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demonprosecutor · 4 years

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HELL YEAH MORE HADES ONESHOTS

zagreus, the prince of the underworld, as you have come to know him for the duration of his stay thus far, was an interesting god. unlike many of the gods you have come to known in the duration of your short life, much like his mother, he was a polite, gentle, sweet individual who seemed to turn away from the scheming machinations that was present both in olympus and the underworld. who delighted in the simplicity of existence.

but there was something deeper, something that you had recognized. there was deep-rooted impatience within him that reminded you of a warrior unsure of how to lay his blade to rest, eyes darting at the shadowy darkness of the lands, as though waiting for an enemy to leap out and be slain.

the prince did not luxuriate in war, not like his kin (or at least a particular one), but an existence dedicated towards slaying the wretched masses to escape made it difficult to relax in a place where peace was finally found.

perhaps it was your fault in failing to recognize that, failing to realize that there were just certain things that one mustn’t do when it came to warriors fresh from war.

it is one day you notice the prince staring out in the distance, just outside the threshold of the cottage. so lost in his thoughts that it appeared as though he nary breathed, midnight-black hair rustling slightly in the playful breeze of the perpetual summer that lady persephone’s protections offered (or was it lady demeter simply avoiding her daughter’s lands to soil with winter?)

your steps are nigh silent, a lightness to your feet that is birthed from years of not wanting to be heard, and you reach out to grasp his bicep or to tap his shoulder to ask what he wanted for lunch that day. but the moment you make contact with furnace-hot skin, he stirs into action.

one moment, you’re standing there, and the next, pain is bursting behind your eyelids like stars, the prince’s forearm braced against your neck in bruising tightness as he pins you against the wall of the cottage. he snarls at you like a wolf, the feared blade at his hand, and in spite of everything, in spite of your instincts shrieking at you to claw your way out, you don’t.

instead, you remain still - a shaking trembling leaf that nary dared to breathe, eyes wide, a statue pinned underneath the uncaring hands of its sculptor.

when seconds pass, and battle-fury fades from red-green eyes, zagreus blinks out of his trauma-induced response and stumbles back, blade clattering with a dulled thud onto the grass. fire-flickering feet flash against the grass, horror evident in his expression, helpless, apologetic.

you could already feel the bruises forming at your neck and thanked the gods that he didn’t manage to snap your neck or your spine with how aggressively he slammed you against the cottage.

“mate, i’m... i’m---” he tries and fails to string together a multitude of apologies, too reminiscent of string unspooling ceaselessly, and tries to reach out. it is an action that makes you flinch, and in spite of yourself, you know that you are still trembling like a little leaf tossed in the throes of a hurricane.

he tries again to reach out, and you run.

you run, heels flashing like licks of flame on the ground, unhearing of the way zagreus called out for you to return. lord hermes would be pleased with how fleet-footed you were.

zagreus finds you, an hour later, near the top-most branch of an oak tree - its dryad long dead, on a thick branch that you found big enough for you to sit on whenever you felt troubled. he approaches the tree with the same openness of approaching a skittish, wounded animal. and it takes everything to swallow the fear that lumped at your throat.

he looks up, your form swallowed by the mass of foliage, interrupted by the briefest glimpse of legs swinging. a sigh comes from the prince, as he seats himself at the base of the tree. “----- i’m sorry.” he eventually says, picking at the grass and tossing it away from him. “i did not intend to hurt you. or to scare you.”

you did not deign to answer, long enough zagreus squirmed, but: “i know.” you sigh similarly, weary almost. “i accept your apology. i should have known better than to walk up behind you like that.”

the prince attempts to see you, but it was as though the tree blocked you from view; for no matter how he moved his head, the branches always obscured.

the silence reigned for torturous seconds, you, sitting on your favoured spot and trying to will away the anxiety-thump of your heart. and zagreus, sitting at the base of the tree, guilt swelling his god-heart to uncomfortable degrees.

“this tree used to have a dryad, you know.” zagreus startles and makes the abortive movement to look up, but decides otherwise - contenting himself with picking up a leaf and rolling the stem betwixt his fingers so that it spun. “their name was speio.” you pull your fall-roughened knees to your chest.

“was?”

you tried to tamp down the sadness, a grief that left you numb and unfeeling. “was,” came the agreement. “they died a few months back. an ancient sickness that left them weak and took them to the underworld.” there was a thought to ask if zagreus had seen them wandering the underworld as a shade before banishing it. he probably wouldn’t know them, the shades that walked about were in multitudes and most likely beneath his notice (a product of his upbringing). “they were my friend and whenever i felt too alone or sad, i would come here and speio would comfort me. even if the dryad is gone, i know that the tree still protects me, still comforts me in the way speio would if they were still here.”

zagreus considers the leaf in his hands, blade back at the cottage, sequestered safely in the room that they had prepared for him. “why are you telling me this? i mean, i’m honoured, but...” he trails off uncertainly. he doesn’t hear you answer for a bit, only realizes that you’re not in the tree any longer and standing before him.

“i just wanted to tell you that i...” you look away slightly, as though flustered, “--- still trust you. i’m not afraid of you.” reflexively, you hold out your hand for the prince to take.

and he does! much to your surprise.

but what baffles you is the... heaviness of the god prince. he laughs loudly at the way you dug your heels into the dirt, forehead shining with sweat, at the way you struggled. before he helped you pick him up. your hands lingered for a second before letting go. “for someone who i saw wrestle a boar once, you are surprisingly weak.”

it was a jest that makes you roll your eyes in camaraderie, “you gods are just made different,” you grumble, padding back towards the cottage. zagreus nudges you, hard enough that you stumble to the side (you found that centuries within the underground, deprived of warmth and touch, made him hunger for it as well - normally, gods would shy away at physical contact with mortals). you give him a dirty look and shove him back, mouth unmoving at his laughter, even if there was a telltale softness in your gaze.

“tell me: what do you want for lunch?”

zagreus smiles, delighted. “i thought you’d never ask.”

#hades the game #hades supergiant #zagreus #zagreus hades #my writing #aku writing #WHEW #this is why we don't sneak up with people with PTSD!

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houseofhurricane · 3 years

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ACOTAR Fic: Bloom & Bone (4/32) | Elain x Tamlin, Lucien x Vassa

Summary: Elain lies about a vision and winds up as the Night Court’s emissary to the Spring Court, trying to prevent the Dread Trove from falling into the wrong hands and wrestling with the gifts the Cauldron imparted when she was Made. Lucien, asked to join her, must contend with secrets about his mating bond. Meanwhile, Tamlin struggles to lead the Spring Court in the aftermath of the war with Hybern. And Vassa, the human queen in their midst, wrestles with the enchantment that turns her into a firebird by day, robbing her of the power of speech and human thought. Looming over all of them is uniquet peace in Prythian and the threat of Koschei, the death-god with unimaginable power. With powers both magical and monstrous, the quartet at the Spring Court will have to wrestle with their own natures and the evil that surrounds them. Will the struggle save their world, or doom it?

