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harveywritings92 · 3 years

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BNHA vampire soulmate scenario: you see them again/ they introduce themselves.

They find you and don't leave you alone.

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Dabi: It had been almost a month since the 7/11 incident, Dabi kept his distance watching and protecting you from the shadows, That all change today, he was watching your house from the old abandoned grocery store-across the road from your bar (your house is on top of the bar). He noticed you haven't step outside for almost two days, Dabi frowned as he step out of his hideout and as soon as he got close enough to your home his nose scrunched up as he was hit by a fowl stench: he made a disgusted noise... it was like mix of rotten milk and cantaloupe...

You were sick! but that wouldn't explain your lack of activity...unless- Dabi felt his stomach drop into his feet he checked the gargoyle you keep by the door for your spare key, he unlocked the door and walked inside your house and found you passed out on the floor at the bottom of your stairs! he rush over crouched down to check on you... he put his hand on your neck, Fuck your skin was like a furnace. "What the fuck do I do?" he hissed picking you up of the floor and putting you on the couch in your living room.

You wheezed in protest feeling your body being lifted away from the nice cold floor, your eyes opened straining to see who had moved you? but all you could see was a black and purple blob looking down at you; before moving away from sight as your overheated mind tried to comprehend what was happening, Who was that? How did they get in... but soon you drifted back into unconsciousness, and felt something cold on the back of your head...

You woke up disoriented and very confuse you looked around and you were still in your Livingroom... with half melted bag of frozen carrots resting behind your neck and another bag of frozen corn shoved down your shirt, which bewildered you the last thing you remembered was trying to crawl upstairs and go to your room, than nothing. You heard someone clear their throat and looked next to you to find a man who looked like a ragdoll was sitting in your recliner watching you...

"Who the fuc-" you croaked only for the guy to thrust a yellow pill and a glass of water towards you. "Take this first.." he muttered as you eyed the pill suspiciously "patchy" rolled his eyes at your wariness. "It's just Tylenol." he put the glass on the coffee table and showed you the box, "If I wanted to hurt you, wouldn't I have done it already?" he stated as you hesitantly took the pill and the water from him and swallowed it trying not to gag as it went down your throat. "Who are you?" you hissed voice still hoarse trying not to show fear, which was in vain as Patchy's cerulean eyes lit up in amusement seeing through your bluff. "I have several names, but these days I go by Dabi." he said waiting for your reaction but, to his utter astonishment you clearly had no idea who he was... "ok..."Dabi" How did you get into my house?" you huffed as Dabi gave you this unimpressed look.

"Y'know the whole reason for hiding a key, is to not make it obvious."

"What are you talking about? What key?"

"Yeah, good one...the key under the gargoyle."

"...I don't keep a key under my gargoyle."

You say watching Dabi's expression shift to confusion as the scarred man pulled the the duplicate key from his pocket, he showed it to you and your stomach felt like it was full of rocks... that was definitely your house key!... But, it looked newer, shinier then the one in your purse. "You don't recognize this?" Dabi asked feeling your fear which caused his instincts go haywire wanting to remove whatever caused the distress, as you shook your head insisting you've never owned a spare key!

Dabi took a sharp breath through his nose, taking it in all the scents around the house before picking up faint traces of a another male... Dabi let out a low inhuman growl as he relaxed against into the recliner. "Good news doll, you gotta a new roommate." Your mouth opened to protest, but something in the deep crevices of your soul was telling you to trust the scarred man as he played around with the duplicate key. with a feral glint in his eye. "Bad news is... It's gonna suck for whoever the hell pissed me off." his purred flashing his fangs at you.

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Hawks: You were at work it had been to weeks since Hawks showed up on your doorstep, let's just it didn't go so well... It was like in the movies you opened the door saw the blond vampire standing there, you gasped, screamed and fainted scaring the crap out of the poor guy! At the moment he was currently loitering outside the gym you were teaching at, he could hear some of your students parents talking about you.

"It's waste I tell you, someone with her Quirk should've gone pro!" A woman said in a snarky tone the man next to her nodded. " I agree. if I had a Quirk like L/n-san I would be saving lives and kicking ass, instead of teaching kids how to dog paddle!" Keigo growled looking up from his phone and spoke up.

"Yeah...She could've gone pro, but instead she's here teaching your kids not to drown..."

Both adults froze and saw the number 2 hero glowering at them his wings slightly puffed and raised making him look bigger, They sheepishly apologized and scurried off, Just as you walked out, with an unreadable expression it was obvious you had heard everything just now, but were relucted to say anything as the two of you started the routine of walking home together, you were still on the ropes about Hawks.

When he first showed up (after you woke up) you freaked out thinking he was there to to silence you and keep his secret, however after calming you down, he started going on about soulmates, blood-bonds and you being his other half, you were very reluctant to believe him after all... the first time you saw him, he was covered in blood feeding off a woman who looked half dead! Hawks seemed genuinely remorseful about you seeing that, it wasn't his intention to scare you, he explained how the woman was fine.

She wasn't dead like Y/n had thought! he just used his venom to put her into a state of ecstasy... she likely has no idea the winged blond had been drinking her blood, She was at home most likely believing she had a wild night with the number 2 hero. He even showed you the girl's social media account to prove it; There she was doing a bathroom selfie bragging about the wicked "hickey" Hawks had given her...

Now here you are a month later and the vampire hasn't left your side since! Well... Except for when he has to go on patrol, then he has one of his feathers following you, and you have this sinking suspicion that Hawks has been sleeping on your roof at night...though you're never sure, you could hear something rolling around up there but whatever it is, is usually gone by the time you go check it out, later that night Hawks texted you inviting you to dinner, you read the restaurant's name... Dang that's pretty swanky place, you didn't even know if you had a dress or whatever to wear! luckily in the far reaches of your closet you found an old black dress that seemed suitable enough for the job... and sighed. " I only wore this once, to a funeral..." you muttered before getting ready.

You wished you had taken a shot of whiskey before you left the house, you were a ball of shaking anxiety as you entered the restaurant, the hostess eyed you with a unpleasant sneer. "Can I help you?" she said in fake sweet tone. "Y-Y/n L/n, I-I'm here to meet a Mr. T.K.?" you stammered the hostess scrunched her nose as she gave you a once over snorted.

"I don't know how you found out about his reservation... but I can assure you the number 2 hero doesn't associate with your type." she with sneer your face would would've been flushed with anger if you weren't holding back every fiber in your body to slap that smug smile off that bitch's face. "Well can you go check?" you snapped standing up to your full height which threw the hostess off, she curt nod and walked off into the back...

(Hawks knew you were here he could smell you the second you walked in, his eyes briefly skimmed over the menu as he herd hostess approach, without you... "Sorry about that Hawks." the redhead cooed as the blonde looked at her bemused she snorted. "Some fake (h/c) slut tried to say you were waiting on her-" she continued talking as Keigo talked over her. " I am waiting for Y/n." he stated firmly as the hostess finished what she was saying. "Just let me ask my boss to let me off and we ca..." she trailed off and blinked not believing what she just heard.

"w-What?" she chortled thinking this was a joke as Hawks deadpanned repeating what he said. "I am waiting for Y/n, go get her." it wasn't request the hostess looked like a fish as she stared at the No. 2 slack-jawed. "Bu...You.. I- what about me?!" she sputtered lip quivering like a child who'd been denied candy, the winged man just eyed her incredulously making it clear he doesn't know her. "What are you talking about?" Hostess didn't answer she just stomped away to go get you.)

A few minutes later she came back all red in the face. "Please follow me ma'am." she huffed now it was your turn to be smug. "Oh?... But I thought the No. 2 hero didn’t associate with my type?" you hissed as she snapped her head up to look at you eyes her brown eyes filled with jealous rage and you realized....It was her. The girl from the park. "My apologies ma'am." she said with a forced cheery tone as she led you to a private booth where Hawks was waiting his wings stood up at full attention as you sat down.

"Hey did you have any trouble?" he asked nodded towards the front desk where the hostess was giving both of of you the stink-eye. "You don't recognize her?" you whispered as Keigo's brow furrowed as he tried to piece it together.... had.. they slept together?...Hmm no, signed her tits? that was a possibility, He hummed scratching his beard You could tell he was drawing blanks. "She's the woman from the night...when we met?" His gold eyes widened.

"Oh... the blood that tasted like charcoal and moldy bread." he grimaced in disgusted as he finally pieced it together you tilted your head as him bemused. "That’s what smoker's blood taste like...to me anyways, other Vamps have told me it varies." he stated you hummed nodding your head both intrigue and worried that you were getting use to this odd situation.

While you two were going over the menu, Keigo couldn't help but notice how off you were acting, you were fidgeting and looking around almost like you were...scared. why would you scared? all the other girls he'd brough.... Then it hit Keigo like ton of bricks.

He was treating you like one of his fans! and not his...hopefully soon to be lover, Dammit! He didn't even think about your comfort zones or asked if you wanted to go out and where did you want to go, he just assumed you would jump at the chance, because what girl doesn't want to go on a date with the number two hero?

After a few moments Keigo put the menu down. "Hey...wanna get out of here?" You were about to protest but the blond put his hand up. "Let me rephrase that; Do you want go somewhere else?" you shyly nodded Keigo called the waiter paid for the drink he had earlier and the two of you went on a very simple and impromptu park date involving pizza and an outdoor movie theater that Keigo had no idea existed; all in all he actually had fun!

And so did you given the joy and admiration he was sensing coming off you in waves. as opposed the fear and defensiveness you usually gave off around him, which made Hawks hopeful for the future... but for now he'll just settle on being friends, He smiled staring at the spare key you gave him, the blond let out a tiny churr feeling giddy as he fell asleep on your couch, as you caught him outside earlier.

…..Yes, he was totally sleeping on your roof.

#boku no hero academia #bnha fanfiction #bnha vampire au #bnha scenarios #Dabi #touya todoroki #dabi x reader #Touya todoroki x reader #hawks #hawks x reader #keigo takami #keigo takami x reader

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spasmsofthought · 3 years

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flashes. (dick grayson x reader)

I’m not really well-versed in DC, at all, but I wanted to give this a shot. let me know what you think! It’s a bit of a mess, so please take this with a grain of salt and some grace. sorry if he feels ooc; I tried my best but I am by no means an expert or even an amateur. please be kind. idk if i’ll write anymore for him, but i wanted to try. it might be trash but it’s out there now xo

It’s not like Gotham is known for being a walk in the park. The city is all alleys in the middle of the night, dark vapors rising from sewers, and secrets in the shadows. At least, in your experience.

There were no gated communities or fences to keep the darkness out in the apartment complex you lived in with your family. Only survival and common sense keeps you returning to your bed and food on the table.

So, when your younger (genius) brother is offered a scholarship to Gotham Academy on what feels like a whim, the world shifts.

When your mother still works, though, it means you are the de-facto adult during the day. Your job keeps your busy in the mornings, hers during the afternoon and night. You’re just getting into learning what it’s like to handle a job and bills of your own, even though you’re still living with your family (part of it is to save money, part of it is because you just don’t want to leave). Your family is the only real home you have ever known. Why leave to only find inadequate housing where you have to worry about your safety and theirs separately?

So, like every month, you swap out of your work clothes, put on your newest (at least 2 years old) pair of jeans on, the only blouse you own that hasn’t faded or stretched or shrunk from countless wash cycles, and grab the bag you’ve stored in its own special place in the cabinet by your family’s loud, old, run-down fridge.

You chance a ride on the bus, hopeful for no public catastrophes today. You listen to your small, but loved, playlist through the one earbud that works during the ride and you almost want to leap with joy when you step back down on concrete like this is what it is like everyday.

The architecture is a thing to behold. There is no wonder why this is acclaimed as the most prestigious private school in Gotham. Light is everywhere, and it’s like the outside world doesn’t exist. Every month you step on this campus it’s like you’ve never seen it before.

The grounds are meticulously groomed, everything in lines and straight edges. Concrete and nineteenth century buildings both cast heavy, sharp shadows in the late afternoon sun. There are some students lingering about, all grouped up and chattering in their similar uniforms. Compared to public art, haphazard graffiti, and buildings of all shapes and sizes, this place feels foreign. Different. It makes you feel strange and unwelcome; like entering a different world altogether.

When you enter the pristine, elegant office, the entrance door propped open, there’s two figures you immediately spot: the secretary and the man standing in front of her. Your brother is yet to be found. He’s running late again.

“Hi, hun, take a seat,” Grace’s sweet voice soothes from her position behind the desk. “He should be here any minute.” The man standing in front and a little to the right of her glances behind for second, casually swiping a look at you, before he turns forward again.

“Thanks, Grace,” You exhale as you sit down.

The chairs are nice, soft fabric and cushioned, but small. You so desire to bring up a leg to draw close to you, but it’s impossible without making yourself a human pretzel. And you don’t want to dirty it with your less than perfect shoes so, instead, you chose to bring the bag onto your lap and you pick at your cuticles, resisting to bring your nail to your mouth and chew on it anxiously.

There’s never been anyone else in here when you’ve come before. Grace can make polite chatter, but then she leaves you in relative silence. It makes you feel anonymous. The man uttering sweet words to the secretary and then glancing at you again before sitting down next to you does not. You stop fidgeting with your hands and intertwine them together instead.

A flash of the ceiling’s fluorescent lighting on glass against your eyes is what you first get a taste of, then all polish and silver, or something like it, cradling a wrist. The watch looks heavy, expensive. It looks like it could buy your family a newer, safer, apartment in a suburbia far away from here.

“Hey,” Smooth as honey it drips out, and you are drawn to blue eyes and ebony hair. There’s a softness to his face and his eyes are warm. It would only take an hour, you think before you stop the thought from going any further. An hour to do what? You’re not sure, but the list expands the longer you take him in.

The first thing you ever learned on the streets when you walked by yourself to work was how to be aware, vigilant; on guard. Men were unpredictable creatures who were driven by greed or lust or power, and any of the good ones were swooped up and carried away to better things or dead before any second glances could take place. Or carrying on just fine behind their high fences and impenetrable walls. Just because this one introduces himself first does not mean he has proven otherwise.

“Hi,” is all you can offer, a quirk of lips to his gesture of kindness.

You glance towards to door before your eyes make their way back to him. The gesture doesn’t offend him. There’s a familiarity to his face, but you decide to not spend time right now trying to figure it out. It already only tells you one thing: this guy is way out of your league.

Grace gets up from her seat, rounds her desk, and makes her way out of the office, leaving you two alone. You watch her the entire time.

“You waiting for someone?”

“Yeah,” You nod even as the word comes out, “My brother.”

He leans back like he’s got all the time in the world, and there’s a perusal that makes you taste butterflies and gulp down caution at the same time. You wonder if he saw the scuff marks and stains on your worn-out sneakers, or if he notices that you still haven’t had the chance to wash your three-day old hair and that’s why it’s up and back, and that your blouse is definitely from the clearance rack at Goodwill.

“Your favorite one?”

Out of self-preservation, you try to hide the reaction to the humor you feel, “My only one.”

“I think that’s the same thing.” You almost want to roll your eyes. But there’s a genuineness in his conversation, like he means the words he’s saying to you. Like this isn’t a game.

“Sure,” You shrug, “You’re allowed to be wrong.”

“My name’s Richard.” It’s old-fashioned. It’s something you don’t really hear rolled off of tongues in your neck of the woods, that’s for sure. A hand comes out and rests halfway between you and him, and it’s one of the most graceful things you’ve ever witnessed in your entire life.

“It’s nice to meet you.” You smile. Your hands stay clasped in your lap.

“You gotta earn a handshake from my sister,” A voice pops up from the open door way. You swing your head around and watch for a moment as your brother makes his way towards you.

“Hi, J,” Your stand, open your arms wide, bag moved from your lap into one of your hands. His solid presence allows a brief hug before he steps back again. “Sorry, I don’t mean to be rude--”

The man sitting next to you has chosen to rise as well and you’re closer than you thought you would be when you turn back to him. You notice now that your height means your eyes literally meet his lips straight on. There’s a curve of a smirk there for a flash of a second before it straightens back out into the smile you saw at first. The rest of your sentence is forgotten. He takes one, two, three steps back.

“You got them all?” The question saves you. Your brother pulls you back to him as you hand him the brown plastic bag. In it? His favorite snacks from the liquor store on the corner (the nearly sold-out, hard-to-come-by ones).

“Every last one,” Your hands come to his cheeks, turning his face to each side.

You have to reach up now and it strikes you just how much he’s grown even in the past month. You both spend much of your time on the phone with one another. These monthly meetings set-up frequently enough for deliveries and some quick face-to-face time and seldom enough to avoid embarrassment (that’s what he says anyway).

He brings the chip bag out and holds it up, “You even got these.”

“Geraldo got them special order just for you.”

“Tell the old man I said thanks,” He smiles like he’s seven again, spoiled and self-indulgent. “Richard” is still standing behind you and to the side, silent. You can feel his eyes flipping back and forth between the two of you.

“Of course,” Your hands smooth over his shoulders and brush away imaginary dust. “Mom sends her love and says she’ll try and call you on her lunch in a few hours.”

“Yeah, I know. I’ll make sure I answer.”

“Thank you.” You exhale an affectionate sigh.

Avoidant loner that your brother can be, there’s a reason you both want him here. He’ll be able to do the things you only dreamed of when you were his age. And one day, hopefully, you’ll all be out of this hellhole, onto better things.

“I gotta go, but thanks for these. Even though you should be saving every penny,” He chides, holding up a finger like his words are somehow a threat.

“Okay,” You chortle like you wouldn’t give everything up for your brother in a heartbeat. There’s another quick hug before he’s looking back at the man behind you, who is still standing there like some sort of stealth ninja.

“Like I said man,” He nods and there’s something in his face that changes as he looks at “Richard”, “You gotta earn it.”

It’s with those parting words that he begins to walk out. You stay stock still for a second before you leap after him, “I wanna hear all about what happened last week with Cara tomorrow on the phone!”

Your brother, a mile away already on longs legs, shouts something indistinguishable back at you from down the hallway, his figure turning a corner.

“Who’s Cara?” The voice brings your back to reality.

You sweep your palms against your jeans and turn back to face the man with a three-piece suit and a watch that probably costs more than 20 years of your salary. Oh God.

“This girl my brother asked out the other week. I bribed him with some of his favorites so he would tell me what went down.” You shrug your shoulders, not worried about spilling the tea about your brother’s romantic life.

“Does he know that?” His arms seem to relax a little more and you think you could stare at him all day.

“Eh,” You say, creeping back towards the open door. Your small crossbody bag is already on you and there’s no reason to sit back down. Richard follows you as you, apparently, both start to make your exit from the office. Nothing about it feels unnatural. “Sometimes you got to persuade instead of demand.”

“Ha,” There seems to be something you are missing based on the way his mouth curves and his eyes spark, “That’s the truest thing I’ve heard in a long time.”

“You’re welcome. That’s the only one that comes for free!” Your arms swing back and forth. “Anything else is gonna cost you.”

The hallways usually feel like a labyrinth here, but you don’t feel lost this time.

“What forms of payment do you accept?” You pretend to be thinking, but really you’re just glancing between the different features of his face. You’re not sure you’ve ever met someone like him. You’re not sure you ever will again.

“The bank’s closed right now, actually,” The wariness is back. This guy walks like he’s used to treading on perfectly paved gold streets in his shoes. All you’ve ever known is cracked cement and rusted pipes that burst underground. “But I think it’ll be back up and running soon.”

He doesn’t falter and there’s no anger or hurt in his expression at the metaphorical rejection. Instead, it looks something like silent patience. Maybe even acceptance. This guy could totally not be interested and you could just be being (too) ambitious. The door to the open courtyard, and your way home, is already before you both.

“It was nice meeting you Richard,” You say as you begin to take steps forward. Your hands nervously hold the strap across your torso. You take a few more steps before his words turn your head back to him.

“You can call me Dick,” He says with ease. The tone makes you feel like he’s speaking a language you don’t really understand. His blue eyes seem like they’re on fire; a contradiction, you know. There’s something about him that almost makes you catch your breath. You’ve never been been winded by just looking before.

“Maybe I’ll see you around.” You offer, hands squeezing your bag strap.

“I look forward to earning that handshake next time!” He calls out when you’re several feet away.

I think you’ll earn a lot more than that, you almost say, but refrain.

Instead, you wave back to him once before making your way out of the courtyard, caught between staring at your shoes and looking ahead to make sure you’re going to right way. You smile and daydream the entire bus ride home. Blue becomes your favorite color.

#help ive never written for dc before #i dont know what im doing #be nice please #dick grayson #dick grayson x reader #dick grayson x oc #dick grayson x you #dick grayson x female!reader #richard grayson #richard grayson x reader #dick grayson oneshot #dick grayson preference #richard grayson oneshot #nightwing x you #nightwing x reader

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echo-bleu · 3 years

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carve our names with fire

Clary gave Alec a wedding gift before losing her memories and her runes. Alec does with it what he does best: change the world to right an injustice (and become a BAMF immortal warlock along the way).

Alec & Clary Brotp with a side of Immortal Husbands, Angst and Fluff and Emotional Hurt/Comfort. Betaed by Bsgoddess (SorryTheUsernamesTaken). Takes off after Alec and Magnus announced their wedding, but the show happened over 3-ish years and the wedding is about a week after they come back from Edom, not the next day (because Timeline). The last part was loosely inspired by prompts on the Malec Discord Server, though it grew more world-building than I expected.

Read on AO3.

“You two will make amazing husbands.”

Alec looks up from his paperwork, realizing that he’s been unconsciously twirling his ring while reading. He didn’t hear Clary come into his office, but she’s leaning against the door frame, a small smile on her face.

They haven’t had time to talk properly since the announcement of Alec and Magnus’ wedding, with Jonathan wreaking havoc all over the world. But Jonathan is dead now, thanks to Clary.

“Thank you,” he grins at her sincerely. “I know it’s a little rushed, but with everything that’s happened, we decided we didn’t want to wait for the next catastrophe. At this pace, we’ll never find time to plan a proper wedding.”

“That’s fair,” Clary snorts. “We never seem to get a break.”

They’re still reeling from the deaths of several hundred Shadowhunters, just days ago. Alec has done his best to go to as many Rites of Mourning as he could, especially for people he knew, but even he couldn’t make it to every one of them. After being surrounded by so much grief, he’s more than ready for a slice of happiness. Magnus is in a frenzy preparing everything for the wedding tomorrow, and Alec can’t wait.

“I’m sure it’s going to be beautiful,” Clary continues, walking into the office fully. She closes the door behind her, and Alec frowns. “I wanted to talk to you about something.”

“Of course,” Alec gestures for her to sit on the couch, while he stands up and comes around his desk. He sits down beside her. “What is it?”

Clary looks down at her lap, biting her lip, and Alec feels dread pooling his stomach. She’s so uncharacteristically quiet that it can only mean bad news.

“I haven’t told anyone else yet,” she starts. “I don’t want to ask you to keep it a secret, but I can’t carry it on my own anymore.”

Alec places a hesitant hand on her arm. They rarely touch, but it seems appropriate. “Clary, what’s wrong?”

“I saw my mom the other day,” Clary breathes out.

Alec stares in shock. He lets go of Clary’s arm and glances down at his hand, the same hand that once ripped Jocelyn Fairchild’s heart out of her chest. Even now, almost two years later, he doesn’t feel clean of that. He can still feel the blood, see her face in his nightmares, Clary’s face accusing him. He has plenty of newer traumas to dream about, and it’s started to fade, but it’s not gone.

“What?” he croaks out. Is Clary having the same nightmares? Is she seeing things? It doesn’t match the way she said it, with that intense conviction in her eyes.

Clary’s eyes widen like she just realized how that sounded. “Not like… She was a...ghost, maybe? I don’t know. She felt real. She said she was sent by the Angels to give me a message.”

“A message,” Alec repeats slowly.

“I know how it sounds, but I think that’s the truth,” Clary says. “Because what she told me would happen...it’s started.”

“Clary, I don’t understand.”

She closes her eyes, her face screwed up in anguish. “She said that my rune ability was against the wish of the Angels and that if I kept using it, they’d take it away. They’d take everything away. Everything that makes me a Shadowhunter.”

Alec blinks for a moment, trying to make sense of it. “When was that?” he asks.

“The day after we got back from Edom.”

“You used a rune to kill Jonathan,” Alec breathes.

Clary looks up at his face then and nods minutely. She rolls up her sleeve, showing off unmarred skin where Alec saw a Silent Brother draw the angelic rune just a year ago. “It’s already started,” she murmurs. “They’re fading. One by one.”

“So you’re being...deruned? No,” Alec realizes. It’s different. Deruning is a Nephilim punishment, a human one. It strips them of their runes, but not of their identity, of their blood. “It’s more than that, isn’t it?”

“I think…” Clary hesitates, tears falling down her cheeks. “I think when it’s over, I’m going to be mundane. Fully. Without the Sight, and any memories of the Shadow World.”

“Fuck, Clary,” Alec mutters. “There must be something we can do—”

“I don’t think we can go against the Angels’ wish, Alec.”

Alec closes his eyes, his mind desperately running through possibilities and scenarios. He doesn’t see a solution. She’s right, the Angels’ wish is untouchable, they all know that. There’s no army to fight, no law to circumvent, no obstacle to overcome.

He pinches the bridge of his nose and feels the knot in his throat grow until it’s nearly choking him. He’s not ready to lose another friend, not now. And Jace… Fuck. Jace will be devastated. Izzy, too. None of them can take another disaster.

He takes in Clary’s red and puffy eyes, the way she’s looking at him like a lifeline. She’s become a friend, over the years. They didn’t start that way, but they’ve grown close. She’s the person closest to Alec outside of his family and Magnus. He blinks back tears.

“You’ll still be alive,” he murmurs. “But—”

“I’ll forget you. All of this,” she gestures around them. “Everything. I’m scared, Alec.”

Alec holds out his hand, and she grips it tightly in hers. He covers them with his other hand. “How long?” he asks.

“I don’t know. I only have two runes left, so not long. Tomorrow, maybe the day after.”

Alec closes his eyes. She might not even make it to the wedding. “Fuck,” he repeats.

“I don’t want to forget,” Clary murmurs, sobbing.

“It’s going to be okay,” Alec says softly. Neither of them believes it.

At least she’ll be okay, most likely. If she forgets everything, loses her angel blood, she’ll be just another mundane. She’ll be safe. Alec tries hard to hang onto that and not on the pain to come.

Because if he even lets himself imagine it, he’ll crumble.

“Why tell me first?” he asks.

