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#ive tried it before it tastes Violently of smoke
mistersourwolf · 4 years
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A Lover from the Unknown- Geralt x Reader
Pairing: Geralt x Reader
Word count: 2.4k
Warnings: None really, hints at smut but no nsfw in this piece.
Request: Hey could you possibly do a geralt request where he saves and falls for a girl who is set to be killed cause the mayor of a town deems her a monster. She has powers to be able to control the elements. She's not a monster but part of a race that was wiped out. Maybe marks glow on her skin depending on what elements she uses
Summary: Y/N has lived most of her years captive inside the castle due to her magical abilities. Being treated as an experiment, over time her anger builds up. One night a storm rips through the town she resides in and the mayor is furious. Before she could meet her demise, she fell suddenly unconscious. Only in the morning would she realize what and who had spared her that night, saving her life. The two decide together to go on a journey to help discover who y/n truly is.
A/N: This is probabaly one of the most elaborate pieces I’ve written. It took me entirely too long to write it but I’m so glad because I’m just in love with the final results. I tried to get as accurate as I could to the request which I believe I did though I didn’t include markings which I envision would be a crackling turquoise glow as her emotions overwhelm her. So use your imagination as you will. Also, if you think Geralt talks to much, he just might if you’re basing this off the show. I’ve seen the show and have been reading the books and Geralt talks far more than what he does in the show so please don’t take it as out of character, it is very much in his nature to talk. Anyways without further adue ... A Lover from the Unknown.
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You sat in the corner of your room rocking back and forth with your knees pressed against your chest, slowly becoming more panicked as the thunder broke against the roof in a loud bang. You knew this was all your fault, attempting to stand to your feet, you gazed out of your window, the whole town was being ripped to shreds. Rain hit the ground furiously, each drop setting a new fire. The tavern was completely destroyed and fires were raging in the distant neighborhoods, clouding the night sky with soot.
You were to blame for this chaos, unsure of what you were and with nobody to guide you, your anger had disturbed nature’s balance. It was your doing but not your fault, after all you rarely saw anybody but your own reflection. With little interaction with any other humans aside from the guards who would bring you your meals, it’s understandable why you would be enraged. You had been held in the castle for far too long, a prisoner to the Queen. As she ordered her servants to poke at you, as if you were a guinea pig, as if you were a freak, you grew more and more angry by the day. Previous to this event, you had summoned wind storms, manifested tornadoes and sinkholes but the day you made hail come down the size of boulders, they had to force an elixir down your throat, one that left you in a trance for days. But this—this storm was much different than the last.
Suddenly, the doors to your room flew open abruptly. Two men, both of them head to toe in a suit of armor came rushing in, demanding you to come with them.
“What?” Your eyes widened, “No please!” You cried as they grabbed your arms dragging you from your bedroom.
“Foolish girl, what have you done?” They muttered, pulling you along the castle halls.
“I don’t understand!” You cried, “You have to help me please.”
The guards said nothing, pushing through the doors of the tower, revealing a smoke littered atmosphere. You could make out the sounds of townsfolk screaming as the fires spread, their screams pierced the night air from miles away. Horses trotting through the ruins made horrific sounds as you were thrown to your knees. Your flesh slid across the dirt, causing you to wince in pain.
Slowly, footsteps made their way towards you, sloshing in the sludge of the dirt. You, sure that you would face your demise right then, hesitated to look at who stood above you. In your gut you knew, it was the mayor. He had been the mayor in this town for quite some time and despised of creatures who possessed magical abilities. You’d come to face him before and his threat, his penalty he’d deliver was far worse than being prisoner.
“Pitiful girl, what have you done to my town?” He yelled, crouching down beside you. “I spared your life once before, I won’t make that mistake again!”
You whimpered, tilting your head up slowly to meet wicked eyes. He was furious and veins showed clear through his forehead. “Get her up, onto the horse will you?” He phrased his command as a question to the guards but it was perfectly understood that it was a demand. That if they didn’t pick you up and place you on the horse that second, they’d be subjected to your fate as well.
You squirmed as the men complied, throwing you on top of the horse. At this moment, a lightning bolt shot from the sky, frying the men in their metal gear. You let out a scream, horrified as they dropped to the dirt. Simultaneously thunder cracked through the air once again, a demonic rumble. The horses kicked the dirt, terrified but obedient. Your hair blew violently in the storm watching the mayor struggle to his horse. He called out to you, a string of curses that you couldn’t make out. Your arms wrapped around the mare as if they would protect you from your own doings. Confusion grew on you as you smelt in the air lavender, chamomile and a powerful mixture that surely was a magical concoction. The mayor gripped the dirt, on all fours as he continued to make it to his horse. Your eyes grew heavy, starting to flutter shut. As your body grew calm, the storm eased and your hair blew gently in the fall night. Just before your eyes shut for good, you saw a man approach the mayor and in a swift movement, his elbow collided with the mayors crooked nose and he fell unconscious as did you.
When you awoke, the smell of the earth was so pungent you could nearly taste it. Immediately you sat up, glancing around the rather dingy, colorless inn. You were laid not on a bed, in fact there were no beds in the room, only a cot, one which appeared old and unclean. You stood up, the floorboards creaking beneath you, a deafening sound. The sun was starting to rise and gleamed through the broken window, dimly lighting the room. Where in the hell were you? You recalled the storm from the previous night, one you had caused surely. You remembered the mayor threatening your execution, a threat he would have surely followed up on. A man who emerged from seemingly nowhere and then—.
A tall figure entered the door to your room, closing it behind him.
“You’re awake.” He murmured, walking over to his bag to store something away.
You didn’t feel frightened but confused, “Where the hell am I?” You asked the white haired fellow.
He answered, still turned away from you, “Maybe the question you should be asking yourself is ‘What the hell am I’.”
“Oh yes, you’re probably right,” you pondered sarcastically, “stranger who kidnapped me!”
“Kidnapping? Ive been accused of worse.” He grunted, shifting his body to face you.
You sighed, walking back to the cot to sit down. “Who are you?”
“You first, what are you?” He pestered.
“Me first? What are you, a child?” You scoffed, but gave in to him, “I’ve been asking myself that question for years, I’ve got only a sliver of an idea. I know I can make the ground beneath me crumble and swallow us whole, that I can create storms of dust and pull lighting out of a clear blue sky. But I don’t know why I can do that, I don’t know what I am and I’ve only ever been prodded at.”
After a moment of silence, the man spoke again, “I’m Geralt of Rivia, a witcher.”
You were surprised by this but like him, showed no reaction to what you were told.
“Okay, Geralt of Rivia, you’re a witcher so tell me why did you save a monster?” You asked quietly.
“You think you’re a monster?”
“Everyone does, I’ve hurt people and that sounds monstrous to me.”
“Hmm.” The witcher grunted, unsure of what to say.
“What do you think I am?” You asked, staring at your feet.
“Talkative.” He teased.
You grinned and the two of you sat in silence for a while, watching as the sun finally rise, lighting the entire room. Why he had brought you here you had no idea, most likely it was the safest place for miles. You hadn’t been outside the town in nearly a decade, held captive inside the castle. If you could’ve brought that castle down you would’ve but the Queen had it enchanted so no magic, not even your own could effect the tower.
“Teach me.” You blurted, “Teach me to control my magic.”
“I wouldn’t know how to teach you.”
“Says who?”
“History,” Geralt said turning his head away from you. “Any more questions out of you and my ears might just bleed.”
“Then I’d be the one taking care of you,” you teased, “and surely you wouldn’t want that.”
You stood up, walking over to the white-haired man, his eyes the color of the sun. You didn’t realize how good looking he was but it was clearer than ever in the light of the early sun.
“And I’m not asking you, I know you will aid me just as you already have.”
He peered down at you, an annoyed yet intrigued expression. He was impressed by your persistence.
“So,” you said, running your fingers over his chest. “Have you a lady or can I repay you for this lovely debt?”
“I have no one and you owe me nothing.” He never broke eye contact with you and neither did you, which surprised him as most women struggled to keep his gaze.
“You don’t understand what you’ve done for me, truly.” You trailed your fingers up his chest, wrapping a hand behind his neck. “And you look just as broken as me so I insist.”
You pulled him in closer, leaning forwards to kiss him, gently. His lips moved in sync with yours as his hand moved to the small of your back. His lips were soft and his touch was nostalgic for you. You failed to remember the last time anyone wrapped their arms around your waist and so you soaked in every moment of his touch.
He broke the kiss, staring down at you, “What is it with women and magic?”
This was an odd statement, but verified you were not the only magic woman he had come across. Ignoring it, you felt him grip the back of your thighs, lifting you up on his waist and in response you wrapped your legs around him. He backed you against the wall, laying kisses along your neck and jawline. With a tug of your dress, he managed to remove it all while still pinning you to the wall. His eyes gazed over you hungrily, a bright yellow of which you never questioned.
After moments of pleasure and curses echoing the room had come to a stop, you felt yourself stand on your feet again, pulling your dress over your shoulders. The witcher stood in front of you, pulling his clothing down over his torso and fastening his pants. You remained in silence, glancing out the windows to seem occupied. You didn’t notice the witcher still staring at you and the marks on your neck that he left.
“Don’t let anybody tell you what you are,” he spoke, “A monster, a coward, a sex symbol or a fucking gnome, those names are nothing if you know your worth.”
You gazed at the witcher, blushing at his words. But something about him told you he wasn’t practicing what he preached. He carried himself with pride but his aura said something entirely different, that he was caught between embracing who he was and despising his own kind. You could see the world had made him feel that way, that witchers are to be spited.
“Do you?” You questioned, staring intensely at Geralt trying to get a read on him.
“Hmm,” He muttered, ignoring the question. “I’ve never seen anyone with your abilities and I’ve seen almost everything there is to see.”
“Yes, well I’ve heard several variations, you know the first being I’m a monster and brought to this Earth by the need for a balance between good and evil, I’m clearly the latter. Another says I’m a mutant, though there aren’t mutants like me as far as I’ve seen. Lastly, the mayor who sought after my death believed I stemmed from a line of ancient gods and goddesses who were thought to be mythical but he insisted they were real and that my bloodline is that of theirs. I don’t know if I believe that as those gods would’ve long been dead before my birth.”
The witcher analyzed every word you said and wasn’t phased by the mention of gods and goddesses. “I don’t know if any of those variations are true but I know a trusted bard who does his research.”
“Where might this bard reside?” You jumped excitedly, smiling broadly as you were excited by the thought you would finally find out who you are. At this same time your excitement bubbled up, the wind began to pick up outside and a strong breeze came through the shattered window, occupying the room.
“Hey,” Geralt spoke loudly over the wind, noticing it was your excitement which initiated the sudden breeze. “I don’t know for certain if he will be of help but it’s worthy to note your magic is tied to your emotions.” He walked over to you, placing his hands on either sides of your shoulders, staring down into your hopeful eyes. His touch was calming and your adrenaline settled inside of you and thus the wind came to a slow. Geralt observed this and interpreted that you had connected him as an anchor. His face suddenly softened and you hadn’t seen this expression on the witcher yet.
“Come on,” Geralt said, grabbing his bag from the floor, “before you blow the inn away.”
You followed him out the door of the inn and into the outdoors, where the odor of the musky inn didn’t follow and instead was replaced by the scent of Lilly flowers and petrichor, both of which you hadn’t smelt in ages. A lovely mare stood outside, the sun reflecting of its coat beautifully.
“Roach, this is—“ Geralt paused, embarrassed he had never got your name.
“Y/n.” You chuckled at the fact of him talking to his horse. “Roach? For a mare?”
“A pretty name like Y/n for a monster?” He said jokingly, annoyed by your commentary. You let him slide, laughing at the witcher.
“A jester I see, lets get going shall we?” You suggested, letting him mount himself on top the horse. He offered a hand out to you which you accepted, climbing atop the horse.
You started towards your journey, one seeking a know-everything bard to help teach you of your kind. The soft breeze whispered freedom as you laid your head against Geralts back, watching the trees pass you by. Soon enough, you’d learn of your origin and it was liberating to no longer be trapped in the four walls of your room in the castle. So you closed your eyes, inhaling the scent of flowers and pollen as the sound of the rushing wind took over your mind and put you at ease.
—Let me know if you’d like to see a part two as I already have some plot ideas :)) thank you
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robbyrobinson · 3 years
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CTHULHU MYTHOS X THE OWL HOUSE CROSSOVER: THE GODS AWAKEN (PT. IV): A HISTORY LESSON 
Boscha sat on a log facing a bonfire. In her hands, she was holding a stick that had an impaled rodent-like creature on it. She held it over the fire and casually twirled it around to completely roast it. It was a short, snaggle-toothed creature resembling an Earth rat, but instead of the long, furless tail, it had a lizard tail. Boscha took a bite out of the beast and recoiled at its apparent bad taste.  
“Bleh!”  
Beside her on another log sat the goat man. He held several juice boxes within his mighty hands. He greedily ripped open the boxes and lapped the contents from within, unaware that the juice was collecting on the ends of his lips. There were roughly twenty boxes he was consuming and pitching aside without care.
“I had never tried any sort of sweet nectar such as this.” He tossed another juice box on the ground and went for another. “What do you call this concoction, Boscha?”  
Boscha shrugged. “Apple blood; but I never tried it.”  
The goat man grinned exposing his yellow, rotting teeth. “I wish your people would’ve imprisoned me after I had a chance to try this luxury.”  
Boscha stared down at the fire again not saying a word. The goat man finished up on drinking the apple blood juice boxes and tilted his head. He scanned Boscha over somehow knowing preemptively what she was about to say, but he decided to watch the embers of the fire as well.  
“If you need to inquire something of me, by all means, please do so,” he said.  
Boscha raised her head up so her three eyes could lock onto the goat man’s. “Who are you?”  
“I have already explained it to you, my dear,” he replied, “just an old man who once ruled over this world before being locked away and my name stricken from the records. The usual.”  
“Yes, I know that is what you said, but I just think that if this partnership is going to work, we should know everything about each other.”  
Boscha slammed her mouth shut upon seeing the goat man’s glare become illuminated by the fire within them. She was certain that she had spoken out of turn and was now going to face his wrath. He chuckled in a low mumble amused.  
“I now understand how grandparents must feel whenever their grandchildren egg them on about telling them stories from their pasts.”  
He took the juice boxes and pitched them into the bonfire. It blazed with the new fuel it was given.  
“It may take me a while to fully explain everything to you out of my concern that your mortal mind may not understand them, but strap in for the ride.”  
A village lied in ruins having been scorched with a fire that was akin to seven suns. The identity of the civilization, with a large population in the thousands, was unknown forever lost to the history of the Isles. Almost as if overnight, the village was attacked and laid to waste with no survivors. Due to its condition, no other civilization migrated to the lifeless area and remained that way for the next millennium.  
A hooded figure arrived sometime in the early morning to the former village and began to trek through the ruins. Houses that were made of stone were one of the few pieces of architecture left of the village; the walls of the houses were smothered by the thick smoke and blackened beyond repair. Alongside the walls of the foundations, there were the slight hints of the outlines undoubtably a grim reminder of those villagers who were outside of their homes before their civilization was set ablaze.  
Deeper the mysterious stranger went through the village, more of the cataclysm became apparent: the square of the village was mostly made of wood and as a result, several of the buildings and commerce grounds were reduced to ashes with any scrap of wood that somehow managed to survive barely holding on due to the beams holding them up crumbling. As the stranger was walking, they heard a crunch sound echoing. Looking down, they saw that they had stepped on a skull and it shattered underneath their weight.
Piles of skeletons were tossed in large mounds. From the embers of the village, the skeletons were as dark as tar. From what the stranger could tell, they likely died from looks of horror on their faces. The mounds led the stranger towards one site that appeared seemingly untouched by the flames.
A crude temple was at the center of the ruins, one resembling the pyramids from Ancient Egypt. The stranger tilted their head at seeing the alien geometries. Despite of the unsightly condition the overall village was in, there was no denying that the temple was almost all-inspiring. But despite that beauty, an otherworldly evil radiated from it. The stranger clenched their fists together in anticipation of whatever was inside and steadied their breathing.
Murals of the dark god decorated the windows detailing how he had arrived to the demon realm. Macabre displays of sacrifices also accompanied the illustrations. Children and families were set aside to be sacrifices for their god and in turn, they were bestowed with great blessings not just in the magical sense. After soaking in their surroundings, the stranger walked deeper into the temple. Before them stood a large door with unreadable inscriptions. Traversing that, the mysterious stranger came upon the throne room. A small altar decorated in an ancient language was situated in front of a large throne.  
