#the thoughts are endless ive been having one piece dreams every night for the past few days and they have all been cp9 related the brainrot | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

pascalpanic · 3 years

Text

Caffeine Rush: Chapter Seven / Decaf

W/C: 4k

Warnings: language, dirty thoughts, all of the dirty thoughts because Javi is a horndog, male masturbation... general spice. pining that could make a pine cone tremble.

A/N: welcome to pining central, enjoy your stay :) (ps when Steve says “Javier Peña” I need you to read that in the voice of Anthony Mackie going “SEBASTIAN STAN”)

Previous Chapter || Next Chapter || Masterlist

ordinary coffee that has had most of its caffeine removed from it before the beans are roasted.

You are a goddamn test on Javier’s self control. He feels like those biblical stories of men fighting back against temptation to prove themselves to God, except the only thing he has to prove is to himself. To you.

He’s always been enraptured by you, captivated by your smile and laugh but since you went ice skating, he hasn’t been able to get your body out of his mind. The way you fell asleep on him last night, nuzzled in like it was the safest place on earth. He could feel your breasts press into his skin, the warmth of your thigh hiked across his abdomen. If the past week has been some caffeine-induced fever dream, it’s becoming real now. You, a figment of his imagination before, maybe, are all flesh and blood and God, is he desperate for it.

Javier hangs around your apartment when you’re gone at work. He doesn’t have much else to do, considering you’re gone and he knows hardly anything about the city. He watches the daytime television on your couch, usually meanders to the coffee shop for a drink, spends some time there, and returns to the apartment.

He feels like he’s couch-surfing, like he did for a summer in his college years. He feels guilty occupying the space in your home, especially without payment. As he walks to the bathroom, he takes a long glance into your bedroom. The queen-sized bed is mussed, unmade before you left for work. The fitted sheet is pooled in the middle beneath where you sleep, the various blankets tossed about. It looks like the coziest damn thing he’s ever seen, especially after a couple of nights on a couch.

Javier almost thinks about giving in, waiting for you to ask him to sleep in your bed tonight then jumping at the chance. Maybe he will, if he’s tired enough. Maybe he won’t, but maybe he will. He can think of nothing better than the endless whir of the radiator as your perpetually-cold body nuzzles against him, brushes your nose against his bare chest.

It’s been a long time since Javi has fucked anyone, and he’s starting to feel it. He’s a little antsy, and the image of your body, your ass as you ice skate past him, haunts him like a bad dream- or rather some illicit fantasy he knows he shouldn’t be having.

Would you want him yet? You’ve told him you love him, but that was an accident. When he kisses you, you kiss back harder. Hell, you initiated the first kiss. You seem like you’ve been all-in on this relationship, taking things at a rushed pace that Javier certainly doesn’t mind. He spends a lot of the day contemplating that, standing on the tiny balcony of your apartment and smoking a couple of cigarettes.

At this point, he needs a distraction or he’s going to have to take matters into his own hands, quite literally. What better to kill the horny buzz making his head spin than to call Murphy?

The phone is in your bedroom, on the nightstand. Javier dares to sit on the edge of your bed, and actually moans aloud at the plush comfort, the way his ass sinks into it. Goddamn, he’ll have to get one of these. He wants nothing more than to lay back and fall into the bed, wait for you to get home and pound you into the comfortable mattress. But he doesn’t. He stays strong and picks up the phone, dialing the new Murphy residence in Miami.

After a couple of rings, a familiar voice answers. “Murphy’s.”

“Hey, bastard,” Javier chuckles, and he can hear the blonde man’s laughter from across the receiver.

“Javier Peña,” Steve drawls, dragging out the name. “Good to hear your voice, man. You finally come out of a ten-day celebratory drunkenness?”

“Don’t talk to me about binges,” Javier teases, but he smiles a little. He’s missed the man. He’s glad neither of them got in any trouble over the entire Los Pepes situation- God, that feels like ages ago now. It’s hard to believe he’s only been in D.C. what, eleven days? If Steve’s math is right, yeah. “No. I’m in D.C. still, if you can believe it. Just… bored.”

“Oh really?” the man scoffs, leaning against his kitchen counter in Miami with Olivia on his hip. “And why’s that? What are you still doin’ up there anyway? Thought you were goin’ to visit the old man.”

Javier shakes his head. “Plans changed. There’s, uh… there’s a girl.”

Steve lets out a wolf whistle, laughing. “And how much does she charge a night?”

“Not one of those. She works at a coffee shop around here,” he informs him. “She’s… she’s really something. Nothing I ever thought I’d be into. She’s gorgeous, man, and so energetic all the damn time. Seems like she has an IV of coffee from her shop,” he chuckles, looking off into space. He takes a pause. Steve doesn’t speak. “I wanna be with her Steve. I don’t… I don’t know if I can go back.”

He’s silent a little longer. “This is some kind of practical joke, right?” Steve says after a beat, barely holding back a laugh. Never has Javier been so sincere, so real and honest and open. And more specifically, he’s never been like this over a girl. Almost… mushy. Soft. “Tell me more,” he says, hoping the joke will give up.

Javier talks about you, describing every little detail with a grin on his face. He tells Steve about Tie Guy and ice skating and your piece of shit car, how you can spin in circles on the ice and how you remind him of a busy little bee, fluttering about the coffee shop.

Steve is genuinely rendered speechless; a hard thing to do. He blinks down at Olivia then straight ahead at the refrigerator, covered in photos and magnets and drawings. He can’t imagine Javier ever wanting something like this, like what he and Connie have, but he sure sounds like it. “That’s… something. Good for you, Javi,” Steve chuckles, resigning to sincerity. “I’m happy for you.”

Javier grumbles back. “Don’t get too happy. I have to go back to Calí in three weeks. She doesn’t want me to leave… I don’t know what to do, Murph. I can’t bring her with, you know that, but I can’t just leave her here. And I sure as hell can’t quit.”

“You could quit.”

“I’m not going to, how’s that?” Javier huffs and crosses his arms, annoyed by Steve and his goddamn wording loopholes. “I just… fuck. I’m gonna go think about it before she gets back.”

“She comin’ to your hotel? You sure you aren’t paying per night?” He smirks.

Javier’s quiet and Steve isn’t sure what it means until he talks. “I’m, uh, staying at her place. She insisted.”

Steve whistles again. “Damn. You’re whipped, Peña. Well, I’ll let you go. Call again soon. I miss ya, bud,” he tells Javier in a moment of earnesty then hangs the phone back on the receiver, bringing Olivia to her nursery to change her diaper.

Javi sighs and falls backwards on the bed, admiring the way the mattress holds his body compared to the couch. Yeah, he’ll definitely need to sleep in here tonight or he’s going to crack his spine.

The issue will be you. He could handle it on the couch; it was like a soft, adolescent form of love, innocent and warm. Of course, it could still be the same in your bed. But would it? Is there not a different set of implications that come with the two of you sharing a bed?

Snuggling with you on the couch was nice. Wonderful, perfect even. Javier loves falling asleep with you in his arms. But in your bed, arms curled around him, maybe even being his little spoon… that perfect body pressed flush to his own, your soft ass against his groin, your breathing pushing back into his chest… that would be an entirely different thing. And he wants it, he really does, but he isn’t sure he’ll be able to control himself.

He slept like shit the last night, to be honest. You on top of him prevented him from moving, and Javier is an active sleeper. His neck was at an odd angle and his back twisted. His body feels like it did after that fight with Tie Guy. He can’t- wouldn’t- invade your privacy of your bed without you home to give him the go ahead, but he’s so damn tired. Not even the coffee helps.

So Javier indulges in one of life’s little pleasures he rarely gets to experience: a nap. Curled up on his side on the couch, blankets pulled snug around his fetal-positioned body, Javier drifts off to the sound of the noon news on the television.

That’s how you find him when you come home. He’s peacefully asleep, his lips parted and mustache moving with his exhales. Well, he’s clearly alive. That’s good.

You’re not sure how long he’s been asleep, so you leave him, making yourself something to eat in the kitchen. You avoid the living room as you get settled in, changing out of your espresso-stained clothing and into something more comfortable.

When you’re all comfy, makeup removed and a warm sweater on, you sit at the other end of the couch. Javier’s curled into a ball, his feet just inches away from your legs. You hope when he moves, he’ll feel you there and wake. If not, oh well. He deserves the rest.

It’s gray and cloudy outside, and you snuggle into the corner of the couch while reading your worn copy of The Great Gatsby. It’s the one you’ve been re-reading recently, what you were reading that first day Javi wandered into your coffee shop and subsequently your life.

Javi wakes not long later, maybe half an hour, to the sound of your book crinkling. The paperback’s spine crunches with wear, and his eyes flutter open to see you tucked against a pillow. God, you look like an angel, the light from the cloudy day filtering in and illuminating you from the back. Your face is calm and peaceful, focused as your eyes trace the words of F. Scott Fitzgerald. “Hi,” Javier mumbles groggily.

Your expression turns to a smile and you set down the book. “Hey.” You take his legs and drape them across your lap, tracing your fingers across them. “How’d you sleep?”

He groans. “Okay. Neck hurts.”

“That wouldn’t be an issue if you’d just sleep with me,” you sing-song to him, stroking his legs through the comfortable pants he wears. “My bed is super cozy.”

God, does Javier know it. It felt like your love itself when he laid down and the warmth of it swallowed him, practically whole. “Maybe I’ll give in,” he sighs, rubbing his eyes with the heels of his hands. “How was work? Sorry I didn’t visit.”

“Boring as always,” you chuckle. “What did you do today?”

Javi frowns as he thinks about it, his brain fogged with sleep. “Not much. Called Murphy, talked a while. He’s doing good.”

“Good,” you nod and smile. “When will I get to meet this elusive Steve?” You ask, softly kneading at his legs through the blanket and frowning as you realize he’s wearing… jeans. “Wait, pause. Are you seriously wearing jeans?” you ask him and laugh, lifting the blanket to confirm what you already suspected.

He frowns defensively, crossing his arms. “Maybe.”

“Why the fuck would you take a nap in jeans, Javi?” You laugh.

Javier looks away, frowning. The stubbornness shows. “I don’t own many comfortable clothes besides what I wear to work, if you haven’t noticed,” he retorts, but you can’t help but giggle. “Plus I thought I’d only be here to get fired.”

You smile at him lovingly and cup his face. “You sweet, stupid workaholic. Let’s go shopping later, get you some cozy stuff.”

Javier warms against your touch but maintains a pout. “I like jeans.”

Rolling your eyes, you huff out a laugh. “Would a pair of sweatpants be detrimental to your wardrobe, Javier?”

“Stop using big words,” he groans. “I’m barely awake.”

The large mall is annoying to Javier, full to the brim with last-minute (or maybe prepared, he never holiday-purchases) shoppers. He holds your hand, shooting feisty glares at anyone that dares to bump against his or, god forbid, your side. “Relax,” you tease and squeeze his free hand. The other carries a bag containing two hoodies, three t-shirts, and two pairs of sweatpants. “You’re not on a mission, and you certainly don’t have the knuckles to pitch another fight.”

He looks at his hands and scowls. You’re right. They’re no longer black and blue but faded yellows and greens, a spare bit of purple over the bones. The fight wasn’t that long ago, really, even though it feels like an eternity.

You drag Javier into a favorite shop of yours. He follows you around like a lost puppy while you search through clothes. He even hands you one or two tops he thinks you’d look nice in. You kiss him on the cheek and he dares to smile for a moment before returning to his stone-faced annoyance at such a packed area.

