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bitters-enthusiast · 3 years

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birthday fic but belated

@timmys-and-scribbles i love you and i am sorry in advance if this is long and cheesy but

1. that’s julian and

2. that’s just showbiz babey

happy belated birthday bestie i hope you enjoy

“No, you don’t understand! Please, I’ll-- I’ll beg on my knees if I have to!”

Julian could be seen, and probably heard, from a block away pleading a poor man operating a gondola on the canal, and it didn’t look much like the man was giving in to him either.

The man shook his head, planting his hands on his hips. “You-- you don’t have to get on your knees. But I still can’t do it, I’m sorry. It’s too short notice.”

The sob that came from the redhead next was anything but subtle, and he shoved his face in his hands. “Please. Please, sir, everyone else has cancelled on me. Don’t you want to be the minority?? Wouldn’t that be a more interesting story for you?? Please, I’ll pay double, I just need this ride tonight. It doesn’t have to be all night, even just an hour if I could--”

The gondola rower rolled his eyes. The dramatics were a bit much, but Julian had good selling points. “Fine! Fine, if it means you’ll leave me alone and I can get back to work, I’ll do it for double.”

Julian almost screamed in excitement, and grabbed the man by his shoulders. He gave him a little shake, beaming a smile from ear to ear. “Thank you! Thank you, you’ve saved me. Thank you. I’ll see you in a few hours!”

After having shaken this man nearly to death, Julian decided it was time to start grocery shopping. If he was going to plan the perfect dinner for his perfect partner in crime, he wanted to have the perfect ingredients. After all, a pirate couldn’t ask someone to court him if he didn’t at least offer food and drink. . . right?

He didn’t want to stress about it. This day was already a long time coming, but every time he thought he’d worked up the courage, he found it all lost again when Julianne teased him, or plotted with him another sneaky escapade. This woman definitely, without realizing, always kept him on his toes. And he wanted to return the favor, at least for tonight. Besides, a fun date never hurt anybody, even if he didn’t wind up asking her to be his girlfriend.

The doctor spent about an hour or so shopping around for a dinner worth remembering. It took some time thinking of recipes he knew from the top of his head, but he settled on something fond from his childhood. Something Mazelinka almost always made, and almost everyone always liked it: soup. You couldn’t go wrong with a perfect soup dish paired with bread. Plus, looking for fresh ingredients and bartering with the merchants kept his mind off of the pent up anxiety he was feeling about everything. At least a dinner he was making by himself couldn’t be cancelled last minute.

He’d finally settled on everything he needed, and was beginning to head back to the ship. He was carelessly swinging his bags back and forth, whistling a merry little tune to keep him in high spirits.

The high spirits lasted all of five minutes to keep his mind off his worries.

Out of the corner of his eye, he spotted Julianne, speaking to a familiar baker about eating some lunch. She was ordering some food when she caught him out of the corner of her eye, and excitedly called him over.

Oh no. Oh no, oh no, oh no.

She wouldn’t notice the bags, right? Of course she’d notice the bags. But he could just pass it off as stuff for the crew! Or maybe he could just pretend as if he didn’t see her--

Of course he couldn’t do that.

Awkwardly, he put his arms behind his back, the bags hanging over them. He gave a strange smile and headed toward Juli, giving a head nod of acknowledgement.

“Heyyyyyyyy... how are, uh-- whatcha up to?”

The woman raised a brow, a smile on her lips as she had just finished joking with the baker. “I’m........ ordering food. Why are you being weird?”

Uh oh.

Julian gave a dismissive ‘psh”, his face turning into an expression of confusion. “I’m not being weird. You’re weird for asking that, Juli. Anyway, what’s on the menu? What’s, uh, what’s for lunch?”

Julianne immediately knew something was up, but she wouldn’t press him about it until later. For now, she’d give him a bit of a hard time about it to see if he’d spill. “Food. Looks like,” she leaned over a bit, just a small part of his groceries in view, “you also have food on the menu.”

He leaned the opposite way, trying to make the bags less noticeable from her angle. “Oh. Oh! These, right. Yeah, Cap sent me out for errands today. You know those men, uh, always hungry! Yeah, can’t go forever without snacking, even if there’s only four of them on ship!”

A small laugh came from Juli. Yeah, she’d have to find out later. “Right. Well, I have to go eat before I go back to my own errands. Would you like to join?”

Why’d she have to be so sweet?? It made him all the more nervous, and he wasn’t being a very convincing actor at the moment. “Oh, I wish I could, darling! But Cap has been on my ass this morning about staying on task! We all know how, um, fleeting time is! I’ve gotta go, don’t worry about me, I’ll see you later on board, right?”

Her eyebrow still raised, she adjusted her own bag and nodded. “Ri--”

“Okay! Perfect! Amazing, and even perfect, you could say. Oh. Wait, I said perfect twice. Anyway, farewell! See you tonight.”

Juli watched as Julian walked away backward, still trying to hide his groceries. As he finally got further away, he tried turning away quickly to take off running, but accidentally bumped into a busy woman passing by. He apologized promptly and profusely, making sure she was at least okay before taking off again.

Yeah, he was up to something.

It finally had gotten darker outside, the sun setting as Julian strode back toward the boat. After a few hours, he had prepared dinner, finalized the gondola plans, and had even set up an nice surprise afterward to make sure everything was picture perfect. As if he hadn’t used the word ‘perfect’ to describe what he was going for all day. With his hands in his pockets, he’d finally settled down on his way back toward the ship, fairly confident in how the night would go.. at least for now.

As he got closer to his familiar home of sorts, excited to meet Julianne and to get the night started after all this planning he’d done, Julian stops aboard the ramp of the ship, watching as Juli was mid-conversation with his crewmate and co-captain, Gerard.

Damn it. Here we go.

Forcing a smile, he stepped closer to hear their conversation.

A hearty laugh came from the crewmate, one that sounded incredibly devious to Julian’s desperate ears. “He really lied to your face like that, Miss Juli? Ah, you know I’d never treat you that way~”

Shut up. Shut up, Gerry. Not tonight.

Julianne would have been seen to smirk, rolling her eyes. “It’s not that he lied maliciously. I’ll still get him back for lying. But I know he’s doing something behind my back. I’m just confused as to what it is.”

Gerard leaned back against the rail of the ship, giving a nonchalant shrug. “Still. You know, it’s taken him far too long to commit to you. Maybe it’s time you give the ol’ captain a try. I,” a puff of his chest, and he placed his hand upon his heart, “wouldn’t have made you wait this long for me to meet up after lying to you, maiden.”

It was taking everything in Julian to not barge into their conversation immediately. The confidence he’d built on the way back was slowly diminishing, but he’d wait a few more seconds to see where this conversation went.

“Co-captain, Gerard.” Julianne shook her head in amusement, also taking a seat on a nearby barrel. Might as well make herself comfortable as she waited. “How would Zora feel if she heard you giving yourself all the credit?”

“Hopefully very, very awfully.” Gerard chuckled as he ran his fingers through his hair. “But my point remains. See how he still isn’t here? That just proves my--”

If Julian wasn’t known for dramatic entrances, then the sky wasn’t known to be blue. As if on cue, interrupting Gerard as he tried to make his “point” was easy as pie for Julian, and he climbed aboard with the biggest, most confident grin he could muster to save face. “Julianne, my love!” He greeted as if she were the biggest and most important guest he could ever serve, stepping between the two to swoop her into a hug. “I’m terribly sorry it took me so long to get back! I got caught in a scuffle between two men arguing, and you know I can’t resist a good fight.” The last lines were said between almost-gritted teeth, and Julianne pulled away from his hug reluctantly.

Like her expression was before at the marketplace, she had her eyebrow raised in suspicion. “Is that so? They didn’t happen to also be the ones to eat your snacks, were they?”

Gerard chuckled from behind, making himself comfortable both physically and in conversation. “I’d say Ilyushka has a bit of a hole to dig himself out of here, hmm?”

Begrudgingly, Julian turned to look at Gerard with the same forced smile.

“Don’t you have a hole to dig yourself into, co-captain? Go find some buried treasure.”

A laugh from the man, as well as a clever reply, “Ah, but why would I go search for one when there’s one perfectly right before my eyes?” He flashed a smile in Julianne’s direction, and then gave an innocent, seemingly curious head tilt to Julian. “Oh, unless you couldn’t see that for yourself. It seems that eyepatch gets in the way of you looking past yourself and seeing what’s in front of you.”

The smirk began to fall from the redhead’s face, and he tried not to ball up a fist onto his friend right about now. In the end, he knew Gerry was teasing, but it didn’t make the blow less hard on his ego.

Julianne wasn’t naive to the tension; she started to make off-topic conversation. “I think Gerard is talking about the wine that Zora brought back after making a deal with the bartender down the street. Something about bringing back some of that Salty Bitters stuff from Vesuvia that you like so much. He wanted to advertise something new.”

“Right. The wine is the treasure I was talking about.” A final chuckle from Gerard and he stood, clapping a hand against Julian’s shoulder. “Save me some dessert, Ilya. You know where my room is. Send her my way.”

“Bye, Gerry. Have a good night.” Julian pulled away slightly, looking his friend up and down.

Gerard gave a hum of triumph, and pulled his hand away. On his way toward the steps downstairs, he gave a final “You know I will.” in reply.

Once he was finally out of view, Julian deemed it safe to turn back to Juli for conversation. “I am.... so, so sorry, Juli. I know you’ve been waiting for a while.”

“I know you heard the conversation with Gerard.” She replied, placing her hands upon his shoulders. “I’ve been here for a whole of ten minutes. You know how he is. Dramatic.”

He gave a soft scoff in return, rolling his eyes. “More than I am sometimes.”

With a laugh, Julianne pulled her hands away, but not before giving him a gentle pat to the face. “Not quite.” Getting up from the seat she’d made herself, she patted down the dirt that’d gotten on her dress from doing so. “Anyway, are you finally done acting weird, or are you going to keep me on my toes.”

“Well.......” Julian gave a shrug, “Hopefully the latter. But not in a bad way, I swear. I do.”

The woman only gave him a pointed glare in response. In defense, he gently took hold of her hand, and began to lead her off the ship.

“Here. Just follow me.”

The doctor had finally gotten Juli all to himself. After all the shenanigans of the day, he could finally wind down and listen to her talk about her day. Her errands, odd customers, the odds and ends of magic that he enjoyed listening to her go on and on about. It was what gave him some sense of normalcy among the absurdity that he endured on the regular. The gondola ride had gone smoothly, and he had definitely given the rower far more than he was worth. If not just for the theatrics and the experience, he hoped that Juli enjoyed it. Maybe she’d grown suspicious of him throughout the day, but he wanted to make it up to her.

They talked about a woman who’d called Julianne in to help cleanse her home, not knowing the “cleanse” wasn’t anything spiritual -- it was because the woman had attempted far too many cleaning spells and caused an overgrowth in weeds in her garden and magic cobwebs in her corners. Julianne had to explain that “cleansing” a house didn’t actually mean to clean it.

How cute. How cute, how cute.

An hour or so had gone by, and after their ride, they both thanked the rower tremendously. They’d even gotten a complimentary bottle of wine and a basket of fruit -- or maybe the rower was being kind since Julian had paid him so handsomely.

Then, he took Julianne back toward the shore.

He had taken hold of her hand and not let go, leading her down the beach close to the docks their ship had stopped on. He was sure she probably thought something odd was going to happen by the end of the night, but he wanted to make sure she enjoyed her time nonetheless.

As they walked, he made soft conversation.

“You know, the ocean is a view I could never get sick of. It’s so beautiful. And when the moonlight hits it just right--” he gave a chef’s kiss of sorts with his free hand.

“I guess that’s a good thing, considering you’re on a ship the majority of your time.” Juli teased, giving him a gentle nudge. “But I think so too. It’s very captivating. Calming, even.”

“Like you, hmm?” Turning his gaze from the ocean to Juli, he gave a wink.

With a fond roll of her eyes, she laughed a little. “You’re still being weird.”

“What? No. This is just regular ol’ Ilya.”

“Yeah. Weird.”

He grinned in turn, a grin full of absolute adoration. It was getting easier to rebuild that confidence from earlier.

They continued their playful banter, all the way up until hey reached a hidden little cove, a tucked away cave of sorts, with a light shining from within. They were far away enough now that the lamps in town seemed like blur now, and Julian preferred it that way for what he had been planning.

Julianne stopped, looking up at her partner with a confused expression. “What’s this?”

He let go of her hand, make sure he didn’t seem as if he were coming off maliciously. They had met, after all, under the guise that he was a murderer on the run. Julian offered one of his grins, the sweet kind, the kind that made you want to follow him into the unknown on an adventure you wouldn’t want to return from.

“Just dinner. You trust me, right? You don’t still think I’m a weirdo?”

“Well. I definitely do.”

A laugh came from Julian, and he just shook his head. He continued forward into the cave, giving her a nod to follow.

She did, and as they entered, a small table Julian had stolen off the ship was sitting in the middle of the cave, lit candles surrounding it in the sand below to keep light inside. On the table sat dinner: two bowls covered to stay warm, bread on either side of them, a great big glass of wine in the center of the table, and two glasses for one each.

With a great big swoop of his arm, he gestured toward the set up with a smile.

“Well, here’s the thing I was acting strange about. I just wanted... to set up something nice for the both of us.”

After her jaw had dropped at the initial shock, Juli turned to the man with a growing smile, and she genuinely looked impressed. “I’m surprised you could keep a secret this long.” Although she teased, she found his dinner setup rather charming. Nothing short of the extravagance he made for himself since the day she met him.

He continued forward once more, pulling one of the chairs out for her to sit. Once she was seated, he also took a seat, and began to pour them each a glass of wine to drink.

“Also, I stole this wine. This is the one Zora brought back, and Gerard is probably looking for now. Serves him right trying to steal my thunder.”

The woman laughs, reaching for her glass once it’s filled. “They’re going to kill you.”

He shrugged yet again, his signature smirk puling at his lips. “Worth it, if not just for the thrill of the escape.”

As Julian reached to uncover the bowls, a warm, earthy and flavorful aroma takes over the cave, and he explains his escapade to gather ingredients. Making the food proved to be a pain, having to bribe the ship’s cook to let him take over the kitchen to prepare their food, and to help him set everything up while he was out on the gondola ride with Julianne. He talked about how he now owed the cook kitchen duty for a week, and had to scrub the inside of the old hearth to make up for it. But it was worth it for him, to see how much she enjoyed his childhood favorite food. All the more memories to create, even if it was just soup.

