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turning-the-kaleidoscope · 5 years

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“Through Hardships to the Stars” - Chapter 5

(Read on AO3)

Ritsu wakes up, warm.

The futon is soft beneath him, and the multiple blankets spread over him and his brother keep the warmth contained between them. There's a small space heater humming nearby. Soft's purr sinks deep into his skin. Shigeo's breath is even and steady, and the fevered flush across his cheeks is lesser than it’d been.

Reigen is singing a somewhat off-tune something in the kitchen, coupled by a sizzle and the smell of home cooking. Not that he really knows what that smells like, but he imagines it'd be something like this.

He blinks out into space for a moment, up at the ceiling of Reigen's apartment. Shigeo's head is a gentle weight on his shoulder. Soft is sprawled over them both.

Into the silence, into the calm, he whispers a quiet, murmured,

“... It wasn't a dream…?”

Ritsu lies there a while longer.

And then he throws back the blankets, pushes Soft onto Shigeo, and tears down the hall into the kitchen. He swings himself around the doorway, hand on the frame, shoulders tense and eyes wide.

Reigen, currently stirring something at the stove, glances over his shoulder. The moment he sees Ritsu, a smile splits his face.

“Oh, you're awake!” he says, much too chipper. “Good to see you up, I was just finishing here.”

Ritsu blinks twice, still computing. Reigen goes back to prep.

“I didn't know what you kids liked,” he starts off, “so I just grabbed some soup from the market. I'd make it myself, but I'm kinda short on groceries at the moment—not to mention I usually only cook for one—that’s not to say I'm complaining, I'm glad you two are here. I'm a little worried about your brother, but I'm sure he'll be up soon. Sometimes you just need a lil rest and recuperation, y’know?”

Reigen is rambling now, grabbing three bowls from the cabinet and setting them on the countertop as he goes. Ritsu watches him, gobsmacked.

“I…”

Reigen turns to him, a small frown crossing his face. “What's wrong?”

That's the thing, there's nothing wrong. Things are actually okay for once. But that's exactly what's so mind-boggling. The “right” that is this entire situation.

“N-Nothing,” Ritsu manages, shaking his head to knock himself from the thought. “I just… thank you.”

It seems like too simple a thing. Not enough. But Reigen smiles and shakes his head.

“Don't mention it. I'm happy the two of you are here. You’ve been through hell and back at least a dozen times, huh.”

He's talking to himself more than anything, but Ritsu still nods.

“Wellp.” Reigen brushes off his hands needlessly after pouring two bowls of soup. “I'll dish up Shigeo's once he's awake. In the meantime, you hungry?”

Ritsu doesn't really know what he is, but whether out of shock, a lack of something better to say, or simply to be polite, he nods.

“Oh, also—let me take a look at your arms. You seemed pretty out of it last night, so I didn't push it, but if you're injured, we need to take care of that too.”

“O-Oh, right. Thank you.”

Reigen smiles and shakes his head. “Like I said, you don't have to thank me,” he says, taking the bowls into each hand, “but you're welcome, kiddo.”

Maybe it's his gentle tone. Maybe it's the nickname. Maybe it's the situation. Or maybe it's a combination of everything. But Ritsu feels like his chest is being wound tight, and for once it isn't out of fear or panic.

He follows Reigen into the living room.

“Look after him, okay? As long as you have each other, you’ll be okay.”

They were surrounded by fire.

Ritsu was behind him, clinging to his shirt and burying his face against his back. The walls and ceiling burned so brightly that they drowned out the feeble light of Shigeo’s barrier. A falling piece of the ceiling slammed into it. Ritsu screamed. Shigeo wrapped an arm around his shoulders and pressed him closer, hiding his face.

The smoke rose with the flames and consumed the world around them. When Shigeo found his legs again, he took Ritsu, and he ran.

Shigeo shoots upright, breathing hard, both hands clutching at his chest. His lungs burn against the oxygen flowing shakily through them, and his throat feels like he’d just swallowed rocks. His right arm is slinged around his shoulder. He feels bandages shift beneath his t-shirt. They’re on his arms and legs. His head swims and burns.

With half-fuzzy vision and a mind full of cotton, he surveys the room. He’s sitting on a couch with a blanket over his legs. The carpet is loaded with so many stains that it might as well be its own ballistic pattern. The space has a popcorn ceiling an ugly shade of creamy-gray-white, which does nothing to compliment the walls or decor, which are bland and old and tasteless. His and Ritsu’s backpack is on the floor next to the couch, placed near a blue, plastic box, pillbottles, a bottle of water, and several blankets.

There's no sign of Ritsu anywhere.

Shigeo kicks off the blanket and his feet hit the carpet. The room spins and sways and so does he for a moment, but it doesn’t take long for him to regain his footing. He should be able to sense Ritsu, right? Ritsu awakened. He should be able to sense him if he’s close, so why can’t he? Unless he isn’t close—

Shigeo hears footsteps and his heartrate rockets to a dangerous tempo. They’re too heavy to be Ritsu’s. Too spaced. Too far apart.

Which means—

The stranger turns the corner and Shigeo slams him into the carpet.

He’s a tall, gangly kind of guy who doesn’t really look threatening, but Ritsu is gone, Ritsu is missing and for some reason he’s here, and the stranger shrieks on the way down, but it cut short when his back hits the floor with a resounding thump. He moves to prop himself up on his elbows immediately, but Shigeo turns the barrier on him, closes him in that space, and—

“Where’s Ritsu?” His voice is steady, but his outstretched hand trembles. “Where’s my brother? What did you do to him?”

The stranger sits up, palms flat on the ground behind him. He looks… exasperated, almost. Shigeo doesn’t know what to call the emotion on his face.

“Ah, shit, I should’ve—listen, your brother’s fine, he’s in the other room.”

Shigeo’s blood burns. “I don’t believe you.”

The stranger looks helpless, now. That much is plain. “Listen, I seriously don’t know what to tell you. Just—call his name or something, you’ll see—”

“Mrrow?”

“Nii-san!”

From the hall sprints first Soft, chirping and trilling, and second, Ritsu, hot on her toes, beaming brighter than ever before. There are bandages around his head, on his wrists and fingers, probably more hidden by his clothes, but he’s there. He’s there, he’s alive, and he’s okay.

Shigeo goes lightheaded. “Rits—Ritsu—”

Ritsu rounds the couch, skids for a second, then throws himself right at him, bringing his arms around Shigeo’s shoulders and hugging tightly. His arms wind up pinned to his sides, but he still manages to raise his one good arm to wrap around Ritsu’s back. The dizziness creeps in. He closes his eyes. Ritsu is okay. That’s all that matters.

Before he’s ready, Ritsu releases him and steps back, though he holds him by the shoulders. “Are you okay? You were out for a while, I—we were worried.”

It takes Shigeo a moment to realize he doesn’t mean “we” as in himself and Soft.

“Oh, I—” He drops the barrier from around the stranger, and now that the panic is gone and Ritsu is here and he’s safe, guilt is replacing it steadily. “I-I’m—I’m sorry, I didn’t—”

“Don’t apologize, kid, I would’ve done the same thing.” The stranger gets to his feet like he hadn’t just been decked by psychic powers, which… in and of itself is kind of odd. “Glad to see you up, finally. I was starting to think I’d have to take you to a doctor.”

“This is Reigen, Nii-san,” Ritsu introduces eagerly, gesturing with one hand. Reigen waves casually. “He found us at the building, he’s been taking care of us.”

“I—” He really, really feels lightheaded now. “I—I don’t know how to—what to—”

The world tips and tilts. Ritsu’s eyes flood with panic. Reigen is suddenly right beside him, taking him by the shoulders and guiding him down to the couch. He doesn’t feel nearly as faint once he’s sitting, but the nausea doesn’t completely dissipate. Ritsu sits beside him, settles a hand on his shoulder. Reigen still holds the other one.

“Take it easy there, bud,” Reigen says, giving his shoulder a squeeze. “You’ve got a pretty serious head injury, don’t push it.”

“Are you okay?” Ritsu asks, brows pinched. “D-Do you think you’re going to pass out again, or…?”

Shigeo shakes his head, stopping short when it increases the dizziness. “N-No, I’m okay,” he says, and his voice trembles a little now. “I-I’m sure my psychic powers will heal it soon. It’s okay.”

It’s actually pretty weird that they haven’t fixed it already. Wounds aren’t usually a big deal. Bandage them, look after them a while, and then good as new (sans the scar they left behind). Ritsu swallows hard, but doesn’t say anything.

“Oh, while you’re up—” Reigen says, and he snatches the pillbottle and water bottle from the floor, handing the water to Shigeo first before popping open the cap and knocking three pills into his hand. He puts two back. “You’re twelve, right?”

Shigeo nods shakily. Ritsu still hasn’t let go of his shoulder.

“Well, go ahead and take this.” Reigen holds the pill out to him, and Shigeo takes it carefully from his palm. His hand is warm. “You’ve gotta swallow it whole.”

“What’s it do?”

“With luck, it’ll bring your fever down.”

Shigeo blinks. “My… fever?”

“You’ve had one for a while,” Ritsu says lowly, carefully. “It hasn’t gone down very much at all.”

“I wanted to give it to you first thing,” Reigen goes on, “but you were unconscious, so, obviously that didn’t work.”

Shigeo studies the pill. The ones they snatch from pharmacies are typically just for kids. They’re chewable, crudely fruit-flavored. He’s never seen a pill like this and that scares him.

But Ritsu isn’t worried. Ritsu seems to trust Reigen. And Reigen doesn’t give off an intimidating, threatening or dangerous aura, psychic or otherwise.

He takes the pill. The water tastes amazing. He hadn’t realized how feverish his body actually felt until he downed it. It’s cool, but not cold. It’s. Great, actually.

He gets through about half of it before realizing and then twists on the cap and returns it to the floor. The ache in his bones hasn’t dissipated, but the nausea and dizziness has some. Maybe he’s dehydrated. He’d be more surprised to hear if he wasn’t.

“Thank you,” he says when he remembers.

Reigen smiles and straightens up, brushing his hands off needlessly. “I made soup earlier, I can heat some up if you’re hungry.” He pauses a moment, studies him. “—On second thought, don’t say anything. I’ll be back.”

He turns on his heel and disappears into the kitchen. Shigeo blinks dazedly at the empty space he’d occupied moments before, only really snapping out of it when Soft yawns and stretches her paws against his leg. It earns a small giggle from Ritsu, who reaches over and scratches her chin. She purrs.

“Reigen bought food for her, too,” he says, voice gentle. “He’s… he’s been really—”

“Kind.” “—Kind.”

They blink at each other. Ritsu cracks a smile and nods, still stroking Soft’s fur with one hand and holding Shigeo’s shoulder with the other.

“Yeah. That.”

“I don’t feel any psychic power from him,” Shigeo says, thinking out loud more than actually discussing. “But I can’t sense you, either.”

Ritsu’s smile turns into a frown. “You can’t sense me? I thought you could.”

“I’ve never been able to sense psychic power from you, before or after you awoke.”

Ritsu’s head tilts and he stares down at the couch, the small space between them. He does so for some time. “That’s… that’s weird. You’ve always been able to sense people’s psychic abilities.”

Shigeo swallows hard, but ultimately shakes his head. Whatever’s wrong, he’ll figure it out eventually. But Ritsu doesn’t need to know how clueless he really is. “I’m sure it’s nothing. Maybe I’m just not used to you having psychic powers.”

Ritsu bites his lip, like he wants to say something else, but he doesn’t. With a small nod, he lets it go. “I do sense something from you,” he says, changing the topic, “but it’s small. And I’m still kind of figuring out psychic powers, anyway, so that might be it.”

“What about Reigen?”

A clatter and bang from the kitchen, and Shigeo and Ritsu’s heads snap around in that direction. Soft’s head shoots up, and she hops off the couch to go investigate.

“Nothing happened!” comes Reigen’s voice, spoken like someone who’d just witnessed something happening. “Don’t worry, kids, I’ve got it covered! Oh my god—”

“No, I don’t sense anything psychic from him,” Ritsu answers, turning back to him. “And I honestly don’t think he could hurt us if he tried.”

That is true. Even is his weakened, exhausted state, Shigeo was able to pin and immobilize him (something that will most likely sit guiltily in the corner of his heart for the rest of his life). That, and Reigen hadn’t even tried to hurt them. Not once. And he’d helped Ritsu, bandaged what injuries he had, took care of them both. There’s something special in that. Something Shigeo can’t really decipher.

“... Do you think we’re okay, here?”

Shigeo meets Ritsu’s eyes, and Ritsu swallows hard and looks down again, fiddling with the hem of his tattered sweatshirt.

“Claw hasn’t found us yet,” Shigeo says finally, “which I think means we’re safe. For now. When the time comes… we’ll just go back to doing what we’ve always done.”

Ritsu nods wordlessly, but Shigeo can tell he isn’t happy. He can’t blame him. He reaches and squeezes Ritsu’s hand on his shoulder, and Ritsu smiles sadly in response.

Arataka really doesn’t like how quickly the boys tore into their soup.

Ultimately, he’s glad they’re eating. He’ll never be able to shake just how light Shigeo was from his mind, and he knows Ritsu doesn’t fare differently (although, it would seem Shigeo looked after Ritsu more than he did himself, because he’s arguably the better off of the two brothers), and he’s glad they had the appetite.

But it was the way they ate it, like they’d never eaten before, the way they thanked him endlessly, as though he’d just saved their lives, that really, really got to him. It struck him somewhere in the chest, close to his heart, and stayed there until the bowls were scraped clean and all that was left to do was feed the cat.

“Heya, sport, looks like your fever’s gone down some.” He sits beside Shigeo on the couch, touching his cheek briefly with the back of his hand. “How’re you feeling?”

“Okay,” Shigeo answers, smiling softly. His skin is much paler than Ritsu’s, even though some color has returned to it. He has more scars. Many, many more scars, each one jagged and deep and white. And Shigeo’s eyes are a vibrant red, too, which is more off-putting than it should be. “Thank you for everything. I… I really can’t say that enough.”

“You can, and you have,” Arataka answers with his own gentle smile, “but you’re welcome anyway. I’m glad you’re here.”

He’s said it before, many times, but he really can’t say that enough, either.

“Soft already ate nearly all the food,” Ritsu says upon his return to the living room. He immediately makes a beeline for the couch and plops beside his brother. “She should be back soon.”

“Ah, good.” Arataka lowers his hand into his lap, checks the time on his phone. “Anyway, it’s getting kinda late. You two should probably start thinking about heading to bed.”

The two had slept on and off the entire day, but the dark rings beneath their eyes are only somewhat lesser. They could definitely do with some more shut-eye.

“But first—”

Arataka gets to his feet and heads across the room, towards a grocery bag on the side table nearby. He feels Shigeo and Ritsu watching him, half-curious (and probably half-cautious, too, not that he blames them), and Arataka snatches up the bag and returns to them.

“I don’t know if anything will fit, but I ran by the thrift store on my way back from the market earlier—figured you two might like some clean clothes. And you’re free to use my shower, too. It’ll probably do you some good. Make you feel a little better.”

“Wait, you—you got clothes for us?” Ritsu’s eyes are wide, just like Shigeo’s, and his voice is startled, with the edge of a gasp to it. They both look completely starstruck. “—And we can use your shower?”

It hurts somewhere deep and close, but Arataka manages a lightweight laugh and nods. “Yes, yes, of course. You can wait ‘till tomorrow, too, if you don’t feel up to it tonight. Either way is fine.”

Ritsu turns to Shigeo, wide-eyed and questioning, and Shigeo cracks a smile and nods. “You can go first, Ritsu.”

Ritsu beams.

Arataka can hear the shower running from the hall bathroom. Soft has long since returned to the living room and is flopped over Shigeo’s lap, and Shigeo pets her gently, lingering especially by her cheeks and ears. She’s purring with such ferocity that it seems to shake the entire couch.

“How long have you two had her?” Arataka asks, trying to keep his tone as light and bubbly as he can, despite feeling constantly like he’s been punched in the gut.

Shigeo turns to meet his gaze, and there’s something particularly haunting about his eyes that Arataka had tried to ignore before. Something haunting that has nothing to do with the dark, blood-red color of his irises. It’s something dark, something deep. Something that has no right belonging to a child. There’s one scar in particular that catches Arataka’s attention amidst the rest; a scar that cuts straight over his eye, short and clean like it’d been done with a fine knife.

Arataka had always known their situation was hell. He knew it’s been hell. But now that Shigeo is awake, he’s seeing more and more. Sinking deeper into the realization of just how horrible of a hell it’s been.

“You mean Soft?” Shigeo asks, snapping Arataka from his thoughts. It’s a rhetorical question, and when he doesn’t answer, Shigeo goes on; “Not very long. Ritsu found her hanging out by the pharmacy, and, well… he brought her back to our hideout.”

“The abandoned hotel?”

“Is that what it was?”

“Something like that, yeah.” Arataka watches his face for a moment, then the rhythmic, constant stroke of his fingers through Soft’s fur. His other arm is still slinged. There are several small white scars on his hands, fingers, wrists. Everywhere. “... Shigeo… can I ask you something?”

Shigeo’s fingers stiffen for a moment, but it isn’t long before he’s petting Soft’s head again. “Yeah. You have the right to know.”

Arataka takes a breath. “How… how long have you two been running? On your own?”

Shigeo ponders this a moment. But the moment ends too quickly. “About… about six years, now. This year makes seven, I think.”

“Seven?”

Shigeo nods. Arataka can’t breathe.

“Y—What about your parents?” Arataka manages, hardly able to get the words out. “You’ve been alone that long—where are they? H—”

“They’re dead. They’ve been dead for a long time.”

Arataka’s teeth snap together. Shigeo doesn’t look at him. For a time, nothing happens; but then Shigeo drags in a long breath, holds it, and,

“There’s this… organization. Called Claw. They’re—I don’t really know what their plan is, but they’re rounding up kid espers and trying to brainwash them for their cause. They found out about me and attacked our family home. Mom and Dad stalled. I took Ritsu and—” His voice cracks. He draws a shuddering breath. “I ran. I took him and I ran. But Claw could feel my psychic power no matter where we went. They’ve been after us ever since. Trying to kill me and brainwash Ritsu into forgetting.”

There’s something in his tone. Something about the way he said it. He isn’t petting Soft anymore. His fingers have been curled into tight, shaking fists against her fur. Arataka hesitates.

“It wasn’t your fault, Shigeo,” he says at long last. “None of what happened was your fault.”

“I could’ve beaten them.”

“You were six.”

“I could’ve beaten them.”

“No, you couldn’t have.” Arataka doesn’t know if he should, but he scoots a little closer, fingers interlocked tightly in his lap. “If you could have saved them, if there had been a way… you would’ve done it. But in that situation, you did all you could. And Ritsu is alive right now because of you.”

Shigeo’s arms wind around Soft and pull her tight against his chest, burying his face into her fur. Though, not completely. His eyes glisten. Eyes so devoid and dark and deep that Arataka doesn’t know what to make of it. Eyes that shouldn’t belong to a child.

He sits there, wringing his hands together, biting the inside of his cheek. He reaches out once or twice, withdrawing his hand both times, but finally he can’t take it any longer. His palm meets Shigeo’s dark, greasy hair, and stays there.

It doesn’t feel like enough. But it’s all he has to offer, and Shigeo responds by hiding his face in Soft’s fur and clutching her even closer. Arataka doesn’t lift his hand until he hears the shower water shut off.

The bathroom lights are too bright. Shigeo’s head, which has already been hurting considerably ever since he woke up several hours ago, now turns into a full-blown pound that pulses with the beat of his heart. He finds himself gritting his teeth, clutching the edge of the counter and kicking the door shut in case Ritsu or Reigen walk in on him. He definitely doesn’t want Ritsu to see him like this, and if Reigen finds out, then Ritsu is bound to find out, too.

