#it shouldn’t hurt anymore and it shouldn’t matter anymore but somehow it does | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

saerins · 1 year

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─── & 𝐀𝐆𝐀𝐈𝐍

+ itoshi sae x f!reader | wc 4k | content: slight angst, established relationship, friends/exes to lovers, hurt/comfort, breakup, mentions of jealousy, implied adults here

notes: DISCLAIMER I HAVENT WRITTEN PROPERLY IN A WHILE so it’s probably quite shitty but i missed him ok !!! T_T sobs i hope you guys like this one <3

summary: sae’s still learning the ropes on being in a relationship, and sometimes you think you can’t wait any longer. but this is itoshi sae, maybe you can.

sae hates this sickly tension in the air.

your brows are furrowed and you’re biting your lower lip; it’s the look of confusion that he’s not very used to, but is most aware of anyway. it’s the look you always carry when you’re upset and conflicted and you’re trying not to say any more than you already have on the off chance that you’d cry after you do.

it’s not your fault for getting jealous—sae knows that. all it is is an unfortunate byproduct of him not being around as much as you need him to. but in his head, his mind tells him one thing only: how can you expect him to when that’s what his career entails?

didn’t you know that before agreeing to be his girlfriend?

maybe you’re painfully aware of how it’s neither of your faults, and maybe that’s why you’re really confused. because there’s no one to blame. sae wasn’t to blame for having to show up at an event with some famous actress. he was doing his job. he had told you not to go, but somehow oliver had taken it upon himself to invite you anyway.

“i’m at every event with a different girl, the tabloids wouldn’t suspect a thing about her being your girlfriend, right?”

famous last words because sae’s going to have to kill him one day for that.

beside you on the couch, sae’s head falls to his hands, elbows propped on his knees. it’s not your fault either, he realises, for not being able to take it when you experience firsthand how people gush over him and saiko, the actress. you aren’t used to this life. maybe you shouldn’t have to.

“i don’t know what to do anymore, sae.”

after an entire hour of arguing how he should at least talk to you about these things instead of throwing them under the rug, after an entire hour of how sae tried to defend himself by saying he couldn’t possibly read your mind—you’re both exhausted.

“well i don’t fucking know neither,” he confesses, half snaps, and his head is still in his hands. he knows you’re looking at him, wanting to search his expression for answers that he can’t give verbally. but sae doesn’t want you to see him like this, unsure and conflicted, almost as much as you.

through your eyes, you’ve never felt more rejected than you do when you look at your entire world and see it refuse to let you in. his hair is a mess now, from running after you in the rain, his expression is unreadable and his clothes soaking through his body. sae is always like this when there’s a fight—always avoiding the hard conversations.

and maybe you would’ve let it slide if you’re sure of his feelings for you, but you’re not. you’ve been friends with sae for three years, been together with him for six months. but in all this time, he’s never actually told you how he feels for you. not a small utterance of his love, or any indication of his feelings through text.

no matter how strong or optimistic you are, you aren’t sure if you can last any longer like this.

“sae, can you answer me honestly?”

he doesn’t say a thing, but you know he’s listening. he always does. which is why it hurts even more when he doesn’t do anything whenever you argue. because you know that out of everyone, itoshi sae best knows what you need.

but he won’t do it.

“do you still want this?”

a suffocating silence blankets the room, and after an agonising two minutes, you get your answer in his silence.

slowly, you get up off the couch, and you can almost laugh at why your impending departure is the only thing that can make him look at you.

“i’m sorry, sae, i can’t do this anymore,” you tell him, smiling even though you’re crying, and for a moment, the way he widens his beautiful teal eyes and how he instinctively reaches out to grab your wrist almost breaks you. but you’ve decided, and it’s too late now. “i’ll find an apartment and move out as soon as i can.”

when sae watches you retreat to your shared bedroom and lock the door, he realises by the plunging of his heart that he’s not okay with this. that he’s not okay with letting you leave. it’s stupid why he can’t even find the fucking words to say because he does, he does want this.

that’s why he rushes to the door, knocks rapidly in succession only to hear silence in return. and now he knows exactly how you feel. you’ve always been the vocal one, always been there—armed with your assurances that you never realised he needed, coupled with your smile that drives every negativity in his head away.

“y/n, open the door,” sae tries, but you don’t respond. he hears the tap switching on and he’s cursing himself in his head. his forehead presses against the white wooden surface, unable to bring himself away. “y/n, talk to me.”

for the first time since he met you, you don’t listen.

the next morning is even more torturous than the night sae spent not sleeping.

when you finally come out of the room, you feel like a stranger. your hair’s done up, your makeup fresh, the smile on your face is still gone.

“morning.”

your eyes flick up to meet his as you walk to the kitchen, but they don’t light up like they used to. he can see you swallowing the lump in your throat before you choke out a good morning in return, though it’s strained.

have you been crying all night?

“listen, can we talk about last night?” sae asks, but it’s futile.

the way you close the fridge door carelessly sits uncomfortably with him, only because he feels like he recognises you even less. the way you smile after that is so forced he would rather you didn’t.

“oh right, about that, good news,” you try to sound chirpy, but it settles awkwardly between the both of you. “i managed to find some listings, so i’m gonna go check them out. fingers crossed i’ll be out of your hair soon!”

you’re prancing around the kitchen like a madwoman, humming tunes he doesn’t know and playing the part of not you all too well.

“y/n, i don’t want you to—”

“stop, sae,” you cut him off, heart broken and head buried in the cupboard.

he saunters to your side, not daring to get too close to you, afraid you’d just retreat further away. “tell me what i can do.” a part of him wants you to ask him that question again, so that he can answer now. so that he can tell you how he really feels.

but it doesn’t come. you’re just staring blankly at the wall.

when his gaze falls to your neck, he realises that necklace he gave you isn’t there like it used to be everyday. his heart sinks even further. “you’re not wearing it anymore?”

it’s stupid of him to expect you to. as of last night, you both were as good as broken up, after all.

“y/n, can we talk? i really—”

“sae, enough,” you utter through gritted teeth. “i don’t want to hear it anymore.”

—love you. that’s what he wants to say. but you’re past caring, it seems.

sae’s lips are sewn tightly shut after that, both of you eating breakfast in silence. you’re eating what you cooked, some sausages and a sunny egg and toast while sae’s stuck with cereal because you usually do all the cooking.

you don’t look at him, and he doesn’t look at you. the hands on the analog clock are all either of you hear aside from your own chewing.

“at least let me drive you,” sae says as you head for the door, slipping into your sneakers.

your hand hovers over the doorknob, as though you’re considering it, and for a minute sae is hopeful, but then the next minute, you pour water over his fire.

“it’s fine, i can manage fine on my own.”

for some reason, sae feels like you’re telling him that for much more than just today.

days pass and you’ve barely spoken two words to each other. sae finds himself taking the chance to look at you much more than he has before; you still look tired. maybe it’s from all the house visiting, or maybe it’s the outcome of being with him. he’s still not okay with you moving, with you not being in his life, but sae’s stuck at a loss of what to do.

you’d been spearheading this relationship all this time that now, sae has no idea what to do. any attempt at a conversation is thwarted by you, and any time he comes near you, you relegate to the room and lock yourself in there.

sae’s taken his necessities and moved to the guest bedroom, and he thinks it’s so stupid to think that sleeping in a different room is better than being at a different apartment altogether.

but how long until you find a suitable apartment and move out? how long until sae has zero chance at being able to see you again?

“that sounds like a you problem though.”

as sae sits across the booth and deadpans at his younger brother, he thinks maybe the most useless thing you’ve ever done is repairing their relationship. especially with rin mumbling useless shit like that.

“yeah, thanks for the help,” sae rolls his eyes, watching as rin pops a nugget into his mouth.

“why didn’t you answer her then?” rin surveys his older brother’s movements; uncomfortable, awkward, reserved. he’s amazed that anyone can get sae like this, if he’s honest. he doesn’t usually give a shit about anything that doesn’t concern himself.

sae sighs. if he knew, he wouldn’t be here. he’d be with you, trying to explain how fucked up he is and why he didn’t say shit when he should’ve. but now, you won’t even give him the chance to talk without shutting yourself away.

rin groans, thoroughly annoyed because unbeknownst to his brother, you’d already filled rin in on everything. besides, you’re kind of already like a sister to him anyway. and you’re better at being an older sibling than sae is, granted.

“do you still want her though?” rin asks. it’s kind of tiring, being in the middle, being told by both parties to not say a thing to the other. he’s also tired of sae and his cryptic messages when he wants advice but is too proud to outright ask for it. and also of you whining in his messages about how if sae keeps this up you can’t keep being strong about this anymore.

“yeah.”

sae’s answer is surprisingly simple, and rin is entirely unamused.

“yeah maybe i see why she left you.”

“excuse me?”

rin meets his brother’s gaze, unrelenting. “you still want her yet you’re here telling me about it instead of her. i think you’d win best boyfriend of the millenia award.”

rin is dripping with sarcasm and maybe if he wasn’t his brother sae would’ve already punched him. but by the end of the night, sae can only come to one conclusion; it’s his fault for not talking it out when he could. so he could either let you go, or try, just like you did before.

he’d have to do it tonight, unless he wants to wait another month after his match next week in the states. but if he does, you’d be gone by then, he knows it. so he has to make it tonight.

and he’s hopeful, because he’ll make it fucking work no matter what he has to do. he’s not going to back down that easily, not anymore. and he knows it’s late and it’s 11pm and you’re probably asleep but fuck, you’re just going to have to wake up when he pounds hard on the bedroom door.

which is exactly what he plans to do—wake you up, talk to you, and tell him how fucking stupid he is and that he’s sorry and he fucked up.

it probably won’t make up for all the times he failed to speak when he should’ve, but sae thinks it’s a start.

so he unlocks the front door and walks straight to your bedroom door, but when he reaches up to knock it, he realises it isn’t even locked. when he slowly opens the door, you aren’t even there.

sae knows what to expect, but he still opens the closet anyway. and all the drawers. and inspects the bathroom. but every trace of you is gone. even the photos in the living room that had been all framed up. it’s no longer there. you probably threw them somewhere.

fuck.

he’d chase you if he could, but you’re already long gone. his calls aren’t even going through—did you block him already? not even a goodbye note, nothing.

it’s useless, but he opens your chat thread anyway.

y/n, come back. i still want this.

but it reads undelivered.

it’s a long shot. a very, very, slim chance.

sae tries to take it anyway.

a month later, the moment he touches down and puts his luggage back at home, he grabs his car keys and makes a break for your favourite hangout; a cosy family cafe at the edge of the city, near your workplace. he’s taken you there many times before on your request, and if there’s anywhere he’ll find you, he bets it’s there.

after a whole agonising month of trying and failing to talk to you, sae’s still going to try. fuck it if you reject him after that—at least he gets to say he tried.

he sits at the cafe from noon till evening, five hours of occupying the spot at the corner—your favourite one because you say it shades from the sun and it’s easy to wave the waiter over.

sae’s beginning to think that you’re not coming today, but then he sees a familiar figure strolling into the cafe. it’s not you, but it’s your best friend, suzuki, if he remembers correctly. suzuki, the one with the black hair and sharp blue eyes because the moment she walks in, she spots him in the corner, a knowing smirk on her face.

“what’re you doing here?” she asks, without a greeting first, because you probably told her what happened and she’s probably not very happy with him.

sae sighs, feeling stupid sitting here for five hours. although at least, she’s confirmation that you’ll be here soon.

“eating.” weak excuse, but whatever.

suzuki cocks a brow, “sure you’re not just a pathetic loverboy waiting for my best friend?”

is this embarrassment even worth it anymore?

before suzuki can say any more, sae hears a very familiar voice speaking his name, and there it is again—all the negativity seeped out of him in an instant.

“y/n, hey,” he greets, as though you haven’t been avoiding him this whole time.

on your part, you acknowledge him, which is way better than what he expected (you storming out and running away from him).

“what’re you doing here?”

sae wants to talk to you, but with suzuki’s eyes glued onto him, it kind of ruins the mood. still, this is the most you’ve spoken in two months and he’s not about to pass that up.

“i wanted to talk to you,” he says, keeping his voice down. “meet me after dinner?”

there is hesitance in your eyes, but your gazes meet again and for the first time since that night, sae is greeted with your genuine smile—“yeah, sure.”

just like that he’s taken back to three years ago when he first met you, when he first saw you smile at him and instantly knew that he had to have you, somehow. sae’s stupid to have hurt you however he did, he knows that now.

but now, selfish as it is, he can only hope that you haven’t moved on yet.

sae puts your new address into his phone as you get into the car, fortunately agreeing to let sae drive you home.

“so, how’ve you been?”

it’s a stupid question to start with, and he hates himself for not getting to the point, but sue him; he’s still somehow afraid you’d shut him out straightaway if you knew what he really wanted to talk about.

your fingers rest awkwardly on your lap. sae can’t help but remember how they used to crawl over to the driver’s seat, resting on his thighs or teasingly curling his hair.

“i’m okay, finally left that job of mine.”

the one with the overbearing boss who micromanages way too much—yeah, sae remembers. he really wishes he’d treasured the little things more when he had them, like your small updates on your job and your family, or even the way you’d routinely text him everyday after work to see what he wanted for dinner.

“found a new one yet?”

you look out the window where you’d usually look at him. guess this is still awkward for you. “nope, but i’m working on it. i have a couple of interviews scheduled next week.”

“that’s nice,” sae responds, albeit half-heartedly because he’s never been good at conversations like these.

(on your end, you can’t help but realise how slow he’s driving even when there’s no other car in front of him. a part of your heart warms at the fact that maybe itoshi sae wants more time with you after all.)

“how about you? how was the match in london? heard you guys won by a huge margin.” (that’s a lie. you didn’t hear anything, you watched the match, stayed up late and all. nothing that sae needs to know.)

sae can tell you’re lying though, because you have that little habit where your ears twitch ever so slightly when you speak, and he chuckles softly. “it’s not a crime to watch my match, you know?”

your cheeks heat up—you really shouldn’t have asked anything at all. you whip your head towards him, sulking, “i didn’t watch it, okay?”

“sure, whatever you say,” sae tells you, feeling the tension lift off, feeling the normal you come back again. “how’s the new house?”

“it’s… okay. my roommate’s a little bit annoying but i can live with it.”

sae thought he could endure the small talk a little longer, but he can’t. not really. because the words just slip out of his mouth.

“then move back in with me.”

the car comes to a stop at a red light, and neither of you can look at each other. sae wonders if you’re just going to be impulsive and run out the door.

you don’t.

“it’ll be a little awkward living with an ex, don’t you think?”

“then all you have to do is get back with me,” sae answers, witty as you always remembered.

a moving car isn’t the best place to have this conversation, but if he doesn’t take the chance now, what if he loses it forever?

“i was stupid, okay? i don’t know why i didn’t say anything back then but the answer is yes, yes i do still want this- you.”

and it takes you aback slightly, because he’s never been one to be so vocal about his emotions. it kind of scares you a little too, how easily you fold when it comes to sae. it took everything in you to block his number that day, and everywhere else, and you’ve been hard at work trying to forget him, to the extent you’d agreed to room with some male even though you knew it was a bad idea.

but the moment you saw sae in that cafe, everything goes back to square one. and you’re kind of sick of lying to yourself—that the way you left didn’t leave a gaping hole in your heart, that the way you blocked him didn’t leave you chock full of regrets.

“maybe you should’ve said that before i left, then.” but you’re also stubborn, so there’s that.

sae pulls up outside of your new apartment complex right as the words leave your mouth, but his hand reaches out to grip your wrist after you unbuckle your seatbelt.

“i know i probably wasn’t a good boyfriend—” sae can’t bring himself to look at you as he speaks the words he thought would never leave his mouth— “but i promise i’ll work on it, ‘kay? just- don’t leave.”

again.

maybe in another life, you’re stronger than this. in that other life, maybe sae’s better at being expressive, better at reassuring you.

your eyes flick across the car to meet his, and he’s looking right at you, a sort of gaze that you’ve never really quite seen before—a mixture of both faith and fear. his grip on your wrist is firm, as if he’s afraid you didn’t believe him when he uttered those words.

“you make it very hard to stay broken up, you know that?” you’re pouting, hard, if only to try to keep yourself from smiling.

and the second you respond, the second he realises you didn’t reject him, his expression levels with that of a—how would you describe it, a golden retriever? as though he’s wagging his tail.

“so- you’re willing to give this a shot?”

you chew your inner cheek, “not so fast, hot shot. i’m not taking you back that easily.”

sae pulls back, cocking a brow, but he knows by the tone of your voice that his chance is at least granted. “what do you mean?”

you grin, “maybe i want you to chase me again, itoshi sae. can’t have you thinking i’m that easy to get, you know?”

your future boyfriend smirks, shaking his head. “you’re impossible, y/n l/n.” you hear nothing but fondness in his voice.

and just like the good boyfriend he envisions himself to be in the future, he walks you up to your doorstep, complete with giving a peck on your forehead when you arrive.

“how am i doing so far?”

“sae, it’s only been an entire elevator ride!” you laugh, sae pecking even more kisses onto your face. what makes this entirely more amusing is how he’s so straight-faced while doing it. “okay okay, i’ll rate you a six so far. you’re gonna have to do better on those dates you’ll ask me out on.”

he thinks you’re such a tease, but hey, he wouldn’t have you any other way.

when you open the door, you turn around to look at him, pressing your lips into a firm line before placing a quick kiss on his lips, making his heart skip two beats because he didn’t think you’d be so kind.

“see you soon, itoshi sae?”

sae nods, “yeah tomorrow.”

“someone’s eager,” you chuckle, though you agree to it. “see you tomorrow.”

bonus: the next day

“itoshi sae, you’re too much.”

you’re lugging your suitcase behind you, sae carrying one of the heavier boxes. he keeps quiet, a sullen expression on his face.

“we could’ve at least waited for the movers to be available, you know?” you sigh as you get into the lift, sae pressing the topmost floor—back to the apartment you shared after a mere month of living on your own.

sae’s expression is now tilted towards you, and you don’t need him to speak to know what he’s thinking.

“do i really deserve the silent treatment for this?”

you’re not really arguing, but having a little disagreement. a small part of you is happy you get to do this with sae again, and not anyone else. that just means you two are that much closer, still.

“as if i’m gonna let you continue living there.”

you scoff, “what are you talking about? that apartment was completely fine!”

sae raises a brow, completely aware that you’re not actually back together but not being able to help himself nonetheless. because like hell is he ever allowing you to live there ever again.

“don’t fucking care, you’re not living with that michael fucking kaiser ever again.”

#bllk x reader #sae x reader #itoshi sae x reader #blue lock x reader #sae x you #sae x y/n #bllk x you #bllk x y/n #sae itoshi x reader #sae fluff #itoshi sae fluff #bllk fluff #blue lock fluff #itoshi sae x you #itoshi sae x y/n #૪ aeri’s fics !

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meidnightrain · 19 days

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ALWAYS AND FOREVER❞ - aventurine

summary: you’ll always choose him, always and forever

warnings: reader is gn, fluff

notes: yippee less than a week to go to his release!!! wanted to write something a bit happier today :)

taglist(open): @akutasoda , @ryuryuryuyurboat , @toorurs , @yvnaology , @tragedy-of-commons , @staarri , @rainswept , @karagatan02

the air is cold, biting down to the marrow of your bones as you stood by his side. the city is alight with endless partying and a twisted sense of freedom; escapism is what you’d call the people who ran here thinking they’d be able to find solace from the troubles of the real world. running away never really solved the problem; perhaps it only escalated it.

AVENTURINE is quiet, contemplating what he should do. rarely would you ever see the gambler hit a wall he couldn’t tear down with his bare hands—an opponent he couldn’t beat. he’s been like this for some time today, ever since he got back from a meeting. you yearn to touch him, but you’re not sure about his reaction, so you don’t. his life does not treat him fairly, you’ve seen him battle its effects with sorrow.

“something on your mind? you can tell me what’s troubling you.” you finally have the courage to say that to him, offering a comforting smile, and your words hang in the silence. his eyes shift away from the city, locking onto you, who squirmed uncomfortably under his blank look.

he cleared his throat, quickly adverting his gaze. it’s weird to see him as just...him. not a gambler, not a stoneheart, not an avgin, but as a person like any other but with a broken heart. it makes you feel sick to your stomach to know that you didn’t know him as well as you thought and that maybe he doesn’t tell you when he’s hurting. “it’s hard to realise that you care about me; i’m not used to someone choosing me.”

“so i’ll choose you. i’ll choose you every time, in every life, in every universe.” there is no hesitation in your reply, like your initial question; it is only your burning determination that fuels you. you’d fight for him in every life and in every timeline.

“that’s a difficult thing to stand by, darling. you shouldn’t make bets that you can’t win.”AVENTURINE murmured lowly, not willing himself to look at you. you can’t tell what he’s feeling now, and it irked you so much.

and you swear that you can feel his hand tremble when you take it in yours, your fingers intertwining and fixing together like missing puzzle pieces. it’s not much of a comfort, you were at a loss for words and actions when it came to him, who stopped your heart and brain.

“well…then it’s a good thing that i’ll always choose and love you, til the end of time and forever.”

“forever is a long time, but somehow i think that’s not enough.” he laughed slowly, the tension in his shoulder leaves every so slightly, and he feels lighter, giddy even. the beam on his face isn’t a forced one; it’s a soft one only for your eyes to see.

“it rarely ever is.” your voice rumbled in his soul, and you placed your head on his shoulder, your hair tickling his neck like the touch of a butterfly. he doesn’t reply, nor does he shake anymore, placing his head on top of yours. silence is all you need, and it fills the space around you comfortably for you both to stay in this little bubble of peace for just a moment.

his heart breaks? you’ll fix it for him. his body hurts? you’ll kiss it better. he isn’t okay? you’ll hold AVENTURINE until he heals. no matter how long it takes, always and forever.

#🗞️ - honkai star rail fics #—stellaronhvnters.#・ nouveau livre ˎˊ˗#honkai star rail x reader #honkai star rail x you #hsr x reader #hsr x you #aventurine x reader #aventurine x you #honkai star rail #hsr aventurine

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webslingingslasher · 1 year

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omg i need to see “mutual friends alerting the other about something they definitely deserve to know” and “anxiously waiting for them to come home so that they could give them a piece of their mind” please!! i love your angst it’s soul crushingly delicious 🫶

whew i got carried away, but this is a fave out the gate

It started as a dare, a shitty, drunken, jokeable dare.

“I dare you….” Flash hiccups then burps in his hand, he chuckles and throws it at MJ who gags, “I dare you… Y/N…. to kiss Parker.”

You made eye contact with Peter, it was a dumb dare, you were new to the group of friends, but even you could play into the game. You shrug like, ‘what’s the big deal?’ Peter acts the same, he’s not in highschool anymore, he wasn’t scared to kiss girls.

“Okay, let’s go Peter.” You stand to wave him over to the closet, Flash stops you with a buzz sound. “Nope, right here where we can all see.” You look at him oddly, “that’s weird but okay.”

You and Peter are friends, he’s cute sure but you weren’t hungry for his attention, you just thought he was kind and funny, and quiet, but somehow full of charm so when he spoke you made sure to listen. But it’s not like you had a crush on him or anything.

Peter stood in front of you, you stepped closer and pulled his neck towards you.

“Pucker up, parker.”

And… holy shit.

The kiss was like fireworks, a feeling like you’ve never had before. It made your entire body buzz like when you whack your funny bone against a doorframe. Neither of you could pull away, both experiencing what true blissfulness was made of, forgetting the dare you lost yourself into Peter.

Until the group laughs, it makes you feel like this was a set up.

“Not bad, Parker.” You’re breathless.

“Not so bad yourself,” he is too.

You shrug, “a dares a dare, right?”

“Anything to please the peanut gallery,” Flash chugs his cup while Ned counts down.

Something in both your eyes told each other it wouldn’t be the last time.

Safe to say, it was no one's question how you’ve found yourself in Peter Parker’s bed for the hundredth time.

Friends with benefits sucks, give someone the girlfriend benefits, she’ll think she’s the girlfriend. It really, really hurt to find out you weren’t, no matter how aware you were the reality check hit you hard.

“Uh, I don’t…. Look, you and Peter are hooking up right?”

You could deny it, but that would be dumb. The friend group knows it, you both won’t confirm or deny, but when you hook up with someone who’s roommate is in the friend group, people are gonna know.

“Something like that.”

MJ sniffed, “but, you’re not serious right, like you’re not secretly dating or anything?”

You don’t like that she’s asking questions, MJ was one of those ‘the less I know the better’ people, so her asking gave you an edge, there was a reason for the interrogation.

You narrow your eyes, did Peter put her up to this? Does he want to know if you want more, or maybe he’s trying to see if you caught feelings.

“Who’s asking, did Peter put you up to this?”

MJ looks sad when you say that, a small frown pulls at the corner of her lip. “No, nothing like that. I just want to make sure you guys aren’t a thing.”

Why was she acting so odd, this was an one eighty from her normal self.

“What’s with the interrogation, trying to get a job with the FB-”

“Peter’s hooking up with another girl.”

