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felswritingfire · 4 years

Note

Would you mind doing sfw and nsfw with dating Hephaestus from TAS? Also can the reader be male, if not thats okay.

Anon, you are my favorite person now and OF COURSE I CAN DO A MALE READER, DEAR

(Also this is another one that’s a second round because,,,,,, Tumblr decided that the original draft was a good sacrifice to Cthulu,,,,, haaaha)

Dating Hephaestus

(SFW)

Hephaestus is elated when you two get together

It's a bit weird at first, especially since he keeps calling you Mama while he holds his hand, so, like, there’s a couple of mixed messaging there

After a while he (truly) comes to terms with the fact you may have his Mama's soul in you- but that doesn't mean that you're his Mama

And once your relationship has been a thing for a month or two, he'll start using your actual name, which he's really blushy about it the first couple of times he uses it

He likes to make you little trinkets out of scraps of metal that he manages to get his hands on

They can range from being figurines of you two holding hands to an intricately designed pocket knife and even a chain to hold your wallet (if you use one that is!)

You have no clue how he gets so much detail into such little things, but boy does he do a good job of it, holy shit-

He will combust into a flustered mess if you compliment him; he will also be glowing for the next week as well

He prefers at home dates opposed to ones that involve you guys going out, he’s super paranoid from what has happened in the previous loops

His favorite at home dates involve you guys popping in a movie and him laying his head on your chest as he listens to your heart beat and his arms loosely hugging around your waist and you play with his hair or rub his shoulders

He will go out on a date every once in a while if you really want to, he’s just on guard for more than half of it and even jumpier than normal, but he’ll try just for you!

He gets really shy with kisses, he’ll give you a hesitant peck if you smooch him first

After he does, though, he’ll hide his face in his hands, trying to hide the blush that’s raging on his cheeks

Heph is not surprisingly a possessive partner; he’s terrified about the possibilities of you getting hurt, coupled with his insecurities, he has a nasty tendency to come off as hostile to other people that he deems as a threat. Especially Talos

If he catches him chatting to you or (oH NO) touching you, he will go charging up to him and get in his face, the ever-burning flame on the side of his face glowing a furious red, as he bears his fangs at Talos

It’s really up to you to calm him down: take his face into your hands and whisper sweet words to him or place a kiss on his cheek and he’ll immediately relax

He enjoys listening to your voice and it calms him down immensely

No matter if you’re taller than him or shorter, he will hide behind you when he gets nervous with a situation

If you haven’t already, you’re definitely meeting the Crafters

And you get sucked into their family really fast after their done freaking out about the fact that Heph actually has a boyfriend

NSFW

AMAB USED

(Sub Hephaestus)

I apologize if you’re a sub, but you’re most likely gonna have to take the reigns the first couple of times

Our boy is horrified at the thought of hurting you and his insecurities get the better of him in most cases so he’ll just freeze until you make a move

He really likes when you press him against the bed/cushions while massaging his pecs with your other hand and sucking his earlobe

He’ll sigh and arch into you, resting trembling hands against your lower back as you trail kisses down his body until you hit the zipper of his jump suit and take it between your teeth and slowly drag it down

He’s a tad embarrassed of the size of his dick (he feels that it’s too big, which fun fact for y’all! He made Talos’ dick smaller and it makes complete sense why because Ancient Greeks would view smaller penises as more attractive than bigger ones! The more you know, if you didn’t already)

But if you manage to deep throat him (judging by the size of his bulge, our boy is pretty well endowed) he will instantly N U T- and no, there is no warning, the feeling of the walls of your throat fluttering at the weight of his cock resting at the back of it will be enough to send him to the ninth heaven, let me tell you

If you give him a rim job he will be a mess

He’ll hold onto the sheets/cushions as he loses himself in the feeling of your hot tongue laving against him; groaning as he feels you poke inside of him

He’ll adamantly press his ass back against your mouth though

He’ll squirm when you start to finger him, blushing all the way down to his neck, it only getting deeper as you begin to add more fingers and scissor him to loosen the tight ring of muscle until he’s begging you to please, please put it in- please, oh, Gods, he needs your cock right now-

His head will snap back and he’ll arch his back as you enter him, slowly, marveling at the feeling of being filled by you as you leave him breathless

You can actually feel his entire body tremble as you bottom out, your balls flush against him as you give him time to adjust

He prefers doggy style when you top because he’s genuinely embarrassed of the possible faces he makes

The loudest he gets is groaning and even then it’s really not that loud

His entire body will tremble when he cums

If Heph bottoms it is A GOOD TIME IS WHAT I’M GETTING AT

(Top Hephaestus)

Just because he prefers to sub at the beginning doesn’t mean that he’ll never top, it just takes him a bit to warm up to it is all

When he does top, he prefers positioning you in a way where he can see your face, though he’ll completely understand if you’d prefer one where your facing away

On the topic of positions, he really, really likes the cowgirl (cowboy, in this case, I suppose-)

It gives him a chance to watch you bounce on him and feel the tight walls of your ass clench around him while allowing you to set the pace! It’s great and it’s practical- what’s better for an inventor like him then that????

He’ll treat you like a god: smoothing his hands over your chest and stomach, before caressing your hips before running a hand back up to your navel and following the path down to your erection where he can tease it with slow and gentle touches

He’s kind of afraid he’s going to break you, not gonna lie

Heph isn’t the best at oral, but he isn’t the worst either

He thinks it feels a little funky at first to have something in your mouth and he might just stick to sucking and you’ll definitely have to convince him to take more of you, because???? He has a gag reflex and he’s so afraid of accidentally throwing up on you, my dude, and then you’ll never want to have sex with him again- and what if you break up with him over this??? HE CAN’T HANDLE THAT-

There has to be a lot of communication and encouragements from you to him to get him to calm down

He’s eager to please, he’s just nervous he’s going to fuck up

He’s much, much better at fingering

Like, he knows how to hit your prostate just right that you’ll be seeing stars and it won’t even take him very long for him to find it

Once he does, he’ll hyper focus on it for a bit because he really likes the way your skin flushes when he does grind his fingers against it

You might be overstimulated before you start ngl

Once he’s done hyper focusing on your (poor) prostate, he’ll be very slow about entering you, because again, our boy is pretty big

But boy, does he feel amazing-

You can feel every vein as he presses into you and the stretch, even despite how much he stretched you with his fingers, still has that burn that quickly dissipates into pleasure

Once he bottoms out, he’s trembling to keep himself up and trying not to loose himself in the feeling of you

He starts out with soft, slow thrusts but if you ask/tell him to go faster he’ll for sure oblige

If he’s jealous he’ll be a tad rougher than normal; he might actually bite you if you don’t watch it

After Sex

He’ll be blissed out afterwards, his consciousnesses, seemingly, floating about in the clouds, no matter if he was top or bottom

But that doesn’t mean that he wouldn’t cater to your needs- you need a glass of water? On it. Need a towel to wash off? You want the yellow or the red one? You want to take a bath with him? He’s already got the water running

If you just want to cuddle afterwards though, he won’t be one to say no, but he will remind you that either he/you need to... clean yoursleves out it y’all didn’t use a condom (practice safe sex, my pals!) in a little bit

Even if you guys had sex a hundred times, he’d still get flustered about it

#KSLFJLSJDLKJDSLKFJS #THE FIRST TIME #I ALMOST CRIED BECAUSE I HAD THIS THING DONE #AND I SAVED IT AS A DRAFT AND TUMBLR #DELETED THE *ENTIRE THING*#hephaestus #housamo #housamo imagine #tokyo afterschool summoners #n/s/f/w #male reader #spicy #sfw #x reader

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juju-on-that-yeet · 4 years

Text

Your Reality

Whumptober Day 21: I Don’t Feel So Well Prompt: Chronic Pain

Summary: Dark is having a bad night. What begins to bring him out of it is something he didn't expect.

Warnings: Scars, references to past injury

Read on AO3 (Full Whumptober 2020 series)

Enjoy!

Dark is tired.

Not just tired; he’s been tired all day. His head is a storm cloud, his aura has been cracking like thunder and lightning all day long. Night has fallen, but his body still stands despite himself. He has tried to sleep, but it would not come. He can’t normally hear the souls trapped inside him, but the barrier is thin tonight. They scream at him as fiercely as they always have, as fiercely as they did when he was a new creation, rising from the floor of the manor like a monster from a swamp. There’s a bullethole in his chest that throbs with pain, there’s a hundred kinks in his spine that seize his whole back into a knot.

Dark is more than tired.

But it’s nothing new.

Wilford would understand, if he were lucid today. But he isn’t, he so rarely is these days. Dark knows they don’t age, but he can’t help but wonder if their bodies have remembered to stop getting older. If Wilford’s mind will ever stop fading and forgetting, if Dark’s body will stop creaking and rusting. Every hard night feels harder, every burst of pain hurts evermore.

Instead of returning to bed, which he knows will not work, he goes to his piano room. His aura snaps and cracks the whole while, terrible and loud. He has no more energy left to suppress it like he’s been doing all day. As he opens the door to his piano room, he turns his head to look around the room and his neck cracks as loudly as his aura. Pain rockets up his jaw, but he merely grimaces and continues forward.

As he approaches the piano, he catches sight of himself in the full-length grand mirror hanging on the wall. The thing is vintage; older even than Dark is, and every time Dark sees it he wonders why he keeps it. He certainly doesn’t like the look of himself now, hair a mess, face drawn with exhaustion, pale and gaunt like the corpse that he is. His silk pajama shirt is unbuttoned, revealing the gnarled, scarred-over dent in his chest, because even the soft fabric feels too constricting tonight. The mirror he’s looking into isn’t from the manor, but maybe what happened at the manor is why he can’t bring himself to be rid of it. Either way, he keeps walking.

He reaches the bench of his grand piano, pulls up the fallboard to expose the keys. The piano is huge, sleek, deep black and shining like ink in the moonlight peeking through the window. He sits down at the bench, runs a hand over the keys, not pressing down, just feeling. The music desk is already open on a book of symphonies, and Dark flips through the pages to find something suitable. This is his ritual, this is what brings him peace on nights like this, where the pain and the past threaten to devour him. His aura rumbles and the voices inside him do not go quiet as Dark searches for the piece he’s looking for.

Finally, he reaches Franz Schubert’s “Erlkönig,” arranged by Franz Liszt. It’s just the piece for a night like this, something angry and violent and sad to ring louder than his aura, louder than the voices, louder than his own pain.

Dark breathes in, though he hasn’t needed to breathe in a long time. He rolls his neck, lets it snap and pop. His aura simmers in anticipation, rumbling low like thunder. The voices are as loud as ever, but Dark does not mind their volume now. His fingers on the keys will meet it.

He begins to play.

It is loud, it is quick. One hand hovers, pressing on the same keys repeatedly, fast and intense. The other hand plays a repetitive chord, ringing and gloomy but just as frenetic. The music is more excited and energetic than Dark ever was today, but as his fingers fly on the keys, as the melancholy and suspenseful melody takes shape, the music begins to feed some of that life to Dark. The ringing and bellowing of his aura quiets beneath the notes, the voices in his mind are drowned out. Dark’s whole body moves with it, head nodding, hands forceful as they play yet never lingering a moment too long. It’s exhilarating, angry and sad all at once, even the lighter parts of the melody add up to the violent crescendo –

Dark’s hand slips, the next chord goes sour.

That wrong note is somehow the loudest sound Dark has heard tonight. It pierces right through the music, cuts through all the pumping energy and screeches the song to a halt. Dark’s aura and the voices within him rear up to fill the volume, as though jeering at him for the missed note. Dark’s blood boils, he alights with fire.

He has no control when he roars like an animal, standing from the piano and slamming the keys in a burst of rage. His aura overturns the piano bench and the thud it makes echoes throughout the room. Dark whirls and finds himself facing the grand mirror. He hardly recognizes himself – not that he ever did, not since that night, not since the source of his agony. He storms to the mirror, screams at his own reflection, at the hole in his chest. His aura rings, so high-pitched it hurts his own ears, and the mirror cracks wide as though wounded.

Dark stands before the mirror, shaking as the rage leeches out of him, leaving him spent. Thank god there’s an armchair not far from the mirror, intended for days when Dark feels like playing for someone else. Dark collapses into the chair, face in his hands, trying to regain control. His image is unclear, either blurry or over-sharpened, split apart and fractured like the mirror as his aura screeches. The voices within him are screaming like Dark just did. Dark trembles as the exertion of playing and its crushing failure catch up to him. He might just pass out here before he falls asleep. His body thrums with pain. His bullet wound pulses with agony like a heartbeat.

Through the splintering of his aura, he hears the door to the piano room creak open. He looks up, through his fingers, and sees Yandereplier there, looking on in a rumpled oversized t-shirt, sleep shorts, and messy hair. He shrinks back, not afraid of Dark, but afraid that he’s been caught. Dark looks away, hunches over again, face in his hands again. It does not matter to him if Yandere sees; he’s too exhausted to protest. And maybe a part of him doesn’t actually mind Yandere’s presence. Yandere doesn’t know everything going through Dark’s mind, but not even Wilford has ever cared for Dark so deeply. It’s not an indictment of Wilford to say so, rather, it’s a mark of Yandere’s powerful love for Dark.

Dark hears Yandere step into the room. He wonders how much Yandere’s seen of his night. Yandere doesn’t speak, not even when he approaches Dark, not even when he cups Dark’s head in his hands, holds it against his chest. Dark moves his own hands from his face to wrap around Yandere’s waist, and Yandere begins to stroke Dark’s hair. The buzzing screech of Dark’s aura doesn’t bother Yandere, nor does the splitting and cracking of his image. It’s though Dark is not a monster at all, but something human, something that can be loved, something that can receive that love.

After a while, Dark lets his tight grip on Yandere loosen. Yandere can leave if he wants; Dark will not keep him here all night. Yandere steps away, but he doesn’t leave. Dark watches him walk to the overturned piano bench, and with a huff of effort, push it back upright. He looks back at Dark, as though he expects Dark to stop him. Dark does not care to send Yandere away; he’s the one who began teaching Yandere how to play in the first place. When Dark does nothing, Yandere sits at the bench. He sets the book on the music desk aside; likely so it doesn’t distract him from the song he has in mind. Yandere takes a small breath, something he truly needs, unlike Dark.

Then he begins to play.

The song Yandere chooses isn’t one Dark recognizes; Yandere must have learned it on his own. It’s bright, cheerful, but slow and gentle. Yandere plays lightly, without Dark’s intensity and quick motion. Dark is a little surprised when Yandere starts to sing.

“Every day, I imagine a future where I can be with you,” he sings, and one hand flits over the keys, creating a twinkling melody. “In my hand, is a pen that will write a poem of me and you…”

This song isn’t nearly as technically or emotionally complex as “Erlkönig,” but it’s charming, somehow. The bright tones and high-pitched, happy keys should be irritating to Dark right now, should be driving him mad in the state he’s in. But it isn’t. The simplicity is soothing, sweet. His own playing fought against his eternal pain with louder, deeper chaos, but Yandere’s choice of song is like raindrops pelting a fire. Dark’s pain is not any less, but it feels further away. The melody changes, a little more serious but no less bright.

“The ink flows down into a dark puddle,” Yandere sings, “Just move your hand – write the way into his heart!”

Dark finds himself leaving the armchair to walk to the piano bench and sit alongside Yandere. His aura is quiet, focused on Yandere’s music. The voices haven’t silenced, but they’re easier to ignore. Dark is still in pain, but he feels soothed. Yandere definitely notices him walk up and sit beside him, but he continues to play.

“But in this world of infinite choices, what will it take just to find that special day?”

Yandere takes a moment to give Dark a shy but happy smile. To Dark’s own surprise, he manages a soft smile back.

“What will it take just to find…” Yandere stops his fingers, uses the pause in the music to scoot a little closer to Dark. “…That special day?”

Yandere continues to play the song, Dark begins to realize that it isn’t wholly happy after all. The tune is cheerful, but the lyrics Yandere sings suggest a quiet sadness. The song becomes bittersweet. Dark realizes he was wrong before; “Erlkönig” is not the right song for a night like this, when Dark’s pain gets the better of him. This one is. This soft, bright, bittersweet little song is. Dark would never have thought to play something so simplistic, but he’s glad Yandere chose it.

Dark thinks he’ll be able to return to bed when the song is over and actually sleep. He’ll ask Yandere to join him, and Yandere will likely accept, given how much he enjoys sleeping alongside Dark. It’s already too late for a full night’s sleep, but even a few hours is better than what Dark usually gets on nights like these.

The song plays out, and Dark smiles again, leaning against Yandere ever-so-slightly, just to feel his warmth.

Dark is tired, but in a better way than before.

#whumptober2020 #no.21 #chronic pain #markiplier #fanfic #darkiplier #yandereplier #darkyan #my writing #kristin says stuff

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quidfree · 4 years

Note

Hi! I saw that you wrote some prompts, I’m hope I’m not too late... could you do a James/Sirius prompt 11? Hope you’re not tired of writing about them I saw you got a lot of requests for that pairing

i never tire of these two x

11: i almost lost you (heavy stuff lol)

in many ways it is the first time they face him.

sure, there had been the recruitment offer, midway through seventh year, like that was going to go anywhere; sirius' mocking laughter and the both of them staunchly unafraid, the handful of them (the year’s best and brightest, as it were) all comparing notes to lessen the slightly hysterical awareness that their last year of high school had included job offers from the dark lord himself. ignoring the fact that some of them had accepted.

that had been hogwarts, however, and though in age they are not far from that time this is markedly different. james has been in duels before, obviously; james has been in nasty ones at that, mainly with various members of slytherin house. the irony of the situation does not elude him as he ducks a sectumsempra curse. fights with the order are not the same. there is an unshakeable urgency to them, and the knowledge that all around you people are afraid, or dying, afraid of dying.

this fight is worse, too. there is a feeling of grim awareness coursing through him before he even knows why, and when he knows why it feels obvious.

“the bastard is here!” moody had shouted, two, five, ten minutes ago, vanishing in a flurry of spells. james has lost track of him since, though he thinks he saw him crack someone’s jaw open with his wooden leg at some point. but the bastard is here, indeed, in flesh and blood, if tom riddle still has those.

now, as he stands stock-still, wand raised, nerves singing, all of those ridiculous rumours they’d invented in school seem less implausible.

“james potter,” lord voldemort says, coolly, advancing a little. they’re not close, but there’s an open space between them, largely unobstructed by the fights taking place around them. james spares half a look for the death eater he’d just knocked out, verifies he’s unconscious, then meets the man’s cruel, removed gaze.

tom riddle had been handsome, in that uncanny aristocratic way that a vein of slytherin purebloods are, dark and charismatic and not all-together unfamiliar, though not the type of bloke james’d like a pint with. voldemort’s eyes are an eerie red, and his skin is reptilian, stretched tight; he looks like the sort of thing james had firmly pretended not to have nightmares about when he convinced his parents he was old enough to be read the warlock’s hairy heart.

“tom,” james echoes, with a genial smile. “small world.”

the faint smile flickers; the man’s snake-like eyes don’t blink. “what a waste of a fine wizard. would you not be spared, potter?”

“spared a lecture, sure,” james retorts. they’re circling each other now, slowly; his pulse is thundering in his ears, throat tight. “otherwise, i’ll pass.”

“no? not even if it would spare your mudblood girl? it seems such a shame for you to lose her and your dear parents in such rapid succession.”

“she can handle herself just fine,” james says, through the throb of how dare he making him see red. his parents’ funeral was barely a month ago. “and my parents clearly raised me better than yours did.”

he just about manages to stop the killing curse very casually flung his way, quidditch reflexes rebounding it harmlessly skywards, then blocks three hexes in rapid succession, twisting sideways to launch two of his own back. voldemort stops them with ease, of course, but it gives james the time to move, pull away from the fray where anyone behind them might get hit, draw the man towards a hallway instead.

he’s a good dueller. near top of his year, even. but he’s eighteen, and six months into the order, and way out of his fucking league for an extended one on one with the dark lord himself.

it doesn’t matter. adrenaline carries him forwards, courage in his veins. he side-steps two crucios, throws out a hex voldemort has to twist to knock away, ignores the lightning-speed of his opponent for his own reflexive reactions. this is a fight like any other, at its core, wand against wand, wizard against wizard; he will kick as much ass as his magic permits, despite the sick thudding in his gut.

“very good,” voldemort calls, mocking, over the explosive sparks between them, robes flapping as he turns. “i expect you excelled at defence against the dark arts in your n.e.w.t.s.”