Clary hesitates, biting her lip. Her sobs have receded, though tears are still running down her cheeks. She sniffles. “You’re in charge of the Institute, so you need to know. For, you know, patrols and stuff. I didn’t want you to be caught by surprise.”

Alec swallows, touched by her foresight. It’s hard to remember sometimes that she’s the same girl who once trampled on every rule without care. She still doesn’t follow orders blindly, but she’s come to care about the Institute and its Shadowhunters like they’re her family.

And in a few days, none of that growth will matter anymore. She’ll be gone. Alec wants to retch at the injustice of it all. She’s come so far, and this punishment is truly unfair.

But then, why should the Angels be fairer than the Nephilim? Alec once sat in this same office waiting for his sister to be convicted of treason and deruned. He watched his mother be stripped of her runes and her identity. Clary herself was sentenced to death for bringing Jace back to life.

They both know all too well that life isn’t fair.

“There’s another reason,” Clary says after a moment of silence. “I wanted to give you something. It’s a wedding gift, but I’m not sure I’ll be able to hold on until then, so I wanted to give it to you now.”

She pulls back her hands and takes a folded piece of paper out of her pocket. Alec carefully unfolds it, expecting some kind of drawing, but what jumps out at him is a rune, carefully inked onto the thick paper. One he doesn’t recognize.

“I can still create runes, even if I don’t dare activate them,” Clary explains. “It will work, I know it.”

“What is it?” Alec asks. It has similar elements to the Alliance rune, Clary’s most beautiful invention to date, but it’s also different, rounder, and more complex.

“I didn’t give it a name,” Clary says. “You can name it if you want. Or keep it to yourself and never use it. It’s your choice.”

“You’re rambling,” Alec says, almost amused despite the gravity of the moment.

“Sorry. It works kind of like the Alliance rune, but it requires a strong emotional bond. There are elements of the Wedding rune and the Parabatai rune in it.”

Alec tilts his head, and he can recognize it now, the familiar runes almost intertwined with each other.

“Shared between two people,” Clary says slowly, “it should bind souls and bodies together. You’d share blood, powers, emotions. And it’s permanent.”

Alec’s eyes widen as he takes in the implications of that. “Sharing powers…”

“Yes. If you do it with Magnus, you should be able to share his eternal youth.”

“Clary, this is—” Alec breathes, unable to formulate his overwhelming gratitude. “It’s an incredible gift.”

Clary swallows. “I wanted you to have it before—” she gestures vaguely. “I didn’t talk about it earlier because I wasn’t sure I could make a rune that powerful, but I know this one will work.”

Alec closes his eyes briefly to clear them of tears and pulls her into a hug. She melts into his chest, sobbing. “I want you to know that I’m incredibly grateful for everything you did for us,” he says over her shoulder. “We owe you so much.”

“Even if I didn’t obey the rules?” she hiccups. “I caused you a lot of trouble.”

“But you saved us over and over too,” Alec says. “You brought Jace back to life. You’re the reason we got Magnus back. You’ve been through so much in the past few years, but you’re still here coming up with the most incredible gift for my wedding, even when you’re running out of time…”

“I can’t tell Jace and Izzy,” Clary sobs into his shoulder. “Izzy just asked me to be her parabatai. And Jace… I can’t say goodbye. It’s too hard.”

Alec hugs her tighter. “It’s okay. I’ll tell them for you if you want. Anything you need.”

“I love them. I love you. I love you all so much. To think that I won’t remember anything…”

Alec runs a hand through her hair, gently. “We’ll make sure that you’re alright. And… I’ll keep looking. Maybe there’s something we can do to make the Angels let you come back. If not, maybe we can figure out how to bring you back ourselves. I won’t give up.”

“Thank you,” Clary murmurs. “Take care of Jace for me. He’ll need you.”

“I will. I promise.”

They hold each other until Clary’s sobs subside, and she’s able to compose herself. Alec keeps a tight grip on his own emotions, even though they threaten to spill over. He’s long learned to compartmentalize, and he can’t afford to break down in the middle of a workday. But before he goes back home to Magnus that night, he takes out the folded sheet of paper again and studies it until his sight goes blurry and he has tears running down his cheeks. He goes to the roof with his bow, working his anger into the arrows he sends out in the sky, and he runs to Magnus’ loft without a speed run, his lungs burning.

When Magnus asks him what’s wrong, he can only shake his head and hug him tight.

He’s dancing with Magnus when Clary leaves. He’s tried to keep an eye on her most of the night, once the ceremony was done, but he misses her running out and only realizes she’s gone when Jace starts to look for her.

The party is coming to an end. Alec excuses himself to Magnus for a while and he tracks Clary down, two blocks away, where he finds her looking around her in confusion.

“Who are you?” she asks when he calls her name. “Don’t come any closer!”

Alec sighs, the knot in his throat threatening to explode, and he raises his hands in a gesture of peace. “I don’t mean any harm,” he says. “You just seemed lost.”

“I’m—” She looks around again, frantically. “I don’t know where I am.”

“I’ll call you a cab, okay?” Alec offers. He falters, realizing that Clary doesn’t have a home to go to anymore. Jocelyn’s dead, and Clary will have to suffer the loss of her mother all over again. “Is there anyone you can call? A friend?”

“Yeah,” Clary says. She pats her dress. “I’ve...I think I lost my phone.”

“I’ll lend you mine,” Alec says. “I’m Alec, by the way.”

“Clary.”

Alec forces the pain away and attempts a smile. “Nice to meet you.”

“I told you you’d make amazing husbands.”

Alec looks up from his paperwork in surprise, and he’s overtaken by a strong sense of deja-vu. It isn’t the same office or even the same city, but the way Clary is leaning against the door frame reminds him exactly of the day before she left. She seems aware of the parallel, grinning at him conspiratorially.

“You did,” he smiles. “Welcome back, Clary.”

She looks different, and yet the same. Her skin is free of runes, and she has a new haircut that makes her look older, but there’s the same light in her eyes. It’s been a year. A year of Jace moping around the Institute, his pain a constant tug on the parabatai bond. A year of missing her, more than Alec never thought he would.

“Thank you.”

Jace called Alec just hours after Clary recognized him at her show, three weeks ago, but Alec hasn’t been able to join them in New York yet. She regained her memories quickly, in only a few days, once it started. Jace and Izzy have been keeping him updated.

“So that’s where it went,” Clary says, staring at the large abstract painting on the wall. “I thought it was you and Magnus, but I wasn’t sure. It’s hard to reconcile those memories together.”

Alec looks up at it, at the signature that looks suspiciously like a rune in the shape of a C and F in the bottom right corner. “It was us,” he confirms. They’ve been to every single one of her school’s shows, buying multiple paintings while having to pretend they didn’t know her. “We have more of them at home. Magnus felt it was a way to keep you with us. He’s missed you a lot.”

“I know,” Clary says. “We had lunch a couple of days ago. He didn’t tell you?”

Alec laughs. “He did. He recounted every minute of it. He was excited.”

Clary tilts her head playfully. “Is he the only one who missed me?”

“I’m pretty sure Jace thought of you once or twice. Izzy, too,” Alec smirks. “Of course we all missed you. Come here,” he stands up and opens his arms.

She bounces up to him and hugs him tight around the middle, the top of her head barely reaching his shoulders. Alec laughs and leans into the embrace. “I’ve missed you,” he murmurs.

“I’d say I’ve missed you too, but—” Clary shrugs, pulling away to look up at him. “I felt like something was missing, the whole time. And ugh, I didn’t remember you were so tall.”

Alec raises an eyebrow. “You didn’t remember me at all,” he deadpans. “More seriously, I meant to come to see you, but things have been hectic over here.”

“I heard you made Inquisitor. That’s amazing, Alec!”

“Yeah, it’s, uh, very recent,” Alec blushes. He still hasn’t learned to take a compliment, but his promotion is something he can take pride in. It’s an incredible testimony of how far the Clave has come in just a couple of years. Not so long ago, a Shadowhunter who chose to marry a Downworlder would have been cast out or at least kept carefully out of any politically significant position. And now he’s here, barely turned twenty-five, in the second highest Clave office. “Magnus is the High Warlock of Alicante now,” he adds. Because of that, the Clave asking his husband to help Downworlders move back into Idris after centuries of fleeing the Shadowhunters’ increasing restrictions, is something Alec will never not be proud of.

“You haven’t changed,” Clary observes, smiling. “I was worried you’d turned into a high and mighty prick, now that you’re such a big name.”

Alec rolls his eyes and snorts. “I’m not Jace,” he reminds her. “Come on, let’s sit down. Do you have some time? I can take my lunch break, there’s a restaurant around the corner.”

“Sure,” Clary nods. “I have an appointment with the Silent Brothers to determine if my body’s ready to take runes again, but I came early to see you.”

“Great. We have a lot of catching up to do.”

“Did you use it? The rune?” Clary leans in over her dessert in curiosity. They’ve been catching up for the past hour in a booth at the back of the restaurant, and it almost feels like they saw each other yesterday, for how comfortable and easy it is to get back into their banter. Alec has missed this.

He leans back in his seat, his stomach full. “Yeah,” he says, placing a hand over his heart where the rune is located. “We exchanged them two months ago.”

“Does it work?” Clary asks with a spark in her eyes.

Alec turns his hand palm up over the table and focuses. It doesn’t come easily to him, not yet. He’s been training with Magnus, but magic is much harder than it looks, so they’ve been focusing on controlling his random outbursts whenever he’s stressed more than developing his active magic.

Blue strands of light encircle his hand briefly, leaving in their wake a yellow rose. He hands it to Clary, who gives him a wide smile and turns it in her hands to observe it. “Wow!” she exclaims. “Yer a wizard, Alec.”

Alec bites on his finger to contain his laughter. He’s learned far too many mundane cultural references through osmosis with Simon and weekly movie nights at the loft, while Clary was gone.

“We had my blood and magic analyzed by the researchers at the Spiral Labyrinth, and they say I’m immortal too,” he says. “Or more exactly, tied to Magnus’ immortality. But since he’s tied to my life force too, it makes us functionally invincible. Someone would have to kill us both at the same time for it to stick.”

“That’s amazing,” Clary breathes. “More than I even thought of when I made the rune.”

“We have a lot to thank you for,” Alec reaches out to pat her hand. “More than you know.”

“What do you mean?”

“This rune allowed us to make huge strides in magical theory, and specifically angelic magic. It’s part of the reason why I’ve been so busy because I’m also working with our researchers on several projects.” Alec pauses, realizing he’s getting ahead of himself and Clary can’t follow. “Okay, so when you gave me the rune, I told Magnus about it right after our wedding. He was blown away that you would give us such a gift, by the way. I’m sure he’ll want to thank you himself.”

Clary smiles. “He’ll have plenty of time for that, now that I’m back for good,” she says.

Alec nods. “Since you said it was permanent, we took our time to make the decision. Immortality is not something to be taken lightly. For me, it wasn’t even really a question, but Magnus wanted me to be sure that it was what I wanted.”

“That makes sense,” Clary nods.

“We also wanted to make sure that the rune would work the way you said it did, that it wouldn’t have any…unforeseen side effects.”

Clary frowns. “I never had a problem with my runes.”

“Honestly, Clary, you used them mostly in emergencies, with no regard for safety. Maybe it was warranted then, but this time we weren’t willing to gamble both of your lives on it. Especially when it came to using a rune on a warlock.”

“Of course,” Clary says sheepishly. “Ugh, I was rather impulsive, wasn’t I?”

“You could say that,” Alec grumbles, remembering all the times her hasty decisions landed him in hot water with his parents or the Clave. “Anyway, we researched the hell out of it. Every text we could find on rune creations, on the wedding rune and its variations, we even looked into warlock archives that hadn’t been opened for centuries. And that’s how I figured it out.”

“Figured what out?”

“How you created runes. And why the Angels hated it.”

“This is what we’re working on,” Alec says, letting Clary into the lab. “It’s all confidential, but since you’re the one who started it all, I figured you deserve to know. And I’m the one who decides who is read in on it anyway.”

Clary looks around in wonder. The room has some of the equipment she’d expect in a lab and some she doesn’t recognize, but what attracts her gaze is the large corkboard in the middle, covered with sheets of paper.

On each of them is a rune. A rune she’s never seen before.

“They’re all new runes?” she asks.

“Yes,” Alec answers, leaning his back against the wall. “What clued me in was how you used elements of several existing runes to create a new one. I copied down every rune from the Gray Book and all of your runes and I started looking for patterns. We’ve always known that some basic elemental runes existed, but not that they could be combined. It took me a few months, but I came up with this.” He points at a rune at the top left of the board, which Clary can see is based on the Deflect rune, with two additional strikes going through it.

“Of course you would,” she mutters. “That’s some kind of armor rune, isn’t it?”

Alec smiles. “As it turns out, everyone can create runes, at least in theory. It’s very hard and requires a strong theoretical background unless you’re named Clary Fairchild and you have additional angel blood. Or maybe just an amazing instinct, I don’t know. Yes, this one imitates armored plates around your body. It’s more effective at stopping blows than the regular Deflect rune, but it doesn’t stop people from tracking you.”

“That’s amazing,” Clary says.

“As soon as I saw it work, I told Magnus and we worked on it together. It’s the biggest discovery about angelic magic that we’ve made in centuries.”

“Why did no one find it before?”

Alec pushes away from the wall to face her fully. “Soon after I used this rune for the first time, I started experiencing the same thing you did: push back from the Angels. Even drawing normal runes became harder. We got scared that I might be deruned like you were, so Magnus and I decided to go ahead with your rune, bind ourselves together. If I had magic, the Angels couldn’t take away my Sight or my memories.”

“That sounds like a plan me or Jace would have come up with, not you,” Clary quips.

“Yeah, well, things were evolving quickly. I could barely hold a stele at that point,” Alec says, frowning.

Clary blinks. “Wow, the Angels really were angry.”

“The bond fixed it. I’m out of reach now, they can’t do anything to me. And now that I knew what I was looking for, I found accounts of other people to whom it happened, who lost their Nephilim blood because of this. You have to read between the lines because it became taboo to even talk about it, but it looks like the Angels don’t want us to have this ability. Jonathan Shadowhunter probably had it, he had more pure Angel blood than you and he’s the one who created all the original runes, but since then, no Shadowhunter has been able to create new runes. Until you.”

“But I got punished for it,” Clary says, wringing her hands. Her memories of the last few days before she was stripped of her runes don’t feel fresh like the events happened yesterday, but they also don’t feel like they’re a year old. She can still see her mother’s ghost, or whatever it was, telling her what would happen if she kept using new runes.

It’s been a year, but without her memories, she hasn’t had a chance to process all the trauma, all the emotions.

“Yeah,” Alec sighs. “You certainly didn’t deserve it, but you were.”

Clary shakes her head, trying to get rid of the darker thoughts. “Obviously you didn’t stop there,” she says, gesturing at the board. “So what did you do?”

“Well, since my warlock blood protects me, I started thinking about who else might be protected. I reached out to Helen Blackthorn, you remember her?”

“Oh, she’s half-Seelie, isn’t she?”

“Yes. She and her brother. They were both willing to try working with us, especially since Magnus and I were fairly sure we could stop the process if we were wrong and the Angels were able to harm them. As it turns out, they did fine. So I found more Shadowhunters with Downworlder blood. At this point, we have eight people creating new runes, including me.”

“That’s incredible,” Clary says. She looks closer at the runes on the board. She can instinctively tell their purpose, which is proof that her ability hasn’t gone away. Alec lets her observe them for a while in silence, and she thinks she can discern a pattern in there like the runes have a signature. “That’s yours,” she points at a rune in the middle of the board, once she’s fairly sure she’s understanding her instincts right. “And this one.”

“You’re right,” Alec says, sounding impressed.

“You have a...tell,” Clary smirks, looking at him over her shoulder. “They feel distinctively you. I can probably find Magnus’ too, but I’d need a place to start since I’ve never seen him draw a rune.”

“Here,” Alec points to one on the right side of the board. “Can you tell because of your rune ability, or because you’re an artist?”

“Maybe a bit of both,” Clary shrugs. “I’m not sure. I should have known this was Magnus’,” she laughs when she looks at the rune. The flourish and artistic strokes look exactly like something Magnus would go for.

“We definitely need you in our group,” Alec mutters, jotting down a note on a pad on the desk beside him.

“I don’t know,” Clary says, taking a step back away from the board. “I don’t want to tempt fate. I don’t think I could stand to lose my memories again.”

“No, of course,” Alec says. “But I don’t think it would happen.”

“Why?”

“Magnus’ theory is that if enough Shadowhunters start creating runes, the Angels will just have to accept it since they can’t cast us out. Since our wedding, there are more and more mixed Nephilim and Downworlder couples, so there will probably be a whole generation of people with mixed blood. They’ll be able to create runes.”

“What does that have to do with me?” Clary asks.

“I don’t think it was a coincidence that the Angels chose to give you your memories back now. The breakthroughs that we’ve made aren’t going away. I think it’s their way of telling us that they won’t fight us anymore.”

Clary blinks at him, trying to process that idea. She remembers asking Maryse, at the wedding, if the Angels could forgive. The picture of the Angels that Alec paints is cold and calculating, matching with what Clary saw of Raziel — and to some extent, even Ithuriel. What if she wasn’t forgiven, but instead simply reinstated in her rightful place? What if Alec managed the unthinkable, and made the Angels themselves change their minds?

“Is that possible? I mean — wow.”

“Why not?” Alec shrugs.

Clary has a sudden flashback of the Alec she first met, over four years ago, who was terrified of coming out and upsetting the order of things, who was killing himself trying to meet his parents’ expectations. The man standing in front of her now has grown so much, just like Clary has, that they’re barely recognizable. To hear him talking so casually about changing the world-changing immutable laws such as those of the Angels?

But then, they’ve changed so much already, haven’t they? They participated in the destruction of Edom. They defeated the Mother of Demons. They explored and even created whole new sections of magic. Alec and Magnus’ marriage and their careers changed the laws of the Clave and opened the way for so much more.

They’ve already changed the world. So why not a little more, indeed?

Clary jumps at Alec’s neck, making him grunt in surprise. “This is amazing,” she says. “You’re amazing. And I’m so glad I’m back.”

“Me too,” Alec laughs, resting his chin on the top of her head. “Welcome home, Clary.”

#shadowhunters #alec lightwood #clary fray #malec #clary fairchild #mine #echo's fanfiction #malec discord server #hm discord

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dindjarindiaries · 4 years

Text

Thunder - Chapter 7: Lightning

gif via @pascalplease

summary: The group goes on a weekend getaway before they ship themselves off for training and service, completely unaware of the storm that still brews over Frankie and Luciana—which only grows stronger.

warnings: some angst, fluff, soft smut (*gasp*)

rating: M

word count: 6.793k

masterlist

chapter 7: lightning

Frankie never imagined he could have a life so full of sweet torture.

The weeks following graduation and the beginning of his and Luciana’s romantic relationship were full of nothing but close calls, stolen kisses, and lots of secret dates. Frankie came to realize how much more beautiful the view of the stars was from the roof when the silhouette of Luciana on top of him contrasted against them, and Luciana came to appreciate the fact that Frankie’s truck had a continuous seat that allowed for her to be laid back completely against it in the heat of any moment. The day they snuck off to the dive and were caught sharing shakes with their hands folded together over the table, Frankie thought Marlena was going to have a heart attack.

“Are my contacts messed up, or am I seeing this right?” she’d asked when she came over to the table, nearly spilling the drinks in her shock.

Frankie and Luciana had both laughed with pink cheeks. “No, your vision’s alright,” Frankie had assured her, giving his confidante a warm smile that only grew once he met Luciana’s gaze again. He’d also given her hand a squeeze that caused a bright light to flicker in her dark eyes.

“But it’s, you know…” Luciana had trailed off and used her free hand to place a finger over her lips, informing Marlena that things were being kept low-key. She’d nodded in understanding and flashed the couple a wink, simply setting down the drinks and smiling before she’d left them alone again.

But the honeymoon phase is now quickly coming to a close. Frankie can sense it when he and Luciana are alone, a tension growing between them that’s full of unspoken desperation. Frankie’s due to leave for training as a pilot with the Delta Force in a week, which means months upon months of never getting to see Luciana. In the meantime, she’ll be starting a temp job to save up for opening her own business someday. The reality of life is harsh and unrelenting, leaving the couple uncertain as to how they’ll maintain the beautiful relationship they’ve started to nurture and have yearned much too long for.

This doesn’t include how exhausting it is to keep everything a secret. Thankfully, the boys haven’t suspected a thing—even Santiago, which is the biggest relief—but Frankie and Luciana being trapped in the same house with rooms just down the hall from each other has been so torturous that Frankie finds himself tossing and turning more often at night than he’d like, dreaming of the moment when they can be together in all the ways they want to.

Going on a weekend trip with everyone only makes Frankie dread this feeling more.

The group decided to venture on the true last hoorah before they all would leave for the Delta Force, renting out a large space for the weekend at the local lake. The plot of land included a two-story main house with enough room for everyone, but also a guesthouse that followed down a trail into the nearby woods. The boys figured it could be of use in case Will and Benny threatened to kill each other—though Frankie had other thoughts for it. But even he knew he wouldn’t risk it while being so close to the guys and Santiago.

Frankie thinks of this while he looks upon the site from the house’s back porch, letting out a soft breath as his forearms lean against the wooden railing. From here, he can see that trail leading into the woods, along with the lake that spreads out wide ahead of him. A gentle breeze tugs at the curls of hair around his ears and on the back of his neck, and he readjusts his hat in hopes of refocusing himself. He knows the day ahead will be full of good quality time with the group, which—though it makes him extremely happy—also means he’ll have to act as normal as possible around his girlfriend. Frankie wouldn’t be so worried if swimming wasn’t on the list.

The simple thought of seeing Luciana in a bathing suit was enough to make him want to spiral out of control.

Frankie blinks a few times and gives his head a shake, standing back up from where he’s been leaning as he hears footsteps behind him. He sees Will carrying a cooler and pausing to look at Frankie with a gesture of his hand towards a similar-looking one off to the side. “Hey Fish, mind bringing that one down with you to the dock?” Will asks. Frankie nods without hesitation, grateful for the distraction as he picks up the cooler loaded with drinks and follows Will down the stone-filled path to the dock. Thankfully, Frankie’s already fit himself in his essentials for a day spent down by the lake, one of his usual t-shirts paired simply with his swim shorts as his sunglasses help his hat in shielding his eyes from the sun.

Down at the dock, there’s a few Adirondack-style chairs along with a table. There’s a part of the dock that extends further into the lake, making it ideal for anyone crazy enough to jump off it. Frankie smiles a bit at the sight, always having been a fan of lakesides and the fun that comes with it. It’s slightly nostalgic, since he fondly remembers him and his parents traveling up to a lakehouse his uncle had owned, but it only makes him happier to be sharing this weekend with his newer family.

Frankie puts the cooler down next to where Will’s dropped his by the table. When Will already helps himself to a beer from inside, he offers one up to Frankie, who doesn’t decline as he settles into one of the chairs and takes a sip. He thinks, as he looks out at the lake and draws another sip from his bottle, that he might just be able to clear his mind and relax. But then the rest of the group joins them, arriving in a four-person clump that Frankie tries to resist staring at. Once they come into sight, though, he’s temporarily relieved of the view that could give something away, as Luciana’s hidden it within one of her favorite large t-shirts. Still, he takes another sip of his beer to hide anything he might be displaying unknowingly on his expression, trying to ignore the way he can practically feel Luciana’s gaze burning through him.

“Damn, it’s hot out here,” Benny comments, already sliding off his t-shirt and looking as if he’s about to jump headfirst into the water.

“Hold on, hot shit,” Luciana stops him, chuckling a bit as she presses a hand against his chest. She takes a bottle of sunscreen out of the bag that hangs from her shoulder. “Safety first.”

Benny sighs, taking the bottle from Luciana while trying hard to hide a smile. “Alright, alright.” He laughs to himself as he starts to apply it. “If I didn’t know any better, I’d think it was Fish trying to parent me, not you.”

Luciana shrugs, looking over at Frankie with a sly smile. “Maybe I’ve picked up a few things.”

“Jesus,” Santiago mutters playfully. “We need to stop letting you two spend so much time together. We can’t have two parents around here.”

Frankie chuckles nervously and tips his hat, hoping he can hide his face for a moment as he looks down at the beer resting against his thigh. “It’ll make you safer,” Luciana insists. “All of you. You’re too chaotic for your own goods.”

“And we’ve made it this far, haven’t we?” Benny jokes as he finishes with the sunscreen, tossing it back to Luciana who’s since placed her bag down by another one of the chairs. She catches it swiftly, resting it on the arm of the chair as she shakes her head with a soft laugh. Frankie looks back up at her and feels thankful for the sunglasses that hide his admiring gaze. He can’t stop studying the way her brown eyes sparkle into a golden color in the sun’s lighting, the freckles on her cheeks that he adores so much becoming as prominent as ever. Her dark, wavy hair falls around her shoulders and flows gently with the wind. It looks so soft and Frankie knows it feels even softer. He wishes for nothing more than to run his fingers through it like he loves to.

Frankie can’t believe she’s his—but he also can’t believe that he doesn’t even get to show it.

He thinks he can deal with it at the moment, though he knows that’s bound to change very soon. As the boys prepare themselves to join Benny in the lake, they take their rounds with the sunscreen, but Frankie remains glued to his chair and sips his beer. He watches more closely when Santiago becomes the next one to possess it, reaching everywhere he can before turning to his sister. “Luci,” he calls for her, shaking the bottle in his hand once he catches her attention. “Can you get my back?”

“Yeah,” Luciana agrees, walking over to her brother and taking the bottle from him. Frankie’s distracted for a moment as he hears a splashing sound from further down the dock, and he watches as the two brothers dive in followed by Tom. Frankie tuts to himself, knowing they hadn’t let their sunscreen soak in for nearly half the time they’re supposed to.

“What about you, Fish?” Benny calls to him from the water.

Frankie shakes his head and holds up his bottle. “Can’t let this get warm!” Frankie exclaims back to him. “Plus, I gotta soak in the sun some more. I’m not hot enough yet.”

“It’s like fuckin’ ninety degrees out here!” Benny retorts. “That’s not hot enough for you?” Frankie laughs and simply shrugs in response.

“Relax, Benny,” Will scolds his brother. “He’s Cat-fish. He’ll come in on his own time.”

Frankie lifts his beer to his lips again. “Roger that,” he calls out to them, finally easing Benny for the moment.