MJ’s voice was rushed, like she had to say it right then or it would be taken to the grave. She gasps for air, like the admission choked her. Your ears ring, head feels hot and fuzzy, your chest clenches, you think you’re going to puke.

MJ repeats your name, you can’t stop reciting her words.

She snaps, you blink. “Oh.”

It shouldn’t hurt like this. It was friendly, it was not supposed to be serious. But then the line between friends with benefits and dating started to blur more and more and suddenly you were only reminded you weren’t dating when you were around your friends. But there was trust, it was supposed to be about trust, and part of that was not hooking up with anyone else. The rules were if either one started to hook up with other people it would stop, but he broke the rules.

You never took Peter Parker to be a rule breaker.

“I’m sorry. I wasn’t sure if it was serious between you guys but when I saw him kiss her I-”

You held up a hand, you didn’t want to hear the rest of it. It didn’t matter, he broke a promise, and so did you. No one was supposed to get hurt, and yet here you are ready to break down the second you’re able to get alone.

“Fuck.” you whisper the words, nothing else comes to mind. You just wanted to disappear, everything was numb and you wanted to go back in time three months ago and just take a shot instead of participating in Flash’s dumb dare.

“MJ, I’m sorry but I have to go, I think I have to break up with Peter.”

Her shoulders slump, “do you want a hug? She’s not even a fan of physical affection but you look desperate to be comforted, you wave her off, you tell her if she touches you you’ll cry. She apologizes, she hates that she had to be the one to tell you.

You tell her it’s fine. You say it enough to yourself you start to believe the lie, all you have to do is erase Peter from your place, then he can leave your mind. So, the moment you enter your own apartment, you pick up every piece of his and stow it in a box.

Clothes, games, books, a toothbrush, a watch, even his spare phone charger. Nothing of his was to stay, to solidify the importance of this decision, to prove that you were serious you stripped your sheets and made a trip to the laundry room before sending a text to Peter.

“Come pick up your shit.”

He answered with a question mark, you didn’t even give him the satisfaction of seeing a read receipt.

You felt ballsy, and you even had the fire in you for a minute. But the idea of seeing Peter any minute, and having to confront him, look in his baby brown eyes and pull the plug aches you. It hurt to know that if he had begged and asked for a do over there would be a large chunk of you that would dare say yes, anything to keep him.

But he broke the rules.

Without rules it’s only chaos and destruction, you didn’t need that with him.

You imagine how you’ll do it.

Throw the box at him, tell him it’s over and make him leave? No, you’ll have to see him again.

Tell him he’s a lying piece of shit that broke your heart? No, you’ll have to see him again.

Ask him why he’d do this with you knowing you’d catch feelings? No, you’ll have to see him again.

Yell at him? Curse his name, tell him he’s a monster, that he broke the most important rule? No, you’ll have to see him again.

Tell him you loved him, and you thought he did too?

No, you’ll have to see him again.

It all ends the same, you’ll have to see him again knowing what you had and what he did. Or, you just leave the friend group, it would suck not having friends but you could make new ones, ones you didn’t sleep with no matter how cute, or how good kissing them feels, no matter if they promise they won’t hurt you like the others did.

You washed down the imagery with a glass of wine, nothing felt right and you had no reason to be anxious. You pour another half glass, swig most down, then head to the building’s basement to put your sheets in the dryer.

Nothing feels as right as Peter, you hate that he’s making you do this.

You felt your stomach knot up when there was a knock on the door, you knew it was Peter. Your roommate was at her girlfriend’s and had a key, you only invited Peter over for the night, you wonder if it might be MJ but she would never show up unannounced.

He knocks again, you finish the second glass of wine.

Peter’s face lights up when you swing the door open, his eyebrows rise and so does his grin.

“Hi, baby.” He’s cheerful, dressed in gray sweatpants and a hoodie, his white and blue Nikes poked out the bottoms. He looked adorable and you hated it, you were supposed to hate him, not hug him.

You pointed at his box of things on the coffee table.

“I packed your shit up.”

Peter stepped through the door, looked at you then the box, then you, then the box. Finally, “why?”

“So it’s easier to carry out, silly.”

You wish your sheets were done, your hands need something to do, they’re starting to shake.

Peter shakes his head like he’s trying to wash the response from his head, “why would I need to carry my stuff out?”

This wasn’t a scenario you dreamed up, just being blunt.

“Because I’m breaking up with you.”

Peter’s face twitches, you raise a finger to continue.

“Correction, I’m ending things. To break up we’d have to date, you just fucked me.”

Talk about blindsided. Peter thinks he’s been shot, puts a hand on his chest and slumped in the chair next to the table with his things. He’s checking to see if his heart is still there, it feels like it dissipated the second the words left your lips.

His head falls into his hand, he rubs at his jaw.

“I…” He didn’t know where to go with that.

I thought we had something?

I thought this meant more than that?

I thought I loved you, and you did too?

Instead he sighs, he can’t make you change your mind.

“Okay. Um, okay. Sure.” He slaps his thighs then rubs at them, he doesn’t want to leave, it will feel real.

Finally he looks towards you, “why?” Peter’s voice cracked, he was distraught, if you weren’t so upset yourself you’d want to console him.

You round the corner, you look at his things tucked in the box. Small things, but held memory. The first shirt you slipped on after he came to yours, the toothbrush you made space for on your counter, a comic book he had read you, his wristwatch. It was bulky and digital, you found it on your desk while he was in the shower, you strapped it on but it still loosely dangled, you ran into the bathroom to rip the curtain back, you remember shoving your arm in his face.

“Look at me, I’m go go gadget.”

You didn’t realize you had it in your hand until the watch face blinked at you, that’s when you noticed you were crying.

You were supposed to be tough, he wasn’t supposed to see you cry. You were supposed to hold it together and show that you didn’t need him.

But you weren’t tough, and you were crying, and the one person who could make the hurt go away was the same one that caused it.

“You broke the rule,” your words wavered, you tried to say it strongly.

Peter’s mind is racing, what rule, what rule, what rule?

“MJ told me you hooked up with someone else.”

Confusion fell over his face, if you didn’t trust MJ as much as you did you might question if she made the whole thing up.

“No, I didn’t… I didn’t break the rule.” Peter’s head shakes slowly, he’s trying to piece together the information, he didn’t hook up with anyone else, he swears on it.

You sniffle and wipe at a stray tear, Peter looks at you sad, you know he wants to hold you tight.

“MJ said you were kissing someone else.”

He’s still searching in his mind, you can tell. The new information races through his memory, he’s searching for a kiss, then it clicks, he knows what MJ’s talking about.

“Oh!” He jumps up, he can save this.

“I know what she’s talking about. Yes, MJ is not lying, I did kiss another girl.”

Your face drops, it felt like a suckerpunch when he admitted it. Peter sees the hurt cross over your face, he reaches out for your arms but you shy away, he hates that you won't let him touch you.

“Peter, I don’t… this meant something to me, something really big, and I thought it did for you too.”

Peter doesn’t like how this is going, he can save this, he knows it.

“It did! It does! Just, hear me out, please?”

You don’t say anything but your glance at his face is taken for a go ahead.

“It was at the Bjorn party, I went with MJ and I swear it all makes sense cause she was giving me the stink eye the whole ride home and I had no idea why. But there was this girl there and I swear to you on everything I just walked by and she grabbed me.”

You scoff, “real believable, peter. Next you’re going to say you had no control over it and she threw herself on you?”

Peter winced, “kinda, but not really. She was quick with it, I did pull back but she pulled me back in and I could just see she was… I don’t know, terrified. She looked absolutely petrified and I just knew she needed someone she could trust and I gave her a second to explain. Her ex-boyfriend was at the party and he’d been stalking her and she couldn’t find her friends and she said she was with her new boyfriend but she didn’t have one and he’d been following her around to prove she didn’t have a boyfriend,”

He was just rambling and confusing you now, “where is this going, peter?”

Peter sighed, this time when he reached for your hand you let him grab it.

“She asked if I would kiss her to get her ex off her back, that’s it. MJ must’ve seen me at the right time, but I promise that was it.”

You looked him up and down, he seemed sincere.

“I didn’t even get her name, we didn’t make out either. It was just a peck that lasted like ten seconds, and I would’ve told you, I swear. If I had ever done anything with anyone at any point during this I would’ve told you, but I forgot about it. It was like a favor, and I just didn’t think about it like that.”

“How did you kiss her?”

Peter’s eyebrows turn in, “I just told-”

“No, show me.”

He looks surprised but he won’t ask questions, actually he will ask one.

“Do you want me to replay the exact scene or just the kiss?”

Your eyes sparkled, “if you’re offering a theatrical rendition I won’t say no.”

He looks behind him and pulls you over to the wall, he spins you so your back is against the wall.

“Okay, so I’m gonna walk past you and you need to pull me in by my shirt, got it?”

You bite back a laugh and nod, he returns a grin and jogs backwards. He gets into character and clears his throat, then begins to walk by. You do as he says and reach out, you pull the pocket of his hoodie and tug him into you, on instinct his hand hits the back of the wall and he looks shocked, he pulls himself away.

“Pull me back in, closer this time.” He spoke from the corner of his mouth, you follow instruction. His hips brush against yours, he tries to move away but you improv and hold him to you. “Now start rambling off about your creep ex boyfriend and you want me to kiss you.”

If he wants damsel in distress you’ll give it to him.

The back of your hand comes up to rest against your forehead as you swoon, “oh, mr handsome hero man, please help me, my ex boyfriend, you see, he’s been watching me and i’m all alone and scared and I need a big strong man to bravely kiss me so he’ll leave me alone, are you up to the task my knight in shining armor?”

Peter nods along with your words, “that’s exactly how it happened.”

“And being the man up to the task, I spun her like this,” he pulled at your hip so your right side was pushed against the wall, “so he could get a view, and I kissed her like this,” his hand came up to cup your jaw, but there was no softness. His thumb didn’t brush over your cheek like it normally did, he didn’t brush your hair back or look in your eyes and smile softly, like every moment before kissing you was just a lead up until he could. He just grabbed your face and pulled you in a little, mostly he was leaning to meet you, and placed his mouth against yours.

No flow or movement, just a holding kiss against your top lip. At the last second he pulled and gave you a little movement, nothing more than a few seconds. At max, a ten second kiss. And it lacked everything Peter normally gave you, it was disappointing to say the least. Frustrating and pathetic at most.

Peter could read on your face you absolutely hated that, he understands, it was a shit kiss. But it also wasn’t you he was kissing, so he gave nothing, and he’s showing you exactly how it happened.

“I pulled away first, by the way. And-”

“Peter, I’m gonna need you to kiss me for real, I need to wash that down with something good.”

He hummed, “sure thing, honey.” It was a real kiss, a Peter kiss, the one where he pulls you in delicately, he looks over your face and smiles, his thumb wiped under your eye catching a fallen eyelash. He captures your bottom lip, and breathes into you, you follow his mouth with each movement. He won’t pull away first, he’s already on thin ice, he thinks that for the next week absolutely anything you want will be granted.

When you broke off and his eyes opened you couldn’t help the blush that took over. There’s that love, you say to yourself. You need to hear the rest of the story.

“You may now continue the tale my noble knight,” you bow to him.

“It worked, when we turned around he was gone. She thanked me and then told me she hoped my girlfriend wouldn’t mind me helping her out.”

You raised an eyebrow and crossed your arms over your chest, a hip cocked out. “Girlfriend?”

Peter laughed, he held a hand over his chest. “I swear to god, she said the only way I would kiss her like that was because I had a girl, she said she could tell and that's why she could trust me. She said something about girl code and helping sisters out but I wasn’t a sister, so that part confused me.”

At last you reached out to hug him, “your girlfriend isn’t mad and she’s glad you helped a sister in need. She also will put your things back where they were.”

Peter’s arms wrap around you just as tight, “did you just become my girlfriend?”

You nod against his chest, your cheek squished against his chest, “yeah,” you dragged out.

Peter squeezed you, like he’s won a golden ticket he mumbles against the crown of your head, “sweet.”

You shove him back in panic, an alarm bell in your head.

“Oh shit! My sheets!”

#peter parker x reader #tasm! peter parker x reader #peter parker blurb #tasm!peter x reader #peter parker angst #peter parker fluff #tasm!peter parker fluff #my writing

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s-4pphics · 6 months

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forever dying. (e.w.)

FEAR. noun. an unpleasant emotion or thought that you have when you are frightened or worried by something dangerous, painful, or bad that is happening or might happen.

emotions writing challenge :3

wc;cw: 7 hunnid, angst, ellie needs a hug :(, gore

Ellie’s boots bury deep into the snow with every weighted footstep, her pack and bow hitting her back as she walks. She wanted to run, but she didn’t want to cause a scene; Freaking out in public makes her freak out more.

She needs to get home. She misses you and she’s on the verge of panicking because you’re not next to her. She should’ve never volunteered to do patrol.

You’re tired, you’d whispered in the early morning as she dressed, just lay here with me?

He’s old, Ellie whispered back: about Joel. If she doesn’t go, then he’ll have to, and he’s old, although he denies it; He shouldn’t be working as hard anymore, at least, that’s what Ellie convinced herself when she saw him reorganizing the horse shed. Boxes were being stacked, but he was tired; It was evident in the tremor in his arms. Ellie’s exhaustion will never be able to match his, no matter what she does. Plus, I wanna go. It won’t be long, promise.

And just like that, she kissed your head, your nose, your lips, before snagging her coat and leaving.

She’s gotten used to killing clickers; There was a dark point — two years ago — where she actually enjoyed it: the grittiness, the power she had over the source that destroyed the world. But moments like today remind her how gruesome and horrific life is.

It was only mile three into patrol when she saw the scene from a distance: the outline of a boy, no older than ten, dead and bloody, being preyed on by at least five clickers. At least.

Millions of thoughts rushed through her mind: why was he alone? Why is he so small? Why didn’t she come sooner and save him?

Horror slammed into her and she froze, nausea overtaking her at the sight. Shimmer was already snorting and shifting, preparing to turn around, but Ellie couldn’t move. She only gripped the lasso tighter, her thick gloves pinching her skin.

Apparently, she breathed too loudly; All the clickers turned towards her direction in milliseconds. She wasn’t prepared for all of them to rush towards her and Shimmer. She wasn’t... fucking prepared.

Ellie’s still not sure how she made it out, but she did, and she needs you close. Vulnerability is extremely difficult for her, but she melts with you. She should’ve never left this morning.

“Ellie!” Jesse. “Wait up!”

She’s already shaking her head, moving quicker.

“I’m fine!” She’s not. She swiftly peers over her shoulder, dismissively waving her hand. “I just… I needa get home. We’ll talk later.” Has her safe haven always been this fucking far?

It seems like hours pass before her walk ends, and she’s on your shared porch; She shoves through the door and is hit with immediate warmth and the smell of cinnamon, and her heart calms. Only slightly.

She kicks her shoes off and tosses her supplies on the floor before padding down the hallway and into your shared bedroom.

You’re sitting on the floor, reorganizing the bookshelf, murmuring song lyrics to yourself. You meet her eyes in a mirror propped up against the wall and smile.

But it drops at the sound of her voice.

She only whispered hey, but her tone is enough to get you up and moving towards her, concern on your face. Her expression is telling: fear. Grief. No wonder she’s back so early.

Your hands are cautious as they hover over her shoulders, but she nods gently. It’s okay, she hopes her eyes read, please hold me.

She’s instantly pulled close, right up against you, and she falls apart. Ellie doesn’t feel any tears coming, just feels them seep into your sweater. You’re asking if she’s hurt, but she’s not sure how to answer, so she stays quiet.

Your touch is so soothing. But she’s scared… and heartbroken. And guilty: she, somehow, feels at fault. That poor kid. She's sobbing now, loud and painful.

Hope, in this time, is lethal. The graphic scene is proof enough that the world is forever dying.

#ellie williams #ellie williams angst #ellie the last of us #the last of us #tlou #post-pandemic prose #works 𖧧࣪

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am-i-the-asshole-official · 4 months

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AITA for ignoring a childhood friend?

This happened a while ago, but I still think about it pretty often.

I used to have a friend, let’s call her Ally. Ally and I shared one thing in common — we were the weird kids. We used to sit at a lunch table by ourselves and bitch about how mean the popular kids were. A little cringey, but hey, we were in middle school, what are you gonna do?

Our friendship suddenly cut off because, after she asked why she had such a hard time making friends, I suggested, “Well, you are kind of sensitive.” This caused a massive rift between us. This would be fine, since I had already made some better (though only slightly) friends. But she somehow convinced the staff that we were actively fighting, which we weren’t. I was mostly just avoiding her. This meant, a couple of times, I was called out of class just so that we could sit in the counselor’s office to “make up”. She also believed, even when we got older, that I should “protect” her from her bullies, even though 1) I never saw her get bullied, and 2) that shouldn’t necessarily be my responsibility, especially after we weren’t friends anymore.

But that was in middle school. People change. And she did, sort of. We obviously grew apart, and because of that, I thought she matured, since I wasn’t around her as much. We started becoming more friendly in high school. My friend group even included her during lunch, and she seemed to move past her petty stage.

Without going into too much detail, another classmate called someone in my friend group and said she was going to really hurt herself. When my friend called 911, this classmate was furious when she got sent to the hospital. Ally was friends with her, so this caused some high school drama. Ally took the classmate’s side, because she believed because of their mental illness and her attempt, that it didn’t matter how my other friend felt.

Ally only got more and more immature from there. Slamming her books together and stomping out the door during an argument at lunch, rolling her eyes and making a face every time she walked past me in the hallway, and generally being nasty to me and my friends. Luckily, I didn’t get the brunt of it, but my other friends sure did.

We tried going to the office about it, but they said because of her disability, they didn’t want to get involved, and suggested we just “ignore it”. So we did. And, eventually, everything blew over, as high school drama does. Even if it drains everyone of every last bit of energy we have before it does.

The next year, she starts trying to rebuild our relationship, which I don’t want to do. She starts constantly texting me (I don’t know why I didn’t just block her number), asking me why we can’t be friends again. She gets me Christmas gifts, then uses them against me during an argument. I keep telling her why over and over, how awful she acted a year before, how you can’t force people to be your friend, how her personality and constantly playing the victim made her difficult to be around. She kept making a face in the hallway, talked about me behind my back (or so I heard), and yet she wanted to kiss and make up.

Junior year, things went quiet again. We didn’t like each other, but we were civil. I had stopped responding to her texts, and she had stopped pestering me. She was gone for a while due to a surgery, and I didn’t see her again after that.

Then, suddenly, COVID happened.

Over online learning, I got a few texts from her about my desk set-up, like what kind of plant I had next to me, what was my stuffed animal’s name, stuff like that. I decided to be nice, and responded, but ignored every subsequent response, and she didn’t try again.

I didn’t hear from her again until my freshman year of college (I’m a junior now). From a new number, she asked me how I was, what I was doing, normal fare. Instead of responding normally, I sent her a response in Japanese, since I was learning it at the time. I pretended this was a new number, and that I had no idea who she was talking about. She bought it, and I blocked the number.

I know that she could have changed, and maybe she was trying to reach out. But, considering how awful she was, and the kind of people she surrounded herself with, I don’t know if she could ever change enough to make up for how she’s acted.

Should I have given her a chance? I can’t now, of course, but maybe I could make an effort to find her if you think I should?

What are these acronyms?

#aita #am i the asshole

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professorthaddeus · 2 years

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i wasn’t going to write something because ik people already have/are going to keep phenomenally analyzing imogen in the last episode so i didn’t feel the need to but it’s been three days and i still keep thinking about it so fuck it—

the way imogen has been so, so painfully human through the aftermath of her falling out with laudna is just. it’s absolutely delicious and everything i could’ve wanted. and her outburst with orym was so illuminating because you could just tell it was the tip of the iceberg and yet so much leaked out (and isn’t it so fitting that her outburst was silent? that she ranted and raved some of what she’d been keeping buried but it was in the safety of her mind and the mind of a willing friend? that she wouldn’t have even said any of it if orym hadn’t asked?)

she recognizes that she’s being petty and unfair to laudna. she can tell that the rock was probably unhealthy or even dangerous for her (and she possibly remembers laudna insisting it wasn’t her who broke it in the first place, that it was that demon in her head, but that’s too much to handle because then imogen’s been icing out her wonderful wonderful friend for nothing), but then again, the fact of the matter is that laudna did break her trust, and shouldn’t imogen be allowed to feel that hurt? laudna was the one person imogen could count on after years of betrayal from the thoughts in people’s heads, and now she doesn’t know if that can be true anymore

besides, it’s the practical thing to keep quiet and withdraw; she knows herself well enough to know she can’t deal with it right now so she shoves it down (there’s so much going on, they’re on a job, they’re in another city and it takes so much energy just to keep the voices at bay, and even her stupid magic is out of control and she’s bald and tired and terrified of sleep, and that safety net of the rock, toxic though it might’ve been, is still gone)

but she also can’t completely compartmentalize her emotions because fuck, she can’t help but care so deeply, and dusk is here, and they’re sweet and friendly and fun and it’s not their fault but also they keep shoving the fact that laudna’s doing just fine without imogen in her face and she’s trying to keep it together, damn it (does she want laudna to hurt too, or is she just lonely? is that so horrible, that she misses the comfort of her closest friend? but then again, it was her own doing that there’s a barrier up in the first place, and maybe she should bring it down and admit to laudna that she was right anyway, but she can’t)

and she’s smart, she knows people, she knows that jealousy is an ugly, useless thing, and she’s a little embarrassed about it, but she’s still brimming with it and brimming with hurt and it all feels so big but also laudna’s smiling in the daylight and maybe it wasn’t that big a deal after all and maybe she’s overreacting and maybe that’s somehow worse

#ok i'm done ty for reading dsfklj hopefully imogen temult will leave me alone at last she's been occupying most of my brain space for days #if this seems fic-ish i actually wanted to write one but ik i don't have quite enough inspiration to hammer it out before i lose momentum #so a meta will do for now lol #critical role #imogen temult #imodna #c3e25 #cr spoilers #cr meta #my meta #my ramblings

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gingerbreadmonsters · 9 months

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have and hold

or: take my unfinished life, and make it complete.

gn!reader, warning for major character death (...sort of), somewhere between hurt/comfort and angst with a happy ending? an odyssey, a hero’s journey, the actual fixing of the fix-it fic. this is the follow-up to reeling - i highly recommend that you read that first, or this isn’t going to make a huge amount of sense! spoilers for… death, i guess?? TOGETHER IN EVERY UNIVERSE. defibrillation, by any other name, would be as uncomfortable. inspired by moonraker by shirley bassey. ????? following the moonlight trail in just over 15,400 words.

a handful of warnings: fear of drowning (although it doesn’t actually happen), non-fatal electrocution, injury description, gore, dead bodies, mutilation mention, extended discussion of death and grieving. i know it sounds like a lot, but don’t worry - there is a happy ending, i promise!

this fic contains graphic content that may not be suitable or appropriate for readers under the age of 18. reader discretion is advised. 18+ ONLY. MINORS DNI. thank you.

if you missed part 1, you can read it here <3

series masterlist

There’s a part of me that’s convinced I’m going to wake up any second.

It’s so dark.

So dark, in fact, that it seems like there’s nothing there at all. So dark that it doesn’t feel like there’s anything, anywhere. Which really shouldn’t be a surprise, seeing as you don’t exist, and therefore probably can’t feel much of anything anymore.

Wait. That’s going to be a problem.

Because if you don’t exist, then how do you know it’s dark?

Hold on. It’s definitely dark, though. You know that because… well, it just is. So you must exist, because otherwise, you wouldn’t even know what darkness is, let alone what it looks like, which is to say nothing. Because you’re certainly looking at a whole lot of nothing right now. Or are you? Is there something there that you just can’t see? If you can’t see it, is it really there? Does it matter?

And anyway, if you really do exist, then who are you?

Fine, whatever - you’ll cross that bridge when you come to it, never mind the fact that bridges and crossings shouldn’t really matter to someone who shouldn’t really exist. If it actually is as dark as you think it is, then that means one of two things must be true.

Possibility one: your eyes are closed. Or you don’t have eyes. You try to open them, these eyes that you might have, and you feel something, but… nothing changes. How strange. You do it again, then once more - somehow you recognise the sensation of opening your eyes, that tiny movement of muscle somewhere in what you’re assuming is a face.

Okay, so moving on down to possibility two: there’s so little light here that opening your eyes doesn’t make a difference. Unfortunately, this option seems like the most likely one, which is a bit inconvenient because you still don’t know where here is, much less how to turn the lights on.

It would be really great if you didn’t exist enough to feel afraid, but it looks like that’s not the case. Don’t think about it. Even though the fact that you’re able to think about anything should probably be more of a concern than you’re making it out to be.

So it’s pitch black. But on the bright side, if you can’t do anything about it, then there’s no need to worry. Is there something else you can do instead?

Well, if you have eyes, then you might have a face. And if you have a face, then you might also have a head and a torso and arms and legs and all the other bits and pieces that some strange familiarity, deep down inside whatever you are right now, tells you that you ought to have. You can blink, possibly, which means you might be able to control at least some muscles. How about moving your-

Oh. That’s weird. As soon as you thought about having hands, you remembered that they were there. Yes, of course you have hands. And look - well, not look, it’s still really very dark - there are your feet, your knees, your chest and your hips and your back and every single bit of you that you’d apparently forgotten that you had.