So he breathes until he’s caught his breath, and then he pushes himself upright and stares face-to-face with his reflection in the mirror.

He has to admit, he looks awful. The pallor of his skin has never been more sickly, and the rings under his eyes are almost black, like thick layers of charcoal. The scars look worse now, too, numerous and white and jagged. And his hair is a mess. He's a mess.

He glances to the side, where the bag of clothes from Reigen sits on the closed lid of the toilet. Ritsu had found baggy clothes amongst them, which means Shigeo probably will, too. So he isn't worried. He pulls off his tattered, ratty apparel and steps into the shower.

It takes a frustrating amount of time before he figures out how it works, and the spray hits him so abruptly that he nearly slips.

But he doesn't.

Instead he stands there, stunned, as the water rushes over him. Over his hair, over his shoulders, over the scars and cuts and bruises and whatever bandages he'd forgotten to remove. The filth is dragged down the drain to never be seen again. The water is probably too hot, considering his fever, but he doesn't dare turn it down.

It's warmth. It's clean. It's refreshing. The steam is pleasant to breathe through and the heat of the water sinks through his skin and stays there.

He can't decide whether he wants to laugh or cry. He ends up doing both.

In hindsight, Shigeo probably shouldn’t have left the water that hot for that long, because by the time it’s off and he’s dressed, he’s dizzy and lightheaded all over again. Hopefully he hadn’t upset the fever.

Reigen is tying off a bandage on Ritsu’s arm when Shigeo returns to the living room, with Soft curling around his ankles and mrrowing triumphantly. Reigen and Ritsu’s heads lift to acknowledge him; Ritsu is wearing an oversized hoodie and sweatpants, not unlike what Shigeo is wearing himself. He looks exhausted, but content. He even smiles.

Reigen finishes with the bandage and lifts a hand in greeting. “Welcome back, kid. Howd’you feel?”

Ritsu is waiting for the answer as much as Reigen, so Shigeo says, “I feel okay.”

It must be convincing enough, because the worry smooths from Ritsu’s face, and Reigen gives him an affirming smile.

“Glad to hear it. Now,” he and Ritsu both scoot over; Reigen pats the empty spot beside him before snatching a roll of gauze from the medical kit, “c’mere, let me bandage you up again.”

“I can do it myself,” Shigeo says, and his voice comes out much smaller than he’d meant it to. He swallows. “You don’t have to.”

“I know I don’t,” Reigen answers, and his smile is… gentle. Warm. Like Shigeo’s never seen before. “Now, c’mon. And then you two can get some sleep.”

Shigeo can’t find the words with which to argue, so he takes a seat on the couch beside him and lets Reigen take care of the bandages.

It’s strange. Shigeo has always bandaged his own wounds, usually before Ritsu even knew they existed. He’s always taken care of Ritsu first, and then himself. He’s never had anyone take care of him in this way. And Reigen is such a warm presence, not just to him but to Ritsu, too. He can tell just by looking. By feeling.

Reigen is done before he realizes. The bandages are clean and crisp against his skin, done up with gentle care.

“I think that's it,” Reigen says, sitting back. “How's it feel? Anything too loose? Too tight?”

Shigeo shakes his head, absentmindedly rolling his bandaged wrist to test it. “It's perfect,” he says, lifting his head to meet Reigen's eyes. “Thank you.”

Reigen doesn't say anything this time, just ruffles his hair. The touch makes his chest tight.

“Wellp, I think we're good, then.” Getting to his feet, Reigen snaps the lid back on the medical box and sets it on the floor, petting Soft on the head as he straightens back up. “You kids should probably turn in for the night. It's late.”

There's no arguing with that. With how faint he's feeling, the sooner he can lie down, the better.

Mere hours into the night, Shigeo's fever resurfaces and peaks.

It came out of nowhere when Arataka really should have expected it. He'd noticed the dazed look in Shigeo's eyes as he stumbled back into the living room, but chucked it up to exhaustion and let the boys sleep.

Now himself and Ritsu are awake, and Shigeo is caught somewhere in the middle, still and quiet with minute reactions to Ritsu's gentle, worried voice and the cold rags Arataka settles on his forehead.

Ritsu helps keep the rags in place while Arataka holds a thermometer under Shigeo's tongue. When it beeps, he snatches it close before Ritsu can see it and looks over the reading himself.

A pause.

“H-How bad is it?” Ritsu asks, voice small. “Reigen?”

Arataka bites his lip to keep from hissing. The fever isn't high enough to constitute an immediate trip to the hospital, but…

Shigeo is weak. Very weak. More drained than Ritsu, more injured than Ritsu, even thinner than Ritsu. The fever already got so high so quickly, and if Shigeo doesn't have the strength to fight it off, then--

“He'll be alright, I'm sure,” he half-lies, and hates how easily it comes. “I can give him some medicine the next time be wakes up. He'll pull through it.”

Ritsu nods shakily, petting Soft with one hand and squeezing Shigeo's limp fingers with the other. He murmurs something, a promise to his brother that he'll make it through, that he'll be okay, and Arataka's chest aches.

“You should try and get some sleep for now,” Arataka says, re-wetting the rag for lack of better thing to do. Shigeo twitches and flinches just a little when he returns it. “You need as much rest as you can get.”

But Ritsu shakes his head adamantly, just as Arataka knew he would. “I can help,” he insists, as convincingly as he can manage, which isn’t very convincing at all. “I want to help look after Shige. He's always looking after me.”

“I'm here to look after the both of you, now,” Arataka says, in a voice that leaves very little room for argument. “I'll take care of Shige tonight, ‘kay? Besides, he needs plenty of rest if he's going to get better, and he isn't going to be able to if he knows you've been staying up all night to take care of him.”

Ritsu swallows and bites his lip, head snapping down and gaze falling on his and Shigeo's hands. Soft noses her way into his lap, curling close and purring loudly. Ritsu doesn't smile, but he does run his fingers through her fur before pulling her closer.

Arataka takes a breath.

“Listen, kiddo, you two have… god, you two have been through so much shit. And I know you want to look after him. I know you’ve been struggling for so long on your own. But I want to help, if you'll let me. I want to do whatever I can.”

Ritsu sniffs, wiping at his face with his sleeve. “Y-You… you'll look after him? You'll make sure he's okay?”

“I promise you, I will. I'll stay up all night if I have to, you have my word.”

It's obvious he doesn't want to at first. And of course he doesn't. But somehow, Ritsu nods. A small movement, tentative and unsure, but undeniable all the same.

“Okay, I… I trust you. Th-Thank you.”

Arataka manages a smile. “It's the least I could do, kiddo. Don't even worry about it.”

#decided to start posting chapters on tumblr as well as ao3!#also don't tag as ship in any way shape or form #do not #thtts #through hardships to the stars #dad reigen #kageyama shigeo #kageyama ritsu #mob psycho 100 #mp100 #fanfic

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torestoreamends · 5 years

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Mine to Make: Chapter 9

Albus faces his biggest fears, Scorpius discovers that he loves Ginny Potter, and Harry learns that time alone can’t fix his problems – it’s going to take more than that.

Beta’d by @abradystrix.

N.B. This fic is complete on AO3, so binge read away if you want! Here on tumblr I’ll be posting a chapter every day until it’s all done.

Read it on AO3

VIIII Ruins

The whole world is a blur of agony. There’s nothing beyond this awful, all-consuming pain. The heat of it is burning him up from the inside out. It’s eating through flesh and muscle, destroying him like he’s nothing.

He’s food. He’s fuel. He’s coal or wood or oil. He’s not human anymore. He’s part of the fire, and he’s disintegrating into ash.

Darkness goes on forever. The darkness of smoke. The darkness of charring. The darkness of cinders blown on the wind.

Albus is scattered. His fragments are swept away, swirling, tossed by breeze and wave. They’ll never come together again. They can’t. He’s been thrown too far asunder. He’s been broken down too small. The grains of him can’t ever possibly be knitted back into one. Too many particles have been lost.

He comes to for a second and the pain of existence casts him back into darkness again.

He sleeps. Rest heals.

Something cool is being pressed against his skin, and he gasps with the relief of it, body contorting. A steady hand pushes him down and holds him. A voice in his ear whispers him back to sleep.

Screams tear from his throat. He sits up, head spinning, his whole body fractured and shattered. He’s never felt pain like this before and he never wants to again. He’d rather die.

“Kill me,” he sobs. “Please, kill me. Make it stop, make it stop, MAKE IT STOP!”

He screams again and cries, begging for it all to end, but someone holds him. Someone he loves, someone he trusts. Someone with gentle hands who promises him a better future.

“Sshh, Albus,” she murmurs, stroking his hair. “It’ll stop soon. The pain will stop. I promise.”

His arm goes numb. The pain subsides. He cries so hard with relief that he’s sick, acid stinging his throat, making his mouth taste foul. She tuts but she cleans him up and lies him down, stroking his hair off his forehead.

“Go to sleep,” she says. “Go to sleep.”

He obeys without question.

Next time he wakes his mouth is dry. His whole body is dry. The ravaging fire has left him a shrivelled husk, no better than tinder, ready to set light again at the first spark.

“Water,” he croaks. “Please.”

“Here,” Delphi says, helping him sit up and drink. He doesn’t stop until he’s drained a whole bottle and feels like he’s going to burst. If he could drink more he would. There’s nothing he wants more in the world right now than water.

He still feels dry and hot, parched like the desert. He can’t sleep so he tosses and turns, skin prickling. Sometimes it’s bearable, but sometimes it flares up in excruciating agony that makes him scream and cry and vomit.

The sheets cling to him, too heavy and hot on his skin. Everything hurts. Whenever he can he drinks as much as he can hold. Slowly he starts to feel replenished. The fire still burns inside him, but it’s held at bay by the water and whatever magic Delphi is working on his skin.

“What happened to me?” He asks one morning when he’s sitting up in bed, watching her change his bandages. Under the soft, snowy white material he gets a glimpse of his arm. The skin is cracked, like the bark of a tree that’s aflame. Beneath the surface his arm is glowing, orange and white, flickering and dancing lights. The fire is still there under his skin, and it looks awful. No wonder it’s been hurting so much. No wonder it’s still hurting.

“Someone pushed you,” Delphi says. “You lost control and hit one of the cages. You then fell about 100 feet out of the air, but I’d say that’s the least of your problems.”

“It’s really bad,” Albus says, watching as she ties the bandage off.

“You almost died,” Delphi replies without looking at him.

“You saved my life,” Albus says, looking at her. “Didn’t you? Someone’s been here this whole time. It was you.”

“Nearly two weeks.” She goes and sits on the chair beside the bed. “You’ve been half dead for nearly two weeks. This is the first time you’ve said anything that wasn’t begging me to kill you or begging me for water.”

Albus bows his head. “I’m sorry. I don’t really remember...”

“I’m not a Healer,” Delphi says. “I hope you know that.”

“I do, of course I do.” He looks at her. “Thank you. For staying. For saving me. Thank you.”

She shakes her head. “Don’t bother. You’re my best friend. I had to do it.”

Albus shakes his head. “I don’t know. You could have decided I wasn’t worth it.”

Delphi sighs. “I could. But I think you are worth it, Sev. You’re very important.” She smiles. “Anyway, I couldn’t have lost my star racer, could I?”

Albus smiles back. “No. I suppose not.”

Flames lick across the ceiling and creep along the walls. The hallway is almost too hot to bear, and the thick, black smoke clogs the space, making it almost impossible to see. Albus doesn’t crawl, there’s no point, the fire would catch him before he got anywhere, and his crouch isn’t quite low enough to duck under the smoke, so he presses his arm across his mouth and sprints for the room Scorpius was in.

Behind him he hears the hiss of the fire build into a roar as it spots him. The red glow gets brighter as a thousand malevolent eyes focus on him, and he feels the smoke coalesce and tear at his skin like claws, snatching at him, trying to drag him back.

It takes all his strength to break free and keep running. He has no desire to let the fire get anywhere near him, even though he knows the beasts among the flames are already charging him down. He keeps his head low and throws himself sideways, hoping he’s hit Scorpius’s door and that it’ll open inwards.

His right shoulder slams into the door frame and he reels off, clutching his arm as pain jars through it. The hall is too smokey to see where he’s aiming, so he tries again, and this time he goes tumbling into a room and kicks the door closed behind him, casting the only spell he knows to barricade it and praying it doesn’t fail.

He scrambles up and looks around the room. Spells will buy him very little time here. The beasts are unstoppable. Fiendfyre is so hungry it’ll eat anything and everything. A door is nothing more than a light snack. But at least the fire can’t see him anymore. It won’t hunt him.

“Scorpius,” he calls, coughing and staring around the large library he’s found himself in. There’s no reply, so he runs across the room, lighting his wand and pointing it into every shadowy corner just in case, but he sees nothing.

He spins round and spots a door on the wall, which must lead through to an adjacent room. Maybe Scorpius is in there. Hopefully he is.

Albus sprints at it as hard as he can, but bounces off and falls in a heap on the floor, shoulder aching even more than before. It’s locked.

He fumbles with his wand and jabs it in the direction of the door. “Alohomora.”

The door springs open and he rushes to his feet and almost trips himself up as he races through.

“Scorpius! Scorpius, are you in here? Are you alive?” He stops dead in the middle of the small, dimly lit room. Papers litter the floor and ivy has grown over all the windows and the hole in the roof, so the only light comes from sporadic shafts of sunlight that pierce through the covering of leaves. This is definitely the room Scorpius was in, but Scorpius is nowhere to be seen, and now Albus can feel his chest tightening and his heart racing. What if the person who started the fire has taken Scorpius? What if Scorpius is gone? What if Scorpius is dead? What if-

No. Albus forces himself to take a deep breath. No. That can’t happen. That’s impossible. Scorpius is just- He’s somewhere. He’s fine.

“Scorpius?” He calls, turning slowly around in a circle, wondering if Scorpius is under the bed or in the rickety wardrobe, or-

There’s a bookshelf on a wall set just in from the window, with one single book on it, lying down on its spine, and the shelf has swung forward an inch, on a hinge. Some sort of secret door.

Albus tiptoes across to the shelf and swings it open, pointing his wand into the darkness. “Scorpius?”

“Albus.” A second silvery light glows out of the darkness, and Scorpius peers round the corner of a set of stairs up at him, holding his wand up, eyes glittering. “I found a secret room.”

Albus leans back against the wall, a hand pressed to his heart as relief floods through him, almost knocking his knees out from beneath him. “Yes, I-I can see that.”

Scorpius grins. “Want to come exploring? I’m guessing you didn’t find anything on the other side of the house, so this is the best we’ve got.”

“No, I- No. Scorpius, we need to get out of here.”

Scorpius frowns. “Get out of here? But... why? This could be a lead, Albus.”

Albus shakes his head desperately. “No. I know. But-“ He breaks off as he hears the hissing sound of the fire approaching. It must have reached the library now. How long until it consumes the hall and the stairs and this room? “Scorpius, the house is on fire. We need to get out.”

Scorpius stops dead, staring at him. “It- What?”

Albus nods. “Fiendfyre, Scorpius. Someone- someone set a fire. We need to get out. Right now. Or we’re going to die. Please.”

Scorpius clatters up the stairs until he’s at Albus’s level. “Did you say Fiendfyre?”

Albus grabs hold of his wrist. “Yes I did. We need to go. We need to-“

A flame snakes up the door behind him, a bright, hungry red. Tongues and sparks flicker out, like a serpent tasting the air, and Albus doesn’t hesitate. He starts running, tugging Scorpius with him.

“Run!”

Scorpius doesn’t need telling twice. He stumbles after Albus, raising his wand and casting a spell that Albus doesn’t know. In the next second, Albus’s vision is blurred by a silvery something, that runs in front of his eyes and folds around his head, making the air instantly more stale, but cutting out the smoke that’s starting to flood the room.

“What-“ Albus starts, but he stops when his voice sounds strange to his own ears. It’s like he’s speaking inside a bubble, and when he reaches up he does indeed feel a warm dome of magic around his head. “Scorpius, what is this?”

“Bubble Head Charm,” comes Scorpius’s muffled reply. “For the smoke.”

“Right,” Albus says, nodding. “Of course. You’re a-“

The door behind them explodes inwards with a snarling roar, and Albus feels heat scorch his back. His left shoulder instantly starts throbbing, and he clutches it and staggers towards the door to the hall, Scorpius right behind him.

The beasts in the flames have definitely found them now. The hunt is on. As Albus throws the door open a long flare comes whipping out of the maelstrom of fire, and he drops to the ground and rolls beneath it, just in time. He smells burning and reaches up to feel that it’s singed his hair.

He dives through, and Scorpius lunges after him, kicking the door shut, but the flames punch straight through, blasting it inwards. A bit of wood clouts Albus hard on the back of the head and he stumbles against the opposite wall of the landing in a daze. The world spins around him. Floor and flame and crumbling roof become one, and he grips the wall for support, not sure whether he’s up or down.

He stays still a second too long. A roaring Basilisk flies at him from the flames, teeth bared, mouth open. Still not sure if his feet are on the ground he stares, unable to move, resigned to fate, but an instant before the Basilisk strikes Scorpius’s hand clasps around his wrist and pulls him away hard. He almost yanks Albus’s arm out of its socket, and Albus falls, sprawling onto the ground, now with both his arms aching as well as his head throbbing and spinning.

“Up,” Scorpius says. “Lean on me. Quick.”

Albus feels Scorpius slip an arm round his torso and drag him upright. So that’s where the floor is. His feet are on it. His head is up, pointing to the ceiling. Fire is at his back, roaring with searing heat. The world starts to make sense again, and he trusts Scorpius implicitly. When Scorpius starts dragging him forward he obligingly moves his feet, trying to keep up.

They reach the stairs and start sprinting downwards, so fast they’re on the edge of falling. Beneath them the wood starts to creak and crack as it heats up. The steps glow, and Scorpius runs faster, Albus somehow keeping pace. It’s so hot that the soles of Albus’s shoes start to melt, and the bottoms of his feet feel like they’re being scorched.

The fire is so close behind them now that it’s licking and clawing at Albus’s back. His shoulder feels like it’s on fire, responding to the proximity of the flames the way it always does. Embers burn beneath his skin, awakening the creatures hibernating there. He clutches at it, digging his fingernails in to try and keep it at bay. He can collapse when he gets out of here. He can give in to the pain when Scorpius is safe. Until then, he has to keep running.

There are five steps left to climb down, but two of them are aflame already. The face of a dragon rises up, spitting at them, smoke curling from its nostrils. They’re hemmed in from both sides, but Scorpius isn’t deterred.

“Jump!” He yells, and Albus does, throwing himself straight into the dragon’s maw and past onto the lower floor. His legs collapse beneath him as he lands, but he manages to roll back to his feet and keep going.

The door is up ahead. Sunlight beyond the smoke and flames now consuming the ceiling.

An enormous beam drops from the ceiling into their path, and they both skitter back, grabbing each other’s hands. Behind them the roaring grows ever louder and ever closer.

“What do we-“ Albus starts, breath coming in tight snatches.

“Wingardium Leviosa,” Scorpius cries, and the burning beam goes shooting upwards. Scorpius sprints forward, dragging Albus with him, and they half run, half stumble the rest of the way down the hall and out through the door, serpents and beasts snapping at their heels.

They don’t stop running until they’re well away from the house. Thankfully the ground is bare and acts as a firebreak. The Fiendfyre stops at the bottom of the stairs, tongues of flame scenting the air, tendrils searching for a way forward, but there’s nothing. The red eyes of the beasts stare into Albus’s soul as he collapses on the ground, the bubble around his head bursting so he can draw in great lungfuls of clean, fresh air.

Scorpius is on the ground next to him, flat on his back, staring up at the sky, also breathing hard. Albus reaches across and squeezes hold of his hand, not letting it go as he hauls himself up on his elbows to watch as the Fiendfyre consumes the ruined manor.

