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dxmmymxmmywrites · 4 years

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Caught Your Fancy

Maito Gai x F! Reader Smut

Warnings: swearing, suggestive themes, unprotected sex, oral sex, pwp

There is not nearly enough Might Guy smut, so I’m here to fill the void! Personally I think this dude would absolutely fawn over a sassy lady, so this was a real treat to write.

Enjoy it ya filthy animals 🖤

...

It was leaner than your other leg, but it looked somewhat normal. You could move mostly on your own with some aid, which often came in the form of your staff. Despite having your dreams of following a nindo crushed, you still had dreams for your life you wanted to make a reality.

And there were many bumps in the road. You would trudge along during your day to day life, trying to be generous to the community while also building up your reputation as a creative. You dabbled in a bit of everything— writing, sculpture, painting— whatever could keep your hands and mind busy. It did wonders to stave off your boredom, and it gave you your own personal haven when the day was done. You could retreat inside yourself for rest.

It was where you were immersed now, sketching along in ink to quiet your mind. Your thoughts had been raging since earlier in the day, happy as it had been. Your hands seemed to move on their own as you doodle with an anatomy textbook open for reference. Some strokes collected into refined nudes, others were simplistic doodles of hands or feet or what have you.

Critters scuttling outside your window finally brought you out of your reverie. When they quieted down, you finally took in your last sketch that had taken up most of your parchment.

You’d drawn a man with strong features just from the image of him that constantly plagued your brain. His bright smile, his sweet dimples— that stupid bowl cut.

You scooted your supplies and paper to the side of your workbench so you had enough space to groan into your hands.

...

You’ve been companions for what seems like ages. Calling Gai a friend sounded odd due to the nature of your... everything, but it was the closest word you had to describe him.

He made you laugh, and you teased him. He walked you home when you ran into each other at markets, and you had stopped in on a practice or two to watch him with his genin.

Most of the time, he would attempt to woo you and you would play hard to get. Gai most likely enjoyed it— the thrill of the chase in the springtime of youth or whatever— but you’d be lying if you said you didn’t enjoy it too.

Spending time with him on little adventures always left you giddy, feeling like you could actually run a mile without falling on your face. He would send an unapologetic but weirdly sincere compliment your way, and you wouldn’t show how it affected you until you were parting ways once more.

You’re expecting it to repeat as he walks with you to your home on the outskirts of the village now. You had managed to run into him when you’d run out for a last minute ingredient for your dinner. It was like he always managed to find you in a sour mood and make you feel at least a little bit better— you had been exhausted beforehand, but you were happily content listening to him describe his most recent training session with his students.

“—That reminds me!” He perks up like a puppy. “A friend of mine recently said you were once enrolled at the academy! You never told me you pursued ninjutsu!”

It wasn’t meant to be a harsh comment, but you felt yourself wince internally. Somehow, you felt more painfully aware of your leg than ever.

“Yeah... that was a long time ago. Yknow,” you tapped your limp foot with your staff. “Before this happened.”

The panic in Gai’s expression rises quickly, but fades just as suddenly. “I wouldn’t want it to hurt you— but if you ever have an interest in revisiting the basics, let me know!”

You laugh a bit. At least he was trying to make you feel better, pity from others could get tiring.

“You trying to make me one of your genin?” You playfully jabbed.

“Only if you’d like to! Though I wouldn’t mind a one-on-one practice. However you are most comfortable.”

His voice calms towards the end, to a casual but gentle tone you don’t often hear him use. Gai took you by surprise often as well.

And it really was touching. You never thought you could get back to how you were, or that you could ever be an adequate ninja. It didn’t stop you from yearning for it— something you had hinted to Gai before. He had paid attention.

It made a sort of heat rise to your face. Very few could get that reaction out of you, and Gai’s accomplished smile confirmed he knew just as much.

“It’s a kind offer... thanks.” You finally spoke as the two of you approached your humble abode.

His mouth opened to leap into a grandiose plan of action for your training— but you shifted to plant a kiss on his cheek and he stopped in his tracks.

“I’ll think about it, Gai.”

...

Since the time you had shared your vulnerabilities to him, Gai became even more of a common occurrence in your life.

He would nearly bust down your door at some ungodly hour of the morning and start making you a healthy, youthful breakfast. If he ran across a book you’d been dying to read, he would find you wherever to deliver it himself. And whenever you had some opportunities to work within the village, he would make a point to stop by and insist on you filling him in on your day.

It took you off guard. How could someone be so... purely good? How could he be such a bright light to you, and not want a thing in return?

You swore that even if you tried to run from him, he would always manage to get to you. Like running from a ray of sunshine at lunchtime.

So as he reached out to you more and more, you became more available. Parts of you that had been walled up for years came crumbling down with every act of kindness he gave you. Whatever he did, you practically melted for him. And it often scared the shit out of you.

But still, good things continued to happen. You made time to visit Gai and his team when you were invited to the training grounds. You dragged him by the ear to your home several times to feed him a purely indulgent meal, saying he couldn’t just eat superfoods for the rest of his life. You start writing down little poems that make you think of him, and go out of your way to stick them in his pockets when you think he doesn’t notice.

He does. He reads each one, marvels over your calligraphy, and keeps them tucked away in an old jumpsuit.

Around the time your poems became a habit, you start inviting Gai and the genin to your home for dinner every weekend. You come to know each of his students individually, and you grow to love each of them so much.

Lee marvels you with his spirit, and his willingness to scarf down whatever you cook is flattering. Tenten makes you laugh every time you see her with her quick wit, and Neji becomes intrigued with your interests in the arts, and admires whatever project you’ve attached yourself to at the moment.

You don’t catch him in the act, but Gai steals more looks at you in these calm moments with his students more than ever. There’s a moment when you poke fun at Neji with a genuine laugh that he feels his heart skip a beat.

How did he find such a beautiful, youthful spirit like yours? He never wants to let you go.

...

After you had really come out of your shell, you finally agreed to meet Gai for a private session on the sparring grounds. It made you a little nervous, but the excitement in your chest pushed you further and further until you were rushing out the door in whatever workout gear you could find.

You arrive a little early, willing to wait for him if need be. Yet as you approach the encirclement of combat dummies in the field, you can hear the familiar smacks of someone putting the dummies to good use.

The sun finally moves out of your eyes, and your greeted with the sight of an unabashedly shirtless Gai landing hit after hit with no margin for error.

It’s... a religious experience to watch him move. Sweat glistens over his battle hardened muscles with each punch, and you carefully watch a trail of sweat glide down the center of his abs down to the prominent “V” shape of his hipbones.

You try not to drool.

He notices your presence and turns to give you one of his glorious smiles.

“You made it! Glad to see it wasn’t too early for you.”

“I was... motivated,” you manage, watching him step closer to you.

If he noticed your bothered state, he didn’t pay it any mind.

“I have a plan to get you used to the movement of combat. You’re certainly in shape, you only need to learn to follow the flow of combat to start.”

It vaguely makes sense to you, but he takes your hand and leads you to a larger training pit void of combat dummies. You almost don’t want to let go of his hand, but then he lets go and begins to circle you.

“Throw a punch, or hit me with your staff. Let’s begin slowly, and then I can follow your movements.”

It’s nerve wracking, but you can feel the butterflies going insane within you. You slowly go to swing your staff at him, but he slowly counters you and explains his reasonings as he does so. With each movement you make, his process becomes more calculated— and he gives you enough time to consider his words and apply them to your next move.

Like a game of chess, you work in tandem and simultaneously against each other. To be so in sync with him becomes almost intoxicating, especially zoning into his voice and following the grace of his marble-like body. He becomes the epitome of temptation.

Was this his plan all along?

In your single moment to falter, he is able to catch you from behind with a strong arm held around your throat. Your eyes bulge. But your ovaries do a summersault.

“And because of this, you must stay grounded in combat. And not in your head.”

You can feel a shiver convulse throughout your body at his voice being so close, so hot and breathe against your skin. This time, he does notice— and goes stiff.

He goes to say your name, but you painfully grip his wrist and then shove him to the ground.

He jumps when the end of your staff stamps itself inches from his ear, but he feels himself reddening at how tightly your straddling his waist. And those eyes— they sear him to the bone.

“Are you having fun?”

Your words are loaded, coated with either honey or venom and he can’t tell which. Does he care for the difference?

“Are you feeling inspired by my lesson? Do you already feel yourself improving?” He manages that picturesque smile again, though it’s certainly strained.

You lean closer to him, and he gulps. Your stare never wavers.

“I think I could teach you a few things, Maito Gai.”

The deadly desire in your voice makes him feel like he’s floating but falling at the same time. What are your plans? What would you have him do to you?

What would you do... to him?

His determined grin grows, and you feel your heart rate quicken.

“I’m at your mercy.”

You can’t take it anymore. Your freehand shoots to grab the back of his neck and your lips crash against his. He frees his hands then, and they heatedly run up your sides and cup your back until he cups your face with the most tenderness possible.

His kiss, however, is not so tender. Your tongues passionately intertwine with a ferocity that riles the both of you up with each passing second. You moan deliciously into his mouth, and he seems to melt into you.

It leaves him open to you pulling the back of his hair so you can shove your tongue farther into his throat. He continued to groan such sexy noises into your kiss until you begin to fervently grind on his lap.

When you break for air, you slowly grind your core over the outline of his growing hard-on.

“A-ah! Oh, darling—“ he heatedly moans again, making you wetter than ever, and pulls you in for another kiss.

His grip on your pelvis tightens as he sits up, and with you perched on top of him, he takes advantage of your exposed neck. His flushed lips trail lovely open-mouthed kisses all over your pulse-point, and you feel yourself wrap your legs around him as hard as you can.

You grind continually onto him, and keen lowly when he sucks a hickie into your neck just as he times a roll of his hips expertly between your legs.

“Hooooly fuuuck, Gai,” you say as your head rolls back. “Can we do this?”

“Absolutely,” he groans into your neck, pulling at your back so your sweaty torsos rub together.

How did you get so lucky to find him? You look down at him, breathing heavily, into his equally lust-blown pupils. You cup his chin to give him one more passionate kiss, where you lick over his lips and revel in how weak he is for your touch.

And then, you knock him down into the ground with a thump to his chest. Leaning over him so he has a face full of your tits, you instruct.

“I’m gonna ride you. But first, I’m going to sit on your face and blow you into next week.”

The blush across his face is prominent, from the joyful mixture of heat and hormones. But he excitedly smiles.

“Yes ma’am...” he says contentedly, freeing his dick from his pants while you readjust to kick yours off.

In no time at all, you reverse and lean your ass onto his face. He enthusiastically grips your thighs, and pulls your underwear to the side to place a long stripe to your soaked cunt.

You inhaled, but then he quickly pulled you into him and plunged his tongue into your sopping pussy. You shriek.

“Oh fuck! Holy fuck, Gai!” You whine as he hums into your cunt, and you feel your legs quiver as your eyes roll into the back of your head.

Hearing you rendered so helpless on top of him spurred him on, and his grip tightens. You can’t submit to him just yet— no, you’ve been dreaming of this for too long to back down now.

You stretch forward as much as you can manage and encircle the head of his cock with your lips. At that moment you knew Kakashi was full of shit when he mentioned Gai had an acorn of a cock— he was clearly a grower, and fisting his girth made your mouth water.

You begin to bob your head on his length, and you feel his pace weaken. It spurs you on, and you try to open your mouth as far as you can to suck him with all your worth.

Gai continues to eat you out to his heart’s content, and you feel him shake as you drool over his immense cock. You feel your determination building again despite the tremors of pleasure overcoming you— and you take him to the back of your throat. You hum as you arch your back, and run your nails tightly down his muscular thighs to hold him in place.

He sputters against your cunt, and you hold his legs to the ground while you render him undone, swirling your tongue around every detail of his thick cock.

As he begins to tremor again, you take a hold of his cock and run the flat of your thumb over his head, teasing his slit.

“Are you ready for me?” You breathe onto his cock, and flatly lick the precum dribbling from his slit.

He exhales as you rise from his face, legs shaking. He leans onto his elbows for a moment, smiling as he wipes your juices from his mouth to lick off his fingers.

“I’m always ready! But especially for you, my love” Gai says in a deeper, more loving voice then you’ve ever heard him use before.

It makes you ache in the best possible way.

You jostle your weaker leg over his lap, and he puts a hand out to hold you as you adjust. Sitting down, you intentionally adjust the lips of your pussy to glide over his shaft, and slowly grind along his length as you kiss under his jaw. Gai moans deep in his chest, running his hands over your back, trying to ground himself through the pleasure.

“D-don’t tease,” he manages, and leans into your touch as you lick up his jugular.

His voice is a symphony to you, while he squirms under your touch. You know you’re both ready then— so you angle his cock to finally sink onto his length.

Both of your mouths open in ecstasy we you ease onto his length, marveling at how your wetness lets his girth take you. It takes a moment to adjust, but eventually you settle into his lap fully speared on his erection. The two of you are breathing heavily, and you’ve only just begun.

You settle your foreheads against the the other’s.

“When you’re ready,” he lightly comforts, and you nod.

You feel yourself grip him harder, and you use your legs to pull him closer to you. Your lips interlock once more, and you groan at the taste of your pussy on his tongue. It encourages you to sway your hips forward, while Gai slowly moves your ass to relish your pull.

You slide deliciously around his cock. The more he relishes in the moment, the more of a slave he becomes to the passion between you. Your bodies begin to move in a glorious rhythm, composing a beautiful dance while your gasps of pleasure begin to harmonize.

Gai takes the liberty to gentle buck into you, feeding off your pretty moans while he hits your g-spot repetitively.

You loving pull you name from his tongue, while you pant and try to see straight. You could get high off of how sweet his touches were— how deeply he looked into you.

“Ahh, fuck, Gai—“ you purr into his ear, holding onto his shoulders for dear life. “Harder!”

His quiet laugh is so deviant and sexy as he picks up his pace, to where he’s rutting into you with his balls slapping your skin. You can’t help but keep bouncing and bouncing on his merciless cock, thighs screaming, crying out as the noise of slapping flesh and wet squelching echos into the air.

“Take me, fucking take me!” You growl into his ear, clawing at his back to try to stay in place. “Ooooh, fucking ruin me Gai!”

“You have a filthy mouth, my love!” He exclaims, still fucking you like a damn race horse.

“And you like it, don’t you baby? You like me being a greedy for your cock?”

Your words run him through with so much shock and absolute list all at once. You punctuate the filthy whispers by biting down hard onto his shoulder— and he cries out as you set a brutal pace to milk the remainder of his stamina.

“AHHHhhh! Darling—! I’m— aAAAaag— closing in!”

You purr like a devil into his shoulder, liking the bruise you’ve left. You’re shaking like an addict, and I you know you’re close too.

“I’m gonna cum all over your cock, Green Beast! Cum for me, cum for your slut!” You pant out, and Gai nearly screams as he fucks into your pussy more furiously than ever.

In the heat of it all, you shove him to the ground again. You grab his chest and put all your weight onto him as you ride out your orgasm, moaning like a bitch in heat as you chase your highs to oblivion.

Gain holds your hips enough to mark them, forcing you down into his cock— but then he looks at you in all your glory on top of him. Sweating rivulets down your reddening skin, singing for him as you take his cock like it was made just for you. He pulls you we close as he can and lets out a strangled scream as he orgasms hard.

Tears stream down your face as you feel your pussy clamp down onto him afterwards, whining with glee we his cock throbs within you. You exhale hard, and you can feel your heart jump over the moon.

All before you collapse off of him, and lay down beside him in the grass. Both of you are dirty, exhausted, and covered in sweat— and you wouldn’t have it any other way.

Somehow, you manage the strength to plant a kiss on his cheek.

“You’re amazing.”

He grins, surprised he has enough energy to laugh. “And you are the most beautiful creature to exist.”

You laugh through a blush, and snuggle into his strong arms as he pulls you into his chest.

“I think I should train you more often!”