How could you have forgotten something like that?

As all the newly-remembered parts of you blink back into your consciousness, you’re struck by another sensation. It’s movement - but not on purpose. How are you moving? Vaguely, you can tell that you’re lying down, but it feels like whatever you’re lying on isn’t stable. You’re sort of rocking from side to side, up and down, and your loose arms and legs aren’t bumping on anything that might be supporting you.

Hm. Maybe you were too quick to assume that something would be supporting you from underneath. Awkwardly, you try to twist round, flailing slightly as you try to feel if there’s something touching you, but there doesn’t seem to be anything there. Running your hands over your body, you - okay, you’re wearing clothes, that’s new.

You can’t quite figure out what type of clothes they are, but they feel pretty comfortable. As best you can tell, it’s some sort of t-shirt, a soft pair of trousers, socks, and shoes. The shoes seem quite flexible, and the ridges on the top might be laces - you’re probably wearing trainers, then. Yes, you can feel the treads on the soles. How athletic of you!

In any case, you couldn’t find anything touching you, so how are you staying in place? Or are you falling and you just can’t tell? Is there gravity here, in this place? Maybe you’re floating in space - oh, maybe that’s why it’s so dark! No light, and no gravity.

Actually, now that you think about it - and again, let’s not get into the philosophical implications of a being who shouldn’t exist even being capable of any sort of complex thought - isn’t there something wrong? You’ve got a body (yippee!), but that must mean that you’ve got all the things inside a body, right? Like a brain, and a heart, and a stomach, and lungs, and - wait, how are you breathing?

Unfortunately, you’ve thought about it now. Turns out you’re not in space, after all.

Water, freezing water in your mouth - your throat - your chest - an instinctive gasp, but all it does is make it worse. You’re floating, you’re floating, you’re drowning, you were underwater this whole time. Underwater? No time. You’ve got to get out, get out, but how? Thrashing, kicking, clawing at the water with weak, tingling limbs towards what you can only hope is the surface - is there a surface? There has to be, there has to be.

Some sort of muscle memory kicks in, or maybe you’re just naturally talented at trying not to drown. You must be going the right way, because soon the endless blackness around you starts to lighten. Bubbles floating up, up, up, and you follow - the current tries to beat you back, slamming you back and forth as you try to swim, but you have to breathe, and you can’t give up now.

It burns, it burns inside you, but it’s so close. Black gives way to grey, churning froth on the surface of the water - and you’re breathing again.

…Well, you’re mostly coughing and hacking up water, but once you’re finished with all that, then you’re breathing again.

Blearily, you rub the water out of your stinging eyes with one hand as you tread water. It’s a waste of time to fight the current pushing you along, so you let yourself be mostly carried by that. Luckily, there don’t seem to be any rocks sticking out of the water that you might hit, and you can’t see any animals swimming around that might hurt you.

To be honest, you can’t really see much of anything.

It hadn’t really occurred to you to wonder what sort of water you were floating in, but in the low light of wherever-you-are, it’s unmistakable. A black river, stretching out as far as you can see in both directions, sloping banks of black sand on each side and a cold, eerie mist hanging over the water. It twists and turns in the distance, swaying gently across the dim horizon with no end and no beginning in sight.

As long as it is, it doesn’t look all that wide. The wind is getting stronger, and you can feel your nose going numb from the chill. Maybe two or three hundred metres across, if you had to guess? Which, to be fair, is quite wide considering that you’re probably going to have to swim out of it, but it could be much worse. There’s a storm gathering overhead. Aren’t there rivers that are, like, tens or hundred of miles across? That would have been pretty bad.

Your fingers have gone all wrinkly. It’s probably time to get out now.

A swirling trail of white froth follows you, carefully trying to swim to shore without absolutely exhausting yourself. It hurts - you’re mostly swimming with the current, but the closer you get to the banks, the stronger the current gets. That’s weird. Isn’t it meant to be the other way around?

Onwards, onwards. The water gets choppier, surf and spray kicking up into your sore eyes and plastering your hair to your scalp. Is it just you, or does it feel like the water’s getting heavier? Like it’s getting denser, thicker, the weight of it dragging you back into the stinging depths. Tired legs, all the muscles in your stomach burning as you refuse to let your head dip under the water again. It’s clinging to you, tugging at your shirt like a child. Does it not want you to leave?

The thought makes you sad - yes, that’s it, you’re sad. That’s what that feeling is. Why are you sad? Are you lonely? Yes, you’re lonely, so lonely. But why? There’s nobody else here. You’ve never met anyone else before. How would you know how it feels to be lonely?

High above, the clouds flicker with light. The water swirls around you, and if you didn’t know any better, you’d say it seemed… nervous.

It’s probably worried for a reason, though. And why would you have any reason not to trust it? It’s been nice to you, right? It’s the only thing you’ve ever known, and maybe it’s the only thing you’ll ever need to know.

Costs are complicated, my precious listener. And wishes take many forms.

Perhaps you should stay. The River is lonely, can’t you see? It needs you, and you need it too, and you should give in. The storm is so close, thick, dark clouds barely distinguishable from the dim sky. Was that a voice, just now? Please, stay. You’ll be very happy, if you just let go. Trust the River, float along the River, dissolve into the River. It’s where you belong.

You’re on the wrong side of the mirror now.

Where you belong…?

Something about that strikes a strange chord inside you - dark movement in the corner of your eye, a song turning sour. You don’t belong here, do you? Is this really all there is for you?

It can’t be true. It can’t be. Because it’s cold - and you know it’s cold, so you must have felt warmth before. And it’s dark - you know it’s dark, because you know what light is. You know what clouds and shoes and sand are, you know how to blink and breathe and swim for shore. This water didn’t teach you that. You already knew.

The faint smell of ozone. This isn’t right. There’s more, there’s got to be more than this.

There’s something you should be doing. Something you can do. What is it? What are you forgetting? Water, water - what is it about water that you can’t recall? Something small and scared and shaking, curled up inside of you, shrinking back from a greedy hand in yours and a greedy heart that reaches out and - and - and-

A wave, breaking over your head in a shower of froth and foam. Coughing, hacking, spitting out water. What were you doing, again?

Cool water, sloshing over you, lapping at your - ah, that’s it. You were floating. It’s such a relief, to give your cold, aching body a rest. Hazily, you smile up at the strange not-light-not-dark of what might be sky up above you, and you don’t have to fight any more.

Well done. That’s good. Doesn’t this feel good? It’s starting to rain, splash-splash-splashing on the surface of the water. There are no voices here. Join us. You did the right thing. It’s going to be okay.

The tiniest itch in the back of your brain, words balanced on the tip on your tongue. Was there something you were supposed to remember?

I won’t let anything touch you. Nothing will stop me from keeping you safe.

Of course not. There is nothing else to see. You are meant to be here. But if that’s true, then how - why - what is this? Stop it, stop it, there’s something wrong - but what? The rain pours down, and down, and down. The River is the place you were always meant to be.

Sloshing, splashing, swimming - that’s it, you were swimming to shore! It’s so far away now, but you’ve got to try. Sodden clothes weighing you down, and the smell of ozone getting stronger and stronger. The current fights you, beating you back, but you won’t stop struggling, won’t stop fighting it.

This place has taken enough choice from us.

Stay with us. Your body burns cold, freezing slashes all over you, sharp claws tearing you apart under a black sky - but something inside you flares warm in your chest. It’s taking you apart, you’re bleeding, you’re gasping, you’re falling to the ground. The River will miss you if you go. No, no - that’s not right, that’s not right -

We’ll take the choice back. Together.

It’s too much - the air grows heavy in your lungs and your head spins as the waves crash over your head, as the pressure spikes and the rain falls and static electricity sparkles in the air around you. The reflection of your face in the water, the reflection of the sky in your face. It’s coming, it’s coming, and there’s no escape - thrashing against the weak weight of your body, struggling for shore.

The weight of the world, the glaring eye of the swirling storm staring right down through you. Things to hold on for. It’s going to hurt when it hits you, and you know it’s going to hit you. Here it comes, here it comes, the storm and the sky and the end, the end, the end-

Hold onto me. We’re getting out of here.

Lightning splits the sky with a scream.

You remember.

The world, your world, alive with sun and earth and steel. Running towards, running away, the smallest seed of bravery fed and watered until it became a beautiful flower. Warmth and joy and aching sadness. The smell of toast, slightly burnt - the sting of lemon juice in a paper cut you didn’t know you had. Dizzy mornings, cherry flavoured afternoons. The bolt of lightning strikes from the sky and forces its way into your heart, and gives you back to yourself.

The memories flood your brain, pouring in and filling every crease and crevice of your helpless form - names and faces and feelings that soak into all the soft parts of you, warm and bright and tender, swirling into the thick, dark blood. Darling Caelum, pink curls like soft candyfloss, mouth smeared with chocolate and giggling as he chases after the pigeons in the park. Huxley, sweeping you up in a great big hug, whiling away the afternoon over a game of Smash that just goes on and on and on. Damien - of course! - queueing up behind you in the cafeteria and pulling out his little bottle of that hand sanitiser he buys that smells like strawberries, carefully writing down everyone’s ice cream requests at the beach so he doesn’t forget anything. And Lasko, lovely Lasko, absolutely soaking wet after that summer fete when he accidentally volunteered for the professors’ sponge throwing stand, happily munching away at his box of pick and mix while you’re waiting for the film to start.

Your friends. Your friends, your wonderful, gorgeous, incredible friends. Lightning wracks your body in its burning grip, and you remember them.

Are you screaming? Does it hurt? A single instant, back bowed in a screeching arch and numb fingers clawing at the water. Power coursing through your body, electricity shredding through your bones and spilling out into the water, static sparks sent flying. Skin, muscle, bone - the storm sears a scorch mark straight through you, speared in place by a lightning bolt that cracks you open, rushes in and in and in-

Deviant!

A shock to the system - and your Core comes howling back to life.

If anyone asks, you’ll say you don’t know what happened next. All you know is the light, the seething, screeching light pouring out of you, and the sudden stomach-drop feeling of falling.

When you wake up, you’re alone. It’s dark again. You’re at the bottom of the River - and you’re completely dry.

Lurching to your feet in a daze, smeared with coarse, black sand that scrapes against the palms of your hands and gets stuck in the soles of your shoes. It takes a moment to sink in, and even then it still doesn’t really make sense. The dark water’s all around you, dizzyingly fast as it rushes over your head, but it’s like it doesn’t dare to touch you - when you take a tentative step forwards, it shrinks back in reply.

How rude. Was it something you said?

Never mind that - you’d better get out of here before it changes its mind. You start to walk, carefully perpendicular to the current, getting faster and faster until you’re properly running towards the shore. Before long, the sand underneath you starts to get steeper - above you, the water slowly gets lighter and lighter. You’re getting closer.

Reassured, you press on, thankful for the grip on the soles of your shoes as the damp sand and pebbles underneath you threaten to trip you up with every step. Come on, come on, just a little bit more! Falling over yourself in your scramble for the shore, you’re forced to catch yourself with your hands a few times when the sand slips out from under your feet, but you barely notice. There are more important things going on.

Finally, your head breaks the surface - well, the surface breaks for you. You’re still gasping for breath this time around, although that’s probably on you rather than the water. Gratefully, you stagger out of the water and up onto the riverbank, falling awkwardly to your knees in the sand, before admitting defeat and just sitting down properly with a relieved huff.

God, you’re tired. You could almost fall asleep right here and now, if it weren’t for the fact that you’ve seen way too many horror films to know that this is always the bit where the final girl thinks she’s safe and leans back, exhausted, against the door she just slammed shut, only for a dramatic camera change and a sudden violin stab as she gets dragged right back in by the killer.

(On an unrelated note, you scoot yourself a few metres further back from the water’s edge until you’re comfortably outside ankle-grabbing range. No reason.)

In front of you, the water carries on, as peaceful as ever. A gentle stream of blackness, a dark and winding trail that carves across the endless sands and disappears over the horizon. The storm has cleared. If you didn’t know any better, this would be a lovely spot for a picnic.

A minute passes. Then another, then another after that.

You made it. You’re alive.

Which is funny, because you remember dying.

Not very well. But enough. The Ward, sealing shut just behind you, a still black sky that could almost have been peaceful. Screeching, pushing, shouting - carnage as the field descends into writhing, churning massacre. Hard concrete under your feet, washed in eerie yellow light from inside the stadium. A cold, grim hand, crushing your terrified body in its grip. Blurry, bloody, dizzy. A scream.

Gavin.

Did he make it?

The question is enough to make you feel sick. Of course he made it. He must have. You can’t even begin to imagine a world where he’s not there. It doesn’t exist. It can’t exist.

You don’t know how - but you know it, utterly and irrevocably. He’s alive, somewhere out there, and you’re going to find him.

Who could stop you? What could stand in your way? Because you are alive, and you’re determined - even death was not enough. Whatever this place is, whatever the water did to you, it doesn’t matter. You’d tear reality apart for that man - no laws of space or time or matter could keep you from him now. You’re getting out of here, and you’re going home to him.

Pushing your aching body to stand, you can’t see a thing. Just miles upon miles of the same black sand, infinite in all directions, and a quiet, lonely river. Should you follow it? You’ll have to - there’s literally nothing else that you could follow, even if you wanted to. But upstream or downstream?

Well, it must be going somewhere. And if it’s good enough for the water, then it’s good enough for you. Maybe there’ll be someone there who can tell you what’s going on.

Before you go, you reach down and press a handprint into the sand. Proof, that you were here, that you ever existed in this place. A memory. A picnic that never was.

Then, the walk.

On, and on, and on.

To tell the truth, you’re not really sure how long you walk for. Years, probably. Decades. Or maybe it’s more like an hour? In all this nothingness, there’s really no way to tell. Trudging on, trainers sinking slightly into the sand with every step, it feels like time isn’t passing at all.

It’s possible, of course, that it isn’t. Time, that is. Passing. You’re dead, or you were, and it doesn’t take a genius to figure out what that implies about this place. Do they even have time here? If you turn around, you can see the long trail of footsteps behind you that definitely means you’re going somewhere, but beyond that you’ve got no idea how far you’ve walked.

Well, at least you’re wearing trainers.

(If you don’t laugh, you’ll cry. Of all the outfits you could have been stuck in as a ghost forever, why does it have to be that god-awful Games uniform? It’s comfortable enough, yeah, and it hasn’t got any blood on it or anything, but you don’t really want to spend eternity in joggers and a t-shirt. What a waste.)

Shifting sand, rushing water. The journey carries on.

The rhythmic crunch of sand under your feet is almost like a lullaby now, and as you walk, you dream. Every moment you can remember, every tiny part of him you know, everything you can possibly think of that reminds you of him - you dream it all.

In your mind, he’s more beautiful than ever. He’s sprawled out on the sofa in your living room, gaze following you around the room like a cat as he watches you fruitlessly search for the TV remote he’s hiding behind his back. He’s waiting for you outside the restaurant, shifting his weight from foot to foot every now and then, fiddling absentmindedly with the necklace you bought him. Gavin, your Gavin, elegant fingers covered in soap and hissing under his breath as he tries to extricate the bubble wand from where it’s fallen down inside the little bottle of bubble liquid.

Does he know where you are? Does he know that you’re coming? In your head, he does, he smiles and he laughs and he waits for you the way you’d wait for him - forever. A thousand million years might pass, but nothing changes.

Look at him. There he is - snoozing in the afternoon sun and holding Caelum’s hand and shielding you from Vega with his own body and using up all your hot water and whining about brain freeze from eating his ice cream too fast and blowing kisses at next door’s cat and the last thing you see as everything goes cold and your body hits the concrete and all your insides fall out.

Home. With every step, you remember him.

Speaking of steps, they’re getting very difficult, and you’re not sure why.

You’re not really sure how to describe it, but it’s like… static? Like interference on the radio, or something. That sort of fizzing, hissing, crackling sound - you don’t remember when it started, but it seems to have been getting louder the further you’ve gone. The world, too, is different - getting blurrier, fuzzier, the longer you look. You turn your head and it takes a minute for your eyes to catch up.

Five minutes and fifty-nine seconds.

Is it getting harder to breathe? Maybe the air is turning into static, too. But you can’t stop now - whatever this is, it must mean that you’re onto something. You must be getting close. Every now and then, you can almost make out the shape of words in the haze of noise that fills your brain.

Perhaps they’re calling to you. You push on for as long as you can, as the fog of static surrounds you like a sandstorm, the dullness of the black world becoming a flickering, glitchy grey. It’s heavy, pressing back against you like you’re swimming through tar, and it’s making something ache deep in your skull. No need to adjust your TV sets. Is this what they mean by an ‘electrical storm’?

Strangely, though, you’re not scared. If you listen carefully, you can almost hear his voice.

I haven’t even rung the bell yet.

It hurts, but you stagger on - and when you can’t do that you crawl, falling to your knees with a groan as the horrible fuzzy ache in your head gets worse and worse. Dissolving into static, splintering and blowing away in the breeze. The world isn’t so dark, now, but rinsed in colour - flashing and sparking, the smell of smoke. Red and blue, red and blue, red and blue.

The storm’s in you, now. Warm sand scraping your palms, it’s a struggle to drag your shuddering, flickering limbs deeper into the haze, but even as your strength starts to fail - as your mind starts to fade - as the pieces of you begin to disappear into this strange, stuttering world -

You’re going to have to go in blind.

- it’s fine.

Isn’t that fun?

It’s nothing. It’s nothing and it’s fine, and it’s so, so easy. It’s easier than dying, in fact, and you would know. A blissful smile, dissolving into static. He’s here - and you’re so close. That voice, half-remembered and always familiar. As your buzzing, glitchy body crumbles into the sand, the deal is sealed.

Somewhere, hidden deep within the realm of death, a door opens.

Have fun with Gavin. I suppose we’ll find out if it was worth it.

God, you’ve really got to stop falling asleep like this.

Thankfully, it’s not dark when you wake up this time - although, as the bright white world swims nauseatingly in your blurry vision, you almost wish it was. Wincing, you peel your face off the hard floor beneath you and push yourself to your feet, only to find that-

You’re in a…. museum?

Whatever you’d been expecting to see, it certainly wasn’t this.

It looks like you’re in the middle of some kind of gallery - painted eyes peer down at you from all over the room, where the walls are covered in paintings. There are two doors, one at each end of the room, and both seem to lead to more of the same.

How bizarre.

The painting to your right catches your eye, and you wander over to have a look. It’s huge, maybe two or three metres tall, and incredibly detailed - the focus is clearly the figure in the middle, outlined in moonlight as they stare out of the canvas. Staring up at them like this, you’re struck by how beautiful they are, the care that must have been poured into creating such a painting. Austere yet benevolent, solemn yet playful. They must have been loved very much.

They look to be standing on the beach, ankle-deep in dark seawater, and for a moment you’re reminded of the water you woke up in, not that long ago. Perhaps whoever painted this… no, they can’t have. It’s impossible.

Smiling slightly, you turn to look at the next painting.

Then the next.

Then another, then the one after that - then your smile is replaced by confusion, because all of these paintings are of the same person.

It’s a little unnerving, if you’re honest. Always the same eyes looking down at you, the same hands reaching out, the same face wearing the same smile. Who was this person, to have inspired such devotion? Where are they now?

A twinge of paranoia - you glance quickly up at the ceiling, checking for a camera, but finding something different. A big, rectangular skylight keeps the room bright - but when you look up at the glass, you’re not sure that it’s actually daytime. The light seems almost too white, no sign or sense of clouds or depth or a sky. And perhaps it’s just a sign that you haven’t been to as many museums as you should, but why are all the windows covered in netting?

Is it to keep something in? Or keep something out?

This is weird. Rattled, you make a hasty beeline for the door.

It’s not much good, though, as no matter where you go, the exhibit continues. It must go on for miles - you walk past what must be every sort of artefact a museum could possibly hold, and several more that it probably shouldn’t. Masks, friezes, clothes, photographs, maps, dolls, perfumes… This place is absolutely enormous, and the exhibit shows no sign of coming to an end.

For such an immense space, it’s beautifully kept, with not a speck of dust or stray fingerprint anywhere. And yet, somehow, it feels like the loneliest place in the world. A maze without a centre. An altar without a god.

Perhaps not.

Without really noticing, you drift to a stop in front of a statue - somewhere in the back of your mind, you realise that for all the many, many artworks you’ve passed, this is the only statue you’ve seen. It’s marble, perfect and pristine, and you can’t help but be utterly transfixed by its gaze.

It’s the same figure as everywhere else, but the pose is unlike any other you’ve come across. They’re standing and sort of leaning forward slightly, head tilted to one side and lips slightly parted. One arm curves inwards at about chest height, as if they were holding a mixing bowl or a beach ball or something, and the other reaches outwards, following their eyeline down to you.

For some reason, you have the strangest sense that they’re calling to you, one outstretched hand beckoning you forward into the cold cradle of their arms.

Dazedly, your feet carry you towards the statue, and you just catch a glimpse of the small, golden plaque that adorns the plinth it rests upon.

VENERATION.

The marble is hard and cold against your skin as you settle yourself awkwardly into the statue’s hold, but it doesn’t last - soon enough, it warms with your body heat until you barely notice it. With the way it leans forward, it’s difficult to keep your balance, but you manage. One arm comes up to hold the statue’s waist, and you loop the other around its neck, gently cupping the smooth, sculpted hair at the nape.

Proof of devotion. A hand presses into your back, and there’s only one thing to do.

Your eyes close as cool marble lips press against your own, leaning up into the statue’s kiss as you clasp it ever tighter, and something warm flickers to life inside you. Passion, rich and strong and full of joy. Like this, you’re reminded of another lover - another face, another hold, another kiss-

- and just like that, you’re somewhere else.

What?

The statue is gone, and the whole room too - your empty hands freeze in surprise for a second, before falling stiffly to your sides once it sets in. Was it a test? Did you pass? You must have, because this place is certainly no museum.

It looks to be some sort of control room, or perhaps a security room? A set of screens cover the opposite wall, and the room is full of computer desks and filing cabinets and all sorts of office paraphernalia - it would almost be boring, if it weren’t for the fact that it looks like a hurricane came through here about twenty minutes ago.

There’s paper everywhere, cracked monitors and overturned chairs, the alert board smashed and barely hanging onto the wall. What happened here? Cameras dangle limply from broken fixings near the ceiling, and when you take a step, the thin carpet feels like it’s - yep, that’s definitely soaked with water.

The room is bitterly cold and almost completely dark, lit only by the black and white buzz of static that covers every screen - even the smashed ones. That’s probably why you don’t notice it until you’re much, much too close.

Rounding one of the desks, you’re met with -

“I - oh, shit!”

- fucking hell, are they dead?

Stunned, all you can do is stare. There’s a woman’s body lying on the ground, soaked in water, and with some sort of thing, sticking out of her chest. Blood leaks from her eyes, her nose, her mouth, crystallising slightly in the cold. Singing static, humming away.

She’s not moving. Oh god, oh god, there’s a dead body on the floor, there’s a dead person literally right there - what the fuck do you even do? After a second, your hand flies to your mouth as you turn away, clutching the printer next to you in a graceless attempt to keep yourself upright. You’re very, very glad that there’s nothing in your stomach.

Idly, you notice that there’s a sheet of paper sitting in the output tray. For some reason, it only has one word printed on it.

SACRIFICE.

Well, that’s not ominous at all.

After a few deep breaths, you’re feeling slightly more settled. Luckily, the door is just a few metres away - keeping your gaze carefully off the floor, you pick your way through the mess of office junk to try the handle.

Nope. Nothing. You try again, a little more forcefully this time, but the handle refuses to budge. It must be locked, which is weird because there’s no keyhole or card reader or anything that might be able to unlock it. And anyway, why would you be able to lock a security room from the outside in the first place? You’re no expert, but that seems like a bad idea.

So the door’s locked. Fine, it’s fine, you probably should have expected that. A cursory glance around confirms that there are no windows, and no skylight either. So then, how…?

Fuck. It’s got to be something to do with the - the, um…

Unsurprisingly, she hasn’t moved when you turn reluctantly back towards her. You’re still not happy about having to get any closer - can you get diseases from dead bodies? Isn’t it true that they can make you sick? - but upon closer inspection, the thing in her chest isn’t a weapon. You’d thought she’d been stabbed or staked or something, but no.

It’s a flower.

A peony, unless you’re very much mistaken. The low light makes it difficult to tell, but it looks like it might be pink with big white stripes. The stem is long, maybe two or three feet tall, and the flower is enormous - about the size of your hand, petals all soft and fluffy-looking.

How does a flower kill someone? Unconsciously, you take a step closer, entranced by its beauty. Will it feel as soft as it looks?

Utterly mesmerised, you don’t even spare a glance at the dead woman’s face. The feel of the firm stem in your hand, the rich smoothness of the petals - the peony is just so utterly gorgeous that you can’t look away. It feels special, like a sacred offering to a god, or the delicate centre of a bride’s bouquet.

Something about it makes you want to cry. Something about it makes you want to kill. Something about it makes you hungry.

Wait, what?

