#okay last deathwish post for today | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

short-circuit-the-great · 4 months

Text

Song of Wolves / Ch 24 / Where His Hatred Begins

AO3 link | Previous chapter

I posted chapters 1-23 yesterday so they didn't get their own posts. That would have been a lot. But here's today's chapter!

Chapter 24: Where His Hatred Begins

Hayato was at a bar. A quiet, abandoned bar in the corner of town, tucked away near the Hunting Party’s warehouse.

He wasn’t surprised when Sagara walked in.

“What are you doing here?” Sagara said. “Have a deathwish?”

“No,” Hayato said. “Sit down.”

“You want something from me,” Sagara said, but he sat across from him and leaned against the table, reaching over to play with the empty napkin holder, which clicked against the wooden surface.

“Correct,” Hayato said. “Tell me what Ikumatsu did to you.”

Silence.

Sagara stared at him, his cold lilac eyes boring into his face. Hayato had taken his blindfold off during the fight against Taiyou and the Spider King, and he still opted to wear it as a headband instead, keeping his hair out of his face. He wasn’t used to making eye contact with people or seeing at all, but he looked back at Sagara, knowing damn well the burn scars around his eyes reminded Sagara of the things he’d done to him.

Those things were forgiven now.

Sagara knew the Spider King had manipulated Hayato into betraying him and the rest of the Lion Coalition. In fact, the Spider King had made the choice for him—Hayato tried to stop him.

So that was forgiven.

But that didn’t mean it still didn’t hurt, and Sagara’s mechanical hand picked up the napkin holder and crushed it.

“Why do you want to know?” Sagara said. “What will you gain from it?”

“Understanding,” Hayato said. “I already know her side of things. What is yours?”

Sagara drew in a deep breath and tossed the crushed napkin holder over his shoulder, bringing his hands together and resting his chin on them. “It is not an easy story to tell,” he said, “and I am hesitant to tell it to a stranger.”

“We fought together once,” Hayato said. “We were friends once.”

“Once,” Sagara said.

“You can hardly call me a stranger,” Hayato said.

“I hardly think the night before the Battle of Settsu counts,” Sagara said.

“But you still remember it,” Hayato said.

Sagara smiled. “Hard to forget.”

He held out his hand. “Is this a world in which it is possible to ask for your hand again?”

“The last time you touched me, I ended up in a coma for a million years,” Hayato said.

“Wasn’t that long.”

“So you’re recognizing you electrocuted me to near death?”

“That was before I-” Sagara sighed and took his hand away slightly, holding his metal one against his face. “Look. For twenty years, I thought you betrayed us. I thought you sold us out to the Spider King and let his children eat us alive. I was justified in electrocuting you when I saw you again.”

He looked up and said, “But you didn’t betray us. I know that now. So I’m sorry for electrocuting you, okay? I won’t do it again. Not unless you give me a reason to.”

“I think that’s the best apology I’ll ever get out of you,” Hayato said, “so fine.”

He held out his hand, and Sagara stared down at it, surprise evident in his eyes. “You seriously trust me? After everything?”

“I wouldn’t go that far,” Hayato said.

Not yet.

Sagara grabbed his hand a little too desperately, a little too tightly, but then he relaxed his grip and let their fingers intertwine. “I always thought,” Sagara said, “that if everything could go away, if there was some explanation for it all, I would want to look at the stars with you again as we did that night. If we could unravel our suffering and take back the scars we have been burdened with at the other’s hand, I would want you to hold my hand in yours again.”

“I am,” Hayato said, “so that means you found your explanation, yeah?”

“I suppose so,” Sagara said.

“Now I want mine,” Hayato said, leaning closer. “Tell me what happened between you and Ikumatsu. Because I know it wasn’t just the murder. I know you had a reason—you wanted revenge. It’s the same reason you attacked me. She hurt you and you wanted to hurt her back, so you took away the most precious thing to her—tell me, Satoshi…”

He put his other hand on Sagara’s hand. “Is that what she did to you?”

“Yes,” Sagara said, an answer that burst out but was also very sad and quiet, cloaked in deep anger. “She took everything.”

***

My captain rescued me after the Spider King killed the rest of the Lion Coalition. I made it out of the Arachnis fortress, but I was bleeding my life out onto the grass, missing an arm and a leg and an eye and with spider bites all over my face. I looked like a corpse from the deepest pit of hell, but that didn’t bother her when she saw me. But I didn’t see her first, and I didn’t see her second either.

The first thing I saw was the sun.

The second thing was Vera.

God, the first time I looked at Vera, I knew I was going to fall in love with her. Her eyes were so kind, and no one but you had ever looked at me with kindness before. She was looking at me like that, ME, a half-eaten, practically dead samurai, and I didn’t believe it then and I still don’t believe it now. She wanted nothing more than to help me, me of all people, and she didn’t give up on me even though it took everything she had to save me. My captain did much of the work, of course. I wouldn’t be here if it wasn’t for her scientific expertise. She’s the one who made me into a cyborg—and later started the evolution, but that’s not important right now.

What’s important is Vera.

I never forgot her kindness for a moment, and the first thing she did when she saw my dying face was smile. She smiled at me—again, me of all people—and she didn’t care that everything about me was broken. She stayed by my side while all of it was fixed, and her smile was the reason I fought to stay alive. It was simply so beautiful and warm. Nothing else had ever been that beautiful and warm. She had the kind of eyes that drew me in, the kind of eyes I knew I was going to fall in love with. They sparkled like stars, and I would come to love that sparkle more than anything else in the world.

And I did.

I really did.

