#in the camps themselves. where that’s a bit more grey because they were desperate to survive

[ink-the-artist]

That rabbit comic is brilliant because it can apply to more than just to terfs and misogyny:

During WW2 there were Jewish people of privileged status who sided with the Nazis, hoping to be spared only to be turned on. Same with homosexuals, communists and any who thought surely they would be spared if they cooperated. They met the same fate as all the others if not worse.

There have been many times in which PoC became class traitors who helped pass legislation hoping it wouldn't affect them only to be hurt by the changes as well.

The list goes on and on, in which instead of standing in solidarity, some would try to selfishly try to save themselves by throwing their brethren to the wolves only to perish along with the rest.

Sadly the cycle continues because by the time the wolves are done eating, there are few if any that survive to pass on the story.

Oh for sure, I’ve heard of the gay Nazis before they are probably one of the most extreme examples of this I can think of. I believe they justified themselves by referencing how the Greeks, who were their ideal aryan civilization or whatever, were famously gay. Didn’t work for too long they were eventually killed by the other Nazis

#I’ve heard of Nazis who were ethnically Jewish but hid it #otherwise the only other instances I can think of Jews siding with Nazis was #in the camps themselves. where that’s a bit more grey because they were desperate to survive #there’s prob other instances I don’t know of #oh also that one Nazi artist who was super loyal to the Nazi party #but his paintings were considered degenerate art and he was literally banned from buying art supplies and making art #and he continued being loyal despite this I think he might have gotten in more trouble later on

[eldritcmor]

more blurbs!

Storm hummed.

"Clarisse can you answer a question for me?"

Clarisse stiffened but nodded anyway.

"How many Greek demigods are in one generation?"

"About one thousand."

"And how many make it to camp?"

"Four hundred spread throughout a few years."

"How many make it past puberty?"

"One hundred."

"How many live long enough to have children?"

Clarisse snorts.

"If they're lucky. Maybe fifty."

"And why is that?"

Clarisse hummed a moment as if in thought.

"Because we are continuously hunted throughout our entire lives. Mind you, that's not factoring in the other things."

"Like?"

"Three is a sacred number for quests, cause anymore and someone is nearly guaranteed to die. Sometimes parents aren't always understanding of the fact that their children are different and well the baby drowned in the bathtub. Other times, we fight wars for the gods. Run errands for the gods. Or we simply notice the monsters too late. Mostly, we find out what we are and die running for a camp that may not be able to take us."

Storm continued to hammer away at the billet of hot metal on their anvil. Price looked on, a grim set to his jaw.

"Kid."

"Don't captain, just don't. If I wanted to throw my life away, I would walk out those doors and simply stop fighting."

--

Storm took a deep breath and lunged forward. They hadn't seen them yet and now was the time. They quickly scaled the wall nearest to them and slid out the busted window. Glancing back, they briefly made eye contact with what seemed to be the hit squad's captain. A man with some serious facial hair. Someone to watch out for then.

--

Storm desperately pressed their head into ghost's shoulder, breath coming in harsh pants. Their eyes were wide with panic. Their nails drew blood, as they dug into ghost's forearm. Ghost made a quiet noise of pain as he attempted to calm Storm down.

"Storm! Storm!" A quiet whimpered phrase reaches his ears. A continuous chant "trahere eum." Storm kept attempting to curl over their stomach.

--

Storm smiled, a sad bittersweet thing as they watched "they" stalk closer. They tasted blood on the back of their tongue and the iron pipe to the gut certainly wasn't helping. They cooed as "they" leered over them.

"Hello [REDACTED]. It's good to see you again." Storm spoke the forbidden name with a dying man's confidence. They reached up, swiping a thumb along "they"s jaw. Leaving a trail of crimson blood.

"They" no longer looked the part of a healthy human. The illusion that had been so carefully constructed by storm stripped into nothingness. Instead a corpse walked on tree branch limbs. Skin grey from decay and stained a bright red with Oklahoma clay. Their chest cavity was open to the wind, sternum split and guts missing, save for a lump of rotted black flesh that served as a heart.

Storm felt their heart slowing from blood loss, pain becoming a distant haze. Tears trickled down their cheeks in a slow stream.

"I'm sorry [REDACTED], I'm sorry I was such a lousy sibling. But at least now, two will leave instead of one."

The funeral was a quiet affair. Just taskforce 141, Laswell, and a few friends of storm.

--

Gaz hummed as he shuffled a few cards into the deck.

"Question. What exactly do we know about storm?"

Soap cocked his head to the side.

"What do you mean?"

"Like outside of their military career, what do we know about them?"

"Well they probably have family, right? I mean they're never on base when we go on leave."

Ghost rumbled.

"Depends on the leave. Anything longer than five days and they're off base. Shorter and they stick around."

"Oh right, LT you usually stick to base. What do they do?"

"They train and cook mostly."

"Train? Like in the gym? I thought they mostly used the trails around base to train."

"Don't remind me, training with them is brutal. I still don't know where they got a cow that fuckin angry."

"They stick to the gym a little bit. Mostly using the sparring mats."

Soap snorts.

"To what? Roll around by themselves?"

"No, they use them for sword drills."

"Sword drills? Where the fuck did they get a sword?"

"Never asked."

"So you didn't question why they have a sword?"

"Nope. They usually go till they drop though."

"Drop?"

"Till they can't hold the sword up anymore. Sometimes past that."

"Isn't that dangerous?"

"They don't complain about it, even if we have a mission the next day."

"Oh, what do they cook? Cause you said they train and cook?"

"Johnny, who do you think makes those baked apples you like so much?"

"Seriously?"

"Yeah. They cook a variety mostly and there's always extra portions."

--

Storm stared down at the tiny pair of gossamer wings they had just coughed up. This couldn't be here. It couldn't have infected them again! And yet, they could feel it building under their skin. The pulsing rush of heat and power riding along their nerves. They had to leave. They had to leave now! Storm rushed out of the bathroom and to their room. Yanking on clothes and swiping an empty duffle from under their bed. Basic first aid kit, a couple of knives, a few changes of clothes, a canteen, and any non-perishable food they had on hand. All of it went into the bag. They threw the bag on their back and started walking. A glance at the clock in the common room said it was somewhere around 3:00am. Good, no one would see them go. Probably. They left their phone and wallet on their bunk. No need for them anymore, the power humming under their skin would probably fry them immediately anyways. They climbed into their car and got the fuck off base.

Storm pulled to a stop. The sun was peeking over the horizon now. Their watch said 6am. They had been driving for three hours straight. Taking a mix of back roads and country lanes. They had one goal in mind and one destination. Get the fuck away before the horrible power built too fast and exploded and the reserve lands for the well more human hungry side of things. They could feel the power writhing under their skin. Storm knew their control was slipping and slipping fast. They rested a hand on the hood of their car and released their hold on that burning power. The car crunched under their touch. The frame warped, twisted, and folded inward. The windows imploded under the force. The body crumpled with a horrible screech of metal. The car looked like something had twisted it till it had juiced like an orange. It was barely enough to take the edge off of the power building in Storm's body but it would do for now. Storm booked it into the thick forest around them immediately after. The power rebuilt with each step, until it was too much. Way too much, and the world exploded in a blinding flash of searing lightning. Storm screamed.

--

Price was staring down at his phone. Soap peeked over the captains shoulder to see what was holding his attention for so long.

It was a video. A video of storm in a faded orange T-shirt and jeans pinning someone to the dirt as they fought like animals. There was a big crowd around them, and even others fighting in the background.

A voice comes through the speaker.

"Hi, uh storm kinda just shoved the phone in my hands. I'm uh well just call me spoon. Anyway, yeah we just made into the reunion's grievance portion." The audio is briefly overtaken by someone screaming Storm's full name as they practically tackle them off of the other person. Storm switches to fighting them. "KICK THAT ARES KID ASS STORM! Anyway, yeah uhm I don't know what to say here. How do I stop recording anyway? STORM!"

Storm briefly looks up. "YEAH! WHAT IS IT?"

"HOW DO I STOP RECORDING?"

Storm hollers as they are pinned in the dirt. "RED BUTTON."

"Ah, okay. Red button...red button. There you are." The video cuts off.

Soap Snickers.

"Wait is that why they requested like two weeks of leave? For that?"

Price snorted. "Their reasoning was family reunion. And I guess yeah that checks out."

--

Fingers carded through storm's hair as they slowly come to. Their brain felt fuzzy and their awareness was narrowed down to the fingers scratching and tugging at their scalp. Their eyes felt heavy. Oh so heavy. They don't think they can open them fully right now. The fingers briefly pause before resuming their motions as they grunt in effort from cracking their eyes open.

"Easy Corporal, your safe. Your okay." Everything is fuzzy indistinct shape but that rumble is familiar. Ghost. Guess the team had made it in time after all. Storm relaxes back into sleep, reassured that their team came for them.

--

Storm grinned as they looked Philip Graves dead in the face with a very happy grin.

"You have a very punchable face."

Grave's just blinked in confusion.

"Excuse me?"

Storm just grinned.

"You have a punchable face."

Grave's chuckled nervously.

"What does that even mean?"

"It means I would start running." Soap laughed as he walked by, a cup of tea in hand.

--

Graves stared.

Storm stared.

Graves sighed and looked storm dead in the eyes.

"Okie?" He asked and already Price could see Graves tense.

Storm grinned, something sharp and feral.

"Tex." They stayed. "Good to see ya, man."

Graves sighed with relief. "Good to see ya too, okie. Why ya here?"

Storm hummed as they rocked back on their heels. "Laswell sent me, said somethin' bout a taskforce might be dealin' with what I handle. That and I didn't forget whatcha said bout my ma."

Graves tensed immediately, raising his hands in a surrender motion. "Now now, okie. That was a long time ago."

Storm snorted. "Sure it was. But unfortunately for you, I don't take kindly to shit like that so plain and simple, start runnin' Tex."

--

*141 is trapped in a building that is on lockdown and the lights have shut off completely*

"Have you eaten today?"

"No, why?"

"Damn. Here eat this granola bar."

"Oh. Oh sweet, it's the good granola."

*Storm Munching noises*

"Great, now hold still."

"Wha?"

*A loud slap echos throughout the space and a soft orangey glow eminates from one person.*

"Did you forget that your gift was dubbed glow stick?"

"Little bit yeah."

--

Storm is dead. STORM is dead. Storm IS dead. Storm is DEAD. Simon could feel the anger and panic rushing under his skin. STORM IS DEAD! Their blank eyes stared at him as he attempted to break his restraints. Unfortunately these weren't amateurs who had captured them. Wrists behind him and separated, ankles trapped against the legs, chest secured under several winds of rope, and Storm. Was. Dead. No longer would someone sharpen his combat knives to a razor's edge as they relaxed on their bunk. No longer would someone be on base with him when the rest of the team went on short periods of leave. No longer would food appear at his elbow when he was knee deep in paperwork because they didn't know how to Express themselves with words. No longer would someone intentionally seek him out when he was on the roof to smoke and chat about anything under the sun. Ghost flinched back as Storm's killer crossed into his line of sight. His teeth ached to bite of the fuckers throat. To make the bastard pay for putting a bullet in Storm's head. To pull Storm across his shoulder and make sure they at least still got a funeral.

#call of duty x reader #cod mw2 #john soap mactavish #simon ghost riley #141 x reader #kyle gaz garrick #taskforce 141 #captain john price #Eld writes

[wills-woodland-warriors]

Short story; Skinned Echos pt1: Foxtails

Characters: GremlinFrost/SkyKit and GoblinSnap/QuietKit

Warnings: graphic gore, blood, death, vaguely implied cannibalism if you squint?, skinning  

See bottom for more notes

SkyKit blinked, pawing at the small lump of fluff. The kit was so small, and with it’s fuzzy grey fur and pink nose making it look more like something out of the prey pile rather then a kitten.

“It’s not like I’m going to hurt it,” He snapped at his older sister, who glared down at him before stepping out of the den for a moment.

QuietKit pranced in beside him, a mouse hanging in his jaw by a split and mangled tail.

“Wanna fight for it?” QuietKit dropped the mouse at his paws, head tilted slightly to the side.

He shrugged, rising to his feet to pounce on QuietKit. The two kits rolled, kicking at eachothers exposed bellies and biting at their ears.

SkyKit twisted until he was on top of QuietKit, and wasted no time before he bit down on his ear, teeth sliding all the way through and ripping it.

He leapt off of QuietKit as he cried, and he jumped over to the plump mouse and sunk his claws into it. It squirmed before stilling, a pitiful squeak filling the nursery.

SkyKit swallowed, looking down at his paws. His claws sunk deep into the small kit’s chest, which was collapsed. He pulled his claws out in a panic, the skin hooked on them as he pulled and pulled until he was free.

MistHeart’s anguished cries were heard all night. The two kits were tossed against the walls, starved for the next few days. After all, why should they have the food that could have gone to little DewKit?

The two kits curled up together in the small stump they had been left to sleep in, just outside the warmth of camp.

The cold nipped at their fur and shivers racked their bodies all night. They pressed as close against each other as possible, desperate for some kind of warmth.

. . .

He pulled SkyKit away from the fighting, tugging on his ear until he was following.  

“Why are they always fighting?” SkyKit muttered bitterly, muffled by the small spiky twigs in his mouth.

“Because we’re too awesome for them,” QuietKit imitated one of the prissy apprentice’s voices, sending the two into hushed laughs as they snuck around to the elders den.

Weaving the rose stems in was easy, just as easy as bitter berries stuffed in prey or positioning a dead snake from the prey pile into the warriors den to scare them.

. . .

GoblinKit and GremlinKit stared up at the leader, pelts prickled with unease. They were six moons, they should be apprentices! Not having their name changed by a former Kittypet!

The next night the two were leaping over fallen branches, their pelts gleaming in the moonlight.

They could do whatever they wanted now.

. . .

Training themselves was difficult, and if the fighting sessions became more and more frequent, more brutal, then who would notice?

GoblinPaw found it interesting how the skin tore, how they could sniff eachother out and hide and hunt.

Hunting small, useless prey wasn’t enough for him. He wanted more, and so did GremlinPaw.

. . .

Tails tore from their bodies, ears mangled into stumps and skin hanging from split tissue became simultaneous to shadowy nights and glistening stars.

Mama would have said GremlinPaw would go to the dark forest for this. But if starclan was where mama was, then why not have some fun down in the shadows?

After all, the dark forest would be a lovely place to hunt.

. . .

“There’s nothing wrong with a little.. hunting, is there?“ GoblinSnap stepped close to the smaller cat, his muzzle inches away from GremlinFrost’s ear.

“You should go back to bed before you get hurt,” GremlinFrost laughed cooly, unsheathed claws coming to rest on GoblinSnap’s paw.

GoblinSnap grinned, retching his paw away from GremlinFrost’s claws. He stepped away, eyes narrowed at the way Gremlin’s eyes lit up at the sight of the blood.

“Now, now, there’s definitely something wrong with that. If you want to go hide amongst the moss feel free-“

GremlinFrost bit down on the back of his neck, the tom finally shutting up as he pushed him back against the log.

“Ten minutes. Good luck.” Gremlin dug his claws into his chest, releasing the scruff of his neck.

. . .

GoblinSnap dug his claws into the dirt as he ran, panting heavily as he tried to remember the path.

His eye hung limply on his cheek, pulled completely out of the socket and hanging by a thread of flesh.

He leapt through a tangle of blackberries, the thorns pulling at his shredded pelt. He heard GremlinFrost on his tail, slinking through the thorny branches after him.

GoblinSnap twisted on his paws at the sight of the silver wire, turning just in time to watch GremlinFrost slide right into the fox trap, the wire wrapping around his neck and legs, cutting and pulling at the flesh until he could see bone.

GremlinFrost yowled out in pain, scrambling blindly to free himself as it cut into his pelt.

GoblinSnap pressed his claws against GremlinFrost’s caught leg, scraping against the bone and pulling the skin off of it.

Once the leg was thoroughly skinned, he gleefully brushed the yellowing leaves away from the wire, following it until he could pull the wooden stake out of the ground.

GremlinFrost lay beneath his paws, chest heaving as GoblinSnap untangled him from the trap, sliding in beside the injured tom to support his weight.

. . .

QuietKit tossed the fox tail to the smaller kit, laughing as SkyKit flinched away from it.

. . .

The fox tail wrapped around GremlinFrost’s skinned leg, the dull, dusty orange fur stained crimson with his blood.

GoblinSnap pulled the knot tight, cutting off circulation just above GremlinFrost’s leg.

One last hunt. One last seek.

. . .

GremlinFrost staggered through the branches, desperately trying not to slide as the bark dug into his bleeding leg with every step, the limb filled with thorns and wrapped in the foxtail, so stained and soggy that it almost matched his fur.

He leapt onto another branch, listening to GoblinSnap taunt behind him, his meows carried away by the wind and leaving only the haunting echo.

GoblinSnap was cocky. Arrogant. Selfish.

GremlinFrost understood his disadvantages. He couldn’t move very fast, he left a blood trail, and he was in a tree.

Except the pine branches didn’t have to be a disadvantage, did they?

With bleeding gums, he pulled off a sharp branch and dragged it across his skinned leg.

He let out a wail of pain, and looked down through the branches to see GoblinSnap grinning wildly at him from the bottom branches as he climbed.

GoblinSnap’s head hung limply, the skin over his throat ripped out and hanging against his chest, staining the remainders of glistening milk-white fur red.

GremlinFrost forced himself into a crouch, the stick clutched in his jaws, he stepped over the edge and barrelled into GoblinSnap, cries of pain echoing through the forest as the branches snapped and they skidded in the dirt.

. . .

GoblinSnap and GremlinFrost were found washed up in the river. A mangled branch passed through their eye sockets, impaled in each of their heads.

Pale pink tissue leaked out of the skulls. GoblinSnap’s neck hung completely broken against his chest, the flesh ripped off of his neck and leaving the vertebrae along his spine exposed.

Pus clings to cracked paw pads and maggots wiggled and dug around in GremlinFrost’s leg, minnows sliding through the water as they ripped off small chunks of flesh.

. . .

The clan grieved for the loss of two clanmates that night. QuietKit and SkyKit’s bodies drifted down the river, eternally entwined.

Notes

I’d absolutely love to hear peoples interpretations and/or thoughts for these characters!

I’ll soon have their dark forest mini bios added onto @residents-of-the-darkforest , so I’ll link that when it’s posted.

I’ll also have some picrews and a picrew I’m drawing over to add the gore-y wounds

I was listening to “you can’t hide by CK9C” so I guess you could say that’s their theme song?

Word count: 1,266

#gremlinfrost #goblinsnap #warrior cats #warrior cats oc #pineclan #warrior cats original character #warrior cats fanclan #short story #tw gore #gore #dark forest resident #dark forest

[hxwks-gf]

» 𝖘𝖆𝖑𝖙 𝖆𝖓𝖉 𝖒𝖎𝖉𝖓𝖎𝖌𝖍𝖙

𝖑𝖊𝖛𝖎 𝖆𝖈𝖐𝖊𝖗𝖒𝖆𝖓 𝖝 𝖗𝖊𝖆𝖉𝖊𝖗

𝖘𝖚𝖒𝖒𝖆𝖗𝖞: 𝚢𝚘𝚞 𝚊𝚗𝚍 𝚕𝚎𝚟𝚒 𝚑𝚊𝚟𝚎 𝚋𝚎𝚎𝚗 𝚑𝚘𝚘𝚔𝚒𝚗𝚐 𝚞𝚙 𝚒𝚗 𝚜𝚎𝚌𝚛𝚎𝚝 𝚏𝚘𝚛 𝚊 𝚠𝚑𝚒𝚕𝚎 𝚗𝚘𝚠 𝚊𝚜 𝚊 𝚖𝚎𝚊𝚗𝚜 𝚘𝚏 𝚛𝚎𝚕𝚎𝚊𝚜𝚎 𝚏𝚛𝚘𝚖 𝚑𝚘𝚠 𝚜𝚑𝚒𝚝𝚝𝚢 𝚕𝚒𝚏𝚎 𝚒𝚜. 𝚋𝚞𝚝 𝚛𝚞𝚑 𝚛𝚘𝚑, 𝚢𝚘𝚞'𝚟𝚎 𝚌𝚊𝚞𝚐𝚑𝚝 𝚏𝚎𝚎𝚕𝚒𝚗𝚐𝚜...

𝖌𝖊𝖓𝖗𝖊: 𝚜𝚖𝚞𝚝, 𝚏𝚕𝚞𝚏𝚏

𝖜𝖆𝖗𝖓𝖎𝖓𝖌𝖘: 𝚜𝚖𝚞𝚝, 𝚜𝚎𝚖𝚒-𝚙𝚞𝚋𝚕𝚒𝚌 𝚜𝚎𝚡, 𝚜𝚎𝚌𝚛𝚎𝚝 𝚜𝚎𝚡, 𝚜𝚠𝚎𝚊𝚛𝚒𝚗𝚐

𝖆/𝖓: 𝚜𝚎𝚕𝚏 𝚒𝚗𝚍𝚞𝚕𝚐𝚎𝚗𝚌𝚎 𝚜𝚝𝚛𝚒𝚔𝚎𝚜 𝚊𝚐𝚊𝚒𝚗

The crescent moon that hung in the sky cast the darkened forest in hues of silvery shadow, silently watching over the feeble cluster of tents that were nestled in a small clearing within the trees. Her glow barely illuminated the scattered scouts that were awake and keeping watch, their fingers resting on the hilts of their swords while they listened to the wind. 

There had been no activity for hours. In the morning they would pack up the wagons and return to headquarters, all of their dead in tow. The journey back could’ve been possible during the night if they hadn’t taken such a heavy hit in the field, so they opted for settling in and waiting until the first morning light when they had enough energy to protect themselves. 

The fires were kept low as not to draw any unwanted attention to their makeshift camp, and from your perch up high in a tree, you silently listened to the sound of the sleeping squad snoring away in their tents. A few other scouts were strategically placed along the outskirts of the camp, also keeping watch alongside you. You lifted your face to the moon’s light and inhaled the cool, midnight breeze, smelling nothing threatening on it. 

The whirring sound of ODM gear caught your attention. Mikasa appeared on the thick branch beside you, kneeling in a crouch. 

“Your watch is up,” she said quietly, pushing her scarf down from her chin. “Get some rest.” 

You nodded and stood up, wincing at your sore muscles. She took your place and trained her eyes on the horizon, allowing you to silently launch yourself from the tree and land gracefully on the forest floor, along with the rest of the scouts who were retiring from the first watch. You made your way over to your sleeping horse to dig around in the saddlebags for something to eat. 

As you searched, your eyes briefly glanced up and made contact with your squad leader from across the clearing, the firelight dancing across his sharp features and those grey eyes that were watching you intently. Your hands stilled in your bag as you were scrutinized under his gaze. 

He jerked his head in the direction of the darkened trees behind him, away from prying eyes and nosy scouts. You swallowed nervously and averted your gaze, staring into the meager contents of your saddlebag instead. A strange feeling of giddiness bubbled in your stomach as you closed the flap and gave your sleeping horse an affectionate pat on the rump, keeping your footsteps quiet as you started towards the treeline to follow the silent order. 

“Psst,” a hushed voice came from your left. 

You came to a stop and glanced over, digging your fingernails into your palms. Armin was sticking his head out from his tent, his exhausted blue eyes doing their best to focus on you. 

“What?” you whispered back, knowing a certain someone wouldn’t wait around forever. 

“Are you coming back from watch?” he asked, rubbing his eyes. 

“Yes,” you replied, risking a nervous glance toward the trees. “Why?” 

“Just wondering,” he said through a yawn, and started to slink back into his tent. “Get some sleep, Y/N.” 

“I will,” you lied, and resumed your path towards the edge of the camp and slipped into the darkness. God, where had he disappeared to? You knew he wasn’t much for waiting around, but if he had left already-- 

Strong hands grabbed you by the waist and suddenly you were spinning around and falling against his muscled chest. Before you could say anything, Levi was crushing his lips to yours in desperation, as if he had been starved of you for months. Which was definitely not true. 

You pushed the thought away and kissed him back, your hands sliding up and wrapping around his neck, feeling the soft hair of his undercut beneath your fingers. God, you had missed this. His lips tasted of salt and smoke and midnight air, drowning every tired muscle of yours in warm, delicious shadow. His fingers were still gripping your waist as he pulled you down on top of him, his back leaning up against the thick trunk of the tree he had you hidden behind. 

“What took you so long?” he muttered against your mouth, his hands disappearing from your waist to fiddle with the buckles of your pants. 

“Sorry,” you said, taking his bottom lip in between your teeth and biting firmly. You heard his breath catch in his throat. “Armin saw me walking by.” 

Levi grunted and helped push your pants down and out of the way, the cool night air a tantalizing shock on your bared core. His fingertips trailed along your naked legs until they came to his own belt buckle, and now it was your turn to help him out of his uniform. It was only the pants with the two of you--you were always too impatient to worry about any other pieces of clothing. Just the ones that were in the way. 

As his pants were shimmied down his hips, you heard the sound of his length springing free and slapping against his navel. Your nostrils flared in desire. 

“Come here,” he growled, mindful to keep himself quiet as not to be discovered by the rest of the squad. Although, you were pretty sure they already knew Levi was fucking you on the regular. 

It was hard to see in the dark without the light of the fires, but you could feel him pumping his cock to ready himself for you. He guided your hips up and over to rest just above the glistening tip, a bead of silver precum swiping along your entrance. You hovered over it with a devilish grin, one you knew he couldn’t see, and marveled at the feeling of his dick twitching against you with anticipation. 

“Stop teasing, brat,” he said, breaking you out of your fun. 

“Always so eager,” you simpered, reaching down and grasping his shaft. With ease, you guided it into your already soaking entrance and immediately bit back the sinful moan that wanted to echo through the forest as his entire length slid painfully slow along your walls. “Fuck.” 

“Be quiet,” was all his reply. You could hear the struggle of keeping his own self quiet in the words, earning a satisfied sigh from you. As he bottomed out inside of you, he paused there, letting you adjust to his size, before slowly rocking his hips in tandem with yours. 

This wasn’t unusual, meeting him out in the open after a particularly rough mission. You realized from the start that it was a release both of you needed. It was a way to cope, a way to make sure you got through another day. That’s all it was. 

“Shit,” he quietly groaned, his hands tightening at your hips as you continued to languidly ride his cock. 

“Be quiet,” you mocked, and you could feel his glare burning a hole in your face. He responded by wrapping his arms around your waist and bringing you tighter against his torso, increasing the pace of his thrusting hips and hitting that sweet spot deep inside of you. “Oh, fuck, Levi--” 

He said nothing, but clapped a hand over your open mouth to silence your oncoming moans as he fucked you relentlessly on the forest floor. 

That warmth that had blossomed in your core was a raging bonfire now, growing hotter and hotter with every single thrust. He kept his hand against your mouth, even when you made those delicious, muffled moans against his fingers that he loved so much. His breathing turned ragged, his pace was getting sloppy. Neither of you could ever last very long with each other. 

“F-fuck,” he muttered, his hand disappearing from your mouth and returning to your hip. 

You did your best to keep yourself under control, but at the growing orgasm in your core, it was getting increasingly difficult not to let the whole forest know how good his cock felt inside of you. You tipped your head back in ecstasy, eyes fluttering open to look up at the moonlit canopy of leaves above you, the stars that littered the night sky peeking through. 

It was almost romantic. You looked down at Levi beneath you, your eyes having been adjusted to the dark, and seeing his equally pleasured expression as he fucked you. He was so beautiful. Those grey eyes, that dark hair, the stoic and firm authority that had originally piqued your interest in him. You always wanted to look into those eyes. You wanted to swim in the expanse of his mind, learn every little detail that hid in the crevices of his brain, protect him from this cruel and fucked up world because you knew it had done enough to permanently screw him up. You hated anything and everything that had ever wronged him. 

Jesus, did you love him? 

Your hips faltered at the invasive thought and you stopped matching his pace altogether. 

“Why did you stop?” he said, voice low. “What’s wrong?” 

“N-nothing,” you whispered, your hands still splayed out across his chest and stomach. His cock twitched inside of you, silently begging for you to start moving again, but he kept his focus trained on your face. 

“Stop lying.” Levi reached up and brushed the pad of his thumb over your trembling bottom lip. “We can stop, if that’s what you’d like.” 

“No,” you sighed, closing your eyes. “It’s not that, I just...I just realized something. Something that could potentially screw our little arrangement up.” 

He simply watched you with those grey eyes, saying nothing. Damn him. 

“I know we said this was just a means of catharsis,” you started, still keeping your voice at a whisper. “A way to escape from this fucked up life, but...I want more. More from you.” 