Too late - just as the question registers in your brain, your thumbnail splits the stem with a sharp snap. Quickly, you catch the flower before it falls, cradling it in your hands as your mouth waters and your stomach growls.

“Mm - mmm…”

It tastes… good? No, more than that - it’s delicious, sweet and light and full of flavour. You’re suddenly starving, filled with this strange new craving that curls up in your throat and begs to be sated. Before you really know it, you’re burying your face greedily in the flower and stuffing your mouth with the delicious petals - you barely even notice the blood dripping from the forgotten stem, or running down your chin with every mouthful.

Chewing, chewing, swallowing. Your eyes flutter shut as a lovely stamen bursts between your teeth. You’re sure your bloody, pollen-covered smile must look absolutely monstrous, but you don’t care. Why should you? From confusion, comes pleasure - and you’re very, very pleased.

When you open your eyes again, wiping the tacky, sticky mess from your face with the back of your hand like a child, you’re not in the security room any more.

A great big hall stretches out in front of you, standing up on a sort of stage that looks out over what appears to be a ballroom of some kind. The floor is all dark wood, beautifully polished and the walls are adorned with beautiful portraits and enormous long mirrors, each in an elaborate gilt frame. Everything seems to shine in the half-light of sunset that floods in through the tall arched windows all along the left wall, deep red curtains opened wide, and the golden light of the chandeliers illuminate the painted ceilings high above your head.

It might be the most beautiful place you’ve ever seen. You go as if to take a step, to go down and move further into the room, but something stops you - a bizarre compulsion that tugs you backwards and turns you round.

Oh. You hadn’t noticed the throne.

It’s stunning, raised up on a beautiful wooden dais and surrounded by tall, elegant banners that seem to be embroidered with a kind of insignia, or maybe a crest. One of the patterns that repeats the most looks almost… familiar? It’s like a sort of double S-shape, one stacked diagonally on top of the other, with a thin, curving diagonal slash slicing through where they join. If you look quickly, it looks almost like rope, or maybe barbed wire - and does that shape in the middle look a little bit like an eye? Or is that just your imagination?

The throne itself is shorter than you were expecting, wide and rectangular in its base, and made up of intricate layers of scarlet lacquered wood and gold. An opulent golden screen towers behind it, decorated with carvings of dragons, flowers, phoenixes, mountains, stars, and so many tiny details that you’d be here all day if you tried to count them all.

Perhaps it’s a silly thing to say, but the throne seems to sing with power, even empty as it is. It looks like something from a storybook, the seat of a great king - no, a grand emperor.

It wouldn’t be right to actually sit on it, but maybe you could just… go up to it? It’s okay to look at it, right? It feels like it’s calling you, like it wants you to come nearer - and if it’s what it wants, then it must be fine. Probably. Yeah.

Hesitantly, you climb the stairs leading up to the platform, slow steps leading up to the throne until you’re right in front of it. Up close, it’s even more incredible. Mother-of-pearl curves along a dragon’s back, and a heavily-embroidered cushion sits neatly in the centre of the seat. Who on earth could such a magnificent throne, such a spectacular palace as this, even belong to?

That pull, tugging deep inside your chest, urging you towards the throne. Maybe it would be okay for you to sit down. Just for a little bit. There’s nobody here to tell on you.

You nervously settle yourself onto the throne, one hand clutching one of the armrests for support as you sit down. You’re half-expecting a big axe blade to swing out of nowhere and chop your head off for treason, or for some sort of trapdoor to open and drop you into a big spike pit for your heresy, but nothing actually happens - slowly, you find yourself relaxing just a little.

Hold on. That wasn’t there before… was it?

You must have missed it somehow - but now that you’re sitting here, it’s as plain as day. A square, marble platform in the centre of the room, black shot through with white lightning, maybe six feet across. A pile of wood surrounds a tall, sharp stake, scraps of rope dangling from about halfway down the sides, and oh, God, you know what this is.

You don’t want to do it. There has to be another way.

The pull in your chest thinks otherwise, though - it practically drags you down from the throne, tripping over your own feet as you stumble towards the unlit pyre. As you go, staring up at the stake in horror, you can see a word carved into the wood.

SUBVERSION.

You go, the unwilling executioner, climbing up onto the platform with a feeling like your heart is full of sand. There’s nobody here, so it shouldn’t really matter, right? More than anything, you’re hoping that this won’t hurt anyone.

(And even if it did…)

(Didn’t you say you’d do anything, to see him again?)

There’s no delaying it. You take one last, longing look at the beauty surrounding you, breathing it in for just a moment more, before crouching down and placing your hand on the pyre.

The familiar magic surges beneath your skin. Delicate flame catches dry kindling, and even as the fire swallows your vision, as the flames swallow you whole, you don’t look away. You wouldn’t want to miss anything.

Snapping, crackling, soft fat melting and dripping off the bone. Warm light sears your eyes as the fire grows and grows, brighter and brighter until it’s white-hot and blistering - helpless against the pain, you’re forced to squeeze your eyes shut and press your palms against your face to block out the brightness. Sunlight on your skin, sunlight in your skin, and just like that-

- it’s morning.

It’s changed again. Slowly, the world comes into focus as you blink the blurriness away. Gone is the grand ballroom of before, replaced by a dark, messy bedroom. The curtains are shut, but the gaps between the edges of the fabric and the windowframe let little stripes of sun fall over the navy blue bedspread.

Hope flutters in your chest for a moment, but it quickly disappears. It’s a bedroom, but it’s not your bedroom - the bed is the wrong size, and the walls are the wrong colour, and the door should be behind you when it’s actually to your left. Someone else’s house, then. Someone else’s home. You won’t cry.

It feels a little bit uncomfortable, poking around in a stranger’s bedroom, so you just take a cursory glance around before heading for the door. It’s clearly lived in, bed unmade and towel still slightly damp where it’s hanging over the back of the desk chair. You pull the door open, carefully avoiding tripping over the pair of slippers sitting innocuously on the floor, and head out into the rest of the house.

Upon closer inspection, it appears that you’ve arrived in someone’s apartment, though they don’t seem to be home. Peeking out through the living room curtains, you don’t recognise the skyline, so it can’t be Dahlia, though the architecture doesn’t look that different. It’s decorated in a fairly conventional, American style, too. You can’t be that far away from home.

The thought makes you ache, but it’s no use trying to leave. The front door remains resolutely locked, no matter what you do, and the windows are the same. You can’t even break the frame, or smash the glass. For some reason, you’re reminded of a fish tank.

A single toothbrush in the bathroom, a single glass of water on the coffee table. It’s funny - from all of the stuff you can see, it only looks like one person lives here. So why, then, do you have the uncanny feeling that it should be two?

The story is the same when you go into the kitchen. It’s tiny, more of a kitchenette than anything else, and if you didn't know the place was empty, you could almost believe that whoever lives here had only just left the room. A faded plastic cereal bowl sits on the kitchen table, spoon propped up against the rim, next to a plastic cup that presumably used to have orange juice in it.

The open cereal box on the table catches your eye - big, cheerful letters on a colourful box. What an unusual name for a brand of cereal. Maybe it’s new.

DEVOTION.

You reach for the box, printed cardboard all smooth and shiny. Curiously, you turn it over in your hands, looking for anything that could help you figure out what’s going on, but there’s nothing. And not nothing as in ‘none of the information is helpful’, but nothing as in ‘there’s literally no other text on the box’.

There’s not even a sell-by date or anything. It suddenly occurs to you that you haven’t seen any other writing at all, anywhere in the apartment.

Fuck, this is too much - you need something to eat. Or maybe drink? Now that you think about it, you’re really thirsty. When was the last time you drank anything?

(Before you ask, the answer’s no. Weird black water from the death river in the endless desert hell dimension doesn’t count.)

Yeah, something to drink would be nice. Something warm, something comforting, that reminds you of home in this place that isn’t quite right.

Funnily enough, there’s a kettle just behind you on the counter when you turn around. How fortunate! The familiar rhythm kicks in, filling up the kettle and putting it on to boil, although it takes a moment to find a teabag in the cupboard. Two, actually. You always make two cups of tea - Gavin’s been getting really into it lately, and he always insists that you two match.

To tell the truth, you’re not actually sure why he’s so fascinated by tea. He likes hot chocolate because it’s nice and sweet, but not coffee - even when it’s practically ninety percent milk and sugar, he still won’t drink it. You can almost see him now, glaring disdainfully down at the cup on the table like it’s radioactive or something. No, no - too bitter! Deviant, why does anybody drink this stuff? It’s horrible…

Absent-mindedly, you reach up and take two mugs out of the cupboard, one blue and one purple. He says it’s because he never used to drink hot drinks, which sort of makes sense. From what he’s told you about his life before you met, he wasn’t really spending time at the sorts of places that serve Darjeeling as a matter of course.

Breathing in the steam, the smell of home. He likes it with lots of milk and a little bit of sugar. The teaspoon clinks against the side of the mug, and you know that when your eyes open again, you won’t be here any more.

The thought makes you sad, in a weird, cold sort of way. Even if this place isn’t home, it’s close enough. The world you’re fighting to get back to, the life you’re trying to find again, slipping through your fingers like sand. Will you ever come home again?

This can’t all be for nothing. These places, the things you’ve seen - it can’t all be for no reason, can it? It’s a test, it has to be. You have to believe that there’s a reason for all of this. Have faith. A familiar, staticky hand in yours, your demonic Eurydice, and you won’t look back.

You’ll be home soon. Sleepy, dizzy, muscle memory. And when you’re home, when you find your way home to him, you’ll make as many cups of tea as you could ever drink.

You open your eyes to complete and utter darkness.

The first thing you notice - well, other than the fact that you can’t see - is the chill. It’s cold, but not like you’re outside. There’s no breeze. It’s more like someone’s left a window open, or forgotten to turn the heating on.

The second thing you notice is the breathing.

There’s no way to tell where it’s coming from, but that’s definitely what it sounds like - something breathing, quiet and shallow and much too close for comfort. You freeze, looking left and right like you might be able to see it, but it’s no good. It’s so dark that you may as well be blindfolded.

Clumsily, you stick your hands out in front of you, gingerly feeling around for something to guide you. An involuntary shock goes up your spine when your left hand hits something hard, but you quickly realise it’s a wall. Are you inside a building, then? Your right hand quickly finds the opposite wall - you must be in a corridor of some kind.

After all of that, your eyes have ever-so-slightly adjusted to the dark, and you can just about make out a faint brightness about ten feet or so in front of you. Is something there?

Your steps are stilted, awkward as you shuffle forwards into the dark, left hand pressed firmly against the wall to keep you steady while the other fumbles stiffly in front of you, ready in case you bump into something. And maybe it’s just virtue of the friction between your trainers and the floor, but doesn’t it feel kind of… sticky? Tacky, like something hasn’t quite dried yet?

Gritting your teeth, you keep on inching forwards until suddenly, the wall under your hand disappears. Panic flares in your mind and you gasp involuntarily, clumsy fingers grasping at thin air until you find it again.

Feeling around, it seems like the corridor is about to turn a corner. That must be where the light is coming from. Taking a deep breath, and pointedly not thinking about whatever else might be breathing in here, you creep slowly around the corner to find -

- oh, thank goodness, it’s only a door.

Well, you think it’s a door. You can see two thin, rectangular windows that look about the right height and width to be set in a door, and the pale light that filters through the stained glass hints at what might be an entryway. You must be in a house, and this corridor must be the hallway.

Relieved, you start walking a bit faster. The light is still very low, but you can’t see any obstacles or people in front of you, so you should be fine. Anyways, you know where you’re going now, so hopefully you’ll just be able to unlock the door and-

“Shit - ow, ow!”

In your haste, you don’t notice it - you trip over something on the floor and it sends you sprawling, arms instinctively reaching out in front of you to break your fall. Luckily, it’s not that bad of a tumble, and although it knocks the breath out of you, it doesn’t feel like you’ve broken anything.

Whatever it was you tripped over can’t have been very big, maybe the size of a football or so? And judging by the way you fell, it must be behind you now. Blindly, you twist around to try and peer into the dark, before realising far too late that you’ve had a source of light all along.

A handful of fire flares to life in your hand, warm and comforting, to show you Alexis Solaire and her dead, empty face.

Horrified, you can’t scream. You can’t even move, paralysed at the sight of the Solaire princess lying dead in front of you, still wearing her elegant, golden tiara, delicate pearls tangled in her hair. No, no, that’s not even all of her - numbly, you realise that she’s not - she’s been - her head, she’s - fucking hell you just tripped over her head-

Your body floods with delayed adrenaline, and it knocks you out of your daze. You scramble backwards as fast as you can, trying desperately to put as much distance between you and her as you can. Fuck, that must have been why the floor was so sticky - oh, God, that’s not funny, it’s really not, but you almost want to laugh.

How is she even here? Gavin’s mentioned her before, something about a fancy vampire party and a very sharp ornamental cane, but only ever in passing. Although you’ve never met her, you’ve seen pictures, and there’s no mistaking that face.

God, it feels like your limbs are made of lead as you scrabble to get away, only for your hand to brush against something cold behind you. What is - shit, what is it, it’s cold and it’s wet and it’s-

This time, you do actually scream. Dark hair, sharp teeth, thick blood. Fire dripping from your palm, low light reflecting off the dark wooden floorboards, and glittering in the unseeing eyes of Vincent Solaire.

He’s just lying there, soaked in blood - you have to clamp your hand over your mouth at the sight of him, soft insides gleaming in the firelight where his stomach is torn open, flesh sliced to ribbons and neck barely keeping his head attached to his body. He almost looks like he’s smiling, though maybe that’s just the claw marks gouged deep into his pretty face, tearing messily through his eye and down across his cheek.

You must be in hell. This must be hell. How else could he be here? Vincent, wonderful Vincent, good sweet kind Vincent - who could have done this to him? He and Gavin have been very good friends for years, and ever since you were introduced, you’ve always liked him. He’s funny and charming and endlessly devoted to his partner - the four of you get on like a house on fire, and you’d been planning on going out somewhere to celebrate after the Games.

Please say it’s not true. This can’t have been what happened - he can’t have met the same fate as you, can he? A useless death, body shredded and soul gutted by a Shade? He’s a vampire, for God’s sake, he’s miles faster and stronger than you ever could have been. He must have made it out.

You swallow a shuddering, gasping sob, finally managing to rip your eyes away from the mangled corpse in front of you, and that’s when you notice it. Torn, ruined fingernails. Scratch marks in the floorboards, clawed painfully into the wood by desperate, dying hands.

BLINDNESS.

That’s it, that’s it - you’ve got to get out of here. Scrambling to your feet, you stagger past Vincent’s body and drag yourself to the door, trembling fingers struggling with the latch - the blood makes them slippery, but eventually you hear it click. Hurriedly, you go to push the door open, but - but-

You can’t just leave him.

This probably isn’t real, and you know it perfectly well. Whatever you do here likely doesn’t matter, and once you’ve left, chances are that nobody will ever know what you did.

But you’ll know. You’ll know what happened here, and you’ll know that you left your friend’s body to rot, forgotten, in the dark forever. And most of all, you’ll know that you can never forgive yourself.

Slowly, you pull the door open, turning with it to face back into the hallway as the hinges creak. You’ll need both hands for this next bit.

Pale light seeps around the new gaps in the doorframe, painting most of Alexis’ face and Vincent’s back in cold, white light. Somehow, it doesn’t make it any better. You try not to look as you carefully hook your arms under as much of Vincent’s body as you can, and you don’t want to think about why he’s so light. You don’t want to know what that awful, wet sound of something falling out of the gash in his stomach is, and you don’t want to know what that cold liquid soaking into your shirt is.

The world blurs unexpectedly in front of you, and you realise that you’re crying. It doesn’t matter, nobody will know, but you’re crying anyway. His head, lolling too far back against your arm - glistening bone peeking out between snapped tendons and sliced muscle. Hot tears pour down your face as you nudge the door open with your foot, weak light blinding you after the darkness of the corridor.

Gently, you make sure he doesn’t hit his head against the doorframe. The taste of sweet toffee. As the weight of Vincent’s body dissolves in your arms, you just cry, and cry, and cry.

Head aching, you’re vaguely aware of the hard earth rocking beneath you. At least there’s a nice breeze out here. The smell of salt, and the sound of the sea.

Wait, what?

Rubbing the tears from your bleary, tired eyes, you can see that you’re not outside a house at all - although you’re definitely outside. Wood, rope, iron. Flags flutter joyfully atop a towering mast, cream-coloured sails bright against the blue sky, and you realise what that rocking feeling really is.

It’s not the earth at all. Somehow, you’ve ended up on the deck of a ship, in the middle of the ocean.

It’s not even a particularly modern ship - it sounds ridiculous, but it really does look like one of those old-timey pirate ships from a film or a book or something, with rigging and a crow’s nest and one of those big wooden wheels with the spokes that you use to steer. Maybe it’s some kind of historical recreation? Or maybe you’re a time traveller! That would be cool.

(You are aware, of course, that it probably isn’t time travel. This is almost certainly an elaborate fantasy induced by an unknown supernatural entity, or a figment of your dying imagination, or some sort of weird liminal space between states of being. Even so, it’s nice to dream, you know?)

Something about this feels different. You’re not really sure how to describe it. All those other places - that weird museum, the empty apartment, that ballroom with the throne - they all felt strange. Not just in the sense that you didn’t know what was happening, but more like you… like you didn’t belong there?

It’s hard to put into words. Like you didn’t fit, a puzzle piece not just in the wrong place but in the wrong box entirely. Does that make sense? Out of place, not quite right, like poles repelling. Unsettled, as if the world wasn’t made for you, wasn’t ready for you to be in it. But here, on the deck of a ship you almost recognise, you feel like you’re back in the box again.

You can’t see anyone around, which is mostly a relief, but does make you a little bit uneasy. Didn’t ships like this need a crew, to keep it running and everything? How are they steering - is anybody steering this thing?

You climb the short stairs up to the quarterdeck, wooden bannister smooth under your palm. From up here, you can properly see the whole deck, and yeah, there’s nobody here. Nobody at the helm, either. It should probably worry you more than it does, but the wheel doesn’t seem to be moving at all.

Does that mean it’s fine? It’s probably better than if it were just spinning freely. Oh, whatever - you’re no sailor, and anyway, there doesn’t seem to be anything around that you might crash into.

In fact, you can’t really see anything at all. Just endless sea and cloudless sky, bright sun shining down, and the ship beneath you.

You’ve got to stop just calling it the ship. Does it have a name?

It must be written somewhere. They normally write the name on the side of the ship, don’t they? If there’s anywhere on the ship you should be able to see it from, it should be up here.

Hesitantly, you walk over to the railing to check, boards quietly creaking under your feet. This is the port side of the ship, isn’t it? Yeah, port means left and starboard means right. Wait, but is that left when you’re on the ship, or looking at the - you know what, it doesn’t matter. The important thing is that you can see something.

It’s a little bit tricky to actually read, seeing as the letters are upside down and also several metres directly underneath you, but you can see it as clear as day. Ah, of course. You probably should have guessed.

FAITH.

It makes sense. By which you mean it doesn’t, but that’s kind of what you were expecting.

The sea is getting choppier, spray kicking up against the side of the ship. For a second, you could swear you see something colourful moving under the water - but just as quickly as you see it, it’s gone.

Now, the sensible thing to do would be to go back down onto the main deck, try to get into the interior of the ship, and have a look around for anything there that might help you. That would probably be a good idea, seeing as you’re literally stranded on a seemingly-abandoned ship in the middle of nowhere in a dimension that might not actually exist.

Unfortunately, that plan assumes that you’re going to be sensible about this.

Are those bells you can hear, ringing wide across the ocean? You don’t know, and you don’t want to - the sea sloshes around inside you, bubbling and swirling in your brain until it’s all you can think about. It always seems to come back to water, these days. Will it be warm, when you break the surface?

It’s a terrible idea, so naturally you’re already halfway through doing it. With a grin, you push off the railing and run, as fast as you can, towards the other side of the ship. If you’re going to do it, you might as well do it properly.

Church bells, wedding bells, far away across the sea. Stepping up onto the side of the ship, breathing in the sea breeze. This is how it goes, in stories - emerging from water, shorthand for a baptism. Pushing off, floating through space, speared halfway by the golden line of the horizon. Revival, rebirth.

A leap of faith. If you’re fated to reject your fate, then does the universe cease to exist?

Down and down and down, falling into the shadow of the ship above you. Feeling rather than seeing the splash. One last gasping breath, eyes slamming shut just as you hit the water, and for some reason, you have the strangest urge to say hello.

Dark water, once again.

I’ll hold on.

Soaked and sodden and tumbling towards the ground.

I’ll make all this pain worth it.

Things to hold on for. Black earth and the crumbling concrete, getting closer, breathing out, closer, breathing in, falling falling falling until -

Hold me?

- you're awake.

Of course.

You should have known.

Lying down again, enveloped by the crushing dark, you know exactly where this is. Where else would the water take you?

Slowly, you reach up and dig your fingers into the ground above you, pulling away a handful of the soft, damp earth. Then again, then again, greedy hands clawing at the dirt like an animal. It's warm, down here in the suffocating smallness of the ground.

You want to scream, but you think better of it. Then you think about it again, and you change your mind - so you open your mouth, and something pours out.

It's impossible to tell what it is. Perhaps it's noise, something liquid between a howl and a sob, thin and watery as it runs down your chin and soaks into the earth. Bubbling up through your throat, staining your lips and teeth with pain - you tear viciously at the stifling earth, each breath a howl, each howl a weak, stuttering keen that burns your lungs and twists your insides into knots.

Soil rains down with every handful, in your eyes and your hair and your mouth, but it doesn’t stop you. The taste of sweet earth is sickly and bitter. Your perfect cavity is ruined, neat edges and sharp corners crumbling away, a fish trapped on the hook as you thrash your way up and up and up.

You’re almost there. Finally - finally! - your fingers break through, grasping and clawing at the grass, and you dig yourself free of your grave.

The cold air of a winter night hits your skin, and you breathe a sigh of relief. You must be a pitiful sight. Spitting out soil, covered in filth, picking the packed earth out from under your fingernails, and it doesn’t even matter, because you’ve just -

Oh, God.

You’ve just realised where you are.

Your grave. The backlit shadow of the stadium looms above you, blinding against the black sky of a ward that will never come down. You were wrong about why this felt familiar. Not the place you were buried. The place you died.

Is it bad to say that it’s exactly how you remembered it to be?

Well, not exactly. There aren’t any other people, and you can hear the low buzz in the air that the ward generates, fizzing against your skin instead of being drowned out by shouts and screams. But other than that, it’s very, very close.

Standing still, a perfect bubble of a snowglobe, frozen in the moment that your life came to an end. The air doesn’t move, your heart doesn’t beat. If you look closely, you can almost see it - the Shade, throwing itself towards you as you scramble away, unearthly claws tearing cold through your body, shrieking in its feast as your mind slows and shudders, until it just… stops.

Beneath your feet, grass becomes familiar concrete. Numbly, you stare at the wide, dark smear that your blood painted on the ground as you fell to pieces, and you want nothing more than to never know anything ever again.

It’s… bigger than you thought it would be. Hm. You never even knew you had that much blood inside you.

There’s a word, stained into the concrete, finger-painted through the flaking pool of your blood left behind. In your mind’s eye you see the hand shaking, the heart bursting, the tears pouring down the perfect face, contorted in agony.

PERSISTENCE.

An extended existence, continuation in the face of defiance. A haunting. Love, that doesn’t realise it has died. The quality of being kissed by a ghost.

Time passes.

You’re not sure how long, and you’re not sure what you do while it happens. Mourn, perhaps. You did die, after all.

A strange sort of grief swirls inside you like a storm, and you cry for a very long, or maybe a very short, time. You’d never really imagined mourning your own death, and you’d not really expected to have to come to terms with it. After all, you’d… well, you’d be dead. Dead people don’t generally have to come to terms with anything at all.

You probably ought to revise that hypothesis, come to think of it. You’re definitely dead, and you’re definitely having to deal with it, so presumably it must be wrong. Or would you say that you’re the exception that proves the rule?

At some point in the endless present, the storm subsides. It doesn’t disappear, but you walk and it doesn’t stop you. The entrance to the stadium beckons, and despite the fear of what you know is inside, you’re helpless to resist the yawning mouth of the anglerfish.

Two halves, sewn together. The only way over is through.

A bloody trail of footprints follows you, though you never turn around. Plastered with dirt from head to toe, a tiny figure at the foot of the stadium, you leave your aching death behind.

Your hand closes around the smooth, square handle. The door opens with a cheerful ding!

Rebirth, a new old beginning. Without even realising it, your face splits into a beaming smile.

You know where the machine is - you’ve been here a million times before. Left, then straight on, then turn right and it’s halfway down the aisle. The floor is uncomfortably sticky around this bit, but that’s not really a surprise, and you’re so used to it that you barely even notice.

The stark white brightness of the square ceiling lights is no more flattering than ever. Neatly, you take one of the clear plastic cups from the dispenser, scanning the machine for which flavours there are.

There's no point, of course. All of the labels are blank, just brightly-coloured squares, and muscle memory is all you need to guide your hand to the single tap that has a name.

FORTUNE.