As they lie there, side by side on the ground, singed and charred round the edges, clothes blackened with soot, it starts to rain. A gentle drizzle at first, which builds into the sort of torrential downpour the world needs to unleash after days of hot, humid weather. Thunder rumbles in the distance, and steam rises from the burning wreckage, but even water can’t stop a raging Fiendfyre. It gorges itself until the house is nothing but a charred, smoking wreckage, and there’s nothing left to feed on.

“That stuff,” Scorpius says finally, pushing his soaking wet hair out of his eyes, “is vicious.”

“Tell me about it,” mutters Albus, who’s still holding his aching left arm. “It really bloody hurts.”

Scorpius looks sharply at him. “Did it get you?”

Albus shakes his head. “My hair’s a bit singed, and my clothes probably aren’t great. No, this is the old burn. It gets excited when it encounters friends,” He rolls his eyes and removes his hand, screwing his face up against the pain. “It just needs some of that salve and it’ll be fine.”

“Will it?” Scorpius asks, eyeing him.

Albus nods. “Promise. Are you okay?”

“Unscathed,” Scorpius says. “Just about. You’re bleeding too. You definitely got the worst of it. Come here.” He kneels opposite Albus on the dusty ground, which is slowly turning to mud as the rain pounds down on them, and casts a spell to knit up the gash caused by the exploding door. “Better.”

Albus grimaces and rubs his head. “Thanks.”

Scorpius tucks his wand away and sits back on his heels. “Albus.” His expression is very grim, and Albus looks at him, no idea what he’s about to say next. “I think someone just tried to kill us.”

Albus bows his head. “I think so too. But why?”

Scorpius sighs and unfolds his legs from beneath him, falling back onto his bum on the muddy ground. “Why do you think?”

“Someone from the league,” Albus murmurs. “Who doesn’t want us investigating?”

Scorpius shrugs. “Probably. I was thinking someone who specifically doesn’t want us investigating Delphi.”

Albus frowns. “But...”

“Albus.” Scorpius gives him a significant look, and Albus snaps his mouth shut, not sure what he can say.

Just because they were in Delphi’s house doesn’t mean it has to be connected to her. Albus doesn’t even know anyone who’d want to attack them on Delphi’s behalf. But of course it’s the most obvious explanation. Even he can’t deny that.

“I think we should go and report this,” Scorpius says. “Right away. Fiendfyre is dangerous dark magic, and someone just used it to try and kill us. After the Dementors... This is twice we’ve been attacked in a couple of days.”

“It is,” Albus murmurs, “isn’t it...”

Scorpius nods grimly. “I’m going to go. If you want to head home and sort your arm out you should.”

“No,” Albus says, clambering to his feet. “It’s fine. I’ll come.”

Scorpius frowns at him. “Are you sure?”

“We were both attacked,” Albus says. “We should both go.”

“But...” Scorpius gets up and looks him in the eye. “Albus, when I say I’m going to report this...”

Albus glances at the smouldering ruin, then back at Scorpius. “I want to come.”

Scorpius hesitates for several long seconds, and Albus doesn’t quite understand why. Maybe he’s missing something here. It’s like Scorpius is waiting for him to comprehend something and react to it. Should he be saying no? Does Scorpius want him to go home?

“I don’t have to come,” Albus murmurs. “If you don’t want me to.”

“I want you to,” Scorpius says, reaching out to take his hand. “But I didn’t know if you were ready to, you know...”

And then Albus understands. It hits him as hard as the fragment of wood exploding from the door had done, leaving him dazed, and wondering how he hadn’t realised it sooner.

Of course Scorpius wants to report this straight to Harry. Of course he does. He’s giving Albus the chance to back out. To run away and go home.

But this isn’t a day for running away. Earlier Albus had stood on the steps outside Gringotts and yelled his love for Scorpius to the whole world. Now he’s going to go and confront his dad too. No more running, no more hiding. It’s time to stand by Scorpius’s side and stop being the coward he’s been his entire life.

“I’m not,” he says. “Ready. But I’m coming anyway.” He grips Scorpius’s hand tight. “Let’s go before I change my mind.” He turns on the spot, bringing Scorpius with him, and a second later they’re standing in a deserted street beside a red telephone box. The Ministry of Magic.

Harry’s desk is a mess as always, but this morning it’s not covered in files, it’s covered in photos, statements, a draft copy of a newspaper report, and everything else he’s been able to gather from the incident in Diagon Alley this morning. The photo snapped by the Prophet reporter who’d rushed out into the street when he’d heard the commotion takes pride of place. Albus’s hair may be a light shade of grey in the black and white photo, and his eyes may be almost black, but it’s Albus. Unmistakeably. Harry knows his own son.

Albus shouts something, then turns and looks at Scorpius, who’s standing on the steps behind him, a look of sheer panic on his face. The Albus in the photo gazes at Scorpius for a moment, then turns back to the camera and keeps going, pointing at Scorpius, a fire in his eyes that can only belong to Albus. It’s Harry’s favourite bit of the photo, and he stares at it, taking in every detail of Albus’s face, the blazing passion written across every inch of him. He looks more beautiful than Harry has spent every second of the last seven years imagining. He’s perfect. And now Harry needs to see him more than ever. It’s the only thing he needs, and he needs it with every fibre of his being.

He pushes the photo out of the way so he can look at the other things on the table. There’s a statement from a pair of witches at the front of the crowd who’d been close enough to hear and see everything, and he scours it, looking for anything that might tell him where Albus and Scorpius have gone now, because they’re together, there’s no doubt about that.

He picks the statement up and sits at his desk, reading the end of it over and over again. It says they were talking about Apparating, saying they had to get out of there.

‘I didn’t hear them say where they were going, but Malfoy was talking about getting out of there. He warned him, Albus, that he was going to Apparate, and then they disappeared. I don’t think he told Albus where he was going... I still think he’s got Albus bewitched. It’s the only thing that makes sense. The way Albus looked at him... Maybe it’s a Love Potion.’

Harry sighs and rubs his forehead. No one knows where they went. Not a single one of the witnesses. Maybe they just didn’t say. But he refuses to believe that they’ve disappeared again. They were right there, right within reach. They were in Diagon Alley. Albus was in the middle of the biggest wizarding shopping street in the country and they still don’t have him and now he’s vanished. Vanished!

Harry slaps his hand as hard as he can on the desk in frustration. It doesn’t help. Now his palm stings and he feels even worse.

In seven years, this is the closest he’s been to getting his son back, but still he has nothing. It’s horrible. It’s like being back in the days after Albus ran away, when every new dawn brought with it the tantalising hope that today might be the day. And now today might really have been the day but they’ve let Albus slip through their fingers. Again. He removes his glasses, buries his face in his hands, and draws in a deep breath.

If they’ve got this close once they can do it again. The Aurors had arrived just moments after Albus and Scorpius had Disapparated. They only need to be a little bit quicker off the mark and they’ll have him. It’s that simple. They’re so close. No giving up now. No giving up ever.

“Mr Potter.”

He looks up to see his secretary, Edna, standing in the doorway. Her eyes are wide and she’s breathless, a hand clutching her heart. She looks like she’s seen a ghost.

“Yes?”

“There are- there are some people here to see you.”

Harry sighs. “Can it wait? I’m a bit-“ He gestures to his desk. “Busy.”

She shakes her head. “You really want to talk to these two.”

Harry frowns and picks his glasses up. “Have they seen Albus? Do they know something?”

Her expression transforms into a beaming smile and she shakes her head. “No. Even better.” She turns to the people behind her. “Go in. He’ll see you.”

There’s a bit of shuffling in the doorway as Edna disappears and the door opens wider. Two blurry figures appear, one with white blond hair; the other bright pink. Harry jams his glasses onto his face and gets to his feet, staring.

Scorpius, wet hair plastered to his head, robes dripping, meets Harry’s eyes as he enters the room, then he glances back. For a second Harry doesn’t believe what he’s seeing, but there’s no question that right behind Scorpius, one arm folded across his body, shoulders tight, gaze determinedly fixed on the floor, soaked to the skin, but whole and solid and very much alive; definitely not an illusion, is-

“Albus,” Harry breathes.

Albus’s eyes flicker up from the ground for a moment – a dark, impenetrable brown, but definitely Albus’s gaze because it’s hard and strong and crackling with fight. He gives a tiny nod but doesn’t speak, and his gaze instantly drops back to the ground.

Harry can’t breathe. He can’t speak. He collapses into the seat behind his desk and braces his forearms on the tabletop, staring at Albus. It’s impossible to take in every detail of his son in just a few seconds, but Harry wants to see as much as he can.

Albus is still so small. He’s compact, athletic in the way a broom racer should be, in the way his mum is, and next to Scorpius he looks as tiny as he ever did. He also seems afraid.

For all the defiant solidity of his presence, he doesn’t look comfortable here. He’s refusing to look at Harry not because he’s being difficult but because he’s scared. Harry’s first instinct is to reassure him, to reach out and let him know that it’s okay. But then it occurs to him that Albus probably doesn’t want his reassurance. After all this time, after all these years in which Albus has grown up, Harry has lost all his power as a dad to make everything okay just by saying it is. So he ignores the problem and turns to Scorpius, who is holding tight to Albus’s hand and doesn’t look like he’s planning to let go any time soon.

“Scorpius,” he says. “Why are you both so wet?”

“It’s finally raining,” Scorpius says with a little smile that fades as fast as it comes.

“Right. How, um-“ He pushes his glasses up his nose and glances at Albus again because he can’t help himself. “How can I help you both?”

Scorpius looks at Albus, who looks back at him.

“Go on,” Albus murmurs, and Harry’s heart skips a beat. That’s his son’s voice, a voice he hasn’t heard in so long. Even that fleeting whisper is the sweetest music Harry’s ever heard.

Scorpius nods and squeezes Albus’s hand. He turns back to Harry and opens his mouth, hesitating like he’s trying to work out the right place to start.

“Last night my dad and I managed to trace those suspect accounts back to one belonging to Delphini Black, so I went to the bank earlier to try and find out more,” he says, and gaze flickers to the papers littering Harry’s desk. “You might have already heard... But anyway. I found out that Delphi’s account wasn’t registered to her name, it belongs to a Cygnus Black, and I found out the address it’s registered to. So after...” he gestures to the papers. “After all that, we Apparated to the address and had a look around.”

He pulls something from his pocket and steps forward just far enough to drop the paper on the edge of Harry’s desk. Not once does he let go of Albus’s hand.

“I found this,” he says. “It was in one of the rooms. It was the closest I got to a clue. There was also a sort of secret room, but I didn’t get chance to investigate it.”

Harry frowns. “Did you leave? We can go back. I could send Aurors, or-“

Scorpius shakes his head and glances at Albus. “We can’t go back. No one can.” He takes a deep breath, and Albus steps an inch closer to him, so their arms are pressed together. “While we were inside someone set light to the house. I say someone because it was Fiendfyre. We both know it was. The house is destroyed, and we only just managed to escape.” He looks at Harry. “We think someone tried to kill us.”

Harry sits back in his chair, watching Albus, who’s looking at him with an impenetrable gaze. It’s impossible to know what he’s thinking or feeling; maybe he’s waiting to see what Harry is thinking before he reacts for himself. But Harry doesn’t know what to think. His brain is in a spin because Albus is here and Scorpius is saying someone tried to kill them, and now Harry looks he can see singe marks on Albus’s damp clothes and in his hair, and if someone tried to kill his son then...

He runs a hand over his face and shakes his head. “Do you know for sure that it was Fiendfyre?”

Scorpius looks at Albus, who takes a small step forward.

“I know it was. I know Fiendfyre. I have some... experience. That wasn’t a normal fire.” His gaze dares Harry to question him, but Harry has no desire to. He feels sick. Albus has experience with Fiendfyre. Ginny had said as much but he hadn’t wanted to believe it. This means that what she said about Albus’s injuries is true as well. Albus is burned, scarred, damaged. He’s not coming back whole and undamaged, and that means that Harry has failed terribly. But he won’t fail again.

“Did you see anyone?” Harry asks, looking at Scorpius. “While you were at the house, did you see anyone around who might have set a fire? It’s not easy to cast Fiendfyre. It must have been someone powerful.”

Scorpius shakes his head. “We didn’t see anyone. The windows were all covered with ivy. Someone could have snuck up, cast the spell, and left without us seeing. I assume that’s what they did because there was no one in there with us. It was deserted. It felt deserted.”

Harry ruffles his fingers through his hair, trying to think. “If someone is trying to hurt you it must be someone under investigation. Someone from the league. Who from the league can cast Fiendfyre?”

“Everyone,” Albus says, rolling his eyes.

Harry sits forward in his seat. “Can you?”

Albus’s expression shifts. All his walls go up before Harry’s eyes, shoulders tightening, jaw jutting, expression glaring. “Is that an accusation? Because no, I didn’t just try to kill my boyfriend.”

His boyfriend. Ginny had mentioned that too, but it was just another one of those incomprehensible things that Harry hadn’t managed to wrap his head around. But now it’s right in front of him, made obvious by those interlinked hands and the surprised but delighted smile Scorpius is now giving Albus despite the gravity of the situation. There’s no denying it. His son loves Scorpius Malfoy, and Scorpius Malfoy loves him back.

Harry gets to his feet. “That’s not what I meant. I was just curious.”

Albus lifts his chin. “Then no,” he says. “I can’t. And I have no desire to. It’s... it’s horrible stuff. I hate it.” He mutters the last few words and drops his gaze back to his shoes.

“So it could have been anyone apart from you,” Harry says thoughtfully. “And we don’t know who it might have been.” He reaches across and sorts through his mess of files until he finds the one containing details of the league. He flips it open on top of the witness statement from Diagon Alley and frowns down at it. “Is there any reason why it couldn’t have been this Delphi herself who set fire to the house?”

Albus and Scorpius look at each other, and Harry recognises the intense but utterly silent conversation going on between them. Finally Scorpius sighs.

“Why would she set fire to her own house? And anyway, she’s been Albus’s best friend for the whole time he’s been away,” he says. “Albus doesn’t think-“

“Why would my best friend try and kill me?” Albus asks. “It can’t have been her.”

“Your best friend associates with former Death Eaters,” Harry tells him, trying to keep his voice soft and patient. In truth the information has thrown him completely. His son has been around the worst of people, criminals, who know how to perform dangerous Dark Magic. His son considers these people his friends.

“My boyfriend’s dad is a former Death Eater,” Albus argues.

“Yes but that’s-“ Harry holds his hands up and looks down at the file. The last thing he wants is to start fighting with Albus now.

“I think we should start by trying to work out what the note says.” Scorpius steps forward and picks the bit of paper up off the table. “I can’t read it. I don’t recognise the writing. There’s a possibility it’s written Parseltongue or something. I’d need to investigate. If we can work that out then we might find something.”

“You’re not investigating anything,” Harry says, looking up at him.

Scorpius looks confused. “But... this is my investigation. Why can’t I look at this next? It’s the logical way forward.”

Harry braces his hands on the table and looks Scorpius dead in the eye. “I’m sorry, Scorpius, but until we work out what’s happening with these attacks, I’m removing you from the investigation.”

Scorpius reels back a step, mouth open, eyes wide. He looks like he’s just been slapped in the face, but Harry knew that would happen. Of course it was going to hurt, but this is the only way. This is the second attack in a matter of days. Albus has been caught up in both and so has Scorpius. Taking Scorpius away from the case is the only way of keeping him safe; if anything happens to Scorpius then Draco will murder Harry. Equally, if anything happens to Scorpius then Albus will have no reason to stay. Maybe Harry should feel ashamed of that factoring into his thinking, but he’s not. He can’t be. Now that Albus is back the top priority is to keep him here.

“I’m sorry, Scorpius. This isn’t to do with your ability to handle the case, but I don’t want you in any more danger. I have people who are equipped to deal with this sort of thing. You aren’t one of those, so I can’t let you continue.”

Scorpius closes his mouth and swallows. He seems utterly lost for words. Unfortunately Albus isn’t.

Albus lets go of Scorpius’s hand for the first time since he got into the office and steps forward, right up to the desk, so he’s just inches away from Harry. His eyes blaze with anger, the way they always did when he was facing Harry. So little has changed.

“No,” he says. “You can’t take him off the case. You can’t.”

“I can,” Harry replies calmly. “I can and I am. I’m sorry, Albus, but this is Scorpius’s safety we’re-“

“But it’s not,” Albus interrupts. He gestures to Scorpius. “You know he’s brilliant. You have to. He’s been working for you for what, five years now? And he’s still stuck in the same job as he was when he started, even though you know what he can do.”

“Albus,” Scorpius murmurs. “You don’t have to-“

Albus ignores him. “This is his chance to prove himself. This is his chance to actually do something and you’re taking it away from him.” He folds his arms and glares at Harry. “I don’t know why I expected better from you. Seven years and you haven’t changed a bit.”

Harry opens his mouth, but Scorpius gets there first. He steps forward and takes hold of Albus’s arm.

“Let it go, it’s fine.”

Albus whirls round to face him. “It’s not fine,” he says, voice rising so it bounces off the walls of the office. “And you know it.”

Scorpius runs a hand down Albus’s arm. “Fine. It’s not. But I can-“

“Deal with it?” Albus asks. “That’s bullshit. You shouldn’t have to deal with this.” He turns back round to face Harry. “I ran away and left him, but I’m not leaving him again, because you know what? I learn from my mistakes. That must be a difficult concept for you, mustn’t it?”

Harry balls his hands into fists. How can Albus have so severely misunderstood what he’s trying to do here? This is always the way. Albus doesn’t get it. He doesn’t seem to understand that they want the same thing.

“Look,” Harry says. “I know Scorpius can do this. I know he can, but it’s too dangerous. This is a job for-“

“So give him a fucking Auror!” Albus explodes, flinging his hands up in exasperation. “Give him someone to help him. Stop making him the lowest of the low because you don’t want to face up to the fact that me leaving had nothing to do with him and everything to do with you. Stop letting him be your scapegoat, take some responsibility, and let him do his job!”

The heat rises and Harry glares at Albus across the table. “I am taking responsibility. I’m taking responsibility for his safety. Just because you can’t understand that-“

“You don’t even deny it!” Albus steps back with a disbelieving laugh, running his hands through his lurid pink hair. “You don’t even deny that you’ve been using him, lying to everyone, just because you can’t admit to yourself or anyone else that you’re a terrible dad who chased his son out of the door.”

“I haven’t used him!” Harry says, plunging his hands into his pockets to give them something to do. “And I haven’t lied to anyone. You left because you gave up on trying to be part of the family. It was an easy way out and you took it the second you could.”

“You didn’t give me another option!” Albus shouts back. His hands are shaking now. His whole body is trembling with rage, and Scorpius tries to touch his arm, but Albus brushes him aside. “There was nowhere left to go. At least Mum tried to help, but you just wanted me to change.” He puts on a mocking, high-pitched voice. “‘Stop being friends with Scorpius. Try harder in lessons. If you’re being bullied it’s because you’re being too different. Fit in, Al. Make the Sorting Hat change its mind and put you in Gryffindor.’”

Harry shakes his head. “That’s not-“

“I couldn’t be different,” Albus continues, cutting across him, his voice breaking like there are tears coming that he’s trying to keep at bay. “That was my problem. I couldn’t fit in. I couldn’t be the son you wanted. I thought seven years away might have shown you I was good enough anyway but I guess not.” He sniffs in a breath and folds his arms across his body, shoulders collapsing inwards, chest heaving as he tries to breathe past the impending tears. “Maybe I should just leave again, like you told me to the first time. You wouldn’t miss me.”

Harry steps sideways, round the side of his desk, moving desperately towards Albus. He reaches out to him, but Albus backs away, bowing his head.

“Albus,” he says softly. “I have missed you. I don’t want you to go. I-I love you.”