“i expect you failed,” james shoots back, faux-curious, then has to trip over himself to miss a curse; it gets him in the shoulder, burning like flames, and he swallows a yell to fire a quick block against the next volley, using the spare seconds to finish the curse before he has to duck and roll ahead of the next flash of green light, which catches his robes as he goes.

from the floor he slams out several curses of his own, one particularly annoying binding spell managing to require voldemort’s full attention as he jumps to his feet. his arm is no longer on fire, but the whole shoulder area has gone fully numb, and the smug look on his opponent’s face says he knows this.

he’s seen the same thing on too many’s people faces not to theorise. no doubt it’ll spread down his arm, loosen his grip at the worst time.

well, fuck it. he wasn’t an excellent team captain for three years for a lack of ability.

he tosses his wand from one hand to the other, and enjoys the momentary surprise on the dark lord’s face as he volleys a massive incendio his way. delightfully, it actually ignites the bottom of his robes.

in the seconds where he can afford to, he listens to the sounds of the room drift in through the ringing in his ears: screams, and crying, and spells being thrown dizzyingly from all sides. mad-eye, somewhere, hollering strategies. the tell-tale cracks of apparition.

someone is retreating. if he had the time- if he was someone else, he might have disapparated the moment he saw lord fucking voldemort had his sights set on him. for better or for worse he isn’t, though, and he might as well see this shit through until either camp leaves.

he’s not sure how long the next batch lasts. it feels like quidditch at its worst, like time is suspended and drawn out at once, a million manoeuvres going nowhere, not hoping to win so much as not to lose. he forgets everything of the outside world except the two of them, red against green, so closely knit amongst the chaos that they’re almost locked in a weird dance, pacing each other like animals.

he gets in two good hits. voldemort gets in three.

the third comes as a direct response to his second, and really he ought to have expected that the man’s ego would respond so violently to successful mockery, but the moment his hex lands on his skin, bubbling comically if painfully under it, voldemort’s eyes flash viciously and james can tell, with the inevitability of watching the quaffle slip through the keeper’s fingers, that he’ll be seconds too slow with his next block, shifts course as best he can so he’ll be ready to heal himself-

he barrels to the floor instead, and sirius yells “motherfucker!” as his body explodes into cuts, blood bursting from him with almost comedic timing.

james manages to shield them on instinct alone, his heart pounding with misplaced adrenaline and pure visceral shock, vision locked on the red seeping from sirius’ body where they’re still half-crumpled in a heap on the floor.

he’s still seeing nothing but red when he twist, half-raises himself, and fires off three curses in such rapid succession that he is almost knocked back over by the intensity of his spells. one of them hits, maybe, based on the lack of response; he whips back around, says “sirius” with extreme conviction and no idea what he’s saying exactly, only that- shit, that-

“vulnera sanentur”, sirius grits out, finally audible, though he must have been saying it before; his voice got lost in the buzzing in james’ ears, or else he was practicing non-verbal magic. he is still bleeding.

james pulls them both up to their feet mechanistically, shields with one arm, supports with the other, and feels the killing curse ripple through his protective spell as he looks towards voldemort, close now and smiling broadly. his heart is in his throat; for a moment he could kill.

“enjoying the show?” sirius demands, caustic, unafraid always, even now, and james believes it wholly, because sirius is never afraid of things that could kill him, not like this. “purer blood than yours, tom.”

they are close, and it’s too late to disapparate, james registers distantly; if the fight has turned against them there’s no way out now. but does it matter, really? it’s him, and sirius, against some bully who thinks he’s all that. they have no choice but to give him hell.

voldemort spins two curses their way, and james doesn’t block; james weaves, dragging sirius after him, and sends two right back, grins violently in his direction, ignores the heavy weight of his best friend against him. voldemort doesn’t quite deflect the second in time, and he staggers back, grimacing in distaste, but then sirius is twisting urgently and throwing up a shield and there’s a second mask-less death eater nearby with a recognisably unhinged grin.

“resorting to dirty tricks, bella?” sirius snarls, which explains where he’s been all fight, really, and james just- fucking hell, he hates family reunions with the blacks.

“you’re one to talk about dirty, little sullied cousin,” bellatrix leers, and skips closer to her master, expression going exaggeratedly bashful as she twirls her wand. “my lord, i’m afraid i’ve come to curtail the fun somewhat. many of our ranks have fled before the paltry forces of the order; we are wasting time here.”

“very well,” voldemort says, unruffled, glancing towards the back of the room, where shouting is loudest. “say goodbye to your sweet cousin.”

james knows no small satisfaction in that the end of his sentence is cut short by his having to quickly deflect two hexes, but they get no further; bellatrix is spinning curses in their direction with a manic laugh before he can so much as blink, and it is only sirius’ jerky upwards motion that sends them through the ceiling instead, james following the motion with a blow of his own as he watches voldemort smile, dead eyes taunting.

"look at the state of you,” bellatrix scorns, “and not a scrape on the dark lord.” she too is unafraid, eyes wild and arrogant as their spells collide mid-way.

“his robes look pretty stupid, though,” james retorts, watches her scowl as sirius snorts into his shoulder, itself devoid of feeling. her responding spell is more convoluted, nearly outpaces his twice before he gets a feel for it and rebounds it elsewhere. not far behind them he can hear voices again, and this time he recognises moody, back-up, safety. he is finding it hard to process through the haze, but he knows they are close to survival, so long as he stays alert.

he knows before he moves that it’ll be too much to fend off. voldemort spins green, bellatrix red, and the brute impact burns through his fading shield; the cruciatus curse skims along his leg as he shoves sirius out of the way, and it buckles, searing pain spasming through his muscles as he automatically barrels a hit back. it hurts so much he can’t think, but he throws his weight onto his functioning leg and yanks sirius behind him, watches bellatrix laugh and spin as their bodies begin to blur into nothingness, watches another two spells course through the air that reflex alone won’t be able to stop, and grits his teeth to shield jerkily even as he sinks downwards.

sirius’ free hand knocks into his, wands in perfect parallel, and the shield burns a brilliant white, parting blows collapsing harmlessly into nothingness.

a spell hits his leg and he jolts, but the curse has stopped ravaging him; he pauses, turns.

“are you out of your fucking minds?” mad-eye roars, and james blinks, registers the quiet, registers the smoke fading, the handful of prone bodies and the exhausted disbelief on the faces around them. the many faces, he thinks. “have you ever paid attention to a word i tell you? it’s a bloody miracle you’re not both dead!”

“t’be fair, moody, was james’ fault,” sirius slurs, and that more than anything snaps james out of fight-induced focus, makes him twist to his knees to where sirius is now half-sprawled on the floor, pale and still blood-drenched and wildly, dangerously irresponsible.

“merlin all-mighty, you fucking wanker,” james chokes out, ripping his shirt open to have at his torso, ignoring the convulsions of his leg. sirius shivers, flinches, smirks. his spell sealed many of his cuts, but there’s one jagged wound through his stomach still sputtering wetly, making james’ head spin.

“have some decency, prongs, really-”

“you absolute maniac,” james continues, conjuring dittany from frank longbottom’s bag and smearing it on with a vengeance, his hands shaking like the curse got his arms instead. “you could have just- fucking hell, you could have just shouted, or shielded, you-”

”all right, god,” sirius mutters, grimacing at the sting. “wasn’t fucking- thinking ahead, was i, would a little gratitude be too much to-”

“shut up, the both of you,” moody growls, fury in his hawkish eyes. “the order is moving out of this building. now! if you can’t walk, crawl, and if you can’t crawl, we leave you to die. ‘s what you bloody well deserve, for your antics.”

“could just say you were worried like a normal person,” sirius manages, lost in the irate clanging of wood on tile; he swats james off to drag himself upright, clicks his tongue at his leg. “idiot, what’d you go and get crucio’d for?”

“you,” james begins, suddenly impossibly overwhelmed, and thinks he might kill him, or laugh hysterically, or cry, the latter alarmingly probable, which must show on his face because sirius’ expression registers something like panic.

“prongs?”

“just-” james starts, stops, adrenaline crashing, his hands still fucking shaking. “don’t- don’t do that, don’t throw yourself into the line of fire for me, it-”

“oh, please, like you didn’t stand there and do the same for five minutes after i got a couple of paper-cuts,” sirius retorts, eyes flashing dazedly. “’s what we do, moron, ‘s what i’m here for.”

“no, it’s not,” james says. dumbly, he knows, numbly, and he knows why, actually, understands now that he’s shaking from the aftermath of shock, that when sirius went down he had the brief and violent thought that he’d died, that after his parents nothing seems invulnerable anymore, not even sirius, and he’d not known that until now, no matter how stupid that is. “you’re here to be here, you’re not...”

“oh,” sirius says, noticing his hands, maybe noticing his tone.

he hasn’t cried once for james’ parents. not at the news, not at the funeral, not in the months since, and james knows it’s because he’s a complicated bastard who somehow thinks he can take the pain unflinchingly for his sake, even though james never asked him to, never wanted him to.

“bastard,” he says, out loud, and tries not to cry, drags himself to his feet, pulls sirius up after him, both of them shaky on their legs. they need to leave the building, and then mad eye’ll see them off, and once they’re home there will be time to heal wounds, wait for the next round.

he is so very tired, all of a sudden.

sirius stills him when they’re both standing, oddly serious now, chews on his lip and then lets go of his hand. james has barely refocused on his face through smudged lenses when he leans to kiss him on the forehead, like james does to him sometimes, like his father did, when they were younger.

james inhales, sharp, and then starts crying. predictable, really. he’s done a lot of it the last while.

it’s all right, though, probably. they’ll be out of the building soon enough. he can walk and cry at the same time.

sirius ignores it, generously, or maybe just cautiously. when james starts walking he walks so close to him that james can smell him through the blood and dust, which makes him cry harder.

he can’t ask anything of him, is the thing. he can’t ask any of them what he wants, which is that they let him go first. parents aren’t meant to outlive their children; sirius will always die for james as long as there is a james left to die for. all he can do is protect him as best he can, in return, hope that between the two of them they cover all their bases.

he thinks of the shield, bright and powerful and effortless, and smiles wetly, rubs at his glasses. still smudged. his hands haven’t stopped shaking. if they were different he might’ve grabbed sirius’ hand.

they stop outside the doors, near last, and james gets a glimpse of the others- tired, appreciative, sympathetic- until sirius snatches his glasses off him, visibly surrenders some of his pride to lean heavily against him as he cleans them, shoves them back on with unnecessary roughness, just to be annoying.

moody is saying something, gruffly, and the longbottoms are counting heads, and sirius says: “he’s an ugly fucker, isn’t he?” and james laughs, not shaky at all, ignores the glare moody shoots them and laces their hands together after all, pays no mind to the brief outrage on sirius’ face.

“godric, yeah. d’you reckon he took a bludger to the nose, at some point, or was i imagining the family resemblance with goyle?”

“oh, i think it’s innate,” sirius says, scoffing with unshakeable haughtiness. “looks sort of lizard-like, doesn't he, and we’ve all heard about his dubious parentage..”

“what, mrs riddle fucked a dragon?”

“dragon is generous, prongs, maybe a newt or something.”

“that feels unfair to newts,” james says, seriously, and hums. “limax, maybe. ohh, d’you think that would explain-”

“the robes?” sirius completes, eyes sparkling despite his feverish pallor. “body of a slug underneath. makes sense.”

“potter, black,” moody barks, “if you could spare us the speculation...”

they’ve lifted the mood, at least; he sees alice struggling to restrain a laugh near him as she wipes her brow, smiles winningly at their grumpy commander.

“sir yes sir.”

tomorrow, if the urge strikes him, he’ll kick sirius in the shin to lower him. today, his leg is shaky, and sirius is the sort of steely he only gets when he’s about to collapse, so he just tugs on his hand, and sirius comes, obedient, brow furrowed in light curiosity. james kisses the side of his face, self-indulgent, squeezes his fingers unforgivingly.

“takeout tonight?”

“as long as it’s not indian again,” sirius replies, easy, and james nods feelingly and doesn’t let go of his hand for long enough that it stops being a lifeline and starts being funny.

#lmv #prompt #anon #qui ecrit #this got long as fuck lol #james #sirius #prongsfoot #feelings!#james' parents.... choices.

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beautifulspacegays · 5 years

Text

Distracted

Red is the colour of Akira’s motorcycle, of the jacket he always wears. It glows along the hilt of the dagger he keeps sheathed at his side, colours the uneven scar running down the right side of his face.

Blue swirls in the pools of Leo’s eyes. It adorns the tip of each finger, blasts hot and bright from the barrel of his gun each time he uses one slender digit to pull the trigger.

Akira had only been on a handful of missions with Leo, but of one thing he’d become absolutely certain. Much like their colours, both him and Leo were complete opposites.

When Akira ran right, Leo ran left. When Akira backed away, Leo went all in. Where he was dark, cool, and quiet, Leo was bright, warm, and vivid; as if Akira were nightfall, and Leo were daybreak.

While Leo always said that they were two sides of the same coin, to Akira, there was a reason that the sun and moon had never met.

They just weren’t supposed to.

Read the full piece below the bar, or @/sleapea on ao3 or instagram ✨

Red are the letters of the glowing, neon sign outside of the club they currently hurry out of, Leo’s fingers wrapped tight around his wrist.

Blue is the colour of the hard drive they’d taken from the back room, the very same hard drive now buried deep within Akira’s pocket.

Under the cover of darkness, fog, and neon glow, Akira is sure no one had seen them swipe it, but he also knows that it doesn’t matter. A shiver runs up his spine as the hard drive thrums from within his pocket, as if it has a heartbeat of its own. Whatever’s on this drive, it’s important, and if the higher ups hadn’t already noticed it was missing, they would soon.

As they step into the backlit street, red and blue lights greet them in the form of three suspended police crafts parked and flashing along the curb. Akira swears under his breath— or had they been expecting them from the very beginning?

That’s when he runs into Leo’s back.

Leo stands still in front of him, having stopped his pursuit entirely. “Hey, babe!” He exclaims, facing the cruisers, a smile curling his lips. “It’s our colours!”

Akira scowls, punches his partner in the back. “I told you not to call me that,” he huffs, digging into Leo’s back. He continues to push him along until Leo finally starts to move again on his own accord. “It’s like you want us to get caught,” he murmurs, earning a low chuckle from Leo. It makes Akira’s stomach do a funny little flip that he, vehemently, pretends not to notice.

He has to focus.

He takes a deep breath in, lets it out slowly. Despite the loud, distorted music emanating from the club, Akira can hear as hurried footsteps break from the crowd within and begin approaching the exit. Heavy, metal ones— ones that are getting much closer, much faster.

“Leo—” he manages, but he’s already being pulled around a corner and into the alleyway alongside the club. Leo spins to face him, expression alight with anticipation.

In the dark cover of the alley, he zeros in on the sound of their pursuers as their footsteps grow louder, louder, and as they exit the club and set foot onto the street. The entire time, he can feel Leo’s eyes on him.

“You’re hearing is crazy, Red,” he whispers, breathless, and then Akira surges forward.

They needed to get out of there, and they needed to get out of there now.

To Akira, it all happens slowly. He grabs Leo’s wrist, hard, before breaking out into a sprint down the alley, away from their pursuers. Akira’s fast, and they get a decent head start before—

“There they are!” A voice shouts from behind them, and then a bright purple blast from a military grade ray gun is whirling past him, almost grazing the tip of his ear.

“You’re my eyes,” Leo breathes, and Akira reflexively tightens the hold he has around his wrist. He nods once, and then Leo is turning to face their pursuers, gun in hand. He hears the faint click of Leo pulling the trigger, followed by the loud clank of metal against pavement, of someone dropping their weapon.

Although they’ve only been partners for a short time, Leo never slows his pace as Akira continues forward, never so much as glances behind himself to check where they’re headed. It makes him shiver despite the fact that he’s currently running, full tilt, down a dark, humid alleyway.

Blast after blast start to rain past them, no matter how many times Leo fires back. And Leo never misses.

They don’t have time for this.

“There’s too many!” Leo grunts, and Akira impulsively whirls around a corner and yanks Leo into the damp side alley along with him.

Too bad it’s a dead end.

Leo stumbles as Akira pulls, and his next blast fires off kilter. It skims the top of a surrounding building, rains dust and rock over their heads as Akira catches Leo, shoves him against the alley wall, and cages him with his arms. Akira doesn’t have to look at Leo to know that he’s grinning.

“Man, if you wanted to get close, all you had to do was—” he practically purrs.

“They went down there!” An approaching voice suddenly cuts him off, echoes down the sleek metal of the alley walls. Leo goes quiet, and Akira fixes his eyes on him. Leo simply stares, a playful smirk still toying at his lips.

“Leo!” He hisses under his breath, “Hurry!” For a moment, he looks taken aback, but then understanding washes over his features, along with a flash of something that looks a little too much like excitement.

“Damn adrenaline junkie.”

“Alright, alright,” Leo laughs, nonchalant and breathless. “It’s like I’m the one who lead us into a dead end.” Akira scowls, but all Leo does is grin as he quickly holsters his weapon, raises his right hand, and pushes the glowing blue centre of the ring wrapped around his index finger.

Akira watches intently as Leo’s reflection begins to fizzle. It blurs along the edges, and slowly, his frame begins to flicker and fade into his surroundings like a light going out. It’s Pidge and Hunk’s newest invention— a ring that’s able to cast a temporary invisibility cloak over the wearer and anyone they touch. Akira presses himself against Leo until he can feel the thudding of his heart through his jacket.

A small group arrives at the mouth of the alley just as their frames fully disappear, and Akira has to stifle his sigh of relief as they hide, stark still and camouflaged, against the alley wall. He concentrates on the way Leo’s breathing slows, becomes shallow; on the warm hands that come to grip at his waist and draw him in closer. Although they’re both so still, they’re hearts continue to run rapid and loud. It’s all Akira can hear as a group of around four or five stalk into the alley, weapons raised as they scan the slim corridor for any signs of movement.

“They went down here, I know I saw them,” one of them says, voice low and gruff.

The silence that follows is the loudest Akira’s ever heard. It’s heavy, thick with the damp night air and the weight of the searching eyes that comb over their camouflaged figures again, and again, and again. There’s a moment when the tallest of them seems to look Akira in the eyes, and he’s so sure that they can see him that all he can do for a moment is remain still, heart in his throat. Leo tenses, twitches like he might reach for his weapon, and Akira braces himself for... nothing.

Leo relaxes slightly, and Akira watches as they avert their eyes, relax their posture as if satisfied that no one’s there. He doesn’t have time to feel relieved.

“Let’s go,” the gruff one murmurs, the abrupt sound causing both him and Leo to stiffen. And then, just like that, the group is leaving to continue their search.

They both remain still until the sound of the groups’ footsteps fade into the night air. Leo makes a strangled sound, like he’s been holding his breath, and Akira looks up at him. His head is dizzy with adrenaline, heart fluttering like a caged bird in his chest as he meets Leo’s eyes. They’re wide and searching, and the sight of them makes him grin. He draws a single finger up to his mouth.

“Shh,” he breathes, and he doesn’t miss how Leo’s eyes flit momentarily to his lips, or how they linger there for just a second too long.

“Hmm,” Leo muses quietly, smiles a crooked little grin that makes the bird in his chest flap its wings. He’s reminded of the hands holding his waist as Leo loosens his grip, hands shaking like he’d been holding onto him for dear life. Absently, he begins to rub small, soothing circles against the fabric of Akira’s jeans with his thumbs, as if in silent apology. After a few moments, his chest rumbles with a laugh, low and breathy. “I think the coast is clear.”

“Yeah,” Akira sighs. They should leave, contact Hunk and Pidge and arrange for extraction before anyone else has a chance to come looking for them.

“We can… probably leave.”

“Yeah,” he repeats. They should leave, but for some reason, his body remains still.

“We should leave,” Leo whispers, and Akira thinks it’s the first reasonable thing that’s ever come out of his mouth.

He moves then, but he makes no effort to leave. Instead, he finds himself pulling closer, hands gripping at Leo’s shoulders. Drunk on adrenaline, he doesn’t think, just pushes to the tips of his toes, leans in, and presses their lips together. Leo hesitates for a moment, but it’s quick. Within seconds, he’s pushing right back into him, following his lead, again, and Akira hates to admit it but he melts. For a moment he loses himself to the rush of the adrenaline in his veins, to the warmth of the air between them as their breaths come hot and clipped, always diving in for more, more, more. This close, Leo smells like coconut and sweat and it makes him dizzy.

All at once, he realizes what he’s doing. Like a clap of lightning, the moment is bright and electrifying, but then it’s gone completely as Akira breaks their lips apart, breath heavy and eyes wide. This was Leo, his annoying, childish partner who almost got them killed on every other mission they went on. Who was obnoxious and loud and charming and exciting, and who had a funny way of making him feel alive even though he’d long forgotten what that felt like. He looks at Leo, his usual bravado completely gone from his face. He almost looked pretty like this, up close, with his face softened, lips a little red, cheeks a ruddy pink. His eyes always remind Akira of an ocean he’s never seen, and something swirls within their depths that makes his toes curl. He wonders, briefly, if he’ll drown if he looks into them for too long. He swallows then, averts his eyes.