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fishmongeringstudies · 3 years

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twenty three: after the end of the song the singer's voice travels down the hallway into the room at the other end, where god is braiding a skein of light into your hair

it's a five minute walk from the apartment in singapore to the subway station. after exiting the building, take a right, wait for the red light to turn, then keep walking until you see a sleek gray building rising out of the pavement at the end of the path. the station is underneath. take the escalator, elevator, or the stairs. all three of them will dispense you in the same wide underground space with the polished marble floor. buy a ticket or three. walk through the gantry. head down another flight of stairs, and then another, until you arrive, at last, at the promised place.

i'm told america is a country of cars. since the invention of the gas-powered vehicle in 1886 it has been unable to rid itself of this idea, this dream of flying, faster than light being chased out of the sunset, through suburbs, cities, and towns, and so to prove its ephemeral strength to an audience which wasn't looking, the distance between each grew wider. the average american spends nearly an hour behind the steering wheel each day. in the spring my friend told me, while picking a grilled cheese sandwich apart with a fork, that he drove eight hours to get to college.

it takes less than an hour to drive from one end of singapore to the other. if the traffic is good and you don't get lost in the central business district, staring down week-old acai joints and cafes full of shimmering mass-produced wall decor, it could take less. it took me an hour and a half to crawl from the west coast to the east on a weekday morning. i went by train, bus, and foot.

motion proves existence. if i can bring this body to five different points on a map then i have left a mark on all the places in between, in each footprint pressed into the soft dirt of each route. to exist in confinement is to be visible from one place only. and that place is hell.

this morning the elevator smelled like someone threw up in it. when i stepped inside with my laundry hamper slung over my shoulder i didn't notice the smell because i was too busy making brief but awkward eye contact with the other person who had been waiting for the elevator, who whispered once the door slid shut in a voice like ginger ale poured over a bed of pearls, 'first floor?' then pressed the button with a manicured nail. the elevator dumped us on the first floor and we walked off in opposite directions. after dumping a week's worth of sticky summer heat in the wash, i came back. and so did the smell of vomit.

today is saturday, which means last night things happened in this building that i don't know about and have no desire to look into. at about midnight i heard someone screaming from some distance away and looked outside to see a skinny figure tearing down the sidewalk that led up to our dorm, pinwheeling their arms like a madman or a pigeon with a bad case of flight anxiety. they sounded like someone had put the rosetta stone through a voice distortion program. behind them, out of sight, came the echo of high-pitched, shrieking laughter. after a moment, they stopped swinging their arms and turned to stare back down the empty, moonlit path. WHAT'RE YOU LOOKING AT, HUH? they bellowed, like a god. i looked away from my window.

they say college is about trying things you will regret and doing them with a brand of stupid fearless pride unique to the peculiar creature that we call the college student anyway, because nineteen year olds don't know what fear looks, sounds, or tastes like. the logic behind this is as follows. the corporate workplace doesn't tolerate individuality on principle, so if every kid's going to have an obligatory three hour long soul-searching indie film shot about their life then they might as well do it in a controlled setting along with a thousand other kids who are going through the same thing. some of them may be film majors. in which case, your indie film will be very good. some of them may be engineering majors. in which case your indie film will be very bad. regardless, you're guaranteed to come out of your choice of higher education money-making machine with something to tell your parents that'll make them bawl their eyes out and send you, cherub-cheeked and smiling, to your room.

they say college will change your life. i know because i said it. i wrote a poem about it. when i was eighteen i said i was going to take a bottle and a bottle-opener and then i was going to hop on a plane to america and then- fireworks and stars. the disneyland effect. step through these gates and all your anxieties will go away. everyone will live forever. your grandfather doesn't wish you were dead. and magic, oh, magic lives right here, under the skin of the clavicle, where all wishes are made. mouth on neck. a resuscitation activity.

but someone needs to cut the grass. each morning at eight a man in a green vest takes a lawnmower and drives it up and down the football field across from this building. the lawnmower is loud. it reverberates in my head and makes it hard to concentrate on pretty much anything, so i get out my earplugs and i sit there in the static and resign myself to half an hour of nothing. i can only begin to imagine what it must be like to be the person sitting there, at the heart of all the commotion, making eight am on a saturday morning sound like a symphony orchestra. and then i stop trying. because imagining pain is nearly the same thing as feeling it. because our brains know how to do more than they're worth. we could replace the imagination with a photograph and a virtual-reality headset and it wouldn't live up to half the stuff that goes on behind the eyelids, to the cinematic masterpiece that we wake up to each morning. this is why we tell such good stories. this is also why we struggle to finish them.

this morning i woke up with a turquoise ocean on my tongue. in my sleep i walked to the end of the world, where a single island stood guard over a sliver of sea so bright it hurt my eyes to look at it. the island was populated with ferns and palm trees and flowers in shades of pink and silver, brimming with a vitality that stood frozen in a motif of life itself, the ferns not swaying, the flowers empty of bees. it looked like a place you went to die. we stood there staring at this snapshot of death until my mother and sister got up and began to run back towards the center of the world, to its beating red heart, and i scrambled to catch up to them but everything in my backpack had fallen out somewhere in between reaching this raft of terror and stopping to look up at the gray sky and i began to panic. i bent over to pick up notebooks, pencils, a crumpled water bottle, all the while begging the others to wait for me. just give me a minute. just give me a little more time.

under the assumption that people can and always will hurt other people, every relationship becomes a matter of discerning who will make the first cut and who will be the one left standing on stage, clutching a bloody arm and calling out for a friend who cannot reply. even the other half of your soul, narrated as such by the poets, can seek to end you. after all, self-destruction is in vogue again. it is the ultimate act of defiance against a state obsessed with keeping its citizens alive in the most horrible ways possible. it is also, always, unexpected.

under the assumption that life is a three hour long indie film about self-discovery, everything you do cannot and will not be held against you when you are twenty-eight and your boss digs up the old paper trail of who you were in college, unless you buried a body in the backyard with your best friend, freshman year. people change people change people. change. people change. people fall into rabbit holes and emerge with new hands, new eyes, new teeth. people do things. every day, we wake up and we make the decision to do things. sometimes the thing is going to the park. sometimes the thing is making breakfast.

either way, we are performing miracles. because motion is about dislocating yourself from the socket, about cutting the person out of the painting; even if you put them back in the same painting, the act of returning tips the scales significantly in favor of the heart. which beats, through all of this strange, repetitive violence, down the elevator, down the path that leads to the subway that you haven't been on since the start of february, when you believed in no one but yourself. little has changed since then. but you understand now. you are not heading for the promised place. you are the promised place; you are a promised person. you promised yourself when you were born that you would live to see the grass grow out after a long, dry winter. and now here you are, ready to live it all.

06.12.21

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talkfastromance4 · 4 years

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Breathing Our Last Breath-- Vampire!Luke Part 2

A/N: thank you thank you thank you! For all your love and support on my vampire series!🥰 it means everything to me. The title and overall theme correlates PERFECTLY with BMTH’s song ‘One Day the only butterflies left will be in your chest as you march towards your death.’ When I first heard the song I couldn’t believe how well it fit in with the way I wanted this story to go. And once again...I apologize but the angst will be worth it trust me. Love you please don’t hate me @irwinkitten

Word count: 5.7k

Warnings: blood drinking, slight manic episode of the vampiric kind

To catch up:

Giving You My Soul (Part 1)

A bite (blurb)

Fangs (blurb)

Masterlist

• • • •

Him

Luke sought out the help of Michael the next morning after he and Y/N connected last night. It was after he showed her his fangs that while she was sighing his name he almost told her. He almost told her he loved her, but he couldn’t make himself do so. Cheeks flushed, hair splayed across his pillow with his bite marks staring up at him on her left breast, the words were caught between his teeth.

Saying those three words would complicate things more. Change her or keep her human? He stayed up all night wrestling with his thoughts while she slept soundly next to him. When she’d make a noise of contempt, he’d reach over and stroke her face until she relaxed, falling back into a pleasant dream.

He wrote her a note telling her of his whereabouts, gave a quick kiss to her forehead then ran to Michael’s place. He gave a swift knock to the door before bustling in only to find Michael and Kitty cuddled together against the counter.

Kitty’s legs were wrapped around Michael’s waist, their hands in his hair while Michael nuzzles against their neck. Kitty chuckles then opens their eyes when the front door snaps shut. They tap on Michael’s shoulder then says Luke’s name.

“Don’t you knock?” Michael asks turning around. His tone is accusatory, but his face is teasing, his eyes seem a brighter green than normal.

“I did, then just walked right in. Sorry to interrupt,” Luke grins. “Good morning, Kitty.”

“Morning, Luke,” Kitty laughs letting their legs fall against the cupboards. “Is Y/N with you? I can make us some breakfast.”

“No, she’s back at my place still asleep. I came to discuss something with you, Mike.”

Michael notices the change in Luke’s voice, he swallows thickly then turns to Kitty.

“How about you go take a shower and I’ll have breakfast ready for you, hm?”

“All right,” Kitty sighs slipping onto the floor. They peck Michael’s lips. “I want French toast. See you later, Luke. Tell Y/N I say hello.”

“I will,” Luke smiles at them. When he hears the bathroom door close he joins Michael at the counter who’s grabbing the breakfast essentials.

“What’s going on?”

“Are you going to change Kitty?” Luke blurts out. He tried coming up with an easy way to bring up the topic but couldn’t come up with something.

“I haven’t really thought about it or discussed it with them, why? Are you thinking of changing Y/N?”

“I don’t know,” he murmurs quietly and leans against the counter.

“What brought this on?” Michael grabs the loaf of bread then moves to the fridge for eggs and milk.

“I feasted on her a couple weeks ago and now…I can’t exist without her, Mike.”

Michael sighs. “And since then you don’t want to change her but also don’t want her to die as a human…Have you talked with her?”

“No. It’s not really a conversation I want to have.”

“No one wants to have that kind of conversation,” Michael chortles cracking two eggs in a bowl. He adds a splash of milk then stirs the contents until it turns a pale yellow. He flicks on the stovetop then continues to stir. “She cares about you, too. Don’t make a choice that’s hers to make in the first place.”

“I feel selfish, asking her to make a choice between human or Vampirism and for what? Me?”

“Luke, she loves you. I know you’ve never really been in a solid relationship, but communication is key. Tell her what you’re thinking. Is this why you’ve been acting strange the last few weeks?”

“I’ve been acting strange? How?” Luke crosses his arms and becomes intent on watching Michael dip the piece of bread in the yolk and milk creation. Y/N likes her French toast with strawberries, cream, and syrup.

“You didn’t hear this from me,” Michael warns lowly, “but Y/N was telling Kitty you two haven’t really been…intimate in a while. Since you feasted now I know why. We haven’t known each other for very long but I can tell you’re pulling away, pushing the thing that scares you out of sight. But while you do that, you’re pushing her away as well.”

Luke is stunned into silence. Has he really not touched Y/N since the night he bit her? He goes through his memory quickly of the last several weeks then sees what Michael is talking about. No wonder Y/N was shocked at his sudden need of affection last night. The whole encounter felt different, something has shifted between them and he’s the cause of it.

“How can I do that without realizing it?”

“You’ve been alone for thousands of years,” Michael shrugs plopping the bread in the pan. It sizzles from the heat. “Kind of funny how I’m giving you words of wisdom, eh?”

Luke rolls his eyes but silently agrees. Michael has given him much to think about and all too quickly that becomes very dangerous. He weighs all three of his options; change her so they can be together forever, keep her human, and the third is discussing the first two options with her. The last one scares the hell out of him. He never wants to put her in danger or a place of discord.

For all of his life—human and immortal—he’s never had to worry about someone else. Hell, what he thought was courting her with the gifts he left was actually a little offensive. Then to ask her to give up her life to spend it with him? Does she love him, too?

His thoughts take over every part of him when he returns home to find her in one of his silk shirts—the teal one that contrasts nicely with her skin—making her own breakfast. His mind is elsewhere but he plays the actions well of kissing her temple and having small chat.

Luke hides his thoughts and emotions extremely well around Y/N for the next week. He acts normal. Kisses her, tangles his fingers in her hair and watches over her at the Bar in case Brone tried to approach. On the outside, he played his part well but on the inside he was in turmoil.

He’s been a wanderer, never staying in one place long, never getting attached to someone—human and Vampire alike. This is the longest he’s stayed in one place since Italy and he’s made a friend in Michael and found a deep love with Y/N.

He’s read of love, he even played Romeo at one point in his life. Songs are rooted from love, paintings, movies, poems. He’s observed it in many forms but has never experienced it. This is all new territory for him, waters he’s never swam in before.

Now, he’s faced with the choice to love her for the rest of her days or make her like him. Sure, he lives an extraordinary life, rubbing elbows with royals and celebrities, experiencing history firsthand. He’s seen the world change many times over while he remains the same. Frozen.

Another week goes by filled with questions and more questions. While Y/N sleeps in his bed, her hand is tucked under chin and his shirt hangs off her body, he walks. He walks through the house, examines his belongings, tickles the ivories on his piano as he passes by then he walks his grounds.

He can hear Y/N wherever he goes, the steady lull of her heart and if she wakes he’ll be by her side in a moment. She’s in no danger.

As he walks, he thinks. He imagines the life they would have had back in his time. They’d have a large estate with beautiful furniture and paintings while her closet would be filled with flowing gowns. There’d be plenty of children running the grounds. A happy life, a promised life.

His head snaps to the house when Y/N rolls out of bed and stumbles tiredly into the bathroom across the way. He races back inside taking his place back in bed just as she emerges from the bathroom.

“Where were you?” she asks thickly and falls next to him.

“I got you some water,” he says holding up a glass. He got it on his way.

She rubs her eyes then takes a few gulps before curling up next to him. She fits perfectly against him, her body molding to his shape like the perfect puzzle. Luke stays awake, asking himself a million questions but never finding one answer.

Luke starts to spiral as more days go by. He decides to fast on his feedings as if doing so would clear his head. His assumption would soon be wrong.

He distances himself even more from Y/N by dropping her off at her place instead of his after her shifts at the Bar. He uses the excuse that he’s remodeling and doesn’t want to risk her getting hurt or inhaling too much paint.

That’s the first lie.

While he continues to deny his thirst, he starts to go mad, spiraling down a dark place he’s never been before. He’s going to a place which started the mask mandate in the first place. Vampires wanted to exist in society but when they denied their drinking they became lustful and more dangerous for a bite. The savage ones used the form of fasting as their own kind of drug, it made them see things, feel things they haven’t before.

While he looks at his memorabilia he’s transported back in time with whatever object he’s looking at. His eyes are darkened which darkens the world around him as he’s reacquainted with his old friends. He has gallant parties with them in his trinket room, his manic laughter echoing throughout the house. To a bystander or peeping Tom, they would see he’s completely alone while ghosts of his past keep him false company.

He ignores Michael and Kitty’s calls then slips further and further from Y/N. He makes more excuses. The second lie is when he tells her he needs a break. Something has come up in Italy. An old acquaintance needs help. Y/N asks what exactly the break means, and Luke laughs at the simple question that has an even simpler answer.

“A break of us. I need space, Y/N, my feelings have changed.”

That was the second lie.

The third lie is that he’s close to his answer, but he needs a little more time. A little more time of not consuming blood and everything will fall into place. He’s not sure how many days have gone by when he reaches this realization. The lack of sleep and blood alters time. (It’s really been a whole month).

Luke wakes from a dream, was it really a dream? Y/N was there, and they were laying in the white sands of Cala Luna beach in Italy. He’s not sure what woke him up, but she was on his mind. Not that she hasn’t been for the last however many days. When was the last time he saw her?

He thinks of calling her but then quickly changes his mind. He ended it so he wouldn’t have to force her to make a decision between her life and him. He’s even more of a danger to her now because he’s been without blood for so long and the way she smells to him? His actions could be catastrophic but that dream…he wants to take her to Cala Luna, kiss her in the sand.

He’s made up his choice.

He searches for his phone, checks the date and time and it’s her day off from the bar so he could go and get a blood bag, replenish himself and go see her. He’s ready to open up to her, wrap her in his arms again and kiss her chest with butterfly kisses.

“The Bar,” he mutters then laughs joyously at his brilliant idea.

He decides to run there and in his crazed mind he somehow remembers to put on his mask, although it’s haphazardly placed. Plus, he’s faster than his car anyway so the faster he gets to the bar the faster he can go to Y/N.

The scents of A positive and O negative tickles his nose and burns his throat. He’s so damn thirsty. His mouth waters as he rushes to the bar and orders two bags. He finishes them in seconds, not even using the glass supplied. He feels the blood drip down his chin and Trixie eyes him cautiously as he asks for two more bags.

Halfway through his fourth, a warm body presses into his back. With the lack of blood for so many days, or weeks, drinking it now and in such a rush has him buzzed. His eyesight isn’t completely back yet, it’s as if he has dark spots clouding his vision. How he’s feeling is the equivalence of drinking alcohol and getting drunk.

Luke turns around quickly; his normally pristine vision distorts the figure in front of him. A warm hand touches his cheek, their blood is sweet with a hint of flowers. In his distorted state, his body is on a fine line of going back to normal and lingering on his blood deprived state, he knows it’s not Y/N.

“Hey, it’s all right. I know who you’re looking for,” Celeste says, but his mind alters it into a singing tone.

“Y/N?” he mumbles. Was she really here?

Celeste’s blood entices him. The blood bags are fine and all but drinking directly from a warm body is better. Being out of human contact for so long, her blood allures him tenfold.

“Yeah, she’s upstairs fixing one of the beds,” Simone sings next to him now.

“She is?” he shifts in his chair then nearly stumbles out of it at the thought of seeing Y/N. Then he’s filled with embarrassment. He can’t let her see him like this.

“We’ll clean you up,” Celeste hoists him against her body. His mind reels at the scent of her blood.

“Yeah, come on, sweetie.”

Their voices sing to him as they lead him towards the stairs. The promise of seeing Y/N allows Celeste and Simone’s help. He doesn’t quite remember the stairs being this long, his body feels heavy and he can feel the blood slosh around. Will she be disgusted seeing it on his lips?

A door opens then he’s rushed inside, his legs knocking into each other as he’s pushed against the back of a couch. He starts to giggle. Was Y/N down the hall and Celeste and Simone shove him in the nearest room to save himself from having her see him this way?

“What’s so funny?” Celeste asks brushing away a curl.

“Hiding while I’m seeking,” he giggles. The girls join in his laughter then is jacket is pulled off.

“You know what will help when you see her?”

“We heard all that happened between you two,” Celeste rubs his cheek.

“Yes, we’ve grown quite close the three of us,” Simone sighs.

“What will help? I’ll do anything,” his words slur together. He keeps blinking his eyes trying to get rid of the dark splotches.

“Feed on us, Luke,” Celeste whispers in his ear. “We can tell you’ve been fasting. Your pretty blue eyes are so dark.”

“Yeah, and you don’t want Y/N to see you like this, right?”

“No! No, no, no, no,” he shakes his head, eyes closing. “She can’t see me. I can’t hurt her.”

“Shh, shh,” Celeste hushes while Simone touches his hand. “We’ll help you…”

“Yeah, we’ve got you sweetie…”

Simone reaches for the button of his shirt while Celeste offers him her neck. In his delirium he’s back at the beach in his dream with Y/N and she’s the one offering her neck. Her blood is so sweet, and he loves her so much, he gives in to “Y/N”’s actions.

“Go on, take a bite.”

HER

Y/N received a note from Michael and Kitty to meet them upstairs at the Bar. She’s very thankful for them because after the whirlwind of confusion with Luke they really helped her out. They kept her occupied and her mind off things while also providing comfort that Luke will come around.

When she walks inside she looks to the Bar in search of Trixie, she gives her a wave, but Trixie is busy with the slew of customers. Y/N climbs the stairs then sees the room the note indicated. Y/N opens the door and is horrified by what she sees. Her stomach plummets, her mouth opens in a silent scream and her heart shatters in a million pieces.