“Oh, it is a pleasure to see a worshiper of mine pay a visit.”  
The stranger looked up beholding the large frame of a dark figure wearing a headpiece of different materials. It was dressed in shadows and was nearly invisible to the naked eye if it weren’t for the figure leaning forward and revealing its endless rows of sharp, carnivorous teeth. The stranger squinted a few times upon seeing something moving from the corner of his eye. They were at the mighty legs of the demonic entity. Without much probing, they slowly walked out of the darkness making it apparent that they were a few of the dark god’s personal servants.  
“So, have you come to pay tribute to me?” the being asked, “if not, your home will be forfeited.”  
The stranger shook his head. “No, Nyarlathotep, I have come to stop you.”  
The walls of the temple shook violently to their foundation when Nyarlathotep let a darkly chuckle escape from the pit of his stomach. “Many of you have tried and failed.” He leaned in closer. His teeth, being ever so massive and varying in shape and size, prevented him from completely shutting his mouth. “What can you possibly do?”  
The stranger took his finger and drew a circle in the air. From that circle erupted a bright light. The light hurt Nyarlathotep and momentarily stunned him. Purple blood trickled down his temple. He chuckled again. A sizzling, bubbling mass of darkness covered the wound, healing him.
“I love your spirit, kid, but I guess you’ve forced my hand.”  
Nyarlathotep stood up from his throne and towered over the mysterious stranger. At his full size, he stood at a stunning 9 ft. He placed his hands together and slammed them together. The stranger noticed a gem placed in the middle of Nyarlathotep’s headpiece and was shining a crimson red. A vibrant beam shot out of the gem and collided with the ground ripping it apart and forming a widening crack. Fire rose up to consume the stranger, but they managed to dodge just in time.
The dark god grimaced at it and clutched his fist drawing a chunk of the ceiling and flinging it towards the stranger. The stranger quickly drew another circle in the air and summoned a large slum of ice that ricocheted towards the ceiling chunk. An explosion of ceiling and ice rained down on the two fighters. There came a shrill scream that momentarily caught the stranger off guard. Seeing that the servants of Nyarlathotep were about to be crushed by the falling debris, the stranger quickly conjured up a shield to cover them.  
Smack.  
The stranger groaned in pain from the sharp pain. Nyarlathotep had taken the opportunity to send them flying across the temple. They took their head into their hands to balance the pain before sluggishly dragging themselves off the ground. Nyarlathotep held his hands together preparing another strike.  
“Had enough?”  
The stranger got on their feet. “Not yet.”  
Amused, Nyarlathotep withdrew fire from himself and crafted it into a projectile. Despite his seeming lack of eyes, he tosses the projectile towards his opponent. Before it could strike him, the stranger created a mirror that caught the projectile.  
“What is this?” Nyarlathotep replied in shock.
The projectile was cast back towards its dark creator and it stabbed him through his torso. Nyarlathotep collapsed on his colossal knees once again shaking the foundation of the temple. Purple blood was now leaking through the hole made in his body. Nyarlathotep coughed up more of the bizarre alien blood and gritted his teeth.  
“I have to admit that was a pretty brilliant move, but I won’t let this injustice stop me!”  
Nyarlathotep’s wound was once again beginning to close, but it would prove to be a mistake on his end. The stranger drew a ball of light and tossed it at the dark god. Nyarlathotep was hit with it. He screamed once more. This magic, which he withdrew out of himself, was now being used against him and was now injuring him. More and more. Wounds were accumulating on Nyarlathotep’s eldritch body and he was unable to quickly heal.
Nyarlathotep shifted his physical form constantly reverting from his Black Pharaoh form to other monstrous shapes. Regardless of any move he made, the stranger would return it to him tenfold. Purple blood was now pooling onto the floor. No time in his endless life did he ever have any problem with a mere mortal as he could easily topple entire civilizations without as much of a thought; drive people to madness for a laugh even. But now, he was feeling exhausted. An odd mortal feeling?  
He resumed his Black Pharaoh form and weakly got back on his feet. He felt rather drained, but nevertheless wanted to move forward. As he raised his hand, he felt his legs tense up. Looking down, his mouth widened in surprise. The stranger was conjuring up a glass substance that was overtaking his legs and replacing his organic parts with inorganic matter. He tried to shift himself to break the glass to no avail. The glass was now reaching up towards his pelvis ensuring that he was frozen in place.  
Nyarlathotep turned to glare at his servants. “Well, what are you waiting for? Rescue your god!”  
The servants looked at each other for a few moments seriously contemplating what they should do. They then looked at the stranger. Running over, they assisted the stranger with creating the glass.  
Nyarlathotep, shocked at first, chuckled. “Well, this was a fun game; the best I had in thousands of years even!”  
The glass was now around Nyarlathotep’s neck. His grin became wider and more devious than it was initially. He laughed again.  
“What are you laughing about, creature?” the stranger said, “this is the end.”  
“Oh, it may be for now, but I assure you that this isn’t over.” The glass was covering his mouth. “Even if it takes an eternity, I will be back; but there will be someone to represent me.”  
With that, Nyarlathotep was completely encased in glass. The stranger sighed and rest their hands. “It is over.”  
One of the servants started to speak up, a blonde –haired girl with ragged clothing. “I can’t say that is definite.”  
“For what reason?” the stranger asked.
“I could’ve sworn I had seen some dark substance collect from the back of Nyarlathotep’s head and then disappear.”  
The stranger scratched their chin. “Then I shall write down what I want any future descendants to read just in case he does return.”  
The fire started to die down after Boscha finished up eating the weird rodent creature. The goat man sat solemnly watching the fire dwindle.  
“So, how did you escape?” Boscha finally asked.  
The goat man, now wanting to be named Nyarlathotep once more, chuckled. “I sensed that there was a weakness within the glass prison that they had designed for me; I just had to nibble my way through it until I was able to regain some of my lost power.”  
“What is so significant about what that stranger wrote?”  
“Ah, you see, it was done using methods that the original inhabitants of the Boiling Isles first learned magic; before needing to draw meaningless circles in thin air. But I sense that this form of magic is no longer practiced by any witches here?”  
Boscha scratched her head. She did remember that someone was able to perform magic by drawing symbols and then pressing them. That kind of magic was bizarre even for the Isles due to it being done without the using having a magical organ to draw it from. As her mind weighed through her options, an idea struck.  
“Round ears!” she exclaimed.  
Nyarlathotep leaned back. “For goodness’ sake, you startled me.” He chuckled. “Just kidding; it is that Noceda girl you are alluding to?”  
Boscha nods. “Yeah, if we get her to decipher those spells you mentioned, then you can get your power back.”  
Nyarlathotep pat her back. “I knew that I could count on you.” He sat back on the other log. “But we should lie low. I need to gather as much strength as I can; haven’t you any idea?”  
Boscha smirked. “Well, there is a special tree that I know about.”  
Nyarlathotep raised his eyebrow in piqued interest. “Do tell.”  
Shortly after the mysterious stranger had vanquished the now imprisoned Nyarlathotep, like the blonde-woman mentioned, a dark mass that escaped from its fate hovered over the ruins of the temple and uttered a lone hum likely from communicating with its master. Forming a hard outer shell, it fell back on the Isles and burrowed itself deeply into the ground and incubated itself.  
And it would remain that way until years later when another event rocked the Boiling Isles. When the witches and demons indulged in savage acts of wild magic, the Boiling Isles was on the brink of disarray if not for the sudden arrival of a “savior.”  
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synchlora · 4 years
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Raven that refused to sing👀👀
Summary: Ghoul hasn't seen xir sibling in years and, after this, they won't ever see them again.
Warnings: there is some graphic detail of injuries, particularly broken bones and raygun shot wounds so please be careful with this one. this is also generally very heavy in emotional descriptions and involves the death of someone very close to Ghoul in a violent, horrible manner.
this story is a portion of Ghoul's backstory so im super hyped that u asked abt this one cause i don't think ive shared much of their past on here yet!! this scene happens in the latter half of this story. the background is basically that Ghoul is a scarecrow apprentice (he's 17 here) and he's "shadowing" under Korse on a patrol out in the desert before they chase down two killjoys, kill one, and then Ghoul recognizes the surviving 'joy.
-----
But before then, before that fateful fire fight, before all the white lights and crystal-clean halls, before the static had filled xir soul, there had been something else. There were the slums. There was the faint neon flickering and the smell of oil and smoke and cold cement. And there was the gentle sound of singing. Of Raven song. The sound of their sibling lulling them into slumber, hands slick with grease and motor oil, gently carding through xir hair as they tried to keep him from crying yet again. Soft songs that echoed faintly off the brick walls surrounding them, songs that Ghoul knew by heart but had long since forgotten until this moment.
Seeing them out here, searing heat burning their fresh wounds and highlighting the unnatural twist of legs that looked broken in multiple places, Ghoul stared blankly back into their eyes. Eyes that had once been behind warm smiles and always brimming with stories now looked at xem in pure terror. The face that would always be there to comfort her was now half-obscured by blood and filled with pain. A voice that once sang beautiful songs about Destroya and neon colors and the far-off dream of the desert was now crying out through choked sobs as Korse pulled them roughly to their feet.
“Well?”
At the sudden shock of Korse’s shrill voice, Ghoul’s eyes refocused on the scene in front of her. He looked down to see Korse’s hand held out. A sleek, solid white raygun that hummed with anticipation was held before them. He pushed it towards Ghoul with more emphasis this time, waiting for the apprentice to make xir move.
With hands shaking more than usual, she reached out and slipped her hand into the unfamiliar weapon. He’d used rayguns before- plenty of times on plenty of patrols- just never an exterminator-grade weapon like this. Turning it over in xir hand, they inspected the weapon, feeling the weight of it in their palm.
It had sharply polished edges to every side and smooth metal that sat perfectly in her hand as they turned it to look further. It had a sight that made it surprisingly long-range for such a small weapon, perfectly clear to see through and not a speck of dust on the glass despite their desert surroundings. He looked for a switch, desperately searching for a specific part of the ray guns they were so used to using and dismantling and putting back together again. And xe found it.
One setting.
Kill.
They looked up to Korse who gave him a quizzical look, clearly frustrated with how hesitant Ghoul was acting, though not seeming to connect xir odd behavior to any particular reason.
She turned her head and met the deep brown eyes of Raven. While before their eyes had been filled only with fear, blood, and agony, they now looked back to him with another emotion.
Recognition.
Ghoul gritted his teeth as xe raised the buzzing raygun to her siblings head. It was unbearably heavy, though it may have been her shaking hands that made it such a weight to hold. Or it may have been the knowledge of what xe was about to do.
So he closed his eyes.
Because of this, she didn’t see Raven begin to scramble up onto their broken feet. Because of this, they didn’t see Raven reach an arm out to their sibling. Because of this they didn’t have any warning when Raven parted their lips to speak.
“Gh-”
Before a single syllable could leave their mouth, the sound of zapping electricity silenced Raven’s words.
While Ghoul may not have seen the lazer split his sibling’s skull, may not have seen their eyes drain of life, may not have watched their body fall limply to the dust; sight isn’t the only sense that engrains itself in memories.
She could still feel the static crackling across her knuckles as the raygun filled her siblings head with light. He could still smell the ozone and burnt flesh that flooded his nostrils in the agonizingly long seconds afterward. Xe could still hear the last words of xir sibling gurgle out through the blood that filled their throat. They could still taste the blood in their mouth as they nearly bit a hole in their cheek to keep tears from spilling over.
And they could still feel the rage that coursed through their blood when they returned to Battery City that afternoon.
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slashhinginghasher · 4 years
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Midnight Star - Chromeskull x OFC - Part 5: Gratitude
Summary: Marena meets some of the staff. No one gets a good first impression.
This work is on Ao3
It wasn’t the worst night Marena had endured - not by far - but it still sucked. A lot. At some point between the beginning and end of her bout of hysteria, she’d gone from sitting upright to lying sprawled across the concrete floor. Her throat felt raw, her face wet with blood or sweat or tears, or maybe all three, and her limbs didn’t even have the strength to tremble anymore. The room seemed to lurch and sway like the berth of a ship in some terrible storm, like the ship that had taken her away from...
Her stomach clenched violently. She tried to stand, but somehow found herself face down on the ground. Long past any semblance of dignity, she dragged herself in what she hoped was the general direction of the drain she’d seen in the corner. Her fingers brushed cold metal moments before her empty stomach revolted, retching up thin strings of spit and bile. This went on until it didn’t, and then her arms gave out, and she was curled up on her side, and her brains were probably leaking out through her eyes and nose.
She felt… split. Outside of herself. Like there were two of her, one limp on the floor and choking on occasional hiccups of laughter, the other suspended in air and looking dispassionately upon her wretched counterpart. An abyss was opening in the back of her skulls, filled with the fog and static of greyspace. Her heads throbbed, the gaping emptiness yawning wider and wider with each pulse.
The lights snapped on like a dagger to her eyes. She tried to flinch but couldn’t figure out which body to move. There was a sense of motion, of lifting. She swatted blindly at the hands grabbing at her with all the strength of a milk-drunk kitten, digging her nails in when they encountered soft skin. A sharp pinch in the crook of her elbow. Marena tasted blood and fell back into the grey.
***
Two black-haired girls stood face-to-face in a stark grey void, twin reflections like a mirror. The one on the left shivered in a threadbare linen shift.
“Please.” Her voice was barely a whisper. “Help me.”
The one on the right stood silent, stoic in her heavy hooded cloak.
“Then let me die,” the Left One pled.
The Right One pushed back her hood, letting the cloak fall to the floor. Her flesh was cracked like porcelain, meat and bone showing through the larger gaps. Black blood oozed slowly from the wounds like tar..
“This is nothing but what you deserve.” Blood dripped from her mouth and eyes.
The Left One shuddered as her skin began to crack in patterns mirroring the Right One’s. Orange firelight glowed in the fissures, burning brighter by the second. Black smoke seeped from the Left One’s wounds, poured from her mouth and nose. The Right One bled faster.
They reached for each other, and crumbled to dust the moment before their fingers touched.
***
She was handcuffed to a hospital bed. An IV was in her arm. And she was clean. She could feel, without opening her eyes, that someone had scrubbed away all the sweat and dirt, bandaged her cuts, even neatly combed her hair. And it was that, out of everything she’d been subjected to over the past few days, that almost broke her.
Marena was no stranger to abuse. She was deeply familiar with it, almost used to it, if one could ever get used to the kind of violence she’d survived. She knew how to switch herself off during a beating, how to hold back the pain until she could get to a safe (as if safety was something she’d ever known) place to lick her wounds. But the thought of having such tenderness inflicted upon her, especially while she was unconscious and vulnerable, made her want to rip her skin off. People were never gentle without ulterior motives, and she felt sick thinking about what those motives might be.
An impatient shifting drew her attention to the man sitting in the chair next to her bed. He was unfamiliar to her. Unlike SkullBitch, this one had a full head of hair, a wicked Glasgow grin across his pretty-boy face, and although he was sitting, Marena could tell he was a normal human height, unlike his freakish giant of an associate.
“Sleeping Beauty awakes at last!” One thing Marena had learned fairly early on was that Americans were obsessed with referencing fairytale princesses in daily conversation. It annoyed the shit out of her every single time. She fixed the man with a blankly impassive stare and waited. His smug grin shrank with each passing second of silence until he looked as irritated as she felt.
Good. No one gets to enjoy themselves, suka.
“You’re not his usual type,” he said, switching tactics. He dragged his gaze over her, but it felt impersonal, like a farmer at the meat market. “Not sure if that makes your chances better or worse.” His smile held a malicious edge this time as he leaned in conspiratorially. “You’re his new Veronica.”
Marena lunged at him, teeth snapped shut a scant inch from the tip of his nose as he jerked back. She hadn’t really been trying to get him; she just wanted him out of her face. The brief flash of panic in his eyes was a nice little bonus, though. He shot to his feet with a poisonous glare, trying to look menacing, but he was too much of an open book to be a real threat, even though Marena’s hands were literally tied.
“You little--”
“Preston!” The sharp voice startled both of them. A short brunette stood in the doorway, a lanky figure in scrubs hovering behind her. “You aren’t authorized to be in here. Leave. Now.” To Marena’s surprise, Preston, as he was apparently called, didn’t argue. He gave Marena one more murderous look, then stalked out of the room with his fists clenched at his sides. The small woman sighed once and smoothed a non-existent wrinkle from her slacks.
“Sorry about him. He’s a pain in the ass.” The woman strode forward with a placid smile that reminded Marena of Dr. Call Me Linda, the “let’s be friends even though you have at least five reasons to kill me” smile. She stopped next to Preston’s vacated chair and folded her hands behind her. “My name is Spann. How are you feeling?”