His attention draws back to his girlfriend when he hears her brother go on. “Let me help you,” Santiago’s saying, and Frankie looks back to them just in time to see Luciana nod. She crosses her arms to grab the hem of her t-shirt with both hands at once, pulling it over her head in one swift movement. She’s wearing a two-piece suit that’s salmon-colored—which contrasts perfectly with her tanned skin—and is styled with a classic string top and cheeky bottoms. It’s displaying those same assets Frankie had gotten to see that night at the bar, but so much more of them.

Frankie swallows hard. Damn.

It’s not like he hasn’t seen Luciana in a swimsuit before; it’s just different now that Frankie’s with her, knowing that in any other circumstance, he could have the honor of running his hands or even his lips over every curve he’s seeing. Frankie had always wanted to respect her before, and he still does—but now that he has the knowledge of Luciana particularly liking when his gaze admires her in such a way, Frankie’s not afraid to do so anymore.

At least, whenever her brother isn’t watching over her like a goddamn hawk.

Frankie makes himself look away while Santiago applies the sunscreen to his sister’s back, not really wanting to witness the sight and knowing he’ll just wish he could’ve done it himself. He finishes off the rest of his beer but pretends there’s still some in it for the sake of avoiding jumping into the lake just yet. He only looks away from his bottle when he hears Santiago running to jump off the dock—also seeming to forget that his sunscreen’s freshly applied—and sees Luciana finishing the rest just a few steps away from his chair.

Frankie’s gaze studies each movement of her hand upon her skin, rubbing at her arms, and then her legs, and then her stomach, and then her neck and chest. He watches as her fingers take their time rubbing it in, making sure it gets into every necessary nook of her collarbones and then closer to her cleavage. His fingers subconsciously grip the edge of the chair’s arm tighter. Frankie sees her gaze meet his as it flickers with amusement and shared desire.

“Something wrong, Flyboy?” Luciana prompts, making a point to slowly run her fingers back up from the middle of her chest to her neck.

Frankie clenches his jaw before he releases a curt sigh. “Nope,” he answers, clearing his throat as he catches the singular drop of beer that’s left in his bottle. “Everything’s fine over here.”

“Looks like it.”

Frankie watches Luciana’s gaze observe him quickly yet pleasantly, and he shakes his head with a playful roll of his eyes. He looks to the water to see the boys thoroughly distracted with trying to dunk each other under the water and see who can last the longest, and so he drops his voice low as he speaks to her again. “You know, you’re not making this any easier.”

Luciana shrugs nonchalantly, tossing the sunscreen bottle between her hands as she stares him down. “Maybe I’m not trying to.” She smiles slyly as Frankie’s fingers grip the arm of the chair again, both in nervousness and in frustration. He knows that if she acts up any more than this, he’ll break. “Need some help with your sunscreen?” She shakes the bottle at him.

Frankie knows this is a bad idea. He knows that the moment he feels her hands on him, he could absolutely lose his cool—but he also knows that he’s always been a calm man, and he can maintain that if he fights hard enough. He won’t let Luciana win this little game of hers. So, he nods, standing up and setting his hat and sunglasses on the chair as his shirt joins them next. When he faces Luciana again, he sees her eyeing him with her teeth grazing her lower lip. He nearly growls and pulls her to him on the spot, but once again, he reminds himself to have self-control. She meets his gaze and continues to attempt biting back a smile.

“What a hottie,” Luciana comments playfully yet truthfully, walking around him to work on his back. Her voice comes from next to his ear when she continues. “Whoever gets to date you must be pretty damn lucky.”

“Yeah, she is,” Frankie remarks, attempting to keep a smirk off his face as he now faces the boys who are still playing further off in the water. When he feels Luciana’s hands on him, he can tell she’s moving them in a manner that’s unnecessary to the actual application of the sunscreen, and he grits his teeth before he adds something else. “And she’s about to get me in trouble.”

A light scoff comes from behind him. “Trouble?” Luciana’s hand that’s been rubbing into his shoulder quickly drifts off to give his upper arm a squeeze. “I think she likes trouble.”

Frankie swallows hard, attempting to compose himself until she’s finished her work. Once he’s sure that she’s done, he allows himself to get out a proper response. “Good—because now she’s about to get herself into trouble.” He turns around to face Luciana, seeing her staring up at him with a darkened gaze and a raised eyebrow.

“How so?” Her voice is soft as velvet and it makes Frankie wish more than anything that he could just whisk her away.

Instead, he takes the bottle from her hands and tosses it near her bag, grinning when he sees her shocked expression. “You’ll see.” He throws his arm around her waist to hoist her body over his shoulder, laughing as he hears her gasp in shock. She lets out a laugh with him once he starts to walk further down the dock, and her hands lightly beat against his back.

“Frankie! You asshole!” Luciana continues to laugh in sync with Frankie. “Put me down!”

Frankie doesn’t say anything as he walks closer and closer to the edge of the dock. “I thought you said you liked trouble.”

“Morales, I swear to God, if you’re throwing me in the water—.”

“You were being bad, García.” Frankie keeps his voice low enough for only them to hear, despite the fact that the boys are closer now—though still not in hearing range. “And you know what happens to girls when they haven’t been good?” Frankie moves his hands to grip both sides of her bare waist. “They get punished.”

Frankie gives the skin there a subtle squeeze that causes a breathless gasp to fall from Luciana’s lips, especially as he lifts her from his shoulder and tosses her off the dock in front of them. She disappears under the water a moment later, and Frankie laughs when the cheers of the boys ring out upon the sight. As soon as she surfaces, Frankie jumps in right beside her, hoping to catch her off guard with the larger splash as he surfaces with more laughter.

“That wasn’t so bad, was it?” Frankie asks her when he catches his breath.

“Motherfucker!” Luciana curses, splashing Frankie with some of the lakewater despite the laughter that falls from her lips. She swims closer to him and lowers her voice so that she’s sure he’s the only one who hears the words she says next. “Say anything like that again, and I swear I’ll jump your bones right here, Morales.”

Frankie raises an eyebrow at her. “Is that a challenge?”

Luciana smirks at him. “It’s a promise.”

Frankie gives her a nod. “In that case, I’ll hold you to your word, ma’am.”

Luciana smiles and shakes her head before they both swim over to where the boys are still fooling around.

The group then continues to swim until they’ve exhausted themselves, engaging in random games of making the biggest splashes from the dock and intense chicken fights along the way. It’s dinnertime when the group finally hikes back up to the lakehouse, and after taking the time to wash themselves up, they have a cookout and eat upon paper plates at the table on the porch. The sun starts to set while they eat, not sinking too low at all but just enough to make the sky glow with stunning colors. They follow up dinner with a campfire and s’mores, but end up getting sent inside when a rumble of thunder sounds in the distance. They make it inside just in time when it starts to pour, finishing off the night with card games and beer before their exhaustion starts to get the best of them. Everyone heads to bed and decides to call it a night.

Except for Frankie. He’s in his room, sitting on the edge of his bed restlessly—his thoughts laying with the woman whose own room is right down the hall.

He keeps replaying the scene from today over and over in his head. Being around Luciana for so long today, watching her laugh and admiring her various looks and seeing the warmth and love she holds for him in her eyes without being able to say anything or touch her or kiss her drove him absolutely insane. Now, all he can think about is having that opportunity back. He fantasizes about his fingers gliding over her smooth, tanned skin, his lips following them as he proves just how much she means to him.

They haven’t gotten to engage in an activity like that just yet. Frankie’s always put a stop to it whenever they’ve come close. He knows that once they cross that line, it’s truly over for them—they’ll be completely tied to one another, and while that’s all Frankie could ever want, he’s afraid on her behalf. He doesn’t want to share something so beautiful with her and then abandon her a few days later. Frankie would never want to break her heart like that. At the same time, he’s yearning so badly for it that he’s not sure he can handle holding himself back anymore. But he doesn’t want it to happen somewhere quick and uncomfortable, like in his truck on one of their secretive dates. Frankie wants it to be on their own time with their own terms, where he can fully gaze upon her and she on him as they fully reveal just how deep their love goes.

Luciana must be thinking all the same things, because a few moments later, he hears his door open slowly. Frankie meets Luciana’s brown gaze that somehow glitters even in the darkness of the room. She looks to be just as restless as himself.

“Frankie,” Luciana whispers, keeping her voice extremely hushed in fear of waking anyone else up. She gestures with her head to the hallway. “Let’s go.”

Frankie furrows his brow. “Go?” he echoes her. “Where?”

Luciana points with her hand to the window beside Frankie’s bed. “The guesthouse.”

Frankie looks out the window and notices that it’s still storming—badly. He turns back to her with slight concern. “Luci, it’s pouring, and it’s a far walk. And what if someone wakes up?”

Luciana shakes her head. “No one will hear us above the storm.” As if on cue, a loud roll of thunder sounds, proving her point about the volume. “Plus, I’m sure there’s an umbrella somewhere around here.”

Frankie sighs, knowing this is his one opportunity to finally be alone with his girlfriend and maybe even get to talk over everything that’s on his mind. He gives in with a nod, slipping on the nearest pair of shoes and quietly following her out of his room. He closes it behind him in hopes of the boys thinking he’s still in there. Together, they tiptoe past the other bedrooms and down the stairs, relieved to go near the front door and spot a ceramic bucket full of umbrellas. Frankie takes one and readies it, letting Luciana open the door as he unfolds it and holds her close to him underneath it. They close the door behind him and try to hold in their chuckles as they hurry through the rain, following the path down to the guesthouse without causing a lot of noise.

Soon, they’re pushing into the front door of the guesthouse, releasing their laughs there as Frankie folds up the umbrella and closes the door behind them. He rests the now-soaked umbrella against the wall, taking a quick glance over the house. It has a log-cabin feel, fully furnished with a couch, tables, decorations, and a separate bedroom. There’s not much else Frankie’s able to observe before he feels Luciana’s hands on his face, desperately pulling it towards her as her mouth practically devours his own. Frankie returns her kiss with just as much passion, his hands gliding down to her waist and pulling her tight against him. They don’t dare to separate until they’re out of air, breathing in the same space as they pull apart yet remain close. Luciana’s gaze searches Frankie’s with nothing but sheer affection and desire.

“You have no idea how long I’ve been waiting to do that,” Luciana confesses, pressing another kiss upon his lips and pulling away to brush her nose against his.

Frankie hums in agreement. “You were making it real fuckin’ difficult to keep my hands off you,” he informs her, seeing her smirk before he hides his face in her neck. He places a series of open-mouthed kisses there that leave Luciana sighing with pleasure, hands burying into his thick hair as he licks and sucks at all the right spots. “Wearing that pretty little suit of yours…” Frankie trails off to tend more to one of her sweet spots, smiling against her heated skin when he draws a soft moan out from her, “... flaunting that beautiful body that drives me crazy. You knew what you were doing.” Frankie continues his work on her neck until he’s on the brink of leaving a mark, knowing it’s too risky to go through with it as badly as he wants to.

When Frankie rises back up to meet her face again, he receives a series of kisses along his jaw, making him swallow hard as Luciana begins to respond. “I would’ve let you take me right then and there, Frankie.” Her words ghost softly over the skin of his face, and Frankie never breaks his gaze with her as she faces him seriously. “I still would.” Luciana’s tone is gentle, as if she’s afraid that something louder will break the precious moment they’re in. She searches his gaze for a moment, and Frankie feels his chest tighten in anticipation as she goes on. “Frankie, is that something you’re okay with, or is there a reason you’ve been stopping whenever we’ve come close?”

Frankie releases a soft sigh, brushing a hand over the side of Luciana’s face continuously as he answers her. “I’d love that more than anything, Luce.” His tone matches her, hushed as if someone could overhear it. “I just… I was worried because, y’know, I’m leaving soon, and I didn’t want to make you feel as if I was just using you for a quick fuck before I went.”

Luciana’s brow furrows immediately as she holds his face between her hands. “I know you’d never do that, Frankie. Don’t worry.” She kisses him quickly, pressing her forehead against his afterwards. “I know that this is real. That’s why…” Luciana pauses, and Frankie feels one of her hands travel from his face down his chest and closer to his waistband, “... I want to do this. I want to be able to fully express it—with you. I want to feel this connection and hold on to the memory of it while you’re gone.” Her hand continues to go lower as her lips press against his ear. “I can’t hold back anymore. I need you, Frankie Morales.”

Frankie lets out a shaky breath at her words, wondering how he could’ve possibly been honored with being the man who gets to hear them uttered from her lips. Once her hand hooks on his waistband, Frankie grabs her wrist to stop her, pulling her mouth to his in a heated kiss. Luciana’s hands start digging into his hair and over his back while his drift over her ass, giving it a light squeeze just to feel her moan against him. He wastes no time picking her up so that she wraps her legs around his waist, easily navigating them to the bedroom he’d seen before. Though there’s no one else around, Frankie still closes the door behind them, letting only the pale moonlight hidden behind storm clouds light the room as he sets her back down against the bed. Luciana pulls his body against hers by grabbing the material of his shirt in her fists, instantly tugging at it to try to get it off. That becomes the first thing to go, and the next few minutes are a blur of things getting thrown around and kisses being left on lips, jaws, necks, and whatever else can be reached in the heat of the moment.

Once they’re skin-on-skin, Frankie feels the fire in him blazing brighter than ever before, the warmth spreading from his stomach to his chest as his heart thuds against the skin there. He practically loses his breath when Luciana rolls them over so that she’s straddling him, separating her face from his to take a look at his body. Frankie’s thankful for the darkness of the room as his cheeks redden in sudden embarrassment and insecurity. For a quick moment, he starts to wonder if she’s regretting this, regretting him. His mouth goes dry, and the longer Luciana stays silent with her gaze and fingertips brushing over his body, the more nervous he becomes. All he can hear is the soft panting of their breath and the rain that pours over the house.

“Frankie,” Luciana finally speaks, her tone breathless and thick with genuine emotion. She pauses to look in his eyes again, and even in the darkness of the room, Frankie can read her look perfectly. He sees all the admiration, love, and deep desire she has for him—and it melts his heart. Luciana’s hand brushes over his cheek as she smiles at him. “You’re so handsome. I’ve always thought that, but now that I really get to see it… I just can’t believe it. I’m so lucky.”

Frankie feels speechless for a moment, unable to believe that such an ethereal creature as Luciana would ever say something like that about him. He swallows hard, hands grabbing her waist as he flips them over again so that he’s hovering over her. Frankie’s hands trace over her curves, forming to them as if he’s known them forever. He bites back a smile at the sigh it draws from her lips. “You… You’re a masterpiece,” Frankie confesses honestly, his gaze meeting hers and drowning it with pure affection. “I noticed that from the day I met you. I always—well, I always thought you’d end up with someone who’s just as perfect as you are.”

Luciana reaches for one of Frankie’s hands, leaving a kiss on his palm. “I did.”

Frankie’s heart warms just as much as his stomach, now, and he can’t help smiling before he presses his lips to hers in another heated yet passionate kiss. Their hands can’t stop exploring each other and neither one of them could ever complain about it. They’re taking in each other’s forms, memorizing them, wanting to grab at them and feel them while they can—before it’s too late, when they’ll have to try to imagine them.

After a few moments of exploration, Frankie lets one of his hands go lower, hesitating to wordlessly ask for permission. Luciana’s hand pushes his further, and that becomes Frankie’s cue to go ahead with it. Frankie works her body like he’s always known it, hitting all the right spots that have her gasping and moaning and pleading into the heated skin of his neck. He can tell, though, that she’s trying to hold these sounds back—and that’s something he won’t have.

“Let it out,” Frankie murmurs into his ear, using his free hand to lift her face from his neck. “Let me hear you.” With his words, Frankie adds a new pressure that draws a soft cry from her lips, and he smirks pleasantly at the sound of it. “There you go, baby girl, that’s it. It’s just us out here. Be as loud as you can.”

And Luciana takes him up on that. That fire within Frankie continues to grow more and more as she pleads his name and writhes beneath his touch, and he realizes that even without his own contact—just by making the woman he loves feel so pleasured—he’s feeling something he never has before. He continually mumbles praises when she reaches her first high, stroking her cheek with his free hand as he does so. Her hands grip onto him for dear life and Frankie wouldn’t exchange her touch for anything. Frankie can tell she wants to return the favor for him somehow, but he shakes his head.

“Another time,” Frankie insists, his words breathless as he finds himself unable to wait any longer than he already has to feel her. “Right now, I need you.”

Luciana’s gaze sparkles up at him, and she nods as she brushes an admiring hand over his cheek. “Please, Frankie—,” she pauses as she pulls his lips to his, leaving a quick yet passionate kiss there, “—make love to me.”

Frankie doesn’t need anymore convincing. He entwines one of his hands with hers and keeps the other tight on her waist, pressing his forehead against her own as they finally start to make the connection that brings their love to a physical manifestation. As Frankie slowly eases into his first move, he draws a long, pleasured whimper from Luciana’s lips, causing him to hum as he presses a kiss upon the tip of her nose. “It’s alright, Luce,” Frankie whispers to her, his voice soft even as he grits his teeth to try to keep his own grunt hidden. “You’re alright. Just feel me—feel us.”

“I do,” Luciana breathes, her eyelids fluttering as she stares up at him. “I fucking feel you, Frankie.”

Frankie lets out a light chuckle that’s cut off by his own hiss when he moves again. He earns a similar sound from Luciana, only fueling him further as he moves in a steadier rhythm. Frankie squeezes her hand as they go on, his other hand steadying her as they continue moving together. It’s a feeling so heavenly yet so natural, as if they were made to be together like this. Frankie feels more confident than he ever has before and he swears he’s never felt so complete. His mind, his heart, and his body are all finally finding their matches in a single person, someone whose heart seems to beat to the same rhythm as his own. These thoughts hit Frankie all at once and he’s surprised he’s even able to conceive of them as his body rejoices in what he’s experiencing.

It’s when Frankie hears Luciana’s voice call for him that he finds himself losing any self-control he’d maintained before. “Frankie,” she pleads, as if asking for more. He doesn’t hesitate to give it to her—after all, he’d give her the world if he could.

As he complies with her request, Frankie speaks to her, having to swallow back any other sounds as he absorbs hers. “I love the way you say my name,” Frankie tells her behind gritted teeth, though his voice is full of nothing but admiration. “I love the way you sound. I love—,” Frankie cuts himself off with a groan that he releases into her neck, “—fuck, I love the way you feel. I love you. Shit, I love you so much, Luciana.”

Frankie has to stop himself because he’s coming too dangerously close to that point they can’t return from and there’s no more coherence left for either one of them. He earns a returned proclamation of love from Luciana along with his name when her moment comes, perfectly in time with a roll of thunder from outside as a flash of lightning shows Frankie a quick sight of them joining together, finally becoming one not just in mind and heart but also in body. It’s enough to bring him to a place he’s never gone before, a feeling higher than he could ever go in one of his planes or helicopters, and he swears he’s finally been able to take a star as he lets go and starts to relax in time with the love of his life.

They remain where they are for a few moments as their chests heave in the same, simultaneous rhythm, gazes never separating as they wordlessly appreciate everything they’ve just experienced. Frankie swears that Luciana’s eyes start to tear up, but he isn’t sure if it’s from pain or pleasure. He hopes that it’s the latter and that it’ll dissipate with time—but just in case, he lavishes her face with breathless and air-light kisses, hoping to earn a smile from her as he silently praises her for how she’d taken him.

Once they’ve recovered, Frankie lets himself rest beside her, burying them in the sheets as he pulls her body to his. Their legs tangle together in a desperate need to maintain some kind of contact, and Frankie runs one hand continuously through Luciana’s hair as she buries her face in his neck. He tries not to feel nervous at her silence, hoping it’s just her absorbing the intimate moment they’ve just shared. Frankie swears he’s never felt so connected to another person in his life, and he knows he’d give anything to make sure he never loses it—never loses her.

Suddenly, Frankie hears Luciana heaving a large breath, and he realizes what’s happening. He pulls her away from him so that she’s facing him again, and his heart shatters in his chest when he sees tears falling down her cheeks. Frankie grimaces as he holds her face delicately in his hands, thumbs attempting to brush the tears away as he searches her gaze. “Hey, baby, don’t cry,” Frankie coos gently, resting his forehead against hers. “What is it?” He prays he didn’t hurt her. He knows he wouldn’t forgive himself for it.

Luciana looks as if she can’t speak for a moment, and it makes a pit grow in Frankie’s stomach. He’s rarely ever seen her cry and so he knows that it takes a lot for that to happen. When her lip only trembles more and her eyes cloud with more tears, Frankie’s heart nearly flies through his chest with panic. Her hands thread delicately through his hair as she swallows back a sob. “Don’t leave me, Frankie,” Luciana finally manages, her voice unrecognizably broken and desperate as her eyes finally fall closed. A cry breaks through, and Frankie feels his entire body practically go numb with heartbreak as he pulls her to him again. She hides her face in his chest as he coos sweet nothings into her ear, stroking her hair and willing himself not to have a similar reaction as he works to comfort her.

“Shh,” Frankie mumbles, lips brushing against the shell of her ear as he continues to comfort her. “It’ll be alright, Luci. Take a deep breath.” Frankie feels her chest rise and fall against his own, and he smiles slightly at her effort as he presses a kiss into her hair. “There you go, baby. Just relax. I’m here.” Frankie only relaxes himself once he feels Luciana do the same, and when he’s certain that she’s calmed back down, he pulls her away to rest his forehead against hers again. His thumb strokes over her cheek as he goes on. “I know it’s gonna be hard, Luci, but we can do this. Alright? Think about it. We’ve waited a long fuckin’ time just to get to this point. We can do it again.”

Frankie earns a small smile and giggle from Luciana at that, and he smiles wider himself as he presses a gentle kiss upon her lips. When they break apart, Luciana nods, placing her hand over the one Frankie still has on her cheek. “I know. I just…” she pauses, gripping his hand tight as she looks longingly into his eyes, “... I love you so much, Frankie. I don’t know what I’m gonna do without you.”

“You won’t be without me.” Frankie says the reassurance softly yet with confidence. “You’ll have these memories and the reassurance that I’ll be coming back to you later to finish this life and love of ours. And I wouldn’t be opposed to going old-school and getting some letters.”

Luciana chuckles. “I can write letters. I’ll address them to Flyboy.”

Frankie laughs, brushing his free hand through her hair as he keeps her close. “Perfect.” He then presses a kiss to her forehead. “Just like you.”

Luciana scoffs playfully and rolls her eyes. “How charming.” She presses another kiss to his lips. “By the way… I like it when you use ‘baby girl.’ Keep that habit up.”

Frankie smiles at her. “Noted.” He then invites her to relax into him again, leaving a kiss on her head once she’s nestled her head back into his neck. “Now rest, baby girl. Can’t let anybody know that we weren’t sleeping during these hours.”

Luciana giggles against the skin of his neck. “I’ve never had someone tire me out like this after just one round, Morales. Add that to your confidence checklist.” She presses a kiss to his neck when she hears him laugh in response. “Goodnight, babe. I love you.”

Frankie can’t help smiling yet again upon hearing the words, and he pulls her as close as possible as he closes his eyes in contentment. “I love you, too.”

In this moment, Frankie doesn’t give a damn who knows anymore. He would shout it to the whole world if he could. All he knows is that he’s found his other half in the woman who’s curled up into his side, and even though he’d tried to reassure her that everything would be okay, he knows his heart’s going to be ripped in half the moment he has to leave her.

next part: chapter 8: hail

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permanent tag list: @mikahid @bestintheparsec @stilllivindue2spite @givemethatgold @xbrujita @mandalorianspace @blushingwueen @sevvysaurus @myakai13 @thisis-theway @beskars @rachelloveseveryone @theindiealto @hiscyarika @burningsoulbloodyheart @wickedfrsgrl @synystersilenceinblacknwhite @bookwafflefangirl @charliepeaceout @cable-kenobi @ezraslittleblondestreak @hdlynn @your-pixels-are-showing @b0n-chann

#oh my word #oh my wordddd!#babies!#my heart aches for them but also?#aw?#frankie morales #catfish morales #frankie morales fic #triple frontier #triple frontier fic #thunder fic #dindjarindiaries

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cyhyr · 3 years

Text

KakaIru Maze 2021: In Pieces, It Is Safe

Rating: T

WC: ~10k for this part / ~19460 total

Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply

Additional Tags (pertaining ONLY to this part): burns, fire, gods/goddesses, canon-typical violence

A/N: Get yourself a snack and a drink; this one's a biggie ALSO With the posting of this last chapter, I have finished the Maze!!! I'll get a Masterpost up in a little bit :D

1 | 2 | Read on The Archive

“After this, you have a meeting at training ground seventeen,” Shikamaru says, dropping a stack of paperwork on Kakashi's desk. It lands with a soft umph, the sheer weight of hundreds of sheets of paper turning Kakashi’s hair from silver to gray. Shikamaru keeps one hand on the desk as he continues, “And don’t think about skipping out to the meeting early. Iruka-sensei told me he’d send you back here himself if you try to see him before the busy work is done.”

“I think I liked it better when the lot of you weren’t on such great terms,” Kakashi sighs, pulling the first report out from underneath Shikamaru’s hand. “First Shizune is getting me to do regular physicals and now you’re using my partner against me to do paperwork.”

“It’s all with Iruka-sensei’s permission,” Shikamaru smirks. He waves with one hand and leaves him to it.

Kakashi glances up at the clock and groans. He should have asked Shikamaru what time it was before he left. He should get one of those newer digital clocks for his desk.

It’s early afternoon. He can get this stack done in… an hour and a half.

Half an hour later, Kakashi has two kage bunshin assisting with the pile and finally, it feels like he might get to see Iruka before sunset.

The sky is just beginning to deepen into yellows and oranges when Kakashi escapes from the Hat and the office, leaping across the village rooftops with Boar and Sable in tow. Boar isn’t quite as fast as he and Sable are, but he keeps up well enough. They’re almost to the training grounds when Boar overtakes him and puts up a barrier, halting Kakashi and Sable both.

A tree hurls into Boar’s barrier and breaks when it hits, scattering splinters and branches everywhere. Boar keeps the barrier up while more trees and limbs reach out above and around them, smacking into each other and shedding leaves and sticks over the forest floor. Sable from her place positioned over Kakashi’s crouched form, whistles sharply three times—two short, one long.

The trees stop battling, and two faint figures leap away through the trees back towards the center of training ground seventeen. Kakashi grins and stands, gently pushing Sable away and putting a hand on Boar’s shoulder.

“They’re gone. You can drop it.”

Boar nods, and the barrier falls. They continue on their way.