Albus nods. “Great,” he says. He looks up at Harry, eyes glittering now. “Thanks for that touching statement. Fat lot of good it does me. Fat lot of good it does him.” He takes a step towards Harry so they’re practically nose to nose, and Harry can see the tears caught on his eyelashes, flooding the warm brown eyes that look so much like Ginny’s.

“Keep telling yourself you love me,” Albus murmurs. “Keep telling the world. You can kid yourself and you can kid them, but you-“ He gulps in a breath as his voice truly breaks and a tear spills out of one of his eyes and down his cheek. “You can’t fool me.” He brushes it away and lifts his chin. “I know how you really feel.” He turns on his heel and marches out of the room, the door banging shut behind him.

Harry reels back and grips the edge of his desk for support. All the breath has been knocked out of him. He can do nothing but stare at the closed door where Albus has just disappeared, possibly forever now. That might be the last time that he-

He sniffs and straightens himself up.

“Scorpius,” he says, forcing himself to look at Scorpius who is also staring at the door, eyes wide with shock. “You understand, don’t you?”

“I-“ Scorpius looks at him. “I don’t know,” he says, sounding slightly dazed. “I-I need to go with Albus.”

“But-“

Scorpius shakes his head. “I’ll think about it.” He stuffs the paper he’s holding into the pocket of his robes and heads to the door.

“Isn’t that evidence?” Harry asks, gesturing to the paper.

Scorpius looks down at his pocket, then glances back at Harry. “Is it?” He wrenches the door open and disappears, leaving Harry alone.

For a long moment that seems to last a lifetime, Harry stares at the door. He wants Scorpius to come back. He wants Albus to come back. He wants to rewind the last few minutes and try them again. He doesn’t know what he’d do differently – to protect Albus he has to protect Scorpius – but there must be something.

He removes his glasses and buries his face in his hands. He remembers the tears sparkling in Albus’s eyes and clinging to his eyelashes. He remembers the grim line of his mouth, the coldness of his expression. Harry did that. Harry always does that. But what else can he do? He even told Albus that he missed him, that he loved him. He was honest, for the first time in a long time. But even honesty gets him nowhere with Albus. Maybe he’ll never get anywhere with Albus. Maybe Albus is gone forever now.

As that thought sinks in, his body bows and he starts to cry. Tears come thick and fast, wetting his hands, dripping between his fingers and sploshing down onto his desk. One lands on the photo of Albus from earlier, and he quickly brushes it away before it can stain that perfect, pristine, fiery image of his son. His son who he loves, desperately, who he’s missed for so long; who he can’t stop chasing away.

What if that was his last chance?

He sinks into his seat and rests his head on the desk, raking his fingers through his hair as he runs through every single wrong thing he’s ever said to Albus. There are so many. Hundreds of thousands of mistakes, both big and small. The insurmountable weight of them is heavy on his heart. At this rate they’ll be with him longer than Albus will.

“I know it’s my fault,” he whispers, wishing Albus was still there to hear him. “I know that. I know I should tell everyone. I know I should say it to you. I know that. I’m sorry.”

Why is it that these things are so much easier to say in the lonely silence of his own office than they ever are to say aloud; especially to the person they’re meant for? Everything is always harder in person. That’s been the problem all along.

Albus is sitting on the edge of the Fountain of Magical Brethren when Scorpius catches up to him. He’s curled up into a tiny ball, sobbing into his hands, and he doesn’t seem to notice or care that every single person who walks past is staring at him.

The house elf standing on the plinth behind Albus almost looks like he’s watching Albus with concern as Scorpius approaches, and Scorpius can appreciate why. Albus’s crying is entirely unrestrained.

“Albus,” Scorpius murmurs. He sits down on the spray-splattered edge of the fountain beside him and puts a hand on his back. “Are you okay?”

Albus shakes his head. “N-no. No, I’m-“ He shakes his head again, unable to say anymore.

Scorpius gathers him into a tight hug. “I know,” he whispers, pressing a kiss to Albus’s temple. “I know.”

Albus grips him, holding tight to his robes, and buries his face in his chest. It takes another minute before the tears subside enough for him to even try and say anything else, and when they do he doesn’t lift his head, he just mumbles into Scorpius’s robes.

“He hates me. He- He still... I knew this would happen. I knew it. I-I don’t know why I’m crying. I don’t know why I’m surprised. This is how it is.”

Scorpius brushes his fingers through Albus’s hair. “I don’t think that’s true. I think he does love you. A lot. He just... I don’t think he knows how to say it.”

“He could start by being less awful to you.” Albus sits up and starts wiping his eyes. He looks a mess, covered in tears and snot, his eyes all pink from crying.

Scorpius pulls a handkerchief from his pocket and hands it to him. “Albus... I-I get why he has to pull me. I hate it. I really hate it. But I get it. It’s safety. I’m not trained for any of this. I could barely protect us from the Dementors, and I definitely couldn’t protect us from the fire.”

“The Bubblehead Charms were genius though,” Albus mutters.

“Thank you,” Scorpius says. “But I don’t even think that’s the biggest thing...” He looks down at his hands. “I’m... I am who I am. People think what they think. I can’t be seen investigating dangerous Dark Magic. People can’t see that.”

Albus stares at him. “You... you think that’s part of his reasoning?”

Scorpius shrugs. “I don’t know. But if it isn’t it should be.”

“But it’s not true though. We know it’s not. He knows it’s not.”

“I know,” Scorpius murmurs. “I know...” He looks down at his hands and tries to ignore the gnawing feeling inside his stomach that there’s something terribly wrong with him. Everything happens for a reason. Maybe all this is truly his fault. Or at the very least maybe he deserves it.

“I think we should go home,” Albus says softly, taking hold of Scorpius’s hand.

Scorpius looks up at him. “To yours?”

Albus shakes his head. “I... I want to see my mum.”

Scorpius nods. “I’ll see you tomorrow then?”

“No,” Albus says, squeezing his hand tighter. “No. I want you to come too. If... if you want.”

“Oh,” Scorpius breathes. “Are you sure?”

Albus nods. “Very very sure. And I promise she’ll be better than my dad. I promise.”

Scorpius looks at him for a long moment, torn for whether he’s allowed to say yes or not. He doesn’t want to force his company on Ginny. Surely no one would want him in their house? But at the same time, Albus has invited him, and it’s such a nice thing for Albus to have done that he doesn’t want to say no. He also really doesn’t want to have to say goodbye to Albus now. Not after the morning they’ve had. There’s so much to talk about.

“Okay,” he says finally. “Okay, I’ll come.”

Albus’s tearstained face lights up with a smile like the sun, and he gets to his feet. “Thank you. We can Floo. We’re going to Holly Cottage.”

They cross to the fireplaces and Albus lets Scorpius go first. It’s a relief to be leaving the Ministry well behind and heading to somewhere where they both might feel less out of place.

Scorpius has never been to Albus’s house before. He’s never met Albus’s mum either, only seen her briefly on the platform when he was boarding he Hogwarts Express. He doesn’t feel afraid though, the way he normally does when he has to meet someone new who only knows of him from newspapers and gossip. Ginny is Albus’s mum, and Scorpius has always thought she sounds wonderful.

He spills out of the fireplace and rolls across the hearthrug, almost flattening Ginny who is sitting cross-legged in the middle of the floor, writing. She jumps back out of the way, upsetting her ink pot which spills all over the carpet, and Scorpius scrambles up.

“Sorry sorry sorry. I didn’t know you’d-“ He fumbles to pull his wand out of his pocket, and starts trying to clean up the ink.

“No,” Ginny says, also getting up. “It’s fine. I wasn’t expecting-“ She picks the ink pot up, moves her papers out of the wand and draws her wand to vanish the ink stain from the carpet. “It was probably a stupid place to sit anyway.” She lowers her wand and looks up, smiling.

Scorpius sees in her eyes the moment she realises that it’s him. They widen slightly and her lips part with surprise. He braces himself for a bad reaction, but then in an instant her surprise vanishes and she gives him one of the warmest smiles he’s ever been on the receiving end of.

“Hello,” she says. “Scorpius.”

“Hi,” he murmurs.

“How are you?” She asks, reaching out to put a hand on his arm.

He nods. “I-I’m okay, I think. It’s been...” He can feel himself wavering, all his emotions coming to a head the way they do when he’s faced with someone who’s really listening; who really cares. “It’s been a bit of a day.” He gives her a shaky smile, and tries to blink back the tears that are choking him. Crying in front of Albus’s mum would just be embarrassing.

She doesn’t seem to mind though. She draws him into a tight, wonderful hug and rubs his back.

“Sweetheart,” she says. “You’re a bit damp. Have you been out in the rain? You must be cold. Let me-“ She releases him and draws her wand, casting a spell that warms every inch of him and makes his clothes steam as they dry. “Are you on your own?” She takes hold of his hand, and he’s happy to let her. He’s fracturing inside, so empty and so full all at once. She reminds him so much of his mum, and it aches but he needs it. He wants it. Desperately.

“No,” he says, trying to hold himself together. “No, um. Albus should be-“

Albus flies out of the fireplace and falls flat on his face on the carpet, coughing. Ginny gives Scorpius a sparkling smile of amusement and rolls her eyes. Scorpius snorts and squeezes her hand. He loves her. She’s wonderful. How could Albus have run away from this?

“Hello, Albus,” Ginny says, and Scorpius has to bite his lip to stop himself laughing at the bright, fond judgement in her voice.

Albus picks himself up off the floor and brushes himself off, giving her a sheepish grin. “Hi, Mum.”

“You’ve certainly learned how to make an entrance in the last seven years.”

Albus shrugs, just a tiny twitch of his shoulders. “I like to make sure you haven’t forgotten I’m here.” He tries to smile, Scorpius can see the courage in his attempt, but he doesn’t really pull it off.

“Come here,” Ginny says, and she hugs Albus too, squeezing him tight in her arms, then she pulls back and casts the drying spell on him too, before looking between the two of them. “You look like two people who need a cup of tea.”

“Lemonade?” Albus asks hopefully, wiping soot off his face. “Do you still make that amazing lemonade?”

“Of course,” Ginny says, reaching out to get a spot of soot on Albus’s nose that he’s missed. “Have a seat. I’ll get drinks.”

“And the burn salve?” Albus asks. “Is there any left?”

She looks between them, scrutinising them, and Scorpius realises for the first time that the hem of his robe is charred, and that part of Albus’s top is singed, burned through to his skin, which is an angry red beneath.

“Yes,” she says. “I’ve got it. When I come back do we all need to talk?”

Albus glances at Scorpius. They both look a mess: tear stained, soot covered, and charred round the edges.

“Probably,” he mutters, and Scorpius nods, looking back at Ginny.

“I think so too.”

She squares her shoulders. “Alright. Drinks.” She disappears into the kitchen, leaving Albus and Scorpius to sit on the sofa in silence.

At first they sit at opposite ends of the sofa. Scorpius wants to put an arm round Albus, but he doesn’t know if he’s allowed when they’re sitting in Albus’s parents’ house. But then Albus slides across the cushions towards him.

“Can I-“ He gestures to the space next to Scorpius, and Scorpius holds an arm out to him in response.

Albus curls up against his side, resting his head on his shoulder, and Scorpius gathers him in, brushing his fingers through his hair.

“Your hair’s still bright pink,” he murmurs.

Albus closes his eyes and rests a hand on Scorpius’s chest. “That feels so long ago. It was just a couple of hours.”

“A lot has happened since then,” Scorpius agrees, picking at the scorched bit of Albus’s hair and wondering if there’s any way of fixing it. It probably won’t show up so much when his hair is back to its normal colour, but against the pink it’s painfully stark.

“I saw my dad again,” Albus breathes. “I-I saw him... It didn’t go well, but I-“

Scorpius kisses the top of his head. “You were incredible.”

Albus shakes his head and sits up. “I was a disaster.”

Scorpius smiles at him. “An incredible disaster.”

Albus looks at him, a tiny frown creasing his forehead. “I’m not sure if that’s a compliment or not.”

“Everything is a compliment,” Scorpius says, leaning across and planting a kiss on his lips.

The door opens behind them and they spring apart as Ginny returns. She’s levitating a tray of drinks and carrying a small bottle, which she hands to Albus before setting the tray down. Albus mumbles his thanks and unbuttons the neck of his shirt so he can get to his shoulder. Ginny watches him, and Scorpius watches her, not knowing her nearly well enough to know what she’s thinking.

“So,” she says finally. “What have you two been up to?”

Albus has closed his eyes in sheer relief as the salve touched his skin, but he opens them now and glances first at Scorpius, then at his mum. “Well, I think I started off telling the world how wrong they are about him, and then we went to a creepy house and someone set fire to it and tried to burn us alive, so after that we went to the Ministry and I ended up yelling at Dad.”

Ginny looks at Scorpius, who nods. She sits back in her seat.

“I see what you mean, Scorpius. It has been a bit of a day.”

“Dad wants to take Scorpius off the case,” Albus says, sliding to the edge of the sofa and looking at his mum. “He’s being ridiculous. He-“

“He said he wants to keep me safe,” Scorpius mutters.

“He’s doing what he always does,” Albus continues. “And he still won’t admit that he’s the reason I ended up leaving. He’s still trying to blame Scorpius. If he stopped doing that then everything would be fine.”

“I’d still be investigating the league though,” Scorpius says, glancing at him. “And presumably that’s why someone is trying to kill me.

“No.” Albus holds a hand up to stop him. “No, if Dad was less of an idiot you wouldn’t even be doing this job. You’d have a job you deserve, so you wouldn’t be anywhere near the league.”

“But I wouldn’t have found you,” Scorpius points out.

Albus shrugs. “Maybe I wouldn’t have run away.”

Silence stretches between them, tense to the point of breaking. Scorpius needs to say something, anything, just to escape that silence, but before he can open his mouth Ginny gets there.

“I’m not sure I understand everything here,” she says. “Can one of you start from the beginning?”

They glance at each other, then Albus gestures for Scorpius to go ahead, and slowly Scorpius begins to piece the whole thing together for Ginny, interspersed with questions from her and plenty of interruptions from Albus. It feels good to actually talk about everything for the first time. Apart from his dad, it’s been so long since anyone properly listened to Scorpius and heard how he feels about everything. The longer he talks and the more in depth his explanation gets, the greater the weight that seems to lift from his chest, and the more space he seems to have inside him. The whole world feels a bit brighter, and when he’s finished he sits back in his seat and doesn’t much care what anyone says next. Telling the story has been therapy enough, without anyone trying to help fix everything.

“How... how have you been doing this for so long?” Ginny asks, staring at Scorpius like she’s seeing him for the first time and is amazed by the sight.

Scorpius exhales and a tiny, relieved smile crosses his face. “I don’t know.” He twists his hands together and shakes his head. “I just... have.”

“Well,” she says. “Something needs to change. I don’t know what, but- We have to do something. This isn’t fair. It’s not-“

Out in the kitchen the lock on the back door clicks, and they all look round. Ginny gets to her feet.

“We’re going to talk to him. Right now.”

Albus looks at Scorpius and there’s sheer panic in his eyes.

“I don’t know if I can-“

Scorpius reaches out and takes hold of his hand. “I know I can’t. Not without you. Stay with me?”

Albus looks up at his mum, who is heading into the kitchen. “Alright,” he murmurs. “I’ll try.”

They sit in silence and strain to hear the conversation in the kitchen. There’s a lot of low, soft talking going on, and they only hear snatches of words and phrases.

“They’re both here?” Harry asks, voice rising and carrying through the wall.

A few moments later they hear Ginny. “...reconsider... explain... after everything he’s been through...”

There’s a true silence, the silence of consideration, then Harry speaks again. “Alright. Alright.”

Footsteps cross the kitchen floor and Albus presses himself against Scorpius’s side, twisting to face away from the door. Scorpius puts an arm round him and they both look up as Harry enters the room, expression serious, with Ginny following behind.

“Hi,” he says, looking down at the ground as he undoes the buttons of his shirt cuffs and starts rolling the sleeves up to his elbows. When he’s done he lifts his gaze to looks at them, and runs a hand through his already wild hair. “Look, this isn’t about Scorpius. The case isn’t what we thought it would be when Scorpius took it on. It was meant to be a light, easy first case, but it’s not anymore, and-“ He glances at Ginny, who gives him a little nod, and he goes and sits in the arm chair closest to the sofa.

“There’s stuff going on,” he says. “A lot of stuff. You told me yourself, Scorpius. Dark Magic is in a resurgence. I mean... not exactly a resurgence, it never truly went away, but it’s shifting. Things are moving, things we can’t necessarily see, things we don’t understand yet. Fiendfyre arson and Dementor attacks might be part of that, but whatever they are they’re serious and life-threatening, and I’d take anyone off a case like that.”

Scorpius hangs his head. He gets it, but that doesn’t make it any easier. “Can I at least keep doing the desk work?” He asks. He pulls the crumbled copy of the page from his pocket. “Translating this isn’t going to get me killed, is it?“

“I don’t know what it’ll do,” Harry says. “I don’t know, Scorpius.”

Ginny starts to speak. “Harry, I think-“

At the exact same moment, Albus says, “Dad, I-“

They both break off, and Ginny gestures to Albus to go first. He shakes his head and looks down at his hands.

“No,” she says more insistently. “Go on, Albus.”

He sighs, shoulders rising and falling, and Scorpius feels the swell of Albus’s breath against his body. He grazes his knuckles along Albus’s side, wanting to encourage him, and Albus looks up at his dad.

“I’m part of that league, Dad. I know you know that. I haven’t left. I don’t want to leave. It’s my life. Those are my friends, my colleagues, they’re everything. If all this is to do with the league then that puts me in danger. And no matter what happens, I’m going to stay with Scorpius, and I hope he’ll stay with me, which means he’s in danger too.” He holds a hand up to cut Harry off when Harry starts to speak. “My point is that taking Scorpius off the case achieves nothing except the league’s not being investigated anymore. I don’t want Scorpius to get hurt, of course I don’t, but I trust him to do a good job at looking into this, and if we’re already in danger then surely a little bit of desk research won’t make much difference?”

Harry takes his glasses off and starts cleaning them in silence, and Ginny moves across to put a hand on his shoulder.

“Harry, I think this is important to both of them. I agree that we should be keeping them safe, but I also think, and correct me if I’m wrong, Scorpius, that even if you did take Scorpius off the case, he wouldn’t just give up.” She smiles across at Scorpius. “He’s not exactly lacking in will and determination, and I think we know by now that Albus is as stubborn as a concrete block. They’re going to keep doing this whether they’re allowed to or not, and I’d much prefer they had some sort of Ministry backing and protection than they run off in secret and get themselves killed.” She squeezes Harry’s shoulder and leans down to kiss him on top of the head. “He’s got your spark,” she murmurs. “Even after everything, he’s still your son.”

Albus twitches and turns away, resting his forehead on Scorpius’s shoulder, and Scorpius rubs his back, watching as Harry finishes cleaning every inch of his glasses, inspects them in the light streaming through the open window, and pushes them back on.

“None of you are taking no for an answer, are you?”

Scorpius shakes his head. He folds up the paper with the mysterious writing on and makes sure Harry sees him putting it back in his pocket.

Harry sighs. “How about this. There’s a spell you can use to call for immediate backup. I normally only give it to Aurors who are on dangerous solo missions so they can ask for help. It’s not something I hand out to everyone, and it’s only to be used in a life threatening situation. If I give it to you, Scorpius, you’ll be able to get help if anything else happens. That way you can keep investigating and there’s a safety net if something goes badly wrong. How does that sound?”

Scorpius looks at Ginny, then at Albus, then he nods. “I like that. It sounds perfect.”

“Good,” Harry says. “Excellent. I can live with that compromise.”

Ginny smiles and rubs Harry’s shoulder. “Thank you.”