Luke’s shirt is wide open, his mouth latched onto Celeste’s neck while Simone is on her knees in front of him.

“Y/N, Y/N…” he mumbles.

Tears sting her eyes. She’s gasping for breath while trying to speak his name. She hasn’t seen him in weeks, all this time she was hopeful he’d come back. That he would tell her what he was going through, and they could work it out together whatever it was ailing him. How could she be so naïve?

“Oh, look. We have a guest,” Celeste moans. She smiles deviously at Y/N who wipes furiously at her eyes trying to dry her tears.

“Y/N! What—” Michael’s voice appears and that pulls Luke from his stupor.

Luke shoves Celeste away, blood dripping down his chin. He gasps when he spots Y/N, falling apart in front of him. For a fraction of the smallest second, their eyes meet. He tries to say her name while tossing Simone off of him, attempting to fix his shirt and pants. Then she’s gone, running from the room and away from Luke.

“What the hell are you doing, Luke?” she hears Michael shout.

“Y/N?!”

Was that Kitty she passed? Y/N doesn’t know and keeps running, nearly stumbling down the stairs. As she runs Luke tries to get away from the two sirens who used his weakness against him. Y/N’s face sobered him, cleared his vision.

“Get the fuck out,” Michael hisses at the women. They scamper away with Luke trying to follow but Michael blocks his path. “Talk.”

Back downstairs, Y/N’s legs are shaking, her whole body is in tremors. Her heart is breaking and so is the rest of her. Trixie spots her just as Kitty catches up.

“What--?” Trixie’s eyes are wide at the sight of Y/N.

“Luke was upstairs with Celeste and Simone,” Kitty spits in anger. “Y/N, come here.”

Kitty pulls her against their chest, Y/N collapses all too easily with tears falling relentlessly from her eyes.

“Here, have her sit down. Try to catch your breath, babe,” Trixie consoles then runs for a water.

Kitty shuffles over to a chair but Y/N is resisting. She can’t be here. Not with Luke just upstairs and Celeste and Simone.

“No. T-take me h-home…I don’t wa-want to s-see him,” Y/N chokes out. Kitty glances towards the stairs but doesn’t see Luke or Michael. They nod to Y/N.

“Okay, I’ll take you home.”

“What happened?” Trixie asks on her return with a bottle of water.

As if on cue, Luke has flashed in front of them quicker than the speed of light. Kitty places their arms around Y/N protectively, guarding her from Luke and glares at him. Michael appears as well, his hand moving to Luke’s chest that is spotted in blood and still unbuttoned.

“Ask Luke,” Kitty sneers then leads Y/N out the door.

Kitty tries to console Y/N the best they can at her apartment but she’s sobbing so hard it’s hard to breathe. She gasps for breath so much that she dry heaves. Kitty holds Y/N’s face in their hands and recites a breathing technique to her. Her breathing finally picks up but her tears continue.

After a couple of hours, Y/N finally falls asleep, but it isn’t for very long. She wakes up, remembers what happened and her heart breaks all over again. She’s stuck between rose colored dreams of Luke and the dark nightmare that is her reality. She’s not quite sure which is worse to endure.

Days go by and she hasn’t left her bed. She’s cried herself dry and is left with her skin tight and dry. Her eyes are puffy. She’s so sleepy but she fights it off not wanting to dream of Luke. While she’s awake she wonders what she’s doing then hates herself for wanting to be with him after what she saw.

Kitty forces her to drink some water but refuses to eat. She simply has no appetite. Like her heart it’s disappeared.

On the seventh day, Michael arrives with a bag of goodies for her. While he was with Luke, Kitty and Michael were in constant communication trying to figure out exactly what had happened. When Michael discovered Luke had fasted he became so angry he shoved Luke so hard he flew out the window. Luke didn’t put up a fight, he knows he deserves way worse.

Luke begged and begged for Michael to bring him to Y/N but Michael refused, he’s done enough damage. When Luke overheard Michael discussing Y/N with Kitty and how they couldn’t get her to eat Luke jumped to her aid. He told Michael that taking a shower helps center herself and she needs a lot of blankets. Her comfort food is a warm cooked meal of chicken and mashed potatoes with brownies for dessert.

Michael stared at him in shock but heeded his advice then made his way to Y/N’s. He sits next to her on her bed, removes his mask then gives her an apologetic smile.

“Hi.”

She doesn’t say anything and continues to look out the window. He reveals the goodies in his bag, says he’ll cook her favorite food and that Kitty will help her take a hot shower.

“I want a bath,” she mutters.

“I’ll make sure it’s nice and warm,” Kitty promises then helps her from her bed.

The sun rises, the sun sets. The moon rises, the moon sets.

Her days roll endlessly together that she loses track of time. Her appetite comes back but it’s slim pickings. Her face doesn’t feel so stiff from her tears, but she still isn’t sleeping that well. Usually when she’d have a nightmare, Luke would hold her and murmur in her ear sweet things. Sometimes it would be in Italian and his words would turn into a song lulling her back to sleep.

She hasn’t returned to work, refuses to because she doesn’t want to come in contact with Luke. If she saw Celeste and Simone she knew she would claw their eyes out. Trixie is more than understanding and has banned Celeste and Simone from ever returning. Trixie made sure Y/N knew her job would be there for her when she returns and would still get paid.

She overheard Michael and Kitty saying that Luke hasn’t left the bar since that night. She wonders if he still has the blood on his face or did he clean it off? Surely Trixie wouldn’t let him sit there looking like that. She hates how she’s worried for him.

The sun rises, the sun sets. The moon rises, the moon sets.

Y/N wakes to hear Michael and Kitty talking loudly and in exasperated voices. She steps into the living room where they’re seated, Michael has his phone in his hand.

“What’s going on?” Y/N asks, their heads snap in her direction.

“It’s Luke. He’s been hurt.”

THEM

He hates himself. He let his fear take control which left him powerless. He’s sitting at the bar like he has been for the past five weeks, never leaving this spot in case Y/N walks in. He overheard Trixie on the phone with Michael that she takes as long as she needs to return.

He has half a mind to try her at her apartment but a nasty text from Kitty made him stay away. Michael would visit him frequently, drinks a blood bag with him. Michael hated seeing Luke this way, his skin is an unhealthy pallor, his eyes darkened with purple and black circles underneath.

His heart hasn’t beat in centuries, yet he takes on the appearance of what a broken heart looks like. When Luke asks about Y/N his voice is papery thin. He sounds as old as he is, thousands of years old. Fading, decrepit, frail.

Brone stalks up behind him, pushing Luke against the counter. Luke takes it but turns around slowly.

“You look like hell,” Brone laughs. “You’re really this torn up over that flower? Was she really that good in bed?”

“What do you want, Brone?” Luke croaks.

“Let’s have a little chat outside…”

Brone’s teeth sever into Luke’s flesh, his back, his shoulder, his arms. The venom doesn’t harm him, but it fills him with enough pain that he feels himself losing feeling in his body. In between bites, Brone screams at Luke to fight back. He’s waited all this time to get revenge on him for stealing away the love of Brone.

“What are you talking about?” Luke coughs out.

“Remember Lenore?”

Luke vaguely remembers the strawberry-blond woman. It was back in the early 1940’s, she was a candy striper. Luke befriended her one morning on his routine walk when her hat flew off her head. He caught it and they bonded over a new song from Glen Miller and his band.

The closer they got the more she confided in him and that’s when Brone was brought up. Luke has crossed paths with him too many times to know what Lenore was about to tell him.

“She never shared the same feelings for you,” Luke groans. He slumps to the ground against the wall, his body is starting to lock up from the venom.

“Yeah well, now I’m going to take yours from you.”

“No,” Luke hisses through his teeth. He tries to move but to no avail, the venom is quick, and he’s frozen as stone against the wall.

Brone crouches in front of him, smirking. “Oh, yes. I’ll get to see what’s so special about her to you, then I’ll feast on her. Might change her, might drink her dry. I haven’t decided yet. Catch you around, Luke.”

Luke fills with white hot anger, but he’s immobilized. He feels his eyes become heavy, the venom overtakes him, and his world goes dark.

“LUKE!”

Her voice. He hears her voice and tries to reach her but he’s floating somewhere. Somewhere that’s dark and still. Luke tries to resurface, reaching for the sound of her heart. She’s sobbing his name so close in his ear. Is she touching him? He can’t feel it. He wants to tell her to run, to get to safety.

“LU—”

He hears a commotion. Brone’s voice and Y/N’s then a scream and a thump. Michael’s voice. Trixie’s voice. Y/N’s heart jumps erratically, her breath gasping. Luke tries to scream her name. He tries to claw his way from the darkness.

The voices blend together, he’s trying to follow along with the words, but he can’t grasp on anything quite yet. Is Y/N all right? What’s happened? Where’s Brone?

Michael’s voice warps in and out of his mind while he’s screaming on the inside.

It starts in his fingertips and toes. He’s gaining sensation back in his body and when he can twitch his fingers he feels Y/N’s hand next to his. Her heart is still beating but it’s staggered. Where were they? Luke smells the area and they’re in his home on his bed. His bed that still smells of her sweet floral scent.

Michael and Kitty’s voices carry from downstairs, but Luke doesn’t decipher what they’re saying. His hearing is still deep underwater in the lake of the venom. His fingers twitch some more then he brushes her skin. That excites him. He keeps twitching his fingers until he hooks them with hers, he grasps her tightly, so she’ll know he’s there.

Did Brone bite her? Is she changing? Did he just drink a lot of her blood that it’s taking her so long to recover? He wants answers but if Michael brought them to his home then she has to be all right. Right?

More time passes and his ability to move travels up his legs and arms. His eyes and mouth are still clamped shut, that’s the last place the venom reached him, so it’ll also be the last place he recovers. He flexes his finger and toes, bones cracking from being still for so long. At least he can get a firmer hold on Y/N’s hand, now he rubs his thumb over her skin.

Slowly but surely, he feels the weight on his chest disappear. His neck feels lighter and he can turn it from side to side. Not long now and he can open his eyes, he can look at Y/N and assess what’s happened. He can apologize. He can tell her he loves her. He can tell her that fasting was a terrible idea and that he was scared. He can tell her he’ll do anything to gain her forgiveness back.

He counts the time with his clock from his trinket room. It’s been two hours and his jaw goes slack. He opens his mouth and can taste Y/N’s scent in the air.

“Come on, come on,” he mutters wanting his eyes to open now. Open, open, open, open!

Two minutes and his eyes flash open, he has gained full mobility back and he crouches next to Y/N. Her eyes are closed, there’s bite marks on her arms but he doesn’t smell the venom. So why hasn’t she woken up?

“Michael!”

Michael appears.

“Finally. I was about to lose my mind. How are you--?”

“What happened?” Luke interrupts pressing his hand to Y/N’s forehead. She’s not her normal temperature.

“I’m not too sure. When I came, she was on the ground next to you bleeding. I tried to get Brone and kill him, but Trixie got him with her cross bow in his shoulder and he ran off. I would’ve gone after him, but you were frozen and Y/N…I don’t know what’s wrong. I think he fed off her, but I don’t know why she isn’t waking up,” Michael explains in a rush.

“Y/N, lovie…” Luke murmurs caressing her cheek. He kisses her hand that’s still in his, her skin cold. Her heart starts to flutter.

“…uke…” she barely utters.

“I’m right here, love, what can I do to help?” he begs cradling her face.

“Butterflies…” she exhales, and he’s confused. What about butterflies?

“Hm? Should I get you some chocolate?”

Her eyebrows pull together, a weak movement, but he notices it.

“Do you feel butterflies?” he asks gently, her thumb jerks against his hand. That must be yes. “Where are they? They’re not hurting you, are they?”

“No…take me…away…”

“They’re taking you away? Where are they taking you?”

“F…from you…”

“You have to bite her,” Michael says. Luke had forgotten he was in the room.

“What?”

“If butterflies are taking her away then I think that means she’s…she’s dying. You have to change her Luke. Now.”

Luke looks at her frantically. Her heart has staggered more but she appears fine so how--?

“Luke!”

He hovers over her, rests his forehead against hers.

“I’m so sorry for what I’ve done. I’m sorry for being distant and not talking to you. I pushed you away to try and protect you and now look at you. I’m so sorry for hurting you and for Celeste and Simone…they used my befuddled mind and lack of feasting against me. You’re the only one I want, the only one I desire, the only one I love. I can change you, make you like me but only if it’s your wish, Y/N. I’m so, so sorry lovie,” he confesses in one breath.

She squeezes his hand the best she can.

“Change…please…I can’t…leave…you…” her voice barely registers a normal octave.

“Are you sure?” he whispers nudging his nose against hers.

“I love you.”

It was her most coherent sentence. Luke kisses her forehead then moves to her chest. He pulls her shirt away so he can see his bite marks from months ago when he first bit her. He kisses the spot, lips soft as the butterflies, extracts his fangs and sinks his teeth into her flesh. She lets out a shaky breath as his venom spreads through her.

When he’s expelled enough, he licks his tongue over the puncture then drags his lips towards hers. His Sleeping Beauty will sleep now while her body changes, he gave her the kiss of death that will bring her to a new life.

“Don’t go…hold me….”

Tears leak from her eyes as the venom spreads, Luke kisses them away.

“I won’t leave you. You’re going to hurt, but I’ll keep you wrapped in my arms.”

He adjusts himself so he can hold her against him, her heart leaping and jumping at different speeds. Michael mumbles something about being downstairs to tell Kitty. Luke kisses her hair, breathes her in before the pain will take over.

Thankfully, the process isn’t long. It takes about twelve hours for the body to fully change into a Vampire. He stays with her while her breathing quickens then turns shallow. He keeps holding her when she thrashes against him, begging him to take the pain away. He holds her while she screams, telling her how much he loves her.

Her screams continue after the second hour. Her body goes slack, but her voice rings out from the searing pain. Her heart rate keeps increasing.

The sun sets, the moon rises.

When the clock chimes midnight, her screams go silent and her heart comes to a full stop. Luke’s gaze hasn’t left her face and he watches, and he waits. He touches her cheek with his fingers, she flinches then relaxes when she smells him.

“I’m right here,” he murmurs. She turns towards his voice; his arms relax around her, but he doesn’t pull away.

Then, like a butterfly appearing from their cocoon, she opens her eyes to a new life.

• • • •

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tempestaurora · 3 years

Note

One of my favorite poems is Do Not Stand At My Grave and Weep, by Mary Elizabeth Frye. My parents died when I was a teenager and it’s always comforted me. I can imagine my mama reading it to me. It’s absolutely beautiful with such vivid imagery. Loved the poems you just posted about!

oh my god oh my god oh my god

Do Not Stand At My Grave and Weep is right up there with my favourite poems. I think I used it in a fic once but i have no memory of which one it was. like frankly????? that poem makes me FEEL THINGS.

so like i'm gonna give you a poem that gives me FEELINGS and one that is traditionally read at funerals, like frye's!

so the funeral poem is obviously O Captain! My Captain! by Walt Whitman (transcript under the cut)

it just has a really pleasant rhythm to it and now you can all finally understand that reference from Dead Poet's Society.

then a poem that makes me feel things, The Shrinking Lonesome Sestina by Miller Williams, and I'm gonna give you context first so you know what's special about this poem.

sestinas are one of my favourite poetic forms but very time consuming. the form chooses six words (or homophones of those words: to/too/two etc) and then repeats them at the end of six lines of six stanzas in a very specific order, with a concluding three line stanza. i've written several and most of them are bad, but miller williams????? so clever, so smart, makes me FEEL THINGS. just look at how he does it:

The Shrinking Lonesome Sestina by Miller Williams

Somewhere in everyone’s head something points toward home, a dashboard’s floating compass, turning all the time to keep from turning. It doesn’t matter how we come to be wherever we are, someplace where nothing goes the way it went once, where nothing holds fast to where it belongs, or what you’ve risen or fallen to.

What the bubble always points to, whether we notice it or not, is home. It may be true that if you move fast everything fades away, that given time and noise enough, every memory goes into the blackness, and if new ones come—

small, mole-like memories that come to live in the furry dark—they, too, curl up and die. But Carol goes to high school now. John works at home what days he can to spend some time with Sue and the kids. He drives too fast.

Ellen won’t eat her breakfast. Your sister was going to come but didn’t have the time. Some mornings at one or two or three I want you home a lot, but then it goes.

It all goes. Hold on fast to thoughts of home when they come. They’re going to less with time.

Time goes too fast. Come home.

Forgive me that. One time it wasn’t fast. A myth goes that when the years come then you will, too. Me, I’ll still be home.

O Captain! My Captain!, Walt Whitman

O Captain! my Captain! our fearful trip is done, The ship has weather’d every rack, the prize we sought is won, The port is near, the bells I hear, the people all exulting, While follow eyes the steady keel, the vessel grim and daring; But O heart! heart! heart! O the bleeding drops of red, Where on the deck my Captain lies, Fallen cold and dead.

O Captain! my Captain! rise up and hear the bells; Rise up- for you the flag is flung- for you the bugle trills, For you bouquets and ribbon’d wreaths- for you the shores a-crowding, For you they call, the swaying mass, their eager faces turning; Here Captain! dear father! This arm beneath your head! It is some dream that on the deck, You’ve fallen cold and dead.

My Captain does not answer, his lips are pale and still, My father does not feel my arm, he has no pulse nor will, The ship is anchor’d safe and sound, its voyage closed and done, From fearful trip the victor ship comes in with object won; Exult O shores, and ring O bells! But I with mournful tread, Walk the deck my Captain lies, Fallen cold and dead.

#poetry #talk #send me poems and ill send u some back!!

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cynic-spirit · 3 years

Text

The Poem Series (2) “My Love is like to ice, and I to fire” - John Wick

The woman sat wit her other friends and John watched from afar. He turned back to the bar and led out a sigh. Addy takes note and finally approaches John. While wiping the bar with a small cloth she asks John:

“What has gotten the boogeyman to sigh?”