The dressing rooms are nicer, much more spaced out and offering places to rest. Javier sits in a chair across from your little cubby as you try things on. Every time you find something, you come out and model it for him. He comments, always positively, gives a little applause and smiles at the twirl you give in the big trifold mirror.

There’s one pair of leggings that hug your ass tight. Javier nearly salivates at them. “I like those,” he comments. “They look comfortable.” The same follows with a pair of jeans, even more flattering. He crosses his legs and nods, giving you similar comments.

Then come the dresses and tops. They’re all low-cut, not the wintery clothing Javier’s always seen you in. They show off your cleavage, and one scarlet colored blouse with a low neckline and fluffy sleeves makes Javier’s eyes simultaneously light up and darken. “How’s this one?” You ask, tugging at the sleeves.

“How much is it?” He asks, leaning back and looking at you through lidded eyes.

“Uh…” you tell him the cost and look back up at him, expecting a comment. “Why?”

“I’m buying that for you myself,” he smirks up at you, eyeing you up and down in a way that makes your skin feel intensely hot. The sight is stunning to him, and your flustered smile makes the smirk a little more devilish.

Javier does end up buying you the shirt, and you purchase a few other things you liked. But that scarlet shirt is stuck on Javier’s mind in replay: the subtle valley between your tits, how they filled out the shirt just perfectly and tugged at the cloth covering them, the way they look painfully soft to the touch, especially through that soft fabric. He wonders if you were wearing a bra under it. Then he has to stop himself.

You eat dinner late, chatting mindlessly over everything and nothing. Javier has no work to speak of now, so he tells you tall tales of the hunt for Escobar, some exaggerated and some underplayed. He mainly listens to you, asks about your past and your future, your family and your job. He could never tire of your voice, the soothing lull that warms him from the inside out, just like your skin flushed in that goddamn red top.

He drives the both of you home, humming softly to the songs on the radio. He’s beginning to recognize more and more of the top-40 hits on a certain preset station, songs he’d never listen to on his own. He glances over at you, gazing out of the window, and feels his body warm again- not just in his heart, but his stomach and lower too. He dares to steal a glance down, at the soft swell of your tits in that sweater. God, he wants to get you naked.

But he doesn’t. He doesn’t know what you want and he’s too afraid to ask, too afraid to shatter this blissful phase of adoration without the sexual attraction. He wonders if you feel it too, if your clothes suddenly feel too restricting and too warm when you run a hand down his bare back.

The nightly routine ensues: you shower. Javier changes, this time into a new hoodie but leaves his legs bare, wearing only boxers on the bottom. He waits on the couch, and when you exit the bathroom, he takes his turn. He returns and sits next to you on the couch.

Tonight, when you ask him to share your bed with you, he doesn’t say no. In fact, he doesn’t say much of anything, just yawns softly and stands, taking your hand.

It’s a sacred space, your bed. Javier knows it. He rarely fucks women in his; whether it’s for his own privacy or fear they’ll fall asleep there, he can’t say. But your bed is such an intimate expression of you, and he can see it. He can see the divot in the mattress where you sleep, the way you arrange the pillows just right for your own head. It is a queen size, but it’s single-occupancy: until now, that is, and Javier feels honored you’re willing to share this holiness with him.

He gets into the bed on the other side of you, the warm blankets enveloping him, and he nearly lets out a moan at the comfort. Compared to the hotel bed and the couch, this is sleeping on a literal cloud from the heavens. He lies still, waiting to see what you do first. Not wanting to overstep anything.

His prayers are answered when you snuggle into his side. You rest your head on his chest, kissing his sternum through the soft material of the hoodie. A hand rests on the other side of your face, and your legs both encircle one of his. Javier smiles, wrapping an arm around you. He presses a kiss into your hair and murmurs a goodnight, letting his head fall back. He has no time to worry about this situation before he falls asleep.

He falls asleep almost immediately, which makes you chuckle through your half-conscious state. He seems to always radiate heat, Javier. Your layers of blankets upon blankets suddenly feel unnecessary when a heat source the strength of the summer sun fills your bed. His chest is strong and firm beneath you. The rise and fall of his chest is like a boat rocking on the ocean, putting you at ease and allowing you to rest.

Fuck. He knew this was a bad idea. Why did he do this?

The clock reads 1:48 and Javier is wide awake, staring at your popcorn-stucco-whatever the fuck it is ceiling. He wasn’t able to process this before sleep overtook him, before his consciousness was wiped and with it, his inhibitions.

Your body is pressed to his so perfectly. You sleep without a bra, and Javier can feel his arm being slightly sandwiched between your breasts, the way they press further into it every time you inhale. Your thighs are warm with sleep, and he can feel your core pressed against his hip, even while you sleep and even through the layers of clothing.

Javier feels like the embodiment of slime. You’re asleep and all he can think about is how fucking hot your body is, how much he wants to press you into this mattress and wake you with an orgasm. He wants to palm your tits and make your nipples harden through that flimsy shirt, to slide his fingers beneath your pajama bottoms and-

He can’t take it. He feels so wrong, the smell of you surrounding him and choking him like a thick perfume, even in its subtlety. He does not deserve to sleep next to you, innocently, like someone you love, when all he can think about is his own carnal desires.

Pushing back the covers, Javier gets out of bed before any more blood can flow to his slowly hardening dick. This is all wrong. He should not be doing this, thinking these things without knowing you feel the same.

But the guilt is as strong as his arousal. He watches you for a moment, torn between his options, before meandering through the darkened bedroom and finding his way into the bathroom. He turns on the bright lights and forces himself to stare at the bulbs, to make his pupils shrink from their blown state of sleep mixed with desperation. He’s fully awake now.

He needs to get the hardened length down. He can’t do this, can’t allow himself this suffering while you sleep in the next room.

The sink. Cold water. He gasps silently at the splash of the ice-cold water against his face, dampening the edges of his hoodie. It doesn’t work enough. Again. Nothing. He feels like a teenager, unable to control himself. The cold water is a good idea, though.

Javier strips down, trying to avoid the urge to take himself in hand and fix this here and now. Turning the water as cold as it can go, Javier turns on the shower and steps in.

Agony is the best term he has. It makes him want to squeal like a fucking pig as he shudders from the cold. It doesn’t work to force his erection down, but what use is it when it’s not something physical but mental stimulating him? The cold shock didn’t do shit. Javier’s still achingly hard. He turns the water warmer and sighs as it gradually turns to a tolerable temperature, one that he can relax under and allow himself to let out a deep sigh.

He has no other options, unless he wants to wait it out. Leaning against the wall, Javier strokes himself, biting his lip and hoping the water pressure will cancel any soft moans he can’t avoid. It doesn’t take long when he’s this aroused, when he knows exactly what the fantasy in his head would feel like.

Javier is panting and sweating, from the effort and the growing heat of the water. He feels disgusting but it feels so good, and he can’t help imagining you doing this to him, you spreading your legs and feeding the fire between his own.

It only takes a few minutes. He gasps as he cums, with a force he’s never brought forth with his own hand. He bites his lip so hard he’s sure he might cut it off, not allowing the desperate sounds to reach a level you could hear. When he’s done, he groans and cracks his neck. “Oh, little bee,” he whispers, agonized as he lets the water wash the evidence of his sins down the drain.

When he’s done, Javier walks into your bedroom, silently, in the dark. His previous boxers were stained with a patch of his precum; he can’t put those back on. He drops the towel and puts on different boxers.

After he’s changed, he looks at your bed longingly for a moment. The soft sheets, soft mattress, the soft body between them. But in Javier’s head, he’s forsaken his right to the warmth, the comfort.

When you wake in the morning, hours after you thought you heard the shower running, you find Javier is not in your bed. There isn’t even a warm spot where he lay, just your body shifted further from your normal sleeping position. When you wander out to make your morning coffee, you find him. He spent the night on the couch again.

taglist:

@remmysbounty @mishasminion360 @blo0dangel @binarydanvvers @sleep-tight1 @apascalrascal @randomness501 @spideysimpossiblegirl @notabotiswear @pedro-pastel @sanchosammy @lv7867 @greeneyedblondie44 @hunnambabe @astoryisaloveaffair @emesispo @pedritobalmando @magikfanatic @yooforia @oceanablue @sara-alonso @pedrosmustache @feelingmadclever @hnt-escape @radiowallet @obsessivelysearching @sugarontherims @a-court-of-feysand-and-elorcan @linnie0119 @1800-fight-me @autumnleaves1991-blog @toilet-keeper @evelynseventyr @metalarmsandmanbuns @shannababyy @sambucky21 @princess76179 @starless-eyes-remain @theorganasolo @jagi-yaaa @mrsparknuts @tacticalsparkles @beskarboobs @wintermuteway

#javier peña x reader #javier peña #javier peña headcanon #javier peña fanfiction #javier peña x you #javi peña #javi peña x reader #javi peña headcanons #pedro pascal #jose pedro balmaceda pascal #pedro pascal fanfiction #pedro pascal x reader #narcos fic #narcos fanfiction #narcos fanfic #narcos #caffeine rush

172 notes · View notes

whump-tr0pes · 4 years

Text

Honor Bound 2&3 - 81

If you didn’t see my earlier post, I’m splitting HB2 into 2 books and extending book 3 a bit. HB4 starts in a few chapters.

Honor Bound 2&3 - 81 (Hurts to Breathe) @badthingshappenbingo

Requested by anon & the bit at the end by @endless-whump

This is a series. Start here, continued from here.

This is a sequel to Honor Bound.

AO3

Cw: surgery, gore (non-graphic), death mention, brief noncon mention, amputation mention, dissoci@tion tw, blood, ketamine, needles, self-hatred

Watching Finn do surgery was like watching a nightmare happen in slow motion. Isaac kept his hand firmly on Sam’s leg, but his eyes kept drifting to where Finn was slicing Sam’s arm open over the bullet wound. Below the tourniquet, Sam’s arm was a mottled purple-and-white that made Isaac think of corpses. I guess that makes sense, he thought. There’s no blood happening in there.

He shook his head. No blood happening. He could barely stay on his feet.

He’d barely slept at all the night before. He’d been too busy solidifying the plan with Gavin and when their whispers had faded away to silence, they just laid together, breathing together. Isaac wasn’t sure if Gavin had been asleep for any of it. Isaac had been awake, burning, agonizingly aware of every inch of skin that was pressed against Gavin. Aching, from what Gavin and Leo had done to him. Fighting down the tears, knowing this would be the last time he’d get to be in bed with Gavin, knowing after this it would never happen again. Knowing he’d never get to touch Gavin again, after what he’d done. Knowing he didn’t deserve to, after what he’d asked for. Begged for. Maybe he slept. He could just barely remember dark punches of sound in his dreams, muzzle flashes, blood. Death. Maybe he’d slept, if he dreamt of his family dying.

Maybe he was still in one of those nightmares now.

Behind him, he heard someone stumble through the door. He tore his eyes away from Sam and turned to see Gavin and Vera walking in. Behind the hospital mask Gavin looked paler than usual, but better than before. Gavin stopped just inside the doorway and leaned against the wall across the room, his eyes fixed on Sam. He wrapped his arms around his chest and shivered.

Vera crossed behind Isaac to Lucy where she sat huddled in the opposite corner, watching her husband. Slow tears rolled down Lucy’s cheeks. Vera murmured something to Lucy. Asking for something, maybe. Isaac couldn’t hear, and didn’t want to try. He only wanted to see Sam, see them getting better. Lucy left the room.

Finn cut carefully. The bullet had gone clean through Sam’s arm. Hadn’t cavitated. Just straight through, with a small hole on either side. Sam’s eyes were blank, rolling slowly in their head, drifting, landing on something in the room, moving again. It was like their body was vacant. It was like Sam was miles away.