Of all the dumb fucking… Marena couldn’t have formulated a response to that if she’d wanted to. Unfazed by the lack of response, Spann continued.
“You had a nasty concussion, as well as--”
“Stop.”
“Excuse me?” To Spann’s credit, her courteous expression barely wavered.
“I don’t give a fuck what’s wrong with me. Just shut up.”
Spann was probably excellent at poker.
“I know this is a difficult situation for you, but after your little stunt in the basement, a little gratitude wouldn’t be out of place.”
This bitch is delusional.
“Gratitude.”
“Yes. Very few people have seen my employer’s face and lived, let alone been left in one piece.” Marena chewed on that for a moment, though she was mostly fixated on the “employer” bit. She briefly wondered if she’d fallen into the hands of the world’s most melodramatic bounty hunter, then decided that it was unlikely and also that she didn’t care. 
Spann appeared to be waiting for an answer.
“If he was on fire and I had a hose, I’d strangle him.”
Marena didn’t get to see the other woman’s composure slip, as Spann chose that moment to turn and gesture the person still lurking in the doorway forward. He was a lanky, nervous-looking man with glasses. He was carrying a metal tray, and when he set it down, Marena could see a syringe with an intimidatingly thick needle, and a black leather collar.
“The syringe has a microchip with a built-in tracker,” Spann explained. “The collar also has a tracker. Pick one.” Marena eyed the tray, a tense ache rising in her chest and throat.
“Is quick death an option?”
“No.” That infuriating smile had returned to Spann’s lips. The man in scrubs shifted on his feet. “I recommend you make up your mind quickly. None of the others were even given the option to choose.” Spann gave her a pointed look. Fucking gratitude again. The ache grew sharper.
“The fucking needle,” Marena spat between clenched teeth. Spann raised her eyebrows in mild surprise but said nothing as she gestured at the man again. Marena fixed her eyes on the ceiling and barely flinched as the needle slid home just above her collarbone. It was over in a heartbeat; the man dabbed a spot of blood away with a cotton pad, placed everything back on the tray, and left. Spann was halfway to the door when Marena couldn’t hold her silence any longer.
“How many?”
“Pardon?” Spann glanced back over her shoulder.
“How many other girls in the house?” Forcing the words out was like pushing boulders up a hill.
“None,” Spann said, seeming confused. “There’s only you.” Marena shut her eyes briefly and swallowed hard.
“And how often do I...” The question stuck in her dry throat, the threat of a revolving door of faceless men looming over her. She didn’t need to finish the sentence for comprehension to dawn on Spann’s face.
“Mr. Cromeans is not in the habit of sharing,” the brunette replied. “It’s just you and him.” She walked out, the door clicking shut behind her. Marena sagged back against her pillows and tried to focus her breathing.
She was not reassured.
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calumance · 4 years
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LA Devotee - Part XII
Warnings: smoking, cussing, some mentions of anxiety, insecurity
Word Count: 4.2k
Summary: Emily has agreed to move in with Calum, although she doesn’t necessarily regret that decision, she does come to a horrible realization on just how small her life actually is.
A/N: I’m SORRY this took so long!! I have most of this story written and when I go back to reread and edit, I end up hating my writing. So, I ended up rewriting pretty much this entire part. The next part I promise will come sooner than this one came! Happy reading!! Feedback and requests are always welcomed!!! (Want to be tagged? Let me know!)
Part I | Part II | Part III | Part IV | Part V | Part VI | Part VII | Part VIII | Part IX | Part X | Part XI
Masterlist
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           The weekend came, and my mind had absolutely reeling since I agreed to move in with Calum. Not that I didn’t want to, but what in the actual fuck was I doing moving in with a guy I met nearly a month ago? Calum agreed to meet me at my apartment so he could help me start packing. The boys were supposed to follow behind him, and I invited Mikayla and Trevor to come over and help as well. More people means the faster it gets done. I sat on the stoop of my apartment complex with a cigarette between my fingers. The last cigarette I had was three years ago, right after Nathan and I got into an extremely verbally violent fight. I hated smoking, but sometimes the nicotine just felt so good. I leaned my head back, closing my eyes and blew the smoke from my lungs. “I didn’t know you smoked.” Calum said.
           My left eye opened and looked at Calum. His hands were in his pockets and his sunglasses were placed perfectly on his nose. I opened my other as he sat next to me and I looked at the cigarette. “I don’t usually, just been on edge today.” I offered him the cigarette, remembering he had been smoking the night we met.
           He took the cigarette from my fingers and looked at it before delicately wrapping his lips around the butt. “Haven’t smoked since the night we met.” The smoke released from his lungs and I looked over at him. He handed the cigarette back to me and I took a drag as he dropped his head, “Why have you been on edge? Everything okay?”
           I finished off the cigarette and extinguished it before dropping it in the cigarette can the apartment complex had set up right outside the door. “Yeah, everything is fine.” I squinted my eyes and looked out towards the street. “Can you promise me something?” I choked out dropping my eyes to my hands which were physically trembling. Calum’s eyes stared a whole in the side of my head through his sunglasses. My fingers balled into a fist and then flexed as my mind fought to get the words out. “Can you promise me that you’re in this for the long run, that this isn’t some type of PR stunt, that you’re with me because you genuinely like me.”
           “Emily, I thought we’ve gone over this—” he tried to speak but I quickly cut him off.
           “The public loves a good sob story. I’m a great sob story, I came from nothing, I have virtually nothing. If people found out about my personal life, they’d be all over you and the career. I don’t want us to destroy your career, and as selfish as it sounds, I don’t want your career to destroy us.” I continued to stare at my hands, not wanting to see his expression.
           He dropped his own eyes to his hands and shook his head. “We’re not a PR stunt, I can promise you that. I can also promise you that I am with you because of you, I’ve told you that. I can promise that being with you is not going to destroy my career, I wish I could promise you that my career won’t destroy us.” I finally looked at him through squinted eyes, and he looked at me, his face expressionless, “My career is what destroyed a good majority of my past relationships. However, I do believe you and I can be strong enough to not let my career come between us. Is this what’s been bothering you today?”
           Just as I nodded, Ashton, Luke and Michael came rounding the corner. Ashton holding some beer, Luke and Michael holding a large amount of boxes. “We’re here for the moving party!” Ashton exclaimed while lifting the beer above his head.
           I smiled and stood up, wiping the dirt off my pants. “Go ahead and head inside, Mikayla said she’d be here in just a couple of minutes.” I handed Calum the key to my apartment. Ashton, Luke and Michael walked past us into the building and I grabbed Calum’s hand before he walked away. He looked at me, not even his normal smile sitting on his lips. “I don’t mean to be self-conscious. I’ve just been through too much shit in my life to make this, us, feel real. I do want to move in with you and I do want to not let your career get in between us.” The right side of his lips pulled up into a soft smile and he dropped my hand and caressed my cheek. My eyes closed and I leaned into his touch. His lips pressed against mine for a sweet second before he ran his hand down my arm and followed the boys inside.
           After Calum walked inside, I sat back on the stairs and waited for Mikayla. When Mikayla showed up, the look on my face gave away everything that I was thinking. She sent Trevor ahead of her and sat next to me. Once Trevor was out of ear shot, I spat out, “Do you think I’m doing the right thing?”
           “Yes.” She didn’t even hesitate, she barely had a second to blink before she responded. My eyebrows stitched together as I looked at her. “Look, you and Calum really care about each other. Maybe you even love each other, I don’t know. It’s time for you to put on your big girl panties and move the fuck on from your past. Calum’s good for you, even if you don’t think he is.” She laced her arm with mine and laid her head on my shoulder. “Plus, we’ll still have sleepovers, especially since your new place is a hundred times bigger than this dump. Also why do you smell like an ash tray?”
           I pulled my eyebrows together in fake offense, “Hey, I like this dump.” I laughed before I could get the whole sentence out. “You’re right, it’s a dump, and I definitely hate it here. Also, I used to smoke, and I’ve been really anxious today, so I bummed a cigarette off my neighbor.” Mikayla shot me a look and I held up my hands, “Last cigarette ever, I promise.” Mikayla smiled before letting out a laugh. She then stood up and offered me a hand to lift me off the ground. We walked in together, arms laced together.
           When we walked in, the guys had already gotten most of my living room and kitchen pulled apart. It tugged at my chest a little that in that little amount of time, half of my apartment as already been pulled apart. Calum was pulling books off my shelf and I walked over to him. He smiled at me and I wasted no time to wrap my arms around his waist and press my head to his chest. He placed his hand on the back of my head and bent his neck to place a kiss on the top of my head. “I’m sorry.” I mumbled, my cheek still pressed to his chest.
           “For what, sunshine?” His fingers scraped across my scalp as his finger ran though my hair, his other arm squeezing me just slightly.
           “For being so stupid.” I wanted to apologize for being a piece of shit, but saying that I was stupid sounded a little nicer.
           He chuckled, causing his chest to vibrate under my face. “You’re not stupid, it’s okay to feel the way you feel. Everything’s fine, sunshine, don’t worry about it.” He placed my chin between his thumb and index finger and tilted my face up to his. His lips pressed to mine and I melted into his kiss. Every time I kissed him, it was there were tiny little fireworks going off in my stomach. It was like I would never be able to get enough of the feeling of his lips against mine. He inhaled slightly as he pressed harder into the kiss and I thought about what Mikayla said about us. She had suggested we loved each other, and feeling my lips tingle against his, I think that maybe her suggestion was right. Remembering we had people in my apartment, I break the kiss and pull my bottom lip in to continue to taste his lips on mine. Calum’s eyes had darkened, and he stared into my eyes in a way that my body heat up, “I’m going to go pack up my room now.” I said, running a single finger under my bottom lip. Calum nodded and I practically ran into my bedroom, closing the door behind me.
           It took almost no time to pack up my entire apartment, and I could not decide if that felt good, or incredibly horrible. Ashton and Luke took everything I didn’t need to the donation center, which was the largest load. Trevor and Mikayla had their car packed with boxes, and so did Calum, Michael, and I. After the cars were packed up, I stood in the middle of my empty apartment and looked at my fingers. My whole life, what was left of it, took seven people a few hours to pack. A new weight suddenly found itself on my shoulders; was my life really that pathetic? After one more visual scan of the room, I turned on my heels and left behind the place that I called home for the past four months.
           Calum was waiting outside the leasing office for me, leaning against the wall and his hands in his pockets. As I walked toward him, I unwound my key from the key ring and gripped it tightly in my fist. Calum pushed himself off the wall as I walked past him into the office. The woman behind the desk smiled and held out her hand asking for the key. I tapped the key with my fingers a few times before finally handing it over. After paying the ridiculous fee for breaking my lease early, which Calum had offered to pay, but after I shot him a look, he backed down, we left. As we walked away from the building, I reached over and grabbed Calum’s hand. This was a new start, and I was not going to look back.
           Trevor and Mikayla followed the line of cars to Calum’s house, Calum in the front, then Michael, then me. It was finally dark out and I was becoming increasingly more exhausted as we got closer to Calum’s house. While driving, I held in the want to cry. My thoughts swimming back to how sad it was that my entire life took only a couple of hours to pack up and discard. It was like I had nothing to show for. I’ve been on this earth for over twenty years, and everything I own is packed up into thirty boxes, if that. The anger boiled through my veins and my knuckles turned white from the grip I had on my steering wheel.
           Just as the emotions were about to boil over, we all pulled into Calum’s driveway. Before getting out of my car, I took a long deep breath and shook my hands out. Michael, Trevor and Mikayla had starting taking boxes inside, but Calum stopped and looked at me. Something on my face must’ve given away that I was about to cry or scream because Calum grabbed my right hand then pressed his other hand to my cheek, “Are you okay, sunshine?” Without looking at Calum’s face, I nodded. He knew I was lying, “Tell me the truth.”
           A sigh caused my shoulders to fall, “I’m a little overwhelmed. It took zero time to pack up and move my entire life. I knew I lost everything, but I didn’t realize how much I actually lost, and how little I have left.” I looked down at my feet and swallowed down the anger. My hands started to tremble and I balled my fingers into fists, squeezing Calum’s hand, “I don’t even have anything to show for myself.” I shifted my feet and looked to my left to watch Mikayla walk through the front door with a box in her arms.
           “Sunshine, you have plenty of things to show for yourself.” He put his finger on the side of my chin, turning my head so that I had to look at him. “You have an amazing job, you have an amazing best friend, you have probably the best wardrobe I’ve ever seen,” That made me smile, I loved my wardrobe too, “And you’ve got me, don’t you?” A shit-eating grin stretched across his face, “I mean, not to toot my own horn, but I’m pretty great.”
           I couldn’t help but laugh. He dropped his hand from my chin and I reached towards his chest to play with the fabric of his shirt. As I eyed the material I shook my head, “No matter how long we’re together, I don’t think I will ever understand how I got you.” My eyes met with his, he smiled and a twinkle in his eyes lit up the brown ring around his pupils. I wanted so badly to tell him I loved him, but what if he didn’t feel the same way? Instead, I swallowed and shook my head again. He took that as a sign to press his lips against mine, a needy kiss that made my entire stomach light on fire. I pushed against him slightly, pushing his lips off mine, but keeping them close enough that they grazed over mine as I spoke, “Our friends are still here.”
           Calum looked at our friends coming out of his house, “I supposed that means should wait, huh?” He looked back at me, the smirk on his lips quickly fading and concern washed over his eyes. “Are you going to be okay?” His right hand reached towards my cheek and gently caressed my face. I nodded before splitting away from him and helping our friends carry the rest of the boxes into the house. As soon as the last box was dropped, Mikayla and Trevor bid their goodnight and headed out. Calum offered Michael and beer, which he excitedly accepted after the long day. “Do you want a drink too, love?” My eyes were glued to the small amount of boxes that were stacked just inside of Calum’s front door.
           Calum grabbed my fingers and it took everything in me to pry my eyes away from the boxes and look at him. I blinked away the glaze in my eyes and shook my head, “No,” A smile stretched across my lips, I tried to not make it look fake, but I could tell he knew it was. “No, I think I am going to go to bed. It’s been a long day.” He nodded, pulling me into his chest to kiss me one last time. After he told me he’d come to bed right after Michael left, I headed down the hallway to our, now, shared bedroom.
           The door clicked shut, and I turned and looked around the room. Duke was laying on the bed, his tail wagging. I smiled at him and reached down to place a gentle scratch to the top of his head. Even though I was familiar with it now, it was different knowing that my things were going to have their own space. His and mine was going to turn into ours. He’s lived such a fulfilling life thus far, and I’ve just lived. My eyes shut and I sat on the end of the bed, tears finally falling, not out of sadness, but out of anger. Anger that I felt completely and utterly about myself. The only thing I could think of making me feel better was going to bed. I kicked off my shoes and stripped down to my underwear, not having the energy to find anything to sleep in. After I crawled under the covers, Duke took his spot next to me in a ball. The warmth of the blankets took over and I gave into the desire to sleep.
           I woke up when Calum finally made his way to bed. As the door shut, I wiped my face, not realizing I had cried in my sleep. He was taking his shoes off when I pushed myself up into a sitting position. When he saw me sitting up, his face softened, “Hey, sunshine, I didn’t mean to wake you up. Go back to sleep, I’ll be right back.” He ran the pads of his fingers across my jaw line as he walked into the bathroom. The sound of the faucet running allowed my body to relax and I laid back down, my back facing Calum’s side of the bed. My eyes closed, but I listened for Calum’s movements. When he finally laid in bed, I turned and pulled myself into his side, placing my head against his chest. He kissed my forehead and wrapped his arms around me, “Goodnight, sunshine.”
           When my eyes fluttered open, I immediately grabbed my phone to look at the time. It was only six in the morning, but I was wide awake. My phone made a slapping noise as I dropped it back onto the side table and cursed under my breath. As great as it was to have a finely tuned body clock, it was absolutely horrible when you have every intention of sleeping in. Calum was still fast asleep, but Duke lifted his head and wagged his tail furiously seeing that I was awake. I carefully climbed out of bed, trying my hardest to not wake Calum up. The only time he stirred was when Duke jumped off the bed. Before leaving the room, I grabbed my phone off the table and pulled on a pair of Calum’s sweat pants and one of his t-shirts. As Duke and I walked out, I shut the door as quietly as possible, the only noise being Duke’s little claws on the wood floor.