“Self-Contemplation”

“for…?”

“For daring to imagine a life”

“With her?”

“Would she?”

“If you ask her”

John scoffed. He has not asked out any woman on a date before. He never thought he is a man to be tied down. He was an assassin. He was the one who was feared. He was cold, ruthless, feared, and taciturn. How could a woman be with him. In his world he was like Hades. This woman who had just sung on stage was unaware of his life, his past, his tragedies. She had become his Persephone and like Hades, he would make her love him. He would win her heart buy offering her his. He would carve himself open and offer everything he has for her. John became stiff. His body was an outcome of years of discipline. He had a pronounced jaw, with dark beard decorating it. He imagined her with him saying his name and his body jolted. Yes, he decided. I will go and talk to her right now.

John turns around. He looks at the table. There is no one seated at the table. The waiter is picking up the plates and glasses. John looks around with a hope to find the mystery woman named Diana. He hoped that he might catch her before she leaves. Around the entire club, he cannot find her or any of her friends. She has left. John is now restless. For a few moments, he felt he was not alone. He was honest with himself. He thought about her, he felt about her, he dreamt but now that dream is vanished. John knew that it would be difficult to win her for she is a free woman, but he knew he could never again be a free man. Her presence, the few moments with her were enough to drive him to madness and bring the boogeyman to his knees. John finished his whiskey and asks Addy

“Did you see where she went?”

“No. I was talking to you”

“Do you know who she is?”

“I haven’t seen her here before. Perhaps she is new to the place? What are you thinking John?”

“Her name she said was Diana”

“Yes.”

“She didn’t tell her last name.”

“No. She didn’t. You seem smitten John” Addy finally teased him.

“No Addy. I am not smitten. I am just curious” With this, John gets up and leaves.

John had never been a man of many words. He has never spoken much to anyone. He knows in his heart that he is not just curious. The moment he saw her, heard her, a part of him walked out of his body and wrapped itself around her, and there it still remains. How will he find her in this vast city. There are so many women named Diana. He cannot take the resources of the High Table for anyone who interests John will become a target for his enemies. He cannot risk his beloved’s life. He will find her himself. John’s determination however gets riddled with doubt when he thinks, what will he say or do when he finds her. John has not been trained for this. He is confident in his abilities as an assassin but it is not what is needed now. John further thinks, if he asks her, if she agrees, if they are together, what will he say he does for a living. Would he tell her the truth? Would she accept it? She will be repulsed by him, or worse, she will be scared of him. He does not want to lie to her. No. He will not lie to his beloved. He sat in his car and goes to his house.

John’s house is away from the city. He is a private man. He is serios and stoic and rarely speaks more than necessary. He prefers actions over words. His home is a place where can be what he is for real, John. It is a place where is just John. Even his dog, a black pit-bull, is called as just “dog”. John changes his clothes and goes to his basement. He needs some time with his hobby. John enjoys book-binding. He got into book binding from the orphanage he was in. He found restoration and binding of books, soothing, peaceful. With each book he bound, he felt as if he restored part of himself. Through many books that he restored, he was able to find a sanity that resulted in him falling hard for a woman whom he barely knew. John smiles as he binds the first edition of Pride and Prejudice. He thinks about the woman named Diana and does not know whether he is regretful that she didn’t sleep with him or charmed by her singing. Every cell in his body for telling him that she was his happily every after. John puts in the finishing touches on the book and keeps it with the others. John then goes to sleep thinking of her.

It is a new day and John is now up. After having breakfast, and feeding Dog, John has decided to go to the bookstore. It is not so much a bookstore as an antique store. John often takes books from this place and restores them. The shopkeeper, Harold, knows John. More than his name, John, Harold also knows the Boogeyman. John takes a look into the shop for other old books. As he looks around he recollects the innocent face that he came across the previous night; The innocent face with that heavenly voice. The small interaction between John and Diana can hardly be called a meeting but she etched herself in John’s mind. She has tattooed herself on his heart. Yes, John was sure that he was in love with her. Unconsciously, John picks up an old book. It’s a poetry book, and on one of the pages John reads,

My Love is like to ice, and I to fire:

How comes it then that this her cold so great

Is not dissolved through my so hot desire,

But harder grows the more I her entreat?

It was a poem from Edmund Spenser. John does not understand much of poetry or literature ut somehow those lines intrigued him. He wondered what were they about. Lost in his thoughts, John keeps looking around the shop when the sound of the bell on the shop door rings. John leaves out a sigh. Another customer, he thinks. John is not a fan of crowds or people. He is a loner. He sighs. He will come at a later time. He is about to leave when he hears a voice, a very familiar voice, the same voice that has consumed him for the past few hours.

“Hello. Do you have the first edition of The Little Prince?”.

For a few moments, John is in disbelief. Is fate suddenly kind to him? Should he test it? With reluctance and hesitation, John turns and thanks to all the powers in the universe. It was her. It was her, standing on the counter, talking to Harold.

“I have been looking for the book all over. I checked a few other antique shops. DO you have it?”

“Let me check”

Harold goes around to check for the book, as she, the woman who had captured John Wick’s heart stood on the counter waiting, while John stood again in a fix. He has another chance. Should he take it, Should he talk. John is about to talk to her when Harold returns.

“I am sorry, we don’t have it.”

“Oh. Its okay. It’s a hard edition to find. Anyway, thank you.”

With that Diana turns around and faces John. John swore that he would never let those eyes lose their sparkle.

“Hi. John Wick, right?”

“Yes”

“I am..”

“Diana” John interrupted, earning a smile from her and he knew, he would kill another hundred people to see her smile that way again.

“Yes. That’s right. Fancy seeing you here.”

“I could say the same thing”

“I am just looking for a book. Do you live around ?”

“Yes a few blocks away”

“Oh my! And who is this little guy” Diana comes closer to Dog and scratches him behind his ear, earning a whine and woof.

“this is dog”

“Might I say, its an apt name”

“I loved your song yesterday”

“oh. Thank you. It was better than the other thing. I am not usually that forthright with men”

“do you sing professionally?”

Diana blushed and John’s heart raced. “No, I teach literature. Music is just something I enjoy”

Diana’s attention goes to the book John has in his hand. She observes that he has put a finger on one of the pages. She cannot resist and asks.

“What have you got there John?”

“Just some random book I picked up”

“Looks like an anthology of poetry, may I see it?”

“Yes Of Course”

John extends his arm to give the book to Diana. She takes it carefully, not mixing up the page that was opened by John’s finger. As she took the book, Johns hand brushed against hers. John closed his eyes momentarily. Her skin next to his skin, He has had women before, in all ways, in all forms, but when was the last time he was touched? He wondered. The one second that his hand brushed with hers, John knew what he craved. He craved her mouth, her voice, her hair. He was silent and starving. He used to prowl through the streets, and he realized its not the food or money of the killing that would nourish him now. Dawn and dusk disrupt him. He now craves the nourishment of his soul that he will find only through her. He is hungry for her sleek laugh. He is hungry to become the reason for it. He has been pacing around like a hungry, deprived, soulless body all through his life. She was his rain and his harvest. John could go on but he was brought to reality when he heard the voice.

“You are reading Spenser.”

“It is a random page. I don’t even know what it means.”

“would you like to know?”

“know what?”

“What the poem says”

“Yes”

Diana slowly reads the first four lines again. My Love is like to ice, and I to fire:How comes it then that this her cold so great Is not dissolved through my so hot desire, But harder grows the more I her entreat?. She almost whispers the last line. Then she looks up at John and says,

“ its about two lovers John. The poet says that he is like “fire” inside, but his love is comparable to “ice”. Mainly because he is unable to express his love the way he wants to. When he says, But harder grows the more I her entreat We realize that the two lovers are fundamentally very different people. But then the love of the man is so great that it will not stop them from coming together. Spenser is laying that love has the power to change everything. It has the power to alter anyone’s life”

John could not believe what just happened. Was this fate carving him a path towards this woman. He did not open this poem. He has not read poems in his life and when he opened the opened a random book, it was a poem about love and lovers that expressed his feelings like he never could. John’s heart raced. Yes, he decided. He will pursue this woman. He doesn’t know how, but he knows he will bring the worlds together to win her heart. Finally he spoke.

“its beautiful”

“Yes it is”

“I am not a very talkative person”

“I can see that John. Do you want me to leave you be”

(No never. Consume me, set fire to me. Burn me with your words, your voice, your presence. Take every bit of me, destroy me, build me and destroy me again. Consume me like the fog engulfs the city. Consume me like death devours the soul. You are what resides before, beyond and betweeneverything I am now. I am only a fragment of your magic John thought, but he just looked down, smiled and said)

“Would you like to go for a cup of coffee?”

#john wick fanfic #john wick x ofc #john wick x original character #john wick #john wick x original female character #fanfic #fanfiction #the boogeyman #the continental #john wick fanfiction #john wick fluff #john wick x reader #john wick x y/n #y/n #keanu reeves fanfiction #keanu reeves #keanu reeves fanfic

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behindyourbarrette · 3 years

Note

AHH!!!! Congrats on the 100 followers!!!! I’d love to see one of your fav poems 🍄🍄🍄

thank you :))

this poem actually inspired the end of star light, star bright :) it's a little long so itll put it under the cut

You are making breakfast in every dream that I have of you.

You are in the kitchen, your soft middle pressed up against the cold marble countertops like a vision too beautiful for the magazines, sprinkling dark chocolate chips over pancakes.

I think for a brief second that I am dreaming inside of my dream, that I had to make you up twice, just to get it right. You, brushing your dark hair out of your face, smearing batter across your cheeks.

You have come and made my dreams smaller, narrower. Filled them with sugar and your body humming in the same room as mine.

I dream, now, of a normal life with you. A life where breakfast lasts until the sun goes down, until I have finished gazing at you from across the table, flour dried to your forehead like a kiss.

it's Chocolate Chip Pancakes, by Caitlin Siehl!

#rory celebrates 100 🥳

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penaltybox14 · 3 years

Text

DecoFiremen: No happy choice

@zeitheist @darknight-brightstar @squad51goals @its-skadi Silky is sick in the city, and Josiah has to make some choices, and have some conversations. Emotions are hard, yo.

It's never good, to see that look on Eddy's face. His fighter's jaw is set, but his eyes are soft like ships on a dark harbor. This is the face that bodes bad news, something Eddy can't fix with his hands, a hot cup of coffee or a knock about the ears. When Josiah sees that look, after breakfast one late winter's day, the first thing he thinks is the state has come to call on Davey again. He'd taken them in his teeth that day at the gate, and thought if not rid of them altogether, he'd bought them enough time to think of how to put them off for good. It did wake him, though, to watch the high moon paint his quarters and fear the state might come back, with papers, with authority, with some force he could not bluff.

(If they were to take Cleary now, he thinks, the boy would be lost forever. He would be some shadow growing thinner and paler on the back ward of the state hospital, he would settle sure as smoke in that long dark hall of his or drown in the lake below the lawn. For sure, he would.)

"No," Eddy says, his raw knuckles flexing, catching the rattle of Josiah's thoughts, "no, it ain't the young fella."

"So what is it, then? You hear from town there's none left of those hot peppers the grocer pickles, that you eat whole from the stem?"

Josiah's humor falls as flat and pale as vellum in the typewriter, gnawed down by keystrokes.

"Got a telegram from the city, Birchy." Eddy grips the butcher-block of the back kitchen's table, leans, uprights, and leans again. "Silky's gone down sick."

"Sick." Josiah has to steady himself. His bad leg throbs like a bad dream that upends the day. "Gone down sick? Who sent it?"

"Hastings at 27. He's at casualty down at Bellevue, thinking it's pneumonia."

He cannot go. He cannot go: he is responsible here, the Captain of this house, their grounds. He cannot go: to leave his post, to leave the lads, to leave the boy. Worst of all, that: to leave the boy. What kind of captain would he be then, to leave the newest and the rawest of recruits, who still trembles under the blunt wind of the sear and some days even falls to it? Some damn bastard, he would be, but his heart and his bent leg howl as the breath of horses, carrying him surely to the city. He was a coward once who left a hundred thousand words unanswered, the great sulk of an overgrown child. It was not Silky's fault, was it, after all, that the roof had caved, that his body had broken under the greedy teeth of the timbers?

But he had never told Silks that, had he. And he could, now. He could have the chance to say it again.

"It's an awful long way, to the city."

"I haven't seen him since the promotion."

"You'd be leaving the boy."

"I know it."

"Do you?"

"I do know it, Eddy."

"Took you how long to answer a simple letter? How long would you plan on staying? Til he was well? Til the dark took him?"

What a bitter kick in the chest, the fury rising up inside him so hard it makes his eyes water. "Silks isn't going to die. He didn't die in that damn fire and he won't now."

"If'n you go, Birch, I'll drive you to the station. But you'll tell Lufty and Monroe and the lads, and most of all, young Cleary, where you're off to."

Lufty, he knows, will understand. Lufty and Monroe both, are men who have swallowed smoke and coughed out grief in spatters on the sidewalk, ribs heaving under the weight of it. Josiah was not the first fireman to be ground hard in the blaze's splintering teeth, he will not be the last.

Though some days he feels as if he is the only fool to lose a brother by his own carelessness and greedy fury. Fool, to lie shattered, dry and cracked and thirsty for the safe embrace of brick walls and floorboards that creak with midnight steps and men who roll over in starched sheets and roll over again. Fool that Silks had sat for, holding the hand without the needle, speaking to him from far away through the ether and the lazy dream-fields of poppies and long sunshine.

But the boy, god, the boy.

Whatever he does, he can't spare the boy. Would that he could. For his sear to have broke before his voice, the boy ought to be allowed to live a life of perfect grace, running the field with the lads and catching perch down in the pond, every line charged, every ladder strong, every jake out clear.

Silks or Davey, he thinks, what'll it be, what choice do I have?

The sun sprawling across the yard has taken on the keener brass of springtime - the snow is still deep, the ice still thick enough to drive a double hitch onto, but the turn of the earth is winning out as she always does. The lads sweat at their work - Lufty and Monroe have let ladders and ropes ice overnight, and each exercise begins with a clamor of ideas on how to handle the frozen gear. Bertram and Jules are keen to lead, while Kitson, Jacob, and Lee, the newest lot, scamper about and skitter like fawns. How funny, to see from the broad steps, that Davey knows nearly as much as a half-year, though he has not the strength yet. He will, though. There is an awkward, coltish grace about him. Something he has not grown into. Josiah woke one night when the sky was half-silver with stars and Davey was standing in his quarters like a ghost-child, the sear singing in their bones. A long way to grow, that one. A long, fine way.

Lufty catches him after lunch. Lufty is harder at the edges, often, than Eddy has ever been. Even when Josiah was still stiff about the collar in his new kit, Eddy was all bluff, and quick to mild. Eddy would brawl for any jake among them. Lufty was tougher to read, even after he was on the boards. Lufty Parker was burned once, and badly, in a fire at the piers in Chelsea. His scars creep up the side of his neck, and cup the back of his head like a brief and tender lover. They invite no dormitory tales, only an edgy kind of sorrow. Josiah had heard, in his rook year, that three men had plunged into the East River, but just one had come up. The oakbellies, he had been told, had tried to make Lufty a captain, and he'd refused to show up for the ceremony. They'd tried to make him a battalion chief, and he'd hopped the first train to Troy.

So he had been told.

But Lufty knows the white rooms and white coats at Bellevue and the casualty ward.

"There's not no happy choice to make, Birchy," Lufty says to him in his office.

"It's just not gonna be so. That said, it's not about if you goes, I think, it's about if you're coming back."

"You think I won't?"

"I know you will. But it's not me what needs convincing."

Josiah sighs. His leg is tight, aching, and he ought to stretch it out. But he's afraid if he ventures out now, he'll run into Davey, breathless with some discovery. "What am I supposed to say to him, Luft?"

"To Silks or the boy?"

"Either one."

"I couldn't say. When I went into the river, I thought we'd all come out. We had a fire at our heels and the river below us, and the last thing I remember before spitting up black water on the cobbles was Matty taking my elbow and Tom saying it'd be alright."

He's never heard this story, not from Lufty's taut lips and clenched teeth, so he stills like a boy in church and lets the old memory - the smell of creosote, and the greasy river, the snapping pilings and the blinding smoke - shiver on the air and fall as motes of golden dust. The worst was not the plunge, was it, but the waking.

Alone.

It's going to hurt them both, but crueler for the boy.

After Lufty leaves him to his battered thoughts, he sits at his desk until the dusk unravels into night. The dinner mess bell clangs. The lads thunder about downstairs like wild horses, shouting, stampeding.

He ought to get up now, go to the kitchens, get a bite. Eddy is always after him to put something more than gristle and spite on his bones. He plants his hands on his desk, ready to make the effort to stand, when of a sudden Davey's there, in the door.

Josiah has a good look at him, now, under the humming electrics. Still too thin, for his widening shoulders. Hair in need of a trim or at least a comb. (He tries to do it like Bertram Cochrane, slicking the sides down, but the loose black curls are springing free by midday). A tear in the shoulder of his shirt fixed by clunky, deliberate stitches. A boy exuberantly ragged at the end of a long day.

"Capper. You weren't at mess."

Josiah pins a smile to the corner of his mouth like he means it. "Eddy send you up?"

"No sir."

"I'll be down soon."

The boy hesitates. "Capper? Are you angry?"

"No. Why would you say?"

"You been up here all day, Capper, that's all. Eddy said - well I think he said, maybe I just thought of something he did say, you know, the sear said he - well you know. Eddy's sear is so bright sometimes. I forget. Eddy said you used to get your hackles up and hide out in your quarters all day."

Josiah chuckles softly. "He's right. I did. I'm not angry, m'son."

"What's wrong, then?"

"Come sit." There is not gonna be no happy choice, said Lufty. And there won't be, but he'd be crueler not to tell the boy.