“More?” 

You nodded and swallowed nervously. “I care about you, Levi.” 

He was silent for a long, painful moment, until a low chuckle reverberated from his chest. His hands settled against your hips again, thumbs drawing idle circles against them. “So what does that mean?” 

“It means I don’t want you to fuck me in the dirt as much anymore,” you snapped, unable to keep your voice down. “I want to spend nights with you in your tent, or your bed. I want to have morning tea with you, for fuck’s sake. I’ve spent all these nights chasing after something I didn’t know I wanted until I realized there will come a time where I won’t be able to have it anymore, and then I knew.” 

“Knew what?” 

“It’s you,” you whispered shakily, looking down at him. “It’s always been you.” 

Levi reached up again and gently pulled your face down to his, to where he kissed you deeply, still tasting of salt and midnight. This kiss was different...different from the ones you had previously shared in secret, all tongue and teeth and urgency. This was sweeter. Slower. He held your chin in place as he kissed you, while his other hand cupped the back of your head. When he finally let you come up for air, he leaned back against the tree trunk with a satisfied smirk on his face. 

“What does that mean?” you asked, a hand going to touch your swollen lips. 

“For someone so smart, you sure are dense,” he said, rolling his eyes. “You know what it means, brat.” 

It was enough. A small, shy smile tugged at the corners of your lips. Before you could say anything else, his hands squeezed your hips. 

“Now,” he growled, tilting his chin up. “Are you going to let me fuck you, or not?” 

There was nothing else to say. 

#y'all im so sorry for always posting self indulgent shit #but i needed this #i love him so much man #ok bye #levi ackerman #levi ackerman smut #levi ackerman fluff #levi ackerman imagine #captain levi #captain levi smut #captain levi fluff #captain levi imagine #attack on titan #attack on titan smut #attack on titan fluff #shingeki no kyojin #shingeki no kyoujin fanart #shingeki no kyoujin levi #shingeki no kyoujin imagine

[maddiewritesstucky]

Whenever You’re Ready

I am equal parts excited and terrified to share this story with you all. This one is very special to me, and it has been an Emotional Experience putting these words to page, so far removed from what I usually write. Huge acknowledgement to @doctorenterprise whose honest critiques vastly improved this story, and @buckyandthejets who validated the hell out of me, thank you both so much 😘

Rating: Explicit

Pairing: Steve/Bucky (Modern AU)

Word count: 5189

Tags: Angst, infidelity (not between Steve/Bucky), heavy on the feels, reference to past internalized homophobia, lost love, reunions, emotional sex, happy ending

*CW: Infidelity - In this story, Bucky has sex with Steve even though he is (unhappily) married to someone else. Please avoid this story if you will find this triggering, or feel free to DM me if you need more details. It all ends well!*

***

“Never changes, does it?” 

 It goes straight to Steve’s bones, that voice, all the way down to his marrow. He doesn’t turn around at the sound of it, nor at the muted clunk of footsteps on the dock behind him; slowly closing the distance to where Steve’s standing, thinking. 

Waiting.

He’s been out here long enough to have watched the sun disappear behind the mountainous horizon, taking with it its warmth and making way for the quiet chill of evening to set in. It’s far enough away here, from the music and revelry and reminiscence, that Steve can almost pretend those words are true; that nothing’s changed, that there’s nothing and no one else in existence but the two of them, and the reflection of the moon rising over the lake. 

“Some things do.” 

It comes out bitter, even though Steve’s spent years telling himself he’s not; that the pit in his stomach and the hole in his chest have a different name, a different face. It’s a pointless grief, after so many years. Decades, now, as the banners and balloons up at the reunion were boasting.

He knew what he was doing, coming here tonight. Like pushing on a bruise to make sure it still hurts. And it did, it does, because Bucky is right - the camp hasn’t changed a bit, and Steve might be pushing forty now but his heart is still nineteen; still standing at the end of this dock at sundown waiting for those footsteps behind him, for that warm hand slipping into his and that familiar voice saying his name like it’s music, like it means something.

“Steve…” 

...There’s no hand, and his name is just a name. It aches in the exact place Steve had thought it would.

“She’s pretty, Buck. You look good together.”  

He thinks he hears Bucky’s breath hitch, but it could have been the breeze catching in the trees, or the lick of water at the splintered edge of the dock. It would be easier if it were a lie, might sit sweeter on Steve’s tongue if he were sugar coating something false, something to say for the sake of speaking, but he means it. 

That aches, too.

“I married her,” Bucky says, and the way it sounds like an apology sinks like a lead weight in Steve’s gut.

“I heard.” 

“Steve, will you please look at me?” 

Despair frays the edges of each word, and Steve shakes his head, blows out a ragged breath into the cool night air. 

He had looked at Bucky, had watched him walk in tonight looking every bit like the man Steve always knew he’d grow into - strong, kind-eyed, beautiful; age starting to show in the soft flecks of grey at his temples, but missing from where Steve thought it’d make itself known first. 

“You don’t have smile lines,” he can hear the frown in his own voice as the thought slips past his lips, “always thought you’d have smile lines, way you were always laughing at everything.”  

“Steve...” 

It’s a sob, this time; unmistakable, and it rips the ground out from beneath Steve. 

There’s a hand on his back, slipping down the column of his spine; a shivering body pressing up close behind him and a forehead dropping against his shoulder. Tears soak wet through the back of Steve’s shirt and two arms circle around his waist, a hold long-forgotten and achingly familiar all at once, and Steve can’t remember how to breathe.

“Bucky,” he begins, though he has no idea where it ends.

His hands come up to cover Bucky’s, threading their fingers together and pulling Bucky’s arms tighter around himself, and it feels nothing like it used to because Steve’s heart wasn’t broken back then. 

When Bucky’s lips find the crook of his neck, that doesn’t feel anything like it used to either, but Steve tilts his head for it anyway; offers up the expanse of his throat like he’d once offered up the rest of his life to the man holding him. 

All of me, he’d said so long ago, every day of every year I have left. All for you.

Bucky’s hands slip to Steve’s hips, his mouth at the hinge of Steve’s jaw, and it’s so wholly selfish, the way Steve wants this. It’s years of longing and anger and loss made harder by all the ways Bucky wasn’t gone, and the tattered vestiges of Steve’s heart are screaming at him to stop before there’s nothing left of himself to salvage.

 “You left me.” 

There’s no emotion left in the statement, not anymore. It bled out years ago, muffled into Steve’s pillow and screamed into voids and hurled at the walls of his too-quiet, too-empty house. 

It’s hollow, now, but Steve feels how heavy it lands in the way Bucky’s entire body curls in on itself behind him.

“I know,” Bucky whispers, his tear-stained cheek tucked against the side of Steve’s face. 

The immensity of pain buried in those two words sinks jagged teeth into the meat of Steve’s heart, and he can’t believe he still bleeds for it after all these years. He knows he should walk away from this, pry himself free of the physical hold Bucky has on him and spend the rest of his days praying those soul-ties unknot themselves too. 

But the wound is open now, if it were ever really closed, and he can’t stop himself from tugging on the busted stitches to see just how raw and messy he can make it. 

“Tell me why,” he turns in the circle of Bucky’s arms, cups the back of Bucky’s neck and makes him meet the full force of his gaze. 

Give me salt for this wound, he’s pleading, and Bucky would have every right to deny him because this conversation has no place here; has no place in any universe where there’s a ring on Bucky’s finger. 

But Bucky came to him, Bucky broke the silence and put his hands on Steve like he’s just as hungry to hurt for this again, and maybe they both just need to bleed it out together. 

“Because we couldn’t,” Bucky twists his fists tight and frantic into the fabric of Steve’s shirt. “I couldn’t...Jesus, if my family had found out—” 

“I loved you,” Steve spits, “it was real, and I loved you, and you loved me too.” 

“Fuck, Steve, of course I loved you!” There’s desperation there now, in Bucky’s hands on him; not just clinging but clawing, no space between them for air or reason or good judgement. “You think it didn’t break me, too?” 

“I wouldn’t fucking know what it did to you, Bucky,” Steve runs a fingertip across the plain gold band hugging Bucky’s finger, digging his nail in under the ridge of it, “but it seems like you bounced back just fine.” 

Bucky sucks in a breath, and Steve doesn’t hear him let it go again. He’s doing nothing to mask the anguish on his face as he stares up at Steve, lips parted and eyes welling over; his brow knotted into lines that form all too easy, like they’re well worn at this point, and it’s so so wrong. 

Steve smoothes his thumb over the groove between Bucky’s eyebrows; pushes at it like it’s something he can rub away. 

“Aren’t you happy?” he hears himself ask, hurt and exhausted and terrified of the answer. 

It’s not until Bucky shakes his head, tears spilling anew from his red-rimmed eyes, that Steve realizes there was any part of himself left that was yet to break.

“Not a day of my life, Steve. Not without you.” 

Steve will never be emptier than this, seeing the truth of it all spelled out across Bucky’s face. It had been all the light Steve had left, that small embittered part of himself that’d believed Bucky was better off for the way things had gone. 

What was left, now? It had burned Steve down to ash, losing Bucky, but loving him was inextricable, and thinking he was happy out there was the only reason Steve could sleep at night.

“What do I do with that, Buck?” 

There are tears in Steve’s eyes now too, a tremble in his voice and the dead weight of regret hanging off his words. 

Bucky takes Steve’s face between his hands, too tight to be tender. When he sweeps his thumbs across the tears tracking down Steve’s cheeks, it only spreads them further. 

“Kiss me?” 

Bucky leaves it in the space between them like it’s the only answer he has left, and Steve wishes it didn’t make sense. 

 Another place, another time; a different dock and a different sky, and Steve might see the insanity of it, the notion that putting his lips against Bucky’s could be a salve instead of just another scar. 

But they’re here, with those same stars and that same rundown boat shed with it’s broken door, and Steve lets himself close the distance between their mouths, because it’s the only answer he has left, too.

He kisses Bucky with every minute of every day of every wasted year sitting there on the tip of his tongue. He holds Bucky too close and breathes him in too deep, leans all too willing into the pass of Bucky’s hands over his body.

“I’m sorry, I’m so sorry,” Bucky sobs brokenly, slipping his hands up under the hem of Steve’s shirt to splay across his bare skin. 

Steve shakes his head because he can’t hear that now, with Bucky’s hands on him. Remorse can’t coexist with the warmth of Bucky’s palms and the slick press of his mouth, not when there isn’t even room for moonlight between them. 

“Don’t,” Steve whispers, “don’t tell me that.”

Bucky’s hand finds its way up to the center of Steve’s chest, his fingertips curling into a grip on Steve’s flesh like he can reach in and take hold of what lies beneath. Steve’s not sure there’s anything left in there to grab onto, but he lets Bucky try anyway because if there is, it will only ever belong in his hand. 

“Can I tell you I still think of you?” Bucky kisses the words against Steve’s cheek, trails them down the line of his jaw. “Never stopped thinking about you, Steve.” 

You should have, is what Steve should say, you’re not mine anymore.

“Someone will see us,” is what Steve does say, even as his fingertips dip beneath the waistband of Bucky’s pants. 

Someone is probably looking for Bucky right now, but there’s no room for that truth here, either. Especially when Bucky pulls back and looks toward the long abandoned boat shed, and then back at Steve.

There are so many opportunities for Steve to choose differently, to tell Bucky to stop. When Bucky takes him by the hand with a plea in his gaze; when he pulls Steve down the dock, and into that boat shed...it’s been a lifetime and Steve is a grown man, too old to be this foolish. But he’s tired, too worn down from years of unmet longing to be anything other than reckless when presented with everything he’s lived without for so painfully long. 

So he doesn’t say a word. 

He lets it happen, and he helps it happen. He raises his arms for Bucky to pull off his shirt, tilts his hips when Bucky works his belt loose and tugs down his pants. 

He strips Bucky bare with his own two hands and pulls him against his own naked body, sobbing open and unashamed for the way it makes him feel whole for the first time in twenty years. 

He maps the planes of Bucky’s body, no longer rounded and softened by youth, but every bit as warm as the memories Steve has clung to, and it shouldn’t feel right because it isn’t; shouldn’t feel so familiar when there’s been decades of distance between them. 

“I miss you.” 

It trips off Steve’s tongue before he can stop it, small and breathless. Of all the three-word truths he could have let slip it isn’t the worst, but Bucky’s wounded noise says that it cuts just as deep. 

He catches Bucky’s lips against his own before Bucky can do anything stupid like say it back; fisting his hands up through Bucky’s hair and pushing his tongue into Bucky’s mouth.

He wants to do this slow, to sink deep enough into it that every touch and every moment cling to him like a brand. But it’s only ever been a headlong tumble, this journey that begins with Bucky’s bare skin against his own, and Steve can feel himself falling the same way he always did.

Open palms turn to pressing fingertips, lips on skin turn to grazing teeth, and a dusty hammock spread across the floorboards. It’s another twist of the knife, the way Bucky’s body still fits beneath his own just as perfect as it ever did, the way Bucky’s spread thighs still make the perfect cradle for his hips. 

Bucky still looks up at him from the flat of his back with the same awe he’d turn upon the night sky, like Steve’s still the only heaven he believes in, and there’s too much gravity in that gaze. There always was, but there was no reason not to get dragged into it back then. 

It’s not until Bucky’s fingertips brush softly over his eyelids, tracing the sweep of his lashes, that Steve realizes he’s closed his eyes.

“What are you thinking about?” Bucky whispers.

Steve almost wants to laugh, because if he were thinking at all, he wouldn’t be here. 

He’s not laid out naked on top of someone else’s husband because he’s thinking; not about to put his mouth and his fingers and his cock where they don’t belong because he’s in his right mind. 

Steve is an exposed nerve, a callous that’s been rubbed raw, and he’ll pretend that’s all he is for as long as it takes to see the man he never stopped loving fall apart beneath him one last time.

He buries his face in the crook of Bucky’s neck and bites down on the softness he finds there, all the answer he intends on giving. There’s no good reason for him to still know the exact spot to sink his teeth into, but he’s not about to waste time pretending he doesn’t remember every last touch point that ever made Bucky lose his mind. 

His right earlobe, the notch of his clavicle, the tender space beneath his ribs. 

His hip bones, and his wrists, and the soft insides of his thighs, sensitive all the way down to his knees.

Maybe after all this time it’s only nostalgia, only because they both want so badly to be who they once were to each other. But Bucky’s body still sings the exact same tune when Steve plays it, tongue and teeth and fingertips in all the right places.

“Please,” Bucky gasps, giving over to it just as easy as he always did. He’s hiding nothing of himself, not in the sprawl of his body or the longing in his gaze, the breathless sounds dripping off his lips. 

He arches into the rub of Steve’s skin against his, splays his thighs wide for Steve’s hips then wider still for Steve’s shoulders, and he looks down the line of his body with all the same rapture when Steve finally takes him into the heat of his mouth.

“Oh...” 

It’s so soft, the sound Bucky makes. One tiny word, more breath than anything else, yet it somehow holds all the sentiment of of course, and how have I lived without this, and Steve is ruined for it. 

He’s sixteen again, realizing that want begins and ends with Bucky Barnes.

He is seventeen, discovering that the only thing better than getting his hands on Bucky, is getting his mouth on him. 

He is eighteen, and nineteen, and twenty; bone-deep certain that for him, there will only ever be Bucky.

“Stevie,” Bucky sighs. He reaches gentle fingertips to brush the hair back off Steve’s forehead; traces the stretch of Steve’s lips around him with all the tender wonder of their youth.

...Steve is thirty-nine, and he will never come back from this. 

He holds Bucky’s gaze as he swallows him down, watches the play of pleasure across Bucky’s face like it’s still his to behold. 

He sinks all of himself into chasing those awed, quiet sounds that have existed only as echoes for so long, and pretends it’s not the worst kind of cruelty that this act should still feel so sacred; that Bucky should still be that breathless, trembling embodiment of surrender. 

Back arched, thighs twitching, face flushed and lips parted…it’s as devastating as Steve remembers, and so much more so for the fact that he has no right to witness it anymore. 

“Steve, please...” 

Bucky looks down at him imploringly, reaches for him with open hands. 

Steve hollows his cheeks as he pulls off him, slow and tight. He crawls back up Bucky’s body until they’re face to face, until he’s covering Bucky’s body with his own.

“I’m here, Buck.” 

I’m weak, Buck.

He cups Bucky’s face in his hands, strokes his thumbs across Bucky’s cheekbones and nudges their noses together. He breathes Bucky’s air and kisses his lips, soft and careful until it’s not; until it’s just Steve pouring all his hunger and his longing and his desperation into Bucky’s mouth.

And he is desperate. Every last part of him is breaking for the feel of Bucky’s bare skin, his bare arousal, rubbing up against his own; for the responsibility of holding Bucky’s vulnerability and his nakedness and his pleasure in the palms of his hands.

“God, it’s been so long,” Steve’s voice splinters around the words, around the sobs that want to keep coming, “it’s been so long, Bucky...”

He rolls his hips heavy and deep, slips his hands beneath Bucky’s shoulders to keep them locked tight together. There’s sweat beading between them, spit and precum slicking their skin, and every promise they ever made weighing dense in the air. 

Bucky’s fingernails are sunk deep enough into his back that Steve can feel the half-moon imprints forming; Bucky’s legs hitched up around his hips and soft moans passing back and forth between their open mouths. 

Steve had always wondered what this must look like from the outside, the way they get lost in one another. The quiet gasps and heavy breaths, the pleasured sounds that catch between their lips. Bodies shaking, hands clinging, eyes open because it’s the closest thing to heaven you’d ever see. 

It’s immensity was always buried in the slowness of it all, but it’s as consuming and inevitable as it ever was. 

He knows Bucky’s close before Bucky tells him he is; can feel it thrumming through Bucky’s body beneath him. He knows he shouldn’t watch it happen, shouldn’t sharpen that mental picture back into focus when it had taken so long to blur its edges in the first place. 

He shouldn’t moan brokenly into Bucky’s mouth and rock harder against him; shouldn’t push up onto his hands and fix his gaze squarely on Bucky’s face.

‘Shouldn’t’ doesn’t mean a goddamn thing anymore.

“Come with me?” Bucky pleads, eyes glassy and body strung taut. 

He presses a trembling hand to Steve’s heart and the other to Steve’s neck, holding his racing pulse and his heartbeat in his hands just the same as he had the first time they made love, and Steve comes apart at the seams.

It’s unending, that wash of raw feeling. It’s galaxies inside his rib cage and oceans in his veins, and wildfire curling around the base of his spine. He breathes Bucky’s name, spills all over his stomach, and when Bucky follows him over he ducks down to drink the wonder of it right off Bucky’s lips. 

The quiet weighs so much heavier, as they lay pressed together in the aftermath. 

Steve looks down at the man beneath him, watches his breathing settle and the flush subside from his cheeks, and the ache of the past suddenly pales in comparison to what lies ahead. 

What exists for them beyond this moment, here and now? Bucky’s face is cradled in Steve’s hands and his nakedness is sheltered by Steve’s body, but even this was never Steve’s to offer. It’s time and touch already stolen, and the rhythmic lap of water against the dock outside may as well be the ticking of a clock.

“What happens now, Buck?” he asks, knowing there’s no comfort to be found in the answer. 

Bucky shakes his head, touching gentle fingertips to Steve’s cheek and searching Steve’s gaze. 

“I don’t know.”

The night air is cold against Steve’s back, all the warmth that had seemed to wrap so close around them dissipating. 

He slowly moves off of Bucky and gathers up their clothes, redressing himself with fingers that fumble weak and uncoordinated with the fabric that had been so very easy to take off. 

“...If you asked me to leave her, I would.” 

Bucky’s voice comes small from behind him, but the words take up every last inch of space in the room. 

Steve turns to look at him, and there’s something so painfully close to hope on his face, it makes Steve’s chest ache. 

“I can’t do that, Bucky,” he rasps, “it can’t be up to me.” 

The regret in it is palpable, the ‘I wish it was’ joining the thousand other things that live, unsaid, on the tip of Steve’s tongue.

I am so much yours that it hurts

I will never stop hoping for you 

I will love you for the rest of my life

It’s years too late, for all of it. But those words still throw themselves against the backs of Steve’s teeth, because if not now, then when?

 “Bucky, I—”

 “James?”

 ...The soft call comes from outside, carried on the breeze from a little ways off. 

There’s nothing in it, no suspicion, no concern. Just someone looking for the person they’ve lost, wondering where they’ve gone to. 

Steve’s stomach sinks, and the clock runs out.

Bucky looks at him, eyes wide and lips falling open like he intends to speak. No sound comes out, but Steve understands all the same - Bucky’s gaze always said more than words ever could, anyway.  

“You should go back, Buck.” 

Steve says it gently, though neither of them deserve that kindness after what they’ve done. He picks up his sweater, and he leaves what’s left of his heart on the floor, because he’s got no use for it without the man he’s about to walk away from. 

“If you ever…” Steve starts, and stops himself, shaking his head softly. His gaze sticks to the spot just in front of Bucky’s feet, his body half turned toward the door. 

“...You know where I’ll be,” he says instead, and then he gathers up his shoes in his hands and steps back out into the evening, because he’s no more capable of saying ‘goodbye’ to Bucky now than he was back then.

 ***

It’s a half hour walk home along the edge of the lakeshore, but it takes Steve hours; tears washing a salt-sting down his cheeks and his feet in the too-cold water the entire way.

It doesn’t even scratch the surface of what he deserves, that frigid needling against his skin and the stones underfoot. But the greater punishment will come, he knows.

When he gets home, and has to live the rest of his life knowing not only what he lost, but what he did to try and dull the ache of it. 

When he gets home, to that rambling, too-quiet house on the lake edge, where Bucky’s touch is set into the very foundations.

The roof they had helped Steve’s dad patch, the summer Steve turned eighteen; the creaking window ledge that would betray Bucky’s midnight visits to Steve’s bedroom, and that same kitchen table where they’d try not to blush at each other’s gaze. 

The porch swing where they’d watch the sun go down; every wall and doorframe they’d kissed up against when Steve’s parents weren’t around to see it; every tree they ever made love or fell asleep beneath...

He may not have seen Bucky in the flesh in almost twenty years, but there hasn’t been a day of Steve’s life since that he hasn’t felt the echo of his presence, and now it will hum under his skin the same way it always has in his house. 

The sky is awash with stars he can’t bear to look at by the time he makes it home, feet numb and shivering all over. 

He trudges the path from the lakeshore back up to his house, clearing the tree line and stepping into the moonlight spilling full and bright over his yard, over his homestead. 

Over the unfamiliar car parked in his dirt-track driveway, and the figure sitting, waiting, on his porch. 

“...Bucky?” 

His body slows in its tracks, stops halfway across the yard and won’t carry him any further forward. 

Bucky makes no move to close the distance between them either, save to stand slowly on unsteady legs and step down onto the silver-lit lawn. 

“Hey, Steve.”

His arms are curled around himself, his shoulders rounded and his feet shifting on the grass. Even in the moonlight, Steve can see the swell of too many tears shed around Bucky’s eyes, and he’d look like he was about to run if not for the set of his jaw; the unwavering hold of his gaze on Steve’s.

“Buck, what are you...how long have you—”

“I did it.” 

Bucky’s voice cracks - not like a heart breaking, but like a weight falling away, like a world upending, and it hits Steve like a blow to the back of the knees.

“You did what, Bucky?” 

He knows what he’s hearing, what Bucky has just laid before him, but he asks anyway because it can’t be that; that terrible, selfish thing that Steve has dreamed of and hoped for and hated himself for wanting all these years. 

Bucky can’t be here, standing under the light of the full moon, hours after they made love that was all passion and no integrity, telling Steve that.

Bucky takes a step forward, just one. Not close enough to touch, but close enough for Steve to see that he’s shaking.

“I told her, Steve. I told her what I did tonight...told her the truth about me.” 

“The truth...” 

Steve’s chest is crushing in on itself, the air between them so thin and fragile he’s afraid to breathe it in. 

Bucky wraps himself tighter in the circle of his own arms, shaking his head and dropping his gaze to the ground. 

“I was scared, Steve,” he whispers, “back then...We were kids, and I was so scared of what it meant, the way I felt about you. And I thought I could...make myself feel that, again. For someone else. Someone who was...” 

He blows out a shuddering breath, kicking at the ground in front of him.

“...Someone that everybody else would accept. But I couldn’t, Steve. I tried, I tried so fucking hard, and I thought that if I got married, then maybe...maybe it’d be better, because I’d have no choice but to love her. But I just...I couldn’t feel that again. I couldn’t, because I never fuckin’ stopped feeling it, for you.”

Steve aches, in every part of his being, all the way down in his soul. He stares at the man he’s loved his whole life, and he aches for the both of them; for the half-lives they’ve been living, tied to one another with string that had stretched when it would have been kinder to snap. 

“I got it so wrong, Steve,” Bucky sobs, his eyes screwing shut against free-flowing tears. “I chose so wrong. And I’m so sorry, I’m so fucking sorry…”

Steve’s body moves without thought, reaches and wraps itself around Bucky’s trembling frame; tight like he can save Bucky from this inevitable unraveling. 

“Jesus, Bucky,” he shakes his head, heartbreak spilling raw into his voice, “I’m sorry, I’m sorry.”

Bucky’s face is tucked into the crook of his neck and his tears are catching cold against Steve’s skin. But Steve’s own are falling into Bucky’s hair, and his hands are shaking too hard for their strokes up and down Bucky’s back to be any real comfort, and neither of them move to change a thing about it.  

“I’ve thought of you every day,” the confession slips quiet from Steve’s lips, and he lets it, “I’ve missed you, every day.” 

Bucky gasps a hitching breath into Steve’s shirt, holds tight to the fabric at his back. 

“Fuck, I got more to make up for here than I’ve got years left,” he shudders, pulling back to find Steve’s eyes. “I got no right to ask you for anything ever again, and I know I gotta put some things right first, get myself right, but...but would you ever...could we, ever…” 

Steve is nodding. Before Bucky’s even gotten the words out, Steve’s nodding. 

There are so many questions still to be asked and answered, so many conversations to be had and blows that are yet to land in the aftermath. The road that lies ahead is unpaved and unmapped, and the sunrise will shed light on realities they haven’t even considered. 

But none of that changes what Steve knows to be true, here and now. 

He knows that the window ledge still creaks; that that tree still bears more fruit than he knows what to do with, and the roof hasn’t once leaked, not during a single storm.

He knows that in any lifetime, any versions of themselves...they could. 

“Whenever you’re ready, Bucky,” come home when you’re ready, Bucky, “you know where I’ll be.” 

***

It takes time, just like Steve knew it would. 

It takes tears, and words that are just as hard to hear as they are to say. 

It’s wounds reopened just to be stitched back together better, right this time; stitched to heal instead of just to survive. 

Bucky is gone again, for a while, but his absence isn’t the bleak void it once was. It’s time apart for the sake of a life together, for both of them to rebuild what was broken and find a new sense of ‘whole.’ 

It’s Bucky finding his feet as the person he’s always been, and learning to speak his truth. It’s untangling himself from the life he was never meant to live, and finding forgiveness where it’s needed. 

It’s Steve ripping up those floorboards that creak, and it’s letting himself sleep. It’s replacing the wallpaper that was more peel than pattern, and it’s teaching himself to roll with the waves of joy and grief until he can sit just as comfortably with both.

It takes time; eight months and twenty-one days worth of it. 

But they heal, and Bucky finds his way home. 

And this time, it sticks.

#stucky fanfic #stucky #steve/bucky #stucky au #angst #all the feels #angst with a happy ending

[wildlyglittering]

The Ones Before

Happy Sunday everyone!

Thank you again to those liking, re-blogging and commenting on my fic’s, I really do appreciate it. 

I’m loving all the ACOSF inspired fic’s and fanarts that are being produced - and definitely all the critique!!

I hope you enjoy!

***

A hand pressed against his bicep as a low, husky voice murmured in his ear.

“General.”

The owner of that voice, an attractive red-haired female, placed a glass of dark liquid in front of him and squeezed her fingers around his arm.

Cassian’s muscles automatically flexed and the voice turned into a breathless giggle. “On the house,” she whispered, her mouth moving closer to his ear. Perhaps it was his imagination but it seemed that she had pushed her breasts against him so he would feel their firm swell against his shoulder.

He turned to her with a smile so charming that her face lit up like solstice lights. “Thank you,” he said, “but I can’t accept.”

Those ruby red lips of hers turned from a grin into a pout and once upon a time Cassian would have eased her bottom lip with the pad of his thumb before asking if there was anything he could do to put a smile back on her face.

Once upon a time. Not now.

Despite his rejection, she was undeterred.