           Duke ran ahead of me, towards the back door, I hesitated when my eyes landed on the boxes that we had stacked up the night before. My insecurities knocking in the back of my head wondering if should just throw everything but my clothes away. I held my breath as I turn to look behind me, towards the bedroom and try to shake the thoughts out of my head. Duke whimpers slightly, pulling me out of my thoughts and I keep walking through the house. As I open the back door, he does a little dance and goes running towards the patch of grass in the corner of the backyard. Feeling the cool morning air, I step outside and listen to the birds while keeping a side eye on Duke to wait for him to finish his morning duties. As soon as he comes running back to me, I turn and we both head back inside.
           My mind continues to race as I prepared a pot of coffee. To keep my thoughts quiet, I reach down and pick up the little black and white dog at my feet. He licks my face and I laugh, giving him a chin scratch back. The coffee maker gurgles signaling the end of the cycle. I lean down to put Duke back on the ground and pour myself a cup. I took a sip of the coffee after putting my normal amount of cream and sugar in it and looked towards the backyard again.
           A thought pops in my head and I grab my coffee and head through the backdoor. Duke follows me and I watch him run around like the happy little dog he is. I find a shaded corner to sit in and place my coffee cup on the table before taking a seat. My fingers absent mindedly tap at my phone, thinking about the person I want to talk to the most. My finger slides up on the screen, unlocking it, then tap my mom’s contact. When she answered I told her about everything that has happened since the last time we talked. Some of it was a lie, some of it was the truth, but the only time I lied was so that she didn’t think I had absolutely lost my mind. Which, I was pretty certain I had, but she didn’t need to know that.
           We talked for a while, until I decided to go back inside and wait for Calum to wake up. The house was quiet as I scrolled through my phone while sitting on the barstool in his kitchen. I stared into the void and tapped the edge of my coffee mug. The sound of the bedroom door opening pulled me out of my thoughts. Soon enough, a sleepy Calum was coming into the kitchen. He was rubbing his eye and yawning, all he was wearing was a pair of light grey sweat pants that were hanging low enough to make my stomach do a back flip. I swallowed and forced a smile so I would stop staring at him. “Good morning, sunshine. Why are you awake so early?” He asked, his voice raspy, still fighting the sleep.
           As I thought of how I wanted to answer him, he closed the space between us and planted a kiss on my forehead before turning towards the coffee maker and pouring a cup of coffee for himself. “This really stupid thing happens in your mind as you get older, and it makes it so that you can never sleep past a certain time.” Calum chuckled as the coffee poured into his cup, a plume of steam escaping out of the top of the mug. “My body is so used to getting up at the same time every day that I can’t sleep in. It’s really annoying.” I took a drink of my coffee and Calum chuckled again.
           He opened the fridge and pulled the milk out, “How long have you been awake?” I stared at his back muscles while he poured the milk into his coffee and stirred it with the spoon I had left out. He turned to me and raised his eyebrows waiting for my answer.
           My voice got caught in my throat, “Oh, uh, a little over an hour. I talked to my mom, I hadn’t talked to her in a while.” Calum took a drink of his coffee and raised his eyebrows. “I told her about you, she seemed pretty excited that I was finally climbing out of my rut.” I put the lip of my coffee mug to my lips and raised my eyebrows, “Those were her exact words.” Calum smiled and I took a sip from my coffee.
           Calum chuckled then rounded the corner stopping at my side long enough to place another kiss on the side of my head. “I’m going to go sit outside if you’d like to join me.” My eyes watched him as he walked out the back door, Duke following close behind him. Just as the door closed, I turned and hopped off the barstool to follow the same path.
           The warm breeze blew across my face as I made my way towards where he was sitting. The thought of sitting in his lap crossed my mind, but I took my seat in the chair next to him. He closed his eyes and leaned back in his chair, the sun glowing against his tanned skin. Every sense in my body telling me to get on him, but I swallowed the thoughts and looked away from him. “Do you want to unpack now, or do you want to wait?” He asked, his eyes still closed.
           My eye focused back on him, his Adam’s apple bobbed as he swallowed. Maybe it would be the right idea to unpack quickly and just get it over with, but as I stared at him, the lust inside my body grew. His chest slowly rising and falling with every breath he took, the sun dancing across his skin causing it to almost glisten. I could no longer help myself, I set my coffee mug down on the little table in front of me and slowly made my way over to straddle his lap. My hands gently resting on either side of his face, I pull him towards me and kiss him passionately. He pressed his lips harder against mine and his hands ran up my thighs and up and under my t-shirt until they were firmly placed on my back. His hands started to trail further up my back and I pulled my lips off his. He opened his eyes and let his hands rest where they were. “Can we wait, there’s something else I’d rather do?” A smirk pulled at the side of his mouth before he nodded and crashed his lips back onto mine. Maybe this wasn’t going to be so bad after all.
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The Lost Waterbender - Ch 3 - “Don’t Run Into Fire”
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The Fire Nation celebrated its victory over the Avatar cycle when they killed the very last Waterbender. With no host to be reborn into, the Avatar cycle ended.
Until 100 years later, when Elsa found that Ahtohallen was more than just memories.
Elsa must now master all 4 elements and the Avatar state if she ever wants to see Arendelle again.
Rating - Soft M
Ao3 Link
Yall know why Im writing this. Elsa is clearly the Avatar after F2! This is going to be eventually femslash. I hope you guys like this chapter!
Aang and Sokka to the rescue. Heh.
Elsa only made it an hour before she noticed a ship in distance. She nearly fell through her own ice in relief. She had felt confident until she started to walk. She wasn't even sure she was still in the Dark Sea at this point. Things were... odd. A ship would at least have navigation equipment, knowledge of the surrounding seas, and could actually help her get home.
She was so happy to see the ship she almost missed the smoke. A pillar of dark smoke rose in the air above the ship, which as she got closer she could now see was massive, black, and seemingly made of metal. She had heard of nothing like this from the castle advisors and she was certain no ships of this build ever visited Arendelle's port. It was even coming right towards her now. She didn't want to assume the worst, but the appearance of the ship put caution into her approach. She considered leaving it alone since it was unlikely to have ever visited Arendelle if she was so unfamiliar with it. And it was rather foreboding, all harsh angles and belching fire.
She deliberated for a while, weighing her options. Ultimately, she decided she would still approach them. She was the Snow Queen and she could protect herself from whatever threat they may pose even if they prove to be hostile in the worst-case scenario. Pirates or a foreign enemy included. Arendelle was famous in this region even before the eternal winter incident and the chances of them knowing of its location or at least the general direction was high. Hopefully they could clear up where she is now, if nothing else.
When it got close enough, she could see people on board in striking red armor. The flame insignia flag it flew was wholly unfamiliar to her. A flick of her wrist and the ice she stood on solidified into a larger, starburst platform. There could be no mistaking who they would be dealing with if they knew anything about this region at all. The Queen of Arendelle was quite intimidating when she wanted to be and had a reputation. The ship was slowing in front of her.
Elsa chose to speak first as soon as they were within earshot. "I am Queen Elsa of Arendelle. I would like to speak to the captain of this ship." She stood tall, her voice ringing out over the ice. She could see the people on the ship squinting down at her with wary expressions. They didn't react to her title except to mutter amongst themselves.
Eventually, a man called out, "We would be delighted to receive you, your ah, majesty. We will send a boat."
"No need." She stepped forward, an icy bridge forming to the deck of the ship. The shocked gasps of the crew weren't unexpected. She only hoped they wouldn't react violently. If so, would leave the same way and escape if things did not go well. Elsa tried to tell herself not to be so paranoid, this was just covering all her options. It was only the smart thing to do. She had lost her head when the spirit called her and she refused to let it happen again.
When her feet touched the deck, she let the bridge dissolve behind her. The crew had schooled their expressions. They were obviously trained soldiers now that she could see them clearly. This was a warship. With a very distinctly flame motif. Elsa narrowed her eyes.
"What kingdom are you from?" She began, noticing the metal ship lacked even a sail to propel itself.
"The real question is where have you been hiding, waterbender?" A man in a more decorated suit of armor said from across the deck. One look at his shining metal hairpiece and medals adorning his uniform indicated this was the captain. Or at least someone in charge.
Waterbender is what he called her. She knew that term only because of the spirit in the glacier and she was shocked to hear it from the captain. She steeled herself. "I am the reagent of Arendelle. Located on the southern fjords. Perhaps you know of me as the Snow Queen."
The captain's lips were tight as he considered her. His arms crossed. "Arendelle." He tasted the word. "And how many other waterbenders are you harboring, Queen Elsa?" His mouth tugged into a smile as he used her title. Elsa didn't like it.
"If you are referring to my ice, I am the only one I have ever met with this ability." Elsa swallowed. "What kingdom are you from, Captain? I didn't catch it the first time." She felt she might need the escape plan after all. The hostility was overwhelming.
"This ship, like all others, is from the Fire Nation," he said as if that explained everything. He was pacing around her. "I have one more question for you. Where is the Avatar?"
Elsa couldn't stop her eyes from widening. This was too much to be a coincidence. The captain was grinning widely in front of her now, watching her expression. "I'm afraid I don't know what you mean." She saw him glance over her shoulder and nod infinitesimally to someone. She made to turn back to the railing but was blocked by a ring of soldiers.
"Unfortunately, I can't let you leave," the captain said behind her. "I am under orders directly from the Fire Lord to detain all waterbenders and bring them to him. Especially those I suspect to be the avatar. Bind her."
Elsa didn't wait for the soldiers to move. A quick wave of her hand brought up a thick wall of ice between herself and the soldiers, and swept the five closest to the railing to the side, clearing the path for her easy escape.
"Don't let her off this ship! This has to be the avatar! We need to get her quickly before she can access the avatar state." She heard someone shouting. The men were lining up.
Then, her world changed.
Jets of yellow fire, hot and directed, blasted her ice away in an instant and blocked her escape route. Elsa traced the stream with her eyes and saw it was being produced from the hands of every soldier on the deck. Fire magic. All of them. It was almost a relief to see other people like her, and Elsa felt frozen. Her entire life she had been the only one. But everyone on this ship... they have fire. Then, the first hot jet caught her in the side and she cried out, trance broken. These people were attacking her. She was outnumbered 100 to 1. She could actually lose.
Elsa whipped into action. The air dropped 40 degrees. Ice covered the feet of every man she could see. She raised her hands and great icy beams gripped the sides of the ship, sending its nose into the air to knock the remaining soldiers off-balance, including the Captain who had somehow already melted his feet free. It didn't work, and they moved fluidly into a martial arts stance she had only seen in paintings from far away before more fire shot from their hands directly towards her.
Her heart lurched. She had only a second to raise an ice wall, feeling like she was back in front of Han's men in her castle. The fire broke through her ice again. It was seemingly explosive in its destruction. She shot a beam towards the captain, hoping to pin him to the deck. He lept to the side like a dancer and dodged easily, sending more fire spinning from his feet this time. Elsa backed up squinting against the heat, throwing more walls up to protect her front. That's when she felt someone grab her from behind.
She was panicking enough that it had begun to snow over the ship, frost creeping over the deck. But the fire users behind her seemed to produce their own heat and had wrested her hands behind her. Their hot touch burned her arms and she was rapidly overpowered. She cried out and tried to pull away, but there were at least three holding her now, keeping her hands immobilized. They had shackles and were just about to click them onto her when a blast of wind knocked them off balance for a moment, and one released their grip on a hand.
She didn't waste a moment and encased them in ice up their chests this time. She made a break for the railing. More men blocked her. Before she could even call her ice, they were swept completely off the side of the ship by another powerful gust of wind.
This time, Elsa saw the source. A young man, a teenager even, covered in blue arrow tattoos was whipping up a windstorm on the deck. He blocked their fire easily with concentrated gusts of unnatural wind that could only be more magic. He was barely touching the ground between each blast. He caught her eyes after he forced another few men over the side with a spin of his staff.
"Avatar! I'm here to help! Just- Iv been looking for you." He was working his way towards her. "I can explain after we get off this ship. I can get you away from the firebenders. You have to trust me."
She pulled more ice up to grip the ship, hearing the metal groan. "Thanks for the rescue." she ground out, "but I just want to get home."
"I have a flying bison! I can take you there, anywhere. Please, just come with me." He was nearly at her side, face all earnest concentration. The whole deck was covered in ice and the captain still stood shooting flames. She was ready to dispute the boy's outlandish claim when a great roar came from above. A shaggy, six-legged creature ridden by a tan-skinned man in a ponytail came from the sky. It had a saddle like a common beast and swept from the sky to hover over the battle. Great balls of fire from the upper deck were already being directed towards it. Elsa forced another swath of ice towards the men firing them.
She was now near enough to the railing now that she could jump into the ocean below and escape. The ice gripping the ship would keep them there long enough she could get a head start. Elsa considered leaving all of them behind. But she realized she still wasn't sure precisely which direction Arendelle was in. The sun was still up and she had little frame of reference. And well.. this kid had risked his own life to free her. Watching him fight the man in front of her she noticed his face was earnest and his strikes were all non-lethal deflections. That decided it for her, in the end.
"Alright, let's go." At the end of the day, he was acting friendly towards her. She had no reason to distrust him and he had a rather convenient method of transportation. Elsa had a horrible feeling she was not anywhere near Arendelle anymore and she wanted desperately to speak to another person, especially another magic user, who knew about this avatar business.
He grinned ear to ear, finally reaching her side. "Hold on!" He grabbed her hand and put one arm around her waist and then a tight blast of air shot them both skyward. She yelped in a very undignified way and had only a moment to feel the weightlessness before they both landed in the saddle of the beast.
"Sokka, get us out of here," the boy called.
"Holy shit Aang you actually got her! And look at this fire nation ship, that's a LOT of ice, they won't be moving for a while." Sokka said. The flying bison rapidly gained altitude, zig-zagging through the sky above the ship. She could still see the ship, completely lifted from the water by her massive pillars. The water surrounding the ship was frozen entirely for a hundred paces out. She allowed herself to feel a bit of pride.
"I know!" The boy cut him off, deflecting another fireball. "It was close. They had her nearly in cuffs." They were already so high the attacks were sparse. She thinks they were almost out of range.
"Well, at least the monks won't kill us now. They can't punish us if we bring them the avatar."
Elsa's mind finally caught up with what they were talking about. "I am not going anywhere except Arendelle. You will take me there, not to any monks." She interjected, with as much queenly majesty as was possible sitting cross-legged in the saddle of the beast. "And will someone please explain this Avatar business to me?"
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queenieschronicles · 6 years
Text
Vide Cor Meum III
Thomas Shelby x Reader
Summary: What would a man do to protect his family, wealth, and business? Marry his daughter off to Birmingham’s most ambitious: Thomas Shelby.
Word Count: 1822
Warnings: Smut. 
A/N: What better way to announce my return than the third installment of Vide Cor Meum! A little present on the Eve of Christmas Eve or if you’re ahead of time than me, a presnt for Christmas Eve!
Part I Part II Part IV
Somewhere behind the roaring blood in his ears, her screams were gargled. He could taste the ash. His skin, though perfectly untouched, was seared. Somewhere in the smoke and the fire he could see a looming figure. A corpse with burnt flesh and singed hairs. So much death. No matter how hard he fought to move, a brute force kept him chained. The figure loomed so close. The smell of charred skin.
Then the crushing weight. Rubble, ash, and earth caving in.
Air flooded his lungs. A burning sensation erupted in his chest. His hands gripped her so tightly. His eyes jolting open.
He died. You saw him die.
Your breath caught in your throat. Your heart thudding against your ribcage violently. You looked on in horror. He was staring right at you. For a moment, you weren’t sure if it was Thomas or some other specter.
“Thomas?” You whispered.
He blinked, focusing on your silhouette in the moonlight. He let go of your wrists.
“What? … I wasn’t here.” The great Thomas Shelby hesitating on his words as if he couldn’t believe them.
You rubbed your wrists with soft fingers, holding them to your chest,” No, you were with ghosts.”
Thomas slid himself up to the headboard, bringing you straddled on his lap. He took your hands, gently turning them to assess the bruises on your wrists. A bile rose in his throat.
“It’s fine.” You tried to snatch your hands back.
He held your hands firmly, thumbs on your palms. Sad blue eyes assessed the damage he’d done,” You aren’t a ghost.”
You hadn’t the faintest idea how to handle this. You couldn’t be in love with Thomas Shelby. Thomas Shelby couldn’t look so defeated or vulnerable. Yet, somehow, in that room, both those aforementioned statements seemed to be true.
“You stopped breathing.” You frowned.
Thomas scoffed,” You had your chance to get rid of me.”
His refusal to acknowledge that you’d saved him offended you. After all, you could have let him die. You would have his money. This home. You would have been free.