We got to know each other more and more and became friends, and from there, well, you know what can happen. Maybe you don’t. But our friendship turned into a love unrivaled by anything else, and when I was with her, everything stopped hurting. Years of my mother’s neglect, being disowned, being on my own, fighting the war, nearly dying at the fangs of the Spider King and his hellish children—none of that mattered anymore.

The Joui War continued. I never thought for a moment about rejoining. I had everything I loved and wanted with Vera—including, one day, a baby on the way.

My mother snaked her way back into my life then. I pushed her away but she got to Vera first, and she manipulated her so well that Vera liked her. So my mother stayed in the picture, ever the horrible looming presence, and the day the child was born-

Sorry, I don’t want to break your hand. I can let go now.

The day the child was born-

Sorry, I’ve never told anyone this before. It’s very difficult. And here I am crying in front of an enemy.

We aren’t enemies. We don’t have to be. Not now.

Isn’t it easier to be enemies?

If this story is going the way I think it is, you hardly need more enemies, Satoshi.

Haha…

So the day my daughter was born, Vera died. My mother said it was because she was weak. I wanted to kill her for that. She left before I got the courage to do it. I left too, and I took my daughter with me. Her name was…I can’t speak it. It hurts too much. But she was the most important thing in the world, and that didn’t change when she fell ill.

And she wouldn’t get better.

I took her to every doctor in Japan, every doctor I could find, but no one could figure out what was wrong. No one could help her. All they said was she was going to die if a cure wasn’t found. Finally I found an old healer named Hana in Edo—she’s my aunt but that’s a different story—and she told me to seek the berries that grow in the Forest of Forever.

“But hurry,” she told me. “They’re out of season soon.”

So I went to the Forest of Forever and found the last harvest of the berries. I left my daughter by a tree to retrieve them. She asked me to come back, screaming because she was in so much pain, and I stayed with her until the pain went away. When I returned to the berries, Ikumatsu was there with Daigo and a basket full of the berries—all of them. I demanded they hand them over. Ikumatsu said no. Daigo tried to compromise. She still said no.

I tried to get the berries from him and yelled that he didn’t understand what kind of pain my daughter was in. That was when Ikumatsu broke my mechanical arm. She gave me the scars on my face too. And my captain managed to get me a new eye since the Spider King incident, but Ikumatsu made me lose it again. I tried to get the berries again, but Ikumatsu stabbed me and kicked me away. I remember hitting a tree. When I woke up, I was lying in a pool of my own blood.

The berries were gone.

My daughter was screaming again.

I held her.

We both cried.

I rushed her to the hospital. I begged them to help her. There was nothing they could do.

My little girl died.

My captain fixed my hand, but she couldn’t fix my heart.

“You can’t defeat Ikumatsu as you are now, especially not when she’s older,” she said to me. “I have an idea.”

And that was when the evolution started, a new experiment she was running. Each stage presented a stronger version of myself, a version that could, in the end, destroy the monster who killed my daughter.

***

“Thank you,” Hayato said as he stood up. “I am glad to finally understand.”

Sagara wiped tears from his eyes. “I won’t rest until she’s dead,” he said. “She deserves the worst.”

“She thinks the same of you,” Hayato said. “I don’t think revenge is going to help you.”

“What do you suggest I do instead?” Sagara said. “My daughter is dead because of her.”

“And her husband is dead because of you,” Hayato said. “The logical option is to just stop fighting.”

“I can’t do that,” Sagara said.

“I know,” Hayato said, “and that’s why I’m here to stop you.”

“You won’t,” Sagara said, “because I’ve become so strong that I don’t even think I could stop me.”

His mechanical hand began to twitch, and he looked down at it and whispered, “Please run, Hayato. You don’t understand what’s happened to me.”

“I could understand,” Hayato said, “if you explained.”

“I can’t,” Sagara said. “All I know is I can’t go back.”

He dug his metal claws into the table, an action that was not voluntary. “You need to run. I could destroy all of Edo and not lose a single night’s sleep over it, but if I killed you now, knowing the truth, knowing you’re just as brave and wonderful as I thought you were, I would never forgive myself.”

Lightning began to crackle up his arm, and he looked at Hayato again, his eyes full of terror. “For the love of god, run.”

#gintama #gintama fanfiction #writers on tumblr #nishiki ikumatsu #gintama oc #ao3 writer

2 notes · View notes

maverick-werewolf · 4 years

Text

Wulfgard: The Hunt Never Ends Preview - Story 6, “Troubled Waters”

Interior illustration from The Hunt Never Ends story, “Troubled Waters”

We’re almost there - the book releases one week from today!

I am a very special kind of stressed, lemme tell you.

This preview is of the final story in the story collection and my personal favorite: “Troubled Waters.” If you didn’t know, this is a preview for my upcoming story collection, Wulfgard: The Hunt Never Ends. It’s a book, but it’s something in-between a novel and a short story collection.

Each story in the book is individual and stands on its own, but they also go in order and build upon each other. So I’m not sure if one should really call it a novel, but it’s also different than just unrelated short stories. It bridges the gap between the two mediums.

Anyway, here’s another preview - enjoy!

For more info on the book itself, you can also check out this post. Also be sure to check out the Hunt Never Ends tag for a whole lot more book previews!

And remember - Wulfgard: The Hunt Never Ends is available for preorder (digital only; physical available on release date) on Amazon.com!

Pre-Order Link

Please note that, while the ebook is now available for preorder, Wulfgard: The Hunt Never Ends will also be available in paperback on October 30 from the same Amazon listing! Paperbacks cannot be preordered using Amazon’s system, however.