“It’s our finest liquor, General. It’s incredibly silky as it goes down.” It was definitely not in his imagination that he saw the twinkle in her eye.

“I’m sure it is,” he said with a wink, “but let me rephrase myself – I won’t accept.”

The twinkle, much like the smile, disappeared. She frowned before snatching the glass and storming off, Cassian catching her stamp her foot as she left as though she were a petulant child and not a fae of likely over a century old.

Cassian chuckled and turned back to the table, picking up the drink he had. The beverage was sickly sweet and made from fruits that were imported into Night from Spring. It was Elain’s favourite and not at all Cassian’s. There were times when he missed the sharpness of wine or the spice of whisky but he reminded himself of what he gained by no longer drinking.

Early winter had come to Velaris and the city was bustling, its occupants rushing around hard at work or preparing for the solstice. Cassian was doing neither; a rare idle day off had lain ahead of him when he’d woken that morning.

The skies had been a bright, albeit pale, blue to start but had grown steadily gloomier before turning into an ashen grey with fat clouds that poured the rains down. The rain wasn’t the soft kind but the sort that smashed against the stones with such force that drops rebounded from the ground and back into the air.

A misty haze drifted around the footsteps of all the rushing fae, their shrieks filling the street as those without coverings ran for shelter from one building to another.

Cassian had been caught out when it started. The first rumble of thunder occurred when he was crossing the bridge and he looked down to see small droplets on the back of his hand. He stood, watching as the rain lashed into the river, mesmerised by the circles the drops created. His hair was drenched and he shook the strands around his head, laughing.

Storms never bothered him, the only reason he moved indoors was because he took up too much space outside for those who didn’t find getting soaked as delightful as he did. That, and his pending companion wouldn’t be too impressed to be made to hang around in the rain.

The café he settled in gave him a decent view of the streets and a prime view of the bridge ahead. Rainwater dripped from his hair when he tied it into a bun and he’d ordered himself his drink, delivered by an older female who wasn’t remotely interested in Cassian.

Fresh warm bread scented the place as the waitresses carried large slices, liberally buttered and served with thick broths in deep bowls, to surrounding tables. Despite the smell, he was content to drink his cordial and observe the world beyond the windows.

The clinking of plates from the table next to him drew his attention and he looked over to see the red-haired fae clearing crockery for the next customers. Although she was working, she was clearly keeping an eye on Cassian, probably waiting to see if he’d change her mind at her offer.

With her coquettish glances and the angle in which she now exposed her cleavage, it wasn’t only a drink she was offering.

A time existed once, when he would have charmed her and they would have removed themselves into the backroom of the café or even a room in the apartments above. Because he was the General, they would never have been reprimanded even if it left the café one employee down.

Admittedly something about the serving fae had captured his attention. Yes, flirtations from an attractive female were always flattering but he had entertained her smiles a bit more than he should have done in the circumstances.

The thrashing of the rain grew louder when the door to the café opened and a fae couple walked in laughing about their soaking clothes. The red-head walked past Cassian to greet them and as she did, her dress deliberately slipped, leaving a pale freckled shoulder to his view.

A memory flashed through Cassian’s mind and in an instant, he could place why she captured his attention so. It was a memory so dusty on the shelves of his brain that he was surprised it was even in the archives.

He was centuries old and he’d spent that time in a variety of ways. Chasing after attainable and unattainable females and fucking a fair few was very much on the list.

But everyone, even he, the fierce Lord of Bloodshed and General of the Night Court’s armies had to begin somewhere.

He’d lost his virginity not to a fellow Illyrian but a fae. She hadn’t been a female of strength or status and considering as Cassian was a bastard runt at the time, he couldn’t have even fathomed those females would ever be an option.

There had been a war. There was always a war.

The troop of Illyrians were on the outskirts of the Night Court and were setting camp around one of the smaller towns. A tavern with warm lights and a warmer hearth was tucked into one of the streets and he was sick of sleeping in the filth. The mud oozed its way into his fingernails and onto his hair and worryingly close to the fresh, open wounds he’d sustained while fighting.

Cassian had fought an Illyrian, broader and older than him and one that would have been stronger too if Cassian hadn’t been desperate. Cassian had pounded him into the ground, knuckles connecting harshly with bone, until the male had acquiesced, giving up the three gold coins Cassian wanted.

He’d sloped off to the tavern after his win, to bathe his body and tend his wounds in one of their boarding rooms. He wanted a decent night’s sleep someplace clean and comfortable and, if he’d had any coin left over, a hot meal.

The Illyrian’s in the tavern were either already in their own boarding rooms for the night, passed out in front of the drinking room fire or still drinking in darkened corners. If they saw Cassian, they paid him no mind, he was a tall thing with growing muscles but still on the wrong side of scrawny.

The only fae that looked at him was the female behind the bar.

She looked to be his age but where his skin was dark, hers was fair and where his was a mottled collection of yellow and black bruises hers was as smooth as cream. She had a mass of red hair which tumbled past her shoulders.

“What will this get me?” he asked and placed the coins on the counter.

She’d told him about a small room at the back he could take and the rest would pay for some slices of mutton. And that was all, she stressed, nothing else.

Cassian merely grunted at her, too tired and hungry to care about anything else that she may have implied.

They must have been used to Illyrian guests as their smallest lodging was still room enough for him and his wings. The bed took up most of the space and a narrow window gave him a view of the courtyard he didn’t care to see. When the food was ready the same red-haired fae brought it up to him and told him she would collect the plate in an hour.

Cassian tore into the meat and bread like a starved animal and when she came back to collect the plate as promised he nodded his thanks and carried on with his task. She’d paused by the door, hesitating.

His leathers and shirt were off and he sat, bare chested on the bed wrapping gauze around his middle with inexperienced hands, cursing when it slipped away.

“Here,” she said, “let me help.”

Her fingers were soft. It had been so long since he’d been touched by a female in any kind of manner. When he was a boy he longed for the touch of a mother but he was no longer a boy and a mother’s touch wasn’t on his mind anymore.

Her fingertips dipped and tucked around his skin, wrapping and folding the gauze so it held firm. All throughout she kept glancing from her task to see him watching her.

“You’re handsome,” she told him, “it’s in a rough way but you have a gentleness in your eyes.”

Cassian closed his eyes as her fingertips traced down his belly and lower and he shuddered when they dipped inside his leathers. Her lips placed a gentle kiss to the bruise on his cheekbone and then used her free hand to turn his face to hers.

Their kisses were slow, unpractised and wet. Their tongues sliding over each other until somehow, she was on her back on his small bed and he was nestled on top of her. When she guided his hand up her skirts and in between her thighs he discovered something else wet and his body hummed.

He didn’t make love to her but it wasn’t fucking either.

He was unskilled but made up for it with enthusiasm and he watched as the moonlit danced across her bare skin, highlighting the splattering of freckles across her shoulders and chest.

Cassian slept like the dead that night never knowing whether he’d passed out before she left or if she’d crept away in the night. Either way, in the morning she was gone and he was alone.

Despite the fact that he’d taken his pleasure but hadn’t managed to give her hers, she’d placed extra gauze on the wooden table by the bed along with a parcel of food, carefully wrapped up for him to take away.

She’d never asked for his name and hadn’t given hers either.

The continued laughing of the couple brought Cassian back to the café. That red-haired fae from the tavern would now be centuries old, like him, if she were still alive. The town that she lived in had grown to the size of a small city.

Whether the tavern still existed, Cassian didn’t know. Whether she was alive, Cassian wouldn’t know.

He was a nobody back then but it was no surprise that the red-haired fae in this café knew who he was.

Most, if not all, of the city knew who he was. Predominantly he was the esteemed General who had protected and fought for Velaris for centuries and a member of the Inner Circle, one of their High Lord’s most trusted confidantes.

The other facet of his reputation, and likely what the serving fae was interested in, wasn’t so much his prowess in battle as it was in bed. Cassian, and every female since the first, had one Illyrian female to thank for that.

Elvira.

By the time he’d met her he’d grown into a warrior of some esteem. Still a foot soldier and placed in the lowest ranks where Rhys’ father wanted him but the previous High Lord of Night couldn’t crush Cassian’s desire to succeed nor his natural talent at doing so.

He was broader by this point, the burgeoning muscles now in full growth and he ambled into camp with his war wounds now badges of pride.

Cassian was a long way off his nickname of Lord of Bloodshed but whispers spread amongst the camps of an Illyrian warrior, not even a century old, who was feared and revered in equal measure.

His success fed him even if Rhys’ father, nervous at the suggestion that Cassian was the reincarnation of the Illyrian’s first warrior, tried to starve him from his accomplishments.

Elvira had been in that camp, wings clipped and eyes hard. An immediate attraction existed between them and Cassian wanted her.

Luckily, she also wanted him.

After their first time, laying on the camp bed in his tent, he was cocky. You’re blessed, he told her, you’re in the bed of the best Illyrian. Her scoff followed by the comment about him not being the best Illyrian in bed wounded his pride.

He didn’t lick his wounds for long. Elvira was keen to teach and Cassian keen to learn and he liked to prove a quick study.

Cassian learnt the only way he could learn; through trial and error but with not much room for error. Soon he had it so Elvira panted desperately for her release, her fingers slipping on his skin for grip. Then, when they lay on the camp bed, their bodies coated in their mingled sweat, Elvira had no breath for comments.

Elvira didn’t do gentle and she never considered their acts as making love. Neither did Cassian. They were lessons in the art of fucking.

But some lessons were the hardest to learn.

Much like him, she was filled with rage and it exploded in a temper that was as hot as it was quick. Often their arguments were deliberate just so Cassian could fuck her anger out of her but when together they were flame and neither carried enough sweetness for the other to make their time anything close to joyful.

In the end they both fucked others and neither cared. As quickly as they came together, they fell apart and she drifted away to another camp.

Elvira was dead now. A name on a long list of Illyrians who perished in war. There had been so many that Cassian couldn’t remember which one it was.

Cassian let out a quiet sigh. His drink was now cloying, tasting too sweet against the bitter memories and he fought the temptation to have something stronger.

He had numerous encounters over the centuries and not all as sad as Elvira. In the sands of time, he’d had lovers who’d lasted hours and lovers who’d lasted months. There were those he left and those where they left each other.

Sometimes he wasn’t willing to let go first, they were rare, but they happened.

Mor came to mind. The difference was that he’d pocketed her away in a corner of his heart, one that held Az, Rhys and Feyre and even Amren - when he was feeling gracious.

Mor was the only lover who became a friend.

The night they spent together she was at her most beautiful. The bravado she would later have and that he would love was still developing. She lay back on his bed, the flames crackling outside his tent and her golden hair fanned across his pillow, a pale blush bloomed on her creamy skin.

Cassian was a means to an end that night but in truth, so was Mor. They became a tool for each other’s temporary destruction but then they became a tool for each other’s re-birth. He would always love Mor and she him.

There was only one other female from his past that he could say he adored for a time.

High fae were visiting Velaris from Dawn and she was one of the nobles, invited to the House of Wind as a special courtesy. She dressed in soft sunrise pinks and oranges, her hair a soft golden-brown caramel and she had sharp grey eyes.

Her appearance was gentle but she had her own mind and would speak it, although her opinions, even the forthright ones, were always tempered with kindness.

Cassian was older, sharper, more rough-hewn than before. He felt battle scarred and weary on a daily basis but at that moment he was amongst friends, drinking wine that tinted their lips ruby red and throwing back their heads in boisterous laughter.

The reason behind the Dawn Court’s political visit was long forgotten but Cassian would always remember her.

She strode over to him, her beautiful face with cheekbones sharper than any blade but holding a tender smile.

“My name,” she told him, “is Lyla. Yours?”

He’d introduced himself and, like the gentleman he wasn’t, kissed her palm.

“I’d like a drink Cassian and a tour of the balcony if you would.”

His grin was borderline feral.

Lyla smelt like jasmine and roses and every chance Cassian had he pressed his nose into her skin, inhaling as deep as he could to capture it into his lungs forever. That night he showed her the Night Court stars and the next, his scars.

Every night after was spent in his bed.

When the Dawn Court left to continue their tour, Lyla stayed behind for almost a year.

Mor teased Cassian relentlessly. “Is she yours?” she jested. “Is this it for our beloved Cassian? Lost forever in the endless drudgery of matehood?”

He’d laughed it off but secretly hoped it was.

He’d sometimes dream of a figure and the image that passed through his mind was always one with golden-brown hair and grey eyes. In his dreams he always tried to reach her, this female who was permanently one step away. Every time he got close, she seemed to slip down a corridor of a labyrinth she’d built up around her.

At times he would get close enough to touch the strands of her hair and as she turned a corner, he would glimpse a striking cheekbone and chilling glare.

On waking he would reach for Lyla, warm and supple in the bed next to him. “You were running from me again,” he murmured and placed hot kisses down her throat.

“I would never,” she gasped as he drew closer, unlacing the front of her nightgown and bearing her breasts.

“Hmm, but you did,” and a nipple would disappear into his wet mouth as he slid warm fingers up her thigh. She squirmed delightfully and the sun would break over Night, filling the room.

“And you glared at me,” he would continue as his mouth travelled down her body as he lifted the nightgown up. Cassian would nuzzle his face at the juncture between her legs, and languidly lick her as though he were eating cream from a spoon.

“Oh, I would never.”

Cassian waited for the mate bond to snap but it never did. After another half year had passed, he realised that he didn’t want it to.

Lyla was too good for him.

He licked honey from her body and couldn’t distinguish whether the sweetness was that or her skin. Her hands, smooth as butter, caressed his, snagging on the coarseness of his palms. She would talk about her friends and family, eyes drifting to the windows in longing while patiently spending all her time with his.

Cassian watched as Lyla pined for home.

“Perhaps,” she’d asked him, “Dawn would be a home for you too?”

It would never be and they both knew it. Cassian also understood that while it wasn’t love for him, it was for her. Maybe it could have grown in time but he wondered if it was fair for to Lyla to wait while Cassian forced it to root.

It could be years, Cassian told himself. Or decades. Centuries even. Time is nothing when you are immortal.

Eventually the sweetness would have turned to sorrow while Lyla waited for something that may never happen and that’s why Cassian told her to go. No, it wasn’t love but it still hurt.  

Years later, possibly a hundred of them, he was on a visit to Dawn and enquired about her. Thesan had surprised him by making arrangements and there she was, visiting his guest suite one afternoon as beautiful as ever.

She had mated to a Peregryn. She’d smiled at Cassian, her familiar happy smile and said, “I’ve always liked winged males.”

Cassian’s hug lifted her from the ground and no more was to be said.  

Cassian’s reverie was broken by the chime of the door as more and more fae rushed in. The sky outside had now darkened to charcoal and the rain was showing no sign of slowing. Inside the café, the fae lights lit up and flickered around the trailing ivy draped across the walls.

Another couple had entered and chose to sit in the alcove to Cassian’s left, pressed as close as could be decent in public. Cassian observed them for a second and felt his lips twitch into a smile. The years had turned him into a sap.

There had been too many females to count; multiple hair colours, eye colours and skin tones. A variety of accents and scents.

Then her but before her, during the time in which they sized each other up like dogs of war, there was another.

Cassian rubbed his hand over his face. That year held a long, cold winter and an unrelenting hot summer. Both were filled with anger and vile words. It was no wonder Cassian sought comfort in the arms of someone who wanted to comfort him.

He’d been simultaneously dealing with the discontent within the camps that grew from rebellion into civil war and a personal, much smaller scale rebellion at the request of his High Lord and Lady. Nursing a wounded ego, wounded wrist and what appeared to be a wounded heart he fled back to Velaris to find solace in the drinks at Rita’s.

A beautiful blonde had approached him. She recognised him, had knowledge of his reputation and knew what she wanted. It suited him just fine.

He’d fucked her against his bedroom wall in the House of Wind. He’d fucked her on his bed, against the silk sheets that were luxury in comparison to the rough blankets in his Illyrian cabin. He fucked her from behind and she rode him until her knees gave out. Cassian made sure it lasted the entire night and the next morning her voice was hoarse.

It made him feel better. For a moment.

Cassian hadn’t bothered washing the fae’s scent from him when he flew back to the cabin. It was a vindicative move but felt like a victory when he saw the reaction it had.

Was it worth it? It didn’t matter now. It had been so long ago, half a century - perhaps more.  

That blonde, the one whose name he couldn’t remember because ultimately it was never of significance, was the last female who would grace his bed before the one who mattered did.

That female, he’d said once, was the last female I fucked before the last female I would ever fuck. Cassian grinned at that memory and the subsequent reaction from the other fae in the conversation.

You coarse bastard – you refer to what we do in our bedroom as fucking? I’m your mate. Give it a more respectful name. Her eyes had narrowed and her glare was ice, her posture rigid.

“Of course, sweetheart,” Cassian nodded “whatever you say.” He decided to not mention how, on the morning of that conversation, when they were performing the very act that apparently required some reverential anointment, she had begged him to ‘fuck her harder.’

The current colour of the sky reminded him of her, mainly of the dresses she wore; deep grey embroidered with silver thread, but also of her eyes. Those blue-grey eyes would change shade dependent on her mood. Blue when contented and grey went irritated.

Whether it was magic or a trick of the light Cassian didn’t know but they were often bluer than grey most days.

A crack of lighting and rumble of thunder turned into shrieks as fae ran from the bridge to get out of the storm. All the while Cassian sat at his table in front of the window watching,

He once lied that he wasn’t concerned about who she lost her virginity too, he’d taken the virginity of many but there had been a time when he thought he would be involved in hers too. There was a sadness in that train of thought, that he hadn’t been the one to give her an experience worthy of who she was.

Their first time together was filled with resentment and anger so it was the other times that held more meaning. He remembered when they were on the mountain and the rain drops shone in her hair like jewels. He was overwhelmingly consumed with love for her.

There was time after time where they fell into each other, desperate for the feel of each other’s skin that they shredded through clothes. There had been the soft times where he pressed his mouth against hers, looking into her eyes while their bodies joined.

There had been that very morning and the night before. And the night before that one. She was hungry for everything these days and he grinned at the thought.

On the bridge a group of fae scattered, not to escape the weather but to make way for someone approaching. It wasn’t that they moved out of fear although she did still carry a certain reputation, but an element of her presence commanded respect.

Cassian’s grin turned into a chuckle as she moved nearer. She was using her magic as a barrier against the rain and instead of it hitting her, it lashed out at anyone too near. Despite this, the bottom of her dress was soaked and she wore a scowl on her face only Cassian found charming.

He waved the red-haired fae over and her face lit up until she realised who was heading their way.

“A bowl of your best stew please,” he gestured towards the window, “she hungry.” He paused, “And grumpy.”

Colour leeched from the fae’s face and she rushed off quicker than he’d ever seen anyone move. The door chimed again to announce its newest arrival.

Nesta. His Nesta. The only female he would ever lay beside again, the only female he would want to lay beside again.  

He stood to greet her and she glided over to him, an act which was getting more difficult for her each day. “This weather,” she bit out, “ridiculous. It makes everyone ridiculous.”

He cupped her cold face in his palms and leant forward, kissing her forehead. When he pulled away, she gave a little sigh.

His ever so slightly mellowing Nesta.

He got her settled and the serving fae placed a bowl in front of her before making a hasty retreat. “Thank goodness,” Nesta said, “I’m starving.”

Cassian was content to watch as she picked up her spoon and tucked in. Loose strands of hair framed her face and there was the hint of some freckles on her nose, remnants from the summer when she went to visit Elain.

He would be content to watch her forever.

Reaching out with a hand, he pressed his open palm against her growing stomach. Nesta didn’t break stride, one hand spooning stew into her mouth while the other came to rest on his, their fingers curling together.

Cassian knew when they’d conceived.

It had been one of their visits to Illyria, Cassian for routine training and inspection and Nesta to get some space.

It had happened on the third day.

Nothing unusual had occurred, just simple domesticity in the cabin they shared. Nesta looked so lovely by the fire, her hair loose around her shoulders while she read. A thick blanket was tucked around her and her entire pose indicated nothing but pure relaxation aside from when she occasionally quirked an eyebrow.

That, and the dusky blush on her cheeks, was how Cassian recognised she was reading on of her erotic stories.

He’d placed an open-mouthed kiss on her shoulder. Nesta smelt like the smoke from the fire but tasted as fresh as mint. The little gasps she made as he continued down her body gave him all the encouragement he needed and she buried her fingers in his hair, the book falling with a thud.

Whatever the characters in her story were doing, Cassian could do better.

Soon it was nothing but their naked bodies pressed against each other, sweat coated skin slipping against skin. The firelight danced around them, shadows highlighting the curves of Nesta’s body as she writhed beneath him.

He was on her, in her, around her. His winged body taking up space on the rug. Nesta, his proper Nesta, who stood spine straight and unsmiling in public had sucked his thumb into her mouth, tongue flickering against his flesh, her pupils so large her eyes were black.

Cassian fucked her so hard that when her release came, she arched her back wide off the ground. He’d grabbed her thighs and hoisted her upwards, opening her up further so he could drive in deeper.

Afterwards they lay in front of the glowing embers, sweat cooling and he kissed her breathless because he never wanted to not be kissing her.

The rest of their time in Illyria was filled with duties that took Cassian away and it was a few days after their return to Velaris that he noticed a change in them both. A slight alteration of her scent and a distinct primal urge within him to tear apart any male who looked at her.

Cassian felt their baby shift underneath his palm, moving around for space, maybe even stretching its developing wings.

Nesta made a contented noise, food devoured. She rested her other hand against her stomach and leant back in her chair, looking out the window. “I’m surprised you didn’t want to sit further into the café, the alcove looks cosy.”

“I like watching the city.”

Nesta squeezed his fingers as the baby shifted particularly firmly. She sighed and Cassian saw her look out towards the bridge. “There’s not much to see in this spot.”

“I don’t mind,” Cassian said. “All this time, I was waiting for you.”

#nessian #nesta archeron #nesta #cassian #nesta x cassian #nesta archeron x cassian #cassian x original characters #fanfiction #nessian fanfiction #nessian fan fic #nessian fanfic #i wrote something #acotar #acomaf #acowar #acosaf #acosf #sunday fic post

[margoshansons]

Desperate Measures: 18/?

MASTERLIST

Summary: Y/N comes back to camp, where several people are waiting to welcome her. But she can’t stay long, especially with Finn and Murphy out there. Bellamy doesn’t take too kindly to a figure from Y/N’s past.

Warnings: canon-typical violence, mentions of a massacre, swearing, guns, death.

Notes: MY BOY DESERVES FUCKING BETTER JROTH! Anyway, I decided y’all needed some healing after that last episode so please enjoy this long chapter filled with plenty of Bellamy/YN. 

If any of you guys ever need to talk about 7x13 and what happened, I’m always here for you. Based on 2x05 “Human Trials”

***

Her breath threatened to betray how strained she felt from the walk to Factory Station and back. She clutched Monroe closer to her. The two women, suffering from similar wounds, leaning on each other for support as they struggled to cross the last few meters.

Her side split in pain, legs buckling underneath the weight of Monroe on her shoulders. She thought she could feel the stitches in her leg come undone.

“They’re back!” Someone shouted as they collapsed against the grassy fields, Octavia relieving the weight by taking Monroe off her hands. Y/N raised herself up, leaning against Bellamy for support.

“I’ve got you sparky.” He whispered, a reassuring smile on his face. Y/N couldn’t find it in her to berate him about the nickname. Her energy cells were depleted, and her leg was ready to bust open. “You’re going to be okay,”

Her balance was thrown off by a body colliding into her, disbelief erupting in her body as she removed her arms from Bellamy’s neck to her long lost friend. The blonde curls impedeing her vision confirmed her theory. Clarke was home.

Clarke was safe.

“You’re okay” She murmured through tears threatening to escape her, voice breaking, “You’re alive.”

She felt Clarke’s smile against her shoulder, “I thought I’d never see you again,” The blonde murmured, tightening her embrace, not ready to let go.

“Neither did I.”

When the two women let go, Clarke shared another tight embrace with Bellamy and Y/N felt herself almost plowed over by another body colliding with hers.

“Holy shit you’re actually alive,”

Her heart almost stopped when she heard the voice in her ear, hands running through the dirty blonde waves that had once been so familiar to her.

She pulled away, unable to believe who she was seeing. “Kyle?” Her voice broke as she said his name for the first time since solitary.

“Hey Sparky,” Wick’s eyes glazed over before pulling her back in for a hug, arms tightening once again around her waist as she buried her face in his shoulder, wrapping her arms around his familiar frame, “I missed you,” He whispered in her hair.

She pushed herself away, wrestling herself out of his stupidly strong grip. “Hey,” she spoke through unshed tears, voice thick with emotion, “Feelings are dumb remember?”

He let out a chuckle and she forgot how much she missed hearing him laugh. “Right,” Wick replied, pulling her inward toward his side, “Feelings are stupid.”

She let out a similar chuckle before a cough threw them out of their reunion. Y/N locked eyes with Bellamy, her throat constricting as nerves jumped upward at the thought of them meeting. This was going to be awkward.

***

Bellamy curled his lips at the sight of the taller guy holding Y/N so close to him, and he didn’t really like the anger stirring within his stomach as he caught the looks they gave each other.

Not that he had any claim over her, but he thought they were headed toward something at least.

“Who’s this?” He asked, trying to keep the irritation from leaking through his voice.

Y/n swallowed before plastering a bright smile on her face, “This is Wick, he was my partner in engineering on the Ark.”

“In more ways than one.” Wick remarked, garnering a playful snort and a smack across the chest from Y/N.

Bellamy nodded, hoping the white hot rage deep in his gut wasn’t visible to everyone the way he thought it was. What the hell did he mean? Who was he to talk about her that way?

“Anyways,” Y/N continued, gesturing toward him, “This is Bellamy, he’s my…”

He swallowed as she creased her eyebrows, struggling to find a way to define their relationship. “He’s my co-leader.” She settled on, and he tried to ignore the way his shoulders seemed to deflate at the sound of the term. He had hoped they were something more.

He wanted to be something more.

Didn’t she?

“Nice to meet you man.” Wick offered his hand out, which Bellamy took for the sake of being polite. “Y/N’s told me all about you, you know before Councilor Sydney went all batshit and crashed the exodus ship.”

“Wait?” Y/N asked, “That was her? That makes so much more sense.”

Wick nodded, wanting to continue talking. Bellamy was grateful for Clarke’s interjection.

“We can play catch-up later” She announced, turning back toward Bellamy and Octavia, “Where’s Finn?”

He saw the hope in her eyes die as Bellamy uttered those three words. “Looking for you.”

Clarke stepped back, ready to launch into a series of questions about what had transpired until a gasp of pain coming from Y/N’s mouth tore them from their conversation.

“Y/N?” Wick’s trembling voice came from Bellamy’s side, the two boys rushing forward to catch her as her leg buckled “Hey, Sparky can you hear me?” Bellamy shoved down his irritation at the use of the nickname and focused on Y/N’s smaller frame. 

“Come on,” He urged, pulling her into his side, her head resting on his shoulder, almost fading out of consciousness from how hard she had walked. His breathing increased rapidly, heartbeat pounding against his ribs as they made their way to the med tent, Bellamy’s gaze never leaving hers.

If they had he would’ve caught the look of realization crossing Clarke and Wick’s faces.

***

For the first time in a very long time, Y/N actually felt somewhat normal. Her leg was hardly bothering her anymore and she could actually move it without worrying too much about any extra pain.

“Hey Sparky,” A familiar voice called beside her, and she smiled in relief as she realized that her reunion with Wick hadn’t been a dream.

“Hey Kyle,” She moaned as she pulled herself up, the lack of sleep over the past few days finally catching up to her. “Where’s everybody?” She asked through a yawn as she gazed around the medical walls surrounding her. She drew her eyes to the gaping hole in her jeans as she ran her fingers down the perfectly neat stitches, the other hand embracing Kyle’s. “How did I get here?”

“Bellamy Blake,” Wick responded, the slightest smirk on his face as he leaned back, releasing his grip on her hand, “You know I think he really cares about you.”

Y/N rolled her eyes, shifting her weight so her legs hung off the table, ready to jump to the ground. “I’m not doing this now.”

“Hey, you were the one who wanted me to come down to help with this situation.” Wick brought up, and she groaned, her feet slapping the floor as she remembered their conversation from long ago.

“I hate that you remembered that.” She uttered, able to walk better than usual. Her eyes glanced around until they fell on a pile of clothes not that far away.

Wick stood up to follow her, “I remember a lot of things, like how Jackson said that you shouldn’t spend anymore time on that leg until it’s fully healed.”

Y/N scoffed, ripping off her tank to replace it with a grey thermal from the pile. Wick’s eyes lingered on her torso, eyebrows shooting themselves up into an arch.