Davey comes round to his desk and pulls up a chair, as he does when they read and talk, about things Josiah knows - like radio manuals and floorplans and exit strategies - and things that Davey knows, like checkers and poems and music. "I told you 'bout my pal, Silky. You remember, his letters."

"Yes sir."

"He saved my life. Before I was a captain."

"I dream that sometimes. Like you know about the lake. And Liddy."

Josiah picks up a pen and twirls it over the blotter. His chest is tight, like breathing through a wet kerchief. "Davey, Silky's very sick. We got a telegram from his captain." He takes a deep breath, pushing through it, like crawling under thick smoke, palming every door. "He's in the hospital in the city."

Davey watches him through a child's lashes with eyes that pierce him like a brother. Josiah longs for a horse between them, the calming stroke of the soft brush on the soot-dappled back. He longs for the darkness between bunks, staring at the ceiling. In the low, fragile light, Josiah sees the dampness welling up in Davey's eyes. It is too hard to hide.

Davey knows already. He is biting his lip, as if he is already a young man. While he lay in a Bellevue bed, a needle in one arm, Silky had bent over the other, murmuring. Josiah, from his awkward seat with his bad leg locked in its brace, leans forward in one great surge and takes the boy in his arms and holds him tight. As close as his nightmares, as tight as his memories. "I will come back. I will, Davey, I promise you. I'll come back."

The child's stumbling sear is a raw mess of questions, frantic as birds beating their wings against a low-slung slate-clouded sky. He is crying. Good, Josiah thinks. Good that grief be open.

"You promise," Davey whispers at last, hoarse with a sob and muffled deep into his chest. "You got to promise, Capper."

"Promise. I promise, I promise. As sure as I can't run, m'son, I promise I will come home."

#decofire #decofiremen #found family

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imaaa · 3 years

Text

my dream birthday celebration —

it's 5 a.m., and i wake up. i grab my phone along with my earphones and go upstairs to watch the sunrise. i breathe in the energy that the morning air offers. my skin feels content when it comes in contact with the soft wind. i am gleaming. i look around the terrace. there is no one in sight (yay! i can dance a little too). my eyes absorb the serene sunrise while my favourite playlist plays in my ears. i also find myself swaying weirdly. i'm at peace. i'm genuinely happy. and then suddenly i'm overwhelmed.

an hour passes in the company of the sky. and then i think of heading downstairs. but before that, i move 360 degrees to look at the wonders of the sunrise for the last time. and i end up sighing because i always have this dissatisfaction that maybe i didn't take in the full view of the sky, that i still would have missed something.

it's 6:00 a.m., i brush my teeth, take a good shower, wear my favourite oversized top along with comfortable pants. and of course the sneakers i bought. after i comb my hair, i make a sandwich and a glass of milk for myself. the breakfast goes fine. then i put on my cute backpack over my shoulders, carry a water bottle, and drop my wallet in my pants pocket. i go to my parent's room, wake up my mum from her slumber. she wishes me a happy birthday. i hug her telling her i'm leaving for my trip around the city. and with a big grin, i step out of my house.

it's 7 a.m., i'm on my way to the metro station. on foot, it's a 30 minutes walk. and i got what i wished. empty roads and streets! i hold so much fondness for them. maybe because when there's no one around, i don't have to be self-conscious, and that's immensely relieving. did i mention that i can't go anywhere without my earphones? so, yes, that playlist i made yesterday is doing wonders in my ears. the weather is beautiful. with the right amount of coolness. i'm happy. i'm grateful.

it is 7:30 a.m., i reach the metro station. i wholeheartedly love these metro rides. you may ask why? because they give me freedom. i can be unbothered. i can be carefree. and most importantly, i get to know myself during these trips. with all those strangers around, i get to feel the best form of solitude.

it's 8:30 a.m., i am sitting on a park bench. i didn't plan anything for today. all i knew was that i wanted to be alone. i find myself unknowingly looking at the movements of the leaves. then i am staring at the sky. i feel light. after some time, i spot an empty swing and ride it for a few minutes. and i forgot to mention how i like carrying a bag on my shoulders because it feels like a shield to me.

i wander around that area. looking at people going on with their lives. simply walking and seeing different lives unfolding right in front of me is oddly calming. i end up making theories about life, emotions, and human behavior.

it's 10:30 a.m., i go to some elegant cafe. order waffles. relish them quite slowly. i notice the interior of the place. it is pretty. it has a pleasant ambiance. i cherish my self's company there.

for the next few hours, i take the metro to different places. i click pictures of whatever fascinates me. people, crowd, shops, markets, the hustle-bustle, streets, flowers, trees, sky, vehicles, buildings, birds, animals; it was as if i wanted to remind myself of how much i'm grateful for this freedom. there's so much tranquility in being the unknown. being known comes with the subconscious pressure of maintaining your personality all the time. there's this burden of keeping up with the levels you've already set in the minds of people who know you. being unknown is like freeing yourself from that burden. i have always liked the idea of solo traveling for i don't have to constantly worry about others or my behavior when i'm with them. to be with me, to the welcoming unknown, to the no judgements; this thought fascinates me so much.

for lunch, i go for pasta and a mocktail. maybe, later on, i grab an ice cream too. then i go to this small plant nursery because i enjoy taking a closer look at the plants. it's therapy. after that, i buy myself a few novels, promising myself that i'll read them at the earliest. book shops are too comforting. then, i purchase some new clothes and shoes because i get to treat myself on my birthday. and lastly, i spot a moon necklace in one of the shops. how can i say no to it? right after i pay for it, the moon necklace finds its place on my neck.

it's 6 p.m., i make my way towards this peaceful place that offers magnificent sunset views. and sunsets tempt me to write poetry. so, a new poem greets my notes app. and then, maybe i meet a stranger, and we share a few healthy conversations. the conversations that i'll think about every now and then. it will be amazing if i'll get to meet a baby too. it's fun talking and playing with them.

it's 8 p.m., i'm lying on grass and stargazing. but i won't lie, it's the moon that catches all of my attention. so, it's more like moongazing. then i start to make these scenarios in my head where i'm kissing my lover under the moonlight. i imagine holding hands, the night walks, adorable waves of laughter, and everything cheesy and full of delight. i sigh because imagination is all i've got right now.

it's 10 p.m., i am ecstatic. after having dinner, i take the metro back home. i am tired, but i'm not complaining. i would love to be this type of tired every day. every bit of this day charged me with euphoria. as i walk towards my home, i get filled with overwhelming melancholy, the one that surfaces after you've experienced intense happiness. as i step inside my house, my family welcomes me with a birthday cake. we share a few minutes of sweetness. and then, i make my way to my room. i take a quick shower. thinking about all the events of the day, i smile widely. i open my notes app, cut off "a solo trip around the city" from my bucket list. as i whisper a quick "thank you" to the universe, i listen to a voice inside me, it says "happy birthday, love" and with that sleep greets my eyes.

©lifeandverses

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faejilly · 4 years

Text

our souls inhabit

so this was originally supposed to be a small Snow White ficlet, (from the POV of the Prince), and it sort of... grew? It is now more of a general Malec Fairy Tale AU, with a sprinkling of my favorite dream tropes. Many thanks to @rutherinahobbit for making sure it’s vaguely coherent for the rest of you <3 The title’s from e.e. cummings’ if being mortised with a dream... as were the last five attempts at a title, because the whole poem’s kind of perfect, but I suppose now that I’m publishing we’re all stuck with this one.

His mother tries to kill him when she realizes what he is.

He runs.

Deep into the woods, where no one ever goes. Deeper still, lost and alone.

Until he finds a house, and in the house is a man, a man with green skin and horns, a man who doesn't flinch at the sight of Magnus' eyes. The man's name is Ragnor and he invites Magnus in, feeds him and tucks him into a bed in the attic, and for the first time in a long time Magnus sleeps without nightmares.

He dreams though. Meets a boy while he's sleeping, an absurdly pretty boy with pale skin and messy black hair, a boy who seems about the same age as him, whose eyes are like the shadows in the woods, brown and green and glinting with warmth like sunlight. He's sitting stiffly on a stump that looks exactly like the one Magnus was on when Ragnor found him.

Are you lost? Magnus asks, and the boy frowns.

I think that might be better than what I am.

Magnus can understand that. He's apparently half-monster, horrifying enough even his mother can't bear the sight of him.

I'm sorry, the boy offers, his eyes damp as if he's trying not to cry. My mother had to run away without me, to save my sister and the baby on the way, but at least I know she didn't want to leave me behind.

The boy's mouth doesn't move, and Magnus realizes neither of them are talking out loud, but they seem to know what they each mean despite that.

I'm sorry, too. Magnus sits on the stump next to the boy, and the boy leans in, just a little, 'til their shoulders press together. They neither of them 'say' anything else, just sit there as the sun shifts and the winds blow through the dream-forest around them.

Magnus wakes, and feels better than he has since he saw his eyes flicker into sight in the bucket of water he'd pulled up from the well the morning his world fell apart.

He grows there, in the house hiding in the woods, taught by Ragnor about what he is, and what he can do. He tries to stay alert, to watch out for that inevitable moment when the man grows tired of him, grows impatient, when the man finally says he's had enough.

It never happens. Ragnor makes him breakfast every morning, helps him brush the mud out of his clothes when he gets caught out in the rain, lingers with him in the garden after lunch, smiles at him over the edges of his books, and always answers every single question Magnus can come up with in the same steady tone of voice.

Ragnor seems to like him, and the night Magnus hugs him before he goes to bed, Ragnor just hugs him back, and pats him on the shoulder when he lets go.

"Sweet dreams," Ragnor says, and Magnus doesn't even try to hide the smile as he wraps himself up in his blankets that night.

Sometimes his dreams are still dark, memories and worries spiralling around each other. Sometimes they're sweet, newly discovered flowers or treats, impossible spells and improbable views, warm and comforting. Sometimes they're of the boy from the very first night, the prettiest boy Magnus has ever seen, much prettier than Magnus feels he could have imagined on his own. Not all the time, not any sort of consistent or expected schedule, but sometimes Magnus goes to sleep, and there he is.

Those are the best nights.

They don't talk much, not even the silent sort of words that form in dreams, but they find comfort in each other as they explore the dream-forest, finding a rabbit warren or a new fairy ring, a cold-sweet spring or a wide-open clearing, a mirror of the world Magnus is getting to know when he's awake. They always end the night at that same familiar stump where they first met, sharing shy smiles or small waves before the dream fades away.

It's nice to have a friend, even one that probably doesn't really exist.

He learns to hide his eyes, settles into the glamour Ragnor taught him, and his dream friend frowns, and asks why he changed them.

I like your eyes, they're pretty.

Magnus tries not to blush, manages a shrug. Most people think they're scary.

People are stupid.

Magnus laughs. Except for you?

The boy blushes, and shakes his head. Except for you.

They boy's barely a boy anymore, taller and ganglier, long arms and legs, hands hanging from his wrists like he's not sure what to do with them. Sometimes he looks at Magnus through half-closed eyes, his lashes thick and dark, and Magnus forgets how to breathe.

Magnus thinks he's the prettiest boy he's ever seen.

Then again, he hasn't spent much time around anyone besides Ragnor and his dream-friend in something like ten years. Ragnor gets visitors sometimes, old Warlocks or Fae stopping by for tea, but they don't usually have much to say to Magnus. They go to some of the towns near-by occasionally, shopping for supplies or seeing a show, but it's still usually just them, lingering in the cool green shadows of the woods.

Magnus wonders what he's missing, somewhere out there.

Tries not to wonder if maybe he could find the pretty boy, somewhere in the real world.

He talks to Ragnor about leaving, a little, about what he should do with his life, with his time.

He's got too much of it just to stay here, lingering and waiting for something to happen.

Magnus mentions that he's thinking of going on a trip to his dream-friend, finally, and the boy's eyes grow wide, and he shuffles his feet, and his mouth tightens just a little.

Magnus waits.

My name's Alexander.

Magnus blinks. That wasn't any of what he thought his friend was worried about. I'm Magnus, he answers, and the boy, Alexander, smiles at him, wide and delighted.

Maybe you'll find me out there somewhere, Magnus.

Magnus swallows, and shrugs, and lets himself hope. Maybe.

He doesn't.

He meets Werewolves and Vampires and Fae. He learns of the world beyond the woods, human kingdoms and cities, people and monsters and heroes. He goes looking for more people like him, like Alexander, like Ragnor, children lost and alone who don't have anyone else waiting for them, who don't yet know how to hide what they are, how to find people with whom they don't have to hide.

Sometimes he helps them settle where they are, with a friend or a partner, makes sure they know how to call him if ever they need his help.

Sometimes he brings them back to Ragnor, to warm tea and cool green shadows, lets them learn, just as he did, how to set their worries down, how to breathe. The house shifts, and every time he's there his room is the same, but there's another guest-room in the attic now, sometimes two, a place for someone else to rest and recover and learn.

Every time he's there he dreams, at least once, of his boy who isn't remotely just a boy anymore. Alexander's a young man now, tall and broad-shouldered, taller than Magnus, with a strong jaw and heavy eyebrows, but still there's that same soft light in his eyes every time he welcomes Magnus back home.

Magnus leaves again, and again.

Magnus meets Camille, who is beautiful and sharp and brilliant and forever. He loves her, and she loves him, and they dance and fight and fuck, they fall together and break apart over and over again.

He returns to the house in the woods regularly, even when he's not carting someone who needs sanctuary in tow. He spends a year or five discussing books and plants and Ragnor's terrible taste in tea. He dreams of Alexander, with his sweet smile and the shadows in his beautiful eyes. He cannot help but be glad that, for as long as the two of them wander their woods, the tension he glimpses in Alexander's posture eases, and his eyes look a little lighter by the end of their visits than they do at the beginning. They smile at each other, here, no matter how tired they might be when they're awake.

Magnus talks about collecting ingredients for potions, about the house's garden and the way it's grown over the years. Alexander talks about archery, and the sound of rain against library windows, and training his new horse.

Magnus talks about traveling, about new sights with every dawn, new people over every drink at night. Alexander's smile seems sad, but he asks more questions, always more, and Magnus wonders where he's trapped, wonders at how carefully he never mentions the names of the people he knows, as if he's afraid, even here, that someone might overhear.

Magnus tries not to think too much about how many years have passed, how many times he's looked for Alexander out there in the world, how he's never found the slightest hint of him.

He meets Imasu, who is sweet but fleeting. George who dies too young. He meets more souls who might love him, but leave him for something more steady, more human. He goes back to the woods to nurse his heavy heart when it gets too much to bear, and Ragnor makes him tea, and his Alexander meets Magnus in the shadows of his dreams and smiles.

Magnus smiles back.

But the dreams aren't every night, and sometimes Magnus wonders what they mean to Alexander, how they fit into the life he lives in his own waking world.

I miss you, Magnus says, and Alexander only shrugs, half-agreement and half something else that Magnus doesn't understand. It's not regret, or hope, but it's not not either of those things either.

They wander their woods, which look much the same as they ever do, eternal and barely changing, just like them.

You always come back, Alexander says instead of good-bye, when the dream starts to fade around them.

I'll always be waiting, Magnus thinks he hears as he blinks awake, but he's not sure if it's real, or only wishful thinking.

Magnus' heart heals, and news from the world trickles even into these woods, and eventually Magnus leaves again. But he always comes back, to Ragnor's warm silences and Alexander's warmer eyes.

Sometimes Magnus asks Alexander if he'd like Magnus to stay, here in the woods where their dreams intersect, but Alexander always says no, shakes his head with a smile. You're never gone that long, and I like to hear about the world you see.

So different than the one he lives in, clearly.

How long since the last time you saw me? Magnus asks. Because he wandered almost twenty years this time, and he may be immortal but that's not nothing, even for him.

Maybe a week? Alexander answers. Why? How long was it for you?

Magnus shakes his head a little. A thousand times as long, perhaps.

Alexander goes still, so still it seems that even the trees could move faster than him, if they so decided, and he sighs out one long heavy breath. Oh. That explains a lot.

It does?

But Alexander doesn't explain. He just smiles again, something sad and sweet both at once, and leans in close enough to brush a kiss against Magnus' cheek.

Magnus blinks in surprise, but before he can even lift his hand to his cheek to feel the phantom warmth from Alexander's lips against his skin, he wakes up.

He gets a message from Catarina only a few days later, asking for his help with a squabble between some Vampires and Werewolves that could too easily escalate into a full-blown conflict, and he leaves the woods without getting to see Alexander again. Not that he's ever been able to control the dreams, or ever known when they're to be separated, but it aches more than usual this time, not getting to say good-bye.

He meets Camille again. She's still beautiful and brilliant but something in her eyes has gone brittle. He tries to be soft enough to soothe, but she just gets sharper, and when they drift apart again this time it's almost with relief.

Back and forth for years, for decades, the house, the world, Ragnor and Catarina and then Dot and Elias, Tessa and Zoe and on and on... Alexander in his dreams, now and then, though it's less often than it used to be, even when he lingers in the woods for years.

One night he finds Alexander at a make-shift archery range, pulling his bow back so far his arms tremble, blood on his hands from where he's let the string snap, let the fletching catch as his arrows fly free.

Alexander. Magnus lingers, a few steps back, magic sparking between his fingers, desperate to reach out and offer comfort.

Alexander chokes, the sound rough and sudden enough to make Magnus' throat ache in sympathy, to make his eye burn with the echoes of grief.

Magnus steps closer.

Alexander, he thinks.

Alexander drops his bow, turns, and Magnus wraps him in his arms.

Alexander's trembling, his breath hot and shivering against Magnus' neck, his fingers digging into Magnus' shoulder as he grips him tight.

My father's dead.

Oh, darling. Magnus hugs him tighter. Alexander has occasionally talked about his mother before, his sister, the baby he never got to meet. He wonders about them, hopes they're all right, somewhere out there. Alexander barely mentions his father, his jaw always tight and his eyes too bright, as if he doesn't know what to feel, what to say, and it's clear his father's death hasn't made that conflict any easier.