Be sure to check back October 30 for the physical (paperback) edition!

If you’re interested in purchasing the book digitally, you can now pre-order it right here and have it immediately on October 30!

(Paperback edition will be available on Amazon on October 30)

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

There were a lot of things Caiden knew how to do. Clean a sword. Maintain a bow or a crossbow, even customize the latter almost beyond recognition. Make his own arrows or bolts. Investigate a crime scene. Bandage a wound, make a tourniquet, brew a potion, hunt, forage, track, forge his own tools or weapons, carve wood, build houses or fortifications, command an army, cook meals…

But one thing he didn’t know how to do was read. And it pissed him off.

The beds in Castle Greywatch weren’t much. Some straw, changed daily, for a mattress, and some sackcloth to cover it. Any Venatori better off liked to buy their own beds, but Caiden wasn’t exactly drowning in coin. Following the dullahan encounter on Samhain, Kiya had given him a feather pillow as thanks – he didn’t want to think it had belonged to Relgar, but it probably had – and that was the nicest part of his sleeping arrangement in the castle.

He shifted his back against that pillow, currently squashed between him and the shoddy headboard and struggling to retain any fluffiness as a result. He tried to focus. Focus, he tended to be good at, but staring at the book in his hand almost made him wonder. It was a much smaller bestiary than the one Gwen had been given by Illikon, with a likewise smaller amount of illustrations.

If he had any sense, he would have just asked Gwen for help with reading. But his dignity – or maybe his stubbornness, or both – had long since thrown that idea out. He had all day to struggle with this, unless something came up. So, he reached to the nightstand beside him for the bottle of whiskey there. If there was something Castle Greywatch did have, it was decent booze.

Not that it seemed to be helping right now. It made things a little fuzzier, maybe. Slightly dulled that deep, gnawing, empty pain inside him, but not enough.

After they left Illikon, that feeling had grown louder, rowdier – tried to make itself more known. Whatever it was found claws to dig into his spine, using them to reach his skull. There, it chewed into him, left seeds of growing frustration – restless anger he couldn’t seem to muzzle. Any unwanted feelings of loneliness, of being lost, only got worse. A pulling, a need, telling him to do something.

After a few nights spent at Greywatch, it had grown to take a shape he almost recognized: hunger. Impossibly deep hunger that absolutely nothing satisfied.

That was why he couldn’t think. Not the drink. Not the page in front of him, covered in small symbols supposedly forming words, all of which made no sense. It was the smoldering flame in him turning into an empty inferno, and he had no idea how to put it out – or how to give it more fuel to burn.

Caiden’s eyes lost focus on the bestiary, staring at something inside rather than out. He pinched the bridge of his nose with his free hand, his grip on the book loosening, letting it droop.

Some tentative excitement came creeping up the stairs just outside the room. Caiden snapped the book shut and shoved it under his pillow, folding his arms and feeling an awful lot like a five-year-old trying to hide something embarrassing.

Except the bottle of whiskey. Couldn’t really hide that. Not like it mattered, anyway; she already knew it.

Gwen rounded the corner, peering into the room past the partially ajar door. She gave a few tentative knocks, eyes on him.

Caiden grunted. Yeah. Come in. You already have.

When she stepped into the room, Caiden instantly noted she was fully suited up, wearing her leather jerkin, belt of potions, weapons… Which for her, unlike him, was unusual to see when they were around the castle. Something was up.

Gwen paused, looked at him, followed his gaze to the far wall obviously in search of something interesting there, then at him again.

He met her stare evenly. “What?”

She shot the whiskey bottle a glance. “It’s a little early to be drinking, isn’t it?”

Caiden shrugged. Did that actually matter right now?

“Sure… Okay.” Cool worry filled the room, emanating from her, lapping jittery and mildly annoying waves against him. Gwen fumbled with a letter she’d been holding halfway behind her back. “Well, everyone in the great hall was talking missions, and a new one just came in. I snatched it up – thought it might be interesting. It’s not really like anything we’ve done before…”

An unnatural urge to snap at her, tell her to get on with it, rose in his throat and forced him to swallow it. Barely. It settled in his stomach, uncomfortable and heavy, and he tried to tell himself not to be a half-drunk asshole.

“What is it?” he prompted, voice coming out too flat as he struggled to find his usual patience.

That made Gwen screw up her brow at him more than a little, but she said, “There’s a village in the mountains not far from here – secluded little place called Norhaven. It doesn’t seem very noteworthy, except it has its own freshwater spring coming out of a mountain. But now a monster’s attacking them over the water, or that’s what they’re claiming. They say it’s been burning people, of all things, and it only attacks in the dark.”

For half a second, Caiden’s mind stuttered and ground to a halt. The first time he met something that only attacked in the dark, it had been his first monster hunt. It wasn’t something he liked recalling.

But he nodded.

“They… want us there as soon as possible,” Gwen added, almost tentatively. No, not almost. Definitely. Her nerves were frayed. She was worried about something, and it only seemed to get worse the longer she looked at him.

Caiden didn’t much like people worrying about him. He never had.

So he huffed, trying to figure out how to give what she might consider a ‘normal’ response. He stood and popped his neck in a short shock of painful relief. Even if it didn’t help the pinching headache he’d gotten from being bent over a book and trying to read for so long, it felt slightly better.

“Maybe we should wait until tomorrow morning,” said Gwen, still eying him like he was sick.

He eyed her right back. “I’m fine.”

“Caiden, you’ve drunk way more than usual lately – and that’s already saying something – and way earlier in the day. You know how terrible that is for you, right? And besides that, you’re talking even less.”