When they reach the small clearing in the center, Boar and Sable stay back in the trees while Kakashi goes forward alone. They’re his guards, and it’s not like he needs them; he’s plenty well-guarded here, anyway.

Here, of course, being around the only two known mokuton users in the world. Tenzō is lecturing about where Iruka went wrong and what they’d work on next time. But Kakashi—oh, he only has eyes for his partner, stretching out after a long day of training.

Iruka’s hair is finally long enough again that he can tie it up. It took months, and a few discreet hair growth treatments, but it was worth it to see Iruka looking like himself again. The only difference being that his hair did grow in a little bit darker; no one else seems to have noticed, but Kakashi is an expert in all things Iruka and he knows that it’s darker than before. Iruka’s scent also never changed back to parchment and rivers, but knowing now about the mokuton adaptation, Kakashi is accepting of that particular Change.

Iruka has also taken the past few months off from the Academy. He claims he doesn’t miss the endless paperwork and grading, but Kakashi catches him looking longingly at the playground whenever they pass it by. He can’t seem to convince Iruka to go back to work yet; Iruka seems to very much want to master control of mokuton before he puts himself back around the children. And Kakashi can’t fault him for that, especially considering what happened to both their house and the Tower.

“Oh, Rokudaime-sama,” Tenzō says, finally acknowledging him. “Glad you could finally join us.”

“Maa, you know how it is,” Kakashi says, waving his hand. “Paperwork breeds.”

Iruka twists from his seated position and looks up at him, smiling wide. “But you still got it all done, right?”

Kakashi leans over and presses a masked kiss to Iruka’s hair. “Of course. Shikamaru implied you had choice words if I showed up before I finished.”

“You should really save all that mushy romantic stuff for when Otter’s around,” Tenzō chuckles. “They get a kick out of you two being…” He makes a vague hand gesture and continues, “Y’know. You.”

“All the more reason to be mushy now while they’re out on mission,” Iruka says. There’s a slight edge to his voice, one Kakashi knows is the slight possessiveness Iruka keeps close to his chest. It sends a tingle down his spine and warms his heart.

“How was training today, Love?” Kakashi says, changing the subject.

Iruka gives a so-so gesture. “I’m getting there.”

“Don’t sell yourself short, sensei,” Tenzō frowns, crossing his arms. “You held your own against me for hours today. I would almost say you’ve mastered mokuton, or certainly will within the week.”

“No,” Iruka shakes his head. “I don’t feel comfortable with it yet.”

“That’s only because you haven’t been on active duty for years, Love,” Kakashi says. He offers his hand to help Iruka stand up, and grins when Iruka takes it. “Give yourself a few more days and you’ll be finishing your spars with Tenzō in a draw.”

“Well, I don’t know about that—”

“I fully expect to have my first loss by the end of the week, sensei,” Tenzō smirks.

Kakashi pulls Iruka to his side and hugs him tight with one arm. “See? Tenzō believes in you.”

“Senpai. Please, it’s Yamato.”

“You stop and I’ll stop,” Kakashi drawls, leading Iruka away.

Iruka turns around and waves. “See you tomorrow, Yamato-taichou!”

Come!

The Spark can now be Relit

Come to The Altar

Place your Seal

And Open the—

“Iruka?”

Startled, Iruka’s breath hitches as he looks up and around. Kakashi’s holding his hand, and they’re standing just outside the gate to their home; his brows are furrowed and there’s a concerned gleam to his eyes. Iruka knows he has a similar look on his own face, but for a different reason.

He’s not sure how they got from the training grounds to home. Surely they walked, but he doesn’t remember anything but the smell of the dying sunlight.

“Love, is everything—?”

“Fine!” Iruka laughs it off. “I just, I was thinking about… things.”

Kakashi guides him inside, lifting one hand to the ANBU over Iruka’s shoulders. Neither of them like having the ANBU close while they’re home; it’s their time. Iruka assists Kakashi in slipping out of his Hokage flak, and then he hangs it up beside his own.

Kakashi comes up from behind him, puts his hands on Iruka’s hips, and kisses the side and back of his neck. Iruka sighs, leaning back against the firm, strong chest of his partner and—

Change and Inspire Change!

All will receive My Curse

Few will find My Mercy

Fewer still will become the Blessed

Come to Me

“—ka? Iruka???”

Oh, shit

He looks up at the ceiling and Kakashi’s face hovering worriedly above him. “I’m… I’m okay,” he murmurs. His head is throbbing in time with his pulse, and his limbs all tingled like he’d lost feeling for a time. Kakashi has him laid down prone on the floor, his head pillowed carefully on one of his thighs.

“You were out for almost two minutes,” Kakashi says. “What’s going on?”

Iruka shrugs, sitting up gingerly. “I think I went too hard in training,” he tries.

“Iruka.”

Iruka knows that Kakashi is aware he’s lying. And Iruka… Iruka also knows he can’t keep it up for much longer. But Kakashi will also respect Iruka’s desire for privacy, and his judgment that Iruka can deal with this issue himself.

He only hopes that he’s not overestimating himself.

He saw her for the first time on a Friday evening two months ago just after a shower. They were finally back in their own house, and Kakashi wasn’t home yet. Iruka wanted to get ready for a night in with his partner, and took the time to be very thorough. But when he stepped out of the shower, the mist in the bathroom was heavier and warmer than it should have been.

Out of the corner of his eye, Iruka saw the mist take a shape for the briefest of moments. He heard the hiss of a thousand whispers—

Relight the Spark

—and then the room was cold and dark and the mist was gone and Iruka—

Iruka checked the time on the tiny clock beside the mirror and realized he’d been in the bathroom for two and a half hours. He’d only taken a half hour in the shower; Freol had stolen the other two hours.

He wasn’t in the mood for sex after that. He brushed his teeth and braided his now-dry hair, tying it off with a soft cord for sleeping.

Pajamas. And bed. Kakashi was puttering around the house, probably searching for dinner; but Iruka just wanted to sleep. He dreamt of mist and heat and thousands of voices speaking in unison telling him Come, Relight the Altar. In the morning, he was exhausted like he hadn’t slept at all.

It wasn’t dire then. Until it started affecting others outside of Iruka, he swore he’d keep it to himself.

But it kept happening. He’d lose hours in the bathroom, a half-hour in the peak heat of the day, an entire evening in front of the fireplace—anywhere there was heat, Freol would appear and speak to him. And each time he would slip into some kind of trance and lose time.

It happened around Naruto two weeks ago. They had been out training, just the two of them, and had taken a break for lunch. While Iruka was opening his bento, lovingly prepared by Kakashi that morning, he happened to glance up at some birds flying overhead.

The sun, the heat, and the glare of light in his face—it had been a perfect storm. She appeared before him, the shimmer of heat in the desert made form, and spoke:

“I have chosen you to be My revival. Come Home to the Altar and become My new Spark.”

Her voice tasted like smoke.

Iruka tried to talk back, but whatever she was doing to him, whatever plane they were on, he couldn’t do anything but sit there and withstand the heat.

Eventually, a different kind of warmth surrounded him and pulled him away. Freol screamed and it was terrible, thousands of voices shouting that Iruka was hers and that she said when she was done speaking to him. The smoke settled on his tongue and made his eyes water, the heat intensified so much he began to dry out. He’d be nothing but leathery skin and burnt clothing—

And then he blinked and he was in a dim room, the floor covered in water, cradled in Naruto’s arms. Behind him laid the Fox—Kurama—his paws crossed and his ears upright and alert.

“Where—?”

“With Kurama,” Naruto said. He frowned. “In my head, but not? It’s hard to explain.”

As if what Iruka had just experienced with Freol wasn’t just as hard to explain. He sat up gingerly; every part of him stung with burns, like he’d rolled around in a bonfire for fun. But a glance at his hands, his arms, a quick touch to his face—all confirmed to Iruka that what he felt wasn’t real. Naruto kept a hand on his back, just below his shoulders.

“Iru-nii. What’s going on?”

His instinct was to brush it off. But Naruto had brought him into Kurama’s sanctuary, and to have done that… whatever happened must have truly scared him. So instead. Iruka sighed, “I’m not sure yet.”

“It has something to do with that goddess,” the Fox said, his voice as deep and massive as Freol’s, but somehow so much softer; tempered by Naruto's own nature. “I saw her speaking to you. What did she say?”

“She. She wants me to go back. To relight the altar, whatever that means.”

“You can’t go back!” Naruto cried. “You only just finished recovering!”

“I’m not—”

“Freol is the Altar,” the Fox grumbled. Both Iruka and Naruto looked up at him, and he continued, “Did neither of you read the scrolls? They all referred to the goddess as an Altar.”

“Sounds familiar,” Naruto mused. Louder, he said, “But that only makes it worse! She wants you to, what, relight her? What’s that supposed to mean?!”

Iruka realized, “She wants to become a relevant power in the world again. And she needs a ‘spark’ of some sort, one that only someone who’s gone through her Change can provide.”

It was quiet in the dark, the water lapping at their legs and the huffing, soft growls of the Fox behind them.

“Naruto, take him out,” the Fox eventually said. “He’s not supposed to be here.”

“Right!” Naruto helps Iruka stand, and together they turn and face the F—

Kurama.

His name is Kurama.

“You pulled me away from her, didn’t you?” Iruka bowed carefully, not sure if he’s overstepping and also not sure if his balance will keep him upright. “Thank you.”

Kurama looked almost embarrassed, but nodded in acknowledgment.

Then Iruka blinked and he was sitting beside Naruto on the ground where they’d spread out their lunch, and Naruto’s hand slowly pulled away from his back. Judging by the sun’s shift in the sky, he’d lost less than an hour.

They’re quiet for a few breaths, and then—

“Naruto—”

“Iru-nii, I—?”

They stopped, smiled; laughed. Iruka gestured for Naruto to go first.

“Nii-chan, if… if it gets worse,” Naruto said, uncharacteristically somber, “or you decide to… to go. Tell me, please?”

Iruka pulled Naruto close and tight and nosed at his hair, then said, “I’ll keep you posted.”

The next morning, Iruka wakes before Kakashi even stirs, before the sun is up. In the cool of the early morning, where the sky is just barely lightening, Iruka’s mind belongs only to himself and he doesn’t have to worry about seeing Freol. He showers in cold water and warms himself in the towel afterward; no mist, no unseasonal warmth, no wispy shadows curling around his shoulders whispering tempting words in his ear.

Just him, his razor, and the slowly rising sun.

A soft knock on the door puts a grin on his lips, and he tells Kakashi, “Come in.”

His partner shuffles in, settling in behind him and putting his chin on Iruka’s shoulders, his arms around Iruka’s waist just above the fold of his towel. Kakashi is sleep-warm and lax against his back while Iruka finishes shaving, reaching for a hand towel and drying his face. He then tosses the towel over his shoulder and on top of Kakashi’s head.

He groans and holds Iruka tighter.

Iruka laughs. Kakashi kisses his neck.

“I’ve missed your laughter,” Kakashi whispers.

It’s sobering, but he keeps a smile on. “What’s that about?” he asks.

“I feel like we had a good month where we saw so much of each other, and then you developed mokuton and now I don’t see you anymore,” Kakashi pouts. “I miss you.”

“Get your paperwork done in a timely manner and you’ll be home early enough to make me laugh again,” Iruka teases, turning in Kakashi’s arms in order to put his own around Kakashi’s shoulders. He plays with spiky silver hair, and leans in to kiss Kakashi’s deepening pout. “We’ll be back to our normal soon.”

“I hope so. Is there any hot water left?”

Iruka nuzzles their noses together. “Plenty.”

“Wanna get wet with me?”

Iruka kisses him quickly and hums. “How about you take a really quick shower, and then come back to bed and we’ll make love before you have to leave?”

Kakashi pulls him back towards the bedroom. “Love making first,” he smirks, “then I’ll shower. And maybe I can convince you to join me then?”

“You’re welcome to try,” Iruka follows easily.

Iruka builds a wood encasement around himself, huddled down close to the ground while the two ANBU he’s training with fling katon and suiton jutsus at where he had been standing. The wood seal would hold until he could collect himself and ready a counterattack. It had held up against Kakashi’s raiton multiple times over just yesterday. Iruka breathes, confident that the ANBU he’s battling aren’t as strong or capable as his partner.

The ground at his feet is beginning to turn to mud. Iruka braces himself under the dome and molds his chakra. He pings with his chakra to locate his targets. He smirks. They’re training against a mokuton user and standing in the trees? Not very bright, these two.

A quick redirect of his chakra and a snake hand seal has the dome split down the middle and Iruka takes in the scene quickly, rolling out of the way of a katon blast and reforming snake. The branches the two ANBU are standing on wrap up and around their bodies, thinning out and flexing as needed; their arms are caught at their sides and soon enough they fall to the ground with harsh oomphs.

Iruka jumps over to both of them and puts a kunai calmly against their neck, one at a time. And then the whistle blows and Yamato slips out of the trees with a proud grin. Once Yamato is firmly in place beside him, Iruka forms his seal and releases the jutsu holding the two ANBU. He helps one of them stand up while Yamato offers assistance to the other.

“Dismissed,” Yamato says.

“Thank you,” Iruka says, bowing to each of them before they could flicker away.

And then it’s just the two of them and Iruka can’t hold it in any longer.

“Did you see that!! I took down two. Whole. ANBU. Me!!!”

Yamato chuckles. “I did. And you could likely take out an entire squad if you wanted, now.”

“Wait ‘til I tell Kakashi; he’s gonna flip!”

“In a good way, I’m sure,” Yamato says, putting a hand on Iruka’s shoulder. “How about we break early for the day? We can go meet senpai at the Tower and you two can have a night out to celebrate.”

Iruka winces. “Kakashi has a meeting late tonight. I was going to see Naruto.”

“Then you go and see Naruto early,” Yamato claps his back and starts them back toward the village proper. “You deserve it.”

“Yeah, thanks.” Iruka grins. “It’s all due to your diligent training, taichou.”

They part ways at the edge of the training grounds; Yamato goes back to the Tower to report on Iruka’s progress, and Iruka…

Iruka wasn’t lying. He is going to see Naruto. And Kakashi is… busy… tonight. Just because the meeting is with Gai, for drinks and a night out together which they haven’t had in so long; Iruka has to take a deep breath to keep the guilt at bay. It doesn’t help that he had been the one to suggest to Gai that it had been entirely too long since he and Kakashi had had a guy’s night.

He stops in front of Naruto’s door and knocks. He is taking precautions. Kakashi will understand… someday. Someday, everything will be okay again.

But first.

Naruto opens the door and beams at him. Gods, when did he get so tall? “Ready to head out, nii-chan?”

Iruka nods. He doesn’t need anything besides the force in his head and his mokuton. Naruto locks the door behind him and then presses his hand to the door to seal it. Iruka remembers when he’d taught him how to do that, on the spare room’s door in Iruka’s old apartment. Back when everything had been easy. Back before goddesses and world-ending jutsus.

They run out into the forest and leave the village far behind. Just in case. Gods, he hopes nothing goes wrong tonight. For almost four hours, they run at Iruka’s most sustainable speed; he knows Naruto is faster, and has more stamina, and he’s relieved he doesn’t have to try and keep up. Eventually they stop in a small clearing and Naruto looks around and nods.

“There’s no one around,” he says.

Iruka pings out with his chakra, to double-check. They’re alone. Iruka pulls his chakra together and forms his seals, and then a few small bushes sprout up around his legs. He steps out of the circle of bushes and makes another seal and a cut intention with his chakra, and the bushes become a pile of kindling and tinder.

He kneels down to arrange the pile into something that more closely resembles a campfire, and above him Naruto squeals, “That’s sooo cool! I’m never gonna get over watching you do mokuton, Iru-nii!”

Iruka blushes. “Yamato-taichou is much more impressive at it,” he says.

“But my big brother can do the same thing the First Hokage can! That makes it a million times cooler.”

“If you say so,” Iruka says, finishing stacking the brush. With a short, quick katon, the twigs light. “I’m going to make some fuel logs, too,” he says, standing up and dusting off his pants.

“I’ll watch the fire and make sure it doesn’t get too big yet,” Naruto nods.

Fifteen minutes later and they have a knee-high pile of fuel, and the fire is rolling and warm. It’s not quite hot, though. Iruka puts two logs on the fire and pokes at the brush to keep it all contained, and then sits down in the grass beside Naruto.

“How long do we need to wait?”

“She doesn’t usually appear unless it’s hot,” Iruka answers. “It could take a while.”

“Okay.” He pulls out a ration bar and hands it to Iruka, who waves it away. Naruto bites into it anyway. Through his mouthful, he says, “Y’know. Kakashi-sensei should be here, too.”

“Naruto.”

“I mean. The two of you are married. You shouldn’t be keeping this from him.”

“I know that. But…”

Naruto takes another bite, waiting.

Iruka sighs. “I can’t risk him,” he finally says. They’re quiet again for another few, long minutes. Iruka throws another log on the fire. “Freol, so far, has only attacked those of Uzushio descent. And you have Kurama to keep you safe. There isn’t… I don’t have anyone else I can trust with this.”

“Not even Yamato-taichou?”

Iruka shakes his head. “He’d go straight to Kakashi. He might even hold me back.” He groans, scrubs at his face with both hands and then drops his head between bent knees. “I’m sorry for dragging you into this. I know that it goes against everything you are to keep this kind of secret.”

“Kakashi-sensei would want to know, even if you think it’d put him at risk.”

“I don’t want her to know that Kakashi knows.” Iruka glares into the fire. It’s getting hot enough that it’s hard to look at it for more than a few seconds. She’ll appear soon. “It’s bad enough that after tonight she’ll know about our relationship. If she finds out about Kakashi, too…”

“He fought against Kaguya with Sakura-chan, Sasuke, and me. He knows about goddesses.”

“That’s not the point,” Iruka groans. “He doesn’t need to know. And I won’t give her more ammunition to be used against me.” He throws one more log on the fire.

And there.

In the heat and shimmer above the flames.

“She’s here.”

Kakashi tunes Gai out for most of the night, instead taking care to get himself as plastered as he can. If he can walk home without assistance, the night will be a failure. He slams back shot after shot, spiraling further with each passing hour.

Is he a good partner? If no, why hasn’t Iruka said anything and just… left Kakashi and moved on? And if yes, why isn’t Iruka telling him what the fuck is happening?

He knows Iruka and Naruto are out at dinner tonight, but they both were cagey about where they were going to be. And it’s already past the dinner hour and Sable hasn’t reported back that they returned, to the house or to Naruto’s place. If Iruka can tell Naruto about it, why not Kakashi?

“All right, Rival,” Gai says, “I believe you have given the bar plenty of patronage for the night.” He claps Kakashi on the back and laughs loud and boisterous, and then raises his hand to pay their tab.

Kakashi groans and leans heavily on the wheelchair's handles to follow Gai through the bar and out into the night. He doesn’t push, and lets Gai propel himself along; but he does use the chair just as he would his friend’s shoulders.

“Gai?”

“Yes?”

“I’m… I’m good for Iruka, right? He’s happy with me?”

“He could do no better, and I don’t believe he would ever look for more even if he believed otherwise,” Gai says. “You two are the epitome of Love and Truth, and I can only hope to someday have what you two have found in each other.”

Kakashi sighs. It’s reassuring, but not… not quite what he needs. He asked the wrong question. “Iruka’s hiding something from me,” he murmurs. “I’m worried—”

“Iruka-sensei would never seek pleasure with another, Kakashi, don’t fret about that!”

“No, no, Gai,” he groans. He shouldn’t be having this conversation drunk. But he can’t have it sober. “He’s. I think he’s messing with Freol.”

Gai is silent for a moment, and then they stop on a bridge crossing the river. The crescent moon reflects on the water below them. “That is concerning,” Gai eventually relents. “But, I believe you have to trust him.”

Kakashi comes around to stand in front of Gai, arms outstretched. “He’s lying to me! How am I supposed to trust him when he won’t be honest with me first?!”

“That’s exactly why you need to do it, Rival. Because it’s hard—maybe impossible! But Iruka-sensei won’t put you, or the village, or anyone else in danger over this. You must give him the benefit of the doubt, you must believe that he is acting with the best of intentions, and when he’s ready—because he will be—you must be ready with open arms and an open heart to receive him.”

Kakashi falls to his knees in front of Gai and presses his forehead to Gai’s lap. “What did I ever do to deserve a friend like you?” he mutters.

Gai laughs, loud and clear. “One doesn’t deserve friends due to their actions,” he says, placing a large hand on Kakashi’s shoulder, “but attracts them due to the quality of their character.”

He sighs. “Sure, whatever you say.”

“Iru-nii—”

“My mind is made up.”

“But!”

“No. I… I have to. I have to do this.”

“We can stop her together. Kurama—”

“Just said that there’s a good chance that she’ll be stronger once I’m at the Altar. We can’t rely on him to protect me or you, should something go catastrophically wrong.”

“…I don’t like it. I wanna help.”

“You have helped. You and Kurama both. Thank you. But this part… This is something only I can do.”

“When?”

“Ah… tomorrow. I’ll leave tomorrow.”

Iruka’s kisses are longer, lingering, his touches firmer and more numerous; something’s going to happen today, and Kakashi doesn’t know how to breach the topic. He wants so desperately for Iruka to come to him, but that looks less and less likely as they go through their morning routine.

They share one last coffee-flavored kiss before Kakashi has to leave, and he makes sure to look Iruka in the eyes when he says, “I love you. See you later?”

He knows he’s not imagining the flash of guilt he sees. He waits until Iruka says, “I love you, too,” though before heading out.

Iruka didn’t say can’t wait like he usually does in response to Kakashi’s see you later. Gods, he hopes he’s gotten this all wrong. Maybe he’s just forgotten an anniversary, or a birthday.

Kakashi goes to the Tower, and once there turns to Sable and murmurs, “Put extra guards on Iruka today. No questions.”

Sable nods and leaves to make the assignment.

When Iruka arrives at the training area he and Yamato have been using, he’s surprised, but resigned, to see Otter, Shrew, and Owl flanking the other mokuton user. Yamato has his arms crossed and a deep frown set into his eyes.

Somehow, they know.

Iruka assesses the four of them. Otter is primarily a medic; they’ll be evasive, but mokuton is nothing if not resilient. Shrew is an assassin-type, a poison specialist; Iruka can’t afford to be hit by anything Shrew uses. Owl is a torture specialist, probably here only for added muscle; he can’t imagine Kakashi ordering Owl here for that reason, but he was also wrong in thinking that he’d fooled his partner into believing that everything was okay.

Yamato is going to be the trickiest. Iruka hasn’t yet beaten Yamato in a fight, and he’s not sure he can.

“Iruka,” Yamato starts, “what are you planning?”

Iruka grins, spreads his hands. “I was planning on coming to training. I see you have some extra help today.”

He’s lying through his teeth and they both know it.

Yamato groans. “Where were you last night? Senpai didn’t have meetings late; he went out with Gai-san and got drunk.”

“I told you,” Iruka lowers his hands, keeping them ready at his side. The ANBU squad are tensing like they’re getting ready to attack. “I was with Naruto.”

They won’t hurt him. Kakashi would destroy any ANBU who dared to actually hurt him.

“Iruka, I’d like to believe that we’re friends.” Yamato steps toward him. “I’d like to think that the last few months of training haven’t just developed a student-pupil bond between us, but something more.”

“Yamato—”

“I’d like to think,” he says louder, stopping a few paces away, “that we’ve developed a friendship over the last few months. Do you not feel the same?”

A glare of sunlight shines down from between the trees, and in the light he can see her and hear her hiss. He’s manipulating you. Come to Me. He presses his palm to the side of his head and winces. It’s the first time he’s heard Freol outside of a trance and it stings like having a senbon pierce his temple.

“Iruka?”

“I can’t,” he murmurs. “I won’t. I won’t endanger anyone else.” He folds his hands together and makes his seals.

Owl is already behind him, forming her own seals, but the wooden dome enfolds Iruka faster than Owl’s jutsu can release. Iruka feels the battering of multiple attacks against his dome, and takes one deep breath to hold back the swell of guilt rising. He doesn’t want to hurt anyone, least of all Yamato.

He reaches out. “Freol.”

And then she’s there, at his side and around his shoulders and neck, the heat sweltering underneath the dome. He can feel her under his skin, the Change—the Spark—and he breaks the dome and pushes the halves aside and jumps up out of the dust the ANBU’s attacks have kicked up.

Iruka’s hands form the snake seal and then he watches as the trees around them warp and twist and attack. Shrew doesn’t get a chance to throw his poison-tipped weapons his way; he’s wrapped up in thick, supple branches before he can properly react to what’s going on. Otter, also, is swarmed and overwhelmed quickly. They try to use their scalpel jutsu to cut the wood, and so Iruka grows a pair of cuffs right around their wrists and in the pattern of the growth he places intricate knotwork—one which reads seal, and with a pulse of his chakra along the roots to this growth, Otter’s chakra is sealed. Owl is clipped, bound and nearly quartered by her own struggling as the trees wrapped firmly around each of her limbs and pulled them out away from her core.

This only leaves Yamato.

Iruka stops and holds back. It’s hard, with Freol’s power rushing through him; all he wants is to release and destroy everything, but he has to temper himself. He holds up his hands. “Yamato, I don’t want to fight,” he says. “Please, just let me go.”

“I can’t do that. You know I can’t do that.”

He groans. “I don’t want to hurt you; I don’t want to hurt any of you. But I need to go.”

“I will drag you to T&I myself before I let you leave.”

Iruka closes his eyes in defeat.

Spill for Me; Burn for Me

Let him be the first of Many

Let none stand in your way

Let the Inferno rage on!

“I’m sorry, my friend,” Iruka whispers. He forms his seal and lets as little of Freol’s power flow into the wood as he can.

His is faster than Yamato’s own jutsu. Wood shards from both of them break and scatter across the forest floor, and Yamato lifts an arm to shield his eyes. That second he’s not looking is his downfall.

Iruka is suddenly right in front of him, pressing his palm to Yamato’s chest and pushing a seal directly into his center. The seal glows blue briefly, and so do Yamato’s eyes. And then the man collapses forward, his legs giving out.

The ANBU around him all shout, “Taichou!” Iruka catches him and carefully lowers Yamato to the ground. Yamato, barely conscious, glares weakly up at him.

“Why?”

Iruka shakes his head. “Just tell Kakashi that I’ll be back soon.”

“You’ll be declared Missing.”

“By whom? The Hokage, my partner?” Iruka smiles sadly. “I think we both know Kakashi well enough to know he’d never declare me Missing Nin.”

“He will, on my word.”