“That is never happening again,” is what he says.

And Leo laughs, quirks a brow. Akira was the one who pulled him in, after all. The bravado returns to his features almost instantly.

“Awh, babe, come on,” he whines, voice hushed and teasing. Akira backs away, walks a few paces forward and turns away from him quickly. He tells himself it’s because he’s annoyed, that it has nothing to do with hiding the blush he can feel creeping up his neck.

“Don’t call me that,” he clips, busies himself with fishing a small communicator from his pocket and dialling Pidge.

“Or what?” By the sound of his voice, Leo’s closer to him now, practically at his back.

“Leo, I swear—”

“Are you guys okay?!” Pidge lights up his phone, voice ringing into the small earpieces they both wear. “What took you so long? Hunk and I were starting to worry.” Leo snorts, and Akira doesn’t even look up as he elbows him in the ribs.

“Nothing. Meet us at the extraction point,” is all he says before turning off his communicator and shoving it into his pocket.

This was a one time thing, he tells himself. He was simply distracted by the mission, caught up in the adrenaline of the moment. He’d had a temporary lapse in judgement— that’s all it was. That’s it. Leo was just his partner, his annoying, obnoxious new partner who he had to put up with until he found Shiro.

Just until he found Shiro.

So why was his heart beating so fast?

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pokemagines · 5 years

Text

gauis, chrom, inigo, ricken, & henry + their s/o being possessed by grima

anon asked: “Can I get um Gaius, Chrom, and another Awakening character of your choice reacting to the avatar/their S/O being possessed by Grima?? Thanks!!”

a/n: yES omhgggg grims angst i LOVE!!! also had a hard time narrowing the awakening boys down bc i legit love all of them,,, mod touko did gauis, chrom, and inigo n mod hikari did ricken n henry! --mod touko

tw: character death :0

gaius would freeze. for the first time in his life he doesn’t have anything smooth to say or any way he can work himself out of this situation. his wife’s eyes were now cold and glazed over, red eyes piercing into his frightened brown ones.

he calls for you, feet instinctively moving forward despite the fact that he knows it just isn’t you anymore. for a moment, you soften at his voice, and your eyes appear normal and soft, just how he remembers them to be. in the back of his mind he knows it’s futile: that it’s just grima exploiting his weakness for you, but he really doesn’t care. it’s over now, grima had gotten a hold of you. if he dies, it might as well be with your blade.

as he makes his way into your arms, the warmth they once held now ice cold despite the facade that grima puts up. his friends shout at him, but it falls on deaf ears, he knows what he has to do, for you. your words ring in the back of his head: “gaius... promise me... if grima ever... takes control of me that you won’t hesitate to take me out”.

he mutters words of apologies as grima stabs him first. the pain registers in his mind, but he pushes on, a silver dagger piercing into grima’s gut. grima merely laughs maniacally, holding gaius’s weak body up. grima sneers, the wound hardly doing anything to the fell dragon. “always so loyal... even to the end.” grima’s callous voice mocks, as gaius closes his eyes, hoping that he’d see you in the afterlife soon.

chrom feels his world shattering, as his chest tightens and he struggles to keep his emotions in check. for the first time since emmeryn, your plan hadn’t worked. grima had taken control of your body, and he was helpless to stop it. he couldn’t kill you, falchion of course could take you down but... no matter how many times he had promised you that he would, grima was still you. you were alive in there, somewhere.

remembering that lights a fire in him, as he calls for all of the shepherds to call out to you. maybe, just maybe, you could shake off grima’s influence. morgan and lucina are the loudest, both of them begging you to come back to them. for a second, grima hesitates, grabbing her head and yelling at you to be silent. you don’t, continuing to fight harder and harder against the gods power over you until it feels like your whole body is splitting apart. surely, the bonds you shared with your friends were strong enough... right?

then, you hear morgan and lucina and chrom and you’re determined, even if it kills you, you have to split apart from grima. you couldn’t die being the monster that your kids told you about, if you died you’d be your own person. you manage to push grima to the back of your head and charge up a bolt of lighting. this is it, you think, as the char surges through your body, effectively felling yourself and the dragon. the watery voices of your husband and children are drowned out as you smile up at them, finally in peace. chrom grabs your hand and you whisper: “don’t worry, i’ll be back”.

inigo would break down, he can’t handle this. he had lost again. it wasn’t fair, he had done everything right, and yet grima had taken you into god knows where, all of his allies wounded and bleeding. smile, smile, he tries to tell himself, but with you gone how could he.

despite all his anxieties, when chrom starts leading the chant of rallying together his allies for you, he’s the loudest of them all. inigo was never a bold man, but when it came to you he felt he could do anything. even in the void where you were, alone with grima as they try and bargain for you, you hear his voice, clear as day. his loud and bold statements of love and belief of you instill a type of courage you hadn’t ever felt. boldly, you reject grima’s offers of power and safety for your comrades -- she was lying through her teeth anyways.

once you come back, the fell dragon roars and enemies cover the battlefield (which was just the back of the dragon’s neck). inigo grabs you, pulling you close into his chest, and kissing you passionately. “thank you... now, let’s beat this and get home, eh?”

there was never going to be a universe in which henry could hurt you. and yet, he couldn’t just stand behind and let grima kill the people you had tried so hard to protect. was there any way in the world for him to keep both you and the others safe? he wasn’t sure he could bring himself to choose between you and the world; he wasn’t even sure what he would choose.

so if there was even the smallest chance he could see you again, he would take it. even if everyone warned him it was impossible, even if he knew it was foolish, he would try. he would not lose the person he loved most in the world without a fight.

so he put one foot in front of the other, until he reached you. come back, he says softly. i believe in you.

Y/N, i love you-- there is the slightest hesitation in grima at his words. your hand stretches out to him, and he takes it-- and you pull him close-- and grima shoves their hand mercilessly between his ribs, straight to his heart-- and the last thing he sees before he goes is the sight of tears streaking down your face.

ricken wasn’t cut out to be a hero. not ever, not really, not even if he dreamed about it and tasted victory every time he stepped onto the battlefield.

the only thing he tasted now was blood, and more blood, as his friends fell like wheat under grima’s vicious strikes, and the floor grew too slick to stand.

that was you, he thought desperately. you. you had to be in there, somewhere. you had to come back-- but there was nothing in what once to be your eyes, nothing but flat emptiness.

he loved you. he loved you so much. he couldn’t force himself to hurt you. all his spells seem to falter, and he could never force the words past his dry mouth.

failure. he was a failure for this. you might not forgive him for letting your friends die. but that probably wouldn’t matter, not when it seemed grima had destroyed every trace of who you once were and what you loved.

he hoped, at least, there might be a happier ending for you and him, in another life, in another world. he closed his eyes as grima’s fire consumed him, and he could almost hear your screams as he died.

#mod touko #mod hikari #fire emblem #fe #fea #fire emblem awakening #henry #gaius #chrom #inigo #ricken #x reader #fire emblem imagine #imagines

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areiton · 5 years

Text

cryptic words

This got longer than I expected so here’s an AO3 link

~*~

First words. That's what you get--the first words from the one person the universe says is perfect for you. Most people are born with them, or get them shortly after they're born. A tiny percentage of the population gets them years later.

But everyone gets their words.

By eighteen, Tony started to think maybe that was wrong. By twenty five, he knew it. And by the time he was thirty, he didn't care .

Not about the pitying looks from his endless string of lovers, not about the way the media tacked his Wordless state onto his eccentricities. Not about the gaping loneliness in his gut and the echoes of his father's voice, telling him no one would ever love him. Not about the lovers who leave him as they find their own soulmates.

He didn't care.

It hurt less, to not care.

~*~

When he's thirty-two, he wakes up and sees messy black scrawled across his shoulder, dipping toward his clavicle and he scrambles to the mirror, almost dumping his bedmate on her ass as he does.

It's there.

Jesus fuck. He has a soulmate and it's a baby but--he has a soulmate.

~*~

It's messy, thin scrawling lines, delicate as spider silk, and--

He blinks.

Bite me, tincan.

Promising start, really.

~*~

When his convoy gets bombed, Tony has a lot of regrets. But the one that rings loudest is, I haven’t met them yet.

He wants that. It’s been three years since his Words appeared, and he hasn’t told anyone but Rhodey, but they’re precious, they’re a promise he holds close when the world is too dark for him to handle.

He feels the heat of the flames, can smell the blood and gasoline on the air and terror so thick it’s choking and thinks, not yet. Please, not yet.

~*~

He doesn't die.

As they torture him, he wishes he would. That he could . But he doesn't die. And when he's tossed back in his cell, he clings to that cryptic line on his shoulder, clings to it like a promise.

~*~

It's not a promise. Plenty of people die without meeting the Soulmate, without ever hearing their Words.

But Tony lived thirty two years without his and he refuses to die like this, refuses to let the words scrawled on his five year old Mate's skin turn white.

He lives because for once in his life, he has something he has to live for.

~*~

When he first puts on the suit in that cave, and uses it to walk out--

He understands, maybe. Maybe. What that damn sentence scrawled on his shoulder means.

~*~

He builds more. Sometimes, when he’s working on a new suit, and Pepper is watching him with apprehensive caution, when Rhodey looks at him in quiet sympathy--he doesn’t know if he’s building the suit because he needs to for Stark Industries and the world--or if he’s doing it because if he does, if he builds enough suits, and walks in front of enough people, maybe one day, someone will shout at him and he won’t be so goddamn lonely.

~*~

It doesn’t happen. It never happens. He tries to believe that it’s just because his soulmate is young--god so young, so impossible--tries to find something that means anything with Pepper. The world gets threatened, again and again, and he...he doesn’t stop hoping , so much as he becomes resigned to it.

He’s forty eight, and has lived with his soulmark for sixteen years, lived without one for most of his life, and living without a soulmate might be lonely--but it’s all he’s ever known.

~*~

Tony sees the kid flipping his way through narrow streets and impossibly tall buildings on his way to a meeting Pepper will be furious if he misses.

He sees the kid, an instant before he cuts through the red and blue blur’s arc, and tangles himself up in sticky thin wire.

The kid shrieks, plunging as his--jesus this is webbing-- gets cut, and Tony curses as he plunges after him, catching him by the ankle as the kid shoots that webbing and flings himself up and away from Tony.

“Are you an idiot or do you have a death wish?” he bursts out, frustrated.

The kid jerks on his web, head twisting to stare at Tony and then--

“Bite me, tincan!”

Tony’s heart does this weird thing that makes FRIDAY snap his name in alarm, and he loses a good fifteen feet of altitude and when he looks around--

The kid is gone.

~*~

He’s late for his meeting, and his hands are shaking so bad throughout it that Pepper cuts it short and drags him to her office, shoving a cup of juice in his hand while she peers at him worriedly. “Hey. Talk to me, Tony.”

“I found him,” he says, lips numb. “I--Pepper, I found him.”

She’s staring at him, her eyes wide and soft and he can’t stop shaking . “Where is he?” she asks, gently, and he thinks about it again, that split second exchange in the air above New York.

Of the biting anger and the impossibly young voice snarling at him.

“He took off. God--Pep, I have no idea who he is.”

~*~

The thing is--he does know. He knows who Spiderman is because he’s been keeping tabs on the kid. A masked vigilante, even one that likes helping little old ladies cross the street and rescue stray cats, in his city, in the shadow of his tower, of course Tony was keeping tabs on him.

He knows exactly who and where to find his soulmate.

~*~

“When are you going to meet him?” Pepper asks, one day almost a month later. Tony shrugs. There’s been time. He had one quick trip to MIT for a speech, one run to a UN meeting that turned into a shit show that he was able to get away from--if Cap and his soulmate wanted to go on the run, international law protected Steve from turning on Bucky, and he wasn’t going to get in their way. It wouldn’t do any good and he had other things on his mind.

“Why haven’t you brought him here?” she asks, gently.

“He’s a kid, Pepper,” he says, helplessly, like that is enough.

Unfortunately, it is.

~*~

The tower is dark, when he lands on the balcony. The remaining Avengers are in the compound upstate and the tower is still his, but it’s just a matter of time before they sell it. But it’s his and the alarms sounded, routed directly to him--and here he is. Standing on a dark balcony, staring at a kid.

Peter Parker, pale and beautiful, with big brown eyes and messy curls and a tight lean body under his suit--he’s wearing the new one, the one he’d had delivered last week.

“You didn’t come after me,” Peter says, softly, his voice high and sweet and Tony steps out of the suit, onto the balcony and closer to him. “I--I know--I’m not what you want--b-b-but,--”

Tony growls and reaches out, because he fucked up, he fucked up he got it wrong, and this kid, he’s---

He’s in Tony’s arms, coming to rest against his chest with a choked off little noise, almost of relief, and all the tension Tony didn’t know he’d been carrying just...melts.

Drops away like cut strings.

“Kid,” Tony whispers into soft soft curls. “You’re the only thing I want.”

Peter makes a quiet, hurt noise against him and Tony’s arms tighten around him.

He doesn’t ever want to let go, doesn’t want to ever not feel the solid weight of his boy in his arms, doesn’t want to live without the warmth of Peter pressed against his chest.

He has no idea how he lived this long without it, but there are words. Three impossible first words that got shouted at him over the streets of Queens, that kept him alive in the desert and all the long years since.

He holds his boy and for the first time in his life, he doesn’t feel alone.

#arei writes fic #starker fic #starker #tony stark #peter parker #soulmates au

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monikafilefan · 5 years

Note

#72 from the prompts pleaseandthankyou 😀

I finally got around to writing this and fought through a bout of writers block, but ta-da! I hope you like it @allyinthekeyofx I took some liberties with Scully’s chip regarding her being sick.

I’m combining an angst/romance prompt with an earlier request for a pre revival sickfic. Since I’ve ready written a Mulder S-6 sickfic, I wrote a sick Scully this time. Also, this is sort of a follow up story to the angsty chapter 1 of this:

Tagging @today-in-fic @kyouryokusenshi @fragilevixenfic @scully-eats-sushi @peacenik0

---

#72 “You need sleep.”

Feb. 2016: Several months before MS1

Mulder ran a hand through his hair for at least the tenth time with his phone glued to his ear as he paced the cold creaky floor throughout the unremarkable house. The fact that he had to resort to calling her office at the hospital at all this morning would be worrisome enough. But because he hadn’t heard from her at her usual once a week phone call time yesterday, he was concerned to say the least.

Truth be told, they had only started talking on a regularly scheduled basis for about three months now and had only seen one another in person sporadically since she’d left. But on one Friday night, Scully called him to discuss whether he was okay with celebrating Thanksgiving with her. Eventually, she had confessed that every night before bed she would stare at his picture in her room and tell him what was on her mind. Her therapist had advised her to bridge the gap and tell him herself. And that’s what she has done ever since, until last night at least.

His bare feet slapped along the hardwood towards the entryway door and he leaned his forehead against it, frustrated with a familiar nervous churning roaming his gut as the ringing of her phone continued to go unanswered.

Ever since his ‘whole life’ walked out of their front door he was currently grinding his head into, he has worked his ass off both physically and emotionally to find himself again. And he knows that, with her own therapy, she has too. His depression and obsessions with the future and secretly searching for clues about William consistently for the last four years had secluded him even further away from Scully. And he hated it—hated everything about it, including himself. Yet, he just couldn’t stop himself from doing what she begged him not to do—go searching through the darkness without his light.

After a while, it finally dawned on him to really look at her—his light—and what he saw scared the hell out of him. He painfully watched Scully’s own guilt and depression that she had tried desperately to keep hidden away, coil tighter inside, dimming that light, and choking her like a noose. All of it brewed into a perfect storm, creating the catalyst of that one dark night in 2014.

“Come on, Scully, answer the phone.” He ended the call to her house phone without leaving a message and quickly switched back over to her cell number. Mulder wandered over to the mantle where most of their shared items still sat, mocking him. Memories of their past that they had created together were collecting dust.

The ringing shrilled through the earpiece again as he stared at a recent photo of them taken at Margarets house sharing a kiss on New Years Eve just over a month ago. Scully hadn’t wanted him ringing in the new year alone and Margaret’s quick photography rewarded him with a rare memento of their halted intimacy that night.

They were better in 2016. Happier together than apart. Mulder knew she wasn’t ready to come back home yet and to be honest, he wasn’t either. Even so, his resolution was to make damn sure he was ready when she was. And that’s exactly why he was currently on the verge of panic as he leaves her yet another voicemail just minutes after receiving a callback from her office stating that ‘Dr. Scully had called in sick two days ago’.

“It’s me again, Scully. Please call me back. I’m worried about you and in fact, if you don’t call back in the next five minutes, I’m coming over to check on you. You know if you’re sick, I help you—no matter what, Scully,” he rushingly said and huffed as he clicked the end button, stuffing his cell in the pocket of his sweats.

Dammit, that’s just like her too. Her calling into work and telling them she’s too sick to work and no one else. Which in the language of Scully means that she literally cannot function enough to crawl out of bed and get dressed. Scully rarely ever got sick, especially after her cancer remission. Which Mulder knew the chip most likely protected her from any serious virus infecting her immune system. But when Dana Scully did feel ‘under the weather,’ as she called it, she was usually bedridden for days and completely reliant on him for help. Whether she admitted it or not.

She must really be ill this time and that scared the shit out of him. Not being able to see her, to touch her, to dote on her when she normally would scoff at his babying, had his anxiety riddled heart nearly pounding out of his chest.

Yes, Scully was an excellent doctor and always has been. Yet, she was also his wife, his other half, his partner in every respect of the word, and had felt that way about their dynamic from the beginning.

He worried back then and worries still. It’s silly he knows, but he worries that if he doesn’t lay eyes on her for several weeks at a time then he might miss some subtle change in her appearance. Yet, he worries when he finally sees her face to face that he just might cry and beg her to come back. He worries more that she might even cry right along with him. But what he worries about the most while laying in bed alone at night, is that she might not care enough anymore to cry at all. He figured that this was some kind of cruel karma for all the worry he’d laid on her shoulders throughout the years.

But the fact remained, he relished every moment spent with her and worrying about her through every illness. Even when she hadn’t known about half of it.

Mulder had hoped to be the one she leaned on since the beginning if she’d ever gotten sick and shockingly, she had done just that. He would wait on her hand and foot, pretend to leave her apartment when she told him to go home and sleep, but would instead lay on her couch while she stubbornly thrashed alone in her bed just feet away from him. He’d bring her water and a cool rag to wipe down her sweaty skin when her cancer invaded her nights with fevers, or curl up next to her when the chills wracked her body so hard she couldn’t sleep. Mulder would even happily sacrifice what little sleep he did end up capturing to hold her hand while he sat scrunched up on the floor, leaning against the side of the bed just listening to her raspy breaths filling the silence between them.

On nights like those, Mulder would quietly leave just before the sun came up, but not before placing a kiss upon her cheek that she would pretend to sleep through. It was just one of their many silent agreements that lay between them throughout the years. Much of their struggles were silent, yes, but it was their silent adoration for one another that screamed the loudest.

Breaking that silence was deafening—an altogether beautiful thing, and that’s exactly what Mulder intended to do all over again.

He ran up the stairs, threw on his shirt, and grabbed a couple personal things of Scully’s that she had left behind before he hurried out the door. The realization that he was also one of those things that she had left behind, felt like a slap in the face.

Nearly slipping on the unsalted porch, it suddenly registered to him that the last time Scully stepped foot on the wooden beams beneath him, it was sprinkled with freshly fallen leaves and not snow.

Pushing aside a sudden new wave of woe, he tossed her things in the seat as the Mustang roared to life. It echoed into the cold February air as he put the pedal to the metal and raced towards the familiar D.C. city limits.

---

“Scully?” Mulder closed the front door of the smart house he hated and punched in her security code. He’d only been here a handful of times since she moved in eighteen months ago, and it looked exactly the same way every single time. Sterile and uncomfortable. “Scully, it’s me. Where are you?” He searched the tidy living room, tossing her things and his coat on the couch, and walked through the kitchen, taking in the scene of how clean and orderly everything seemed without him.

His head spun at the thought of her choosing this life over the one they built together.

The sound of coughing had him swiftly moving down the hall and into her bedroom. And sight before him, sucked him back almost twenty years in the past. The room was a mess. Her bed was piled high with multiple comforters, clothes riddled the floor by the nightstand which was covered with pill bottles and Nyquil. He took a step and noticed a giant wad of used kleenex in the overflowing trash can the floor next to her bedside. Mulder gasped when he saw that some were clearly stained in various shades of blood.

No! It can’t be!

“Scully…” His heart was beating so loud, it was surely enough to wake her.

