#lacuna chapter six | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

ilguna · 3 years

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Lacuna - Chapters 5-8 (f.o)

summary: they say the odds tend to favor those who need them. well, they were wrong.

warnings; swearing. MURDER, GORE.

wc; 13.9k

NOTES; I give reader a last name to fit the world.

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-- CHAPTER FIVE --

With every passing day, you and Finnick manage to get closer. More information is swapped between the both of you. The nights where neither of you can sleep because the games are only getting closer, you two swap stories. He’ll tell you stories of his family. Some of them are things he’s experienced directly, other’s it’s a family tale.

He’ll tell you about how he’s gotten so good at fishing. That originally his parents thought that he would be useless when it comes to providing, but he eventually came around. They just had to find out how he wanted to do it exactly. This is where the spear and the tridents come in. He tells you that he’s learned knots of his own, and he takes the time to teach you how to tie them. They’re all very effective.

Finnick one night, comes into your room--he tells you that you have the better view of the city, and that’s one of the reasons why he likes to sit in your room for so long--with some paper and a pencil. He sat at the window, drawing the city, flipping through papers quickly as he drew the Capitol people. Made designs of clothing on his own.

He’s not good, but the more he goes on, the more he seems to get a hang of it. It only takes an hour before he’s completely run out of paper. After that, he throws it into the corner of the room and goes back to staring out the window.

Finnick tells you of the kids he wants to have, but he’s always teetering on wanting them, and then changing his mind because he’s scared of them having to go into the games. But then he laughs bitterly and says that he’ll never have to worry about that after all, because he’s going to be killed.

This is when you’ve had enough of it. You tell Finnick that his odds are extraordinary, like your own. He wants to argue that the careers will win, but you firmly get a hold of his shoulders and simply tell him that if he does this to himself, then he won’t win at all. That the careers might have a bigger chance, but he can change those odds if he just tries harder.

You tell him that he’s lined up for a win. That he knows his knots, he knows how to throw. He’s learned different plans and how to start fires and set snares all in the span of three days. You tell him that he’s tall, so he’ll be able to run, and he’s fit and not underweight, and if he’s felt what it’s like to starve, then he’ll have another advantage, he’ll be able to go hungry for as long as it may take.

He’s charming, and smart. Elysia, Mags and his stylist are constantly telling that that the Capitol is swooning over him. That he’s become desirable because of how attractive he is. Finnick is going to have a good chance at getting sponsors, because he’s showing that capability. And for him to turn it all down just because he thinks that District One and Two are going to win is ludacris in your mind.

When you were done with the entire speech, there was silence. Before you had the chance to let go of him and go back to staring at the city, watching the lights get dimmer and brighter as they reflected off of the buildings, he kissed you. It wasn’t long, because he held you in place for a couple of seconds, before he backed off and went back to silence.

He thanked you, and you assumed it was because of you restoring his confidence, and then he turned the attention on you. Demanded to hear the stories from your family, know what happened to your parents. What it’s like having to parent a little sister and all of that.

You explain to him that since Mox is such a softie, he sometimes got picked on. Which is the sole reason you took on fighting lessons from the neighboring boys because they supported you beating the fuck out of the bullies. All it took was for you to jump on them one time, and they left your brother alone after that. Reed tried to be disapproving, but at the end of the night, you could tell he was proud.

You tell him that Alyssum gets bigger everyday, and you know that she’s going to grow up happy. She might feel lonely and sad because she never got to know your parents, and maybe yourself. But she’ll feel loved all the same, because you guys will be her parents. You’ll protect her, and teach her to fight and tie knots and fish like you were.

You explain how everything works in your family, how the young ones get taught how to survive at a young age. How you didn’t even realize that it was a thing until you arrived the other day. He laughed at that, and told you that he thinks that’s how it works with everyone. But you remind him that some of the kids that are about to be thrown in with you are nowhere near as skilled as you guys are.

Then you gush about all your interests. It gets sad when you tell him about how your parents die and it’s such a burden sometimes as you try to live up to be like your mom. It’s difficult for you to go into their room still because the wound is still relatively fresh, and he understands that. He mentions that he heard about the accident a while back and he meant to give you his condolences.

You tell him that you’ve recovered and you appreciate the thought at least. And instead of going back to his room that night, the both of you end up passing out on the floor. You remember bringing the blanket down from the bed and swaddling him in it first. You found another blanket inside of the bed chest, and you did the same to yourself.

He woke you up only an hour or so later with his own nightmare, and only then did it come to you, that he probably has nightmares of his own. Which is why he ends up dodging sleep most of the time. You’re not the only one that has the problem when it comes to sleeping, and it was a little dumb for you to think that you’d be the only one that has those kinds of things.

You woke him up of course, and he stayed up long enough to clear it from his mind before he went back to bed, absolutely exhausted. You too went to sleep, and then at noon Elysia had found the both of you passed out on the floor. She let you guys sleep for as long as she could afford, she clearly had heard you two talking and she knew how late you’d stayed up.

The others are still buying your stupid act. Thyme now struggles to hide her laughter when you mock them behind their backs. Finnick is just as amused, but he doesn’t have the same trouble of trying to hide it. He’s very good at covering for you when it comes to things.

And miraculously, throughout the last two days, neither of you had talked about the fact that he had kissed you. Almost like it has disappeared in thin air, or it was something you had hallucinated. This entire time, you’ve been going a little crazy over it, until he did it again yesterday.

He lingered a little bit though, he didn’t want to leave to go to bed in his own room. His hand still on your cheek, and the longer you two stood there, the more your body started to heat up out of embarrassment. And then as cheeky boys do, he uttered a small, “You’re pretty, you know that?” and left.

Needless to say you couldn’t sleep last night because of it. This morning you felt energized though, because today would be the day you finally get to perform for the gamemakers. They’ve been monitoring you for these last couple of days of course, but this is going to be it. Today will be the day where they set your score in stone.

“Eat well!” Elysia tells you and Finnick, “but not enough to make yourselves puke.”

That part is obvious.

You all sit in silence, you’re mostly imagining yourself inside of the room with the gamemakers alone. Trying not to be anxious, because there will be plenty of eyes on you. Trying to throw the spear straight as best as possible. Or you could throw some knives.

There was this trick that you’d learned from Reed a while back. He only showed you how to do it once, and then no matter how many times you begged for him to do it again, he never would. Thought that it was useless and would never come in handy for any situation, especially for the games.

You’ll need two knives, and two seperate dummies.

“Is the training area closed?” you ask once you’ve swallowed your stew, looking to Elysia.

“Yes, since you’ll be doing it in private today, they don’t see a reason for you to practice. You’ve had three days to do whatever it is you want to learn now.” she tells you.

“No, not learn.” you tell her, looking over the table, You settle for the blackberries in the middle of the table. You pick up the spoon, beginning to mash the berries. They watch you curiously as you pick up two knives, and then head out of the room.

You’re not very hungry anyway.

In the confinements of your own room, you lock the door. With the mashed berries, you use it to draw two people, a little taller and a little shorter than you. You place the mush off to the side as you back up, watching as it slides down the wall from the layers being a little two thick.

With one hand, you place the knives between your fingers. The aim for this is to get the left one in the head and the right in the chest. And on the first try, you only get the taller drawing. One in the chest, the other in the groin.

Just like that, you go back and forth. Pulling the knives out of the wall, leaving nice holes leaving behind. You’re about to give up on it, because you’ve been getting close, but not exactly. Until you nail it. You replicate the throw you did a couple of times, get the knives back and throw in the exact same way. With the same result.

After about thirty more times of the same result, with different distances and all, the hole where they keep landing is pretty big, and one of them even slips through and falls inside. You laugh, looking at all the damage you’ve caused, knowing that they’re going to have to repair this all by themselves. There won’t be any time for punishment because they’re already sending you inside of the games.

The second you’ve walked out of the room, Elysia hands you the outfit, not even asking why there has been thumping for the past hour, and she leaves. You get dressed and end up meeting Finnick in the hallway to see he has a similar outfit. You go to shut the door when he places his foot there, sticking his head in.

“You threw knives at the wall?” he asks, “Are those people outlines?”

You grab his arm, pulling him out and shutting the door behind you. He laughs, and slips his fingers into yours, holding on tight as he guides you to the elevator. Mags and Elysia don’t even blink at the fact that he’s holding your hand at all. After they’ve escorted you to the room, they go back to the floor, where you’ll meet them.

You sit in the District Four spot with Finnick, talking to Allio, Lennox, Trink and Eytelle until they’ve left. Then, you look over the District Three boy curiously, wondering if he’ll want to be your friend inside of the arena. Then he too, leaves.

The girl goes, and you turn to Finnick, “You’ve got this, okay? Plenty of skills, I’m sure they’ll have something for you in there.”

“You too.” he tells you, and then his name is called. He’s pulling his fingers from your hand but stops long enough to kiss your forehead. Once the door shuts behind him, Thyme snorts.

“You guys dating?” a couple of the others snicker.

“I have no clue.” you whisper.

“But you like him?” one of the girls ask, she seems excited to talk about something, have a little bit of drama to pass around. Ignore the impending doom that’s creeping up on you guys the more that time goes on.

You can feel your face get hot, “I think so.”

“Who doesn’t?” one of the boys sigh, he’s got his head leaned up against the wall. You’re pretty sure he’s from District Seven—Mac, his district mate nods along, Cass.

You guys go back and forth on it, them asking you questions, but you don’t reveal too much. The only person you consider giving the information to is Thyme, since she’ll be in the alliance. The others will think that the way to get to you will be to kill Finnick, which isn’t entirely true.

You’re trying to distance yourself from those feelings, but it’s kinda hard to do. He’s holding your hand, he’s kissing you. You’re learning about all the things he did back home, how his family life was. He’s sleeping with you on your bedroom floor, and through all of this you’re digging up memories to compensate for all the memories he’s giving to you. And along with that is coming the feelings for him you never knew you had before. Or, the ones you suppressed because you never thought you had a chance with him.

Finnick talked to so many girls, they swooned over him. But he never dated any of them, and that’s what kept the girls coming. They thought that he was always playing hard to get but maybe….

You can’t afford to dig them up.

Fifteen minutes seem to drag on. As you’re forced to keep up with the conversation, listening to them list off all his good qualities, sinking you deeper into your feelings. Just before you get up, one of the girls mention how you’re lucky. Not because of his good looks, but because he seems to care about you a lot. He’s going to be good in the games and she seems to think that he’ll try to protect you.

When you walk into the room, you see that the gamemakers are watching you walk in. You have to take a deep breath to compose yourself. Your hands are a little shaky, but you ignore them for the most part, “(Y/n) Gallows, District Four.”

You set up two dummies on the other side of the room. Then you use the berries to mark the spots where you’re going to hit them exactly. On the way back, you pick up the knives, and turn to look at the gamemakers.

“You may begin.”

You place the knives between your fingers, with the exactly placing being perfect. One breath in, and then out, you draw your arm back.

The knives fly from your fingers quickly, and the sound of the dummies hitting the wall makes a dull thud sound fill the air. You stare for a moment, like you can’t believe you just showed them this trick of all things. But then you see you got them exactly where you had marked. There’s not even a little bit of the berries showing, it’s just… knife.

You turn to look at the gamemakers, and they nod, giving each other looks. Some lean over to talk to others, and they dismiss you from the room. On the way back to the elevator, the jitteriness of it all escapes your body, and you finally feel normal again. It slowly starts to come to you the longer it takes for you to get back, that you probably scored high, it was threatening enough.

It had to be more impressive because they were at different heights, and the precision, how you did it so quickly with no practice throw before. The distance between you and the dummies were over twenty feet clearly. You might not use that exact maneuver inside of the arena, but you’ll definitely be able to do something like it. Close, far, your aim is impeccable. You’re deadly, like you’ve been telling yourself the entire time.

Once inside of the apartment, you go ahead and sit on the couch. Elysia tells you that it might take a while for the program to come around, so you curl up and take a nap in the meantime.

When they do come to wake you, you see that Laurel and Finnick’s stylist have also joined you inside. Mags sits in an adjacent chair that’s twice the size she is, but she looks comfortable. Finnick is just by your feet, and Elysia is next to him.

“Here we go.” Elysia mutters, before turning on the television.

They introduce the program first, explaining it as if the people in the Capitol would suddenly forget how all of this works. And then, they start with the first district, Lennox. He gets a solid score of ten, and Trink follows with a nine. Allio gets a nine, Eytelle gets the same. The boy from District Three gets a ten, the girl only gets an eight.

And then so quickly, Finnick shows up on screen. Without even thinking about it, your hand finds his, and you’re both squeezing tightly.

“Finnick Odair, with a score of…” Caesar purposely builds tension, “Ten.”

“Wow!” Elysia cheers, looking to him with big eyes, “You did well!”

“Now for (Y/n).” Finnick gives you a look, and the both of you start squeezing again.

“(Y/n) Gallows,” Caesar nods at the paper, “Ten.”

You’re even, the both of you are even. But you’ve gotten higher than Eytelle, Trink and Allio. You, Finnick and Lennox are the high scoring ones. They’ll be sure to take this into consideration.

“That’s good!” Elysia looks genuinely happy.

Finnick doesn’t release your hand, but the both of you don’t hold on as tight. Instead, you watch as the numbers fly by, revealing just how capable some of the other districts are. Most score a seven to nine, none getting as high as a ten. Only a few, the younger ones, fall below a six.

And then it gets to Thyme, you find yourself holding your breath again. Until she gets a score of nine. You hope that’s because she threw the knives like you taught her to. Or she had her own set of deadly skills that she hadn’t bothered to show off before.

You guys gather for dinner, the stylist joining you for once. You stuff yourself full as usual. Mags is the first to excuse herself tonight. She’s been doing a lot more later, putting herself out there. Elysia and Mags have been talking you guys up over the chances that you have to win. Only Mags can truly secure every single sponsor, and send them through during the games.

She says that you guys have promise, but the interview in two days really will determine how everything goes.

After Mags is you, and Finnick takes that same opportunity. You take the time to thank Laurel for all the outfits that she’s been making lately, and she brushes you off, saying that it’s really nothing. Then after that, you’re heading back to your room as usual.

Finnick sticks around again, but not for as long. He doesn’t kiss you like the nights before and like this afternoon. But he does bid you goodnight and leaves you to be alone. To sit and wallow in all the emotions that you’re feeling.

The main one being anxiety.

--CHAPTER SIX --

It’s obvious that they’ve been watching your body language, and it’s kinda hard to hide it when Finnick is so out there with it. Like he’s purposely trying to draw people in to thinking that you two are together. It isn’t a bad strategy, to bring in more sponsors and shit like that.

But then you remember that they won’t see you side by side really. It won’t be until you’re standing with the others, watching the interview go on, when you’ll see what happens. The only time they have seen you together was during the second day, and maybe during the training session days. You’re not sure if they show that footage or not actually.

You just hope they don’t have cameras here, inside of the apartment, or you’d be screwed. They’d be able to broadcast all the private moments you’ve had with Finnick for the entire Capitol and the people back home to see. Or the kiss before the private training....

It doesn’t matter to you that Mags, Elysia, Laurel and--you’ve finally learned Finnick’s stylist’s name--Pleurisy know of your encounters. Mags is staying in the same building that you are, so she’s bound to know what’s going on. Elysia has caught you two only once, and even though she isn’t chatty to you and Finnick much, she definitely goes at it when talking to Laurel and Pleurisy.

Just by the looks they’re giving the both of you, it’s obvious.

Elysia thinks for a moment, and then she shrugs. You’re not sure what that’s about exactly, but she backs up.

And then proceeds to spend so much time hammering in manners that she seems are proper. She’ll tell you to sit with your back straight, hands together. A constant smile is on your face, and you manage to keep that on for a long time. She asks if you can get the blush going like you did on the chariot ride, and it isn’t very hard to do it this time.

Finnick asks what’s your secret, and you don’t give him a single word. Because the truth is, you’re thinking of all the times he’s kissed you. How it’s made you feel, talking about it with the other tributes as if you guys were a bunch of friends and they were teasing you about your crush.

You think of all those girls back home who like him so much, and here he is choosing you. You think about how Reed will absolutely destroy Finnick if it gets back to him that you’re kissing Finnick. How he’ll go big brother mode and then proceed to give you a talk when it comes to boys.

You’ll remind him that you’re not actually dating and it was harmless flirting. At least that’s what you’re thinking, or hoping actually. But you know deep down that it’s not flirting because flirting isn’t kissing. Flirting is teasing, and glancing across the room at each other when the other isn’t looking.

You’ve slipped past the flirting stage, and you’re heading to something else that you’re not excited for. One of you is going to die inside of the arena, and it’s going to ruin everything between you two. The other will be devastated because of the fling that was going on, and you’ll struggle to overcome it. Maybe it’ll be easy. Maybe it’ll be a reason to continue to go on, to win and go home.

You’re able to do everything that Elysia wants you to do easily. The blushing, the giggling, the specific wave style. How your legs cross, hands in your lap. Your body posture, the look of wonder and curiosity in your eyes.

Elysia is confused on how you do it so well. You take a guess that Finnick knows what your trick is. All those months of pretending to be alive during school paid off a little too well. Those months have left you a partial actress, the Capitol people are going to be putty in your hands. For once, you’ll be manipulating what they think of you.

A part of you is excited to go into the games. You’ll play off this stupid look but the second you get inside you’ll turn into a machine. The entire act can be dropped off and you can go back to being cold, and really hating this entire thing. No more acting like you love it here, or the people around you. No more playing pretend, you’ll finally be able to be yourself.

Because the truth is, you’re not always this happy. The smile on your face nearly falters after a while as you struggle to not think about what it’s going to be like in the games. How your entire life will be changed when you get back home. Nothing will be the same, you’re not going to be happy when you get back home.

You’re going to remember every face that you kill. Learn their names and eventually meet their families and--

“Are you crying?” Elysia sounds appalled, but it has to be shock.

You wipe your hands on your face, and when you pull them away you can see only a little bit of wetness. You’ve only just started crying it seems.

Finnick jumps to comfort you, wrapping his arms around you and squeezing you, “What’s wrong?”

“Nothing, I’m fine.” you try to brush him off, and he looks like he’s going to argue with you, but then he accepts it. You know that he’ll bring this up later tonight, since the both of you sit in your room with the nice view in silence. Tonight will not be filled with silence.

Elysia moves on to helping Finnick. She brings out the inner confidence, and you watch a he transforms completely. He sits up taller, which means that he’s been slouching this entire time. You’re not sure how you didn’t notice that, but knew that Eytelle was doing it. Maybe it’s because she’s nearly six foot, as Finnick is only five foot seven-ish right now.

He’ll get taller, he’s only fourteen right now. There’s plenty of time for him to keep growing. The same goes for you, but you’ll still end up being shorter than him no matter what happens. Boys are tall, girls are normally short, with the exception of Eytelle and her giant genes apparently.

Finnick smiles, and when he does, it sends butterflies through your stomach. You find yourself biting your lip hard, trying to fight back the smile that wants to creep over your face each time he looks to you. He plays the charming role well, and soon enough you’re forgetting the fact that you were crying, focusing on Finnick.

Elysia slowly transitions into asking you and Finnick questions--ones that Mags had come up with. You’ll go first, answering the question as humbly as possible, flashing a smile and making sure that it reaches your eyes. Every now and then you’ll widen your eyes, drop your mouth open like you’re taking in information. But the smile will reappear, and you’ll say something dumb like ‘wow!’.

Finnick sounds much smarter. He lets the spotlight stay on him for a little bit, and then he’ll turn it on Elysia. When the question of winning comes up, he tells Elysia that he thinks he’s got a good chance, and then refers back to his number. You answer will a flush, a giggle and then a tiny shrug, simply saying that you’re sure that you won’t be dumb enough to die in the bloodbath.

It isn’t until you’re halfway through the interview when you realize that they might not buy the act anymore, because of the ten you had scored. This is when you ask Mags if the other tributes will realize that it is an act, and she shrugs. She doesn’t give you a straight answer, letting Elysia read it out to you.

Mags says that they’ll probably just think you’re skilled in some way. If you’ve been keeping it up behind the scenes, even without the careers around, then they’ll probably believe it. You then realize that you probably fucked it up a little bit when it came to Thyme and Finnick when you wandered around with just them for a while during the training sessions. That the others probably saw that you weren’t this dumb, bubbly girl who can’t believe that she’s learning so much in so little time.

You remember the fifteen minutes before your own private session with the gamemakers, and you decide that you did a pretty good act there. You must have looked hopelessly in love or something if they kept talking. They’re going to see you as some love-struck girl that has no clue what the fuck is going on. That’s probably for the best.

You guys go ahead and eat lunch once you’re done with the little coaching session. You definitely feel better about the interview. It’s not like it’s going to last long, only three minutes. The buzzer will go off before you know it, and suddenly you’re going to be worrying about being thrown into the games. This is all going to be too fast.

You avoid conversation with Finnick as much as possible. But unlike other days, you purposely stay at the table, eating slowly. Watching as Finnick stuffs himself quickly like you had been doing this entire time. Before you know it, Mags has excused herself from the table. Ten minutes pass--which is normally when you also try to escape--but you’re still eating. Finnick, eating so quickly and so much, is clearly full and can’t stand anymore.

When he leaves the table, it’s just you and Elysia. She seems to wait for Finnick to be gone completely, watching his retreating figure.

This is probably the only time you have sat with Elysia alone. You and Finnick are normally sticking around each other, even around Mags. It’s because the both of you are in it together. There’s really no point of sitting around Elysia unless she’s providing you with information. Where you’re going next, what’s going to be happening at whatever time…

“Aren’t you going to go too?” she asks, and you look over your shoulder to catch a glimpse of blonde hair.

You turn back to her, scooping up a spoonful of stew, “No, I don’t think I will.”

“Well, when you’re done eating I’ve got to teach you how to walk in heels. So finish quickly.” She’s pleased with the fact that you’re not leaving as quickly as you normally do.

Soon enough, you get tired of the taste of the stew. This is when Elysia calls up Laurel, and takes you to a spare room that you haven’t been into yet. Elysia gets you fitted into the shoes right when Laurel appears out of nowhere.

The shoes aren’t too bad at the beginning. They have you walk in all sorts of ways. Making sure to make small steps, or bigger steps where they make your hips move a certain way. The entire point of this is to make you look appealing, and more girlish in their opinion.

It’s a little bit later when you realize just how tight the shoes are. Laurel takes the size of the shoe, makes adjustments with the width and length, and then sends it to the assistants that you’ve only seen a total of three times. You’ll see them again tomorrow before and during the interview, since they’re supposed to be sitting in the front row with the other stylists.

When you’ve got the walk down, and your feet are officially aching, you’re allowed to take them off. You’re dismissed, allowing you to go back to your room to take a nap. You don’t get that far though, because Finnick is already sitting by the window, pad of paper and pencil in hand as he’s sketching again.

He’s clearly heard you come in, these doors aren’t very quiet. Yours especially, it squeaks like it’s been overused, and even if you try to turn the doorknob to make it more quiet, it clicks.

“I’m pretty sure you have the wrong room.” you joke, sliding off the flats you’ve been wearing all day.

Over his shoulder, you see it’s a drawing of you. Sitting on that couch, tears spilling over your eyes and down your cheeks. He must have photographic memory if he’s able to draw this so well. It was so long ago too, a couple hours at least.

“Are you okay?” Finnick asks finally, just as you sit down next to him with a little distance in between.

“I was just thinking about what will happen post-games.” you tell him, bringing your knees to your chest, wrapping your arms around your legs, “If I make it out, I’m not going to be the same.”

“None of us will.” Finnick says, and you look over to see that his face is blotchy. He’s been crying too.

“What about you?” you ask, because he looks like he needs the support, “What’s got you down?”

“I just miss home.” he says simply, the pencil on the paper stops, and you see that he’s made a perfect picture in his own style. He closes the little makeshift sketchbook and tucks it beneath a chair nearby, along with the pencil.

Just like that, you’re off to sitting by each other quietly again. But no words are needed, just basking in each other’s companies.

Again, the both of you fall asleep on the floor. But you’re wide awake for most of the night, busy staring down at the city. It isn’t until Finnick stirs around two in the morning, when you think you should go back to bed. He doesn’t allow you to make you own little bed, as he holds up one end of his blanket as an invitation to join him.

You’re about to tell him no, but he tells you that you need to sleep. If he just goes back to bed then you’ll probably stay up longer. This way, he’ll be sure you’ll go back to bed.

You know it’s a bad excuse as much as he does. But you comply, sliding beneath the blanket with him. You carefully wrap your arm around his waist like a hug, tucking your head beneath your chin. He uses both arms to pull you closer, letting one of them act like your pillow.

You don’t fall asleep for a while anyway like this. You try to even out your breathing to make it look like you’re sleeping. Even going to the length of closing your eyes, hoping that you will actually sleep, but it doesn’t come. You’re forced to lay here in Finnick’s arms, thinking about what it’s going to be like in the games.

It isn’t long until the tears come back, and you’re struggling to keep them from landing on Finnick to keep from waking him. It’s so funny how the tables have really turned. How he’s gone from being the insomniac, to you being the one who can’t sleep at all. You’re the one stuck in your thoughts, worrying about what’s going to happen.

At some point, you fall asleep. You’re not sure when but it had to be between the time of three to six in the morning. You briefly woke when Finnick got up to use the bathroom, but you went right back to sleeping. A couple hours later, Elysia had shown up to get you guys to eat breakfast.

You ate slowly, trying to savor everything. But soon Laurel gets impatient and she takes you to where she’ll be preparing you. Finnick is right by your side up until Pleurisy whisks him away. He can’t do more than wave, before the door is shut and you’re left to Laurel.

You listen to the assistants bubble. Jumping from topic to topic ecstatically. You can’t feel the same, you’re tired. They cover the bags underneath your eyes well, and eventually Elysia comes in to feed you an energy shot. You’re pretty sure it’s some type of coffee. In no time, you’re perking up and you feel just as bouncy as Laurel’s assistants.

They fix your hair, making it silky smooth, straight. And then they curl it up. They apply more highlight than anything this time. Telling you that you’re going to want to shine in the lights during the interviews. They say that it’s their personal favorite when the tributes will be a little shiny, a rainbow on their cheeks and noses, and wherever else they apply it too. They say that their friends enjoy it as much as they do.

Once they’re done, they slip out of the room, leaving you and Laurel alone. She quizzes you a little bit, and you’re smiling, and gushing and playing stupid again. She says that they’ll eat it right up, and that you’ll probably need one more energy shot, even though you feel like you’re going to bounce off the walls enough already.

Elysia comes in, feeds you the liquid, and that’s when she informs you that it’s good to be a little shaky. Humble is what you’re going for. Damsel is your main word. To be shaky and scared and a deer caught in headlights is what they’re going to want to see.

The shoes come last, and once you’re standing tall, your feet not being squeezed too tightly, you’re turned around to see yourself in the mirror. All you can ask yourself is if you’re going to be taller than Finnick with these heels on. They must have decided that since you did so well in the smaller ones, that you’ll do just fine with the bigger, taller ones.

You’ve grown at least three inches.

The dress is a beautiful baby blue. It’s an off the shoulder dress, and it relies mostly on your upper arm to stay in place. It clears room for your collarbones but doesn’t allow any cleavage to show. You’re happy for that part.

Around the top of the dress is white gems, upon closer inspection, they’re little water droplets. They’re placed irregularly, like they’ve been racing down a window when it’s been raining. The dress is long sleeved, but the arms are made out of the same see-through material the chariot outfit was made out of. It’s poofy, nowhere near skin tight.

The top part of the dress gathers at the waist, creating some wrinkles. This is where more gems appear, and then it gets bigger completely. It seems like leg slits are going to be your thing, because there’s one on this dress too. There’s two different materials for the bottom, the silk that’s the base, and then the same fabric that’s used for the arms and tops of the dress.

More blue eyeshadow and white eyeliner. Black mascara, you’re guessing because it brings out the color in your eyelashes more. Your mother’s ring is on your regular ring finger that you’ve been wearing it on this entire time. The shell necklace isn’t anywhere to be seen, this time it’s almost a choker. It’s made out of chain, it’s another wave but it’s a little loose around the neck. It doesn’t slide, though, it stays in place no matter how much you move.

Laurel also gave you little water droplet earrings that dangle. They’re uneven of course, still building off of that ‘water runnin’ effect.

“Wow.” you turn to look at yourself more, “This is amazing--”

“I know.” Laurel smiles to herself, “Don’t need to tell me twice.”

She then escorts you back to where Mags, Pleurisy, Peeta, Elysia and the rest of the teams are. Finnick is wearing a white shirt beneath a navy blue suit. Clearly they’re trying to savor the more feminine blue for you. But you’re sure that it would look good on him too.

“Wow!” Finnick’s mouth drops open.

“Yeah, I know. I said the same.” you laugh.

You take the elevator down to where the stage will be. Lining up with the other tributes. Once you see the others, you can clearly tell that you two are standing out a little more. Finnick especially, Pleurisy’s hair stylist must have used a ton of product to get curls like this to stay in place on Finnick’s head.

Trink nods approvingly at what you’re wearing, and then she goes back to looking at the stage. Soon, she’s introduced and you watch as she goes up for her interview.

You’re not all that nervous, despite the fact that you’ve never really been in front of people like this. Except for at the reaping, that’s the only time you can recall being put in front of a ton of people at once.

Not to make yourself nervous or anything, but you’ll only be put in front of a small audience. The real numbers are the people in the Capitol, and the districts. Your brothers back home will be watching you get up on stage. Watch you play as the dumb girl. You wonder what they’ll think about it all.

Before you know it, three minutes has passed. And then again. You’re quickly moving on to District Two, and then three. It isn’t until you’re standing on the steps of the stage where you get the little butterfly feeling. Finnick squeezes your hand a little bit, and then lets it go completely.

“(Y/n) Gallows!” Caesar is calling. You smooth out your dress, before bounding up the steps, making your face heat up immediately. He reaches for you hand, and you take it gently, letting him guide you to where you need to stand.

You’re already looking to the crowd with the wondrous look in your eyes. When you catch a couple of people, you wave eagerly, a smile spreading over your face easily.

“You’ve been in the Capitol for a few days, now,” Caesar begins, and you turn to look at him, nodding a little bit, “Anything in particular stand out?”

Your mouth falls open as you mock thinking, and then you giggle, “This entire place is beautiful! A much different scenery than there is in District Four! I was a little bummed when I couldn’t see the ocean, though.”

“Ah, the ocean.” he nods thoughtfully, “I see you’re wearing it in little bits, tonight.”

“Oh, yeah!” Another giggle, you’re getting tired of this. You hold out your hand for everyone to see, extending your neck a little more as if it’ll straighten out the choker, but it hasn’t moved from it’s perfect spot this entire time, “It shimmers in the light! My stylist is very smart!”

The audience reacts accordingly, a couple people exclaim how pretty the entire outfit is, Caesar builds off of that, “That ring, is it a token from your district?”

You widen your eyes a little bit, nodding a little slower this time, “It was my mother’s. My brothers gave it to me before I left.”

“And did they come to say goodbye?” he asks.

Well, that’s what you just implied, Caesar. But you keep going, “Oh! Of course, that’s how I got the ring,” the both of you laugh for a moment. Caesar then asks what you told them before you left, “I told them I would try to win.” you tuck some hair behind your ear, trying for the innocent look.

The buzzer goes off, saving you from making you look anymore like an idiot. There’s a couple of complaints that it ended too early for you. But Caesar sees you off, and you take a seat. Trink looks over, eyeing you up and down, and you give her a small smile. She nods, and then goes to look to Finnick, her face expression shifting entirely. She elbows Lennox a bit.

They’re still sizing him up.

You scowl very briefly, catching your mistake as you then turn to Finnick. You catch his eye for a moment and he winks at you. The camera’s don’t miss it, and you hold your hands up to your face as if you’re embarrassed. The truth is, is that you’re trying to hide your laugh at his not-so-subtly flirting. The camera pans in to your face, you wave a little bit.

Finnick plays the cocky role very well. You watch as he’s got the audience watching him very intently, interested in what he’s going to say next. None of it is a surprise, after a while, they expect what his reaction to things are going to be. But that doesn’t stop them from cheering at everything he says. The crowd is absolutely fawning over him.

His time is up before you know it, and he joins you in the seating. The girl to District Five is called up, and during that time, when the audience and the camera’s attention is shifted, Finnick reaches for your hand. You allow it, scooting your chair over a little bit to make it less noticeable.

Finnick laughs at your attempt.

-- CHAPTER SEVEN --

“Favorite color?”

“I thought you asked me that already?” He asks, and you give him a look.

“No, you asked me that. Favorite color?”

He thinks for a moment now, which gives you time to think of your next question. You’re hardly as good as Finnick when it comes to questionnaires apparently. He had a ton of questions for you, all sorts of variety. And here you are, asking the basic questions like his favorite color.

“Sea green.” He says, and you can’t help it when you scrunch your face.

“Sea green?” You repeat, and he laughs, nodding, “Why?”

His face turns a little red, which obviously means that it has to be embarrassing. You’re sure that he doesn’t appreciate it when you lean towards him a little more, excited for what the answer is going to be. He scowls for only a moment, and then sputters out a laugh.

“It’s because—“ he shakes his head, “It’s the color of the dress you wore during the tribute parade.”

“That’s it?” You ask, “That’s what you were so embarrassed about? After everything that we’ve done together you’re blushy because your favorite color is the color of a dress I wore?”