Harry rubs his forehead and nods. “That’s alright. As long as everyone’s happy, then...” He trails off, and Scorpius realises that what he thought was the conclusion to the conversation wasn’t. Now Harry is looking at Albus, and it’s clear he’s not done.

“I think I need to say sorry. For some things. If you’ll give me that chance.”

Albus lifts his head and looks at Scorpius, and Scorpius gives him a small nod that he hopes says ‘yes, he’s definitely talking to you’. Albus looks down at his hands, then very slowly twists round to face his dad.

“Okay,” he says in a very small voice.

“Why don’t we go and sort out some more drinks, Scorpius,” Ginny says, giving Harry one last pat on the shoulder and reaching out a hand to Scorpius. “I think we might need to make some more ice cubes as well.”

Albus grips Scorpius’s arm and looks at him, wild-eyed. Scorpius cups his face in both hands and kisses him on the forehead.

“I’ll be next door,” he murmurs. “With your mum.” He pulls back and gives Albus an encouraging smile. “Listen to him. I promise it’ll be okay.”

Albus’s grip on his arm releases, and he detaches himself and slides off the sofa to go and join Ginny in the kitchen, leaving Harry and Albus to talk.

Albus squashes himself against the arm of the sofa and folds his arms across his chest, curling up as small as he can get. He keeps his gaze down so he doesn’t have to look at his dad. Every instinct in his body is screaming at him to sprint to the fireplace and go home, go anywhere, disappear again. But he made Scorpius a promise, and if he‘s staying then he has to work out how to do this.

“Seven years is a long time,” Harry says.

Albus nods and messes with a burned bit of fabric on his shorts.

“You’ve grown up. You’ve... You look really good. Although I’m not sure about the hair.”

Albus runs a hand over his head. “That was James’s fault,” he mutters.

Harry laughs. “I’m not surprised. I...” He trails off, and an awkward silence hangs between them, a yawning gap separating the past and present from the promise of the future. It feels too big to be surmountable, a huge yawning chasm, and Albus has no idea how this is supposed to end. Forgiveness? Love? Or just more of the same?

“I am sorry, Albus,” Harry murmurs finally. “About... well, about everything I suppose. You know, I always thought that being Harry Potter was difficult. All this expectation and pressure, you know? Everyone waiting for me to make a mistake. But being your dad, being a good dad, is harder. And I don’t think I’m great at it. I certainly haven’t been in the past... But I do want to be better. I want to at least have that chance. And that’s not me asking you to forgive me, I can’t ask you to do that, but if you could find me some patience, at least... I can have a go at working out how to be everything I should have been all along.”

Albus inspects his fingernails. There‘s pressure building up inside him again, a wall of emotion and pain. All the memories of seven years ago come flooding back in a rush, and he pulls his knees up to his chest and rests his chin on them, staring at the wall beyond his dad.

“You told me to leave,” he whispers. “Do you remember that? You said ‘if you’re so unhappy, why don’t you just leave?’ It was so much easier for you not to have me around, interfering with your perfect family. I never fitted, I know that. I’m not really a Potter. Not then, not now, not ever.”

“Albus... you’re different. You’re you. That’s a good thing.”

“Is it?” Albus asks, flicking his gaze across to his dad. “You always made it feel like it was the worst thing in the world.”

“It’s not,” Harry says adamantly. “I promise you it’s not. I...” He gets to his feet and starts pacing across the room, hands in his pockets. He’s never been good at sitting still.

“When you were younger,” he says, looking at Albus. “I used to think that maybe your life would be easier if you were more like James or Lily. You know, if you were more popular, if you had more friends, if you enjoyed Quidditch and did better at school. Maybe even if you’d been sorted into Gryffindor. But...” He pauses in his stride, turning on his heel to face into the room, head down. “That’s not you. And the things I missed most over the last seven years were all the things that were you.”

He goes over and perches tentatively on the very far end of the sofa to Albus. When Albus doesn’t move away from him, he settles an inch further onto the cushions.

“I missed coming home from work and the whole house smelling of the fumes from whatever potion you were working on that day, did you know that? I missed the little bits of emerald green everywhere – your tie on the back of a kitchen chair, your jumper on the washing line, that hoodie you never seemed to take off-“

“I still have that hoodie,” Albus says, looking up at him.

Harry smiles. “I’m not surprised. You loved that thing. I’m amazed you haven’t worn through it by now.”

“I had to get a second one,” Albus says, giving him a tiny smile.

“Of course you did.” Harry moves a tiny bit closer. “If you want to know another thing I missed, it was walking into the house and thinking no one was around, but you’d be sitting on the sofa reading. I’d come in and you wouldn’t even notice. You were the calmest thing about this place. Sometimes it’s still too noisy here, even now James and Lily have left. I missed your stillness. And I missed you helping me in the kitchen. I started missing that a long time before you left.”

Albus looks at him. “Did you?”

Harry nods. “I loved that. James would never cook, I still don’t trust him not to burn the house down, and Lily always had so much else going on. But you always wanted to help. I liked teaching you. I liked having your help.”

“I still cook,” Albus murmurs. “I like it. I have a really good kitchen in my house. I don’t get the chance to use it as much as I’d like, but when I can... There’s nothing like cooking my own food in my own kitchen to make me feel like I’m at home.”

“What’s your favourite thing to cook?” Harry asks, and he looks like he actually cares about the answer, gaze bright and attentive.

“Sunday roast,” Albus says. “But I don’t have anyone to cook it for... I mean, I suppose I have Scorpius now, but before... It has to be roast beef. Not chicken or whatever. And there have to be Yorkshire puddings.”

“Of course. It’s not a proper roast without Yorkshires.”

Albus sits up, uncurling his legs and looking at his dad. “I still don’t understand how you get them so fluffy, though. Mine always come out a bit too crispy. They’re too thin.”

“I can give you the recipe if you like,” Harry says. “I was going to give you it when you left home, but...” He trails off, and some of the brightness fades from his eyes.

Albus curls his toes into the sofa, then he swings round, so he’s closer to his dad, sitting next to him, feet on the carpet, nothing but a foot or so of space between them.

“I don’t get it though,” Albus says softly.

“What don’t you get?”

Albus crosses his legs and twists his hands together in his lap. “I don’t get any of it. I... I don’t get why we ended up fighting if you thought all this all along. I don’t get why you didn’t stop everyone saying all that stuff about Scorpius. I don’t understand how we got here.” He gestures to the world at large. “What happened?”

Harry looks at him and shakes his head. “I don’t know.”

Albus frowns. “If we don’t know then how are we supposed to stop it happening again?”

Harry sighs. “Well... maybe I do know. I think it was a lot of things, Albus. You probably know some of them better than me, but... I think we sometimes have the same temper. I get angry, and you can be stubborn and defensive.”

Albus glares at him. “What does that mean?”

Harry smiles at that, and Albus can’t help but smile too, ducking his head.

“Okay, so maybe I can.”

“We clash really well,” Harry continues. “Your mum used to say we were like fireworks going off. Spectacular at times but quite loud and ultimately dangerous if used the wrong way.”

Albus grins. “Am I one of those Roman candles that you think’s going to be incredible but ends up being really disappointing?”

Harry shakes his head. “You’re never disappointing. Difficult, individual, unique, but brilliant in your own way. I’ve seen Sev’s case file, Albus. I know you’re the best at what you do. That’s impressive whether it’s legal or not.”

Albus bows his head as his cheeks heat up. “Thanks,” he mutters. “I think.”

Harry nods. “So that’s the first thing. And the second...” He sighs. “I don’t have an excuse for that. I...” He fiddles with the top button on his waist coat, undoing it then doing it up again. “I suppose I was scared. Actually no, there’s no suppose about it.” He looks at Albus. “I know it was my fault. I know it was that firework factor, that thing between us that meant we could never talk. I know I said some really really, catastrophically stupid things to you. I spent seven years wishing I could erase all those words, all those fights, the things that came out of my mouth when my blood was boiling and I wasn’t thinking. But I can’t erase the past, no one can, whatever they do. You just have to make do with what you have, and my starting point was and still is rock bottom.”

He leans back on the sofa and turns his body to face Albus. “I was really scared that people would find out what a terrible dad Harry Potter is. My parents died for me, you know? I was supposed to be able to follow that example. But there’s something about this, about you, that terrifies me. I-I don’t know what I’m doing, Albus. Lily and James just sort of fell into place, but I was, I am, so out of my depth with you. It’s not your fault, it’s just... This is how it is. I wish it was different but it’s not, and it makes me feel so lost. And then when you ran away...” He rubs his fingers over the back of his scarred hand and stares off into space, not looking at Albus, although Albus can’t look away from him. “It was easier to let people think what they thought than have everyone find out what I’d done.” He looks at Albus and gives a tiny smile. “Not my finest work as a Gryffindor.”

“But Scorpius,” Albus says softly. “What about Scorpius?”

Harry nods. “What about Scorpius...” He sighs and runs a hand through his hair. “I chased you away and then I ruined his life.”

“I think... I think his life was already shit enough before we came along,” Albus murmurs. “And then we both made it worse. Not just you. I was the one who walked out on him... We should set the record straight, somehow. Talk to someone. Make the Prophet publish it.”

Harry nods. “It would definitely be a start.” He skims his fingers over the back of his hand one last time and his shoulders slump. “I’m really sorry, Albus. For everything.”

“I’m sorry too,” Albus whispers. “A-and I missed you. Every day.” He gives a small, shaky smile. “Sometimes I even missed our fights. Just the sound of your voice. I missed you humming in the kitchen and you telling James off, and... I hope it’s okay that I want to come back.” He looks at his dad and the tears come flooding out again, thick and fast and sudden, spilling down his cheeks and dripping right down his neck and into the open collar of his shirt, where they trickle like rain against his skin. “I-I know it’s been seven years but I really want to come home. I want my family back. I want Lily and James and Mum. And I want you. I want to be a Potter again. Please.”

He buries his face in his hands and loses himself, sobbing uncontrollably. It doesn’t matter that his dad is watching. Everything hurts so much, it’s been hurting for longer than he realised. He’s had those words building up inside him for so long that it feels like a dam has broken in his heart and now he can’t stop crying.

“You-“ His dad starts, then stops, and Albus can’t look up to see why. He can barely even listen to what his dad is saying right now. In a way he doesn’t care what the answer is, even though he’s never cared more about the answer to any question in his whole life. Just the fact that he asked it is more than he thought himself capable of.

“Albus,” Harry breathes, and then Albus realises that he’s being hugged. His dad is hugging him, holding him, brushing his fingers through his hair, cradling him like he’s a kid again and he’s fallen in the garden and scraped his knee. It’s a healing, unconditional hug that overwhelms Albus even more than he already is, and he buries his face in his dad’s shoulder and cries even harder, because even though he doesn’t have an answer to his question yet, this hug itself is a sort of answer, and the answer is yes.

“You never stopped being a Potter,” his dad whispers into his hair. “You’re Albus Severus Potter. That’s your name. That’s who you are. You’re- you’re my son, and I love you. I love you very much.”

Albus clings to him, clings to his words, and cries more than he ever has before in his life.

#Harry Potter and the Cursed Child #Cursed Child #Cursed Child fic #Scorbus fic #Scorbus #Scorpius Malfoy #Albus Severus Potter #Ginny Potter #Harry Potter #HPCC fic #Keep The Secrets #My writing #Mine to Make #Mayhem to the nth degree

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prevarchives · 3 years

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Red

I always hated the colour red.

Red, like the car that I see speed across the city streets, a trail of neon light glowing behind it, a mere speck in the bright, bustling city. Red is attention, the theatre curtains unfurling to reveal the actors, center stage, ready to perform their daily routine. It’s lipstick scrawled across a woman’s mouth, her face caked in a mask that she can’t tell apart from her skin anymore. A siren screaming in the night, a street crawling with sin as red as the devil, scarlet light shadowing the worth of their lace, encased hearts.

My eyes drift past a couple as they walk past. One’s in a red dress, the satin draping delicately around her like a headless shroud. Red is passion, the wine of which spills from a cracked glass. Its cherries, plucked straight from the tongue-tied stems of innocence and crushed under the heel of desire. A knife tears through the flesh of a fine-aged steak, letting the red juices drip and drip as we feast, hearts racing and raring like the engine of that car, faster and faster until we stall, our fuel burnt out by our own

I stop at the crossing, my heel tap-tapping on the dim-lit pavement as time drips by. The light goes red, my shadow stretches. Red is danger, the kind that flashes past your eyes as you take an extra step, jump just that little bit too far too fast. It’s danger that pools around your feet like molten magma as the sky smokes up with the ashes of the aftermath. It’s a stop sign that blew over and sticks out of the ground at a sickening angle, Extreme Catastrophe on the weather reports as the alarm bells ring and I scream and cry until my lungs are raw and red.

My pace picks up as the red dissipates, my mind still left staring at the crossing.

Red is spiteful, angry, vindictive. It takes and takes and takes, dissatisfied with the reddened bodies of bloody soldiers, devoured by the lithium-doused flames of so-called patriotism for their country. Red consumes, heat and passion dizzying the minds of all it touches until they can’t hear the cries of those around them begging for them to stop. The steady beeping of a heart monitor pierces my skull, red waves getting further and further apart as your breathing gets shallower and my tears get more frantic. My mind is slipping, the beep-beep echoing in my mind.

Beep. Beep. Beep.

And then, silence.

Red is the colour of the ending, of thoughtless sacrifice as the curtain falls, the mask-caked face forever hidden behind a crimson shroud. It’s the red roses and spider-lilies lain on the grave at a funeral, blood-soaked thorns and spindly petals engraving themselves in the stone. Somewhere, an ash-smoked sky clears as the dust settles, and the sky opens up to a mourning sunset, the sky bleeding as red as those who lie dead in the aftermath of catastrophe. The engine burns out, sputters to a halt on the side of the road.

Red is the colour that took everything away from me.

The glass cracks, and the wine spills from my eyes, tears soaking my hands as I sob uncontrollably. Red lights flicker in the distance, taunting me, as a twisted melody dances in the air. My eyes clamp shut, hands trembling as I feel them dripping red. It clouds my vision, that sickening, cloying hue. Red, red as wine spilled on the tablecloth, blood on the sheets. Red as a sacrificial lamb led to the slaughter, as the carpet of the courthouse floor as pitiless words and accusations are thrown around my head and I stare.

An accident, they said. Merely an accident, that the man in the red sports car drove too fast around the corner, didn’t see the woman in the red dress. An accident, sirens echoing in my head. It haunts me. That scene. I see it in my nightmares, the ones that make me wake up, my hands sheathed in phantom red.

But then… then I met someone. A girl in my class, with cherry curls and ruby lips, and a heart so ripe and full with love to give that I felt it would burst at the slightest touch. At first, I hated her, and why wouldn’t I? We were as different as night and day, the moon and the sun. Her brightness binded me, burning my eyes every time I looked at her.

One day, she asked me why I hated the colour red so much. I told her it was because it made me think of the end of things.

“But you know,” she said, “Just as the sun bleeds red at dusk, it rises from the ashes of the previous day at dawn. You shouldn’t think of it as the end of one thing. After all, without one day ending, another can never begin.”

I didn’t understand what she meant at first. Sometimes I still don’t. But… I think I understand it now.

Red is warmth, not just that which devours, but that which embraces. It's the flames in the fireplace on a cold winter's day, the kind that flicker languidly across the logs, curling up above their bed of ashes. It’s the tingling nerves in the back of the throat that heat up with laughter, festive uproar as someone says something outrageous once more, their filter dulled by rich Merlot. The warmth of a friends embrace as I kneel at the grave, hands blanketing mine as I try not to tremble and shake like the last russet leaf left on the tree.

Red is awakening, forgiveness of the self as I repaint the walls of my bedroom, dawnlight seeping in from afar and bathing me in a soft, ephemeral glow. Feathers rear their head from the bed of the ashes, the fire burnt out by the first petals of Spring blowing past the lacy curtains and landing on a memory, pink and white surrounding red.

Red is rebirth, the rekindling of myself as I laugh for the first time in so long, a bowl of ripe strawberries in my crimson-painted nails as she plucks one from me, shielding her eyes with one hand as she brings me in closer with the other, my face blooming with red. The ashes are gone, swept away, but the Feathers still remain, nestled behind my ear, the sun soaring over us.

But, most of all, red is her. Red is the person who showed me all there is to life, who made me see beyond the wailing sirens, the curtains covering the stage, and showed me how to see. She’s red, just like the lipstick stains she leaves on the corner of my mouth, my nose, anywhere I let her. She’s red like the streaks in her hair, her spindly satin hair that she lets fly loose as a bird at day, and yet weaves so carefully back at night.

I always hated the colour red. It was always too bright, too loud, too much to handle, and I was just a kid left alone, all alone under the sun without some shade. But now it’s different. I’m older, wiser, more experienced and as the sun sets I can finally see now that maybe, just maybe, the colour red isn’t so bad after all.

#mono writes #red #short story #i just really like colour symbolism ok

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ribstongrowback · 6 years

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Drabble 15 - Silence

A void.

In the dark I see a jet black giants’ hands crushing me.

Fear jolting all over my fur.

Nothing.

Wherever my thoughts may reach.

Nothing.

The void. Too heavy. Too deep. Too vast.

There won’t be anything left.

I could see, but everything disintegrates, even my memories.

I’m scared.

A wind takes it all away, hurts, colours, pretty hours. Flames go off. Voices are cut.

Judgements are made and doors are closed.

My hands reach nothing. My body touches nothing. I want to shout by I understand nothing.

I say nothing. My chest is crushing me, hard, heavy, vast. The nameless terror holds me. A giant’s stare. Lidless. Endless. Hateless.

So I open my eyes.

Through the window I admire the stars.

My heart struggles. My head is spinning.

Do the suns who gaze upon our short lives fear of going out?

They see us, watch us. Sometimes I feel their rays brushing on my thoughts.

I rest my hand upon the window.

It’s warm.

I focus on that, on this glass that made me see over the horizon.

Solid.

That do, is dust returning to dust.

They I think about the ship.

More beautiful than the most beautiful of all the horizons we saw thanks to him

I mean. It’s all patched up, beat up, burned up, and cheap. But it’s ours. It’s our memory. It’s a bit of what will be left of us.

Someday it’ll carry another group of small time adventurers, to galaxies far far away.

Maybe it’ll see that sun I see far off among the stars, or maybe what’ll be left of its light.

Someday it’ll be too old.

His pieces will be taken away.

Someday, thoses pieces will be dust again.

Someday, the last star will go out.

My last trace will disappear.

The fingers tighten around my heart.

My head spins. I’m scared.

Space is too vast. Too many thoughts. Too many minds.

Void...

The human twitches.

She hugs my pillow, looking for me without waking up.

I caress her mind, she’s dreaming of me.

She, too, will go out.

I nest myself between her arms.

I’m scared.

I think she is too.

Far off, a sun goes out. Someone screams. A world is consumed. Another sinks into oblivion, and a Prince ends his life.

Close by, a breath down my neck.

My fur gets warmer.

My heart inflates.

Her breath is warm.

Her hands are soft.

I hold them oh so very tight against my heart, she kisses my back.

She caresses me and I cry softly under her digits.

So I turn back, my forehead against hers, and I slide my own fingers along her hills.

Humans have this strange softness I have never seen anywhere else. This not quite fur that sprinkles their skins like cacti in the deserts back home. Both smooth and rough at the same time. When my fingers run along her skin, I feel like I’m going both along and against the fur’s direction.

My hand reaches her hips, because she brings it slowly towards my fingers.

I know what she wants me to find.

I kiss her lips.

I light a small sun between her legs.

She drowns the void as her voice wakes up.

#sapphic #gay #lesbian #space #wanderers of the endless sky #Lyn'Reo #catgirl #humans are weird #angst #existencial fear

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eulawilliams · 4 years

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Violet Flame Of Saint Germain | Prayers And Mantras of the Flame

Have you ever heard of the Violet Flame of Saint Germain?