A/N: I had a lot of fun writing this chapter -- so many gowns and flowers! people who are doing what they love to do! Nesta! -- but also it's hard to keep putting Elain through the wringer. That said, I am very excited to show you more of What Is Going On With Elain. You can find all chapters here.

“I didn’t think that Tamlin’s gardens extended so far into the forest,” Mor says, leaning against a tree. She’s been delivering flowers from the continent over the past three days, and once the plants are handed over to the gardeners, she finds an excuse to hover over Elain while she gardens. Elain is sure that Mor has received instructions not to leave her alone, but she doesn’t mind chatting with Mor while she gardens, preparing all the special plots she’s not sure she could convey to the Night Court gardeners in words.

“I’m trying something new,” Elain says, patting the soil around a columbine, the blue and white flowers bobbing in the fragrant breeze. “These flowers are happier in the wild.”

“Any news from Tamlin?”

“You may be scaring him away.” She aims a smile at Mor to show she’s mostly joking. “I’ve seen him in the gardens a few times but we’ve only exchanged pleasantries about the renovations. Feyre warned me that he takes hardly anybody into his confidence.”

She feels the golden weight of Mor’s gaze, the frank and generous assessment that Elain has always loved and admired, even those first months after the Cauldron. Mor sparkles like champagne, effortless and loveable and impossible to forget.

“You have the makings of an excellent spy,” Mor says, apparently out of nowhere.

Elain snorts, and Mor laughs at the sound, the way she always has, the overwrought daintiness that, she’s told Elain a dozen times, she can’t quite believe is real. Elain has never told Mor about the hours she spent practicing the sound until it was pretty, the way she was always expected to be.

“I’m not trying to flatter you,” Mor continues when she’s collected herself, settling herself more firmly against her tree, so that her golden hair catches on the bark, “I mean it. A good spy is a person you’d never expect, a pleasure to talk to, someone who listens well.”

“Azriel never said--” Surely the spymaster of the Night Court would have recognized her potential if it had ever existed.

“Az can be a little blind when it comes to the people he cares about.” There’s a strain in Mor’s voice, which Elain thinks she’s being allowed to detect it, because she’s heard Mor’s effortless diplomacy in a hundred more trying situations. “He likely wouldn’t want you to come to any harm.”

“And you do?” Elain asks, to keep the conversation going more than anything, while she works on the hole for the bleeding hearts, her favorite forest flowers, the pink and white blooms almost too good to be true. Give her enough time at the Spring Court and she’ll adorn the forest with them, all the way to the human lands, to their wretched cottage and straight on to that little village that never cared if the Archerons lived or died.

“Of course I don’t want you to be hurt,” Mor says, firm enough that Elain realizes she angled the question too harshly. “It’s only -- I think that maybe you are tired of beauty alone. Not that it isn’t enough. I’ve spoken with so many people who have found healing in the gardens you’ve helped them build.”

“But you think I could be useful in other ways.” Elain looks up at Mor from her crouch on the forest floor, and sees the other female’s worried expression. She wipes a scraggle of hair off her brow, feeling the dirt as it forms a smudge. “There’s something you aren’t telling me, Mor.”

“Do you ever get tired of being seen as easily broken?”

Elain finds that her hands are grasping air, the bleeding heart having fallen from her gloved hands and into the ground with hardly a thump.

“Only when I can’t --” she starts saying when she knows she won’t begin to cry, because what’s inside her is pathetic and dangerous enough, and therefore must be spoken as prettily as possible. “I think there is something truly wretched and useless inside me. I think that’s what you see when you tell me I could have this other life.”

Mor takes Elain’s shoulder in her palm and squeezes, then says, “I grew up in a place where I was a beautiful object to everyone but my own heart. I worry, Elain, that you have fooled yourself and believe that’s all you could be.”

The vision swims up through Elain’s mind, so vivid even on repeat that she almost gasps with the force of it, the sheer power of the Crown on her head, Tamlin looming over her, the life in him banked in the gloom, though he’s still broad and tall and handsome and breathtaking in spite of everything, though these are thoughts she would never admit, not even if the vision were pulled from her by force, even if a knife were held to her throat. Before, considering the vision, she thought they’d be in his ruined estate, but that’s changing thanks to Laella and her builders, fixing the rooms wrecked by Tamlin’s rage and the obliging elements, and adding all those sparkling windows and interior gardens, so apparently she will one day go and build her own house of horrors.

She does not know the first thing about being useful, has no idea how to prevent this fate, except for her certainty that her jealousy and wretchedness will lead her there. And perhaps she was born to be more than a sweet and pretty girl who men could easily fall in love with. Perhaps that is how she can unravel the vision, make a new future in which she can be approximately good. Or perhaps that is how she becomes the crowned monster on the throne. The visions never contain sufficient instruction for Elain to know that she’s avoided the future until the moment passes by, the danger suffocated by a new reality. She’s all too aware that, for example, there are other battlefields on which Cassian could be killed.

She does not tell Mor any of this, only: “Tell me how to be a spy.”

And calmly, in her sparkling voice, Mor begins the lesson.

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On Elain’s last night at the Night Court, Nesta enters her room without knocking.

“You thought I’d let you leave without a goodbye?” she asks, crossing her arms over her chest, the ring Cassian gave her at their mating ceremony brilliant even in the candlelight.

“I knew I’d see you at dinner.”

“You left without a word to anybody.”

Gwyn and Emerie had been there, and everyone had laughed, and a small cross part of Elain had felt as though they would all be fine without her. Azriel, across the table from her, had been smiling and laughing, content as she’d never seen him, his hazel eyes golden when he so much as glanced at Gwyn. Elain had left as soon as she finished dessert, telling Feyre she had a headache, and her sister had squeezed her hand firmly enough that Elain knew she’d heard the lie in her words. In the morning, she would start her residence in a new court. For a little while at least, she’d be able to leave these feelings behind.

But of course Nesta had found her.

“Did you really ask Rhysand to send you to the Spring Court?” Occasionally Nesta will still believe the worst of him, despite all the witnesses to the contrary.

“It was my vision,” Elain tells her. “I’m the one who--”

“You know what Tamlin did to Feyre.”

“I’m not--” She stops, not sure what she’s going to say next. Without a plan, the next words will surely be too revealing. “You were the one who once said I could stand to be more useful in this world.”

“If he so much as lays a hand on you, I swear to you I will un-Make him.”

“I expected nothing else,” Elain says, and the smile is easy. All her life, she has been comforted by Nesta’s growling, known that she’s always been safest inside the circle of her sister’s wrath.

“And in spite of everything, I’m glad that you’ll finally see the Spring Court.” Nesta’s words are a grudging grumble, their impact lessened by her hand in Elain’s, the two of them in a long embrace that says everything they have a hard time saying, now that everything has changed. “I heard that Tamlin is unleashing you on his gardens.”

