pair of scissors.

“Cut me loose,” I screamed into her ear.

“You think I’m bad...you don’t even know about him,” Susan muttered under her breath.

“What”? I fired back.

Susan didn’t answer. She just silently sniped the rope that tied my wrists together.

I recoiled from Susan and stood in front of her. I snatched the scissors away from her and went to work on the rope around my ankles.

“What are you talking about?” I asked as I ripped away the rope around my ankles.

“You’ll find out,” Susan muttered.

I pushed Susan away from me. I didn’t have time for whatever she was trying to do.

I saw a flight of wooden stairs at the other end of the room. I ran at them as fast as I could, leaving Susan crumpled on the cement floor behind me.

I pushed the door at the top of the stairs open and burst into what looked like a barn. The thick smell of hay and musty animal feces overwhelmed me once I stepped out of the basement I had been held in.

I didn’t have time to analyze where I was anymore. I just ran straight forward until I found another door and opened it up.

The hot sting of a summer day said hi when I opened the door. I looked around and saw a rural backyard lined with dense forests of trees which formed a U around a pale yellow farmhouse. It was a beautiful, quaint setting for the most-horrifying event of my life.

Little did I know at the moment, that dash through the backyard would only be the beginning of the horrors I was going to experience. I was only a few strides into my run across the grass when I heard a frantic clicking sound ring into my ear and felt myself get flung high up into the air.

I hung in the air for a few seconds feeling weightless. I looked down and saw a crude crater in the ground where I just was. An ugly scar on the otherwise beautiful grass. I tried to form an idea around what had happened, but couldn’t before I fell hard back to the earth.

I felt footsteps approach me from the direction of the house as my ears rang. I looked up at the sky until my view was overtaken by the face of an elderly man who I vaguely recognized for a few seconds before I went out.

It was Susan’s husband, Kirsten’s dad, Dave, his face horribly weathered since that photo which rested in Susan’s living room that I saw when I made that fateful visit. He smiled at me before everything went dark.

My entire body seared with hot pain when I woke up. I felt like a piece of meat in a frying pan.. The pain was so intense I could barely breath.

I knew the feeling of a hospital bed from when I had my appendix taken out as a kid. I was all too familiar with that thudding pain which develops in your lower back when you lay down in a stiff bed for too long.

“Ugh,” I groaned.

I looked around the lonely hospital room thinking about how much whatever happened was going to cost me. Well, cost may be the least of my concerns. Nancy walked into the room before I could even buzz a nurse for some pain medication. She sat down in a chair at the foot of my bed and looked at me with a stone face.

Nancy filled in the missing pieces from the incident. She had been left at the scene of our wreck, but I had been taken away by Susan. I was taken to a farmhouse Susan and her husband owned outside of the city where I was held with Luke. The story Susan told me about her husband being dead was fabricated. He was alive and well and was a doomsday prepper out in the sticks with a yard filled with homemade landmines, one of which I was unlucky enough to step on.

Stepping on the mine was actually a stroke of luck though. The neighbors were always on red alert for one of Dave’s land mines going off so they called the cops the second they heard one explode and ran over seconds after to find me knocked out in the yard, scaring Dave back into the house. It actually probably saved my life.

Luke wasn’t so lucky. He was still missing. Luke’s mom was pushing to get Susan and her husband arrested for taking Luke, or killing Luke, she wasn’t really sure, and kidnapping me for a period of time. She needed me to talk to the police to tell them what happened.

I agreed, but I just needed to heal up in the hospital for a few days. Luke’s mom was pleased. She said officers would be by soon to take my story right before she left.

It has been a day now and officers have not yet been by. However, something came by this morning that has given me alarm. It is probably just a coincidence, but a heaping piece of seemingly-homemade peach pie was on the food stand next to my bed this morning. It smelled delicious, but I didn’t care.

I threw the thing in the trash next to my bed and pushed the button for the nurse so I could ask her to remove the basket as soon as possible.

Originally published by Thought Catalog on www.ThoughtCatalog.com.

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