Throughout dinner, it seemed as though Julian had about finished off the bottle of wine by himself. He was getting a little tipsy, and a bit more nervous toward the end of them eating. If only he had more liquid courage to help him out.

Julianne noticed how awkward he’d begun to get as dinner went on. When they finally cleared their bowls, he started going on about the importance of the correct shoes in acting. Something was up.

She reached for his hands, which were getting ready to pour the last few drops of alcohol into his glass.

“Ilya, tell me what’s the matter.” Her voice was soft compared to his big, velvety tone. He couldn’t help himself, not in this state of mind.

“I- no, nothing’s the matter! I’m just saying, how can you frolic about in a tunic and boots? Sure they look great for the aesthetic and for the costume, but you need the smaller and more rounded shoes to move around the stage more fleetly.”

“You’re talking about shoes, Julian, after we just had a nice dinner in a fancy set up in a remote cave.” She laughed a little at the situation, and gave his hands a little squeeze. “Tell me what’s on your mind.”

She was right. And he knew that she was. He hadn’t spent all day preparing for this moment to talk about how quick your movements need to be on stage. He had put all of this off long enough. Hell, for months. He was surprised she’d even stuck around that long, unless she thought this was all totally platonic.

“Yeah. Yes. Yes, there-- there is something I have on my mind.” He let out a slow sigh, mentally preparing himself for his little speech. He knew that she would listen to every word, even if he slurred and stuttered his way through it. Her touch gave him a bit of sobering up, and in turn, he moved his hands to grab hers instead, leaning in closer to her presence.

“I.. hm. I’ve known you for quite a while now. And, for some reason, it feels like I’ve known you far longer than the several months we’ve been adventuring together. I don’t even know if that’s what you’d call it-- never mind. Regardless, darling, it feels like I’ve known you longer than a lifetime. Like I’ve known you since a life too distant to remember. And you... Julianne, you just seem so familiar. You met me thinking that I was a murderer. A fugitive. And even then, even after you thought I was using you, you stuck. You stuck with me. Up until then, I struggled so hard to find something like home. You gave me a chance, and I can tell you haven’t regretted it thus far. I just... don’t ever want to have to just remember you again. I want you to stick around. You’re perfect to be around. My perfect adventuring find. My... my perfect partner. We’ve never made any official call for what this is, and... I know this is all so ridiculous and grandiose and seems like some sort of proposal. In... in a way, it is. I just--” he lets his head fall, and he takes a pause, before he looked back up into Julianne’s face. “Please, little dove, would you give a pirate a chance and just call yourself mine already?”

...

Julianne, flustered, and unsure of how to respond in the immediate moment, searched Julian’s eyes for his genuine feelings. It was a long search -- after all, he’d just poured his onto the table, practically. This wasn’t at all a surprise, they had in fact been in some rut of infatuation without ever having admitted it to one another. It was always just implied. But here they were now, Julian basking in all of his monologuing glory...

Before she could respond, he was quick to make a joke, giving her hands a squeeze as she did his before he had come clean. “Plus, now I’m less likely to get in trouble for starting a fight with Gerard, seeing as how we’d be an official couple rather than just flirting, fleeting friends.”

Julianne shook her head, letting it fall as she let out a laugh. “You... are quite simply the most unbearable person I’ve ever met. In the best way possible.” Looking back up, he simply gave a friendly and teasing shrug in response, and she leaned in to seal the space between them with a kiss.

It wasn’t long before it grew passionate, one full of longing and hope from both of them. It would be hard for Julian to pull away, had he not been wait for a response. Before he let the kiss get carried away, he pulled back, a hand pressed to Juli’s face.

“So?”

She looked him in the eyes, lifted a hand toward his face, and promptly gave him a flick to the nose.

“Ow!?” His brow furrowed, “What was that for??”

“For lying to my face earlier. I just needed you to know I didn’t forget.”

A huffy laugh came from the redhead as he reached to rub at his nose, now stinging slightly in pain. “Alright. Noted.”

She offered a final, soft smile, reaching to gently swipe her thumb over his nose in comfort. The woman then reached in for a soft peck. “I’ll be your girlfriend, Ilya. Or rather, your co-captain.”

Julian beamed taking her face into both of his hands. “Oh, I’m so glad. As co-captain, can your first duty be to teach me an adjective other than ‘perfect’? I’m a doctor, not a novelist.”

“Sure. But only if you teach me one rather than ‘weird’,” Juli offered in reply.

“Good, good. But uh, can we wait until after dessert?”

“Didn’t Gerard ask you to save him some?”

“Oh, no. Gerry can starve. I’m sneaking dessert back into my room.”

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gloriainalbis · 4 years

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Strangers

Part 1 - Losers (S1E1)

Nathan Young x Reader Words: 4.4k Warnings: Swearing, mentions of sex, drugs Songs: Strangers - The Kinks Bad Reputation - Joan Jett

“So you've been where I've just come From the land that brings losers on”

Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Masterlist | Ao3

As bad days go, you’re having a pretty horrible one when you arrive at the Wertham Community Center. It’s the first of many to come, part of the court-mandated service that goes along with your ASBO. Your dad keeps telling you that you’re lucky the judge had been so lenient and should be grateful that he’s allowing you to stay with him and your stepmum again– even though you have no one to stay with and nowhere else to go. And he’s your dad. “In the future,” you tell him while getting out of the car, “I think I’ll walk.”