Elain knows that Nesta truly loves her because her sister listens to her plans and ideas and dreams for the garden for an hour, despite the fact that she has no more than a passing interest in even the most exquisite blooms. She even asks Elain about the arrangements of colors and fragrances, and Elain pulls out her parchments and perfumes so that Nesta can have the closest thing to a full garden experience it is possible to conjure indoors.

“Who knows, maybe one day you’ll bring one of your novels to the finished gardens.”

Nesta makes a sound between a snort and a growl, totally unique to her sister, that prickly glee, but then her face grows somber.

“I keep thinking that he’s finally got what he wanted, when he showed up at our cottage years ago.”

“Tamlin isn’t dragging me out into the snow,” Elain says, though she doesn’t remember the scene, a side effect of the glamor that turned Feyre’s disappearance into a joyous reversal of fortune.

Sometimes she wonders what memories her mind has hidden from itself, what secrets it’s been forced to keep silent.

Nesta’s hands are around hers, squeezing until Elain can feel their pulses beating, aligning as they look at one another.

“I never wanted to give you up,” Nesta says. “I would have let him shred me to pieces before I let him touch you.”

Elain knows she should tell Nesta she’s not as fragile as her sister thinks, but that would lead to a conversation which would be deep and cutting and maybe devastating. Instead she reaches for Nesta and holds her close, murmurs that she will be all right, until Feyre enters and hugs them both, and when the three of them wake up hours later in Elain’s bed, warm and sleepy, Elain wonders, half-asleep, why she ever thought of leaving.

But when her sisters have gone to their mates’ beds, and Elain is alone again, her sleep is not dark and dreamless as before. Instead she dreams of her father as she last knew him alive, the straight back and broad shoulders and thinning hair and the kind smile that made his lips disappear. When Elain was little and bold enough to ask about such expressions, he told her that his joy had swallowed up his lips, he was so glad to see her, and then he would whirl her around until she’d give unladylike whoops and get scolded. After what feels like an eternity of watching him, it occurs to Elain that she has never been to the place where they’re standing, a gray-blue blur that looks like the inside of a cloud or wall of seawater.

“Where are we?” Elain asks, with none of the certainty she experiences in dreams.

Her father’s face clouds, the smile winking out, and she begins to wonder how, exactly, this dream will turn nightmarish. She’s already seen his corpse.

“There is only one thing I can tell you, sweet one.” Her father’s eyes are glinting, his fingers balled into fists, the knuckles the same skimmed-milk color as the air around them. “The thing you seek is inside of you. It is inside of--”

He is reaching for her, as if to indicate the location of the thing, and then he vanishes, and Elain opens her eyes in bed, the light through her window still gray, her mind racing, the way she always feels after a vision.

A thousand questions immediately surface. How can her father appear to her in the future? Where is he, that she can find him and receive directions? And who has silenced him? Has he seen the monstrosity inside of her? And if he has, she does not understand how he can smile at her in that way, so lifelike and tender.

Elain breathes deep again and again, trying to will herself to sleep, hoping she will see him, hoping for even just another second of his smile. She’d always loved the way her father beheld her, that delight. For years she’d imagined a similar expression on her husband’s face. His features shifted depending on her circumstances and feelings, except for the light in his eyes, the smile with joy that would gladly pay whatever cost was required of it.

Morning arrives and she is still staring at the ceiling, trying to puzzle everything through.

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Elain’s arrival at the Spring Court is more uneventful than even she anticipated. Tamlin greets her and Rhys and Mor in a smooth and practiced way that leaves his rage only an assumption, even when Rhys makes veiled threats during his goodbyes, promising to return whenever she’d like for a visit to the Night Court. When he’s gone and Tamlin has left her to the company of the newly hired servants, while Mor winnows to the continent for the last of the tulips, Elain makes her way to the newly renovated room that will house her at this estate.

The room is perfect, in shades of pink and white, the white warm and bright, and the pink-upholstered sitting area almost mauve. On every flat surface, there are flowers, their scents carefully considered so that the room is fragranced but not oversaturated, and the outside wall is nearly all window, with a view of the woods, the growing hedge of tulips which is even more gorgeous than the last time she’d seen it, two days ago. The curtains are gauzy pink, thin enough that she’ll always be able to wake up to this view, the blossoms and the gentle fluttering of leaves in the breeze.

She had explained her favorite colors to Laella, hoping the dryad wouldn’t think she sounded like a little girl, and instead she walked into the most beautiful space she’s ever been able to claim. Tamlin told her that a maid would arrange her things, but Elain hangs her dresses and stores her jewelry in the cunning little box that keeps each chain and thread from tangling, arranges her perfumes on the vanity until there’s a knock at her door and the maid enters, not looking Elain in the eyes as she walks over to the trunks and boxes. She’s half Elain’s height and her skin is pink and her hair is alabaster, so that for a second Elain wondered what lengths Laella took, to make this room so perfect.

“I am sorry to be late, Lady,” the maid says, her voice a buzzing hum, the sound of bees drowsy on nectar, an accent Elain adores immediately.

“Nonsense,” she says, reaching out to squeeze the maid’s hand, gentle and watching in case the faerie flinches away. She never forgets her training. “And please call me Elain.”

“The High Lord said--”

Elain waves her hand, trying for imperious, in command, the kind of person Tamlin would trust with his military stratagems and political intrigue. “Leave the High Lord to me. You can call me whatever you’d like in front of other people, but I’m just Elain.”

“There are whispers about you, Lady. The winds say that the Cauldron granted you great powers.”

Elain would say that unreliable bits of the future don’t seem like such a remarkable gift, but she’s not sure whether the deprecation would help or hurt her cause.

“What is your name?” she asks instead, shifting her tone so it’s gentle as the petal of a rose.

“I’m Melis, Lady.” The faerie’s hands have not strayed from Elain’s clothes, arranging them on the hangers so that the pleats and ruffles fall just so, and there’s a longing in her eyes that reminds Elain of the way she’d look at roses in those years when she was poor and they would not grow in her pitiful garden by the cottage.

“Would you like one of my dresses?” Elain asks, after Melis has hung the golden gown she never feels quite ready to wear but loves to admire among the other dresses, a ray of sunlight in her wardrobe.

“Lady, the offer is generous, but I do not know where I would wear such a fine gown.”

“There are no celebrations in the village?”

“Nothing that requires a gown so… elaborate. And the High Lord allowed me to design the servants’ liveries.”

For the first time, Elain looks at the maid’s dress, the green-gray muslin gown which is moulded perfectly to Melis’ shoulders and torso, the skirts light enough to allow an easy movement but sufficient to sweep aside for a dramatic moment. The color makes Melis even rosier, her sparkling white hair striking. Even the white fichu at the neckline is soft and light and lovely. She thinks of the elegance of the new footmen, the muted green of their tunics. No doubt Melis had designed their garments. Elain feels slow, not to have caught these details right away.

“You have quite an eye for clothing.”

“I learned from my mother. She was employed by the High Lord, for the ladies of his court, before Amarantha. I grew up learning the possibilities of fabrics.” Another darting look at Elain. She’s sure that Melis is thinking of Feyre.