The Flame is a spiritual energy that corresponds to the frequency of violet light. People with spiritual sight are able to see the violet flame and have described it as a beautiful flame or aura. The flame represents the combined spiritual energy of love, freedom, justice, mercy, and change, wrapping it all together to create one flame.

The methods to use the violet flame is taught by Saint-German, an Ascended Master.

One of the Causes Behind Miracles

He teaches how the Violet Flame is one of the causes behind miracles, a way of conducting heavenly alchemy and a solution for all spiritual problems today.

The Violet Flame is one of the most important things to the spiritual world. Throughout history, saints have used the Violet Flame to ascend their spiritual vision. Working with the flame accelerates progress beyond what can be imagined and it takes a talented person to truly understand what can be accomplished with it. A rare and lucky few experienced the flame first hand and came to know of the power it held within. The true nature of the Violet Flame was not shared with the public for many years.

History Of The Violet Flame

For much of history, the Violet Flame remained a secret. Only members of the Great White Brotherhood were taught the ways of the flame. Then at the dawn of the 20th century, the doors opened on the spiritual world. The wider public became aware of the flame and its properties. Now the wisdom and strength of the flame can be taught around the world. Saint Germain (image above) and the other Masters have worked for over eighty years to ensure the world becomes ready for the age where peace and freedom are possible.

The New Song

Saint Germain himself was spoken of in the Book of Revelation as the Seventh Angel, who teaches our souls how to rise higher, and how to sing the New Song. The New Song is a song of spiritual energy and freedom that the world hasn’t seen for far too long. During the 1930s, Saint-German appeared to the author Godfre Ray King and bestowed upon him the teachings of how to progress swiftly along the spiritual path using the violet flame and affirmations. It was recorded that while Saint-German was speaking of the Violet Flame he said:

“The use of the violet consuming flame is more valuable to you and to all mankind than all the wealth, all the gold and all the jewels of this planet.”

He went on to talk about the violet flame in books such as: I AM Discourses, The Magic Presence, and Unveiled Mysteries. He never stopped preaching the ways of the violet flame through the 1960s, all the way up to 2000. He taught Prophets the practice so they may continue on the spiritual path to Aquarius. The Age of Aquarius is the age where freedom and peace on Earth are possible for all people. That is the goal of Masters of the Violet Flame. To bring the world into this new age of freedom.

Violet Flame Decrees & Mantras

The Violet Flame decree has great power within it. The power to harness and focus energy using the power of the spoken word. The spoken word is the most important part. When speaking, speak with the authority of the Father-Mother God, always with the “I AM.”

An example of a more basic Violet Flame decree or mantra is

I AM the Violet Flame In action in me now I AM the Violet Flame To Light alone I bow I AM the Violet Flame In mighty Cosmic Power I AM the Light of God Shining every hour I AM the Violet Flame Blazing like a sun I AM God’s sacred power Freeing everyone

Simple Yet Powerful Mantra

“I AM the Violet Flame” may be simple, but it is very powerful. It is short and able to be repeated many times while retaining focus.

It reminds me of the mantra of Hooponopono Healing. That is why “I AM the Violet Flame” is a popular and well-known mantra, perhaps the best one of all. A strong connection with the flame can be established and held for a long time while using this mantra.

Keep Trying and You Will Succeed

In the beginning, most people are likely to see only a flicker of the flame or nothing it all.

That shouldn’t be discouraging. It can take a long time for trust in the flame to flourish and the connection to become strong. Once the flame appears, work every day to keep the connection from vanishing. There are a few helpful steps that can be carried out for the most successful decrees each day. They are below, and while not everyone will be suitable in every situation, it is a great help for those unsure how to go about doing so.

Set Aside Time Every Day

It is possible to give Violet Flame decrees anywhere and anytime.

It doesn’t matter if you are getting ready for bed or driving to work.

Simply repeating the decrees can help you when you are feeling tired, stressed or upset.

However, the most benefit from saying the decrees comes when you set aside at least fifteen minutes a day.

Set up a space dedicated to the flame, like a chapel or well lit and clean room.

Begin With Prayer

Before you start your decrees, give out a prayer to the Masters, angels and elementals.

Call them and ask for their help.

The elementals of earth, fire, water, earth, and air, would only be happy to help cleanse your spirit and body. Repeating the prayer once is enough, but it is possible to do it multiple times. End on the note that feels most comfortable.

Start Out Slow

Starting off the decrees slowly and deliberately has much more power. Mean every word and carefully sound them out. Then as time goes on, speed them up until you are talking normally. This adds more power to the decrees and means you will have a better connection with the flame than if you had started off quickly from the beginning.

Visualize The Flame

Only very lucky people will see the flame with their physical eyes.

But it is possible to see it with your inner eye.

Close your eyes and concentrate on the energy flowing between your eyes.

By doing so, it is sometimes possible to see the flame from within.

People who have seen the flame say it can be anywhere from bright purple to a dark indigo color.

Sometimes the flame is burning through debris.

Heal Past Lives

It is not uncommon for those who have worked with the Violet Flame and become experienced to recall their past lives. This is a blessing, but it can come with consequences. The choices made in the past life and their karmic implications will arise and will need to be cleansed if some of those choices were poor. Don’t be discouraged if this is needed. Remembering past lives is a gift and it is important to use the lessons from them and grow as a person in your current life.

Violet Flame Prayers

It was touched on above that starting off with a prayer is a great idea. That should be done before a mantra is said. During prayer, thank the elementals, the Masters, and Saint Germain. Without them, the knowledge of how to connect with the Violet Flame would have never been available and you would not be prepared to say a mantra.

The spirits will appreciate the acknowledgment of their efforts and understand your goals. You want to cleanse your spirit and that of the Earth around you. Embrace it and the spirits will embrace you, along with the Flame. Everyone’s prayers can be different. Choose or develop one that resonates with you the most. It will help the connection between you and the spirits more then if you just randomly picked one. Do the time to figure out what works best and go from there.

Conclusion

The best way to become experienced is to find fellow practitioners of the Flame.

They will be able to pass down their knowledge to you and offer advice on how to forge the best connection possible with the flame. Their teachings will help you to remember past lives and shed any karmic debts attached to them. It is also a good idea to read books on the subject. Learn about the history of the Violet Flame and your appreciation for what Saint Germain and the Masters did will only increase. There are also YouTube videos and online lessons available, however, it is of the utmost importance to make sure the information is reliable before consuming it.

youtube

Listening to false information can harm the progress you have made and keep you from advancing farther. But, don’t let that be discouraging. Trust yourself and the flame. Even if you are just starting out, there is more than enough room for you. Embrace the flame and understand why it has spread around the globe.

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ryanjkohnson · 4 years

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Violet Flame Of Saint Germain | Prayers And Mantras of the Flame

Have you ever heard of the Violet Flame of Saint Germain?

The methods to use the violet flame is taught by Saint-German, an Ascended Master.

One of the Causes Behind Miracles

He teaches how the Violet Flame is one of the causes behind miracles, a way of conducting heavenly alchemy and a solution for all spiritual problems today.

History Of The Violet Flame

The New Song

“The use of the violet consuming flame is more valuable to you and to all mankind than all the wealth, all the gold and all the jewels of this planet.”

Violet Flame Decrees & Mantras

An example of a more basic Violet Flame decree or mantra is

Simple Yet Powerful Mantra

“I AM the Violet Flame” may be simple, but it is very powerful. It is short and able to be repeated many times while retaining focus.

Keep Trying and You Will Succeed

In the beginning, most people are likely to see only a flicker of the flame or nothing it all.

Set Aside Time Every Day

It is possible to give Violet Flame decrees anywhere and anytime.

It doesn’t matter if you are getting ready for bed or driving to work.

Simply repeating the decrees can help you when you are feeling tired, stressed or upset.

However, the most benefit from saying the decrees comes when you set aside at least fifteen minutes a day.

Set up a space dedicated to the flame, like a chapel or well lit and clean room.

Begin With Prayer

Before you start your decrees, give out a prayer to the Masters, angels and elementals.

Call them and ask for their help.

Start Out Slow

Visualize The Flame

Only very lucky people will see the flame with their physical eyes.

But it is possible to see it with your inner eye.

Close your eyes and concentrate on the energy flowing between your eyes.

By doing so, it is sometimes possible to see the flame from within.

People who have seen the flame say it can be anywhere from bright purple to a dark indigo color.

Sometimes the flame is burning through debris.

Heal Past Lives

Violet Flame Prayers

Conclusion

The best way to become experienced is to find fellow practitioners of the Flame.

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glambitions-a · 4 years

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cracked door, i always wanna let you in.

prompt : part two of my audrey centric fic! part one | part three

tags (open): @cherry-bxtch, @cosmosstarstudio

what audrey should’ve done with her spare time was think up an apology for her friend ally, uma. but instead, she spent it with a pair of pink tinted heart-shaped sunglasses on her eyes and a shopping bag on her arms. it was considerably less fun without chad, or even gil (because apparently he liked fashion too.) audrey was particularly good at blowing off emotions, pretending that her gnawing guilt screaming at her in her head wasn’t there was all too easy.

yesterday was friday, and today is saturday which means she doesn’t have to go to school, and she can stay and mope all day. (and try on her fabulous clothes duhsies) if chad were here, they’d order a pizza and online shop until they fell asleep, and then they’d wake up and talk shit about everything that pissed them off that week. and god, she missed it so damn much.

but now, her day consisted of pretending to study, which made her feel sick to her stomach because all she could think about was storming off out of uma’s room. she accidentally imagined sitting with the three pirates and studying with them instead, which made her decide to blow off studying for a few more hours. then, she fell on top of her bed and stared at the ceiling, ignoring the television rambling about mal and ben being the cutest couple since forever. (she ignored the part where it said that she was just a stuck up gold digger, as angry as it made her.)

audrey couldn’t react, she was a princess for god’s sake. she wasn’t any of those things they accused her of right? she was doing better than before, she had volunteered on the isle, helped restore the damage she had done, and apologized. the only word that seemed to be coming out of her mouth these days was ‘sorry’. she had to be better. if she wasn’t her grandmother would never let her back into the castle.

her grandmother had made her stay at school to keep the other woman safe, like she was afraid of being attacked by her own fucking granddaughter. it still burns in her heart (her own grandmother won’t trust her), and she can’t seem to keep the flame put out no matter what. but she can’t get angry, princesses don’t get angry no matter what happens. they turned the other cheek and smiled gracefully.

it’s harder to push down feelings if she has friends and people to talk to. but nobody wants her. she had apologized to everyone, but it wasn’t enough. it’s not like she blamed them, she was a bitch.

audrey groans and she visibly winces at how un-ladylike it had sounded. the princess reached down to where her feet lay, dropping her phone down next to her from where she was scrolling through a gossip column from a random magazine. she tugged at the fluffy blanket that was bunched up around her sock covered feet, bring it up to rest on her body as she practically hid in it. her bed was unmade, which disgusted her because she had always been taught to be clean and tidy, but today was the exception.

she empty hole in her chest is supposed to feel warm and fill because it would be filled with loved ones and friends. instead, she is alone and her whole body feels cold sometimes. (but maybe that’s just the remnants of her mother’s curse and her own.) she keeps pushing people, falling into her old habits. the sneering voice in her mind in her mind tells her that she could have it all, if only she touched the staff again. but even with how much anger audrey had, she didn’t let it consume her. she knows that if she ever touched that staff again, she would fall prey to the same curse as her mother, but no one loves her enough to wake her.

she finds that it’s a wretched thing to be alone. and while her sweatpants and comfy cheer sweatshirt are soft around her body and bare skin, it isn’t enough. what she really wants is to be held. nobody has even put a hand on her shoulder since what seems like forever ago. even when people brush up against her they flinch away like they had been burned horribly. clinging to ben is a distant memory, and hugging chad is even fainter than that.

the buzzing of her phone startles her, she imagines it’s just a stupid prank call from when those petty reporters got a hold of her cell number and had broad casted it live because she wouldn’t tell them if she was possessed. she had still gotten some of those calls, so it wouldn’t surprise her if it was just some kid.

but it buzzed again, and even as she pushed a pillow on top of it, the muffled sounds continued. she groaned and pulled it out, squinting at the bright screen. she had closed her curtains earlier, and it was nearly nine at night, meaning the darkness of her room with only the lamp was a great contrast to the screen of both her t.v. and her phone, but one was closer to her eyes than the other.

in all honesty, her heart jumped in her chest when she found it wasn’t an unknown caller. no, the i.d. clearly read ‘uma’. she nearly dropped her phone, the buzzing seemed to grow louder as she shakily pressed accept, lifting it up to her ear, “hello?”

“are you done?” the sharpness of her tone startles audrey, her brows furrow in confusion. the blonde fists a small hand nervously in her sweatshirt, gnawing on her lip.

“uhm, done with what?”

“are you done being a little bitch, yet? gil told me to wait, so i waited. i’m done waiting, either come over or don’t. i’m not playing these games with you, remember?” audrey curls in herself, tears pricking at her eyes. stress makes her cry, she remembers sitting in classrooms begging her teachers to let her take the exams at lunch. when she was sad, she turned angry, but she never cried.

“uma, i-” she fights to keep her voice from shaking, uma is not allowed to know that the teal haired girl talking to her is enough to make her cry. “it’s late, and dark.” she manages to force that out of her before taking a shaky breath, “i’ll get in trouble.”

“harry’s already on his way, good luck.” she hears the phone line cut off and she drops the phone on her lap before rolling into her blanket. she brought her head to her knees, curling up into a fetal position. only the top of her head poked out at the top of the blanket, but she wasn’t paying much attention.

she squeezed her eyes to get rid of the budding tears. her heart clenched in her chest having to think about what uma will say to her. audrey won’t kid with herself, ‘interrogation’ was a pretty low blow. she didn’t even know why she was crying, she can’t let herself get so emotional, it doesn’t matter anyways. nothing had happened to her. she’s fine, everything’s fucking fine.

she gets too wrapped in her thoughts and almost doesn’t hear the harsh knocking on her door. damn, she didn’t lock it. she can’t stay buried under the covers (because for some god damn reason, she wants to look presentable for pirates. how pathetic is that?) now it hits her that harry hook is right outside her door, ready to take her who knows where, and she looks like a former a-lister on crack.

her voice betrays her as it comes out shrill when she calls screeches, “just a minute!” she tugs her sweatshirt off, begging silently to whoever the hell is in charge that harry hook actually fucking listens to her for once. she’s one unlocked door away from a teenage boy and she doesn’t have a shirt on, god how could she let herself get like this? she practically trips over to her closet, snatches a pale colored sweater off of the hanger and pulls it over her body. she does a quick look in the mirror, a very faint blush arises as she notices the lacy bralette straps that are visible on her shoulders.

but no matter, she swipes on some lip gloss in a very timely manner. (if she does say so herself.) trying her best not to fall, she steps out of those comfortable but dreadful looking (and the way they look is all that matters, certainly not how they feel, who cares about that?) sweatpants and pulls on skinny jeans that she had snagged from the closet as well. (again, not comfortable per se, but she’s not going out looking like a mother of nineteen children with a hangover) fluffy socks have to leave as well, replacing with soft but not fluffy white ankle socks.

she adjusts herself in the mirror, going to open the door, braiding her hair with one hand and she finishes with a hastily done side braid that falls onto her back. pleased, she opens the door to an impatiently waiting harry hook.

“do princesses always sleep like this?” his head is cocked to the side and his arms are crossed, unimpressed. (which makes her heart hurt in her chest and that causes her to shrink back a little too much)

“oh, uhm, no they don’t.” she says sheepishly. “i just changed, is all.” her hands instinctively goes to fiddle with the end of her braid. a twinge of nervousness recollects in her stomach returns as she looks up at him and it’s because he looks like he’s analyzing her.

“why?” she opens the door a little more, feeling the need to curl in on herself in the gaze of a pirate seems rather silly, but she needs to be polite. (the angry voice in her head tells her to lock the door in his face and do what the hell she wants, but she ignores it, of course. she’s a princess for god’s sake.) “we’re not going anywhere fancy, just to uma’s room.” he sounds tired, he’s tired of her. he wants to leave, audrey can tell. a million self-deprecating thoughts are whirling through her mind, he’s only here because uma asked him to be here. he doesn’t want to see audrey. (nobody does)

“oh, i just wanted to look...” she’s struggling to answer with anything but, ’i wanted to look pretty’. “uhm, i just wanted to look not ugly.” okay, officially, that was the dumbest effing thing she’s ever said. she sees the confusion on harry’s face and exhales, rocking on her toes.

he scoffs and rolls his eyes, “you couldn’t look ugly if you tried.” she blushes at that and opens the door wide enough so that he could come in.

“do you know why uma wants me to come over?” he follows her in as she sits down on the bed, crossing her ankles. her tone is polite, (and stiff) she tries to keep it sound calm and unpracticed (like she doesn’t practice sentences in the mirror because she doesn’t.)

“is it weird in auradon to want to spend time with your friends?” audrey blinks, they’re friends? gil had told her that they didn’t have friends on the isle, just non-enemies (and yes, that’s exactly how he said it.)

“we’re friends?” it sounds too snarky and she almost flinches with an apology at the tip of her tongue. uma tells her that she hates how much she apologizes, but she does it anyways. “sorry, i just thought there wasn’t friends on the isle.” she hates the way she sounds, she sounds so judgy. and there’s no way uma wants to be her friend, she attempted to attack her with magic suits of armor.

harry’s sitting next to her now, and in the midst of her talking he had grabbed her pale pink fluffy blanket (unbeknownst to him that she had been curled up in it only minutes before) and now had it in his hands. “well, we’re not on the isle anymore, are we princess?” his voice doesn’t waver at princess, doesn’t turn upwards in a mocking way. he means it in a nickname, which makes her melt a little more then it should. “besides, even if we were, i think she’d still.” he wraps the blanket around her shoulders, she takes the edges in her fingers like a cape or a cloak. “i think we both would, and gil too.”

she’s got a shy pathetic little smile on as she looks down to her feet. she nods, “oh," her voice is so soft and small and so unlike her that it makes her sick to her stomach. princesses aren’t supposed to like being around pirates, they’re supposed to be scared. and for a minute she forgets that she’s supposed to be scared too.

something buzzes from harry’s hoodie pocket, he takes it out to see the text that popped up on the screen. squinting at it, he says, “uma wants us back now, are you ready?”

she inhales and rubs her hands over her thighs, “yeah, i am.”

ʚĭɞ | if you want to be on my taglist, all you have to do is like this post. i’m calling this series sleeping soundly, i just came up with this randomly but i like it?? i wrote a fair bit of this on a zoom call with my therapist so i maybe might of made this too angsty,,,,, oopsies. audrey has friends that care about her and she doesn’t know how to act asdfghjkl ଘ(੭*ˊᵕˋ)੭* ੈ♡‧₊˚ - rory

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kristie-rp · 4 years

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4. it goes like this

Who: Raven Nifircadu What: a novel of character; growing up, or not.

It goes like this:

The first time she uses her magic, it’s an accident. It’s a prickling sensation on her fingertips, a tingling sensation against her lips like the colour that is starting to be popular in the upper echelons of society, and her whispered intent brings the horse that might have trampled the neighbours beloved cat to a complete standstill. The hose looks startled, and so does the rider, blinking at her as she scoops the cat off of the dirt track.

The cat purrs and rubs its’ head against her chin, and she laughs in delight, pleased to have saved the critter from suffering, and the rider the trauma of murdering an innocent animal. It happens, sometimes – has happened before, to the ducklings born last spring to the blonde family down the street, as she remembers with unfortunate clarity – but that doesn’t mean it is welcome.