Finn breathed slowly as they concentrated, and cut. Trying to reach the bleed. Trying to reach the thing that would tell Finn if Sam was going to lose the arm.

I don’t think Finn can do an amputation here, Isaac thought, the words coming and meaning nothing. Amputation. Nothing meant anything right now. Isaac was here, and not-here, with Sam, and somewhere else. Somewhere he couldn’t describe, just felt. Somewhere distinctly empty.

He’d seen death before. Seen blood. Seen the wounds bullets could leave when they tore through a body and left shredded flesh behind them. He’d seen how a knife could lay someone open when it was being wielded to kill, not just torture. He’d seen what the body looked like on the inside. He’d seen what it looked like when something went so wrong that the pieces couldn’t be put together again.

Watching that on Sam was agony he’d never felt. I was supposed to protect them.

His chest ached with every breath, with every heartbeat. The pain had to be from the bullet. It had to be. The crushing feeling in his ribs, the feeling like he was being punched every single moment, it all had to be from the bruise that was still forming on his chest. There was something deeper, though. Something tearing deep inside him, deep inside the core of him. Something that surpassed any anguish he’d ever felt. Am I watching Sam die? Am I watching Sam die?

NO. They couldn’t be dying. They were getting blood, Tori’s blood. Gavin’s already ran through their veins, pumping through their heart. The blood would save them. And Finn. Finn would save them.

Finn cut deeper into Sam’s arm. More blood ran over the table and dripped onto the floor.

“I think I’m almost to the bleed,” Finn said softly, almost as if to themselves. “There’s, ah… there’s a nerve in the way, I think. I d-don’t know what that… shit…” Finn adjusted their hands. Sam shuddered and groaned softly.

“F-Finn?” Isaac croaked. “I th-think it’s… I think it’s starting to…”

“Fuck.” Finn looked at their gloved hands, covered with Sam’s blood, then looked over at the counter. “Isaac, can you… just bring the whole vial, and the syringe. Yeah. God, fuck. Topher, do you… are you alright if I just have that syringe needle out? I normally wouldn’t, but…”

“That’s fine,” Topher said weakly. Looking away from the wound in Sam’s arm.

“Okay.” Finn rasped as they took the vial and syringe from Isaac. Their fingers instantly left smears of blood on the glass and plastic.

As quickly as the ketamine had set in, it was wearing off. Sam’s skin went pale, paler, as tears rolled down their cheeks. They whimpered, and their right arm shifted on the table. Their wounded arm.

“NO!” Finn screamed, dropping the ketamine on the table and grabbing onto Sam’s arm. Sam’s mouth fell open in a twisted scream.

Isaac lunged forward to pin Sam’s arm down. Pain flared in his chest. “F-Finn,” he gasped. “Finn. You… get that… get that in them.”

Finn’s hands shook as they drew out more of the drug into the syringe. Sam strained against Isaac’s hands.

“I-Isaac,” they slurred. “Isaac, please, what’s ha-happening, what’s… ahh it hurts it hurts it hurts it hurts…”

“I know,” Isaac whimpered. The blood congealing on Sam’s arm was sticky on his hands. “F-Finn’s gonna, gonna fix you up. Finn’s got more of the, of the ketamine…”

“No,” Sam sobbed, pulling harder on Isaac’s arm.

Ellis’s hand went behind Sam’s head, keeping their head turned so as not to disturb the needle in Sam’s neck. Their pleas rose to a wail, then a scream. The sound stabbed into Isaac’s ears, burned in his brain. He squeezed his eyes shut. “Finn,” Isaac whimpered. “Finn, please…”

“I got it,” Finn gasped. They didn’t bother asking Ellis to move, just reached past them and stabbed the needle into Sam’s arm. Finn retreated with the syringe, breathing hard. Tears shown in their eyes. “I’m sorry,” they whispered.

Every single second flared in Isaac’s chest as he waited for Sam’s pain to go away. Every breath hurt. Every breath hurt. Every heartbeat ached as Sam stopped begging with words and just screamed. Isaac’s knees buckled and he staggered. He looked up and Finn wasn’t even standing at the table. They had their bloody gloves off, standing at the counter, fiddling with something in front of them. Isaac couldn’t see it.

Isaac’s mouth was dry. “Finn, what—”

“Ketamine drip,” Finn snapped.

Isaac swallowed. “What—”

“Ketamine drip. To give them ketamine slowly, so th-that—” Finn threw their hand in Sam’s direction and their voice broke “—doesn’t happen again.

“Uh…” Topher looked up at Finn with his own gloves smeared with blood. “Do you want me to—”

“Start another line, please,” Finn said weakly. “Hopefully their veins are better now.”

Isaac threw a glance at Tori. She looked dizzy. Pale. Sam still screamed under his hands. Vera stepped forward as if reading Isaac’s mind.

“Babe?” Vera said tightly, her hand going to Tori’s shoulder.

Then, finally, Sam began to relax. They stopped straining against Isaac’s hands. Their head dropped back against the table and their eyelids fluttered shut.

“Ugh,” Sam mumbled. Slowly, their eyes opened again. “Wh-why is there, um, the, the air looking like that?”

“Like what, Sam?” Isaac said hoarsely.

“Um…” Sam gestured weakly with their left hand, waving it through the air. “Like… uh… whoa.” Their eyes focused slowly on their hand. “Uh… is that really there?”

Isaac glanced nervously at Finn as they injected a bag of fluids with more of the ketamine. He wet his lips. “Finn, what—”

“I can’t let that happen again,” Finn said with a sob. “C-can’t. So. Ketamine drip. 250 migs of ketamine in 250 mils of saline, one mig per mil, Sam needs thirty migs per ten minutes be, because, because that happened at around twelve. So, um… drip set of twenty drops per mil, twenty drops per mig, Sam needs, um, three migs per minute, so, um… three migs per minute with twenty drops per mig is…” Finn’s voice trailed off into silence. They stood frozen for a moment before they bent over the counter with a sob. “I… I can’t think, it’s… god, fuck, I don’t wanna do this, I don’t wanna do this, I don’t wanna do this…”

Ellis lurched towards Finn then stopped themselves short, their hand staying on Sam as if glued there.

Finn pressed their fists against their forehead. “Wh-why can’t I, I think, this is basic fucking math and I can’t do a, a simple goddamned med calculation and I… fuck, no…”

“Finn,” Topher said softly.

“…I can’t do this,” Finn moaned. “I’m not a fucking surgeon, I’m just a fucking idiot with ten fucking months of medical training and I… what if I… no…”

“Finn,” Topher said a little louder.

“…oh, god, what if I—”

“FINN!” Ellis barked from their spot at Sam’s side. Finn jumped and spun to look at Ellis. Ellis nodded at Topher. “I think he—”

“It’s sixty drops per minute, Finn,” Topher said, his voice shaking. “One drop per second. It’s a good calculation.”

Finn stood staring at Topher for a moment, trembling. Tears rolled down their cheeks. They gasped in a breath and turned back to the counter. “You’re right,” they whispered. “God, I’m sorry. You’re right.”

“No problem,” Topher murmured. He tied an IV tourniquet around Sam’s arm and looked for another vein.

“You think we could get a regular stick on Sam and let the blood go in from there so they can turn their head?” Finn said, still at the counter gently shaking a small bag of fluids.

“Sure. Wide bore. They’ve actually got a good AC now.”

Lucy walked back into the room carrying bottles of water under her arm, and a plate of sandwiches. “I… um… they’re PB&J.”

Vera crossed to her and put a hand on her shoulder. “Thank you,” she breathed. “Thank you so much.”

“Y-yeah.” Lucy’s eyes went first to Gavin where he leaned against the wall, shivering. She tentatively held out the plate to Gavin. Gavin took a sandwich with shining eyes, and left the garage to eat it.

Isaac turned back to Sam. They stared at him like they were looking at the ceiling through his head.

“Isssaac,” Sam slurred. “What’s…” They giggled weakly. “What’s going on?”

Isaac forced a smile. “Hey, Sam. How you doing?” It hurt to talk.

“I’m, I’m good,” they said. “I feel better. Did Finn fix it? Is it done?”

They’re going to be in so much pain when this finally wears off for good. “Not yet. Almost there.”

“Can I see?”

Isaac squeezed his eyes shut. “N-no, Sam. Not yet. You can’t turn your head.”

“Oh.”

Isaac opened his eyes and looked down at Sam. His sibling, his sibling was bleeding out on the table, their arm torn by a bullet that was meant for Isaac. It should have killed him, but Sam had been standing in front of him, unprotected, and he’d been in a vest. He flinched as the memory took him over for a moment. The bang, the spray of blood, the punch to his chest, the feeling of Sam falling against him. They hadn’t even screamed.

He felt a hand on his shoulder and glanced away from Sam. Lucy stood at his side, holding out the plate of sandwiches and a bottle of water. He dipped his head and took the bottle, and a sandwich. “Thank you,” he murmured. He wasn’t sure if he’d be able to eat anything. She nodded and moved on to Tori. He took a bite of the sandwich. Then another. The sandwich was gone so quickly Isaac wondered for the briefest moment if it had disappeared.

Finn returned to the table with the bag and some IV tubing in their hands. “How’s the line going?”

Isaac looked up dizzily and saw Topher finishing the IV in Sam’s arm. “Good,” Topher said.

These are all good things.

He stopped trying to pay attention to what was going on around him. He just looked at Sam. He looked at Sam as the new line was attached to their IV, blood and ketamine going in at the same time. He looked at them as the needle came out of their neck. He pushed down on the spot when Finn told him to and held the blood in until it could clot. It did. That was good, too. He looked at them as their eyes lazed slowly around the room, the pain as absent from their body as Isaac had ever seen. Sam looked like they were barely there, their mind hanging onto their body by a thread that could be cut. Sam looked like they were drifting farther and farther away.

I’d rather them be gone than in pain right now. Finn got back to cutting. Then stitching, pulling the muscle and skin of Sam’s arm together that had been torn, obliterated. Isaac tried not to look as Finn smeared superglue over the repaired tear in Sam’s artery. He tried not to look when Finn had Topher hold Sam’s arm up so they could repair the other side.

Sam heaved a deep sigh. Isaac’s eyes snapped to theirs, having wandered to watch Finn fix Sam.

“Isaac?” Sam asked thickly, as if their mouth was moving with no instructions from their brain.

“Yeah?” Isaac put his hand on Sam’s knee and squeezed.

“Do you still hate me?”

A chill rocked through Isaac, burning, freezing, tearing him apart from the inside, so much worse than the simple bruise on his chest. “What?”

“The things you said. About hating me and wishing I died.” Sam’s face was blank. Not from holding back emotion, but from there not being any emotion at all.

Isaac could feel eyes on him. His own eyes burned with tears and spilled over before he could stop it. “I…”

“I think they had you say that during the whipping so I would, um, believe it. So I wouldn’t be able to think that you don’t. But… do you?”

Isaac looked away, desperate for a minute, a fucking minute, to hold down his sobs, push away his agony, so he could answer Sam the way he wanted to. With calm words and gentle reassurances. Not screaming in guilt and fury. Not falling to his knees. Not disappearing within himself, where those words would surround him and punish him and insulate him from ever hurting Sam like that again. He needed a fucking minute, so he wouldn’t break. He needed some time.

His gaze landed on Gavin where he still stood slumped against the wall. Gavin had his hands to his mouth and was shaking with silent tears. Gavin saw it, too, and he was the one who drew Sam’s blood as I said those things. He’s the one who heard every single one of them. He’s the one who took Sam away from me in the first place.