Gwen frowned. Some kind of hurt came off her then, enough to make his insides almost start to shrivel.

“You can trust me,” she said at length. “If something’s wrong, talk to me about it. Wouldn’t you be the first one to tell me that you need to know if I have something going on, so it doesn’t jeopardize our mission?”

Caiden’s jaw tightened, hard, before he gave it permission. You know she’s right. Yeah, she was right, and he couldn’t tell her. Every word, every phrase that came to mind sounded dismissive. Uncaring, or at least untrusting.

But Gwen gave up fairly quickly, still wearing a frown. She nodded and said, “Okay. Want to leave in an hour or two? It isn’t far to ride. We’ll get there before sundown and we can find a place to sleep.”

Caiden nodded. “Sounds good. I’ll meet you by the stables.”

With that, Gwen turned and left – though not without throwing a quick, and decidedly worried, look back at him over her shoulder.

(More preview under the cut!)

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

“These attacks,” said Gwen, “do they usually happen around the spring, under the trees?”

Asger nodded. “Mostly.”

“And has anyone been in that cave since it started?”

“Where the source is? Gods, no. Gotta have a deathwish to walk into the dark after this thing.”

“Yeah,” Caiden said, already walking around the trees and toward the cave. Behind him, Asger sputtered, while Gwen’s quiet footfalls and building, anxious excitement followed in his wake.

“Go on back to town and get some rest, Asger,” Gwen called back to him.

Caiden stopped before the mouth of the cave and squinted into it, reaching for a potion on his belt: one to enhance his senses. Beside him now, Gwen shifted, tension radiating from her like constant lightning.

“If you drink that and that thing burns you, it’ll really hurt,” she said. “I heard some Venatori pass out from pain if something catches them with one of those.”

Caiden huffed. “I didn’t last time. I won’t this time either.”

Just as he drained the potion bottle, Asger’s panting caught up with them again as he stopped by their side, drawing his bodkin dagger and holding it up in a shaking hand. Gwen blinked at him, and Caiden furrowed his brow.

Asger’s face slowly drained of color as he stared at Caiden’s eyes – a side-effect of the potion was his eyes glowing. Not much, just softly, but it tended to scare the hell out of the average person.

“You probably shouldn’t come with us,” Gwen offered slowly, like she was trying to calm Asger down from some fit of panic. “Especially since… your weapon there looks like something my partner might pick his teeth with.”

“This’s a finely-made dagger, I’ll have you know,” Asger blurted. “And I’m the watchman here, this is part of my job. Let’s go on then—”

He stepped forward, but Caiden snapped one hand out and got a firm grip on Asger’s arm, stopping him in his tracks.

“I’m on point,” he said. “You shouldn’t come, but if you’re following us, then stay behind me. Gwen…”

“On it. I’ll cover your rear— I mean, the rear.” A blush quickly rose in her cheeks. “Tom ruined me,” Caiden faintly heard her mutter under her breath.

Caiden grunted. Then he turned and led the way.

Didn’t take long for his eyes to adjust, then to adapt, thanks to that potion. Faint moonlight spilling in let him see limestone walls slick with condensation and a violently gushing spring, churning the water on the far end of the cavern at the base of the wall. Spitting it out straight into the reservoir, the flow of it turning gentle by the time it left the cave.

Heavy mist hung in the air here, maybe kicked up by the water. But something didn’t seem right.

Then he realized why.

Fear washed down upon them like frigid rain – so much fear that, for half a second, it froze every muscle in Caiden’s body. His nerves pulled taut, ready to break and snap down on him like a whip, hard enough to leave a few more scars on his back. Hand shooting to his sword hilt in a white-knuckle grip, he drew in a sharp breath and fought the chill that ran fast up his spine and forced him to be afraid.

This wasn’t natural. Gwen, from the way she was suddenly fumbling with her gear, seemed to know it.

Asger, on the other hand, didn’t. He bellowed out a hoarse shout, nearly fell spinning around to face the exit, and ran for the cave mouth.

All around them, a shrill voice echoed, “Leave this place!”

It spoke the words very clearly – not the gibberish he’d been told about.

Everything happened at once. A rush of air ripped by him, trailing cold in its wake, like off the surface of the spring itself. Asger screamed, his heavy boots scuffing the stone as something made him stumble and fall. Caiden charged forward at a surging shadow, blade ready to swing.

And an arrow lodged itself in his upper arm with a hard lance of pain and a meaty thunk.

Caiden coughed out a grunt and staggered from the impact, the arrow locking up his sword arm and stopping him mid-strike. Whatever had come past him and attacked Asger seemed already gone, moving faster than he could even understand.

Gwen appeared beside him in an instant, hand on his uninjured left arm and sputtering apologies. “Caiden!? I – gods— I shouldn’t have tried to shoot it, it moved so fast—”

The cave around him was far from silent. Asger swore as he scrambled to his feet, Gwen kept on apologizing as she tried in vain to tug Caiden out of the cave until he, halfway in a stupor, finally staggered along after her.

Boots against stone. Grass under their feet, bright moonlight overhead. Plenty of pain in his right arm that twitched useless and limp at his side.

These sensations stayed, but something was missing.

He’d heard once that silence was golden. He had never understood what ‘silence’ entirely meant. This was the closest he’d ever come.

The whispers had stopped – the fleeting memories. All of it. The fear from the monster was gone – his, Asger’s, Gwen’s – he felt no terror from anyone, though they still looked afraid. Sounded afraid. Moved like it. But he couldn’t sense it. It didn’t invade his mind, twist into him, and try to make itself at home.