Your face soured,” You’re my husband.”
Thomas snaked a hand through his disheveled hair. “Yeah?” He rumbled. “I thought I was your prison warden.” He smirked.
You bit back the smile that crept up to the corner of your lips. You hid it with an eye roll,” You aren’t getting out of this that easy, Thomas Shelby.”
You could easily blame saving him on the simple desire to make his life a living hell. You weren’t going to make marriage easy for him. Besides, you were forced to walk down a church hall in a white dress all painted up like some doll. You weren’t going to let him get out of their life sentence without a little suffering.
He laughed,” Yeah. So that’s how it’s going to be, Mrs. Shelby?”
Your momentary laughter ceased the moment Mrs. Shelby came out of his mouth.
The title shouldn’t have shocked you as it had. You didn’t expect to go around being called Mrs. (Y/L/N). You expected to be addressed as your married name. The realization caught you off guard. You were a Shelby now. All of Birmingham would know who you were. Anyone who crossed you, crossed the clan.
You had become part of the Peaky Blinders.
You smirked,” Oh, so behind closed doors you don’t mind taking orders from me..”
That vulnerable, hollow man had disappeared. The man you recognized appeared as if he’d never been gone. Amusement flickered across his face like light from a flame. He smiled, his hands resting on his chest.
“In the bedroom, Mrs. Shelby, I’ll be making the orders.” He grabbed your wrists, pulling you closer toward him.
Your smile turned into a wince. Pain pulsed from the pressure on the bruises.
A new pressure replaced the pain. You blinked confused at his lips on your skin. He brushed them softly over the faint bruises. His touch warm. Soft.
You’d subconsciously leaned forward, closing the remaining distance between you. His blue eyes flickered to your face. His hand reached for your cheek, his thumb brushing over your soft skin.
You pressed your hands on his chest for support. You could taste the smoke on his breath. Anticipating the warmth of his lips, your lips parted. You closed your eyes giving more power to your sense of touch.
You were surprised when a calloused thumb swept across your lips. You opened your eyes. Disappointed flooding your system. You nearly sank just before he pulled you closer by your waist.
“You’re going to be trouble.” He whispered against your lips.
Your lashes fluttered as electricity pulsed through you. “Mmm..” You hummed against his lips longingly. “Why is that?”
He grinned,” Do you seduce every man you detest?”
Your jaw flexed. You sat back,” You going to sit and talk about how much I hate you or are you going to stop wasting our wedding night and take what I give you?”
He swept you under him in a blur of movement. Your legs secured around his waist. His hand roamed up your thighs, under your silk nightshirt. His grip tightening at your hips, he pulled you farther under him.
“I’ll take what I want..” His voice firm, authoritative.
You had no doubt Thomas Shelby was used to getting what he wanted. You were inclined to prove him wrong, but you were slick between your legs. You were wanting. You’d never entertained a man like this before tonight. Call it primal desire, but you going to get fucked. From what you’d heard, Thomas wasn’t a disappointment.
“Well,” You mused indignantly.” What are you waiting for? Permission?”
The laugh that followed made you quiver. It was a rare occasion to hear him laugh for most. With you, you knew he couldn’t help himself. You amused him far more than he would ever care to let on.
Tommy leaned in, kissing you passionately. His tongue flicked across your lips hungrily. You could scarce keep up. You felt unprepared. Similarly to the rest of the world, you were two steps behind Tommy.
His mouth kept you engaged whilst his thumb stroked between the cleft of your lips. You whimpered into him. He leaned back. You watched with fervent need as he swept his tongue up his thumb tasting you.
“I’m tempted to make you wait.” He purred.
“No, Tommy, you better not.” You whined.
He grinned smugly down at you. You knew he would never let this night go. From now on, whenever you were so inclined to mention your detest of him, he would remind you of this night.
He relieved himself of his drawers. His thumb rubbed circles over your clit applying various pressure. You bit back the pleasure pooling within you. You tried to cut off a moan, but it escaped.
That elicited moan drove Tommy further. Your back arched when he slipped a finger inside you. He moved you to the edge with expert fingers. You moaned, fisting the sheets as the pressure in your core built. Your eyes closed shut. Your head spinning.
With a rush of pleasure, you cried out. Your body hit the mattress after contorting with pleasure. Sweat beaded on your forehead. You kept your eyes closed, reveling in splendor of your climax. You attempted get control over your breathing.
A smile spread across your face, as you finally looked at Tommy. He was smiling down at you. Mischief lurked somewhere in those eyes of his.
“I’m not done with you, sweetheart.” He hummed.
You weren’t sure you could go again. The thought of it caused your core to tighten and something in your stomach flutter. You felt limp and weightless.
He crawled on top of you. His hard length touching your thigh. The breath in your throat caught as you watched him crawl over you like a lethal predator. He was breathtaking.
The head of his cock toyed with your clit. Your body trembled. Tommy gently pushed your legs apart, allowing him more movement. He aligned himself with you, gently moving himself inside you. You gasped. The width unfamiliar, but arousing. You wrapped your arms around his neck, bringing him closer. He leaned downward and into you. Another gasp at his length, but he moved expertly to make it comfortable.
Your hand ran the length of his back as he worked himself. You felt the muscles in his back contract. His moves were short, slow, and rhythmic. He was working toward relief as your own pleasure built up. Each thrust. Each minute shift in his position. You could feel the heat.
His fingers found your clit. You moaned beneath him. You writhed with pleasure. You were scared it would come and go too quick. The pressure was too much. You gripped him tightly within you. You squeezed and held on. He helped ride your second climax.
Your head was spinning. Your muscles relaxing. You could still feel his length thrusting into you. Gentle. Slowly. You watched him. You reached a hand up to wipe away the sweat building on his forehead and slipping down his neck. You pushed back his hair.
You were hungry for more. You wanted more of that ecstasy he made you feel. The quick flood of endorphins. The oxytocin. You felt like you were doped up. It felt good. He held your chin and placed a kiss on your lips.
You crawled up into him, pushing him back. His hands were steady on your waist. You pressed your hands on his chest leading his back to the mattress once more. One hand left your waist to grab the length of his cock. You reached, taking it from him. You stroked it leisurely, causing his head to roll back. You aligned yourself and sat back.
He released a guttural moan. You gently lowered yourself further, moaning with the pleasure that came from him filling you.
He regained his composure to grab your hips. He lifted you up and down. You cried out as you bounced. Gaining control of the rhythm, he let you ride him. His hands cupping your breasts. He rolled your nipples between his fingers. Your back arched. Your hips churned wildly.
“Come on, love, say my name.” His hips bucked into yours. He drove himself harder into you.
You cried out unaware of how to utter anything coherent. You had no control of your speech. All you could focus on was the driving force of his cock inside you and how hungry you were for him.
Thomas’s hands were firm. He held you to him as he thrust inside you,” Scream my name, angel.” He grunted.
Then came a great bang. The sound of silver plates clattering on the floor.
“’(Y/N)!” A drunkard bellowed. “(Y/N), I know you’re in there!”
“Elliot?” It was a name. It wasn’t screamed.
In the end, it was a name. It just wasn’t his.
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builder051 · 6 years
Text
Mike & Co story arc: part 2
Enter Jason, who is actually of sound mind (probably).  Refresh your memory and check out part 1 here.
Warnings for: hospitals, some ED talk, physical health talk, mental health talk, mentions of suicidal thoughts, mentions of death.  
I don’t think it’s actually as heavy as it sounds...?  Maybe not; I’m a soulless bastard, don’t’ya’know.
_____
Jason doesn’t know how long he’s been sitting there.  Long enough for the pleather recliner to feel uncomfortable.  Long enough for the light of dawn to start filtering through the blinds on the window.  But still not long enough for Mike to wake up.
She looks small lying in the hospital bed, practically engulfed by pillows.  Her chin tilts toward one shoulder and her hair fans out under her head.  For once she’s not frowning.  He looks almost peaceful.
“The hell have you gotten yourself into?” Jason mutters for the thousandth time.  “What have you gotten us all into?”  He sighs and adjusts his slouch so he can balance his elbow on the armrest and drop his forehead onto his fist.
The sound of sheets rustling startles Jason back to awareness.  He blinks away grogginess and pushes himself up straight in the chair.  Mike does the same in the bed.  She finds the buttons embedded in the side rail and raises the mattress till she’s supported.
“Yo,” Jason says, all his irritation with her evaporating.  “Good to see you awake.”
“How long was I out?” Mike asks.
“A while,” Jason says.  “They, uh.  Gave you some sedatives.”
Mike looks around the small room.  She already knows where she is.  It’s more like she’s taking in the scenery.  “What happened?”
“What’s the last thing you remember?” Jason asks.
Mike blinks.  Swallows.  “You don’t really want to know.”
Of course it isn’t.  He tries not to imagine.  “Well, the cops picked you up.  Apparently you told them to call me before you passed out, so at least you were kind of using your brain.  Otherwise they would’ve called mom and dad.”
Mike twists the sheets in her lap.  “Have you told mom and dad?”
“Not yet,” Jason says.
Mike looks around again.  “Is this ward general?  Or…or something else?”
“What? Psych?”
Mike glares at him.  “Just tell me what happened.”
“You really don’t remember?”  Even in Jason’s inexpert opinion, that seems like a bad sign.
“It’s foggy,” Mike admits.  “And you said I’ve been on drugs.  I don’t want to guess wrong.”
It’s fair enough.  “Well, you got arrested,” Jason says with as little ceremony as possible.  “But you passed out, so the cops called an ambulance.  They thought you were high, but you weren’t, so they admitted you.”
“That it?”  Mike raises her eyebrows.
“You resisted pretty hard,” Jason says.  “So after you came to, they just knocked you out again.”
“Yeah, figures.”  Mike gives a singular chuckle.
“It’s not funny.”
Mike shrugs.  “It kind of is.  You sure this isn’t psych?  If I was, like violent…”  She sounds almost proud.
“Yeah, it’s a regular ward.  You had, like barely any blood pressure or something.  You’re pretty sick.”  Mike just blinks at him, so Jason goes on.  “And you’re not that tough.  You’re a fucking toothpick.”
“Can I go?”  Mike picks at the tape holding the IV to her arm.  “I don’t want to be here.”
“You haven’t been released yet.  And if you pull that thing out, I swear, I’m gonna pass out too.”  Jason holds both hands in front of his face.
“I’m an adult.  I can check myself out if I want.”  Mike rolls her eyes.  “But will I be in trouble with the cops if I go?  Are they, like, holding me here?”
“Oh.  No.  You were technically in custody for a while, but we paid your bail.  They gave you a really low one since we’re ‘starving college kids’ and all.”  He uses air quotes around the phrase.
Mike raises her eyebrows.  “Right.”
“Sorry.  Bad choice of words.  I think he was bending the rules ‘cause you’re a cute girl who’s never really been in trouble before.”  Jason shakes his head.  “But point is, I put up a couple hundred bucks, and you get to go free as long as you make your court date.  He’ll probably come back with some papers and shit for you to sign.”
“The fuck are they charging me with?” Mike grumbles, picking at the IV line again.  “I didn’t do anything.”
“Resisting arrest and damage to public property.  I guess you broke a latch off a door or something?”  Jason tries to recall what the officer told him.  Lack of sleep is catching up, though, and his brain feels like mush.
“That’s stupid.”
“Well, I don’t make the rules.”
A moment of quiet ensues.  Then Mike bites her lip.  “You really didn’t tell Mom and Dad?”
Jason shakes his head.  “No.”
“That’s…”  Mike shakes her head.  “That’s weird of you.  I know you’re their spy.  Making sure I behave myself.”
“Do you want me to tell them?”  Jason already knows the answer; he doesn’t need to keep proving the point.  He wonders if that makes him cruel.
“Fuck no.”
“Well, see?”
“Since when have you ever done what I want?”  Mike crosses her arms over her chest.  There might be a tremor going in her hands, but it’s clear she doesn’t want Jason to see.
“Since…” Jason scrubs his fist over one eye and sighs.  “I don’t know, Mike.  Since you started scaring me so much.”  The emotion he’s been pushing down all night grows into a clot at the back of his throat.
“Scaring you how?  Nothing I do is about you,” Mike says, venom imbuing her tone.
“I know it’s not about me.”  Jason takes a breath, then lets his feelings spill out.  “What would you do to yourself if I told them, huh?  When you lock yourself in the bathroom, I don’t know if you’re slitting your wrists or what.  I don’t…I don’t want you to do anything because of me.”
Another uncomfortable silence passes.  Then Mike mutters, “I didn’t think you cared that much.”
“How could I not care?  You’re my only sister.  We don’t get along anymore, sure.  But…Jesus Christ, Mike, I can’t believe you’re making me say this.”  He’s going to cry.  Hot tears already fill the corners of his eyes.
“I’m not making you do anything.  Just get up and fucking leave.”
“No, you’re sitting there fucking manipulating me because you know you can.”  Jason fights to keep his breaths even.  “I’d be sad if you died, ok?  I love you, and you matter to me.  So get better, ok?”  His voice catches, and he rubs his sleeve over his eyes.  “I want you to get better.”
“You can’t just say that and have it happen.”  Mike doesn’t look at him.  She yanks the tape off the IV line.
“I know that.”  Jason swallows a sob.  “But you’re in over your head.  I want to help you.  Colby wants to help you.  Fuck.  Mom and Dad want to help you.”
“Don’t talk to me about Mom and Dad,” Mike snaps.  She winces as she starts to pull on the needle in the crook of her elbow.  “Get the fuck out.”
Jason doesn’t need telling twice.  “God fucking dammit.”  He leans against the wall outside Mike’s room, fighting waves of dizziness.  He can’t hide the tears that run down his face as he makes his way down the corridor.
At the nurses’ station, he pauses.  “Can you call me?” he asks desperately.  “If my sister tries to check herself out?  Or if she sees the doctor?  Or, like, if anything happens?”
The nurse behind the counter nods and holds out a box of tissues.  “Of course,” he says.
“Just…” Jason chokes on a sob.  “Don’t let her make any more bad choices.”
***
“Here you go.”  Colby passes Jason a tall styrofoam cup and pulls out the chair across from him.
“What is it?” Jason asks, resigned.  His voice is still rough from crying.
“Taste it and find out,” Colby says.
Jason takes a swig.  The warmth and sweetness of the hot chocolate is soothing, and he smiles as he reaches for Colby’s hand.  “Thanks.”
“Figured it was what you needed.”  Colby gives him a small smile.
“Yeah.  Thanks.”  Jason takes another sip.  “Thanks for coming.  I know this isn’t how you want to be spending Spring Break, sitting around in a hospital cafeteria…”  He shakes his head.
“Seriously?  Where else would I be?”  Colby flattens Jason’s hand between both his palms.
“I don’t know,” Jason murmurs.  “I don’t even know.”
“Do you want to talk about it?”
They already have.  Jason’s passed on every bit of information he knows about Mike’s condition.  That her weight’s bordering on dangerously low.  That her heart’s working too hard.  That every time she smokes a cigarette or goes for a jog or sticks her finger down her throat she’s straining herself enough to risk her life.  The added stress of an arrest and a court date will be nowhere near helpful for her condition.
Jason shrugs.  “You know the facts.”
“I mean, like, how you feel about it.  You can’t hold it in all by yourself.  The pressure is going to end up hurting you,” Colby says.
Jason takes another sip of his drink.  He heaves a sigh and blinks quickly as his eyes well up again.
“Hey, it’s healthy to cry,” Colby says.
Jason digs in his pocket for the crumpled tissue he’d taken from the nurse’s station earlier.  “God,” he whispers as he wipes his eyes.  “It’s only the same shit I’ve always known.  She’s been doing it for almost 4 years.  I don’t care about the stuff with the cops.  It’s the way she keeps hurting herself that just…fucks me up.  I don’t know why I’m so upset about it now.”
“It’s a different context,” Colby says.  “Everything’s scarier in a hospital.”
“Yeah, I guess.”  The pressure of the tears is starting to make his head ache.  “I feel stupid for not caring so much before.”
“No,” Colby reassures.  “You totally cared.  It’s just hard to help somebody who doesn’t want help.”
Long-forgotten feelings are building up in Jason’s chest again.  The longer he sits there, the more he feels like he’s going to burst.  “You know, um…”  He tries to gather his words.  “You know my brother died, right?”
Colby slowly shakes his head.  He clasps Jason’s hand tighter.  “No,” he breathes.
“It was SIDS, we were all really little,” Jason says quickly.  “I don’t even really remember it.  But…”  He swallows hard.  “I just don’t want to lose…”
“Yeah.”