Isaac fell back a step from the table, shuddering. He wrapped his arms around his chest and squeezed. He gasped at the pain. Welcomed it. I said those things because I was weak. I broke. I…

If I’d protected them from the beginning…

If I had died rather than beg them to come for me…

If I had been strong enough to kill Gavin when I had the chance…

If I…

Something in his chest cracked. Shattered. Was that a rib, or something else? Did it matter? He was broken, he was broken, and it was his fault Sam was broken, too.

“Isaac?” Sam’s voice held a perfect innocence. Concern, weaving gently through his name.

A second wave of agony rocked through him, deeper. Raw. Cutting into the core of who he was. I hated myself before I ever loved them.

Something shifted in him. Something he’d never even realized until that moment. I hated myself before I ever loved them. He took a step towards the table. His hand went back to Sam’s leg.

“No, Sam,” he whispered. “I never hated you. Not even once.” I said that to save their life. I was going to break, to let them live, no matter how much it hurt me.

“Good,” Sam sighed, their eyes fluttering shut. “I thought so.”

This time Isaac did stagger and drop to his knees. He reached across Sam and clutched at their opposite shoulder as Finn kept working beside Isaac. He felt a small hand cover his and squeeze. He looked up. Sam looked at him and smiled.

Continued here

@untilthepainstarts, @womping-grounds, @blue-flare10, @free-2bmee, @quirkykayleetam, @walkingchemicalfire, @inpainandsuffering, @redwingedwhump, @burtlederp, @castielamigos-whump-side-blog, @insomniacscoprio, @cursedscribbles, @whumpywhumper, @stxck-fxck, @omega-em-z-02, @whumps-the-word, @justwhumpitwhumpitgood, @justplainwhump, @moose-teeth, @slaintetowhump, @finder-of-rings, @inky-whump, @thatsthewhump, @orchidscript, @insanitywishes, @cinnamonflavoredhugs, @this-mightaswell-happen, @newandfiguringitout, @whumpkitty, @pretty-face-breaker

81 notes · View notes

that-one-girl-behind-you · 4 years

Text

Illicio 4/?

Part 3

Trigger warning for some very lightly mentioned domestic abuse and sexual assault (molesting of a minor). During the first POV.

“Come on now, don’t go picking fights with any more entities.” Gerry gives his shoulder a little push as the bus rolls to a stop. Jon complies, but he turns to face Gerry as soon as he hops on the street with him.

“Excuse me? I don’t pick fights with-” Jon’s massive lie fades off into indignant blustering when Gerry wraps a hand around his right wrist and brings his hand up to eye level, giving it a little shake with a raised eyebrow. “W- well that’s different, have you met Jude Perry?”

Nighttime at Jon’s flat is a strange ritual.

The first variable is whether or not Gerry will be staying, which has been happening more often lately. On those nights, Jon usually grabs the first thing that catches his attention from his bookshelf and sits on the coffee table or the carpeted floor -all of Gerry’s teasing about his ‘old lady sofa’ doesn’t stop him from hogging it for himself- to read aloud.

“I thought you didn’t sleep anymore,” he says whenever he looks up from the pages and finds Gerry stretching out mid-yawn.

“I don’t need it.” Gerry’s voice gets hoarser and more relaxed after these naps. “But the experience is still nice.” Which must also apply to the many times Jon’s seen him picking at a bag of crisps or sipping a cup of coffee.

Jon doesn’t mind. He enjoys his reading, and it’s nice to see Gerry at ease; Jon doubts he had many chances to just sit back and take a nap before, and it’s… it’s nice to feel like he’s a safe space for someone.

“If you’re going to doze off anyways, we could move to-” Jon stops himself a moment before finishing the thought, after catching the arched eyebrow and the amused glint in Gerry’s eyes. “Nevermind.”

“No no, by all means ask me to your bed, Jonathan.”

Jon sighs, “I don’t know why I even bother, Gerard.” Gerry scrunches his nose at the name and Jon rolls his eyes, but he’s smiling. It never feels like Gerry’s making fun of him, and it makes him miss Tim -the Tim from before, when Jon hadn’t ruined everything yet- a little less.

On the days Gerry’s not around, though, Jon has to find other ways to keep himself distracted from the hunger.

It took him a while to notice, probably because the statements were all he needed for a while. The warehouse worker had been an anomaly, something Jon tried not to think about. He’d been out purchasing some groceries, compelled another random shopper on accident, and it had been just his rotten luck that the man had a story to tell.

Then, the day after Melanie’s… impromptu surgery. Jon had read statement after statement trying to relieve the ache of the wound on his shoulders, but each had brought only the feeling of a cool breeze on a burn; enough to lighten the pain but not doing anything to heal him.

He’d thought the stroll would clear his head and it had almost done so, until he’d seen her. Long brown hair falling over her shoulders in loose ringlets, a wrinkle of worry on her brow and a birthday card signed by all her co-workers wishing her a great day tomorrow.

The scalpel wound had been covered in new skin by the time he’d gone back to the institute, and Jon knew he’d be seeing Zaida Mossen in his dreams.

Sometimes he watches TV, picks a documentary and tries not to Know the next piece of information before the narrator says it on screen. One time he tried looking at old photos on Facebook, but he ended up Knowing his primary school best friend is now trapped with three kids and a woman that beats him every other night, and that his secondary school teacher got away on a technicality after he was found molesting a student. He closed the app before he could come across a picture with Georgie or Tim in it.

Overall, he avoids sleep.

The nightmares were just that, before the Unknowing. He could focus on the fact that he didn’t want the visions and he’d wake up soon enough, to try and drown out Naomi Hernes’ screams. To ignore the resigned, sad gaze of Karolina Gorka when she lay down next to the old man crushed by the chair. He can’t do that anymore.

Tonight Jon is tired after days of Knowing little details unwillingly, and sustaining himself only on old, stale statements. He sits on the edge of his bed and looks through the window to wait for the sky to lighten outside, because he knows if he lays down he will sleep, and if he sleeps he will See.

Dr. Elliot’s fear tastes of desperation. He’d been respected, an expert on his field, he’d only taken the class as a favor. Now he holds out an apple spilling endless teeth around him, begging for someone to take it. He knows they all think he’s mad.

Helen Richardson -the real one, one of Jon’s biggest screwups- has an aftertaste of madness, which makes sense considering the entity that claimed her. She’d been so scared of losing her grip on her mind, because she’d always been so sharp, so… consistent. Sometimes she looks at him over her shoulder before she opens the yellow door.

Tessa Winters has a flavor Jon recognizes well. She regrets clicking the link and downloading the file, and she’s scared she started something without an end, something that will keep tormenting her forever. She has never watched the video again in real life, but every night she tries to turn off a screen in which Sergey Ushanka’s gums bleed around the chewed up glass.

They know he’s watching them. The new ones scream at him for help, the older ones have given up. Both reactions bring Jon a feeling of bliss before he looks up at his patron and the cycle starts again.

“Hey,” comes Gerry’s voice as Jon’s bedroom door creaks open. “Ready to- oh. Didn’t know you were sleeping, I- are you alright?”

Jon blinks up at the ceiling, confused. The pillow is soft below his head, he feels replenished, and he Knows of at least three other people between here and the Institute that he could hunt down and add to his archive.

The edge of the bed sinks beside him, and a curtain of Gerry’s hair shields Jon’s face from the rising sun as he leans over him.

“Jon?”

“I’m- it’s alright.” Jon’s voice is hoarse from sleep too, but where Gerry’s is pleasant and calming, his sounds like he’s been gargling on gravel. “Just nightmares, is all.”

The corner of Gerry’s lips twitches into a side smile, but his eyes are sympathetic.

“That’s our bread and butter, isn’t it?” he asks. The punishing sunlight hits against Jon’s eyes when he stands up, the bed bouncing back a little at the lack of pressure. “Let’s get you to the Institute, some statements will make you feel better.”

The bedroom door closes behind him, and a long, tired sigh blows past Jon’s lips.

————————————————————————————————————————

Gerry counts seven members of the Church of the Divine Host on their way to the Institute. Funnily enough they stand out like sore thumbs in daylight, even without him using his Sight. The closed eye pendant makes something in his stomach coil with irritation, but he ignores it. He knows perfectly well by now that this is the Beholding rearing up at the perceived slight. For larger than life beings of cosmic horror, the entities are pretty much just angry cats swatting at each other very ineffectively.

Jon gives off a little grunt; he’s much more ensnared in than Gerry, so he supposes it makes sense.

“Yeah, and she gets along fairly well with other avatars. Even Gertrude never went around looking like she stuck her hand in a deep fryer and Perry hated her guts.” The burn scars on Jon’s hands are silky smooth when Gerry runs his thumb along the skin. They feel like his own. “If she did this to you, I’m going to go out on a limb and say-”

“I did not compel her,” Jon interrupts him with the most pompous, offended voice. Gerry gives his wrist a little squeeze, grinning. Jon sniffs, and Gerry can see the corner of his lips twitching. “But I did try a whole lot.”

“I wouldn’t expect anything less from you,” Gerry cackles, letting go of his hand. “But you’re right about the Dark. They’re growing bolder, I think we’re going to get a visit sooner rather than later.”

Jon gives him a side look with a curved eyebrow.

“We?”

“Well yes, who else is going to lull me to sleep with his dulcet tones and extremely specific facts about the Russian Revolution?” Gerry rolls his eyes. “If the Dark comes for you, they come for me.”

Jon doesn’t say anything to that, but he looks extremely pleased for the rest of the walk to the Institute. It’s very endearing, Gerry thinks with a smile as he watches him descend the stairs into the Archives.

“Oh my God.” Gerry turns at the sound of the voice, and finds Melanie shaking her head at him.

“What?” Gerry figures if anyone here is going to get offended at his lack of manners, it’s definitely not going to be the woman that was a death away from becoming a physical incarnation of violence.

Melanie rolls her eyes. “Nothing. You’re going out?”

“Yeah?”

“Okay. I’m going with you, you’re going to explain some things.” She doesn’t wait for an answer, moving towards the front doors instead. Gerry blinks a couple times, trying to process the turn of events, before he follows after Melanie.

They end up at a little park a good way away from the Institute, and Gerry can’t help but notice that with every step Melanie takes away from the building her posture relaxes, and so does the ever-present frown at her brow.

“So… What is it that you wanted me to explain?” Gerry asks after they’ve sat down against a tree trunk, away from any passersby. They must make a terribly stereotypical sight, a cute little couple out on a date instead of a woman on a mission and her hostage.

Melanie looks up at him, her dark eyes especially striking behind her brightly colored bangs.

“What am I?” She asks. Then, like the thought just occurred to her, “I’m not like him am I? I mean, I didn’t- I can’t heal from statements or make people tell me things or-”

Gerry shakes his head. “That’s an Archivist thing, and there’s only one of those.”

“So I’m what? The Assistant? Because that’s a pretty lame title and I don’t care for it.” Melanie gives him an unimpressed stare, and Gerry chuckles under his breath. Either she’s very likable, or he just has a soft spot for blunt people.

“Nah. If anything, you were going to become an avatar of the Slaughter,” he says, gesturing at the bandaged spot that he knows is under her trousers. “I call them wielders, but the Beholding is really the only one that has titles for its avatars. I think that’s why no one likes them, too presumptuous.”

“Them?” Melanie asks, “aren’t you one too?”

“Not really,” says Gerry, feeling a shudder run down his spine. No thanks. “But I’m marked by the Watcher, just like you.”

Melanie takes a deep breath, clearly trying to keep her patience. “Didn’t you just say I was an avatar of the Slaught-” she gives him a furious glare, when Gerry slaps a hand over her mouth.

He pulls it back before she can decide to bite a few fingers off. “Don’t go proclaiming that stuff. These things take that seriously and Jon didn’t almost get himself killed so you could invite the Slaughter in again.”