And he suddenly felt blind. Deaf. Neither of those things, yet both at once – because it was gone. A sense he had known for his entire life, something that was always there. Gone, no trace left. He felt dumb.

Caiden blinked. Furrowed his brow. His shoulders tensed, pulled against the arrow still biting deep into his arm, and made him wince.

What the hell was going on?

In the corner of his vision, he saw Gwen fumble for something in a pouch on her belt, only to draw out the shattered neck of a bottle. She swore and threw it aside, turning her attention to him instead as he stared straight ahead at nothing in particular.

“Caiden – Caiden, hey, look at me!” Gwen grabbed the harness around his shoulders and tugged on it hard enough for his eyes to snap to her and stare. Her face was pale. “That arrow was poisoned. Okay? You’re probably woozy right now; it’s very fast-acting…”

“Gwen—”

She sucked in a hard breath and blurted, “Caiden if you say ‘I’m fine’ I swear to Athena I will punch you in the stomach.”

He paused and cocked his head at her, his mouth ever so slightly ajar.

“Listen,” she said, voice quivering and straining to sound strong, “the bottle for the antidote I had on me broke – I have more of it, but it’s in my saddlebag. We have to get you to the inn so we can get that arrow out and I can give you the antidote. Okay?”

“Just pull it out,” Caiden mumbled, his words coming out slurred.

“I’m not doing that, you don’t just suddenly pull an arrow out – there are procedures for this!”

One sharp tug on his uninjured arm later, and he was following her back down the mountain path, both of them led by a stumbling Asger. The watchman looked at a deep welt on his forearm, his flesh twisted and reddened – what was left of it. Most of it had burned off entirely. Asger swore more colorfully than the average sailor, wearing a deep grimace.

He separated from them with a few hurried words to Gwen – words Caiden should’ve heeded, but paid no attention to – and disappeared into a nearby home. Gwen kept leading the way, up the stairs and into the inn, still tugging on Caiden’s uninjured arm.

“By Jove!” the innkeeper shouted, starting up in an instant from where he’d been sitting in his quiet tavern.

He quickly started throwing questions, which Gwen just as quickly deflected. She mostly did that by dumping a handful of coins on the counter and asking for two rooms. All the while, Caiden leaned his uninjured arm on the nearest table and pulled in one deep breath after another.

Pain quickly found its way across his body, tightening every muscle and settling heavily in his chest, like having molten lead poured into his lungs. It didn’t leave him any room to breathe, and that didn’t leave him much room to think.

9 notes · View notes

philcoulsonismyhero · 7 years

Text

Calculating Risk

After Hotch confronts an unsub on his own, Morgan decides it's about time he had words with his boss about reckless behaviour...

(1048 words, cross-posted to AO3 [here])

“What the hell was that?” Morgan asked, temporarily ignoring the fact that he was talking to his boss because dammit, he was going to give the man a piece of his mind. “What, you thought you’d just run in there without backup and hope the guy wasn’t armed? You’re lucky you only got punched!” Hotch fixed him with a look, glowering at him from under those eyebrows of his that gave him a frankly unfair advantage when it came to frowning.

“I took a calculated risk, and it paid off. I stand by my actions,” Hotch said, calmly and matter-of-factly, almost daring Morgan to continue making a big deal of it. Morgan sighed, exasperated.

“You know, Hotch, sometimes you scare the hell out of me,” he admitted. “It’s like you’ve got a deathwish, man. It’s worrying.” Hotch stared at him for a few more seconds and then shook his head, the frown on his face subsiding a little. He looked tired but determined, and Morgan had known him for long enough to recognise that expression as a precursor to an attempt at explaining himself and his actions. Which wasn’t something Hotch did all that often, so Morgan folded his arms and listened.

“I don’t mean to worry you, Morgan,” Hotch said. “And I honestly don’t have a death wish; it’s not that at all.” He paused for a moment, clearly considering how best to express what he wanted to say. “I just… can’t stand by when there’s someone that needs my help. And if that puts me in danger, then so be it. My life isn’t any more important than anyone else’s.”

“It is to Jack,” said Morgan, pointedly, and a pained expression flashed across Hotch’s face. “It is to me,” Morgan continued, the confession much easier than he had expected. Hotch closed his eyes and shook his head again.

“And I appreciate that, Morgan, I really do, but that’s not the point. Yes, there are people that care about me, but everyone has people who care about them. Everyone will be missed by someone. It’s… almost selfish to prioritise the grief of people I know over that of strangers. Do you understand what I mean?”

“Sort of,” Morgan said, frowning slightly. “I mean, I get that everyone is important and all. That part I definitely get. But then I think about my mom and how she’d react to losing me after losing my father and it reminds me to be careful, you know? To not take unnecessary risks.” Hotch gave him a look. “Okay, not take too many unnecessary risks. You know what I mean.” Hotch nodded.

“I do, and that’s a perfectly valid approach, I just…”

“Can’t think of it that way yourself, huh?”

“No, I can’t,” Hotch said, his voice quiet but emphatic. “If I think of Jack in this sort of situation and that makes me hang back, hesitate, and then we lose a victim we might otherwise have saved? How am I supposed to live with myself? What if that victim had children? They would deserve a parent just as much as Jack does.” Morgan kept his arms folded, but he was starting to understand where Hotch was coming from.