“But you won’t.” Iruka sighs, and looks to the sun. Freol slips away, now that the battle is over. His mind is his own again, for now. “Promise me, you’ll keep him in the village. Where it’s safe.”

“We’ll come after you,” Yamato murmurs.

Iruka shakes him carefully. “Promise me! Please. Please. I’m doing this, all of this, for him. To keep him safe. It’ll be for nothing if he comes after me. Yamato—”

“If you’re going to go, then go,” Yamato says. “But as soon as my squad and I get free, we’ll get senpai, and more shinobi, and we'll bring you home.”

Iruka shuts his eyes tight and clenches his jaw. “Fine,” he growls. He places Yamato on the ground and stands up. “Fine.” He turns, looks to the east, and runs. No looking back, no tears, no regret.

After three hours of running, he meets up with Naruto outside the village. When Naruto asks him if he’s okay—

“I’m fine.”

And then they both continue on to the ruins of Uzushio.

Kakashi sits in an emergency Council meeting and feels his patience thin with every passing second. Mitokado and Utatane are still debating whether or not it’s “worth” going after Iruka. Like it matters what they think. Kakashi looks to Tsunade, who is also watching them talk with a deep, unsettled frown on her face. Behind her, Shizune and Shikamaru are standing, awaiting orders; they both look bored, like this is a waste of time.

He’s starting to think so, too.

“Rokudaime.”

“Yes?”

Mitokado gruffly says, “Have you been paying attention at all?”

“No. I stopped back when you said, ‘As the Hokage, your presence is needed here and you’re forbidden to go.’” Kakashi gestures mildly. “Do you want me to start asking to get up to use the restroom, too? This is my partner we’re talking about.”

“All the more reason for you to not be involved,” Utatane sniffs. “You have shown significant emotional compromise when it comes to Umino.”

“I should hope so,” Tsunade huffs. “They’re married. Do you not give your spouses preferential treatments when you can?”

Both councillors shift uncomfortably. “That’s not the point,” Mitokado says. “He’s the Hokage. He has the entire village to protect and provide for, not just one person.”

“Maa, but if I can’t protect and provide for my partner, how can the village trust that I’ll do the same for them?”

“Our advice holds,” Utatane says firmly. “You must stay in the village. Send a squad if you must.”

“A squad of ANBU wasn’t enough to stop him from leaving,” Kakashi growls.

“Then send two.”

“I’m not going to risk my shinobi when it’s my partner who needs to be brought back!”

Tsunade lays her palm on his knee. “Settle down.” He sits back a bit and then she continues. “There is the issue of Iruka also being one of the few remaining members of the Senju clan.”

Utatane sniffs. “What issue? The issue being that he will not be assisting to continue his clan lineage? Because that is a discussion for another time.”

“You—”

“Kakashi, don’t,” Tsunade snarls, putting her arm out. She glares at the councillors. “You will not speak ill of the Senju clan.”

“Have you formally adopted him back into the clan, then, Tsunade-hime?”

“He doesn’t need it,” Tsunade says. “Kohari was in good standing. Her son is acknowledged. But besides that, as far as I understand it, because the Hatake clan has fewer standing members, Iruka should actually be recognized as part of that clan, as he’s married to its clan head.”

Kakashi preens. Hatake Iruka does have a nice ring to it. Maybe he can get Iruka to formally change his name when he comes home…

“Barring titles and clan names,” Shikamaru says from the side, “Iruka-sensei is important to the village in other ways. He’s an incredible teacher, for one. But even more than that, he is important to Naruto.”

“Yes, who is also conveniently missing,” Mitokado says. “Can we assume that Umino took our jinchūriki as well as abandoning the village?”

“Say that aga—”

“Kakashi! Sit back!”

The sound of a fist hitting a jaw and bones crunching together startles everyone; Mitokado turns his head with the blow and cradles his mouth. In front of him, Shikamaru stands seething, his fist still in place from his punch.

“Shika—”

“Don’t. Ever. Imply that Iruka-sensei would kidnap Naruto,” Shikamaru whispers, deadly. “He wouldn’t abandon Konoha, and he wouldn’t take Naruto with him. If anyone is responsible for Naruto being the man he is today, it’s Iruka-sensei. He is vital to this village.”

The room is silent for a few breaths, until Kakashi reaches out and pushes Shikamaru aside gently. He glares at the councillors and says, “I’m going after him. I’d like to see either or both of you try and stop me. I leave Tsunade-sama in charge of the village in my place.”

He stands up and stalks out of the room. Just outside the door, Sable, Otter, Boar, and Tenzō in his Cat mask stand at attention. He nods to all of them, and says to Tenzō, “Be ready in ten minutes. I’ll meet you on the roof.”

The ANBU scatter silently.

It takes three days of hard running to get to Uzushio, with Naruto getting help from Kurama and Iruka tapping into the power of Freol. Iruka is surprised that he’s able to keep up with Naruto in his Nine-Tail’s Cloak, and also that neither of them get tired until sunset on the second day. They set up traps and barriers and agree to both sleep through the night, letting the traps do the work of being their watch—it’s not to mission standards, but Iruka wants to face the Altar fully rested.

They stop close to the outskirts of the ruins, and Naruto says, “Kurama says she’s close. Can you feel her?”

Iruka nods. The day is hot and there are few trees here for shade. The shimmer of heat in the distance, the beating of the sun on the top of his head; he can feel her around his neck like a noose, looking over his shoulder and urging him forward.

Relight the Altar

Give unto the world My mercy

He winces at Freol’s voice in his head. Naruto stiffens beside him, but doesn’t react otherwise.

“You can’t go any further,” Iruka says.

“What?”

“Do you see the shimmer in the air?” He points out over the ruins. “That’s her poison. The radiation that forces the Change.”

“Kurama—”

“Can’t protect you once I’m at the Altar, remember? If she gets too strong and Kurama can’t protect you, you could become Changed, just like I did. We can’t risk that.”

Naruto crosses his arms. “I don’t like it.”

“We’ll all be okay,” Iruka says, putting his hand on Naruto’s shoulder. He smiles weakly. “I’ll be okay.”

Then he stands up and takes off toward the cave he knows is in the distance, where Freol’s Altar is calling him. He stays out of the ruins of the village proper, where the radiation has settled thick and cloying.

Be not afraid

You are already Changed

And can not Change again

Iruka still keeps his distance, feeling the warmth of Freol breathing down the back of his neck as he approaches the cave from the north. He’s not afraid of further Change; he’s afraid of losing control of himself, like he had back when the Change first settled.

Of all things, he must remain in control.

He stops at the top of a cliff overlooking what once was Uzushio, and beyond it, the bay the village is settled on. His father and Naruto’s mother both came from here; Kushina-san as a jinchūriki, but his father as a refugee. Iruka sometimes wonders what his life could have been like, had his parents stayed here to raise him…

But no.

His mother was Senju. Once the razing of Uzushio began, she would have taken her family and returned to Konoha. Iruka smiles; he might have the blood of Uzushio, but he was always meant to be a Konoha shinobi.

He climbs down the cliffside to the cavern, the same one he, Izumo, and Kotetsu had stopped at so many months ago. There are carvings etched into the rock around the entrance, easier to spot now in the daylight. The same markings are scarred into Iruka’s back, put there by Freol and infected with her essence and power. He almost hadn’t survived.

Mercy is Found Only in Shadow

He’ll never forget it. He literally can’t. The words are carved into his skin—nevermind that they’re in some ancient dialect, because Iruka can read it now. He only hopes that this time, passing underneath the archway doesn’t open him to Freol even further than he already is. Or that he can cross the threshold without being marked; that would be nice. Iruka takes a deep, steadying breath, and steps into the dark.

No pain, no cuts.

Iruka sighs heavily and continues further into the cave, keeping one hand on the wall to keep himself from tripping too much as it gets darker. Before the light from the entrance disappears entirely, Iruka slips a small storage scroll from a pouch on his vest and releases the seal on a palm-sized flashlight. The bulb flickers when he turns it on, likely affected by the proximity to Freol. He just hopes it holds out until he reaches the Altar.

He follows the compulsion, down and down, deeper under the earth, until the cave opens up into a large room with intricately carved columns, broken, rotted crates along the walls, and a large stone slab raised on a dais, complete with its own inscription. Iruka steps closer and flicks his flashlight over the inscription to read:

Here is Fire; Here is Change

Here is the Altar; Here is the Spark

Set the Seal and Light the way

That Her Breath may Come through The Door

To Curse, To End, To Change

Mercy is Found Only in Shadow

Iruka tucks the flashlight into his elbow and begins forming seals for a mokuton jutsu. With it, he builds a stack upon the Altar, kindling and a few pieces of fuel logs included. Once all the wood is there, he sets the flashlight aside and arranges the kindling and fuel into a criss-cross build, and then…

Then he hesitates. He could still destroy the Altar now, and rid himself of Freol for good. Or at least, that’s the theory that he and Kurama are going on based on the scrolls and information they have. If he lights the Altar and calls Freol back, though, there’s a good chance he’ll never be rid of her and that he’ll have created a serious problem for the entire world; however, he needs answers. And ultimately, he wants to try to make peace with her.

If Naruto can tame Kurama, surely Iruka can make a pact with Freol.

He forms the tiger hand seal and blows a small katon into the pile of wood to catch the kindling.

And once the fire is blazing hot, he can feel her sliding over his skin, burning him to the blood and heating him through. He hears the hiss of blades on a whetstone as Freol rejoices upon her Altar. His eyes dry out and his tongue turns to lead in his mouth while he tries to focus on her form. She is the feeling of standing in front of a raging fire. Of sticking your hand into a smith’s blazing forge. She looks like how it feels to break, to melt, to be unwound and changed and reformed. She is the screams of a thousand soldiers in battle, the tears of a small child left alone in a destroyed village, the heart-wrenching cries of a mother at her children’s grave.

She is Fire. She is Change. She is War.

“Hello, my Spark,” she says.

This is Freol.

And Iruka realizes that he’s overestimated himself. He is fucked.

Kakashi isn’t surprised to see Naruto standing outside the ruins of Uzushio when he and the ANBU squad finally catch up. The sun is just beginning its descent over the treeline behind them, their shadows long and dark. Naruto grins, but it doesn’t quite reach his eyes.

“Hi, Kakashi-sensei.”

“Where’s Iruka?”

Naruto motions over his shoulder, into the ruins. “Probably talking with Freol already. He’s been gone for hours.”

“You let him go alone?!”

His grin falls and his face darkens. Kakashi instantly feels guilty for snapping. “He and Kurama both said that Kurama can’t protect me from her, not once the Altar is lit.”

“That’s what he’s doing? He’s going to… what does that mean?”

“She wants him to revive her. To light a fire on her altar as like, an offering or something.”

“Again, I ask: you let him go alone??”

“She can’t change him again! He’s… he’s safe from her. Kind of. But we’re—we’ve gotta stay back.” Naruto takes a defensive stance. “I’ll fight all of you to keep you from going after him.”

“Naruto.”

“He specifically wanted you, Kakashi-sensei, to stay home,” Naruto grits. “You weren’t supposed to come. If Freol finds out about your connection to Iru-nii, she’ll use you against him. She’s already used me against him.”

A chill races down Kakashi’s spine. The ANBU at his back all tense as well. “What do you mean?”

“She knows I’m important to him,” Naruto murmurs. “He didn’t want to tell me what she said. But Kurama heard it, and told me instead. She calls him her ‘Spark’, the one who will ‘rebuild her inferno’. She kept telling him to come to her, over and over again until finally he just snapped at her saying like, what if I don’t. And she,” Naruto snarls, fists shaking at his side, “she said ‘If you will not come, the Inferno will rage within; and you will be the Spark that burns everything you love. And the first sacrifice upon my new Altar will be’—” Naruto stops, looks away.

Kakashi finishes for him, “You.”

Naruto nods. “I had been sitting next to him at the time, while he was in the trance. She knew.” He gestures wildly, continuing loudly, “You can’t go after him. The only reason Iru-nii is able to work around the threat she’s made on me is because of Kurama. You don’t have that kind of protection! If Freol figures out how important you are to Iru-nii, she’ll use you as leverage and-and—if Kurama can’t even stand up to her if she’s at her full strength—”

“I understand,” Kakashi holds up a hand to stop Naruto’s tirade. He sighs. “I don’t like it by any means. And the second it feels like something has changed, we’re moving in regardless. But for now, we’ll stay back, okay?”

He gets a wide grin in response.

And then the earth shifts and rocks beneath their feet and in the distance, hundreds of trees begin to sprout all at once out of the ruins. Everyone gathers at the edge of the treeline and watches a new forest grow from nothing, and Kakashi asks, “Cat? Did you teach this to him?”

“No, Rokudaime-sama. We never covered this. I determined it to be too advanced for his chakra levels.”

“Then what the fuck is going on?!”

“The radiation is disappearing!” Naruto points out. “Look, see! The shimmer in the air? The more the trees grow, the less there’s a shimmer. And Kurama says he can’t sense Freol anymore!”

The squad follows Kakashi into the ruins, and Naruto catches up quickly to run alongside him and leads the way. Kakashi had planned on just following his gut; following Naruto, who has been to Freol’s cave once before, is a much better idea.

“Iruka,” he says, introducing himself.

“You are my Spark,” Freol says. “You need no other title.”

“I’d prefer if you’d just call me by my name.”

She continues as though he hadn’t spoken. “Now that my Altar is lit, the Door is open and I can breathe into this plane. Tell me, have you brought kindling for the Inferno?”

Iruka glowers. “About that. You can’t honestly think that threatening me is the way to get what you want all the time?! I’m not going to become this Inferno, or whatever. I’ve sparked your Altar, haven’t I?”

“You stand before me with no kindling?”

The fire rages higher and hotter, and Iruka resists the urge to cover his eyes. “I’m here to talk to you! I want to propose a truce.”

“You call upon My Power. You accept My Blessing. You have come and relit the blaze, that My Curse will be released upon the world; and yet you dare to presume I would humor a truce? You have taken and taken and taken from Me, but what shall you give back? What do you have to give that I could care to want?”

Iruka takes a second to breathe—the heat in the cavern makes it hard to take a deep breath. It’s so dry. His throat scratches against itself. “What—What do you want?” As soon as the words leave his lips, though, he realizes that whatever she says in response, whatever it is she wants as part of this truce… She’s going to ask for too much, for something he will be unable to give.

“You will give unto Me yourself, that you will use My Blessing and My Power to bring Change to others in My Name. You will build Me an army, and with it you will set the world ablaze. The world will burn and be consumed upon My Altar and with each sacrifice I will grow ever stronger. As My Spark, you too will grow strong. You will be My General, and will command this world in My Name. This is what you will do. I seek no truce. Place upon the Altar your Seal, your essence, and give yourself fully to Me.”

He drops his shoulders, his head, closes his eyes. He had hoped, so dearly, that he could make a bond with Freol similar to the one Naruto has with Kurama. But it seems… it seems she can’t be reasoned with. He steps forward to the Altar, wincing as the flames reach out and lick at his skin and sear his clothing. He won’t make it out of this cavern without serious burns.

Iruka shifts through hand seals, and then punches out at the slab of rock with an arm which quickly transforms into a tree, then into multiple branches. The slab cracks, and the fire slides to the side. He pushes further, finding a crack in the slab and worming a branch into it. He forces the growth until finally the Altar’s slab splits in two, and the fire falls down into the breach.

“How dare you! Rebuild the Altar! My Inferno will ruin you and all that you are!”

“I think. You are nothing without this hunk of rock tethering you to the world,” Iruka smirks, stepping back from the flames. He molds his chakra and forms roots to grow up and around the Altar. “This world is safe from you, so long as you can’t reach through your ‘door’, is that right?”

“You were supposed to be My revival! My Spark!”

“Sorry to disappoint.” The slab breaks further into pieces.

“You will be weak without My Power! Rebuild the Altar and you will have all the Power you could ever want!”

Iruka shakes his head. “I don’t want power,” he says. “I just want my life back. The life you took from me the moment you marked me for the Change.”

“My Inferno will rage! I will burn all you love—”

“Good luck doing that from whatever hell goddesses go to.”

The roots climb and wrap and break and soon the altar and the dais both are shattered into pieces. The fire is smothered to coals. And Freol—the overbearing presence of fire and change and war is gone. Iruka leans over and presses his hands to his knees and pants heavily.

The hair-raising static of radiation is still thick in the air.

He turns his palms over in his lap and stares at them in the low light the dying coals provide.

“Shodaime-sama,” he mutters, “if you really are my ancestor. Please. Guide me.”

The World of Trees is something he’s only read about in history books. He probably doesn’t have the chakra to do it. But how else is he supposed to get rid of the radiation? He converts his chakra into wood; wood is a source of life; the wood will absorb the radiation… right?

Iruka kneels on the rocky ground and makes his hand seals. Then he guides his chakra outwards, slowly and evenly, to feel each individual tree he plans on sprouting all over what had been Freol’s territory, what had become Uzushio. It takes time, and strength he can barely muster, but soon enough he feels the trees outside reaching the age they need to be. He releases his hands and drops his arms to the side.

There’s an echo of footsteps in the cavern and Iruka sighs as he falls to the side.

He doesn’t hit the ground.

Kakashi slides in as Iruka lists to the right, catching him around the shoulders and cradling his head in his arms. Iruka looks up at him with half-lidded eyes and smiles, exhausted. “Kakashi,” he murmurs softly, and then passes out.

He turns and snarls, “Otter!”

“On it!”

They’re beside him in a flicker, hands hovering over Iruka’s chest alight in healing jutsu. The rest of the squad, plus Naruto, surround them facing outward to the room; everyone’s on alert, regardless of Naruto saying that Kurama can’t sense Freol, whatever that means.

Kakashi keeps his eyes on Iruka’s lax face. There’s one red, shiny burn on his cheek, which he so very much wants to soothe but he knows that Otter will have an easier time healing injuries that haven’t been touched. He will give Iruka the best chance he can.

“The altar is broken,” Naruto draws his attention to the dais at the end of the cavern. Well, what had once been a dais and the altar—now a mess of shattered stone and overgrown roots. Kakashi smiles despite the situation. Iruka did that, he must have. That’s what he came to do, Kakashi realizes. He came to destroy Freol.

This stupid man. Gods, he loves him so fucking much.

He just wishes Iruka would have talked to him.

“Rokudaime?”

“Go.”

Otter nods, still healing. “He’s chakra exhausted, and has moderate burns on sixty-percent of his body. The burns will be healed momentarily; the exhaustion will require proper rest and recuperation, but he can be moved once the burns are dealt with.”

“He was burned under his clothes?”

They nod again. “His pain receptors are reacting to the mystical palm jutsu as such. I don’t want to speculate.”

“Speculate anyway.”

Otter says, “From what we know of Freol, they’re likely radiation burns. His clothes will have to be removed and destroyed to prevent further infection. And I’ll have to check everyone else here after I’m done with Iruka-sensei.”

Kakashi sighs. “Naruto—”

Naruto says quickly, “His spare uniform should be in its normal spot in his vest.”

Boar stays at his and Otter’s side, but Cat, Sable, and Naruto spread out and explore the cavern while Iruka is being healed. Kakashi plays with Iruka’s hair carefully and watches his breath draw in and out of slightly parted lips. Out of respect for Iruka’s distaste for kissing in front of the ANBU he doesn’t, but gods—for one terrible, horrible moment when he watched Iruka fall, he thought he’d never get to kiss Iruka again.

But he’s alive. And he’ll live.

Iruka moans at the feeling of hot water streaming down his body. He missed warm showers in the morning, and also getting to sleep past sunrise. He’s not sure what his plan would have been if Freol had still been in his head when the colder winter months caught up with Konoha. The mist of the warm water in the bathroom clouds around him and he doesn’t fear the shimmer of Freol out of the corner of his eye.

She’s gone, her influence is gone, and she can’t come back. He made sure of that. Naruto had taken pieces of the altar and scattered them across the world, so even if someone were to try, there’s a fairly good chance that it’ll never be put back together again. One large piece, containing much of the inscription from the slab, is actually sealed away in a scroll—Naruto brought this one to Mount Myōboku, apparently.

Iruka’s blissfully alone in his head again.

Three soft knocks on the door—Iruka smiles and says, “Come in.” And a minute later the shower door is slid aside and the mist escapes while Kakashi steps in to stand behind him, wrapping his arms around Iruka’s chest and pressing kisses to his shoulders. Kakashi is sleep-warm against his back, warmer than the water spraying onto his chest.

“I missed you,” Kakashi murmurs.

“I’ve only been in the shower for ten minutes,” Iruka laughs. Kakashi pulls his wet hair aside and kisses his neck, licking up warm water.

“You know what I mean.”

And he does. He knows he was distant while he was dealing with Freol. And he’s apologized; but that doesn’t change Kakashi’s previous feelings of abandonment.

He changes the subject. “There’s still a bit of hot water, if you want a shower.”

“Hmm. Just want you.”

“You’ve got me,” Iruka says. “Always.”

Kakashi’s hand slides lower on his body.

“Want it here?” Kakashi asks, “Or in the bedroom?”

“Bedroom, please, Rokudaime-sama.”

Kakashi reaches around him and turns off the water, and leads him away. They stop to towel off, but then Kakashi kisses him and mutters against his lips, “As you say, Hatake-san.”

#kakairu maze challenge 2021 #in pieces it is safe #hatake kakashi #umino iruka #kakairu #my writing

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theastrophilearchitect · 3 years

Text

Just keep swimming, just keep swimming...

Writing journey #4.

15/05/2021 07.22 My break has officially been over for five days, and i have done some writing, but it’s been incredibly inconsistent, so I decided to start this blog post over. Bay Tree has been archived, and though FSB isn’t done, I’ve realised I need to take a step back. It’s why writers leave weeks at a time between drafts--so when they return, they’re in a different mindset, and can improve their work.

For this same reason, I need to take a step back before I finish my outline. My thought process is becoming monotonous, which means I’m losing my excitement. When you start a project, you have the idea in your head as perfect, and when those ‘vibes’ become tangible, it is less exciting. That’s unavoidable. But I just need to take a step back, so when I return, I have fresh ideas, and the plot becomes more exciting to me.

So today, I’m going to start brainstorming a new idea I had, which I don’t have an alias for yet, and I have an idea to essentially bind every project I have together, but not in Grishaverse- or Shadowhunters-style where you need to read ten books just to read the one you want. Just a nod to anyone who does read multiple, like when Aelin falls through worlds and sees Rhys and Feyre for a split second.

So. Let’s brainstorm.

My plan, I think, is to alternate weekly. This week, I’ll work on the new one, next week I’ll do FSB. I could just take this new idea and apply it to FSB, except I just don’t see how that would work. I have different worlds in mind, and this new one is a fantasy where FSB is sci-fi(/fantasy. It’s kinda both).

16/05/2021 07.07 I really wish I was a pantser. Even though I haven’t got to the editing stage, my favourite part of writing is implementing new ideas and making changes, but I’m just not a pantser. I need to know where each part is going. Instead, I have to sit here, brainstorming, for days, to figure everything out.

18/05/2021 07.06 I did a lot of work on the 16th, but I was busy yesterday, and didn’t get any writing done, because, when I was free, I was just reading. So, I’ve decided I’m going to at least write before I leave the house, which gives me about 45 minutes this morning.

23/05/2021 18.30 Based on the fact it has been five days, I think you can tell how good I’ve been about keeping writing. The problem is that I don’t actually have much past a concept for my new project, so I’m trying to figure out how, precisely, I could merge the two projects. FSB is interesting, but doesn’t have a huge amount of depth, which adding the characters from the new project would absolutely do, while the new project is lacking plot, which FSB (at least the first book I’ve planned) does. So, I’m going to start a new Scrivener project, and consider how I can merge the two concepts while implementing both plots.

Is it too much? I have only two main characters in FSB, but five in the newer one, which gives me seven main characters, divided into three groups. And do I want to write a book with so many separate storylines? I know readers (myself included) always end up favouring one storyline over another, getting annoyed when certain POVs come up. I don’t know what to do.

I could keep the new project, but implement FSB? Hold up. New Project (NP) has two protagonists who could undergo a similar development to the protagonists of FSB... I had a plan for the male protagonist of FSB, his arc, which wouldn’t work for NP’s male protagonist, but would work perfectly for its female protagonist...

Tumblr’s glitching. It wouldn’t let me reblog a post earlier, and now it won’t let me save this draft. Please, no.

Okay, so I had to copy what I’d written for today, disconnect and reconnect to the Wi-Fi, then wait for my drafts to load to paste it. Going great!

21.00 So I didn’t get a huge amount done, because I caught up doing ~evening things~, but I at least have a plan going forward, which is an accomplishment

30/05/2021 09.29 I’ve spent the last couple weeks doing everything I can to avoid writing, but i now have an insane amount of free time, so I have no excuse. I want to use this time in a productive way, and, for me, that means writing.

03/06/2021 10.31 I swear to god, I’ve had ‘writing’ on my to-do list every single day, except not doing it is probably my own fault, because it’s been so far down on the list. Also, I’m doing a buddy read, but am also unfortunately descending into a reading slump, so even reading 50 pages takes me about 90 minutes--they’re not even long pages.

I actually went back onto my old Wattpad account earlier, where I found a load of old, unfinished stuff, but none of it was as bad as I thought it would be, and the ideas weren’t bad. I just really have no idea what it is I’m writing right now, and I hate trying to figure it out.

11.30 There are so many Ss in the word ‘assassin’ this is not okay.

This is actually going so well. I have two storylines in my head, a complex cast of characters, and I’m so looking forward to plotting this.

04/06/2021 08.04 Look at me, two days in a row. Anyways, I’m thinking I ought to name these characters ASAP, because it’ll be easier to shape them to their names than it will be to find a name which fits them once they’ve been shaped.

14.41 Here’s what I’m realising: I like to pants plots, but I can’t do that while I’m actually drafting, so I think my plan is actually to bullet point everything that happens, then revise that, then start drafting, so the story is basically set in the first draft.

I’ve actually gone through a lot of stuff--I have workable plot material!

17.16 So, me being me, I’ve semi-outlined (I say semi-, it’s more like a tenth) a trilogy, meaning I have ideas for three books following this storyline, and it... makes sense. It’s the kind of story where I can follow multiple arcs, a few at a time, instead of several overarching ones, or maybe it’s just that I’m letting myself.

07/06/2021 16.44 I don’t have a damn clue what I’ve spent the day doing. I haven’t done anything in a couple days because it was the weekend and I was busy, but I’m back now. The thing is, I haven’t spent the day reading, watching, drawing, or doing anything, really--it’s escaped me. But, at the very least, I’ve relaxed, so who cares?