Striding through the frosted glass of the front doors, you continue on to the locker rooms to change into the orange jumpsuits you find waiting for you. You choose a locker on the far wall and dump your stuff there. You decide to leave your t-shirt on underneath, zipping the suit up most, but not all, of the way. Finished, you lean back to take a look at your designated companions for the 200 hours to be dispersed across the next few months. One girl has chosen her locker to be in front of the mirror. Her hair is short, curly, and pinned back on the side to form some cute bangs-like fringe. You notice an ankle monitor adorning her lower leg as she strips down to a pink lace pushup bra and panties and steps into her jumpsuit, rolling up the sleeves and bottom cuffs and adding a gold belt around her waist to complete the ensemble. The color of her earrings and bangle bracelets– both large, round, pink, and plastic– match her underwear. She steps back to take a look at herself and smiles. Another girl brushes her hair back into a high and tight ponytail. She looks curvier than the first girl, but just as confident, pairing smoky black eye makeup with shiny, pale pink lip gloss and gold hoop earrings. The guy who’d taken a locker near yours fishes a cigarette out of his pocket and sticks it between his lips. He looks equal parts cute and odd, tall and lanky with a mop unruly, curly hair framing his face. He wears a red and black checkered shirt and an air of swaggering cockiness radiates from him with a pungency usually reserved for uncommonly offensive odors. He smirks at you slyly. The guy with the locker across from the two girls looks vaguely familiar to you. He has two gold chains, one with a cross, and a grey tank top. His jumpsuit is only zipped up halfway, with the arms tied around his waist. He looks remarkably fit, and, not having much of an affinity for sports, you wonder where you recognize him from. The last person you see in the locker room is shadowy and reserved. His hair is short and neatly combed and his jumpsuit is buttoned up all the way to the very last button. He holds a small, black camera phone in his hand and shifts his gaze between people nervously. As you start to file out, one last person stomps in front of you, looking you up and down as he nearly bowls you over. You grimace as he winks. The first thing you notice about him is the immaculate green flat-brimmed baseball cap. You suspect that this hat and others like it are a large part of his personality. Once you’re all together, a man introducing himself as your probation worker, Tony, leads you outside and has you line up against some railing as he gives what you believe is supposed to be a rousing speech. From left to right is Curtis, Gary, Nathan, you, Kelly, Alisha, and Simon. You would learn their names later, but for the purposes of clarity, we’ll start using them now. Tony paces before you, attempting to assume the macho, fear-inducing demeanor of a boot camp officer. “This is it,” he barks. “This is your chance to do something positive. Give something back. You can help people, you can really make a difference to people’s lives. That’s what community service is all about. There are people out there who think you’re scum. You have an opportunity to show them they’re wrong.” He has the tone of someone who has given this speech before and is just barely holding onto their faith in its underlying message. The girl to your left, Kelly, looks mildly offended at the word “scum,” as if Tony had been speaking directly to her. “Yeah, but what if they’re right?” Nathan interrupts on your right. He looks around at the rest of you, “No offense, but I’m thinking some people are just born criminals.” You smile to yourself and try to hold back a chuckle as a look of anger flashes over suspected-douchebag-Gary’s eyes and he bursts out with “Are you looking to get stabbed?” “You see my point there?” Nathan asks, turning back to Tony. A phone rings and Alisha answers with a casual “Hey,” while twirling a curl between her manicured fingers. Tony tries to continue, but he’s becoming increasingly exasperated. “Doesn’t matter what you’ve done in the past-” “Doin’ my community service,” Alisha speaks to her phone. “Hey!” He tries and fails to catch her attention. “Boring as fuck,” she continues. It was getting harder not to laugh and you glance at Nathan out of the corner of your eye, amused at the part he had to play in the deterioration of Tony’s speech. “Excuse me!” He tries again. “Hello, I’m still talking here.” “What, I thought you’d finished?” She didn’t care, evidently. “You see my lips still moving, that means I’m still talking.” He tries to assert something akin to authority but clearly doesn’t realize how poorly that approach tends to work on rag-tag groups of rebellious young offenders. “Yeah, but you could have been yawning, or chewing,” Nathan points out facetiously in a drawling tone. Tony ignores him, but you are full-on laughing at this point. “End the call! Hang up!” He shouts at Alisha to no avail. “My probation worker,” she explains to the person on the other line. “You all right there, weird kid?” Nathan leans past you to point at Simon, who stood alone at the far end of your lineup. Tony fumed. “Don’t be disgusting. I’ll call you later.” She finally hangs up, looking over at Nathan, who was approaching Gary and making kissing noises at him. “I’ll rip out your throat and shit down your neck,” Gary snaps back. He looks amusingly short in comparison, you now realize. Curtis grimaces and leans away from the touchy ball of anger standing next to him. “I shouldn’t be here, man.” Kelly gapes at his arrogance as Gary starts to scuffle with Nathan, grabbing at his jumpsuit. “We need to work as a team here. Hey, that’s enough!” Tony takes a few steps forward. “Can I move to a different group? This isn’t going to work for me,” Curtis continues, even though Tony is clearly otherwise engaged. You lean back, nearly bumping into Kelly as she steps to Cutis’ indirect insults. “Um… What makes you think that you’re better than us?” “What is that accent?” Nathan comments, drawn out of his conflict by the way her “us” sounded a lot more like “oss” “Is that for real?” Curtis scoffs, rolling his eyes. “What, are you tryna’ say something or yeah?” She speaks, the latter half her sentence mostly lost due to her lack of enunciation. “Its- you- that’s just a noise! Are we supposed to be able to understand her?” Nathan exclaims. You shake your head and raise your eyebrows at their audacity and Kelly’s incoherence. She sticks her hand out and flips him off, “Do you understand that?” Things escalate again when Nathan puts an arm around a violently unwilling Gary who responds by grabbing him and preparing to punch. “Hey, pack it in!” Tony lunges forward to separate them “It’s love, man!” Nathan yells. You double over, stepping back to get out of the way. Kelly meets your gaze and smirks at the growing scene before you. Alisha laughs, a high-pitched giggle. Tony stood between them now, pulling Gary further and further away from Nathan, who assumed a boxer’s stance and put up his fists comically. “Do it man! Do it! You’re a prick, man, look at you!” Gary calls, trying to push past Tony. “What the fuck are they doin’?” You say to everyone behind you as Kelly looks between you and Alisha. Simon looks like he’d rather be elsewhere, as does Curtis, but for different reasons. Nathan had taken to punch the air, which only served to further aggravate Gary. “You’re a fuckin’ pussy, bruv! He’s takin’ the piss, come here!” Cue the intro music. -- Tony eventually diffuses the conflict between Nathan and Gary and finally leads everyone to some benches by the lake, which you are told to paint white. Paint drips everywhere, from your shoes to the concrete sidewalk, but you hardly care. How different is this from the reason you were here in the first place? You were reprimanded for painting on someone else’s property and were told to instead paint on someone else’s property to pay for it, how is that supposed to work? The only difference is that the first time had been art, and this was largely pointless. They wanted to cover up the graffiti on these benches, but the new paint job would only make future acts of vandalism easier to see. You did it anyway, though, happy to peel off with Nathan and Kelly as Curtis and Alisha and Simon and Gary pair off to the benches on either side of you. You watch as Gary leans down to pick up more paint on his brush, his hat brushing dangerously close to the fresh paint before it finally touches, leaving a stark white smear on the brim. You poke Nathan’s shoulder and point as Gary notices, ripping off his hat in horror and stomping off in a huff, kicking a bucket of paint into the lake and leaving behind a violent burst of white. “Oh, man! There’s paint on my cap, this is bullshit!” “Ooh!” Alisha whistles as he walks past. Everyone turns and stares as he struggles with a shopping cart that’s in his way, kicking it at first before trying and failing to shove it into the lake as well when it simply falls in front of him, still blocking the path. “I know you,” you hear Alisha say to Curtis, perking up due to your own curiosity. “No, you don’t,” he brushes her off. “Yes, I do,” She continues, unphased. “You’re that runner guy. You screwed up big time.” That’s it. You’d seen him years ago at your secondary school’s track meets and races, and later in the news for his accomplishments and subsequent arrest. “You noticed, yeah? Thanks for reminding me.” He grew increasingly annoyed, and it was abundantly clear. Overhearing, Nathan glances up at Kelly and tries to strike up a conversation, “So I’m guessing shoplifting?” She ignores him. “No?” He was about to speak again when she cuts him off, “Don’t act like you know me, ‘cuz you don’t.” “I’m just makin’ conversation!” He motions to you and Kelly, “This is a chance to network with other young offenders. We should be swapping tips. Brainstorming!” He looks at you to continue, but you stay silent, also curious about Kelly’s infraction. You shrug and he looks back at her. “Come on, what did you do?” “This girl called me a slag so I just got into a fight,” she admits, slapping her paintbrush to the bench in annoyance. “Was this on the Jeremy Kyle show?” He jokes. “No, it was at Argos.” “Argos?” you ask, finding the store an odd place to get into fights. “You know what you should’ve done? You should have got one of them little pens and jabbed it in her eye.” He was referring to the pens for filling out the catalog cards at Argos and you smirk at the image, but Kelly just stares at him incredulously. It’s an odd thing to say to someone you barely knew. He turns to look at you, “And you? I need to know what we’re workin’ with here.” “Ah…” You glance between Nathan and Kelly before continuing, “Graffiti, mostly, and throwing a party that bugged my neighbors, breaking the peace.” You had broken the law, technically, but it was nothing compared to punching someone and getting into a fight in the middle of Argos. He raises his eyebrows curiously, “Is there a story behind it or was it just mindless vandalism?” “It was on the wall of my apartment, my landlord saw it when he went to break up a party that my friends were throwing and he said he’d report me.” “Oh, what a wanker!” Nathan exclaims. “The worst part is I lost the apartment and now I’ve gotta live with my dad and stepmum again and it’s a living nightmare.” You don’t want to exaggerate or sound like too much of a cliche, but your stepmother is one of the meanest people you have ever encountered. You could understand it to some extent, as she has two young children and you aren’t the greatest of influences. You call these siblings stepfuck and stepcunt respectively, case in point. “Well, I can sympathize with that. But at least yours is a stepmum, they’re, like, inherently kinda hot, amirite?” You glare at him and begin to understand some of Kelly’s annoyance. He redirects, turning his attention to Simon, who is now painting his bench all alone after Gary’s outburst. “What about you, weird kid? Don’t take this the wrong way or anything, but you look like a panty-sniffer.” He holds his hands up beside his face, mocking a disgusting sniff of some invisible panties. “I’m not a panty-sniffer,” he responds. “I’m not a pervert.” He tries to return to painting the bench, but Nathan begins walking towards him, pretending to jack off with his paintbrush still in his hand, grunting disgustingly. You sigh and roll your eyes, glancing at Kelly. He could be funny, sure, but you were quickly learning about his tendency to take things too far. Kelly shrugs at you. “I tried to burn someone’s house down,” Simon blurts out to get Nathan to stop. Everyone who’d heard snapped to attention, as arson seems considerably more serious than vandalism or a few punches. “Fire?” Nathan laughs and walks back. Kelly looks up at him, “What did you do?” You were still curious about the fire and arson, but you let the conversation move on regardless. “Me? I was done for eatin’ some pick ‘n’ mix.” “Yeah, right,” you scoff. “Bollocks,” Kelly agrees. “What is goin’ on with this weather,” Nathan muses, distracted, as thunder rolls down from overhead and you quickly noticed the growing dark storm clouds in the sky just across the lake. Huh, odd. That hadn’t been there just a few minutes ago. “How did that happen?” you hear behind you, looking around to see Tony returning, an angry look instantly plastered to his face. He points to the overturned paint can, part of Gary’s carnage, and holds his arms up in exasperation. “I mean, you’ve been here five minutes. It’s painting benches. How’d you screw that up? You tell me, because I’ve got no idea.” From out of nowhere, a giant white ball of something smashes down on the car behind Tony, completely caving in the roof and sending the car alarm blaring. Shocked, you jump back and duck amid the various screams and cries of “What the hell was that?” and “Oh, Jesus!” Nathan’s smug grin immediately falls and transforms into fear and wonderment. Alisha shrieks, crying out in a warbling tone, “What’s goin’ on?” Tony turns around slowly in disbelief and gasps, “That’s my car!” “Oh, fuck,” you mutter under your breath. But Nathan isn’t taking it as seriously. “Classic,” he chuckles, thinking it to be some sort of prank. But then another thing falls from the sky into the lake behind you, whizzing past your heads and spraying you, Nathan, and Kelly in an onslaught of lake-water. “Okay, so I’m a little bit freaked out!” he admits. “No fucking shit!” you agree. “What is that?” Alisha asks, turning your attention to the storm Nathan had pointed out just moments ago. It had grown, somehow, turning dark and dangerous as it travels at an unnervingly fast pace towards your group. Simon holds his phone up to film the storm and its effects just as another ball crashes into the dumpster beside him, knocking over the heavy, metal container and spewing ice at him as he ducks and runs from it. More and more ice falls from the sky, huge blocks larger than your head, and you don’t want to think of what could happen if one of them hit you. “Right, let’s get everyone inside,” Tony instructs as more and more of them fall all around you. “Move! Move! Run!” You sprint back to the community center at top speed, holding your head as ice shards rain down on you, pelting and stinging your face and arms. Your heart practically beats out of your chest. One ball of ice pummels into the sidewalk in front of you, breaking a concrete tile. Another falls into a phonebooth, and the glass shatters to the ground around your feet. The storm seems to get thicker as you near the center, and your hair is plastered to your face from the mixture of sweat and water that you were drenched in. You could barely hear Tony yell “Keep going!” over the crashes and booms that fill your ears as you run for your life. Curtis reaches the door first, pulling on the handles and banging on the glass before stepping back and yelling over the din to Tony, “It’s locked! Open it!” Tony groans, “Come on…” and fumbles with the keys. You throw yourself against the wall, as far away as possible from the mega hail storm, and scream, “Just fuckin’ unlock it!” “What is happening?” Kelly shrieks as another massive ball of ice falls onto the pavement beside her. “Open the door, come on!” Nathan yells as Tony grows increasingly frustrated. “I’m finding the right key!” he bellows back “Open the door!” Curtis yells again, and Alisha agreed. “Open the fucking door!” Tony whips around in a burst of anger, “Don’t speak to me like that!” You were about to berate him for his poor priorities when a bright white burst of cold lightning cracks in front of you and sends you flying backward in a chorus of screams. Time slows as you fly through the air and the electricity transforms from a chilling shock to a burning flare, searing and snaking through you as you soar and tumble backward onto the hard pavement. You hit the ground with a sickening thud, from which groans and cries of pain follow. A few remaining snowballs hit the ground around you, but the storm appears to have passed. “I feel really weird,” you hear Kelly say. Your vision is still black, which has you worried until you realize it’s only because your eyes are still closed. You open them and sit up, rubbing the back of your head, which is still screaming in pain. “That’ll be the lightning,” Curtis says to try and explain what just happened. “We should be dead,” Simon points out. “Well, that’s comforting,” you snap back. “A little reassurance might be nice, you know,” Nathan agrees, instead directing his comment to Tony, who is sprawled before the door of the center and has just started to sit up. “‘You’re fine!’ ‘Looking good!’” he elaborates. “Wanker…” Tony groans, pushing himself up onto his elbows. “Did he just call me a wanker?” Nathan asks, indignantly glancing at you and everyone else. He snaps his fingers at Tony, “Hey? Hello?” You see a quick look of anger flash across Tony’s face before he grumbles, “Is everyone alright?” “We could have died, you dick,” Alisha adds. “Are you alright?” Kelly asks tentatively as Tony shakes his head and coughs out a growl. “You’re actin’ like a freak.” He ignores her, “Maybe we should call it a day.” -- Tony finally manages to unlock the door, and you return to the locker rooms to gather your things. You feel like you should be annoyed, leaving early only means you’ll have to spend another day here, but you are too exhausted to feel anything. That was probably the closest you’d ever been to death. You can still feel your heart beating, a deep, steady drumbeat, and your lungs ache from the running and adrenaline. Beside you, Nathan closes his locker and leans against it before turning to you, “Do you think we’ll stick together now, bonded by our shared experiences?” “Dunno. I’d rather spend as little time here as possible,” you explain, closing your locker and stepping away to put on your hoodie. “Oh, you’re one of those types, are you?” Nathan smiles. “What type?” You glare at him. “The I’m-too-cool-for-this type.” “No, that’s Curtis,” you quip, knowing that he’d already left the room. “I just happen to not like community service.” Or any of these morons, all the other girls are total slags. “Hey!” Kelly snaps, swinging around to glare at you suddenly. “Oookay?” You turn away awkwardly and leave, you can’t imagine anything you’d said having offended her. Maybe she just really loves community service or something, but that is decidedly not the impression you’ve gotten from her so far. You walk out to the waiting area by the vending machines, where you find Curtis and Simon standing around in heavy silence. Nathan follows after you moments later. “Do we just go, then?” Curtis asks, clearly annoyed. “Where’s the probation worker?” “I think there’s something wrong with him,” Simon speaks up. “It’s like he was having a spasm.” “He was probably just faking it, trying to get some compensation. Cheap bastard,” Nathan scoffs. “I don’t think he was faking it,” Simon insists, looking back down at his phone. “And you know all about being… mental.” Nathan takes a few steps forward as he talks, leering at Simon and lowering his voice. Then he pretends to convulse and yells “Wanker!” You punch him in the shoulder. “Ow, what the hell was that for?” He sticks his head out at you almost comically. You stick your head out back at him. “Stop being such a prick, he might have a point.” Alisha walks in, already looking bored. “Are we waiting for something?” “Probation worker,” Curtis explains. She scrunches up her face in disgust. “I’m not hanging around for that dickhead.” She turns on her heel and leaves, which everyone else seems to take as their cue to leave as well. You can’t be bothered to be the only one waiting around, so you follow suit. Once outside, everyone pretty much goes their separate ways. Nathan, however, trots after you. “What’re you doin’?” You ask. “Thought you looked a little lonely, and, well, I’d like to recommend my own company as recompense.” He motions to himself like he’s all that, which honestly has you snorting to hold back your laughter. “You can’t be serious.” You raise your eyebrows. “Fine, I happen to live along this way, alright? I’m Nathan, by the way.” “Y/n.” You smile at him. “And I’ll have you know that to date, I haven’t had a single complaint.” He says it like you should be impressed or something. “Can’t have complaints if you haven’t been with anybody,” you joke, smirking. His jaw drops in mock surprise, “Oy! I have, too!” He keeps trying to impress upon you the depth of his sexual prowess, offering many stories as proof, all of which have you in stitches. He peels off when you were about halfway home. You say your goodbyes and wave as he walks away, grateful for the company. A few houses down from your own, though, you stop walking, contemplating what to do next. Home doesn’t seem like a particularly fun place to be right now, but it’s not like you have anywhere else to go. It’s still the early afternoon, so it would probably be only your stepmum at home, with your dad at work and your step siblings at school. It’s practically a worst-case scenario, as you doubt she would believe that they let you go early. You wish this day had gone differently. As you’re musing and trying to work up the courage to walk the thirty or so meters left to your front door, the skies begin to darken. You look up to see if a cloud had rolled in overhead, not exactly trusting the weather as of late, but as soon as you do so, it disappears and the sky goes back to normal. You think nothing of it, which is probably a poor choice on your part, but you are too burned out to care. You finally reach the front door, closing it gingerly behind you, but to no avail. “Y/n? Is that you?” You hear from the other room. “Yup.” You stand in the doorway to the kitchen, knowing you need to address this, but desperately wanting to leave. “They let us go early today.” She eyes you quizzically, “Really?” Now here’s the thing, the truth isn’t even remotely believable– There was a freak hail storm and everyone in our group got hit by lightning or something but now we’re all okay and our probation officer did too, he let us go early and then disappeared– so you have to lie. “Yeah, ‘cuz it’s the first day. They mostly showed us the ropes, got us started on something, and then let us go.” You wait, holding your breath. “Oh.” She looks disappointed. “I thought you’d be out today.” “Yeah, well I did, too,” you mumble as you walk away, not really caring whether or not she heard. “What’d you say?!” she calls after you. “Nothing!” you yell back as you walk as quickly as possible to your room. Once inside, you sigh and collapse onto your bed. You feel like a teenager again and it’s horrible, being forced to be somewhere where you’re treated like immature crap every day, living at home again, constantly having a row with your stepmum. You hope, but doubt, that the next day will be better.

#misfits #misfits tv #nathan #nathan misfits #nathan young #nathan young x reader #nathan young misfits #nathan young imagine

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thecosmicsen · 3 years

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🎂 happy belated birthday month to fellow ghosty boy, aka the soft boy Jaewoo is stuck to in any AU, the one and only @phantombs ! 🎂

* : ✮ ┆ the one in which they both bond with the afterlife .

call it the synchronisation of two backgrounds harmonising that cultivated this very moment of Jaewoo enthusiastically bursting through Cường’s front door. the trust that Cường has in him to provide key access speaks volumes of unfathomable confidence despite the striking contrasts between what the two deem as amicable greetings. typically, Jaewoo is akin to a sudden blast of nippy wind that tends to slap someone across the face with its sharp stinging icy breeze whereas Cường is the type to snore through category five typhoons. this indisputable fact about the elder male is what provides Jaewoo with the brazen guts to invade his home so unabashedly since he knows that nothing will stir the unconscious figure. as according to plan.

detecting the lump in the midst of the blankets, Jaewoo now enters stealth mode as he navigates his way around the bedroom. setting down the canister of helium with a slightly louder thunk, he sucks in his cheeks in horror as he tersely waits to see if it elicits a stir or two out of Cường. it doesn’t. with a smug sense of achievement, he proceeds with the first step of filling up confetti-filled balloons so he can robustly tie them in batches of three with blue ribbons. what the true finishing touch is the polaroids of the abundant pictures he has taken of Cường over the span of time they have spent together. besides the absolutely candid shots varying from Cường overlooking the speckles of freshly budded cherry blossoms to him randomly snoozing in an upright position on the park bench, the polaroids consist of vintage filtered memory snapshots ranging from . . .

one. tiny coffee puddles lingering at the bottom of almost emptied mugs. licked up cupcake crumbs. overcast cherry blossom shadows merging with the tabletop. the lining of plush armchairs overlooking the open cafe balcony. pink-tinged cheeks from the open breeze. a slumped over snoozing figure, his mouth slightly agape as he snugly fits in the width of his chair. it’s ironic really, sleeping right after a caffeine dose ? classic Cường.

two. rain-streaked panels. the lazy streaks of dusk filtering through clearing horizons. idly bustling of Cường’s back faced to him as he gently rifles through his collection of mugs. thick woolly covered socks perched up together. a low hum of a cheery tune. the cheeky grin he flashes when Cường turns around with the familiar scolding look. “ you’re going to be chilled to the bone, wrap up the blanket tighter around yourself. ” the elder male warns him and he obliges.