Fizzing, sloshing, bright pink fills your cup, bubbling up inside and making the plastic cold in your hand. When it’s full, you take a lid and a straw from the holders next to the machine, and the sound of the straw punching through the cross on the lid sounds like home.

Yum. It’s been a while since you’ve had a Big Gulp.

It’s kind of a delayed reaction, but as you're walking back up to the front, you’re suddenly aware that there’s actual writing in here - more than just a single word, although not exactly back to normal. The shelves are laden with their usual fare, but the names aren’t quite right - your curiosity gets the better of you, and you decide to have a look around before heading to the till.

It’s very bizarre. Condensation slides down the side of the cup and drips onto the floor as you examine the rows and rows of colourful energy drinks in the fridge cabinet, Blood or water, baby? printed on the side of every can. A row of chocolate bars says You’re looking good today, sweetheart, as the shelf of chewing gum declares That’s you, by the way.

The aisle on your left catches your eye, crisp packets plastered with words you feel you ought to remember. For my sunshine. BE MINE. Fancy seeing you here, hmm? Three-flavour multipacks, thick stripes of colour, labelled High ceilings, smooth stone, stained glass.

It’s utterly bizarre. Packets of biscuits that say One last miracle. Bottles of water declaring that Perhaps it really is impossible to outrun your own nature. Bags of sweets with CHOOSE WISELY, DARLING printed on them, cereal boxes that say Tell him we’re gonna be late, soft drink bottles that ask Is that a threat or a promise, my love?

The words make you feel funny, like your head’s too heavy and your heart’s too light. The shelves of shiny instant ramen packets reflect the white lights overhead, covered in questions - It is said that as long as a person is loved, they are alive, is it not? Are you playing Heart and Soul? What happens to love, when it’s forced to die?

Before long, you find yourself gravitating back towards the till at the front of the shop, idly taking in the posters that line the walls and windows. They, too, are just as weird as the rest of this place. May fate find you kindly, child of land. I will move heaven and earth for you, and you will never be afraid again. Aren’t you forgetting something?

It’s so dark outside, but you can just about see the stars. The air-conditioning is slightly too strong to be comfortable.

Ah, here’s the till. After all, you can’t leave without paying.

Unsurprisingly, there’s no queue. You place your cup on the counter, and when you stick your hand in your pocket, there’s a single note waiting there. It’s unexpected and entirely what you thought would happen.

It’s all folded up - carefully, you flatten it out on the countertop and hold it up to the light overhead. The design is just as unusual as everything else in here, and the text across the top says I was there when it was invented, you know. The face on the note - oh, you really should have guessed. Your beautiful, wonderful, ridiculous idiot, smiling back at you. Of course he’s on the five dollar bill.

The back is different, too. Instead of the Lincoln Memorial you’re used to, there’s a picture of… some kind of statue? Six stone figures, all in a line. The detail isn’t all that great, seeing as it’s printed on a banknote and all, but you feel like you recognise them somehow. Printed above their heads are the words Together, or not at all.

There’s no cashier to give it to, so you just kind of… leave it on the counter. Five dollars should be more than enough, right? You’re only getting a drink. The display screen attached the till says What’s mine is yours, love. The post-it note taped to the front of the tip jar has no words, just the imprint of a red lipstick kiss.

Oh, you should probably leave a tip. Do you have any more money?

Checking your pockets again, there’s nothing there. Damn. You don’t really have anything on you at all, so you’re kind of at a loss.

Actually, there might be one thing. Quickly, you nip back over to the self-serve machine and take one of the paper napkins from the dispenser. Then another one, just in case, before going back to the till.

Well, you’ve always been good at following instructions. You fold the napkin in half, then in half again, before closing your eyes and pressing a sweet, happy kiss to the dry paper. Without lipstick it doesn’t leave a mark, but as you reach over to drop it into the tip jar, it’ll have to do.

Cold plastic, condensation. When you walk over to the door, it won’t open.

Puzzled, you try again. Is it locked? It certainly feels that way, but who locked it? You’ve not been in here that long, and you haven’t seen anyone who might have had a key, which means that it’s probably something else the door is looking for.

The confusion only lasts a moment - you’re starting to think you know how this works, which probably means it’s nearly over. You look down at the cup in your hand, and finally read what’s printed on the plastic.

Sleep well, lovely deviant. I hope you dream of me.

A beautiful afternoon in the sun, a nightmare at its end. Smiling, you close your eyes and knock three times on the door, just like normal. Your hand presses flat against the glass, and it’s not glass any more. A key turns in the lock, and you step over the front doorstep of home.

Home.

Finally. At last, at last you’re here, and you could almost cry with relief at the sight of your brilliantly familiar, wonderfully normal, perpetually messy hallway. Shoes litter the left hand side of the corridor, scuffs all over the skirting board, and the coat hooks are as overburdened as ever. The picture frame on the right is slightly crooked, and the ceiling light needs a new bulb.

It’s a fucking mess. You’ve never been happier in your life. Afterlife. Whatever. You’re really happy, is the point.

You can’t be bothered to unlace your trainers, so you just kick them off, one hand on the wall to steady you. Hm. Your drink must not have survived the trip from the 7/11, because it’s not in your hand anymore. Did it disappear when you crossed the threshold or something?

Gently, you push the door into the living room open, but there’s nobody there. Everything is just as you left it, though, from the blanket hanging over the arm of the sofa to the pile of old receipts cluttering up the coffee table. Of course! You’d forgotten about those. They’d been taking up half the space in your backpack, so you’d just emptied them all onto the side and said you’d come back later.

You can hear something moving. Is that the tap running? It must be something in the kitchen. There are fresh flowers in the vase on the mantelpiece - your favourite kind, deep pink and beautiful. Trying not to get your hopes up, you follow the sound deeper into the apartment.

The kitchen door is slightly ajar. Someone must be in there. You lean in to peek through the gap between the door and the frame, and - and - and-

Numb fingers reach for the handle, pulling it open. Ever so quietly, you knock three times against the doorframe.

“Honey, I’m home.”

The water stops.

It’s completely silent.

The demon standing in front of the sink looks like he’s seen a ghost.

You smile, tears already starting to fall. “Did you miss me, my love?”

You’re not sure how it happens - maybe he rifts to you, or you run to him, or something in between. Whatever it is, you barely have time to blink before you’re in his arms, swept up in the lovely rush of him, and you’re really, properly home.

“Deviant,” he sobs, claws digging into your skin as he clutches you close like he’s terrified you’ll disappear. “Is - you’re - oh, God, deviant, I-”

Somehow, he’s ended up with his back to the island in the middle of the room, leaning against the cupboards. The kitchen tile is cold against your legs, sprawled against him as you are, but you barely even notice.

What a pair you make, hm? Curled up on the kitchen floor, wailing into each other’s shoulders, clinging to each other like the world’s about to end. At last, your drowned odyssey comes to a close.

Gavin, pretty Gavin, precious Gavin. He’s here, and he’s here with you - he’s alive and he’s okay and you’re never going anywhere without him ever again.

“Say it’s real. Say you’re here.” His voice cracks as his fingers twist into your shirt, hands roaming your body in hopeful disbelief. “Please. Tell me it’s not a dream again.”

“It - it’s not a dream,” you choke out, clumsily brushing the wetness from his cheek with the heel of your hand. “Promise.”

It’s all he needs - you can’t help but smile as he drags your face up to his, until you’re laughing and kissing and crying all at once. Your impatient hands trail across every part of him you can reach, from the pointed tips of his horns to the spade of his tail, relearning him, remembering him.

“How did you - you were-” He cuts himself off by kissing you, one hand in your hair and the other pressing against your back. “You were dead, my love.”

“I know,” you say. You were there when it happened, after all. “I remember.”

“But - but how?” Above you, the sound of water dripping from the tap. “How did you come back?”

“I-”

You go to answer, but the words don’t come. “I don’t know,” you say, haltingly. You’re not actually sure. “I was just… awake.”

He looks between you and the door, baffled. “Here? Just now?”

Tucked against his chest, you shake your head as best you can. “No. Somewhere else.” The memory makes you shiver a little. “It was like a desert, I think. The sand was black and the river was black and I swam to shore.”

“A river?” He sounds confused, before his voice turns strangely frantic. “You woke up in the River?”

“Yes…?” you reply. Why does he seem to recognise it? “There was a storm. The lightning hit me, and I remembered you.”

He looks a little stunned, if you’re honest, though you can’t tell quite why. “So you came here…”

“I don’t know how,” you admit, a little embarrassed. “It looked like a sandstorm, or like static on a TV. I fell asleep again, and then it took me to all these - all these places.”

“Oh - oh, um…”

He trails off, hiding his face in your hair. “I think that may have been me.”

“The - wait, you what?”

The double-take you do is almost comical. That was… not what you expected him to say.

“You - it - how?”

He takes a deep, shaky breath.

“Deviant, this place… It’s not actually home.”

Clearly, you look as confused as you feel as he babbles on. “Well, it is, but not, like, the place it looks like - although, I guess, er, I mean - it’s - there’s not, uh-”

“Gavin.” He’s very sweet when he starts rambling, but it’s not really the time right now.

Thankfully, he startles out of it, instinctively leaning into your hand as it settles against his face. “Yes? Oh, um - we’re not actually in Dahlia, right now.”

His tail flicks behind him, and a pulse of psychokinesis pulls the blinds over the kitchen window open. In shock, you stare up at the night sky, full of stars and with absolutely no city in sight.

“This isn’t the same… reality, I guess,” he says, like it’s nothing. “I made this place.”

“You-”

He made it?

It sounds like a joke, a really fucking awful one, but you know he wouldn’t lie to you about something like this. “Say it again?”

“You died.”

The tap drips.

Once, then twice, then three times.

“You died, and I - I just - I couldn’t.” His eyes squeeze shut as he rests his head on yours, and your heart feels like it’s breaking in half. “You were gone, and it wasn’t right, and I had to do something.”

God, he sounds so tired. “When I said I’d keep you safe, I meant it. I always mean it. When that - that thing-”

He stops, and you can feel the muscles in his chest flutter as he tries to suppress a sob. Desperately, you wrap your arms around him and press your face into his neck, trying to give whatever silent comfort you can.

“I knew that something was wrong,” he eventually declares, voice thick with tears. “You and me, we’re not meant to just… die.”

“I’m human, Gav,” you say, as softly as you can. “That’s what we do.”

“No.”

He’s unexpectedly serious, almost scarily so, and it catches you off-guard. “No, it’s not. You’re not. Nothing gets to take you away from me again.”

What the hell does he mean by that?

He smiles sadly, looking down at the floor. “That’s why - well, I guess that’s why I did it.”

“Did what?” Everything he says just seems to give you more questions and less answers - frustrated, you push back slightly so that you can look directly at his face. “Gavin, how are we here?”

“I don’t really know how. I didn’t even know it was a thing I could do,” he says, with a weak, half-hearted laugh. “My magic must have… I don’t know. I guess it tried to reach you, and when it couldn’t find you, it - well, it…”

He gestures around vaguely at the apartment around you. “We’re not on Elegy anymore, deviant. It’s not Aria, either. I don’t really know how, but we’re outside all of that now.”

Considering everything else you’ve seen, this probably shouldn’t surprise you as much as it does. “Like another - what, like another dimension? Another plane?”

“I guess.” He shrugs apologetically, like he’s ashamed he doesn’t know. “I’ve been thinking about it like a kind of… observatory? Or like a control centre, maybe.”

“So you can see Dahlia from here?” you ask. “Why haven’t you gone back - can we go back?”

“Not - not yet,” he says, carefully measured in a way you really don’t like. “There’s something I have to fix, first.

“Hm?” Oh, this doesn’t sound good at all. “What is it?”

He doesn’t reply immediately, fangs digging into his lip like they always do when he’s nervous, tail swishing back and forth across the floor on his other side.

“Gavin?” Even if he couldn’t feel your nervousness, you’re fairly sure he doesn’t need his fancy demon senses to be able to hear your heartbeat speeding up. “Gavin, what did you do?”

“It’s fine, I think,” he mumbles, pointedly avoiding your gaze. “I just - look, I think I know how you came back to life.”

Doing your best Damien impression, you try to stare him down. It mostly works. “Explain.”

“When I said my magic tried to reach you, I think it - I think it worked,” he admits. “The lightning you mentioned - it wasn’t on purpose, but I think that was me.”

What?

“Magic is just what comes after emotion, isn’t it?” he says. “The way I felt, knowing you weren’t there…” Shaking his head, he gathers you up even closer, resting his chin on your head. “I can’t describe it. I just… needed you.”

Like this, he sounds a thousand years old. Tired to the bone. “Every part of me, all the magic I had, pouring out into the universe to find you. That was the storm.”

“But how - how are you still alive, then?” You’re sure the incredulous look on your face is stupid, but you don’t really care. Demons are made of magic - surely he’d have died, if he’d really used it all? “And how did you get here?”

“Well…” He shifts slightly underneath you, hands rearranging your body with familiar strength until you’re sitting up against his side a bit better, your head resting on his shoulder and your legs across his lap. “I have a theory, but it might be wrong.”

With one hand, you gesture for him to continue. “I’m listening.”

“My magic must have created a sort of… fault line, I guess. In the universe, or in our reality, or whatever it is - to reach you, it must have split something that was never meant to be open. It made a crack, or a splinter of some kind - a gap that I could find you through, that isn’t meant to be there. Does that make sense?”

“I think so,” you reply, hesitantly. “So you came through that gap to get here, then?”

“Sort of,” he says. “I think we’re inside that gap right now. Between life and death, outside of Aria and Elegy.”

“Outside of…” If you didn’t know any better, you’d say he’s completely lost his mind. “Woah.”

He huffs quietly, amused. “Yeah.”

“So how do we get home?” you ask. “There must be a way, right?”

“That’s what I’ve been trying to find.” Absentmindedly, he curls his tail loosely around your ankle, wrapping and unwrapping it again and again. “When I arrived here, I was… different.”

That doesn’t sound ominous at all. “...Different how?”

He sighs, low in his chest. “Humans aren’t meant to be able to come back to life. When I brought you back, I think I broke some rules I wasn’t supposed to, and now…”

“I said it was like a control centre, right? I was telling the truth.” His voice gets quieter and quieter, a soft confession that only you can hear. “Home, the place we came from - it’s like I can see everything. I can change it, however I want.”

“They don’t know I’m there, but I’m in control. It’s like - I mean, it’s like being a god.”

You…

You don’t know what to say.

“In the world we came from, you’re dead, my love,” he whispers, and it feels like an admission of guilt. “If we go back, what if - what if you-”

He swallows harshly, cutting himself off. “I can’t take that risk.”

“I know, love,” you murmur quietly, eyes closed. “I wouldn’t, either.”

For a long moment, neither of you says anything. You just hold each other, the way you always have, and it’s fine.

“So what now?” you say into the silence, as evenly as you can. “Are we just trapped here forever, then?”

“What? No - no, of course not!” he stutters, a worried expression crossing his lovely face. “There’s a way to go back home. It just… won’t be the one we’re from.”

He’s probably expecting your look of confusion, as he quickly tries to explain.

“This power I have now, I can make whatever world we want. Anywhere you want to go, anything you want us to be - I can give that to you, my deviant.”

The tap drips slowly into the sink. “Whatever you want. Forever.”

Curved small against his chest, you feel like a child asking, but you have to make sure. “Including home?”

“Especially home.” His voice is so nice and warm, that wonderful way of his that always makes you smile. “It can all go back to the way it was before.”

“And you’ll save me from the Shade.” It’s not a question.

“I’ll save you from a thousand shades, if that’s what it takes” he says, all nonchalant, like he’s not just told you he’s some kind of reality-bending dimension hopping demigod. “Whatever you ask for - it’s yours.”

“Anything?” It sounds utterly ridiculous, but… you’re kind of flattered. Not everybody has a boyfriend who’ll tear universes apart and remake the laws of physics to resurrect you like him. “Like, actually anything?”

“Anything,” he says, warm hands holding yours. It feels like a promise, or a vow. “Anything for you. I’ll make you a million universes, if that’s what you want.”

“And if I don’t want any of them?” you ask, deliberately challenging. “What then?”

“Then they won’t exist.” He sounds so calm. A statement of fact. “We could stay here forever, if that’s what you want. We don’t have to go anywhere, ever again. Nothing will exist, if you don’t want it to.”

“What about you?”

He looks down at you, puzzled. “Me?”

“Will you be there?” you ask, voice small and nervous. “In my million universes, will I have you there too?”

“Will you - oh, baby…” He laughs, and it feels like soft sunlight on your skin. “Of course, my love. Where else would I be, that isn’t by your side?”

You don’t say anything, burying your face in his neck as he gently kisses the top of your head. You know he understands.

“It’s been a long day, deviant,” he murmurs into your hair. “It can wait. We ought to go to bed.”

The thought of sleeping sends a sudden jolt of fear through you, but he already knows what you’re going to say. “It’s alright, it’s alright. I know. I’ll be here when you wake up.”

“Promise?” You cling tight to his shoulders as he stands up, curled up in his arms like a bride, the warmth of him pressed all against you. You’d almost forgotten how strong he is.

“I promise,” he says solemnly, kissing your cheek. “From now until forever.”

It’s strange, getting ready for bed. It’s also the most natural, normal thing in the world. Gavin carries you through the apartment to the bathroom, then the bedroom, and you’re content just to float happily in his lovely orbit.

Familiar pyjamas, soft and worn. Before long, you’re safe under the covers of your own bed again, the taste of toothpaste in your mouth, and you can almost imagine that this whole thing was just a dream.

“If we go home, will…” Laying on his chest, you don’t have to speak very loudly for him to hear you. “Will we remember this?”

“We might. I’ve never tried it before.”

“Then how do you know?” you say into the darkness of the room. “How do you know we’ll be together?”

You feel him laughing quietly, one hand stroking gentle circles into your back. He’s so warm.

“Because it’s true. I’ve seen it,” he says, one hand gently guiding your face up towards him. “It doesn’t matter what changes. In every universe, I always fall in love with you.”

The angle is a little awkward, but you kiss him anyway. He tastes like cherry.

“I love you.”

He smiles, eyes soft in the low light, and your journey is complete. “I love you too, my deviant.”

A dream, a promise, a handprint in the sand. Stars freeze and planets crumble in a world that has no end or beginning, while in a million universes, a million times, a million love stories happen all at once.

The River flows on.

And somewhere, in the empty space outside the universe, a demon and a human fall asleep.

main masterlist

missed part 1? read it here

series masterlist

this is an original work by @gingerbreadmonsters - please do not repost or misattribute

#redacted asmr #redacted audio #redacted gavin #redacted freelancer #redacted echo #redacted fluff #redacted angst #ginger writes #gingerbreadmonsters

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dantecollt · 10 months

Text

stalemate // a QSMP AU ↳ (n.) a situation in which nothing can change or no action can be taken;

(art by: @EsTorrente)

Everything is eerily… familiar. Colors, voices, places.

The faces… not so much. It shouldn’t be a surprise, not when he can’t even remember his own face. And it doesn’t matter, really. The mask is meant to be the only face they all see, the only face they all need to see, and it offers him some sort of comfort when he wastes precious time thinking too much. Still, it’s a feeling that makes no sense at all but ignoring it is easier, less painful. So he pays it no heed, pretends not to feel the unexplainable nostalgia clinging to his body as if it were an old friend.

He has so much work to do, after all. Observe and report. Rinse and repeat.

It’s simple. Easy.

He’s supposed to keep an eye on the brazilian group. They’re interesting, he’s been told, but unstable.

(A danger to the island and others?? is scribbled somewhere in his first report.)

The brazilians are… chaotic, to put it lightly. Always loud, always overthinking, scheming. Always together, always seeking someone’s company as if they’re afraid to be alone, even for a moment. The blonde one is the loudest of them all. It almost reminds him of someone he can’t remember, of something unnamed, of times that shouldn’t have happened but somehow did, in a lifetime long lost and forgotten. It hurts to think too much, so he doesn’t. He never stays around for longer than necessary, because there’s no reason to linger. In their loudness, they reveal too much about how they feel, what they are planning against the Federation.

He observes and writes everything down. The Federation is happy with his progress.

His office is filled with thousands of pages of writing; he tries to make sense of everything, his own handwriting alien to his own eyes and mind. Did he really write all of this? It must’ve been him. It’s his office, his diaries, his words. Pages upon pages of a life he’s never lived before but still feels too real, of people he’s never met but somehow misses dearly, deep down. It doesn’t make sense. Why would he write any of this? And when? Whenwhenwhen—

(I’m running out of time. fills an entire book.)

He burns everything down, to the last page. The Federation appreciates his cooperation.

The child is the first one to notice him lurking around. It’s a brave one, for sure, approaching him without hesitation. It clings to his pants and stops him from walking away— so he doesn’t. He waits, forever patient, but even when the little thing cries itself to exhaustion, it still refuses to let go of him, small but sharp nails digging deep into the fabric of his uniform, almost close enough to his skin to draw blood.

It’d be a pity to ruin such good clothes, and he has a few minutes to spare. He picks the child up in his arms, allows it to snuggle against his chest. It’s sobbing oh so quietly, its little body shaking and tears not stopping just yet, its arms wrapped tightly around his neck. The warmth is familiar but barely, almost comforting in a way. Something stirs in the back of his mind, in a dark place, like a shadow of memory that shouldn’t even exist because it’s not real.

Have I done this before? It doesn’t matter.

The children belong in the nest, he’s sure of that. He’s also sure the little thing won’t go there by its own volition, not tonight anyway, not when it’s so distraught and so clingy. It doesn’t matter. It’s a quiet night and there’s no one else around— not even people of the Federation. He can allow himself this one thing, just tonight.

He can’t get inside the nest nor does he want to. The child fusses a bit when he sets it down, but he blows some soap bubbles around them— it’s out of instinct, really, but it seems to cheer the little one up enough. He lets it play with the bubbles until he’s out of soap and he notices the child isn’t crying anymore when he leaves.

He sleeps a bit easier tonight. (He pretends it’s not because of the child.)

The child keeps following him, he notices. It’s hard not to, when the little thing keeps trying to hold his hand or cling to his legs; not just smart but also a stubborn one indeed, one that ignores his futile attempts to keep everyone away. His resistance melts within the first hours and he finds himself walking around the island holding the child’s hand. He doubts anyone of the Federation would complain about it. The little one seems happy. Isn’t that part of his job, too?

The Federation’s rules are clear. Keep them happy. Keep them here.

The warmth is so, so familiar.

I’ve done this before. Why should it matter?

The blonde one corners him in a moment of distraction, takes the child away from his hold with ease, yelling and cursing, as if he’s some kind of menace, as if he has any ill intention. It makes no sense, really. The child fusses and kicks, bites on the blonde’s arm as if that’d be enough for it to make an escape; it isn’t. A small part of him wants to fight too, to grab the child because it’s his, it’s his baby and no one else’s— but he doesn’t move.

Why should he, anyway?

He’s part of the QSMP Census Bureau. He belongs to something else.

“I hope you enjoy the island.”

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

[part 2 soon]

#qsmp #qsmp au #qsmp fanfiction #qsmp fanfic #qsmp fanfic au #qsmp cellbit #qsmp forever #qsmp cucurucho #qsmp roier

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oenimo · 8 months

Text

What I want, what I wanted, but I know I’ll never get and the words “heir to the empire” have only cemented this as 100% not happening anymore

(fair warning that this is directly pulling from details from the Thrawn and Thrawn Ascendency books)

Ezra, furious and hurt and just barely eighteen makes the purgill attack the chimaera, makes them grab and break and pull it into hyperspace, makes them disappear into Wild Space. They crash into an unknown planet far from the know galaxy. Luckily, it’s habitable for humans, and slowly the surviving Chimaera crew wakes up, as do Thrawn and Ezra.

Stuck with nowhere to go, Ezra begrudgingly has to cooperate with the crew. Thrawn is furious with him, but practical (with a little bit of help from bridge crew to calm him down), and they don’t even like, jail Ezra. This is wildly confusing to Ezra, but in a good way, but he knows that even with the weird free trust he’s being given he still has to stay with them because no matter how good a Jedi, he can’t live on a completely unknown planet alone, let alone get off it without at least using the crash salvage

Slowly, Ezra begins to vaguely trust some of the chimaera crew. Not Thrawn, he’s still so suspicious of him, why is he doing this, why does he seem… so different than Ezra is used to? And he can’t forget how thunderously angry Thrawn during their first interaction after the crash. He’s calm now, but he was so angry. Why? When will it come back??

Eventually, things change. For a while there’s weird, rebuilding and building a new life vaguely, looking at if the bits of the chimaera can be salvaged to contact someone (but also knowing that none of the stars are familiar, they are so far from knowledge, who would they even manage to contact in this area?).

But the surviving chimaera crew ends up splitting, imperial loyalists finally having enough of the casual disregard for regulations and punishment Thrawn et al have been showing in regards to Ezra, as well as just… generally getting fed up and sick of listening to Thrawn et al when they’re letting Ezra be chill.