Her wild haired head popped up beneath the mound of blankets with a look of shock and relief in her expression. “Mulder?” she yelled out, swiping a tissue across her nose. “Ugh! There you are!”

Swooping down upon her without thinking twice about it, he grabbed the hand she had hovering over her nose and wrapped her up in a tight embrace, smashing her face against his chest. “Jesus, Scully you scared the shit out of me.” Pulling back when he heard her grunt, he held up her hand that gripped the used tissue and examined it. “No blood.”

“Mulder!” her droopy lids, stark white face, and red tipped nose had nothing on the overly loud barking sound of her voice. “I’m so glad you came!”

“What? Scully you never called me. And why are you yelling?” Looking at her sleepy confused face, he realized that she was probably drugged up on sleep aids and decongestants.

“Oh, I can’t hear very well!” He watched her eyes narrow as she tried focusing on reading his lips. “I’m talking too loud?”

He had to laugh even though he was still concerned over seeing her blood soaked into anything again. “Yes, but that okay,” he spoke louder than before. She tossed the mucous laden tissue over his shoulder and flung the blankets off her legs. “That would explain you not answering your phone I suppose.”

“My phone?” she questioned him quieter now with a crinkle in her brow.

“I called you over and over. I was worried.”

Reading his lips, she nodded and said, “sorry I haven’t gotten out of bed much yesterday or today. I’ve got an upper respiratory infection and a double ear infection and can barely hear with all this congestion. I’ve resorted to knocking myself out every chance I get,” she grinned.

Oh loopy Scully was always fun, but that didn’t explain the crimson streaks on the kleenex.

“What’s with the blood?” Her mouth opened and before she could utter a word, he jumped in and told her not to lie to him with the tone of his voice he hoped she could hear well enough. “Scully…”

“It’s not what you think, Mulder. I’m fine.” Mulder winced and she quickly amended her usual brush off line. “It’s not what you think. There are broken blood vessels in my nose and my lips were cracked and they bled on and off this morning.” She must have seen the relief wash over him as his eyes fluttered shut because she brought his hand up to her face and held it to her cheek. “I’m okay, Mulder. And… I’m really happy to see you.”

Mulder wasn’t shocked at her choice of words. She had told him several times when he saw him that she was happy to see him but the way she said them with such reverence, took him by surprise.

She removed his hand from her face and rolled out of bed onto wobbly legs. He grabbed onto her arm with one hand and clutched her slender hip with the other as she stumbled over a water bottle, making sure she didn’t face plant on the uncharacteristically messy floor.

She relaxed and sighed under his touch. “Thanks. My equilibrium is off a bit,” she chuckled with the volume of her voice wavering.

Mulder sat there staring at her as she closed the bathroom door, stunned at how easily she accepted his presence. Then again, she’d been confused and thought she had called him at some point in the last two days to come over. Glancing over at the medications lined up like soldiers awaiting orders, he understood why. All of these had the side effect labeled, ‘May cause drowsiness and/or confusion. Do not operate heavy machinery’.

Fucking great!

Now he had no idea if she really meant anything she has said so far to him tonight, let alone the possibility that she might not remember him being here at all tomorrow.

Swinging the door open, Scully gave him her now very rare and honest smile that’s done things to him since day one. She looked so small standing there in her bare feet and underwear wearing an oversized t-shirt that looked suspiciously like one of his missing workout shirts. She had no makeup on which highlighted the freckles scattered disobediently on her face. Without a second thought, he stood up, bent his head forward, and planted a kiss on her nose.

She gasped and cleared her throat. “Sorry,” he mumbled, not really wanting to apologize for kissing his wife as he locked his eyes onto hers. “I should probably take off then since I know you’re alright,” he pointed to the bedroom door over his shoulder with furrowed brows. “You need sleep.”

“What?” Scully looked up at him, her big blue eyes shining under the dim lighting. “You’re leaving? A-choo!” Scully sneezed then rubbed her ears, yawning. “Oh, that helped my ears. I can hear a little better now.”

Laughing, he repeated “you need sleep,” louder this time and rubbed her shoulder for his own comfort just as much as hers.

Scully cocked a brow and still too loudly blurted out, “not as much as I need you.”

Mulder’s smile faded slightly and felt his knees bob as the weight of her words smacked into him. “You seem high as a kite with all of those meds your on. Not to mention you probably have no idea what day it is and will very likely think this whole conversation was all a dream in the morning,” he reminded her, offering her an opportunity to take back her words.

“Mulder?”

“Yes?” She stepped closer and his hand moved from rubbing her shoulder to rub the expanse of her back.

“I love you.”

“Oh brother,” he threw back, replaying their conversation from the past while clearly understanding now just how foggy her head is at the moment. Yet, no matter the context in which she spoke those three words to him, he always took them to heart.

He swallowed hard and looked away from her stare. It was safer this way. He could listen to her words or look into her eyes, but not both at once. He might not survive the honesty of her regret if she rescinded them.

“I miss you, Mulder,” she mumbled, and he could see her eyes glistening with unshed tears from his peripheral. “I do. So much. It's just… Just not time for me to come home yet.”

He risked looking into her bright blue eyes again, his stomach churned, and his throat tightened so much that he thought he’d choke right there. “Oh I know, Scully. Me too—and you’re right.”

Even in her increasing lethargic state, she managed to toss him a perfectly arched brow and a mock look of surprise.

“Yes,” he said louder, ensuring his words wouldn’t be blamed on pain meds, muffled congestion, and swollen eardrums. “You’re right, Scully. It’s not the right time. For either of us; not yet.”

He watched a lone tear leak out of the corner of her red rimmed eyelid and slide down the swell of her pale skin that she didn’t even attempt to hide. He fought the urge to swipe it clean—to wash away evidence of her sorrow. It was exactly that; evidence that her internal pain equaled his own.

“Soon,” she nodded and limply held out her hand to him. He took it gratefully and she laced her fingers within his. “Stay with me tonight.”

“Are you sure?""I want you here and you sleeping all the way out on the couch isn't going to help right now. It's running away and that's what I do, not you."Mulder balked at the sharp self-deprecating words she’d just used. That was the sort of thing he has hear himself say many a time. Not Scully. If she felt that way, she had never expressed that to him before. The concoction of medication had loosened her lips—breaking through the silence.

Forcing himself to brush off her words, he pushed back the comforter and sheet and as she slid in, gingerly laying her ear atop the propped up pillows.

“Oh, I brought over a couple things from the house for you. It’s probably unnecessary now that I’m thinking about it, but I know how much you love wool socks and your eucalyptus body cream.”

Her heavy eyes lit up and she smiled. “You brought me my blue wooly socks, Mulder?” To him, she sounded too excited over a pair of socks she had likely replaced long ago. But looking at her face, he saw that she really was. “You know me so well.”

“That I cannot deny. I’ll get them for you.” He went to the couch and grabbed her slippers and lotion, feeling pretty excited himself at the thought of being useful to her once again.

Mulder sat the container of green body cream onto the only open spot next to the near empty Nyquil bottle and knelt at the edge of her bed. Scully outstretched her bare legs into his waiting hands so he could slide her navy blue wool socks onto each small foot. If it were close to two years ago and she had done this to him, Mulder would have massaged the minty smelling lotion into her feet from heel to toe and sensually worked his way up her soft slender body until she begged for more. Right now, he would just have to be grateful she was letting him comfort her at all.

“Thank you.”

“Of course, Scully, you know I love your little feet,” he smirked and reluctantly removed his hands from her ankles. She didn’t move to cover herself back up so he stood to adjust the balled up comforter around her, but her hand wrapping around his bicep halted his progress.

“Lay here next to me.” It wasn’t a question and Mulder opened his mouth to protest but she cut him off. “Come on, Mulder. No reverting back to sitting on the floor uncomfortable while you stay awake and hold my hand all night long. Please just… hold me tonight?”

Blinking away rapidly rising tears, he nodded and responded the only way he could. He leaned down and kissed her forehead, whispering along her skin, “I can do that.”

Mulder carefully climbed over her and pulled the blankets up, tucking it around them. Her bed seemed huge, the space between them cavernous. It felt good to be this close to her like this again, too damn good and his arousal blooming beneath his sweatpants agreed immensely.

He slowly wrapped his arm around her waist and she laced her fingers between his as a silent thank you. The back of her chest rose and fell in tandem along the front of his own and he knew if he closed his eyes, he could picture every single night spent embracing is wife in their shared bed. But he didn’t close his eyes, didn't dare. Because he knew that the next time he and Scully lay in bed, It wouldn’t be in their shared one together.

“Sleep, Scully. I’m here.” Mulder pressed his lips to her ear and rested his head along the crown of hers.

Breathing deeply now, he felt her slight nod and her backside snuggled in closer, no doubt noticing his ill-timed erection.

“Mulder...”

“Yeah.”

Scully tucked their entwined hands under her chin and he felt the heat from her lips warming his fingers. Waiting with bated breath for her next words, Mulder moved down and nuzzled his nose through her mussed hair, inhaling her scent within the crook of her neck. It was something so familiar and comforting to them both, showing her affection like this as they laid alongside one another. It felt like the most natural thing in the world.

“I meant what I said,” she murmured.

“Said about what?”

“That I’m still in love with you,” she turned her head towards her shoulder when his breath hitched. “I may be medicated and half asleep, but I can never forget that. I never want you to either.”

He kissed her neck, her cheek, her ear, and told her, “and you forget, Scully, that I could never forget anything about you.” He heard her sigh and felt her whole body melt into the mattress. “You need sleep,” he said again. Mulder moved his mouth away from her face before he gave into the powerful urge to kiss her once more. This time on the lips, crossing over their convoluted line of separation.

When her breathing slowly evened out minutes later and sleep reclaimed her, Mulder carefully untangled their fingers while he gently moved out of her embrace. He stood at the end of her bed, taking in every detail of her peaceful face before he needed to force himself to leave.

He missed seeing her smile, the caress of her touch, the comfort of her warm body next to his lulling him to sleep every night. He missed his Scully. And tonight, Mulder was lucky enough to witness the fact that his Scully had missed her Mulder just as much.

---

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onewhoturns · 5 years

Text

Fireworks (1/4)

What?? Another?? Damn straight, I’ve written one thing a day just about for the past four days which is insane but here we are.

Fandom: Oxenfree Pairing: Alex/Jonas Chapter: 1/4 Characters: Alex, Jonas, (later) Michael, Ren, Nona, Clarissa Word count: 2437 Rating: T for language Summary: The one saving grace of that first kiss (apart from, well, it wasn’t a bad kiss) -- the one thing she could point to as making the kiss sort of okay, morally -- was that it was in a timeline where they were just friends. Well… okay, maybe the kiss might have changed that. A little? Or maybe it didn’t get a chance to, much, cause Alex was too busy shutting herself away and having a teensy tiny crisis over kissing her sometimes-stepbrother. And then, naturally, as always seemed to happen July 8th, it would be May 1st all over again. or: the First, the Fourth, the Fireworks.

She should’ve seen it coming. He’d become her other-brother, the one she went to with the things she wasn’t sure she wanted Michael to know. Even if Michael so often ended up finding out anyway (the awkward moment when Michael realized Jonas had been her emergency ride home from a party at Pat’s where she got a little past shitfaced, that was a memorable one). It’s par for the course, in these realities where Michael is with Clarissa, where Ren is with Nona, that Alex gravitates toward “new in town” Jonas. At least, at this point she’s pretty sure that’s how it goes. She doesn’t remember everything, just bits and pieces and vague feelings. She would remember if she’d kissed him - if he’d kissed her - before, right?

There had been moments, sure, that might’ve hinted at it. Halloween night, when Clarissa wore those red contacts, and Alex was shaken to her very core, Jonas had been the one she drove to the coast with. Staring up at the stars, in comfortable silence, feet knocking against one another lazily. Wrapped up in the ratty blankets from the back of his truck, sitting on the rocks and looking out at the ocean. Not that she’s all that big of a fan of the ocean, either, but it was too cold for anyone to try to pressure her into swimming (and Jonas has never been the type to do that, anyway).

Actually, it was weird-- the first time (this time around, anyway) she’d balked at deep water, everyone had seemed surprised. Like this Alex was a friggin’ fish or something. A couple of panic attacks later, they’d learned not to push it. It was wading or the shallow end for her. And Horn Lake was officially a no-go area.

Maybe that’s why she’s been perhaps a little bit clingy with Jonas at the 4th of July barbeque. She couldn’t convince her parents not to have it at the lake, so instead she brought Jonas along and once there dragged him as far from the water as possible, perching on top of the playground equipment, throwing snap poppers at the ground and lighting sparklers and dollar store smoke bombs and trying to forget the fact that Michael is probably at this very moment swimming in the thing that killed him. In the dark. Like an idiot.

It jolts her heart straight into her throat hearing Clarissa’s yelp of, “Mike!” from the beach. The smile wiped from her face, the sparkler drops to the ground and she’s on her feet in an instant, staring worriedly toward the spot their families are camped for the night’s festivities, but unable to see past the silhouettes of a few bodies gathered around the camplight. But then Clarissa bursts into shrieking giggles and Alex finally breathes again.

“Hey,” Jonas’s voice is soft as he wraps a hand around her wrist, giving a gentle tug. “You alright?”

She might be about 50% of the way to crying when she turns back to him. Maybe. Possibly. Or maybe it’s just the wide-eyed panic that has him suddenly concerned, that small crease between his brows just visible in the mix of moonlight and tree-trunk-filtered LED camplight as he reaches for her other hand as well. “Alex, seriously-- are you okay?”

Her pulse had skyrocketed, but with his thumbs rubbing circles into her palms, it’s a lot easier to come back to herself. She hadn’t realized the memory -- a false memory, now, of something that never even happened -- was still so clear, that it could flash so vividly into her head, no matter how briefly. A noise somewhere between ‘mhm’ and ‘ehhhhh’ croaks from her throat between closed lips.

God, his face is so soft. For someone so good at maintaining his cool (ever-vigilant, after his juvie stint, of keeping his temper in check), Jonas’s expression is pretty transparent. None of the usual wariness she gets from others about her baseless fear of the lake, or her occasional moments of sheer panic. His smile, small and slow and warm, is genuine. Caring. A corner of his lips lifts wryly. “Don’t go all Edwards Island on me, now.”

It’s so easy to step forward, to stand in front of his perch on the stupid plastic wall of the kiddie playground, to step between his knees and rest her forehead on his chest and just breathe. He’s grounding. Dependable. A few breaths of his shirt - his deodorant a scent she’s pretty sure she can pick out of a lineup - has her head a lot clearer.

“...Alex...” His voice is almost hoarse, and he clears his throat.

“I’m okay,” she mutters, and sighs before straightening, pulling her hands from his to rest on his knees, avoiding his eyes. “Just… you know. That thing,” she tilts her head toward the sounds of splashing and laughing and people checking their watches in expectation of imminent fireworks. She’s told him about Michael. Well, in a way. She didn’t go into the whole parallel timelines thing, but he knows she had some kind of experience, or maybe a dream, that made Michael + swimming + lake = terror. He puts a hell of a lot more stock in it than Michael, too.

“Right. Yeah.” He swings his legs a bit, thudding his heels against the hollow rails with a thunk-thunk, thunk-thunk. “...Wanna get out of here?”

Alex shakes her head, staring at the ring that still hangs around Jonas’s neck. “Nah, I’m-- I’ll be fine. Besides, the fireworks are gonna be starting s--” The word isn’t even all the way out of her mouth before she sees as well as feels his shift of attention, looking up to the sky, and a moment later there’s the boom and crackle of the first rocket. She half turns, watching the scattering of sparks floating a bit sideways in the slight breeze. The camplight went out from where the rest of their group had stopped to watch. And then up goes another, another thud and a noise like hard rain on a plastic roof.

She turns to watch the sky, midnight blue, speckles of stars lost in afterimages of the fireworks. A triple explosion - the loudest ones they’ve got, all in a row - brings a smile to her lips. “Nice.”

“Yeah. It’s, um… beautiful.”

Alex scoffs, shooting a glance back at Jonas with a small smirk. “They’re like ten bucks a pop, Jonas, this isn’t some masterful pyrotechnics, just the annual July Fourth ‘extravaganza’ according to a few suburban PTA moms.”

“Heh... Yeah, well. Last year it was me and my dad watching Die Hard on the couch and listening to it all going down outside, so…”

“But Die Hard’s a Christmas movie.” She ignores the teeny touch of guilt that she didn’t invite him last year, after all the Island drama. Then, all she’d wanted was to be around her flesh-and-blood, no-longer-dead brother. This year, though, with all the graduation festivities over and done with, with Clarissa and Michael both home for the summer and both families chattering at each other constantly any time they’re in close proximity, Alex was way too eager to have a friend to hang with.

“Oh, we watch it then, too. Sandwiched between Trading Places and Gremlins.”

She narrows her eyes for a second, unsure if he’s serious, before elbowing him in the stomach, rolling her eyes. He hooks an arm around her to keep from taking a ten foot fall to the ground, pulling her back against him as she snorts, “Seriously, you guys have the weirdest traditions.”

“Hey, I take personal offense at that.” He flicks her in the arm, and when she bats his hand away, and he teeters once more, he wrestles her arms to her sides. “Alex I swear, if you push me off this thing and my legs stop working I will never forgive you.”

She’s smirking, but let’s him hold on. “Optimistic. I think I’d aim for paralysis from the neck down.”

“Well you’re the overachiever.”

Another burst of one, three, one, four explosions, and they’ve fallen into companionable silence. In a brief pause between pops, Alex muses, “You know, I heard three years ago one of the firework engineers almost lost an eye.”

“Hm.” She doesn’t get much more than that from him, and then there’s another pop-crackle-pop-pop-BOOM and his hold tightens a little.

“Scared?” she teases, as the sky clears again, in anticipation of the finale. She’s pretty sure that’s his heart she feels thudding against her shoulder. “You never told me your family has a history of losing eyes to pyrotechnical accidents.” Seriously, is he having a heart attack?

“Alex…” His voice is quiet, maybe hesitant, close to her ear.

She huffs out a small laugh, “Relax, I’m just-” But when she turns to reassure him their lips meet and-- Jesus Christ, they’re kissing, when did they start kissing? Her eyes close for a fraction of a second before the fireworks crackle through the air and she blinks back into her senses and pulls away. “What the hell--?”

“Shit, I’m-- Sorry, I--” He lets go of her immediately, and she can feel the heat off his skin even if she can’t see his blush as she stumbles a step away. “I didn’t-- That’s-- Fuck, my bad.”

She thinks maybe she should be leaving, walking back to her family, glaring at Jonas for kissing her so suddenly, but instead stands, dumbly, a foot out of his reach. She’s just… baffled. Confused? Perplexed.

Jonas’s head falls into his hands as he groans. “God, that was--” He’s mumbling into his palms, “Can we just pretend that didn’t happen?”

Alex stares for a second. Because, she’s just… there’s a lot happening in her head right now. Specifically, after mentions of Christmas, she’s remembering that awkward moment at Ren’s Christmas party, running into Jonas in a doorway, catching him spotting mistletoe and very quickly stepping out of her way, face flushed from what she’d initially assumed was the spiked punch. And maybe there had been glances across the front seat on those midnight drives, the way he looked at her when she stuck her head out the window and howled at the sky, that grin he gave her, and the look in his eyes. Tracing the lines of her palm hanging over the side of the couch as Ren and Nona battled it out button-smashing, as everyone threw taunts and jeers at game night. That time she’d had a nightmare and called him at 4am and he answered (with only minor complaint).

...Okay. Maybe she’d… um… maybe…

A hand is rubbing at his neck awkwardly, head hanging low, feet tapping a quick nervous rhythm close to the bars, super audible in the silence now that the fireworks are over and done.

Alex has never been particularly good with romance. She has, in fact, been notoriously obtuse when it comes to people liking her. Case in point, apparently. But she does like Jonas. And it’s definitely not the same way she likes Ren, or Nona, or even Michael. She loves him, really, just never considered it a physical thing, never thought that maybe it could be something… else. He’s her best friend. Closer than Ren in a shorter amount of time. She’s just… surprised, that’s all. But that doesn’t mean there isn’t something settling in the pit of her stomach. Something not nearly as unpleasant as she might have expected.

She probably looks more angry that she feels, brow furrowed as she steps toward him. But she’s not angry. Just… trying to figure out what exactly she’s about to do. And really trying to ignore that nagging feeling in her head that this is one in an infinite number of timelines where too often this is not okay.

A tentative step forward and she’s between his knees once more, fingers resting on denim. He drops his hands and glances up; ashamed, hopeful, mortified. “Honestly, Alex, that was way out of line, I shouldn’t have-” His voice stutters to a halt as she brings her face closer to his. Her gaze shifts from his eyes to his mouth-- she’s just to his right, glancing away for a second, and she spots his hands gripped tight to his perch, and she turns back, and her eyelashes brush his cheek as she noses into his space, and then--

Their lips are touching. Again.