three. dusted piano keys. a pair of hands gliding across the ivory. the other pair patiently listening, and listening, and listening. time stands still in the air, the concept being sapped away between the gaps of the keys as Cường plays the tunes of a piece so bittersweet. reminiscing curls his lips downwards until Cường gently grabs hold of his hand and gingerly swaps it with his own. “ learn to play with me, ” he jerks Jaewoo out of his transfixed spiralling stance that threatens to plunge him into a nostalgic dimension.

four. flash. flash. flash. another piercing flash. it washes him out, bringing out the sallow side of his physical manifestation. he’s suddenly very self-conscious. all he is doing is walking along the river, breeze tickling through his hair. the only person he notices is Cường with his mobile phone pointed in his direction. “ wait, I’m not ready for a picture. ” Jaewoo protests, immediately raising his hand up into a peace sign with a chirpy grin. Cường snaps a few more before shaking his head, a fond smile taking over. “ you silly boy, does the sun ever need to prepare its shining brightness ? nor do you. ”

five. buzzing electric hums crackle. indignant yells from preteens cause a crease between Cường’s brows. blaring beeps and glowing neon signs cram up any leftover space in the arcade. they promise many bountiful rewards. get your hands dirty, you might win an oversized stuffed narwhale. Jaewoo rubs his hands gleefully, akin to a persistent fly about to dig into a tasty feast. “ I know just the thing you need on the days you sleep for fourteen hours. ” pivoting to the flashiest claw machine with Line characters packed like sardines, he eagerly hunches over with his tongue sticking out in concentration. he will win this. inserting his leftover cash in enthusiastically, he aims the metallic grip of death to the nearest stuffed bunny. taking in a noisy deep inhale to quell his adrenaline, he jabs at the pretentiously gaudy red button for the claws to suffocate the bunny to victory. it works ! he didn’t expect it to in full honesty but now he can smugly brandish it to the amused male. “ let’s call him Lele. now you will never be alone. ”

. . . a shrill whistle sounds from Jaewoo as he clambers towards Cường’s bedroom window. a hoard of worn out older dogs struggle to float up to the window’s height. but with the aid of Jaewoo’s awaiting palms, they are safely directed into the warm haven of Cường’s birthday setup. what’s left is the lighting of candles and the birthday. the ghost had considered buying a massive rectangular cake to fit the few hundred candles on it but he reckoned that Cường wouldn’t be up for using all of his lung power on blowing out that many candles so he settled for placing fifty seven instead. not a jibe to the other’s age at all.

clapping his hands together, Jaewoo motions at the expectant dogs to go huddle up against the sleeping figure in bed. beyond eagerly, they all contentedly clamber besides Cường as they are familiar with the man and his previous visits to the shelter. the wholesome sight warms his heart and he hurriedly moves to snap a picture of the cosy sight before Cường can object. by the looks of it, he still hasn’t fully stirred from his slumber yet so Jaewoo takes the cue to finally begin the slow singing of the birthday cheer.

“ happy birthday to you, happy birthday Choi Cường, happy birthday to you. ” the dogs happily grumble along to Jaewoo’s trilling voice in an unique harmonisation to celebrate the cheer of Cường entering another year of life yet again.

Cường finally arises with groggy eyes, hair sticking out in random tufts and incomprehesible noises that only those fully acquainted with deep sleep can fathom. Jaewoo approaches him with his birthday cake, eyes glazed with delight.

“ make a wish ! ” Jaewoo shoves the cake in front of him and Cường indulges him by huffing out the candles in three goes before tugging him onto the pile of puppies on the bed. “ please don’t tell me you wished for more sleep. ”

alas, Cường has already fallen back into a half-drowsy state but it’s okay. the cake can wait.

* : ✮ ┆ the one in which they both bear the weight of the crown .

huff puff. huff puff. huff puff. look at what lengths the young prince goes to. it takes a lot of cautious scrambling on the ivy-clad bricks. it surely would have been a call for an immediate plummet to death. had the prince not been thoroughly experienced with years and years of experience in exiting the castle grounds for invigorating quests for adventures, he wouldn’t have made it beyond a single ledge. as lithe as a cat, he even managed to maintain his hold on a staggering wide window ledge that showcased an approaching candlelight, presumably one of the many patrolling guards. security had greatly intensified ever since that eye-opening hectic night of ultimate meetings of meetings. the only leeway he was able to breakthrough and finally make through the fortress was through months and months of extensive study with the aid of prince Cường’s silent cues on illustrating ways on how the other may keep visiting him in his lonely desolate tower.

evidently, the legwork pays off since Jaewoo is able to navigate his way through the labyrinth of tenacious security personnel. it’s extraordinarily exciting to be going through such leaps and bounds to visit your secret werewolf best friend, son of the rival kingdom that your family swore an oath against !

entirely pleased with himself and his progress, the young prince proceeds with his voyage to the grand tower window after ensuring with a peep that the patrolling guard has moved on. he makes a quick mental note of how the fourth floor garrison seem to take around seventy five seconds for a quick sweep before moving on with his cat climb.

it must have been a nasty shock for Cường to have his grand balcony doors thumped on frantically in the dead of the night. Jaewoo can faintly make out the startled grunt followed by groggy scuffling towards the set of gold-plated doors. the sight that Cường is faced with upon opening the doors with hesitance is one straight out of the many books that he’s read with Jaewoo in their more relaxed princely hang out sessions. the moon crescent gently laminates Jaewoo’s tall and proud silhouette with its sheer pearly luminescence glimmering off the many encrusted jewels on his figure.

“ prince Cường, head of all mythical protection, the defender of deep sleep and all other his realms, you have officially lived to see and enter another blessed year ! ” Jaewoo enthuses, his eyes dancing wild in delight with his self-perceived inspirational opening. “ despite the beast inside, quite literally if I may add, you have persisted and floated through the face of adversity. a very very joyful and happy birthday to you. as my gift to you, I must insist on you going out with me on this clear mid spring evening. ”

to be expected, Cường stares at him incredulously before opening his mouth to come up with a gurgle of excuses ranging from it being too late and the best birthday gift he can give is to have the longest nap. this is all naturally dismissed by Jaewoo with a wave of hands although he switches up his tactic with pleading beseeching eyes.

“ I swear in the name of all things that I love, this will be a minimal effort journey for you, your highness. ” Jaewoo holds his hand on his chest to declare his oath. “ outside your grounds, I have brought a sled with a comfortable makeshift that I specially made for you. please please please. I shall carry you along the entire time. you only need to walk the distance to and from your bedroom to outside the grounds but even for that, I can piggyback you for when we are out of sights from your garrison. ”

Cường sighs in defeat, knowing that it takes far more energy to Jaewoo who doesn’t take no as an answer either way. the duo had been continuously going out for either one of Jaewoo’s gutsy expeditions in his quest for seeking fantastical legends or heading for a cosy hangout in his secret shed hangout. so it is a familiar cause-and-effect process that Cường has grudgingly gotten accustomed to.

soon enough, the two are bundled up warmly and exit their usual and lesser dangerous route from within the castle instead of dangling off precariously on tower walls. as they veer near the edge of the perimetres of the castle grounds, Jaewoo begins to piggyback him as promised. with Cường’s thick plush cape enveloping his body too, Jaewoo enthusiastically leaps towards the awaiting royal sled concealed underneath the moss of an oak.

“ see, I made it like almost exactly like your real bed which you love to lay in so much ! “ Jaewoo gingerly lowers down Cường after ensuring every speck of leftover moss is flicked off. almost immediately, Cường nestles himself underneath the main heavyweight blanket with his eyes flitting shut which is a sure sign that Jaewoo must have accurately devised a mobile sleeping quarters for the lethargic prince. with the toothiest grin, Jaewoo leaves his nap to him in peace before securing the sled to his armour.

as they traverse through the grounds, a route that Jaewoo deliberately scoured for its even ground to avoid jilting Cường too much, the night begins to sink in deeper. an expert in creating handheld torches, Jaewoo lights the way for himself and his drowsy reluctant companion through the sweeping grand grounds of eclipsing trees. thankfully, the destination in mind for the birthday isn’t too far off so much of the night isn’t wasted on the journey time itself.

they arrive to a clearing that opens up the dull moonlit night with a large lake in sight. there is already a boat awaiting for them ( a product of Jaewoo’s meticulous birthday planning ). the barely illuminated body of water does not do justice for the usual daytime blue-green depths as the night overcasts its murky shadow. in fact, it would have been totally understandable if Cường was to believe that Jaewoo dragged him out in the midst of the night to kill him in this open valley. ironically, the birthday boy does reflect similar sentiments as he questions Jaewoo as to why they have come here but he does thank Jaewoo for bringing him out in the open air.

“ behold my dear friend, you shall see why I brought you here. ” Jaewoo holds out a hand in plea before sticking the burning torch into the ground near the docked boat. “ I’m going to transfer you to the boat now. I made it extra comfy for you, do not fear. ” admittedly, the wooden boat does look slightly shabby from what the torch’s amber lighting shows up. yet the confines of the boat are layered thick with nothing but fleece plush-lined winter blankets and opulent feather pine-stuffed pillows directly from Jaewoo’s palace.

transferring Cường to the boat takes no more than a second, the birthday prince not weighing more than mere grapes to Jaewoo who is amped up on adrenaline. blowing the touch out, must to Cường’s skepticism, he hops into the boat eagerly before grabbing the oars to paddle them out and away from shore. the atmosphere drastically dips to an eerie cloudless night with not a source of light to be found yet Jaewoo keeps on paddling and paddling and paddling.

“ what do you bring me here for ? ” Cường questions yet again, sounding helplessly bewildered. Jaewoo swats at him.

“ ssshhh, you’ll see in a moment. don’t be too loud now ! ” Jaewoo playfully jibes despite being several pitches higher than Cường. setting the oars now with definitive decisiveness, he stops paddling as he opts to shoulder another blanket around himself. “ any moment now . . . ”

as if just to vehemently rebel against Jaewoo’s words, the pair are left in the sweeping frigid silence in the enveloping darkness. the lake is completely still. the air almost stagnant from its lifelessness. Jaewoo frets about Cường falling asleep again. before he can reach out for Cường’s arm to harshly pinch. it begins to appear.

the fireflies begin to leisurely appear. each warm glow emitting slowly one by one until it begins to reflect against the clear lake depths, stark in its crystal clear glowing luminescence. it starts off with ten good fireflies darting around until a few hundred more show up to entirely brighten up the entire body of water like one of the radiant lantern festivals celebrated in the kingdom. some begin to glimmer near the boats which causes a cascading effects of pale yellow to light up all around them. finally Jaewoo can glimpse the entirety of Cường’s face who looks utterly in awe. he gently holds a finger out, witnessing how a firefly immediately beckons to his fingertip. it warms up the features of his face significantly.

this once, Jaewoo remains serenely silent as he soaks in the magical sight of the fireflies and their endless etched out glittery reflection on the still lake’s surface. glancing back to Cường, he brings out the hidden sack of pastries so he can gingerly stuff one in his mouth.

“ happy birthday, your highness ! ”

* : ✮ ┆ the one in which they are both reliant on coffee and stacks of books .

yeah, birthday, it's your birthday. if I die, bury me inside the Louis store, they ask me what I do and who I do it for and how I come up with this shit up in the studio. all I want for my birthday is a big booty hoe !

it is six in the crisp fresh early morning. the scatter of April’s cherry blossoms softly breeze past the windows. in the far off distance, the blue buses agilely shuttle to their timely scheduled stops. what is there to greet the overambitious joggers is the bountiful stretching of the clear blue skies and its cheery sunshine companion. what a landscape of utmost urban tranquility.

skrr, skrr, wrists movin, cookin', gettin' to it cookin', I'm in the kitchen, yams everywhere !

this lyric accurately reveals where the culprit of the booming bass music is located. what should be another college boy routine of panicked last minute waking up, rolling out of bed, brushing teeth and forgetting to comb before running out of the house is not happening. it’s pulverised along with the vibrating bass that resonates through the tight budgeted walls.

ah, Yeezy, Yeezy, how you do it, huh ? it's my birthday, I deserve to be greedy, huh ?

whether the actual birthday boy is begging for the chance to be greedy or the chaotic sound source in the kitchen is debatable. the April birthday boy is was soundly fast asleep in his bedroom underneath the newly gifted weighted blanket and he must be too groggy with early morning drowsiness. he groans as the bass violently shakes his bed before waiting a few moments to see if the music will miraculously switch off. perhaps this spring day will bless him with a power shut off to banish the ruckus.

I show up with a check to your work place then hand the valet the keys to the merces. tell the DJ play your song, this shit come on. what I'm seeing from the back I can't front on. they ask me what I do and who I do it for !

as fast as Cường’s lethargic feet will transport him to the kitchen despite it being a mere few steps in their apartment, it feels like eternity to him. as he languidly inches towards the kitchen, the deafening birthday song begins to ring his ears. it elicits a slight grimace out of him. his only plan is to lower the music volume to five before noiselessly dragging himself back to bed to flop down to prolong his sixteen hour nap.

however, his plans are rapidly crushed to itty bitty microscopic bits the moment he stumbles across the sight of Jaewoo haphazardly dancing along with ardent strong passionate strokes in the midst of the glammed up kitchen. stray confetti and metallic balloons litter the countertops and corners. a stack of presents line up on the island as a standout centrepiece on the counter set up for two. the warm scent of fresh souffle pancakes fill up the air and berry compote compete to overwhelm senses along with the brewing green tea. when Cường is set to open his presents after breakfast, he will come to find out that Jaewoo has purchased a drawstring hoodie pillow, an interesting choice of a pillow, another ostrich pillow for classes, an aromatherapy eye pillow, microwaveable slippers, a book light for philosophical bedtime reading, a golden ratio notebook, a poster, and a self-heating coffee mug.

“ finally, I was beginning to wonder how long it would take to bait you out of bed ! ” Jaewoo chirpily waves at the dopy figure in the middle of his twirling hands up motion, who is seemingly flabbergasted. it’s an overload of various stimuli to all take in at once at six in the morning. but to his credit, Jaewoo begins to lower the volume to a decent level that won’t burst eardrums.