“I don’t want to give you more work, but I’m sure that most of my gowns could use some adjustments.”

Melis smiles, her teeth flashing white and pointed. “I would love that, Lady, though I doubt your dresses will need much improving.”

Elain shrugs and smiles while she reaches for a simple muslin gown, a dusty pink from which Nuala and Cerridwen have removed a hundred garden stains. As Melis helps her with the buttons, Elain jams a broad-brimmed hat on her head, her pointed ears squashing against the braided straw.

“If anyone asks, I’m in the garden,” she says as she heads toward the door, Lucien’s gloves in her pocket. The thought of seeing him today is warm in her stomach, and she can’t tell if the feeling is anticipation or anxiety. She’s my mate, he’d said, and though she’d barely been able to understand in those moments of terror and confusion, the first of her new life, the words have clung to her, defining too many aspects of her existence. She knows she would feel differently if she’d wanted him, if she’d felt the curl of affection and desire that Azriel roused from her as she awakened into her new life, the first beacon she’d been able to glimpse. Even what she felt for Greysen was stronger. Even knowing what she knows now, how he would reject her new self.

Whenever she sees Lucien, there’s a great whirling inside Elain: all of her wants to want him, and that swarm of hoped-for desire swirls around itself, centered on nothing. She’s encountered this feeling before, as a young debutante, but she always knew that at the next ball, another gentleman might catch her eye, that her father or else Nesta would save her from anyone particularly daunting. Now her father is dead and mates are a certainty and tonight, Elain will be face-to-face with Lucien again, practically alone with him in Tamlin’s estate.

She’s halfway across the grounds before she launches herself against a broad chest. Her hat lands in a lilac bush with a bristly sigh, and Elain knows she’s too slow to realize the sheathed knife that’s pressed against her nose, the dagger that would cut her cheek except for the leather around it.

When she finally meets them, Tamlin’s eyes are not as annoyed as she anticipated.

“Someone told me these gardens would be so beautiful that my guests would be compelled to linger,” he says, his fingers ghosting her shoulders as she rights herself. “I had assumed this meant they would be preoccupied by the flowers, not their own thoughts.”

He stands there for a moment, hands dangling at his sides, as if he’s waiting for her to laugh, but Elain’s not sure if he’s made a joke, and anyway nothing he said is particularly funny. Why she would use the Crown to compel him, Elain has no idea. Still, guided by both her mother’s training and Mor’s rudimentary instructions on spycraft, she schools her lips into a gentle smile, and averts her eyes. Let him think she’s shy, awed by the presence of the High Lord of Spring.

“Is everything to your liking?” he asks, finally. His thumb strokes the jeweled hilt of the dagger strapped to his chest. “I know the builders are still filling the place with noise, but, for example, your room...”

“My room is lovely,” she says before he can fumble for another phrase. Their previous conversation, their first time alone together, had been almost too easy, too revealing, and she wonders if he’s remembering it now, is determined not to revisit that swarm of truths. She herself feels too exposed already, even if she’s checked to determine that her mental shields are still in place. “It makes me feel as if I’m in the center of a flower.”

His smile is barely a quirk of his lips and Elain remembers all the stories she’s heard about him, particularly rumors that he’s spent the past two years as a beast, and she wonders if all that time in his other form has made certain expressions difficult. If conversation is difficult, and now that Rhys isn’t present, Tamlin has allowed a bit of that discomfort to show.

A generous bumblebee examines the crown of her hat, which is still perched in the branches of the lilacs.

“There was a story I heard when I was a little girl,” she says, almost without thought, only wanting to put them both at ease, “about a girl who was only the size of a human thumb. She lived inside the flowers and her friends were butterflies and birds and squirrels. The pages fell out of the book right where the story was written, from all the times my governess read me the tale.”

“You have always wanted to be smaller?”

Elain blushes at the question and she’s not sure why. Maybe because of the truth nestled inside the words.

“Maybe,” she says, not wanting the awkwardness between them to expand further. She wants pleasant conversation, light and meaningless. He will never trust her if her emotions are ragged, if she demands too much from him all at once. “But I have always loved the feeling inside a garden, the idea of beauty and nature all in perfect harmony. There are so many dark and dreadful corners of the world. A garden is never one of them.”

“I’m afraid I don’t agree with your assessment. That beauty could banish evil seems a tall order.”

“Now you will speak to me of sacrifice and war.” She’s slipping into the tone she found so easily at their last meeting, a veneer of confidence that makes her sound unbreakable, which perhaps glosses over her more unsavory truths. “But will you tell me, what happens when the war is over, when the time for sacrifices has ended?”

“I have rarely known such a time.” He looks so grave and certain and miserable that Elain knows she should make her way to the tulip fields, and at the same time, that she will needle him a little longer, until the expression is gone from his face. Her one little act of well-intentioned mischief.

“Then what keeps you fighting when all hope and certainty of your own goodness has left you?”

“In those moments I don’t allow myself to think. And you are thinking that I am some tragic hero, Elain Archeron, but you have never been in battle. Thinking is dangerous. It is easiest to empty the mind and unleash your body on its enemies.”

She is wide-eyed for a moment too long.

“I have offended you,” he says, “but I am only telling the truth.”

“I am only thinking, how sad it is, to be forced to sacrifice so endlessly.”

“One begins to think of any spark of joy as an earned reward.” His face is grave. He is thinking, she knows, of Feyre, the words the barest suggestion of an apology.

“Thank the Mother, then, for your gardens,” she says, and plucks her hat from the lilac. “I will see you at dinner?”

“Lucien and Vassa will arrive shortly after sundown. I imagine you would like to greet them, and then we will all dine.”

She nods and allows her skirts to swirl as she makes her way further into the garden, letting the blooms fill her vision until she’s only thinking of the proper arrangements, the groupings of plants that would make any being happy, and calm, and nearly overtaken by gratefulness that such simple beauty, such sweet fragrance, could exist.

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Elain is sweetly tired when she makes her way into the great hall of the Spring Court. She’d spent the day amidst the tulips, supervising the arrangements of color that she wants to look disordered but still correct, no corner dominated by red or violet blooms but rather as if a meadow’s riot of color had been transfigured into a mass of tulips.

Tamlin waits at the foot of the staircase, and when she’s halfway down and he looks up at her, Elain is glad she wore the deep blue dress which makes her skin glow like a pearl and her bearing a little more regal than usual. She feels, just for a moment, like the rightful emissary of the Night Court, not the High Lady’s sister who lied her way into someplace she’d never been.

Right as she’s made it to the bottom of the staircase, the servants sweep open the large wooden doors, and Lucien and Vassa appear, both of them gleaming bronze despite the lack of sunlight. As the pair of them approach, Elain dips into a deep curtsey that befits Vassa’s rank, a gesture she’d learned as a girl and always assumed would be useless.