Melanie rolls her eyes. “Fine. What does ‘being marked’ mean then?”

“Well, just that really. It’s when an entity had a grip on you at some point, usually because you ran into an avatar or a monster,” Gerry shrugs, twirling one of his rings around his finger just to have something to do with his hands. He doesn’t like talking about these things too much; too many years playing database for the hunters has left him very wary of people who want his knowledge. “Some marked people get abilities, like me. Some grow into full avatars, some don’t. It really depends on the person, and whether or not the entity thinks they’re a good fit.”

“And the Eye doesn’t think you are?”

“I don’t really care about knowledge as much as I care about using what I know to help people. I’m also marked by the End, but again, not a match.” He gives her a disappointed pout, and her mouth twitches. “There’s really no limit to how many entities can mark you, other than your bad luck I guess. Jon has like ten marks on him.”

“Ten?” Melanie arches her eyebrows. “Why so many?”

“A week ago he only had nine,” Gerry gives her a pointed look. Sure, she wasn’t herself back then, but he still remembers the small, exhausted grunts of pain as he helped Jon peel the blood soaked shirt off.

Melanie looks forward and her lips purse in a way that could be either sheepishness, or an attempt at holding a smile back. Knowing Melanie, he doubts it’s the first one.

“Well, I couldn’t eat solids for two days after,” she says in the end, and Gerry rolls his eyes.

“You were going to kill him. For real.” He hadn’t even thought before throwing the punch, because the only thing in his mind had been getting her away from Jon.

“Okay, okay,” Melanie waves a hand as if trying to bat the topic away. “I’m sorry for stabbing your boyfriend.”

Gerry doesn’t bother correcting her, just like he didn’t that night at the break room. As long as they don’t figure out his relationship with Jon is truly parasitic, they can think whatever they want.

There is, however, a lie he will call out. On principle. “No you’re not.”

Now Melanie smiles for real, even letting out a little huff of amusement.

“No, but I know I should be sorry. That has to count for something, right?”

————————————————————————————————————————

Basira hates a lot of things about the Institute.

For example, how she can feel herself changing with every word she reads on the damned books she can’t put down to save her life. How she’s trapped inside the building, and the only time she really braves the outside is when she goes and outruns whatever monster of the week is waiting for her because she feels Elias has something to tell her. How the building seems to have been designed with the sole goal of making its inhabitants as unnerved as possible.

She hates every corner and every brick, every dark room where the light switch is placed just out of reach when you first walk in, and how it always feels like someone is watching-

“You were there,” says a rough accented voice, and Basira freezes on her spot. The light switch is three more steps to the right, she knows this room, she can-

A large hand wraps itself around her neck and pulls her away from the door. The door closes behind her, and Basira no longer knows how far it is to the light switch. She’s never been in this room- is this a room?

“You’re not doing that. We’re friends, you and I. We don’t need to see each other.” The voice evokes a sense of familiarity within Basira, but something inside her is screaming at her, a primal urge to fight or flee. “Don’t you remember me?”

“I do not know you,” Basira says dryly, and the voice laughs in delight. A man, she’s pretty sure it’s a man… unless it isn’t? Maybe it’s a woman. Or neither. She should- she knows this person.

But didn’t she just say the opposite?

There’s some steps behind the door, so there must be a door. If there is a door, and there are steps… Then there has to be other people. People she knows. People who are real. Is she not real? If she knows this person, and they’re not real, then maybe she isn’t either.

But… but no. She has to be real, because she opened the door. Doors are real. They go to real places -most of them at least- and that must mean this is a place, and it’s real. If it’s a place, then she can… Basira frowns, feeling like she’s at the edge of something, if she could just…“This is a plac-”

“Don’t say a word.” The hand tightens around her throat. It doesn’t feel like any human hand Basira has touched before, only Basira suddenly isn’t so convinced she has touched any human before. Or perhaps she has and they all feel like this. Does she not feel like this because she’s not human?

The door opens, and the tenuous light that makes its way into the room is enough to chase away the shadow of uncertainty in Basira’s mind.

This is the Institute, she’s Basira Hussain, and she’s in danger. That’s all she needs to get to work.

“Jon, don’t turn the light on,” she orders, her voice calm and steady. “Go and find Melanie, quick.”

It isn’t until she gives the order that she remembers Melanie no longer has the bullet, and Elias’s stupid voice comes to haunt her. You lost Melanie.

“It’s alright Basira. I know he’s here.” Jon’s voice is like she’s never heard it before. No warmth, no hesitation, no sign of the man that measures his every word to try to not hurt anyone, and ends up doing so anyways. She can barely see his silhouette where he’s profiled by the light behind him, but she can see his eyes emit the eerie green glow they had that night by Melanie’s bed.

“So what are you doing?” she asks.

Three steps. Click.

Jon looks at some point behind and above Basira’s shoulder.

“I imagine he’s here to deliver something.” Jon’s words are punctuated by a low thrumming static. “Let her go.” Basira can feel each word vibrate with power, and the hand around her throat starts trembling as the creature fights the compulsion

It’s enough for her to twist out of its grasp. She doesn’t go stand by Jon, but moves in his general direction until she’s closer to him than she is to the… thing.

It looks like a man. It has all the parts. Skin, face, hands. It is not a man.

“Is- the deliverymen,” she blurts out the realization as soon as it comes.

“Deliveryman,” Jon says by her side. Once again she’s taken aback by the coldness of his voice, and the way his eyes are fixed on the being. “Which one are you?” he asks, and the glow from his eyes pulsates once as the static rises.

“ ’m Breekon,” the thing says immediately, then takes a step backwards. Jon takes a step forward and vaguely in Basira’s direction, and she realizes he plans on stepping between them.

“And where’s Hope?” The static in his voice remains, and the thing squirms a little more, clearly uncomfortable.

“Hope’s gone,” says the monster.

'Tell me about it,’ thinks Basira, before she takes a deep breath.

“And what? Are you here for revenge?” Hope turns to face her as she speaks, and stays silent. Jon gives a tired sigh, and repeats the question. It takes a few more seconds, like the fact that Breekon isn’t holding eye contact -if it even has eyes- delays the compulsion. It’s not enough to stop it.

“Yes. Like when we- when I put the mutt in the pit,” it says, and gives something at his feet a little kick. It’s only then that Basira sees the rough wooden coffin with its rusted chain and the scratched warning on top. “It knew where it was going, I think. It was scared of it. Never seen a hunter scream like that.”

Breekon gives a dark chuckle, and Basira feels molten hot rage spilling from her stomach, prickling at her eyes. Of course Daisy was scared of the fucking thing, she saw it in her dreams every other night, Basira would know. Her hand itches for her gun, but Jon’s voice comes before she can even begin reaching for it.

“Easy, Basira.” It’s not compulsion per se, and his voice does get softer when he spares her the quickest glance, but Basira still bristles at the words. What right does he have to ask her to hold back and be reasonable, when he’s been trying to corral Martin into talking to him whenever he’ll stand still for long enough?

“Daisy’s in there?” She asks instead, just to confirm. She cannot go into the coffin, her mind’s clear enough to push the desperate thought away but… but she needs to know.

The monster turns to her again, and huffs in what she guesses is amusement.

“Answer her,” says Jon calmly, businesslike. Breekon shudders.

“Nikola should’ve killed you faster,” it says, and Basira gets the feeling he’s trying to stall for time. Probably just to get on their nerves, because what is there to hide when he’s already told them? “Sure. Whatever’s left of it at least. Go find it for all I care.”

“Why are you here?” Jon asks again, taking another step between Basira and the deliveryman.

“Hm. Dunno. ’S not much to do without Hope around,” the monster shrugs. Out the corner of her eye Basira sees Jon stiffen. She remembers Daisy doing the same at times, freezing like a hunting dog with prey in its sights. “We’ve always been together.”

“…Jon?” Basira reaches out to touch his shoulder, but he doesn’t react. The glow in his eyes is brighter now, and Basira’s pretty sure he’s stopped breathing. The static in the room gets louder, and she snaps her head towards Breekon, her hand now firmly on her gun. “Get out.”

“Make me.”

“Stop.” Jon’s voice reverberates all the way through Basiras’ bones, and she and Breekon freeze.

“Jon, what are you doing?” Basira doesn’t try to touch him again. His form appears too sharp somehow, like those pictures that are so high quality they seem unreal, and his eyes look glassy and green as Breekon squirms under his gaze.

“Wh- stop. Stop it.” Breekon moves strangely, like he’s trying to take a step back but he’s stuck to the floor. Basira has a flashback to the butterflies and moths pinned to cork boards at her secondary school, their wings spread wide and their bodies exposed for everyone to look. She shudders. “Stop looking at me!”

“No.” Jon’s voice echoes inside Basira’s head, and her vision goes white. She has the briefest sense of satisfaction as she hears Breekon scream and gasp, and she’s aware only part of it is bitterness over Daisy. The other is some sort of instinctive pleasure; she guided Jon here, the Archivist needed this information and she found Breekon for him to See, she- she scowls. That’s not her.

That’s not her at all.

The room reforms around her piece by piece as she shakes her head and her vision clears. She sees Breekon’s heel disappear behind the door, before Jon is stumbling towards the closest desk.

“Get me-” he starts to ask, but Basira’s already offering a pen with movements that aren’t entirely her own either. His eyes are back to normal, but Basira only stays for long enough to see him start scribbling on a notebook page, before it becomes too much.

She makes sure not to turn her back to him as she leaves.

————————————————————————————————————————

The thought is almost too weird for her, but Melanie finds herself enjoying the little excursion. She does wonder why no one -nothing- has targeted them yet, but she doesn’t get attacked when she’s out with Helen either, so maybe the monsters are just opportunistic bastards and don’t like to risk it when the odds aren’t in their favor.

Gerard is very easy to like, for someone so infuriatingly fond of Jon. Melanie finds herself thinking they could’ve been friends, if they’d met under different circumstances.

As things are now, she’s far too aware of the way his eyes keep drifting towards the Institute, even though they’ve walked far enough that the building is well out of sight and behind several twists and turns.

“Are you feeling him?” she asks when they finally climb to their feet after a few hours of fear talk. The question is somewhat awkward in her mouth; she doesn’t like Jon, but Gerard does, and she’s decided she likes him enough to not want to offend him. The desire to not hurt still feels foreign in her mind.

“Mm? Oh. Not really,” Gerard shrugs, looking down at her. “I don’t know? I just know where he is. Like the general direction.”

“Hm. That would’ve been useful last year, he got kidnapped like three times.” Melanie pats the back of her shorts to get rid of any dirt and grass that decided to come up with her.

“Did he now?” And yeah, the urge to maim someone is back with the fond little smile on Gerard’s face. “And he has the gall to say he doesn’t get into trouble.”

“Well, he does. What now?” she asks, opting to only bump his shoulder with hers instead of punching his arm. This guy can be as infatuated with a supernatural disaster as he wants, and she won’t feel any strong way about it. No violence here, no siree, Slaughter who?

“Well… we go back, I think? Unless you have more questions.” Gerard looks at her as he shoves his hands into his pockets. Melanie deflates a bit; it is a nice day, and she gets very few chances to leave the Institute.

They do end up going back, but Melanie makes a point of stopping for ice cream on the way back. Gerard gives in suspiciously quickly, and Melanie finds herself liking the guy more and more.

Her phone buzzing with an incoming text from Georgie as she’s handed her double caramel scoop only makes this an even better day.

“That’s a big smile,” Gerard comments as she taps away at the keys. She looks up at him disbelievingly, but there’s no indication he realizes how much of a hypocrite he’s being as he calmly sucks on his cherry ice lolly.