Unfortunately, the Thrawn loyalists (aka, the people on Ezra’s side) end up outnumbered because it’s hard to compare “previous loyalty to a man who literally is letting the guy who got you stuck here roam free and even asking for his help with shit and this guy is also an alien and the vast majority of imperials are xenophobic even if they’d grown to respect him it’s hard not to fall back given the extra hating circumstances” to “I am stuck on a completely unknown planet and it’s literally their fault”. This all leads to a split in factions of survivors, with Thrawn and loyalists being essentially run out of camp lest they be killed, and Ezra stuck going with them because somehow (it’s still baffling to him) this is the group that wants him dead the least.

In a far, far locale, skywalker Un’hee begins, pretty immediately after the battle of Lothal, to be plagued with dreams. Not all bad, most just kinda weird, but soon she starts seeing scenes of war and destruction and scenes of crash and desperate survival on an unfamiliar planet. The whole thing from start to finish is weird for her because it’s mostly humans, and some other aliens she’s never seen before, so how are they in her head? But when the worse dreams start, and then get worse, and then when she finally gets the crash landing dreams that are filled with a deep sense of “come help us come find us you’re the only one who can find us”, she ends up talking (crying) to Eli about it.

And he’s like. Ummmm. That sounds sus. I am… concerned. Because when she describes it, he knows she’s talking about humans. And it even sounds like empire humans. And maybe even his imperial colleagues. Who Un’hee really shouldn’t know???

So they go talk to Ar’alani, who promptly goes OH FUCK ME SIDEWAYS WITH A FRUIT STICK and calls up Thalias, Che’ri, and Samakro (of whom Samakro definitely should have his name changed, and Che’ri almost certainly too).

Between the 6 of them and Vah’nya, with talks with Ba’kif and the rest of the CDF and CEDF, they end up sending a small search party for Thrawn et al. Un’hee and Eli for sure, possibly other big names, possibly minor support characters (like crew for a ship Eli gets out in charge of) or possibly literally just Eli and Un’hee. The ascendancy did, after all, kick Thrawn out. And they are, after all, relying on a 9 year old’s visions. And even though it’s happened before, that’s really dubious ground to stand on for committing resources to, especially when shit is dangerously close to hitting the fan in the ascendency itself then as well.

Cue lots of space adventures for both parties, as Eli’s party travels from the Unknown Regions to wherever the fuck Thrawn+Ezra’s ended up, dodging plenty of people against the chiss and probably some people with history with Eli (he’s not… really a friend to the empire anymore lmao), Eli trying to keep Un’hee safe and hidden, Un’hee trying desperately to follow her visions to the right places, and meanwhile the looming threat of the grysks hangs in the back of their mind that they really need to get back, they really need to bring Thrawn back, etc.

Thrawn and Ezra’s party on the other hand are basically in the show Manhunter: Lethal Space Edition. They’re trying to survive on the unknown world with the small amount of supplies they were able to snag on their way out, knowing that the planet also holds the hostile rest of the star destroyer’s crew, and knowing they have no way off and away except by finding and fixing/smashing together chimaera crash salvage. Maybe they get off the planet before Un’hee finds them, and they have their own road trip adventures too, maybe Un’hee and Eli find them there, doesn’t matter.

The two groups eventually meet, and things begin to come to a boil. The grysks have had all this time to make moves on the Ascendancy, and they might even be setting up in the Empire too now, if they’ve decided it’s worth it. Something dramatic probably has to happen to convince Ezra he’s needed there more than back in the Empire (tho the kid getting visions of his past and present is probably also a big factor, as is the “child girls are actively being kidnapped and held in forced labour for a species/legion/whatever hellbent on quiet takeover of everything ever in existence anywhere”) also, he’s been living on the “run” with Thrawn and co. for months now, and likely they’ve talked and come to some amount of understanding, especially re: previous actions done to each other and each other’s friends and family and factions.

The combined group heads back to the Ascendancy (possibly dropping off some Thrawn loyalists at other locales if they aren’t fully committed to going to help the ascendancy, but that all depends on the size of the Thrawn+Ezra group in the first place), and they have to deal with the grysks and likely a large amount of very very very bad problems that have occurred since Eli and Un’hee left. This (in additional to whatever amount of time it took for the two groups to meet in the first place, which itself could be like, a whole year) takes up the 4-5 years between Death Star and Rebels epilogue/Ahsoka show. Explaining why Ezra hadn’t come back yet by the epilogue time, because he’s busy fighting the grysks and helping the skywalkers and etc.

#star wars #star wars rebels #swr #sw rebels #ahsoka show #ezra bridger #thrawn #thrawn trilogy #thrawn ascendancy #thrawn books #oenimo talks #I have been in preemptive mourning since the Ahsoka trailer dropped and now my time to remain delusional and ignorant has run out

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elizabeethan · 2 years

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Witness

After the worst night of his life, Killian goes into the Witness Protection program and moves to Maine until he can testify against the man who took everything from him. He had resigned himself to living a life of misery, pain, and heartbreak, but that all changed when he met Lily Quinn.

A/N: I finally finished this one!! It's not perfect by any means, but I'm honestly just patting myself on the back for completing it, at this point. It's not beta'ed and I probably haven't proofread it enough, so if you see any typos or notice any continuity errors, no you didn't.

Also, this is the 50th, yes FIFTIETH, Captain Swan fic that I've posted on Ao3. There isn't much I can say about that other than thank you to everyone in this incredible fandom who has encouraged me to explore writing and discover how much I love it. Thank you especially to @the-darkdragonfly and @donteattheappleshook for always being there for me in every capacity and for supporting me through thick and thin.

Rated E

15,630 words (oops)

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~~~~

The pain is unlike anything he’s ever felt before and is likely to ever feel again, lest he lose another appendage. It burns and stings and throbs and stabs all at once, and it drives him mad as he looks down and remembers that there’s nothing there. There’s no hand to be hurting him as he bites into his bottom lip and doubles over, holding his empty wrist in his one remaining hand. There's no reason for him to be feeling this way, and yet he feels as though he’s lost the hand all over again.

He doesn’t remember what it felt like to lose it in the first place, but it must have been something like this. Leaning over his ledgers upon his pathetically small desk, he tries to remind himself that there’s nothing there anymore. He shouldn’t be hurting like this, not now that it’s gone. He tells himself to get over it, snap out of it, he’s being foolish. He lets out a pained gasp as he puts his stubbed arm on the surface of the desk and picks up a pen, staring down at the empty space where his hand should be before taking a breath and sending the pen forcefully through the air, into the grainy wood, missing the hand that he lost months ago.

The burning subsides when he does this, as if him telling his mind that it isn’t there, that it doesn’t matter anymore, isn’t enough; as if he has to see it for himself to believe his own thoughts. It happens frequently– frequently enough for him to consider himself crazy on a several-times-weekly basis. He’s just lucky that he doesn’t share this cramped office with anyone, that he’s usually left alone to do his work in peace, just the way he likes it. He’s lucky that he lives alone, that he has no one to watch him go through the lunacy of feeling pain in a hand that doesn’t exist. He’s lucky that he’s always alone. He’s lucky to have lost everything and everyone, because at least he doesn’t have to force someone he loves to live through this with him.

At least, that’s what he tells himself as he pulls the pen from the shallow hole he punched into the wood and returns it to the cup where it belongs.

~~~~

He’s making an effort not to become the town drunk.

His father was the town drunk, and he’s always hated his father.

So when he goes to the Rabbit Hole, he likes to keep it to once a week, maybe less. He likes to keep it to two drinks, maybe three. He likes to keep control over himself so that no one in this tiny place starts to see him as the town drunk. They already see him as the strange, handless recluse, and he doesn’t feel the need to move into town drunk-territory.

But when he walks into the Rabbit Hole that night, just a few months after his arrival, he considers changing his ways if only in response to seeing the stunning, glowing blonde behind the bar for the first time.

She truly is glowing. She emanates beauty and exudes perfection as she stands behind the bar, somehow catching the perfect lighting, her bare arms toned as she pours a beer flawlessly, her hair gleaming under the dim light fixture, her smile shimmering despite the darkness in the bar. She laughs at her patron, Leroy telling her a joke that Killian can almost certainly bet was not funny. She throws her head back and he nearly salivates at the sight of her bare neck. She turns from the grumpy old man and adds the pour to his tab and then she turns again, locking eyes directly with Killian before giving him the most beautiful, sexy, friendly smile he’s ever received.

“Welcome in,” she says, her voice like bells as it rings through the bar, cutting against the loud music and the even louder laughter from the party at the pool table. “What can I get you?”

He’s almost stunned silent, stupidly standing there with his mouth hung open like a trout until he gets his bearings, tugging on the sleeves of his gray knit sweater and shuffling towards the bar. Get it together, you old fool, he tells himself, cursing as he trips over his own feet but praising himself as the sight draws a soft giggle from the angel of a woman.

“Rum,” he says idiotically, and she raises a brow.

“Just rum, neat? On the rocks? Or a shot?”

He clears his throat. What will she think of him ordering just rum, neat? Or a shot? “Might as well throw in some Coke and ice, I suppose,” he chokes out, fighting through the awkwardness that he hasn’t felt since high school.

She laughs. It seems genuine, but she must treat all of her customers like this, right? “A rum and Coke then, coming right up. Do you like lime?”

“Yes,” he says, although he can’t really remember if he does or not. He pulls on his left sleeve as he sits down, far from Leroy. His elbow rests on the bartop, and if he had a hand, it would drop between himself and the surface he leans against. “Sure. Please.”

She works quickly, and he tries and tries not to look at the way her black tank top hugs her waist. He tries not to notice the way that there aren’t any lines along her back and he tries not to wonder whether she’s wearing a bra beneath it. He tries not to notice the way her jeans hug her hips and flare out just slightly, elongating her legs impossibly. Really, he really tries not to stare. Seriously.

“There you go,” she says with a bright smile. “Want to open a tab?”

He says nothing, dropping his bum arm and using the other to fish his wallet out of his back pocket, pulling out the credit card David gave him and handing it to her without a second thought. Normally, he wouldn’t open a tab. Opening a tab is something the town drunk would do– or at least running up the tab is. But how can he say no to the siren standing before him?

“Thanks,” she says, looking at the front of the card and smiling. Something about this smile is different; it’s softer, more genuine. “Peter. I like that name.”

“What, um–” he clears his throat, not before kicking himself beneath the bar. “Would you tell me your name?”

“It’s Lily,” she says pleasantly. “And it’s very nice to meet you.”

“Likewise.”

The exchange is taking a turn, he notices, the awkwardness growing between them because he should probably say something more. He should try to carry on the conversation, get to know her, let her get to know him. But he’s a fool, not used to interacting with anyone, never mind a beautiful woman, and she has other customers, so she smiles at him once more and walks towards Leroy, taking what’s left of his heart along with her.

~~~~

He returns to the bar the next night.

No one here knew his father, so he reasons that no one would assume his identity as a second generation alcoholic. He isn’t an alcoholic, not really. He would know if he was. He’s seen the signs, watched the way it murdered his father and his uncle and his brother. And he reasons, as he leaves his office the next night, that going to a bar two nights in a row does not an alcohol addiction make.

She’s here again; Lily. The fallen angel gracing this earth for reasons unclear to him. Her occupation at the Rabbit Hole is enigmatic because he’s certain that she could do anything she sets her mind to. He watches in awe as she mixes drinks and flawlessly pours beer and somehow operates the whole establishment, Ruby lilting through the restaurant and fancifully taking orders when the mood strikes.

He watches with as much normalcy as he can muster, not entirely used to the interactions that he’s been avoiding for the past seven months or so.

(Well, he says or so, but in reality, he knows exactly how long it’s been since he shut himself out from the rest of the world.)

(Seven months, two weeks, and three days since he fled Boston.)

Lily floats through the bar, smiling at her customers and, he thinks, smirking at him. She walks to her colleague, tucking her head against the other woman’s ear and whispering something he could never make out until the two of them erupt into a symphony of giggles. She glances over at him, her bottom lip caught between her pearly teeth, and Ruby whispers something back. He watches as her cheeks flush, the intoxicating pink spreading down her neck and across her chest. He watches for as long as he can before he recognizes how unsettling it is for him to be staring like this, wondering how much further down the warmth trails along her porcelain skin. She watches him staring, how could she not, and his heart begins to race as she slowly makes her way towards him. Honestly, she probably isn’t even moving that slowly, but the way that his blood is racing through his veins more quickly than ever makes the rest of the world feel like it’s moving in slow motion.

“Peter,” she greets with a wry smile, one perfect brow lifted towards her hairline as the other rests beautifully above her glowing emerald eyes. “Did I make your rum and Coke wrong?”

“Of course not,” he answers too quickly, then he clears his throat. “Sorry, I didn’t mean to stare.”

“I don’t mind being stared at,” she flirts, at least, he hopes she’s flirting. He thinks she must be if the way she leans against the bar closer to him than he’s seen her get to her other customers is any indication. He tugs on his left sleeve, the knit material stretching easily over his empty wrist. “At least, not by someone who looks like you.”

Flirting, he tells himself. Honestly, as a grown man of somewhere close to 40, he should probably know when a woman is flirting with him, and yet this woman in particular has his mind in knots. He can’t even help the smile that creeps slowly along his lips, and he can’t help but to notice the way that it makes her own grow.

“The drink you made is delicious,” he tells her, as if that matters. “You’re quite talented.”

She hums lightly, shrugging her toned shoulders and hopping onto the barstool beside him. He turns ever so slightly, hiding his blunted arm behind himself but refusing to pull any further from her than he has to. “Yeah, well… Have you been in town long?”

The change in subject, the sudden interest in his life, throws him for a loop, making it difficult for him to focus as if he wasn’t having trouble already. “Longer than you, I'd assume,” he answers ambiguously. It’s something David taught him. Unless someone knows exactly when he arrived, it’s a bad idea to give concrete answers, like I got here six months, one week, and two days ago.

“Well, I only got here about two weeks ago.”

“Much longer than that,” he says confidently, because in the grand scheme of things it hasn’t been long, but in comparison of weeks, it’s been plenty. Clearing his throat, he lies. “About a year.”

Her eyes narrow slightly, her smile still playful, and she nods. “Well, you seem to at least know more than me, right?” She presses closer to him, leans in and rests her elbow against the bar, and if she gets any closer, she might be able to see that he’s missing about a pound’s worth of his left arm. But he doesn’t pull away. With her voice low and sultry, with her fingers dancing almost imperceptibly along the collar of his shirt, she murmurs, “Maybe you can show me around.”

“Don't you, uh– don’t you have a bar to keep?”

“Eh,” she shrugs nonchalantly, seeming to make herself more comfortable at his side as she shifts. “Ruby agreed to close so that I can shoot my shot with the hot customer who keeps staring.”

He blushes. He hasn’t blushed in… he doesn’t know how long it’s been. His eyes widen and she smiles like she expected him to think he was being secretive as he watched her. She takes his hand, his right hand, the only one he has, and it’s like she knows that that’s the right side to choose. She tells him not to worry about his tab, the one rum and Coke on the house. She keeps his hand in hers and guides him behind her until they reach the door, and he realizes that this woman could be leading him to his death and he frankly wouldn’t care.

~~~~

He doesn’t go back to her place. She doesn’t come back to his.

They just… talk.

He hasn’t talked to someone– really talked to someone, someone who isn’t his bloody assigned Marshal– in six months. Six months, three weeks, and six days. He hasn’t had the pleasure of getting to know someone in far too long, longer than he can count, because he never really knew Milah. He hasn’t felt such a connection to another person in all the time he can recall being alive. Perhaps he felt connected to his friend Rob in third grade, but this is different. Perhaps he felt connected to his brother before he died, but this is far different. Lily, Lily Quinn, is unlike anyone he’s ever met. She’s bold and brazen and she isn’t afraid to tell him exactly what’s on her mind at any given second.

I think you’re hot.

The sweater look is seriously a turn on.

I’m not really looking for a relationship right now, but I guess you can never say never.

She’s right. One can never say never, although he was pretty clear with himself after losing Milah that he’d never let himself fall for a woman like that again.

And yet, here he is, standing beside a woman several years younger than he is, buying her ice cream, hoping she doesn’t notice the way his left hand simply no longer exists, certain that he would fall for her if he let himself. It’s almost inevitable, and he realizes it as he watches her skip along the rock wall that lies sturdily between the sidewalk and the ocean waves, ice cream cone in hand, toes pointed out before her as she takes on the stance and confidence of a gymnast or a ballerina and then admits, I’ve never been very coordinated.

He feels it in his heart as she hops down with a grin, her steps light and her smile lighter, as if nothing has ever bothered her in her life. It’s intoxicating. He feels envious of her and yet he doesn’t have the painful feeling in his gut that usually accompanies jealousy. He isn’t jealous of her lightness, of her carefree nature; he’s happy for her.

He’s known this woman merely a day and he’s falling for her.

So when she lets him walk her to the entrance of her apartment building, tells him goodnight and that she doesn’t normally kiss on the first date, he grins. Was this a date? he wonders to himself, and all he can do is hope endlessly that it was.

She doesnt give him her phone number, but she tells him that she’ll see him soon. She says it with confidence, with a certainty that she’ll see him at the bar soon enough, and he can’t help but match her smile. Well, match is a stretch, because her’s is glowing and perfect and his is pained and broken, but it isn’t forced tonight like it usually is, and for that, he’s grateful.

~~~~

He still struggles to find the perfect word to describe her. Sometimes he thinks it’s effortless, sometimes he thinks it’s perfect, sometimes he thinks it’s formidable, but nothing seems exactly right. He knows there must be one word, one phrase he can use to describe the essence of this woman, but as he stares dreamily at her as she works, he can’t think of it.

She smiles at him like she always does, pours him another drink, tells him he looks handsome in his slate colored sweater, and he blushes again. He couldn’t think of the last time he blushed before he met her, and now, he’s been blushing nonstop for the past three weeks of knowing her.

“You know,” she says one evening when the room is quiet, almost empty, pressing up onto her toes so that she can get closer to him although there’s a bar between them, “I don’t know if I got everything I should have out of our tour.”

“That was weeks ago,” he points out. “I think the period for complaints has expired.”

She laughs, throwing her head back and letting him see the cords of her neck as they stretch. “You’re funny,” she says easily. “I mean, shouldn’t you have brought me to all the local spots? I heard there’s a diner I’m seriously missing out on and you just took me to the ice cream shop.”

“Well, ice cream shops are open much later than most diners.”

“Ruby says it moonlights as a restaurant at night.”

“She would know,” he agrees. “Her granny is Granny.”

She gasps, and he thinks it's sarcastic. “The Granny?”

He smiles. It’s genuine, real, honest. He can’t think of anything else to say.

“Maybe we can try it some time,” she offers after a beat, picking up her rag and wiping at the bar’s surface in front of him. He moves his elbow carefully, desperate to hide his shame from her like he always is, wondering if she’s noticed the strange way he shields his left arm.

“Are you… I mean, are you staying in town long, then?”

She’s quiet for a moment, for the first time since he’s known her appearing unsure of what to say. She looks down at the wooden surface between them and drops her hand towards his, her long fingers playing at the knit fabric that nearly covers his fingers until she tickles the hair on his knuckles. “My plan was to stay as long as I needed to.”

“How long will you need to?”

She shrugs. “I’m not sure. I’ll stay until I find what I’m looking for.”

“And what’s that?”

She smiles, still looking down at his hand and becoming more bold as she lifts one of his fingers and tucks her own beneath it. “You couldn't handle it,” she dares, looking at him with a playful smirk, and he can’t help but to return it.

“Perhaps not.”

“What are you looking for?”

He can’t answer, because he doesn’t quite know. He racks his brain, wondering what will happen to him once he gives his testimony and can go on with his real life without the fear of being hunted or the unease of a US Marshal breathing down his back. He wonders what he’ll want when this is all over, wonders if he’ll want something out of his life other than for it to finally end.

“Home,” he tells her after the silence between them has grown cold, and he watches as the look on her face shifts from one of playful indifference and almost discomfort into something that he struggles to read. It’s something like disbelief, her mouth falling open slightly and her hold on his one remaining hand falling weak as she stares into his eyes and into his blackened soul.

She lets go of his hand completely, letting it fall against the countertop and moving towards the entrance of the bar, exiting her post as she often tells him she’ll never, ever do. She sidles up beside him, one hand landing softly on his cheek and the other resting against his thigh just above his knee. “Home?” she asks in a whisper, her’s softer than his, voice almost imperceptible over the sounds of the nearly empty bar.

“Aye,” he chokes out. “I’m not really sure… what that means. But… aye.”

“I want that, too,” she tells him as if it’s a secret, and a part of him realizes that something between them has shifted. This is an admittance, a secret she’s hardly told anyone, and as she moves in close to him and finally, finally captures his lips between her own, he feels nothing but gratitude and a realization that she’s truly letting him in.

The gratitude mixes quickly with a tightness in the pit of his stomach, her tongue lightly tracing the seam of his lips until he opens them slightly, allowing her entrance and a pass to explore as she wishes, and the gratitude grows. He breathes her in, inhaling the scent of her as it mixes with the scent of him and feeling the gratefulness growing along with that tightening in his stomach. He hears a soft whimper escaping the back of her throat, barely breaking past her lips before crashing against his own. The hand on his knee slides upwards to his thigh, squeezing his flesh beneath his jeans as her other hand slides into the hair at the back of his neck.

He struggles to think of a time where he wished for his hand back more than he wishes for it now, wanting nothing but to feel her beneath both of his palms, but one will have to do as he finds her hip and pulls her close, lets her find her spot between his knees and push her hips against his own. He leaves his empty arm by his side, content to ignore the desires in hopes of avoiding her finding out the truth. Well, this truth.

But she’s insatiable, wanton, needy as she tries to get closer, as she climbs up onto the stool precariously to straddle his thighs, as she sends a bolt of fear through him when she almost falls off, and he can’t help but to grab her, or try to and fail. He grabs one hip, has a good hold on her, but it’s not enough to distract her from the way that her other hip is secured by an empty wrist, and he knows by the way she freezes in his arms that she knows.

She whispers the name he gave her against his lips; he notes the way the word feels against his skin. He likes the way it feels when she says it, but he wonders if he’ll ever feel the truth falling from her lips. To his surprise, he feels her smile against his mouth and he pulls away, although he can’t seem to open his eyes.

“It’s okay,” she whispers. She holds his face in both of her hands and he feels envy. “Are you embarrassed?”

He nods without thinking, his forehead fused to hers and the tip of his nose running along the bridge of her own.

“You don’t have to be,” she whispers. “I already knew.”

“What?” he asks, looking up from her and meeting her deep emerald eyes.

Her smile is soft and kind and gentle. “I mean… yeah. It’s been weeks, and I'm good at noticing stuff.”

“You’ve known for weeks?”

“Since the first night.”

“And you didn’t… It wasn’t…?”

“No,” she whispers, her smile bright and understanding and somehow unchanged. “You're still hot as hell.”

He laughs, because what else is he supposed to do? He hasn’t thought of himself as attractive, not even remotely, since that day eight months and two days ago. But here she is, telling him he’s hot as hell even though she’s known since the first time they met that he only has one hand.

“How’d it happen?” she asks, lightly touching his forearm but not getting any closer to the scarred, angry skin just below, either because of his fear or her own.

He startles slightly. David told him he can’t tell anyone anything about that night, the night he lost his hand, so he shrugs as nonchalantly as he can. “Boating accident,” he tells her. They were at a marina, afterall; perhaps it’s not entirely a lie.

“Well, I’m sorry that happened. But it doesn't change anything.”

His nose is still pressed to hers and he doesn’t even think before nuzzling it against her own and making her grin, her giggle playful. “Thank you,” he whispers genuinely. “It’s taken a long time to get used to it– I'm still not used to it.”