Seeing how ridiculous this is, he laughs, shrugging slightly, “I guess so.”

You yawn again, and this time you struggle to keep your eyes open after. Finnick laughs at you, and you lazily swing to punch him in the arm. It isn’t very hard, but it’s enough to make him complain about it.

“Alright, that’s enough.” You tell him, using the window to get up. Then, you trudge over to the bed, flopping onto it, “I’ve got to sleep.”

“I’ll see you tomorrow.” He tells you, his voice faraway.

You’re about to agree that you’ll see him tomorrow. Until your brain starts thinking over what’s going to happen exactly. Is it another training day? Or is it something else?

And that’s when your eyes fly open and you sit upright on the bed. All the tiredness suddenly drains from your body as you look to Finnick.

You’re going into the games tomorrow—or today. It has to be sometime early in the morning. Today is the day you’ll be put on a pedestal. Sometime in the evening, you’ll be placed with the others.

“What is it?” Finnick asks.

You’ll be forced to kill your fellow tributes.

“We—the games.” You gasp, jumping out of the bed as you return to the window. The festival has long since stopped, probably because they’ll need to be up early tomorrow to watch you guys fight against each other. There will be reruns, but they like to be there when it actually happens.

“What about them?” Finnick comes back over to you slowly, and you place your hand against the window, then you turn to Finnick.

“They’re today! The games—!”

“Did you forget?” He asks.

Did you?

You’ve had this past week of getting prepared for sponsors, worrying about learning new tricks and making allies. You’ve been so caught up in Finnick and your feelings. You’ve neglected to think about when the games start. You’ve been having so much… so much fun that you’ve forgotten to count down the days.

You’ve been so carefree.

Maybe you are a damsel.

“I did.” You tell him, turning to the window, “I did forget.”

You have to get rest tonight or you’ll be screwed later. Even if it takes hours, as long as you try, it’ll be better than nothing.

“Bed, sleep.” You tell him, “Stay or go, I don’t care.”

“Staying.” He seems glad at the invitation.

Finnick curls up around you, and seems to fall asleep faster. You have to coax yourself into a mindset until you’re there. But even then, Finnick’s breathing is throwing you off and every time he shifts, you can’t help but jolt awake.

Eventually, you make a pattern out of Finnick’s breathing, matching it with your own. Slowly dragging you down under, until you’ve fallen asleep too.

The morning passes like a blur, though. Elysia wakes you up, Finnick nowhere to be seen. Then she tells you that he was up early, and he’s still taking a shower. Says you might as well do the same, so you take your time with scrubbing yourself clean, unsure when the next time will come.

Inside the games, they’ll likely offer a place for water in a couple of areas. But all the times you’ve watched and paid attention, it was mostly streams and ponds. Hardly anything above a pond. But the location changed every year, so maybe you’ll get lucky.

The longer you spend inside, the more likely you’ll get scars, and have dirt build up on your body. Under your nails, in your hair, in the creases of your skin. Blood does the same, which is why you’re hoping you won’t get the pleasure of having to kill anyone. And if you do, it doesn’t get all over yourself. The last thing you’ll need is having to walk around with blood on you for a while.

Clothes are one thing, but the skin is another. You’ll be able to feel when it layers onto your skin. When it dries and cracks in the heat. You hope that it doesn’t get too thick enough to the point where it’ll be able to be peeled off. Or you don’t accidentally smear it all over yourself.

Clothes you can wash, and you don’t feel the blood directly if it’s on the clothes. More like the weight, but even then it’s not really something to be worrying about.

You move your hair out of your face, this time so you won’t have to worry about it getting in your face when you’re running. Or during the small duration of the bloodbath at the cornucopia. You’re not entirely sure what the other career’s plans are, but to secure the cornucopia would be the best idea.

All the food, clothes, medicine and weapons you could ever want will be placed inside of it. It’ll have spears and tridents. Iodine for the water. Bread, dried fruits and vegetables. Clothes if yours get ripped and ruined from fighting.

It’s normally the career’s ideals for winning the games. They secure the one place that’ll keep them alive—because they don’t normally go hungry they’ll starve easily. Deprive them of weapons and they’ll be forced to use fists, while you might have made one yourself, or someone like the boy from district three. Medicine if they get hurt after hunting down the local tributes during the first couple of days.

Of course, they can get sponsors as well as the rest of you. But for the sponsors it’s less likely, because they do have the cornucopia. If they have all they ever need at the reach of a hand then what’s the point of sending them anything? If they run out of things towards the end of game, the prices skyrocket, and then sponsors don’t want to send shit anymore.

You hope that won’t be the case with you.

The plan is to kill the careers as fast and efficiently as possible. Do it without alerting the others, and go from there. Luring them seems brilliant, and the first one on your list is Trink. She’s going to get what’s been coming at her for the last couple of days. And like you said on the train when you were on the way here, she seems capable. She’s bigger than the average girl that gets thrown in, especially for a career.

You’re rushed when it comes to breakfast, because they’ve got to get you extracted to the arena as soon as possible. Elysia bids you and Finnick goodbye, before taking off to the betting area. Where she’ll be lining up the sponsors for Mags.

Mags gives you the bit of advice that you already know, to stay the hell out of the bloodbath and run in the other direction. The only problem with that is, is that you’re technically in the career pack. Running is out of the question, you’re going to have to head right on in. Also to set up a temporary camp, food and water, stock up as much as you can.

Mags kisses your foreheads, and she’s off too. Laurel comes in to escort you to the plane with Finnick and his stylist, Pleurisy. There, Laurel promises to see you again really soon, and you and Finnick are brought up to the plane.

Once inside, he’s sat across from you. A man comes up to you, a thick needle in his hand as he looks over it slightly. You hold your arm out reluctantly, you’ve never been afraid of needles and you’re not going to start now. He presses the needle to your arm, and then finally looks to you, “Tracker.”

When he slides it in with no prior notice, you jump a little bit. You wince when it’s inserted, because it does hurt. And then he moves on to another unlucky tribute, but they don’t look as willing. You watch as she has to have her arms held, and even then she’s struggling.

“Hey!” you push yourself up, and Finnick goes to grab your hand to stop you. Sliding past him, you move the workers aside, “You can’t assault her like that.”

“We’re not.” the man who put the tracker in your arm says.

“You’re going to leave bruises and that’s against the rules. Even if you’re not getting thrown in personally, we’re supposed to be packaged goods.” you shove him aside, the other girl working for the Capitol moves out of the way for you. You crouch down in front of the district girl, and it looks like she might be from twelve. Wobbly knees, probably one of the poorer parts of the district.

“Can I see your arm please?” you ask her, and she carefully shows you it. You’re very gentle when you place your finger where the tracker will go, “Just right here. It’ll pinch a whole lot, but the pain goes away, okay?”

She nods, but doesn’t look happy. You offer her your hand, and she takes it. The man goes to do it, then he stops the second he sees the look in your eye. The girl gladly steps in, and she’s very gentle too when placing it in. Giving the twelve girl a heads up before placing it in. The girl squeezes as tightly as possible, but soon she stops.

You brush her hair back and give a smile, “See? Not so bad.”

“Thank you.” she mumbles, and you laugh, going back to where you were sitting before.

The plane ride is quiet, you and Finnick mostly steal glances at each other. Until you’re lowered to where you need to be in the tunnels. There, you’re split up. He doesn’t go before giving you a quick kiss though, promising to find you in the mess that will go on above. Told you not to get killed too quickly. He wants the district back home to at least know that you’re a thing.

Laurel is very courteous. She asks you if there’s anything she can get you at the last minute. You get bread and water, filling yourself up as full as possible before you’re sent up. You hope that Finnick has enough sense to do the same.

She tells you that it was a pleasure being able to design your outfits. She tells you that you and Finnick are her best bets. She says that she’ll send anything she can afford when you’re in need of it. And you promise her too, that you’ll try and win. You’ve been making this promise a lot lately, whether you’ve mentioned it or not.

Your brothers, Caspian, Finnick, Elysia, Mags and now Laurel. You really have to fall through with it now.

When the final countdown is announced, you give Laurel a hug, apologize for the mess you’re about to leave behind, and then she stops you, grabbing your hand. She slips on the ring, telling you that it passed the test. She wishes you good luck, you step in the tube.

It feels just like a coffin.

-- CHAPTER EIGHT --

They raise you slowly, allowing you to take in your first sights. Which is a blue sky, clear of anything abnormal. The higher you get, the more you can see. Trees, plenty of them to your right. You can smell the faint scent of the sea, or some salty body of water. It’s close.

Higher up you can see sand, and then you see the water. The arena is shaped like a dome, so there’s not really any corners. But it’s sectioned off like there’s supposed to be corners. The cornucopia is in the very middle, staring at it dead on you can see two of the terrains. Behind it to the right is a beach, palm trees litter it, beyond that is the body of water that you can smell. The beach doesn’t last for too long, but just enough to make the water look like a mirage.

You can hear a waterfall, hopefully buried somewhere inside of that water area. A place you’ll be able to retreat to if the alliance goes to shit. You’ll have to mention that to Finnick privately, let him know that would be the rendezvous spot if you two were to be split up. Or the other would be driven out by the stupid ass tributes that you made friends with.

You may or may not be regretting that now.

Because it would be so much easier to kill them than keep them around. But anything to survive what you’re about to live through, right?

There’s trees all around the rest of the place. The cornucopia is in a very small clearing, only large enough to hold the pedestals for the tributes and the cornucopia itself. Most of the trees nearly come into contact with the metal plates, it’s cutting so close.

If the girl next to you really wants, she could lean over and touch the branch behind her. You hope she has the common sense not to do it. However, that would be the fastest way to go so you don’t have to die a painful death. Getting exploded into a million pieces because you stepped off before the designated sixty seconds, really is tempting.

She doesn’t do it, and before you know it, the first thirty seconds have passed.

There’s a ring of tributes, and you try to memorize who is where. There’s only so many you can see because of the structure blocking it. That’s fine, you’re sure that most of them will try to run anyway.

To your right is the girl from ten, you think. Small, feeble, easy to kill if she tried to come at you. Next to her is the boy from three, and he looks like he’s positioning himself to run, not a problem. Lennox is next to three, and the both of you make eye contact for a moment. He grins, like he’s enjoying the first shot of adrenaline that he’s going to be getting the second he steps off. Asshole.

Girl from three, boy from six, Eytelle. She also looks like she’s going to be running towards the cornucopia, so it looks like that you’re going to be doing is obvious. You’re going to have to match what they’re doing. Can’t be seen as the chicken who didn’t want to go right on in. You may be playing dumb, but you’re not that dumb.

Next to you is the girl from seven, Cass. She offers you a small nod, like she’s challenging you to a race. She’ll be stepping off for the middle, which isn’t great. You liked her, and you were hoping that she’d be alive for a long time. Trink is on the other side of her, and she’s eyeing Cass like she wants to pounce immediately and not even wait for the weapons.

Another couple of nobodies after that, and then you can’t see anymore. This only means that Finnick, Thyme and Allio are on the other side. Maybe Cass’s district mate too, but he’s not a part of the alliance. You’ve only kept a tab on the seven tributes because they’re good with axes. If they’re smart, they’ll team up with the boy from three to get their own personal weapons made. But it doesn’t look like they’re that smart.

You look up to the sky to see an extra five seconds. How you’ve managed to analyze that so quickly, you’re unsure. But you’re glad that you’re processing things quickly. Because you’ve got to go.

The gong sounds, and you’ve stepped off the metal plate instantly, sprinting towards the middle as fast as possible. Out of the corner of your eye, you can see that not even Lennox is that fast. You’re first to the cornucopia, getting your hands on a sword first, since the spears are buried in the back. Along with whatever else will be put there for specific districts.

One quick glance, no trident in sight. Finnick will suffer.

You spin around quickly, and ten is at the edge of your sword, reaching for a weapon herself. You can feel that fear pierce your heart quickly, and suddenly you’re swinging the sword as fast as you can manage. Eyes glued to the girl to make sure that she doesn’t get to you first.

However, you have the misfortune of watching her head come clear off. The blood squirts everywhere but onto you. But you can still feel the spots where it should be itching. Your neck, face, arms, the rest of your body. Thick, thick layers--

“Wow!” Trink’s voice is peppy, and she takes the sword from your hand quickly, “Good job, Gallows.”

She throws the sword at a boy from five. You watch as it goes clean through his back, he falls to his knees. All sorts of things spill from his arms, scattering around his body. Around him, there is no one.

The boy from district six then comes in, like he’s prepared to do whatever it takes to kill you guys. But he falls too, blood trickling out of his mouth, dribbling down his chin. You’re not surprised to see Allio, Finnick and Thyme. Thyme is being held onto tightly by Allio, he throws her forward.

“Tried to run. Let her mate go.”

“Should kill her now--” Trink starts circling her like a vulture.

Behind her, a glint of light. You take the knife from one of the boxes likely filled with food and medicine, and you throw it before you even see who it is. Just like that, you watch as Thyme’s district mate falls, sword falling from his hands too. The one that you had used on the first girl, and the one that Trink had used on the boy from five.

You step out of the cornucopia long enough to see who’s dead, and while you’ve been caught up in watching them kill the others, you completely spaced the fact that there might be more dead. It wasn’t just you guys fighting, everyone had been struggling to get the stray items that were strewn randomly to at least give them a chance. It’ll be a boring set of games if you’re able to kill them immediately.

Cass is dead, a snapped neck you’re sure. Boy from five and six it looks like, they’re from you guys. You got the girl from ten and the boy from eleven. But the girl from three is like a starfish, facing the sky. A couple feet away is the girl from eight, and then the boy from nine is just on the edge of the trees.

“Three kills.” Allio sounds proud of himself, “You guys?”

“Thanks for the save.” Trink winks at you, and then she dives straight into the boxes, forgetting about killing Thyme.

“One.” Finnick tells you, you whisper your small ‘two’.

Trink snorts, “Two. The stupid lumberjack bitch thought she’d be able to make it here before I could. Then five was too easy.”

Lennox hadn’t got anyone, he fought the boy from ten for a minute but he slipped out of grasp. Eytelle and Thyme are both zero, Eytelle doesn’t seem too ashamed by the number, she says that she’ll just make up for it later. Which really opens your eyes to see that they think this shit is just one big fucking game for them.

You guys pack up a bag or two, before clearing out of the cornucopia to allow the gamemakers to collect the bodies. You take the canteens and the iodine down to the water, filling up. On the way, you can hear the cannons.

You count them out for the others, deciding that you can have the brains now.

“Only eight?” Allio sounds unimpressed.

“Not many people to kill in the first place.” Thyme mutters, filling up her canteen with water, and then looking into it a little bit, like she’s suspicious, “There’s seven of us already.”

Eytelle shrugs, “Still a good number down. I’m sure that we’ll be able to get more tonight.”

You share a look with Finnick, wondering if you’ll be able to take out one of them during that time. He must be thinking the same thing, because he looks down, smiling at the ground. He carefully shuffles over to you, before throwing his arm around your shoulder.

“Mags is probably mad at us.”

“I would be too.” you laugh, and you guys get a little close for a second, like he’s about to kiss you. But then he pulls away, and Lennox wants to go back to the middle before one of the others can rob you guys.

Like you said, they’re about securing the middle so they can thrive off of it the entire time. Makes you wonder if it’ll be possible to destroy everything in the middle to keep them from living for so long. Blame it on one of the singled out tributes that won’t be anywhere to be seen until the final minutes.

The boy from three would be perfect. He knows his way around weapons, so it would be believable if he destroyed it. However, that would just mean you’re placing a bounty on his head, and you’re not entirely sure if you’ll be able to live with that. But then again, you’ve already killed two people, who’s to say that hasn’t ruined you already?

Maybe it won’t be you killing him directly, but one of the others will be doing it. The guilt will eat you alive—then again you have just killed two people, where’s your guilt now?—and you’ll have to see the families of the tributes you killed if you do win. For people like Trink, Allio, Lennox and Eytelle, it’s not a big deal.

They’ve been training for this their entire lives. They volunteer, they’re not picked. They want to be inside of the games, so they can have the cash and glory when they get back home. They’ll stand proud in front of the tribute families, they’ll sneer at the ones that they killed. They don’t fucking care because to them, it’s just a small price to pay for a big house, infinite money and the memory of being a winner.

Careers are fucking nuts.

You pull Thyme and Finnick back a moment, the others don’t notice. Too busy planning out when you guys will go out and kill. Makes you sick to your stomach.

“There’s a waterfall in the lake.” You tell them, “We scope it out, check to make sure if it’s possible to stay inside. If we get separated, we go back there.”

They nod, and then you bounce a little bit, letting the smile come over your face, “So, are we going out tonight?”

“Yeah, might as well,” Allio flashes you a look, “Up for it?”

“She’s got two under her belt, I’m sure she’s ready.” Finnick mutters, the others ignore it, and he turns to you, “How are you holding up?”

“Not insane yet.” You tell him, Thyme laughs at this, shaking her head.

At the cornucopia, you gather the backpacks for them. Inside, it’s got iodine, bread and a sleeping bag. All the other years they had packed well, if you had one of these, a knife and knew how to hunt, you would have to try to die. This year it looks like they decided to undersupply.

Thyme rations out the food, calmly explaining that they should try to eat as little as possible. The food will last longer that way, and it wouldn’t hurt for them to do it anyway. If you guys do happen to run low on food, then they’ll only have to eat a little bit to survive. She tells them to be prepared to drop in body weight, and stay hydrated. Water might be a good substitution.

You know all of this, so it isn’t a bother. You and Finnick stand next to each other. He keeps messing with your hair, and you keep ruffling his. A ton of curls lay on top, it looks like they did something to make them stay permanently. Personally, you prefer his straight hair, you hope that the curls will go away sooner rather than later.

He plays with your ring on your finger a little bit as you look around, distracted. Because the feeling that someone is watching you is beginning to freak you the hell out. You look over the tree line next to you first, and then the one behind Finnick.

The others are talking about where they want to start. By the lake on the left side or the right? They think no one will be dumb enough to try and go into that water unless they want to die. At sometime or another these other tributes had to have gone into the water and learned how to swim at some point, right?

You and Finnick are probably the best in the arena, coming from four. But that doesn’t mean that the others might be just as good.

If most of them can’t swim then that means the lake is the best bet.

Another idea pops into your mind, but you keep this one to yourself. In case there is a way to execute it, you’ll want it for emergencies. However, you wonder if there’s any willows hanging over the water. Or some vines running along the rocks.

Finnick will be able to make them a lot better than you will. But you’ll be able to tie the knots for him. You two can work together on it. It will have to be at the end of the games so they don’t see it coming. Draw in the careers and then kill them.

Perfect.

“We’re starting on the right of the lake.” Eytelle decides, tired of the bickering, “Let’s go.”

You keep your water in hand, knowing that there’s more in the bag if you run out. On the walk around the arena, you listen as they talk about their own family life. Occasionally they’ll ask you a question out of what looks like genuine curiosity. You keep the conversation flowing, because you want to know what the hell is in the minds of a couple of lunatics.

You find out that Thyme has a couple of sisters. Two older ones, one of them looks nothing like her, and it’s a speculation about who her mom had gotten with in order to have her. Her mom constantly denies that she cheated, but it’s a running joke. All of it is good fun.

Trink is an only child, but Lennox has a younger brother back home. Allio has an older sister but a ton of younger brothers. Eytelle is the oldest sister of two.

It goes around like that. You’ll ask a question, everyone will go around, and it stops at Finnick, even though you know almost everything about him now. Soon enough, you all are laughing it off, like a couple of actual friends.

It’s only been a few hours since the games have started. The sun isn’t that hot just yet, but you’re sure they’ll turn up the temperature later on. When the stakes are getting higher and the water runs dry.

Another hour passes just hunting. Thyme collects berries and leaves. She’ll peel bark off of trees and nibble on it in the men’s time. The others don’t seem as interested, and they even look down upon her a little bit. She says that if they can, then preserving the food would be smart.

Since you’re the only one with precise aim, you’re put on the duty of throwing knives. You’re able to take down a squirrel and rabbit. You see something move off to the side in the bushes, but you hesitate. The others don’t catch this, since they’re up ahead. But Finnick does, and he turns to look immediately.

Crouched in the bushes is the boy from three. He holds up a makeshift knife, and you don’t know if it’s meant to be threatening or not. Finnick looks like he wants to launch, but you settle the problem immediately by pressing your finger to your lips and motioning for him to get down. Then, you take Finnick’s arm and pull him along.

“What—“

“Shush.” You tell him, pushing past him as you get back to the others. But on the way, he holds you long enough to say;

“Making friends with everyone is not how you win.” And then he lets you go.

You’re not making friends, you’re giving them chances. It’s not your fault that the others had missed him initially. Your goal isn’t to kill as many people as possible, every single person that you come across. Your goal right now is to take out the career pack, which you can’t do immediately. It’ll take time to build up to.

Well, maybe you should have started a fight with three. It would have given you an opportunity to kill one of the others while you’re at it. Then the pack would be down to six, and it would continue to get slimmer. It’ll happen sooner or later, but you wonder when they’ll finally realize that it’s you, Finnick and Thyme till standing while it’s two or even one of the others.

All of them dying tragic deaths while they’re out with one of you. Trink dies to a knife thrown at her. Eytelle is drowned, Lennox is hung and Allio dies because of another tribute. Doesn’t have to be in that order, but could you imagine?

You’re hoping that the districts and the Capitol know of the plan that you’re forming. If they’ll switch who they’re betting on to one of you. Although, it is very popular for one of the outsider districts to be good, only for them to fail later on. The sponsors had learned their lesson after a while, getting on the poorer districts, only for the careers to win time after time again.

They’re basically wasting their money trying to aid someone that turns out to be a dud. You know that you’d be betting on the careers after that. Notice the pattern in which the careers win, and go from there. It really is all about potential. Their size, the district they come from, the number they get inside of the private session with the gamemakers. Who they’re posing as and all of that.

“Sun is setting already.” Thyme mutters, and you turn to see where it’s setting.

“Set up camp here?” Lennox proposed, but three comes to mind nad you turn to see Finnick thinking the same thing.

“Sure. I’ll take first watch.” You tell them, watching as Thyme sits right where she’s standing, and the others follow.

You're all sitting near a big tree, hidden by bushes slightly. If someone were to walk by, they likely wouldn’t see you. But watching as Trink throws in some wood and pine, she’s going to swans a fire. That will definitely let the others know where you are.

There’s seven of you, it won’t be that hard to kill you all at once. You know what to look out for, dark hair, blue eyes. You’re sure that Finnick will even stay awake to help you out with watching for him. The problem with that, is that you might allow three to kill one of the,, and then alert. While Finnick will alert immediately.

Actually, you really have no clue how he’ll react. He’s a different story, he’s got other things goes on inside of his head. He looked down at you when you spoke of your kills as if you were supposed to just stand there and let them kill you. He didn’t look that impressed with the waterfall idea.

Maybe he’s also realizing how useless the temporary romance was. That it was just getting the both of you attached to each other. Making it harder to kill…

You can’t help it when you go to glare at Finnick. If his entire ploy was to get you to like him and then use that against you, he’s going to have another thing coming. He thinks that you’ll hesitate when it comes to killing him, huh? Just because he’s from back home, doesn't mean that you’ll spare his life for your own.

Allio and Lennox get Finnick stuck in a conversation, giving Trink a perfect time to slide up next to you as you start the fire to cook the meat, “I saw the look you gave him.”

“And?” You ask, you’re really just hoping he didn’t see that. Two can play at that game. If he knows that you know, then it’ll be ruined. If he thinks that he can't get you to fall for him and not let it be the other way around, you have your own strategies.

“Nothing.” She crosses her legs, and you focus on the fire. It light a lot faster than it did inside of the training center, because you’re not for the dumb act anymore. She won’t know the difference anyway, she’ll be too focused on saving her own skin.

Thyme comes over to help you clean the body. It’s mostly silence, but being left alone to your own thought did torture. Thinking of what he did in the training center was all for show. Get you to soften up when it comes to him. He was probably just glad that you were the first to offer an alliance so it wouldn't look suspicious.

“How long do these alliances normally last?” You ask bitterly, Eytelle snorts.

“Couple of days. I give it until there’s five other tributes left in the arena with us,then we split.”

“So four more until we hit that point, huh?” You ask.

“We might keep you around.” Trink grins, “Eytelle and I are planning on hightailing it the fuck out of here the second there’s a sign of danger.”

“Sounds smart.” Thyme mutters.

“You’re invited, kid.” Eytelle says, and then she gets up to go to the guys. She kicks leaves all over Allio, before letting them know that if they want to eat, they better come over.

You all gather around the fire, thinking the second alliance over. There’s a lot going on at the moment. First is you and Finnick, second is you, Finnick and thyme. Third is the entire pack, and fourth is you, Eytelle, Trink and Thyme. Then there’s the really quiet ones, like three and the boy from district seven, Mac.

They’re not people you would rely on, but you I’d talk to all of them before the private session. Made a friend out of some of them. Then again, you did kill two of them. Boy from eleven and girl from ten. But that’s their own fault, they should have known better than to go into the middle, would have lasted a lot longer if they had just ran, all of them.

As you guys are trading food, drinking water and still talking, the anthem for the fallen begins to play. On the way to look to the sky, Finnick shares a look with Lennox. They have the same thing that you and the other girls have. Him, Allio and Lennox are gonna split when shit gets shaky.

Those in the sky are the people from the bloodbath. There were no other following deaths that you know of.

First on screen is the girl from three, boy from five, following is the boy from six. Cass from seven, boys from eight and nine. Then the girl from ten, and finally the boy from eleven.

“I’m surprised district twelve lasted this long.” Allio remarks, a couple of them laugh, including Finnick.

They’re quick to wrap up the night, not really wanting to go and hunt around. There will be plenty of time to do it tomorrow. And you promise to wake them up if anything happens. Like smoke from a fire or a part of the forest lights up.

You stomp out the fight and then sit against the tree, holding onto the little knife in your hand tightly. The others curl up next to each other, mainly Trink and Lennox.

Thyme sticks close to some bushes, probably for an easy escape. Allio and Eytelle are on opposite sides of the fire. And Finnick sits next to you.

You wish you could just ignore him and call it a night. But you’re going to give it away that you know.

“Why did you let him go?” Finnick asks after a while of silence, making sure that they’re asleep. He must have noticed the pattern in breathing just the same as you did.

“Didn’t see a point in killing him.”

“He’s smart, (Y/n). He’ll come back with a knife or something, you saw him in the training center—“

“Maybe he’ll spare my life later on, did you think about that?” You ask him, turning to look at Finnick, “he owes me. Because had we told them, you know that it wouldn’t have been a quick death.”

He takes this into consideration, and then speaks quietly, “And if he comes over here tonight?”

“I’ll wake you up.” You grab his jaw, making him look to you, “Promise.”

When you let go, he gives you a kiss. Then, you watch as he pulls out the sleeping bag, still staying right beside you. You place your hand on his back, and then you look to the woods.

You’ll keep him safe. Even if he doesn’t deserve it.

LACUNA IS THE FIRST VERSION OF BELAMOUR

//MASTERLIST//

#ilguna #finnick odair #lacuna chapter five #lacuna chapter six #lacuna chapter seven #lacuna chapter eight #lacuna

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kteabug · 2 years

Text

just out of reach - m.list

Summary: Iwaizumi and Oikawa were always within arms reach of the other, but what happens when misunderstandings and unspoken emotions drive them apart? What happens when everything they thought they knew about the other ceases to be true and they are left to pick the pieces of their friendship up…alone?

Pairings: Alpha!Iwaizumi x Omega!Oikawa

Warnings: Angst, Slow-burn, Friends to strangers, Strangers to friends, Occasional smut, Mentions of depression, manipulation, gaslighting, anxiety, toxic behaviors.

Rating: 18+ Tag list: Open (send an ask to be added)

Word Count: 65,660 (as of latest chapter)

Updates: Irregular Last Updated: May 22, 2022

JOOR Headcanons

JOOR Playlist

JOOR - OC profile 1

JOOR - OC profile 2

JOOR - OC profile 3

JOOR - OC profile 4

Prologue: latibule

Chapter One: habromania

Chapter Two: eccedentesiast

Chapter Three: induratize

Chapter Four: eshajōri

Chapter Five: whelve

Chapter Six: waldosia

Bonus Chapter One: nepenthe

Bonus Chapter Two: acquiesce

Chapter Seven: setsunai

Chapter Eight: anaziphilla

Chapter Eight.Five: lacuna

Chapter Nine: rubatosis

Chapter Ten: retrouvailles

Chapter Eleven: sillage

Chapter Twelve: resfeber

Chapter Thirteen: kairos

Chapter Fourteen: selcouth

Chapter Fifteen: metanoia

Chapter Sixteen: petrichor

Chapter Seventeen: natsukashii

Chapter Eighteen: ephialtes

Chapter Nineteen: sciamachy

Chapter Twenty: saudade

Epilogue: ikigai

hq m.list

#haikyuu #haikyuu omegaverse #iwaoi omegaverse #oikawa tooru #iwaizumi hajime #haikyuu iwaoi #hq iwaoi #haikyuu oikawa #haikyuu iwaizumi #oikawa x iwaizumi #iwaizumi x oikawa #omega oikawa #alpha iwaizumi #iwaoi slow burn #haikyuu oiiwa #hq oiiwa #omegaverse au #kteabug joor

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yoditorian · 3 years

Note

do you have any headcanons about rebel’s relationships with the rest of the merry bunch on ran’s space station 👀

hmmmm okay okay let’s get into it my dear ellie

The original crew was just the five of you (Ran, you, Din, Qin, and Xi’an) and day to day everybody’s kind of reluctant colleagues at best but on the job? This is not a crew people want to cross.

Meeting Ran was accidental, but he was young and you were younger and neither of you had anybody else, so he took you under his wing as a kind of apprentice/associate. Which worked fine, you backed him up because he was all you had, and it felt like you were siblings for a little while.

But you’d been learning his trade (if you can call any job to make a quick paycheck a trade) from day one, working as his pilot only proved your skills further, and you started to clash.

He still kept you up, still kept you employed and fed and housed and you were with him every step of the way to get his space station. But things got a little difficult. You had your own ideas and strategies, you stopped saying yes to missions and started asking why, you put your foot down when things went wrong. Which isn’t something he’d bargained on.

It got a little strained, he’d never had to see you as your own person until that’s what you were. Until all you seemed to do was dig him out of the trouble he’d gotten himself (and the rest of you) into.

Your relationship with Qin was oddly pleasant. While he always had a sharp word for Ran or Din or anyone else, he seemed to treat you with the same respect he did his sister. Mostly.

He’d always take a jab at you but you were ready to hit him right back, and the way you joked about each other could almost be called friendship. If you weren’t so sure he’d double cross you someday.

But if you went off-station, if you ever made planetfall for one reason or another, it was usually Qin who would keep you company. He’d point out the best foods at markets and he’d regale you with stories in cantinas late into the night. For now it suited him to be in your good books, and that was enough for the both of you.

Xi’an always has been and always will be a difficult one to know where you stand. You’ve never quite known exactly how she felt about you.

Some days she’d whisper conspiratorially with you and then others she’d threaten to stab you if you even looked at her. But unless she verbally threatened you, generally you were on good terms.

She taught you how to throw knives properly (not the hack job of chucking it and praying you’d been doing before), and in turn you taught her the basics of piloting. She hadn’t enjoyed it much, but the thought was there.

The two of you were unstoppable on jobs, for all the turmoil of your relationship on the station. It came to a point where, for smaller jobs, sometimes Ran would only bother sending you and Xi’an.

Din had been a mystery to you until the first job you ran together.

He was silent and deadly and it was a little hot. Although your rational, not adrenaline filled brain later reasoned that he was no more hot than when Xi’an was taking people down.

Unless there was something important, you always seemed to wait for the others to come to you when you were tinkering away at your workbench back on the station. But while you greeted the others with a nod or a joke, you only ever had a smile for him. He liked that.

You and Din were seamless, extensions of one being, in the field. There was always a worry with the others that you’d turn one day and find their blaster aimed squarely at you, but not with him. He never gave you any room to think he’d do anything but keep your six, you trusted each other implicitly.

You were already decent at hand to hand and shooting, but Din taught you the basics of every language he knows over his few years on the station. And in turn, you help him become a better pilot. He was always happy to get in the cockpit if you needed him to, and he knew when to let you take over. The evasion tactics in the chapter 5 shootout? Thedead drop recovery in atmosphere from chapter 10? The flawless takeout of those TIEs in chapter 12?That’s all you.

Overall, you have unusual relationships with all of them, but every one of you is able to put that aside and work as a machine when it comes to running jobs together.

LETS TALK ABOUT LACUNA

#oh shit the slightest hint of bi reader whoops #this is just the og team #lacuna #from liz #the mandalorian #the mandalorian x reader #the mandalorian x you #din djarin #din djarin x reader #din djarin x you #THIS ENDED UP LONG IM SORRY #sfw

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simplyclockwork · 4 years

Text

Simplyclockwork Fic Recs

Angst/Hurt & Comfort/Sick Fics

This will be added to as I read more fics.

The Vapor Variant - @88thparallel (CanadaHolm)

Mature. 72,684 words. 18 chapters.

They stood face to face in the middle of a clearing. The dim light of the moon barely allowed Sherlock to see the glassy terror in John’s eyes and the sweat that glistened off his forehead. His nose was bleeding again, blood dripping in a slow stream from his right nostril.