“You gonna stop staring or do I have to close that mouth of yours myself?” She teased, the familiar flirtation sending something uncomfortable ripping through her. 

She hated this feeling. 

She hated the fact that even having Wick here was bringing these memories back.

She hated that it wasn’t Bellamy she was trading innuendos with.

Y/N ignored the smirk spreading across Kyle’s face as he leaned back, “You were the one who broke things off, so just remember that when you want some of this.” He defended, gesturing to his body.

She threw her head back and cackled, the sound freeing her from some of the responsibility she had been shouldering since she came down.

It was true what they said.

Laughter really was the best medicine.

“You come all this way to try and rekindle something Wick?” She used his last name, knowing it was less intimate. First names meant something to them, they didn’t just throw it around because they could.

“Actually I’m here to check on you,” His eyes flickered to her bare legs as she pulled on a new pair of jeans, lacing up her boots as she turned to face him. “And to tell you that your friends are planning on going after the two you left behind.”

Finn and Murphy.

They were still out there and Clarke was back home.

As if sensing her confusion, Wick continued to explain, “The council’s cutting them loose, Raven and I are helping you guys sneak out.”

Y/N bit her cheek mirthlessly, “Great, when do we leave?”

The medical flap opened, revealing Raven standing there with a brace surrounding her bum leg, a duffel bag of rifles around her shoulder as she handed Y/N a pistol. “Now.”

***

Bellamy failed to hide his surprise upon meeting Raven and Y/N at the electric fence, the latter in fresh clothes with a pistol strapped to her side.

“I don’t like you coming with us.” He muttered, shifting his gaze between the two women.

“It’s a shame I don’t listen to you then.” She smirked, handing him a rifle as the pitter patter of footsteps rounded the corner.

Clarke smiled at the two of them, “Nice to see that not everything has changed.”

Bellamy scoffed, hiding the pleasure he felt at the idea of Y/N accompanying them on their journey. He liked her company, and he knew Clarke wouldn’t leave without several stashes of gauze and painkillers on her.

Octavia’s wild braids made an appearance and determination crossed her face. “I’m not letting you leave here without me.”

“Octavia--” Y/N moved before getting cut off by the other girl.

“Finn and Murphy are headed for Lincoln’s village,” She brought up, the argument clearly practiced, “I’ve been there, have you? Have they?” She threw a pointed look at Bellamy and Clarke before Y/N pulled out a pack.

“I was going to say I know.” She smirked, the two girls sharing a smile before Octavia moved forward.

“Whoa,” Raven drew her cane in front of his sister, “Not so fast Pocahontas.” Her cane touched the fence, electricity sparking and crackling as the five of them jumped back.

“I thought you said it was handled,” Bellamy growled.

“It is” Y/N spoke up, raising a radio to her mouth uttering three simple words. “Shut it down Wick.”

She handed the radio to Raven, and Bellamy once again tried to get a hold on the anger raging inside him at the thought of Y/N and Wick spending time together while he was out petitioning to save their friends.

He hadn’t been there for her. Not like Bellamy had,

The next time the cane touched the fence, nothing happened. And he supposed he had Wick to thank for that.

He sighed as they snuck out, barely catching the look Clarke gave him and Y/N as they shuffled forward behind Octavia, footsteps matching each other.

***

Bellamy shifted uncomfortably on the log, eyes locking onto Octavia’s sleeping frame, a small tug at his lips recalling everything the two had been through. Clarke slept a few beats away, curled up next to the flames, blonde hair splayed out on the grass beside him. He was grateful to have her back. Having her around made things so much easier.

When his eyes flitted to Y/N’s blanket, he perked up in worry, the pack abandoned on the forest floor as he looked around, searching anxiously for his co-leader, his friend, his...something.

“Relax,” Her soft voice answered, footsteps settling next to him before she sat down next to him, her body warming him more than any fire ever could. “I was just scouting the area,” She waved her pistol before holstering it in her pants like he once did, letting him know that she was armed and ready to defend herself.

He let out a sigh of relief before turning his gaze beside him, eyes scanning her illuminated features. She stared out at the fire before him, ponytail drifting over her shoulders as she leaned forward, elbows against her knees.

“Did you mean what you said?” He swallowed his nerves, ready to get an answer to the question that had been plaguing him since the day she got shot. “Back at the dropship, before we got seperated. Did you have feelings for me?”

He watched her shoulders tense at the question, and he knew he had taken it a step too far. They were in the middle of a war, they shouldn’t be talking about this. They shouldn’t be focusing on this, but he needed to know.

“Yes.” She breathed, eyes flickering to his mouth, “I do have feelings for you. Murphy was right.”

His chest exploded at the confirmation, nerves evaporating into relief as it pumped through his veins. 

“That’s a relief.” He joked to ease the tension, “I was afraid I had to beat Murphy if it wasn’t true.” She chuckled, the hushed laughter sending his chest pounding with pride. “Maybe I’ll beat him anyway.” He continued, his lips tugging involuntarily. “Just for kicks.”

“You should cut him some slack,” Y/N spoke up, surprising both of them before letting out a yawn “Even he and I have something in common.”

It was Bellamy’s turn to chuckle, “You should get some sleep,” He brushed a piece of hair that had fallen loose aside, pushing it behind her ear as he examined her beautiful face again, the touch sending shivers down his spine.

“So should you.” She pointed out, hands brushing themselves across the wrinkles in his forehead.

He couldn’t keep the adoring smile off his face, wanting nothing more than to press his lips against hers right then and there, to take her in his arms and forget the rest of the world existed. She made him want to be better.

She made him want to live.

“I’ll sleep when we find Finn,” He said, shoving those thoughts to the back of his mind as he remembered his own reality. “I knew what they were capable of, and I let him and Murphy leave with two automatic rifles.”

“We let them leave.” Y/N reminded him, grasping his hand in hers, drawing his gaze toward her intertwined digits. “You don’t have to do this alone.”

His gaze moved up her arm, meeting her exposed neck until it finally landed on her soft lips, and the desire to kiss her had never been greater until that moment.

It seemed so perfect.

The gap was almost nonexistent.

Inching closer and closer--

“I’m sure it was just like the dropship,” Clarke’s trembling voice rang through the fire, tearing the two apart. “It had to be done.”

Bellamy nodded slightly before shifting his gaze to the fire, one final question lingering on his mind. “How long until chocolate cake turns into being hung upside down and drained for their blood?” His voice shook, as if he couldn’t handle the truth. As if one wrong move would topple him.

“I don’t know” Clarke admitted, sitting up, “But we don’t have much time.”

Y/N nodded with him, “First we find Finn,” She chimed in, “And then we rescue our friends in Mount Weather.”

“And Lincoln.” Octavia announced, everyone finally awake. “Think we’ve slept long enough.” The rest of the group agreed.

“I’ll go find us some water to extinguish the fire.” Y/N announced, tearing herself out of Bellamy’s grasp to enter the darkened forest.

“She’s good for you Bellamy.” Clarke told him as soon as Y/N was out of earshot.

Bellamy nodded, ‘She’s good for all of us.” He said instead, ignoring the knowing look on Clarke’s face. “I don’t think any of us would’ve survived if she hadn’t been on that dropship.”

“You got that right.” Octavia snickered, a soft smile on her face as she caught the look in her brother’s eyes. “We got lucky.” She said.

Bellamy nodded, sending a look in the direction she had disappeared in. “Really lucky,” He murmured to himself.

***

“We’re almost there.” Octavia announced, continuing her way through the endless amounts of trees, “Once we reach the statue it’s only another kilometer or two.”

Y/N creased her eyebrows in confusion, she tilted her head as she linked eyes with Bellamy.

Statue?

Were there remnants of Old Earth that had survived the bombs?

Her question was answered once they stepped deep into a clearing, the dirt path stretching before them, but Y/N’s eyes were trained on a vine covered monument above her, a brief moment of awe crossing her face before a sob pulled her back to reality.

“The reapers came from there.” Octavia spoke, tears falling down her face, “I couldn’t save him Bell, I couldn’t save him.”

Bellamy pulled Octavia close, reassuring her that they would find Lincoln again and he would make sure of it. Y/N shuffled closer to Clarke, glad to have her with them as they traversed forward.

“I recognize this statue,” the blonde announced, “He was a great peacekeeper before the cataclysm.” Clarke and her stared up at the statue once again, letting Bellamy and Octavia have their moment. “I destroy my enemies by making them friends.” Clarke whispered, and Y/N tilted her head, not recognizing the quote. “It was quote of his. One that I think we need to implement.”

“How you reach the goal matters.” Y/N told herself, realizing what Clarke was hinting at, “You wanna seek peace with the grounders?” She asked, knowing it was the most logical conclusion.

Clarke nodded, “Their people are in the mountain too. We need--”

Shots rang out, pulling the foursome back to reality as they raced toward the village, hoping they weren’t too late.

They scrambled down the man-made path, dirt roads and statues forgotten as their eyes graced the horror awaiting them at the grounder village. A burnt farm crumbled at their side, blood poured onto the streets and a man with a face tattoo released a guttural scream to the sky. 

They scrambled down the hill, and Y/N’s gaze went to Murphy, whose gun was slung behind him. She turned her eyes to Finn, smoke rising from the barrel of his rifle.

She leaned down next to Octavia, examining the warrior--no, the child bleeding onto the pavement beneath him.

Beside her, the sobbing man closed the child’s eyes whispering one phrase. “Yu gonplei ste odon*.”

Behind her, Finn’s crazed eyes were locked onto Clarke’s whispering a phrase of his own.

“I found you.”

***

That night her mind refused to sleep, replaying the massacre over and over, recalling the final words the man with the face tattoo had spoken to that child, the screams that followed. She couldn’t get them out of her head, and when she slept they only made things worse.

She wanted Miller here.

She wanted him to steal moonshine and tell her that things were going to be okay, to cheer her up with his awful jokes and play games together as they spilled secrets they wouldn’t whisper to anyone else.

Pulling herself out of bed, she shoved the flap of her tent open, wind rushing against her exposed legs, not caring about who saw her. His tent was close enough to hers.

No one would question it.

Especially what remained of the hundred.

Warm light flooded the room, almost blinding her as she stormed into Bellamy’s tent, the brunette rushing his hands through his hair. She suspected his mind was doing the same thing.

“Couldn’t sleep?” Was all he asked, eyes widening.

She shook her head and he gestured toward his own bed, she moved in next to him, the last of the oil in the lamp burning out as she pressed her body against his, relishing in the warmth they gave each other.

***

A/N: IT FINALLY HAPPENED!!!! Our babies are together at last! I debated about changing it so it happened much later, but after tonight I think we all could use some romance in our lives, especially with Bellamy Blake. 

DM Taglist (closed): @chloe-skywalker​ @im-a-writer-right​ @clarkewithameme​ @shatteredlovesick​ @your-typical-giggle​ @rhyxn​ @amongthewildthingss​ @furiouspockettoad​ @niammain​ @cxddlyash​ @lena-davina @kaylinfayezink​ @gingerxarmy​ @super-marvel-dale​ @travelnottogoanywherebuttogo​ @nerdbookish​ @valeskasecco @strangerliaa​ @simsvetements​ @molethemollie​ @thebookisbtr​ @im-a-stranger-thing​ @jordangdelacruz​ @oopsiedoopsie23​ @multifandombookstore​ @okj232 @asian-male-enthusiast​ @minigranger​ @jooheonbee​ @libraryoffandomsuniverse​ @pancakefancake​ @weird-pale-blonde-person​

#the100fanfiction #the 100 imagines #bellamy blake x reader #bellamy blake imagines #bellamy blake imagine #bellamy blake #reader x bellamy blake #fic: desperate measures #series: desperate measures #otp: I need you to live #desperate measures #my fics #{FUCK JROTH} #{THAT SHIT DOES NOT FLY HERE NO SIR}

[plummyplums]

5AM and On - Chapter 2

When Sam lit their candle and saw the ghost children all standing before them, they were ready to turn and run faster than they ever had. However, they stopped in their tracks when they caught a glimpse of their hands.

Aka Sam tries to manage as a new companion to the Weaver kids and the whole, y’know, being dead thing.

I’m trying to have more fun with my writing, so I’m shirking some of my perfectionistic tendencies for this story.  Forgive me.

They weren’t sure how long they cried for, but Sam was exhausted.  When their tears finally dried up, they looked to find the kids were still there, the girl having moved to sit beside them.  Her black eyes seemed sympathetic.  Sam’s voice was thick as they asked, “Can...can I leave?  Am I stuck here?”

The following silence told them all they needed to know.  Sam sniffled, having expected this answer.  Ghosts don’t just stick around because they want to, at least not ghosts like these.  “So...is this the afterlife?  We just turn into ghosts and get stuck where we died?”

They all seemed to stiffen at the mention of an afterlife, but if they were truly uncomfortable, no one said anything about it.  “Most people don’t stay when they die.  Our last few visitors didn’t.  Just us...and now you,” the girl murmured.  “If we could leave, we would’ve.”

Overwhelmed and on the verge of crying again, they tried to keep their cool.  “So...I guess we’re all stuck here together, huh?”

The spirits nodded, obviously resigned to this fate.  It was more than a bit awkward, considering they were the ones who killed Sam, but they didn’t seem to have a choice.  It’s not like Sam chose to stay there (not counting the choice to play Wick in the first place).  The uncomfortable silence that followed was eventually broken by the largest child.  “We’re being rude, we should introduce ourselves.  I’m Benny.”

Rude?  You literally murdered me!  Sam chose to keep their thoughts to themselves, not wanting to have a fight the moment they properly meet these kids.  That discussion could wait, or never happen, if they didn’t feel like it.  Honestly, they didn’t want to think about the fact that they were dead, and as long as they didn’t talk about it or look at themselves, they didn’t have to face it.  Talking about literally anything else sounded great in that moment, so they took to the conversation, no matter how awkward and uncomfortable.  “I’m Sam.”

He gave a sad smile.  It was obvious he was just trying to be polite, perhaps as a way to make up for what had happened.  “Well, it’s nice to meet you, Sam.  I’m, uh, sorry we had to meet like this.”

“I wanna go next!” the girl interjected, jumping to her feet.  “I’m Lillian, and this is Caleb!”  She gestured to the digger child, who nodded eagerly before repeating his name.  The way his teeth clacked mixed with his raspy, dry voice made Sam shiver.  “He doesn’t really talk, but he can repeat stuff!”

“Repeat!”

Benny chuckled.  “Be careful what you say around him.”

Though a bit creeped out, they couldn’t help but chuckle at his energy.  It reminded them of some of their friends’ younger siblings, always excited and wanting to show off.

Their train of thought was interrupted by the boy in the smiling mask.  He seemed hesitant to speak to them.  “I’m Tim, and this is my brother Tom.  Before you ask, yes, we’re twins.”  The one with the cracked mask—Tom—didn’t meet their eyes.  Whether that was because of his obviously broken neck or shyness was unknown, though Sam was thinking the latter due to the way he shrunk behind Tim when they looked his way.  At least looking at him didn’t mess with their eyes anymore, the effect he caused had given them a headache.  The sight of bone poking through his flesh wasn’t that much better, however.

In fact, looking them over, the kids all looked pretty bad.  Tim was covered in scrapes and breathed noticeably, as if forcing himself to get air (Did ghosts need air?  Sam didn’t know).  Lillian’s skin was blue-grey, and it looked like her clothes were wet, not to mention her pure black eyes.  Caleb was near skeletal, rail-thin and with no eyes to speak of.  Benny seemed the best off, just from what Sam could tell.  It was unnerving, but also caused a bit of sympathy to grow in Sam.  They were just kids, but it looked like they’d been through a lot.  Maybe they had more in common than Sam would’ve guessed.

Without thinking, they asked, “How old are you guys?”

They looked surprised by the question, but gave their answers; Benny was the oldest at 14, followed the twins at 12, Caleb at 9, and Lillian a mere 5 years old (though she didn’t look it).  “Before we died, anyway.  No idea how old we are now, we haven’t kept track,” Tim noted.

Sam sighed.  They didn’t remember much of the story behind Wick, so they couldn’t really estimate.  “Let’s just go with what you remember.”

By then the sun was beginning to peek through the trees, and now that their adrenaline was wearing off, Sam was starting to feel the effects of being up all day and night.  They yawned, and everything suddenly felt quite heavy.  It was bedtime.  The kids seemed to pick up on their coming question, and Lillian helped them up as the others stood.  “C’mon, we sleep in the camp cabins.  They still have beds and stuff in them!”  She grinned, though Sam noticed she looked tired as well.  “I can teleport us, it’s faster.”

Remembering the nauseating feeling when she’d teleported them before, Sam quickly shook their head, chuckling nervously.  “It’s ok, I can walk.”

“Suit yourself!”  She shrugged, disappearing in a sort of haze.  Caleb dug into the ground with impressive speed, taking off in his little mole tunnel in the direction of the old summer camp.  Tim seemed to take this as a challenge, taking off after his trail as if racing him to the cabins.  His twin, seemingly not wanting to be left behind, also teleported away, leaving Sam to walk with Benny.  They were in no rush, and followed the path to the campsite, watching the sun rise on the horizon.

They mostly walked in silence, but as they got closer, Benny spoke.  “Hey Sam?”

“Yeah?”

“I’m sorry about...y’know.  We didn’t know you’d get trapped here too.”

Sam’s thoughts buzzed like static, and they tried desperately to end this line of conversation.  “It’s...it’s ok.  I shouldn’t have played that stupid game in the first place.  I just...I didn’t think it was real until it was already too late.”  They didn’t say anything else until they arrived at the cabins.  Benny led them to a cabin, saying the others had claimed theirs long before, and bid them good day.

Despite being exhausted, it took Sam almost an hour to get to sleep.

#my fics #fanfiction #wick (2015) #wick hellbent games #wick game #wick #sam #tim weaver #tom weaver #caleb weaver #lillian weaver #benny weaver #writeblr #writers on tumblr #ghosts #dead kids #body horror #5AM and On

[goonlalagoon]

We start small || Leagues and Legends

A series rewrite AU for @ink-splotch​‘s fantastic Leagues and Legends books.

Spoilers for the whole trilogy below!

Read on Ao3

 When George was fifteen, her village left her out for a dragon. The blacksmith slipped a knife up her sleeve as they went, and in the press of bodies she couldn't ask him why. She could only guess at what mercy he was handing her. The villagers would live with shame under their tongues for the rest of their lives, but they would live. The dragon ruled the hillside, great and golden, scales bright against the purple lupins that bloomed there every year, and they pretended it was fear that made them shudder at the sight.

Maybe Jack still survived the bandits who attacked the merchant caravan he was travelling with. Maybe he travelled on with them, bounced from place to place until he found a cause to throw himself into, on some distant shore far from the Forest where he had grown up. Maybe he didn't, one fourteen year old boy with no training and no battlefield experience, just a big heart and a bit of luck on his side.

There was no Dragon Slayer. It would be years before someone earned the old title Giantkiller, and it wouldn't be a red headed forest boy who tried to stand tall under the weight of that history.

Liam Jones powered the towns and villages of the mountains for weeks. The Seeress was almost blind with the burning light that drifted up through the floor, and the afterimage it left behind when it finally winked out was almost worse. There were no tales in the mountains of the Pied Piper.

Beatrice Tanner would never know any of their names.

On the day when in another life she might have opened her door and let a third soul into her shuttered heart, Bea woke as always before the sun to put the bread on to rise, and while the ovens warmed she rolled her dog eared map out over the old wooden table and traced her fingers over hidden paths and scant shelters. She had a network, small but growing, owed petty favours and moments of kindness. She had a list of lives saved, and a list of those she knew were at risk and could possibly be convinced to leave. She had a list of losses, a bitter sting under her tongue and a cold motivator to keep trying.

People still didn't believe her warnings, most of the time. They hushed her for telling children to be careful, to be hidden, and she did it anyway whenever she saw gold glittering in the corner of her eye, when she saw children play with sparks that didn't burn. Maybe they wouldn't believe her, but maybe they'd check over their shoulder anyway. Maybe the children would curl their hands into little fists and ignore the skin of the world pressing in on them, scared by this woman who hissed nightmares at them in the street. She didn't want children to be afraid, but she wanted them to be safe, and when there was a monster on the loose fear was what kept you alive.

She said as much, one day at a market, snapping warnings at children and glaring at the uniformed man who'd asked her what she was scaring children for. She had no patience for coddling, and she had little for the Bureau either. But this one blinked at her, and scratched at his clean shaven chin. 

"Stealing mages? Say, d'you mind repeating all this to Sarge? He's the boss of our League, and this sounds like something we should know about." Bea eyed him suspiciously, but the possibility of getting more people to help outweighed her faint distaste for the Leagues. 

It was only a few weeks later that May told her that it was really just May, not short for anything despite what the Bureau paperwork said. Bea wasn't quite sure whether this was a sign of trust or of just how much May wanted to get out of her padded armour and into something that didn't chafe quite as much on the healing gash down her side.

Sarge had sent coded reports back to headquarters, and was glaring at the responses. Flash was twisting his fingers, safe with his training and his league, staring sleepless at the ceiling with visions of those who weren’t keeping him awake. They couldn’t give themselves wholly to this cause; the Rangers had a job to do and it was one that badly needed doing - but part of their job was to keep people safe from monsters, so when they left they took some of her gathered information with them, and kept their eyes open. 

They sent her news, dropped by the markets they knew she liked to give her the names of people who had helped, people who believed them when they whispered warnings. They sent people to her, frightened or angry or numb, but always desperate, and she sent them on. She didn't ask anyone to be a hero, because heroes were for stories and legends, for Bureau badges and official postings. She just asked people for a little bit of help, and then they offered it again and again. 

It was over a year after she met them that they sent her the Giantkiller. 

Kay had thick ropes of scarring over his side and arm, the pockmarks of claws pressed deep into his shoulder. He was a child when rocs tried to carry him off, struggling and screaming. He was lucky - the Rangers heard the commotion and brought the beast down, two arrows in its heart, a net of golden fire to catch him as he fell, to pour into gaping wounds and knit flesh back together. When they had to stay camped out for a day while the mage weathered an Elsewhere storm, their Guide showed him how to mix a paste to help the scars heal out of ingredients he could find within an hour’s walk of home.

His father's fury when he said after they left that he wanted to be a Leaguesman too was a burning thing, a bitter thing. He jerked his head down the road the Rangers left by, and listed every time they could have been of use before one lucky day. Kay fiddled with his spoon, because it was true - but that was the point of joining up, wasn't it? To be the person who was there when he was needed. But his father was bitter, furious, so he held his tongue. 

When his father was out working in the field and Kay was supposed to be chopping wood, he fenced the air with a stick for a sword the way he'd watched May and Sarge practice in the early morning, as they let Flash sleep late to regain his strength and they kept a wary eye out for any returning rocs. He stumbled over his own feet and knew he was no good.

When he was younger, he'd practiced with his sling until his fingers blistered, and his father smiled over the small game he brought in, the crows he scared away from the crops with a sharp stone to the claws. Kay practiced still, every day, and now he imagined bigger targets.

The rocs came again, as they did every year, and one tried to carry off not a child but the neighbours' sheep. Kay sent it crashing back to the ground. Its neck snapped as it landed and he stood over it, shaking and fierce and frightened. The men arrived at a run from the barn, and Kay's father looked proud and scared and bitter. 

"You see?" He said, later, when they’d butchered the carcass and he was watching Kay sort the feathers he'd asked to keep. "Rocs every damn year, and no Leagues here to help."   

Kay hummed, non-committal, thinking but I was. 

He was too young for the Leagues anyway, he knew. But he wasn't too young to help, so when there were rumours of Things haunting the woods nearby he slipped out his window in the grey dusk and went hunting. He had a handful of mage spelled stones, even if they were spelled for gentle warmth not damage, a gift from Flash to help ease the ache in healing limbs. The Things shrieked like the stones burned, and he was sick behind a bush afterward but the nest was gone, and Things shriek but he'd heard the families who’s homes were closer to the woods than his weeping too, and he knew which he'd choose. His father was pacing when he got home in the soft light of dawn, and he knew without asking where Kay had been. He knew what Kay was making himself into and he was furious and so scared, but Kay couldn't go back to waiting for someone else to save his people. 

Kay set out the next morning, when his father was already out in the fields, working off his anger on the weeds. He packed a satchel of food and clothes, his sling and pouches of stones. He slipped the little carved flute his father made for his last birthday into the side of his bag, and set off down the road, refusing to look back.

When he met the Rangers again, it was in the shadow of a giant, the wreckage of a village. They were too late to help bring it down, but they found him digging through the fallen buildings for survivors. Sarge glanced at the sling at his hip first and Kay tensed. They were already whispering about him, the survivors, about the Giantkiller and his sling, and he knew the price of being a vigilante. Sarge said nothing, just gripped the other end of the beam he was trying to lift, hauling it up so Kay could drag the wounded boy underneath into the light.

They had a hushed conference, the Rangers and the Giantkiller, carefully out of sight because they could only shirk this particular duty if no one knew. May shook her head over him but bullied him through a basic staff work drill. Sarge watched, and nodded thoughtfully when Flash muttered "think the Baker could use a field agent?"

His story rolled ahead of him, growing as he went. He cleared a nest of Things in one village and took down another roc in a narrow pass, had a brief run in with bandits that he barely survived. He helped stock a woodpile for a hot meal and repaired a fence for another. There hadn't been a Giantkiller in the memory of anyone younger than his grandmother, and he listened to the old stories that were being dusted off. He hoped no one expected him to live up to all of them. 

Bea heard him out, polite but not friendly, and he tried not to shuffle in his seat under her level gaze. She shrugged, eventually, and let him tag along as she smuggled a woman and her sister through the checkpoints in her cart. Kay tucked his sling out of sight and played a sullen teenager for all he was worth so that she could scold him loudly and the guards would shake their heads over the disruption instead of searching through the carefully stacked flour bags.  

Someone wrote to her a week later saying they had a wyvern problem - people had long since started writing to the Baker for any help they needed and couldn’t afford from official sources, to see if she knew someone who could help. She sent Kay as a response, and he came back with a burn on his leg and pockets full of scales, scrubbed clean - but he came back. She grew to expect it, became used to keeping his room ready and leaving space at the table for him.  

The first time he broke into the Graves' keep, he slipped out of the bakery after she'd gone to bed. They hadn't reached these ones in time, and he'd watched the way her shoulders fell and her lips thinned when he came back too soon, no rescues in his wake and no stories about how he'd helped them escape. He'd looked at her map, and thought but I'm still here.

The keep was easy to break into, because no one else was fool enough to try, and the Seeress was still working her way into her father's toolkit. He'd never held a lock pick but he knew how to remove hinges from a wall so he opened the doors that way, until one of the terrified mages shook off the stupor and started melting through them for him. They fled, and he scrawled the ward diagrams Flash had sent to Bea in the dirt for his rescues to copy with the sparks of power that were left to them. They had suspicions, Bea and the Rangers, dark thoughts about how their foe was finding prey so easily. They had wards that would cloud them from the sight of a seer, briefly, enough to break a trail, and they worked.  

Kay led them to the bakery, where Bea fed them and sent them on, and when the house was empty again she wrapped her arms around Kay and hissed don't you dare do that again, don't you dare Kay, you don't disappear on me. He nodded and promised, but they both knew he meant he wouldn't slip away in the night. Kay was young, true, but he wasn't a fool. He could promise not to go without a word, but he couldn't promise he'd come back. 

There was no Dragon Slayer, no Piper, a different Giantkiller - but it had never been just about those three friends. They were the ones whose legends were told, but theirs had never been the only hands buried in this war.

In a different village, there was a girl with the Elsewhere pulling gently on her bones. Kay took a warning, because if he and Bea had heard of her then so would the Graves’, and her sister narrowed her eyes at him as she went pale with fear. For all that he was the messenger not the threat, Kay took an instinctive half step back. "If anyone thinks they're taking my sister, they're going to get what's coming to them."

Rosie and Susie had friends, and those friends had already lost people to the machines, vanishing in the night and dropping out of contact. When Kay warned them, told them what he knew, they listened. They planned. When slavers came in the night, Elsewhere cracks tucked in their pockets, they thought this would be easy. The Seeress had seen an orphan girl with magic. If she had seen anything else, it had been shadowy faces with nothing to make them stand out. This is the peril of a Seer; you fall into the habit if thinking that if you don't see something it can't matter.

Slavers came in the night, and never left.  

They started calling them Snow White and Rose Red, these sisters with deep roots in the mountain soil who grit their teeth and refused to run, refused to hide. Theirs was a mountain village, no Bureau-sanctioned guard and no walls to defend them, so they built their own. Bea smuggled out every person unwilling to become a civilian soldier, who wanted safety not defiance, and the rest built a fortress.  