It’s… nice, actually. Better when he breathes her in and seems to melt against her and his hands wrap around her waist like he’s scared she’ll pull away again. Her heart is in her throat for a completely different reason now, because this is the closeness she likes with him-- only better, closer, but not in a way that makes her feel awkward or uncomfortable or… It’s just… really nice. Kissing him.

When she breaks the kiss, she doesn’t pull back, only moves to rest her cheek on his shoulder. There’s a pause, a moment when she realizes her heart is beating as hard as his was earlier, and she lets out a short huff of breath.

“Um…”

But whatever he’s going to say, it’s interrupted with a call from the beach. The camplight is on again. “Alex? Alex honey, we’re just about packed. It’s getting late.”

She’s not sure when her palms went to Jonas’s chest, but they leave it now, stepping away once more, only for him to catch one hand.

“Want to go for a drive?” It’s hopeful, maybe a little anxious, even though the request is one he’s made - hell, she’s made - time and time again. “Or-- or I can just give you a ride home, or…”

She shifts from one foot to the other, avoiding his expectant gaze. Instead her free hand traces the chain, hooks briefly into the ring around his neck. Shit-- She lets go, steps away again, pulling out of his grasp. And he lets her go, of course he does, and she wonders if she’d spot his expectations falling if she were brave enough to look. “I’m… look, I’ll…” The breath feels forced from her lungs in a puff of air. “Not tonight.”

And she feels like an idiot for it -- feels guilty and stupid because that’s just mean, leaving him like that -- but she leaves the remnants of sparklers and smoke bombs and poppers scattered on the ground (in a poor display of responsibility) and walks back to the picnic site not quite too fast, but with a kind of determination that only comes from pointedly avoiding thinking about potentially really fucking up a relationship thanks to an awkward kiss in the dark.

#oxenfree #alex/jonas #i wrote more #wtf is with this productivity #oxenfree fic #my writing #alex #jonas #alex oxenfree #jonas oxenfree #jonalex #demi alex #my first time writing a gray ace/demi char so... be kind ><#fireworks

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yeoldontknow · 6 years

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29, Minseok, and RRRRRRROMANCE if you're still taking them 💋 (I need all the Min fluff please god)

ay ay ay baby

Prompt: 29: ‘Come over here and make me.’Pairing: Minseok x Reader (oc; female)Genre: mob!au; romance; light smutSummary: He’s the city’s most wanted gang leader and you are his muse. They say a lot of things about him, a lot of things that are untrue. In the end, you know that it’s what you say that matters.Rating: PG-13Warnings: sexual themesWord count: 1,368

They call him a problem.

They, the endless and nameless others: government officials, cops, news anchors, tourists on the street who know his name but not his face, talking about the streets and how he owns them, words unable to match the lived experience of witnessing him.

At night or in dreams, he’s their favourite topic of discussion. The numerated lists of the things he’s done live on the internet, endlessly encircling them and their mouths, their minds, entrapping them. In the aftermath of his great storms, they luxuriate in the echo, awestruck and dumbfounded, horror on their lips while their eyes widen in shock.

He is a problem.

He keeps his gun tucked against his back, held there by the leather of his belt. The rings on his fingers are bloodstained and rusting, but he wears them as he wears these memories, with pride and with passion. Nearly all of his cars are hot, his rap sheet is longer than the cloth he uses to cover his dining room table, and he looks like sin in silk and satin. The ties at his neck, the open collars of his shirts, and the pajamas he sometimes doesn’t wear - yes, he is a problem.

He is a problem, and he is yours.

For years, you have thought about his line of work - the money, the drugs, the market, the, well, the guns. You think about these things a lot, let them turn circles in your mind until they become little more than smears, colours of a life you never expected to live but do anyway because he is near, and he is the sun. At the end of all the thinking, you think you can only conclude one thing: humans are noisy, creatures of too many waves that do not fit them. Humans are afflicted with a natural propensity towards the cacophony of living, and he lives the loudest.

The shallow breath that comes from exertion, the rush of blood in the ears, not unlike a symphony, remind you of mortality, remind you that you are an accident. He makes all of these things brighter, more exhilaration, more tactile - you feel life between and beneath your fingers, neither whole nor incomplete, simply existing, and this is why you call him cosmic. Minseok, to you, is a mess of stars and chaos, whole quantum physics buried beneath his lungs, pulling himself to you.

Minseok, you think, holds the big bang between the palms of his hands, presses it together simply because he likes the way the world looks when it’s a little lost and bereft. He is thunder and he is lightning, bringing shadows and light from all the unseen corners of the world - unseen but known, for he is an atlas; an atlas of desire, felt and touched by your skin.

He is cosmic, and he is natural, and you cannot resist him. You do not want to.

With his hands on you now, you think on these things, glad that you have a partner in the destruction of your own anxious mind. The cinnamon still lingers on his lips, mingling with your own and melting on your tongue. The coffee was not good today, you can tell by the bitterness and the way he hums in the back of his throat, as though you are his honey.

You kiss him hard, hard enough for him to feel you long after you are gone, coiling around him so that your blood may bond with his. Always, you feel him. Feel as though he has written his name into your bones, woven your joints with the memory of his touch and the memory of his laugh, moving you forward to come back to the warmth of his palms.

‘I’d risk my life for you,’ he murmurs against your lips, unwilling to break away.

Often, he says this, words that slip from the depths of his soul, meant with every breath he takes to kiss them into your heart. He says this, presses his forehead against yours and closes his eyes, long eyelashes splaying over the rosy dew of his cheeks. Breath falters in your chest, stolen and captured by the way he softens only for you.

He softens only for you, and, when he does, you believe time moves only for us.

With his body pressed so closely to yours, all of you feels volatile. Electricity moves along your synapses, overwhelmed and overpowered by the way he thrives beneath your touch. Under your skin, within your veins, your blood moves as though it is a wildfire, driven to the brink of existence because he chose to make a volcano out of your heart. Redness spreads over your chest and sternum, taking on a flush born of unprecedented longing as your body starts to ache. At your core, you feel empty, cavernous, without him filling the places you need him most.

‘I know you would,’ you reassure him softly, running your fingers down his chest to the barrel of his gun. There, you do not linger, even though you are sure he feels you, wields his weapon as though it were an extension his arm. Instead, you lift your fingers to run across the supple flesh of his hips, exposed from the waistline of his pants. ‘I would do the same for you.’

Hissing at your touch, his head falls back, eyes open wide and black, gaze darkened by desire. ‘I’d rather have your body.’

It’s all he manages before he pulls you flush against him, hands grabbing your hips to wrap your legs around his waist. His teeth latch onto the tendon in your neck, sucking a mark to prove you are his. Like this, you think he makes a masterpiece out of you, paints you red and purple, paints you a thousand different colours, each becoming a beacon of his yearning.

When he kisses you like this, stars are born at the edge of your soul, blooming to life by the memory of his lips. When he kisses you like this, you do not question why you followed or why you trusted him, why you let him take you the limits of humanity, why you let him keep you at all. When he kisses you like this, you find that you become raw and you find that you shake, desperate for every night to feel like this, for every night to continue in these sacred, impossible moments of bliss.

‘You have to ask nicely,’ you murmur, clinging to him for fear of capsizing. It takes work not to remain silent, to let him have you as he wishes and as he needs, the frayed edges of your soul asking that he love and take you too.

The low rumble of his laugh dances across your skin, raising goosebumps in its wake as your bones begin to tremble. Abruptly, he pulls away from you, releases you back to the cold and the shallow grave that awaits you beyond the cage of his fingers. From your position on the couch, you watch as he takes slow, careful footsteps, walking a small distance before he turns to face you. The velvet fabric makes you feel as though you are slipping as he pulls the yellow tie from his neck, slipping and slipping deeper into the storm that brews behind his irses.

‘Come over here,’ he commands, though still his voice moves down your spine as liquid gold.

Resting against the arm of the couch, you drape yourself, extending the length of your legs and showcasing the supple lines of your body. At the sight, he runs a hand through the dark wave of his hair, closing his eyes before tugging his bottom lip beneath his teeth.

‘Make me,’ you whisper, knowing that still he will hear you.

It’s his favourite game, the one where you lead, the one where you unmake him.

The one where you hold him tight enough to never be forgotten, searing against your skin and dissolving into little more than residue. It’s his favourite game, one he always lets you win.

Yes.

He is a problem, and he is the only one you have never wanted to solve.

#xiumin x reader #minseok x reader #kwriterscollection #kpopwonderlandtag #noonanet #xiumin fanfic #xiumin scenario #xiumin au #xiumin fanfiction #exo scenario #exo fanfic #exo au #minseok au #minseok fanfic #kim minseok #xiumin #gingersaysjump

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royalcordelia · 6 years

Text

Can’t You Hear the Wild Music? (7/7)

Summary: When the Great War sweeps away all of Canada’s able young men, Anne and Gilbert must endure leaving one another and gain the strength to fulfill their duties. A story told through narrative and letters.

Rated T • 5k words • Read the entire work on Ao3 • Start at Part 7

Anne may as well have been in no man’s land as the next months passed, with bullets whizzing past her ears and explosions bursting at either side of her feet. She heard it the loudest in the silence of her own room, with the chill Avonlea breeze sneaking in through her lacy window panes accompanied by the smell of autumn’s arrival. What an odd feeling it was, she pondered early one morning, to stand in the middle of a raging war in the isolation of her own bedroom.

She still hadn’t heard from Gilbert. It was a fact that seemed to play in her mind like a record player stuck on repeat, and each time she thought of it, a sharp ache stabbed at her chest. Was this how it was to be? A life spent teetering on the edge of suspense, the threat of tipping over into devastation realer than ever? She still wrote to Gilbert, but only when the loneliness of his absence grew too heavy to bear without some sort of release. She wrote to soldiers who knew him. He saved my life, Ma’am, wrote one soldier. It was months ago, but as soon as I could, I sat down to write this letter to you. I barely knew how to address it, only that Blythe would speak endlessly of his Anne-with-an-E in Avonlea, PEI. You’ll tell him how obliged to him I am, won’t you miss? Such correspondence came at least once a week, from dozens of men, nurses, and doctors, but never from Gilbert.

All she could do was sit at her window at let the kind autumnal whispers of home lull her to sleep at night until the morning would come with its merciful distractions.

Avonlea smelled like sweet grass that Sunday afternoon when Anne opened the door to Bash and Mary. The fragrance flooded into Green Gables the way incense descends upon a church. Little Seb trailed in behind his parents, plucky fingers pinching the skirts of his mother’s dress. Just the sight of them was a balm on Anne’s soul, and she knelt down to take the young lad into an embrace. In that moment, their little makeshift family was complete.

“I hope you do not mind that we have come for our weekly visit a day earlier than usual,” Bash said carefully as Anne peppered kisses onto Little Sebbie.

“You know our home is always open to your family,” Marilla said, appearing in the hallway.

“Absolutely! We’re delighted to have you!” said Anne, scooping Seb into her arms and swinging him around. The lad’s brown curls tumbled into his eyes as laughter emitted from the tips of his toes. Was there ever a sweeter nephew? And those plump cheeks! Certainly Mary was keeping him well fed. “Sebbie, why don’t you and I go jump in the hay bales? Jerry left us some just yesterday!”

Marilla began to protest, but Mary interrupted in an odd voice before she could get more than a word out.

“Actually, I think that’s exactly what that poor boy needs. Hasn’t gotten out of the house with all that rain we’ve been having. We’ll be right here when you get back. Take your time.”

Sebbie intertwined his tiny fingers with Anne’s and tugged their arms back and forth like a tree swing. Heartstrings thoroughly tugged - he must’ve learned his puppy dog eyes from Gilbert - Anne looked toward Bash for approval. He hesitated for a moment, the expression on his face as solid as poured cement. Then, he bent his head and pressed a kiss to Sebbie’s head, then Anne’s, lingering on the golden hues in her hair.

“Make sure you’re eating enough, Queen Anne,” he said, pulling an apple from the basket in his hand and handing it to her. “Go enjoy yourselves.”

“You’re sweet, Bash,” she replied, tucking the apple into her apron pocket. “Come on, Sebbie.”

The Lacroixs followed Marilla into the kitchen, but Anne could still feel Bash’s eyes on her as she shuffled Sebbie toward the door. Sebastian Jr. was an explosion of intelligence and chatter for a young lad of his age. Raised under the careful thumb of Mary and Sebastian, he was a well-behaved schoolboy, if not a bit eager. Influences from Anne and Gilbert had impressed the boy with a strong vocabulary, one that left his peers in his dust. Anne wondered if perhaps she’d finally met her match in a conversation partner.

“Guess what, Anne!? I found a butterfly on the steps last night. Momma let me put it in a jar and leave it next to my bed for the night, but I had to let it go early the next morning. Good thing, too, cause it almost died. And Tillie Boulter pushed me into the brook on Wednesday, but I only hurt my ankle a little. Too bad Gilbert isn’t here to look at it for me. Say Anne, did you know Gilbert was killed in France yesterday? That’s what the telegram said this morning.”

The oxygen disappeared from the room in an instant. The entire house went silent, each pair of nervous eyes landing on Anne.

Every one of her nerves was numb. There was a ringing in her ears that roared louder than Marilla’s gentle call of her name. Anne released Little Seb’s hand and took a few steps away, as if she might find a patch of oxygen in her shock. It was if every faculty in her brain had stopped working, making her brain a blank slate, her legs shaky. She was defenseless against the only sensation that seemed to blooming in her chest like one of the German bombs - agony, sharp and throbbing. It blurred her vision and stung behind her eyes where she tried to make sense of what Little Seb had said.

“Oh, Anne…” Marilla murmured, coming to the girl’s side. Anne shuffled back a few steps, cognizant enough to look up at Mary and Bash. They were waiting at the edge of the kitchen, looking at her the way people look at injured deer they stumble across but don’t know how to help. In the corner of her awareness, she noted the tears that had begun spilling down Mary’s flowery cheeks and the grief in Bash’s stern expression.

They knew. Of course they knew. It was why they visited early, Anne realized.

“I…” Anne stammered, unable to find the words that she needed. “Is...it true?”

Marilla took it upon herself. She had raised the girl, after all. It was only right to speak this truth to her now.

“It is. Gilbert died in combat earlier yesterday. Oh Anne, I am so, so sorry, dear heart. Little Sebastian probably doesn’t know any better and...well, we didn’t mean for you to find out this way.”

Anne’s arms wrapped at her elbows. It was getting harder to breathe, her inhales coming in shallow gasps.

“But his commanding general wrote that it was quick and painless,” Bash interjected. “He didn’t suffer at all. When they found him, he was peaceful.”

The words were meant to soothe her, but all they did was paint a horrible picture in every space of her mind. It was all she could see, her dear love laying in the mud of France, life stripped from him with no comfort or chance for last words. He would be buried there, she imagined, amongst the French flowers far from their Canadian shoreline.

She would never see him again. He was gone.

It was then that her legs collapsed from underneath her. Her hand caught the edge of the bannister seconds before her knees could crash against the unforgiving floor. The taste of salt fell on her trembling lips, and before the grief could cloud over her completely, she reached out a hand toward Marilla. The gray woman fell by her side in an instant, just in time to catch the girl who had finally lost all her strength.

Anne knelt beside her mother figure, face buried in her skirts, and wept with the bitterest of broken hearts. Her soul was wracked, her bones weary, her strength drained away like an open wound on the fields of France.

Anne slept through her pain in the days that came, her tired body welcoming respite from its heartache. Bash and Diana visited daily, sometimes Ruby, even Cole paid a call on a dreary afternoon - but Anne would see nobody but the Cuthberts and the doctor, who was charged with making sure the girl wasn’t withering away.

“I’m only a physical doctor,” the man had said. Anne squeezed her eyes shut, trying not to picture Gilbert as the successful country doctor he always wanted to be. “But I know some about matters of the heart. Let yourself grieve, Miss Shirley. You only hurt yourself by holding it in.”

She said nothing in reply, but crept out of bed when she thought no one was watching, and found herself at the seaspray cliffs of Prince Edward Island. She gazed out, cheeks misty with salty brine and tears, and wondered what the sunsets looked like in Europe. It was the type of magenta sight that the romantics wrote sonnets about, the sort of natural beauty that usually sent an artistic thrill through Anne. It was the same sunset that she could recall sitting under with Gilbert time and time again, aching to lean across the tall grass and kiss his gentle smile.

A whimper escaped her lips, untraceable in the sound of the ocean’s waves. There was so much to say, so much left unsaid, and she wanted to be heard. For once, she wanted the Almighty to listen to her prayers and frustrations and pain.

And so, on the cliffs of Prince Edward Island, Anne Shirley released a broken scream of grief and anger. She hoped that it raged against the oceans, parted the seas and shot like lightning through the gray autumn skies. She roared and sobbed and howled and wept, until there was nothing left in her. At least some of the pain in her heart was replaced by a rawness in her throat, and still she felt lighter.

Then she walked back home, climbed up the stairs to her gable room, and thought for the first time in a week that she might be able to stomach some broth.

Weeks later, Anne was on her feet again. The smile had gone from her eyes - possibly gone for good - but she found it possible to walk down Lover’s Lane without shaking and eat her meals without expelling them. Strangely enough, she found comfort in the company of the Lacroixs, whose existence to her was nothing but a reminder of what she had lost. They had lost the same thing, though, and it brought them together. They came together for meals with more frequency than ever before, always at Green Gables.

“I just don’t think I can go to that house yet, Marilla,” Anne explained quietly. She did not have to explain twice.

But a day or two later, something in her changed. She found herself desperate for things that held pieces of him and the life that he lived. She’d read his letters over and over and over, read the books that he loaned her, walked the roads they walked together, but none of it seemed enough.

“I think I’d like to go bring Bash and Mary this pie,” Anne decided one day, hints of her usual determination showing signs of revitalization. “They’ve brought over so much food in the last weeks that I think I’m overdue in returning the favor.”

“Are you sure, Anne?” Matthew said cautiously from the kitchen table, folding his newspaper.

“Mostly,” she replied, though her tone did not match her sentiment. “I can’t keep going on avoiding the things that hurt too much.”

“But you don’t have to confront things you’re ill equipped to handle,” Marilla cut in. “I’ll have Jerry bring the pie over and you can-”

“No, I’m quite well enough to bring it over myself. I appreciate your concern, both of you,” Anne said resolutely.

And that was that, for Matthew and Marilla had learned some time ago that when it came to challenging a determined Anne, one must choose their battles wisely. This battle they waved their white flags to, and watched with worried frowns as Anne headed down a forest road she could traverse blind.

The Blythe house looked the same as ever it did, with its silver colored bricks and humble porch. Memories of time spent here threatened to burst in uninvited thoughts, but Anne bit the inside of her cheek and pushed them aside. She knocked, picturing Bash opening the door with his usual greeting of, “Well, if it isn’t Queen Anne!” But Bash didn’t appear, nor did Mary or even little Seb.

“I suppose I could just leave the pie on the counter. Maybe I’ll add a nice little note,” Anne pondered. Her own pretend of the old regularity of her personality had nearly fooled her. But the bluff fell to pieces the second she opened the door.

God, the house still smelled like him - or maybe he smelled like the house - but it was enough to stagger her. She gripped the edge of the doorframe, took a breath, then made her way through the familiar rooms.

“Sebastian? Mary?” she called out, but no one answered. With the same urgency that comes with rushing an injection to get it over with, Anne scurried into the empty kitchen, dropped the pie on the counter like it burned. She stumbled out of the back door and gasped for the clean air that greeted her. “Oh, maybe Marilla and Matthew were right,” she scolded herself as she swiped a few stray tears from her freckled cheeks.

Her gaze fell on the Blythe garden, the very one that Gilbert had planted himself in memory of his parents. Strange, she thought, that even though she could easily picture him kneeling in the soil, she couldn’t feel his presence with her in the shadows under the trees. She couldn’t feel him around at all, but how could he have just abandoned her? It wasn’t possible.

Anne knelt beside the flowers, fighting back another one of her crying spells. She’d wept so much in the past days that surely she had to be running out of tears by now.

She heard the door behind her open, followed by two quiet steps.

“I’m fine, Bash,” she stammered, running her palms against her cheeks. “I’ll - I’ll come inside in just a second. I just need a moment to...Oh, I don’t mean to cry, but it seems I can never stop... I’m fine, just...it’s...”

“Anne.”

All at once, the world of broken pieces and shattered dreams fell back into place, returning to their wholeness. Had she heard correctly? Eyes wide open, Anne turned with painstaking slowness toward the voice she never thought she’d hear again. The sight was ambrosia to her marred heart.

“Gilbert?” And then, in a reverent prayer - “ Gilbert.”