They were both gasping for air, John’s eyes locked on Sherlock’s. There was no recognition there, just wild animal fear.

Time stood still for an eternal few seconds, and Sherlock took a shaky breath. “John—”

Spell broken, John spun and bolted back into the woods.

Still heaving for air, Sherlock took off after him.

kiss me on the mouth & set me free (but please don’t bite) - crysanthemumsies

Explicit. 18,743 words. 6 chapters.

Five times John got drunk and slept with Sherlock, and the one time Sherlock got drunk and couldn't do the same.

Control, Alt, Delete - MirithGriffin

Explicit. 75,196 words. 28 chapters.

If you could delete everything except what was really important, would you? Sherlock and John explore the question and each other.

Lacuna - coloredink

Explicit. 15,607 words. One-shot.

God, it must have been terrible, to think that he would never have this again.

Second Waltz - Atiki

Teen and up. 6,685 words. One-shot.

"The night I died, you wished I could wait for you."

The Haunting of 221B Baker Street - @earlgreytea68

Mature. 10,388 words. 2 chapters.

In which Sherlock Holmes is a ghost.

Warm Me Up - halloa_what_is_this

General audiences. 5,357 words. One-shot.

For days, it’s like living with a sick toddler craving for attention and entertainment. Sherlock stays close to John the whole time, climbs on top of him or next to him every time he sits or lies down and sleeps with his head buried in his stomach every night.

This Time No (Forgiveness) - AtlinMerrick

Explict. 29,464 words. 11 chapters.

It was Sherlock's fault. It usually is. And though he'll ask forgiveness for what he's done, for the very first time John will say, 'This time no, Sherlock. This time, never.' And maybe, just maybe, John Watson is going to mean it.

Electric Pink Hand Grenade - BeautifulFiction (@the-pen-pot)

Explicit. 67,718 words. 13 chapters.

"If Sherlock's brain is a hard drive, then these attacks are an electro-magnetic pulse." Sherlock Holmes does not do anything by half, not even a migraine. It falls to John to witness one of the greatest minds he has ever known tear itself apart, and he must do his best to help Sherlock pick up the pieces.

Already Gone - @annecumberbatch

Explicit. 3,649 words. 7 chapters.

“Sherlock…” John smoothed Sherlock’s shirt out over his chest. “I’m not a good man. I’m not.” “I don’t think you give yourself enough credit, John.” Sherlock shifted his hands to hold onto John’s shoulders. “I think you give me too much.” “John…” Sherlock ducked his head towards John and stopped, hovering above John’s lips. “Please. Kiss me again.”

Emails from the War Zone - trajektoria

Mature. 1,872 words. One-shot.

John returns to Afghanistan for a month to be an army doctor once again and Sherlock is left alone in the flat. The only contact the men have with each other is via emails. Sometimes it's easier to write something than to tell it face-to-face...

carrying up his morning tea - darcylindbergh

Explicit. 34,504 words. 5 chapters.

His fingers tremble as he dials and he can’t force them steady. Familiar number, even though he hasn’t used it in two years. He isn’t even sure he should be calling it now, but she’d asked. She’d made him promise.

You Have Drawn Red From My Hands - @jbaillier

Teen and up. 67,085 words. 17 chapters.

John getting injured leads Sherlock on a path of guilt and revelations.

Alone on the Water - Mad_Lori

General Audiences. 7,725 words. One-shot.

Sherlock Holmes never expected to live a long life, but he never imagined that it would end like this.

Simplyclockwork note: This fic has Major Character Death in it.

The Wisteria Tree - SilentAuror (@silentauroriamthereal)

Explicit. 29,773 words. One-shot.

Sherlock wakes up from a month-long coma only to discover that he has no memory of the previous six years to his own shock as well as John's...

Without Words - allonsys_girl

Explicit. 12,492 words. One-shot.

John and Sherlock have been together for six months and Sherlock still hasn't said "I love you". Then John gets hurt, and Sherlock expresses how much John really means to him.

When a Man is Wrong - plantsareneat

Mature. 70,000+ words. Incomplete.

After the events of The Lying Detective, John and Sherlock attempt to rebuild their friendship, and John struggles with life as a single father. He discovers he is not fully in control of his anger and behavior, and spirals into depression. Follows John through this dark period, and through the healing process he needs to make both for himself and for Sherlock, who has stood by him throughout.

Author Note: *Trigger Warning: pretty graphic depiction of deep depression and suicidal thoughts, including a (non-successful) attempt. Later part of the story follows a hospitalization and healing process coupled with developing/realized romance. Please take care of yourself, dear reader; if this subject is triggering for you, choose another story!

Simplyclockwork note: incomplete but still actively being worked on I believe, very worth the read even unfinished.

Open Your Eyes - @annecumberbatch

Mature. 4,385 words. 6 chapters.

Sometimes you don't know what you could have had until you lose it.

Winner of the Fall 2019 #keepjohnlockalivecompetition by sherlockswolmes on Tumblr

The Heart in the Whole - verityburns (@verity-burns)

Explicit. 101,650 words. 21 chapters.

Events after 'The Great Game' leave Sherlock dependent on his best friend and colleague. But John has a secret of his own...

The Emergency Contact Series - blueink3

Mature. 11,763 words. 2 works.

The first time John Watson’s emergency contact is called is the first time Sherlock Holmes finds out that he has the job.

Rebuilding Rome - SilentAuror (@silentauroriamthereal)

Explicit. 94,000 words. 15 chapters.

When a case unexpectedly forces John to acknowledge some difficult truths about himself and his life, he spirals downward, leaving Sherlock to do his best to rescue him from his own darkness and somehow try to build something new on broken foundations.

Radioactive Trees in a Red Forest - Maribor_Petrichor

Explicit. 280,226 words. 73 chapters.

John Watson is what happens when a man can no longer see a reason to go on.

John Watson is what happens when a man starts to let go.

"It is what it is."

John Watson is what happens when what "it is" becomes too much to bear.

This is a story of the life, death, and resurrection of John Hamish Watson.

Sink Like a Stone - pennydreadful

Teen and Up. 4,348 words. One-shot.

After defeating Moriarty at the pool, life isn't quite the same around 221B Baker Street...it's more peaceful. And stranger.

Dissolution: Our Plague Days - PoppyAlexander (@fuckyeahfightlock)

Teen and up. 6,663 words. One-shot.

The bees have been dying for years. A mysterious pandemic has the people of Great Britain quarantined and terrified. Sherlock's solved it; now John must save them.

Evidence of Human Life - thesardine

Explicit. 16,906 words. One-shot.

Sherlock's sanity deteriorates while he and John are stranded on a deserted island.

If you’re one of the authors listed here and have a Tumblr, and would like me to link it (if I haven’t already), please let me know!

#simplyclockwork fic rec #fan fiction #fan fic #fic rec #sherlock #johnlock #angst #hurt/comfort #sick fics

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moni-logues · 1 year

Text

A Fine Line 7

Pairing: Namjoon x f!reader

Genre: roommates/enemies-to-lovers, non-idol!au, smut, angst

Word count: 8.5k

Summary: It’s time to rebuild your life. You’ve got a new job, a new apartment, and a future that might be bright. The only problem? Your new roommate.

Content: unprotected sex, oral sex (m. receiving), fingering, squirting, multiple orgasms

Beta’d by @here2bbtstrash 🥰

Chapter Six | Masterlist | Chapter Eight

7 - Lacunae

You woke the next morning, grateful for the weekend reprieve. You lay in bed, staring blankly at the ceiling. Your body ached, the emptiness Namjoon left in you lingering. You couldn’t shake him from your head. You wondered what he was doing, what he was thinking. Was he thinking of you? You knew you had no right to even ask that question but it came to you again and again.

You thought of your life, emptiness stretching out before you. Your life as a blank page, blank with everything scrubbed out. Erased. The barest traces left of marks that were once there, faint and undiscernible. You wanted to take a pen and scribble all over it, mark the page and make it yours, make it you. But how? You had nothing left. No pen, no ink.

‘Only Namjoon,’ you thought to yourself. ‘Except I don’t have him. I live with him. I fucked him. And that’s it.’

You realised you had let him consume you, or rather, you had done everything you could to be consumed by him. You had made your whole life about wanting to fuck and not actually fucking this man and now you had fucked him. There was nothing left. You were barren. You felt the world expand around you, separating you from everything – everyone – else. You felt yourself pale and weak in comparison to the world, a ghost, a mere reflection of life, not the real thing. You couldn’t wonder to yourself what had gone wrong, how you had ended up here because you knew the answer already. You had thought you were past it. You thought everything was moving up, moving on, but here you were, arrested, stuck. You felt literally stuck on your bed as if it were sucking you in, sucking the life out of you. You had thought you were finally building something for yourself, maybe you had been, but now you had knocked it all down like a castle in the sand.

Thinking about last night brought you out in a cold sweat. Feelings whirled in you so fast and so confused that you couldn’t grab hold of any of them, couldn’t find the root, the wellspring buried so deep inside you that you might never reach it. You were overwhelmed: guilty, embarrassed, ashamed, bereft, lost, lonely, heartbroken, sad sad sad. You pushed everything down further, harder, trying to bury more and more feelings inside that inaccessible cavern within you, shoving a metaphorical fist down the throat of your heart. It was too much, too deep, and you couldn’t swim.

Sweating and sticky and sore, you heaved yourself out of bed, groaning. Everything hurt. You had known that it would but the reality of it was something else. Your body wasn’t about to let you forget everything just yet.

You made your way slowly to the bathroom and turned the hot tap on full blast. You brushed your teeth and your hair while you waited for the tub to fill. You stared at your face in the mirror, wondering who was looking back at you. Everything about your life had changed in the last year; had you? You felt like you couldn’t possibly be the same person you were – too much was different now, you had left that person behind, hadn’t you? – but that left a question mark in the place of who you were now. You thought things would fall into place, just work out in the way they seem to for so many people, but they hadn’t. Maybe that wasn’t possible; maybe that never happened and everyone just hid their hard work. You’d worked hard, hadn’t you? Leaving was hard, starting again was hard, stepping back to square one in every aspect of your life was hard. Were you hard? You twisted an invisible ring on your finger and turned away from your pale reflection.

You grimaced as you dipped a foot in the bath water. It was hot, burning hot. You took the plunge, the surface of your skin sizzling all over. You were glad of the distraction it provided, even as sweat pricked in your scalp. You closed your eyes and waited for the burning to subside before slipping down, sinking beneath the water entirely. You held your breath as long as you could stand and emerged with a gasp.

The bath water was cold now, your skin wrinkled and dry. You turned your hands over, looking at your body as if for the first time. It was different now, too. You gripped a thigh in your hand, looking at the way your fingers made deep dips in the flesh, sinking into the new cushioning there. You stroked a hand across your stomach, softer, more abundant now than it had been. You had fewer sharp edges; everything a little rounder, smoother; soft curves where there had been straight lines. You hadn’t noticed it happening really, even as you evaluated yourself in the mirror, checking yourself as an object for sexualisation; this was a different way of looking at your body. Your body, not a body intended for him, some man, someone else. This body was yours; this body was you, too. A shiver ran through you as you thought that maybe this body reflected indulgence, carelessness – recklessness even – after years of having to be so careful. Then you let that thought float away; this softness wasn’t recklessness. It was freedom. A living testament to everything you could do, everything you could have now. This was a body as a body should be: nourished, fed, sated. Wet, cold, aching.

You sighed and tipped your head back, leaning over the edge of the bath. So much freedom, you thought to yourself, and what had you done with it? So much freedom and yet you’d somehow managed to trap yourself again. When given a blank slate, you hadn’t scribbled all over it like you’d wanted to, you’d chipped away at it until it was a mere fragment, throwing away what might have turned into the best parts of your life until you were left with almost nothing. Because it was too much and you were a coward who couldn’t do anything on her own. The realisation hit you like a ten-tonne truck; had you ever done anything by yourself? No. Was that why you were pushing everyone away? To force yourself to do something on your own?

You disappeared under the water again. You couldn’t get away from Namjoon. You were on your own (except you lived with Namjoon); you had no one (except Namjoon); nothing was left (except Namjoon). There he was. Like some kind of beacon, ever since you had moved in here and met him, he had lit you up. He exposed parts of you that you hadn’t known were there; he had drawn out things in you that you weren’t sure were good, but they were things you liked. He made you feel different; he didn’t know anything about you except what you had given to him. You liked that distance between you. He was close enough and not too close.

You remembered his body against yours with a shudder and then jumped when a knock sounded at the door.

“y/n?”

“What?” you replied, your voice croaking, the first word you’d spoken all day.

“Are you ever coming out of there? It’s been ages.”

You sank beneath the water with a sigh, a jet of bubbles breaking the surface above your face.

“Y/n?”

Another knock, harder this time.

“I’m coming!” you called back, sitting up quickly, sending tidal waves of water sloshing over the sides and onto the floor. You pulled the plug and stood, wrapping yourself in a towel, not bothering to dry off. You opened the door and walked past Namjoon, not looking at him, certainly not thinking about his body underneath his clothes, the way his lips felt against your skin, the hollow ache in your core as you remembered him inside you.

You lay down on your bed, still wearing the towel. You shivered but you weren’t sure it was due to being cold. You could still feel the heat of Namjoon against you, caged in by his arms. You wondered if it was too much to expect it to happen again. Would he want that? Could you handle that? You almost laughed to yourself, remembering the size of him; how did anyone manage that? You didn’t bother admonishing yourself for what had happened; for all your insistence that you weren’t going to fuck him, it felt inevitable. You realised that you had been hurtling towards it since you first laid eyes on him. And now that you’d alienated everyone else in your life, what did it matter what you did with him? You had no one to answer to but yourself. And you didn’t care. You were going to grab on hard, you decided, and not let go. Let Namjoon pour whatever colour he wanted into your life; there was nowhere to go but up, right?

Your thoughts were disturbed by a soft knock at the door which you ignored. Namjoon opened the door anyway. He hesitated in the doorway and you continued to ignore him, couldn’t bear to look at him, to cast your eyes over his clothed body now knowing what lay underneath. You shivered.

“I… I thought you might want to talk,” he said, taking a tentative step or two into your room.

“About what?” Panic set your heart racing; you knew exactly about what and could already feel yourself curling inwards, cringing, sucking yourself back in like a snail into its shell. You did not want to talk about it.

“Last night?”

“Why would I want to talk about that?”

He didn’t answer immediately, awkwardly shifting from one leg to the other, umming and ahing.

“Why would I want to talk to you about anything?”

Just get rid of him, you thought to yourself; talking with him was not something you were interested in, had the capacity for. If you weren’t going to talk to your actual friends, why would you talk to him?

He huffed.

“You don’t have to be a heinous fucking bitch all the time, y’know. I was just trying to be nice.”

You sat up, finally turning to him.

“I never asked you to be nice.”

“You never asked me anything! You just moved in here and decided to hate me and make it my problem! I don’t know what is wrong with you!”

You hadn’t expected his explosion, hadn’t expected that you were still getting under his skin. You were surprised but delighted. Talk? Absolutely not. Argue? You’d take it.

“You. You, Namjoon, you are what‘s wrong with me. You are my fucking problem. Jesus Christ you’re annoying. Is this the talk you wanted to have? Come in here just to call me a bitch and tell me there’s something wrong with me?”

“No! That’s not what I came in for; you just have to make everything an argument!”

“Oh, just fuck off.”

“Stop telling me to fuck off! It’s my fucking apartment! I’m not fucking off!”

“Fuck you, Namjoon-”

“You’ve done that already.” His voice was cold and flat. His dark eyes sent a shudder right through you and you shivered, hot and then cold.

“Oh, that’s it then, is it? One and done? Well, thanks very much. You really know how to make a girl feel special.”

He raised his eyebrows at you, his mouth agape, shocked indignation puffing up his chest. His eyes scanned the room, searching for something that might get through to you but coming up short. He shook his head and huffed again, his face darkening.

“What the fuck do you want from me?” he growled, jaw set.

“I want you to fuck off.”

“I’ve already told you to stop telling me to do that. I’m not fucking going anywhere.”

“Then fuck me.”

You rose from the bed and let your towel drop, standing naked in front of Namjoon, body flushed and aching. His eyes travelled the length of your body and back up as he said nothing.

“Fuck me or fuck off. Those are your choices.” You moved closer to him, grabbing a fistful of his T-shirt. He swallowed, staring you down but still not answering. “What’s it going to be, Namjoon? Fucking off or fucking me?” You slipped a hand between your bodies, grasping his dick through the fabric of his trousers.

He shifted his weight backwards and took a step and your stomach flipped with disappointment that he was going to leave. And then he threw you like a ragdoll onto the bed, so hard you bounced into the headboard.

“Fuck,” you gasped, recovering yourself as he peeled off his top and pushed down his trousers, crawling over to you. He picked you up and shoved you against the headboard again, as visions of last night poured in. Your body was on fire, waiting for him to touch you – anywhere, anywhere would do as long as he touched you. He gripped your arms tightly, hands easily circling around them, and brought his face close to yours.

“You really think you can handle it?” he asked, his voice deep, low, gruff.

No. You didn’t think you could. You were sore and tired and aching. But the alternative was this hollow feeling in your chest that hurt even more, penetrated deeper, and chilled you to the bone.

“Yes. Just fucking give it to me already.”

He removed one hand from your arm and swiped at your lips, swirling his fingers in your entrance. He laughed, almost sighing into it.

“Fuck, you are so wet. How are you so fucking easy?”

You bristled at his words but couldn’t deny the truth of them. You were wet – you were soaked – and you were easy for him. Had been since day one, since minute one, since the second you laid eyes on him.

“Shut the fuck up,” you whispered, lust and shame and desire swallowing your voice. You swallowed hard and took a deep breath, determined he wouldn’t unravel you this time. Not again. You cleared your throat. “I told you I didn’t want to talk. Are you going to fuck me or not?”

He merely rolled his eyes and pressed the head of his enormous dick at your entrance. He moved slowly, torturously slowly, into you and you had to grasp at his arms, digging your nails in, every part of you tensing and trying to relax. You looked skyward, blinking hard at the tears pricking in your eyes. The pressure in your core travelled down your legs and they wobbled. Your breathing hitched and you tried to focus on that, just breathing in and out as he split you in half for the second time in less than 24 hours. The blunt pain of the unreasonable stretch between your legs made you whimper. Every part of you was on fire and it was half agony, half ecstasy.

“Fuck, fuck, fuck,” you whispered over and over, just waiting for him to finally be all the way in. But he stopped and put his hands on your waist, lightly trailing one up and down your side. He put his lips on you and you shuddered, goosebumps flowering all over your skin. He trailed kisses down your neck and sucked at his final stop, his tongue lightly grazing the skin and you felt yourself melt, a soft warmth flooding you. He moved his body closer to yours, your chests just meeting, and cupped your breast in his hand, rubbing a thumb over your nipple, hard and pert. He moved his lips down, across your shoulder, and brought your hand to his mouth. He kissed your fingertips and you keened, liquid desire pooling in your core again. He placed your hand on his shoulder and you held tight as he moved, curling his hips into you, pushing further. Not quite so painful this time, moving more easily, and Namjoon held you, his hands firm on your body, his breath warm against your flushed skin, your faces cheek-to-cheek, his hair tickling your nose. You tipped your head back and fell into it, let yourself fall open at the slit, at the carved wound he was ploughing through you. You moaned his name and he grunted in response, his hands squeezing your sides.

He stopped again when he had bottomed out, pulling away slightly to push his forehead against yours. You instantly wrapped your arms around his broad shoulders and hugged him closer to you. You didn’t want to look at him. You didn’t want him to look at you. You just wanted to feel the overwhelming pressure of him so far inside you, you could feel it in your throat. You tipped your hips to try to encourage him to move and he did, pulling back and thrusting forward again and again until your eyes rolled back and mouth hung slack. You shuddered against him as he hooked an arm under your knee, lifting your leg, allowing him deeper – you didn’t know you had deeper. You whimpered and whined as he took his other hand between you, slowly drawing circles with them against your clit. The pain and pressure of it all had made you so sensitive that you were close to climax within seconds.

You swore quietly, legs shaking, your body quaking underneath Namjoon as you came, clenching so hard around him that he couldn’t help the long, loud groan that accompanied your orgasm. He held you close as you dropped your head on his shoulder, gasping for breath. He moved faster then, harder, the slick noise of your moving bodies the only sound punctuating the breathy quiet. You almost felt as if you were drowning again, slipping under the surface, dazed and confused, but the feeling of him inside you, filling you up, the weight of his body against yours, the absolute safety of knowing that this was all it was, just sex, not even friends, kept your head above water. As long as you had this, you thought to yourself, just give me this. The total, overwhelming sensation of Namjoon inside you, against you, on top of you. As if he brought you to life, your last, remaining tether to this world.

He was slower to come after you this time and you were able to gather yourself, unlike before. You bit down on his earlobe and sucked; you tangled a fist in his hair and tugged lightly; you whispered in his ear how good he felt, how big he was, how well he stretched you out and finally, he moaned, swore, and came inside you again.

As before, he held you, just for a moment, both getting your breath back, not talking, not even looking at one another. As before, the minute he slipped out of you, you felt empty again, the overwhelming ache radiating from your chest now and not between your legs. Unlike before, this time, you wanted him to stay.

“I guess you’re going to tell me it’s time to fuck off now, then,” he said quietly, putting a foot back on the ground and pulling on his trousers. You didn’t want to let him know that you weren’t, that you didn’t want that; god, no, he couldn’t know. You hated him, you reminded yourself.

‘Don’t get it twisted; this is just sex. Nothing has changed,’ you told yourself. ‘He’s still the same guy you’ve hated all this time. You’re just using him for sex. We’re using each other for sex. It’s fine.’

“Well,” you replied, “I wouldn’t have to say it if you just did it.”

Namjoon rolled his eyes and stooped to pick up his T-shirt, not bothering to put it back on as he walked away and out of your bedroom. You pressed your face into a pillow and screamed silently. You hadn’t planned for this. You hadn’t planned for any of this. You wanted to speak to Hoseok. You wanted to know what he had said to Namjoon two days ago; you wanted to know what Namjoon had said to him; you wanted to tell him that you had now fucked Namjoon, so wouldn’t that make everything right between you? … He had said you could call him when everything was straightened out; even you couldn’t kid yourself that any of this was straight. He would know what to do; you knew he would know what to do but you knew you couldn’t call him. Instead, you just opened up your messages and stared at them, willing him to forgive you, willing him to message you first. Of course, he didn’t.

Still sticky between the legs, heart still thudding against your ribcage, you felt you had to get out. You had to get away, even for five minutes. You roughly scrubbed yourself clean, put on whatever clothes were closest to hand and left the apartment, the evening air beckoning.

You walked aimlessly at first, wondering where you could go or what you could do and then you headed for the river; you had no real destination but it somehow felt less aimless with the water by your side. The sun was already dying in the sky but it was still warm, a balmy summer’s evening, the humidity sticking your top to your back within minutes and the hair at the nape of your neck curling and sticking with sweat. You kept on. You tried to ignore the groups of friends and, worse, the couples also spending time at the river. You cursed yourself for having made the decision to come here of all places. Of course, the river would be busy! The river is fun! The river is romantic! You didn’t have the stomach for fun or romance. You were chock full of loathing, almost indiscriminately. You weren’t angry; you didn’t have the energy for angry. You were just sickened by everything.

Why was life still so hard? You had done hard; you had escaped from hard. Real life, proper life, wasn’t supposed to be hard. Was it? The past was still buzzing around you like stubborn flies long after the picnic had finished. You were so tired of thinking about it. You were so tired of thinking, full stop. That’s what Namjoon was supposed to have been: a fun diversion, something you didn’t have to really think about, to take seriously. He was there to be teased, a plaything, nothing more. It was supposed to be a solution to your problem; this was all intended to make hating him a little less frustrating and a lot more fun. Now it had created more problems; he had wormed his way into your bed, into your body, and into your mind.

You walked until the sun set and then turned on your heel and walked back. You were thirsty and tired and sore, in every way that a person can be. You crawled into your bed, naively hoping that things would look different tomorrow.

They didn’t. You spent the day in bed, hiding from everything, scrolling on your phone until your eyes went square then scrolling some more until the screen blurred in front of you. Even though you could see clearly the path that had led you to this moment, it still somehow did not add up. You still couldn’t work out why things were this way. You couldn’t escape from life. There was no distance far enough that would take you from yourself. The bruised ache between your legs reminded you that there was one thing that got your out of your mind. Just one. It made you sick to think of: how badly you wanted him, how constantly, how long he had been eating away at you. Looking into the mirror as you applied your night cream ahead of Monday morning, you realised you could make a decision. Yesterday was the last time. It didn’t need to happen again. Just because it happened once (… twice, sort of three times) didn’t mean it had to happen again. You could draw a line under it and move on. Every new day was an opportunity for a fresh start. You could make one.

Monday rolled around and you were still determined to have that fresh start. Forget about Namjoon, forget about everyone else, everything else, and move forward. Go to work and do your job well. Come home and pretend not to notice the atmosphere in the apartment, sitting like a heavy fog. Namjoon was on the sofa, reading; you ignored him and changed out of your work clothes in your bedroom before moving to the kitchen to cook. The silence was stifling. Every clink of knife on plates, every sizzle of food in the pan, even your footsteps felt loud. You didn’t dare look at Namjoon to see if he was looking at you. You felt some of your old anger come back and you were relieved; this was how it was supposed to be: hatred only; you were supposed to hate him and he was supposed to make you angry and that was that.

If he would just say something or do something to break the silence, the tension hanging over you! But you didn’t know what you wanted that to be. You didn’t want to want him anymore but that didn’t mean you didn’t want him to want you – you had to smack a hand to your forehead and process that thought three times to make it make sense. You had half-believed things could just go back to exactly how they were before but, of course, that couldn’t happen; you can’t take sex back. Not ever. And now you had to push on into something new. What that would be, you didn’t know, but you were resolved that it would no longer include sex. You pushed back every memory you had of every feeling of him inside you, against you, his arms around you, his breath warm on your skin, his hair so surprisingly soft… You shoved them down as hard as you could but they kept springing back, resurfacing. Every time you looked at him, or thought about him, you felt it all in screaming technicolour.

You plated up and were going to retreat to your bedroom (you had to get away from him) when you decided against it, sitting at the dining table. Yes, you had to get away. Yes, your whole body was crying out, but you were making a fresh start. A fresh start that didn’t include sex, you reminded yourself. You had to be able to exist in the same room as him. You kicked out the chair opposite you.

“There’s food,” you said.

“What?”

“There’s food.”

He just looked at you and you were still frustrated that Namjoon’s face was always so unreadable; you never knew what he was thinking even though it felt like he always saw straight through you.

“I thought I wasn’t allowed to eat your food.”

“As if that ever stopped you. Do what you want; I’m just saying it’s there.”

A minute passed and you carried on eating, but then he finally got up from the sofa and investigated what was left in the pan. He made himself a plate and sat down heavily opposite you.

“It’s good,” he said, his mouth full.

“Thanks.”

And that was it. You ate in silence and dropped your plate in the sink, turning on the tap to start the washing up. When Namjoon finished, he brought his plate over and you were just about to curse him violently in your head when he shoved you lightly out of the way.

“I’ll finish,” he said quietly, moving you out of the way with his body and taking the sponge from your hands. You stared at him, nonplussed, and, at a loss for something else to do, wandered into your bedroom where you decided to take a shower.

You were lying in your bed, thinking of – what else? – Namjoon. You had spent all weekend in a tizz about it. Everything was confusing and you couldn’t shake your head clear. A fresh start was a nice idea but if you were going to stick to it, you needed to get him out. You thought of everything collapsing around you, not for the first time, and you decided to try some meditation. You’d never done it before, though like everyone else, had heard so many things about the wonders of mindfulness and all the rest. Maybe that’s what you needed.

You sat, cross-legged on your bed, and closed your eyes, trying to focus. You didn’t really know what you were doing but figured it was basically something you could make up as you went along, so you started with your fingertips, focusing on them for a while, what they were feeling, where they were, travelling up your hands, wrists, arms, your shoulders and your neck. With a shiver, you remembered Namjoon’s lips there and had to force him from your mind to start over. You skipped your breasts entirely, pretending that you hadn’t remembered his hands over them, his mouth on them, the way they pressed against his body when you arched your back. You focused on your toes (curled), your legs (shaking), and you couldn’t ignore the wetness in your knickers, the ache in your core, the throbbing of your clit.

With a frustrated sigh, you physically shook your body out, sat down again, and tried something else. You focused on five things you could see: the chest of drawers, the city skyline out of the window, your dirty clothes escaping from your hamper, yourself in the mirror in the corner of the room, the unmade bed. Four things you could hear: a siren wailing past, your own deep breathing, the quiet thump of music from Namjoon’s bedroom, the blood roaring in your ears. Three things you could feel (not in your body, not in your body): not the flush being drawn to your skin as your heart pounded, not the moisture between your legs where your walls clenched around nothing, not the goosebumps spreading all over your skin. You gulped, your mouth suddenly dry. It was no good. He wasn’t out of your system. You couldn’t push him down far enough to forget about him.

You didn’t know what to do. How do you negotiate a fresh start when you don’t want a fresh start? How do you tell someone you hate that the only time you don’t feel empty, sick, and hollow is when he’s inside you? How could you expect him to be ok with that?

But then. Wasn’t he ok with it? Fine, he might have thought you were a bitch but it wasn’t like he had said no. He had wanted it, too. You realised, with a shock, that you had been so focused on yourself this entire time that you had no idea what was going on in his life; you didn’t know what his life was; you weren’t even sure what his job was. Maybe he was stressed; maybe he needed a release or an escape. This didn’t have to be all about you. This could be mutually beneficial. The thought perked you up somewhat. There didn’t have to be any guilt if you were both behaving the same way.

You stood and walked to Namjoon’s closed bedroom door. You didn’t know what you were going to do once it opened or if he rejected you, but you had to do something – you were desperate for him. You opened his door, knocking on it lightly. He was on his bed, reading a book. He looked up at you as you entered and said nothing. You said nothing. The seconds passed. You opened your mouths to speak at the exact same moment.

“What?”

“Do you want to have sex?”

“What?”

You thought the level of surprise in Namjoon’s voice unreasonable – as if you hadn’t done it already, as if it were news to him that you wanted to fuck each other.

“I said, do you want to have sex?”

He looked at you, blinking, mouth gaping for a second or two before he shook his head and shut his book.

“It’s not compulsory or anything,” you continued, pouting a little, anxiety spiking that he really was saying no this time. Namjoon still did not respond. “Well, you know where I am…”

Unwilling to actually bear witness to your own rejection, you walked away, back to your own bedroom, thoroughly deflated. Absolutely no vibrator could do what Namjoon could do to you and you knew it. You sighed as you flicked the door shut behind you, knowing you were about to be very underwhelmed. But the door didn’t click shut. It thudded against Namjoon’s open palm as he stood in the doorway. You turned to look at him, unsure.

“Take your clothes off,” he told you, quietly, shutting the door behind him and stripping himself off his T-shirt. You didn’t hesitate, immediately slipping your shorts down your legs and stepping out of them. As you pulled the hem of your top upwards, you realised he had stopped stripping and was just watching you. You paused and he barely lifted his chin, encouraging you to continue. You took your T-shirt off over your head and paused again while he waited for you to remove your underwear. His gaze like a heat gun, everywhere he looked, you felt hot; burning, flames were licking up your cheeks and heat prickled on your neck.

Naked in front of him, you stood, waiting for him to move. He did so slowly, walking towards you, his eyes roving your bare body, his bottom lip caught in his teeth. You could see the imprint of his erection against his trousers and you knew he wouldn’t be wearing underwear beneath – you briefly wondered if he ever did. Then he placed a hand at the back of your neck and you swallowed hard, staring at him with wide, open eyes. He let his hands roam, his touch gentle and soft as you hardened beneath him. He pulled your body close to his and you whimpered as he slid his arms under your buttocks and lifted you into the air. He didn’t throw you this time; he lay you on the bed and left a line of kisses from your ear to your knee.

You hadn’t expected this to be soft. You had expected it to be hard, to be rough, to obliterate your own consciousness. This was something else. This brought you into your body gently, softly, with a melting kind of comfort that made your limbs tingle and your heart race.

“Oh god,” you sighed as Namjoon swirled a nipple with his tongue, sealing his lips around it. You gasped as he bit down and your cunt throbbed. Keeping your nipple in his mouth, he ran his fingers through your soaked folds, moaning at just how wet you were for him. With a trail of sloppy kisses, he swapped one nipple for the other and drew light circles over your clit with his fingers. You whimpered and whined beneath him, desperate for more, harder, faster. Your hips bucked, lifting up to try to press yourself against his hand but he lifted off every time you tried.

“Namjoon, please.” The word was out of your mouth before you realised what was happening. You had told him you wouldn’t beg; you had sworn to yourself you wouldn’t, but there you were, your last resolution shattered. Your breath hitched and you panicked, knowing that he would know he had won. Maybe he would get up and abandon you, leave you like this as he did before. You couldn’t do that again. If he didn’t touch you and touch you now, you thought you would die.

But he didn’t leave. He pressed two fingers into your cunt and you moaned. His thumb pressed down on your aching, sensitive clit and you swore, your voice high and broken. The pleasure was wound tightly in your core and you could feel him everywhere: your limbs tingling, your heart racing, sweat dousing you from every pore: all straining to that one, small spot. Your whole world had reduced to this bed, this man, these hands on you. He rocked his fingers inside you, letting that movement alone move his thumb.