Kay helped, hands familiar with hammer and nails, the cost of freedom. He made friends, not just with the sisters but with Doc and his sons, the taciturn blacksmith and his two apprentices, the cheerful woman who ran the inn and the cynical one who presided over the fledgling community garden, with a few scattered kids his own age with fire in their veins and fear in their eyes.

(Or was it fear that ran in their blood, twitching at shadows and hearts pounding when they woke at night, and fire in their eyes, a stubborn, worn down fury?)  

They named it Challenge, carved it deep over the main gate, a name and a purpose. 

Their first siege had been a holding action in the mines, Doc and his sons collapsing tunnels and digging new ones until winter came on and forced the Graves' soldiers back to their own walls. The vigilantes stayed in the mines, huddled together for warmth and comfort, elated and terrified at their own victory. Rosie and Susie roamed the passages, after, speaking to everyone and inviting a selection to a council - Kay was invited too, and sat awkwardly listening to them lay plans for rebuilding, how to build sturdy walls the moment the snows cleared enough. Their second came days after they carved Challenge over the gate, while Kay was still getting all of the sawdust out of his hair.

He went back to the bakery afterward, to pour over maps with Bea and be sent out on missions. They couldn't save everyone. They couldn't save most people, but some was better than none. Kay stared at the ceiling through long, sleepless nights, trying to convince himself that it was okay that he couldn't work miracles. People knew him by sight, now, and some days he didn’t feel he should be looking over his shoulder whenever they called out Giantkiller!

It was a long, slow war, their quiet campaign against the Graves family. Bea’s network grew and grew, despite their heavy losses - mages who escaped and ones who didn’t, the non-magical casualties who weren’t quick enough with a lie or a dodge, or were simply unlucky. Susie and Rosie were a fierce pair, exchanging razor sharp letters with Bea to plan out strategies and contingencies.

(It wasn’t until after his third siege at Challenge that Kay would realise that Bea had never actually met either of the sisters; she had never met Marian, either, but they had never communicated directly so it was easier to recall. The sisters and the Baker sent word back and forth for years, but barely knew anything of each other outside of their shared plans besides what he could pass on - for all that Bea would like to see Challenge, there was bread to bake and travel could be dangerous. Better not to give the Seeress any reason to look again at this sleepy village that she and hers had already gutted for fuel.)

Kay was no natural physician, but he helped to wrap bandages in Doc Frederickson’s infirmary whenever he was in Challenge, between meetings and sentry duty. In the streets and villages people expected him to be a hero; in the infirmary, Doc just expected him to be useful. He cracked bad jokes as distraction, fetched water, and peered over a bewildered man’s shoulder at a neat formula that someone had stumbled through the gates clutching. She didn’t remember where she’d found it, but it had been tucked into the lining of her coat. There was a note on the front in her own handwriting, for all she didn’t recall writing it - My first rabbit was called Snowball, and this is real, not a joke.

Doc’s hand shook so badly that he had to put the unfolded note down before he dropped it. Kay clutched the edge of the desk hard enough to hurt, looking between the message and the woman sat on the edge of an infirmary cot, gold dripping sluggishly from her fingertips to pool on the fabric. It would stain, leaving smudged hand-prints on the sheets and faintly in the mattress below, but they would consider it a miracle not a nuisance. She was sitting, fingertips trembling but no worse this morning than they had been any day of her journey north. She had been dragged from the cells, away from the machines that should have killed her, and rather than dying grateful for a final view of the sky she had found herself weeks to the South, in a town she hadn’t known and a recipe in her pocket in handwriting she didn’t recognise.

It wasn’t a cure, but it was still something no-one had thought to hope for. It was a medicine, true, but it was also a message: somebody, somewhere, was trying to save their mages too. They weren’t the only ones resisting this blight.

This, too: after that first midnight venture of Kay’s they had never been able to rescue anyone from the Graves’ keep. They had fought to prevent people being taken, rescued people from mage warded wagons, hissed warnings to make people hide or flee. They had built a town, walls and watchtowers, a beacon of resistance. But they had never managed to make their way into the keep itself undetected a second time, for all the desperate families who had tried, for all the curses the Seeress and the Mayor hissed when they found the doors open and cells empty. Kay and Bea would exchange long looks over the bakery table, and wonder who on the inside was setting people free and laying the blame at their convenient feet.

(In a lab none of them had never seen, Jillit Chu was saving life after life of people who she knew would never remember her name, secrets written in invisible letters on her skin when she went home at night. Thorne was pouring over reports, Jill’s own records, Jeremiah’s much less successful and yet officially far more vital analyses, the dispatches from his spies in the mountains. He wanted the Graves family dealt with, of course - but he wanted their secrets, too. Thorne was a Bureau man, and while Mayor Graves was always careful not to upset the Bureau, he was no more affiliated with them than the vigilantes that plagued his operations. It had never been the means of production that Thorne objected to, or the Graves’ would have been out of a business years before.

Spider didn’t know this; Andrew Molina had given years of his life to bring the machines down, weaving a web to tear it all down. He was trying to find a gap in his plans to let Sandry slip through; he knew where Sam had gone even if she didn’t, thought if he could get her out too then there would be a life for her away from the wreckage of her father’s dreams. If he had to, he knew he would let her fall with it and take the regrets, but he was an excellent Bureau agent - he liked his odds for achieving both. He wasn’t reaching out to Sam just yet - they were working to weaken the system, but it was slow work. The Baker and her resistance were an irritation, but they weren’t yet causing enough of a disruption to have materially disrupted production, to have strained the system, to be convincing the less dedicated that this was a fight they were going to lose.

Thorne had other agents, he knew, and they heard things the Spider didn’t. Reports that when put together said that this was going to be the work of more cold years - he measured them in people lost, and tried when those the Seeress saw were children to make sure he was spotted on the road, that whispers spread before him, warnings. He couldn’t let everyone slip away, not if he wanted to bring it all down, but he tried to save as many as he could - he felt every mage who burned for other people’s light as a weight on his shoulders. He kept walking, the Seeress’ right hand man, and did not stumble under that burden.)

Robin Hood died on an otherwise unremarkable winter’s day, stumbling back to the treeline with them, held up as much as their rescues. Marian’s hands didn’t shake as she lit the pyre, and Kay wondered if she would stay that cold for the rest of her life. She left with a handful of the Merry Men, the ones who’d been thinking of warmer pastures or those like her couldn’t stand to be beneath the trees without Robin. Kay wasn’t sure if she was angry at him or the world - Marian wasn’t, either. She had fought sieges at his side, before he begged Robin’s help for the last time; she knew his history, this mountain born boy who became a legend. She wouldn’t write to him or the Baker, but Little John would drop mentions into his occasional messages, and some days she was glad for the news.

When Kay had first stumbled into the Woods, an injured mage leaning on his shoulder and pursuit on his heels, it had been Marian who coolly shot down the armed guard and guided them beneath the trees. She had helped bandage up his rescue, and Robin had dropped down next to him at the fire. Kay wasn’t sure he had ever felt as safe as he did that night, curled up beneath the towering trees with their cheerful assurances that he didn’t need to worry about any armed followers tracking him here, dozing off in a borrowed bed roll on the hard ground. The Merry Men weren’t all kind to outsiders, but they loved Robin and respected Marian - if they were told he was a friend, he was a friend. Kay watched the smoke rise, the snow melting around them, and wondered if Robin would still be alive, if Kay hadn’t thought of him as a friend.

The remaining Merry Men stayed out of the fight, after that, nursing wounds physical and metaphorical, but Little John made it clear that the paths through the trees were still open to Kay and his rescues. More than one trembling mage and their shaken family were escorted safely south by the Merry Men after a night or two beneath the trees.

It was a long war, and Kay measured it first in months rather than days, then years rather than months; the Seeress was spreading her gaze further afield as the mountain villages became wary, as anyone with sparks at their fingertips fled before they needed warning. Kay gained scars from vicious brawls with guards, with the long limbed Spider, a bullet wound in the shoulder that would ache in the cold for the rest of his life from Spider’s deputy.

Kay was by no means the only person fighting this war, but he had become one of the lynchpins, the one who most often acted directly against the Graves’ network - his was the face the Seeress saw most in the wake of plans dissolving like smoke. She had a bespoke curse tucked in a pocket, and one vindictive day she set it loose. Bea watched the Giantkiller turn pale, shaky on feet that a moment before had been steady, and crumple. She caught him before he could hit the ground, and carried him gently to his room. She sent out frantic messages through her network, looking for healers, looking for anyone who could help. After three nights of fever, Little John crept into the bakery, cradling a pouch in his large, gentle hands. He was no trained healer, but he knew old stories, knew how to walk into the shadowed trees on a full moon night and ask for help for the deserving. He did not know what he had done, to mix this medicine, but when the sun had risen it had been in his hands.

Kay spent another three nights tossing and turning, but he woke with the sun on the seventh day. It would take weeks until he felt fully rested, and Little John warned him that full moons would make him restless for the rest of his days. He spent his time sorting Bea’s correspondence and helping her in the bakery, until she declared him fit for field work again. Even then they were wary, cautious. They had no doubts who had sent a curse to strike him down, for all they sneered at the hypocrisy - they watched for any sign that the Seeress had known where to strike, but found nothing amiss.

One morning, Kay woke to the sound of shattering crockery in the bakery below; he was wary, fresh bruises on his knuckles and sleeping light, recently home and still listening for ambushes. He crept downstairs, and found Bea pinned to the wall of her own kitchen with strings of golden fire, the butter dish broken on the floor. The slingstone he pitched through the door landed, but its target had moved in time and took a glancing bruise to the arm rather than a blow to the head. She held up calloused palms, but he could see the gun at her hip and the gold holding Bea in place: he wasn’t fool enough to think that she was anything other than ready to take him down if he moved. She smiled, a precise and practiced thing. “Hello. Apologies for breaking in, but I needed to speak to the Baker and the Giantkiller, and I believe this is the right address?” Her smile turned feral, a fierce grin that looked more at home on her lips. “I’m an agent from the Bureau quiet branch, and I thought you might want to know we’re planning to bring the Graves’ down in a few weeks’ time.”

Bea made a scoffing sound, the gold fire glittering off her eyes, and the woman flicked her fingers to twist the fire into nothing again. Kay itched to go to Bea, check that she was alright, but he knew better. There were two of them and one armed intruder - better to keep her looking in two directions, for all that she seemed to think she was on their side, for all that he had no doubt which of them would win, if it came to a fight. Kay had years of experience, true, but you didn’t make it to being a field agent with the quiet branch without a fearsome skillset to your name.

She eyed their distrust with amused, approving resignation, and patiently laid out the bones of the web she and Spider had been steadily weaving, the tipping point that was coming. Kay frowned at the hints, puzzling out tactics, and Bea traced her fingertips over her map - the markers of lives saved, the ones of lives lost. There was an empty room upstairs she still couldn’t bear to use, years later. Kay did not and would never know that sometimes when Bea woke from nightmares these days they had been about waking to find the house cold and the curtains in his cosy room billowing in the night air, for all that he was no more a mage that she was. She eyed their guest with as much professional disregard as the woman had shown her, breaking into a house warded over the years by careful, grateful hands as though it was nothing.

“And why now? Why are you and yours only tearing down the Graves’ now? We know who you are, Agent, and for all I’ve heard of you you’re in the Graves’ pocket, the Spider’s precious protege.” She curled a lip, a mountain woman from a village that couldn’t afford walls, that had begged and begged for Bureau protection and been told to come back with gold in their pockets. “Why have the Bureau decided that now they can deign to get involved? Why are you here, breaking into my home, to tell me you’ve finally decided to care enough to stop it?”

"They killed my brother," snapped Laney, an old, bitter hurt - and the Baker looked back at her coldly, as though that didn't explain anything at all.

"They've killed a lot of people." The sharpshooter stiffened, hand twitching as though she might have gone for a gun if she hadn’t needed them alive. Bea didn't flinch from the movement, expression hard and unforgiving. "How many have you helped them kill? I could tell you, I think, because I hear almost everyone's story about the ones they lost, sooner or later. Do you know what we call you, when we whisper warnings? What legend did you think you were building, in your brother's memory?"

The Ballad of Agent Jones

Laney Jones had stumbled at her brother’s beloved heels for years, until he left the desert in search of new horizons. Years later, she had followed in his footsteps once again, Academy papers in her pocket and a handful of hard-won fire clutched close to keep her warm on the journey. She was planning to find her big brother, one day. She was going to show him what she could do, what she had made of herself, and she was going to see the pride in his eyes once again. It was a warm thought, one she had clung to through cold nights of hidden practice and long days of doubting her worth.

In her second year at the Academy, armed men broke into the fish shop where her study group were having their first meeting. When Thorne took her aside in the days after, to have a private chat with such a promising young woman, he glanced over her skin tone and the name in his file, and paused. He asked, carefully, if she had any connection to a Liam Jones, another powerful mage he had heard of. Laney beamed with familial pride, and a certain quiet joy that she had been put on the same level as Liam. "My brother, sir. He whistles up his magic, though I never had the knack for it."

Thorne called her in again a week later, for another chat, but his face was serious and even the glint of his glasses seemed subdued. There was a thin file on his desk, L. Jones scrawled on the outside. Laney's heart froze, because she knew there was no reason for the Bureau to have files on her, not yet.  

"I am sorry, miss Jones, but Liam Jones died almost seven years ago, in the mountains." He pushed the file towards her, sympathy but not pity in his voice. "There are people there who - deal in mages. It seems that there was no one to warn him to hide." He pressed a clean handkerchief into her hand and went to fetch water for the kettle. He could have called for someone to bring them tea, but Thorne understood that people sometimes needed a moment alone with their grief.

The contents of the file had been heavily redacted, because the work of the Bureau quiet branch investigating the trade in mages was an ongoing thing, and a sister's grief didn't give you rights to all of the carefully gathered details. But there were a few stark lines that were intact - a description, a date of capture. A short summary of a doomed escape attempt that made her smile with fierce, pained pride. A date of death.

What had she been doing, that day? Where had she been, when her brother's song vanished from the world?  

Thorne made her tea and made no comment on her damp eyelashes, told her she could speak to him at any time if she felt she needed someone who was aware of the situation to listen. He asked for her family's contact details, so that he could write to tell them the terrible news personally. He straightened the papers on his desk and promised to tell her when he sent it, in case she wanted to write as well, but he said that it shouldn't be her job to break it to them unless she wanted it to be.

Laney signed the quiet branch's letter of employment before the week was up.

She would never run the backstreets of Rivertown with Rupert; he would perhaps have trusted Sez, Bart and their secret, steady work to fellow Academy students, if a bit warily, but not to someone with Thorne looking over her shoulder from the beginning. Laney spent her spare hours at the Academy in the library or out on the firing range, and felt trapped, burning in her own skin.

When the battle of Driftwood Island came, when she realised that the monsters of fire were slipping in from the Elsewhere, it was Thorne she went to, to say she could help; she stitched the rift closed while the Rangers held their own in the wreckage above. She didn’t tell Thorne how she’d done it, exactly, but she agreed that they shouldn’t tell anyone it had been her - no point in making her a target, after all.

(Laney wouldn’t remember any of this for years;  until then, so far as she could recall she’d spent the whole battle helping to shield sections of lower Rivertown from fire damage. If there was a gap in her recollection - well, it was so easy to lose track in your first real battle, for everything to blur together. The Rangers couldn’t recall exactly who had stitched the rift up while they bought time, and it nagged at them for years, too)

On her first day at the Bureau’s quiet branch as a junior agent, Laney made her way to Thorne's office, shoulders carefully square and chin held level, and asked him what she would need to do to become part of the group working on the mage slave trade case.   

Thorne had known her brother's name, his description; not just the dates of his disappearance but those of his escape attempt and death, the clinical numbers documenting how much power had been wrested from his bones. Laney had known, even in the midst of grief - these were not things you could learn without someone on the inside. These were not things you knew, the shadowy quiet branch of the governing powers, unless you had plans to do something with the information.

Laney had her own plans; she had always intended to use the Bureau just as much as Thorne had planned to use her.  

When the Seeress saw her, Spider’s newest potential recruit, she smiled slightly in recognition, sinister and small. She asked Laney why she was applying to a role with the Graves' network. Laney had looked her dead in the eye, shoulders relaxed and everything gold around her shining true.

"My brother was a mage, a powerful one. I grew tired a long time ago of being a shadow because I don't have gold dripping from my fingers."

Neither Kay or Bea trusted the Agent and her casually mentioned ally - Spider had been a nightmare in the mountains for longer than Kay had known of this fight, and had never slipped into the Baker’s net to whisper secrets to her deputy. In another life, the Baker’s right hand had been a girl who saw nothing but blood and ash on her palms, who had once let a whole village die, unseen, because she wanted to live; in another life, the Spider had been confident that the Dragon Slayer would understand the price he was paying. He would have offered himself as an informant, trusting in her pragmatism to take his information and keep the source to herself. In another life, Bea had years of listening to George talk haltingly about the place she had once called home, the dragon they had given her a legend for, and would have listened to her, taken the information even if reluctantly.

But the Giantkiller had no such weight on his shoulders, and Spider had spent too long working himself into the Graves’ good graces to risk his position on that kind of gamble.

They didn’t trust Agent Jones or the Spider, let alone the Bureau man with twinkling glasses who slipped into Challenge with a promise of information and a cheerful litany of all of Kay’s illegal activities, but they couldn’t afford not to take their warnings. Challenge prepared for another siege, hunkering down to withstand whatever the Graves’ threw at them, and Kay decided when the Rangers arrived to support the defenders that his life was worth the gamble and followed two shadowy spies into the Keep, a decoy captive.

He’d been here just once before; after that, the Mayor had finally listened to Sandry’s murmurings about weak points in their security, and no-one had broken into the keep since. Spider let them in through a side door, and Kay shuddered as it clicked closed behind him. They burned the machines, Agent Jones lighting the mage blasts, but the engineer wasn’t there, the careful blueprints and plans stored somewhere other than this cold office. Kay turned a corner and ran into the Seeress, the first time he had seen her face to face. They stared at one another, frozen; she was frantically figuring out how the Giantkiller had made it into the keep unnoticed - and he had no idea who he just run into, unsure if he should tell her who he was and hesitating to use force on someone he thought might be an innocent.

Spider stepped up behind him, and the Seeress’ cold mask slipped, fractured as she looked between them, Sandry feeling her steady ground shift beneath her feet. Spider’s hand settled warningly over Kay’s shoulder, yanking him back and cuffing him to a stair-rail to keep the boy in place as the recognition dawned, while he frantically whispered at Sandry - telling her to leave, to slip out of the side door and hide, that she could join her brother and start over. The Seeress snapped out sharp retorts, demanding to know what exactly the Bureau knew of her baby brother, and Kay felt an abrupt, unwelcome fellow feeling - he knew what it was, to fear the extent of the Bureau’s files, to want the names of you and yours kept secret. The Seeress was trembling, torn between drawing herself up and in, hurt and terrified of showing it, and wanting to trust, for just a little longer, that the Spider was on her side.

Mayor Graves turned the corner, calling for the Seeress, his useful little monster, because someone had been in his office, burned his papers to ash. He was clutching a weapon that pulsed gold (in the cells below, there was a trembling body, the magic in their blood ripped free and pushed into a new vessel), concerned but not frantic. He spied Kay, and his face broke into a smirk. Spider stood with a relaxed stance, hand on his holstered gun, face a mask while he weighed options. The Seeress straightened her spine. Her father had told her all her life that mages were selfish, hoarding power, that their work was a sad necessity for the wellbeing of the many.  He was holding a gun that took that power and put it in his own two hands - Sandry had made Spider teach her to shoot years ago, on the quiet, because she wanted something she could do, to defend herself and her brother, something to hold onto that would give her power that didn’t rely on words. She knew that this was a power he had made for himself to cling to.

The Giantkiller was a child, still, and almost as young as her brother had been when she pressed a bag into his hands and told him to flee. Her father was pointing a gun at a boy barely older than his son, and everything in him was twisting gleeful with it. She murmured, dispassionate, that the boy might have useful information. That Spider should take him downstairs for questioning, to find out about the gaps in their defences - a security breach such as this must be investigated carefully, for all their sakes. Spider could dispose of the pest, after. Mayor Graves had never been in the habit of listening to his daughter, and she wanted to scream it at him as he dismissed her again without even a word.

The Mayor took an experimental shot at the Giantkiller, burning the ground by Kay’s left leg to cinders, and crumpled to the ground. Agent Jones slipped out of the shadows behind him, ash dusting her fingertips, pistol held steady and familiar in her hand. She glanced down at the body, cold, and wondered if she would regret never getting to tell him exactly why she’d taken aim, a sniper’s precise shot under cover of his own.

Spider stepped casually in front of Sandry, and with a glare Agent Jones holstered her gun before striding briskly by both her mentor and the Seeress to release the bindings holding Kay in place.

“C’mon, Giantkiller. Let’s get you back to your friends at Challenge, and the boss in here to sort out everything else.” She slid her eyes sideways towards Spider. “I’ll be sure to tell him that you have the Seeress in your custody, sir.” Spider gave a resigned sigh, but made no other objection. Kay felt he ought to protest, to argue against leaving the Seeress unchained, to snap that it should have been him who took down the Mayor, but this had never been just his fight, for all his was the name the Seeress had hissed in the wake of foiled plans. He let himself be guided out, Agent Jones brisk and efficient, a polite smile pasted on her face.

Thorne was waiting for them outside, cheerfully confident in his Agents and the Giantkiller. He told Kay that Challenge had withstood the final siege, but couldn’t tell him the cost. Kay, seething, bit his tongue at the man’s oily reminders that in the quiet branch’s service, any messy rumours about illegal activities would be swept under the rug. The Giantkiller jerked his head back at the keep. “The mayor is dead, but the Seeress is still alive in there.” Thorne pursed his lips, nodding. “Good, good. The mayor had to be removed, though alive would have been…preferable. Young Cassandra can take over, however, to maintain consistency - with supervision, of course, before you say anything.” Kay scowled. “She fed mages into his machines for years.” Thorne smiled at him, condescendingly, shaking his head like a kindly grandfather.

“We cannot simply remove every political figure we disagree with. She is young. She will be managed. You should be making your way to Challenge, however. I’m sure your friends will want to hear the good news.” Agent Jones watched the boy stalk away, carefully keeping her face neutral. She was an old hat at manipulating people, after years of practice - she could see that Thorne was trying to collect another recruit. She could also see that he was going about it in entirely the wrong fashion, but she didn’t think it was worth pointing that out.

Thorne glanced at her sideways. “The mayor is dead, Agent Jones?” “Yes sir. An unfortunate necessity to avoid further loss of life.” He heaved a sigh, but didn’t question it. “Very well then. Let us go and debrief Spider, and explain the new order of things to Miss Graves.”

Even with the Mayor gone, the keep was still hostile territory; Agent Jones was on high alert, so when she heard a door click softly closed as they walked through the entry way she waved Mr Thorne on ahead of her, waiting until Dadlus thought it was safe to emerge again. She tackled him to the ground, and had him cuffed and cursing by the time Thorne, Spider and the Seeress made their way back down the stairs. Thorne’s face turned gleeful when he saw her captive. He rubbed his hands together. “Excellent! Good work, Agent Jones.” The Seeress’ head snapped toward him, eyes widening fractionally in surprise before he spoke. “I have a Bureau engineer who desperately needs to pick your brains, particularly as it seems the Giantkiller was able to burn all of the blueprints. You're going to be very valuable to us.”

Spider was staring between Thorne and Dadlus, ice slipping down his spine as he put the pieces together, discovered the game Thorne had been playing all along. He had spent years working in this keep, shoulders weighed down by so many lives he had been unable to save, who he had sacrificed to ensure he could bring it all to an end. He took three long steps forward and slid the knife he always carried up his sleeve between the engineer's ribs. "I didn't let children die for years so the Bureau could turn around and do the same thing all over again." Dadlus slumped to the ground, blood pooling under him. Thorne went for his gun, but Agent Jones was quicker - in a different life, it would have been dragon’s fire that killed Gerald Thorne, but in this one it was handfuls of Elsewhere fire that Laney had been carrying around her wrists for years, hidden even from the Seeress.

Cassandra stared at them both over the cooling body, shaken - she had always seen everything, every secret and every weakness, and here she found both: her lieutenants had been hiding secrets upon secrets, tucked carefully away where she hadn’t found them, and so she was weak where she’d thought her back was guarded. She wondered if it would be a bullet or a blaze that came for her, whether Spider would help or if he would pull her out of the way.

Agent Jones didn’t glance her way: she and Spider were eying each other, weighing up their priorities and potentials. Spider wanted Sandry to go free - she had barely been an adult when he arrived at the keep, for all that it had taken him weeks to discover she wasn’t cold years older. He had realised within those first months of working his way into her network just how young she must have been, when the Mayor told her she was a monster and turned her into a tool.

Laney had always wanted revenge for her brother, justice for the other victims. She had burned the machines with glee and felt no guilt for shooting the Mayor down. She felt no guilt for burning Throne, either - she wanted the machines gone as much as Spider. But she knew who it was who had found her brother, who had sent armed thugs with Elsewhere cracks in their pockets after Liam. She had told herself she would feel no guilt for shooting the Seeress, either, even when she saw the date of birth in the briefing files.

But Laney had spent a year now with Sandry and the Spider; she remembered the squeaky sage in her second year study group, the one she still sometimes met in the University library to chatter over Elsewhere theory. She had heard Sandry talk about Sam, but she had heard Grey talk about Sandry, too. She thought she talked about Liam the same way, sometimes.

“Thorne said we would leave you in charge,” she spoke softly, as though the words were of no importance. “So we will. But you do not re-start operations, and Spider and I will make sure of it.” Agent Jones holstered her gun, turned to the Seeress, and raised an eyebrow. “But the people around here will freeze in winter, without help. Your people, now. So, I’ve a challenge for you - I know you’ve studied how the machines work, how to make them more efficiently. But have you ever tried to figure out how you can wrest this power from thin air and turn it into something useful?”

Laney Jones pressed her hand up to the skin of the world and broke it; in the glow of the Elsewhere she was radiant, and Cassandra would have shielded her eyes if she’d been able to bear looking away. All her life, she had been told that what they did was the only way, only fair.

She stared, eyes stinging, and thought I have never seen a mage burn so bright.

Kay spent the weeks after at Challenge helping to shore up the damage; Bea left the bakery to help, bandaging the wounded and scolding him for taking foolish risks. They knelt side by side in the community garden, repairing damaged trellises and trying to see which of the fragile growths could be coaxed back into health and which needed to be turned to compost. One water break, surveying the rows they’d managed to restore, he idly turned a stone over and said, “What are we going to do now? What’s next?” She didn’t pretend he was talking about the garden, though she didn’t reply until they were carting the next load of dug up plants to the compost heap.

“I don’t know. It’s been so long since I didn’t have -” And he put his arms around her and let her cry into his shoulder; Bea had turned herself to stone in so many ways, over the years, since she woke to a cold house and an empty bedroom, and now her war was won. There would be pieces to pick up, rebuilding that would take years. The Seeress was still in the keep, and for all that Agent Jones assured them she wasn’t going to be a problem it still sat bitter under both their tongues. It would take months for the mountain villagers to feel safe, for a child with sparks flicking between fingertips to inspire joy not terror. It would take years, a lifetime - several lifetimes. There was work for Bea to bury herself in still, but for now there was sun on her shoulders and there would be no mages lost in the night. For now, she could realise they were safe, as safe as you could ever be, and weep for all those who hadn’t been.

Later, shoulder to shoulder in the crowded inn, Kay would rest his head on her shoulder, quiet.

“I think I should go back to the farm, for a bit. See my dad, yeah? Make sure he knows I’m okay.” He nudged her with an elbow, gentle. “I’ll come back, though. But I promised I wouldn’t leave without telling you, so I am. I’m going to head back to the farm and get shouted at, so you aren’t even going to be the only one nagging me about taking risks, then I’m gong to come back to the bakery and chop wood for you.” She laughed softly.

“That’s your life plan?” He grinned, and it was a younger face that looked back at her than she’d seen for years. He was still a child, really, for all that he was growing tall and gangly. He shrugged. "For now. I’d like to go a few weeks with no-one trying to kill me, it’d make a nice change. Later - well. Maybe I’ll go get myself a Badge, I'm almost old enough. Sarge told me plenty of times he reckons I could do it, and I’ve daydreamed about it for years, you know? Be a proper Hero, join the Rangers as an intern. Agent Jones told me Thorne is dead - I didn't ask for details, I thought she might shoot me - and that I didn't need to worry about my name being in any paperwork with the Giantkiller, so long as I say Thorne was tragically killed in the fight with the Mayor. I could do it, if I wanted.” They sat in silence for a while longer, watching the crowd. After a while, Bea ruffled his hair gently. “Maybe you should go to the Academy, get yourself a career lined up. But if you’ll take an old baker’s suggestion - I think you’d make a better Guide, all things considered. You've had enough practice at being a hero.”