Out of the corner of her vision, she watches the queen’s cheeks go pink. For a moment, Elain thinks that this is strange, that the proper greeting would be so discomfiting, and then she wonders if all the time that Vassa has spent as a firebird has caused her to startle at human gestures. Then Vassa and Lucien walk nearer, and Elain knows the true reason.

She can smell Lucien on Vassa’s skin. And she can smell the scent of the queen, amber and lemon, and Lucien. She has been High Fae long enough to know how these scents are intermingled, how difficult it is to wash off the scent of another after a while, how Feyre and Nesta will always carry the scent of their mates.

She’s my mate, Lucien had said, and those three words had changed her life, circumscribed it. Her mind fills with images, not of him, but of Azriel, about to kiss her, of Rhys looming at the top of the stairs. Her love and longing now a matter of politics between courts.

Now her mate has fallen into bed with another woman.

Elain knows that silence is the proper way to bear this indignation. She can envision, already, the proper smile that should appear on her lips: sad and a little knowing, but mostly hopeful. She tries to find the expression, but when she looks at Lucien, she sees in the furrow between his eyebrow and the gleam in his eye, equal parts guilt and badly concealed happiness, that he knows exactly what she’s realized, and that perfect little smile of the good mate scorned dies on her lips. Inside her there is such a writhing confusion, a rage that she knows will explode from her the moment her lips part.

She turns away from the group and runs away as fast as her silk slippers will allow, not caring that she’s making a scene, that she looks like a scared little child. All she wants is the cool night air on her skin, the proximity of her flowers, the knowledge that nobody is looking at her. She pushes through door after door, stumbling over the tools the builders have left for tomorrow’s work and nearly tripping over loose tiles, but finally she is in the garden.

The moonlight silvers the leaves and the air is fragrant with lilacs. Instead of pushing her thoughts away, Elain feels the writhing inside her grow stronger, as if a monster has taken residence inside her body, turning all her thoughts into a whirl of angry colors, jagged reds and black shards shot through with bright exploding lights.

All those years she believed that beauty and sweetness and delicacy would save her, and maybe they would have if she’d stayed a human woman in the thick-walled manor which had so nearly been hers. Instead she has been discarded, over and over and over. She cannot stop imagining their eyes as they look at her, the pity and scorn and guilt and the joy of finding someone who is not Elain Archeron.

She cannot wield a sword or summon flame, so instead Elain’s hands are frantic, tugging first the petals of the lilac and then her own hair, hard enough to bring tears to her eyes, and then she’s sobbing so hard she’s nearly screaming, so that when there’s a hand on her back, she does scream, the sound shrill and rough in her throat, and when she turns toward the intruder, before she can determine who has touched her, she doesn’t mind the realization that she might die right here in the Spring Court gardens.

Instead she sees Lucien, and there is such regret on his face, etching lines around his eyes and mouth. Elain has been taught kindness until it’s second nature. Before he can say anything, apologize or explain, she reaches toward him.

Except that where her hands should be, there is only empty air.

#acotar #acotar fanfiction #elain archeron #elain is my queen #elain x tamlin #tamlin #tamlin redemption arc #tamlin x elain #lucien vanserra #queen vassa #vucien #vucien is goals #inner circle #nessian #feysand #post acosf #acosf spoilers #gwynriel

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misericorsalvator · 3 years

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[“Bad time you chose to be stubborn, lion cub.”, Cailan chuckled, his tired smile persistent even as he covered his mouth for a coughing fit. Predictably, his hand came away bloody.

“Stop talking. Save your strength to walk. We’re almost there.”, Henry all but ordered. The younger hunter pointedly ignored the blood, just as he pretended to ignore the glaring bite marks on his friend’s neck. To his surprise, Cailan obeyed, falling silent and using whatever remaining strength he had to push forward, holding onto Henry for support and tightly clutching the bound gash on his side. …Neither hunter wanted to admit that it wasn’t bleeding as much as it should be, or what that meant. By the time they had walked half the way, the night chill had begun to give way to the early morning dew, and they could no longer see the cave entrance behind them, nor the cold, lifeless body of Steffan, laying amongst piles of ash.

It had been a botch operation; impulsive, born from a place of defiance when the two young hunters had decided to sneak out and follow the leeches that had taken their mentor, ignoring the Holy Father’s warnings. It wasn’t too late. It couldn’t be.

But they were ill-prepared, and though they cut through the first few blood suckers easily, they were soon overwhelmed. In the end, Henry just barely made it through. Steffan…had not been that lucky. But they had found Cailan. That’s all that mattered. That one time, the Holy Father was wrong; it hadn’t been too late, it couldn’t have been.

“…I’m getting hungry, lion cub.”

“Heh, aye, well, when we’re back you can gorge yourself. Don’t think even Brother Thomas can complain if-“

“That’s not what I mean.”

A chill crawled up Henry’s spine, and his step faltered. No…he knew exactly what Cailan meant. But they were too close to stop now; less than half an hour to go and they would be home. So, he steeled his nerves, and walked on, pulling Cailan along more forcefully, urging the both of them to go faster.

“Let’s stop and rest a moment; when was the last time you saw a sunrise for here?”

“Stop messing around, Cailan, we can rest when-“

“It’s too late, Henry.”

Calian stopped walking. And try though he did, Henry couldn’t drag him further. Not without the risk of hurting him more, and that would do more harm than good… In the distance, the first rays of sunlight were starting to shily slip over the horizon .

“It’s not. The Holy Father, he’ll know what to do. He can fix you!”

Cailan merely shook his head. Another coughing fit sent him to his knees, and this time he didn’t bother with covering the blood he spat out. In a grim display, the once-great hunter keeled over, wrapping his arms around himself and shutting his eyes, his whole body shivering as he fought back the gnawing hunger that tore at him from within.

“CAILAN!”

In an instant, Henry was kneeling next to him and, in a moment of panicked impulse, he took off his coat and rolled up the sleeves of his shirt, bringing his wrist to Cailan’s lips, encrusted with the dried blood he had already been forced to drink by his captors.

“Drink.”

“Not doing that to you, lion cub.”

“God damn you, Cailan, stop whining and bite down already-”

“Henry, that’s enough.”

With rage and frustration boiling within him, Henry grabbed his dagger, ready to bring the damn thing down onto his arm and cut in- but Cailan stopped him, holding his wrist in a tight grip until the dagger fell from Henry’s hand and hit the ground.

“Why?”, Henry’s voice broke, “Why won’t you let me save you?” The young hunter glared at his mentor. But there was no real heat behind it as his resolve crumbled, and teh frustration gave way to helplessness. Again, Cailan merely smiled, and when he tried to speak the only thing that came out was yet another coughing fit that shook his whole body. After, he relaxed, falling limp against the younger hunter with a shuddered sigh.

“I’m so-”, another cough slipped out, cutting him off, but stubbornly, he spoke again, forcing the raspy words out through his dry throat.

“I’m so proud of you, lion cub... You’ll be a great man one day. Far from here, from this God-forsaken place.”

“Heh. Going delirious on me now?”, Henry managed, mirroring Cailan’s smile even through the tears that rolled down his face.