“More,” you whispered. “More, please.”

You felt his mouth lift in a smirk against your neck and almost took it back, almost had a barbed retort on the tip of your tongue but then he pushed a third finger in and it was swallowed in a low groan. He kissed your throat and then sat back on his knees, looking down at you. His gaze was heady and your mind was frozen; you couldn’t look away, even as he lowered his gaze and licked his lips at the site of your tight, wet pussy swallowing his fingers. He moved them harder, faster, pressing against your g-spot insistently and your back arched high off the bed. He moved his thumb, then too, hard, insistent circles that had you squirming.

“Fuck, Namjoon, fuck.” You could hear the whimper that accompanied every exhale and the small scream that escaped when he took his free hand and pushed on your lower abdomen. “Oh god, oh god, o-” You came suddenly, your orgasm stealing your breath from you as every muscle in your body tightened and ecstasy shuddered over you, rolling through you again and again until even your muscles were screaming. You gasped hard as you squirted, drenching his hand and your bedsheets, the suck and squelch of his fingers still moving inside you so filthy you blushed deep and hot. Finally, Namjoon let you go and you brought your hands to your face, almost as if to check that the rest of your body was still there. You drew in a breath, a huge, ragged gasp and looked at him, his face swimming in front of you, slowly settling into focus just in time for you to see him put one finger in his mouth, sucking lasciviously. You tried to speak, form any words; your mouth hung slack and your mind was stuck, buffering, processing nothing but the sight of him licking you off his finger. You had never done that before; no one had ever done that to you before.

He hooked a hand behind you and pulled you up to a seated position; he had to keep his arm there to keep you up, your body so pliant and floppy and unrecovered. He repositioned himself so your head fell back into his hand and he brought his fingers to your open mouth. You took them eagerly, gratefully, running your tongue along them, sucking, cleaning the rest of your juices from his hand. His eyes never left yours, his deep, dark, penetrating gaze drawing you in until he removed his fingers from your mouth with a pop and moved backwards. You whined as he left you and huffed as you dropped onto your hands, Namjoon no longer supporting you.

He stood back and you could see the dark bloom of pre-cum on the light grey fabric of his trousers, his wanton erection straining at the fabric. He slipped off his trousers and it sprang free, turgid, tumescent, irresistible. You crawled forwards and grabbed onto his hips, looking up at him for permission. He looked down at you and smirked, but there was something almost kind about it, almost a smile, almost welcoming, not jeering. Settling onto your knees, you took him in your hand, mouth watering in anticipation. You almost didn’t know where to start. You had orgasmed your brain out of your ears and there was nothing but desire left, nothing but the heavy, needy drag, low in your abdomen, and the man standing in front of you, his perfect, princely prick in your hand. You wanted it all so badly, so much, everywhere all at once, briefly and hysterically lamenting to yourself that he didn’t have two of them, or even three.

You brought your mouth to his tip and licked him clean, the tang of salt hitting your tongue. You worked on the underside, flicking, rubbing, then kissing and sucking at that sensitive spot. You trailed your kisses down to his base and further still, taking one of his balls into your mouth as your hand gripped his shaft. You sucked and licked and moved to the other and then back to his length, tongue tracing the pulsing vein from base to tip. Namjoon was so quiet and you had to hear him, you needed to hear him lose himself in you. You worked harder. You took him into your mouth to the back of your throat and further, letting your breath be sacrifice to his pleasure. You held him there momentarily, hands massaging his balls, tears pricking in your eyes, rolling over, streaming down your face. You moved upwards and swallowed as he reached your mouth. A soft grunt, that was all. You took him back in your hand and lifted your mouth off completely, swiping at the dripping drool with the other hand before kneeling. You grabbed his arm and pulled him around, swapping your positions: you, kneeling on the floor now, him, sitting on the edge of the bed.

Settled between his legs, knees on the hard floor, you resumed your ministrations. You kissed the crease of his leg and his hip as your hand pumped. You kissed the soft skin of his inner thigh and then bit down, taking a tiny strip of flesh between your teeth. He hissed. You sucked, licked it better. You looked up at him through your lashes and his eyes were half-lidded, his bottom lip between his teeth. You kept looking at him as you took him once more into your mouth, bobbing up and down with hollowed cheeks, your hand making up the distance. You settled at his head, kissing, sucking, flicking across the top and back, swirling your tongue against the underside. You came off with a pop, his dick slick with saliva and precum; you swooped your drool from him onto your finger and pressed your finger in the sweet spot behind his balls, rubbing his soft skin as you kissed him from tip to base and back again. Another soft grunt, but louder this time. You pressed harder with your finger, sucked harder, and there it was again, almost a groan.

You trailed your tongue down his length and lifted his balls with your hand, swapping your fingers and your tongue as you licked at his perineum, as your hand gently squeezed. A real groan this time. You looked up at him again and his eyes had fluttered closed, his jaw jutting out. He leant back on his hands, his fingers fisting the bedsheets. You hummed as you swapped your hand and mouth another time, humming as you kissed the very tip of his tip and moaning freely as you took him into your throat again. You swallowed, squeezing him tight, your tongue pressing against him, your fingers rolling his balls between them, playing against the skin behind them. You moved up and took a breath through your nose, then moved down, repeating the motion, your soft moaning travelling through him until it came out of his mouth, too. The tears in your eyes blurred your vision and you couldn’t see his expression, could barely see his glazed eyes looking down at you, the strain in his arms as he tried not to grab hold of you, the jumping, flexing in his thighs as he was desperate to rut, to thrust, to fuck your throat hard until he came, shooting his seed straight into your stomach.

Your jaw ached, your throat grew sore, but Namjoon grew louder beneath you.

“Fuck, fuck,” he growled, his breath heavy, his voice rasping and low. “Don’t stop, don’t fucking stop.” Through clenched teeth, he moaned and grunted, his cock leaping in your mouth, his legs twitching either side of you. You watched him tip his head back and offer a long, drawn-out curse, rounded off with your name. That thrilled you. Your walls clenched at the sound and you were reminded of how badly you needed him to fuck you. This could not end here. You pulled back, your whole face wet with tears and spit and sweat. He gasped, his mouth open, a command on the tip of his tongue, but then he looked down at you, your ruined face, your fucked-out eyes, and he was gripped with the intense, burning desire to look into them as he came inside you. Before you could bring a hand to your face, Namjoon’s were on you, one roughly wiping away your tears, the other swiping at your mouth.

As you rose from the floor, you stumbled, your legs dizzy beneath you, both from kneeling and from your desperation. Namjoon caught you, lifted you, placed you on the bed and shifted himself backwards. He drew you onto his lap and you rolled your hips, coating his wet cock in all your juices.

“Fuck,” he whispered, his hands tight on your arms, his head tipped back and eyes closed. He took a deep breath and brought his head down, looking at you though you almost weren’t sure he was seeing you anymore, his pupils blown, eyes black and dangerous. Your hand wandered down between you and you hitched yourself up, then you sank yourself down on his shaft, the stretch nothing but satisfying this time.

“How-,” he started and then paused, needing to catch his breath as your cunt enveloped him, inch by slow, tantalising inch. “How do you feel so good? Fuck, fuck me.”

“As you wish.” You had hoped to purr, but your voice trembled. You lifted your hips and lowered them, feeling every detail of his thick cock against your slick walls. You held his shoulders tight, nails digging in, and pressed your forehead against his. Your breath mingled with his as you breathed heavily together. His hands each found purchase on the round globes of your buttocks, lifting and dropping you, tipping your hips so that every stroke brought his head against your g-spot.

“God, Namjoon,” you moaned, arching backwards. He groaned in reply, dipping his head to press his mouth to your body: your neck, your chest, sucking the hard bud of your nipple into his mouth so that you keened and arched further.

It was perfect, this fit. Not even the minutest space between you; he was overwhelming inside you, knocking out thoughts of anything else, anyone else. Your arousal flushed around him, the slick slap of your skin against his like music to your ears.

“I want to see you touch yourself,” he growled, his voice so low you almost didn’t hear it. He gripped your glutes with more force now, lifting and slamming you down hard. You didn’t hesitate to obey, immediately loosening your grasp on his shoulder, dragging your nails down his chest, teasing his nipple and earning a groan as your hand made its way to your clit, wet and desperate for friction. Your fingers slipped over it, rolling it between them. You cried out, knowing you wouldn’t last much longer. “Keep going,” he said. “Don’t stop.”

You obeyed, his arms taking on more of your weight as the pleasure piled on. You spasmed against his cock, your walls trembling and thrumming with the onset of ecstasy. You whined and mewled and whimpered as he lifted his hips to fuck up into you with force. Your fingers kept working at your clit as your other hand clenched a handful of his soft, smooth flesh, gripped in your vice-like fingers.

“Namjoon-… I… Fuck, god, I… Mm…” Coherence had left you, what remained of your mind slipped away from you as you whined, high and loud, shuddering against him as that tight coil within you snapped, shattered, was completely obliterated. Your hand fell away from yourself and you leant heavily against Namjoon’s chest, but it wasn’t over. He thrust into you harder and faster and your breath hitched; your limbs felt like jelly, your head fuzzy, your aching cunt still spasming, still rolling in the tumbling waves of your orgasms like the aftershocks of an earthquake.

Namjoon was close, his grunts getting softer, transforming into almost whimpering groans. He bit his lip and you knew he was still trying, in vain, to keep himself contained; you pawed at his mouth, to get him to open up, hooked your fingers inside and with your name on his tongue, he came with a final hard thrust, kissing your cervix and painting your insides white.

His hands let go of you, falling to the side and you simply fell against him. You sat in silence for a minute or more, him softening inside you, his cum dripping out of you around him. When you opened your mouth to say something, you found it was completely dry.

“Fuck,” you said, your voice hoarse and you were suddenly aware of the pain in your throat. Namjoon made a sound in response, guttural and low. Neither of you moved. You weren’t sure you would be able to. Your body was heavy, like lead, limbs lifeless and floppy. With your head against his chest, you could feel Namjoon’s heart thudding, thudding, then slowing. You wondered if he could feel yours, his hand pressed against your back. His other was absent-mindedly rubbing your lower back, a firm palm against your skin and then the light grazing of his fingertips and then a soft squeeze, his touch still bringing goosebumps to your flesh and a shiver down your spine.

As life found its way back into you, as the lights switched back on in your mind, you shuffled and Namjoon found the strength to lift you off, rolling you into the mattress. You both lay back, no longer touching, not speaking, barely thinking. This was what you wanted; this was what you needed. Your mind wiped clean- well, your mind wiped dirty. Your head felt empty, light, almost giddy. You lay, neither one of you moving, listening to each other breathing, to the noise of the city outside. You felt sleep begin to claw at you, your eyelids feeling heavy, this small slice of peace allowing you to relax.

“At some point, we have to talk about this,” Namjoon said, quietly, interrupting it all.

Your carefully constructed blank room inside your brain collapsed like a house of cards.

“Not now,” you whispered. “Please not now, ok?”

Namjoon sighed but accepted your answer. He patted your thigh lightly as he sat up and swung his legs over the side of the bed. He scooped up his trousers and walked to the door, shutting it softly behind him. Not now. Maybe at some point; maybe he was right but, god, not now.

On your way back to your bedroom from the bathroom, you noticed Namjoon had left his T-shirt on your bedroom floor. You picked it up and flung it on the top of your over-full laundry hamper.

Chapter Six | Masterlist | Chapter Eight

#namjoon x reader #namjoon smut #namjoon fic #namjoon #bts x reader #bts smut #bts fic #mmm repost

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autumnalwalker · 3 months

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Empty Names - 21 - Old Flame

Author's Note: In which Eris gets a phone call from her ex, hunts down an eldritch horror and gets backstory trauma put on display. And backstory happy stuff too. Lots of Eris backstory this chapter all around. I think this might be one of my favorite chapters I've written so far for this story, even if it did come out more like three chapters in a trenchcoat. Maybe one of these days I'll go back and split this chapter and the other overly long ones into separate parts/posts to be more digestible. More spoiler-y commentary in the tags. Wordcount: 16,606 Content Warnings: Fantasy fight scene violence. Blood. Trauma flashbacks. Loss of sense of self. Suicide mention. Mild body horror. Brief mentions of sex and kink without detail.

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For all the pocket dimensions Eris has passed in and out of, somehow these past few days have been her first time leaving the country while, strictly speaking, remaining on Earth. Their last mission - somehow the word feels less silly when Road is around - involved helping a young man sort through the collection of cursed and haunted artifacts filling the house he’d just inherited from some mysterious distant uncle. The unlucky heir had found the experience harrowing enough that he took the amnestic Road offered him afterward, but that still left a couple dozen dangerously enchanted items in need of proper disposal. Eris had been able to call up Preacher from her monster hunter contacts for a good old fashioned Catholic exorcism on a few, others were handled by Road and Ashan performing some more esoteric rituals, and three were set aside for storage in some basement of the Bridgewood Manor for Sullivan to take care of. That all left seven objects that Road insisted would be best handled by returning them to their rightful resting places.

Hence the current international road trip with Road while Lacuna and Ashan stayed behind to watch the office. When Road had said they could just about get anywhere on the planet in three hours or less, Eris had taken it for a boast. After seventy-two hours of making more jumps through bridges and pocket dimensions than she’d previously made in the seven years since she first found Crossherd, she’s reminded that Road doesn’t make boasts. France, Peru, Kenya, Romania, India, Korea… and who knows how many other countries they technically passed through for a few minutes between bridges in between those stops.

“So, what’s the fastest way from Seoul to Vancouver?” Eris asks Road as she climbs into the driver’s seat of her van.

The third-to-last artifact on their dropoff list - a spirit of a blacksmith haunting the last sword it ever made - has been picky about who it will allow itself to be passed down to. It’s been insistent about being in the hands of “a true craftsman of its bloodline,” and so far none of its descendents in its home country that she and Road have talked to have made the cut. Hopefully a cousin in Canada with a 3D modeling job and a resin printer for making tabletop wargame miniatures will satisfy the spirit more than a restaurant owner who’s long since given up doing his own cooking.

“If we were walking, there’s a noodle place I know a few blocks away that’s in six different cities and once. Depending on what we order and how fast we eat, we could probably get there in twenty or thirty minutes. Driving through, probably best we go back through the bridge we came here from, then a series of brief transits from Mumbai, to Dubai, to Cambrai, to Quebec, to Vancouver. Should be about an hour if traffic is good.”

“Rhyming our way to France, and then making the French connection to Canada?”

“It might be silly, but it works,” Road says with a chuckle. “Bridges and pocket dimension links have sprouted up from stranger things.”

“Are you sure we’re actually on an achor world? This has been a whole lot of holes and folds in space we’ve been going through. It’s all starting to make the firm bedrock of reality that everything’s tied down to feel more like a sponge.”

“Now you know why the powers that be in Crossherd and similar hub dimensions are so insistent on the Masquerade. Not even most people in the know Backstage have any idea just how… loose… everything really is.”

Eris stays silent for a bit to let that sink in. And to concentrate on driving in a city with street signs in a language she’s had scant opportunity to practice since her parents kicked her out nearly a decade ago. She knew better than to expect anything familiar here, in the birthplace of a grandmother she’d never met that looked nothing like how it would have back before that grandmother met her grandfather and moved with him back overseas. A grandmother she herself probably looks nothing like. Allegedly her father had taken more after his father and passed that on to her. Still, both the arrival and the leaving of this city brought an irrational twinge of hope that she might glimpse something of one of the heritages her parents had been so weirdly insistent about cutting out of their lives in favor of a futile attempt to blend in and assimilate. She’d gotten the same feeling when stopping in India on this trip too, and nothing had come of it there either. It’d probably be the same if she ever went to Mexico, although that unmet grandparent had supposedly been a second generation immigrant.

But hey, on the bright side she’s driving again, even if it is in city traffic at the moment. Between Crossherd’s walkability, the trees at the Bridgewood Estate, and the unexpected lack of monster corpses in need of disposal since joining up with Road, she’s barely been behind the wheel in the past two months. Fortunately, the heavily refurbished van turned out to be just about perfect for transporting a pile of cursed artifacts that were too volatile to shove into bigger-on-the-inside containers. Maybe one of these days when they all have some downtime she’ll talk the others into a more recreational road trip somewhere. It’d get Lacuna out of her basement lab and would probably be a brand new experience for Ashan.

“By the way,” Road says at a red light, snapping Eris out of her traffic-induced musings, “I’ve noticed these past couple days that you’ve been changing up how you refer to me mid-conversation.”

“Just going with what felt right. My bad for not running it by you first though.”

“No, no, I’m just surprised is all… How could you tell?”

“There’s this thing you do with your voice. Your body language and posture too, but mostly your voice. You’ve got three or four different modes of presentation, I guess you could call it, that you’ll settle into as a default for most of the day and shapeshift your jacket to match, but then throughout the day in shorter bursts you’ll shift in and out of those other modes while your appearance stays the same.” Eris raises an eyebrow at him before turning her gaze back to the traffic that’s begun moving with the greenlight. “Am I wrong?”

Road lets out a laugh that peters out into a bemused sigh. “You’re the first person I’ve met other than Sullivan to pick up on that,” she says to Eris. “It feels nice to be seen like that. I knew you were the right one to bring along on this trip.”

“I’ve been wondering about that actually. Why did you pick me for this? Sure, I’ve got the van, but we’ve got one in the office’s garage that we’ve still never taken out for a spin and I know you know how to drive.”

“Partly I figured you would be the best at resisting any influence our backseat passengers start acting up.”

“I’d think the wizard would be the ideal choice for that.”

“Sure, he has his defenses, the same as any other properly trained mage, but even before putting this team together, I’ve always felt you were strong-willed enough not to need such techniques.”

A rapidly shifting sky seen through bloody water. A sense of peace and warmth despite the icy depths. A steady fame from the tip of a white wand. Active thought flowing out to feed the fire. Smooth skin where a scar should be. A flood of lost memories. A sun held between her -

Eris pushes the memories of helplessness back down.

“I wouldn’t be so sure of that,” she replies.

“And I wouldn’t be so sure of selling yourself short,” Road says. “Nevertheless, the bigger reason I asked you to come with me for this is that you know how to talk to people.”

“Eh, my Spanish is fluent and my German is passable, but we just saw that my Korean is rusty as Hell and my Hindi is even worse. I never did get around to learning French beyond a handful of tourist phrases, and I don’t know a lick of Romanian. Again, Ashan seems like the better fit with the translation charm.”

“That’s not what I meant, and you know it.”

“You’re right.”

“Then why play dumb?”

The van reaches another intersection just in time for the light to turn red.

Eris turns answers over in her mind.

Why?

Reflex? Humility? Habit?

Why would that be a reflex? When did that happen? How did she let it?

It’s been a long time.

Was it when she started hanging out at a bar full of adrenaline junkies with a deathwish?

Was it when she chose the bloody rush of killing monsters with her bare hands over college despite her scholarship qualifications?

Was it when she got accused of secretly being a boy and on drugs for being too good at sports in junior high?

It’s been a long time.

The light turns green.

“I guess I’m not used to anyone wanting me around for much other than to be the big strong one who’s good at hitting and breaking stuff,” Eris answers.

“Again, you’re selling yourself short. Do you think that’s what Lacuna wants you around for? Or how Ashan sees you when the two of you linger in the kitchen after the rest of us leave?”

“Those are personal relationships, it’s not the same thing. Besides, Sully’s made it abundantly clear what he thinks of me and what I got hired to do for you two.”

“He has, hasn’t he? I’m sorry about that, I really am. Sullivan, for better or worse, has some consistent blindspots with his biases and isn’t half as good at reading people as he thinks he is. Especially anyone that’s even remotely similar to him.”

“Okay, now that’s a low blow. He and I are not alike”

“I mean it as a compliment, really. I’ve never met anyone so loyal or so fiercely protective of the people he cares about. I see that in you too, except you still have it in you to have some compassion for anyone outside those close to you. And, of course, you’re both incredibly skilled at doing violence and enjoy it, even if the reasons are different. But you’re both more than that too. Even with this mission he’s the one who’s been doing the genealogical digging and messaging me with suggestions of where to go and who to take these artifacts to, despite that taking time away from his ongoing investigation.”

“Speaking of that,” Eris says, “what have you had Sully working on that’s so secret? Not that I’m complaining, but I don’t think I’ve seen the guy since the office opened up.”

“You don’t know?”

“Obviously not. And every other time I’ve asked something’s conveniently come up for you to change the subject.”

“Strange. I could have sworn I told you. It must have just slipped… my… mind… again…”

A handful of times, on particularly bad nights, Eris has sat with Lacuna when she just sort of shut down. Those instances were always rough, but seeing Road of all people do it out of the blue like this is chilling. Like the sun going out and revealing that it’s just been a big light bulb hanging from a poorly-painted ceiling this whole time.

Lacuna never snapped back to normal abruptly enough to make Eris question if she'd just imagined it though.

“Anyway,” Road resumes, “remember our first mission as a team?”

“It’s barely been two months.”

“So it has. Regardless, he’s been investigating what caused a dragon and a Culescun bone ship not outfitted for inter-world travel to get drawn into a crossover point and try to occupy the same space at the same time. More specifically, he’s been tracking down whomever it was that blew up the nearby lighthouse shortly after we left and trying to figure out if they’re connected to a different case of an unknown party picking off and stealing the contraband from inter-world smugglers.”

“He’s what now?” Eris asks, keeping her tone carefully level. How is this her first time hearing any of this? “Is that why we’re playing cursed delivery service right now? So we can be bait?”

“In all honesty, that thought hadn’t occurred to me. But now that you mention it, there are worse plans.”

Another red light. The last intersection before the turn into a series of side alleys for the bridge.

“We can come back to that after you explain everything you thought you already told me,” Eris says, “but for now, what was that about the lighthouse bl-”

A custom ringtone that Eris hasn’t heard in years plays over the van’s speakers and cuts off her question. She doesn’t need to look at the caller ID displayed on the dashboard console to know who it is. A part of her is surprised the caller still has her number, but then again, Eris still has hers. And the two of them do still speak from time to time.

She considers letting it go to voicemail. Or even hitting the button to hang up altogether. She has more important things to focus on right now than a phone call from an ex who might have been trying to flirt with her a week ago.

An ex who wouldn’t call unless it was an emergency. An ex who, if she really wanted to get back together, would more likely rope mutual friends into arranging a “chance meeting” where they would “just so happen” to have the opportunity and reason to do something romantic together like walk through a botanical garden, fix an engine together, or fight each other until they can barely stand. An ex who would drop everything if Eris were the one to call.

Godammit.

“We’ll talk about this later,” Eris says to Road before tapping the green call icon on the dashboard screen. “Yo, Gretchen, I’m driving right now with Road, so I’ve got you on speakerphone. What’s up?”

With any luck, knowing Road’s on the line should keep Gretchen from trying to dredge up old relationship history that Eris is even less in the mood to deal with right now than normal. And if it really is an emergency, it will be good to keep Road in the loop.

“Great,” Gretchen’s voice says through the van’s speakers, “that saves me the trouble of making a second call. Do either of you know anything about non-euclidean, shifting, tesseract-esque architecture of the sort Lovecraftian horrorterrors like to make nests in?”

“I know that eldritch-warped spaces should never be entered without the proper training and precautions,” Road offers, “and even then they’re incredibly dangerous to go into alone and nigh-impossible to find your way out of without an anchor back to realspace.”

“Right. Pretty much what I already guessed then.”

“Gretchen,” Eris says in exasperation that hasn’t yet turned into concern, “for the love of God, please tell me that’s not where you’re calling from.”

“Not yet it isn’t, but I am camped out inside the theater department of a Midwest liberal arts college staring at the door to a dressing room that was bigger on the inside when I opened it to chase the tentacle monster I’ve been hunting.”

“In that case,” Road says, “I would strongly advise closing the door, waiting an hour, and then checking to see if it’s gone back to normal by then. The eldritch aren’t mere beasts to hunt.”

“Not happening. I’ve already tagged this one so it can’t fully escape the world into voidspace. It’s my quarry to claim, and while I really would love the assistance if you want to come jump into the proverbial eye of terror with me, I’m going after it either way. And before you start lecturing me about acceptable targets, I’ve already verified that this one’s not sapient; it’s just a passing scavenger that stopped by to feed on the psychic torment of undergrads going through finals week.”

The traffic light turns green.

“Give us an address and we’ll be there as soon as we can,” Eris says. “Don’t you dare go in there alone before we arrive.” She just had to turn this into an ultimatum, didn’t she?

“Thanks E, I’ll text it to you. Be seeing you.”

The call ends, and the ensuing text message arrives immediately enough that it was almost certainly typed up in advance. Eris taps to display it on the screen and glances at Road.

“Do I still want to make this turn up ahead?”

“Do you really think she’ll really go in on her own if we take too long?”

“I hate to say it, but yes. I’d know if she were bluffing and she’s not. She’s leaving something out, but she’s serious about that.”

“In that case go three more blocks and then take twelve right turns in a row. There’s a witch I know who owes me a favor.”

“Got it. And thanks for helping with this. I know it’s a detour from the current mission cleanup.”

“It’s practically on the way, and besides, there’s not a rush with the deliveries. It’s not like they’re going anywhere if we leave them unattended for a short time. Wrong kind of hauntings for that.”

“All the same, I appreciate it. Things between me and Gretchen are weird, but I’d still rather not see her lose her mind trapped in some impossible labyrinth.”

“I wouldn’t want to see that happen to anyone. Do you want to loop in Ashan and Lacuna?”

“Nah, someone’s got to watch the office in case something comes up. Besides, it’s like two a.m. there right now. Let them sleep. Between you, me, and Gretchen, we should be fine.”

“Right you are,” Road says with a smile that shows more teeth than his usual. “It’s been awhile since I’ve dealt with one of the eldritch. This should be fun.”

Fun… Yes, Eris supposes it will be once the hunt gets going. No more effective way to forget her worries for a little while. But first…

“Now about that exploding lighthouse…” Eris leaves the implied question hanging.

“I can give you and the others the full explanation when we get back.”

“You can give me the abridged version while I drive.”

“Fair enough.”

Eris could almost swear she hears them whisper something under their breath about it being refreshing to be called out.

*******

It has long been observed that artists, writers, performers, and other such creative types tend to have a statistically significant increased rate of contact with the extra-dimensional entities collectively known as “the eldritch.” While the theory that creatives are somehow possessed of some special spiritual elevation or metaphysical sensitivity has been largely discredited, the actual cause of this phenomenon remains hotly debated. The most popular theories are variations on the proposition that the act of creating art gives of psychic resonances that the eldritch can sustain themselves on similar to how deiform entities (more commonly known as “gods”) are sustained by - and by some indications potentially created by - sapient faith. Others propose that the act of creation is a reshaping of our otherwise relatively stable baseline reality that either draws the eldritch in via a sense of familiarity to their own ever-shifting domain of existence or fascinates them with its alienness.

The most radical theories of why the eldritch seem to be drawn to art and artists is that they are not truly so different from us, and just find it neat.

Such is the potentially relevant trivia that runs through Eris’s mind as she picks her way down a dark hallway strewn with a web of tripwires and enchanted chalk drawings, trying not to catch any of the higher-strung wires on the spear strapped to her back. Less helpful but equally persistent thoughts include stories of victims going mad from merely looking at the eldritch and irritation at Gretchen for setting all this up when she knew Eris and Road were coming to help. And, Eris will begrudgingly admit, thoughts admiring the skill it takes to turn thirty feet of straight hallway into a virtual labyrinth to navigate.

“Okay, stop,” Gretchen instructs her. Golden hair and golden eyes catch the glow coming from the one open door in the hallway while black leather and kevlar blend the rest of the monster huntress into the shadows. Her spear, with its exaggerated bladed crossguard below the main blade, lies resting against the doorframe. “Take two steps to the left, two steps back, another to the left, four forward, two to the right, and then you should be clear.”

“Was this all really necessary?” Eris asks as she catches up with Road and Gretchen in front of a door to a theater dressing room whose contents keep multiplying and folding in on themselves.

“Maybe not, but I had the time waiting for you to get here,” Gretchen answers, “so I figured I may as well account for the possibility of this thing fleeing back outside once we find it in there. These Lovecraftian tentacle monsters are slippery like that, this way we either catch it in there or we chase it back out here where it slithers headlong into a magic net.” She flashes Eris a wickedly playful grin painted poison apple red. “Besides, if you were to accidentally set one of these off it’d be fun to see how long it takes you to break out.”

“Lovecraftian is a slur,” Road points out without looking away from the threshold of the warped space, saving Eris from having to reply to that last part.

“Huh?”

“Old Howard Phillips was a racist xenophobe even by the standards of his time who thought air conditioning was unnatural and scary,” Eris clarifies. “A guy like that was obviously going to interpret any contact with a genuinely alien consciousness in the worst possible faith, and whether it was coincidence or a failed attempt at breaking the Masquerade, he wound up having an outsized influence on the collective consciousness and how the eldritch have even been able to interact with this world over the past century.”

“I never did understand how the other hunters couldn’t see you were a giant nerd at heart,” Gretchen says.

“Not in a flirting mood right now, Gretchen.”

“Spoilsport.” The word comes out as a joke rather than an accusation.

“Anyway,” Road says as they drop their duffel bag on the floor and begin rifling through it, “I think I’ve seen enough to get a handle on the situation.”

“Do tell,” Gretchen says.

“At a glance this appears to be a fairly standard eldritch spatial warping, anchored enough to this world to be merely confusing instead of completely incomprehensible. That said…” he pulls a scrimshaw carving of a deep-sea fish from the duffle bag and sticks his arm through the doorway, holds it there past the threshold for a few seconds until the bone starts glowing, and puts it back in the bag. “Like I suspected, the space is psychically reactive, so we’ll need to be careful about mental feedback loops in there. Luckily I have some countermeasures for that. Just give me a few minutes to stabilize this portal so it doesn’t close behind us and we should be good to go.”

“Cool, while you do that…” Eris says to Road and then turns to Gretchen, “Gretchen, I need a word with you in private.”

“Not a lot of privacy in here, E, unless you want to go walk through the web again.”

Eris stalks over to where the person who coined that nickname for her and all it entails stands lurking just past the edge of the light spilling from the warped space beyond the door. She comes to a stop close enough that the shorter woman has to crane her neck up to look her in the eye. When she does, Eris can see that her pupils are dilated beyond even what this darkness should elicit. Black circles that nearly reach the edge of their sockets with just the faintest rim of yellow iris and hardly any room for the white of sclera.

“We can whisper,” Eris hisses. “And I am not in the mood for you to make a joke out of that.”

“What’s got you all worked up?” Gretchen whispers. “A hunt with rare prey and working with Road? I’d think you’d be enjoying this as much as I am. Or has working with the celebrity hero gotten boring for you?”

“What are you leaving out?” Eris prays that she’s wrong about already knowing the answer to her own question.

“Perceptive as ever. It always was one of your best qualities.”

“Stop dancing around the answer.”

“Tell me how you figured it out.”

“Do I look like I want to play this game?” She used to love playing this game.

“You already know the answer.”

“I want to hear you say it.”

“You want to hear me say literally anything else. I want to hear you say it.”

A request with two meanings if there ever was one.

“Fine,” Eris growls. “You called me.”

“Just that?”

“That was enough to suspect.”

“But there was more. What are you leaving out?”

That same wonderfully wicked smile that always accompanied every inside joke between them.

“If this was just about a hunt gone weird you would have called Road directly. We all have their number, it’s literally posted on the wall at 121813. And you certainly wouldn’t have turned it into a threat to go in alone. You’re smarter than that. You wanted me here, and Road’s an excuse at best and distraction at worst.”

“Go on.”

“You’ve always been good at setting up snares, but not even you could have rigged all this up in the time between the phone call and now. You had these traps ready before you ever picked up the phone. You prepared this for us as much as for your prey, but you made a point of helping us get on this side of them.”

“And why would I ever do a thing like that?”

“We show up and you’re lurking in the shadows like you’re setting up a dramatic reveal. You love being dramatic, but that’s not your flavor. You burst into rooms with flashy entrances and get all eyes on you. You’re two thirds my size and take up twice as much space. You’ve got a miniature bluetooth speaker hidden in your gear so you can play goddam theme music in a fight. You don’t lurk for drama. You only lurk when you’re hunting. When you’re closing in on prey and waiting for it to get in position. When you want to build up your own thrill of anticipation before you come down like lightning with all the flash and thunder that goes with it for your perfect moment.”

“But we’re on a hunt, aren’t we? Why shouldn’t I be lurking outside the hole I’ve run my prey down into?”

“But the eldritch in there isn’t what you really want to catch.”

“My my, my. E, are you calling yourself my prey? I know you’re delicious, but -”

Eris reaches out and grips the flashlight clipped to Gretchen’s shoulder, twists it towards Gretchen’s face and turns it on. There’s an unmistakable flash of eyeshine in the moment before those unnaturally dilated pupils contract into sharp vertical slits, leaving Gretchen more golden-eyed than ever. A predator’s eyes. A hunter’s eyes.

“Now who’s the dramatic one?” Gretchen purrs.

“You were practically showing them off when we got here.”

“They’re lovely aren’t they. It’s amazing what autogenesis can do. But what does it all mean?”

It’s the reason they broke up.

“I almost hit my tipping point on my last hunt,” Gretchen speaks up when Eris doesn’t.

The fifth fate of hunters.

“I changed, and it felt wonderful.”