In the morning, before he set out for the old farm he hadn’t been back to in years, Kay climbed up the flights of stairs to the uppermost platform of the wall that surrounded Challenge. The wooden posts were riddled with marks, from flung weapons and the sooty streaks left by stolen mage fire, idle carved graffiti left by bored sentries - names and old in jokes, defiant records left when they knew they were all inviting battle to their doorstep. He stood looking out at the surrounding peaks as the sun rose, thinking about the Leauges and Bureau policy, about a roc digging claws into his shoulder and long summer sieges, the machines burning and Mayor Graves crumpling lifeless to his plush carpet, and dug out his pocket knife.

We were here.

#my writing #Jack is a Beanstalk #Beanstalk #Echoes of a Giantkiller #Remember the Dust #this one went way more off canon than usual #I was planning to spend more time with more of the background characters #Sorry Susie and Rosie I'll have to give you more screentime another time #because Kay kind of...took over #L&L fic #the mountain vigilantes never become the mountain vigilantes #other people still step up to the fight #Leagues and legends

[sennextheassasinkingoflight]

Mornings

Cursed (Tv 2020) Fanfiction Cross posted at Ao3 Rated T and up for suggestive themes 

Lancewain 

SUMMARY:  Gawain just wants to spend the morning in bed cuddling with his lover. That shouldn't be to much to ask now that the war is over. After seven years of living with Lancelot he may just get what he's after.

CEREMONY SCRIPT PULLED FROM https://greatofficiants.com/medieval-wedding-ceremony

I

Lancelot was always awake and dressed impeccably before Gawain. Normally the man had breakfast ready, whatever form it had taken for the day. It had been this way since Lancelot had been released from the makeshift prison he had been kept in and into Gawain's custody. That had been quite the fight, but ultimately Merlin and Gawain in turn with The Red Spear had managed to get the others to agree. There simply weren’t enough fey to kill one of their own, and definitely not enough Ashfolk to go killing him either. Especially if he truly had chosen to take sides with the Fey. He had one warning though, if he started anything, finished anything, killed a Fey or caused one undo harm he was done. Executed on the spot. Thankfully it had never come to that. It may have had to do with his lack of a weapon except when training. Though they all knew he could kill them if he truly wanted to. Perhaps it had to do with Squirrel being attached to the man and looking up to him, voting that he had changed and would be a good man. Perhaps it had to do with his own fascination and attraction to the man, loath as he was initially to admit the last part. Whatever the cause or reason for his change of heart Lancelot had changed. Today was not very different in that regard. Lancelot was awake over an hour before it was strictly necessary, even despite the fact that they did not have patrols today. In fact, the only things that needed their attention today, were those things that they decided to do. It was their day to rest, among some others. It was important, with rebuilding after the official end of the war for them to remember to take proper rest. There was always work to be done, food to be grown and harvested, building and temples to be erected.

Some clans were reduced to so few that they had congregated with other clans too small to sustain themselves well. Gawain was confident with Arthur and Guinevere ruling in Uthers place and sending out word that the Fey were safe in the kingdom that those numbers would increase steadily and gradually as they proved that it was indeed safe. But as with all things it would take time. There were still bands of paladins and those loyal to Cumber who sought to bring down the Fey and wreak havoc on the people of Britannia.

For now though, the two of them had fallen into a kind of domestic cohabitation, as often occurred in the case of two lovers. For that too is what they were now. It was strange to consider. They had been enemies, had nearly killed one another so often in those early days that Gawain often found himself confused as to how he could now sit across the table from the Ashman and sip tea and eat eggs like it was the most natural event that could unfold. Gawain yawned, earning a smirk from Lancelot.

“And what shall we do this afternoon?” “It’s far too early to think about that now.” Gawain rubbed the sleep from his eyes and yawned again.  “Why do you insist on getting up so early?” “It’s only habit, and much as I love you I do enjoy the quiet of early morning.” Offered Lancelot in response and Gawain's heart hammered harder in his chest. A smile gracing his lips.

“Are you certain it’s too late to go back to bed?”

Lancelot only smiles fondly and kisses his forehead before he leaves to help out in the kitchens as is his Saturday morning routine. He isn’t required to but he enjoys doing so and according to Kinna he is one of the best bakers they have.

II

Gawain roles over with a groan. He doesn’t even know what time it is, only that his lover is no longer in their bed. He curls himself around Lancelot's pillow and breathes deeply. A chuckle wakes him slightly further from his sleep. “I thought I was the one who did the scenting?”

Gawain groans again, “Come back to bed and we’ll find out.”

It's such a sweet offer of a challenge but Lancelot has patrol this morning. He desperately wants to do just that, but he has a duty to attend. The war may be over but that doesn’t mean they are completely safe. There are still rogue groups of Paladins and Cumbers men roaming around looking for Fey to execute. “I can’t. You know this. I’ll be back this afternoon, and we can do something then.” He leans down and kisses the top of Gawain's head and the knight smiles, burying himself further into the warmth left in places of bedmate. He knows they have duties to attend to even if he’s only half asleep, but that doesn’t stop him from wanting the morning to drag on just a while longer. After all, their home is the only place Lancelot feels safe enough to be open and forward with him. He rolls onto his back and reaches out a hand, it's only a moment before the rustling of fabric from the former monk getting dressed ceases and a sword calloused hand takes his own. He feels the press of lips against his and sighs happily. This would have to do. “Born in the dawn,” He starts, words slurred by the call of sleep. ‘To pass in the twilight.” Lancelot's voice finishes on the edge of his consciousness, his hand is squeezed. It's the last thing he knows before sleep returns to him.

III

Gawain sighs. The bed was empty and cold when he woke this morning and it frustrated him to no end. He wished he could get the older man to understand that sometimes you could take a morning off. That it was okay to have a slow morning where you relaxed. Cuddled with your lover even. There was far more to the physical side of a relationship than sex. And while the sex was very good, sometimes Gawain just wanted to be wrapped up in the others embrace knowing that he was loved and taken care of. He was certain that Lancelot needed that too. It was more than quick kisses, and the brush of fingers on bare skin, or the feel of a supportive hand on his shoulder that he craved. The problem was that he really didn’t know how to express it in a way that Lancelot would understand. Beyond that the man had had the same pattern for the last six years, and Gawain wasn’t sure he could break him of it even if they both wanted it.

He leans down and pulls on his boots, he has a meeting with Arthur early this afternoon and it will take him and the others a few hours to reach the castle. Lancelot will not be coming with them, instead he will remain in the village, because that's what it is now, not a camp to help protect it and to be available to assist its members in whatever way necessary. He and Percival are very capable of this task, and Gawain knows they won’t return to find the village in ruins. Still he wishes that the Ashman was coming, if for nothing else than the quiet companionship that he offers.

They haven’t had much time together since Gawain was deemed Elderman of the village. He is not the elder of the village but he is the one everyone goes to and he can’t seem to get away from it. He knows it is in part due to the part he played in the rebellion and because of his status as both Fey Knight and Knight of the Round Table. And yet he is beginning to loathe the position, just as he loathed being the Green Knight. It was taking away from the time and the energy he could spend with his lover and their son and the other people in his life that mattered. He knew it would likely settle as the turmoil around them slowed and peace returned to the land but for now it put things like being joined to the bottom of the list and so he still hadn’t asked. He wondered if they were married if Lancelot would be inclined to spend his mornings in bed with him.

IV

Lancelot had been made a Knight of the Round Table and so had Percival, though a bit young he had proven himself time and time again worthy of the title. That had been what the meeting was about a few weeks ago. The ceremony had been arranged for this morning, and so it came as no surprise to Gawain when he felt Lancelot leave their bed before the sun had even begun to turn the sky the yawning grey of dawn.  He lets out a defeated sigh and turns his back to Lancelot's side of the bed. It's the complete opposite of what he usually does, but even now, half awake and over tired, despite a night of sleep, it hurts him that Lancelot insists on getting up instead of spending just a little extra time with him.   “Gawain? You smell upset.” He hears Lancelot say as he feels a dip in the bed. He only lets out a slight grunt and shifts his arm under the pillow he's using drawing it closer to himself in turn with his knees. He feels defensive and he isn’t awake enough to process his actions. “Tell me whats wrong?” “It’s nothing. I'm just not ready to be awake yet.” He isn’t sure his words make sense to Lancelot, they feel heavy and odd in his mouth. “Then go back to sleep. I’ll wake you at sunrise.” The voice that responds is gentle and understanding and he wants to tell him that he should be angry at him for lying but instead he nuzzles his pillow and yawns. He lets sleep slither silently around him again and painfully ignores the fingers running through his hair, and the knuckles that caress his cheek, and his shoulder. He falls into a fitful half slumber as Lancelot readies himself for the big day. When the ceremony takes place, Gawain feels guilty for having been upset with Lancelot this morning. He’s dressed in his new surcoat and cloak. Percival is dressed similarly though sporting colors that are a mix of his and Lancelots, though the crest is his own. He smiles, pride swelling in his chest as Arthur knights them both but does not give permission for them to rise. He nearly misses his cue. Percival snickers at him and then smiles at Lancelot with a nod. He can see the confusion in those stunning blue eyes as they track him stepping forward beside Arthur. As Gawain steps forward he can’t help but smile, he takes the blade from Arthur and stands before the two most important men in his life.

He begins voice strong and clear in the air as it echos into the courtyard, “A Knight of the Fey is one with the land,

enduring as the the Great River,

and as true as Arwan’s bow.

We are born in the dawn,”

He swallows, watches as the reality of his words settles on the two infront of him and knows that his anger this morning was pointless and unnecessary. He watches as Percival swallows, tears ready to fall from his eyes as they did all those days ago. And Lancelot, sweet broken Lancelot can’t stop the tear that follows the tracks of his people or the shuddering breath he takes just before he and Percival answer in tandem, “To pass in the twilight.”

V

It is the morning of their joining, seven years to the day since Lancelot came to them. And while he would love to be wrapped up in the man and  in the comfort and warmth of their bed it is not to be. Only, he is upset that he hadn’t been able to spend the night in Lancelot's arms, Percival had insisted on him staying over going on about bad luck or some such thing. So he had, it couldn’t hurt to spend the evening in Percivals company. He knew the boy probably needed it as much as Gawain realized he himself did. So they drank and sang songs and spoke about a great many things, including the girl who had Percivals fancy. This morning came with a slight hangover and the absence of his lover but it was the furthest thing from the worst morning he had ever had. He was brimming with excitement and buzzing with energy and could barely sit still long enough to eat breakfast. Percival shook his head at him and then they were getting ready. Gawain would be lying if he said he wasn’t nervous. The day went by incredibly fast between losing himself in his thoughts, getting ready, and the influx of visitors he had. But not once did he catch sight of Lancelot. It is just before noon that their vows are to take place. As the time approached Gawain felt the nervousness return tenfold. He was a warrior, a knight, he should not be nervous about this and yet he was. It would not change anything about the way he and Lancelot loved one another, but it was important and he didn’t want to mess it up. He approached the dias from the left as they agreed. Lancelot would come from the right. There was no need for traditional aisle walking. And yet as they approached the stage on which the ceremony would take place, the rest of the world died away. In a moment he was reminded of just how spectacular and stunning the man he loved was. Dark curls hung just past his ears, sunlight shining where it was laced with blond. Blue eyes like the depths of a still lake surrounded by the marks of his people. He loved those the most of all Lancelot's features. They were striking and fierce as war paint, and as sad as heartbreak, and yet when Lancelot smiled they reminded him of life and love as they did at this very moment. When they met at centre stage he could not hold back the smile on his lips. He did not know for certain the last time he felt joy like this, but he would not soon forget this day. When he met Lancelot's eyes, he found the same sentiment reflected back at him.

After a moment the officiant, Elder of the Skyfolk, spoke. “Say thy vows if thou gives them freely.”

And so they did, they spoke boldly and truthfully. With passion and love. They promised as all do to be faithful and true and to be present always and forever and more. They promised to keep no secrets, to reconcile all heartaches, to be slow in anger and to be just in their actions. They swore to cherish, to love and be united as equals in all endeavors. When they had finished proclaiming their promises to one another the officiant spoke once more a smile on her face. “Join hands.”

So they did with barely a glance, so well in sync their eyes could hold conversations mid battle, or mid marriage. The people watching them didn’t matter, the sun to bright and hot didn’t matter. What mattered was this moment in which they told the world they had chosen one another, and told each other they meant every whispered word of endearment and parise and love.  No one spoke as the Elder placed the three cords over their hands, the burgundy cord to symbolize romance, partnership and happiness, ivory for peace, sincerity and devotion, and gold which represents unity, prosperity and longevity. And finally he spoke out

“As this knot is tied, so are your lives now bound. Woven into this cord, imbued into its very fibers, are all the hopes of thy friends and family, and of thyselves, for a new life together.

With the fashioning of this knot you tie all the desires, dreams, love, and happiness wished here in this place to your lives for as long as love shall last.

In the joining of hands and the fashioning of a knot, so are your lives now bound, one to another.

By this cord you are thus now and forevermore bound to your vow.

May this knot remain tied for as long as love shall last. May this cord draw your hands together in love, never to be used in anger.

May the vows you have spoken never grow bitter in your mouths. As any child discovers when they are learning to tie their own shoes, the first move is to cross the ends.

The cross creates the (X), which is the symbol of partnership and union. As your hands are bound by this cord, so is your partnership held by the symbol of this knot.

Two entwined in love, bound by commitment and fear, sadness and joy, by hardship and victory, anger and reconciliation, all of which brings strength to this union.

Hold tight to one another through both good times and bad, and watch as your strength grows.

I shall now remove the cords.

Thou hast pledged troth of thy own free will and have been bound together by the ritual of the cords.

May it be granted that what is done before the gods be not undone by man.

Before I proclaim you joined thou must kiss three times on cue,’ Lancelot raised an eye brow and Gawain only shrugged too enamored by the man in front of him to care that it was ridiculous. Besides what did it matter if they kissed thrice now, there was certain to be many more this day, and the days to come.

“Once for luck, Twice for Love and Thrice for Long life. By the Power Vested in my by the Realm I now pronounce you married.”

The day ended in dancing and laughter and glee.

 +1

It was the morning after their wedding and Gawain woke to the familiar feeling of Lancelot leaving their bed. He sighed, assuming the other simply needed to relieve himself. It was their first morning wed, surely he would stay in bed and cuddle with him. It had to be obvious that they weren’t meant to do anything today, anything that didn’t involve the other and staying squarely in this bed. Unfortunately, the familiar sound of fabric rustling removed any traces of sleep from Gawain as he sat up abruptly in their bed. "What are you doing? We could keep cuddling." The words leave him before he can process what it actually was he intended to say. He ducks his chin embarrassed and can feel Lancelot's eyes on him, as though he’s being seen for the first time. Slowly the man responds, voice uncertain.

"Not if I'm going to walk around this camp properly dressed."

"You mean boiling to death and looking gloomy. Why do you have to start getting dressed an hour before sun up anyways? Besides that you realize no one expects us to leave this house today, let alone this bed. We just got married. Come lie back down!"

His demand is met by shock and surprise as they settle on Lancelot's features and then turn to a blush as he shifts embarrassed. Gawain can’t help but laugh, of course this man wouldn’t think of something like that, not that he could fault him. His upbringing certainly didn’t lend to romantic inclination. He stares as the dark haired man shifts uncomfortably on the other side of the bed.

"it takes that long to lace my surcoat...." and now it's his turn to be taken aback. “What?” “It takes an hour to get the damn garment on.” Lancelot says louder and much more upset than Gawain thinks he should be. He can’t help the cackle that leaves him as he shifts in the bed to more fully face his husband .

"Come back to bed for half an hour."

"It's like you don’t even listen."  Lancelot sighs and shifts his clothing around.

“All this time, that's why you haven’t stayed in bed with me in the mornings.” He groans, throwing his hands up in defeat. “Listen, if you decide that you have to get up and get dressed and do things, which I think you'll find you won’t, I'll get up with you and it will take half the time. Now come back to bed so I can kiss you senseless."

In the span of a few seconds the air is knocked from his lungs as he is pushed back against the mattress and his pillows, Lancelot's nose pressed into his neck and their bodies pressed firmly together. His brain, it seems, takes too long to process what just happened as Lancelot whines against his ear,

"Well what are you waiting for?"  It's all the permission he needs as he rolls them to the side and pulls him close, kissing him passionately in the process.

#Fanfiction #Cursed TV 2020 #Writing #Fluff #Lancewain #Lancelot #The Weeping Monk #Gawain #The Green Knight #5+1

[the-last-cuddlebender]

It Was Everything

If Katara downed a shot every time the windwielder with the giant flying fluffy thing crossed her path, she would be too drunk to wield water ever again. 

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A/N: A thousand thanks to @penguinsledder​ for referring the idea of a fluffy-Kataang-WildWest!AU to me! It was just what I needed for NaNoWriMo days 3 and 4 (feat. littleshit!Aang:D)

Words: 2,388

Rating: T

ArchiveOfOurOwn

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“There you are.” Katara said. She breathed properly for the first time in an hour and dissipated her waterlasso; a wave of her hands wielded her liquid ammo back into the waterskins holstered at her hips. “Sweet Tui and La, what the hell do you think you’re doing so far from camp?”

The windwielder—Aang, the young man said his name was the last time they ‘met’—sat on the canyon clay in front of the giant thing he called a pet. Katara was more than glad she sold her mare for rations in the previous town over. Even she had trouble standing near the beast Aang coddled like a turtleduck.

Katara’s charge turned so fast that she thought he would tear the bandages wrapped around his abdomen and chest. “Hiya, Kya!” He flailed his free arm in a passionate wave, but he immediately regretted it when the movement jostled him. He whimpered like a kicked dog and cradled the sling supporting his once dislocated shoulder.

His voice echoed around the canyon. Katara was behind him in the next second. “Shhh!” She smacked her hand over his mouth before he alerted their location to every bounty hunter from there to the desert just beyond the lip of their refuge. “Are you crazy?!” Katara hissed.

Aang’s eyes put puppies to shame. “S’morry…,” he mumbled behind her hand. 

Katara took a healthy stride away from the idiot and the idiot’s giant furry flying thing. Appa hadn’t moved from his position laying on his side. Earlier, Katara had barely been able to get him to move one of his paws so she could access the burns along his stomach. The creature was panting with burn fever, that much was certain, but he would recover.

The windwielder smiled at her. Katara flicked his stupid arrow.

“Ow…”

“Don’t you ever run off like that again.”

“Aw, were you worried about me? I’m touched. I knew you cared.”

She flicked him again, and she considered flicking him a third time when he cradled his ‘wound’ like it had put him on his deathbed. “You’ll be smacked if you don’t cut the attitude. Don’t run off like that again. I can’t have you getting killed doing something stupid. I only get paid if you’re breathing.”

Aang laughed, and the shine of his bratty smile was bright enough to lighten the night and the shadows around them. “I didn’t run off. I was just seeing how Appa was holding up. You’re an awesome healer, Kya.”

Katara had never blushed, let alone stuttered, from a compliment before. “H-Hardly. I just know enough to get by.”

“It’s true, though! You're a really talented waterwielder—the best I’ve ever seen.”

“I’m the only waterwielder you’ve ever seen.”

“Well, yeah, but you’re still really good.” 

“Thanks. I guess.”

The silence was long and awkward. Aang glanced between her and Appa several times. His face scrunched up a bit. He was thinking. Katara hated when he did that.

“You can pet him, y’know. Appa doesn’t bite.”

Katara regarded the ten-ton behemoth. “Pretty damn big teeth for something that doesn’t bite,” she said. Aang ignored this. Of course, he did. The idiot with a handsome smile scooted over and patted the spot of clay next to him. Katara rolled her eyes. “And how, exactly, can I be sure he isn’t going to attack me?”

“He has no reason to.”

“He has every reason to.”

“He has every reason not to. You saved his life.”

“All I did was heal him of a few burns. I hardly call that saving his life.”

Aang’s smile faltered. He scratched the bandage wrapped around his torso and adjusted the armsling Katara had mended for him out of his sash. “You helped him when nobody else would,” he mumbled. His smile was back in the next second, and he patted the ground again. “Here. If it makes you feel any better, I promise I’ll protect you if Appa tries anything. Windwielder’s honor.”

Katara crossed her arms and didn’t answer. Aang, again, patted the spot next to him. 

...Why me?

Groaning, Katara ignored the urge to bang her head against a rock and sat. Slowly. Aang felt strangely warm beside her, but, then again, windwielders were known for warming themselves with nothing more than their breathing. Katara hesitated before cautiously combing the barest points of her fingers into the thick fur pooling down the beast’s head.

“Here,” Aang said. His grip on her hand was gentle and the way he guided her hand was even gentler. Their sides brushed. The personal air current he cloaked himself in wound around Katara, too, “he likes cheek scratches.” It was awfully close to Appa’s mouth, but Katara followed Aang’s instruction. Appa’s eyes closed, and the sound he made shook Katara’s insides while Aang smiled all the wider. “See? He trusts you.”

“Trusts me?” Katana huffed dismissively and almost shook her head. “He’s naive as all hell if he trusts me.”

“Why? You helped him. Of course, he trusts you.”

“He doesn’t know who I am. I could be a serial killer for all he knows. He doesn’t know the first thing about me.”

“Well, yeah, but…” Aang’s voice trailed off, and his pets on Appa’s nose paused before restarting slower than before. “You don’t know him, either, and you helped him anyway.”

“Trust is a luxury he can’t afford with the Burn Brothers after the two of you. The devil princess herself takes people out only after she gains their confidence. She enjoys it.” Katara glanced at him in her periphery. “Or have you forgotten already?”

Aang was quiet for a long second. “...He knows you won’t hurt him.”

“Does he?” Katara glanced at Aang again. Her attention lingered on his sling and the healing burn on his cheek before going back to the feverish beast. “He’s not exactly in a position to defend himself as far as I’m concerned.”

“You’ve never hurt him.”

“So what?”

“Everyone else hurts him. Or, at the very least, they try to.” 

Katara hesitated. “That means nothing.”

Aang shrugged. “Could mean something. He’s the last of his kind as far as he knows. He hasn’t seen another since he was little. He can’t even remember them. That’s probably a good thing, though. The others were hunted down a long time ago.” His eyes were soft and grey like a wolf’s pelt, and Katara couldn’t look away from them. “You’re the first person he’s met who hasn’t tried to kill or capture him.”

“That doesn’t mean I won’t.”

“He knows you won’t.”

“Oh? And how does he know that?”

“He has a feeling. No one’s ever helped him. Especially when he was hurt.”

Katara tore her attention back to Appa’s cheek-scratches and whispered what she had meant to only think. “I don’t turn my back on people who need me.”

She heard Aang’s smile. “He knows.”

“I didn’t realize he knew my life’s story.”

“He doesn’t need to. He knows you’re good.”

Katara arched her brow and shot him a skeptical look. Aang caught it with a grin. “Because he has a feeling?”

“Something like that.”

“Then he’s naive and a fool. One good deed doesn’t change anything.”

Aang laughed. It was a really nice sound. It plunged Katara into something that felt like jelly and warmed her like a strong drink.

Appa licked her hand.

“Oh, gross!”

“Sorry about that.” Aang’s smile said he wasn’t sorry in the least, but Katara couldn’t bring herself to care. His laugh kept her spellbound even as she wielded the slobber off and away from her with a flick of her wrist and a touch of waterwielding. “It’s his way of saying thanks. Kisses are how he shows affection. I told you he likes—”

Aang bent over with a sharp gasp of pain. Katara cursed. She was on her knees behind him in an instant, assessing the gaping scar breaking the line of his tattoos. 

The scar was old, but the torn highways of chi and life-energy just beneath the surface were raw and pulsing. Katara handed Aang a stick and told him to sit still. She wielded water to her palms and concentrated on the glow of power as she moved her hands along the center of his muscled back. She silently commended him for keeping his silence even when the stick between his teeth snapped. She tightened the stitches in his chi that she had sutured months ago, and she bundled and sheathed the frayed ends of energy torn apart by the desperation of a wielder forced to fight when they barely had any life left in them. 

The months since she last saw him had not treated him kindly.

“That should hold you over for now,” Katara said. She corked her waterskins just as she reclaimed her seat at his side. His stick was gone, but his eyes were closed in a pain that Katara couldn’t imagine. “You shouldn’t have another healing session until morning. Your body can only take so much manipulation at one time.”

Aang was sweaty but smiling when he cracked his eyes open. “Thanks,” he mumbled. He was slow to sit straight again. “Hey, can I ask you something?”

“I can’t exactly stop you.”

“What’s your real name?”

Katara paused. Her heart dropped in the way it always did when a highwayman squinted at her resemblance to a wanted poster, but something in Aang’s tone made it bounce back to where it was supposed to be in her chest. “My name is Kya.”

Aang grinned. The sincerity in his eyes was as genuine as the reassurance hidden behind his words. “No, it’s not. You say Kya like the name is a part of you, but it's not your own.”

Katara looked at him, and, for some reason, it felt like she was seeing him for the first time. “...Katara. My name is Katara.”

“Katara.” Aang’s smile reached his eyes, and he offered the hand of his non-slinged arm. “Well, it’s nice to officially meet you, Katara. My name’s Aang, but you knew that already.”

Katara gave his hand a wary glance before shaking it. “Likewise.”

They shook hands for a second longer than what was normal, and Aang’s face was red bordering on crimson when he finally let her go. His eyes suddenly found the clay very interesting, and he fiddled with a loose string on his pants. 

Katara couldn’t believe it. The chatterbox was at a loss for words.

“Oh, um…I ugh...I have something for you.” Aang dug into his pocket. “It’s nothing, really. Just a little trinket of sorts.”

Katara snatched it as soon as she saw it. “My mother’s necklace!” It was there. It was really, really there, in her hands again—where it belonged. “How did—How did you get this?”

Aang’s smile was shy, and he fiddled even more with the string on his pants. “I had a long talk with that buddy of yours from the coast. The pawnbroker had a change of heart. He asked me to make sure I got it to you.”

Katara’s cheeks grew hot. She looked away from him before her face started burning. She hastily put on her mother’s necklace before busying her hands with smoothing imaginary wrinkles in her vest. “Well...that was silly of him. And stupid.” It took her a few tries, but she managed to look at Aang again. “...But also very sweet. Kindness is hard to come by these days.”

“That’s what friends are for, right?”

Katara’s heart fell upwards this time, and it didn’t feel like it was going to come down anytime soon. “O-One sweet gesture doesn’t mean he and I are friends. He doesn’t know me any more than Appa does.”

“Oh, I—I mean, he knows, I’m sure.” Aang pawed the ground. When did he turn to face her? He was so close that Katara could hear his heart racing. Or was that hers? “But...But he might be hoping that it could mean something...maybe.”

Katara thought about it. “It might.”

Aang perked up so fast that even the wind stirred around them. “Oh?”

“It might,” Katara reiterated. She turned the inch or so needed to face him properly, too. She had to look up at him even when they were sitting, but it wasn’t by as large of a margin as when they were standing. Her voice refused to speak above a whisper. “A sweet gesture is just a sweet gesture until he makes it mean something.”

“Maybe he meant it as a thank you.”

“That’s not how he says thank you.”

“How do you know?”

“I have a feeling.”

Aang stared at her, and Katara tried her hardest not to laugh as she watched his mind digest the meaning of her words. His next smile outshone even the full moon. 

Aang shifted his weight and opened and closed his one free hand like he was excited and itching to do something. “I never did thank you before. Did I?”

Before—? Oh, right. 

“You don’t need to.”

“I want to,” Aang quietly said. He was closer, now. His face consumed all Katara could see, and she swore she felt the breath from his words. “I didn’t just get hurt before. I know I didn’t. I was gone...but you brought me back.”

Katara found herself closer, too. “...I don’t know what I did.” 

The wind, excited, blew a stray whirlwind like a giggle escaping someone trying not to laugh. Aang tucked a lock of loose hair behind her ear. His palm was as warm as the rest of him, and it took its time sliding down her cheek and the curve of her jaw until it cradled her face. “You saved me,” he said.

Katara turned—just enough—to brush her nose to his. “It was nothing.”