So Raven saves the cat by accident, and the word stop tastes like something minty and powerful on her lips, and she thinks to herself, this is something I enjoy, the way she enjoys a story from the local teller or accounts of lore from anywhere but home.

This is something I can learn.

“Thank you!” she exclaims, a little too excited. The bookseller is a man with red hair and eyeglasses – or maybe it’s actually the woman with soft-looking brown skin, dressed in a servants attire on the seat at his side.

The woman smiles, and it is less soft than the mans, something sharp in it. “I only ask that you don’t struggle through it all on your own. Myself or her highness would be happy to help if necessary – or there are other experts. Other magically inclined individuals.”

Raven runs a hand through her dark hair, dragging it back towards the braid the breeze has freed it from. “There are others? I mean – of course there are others, there wouldn’t be a book, otherwise. But there are people who understand that are – accessible? To me?”

The womans smile sharpens, somehow. For a servant, she looks almost regal – if she is a servant of the queen as she claims, then perhaps, Raven thinks, perhaps she learned the expression from her majesty herself. “Come by the castle and see for yourself what we know,” she suggests.

Raven is perhaps too eager to do so.

The first ritual she completes is almost a failure. This other person – a woman with no colour to her at all aside from the raised scars Raven pretends she doesn’t see when she loans her a cloak – hums something when Raven goes over it all, and suggests that she ensure the blood at the corners is fresh on application.

And the woman – Lady Sarina, she was introduced as, though Raven privately doubts someone so subdued is nobility here – is right. Raven substitutes the days old blood from the calf draining done by the butcher for something freshly wrung from a chicken set for execution anyway. The bloodletting is quick, and with the blood painted into the right places and the incantation successfully invoked, Raven actually applauds the flaring light at each corner. There’s a gleam to the air after the fact, a blend of the four colours that had manifested: red and violet and blue and a vibrant orange, all twisted together in an enchanting, shimmering mess.

“It’s a protection spell,” she tells her mother with a grin, when she’s explaining it later that day. The aging woman shakes her head in bemusement, but for all her scepticism, she cannot contest the gleam in the corner of her eye whenever she’s home. “And fair health, for good measure. There is a spell for fortune, but it’s trickier. The money would have to come from somewhere,” Raven explains, and goes on and on and on.

The possibilities of magic don’t really have an end, she’s learning. The real magic is in the intent – and even before she learned of the magic in her words, she’d been told she was wilful. This is just using it.

It goes like this:

Raven had been discouraged from using summoning spells, despite the fact that everyone she spoke to knew them to be useful. Intella had had a host of warnings to offer about the dangerous nature of dealing with tricky immortals. December had said something about the fallibility of traps. Rikku had been the one to remind the group of the fact that demons themselves were physically dangerous, and should not be dealt with with magic alone, lest the spells lend them power.

“Not to mention,” Sarina had added, “it’s quite rude to drag them from their homes to answer some questions you could answer yourselves, were you willing to do the legwork.” She’d left not long after that, disappeared to wherever it is Sarina goes when she isn’t being mysterious and proud and generally pretty confusing.

(She both seems delighted that Raven is happy to talk magic, and annoyed as well. It is as though she doesn’t want to discuss the thing they have in common all the time – but Raven knows where to find others to talk about human things with, and Sarina simply isn’t on the list.)(This is at least in part because she knows Sarina doesn’t actually seem entirely at ease in their small city.)

So Raven has been discouraged from summoning spells, but apparently someone else wasn’t, because a thing called Dante is standing on the ashes of most of their homes and grinning like a lunatic, and December and Intella both have called the man a demon.

“That’s not very fair, is it,” Raven says. She’s fairly sure the horses got out; if they didn’t, she is going to have a Problem with this Dante person. “How come no one gave whoever summoned him the speech?”

Rikku doesn’t give her a look, because she is much too professional at this hunting business to do so, but Paimon does. Paimon, apparently, is a demon who walks the earth. Raven had thought for a long time he was nothing more than a particularly hot-headed neighbour, one with a tiny wisp of a wife fading away on a sick bed while he struggled and failed to raise their children.

(The wife died in the fires, perhaps ironically, she learns. Dante led to her death, but technically it was Paimon’s own flame that consumed her, used in a bid to get the invader out of their home, their city, their land. Dante left the city, and not much else.)

“This is a very delicate process,” Paimon says again, hammering the point home. Raven does not roll her eyes, because she is a grown woman and she can pretend to be the respectful person her mother wants her to be at least once before she passes. “And dangerous to you mortals. You will be reborn, of course, I can promise you will be reborn,” and Raven wonders what that faraway look in his angry, burning, viciously violet eyes means. “I cannot guarantee you will live.”

Intella agrees because she feels she is obligated; besides, her primary contribution has been finding the ritual itself, and bringing it to their attention. The others have less to risk, or so they feel; Rikku and December have responsibilities, and Paimon was never going to back out if his bride was in danger or gone. Dante is too powerful for their usual measures of containment, but an old demon rite can lock anyone in the pit, and it takes five to complete it. Someone of demonic descent, celestial blood, immortal blood, mortal, and magical: Paimon, Rikku (for reasons Raven has not gotten a chance to ask, either, not without getting a capital-L-Look from the foreign sword master), Queen December, Intella, and Raven herself.

“Your part is the most dangerous,” Intella had said to Raven. It was between hours, between the peak of the full moon and the fall of dusk, long after Paimon checked yet again that everyone involved was in agreement, but only shortly before they had to begin the arrangements for the ritual itself. They need to lead Dante to a specific place in the city, a nexus along the old ley lines Paimon had shown them maps for without citing his sources, and the ritual will serve two purposes. It will draw the demon to a place where the five of them can be sure the magic will do what they want it to, and it will serve as a demon’s trap.

“I know,” Raven had said, and smiled, perhaps a little grimly, but mostly in excitement. She’d only been fairly young, after all, perhaps thirty years old. She was still excited about the possibilities of magic, and what it could do for her, and for the world.

She should never have been alone at any point, but she is, the others caught up in sentiment and the chaos of their own plan falling apart.

Except, Raven knows doesn’t know her own limits. She hasn’t learned them, not from Intella’s input or Sarina’s, and she never will. Not in this lifetime. She knows what her role is, and she sets her will to completing it.

And she does – but the final act is synchronous with Dante burning her alive from the inside out, and her soul is dragged down through the nexus she was not able to escape.

It goes like this:

Falling, plunging, spiralling darkness streaked with flame and ash and soot and burning –

Screaming, high and sharp, constant, never ending; where the fall ends, the pain begins, and it does not stop, won’t stop, not for anybody, not for –

Pain, no, agony – boredom makes even the kindest people dangerous, and Dante was never kind and she is stuck, trapped, imprisoned –

I can promise you will be reborn, the King without a crown had sworn, and yet she is here for an eternity of stabbing and burning and fear and torment and misery and loneliness broken only by him and his glittering golden skin and his high, cutting laughter –

The magic had tingled, once, breaking her out of a reverie of almost. Now, the tingling starts in her bones.

If she holds her breath and tries to enjoy it, to chase the feeling of her magic staying with her when everything else fell apart, it burns.

It goes like this:

Humans do not remember their past lives, not unless they are the toys or experiments of a bored divine entity. The gods are immortals, and they are bored.

Somewhere in Europe, the Industrial Revolution is remaking the world. Raven is lying awake in a bed in what will be the Middle East, terrified of the nightmares formed by her memories of the place between lives.

It’s a loophole, and not a pleasant one. She does not know if Dante has cursed her or tainted her in his decades of torment, because she cannot recall it without her body aching in all too familiar ways, cannot think of it objectively past the ghost of the pain as fresh as the original wound – she cannot remember for sure whether or not he did anything to make this last. Her magic simmers in her veins and for all she tries to figure it out, to determine exactly what has been done to her, none of the spells she tries produce the ring of a magical curse. So it is either demonic or not a curse, and she can do nothing either way.

Raven gets older, and the pains become – not easier to live with, because they are a reminder of something she should not remember, but something she is used to. They get worse when it is hot, and it is often hot, in the place she calls home for the first twenty-something years of her second life. She is grateful to leave it behind.

She is less grateful to find herself at deaths’ door less than a year after.

She fights off her would-be killer by spilling their blood herself, and she does not know what drives her to it, but she weaves a protection spell into the earth where she would camp using his blood. The air simmers in shades of red and violet, blue and orange, and she almost smiles to see it.

She doesn’t do much of that, this time around.

She gets older, and while she can look after herself and fend off attackers, there is a constant fear in the back of her mind. She can learn all the healing spells she likes, but the fact remains that if her body continues to wear, it will start to be less effective, less able to respond when she needs it.

At some point, she hears about Elizabeth Bathory, an old Hungarian noble who did the unthinkable to maintain her looks. It’s a fools legend, or at least that’s what Raven thinks, but she has the evidence that blood is powerful in the air around her more often than not, woven into the ground. And human blood – well. She drained some from her would-be-killer, and even when only mixed with something else, it produces a stronger ward than anything she has cast before.

Elizabeth Bathroy bathed in the blood of virgins to stay beautiful. Raven doesn’t give a damn about her beauty, natural though it is. What she cares about is longevity and immortality, anything she can do to avoid experiencing that in-between place again.

It goes like this:

Experimentation can take a lifetime to bear results. Raven just needs a night and a sickly child, slated for death regardless of her interference, to learn enough to know she won’t be sharing this ritual with anyone else.

The things we do to avoid our personal demons, to avoid whatever we are afraid of, indeed.

#ft. raven #kwrites #kwriting #kristie writes #kristie's writing #nanowrimo2019

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hmratking · 7 years

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Unexpected Trip, Part 1

(A collaborative rp with @lilthessa and myself)

“May I?” The seer then suddenly leaned over and gave the Flea a hug.

“May you wh–” The Flea stopped in mid-sentence and thought as the lovely Seer hugged him. He smiled and exhaled unnecessarily. There was a sense of relief and understanding from her. He patted her arm around him. “Only if I may as well.” He shifted to return the hug. He understood her pain. He understood that need to wear masks when the world demanded the hurt to be strong. For others. And yet, the pain never ceased. It only dwelled deep in the pit of their being. And with that embrace, he only hoped that she felt a bit of relief just as he did with her hug.

LIlthessa nodded, allowing him such things. She though sort of sunk into his arms. Her eyes closed as she felt his warmth even though he was undead. She did not want to really let go, but after a few moments, brushing away a few tears that had fallen from her eyes she nodded, and slowly moved away. “Thank you.. I needed it. Forgive me for just.. Hugging you like that.” She looked away from him, not wanting him to see the tracks of the tears that had just fallen, and a bit embarrassed at the sudden sign of affection.

As she moved away, he saw her turn away, and he smiled sympathetically. He reached out for her chin, hoping she would turn to see him. “There is nothing to forgive, Seer. Where there is pain, comfort is necessary, and in this unforgiving world, there are few we can trust. I thank you for yours.” He smiled gently and his cold fingers reached to assist in removing some of those tears. “It’s okay to cry. Especially around me.” He reached into his suit pocket and pulled out the folded handkerchief. Offering it to her, he looked at her and sighed. “The process will be a long one, but our hearts will mend, even my cold one.”

She looked at him then with his gentle urging. Her eyes watered down as she took a deep breath. “You have done nothing yet to dissuade that. Though I am still cautious.” She took the handkerchief and dabbed it a bit at her eyes. “Though if I start crying again, I’ll be waterworks..” She gave him a soft, shy smile before sitting back down again. She held onto the handkerchief though tightly. “I hope you can mend too, my friend. I can only hope that I can aid you, too. As well.”

He nodded, understanding the bit about trust. He watched her take her seat and he smiled at her. “You have helped me, friend. More than you can possibly imagine. Say but the word, and I shall keep you company so that you are free to weep without care.” The Flea smiled warmly and looked down at the teacup in front of him. He fought his tears very hard. The last thing she needed to see was blood streaming from his eyes. And so he took comfort in her company, in the warm tea, and in friendship.

Lil nodded. “Of course. Thank you.” She bowed her own head towards him, taking another breath and refilling her own teacup. She dipped the cookie in the tea and ate it slowly. “Though I hope I am not keeping you. There are more things I’m sure to do in the Rat Kingdom than commiserate with a wretch like me.”

The Flea reached into his pocket and pulled out his pocket watch, flipping it open to look at the time. He snapped it closed, placed it back in his pocket and turned to smile at her. “I have plenty of time, dear Seer. The King will simply have to wait.” He took his teacup and sipped as he looked at her from behind his rose-tinted glasses.

Lil nodded and watched him a moment before taking another deep breath. “Are you sure it’s okay?” She though refilled his teacup with the hot water and took another breath before crumpling over in her seat. “I sort of want to burn everything and anything. I feel pain, I feel rage..and yet I am hopeless to all of them. And part of me wants to just find a demon and torture it…I miss him, my whole soul does. I feel very much alone in the darkness now.”

He had heard those words before and he fought hard to not go into recruiting mode. He cleared his throat and nodded. “I know how you feel. As I said, I know who murdered my Maddie, and it took great strength to not end her life.” He lifted the cup to his lips. “As much as I wanted to.” The Flea took a sip and placed the cup back on the saucer. “We should find something for you to burn. I would rather you burn a tree down than suffer with that pain because darkness consumes and you are not one who should be consumed by darkness. Leave that to the heathens such as myself.” He winked at her and smiled. “Where would you like to go. I can take you anywhere you like.”

She watched him softly a moment, taking a deep breath. “Sometimes revenge is something that only comes and bites you. I’m sure you had your reasons though beyond just simple kindness. I can see it in your eyes, there is still a great struggle there…”

“Sadly, in my case it is silly to take revenge on the ocean. “ She gave a soft laugh, a hollow laugh, at the thought of it. Yelling at the ocean got you nowhere. She sighed. “I don’t know.. part of me is already consumed by it. “ She shook her head. “There is much you do not know about me, Flea. The fact that I am a warlock..might have not escaped your notice, but there are other things. It will have me, perhaps in the end. But I can only whisper and say ‘not today.’ As for burning. I fear that once I start again, it make take a bit to douse the fire..It might not be very controlled..” Lil sighed again, draining her second cup of tea in a gulp and rising, now she was pacing back and forth. “Know of any places then?”

Her words saddened him for he knew those were the exact words his boss wanted to hear. No, he didn’t dare. He forced a smile on his lips. “I may not know much about you, but it goes both ways, Lilthessa. There is a great struggle there, but I’m trying hard to carry on.” He rose from his chair and dusted himself off. Tucking the chair in, he turned to look at her.

“Perhaps it is silly to take revenge on an ocean, but sometimes that ocean can be the most soothing thing in your life. Would you like to go take revenge on the ocean? I hear it doesn’t like it when you skip stones across its face.” He walked toward her and extended his hand out to her. “If not there, then Moonglade has always been a favorite place of mine for peace and quiet. It is your choice, my dear Seer.”

She thought a moment, turning on her heels. “Have you ever seen the ocean with a layer of fire over it? It’s beautiful, and when the water finally tries to stifle the flames, a mist rises.. Though stones.” Despite her sorrow she couldn’t help but smile a bit. “Stones I haven’t skipped since I was a small child. We could go to the shore, but I must write a note first.” She left him in the backroom, filled with the candle lantern and the table and the tea set and cups . A whistle and a black cat came streaking in the room, taking the folded up note and then vanished. Lil nodded and then came back into the backroom.

“Let’s clean up a bit. and then we can head out. I just needed to send a message to my daughter.” She then started to collect the tea cups and cookies.

The Flea chuckled softly, “I would like to see that.” He nodded at her stepping out and waited patiently. When she emerged, and began to collect the cookies and cups, he joined her in cleaning up. When she was ready, he created his portal right there, the crackling and humming of arcane magic filling the air, waiting for them to pass through to Hinterlands, where he knew the ocean off the shore was calm and relaxing.

She let out a soft gasp at the portal opening. “I had no idea you were a mage.” She admitted and then took a deep breath. “I suppose just step into the circle..” Lil grabbed a few little personal items and then stepped through the wobbling image. There was always a moment of dizziness afterwards. She remembered the last time she had stepped through a portal like this. Sen used to zap them around the world. It was useful, but she had always felt a little sick afterwards. Memories of him flooded up again but she brushed the tears away with her sleeve as she waited for the Flea to arrive, her gaze turned to peer at the new scenery around her.

Being used to so many portals and the arcane magic that ran through him was the same he used for the portal, but he knew how his ‘passengers’ usually felt afterward and he waited for Lilthessa on the other side with his arms extended in case she felt faint.

The location was isolated. The Forbidding Sea stretched out in front of them, wave crashing against the shore, leaving behind ripples in the sand. The grass that grew behind them was green and bounced up with each step that attempted to suppress it. The nearest home belonged to a dwarf almost a mile away, but the Flea had once met him and with their peace being settled, it was no longer strange to see the well-dressed undead walk along the shore.

“Your ocean,” he said to her, his arm outstretched as if presenting the blue and darkening jewel to her. “And ready to receive any abuse you wish to give it.”

#The Seer #The Flea #The Heartbroken Club #Without pics #sorry i'm tired : /#to be continued

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type2diabetestreatments-blog · 7 years

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Ask D'Mine: A Below-the-Belt Grooming Question

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Ask D'Mine: A Below-the-Belt Grooming Question

Got questions about life with diabetes? So do we! That's why we offer our weekly diabetes advice column, Ask D'Mine, hosted by Wil Dubois, a veteran type 1 in New Mexico who is a diabetes author with many years of clinical experience under his belt.

Speaking of below the belt, today Wil takes on a sensitive question that many would likely be uncomfortable asking their doctor in-person. But keeping it real is our specialty here at Ask D'Mine, so here goes...

Got your own questions? Email us at [email protected]

Justin, type 3 from Nevada, writes: Hi Wil, I’m trying to convince my type 1 girlfriend to shave her (pubic) hair but she’s worried there might be some sort of risk, diabetes-wise. What can you tell us? She also said I should ask which method would be best. I didn’t ask for clarification, I didn’t want to look stupid. I mean, shaving is shaving, right? Anyway, I hope you know about that, too.

Wil@Ask D’Mine answers: Not to worry, Justin, you need to be an old guy like me to have learned all the secrets and subtleties of female grooming. So here’s your Shaved P**sy 101. There are five realistic ways to remove unwanted pubic hair: Shaving, chemical removal, waxing, laser, and electrolysis. Any of the five can give that newly-minted look you’re after. At least for a time.

Let’s start with shaving. Shaving for a woman is just like shaving for a man. It needs to be done frequently to achieve the desired effect. Pubic five o’clock shadow is a reality for most women after a day or two. Most women who actually shave for the shaved effect use a bladed bikini razor. Gillette makes one called the Venus, although they refrained from modifying their famous tag line and bragging that it’s the best a woman can get.

What’s up with that?

In your girlfriend’s case, however, I’d worry about frequently using a blade “down there.” No matter how good she is with a razor, it’s only a matter of time before she cuts herself. Consider how often a man cuts his chin shaving. And your chin is right up there in front of your eyes in the shaving mirror with no complicated anatomical features to navigate around. Type 1s, if their blood sugar is less than perfect -- which describes most of us -- heal slowly when cut and are more prone to infections from cuts, anywhere on the body.

Add to that factoid that type 1 females are much more prone to yeast and urinary tract infections than anyone else, and I think you can see this is all adding up to a lot of potential trouble where neither of you want it.

An electric razor is an option, but they can still lead to irritation or “razor burn” in some women. Still, it’s probably a better choice for a woman with diabetes than a conventional razor.

Next up in defoliation options are over-the-counter chemicals called depilatories, such as the famous Nair hair remover. A word of warning on these products: Many aren’t intended for the whole enchilada. Most are designed to remove bikini line hair and some will burn the vulva if contact is made. Also, apparently many women are allergic to them, so be careful. Depilatories weaken the bond of the hair follicle at the top of the root, so the hair does grow back, but more slowly than it does following shaving -- up to three days to two weeks.