“ who are those presents for ? they better be for you. I told you, you didn’t have to do anything for me. silly boy. ” Cường finally remembers how to vocalise after awakening slightly.

wiggling his finger at him, Jaewoo jubilantly shakes his head with a smug smile before grabbing hold of the other’s shoulders to steer him to sit down on the island stool. “ so you are allowed to do whatever you want for my birthday but I can’t do the same ? if you do not accept these presents then I will have no choice but to start playing Tinashe at full volume. you know how her songs get me going. ”

it appears to be that Cường receives the message so he expectantly grabs his chopsticks. with a triumphant grin, Jaewoo pours out a cup of green tea to him before pouring out a bowl of seaweed soup for him. “ eat up birthday boy, live a very long healthy prosperous life. who else will I take to astronomy club ! I need you alive ! ” with his eyes sparkling mischievously, he then whispers out one final. “ happy birthday Cường. ”

#ok so at least it is still April where you are so #hAPPY BIRTHDAY MONTH CUONG #this is super late but it's here .#this may be slightly chaotic #proceed at your own cost #there's like so many reoccurring themes no matter which au they are in JSOIFJSKPFFK #just don't judge<3 #phantombs #* : ✮ ┆ℎ𝑒 𝑤ℎ𝑜 𝑖𝑠 𝑓𝑎𝑚𝑖𝑙𝑖𝑎𝑟 𝑤𝑖𝑡ℎ 𝑡ℎ𝑒 𝑠𝑖𝑙𝑒𝑛𝑐𝑒 𝑜𝑓 𝑡ℎ𝑒 𝑑𝑒𝑎𝑑 (𝐶𝑢𝑜𝑛𝑔).

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atinytokki · 5 years

Text

𝐀𝐥𝐥 𝐭𝐨 𝐙𝐞𝐫𝐨

Chapter 9: No Way Out

Seonghwa’s “morning” whistle sounded around noon and it was all Wooyoung could do to stumble out of bed. With next to no one on deck, he decided to investigate and found Mingi fast asleep with a note taped to him that read, “Wake Captain if I’m still asleep”

Wooyoung rolled his eyes and gingerly crept into the silent Captain’s quarters after his three knocks went unanswered. There he lay completely knocked out as well, breath coming in and out softly.

Seeing the dark rings under his eyes for the first time in the sunlight, Wooyoung wondered if Captain was actually in the habit of sleeping ever.

As he went to shake him, something caught his eye. A crystal hanging from his neck, peeking out from under his shirt, moving up and down slightly with his breathing. It was entrancing, the way it caught the light and twinkled at Wooyoung. It was begging to be taken off and admired, not hidden under a shirt.

Wooyoung began to lean forward to get a better look when Captain’s eyes suddenly snapped open.

On being woken, Hongjoong’s hand bolted out from under his pillow, gun in hand and aimed directly at Wooyoung’s face. He stumbled back in surprise, but the gun was immediately lowered as the Captain realised it was one of his officers waking him and not an enemy.

He sighed and leaned back onto the pillows, gun falling out of his hand and hitting the floor. Wooyoung cleared his throat after a moment. Hongjoong’s eyes slid over lazily to him in a clear plea for more resting time.

“That’s the boatswain’s whistle, sir,” Wooyoung mumbled, clearing his throat again awkwardly. Hongjoong continued to give him sustained side-eye that screamed both creepy and playful until closing his eyes and sighing. He wobbled as he rose from the bed and put on his coat,

Wooyoung still unsure whether he should leave or stand there longer. His eyes traced Hongjoong around the room as he shoved things in a small cloth bag.

Maps, a spyglass, extra cartridges, a few ropes... He suddenly straightened and grasped the crystal around his neck, as if making sure it was still there. He glanced at Wooyoung again, face unreadable.

“Come along,” Captain grabbed his hat and walked on deck.

The scuffle of tired sailors responding to Seonghwa’s “Captain on deck!” lasted for a few minutes as everyone was pulled out of bed, looking only slightly less exhausted. Wooyoung tried not to laugh at Jongho’s bed hair and watched the other officers appear, ending with Mingi, whose note was still attached to his chest.

“Um, sir...” Yunho pointed to it and muffled a giggle as Mingi noticed the paper, ripped it off and crumpled it in his fist with a quiet, “Thanks.”

Hongjoong addressed the men briefly, “I’ll only need a few volunteers for the boats, the rest of you are free to spend the remainder of your day how you wish. Officers, if you could step aside, please.”

Wooyoung’s heart started pounding again. This was strange. He and the others formed a small circle and the Captain began to address them.

“It is my understanding that some of our officers would like more information on what we’re doing out here sailing east.” Wooyoung swallowed and tried not to look at San. So Mingi had eavesdropped and ratted them out. Or had it been Seonghwa after their conversation yesterday?

Hongjoong’s signature smirk played on his lips as he continued, “It’s an officers-only island exploration tonight. When we get answers, I’ll explain what I can. In the meantime, I expect your unwavering loyalty regardless, is that understood?”

There was a chorus of yessirs before Captain turned to Mingi and told him, “I want you staying here in case anything goes wrong. The rest of you, pair up. Be at the boats in ten minutes.”

Wooyoung glanced at Yeosang and San, wondering which of them would ask to pair up with him first. To his surprise, San immediately grabbed Yunho’s arm and beamed at him. Wooyoung turned to Yeosang. Since San and Yunho were cabinmates it would make sense for him and Yeosang to pair up, but as he was about to open his mouth, he realised Yeosang and Jongho were already nodding at each other. So he was left with Seonghwa.

“I guess that’s sorted out, then,” he walked to his room to pack before things became awkward again. Not sure what to bring, he threw some weapons and an empty water flask into a bag and stood by himself at the boats.

Two volunteer rowing teams appeared and Wooyoung was intrigued by the fact that Captain actually let men volunteer instead of telling them to like Si-Hyuk did. Everyone else arrived one by one and the group set off through a fog for the shrouded island before them.

It looked like a lush and sizeable plot of land from what they could see through the mist. A gentle wind blew them to a long strip of beach. The sand was fine and white and there were fruits on the trees.

The men stumbled over each other in their desperation to pluck and eat the juicy fruit hanging off branches and bushes.

A beautiful aroma filled the air and Wooyoung, feeling the pang of his growling stomach, was drawn to the trees along with the others. The taste was completely foreign to him, but exhilaratingly sweet and somewhat addictive.

He was on his third melon when San came over and shoved a sprig of berries into his hand. His mouth was painted with the bright juice from the berries but he didn’t seem to notice as he shook Wooyoung and said, “Try this!”

Captain bypassed the fruit and knelt in the sand at the treeline, as if he were looking for something. “An opening!” He called out, motioning to the other officers.

“Aren’t you hungry, Captain?” Yunho gasped out around a mouthful of melon.

“The fruit will still be here when we return, come on.”

The seven of them followed the narrow path single file through increasingly thick vegetation, picking off a fruit here and there and eating it until they came upon a fork in the road.

There were four paths before them, leading too far ahead to see where they ended, tall bushes on all sides. “A maze,” Yunho breathed out. The smile on Captain’s face was unwavering. “A sign that people have been here— and maybe still are.”

He turned to them with orders. “Everyone has their partner? Choose a path and see where you end up.” He pulled out his rope and passed the others out to each group. “Use these to mark your path in case you get lost. The fog from the beach may be moving in within the hour. Be careful.”

With that, he selected the path to the far right and began to walk down it, unwinding his rope and dropping it behind him. “But Captain, what about you? You don’t have a partner!” Jongho yelled after in protest. “I’ll fire a flare if I get in trouble!” came the response, Captain’s voice already growing distant as he disappeared from view.

Seonghwa and Wooyoung glanced at each other and chose the path to the left of Hongjoong’s. San and Yunho took the far left and Yeosang and Jongho were left with the fourth path. Yeosang and Wooyoung met eyes briefly before they went their respective ways. He couldn’t be sure, but Wooyoung thought he saw a spark of fear in Yeosang’s eyes. But he simply nodded and turned to his own partner, following him into the maze and unwinding their rope.

Yeosang was listening intently to the sounds around him and trying to discern how far away the other groups had gotten by how distant their voices were.

Soon, he lost the sound altogether and could only unwind the rope gingerly and follow Jongho down the path. The two had to mind their step, Yeosang tripping forward onto Jongho over some roots that crossed the tiny, dusty path.

“Careful,” Jongho turned to look at him, caution painted all over his face. “I don’t like this,” he admitted. Right on cue, a voice drifted out of the fog. Both boys jumped before stilling and listening intently. It was a tune, softly sung somewhere ahead of them in the mist.

“It’s singing, it’s singing a mermaid song...” the realisation hit Yeosang right as Jongho suddenly passed out and began to fall backward.

Yeosang dove to catch him from behind and lowered him to the ground. “What—” Jongho’s eyes flew open and rolled upward as convulsions suddenly shook him. “Oh no,” Yeosang panicked. It was one of his dreams, one of his nightmares. But here of all places? And now?

“No no no! But I don’t have your medicine, San does!” Jongho began to whimper as he shook violently under Yeosang’s hands. Yeosang felt completely useless trying to calm Jongho and bring him back.

There was no way to stop the nightmare once it started. All he could do was give him the medicine. Face hardening, Yeosang rose and tied the rope to his partner’s arm.

“I’ll be right back, Jongho. And I’ll bring the medicine, just stay put.” With that he ran back the way they had come, following the rope backwards and dodging the roots on the ground. He didn’t even notice the singing had stopped.

...

Yunho and San had kept a lively but meaningless conversation going to pass the time and disguise the way their hearts were both beginning to sink as their path went on and on in a straight line.

Yunho was in charge of rolling out the rope and dropping it, and he was beginning to be afraid that he would run out before they got anywhere.

San suddenly interrupted himself to point out the fog that was descending on them. Yunho simply nodded and let out a low breath. “Look, another fork in the road,” he whispered anxiously.

Sure enough, there was a split with a path going left and one winding right. “Which one do we take?” San left the decision to Yunho. They peered down both ways for a moment before Yunho sighed. “There’s not much of a difference, and we’ve run out of rope. Let’s just keep left, and if it’s a dead end we’ll retrace our steps and go right.”

They dropped the rope and stumbled on through the fog until Yunho’s stomach growled. “I’m hungry again,” he mumbled. San looked at him and clicked his tongue. “I’m sure it’s fine if we sit and eat for a minute,” he suggested. “We’ve gotten far ahead of everyone else most likely, going in a straight line.” He looked back at where the split had been, but couldn’t make it out through the mist.

San hummed shakily, pulling out some berries and splitting them between the two. Yunho sighed with satisfaction and stretched. “I’ve been feeling dizzy, but I think I’ve finally got my land legs back.” San looked at him with a sparkle in his eyes. “You mean land leg.”

Both of them burst out laughing for a moment, hiccuping on the fruit still in their mouths, when suddenly San whipped out his gun and aimed it just above Yunho’s head. Yunho’s eyes grew as round as saucers and he hit the ground and turned to see what San was pointing at, just as he fired a shot into the fog.

There was a woman standing in the middle of the road, and the bullet went right through her and out the other side. San tried again, but again the bullet went straight through the silhouette in the fog. He lowered his gun, hand trembling. “Noona?”

...

The atmosphere started to feel heavy, and Wooyoung wasn’t sure if it was just him or something actually going on in the air. He wanted desperately to make conversation and be distracted, but he had nothing much to say and Seonghwa seemed occupied with his own thoughts.

They made a few sharp turns, but the path was still headed in the same general direction, judging by the position of the sun. As he unwound the rope after a bend to the left, Wooyoung checked the sun again and noticed fog covering it and the tips of the bushes around them. He swallowed, trying to push down the queasy feeling that was growing inside him and pressed on. He felt eyes on him a moment later.

Seonghwa’s stare persisted. “Are you alright?” Wooyoung told the truth, “A little lightheaded. May just be nerves...”

“Let’s sit for a moment.”

As he looked closer, Wooyoung realised from the darting of his eyes and bouncing knees that Seonghwa was jittery too. Suddenly the motion stopped as Seonghwa turned his head upward. Wooyoung followed his gaze and froze. “Did you hear that?” Seonghwa whispered.

Wooyoung’s tongue was stuck to the roof of his mouth but he made a barely audible high pitched noise in response. It was the sound of a gunshot. Just as they rose and began retracing their steps, another went off, and this time they were sure of it. “Someone’s in trouble!”

...

Yeosang reached the entrance to the maze and turned to the path on the far left, remembering that was the way San and Yunho went. He picked up the end of the rope that lay there and began to follow it.

After a few minutes he realised the path was more or less a straight line, and picked up the pace. San and Yunho must have gotten far without having to make any turns.

Suddenly the rope ended and he was faced with a fork in the road. His stomach dropped. There were two options and he had no idea now which San and Yunho had taken.

Yeosang closed his eyes and took a deep breath, trying to clear his head. His only option was to guess and hope it was the correct path. “I’ll go right,” he whispered to himself. “The fog isn’t as thick there.” He worked up a steady jog and pressed on even as he could feel the sun setting behind him.

A wall of green appeared before him and he almost collided with it. “A dead end?” But there was another opening to the right that led on, so sucking in a breath, he continued. Time was ticking away and Jongho was still in a trance, he knew.

Doubt started to creep into his mind as he turned another corner. Had he gone the right way? He turned around to see behind him, but night had fallen. All that remained was blackness, the hairs standing up on his neck, and his own laboured breathing. He was lost.

...

“San, she’s not real. Listen to me, no one is there! You’re hallucinating!” Yunho’s pleas went unheeded as San continued to stare at the spot above his partner’s head where he believed his half-sister to be.

She looked just like he remembered, and as real as Yunho who had grasped his shoulders and was shaking him now. “Why did you leave me, San?” She spoke to him, and her voice sounded broken and betrayed. His eyes filled with tears as he tried to work out a response.

“Was I too much of a burden?”

“No, no it wasn’t you—” he finally choked. “Your illness... there was just nothing more to be done—the doctor said so!— and... well, I’ve found this new job and it pays well, noona! I was going to come back and find you and pay for all the medicine and the procedures. B-but how are you here? How did you get better already?”

“She’s not here, San!” Yunho was practically dragging him back the way they’d come at this point. But San could only focus on this apparition that was advancing toward him. “I don’t believe you.” Her voice was monotone now, and San could see a fire growing in her eyes. “You were scared, San. You still are. Scared of being alone, surrounded by all these people but cold inside like you always have been.”