“Honestly, man, just when I think I’ve got you figured out…” he said, shaking his head. Hotch raised his eyebrows and gave what (by his understated standards of expression) passed for a rueful smile. Morgan rolled his eyes, but his earlier frustration had mostly dissipated. It was hard to be angry at Hotch for long, especially for something that, if he was being honest, Morgan knew he probably would have done himself. Sometimes (often, if he was being honest), Morgan wished he could be angry at Hotch for longer, but the man was just too earnest and fundamentally well-meaning in everything that he did. Even when that was being ridiculously reckless with his own life. Morgan sighed, finally letting his arms fall back to his sides.

“You know, Hotch,” he said, “one day, for the sake of my blood pressure, I’m gonna lock you in your office until you promise to be more careful.” Hotch snorted slightly.

“I think Dave would back you up on that one,” he said, glancing over to where Rossi was talking to one of the local detectives.

“Yeah, and JJ and Prentiss, and probably Garcia too, with a little persuasion.”

“Not Reid?” Hotch asked. Morgan shook his head.

“Nah, there’s nothing I could say that would make the kid turn on you. Not that he’d be able to stop the rest of us from mutinying and locking you in your office, but he wouldn’t help either.” Hotch looked rather pleased at that, and Morgan wasn’t surprised. Hotch didn’t play favourites, but it was no secret that (much like the whole team) he was very fond of Reid.

“Well, at least someone on my team respects the chain of command,” Hotch commented, drily.

“Hey, couple of years back I was your boss for a few months,” Morgan said, then suddenly wondered if he should have brought that up, given Hotch’s mental state at that time and the tragic events that had surrounded his temporarily stepping down. But Hotch looked amused, and he stopped worrying.

“Yes, and back in the day, I was a rookie agent and Dave was my boss,” Hotch said. “There’s no use dwelling on the past, Morgan.” His voice had a joking quality to it, and Morgan shook his head in fond exasperation. Noticing that Rossi had finished with the detectives and was now making a beeline for Hotch, Morgan gave his boss one last reproving look.

“The distant past, maybe. But don’t think you’re off the hook yet for your little stunt today. I’m still mad. But I think you’re about to get a lecture from Rossi, too, so I’m calling a truce for now.”

“I appreciate that,” said Hotch, seriously, but that amused look was still in his eyes.

“Try not to take on anymore unsubs single-handedly while I go and check in with Garcia,” Morgan said, pulling his phone out and starting to turn away.

“No promises,” Hotch said after him, and Morgan resisted the urge to shake his head once again. Maybe he should also ask Garcia to look into adult-sized kiddie-leashes...

#derek morgan #aaron hotchner #criminal minds #personal stuff #a thing i wrote

8 notes · View notes

doomsteady · 7 years

Text

Look Again - ch2

WIP! bi!John/ace!Sherlock, Friends to Lovers. Explicit. Will be posted on AO3 when it’s done.

Ch 2

It was thanks to Sherlock’s encyclopedic knowledge of London that their pursuers quickly lost sight of them through the labyrinth of back-alleys and side streets. With one last check to make sure they weren’t still being followed, they slowed to a brisk stroll as they headed back in the direction of Baker Street.

It was late now. The streets were dark, empty save for the occasional drunkard wobbling his way home from a pub crawl. Still struggling to catch their breaths, John and Sherlock shared one glance before they broke into exhausted laughter, high on the thrill of the chase.

“I can’t believe they didn’t notice us double back on them,” John said, shaking his head in disbelief. His earlier embarrassment had cooled to a low simmer in his gut, displaced as it was by the much more urgent matter of their escape.

“Idiots,” Sherlock agreed, a smug grin on his face as he shoved his hands into his trouser pockets. “They really thought they had us. You’d think the criminal classes would have learnt to stop underestimating us by now, no?”

John huffed a laugh at his feet. “I think that’s giving them a little too much credit. And it’s you they’re underestimating. I’d say their estimation of me is pretty on-point.”

Sherlock stared ahead as they walked, seemingly lost in his thoughts. He looked every bit as perfectly Sherlock Holmes as he ever did, the unflappable git. For all that he’d been shoved into a cramped car boot and then spent the past ten minutes fleeing a gang of armed thugs through the streets, Sherlock seemed to have some magical ability to remain almost entirely unruffled. His clothes had straightened themselves, and his hair looked tousled, but no moreso than it did that morning when he’d purposefully styled it that way. Nor did he seem at all phased by what had happened between them in the boot.

But John was having far greater difficulty letting it go. The night air was cooling his sweat-damp skin, raising goosebumps as he zipped up his denim jacket to ward off the chill. With his pulse calming back into something resembling its normal rhythm, he was just now noticing how badly he needed a shower. He felt like a mess, and not just in terms of the one he’d created in his pants.

He was already sensing the change in his mind, even as he tried desperately to deny it. Before today, he’d always been able to compartmentalise his feelings for Sherlock. The man was his best friend. Platonic or not, this was the most important relationship in his life. They had killed for each other, and both knew the other was willing to die for them, and none of it hinged on some vague hope or the promises of a deeper, more intimate connection waiting somewhere on the distant horizon. They didn’t need it; they were already soulmates.

There had been a time, right back in the beginning, when John had dared to have those hopes. Perhaps because at that time, he had no idea how important Sherlock would become to him. Sherlock was his closest and most treasured friend, too important to lose, and now it was unthinkable that he would risk what they had in the pursuit of something more.

Fantasies be damned: Real life wasn’t always perfect, but it was at least real. There was no point in pining after the unattainable.