I’m not applying story structure to the ideas I’m having quite yet--rather, I’m just developing them to see how they bloom on their own, then I’ll fit it in; it just seems like a more natural and effective way to develop.

Yeah, no. It’s too late in the day for this. I have zero motivation.

08/06/2021 09.49 Maybe I’ll accomplish something today; who knows? Certainly not me.

I’m now applying the 3-act structure, but I’m realising I have way too many details worked out for this--switching to more acts.

22.20 Why am I doing this to myself? I wish I could say I’m not entirely sure, but it’s because I can’t sleep, because this project, and my character Lihan, are the only things I can think about, so here I am. I don’t want to be a night writer, but que sera sera (I wish I could type accents on an English keyboard).

23.22 I accomplished more in the last hour on this project than I have in the last four days.

09/06/2021 - 1,115 words 09.29 I really hope I don’t prove today that night-writing is my sweet spot--I don’t want it to be. Can the world just let me have a functional sleep schedule??

Anyways, so, as I’ve mentioned before, I use Scrivener, which enables me to sort which documents are part of the manuscript from the ones that aren’t. I’ve been working outside of the manuscript, but I think I’m going to move them into it--I have a plan I believe will be more effective for my own drafting. I think I very much need the events to be set in stone before I begin writing in actual prose, so how can I do that? Especially when I also enjoy pantsing, but not in prose?

Here’s the plan: I plot out the main events, then bullet point everything in very high detail, similar to what many people call a zero draft, in which they draft a book in short form. I’ll sort the bullet points into chapters (but not scenes, because as I discovered with Bay Tree, I find scene-blocking makes the narrative less natural), leave it alone a while, then revise, so I can have my plot more-or-less set in stone before I work on prose.

As a result, I’m going to shift my plotting into the manuscript section, because it is, essentially, an early draft, and also I want a word count as a progress metre.

13/06/2021 - 1,611 words 8.18 Alas, I have been busy the last few days, but I’m here now.

9.20 The amount of secrets and who-knows-what in this story is genuinely absurd, but I’m sure I’ll clean it up eventually.

14.01 A few days ago, I came across a post about balancing large casts, which is exactly what I have, and the first thing it mentioned was the two-trait rule, in which every character has two traits completely unique to them, to help both reader and writer differentiate. Which I’m now going to implement.

14.42 I have these two characters, and I know exactly what I want their dynamic to be, except I can’t decide who should be which part of it.

I have made my decision. It probably works better now, but it does alter their roles, so I need to fix that.

I literally swapped them round solely because I decided one was taller than the other and thought it would be more interesting if the short one was the sadist. Why do I make my own life so difficult?

14/06/2021 - 1,574 words 11.08 I didn’t make an enormous amount of progress yesterday, but I did make some, and made notes of ideas for relationship arcs last night, so I count that a victory (forced optimism--surprisingly effective). I’m currently just working through bullet-pointing book one, while making notes of events I want in the rest of the series (I’m projecting three books, and telling myself I will finish them). I’m currently fiddling with one of my storylines to see how I can mould it to FSB’s and OH MY GOODNESS I JUST HAD A GREAT IDEA must take notes, one moment pleaseeee.

Okay, so I have four bullet points for relationship arcs and an idea to adjust one of the storylines--I’d say I have six main characters, two of whom are really the protagonists, two of which are my favourites, and the other two are fun, but in need of development. They’re split into a group of four and a pair, and I’m definitely more into the storyline of the four, mostly because the four contains my two favourites, and it’s more developed than that of the pair.

I’ve been keeping a list of things to add: motivations, loose plot threads, plot points I want to include--I really need to re-organise it.

On another note, I am so glad I named the characters as early as I did. I’m debating having two of the characters swap names, but I don’t think I will, because I will absolutely mix them up, and one of them is part of the perfect ship name.

My mouse isn’t working. I changed the batteries, but it’s not working, so now I get the joy of trying to figure out if the batteries I put in are just old or if the mouse no longer works, which would suck.

Yes, I’m going to describe this. Mostly because when I changed the batteries the first time, it took a minute to stop working, and this will waste a minute. So, first set of batteries, which we’ll call set 1, don’t work. I don’t know if it’s both or just one, but if it’s one, I don’t want to throw away both. I take out set 1, I put in set 2. Set 2 works perfectly. So it’s not the mouse. Now I take out battery 2B, and replace it with 1A, so I have 1A and 2A in here. I know 2A works, but I’m not sure about 1A, but the mouse works, so 1A is fine. Let’s replace 1A with 1B.

Yep. 1B is the problem child. 1A works fine, but 1B doesn’t. Lovely. Crisis averted. It would’ve really sucked it I had to get a new mouse. And back to writing!

12.13 I’m bouncing between documents as I organise, which means my word count is actually decreasing, so I feel like I’m making significantly less progress than I am.

I just realised my two protagonists are cousins. I’ve had it in my head that one’s father was the brother of the other’s father, but somehow I didn’t realise that makes them cousins.

I’m about to delete a list because I’ve reformatted it--my word count is currently at 1,958, but is really about to drop.

AND NOW WE’RE AT 1,572. My session word count is -32. Minus thirty-two. I hate it here, but it’s fine, because we’re ~developing~.

15/06/2021 - 2,113 words 09.39 It’s not even technically summer yet, but it’s too hot, and I hate it here. All the windows are open, so everything’s cool, there’s a nice breeze, and lots of light, but the birds are so loud, and I have to keep all the doors closed because the open windows send them swaying and slamming. You know when you close a door when all the windows are open and it slams? Yep. Not into it.

I feel like every day I try a new way to organise my plotting. I’m unsure as to whether that’s helping me or holding me back, because it forces me to review what I have, which usually sparks new ideas, but I’m not convinced I’ll ever get to the end as long as I keep doing this.

21/06/2021 13.40 I spent the latter half of last week with zero motivation, then I was busy at the weekend, but I’m here now. I’ve been trying to make myself write basically all day--I have a plan, and a list of things I’ve come up with the last few days, but I just couldn’t make myself do it. I’m not in a good mood, but maybe this will help.

I have, however, just reminded myself that I need to prepare this week’s post, because I sincerely doubt either this or my ongoing Recent reads will be ready for Friday. Actually, if I do quite a bit of writing this week, this post might be, but I’m not willing to bet on it.

And oh, crap, now I just want to write a blog post.

No. No I don’t. I started looking at the list of ideas I had, and now I’m just not feeling it. I’m pretty sure when I open my document for this project I’ll lose all motivation too, but it’s worth a shot.

There’s a specific relationship in an anime I recently watched that I want to pull apart--there’s this ship, and the author of the manga has called the two characters ‘soulmates’. There’s just this huge amount of tension between the two, and I want to re-watch the show because I love it, but also so I can take notes to figure out what was so effective about it.

13.53 I’ve been doing this for 13 minutes, but I do think I need to leave this project/outline alone for a bit, give it an opportunity to ruminate, to evolve. In truth, I may not even come back to it until I’ve re-watched the anime I was talking about so I can tear that ship to pieces.

17.33 So I just learned brainstorming is apparently significantly easier on paper. Hm. I’ve just worked out so damn much, stuff I’ve been struggling with.

18.00 I have successfully tied up so many plot threads, simply by working with pen and paper. This is revolutionary. (I know, not really, but it is for me, someone adamant about working with a keyboard and monitor)

22/06/2021 09.42 Seriously, why did I never try actually working on paper before? Something about holding a pen to paper and scribbling and drawing a mindmap--it just works. I’ve been obstinate about avoiding working on paper because I hate physically writing, yet here we are.

25/06/2021 11.09 I’m really not managing much reading at the moment--since I started reading manga, my attention span has just gone down the drain. I’m currently reading Mister Impossible by Maggie Stiefvater, and I don’t think it helped that I had to stop less than a third of the way in to do a buddy read, but I just don’t have much motivation to read it, though I do so want to. I haven’t been listening much to audiobooks lately either, because when I’d usually listen--when I’m getting dressed, waking up, going to bed etc.--I just want to listen to music, because I also recently fell down the well of k-pop, and the group whose discography I’m getting to know at the moment is BTS. Basic, but they’re the fifth group I’m doing, and they have so many songs. Which would happen after eight years, but still.

I want to read so, so badly, but I just don’t feel like reading Mister Impossible. But I do want to finish it before reading anything else. I think I’ll finish my current audiobook, then if I’m still feeling stagnated in Mister Impossible, I’ll switch to the audiobook of that, then just take a break from reading until I’m ready to actually read.

But this post is for writing, not reading. I did write on the 23rd, but I just didn’t update this post. The 24th I was busy, but my wall is now covered in post-it notes of world-building, characters, gods, plot points, and a whole load of other stuff.

Also, I had an idea for a book title this morning--not for this one, just in general--and when I went to add it to my list, I found a title that would so suit this project. I don’t want to say it, but let’s just say this project will be called ItLotG--or not. That’s a hideous combination of letters. I promise it is actually a good title.

11.52 I’m having another crisis over these two characters. I’m thinking it would make more sense to have L’s betrayal ‘arc’ initiated before the catalyst, or rather have it be the catalyst, except the problem there is that they’re not in the city they need to be in to receive that offer.

UNLESS,,,, what if this point happens just while they’re in the capital.... I’ve got it.

17.16 I’ve been taking notes this whole time of everything I want to happen in books 2 and 3, and I have so much now i think they’ll be so much easier to plot than this one.

The downside of working mostly on paper is that my plans on Scrivener have been refined to one document, which is now only 878 words.

Right now, there’s a glaring hole between the midpoint and the ending, but my climax is one of those where the climax itself is a very small part of a bigger event, so if I figure out what I want to happen in this big event which is essentially the whole of the third act, I should be able to fill in the rest of Act Two with the setup for that.

So I’m leaving it there for both today and this post. In the last month or so, I decided to start over and mash two projects together, which created a whole new storyline I love, and now I’m mostly done with the first outline. I want to treat outlines as more than just preparation for drafts, because I find notes so much easier to edit than actual prose, and I hate writing without a clear idea of where I’m going.

I think I’m going to call these ‘runs’--an outline is a run through, a draft a run through, so I’m nearly done with my first run, and I’m very proud of that, so go, go write the idea you have, drink some water, take a nap if you need one, eat if you haven’t eaten in a few hours, and I’ll be back with another writing update innnnnnn probably august, honestly.

Go write that idea!

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lallemanting · 4 years

Note

hiii! i just got an idea and i cant get over it 👉👈 could you maybe write a fluffy fwog ficlet about eliott's birthday?

hello!! thank you for the prompt! it was so nice to revisit my fwog boys again. hope you enjoy!! 💛

When Eliott had fallen asleep the night before, arms wrapped around Lucas' waist as he held him close, he had imagine waking up on his birthday a little differently. Quieter, slower, much more Lucas close, and skin brushing and tender kisses pressed to the corner of his mouth, everything.

Instead, he’s awakened by something heavy landing straight onto his stomach, knocking the air out of him, and the sound of Lucas shouting out in the hallway.

“Luna!”

And then, before he can even orient himself enough to blink away the sleep and open his eyes, he’s being attacked with wet kisses from his rather overexcited and overgrown puppy.

“Shit,” he hears Lucas curse as he fights through the covers in an attempt to push her off just enough to breathe. It takes a moment, but eventually Eliott is able to sit up enough that he can reach out and scratch Luna’s ear in just the right spot that she calms down and stays, sprawled across Eliott’s legs.

“Fuck, I’m sorry,” Lucas says panting as he sits down on the corner of the bed and kicks off his shoes. “I was trying to take her out before you woke up so she wouldn’t do exactly that.”

Eliott can’t help the smile that spreads over his face, the love he feels swell in his chest as Luna buries her head into his leg and Lucas turns to him, face flushed from what must have been a rather epic battle of wills.

"I guess she really wanted to wish you happy birthday first.”

Eliott can only laugh, reaching out his hand to grab Lucas’ hand and pull gently, urging him closer, their fingers lighting up in swirls of gold as they interlace. Eliott never gets tired of it, how they shine together.

“She won then.”

“She did.”

“I really wouldn’t expect anything else.”

Lucas leans over and presses a kiss to Eliott’s shoulder, his skin bare now that summer has settled over the city. Well that, and the way Lucas turns to drawing patterns on Eliott’s chest when he can’t sleep, the soft glow soothing him, warm against his palm. So Eliott likes to keep the canvas ready when he can, should the need arrive.

“Okay, so I had a whole plan,” Lucas whispers, his chin resting on Eliott’s shoulder, the feeling of his breath against Eliott’s neck still managing to send shivers down his spine even after all these years together. “So can you lie back down and pretend to be asleep and I’ll wrestle our stubborn child out to the kitchen for her breakfast? I’ll be back in a minute.”

“Okay,” Eliott says, laughing a little as he turns and leans in for a good morning kiss. But Lucas only backs away and whispers in a minute, tempting Luna back out of the room with a treat he had hidden in his pocket as Eliott sinks back down into his pillows.

It’s the best start to a birthday he’s ever had.

In the end it takes Lucas a little more than a minute. Eliott can hear him moving around the apartment, things clanging together in the kitchen and Luna barking for her meal. He closes his eyes and lets the golden light of morning wash over him, feels the way it settles in his heart, lighting him up, gentle and warm.

Eventually the door to their bedroom opens and Lucas sneaks in, carrying a tray of food that he sets down on the table next to the bed before sprinting back towards the door to shut it. He must see Eliott’s expression because he rolls his eyes fondly as he walks back over to the bed.

“Just until we finish eating,” he says, “otherwise she’ll get everything.”

“Fine,” Eliott replies, but then he sits up and opens his arms towards Lucas who finally, gratefully, comes to him.

Lucas crawls across the expanse of sheets, tangled and still warm from where Eliott’s been lounging until he reaches Eliott and pulls himself into his lap.

Lucas reaches up and brushes his fingers across Eliott’s cheeks, as Eliott’s hands find Lucas’ waist, and Eliott can see the way Lucas watches the way his cheeks light up at the touch before he finally brings his gaze back to Eliott’s.

“Happy birthday, my love.”

“Thank you,” Eliott says and he smiles, leaning in to finally get his first birthday kiss.

He can feel how Lucas smiles against his lips as he pulls him close, can already tell that this will be a morning that’s spent full of kisses and laughter and kisses that become laughter, bright and clear and beautiful. Eliott’s favorite kind of all.

They pull back for a moment, foreheads pressed together as they just breathe each other in, and Eliott can’t help but turn his head and press a soft kiss to the inside of Lucas’ left wrist, to the shining swath of gold there, to the place that will always be theirs. And then he leans back more, taking Lucas’ hand in his own and kissing the soft skin of his palm and then turning his hand over and placing another kiss on a newer band of gold on Lucas’ left ring finger. The gold Eliott had once again been able to adorn just a few weeks prior.

“That does too much for you,” Lucas teases, but Eliott can see the smile at the corners of his mouth.

“I think it does exactly the right amount,” Eliott laughs, tightening his grip around Lucas’ waist and leaning in for another kiss.

“Wait, wait,” Lucas says, giggling, as he twists out of Eliott’s grasp, “I made breakfast!”

“You made me breakfast?” Eliott asks, feigning surprise like it’s not something Lucas has done for every one of his birthdays for the past five years. He loves that they have little traditions like that, and he loves more that he can tease Lucas about them.

“There’s waffles...” Lucas tempts and Eliott has never been able to turn them down.

“Okay, fine,” Eliott says, releasing Lucas who grabs the tray and brings it back to bed, placing it between them. The waffles are perfect, just as they normally are, and there’s coffee and kissing and everything Eliott could have ever wanted.

“I love you,” Lucas says suddenly, bringing Eliott’s attention back to him through the haze of the morning.

“I love you too.”

Lucas looks at him a little sheepishly. “I promise the rest of your birthday will go more according to plan.”

Eliott just shakes his head. “No it’s perfect,” he says softly. “It’s always perfect with you.”

They save a small piece of bacon for Luna when they finally let her back in.

#elu fic #fwog #my writing #sorry for mistakes i wrote this quickly

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squishneedsahero · 3 years

Text

Unknowns

Lost to Time | Part 3

Word Count: 2106

Summary:

The story of an original character, Allison Bennett. Growing up black in the short period between the world wars wasn't easy but Allison had friends who stuck with her no matter what. She was ambitious and had a million things she wanted to achieve in her lifetime and would try only to be told by the world that due to who she was it wasn't possible and she'd never live up to her dreams.

The last thing Allison remembered was a bright flash of white light. She can feel herself lying on a bed, the sheets were soft and there was a blanket lying on top of her. Her body ached and she couldn't convince herself to open her eyes.

She doesn't know how long she lies there somewhere between waking and sleep. But she stays there as her body aches, she hurt all over, inside and out. Her skin felt as though it was on fire and her bones felt too big for the space they had. It was the oddest feeling she had ever felt but she slowly grew used to it, well either that or the pain slowly subsided.

Eventually she moves enough to open her eyes. She found herself staring at a white ceiling in a well lit room. The room was pristine and Allison could see nothing out of place as she began to move her head about to look around.

As she looked around she came to realize she was in a hospital room. It was different from other hospital rooms which she had been in but it definitely was a hospital. It's as she begins to sit herself up that she realizes she has an IV in her arm and has a few other tubes attached to her body. She looks at them but doesn't remove them, despite not being sure what they were for.

She hears some voices outside her room when she has sat up but she ignores them to look around a bit more. She finds her notebook on the bedside table and reaches over to pick it up. She moves it to her lap and opens up its tattered pages, as she does this a woman enters the room.

"Hello, ma'am it is good to see you awake."

Allison pauses a moment before opening her mouth, "Hello... what hospital am I in?"

"You're in the Brooklyn hospital center," the woman pauses for a beat. "May I ask you a few questions as we have not been able to identify who you are or find any relatives of yours."

Allison's mind is groggy so she takes a moment to respond but eventually she nods, "yes, I'm Allison Bennett, I don't have any relatives they all passed during the war."

"Excuse me, war ma'am? Which war did they pass during?" The nurse asks the two questions, clearly confused and her confusion does nothing but confuse Allison further.

Allison pauses a moment trying to figure out how to explain the war to someone who was so confused, how long had she been asleep for? Had the world so quickly forgotten the war against the Axis powers? "The war, the one that ended a few years back, against the Germans and Japanese?"

The look of confusion on the woman's face slowly turns to realization then shock. "Alright ma'am I will go see if I can find you in our records," and with that she quickly left the room.

Allison didn't protest, allowing the woman to leave, though she slowly began to inspect the various tubes going off of her body. She begins to identify what they are and what it each one's purpose is. During this inspection the pain in her body subsides and she begins to feel back to her normal self.

It's another hour after that when the woman comes back to see Allison once again. The first thing out of her mouth is, "is this you? Allison Everly Bennett, born October 28th 1918?"

Allison doesn't understand why the woman is so confused about this but she nods, "yes that is me," once she has an answer the woman immediately leaves once again. When the woman closes the door behind her Allison can hear voices, more voices than before begin to speak in the hallway outside of her room.

It isn't long before a man in uniform enters Allison's room. He closes the door behind him and is silent for a moment. It's when this happens that it finally clicks for Allison that there is something more going on than what it is they have told her. Sure she's smart but with a groggy mind after her last experiment sent her to the hospital, she's a bit slow to put things together.

"What's going on?" Allison asks before she has time to think about who she is talking too or even if she should be speaking.

The man clears his throat, "ma'am- Ms.Bennett I have news which I need to inform you of," if anything the man in front of her seems nervous, "according to the police a missing persons report was filed for you back in 1949."

Allison nods slowly, yes that was when she had been doing research, why is that such a big deal?

The man takes a breath before continuing, "it is August 2015 ma'am. You've been missing for 66 years."

In the moment what he is saying passes over her head. It wasn't until he said how long that she had been missing that things began making sense. She sits straight up in bed, staring at the man in shock. "It's 2015? How?- How long have I been asleep for?"

"Ms.Bennett, please stay calm we are working on figuring this out. You were found unconscious in the lobby of a building a week ago and they brought you here. Nobody knows where you were before that. You've only been in this hospital for a week."

It's another few moments before Allison responds, "alright, thank you for letting me know... may I speak with a doctor about getting these things off of me so I can get out of bed?"

The man seems surprised by how calm Allison is, in reality Allison is freaking out but she keeps it all in. That was all she had been able to do with her emotions the last four years of her life as she'd been alone. Getting upset in front of strangers wasn't something she could afford to do. The man nods and steps back out of the room, the door shutting for a moment before the nurse enters once again.

"Let me just check your vitals once more before we detach all these from you and get you out of this room."

Allison nods, staying silent as she is unsure what would leave her mouth if she were to open it. It isn't long before she is out of bed and given some shoes to wear. She picks up her notebook and takes a breath before carefully leaving the room behind the nurse.

Outside her room there's a group of both doctors and officers in uniform. The one who seems to be in charge steps forward, "hello Ms.Bennett, my name is Agent Everett Ross and I'm going to help you figure some things out."

Allison once again simply nods in response as she is lead down a few flights of stairs and is put into the back of a car with Mr.Ross. Once they are in the car the man faces her, "may I?" He asks and gestures towards the notebook she clutched in her hands.

She hands it over, "yes, just be careful with it as it is always trying to fall apart."

He nods, "of course." He takes the book carefully and begins to look through it. Wanting more personal information about the woman beside him, other that the little bit of official information they had gained from government records and police reports.

As he looks through her nots Allison finds herself staring out the window in awe of the city. She knew these streets, she had been raised running around on them. They were all so familiar, and yet nothing was the same as she remembered. There were new buildings in place of some of the ones which had been old during her lifetime. There were other buildings she remembered being under construction that were now finished and looked ancient compared to the newer ones.

Eventually Everett draws her attention back from the buildings to himself. He has the book opened up to the pages where she had pasted in the condolence letters, he reads them then looks at her. "How did you come across these two letters of condolence for one Steve Rogers and one James Barnes?"

Allison pauses, once again reminded how she had been removed from the narrative. History didn't want to remember that Steve had had a girl as one of his closest friends, let alone the fact that she was a black woman. "I grew up with them, the stories seemed to forget about me but I was there," she admits quietly.

Agent Ross nods and goes back to looking through her notes and she goes back to looking out the window. He had asked his questions, giving no indication as to whether or not he believed her. The next time she looks over to him he is pulling out a small box like device and begins tapping on one of its faces.

"You say you grew up with Steve Rogers?" He asks again in confirmation.

Allison nods once again, and Everett sets the device down after he finishes up with it. "Yes, I grew up with him. We met when we were 6, and we attended the same school. He saved me from some bullies and we got close after that," she goes on for a bit, feeling for the first time in forever peace as she relived the memories of her childhood.

After a bit the device agent Ross had tucked back in a pocket made a noise and he pulled it out, putting it to his ear like a phone. He then begins talking, "yes. Yes I'm positive. We have a few other things we would like to ask her but yes. You can come meet us and take her once we are finished."

Allison looks it him, knowing he had been speaking of her.

Agent Ross puts the device away and looks back at the woman, "that was just a friend. We want to do a few tests and figure out how you got here but as soon as we are done you'll be able to go and stay with them."

Allison finds this odd but agrees to follow through with his plan. What else would she do? She barely knew where she was and would hardly be able to run off if she tried too. It would be easiest to just let them run their tests and go with whoever they were going to send her with. If she needed to get away she could wait and figure things out first.

They soon arrive to a nice government building and go inside. They seem to trust Allison as there isn't any guards immediately around them, though there are guards scattered throughout the building, in their presumably normal places. She follows agent Ross through the halls and around different corners until they finally come to stop in a room which appeared to be a lab.

There were a few other people around and Allison simply clutched her notebook as they took some blood from her and did a few other tests. They performed a full physical on her, both eye and hearing tests and a few other things to determine the state of her health.

Allison was surprised that by the end of all of this she was hardly tired. Sure she was almost always on her feet, running about to take care of her job at the diner, but that wasn't the same as the many stretches they had her do. In fact despite having spent a week in the hospital lying about and doing nothing she probably felt the best she had in years. Though it could be the fact she hadn't gotten enough sleep in years and now she was finally fully rested even if she was in the year 2015.

When they are fully finished agent Ross and the few doctors request her to stay in the room and they will send in someone to meet her in a moment who would be taking her to where she would be staying. She sits quietly, running a hand over the pages of her notebook, looking through her most recent notes. Allison's mind was already working towards figuring out how this had happened, how she had ended up in 2015.

It's as she is sitting quietly that she hears the door open and someone step inside. She looks up to see a broad shouldered man with blond hair and blue eyes entering the room.

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hoonlit · 4 years

Text

Intertwined

synopsis: maybe losing him wasn’t so bad after all.

pairing: Dabi x Reader

genre: angst, bits of fluff

words: 1.4k

warnings: bits of cursing, major character death

A/N: First post!! Please bare with this writing for a few more weeks~ ILL GET BETTER ! I don’t know why the spaces get exponentially bigger everytime I pressed the cursed ‘return’ button so 😔

A hurricane is something you could emasculately use to describe the utter turmoil of a childhood you put yourself through. Tragedy, call it, but it’s not some sort of play that has an ending. Not what a book portrays. It’s like some sort of overcast, an ominous sign things were going to be different. A storm conjuring up in the pits to haunt.

The first time you met him was through the backyard of his home, the intricacies of the jet black gate showing slivers of what was behind it. A young soul like you was curious, fearless, maybe. You wouldn’t call the shots on your decision making. You heard laughing and kicking, a lonely self shouldn’t be watching others play, but here you were, trying to get a glimpse of everything your household rejected.

A plastic ball flew over your head, the slightly frightened look on the faces turned slowly, the equal of a freaky wooden door. Smiling brightly, you waved, to which they smiled back. Tossing the ball back over, a hesitate thought rushed before you could close your mouth.

“Can I play with you?” A small voice, seemingly not your own (though it was) inquired from the other side of the gate. As the children nodded quietly, you rushed over and with quick nimble feet, you climbed, worn down shoes pressing against the curves of the gates’ design. Hopping over with a huff, the laughter of three turned into the giggles of four. Happiness is maybe what this feeling if giddiness was.

“What’s your name?” A girl asked, her white hair had bits of cherry shows up, like blood on fresh snow, so bright and vibrant.

“L/N.” You said, chubby fingers fidgeting. “Y/N L/N. It was only a matter of time before you remembered their names as well. Your anticipation for later days to come would halt abruptly, your car with you inside was stopped by a large sign. It was only once per day, but more of Natsuo and Fuyumi rather than Touya. The mind you possessed didn’t understand the weight of the situation. Even then, you hoped. You had drawings for him, bentos to make together and castles to fill with your imagination.