“Mike can’t die.”  A sob wracks Jason’s shoulders.  “She can’t fucking die.”
“She’s not gonna die,” Colby says.  He reaches across the table to squeeze Jason’s shoulder.
“You can’t know that.  She’s gonna do something else stupid and it’s gonna be too much and there’s not going to be anything we can do about it.”
“Mike’s smart.  She’ll come around,” Colby says.  “Maybe not right away, but she’ll come around.”
“What if she doesn’t?  I’ve been waiting for her to get the memo for four years.”  Jason can barely force out the words.  The emotion makes his teeth chatter.
“She will,” Colby says firmly.  “I’ll talk some sense into her.  So will the doctors.  She’ll listen to you eventually.”
“I…” Jason forces a deep breath.  “I want to believe that.”
“Then do.”
“I just…don’t know if I can.  Her track record is…”  Jason shakes his throbbing head.
“Things change.  Let’s look on the positive side,” Colby says.  Then he asks, “Have you eaten?”
“You going all ED therapist on me too?” Jason asks with a dry laugh.
“No, it’s 11:30, and I’m pretty sure all you’ve had today is sugar.”  Colby tests the weight of Jason’s hot chocolate.  “Yeah, time for some real food, I think.  It’ll make you feel better.”
“I don’t know…”
“Trust me.”  Colby stands up.  “We’ll have a sandwich and go from there, ok?”
Jason swallows hard, then nods.  “Ok.”
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Elevated Hearts, Chapter Two
Lonely after his son’s death five years ago, Truman Gold’s days mostly evolve around his memories and working where his son was happiest, the Chicago L. His life is quiet and solitary until one Christmas morning when he rescues a young woman from the tracks.
Everything would have been fine if the doctor hadn’t mistaken him for her fiance, but soon everyone believes he is in fact engaged to the comatose Lacey French, who he had never even met until that morning. Overwhelmed by the support and love and the chance to be a part of a family again, Gold can’t find the right way to tell them the truth, but he has to try. Especially since Lacey’s sister, Belle, is determined to figure this mystery of her twin’s new fiance.
                           A While You Were Sleeping AU Now on A03
                                               Chapter Two
“Coming through!”
“Make way-”
“I need a doctor here!”
Gold took a step back as nurses rushed by, wheeling the woman from the tracks past him. Discombobulated from the chaos reigning in Northwestern Memorial emergency room, he stumbled after them. He was only faintly aware of the orange blanket wrapped around his own shoulders so he didn’t notice when it slipped off to puddle on the floor behind him. Shock, the EMTS had told him in the ambulance. They had insisted he ride with them to the ambulance despite his protests that the station couldn’t be left unattended. The stranger’s purse had somehow gone missing in the struggle, and some police officers had been left to comb the tracks for it while others started to close down the station for the day.
Someone bumped into him, and for a brief, terrible moment, he lost sight of the stretcher. His knees, weak from his earlier adrenaline rush, trembled as his heart began to twist violently in his chest. He remembered the frightening midnight rush to this very hospital from the suburbs, how Neal had been so small and still and the sound the paddles had made when they had restarted his heart there in the ambulance.
Everything hit him at once. He was back at Northwestern Memorial Hospital, and once again, he didn’t have a clue what was happening. Bile rose in his stomach, and he turned to be violently ill in the trash can by the door, no doubt left there for just that reason. He sucked in steady, deep breaths, eyes clenched shut as he tried to get himself back under control. He stood, shaking, and wiped the back of his mouth but no one took notice of him.
As his breathing evened and his heart rate slowed, he forced himself to take stock of his surroundings. Despite it being Christmas, the emergency room was packed with people. There was a family surrounding their patriarch, his whole right arm swaddled in a dish towel as he winced and nursed what looked like a burn. Across from them, a young couple looked pale, miserable and sweaty from the flu, though they were holding hands over the bucket they were sharing.
Over the intercom, someone paged a Dr. Mermac to the I.C.U. West and the doors to the ambulance bay swished open as someone went outside to sneak a smoke. The cool air was welcome in the stifling heat of the emergency room but Gold still shuddered.
Everywhere he looked there were families. One large extended family were opening Christmas presents in their pajamas, but their eyes kept floating to the emergency room door, their smiles brittle. He swallowed, painfully aware of the taste of sick in his mouth, as he debated his next move.
The doors to the emergency room shushed open. As a doctor stepped into the waiting room towards the large family, Gold saw her. His stranger lay just beyond the door, nurses surrounding her as they checked the brace around her head and neck. They had changer the bandage over the gash on her head, though the new one was already stained crimson. There was no one beside her, no one holding her hand, and it hit him that in that moment, she was as alone as he was.
He didn’t think much beyond that. He moved towards her just as a doctor materialized at the stretcher’s side. The doctor inquired on her vitals but before anyone could answer the doors closed again and swallowed their reply. Gold ‘s reflection in the opaque glass was lost in the dark shapes moving just beyond his vision.
People brushed around him, but he remained rooted to the spot. He don’t know how long he stood there before a hand landed gently on his shoulder. It encouraged him to turn and around and retreat back to the endless waiting of the emergency room.
“Sir, you need to step back, please sir.” He must have made a noise of protest, because the nurse’s grip grew firm. “I’m sorry, sir, family only-” she began only to cut off with a squeak as he looked over at her.
With a shock of blonde hair piled in a bun on the top of her head and bright hazel eyes, he almost didn’t recognize her until her face split in a large smile. “Mr. Gold!” she cried and threw her arms around him. He just barely caught her, holding her elbows stiff as she just as quickly pulled back from the hasty embrace. A self-aware embarrassment crossed her pixie features. “Bet you don’t remember me,” she said with a roll of her eyes toward the ceiling.
Gold didn’t remember a lot of details from the days Neal spent in the hospital. Everyone had been kind but faces and names had blurred together in his memory. It would be hard, however, to ever forget the young woman in front of him. Isobel Tinker had been Neal’s favorite nurse, the two of them as thick as thieves. Gold couldn't recall how many times she had snuck Neal out his room for an adventure through the hospital halls, or even up to the roof to look at the stars. Neal, captivated, had dubbed her his fairy godmother. Gold supposed she must have been at the funeral, but that whole day was a dark blur best left forgotten.
“Nurse Tinker,” he greeted though he was looking past her toward the emergency room doors. She looked over her shoulder, puzzled, before her eyes noticed the orange blanket laying on the ground some feet away. Her eyes went wide as her mouth fell into an o of surprise as the pieces clicked into place.
“You’re the one who saved the woman on the train tracks!” Her hands went to her mouth to stifle the volume of her voice.
A few people looked around and Gold hunched his shoulders at the attention.“How is she?” he asked, and his voice was rough, desperate enough to pull the nurse out of her thrall.
“They’ll take good care of her,” Tinker promised. He must not have looked convinced because she added, “Do you know her name? I can check her charts but in the meantime, why don’t you sit down and I’ll get you some coffee?”
He shook his head. “I don’t...I don’t know her name..they couldn’t find her purse-”
“Okay, okay,” Tinker soothed and it occurred to him that out of anyone in the world, this woman had seen at his most vulnerable. She had been the one to hold him back as the doctors had worked feverishly, her own grief lost in the voice of his own pain. He had never apologized...for the things he had said to her then...The odds of her working the emergency room on the day he came in...he swallowed.
“Sorry,” he managed and her eyes brightened with surprise. “It just...she doesn’t have anyone else,” he explained with a ragged gesture towards where she had disappeared into the depths of the hospital.
Nurse Tinker paused, and then something glinted in her eyes. Her hands flew to his forehead and pulse in rapid fire. Startled, he moved to swat her hand away but she just maneuvered his wrist to measure his pulse. Baffled, he stilled and looked around at the people around them, but no one seemed to be watching anymore.
“Shock,” she sighed and now her hands were on the small of his back and guiding him towards the admittance doors. “Nothing for it, better get you checked out.”
He stammered something about insurance, but she pretended not to hear him. The emergency room doors hissed open and they passed through it unmolested. No one stopped them, the sight of the diminutive nurse in scrubs next to him as effective as the golden ticket.
“What are we doing?” he hissed under his breath as they passed by rows of bed. People lay in various reposes, broken bones in casts and people coughing miserably as an IV dripped at their side.
“We’ll just find out how she is,” Tinker whispered to him as she guided him past all this. It occurred to him they were on an adventure of sorts, and something like fondness squeezed in his chest. It did not escape him how much she was risking, but she seemed to understand how much this meant to him.
The halls of Northwestern Memorial were quieter here, though people still hurried up and down the hallway. The nurse kept a close grip on him as she steered him through the maze. She stopped at a nurse’s station, chatted for a few minutes about the poor Jane Doe until...
“She’s stabilized so they admitted her upstairs, though poor thing got Dr. Whale,” the nurse at the station said. “If we weren’t short staffed, I’d keep someone in the room with her but-”
The two nurses exchanged knowing looks, and when Tinker ushered him away from the station, her footsteps were a little bit faster. “I thought we were just finding out how she was?” he protested.
“Plans changed.”
He was dizzy from the speed they were going as white tiles and fluorescent lights flashed past. “What’s wrong with Dr. Whale?” he asked. “What is he, a butcher or something?”
“Oh, no he’s a great doctor,” Tinker replied though her voice was pitched low. “Brilliant even though...he has some...unorthodox tendencies that tend to get him in hot water from time to time.” She turned a corner and wavered before making her mind up and turning right. She had loosened her grip on him so he hurried to keep up. “The board just fine him and sentence him to some hours om the ER.”
“What’s so bad about that?”
Tinker’s eyes were fierce. “He’s fond of the ladies,” she said and cocked her head at him. “A little too fond, rumor has it. No one’s ever caught him at it, but there’s been the whisper or two-”
She didn’t have to say more than that. She pushed open a door to reveal the same doctor he had seen before downstairs in the ER bent over the woman from the tracks. Whale straightened rapidly and tossed them both a filthy look. “Family only!” he barked as Gold pushed past Tinker to the woman’s side.
His stranger had been changed into a hospital gown, her face cleaned and hair combed out of the elaborate updo from this morning. Machines were humming around her, but she was motionless. Gold had her left hand in his before he could think better of it, and was relieved to feel the heartbeat in her wrist strong and steady. He wasn't paying attention to the tense words between the doctor and nurse until -
“What’s going on in here?” The three of them turned like guilty children to face the uniformed officer staring at them in professional disbelief.
The doctor stepped away from the bed towards the officer, a smarmy smile already in place. “Officer, if you could remove this man from the room?”
The officer’s eyes swung to where Gold was cradling the patient’s hand in his own, but Tinker was faster. “He’s the fiance!”
All three of the men’s eyes dropped to the ring finger where a diamond was glistening. Gold stared at it, utterly transfixed and at a loss to how he had missed it this morning.
“It’s even better than that,” Tinker went on as the officer turned back to her. Over his shoulder, her eyes went wide at Gold, a clear signal to keep his mouth shut. There was no need for that, he could barely think. He dropped the woman’s hand and backed away into the corner but there was nothing for it. Tinker continued, “He’s the one who saved her life!”
Before any of them could respond to this, the door flew back open and a jumble of people tumbled into the small room.  “Where is she?” a pixie haired brunette demanded, practically shoving the officer out of her way.
She had a death grip on a teenage girl, who looked as if she too was suffering from the flu raging through the emergency room downstairs. “Mom, don’t embarrass me,” she muttered.
Two men followed them into the room, and Gold stilled as he tried to determine which was the actual fiance of the woman on the bed. The taller man had a gold wedding band, his coloring the same as the teenager. He had to be the father, though it hardly explained how they were related to the woman on the bed.  None of them had her eyes, or her delicate features.
The father kept a careful distance from the bed. “She’s so pale,” he muttered, his own face turning green.
This was all too much for the doctor . “What is this? This is a hospital- Family only!”
“We are family.”
This came from the other man in the room, the one with a mess of curly hair and a scarfy styled artfully around his throat. He was confident and assured, and if Tinker’s frank appraisal was any indication, a very handsome man. This had to be the fiance. Gold took a step further back, judging the distance to the door.
With that cleared up, the woman rounded on Whale. “How is she. What’s happened- they said she fell. What’s going on!”
None of these were actual questions. “You can't come bursting into this unit!” Whale was shouting over them but he was fighting a losing battle.
“She’ll be alright, won’t she?” the husband asked.
Whale bit down on a sigh but gave in to the inevitable. “She’s in a coma.”
“On Christmas day?” the younger girl asked, and it may have been Gold’s imagination but she looked even paler.
“Jesus!” the brunette muttered and her husband shot her a warning look.
No doubt used to this, Whale continued as if no one had said anything. “Her vital signs are strong. Her brain waves are good.” “Brain waves?” the girl mouthed, but her parents were too caught up in their own worry.
“I think she’s going to get through it,” Whale concluded.
“Are you a specialist?” the husband asked but his wife didn’t have time for that.
“How did this happen?”
“She was pushed from the the platform at the train station.” Gold hadn’t meant to speak, but now everyone was staring at him in confusion. His eyes flickered nervously to Tinker who was shaking her head discreetly.
The brunette narrowed her eyes at him. “Who’s he?”
The officer looked puzzled. “He’s her fiance,” he replied with a gesture towards the ring on the woman’s finger.
“Her fiance?”
“Yeah,” the officer said with a glance over at Tinker to confirm this. She quickly schooled her features into an innocent smile.
“Lacey’s fiance?”
“Lacey’s engaged?”
“Yeah,” the officer said as he took a hasty step back. “I thought-?”
“No, you don’t understand,” Gold tired to say but his words were lost in the swirl of everyone else’s.
“She would’ve told us,” the brunette said but her voice was uncertain. “Lacey would have told us…”
“Maybe she was busy,” her husband said slowly, as if to convince himself.
The man by the door shook his head at this. “Too busy to tell us she’s getting married?” he asked with a quirk of his brow.
“If only Belle were here,” the brunette said as she pinched her nose.
“Honey, you okay?” Tinker had stepped forward and it was only then that Gold noticed the teen was swaying on her feet. Her eyes were glassy and her face was pale with sweat dotting her temples. It was rather hot in here, he thought, until he saw the metal bracelet on her right wrist.
A million things crashed down at him at once as the officer asked, “Is she okay?”
Her parents were at her side, lowering her onto the chair by the window. The girl shook her head feebly, but she sank down into it as she fought to breath. Gold saw past her, to another child trying to breath, their traitorous heart failing, eyes scared and tired- “She’s got a heart problem,” the man by the door said to the officer who was darting worried looks around the room. “On the donor list since she was eight.”
“Ten,” the girl corrected stubbornly from across the room.
“Nothing wrong with her hearing though,” the man said with a wink.
The officer, clearly overwhelmed, took a step backwards. “Okay everyone,” he declared in what had to be his official voice in a vain attempt to regain authority in the room. No one paid him a bit of attention.
“What is he doing here?” the curly haired man asked the officer with a pointed nod towards Gold.
All eyes swiveled back to Gold, and his mouth went dry. The teen looked up at him in curiosity, and it occurred to him that this girl would been close to Neal’s age. His fists tightened at his side and he caught himself straining to hear the young girl’s heartbeat over the beeping of the monitors and the others breathing.
The officer hurried to answer, relieved to know the answer to this. “He saved her life.”
This was not what they had been expecting. A hush fell over the room until the only noise was the intercom in the hallway.
“You saved her life?” the brunette repeated incredulously.
Gold hurried to explain. “Yeah, yeah but I-”
“I thought she was pushed off a train platform?” the husband asked the officer.
“He jumped on the tracks,” the officer said with a proud smile. This stopped Gold short, words disappearing from his tongue.
“You jumped on the tracks?”
“Mom, stop repeating everything,” the girl groaned.
Doctor Whale frowned at him from across the room and Tinker was wearing a very sheepish look on her face as things escalated. “Okay, look,” Gold said as he held up his hands. “I-I’m sorry, you-you don’t understand.”
“No,” the brunette said, standing to come towards him. He took a step backwards but his back was already against the wall. “I’m sorry,” she continued, unaware of his attempted retreat. “We haven’t...we haven't seen her in a really long time, so we didn’t know.”
“We always wanted her to find the right guy,” her husband said, his hand still on his daughter’s shoulder though he was looking over at Lacey. When their eyes met, there was a warmth and acceptance in them that staggered Gold more than his wife’s apology.
“I just- I-”
The girl’s wide eyes were green as her eyes flickered over where Lacey lay. A tear rolled down her cheek, and she hurriedly brushed it away. She caught his eye over her mother’s shoulder and rolled her eyes as if to mock her own emotions. He didn’t look away, his heart thundering in his chest as he stared at the small metal bracelet still dangling around her wrist. Whatever he had meant to say disappeared as the girl’s breathing evened out and she smiled up at him.