He thinks of the pain. The way that it always hurts, always. He thinks of earlier when he put another small, shallow hole in his desk with the first pen he could find. He thinks of the way it isn’t there, and yet he’s somehow always reminded. He’ll never be used to it.

~~~~

It’s been two weeks, and he hasn’t gotten used to the way that it feels to kiss her. He can never get used to the way her lips slide against his, the way her fingers slip through his hair, nails scratching against his scalp. He’ll never get used to the way her thighs squeeze around his hips once they finally find privacy, the way her hand grabs his and pulls him until they find sanctuary in the women’s restroom. He won’t ever grow tired of the way she moans his name– the fake one– and grinds her hips against his and clings against him as if she can’t get enough. And he won't ever, ever get used to the way she holds tightly against his blunted forearm as she tells him how attractive she finds him.

She giggles when he boldly thrusts, just a bit, letting her get a taste of what she does to him when they’re like this. Ensuring that she knows the effect she has on him when she moans out a name that isn’t his and bites into the soft flesh of his collarbone just below his shirt.

“You know,” she starts, panting as she digs her fingers into his shoulder blades. It isn’t exactly easy to be in this position– to hold her up against the sink but also ensure that she’s pressed firmly to him– but it’s worth it. “One of these days I might let you beneath my jeans.”

He smirks against her, kissing her again and squeezing his palm against the plump flesh of her ass beneath the denim. “Is that so?”

“Maybe.”

“And what will I have to do to earn such a privilege?”

She hums and giggles all at once, shrugging and capturing him in another kiss, effectively silencing him. “I’ll know when I know.”

He laughs. It’s a real laugh. But his arm gets tired, what with him being unable to hold her with one of them, so he rests her weight on the porcelain sink for a moment. It was only a moment, honest, but that doesn’t seem to matter. Apparently, two weeks of making out against a free-standing sink puts a great burden on its structural integrity, and almost immediately as he puts her down, the porcelain shatters beneath her, splintering under her weight and sending her towards the floor.

“Fuck!” he shouts, trying to catch her and hoping that her frightened shouts don’t draw any attention from the other customers. The destruction of the sink stems from the basin and into the pipes, the breakage sending water at each of them and they’re soaked through faster than they can even comprehend.

At first he’s worried, trying to pull her out of the way and block the spraying pipes, but then her laughter rings louder than the forceful sound of the water and he can’t help but to look up at her with a smile.

“Look at you,” she laughs, her hair curling with moisture and the skin beneath her eyes blackening with her running makeup.

“Look at you!” he laughs back, shaking out his hand and standing by her side. “You look frazzled. Beautiful, but frazzled.”

“I’m gonna have to call someone about this,” she says lightly, as if it’s the furthest thing from her mind. “But thanks.”

“For breaking your sink?”

“For giving me an excuse to leave early,” she says, pulling him close to her once again, pressing onto her toes so she can press a soft kiss to his lips. “I’m gonna have to go home and change. Apparently I’m frazzled.”

“Aye,” he says softly. “As am I, I'm sure.”

“You could always come back to my place. I have an energy efficient dryer.”

“And what will I wear in the meantime?”

With a shrug, she tells him, “I’m not sure I’m overly concerned with what you’re wearing. Or what you’re not wearing.”

“Bloody hell,” he murmurs, not thinking before he wraps his right arm around her waist and pulls her close. “You’re…” He still can’t find the right word. Enigmatic?

“Horny.”

“Aye?” he whispers.

“Yes. I want you.”

She never hesitates to tell him exactly what she’s feeling and exactly what she’s thinking and exactly what she wants. It’s why he finds it so easy to believe her. Why wouldn’t he believe her?

~~~~

Her apartment is small, and he doesn’t even feel strange when he chooses the word cute to describe it in his mind. It’s nicely decorated, although somewhat bleak, as if she hasn’t had the time to move in since she’s moved in. The space itself is quaint, aged in the best way, and the boxes stacked in the corner of her living room give it character.

He isn’t able to see much else, though, the rest of the apartment turning to a blur as she pushes him against the wall by the front door and ravages him with her mouth and hands, lifting a leg to hitch over his hip and grinding against him with as much coordination as she can muster.

She must be something of an athlete, he thinks as she maneuvers around him, contorts herself so that she’s as close to him as possible. How else would she be able to maintain a position like this if she wasn’t used to working on gaining strength and stamina?

He backs her up suddenly, her back against the wall now, his hips planted firmly against hers, and she hisses. “Fuck,” she chokes out, her head falling back against the wall when he mouth latches to her neck. “Fuck, yes.”

“This is what you want?” he asks with more bold enthusiasm than he was expecting from himself.

“Yes, don’t stop doing that.”

She’s panting, her breath warm as it washes over his head, and it makes him more wanton. He shifts downward slightly, his mouth finding the top of her breast and sliding along her skin until he reaches the fabric of her tank top. With further exploration, he discovers that he must have been right that second night when he assumed she wasn’t wearing a bra, because she isn’t wearing one now.

“Minx,” he bites out, pulling on the ribbed black fabric to expose more of her breast. “Do you always go braless to work?”

“You’ve gotta flaunt what you’ve got in my line of work,” she explains breathlessly, and he bites the soft flesh just above her hardened nipple.

“Suppose someone should see this one day,” he proposes, licking against the pebbled flesh and drawing a surprised gasp from her, “poking through your top. Is that merely a ploy for more tips?”

“Maybe,” she breathes. “Maybe it’s a cry for attention.”

“From Leroy?”

“From you, you idiot.”

He silences her when he pulls her hardened nipple between his lips, sucking just hard enough to drag a moan from her throat. It’s then that he realizes that he’s on her left side, and normally, were sex truly like riding a bicycle, he would reach for her other breast. Only he doesn’t have a left hand anymore, so how is he supposed to squeeze her right breast? This thought gives him pause, just long enough for her to notice and to take his face in her hands.

“Do you want me?” she asks him, the question surprising.

“Can you not tell how badly I want you, love?” he asks, his hips firm against hers, his cock hard in response to her. He thrusts against her gently, watches her eyes fall shut and a soft moan escape her lips. “Shall I show you?”

She nods with enthusiasm, her chin bumping lightly against the top of his head, and he works hard to hold her tightly with his blunted arm so that he can squeeze her left thigh in his remaining hand. He slides it up, able to feel the soft fabric of her tight leggings and the contours of the muscles she has hidden underneath, and he’s jealous of his right hand for the loss of his left as he feels the roundness of her ass against his skin.

“Fuck,” she whispers again. “You’re so fucking hot.”

It’s not something he’s used to hearing. In fact, he isn’t sure anyone has ever called him that before– hot. Before Lily was Milah, and before Milah was a slew of unimportant women who warmed his bed. He lived his life that way for years, since losing his whole family one after another started to become too much. But then with Milah– after Milah– it became… not enough.

Maybe that was backwards. Maybe the loss of his family should have been more traumatic than the loss of a woman he almost loved along with his hand. Maybe it just goes to show how broken he truly is.

But here, and now, with Lily in his arms and her back against the wall and her hips grinding into his, he realizes that he isn’t as broken as he thought he was. Well, maybe that isn’t true– he’s certainly still broken. But maybe he can heal.

His hand, or what’s left on the end of his wrist, is healing. The doctor says it’s healing nicely. But he’s gone through the last eight months, two weeks, and three days assuming that his brain and his mind and his thoughts would never be more than the fragments of his shattered life.

How Lily calling him hot can change his mind, he isn’t sure, but it drives him forward, convinces him to allow her access to his belt, and then to his button and then to his zipper. It drives him to the waist of her damp leggings, soaked through with water from that blasted sink. It drives him to suck a small mark into her collarbone, eliciting a desperate gasp from her as he tugs at the stubborn fabric until it’s resting at her knees.

His fingers find her hot and wet and waiting for him, and he looks her in the eyes and is met with her quick nod, her bottom lip captured tightly between her teeth. Her head falls back against the door when he touches her, her jaw falling slack and making it impossible for him to stop himself from attaching his lips to her soft, pinkening skin on her neck.

It’s difficult to hold her up and continue to trace intricate patterns over her clit. It’s harder, still, to keep her pressed against him and suspended from the floor while he slips a finger, then a second, into her core. But as she grows closer and closer to that precipice, as he drags her to the cliff and holds her close as he encourages her towards the edge, he can ignore the cramp in his arm and the tightness in his back.

She calls him Peter when she comes. He wouldn’t expect anything else, but it makes him long for the truth. It makes him want to be his true self with her, and he hasn't wanted to be that in a very, very long time.

He carries her through her half-empty apartment as she catches her breath, her arms around his back tight, her fingers clinging sharply to the sweater he longs to take off. When he drops her onto her mattress, her eyes are hooded as she stares up at him. She reaches for him, seeming unhappy with being apart, and the thought makes him fight off a smile. Once she has her hands on him she finds the hem of his sweater, the one he doesn’t particularly like, the one that reminds him that he’s Peter and not Killian, and pulls it over his head.

They’re breathless when they come together. Finally tucking himself inside her is a feeling unlike anything he’s ever experienced or is likely to again. He thought he was beyond any sort of happiness, and having her beneath him is perfection. It’s overwhelming to realize that he’s here with her and it makes his breathing stutter as he drives into her with more force. The change of pace makes her cry out, her knees tight around his hips, and he can feel her squeezing him as she reaches that precipice again. The warm tightness makes him squeeze his eyes shut until her hand finds its way to his cheek, encouraging him to open them, and when he does, it’s like something shifts.

He’s loved Lily since the first time he saw her. But now, as their eyes meet and they climax together, he knows he’ll never be the same. And he knows he can’t lose her.

~~~~

Her head is heavy on his chest, the weight of it comforting against his heart as her even breath washes over the coarse dark hair that she can't seem to keep her fingers out of, even in sleep. He hears her hum softly, her fingers moving just slightly as she seems to drift into consciousness. She nuzzles her cheek against his chest and he feels a soft pressure as if she’s smiling against him. It makes him smile, too.

As she starts to stir, she tightens her grip on him, her arm sliding along his chest and hugging him close to herself, and everything is almost perfect until she stiffens. Following a low, deep rumble, she gasps, tensing above him and looking up at him with the widest eyes he’s ever seen. “Excuse me,” she says in embarrassment.

“Did you just belch?”

Her cheeks are set aflame, her teeth digging into her bottom lip as she fights back a laugh and nods. “Sorry.”

“You’re insane.”

“Well you just slept with me, so what does that make you?”

“Also insane,” he agrees with a laugh. Without hardly thinking about it, he finds himself grinning, rolling her until she’s on her back and he can cage her between his arms, the marred one hidden beneath the pillow under her head. She laughs brightly as she stares up into his eyes and he feels his heart racing. “Sleep well?”

“Mhmm,” she hums. She lifts a hand and lets it cup his cheek, her thumb tracing the small scar that he thought was unsightly until he lost his hand. “You?”

“Mhmm. It’s, um… it’s been a bit.”

“Since the last time you were with someone?”

“Aye,” he whispers.

“Me too,” she whispers back, giving him a soft comforting smile. “My last boyfriend turned out to be a major creep.”

“I’m sorry,” he tells her. He rolls onto his side and she follows, staring at him in a way that he isn’t used to. “You deserve better than that.”

“So do you.”

He finds it hard to answer. He isn’t sure that’s true, considering everything, so he says, “Well, my last girlfriend turned out to be married.” And then murdered.

“Yikes,” she cringes, shaking her head. He catches the way her eyes drift off beyond him, her thoughts consuming her for a moment, before she asks, “Was it before… before your hand?”

Of course it was. The last time he was with Milah was just before she told him the truth, about her husband, about his treatment of her, about the way that she was prepared to go back to the monster of a man. It was just hours before the last time he saw her alive. Just hours before he saw the life drain from her eyes and felt the blood draining from his wrist.

“Yes,” he chokes out, plagued by the memories of a woman who never really loved him but died for him anyway.

She touches his forearm again, the one that he thinks he’s done a pretty good job of hiding from her, and squeezes in a way that’s more comforting than he was expecting. His scars are healing, no longer raw or burning or swollen, the stitches long gone, but it’s still the ugliest part of him and having her hand just above the unsightly wound makes him shiver. Her eyes meet his, gleaming in the morning sunlight and reminding him of a shard of sea glass as she stares so deeply at him that he thinks she must be seeing his soul. He wonders what she finds there– wonders if it’s actually his soul, or if it belongs to Peter Harrison, the man she believes him to be.

Without saying a word, without her eyes leaving his, she takes his wrist towards herself, her lips still just slightly swollen as she presses them against his tender, broken skin. She gives him a smile, her thumb gently running along one of his longer scars, and kisses him once more, causing a chill to run down his spine.

“Are you okay?” she asks in a whisper, and the question, he thinks, goes deeper than just to inquire about his hand.

“I think so,” he answers honestly, just as softly as she had asked her question, and his response makes her smile.

“I just… obviously I haven’t been in your shoes. But I know this is probably a lot for you to process.” David had said that once, that it’ll be a lot to process. It is; the loss of his hand is only one piece of the puzzle that, when put together, will tell the story of his suffering. His hand being obliterated to the point it could not be saved is only one of the things that haunts him. The horror of watching a woman he could have loved being strangled, watching her take her last breath, will never leave him.

He thinks of that night too often, recalling the way that horrible man destroyed every part of him as he took his shots, missing the one he shouldn’t have. Had he not struck Killian two inches too far to the left, perhaps he would have reached his goal of killing him. Perhaps, in that case, Killian would have been put out of his misery and he never would have had to become Peter Harrison.

But he doesn’t want to die anymore, at least, he doesn’t think so. With Lily’s fingers sliding along his chest, he thinks he’ll allow himself to live for a bit longer.

“What’s this?” she asks after a consuming silence forces its way between them. When he comes back to himself, forcing away the thoughts of pain and suffering, he notes the way her fingers slide along his skin until they find the scar on his back, the one from the bullet that almost missed him and almost killed him, too far to the left to have done any damage. Her fingers circle the small wound that’s all but healed and he shivers again.

“A scar,” he answers simply, his voice rough and deep and forced.

“From what?”

He’s silent. He can’t answer, because for whatever reason, he gets the impression that she already knows. Even if he was allowed to tell her the truth, to tell her that his name isn’t Peter and that his life is in danger but that he doesn't truly care, he knows he wouldn’t, because he couldn’t stand to see the look on her face if he were to tell her what truly happened.

So he rolls her over and he kisses her again, and he keeps kissing her until she’s consumed by him as he always is by her, and she seems to forget that she asked in the first place.

~~~~

He’s unsure of what to do.

There’s nothing he really can do, truthfully. For a moment he wondered if physical therapy would help, but then he recalled that there’s nothing there for a physical therapist to work on.

All he can do is suffer.

The pain is as agonizing as it is disorienting. How can he look at a hand that isn’t there and feel such pain within it? All he can think about as he sits at his too-small desk in his too-small office is recall the feeling of Gold’s bullet penetrating his skin and muscle and bone, shattering it until it was of no use to him.

And now there’s nothing there to treat, so all he can do is dig his remaining fingers into the wood of his desk and start digging through his drawer for a pen that he hasn’t broken yet.

“Good morning!” he hears as he grips the pen in his fist, the door swinging open and revealing his panting, sweating, cursing form to the most beautiful woman he’s ever seen. “Peter?”

He grunts as he forces the pen out of his fist, dropping it to the floor and trying and failing to drag in some oxygen. He can’t speak to her, his jaw is clenched too tightly. He hears her hurrying into his office, something dropping onto the desk and something else dropping onto the floor as she kneels before him and takes his fist in her hand.

“What’s wrong?” she asks in worry, her thumb running along his knuckles, and it would be comforting if this was the hand paining him. “Peter,” she says more soothingly, voice soft and angelic, and she stands between his knees and takes his face between her hands, pressing his forehead to hers. “Peter, just breathe. It’s okay,” she whispers onto his mouth.

He tries, he really does. The breath he takes in is short and forceful, the sound escaping him embarrassing. “Deep breaths,” she instructs gently, her fingers scratching against his scalp. She shushes him and the sound penetrates his thoughts and his agony until he’s able to breathe deeply enough to smell her intoxicating perfume. “That’s it,” she encourages. “It’s okay.”

The pain is still there, but it’s lessened somehow, and he didn’t need to thrust a pen into his desk to achieve the same results. “I’m sorry,” he finally forces out when he feels himself able to speak again.

“Don’t apologize,” she whispers, and then before he can think or even open his eyes, her soft, pliant lips are pressed to his and his thoughts are erased at last. She stays there for only a moment, not long enough before she pulls away and runs the perfect tip of her nose along the bridge of his. “What happened?”

He shakes his head. He can’t possibly burden her with this foolishness, so he keeps quiet and lets his hand hold onto her wrist as her own fingers continue their ministrations along his scalp. “Nothing,” he murmurs, and she feels her breath escaping her lips in a soft laugh that lands against his mouth.

“That wasn’t nothing, Peter,” she accuses. The more she hears that names fall from her lips, the more he longs to correct her, and it’s becoming almost as agonizing as his hand that no longer exists. “Is it… I mean, I’ve heard before that sometimes amputations can–”

“Aye,” he interrupts. She’s right, of course, but he’d rather not put it to words. He much prefers to ignore it. “You’re right, love. I’m sorry that I ruined your visit– I wasn’t expecting you.”

She seems to read him easily, pulling away and smiling as she stands up straight. “I was surprising you,” she tells him with a smile. “The point is that you didn’t expect me. I brought you coffee.”

“Well, thank you,” he says, forcing a smile. “I’m sure I needed this.”

“Peter,” she says, more serious suddenly, and his face falls at the sound of her voice wrapping around a name that isn’t his.

“I’m alright, Lily,” he says, trying to reassure her, although her face falls the same way he’s sure he did. “What is it?” he asks, placing the paper mug on his desk and taking her hand in his.

“Nothing,” she smiles, and it makes him think of himself, telling her the exact same thing. “Just… I found out I’m not actually on the schedule for today when I thought I was so I figured I'd pay you a visit. I, um– I missed you,” she admits more shyly, and it makes him smile.

“Well, I missed you, too, love,” he smiles back. How is it possible for him to be smiling when he was halfway to wishing for death just moments ago? “I’m glad you paid me a visit; I'm just sorry you had to… to see that.”

“I told you not to apologize,” she reminds him, leaning forward and pressing her lips to his in a tender kiss that makes his heart stutter behind his ribs. She leans away and hoists herself onto his tattered desk, able to ignore the tiny holes that little the surface and crossing her ankles as she smiles at him and reaches for the bag from Granny’s. “I also got you a bearclaw.”

“Oh dear,” he says, shaking his head at her playfully. “I’m afraid I'm much more of a donut person.”

Lily takes in a deep breath and lets it out with a sigh, shaking her own head and then rolling her eyes. “Okay,” she says with a nod. “Well, Peter, it was nice while it lasted, but we’re going to have to break up now,” she teases as she hops to the floor and starts to step away. He catches her, though, his hand reaching into the back pocket of her tight jeans and tugging her towards him until she falls into his lap with a ringing laugh.

His lips find her neck, and he finds himself much more playful than he’s ever been after having one of his episodes of pain and self-hatred. “How can we be broken up,” he murmurs against the shell of her ear, smirking when he feels her shudder, “when we never established a relationship in the first place?”

He isn’t sure what makes him ask– he’s never been so bold or straightforward, not even with Milah. But her answer makes his boldness worth it. “I thought you knew that you’re stuck with me,” she says, her tone joking and yet somehow completely serious.

“My, my. Lily Quinn, are you asking me out?”

She stills for a second before turning to face him and nodding. “I suppose so.”

Their lips meet, and everything else in the room disappears. Every hardship he’s ever experienced melts into the background as she kisses him, her mouth soft and perfect and her tongue tracing along his own in a way that makes his spine tingle. He can do nothing but pull her closer once she’s maneuvered herself into his lap, her legs straddling his and her fingers finding their way into his hair again.

“Are you busy?” she asks against his mouth breathlessly.

“Yes,” he breathes back, suddenly consumed with need as he picks her up with some difficulty and deposits her on the desk. “With you.”

She lets out a breathless laugh, the sound cut off by her gasp when he kisses her. Their actions are quick and hasty, their need for each other only mildly outweighed by their need not to be caught. Neither of them bother with their shirts, Lily reaching for his belt and loosening it just enough so that she can undo his trousers and watch them fall to the floor. He steps out of them, though perhaps he shouldn’t. He lets her pull his boxers down, though, and he steps out of those, too.

He finds the jeans she wears intoxicating. He loves when she wears them to work almost as much as he loves when she goes to the bar without a bra, but there’s no time to explore the soft skin of her breasts today. Instead, he pushes her jeans off of her ass and squeezes the flesh there with his one remaining hand, the other arm resting at his side and desperate to feel her with his lost fingers. Her tongue finds its way into his mouth as he slides her underwear down, too, the garments landing on the floor beside his own trousers.

She gasps when he enters her after just a moment of foreplay, his fingers quickly ensuring that she’s ready for him before his cock slides home inside her. She bites his lip, her fingers clinging to the material of the gray knit on his shoulders. “Fuck,” she breathes into his mouth, a moan escaping her throat.

“Okay?” he asks.

She nods rapidly, desperately, her hips starting to move and bounce above him, seeking the pressure and the friction that’ll get her to ecstasy. “Harder,” she begs almost silently, and he grips her hips to thrust forcefully up into her, making her cry out too loudly.

They both come quickly, their mouths latching together to ensure that they’re silent enough not to get caught by his coworkers. And he holds her, feels her breath panting out against his hot skin, and even though the life he’s presented to her is technically a lie, he’s never felt more like the person he wants to be.

~~~~

“There’s someone new in town,” she says after a while, her breathing having evened out although her fingers continue to draw small patterns into the skin of his collarbone along the neckline of his shirt.

“Is there?”

“Yeah. I think he’s from Boston, too; do you know him?”

He kisses her temple over the hair clinging to her skin and chuckles. “I’m afraid I don’t know everyone from Boston, love.”

“I think his name is Ian, or something.”

His hand slips along her back beneath her top, although he slows his movements slightly at her continued inquiry. “You’re rather distracted by this newcomer,” he points out, and she shrugs. With a joking tone, he asks, “Should I be jealous?”

“No,” she giggles without a second thought before she presses a kiss to his neck and then drops her head back down to his chest. “No,” she says again with more relaxation. “I’m just curious.”

“I know,” he murmurs against her head. “You are quite a curious lass.”

“Are you calling me a lass because of how much younger I am than you?” she asks in jest, and he moves his hand so that he can pinch her hip, making her giggle again.

He would answer with as much a joking tone as she had given him, but they’re interrupted, the ringing of his phone distracting him from the softness of her skin against his and reminding him that she lies half naked atop him, her jeans lying beside his on the floor of his office, which anyone can enter at any time. He kisses her once more, moving carefully so that he doesn’t disturb her too much as he reaches for his phone in his pants pocket.

“Is it your other girlfriend?” she asks, and he swats her ass playfully, making her yelp and laugh.

It’s not, of course. It’s David– the last person he wants to talk to with Lily resting pantsless on his lap. “A friend,” he explains with unease.

She removes herself from him, reaching for the box of tissues on his desk and giving him a look that invites him to swipe the screen to answer. “David,” he says tightly, hoping that his tone gives away the fact that it’s a horrible time for him to be calling.

“Killian,” he answers too loudly, but Lily doesn’t seem to notice. “How are things?”

“Fine.”

He watches as she struts back towards him, her underwear back on but her jeans still sitting on the floor, and she stops to pick up his boxers and toss them at him. “Good,” David says as he struggles to keep the phone tucked against his shoulder while tugging his boxers back over his legs. She giggles and bites into her bottom lip as she watches, walking around to the back of his desk chair and placing her hands on his shoulders, holding his phone against his ear for him. “I’m probably going to pay you a visit.”

“That’s no problem,” he answers, although he clears his throat loudly when she bends towards him, her lips dancing along the shell of his ear that isn’t being burned by his Marshal’s interruptions. “When?”

“Tomorrow, if not Wednesday.”

“Fine,” he says with a cough and a sigh.

“Killian, Are you alright?” he asks, and how is he supposed to correct the man on the other line when her mouth trails down his neck and her hands start to scratch through the hair on his chest? “You sound… strange.”

He clears his throat once more, leaning his head against hers and sighing. “I’ve got to go,” he says with more urgency. “I suppose I'll see you tomorrow or Wednesday.”

“Alright, just tell me to bring a pepperoni pizza if you’re in danger right now.”

Bloody hell. “No, that won’t be necessary. I’ve plenty of food at home. See you soon, Dave.”

He hears her giggle in his ear before he even drops the phone to his lap, and he spins in his chair so that he faces her, pulling her back down into his lap and pinching her hip once more. “You’re a scoundrel.”

“Mhmm,” she agrees happily, leaning in to kiss him earnestly. “Are you expecting a visit?”

He shrugs. “I suppose I am.”

“From a friend?”

“An old friend, uh, from school. Certainly not a girlfriend.”

She hums and kisses him once more. “Good. And do I get to meet this friend?”

He gulps. He doesn’t really know the answer to that, isn’t familiar with the ins and outs of a witness’s new girlfriend meeting their court appointed Marshal. So he shrugs and says, “I’m not really sure. Dave is, well, he’s quite shy.”

“But I'm such a catch,” she jokes, pressing a kiss to his nose before standing.

“Yes, you are,” he answers with a solid pinch to her bum as she makes her way to her jeans.

Once they’re pulled onto her long legs she stands straight before him, picking up her bag and slinging it over her shoulder. “I’m off,” she says. “I need to go grocery shopping.”

“Just a visit for a quickie, then?” he jokes, and she rolls her eyes.

“I guess so. But maybe I’ll stop by your place tonight.” She shoots him a smirk as she walks towards the door and he realizes that he’s still not wearing pants. She winks and walks out the door without so much as another word.

~~~~

It’s raining when he walks home that night. The roads are slick and although it’s not too cold out, he longs for a leather jacket to keep the moisture from soaking into his back.

He hasn’t felt like himself since he’s gotten here, forced to change everything about himself from his name to the way he used to like to dress. He’s not himself anymore, in fact; the Killian Jones he used to know had two hands and less to worry about.

But if there’s one thing that makes him feel like himself, or at least a version of himself who he can stand, it’s Lily.

She’s bright, and contagiously happy, and hilarious. She’s youthful and energetic, beautiful and intelligent. He can’t get enough of her. He can’t get her out of his head. He had thoughts of hatred for himself when he moved here, and she’s begun to chop away at them all, because if she can stand to be around him, hell, if she can enjoy her time with him, maybe he’s not that bad after all.

He loves her. He’s only known her a few months, but it’s been more than enough time for him to fall madly in love with Lily Quinn.

He’s confused when he sees her on his way home, though. She had already texted him and told him that she wouldn’t make it over tonight because she found out last minute that she has to work. But here she is, well past the time her shift should have started, sitting in her Bug and staring contemplatively out the window at the building across the street.