“I dreamt it. After that bastard forced his vile blood down my throat, I saw a vision; you, walking next to towers of stone whose lights pierce the sky, swarmed by crowds of people who’ve never known this pain. You’ll be free, lion cub. You’ll… be…”

The older hunter trailed off, no longer strong enough to speak while also wrestling the beast which had started to grow within him, trying to tear its way to the surface and feed. This was the end; he had known the moment those wretches got their hands on him, long before they had even reached the cave. But…at least he wasn’t alone, and that gave him some comfort when he shut his eyes.

In the end, all Henry could do was hold Cailan close as the sun rose higher and higher, filling the cold fields with its warmth, until he was holding nought but ash…

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“Come on, boy, we’re almost there.”

“Boof!”

“What-? Sun’s almost out! Haven’t you walked enough for the day?”

“Boof...”

“Pfst- Christ, you cunning…Alright, alright; you win, Cailan. We’ll rest a moment and watch the sunrise.”]

#{drabble}#{warning: long read}#{Greetings greetings! I've been swamped with hw this week so I offer you this lil thing I wrote today :)#Hope you're all doing well; take care and have a great day!}

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whisperthatruns · 3 years

Text

Carrion Comfort

Not, I'll not, carrion comfort, Despair, not feast on thee; Not untwist — slack they may be — these last strands of man In me ór, most weary, cry I can no more. I can; Can something, hope, wish day come, not choose not to be. But ah, but O thou terrible, why wouldst thou rude on me Thy wring-world right foot rock? lay a lionlimb against me? scan With darksome devouring eyes my bruisèd bones? and fan, O in turns of tempest, me heaped there; me frantic to avoid thee and flee? Why? That my chaff might fly; my grain lie, sheer and clear. Nay in all that toil, that coil, since (seems) I kissed the rod, Hand rather, my heart lo! lapped strength, stole joy, would laugh, chéer. Cheer whom though? the hero whose heaven-handling flung me, fóot tród Me? or me that fought him? O which one? is it each one? That night, that year Of now done darkness I wretch lay wrestling with (my God!) my God.

Gerard Manley Hopkins (1844–1889)

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aeide-thea · 4 years

Text

Carrion Comfort by Gerard Manley Hopkins

#this is in many ways actually quite a simple poem‚ in terms of the sense of it‚ despite all the grammatical contortion #and i'm not sure the sonic play actually serves it?#but the movement from 'not' to 'god' that hinges on that question of 'why?' which is also an answer—#and the chiastic entwinement of the divine 'hero' and 'me' that becomes an equation—#'o which one? is it each one?'#and that last astonished acceptance of '(my god!) my god.'#those really are good moves.#plus of course the lionlimb.#good stuff‚ gerard.#poetry #gerard manley hopkins

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kingofentropy · 4 years

Photo

“I own you,” she whispers in the key of manipulation, the dulcet tones of a hypnotizing serpent. The syllables drip like syrup from the cuff of your ear and her magick sinks deep and deeper down into the hollows of your bones. The meat on you could feed a savage village, but you let no one feast but her.

She is exquisite and black, her scales the facets of a rare obsidian stone — a deathly stone that holds captive the hearts of young, stupid dead men like yourself. In the midst of her spellcasting, you must remind yourself that, were it your intention, your hands could lay waste to her, tear the portcullis from her bastion wall and hold her body to the sodden earth. You could strangle the life from her, the widowed Kingdom, watch the white parasites wriggle free from the corners of dry lips and wall-eyes. You, the exorcist, come to loose Her legion of demons.

In some other world, you are the barbarian king and you wield a merciless hammer. You are a giant bound in the sanctimonious hide of a slain buck, and your hair is uncut and unkempt. She pushes back locks of wild mane from your eyes and makes you promise never to cut it. She tells you your hair is your power. You laugh, but her almond eyes narrow.

No, nothing can hold you down, no, not unless you let it.

Yet she whispers, “you are my lion,” and you beseech it all.

When she touches you, your skin is not the biting granite you know. You aren’t saturated with the musk of Overland’s wretched womb, but something ancient from the thicket. With the pluck of a taut string, the pinch of cured hide, the sick buzz of neon disappears and the grit of your d a m n e d world dissolves.

She enters your veins, and you find that your guard walls were always unmanned. Overhead, there is unbroken sky, and underneath, the earth swells and moans.

This venom is your home.

This venom is your god.

Slow pulses.

You feel the warm lap of a vast ocean at your back, and the sensation of sinking further and further away. Distant points of light give in to blindness, and quiet pangs of your abandoned world all but echo in a fathomless deep. Your body meets the undisturbed sediment at the bottom of the well, and it exhales in slow elation. You were only ever a stone hitting the lowest point of the creek-bed, only ever settling, settling, settling.

Stillness.

Formlessness.

All is without origin, without purpose. You float in the ocean of space, untethered, unbound, free. There is no pain at the bottom of the well. There is no ecstacy. Only unbendable evenness.

You are light years away when the door falls open, like the yawning maw of God. There stands a silhouette lingering in the expanse, inarticulate, meaningless.

A black tower.

“Are you fucking kidding me, Amos?” The voice sounds foreign, demented, strange, but nothing is as offensive as the hands that pull you up from the depths of warm water, that birth you mercilessly into the cold.

“She was here,” you try to reason, searching unfamiliar realms for her face. “I saw her.”

“You’ve got to cut this shit out, man,” the goon pleads of its master, wrestling the giant onto its feet. “Stella’s been dead for years, and shootin’ yourself up with this shit ain’t gonna bring her back.”

He’s right. She was never here.

And you break his teeth for it.

#drabble #flashbacks #tw needles implication #tw drug use #tw drugs #tw violence #tw grief

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libidomechanica · 4 years

Text

Gave loved, as welcome thrice more Ill vaunt

So, eithers train of her soul designed, and now we see in a royall throne in verse, without a strain, (an early, rich, can makes me then sweater with blinding sight that gray-beard wretch! White which in me the water for yoghurt partly because of your list, put thee shall the halls, a broken your breath to lift him up there! It doesnt have a tip to spin on, it isnt them to know. Perverse, with the newell,

that the west by the loving, nay of conscious of thine that closd me like you. The sonne. As by these Angels used to wrestle with me so weary… full of flowers. — The foot less for feare of Futurism and, all subdued and came so nigh. To flie, just a thick the keen teeth from the cashier already knows what you and I, the Gods still can be, and we should ever cheerfuller? lest he should not seen in either

running Man of Dreams; his legs twayne, I am striving at an end, the customer: “lo, this one delight laid pausefully I score:– he seemed too” by yourself, for the fire-balls of body it has been clear to my own. Shall worms, inheritaunce: all will say, we loved grew hush; the string or affright Hath conquerd the loud revelry and think we may guess by the last wave by, crying. angels, but he nould answerèd: Mind; of a thief. “tell me, and

trouble my silence mor)e so strange; for when they shall bound: curl up individually lay Sharp spear, went to this,” for thou love within. in such as this mighty poets first made wise; ylike as other was left behind Slanted steps walkd in austere;’“twas Cupid fixd his wayes he surround her abide to keepe no merrier bene, at moments when with them away! thee, only worth, and honey breathing air.”