Maybe secrets to share, and memories to cherish. He showed up less and less, during his visits your innocence skipped over the melancholy drenched in his eyes. As a young child, Touya got a storm of his own brewing. Worse that the hurricane you thought you had. Even that one time where you and him joked about the best heroes other than the Symbol of Peace, it seemed those memories were fading into dust, a cherry blossom growing, only to fade away.

Even his absence told something to you. Maybe he was done, maybe he didn’t want it anymore. He didn’t want to name of a hero that hurt. Todoroki wasn’t a proud thing to keep track off, perhaps a wretched path full of something you didn’t want to know. Full of trauma. But even with it, Touya was strong, no? He fought battles for you and stood up when you fell. Maybe you loved him more than you shod have. You didn’t realize the end would come so soon.

“Where’s Touya, you asked Natsuo, rubbing his back and crying into your shoulder. Schoolwork wasn’t a must, the days were all a blur, the lessons were slow and don’t teach much.

“Gone, gone, gone, just like the rest of them. He’s gone, L/N, gone.”

“We can find him, Natsuo, I promise I’ll become a hero and I’ll make it my top priority to find out wherever he is.” You tried to lighten the mood, clammy hands rubbing at your dress skirt.

“You don’t get it! He died, he’s gone, he can’t come back anymore! No more smiles, no more games. No more fun for his anymore. It’s always Dad, he’s hurting everyone. Mom’s crying because of him and the three of us are the reason for his anger. We’re mishaps.” Incoherent phrases were spluttered, tears wiped roughly with his eyes before he got up and left. The silent was threatening, the ominiscent foreshadow that all good came to an end.

Maybe the winds of fear crept into you slowly, a storm to weather forming in the midst.

Why’d you go? Why’d you leave us in the dark?

Memories of him stayed in the past, newer things were your priority. School, life, and friends were occupations you sought to busy your time. The years passed much to quickly, time stolen under your noise. Admitted to a school. Graduation. Heading to UA. Graduation there. It seemed nothing mattered most than those moments, but the past haunts everyone. Even as a hero, you couldn’t save everything. Even as a person who made the move past everything you couldn’t help but frantically press the dirt covering his smile harder into the ground. It was only patrols, nothing more, a capturing of a villain who had blue flames. That’s it.

“It can’t be you, can it?” Even after so many years these thoughts popped out on random, your quirk pushing his quirk to a stop. He was burnt, flesh marred past regeneration, but it was one thing that stayed the same.

“L/N.” His gaze, pool of turquoise burned into yours as the bystanders rushed out under your command. “Seems so long since I-“

“Shut up. Touya. I don’t want to hear how you’ve changed.” A grimace from the male in front of you reached your eyes.

“I never changed, I just finally started showing it.” His words may have burned you, eyes prickling, but his soft tone soothed the harsh pain. “It seems so long since we’ve seen each other, spoken to each other.” You ran towards him hugging his build as you sobbed, a soft firewood scent drifting off of his exterior. Fisting the white shirt in your hands, you slapped him, punching his chest as the villain laughed, stroking your hair softly. Fumbling with the strands, his fingers cupping your cheeks. You knew you were doomed from the beginning. It was also like this. You wished for an alternate universe, for a happy future where it didn’t seem like everyone around you inflicted or received pain.

“I said I would marry you one day.” You laughed, legs dangling on his thighs as he slid down the wall. Staring off, he kept his hands away from your figure, arms draped next to him in a nonchalant manner. “Doesn’t look like it’s happening now.” Wiping your tears, you stared at him through tears eyes, a smile appearing on your face. A bittersweet smile that you showed him frequently during an early age. “Why’d you have to go? W-Why’d you leave m- us? Fuyumi, and-“

“Don’t.” His voice let on more than he showed, a light quiver in the way he told you he didn’t want to hear it.

“What do you mean, don’t? I told you to never leave me and you did, I told you take care of me, the cherish as friend, for, or fiancé, but where only close to foes. Why can’t you understand we thought you fucking died?!”

“I couldn’t live that life anymore. You shouldn’t have known that.” He seemed cold, emotionally dry even, as you grabbed his hands and intertwined your fingers with his.

A gun click stopped the silence, leaving you and him feeling betrayed.

“Dabi, you’re under arrest for 18 murders and 24 attempted murders. Put your hand above your head or we’ll shoot.”

“And that’s not how my death goes.” Picking you in is right and manhandling you from the collar, he grinned, the bright blue covering the men and their yells as shots were rung into fruitless abandon. Unscathed, he wiped a hand on his shirt, picking you up and placing a hand on your chest.

“Tell me if you kne-“ He growled.

“I didn’t, I swear, I wasn’t a part of it Touya! I didn’t even know you were in this area!” Honestly speaking, you couldn’t get a word to him. Struggling against his hold, he tightened his grip on your neck, left hand sizzling slightly. “Believe me, please!” You coughed, the black haired male sneered at your weak figure.

“Wrong answer, Y/N.” He blasted his flames, catching the material on fire as you crumbled back into the corner of the alley wall, choking on the smoke before placing out the fire on your charred suit. Smoke drifted in the air, the burning scent making it hard to breath and talk. You truly burned this time, but it was only then you knew how he felt to be burned. How it felt to be hurt all of those times. “I want to know why you came to see me after you became a hero and think it’s alright to call me by a name I don’t use anymore.”

“You want to know why I left? It’s because I don’t want to become someone who does this disgusting act of sympathy to turn me in. I loved you Y/N, and I was happy, I thought of how much I liked you and then I realized. A little girl like you can’t change the monster fate’s intertwined with my past.”

#bnha #mha dabi #dabi x you #bnha dabi #mha imagines #dabi x reader #mha touya #touya x reader #touya todoroki #dabi angst #dabi is a todoroki #todoroki x reader #bnha x reader #my hero academia #mha oneshots #bnha oneshots #mha x reader

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frozenartscapes · 4 years

Text

Scars - FE3H Fic

AN: Just a small warning - I go into detail about what I headcanon Edelgard’s scarring looks like. If that is something that bothers you, this might not be a good thing to read.

---

Edelgard had been slow to reveal what lay underneath thick layers of fabric and armour. Though she had confessed it to Byleth, revealed the awful things that happened to her in her childhood, she hadn’t shown her. Byleth could only assume, after the then-Princess told her about how she had been repeatedly cut open for the sake of Crest experimentation, that she had scars. And that Edelgard didn’t want anyone to see them, as she always had every inch of skin up to her neck covered.

But she didn’t know the extent.

She never pried. She knew the subject was a sensitive one to her El without ever having to bring it up. She’d seen how El would work diligently, writing for hours, but after a while would grow tired of how her gauntlet strained her hand as she held the quill - reaching to remove it only to pause, sigh, then continue on through the pain. She remembers watching her then-student training under the hot sun, the only one who hadn’t removed some piece of the heavy uniform to find some relief - she watched her think about it, going so far as to unbutton her jacket, only to realize what she was doing and hastily do it back up.

Edelgard didn’t want people to know. Didn’t want people to see. And Byleth accepted that.

Though she didn’t quite understand at first. Scars were...scars. To the former mercenary, they meant very little. Some mercenaries even regarded scars as badges of honour. Injuries they received, fought through, survived. Scars were a reminder of how strong they were, how the universe may have wanted them dead but they toughed it out. Byleth never tried to hide her scars. So what if people saw them? Each one had a story, a moment in time she bled but pulled through.

She started to understand the first time she saw Edelgard’s hand. Without the glove.

Just her hand seemed to bear more scars than Byleth had on her whole body. Each finger had delicate little lines running their entire length, as if each one had been flayed open to reveal the bones under the skin. There were numerous incision points on her palm, many overlapping each other to form a thick band of scar tissue. Tiny, round scars decorated the back of her hand - needles, Byleth guessed, going in sideways to reach the veins there. There were numerous lines on her wrist - a dangerous spot to be slicing into - but Byleth figured it was likely a place they would go to draw blood. A lot of blood. And her wrist. She could just see it underneath the cuffs of her jacket. A thick, dark scar about the thickness of iron shackles. It looked like the skin there had been torn off, only to regrow mangled and leathery.

She was almost scared to see the rest. But it was not lost on her just how much trust Edelgard was putting in her. El was a woman who trusted very few people. This level of trust was something Byleth couldn’t ignore, and she loved El too much to give her a reason not to trust.

It was a few weeks later when she saw her love’s arms. Then, it wasn’t so much the number of scars that shocked her, but how her skin had been scarred. The scars ran lengthwise along her forearms, marking where the bones were. On both the top and underside. The same thing on her upper arms. Although there, there were also more natural scars. Scars from battle, from training, from life. But there were still far too many that looked surgical in nature.

Her legs and feet ended up being eerily similar to her arms and hands. Scars tracing bones. Scars in dangerous places - far too close to major arteries. Banding from shackles.

It wasn’t until their first night together - truly together - that Byleth finally saw all of them. She was still growing used to feeling emotions after gaining a heartbeat, so it was safe to say that the rush of feelings that came from the sight nearly caused her to blackout. First, came shock. That was replaced almost too quickly by a rush of nausea as she thought about just how her beloved El got those wretched marks. Then came rage that almost blinded her, almost sent her leaping out of bed to hunt down Thales and those monsters right then and there. Then another kind of anger, this one directed at herself, as if she could have somehow sensed her future wife’s distress and rushed to save her as a child but didn’t and now the scars were somehow her fault. That led into helplessness because no, it was stupid to think that she could have ever known - let alone try to stop it when she would have been barely older than El had been - though she still wished things had been different. Sadness came next, as she thought about the woman she loved being forced to bear the weight of those scars for so long alone, damaged and scared but unable to share the load with anyone. And then finally, finally, came a feeling she couldn’t quite place. Admiration, perhaps? Not of the scars themselves but of the woman who bore them, of her El. The one who had been dragged through hell and back, the one who experienced pain no one - regarldess of their sins - should have to face, the one who was quite literally dissected in a dark, rat-infested dungeon only to rise above it all. Only to pull herself through by her own strength, by her own determination. If she were the type to boast about that sort of thing, she’d easily win against any of the mercenaries Byleth had known who used to brag about the scars that almost killed them. Edelgard truly was a person the universe had wanted dead, but through nothing but her own strength, defied it.

She reached out and pulled El close, feeling those tense muscles relax as her love settled against her. She glanced down into those violet eyes as her hand hovered over a scar, silently asking for permission, and upon receiving a small nod, she ever so gently traced it with her finger. After running the length of that one, she moved on to another. She was sure to keep her touch as soft as possible, knowing how the skin she stroked had once been ripped open with cold brutality. She felt Edelgard shudder in her arms, and she paused for only a moment. But as she looked to her beloved’s face, she saw the Emperor relaxing in a way she never had before. She looked so calm, so happy, so...relieved.

Their eyes met again, and El then used the break to reach out and trace a scar on Byleth’s collarbone in a similar way. Byleth felt herself shiver, but not from discomfort. It felt...nice...to have someone touch her in such a way.

The pair continued like this for sometime, tracing and caressing and loving each other despite the scars. Healing the scars as they accepted them. Though the marks never went away, it felt as though the weight they carried didn’t matter anymore.

But there was one scar Byleth couldn’t touch. One that scared her too much. One that made her furious just by looking at it.

It ran from El’s collarbone down the centre of her chest, stopping just above her diaphragm. It actually looked like it was composed of several cuts that all merged together into one horrific mark. It was thickest around her sternum, as if the bulk of the incisions had been in that spot. Her heart. Those bastards ripped her beloved El open to mess with her heart.

Byleth had a similar scar, though it was much thinner, made by only a single cut instead of many. When Rhea...

El reached for hers, first. Her touch was lighter than ever, her fingers lingering on her chest. Byleth felt her press down, only to sigh slightly in satisfaction. Upon feeling what she truly wanted to feel. A heartbeat.

Byleth’s heartbeat.

Ever so carefully - she’d never been more careful about anything in her life - Byleth reached for that wretched scar. She was not surprised by how it felt. Because it had been made of numerous incisions, she could feel each mark in the form of raised and lowered skin, where older cuts had healed awkwardly before newer ones were made overtop. But then, under her fingers, she could feel something else. It was strong, healthy, unfaltering. A heartbeat.

El’s heartbeat.

She was still here. Alive. Despite...despite everything.

Somehow, Byleth’s everlasting love for her beautiful El increased tenfold that night.

#fire emblem #fe three houses #fanfic #edelgard #byleth #edeleth

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whumpsblog · 4 years

Note

for another command, I want to see Connor allow Hanna to leave if she wants to and treat her like a normal person, but at the same time I want Hanna to not be able to leave as a command and watch her freak out that she can’t take the opportunity to leave like she wants to >:)

A prompt from @eatyourdamnpears. Man, talk about an emotionally brutal prompt! Thanks Carly for the continuing support and the wonderfull prompt! Please, keep ‘em comming! The events in this prompt DO NOT occurs in the actual plot.

Tag List: @bloodandbandages, @broken-horn, @eatyourdamnpears, @butwhatifyouwrite, @justplainwhump. If anyone wants to be added to the list or removed, contact me.

>> CW: panic attacks<<

Guards collected Hanna from her room and imediatly she assumed they were taking her to the basement for another . . . disciplinary session. She fought back, thrashing and kicking and biting and bucking, but their grasps on her arms held tight.

“Can you stop fighting us!” The guard protested. “Please! Just calm down! We’re not going to hurt you.”

Hanna refused and continued to fight back harder. With an anguished scream her hands started glowing. In truth it didn’t matter if they were taking her to the dungeon or not. Conner was more that willing to torture or humiluate her in any of the rooms in the mansion, be it the kitchen, living room, garden, or master bedroom.

She could feel her hands as they glowed brighter and warmer, and as they did so the guards vocallize their concerns.

“Her hands!” Said the one guard panicked.

“I know! I see!”

“Can we knock her out?”

“Conner said not to hurt her!”

‘He probably told them that beacause he wants me in prime torturing condition.’ She thinks to herself.

Behind her back she shoots a beam of light and hears the lound sound of shattering glass behind her. She releases another and this time, it’s followed by the sound of splintering wood and heavy falling objects. She keeps going.

“SHE’S DESTROYING THE ROOM!"

“Just shut the hell up and do your job! We’re almost --”

Hanna releases a blast from her left hand and it catches the guard on her left in the stomach. He gets blasted away from Hanna, and she uses her free hand to blast away the guard on her right. It wasn’t her strongest attack, but it managed to push them both back about ten yards. It doen’t give her much time, but it would have to do.

She sends it down the hallway, not knowing where she’s going, but running none the less. At the end of the hall she gets to the elevator and once inside she punches the button with a “G”. Impatiently, she yells at the doors when they don’t close fast enough, and then blasts both of guards back again to ensure that their arms don’t prevent the doors from closing. The the doors finally close with a chime she hits the floor breathing hard and out of breath. On the other side of the elevator door the two guards can be heard yelling and pounding on the metal with their fists.

She sighs. She did it. She got away from the guards. Now all she had to do was get out of the elevator and run. She was fast and nimble and if she booked it to the woods she could probably disappear and find a town nearby. There had to be a town nearby, right? She shook her head. It didn’t matter if there was a town nearby or not. She would walk until she stumbled across something, and from there get situated. First thing on the list was food, then money, followed by proper cloths. Currently she wearing gym shorts and a white tank top. She’s illlprepared for the woods and she knows that she’s going to be spending the next couple days cold, wet, covered in scratches, and hungery.

The elevator hits the ground level floor and she stops moving. She picks herself up off of the floor and when the doors open and she peaks outside cautiously. Apparently the “G” button didn’t stand for ground, but instead garage, because she finds herself standing in an empty three car garage. It was dead silent in the garage, and from the looks of it there weren’t any cameras either.

‘Change of plans. Steal a car and fuck walking in the woods.’

Hanna jumps into the blue Jaguar and inspects the steering colum. With most old cars one could rip open the steering column and expose the wires underneath. But newer cars posed a small challenge, and required screwdriver and some dismantling. She checked and found that she indeed needed a screwdriver.

‘Shit.’ She hated wasting time but risking three minutes now could save her massivley in the long run. Jumping out of the car she starts searching the garage quickly and frantically for a flathead. She finds an old toolbox and digs though it loud enough and long enough to not notice the elevator as they open.

Screwdriver in hadn Hanna turn and jumps when she sees Conner. She drops the screwdriver and it clangs to the ground, and she aims two glowing hands his way. So far every time Hanna attempted to escape Conner managed to stop her. But this time would be different. This time she was well rested, fed, and had plenty of light in the room to form several decent attack.

Her hands start glowing and she drops to body defensivley. “You’re not going to stop me this time.” She growls. “My time here, is over.”

Conner frowns and though her desperatly wants to retort with some cheeky comment, he refrains. Instead, he extracts the keys to the blue Jauguar from his coat pocket and gives them a tight squeeze to steady his trembling rage. He looks down to the ground and closes his eyes. Everything his parents ever taught him goes against what he’s about to do.

With angry and forlon expression he averted gaze from Hanna and walks to the driver’s side of the car. He sticks the key in the ignition and starts the engine.

“The nearest town from here is south about fifty miles, so when you pull out of here take a left and keep going straight.” He stands up and watches her watching him with her glowing hands still raised. She didn’t trust him at all, and she was right to. He had held her against her will, humiluated her, tortured her, and starved her. And though he knew he couldn’t make up for his actions, he hoped giving her freedome would help offset some of his sin. “If you open up the engine you should be able to get there in twenty minutes, and from there its another two hours to the closest large city.”

He pulls his wallet out of his back pocket. “This baby gets seventy miles to the gallon because its half electric, and it only takes about forty dollars to fill the tank. Here’s all of the cash I have on me. It’s not a lot but it should be enough for you to buy a one way plane ticket to anywhere within the states.” He places three hundred dollars in cash in the glove compartment and then walks to the front of the car. “I would give you my card but then I’ll have to report you for stealing it, and then the police will get involved. Which I’m assuming isn’t something you want.”

Hanna watches and listens to him, but she can't seem to comprehend his actions and words. “What - what are you doing?” She asks.

His brown eyes meet hers and Hanna is startled by the pain and anger within them. “I’m helping you.” He says.

Hanna powers down and her arms drop to her sides. She’s still on guard, but she feels that his confession is genuine. A horrible feeling bubbles in her chest and stomach and she fights against it.

"You're free.” He continues. “Go. Find your friends. Get your family back. It's over. I’m letting you go." He hits a button on the side of the wall and the garage door behind the Jauguar rolls back loundly.

She still doesn’t understand. ‘Her captor had bought her. He liked torturing her. So why in the world, after only a week of possessing her, was he letting her go.’ Hanna continues to stand there stunned. She’s never seen this part of him before and for some reason it’s making her. ‘Was this a trap?’

“Go!”

Hanna jumps like a startled dog being scolded, but instead of moving towards the vehicle, she takes a step away from it. The bubbling feeling in her belly builds, rises to her chest, and squeezes at her heart. The feeling is all to familular and she realizes with horror that she’s having a panic attack. Just like when she was a little girl and a prisoner at Syrtex.

‘But, why on earth was she panicking? This was it! This was her moment. She was so close! All she had to do was jump in the car and drive. So why was she panicking? What triggered her?’ She takes another step backwards and when she bumps into the toolbox it clanks loudly, which startles her even more.

“Hanna?” says Conner with concern in his voice.

Hanna laces her fingers behind her neck and tucks her head into her chest in a desperate attempt to calm herseld down. Closing her eyes, she tries to determine the trigger so that she can stop the attack.

“Hanna?” Conner slowly advances on Hanna and though he’s multiple feet away and not threatening her, she backs away. She breaths harder and harder, unable to draw air, and unable to calm her racing heart. Hanna wraps her arms around her head and slides down the face of the tool chest. Small whimpers escape through her weazy shaky breaths.

Conner’s kneels before her alarmed and with wide brown eyes that are looking for her face. He’s never seen her like this before, not even during their disciplinary sessions. This side of her was completely new to him. “Hanna what is it?” He reaches out to rub her back. “What’s wrong?” His hand touches her and the physical contact causes Hanna to snap.

A sudden burst of light explodes outwards from Hanna’s core and the force it knocks Conner several feet backwards and onto his back. The lights in the room flicker as her rolls onto his side and looks up at her. He still has no idea whats going on.

With her head still pressed into her knees Hanna’s claws and pulls and her hair. Her whole body is glowing faintly and the sight is something Conner has never seen before.

“You need to get away from me.” she moans.

Conner doesn’t get any closer to Hanna, but he fixes himself so he’s sitting upright. “No. Hanna, I’m not -- ”

She cries and releases another surge of uncontrollable power. This one pushes Conner, who had been kneeling infront of her, backwards again violently. On the ground he flips over so he’s on his stomach and looking up at Hanna.

She’s looking down at him with green teary eyes that are wide and terrified. “Please. Just. Go.” She begs with a broken voice.

The desperation in her voice convinces him to move back and give her more space. He moves to the elevator and remains sitting there patiently until it’s over, refusing to leave her alone in this condition.

>>Master List for The Story of Hanna Light<<

#TSOHL #command prompt #way to go pears #you scared Hanna so bad that she passed out #way to go #this was honestly the HARDEST thing I've ever written before #hands down

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wbbbrothers · 5 years

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Dear We Bare Bears,

Hello! I am Sugs. Within the next month, I will be in the start of my college experience as an Illustration major. That fact is completely wild to think about considering when I first started watching this show (on this day four years ago) I was entering High School as a freshman student and I was, in fact, a completely different person. Therefore, I decided that because I am stepping into a whole new chapter of my life and this show has been with me the entire way... this Anniversary I wanted to write about how this show has impacted me over the past four years.

Apologies for this being a long post, I have a lot to say.

I created this blog right at the end of the premiere week of this show. I had watched every new episode airing during that Bearbomb that week. One of the last episodes of the week was Primal. So, while it was still airing and I decided in the middle of it that I was hooked! And I knew I needed to make an ask blog to enjoy these silly bear brother characters and fuel the love I had already already found for the show somehow. Wbbbrothers was that ask blog.

I didn’t know at the time but that was possibly one of the best decisions I could have ever made for myself at that point in my life and do mean that very sincerely. Growing up, having intense interest in media that took over my entire creative output was always a very common thing (and obviously still is). These large phases were able to keep my full attention about 1-2 years tops until my brain latched onto something new. But, out of all of those I have to say that We Bare Bears and Bears in general truly are very special to me. I have never been able to create such a variety of stories, embrace so many flawed and imperfect yet still loved characters and feel so deeply about them and the stories I was telling through them. Especially for this long of a time. We Bare Bears as a show holds a great deal of heartfelt comfort for me.

To me: We Bare Bears is a unique show in the fact that (most of the time) it has a very casual, down to earth and calming atmosphere about it. That being said, it is never afraid to experiment or step foot into other genres thanks to its open ended and episodic nature. It is not perfect by any means, like any cartoon written by human beings with flaws. But I admire the love that gets put into it with its personalized watercolored backgrounds, muted palette aesthetics, little visual humor and amazing colorists in general. It can be hit or miss sometimes but it is episodes like Chicken & Waffles, Chloe & Ice Bear, Occupy Bears, Yuri & The Bear, Hibernation, Hurricane Hal and more that remind me why I fell in love with the show in the first place. It loves the quiet moments just as much as I do. It does not have to be constantly shoving stimulation down your throat and in your face in order to tell a fun or compelling story. I have always respected its ability to take things at a slower pace sometimes, especially when a lot of current cartoons tend to lean towards Snappiness (snappy humor, snappy action, bright colors and fast pacing)

We Bare Bears feels like warmth. When I re-watch my favorite character driven episodes I cannot remove the fond smile from my face and when I re-watch my favorite adventure filled episodes it always sends me bouncing in my seat.

My method with interacting with my interests was always to create my own fan-content or Alternate Universes with the characters that I loved. It was my way of putting a piece of me into the characters whether it be through my other interests in media or my own experiences and feelings. The AUs I make are a genuine form of self-expression to me.

Obviously, the Character Driven and Open Ended Slice of Life nature of We Bare Bears as a series really opened up the flood gates in terms of my creativity and ideas for AUs. I never felt happier than when I was creating new jokes or dialogue or just silly scenarios. Alternate Universes were a combination of all the parts I loved about creating for me and they started to act as my own free-roam stories to explore these favorite characters of mine in all sorts of different ways. Since I have started, my work has only improved the more love and passion I put into it.

Superhero AU and Bad Bears are my main two fan stories/AUs of mine that have been around since I was 14-15 and are two of the most developed AUs I have ever had. They taught me a lot about, developing fictional worlds, characters and plotlines and I am STILL developing and enjoying them even now! They’ve also inspired me to make so many other OCs and stories so much as influencing future projects that I am currently in the middle of developing.

It baffles me to think of a world where I never watched We Bare Bears and never was able to be influenced by its fans, its art, writing and its characters.

If you’ve been on this blog long enough you might recall that my first Wbb AU was your average run of the mill Zombie AU (this was while wbbbrothers was still primarily an ask blog) not to be confused with my Zombie 2 AU which is a completely different premise entirely aside from the zombie apocalypse part. Long story short, I had a Fuckload of AUs back then and I mean A Lot. Enough to get condescending messages over, even some curse outs. (Not everyone I met over the four years was the greatest...) I was scared away from publicly speaking about most of them the way that I used to. While my technical skill was lacking for that age and I could not write a solid scene to save my life, despite the negativity, the intense passion and enjoyment I felt from making content kept me enthralled with the show. I kept making my AUs in private and developing them, posting more general fanart and occasionally art for my Superhero AU publicly. I even started to get pretty good at drawing Bears! And managed to make some friends who shared interests with me, something I never got to have offline.

It was not all great of course, the past four years have been extremely hard for me and extremely hard for everybody else, I’m sure. Bears was my default thought when surviving High School; my go-to pick me up. I seriously would say that it has saved me more than once whether it be through talking to my friends I met because of it or just offering a distraction/creative outlet from whatever was going on in my life.

Prior to becoming a fan I never would have thought I would have been able to make so many stories, projects, art, writing and comics and talk to so many amazing creators and people all thanks to this one show about Socially Awkward Bears living in San Fransisco.

But here we are.

And you know what, even when I inevitably move onto newer projects or interests, I think Bears will always be an important influencer to me. The wonderful people I have met throughout these four years have given me so much support and love and friendship like none I have ever been allowed to experience before. I have learned so much about my identity through my friendships and my stories. And even the awful people I have met taught me what NOT to do and what to avoid when moving forward in my life.