“Noona, please,” San was sobbing now and Yunho was afraid he’d go into hysterics if he didn’t do something soon. He had extended his arm to slap him when a voice came from behind. “Yunho, San? Is that you?” San spun around in a panic and fired his gun at the shape forming in the mist, before gasping in horror.

Shocked eyes clouding over, blood leaking from between his fingers, hands clutched around his midsection, Seonghwa slumped to the ground.

...

Taglist: @nightynightnyx

A/N: SaN sHoT sEoNgHwA?!???

DONT KILL ME IM SORRY! I warned you it was action packed... Please like, comment, reblog and all that if you don’t mind. I’d love to know your thoughts and predictions!

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scxrlettwxtches · 5 years

Text

Safe | Dong Sicheng

Request: Drabble with number 79 Winwin pretty please!

Genre: angst/hurt and comfort

Warnings: violence

Word Count: ~1.5k

Prompt: “You’re safe now. I got you.”

A/N: yikes,,, this definitely isn't my best work (im so iffy with sicheng as a character ahhh I'm sorry anon), but I hope you can enjoy it!

You honestly didn’t mean for things to escalate this far. Ever since the beginning, you knew what you signed up for when you agreed to date Dong Sicheng. You knew he wasn’t always going to be around, you knew he was going to have to cancel dates frequently, you knew you couldn’t go out like other couples, but it was okay. You loved him, and that was all mattered.

But that doesn’t mean you didn’t get frustrated, and this was one of those times.

You had set up a nice dinner for Sicheng when he got home, knowing that he’d be exhausted after practicing for multiple comebacks and debuts. However, he was more than exhausted, and coldly shut down your encouragements to eat a little something. His curt tone added to your personal stress, and you just snapped.

Furious, you hissed out your insecurities, your frustrations of having a boyfriend that almost didn’t exist in your life. As you ranted, Sicheng grew increasingly defensive and detached. Finally, after listening to your exclamations, he replied in a quiet, spiteful voice.

“Well, you knew what was going to happen between us from the beginning. You knew and you accepted it,” Sicheng might’ve had a point there, and you were just throwing a careless fit, but in the moment, you couldn’t even process what he was saying, “It was all fine, so why are you being so clingy about it now? You can’t possibly expect me to be with you every minute of the day.”

A moment of silence screamed through the air, and you slowly backed away from the man you loved. A harsh, broken laugh fell out of your lips, which caught Sicheng’s attention. He seemed instantly guilty with his words, but his pride refused to back down. At the sound of your laugh, he looked at you, eyes immediately shifting into something akin to concern. His body moved in a way that looked as if he wanted to reach out to you, and you instinctively backed away.

Your trembling laugh continued until tears began to pool in your eyes. God, you always hated to cry. Mortified that Sicheng would catch you in such a state, you fled, running out of the apartment before he could even think.

It was the spur of the moment decision on your part, and you didn’t even bring a jacket to brave the chilly winter air. Your pajamas weren’t enough to keep you warm, but you certainly didn’t want to go home. Shivering, you waddled to a nearby convenience store, one that you used to frequent with your friends on late night runs.

Oh, that’s another thing you gave up to be with Sicheng.

You purchased a cheap cup of coffee from the store, using it as a source of warmth. Sipping it slowly, you stood awkwardly in the shop, silently cursing the lack of sitting area. After a few long minutes of reflecting, you gathered your courage and decided to head home to face your boyfriend.

Throwing out that god awful coffee, you walked out of the store. Your peripheral vision caught sight of a group of suspicious looking boys leaning against the side of the store. They were smoking something that smelled dizzying, but you had to go that way in order to head home. You lowered your head slightly, hoping to pass by unnoticed.

However, a girl wearing a flimsy set of pajamas was ought to catch their eye, and your heart jumped when you heard a whistle, “Damn, what a nice ass, baby,” one of them crooned. Panic creeped into your head as you pretended not to hear them.

The boys apparently didn’t appreciate being ignored, because before you could react, a hand gripped your wrist and slammed you hard against the wall. You slumped to one leg, winded and terrified. One of the boys cornered you immediately, trapping you in between his arms.

“I was talking to you,” he sneered, and you flinched, squeezing your eyes shut, “Do you think it’s polite to ignore people?”

“Leave me alone,” you whimpered, practically trembling at this point. You had no phone, nothing to defend yourself with.

The man pouted eerily, his breath close to your face, “Aw, that’s no fun!” he then smiled, “I can think of something much more interesting for the both of us.”

His hand brushed the hem of your shirt, and your sense of fight or flight was triggered in a split second. With a strength you never knew you had, you smashed your knee into his groin. Winded, the man's grip loosened, and you slipped out of his arms. However, you failed to account for the two other men that were standing around observing. The moment they saw you have the advantage, they reacted, one covering your mouth and the other restraining your movement.

You managed to let out a small cry in a struggle before a hand gripped your face painfully. The two men pushed you to the ground, bruising your back. By this point, you had almost completely given up; there was no way you could overcome three grown men.

“You little-” the first man groaned, obviously still affected by your debilitating move, “You’re gonna regret that.” He slithered toward you, and you squeezed your eyes shut, knowing what was to come.

Suddenly, a familiar snarl sounded from the edge of the alleyway, and you felt the man above you being ripped away from your body. Opening your eyes, you saw a blurry figure send a violent punch to the man’s face.

You couldn’t process what just happened, crawling to the corner of the alley trying to control your breathing. It’s just a bad dream, your brain screamed. You were physically and mentally exhausted, and you found your consciousness slipping away as the sound of punches drowned out.

When you opened your eyes again, you weren’t sure how long you were out, but seeing as you were still on the cold, damp ground of a gross alleyway, you figured it must’ve been a few minutes tops.

You only began to process that the sounds of the scuffle had died down when you felt a hand reach for your shoulder. Spooked, you flinched violent, breathing suddenly erratic.

“Woah! It’s okay! It’s me, Sicheng.” Of course it was. Your savior and the love of your life. He pulled you into a tight hug, your head burying into his shoulder as you cried in relief.

He held you in his arms, “I’m sorry, I’m so sorry. You’re safe now. I got you.”

Sicheng took quick notice of your freezing figure and pulled off his jacket, wrapping it around your small frame.

You hiccuped as you pushed yourself away to face him, “I-I’m sorry about the fight. I’m sorry about being selfish and-“

“Hey, don’t worry about that at all,” he cupped your cheek with his right hand, “It was more my fault, but that’s not important right now. Are you hurt?”