Magnus holds him, lets his magic free to heal the physical damage, at least, and Alexander doesn't cry.

Magnus feels hungover when he wakes up, but there's nothing he can do for either of them.

When he dreams again, Alexander acts like none of it ever happened, but there's a shadow in his eyes that no longer fades, even when he smiles his usual soft greeting at Magnus. He's hiding, Magnus knows, but he doesn't know how to help lift Alexander's burden. (Alexander clearly knows that Magnus knows, offering an embarrassed smile and a small shrug. Alexander doesn't know what to do, either.) Magnus does his best to provide a sanctuary, at least, and hopes it's enough, even when they're apart.

Magnus finds his father, entirely by accident. And then he flees him, this terrible Prince of Hell, this darkness that twists and turns and laughs, even as blood spills, even as magic burns innocent lives to ash.

His father follows.

Magnus banishes him. He's not sure if it worked, or if Asmodeus is humoring him, biding his time until he can try again. He considers isolating himself, exiling himself somewhere far away from anyone he needs to protect from the shadows of his father's gaze. But he can't quite make himself do it.

He can't bear to be so alone.

Magnus runs back to hide in his woods, to shelter in Ragnor's care and Alexander's comfort until he no longer wakes up screaming at the memories of hell in eyes that looked just like his own.

Alexander asks him about his magic, asks how old he is, asks how often he comes back to the woods.

Magnus tells him, and thinks they both feel better for it.

Alexander asks him about curses, and hexes, asks about the Fae and Vampires and Demons.

Finally figured me out, did you?

Magnus tries to make a joke of it, but Alexander won't let him flinch.

No, of course not.

Alexander pulls him close, his gaze steady and sincere in a way Magnus has never seen anyone else manage.

I've met evil, and you're the furthest thing from it.

Magnus swallows. He remembers when they met, how Alexander's family had to run away from something, how he couldn't go too. He remembers the grief and guilt in Alexander's eyes ever since his father's death. He thinks of the weight Alexander always seems to carry, even here, in the realm they share that doesn't quite exist.

You're in danger, aren't you? Magnus asks.

Alexander's eyes are sad as he shrugs. Isn't everyone?

Not like that, Magnus wants to lean in even closer, wants to let his fingertips touch Alexander's lips, wants to rest his palm against his cheek. No one should be in danger like that.

But shoulds don't change the world they live in, either of them, so Magnus tells him about blood-magic and hexes, curses and counter-curses, how to spot a Vampire, contain a Werewolf, how to tell when a Fae is dodging the truth even harder than usual, how to hide from a demon.

When he wakes he thinks about Alexander's questions, about curses and wards and the intent behind most magic spells, and he goes digging through Ragnor's library, adds to his list of things to look for the next time he goes out into the world.

Most wards are specific, this counter to that magic, and Alexander isn't a Warlock, he can't tell Magnus enough about whatever it is that he's afraid of for Magnus to know what sort of spell might be cast, which sort of shield might work.

He needs something else, something different. Something that can react to that intent rather than the spell itself?

Something that can dodge it, or move it to the side, or... reflect it?

Seelies are fond of mirror magic. Maybe he'll visit them and see what he can learn.

He wanders, and studies, and life goes on, as it always does.

He has a family now, one he chose rather than the one he'd been born of, and the world keeps growing, and changing, and shifting. Except for the house and Ragnor, who stay the same, cool and green and quiet. Except for Alexander, who welcomes Magnus back to his dreams every time he returns.

It takes a few decades, but he manages to figure out a spell, a protective ward linked to a necklace, a flat piece of silver, slightly curved, polished 'til it gleams like a mirror. He looks at it when he's done, and sighs. It's not as if he can take it into his dreams with him.

He finds the old stump, petrified almost as hard as stone now, the one where he'd met Ragnor, the mirror of the one where he met Alexander. He puts the necklace there, in the hollow between the roots, and hopes intent matters enough that it will help, wherever Alexander really is now.

(It doesn't seem to. He takes Alexander back to the stump in their next shared dream, and there's nothing there. He sighs, but then Alexander smiles at him, and he cannot help but smile back as they wander their way to a different clearing, close enough their hands almost touch with each step as they talk.)

He leaves again, feeling more aimless than usual without his research project, and loses track of time for a while. But only for a little while. He'll always come back home again, after all.

Until he tries to go back home, and Ragnor meets him at the edge of the woods, and says No.

Something about a prophecy, and Camille, and some poor young mortal and it's important that Magnus not interfere, and Magnus leaves and gets very drunk and refuses to cry into his beer.

For about a decade.

Maybe two?

He misses Ragnor, and his home, and most of all he misses his dreams, and Alexander, and now that it's too late it's painfully apparent that somewhere along the way he fell in love with a person who probably doesn't exist, and he doesn't know what to do about any of it.

Even in the state he's in, he hears about Camille, about how she made herself Queen of a human kingdom, about a Mirror she stole from the Seelie Queen, about vassals and servants, Vampires, Ghouls, Subjugates, and poor besieged Humans, all under her power.

About the rumors of a lost heir, still alive somewhere in the woods, and Magnus knows that's the one that Ragnor's protecting, and he still doesn't understand why he's here and not there, why Ragnor wouldn't let him help.

Until he feels a tug on his magic, and goes outside the Inn he's currently wallowing in to see Camille herself, looking half-dead rather than undead, her arm hanging like it's broken, her hair streaked with grey, her lips dark with old blood, her clothes torn and ragged and dirt-stained. She's trembling, her skin paper-thin and sallow, her knuckles too big for her fingers as they twist and grip in front of her. The taste of blood-magic and curses linger in the air around her, twisted into something sharp and bright and painful, and the distinctive shape of a scrying mirror is strapped to her back.

Help me, she begs, eyes dark and vicious, and he nods, and opens a portal, and sends her to the Seelie Queen.

He'll remember that last scream of rage and terror in his dreams for the rest of his life, as the Seelies claim her with their vines, powerful enough to bind even Camille at her strongest, never mind what she's become now. But she had murdered innocents, and there had been fear in her eyes but not regret, and he knows sometimes you can't escape the consequences of your actions.

He goes back inside and doesn't even pretend to sleep.

He considers going back to the woods, what used to be his woods, but there's a shiver in his chest where his heart used to be, and he knows if Ragnor sends him away again he won't survive, so he doesn't.

If no one tells him no again, he can still hold onto the hope that he'll see Alexander again some day. He has time, after all.

He just hopes Alexander does too.

He waits, hoping to hear what the rumors say, to see if this time he hears a whisper of what Ragnor was trying to protect, of the prophecy or the heir or the huntsman.

There's nothing.

Instead Catarina walks into his room entirely unannounced early one foggy morning, takes one look at him as he sits up in bed, clutching his blankets to his chest, and starts swearing, sharp and vicious under her breath.

Magnus blinks at her in surprise. She lifts one finger, wait, and turns around and leaves again.

Magnus considers the possibility he's started hallucinating from spending too much time by himself.

He gets himself up and shaved and dressed and goes down to the common room for breakfast.

Might as well be presentable if the hallucinations decide to talk to him next time.

Ragnor shows up while he's still lingering over his tea. His shoulders are hunched and his hair is a mess, and his glamour is thick enough Magnus can't see his horns, but his skin looks slightly green-tinged anyways.

There's an ache in Magnus' chest at the suggestion that Catarina ripped Ragnor a new one on Magnus' behalf, but he tries not to linger on it too much as he gets up and goes back to his room, listening for Ragnor's familiar steps following him up the stairs.

Of course he doesn't know what to say, even once they're back in his room with the door shut and a privacy ward raised, so he lets his hand rest on the back of his favorite armchair by the hearth, tries not to make the desperate grip he needs to keep himself steady too obvious, and waits.

Ragnor's mouth twists, and his hands spread wide, and Magnus realizes he's never once in all his centuries see the man look so hopeless. "Why didn't you, why did you disappear for so long?"

There's a spark of something that might be anger, somewhere beneath all the heart-break and loss and fear. "You told me to leave," Magnus makes himself say.

"Not like—" Ragnor starts, and he lifts his gaze from the toes of his boots and meets Magnus' eyes and his voice breaks off in his throat. "Oh."

Magnus waits again, but it's different now, a trembling sort of anticipation as he watches the expression on Ragnor's face shift, frustration to understanding to guilt.

"I didn't mean it like that." He swallows so hard that Magnus can see the shift down his throat, so hard his glamour flickers, green flashing across his skin, the shadow his horns cast visible against the wall. "I'm sorry."

Magnus closes his eyes, and feels himself sway, relief so heavy he can't hold himself upright. He barely hears the heavy tread of Ragnor's step forward before he feels Ragnor's arms around him, gripping him tight. "I'm sorry, please come home."

Magnus clings, and ignores the burning in his eyes, and nods.

When he finally lets go of Ragnor's shoulders, Ragnor won't meet his eyes, shifts sideways just a little, guilt heavy in the clenching of his jaw, in the thin tone of his voice when he starts talking. "I have to tell you something else."

Magnus snorts out something that might be a laugh, ignoring how damp it sounds from the tears still caught in his throat. "Cat came looking because you need my help with something, don't you?"

Ragnor's whole body sags with relief, and he nods.

Magnus gestures at the chairs, and collapses with a sigh into his favorite. "Start from the beginning, mon ami."

Ragnor snorts, and sighs, and leans forward, his elbows resting heavily on his thighs.

"You remember Idris?"

Magnus tilts his head, wondering how that's the beginning, but nods. "That's the country Camille took over. Are they recovering all right?"

Ragnor lifts his head, eyes wide and startled. "How did you know she was gone?"

Magnus feels his mouth twist, even as he flicks his fingers to the side to attempt to send the bitterness away. "She thought I'd help her get away."

"You didn—"

"Of course not." Magnus swallows, makes himself meet Ragnor's eyes. "I returned her and her stolen property to the Seelie Queen."

Ragnor shudders, but it looks more like relief than horror. "Hopefully we don't need to find her then."

Magnus swallows, something like dread crawling up his spine. "Why would anyone need to find Camille?"

Ragnor huffs out a breath, and Magnus realizes he still looks hopeless, helpless, lost in a way Magnus has never seen before. "Because I don't know how to break the curse she cast."

Magnus thinks of that taste in the air around Camille, blood and desperation, the weight of the mirror on her back, the rumors of the Seelie Queen's increasingly desperate attempts to get it back. "She used a Seelie artifact to cast a blood-curse?"

Ragnor shrugs. "We think so, but it's all tangled up in an old prophecy, and Raphael can't—"

Magnus holds up a hand. "Wait, stop. We're in the middle again."

Ragnor snorts. "And whose fault is that?"

"You're the one who's supposed to be explaining yourself."

Ragnor glares over his glasses, and Magnus feels his face ease into a smile more honest than any he's attempted in years.

It's good to have his best friend back.

Ragnor's attempted frown softens, as if he feels the same way, and he leans back in his chair and clears his throat. "Camille managed to weasel her way into Idris as some sort of royal advisor, used the mirror to fool some King into thinking she was Fae instead of Vampire, and set herself up as the power in the shadows for a generation or three."

Magnus grunts. That's longer than she usually sticks—longer than she used to stick to one game. "What was she trying to accomplish?"

"There's an old prophecy attached to Idris, the original's been lost for centuries, but it was something about a King under unnatural influence, and a gift of magic the likes of which the world had never seen before, would never see again, and..."

"She thought she could be the unnatural influence and snag the gift for herself?"

Ragnor shrugs.

"And even if nothing fancy happened, she'd become the sort of person who'd enjoy playing with mortals for a few hundred years." Magnus closes his eyes, remembers the first time he saw Camille, remembers dancing the night away, the bright sound of her laugh, the touch of her fingers against his skin. He makes himself open them again before he thinks too much about that final scream before he'd closed the portal between him and the Seelie Realm. "I wonder sometimes if the woman I fell in love with ever really existed, or if it was all one of her games..."

"Immortality wears on everyone, in different ways."

"I suppose," Magnus frowns, and tries not to swear. "Is that the prophecy that convinced you to banish me?"

"I didn't—" Ragnor stopped as Magnus lifted his eyebrows. "I just meant for you to contact me from a safer distance. There's a line in it that's generally thought to be about a Prince of Hell being forsworn, and the curse coming full circle, and..."

Magnus' mouth opens, then closes again. He is the only Warlock he knows whose father tried to claim him as an heir to hell itself. "You didn't want my magic close enough to screw up an already weird prophecy."

Ragnor grunts. "I apparently should have phrased it better."

Magnus rolls his eyes. "Clearly."

"You could have asked!" Ragnor snarls back.

Magnus grunts this time. "But that's not really part of your story, either?"

Ragnor looks like he's considering some sort of hex before he sighs and shrugs and starts talking again. "Robert Lightwood, King of Idris, had an affair. When he got caught out, he managed, presumably thanks to Camille's influence for the idea and some judicious encantos for the execution, to convince the Kingdom of Idris it was his wife's fault, and she fled the country ahead of treason charges."

Magnus stills, and remembers Alexander's mother.

Ragnor keeps talking, and it takes more effort than Magnus will ever admit to follow what he's saying.

"The Queen was pregnant with their third child, took their daughter with her when she ran, but Robert had already formally recognized their eldest as his heir, and she knew if she tried to take him too they'd never be able to get away..."

Magnus can't breathe, barely notices when Ragnor's voice cracks with what sounds like genuine grief, as if he knows them personally, as if it's not just a story, as if this is the important part, not just the background to whatever happens next.

"When." Magnus' voice sounds like he's dying, more of a croak of pain than words, and he makes himself swallow, makes himself try again. "When did she run."

"Twenty years ago." Ragnor stops, but Magnus is too deep in his own head to notice, not really, certainly can't tell what Ragnor is thinking, what he's feeling, what his voice or his face might be doing. There's a lengthy pause, and Magnus tries to think, because it can't be Alexander, that first dream was hundreds of years ago, not twenty, but their time never matched, and he'd tried not to think about it too much before, tried not to wonder if his dreams were with a mortal and someday he'd see Alexander aging, or if it was all some prolonged figment of his imagination and someday the illusion would grow too shallow, he'd be forced to realize they weren't true, but their times never matched, and if a week was twenty years than why couldn't twenty years be...

"Now that I know Camille's gone, though, I can send for them, she gave me her mother's necklace before she left so I could track them, no matter where they w—"

"Name." Magnus snaps, not even sure what Ragnor had been saying anymore. "I need a name."

"Whose?" Ragnor sounds honestly bewildered now, which in other circumstances might be interesting, Magnus isn't sure he's ever managed to bewilder Ragnor before, but at the moment he just needs to know his damn name. "Robert and Maryse? Isabelle? I don't know what she named her youngest, they were gone before the birth."

"The heir." Magnus is standing, he doesn't remember standing up, but he's glaring down at Ragnor, fists clenched at his sides. "He's the one you were protecting when you sent me away, wasn't he, what's his name?"

"Alec?"

Oh hells, damnation and gods and demons and... "Short for Alexander?"

"Well, yes, but." Ragnor starts to stand, hands outreached as if to touch, clearly able to tell that something is happening even if he doesn't know what. He's moving too slowly though, and Magnus grabs the lapels of his coat, pulls 'til Ragnor's on his feet, 'til they're face to face.

"Take me to him, now."

"But I haven't even told you the—"

"Now."

Ragnor nods.

He waits a beat, then gently lifts his hands, wraps them around Magnus' wrists. "I need room if I'm to make the portal, Magnus."

Magnus lets go, steps back, exhales something that feels like his soul itself might be trying to flee. He shakes his arms out, clenches and releases his hands. "Please," he whispers.

Ragnor makes the portal, and reaches back, and Magnus grabs his hand much too hard.

He stumbles into a familiar attic, ignores Catarina's startled hello, because there's Alexander, tucked into the same bed Magnus always used when he stayed here, eyelashes resting heavy against his cheeks, chest lifting ever so slowly beneath a quilt Magnus doesn't recognize.

I suppose Ragnor finally got new blankets in the last twenty years, he thinks rather helplessly, even as he steps forward and falls to his knees beside the bed. His hand reaches out, hovering over Alec's cheek, then his chest, but he's afraid this is real, afraid it isn't, and he doesn't know what he's seeing or why, or what to do.

"Alexander." Magnus shakes his head, ignores the ache in his chest and his throat and his head. His hand is trembling, he can't quite seem to keep it steady, and it bumps against the collar of Alec's shirt, opens it enough he sees the glint of a silver chain.

His breath hitches, and he can feel the tears overflowing his eyes and falling down his cheeks. He makes his hand move, just enough to open the collar a little further, to see the familiar curve of silver glinting where it's settled in the hollow of Alexander's throat. "You're real and you found it."

He starts to reach for the necklace itself, to touch the magic, to touch Alexander, when a familiar voice interrupts him. "What the fuck, Magnus."

Magnus turns, and can't help the grin he can feel beneath his tears. "He's real, Cat!"

"Most people are?"

"He found it!" Magnus turns back, and Catarina slaps his shoulder hard enough he almost falls over onto the bed.

"Stop that!" She tugs on the back of his shirt, trying to pull him away from the bed. "We haven't figured out how he's not dead, if you must know the truth, and I don't want you screwing up whatever..."

"It's the necklace." Magnus points. "I made it for him."

"You what?" Ragnor speaks up this time. "I never told you anything about him, and I certainly had no clue that Camille knew how to make a kairothanasia."

Magnus chokes on his next breath. "She did a what?"

Cat makes an almost identical choking sound. "You gave him something that stopped a curse without knowing what curse to stop?"

"I didn't even know it was Camille he was afraid of!"

"What." Ragnor's voice drops almost an octave, and he lifts both hands, palms out, in a very clear stop gesture. "Alec is stable, even if we're not entirely sure why, so I suggest we sit and try to start this conversation over again. From something resembling a beginning."