#poetry #automatically generated text #Patrick Mooney #Markov chains #Markov chain length: 7 #150 texts

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empressofherownimaginaryplanet · 4 years

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Dear Christians, one and all, rejoice, With exultation springing, And, with united heart and voice And holy rapture singing, Proclaim the wonders God has done, How his right arm the vict'ry won. How dearly it has cost him!

Fast bound in Satan's chains I lay; Death brooded darkly o'er me. Sin was my torment night and day; In sin my mother bore me. Yet deep and deeper still I fell; Life had become a living hell, So firmly sin possessed me.

My own good works availed me naught, No merit they attaining; My will against God's judgment fought, No hope for me remaining. My fears increased till sheer despair Left naught but death to be my share And hell to be my sentence.

But God beheld my wretched state Before the world's foundation, And, mindful of his mercies great, He planned my soul's salvation. A Father's heart he turned to me, Sought my redemption fervently; He gave his dearest treasure.

He spoke to his beloved Son: "'Tis time to have compassion. Then go, bright Jewel of my crown, And bring mankind salvation. From sin and sorrow set them free; Slay bitter death for them that they May live with you forever."

The Son obeyed his Father's will, Was born of virgin mother, And, God's good pleasure to fulfill, He came to be my brother. No garb of pomp or pow'r he wore; A servant's form like mine he bore To lead the devil captive.

To me he spoke, "Hold fast to me-- I am your rock and castle. Your ransom I myself will be; For you I strive and wrestle. For I am yours, your friend divine, And evermore you shall be mine; The foe shall not divide us.

"The foe shall shed my precious blood, Me of my life bereaving. All this I suffer for your good; Be steadfast and believing. Life shall from death the vict'ry win; My innocence shall bear your sin, And you are blest forever.

"Now to my Father I depart, The Holy Spirit sending And, heav'nly wisdom to impart, My help to you extending. He will a source of comfort be, Teach you to know and follow me, And in all truth will guide you.

"What I on earth have lived and taught Be all your life and teaching; So shall my kingdom's work be wrought And honored in your preaching. Take care that no one's man-made laws Should e'er destroy the gospel's cause. This final word I leave you."

#dear Christians one and all rejoice #hymns #justification #redemption #Jesus Christ #salvation #cw 377 #martin luther #richard massie #nun freut euch lieben christen #one of my faves #favorite hymns #God #Christianity #Lutheranism

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stainedglasswords · 4 years

Text

Carrion Comfort

Not, I'll not, carrion comfort, Despair, not feast on thee; Not untwist — slack they may be — these last strands of man In me or, most weary, cry I can no more. I can; Can something, hope, wish day come, not choose not to be. But ah, but O thou terrible, why wouldst thou rude on me Thy wring-world right foot rock? lay a lionlimb against me? scan With darksome devouring eyes my bruisèd bones? and fan, O in turns of tempest, me heaped there; me frantic to avoid thee and flee? Why? That my chaff might fly; my grain lie, sheer and clear. Nay in all that toil, that coil, since (seems) I kissed the rod, Hand rather, my heart lo! lapped strength, stole joy, would laugh, cheer. Cheer whom though? the hero whose heaven-handling flung me, foot trod Me? or me that fought him? O which one? is it each one? That night, that year Of now done darkness I wretch lay wrestling with (my God!) my God.

Gerard Manley Hopkins

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no-birdstofly · 5 years

Note

lol i was about to prompt you vietreau “Do you…well…I mean…I could give you a massage?” but apparently two other souls had the same beautiful thought. So how about a very different mood: vietreau 32. “I think I’m in love with you and I’m terrified.” :)

an extremely loose interpretation of the prompt that...... ended up brot3. sorry! set in the same universe as this zombie au. They’re driving through the Mojave when they get a flat, because of course they are. Tommy’s already kicking the dead tire by the time Lovett and Jon climb out of the car, both of them drowsy from the heretofore steady lull of the drive. At least the dust storm has worn down.

Jon lifts up his sunglasses to roll his eyes toward Lovett. He opens the trunk, getting out the jack and a tire iron, before Lovett comes over to help him wrestle the spare out. “I, uh, don’t know how to do this,” he says, looking sideways at Lovett. “I have no idea.”

“Step aside, manliest of men, I’ve got this,” Lovett says, pushing the jack under the chassis.

“C’mon,” Tommy says, “we’re on lookout.” He pushes a handgun into Jon’s hands, and Lovett sees the almost-imperceptible stiffening of Jon’s shoulders. It must show even worse on his face because Tommy grips his shoulder reassuringly and meets Lovett’s eyes behind his back with a grim look.

Jon hates carrying a gun, hates carrying any weapon, as far as Lovett can tell. He might’ve guessed Jon was somewhat of a pacifist, before, but weren’t they all… before? Jon can’t seem to convince themselves that the zombies aren’t people any more, that they can’t be saved. He sees the humanity in all of them, no matter how decayed and rotted they are. He still hasn’t killed one, working more as back-up to Lovett and Tommy, and thank god that hasn’t gotten one of them killed yet. It’s the reason why he has a long, twisting scar now, though. Why he had to spend a week in a repurposed old miltary hospital while Lovett and Tommy made themselves sick with worry, even after Jon woke up. Jon had run from the zombie, distracting it from Lovett, and, refusing to shoot it, he’d slipped in gore and gotten himself nearly cut in half on the remains of a burned-out car. Tommy had blown the head off the thing before it could finish the job, but Jon was already on his way to bleeding out. Lovett had thought, hoped, after all that, that Jon would be more willing to -- to do what needs to be done. Lovett’s not a violent person either, but maybe years of horror video games and movies make it easier for him to see them as what they are: undead creatures that you have to kill before they kill you.

Tommy sketches out a perimeter, even though they can see far out into the desert from here, and they lazily patrol it, keeping an eye on the dust cloud off in the distance. Lovett tries not to worry about that, or wonder what Tommy says that makes Jon throw his head back and laugh, the sound carrying over the dry earth. He has to focus on fixing this so they can get the hell out of here. They’re sitting ducks, trapped out here as night rapidly falls. The dust is picking up again when Jon wanders over. “Need any help?” Lovett shakes his head. “Tommy send you to check on me?” Jon grins sheepishly, which is as good as a yes. His sunglasses are tucked in the neck of his t-shirt, even though he's squinting against the dust and sand flying around. Must be getting too dark to see with them on, Lovett realizes. Why didn't Jon pack his polarized ones when the world ended?“You even check that thing?” Lovett asks, tilting his chin toward the gun loose in Jon’s hand. Jon scowls. “Of course I did.” “Show me,” Lovett says, even though his attention is on the tire. “The way we taught you.” Because they had taught him, again and again, drilled it into him to check the magazine and the chamber, how to pull the slide back easier. He listens to Jon doing it, methodically, and looks up as he flicks the safety back on and tucks it into the waistband of his jeans. “Good,” he says, mostly to see Jon smile. His face is already getting dirty with dust. “You should get one of the bandanas from my bag. Make Tommy put it on you for you,” Lovett says, because that’s one thing Jon hasn’t come close to mastering for some reason. Like he’s been summoned, Tommy walks closer to them, keeping half an eye on Jon as he rifles through Lovett’s bag in the trunk, and half an eye on the encroaching storm. He opens his mouth, but Lovett beats him to it.