“Sorry to interrupt,” the officer said as he cleared his throat. “I do need to ask Mr. Gold here some questions…”
Grateful for the escape, Gold hurried out the door with Tinker close on his heels. The officer lingered for a moment as the family started talking over each other again and the two of them hurried towards the elevator.
‘Shit,” Tinker whispered as they turned back to watch the family through the open door. “That was intense.”
He almost agreed with her until he remembered the entire scene had been thoroughly her fault. “Why did you say that?” Gold demanded. “I’m not her fiance!”
Tinker closed one eye and bit her lip. “I know!” she groaned. “I just said that so you could stay until they found her actual family! It was going to be a misunderstanding, and what with you in shock-”
“Stop saying I’m in shock,” he grumbled. He put his head in his hands and tried to think but all her could see were bright green eyes staring up at him and the trust and relief that had been so naked on everyone’s faces.  “What am I going to do?”
Tinker shrugged helplessly. “I...I don’t know,” she admitted.
He raked a hand through his hair and sighed. “I’ll just tell them the whole thing’s a misunderstanding.”
“Excuse me, nurse?”
They both jumped and spun guilty around to find the curly haired man from Lacey’s friends standing just behind them. “Is there a pharmacy in the hospital?”
It took Tinker a moment to hear what he had said. “Oh, yeah,” she hurried to say with a shake of her head. “What...what do you need?”
“It’s for Emma,” the man replied with a jerk of his head back towards the room. “She needs some nitroglycerin.”
“Oh, for her heart problem?” Tinker said, and her eyes fluttered to Gold.
“Problem?” the man chuckled, though there was no humor in it. “Try problems.” His eyes swung to Gold now and grew serious. “You know something?” he said quietly. “I think you saved her life.”
“Lacey’s?”
He shook his head. “Emma’s. They didn’t tell us much when they called...they just said she fell. We didn’t realize it was this serious until…”
Silence fell between them. “I'll take you down to the pharmacy,” Tinker suggested.
“Thanks,” the man said with another smile and the two of them disappeared into the elevator leaving Gold standing alone in the middle of the hall.
--
Christmas afternoon found Gold sitting in the waiting room down the hall with Lacey French’s closest friends. The Blanchards were the closest thing Laey French had to a family and they had insisted Gold join them to await the doctor’s assessment.
“We met in college, the five of us,” Mary Margaret Blanchard explained as her daughter fell asleep on her shoulder. She idly stroked the girl’s long blonde hair. “In English Lit 101.”
“We got paired up to write about Snow White,” David confirmed with a chuckle.
“Lacey and I had Alice in Wonderland,” Jefferson sighed as he stretched his legs.
Gold, curious as to their relationship, perked his ears up only to hear Mary Margaret mumble under her breath. “Fitting.”
Before Gold could wonder what she meant, her daughter stirred. “Hey honey,” she whispered. “How you feeling?’
“Fine, Mom,” the girl mumbled as she peeled herself away. “Any updates?’
Jefferson shook his head. “They said the swelling went down but they want to keep her sedated until they can assess the damage.”
Emma nodded morosely, a flicker of guilt on her face. Gold stayed silent where he sat beside Jefferson.” What were you guys talking about?” she asked as she looked from adult to adult. “I heard you mention Wonderland?”
“How we all met,” her father answered and Emma wrinkled her nose.
“Not that story again.”
“What do you mean not again?” Mary Margaret teased. “You used to love that story. How your father dressed up as Prince Charming that Halloween and asked me to the ball-”
“It was a sorority dance,” Emma corrected with a roll of her eyes. They landed on Gold and she perked up. “What about you?” she asked.
“Me?” Gold repeated, taken unaware by her interest.
“How did you meet Lacey?”
“Honey,” Mary Margaret whispered. “He doesn’t want to talk about that now.”
“Why not?” Emma said with a frown. “We could all use a nice story.”
“How do you know it was nice?” Jefferson drawled, and both the Blanchards colored slightly. David shook his head as if warning him off. Gold looked from one to the other, feeling as if he was missing something crucial.
“Of course it was nice,” Emma was saying over them. She seemed to be picking up the same tension Gold was and her voice wavered. “Why wouldn’t it be nice?”
“What happened to the other guy?” David was asking his wife. “What’s his name? The one she met at the bar?”
“What’s that got to do with anything?” Emma demanded but her parents were having their own conversation now. “Keith Nottingham,” Mary Margaret spat.
“Mary Margaret..." Jefferson looked pointedly at Emma. “She has a nice guy now,” his eyes flickered to Gold, “ doesn’t she?”
“Did you steal her from that guy?” Emma demanded and her voice was breathless, but this time it was out of excitement. Her eyes were hopeful and her mother softened in turn. “I bet it was love at first sight.” Jefferson chuckled and Emma shot him a look. “I have a sense about these things,” she confided to Gold. “I call it my super power.”
She lit up, the same way Neal had whenever someone encouraged him to talk about his beloved trains. “Oh?” he asked, encouraging her to continue. The nitroglycerin had helped improve her color, but worry still weighed down her shoulders and the occasional look in her eye made Gold think there was more bothering her than just Lacey’s accident.
“Was she visiting you at work?” Emma asked the question everyone had been too polite to ask. “Did you guys meet there?”
“Emma,” her father protested, but it was a weak one. He glanced over at Gold with a sheepish shrug, and it occurred to him he wasn’t going to get out of this.
“I..uh..” he said, and the last thing he wanted to do was lie to these people, but Emma’s medical bracelet glinted up at him and he cast about for what to do. The time for explaining was long gone. The police officers had taken his statement, but no one had dreamed of letting him leave, certain he wanted to be there to hear what the doctors had to say.
“What was it about her that, you know, first struck you?”
He realized now, too late, they had been waiting to grill him. From the small things they had said, all carefully coded to not alarm Emma, it seemed Lacey French had put some distance between herself and her unorthodox family.
“Her eyes,” he answered honestly. The bright blue had stayed with him throughout the long day. He had tried not to openly stare at Lacey, though she was easily one of the most beautiful women he had ever seen. He could too easily remember the feel of her in his arms, and some small part he had thought long dead had seemingly awakened in all the excitement. This should have embarrassed him, but the group seemed delighted to hear this.
Jefferson leaned back on the couch. “She’s a beautiful woman,” he said casually, but there was a hook underneath it. “You guys meet online or-?”
“Jefferson!”
“Shh!” Emma demanded. “Let him tell it.”
There was no escaping it, so Gold took a deep breath. “Well...the first time I saw her…Everything….just fell away. She was so...fierce and unafraid,” he shook his head. “I just knew my life would never be the same.”
It was the truth, God help him. Fond smiles lifted the corners of everyone’s mouth. David leaned over to pat him on the back. Gold started at this casual touch, but relaxed as the others began to talk about Lacey’s fearlessness, her bravery and her tenacity. He settled back as they spoke so fondly of the woman they thought he was in love with, and he found himself content just to listen.
Notes:
If anyone's curious, I chose Tinker Belle as the nurse character because I always liked the idea of her knowing Neal and I think the two of them would have been fast friends based of their time in Neverland together in canon. And Whale being a slightly creepy doctor because Whale.
Second chapter and still no Belle, but the character of Jack doesn't appear in the movie until a quarter through, so I can promise everyone she does show up in chapter four. Following the movie, next chapter we'll have a visit to the hospital room at midnight, a talk on porch stairs, and Ice Capades.
Thanks to @prissyhalliwell for letting me ask her a million questions and assure me I’m not crazy. 
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egoiistas · 6 years
Text
at the center of the world (4)
tag || ffn || ao3
Amestris becomes a harrowingly silent place on the afternoon of the Promised Day and only the survivors at the center are left to tread over it. Within a few hours, they won’t be the only ones wandering. The sacrifices are rising and leaving Central is more dangerous than the looming threat of invading armies.
Rated: M. it’s a horror/zombie au fic. - or it tries to be Warnings: General Horror themes , graphic descriptions of violence(kinda), Death, Zambeez
Chapter 4/11
Edward
“It didn’t work.”
Edward listened as the older man spoke with a grim timbre. It was low, and Ed was surprised he could even make out the words. The sun beginning to seep into the dark chamber with the end of the eclipse distracted him further.   A clunk of metal armor colliding with the concrete ground sounded behind him. He felt the world spin as the fight between Greedling and Pride intensified in the background. That Father asshole watched from on high, like a sick kid who watches ants squirm under a magnifying glass on a sunny day.
“What didn’t work?” He asked desperately as he ran to Alphonse, May came out of nowhere next to him. “Al?”  
“Alphonse!” May squeaked.   “The counter to his transmutation circle. I calculated it for so long and it didn’t work...” There was a pause and the tension could be felt in Ed’s chest.     “But I can use alchemy; they fixed it!”   “No, not that one.” He dropped on his knees next to the suit of armor. “The one for everyone’s soul, the reason I left you and Alphonse and Trisha... If I had known, I would have never stepped outside of Resembool.”
The din of battle grew between Father leaving through the hole, Greedling shouting and chasing after him, and the thunderous beat within his own chest. He watched Pride’s vessel disintegrate into dust.   “You’re-you’re joking, right? How is … everyone gone? Why isn’t Alphonse waking up?”   “What’s going on?” Ed heard the blind Colonel speak finally. He glanced over and Teacher’s clutch over his arm tightened without a word.
His head snapped back to Hohenheim when his father’s hand firmly gripped his shoulder.   “Edward, listen to me carefully -- if only this one time. You will need to take him to a hospital, closest one you can find. IV bags are important. Don’t transport him unless necessary. He won’t be able to eat for a while. He will need a lot of rest. Please leave the country as soon as he is able.”   “What are you going to do?” He panicked.
Hohenheim opened Al’s front armor plate and a powerful gust flung it across the room. It came from Greedling… Ling crashing into a corner of the chamber. Charred and not regenerating.
Hohenheim wasn’t bothered to look.
“We said we’d never use- Don’t toss me your notes, pops! Hey! If we can defeat the homunculus, we can get them back!”   “It’s too late.” He looked up to the light trickling in with tired eyes.”I won’t live through this again.”   Ed heard the crackling from the transmutation, and saw the red electricity flash before him. He yelled after him, “Don’t abandon us again, you lousy father!”
Edward cursed Hohenheim. Cursed alchemy. Cursed it all. His shit luck. The figurative shit hand he had been dealt.
He had brief moments where it felt like a dream; a haze that clouded his mind. He hadn’t slept all day, not that he was complaining. His bones were beginning to ache. He didn’t have to look in a mirror to see the bags under his eyes. He sat upright to settle restless legs.
If there was any silver lining to this -- and Ed tried so hard to hold on to it -- it was that they had regained his body back. But it caused inner conflict. In the few hours since, he made an effort to always be by Al, because left alone his mind would wander in the worst ways, and the thoughts that gathered would make his stumps ache. He had felt the cost was too high. He rationally knew it was Hohenheim who paid the toll, yet Ed felt that the gain of his younger brother’s body was not worth the price of losing all the people of Amestris. A swirl of self-loathing would always brew uncomfortably whenever he dwelled on this. Ungrateful, undeserving, even arrogant. The fact that his brain sputtered out of ideas only sunk his heart further and left a putrid taste in his mouth.
Fortunately, all dark clouds would dissipate upon seeing Alphonse. Even amongst the death and desolation, Ed had smiled when he saw the flesh body of his younger brother, and he felt the warmth as Alphonse murmured Brother without a metallic sound to his voice.
Alphonse slept and Ed watched. His cheeks sunken in, brittle hair cut short, and bony throughout.  Al had a severe look on his face as he slept; maybe it was just the hollows of his face creating the expression. He was so small. The outline under the blanket silhouetted a human with straight  lines and hard edges -- lacking curves of healthy muscle. He was here and resting.   May slumbered next to the hospital bed in a wide, cushioned chair; resting her head on its arms. As much as she annoyed him, May pulled through for him where Hohenheim's instructions fell short. He had her to thank for the healthy flush on Al’s bony cheeks.   The first few hours were rough. His body didn’t react well to anything, and Ed’s inexperience had shown through. Al had asked for water and like the idiot that he was, Ed had given it to him. He regurgitated it violently and the sight made Ed feel like he was going to break in half from heaving.   May had scolded him when she reentered the room and instructed him to clean up the sick as she brought in the IV stand and the bags full of saline. He watched as she took better care of his brother than he could.   Ed stood and looked out the window. The eerie presence of bodies was less on this avenue of Central. He immediately turned away, opening and closing the palm of his automail right hand. He supposed it wouldn’t be a bad thing to keep his automail if it meant Alphonse walked around. He sighed, tracing his fingers along the edges and frame of his automail. 
Winry. 
In every likely scenario, she was mostly likely swallowed in the nationwide transmutation circle. He knew it. It was logical. But every other part that didn’t adhere to logic wished, hoped, and in a desperate corner of his grieving mind, he nearly prayed for her safety, that maybe she did leave Amestris on his advice, but he wouldn’t know unless they went to Resembool. Given Al’s current condition, he couldn’t anticipate when that would be possible.   “How is he?”   Ed turned in response to the low voice. “Fine,” he whispered. “Just sleeping.”
Teacher leaned on the doorway; a small smile on her lips and arms wrapped around herself. He gestured for her to follow him outside the room. Ed could tell there was a change in her eyes. Somehow, she lost the trademark ferocity that burned behind them.   “Perhaps you should too, it’s been a long day.”   “Maybe when everyone else gets back.” He rolled shoulder. “Did the chimeras help you find Mr. Sig?”   “We did. He was at the bottom of the staircase before they pulled me in, next to the General Armstrong and her brother. We gave them a burial too.”
He could almost hear her heart breaking. He bit his cheek, looked down at his feet and told her sheepishly, “I’m sorry we failed him, Teacher.”   “Ed...” She pulled him into a hug before he could protest. He soon realized the hug was for her and not particularly for him. “We’ve all lost someone today.”   He stepped away. “That doesn’t make my sympathy any less meaningful.”   “Thank you, Ed.” He felt her hand shift towards her face, suppressing a sniffle before she let him go. “Any word from the others?”   From where he stood, the sky lit up in a spectacle of smoke and explosion. The flames had blended in so well with the sky that he almost missed it. His eyes widened and his feet took him to the nearest window. “That’s the Colonel’s alchemy.”   He felt her pace up beside him. “Are you certain?”   “Positive.” He stared as the smoke dispersed into the atmosphere. “I’ll go and check it out.” He slowly shut Alphonse’s door and began to sprint towards the double doors as they swung in front him, inches away of wiping his face clean. The door were forced open by Jerso writhing against something. “Get them- off me please- Zampano-! Augh! they got my ear!”   Ed, naturally confused, saw the other bodies come into view. Moving bodies in scrubs and lab coats. But their movements were off, feral and jerking; yet their limbs hung as if their hands were too heavy to lift. And the one on Jerso. A child. Clinging to his face, scratching and biting at his face   “Edward!”   Teacher’s voice brought him back and he bolted to help the chimera get the body off him. He saw Izumi run towards another body making its way towards Alphonse’s room and flung it towards the crowd of moving bodies in the other wing.   He reached for the child ripping the skin on Jerso’s face and before Ed could touch it, the child’s head turned and hissed at him, vaulting from the chimera’s face toward the ceiling.It clung to the surface and crawled like an insect with rapid movement back into the crowd in the other room. The horror of the sight briefly paralyzed him.  
Gorius clutches his shaking friend, “Jerso! Where’s Zampano?”