"Because that worked so well last time?" Magnus huffs out a breath as Ragnor and Catarina both glare at him. "It's not my fault, I didn't know he was real!"

"But you made him a real necklace that does impossible magic!" Catarina's voice rises higher than Magnus thinks he's ever heard it go before, and eyes and hands are both spread wider than looks comfortable. "What did you do?"

Ragnor grunts, and claps his hands, and the bench at the foot of the bed scrapes across the floor as it moves to settle beside the chair angled between the window for light and the chimney for warmth. "Sit."

They sit.

Ragnor summons the small table from his study, and Catarina summons some tea, and they both stare at Magnus.

"Every time I'm here," Magnus gestures broadly around them, both at the house and the woods outside, "I have these dreams where I'm wandering these woods, with..." Magnus trails off, and turns his head to look at the bed. "With him."

"He's not even thirty years old."

Magnus laughs, a hollow sort of helplessness as he shrugs. "Our times never did seem to match. I'd be gone for twenty years, and he'd say his last dream was less than a week before."

"That's impossible."

"The first one was the very first night I was here." Catarina's face turns into a pained sort of grimace; they all know what first nights are like, when a young Warlock realizes what they might be, and Magnus barely stops himself from shrugging again. "You remember that stump you found me sitting on, Ragnor?"

"Only because you'd go back to visit it." Ragnor frowns. "Now that you mention it, it's where I met Maryse and her children when she was fleeing Idris, too, and it's where Raphael brought Alec when Camille ordered him killed after his father died, before he could be coronated properly himself."

Catarina puts her tea down with a quiet clink of porcelain. "Poor Raphael, he looked so disgusted watching me bespell that pig's heart to smell like human blood for him to take back to Camille as proof."

Magnus shudders in sympathy. That spell was messy, and would have required some of Alexander's blood put into the pig's heart to convince the rest of it to change to match. "It must have worked for awhile, Robert—" Magnus stops, swallows, remembers Alexander trembling as he clung to Magnus in a clearing in the middle of the woods. Remembers the news, much more recently, of the death of the King of Idris, of the Regent taking over, of Camille becoming Queen. "His father died a few years ago, didn't he?"

"He and his second wife, the poor woman. Carriage 'accident', or so the stories went." Ragnor clicks his tongue, echoing the porcelain as he puts his cup down next to Catarina's. "She had no idea what she was getting into, falling for a Lightwood."

Neither did I, apparently. Magnus swallows, and tries to figure out what to say next. "That stump was where I met Alexander, in that first dream. It's where I put the necklace, after I made it. I'm not sure why I did it, couldn't have told you while it was happening, I knew I couldn't take it into a dream, but I just... I wanted to help."

"What, exactly, was this help then?" Catarina leans forward.

"It's just a basic ward twisted into a bit of silver." Magnus had repeated and twisted it nine times to make it as powerful as the silver could bear, but that wasn't difficult, it just required patience and brute force. Rather a lot of it, perhaps, but he'd had the time and power to spare. Would have spared anything, he realizes, for Alexander. "I based the shape of the spell on a Seelie mirror though, so it would reflect any magic that carried an intent to harm, rather than trying to set up counters for specific spells."

Just, Catarina mouths at him, and shakes her head.

Ragnor whistles softly. "It wouldn't work on raw magic or accidental damage like a personal ward, but it's perfect for someone being targeted who can't work magic directly."

"Thank you." Magnus twists in his chair to look at Alexander again. "Was it though?"

"He's still alive," Catarina answers, her voice almost unbearably soft. "That's a miracle, considering."

"Are you sure about that?" Magnus can't stop himself, he stands, starts to move closer to the bed, to Alexander. "How did she even manage to make a kairothanasia?"

"Enough blood and intent, focused through that mirror?" Magnus hears Catarina stand up behind him. "Camille has more than enough of both."

"Had," Magnus corrects, and he walks the rest of the way toward the bed. He vaguely hears Ragnor telling Catarina about Camille as he kneels again, but he isn't really paying attention. If his necklace had worked, it should have reflected the curse back on Camille. But she hadn't been cursed to have never existed, hadn't had her blood erased all the way back before she'd been born, like she'd tried to do to Alexander. Magnus remembers every time they'd met, every rumour he'd heard of what she'd done when they were apart. She hadn't even been killed by it, not quite, no matter how damaged she'd been when she'd tried to ask Magnus for help.

But if her curse had worked, if the necklace had failed, Alexander would have never existed, and here he is, alive and breathing and one of the few constants of Magnus' life.

So it's something in-between. The kairothanasia's the strongest curse Magnus knows, and if Camille had powered it with enough blood, enough intent, if that mirror was as dangerous as it seemed, it would have been too much even for the necklace's protection to reflect in its entirety. But some of it...

Some of it had rebounded back on Camille, some of it was keeping Alexander asleep, but that couldn't be all of it, not a curse like that, not one that killed someone's past as well as their future.

Magnus reaches a hand out again, holds it above the necklace, and stretches, oh so gently, magic twisting from his fingers to brush against the wards he'd set. He hisses in pain as they spark back at him, and pulls his hand away, cradles it against his chest.

Well.

Fuck.

The curse is still there, tangled up in the necklace, resting so close to Alexander's heart that Magnus has to bite his lip and focus on the sting to make himself think rather than reach down and try and yank the necklace off Alexander's body. The wards are clearly strong enough to block the intent, but the spell still wants to complete itself. He narrows his eyes, thinks about the feel of those sparks, warm and lively, and wonders. It's powerful, potentially deadly, but it doesn't feel like blood-magic anymore, tastes like regular magic rather than a curse, as if the wards managed to twist it inside out, just like Magnus had wanted, but it was too big.

By the time it had finished twisting the curse, the blood magic and wards were knotted too tightly together to push it back out again?

"Time," Magnus whispers. The kairothanasia erases someone from time, and all the results from the deflection have only happened now. He has to let the spell do something to the rest of Alexander's lifetime or it'll just sit there, twisted around backwards and eating Alexander's future instead of his past.

Alexander's past.

Alexander's impossible past, full of dreams with Magnus from before he was born.

Maybe he needs to let the spell do something that has already happened, maybe he has to let it make Alec alive before he was born, even if only in dreams.

For that to work, he has to let this inside-out curse tie his and Alexander's lives together.

He's... not at all sure what that will do. Two souls, one life, half immortal, half mortal?

"Oh." Ragnor's voice is right there, and Magnus lifts his head to see Ragnor and Catarina standing just beyond his reach, holding hands and eyes bright with magic; they'd clearly been following along with his diagnostic. "If the kairothanasia makes it so someone was never alive, the counter means they're extra alive, doesn't it?"

"I think that to dispel it properly the spell will have to be set on both of them. Your life will be his, and his death will be yours." Catarina's voice is soft as she smiles at Magnus, her eyes sad as every year of her life lingers in them. "Your wards are powerful, but not enough to dispel that curse, not entirely."

"A gift of magic that has never been seen before, nor will again." Ragnor whispers. "Your wards combined with Camille's curse, Vampire blood and Warlock magic, both shaped by Seelie mirrors. It's the prophecy, Magnus."

"If it does what we think... He'll lose his family again." Magnus wants this, wants to save Alexander, wants to see a future that's not just in their dreams, but he doesn't know if Alexander does, and he can't ask.

Immortality wears on everyone, in different ways.

They may not become completely immortal, but they won't quite be mortal anymore, either.

"I've never seen him take that necklace off," Catarina counters. "I think you're his family, too."

Magnus can't speak, can't think, doesn't move.

"He'd want to live." Ragnor's voice is rough, and his free hand reaches out to grip Magnus' shoulder. "Even with your wards, the hit from that curse would have hurt, would have told him to give up, to let go, and he's still here, still breathing. At some level he had to have fought for that."

Magnus closes his eyes, swallows. Thinks of Alexander's smile, the steady weight of his gaze. Alexander never gives up, Magnus can't either. He reaches, twists his hands in the air before him, pulling his magic from the necklace, back into himself, making the inside-out curse come with.

He screams as the spell explodes, sunlight in his veins, burning beneath his skin, and he can feel the weight of it, the twenty-eight years of Alec's life over and throughout the centuries of his own, stretched thin and fragile but undeniably there, tangled together too tightly to ever be pulled apart again.

He blinks himself back to awareness. The room's dimmer than it was, his bones ache and his magic's almost entirely depleted; he feels raw and scraped out, and it's only when he tries to shift to ease the soreness in his muscles that he realizes he's lying down, that same new quilt he'd noticed earlier draped over him.

He turns his head, and forgets every bit of pain because there's Alexander, close enough to touch at last, lying on his side, his arm tucked under his head, his eyes just barely open, a glint of light catching beneath the dark shadow of his lashes.

"Magnus." Alexander's mouth curves into the barest hint of a smile, his voice low and mumbling, barely more force behind the words than an exhale of a breath. "Hoping I'd dream of you."

Magnus sighs, feels the tremble of his breath, hope bright and shivering in his chest, and turns himself slowly onto his side to mirror Alexander.

There's a hint of a frown between Alexander's brows as he watches, but he holds it in until Magnus settles to a stop.

"You look tired."

Magnus almost laughs, but he's afraid it'll hurt. "That's because we're both awake, darling."

Alexander's eyes widen, and his breath stutters, as if he's only now managed to pay enough attention to realize where they are. "You're rea—" His voice cracks as he tries to lift himself onto his elbow, and he slides back down onto the bed with a groan, making it clear he's at least as sore as Magnus is. "You're here. Now."

"Same place, same time." Magnus finally lets himself reach out, though his fingertips rest against the silver charm that he only notices now is solid black with tarnish, thick and set enough it doesn't even smudge at his touch, rather than touching Alexander himself. "You found it."

"When I was eight." Alexander's shoulders shift, and there's worry in his eyes. "The day I first dreamt of you."

Magnus' eyes slide close, open again as he shakes his head, fabric wrinkling beneath his temple with the movement.

"I think I made it almost forty years ago now, when I'd already known you for centuries." Magnus hums, thinks about the feel of the spell as it had tied them together. He can still feel it, a tug between his ribs that he knows will never go away again, that he knows is Alexander. "Our times match now."

Alexander's frown deepens, but he clearly isn't surprised, had already figured out how far off their histories were. "How?"

"Camille." Magnus swallows, tries again. "She tried to curse you so that, rather than just dying, you'd never existed at all."

"Magnus," Alexander breathes out, eyes wide with horror. "I'm so sorry."

Magnus has to turn his head into his pillow, not sure if he's blocking a laugh or tears. Alexander is clearly more concerned about what that would have meant to Magnus than what it meant about his own life. "It's too powerful a curse to be easily dispelled or reflected..."

"Magnus," Alexander repeats, but this time his voice is steady. He's waiting for Magnus to look at him, to finish saying it. "Please."

Magnus makes himself return that steady gaze. "The spell still had to affect time, not just the present, so it..." He chokes, gestures between them.

Magnus wonders when Alexander first suspected the nature of their impossible connection, wonders what it must have been like for Alexander to hear Magnus mention Camille, the Lightwood's personal devil, back when she'd just been a person, a lover, someone who danced through life, who knew how to laugh, who wasn't always cruel.

I'm sorry, he thinks, but he knows it wasn't his fault, that now isn't the time to try and unpick the tangled weave of their timelines.

"That's how the dreams." Alexander blinks, hums softly. "Never thought I'd be glad for something Camille started."

Magnus huffs out a startled laugh, then presses his hand to his chest with a groan. It hurts as much as he'd been afraid it would. "Our lives are tangled together for the future, too."

"But you're immortal."

"I was."

Alexander makes a soft pained noise, as if he'd been wounded.

"Just like you were mortal."

Alexander's eyes close, slowly this time, and stay that way as he exhales, long and shaky. Magnus waits, for what he's not entirely sure, fear or anger or regret. "Thank the gods," Alexander whispers.

"What?" Magnus' voice cracks up, louder than he'd intended.

Alexander smiles, and his eyes are damp when he opens them, but they're alight, joy and relief and something that Magnus suspects might be love. Magnus forgets how to think. "I thought you meant you were going to die because of me, not that I'd get to live with you."

"Oh." That's all Magnus can manage. They stare at each other, until Magnus realizes it's still getting darker, and it's difficult to see anything beyond the shape of Alexander's cheekbone, the faint glint of his eyes in what little light is left. He realizes he is sure of Alexander, of how he feels, of what he wants. Of everything Alexander never said, but showed him nonetheless, night after night of conversations and silences, shoulders pressed together as they perched on that same damnable, wonderful stump. "I love you, too."

Alexander smiles, wider and brighter than Magnus has ever seen before, and he has no idea what to do now that this is real. He reaches, and Alexander's lips are warm against the very tips of his fingers, and he feels that amazing smile soften beneath his touch.

"You're real," Magnus whispers, "and you're here, with me."

"You're real," Alexander agrees, "and you saved me."

"You first," Magnus says, and he's smiling like a loon, he's sure, as Alexander's hand wraps around his, fingers long and the skin just rough enough to catch, as he tugs Magnus' hand down out of the way and leans in even closer. Magnus closes his eyes, and Alexander's lips meet his at last, as gentle as a spring wind, soft and warm and sweet.

Magnus sighs as their mouths part, as every last bit of worry and stress seems to leave him, and no matter how much he wants to savor every moment of this, he's not sure he can stay awake for much longer.

"Sweet dreams," Alexander breathes against Magnus' mouth, and Magnus laughs again, blinks his eyes half open long enough to see Alexander, to answer with what they both know is true.

"How can they not be, with you in them?"

Alexander scoffs out a breath, amused and fond. "Our times match now, there may not be any more dreams."

"You've always been my favorite dream, Alexander."

Alexander kisses Magnus' forehead, the warm press of his lips lingering as he exhales. Magnus lets his eyes close, and his body settle.

I love you, he hears, and it doesn't matter if Alexander says it out loud, if he's imagining it, or dreaming it. He knows it's true.

#shadowhunters #malec #magnus bane #alec lightwood #ragnor fell #camille belcourt #my sh fic #jilly writes #snow white #fairy tales

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nathanicls · 3 years

Text

* ◜ timothée chalamet , cis man & he / him / his ◞ * according to school records , that’s nathaniel jessop walking on campus grounds with their usual hot chocolate from the ancient grounds cafe . they’re known for narrowed eyes and are often spotted at the secret garden reading the catcher in the rye . almost everyone knows their family is worth like one hundred million dollars , so we suspect they’re a member of labyrinth , you know , the one for new money . do you know where they were the night that the scholarship student died ? they claim they were on a date with a new partner , must be a philosophy thing , right . and hey , don’t you agree that the senior reminds you of snow flurries covering the ground in soft layers, the sight of the country sky on a clear night , the scent of fresh bread just out of the oven ? you better watch out perseus before something dangerous happens to you and life ends at twenty-two .* ◜ jack , 23 , est & she/her/hers ◞ *

the laziest about you ever did see!

nathaniel jessop (call him nate!) is born to colin and marianne jessop. he has three older siblings; in order, they are matthew, corey, and joshua. his father owns a grocery store; his mother runs the bakery. they are never a rich family. they go without and sometimes it’s breakfast for dinner because cereal is cheap and it is all that is left in their cupboards. it’s fine. what they are rich with? love and compassion and good will.

nate doesn’t really get that they are poor, not until he starts school and kids pick at his hand-me-downs and laugh when he can never afford to go to school events or on field trips. because of this, he pulls back. that said, he is shy to begin with. he sits with his brothers at lunch when he is able; his brothers’ friends are his too because he never really finds his own.

he goes to school then he takes the school bus home to drop off his backpack. he walks the quarter mile to the grocery store and pulls on an apron to help his mother in the bakery. he kneads bread for hours, feeling smooth dough underneath his rough fingers. it’s quiet, good work. he’s skilled at it. his mother suggests he could help her there instead of going to college or to trade school. he thinks it’s a good future; he’ll be close to home and close to family.

when he is twelve, his father gets an inheritance from an estranged uncle. it’s a lot. it’s more than he or marianne have ever had in their accounts before. they don’t splurge. they make a few repairs on the house and they buy a new engine for the family car. but the bulk of the money? it’s put into the bakery. marianne had been told for years that she had a magic touch in the kitchen. the jessops never had the money to expand or sell beyond the bounds of their little town. the money goes towards new ovens and mixers; a website is set up and they research how to ship.

beyond what they could ever imagine, the little bakery business booms. suddenly, the bakery is too big for the grocery store and its moved to their own storefront. then, it’s moved again. marianne (and by proxy, nate, too) is featured in food magazines and on television shows. business keeps growing. an investor reaches out. how would they like to open another location?

they do it. and then they open another. and another. finally, there are five jessup pastries up and down the eastern seaboard.

nate is seventeen and the family is no longer struggling with money. in fact, their pockets are overflowing. he doesn’t have to want for anything. he has chances and opportunities that weren’t there for his parents or siblings. he is pushed into a future that he never imagined. gone are the dreams of inheriting jessup pastries. instead, he is told to think about university and a career.

he goes to clemonte. he is invited to labyrinth and at first he nearly says no. the texts in his groupchat with his brothers are riotous. they tell him to take chances.

it’s four years later, he’s a senior now. he feels as lost as ever.

the laziest personality facts

he’s shy. he hardly talks first. it’s a pain to start a conversation with him, really, it’s like pulling teeth, unless he knows you.

why is he quiet? he worries he’ll ruin everything by mispeaking

another why: why philosophy? it seemed like a rich thing to do. he plans on teaching after he graduates. isn’t that something rich people do? so he’s very lost

he can be pressured into doing almost anything because he has a lot of guilt saying no to anyone

if he could be left to his own devices, he’d never go out on the weekend

DID I MENTION HE’S A ROMANTIC. yeah. when he’s in love, the boy goes the whole nine yards. flowers and poems and freshly baked pastries and breads. he lets himself fall quickly and more often than not he lets his heart get broken

daydreamer soft boy

misses the small virginian town he grew up in

soft gentle boy

feels empty

someone could take a bite out of him and he’d probably let them, if only to feel something stronger than the numbness

wanted connections more fleshed out than anything else because i am a piece of garbage (also are all of these based off of either taylor swift or richard siken? yes)

i knew everything when i was young: how do you break your own heart? you put it in the hands of someone else willingly, and then they squeeze. imagine him, wide-eyed and vulnerable, finally feeling like he’s truly in love. it’s perfect — it’s magic and every moment spent together is delightful and perfect and — there’s little more to be said. then, his lover decides that he’s not for them. it’s over. and suddenly nate knows what it feels like to be destroyed. whether his heart was broken out of cruel intention or genuine falling out of love? we can decide.

he won’t tell you that he loves you, but he loves you: broken boy refuses to give his heart to another because what if it breaks again? he pines and he yearns with sad eyes and soft glances. words die on his tongue, tangled and choking because he’s bursting with all the love he could possibly give. maybe they know of nate’s feelings because surely it must be obvious (starry eyes and rose-stained cheeks and — he’s a boy in love) but maybe they don’t. maybe they think he’s a friend, or maybe they’re unsure of his intentions. maybe he’ll never say anything and maybe he’ll be the cause of his own heartbreak once again.

you can call me babe for the weekend: now one hundred percent nate isn’t the sort for hook-ups or one night stands, but what if it happens. it’s brief — boundaries are drawn. but just because rules are made doesn’t mean they’ll be followed. who breaks first? who falls in love or decides it’s too much? who gets hurt and who ends up unscathed? is it newly ended or is it long since passed, only too-long glances when they pass on campus to hint that something happened?

we have not touched the stars: there’s something special about platonic intimacy, something that goes unnoticed more often than not. but nate and them sit on a bed, heads pressed together as they stare at the ceiling, finding constellations in cracks and coming up with the stories behind them. they talk about dreams and the future, of fears and impossibilities. does anyone know them better? probably not, but they are content with this. friends forever is a dreamy thing, but together they feel it’s a possibility.

so i got wasted like all my potential: floured fingers, a sticky brow. in the wet heat of the bakery, nate knew who he was. he knew who he was supposed to be — but then the bakery grew beyond him and his mother, and he was pushed out. i’ve said he’s lost so i imagine he might do things to try and feel something. maybe it’s discovering vices, maybe it’s feeling a rush of adrenaline going beyond the bounds of what he normally does. i don’t imagine he’d seek out many things on his own, so maybe someone is “guiding” him — maybe it’s pressure or maybe it’s genuine goodwill. either way, this could be beneficial or super toxic.

generic connections that can be expanded on

bullies

exes (come on. come on.)

roommates

friends

not friends

study buddies

#/ intro.