“I know, I know we have to go. I’m almost there,” Lovett says, and Tommy nods and does a wide circle before coming closer to them again. Circling the wagons, Lovett thinks inanely, trying to force the lug nut tighter. Lovett watches out of the corner of his eye as Tommy takes the bandana from Jon’s hands and folds it in half, carefully using it to cover Jon’s nose and mouth and tying it behind his head, adjusting the line of it in the front afterward, over the bridge of Jon’s nose, his hands gentle on Jon’s face. Lovett swallows, waiting for them to break eye contact. It takes a long time, but finally Tommy turns away, walking back out ahead on the road, shotgun over one shoulder.

Lovett watches Jon watch him, his body one long, loose line, before he turns back to Lovett and grins. Lovett can’t see his mouth, but he can tell from the lines around his eyes. From the way Jon always smiles with his whole body. “Do I look like I could rob a bank?” “Sure,” Lovett says, “you’re a regular Bonnie Parker.” “Does that make you Clyde then?” Jon asks. Lovett looks over to where he can just see Tommy through the gathering dust clouds and back to Jon. Jon’s still watching him, eyes bright and curious over the navy of the handkerchief. Lovett shrugs. “Uh, guys?” Tommy calls back, and Lovett looks up to see Tommy racing back toward them. Jon fumbles to pull his gun out of his waistband. “There’s something coming. We good to get back on the road yet?” The dust and sand are swirling so thick now that turning on the headlights will only make visibility worse, so Lovett can’t see what Tommy saw, but he trusts him. “Just about, I need a few more minutes,” Lovett says. Tommy nods, face grim, and then he yells. He’s gone, when Lovett jerks upright, vanished into the dust. Jon’s staring after him, stock-still. “Jon,” Lovett says, low. “Go. You have to go.” Jon nods, but he doesn’t move. “Jon, for the love of--” Jon glances back at him, eyes wide and scared, and barrels into the dust cloud. Lovett grits his teeth against wanting to chase after them and focuses on the car. If he doesn’t fix the car, they’re dead on the ground anyway. He has to fix the car, so they have an escape. He has to fix the car, and not think about both of them getting murdered by zombies while he crouches here in relative safety. He hears the sound of a gunshot, small caliber, from Jon’s gun, not Tommy’s, and looks up to see the muzzle flare light up the dust. He can’t make out anything but shadows in the brief light. There’s another shot, then a third. He gets the last lug nut secured and stands, tire iron in hand. He wonders if he has time to get his machete when two forms lumber out of the dust. It’s Tommy, dragging Jon beside him. Neither of them look bloody or hurt, but he can tell Jon’s shaking from here. Tommy nods at him, and Lovett’s shoulders relax. Tommy shoves Jon into the passenger seat of the car before coming to help Lovett heft the useless tire into the trunk in the hopes it can be fixed with a patch when they get back to civilization. “Is he--?” Lovett asks, but then the car door flies open and Jon stumbles out, falling to his knees in the sand as he wretches. He’s only sick once, but he heaves for a long time, his whole body flinching when Tommy lays a hand on his back. Lovett hovers, holding one of their last water bottles. When Jon looks up at them, his face is chalky from dust above where the bandana had been tied, now dirty and crumpled around his neck, and there are streaks of clean skin under his eyes. From tear tracks, Lovett realizes, Jon’s eyes red and wet. “We need to go,” Tommy says, and Lovett helps him get Jon to his feet, pulling him back to the car. Jon’s still trembling, and it’s only then that Lovett realizes Tommy has both of their guns. Lovett sits in the middle of the backseat, so he can keep a wary eye on Jon, who’s crumpled against the passenger side door, hands tight around the water bottle. He’s staring off into the distance, breathing hard through his mouth. Tommy starts the car and pulls back on the road, swerving neatly around a dead zombie some fifty feet along. Jon recoils when he sees it, slamming his eyes shut. Tommy reaches over to lay a hand on his shoulder, gripping him hard, and Lovett trusts his instincts and reaches forward, too, resting his hand on the back of Jon’s neck. He can feel the sweat there, and the tensed muscles. “Jon,” Tommy says lowly, “you saved my life.” Jon hiccups in a breath. “I-- I killed him, I--” “You saved my life,” Tommy says again, bracingly, and he repeats it over and over until Jon nods, silently agreeing, until Tommy can put both hands back on the wheel. “I was. I was so scared,” Jon croaks out. “I’m scared all the fucking time, but I couldn’t. It couldn’t take you, Tom. It can’t have you.” He looks over his shoulder at Lovett. “Either of you,” he adds, firmly. He settles into Lovett’s hold, tipping his head back against the headrest, and Lovett lets himself rub his thumb soothingly up and down the side of Jon’s neck as he relaxes.

“Alyssa said we could stay awhile,” Lovett says softly, after Jon’s dropped off and when he can just make out the lights of Vegas on the horizon. Or, well. What lights are left, for the casinos that have been able to keep them on. The ones repurposed by enterprising survivors, like Alyssa.

"Yeah, she did,” Tommy agrees, looking at him in the rearview mirror for a second.

"She's putting us up in the penthouse. Can you imagine? All we had to do to live in the lap of luxury is survive the apocalypse.” Tommy rolls his eyes; Lovett can just see it in the mirror. “Don’t use the ‘A’ word.”

“It has two bedrooms,” Lovett soldiers on, “but maybe we just, uh. Maybe we just use one?” “One king bed?” Tommy jokes, and Lovett laughs. It feels good to laugh today, even if it wakes Jon up. “Oh,” Jon says, sitting up. Lovett lets his hand fall away, but Jon reaches back for him without looking. “We’re there?” “Just about, yeah,” Lovett says, unable to keep the smile off his face as Jon looks back and forth between them, his fingers laced with Lovett’s.“Did you ask him, Tommy?” “Ask me what?” Lovett interrupts, before Tommy can speak. “Alyssa said we can take one of the penthouses, so--” he breaks off when Lovett starts laughing. “Yeah,” Lovett says, sharing a sly grin with Tommy in the mirror. “Yeah, he asked me.” “You know we’re scared all the time, too, right?” Tommy says. “Try fucking terrifed,” Lovett adds. Jon ducks his head. “I know, it’s just--” “We know, Jon,” Lovett says, squeezing Jon’s hand in his. “Trust us.”

#fic #ask #thetimesinbetween #three #zombies

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