She felt his smile against the corner of her mouth, and she felt his laugh, warm and rich, melting into the deepest parts of her. Katara’s heart was in the stratosphere and beating like the thundering of a thousand horses galloping. 

He kissed her cheek. “It was everything.”

Katara turned and caught the thank you he was teasing her with. The cheeky smile that greeted her was more than everything, and the kiss he led her into redefined the word.

*********************************************

.

.

Tried to have a play on words for ‘gunslinger’ lol

This fic is light on the worldbuilding I built into the AU because it’s mostly character driven. Wanted some dialogue practice and an attempt to streamline

#kataang #aang #katara #avatar the last airbender #atla #WildWest!AU #Appa #sweeties gonna sweet #Written as a practice in dialogue #so not NEARLY as descriptive as normal (sorry🙏) but I'm just playing with things so I don't accidentally write a novel #Aang is a ~little shit~ #humor/fluff/hurt/comfort #It Was Everything #NaNoWriMo 2020 #days 3 and 4 #myfanfictiontag #post

[tarithenurse]

If I succeed - 15 (final chapter)

Pairing: Geralt of Rivia x fem!Reader Content: Action, angst, gore, badassery, feels, fluff, angst, caring, tiny bit of smut. Probably some errors due to lack of proofing. A/N: So...this is apparently the end of the story. Thanks for the comments and reblogs, it’s been a joy seeing the reactions to each chapter. HUGS!!

15 – Soft Dogs

...   Jaskier   ...

If teeth had been gold coins, the Witcher be rich A monster less monstrous, it whines like a -

No I can’t use that! Annoyed with the lack of progress, Jaskier lazily swirls the wine. Having no problem letting the other two deal with the messy part of things, the bard has decided to spend the waiting time composing a song of the ultimatum Geralt has given the vampire. The Bloody Barter...oh, that’s a niiice title.

Half of the Higher Vampires fell as they had decide among each other which of them got to live – it turns out that such decisions are quickly made by ripping the weaker individuals’ hearts out. Now, a musty smell of burning flesh and rot is lifting to the night sky together with the embers and smoke thanks (again) to the stronger vampires’ hard work. It took little time for them to create a pyre due to the adequate amount of slaves blindly following command. And those bloodsuckers? All are lying in a heap, waiting for their turn to impersonate a roast dropped in the cooking fire.

“Would it have been too much to ask that they smelled more appealing?” Jaskier sighs.

“Hm.”

At least [Y/N] eyes him wearily. “Would it be too much to ask that you help?”

She’s standing by Leif Nordbergar. His own faith is sealed too: like the last few vampires he will have his teeth pulled and hands cut off. But for now, he has remained calm and collected, enforcing the orders upon his kin, never wavering under the feather light touch of the woman’s silvered blade as his children have died and his plan gone up in smoke.

No longer.

With a ferocious snarl, he bashes her arm aside, sending the weapon clattering towards the fire where Geralt is tossing the remains into the flames, and latching on to a portion of bared flesh at the crook of her neck.

Before Jaskier can fully register what is happening, a familiar sword skewers Nordbergar’s face with a sickening sound, causing both monster and woman to fall and the other bloodsuckers to flee.

“[Y/N]!”

The bard can’t see the anything but the broad back of Geralt as he comes to a skidding halt on the ground by the fallen, unceremoniously shoving the vampire aside and ignoring the pained moan from the creature...but he can hear the break in the voice, a panic he had never expected to witness coming from the stoic hero.

“C’mon, my flower...” Each word is pulled from the bottom of the Witcher’s heart, filled with ache and longing as though he fears for a loved one’s life.

Wait. “Ger...what’s...is she...?” Jaskier crawls across the dirt of the cave floor, afraid his legs won’t carry or that he should fall if the fear growing inside him is validated. “She isn’t...”

Rounding the hunched figure, nothing looks real anymore. Not the blood seeping between the fighter’s fingers as he clasps them to [Y/N] neck, not the already ashen skin, not the tears obscuring the yellow eyes. This isn’t happening! They were meant to...and then...the romance! Damnit! There were so many times Jaskier could have said something, made them realize what they were feeling for each other except now...Too late.

“Jask, give me the square vial in my satchel.”

How can a young land deny such a request, meaningless though it may be, when spoken with a voice thick with desperation? He can’t. Scampering in a frenzy, the bard does as ordered and watches in reluctance as the Witcher pulls the stopper and pours a thick white liquid into the woman’s mouth. The scene conjures a ridiculous image in his mind.

“It would take a kiss. In all great ta-”

And there it is: the bard has been stunned into silence as Geralt’s lips softly seals [Y/N]’s mouth, tears still dripping onto her cheeks where the last glow lingers – perhaps out of stubbornness to celebrate how she was in life.

...   Reader   ...

Dazed and confused, your entire world consists of the sensory inputs. Numbness in your limbs. A flaring pain in your neck and chest. A foul, sticky taste in your mouth. But most of all, what you feel are the warmth enveloping you and the gentle begging of lips upon yours.

“Geralt,” you mumble in between returning the kisses.

“Wild flower.”

The taste of his smile is soothing. Reassuring. Curling up slightly to get comfortable in his arms, you are ready to fall asleep then and there knowing that he’ll keep you safe. Someone interrupts the calm, though.

“Wait, WHAT?” You know without looking that Jaskier must be flailing his arms. “That’s IT?! Where’s the moment of clarity? The serendipity?! Are you real- oh!” He must have realized something. “Oh, I see! And how long has this been going on? When did you decide ‘Let’s not tell Jaskier, let’s make him look like a fool.’ Haha! Well joke’s on you! I’ve known from the beginning that...that...oh fuck it.”

Disgruntled, he returns to his seat only to have faith mock him as it turns out the wine has been spilled.

You don’t care. At least not right now.

“You’re a mess, wild flower.”

“Guess you get to clean me up when we get a chance then.”

You can feel the soft of him humming in agreement when he kisses you again, though the sound is drowned by a Jaskier,

“Oh, come ON!”

...   Geralt   ...

The trio is tired as they start their descent. Jaskier is still moping about the surprising turn of events but at least he does so quietly for the fear of the wyverns abandoning the hunt on the few vampires that fled – apparently the creatures hold a grudge. Similarly, the Witcher is on edge, his eyes darting to the shadows that are beginning to lose their hold in the greying dawn. His sword is drawn as a necessary precaution as much as for the sake of [Y/N] whom he carries on his back. She is too weak to walk still, caught somewhere between unconsciousness and sleep save for the few times the jostling movement stirs her and she releases a puff of hot breath against Geralt’s neck, sending shivers down his spine.

The sound of birds have accompanied them for a while when they reach the remains of the temporary camp where Roach greets them with a soft, worried whinny muzzling at them all in turn though paying special attention to the prone woman.

“She’s fine,” Geralt mutters, silently appreciating the horse’s gentleness.

“Yeah. Well. I’m still in shock.” The bard might complain, but his genuine concern returns straight away. “Is she...how long will she be like...that?”

Who knows. “The potion draws upon her own energy to rekindle her life. It’s taxing on the body.”

...

The sun is setting on the other side of the valley which is stretched out below like a sea of greens and golds, inviting and enticing with the promise of gentle travels and warmer winds. Still, they have made decent headway, distancing themselves from the threat of vampires and wyverns alike to the point that Geralt decides to make camp not far from a stream running past the first decent thicket.

It does not take a lot of convincing from Jaskier before the Witcher half assists, half carries the unnaturally weak woman towards the waters and once there (hidden from the bard’s eyes and ears), he seats her with the back against a large rock heated by the sun. Stripping, methodically pealing off the black armour, he places everything within reach on the bank before turning to [Y/N].

“Hmm.”

She stirs, understanding what is going on, as he frees her off the bloodied clothes but accepts when he gently swats her hands away that her attempt to help largely is a hindrance. Leaning against him, the large man feels the softness of her curves and the slowly returning strength in the arms that embrace him.

“This is...aaall backwards.” Despite the resignation in the voice, she still smiles.

“Hmm?”

A bit of deviousness bubbles to the surface, ghosting over Geralt’s skin together with her lips when she leans in to whisper. “I’m normally the one saving you.”

Turning to capture her lips, he lets the final piece of garment drop to the ground in favour of picking her up. So...giving. Neither for the first nor the last time does the Witcher envy Jaskier’s skill with words. The resentment at his own lack of skills is willingly swept away by the frigid water which he backs them into because the gasps escaping [Y/N] brings other things to mind, generously aided by the stiffening of her body which she presses against him in the hope of borrowing his heat – a heat that swells and grows as his hands start sweeping off the filth.

“Fuck me sideways, it’s cold!”

He quirks a brow at the exclamation, catching the glimpse of realization on her features. “Don’t worry, wild flower. I’ll make sure you don’t freeze for long.”

Continuing the ministration, Geralt makes sure no inch of skin is left unclean, fingers adeptly rubbing and stroking until the gasps due to the cold turn to soft moans of pleasure, stolen out of the evening air by his mouth. Still, afraid the low temperatures might get to her he begins to walk back to the shore, only stumbling once when she repositions in his arms and manages to sheath the head of his cock into her burning heat.

Falling to his knees, how can he not worship the woman on his lap? Slick with water droplets like precious stones scattered across her skin, she fits effortlessly around him, pliable beneath his hands as she allows him to control the pace by lifting and lowering her with a strong grip on her ass. [Y/N]’s breasts are within reach, nipples perked and begging for the attention of a tongue as she arches from the first spark of euphoria.

Don’t hold back. Never hold back.

“Lo-ove you, Gera-a-alt.”

Let me take care of you. “And I...I love you.”

#The Witcher Netflix #Geralt of Rivia #Geralt x reader #Geralt x you #The Witcher #geralt z rivii #The Witcher x you #The Witcher x reader #Fem!reader #Reader insert #Witcher Fanfic #Witcher fanfiction #Jaskier #Jaskier the Bard #Dandelion #Roach #Roach the horse #Finale #Angst #gore #fluff #smut #feels #Jaskier the Matchmaker #fanfiction #fanfic #writing #idiots in love #slow burn conclusion #monsters

[duskandstarlight]

Embers and Light (Chapter Five / Nessian)

Let me know if you’d like to be added to the tag list! :)

Ao3

Chapter Five Cassian

Cassian had put a shivering Nesta to bed, piling blankets upon blankets on top of her to warm her up. Her skin had been so pale it had taken on a blueish hue, and he had watched her as she slipped in and out of consciousness for the next hour, unable to leave. She had murmured when she fell under that final time; an incomprehensible string of words falling from her lips that were only silenced when he clasped her hand, as if his warmth soothed whatever images haunted her. He didn’t let go, after that.

Nesta had been lucid enough to tell him what he suspected after the incident; as she begged no, no, no when he started to pile the logs onto the hearth — she was scared of fire. And if her full-blown flashbacks in the camp were anything to go by, Nesta was suffering from an extreme case of suppressed battle fatigue. It was no wonder that she had hidden herself from her sisters… from them all. Her power rose to her fear and if he hadn’t flung up a shield… Well, he didn’t want to contemplate the bodies that he may have had to place on the pyre.

Battle fatigue — or organorum as it was called in Illyrian — was an unfortunate side effect of war that plagued fae and human alike. It was less of a problem for Illyrian’s, where the fighting instinct was so strong that warriors flung themselves back into battle with a stubbornness that defied usual fae, but that didn’t mean it wasn't a problem.

Even a year later, Cassian’s nightmares were proof enough that he himself was still reeling from the war, so there was no excuse for his failure to contemplate the full extent of Nesta’s suffering. Cassian had sat in the armchair by her bed, watching Nesta’s too-still body under the heaps of blankets as he spiralled further and further into a pit of self-loathing at the failure of he, his friends and his family for letting it all get this far.

Although Nesta was skilled at hiding her monsters, they should have pushed — they should have done more — to understand the root of her icy coldness. Nesta had spent a lifetime honing her skill at masking her emotions and protecting herself at all costs, that none of them had even stopped to think that her behaviour may have been to protect them rather than simply push them away.

But today that impenetrable wall had come down, and in its wake that wild power of hers had risen to the surface. Cassian had felt her unleashed terror before he’d even heard her whimper, and then before he’d had time to dissect what was happening, that ice from within her had exploded with such force he’d had to test his own power as he threw up a shield to protect the females, the children…

Cassian had known about the bathtub. Feyre had mentioned it to him prior to Nesta’s arrival in Illyria, and he had installed the spout above the bath because of it, but he had never contemplated the gravity of the other battles she might be facing.

After the war with Hybern, he had been so angry at her for sending him away and so broken himself as he informed family after family that their loved ones wouldn’t be coming home, that emotion had clouded logic. He’d been too distracted by Nesta’s destructive behaviour to look that bit deeper — to see past the excessive drinking and the sleazy males she used to warm her bed.

Because Cassian had felt everything in that moment when she’d lain over his broken body, as if there were a bridge between their souls. It had been overwhelming — the pain, the anguish, the heartbreak she felt — he could hardly bare the unfiltered rawness of it. And in that moment he understood why Nesta was the way she was, because that mask of indifference was the only thing protecting her from the harshness of the world.

By the time his leg and wings were mended, that bridge felt constricted. Rather than fluid it was stiff and muffled, as if he were wading under water. He had seen enough to know it was still there. Snippets of her life as her walls failed, like today, when all he could feel was pure terror at her magic as it swirled around her, readying itself to strike.

He had heard every one of his bones snap and his agonised screams. He had seen her father’s dead eyes as his body crumpled to the floor, and Elain’s blood-coated hands as she pulled Truth-Teller out of the King of Hybern’s neck…

But even though Nesta had pushed him cruelly away, he still wanted her. Cassian had never been so angry at someone in his entire life — had never thought anyone more barbed and merciless when they wished to be — yet there was also a part of him that understood her. She was fire and ice with the sharp and assessing intelligence of a warrior. He had witnessed first-hand as Nesta read a room in seconds and used it to her advantage with that silver tongue of hers.

In all honesty, he had never ever, been more magnetised by someone in his five hundred years of living, and he knew that nobody else would ever come close.

So Cassian had waited until Nesta’s breathing became even before he had left the house. He was desperate for fresh air, to get lost in the monotonous rhythm of feet on mud so he could play their conversations over and over in his mind. He looped them on repeat and when he really started to look, they began to make sense. Because Nesta couldn’t voice her demons like others could. No, instead she had left him clues. He just hadn’t been clever enough to see it and to ask for an explanation why.

Stop following me. Stop trying to haul me into your happy little circle. Stop doing all of it.

I told you to stay away. You know nothing about me.

I don’t like fires. You’ll soon change your mind living here. I won’t.

It was all so obvious now. When Cassian cast his mind back to Solstice, Nesta had left the town house after he had added more wood to the fire. She had even deliberately chosen the armchair furthest away form the hearth, even though he knew it wasn’t her favourite spot. At the time, Cassian had thought it because she didn’t want to sit with all of them, but now… Had she left because the sound had become too much? To think he had berated her for not talking to him, when she had probably spent the entire evening trying to ignore the crackling fire and hold herself together.

Dragging a hand over his face, Cassian cast a look around. He had already found the closest messenger and sent word to Rhys, letting him know that he needed to speak with his brother face-to-face. He had also visited the spot of the incident, checking in on the females and children to make sure they weren’t hurt. He had been certain his protective shield had contained the explosion but he had wanted to double check. Now, he found himself in the craftsman centre of the camp. In front of him stood the small wooden building of Emerie’s clothing shop, the glass of the large lead windows shining brilliantly in the sun.

Emerie was standing with her back straight and her chin held high — a perfect rendition of Nesta’s I Will Slay My Enemies pose — as he entered the shop, the bell above the door heralding his arrival. Her sharp eyes flickered in recognition as he closed the door behind him, but she only dropped her chin in acknowledgement. The action was defiant yet subservient and so unusual for an Illyrian female that respect flared within him.

“Emerie,” Cassian said, trying to instil some warmth into his greeting, even if the thought of Nesta small and vulnerable back home was still making his blood run cold.

“Lord Cassian,” she replied, her voice low and modulated. “What can I help you with?”

Fingering the thick woollen scarves that hung on some hooks driven into the wall, Cassian swept an assessing eye around the shop. It was a force of habit from years of training, and a quick glance told him everything he needed to know: it was impeccably tidy and despite a few empty hangers, it looked as if she was still fighting the same losing battle when it came to customers.

“I see you have gotten more popular,” he lied, for lack of something better to say.

Emerie’s dark eyes bore into his. “The clothing shop across the street ran out of coats because of the snow storms. Some had no choice but to buy here.”

The corner of Cassian’s mouth tugged upwards at Emerie’s blunt honesty and the image she had conjured. Cassian would have paid good money to see those proud Illyrian’s faced with the dilemma of buying from a female or facing an early death from the bitter cold.

“That must have been quite the picture,” he said after a moment.

“Yes,” Emerie said slowly with a frown. “Can I help you with something?”

“I need blankets and some of these scarves,” Cassian told her, gesturing to the rack in front of him.

His words prompted Emerie into movement and she floated over to the shelf piled high with an assortment of thick, knitted blankets. “How many?”

“Twelve of each,” Cassian instructed, as he strolled over to a rack of soft earmuffs. His fingers immediately found purchase in the dappled grey fur of a headband. It was surprisingly perfect; it was wide enough to sit snugly over pointed ears, and whilst it was more fashionable than something Illyrian’s usually wore, it was ideal for muffling noise.

Plucking it off the rack, Cassian placed it on the counter. “And this, too.”

Emerie’s eyebrows rose but she didn’t say a word as she began to ring the items up on the till.

Leaning against the counter, Cassian watched her work. When he noticed how her posture straightened uncomfortably at his attention, he tapped a large finger against the pine and cast a look around in an attempt to make her more at ease.

“I don’t suppose you can you order in some books for me, can you?” he asked suddenly, an idea blooming within him.

Despite the unexpected question, Emerie didn’t miss a beat. Unfortunately for her, it meant her well formed responses fell to the wayside. “For Lady Nesta?”

The subsequent, awkward pause had Cassian’s lips twitching again in amusement.

Wings rustling uncomfortably, Emerie dared a look at him. It was a look that Cassian knew no other Illyrian female in this camp would have risked and for that, he admired her.

Her tan cheeks were stained with the faintest red and her eyes were apologetic, as she murmured in explanation, “It’s the talk of the camp…”

“Naturally,” Cassian said, with a wave of his hand. Illyrian’s always were nosy bastards. “Nesta is a keen reader and is in need of some more books.”

Emerie started to neatly fold the different colour fabrics. Her cheeks had faded to a dusky pink. “What genre?”

“Romance usually, but she reads anything and everything. I’d stay clear of horror and war.”

Emerie should definitely steer clear or war, but Cassian didn’t want to stress the importance of it. He had a feeling that Emerie didn’t need telling twice, anyway. She was as sharp as a well-honed blade, from what he had gleaned of her.

“I can look into it,” Emerie said finally, as she finished carefully placing his purchases into bags. “I won’t be able to get any in until next week.”

Cassian nodded to indicate he understood. “A small selection will do.”

Handing her the money, he took the packaged bags. “I’ll see you next week. Send word when the books have arrived. In fact,” he put a gold coin down pointedly on the counter. “For delivery. You know where I live?”

Emerie jerked her chin upwards, her dark hair swaying at the movement.

“Until then,” Cassian said with a bow of his head.

He shot straight into the skies as soon as he was outside, forgoing the steep walk to the widow’s camp halfway up the craggy mountain. The snow was far thicker than in the mountain pass and the ice was treacherous at points. It had only been in irritation that he had suggested walking up it this morning. Nesta’s venomous comment about his inability to read had struck a deep insecurity he’d never been able to shake. So he had fought back in his own way, knowing deep in his gut that she wouldn’t take the easy way out, because he had an inkling Nesta was a stickler for self-punishment.

That childish behaviour had only gotten him what he deserved: females and children nearly dead, and Nesta passed out, her skin so wan that he felt sick to his stomach.

Cassian was well in the air when he felt the familiar claw raking down the ring of fire protecting his mind. He let the fire part and his flames licked at the forthcoming darkness in greeting. It was not the sort of pitch black that was full of haunting promises, but the soothing calm that came with the midnight sky.

His brother’s voice sounded in his head only a second later. I can be late afternoon or does it need to be sooner?

Late afternoon is fine.

A pause followed. Cassian rarely called Rhys to Illyria. It was only when he truly needed the power of a High Lord did he relent and ask Rhys to winnow in, so he wasn’t surprised by the next question.

Need I be worried?

Cassian couldn’t hold back the tightness in his voice, as he said silently, We had an incident this morning.

I don’t doubt that by ‘we’ you mean yourself and the eldest Archeron sister?

Something like that, Cassian replied vaguely. He didn’t want to get into it now — not like this.

Show me?

It was a request not a command and one that Cassian didn’t hesitate to refuse. He shook his head — an instinctual habit even though Rhys couldn’t see him. I’d rather not.

His brother’s reply was delayed but understanding. I’ll winnow into the camp in a few hours. I’m in a meeting with Amren and I like my balls where they are.

Good. That left Cassian with plenty of time to check on Mas and fly them back to the house.

Making sure his brother could detect the amusement in his voice, Cassian said, I didn’t know you had any balls.

A dark chuckle as smooth as silk sounded in his head. Meet you at the top of the mountain?

An immediate understanding that Cassian wanted privacy without having to ask. Sometimes having known somebody for centuries had its perks.

See you there.

Snow crunched beneath Cassian’s heavy boots as he landed at the edge of the widow’s camp. Cassian had set himself down at the crest of the sloping path, which led up the mountain in a steady ascent to the widow’s base. Ahead of him, in the middle of the camp, Cassian could make out the towering mass of grey stone, which hunched over to create what he had always sombrely thought looked like a jagged tombstone: an omen of death waiting to claim the outcast females of the Windhaven camp.

When it came to the deep-rooted sexism in Illyrian culture, Cassian was hard done by for choosing the greatest atrocity. Yet one of the worst by far was their treatment of widows. Just a brief stock of his surroundings told Cassian everything he had expected — their numbers had grown exponentially since the war, a direct result of the Illyrian males who had not made it back.

The conditions down in the mountain pass might be harsh, but the exposure to the elements halfway up the mountain were nothing less than brutal. It was a heinous way-of-life to be relegated to the widow’s camp, but for many husbandless females, they had no choice. There was nowhere else for them to go.

Every day at the crack of dawn when Cassian left the house, he saw the lines of females as they trudged down the perilous, convoluted path to the heart of the Windhaven camp. There, they would work themselves to the bone, just to afford the clothes on their back and to buy enough food to survive.

Despite the laws that Rhys had put into motion, widow’s found it hard to find their place amongst Illyrian society. Once a husband died, the financial strain of a childless widow was often seen as too much on the surviving family, and if their childbearing years were behind them, there was often only one place for them to go. It was rarely — if ever — out of choice to live up the mountain. It meant a hard and difficult existence at the bottom of the social ladder with no opportunity to climb.

Swallowing thickly, Cassian took in the rusting steel drums of fire and the huddled figures desperate for any sense of warmth. Females looked up in alarm as he passed, recoiling in fear of the male — of the General — who had travelled all the way up the mountain to their exiled spot.

Nodding at the weathered faces, Cassian headed towards the East side of the camp. He was unsurprised when all of the females quickly looked away from him and trained their eyes dutifully to the floor. Some of them were too preoccupied with tugging their worn clothing tighter around themselves to ward off the bitter chill, than to look at him at all. The action made Cassian wish he’d brought more blankets, but he knew if they had an inkling that he was bringing them clothing, they would never accept it. Instead, he’d been giving Mas supplies for years, leaving it to her — a respected elder amongst the widow community — to distribute the clothing to those who needed it the most.

Cassian drew up beside Mas’s tent just as she was stepping out. Her tent was less battered than the others — he had brought her a new one a few years prior as a Solstice gift — and whilst she had tutted at him, he knew it brought her comfort and protection from the elements.

She looked alarmed when she saw him, those dark eyes widening exponentially. It was incredibly rare for him to set foot in the camp. In fact, he could count on two hands how many times he had visited. It wasn’t because he didn’t care but because of the reaction he got . Many of the females here had been abused by males at some point in their lives and so a male in the camp was a threat to their safety. And even though Cassian meant no harm, he could sense how tense the females were because of his presence.

“General Cassian… I am late?” Mas asked, even though they both knew she wasn’t expected for a few hours yet.

“Are you — ” he started. But then he stilled, because what he saw had red, hot anger washing over him. The temperature of it was so intense it felt like waves of heat rolling across a desert plain and Mas flinched, as if she too could feel it despite the icy bite to the air. Cassian suspected the ferocity of it still had something to do with the female back at the house. He wasn't sure he'd ever get Nesta's broken expression out of his head as she begged him to stay away.

“Who did this to you?” Cassian demanded, because around Mas’ wrist was a thick bandage, and in her gait… she was limping.

He stepped quickly towards her. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw females scuttle into tents, his voice clearly too male and full of rage.

It took the restraint of a warrior to dampen his fire.

He lowered his voice. “Tell me what happened.”

Reaching up, Mas patted his cheek tenderly with her palm. She smiled sadly at him. He knew his concern caught her off guard, even after all these years. Cassian suspected it stemmed from never having anyone that truly cared for her well-being. Her poor wings were testament to that.

“Hush, sinta,” she soothed, with a last pat to his face. “I slipped over in the snow yesterday. I was climbing the mountain in the storm and sprained my wrist. Come, you are scaring the females.”

She gestured for him to follow inside the tent and he relented, if only to save the females from hiding away.

“Will you now listen to me and move into the outhouse?” he muttered irritably, as he ducked through the canvas flap. “Then you wouldn’t have to walk up the mountain at all.”

Mas made a tsk sound between her teeth. “And what of the other widow’s, sinta? The orphans? I can’t up and leave them, you know this.”

Grumbling at the truth of her words, Cassian attempted to straighten up. His head just barely missed a lantern hanging from the primary wooden beam that ran across the roof of the tent as it swayed in a gust of wind. He ducked again, before finding a space where he had no fear of being clobbered in the temple, and stood tall.

Mas’s tent was large in comparison to the other females. Although Mas technically had a tent to herself, she usually offered a spare bed to one of the new recruits until they could get themselves on their own two feet.

Today was no different. In the corner, on a makeshift camp bed was a little girl who could be no older than five. She was curled up on the very corner of the thin mattress, her dark eyes watching him warily. Her little wings rustled as he took another step inside the tent, unsettled by his movement, and his heart squeezed with sadness as he watched her too-thin body shrink into itself as she tried to make herself even smaller.

Cassian took a last look at that dirty, haunted face — the face that should be innocent but was already marred by cruel reality of the world — before he worked a kind smile onto his own. “And who is this?”

“We had some orphans join us last night,” Mas explained, with an air that told him that the amount of female orphans joining the camp was far too frequent, too. “This little one is staying with me for the time being.”

Cassian bit back a grimace as he looked back at the scared youngling. Sadly, circumstances like hers was also a recurring addition to the widow’s camp. Unlike male orphans and bastards, whose use would be found in the sparring rings when they came of age, young girls who had lost their families were often taken in by the widow’s. It meant more mouths to feed and more bodies to clothe, but Mas and the other elders who had already lived unforgiving lives, took female younglings under their wings despite the financial difficulties. Unfortunately, many of the orphans had no option but to start working from a young age, often finding jobs in the kitchens or doing laundry, where they were often required to stamp and wring cloth for long durations of time until their feet and fingers blistered from the friction.

“Don’t bother to find her a job,” Cassian said immediately. “Bring her along with you every day. I’ll pay her a salary.”

Mas’ expression softened and she bowed her head gratefully. “You are too kind, General Cassian.”

Cassian nodded tightly. “It’s the least I can do. Bring her with you later so she can have a hot bath and a good meal. You know the clothing store that used to be owned by Proteus? It’s owned by his daughter Emerie now. Drop by there and pick up some clothing for her on the way. Not the store opposite.” He pressed some coins into her hand. “Whilst you’re at it, get a salve for that wrist. If it’s still sore tomorrow, i’ll call the healer. ”

He nodded to the camp bed. “Does this little one have a name?”

Mas sent him a sad smile, glancing at the small figure in the corner. “She’s not spoken yet.”

Cassian nodded in understanding. He knew what it was like to have your life uprooted and be cast out on your own from a young age. Those memories would never leave him, no matter how many wars he fought or how many Siphons he had.

“Let me know if she needs anything else. Do you want me to fly you both down?”

Mas shook her head. “I need to check on the other girls before I leave.”

“Fine,” he replied, his thoughts already running away with him as he tried to figure out how he could help the other orphans, too. Finding them new homes would be tricky — if not near impossible — but he would try…

“General Cassian,” Mas called after him as he went to leave. “You never said why you were here.”