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drsilverfish · 4 years

Text

Dante’s Divine Comedy and La Vita Nuova and S15

It occurs to me that S15 might be having our heroes follow the journey of Dante in his medieval literary work The Divine Comedy (1308-1320).

Dante inserts a character representing himself as the protagonist of The Divine Comedy.

That rings bells in terms of SPN’s God and his Chuck Shurley persona, and also checks with Vonnegut (who also used this device) whom we know is loved by both Dean and Chuck from 4x18 The Monster at the End of This Book, and whose novel, Breakfast of Champions, is name-checked by Dean at the start of 15x06 Golden Time (and which I think might provide the road-map for SPN’s ending).

The Divine Comedy is an allegory for the soul’s journey to God. So is medieval alchemy, as I’ve discussed in various SPN, Jung and alchemy posts previously. And we can see the writers’ room is drawing on alchemical imagery (e.g. see the link to my Rowena post below).

Dante first travels through the realms of Hell, then the realms of Purgatory and finally travels through the realms of Paradise. So there are three books:

Inferno

Purgatorio

Paradiso

His guide is the poet Virgil through Inferno and Purgatorio, but he meets his beloved, Beatrice, in the final realm of Purgatory and she guides him through Paradiso.

We have seen Sam, Dean and Cas all journey to Hell, last episode 15x08 Our Father Who Aren’t in Heaven, in search of Michael, where they meet Rowena in her new Ouroboros (death and rebirth) incarnation as the Queen of Hell. I’ve written about the alchemical imagery associated with this new version of Rowna here:

https://drsilverfish.tumblr.com/post/189671968369/rowenas-symbolic-and-alchemical-return-of-the

Now, Dean and Cas are about to journey to Purgatory in the upcoming 15x09 The Trap.

These are both return journeys. Dean and Sam and Cas have all been in Hell before, and Cas and Dean have been in Purgatory before. This fits with Dabb’s Ouroboros narrative structure for SPN, in which it swallows its own tail to reach its resolution.

It makes sense therefore, and following Dante, that there must be, at some point, a return to Heaven, and/ or a visit (most likely by Cas) to The Empty, in order to enlist Jack’s help against God.

Dante wrote another famous poem La Vita Nuova (1294) in which the character of Beatrice appears (she was based on a real Beatrice, whom Dante loved). That poem is a courtly love poem (medieval courtly love was both sacred and profane, but was often understood, likewise, as an allegory for the soul’s journey to God).

I’ve written before about how the tradition of courtly love has resonance for Supernatural:

https://drsilverfish.tumblr.com/post/44110505167/mytharc-vs-heart-arc-dean-as-medieval

https://drsilverfish.tumblr.com/post/181231154654/the-dean-cas-spiral-narrative-s13-and-14-edition

We could think about Dean as Cas and Dante and Beatrice.

Here is Dante Gabriel Rosetti’s painting “Dante’s Dream” (1871) (and remember the pre-Raphaelites were all about a return to find inspiration in the medieval):

Beatrice dies in La Vita Nuova and the poet mourns her deeply.

I’m not saying Cas is definitely going to die in Purgatory, BUT there is a helluva lot of death imagery in that spell Michael gave to Cas:

https://drsilverfish.tumblr.com/post/189656694954/the-purgatory-spell-in-15x08-love-death-and-an

As, I’ve said before, Purgatory in S8, is where Dean let himself love Castiel again without guilt - “It felt pure”, after the suffering Cas had caused to Sam and to the world as a result of his deal with Crowley and his Godstiel/ Levi!Cas arc.

This is Dante, in La Vita Nuova talking about how love entered his heart:

“Since Love took hold of me it’s been so long,

He’s made me so used to his sovereignty,

That though at first he felt all harsh in me,

Now he is in my heart as soft as dawn,

When he so drains strength that it’s nearly gone

And it seems my spirits all have turned to flee,

Then my fragile soul can only be

Infused with sweetness till my face goes wan.”

That’s how Dean greeted Cas in Purgatory in S8 - his face was filled with such joy when he found and hugged his angel by the river in 8x02 What’s Up Tiger Mommy:

And this is Dante mourning Beatrice’s death:

“My sighing leaves me anguished gasps for breath,

When in my memory a sad conceit brings back,

What made my heart feel self-estranged,

And often when I have my thoughts on death,

A longing comes to me so mild and sweet,

My face’s color is completely changed.

And once her image in me is arranged,

Such pain comes over me in every part,

I shudder suddenly awake with woe:

And I am altered so,

Shame cuts me off from people; I depart.

In mourning then, alone as my tears flow,

I call, “Beatrice, are you really dead?”

And calling out her name, I’m comforted.”

We have seen Dean mourn Cas like this in S13 - here as he burns Cas’ body in 13x01 Lost and Found:

It’s really worth listening to the music in both these scenes again:

The Purgatory reunion in 8x02 What’s Up Tiger Mommy:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_7RaQvZj2l4

The burning of Cas’ body in 13x01 Lost and Found:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BH3KeYXvlaE

because in each case it’s deeply emotive.

So, in conclusion, we can productively think about S15 as a mirror of Dante’s journey through Hell, Purgatory and Heaven in The Divine Comedy. And that naturally leads us to consider Dante’s other great work, of medieval courtly love, which also features his beloved, Beatrice; La Vita Nuova and it’s relevance to Dean and Cas.

SPN is, in one sense, the story of the soul’s journey to God, like The Divine Comedy (and out the other side to freedom, as ultimately this is more Vonnegut than Dante) and it is also (in subtext - but remember subtext IS part of narrative) a courtly love romance, like La Vita Nuova.

Tagging @postmodernmulticoloredcloak because you might enjoy the Dante!

La Vita Nuova (Digital Dante): https://digitaldante.columbia.edu/text/library/la-vita-nuova-frisardi/

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theharellan · 4 years

Text

Expectations

My first play-through of DA:I I was playing a dwarf Inquisitor (who I write on @ourdawncomes) and as it happened Solas was her first friend, and also happened to be one of her best. However, the way the friendship scene plays out with Solas as a dwarf is never quite what I had in mind for how it would play out with Thora, so this is my rewrite of it.

I am using canon dialogue in places where I feel it fits, especially for Solas. And yes, I’m posting it on this blog because I have more followers, even if it’s from Thora’s POV. Don’t @ me.

Thora squints against the sun as she steps onto a balcony bathed in midday light. The wind from the Frostbacks is cold on her cheeks, but it’s a welcome relief to stand under an open sky after the high, windowless walls surrounding Solas’s study. He paces along the edge, his fingers running along the ridges of the stone balcony, feeling the grooves beneath their tips. The walk up here had been quiet, at least by their standards, with only polite inquiries as to her health. Now, whatever he had brought her here for weighs visibly upon his expression, brow wrinkled with thought.

“You had something on your mind, Solas?”

He sighs, hand lifting to press against his head, ironing out the lines in his forehead. There’s something familiar about the way Solas conducts himself when his emotions finally get the better of him: the pacing, the gesture of his hands, the way his eyes always look away before they find hers. It’s almost amusing to see him that way, considering who she knew him as when they first met. Amusing, until she remembers Wisdom. “What were you like,” Solas asks, hand falling to his side, “before the Anchor?” Thora’s eyes are drawn to her hand, fingers unfurling to stare at the green crack that glows along her lifeline. Whatever answer he seeks, she does not give it quick enough. “Has it affected you? Changed you in any way? Your mind, your morals, your… spirit?”

“What?” she laughs, looking up, expecting to see mirth in his face, but he meets her gaze with stony eyes which kill the sound in her throat. So, he’s not kidding. “I’m not sure how I’m supposed to know that.” She feels the same, mostly. Dreams are new, but Solas knows that already. “I don’t think so. I’ve always been this way, more or less. People are just… more likely to look at me than over me, now.” All the things she says now are what she said before, the only difference being she has a title to make them count, but that answer doesn’t seem to satisfy him. Solas’s ears angle back against his head, lips curving in a reluctant smile that she thinks is meant to assuage her doubts about the direction this conversation is heading.

“I see,” he says, “an excellent point.” It’s not disappointment she sees when she looks at him twice. It is familiar, though. She’s seen it in the eyes of everyone she’s ever told she’s no Herald, like she’s confirming something terrible they already knew was true.

“Why do you ask?

His eyes drift, skirting the same mountains he’d led them through to get here. They seem to wander, farther and farther, perhaps back to Haven, as they had done in her dream. He had said it was important to her, but it was to more than just her. Haven was where desperate survivours became an Inquisition, Solas among them. It had changed things for the both of them, whether he would admit that or not. “You show a wisdom I have not seen since…” His voice trails, sentence losing itself as his gaze drifts across the horizon. In the space of a second they’re on her again, grey eyes bright with a familiar passion. “Since my deepest journeys into the ancient memories of the Fade. You are not what I expected.”

A refrain she’s heard before. In part, anyway. With Solas it’s different, most everyone else had heard the title ‘Herald’ a dozen times before ever clapping eyes on her, he saw her back when she was known a prisoner, harbinger of their doom. Blackwall had put it best, his cheeks red with embarrassment when he admitted he thought she’d be taller. Human, more like. “What did you expect?” she asks, bracing for his answer.

“Dwarves are practical. They do not dream, they cannot even imagine a world beyond the physical, but you have shown subtlety in your actions, a mind for the metaphysical. A wisdom that goes against everything I know of your people.” His words hit her like a blow to the gut. Yes, it’s refrain she’s heard before. That doesn’t make it any easier.

“Oh,” she says, voice small. That’s almost where she leaves it– oh. It’s easy, letting it slide, she’s taken enough hits to pretend this one doesn’t hurt. She laughed with Sera, laughed off Blackwall, and it won’t cost her nothing to laugh Solas off, too. Only, she can’t quite seem to bring herself to. Something inside her steels itself, and she breathes in through her nose so she doesn’t stumble over her words. She’s speaking to her feet, but she knows he’ll hear well enough. “I guess you haven’t known too many dwarves, then.”

The accusation– because that’s what it is, isn’t it?– takes him by surprise. His ears perk forward, then pin back against his head as red steals into his cheeks. “What do you mean?”

“I mean, maybe you should take a second look at what’s around you.” She sees a frown pull at his lips before his gaze breaks from her. His hand sweeps idly over the balcony, and there’s something in his eyes that looks like he’s remembering. What he’s remembering, it’s hard to say with Solas. It could be yesterday’s breakfast, or a moment lived a hundred years ago by someone else, someone who he alone remembers. Thora holds her tongue, waiting for him to say something. Anger, acceptance, denial, but he lapses into sustained silence. Their eyes catch each other’s, just for a moment, long enough for her to trust he’ll listen. “You’ve read Varric’s books, haven’t you? All those made-up names and people, and he’s not the first dwarf to put pen to paper.” Or chisel to stone, as the case may be. “Some were so good at it the Assembly made them Paragons.”

Thora moves to stand beside him, shadow tall next to his. She leans into the balustrade, tucking her elbows upon the stone rail to look upon the distant mountains. “And I don’t know where Dagna’s head is half the time, but I don’t think it was ever with the Stone.” Not the way she tells it. Her sights were set on the Circle before she’d ever seen the sun. “She doesn’t dream like you do– or, like we do, but you’d be hard-pressed to say she isn’t a dreamer.” There had to be a bit of a dream in the head of every dwarf who journeyed to the Surface, to imagine a life beyond the heavy doors that lead into Orzammar. Sometimes she wonders what the dream in her ancestors’ heads were when they left, sometimes she wonders if Solas could tell her, if they went looking for it. Could they have ever dreamt of this, of her? Her hands curl, fists pressed into the stone, fingers touching the mark on the palm of her left hand.

Likely not.

She takes a small, steadying breath, cold air painting her throat, reminding herself of where she’s headed. “Just in this age, dwarves have invented smokeless forges and– machines, just powered by hot air.” She hopes she’s remembering that right. All she recalls is word of some Surfacer in Val Royeaux with a forge that employed a hundred men, and tools that run on steam. “My people can do more than just imagining a world beyond the physical… they make it real.”

Silence falls between them, the sort that curls her stomach into knots. He waits until she’s ready to burst before he says or does anything, a quiet inhale heralding his remark, “You have thought about this before.” Solas’s voice is soft against the wind, coloured by something that sounds like contrition.

“I… I guess I have.” It’s only now she realises the amount of times she’s had this conversation in her head, always after hearing another remark about dwarven merchants. “It’s hard not to, with people the way they are. You… well, you must know what I mean.” She’s heard him say as much before, wondering aloud why people are defined by form and not their nature.

Thora glances at him out of the corner of her eye, scanning his expression. He’s still looking out at the horizon, but something in his face tells her he’s not really seeing much of it. That most of him is turned inward, looking at himself, maybe. “I suppose I do,” he says after a moment. “I am sorry to have caused offense. My intent… I meant only to express how much you have come to mean to me, since that day you first calmed the skies. With each passing day, you have given me new reason to respect you.”

Her lips spread in a smile, but it feels tender and fragile on her face. “You’re my friend, too, Solas.”

He cracks a smile to match hers, looking down at the railing before his eyes slide to meet hers. His skin is still blotchy with shame, pink to the tips of his ears. “Thank you. You have given me much to consider, as I have come to expect. I admit, so much of this world I have come to know through dreams alone, what I know of your people leaves much to be desired.”

“Hm.” She’s reminded of the list she found on Solas’ desk, the page full of books with titles in three languages, all on the Fade and the daunting tasks ahead of them. Giving him dreams is beyond her capabilities, but books she can manage. “I can give you some places to start.” Thora pushes against the balustrade, walking backwards a few steps into her room, knowing just what she’s looking for. It waits for her on her bedside table, a book clumsily bound with coarse linen cords. The kind you resort to when you’re bookbinding, Lowtown style. “Here,” she says, passing it into his waiting hands, “some of those poems I mentioned.”

Lying the spine flat in the palm of his hand, he pries the book open, flipping through the first several pages as though he were touring it. Recognition flashes in his eyes, brow raising in her direction. “This is your handwriting.”

It figures that he’d notice. Her cheeks flush, hotter than the cold air warrants, when she sees she has to explain herself. “I copied it myself. The original I, um, it wasn’t mine.” The polite way of saying Lantos had stolen it for her. She remembers sneaking it back onto the shelf it belonged on, coming closer to getting caught returning the damn thing than he had taking it. “Took a while, but I knew I’d want to read it again.”

Amusement creases the corners of his eyes, but he has the manners not to laugh. “I see.” He parses through it another moment. Without even seeing the page she knows what he’s looking at, a series of short poems by Paragon Lynchcar, written in the breathing space between battles. Oh, she wishes she could read it again for the first time. The book snaps shut with a puff of air, and when he lifts his chin to meet her eyes, the red in his cheeks has cooled. Instead, his expression is alight with the same eagerness she’s seen as they’re standing in the shadow of a long-crumbled home, the prospect of learning shining in his eyes like stars. “Thank you again, but I fear I have troubled you enough for one evening. Besides,” Solas gestures with the book, a smile turning the corners of his lips, “it appears I have reading to do.”

#solas #cadash #inquisitor cadash #( my writing )#show that mercy to me ( thora )#fantasy racism cw #[ sorry for the repost! tumblr not letting my tags function properly ]#[ he apologises again later but it'll prob be another five years before i write that ]

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