John had never been a selfish man; he was grateful for whatever life deemed fit to gift his way. And anyway, Sherlock managed to be an endlessly fascinating friend. He was everything John could ever ask for in a companion that would, in all likelihood, be with him for life anyway. John found he could live with that quite easily, in the end— just being near to him, caught in the orbit of his celestial gravity. Always up close. Always from afar.

Even though he never really did stop finding Sherlock attractive in that way, he kept such thoughts under careful guard, ever considerate of his friend’s feelings. Never once did he let them dictate their interactions, no matter how enticing those ideas had occasionally been. That’s how it always was, and how it always was meant to be.

But now, he was struggling to remember how that had ever been possible. Glancing up at Sherlock’s moon-struck profile, his heart twisted beneath his ribs; the man was beautiful. A figure cut from marble, all sharp angles and long, smooth surfaces. John looked at him now and saw him in all the ways that screamed this is not how people look at their platonic friends, and he could no longer help it. One sultry glance from Sherlock right then would have brought John fully hard again in seconds.

That tamped down flame of desire burned brighter than ever now, and it troubled him. They walked together in silence, John’s mind turning over and over with increasingly dire conclusions about his rekindled attraction, and it wasn’t until Sherlock stopped short and caught John’s arm that his focus snapped back to the present.

“John. Stop.” John turned to look at him, and that was a mistake. Sherlock’s uncharacteristically open expression told John everything he didn’t want to know about the conversation they were about to have.

“Leave it. It’s fine,” John said, looking away. “Let’s just go home. Alright?”

Sherlock pressed his lips thin, a crease deepening between his brows. “You’re worrying about what happened. In the boot.” It wasn’t a question, but John shook his head anyway. “You think I’ll think differently of you. Judge you badly for it? I can assure you, John, that there is absolutely nothing to be—”

“That’s not.” John stepped away from him, turned his face away. He couldn’t do this right now. “That’s not what… I’m just. It was embarrassing. Okay? That’s all. I don’t want to talk about it. Please can we not talk about it?”

John could feel those piercing eyes boring into his back, and it only agitated him further. The last thing he wanted in that vulnerable moment was to be flayed open by Sherlock’s merciless observations. But after a moment, he heard Sherlock release a quiet breath.

“Alright,” he said, as if soothing a frightened colt, “Alright. I won’t mention it again.”

He resumed along their path, allowing John to fall into step beside him, grateful for the opportunity to regroup himself. The next time Sherlock spoke, he sounded almost genuinely spirited. “Shall we pick up some chips on the way home? That little place down Audley should still be open this time of night, I think.”

The automatic ‘no thanks’ was on the tip of his tongue, but John swallowed it, his throat suddenly tight. He knew Sherlock was just trying to cheer him up. An offer of chips should not be so endearing, but the idea of Sherlock willingly dropping a loose thread and attending to John’s needs spoke volumes about how much the man cared for him. His curiosity over the subject hadn’t abated, John knew, but he was making an effort to move them past it. That, at least, deserved some sort of a reward.

He forced a nod and a smile. “Yeah, okay. Let’s go get chips.”

Sherlock watched as John speared a chip with his plastic fork and blew a cooling stream of air onto the steaming morsel. Gripping it cautiously between his teeth before drawing it back onto his tongue, John’s stormcloud expression brightened minutely at the burst of flavour. It was a gratifying sign. Sherlock’s stomach did a little flip at the improvement.

For as long as he could remember, Sherlock had never concerned himself with trying to appease the people who attempted to call themselves his ‘friends’. Most, he observed, hung around him only for the simple convenience his deductive abilities provided. It certainly wasn’t for his charming personality.

In university, his classmates made sure to include him only up to a point where they could copy his notes and borrow his brain for their assignments. He was more human calculator than social equal, but he allowed it, because as shallow and self-serving as it was, some sad part of him had always thrived on the praise of others. Even now, the Yarders kept on tenuously amiable terms with him, only because they had too many murders to solve and not enough braincells between them to accomplish it.

John was different.

It was hard to pin down the reason John accepted him so readily, but it was nothing like the kind of selfishness others so frequently used him for. John hadn’t anything he would consider ‘valuable’ to gain by staying by Sherlock’s side— on the contrary, sometimes merely the fact of their acquaintance put John in considerable danger.

On the surface, John was an unremarkable man. In the months before meeting Sherlock, his life had been following the time-old script of the soldier returned home from war, injured and struggling to rediscover his place in common society. Had it not been for his limp, it would have been so easy to overlook him, to dismiss him off-hand as not worthy of a second glance.

But, that limp told a different story, a story spoken only in the subtext of his age-worn features. Psychosomatic. A traumatic injury, something laden with guilt. A friend had died, perhaps while John was still working to staunch the flow of blood, to keep him conscious just a few minutes more until help could arrive.

His friend had died. John had blamed himself for it, and Sherlock could tell, just by the look in his eyes, that he would have given anything to take his place on the sand.

When Sherlock looked again, he saw not just a lonely, suicidal Army medic with a shoulder injury and a deathwish, but a man brimming with untold secrets and endless, fascinating potential. John Watson was a man whose outward appearances belied a secret myriad of inner qualities.

What was it, then, that drew them together so inexorably?

From the first day they had met, Sherlock had dedicated a not-insubstantial corner of his Mind Palace to the collection and aggregation of every bit of data he could glean about his new friend John. From the exact fabric composition of his fluffy jumpers, to how often brand new crow’s feet would etch themselves into the lines of his eyes— it seemed the subject of John could never bore him, and more often than not, the man regularly found new ways to surprise him.

For the first time in his life, Sherlock found himself grasping for excuses to keep someone in his life, rather than push them away. Luckily for him, it had taken very little persuasion to have John pack up his meagre belongings, leave his dour little bedsit and move into Baker Street with him.