The chimera held his face in agony, blood quickly showing between his fingers. “Z-Zampano, he was overwhelmed.”  He heard Izumi hastily shut the door double doors and sealed them after a clap of her hands.   “Overwhelmed by what?”   “The-the-the corpses. They were lying down one minute and the next they were on top of us.”     Ed shook his head. It didn’t make any sense. “How is that possible?” It isn’t possible. There has to be some kind of explanation.   “We were near the lobby trying to clear the hallways, like you said, when one of the stirred. It happened in the opposite wing of where we are now, near the children’s treatment wing when one of them stood up. We thought that it was just a fluke, that maybe not everyone was dead. Then more and more started rising.” He saw Teacher bring a first aid kit and begin to dab cotton on his scratched face. “Before we knew it half the room was already on him. Ripping apart his insides, intestines and such on the floor beside him…” He tried to look down as Teacher instructed him to keep eyes forward to better treat him. “For him to survive the freaky circle and the god guy only to fall prey to his… “ He shook his head, palms rubbing his reddening eyes. “What kind of cruel joke is this to a man who lost his family already.”   Ed felt his fingers tremble. Swallowing hard, he wondered what that meant for the Colonel and the two that accompanied him. “The others are still out there in this.”   “Ed, you can’t go out in this alone.”   “We can’t just leave them there!” He shouted, realizing this was the first time he’s raised his voice at his teacher. In turn, she had been uncharacteristically quiet since the incident.   Another blast of fire. But it was closer this time. Ed darted to the window and he saw the trio taking down the undead citizens of the Amestris. He clapped his hands together, quickly creating a stairwell and impromptu doorway for them from the second floor, using the concrete and the other materials from the edifice of the building.   Scar and the Lieutenant adeptly changed their direction, pushing through toward the newly created steps.  Ed ran down with Izumi calling after him. It was reckless but if it ensured their safety, he’d risk it. He pushed the bodies aside with walls he created from the ground and yelled at them to get a move on.   Scar protected the rear as the Colonel and Lieutenant moved up to the second floor to safety . From a distance, another crowd moved towards him. “Scar, we have to go!”   Distracted by Ed’s shout, Scar was unable to avoid an impossibly bloated body slamming into him.  It exploded on impact, releasing a cloud of putrid green gas. The Ishavalan began to choke as additional bodies swarmed in .The smell, Ed noticed, attracted them.   Ed ran forward and grabbed Scar, attempting to drag him away from danger, a feat of strength beyond that of a 16 year old boy. As the horde closed in on them, Izumi landed at Scar’s side. A tattooed arm around each of them, they carried him up the stairs.   When they were all safely through the doorway, Edward clapped his hands, disintegrating  the stairs and sealing off the opening.  Bodies fell from the ascent and lay twitching on the ground as the rest of the mob began to rush the lower floor of the hospital.   “Seal the windows! And exits!” Edward exclaimed. Feeling the spin of the world stopping, he ran to Alphonse’s room, fear clawing a hole in his gut.   Bursting through the door he was met with May raggedly breathing and Alphonse clapping his hands, using alchemy to slam a cylinder of concrete into a body flinging it out of the window.   “What is going on, Brother?” Alphonse asked wearily. Al’s knees buckled and his eyes fluttered,  passing out before Ed had a chance to answer.
Ed darted forward before he hit the ground. “I don’t know Al, but I’m going to get us out of here”
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alotta-lovin · 6 years
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Hey Phirem!! What are your thoughts on the other trolls?? -💜
Well! I think i’m going to try and keep it as simple as I can with the Alpha and maybe the Beta Trolls…and in j_u-st…random order? I hope yo_u- don’t mind Anon!
(B_u-t to some it _u-p if yo_u- wish not to read all that i wrote (Which im dearly sorry for!) i think all of them have their own wonderf_u-l q_u-irks abo_u-t them! I wo_u-ld m_u-ch rather stay away from Kankri… as far as possible. B_u-t i’m kinda st_u-ck where I am so i can’t help that…And there’s a certain troll i’m red for…b_u-t that’s something you’d have to read below sorry! hhhh) (I noticed i did these in blood colo_u-r..i didn’t mean to do that…hhhh)
Karkat & Kankri : Karkat is– extremely lo_u-d and gives me a lot of headaches, but when he chills o_u-t he’s okay to be aro_u-nd? And…_u-gh.. Kankri…I don’t like him. it takes a lot for me to not like someone, _U-gh..The best way i can explain my views on him is the eq_u-ivalent of him filling my Kismesis q_u-adrant!
Aradia & Damara : Aradia has her moments! She’s pretty nice; can be a lil snippy on occassion but who isn’t ya know?? Damara…I don’t know what she’s saying half the time…I understand Nani..thats abo_u-t it…other than that i’m just conf_u-sed! But their both pretty cool trolls to be aro_u-nd!
Tavros & R_u-fioh : Their both pretty cool Trolls that i’ve gotten the to meet l_u-ckily! Tavros is a little on the q_u-iet and nervo_u-s side b_u-t other than that he’s pretty nice to be around! R_u-fioh; i haven’t personally spent a whole lot of time aro_u-nd him but the time i have he’s been pretty chill and we’d just talk for a little while before he went and did his own thing! but i’m sure we’d get along.
Soll_u-x & Mit_u-na : Soll_u-x is kinda a ass..B_u-t he’s cool! honestly talking to him abo_u-t coding is interesting, finding o_u-t what coding methods he prefers and so on ya know he even helps me with coding if i’m having an issue! Mit_u-na is so c_u-te!  He’s honestly just a c_u-ddle Bee; its interesting to see how he goes abo_u-t doing certain tricks…bandaids m_u-st always be on hand. or K_u-rloz. one of the two, b_u-t other than that he’s pretty chill to hang around! in certain h_u-man terms he wo_u-ld be a “Smoke b_u-ddy”..I don’t know if that’s the correct term and how to _u-se it b_u-t, yeah!
Nepeta & Me_u-lin : Nepeta is so sweet..little terrifying at times when she brings yo_u- small dead critters b_u-t other than that she’s a doll! I enjoy her company. Me_u-lin is just as sweet as Nepeta, She’s trying to..be match maker to me and the…troll im fl_u-shed for. B_u-t from what time we’ve spent aro_u-nd each other or with each other it’s been pretty f_u-n! I like hearing what theories she has abo_u-t people’s relationships and so on..though its a lil evasive its interesting in its own right.
Kanaya & Porrim : Their both…very m_u-ch fashion queens If it weren’t for Porrim my–…Scar wo_u-ld be on f_u-ll display and i wo_u-ld be very _u-ncomfortable.. She added decals onto the o_u-tfit i wear now that Kanaya act_u-ally made! it’s s_u-ch a c_u-te romper and i love the ribbon in the back.. Porrim has helped me the most when it comes to my– what h_u-mans call a “Cr_u-sh” when he’s too oblivio_u-s to know that i’m not kidding aro_u-nd when i’ve told him how i feel… She’s been there to help me o_u-t not to mention she’s kept me from strangling Kankri with his damn whistle– I mean what?
Terezi & Lat_u-la : Terezi is…interesting. it’s nice to know how she f_u-nctions though! thro_u-gh the smell and taste st_u-ff yo_u- know? I’m—  I tolerate Lat_u-la personally…b_u-t thats a completely different thing to talk abo_u_t another time if asked abo_u-t it b_u-t other than that one thing…i don’t interact with her m_u-ch. i feel we wo_u-ld b_u-tt heads a lot.
Viriska & Aranea : I haven’t…interacted m_u-ch with the either of them honestly; Viriska always slightly p_u-t me off– like she had an intimidating A_u-ra abo_u-t her; so i never approached her. I haven’t approached Aranea either– i sho_u-ld do that sometime; thank yo_u- for reminding me Anon!
Eq_u-i_u-s & Hor_u-ss : They…Both make me extremely _u-ncomfortable..i know they mean well and have good intent b_u-t their a_u-ra’s and the way they talk so slowly makes me very _u-ncomfortable…
Gamzee & K_u-rloz : Gamzee is; again what a h_u-man wo_u-ld call a “Smoke B_u-ddy”. he can be a little scary at times b_u-t other than that he’s pretty chill. K_u-rloz is intersting..I’m trying to learn to Sign better so i can talk to him! b_u-t from what ive seen with how he is with ‘T_u-na and Me_u-lin he seems like a really cool g_u-y!
Eridan & Cron_u-s : Eridan is what yo_u- wo_u-ld call…someone with a inflated ego.. b_u-t i’m s_u-re if he tried he wo_u-ld be a pretty cool g_u-y to be aro_u-nd maybe… N’ Cron_u-s…_u-hhhh– _u-mmm…He’s cool…really cool. it’s f_u-n to  be aro_u-nd him…i enjoy his company..a lot…and– I’M GONNA STOP THERE. MOVING ON.
Feferi & Meenah : They are another set of trolls i haven’t interacted with m_u-ch not gonna lie on that… Feferi seems to be very..b_u-bbly and i feel that wo_u-ld get on my nerves and i don’t want to yell at her for her j_u-st being here ;; thats not fair to her! so i j_u-st spend a little amo_u-nt of time with her. so i don’t know her that well. and Meenah i don’t know at all..i know she can be violent. which i can admire at times. other times its not necessary. so…yeah.
B_u-t thats my two cents on them…yeah..sorry for the late reply Anon! i wanted to give yo_u- my tho_u-ghts and i narrowed it down at the top. b_u-t if yo_u- read all of it and yo_u- made it all the way down to this, YO_U- GET A WHOLE SHEET OF GLOW IN THE DARK STICKIE STARS!
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lycanthroptea · 7 years
Text
a revolution
or, the beginning.
                          “By the side of Enjolras, who represented the logic of the Revolution,                Combeferre represented its philosophy. Between the logic of the Revolution                and its philosophy there exists this difference—that its logic may end in war,                whereas its philosophy can end only in peace...    Combeferre preferred the                whiteness of the beautiful to the blaze of the sublime.”
                                     --Les Misérables, Book IV, Chapter I
    It had started with an invitation. It had started with four friends. It had started with hope, which sparked a flame, which burned rich and brilliant and strong. It flared, scorched, and blackened, leaving a graveyard in its wake.
     Decembers in Paris were rather unpleasant affairs. Iron winds rushed through narrow city streets, accompanied by bitter cold and the sting of snow, the sort of ice that numbed and burned fingers until they blistered from frost. It was no surprise, then, that the majority of the city’s inhabitants had sought refuge indoors, save for the unlucky few.
     One particularly miserable boy winced as a viciously icy gust threatened to greedily steal away his thin scarf, which he pulled even more tightly around his reddened nose. He had just spent the last ten minutes rushing through quiet alleyways, not because he was late, but because his threadbare coat provided little protection from the elements. Winter really was an unforgiving mistress.
     As the boy rounded a shadowy corner, his pinched features visibly relaxed at the sight of an unassuming cafe half a block down the snow-covered street. It was unadorned with the exception of a weather-worn sign, which creaked precariously like a pendulum in the capricious wind. Though its colors had dulled over the years, one could still make out a beautiful golden bird flying towards the sun in the peeling paint, the inscription Le Café Phénix penned gracefully underneath.
     “Remus!”
     He halted, glancing over his shoulder at the echoing voice. It belonged to a raven-haired boy around the same age as him, dressed in a warm tailored coat and a thick, red scarf, hair pulled back by an elegant ribbon. He swung his arm around Remus’s shoulder in a friendly manner, lips splitting into a winning, roguish smile.
     “Nasty weather, isn’t it?” he asked cheerily, pulling open the cafe door for the both of them. They crossed the room with a brief hello to the owner before jogging up the rickety back staircase. “And to think James still wants us to show up despite the fact that half of us’ll be frozen before we even get here.”
     Remus pushed open the door at the top of the steps, the warm thrum of friendly chatter immediately spilling on to their ears. “That’s not a problem for you, Sirius. You’ve got enough layers on to clothe five people.”
     “Now, mon ami,” Sirius admonished, smirking, “let’s not get bogged down on the details.”
     Sometimes, when he was alone in his flat, Remus would think of his family.
     His mother, a prostitute. His father, an ex-convict. He himself, the product of one of the worst crimes of humanity.
     James and Sirius and Peter didn’t seem to mind, but he wondered what the others would say if they knew. He wondered, and contemplated, and pondered. At times, quiet reflection was the only way to deal with the burden of guilt resting on his shoulders. If he hadn’t been born, perhaps his mother would have been in a better place. He was nothing but an extra mouth to feed, a burden on society who had barely survived.
          ( His mother had not. )
     They were dreamers, eyes looking towards the sky and waiting for the pale light of dawn. They were hope personified: James, the Chief, on the cusp of manhood, righteous ichor blazing in his veins and authority imprinted on his brow; Sirius, the Center, radiant and warm, the ability to inspire in his fingertips; Peter, the Support, a solid rock on which to stand, always present to lend the solidarity of a friend; Remus, the Guide, a mind lost in the stars, words painting an image vivid enough to taste, philosophy made sweet as honey and sustenance enough for a week without food.
     They were the revolution, and they would rise to free the people. The shackles of injustice would be thrown off and France would become a shining democracy. They would be at the forefront of it all, not for the sake of credit or fame, but for their duty to the motherland, to Patria, to humanity itself. It was for this that they assembled their Order, where minds would gather to architect the future, where thirty people wished for a better tomorrow, where they worked together to alleviate the burden of the suffering.
     And yet they were barely twenty. James and Sirius studied at the university, aspiring lawyers whose quick wit was both admired and admonished by their peers. Peter kept up his family business, and Remus continued his work assisting the Franciscan order with ministry to the poor. They explored, they had adventures in the streets of Paris and ran into mischief. They teased and gawked when James fell in love, and snickered when the object of his affections firmly spurned him. They laughed and loved and lived, the morning light threading through their hair and pure starlight shining in their eyes. They were boys.
     “We fight,” Remus said quietly, “for the dawn. There is a tide in the affairs of men, which, taken at the flood, leads on to fortune.”
     Lungs burned, hearts aflame with passion, a hundred footsteps flew down the streets in an echo of hope. Lamarque was gone, and the people had rioted. The people were ready. The general’s coffin was borne through a throng of Parisians screaming for justice as their last voice in Parliament had died, and grief had borne outrage, which burgeoned into action. Now was the time to seize the day and take back what rightfully belonged to the people, and they had risen up in the streets of Paris. The members of the Order flooded Le Phénix, pulling chairs and tables and cabinets on to the cobblestones.
     “Can you believe it?” Remus asked, exhilarated. “I can taste the dawn already.”
     The response by his friend went unheard, drowned out by the clatter of furniture tossed onto the growing barricade. Peter paused, looking towards the rest of his friends. He frowned. “If we can make it that far.”
     They asked for assistance, they called upon the people to rise.
     They were met with silence.
     The blood of the martyrs would water the meadows of France.
     The barricade was hushed, save for the quiet flick of a match as James lit himself a cigar. Smoke spiraled up in a lazy waltz, reaching for the velvet sky on a warm, hazy June night, the sound of a violin playing a mournful love song far in the distance. A light breeze carded her sweet fingers through Remus’s hair.
     His ears still rang with the deafening thunder of gunfire.
     His hands were still red.
     He’d tried desperately to staunch the gun wound, but there was blood, so, so much blood. Marlene gasped, begged, wept, and Remus was confronted with the pain of utter helplessness, the face of a woman reduced to a shell, a woman afraid to die. He’d smiled, bittersweet, eyes brimming with unshed tears. He hadn’t been able to save her.
     ( He hadn’t been able to save his mother either. )
     It was an emptiness that threatened to choke, a nightmare become reality as he realized with a growing horror that she wouldn’t be the last. He leant back against the rough surface of a table, eyes flickering up towards the sky. More so than the decadently paneled ceilings of Versailles, nature held a certain stark brilliance. She was arrayed in a swathe of stars, glittering and proud. The constellations would watch the bloody conflagration, impartial, eyes cold to the strife of men and the winding of time as men lived and loved and died underneath them.
     A wistful smile twisted his lips. Death, he supposed, would be more bearable under such a beautiful canvas.
          My friends, my friends forgive me           That I live and you are gone.           There's a grief that can't be spoken.           There's a pain goes on and on.
          Oh my friends, my friends, don't ask me           What your sacrifice was for.           Empty chairs at empty tables           Where my friends will sing no more.
     Pale sunlight slanted through the broken window, illuminating shards of crystalline glass that glittered like diamonds. It was a moment frozen in time, dust dancing gently as to not disturb the man standing in the middle of the room, leaning heavily on a crutch. He was a man, not because he’d grown in stature and age, but because he had seen far more than any boy should. His brow was lined with grief; his eyes were stained with red, a flood that drowned out any last vestiges of innocence left in his mind. He had seen Death. 
     ( He wished he hadn’t lived to tell the tale. )
     The man blinked, inhaling shakily. His knuckles whitened as he gripped his crutch tighter, seemingly clinging to the only stable thing left in his world. The sunlight continued to shine through the window; the sound of a child laughing fluttered from some distance street, a sweet song of naïveté. The man looked around the room as if it’d divulge answers.
     A sob broke the quiet, and as the man’s shoulders trembled violently the walls refused any response.
     Lily, dead, shot in the side. James, dead, stabbed by a bayonet protecting her. Peter, dead, lost in the rubble of a collapsing barricade. Sirius, a traitor, shipped off to the chain gang at Toulon.
     Remus, alone.
     At times, he wished he could have died with them.
     Fate had other plans.
          For the wretched of the earth           There is a flame that never dies;           Even the darkest night will end           And the sun will rise.
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