Upping the ante is waxing. Done at home or in a salon, liquid wax is dribbled over the unwanted hair and then a thin cloth is draped over the wax before it hardens. Once the wax is hard, the whole assembly is quickly torn off, like pulling a Band-Aid, ripping all the hair out from the root.

Can I say ouch?

Some women say it merely “stings,” others say that it’s quite painful, but the benefit is that the hair is very slow to grow back when pulled out from the root. A good wax job lasts a month. Of course, like diabetes, your pubic hair growth may vary.

However, be aware that many salons require a liability release or even a doctor’s note from people with diabetes. What’s the worry? A skin burn from the hot wax or an infection of the hair follicles while they seal up following the yank. Although many salons never ask about medical conditions, some experts do place a blanket ban on D-chicks getting waxed. Still, I’d personally judge it as less risky than razors.

Of course, I’ve never been waxed, so take that opinion with a grain of salt.

Next up the ladder in the quest for the prepubescent look is laser hair removal -- the hair follicles are zapped with lasers. It’s time-consuming, takes multiple sessions, and is expensive. Three-to-five hundred bucks to zap your crotch. And apparently, it doesn’t work for everybody. Some folks worry that lasers have the potential to cause a skin injury, so once again there is some caution advised for the D-community.

And lastly, the nuclear option for hair removal is electrolysis, which uses a needle-like electrode to kill each hair at the root. One at a time. Electrolysis requires many sessions, and is pricey. But financing is available (no kidding) and once killed, the hairs are dead and gone. Forever. As in all our other options, our slow-healing skin is a worry. Sterex, makers of electrolysis equipment, warns their customers: “Check that your insurance covers you for treating a diabetic client.”

So really, it looks like all the methods of pubic hair removal entail some degree of risk for women with diabetes.

But let’s be realistic here: So does getting out of bed in the morning. Naturally, the better her blood sugar control, the less the risk there is, as most infection risk has more to do with blood glucose levels than the diabetes itself. I should also mention that there are some people who think that public hair has a role to play in preventing infection. But others believe it can be the cause of infection and we are better off without it. I’m not convinced either way, so I’m ducking that whole subject for today.

So what’s my advice?

I think if she wants to do it, she should consider which route seems most sensible and least risky to her, and she should go for it. But to be honest, my biggest concern on this whole issue is that you said that you’re trying to convince her. That alerts me that this isn’t her idea, and that she isn’t too wild about either having a shaved you-know-what or about the process of getting it there. On the other hand, she did ask for the best method, so I may be reading too much into your word choice.

I have no issue at all with folks in relationships openly communicating their desires to each other. That’s how good relationships are built. And sometimes you do things for your partner strictly to make them happy. But if your “trying to convince” becomes badgering, I think you’ve stepped over the line. That not only makes you a crappy partner, if you view it from a selfish perspective, but you’re risking never seeing her nether regions again -- shaved or unshaved.

BTW, my D-sisters tell me that in the post-Trump world “p***y” has been replaced by “Cha-cha” to describe female genitals both in polite society and not-so-polite society. I imagine writers for the porn biz are frantically rewriting scripts and the actresses are struggling to re-learn their lines.

All three of them.

The lines, that is. There are waaaaay more than three porn actresses.

Speaking of porn, I’m going to pro-actively come to Justin’s defense on one issue here to keep the flaming comments to a minimum, and that’s on the issue of social norms and female beauty. We are all -- men and women alike -- victims of our societies when it comes to how we behold beauty. Times change. At one time big breasts ruled. At other times rail-thin. In times past, and in some parts of the world today, fat’s hot.

And now there’s a whole generation of young men growing up heavily exposed to ready access of online porn, where pubic hair doesn’t make a public appearance.

So beauty is in the eye of the beholder. Despite what some radical feminists may think, the fact that many modern men like the shaved look doesn’t make them crazed pedophiles. It’s simply the norm many of them grew up being exposed to. And many young women feel the look is sexy, too.

So “shave” away if you want. Just be careful. And if anything gets infected in Cha-Cha land, call your doc right away.

This is not a medical advice column. We are PWDs freely and openly sharing the wisdom of our collected experiences — our been-there-done-that knowledge from the trenches. But we are not MDs, RNs, NPs, PAs, CDEs, or partridges in pear trees. Bottom line: we are only a small part of your total prescription. You still need the professional advice, treatment, and care of a licensed medical professional.

Disclaimer: Content created by the Diabetes Mine team. For more details click here.

Disclaimer

This content is created for Diabetes Mine, a consumer health blog focused on the diabetes community. The content is not medically reviewed and doesn't adhere to Healthline's editorial guidelines. For more information about Healthline's partnership with Diabetes Mine, please click here.

Type 2 Diabetes Treatment Type 2 Diabetes Diet Diabetes Destroyer Reviews Original Article

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overcomingscars · 7 years

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Everyone wants a strong woman until she actually stands up, flexes her muscles, projects her voice Suddenly, she is too much. She has forgotten her place. You love those women as ideas, fantasies Not as breathing, living humans threatening to be even better than you could ever be. Words: @arieastman Photo: @thought.is You’re trying to be strong, I know you are. But you can’t help but think of him and wish things didn’t become so messy and complicated. You keep wondering where the love went wrong. Here you are. You’re staring at your phone typing out long messages just to erase them. You’re following his every move on social media. You’re letting him completely consume you, and it hurts. It hurts. He’s not the man you fell in love with anymore and you don’t know when he became someone you didn’t recognize but you so desperately want things to go back to the way they used to be. But let me tell you — guys like him don’t deserve girls like you. You try to fix things because that’s the type of person you are – always trying to fix what’s broken, always hanging on because your heart is too big. But he doesn’t care. He doesn’t put the effort in. He doesn’t show you that you matter. So, let him go. Let this go. And if he comes back — stand your ground, you have to be strong even when you want to give in. You know he doesn’t deserve you. You know deep down that you deserve someone who actually cares. Don’t let him back into your life — you are so much better off without him on your own. You’re so much braver, happier, stronger and more confident on your own. You have to stop regressing the progress you’re making. You need to let him go for good and I know that is easier said than done but you can do it. You can. He doesn’t deserve you and he never has – don’t go back to him anymore. It's time to end the vicious cycle. It's time to walk away. Just because I stopped waiting for you and hoping for you to come back, doesn’t mean I still don’t love you. However, I have learned that you cannot keep a wild thing; there is no point of holding onto something that I don’t have any assurance of. It only causes hurt — and I need to live a happier and more peaceful life. I need to do this, not because of you, or even for you, but for myself. So, if gaining the best for myself means letting your “maybes” go, then I must be willing to do it. I must grab this opportunity to grow, to recover all the time that I’ve lost, to discover new things, to create new relationships, to make wonderful memories, especially with my friends and family, to achieve the things that are ahead of me, and to become this woman I’ve always wanted to be. All the tears we wept and problems we faced, they were bridges to something more extravagant, and I truly believe in that. All the stories we made, wishes that we once clung to, plans that were thoroughly laid out, and good memories we collected, shared and treasured — they are pieces of us that no one can ever take away. And yes, you left a mark on me that no one could ever replace. I’ll forever love you for that. I’ll love you in a way that accepts you as the person who changed me, who gave me the inspiration to make myself better than before, and to love myself even more. I’ll love you for the friendship and companionship we’ve established and shared. I’ll love you for the way you helped me through this cruel life. I’ll love you in a way that will still leave space for you, if we would ever stumble across each other 5, 10 or 20 years from now. And if we run into one another then, I’d be pleased to know your story over a cup of tea or coffee. But you are gone right now, and I can’t focus on trying to get you back. I can’t keep running after you. You’ll always be special to me, but I must go. I must go. Take a chance on me. Take a chance on me. Because the timing’s always going to be wrong and the stars are never going to align but I would break every clock in this city and I’d shut every star down from shining if it meant that for one afternoon we could cast all that aside and give in. Give in to the complete impossibility that something could work here, despite everything that stands in the way. Give in to the way that your touch makes me shiver and your words make my mind race and reel. Give in to the improbability that this is going to work out or end well or fall into place exactly as we’d hoped or that any of it will be even half worth it in the end. Give in to senselessness. Give in to you, finally giving in to me. Take a chance on me because no chance ever works out. Because every relationship seems to end in heartbreak and every new beginning eventually reaches a conclusion but we have all of the time in the world between those two points and I intend to enjoy every second. Because someday I might hate the way you squint when you’re concentrating and you might despise the way I pace when I’m nervous but right now you are perfect and endearing and pure and why shouldn’t we get to enjoy that? Take a chance on me, even though I cannot promise it will be worth it. I have no guarantees, no crystal ball, no vision of the future where we’re happy and healthy and together for the rest of our days. I have been promised too many forevers to have much faith in them anymore so instead I’d like to offer you right now. I can offer you only this moment, where I’m standing in front of you knowing all of this may someday fall apart but that someday is not what I’m looking for anymore. I have right here and right now and all I can hope is that that is enough. That we can figure out the future as it comes. Take a chance on me – because I want to take a chance on you. I hope you find it within yourself to quit. I hope you find it in your heart to muster the strength to quit that relationship that isn’t going anywhere. Quit the attention you give to someone else who doesn’t care to give you theirs. Quit the person who doesn’t respect you enough to even answer. Quit settling. Quit thinking you can love someone into liking you. I hope you quit your past and stop letting it dictate your future. I hope you quit holding onto your mistakes and not giving yourself the forgiveness you deserve. I hope you quit everything and everyone in your life who doesn’t deserve you. I hope you find the courage to quit dating if you aren’t ready and take time learning to love yourself. I hope you finally decide to quit hating yourself. I hope you quit trying to change who you are to appease others. I hope you finally find the courage to quit the job you hate. Quit the people who are taking advantage of you. Quit doing something that makes someone else happy and go find something that makes you happy. Quit living according to someone else’s standard and go create your own. Quit killing yourself to make someone else’s life easier because I know what it’s like to be miserable and be busting your ass when you know in your heart something isn’t right. I hope you quit holding things off until tomorrow. I hope you quit saying, ‘you’ll be happy when.’ Quit thinking you don’t deserve happiness right now and go out and get it. I hope you quit your fears and do that thing that scares you. Go to that place, meet those people, get on that plane and quit thinking you need to come back. Quit thinking you don’t deserve the best of everything. Quit pushing that one person or thing away because you’re afraid to be happy. Quit thinking you’re better off alone. I hope you quit unhappiness. Quit negative people. Quit doing everything you are doing that isn’t bringing you ultimate happiness. Quit before it’s too late. Quit settling. Words: @kirstencorleywriter Photo: @dillon_ivory How do you go back to being strangers with someone who has seen your soul? Words: @nikita_gill Photo: @thesnapmind The best way to fall for someone? Slowly. Slow is sometimes exactly what your heart needs. A break from all the swelling and breaking. Someone who doesn’t turn your world upside down. Someone who’s gonna stick around for a while. Someone who soothes not only your heart, but your soul. Be patient with your heart. Love slowly. The kind of slow where you’ve been hurt before, and you can’t help but think it’ll happen again if you get yourself too excited about this one. The kind of slow where you’re listening to your head as well as your heart. The kind of slow that makes it feel all the more real. The kind of slow where the butterflies are there but are still, quietly listening, taking every moment in. They were simply preparing to fly. Many of us are dashing around, blindly reaching out to grab hold of someone. Anyone to help us stand. Because we’re scared what will happen when there’s no one there, and we have to hold our own hand. So we fall hard, because all we desperately want is someone to decide to catch us. Don’t let anyone convince you that a slow-starting flame burns any less bright. It might start off slowly, yes. But it’s steady. It’s not trying to compete. And more often than not, it continues to stay lit long after the instant ones have gone out. Words: @shanijaywriter Photo: @kendallmcleod The love you deserve will not send you mixed signals. Love will not ignite false hopes, instead love will plant truthful hope and will commit to it. Love will be clear and it won’t leave you wondering in confusion. The love you deserve will not be hurtful at all. Love will not leave you with scars or trauma. Love will not call you names.Love will not leave you crying yourself to sleep, feeling sorry about yourself. Love will not walk away from you. The love you deserve will not be brimming with uncertainties. Love knows who it wants and why. Love will be sure, sure of you. The love you deserve will not make you feel bad about yourself. Love will not belittle you. Love will not judge you or your past. Instead love will accept you, despite of your cracks. Love will recognize your issues and will listen to your anxieties and every single thing that goes on in your head – all your sentiments, worries and fears – and love will be eager to hear every single one of them. Love will never make you question if you’ll ever be good enough. The love you deserve will prioritize you. Love will not be selfish. The love you deserve will respect you one hundred percent. All your ideas, beliefs, attributes, plans and aspirations. Love will always see the best in you. Love will welcome you with open arms. Love will not discourage you, your dreams or wishful thinkings. Love will support you all out in whatever you yearn to do, love will motivate you and will perpetually whisper in your ear that you can be the person you’ve always longed to be. The love you deserve will be striking in its simplicity and it will find you. It will. Words: @diantinio Photo: @paoloraeli To the friends who heal our broken hearts, Thank you for listening to us talk about it over and over again and wiping off our tears. Thank you for telling us that we’re special, that we deserve more, that we’re incredible, that we’re loved even if we’re shattered into a million pieces. Thank you for picking up our pieces when we can’t find them, thank you putting us back together when we’re all over the place. Thank you for answering our calls on your busy days and for coming over after midnight to hug us a little tighter and help us sleep. Thank you for reminding us that even though a lot of people will break our hearts, you never will. Thank you for giving the reassurance we keep looking for in everyone else. Thank you for being our therapists, thank you for guiding us, thank you for healing us and asking for nothing in return. If you don’t know this by now, you should know that without you, we wouldn’t have made it, we wouldn’t have seen another day, we wouldn’t have seen the light. Without you, we would’ve stayed broken and maybe even damaged. Without you, we wouldn’t have rebuilt ourselves. Thank you for being there. Thank you for being present. Thank you for being the ones who stay in a world where everyone leaves. Thank you for your silent prayers, for your secret wishes, for wanting the best for us and praying we’d find it. Thank you for loving us loudly and silently. Thank you for trying to fix us even when you’re broken. Thank you for showing us that some hearts will always love us, that love doesn’t always have to leave us broken and that some hearts will never give up on us. Thank you for embodying the kind of love we’re looking for and reminding us to keep our standards high and our heads higher. Thank you for easing our loneliness and reassuring us that we’re not always as alone as we think we are. Thank you for being our defibrillators. The ones who bring us back to life. The ones who teach us how to love again. Words: @ranianaim Photo: @messinaphotos Did it not occur to you that a love like hers is hard to find? The kind of love that makes you coffee even though she does not need to be waking up at five o clock in the morning. The kind of love that has your favourite meal ready for you and a kind listening ear when she knows you’ve had a bad day and could do with some extra love. The kind of love that buys you your favourite game, just because she wants to see you smile, she adores the look on your face when you see something you love in your hands. The kind of love that just wants to see you happy, no matter what the sacrifice she has to make. The kind of love that stands by you even when you feel like the whole world has turned against you. And you really thought that kind of love would be easy to replace? It takes a special kind of person to love you that way. And you dismissed it as ‘easy’? ‘Replaceable’? How could you possibly make that mistake? By not fighting for her, you essentially told her she could take all her love and give it to someone else. But wait, you did her a favour. Because you chose not to fight for her, she has found someone who would fight to the end of the Earth for her. She has found someone who sees the amount she does for other people and loves her for her selfless nature. She has found someone who would happily build a future with her because he knows that he will never find another like her again. You thought that she was not worth fighting for, you threw her into the mud. But let me educate you about something factual as it is beautiful. One of the most intricate and lovely flowers, the lotus, only blooms from the thickest and deepest mud. She too, will grow. Words: @nikita_gill Photo: @jesseherzog To the people with big hearts oozing out every pore. To the people who speak with their hands and can’t seem to contain their excitement or enthusiasm. To the people who feel things so deeply, they wouldn’t know the first thing about playing it cool. I hope you never apologize for how much you care. I hope you never think you’re wrong for being who you are. Do you know how much easier it is to craft an outer shell? Do you know how many others find safety in hiding? Some construct walls so high, it’s hard to ever fully break them back down. But you, you don’t do that. You love even when others tell you it’s too loud. You love even when people encourage you to protect yourself more, to not give yourself away so fully. So what if you love passionately and without a second thought? Since when did that become a bad thing? Something to be ashamed of? Something to try to cover up? There’s a magic about you; did you know that? You’ve seen the worst in people, in situations, but keep finding silver linings. You’re an optimist, even when the world tries to force you into pessimism. There’s a warrior in that heartbeat of yours. It just keeps going. It just keeps believing. This is to you, lovers and dreamers. To those who refuse to believe romance is dead. Do me, and all of us, a favor, okay? Keep loving with that big heart. Keep wearing it on your sleeve. It’s woven into your very existence. In a world that’s so obsessed with maintaining the upper hand, with pettiness, with seeming apathetic, always know we need more people like you. We’ll always need people like you. Words: @arieastman Photo: @ryanmuirhead How to let go of someone who has already let you go? Change your ringtone. Find a new place to get loaded. Kiss a stranger and make sure there are witnesses. Focus on the details you can control; clean the gunk from the soles of your shoes. Degunk everything you can, as often as you like. Make a list of the things he kept you from doing, the haircut or the tattoo or whatever. Do the things. When you have the urge to text him, floss your teeth instead. Stop checking social media for signs that he misses you, you will not find what you’re looking for. Close every window in your apartment and at full volume play “Changed the Locks” by Lucinda Williams, over and over till you can sing it backwards. Take a walk and be grateful there’s no one there to steer you in any one direction. Get lost if you like. Learn a new language, one he doesn’t speak. Remember the bad times and how you tricked yourself into believing they were good. Hold onto that dumb, blind optimism with all ten fingers. When the new moon arrives, write his name on a piece of paper and draw an X through it. Shred the paper and keep it in an ashtray. When the full moon arrives, burn the pieces to ash and scatter them in the wind. This is one way to set an intention. Tell a girl you don’t know that you like her hair. Feel the relief of losing something you sometimes wanted to replace, anyway. Nothing’s perfect. Develop an internet crush on someone who lives so far away that they can’t hurt you. Call your long distance friends and ask after them and don’t say his name once. Place one hand on your knotted stomach or heart and use two fingers from the other hand to tap the base of your neck. Inhale and exhale. Tap and breathe and close your eyes while reminding yourself that you’re still here, even if he’s not. You still have a body and a mind and those are yours to keep. Go on a first date with someone you won’t want to see again. Drink as much wine as your stomach can hold and tell him your secrets and don’t apologize once. Vulnerability can be a weakness or a strength. Words: Steph Georgopulos Photo: @thought.is I hope you find someone who knows how to love you when you are sad. Words: @nikita_gill Photo: @overexposures “Something about you inspires me to be bigger, brighter, bolder than I ever knew that I could become. And I hope that I inspire you, too.” Press play and click your sound on 🌹 Words: @heidiprieb Love is your childhood home. Your favourite part on the couch, the same chair at the kitchen table. Love is your worn in sweater, the way it smells after you hang it to dry in the garden. Love is the creak in the stairs, the hook in the entryway you always hang your coat on. Leaving makes a mess of it all, it rearranges things. Suddenly, the couch is different, and your favourite chair is broken. Your worn in sweater is torn, the clothing lines in the backyard have been blown down by wind. Suddenly, the stairs are quiet in thoughtcatalogThe things we lose are not losses – they are entryways. They are second chances. They are wake up calls. They are the world saying to us clearly and sharply: there is something else out there. And when it most feels like we're standing on the edge of some unknown abyss, we must recognize that we feel pain because we are holding ourselves back from what's next, rather than suffering over what we think someone has taken from us.

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