“The nerve.” Melanie rolls her eyes. “It’s my- a friend.”

Gerard bites off a chunk of the ice lolly, and it does more to convince Melanie that he’s not human than the fact that he walked back from the dead.

“Sounds complicated.”

“I’m trapped at Spook Central because of her ex boyfriend, it is complicated,” Melanie mumbles. Georgie’s one of the few good things left in her life, and she’s determined to keep her away from this horrible, horrible circus. “Besides, not all of us get wingmanned by an eldritch entity.”

“She’s Jon’s ex?” Gerard arches an eyebrow as he leans forward to try and peek at Melanie’s phone.

“Do you have selective hearing or something?! Get back!” She punches and shoves at his shoulder until he retreats with an amused smile. The act doesn’t leave a taste of metal in her tongue, she’s surprised to find. Or a craving for more, harsher action. It only feels… companionable. Almost playful.

Melanie had forgotten what it felt like to be friendly with someone.

She’d never say it aloud, but if she counts Georgie and this guy -and even Martin whenever he’s not being a bitch and a half because he’s on a Secret Mission- Jon doesn’t have terrible taste in people.

There’s a man coming out of the Institute, and Gerard’s arm shoots in front of her chest to stop her just as she realizes it’s not a man at all.

“Is that-”

Gerard nods. His frown melts away after he looks at the building again, head tilted as if hearing a sound Melanie can’t register.

“Fuck,” Melanie mutters under her breath. Of course this would happen now, after the bullet is gone and on the one day she decides to go out. “There’s another entrance at the back, let’s-”

“They’re alright.” Gerard sounds thoughtful as he watches the creature stumble its way into a side street. “Beholding marks don’t suit the Stranger well, it seems.”

She looks up, and the smile on his face looks dangerous, somehow.

“Jon?”

“Did a right number on it.” There’s a hint of dark pride to his voice, a polar opposite to the ridiculously soft demeanor he usually adopts when it comes to Jon, and Melanie finds it that she much prefers the absurd fondness to whatever this is. Basira’s words from a few weeks back play through her mind, and she remembers she still doesn’t know what Gerard is. Or why the Eye brought him to Jon. “Go check on them, I’ll finish it off.”

“I’ll come with you,” she decides in a split second. “I can still do it.”

Gerard turns to look down at her, and whatever it was that made her stomach knot in worry is gone so fast Melanie wonders if she imagined it in the first place. There’s a dubious frown on his brow, and his mouth, still dyed red by the stupid lolly, is pressed in a tight line.

“I don’t doubt you could,” he says after a moment. “But I don’t want you to. Don’t invite it back in, remember?”

She does, but she also doesn’t trust the shadow that passed over him not a minute ago.

“Then I won’t do it. But I- I need to watch,” she tries again. “Or I won’t be convinced it’s gone.”

Another long moment of Gerard measuring her up, before he finally nods.

“If you need it,” he says, leading the way into the side street the monster took. Melanie follows with careful steps.

She likes Gerard, but she’s not naive enough to forget she’s been wrong before.

————————————————————————————————————————

When Basira walks into the windowless room, Elias is reading a celebrity gossip magazine, and she wants to rip his eyes out

“Good evening, Det-”

“Drop it,” Basira interrupts, and Elias’ thin lips curl into a smile. Her hands curl into fists, to keep from wrapping around his neck. “Breekon came to see us yesterday. He brought-”

“The coffin, yes.” Elias nods. “I must admit it was quite pleasing to see you work with Jon so seamlessly, Basira. But I suspect you’re not here for my praise, are you?”

Basira advances on him until she’s looming over his sitting form, and she bristles at the calm look he aims at her.

“I hope you’re not so surprised to know Miss Tonner is alive?” He arches a carefully shaped eyebrow. Of course this bastard uses jail to catch up with his beauty routine. “Surely you know by now that the Eye rewards those who are loyal.”

So that confirms that.

“That’s what Keay is then? A reward for Jon?”

“Oh, he didn’t tell you?” Elias tsks in disappointment, shaking his head. “One would’ve thought he’d learned to be honest to his team by now.” His poison green eyes focus on Basira’s face again. “Well, I guess it can’t be fixed… Despite my best efforts, you never did bond.”

“Shut up!” Basira snaps finally. Bond. Like they’re a cute little group of misfits in a TV show instead of an armload of hostages. Her right hand digs into Elias’ hair, grabbing a fistful and tightening as she pulls back until his neck is twisted at a very awkward angle. “How do I bring her back?” Elias smirks again. She tightens her grip until she feels a few hair strands snap. “I am not in the mood for your games.”

“Always so direct,” he says in the end. “But as I said, the Eye rewards its own. Let me give you some leads, Detective.”

#jongerrymartin #j/g/m #jonathan sims #martin blackwood #gerry keay #vit writes #illicio

21 notes · View notes

reedsmeer-blog · 5 years

Text

♔ → westeros presents MEERA REED, the LADY in GREYWATER WATCH. a raven sent word that she bear(s) the resemblance to JESSICA BROWN FINDLAY. the TWENTY EIGHT year old CIS FEMALE was ALERT & AFFECTIONATE before the dawn of war, but have now become INTRANSIGENT & STOIC. when songs are sung, their verses speak of THE HAND STRETCHING THE WIRE, ALL CALLOUSES, ALL BLOOD; DARK HAIR DAMP WITH SNOW AND SWEAT, STICKING TO EVERY BIT OF SKIN; THE ELATION OF DISCOVERY IN THE FORM OF A GRIN, EXHAUSTED BUT BEYOND SATISFIED. whispers throughout the seven kingdoms claim that their allegiance lies with HOUSE STARK, but fealty means little when you play the game of thrones. ( cams, 19, gmt, she/her. )

i. meera's first years were filled with stories, some she knew to be true, others simply legend, but some were a mystery she's yet to uncover. those words filled her head with folklore and tales of the past, which she carried with her like the chains of a maester - meera was known as the storyteller, retelling those tales to younger children with all of her theatricals, whispering sad songs of long gone knights and other characters of the outside world, telling her little brother jojen all the things father had taught them, just so the boy could say if she made the stories justice. perhaps she'd write it all down in a book, like those her mother kept, bound in old wrinkly leather. or perhaps she never would, respecting the ages old tradition of the crannogmen and hiding every whisper beneath the water, where no outsider could come and then leave.

ii. her father taught her how to yield her very first weapon, a frog spear. from him, she got that, and the scale armor, all in bronze, which her father had made specifically for her. once he let that fester, meera broke off on her own, pursuing whichever skills she deemed fit for an heiress, for a hunter, for a survivor. with the help of many amongst her people, she could climb trees in near silence, become a whisper in the leaves, a swimmer so subtle she gave no sign on life in the still green waters. she knew of places outside of their small bubble, where some girls would spend the same time preparing for dances and embroidering handkerchiefs, and sometimes meera would wonder what that must have felt like, but the surrounding fields of the neck were all she had ever seen, and that life remained the object of stories and songs, nothing else.

iii. lord stark was dead, long live the wolf king. the reeds knew nothing but loyalty, serving their lord well, but that was more than getting caught in the middle of a war - she'd grown up with the tales of the wolf pack, who her father loved so dearly. the she-wolf, who meera so wanted to have met. the wild wolf, a legend forgotten. the young pup - she wondered what had become of him. and the quiet wolf, a righteous man whose letters always made father so happy. a just lord who hadn't asked for the burden of the title. not long after, the two reed siblings were on their way to a mission explained only by the gifts that the two reed men had. of course, who was meera to question them? her spear was guided by their visions, their dreams, their curses. if they pointed out the way, meera would carve it for them.

iv. this isn't my war. sometimes the terrible thought got stuck in her gut, vile sickness threatening to pour out almost immediately. jojen and brandon were blessed with mystical abilities she could only observe and follow, lost inside their own heads or souls, driving them from place to place, even when she insisted on other paths. it was robb's war. it was jojen's pursuit. it was bran's destiny. she pushed the thought away every time, devoting more and more of herself to their goals, even if it killed her - it went beyond loyalty or political alignments, they were her family. all of them, including hodor, summer, shaggydog, little rickon, even osha. the world was wide and they were only small but huddled together, the group made up a mighty force. and so she stayed, even when she wasn't heard, even when she couldn't understand, and every farewell broke her heart in bits. the softness in her that the northern cold couldn't harden made the journey a much more personal one. what would come after was a much harder question she did not dare ask.

v. the neck needed her. saying goodbye to bran, no matter how temporary, broke every shard she believed to have left, and the girl who waved goodbye to her home was not the same who returned. more aware than ever of the incoming threat, meera knew her duty was with the reeds, which she needed to help protect - greywater watch is the final stronghold on the north, and in troubling times such as these, no southern threats can pass, and no long nights can either. more than ever, she is determined to carve out a path for herself, earning a role that's active in the war that is here and the wars to come. her training has been relentless, she followed her mother and father to every call from their folk, and her stories are more tragic, filled with tales of dying northerners, burnt down villages and blue-eyed creatures.

vi. howard reed was a stepping stone. unlike his predecessors, he yearned for something he could only find outside of the neck and he fought for it, venturing into the great world that was so hostile to him, fighting amongst others, visiting great castles and seeing things he'd only heard of in songs. meera shares that adventurer's heart, but amplified. his stories were the beginning of a wish she can no longer contain, not after she's seen so many glimpses of the world from her journey with the stark princes. from great mountains to the shore and the sea, to the very top of the great wall, meera had a wisful smile stuck to her lips even in some dire situations, and it was not enough. she felt so inspired by what she saw and all the potential of what she could yet see that there is no other way but into the great outside world, to explore and visit all corners she can, to see the small shops and the big landscapes and the terrible battles and the tallest castles. everything they have to teach her is out there for the taking, and meera knows it will not only make her a better person, a better fighter and a better reed, but also more fulfilled than she ever could be, should she only be stuck in greywater watch.

vii. the loyalty of the reeds is something eternal, and meera very much caries that torch too. while she is no tactical commander or mighty fighter, her weapons are the wolf king's and she has expressed her willingness to use them for his war.