“Nothing that won’t heal,” you answered, but Sicheng didn’t look reassured in the slightest.

~~~~

“Are you alright? You seem kind of strange.”

You asked him as you watched your boyfriend maneuver around the kitchen clumsily. He had insisted on doing all the manual housework for you, so now you were sprawled on the couch as Sicheng washed the dishes with no experience.

He froze for a moment, before continuing his chore, “How so?” he feigned ignorance.

“Well, for one, you never ask to do the chores,” you frowned, “And you've been—I don't know—more clingy all night?”

Sicheng was quiet, his hands stopping in their work. You took this as a cue to take over, “Maybe I should help, one sec-”

No!” The man ran over at once, placing a gentle but firm hand on your shoulder, preventing you from sitting up, “It-it's fine, just don't try to get up okay? You might aggravate the bruises.”

Suddenly, all his actions made sense, and you melted slightly, “Oh, Sicheng, you know it's not your fault, right?”

He looked away, guilt all over his face, “No, it was,” his jaw clenched, “I was such a jerk and I almost lost you.”

You reached for his hand, holding it in yours, “What you said was hurtful, yes, but you were stressed out and I shouldn't have snapped at you,” putting a hand to his face, you turned his head to look at you, “What happened in the alley is not your fault. You didn't know who was there, where I was going to be. Actually, how did you even know I was there?”

Sicheng’s expression turned a little bashful, “You always talk about that place when you rant about your day, so that was the first place I had in mind when I went looking for your.”

That surprised you. When you tell your boyfriend about your day, he's usually half asleep or completely out of it, so you never expected him to actually be listening. It was actually just a way to calm him down, since he loved the sound of your voice.

Smiling, you pulled Sicheng over to you, the man laying down on the couch beside you. Instinctively, you lay your head on his chest, taking comfort in his steady heartbeat. The two of you close your eyes, falling into a deep slumber together after an eventful day.

#nct reactions #nct scenarios #nct drabbles #dong sicheng #nct winwin

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jakubzietek · 6 years

Text

title not bad by apocalypse standards location a small farmhouse, east belarus date 2000 when present warnings mentions of starvation, war horrors, violence with @maksvoloshyn

One month. That was how long he’d been alone.

Kuba blew at the lines he’d carved into the door frame. Once upon a time children might have measured their heights here, had fought over who was growing more, who was getting bigger and stronger. If anything Kuba felt as if he were shrinking, his long limbs curling in on themselves, until he was some kind of mangled insect, more vertebrae than meat. Feather-light bones.

On cue, his stomach rumbled. Kuba absent-mindedly rubbed it. He couldn’t feel his bones through his layers of shirts, scrounged jumpers, and his trusty parka, but he could imagine what he might look like. At school they had been learning about death camps. The photos quelled their ordinarily raucous class into a somber, uncomfortable silence. More stretched skin and elastic sinew than any of them could even imagine. Even the butcher’s boy, Aron, could only compare them to the skinless rabbits hung up in his father’s shop. After school Kuba had teased him about the analogy. He couldn’t remember why. Because he’d been an arsehole, probably. The memory made him smile once, briefly. He rubbed his thumb over the carvings and stepped away.

Tracks criss-crossing the dusty floorboards. Scuffles where he’d retied his shoelaces; or slumped, bored, on the floor; or tried once to build a fire in the middle of the room instead of in the fireplace. That had been a mistake. Kuba stuffed his hands in the pockets of his parka and surveyed the space. The upstairs farmhouse was less safe than the bottom floor: that was something the militia had drilled into him. Never go above ground, his commander told them, stolen tobacco lingered with sour breath, stay where you can make a stand; where you can fight.

Where you can run, Kuba added silently.

But ashen wind whistled through the cracks of the bottom floor doors; and in the three nights he forced himself to sleep down there, in a cupboard by the stairs, he’d dreamed of the house bearing over him, an enormous weight readying for the crush. No, better up here, with the stripped bedrooms and the sink with the dripping tap. Someone before him had taken anything of value until only the battered furniture remained. The bedframes were brass, and therefore were unable to be burned, but Kuba had managed to rip the panels off the wardrobes and side-tables, and had a small stack of wood by the fireplace in the upstairs master bedroom, which was where he now stood.

He never bothered with inventories. Food came and went. But when his stomach cramped again, Kuba felt his jaw tighten. He took mental note of what he had left. A plastic supermarket bag, wrapped twice around a kitchen knife. A nest of blankets on the double bed where he slept like an animal. A black backpack with a couple of tins of food. A wheel of cheese. A dented water canister given to him by the militia. Kuba adjusted the piece of fabric he used in lieu of a gas mask and exhaled wearily.

You know what you have to do, murmured a voice in the back of his head. Town isn’t too far.

Kuba ran his tongue over furry teeth. He automatically moved over to the windows, which were not bordered up but did have privacy shutters that banged when the wind got bad. From the second floor the fields looked empty. Nice, even, in that dry post-nuclear way he had come to know intimately after endless patrols and scouting missions. Long faded yellow grass waved in the persistent cool breeze, and grey silt washed over the scene like ink in water. Clouds pressed against the steel-grey sky. Way off in the distance he could see the boundary fence. The post-box. On the other side of the house was the barn, the outhouse, and a smoke shed. All empty. All safe.

I could go tomorrow, Kuba thought guiltily. It looks like it might rain. I could just stay here. Where it was warm(ish), safe(ish), and - best of all - there was no chance of being followed by bandits, or held up at gunpoint, or robbed, or raped, or any of the countless things that had happened to him since the world ate itself whole. He thought then of the tins of food in his bag. He might even have peaches left.

Peaches and a small fire. Kuba made a considering face to himself. Not bad, by apocalypse standards.

#nvc:start #DO NOT MATCH LENGTH I REPEAT #i just wanted to Set le Scene #maks #present #00 #not bad by apocalypse standards

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tails-of-a-dragon-rider · 6 years

Text

Arlo straightened xir dress in the mirror, a shimmering blue number that sparkled under the pale orange bathroom light.

Xe adjusted every piece of xir outfit, so concerned on it being perfect that xe didn't hear the knock on the front door until it started to bang through the apartment. Xe ran as fast as xe could in heels and opened the door. "Sorry, I'm still cleaning up. I'll be out..." Xe stopped as xe realized that who was at the door was not xir datemates, but someone xe did not expect tonight.

Aston let out a low whistle, nodding at the outfit and walking into the apartment. "You have some very lucky partners, my friend."

Arlo stood blinking for a moment before xir eyebrows knotted together. "Did you just whistle at me? While covered in sparkling purple paint?"

Aston sent the large package they had brought onto the table and looked down at themself. "Oh. Shit. Forgot about that." They waved their hand over their paint covered clothes, letting the stains congeal into small blobs of light. They waved them off and quickly began to unwrap the package they had set down. "Yeah. Let's just say that I got into a bit of a scuffle with Valspar on the way here." They took the large object out of the wrapping and turned to xir. Their eyes softened as they looked over them once more. “I was being honest. You look beautiful, the blue really brings out your eyes and the shoes are adorable. So, when are your dates picking you up?”

Arlo stepped back as the object was revealed fully, xir eye wide and mouth a little agape. It took xir a few secinds to spit out, "Okay, first, why do you have a huge fucking sword? I can take care of myself."

Aston chuckled. "Oh no, I know that just fine." They twirled the Zweihander almost carelessly over their shoulder. "It's a gift!"

Arlo's eyebrows knotted once more. "A...gift."

They moved the various knickknacks hanging on the wall to different hooks, revealing a hidden set of large hooks, where they carefully rested the sword. "I have so much money. Like, you know this. So, I saw something on Tweets that said something along the lines of 'if I were rich, I'd buy my friends a custom made sword', so," they presented the sword with their jazzy hands, "surprise!"

Things became awkwardly silent and Aston's jazzy hands soon slowed. "I probably should have asked, right? I mean I can take it back-". They stopped as they saw Arlo's arms open towards them.

"Can I hug you, you huge fucking nerd?"

Aston was stunned for a moment before breaking out in a smile and running into xir embrace. They took xir head and pressed into the front of their shoulder as xir arms wrapped around their waist. "You are the best and the sappiest friend I have, my gods, Aston."

Aston laughed. "Well, I aim to please." They both hugged until they heard a quiet knocking at the door. Arlo let Aston out of the hug and thry smiled. "All right, that's my cue to let you go." They gently kissed xir forehead and walked into xir bedroom. Have fun, lovebird."

Arlo rolled xir eyes and walked to the door, letting xir datemates in from the cold and kissing both of their lips. "Sorry, I was a bit busy, but you can wait in the living room until I'm done, okay. Be out soon." The taller of the two nodded and the smaller one was already walking into it.

Arlo was just about to start xir makeup when xe heard a yell from the room. "Holy shit, why didn't you tell me you have a fucking sword?! I have dibs." Arlo let out a quiet long-suffering sigh as xe continued to do xir face. This was going to be interesting.

#my writing #aston #arlo #man it's been a while #enjoy the sap my corvid friend #not canon name

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1misstherooftop-blog · 7 years

Text

What’s the Scoop

Read on ao3

Summary: Davey works at an ice cream shop that Jack frequents

Relationships: David Jacobs/Jack Kelly

Warnings: mentions of vomiting

Word Count: 5827

There was nothing cold about New York City in July. Everything simmered in the heat. Concrete sidewalks singed the feet of barefoot children, buildings groaned as the sun beat down all day. People exited theaters into the sweltering head, wiping at the sweat that beaded their foreheads.

Nothing in all of New York compared to the boy who walked into What's The Scoop at precisely 2:35 pm.

Davey had been blissfully unaware of the heat until then. He was surrounded by ice cream, the temperature of the store at least twenty degrees colder than it was outside.

The door swung open, the bell tinkling, to let in the prettiest boy David had ever seen. His hair was dark and unruly under a beanie (in ninety degree heat!), his arms bare in a ridiculous tank top. Davey wasn't even fazed by his cargo shorts, he was so distracted by his perfect face.

He blamed the sudden heat creeping across his cheeks on the gust of warm air from the open door.

"Hi, welcome to What's the Scoop," Davey greeted him. "You can order when you're ready."

The boy nodded, staring at the menu. "Can I just get a milkshake?"

"What flavor?"

"All of them."

Davey glanced up from the cash register. The boy was deadly serious. Davey cleared his throat. "Can I, uh, can I get a name for that?"

The boy squinted at him. "Is this a new policy? Ha, it's like Starbucks."

Davey laughed awkwardly. How was he supposed to explain that he just wanted to know the boy's name? He didn't say anything, just looked at the guy expectedly.

"Oh, yeah! It's Jack."

Davey scribbled the name on the cup. He could feel his face getting red. He scooped the ice cream in a rush, the cool air fighting back his blush. Jack watched him struggle to scoop the more frozen ice creams.

"No one ever buys these flavors," Davey explained, finally prying out a scoop of ice cream.

Jack smiled. Davey's heart lurched. He would do anything to see that smile again. "Guess I'll have to come in more often."

Davey could've cried with happiness. He chuckled instead, blending the milkshake. It turned an off brown color that kind of matched Jack's pants. "Here's your milkshake, Jack." Davey hoped he didn't say Jack's name in a creepy way. He really just wanted to say Jack's name.

Jack took it, still grinning. "Thank you. How much?" He had his wallet open, staring at Davey expectedly.

Davey waved him off. "Don't bother. You're cleaning out the flavors no one eats."

Davey told himself it was the heat that colored Jack's cheeks pink. "Thank you," he said again. He pulled a five dollar bill out of his wallet and a colored pencil. He scribbled something on the bill.

"Isn't It illegal to write on money?" David asked. He didn't know if he was more impressed by Jack drawing on currency or by Jack having a blue colored pencil in his wallet.

Jack held a finger up to his lips. He dropped the bill in the tips jar, winking at Davey. He pulled some sunglasses out of his pocket, putting them on. Davey didn't know how he managed to make that look hot. "Have a nice day."

"Thanks, you too." Davey managed. Jack left, back into the heat. Davey slumped against the counter, his face in his hands.

"I'm fucked," he muttered. He reached into the tip jar blindly, scared to remove his hands from his face. He pulled the money out, peering at it through his fingers. Jack had written his number across Lincoln's face.

The bell rang, another customer ducking in out of the heat. Davey straightened immediately. He could deal with Jack after work.

The next week was somehow even hotter. Davey had taken to sitting in the freezer between customers to escape the heat. He'd fallen asleep there Monday and jerked awake when the bell rung.

Jack, in all of his sweaty and masculine glory, had been leaning on the counter, grinning at Davey as he hurried to the cash register.

"Same as last time?" Davey had teased. Jack had laughed, shaking his head. "Can you add toppings?"

Davey had made a tiny noise of horror but obliged.

The next few days were all Jack. He came in around 2:30 each time. Davey had taken to setting an alarm on his phone so he could lay in the freezer with no risk of missing Jack.

His phone buzzed on cue, jerking Davey out of his half asleep state. He scrambled to his feet, adjusting his uniform to not be wrinkled.

It took three minutes for Jack to arrive. He lit up the moment he spotted Davey, his smile blinding.

"Heya, Dave," he said, leaning his hands on the counter. Davey was pretty sure if there wasn't a wall between them Jack would be much closer, an arm around his shoulders maybe, their sides pressed close. Davey really wished there wasn't a wall between them.

"Heya, Jack" Davey echoed back. "Same as last time?" He asked.

"Nah," Jack said, distracted. He was staring at the menu posted to the wall, his face squished with concentration. "Can I get a large vanilla cone? I didn't know you had soft serve here."

"Oh, yeah, we do." Davey grabbed a cone, expertly swirling the top.

Jack whistled. "You're a pro."

Davey shrugged. "I'm here a lot. You get good at it after a while."

Jack nodded. "I was wondering about that. Why are you always the only one here?"

Davey was stumped for a moment. He did not want to explain to Jack that he had been picking up shifts so he could see Jack everyday. "Not a lot of employees and I'm not very busy." Davey said instead, shrugging.

Jack nodded. He accepted the cone from Davey, immediately biting into it. Davey almost yelled. Of course Jack bit into ice cream. Of course Davey was falling ridiculously hard for a ridiculous boy.

Jack sat down at the stools near Davey. He was devouring the ice cream, grinning at Davey between bites. Davey smiled back. He smiled a lot more when Jack was around.

"Question," Jack said, munching on his cone.

"Hit me," Davey said, toweling off the counter.

"Why haven't you texted me?" Jack was looking at Davey with his intense eyes. Davey couldn't tell what color they were but he wanted to find out.

Davey fidgeted a little bit. He didn't have a good excuse. He had already put Davey in his phone as a contact, but every time he opened a message to text him he chickened out. He wanted to ask Sarah for advice but she had been too busy with Katherine.

"I, uh" I have horrible anxiety and you're so pretty I can't text you "I've been watching my little brother a lot and haven't gotten a chance." Davey winced at his own lie.

Jack popped the rest of his cone into his mouth, nodding. "Okay. How old is your brother?"

Davey was immensely pleased that Jack had dropped it. "He's nine, but if you ask he'll say ten."

Jack laughed. "They're cuter the younger they are."

Davey nodded. "Do you have any siblings."

"Uh, yeah." Jack scrubbed at his hand with a napkin. "I've got a foster brother, Spot. We grew up together."

"That's cool, I always wished Les was a little older."

"Spot and I are close." Jack stood, pushing his stool in. "So, are you watching Les tonight."

Davey squeaked a little. "No, actually." He couldn't lie again.

Jack beamed. "I'll be waiting on a text then."

Davey forced himself to laugh. Jack left, waving as he went.

Davey spent the rest of his shift trying to think of something to say. He didn't know how to text someone you were interested in. What if he screwed it up?

The moment his shift was over he dug his phone out of his pocket, dialing Sarah.

"What's up?" She asked the moment she picked up.

Davey pressed the phone to his ear to hear her, shouldering his bag to walk home. "Did I tell you about Jack?"

"Hm? No, I don't think so." Sarah's voice became muffled. "Kath! Did Davey tell us about Jack?"

Davey didn't hear Katherine's response. "She says no. Who is he?"

Davey took a deep breath. "He's a guy who keeps coming into my work. He's really nice and pretty and he left his number."

Sarah cooed. "Have you texted him?"

"That's the problem," Davey said, exasperated. "I don't know what to say, I'm too nervous."

"Oh, don't stress out, you're fine, Dave." Sarah's voice was soft. "He wouldn't give you his number if he didn't like you."

Davey nodded even though she couldn't see him. "What should I say?"

"Something casual. Just say 'hey'."

"'Just say hey'." Davey mimicked. "Is that even casual? What if he takes it the wrong way?"

"What other way can he take it?"

"I don't know!?" Davey sighed. "Ask Katherine."

"Dave, are you kidding me?"

"Ask Katherine."

"David."

"Ask her."

"I'm not- hey!" Davey heard a slight scuffle. "Hey, Davey." Katherine said, sounding breathless.

"Help me what do I text a cute boy?"

"A cute boy- back off he asked for me- have you tried just saying hey?"

Davey could hear an exasperated noise from Sarah. "You're no help either!" He was whining. "I hope you two are happy."

Katherine laughed. "Sorry, Davey it's fool proof. You can't go wrong with hey."

Davey sighed. "Fine. Whatever you two say." He reached his apartment, digging in his pocket for keys. "I hope you're happy."

"Just text him! You'll be fine," Katherine promised. Davey heard her hand the phone off the Sarah. "We've gotta go now, I love you. Tell me how it goes."

"I love you, too," Davey grumbled. The call ended. He dropped his phone into his pocket. Davey groaned, opening his door and slinking inside. He toed out of his shoes and threw himself onto his couch.