There he was - much like he’d left her. Chestnut curls, khaki regimentals, and hazel eyes that never tired of looking upon her in their adoration. Some things were different, of course. He had lost his leg, after all, and the experience of it had aged him, beginning with the empty air under his knees. Dark hairs lined his chin, only partially groomed, and his shoulders were straighter around the edges.

She barely recognized him, but there was no denying it - Gilbert Blythe was alive. He was alive and home and gaping at her like a man who had just stared into the face the universe.

Anne rose to her feet, the skirts of her pale turquoise dress brushing against the flowers. The shock on his face melted into sunshine warmth, and he began to hobble toward her with unsteady movements. Anne was quick to shorten the distance between them, opening her arms to catch Gilbert when he fell into her. The crutch he had tucked under his arm fell down at his side, forgotten, as he wrapped his arms around her frame. Brilliant huffs of warm breath sent chills down Anne’s neck where he had buried his face in joyous laughter.

“Oh Anne, how I’ve missed you!” he whimpered. “How I’ve missed you so.”

Anne felt as though she might burst into flames with happiness and love. She stroked his soft hair, kissed his temple, and swayed in her happiness.

“I thought you were dead, Gilbert!” she cried. “They told me you were dead!”

This only caused him to hold on tighter, and Anne wasn’t sure if it was his embrace or her own joy that was keeping the air from her lungs. But then he pulled back, and took her face in his hands, his eyes lingering for a few heartbeats.

“I know. I can’t imagine what that must’ve been like for you. But it was all a misunderstanding, sweetheart. An enemy soldier stole my uniform and my identification. He was the one they found dead.” He pressed his lips to her brow. “I’m home for you, Anne. I won’t leave you again, I swear it.”

Anne could contain herself no longer. She pushed herself onto her toes and kissed Gilbert with the love and passion and pain she’d had within her in his absence. The taste of him was sweet, like fragrant forest breezes and wild clover. There was traces of the sunset too, with all its warmth and beauty. He kissed her back with as much reverence as a poet scribing phrases of happiness eternal. Their lips kissed and danced as though they hadn’t had years of separation and Anne felt the grief of the last weeks washing away.

“Thank God,” Anne whimpered as she pulled away, memorizing the shimmers in his eyes. “Oh, I feel like I’ve had three lifetimes worth of joy all at once. Why didn’t you send word? The last letter I received from you, I thought...”

“What last letter?” Gilbert queried, brushing a stray hair away from her face.

“Doctor Simard sent it just in time for Christmas Eve last year. You’d written it in the hospital. It must’ve been right after…” She looked down at his injured leg. “The way you wrote, well, I could only assume you were dying.”

“None of that for now, Anne,” Gilbert scolded. “I’ll tell you the full story later. For now, let this weary soldier hold his lady love as I’ve longed to since I boarded the train in Charlottetown.”

And she did for a few moments, tucking her head into the nook under his chin so that she might breathe the scent of him.

“Have you gotten taller?” she whispered.

“A bit. I learned when my pants had to be adjusted” he admitted. “And you, Anne. Why you’re every bit as beautiful as when I left, and more. When did you start wearing your hair like this?”

“When I turned twenty. Marilla insisted.”

“Well, the sight of you nearly swept the breath from me for good.”

“And the sight of you has healed every aching corner of me. I truly thought the loss of you would end me. I know you’re here now, and do you know Gilbert? I would marry you right this instant if I could.” Gilbert opened his mouth to say more, but a realization snuck up on Anne faster than he could speak. “Why not, then?”

Gilbert’s lips trembled as he watched Anne take her comforting hands in his and kneel down at his feet.

“Gilbert Blythe, if being separated from you has taught me anything, it’s that there is no one I want to share life with more than you. If you’ll have me, I’ll stay by your side until the very end, loving you and supporting you with everything that I have. I won’t waste the opportunity. Marry me right now, Gilbert, and I'll willingly accept the sorrow of life with its joy. Marry me in this humble grove amongst the falling leaves and the Avonlea sunset, with your garden as our chapel and no one but the Almighty here to officiate.”

“It’s hardly conventional,” Gilbert said breathlessly, letting Anne’s strong grasp bear the struggle of his standing. “Are you sure that’s what you want?”

“Yes,” she replied in her Anne-like resolution.

That was all Gilbert needed to hear. He lowered himself down to the ground, ignoring the pain in his leg, and met Anne at their earthly altar. With hands still held tightly in hers, Gilbert pressed his forehead against hers and took a deep breath.

“I, Gilbert Blythe, take-”

“No no no, let me go first!” Anne interrupted sweetly, rubbing her thumbs over his knuckles. Gilbert nodded with a chuckle, and watched as Anne breathed in her courage, sunlight warming the tones of her cheeks and lips. The sight of her was more lovely than his heart was prepared to take, but he focused his attention on Anne and let each of his nerves feel their joy.

“I, Anne Shirley-Cuthbert, take you, Gilbert John Blythe, matched to my intellect, proponent of my happiness, friend of my heart, to be my life mate. I swear to you, the Almighty Providence as our witness, that I love you now and will always love you. Let us dance together as equal partners through the years, through sickness and health, for richer, for poorer, until the infinite eternity.”

Gilbert let out a breathless chuckle, and when Anne lowered her gaze to look upon his face, she found that he was hiding streaked cheeks. Tears glistened on the tips of his lashes the way rain balances on leaves and petals. She brought her thumb up to caress the soft skin and brush away the moisture.

“I don’t know if I can remember all that,” he admitted quietly, nuzzling his head against hers. “Help me out?”

Anne laughed through her own tears, and nodded. Gilbert took a steadying breath, acutely aware of the rustling of leaves and the harmonizing birdsong above them. He’d dreamt for years about what it would be like to marry Anne - who he’d like to have there, what time of day, what she’d be dressed in. But this was perfect. Anne in her morning sky dress with chiffon sleeves and a narrow waist. The spirit of Prince Edward Island as their sole guest. Her beautiful words as their vows.

“I, Gilbert Blythe, take you, Anne Shirley Cuthbert…”

“Matched to my intellect,” she prodded.

“Matched to my intellect, proponent of my happiness, friends of my heart, to be my lifemate. I will love you today and tomorrow as much as I did the first day we met. I promise to take care of you and to stay by your side as your husband, for richer, for poorer…” Gilbert swallowed another lump in his throat and Anne tightened her clasp. “Until the infinite eternity.”

Anne was still for a moment, then reached down beside them and plucked some lily-of-the-valley. Gilbert watched, mesmerized, as she broke off a few short segments and twisted them with a delicate touch into rings. Then, she took Gilbert’s hand and slid the larger of the rings onto his left ring finger.

“With this ring, I thee wed,” she said, not feeling the least bit dramatic or silly. She handed him the other and held out her hand. The braided ring was fragile in his touch, but he brought her knuckles to his lips and slid the ring into place.

“With this ring, I thee wed,” he repeated back, heart heavy with delight.

Anne didn’t wait a second longer. She took her husband’s face in her loving hands and kissed him with tender adoration. Gilbert was swift to kiss his bride with the fire of passion that had kept him alive in his fever. He hoped that she could taste each of his dreams on the tip of his tongue - their house of dreams, their children, pieces of their future that suddenly had hope of falling back into place.

True to the promises in his letters, Gilbert took Anne into his room and loved her the way a man loves his wife. He reacquainted herself with her soul, introduced himself to her body, and delighted in worshiping every inch of porcelain flesh that careened to his touch. It was clumsy and self conscious in the beginning, but their fears gave way to the sight of one another bare in the orange of the island sunset. They laughed, wept, and cried out in the bliss they found together. As Gilbert loved her, Anne held onto his shoulders and wondered if the years of separation had come to mean something after all.

They were loath to break their touch, fingers entwined at the tips as they trailed back down the stairs, satisfied and love struck. They were at the foot of the creaky staircase when the front door swung open and Sebastian stepped in.

The older man froze upon seeing Anne and Gilbert before him, dropping his crate of groceries.

“Hey Bash,” Gilbert spoke up tenderly, unable to mask the lump in this throat. The brothers moved at the same time, clasping each other in a strong hold for several seconds, until Bash opened one arm and gestured for Anne to step in. There they swayed in joy and laughter, a family finally complete again.

“So tell it to me straight, boy,” Bash began slowly from across Gilbert at the dining room table. “How exactly is it that you managed to fight off the great Piper?”

Gilbert glanced at Anne, taking her hand to steady his nerves at the memory of what he’d gone through.

“It wasn’t easy, I’ll give you that. I’d been treating a soldier who had a leg injury. The wound had become infected and he was moving a lot slower due to fever. Our medical tent fell under enemy fire, I went out to assist him. A bullet struck a gas tank, and well,” Gilbert gestured at his amputated leg, “you can see what happened.”

“I still don’t understand how your identification papers got stolen,” Anne said. “How was it possible they didn’t know it was you that died.”

Gilbert looked down at the woodgrain of the table and sighed.

“My picture of you was included in the papers. Soldiers don’t carry around pictures of women they don’t love, I suppose. My own amputation became infected and I barely made it to an Ally medical tent in time. That’s when I wrote that odd letter you received, Anne. But they moved me around too much and after my papers were stolen, no one knew who I was.”

“It’s a miracle you’re home,” Bash exhaled. “One that will make me a church-going man. I don’t think I’ll forget my nightly prayers now.”

“No,” Gilbert laughed. “I don’t think I will either.”

At the end of the night, when all the stories had been told and all the tears had been shed, Gilbert walked Anne back to Green Gables. Through the window frame, Anne caught Marilla’s eye, who must have seen the pair strolling up the lane. Marilla brought a hand up to her mouth, then moved it down to her heart.

“Well, I don’t think Avonlea is going to forget this anytime soon. I know I won’t,” Anne said quietly. She stood a head taller than Gilbert on her front steps, the perfect height to brush back his dark hair. “That’s alright. We were due for some good news.”

“We were,” Gilbert agreed reverently, leaning into her touch. “You’ll come over tomorrow?”

“Mhm. I want to be there when the doctor gets there to check your wound.”

“Good. As soon as I’ve settled in a little bit, I’d like to go into town and pick out a real troth ring and gold bands.” Anne traced her nails over the contours of his hands.

“I was thinking that maybe we should have another ceremony - you know, for our friends and family,” she suggested.

A breeze swept past them, the island’s way of agreeing.

“I think that sounds nice,” Gilbert replied with a smile. “I’ve always wanted to see you in a white gown and a lace veil.”

“Heavens, anything to avoid having to confront Mrs. Lynde with the truth that we eloped .”

“That can stay our secret.” The love drunk expression had returned to his eyes, and Anne felt herself mimicking the warmth right back at him. “Get some rest, darling. You’ve had a difficult few weeks.”

“Yes doctor,” Anne murmured, sending a shiver down Gilbert’s spine. “You too. Sleep plenty tonight. I’ll be by as soon as I can tomorrow. I don’t even want to let you out of my sight.”

Gilbert tilted his head up, letting his eyes fall closed when the night breeze carried the sweet smell of her hair to him. Anne met him halfway, pressing her lips against his for what seemed like the billionth time. She didn’t care, though. She’d never tire of adding kisses to the neverending of tender touches they shared.

“I love you terribly, Gilbert,” she whispered when they parted. “Thank you for keeping your promise to come home to me.”

Gilbert snuck another kiss onto her and forced himself back a step.

“I love you too, Queen Anne. Thank you for never giving up on me, for bringing me home.”

She watched him leave, with his crutch and his chin held high, until he had disappeared into the shadows of the night. Marilla was waiting for her when she moved onto dreamy feet back into her own home, but Anne only shook her head.

“He’s alive, Marilla. That’s all there is to it.”

The complete story could wait until the morning. For now, that small phrase was all that was needed to give Anne and Green Gables its usual life back, colorful and jubilant. She stood alone in her room, body and heart tired from the oscillation of events that day. In the candlelight she whispered her thanks to the universe, to the kindness of fate who had delivered her love back home to her.

“It is like Marilla always quotes,” Anne murmured as she tucked herself into bed. “‘Weeping may endure for the night, but joy cometh in the morning.’”

#anne of green gables #anne with an e #shirbert #shirbert ff #shirbert au #tessa writes #I've finally finished!!#good golly I wrote this faster than I've ever written anything in my life #please let me know what you think!

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vividlybnha · 6 years

Text

Heartbeat

Warnings: Violence, blood, and angst/comfort

Word count: 2,517

Relationship: Momo Yaoyorozu x Kyoka Jirou

Summary:

The building was grimy, the houses bordering it almost as dirty as it but that building, the one with the dimly lit windows was it. It had to be. She didn’t need to use her quirk to tell. Momo was there. She felt the churn of her stomach and her heartbeat in her chest harder and harder. She knew she shouldn’t even be here. “Leave it to the pro-heroes,” they told her but this was Momo. She wasn’t going to sit back and wait for her friend, her everything to be saved by some hero that barely even knew her. That didn’t know how she feels when she is scared, how she analytical she is, they wouldn’t know her as she did. So this was her job. She pushed her hand to her chest, gripping her shirt. She was going to save her.

Jirou knew Momo could handle herself. It was Momo, after all, her quirk was spectacular and as smart as she was she could get out, but Jirou’s heart still didn’t stop as she approached the building. Her shoes slapped against the pavement as she ran. Momo . Jirou feels her heart pulse, she can feel it beat through her whole body. Momo doesn’t even know she will be saved.

The building was larger, larger than she wanted. If anything she wished it wasn’t there and Momo was just there and safe and sound and everything would be alright. But it wasn’t and no matter how much Jirou wished it just wasn’t going to happen and she knew that. But God, did she wish that at this one moment she had all the luck in the world because she wasn’t going to let Momo go.

Jirou slowly made her way to the door, watching the street for any civilians or thugs, it was dark and quiet. It made Jirou feel cold, almost slimy with fear but she just wrapped her arms around herself and trudged forward. As soon as she approached the door she softly pressing herself against the wall, headphone jack swiftly plugging into the wall.

There were 10 people on the first floor, none making to many movements, they were alert, they knew someone would be on their way. The second floor held 14 more, a few of them were talking, none seem too serious but they were quiet enough to hear if there would be any commotion. And on the third floor, the last one held two people. She heard the soft breathing, so soft it had to be Momo and then the other held a deep seeded evil. His laughter chilled her more than the air. That evil laugh is what was holding Momo, Jirou clutches her chest, she can feel her heartbeat through her skin. That evil will soon be vanquished.

She looks in the window, close to the floor. The lights are dim but she can still see, there are many with weapons, others with their appearance smudged by their quirk and at the ready. But none know it's her that's coming. God, she wants Momo to know she'll save her, Jirou's grip on the edge of the window tightens. She’ll know, they’ll all know.

She pushes the door open knowing that maybe a sneak attack will be better, maybe even warning Momo to create headphone but her quirk isn’t that strong yet . Jirou faintly questions if the people near the building will wake up, but she couldn’t care less. Momo is what matters.

As soon as the door creaks, a quarter open, they see her and their smiling their dirty smiles, weapons and first raised to the battle. Jirou can feel her heart beating, bursting against her ribs. She is scared, she is so fucking scared but she needs to get Momo out alive. She needs Momo out alive and unharmed.

The moment she connects her headphone jack into her speakers she feels herself reeling. Her heartbeat is bursting from her, and she knows this is the loudest its ever been. She tries to ignore how fast it's beating, its better against the villains anyway. She instead focuses on if Momo can hear it. She has to. But she wonders as she watches the villains drop, a few falling back from the impact, ears covered as they faint, does Momo know it's hers? Her quirk isn’t similar to anyone else's (besides Present Mic) but she can’t help but wonder if Momo knows it's hers. If she knows her heart is beating so fast for Momo. If she knows she is safe and that there is no need to be scared. She hopes.

She takes out her jack as soon as the last thug is down. She ignores the blood dripping from their ears and rushed to the stairs, immediately she feels her body shake and her headache pulse with her heart. She overdid it, God did she overdo it but she can’t stop. Momo is still in here. The rush up the stairs feel like an eternity.

She sets her hands on her knees and almost begs that this floor will be easier. Then she notices that the thugs on the second floor are all down to, blood dripping from their ears. Damn. She wants to smile and cheer but her heart and head are still pulsing and she knows that Momo isn’t there. She has one more floor

It doesn’t take long before she reaches the door, legs burning and lungs heaving for air. What happened to her training? She doesn’t bother taking a breath before opening the door. When she enters she hopes shes dreaming. Her heart starts to beat faster if that even possible at this point.

The villains there, dead center of the room, sprouting small steam from his smile, petting Momo’s head. She can feel the tears sprouting to the edge of her eyes, she knows Momo can see them but this villain, this thug in expensive clothing won’t be seeing shit. She wipes her eyes and steps forward, it's only then that she notices his headphones and Momo’s position. The knife that’s pulled up against her throat, the tears in her eyes, the large welts, the gag thats forces her mouth open, she can hear the faint cries and the faint blood that drips from her ears.

Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. Fuck.

“Let her go!”

She sounds pathetic, voice cracking as she feels her heart pound. No, she can’t let this happen. The tears are still there and she can feel more bubbling up.

She doesn't remember this fear when they were at the USJ or at training camp in the woods. That fear was soft and she had her friends and her teachers. Now it was her, her and this thug and Momo. Her heart pulsed. This feeling of fear, the levels it traveled through her skin were catastrophic. She felt herself shaking, from the overexertion of her quirk or the overwhelming of emotions was anyone's guess.

The villain sees it too. He must of with how he laughs.

“You're so pitiful.”

He takes a step away from Momo, steam growing from his mouth and Jirou can feel herself relax. Yes, come closer. She is already drawing up the plan in her head, a really stupid plan. Looking at Momo she confirms it, but the fear in her eyes are still there. Jirou lets out a groan as he moves closer, watching carefully if he will take the bait.

“Maybe so, but I’ll still defeat you!”

He laughs and its deep seeded and it makes her head hurt even more.

“Your both just little children, it's cute to see you try but her quirk is magnificent! My profit will increase tenfold with her here. All you can do is be a high-quality speaker."

He might as well be the biggest idiot out there.

He drops his hand onto the edge of Momo’s chair exchanging the knife to his other and brushes his hand against her cheek. He shrugs, his hand with the knife rising to his shoulder, it dangles between his fingers.

That was it.

He wasn’t going to touch her again.

Jirou makes the eye contact with Momo and she nods. Head fitted with large headphones, larger than any she’s seen. Jirou smirks. God, Momo was just the greatest. The thug opens his mouth, almost as if he is unhinging his jaw, the bout of hot boiling water comes barreling at her.

She can feel the water splatter on her skin, hot and scolding. She knows she’s screaming but she can’t hear it over her own quirk. Her ears are bleeding, she can feel the liquid drip down the sides of her face. She watches as Momo’s chair tips over and so does the villain. She takes her headphone jack out of the speakers, her ears are ringing and she inquires to herself if this is what it would sound like if she was near a grenade. She isn’t sure if he is passed out or just down from the loss of balance but she races over, body still quaking (its even worse now but she's to far into the rescue to notice). Her headphone jack shoots out to him. One tied around his neck and the other waiting to strike. As she makes it over she realizes that he is unconscious and there is a massive amount of blood surrounding his head, the headphones reside a few feet away. The jerk deserves it.

She can barely hear it but she turns. Momo is struggling from her chair and trying to make noises around her gag. Jirou quickly unties her and then uses the same rope to tie the villain.

She doesn’t realize she is crying until the rope is tied tightly around the him. She drops against the floor. It hurts, God it hurts. She feels like that Gorilla game at the arcade where you hold the handle and it vibrates until you have to let go, she always had the faint need to throwing up after those. It's like that but increased by 100. But Momo is there and she needs to be safe.

Jirou pushes herself up, one-handed and still shaking, earlobes still tied around the thug's throat but she won’t let go, not until the police are here. She feels Momo’s hand curl around her torso, she is saying something. It could be anything but she just wanted to hear her, know she is okay but her damned ears won’t stop ringing. Jirou grasps at the air, searching for a hand, or a shoulder, for Momo. When Momo’s hand intertwines in hers she smiles. It’s weak and wobbly like the rest of her but she couldn’t care less. Momo is safe and she is here.

Jirou’s heart isn’t beating that fast anymore but Momo’s is.

It's warm and full and alive. Most of all Jirou loves that its Momo’s.

They stay there for a while, Jirou can’t tell if its a minute or an hour but sometime through it the ringing considerably lessen and her skin fades in and out of pain. It doesn’t matter though because Momo is humming as she holds Jirou against herself. It's a song she doesn’t recognize but she knows it, it's soft and gentle, pulling her attention to how it vibrates through Momo’s body. Jirou knows it and it's right on the tip of her tongue. She’s heard it at the school, while her and Momo going through homework, she’s heard it in her bed, lying down as she describes a new song to Momo. Her head hurts as she is trying to go through the catalogs of songs she has placed deep in her brain. Eventually, Jirou gives up, Momo is now rocking her back and forth and rubbing her head softly.