To get so lost in the hunt, in the thrill of violence, that one becomes no different from the monsters they hunt.

“But then the rush faded, and it was horrifying.”

A recognition of identity that triggers a self-reinforcing feedback loop of autogenesis.

“That’s why I want you here tonight.”

Those who fight monsters and live are doomed to become monsters themselves.

“So you can help pull me back from the brink when I start to go over again.”

“Bullshit,” Eris says flatly.

“Excuse me?”

“You picked out a difficult and dramatic target for your last hunt that you knew had a reputation for making people lose their minds in the hopes that it would be a sure thing to seal you into the fifth fate, and then you called me up so I could witness you change and then tragically have to put you down the way you always romanticized and fantasized about. Bonus points if I die too right after from injuries you inflicted. Your perfect fucked up fairy tale ending.”

“E, that’s not the only way it has to go.”

“Oh, and me turning into a monster too so we can go on a mindless rampage together is so much more -”

“I’m done!” Road calls from the door.

Eris turns around to see them holding an intricately embossed knife in one hand and a smoking censer dangling from a chain in the other. Behind them the doorframe is now surrounded by geometric sigils drawn in glowing chalk.

“Good. So are we,” Eris says.

Road nods in misunderstood affirmation. “Now then, then incense should ward off any eldritch influence to keep our minds stable and bodies intact, so we’ll need to stick together while we’re in there.”

“About that,” Eris says. “Change of plans. Gretchen is staying out here.”

“I absolutely am not! This is my hunt!” Gretchen shouts. The sudden change in demeanor would be jarring if Eris hadn’t expected it.

“I’ve read up enough on these things and talked to enough wizards to know that getting out of weird space like that works best if you have someone on the outside as a lifeline or beacon to follow back. Gretchen’s the one who set up all the traps out here, so best if she takes on that duty so she can manage them if the eldritch comes back out before we do. Better to drive it back out and into her traps to finish it off here than to kill it in an extradimensional space that might well collapse with its death.”

“Oh, now who’s talking bullshit?” Gretchen snarls. Her teeth are sharper than they were three minutes ago. “If anyone should stay behind it should be Road since they’re the one who knows how to keep the door open. Just give us the incense to take with us and we’ll be fine.” She shakes her head. “But no. You’re just trying to poach my prey. Well, I’m the one who found out it was haunting this place! I’m the one who tracked it down to begin with! I’m the one who lured it into realspace! I’m the one who tagged it so it can’t escape! I’m the one who backed it into a corner! I’m the one who kills it! It’s mine! My prey! My hunt! And you can’t take it!”

Eris rounds on her. “Good God! Would you listen to yourself right now? You’re raving. This isn’t you. Not the Gretchen I know. You’re on the brink and that’s the feedback loop talking.”

“And you know me so well, don’t you? In spite of being too afraid of letting go of yourself to see what I see.”

“I know that there’s more to you than just joy of the hunt, and if you go in there you’re going to fall over the edge and lose all of that. And I am not going to help you commit an elaborate ego suicide.”

“It’s not-” Gretchen starts to say before getting interrupted by Road stepping between the two monster hunters.

“Eris, you’ve got a point about someone staying behind as a lifeline beacon,” Road says before taking Eris’s hand in hers to give her a crystal amulet on a silver chain, “but if it’s the hunter’s fifth fate you’re worried about then maybe you should both stay out here while I go in.”

“Me?” Eris balks. “I’m fine.”

“Look me in the eye and tell me that you are one hundred percent sure of that. Tell me that if you go in you won’t wind up being the one falling over the edge when eldritch exposure starts eating away at your capacity for rational thought.”

Heat. Rage. Ecstasy. The smell of smoke and steam. A cloak of flames. Hair alight like clouds at sunset. A heavy, wet, crunching sound repeating over and over.

The contextless memory leaves Eris gasping. She pushes it back down lest context arrive.

Road nods. It’s the first time Eris has ever seen them look sad. It’s unsettling.

“Gretchen’s liable to run in right after us anyway if we leave her out here unsupervised,” Eris says.

“I would not!” Gretchen protests. “Not that you’re going to leave me out here.”

“Gretchen,” Road says, turning to her, “Eris is right. You’re not well right now. I’ve seen this sort of thing happen before firsthand, so I would know.” He raises a hand to forestall another objection. “I also know that, on some level, you know that too, or else you would have come up with a way to just get Eris here and not me. You know how the arrangement I have with the 121813 crew goes; if I’m called in it’s not a hunt anymore and it’s out of the hands of whomever it was that made the call. It’s out of your hands.” Road steps back and gives one of those warm, reassuring smiles of theirs. “And maybe you even meant it earlier about wanting Eris to be here to pull you back from the brink. Yeah, you two weren’t exactly being quiet by the end there. But maybe you don’t have to be all the way to the brink for someone you care about to pull you back and help you.”

Maybe it’s the incense bringing her back down to her senses, or maybe it’s just Road being Road, but something in Gretchen relaxes. Deflates.

“Maybe…” she whispers, eyes downcast.

“Now then!” Road says in a sudden shift from serious to chipper. “You two obviously have a lot of baggage to unpack, so why don’t you take the opportunity to sort that out while I go sort out getting our squiggly visitor back to its home in the Void? Alright? Good. I’m trusting you, and I’ll see you on the other side.”

And with that, Road turns on their heel and heads toward the door with a jaunty wave. By the time they cross the threshold their jacket has finished folding and flowing outward to completely cover them in plated purple armor with green trim. The incense smoke billows around them and trails behind, creating a pocket of stability in the chaotic space that was once a theater dressing room. And then the bubble gets too far away from the door, the room inverts itself, and Road is gone save for a subtle tugging sensation coming from the amulet they left in Eris’s hand.

“So…” Gretchen grasps at the words to say next. Her eyes remain downcast.

“So…” Eris prompts. Her eyes remain trained on Gretchen.

“Is Road always…”

“Like that? Pretty much.”

“And here I thought they were just doing a bit the couple of times I worked with them.”

“Nah, they’ve got that vibe going pretty much twentyfour-seven.”

“Sounds exhausting.”

“For me or for them?”

“Both.”

“Eh, it’s endearing, and I’m not convinced they actually sleep.”

The silence of thoughts not yet formed into words descends. Gretchen steps away from Eris to go lean on a section of wall that hasn’t been tripwired or graffitied. Eris shifts her own position to keep herself between Gretchen and the door and pockets the lifeline amulet.

Seconds pass.

Minutes.

Gretchen finally looks back up at Eris.

“I’m sorry,” Gretchen says. “Like you said, I wasn’t really myself when I was going on like that.”

“No, you weren’t.”

“It’s just… You know what it’s like. The rush, the thrill, the anticipation. The drumbeat in the back of your head that seems too loud to be simply your own heart. The electric tingle down your spine that spreads through your whole body. The way smell and taste start blurring together and your other senses all start feeding each other so that the whole world seems more. The craving. The memory of blood’s viscosity and the way a drop’s trail down the back of your hand catches on all the little hairs and gathers in the pores and creases. The constant knowledge of how good the climax of the hunt feels. Has felt. Will feel next time.”

“I do. All the more reason for you not to go in there.”

“It’s like that all the time now. Even basking in that moment right after a kill, it only ebbs away to a murmur. It’s enough to make you think it might not be so bad if you never felt anything else.”

“Only ever feeling one thing? Sounds like death to me, and I’d rather die as myself.”

Gretchen’s laugh is soft and bitter. “You always say that. Have you ever stopped to think that it might be becoming more yourself, not less?”

“I have, but I’ve seen what someone becoming more herself looks like, and this? What you’re talking about? This ain’t it.”

“How do you figure?”

“Becoming more yourself is about letting yourself grow, and while you might shed some masks that were never really part of who you were in the first place, everything that makes you you is still there in some form, for better or worse. What you’re talking about isn’t taking off a mask, it’s hacking off your nose, ripping out your tongue, and mangling your ears. It’s becoming a caricature of yourself. Maybe if this was a not wanting to be human anymore thing I could understand, but that’s never been what you wanted. It was always that single perfect moment stretched out to infinity that you’d always wax poetic about.”

“How do you do it then?”

“Do what?”

“I’ve seen you in action E, I know you love it just as much as I do. Maybe even more.”

“I’m not the one trying to accelerate losing my mind here.”

“That’s my point! I’ve seen you covered head to toe in blood with a look on your face I only wish I could have ever gotten you to make in bed, and it’s the hottest thing I’ve ever seen. That’s not even flirting, it’s objective fact. So how are you not the one rushing headlong into trying to feel that way all the time? Where do you find that strength to resist?”

Eris shrugs. “It’s not that complicated really. I wouldn’t even call it ‘strength’ per say. I have other things I care about and I know that there’s more to me than being the strong one who rips out hearts and crushes skulls with my bare hands. I love the hunt - and the kill - sure, but I don’t let my life revolve around it.”

“I could make an argument to the contrary, but…” Gretchen takes a deep breath, throws back her head, and lets out a long exhale in time with sliding her lean against the wall down into a seated position. “Maybe you’re right. Maybe I should try to take a break for a while. Find myself a new hobby.”

Eris crouches down to get closer to eye level with her and grins. “I’d suggest gardening, but you and I both know your track record there.”

Gretchen’s laugh is sharp and sweet. “You’re never going to let me live that down, are you?”

“You almost let a cactus die of dehydration before I stepped in.”

“In my defense, we were living in a humid area at the time. I figured that would be enough for it.”

“Not in that case.”

The silence of familiarity lost and found changed descends. Gretchen fiddles with the area on her arm where sleeve meets glove. Eris cracks her neck.

Seconds pass.

Minutes.

Gretchen’s eyes drink in Eris’s presence, only flickering their focus to the open doorway behind her for a moment.

“So, finally got yourself a new pair of boots,” Gretchen observes.

Eris glances down, catches herself, and snaps back to watching Gretchen. “You should have seen the rest of the armor they came with. It was an offworld import, a real sci-fi space marine type look just a step shy of full on power armor.”

“What, did you order it in the wrong size and just keep the boots?”

Eris shakes her head. “You know the trope of jumping on a grenade to save your teammate?”

“Yeah?”

“Replace the grenade with a miniature exploding sun conjured by a wizard. It was hovering though, so instead of throwing myself on top of it I just sort of grabbed it with both hands and squeezed.” Eris mimics the motion. “The boots were the only part of the armor that were still salvageable after.”

“That’s my E, walking off a supernova to the face.”

Light piercing through skin down to the marrow. Heat beyond pain’s ability to register. Flame inseparable from flesh. A heavy, wet, crunching sound repeating over and over. A soft bed. The fog of painkillers. A request for a mirror denied.

“Eh, that’s overselling it. Remember the salamander den the Lor twins asked us to help clear out that one time? Now that was some fire.”

“Yeah, in Yellowstone. God, I can still smell the sulfur just thinking about it. Was it you or Lornegna who had the dumbass idea to smash a hole in the wall to flood the cave?”

“That one was on Loreghaste for once, if you can believe it. Not that they’ll ever admit to it.”

“Oh really? I always took them for the reasonable twin.”

“You’d think that, but half the wild shit Lornegna pulls is something that Loreghaste said in passing earlier, knowing full well that they’ll take it and run with it.”

“Even plugging a geyser with that oversized hammer of theirs to turn themself into a human cannonball?”

“Okay, that one was one hundred percent Lornegna.” Eris’s laugh is rough and mellow. “Regular pair of menaces, those two.”

“Like you’re one to talk.”

Eris gasps in mock indignation. “Me? A menace?”

“You got an amusement park shut down.”

“Miraclezone Fun Park had already closed its doors for four whole days by the time we got there, thank you very much. You know, on account of all the mysterious deaths that got our attention in the first place.”

“Maybe, but derailing a roller coaster so that it crashes into the middle of an amphitheater certainly didn’t help their odds of reopening once the weird ape spider things that were eating the night shift employees were dealt with.”

“Says the woman who decided to draw the beasts out by plugging her phone into the sound system, turning on all the stage lights, and doing a solo dance number without realizing how many there were infesting the park. You’re lucky my aim was good enough to take out half of them when I landed.”

“More like you’re lucky I was fast enough to dodge that mess. I’ll hand it to you though, you made one helluva first impression climbing out of the wreckage, ripping off one of the coaster’s safety bars one-handed and using it as a club to lay into the rest of the… what even were those things anyway?”

“Some alchemist’s escaped mad science experiments. It was in the Crossherd papers a few days later when the guy got bagged for a gross violation of the Masquerade after the cops showed up and found a bunch of dead eight-legged monkeys.” Eris shakes her head in exasperation. “I still can’t believe we didn’t get caught for that.”

“Fitzy’s always been good at covering for his bar’s patrons. It’s half the point of 121813.” Gretchen pauses, searching her memory. “That night was your first time there, wasn’t it?”

“Yeah. You offered to buy me a drink and I was too busy trying to hide the fact that my arm was broken to turn you down.”

“Your arm was broken?”

“And a few ribs. Did something to my ankle too, but by that point I already had a good grasp on how fast I heal and I was trying to look cool for the chick who was killing rabid chimeras with a spear in time with the bassline on metal music blasting from stadium speakers.”

“Speaking of impressive spearwork…” Gretchen pauses just long enough for both of them to think of innuendos that are funnier left unspoken. “Is that the new ice spear you mentioned the last time you were at the bar?”

Eris reaches back and traces two-fingers along the sigil-engraved haft sticking up over her shoulder. “Sure is. Intent-activated ice conjuration on contact capable of full encasement without long term damage after thawing out. It is a bit finicky about which part of the spear causes the freezing, but that’s got its advantages once you get used to it. Come to think of it, this thing would have been real handy back on the Miami job.”

“You mean the time some rich kid showed up at the bar begging for someone to do a live capture on his lost pet? Oh yeah, that would have saved us so much time with that slippery little bastard.”

“Oh, be nice, it was adorable.”

“It was a blob of ooze capable of squeezing itself through a showerhead that had us running in circles around that resort all day like a slapstick routine.”

“But it made itself dog-shaped and licked the kid’s face when we got it back.”

“You are such a bleeding heart.”

“I wonder if I still have a video of that. I bet Lacuna would love it.”

“Right, Lacuna…” Gretchen trails off. “How long have you two been together now?”

“We’re not a couple,” Eris says. The sentence is practically a reflex by now with how often the mistake’s been made.

“Really? Well crap, I owe Old Vic twenty dollars.”

“You made a bet with Old Vic? That Lacuna and I were a couple?”

“Me and half the regulars. Separate pool for how long until you bring her in to show off.”

“You’re kidding.”

“I wish right now.”

“I don’t even bring her up that much.”

“I was going by quality over quantity. Seriously, have you heard yourself talk about her? Adorably fragile little mess of a genius hacker witch that you protectively fret over who lets you indulge your inner nerd and play the experienced worldly butch while you teach her how to be a woman.”

“First off, I have never once in my life called Lacuna ‘adorable.’ Second, the witch thing didn’t work out for her and she hates being called a hacker. And third, that whole description is infantilizing. She is pretty smart though.” In certain areas anyway, Eris bites her tongue from adding. “She’s got a whole server farm set up and programmed to enchant stuff for her. She’s the one who made the spear.”

Gretchen’s self-satisfied ‘You just proved my point’ look is as insufferably smug as ever.

“Look,” Eris says, “Lacuna’s like a sister to me. Maybe in another life, if we’d met under different circumstances, then maybe, but I wouldn’t trade what we have, given the choice.”

The silence of sore subjects and inarticulate hope descends. Gretchen pushes herself off the wall to sit a little closer to Eris and leaves one hand resting in the space between as a clear invitation. Eris shifts her own position to meet Gretchen’s without touching.

Seconds pass.

Minutes.

“Old Vic says it’ll be behemoth season soon on his homeworld,” Gretchen says without meeting Eris’s gaze. Looking more past her than at her. “He invited me and some of the other regulars to come join him there when it does.”

“Sounds like a party,” Eris says, keeping her eyes locked on Gretchen’s hands.

“It really is, to hear him tell it. A solid week of festivals before and after the culling hunts. Dancing, feasting, games, rituals, all that good stuff. Not many offworlders get invited, but we wouldn’t be the only ones, so it’s not like we’d be intruding either.”

“I hope you get to enjoy it.”

Gretchen raises her hand until her fingers brush Eris’s. Her fingers curl slightly. Eris’s curl into them.

“Obviously, you’re invited too, E. It’ll be the first words out of Old Vic’s mouth the next time you show up. I know you’re busy these days with your new crew, but you really should think about joining us. It’s a once in a lifetime hunt for anyone without a triple-digit lifespan.”

“Whatever happened to taking a break from it all?”

The curled fingers become clasped hands.

“That’s the best part. Imagine, one final hunt grander than anything we’ve seen before or ever will see again where we’ll bring down walking mountains and flying rivers of scales. One last hurrah to get everything out of our system, and afterwards once everyone else goes home the two of us could stay for a while and take a real vacation for a hard reset. Spend a month or two in some tranquil hidden elf village, get in touch with nature, calm down from the hunt.”

“Make a fresh start.”

One of them rises to her feet. The other follows. It is unclear who does which.

“Reconnect.” The word is said in unison.

Gretchen places her free hand on Eris’s shoulder and rests her head on Eris’s chest. Eris places her free hand on Gretchen’s wrist and rests her head on Gretchen’s. A foot wraps around an ankle.

“If I could give it up,” Gretchen whispers, “do you think things could work out between us again?”

The silence of past actions considered.

“Think about it, E. Has anyone else ever been as good with you? No one else has for me. And it was just that one thing between us.”

The silence of chance weighed against choice.

“What if, for each other, we really could get out, E? Have one last hunt and mean it. And if it does call us back again, then if we’re both trying to avoid letting it consume us and watching out for each other, who knows how long we might last? Maybe we could even keep each other alive long enough to get tired and settle down.”

The silence of exceptional circumstances accounted for.

“E… What if neither of us had to die young? What if we got to grow old together?”

The silence of a conclusion reached.

Eris pulls Gretchen further into their embrace. They both lift their heads, faces nearly touching. Brown eyes stare into gold.

“Oh Gretchen, you always knew how to say what I needed to hear.”

“E-”

The embrace becomes crushing. Gretchen’s pained gasp at the vice grip on her hands and wrists is made shallow for want of air.

“Never were good at lying though,” Eris laments. “You know that stun gun you still keep strapped to the underside of your wrist isn’t enough to take me down, right? Or was it going to be the retractable blade in the toe of your boot going for my Achilles tendon? Come to think of it, that lipstick’s the poison apple red I bought for your birthday that one year, isn’t it? ”

Gretchen’s laugh is hard and sour. “Could’ve been all three at once.”

“Still wouldn’t have worked.”

“Can you blame me for trying?”

“No, and that’s the problem.”

“One more thing to say in my defense?”

“It won’t make a difference. You’re not getting through that door.”

That same old deliciously wicked grin. For the first time, Eris gets the feeling she’s not on the inside of the joke.

Gretchen intones a quick chant with no literal translation and looks up.

By reflex, Eris looks up into the uniform shadows of the ceiling.

The sole set of graffitied warding sigils that Gretchen neglected to point out earlier light up the ceiling’s shadows.

By reflex, Eris dodges to the side of the blade of light that comes piercing down.

Gretchen slips her hands free of her gloves and out of Eris’s grip.

By reflex, Eris lunges to grab her again.

Gretchen reaches over Eris’s shoulder and grasps the haft of the enchanted spear with intent. Ice spreads from the points of contact where the spear is strapped to Eris’s back. The sudden conjured weight causes Eris to stumble and then - when the ice encases her hips and shoulders - to fall.

It is only one third of a second that Eris is on the ground. By two thirds of a second Eris has shattered the ice, rolled to her feet, and unslung her spear in a single motion.

It only takes Gretchen one half of a second to reach the open door to the eldritch-warped space and collect her own cross spear that she left leaning next to it. She wastes a quarter of a second turning around to look back.

“I’m sorry E, but I’m not as strong as you are.”

Having finally turned around to see the door, Eris realizes that sometime while she’d been watching Gretchen the space on the other side had grown more chaotic until it gave up all pretense of resembling a room, now looking like nothing so much as the white noise of television static. She almost reaches Gretchen in time to stop her from stepping through. The tip of the spear brushes against the back of Gretchen’s knee mid-stride, freezing it and dropping her to what passes for the ground on the other side. And then the feet of distance between the monster hunters becomes miles and Gretchen’s receding black and gold form is swallowed by the static.

Eri swears, pulls the lifeline amulet that Road gave her out of her pocket, and drops it on the floor. She figures that as long as it stays out here in realspace, then Road can always get out and come back with Ashan and Lacuna to pull her and Gretchen out later.

She wastes no further time on hesitation before running into the static after Gretchen.

*******

Eris is hunting.

A chill wind howls across a moonlit prairie. The rush, the thrill, the anticipation, are almost too much to bear as she chases down a pack of lupine shadows. One falls to a spear. Another is caught by its tail and dragged to the ground. A third turns and raises itself on two legs to face its hunter. Its claws meet with only open air. Her claws meet with its heart.

There is a disappointing lack of blood. They are naught but shadows afterall.

The pack’s lone survivor sprints for the treeline, wild with fear, only to find a chainlink fence between itself and safety. She is still half human, and her eyes are fully so when she looks back at her hunter.

There’s a name Eris should remember and call out at this part. She doesn’t, but what does it matter? It’s just a beast.

What was she hunting again? It doesn’t matter. It’s all just prey in the end.

High above, tiny flames swirl and writhe. Its watchful eyes are blinded.

The chainlink fence rattles and shrieks when she tears it down and stalks between the support struts of the rollercoaster. The drumbeat in the back of her head seems too loud to simply be her own heart. Perhaps it is the music pounding from that amphitheater over there. Eight-legged shadows leap from support strut to support strut and skitter along the tracks above. What an annoyance, that noise is luring her prey away from her.

A freezing from the spear, a few good kicks, and a mighty heave are all it takes to knock out the nearest pylon and set the entire rollercoaster around her crashing down. The music of the collapsing metal all around her is enough to drown out the metal of the music from the amphitheater, but the drumbeat in her skull is louder still.

She steps on one of the wretched chimerical shadows trying to free itself from the wreckage as she stalks toward the alleyway behind the amphitheater.

Oh, yes, that’s right. She’s hunting Gretchen. The snake, the spider, her lioness.

Amidst the wreckage, tendrils of flame coil around a thorn that will not burn. Its teeth cannot piece this.

The alleyway is awash with the scent of buzzard meat, skunk perfume, and pine scented car air freshener emanating from the dumpster at the far end. An electric tingle runs down her spine and spreads through her whole body as she walks past the garbage truck that has taken her to so many trailheads with signs of new quarry within the dream-born city. The shadow that erupts from the refuse is all horns, claws, spines, and teeth. It is long enough to wrap itself around her, heavy enough to pull her down to the ground when it does, and vicious enough to keep wrestling with her even after she snaps off its saber fangs.

She recalls a dim memory that this thing once hurt her badly enough that she called for help to return to her home lair afterward. The one who answered should never have had to see her like that. She will make this shadow pay for that.

By the time she realizes the shadow is dead and gone, the pavement is shattered, the dumpster is rent in twain, and the engine of the garbage truck she was once responsible for is totalled. There is no proper satiation to hunting shadows. All chase and fight, but no release. She retrieves her spear and vaults over the wall at the end of the alleyway. Perhaps when she finds her true prey at the end of this she will bring satisfaction.

No, that’s not right, she’s supposed to be searching for Gretchen, not hunting her.

Behind her, the flame lashes out at a person-shaped hole. Its claws have fought against the other’s for so long now.

Moonlight reflects off the lake and into the whispering of the trees that brushes against her cheek to welcome her home with the scent of blood in her mouth. Smell and taste blur together as her senses begin feeding into one another until the whole world seems more. Was she really even alive before this?

Her oldest dance partner rises from the lake to greet her on the shore. The one who tried to hunt her and in failing to do so taught her the joy of being the predator rather than prey. Their dance begins again. As it always has. As it ever will. Her dance partner is a gaunt and stretched out figure of tongues and teeth that still resembles a man. Her dance partner is a beast of scale and shell with jaws that bite and claws that catch. Her dance partner is a cacophonous evolution of forms between as the two of them drive one another to learn and adapt with each dance.

Her dance partner is a mere shadow, frozen in a block of ice and thrown into the back of her van to be stowed away and forgotten. She has long since grown beyond it. She slams the rear doors of the van shut.

And yet still the hunt always cycles anew. She is always hunting.

Beneath the water, the ancient flame roils against a timeless knight. Its arms will crush the misbegotten parasite and then the thing beneath.

The air in the candlelit cavern smothers like a damp blanket. A drop of blood trails down the back of her hand, catches on the tiny hairs, leaves bits of itself gathered in the pores and creases, and falls from her fingertip into the crystal clear pool the same as any other drop from the cavern’s stalactites. It seems the shadow of her old dance partner left her with a final parting gift.

She approaches the cavern’s shrine and the wounded shadow praying at its moldy offering plate skitters away. She weighs whether it is worth pursuing but is distracted by a shambling pile of bones. The bones snap and crunch so pleasingly and the soft shadow beneath rips apart so delightfully. But when the bones are ground to dust and the shadow they failed to protect are gone she is still hungry.

The wounded shadow taps a pattern on the ground. Its eight eyes are not human at all but they hold fear all the same.

There’s a kindness Eris should offer at this part. She doesn’t, but what does it matter? It’s just a beast.

Still not satisfied, she turns her attention to the shrine and the small, forgotten god it venerates.

Blood and hearts and bones and stone and ichor and mold. What would a god taste like?

In the reflection on the surface the upturned offering dish, a thousand tiny flames flare to a thousand stars. Its song echoes in triumph over the foolish nothing that thought to hurt it.

The air in the desert tries and fails to sap the moisture from her body. Neither the heat of day nor the chill of night can touch her through the craving.

Feeling like the only person in the world, she lingers in a space only ever meant to be passed through until she hears the howl of an almost-human voice that almost sounds like a song. Feeling the weight of her spear fall from her hand, she steps out beyond the edge of the parking lot pavement to the edge of the edge of the furthest lamplight, that twilight border between known and unknown. Feeling no need to announce her presence, she locks eyes in the dark with a shadow and utters a growl that almost sounds like words as she circles her prey and blurs the line between beast and self.

There are only claws and teeth for the thing whose face is almost human. A stinger strikes through the air with a whipcord whistling but is a step too slow. An inhuman growl from a once-human throat accompanies the tearing sound of a sting ripped free from its tail and plunged into its owner’s neck. Deed done, she retrieves her spear and walks back to the truck whose cargo has been her excuse to travel the land’s liminal spaces for prey like this.

She opens the door to the sleeper cab and finds herself face to face with a squawking peacock.

The avian incongruity leaves Eris shocked enough for the bird to shuffle out past her and take to the wing. She blinks. Waking up to find a peacock in her cab wasn’t even the same year as hunting the manticore. That was in Vermont and this was in Arizona. Why are those two memories mixed together?

Wait. Memories?

Cautiously, she climbs into the cab. Something about it feels too small, but otherwise all is as it should be. Neatly made bed in the back, movie poster from her old bedroom on the ceiling, air plant hanging from the rearview mirror… The mirror! Her reflection! Her eyes! She turns and flees into the dark tunnel in the back of the cab until she can no longer feel that awful piece of glass staring at her.

No. This isn’t right. She’s not…

Somewhere in the long darkness, a core of flame is trapped and pinned. Its heart withers in fear and thrashes until the instinct to survive leaves nothing but…

Rage.

There has ever been constant knowledge of how good the climax of the hunt feels. Has felt. Will feel next time. And few things have had are having will have a death so sweet as the pile of garbage before her that calls itself a man. It is not even fit to be prey, but the righteousness of ending it will more than make up for that. It has captured, enslaved, and sold the innocent. It has hurt one of her own. It has arrogantly tried to summon the sun itself.

She swallows that sun. Lets it burn away that which is not needed and bring light to what remains. Its fire erupts from her scalp to become her hair and tumble down past her shoulders. Its core melts down the flimsy scraps of armor and becomes her carapace. Its hunger welds with hers and becomes yet more fuel for the hunt.

Her charred lips pull back nearly to her ears in what is both a snarl and a grin and in any case is all teeth.

The flash of her brilliant metamorphosis alone was nearly enough to dispose of the garbage, but not quite. What is left of it continues to cough and twitch on the steaming ground. She walks over to it and raises a foot in anticipation of a heavy, wet, crunching sound repeating over and over.

No!

This is not her!

This has never been her!

This can never be her!

Upon her shoulder, a gentle hand removes the thorn. The flames dwindle to embers and scatter.

Eris is not hunting.

Eris is searching.

Eris is herself.

Ā̸̧̙̔r̷̭̤̤̊̀̽t̶̳͉̓?̵̼͙̻̋̾͜

Out of the corner of her eye, Eris catches sight of a tiny flickering flame amidst the endless static that surrounds her. It darts out of view and she turns her head to follow it. Rather than finding the flame in the middle of the white noise once more, she finds herself in the middle of a living room she hasn’t seen in nearly a decade. It’s been even longer since she last saw the mottled green-brown shag carpet sticking up around her boots.

“But why do I have to only speak English at school?”

Eris turns around to find a family of shadows standing in the soft morning light that shines in through the bay windows. Outside, a schoolbus waits on the suburban street for other small shadows to join the ones already piled inside and blurred together. But these shadows in the room with her now are far more interesting. A mother, a father, and a child with a backpack. Even just as silhouettes she knows them.

Her mama.

Her papa.

Her.

“Because,” the shadow of her papa answers the shadow of her childhood, “that’s all any of the other kids speak and it’s important for you to fit in.”

“But I already don’t fit in!” Eris’s shadow whines. A petulant response, but a true one. She remembers this conversation - or at least the impression of it - from her second week of first grade. Even by then she was acutely aware that none of her classmates looked like her.

“If you really wanted me to fit in, you would have given me a normal name,” she and her shadow grumble in unison. Her shadow’s parents don’t seem to hear that part.

“All the more important for you to make an effort,” the shadow of her mama admonishes. “Just because you’re perfect as you are, that doesn’t mean everyone else is ready for it. So until that’s different, blending in is safer. You’ll understand when you’re older.”

“But then why do you make me practice all those other languages that we speak at home?”

“They’ll be useful when you’re an adult and trying to get into college and find a job,” her shadow’s papa hastily answers. “Now hurry before you miss the bus.”

Eris’s shadow ducks her mama’s kiss on the forehead and turns away from her papa’s hug. Her shadow only pauses for a moment, just past the door’s threshold when she hears a pair of “I love you’s,” in two different languages. She smiles for a moment at the tears that don’t quite form and didn’t manage to back then either.

Then she remembers where she is and what Road said about psychically reactive spaces. Eris has never been good at keeping psychic entities out of her mind, but she’s consistently found herself to be very good at telling and resisting when they’re trying to change or insert anything. Save for that one time with whatever Lacuna did, but she tells herself that’s because she was intentionally letting her most trusted friend poke around in there for the sake of healing. As for the looking, she tells herself that she has nothing to hide or that she’s afraid of being thrown in her face and used against her.

She follows her shadow out the door.

Ā̸̧̙̔r̷̭̤̤̊̀̽t̶̳͉̓?̵̼͙̻̋̾͜

Her shadow is taller now, taller even than the shadow of the boy she just knocked down. She’s in the eighth grade and she’s just gotten in her first fight in the middle of the school cafeteria. Not that it was much of one. One punch and the boy was down on the floor rolling and clutching his nose.

Eris made a point of forgetting the boy’s name a long time ago (it was Justin) but everything else is burned into her memory. After a year of taking rumors and accusations in silence this last bit of harassment finally hit the tipping point. And damn, had it felt good to finally let it out. She can’t see the creeping wild grin on her shadow’s lack of a face, but she can feel the temptation to mirror it. Now’s the part where her shadow’s nonexistent eyes should be flickering to the fleck of blood on her knuckles. There’ll be an intrusive thought to lick it, just to see what it tastes like. Not that she will, but it suddenly occurs to Eris to wonder if what she is now was always in her, even back then.

Was she always a monster in waiting? She dismisses that intrusive thought for what it is and turns around and walks for the door as the shocked silence permeating the cafeteria erupts into chaos. She turns around before she has to see the horrified look on the shadow of her best friend at the time. Dylan.

Ā̸̧̙̔r̷̭̤̤̊̀̽t̶̳͉̓?̵̼͙̻̋̾͜

Her shadow’s in third grade and Dylan’s shadow is teaching her how to talk with her hands. It’s after school and they’re sitting at his parents’ kitchen table, homework already done. When his family moved in down the street last summer their parents got together and started setting them up with playdates in hopes that the two misfits would at least have one friend apiece going into the new school year.

Eris smiles and signs the alphabet along with them. Her shadow mastered it months ago, much to everyone’s surprise, but at this point it’s a game for the two of them to see who can get through forwards and backwards the fastest before they move on to anything else. Eris is only halfway through the reversal when the shadows finish their game. She’s gotten rusty these days with only video calling Dylan two or three times a year to catch up and get the latest news on how her folks are doing.

Eris’s breath catches when she notices Dylan’s shadow addressing her - no, her shadow - with a simple thumb over palm with fingertips curled. He’s got a more specific name sign for her these days and she’d forgotten that it used to just be an initialization.

When the shadow of Dylan’s mom walks in to get the cookies out of the oven, Eris remembers where she is, stands up, and heads for the nearest door.