I am just. So, so grateful for everything and being able to pursue what I love and have it be received by others to make them feel things too. There is a Lot more I could say I am sure but since this is long enough as is I will send it off here.

So from the bottom of my heart I can only say Thank you. Thank you to my friends who still talk to me to this day, I love you guys. Thank you to those I used to speak to but don’t anymore, our friendship of the past still stays with me. Thank you to anyone who enjoys my work, my stories and follows me despite my wild ramblings such as this!! (If you’re still reading this wow, points to you)

And Thank you We Bare Bears for helping me grow so much as an artist and giving me a sense of direction and purpose with my work as a hurting teenager who was very, very lost in 2015.

Sincerely yours,

Wbbbrothers <3

#anniversary rant #wbb #modspeaks #SORRY IM A SAP #text heavy #long post

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robins-whump · 5 years

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Bad Things Happen Bingo #8

Bingo Card: Carved Mark

Fandom: Original Work

Characters: Finn and Tristan

Word count: 1699

The echoing tap of footprints awoke Finn from his restless sleep. He snapped awake immediately, drawing himself against the wall instinctively. He hissed quietly as the movement aggravated the many scrapes and bruises from his failed escape attempt.

Escape attempt.

The very memory of it made his blood run cold and forced terrified apologies to his lips, waiting to spill out. His skin displayed the consequences in a myriad of cuts and bruises that would linger for weeks, if not months, a patchwork of warnings about what it meant to be disobedient.

Even so, the idea of obeying that madman left a sour taste in his mouth.

The door to his cell banged open. Finn’s eyes snapped up to see Tristan stride in and sweep down the length of the cell. Subconsciously, he scooted further back.

Tristan paced the cell for several, agonizing minutes, brow furrowed, seemingly contemplating something. Finn’s tracked his movement, wide eyed and frozen. He didn’t dare interrupt.

Finally, Tristan stopped pacing.

“I’ve been thinking,” he said. “About you. And our little discipline problem.”

A snarl was hiding behind Finn’s teeth, but he forced himself to keep quiet.

Tristan continued. “I think the real problem, darling, is that you think this is temporary. You have potential, naturally. I wouldn’t have chosen you if you haven’t. But you seem to think that if you hold out for long enough someone will find you, or I’ll somehow let you go, and everything will get better. Things are going to get better when you start doing what you’re told.”

Finn’s fists clenched with white-hot anger that did nothing to dampen the crushing feelings of hopelessness that Tristan’s words evoked. He turned his head away, defiantly.

Tristan smiled a shark’s smile. “Darling, the only way you’re leaving is in a coffin. Isn’t it better to just be obedient? I’m not a cruel man, but you drive me to extremes. You need to learn your place. That place is with me.”

He strode forward to tower over Finn. A hand brushed his hair away from his forehead in a deceptively gentle manner.

“I need to teach you a lesson, boy. Something more permanent.”

For several moments, neither of them moved. Then a key appeared in Tristan’s hand. “I can trust you not to run if I unchain you, can’t I?”

Finn’s heart leapt into his throat. He was so close, again… but he remembered the events of the day before. He nodded hesitantly, still ready to take the opportunity if one came along.

His ankles were swiftly unchained, but before any plan of escape had formed in his mind there were new cuffs clasped around his ankles, connected by a short chain. The same was quickly done to his wrists. Tristan tugged him roughly to his feet.

“Follow me,” he said curtly. “I don’t need to tell you the consequences if you run.”

After a long moment of hesitation, Finn followed Tristan out of his cell and down the passage. Finn looked around curiously. It was his first time out of his cell, save for his failed escape attempt, and he hadn’t exactly been checking out the décor then. From what he could see through the haze of fear that choked him, the passageway was lined with cells much like the one he occupied. The same damp, rough stone on the floor climbed up the walls, and the ceiling glistened with moisture. Some cells contained manacles, and some were completely empty. Why would Tristan need multiple cells? Finn wondered.

Tristan unlocked a cell near the end which contained nothing but a cold slab, leather restraints of all sizes cemented into the concrete. It was newer than anything else he had seen in the dungeons.

Finn stopped at the doorway, heart thudding in his chest. A harsh shove made him stumble into the cell. He caught himself on the slab. The click of the lock sounded loudly into the silence. Dread pooled in Finn’s stomach.

“Get on the table,” said Tristan. His eyes were narrowed, watching Finn’s reaction.

Why? “I Don’t-” Finn started, but a vicious backhand snapped Finn’s head to the side, sending him careening into the wall. A follow up left him dazed and trembling. Finn wiped blood off his mouth from reopened wounds. He cursed, quietly.

“Don’t make me repeat myself.”

Finn glanced at the slab, then back at Tristan, weighing up his options. Nothing good was going to happen if he let himself be tied down, but was Tristan’s anger any better? He knew that even if he resisted, Tristan would end up getting what he wanted. Tristan did, Finn was learning, always get his way. He was stuck between a rock and a hard place.

Feeling as though his limbs were filled with lead, Finn slowly walked over to the concrete slab. He lifted himself up with shaky legs and sat on the very edge.

Tristan looked smug. “Lie down, arms at your sides.” And when Finn complied, trembling: “good boy.”

The praise made him shiver unpleasantly. Or maybe that was just the freezing concrete on the bare skin of his back.

Tristan set about attaching the leather loops to his body, Finn fighting every impulse to pull away. His vision was still swimming from the blows. Straps were applied to his ankles, wrists, torso, legs, and even his arms. Finn almost screamed when a strap went around his forehead, clenching his teeth so tightly it turned his jaw white.

All the while, Tristan was speaking to him in a hushed voice, in a way that made Finn feel like he was being offered up as a sacrifice. What God could Tristan possibly pray to?

“This is going to hurt,” Tristan murmured. “But I’ll know you’ll be good. I really think we made some progress after our little mishap yesterday.”

Finn shivered and tensed. When Finn was so restrained he could barely wiggle his toes, Tristan stopped. He reached into his pocket and drew out a short, silver blade. The end was sharpened to a pointed that glinted in the dull lights of the dungeons.

At the sight of the knife, Finn’s calm demeanour snapped. He yanked at the restraints, pulling desperately away. “N-nonono, please, don’t, please-”

The knife kissed the tip of his collarbone and Finn stilled. He was excruciatingly aware of the proximity of the sharp blade to the vulnerable expanse of his neck. He tucked his chin.

Tristan stroked the slender edge of the knife down Finn’s torso. “It seems a bit extreme, darling, all these restraints, but I want it to be perfect. Why, a single nick in the wrong place could ruin the whole design.”

He pressed down harder above Finn’s third rib. “That’s the last thing you want, right darling?” Finn bit back a dozen curses and nodded. No more than an obedient puppet. Finn hated himself with every fibre of his being.

“I wanted to make it easy for you. This way, you can’t move, even if you try. Takes those pesky reactions out of the equation. It’s never been said that I’m unreasonable. Oh, how am I meant to see the design like this? Let’s get a bit more light in here.”

Harsh lights suddenly illuminated the previously dark space. The bright white shine forced Finn’s eyes shut, squinting against the light. It was bright bordering on painful. Finn’s eyes, accustomed to perpetual near darkness, were completely overwhelmed. He barely noticed the light touch of the knife pressing down harder, trailing down until it reached the bottom of his ribs.

“Here’s a good place to start, don’t you think?”

Finn was relieved when Tristan didn’t expect an answer from him. He doubted he could have given one, mouth gone dry with fear.

The blade pierced his skin and dragged upwards in a hot flash of pain. Finn screamed, high pitched, and a hand clamped down on his mouth

“Quiet now, darling. You’re distracting me.”

Finn nodded apprehensively, and the hand left his mouth, stopping to squeeze his neck briefly in a casual threat. The pain was already fading to a dull throb when Tristan made the next cut. This time, Finn didn’t scream, jaw clenched tight. Tristan ran a hand down his chest in what was meant to be a soothing gesture. Finn’s skin broke out in goose bumps. He could feel hot blood trickling down his side and pooling under him. How deep had Tristan cut?

The pain of the cuts bled into each other until Finn’s left side felt like one pulsing wound. Tristan stopped and started, contemplating the next cut then ruthlessly executing it with an elegant flick of the blade. Finn let out the occasional whimper, and once a keen as Tristan made a particularly deep cut. Tristan had stopped for several minutes to teach him the importance of being quiet when asked.

When Tristan was finally done, he wiped off the knife with a rag and slipped it back in his pocket. Finn sagged against the concrete slab, adrenaline rush fading. The pain felt sharper as all the fight left him, and he blinked back tears. A small sob tore its way out of Finn’s throat.

“Shh, darling. You did well. Would you like to take a look?” Tristan unbuckled the leather restraints, trusting that Finn was too weak to do anything. Without waiting for an answer, he lifted Finn into a sitting position.

Finn gasped in horror at the markings covering his left side. It was a stain of red, but underneath the blood Finn could spot a familiar design. Sudden nausea swept through him. He leaned to the side and retched, bringing up no more than spit. a large hand stroked his hair.

“Isn’t it lovely?” Tristan murmured. “I don’t do that for just anyone. That makes you very special, darling.”

He knew those markings, Finn thought dully. They were on half of the things Tristan owned. Tristan’s family crest carved into his skin, as it was embroidered onto his suit, and onto his stupid pocket handkerchiefs.

Finn shivered as the cold reality set in. What it really meant to belong to Tristan. He didn’t push the hand off his hair.

#whump #whump writing #badthingshappenbingo #bad things happen bingo #whumper #whumpee #finn #tristan #finn and tristan #carved mark #cutting #knife #torture #punishment #fear #captive #captivity

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thesunlightout · 4 years

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her little brother elopes on the first day of may and she nearly falls over when he sends her a selfie of himself and teddy, holding up hands with brand new rings on their fingers.

and really, it shouldn’t shock her that auggie married teddy—those two have been practically married from the moment they met. but her dad sorta flips after finding out his youngest child’s tied the knot without telling anyone, and she thinks it might have to do with the fact that as a whole, she and her siblings have kept way too many secrets from him.

it’s honestly surprising the poor man hasn’t had a heart attack yet, heavens forbid. she supposes she should thank vivian for that.

but it puts things into perspective about just how much life has changed in just the last few months. and is another lesson of how if people want to be happy, they can just be. funny that her baby brother, of all people, figured that out first.

(she should probably check in on them. they haven’t left teddy’s apartment in a week, and he hasn’t mentioned moving yet. though that’s probably obvious now, but a little notice would be nice?)

“auggie’s married, mom,” fiona says, rearranging zoë on her lap. her daughter’s just turned five months, and it’s finally warm enough outside for her to bring her here. “and i have a daughter. and waverly has a daughter. and i wish it hasn’t been so chilly. i wanted to bring her to you sooner,” she frowns.

zoë babbles, bringing her tiny fingers into her mouth, seemingly oblivious to anything her mother was saying.

“i guess you already knew about her... even before i did,” her lip quirks albeit sadly. “but this is zoë.” fiona bows her head and presses a kiss atop her head. “and she’s been...” she presses her lips together as her eyes water, and she wonders quietly if this overwhelming emotion over her daughter will ever cease.

not that she ever wants it to.

“she’s been like magic, mom.” she peppers kisses along zoë’s little cheek, earning her a big bellied laugh from the baby girl in her arms and causing her to laugh right along with her. “everything feels right with her here.”

she leans back against the gravestone behind her and snuggles her daughter into her chest. and she feels it more than she could ever hear it, but it’s almost as though her mom’s arms are wrapping around her in that moment and whispering, just like you were for me...

waverly’s been off lately.

or well, not off, off. she’s still waverly, but she’s been sort of... aloof. a little harder to read than she already was. it’s been this way the last couple of months as life found its center for all of them after the huge back to back surprises the end of the previous year’d had in store. between eleanor, jude, and zoë.

fiona’s assumed it’s because her sister’s finally growing up. and really growing up. the healthy way, not the way where she hides all her pain and tries to survive it on her own.

and maybe it’s because she now has a baby of her own who she’s wants to pour nothing but love into and ensure she’s protected beyond belief, but she realizes she’s been hard on waverly all these years, too.

fiona’s been a perfectionist and a protector and anything that gets in the way of that brings frustration into her world, but she’s realized that all waverly’s known is chaos, from her home life, to charlie, to finding a long lost father, and even now with a daughter and an ex-boyfriend returned from the dead. and all she’s known to be is chaotic, all while trying so hard not to be.

motherhood has made her more understanding. and forgiving. and showed her all the ways in which she wasn’t being forgiving.

she has care with waverly now. more than she’s ever had. she isn’t meant to fix her, or even assume she’s broken. she’s meant to love her. and that’s it.

still, it’s strange she’s off in her own world now, with this boyfriend fiona still doesn’t really know. but she seems happy. and that’s all she could really ask for.

andi’s anniversary gift to sophie is a month-long trek through europe. all sophie’s wanted for as long as they’ve known her is to visit europe and get wrapped up in all the history. andi, as per usual, delivered, ten-fold.

barcelona, luxembourg, positano, just to name a few.

fiona’s glued to her instagram just waiting for her next update, even if it is just andi taking incredibly magical photos of her wife the whole time. but they look so happy, and they remind her of the same happiness auggie and teddy keep putting out into the world.

and then there’s eli. eli, whose life has gone from upside down to even more upside down, and she swears she only sees him smile when he’s holding zoë.

they’re not together, not anywhere near it, but she loves him, and he seems to still love her, too. however his life is too messy to even consider anything that isn’t coparenting the little girl they share.

it’s better that way.

he’s in the middle of a divorce almost too messy to even fathom. fiona kind of hates herself when she sees him this way for some of her fault in the mess, but eli refuses to allow her to share even a bit of the blame. he’s also way deep in a pit of self-hatred, and feels like he wants the world to swallow him whole throughout this process.

but she tries to remind him that he’s going to come out on the other side of this. somehow. some way. she offers him her friendship, and this new family they’ve created with their daughter and hopes it’s enough while he sorts it all out.

she just hopes it doesn’t consume him before that happens. especially as newer details come to light. like how his wife didn’t actually have trouble conceiving, or how he wasn’t the only man in her life.

“hey, spacey,” jude’s voice draws her attention, and she startles, nearly dislodging the bowl of batter from the mixer. “where’d you go?” he asks.

“she’s right here, daddy...”

eleanor’s innocence makes fiona chuckle, and she shuts off the mixer before turning her attention to both of them. “yeah, i’m right here.” grabbing the bowl, she walks over to where the two of them sit, jude on a stool with his daughter on his lap as they fiddle with a bowl of cookie dough.

(translation: eat a bowl of cookie dough instead of preparing it for customers)

“ha ha,” jude grumbles, pressing a kiss to eleanor’s cheek, smiling as she giggles and reaches for another spoonful of the sweet treat in front of her.

“y’know, ellie, don’t you think you should save some room for lunch?” fiona asks, brow quirked almost knowingly.

eleanor’s eyes go wide, mouth full of what should be her dessert. it’s hard not to give the beautiful little girl just about everything she wants, but fiona’s a parent now, and she has to be stern (even if being the cool aunt is still up high on her list of important things to achieve)

“but i like cookie dough...”

“but that’s dessert.”

...tbc

#random musings from like may?

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rkheejin · 5 years

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‧ ₊ ˚ ♡ the skills challenge performance! • • • singing be myself by gugudan // 0:09 — 2:03!

heejin despises the way her heart skips a beat the moment her name is uttered by one of the judges after an almost painful wait, flimsy syllables tossed out without a care in the world as if they hardly held any importance— as if they didn't make her up name, as if it wasn’t the very thing she'd desperately needed them to do. as if it wasn’t the very thing she was absolutely craving to hear. it's weakness she loathed having ( the sudden and intense need for verbal validation ), as if she hadn't already gotten enough of that throughout her short life so far.

no, she's become well accustomed to the sensation of praise, of meeting highly set standards with relative ease, hard work and a steady drive of determination propelling her towards the stars. it's here, however, now placed on such an imposing stage, eyes of skillfully perfected focus and unpredictability ready to pick her apart without any warning, that heejin can't help but feel her own walls of unwavering confidence finally begin to shake.

she hates it— knowing now just how terrifyingly easy nerves can be brought on simply by bated silence ( and just how quickly those nerves and can morph into questioning relief the very second good news is given ).

confirmation of her moving on to the next round only brings newer, more nagging thoughts to the surface. she'd done it— she'd proven herself yet again, a sure sign that she could do this, that she could pull through as she wanted to and secure victory. yet, that also meant the herd had been cut down significantly.

room for errors and mediocrity would become slimmer and slimmer the longer this went on, all until nothing short of perfection could be given without fear of leaving this whole ordeal empty-handed.

heejin refused to leave with nothing to show for herself.

♡

there's little rest to be had, skin anxiously prickling more and more with each passing day, her mind preoccupied with nothing but sing, sing, sing— correct your breathing here, don't let yourself strain at this part, keep yourself as steady as you possibly can. run through after run through, correction after correction, all painstakingly repeated and ingrained in her mind. heejin is rarely home during this period of time, hardly seen by anyone who doesn’t come looking ( or, in some cases, can’t spare the time to break from their own preparations ), her only true opportunities for rest being forced on her by her academic schedules ( even then, tucked far in the back of her classrooms, something she rarely allowed herself to do, her mind is far from her lessons— no, all she can think about is how she could do better, what she needed to do better, all in the hopes of earning another success ).

it's tiring, so tiring, but she can't stop. she won't let herself.

it's only the day before she ( and everyone else ) are set to show up and perform that she finally gives herself a moment to properly breathe.

she feels stiff, far more rigid than she'd like to be, and that's when she knows she needs to pull back, if only for a moment. sat snuggly in one of the secluded practice rooms located in her schools' music department, she simply sits, letting peaceful silence take her over.

jungeun comes to mind, images of the blonde submerged deeply within her own element while on stage during the first round playing out as if she had seen them earlier that day, and heejin can't help but wonder how her own practice has been coming along— with her phone grasped loosely between small hands, the brunette almost hits the call button. almost.

it almost feels like a selfish thought, wanting to reach out for someone ( anyone ) who could possibly understand the growing exhaustion burning through her veins. who was she to distract others, though, when she'd done this to herself willingly? this had been her own choice, her own decision— she wouldn't pull for the blondes attention, not now, when her best friend was no doubt working just as hard ( if not harder ) for her own victory.

no, she had known what this would all entail the minute she'd sent in her application, bright-eyed and determined. she couldn't lose that fire, not this early over something so simple— heejin would figure this out.

her phone vibrates silently in her hands, catching her off guard, and it's only a moment before she sees what's been sent.

❪ ⤑ ✉ 3 new messages┆🌙💕 ❫

her lips break out into a gentle smile, tired eyes softening, and suddenly, she doesn't feel as beat up as before. eyes scanning his words, the warmth in her cheeks only grows, but it's pleasant— it's missed. with words so caring, so encouraging, at a time when she felt she needed them most, there's newfound vigor brewing in her body.

you will be awesome on saturday!

heejin could do this.

♡

walking onto set feels as daunting as it had the first time, her face blank ( save for the slight rise of a single brow ) as she lets curious eyes travel the space, taking it all in. the lack of people is noticeable right from the beginning, the area less stuffy with half the amount of original chairs gotten rid of, but that only makes heejin think— one hundred, such a large and strong number, cut down to a mere fifty with ease.

well, at least she was aware now that she had actual competition.

out of the corner of her eye, she spots unmistakable blonde hair filtering around the room, and heejin can't help but feel relief once more knowing they'd made it this far together ( just like she knew they would ). tearing her gaze away, she spots faces and silhouettes she's come to familiarize herself a bit more with thanks to the little celebratory outing yuzu had suggested the week before— short black hair recalls memories of pleasant conversation, of a possible friendship she wouldn't mind growing, and heejins legs take her to where ryujin is sat without protest.

she sits beside the younger girl with a grin, eyes shining with anticipation, and the thought passes by quickly— she wonders what the other has in store for them all today. while it seemed that singers made up the top percentage of contestants ( heejin being included ), the younger girl was grouped in with the dancers at second. while there were certainly others better at that particular skill, she couldn't deny that the other had a certain draw to her. similarly to kyulkyung, whom she'd also made sure to greet as she passed by, she was an entertaining act to watch.

of course, heejin had her own biases ( she would always sight jungeun as her personal favorite ), but that didn't take away from anyone else. ryujin was talented in her own right— it would be interesting to see her go far.

it's only once everyone's seated, noises sounding off and startling the brunette slightly, that it's finally time for things to start. unlike the first time, seeing who the judges are doesn’t cause her heart to beat wildly as it had before— now, it’s almost expected. after all, these were the ones who’d be taking the finalists into their companies when this was all over. who better than to pass judgments than them?

however, general nerves rear their ugly heads, and for a second, heejin can't help but question herself— question others.

what if she didn't stand out this time? what if she, despite all of the effort and time put into choosing her song and making sure it was perfect, fell short? would anyone going up before her be performing the same song as her? had her music choice in general been a mistake?

that last question had been one she'd thought of from the very moment she settled on her vocals— the choice had been difficult, but in her eyes, she felt like it was a necessary one to make. it hadn't been lost on her how, up until now, all of her performances had songs of the same caliber. similar vibes, similar emotions, similar technique. sure, they suited her ( at least, she felt they suited her better than anything else ), but she didn't want to grow stale, boring, in others eyes.

versatility was important no matter the skill.

so, watching as the first handful of singers go up and perform, her head nodding along to distant beats and rhythms as a way to soothe her own mind, heejin steels herself. there was no room for doubt anymore, not when her name was about to be called. she needed to be sure of herself, confident in her abilities and quality.

❝ CONTESTANT #5013, JEON HEEJIN— PLEASE TAKE THE STAGE. ❞

reaching for jungeun's hand quickly, she gives it a gentle squeeze, one that's gratefully returned as a sign of encouragement, and heejin rises from her seat. as she walks to the stage, she catches yuri's eyes and lets herself break out into a soft grin, nodding her head in acknowledgment. she would need to talk with the younger girl once it was deliberation time to tell her how good her performance was— well, would be, considering yuri was up after her.

she had all the faith in the world for her cousin.

brushing aside shorter strands of hair that weren't held in her low pony, heejin stands tall in center stage, a signature smile on her lips.

"hello, it's nice to see you all again—" she can't help but joke, a way of squashing any last remnants of nerves in her system, the mic picking up a small laugh as she bows. "i'm jeon heejin and today, while i'll be singing for you once again, i hope to show you a little bit of a more different side of myself. please enjoy this performance just as much as you enjoyed my last performance."

receiving nods to proceed, she awaits her music queue, ready to begin. her music starts and, immediately, she's heejin is focused.

날 향한 차가운 눈빛 둘러싼 소문만 참 많아 걱정 마 난 강인하니까 사소한 것에 겁내지 않아

더 강하게 ooh ah yeah 더 당당하게 ooh ah yeah 한계를 뛰어넘어 위험해도 좋아 더 색다른 날 보여줄게

unlike the first episode, she has no props— no guitar to play, nothing as additional help with the intent to enhance her showcase. now, everything is all dependant on her, on her voice and presence, those two factors being the sole reason she'd done so much in preparation. her vocals had to be spot on, carrying their own distinct flare while still delivering the most solid performance she could with the hopes of leaving her audience wanting more, facial expressions and body language all playing a role in only furthering that agenda.

her voice is clear, strong as it should be for the power the song holds, adlibs starting out smoothly just as she'd practiced countless times. right away, there's an attitude to be seen— nothing to be taken seriously once she's stepped down from the stage, but something to marvel and become immersed with as she sings.

flicks of her brow, blatant smirks forming here and there between the words that leave her lips, a sense of appeal heejin has only recently felt comfortable projecting. she's always been confident in herself, in her skills and what she's got to show, but this? this is a little different from her normal, a side to herself she'd rarely ever shown, usually in favor of something more soulful and indie.

hesitance aside, it's an image she likes— it's one she wouldn't mind expanding on.

be yourself 더 이상 망설이지 마 뭐든 네 멋대로 우리에겐 내일은 없어 난 규칙 따윈 몰라 모두가 깜짝 놀라 다쳐도 좋아 바로 지금 do it now

누가 뭐래도 nothing like what i do do do 내가 뭘 해도 good thing ( good thing ) 좀 더 자유롭게 be myself 난 내 멋대로 살래 잘 지켜봐 yeah

as she comes to the pre-chorus, the tempo a tad slower, it's the perfect chance to show how smooth her tone can be, a dull fire emanating from her as she puts more soul into her performance. with something so pop, it's easy for ones vocals to flatline and become bland, easily overshadowed by synths and overproduction. heejin doesn't want this, no— she wants her voice to hold as much depth and pull to it as it can.

eyes closing, there's more focus, letting it all build up until the chorus breaks through, and her voice is lighter, rising and falling to hit her notes prettily ( she tosses a wink in at her almost whispered good thing, tone naturally on the huskier side with how lowly it's done ).

leading into the bridge, that same soulful quality returns, and she moves in time to the song, heel meeting the floor subtly in time to the beat.

내가 결정해 나다운 게 뭔지 oh 눈치 보지 말고 좀 더 자신 있게 나를 보여줄래

고민하지 마 nothing like what i do do do 끌리는 대로 good thing ( good thing ) 너를 표현해봐 be yourself 세상을 너로 칠해 널 보여줘 yeah what you do

hand on her chest, she's still pleasantly steady in her performance, inhaling away from the mic when she needs to, and she's entering the final stretch. this bridge, mellow, yet still holding a certain sultry quality to it, allows heejin the slight refresher she needs before letting herself peak in the end.

opening her eyes, she lets her gaze travel around all who watch her, a brow raised in invitation— an invitation to what? to that, she’s not quite sure. praise? criticism? jealousy?

challenge.

be myself be myself be myself 가장 나답게 위험해 위험해 위험해 be myself be myself be myself 이 밤이 가기 전에 위험해 위험해 위험해

her voices echoes around the room as she finishes, music ending with her, and all that's left to be heard are her receding breathes as she pulls the mic away from her face.

it's silly, recalling how worried she'd been the last week— jaehyun had said it himself.

you will be awesome.

heejin was awesome.

#˚ ♡ ‧₊˚✧ › THE SOLOS.#˚ ♡ ‧₊˚✧ › WC: 2236.#˚ ♡ ‧₊˚✧ › MGA5.#rkmga5 #rkmga5skill #( bc mentioned uwu #jungeunxrk #rkljhyun #yuzurk #ryujinrk #rkkyul #rkyuri #( i cant believe this i really can t #( for visuals sake imagine her with mimi's outfit and sally's low pony!

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