“Lily,” he says through the open passenger window, and she jumps a mile in her seat and looks at him in complete shock, as if seeing him is the last thing she would have expected. “What… Are you okay?”

“Peter,” she says back, placing her hand on her heart that he assumes must be beating erratically. “You startled me.”

“Sorry,” he tells her, and he watches her unlock the door and takes it as an invitation to join her in the passenger’s seat. “I thought you were working?”

She clears her throat, her eyes darting, looking at everything in her line of sight except for him. They both hear a sound, the front door of the building she’s watching opening, and she jumps again. He looks ahead at the man leaving the building and feels a cold sweat settling over him as a pit forms in his stomach, realizing quickly that something isn’t right. Because even from this distance and even in the dim street lamps, he can tell clear as day that the man they’re both staring at is his old roommate from Boston. “Fuck,” she breathes, looking around again nervously this time and turning to her back seat.

That’s when he turns, too, taking in the contents of the box sitting on the floor behind her seat and noticing a jacket. A black leather jacket, useless now with a hole in the torso and a blood stain on the left sleeve.

That’s his jacket. The one he was wearing on the worst night of his life.

“Where did you get that?” he asks her slowly, and she looks like a rabid dog caught on a leash as she watches August jump into a truck and drive away, obviously wanting nothing more than to follow him. “Lily.”

“Fuck!” she says again, louder this time, her hand colliding with the steering wheel before she rests her head on it. “God dammit.”

“What the hell is going on?” he demands. As he watches her painfully grappling with what to do, with whether she should start her engine and follow the man she’s clearly been watching, the man who could have followed him from Boston and could be about to ruin everything, he feels something shattering. Suddenly everything starts to fall apart, the trust he had for her slipping through his fingers and the happiness he thought he felt seeming to melt away.

“I’m… I don’t know how to tell you,” she says, and when he looks at her with anger in his heart, he can see the way that she’s breaking, too. He has no idea what’s going on with her, with the two of them, but he finds it hard to believe that whatever is between them isn’t splitting at the seams. She sniffles and says, “I’m sorry.”

“Why are you sorry?” he asks with a bit more tenderness in his voice, finding it impossible to handle seeing tears starting to well in her eyes. “What’s going on? Why do you have my old jacket in your backseat? Why are you following August?”

“August?” she asks in confusion, shaking her head. “That’s not August, that’s the new guy from Boston; the guy I was asking you about earlier.”

“No, that’s–”

“Wait.”

“Lily–”

“Did you say–” Her face falls. Her mouth slacks open. Her eyes grow wide with fear and something else. She whispers into the dark, “Your jacket?”

“Aye, mine. I thought I’d lost it; it wasn’t with my personal effects when I left the hospital.”

Her hands cover her mouth, her eyes growing more tearful as she shakes her head. “No,” she chokes out before letting out a sob. “No. Fuck, no.”

“Lily–” he starts, trying to put his hand on her shoulder, but she pulls away.

“Don’t call me that,” she insists through tears before she turns to start her engine.

He lets out a sarcastic laugh and asks, “And what will you have me call you, then?” he asks in exasperation, watching on in concern as she peels away from the curb without barely checking her surroundings and rushes towards his apartment, not hers. “Lily, what are you–”

“Emma,” she says forcefully, turning to him for just a second before wiping her eyes and looking back to the road. “My name is Emma.”

The only word he can use to describe himself is stunned. He’s silent, his mouth hanging slack just as hers was just a moment ago. His brows pinch together in thought as he looks at her, really looks at her, and for the first time, something seems to click.

Emma.

He can’t even be angry with her. He isn’t sure what reason she could possibly have to make up a fake name, but it dawns on him once more that she’s known him as Peter Harrison since they met almost six months ago. How can he be upset with her for lying about her true identity when he’s done nothing but lie to her from the moment they met?

All he can say is, “Why?”

She pulls sharply into a parking spot just outside of his building, looking around suspiciously before hurrying out of the car and towards his building’s front door, leaving him to follow.

He hurries out of the car behind her, throwing the door shut and taking out his key to open the door for her. “Li– Emma?” he tries, not used to feeling the name on his lips, but she rushes ahead of him, bypassing the elevator as she shoves the door to the stairs open and pushes through, barely waiting for him before sprinting up to his floor.

Once they’re inside his apartment, he stands behind her as she locks the door, and then, overcome with frustration and confusion and a need for answers, he places his hand and wrist on the door around her head and forces her eyes to meet his. “What the hell is going on?”

“Peter,” she starts, and he almost corrects her, but he can’t get a word in. Tearfully, she says, “Tell me you didn’t live with that man. Please, please just tell me that isn’t your jacket and this is all just a cruel joke.”

He stares at her for a moment, consumed with sadness and confusion. “Why would it be? Why would you know that?”

She shakes her head, looking down from his eyes. “Then you know… You know Robert Gold, then?”

His jaw tightens immediately, his teeth clenching together painfully, and he almost presses his hand to her neck at the threat but chooses instead to dig his fingers into the wood of the door and deny her freedom when she tries to pull away from him. “Why do you know that name?” he asks through his teeth.

She glances up for a moment and then back down. “I work for him,” she whispers.

He almost hits his hand against the door and pulls away, anger all consuming, boiling his blood and sending it singing through his veins as he tries to catch his breath.

But he can’t catch his breath, not as she continues to speak a harsh truth. “I’m a bounty hunter. I was hired by Robert Gold to find the witness to his wife’s murder; a man in his early-to-mid-forties who wears a lot of leather and–”

“And what?” he seethes when she doesn’t go on.

Her eyes meet his and sadness rim them as she weakly admits, “And had his hand… shot off… a year ago.”

“Bloody hell,” he curses and while he’s angry, furious, he can’t help but to feel something quite the opposite as he looks at her and realizes he finally knows the real her. Emma.

“I’m sorry,” she whispers in anguish, wiping away the tears in her eyes. “I don't– This can’t be happening.”

“Aye, well, it is,” he says with just a touch of snark staining his voice, and she lets out a sob, dropping her face to her hands.

“I thought you were Peter Harrison,” she cries. “You lost your hand in a boating accident. You never wear leather! If I had known that you were the one I was supposed to be looking for…”

“What? You would’ve gotten it over with sooner?” he asks with viper shooting through his words.

“I would’ve left!” she shouts honestly, desperately. “I would’ve fled.”

And that’s just it, isn’t it? She would’ve left. Just like every other good thing in his life, she would have brought this to an end. “If your plan is to turn me in, you may as well just–”

“No. I’m not going to do that; I would never hurt you,” she says lowly, painfully, her eyes filled with wet tears he’s never seen before. “I swear to you, Killian.”

He stands before her, eyes widening despite his attempts at staying stoic and angry, and he realizes… she knows his name. She knows the real him. Practically speechless, all he can utter is, “I…”

“That’s right, isn’t it? You’re Killian Jones. You had an affair with Milah Gold and were present when her husband shot her in cold blood, right? He thought he killed you, too; shot you in the back and in the hand. But he found out the hard way that you had escaped when his clean up crew couldn’t find you.”

He shakes off the shock of hearing his story told back to him after hiding it for so many months and becomes defensive again even though the words hurt as they leave his mouth. “The fact that you know this just… I have to call someone. I have to have this taken care of.”

“Pe- Killian, I’m not going to turn you in, you have my word!”

“I don’t want your word,” he tells her without thinking, turning back to face her and meeting the tragedy in her eyes. “I– Emma. All this time, we've been lying to one another! All I want now is the truth.”

“The truth?” she asks softly, stepping close to him and meeting his desperate eyes with her matching ones. “The truth is that it doesn’t matter to me who you are. I don’t care if you’re Peter or Killian; it doesn’t matter.” She lifts her hand timidly, as if nervous of his reaction, but chooses to place it upon his heart anyway. “I fell in love with you. The second I met you I wouldn’t have hurt you. If I had known it was you, I would’ve run then and there.”

“Run?” he asks, the word stinging as it leaves his lips and his hand lifting against his will. If he had them both, they would be cupping her cheeks. But all he has is the left side of her face against his palm.

“I have to run,” she whispers up to him. “When Gold finds out… he’ll kill me when I don’t–”

It’s amazing how quickly and easily he makes up his mind, knowing without a single doubt that he’ll do anything to ensure that he doesn’t have to be without her.

He cuts her off, mostly because the thought of her leaving, even after all of the revelations and truths, makes him nauseous. But also because, in all the hazy frenzy, he’s just now realizing what she said. And he’s realizing that he fell in love with her, too.

And he’s always been the first one to say it.

She returns his kiss as if she isn’t even thinking, her hands sliding into his hair easily and quickly and a soft whimper breaking between their lips. Neither of them seem to even breathe before he’s backing her up to press her against the door, gripping her ass as best he can so that she jumps into his arms and locks her legs around his waist.

His lips slide down to her neck, latching to the tender skin above her collarbone, and she lets out a soft, intoxicating moan before whispering again, “I’m sorry.”

“Don’t,” he begs against her skin, sucking a mark into it as he feels her fingers scratching against his scalp. “Don’t say that again. Please.”

“Peter, I– fuck.” She drops her head back against the door and when he looks up at her and finds her bottom lip stuck between her teeth, tears filling her eyes again, he smiles at her sadly.

“It’s okay,” he whispers. His forehead falls to hers and he kisses her softly. “It’ll probably take some getting used to, not calling you Lily.”

She looks at him for just a moment and smiles sadly before her face shifts, tears returning and her smile flipping into a frown before she looks away.

“Don’t say you’re sorry,” he says again. “You love me?”

“Yes,” she answers immediately, firmly. She’s crying again when she says, “And I’m so sorry that I lied to you all this time, Killian.”

“It’s not like I was being entirely truthful with you either, love.”

“But you have a good reason to lie,” she argues. “Witness protection, right?”

He nods. “You did, too, though. I’m sure you can’t roll into town and announce your true intentions.” She nods, too, still saddened and struggling to meet his eyes, so he kisses her once more, soft and tender and with as much love as he can pour into her. “What would you have done?” he asks. “If I had been someone else? Just a random bloke from the bar?”

She’s pensive for a moment, pursing her lips in thought. “I would’ve come back,” she whispers. “I would’ve brought the target in and quit, and then I would've come back. But then… that would’ve been a lie, too.”

“Then perhaps this is for the best?”

“What is?”

With a small smile, he tells her, “I love you, too. It’s probably best that we get this all out in the open now, aye?”

Her hands find his cheeks, her thumbs running along the skin beneath his eyes, along the scar he’s had for longer than he can recall, and he’s never seen someone look so saddened. “How can you love me, after everything?” she asks in defeat.

“The same way you can love me even though a big part of me hates myself.”

She sighs heavily, shaking her head and frowning deeply. “I hate hearing you say that,” she whispers, tightening her legs around his waist and her arms around his neck as if trying to bring him impossibly closer to herself.

“It’s true,” he says simply. “I never thought I would feel this way again, after everything with Milah. But… Emma, with you, it’s so much more.”

Her forehead is pressed to his as she nods. “For me, too.”

“Then don’t run,” he practically begs. “Don’t leave me.”

She whispers his name, his real name, against his lips and it sends a shiver down his spine. “I need you,” she tells him, the desperation in her voice sending a jolt of desire straight down to his cock. “Not just… I mean, not just now; not just physically. I need you. I don't want to think about what my life would be like without you in it.”

“Then don’t,” he begs, finding himself repetitive but not caring. Maybe if he says it enough…

Her lips are on his in an instant, hot and desperate, the feeling rushing between them like a current as they attempt to sooth the pain they're both in. He can’t help himself now, pressing her firmly against the door with his hips and groaning in response to the needy sound she makes. She angles her own hips just right so that he can feel the heat of her skin through his jeans and it makes him shudder. And she never once breaks her lips away from his as she fumbles with his belt and then his button and his zipper, letting his jeans fall loudly to the floor and tangling around his ankles.

“Please,” she breathes into his mouth, the heat of her voice making him thrust his hips towards her. The feeling of her leggings against him is strange but not unwelcome, although he wastes no further time as he starts to precariously tug at the waistband and pull the fabric from her heated skin. “Please, Killian, I need you.”

She’s never begged like this before, and something about it drives him even more wild. It’s something possessive and carnal within him that sparks in the base of his spine and in his belly and radiates out to every part of him, his fingers tingling and his cock twitching as she desperately pulls his boxers over his hips and sends them down with his jeans. He tugs at her underwear, the small cotton thong no match for the desperation in his fingertips, and he feels her whimpering against his mouth as he touches her, intent on ensuring that she’s ready for him.

Her tongue is dancing against his in a graceful frenzy and then she breaks away, her eyes deep and watery as they look into his and she nods quickly. He watches her teeth sink into her bottom lip as he drags the tip of his cock along her folds, her center hot and wet, and she lets out a breathless whimper and locks her eyes on his when he finally eases himself inside. Their foreheads collide, but it doesn’t hurt. Their noses brush against one another before she captures him in a bruising kiss.

She moves with him, eager and intense as she uses the door at her back to ground herself and circles her hips to meet each of his thrusts. Her fingers are tight in his hair, tugging relentlessly before she drops her right hand between them and finds that perfect spot just above where they’re joined. She moans out his name, throwing her head back against the door in what he knows must be a painful collision, but she doesn’t even seem to notice.

It’s good like this, quick and dirty and just what they need, but after a moment something tells him that it isn’t quite enough. He braces himself, pulling her body close to his and using his good hand to grip her ass tightly so that she bucks towards him, then he kicks his jeans off of his ankles clumsily as he stumbles his way through the apartment. She protests softly when he breaks his mouth from hers, regretting it too but needing to see where he’s going, and instead of waiting, she busies her mouth with his neck, her tongue dragging from beneath his earlobe down to his collarbone. Her mouth breaks away from his skin with a pop of suction when he pulls out and drops her to the mattress, and she lets out another irresistible moan.

Her name falls from his lips as he crawls onto the bed with her, hovering over her and unable to catch his breath before her legs are cradling his hips and her heels are pressing into his ass in a desperate attempt to get him back inside her. With how insistent she is, how needy and hot she is, he finds it impossible to resist giving her exactly what she wants.

They stay like that for a bit, with him heavy on top of her as he thrusts in, trying to find that perfect angle that makes her shout. But she’s restless, the emotions flowing between them making her jittery, so she presses against him until they’re rolling over, Killian landing on his back and Emma straddling her thighs over his hips and throwing her head back at the new depth.

“Fuck,” she breathes out towards the ceiling, her fingers sharp as they dig into his shoulders. “Just like that.”

“That’s good?” he asks, finding himself more verbal than usual as he seeks out her approval. She’s moving against him but he finds that he can’t stop himself from thrusting up, too, meeting each of her thrusts with his own and unable to hold in the groan that escapes his throat when she tightens her muscles around him.

“So fucking good, Killian. Don’t stop–” she chokes out. She lets her fingers find her clit again, rubbing furious circles as he digs his fingers into her hips.

“Come on, love,” he begs, feeling unlike himself but not caring. “Come for me; I know you’re close.”

The sound of his voice seems to have the effect he was hoping for. He feels her core go impossibly tighter, her fingers moving over her even more quickly as her mouth hangs open and her eyes squeeze shut. Then, with a cry of his name, he feels her reaching that precipice, and as she collapses onto his chest and her muscles continue to contract, he lets himself go, too, holding onto her more tightly than he thinks he ever has.

~~~~

She’s heavy on his chest like she usually is when they find themselves in this position, her head resting against the hair that she enjoys running her fingers through. Every now and again, the small ring she wears on her middle finger catches slightly on a strand of hair and makes him jump just a bit, and he feels her lips pressing against his skin in soft apology, her arm tightening around his waist in a soothing hug. It’s what makes him realize that he feels just as she does: he can't even begin to consider how his life would be without her in it.

But then, as much as the weight of her over his heart soothes him and calms his rapid pulse, he can’t help the sense of dread that floods through him each time he considers the fact that this can’t last. It simply can't. She’s meant to bring him to his death and he’s meant to die. The two of them can’t be together despite how badly they both want to be.

“You’re making me dizzy,” she whispers after far too much silence has passed between them.

“What?” he asks with a soft laugh despite how much pain he’s in at the thought of losing her. Part of him thinks that this might be the last time he’ll ever hold her.

“You’re thinking too hard. Those gears in your head are turning so fast that they’re making me dizzy.”

He sighs, unable to fight the small smile that she always seems to bring to his lips. “I just don’t know…” he trails off helplessly. “Is it a coincidence that August should happen to be here, as well?”

She’s quiet for a moment, her fingers drawing soft circles in his skin, before she softly admits, “I kind of… after you left Boston, I searched your place. One of Gold’s goons broke me in. I found out, I mean, I guess August’s dad is from here, I couldn’t get a ton of information after the Marshalls cleared out your apartment. But I figured it was only a matter of time before you– or he– came here. I didn’t know you had a roommate, and you both wore leather. When I heard he was here, I thought… I thought it’d finally be over, you know?”

“Aye,” he whispers. “I know it's odd to say about someone who should be trying to kill me, but I don’t want to lose you. I’m… I’m scared.”

“Me too,” she whispers back immediately, her body stiffening a bit in his arms and making his hand run along her spine. “But I think I have–”

The sound of the door to his apartment swinging open makes him jump more than he thinks he ever has, and Emma, too, startles and tightens her arms around him. They each stiffen, fumbling with the blankets and pulling his sheets over their shoulders, but he’s fairly certain that his neglecting to shut the door to his bedroom means that his friend has just caught a good look at Emma’s ass.

“We need to get you out of here; there’s a– what the fuck!?”

“Dave–!”

“Is this your–”

“Stop, stop! Put some clothes on!”

“Since when do you have a key?!”

Chaos. The only word he can find to describe the scene he feels like he’s watching from outside of himself is chaos. He fumbles some more for the blanket, desperate to cover Emma but finding himself so preoccupied with covering her breasts that he exposes himself. And David’s eyes are squeezed so tightly shut that when he turns away from them, he trips over Killian’s forgotten jeans and collides into the wall, shouting in pain. It’s pure, unadulterated chaos.

Emma’s eyes are wide with shock as Killian clumsily stands up, covering himself with his pillow as he rummages through the room and then tosses a shirt at her, its condition and cleanliness questionable at best, but it’s the best he can do at the moment. Then he finds a pair of boxers to pull over himself, and as the world starts to slow down and his adrenaline calms with a reminder to himself that he isn’t in danger, he sighs heavily, a curse escaping his lips.

“Yeah, I'll say,” David mumbles under his breath. “Do you have any idea what you just got yourself into?”

“I’m sure you’re going to tell me, rather than standing there and saying meaningless things knowing I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

Maybe he’s being rude, but really, what can anyone expect?

“I need to speak with you. Privately.”

“You can say whatever it is you want to say right here.”

David’s face is stiff as he glares behind Killian, staring daggers at Emma as he says, “I don’t think you fully understand what’s going on here.”

“I understand perfectly.”

“She isn’t who she’s told you she is.”

Boldly, he steps to the side and forces David to meet his eyes, cutting off his line of vision that he casts on Emma. “She told me she’s Emma Swan, and that she’s the bounty hunter Gold hired to bring me in. Does that about cover it?”

He scoffs, shaking his head and widening his eyes as he stares at Killian like he’s the stupidest man he’s ever come across. “Do you have any sort of protective capacity at all? Ki– Peter, what you’re doing is grounds for–”

“I’m going to testify.”

Both of them turn to the source of the sound that catches them so off guard, Emma’s soft voice cutting through their argument easily if only because of the absolute dissonance that it provides. She’s looking quickly between both of them at first, but once Kilian turns, her eyes meet his and lock in place, her gaze long and deep and completely serious.

“Against Gold. I’m not turning you in, and I'm gonna testify against him if that’s what’s going to keep you safe.”

There are arguments, mostly from David who doesn’t believe a word out of her mouth, but he’s been predisposed to the idea that she’s this evil huntress with her heart set on destroying Killian. He can see in her eyes how serious she is, though, how truthful she’s being, how dedicated she is to ensuring that her wrongs are made right and that Gold pays for what he’s done. He can see how intensely she’s resolving herself to really doing this, how dedicated she is to making this work, and if there’s one thing that he knows about her, it’s that she won’t let anything get in her way.

So even when David tells her that if she testifies, her entire character will be in question because of her profession, even though he tells her that she could face consequences for her involvement, she doesn’t back down. And eventually, after what feels like hours of negotiations, the three of them come to a conclusion.

~~~~

Being in witness protection had always been something that felt surreal. It had always been one of those things that he had seen in movies, but never felt like it was actually his life. The whole time he lived in Storybrooke, it felt like he was simply going through the motions; go to work, grab a drink, go home, repeat. Now, though, his life is his again, and it finally feels worth it once more.

It feels odd to appreciate the events that have led him here. It’s odd to recall the things that took Milah from him, that took his hand from him, and smile. It feels odd to consider the way he spent months and months in hiding, using a false name and living a life that wasn’t his, with fondness in his heart. But at the end of the day, each time he thinks about the things that have brought him to this moment, he has to smile, because despite what he’s lost, he’s gained just as much. More, probably.

Because he gets to spend the rest of his life with Emma Swan. And they don’t have to hide anymore, her clever plan granting her protection with him and then her own freedom once she had provided the testimony that put Robert Gold and his entire team in prison for life without parole. And he’s always felt whole whenever she’s with him, even though he really isn’t. She’s always made him feel like a full person, even without a hand. She’s always made it so that he could forget the hardships that he’s been through and just live a life of joy and contentment and love.

He loves Emma Swan. She gave him a new lease on life, and he’ll always be grateful for that, especially because a very large part of him had allowed himself to believe that, before he met her, his life was over. After Milah died, after he lost his hand, he didn’t think anything good could come from a life that had treated him so cruelly.

But she’s always been different from everyone else he’s ever known, better to him than he’s ever deserved. So once it came time to testify, they returned to Boston hand in hand and they spoke their truths, even with the knowledge that Emma was admitting to some illegal activities. But the immunity she was promised by David in exchange for her testimony made it so that she could leave the courthouse with him that day. And even though they were both wracked with guilt, even though Emma felt like a monster whenever she thought about what they’ve been through, watching the judge call out Gold’s sentence and knowing that it was all over was as therapeutic as meeting with their therapist has been.

It’s behind them now, and they never have to worry about it ever again.

He still gets those phantom pains, randomly throughout the day or startlingly at night as he’s dragged from sleep, but he hasn’t needed to find a pen to stab into his prosthetic or the surface his arm rests on in quite some time. Whenever it happens now, Emma holds him and she presses soft tender kisses to the tattered skin on his wrist and he heals without the destruction that he had grown so accustomed to needing. As with everything else in his life, she’s taken what he’s destroyed and she’s given it a sense of strange, abstract beauty.

So, once they put the final box down on the floor of their new entryway, he pulls her into his arms for a solid, warm hug and he breathes in the calming, grounding scent of her tropical shampoo, and they allow themselves to feel at peace as they process the fact that they can finally move on with a life together. So he slips the modest ring onto her finger quietly; he’s a bit shy as he presents his mother’s diamond to the love of his life, but he finds that he doesn’t really feel all that nervous doing it. Because she pulls away from him and she looks up at him with tears in her eyes and a smile that’s so bright and beaming that he feels that same familiar warmth that starts blooming in his chest and radiates out to every single inch of him.

And she nods, her grin contagious but easy enough to wipe off her face with a press of his lips to hers. And his heart grows and the warmth he feels when he’s with her chases away the burning in his hand and in his memories each and every time.

He’s come to realize, as his life has fallen back into a place of contentment and safety, after spending months and months (18 months, two weeks, and four days since he met her) trying to figure it out, that the only word he can use to well and truly describe Emma Swan is home.

~~~~

@courtorderedcake @kmomof4 @stahlop @klynn-stormz @laschatzi @emelizabeth88 @lfh1226-linda @kday426 @timeless-love-story @gingerpolyglot @ebcaver @ilovemesomekillianjones @teamhook @superchocovian @itsfabianadocarmo @tiganasummertree @gingerchangeling @jrob64 @onceratheart18 @xhookswenchx @winterbaby89 @swampmedusa @ultraluckycatnd @dancingnancyy @love-with-you-i-have-everything @shireness-says @snowbellewells @hollyethecurious @ouatpost @daxx04 @the-darkdragonfly @donteattheappleshook @eeteeaytay @xsajx @itsfridaysomewhere @alexa-fangirl-forever @jonesfandomfanatic @wefoundloveunderthelight @qualitycoffeethings @rapunzelsghosts @spaceconveyor @badcats-andmice @batana54 @sailtoafarawayland @deckerstarblanche @zaharadessert @xarandomdreamx @pirateprincessofpizza @captainswan21 @hookedmom @lostintheskyfaraway @undercaffinatednightmare @strangestarlighttree @emmythedaydreamer @killianslefthook @sarcasticandromantic @last-tsarina @anmylica @gloriousfemaleworrier

#captain swan #captain swan fanfic #witness #witness ff #cs ff #captain swan ff #cs smut #smut #cs angst #angst #cs fluff #fluff #hurt/comfort #finally finally finished this one #it only took like a whole year

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