BITS AND PIECES

howland stark was picked up from the ground by the starks, armored, sheltered, cared for. he followed ned to the ends of westeros, fought for him, and in the very end committed treason for him, keeping to himself the terrible secrets of the tower of joy. he !! pulled ned away from lyanna's dead body and you can't tell me he didn't take it upon himself to deal with the brunt of the logistics to get lyanna back to winterfell just so ned didn't have to suffer through that too. house reed is not just the geographical line of defense for the north, they are the stark shield - not only did meera grow up hearing stories of this great family they pay vassalage to, she got the exact same faith. she would have gone to the end of the world and back for bran and rickon, and honestly same thing applies for any other stark because she believes so damn much in their core values and their honor !! don't talk to me about the endless loyalty the reeds have for the starks, i'm so upset.

the reeds are faithful, and for long so was she. be it to the old gods or to some ancient powers that went far beyond her comprehension, they guided her towards some higher purpose and blessed jojen for a reason. before falling asleep, she'd often whisper to herself, sometimes the names of nearly forgotten gods or promises and questions to those she did not have a name to call by. however, she got very few answers. if anything, it doesn't seem like the gods have been cruel towards her, it seems as if they've abandoned the girl, or never been there at all. the stories that have for so long guided her seem ever more hollow and her personal prayers more pointless. there's quiet anger building up within meera that only gets amplified after every tragedy and she doesn't know for how much longer she can pretend it is not there. damn the green dreams, the wolves in bran's eyes, the prayers and the smiling trees and the rituals - they keep leading her to the same place of loss and confusion, and the only significant piece of the impossible puzzle is human action, defiant or in spite of the gods, doing whatever the hell they deem to be the way.

after her return home, she got some leather-bound bits of parchment where she's been drawing and writing down stuff about the things she's seen, much like an adventures journal. whenever she leaves greywater watch, she brings a couple along, even if only to jolt down the name of small towns.

her loyalty does not equal compliance. meera respects the starks and her family, and does listen to them most of the time, but she is defiant to any reasonings she cannot agree with and stubborn to a very obvious fault. she WILL be heard, even if that means harsher words, or shouts that pierce through what's usually a gentle amused demeanor.

while she doesn't have the mythical aspect of many in her family, the woman has a profound connection to nature. growing up, she'd play in the shallower ponds and the branches of mossy trees - walking barefoot along slippery stones, ancient fossils, near the jaws of predators; meera is at her most centered when she's in direct contact with the life that she shares the world with.

even though greywater watch did not have a maester, there were many skilled people all around her who shaped her knowledge, aided by the extensive personal library her mother kept. herbology was always a particularly interesting topic, although always bested by the hidden arts and folklore. she can often be found collecting plants that catch her eye, saving them for future use should they be of help.

she would fight every being in the world for her little brother. and she trusts him and his wisdom so so deeply, even if sometimes she just wants to get rid of all the mythicisms and inject some pragmatism into situations. do not touch jojen.

her moral compass sometimes isn't the greatest. her pragmatism gets in the way of righteousness, and she has and will consider things like theft and murder should that make the most sense for the problem at hand. however, those around her, especially jojen, can always easily bring her back to her good values.

meera is NICE. i think the stereotype of the 'not a lady, had weapons, isn't in a dress' often leads to hardening the character, but meera really is not that. there's an inherent softness in her, which she often demonstrates in physical touch, by squeezing people's hands, gently caressing shoulders, placing kisses on the top of their heads. she is kind and gentle and cheerful, and often has a smile on her lips, unwilling to let herself sulk in her own pity and tragedy (at most, she'll leave that for quiet moments with herself, get it done with and return to being a light at the end of the tunnel, no matter how flickering).

check her STATS & PINTEREST !

#❛ v . | nothing scares me anymore ; a study .#rev.intros

9 notes · View notes

writtenthroughtime · 7 years

Text

Master Fanfiction List | July 2017

For those of you who have been asking me for my updated master list, ask and you shall receive!

Here is the Master List for all of my current completed and works in progress Fanfictions for Outlander. All of my stories can be found on AO3 under the same name of WrittenThrough Time. I do NOT write about real people, so please don’t ask or expect to find those on here.

Enjoy!

My Blog Prompts

A Life Unseen - An AU, Frank cheats on Claire story. Frank cheats right before Claire falls through time and how her relationships/experiences will differ from the books since she doesn’t have that anchor of Frank trying to get back to. Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Part 5, Part 6, Part 7, Part 8, Part 9, Part 10

Mo Chridhe - Modern AU of Claire and Jamie’s lives Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Part 5, Part 6, Part 7, Part 8, Part 9, Part 10, Part 11, Part 12

Briste - Modern AU where Claire believes she is unlovable and will never find love. However, life doesn't always turn out the way she believes it will... Chapter 1, Chapter 2, Chapter 3, Chapter 4, Chapter 5, Chapter 6, Chapter 7, Chapter 8, Chapter 9, Chapter 10, Chapter 11, Chapter 12, Chapter 13

The Crook Chronicles - My half is set for Mr. Crook Part 1, Mr. Crook Part , Mr. Crook Part 3, Mr. Crook Part 4 COMPLETE

@lenny9987 and I have paired up for this series and she has written Mrs. Crook Part 1,Mrs. Crook Part 2, Mrs. Crook Part 3, Mrs. Crook Part 4 COMPLETE

Endlessly - Story based on @gotham-ruaidh‘s Endless Loop Theory Part 2

For the Love of a Soldier - Also known as 1940s Claire and Jamie, it’s an AU set in the 1940s with Jamie a Scottish soldier and Claire a nurse meeting during WWII. Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Part 5, Part 6, Part 7, Part 8 COMPLETE

A Second Chance - Yet another AU where Claire goes back through the stones with Bree, 2 years after leaving the past before Culloden. Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4

Changing History - One shot AU where Jamie and Claire were successful in getting the Bonnie Prince to go back to Italy and not start the rebellion. Their experience after with a certain Captain of Dragoons. COMPLETE

Just a Man - Currently a one shot, but soon to be multi-post, from Jamie’s point of view. Current post is set (book world) right after the wedding when Claire faints. COMPLETE

25 Days of Outlander - Posts are tagged with 25 Days of Outlander, Gotham-ruiadh,& Lenny9987. There are a series of 25 “Favorites” that I’ve chosen to writeshort fanfictions based upon. Currently there are 11 posts for that particular set. Day 1, Day 2, Day 3, Day 4, Day 5, Day 6, Day 7, Day 8, Day 9, Day 10, Day 11

Claire’s Not a Fetch - Completed AU where Claire goes back and stops Jamie from marrying Laoghaire in Voyager. COMPLETE

The Sorcerer and the Stones - Master Raymond based story (currently complete. Future chapters possible) COMPLETE

A Flurry of Green and Red - Bree goes through the stones before Claire. deviation from Voyager Part 2 COMPLETE

Christmas Faith - Christmas themed one shots based with Faith Fraser as a main character. Alternate Christmas Faith COMPLETE

Christmas on the Ridge - Fluffy Christmas day story COMPLETE

From One to Another - Frank has a child with another woman, abandoning Claire hours after giving birth to Brianna. COMPLETE

Ma Famille - Fluffy Fergus AU at Lallybroch with Claire & Jamie. COMPLETE

Mutually Beneficial Pleasure - Fic based on an image and the caption “Imagine him looking down at you like that.” SMUT COMPLETE

Untitled Ramblings - Meet cute for Jamie and Claire set in an unidentified Modern Universe. (completely separate from Mo Chridhe.) This fic could also be continued for now marked complete. Untitled Surprise COMPLETE

La Bibliotheque Parisinne - Modern standalone piece of Jamie and Claire in Paris. Smut for Smut’s Sake.SMUT COMPLETE

Forever and A Day… - Rewrite of DiA where Claire stays in the past. Written for @mybeautifuldecay

A Whole New World- JPOV s2ep13: Dragonfly in Amber AU

Scottish Sun - Sweet Jamie and Claire moment COMPLETE

Outlander Drabbles - Collection of Drabbles based in any setting of Outlander Wedding Night Drabbles, The Newsroom, Smut Drabble, Motorcyclist, Drunken Night, Obedience School, Anniversary Gift, Trouble, First Night Alone, Puppy Days, Walks, Ring Bearer, The Halloween Party, Happy Second Anniversary, Happy Halloween

Singin’ in the Rain - ONE SHOT: Roger and Bree moment on the Ridge.Book 9 setting SMUT COMPLETE

A Kiss a Day Keeps the Whores at Bay - Claire saves Jamie from Laoghaire COMPLETE

Life Drawing - This would totally be an AU fic but I would love to see Claire teaching a figure drawing class and Jamie being one of the students draws her.

Letters For Christmas - Secret Santa 2016 for @akb723. For Christmas Jamie writes a letter to his wife remembering different moments in their shared history. Letter One - 1944 Letter Two - 1946 Letter Three - 1949 Letter Four - 1953 Letter Five - 1957 Letter Six - 1959 Letter Seven - 1969 COMPLETE

Prompts for Imagine

Always With Me - Imagine Jamie going all proud poppa mode with baby Faith if she had lived COMPLETE

Born Out of Time - Bree is sick in the 20th Century and Claire has to bring her back to the 18th Century to heal her. Part 2: I Need A Healer, Part 3: Return of the Red Man and Red Child COMPLETE

Main Du Chroi - Faith asks Jamie if Claire is really a faerie Part: 2 COMPLETE

The Darkness That Leads to Remembrance - Sir Fletcher allows Claire to see Jamie. (Endlessly Spin-Off) COMPLETE

The Steam Rises - The hot baths did win….for both of them. SMUT COMPLETE

Oidche Math - AU where Jamie has premonitions/dreams of his Sassenach before they meet in person. Part 2: Et Somniatores COMPLETE

An Aching Wish - The stones failed the second time around and Claire goes to France. Chapter 2 COMPLETE

Lallybroch’s Newest Healer - Rewrite of Always With Me where Faith Lives and is NOT a dream. COMPLETE

There Can Only Be One (aka Legwhore Smackdown)- Claire goes back slightly earlier just before Jamie leaves for Edinburgh and he still lives with Laoghaire COMPLETE

Together in Paris - Life for the Frasers had they stayed in Paris instead of fighting in the uprising. (AU where Faith lives) Part 2: Older Brother, Older Sister, Part 3: La Petite Mort

Wanting to Be….A Daddy’s Girl - Fic about Brianna never bonding/having that fatherly relationship with Frank and her reaction when she finds out who her father really is. AU with wee Bree and Frank dies early, Part 2 COMPLETE (for now)

Petit Mircale - Multi-part rewrite of what I believe should have happened in ep. 207. *Spoiler Alert* FAITH LIVES. Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, & Part 5 COMPLETE

Neighboring Love - Set in the 18th Century. Young lovers Jamie and Claire. Prompt: So there’s this post on tumblr that’s like “the most beautiful man in the world lives in my building but every time I see him I’m a mess” and I was like OMG THIS NEEDS TO BE A FIC, so imagine Jamie and Claire in this situation. Part 2: 362 Days…, Part 3: Unwanted Affections, Part 4: Since the Very First Day, Part 5: Hidden Letters

Èirigh na Grèine - Set in the 18th Century where Bree is born and grows up then. Jamie talking to, showing, and explaining things to a baby Bree. Part 2 COMPLETE

Away with the Faeries - In season 2 finale, Bree said Claire is always away with the faeries…Coult you do a prompt of instances of Bree at different ages like 5,9, 14 and 20where she notices Claire is far away (thinking about Jamie and such) and at those different ages what Bree thinks of her mother because thoughts change when you get older :) COMPLETE

Of Innocents & Voyeurs - Imagine if Mary and/or Louise walked in on Jamie and Claire in the throws ;) SMUT COMPLETE

Sticky Fingers - #5 Claire catches a bairn in her surgery. (this is a multi-fic post where each of Imagine’s mods wrote a piece based on a list of prompts. You’ll find Stick Fingers as number 5 on the list) COMPLETE

Cruinne Malartach - Imagine there are stones that don’t send you through time but into alternative universes.

Owl Post - Imagine Bree explaining Harry Potter to Jamie. Gotham graciously let me borrow her Modern Glasgow world and add this little gem to the universe. Gotham’s Modern Glasgow

Tales From the Past - Claire and Uncle Lamb are folklorists and discover a Scottish Legend deep in the North Carolian Mountains Part I, Part II, Part III, Part IV COMPLETE

Angel Baby - Anonymous submitted: Could you please write a prompt where little Bree asks Claire for a sister, Claire tells her about Faith but Frank overhears and confronts Claire? Thanks :) COMPLETE

Guardian Scotsman - What about a story about Claire as a child or a teenager and somehow gets raised by Murtagh?

Baking Disasters - Imagine Claire trying to be the perfect WI wife for her husband doing baking and crafts and gardening and she's kind of awful at it. Chapter 1, Chapter 2

A Shock to the System - Hi, could You write a Fic where Jamie managed to avoid Geneva´s blackmailing (that never happened) and later she met Frasers and SEE THEM TOGETHER (gladly with bairns)? Love to see Claire give her (G) a hard time – kill that little brat!!! COMPLETE

Separate Beds- "Do you wish for us to live separately?" What if Claire wasn't ready to forgive Jamie yet? How would he gain back her trust? COMPLETE

The Laird’s Foster - Because I am missing my favorite characters of late, can I get some Roger and Bree story? I'd like to see the evolution of them falling in love with each other. Too much? Anything from you will do. Pretty please? Thank you!