Ā̸̧̙̔r̷̭̤̤̊̀̽t̶̳͉̓?̵̼͙̻̋̾͜

“Eris.”

“That’s not my… Present.”

Her shadow is in second grade and she has just given up. If the teacher can’t even pronounce the shortened nickname she came up with correctly, then what’s the point of fighting it anymore? May as well just go along with whatever people decide to call her than constantly struggle over something that doesn’t really matter. She knows who she is regardless.

Eris opens the door and leaves the classroom. She may not have anything to hide, but that doesn’t mean she has to stick around and give whatever’s manifesting all this a guided tour of her childhood either.

Ā̸̧̙̔r̷̭̤̤̊̀̽t̶̳͉̓?̵̼͙̻̋̾͜

“Is she really even a girl?”

Her shadow is in seventh grade and it’s unseasonably hot outside. She’s sitting on a bleacher bench trying not to cry while the shadow mother of the girl who’s not accepting her apologies has it out with her mama’s shadow.

It was an accident, really. A car drove by and the glare got in her eyes, throwing off her aim.

“What girl can even throw a softball hard enough to knock out a tooth?”

It was an accident, so why isn’t saying sorry enough?

“Just look at her! What girl her age is that tall or has shoulders like that?”

It was an accident, but the shadow is talking too fast for anyone else to get a word in.

“Or maybe she’s on steroids? You should get your daughter tested!”

Eris tunes out the rest of the conversation while she slips on a pair of fingerless black gloves. Just because she’s made her peace, that doesn’t mean she has any interest in sitting around watching this trainwreck all over again. She traces the silver-stitched runes on the gloves with one finger. Back of the hand then the palm. Left hand then the right. There’s no door to exit through on the softball practice field, so she’ll just have to make her own.

Eris claps her hands together and twin jolts run through her palms and up her arms to meet at the base of her neck. She throws her head back involuntarily at the shock and bares her teeth in a grimace that lacks any of the usual excited edge from using these. The initial sensation fades as she crouches down low to the ground but her hands are tingling now and will be until she takes off the gloves.

One punch is all it takes for the ground beneath to crack and shatter into the white noise void for her to fall into.

Å̶̹̱̈́́Ȓ̷̦͚̳̱̗͐̒̍̈͠T̵̛͎͓̲̠͎̭̉̅͒̅͑?̶̜̰̮̺̖̕

Her shadow is in her bedroom with the door locked. She’s in her sophomore year of high school and staying up far too late on a school night in front of a mirror with a makeup kit she bought at the drugstore. She meant to do this earlier, but her AP Calc homework took longer than expected.

Eris lands in the room, takes a look at the decorations, and shudders at that phase of her life. All that work to be someone else for the sake of burying a reputation that never actually went away, just hid in the whispers behind her back. She can still remember how alien her own body felt, soft from making a point of never exercising anymore after being banned from school sports, yet still too big to be fashionable. Who was she ever fooling besides herself?

Her shadow hisses in frustration as she tries to figure out how to bridge the gap between how her mama taught her to do makeup and the styles in the magazine one of her friends that weren’t her friends gave her. None of the models in the magazine look anything like her.

The room has a door, but punching a hole in the wall to step through into the static is more in line with Eris’s mood.

Å̶̹̱̈́́Ȓ̷̦͚̳̱̗͐̒̍̈͠T̵̛͎͓̲̠͎̭̉̅͒̅͑?̶̜̰̮̺̖̕

Her shadow is in sixth grade and her teammates are all hugging her and cheering. They just won their game. For once she’s the star instead of the outcast.

Eris punches another hole in the illusion.

Å̶̹̱̈́́Ȓ̷̦͚̳̱̗͐̒̍̈͠T̵̛͎͓̲̠͎̭̉̅͒̅͑?̶̜̰̮̺̖̕

“From whence comes the starlight in the Dark Forest?”

Was that Road’s voice? This time the static doesn’t resolve into another shadow of a memory.

“Yo, Road!” Eris shouts into the void. “Can you hear me? Gretchen’s lost in here somewhere. Have you seen her?”

Ā̸̧̙̔r̷̭̤̤̊̀̽t̶̳͉̓?̵̼͙̻̋̾͜

“Not art. Pigments. Raw materials. Kindling for the spark.”

“Road, who are you talking to? I can hear you, but I can’t see you!”

“I’m glad to see you’ve calmed down now. You gave me a scare when you ran off like that after I got that tag off of you.”

Ā̸̧̙̔r̷̭̤̤̊̀̽t̶̳͉̓?̵̼͙̻̋̾͜

“I understand you need that, yes, and I’m sorry I had to be rough with you earlier, but you can’t go forcing what you need out of mortals like that. It’s not good for them.”

Ā̶̜̬̼̄̚̚r̵͉͓͗͒̉͝t̶̖̞́̍̆!̷̲̦̱̩̆̐͌͗

“I’d help you with that myself if I could, but I can’t.”

Ā̶̜̬̼̄̚̚r̵͉͓͗͒̉͝t̶̖̞́̍̆!̷̲̦̱̩̆̐͌͗

“I’ll see if I can get her permission. These things work a lot better when the mortal agrees to it, you know. They can even help and cooperate.”

Eris scans the white noise all around her, but still finds nothing, save for a tiny flame that quickly gets lost again. Or was that just her brain trying to find an image in the noise where there is none?

“Road, what are you getting at here? What do you need me to do?”

“Hey there Eris, sorry to put you on hold. I’m with the eldritch right now and I can see you and Gretchen, but I can’t get to you.”

“Is Gretchen alright?”

“Physically, yes, but mentally she’s not handling this place nearly as well as you are. Nothing irrecoverable yet, but it’s… not good.”

“Where is she? If you can see us both, maybe you can help me reach her.”

“The concept of ‘where’ is subjective at best right now. Our best bet is going to be helping the eldritch get what it wants - maybe needs, communication is tricky - in exchange for it leading all of us out of here.”

“And if we don’t cooperate?”

“You and I will probably be fine, but it’s not too happy with Gretchen right now. There’s a good chance it’ll leave her in here when this space collapses upon its departure.”

“Of course it isn’t happy with her,” Eris mutters under her breath. “Fine. So what does it want? It sounded like you were saying something about art earlier. Is it going to conjure up a paintbrush and easel for me, or am I about to get sent on another trip down memory lane?”

“More likely the latter, unless you’re a painter or musician on top of everything else.”

“Nah, I was always more of a STEM girl before I dropped out, I’m afraid.”

“That’s something. Gardening can be an art.”

Gardening? Oh, right. “Not what I meant, but go on, let’s get the brain probing over with.”

Ā̸̧̙̔r̷̭̤̤̊̀̽t̶̳͉̓?̵̼͙̻̋̾͜

“Yes, art. But she’s going to choose what to show you, and you need to respect that she’s trusting you not to invade her privacy or touch anything.”

T̸̤͛r̶̭̲̥̠̫̼̒̐̌̀͆͂u̷̮̿̋̈́̆̈ś̷̡̬̝̠̮͙͊̿̓͘͘ẗ̷̘̙̲͋.̸̤͕̯̹̫̪̏̑̆͠

“Good. Now, Eris, just focus on what art is to you. What is the art in your life? What have you created? What have you experienced? What have you shared? Everyone has something. Just let your mind find it and then let it flow.”

Eris nods. Focus on art. That shouldn’t be too hard. She’s no artist, but she’s seen plenty.

She closes her eyes…

She is locked in a dance of death on the lakeshore with the hateful spirit of a thing that won’t stay dead. She is using a tire iron to spraypaint the lifeblood of a rabid fae crossroads hound into a mural of autumn leaves on the side of a truckstop rest station. She is standing on top of a moving rollercoaster and doing the on-the-fly math to calculate the optimal location and angle to hurl a broken flagpole in order to launch the ride, herself, and the dozen bloodthirsty ape spiders on the cars behind us into the amphitheater next door. She is admiring her handiwork in the aftermath of a percussive demon exorcism that looks so very much like a tornado just tore through the gas station. She is at the bar, arm wrestling two other monster hunters at once and winning. She is at Doc’s clinic one of the few times she’s ever been hurt badly enough to need it and is thinking about how much the X-rays of her shattered arm look like a river delta. She is holding the sun between her hands and feeling like God.

Ā̶̜̬̼̄̚̚r̵��͓͗͒̉͝t̶̖̞́̍̆!̷̲̦̱̩̆̐͌͗

“Yes. Destruction, too, is an art.”

She is destruction. She a hunter. She is a beast.

She is gasping and trying to open her eyes. She is finding them already wide and staring. She is afraid to look down at her hands.

She is something other than that. She is something more than that. She is something greater than that.

She is protection. She is an avenger. She is a shield.

She is still just violence. She is a danger. She is a threat.

She is unwanted. She is an outsider. She is a disowned child.

She is scared. She is hypocritical. She is…

Ā̸̧̙̔r̷̭̤̤̊̀̽t̶̳͉̓?̵̼͙̻̋̾͜

“E.”

She has never been only one thing. She is what the world shaped her into. She is what she chose for herself.

She is walking back home practicing the name sign Dylan came up with for her. She is in the library reading a book on Greek gods and reclaiming a teacher’s laziness. She is driving back and forth across the country, trying out a new name with the same initial at every stop.

She is in her parents’ kitchen, loving the rhythm of the name they gave her every time they ask her to pass the dishes or how her day went and the way that rhythm changes when the language shifts. She is teaching that name to Lacuna. She is sheepishly asking her best friend not to use that name afterall, but holding back tears over the fact that her friend took the time to master the pronunciation.

Ā̸̧̙̔r̷̭̤̤̊̀̽t̶̳͉̓?̵̼͙̻̋̾͜

She is planting seeds in the huge backyard garden with her papa. She is hanging a tillandsia air plant in the sleeper cab of her truck. She is watering the tiny balcony garden of her apartment.

She is working with her mama in her garage to repair the engine on the family car. She is performing emergency roadside maintenance on her truck near a corn field. She is renovating a barely-drivable van older than she is into something as new as the stage of life she just entered is.

She is watching a movie in the theater with her parents, eyes wide and hands full of popcorn. She is crying in a motel a month after leaving home because that movie just came on the television when she was flipping channels. She is lounging on the couch with Lacuna for movie night, excitedly explaining everything about that movie and the underappreciated nuances of the genre.

Ā̶̜̬̼̄̚̚r̵͉͓͗͒̉͝t̶̖̞́̍̆!̷̲̦̱̩̆̐͌͗

She is listening to her favorite song on the radio while driving down the highway. She is singing her favorite song on karaoke night at 121813. She is laughing as Gretchen unpacks a record player and puts on her favorite song for the two of them to unpack boxes to in their new apartment.

She is learning the four different languages her parents learned from their parents, still unaware that they aren’t all one. She is learning ASL alongside Dylan, growing up together with something that feels all their own. She is learning German from Gretchen, teaching her a few things in exchange and talking about how they’ll travel the world together someday.

She is learning to tie knots at summer camp and practicing over and over again with her eyes set on a merit badge. She is tying a makeshift harness onto a cool statue she found next to a dumpster to the side of her garbage truck so she can take it back home to her apartment. She is in the bedroom with Gretchen, undressed and discussing the hypothetical logistics of trying to tie knots in industrial steel cable since she keeps accidentally breaking the ropes.

A̴̡͓͙̺͙͛̔ͅR̷̺̠̲̞͌͐̿̎̏͋T̷͇̣̹͖̐͛͘!̸̜͖̲̂͜

Eris is in a dark place that she does not recognize from any memory of her own. The only light is a faint starshine spearing down through gaps in the canopy to create ghostly counterparts to the surrounding tree trunks. Just at the edge of her hearing she can catch the sound of something lurking in the shadows. For half a heartbeat, she spots a flash of gold.

Eris grins and shows what she knows is too many teeth for most people’s comfort. Looks like that last set of memories got the desired reaction from the eldritch.

“Still hungry for more, huh?!” she shouts. “Fine. One last performance for the road!”

The nearest shaft of starlight becomes Eris’s spotlight as she takes the stage and steps into a ready stance with her spear. She taps her foot in time with a remembered opening bassline from the track Gretchen always kicked off their exercises with. She gets the rhythm down until she can almost hear it, and then starts the show.

Eris has heard of spears being called the oldest weapon. She’s always felt it to be a dubious claim at best, when there are plenty of heavy and sharp rocks just lying around, but it’s true enough that the basic concept of “sharp pointy bit on the end of a long stick” is old indeed; old enough that just about everywhere you care to go has some variation on it. She starts with the forms out of the illustrated Renaissance manuals that got Gretchen into the art to begin with. She moves through the pike and lance devices, even though her own spear is too short for them. She shifts to the staff swings, then the halberd techniques, then the peasant stick. She works her way through the memorized Germanic style manual and moves on to the Italian.

In the dark, between the trees, a lurking presence closes in. Eris keeps her view straight ahead. The flashes of gold in her peripherals are enough to confirm she has her audience’s attention.

Eris skips across the globe to Filipino kali. Stabbing their way around the world, Gretchen always liked to call the workout. The point was never to master any given style. Staves, pikes, lances, poleaxes, sibat, halberds, naginata, guandao, bō; it didn’t matter if the device, form, or kata was made with the types of spear the two of them happened to be practicing with in mind. Martial arts were made for fighting people, and all that technique disappears when you’re fighting beasts. It was about the novelty of finding new ways to move your body and learning all the ways the weapon can feel in your hands as an extension of yourself. It was about acknowledging the human universality of finding interesting ways to swing a stick. It was about compiling a wishlist of places to travel to one day.

It was about an art the two of them shared.

“I know you recognize this,” Eris whispers. “Come join me.”

Eris traces her performance over Asia. Through the Indian subcontinent and into Africa. She crossed the ocean into the Americas. She ventures into the Pacific, lands in Australia for a single stance, then returns to Europe where she started. All along the way she feels the buildup of thrill for what comes after this opening act. For what comes from having kept her eyes locked forward and back unprotected.

In the moment Eris stops moving, Gretchen comes down like lightning with all the flash and thunder that comes with it. Eris steps forward and turns around, denying the lightning strike its perfect moment, its perfect kill.

Gretchen is crouched low, modified boar spear impaling the ground instead of Eris. She rips the weapon from the earth and sparks arc between the spear’s tip and bladed crossguard. Her shadow cast by starlight and sparks is too large; it coils like a serpent and handles its weapon with too many arms. Her face is furred, her neck is scaled, and her arms are chitinous. She hisses and her jaw unhinges to expose her fangs. She blinks, and she is simply Gretchen. She blinks, and she is a beast. She blinks, and she is something caught between.

Eris could swear that the trees and starlight are humming a reprise of the music in her head.

Gretchen lunges forward and Eris sidesteps. She skitters sideways, as close to being on all fours as she can get while still holding her spear. She strikes again and Eris parries.

Strike, retreat, skitter, strike, repeat. Thus go the steps of the dance’s first movement.

A strike is parried. A hand grabs a neck. A body is thrown.

“Is this the best a beast can do?” Eris calls. “You’ll have to do better than that if you want your kill!”

Gretchen grips her spear with both hands now. Circles more thoughtfully. Thrusts with the full length of her weapon to maintain the safety of arm’s reach while she stays outside the light.

Circle, thrust, parry. The dance’s next movement is a slow one, defined by distance and separation.

A thrust is dodged. A boot drives a haft to the ground. An icy speartip peels a scale off a neck.

“I know that’s not all you’ve got!” Eris shouts. “You taught me better than that!”

Gretchen adjusts her grip closer. Stands more upright. Steps inward and swings her spear, catching Eris’s between the cross blades to see her opponent’s muscles twitch and hair stand on end until their weapons freeze together and pull apart in a shatter of ice.

Step, swing, shock, shatter. This movement’s tempo is lively and its notes are loud as the words unsaid.

A cheek is cut. A hand is slashed. A fleshy palm emerges from broken chitin.

“Now that’s more like it,” Eris growls. “You made me bleed, now come taste it!”

Gretchen shakes her hands free of the coverings that got between her grip and her spear. Settles into a stance meant for close-quarters footwork. Rushes in too close to swing or parry and stabs.

Stab, redirect, cut, grapple. The dance’s final movement is an intimate one.

Hands grab wrists. Spearpoints rest at necks. Eyes lock.

“There you are,” Eris breathes. “I knew you could do it.”

Ą̸̥̥̘̪͈̗̥̬̒̿͂̐̌́̔Ắ̶̪̼̞̳̼͉̰̘͙̹̍̀͛̈́̿͘͘Ą̵̝̳͚͈̺̟̬̻̗̟̓R̵͈͍̙̘̰̽̀̚Ř̵͉̝͉͉͇̇͊̃̃́͗͝R̷̛̗̫̙̎͌͐̇̅̈̇̚͝͝T̵̜̘̻̓̈̓̋T̵̙̆͂̎́̆Ţ̵̥̗̩̲̂̆̄͊́̍̿̂̄͘͘!̴̤͓͔̫̼͙̰͚͇̀͋̉͌̀̒͝!̵̧̞̟̜̝̳̳͑̇̂̀!̴̡̨̬͍͚͉̮̈́̊͊͊͂̈́͛̈́

The two of them maintain their embrace, breathing heavily.

Gretchen attempts to move in closer still, but is stopped by the blade still at her neck.

For a moment, Eris considers letting the blade shift out of the way. She was able to bring her back from the brink, so could it work? Without that one thing between them, could they? Looking out for one another, could they grow old?

Eris’s grip on her spear loosens. Gretchen’s does the same. Blades shift away from necks. Distance closes. Smoke fills the air with the smell of incense.

Eris blinks and sees Gretchen’s face anew.

That expression on her one-time partner’s face says all the reasons it could never work. Pulled back from the brink but not yet fully lucid. There’s still hunger there, and while it’s less bloody now, it’s still enough to draw her into an intertwined spiral if she were to let it. She can picture it now: Overconfidence in their ability to pull one another back morphing into enabling one another to ever greater risks until they both fall at once.

Eris takes a deep breath. Lets it out. Lets go. Steps back.

Maybe if they could both give up the hunt, but neither of them are that strong yet.

“Good job,” a familiar voice says from behind her.

Eris turns around and finds herself gazing into a person-shaped hole. A suggestion of identity without truth or core. And then it’s just Road, a smoking censer dangling from one hand and the match to the lifeline amulet dangling from the other. A rock of stability in the middle of the chaos while the rest of the scene dissolves back into the white noise.

“Something wrong?” Road asks.

“No, just taking a minute for the incense to kick in and clear my head. Thanks for that.”

“Of course, although you were holding up remarkably well without it. Not many people could. Speaking of...”

Eris turns back around, following their gaze to where Gretchen has discarded her spear in favor of curling in on herself and shaking with silent sobs. Her words are barely coherent as Road comforts her, but Eris can make out enough to piece together a picture. With the incense slowly clearing Eris’s own fog over the memory of what she’s been through since entering this space, not having a similar reaction is a matter of well-practiced effort, and she wasn’t the one who went through a near ego death.

Eris slings her own spear back over her shoulder, picks up Gretchen’s, and then offers her other shoulder to lean on. The two of them follow Road back to the door to realspace in silence. On the real side of the threshold, Eris spares one last glance back to see a swirling mass of tentacles, eyes, and tiny ancient flames.

*******

Eris leans on the outside of her van, surrounded by cursed and haunted artifacts and answering a wall of text messages and pile of voice mails through the glare of the late afternoon sun and listening to the hum of the engine. It turned out they were in the eldritch warped space for the better part of a day and only the grace of the campus having just started its break between summer and fall semesters has saved them from some uncomfortable Masquerade-endangering questions from students and faculty that might otherwise have walked into a booby-trapped hallway and a door to nowhere.

“How’s she doing?” Road asks.

Eris looks up from her phone. Has she ever heard them approach?

“She’s sleeping it off,” Eris answers with a thumb cocked over her shoulder towards the back of the van. “I’ll wake her up and get these loaded back in when we’re ready to head home. How’s the eldritch?”

“Doing as well as it’s possible to tell with one of them,” he says. “Communication’s always a bit tricky, but seems like no permanent harm done and no grudges held. I had a good long talk with it about more responsible feeding habits, consent, safety, and the wide range in mortal tolerances to eldritch contact. And I was able to talk it into helping with the cleanup in the hallway before it left, so we’re good on that front.” She gestures toward Eris’s phone. “News from the office?”

“Yeah. A client came in this morning, but Ashan and Lacuna handled it. Sounds like it turned into this whole thing with some fairy lord getting involved, but it all worked out. They’re on their way back now with a changeling and their human counterpart, so we’ll have some more followup to do there. I figure I can get the rest of these delivered while you handle that.”

Road smiles warmly and shakes their head. “You should get some rest too when we get back. You deserve it after today.”

Eris tries and fails to meet Road’s eyes. A question burns. She struggles to voice it.

“What was all that about starlight in a dark forest?”

“Oh, caught that, did you? I guess you could call it a code phrase of sorts between people that do a lot of travel between worlds. It’s also a question that should only be asked by those who already know the answer. But that’s not what you really want to ask about, is it?”

No. It isn’t.

Eris closes her eyes. Breathes. Opens her eyes. Does her best to meet Road’s eyes.

“How much did you see?”

Road nods in understanding. “Bits and pieces. Enough. I did what I could to keep it from prying too deeply or to shift its focus when it looked like things were getting too private.”

“And before that?”

“I was busy trying to subdue a panicking eldritch within a warped space under its control at the time, so my focus was elsewhere. But,” they admit, “I did feel some of it. I felt Gretchen too.”

“Oh. I see. Could you… maybe not mention any of that to the others? Some of the stuff from when I was a kid I haven’t even told Lacuna about.”

“Of course. I’ll do my best to forget I saw any of it.”

“Thanks.”

“And if it helps, I’ve seen firsthand what it’s like when someone completely unravels and loses themself, and I don’t see that ever happening to you. Especially not after today.”

“That… does help, actually. Thank you.”

It helps more than it should.

“You’re welcome. You want to wake Gretchen while I get these boxes?”

“Sure thing,” Eris says, moving towards the van’s sliding door. “Oh, but one more thing?”

“Yes.”

“I know you meant well, calling out to me when I was on the edge back there, but E isn’t a name for you to call me.”

*******

Gently as she can, Eris closes the door to Gretchen’s room and heads back downstairs. She steps lightly over the one board she knows creaks so as not to wake the changeling and their brother sleeping in the other two guest rooms of the bed and breakfast above the office. The thought crosses her mind that the creaky board might have been a security feature left in on purpose with all of Sullivan’s renovations on the building, but she doesn’t follow it. She’s too tired and it doesn’t matter.

Lacuna is waiting for her by the reception desk.

“Hey.”

“Yo.”

“So, uh, didn’t get the chance to talk, really. Since we all got back. What with the clients and all.”

“I guess not.”

“So… Are you… Okay?”

Blood between her teeth. Hunting. Names forgotten. Burning. Hunger. A heavy, wet, crunching sound repeating over and over.

“Been better. You?”

“Tired. But what else is new?”

Eris nods. What else indeed? “The others head out already?”

“Yeah. Bridgewood Manor. Road mentioned Sullivan might be back soon.”

“I should probably be there for that.” Eris leans on the reception desk. She’s so tired.

“I’m sure they’ll fill us in.”

“Probably.”

Lacuna Looks over at the living room. “We’ve got a couch.”

“Huh?” So tired.

“If we’ve got guests, we probably shouldn't leave the office unattended. So reason to stay here. But all the beds are taken. So couch.”

Eris pushes off the reception desk, staggers over, and throws her arms around her best friend. She feels Lacuna stagger under her limp weight. She feels a shaking hand stroke across her back. She feels a chin rest in the curve between her shoulder and neck.

“Sis?”

“Yeah, E?”

“Do you think,” Eris’s voice cracks, “we could do movie night early this week?”

*******

“This one?”

“This one.”

“You realize it’s your turn to choose the movie, right?”

“I know. And. I chose this one.”

“...”

“I’m surprised this one was even on the shelf here.”

“I figured it’d be good to get a copy to leave here. Just in case.”

“...”

“Sis?”

“Yeah, E?”

“Just this once, do you think you could say my other name?”

<-Previous Chapter Masterpost Next Chapter->

#This originally opened with showing one of the deliveries but it was going on too long without being the real point of the chapter.#I swear at this rate Eris's POV is going to have a quarter of the chapter count by half the wordcount.#writers on tumblr #writing #original fiction #urban fantasy #web novel #Writeblr #Empty Names #serial fiction #creative writing #literature #writers #fantasy #fiction #my writing #emptynameswriting #If Gretchen keeps this up she's in danger of becoming a recurring major character.#I worry this chapter loses a little bit in the Tumblr post formatting not letting me play with the alignment on the eldritch text #Just pretend the indented text is right-aligned for the eldritch and center-aligned for Road.#Not to stroke my own ego too much but I'm very pleased with how much this chapter builds on itself and prior chapters.#Recurring phrases imagery and such. And foreshadowing.#The long sequence of Eris losing herself to the hunt is all retellings of events that have either happened or been referenced earlier.#I'll confess I'm kind of nervous about having finally made more concrete references to Eris's ethnicity.#Worried about accidentally being disrespectful in some way.#Same with the inclusion of Dylan as an explanation of how Eris learned sign language.#I am pleased with how the childhood flashback segments turned out though.#And the “Art” flashbacks. And the last dance with Gretchen.#Mostly I think I just really like playing with repeating format/structure for paragraphs and sentences.#Makes me feel like I'm dabbling in poetry or something.

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armthearmour · 2 years

Text

Book Review: The Calais Garrison

Published by Boydell Press in 2008, The Calais Garrison: War and Military Service in England, 1436-1558 seeks to fill a lacuna which author David Grummit perceives in the military scholarship of late medieval and early modern England. Using the English garrison at Calais as a case study for English military life in general, Grummit seeks to understand more fully the day-to-day, lived experiences of the English soldier. Grummit cites the many surviving letters which detail the happenings of the Calais garrison as a reason for using Calais specifically to aid in understanding English military life more broadly.

The book is divided into nine chapters, the first of which introduces Grummitt’s methodology, as well as providing geographical context for the region around Calais, known as “the Pale.” This chapter also discusses Calais’s role in English military efforts on the continent. The second chapter discusses the Burgundian siege of Calais which occurred in 1436, with particular emphasis on the siege of the city itself. The author also uses this chapter to contextualize the cultural role of war in England in this period.

The third chapter considers the organizational methods employed by the English in structuring the garrison at Calais. This chapter is divided into two sections, the first of which discusses the regular garrison, or those soldiers under the consistent employ of the crown to man the city. The second section examines the “crews” and “petty wages,” two distinct groups of men who served as irregular additions to the Calais garrison. The “crews” were regular garrison soldiers brought over from England to bolster the Calais garrison in times of crisis, while the “petty wages” were men who were not employed by the garrison, but were private servants of members of the regular garrison.

Chapter four discusses “The Nature of Military Service in the Pale,” progressing through the captains, soldiers, and crews and examining details such as pay rates, leave times, and terms of service. Chapter five examines chivalry and professionality in the garrison. After providing some contextual information on the nature of medieval English chivalry, Grummitt examines the degree to which chivalric ideas permeated the garrison at Calais before launching into a discussion of professional soldiers and mercenaries at the garrison.

Chapter six considers the weapons and fortifications at Calais. The weaponry discussed in this chapter is not only the hand weapons of the garrison, but also the large stockpiles kept at Calais for supplying the English army. A brief discussion of the adoption of gunpowder artillery by the garrison is included, however this chapter includes no mention of pre-gunpowder artillery at Calais. The section on fortifications outlines the city’s original 14th century walls, as well as the many attempts over England’s 200 year occupation of the Pale to update and expand upon the region’s fortifications. Finally, the author examines Calais from the perspective of the “military revolution” argument popular among certain scholars of military history.

Chapter seven discusses financing the garrison, with particular attention paid to the crown’s monetary contributions to the garrison, as well as an examination of the supply chain that played a vital role in supporting the city. This is followed by chapter eight, which closely investigates the final fall of Calais to French forces in 1558. This chapter includes a detailed description of the campaign in the Pale, and a final examination of the underlying causes of the English defeat. The ninth and final chapter is a conclusion which pulls together the author’s loose narrative threads and forms one final, cohesive image of life in late medieval English military service.

Grummitt draws from a rich library of primary sources for this work, relying on private letters as well as public inventories, exchequer accounts, and receipt rolls to bolster his arguments, all of which are included in the works’ bibliography. Also included in the bibliography is the substantial list of secondary sources the author referenced for this work. While these works are primarily in the English language, French scholarly sources are not neglected and appear in Grummitt’s bibliography. Finally the book includes an index of terms.

This book is accessible and well sourced. It includes large numbers of footnotes and frequently references the primary sources from which Grummitt drew his information, making this work of use to scholars interested in Calais, or English military life in general. However, the clarity of language which Grummitt utilizes also means that students and interested enthusiasts will also find this book extremely useful for building a working view of late medieval England.

#review #book review #the calais garrison: war and military serivice in england 1436-1558 #medieval #middle ages #renaissance #art #history

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crqstalite · 4 years

Text

Fic Masterpost

mass effect andromeda:

main work:

so much (for) stardust. (f!rydaal, m!rydarper)

In the aftermath of Meridian and the fight against the Archon, the crew of the Tempest finds their footing in Andromeda. Being pathfinder never came with a manual, but with six races depending on the young Talis Ryder to find them all a home, she wishes for one more every day. Not to mention trying to keep them from being at each others throats, a whirlwind romance, a brother who's turning out to be more trouble than he's worth and a plot against the Nexus, something's got to give.

And Talis is afraid it might be her.

A collection of stories about Pathfinder Ryder as she discovers herself and the cluster amid the political upheaval of an adolescent galaxy.

timeline: 2820-21 (mass effect andromeda)

chapters (tumblr): - chapter one - chapter two

⋅•⋅⊰∙∘☽༓☾∘∙⊱⋅•⋅

mass effect:

current ships: -f!shenko (kodelyn shepard/kaidan alenko) -petrakarian (brione petrakis/garrus vakarian) -willianson (ashley williams/annika johansson) -veloker (citlali velasquez/jeff “joker” moreau) -f!shenko (AJ shepard/kaidan alenko) -f!shawson (AJ shepard/miranda lawson) -m!shenko (daniel shepard/kaidan alenko) -m!shawson (daniel shepard/miranda lawson) -m!shenkley (nia shepard/kaidan alenko/ashley williams) -f!shiara (ceres shepard/liara t’soni)

⋅•⋅⊰∙∘☽༓☾∘∙⊱⋅•⋅

main work:

redamancy. (f!shenko, petrakarian, willianson, veloker)

(noun) The act of loving the one who loves you; a love returned in full.

“I just want to know,” She’s slow to lift her head to meet his gaze, beating back the burning eyes by blinking a few times, “Is the person that I followed to hell and back, the person that I —”

“That?” Kodelyn raises an eyebrow when he pauses trying to get the sentence out, her armor clinking as she crosses her arms over her chest.

“The person that I loved, are you still in there…somewhere?”

If she could’ve short circuited in that moment, she would’ve. She’s nearly sure that she has, considering her train of thought grinds to halt. She bites her bottom lip as if to keep it from falling open after his admittance to caring about her at some point in time.

Loved.

timeline: 2186 (mass effect 3)

chapters: (ao3) - chapter 1 - chapter 2 - chapter 3 - chapter 4 - chapter 5 - chapter 6

⋅•⋅⊰∙∘☽༓☾∘∙⊱⋅•⋅

relationship week 2020. (various) - finished.

all chapters (tumblr) -scintilla: first impressions (veloker - 2184) -solivagant: hobbies (willianson - 2183) -epoch: mass effect ot + andromeda (ryder and shepard - 2185//2186//2819) -metanoia: we are family (shepard-velasquez siblings - 2184) -fernweh: emotional moments (brione petrakis - 2164) -ashes: argument (f!shenko/willianson - 2183) -lacuna: celebration (shepard sisters - 2185)

⋅•⋅⊰∙∘☽༓☾∘∙⊱⋅•⋅

-ask: always (petrakarian - 2185) -ask: proud of you (veloker - 2185) -ask: “because i fell for you” (petrakarian - 2185) -ask: “that’s...a lot of blood” (velenko - 2186 [au: ties that bind]) -ask: “talking” (shepard sisters - 2188) -ask: off day (f!shenko - 2188) -ask: “forever” (f!shenko -2188) -ask: “rubber ducky” (f!shepley - 2187) -ask: “fireworks” (clone fic - 2186)

⋅•⋅⊰∙∘☽༓☾∘∙⊱⋅•⋅

-got it bad (f!shenko - 2183) -crisis (citlali velasquez - 2183) -coasting (f!shenko - 2187) -aftermath (f!shenko - 2187 + not canon to ‘i have questions’) -astrophile (kodelyn shepard - 2183-85) -over our horizon (f!shenko - 2185) -stargazer (kodelyn + hannah shepard - 2166//2185) -ghosts (f!shenko - 2183) -letters home (f!veloker - 2186)

⋅•⋅⊰∙∘☽༓☾∘∙⊱⋅•⋅

dragon age:

current ships: -f!tabristair (svenja tabris/alistair theirin) -f!lelicousrin (leliana/rhosyn cousland/alistair theirin) -f!surainai (theron surana/zevran arainai) -f!handers (reyna hawke/anders) -f!fenhawke (evolet hawke/fenris) -f!merihawkebela (merrill/luzette hawke/isabela) -cullavellan (marzeyna lavellan/cullen rutherford) -f!adaliyet (avyanna adaar/josephine montilyet) -moreawke (aeris moreau/carver hawke)

⋅•⋅⊰∙∘☽༓☾∘∙⊱⋅•⋅ at what cost: -prelude (f!lelicousland - 9:31 dragon) -brave face (rhosyn cousland - 9:30 dragon-9:40 dragon) - red queen cousland (rhosyn character dissection)

scream my name: -who knew (f!handers - 9:37 dragon) -unspoken (f!handers - 9:37 dragon + the last straw) -crossroad (f!handers - 9:37 dragon + post!da2) -in autumn (cullavellan - 9:41 dragon)

⋅•⋅⊰∙∘☽༓☾∘∙⊱⋅•⋅

-ask: have you ever been in love? (f!handers - 9:34 dragon + 9:41 dragon [HLTA]) -ask: “people will only use you. they can’t be trusted” (f!fenhawke - 9:30-9:37) -ask: “glancing at lips” (tabristair - 9:30 dragon) -ask: “who hurt you?” (f!handers - 9:37 dragon)

⋅•⋅⊰∙∘☽༓☾∘∙⊱⋅•⋅

interactive fiction:

mind blind:

current ships: -shivani wiseman/grayson black -mercedes wiseman/kenna zarneki -carmen wiseman/m!glitch -jessyca wiseman/m!ambrose kim -rosamae wiseman/salome alavidze

━◦○◦━◦○◦━◦○◦━

-do it for them (carmen & nicholas wiseman. pre-game/chapter 4) -do it for us (carmen & nicholas wiseman & salome alavideze. chapter 5)

━◦○◦━◦○◦━◦○◦━

⋅•⋅⊰∙∘☽༓☾∘∙⊱⋅•⋅

#masterpost

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anghraine · 4 years

Text

“the jedi and the sith lord” - chapter twenty

o_O

Last chapter:

If she’d know she could do that back on Tatooine—

Of course, she couldn’t do it back on Tatooine. Or now, for that matter.