“So what song is it?” Her voice is croaking, she must not have realized how loud she was screaming but she feels Momo smile against her hair and the rocking stops.

“It's not one.” Her voice is wobbly, almost like she is relieved to hear her. Jirou can’t help but smile.

“Hey now, I call bull on that. I’ve heard you hum it before!” Jirou softly wraps herself tighter around Momo, she wished the ringing would stop and that it would be just Momo.

“Well, it's not yet!”

“What do you mean?” Jirou lifts her head and meets eyes with Momo. It’s so obvious they’ve both been crying.

“It's…” She looks hesitant, her eyes slip to the ground.

Jirou rubs her back, smiling and leaning closer to her warmth. It's gotten considerably colder and now she can hear the faint sirens in the distance over the small ringing.

“Remember what I said about you hesitating?”

Momo smiles back at Jirou, its bright and lively and Jirou can’t help but feel herself sinking in this lovely feeling.

“Its uh, Its a song I wrote for you and I know I won’t be as good as yours but I just, I wanted-”

Jirou can barely hear her and she wonders if the ringing is coming back worse.

Momo wrote a song for... her .

She almost wants to get up and scream, flailing his arms around and curl up into a ball at the same time. She wants to grab Momo’s soft face and kiss it all over.

For her.

She doesn’t though, kiss her, she just looks at Momo speechless, smile growing and face red. Momo laughs, but she’s blushing too but Jirou doesn’t want to mention it, instead, she just pushes into Momo, even more, hands gripping her suit tightly.

There is a silence, the sirens are here. They are probably breaking into the building as they speak. Jirou looks at Momo’s lips, they are plump and so so so kissable. If she would want to do anything now would be the time, before the police find them and start their questioning.

The silence last longer. The police are probably on the second floor now.

“No hesitation, right?”

There's a smile faint on Momo’s lips, her eyes won’t leave Jirou’s. Jirou finds herself leaning closer, she winces at the pain that flourishes from her movement.

“Yeah.”

Momo pressed her hands against Jirou’s cheeks, pulling her a bit higher and presses a gentle kiss to her lips.

They break for a second. Jirou knows she’s crying again, she feels so stupid for it but the tears are also in Momo’s eyes and she can’t help but let out a little laugh.

“God, Yaoyorozu. You are just, your amazing. You know that?” Jirou slowly, as if that will fend off the pain reaches her arms up as she kisses Momo again. She wishes the extreme pain wouldn’t take this experience away from her but the ringing has gone away so she’ll take what she can get.

“You're even better.” She nuzzles against her cheeks.

They kiss again, and again and Jirou still feels her tears pour because she is safe, Momo is safe, the evil has been vanquished and they are here. Not how she thought it would end but she’s here, sitting on Yaoyorozu’s lap and kissing her through their tears.

Jirou can hear the police making their way up the stairs yet neither of them bothers to stop kissing. This moment, as painful and hopeless as her body feels she wouldn’t want to be anywhere but here.

She closes her eyes and tries to wish her tears away, she hasn’t cried this much in years. She squeezes Momo tight. Jirou can feel her heartbeat and she almost breaks into sobs from that. She looks at Momo again, happy and content.

They are alive.

They are happy.

Jirou knows as heroes it is likely that moments like this will happen again and again and again. Maybe next time it’ll be her that's kidnapped. It doesn’t matter though because right now…

Right now she can feel their heartbeat together.

And that's all they really need.

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judesstfrancis · 6 years

Text

resolutions by acethetically (jacquesdernier)

2018 words, Poe Dameron/Finn, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting

The thing about Poe Dameron is that he has been in love with Finn Walker since the day Finn and his friend Rey moved into the apartment across from his in Poe's second (Finn and Rey's first) year of college, and as such he is rendered entirely powerless against the bright and excited smile that breaks out across Finn's face at the prospect of spending New Year's Eve freezing their asses off in the middle of Times Square.

It starts because Rey's flight back home gets cancelled at the last minute and Finn had planned to go with her for the holiday and Poe hadn't been planning to do anything that night anyway except sit at home with his dog and try to drown out the sound of too loud fireworks with some classic rock and a few cheesy romantic comedies. And then Rey and Finn are in his apartment trying not to mope about not getting to see Rey's uncle Luke again for the first time in years and Poe is just about to clap his hands together and suggest they do something to raise the mood in the room to something slightly above that of a funeral service when Rey straightens up and gets that look on her face that means she has a plan. Poe freezes. He loves Rey, but her plans aren't always the best.

"Poe didn't you say you used to live in the city?" she asks. He isn't sure at first what that has to do with anything and so he just nods, raising one eyebrow in question as he does so. "Do you still know the way from here?" And yes, of course he does, it's only been two years after all, but what was there for them there? His friends all lived here now, and his parents had moved back to Guatemala as soon as he was settled in at college, so there was no one there that they could spend the holiday with. What else would she even--?

Oh. As his brain runs around in circles, wondering why in the hell Rey suddenly needed directions into the city, her smile widens and it all snaps into place: the ball drop at Times Square.

"Oh god, Rey, you actually want to go to that? It's cold and there's a thousand people there and it's loud and it's really not as fun as it sounds." He's done the Times Square celebration thing more than enough times already. When he was a kid it was exciting, sitting on his dad's shoulders and watching people perform in sparkly outfits as he stayed up way past his bedtime and waited for the confetti to fall as the clock chimed twelve. As he got older, it began to feel more and more overdone. The music was nice, sure, and being with his family was fun, but he could get the same thing at home with less trouble and more warmth. He hasn't been since he was twelve, and now he is twenty-three.

But once Rey wants to do something, there's nothing much anyone can do to convince her it isn't worth it. "Come on, Poe! Maybe the three of us will end up having so much fun we won't even notice how cold and cramped it is. And we'd be celebrating together! We haven't had a proper New Year's celebration as friends since we've known each other, don't you think this would be a great way to start?"

He wants to say that they could have a proper New Year's celebration as friends right there in his apartment, and from there it would be a guarantee that they would have enough fun that they wouldn't notice how cold and cramped it was, because they would be inside a heated apartment, just the three of them. But before he can say anything, Finn puts forth the one argument that Poe couldn't even hope to resist. It's not even really an argument, in fact, and it's embarrassing that Poe caves so easily.

Since the beginning of their friendship, all Finn has had to do to get Poe to do something is flash him that brilliant Finn Walker smile, the one that lifts his whole face and causes his eyes to shine like the stars. Poe is pretty sure that Finn doesn't even notice what he's doing when he smiles like that, which makes it even worse.

And so, when Finn turns that smile on him, saying that he agrees, that he thinks they'll have fun, Poe can feel his resolve start to fall to the ground around him like a house made of straw. The way his smile softens just a bit when he says, "I promise we can leave if you really hate it once we've been there for a while," completely blows apart his argument for staying home. His heart squeezes pitifully in his chest, and he agrees with only the slightest hint of a crack in his voice.

After a quick call to his neighbors to make sure they can watch his dog while they're all out, they make their way downstairs to start the drive into the city. Rey smirks at him the whole way to his car, fully aware that the only reason he agreed to go is because Finn wanted to. While Finn is completely oblivious to the effect he has on Poe, Rey has known forever, and it is not likely that she will ever let him forget it.

* * *

The decision to ring in the new year at Times Square was made at the last minute, and it shows in the sheer volume of people that are already there before them. The event is in full swing, people dancing and cheering and singing along off-key to the pop music that plays up and down the street. They stick near the back of the crowd, too far from anything to see, but the party is no less loud than Poe imagines it would be if they were any closer. Except for, perhaps, the music, but even so he is almost certain that the volume of the people where they are more than makes up for it.

As loud as it is, and as much as his ears are near burning because the air is so cold, Poe finds himself having fun. The shear excitement radiating from Rey and Finn puts him in high spirits, and it becomes clear after a while that he is more taken with the event than he has been in a while, maybe even since he was a child. Their laughter makes him forget about the crowd, makes him forget about the bodies pressing in on either side of him, and he doesn't feel quite so cold while he's huddled near Finn and Rey, telling them stories about previous News Year's spent in the city, and the schools he went to before college, and the time he accidentally got stuck in one of the displays in the Museum of the City of New York when he was nine.

("You did not!" Rey shouts, amusement clear in her voice.

"I did!" he insists. "I opened this door to a 1930's Brooklyn exhibit, only it wasn't supposed to be an open exhibit, the door just wasn't closed properly, and I ended up locking myself in for like ten minutes."

Finn ducks his head against Poe's shoulder as he laughs and Poe feels his heart grow three sizes in his chest.)

By the time everyone turns in the direction of the ball in the center of the square to start the countdown, he's forgotten all about Finn's promise to go right back home if he wasn't having fun. Poe hadn't even noticed that much time had passed already.

Finn and Rey are both looking towards the ball with a childish glee in their eyes, and Finn's smile is just as bright as ever, even from where he has his face half hidden underneath his scarf and the hat that Poe had lent him when he saw Finn practically trying to disappear into his jacket to keep his ears warm. The countdown begins, starting at thirty and gradually getting louder until the voices reach a fever pitch at the ten second mark. Funny enough, the louder they get, the less Poe hears. It seems as if the closer the clock gets to midnight, the slower time starts to move. Everything freezes, and it feels like everyone is at a complete standstill; nobody is moving, nobody is speaking, everything is quiet. The only thing Poe can hear is the thud of his heart in his chest and the deafening silence that can only come with a moment of this much weight in a place where everyone was louder than the loudest noise on Earth.

It could be midnight and it could be five minutes past midnight. For all Poe knows, they could still be counting down. "Finn," he says, and it can't be nearly loud enough for Finn to hear, not with all the noise he knows is currently being made, even though it sounds much too loud to his own ears. Somehow, Finn hears him anyway. Or maybe he doesn't. Maybe Finn just turns because he was already thinking of turning towards him, and maybe he turns because Poe is right and the clock has already struck midnight. It doesn't matter why he turns, not when the bright smile on his face softens into something quieter, into something much more intimate. Into something just for Poe.

Maybe the countdown is still happening. Maybe it's already happened. Maybe it's just ended. It doesn't matter. Finn moves in closer and somehow Poe finds his arms wrapped tightly around his friend's waist. He's distantly aware of someone bumping into him, causing him to stumble a little closer, but except for how it brings him closer to Finn, it barely registers.

As their lips meet, the sounds of the crowd gradually come back into existence. The cheer of the crowd grows louder and louder, and it isn't for them, but it might as well be, for all Poe is concerned. The thought of all of Times Square cheering exclusively because Poe finally got his head out of his ass strikes him as funny enough that he has to pull away from Finn for a second. He rests his forehead against Finn's as he chuckles at the idea. This close, he can see every different shade of brown in Finn's eyes.

Poe doesn't realize that Finn has been trying to tell him something until he sees a sparkling glint in Finn's eyes that clues him in to the fact that Finn is laughing as well. "Sorry, I just," Poe laughs, shaking his head. "I just, uh...what?"

Finn laughs again, the sound a thousand times more musical than the version of Auld Lang Syne that is currently ringing through Times Square. "I was just wondering if you ended up having fun."

Poe presses his lips against Finn's again in a gentle kiss before he answers. The matching grins on their faces make it a little harder than it should be, but he can't bring himself to care. "Finn I'm pretty sure this is the best New Year's I've had in a long time."

"Yeah?"

"Yeah, this is a lot better than staying home with BB and the Netflix romcom menu."

He isn't sure how long they stay there, like that, before Rey finally gets tired of letting them have their moment and knocks into them with a fond roll of her eyes and tells them they should probably get going if they want to make it home before the throng of people in Times Square clogs up the streets. Poe surprises himself by wanting to stay, just a little longer, just to stretch this moment on for as long as it will last.

Finn grabs his hand as they make their way to the car and Poe thinks that maybe leaving isn't going to break the moment at all. Maybe leaving will just make it better.

#stormpilot #finnpoe #please show this some love on ao3 as well thank u!!!#reblogs and likes of course are welcome #gabby writes #text post #prev patrickcorbins

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fabermemorialrink · 7 years

Text

some mistake, part 6

Hey there, everyone! We’ve finally reached the part you saw coming from miles away. Content warnings kick in here (some of these weren’t initially mentioned, and for that I apologize; I will edit them into the first post): violence, minor mention of blood, implied/referenced racism, and under-reaction to attempted murder. I’m going to tag for these too - please let me know if anything is tagged incorrectly, or if you think any other tags/warnings need to be added!! As a side note, there is no human-on-human violence (or human-on-animal violence) if that helps to know.

Thank you again for reading!!

He’s going to trip, he just knows it.

But Derek can't stop running. He concentrates on the burn in his lungs and his thighs, because if he's thinking about the physical strain, then that's less attention paid to all the emotional bullshit still growing rancid in his brain. Step by step, breath by breath, feet pounding against the dirt and rotting leaves, his own heartbeat the only sound crashing on his eardrums. All he wants is to run until he gets away from it all, until he forgets that he can never forget, because no matter what he does, there will always be people who take one look at him and write him off like he's worthless.

People who think they know something about him just because they've seen him once. The shade of his skin, the curl of his hair, the sound of his name, or the language that he chooses to use. It's not fucking fair, and Derek knows he has to pick his battles, he has to let the papercuts and the pinpricks slide, because if he brings a fight for anything less than bloody murder they'll crucify him. But a million papercuts will still leave you bleeding out, and Derek’s just so tired of it all.

Running is easy. He doesn't have to think as the trees fly past him and the wood thickens and drowns out the light. Outer ring gives way to inner, and still he runs, one foot ahead of the other. He doesn't plan to stop until his feet falter and it all comes crashing down. His breath is coming out in harsh bursts, the loudest noise in the forest until he notices that the trees are knit tight around him, too many branches and roots slowing his pace to keep going at the same clip. His desperate sprint gives way to a jog as he slogs through the branches tugging at him from all directions, catching sharp on his clothes and dragging long scratches into his skin.

It's darker in the forest than he's ever seen it, almost to the point that he forgets it's barely past three p.m. because it’s midnight constricting around him but for the bright spots that he thinks he's imagining at first. His steps slow from jog to sluggish walk when the trees and brush become too numerous to trundle through mindlessly, and it's then that he realizes something is severely amiss.

He’s not alone.

Beneath the chatter of running water and wind in the grasses, there’s the unmistakable sound of birdsong and footfall in the dirt. Light steps, like that of an animal, and the whirring chirps of insects. There’s wildlife this deep in the woods, and what should be ordinary becomes frightening in a forest he’d thought devoid of life. Now that he hears it, the noises seem to reverberate from every direction. He spins wildly, trying to find the rabbits or deer or sparrow that must be hidden in the shadowed brush and thorny shrubs. But his eyes are having trouble adjusting to the dark, even with the glowing patches of what he realizes is lichen freckling the bark of the ancient trunks rising in sharp peaks around him.

Derek knows the outer ring well now; Dex has shown him all the manmade paths and important landmarks, so he can navigate the safe part of the woods without his help. There are a few routes that always lead into the inner ring that Derek can take without winding in pointless roundabouts and wrong turns until the forest swallows him up. Even inside, he's starting to see a method in the madness: certain familiar trees that twist just so, curving streams that hide amongst the rocks and the ferns, the rare clearing filled with red-tinted leaves and silver-gray saplings.

But this, he doesn’t know a thing about. He can’t see much more than two yards ahead of him, and all the noise blurs into a cacophony that curdles his blood and keeps his heart beating too quickly. He’s too lost, and it feels like even if he had a compass and flashlight, he wouldn’t succeed in doing anything besides wandering in deeper. Every direction looks like the wrong direction.

He wishes Dex were here to lead him back out again, but even Dex might not be able to find him here. And Dex has his own life; it’d be absurd for Derek to expect him to always be available every time Derek did something immeasurably stupid in the woods.

Still, after today, he feels more alone than ever, and he can’t help searching the depths for glimpses of red hair as he starts wading through the leaves. He doesn’t know where he’s going, but wherever he ends up, it has to be better than here. But ten minutes of climbing through the impossible tangle of haggard branches from above and malicious roots from below with only the glimmer of the lichen to light his path leaves Derek more exhausted and lost than before. All he wants is to be back home in Manhattan, bundled under an infinity of blankets, watching one of the black and white classics with his parents, or playing cards with C and Dex while listening to the rainfall.

Anywhere but here.

He stumbles ahead a few more yards, but when there’s nothing but the all-encompassing darkness and the white noise of unknown creatures that he can’t see a single hint of, he finally drops to the floor, too worn to do anything but throw himself against the trunk of the closest tree. His eyes close, shutting out the eerie fairy luminescence of the tree moss, and he digs his fingers into the dirt to curl around the young roots weaving through the soil beneath him. He's too tired to be angry, and too defeated to be upset anymore.

His head thumps against the solid monolith of wood behind him, the notched ridges catching on his curls. The air around him is thick with cricket-song and a dense, tangible darkness, and there’s no good reason why he shouldn’t just close his eyes and resign himself to sleeping in the forest tonight. The apprehension in him manifests as a crawling discomfort that ripples down his back, but all the weariness of the day wins over his instincts, so he knocks his head against the trunk once more, and lets his eyes fall shut.

Even though his thoughts are running non-stop as always, his body must be insisting on sleep because he's drifting already. The tree beneath him feels like it's softening under his weight, pillowing him on its roots. As his breathing and heart slows, something brushes his side, followed by another movement, and another, until he feels the whipcord pressure of several different sources bracketing his arms. It takes a second for his vision to focus when his eyes open, but by the faint light of the lichen, he realizes that he’s being bound in place by the long roots of the tree behind him. They’re coiling around him with terrible speed, alive and filled with grisly energy.

“What the hell?” he mumbles, panic rising in his throat as he tries to slide free, but the roots and vines snake around his torso faster like knotted ropes, and the ground softens, sinking him deeper so that he falls off-balance and can’t find any purchase with his feet. Wildly, he grabs at whatever he can with desperate fingers, but the roots make quick work of them too, binding them to the dirt. Luckily, those are weaker, thin and new, so he manages to pull an arm free, and with a violent yank, wrenches his arm out of the wood cocoon and half out of its socket.

If he weren’t about to have a panic attack before, the leafy vines coming up fast to strap around his neck and face are definitely bringing him to that point. He manages one more deep gulp of breath before his vision is almost completely obscured, and the tree begins constricting down around him. Derek braces himself against the tightening strain on his chest, keeping his breath held hard and scratching and scrabbling at the roots with his free hand. But his attempts are futile. He has no chance against the incomprehensible strength of his assailant, and his joints begin to protest while air slowly drains from his lungs.

There's a dissonance between the part of him that continues to fight against this attack, and the illogical, oxygen-starved ideas floating into his mind that he should just give up and stop wasting energy. But Derek really, really does not want to die today, so he continues to writhe and claw at the tree as his remaining seconds tick away.

In between the disturbing sound of bark against his bones and the creak of wood curving around him, and his own wordless, muffled cries, Derek can make out another noise in the forest.

“-of him. Let go, he’s not here to harm you. I know him, okay? He's a good person - he doesn't want to hurt you, I swear-”

That’s Dex’s voice, Derek realizes. Dex is here to save him. He flails his arm in blind panic as the rest of the air is squeezed out of his lungs; Dex catches it, wrapping his calloused fingers tight around Derek’s hand. Derek is dangerously light-headed from fear and oxygen loss, but he can feel Dex’s other hand pounding against the roots and vines strapping him down to the forest floor.

“He’s my friend- I’ll take responsibility, whatever the fuck you want from me, just let him go! Please. Just this once; I won’t ask for anything else. Please. Please.”

Dex hasn’t sounded so hysterical since they first met last year, his voice cracking on a broken off sob, and Derek wonders hazily who he’s talking to. He isn’t sure if the dark spots in his patchy vision are because he’s about to pass out, or because the glowing lichen on the surrounding trees is fading. But finally the strangling pressure around his chest loosens, and he gets in a desperate, wheezing gasp. He’s almost choking on the air as his lungs fight to fill as quickly as possible. He faintly registers the sensation of Dex’s hands on his back, helping him sit up while the remaining roots draw reluctantly away, slithering through the dirt in horrible wriggling motions until they disappear from sight.

“Hey, hey, slowly now. That’s it, just breathe,” Dex instructs softly. He’s rubbing circles into Derek’s back; Derek isn’t sure he’s even aware of doing it. “You’re okay. I’ve got you. I won’t let anything else happen.” His words are comforting, but the rattling of the hand resting by Derek’s knee, and the hidden strain in his voice make it known that he was just as scared as Derek was just now, and, in some ways, there’s a unique kind of reassurance in that too. So Derek isn’t out here losing his mind, thinking that a fucking forest is trying to murder him.