On the Road - Could you do an story where Claire and Jamie return to Castle Leoch before going to the colonies. Bonus points for one where Jamie never married Laogherie :) (up to you!!) COMPLETE

In the Eye of the Beholder - Using a mirror, Bree paints a picture of her and William together and they give it to Jamie for his birthday. Jamie is so touched he tells them a dream he had in the cave of the two of them playing together. COMPLETE

The Arrangement - Christmas Special with @mybeautifuldecay This little fic is a combined work from both of us with no chapter separation or author separation. We wrote this in tandem, inspiring one another as we went. We hope you will enjoy this Christmas Wedding Bells edition of The Arrangement!

The French Frasers - Imagine a French family (couple, kids and a granny) arriving to the Ridge. They recognised the gran as Suzette, the Paris maid and making counts about her son age they noticed he could be also Murtagh's son. COMPLETE (for now)

Maman’s Boy - Fergus making his way from the battlefield, just wanting to see Claire and Jamie. He realizes that he thinks of them as his parents. COMPLETE

Drunken Nights - Write a scene where Jamie returns home in Paris, completely drunk and the effort Claire has to put in just to get him into bed with him fighting all the way because he wants his Sassenach. COMPLETE

SAWNY - Jamie's first meeting with Fergus in the tv show where you find out he's the one who took Sawny so I thought a story about Jamie actually giving it to him either just before Culloden or before he arranges to get himself arrested would be really nice. COMPLETE

With Unseeing Eyes - What if someone had told Claire that Jamie was in love with her when she was first staying at Leoch? Chapter 1, Chapter 2 COMPLETE

The Cat’s Delight - Drabble on Imagine for the 2nd Anniversary of the Wedding Episode. COMPLETE

The Historian, the Healer and the Warrior - Imagine Frank had already remarried when Claire came back.

#Master fanfiction list #Writtenthroughtime #WTT's Master List #Outlander #Fanfiction #Over 66 works #WOW #I've written a bunch!#and still writing #slowly but surely #I hope this helps you all!#The Master Fanfiction Link has been updated as well!#ENJOY!

232 notes · View notes

takemeaway1334 · 7 years

Photo

This was me just a little over a year ago. Not just one but both arms were like this. I lost enough blood that night and into the following morning that i could barley walk or talk from being so weak. I need to get something off of my chest. I am a person who lives every moment of life on the edge. 99% of my life has been lived with my mind doing nothing but trying to destroy my physical self. Ive been and addict. Ive drank myself almost to death too many times to count. I fought my way to rock bottom and stayed there for a long long time. Slowly but surly i made a choice to live and fight, and every day since then ive been fighting a seemingly impossible and endless climb back to the top. What people dont understand when they meet/talk to me is that every single word of goodness and happiness i speak has been coated in the memories of my own personal hell and sadness i created for myself. Many take my words and thoughts lightly, see my actions of kindness and care as weak or unimportant.. this .. i do not understand, you see the reality is that i have very few things in life that bring a genuine smile to my face and when someone or something accomplishes that with ease i cant help but to try with every inch of me to keep that person or thing from experiencing the tortures of what your own self can do. My life is far from complete, my battle is still raging with every second that goes by. But i do have a light at the end of the tunnel and nothing but myself can stop me. My demons are constantly trying to drag me back down but im done letting them win. I have a beautiful girl and a plan for my own future that i cannot deny myself of. And yes im horrified of losing that girl .. the thoughts and insecurites of my past screaming at me, reminding me of all those who have picked up and left me before i can even take a second to get the piece of me they have back. That is my darkest fear that i every single day battle because losing someone who you genuinely love is the hardest thing ive ever had to go through ... but with her beautiful eyes and selfless personality i know ive found one hell of a girl whom i fall in love with more and more as the days go on❤️ No girl nor person can ever fix your problems or wipe away your scars. Its the sad and ugly truth, but one can help you love each and every one of those scars and make you proud to be where you are today and how far you have come. Ive found myself on my own, ive created my lifes goals and dreams on my own. But the one i love has made me proud to be who i am. Life is not a mission of getting to the top. Life is about finding those who make you happy to be around and goals that you know you can reach if you fight harder than hell to accomplish. You can have all those things, you just need to be around to make them happen. So anyone reading thats having a hard night ( hard is such an understatement for the hell raging inside some ) just take in the air you breathe and make it to the sunrise

3 notes · View notes

sadwriterperson · 6 years

Text

November 14th, 2017

Just gonna throw out there that this is really long, so read on if you've got like 10 minutes to spare.

Alright, hello again, I'm writing this real early because I can't sleep. I work a lot of 3rd shift at my job, which is fine until I can't sleep when it's dark out, haha. Im starting this at 10 after 5am and I've checked all my social media, checked all the mindless games I keep on my phone for no reason, and now I'm here, still wide awake and bored as hell, and I could use this time to catch up on the nearly 12000 words I'm behind in for NaNoWriMo, only I'm so incredibly unmotivated that I thought, why not finally get around to writing about Tristan Haynes, my main character, and some overall backstory to how this novel came to fruition. There are a lot of ins and outs to this, a lot of pieces of my life weaved into this, so I'll try to make that all make sense.

So, Tristan, my good human, I hurt him more than I should, but, I'm hurting all of them more than I should. The character of Tristan goes way back into my past, starting when I was 6 years old. Growing up and even in my more recent years I would have these dreams that when I woke up I swore they were real, and a few I've had have actually happened, more than I'd like to admit. Some aren't as big, but, they still get kinda weird, an example of this is when I was in grade 8, just shy of 14, I had this dream that my best friend would buy this necklace, she was the definition of the goth kinda person, and it fit her, the setting was in our English class, the first class we would share that day, 3rd hour, so around the 10:30ish time frame and it didn't happen right away, it took a few weeks, but, she came to school wearing the necklace I had the dream of. That's just one instance in a long life of thousands of dreams, but, they still happen like this. So Tristan, he came way before that, and in this dream, I'm trying to find this white house over the hill, and I keep walking, the sidewalk is endless, and the grass on the side of me, my left side rises into a wall, a stone wall and then without explanation I turn around and there is Trit. That's what I called him, Trit, and I don't know who he is, why he existed, but, he was standing on the lower side of the stone wall, the grass was fake, turf, is what my brain supplied to me mid dream and under the corner of this turf, Trit points down and I follow his lead pulling out a red notebook, it wasn't an important notebook, just a regular red notebook, like you can buy anywhere for 94 cents at Wal-Mart. He smiled at me and even tho he was standing right in front of me, he sounded miles away and it was like the breeze was talking to me and I heard "you found it, you found it" I followed it, Trit at my side, following the breeze I would find the white house in the middle of a field of long grass swaying peacefully in the wind, Trit runs ahead and I follow him into it and then wake up.

Trit became this beacon, I've never forgotten that feeling of peace, and Ive carried Trit in my head for years, using pieces of that dream in countless stories I've written, but, I've never been able to describe it as well as my dream showed me. It will truly always be one of those things that unless you're in my head you will never be able to experience who Tristan is to me, but, I'm Trying.

So fast forward, people come and go, die, grow apart, and without going into to much detail because it's a time in my life I don't care much to talk about, i believed I was the reason someone died, and it genuinley broke my will to live, and I took that out on myself, Lord did I, and then after carving words into my legs and some other good depression stuff I adopted the phrase "My decision for living isn't mine to decide" a lyric from the song "Hole in the ground" by Twenty One Pilots, the band that's saved my life countless times, with lyrics I relate to on a molecular level, and decided that I was going to write. I had to live with my decision, i needed to learn to live with my guilt, and over the period of a year I got better, but, at times it would break me over again and while it's better now, it's still kinda raw. Anyway, so I decided I was going to write this story - Only the long grass remembers - and it was no debate who would be the star of this story. Deciding Tristan was my main character was the easiest part of the entire process, and I wrote the first chapter in 15 minutes, and thus the second character of the novel was born. Parker Middleton was born, and he plays an important roll in the novel that is important to many and I hope will be responded well too when someone finally reads this thing, but, that won't be until I'm at least 30000 words deep probably.

After writing the first chapter, and deciding that Trit couldn't just stay as Trit, i knew I needed to get a real name for him, and all of me couldn't bear to part with the name of him so I knew it needed to be as close to Trit as I could get it and that's how he got Tristan. Well, sorta.

HERE COMES MORE BACKSTORY

So August of 2015 I started watching the CW show: Supernatural. Binge watched it hardcore and later on would do roleplay as the characters on Facebook with a bunch of people and we were all super tight knit, not only because we bonded over the show, but, because most if not all of us were and are dealing with mental illness or some other physical ailment and we all used the RP and the community to keep each other alive . On top of that, there were the actors if the show, Jared Padalecki one of the main stars of the show suffers from mental illness, and so the actors all bonded together to make campaigns for people suffering, and they are along the lines of 'always keep fighting' and 'you are not alone,' and so it felt important to me to tie in these people with these great causes to this story that I'm writing for the same reason, you know? Its because of this mindset that I decided Trit would become Tristan. So Jared Padalecki, he plays Sam on supernatural, and he is who Trit is physically paired with for the novel, and it was in this I decided Trit would have a twin brother - Ross.. Trit didnt have family in the dream, but, it felt wrong to me to not include Ross, because Ross is based after Jared Padalecki's co-star Jensen Ackles. It would be wrong because they're currently on their 13th season of Supernatural, and a commonly used phrase is 'Family doesn't end in blood' and after 13 years, Jared and Jensen truly do see each other as brothers, and I wanted to incorporate that into the story, and wanted to link them both together in a binding way, and it worked out really well, all things considered. Their middle names are what binds them from my from the real world, to my mind to the page, respectively:

Jared TRISTAN Padalecki

Jensen ROSS Ackles.

Is this all making sense? Its a lot, or it feels like a lot at least to me, but it's 6:02am now.. So that may be something to do with it too.

I should probably try and sleep again, so I think I'll end this here, but, I hope that it makes sense why Tristan is so important to me, because he's been with me for 15 years.

Not only just Tristan, but, the dream is why the novel is called "The Long Grass Remembers"

It's all connected, and its important that I keep it as true as possible, to do justice for me, for the people I've met online, for friends lost, for the actors who gave them a name, for the musicians who helped me through for the musicians who breathe life into this story every single time I write, the people in my life who have shout outs, for the people in my life for as much as they may make me angry, ground me, for who they are, are motivation for me to be a better person then I was the day before, the story is for me, and no one else. To many times have I stopped writing out of fear that the people I know won't like it, because I'm revealing to much of myself. It's why I stuck in the horror genre for years, horror was easy to write, but, this, this is for me, and I am revealing all of it, and I'm ready, Trit at my side once more, only this time, he won't just stay in my head, now everyone gets to know him, and my heart is warm.

Thank you for sticking through this long winded, rambling, less than stellar wording from Bry, have a beautiful day or night.

Stay tuned, stay hyped and most of all, stay alive!

-- Bry

#nanowrimo 2017 #nanowrimo #nano 2017 #writing #the long grass remembers #tristan haynes #parker middleton #ross haynes #depressive #dreams #rambling #why am i awake right now #stay tuned #stay hyped #stay alive #stay hydrated #day 14 #Im dying lollll #been listening to g eazy while wtiting this

0 notes