Lucy scowled at the book. The thing she still didn’t understand was how you went around sacrificing your life force at all.

This chapter:

“I need to practice healing,” she said artlessly.

Behind his mask, he blinked. “What?”

“It’s not like there’s a lot of wildlife around here,” said Lucy. “I’ve tried to read the book and figure out the diagrams, but I don’t think I’ll be able to really understand unless I try to do it.”

chapters: chapter one, chapter two, chapter three, chapter four, chapter five, chapter six, chapter seven, chapter eight, chapter nine, chapter ten, chapter eleven, chapter twelve, chapter thirteen, chapter fourteen, chapter fifteen, chapter sixteen, chapter seventeen, chapter eighteen, chapter nineteen

Vader had just stepped out of his ventilation pod when he found LX-3, of all people, waiting for him. Already annoyed with his foggy visions while in the pod, he glowered at her through his lenses.

“What are you doing here?”

Doctor Izahay, who had assisted him through today’s time in the tank, glanced from droid to cyborg, plainly perplexed.

“I came to report on an unexpected occurrence,” Ellex said, and turned her head to stare at Izahay.

“Return to the medical bay, doctor,” said Vader.

“Yes, sir,” Izahay said, with another suspicious glance at Ellex. She gave her a wide berth as she exited the room. Izahay was efficient and loyal, but not one to hide her judgment of any given situation.

Vader returned his gaze to Ellex. “What is it?”

“It concerns Miss Skywalker,” said Ellex.

Some small part of Vader felt a flare of satisfaction at the name, as he did always did. His name, no matter what Palpatine might pretend, even if it had lost all meaning for him personally. Someone, somewhere, had wanted her to know whose daughter she was. Owen and Beru Lars, he was inclined to think, and rather regretted that they had—obliviously—stood in the way of the Empire.

A larger part of him was already alarmed.

“What about her?” he demanded.

Ellex said, “She requested that I harm her.”

“What?”

Anakin Skywalker had, despite his long-ago nickname, felt many moments of fear, dread, horror. But this nearly surpassed them all. Lucy had seemed relatively content for weeks, eager if impulsive in her training, no more than annoyed at the worst of times. That was the reason he’d lowered the guard on her. Was she trying to escape, after all, in a different way? Was it—

Recovering some fragment of his composure, Vader said, “In what way?”

“She said that it did not matter,” replied Ellex.

Vader considered that. He didn’t know whether to take it as a good sign or an even more terrible one. Only Lucy, he thought, could answer that question.

“What did you tell her?”

“That I preferred to keep my processor and circuits intact,” Ellex said. “I did not suppose that you would tolerate such an action, sir.”

“No,” said Vader tightly. “I would not have.”

He found that he could extract no further information out of her, so he dismissed her, and headed towards the training room. It was only a little before Lucy’s appointed arrival, and sure enough, she showed up shortly thereafter, her omnipresent book tucked under her arm. She seemed hurried but no worse.

“What’s on the schedule for today?” she asked.

For a moment, even that seemed unanswerable. He simply looked at her, trying to think of some way to introduce the subject. Nothing came to mind.

“LX-3 told me you asked her to hurt you,” he said.

At that, Lucy actually wrinkled her nose.

“I should have known she’d tell.”

“Yes,” said Vader. “You should have. What possessed you to request such a thing?”

“I need to practice healing,” she said artlessly.

Behind his mask, he blinked. “What?”

His dread dwindled; he couldn’t sense any deceit from her directly, or in the Force. She’d actually concocted this asinine plan.

“You thought you could sacrifice your life force to yourself?”

Surprise radiated through her. Then she looked sheepish.

“I suppose that doesn’t make a lot of sense.”

“No,” said Vader, “it does not.”

“I just didn’t think it through that far,” she admitted.

“Clearly.”

“I wasn’t going to have her really hurt me,” she said. “I just needed some scratches. Well, I thought I did. Now, I can’t see any way to try at all.”

She withdrew into a brooding silence, frowning at the floor as her mind jumped from thought to thought faster than he could follow it. For himself, Vader once again had no idea what to say. He had a vague idea that she should be disciplined for such idiocy—and for the alarm she’d given him—but he couldn’t see how. He didn’t want to alienate her just when he’d started making progress, and he could think of nothing but tightening the restrictions on her again. But what would that do? It was Ellex she’d gone to in the first place, and in any case, she was something like an adult.

“Show me what is confusing you,” he said at last.

Lucy brightened and pulled out the book, opening to an early page. On one side, he saw a diagram of a human or humanoid body with lines that might be veins tracing through it. On the other was a long block of text, which he scanned quickly. The lacuna must be adumbrated in concept prior to any supplementary action.

What? No wonder she’d wanted to try a direct effort, even if the method she’d attempted was incredibly foolish.

“Now you see the Jedi Order in practice,” said Vader.

“Oh?”

“Clarity was often not their strong suit,” he said.

She sighed—sometimes he wished he could still do that—and closed the book.

“I guess not.” Then she looked up at him. “So you can’t heal yourself with the Force? It has to be others?”

“As far as I understand,” said Vader. “At least, if you use the Light Side. I have … heard that some measure is possible with the Dark Side, but I don’t know the details.”

“Hm,” said Lucy. “Can you heal?”

“No,” he said.

If he had any affinity for the power that kept Palpatine upright, he’d have used it on himself long ago. And if something happened to Lucy, saving her would likewise be beyond his powers, however great they might be otherwise.

He asked, “Did you never considering going to the medical bay?”

“The med-bay?” For a moment, she seemed baffled. Then her eyes widened. “For practice, you mean?”

“You should have seen other patients when you were there,” he said. All the more after the battle, however quickly it had occurred.

“I was a little preoccupied,” said Lucy. “Anyway, I wouldn’t have thought that Doctor Izahay would let me.”

“Doctor Izahay,” Vader said, “will do whatever I tell her to do.”

“Right.” She dropped her eyes to the cover of the book. “You’ll tell her, then?”

“That depends on you,” he said.

To Lucy’s surprise, her—admittedly foolish—misstep of the morning seemed to pass without consequence. The dread Darth Vader, who was also the fierce hero Anakin Skywalker, just looked at her, then walked over to the table.

“Put down the book,” he said, and picked up a long wire before turning back to face Lucy. “Focus on this.”

She raised her brows. Moving a wire around didn’t seem particularly challenging, but he usually had some other end in mind, obscure to her as so much was. Even though they were psychically linked or whatnot, which seemed unfair. She listened to him in the Force, but felt nothing other than methodical purpose above the subterranean anger and pain. She didn’t think he was angry at her, though, just … always angry to some extent or another. Maybe because of the pain, or some Dark Side thing.

“I am waiting,” said Anakin, a familiar impatience touching his tone.

Dutifully, Lucy focused on the wire. She could feel it clearly in her mind, the length and narrow breadth and metallic sheen. Okay.

“Now,” he said, “bend it.”

She gave him a puzzled look. “Bend it? How?”

“You can move the whole, can you not?” he said. “Why not just half?”

But it was harder, like the precision work. Minutes ticked by, the wire vibrating in his grip as she tried to move it without moving the whole thing. The grip of his mind was even stronger than that of his hand, and certainly stronger than hers; the wire wasn’t going anywhere. And when she finally succeeded, only a generous person could call it success at all; the wire snapped right in half.

Lucy stared at the pieces.

“Uh,” she said.

“Interesting,” said Anakin. “I had not intended that yet.”

“Yet?”

“I did intend you to learn to crush and break items from a distance,” he said, which sounded a little horrifying. “If you were, for instance, trapped in a cell—”

“A cell?” she said. “How exactly is that supposed to happen?”

“—then bending and snapping metal bars would be useful,” he went on, unperturbed. “But control is important. Bend this half”—he floated one of the pieces back into the air—“without damaging it further.”

All in all, she spent an hour that day trying to figure out how to move various parts of things without moving the whole, bending and stretching and crumpling them or hitting switches and pulling levers. It was at all points difficult, but she could see the why more easily than most of what she did, even if she couldn’t see the opportunity to use most of it here. By the time it ended, she felt wrung dry, but she still beamed when he handed his lightsaber over.

It got a little easier over the next few days, though not by much. She thought it would always take more of an effort than most things. Her progress must have adequately satisfied her father, however, because on the fourth day, he took her to the medical bay.

Doctor Izahay glanced up as he entered, her expression shifting from preoccupied professionalism to alarm. Immediately, she hurried over, her gaze briefly flicking from Anakin to Lucy before returning to him.

“What has she done now?” she asked. “Or is it you, sir?”

“Nobody has done anything, doctor,” said Anakin. “Yet.”

Izahay frowned. “Then—”

“Miss Skywalker,” he said, slightly emphasizing the name (our name, Lucy thought), “is my apprentice.”

Izahay looked at her uncomprehendingly.

“She may, perhaps, have found a technique that can aid you,” he went on. “You are to give her full access to the patients.”

“Full access, my lord?” Izahay was already shaking her head. “But what if—is the technique validated by—”

“That is an order, doctor,” said Anakin.

Privately, Lucy insisted on thinking of him by his true name. But she acknowledged to herself that his tone sounded very much Vader in that moment.

Izahay swallowed. “Very well. But she will need to follow all hygiene procedures and limit interference to this … technique.”

“I’m right here,” Lucy said.

Izahay deigned to look at her again. “I see that. Do you understand?”

“Of course,” said Lucy. “I don’t want to harm anyone.”

“See that you don’t,” Izahay replied, then sent a slightly nervous glance in Anakin’s direction. “When should I expect these visits?”

“They will start tomorrow,” he told her, and that was that.

By the time Lucy arrived at the med-bay the next day, she was a little tired from the training with her father, but mostly eager to try to do something, and something on her own, at that. She ignored Izahay’s obvious reluctance, submitted to a change from Padmé’s clothes to white medical get-up, coiled her hair into a net and washed her hands with something that turned them red and stinging. Then Izahay gestured towards a line of patient beds.

“Take your pick,” she said.

Lucy scanned the beds; the patients were nearly all humans, and about half of them asleep, or at least unconscious. She didn’t really feel up to talking to anyone, with so much unspeakable, so she walked towards the furthest of the unconscious soldiers. She couldn’t deny that it seemed strange to be thinking about helping Imperial soldiers, but—well, she had to try to figure this out. And she’d rather not experiment on Rebels, even if it were possible.

She pulled a nearby stool over and studied one of the boards hanging on the wall, which listed each soldier’s injuries with scrupulous exactness. Okay, this one had only been shot in the shoulder—it looked just that bit too deep for bacta to reach.

Feeling a little silly, Lucy reached a hand out and held it above the man’s shoulder. But her theory that it might simply come out of her if the situation called for it was immediately proven false; nothing happened. Conscious of Izahay’s glower, she closed her eyes. How did you just go about giving up part of your life force?

It’d help if she could feel it. She tried to meditate, ignoring the sharp medical scents around her, straining to feel the energy behind her breaths and pumping blood. But she didn’t feel anything except the Force, and for once, that wasn’t what she wanted—not wholly, at least. She had to give something up. How, though?

After an hour of nothing, Izahay showed up to shoo her away.

“But—”

“Lord Vader gave me clear instructions,” said Izahay. “You are not to spend above an hour here, and at any sign of weakness your technique is to be immediately halted.”

Lucy nearly wrinkled her nose again. She didn’t see how much progress she’d make in an hour each day. But considering the whole death-if-you-do-it-wrong angle, she could understand why he’d be careful. She was probably lucky he’d allowed this much.

“All right,” Lucy said. “If he says so.”

“He does.” Izahay glanced down at the patient, someone called Lan Grenath. “What did you do?”

“Nothing,” said Lucy.

The next day yielded no better when she tried to push some part of her spirit into Grenath. The Force swirled about her, easy to grasp at the moment, but it didn’t help her do anything. After that, Lucy tried reading the book again, focusing on the sections on the life force itself rather than healing, which she’d previously been more interested in. As far as she could tell, she needed to withdraw into her body (?) to attune herself to the energies within her (???), which she could then manipulate. At least, she thought it meant that.

The following day, she didn’t even try to heal Grenath or any of the others, instead just folding her hands in her lap and trying to meditate deeply enough to banish everything beyond the limits of her own body. She even had to do her best to block her sense of her father, though she could still feel that he was out there, somewhere. And the day after that, Lucy managed to narrow the world down to her body, tuning out everything else and feeling something beat away within her, beyond the thump of her heart. Was that it?

The sensation quickly faded. But Lucy practiced it even after Izahay kicked her out, and between her training sessions with her father, determined to hang onto it. Yes, controlling objects from a distance and defending herself from blaster bolts were important, but this felt more important still, if she could only get it right.

On her fifth day in the med-bay, Lucy managed to retreat into herself in the way she’d practiced, this strange other reality enclosing her in a comfortable pulsing darkness. Half-dazed, she reached her hand out again, not quite touching Grenath, and strained to find some way of passing that energy on. She couldn’t push it; she’d tried. But this form of healing used the Light Side, didn’t it? The Light Side didn’t like being pushed.

Lucy hung onto the energy within her and reached for the Force, struggling to let both flow through her. For a moment, she just felt dizzy and confused, her mind tugging against itself—and in the next moment, it felt like something swung around, everything pouring through her body as if she were nothing but a vessel of the Force. As quickly as it had happened, the sensation stopped.

She looked down at his shoulder. The discolouration of his skin was gone. The tear left by the blaster was gone without so much as a mark left behind. Even an old scar several inches away was gone.

Lucy didn’t dare risk Izahay’s ire by raising her voice, so she strangled the impulse and instead pulled her hand back. Walking over to Tisix, she quietly asked the droid to evaluate the injury to Grenath’s shoulder.

Tisix grumbled but complied, stalking after her and then stopping at the man’s side and giving a low whirr.

“There is no injury,” Tisix announced. “Is that quite all?”

Lucy smiled at nothing in particular. “Yes. I think it is.”

She raced into the training room that day, heedless of anything but not tripping over her own boots. Inside, she found Anakin methodically chopping a pipe into segments for no apparent reason, the red lightsaber flashing.

“Father,” she said breathlessly. “I did it!”

He extinguished the lightsaber before turning to look at her. “You did what?”

“I healed someone! One of the soldiers in the bay!”

She felt his attention sharpen, narrowing in on her.

“I’m fine,” she told him. “A little tired, but that’s all.”

“Good,” said Anakin. She wasn’t exactly sure which statement he was responding to, but felt too ecstatic to bother trying to figure it out.

“I did it, though! There’s not even a scar now.”

“Very impressive,” he said.

Lucy grinned.

“All the more,” he said, “as you required no training in it.”

She thought about that. “It felt like I did, but I guess not. It didn’t come as naturally as some other things, though. I can’t wait to go back tomorrow—”

“Absolutely not,” said Anakin. “You’ll need to take several days to recover and replenish your life force.”

“But I don’t feel like—”

The mask seemed particularly relentless. She exhaled, but couldn’t feel too much disappointment in this moment. Instead, she smoothly transitioned from an explanation of how she’d finally managed to heal to her training of the day—which was mostly the same as the previous few days, except that Anakin had Ellex shoot her with two blasters at once, from varying directions. That way, she didn’t do nearly as well as usual at deflecting them, even with the Force flowing through her, though she was never completely stunned. As usual, however, she improved over the next several days, and Anakin let her return to the med-bay.

Now, Lucy tried a patient with a more severe injury, one that had perforated his lungs. She wouldn’t be able to get her hand as near the injury as before, though she didn’t know if that actually mattered or just helped her direct the energies. It took multiple tries, but on the fifth, he seemed to breathe more easily, his features smoothing over, and on the seventh, a machine beside the bed started beeping. Izahay came running over.

“What did you do?”

“You’ll see,” said Lucy.

Izahay scanned the readings, her brow furrowing. “That’s impossible!”

Lucy, perched on her stool, just swung her legs back and forth, smiling as Izahay turned to her.

“What did you do?”

“You’ll have to ask Lord Vader about that,” Lucy told her. She did feel a little light-headed this time, but no worse than that.

Izahay evidently did ask Anakin about what had happened, because he quietly congratulated Lucy again when she showed up for her formal training that day. She’d taken a nap and felt fine again, thankfully. She managed to deflect the blaster bolts from all directions and when he set the blue lightsaber on the table and told her to activate it without touching it, she managed it after several tries—it seemed to resist the tug of her mind somehow, but not indefinitely.

Anakin took the lightsaber and turned it over in his hands, seeming almost lost in thought.

“The time has come,” he said.

Lucy blinked up at him. “The time for what? Are you going to teach me something else?”

“Not at the moment,” said Anakin. He slung the lightsaber back on his belt. “I have seen the location of Jerjerrod’s and Varti’s private fleet. Meanwhile, Jerjerrod is preoccupied with the Emperor’s project. Varti has returned to Naboo.”

Something in him recoiled from the mention of that particular planet, though Lucy didn’t know why.

“Oh,” she said. “So it’s a good time to check things out?”

“Precisely,” he replied. “However, if I were to appear there in person, it would immediately raise alarms. I go nowhere unnoticed.”

“True,” said Lucy. “Well, you’ll have to send an agent.”

“Yes, I will,” he said slowly. “In a matter of this much importance, it would have to be an agent of extraordinary capabilities and dedication. One who could communicate their observations and actions without any possibility of detection, and respond to my thoughts and plans in an instant.”

She drew a sharp breath.

Back in the Rebellion, quite a few people had dismissed Lucy as a skilled soldier but not much else—good at flying and shooting, not thinking and plans. But she was by no means a stupid woman.

Lucy met his gaze as directly as she could.

“You’re talking about me,” she said.

#anghraine's fic #the jedi and the sith lord #rule 63 #genderbending #izahay #ellex #anakin skywalker #luke skywalker #lucy skywalker #star wars #long post #istg sixty percent of this fic is 'i promise this is going somewhere'

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ilguna · 3 years

Text

Lacuna - Chapters 13-16 (f.o)

summary: they say the odds tend to favor those who need them. well, they were wrong.

warnings; swearing. MURDER, GORE.

wc; 10.3k

NOTES; I give reader a last name to fit the world.

–

-- CHAPTER THIRTEEN --

If this is what it’s like to be dead, then you don’t want to be dead anymore.

First off, it’s cold as all hell in here. It’s like when you were younger and your brothers would throw you into the frigid ass water for fun in the winter. Of course, you could swim back then. Like every other person in district four, you had learned to swim at the sprightly age of four, probably younger. You start young when it comes to knots, fishing and swimming.

By the time you’re seven or eight you’re basically blending in with the water. Most kids by then can swim like they never left the water, they’re fish themselves. You used to race the kids back home all the time to see who could swim fastest from dock to dock. And those were like a quarter to a half a mile apart each. Every single damn time, you somehow managed to beat them. The runner up would always be at least thirty seconds behind you. On good days, more.

Fishing? Well, if you’re old enough to hold a rod then you’re old enough to get your ass sat on the boat. You can surely get something caught on the line, and then your parents would reach over and get the fish off of the hook for you. Then, you throw the sucker back in, and the process repeats. Really, they’re doing all the work, you’re just sitting there to keep the rod from going anywhere when something does tug back.

And knot tying is easy. Clumsy fingers get better as time goes on, but you observe until you’re eight or nine. You don’t start the knots until you’re nine to ten because the chances of the kids fucking up a perfectly good line with a bad line, is more common than you think. Even the prodigies are prone to messing up on the simplest ones. It’s fine though, they’ll learn it in the next couple years of their life, and soon they’ll be doing it in their sleep.

When they’re bored, they’ll ask for a rope or a wire to mess with so they can fuck around and tie knots. Practice gets you everywhere in this day and age, so there’s no better way to do it than when you’re bored. If you can do it without looking, then god damn, you might as well be teaching the others. Sometimes, you still catch Reed looking down to tie them, and he’s been doing it for over ten years by now.

The room is cold, and it only gets worse as time goes on. Sometimes, it’ll ease up just a little bit, but that’s rare. Every couple of hours, you’re certain. It’s not a constant feeling of the warmth of a goddamn grizzly bear snuggled right up against your side. You wish it was though, then you wouldn’t be shivering and chattering your teeth. They hit against each other, and you think that you’ll bite your tongue or chip one of your many teeth.

Not to mention the fact that it’s wet. There’s always the sound of water running, every now and then you’ll get a drop of water on your forehead or something. Furthering the fact that you’re cold. Who knew a single drop of water could ruin the temporary warmth that you’d falsely given yourself?

You, you guess.

“I-I-It’s cold as b-buh-balls in he-here.” you mutter, going to turn over.

The stabbing pain in your lower abdomen makes your eyes snap open, a muffled scream tries to leave your mouth, but a hand reaches over to place it over your mouth. Your entire body begins to ache. From your neck to your thighs. The left side of your face is swollen and your nose is very much crooked. It’s throwing you off.

When you raise your hand to grab the arm, you see that your own are littered in purple, blue and black bruises. In a panic, you shove whoever it is off, as you desperately tear off the sleeping bag without actually ripping it.

You know who it is next to you. You can see the wide green eyes staring at you in shock. His blonde hair is stuck to his forehead like he just came through the waterfall a minute ago. He’s in nothing but his pants, probably letting his jacket and shirt dry. You can already hear him asking you what you’re doing and he hasn’t even opened his mouth just yet.

“Woah--” Finnick starts, the second you unzip the jacket, pulling it off, “Are you cold? You might have hypothermia--”

“It’s not burning!” you snap, pulling your shirt up, and only then do you slow down for a moment. To see the shirt wrapped around your waist and the blood seeping through along with the bruises blossoming across your stomach, “How many of my ribs are broken?”

“I don’t know.” Finnick sits down now, rather than crouching, “I thought you were dead when I found you.”

You look to him, squinting, “When did you find me?”

“The uh--the night that two had died?”

“Very specific.”

“A couple days after Allio had died.” he tells you.

“Three days?” you ask, you’ve barely been keeping track, and now that you’ve been out for fuck knows how long, this entire thing has thrown it off balance.

“Yeah,”

“Who died? I only heard one cannon.” you mutter, zipping the jacket back up, and you notice that the jacket isn’t very breezy in the back.

Motherfucker! He’s tied his shirt around your waist and gave you his jacket. He has to be freezing, and he’s doing it to make sure that you get better. Or Finnick has an ulterior motive, he’s trying to win you back after he pulled that ass move and left you behind.

Finnick’s face twists with worry the second your eyes turn on him, “I’m sorry, okay? I couldn’t just stay there--”

“Like hell you couldn’t!” you shout, shouting hurts your side, but it’s a dull pain.

“Playing pretend? Playing house? I don’t know how you lasted for so long.” he says calmly.

“It was going well until they fuckin’ figured out that I killed Allio,” you sigh, propping yourself up on the rocks behind you.

“You killed Allio?”

“You killed the girl from six?” you mock.

“And Thyme.” he tells you, moving away from you now, and before you can ask, he answers, “Mercy kill.”

“Who died after that?” you ask, running your fingers over your nose. You’re not too thrilled when it doesn’t hurt as badly as you thought it would. It means that it’s setting. Your nose is going to be fucking stuck like this.

“Guys from ten and three.”

You nearly choke on your spit, “Blaire? Blaire’s dead?!”

“Is that ten or three?”

“Three!” you cry, you can feel the frown on your face before it’s even settled, “He saved me from Lennox. If it weren’t for him, I would have been beaten to death. But I guess he felt like he owed me after I saved him from starving.”

“You saw him a second time?” Finnick looks over his shoulder.

“The day you left I saw him down by the lake or something, don’t remember exactly. Spent most of my time at the pond-lake and he kept showing up. My little bit of company.”

“Leave it to you to make friends in everyone you meet.” he mutters, you glare at the back of his head.

“Leave it to the fourteen-year-old boy to bail on his first alliance to deal with the career pack alone.” you pick up the nearest rock and hurl it at the back of his head for emphasis.

He groans, rubbing it and giving you a small glance over his shoulder, “Like I said--”

“I don’t want another apology.” you tell him, “Or an excuse.”

He doesn’t say anything, staring off into the water.

“Anyone else die?”

“Boy from eight.”

“Any of those kills yours?”

“The girl from eight on the first day, Thyme and the girl from six. Then the boy from ten and also the boy from eight.”

Quick mental math tells you that it’s five. He’s killed five so far, the same as you. Ten people that were in this arena have been killed by the district four participants. Everyone back home must be thrilled. You can’t wait for people to ask you what it’s like being a murder. It happened to Mags, it’ll surely happen to you.

And your response? You’ll ask them if they want to be added to the numbers.

“Damn. You know mine already.” you begin to push yourself up, and with all the noise, Finnick turns.

“What are you doing?”

“Fresh air.”

“You’re going to get the bandage wet.”

“Then I’ll take it off, it’s bloody anyway.” you begin with the jacket.

“Wouldn’t be if you stopped moving.” he mutters.

“I’m going to give you a black eye.” you threaten.

“To go along with yours? Along with that broken nose?”

“Finnick I swear to god, I don’t have a problem with stabbing you to death in here.”

He laughs, “You’re weak. Probably can’t even hold your arms above your head.” it’s quiet for a moment as you debate if you’re willing to prove him wrong, he adds, “That wasn’t a challenge.”

“It’s about to be.” you tell him, grabbing the bottom of your shirt as you very slowly pull it off. It starts in your ribs, and then slowly travels to your shoulders. When the rim--is that the right word?--of the shirt hits your swollen eye, you wince.

“We’re in the third week, I think. Six people left. Four if it’s just me and you.” he looks over.

Final numbers.

“Well, good.” you say, but it’s not good. You’re covered in bruises, broken bones and a stab wound in your stomach. You’re useless. Finnick could have killed you in your sleep and you wouldn’t have known. It would all have been done for you.

Once you start kicking at your shoes, Finnick realizes that you’re serious. He moves over, untying the boots and then helping with your pants. He carefully unties the bandage, since you hadn’t touched it just yet. And then he takes off his own socks and pants so it won’t get wet. Might as well come back into the little cave with dry things to wear.

It’s daytime, you can see it through the water. You put one hand over the stab place, passing through the water. It’s a little hard on the head, from the gallons of water hitting your head. But as soon as you pass through, you’re heading for the pond-lake water.

“It’s salt.” Finnick says as if you don’t already know.

You slip in, and you can hear Finnick splashing behind you. Probably worrying that you’re going to end up drowning or anything. You can swim even in the worst conditions, he can go fuck himself.

Despite this, he holds beneath your arms, helping you into the water slowly. You want to leave the second that the salt water enters the wound, but you push through it. He can clearly see how uncomfortable you are, but allows you to continue. He’s smart, knows not to try and tell you what’s best for yourself. You need to be up and on your feet, running around like you’re good as new.

Not saying that you want to kill off the last four, but there’s no way that you can stay in here for another week. Another goddamn agonizing week of eating fish, drinking iodized salt water and shivering in a sleeping bag. It has to end, you’re hungry, you’re tired, you’re absolutely exhausted to your very bones.

“Mac, Trink and Lennox and whoever the last--”

“Girl from five.” Finnick interrupts, and you nod.

“Girl from five.” you agree.

“What about them?” his hands are very gentle on your sides, and they eventually fade away in the water.

“They need to--” you try, but Finnick’s hand really is ripped from your arm now, jerking you harshly. You’re about to complain, until he’s pulled beneath the water, sending water flying into the air, “Finnick?”

How? How has he--you’re standing in the water! You’re fucking standing in it!”

You take in a deep breath, even though your lungs complain, following Finnick under the water. And you see the crevice he slipped into. A ravine in the middle of the pond-lake, and it goes down a while.

He’s reaching up for you, pointing to his ankle, and then making a stabbing motion.

His knife is on the seafloor, so you grab it. Something is holding onto his ankle and he needs you to save him.

You return to the top for air, knowing that it’ll be your last for a few minutes, and then you dive down. It’s probably not smart to have the knife sticking out from your mouth, or for it to be placed there in the first place, but it makes it easier for moving your arms. Before you know it, you’ve hit the crack, and you’re getting closer to Finnick by the second.

You take it out of your mouth, offering the handle to Finnick. His fingers graze it, and then he takes it after. Your lungs are burning, and you wish you could stay, but you’ll only drown. He’s working at his ankle, as you’re swimming up and occasionally looking down at him.

Then, he gets free, and he’s swimming faster than you are straight towards the top. On the way, he makes you wrap your arms around his torso, before he continues. When you’ve broken the surface, he’s gasping for air, you have a pounding headache, and it feels like you’ll never be able to hold air ever again.

“We need to leave.” you tell him, taking his arm as you pull him back to the waterfall, “Are you okay?”

“Yeah, fine.” he tells you, and hisses when you take his hand instead.

You pull it up to look at, tilting your head when you can’t see anything, but then you bring it closer, seeing all the little cuts on his fingers, palms…

“Are you using vines?” you turn to look at him, he nods.

“How’d you know?”

“Because Blaire had the same cuts.”

“Sounds like you and Blaire were getting cozy.” he mutters.

“No time for jealousy after you ran off with Thyme.” you tell him, “the cuts aren’t poisonous I don’t think. You’ll live.”

“Thanks.” he says, “Hungry?”

“I guess.”

It’s a bummer that the pond-lake time was cut short. You were really looking forward for planning out the future. What you want to do as soon as you’re better. Mags has to send shit now, you’re awake and there’s no better way to heal your wounds than when you’re cognizant.

You’re ringing out your hair, which has grown a little longer in your time of being in the arena, when there’s a series of chimes, stopping you. Finnick looks to the sky from where he’d been staring off into the water.

“What the hell?”

“Congratulations on being the final six alive.” The gamemaker tells you guys, you feel like this is a trap, and you reach for Finnick immediately, he takes your hand, “There has been a rule change. If you and your district partner are still alive, then both of you may be crowned victors in these hunger games.”

You turn to Finnick the same moment he looks to you.

The gamemaker repeats what he says, as if you guys don’t understand. But you heard him the first time. A loud, crystal clear rule change. Who else would miss something this big?

“We can go home.” You laugh, grabbing Finnick, “Four more people and then we can go!”

“Only four?”

“Only four.” You confirm, pulling him closer.

-- CHAPTER FOURTEEN --

The rule change benefits two districts only. There’s obviously yours, you and Finnick are very much alive. District four has to be celebrating at this exact moment. Mox definitely cried when he received the news, and Reed was surprised. You can see it now.

This isn’t the first time the gamemakers have made this change. Every now and then, when there are districts with two people left in them, they’ll make this change. The particular district that wins, brings home their two kids. Celebrations are grand, bigger and better. And it’s expected that the winners are especially grateful. After all, you guys are supposed to be learning from your mistakes your ancestors made.

It’s only happened ten other times in the last sixty years. It’s not allowed during the Quarter Quells, at all. Because those are the special events. The twenty-fifth they chose the tributes, the fiftieth they got double the amount, and in eleven years there will be a third one. You’re just glad that you’re going to be a victor now. So they can’t throw a huge twist like six kids go in or something.

The rule change is never predicted, it’s a random choice. There have been times in the past where someone was able to guess that it would happen. People found out the system on why they did it, and started to find their way around it. After having the rule change twice in a row, the gamemakers realized that tributes were manipulating it.

They would choose the couples. So when everyone was beginning to cuddle up with each other—except for the huge age gaps like the twelve year olds and the fifteen—it became more common. Again, they figured this out and stopped doing it. Now it’s a once in a blue moon sort of thing.

You got really lucky.

You know that Reed is on the edge of his seat now. He’s cheering you on harder, telling you more advice, even if you can’t hear it. He has to be driving everyone around him nuts, even himself. He’ll be afraid to get on the boat to fish because he doesn’t want to miss anything important, like you or Finnick dying. Reed will be counting on Finnick to keep alive.