Nowadays, Sherlock couldn’t picture him living anywhere else.

That same man sat across from him now in the tiny chip shop, staring thoughtfully into his plate of chips as he chewed. Inside his brain, Sherlock knew, troublesome thoughts were swirling, grating, distracting him. He knew it was something about what happened in the boot of that car. But it couldn’t be such a simple thing as embarrassment, could it? That simply didn’t make any sense.

John was a soldier. He was also a doctor. He’d been to war, had men die in his arms. He was not a squeamish man. Natural bodily functions didn’t phase him, not usually. Not in the time Sherlock had known him, and he had shown John a great many mutilated corpses during their time together.

So then why was this bothering him? His body had responded as any normal human male would. Surely John knew that, so why was he suddenly behaving as if he’d crossed some uncrossable line, or revealed too much about himself?

Was there any truth in those observations? It was merely intuition, but Sherlock found himself at a loss, bereft of further data to expand upon any theory that presented itself. His friend, always such an open book to him, had suddenly closed himself off, as if Sherlock’s gaze could accidentally spark at some brittle part of him and set his entire, fragile inner world ablaze.

Sherlock wanted nothing more than to reach over and open his skull, peer inside and discover the cause of his uncharacteristic quiescence. But whatever it was, John didn’t want to discuss it. He’d said it, to Sherlock’s annoyance, in no uncertain terms.

It was tempting to ignore his wishes, to pick and pry at it, pull at the thread until the whole problem unravelled. Sherlock could get to the bottom of it, he knew. He could help, somehow. There would be something he could do, something he could say to make the whole thing go away. But John would probably appreciate that even less.

So he simply watched.

John lifted another chip to his mouth, his eyes flicking up to catch Sherlock’s across the table. Paused. Looked away, lowering his fork again. Shifted in his seat.

A moment later, Sherlock’s patience was rewarded.

“I’m about done with these. Sure you don’t want any?”

“I’m not hungry.”

“’Kay.” He cleared his throat. Stalling for time, or perhaps searching for the right words? “Sex always gives me an appetite.”

It was Sherlock’s turn to fidget, caught out by the unexpected admission. John seemed to hear the echo of his own words a moment later. His head flew up, eyes wide as he fumbled to correct himself. “Not that— That wasn’t— I just mean—”

“For God’s sakes, John. I knew what you meant.” Sherlock fought a losing battle against the smile tugging at the corners of his lips. John could be so adorable at times. “Anyway, I thought you didn’t want to talk about it.”

“I don’t,” John said, pushing his plate away.

It was nearing midnight when they exited the chip shop. The night chill had properly set in. Fortunately, home was just a few minutes walk from here. “I ‘spose it just seems… unfair,” John continued, apropos of nothing.

“What does?”

“That I ended up in that state, while you… I mean. You didn’t even.”

He waited. A minute later, it seemed John had given up his train of thought. Sherlock couldn’t bear to leave it. “Didn’t even what?”

“You didn’t even get hard!”

John’s voice rang out loud in the street. On the opposite pavement, a lone passer-by glanced their way, giving them an odd look. Sherlock glared at her until she had passed.

Frustrated and upset by his own outburst, John’s pace picked up considerably. Sherlock, with his long legs, easily kept pace with him. Now that John was opening up a little, he was not about to let this go easily. “That’s what’s bothering you?” he asked, not trying to hide the bewilderment in his voice. “That I didn’t get an erection?”

“No!” John cried. “No, just… Alright, yes. Yes. But not for the reason you’re probably thinking.”

“I can’t think of any reason.”

John huffed a tired, defeated laugh. They were at their front door. He fished the keys out of his jacket pocket, making quick work of the lock. Sherlock quietly followed him inside.

John shucked his jacket in the hallway as Sherlock hovered, enrapt by the unfolding drama, at his elbow. Could he really be blamed? He got excited at the sight of corpses, and this, whatever it was, was no more pleasant but equally as fascinating to him. It was something new about John, something unexpected, and Sherlock wanted nothing more than to understand it inside and out.

Upstairs, stepping into their flat, John was still quiet. Sherlock decided to try prompting him.

“You realise there’s a height difference between us,” he said, matter-of-factly. “There was little friction being applied on my end of the equation. And even if there were, you weren’t in the correct position to feel any evidence of it.”

John settled on the couch and scrubbed his hands over his eyes. “Yeah. Of course, that makes sense.”

Quiet again. Sherlock pursed his lips. In for a penny…

“Not that there would have been such evidence, either way.”

A flicker of confusion crossed John’s face. He looked up, meeting Sherlock’s eye. His Adam’s Apple bobbed as he swallowed once. Twice. Sherlock could see multiple conclusions being drawn and discarded behind his eyes from the simple statement. Eventually he said, “What’s that supposed to mean?”

Sherlock lifted one laconic shoulder and dropped into his leather chair by the hearth. It seemed the only way he would be able to tease out John’s secrets would be by revealing some of his own. It was a fair trade, he supposed, for a topic so personal.

“It means that I don’t feel things that way,” he said. “It would take a lot more than a few minutes of frotting, if it ever happened. Mostly, I just find that sort of contact… uncomfortable.”

He wasn’t prepared for the creeping horror that spread across John’s face as the words sank in.

Oh, he thought, a cold panic rising up his spine like a wave of frost. Was that… Not Good?

#sherlock #asexual #bisexual #friends to lovers #fanfic #ao3 #look again #johnlock #doom's projects

2 notes · View notes