Derek’s only concern is breathing, and he concentrates on Dex’s face, the only spot of familiarity and safety in this godforsaken forest. He tries to focus on his eyes, their smooth bourbon color turned dark with anxiety, but when his heart-rate doesn’t slow, he starts counting freckles, tallying up ten for every breath in, ten for every breath out. Through the thin fabric of his sweater, Derek can feel Dex’s pulse resonating from his fingertips into Derek’s spine. It’s also two steps too fast, but while time and silence drag on, they slowly start to decelerate.

“Dex,” he coughs out when he has enough oxygen in his body again that his vision isn’t sparking into rorschach blots, but Dex shakes his head and pulls him gently but firmly to his feet.

“Not here. We need to get you out first. Can you walk?” When Derek nods, Dex loops a sturdy arm around his waist and gets him moving. Their way is lit by Dex’s lantern, but even with the light everything looks alien and unwelcoming to Derek’s eyes. But Dex must know the way, because he guides them forward without stopping to second-guess himself, even in this maze of vegetation. The animal sounds of the forest continue around them, but Derek tries to tune it out, or adjust to it.

Even when it becomes less unsettling, the ambient noise doesn’t prepare him for the sight of a huge, silver-white bird swooping down to land in the branch ahead of them as they climb over another twisted tree bent low to the ground. Derek startles so hard he almost falls out of Dex’s grasp. The bird - falcon, he realizes dimly from nature documentaries, even though it makes no sense - is speckled with downy gray spots all along its wings, and its strange ice-blue eyes pierce through Derek with a predator’s intensity.

“Is that a fucking falcon?”

“Gyrfalcon,” Dex corrects quietly, and steps forward, holding a hand up. “We’re okay. I’m taking him back out.”

Derek thinks at first Dex is talking to him, but the falcon readjusts its wings fussily before descending to a lower branch and cocking its head with a thin screech. Dex shakes his head and the arm around Derek’s waist tightens.

“I know, I know. We’re going now; tell Bits not to worry,” he tells the falcon, which screeches again before taking off, somehow navigating the choked canopy of the forest without issue, vanishing in a dart of white into the dark. “C’mon, Nursey, I got you. Keep moving,” Dex says, prompting Derek forward again.

“You talk to birds,” Derek remarks numbly.

“I'll tell you all about it later. We've gotta get out first.”

Eventually the pitch dark gives way to the shaded groves of the inner ring, then to the outer ring, but Dex doesn't stop marching them onward until they reach the very end of the woods and he helps Derek take a shaky seat down on the comfortingly bare grass of the field, light still pouring down over them as the sun begins its descent. Of course, Dex himself doesn't cross the treeline - he sits across from Derek, between two saplings.

They both remain still for a second before bursting into words simultaneously; Derek, still unbalanced and totally confused, gestures for Dex to go first.

“Are you feeling okay? I didn't get a chance to check,” he says, eying the tears in Derek’s shirt and the heaving of his chest from his still irregular breaths.

“Yeah, I'm good. Just a little bruised, a few scratches,” Derek reports, as he gives himself a quick look over. He's sure his chest looks bruised to all hell, but he doesn't feel much worse than when he gets a hard check to the boards. “I think I'm more psychologically fucked than physically right now.”

“That-” Dex drags a hand through his hair and leaves it in complete disorder. “That's fair. We have a lot to talk about.”

“Chyeah, that's one hell of an understatement, Dex! The woods just tried to kill me? You talk to birds, and trees apparently, and, knowing you, that's the least of your secrets!” Derek doesn't mean to be shouting, but today has gone way past his chill limit and he thinks Dex will understand if he gets a little emotional.

“I know, and I'm sorry I didn't tell you about this sooner. I was hoping you'd never have to find out. I thought it would be safer-”

“Bro, this is like textbook miscommunication right here. ‘Oh, I wanted to keep you safe’; ‘I thought it would be better to keep you in the dark’ - we’re not talking about some superhero secret identity bullshit, man! This is murder trees! Trees! That kill people!”

“Right. You have a point, but I think maybe you should chill, dude,” Dex says, all sympathetic-like, resting his hands in his lap, and the weird, rabid hyena laugh that escapes from Derek’s mouth is indescribable.

“Fuck you, Dex. Just tell me what's happening, please?”

Dex cracks a humorless smile. “I fucked up, is what happened. I didn't think you'd ever make your way in that far. I should've told you, and I'm gonna tell you now. I promise everything I'm about to say is true, but if you have any questions- well, why don't I just try and explain first.”

“I’m listening.”

“So. The woods are- let’s say the forest is alive. That’s probably the best way to put it. It’s more than just a fuckload of overgrown trees and brush - it’s got its own consciousness, its own life force. There’s old magic in the dirt and the water here, the kind you don’t fuck with if you know what’s good for you.”

“Shit.”

It's starting to come together: the ever-changing paths that defy direction and logic, the midnight veil at peak of day and empty groves that should be teeming with life.

“Yeah,” Dex laughs drily. “That’s where all my rules come in. I know I’m always harping on about them, but you gotta understand - when you’re going toe-to-toe with wild magic, you can’t take chances. Overstaying your welcome, letting your guard down, giving up your name...if you give an inch, the woods will take a mile. Once you strike a deal, it doesn’t let go.

“But normally, it doesn’t bother with people who stick to the outskirts. The forest is old, and the forest is deep. It’s got enough ground cover that most people who wander in shouldn’t be able to make it all the way in. That’s what the inner ring is for: the woods gets you all turned around before spitting you back to the outer ring, just so you think twice about coming back. But you just had to be the exception to the rule, didn’t you?”

Fuck. Dex had warned him, hadn’t he? Time and time again, but Derek hadn’t wanted to listen. Not when being in the forest, being with Dex, had been nowhere as dangerous for Derek’s mental health than being in school. He shrugs sheepishly at Dex, who shrugs back, helpless.

“It’s my fault more than anything. You shouldn’t have been able to find your way to the heart. At least, I didn’t think you would. You’re too cautious, too smart to mess around with the unknown, even if you’re a persistent motherfucker. I didn’t think to warn you, ‘cause I thought I could watch over you well enough to stop it from ever happening.”

“But why? What was so important to hide from me? Didn’t you think that maybe this was something I should know?”

“I told you before, didn’t I? That dead bodies turn up outside the forest sometimes? Where do you think they come from, Nursey?”

A chill runs along the line of Derek’s spine, and he raises his gaze to the canopy above. “Fuck, you don’t mean- this fucking forest has literally succeeded in murdering people? I could’ve been-”

“No,” Dex breaks in fiercely. “I would never let that happen to you. I don’t care what I have to trade- I’ve got your back. No dying in the woods for you.”

“Thanks, bro,” Derek says, and he really does mean it, but he can’t get over all the rest of these new revelations. “But all those other people-”

“They were like you. Somehow wandered their way into the heart of the woods, and the forest- it doesn’t take chances either, Nursey. Kill or be killed, right?”

“Holy shit, but like dozens of people have been found- dozens? Seriously?” Dex just nods. “Fucking hell. And you knew this. You found out somehow- god, did you go through it too?” Derek blurts, his heart suddenly galloping again. Dex would've just been a kid, barely a teenager, and an experience like this is enough to traumatize anybody.

But Dex shakes his head. “Luckily, no. I...there’s a lot I know about the woods that I learned from my friends, or from observing it myself. You might've already figure it out but my friends aren't normal people. They all live here in the woods, and they're all. Uh. How do I put this?”

“They're all birds??”

“No, just some of the guys. Snowy, Tater, and you met J just now.”

“J, like Bitty’s boyfriend J? Is a giant falcon?”

“On occasion, yes. The others are also...different, but I’ll get into that another time.”

Derek gives up and slides down to flatten himself on the ground. There’s too much going on here to handle it while sitting up. Magical evil forest. Decades worth of disappearances turned into mysterious deaths. Shapeshifting bird people. And Dex here in the middle of all of it.

“Aight. My mind’s been blown enough for one day. Next, you're gonna tell me you've secretly been a bird this whole time too, or a wolf or some other kinda Ladyhawke shit, and I won't even be surprised, because today is apparently nothing but misery and weird reveals.”

“I'm not a shapeshifter, if that's what you're asking.” Dex’s eyes crease with the tiniest hint of smile, and Derek decides that he needs a day to digest all of this, but he thinks he’ll get over it soon enough.

“Even if you were, it’d be chill. You do you. And if that involves being a part-time moose, more power to you. But I think my neurons are burned out. Tell me the rest tomorrow.”

Dex’s smile fades in favor of concern. “You sure you should be coming out here again so soon? Why don’t you take a few more days to think about it? You can tell Chowder, if you want. He should know too. But I wouldn’t blame you if you guys didn’t want to come out here anymore.”

“No way, you can’t shake us off that easily, Dex. I mean, yeah, I’m still kinda fucked up over the whole thing, but it’s not gonna happen again. I’ve got you on my side.” They fistbump; Derek’s hand reaches back into the woods to meet Dex’s, and they share a tentative smile.

“Alright then, tomorrow, with C. But, dude, have someone check up on you at school. You might have cracked ribs, and I'll be seriously pissed if you tell me you woke up coughing blood.”

“Oh, good idea. I didn’t even think of that.”

“Because you’re hopeless without me,” Dex says as he stands. “You better get along now, before the health center closes.”

Derek watches him in confusion for a second before all the crushing stress from earlier today comes rushing back. The thought of accidentally running into anyone besides his friends or the team fills him with a stomach-turning dread, and he scrabbles a few inches closer to the trees. “Wait, no, I’m not going back yet. I wanted to hang with you more.”

Dex gawks at him, then drops back down heavily. “Are you serious? You just had a near-death experience. Don’t you wanna, I dunno, go home and rest?”

Home. Andover will never be home. And before today, Derek would honestly say the forest came closer to fitting that description than his school did. “It’s pretty screwed up that I don’t, right? But I can’t- I don’t think I can handle being back there yet. I just...today’s been a lot.”

“Well, yeah, but you should-” Dex stops when he notices the way Derek’s shoulders have gone stiff as he hunches in on himself as a defense mechanism to make himself seem smaller, less imposing. His gaze flicks over to the darkening silhouette of the school grounds and understanding lights his eyes. “The same old bullshit, huh?” he asks quietly, and Derek nods, exhausted again now that adrenaline and terror have begun to bleed out from his bloodstream.

“The exact same. Can you stay here with me? Just a little longer?”

“...yeah. Yeah, of course. Whatever you want.”

“Thanks. I just feel more free out here. Like what they say and what they think can’t get to me.”

It’s not that Dex gets it better than his other friends. Of course there’s a disconnect, even if he listens when Derek explains; he can sympathize, not empathize. And it’s not like there aren’t people Derek can rely on at school. Ransom always understands, as does Sierra. And C, of course, always has Derek’s back. And he knows that Shitty and the other guys would take his side without hesitation.

But out here, he can pretend to get away from it all. And, out here, he can stop pretending about everything else. He can let the lingering pretenses drop and allow himself to crack, to crumble and seep and fade before building himself up again, ready for another day.

“You wanna talk about it? I mean,” and Dex gestures to himself, “my pale ass clearly isn't ever gonna go through the same things you are, but I'm here if you wanna vent. And I- I should probably learn this, right? How not to be a shitty person when it comes to race stuff, that kinda thing,” he says, shrugging stiffly in that way he does when he's trying his best in his earnest and awkwardly non-communicative way. Derek almost cracks a smile.

“You really want to listen to me complain about every shitty thing the dickwads at my school have said to me?” Derek asks. “Because it's a long fucking list, even for someone who loves my voice as much as you do.”

Dex shrugs again, but it's looser this time, like he's in his element and knows how to handle the conversation again. “You're my best friend. If it's important to you, it's important to me. I'll listen to you yammer about anything you want.” His gaze falls heavily on Derek, and his jaw sets like he's gearing up to fight someone.

This time last year they probably couldn’t have had a conversation like this without turning it into a shouting competition, but they clawed their way to civility, digging in with tooth and nail until they reached camaraderie. Now they’re here, Dex looking like he's ready to burn Andover to the ground if Derek asks, if Derek so much as breathes a word against them.

Derek’s always been likable. Charming when needs must, blithely pleasant and able to bounce between being cerebral and down-to-earth. Even here at school, people came to see it eventually when not blinded by prejudice. But likable only goes so far when you’re not willing - or not able - to let people all the way in to see you, imperfections and bruises and all. So the people he’s close to doesn’t number even close to twenty, even though he’s generally liked by many more, and known by too many to count.

Until now, outside of his family, Derek’s never known anyone who looks at him the way Dex does. In this moment, he knows without the slightest doubt that Dex would go to war for him. It’s not enough to make everything better, but it’s enough to relieve some of the phantom pressure that’s been pushing down on Derek’s chest long before he even ran into the woods today.

“Thanks,” he croaks out. “But I think I’d rather just forget it ever happened. Maybe next time, though? If I need to talk?”

“Next time, definitely,” Dex agrees, offering one of his secret, slight smiles.

Derek still isn’t prepared to leave, but neither does he want to exhaust himself on another tirade, so he changes the subject to something he’s been curious about. “Yo, so do all your friends live in the heart? C and I have been hanging around for over a year now, and I’ve never met any of these people.”

Dex nods, turning to look back into the forest. “It’s safer there. They’ve almost all been living in the woods for longer than I’ve been alive, and most of them aren’t exactly human? The forest protects them, and some of them are literally- well, don’t worry about that. You can meet them some other time.”

“Really? You’d be okay with that?”

“It’s more a matter of you being okay with ever coming back here again.”

“Pshh, we already went over this. Until you’re willing to come and visit me, I’m gonna keep hitting you up here. You didn’t really think I’d ditch you?”

“I mean. I did withhold some pretty crucial information from you. Lie by omission. I’d get it if you were pissed at me. Forever. Especially considering how weird you must be feeling now.”

“Nah. Maybe I’m still in shock, but, you know what? I’m just gonna roll with it. The world is strange, and I’m okay with that. I know you weren’t trying to get me killed.”

“Still. I was being selfish.” Dex draws his knees up against his chest, and rests his chin on his hands. It obscures some of his face, but not enough to hide all of his telltale blush. “You, of all people, probably would’ve believed me if I told you earlier, but. It's not something you normally expect people to understand. And then, after a while...I didn't want to scare you away. I liked having you around, and blabbing about all the magic tree assault really wasn't going to help me keep any friends.”

He scruffs his hair up, eyes catching on Derek’s before he releases a tiny huff of breath and buries his face in his arms again. Even in the chill of approaching evening, Derek suddenly burns with fondness, deep and soaring.

“Shit, you love me, don’t you, bro? You saw me and decided we were destined to be BFFLs.”

“Shut it, dork. ‘Biffle,’” Dex scoffs. “God, who invented you?”

“It’s okay, you don’t have to hide your feelings, Dexy. Samesies, y’know?”

Dex gives him a dismissive wave, though the flush of his skin always gives him away. “You disgust me on a molecular level.”

“Hey, I’d covalent bond with you any day, babe.”

“I’m surprised you remember enough chemistry to make that joke,” Dex laughs, the stiffness in his face finally giving way, softening around his eyes the way he does whenever Derek makes him smile. It makes him light up, bright with a star-drenched luminescence that outdoes even his usual orange-gold glow; Derek could unspool yards upon yards of prose trying to capture it.

“What can I say, I know chemistry when I see it,” Derek says with an overdone wink, and Dex throws a handful of dirt at him.

They sit there for another two hours, Derek telling Dex stories about his dad’s country phase, and the time C’s sister almost poisoned him at a tea party. Derek talks about his friends from New York: the theater geeks and art club kids and anime nerds, the hardened editor of his middle school lit magazine and family that runs his favorite deli; he regales Dex with the finale to the ongoing saga of Ransom&Holster vs. the Dark Forces of Lacrosse. In return, Dex tells him about April’s summer-long feud with Tater over contested airspace and The Falconer’s misadventures at Bitty’s baking bootcamp.

As he’s wrapping up the story, he must remember something, because he reaches into his pocket and pulls his knife out while still talking.

“You gonna carve our initials into a tree?” Derek asks, drawing a heart in the air with his pointer fingers, but Dex doesn’t even spare him an eyeroll, he just puts his hand out.

“No. This is gonna seem weird, but don't freak out. Gimme your shoes.”

Derek scoots closer, edging back over the treeline, and hands both shoes over. He doesn’t think to put up a protest until Dex flicks open his pocketknife and presses the point of the blade to the pad of his own finger until it breaks skin and a pearl of blood forms.

“Dex, what the fuck-” Derek yells, making to grab the knife from Dex’s grasp, but he's handily blocked.

“I told you not to freak,” Dex scolds as he squeezes a drop of blood onto each of Derek’s shoes before rubbing it into the black leather, where it fades to barely visible. “Sorry for gunking up your nice shoes,” he says as he returns them to Derek, who slips them back on numbly.

“No way that wasn't some kinda cult bullshit.”

“I already told you, I'm not in a cult,” Dex laughs quietly. “It's to keep you safe. The forest- it recognizes me. And my blood, gross as that sounds. You're marked now; it's gonna think you're one of its own. Just in case I'm not with you and you end up in the heart again.”

One of its own? Just what kind of relationship does Dex have with this forest exactly? He said he wasn’t a bird person, but that doesn’t mean he’s necessarily human. It’s not like Derek would care either way, which isn’t a sentiment he thought he’d be having when he woke up this morning. Blankly, he watches Dex dab away the remaining blood from his finger. “That’s...still really messed up, dude. But thanks.”

“Really though, you shouldn't enter the heart of the woods without me. Rule number four - actually, this one’s so important that I’m upgrading it to rule three. Don’t even think about trying it- even if you’re under my protection, I’m not taking any chances.”

“I'm on board with that one.”

As the sun hits the horizon, Derek finally prepares to take his leave. He's not ready to face the same jackasses tomorrow after today, but he's going to grab dinner with the team and then have a sleepover with Chowder, so that most of his brittle pieces can shift back into place to slowly mend back together before they break all over again. But with each scar his skin grows a little thicker, and his tolerance to bend without breaking strengthens.

They both stand, and Derek intends to just say goodbye, and thank Dex again for the save, but instead he loses control of his mouth, asking brashly, “This isn't all of it, is it? Your secrets.”

But Dex doesn't look surprised. If anything, he saw this coming, because he just rubs at the back of his neck and watches Derek with a level gaze as he responds. “No. It's not. But the other ones- those are just...my secrets. My own problems. Those won't get someone else killed, so don't worry about them, okay?”

Don't worry about me, is what he isn't saying, and Derek feels it like his heart catching against his ribcage, sharp and violent. Let me care for you the way you care for me, Derek wants to tell him, but Dex is more skittish than an alley cat, and twice as wary about what he considers misplaced affection. Derek wants to spell it out in ink and flowers and photographs, through action and poetry, but more than ever the forest’s presence folds dark and unwelcome around Dex, shielding him from the outside. Derek would fight through it if Dex asked, the way Dex fought for him, but the trick of it is that he knows Dex will never ask.

And Derek is patient - he is - but Dex makes him want to throw his rulebook away and push his way under Dex’s defenses until he can write the words directly on his skin, tracing each I care about you and you mean a lot to me and I am your board and your fireside into asterisms on Dex’s freckles. Anything to make it real, to make it known, because as much as Derek might joke about it he really does love Dex, and he doesn’t want this fact to slip silently away through the branches and the moss, another secret lost to the forest.

But the timing is wrong and the words filling Derek’s mouth are all misshapen and incoherent, so he keeps it to himself, hiding paragraphs in his bittersweet smile and stanzas in his simple, “Okay. But if you need to talk…”

“I know,” Dex says, clasping his arm. Derek opens his mouth again, still sorting through all the fragmented pieces of affection he needs to save for a later date, but before he can scrounge up a goodbye, Dex shifts his weight and tugs Derek toward him. Derek stumbles forward a step before Dex catches him.

At first, Derek doesn’t even realize he’s being hugged. Dex’s arms rest lightly on his sides, like he's afraid of squeezing too hard, which Derek appreciates, but he returns the hug firmly. Dex tightens his hold in response, wrapping Derek up in flannel and pine and safety.

“I’m glad you’re okay,” he mumbles into the crook of Derek’s neck. He’s warm and unbreakable.

“I’m glad you found me,” Derek responds, and maybe he’s talking about today, and maybe he’s talking about that first time a year ago. Or any of the countless times Derek has been lost, because Dex always finds him again. Not many things in this universe are constant, but Derek knows this must be one of them.

At least for this suspended moment in time and space, he’s as close to home as he can be.

#nurseydex #nursey #dex #omgcp fic #some mistake #cw: violence #cw: blood #cw: attempted murder #cw: implied racism

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