However, if Finnick were to die, it’s not an automatic crowning to district one—they have Trink and Lennox still alive, which is why there’s a rule change—they have to survive the other tributes. Kill one of them, Trink or Lennox, it doesn’t matter, then the rules will revert. There will be one victor only.

You could still very much win, it would be a lot more difficult. You’ll be fighting against the four others to make it home. Trink or Lennox would have to be the first to go. To even the playing fields, if one of them is dead, then they can’t team up against anyone.

District One will probably shower the brats with all the riches they can afford. You wouldn’t doubt it if they got special treatment from the Capitol too. They have so many goddamn victors, it’s annoying. There are constantly houses being built for a new victor each year. They don’t win? No biggie, they’ll win next year.

Four won’t get the same treatment as one, or two. You guys will get the houses, the infinite riches and the celebrations the same as everyone else. But it won’t be as grand, it’ll be like the other districts. Four is a career but four is treated like it’s one of the rich districts but nothing important.

Anyway, the rule change is very important. Keep you and Finnick alive, kill the others and go home. You need to wipe out Trink or Lennox, either or, doesn’t matter. And the others will fall into your hands eventually.

“These vines are insufferable.” Finnick whines, you look from where you’re sitting to see that his hands are completely raw.

“Stop touching it!” You kick his arm with your foot, before going back to the fish.

“I can’t, it needs to be fixed.” Finnick mutters, you get up, yanking the damn thing out of his hands before throwing it through the water, “Hey!”

“Mags will send us rope or something,” you tell him, going to look at his expensive ass gift in the corner of the cave, “And then we can make a proper net.”

“Do you even know how?” Finnick puts his hands into the water to wash them off.

“Didn’t I tell you already? Blaire taught me how. I’ll be able to make a sturdy net with some rope.” You tell him.

You take a moment, deliberating if you want to go through the water or not. But the music from a sponsor makes your ears perk up practically, and you’re stumbling through the water, trying to keep your balance from the force of the water.

Mags has sent a couple of things since you woke. The first thing is the cream for the wound on your side. You’ve been applying it every night, and it’s done it’s magic. It’s nothing but a bright pink scar now. She had nothing for bruises, or broken bones. So you’ve had to tough it out.

Finnick got his gift a couple days after he had left, sometime during the second week. You hadn’t even noticed it until you and him went back inside after the rule change. To see the silver trident staring back at you. Finnick was all smug talking about how it had to have cost thousands. All you could say was that he could have done just the same with a spear. But he told you that it wasn’t the same.

Whatever, both of you have your respected weapons now. He told you his technique on how he killed so many. You listened as he informed you of the net, that he would throw over the people, get them trapped and tangled. Then he would come in with the trident and kill them just like that.

Unfortunately, with that technique, it meant he kept losing the vine-nets. He’s made four, and he was on his way to making the fifth. Finnick wasn’t too fond of the idea of untangling the bodies of the people he killed from the nets. So instead he just let the gamemakers take them, because they’ll be able to cut it apart and take the body after that. Plus, he didn’t want to take the chance of the gamemakers getting impatient.

But with a rope, no more tiny cuts in the hands. It saves time, it means you guys can kill more people with the light through the waterfall technique. It draws people in, he nets them, kills them, and then the process repeats. But the nets took so much time to make that it would be hard to get two in a day.

Finnick splashes through the water faster than you can. On the way, he steps on the vine-net, and he hisses. Jumping on one foot for a second, holding the other he whines about the thorns. And then he continues, wobbling on his feet slightly.

“This is why you wear shoes!” You tell him, kicking the vines off to the side, away from where either of you would bother to go.

“It’s the hunger games, I don’t need shoes!” He tells you, grabbing the floating sponsor gift. He brings it all the way back over, being careful not to let it touch the water.

It would be fine, if it can float in the water, then it can sink or take in some. It’s probably waterproof, actually. But you can say that you’ve ever seen a gift sent when the tributes were in the water. This is a first for you.

Finnick stands on the rocks next to you, and carefully unravels the parachute, and then opens the lid. It’s a fairly big gift, so when it shows a shit ton of rope, you cheer slightly.

“See! Told you—“

Finnick tilts his head, pulling up the paper. It’s sogs a little in his fingers since they’re wet, but it would be the same for you. Going through the waterfall had completely soaked you like you were swimming in the pond-lake like Finnick had.

“It’s from our district.” Finnick tells you, moving it so you can see.

And clear as day, it says, “This will work better than vines, District Four.”

Tears gather in your eyes and you have to cover your face for a moment, “Just a second.”

“Don’t worry, I’m crying too.” Finnick laughs, and you move your hands.

He pulls out the rope, weighing it in his hands, “Can this stand four more?”

“It could stand the entire twenty-two had we gotten it at the beginning.” You laugh, he joins in.

You look to the water, there has to be a camera on you somewhere, “Thank you, it won’t go to waste. We love you, and we’ll both be home soon, I promise.”

Finnick nods along, “We miss you tons.”

“Can’t wait to start fishing again.” You snicker, and Finnick punches your arm this time, “No but seriously, thank you.”

You and Finnick slip into the cave, being sure to cover the rope so it doesn’t get wet. When you get inside, you unravel the coil, and grab your knife.

“Gonna teach me how?” Finnick asks, you grin at him slightly.

“Sure. If you promise to be a good sport about it.”

—

If Finnick says that it has worked four times before, then it’ll work this time too, if the others will take the bait. The singles are probably desperate to wipe out the doubles so they’ll be able to go home. It’s the same tactic that you were saying before. They’ll be able to make it home if the doubles are taken out because they can’t team up.

The fire is like luring them to their deaths, almost. The both of you are prepared to take them down, and they might be thinking that you’re stupid for even trying a fire in the first place. Wondering how you’ve managed to stay alive so long with such stupid ideas.

Instead, you guys are clever. You guys have got everything on lock. The fire, the net ready and the trident and spears within grasp if necessary. Unlike all the other times though, Finnick has someone to help. All it’ll take is for them to get caught and for him to stab. There’s no reason for him to even bother helping you with the net.

You’ve made it big enough for them to get caught in, and you didn’t cut the string for the rim. You pull it shut, there’s no escape, and they're tangled in the mesh. Finnick can get them within a couple of seconds, send the body off, and stomp out the fire. Make a new net, rinse and repeat.

“How do you like your fish? Burnt or extra burnt?”

“Preferably not burnt.” You look over to see that they’re practically black, “Remind me why I put you on cooking duty.”

“Because you were wallowing in your own misery?”

“Y’know Finnick, it’s really not that hard to not be a dick.”

“Some girls think it’s charming.”

“I’m not some girls.” You huff, “But I’m guessing Thyme was?”

Finnick rolls his eyes before shoving the burnt fish your way, “I didn't like her like that.”

“Try again.”

“You are jealous.” He looks smug, again.

“Were you jealous when I told you that Blaire, boy from district three that I was hanging out with for a week straight, no supervision. Just me, him, the vines and the water were together? Him teaching me how to weave the vines, me feeding him so he didn’t die? Were you jealous then?” You tilt your head, watching as the smug falls and turns into something else.

“No.”

“Your voice cracked. You’re a fucking liar.” You tell him, “And by the way, it’s your own fault that I had to make friends with other people while you abandoned me. Leaving me to the fucking hounds.”

“You managed it seems.” He goes to eat.

“That’s not the point.” You tell him, “Partners in crime. An alliance! We were in this together!”

“At least we’re in it together now.”

“Yeah,” you mutter bitterly, going to eat.

It has to be only five minutes of silence, before the splashing of water interrupts you both. Finnick jumps immediately, kicking everything out of the way as quickly and quietly as he can. You take one final bite, getting a mouthful before the net is in your hands.

“Dumbasses.” It's a female voice, but it’s not Trink.

“Who?” you mouth to Finnick, and he thinks for a moment.

“Girl from five.” he mouths back, and then shrugs, “Trink?”

You shake your head.

The splashing gets louder as time goes on, and then you can just barely see her silhouette through the water. Finnick nods to you, letting you know that you should do it.

You get a little closer, hands through the water and then you toss it. There’s a yelp, and you yank the rope, trapping her inside. Finnick goes through the water.

“Wait!” the girl screams.

“Who’s the dumbass now?” Finnick asks, and then the cannon sounds.

Crouching down, you cut the rope, “You can send her into the water.”

“The careers--” Finnick barely gets out, you grab onto the spear. Your heart is pounding in your ears when you stumble through the water.

It’s just Lennox in the water, and he’s bearing a sword. When he sees you, he hisses, “Bitch!”

He turns to leave, but you raise the spear, going to throw it. Finnick grabs your hand, stopping you, “Not today.”

“I can hit him.” you reason, and Finnick goes to your ear.

“They’re going to want a show.”

He’s right, Snow will want a show. So, you’ll just have to wait for another time to kill them. It’s a shame, because you could wipe Lennox right off the fucking map, and all you’d have to kill is Mac and Trink.

When Lennox is out of sight, you send the girl from five off.

“He knows where we’re staying.” you lean into Finnick a little.

“He won’t come until he’s prepared with Trink,” Finnick tells you, and you watch as the girl gets taken away. You wonder how the family is taking it. If you make it, then that means on the victory tour you’ll have to see their families.

For you, five to six--you’re not sure if the five girl will count as the sixth, since you didn’t kill her directly, you just assisted--different families you have to face. Stand tall and bear your chest and try not to cry because you’re guilty to the very last cell. You killed their family. You killed that twelve year old boy from twelve.

You killed the girl from ten, the boy from eleven, Eytelle, the boy from twelve and Allio. And now the girl from six. You’ve got five deaths on your hands, and you’ll have to face them.

Is it even worth it?

Yes, it is. You’ve gone all this way, you can’t just bow out of it now. You’re almost done, three more to go.

“I’ll go make a net big enough.” you turn, leaving Finnick outside.

-- CHAPTER FIFTEEN --

The sound of a cannon jolts you awake. Finnick, who’s beside you, jumps three feet in the air as he suddenly reaches for his trident. He creeps out of the only sleeping bag that you have, and he goes to the water. Before he can cross it, you grab his ankle.

“You’ll get all wet.” you whisper.

“I need to see.” he tells you, but he knows you’re right. So he strips free of his boots, socks, jacket, shirt, and pants.

He leaves it in a disorganized pile off to the side. Out of reach of any water that might backsplash when he walks through. You watch as he winces at the cold water, before disappearing. The faint sound of splashing allows you to calm down a little bit.

It would be a blessing to get up and follow him. So he wouldn’t be going out there alone, you’d be right next to him in case there is someone else. Ready to pounce and strike.

They know where you are, so sitting here, inside of this cave makes you feel like you’re trapped. At any given moment they could show up and you would be fucked. Especially with Finnick gone, there’s nothing you can do.

Whatever you caught while being in here, it’s bedridden you. Getting up and around is painful. It’s hard enough to sleep at night when it feels like a thousand tiny needles are jabbing into your stomach. It took you over two hours to fall asleep, and you can take a safe bet that you only slept for a couple of hours.

It feels like it’s only been a couple of hours. You should be wide awake, ready to help Finnick if he were to call for help, but your eyes are drooping. Begging for another couple of hours before your body realizes you’re awake and starts the pain. You don’t close your eyes, laying your head down instead.

The spashling has long since stopped. It’s almost pure silence, except for the sound of cicadas and the random shuffling of leaves. The water is a constant, you’ve managed to drown it out by now. Not even background noise, it’s silence due to the consistency. However, you can hear the waves, coming up onto the shore of the rocks nearby.

You try to focus on them, hoping that there will be an irregular rhythm, but it turns out that they too have their own system. Before you know it, your eyes have closed on their own. You grind your teeth to keep yourself awake, it doesn’t work. Your jaw will go slack and it jolts your awake almost.

With a sigh, you push yourself up. Your muscles complain, and you’ve already stirred something in your stomach. Ignoring it, you begin pulling off your own boots, following with the socks.

You strain to hear any sort of sound that would indicate that he’s alive. Water splashing, heavy breathing, the trident accidentally hitting the rocks, but you get nothing.

The clothes come off a little faster now, socks, jacket, pants. You take a breather because the shirt is going to cause more pain that it’s worth. When you feel like you can tolerate it, two hands on the bottom of the cloth, and a quick movement.

The stabbing appears, and the lines are blurred between your still very broken ribs or the sickness in your stomach. When the shirt is off of you, and you have a moment to breathe, nausea hits you like a truck. You place your hand on the wall to steady yourself, thinking that the cold will jolt your brain.

It works a little bit, but the idea of you puking is at the front of your mind now, unwillingly. You can’t puke, it’s taken you days to work up an appetite. Whatever you have has completely gotten rid of hunger, which is making you drop weight. Finnick can see it, you know.

He gets this worried look in his eyes each time he watches you get up and move. Or try to choke down food, even if it makes you gag. He probably isn’t on your back about it because he knows that you’re trying. You’re not trying to be bedridden, you’re not purposely starving yourself. He knows you want to live, and you guess that he’s waiting for the moment you give up.

It’s charming for him to be worried like that but it makes you feel like a baby. If you wanted to be babied, you would have acted like this since the beginning, even if you weren’t sick. Being incapable of taking care of yourself isn’t a trait that you want in here. Doesn’t get sponsors, at all.

As you get up, you feel like you’ve gained forty years of age. Your muscles are aching, everything hurts in general. The dizziness and the pounding headache comes back. Besides this all, you reach over for the spear, using it as a cane as you hobble your way out of the cave.

The water is cold, and once again, the force of tons of water hitting you nearly knocks you off your feet. On a regular day, sickness and injury free, you would be able to walk through this like it’s nothing. Look at what time has done to you. Made you the goddam laughing stock of the pen.

It’s still dark out, the moon is fairly high, you guess that it’s midnight to one in the morning. It’s an odd time for someone to die, unless Trink and Lennox we’re hunting down Mac or something. Could be the other way around and got himself killed. Mac killed one of them, got away. One of them died of the same sickness you have…

Possibilities are endless here. There’s hundreds of ideas they could have used on you guys. You just want to know what’s so special about midnight, if the gamemakers had done it. Maybe all of you are having trouble sleeping and this is their way of torturing you guys. Subtly, and with sacrifices.

There’s no sight of Finnick, anywhere. Even though you’re already soaking wet, you’re not too fond of the idea of going into the water. The night time is when the creatures come to life. If Finnick had gotten grabbed, then that’s it for him. You can’t go in to save him blind, the automatic right to the win would be given to District One.

You sit in the cold water, knees to your chest as you look over the water, and then the nearby trees. Then to the sky as if they’ll display whoever it is that died. You’ll have to wait tomorrow to see, unless that’s what Finnick is doing.

If he went to the cornucopia by himself then he’s stupid. You get the motive—he goes to see if Trink and Lennox are there, then comes back without being seen—but he’s half naked, soaked in water with a metal trident. The motherfucker is probably slipping and sliding out of his hands.

You sit out there for another ten minutes, no longer tired, splashing the water onto your stomach every now and then to ease the pain. Eventually, you hear splashing that isn’t coming from you. Your eyes dart over, and you see Finnick, trident in hand as he wades through the water. He makes stabbing motions to keep the creatures away.

“Sorry, I didn’t think I’d be so long.” Finnick tells you, “But it’s hard to leave when they’re talking about an attack plan.”

You perk up, “You’re forgiven, what did you hear?”

“Well, Mac is the one that’s dead.” He tells you, but you guessed that already. The psychopaths from district one are smarter than whatever Mac did to die.

“That’s fine.” You tell him, “A bummer, he was nice. But fine.”

Finnick chuckles, he takes a seat next to you, and then presses a quick kiss to your lips. You scowl, because you’re not looking forward to him getting sick too. But really, he would have had to be sick by now if it’s contagious. What the fuck did you get sick off of?

“They want to attack in two days. Build up on body weight and all of that again. They don’t know if we’re the ones that are dead or killed Mac or whatever. Taking a guess it was Mac that died at least.” He informs, you nod along to it.

“Two days to plan their murder, huh?” You quirk an eyebrow at him and he chuckles.

“Any ideas?”

“A few.” You admit, a small smirk coming over your face, “Remember how Lennox choked me?”

“Wasn’t there but yes.” He says, crossing his legs.

“And my last name is Gallows…” you trail off, splashing water a little bit.

“Uh huh.”

“What if we take that extra rope, tie it into a noose, lure him in and hang him?” You look over to see him with the same sickening grin that’s covering your face.

“Sounds interesting. Who’s luring and how are we hanging?”

—

Finnick has to watch you way more carefully now. One of your hands are either on his shoulder, so that you may catch yourself in case you stumble. Or it’s in the crook of his arm, where he’ll be able to swoop you into his arms if your legs buckle beneath you. The sickness is eating away at your muscle.

There are times when you’ll be standing, perfectly fine, and you’ll forget about the illness altogether. And then, your legs will give out, Finnick is diving across the room to catch you so you don’t snap anything like a wrist, trying to catch yourself. Your body will slump, like you’re lifeless, but you’re so very aware of it.

It’s scaring him now. He doesn’t think you’ll make it out alive, he thinks that you’ll die in here, from whatever you caught. You’re not hungry, you gag and throw up most of the food you get down. The lack of exercise is diminishing what little muscle you came into the arena with. There’s a high fever, you’re sweating almost constantly, but then the chills will swoop in out of nowhere. Not to mention the round-the-clock headache.

You want it all to stop. You’ve never got this sick back home, it was the common flu that went around. Only the very, very poor, skinny kids would die to it, since their immune system can’t handle anything. But that’s hardly ever the case, even the poorest people in the district have a fair chunk of change to carry around.

If you’re going to die from whatever Capitol-altered disease, you’d just have it done in a snap. It’s been almost a week of you having it. And the fact that it had gotten so bad overnight is not a good sign. It was just earlier this morning, midnight when you were conspiring with Finnick on how to end this.

It evolved and it’s completely ruined your body within an eight to eleven hour time span. This means that today, tomorrow, or the day after are your final days. You die tonight, it just leaves Finnick to deal with the others. You can’t do that to him, you can’t send him home alone after all that has happened.

You’re not going to give this up.

“Eat.” Finnick shoves the fish into your hands and you take in a small breath, to keep your side from being stabbed.

“Finnick this won’t stay down.” you tell him calmly, but you pick it apart anyway, using the water to drink it down.

And then you stop as you stare at the water, then back to the fish. There’s only really two ways you could have gotten sick. It wasn’t because of Blaire, he was healthy as fuck, and the only reason why he died was because he attacked Lennox while he was trying to kill you.

You couldn’t have picked it up from Trink, Allio or Lennox--assuming that it had some sort of incubation period--because that means they would have to be crawling with the disease too. From what Finnick has told you, they seem to be just fine. You’re the only one dying in here.

Finnick is an automatic no, he isn't sick either and he isn’t catching it. Another reason why you couldn’t have caught it from the others, is because it doesn’t seem to be contagious through human contact.

Which narrows down the possibilities. You got it from eating berries and leaves, fish, or the water. You haven’t eaten berries and leaves in a while though, so those have to be out of it.

It’s the water and the fish, they have something to do with it. It can’t be an allergic reaction, because it doesn’t deteriorate the body like this. If it was a reaction, then you’d be breaking out in hives, through closing in and you’d been dead by now. Unless it’s a small allergy, but that’s not the case either.

“Finnick, what are some diseases passed through water?” you ask, slowly setting the food down.

He tilts his head slightly, “Uhh, E coli, Cholera, Typhoid, Salmonella--? Why?”

Typhoid is the one you recognize, because of the few cases some of the neighborhood kids back home had. With the right treatment, they wouldn’t die, but for the few who let it go on for too long, or didn’t have the money to pay for it, their kids--or themselves--would die.

“The symptoms to…” you lean back, “What’s the--?”

The headache seems to increase, stopping you from thinking any further. You press the heels of your hands to your temples to ease the pain. Of course, it does nothing, but it feels better than just sitting there. You clench your teeth and squeeze your eyes, rocking back and forth.

Think, think!

What the fuck is the cure to Typhoid? Hell, what are the symptoms? What’s it related to? How can you get it?

“(Y/n)? What’s wrong?”

Few cases back home. Parents who go down to the sea to collect water. Use for baths, and the kids accidentally drink it. It’s not the salt its--its the bacteria.

“Water,” you look to Finnick, “Have you been treating the water?”

His face twists, and then he pales, “I--I forgot once--”

That’s enough for you to catch it. Just a little bit of contaminated water will get it going. Your body has been fighting off this sickness for a week, and it took you this long to think it over.

That’s not the matter, though. The matter, is that if you don’t get medicine, you’ll die from it being untreated.

“Mags, if you’re listening--it’s Typhoid fever,” you tell her, “Untreated it’ll kill me. Please, please send me something. Whatever it is that’ll cure it. One pill or sip is better than none, please.”

Finnick looks guilty, but you don’t care. It was an honest mistake, he didn’t know that the water was carrying the disease. None of you would have ever knew if he hadn’t accidentally skipped it. You’d still be up on your feet moving around like none of it ever happened.

This must be what he’s thinking, “Finnick, don’t punish yourself for this. Not now, do it later when we win.”

“What if we don’t win because of my mistake?” he asks, you point your finger.

“Hope. You have hope now, because I can’t carry it for the both of us. I forgive you, we’re going to win.”

Silence, as you wait for the sound of a sponsor gift. But the chiming never sounds, letting you know that you’re on your own. It must be far too expensive, or they just can’t hear you.

“We have better things to worry about, Finn.” you shake your head, “We need to do it tomorrow. We can’t wait until the end of the week.”

“I know.” he whispers, “Are you sure?”

“We have to.”

-- CHAPTER SIXTEEN --

There used to be a song that your mother would sing when you had caught the cold. It was more of a poem, but she would sing it like a lullaby to ease your headache and get you tired. It would always be the first couple nights of the cold, which are the worse days, and as it got better, she would stop. A bedtime remedy, to getting you to fall asleep quickly instead of letting you toss and turn through the night.

As you lay awake most of the time now, you think of it all the time. Reciting the words back to yourself softly. You can’t necessarily sing it without waking Finnick, so instead you turn it from a chant to a couple of lines at a time. You decipher the words, find meanings and then you’ll repeat it back to yourself when they make sense.

It tires you out a lot quicker than you thought it would. Lately, it’s been working like a charm. Tonight, it offers no comfort though, because later today, you’ll be luring the last two tributes to their deaths. You’ll be using the last of your strength to win the games. If today doesn’t work, you give yourself permission to fall over and croak.

You’re in the final hours of your life. Finnick might be seeing it, but it’s not as clear to him. He’s not feeling all of it directly, he’s watching you pretend. He’s not seeing the way that you flinch and wince when his back is turned. If only he saw how much pain you’re in.

The second you win, you’ll be fine. You’ll be on that hovercraft, they’ll be feeding you to doctors as Finnick has to watch. They’ll be hooking you up to water and liquid food, and medicine that stops the pain and diminishes the fever. They’ll be working their best to save you, because they can’t have a victor die on the craft.

Finnick wouldn’t need anything done to him. They’d probably take him and marvel. They’d have to fix up a few scars but that would be it. There would be no reason to save him from anything. Unless something goes wrong today, he gets stabbed or something. Not going to happen on your watch, even if he doesn't like it.

The sun rises a little faster now, and you come to terms with the fact that you'll be working off of nothing today. There’s a few things to do to set up the scene, and then you’ll be able to execute it perfectly.

“Finnick.” You nudge lightly, he opens his eyes slowly, “It’s time.”

“Did you even sleep?”

“An hour or two.” You tell him, “Woke up an hour or so ago. Not much.”

“Okay,” he says, you slip out of the bag first. Your muscles slowly stretch, making a low groan come from you. You’ve been stiff for long enough, your body thinks that you’re a statue.

Finnick slowly starts pulling out food, you make the last fire you’ll ever have to make in your life. When it sparks, your hands go over it immediately, the fever might be burning your forehead, fueling your headache but it’s also controlling the chills. The truth is, is that you’re cold as fuck. When you leave, the water will make it worse. But you’ll get there when the time comes.

The both of you heat up the food, watching as Finnick uncoils the rope, trying the noose. You don’t ask him how he knows to tie it, you just watch, and then you prod yourself a little bit. Taking in an assessment of how you’ll be able to turn your body.

Your ribs on your left side are still very painful, turning that way is like getting stabbed. It’ll take a while for them to heal, unless the Capitol has something for that, to get it to speed up and get placed right back where they need to be, not floating around in your body, causing more harm than good.

The bruises are almost gone, they’re just a very light purple now. Pressing on them doesn’t hurt anymore, it’s nothing compared to everything else that you’re feeling. Your body as a whole is weak, so there's no worry about specific knees or arms, it’s just the both of them. Not good, but you won’t have to catch yourself before you use the wrong one. You’re always taking a chance.

All cuts are now scabs, there’s a few more scars here and there, but besides that, you’re ready to go. Finnick finishes eating pretty quickly, you guys finish off all the food that you had set aside. You feel absolutely sick to your stomach, since it was hard getting it down in the first place. Overfeeding isn’t helpful by any means, until you’re trying to put on weight.

If you guys get hungry later on, it’s possible to grab something from the pond-lake or whatever. You’ll be inside of the woods, near the middle, but it won’t be that far from the pond-lake if lunch would be needed. But by the look on Finnick’s face, he’s not that hungry either. He stuffed himself just as badly as you had.

He shoves everything into the backpack. The rope, what water you guys have, which he still looks guilty about. Small meaningless knives that you don’t need, the works. After that, he helps you onto your feet, you both take your weapons of choice, and leave the cave.

There was no point in stomping out the fire, you guys won’t be back. Which is why you guys left the sleeping bag, and all the other little things that came with the backpacks when you got them. For all you care, they can burn up in a blaze. The fire will put itself out before it reaches the water.

Finnick leads the way through the water. Instead of going straight out of the waterfall, a little to the left, you guys go right diagonally. If you were to go straight, you’d head right for the cornucopia. You guys want to do it in one of the big ass trees, out of sight of them in case they were to come looking.

You hold Finnick’s trident, as he holds the backpack above the water since it isn’t waterproof, and you guys don’t want the rope to get wet. You’d rather it be dry, it’ll be more harsh when it gets around Lennox.

“Almost home.”

“We should have built a treehouse. I mean, it’s been a month, we had the time.” You laugh, he snickers.

“Gamemakers would have had a fire.”

“Wouldn’t have been smart. I’m sure that the tourists would have loved to stay in a personalized treehouse! Oh Finnick, do you think we have time?” You bat your eyelashes when he looks to you, he rolls his eyes.

“Don’t be ridiculous. You can hardly stand.”

“So? It won’t be so hard.” You reason about the hypothetical treehouse, daydreaming about having one. What would go inside, how much time it would take. How you would replace materials like nails with vine and all that. Or very thin rocks that you can hammer into the wood.

“No treehouse.” Finnick tells you, and then the both of you laugh at each other.

When you reach the land finally, you guys take the time to ring out your clothes. Then you continue to the place that Finnick had picked out last night. When you get to it, you’re thoroughly impressed to see that it’s a big ass tree, and there’s plenty of land around to run around in. This is a place you could build a house, raise a family and all of that.

Finnick unpacks the rope, you take it, throwing it around your neck to keep it from going anywhere. You tuck your spear between your pants and belt, with the blade down. You take your water and put it in your jacket, Finnick kisses you quickly, wishes you good luck, and then you turn to the tree.

Spear, rope, water, a good luck kiss. Now, to climb the tree without falling. Your body will complain and give you hell for this, but it’s all for the greater good.

You climb the tree slowly, being careful of your left side. Right hand, left hand, right foot, left foot. Occasionally you’ll reach higher than you should, wobble, but catch yourself the next time around.

The spear gets in the way and you have to keep moving the water to where it needs to be. You take a break on the sturdy branches, and continue when it’s just enough to make it to the next one.

Before you know it, you’re at the one branch that stretches over Finnick below you. You wrap your legs around the branch, and even go as far as to tie the non-noose end of the rope to your body. Then, you strip free of the jacket, dropping it for Finnick. The boots follow, and you’re disappointed to see that he dodges where you tried to drop it on him.

“Pants too?” You ask, Finnick shakes his head.

You take a long drink of water, since the sun is in your eyes. And then you take another before dropping it for Finnick, setting up the scene where Trink and Lennox will come along just to die.

Lennox is going to be heavy, he’s had plenty of food to eat from because of the middle. He’s going to weigh what he normally did when he came in. Maybe a few pounds shorter. You however, aren’t at all where you need to be.

The big breakfast helped, but it wasn’t perfect. You’ve got one, two, possibly three pounds more than you had originally. You’ll fail when it comes to pulling Lennox up with the rope using just your muscle strength. To actually hang him, he’ll need something to balance out his weight, almost.

He’s going to be below you, you get the noose around his neck, you yank and what? Choke him for a split second? Finnick will be fucked.

You didn’t propose this part of the plan to Finnick because you knew he would say no. He won’t ever say yes to something this dangerous and risky, which is the exact reason why it’s going to work. Risky, but odds in your favor.

“I’m ready.” Finnick tells you, you nod.

“Let’s do it!”

You cut yourself free quickly, then you measure out just about what you’ll need to fall through on this. Your eyes keep darting to Finnick, worried about when he’ll yell.

You drape the extra rope across the branch behind you, out of sight out of mind. The noose rope is shorter, but still long enough to reach Lennox. Finnick comes over now, standing right next to it, and nods up at you. Perfect length.

It’s going to get shorter though. You tie a constrictors knot, which will be impossible for the Capitol doctors to get off of you, but they’ll manage. They have to save you, and your leg if it’s possible. If there’s no reason to cut it off, then they can’t. It’s not a medical problem, it’s rope.

You dangle your leg, seeing how it reaches the same height as before presumably. Then, you draw some of it back up to keep out of sight of the others when they come in.

Just in time to listen to Finnick give a blood curdling scream. You clench your teeth together, eyes on the direction the others are going to be coming in at. Listening as Finnick continues to scream for your placebo self to wake up. Yelling for Mags to send in some sort of medicine, to save you.

“Please! Please!” Finnick screams, and at the first snap of a branch, your eyes flicker to Trink and Lennox, “No—!”

“She’s not dead yet?” You think you hear Trink ask.

You wonder if the Capitol can spare a false cannon to see what happens. If they’ll attack him immediately, like a bunch of rabid dogs.

“Leave her alone,” Finnick seethes, he’s crouched over, backing up which is drawing the others to walk over. You can see the smiles on their faces from here.

“I’ve got him.” Trink chirps.

“No!” Finnick lunges forward slightly when Lennox gets close to your body, you begin to lower the rope little by little.

Lennox jumps for your body, you can feel your heart pounding in your chest when you free the rope. Only to see it come up short.

“Shit.” You curse, and then you dip your leg over, getting it right around Lennox’s neck.

Finnick attacks Trink, who’s caught up watching the rope. She goes to warn Lennox, but Finnick shuts her up.

Before Lennox can do anything, you take a deep breath. Feeling the fear try to paralyze your body into rethinking this. You don’t let it, you throw your body the opposite side, to the left.

Lennox chokes, you feel the air on your skin as you watch the branch of the tree get further away. Until the momentum comes to a slow, and you’re dangling in the air by a rope from your foot.

You look to see Lennox, face turning purple as he grabs onto the rope to relieve the pain of choking, you curl your body slightly, pulling him up a little, and his eyes bulge. The sound of a cannon startles you, because it’s clearly not Lennox, who you’re staring at, and he’s staring at you. Still alive.

You go to yell Finnick’s name, but it gets caught in your throat. The blood is rushing to your head, the headache increasing in power. The pain just seems to skyrocket the longer you hang here.

“I’m alive.” Finnick tells you, and then you watch as his trident flies through the air.

It misses Lennox by an inch or two, getting lodged in the tree. You sigh, reaching for your spear now. You don’t want to get yourself free. You want to kill Lennox, and you’re sure that it will be a sight to behold, him hanging from a tree, with you suspending him on the other side, a spear through whatever you can get.

With it in hand, you lean forward, your left side aches from the sit up. You and Lennox lock eyes, and he shakes his head slightly, beginning you not to even though his face is a deep purple and blood is coming out of his nose, trickling down his lips.

You draw your arm back, waiting for the rope to stop swaying, and then you launch it forward, the very last of your strength going along with it. You’re not even able to see if it goes through anything. The sound of a cannon gives it away.

“You did it!” Finnick yells, but his voice is drowned, you can hardly hear it.

You can feel your body relax, arms going past your head. You try to blink away the spots, but they don’t go anywhere. In fact, they take out your vision completely.

—

I told her so, and if she say,

That she was wrong,

Then may it be,

A quick little bug,

That will come and go.

—

She will lay,

In clean, white sheets,

A full tummy,

And a cup of tea,

She will rest,

And she will think,

How this will be,

The very last time.

—

But here comes grey,

Water-filled clouds,

She pulls on her shoes,

And her coat,

So that she may,

Go in the rain.

—

I will come,

To the porch,

To warm her of,

What may come,

She will laugh,

She will splash,

But she won’t listen.

Then she will come later with;

Rain-soaked clothes,

Not feeling good,

And beg me to care for her.

(the poem is a circle).

LACUNA IS THE FIRST VERSION OF BELAMOUR

//MASTERLIST//

#ilguna #finnick odair #lacuna #lacuna chapter thirteen #lacuna chapter fourteen #lacuna chapter fifteen #lacuna chapter sixteen

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