Cassian held up the bags of supplies in his hands.

“I was just dropping off some warm clothing for the females,” he lied, not wanting to mention Nesta’s foresight. “Will you distribute these to the most needy?”

“Of course,” Mas said obediently, but her look was shrewd and piercing. He had already seen her gaze flit to his forehead, where the large gash was still healing. He wasn’t in the mood to tell her what had happened and he knew she wouldn’t push. No doubt she’d learn about it as soon as she reached the mountain pass, anyway.

It was going to be the talk of the camp — if it wasn’t already.

Setting the bags down by a small chest of drawers to his right, Cassian started to head towards the tent entrance, before hesitating. Now was as good a time as any to speak to Mas about Nesta — about what he’d discovered this morning.

Mas was already looking at him expectantly.

“Nesta is feeling unwell today and has taken to her bed,” he started slowly. “I’ve discovered she doesn’t like fire. The log burner in the living room is fine to use as long as the door is closed, but you mustn’t light a fire in her room.”

Mas’s eyes widened as she followed him out of the tent.

“Yes, General Cassian,” she said obediently. “Of course.”

“Good,” he replied and stretched his wings out wide. “I’ll see you in a few hours, then.”

TAGSS @superspiritfestival​

#cassian #nessian #nesta x cassian #nesta archeron #nesta #acotar #acosf

[tendertenebrosity]

Part 3. Part 1 and 2. Masterlist to come. 

This is my revised opening for the Illiam and Helis pieces. New readers, start at part 1 up there! Old readers, hope you like this version as much or better than the first.

@castielamigos-whump-side-blog, @iwhumpyou, @doglover82; @top-hat-aye; @burtlederp; @just-a-raccoon-with-wifi

Helis whimpered as they were thrown against the ground, the impact jarring their teeth together and sending shooting pains through their awkwardly folded wing. Their fear had receded over the course of the night into something colder, number, blotted out by the immediacy of Helis’ pain. They had been carried for hours through dark forest and countryside, thrown unceremoniously and painfully over shoulders, passed between rough, uncaring hands. They hurt.

Their limbs were squashed awkwardly against their body under the winding layers of netting, room to wriggle slightly but no more than that. Between the strands, their cheek was pressed now against packed dirt and leaf litter. They squirmed a little - their neck was twisted uncomfortably, but in the thin light of morning they could see where they were.

They were in a clearing, a wide swathe of cleared ground; from this position they could see trees, a patch of sky that was beginning to bleed pale grey and gold, the edges of a few sturdy canvas tents… and a small crowd of legs and boots. Some looked like soldiers, others more like nobles - but all the people they could see were in heavy material, furs and velvets and leather, and had matching harsh accents.

But what are they doing here? Helis thought desperately. There were not supposed to be Toraldan soldiers here, or Toraldan nobles. The border was miles away. Helis and Reed had only been away from home for a few weeks, how had things changed that fast?

They reached for power, almost instinctively, and were denied. The place where magic usually rested below their breastbone was empty. The dozens, maybe hundreds, of silver threads within the netting were a negligible amount individually but combined they were enough to render Helis’ magic useless. As useless as their hands, as useless as their wings, battered and crushed against their back and sides.

The voices Helis could hear were irritable, subdued; a few picked up with interest as, with a thump, Reed was dropped unceremoniously beside Helis on the ground.

He looked dazed; one side of his face was covered in blood. “Helis, thank God,” he gasped, his eyes lighting despite the bruising that swelled one almost shut. “Are you -”

“No talking,” the soldier that had dropped Reed snapped, and kicked Reed in the stomach, making him double up with a choking noise.

Helis bit back their response, wincing. The soldier grabbed Reed roughly and pulled him up onto his knees; unlike Helis, he was bound at wrists and ankles, hands behind his back. He wheezed as he was held in position, curly head bowed.

“What am I looking at, Captain?”

A voice cut through the babble, deep and commanding, and all the other voices dropped away respectfully. Helis lifted their head and couldn’t see the speaker; but they could see the surrounding people falling back to leave Helis, Reed and the soldiers alone in a wide semicircle.

The soldiers saluted. “Spies, your grace,” the one out of sight behind Helis said. “From the Southern Cities, based on what we found on them. They were lying low, trying to slip past our lines.”

Lying low? Helis thought, incredulous. We were camped where anybody could see us! We’re wearing Crestmead state uniforms!

“That isn’t -” they protested - and cut off with a cry as the soldier directed a kick at their side. Between the net and their cramped, awkward wings, he didn’t reach their stomach like he’d probably been aiming for, but his boot still hurt. They tangled their fingers in the strands of rope, hopelessly, miserably.

“This one has magic, your grace,” the captain continued. “Slippery creature.”

“Yes, I see the silver.” If Helis propped themselves up on one elbow and lifted their head further, so far their neck ached, they could just see the figure of the man people kept calling ‘your grace’. As they watched, he walked further into their field of vision, and dropped to sit in a chair that had been placed for him. His hair and short beard were dark, with generous wings of grey, and he wore a dark fur cloak over rich clothes. He leaned back in the chair with easy confidence, and his voice was coloured with amusement for a moment. “Formal magic training for a messenger beast. Now we know they’re from the South, don’t we?”

A ripple of laughter passed through the crowd, loud and harsh. Helis shrank within their bonds, biting their lip and squeezing their eyes shut to keep tears behind them. No. No, no, this couldn’t be happening. We’re prisoners and nobody knows we’ve been captured. Will they negotiate with Crestmead, try to ransom Reed back? Not if they think he’s a spy. And definitely not for me. Not for the wildborn, the beast, the creature.  

“We are not spies,” they heard Reed say, his voice slightly hoarse but strong. “We are Crestmead representatives here with a legitimate purpose, which is more than I can say for - ” He cut off with a hiss of pain.

Helis bit back a hitching breath that was almost a sob and opened their eyes. Reed was right in front of their swimming vision, head hanging, only the hand of the soldier behind him keeping him upright.

“I want to know how Crestmead knew to send him,” the commanding man on the throne said, as Helis blinked and tried to focus. “See what you can get today. If the spy seems like he’ll be of use, we can take him back with us.” A pause, and then an afterthought: “Get rid of the creature once you’re done, though. Thing like that’s more trouble than it’s worth.”

Get rid of the creature. Those words should have hit them harder, but they felt almost numb again, frozen with terror.  

“Your grace! One moment!”

The voice came from behind Helis’ back, cutting effortlessly through the murmurs of the crowd. The man on the throne looked up, over Helis and Reed, and raised an eyebrow. He lifted one hand and made a casual gesture, as if giving permission for the speaker to approach.

Helis shifted and twisted their neck in the other direction, not sure why they were bothering to do it. What were the chances this interruption would mean anything but a brief delay? I’m going to die. I’m going to die, and everything hurts, and what’s the point in hurting myself more? But the voice had tugged on something at the back of Helis’ memory.

They couldn’t see far; with their neck aching and their nose just skimming the dirt, they could see a pair of high black boots approaching. A black cloak swirled behind the boots as their wearer stopped a few feet away from Helis and bowed. And Helis blinked, distracted from their terror for a moment because those boots, too, were… familiar.

“May I ask you a favour, your grace?”

The newcomer’s voice was cool, calm. Where did Helis know him from? Why was there a note of assurance in his tone, even as he interrupted this obviously important person?

The man on the throne snorted, propped his bearded chin on one hand. “You may. What is it you want?”

The figure stepped closer, nudged at Helis’ shoulder with one of the black boots, and flipped them over onto their back.

It had been four years, but he hadn’t changed much. A sword on his hip and winter clothing like he’d rarely had cause to wear in Crestmead, but still, all in black. Black hair, grown long enough to pull back in a tail; ice-blue eyes with shadows under them, a nose chapped red with cold, and a familiar sneer.

Illiam regarded Helis for a long moment, his mouth tight with distaste. Then he lifted his gaze up to address the man on the throne over the top of them, his voice ringing over the crowd.

“Can I have this one?”

#Illiam #Helis #Illiam and Helis redux #whump drabble #public humiliation whump #winged whumpee #wing whump #fantasy racism #it as a pronoun #tw violence #possessiveness tw #dehumanisation whump

[missfay49]

Session 1b - I’d Rather Not

This is a retelling, not a transcription.

Word count: ~2,100

Relationships: platonic Moceit

Warnings (may contain spoilers): space, aliens, alien planet, fighting, cursing, disease, venom, exhaustion, mind-control, blood, hostile wildlife (request more tags if needed)

AO3

Last Chapter Next Chapter

******************

“Thanks, Janus.”

Janus’ face twists into a cold focus.  He grabs his pistol and starts firing careful, timed bursts and the other fighters still in control of themselves do the same.  The vracinea makes no sounds when their shots hit, but its latex sap starts pouring from the wounds and its vines become frantic.  They all desperately hope that means it’s dying.

A particularly large electrical blast from the android seems to knock the large Lashunta loose, because they gasp and start running.  The creature gives chase but five of them are shooting it now and before it can attack again its smoking corpse falls with a strange flutter and a crunch.

The human walks up and spits on it before sitting hard on the ground.  

“I am so done with nature,” says the android.  Someone grunts in agreement.

Only a few seconds pass before the smaller Lashunta is shaking their head and backing away from the foliage in disgust.  No one says anything to them.  Janus gives them a questioning look, still catching his breath, but they just blink a few times and join the rough circle of people that has formed to rest.  

“Thank you for not letting me die,” Janus says to no one in particular.  He touches the scratches on his neck lightly, wincing.  

“You’re welcome,” says the small Lashunta.  

“I would not wish that fate on anyone,” adds the android.  “To be eaten by a plant… pitiful.”

Janus looks at each of them in turn, these new companions of his.  The human catches his eye and stares back for a moment, squinting hard at him.  Janus’ lips twitch in an aborted smile and he lets his gaze slide away to the next person.

The large Lashunta and the android are studying the plant together.  The android narrates their findings.  

“The plant was not originally part of the structure’s design.”

“Oh, was it not?  I would never have guessed.”  The human scoffed, leaning theirself back against a fallen tree.  The android continues as if nothing was said.

“This obelisk was a watchtower.  Non-magical.  Sargorssk, would you?”  The android looks at the Vesk and gestures.  They- Sargorssk- seems to know just what to do and draws their sword again to start hacking the remaining vines from the structure.  Once the surface is revealed, the android starts up again.

“There is ancient elven script here. “Warning.  You are approaching Loskialua, monastery of starsong, embassy of the spheres, and Temple of the Twelve.  Messengers and other visitors pay respect to the beyond.”  It says something about purity of the mind.”

“So, we should think pure thoughts?”  asks the large Lashunta.

“Indeed,” the android confirms.  “I suggest you think about soap.”

A few feet away, Janus is struggling with his med kit.  He knows it’s in here, he just can’t think right now through all the pains shouting at him.  He startles when the small Lashunta appears beside him, putting a hand on his shoulder.  Janus makes to remove it, but a warmth blossoms from the touch and travels up and around his neck.  The cuts around his throat and head tingle and disappear.  It lasts only a few seconds, and then the Lashunta gives him a smile and pulls away.  Their hands part and Janus realizes he had been holding onto them throughout.  He stares as they walk back to their travel pack and sit.

“Oh, we’re keeping that one,” he decides.  

~~~

The group keeps moving.  The kaukarikis glower at the survivors walking through their territory.  They drop rocks on the group when they aren’t looking, but always retreat when confronted.  They’re just trying to be irritating.  

They make camp when the sun sets and the android strikes up conversation.

“How did you survive before…?”

“Things were a lot quieter before you came around.  Y’all are bad luck.”  Janus smirks.  “This is the worst mission I’ve ever had here!”

“That may be true,” Sargorssk chuckles.  “Are you sure you want to travel with us?”

“Well…” he draws it out just long enough to make everyone laugh.  When it dies down, his back is to them and he’s setting up his sleeping bag without a word.

The next morning sees another day of travel.  The infernal kaukarikis keep trailing the group, a hostile presence ever at their back.  Janus sidles up to the android.

“What’s your mission, anyway?”  He asks.

“We’re rescuing a kidnapped scientist,” they reply.  The large Lashunta nods.

“How very heroic!”

“What’s yours?”  The android’s eyes look through him.

“Cataloging species and their populations, but I’m more than happy to help rescue a fellow scientist!  It’s hard out here, we’ve got to look out for each other,” says Janus. 

“You’re welcome to stick with us as long as you like,” says the Vesk.

“Yes,” says the android.  “We could use the firepower.”

The day after that they encounter a creature called a ksarik.  A grey-ish-green four-legged creature with a tail and tentacles that twitch back and forth like a cat.  Everyone’s guns are raised when that thing tops the hill.  It disappears into the foliage, leaving only tension behind.

It appears again and again throughout the day, sometimes behind, sometimes to one side or the other.  Sometimes it moves impossible fast.

“Are there now two?” asks the android.

“Maybe so,” says the small Lashunta.  “They hunt in packs.”

On the fourth sighting, it doesn't run away again.  Instead it walks up to them, examining them, quivering with interest.  Probing.  It gurgles.  Janus is taking notes with great interest.

“Domash,” asks the android.  “Can you speak to this thing?”

The small Lashunta, Domash, squints for a moment.

“Yes, actually, it’s a type of fungus.  Don’t know how I forgot that!”  They laugh at theirself, stepping forward just a bit.

“Why here?  What want?  Me friend.”

“Want... Host...”

It launches a projectile a hundred feet across the field straight at the android.

A scream, a metallic screeching, and the android staggers.  A thorn is protruding from their shoulder, the panel cracked.  

The human takes aim and fires, the rest of the group following suit.  All but the large Lashunta.  They look around the field.  There!  Another creature, coming up on their flank.  Thorns fly from it as well, sinking into the Lashunta’s leg.  Then they flee.

“What the fuck?  Where are they going?” asks the human.  Domash looks at them, alarmed. 

“Their shots hit.  They think that all they have to do now is wait us out.  The spores…”  They look at their companion ripping the thorns out of their leg.

“We have to keep moving.”

Several times throughout the day, the creatures return to check on them, to fire more thorns.  No matter how many times they get shot, they flee only to return without a trace of damage.  The android tries to give chase, but they evolved within this jungle.  It’s impossible.

Janus tends to the large Lashunta’s wounds that night at camp.  It’s unclear if he’s helped, but they seem in higher spirits the next morning.

Another day, another several hours of being followed by kaukarikis, hunted by ksariks, and by the end of it Sargorssk and Janus have both been infected as well.  The other human lowers their gun after the fleeing creature and eyes Janus’ wounded arm.

“Oh, no, not our long-time field medic pal…”  they deadpan.  Janus glares in return.

  ~~~

“Y’all know where you’re going, right?”  Janus asks on the fifth day of travel.

The android stops in their tracks.

“What gives?”

A body is laying on the ground ahead.  Janus looks for signs of movement.

“It’s one of the cultists,” the android explains.  “One of the kidnappers.”  The human already has a gun raised.  

The android steps closer, and the cultist sees them and screams.

“Devourer, stop this pain!  I am ready for you!"  They pull out a gun but their arm cannot lift it to shoot.  Zin moves closer to the bulky Lashunta cultist, examining their wounds.  The human joins them, restraining the person.  It hardly seems necessary.

“They will not last much longer.”

“When did this happen?”  Domash approaches to question them.  They can only mumble, barely coherent.

“Time is… what?  I…”

“Should we, I don’t know, help them?”  Janus gestures vaguely.  The human is patting them down for any more weapons.  

“Or,” they pull out an incendiary grenade out of the person’s bag.  “We could kill ‘em.”

The android gently lifts the cultist’s head to place on their lap.  They speak calmly.

“You heard the man, tell us what you know or we’ll kill you.”

“I’m as good as dead already.”  The hostage’s eyes dart around, landing on Domash.  

“Wait, are you a healer?  Can you help me?!  Please!  I’ll tell you anything!”  They gasp.

Domash kneels, beginning to cast a spell of healing over them as the android begins a line of questioning.  The human backs up and mutters to Janus.

“We should just feed ‘em the grenade before those spores bust out.  This is a waste of time, bet.”

Janus briefly appreciates that Pat isn’t listening to this.

An hour later, the android leaves the cultist’s side.

“Here’s what we know.  She is from the Cult of the Devourer.  There’s no reliable information about the cult on the database.  Her leader is a man named Tommen.  The scientist was with them, but the group left her behind when she was infected by the ksariks.  There are a dozen more members guarding the scientist.”

“Are we gonna heal her just to have to lug around a prisoner?”  The human asks.

“We don’t have to take her with us,” says Sargorssk.

“Then why is Domash wasting its magic- hey!”  The human grunts as the android grabs them.

“They’re back.  There are more now.”

~~~

Pistols and laser fire explode over the clearing.  Janus ducks behind the large Lashunta, patting them on the back.  

“Go get ‘em, champ!”

“Hey, yeah,” they don’t dare take their eyes off the targets.  “That’s inspiring and all, but maybe you could actually do something?”

“Ah, yes.”  Janus pulls out his pistol and fires two shots, each one missing wide.  The Lashunta blinks.

“Never mind.”

The fight ends when Sargorssk throws a grenade at a ksarik, causing the last hostile fungus to erupt and douse everyone nearby with spongy viscera.  The large Lashunta scrubs their face and throws a piece on the ground, stomping it into the dirt.  Domash helps the android knock a panel back into place and the rest of them stand there panting, covered in goo.

“It’s in my hair.”  Janus mutters.  Somewhere behind them, the cultist groans.

~~~

Cleaning themselves up a few minutes later, Domash slaps Janus on the back and smiles.

“Well, you lived this long, maybe it’s time we made formal introductions?”

“Oh, thank goodness.”  Janus leans toward it.  “I waited so long I thought I’d missed my chance.  I’m Patton Nufunder.  You can call me Pat-iyo.” 

“Like the furniture?”

“Never heard that one before.”  Janus quips.

“I’m just teasing.  Domash-eyin.  Pleasure to meet you.”

“I’m Sargorssk-iye Vint.”  The Vesk walks up to him showing far too many teeth.  

“I am called Zin-eya,” says the android.  Right behind her the large Lashunta waves.

“I’m Veritae-ya Vyon!”

There’s a silence, followed by everyone looking over to their human companion.  The one that’s been with them all along.  They sense the eyes on them and stop polishing their weapon to look up.

“Don’t refer to me.”

“Okay, then.”

“Just do me a favor, eh?”  The human asks him.  “Don’t die.  Fair?”

“Fair.”  Janus nods.  Sargorssk pulls him aside.

“The point is, Pat, we’re gonna be in danger for a while.  Not sure you want to stay with us.”

Janus mentally pokes the sleeping Patton in their mind.  He doesn’t stir.  To be honest, I’m not sure either, but right now this body is sick, probably got a couple infections, and traveling alone like this is somehow still more deadly than sticking with you lot.

“Don’t worry about me, Sarg.  I‘ll be fine.”  Janus shrugs him off.

“Well, then, welcome aboard!  Maybe you’ll actually get to see our ship at some point.”

A scratchy signal coming out of Zin’s head interrupts them.  She’s playing a live message from someone.

“I’ve made it across t-- ravine.  What --- ---- -- with these monkeys?  There’s dead monkeys all ova’ the place.  Why are they tryna kill me?”

“They started it,” she replies in a neutral tone.

Last Chapter Next Chapter

#starfinder #patton #patton nufunder #janus #janus 358 #sanders sides #aliens #space #fighting #blood #injuries #cursing #disease #venom #cultists #mind control #missFay #my writing #a series of mistakes

[minervahopebeyond]

Blood Daffodils.

Chapter 10: Somebody to love. (2/2)

“Prongslet, you need to get up”

The light that came through the window was blinding him, Harry put his pillow over his head and curled up more inside the sheets of the bed.

“Harry, really.” The scolding tone in his father’s voice has become this normal thing these past few weeks.

Ten days tops, my arse.

Harry knew this would happen. He was so fucking aware that Draco was going to aparate away and remember that being locked up was awful and that he could use this time to live a happy life, not this borderline military camp that they were living at the mansion.

He was lashing out on everyone. Last night, when Hermione came to talk to him, he kind of yelled at her and told her to fuck off.

“It’s okay to miss him, you know?” She said, leaning on the doorframe. Harry just held her gaze, bored expression on his face. “I miss Ron too, I think that being away from him has made me come to term with quite a few things... Did that happen to you as well?”

Come to terms with what? With how desperately in love he was? He could do that with Draco in the same fucking room, thank you very much. He crossed his arms and looked at the window, expecting for her to leave if he didn’t reply. He was wrong.

“You should tell him... When he comes back.”

Harry froze, all the fibers in his body just suddenly were too aware of what his friend had jus suggested. Draco could not know, if he knew that the green-eyed boy felt more than just friendship for him, then maybe he would stop whatever it was that they had... He had put a lot of effort in clarifying to the blond boy that he had options, that Harry wasn’t going to get mad or anything... He never doubted that this was because Malfoy lacked Nott right now.

Maybe there was this tiny part of him (almost inexistent, really) that hoped that Draco would fell in love with him between kisses and late night talks... This part of him kind of wished that Malfoy would love him instead of Nott, that he would like his kisses better... or that he would like sleeping with him more, in comparison (if the blond boy ever dared to do something slightly like that with him)... The wildest wish he had was hoping that the blond boy would see him, and think that he was the most attractive person on the planet, just like Harry felt when he looked at the blond. More handsome than bloody Nott, at least. That wasn’t going to happen, though. Harry was this skinny awkward boy... Yes, thanks to quidditch and an entire year of good nutrition for the first time in his life, he looked better, healthier... But he had seen Nott, and much to his dislike, the brunette was much more easy on the eyes than he would ever be.

“I don’t know what you are talking about.” He replied stubbornly.

“That you love him, Harry. It’s obvious.” Make her shut the fuck up.

“What the hell makes you say that, huh? I don’t. It doesn’t mean anything, what we do, I’m just bored and he is bored too. Don’t project whatever it is that you feel for Ron and your unsuccessful relationship on what we do. Because it’s not a relationship even. And I don’t want it to be. Why don’t you mind your own business, Hermione? Just for once.”

“Fine, be that way. Maybe if you weren’t as much of a bullheaded arsehole they both would be here right now.” She hissed at him, finally saying out loud what Harry already knew since they both started packing. That this was his fault, there was no other person to blame for this. She slammed the door on her way out.

He felt Sirius lifting up the covers, leaving him to feel the cold breeze that entered through his window, forcing him to curl up even more to fight the uncomfortable sensation. He liked his covers, they made him feel like he was safe... he also hadn’t wash them since Draco left so he could smell the blond’s boy flowery scent... by now they were so used that they probably just stank but whatever.

“Rise and shine.”

“Did they come back?” He asked lifting his pillow to look at them. Just glancing at their expressions was enough to know the answer. He sat just to reach the covers that were pulled to the end of the bed and then he threw himself on the mattress again, feeling the safe warm of the sheets again. “I’m not in the mood right now.”

“We didn’t even tell you what we were going to do.” Sirius replied with an annoyed tone.

“For whatever it is, I’m not in the mood.” He said, closing his eyes, trying to ignore them until he drifted back to sleep.

———————

They were in the middle of dinner when the crack of apparation irrupted the awkward silence that was stretching between them.

Harry froze, feeling the blood pumping through his heart. Alive, he felt alive.

“Hey! We are home!” Ron’s voice came from the living room.

Three weeks, three whole fucking weeks, Sirius’ birthday was the following day.

“Sorry we took a little longer! The ferret wanted to do a protection ritual and the moon phases weren’t quite right yet.”

Oh, okay. How casual. Not even a bloody Patronus saying that they were staying longer, Harry was almost fearing that they were actually captured or dead somewhere. Turns out that the moon phases weren’t quite right. Something shattered inside the cabinet, maybe a few expensive plates for the sound of it. Fuck.

When they entered the kitchen, the first one that talked was Hermione, well, talk was maybe not the correct term.

“And you didn’t think that it would have been nice to let us know? You said a week! Ten days tops! We have all been sick with worry here and you say ‘Hey, we are home’?? I don’t even want to look at neither of you. There is not enough food for you two , I wasn’t counting you when I cooked the pasta. Eat a cereal bar or something, or don’t, who cares.”

She stormed out of the room and the sound of her steps on the stairs echoed around the house. Harry just turned to look at both of them.

“I’m glad you are here.” Then he pushed back his unfinished plate and stood up. “I’m not hungry anymore.” And marched off upstairs like Hermione did.

Before he entered his room, he could hear his dad’s voice.

“Good luck with that. They haven’t been very easy to live with lately.”

Harry was just thinking that they could all just go fuck themselves.

The record player’s sound invaded the room. Padfoot had moved it to his room last week, hoping that it would cheer Harry up, at least a bit. Hearing Queen soothed him because it was like having Malfoy near, and even though the blond boy was here now, he was too mad to go and hug him. The bloody bastard lied to his face before he left, promising to come back sooner.

His eyes were closed but he heard the door opening softly, he cracked one eye open, the light luminous hair being the first thing that he saw. He closed it again, ignoring him completely.

The song changed and ‘Somebody to Love’ started to play. Harry thought that the universe was just doing it on purpose.

Can anybody find me somebody to love?

Ooh, each morning I get up I die a little

Can barely stand on my feet

(Take a look at yourself) Take a look in the mirror and cry (and cry)

Lord, what you're doing to me (yeah yeah)

I have spent all my years in believing you

But I just can't get no relief, Lord!

Somebody (somebody) ooh somebody (somebody)

Can anybody find me somebody to love?

The song was a bit too close to home. Harry wishing that someone would love him the way that Malfoy loved Nott... That just for once, life would smile at him and would give him something that he craved for.

The blond boy didn’t say anything, he just closed the door behind him and stood on the other side of the room.

Harry wasn’t going to talk if Draco wasn’t even trying. He fixed his glasses and crossed his arms stubbornly over his chest.

“Are you going to be mad at me forever?” Draco asked tentatively, before flashing a handsome smirk his way. “Didn’t you miss me?”

He didn’t have the slightest idea of how much he missed him. Nonetheless, Harry tried to preserve the little dignity that he had left by not replying.

Everyday (everyday) I try and I try and I try

But everybody wants to put me down

They say I'm going crazy

They say I got a lot of water in my brain

Ah, got no common sense

I got nobody left to believe in

Yeah yeah yeah yeah

The boy started to mouth the lyrics, not singing, just... doing the playback, his grey eyes shining. He couldn’t tear his eyes away.

Oh, Lord

Ooh somebody, ooh somebody

Can anybody find me somebody to love?

(Can anybody find me someone to love)

Got no feel, I got no rhythm

I just keep losing my beat (you just keep losing and losing)

I'm OK, I'm alright (he's alright, he's alright)

I ain't gonna face no defeat (yeah yeah)

I just gotta get out of this prison cell

One day (someday) I'm gonna be free, Lord!

Every note, Draco was doing the playback so perfectly that he almost seemed like he was singing to Harry. His heart was pounding, he was fighting the smile that was starting to appear in his face, biting his lower lip.

“It’s not working.” He said, raising an eyebrow, trying to act like Malfoy wasn’t the most beautiful and cute creature ever... Here, dancing to this particular song, offering him his most dashing smile in his repertoire.

Find me somebody to love

Find me somebody to love

Find me somebody to love

Find me somebody to love

Find me somebody to love

Draco danced his way towards where he was sitting on the bed, twirling dramatically mouthing the lyrics as he did.

Find me somebody to love

Find me somebody to love

Find me somebody to love love love

Find me somebody to love

Find me somebody to love

He knelt in the mattress, smirking at him. The crescendo of the song was building up the anticipation of what was about to happen. He inhaled Malfoy’s delicious smell and knew that he wouldn’t be strong enough to deny whatever that the boy was going to ask from him. Fuck his pride, Draco could ask for his heart so he could perform a blood ritual and Harry would gladly rip off his chest just to give it to him.

Somebody somebody somebody somebody

Somebody find me

Somebody find me somebody to love

Can anybody find me...

The voice of Freddie Mercury filled the room, Draco stopped mouthing the lyrics and locked his grey stormy beautiful eyes with his green ones.

somebody to...

His lips itched, craving for Malfoy’s. ‘Kiss me, you gorgeous prat. Can’t you see that I might die if you don’t? I need to know that we are okay.’

love?

And like if the boy had read his thoughts, with the most epic moment of the entire song playing in the background, Malfoy kissed him. His lips grounded Harry for the first time in weeks, warming his heart and erasing all the self-loathing thought he had.

Right now it was just the two of them. No fights, no horcrux hunt, just Draco kissing him after a long trip.

Home, at last.

#drarry #fanfic #fanfiction