His phone was an accusatory weight, pulling him closer to hell. He gave in, yanking it from his jeans.

Jack's contact info was already pulled up. He tapped the message button, wincing as it pulled up his keyboard. What was he supposed to say? Sarah's voice was insistent in his ear 'just say hey'. Davey hated to admit his sister was right.

'Hey' he typed. He pounded the send button before he would regret it. The moment it flashed delivered he dropped his phone in panic. That was a bad idea.

He picked his phone back up, opening Google to search how to delete messages from someone else's phone. He groaned when nothing useful came up.

Davey threw himself back onto his couch, balancing his phone on his face so the screen was over his eyes. He shut his eyes, taking a deep breath. This was fine. He was totally fine.

The screen lit up, bright through Davey's closed eyelids.

He snapped upright, scrambling for his phone.

'Hey! This is David, yeah?'

Davey groaned. Why didn't he say so in the first place???

'Yeah! Sorry. It's David.'

The typing bubble popped up right away. Davey was terrified and excited at the same time.

'Cool!! Nice to hear from you! What are you up to?'

Not laying on the couch moping about texting. 'Nothing much, you?'

'I'm eating dinner with Spot, actually. And his boyfriend. They're being gross.'

Davey laughed. He could do this, this was easy. 'Do you like his boyfriend at least?'

'Race? Yeah! I love him'

Davey dropped his phone in shock. At this rate it would be fracked by the time he went to bed. He scrambled to pick it back up, his fingers tripping over the keys to answer Jack. 'Race!? As in Antonio Higgins?'

'HIS NAME IS ANTONIO!?' Jack kept typing, clearly not done. 'HE WOULDN'T TELL ME! THIS IS WONDERFUL!!!! HOW DO YOU KNOW??'

'He's a friend of mine. I've known him since before he was Race.'

'Oh my god! I'm asking him about you'

Davey regretted his choices. He and Race had been friends a very long time. He had no idea what kind of crap Race could tell Jack. How many embarrassing stories that would ruin Davey's chances with Jack.

The typing bubble popped up on Davey's screen. 'He got really excited and he says hi. He also said 'save me' but I promise he's fine.'

Davey sat up on his couch. He was thanking every god that Race hadn't started rambling.

'What are You doing to him?'

'I'm just eating.'

Davey had a feeling "Just eating" for Jack was different than other peoples definitions. 'Eating what?'

The typing bubble popped up then went away. Jack didn't seem to want to admit it.

'Jack. What are you eating?'

Jack answered this time. 'Spaghetti that Race made.' There was a pause, then another text. 'Have You seen the movie Elf?'

Davey groaned. 'You did not.'

'I did.'

Davey was tempted to block Jack. Instead he answered 'I side with Race here. Your eating habits are terrible.'

'Excuse You I eat what tastes good.'

Davey laughed out loud. 'you do not! You had a milkshake that was every flavor!'

Jack sent a frowny face. 'How about we make a deal?'

'Okay....' Davey said, trying to convey his hesitance. 'What deal?'

'Tomorrow, I pick your ice cream, you pick mine. We both see what the other considers good.'

Davey considered. All he really had to lose was his good health. 'Okay. Deal.'

'Yes!' Davey smiled at Jack's excitement. 'Shit, gotta go, Race is bringing more food.'

'See you.' Davey said. Jack didn't respond. Davey hoped Race had forgiven him for the spaghetti.

Davey got ready for bed, his heartbeat already skipping in anticipation for tomorrow.

Davey was having trouble breathing. It was 2:34 and Jack had yet to arrive. He had spent his shift so far planning what to give Jack. Something simple but not wimpy. Something with flavor but not to Jack's extent. He thought a traditional caramel brownie sundae was enough. He wasn't ready to see what Jack would make for him.

The bell rang in the middle of his musing. His head jerked up. It was Jack. He almost jumped over the counter but managed to stay still.

"You ready?" Jack asked, leaning on the counter with his elbows. He looked eager.

Davey grimaced. "I'm ready. Are you going first?"

"Hell yeah!" Jack put his palms flat on the counter. "I'm coming over."

"You're what?!" Davey squeaked, making no move to stop Jack.

Jack launched himself over the counter, landing next to Davey. "I've never been on this side before."

Davey spluttered. "Employees are allowed back here not you."

Jack shrugged. "Dave, it's gotta be a surprise. Let the master do his work."

Davey sighed. He handed a spoon to Jack. Jack beamed at him.

"I need you to turn around."

Davey turned around. He was regretting a lot of things. Agreeing to do this with Jack, applying for this job, moving out of his parents' home, being born.

He could hear Jack moving around, struggling to scoop ice cream and rustling through the toppings.

"If another customer comes in I'm screwed," Davey pointed out.

Jack laughed. "How many other people come in besides me?"

Davey didn't answer. People just tended to wander in. Some days he only saw one person, some days entire baseball teams piled in. He figured Jack was talking about regulars. So far Jack was the only one.

"It's your turn." Jack sounded triumphant.

Davey turned, hoping to see the ice cream. No such luck. Jack was hiding it behind his back, grinning deviously.

Davey closed his eyes for a second, accepting that this was happening. He scooped ice cream efficiently, piling it into a bowl. He added brownie crumble and caramel, perhaps with a little flourish because he knew Jack was watching. He hadn't asked Jack to turn around.

Jack whooped when Davey finished. "Come eat with me," he said, hopping back over the counter, somehow managing to keep the ice cream out of Davey's sight. He sat down in one of the stools, looking at Davey expectedly.

"You mean sit there with you?" Davey asked. His hand was cold from holding the ice cream.

"Yeah. Come on, take a break. Enjoy some ice cream with me."

Davey knew he wasn't getting out of this one. He clamored over the counter with much less grace than Jack, finally settling in a chair next to him.

Jack slid the cup of ice cream to Davey. "I made my speciality. I call it the Taste of New York."

Davey looked at the ice cream. It looked like someone had thrown up in a cup, which was sort of appropriate for New York. "What is it? It looks horrible."

Jack made a hurt noise. "Excuse you, Mr. Perfect Scoops. We aren't all naturally inclined to make pretty ice cream."

"I mean what are the flavors, Jack."

"Oh, right. It's mint chip, rocky road, and lemon sorbet. With caramel syrup and also strawberry. But don't worry, I complimented that with cherries and sprinkles."

Davey blinked hard. He could do this. He picked up a spoon, digging in to get some of everything. Jack watched Davey eat it. The concoction touched his tongue. He gagged.

"Oh, come on!" Jack threw his hands up. "It isn't that bad!"

"No, no," Davey forced himself to take another bite. "I'm just lactose intolerant, it takes a bit for me to force it down."

"Shit what!? Dave, you can't eat that! Why are you working here?" Jack reached for the ice cream.

"It's good pay," Davey protested. He pulled his ice cream away from Jack. "Plus I don't care. At all. I'll eat this whole thing to prove it."

Jack looked a little bit scared. "Can I have mine at least before you drop dead?"

Davey handed Jack his sundae. Jack cheered. "Brownies!"

Davey used every bit of his willpower to continue eating his ice cream, watching as Jack devoured his. The final spoonful was like cement, crawling down Davey's throat.

This wasn't going to end well. Davey scrambled for trash can, spitting out the last bit of ice cream. He could feel his stomach rejecting it but he forced it down. He kept his head down, coughing and trying to get the taste of lemon sorbet out of his mouth.

"It wasn't that bad!" Jack protested, putting his now empty cup down.

"Yeah, no, it was fine. My body just didn't want to try and digest that." Davey's head was spinning a little bit. He blinked till his vision was straight. "Are you happy?"

Jack grinned. "I'm overjoyed. Don't you understand the pleasures in live you've been missing out on?"

Davey wasn't sure throwing up ice cream was a pleasure. He did think Jack was one.

"Yeah, I think I get it." Davey pushed his empty cup into the trash.

Jack stood, quite suddenly.

"Are you leaving?" Davey asked, standing as well.

Jack nodded. "Yeah, I uh-I gotta go visit Spot."

Davey sort of didn't want Jack to leave. He nodded anyways. "Okay. Have fun. Don't ruin his food."

Jack nodded, looking distracted. He looked at Davey, his eyes wide. Quickly, before Davey could really take in what was happening, he grabbed Davey's hand, leaned forward, and kissed Davey. It was fast, barely a brush of his lips. Davey gagged.

Jack winced, still holding Davey's hand. "Not the reaction I like hearing."

Davey cleared his throat, extremely aware of the heat creeping up his cheeks. "No, that was the lactose. I mean, that was really nice, but I might puke on you."

Jack's face broke into a grin. "Thank god, I was worried there. Tomorrow then?"

Davey smiled at him. "Yeah, tomorrow."

Jack squeezed his hand before dropping it. The bell rang sadly as Jack disappeared outside.

Davey dove for his phone, scrambling back over the counter. He was dialing Sarah before he was even steady on his feet.

"He kissed me!" Davey yelped the moment Sarah picked up.

"He what!?" She was immediately as excited as Davey.

"He kissed me!" Davey took a breath. "It wasn't actually great, I sort of gagged, but he wanted to kiss me again!"

"Wait, you gagged?" Sarah laughed. "Was it that bad?"

Davey groaned. "No, he made me eat this horrible ice cream concoction."

"You're lactose intolerant!" Sarah sounded much more worried than Davey thought she should be.

"It's okay." Davey's stomach was rolling again at the memory. "I think I threw most of it up."

"Oh my gosh, David! I don't care about Jack anymore are you alright?"

"Yeah, yeah, I'm fine. I need you to tell me how I can get him to kiss me again."

Sarah laughed again. "Come on, can't you just kiss him?"

Davey snorted. "No, never, the thought makes me want to throw up again."

Sarah sighed. "You're being dramatic."

Davey groaned. "You sound like mom. You know I'm not good at initiating things. Do you think he's going to kiss me or not?"

"Hm, that depends. What did he say to you before he left?"

"Um, he was kinda upset I gagged then I told him it was just the lactose and he said good and that he'd be back tomorrow."

Sarah cheered loudly in Davey's ear. "He said tomorrow!? Oh, Davey, he definitely wants to kiss you. I'm so happy look at my bro, getting all the cute boys." She sounded like she was sniffling.

"Calm down." Davey said, smiling a little bit. "Do you want me to call you after work tomorrow and tell you how it goes?"

"Yes! Please, I'll be awake all night thinking about it. I'm gonna tell Katherine, oh this is so exciting. I'm so proud of you!"

Davey was grinning now. "Thanks, Sarah. I'll talk to you tomorrow. I love you."

"I love you too! I'll have my phone on all night don't make me wait."

Davey laughed as the call ended. He was glad Sarah believed in him because he definitely didn't believe in himself. He almost wanted to call in sick tomorrow. The idea of seeing Jack again was making him anxious. Sure, he really wanted to see Jack again, but he didn't want to be a disappointment. He didn't think he was good enough for Jack. He knew Sarah would be mad at him for thinking like that. He shook it off, exhaling hard. It was going to be fine.

Jack showed up at 2:42 looking frazzled. Davey had been chewing nervously at his nails since 2:00 and by the time Jack flew through the door he had bitten his nails down to stubs.

"Dave! Give me your best banana split." Jack was grinning as he sat down.

Davey worked quickly, loading extra ice cream on for Jack. Jack watched him the whole time, his chin propped on his hands. Davey simultaneously wanted to kiss him and run out the back door.

He gave Jack his ice cream instead, waving off his money.

"You can pay me back a different way," Davey said, completely forgetting to think for a moment.

Jack's eyes lit up. "How's that?" He asked.

Davey gulped. He may have fucked up right there. He figured it was too late to go back now. He leaned over the counter, grabbing Jack by the collar of his shirt. Jack squeaked a little bit but let Davey pull him closer. Their lips met sloppily, Davey too nervous to actually kiss him.

He pulled back quickly, trying to gauge Jack's reaction. Jack looked overjoyed. They stared at each other for a moment, Jack beaming at Davey. He finally reached for Davey, pulling him back in.

It was a much nicer kiss now. Jack's lips were insistant on Davey's and slightly chapped. Davey really didn't want to stop kissing him. He also didn't want another costumer to come in.

He pulled away, lingering too closely to Jack for a moment. He finally leaned back over the counter, waiting for Jack to speak.

Jack whined instead. "Come on you can't just kiss me like that and then go back to work," he complained. His eyes were wide and pleading with Davey.

Davey felt his heart lurch. Jack actually liked him. Sarah was going to be so proud.

"Yes I can," Davey said, unusually bold.

Jack gloomily took a bite of his ice cream. "Do I get another kiss?" He asked, chewing on the spoon.

Davey considered it. He wanted nothing more than to kiss Jack senseless, forgetting his job and his responsibilities in favor of getting lost in the feeling of kissing Jack.

"Finish your ice cream." Davey said instead.

Jack finished the sundae in record time, almost choking in his rush.

Davey was nervous again. He had gotten too cocky. He didn't know what to do now, he hadn't planned that far ahead. Jack took care of the choice for him. He stood, kissing Davey intently. Davey kissed him back, aware of both the fact that he was still at work and that he didn't want to stop this time.

He let Jack end the kiss, sighing as their lips parted.

Jack sat back down, leaving Davey leaning over the counter. "You working tomorrow?" He asked.

Davey blinked a few times, trying to focus on how to function again. "Huh?" He asked. His voice sounded scratchy. He cleared hes throat and tried again. "Yeah, I'm working."

Jack stood, tossing out his ice cream cup. "Cool! I'll see you then."

Jack reached for Davey's hand, giving it a quick squeeze before he left.

Davey waited till the door was closed and grabbed his phone. Sarah answered in one ring, sounding breathless.

"What happened tell me everything!" She half yelled.

Davey laughed giddily. "I kissed him! I actually kissed him!"

Sarah cheered. "Look at you! You're telling me he didn't initiate the kiss?"

"No, I did. It wasn't great but then he kissed me again and it was amazing."

"I'm proud." Sarah sounded very excited. "And I'm happy you're happy. I'm telling Katherine now."

Davey heard her yell for Katherine and quickly tell her what had happened.

Katherine spoke suddenly. "David Jacobs I'm so proud of you," she said.

Davey couldn't stop smiling. "Thank you, Katherine. Are you on speaker?"

"Yes!" Sarah answered.

Davey really appreciated these girls. "Good. How to I not mess this up?"

Davey could hear them quietly conferring. Sometimes it scared him how smart Sarah and Katherine were together.

"He obviously likes you," Katherine started. "So I don't think you can mess it up."

"You should ask him out." Sarah suggested.

"Take him to the movies. That's always a good date." Katherine added.

Davey nodded to himself. "Okay. Alright. I can do this. Thank you, you do are lifesavers."

"Of course, bro." Sarah said.

Davey cringed a little. "Don't try and use teen words it doesn't make you sound hip."

Katherine laughed. "You're still at work." She pointed out.

Davey winced. "Shit, yeah. I'll talk to you guys later."

"We love you!" Sarah said before the call ended.

Davey put his phone down, chewing on his lip. He didn't really know how to ask somehow out. He also didn't know what type of movies Jack liked.

He knew someone who did. Davey left his phone off the rest of his shift, finally calling when it was over.

"David Jacobs, you bastard," Race said affectionally.

"Hey, Race." Davey was getting too used to talking on his phone on his walk home. "I need your advice."

"Oh, is this about Jack?" He asked.

Davey grimaced. "How did you know?"

Race laughed. "Dave, he won't shut up about you."

"You're just making this up." Davey protested.

"No! I can't lie about how annoying he is. It's just Davey this and David that. Do you know what he did?" Race sounded broken.

Davey was scared. "What did he do?"

"He literally interrupted Spot and I to talk about you. And by interrupted I mean he kicked Spot's door open while we were making out on his bed. And it was a really promising make out session Spot was right about to grab my-"

"Okay! I get it! Stop please I'm begging you." Davey was grinning though.

"Alright, fine. Just know that Jack is basically ruining my sex life." Race cleared his throat. "Anyways, what is it you need help with?"

"What kind of movies does Jack like? If I ask him to the movies which should we go to?"

"Honestly Jack's huge on Pixar. And superhero movies."

Davey exhaled. "Thank god those are good. He has good taste."

"Oh don't start. I hear enough about you from him. Do you know how tempting it is to tell him all the embarrassing things I know about you?"

Davey groaned. "You wouldn't."

"No, as long as you don't start this."

"I won't, I promise. Just know I have plenty dirt on you to tell Jack."

Race was silent for a moment. "Mutual agreement to never tell anyone anything?" He asked.

"Yeah, good plan." Davey finally reached his apartment, suddenly tired from working. "Okay, I'm exhausted."

"Get some sleep," Race said right away. "You can text or call if you need me."

"Thanks. I'll talk to you later, Tony."

"I'll be looking forward to it, Walking Mouth."

They both laughed, ending the call. Davey got ready for bed quickly, sinking onto his mattress thankfully. He was going to ask Jack out tomorrow.

He was going to mess this up.

Davey arrived ten minutes early for his shift, tired and anxious as hell.

He was rummaging in his bag, not looking up. He finally found his stupid name tag, pinning it to his shirt as he finally looked up.

He was expecting one of his coworkers, Erika if he had read the schedule correctly. Instead he saw Jack.

"Uh, you're not supposed to be behind the counter." Davey said. He wasn't sure what he was supposed to do here.

Jack saved him from having to decide. "I work here now." He announced.

"Huh?" All of his careful planning on how to ask Jack out disappeared. Davey did not know what to do.

"They hired me. You're supposed to train me today, did no one tell you?" Jack was smiling.

Davey at once terrified and completely overjoyed. "I'm training you?"

Jack nodded. "Aren't you excited? You can finally teach me to do those cool swirls."

Davey somehow managed to get behind the counter with Jack. He was living in a different reality where Jack was with him and they worked together. It was a very good reality.

"Uh, Davey?" Jack sounded like he had been trying to get Davey's attention for a while.

"Yeah?" Maybe this was the actual reality.

"Can you maybe show me how to do the fancy swirl?" Jack looked a little bit nervous. It was not a good look for him. Davey much preferred the cocky and confident Jack he had seen so far.

"Yeah, I'll show you everything." He knew the routine for training new employees. It would only take an hour at most, then Jack would be ready to work alone. He hoped Jack would work shifts with him, though.

Davey opened the glass over the ice cream to show Jack. "First you need to know how to serve scoops. The spoons stay in these cups so they're hot, that makes it easier to scoop the ice cream." Davey picked up a spoon to show Jack, demonstrating how to roll it to create a round scoop. "Try it."

Jack did. He managed a somewhat circular scoop, quite impressive for his first try.

"Good job," Davey said.

Jack grinned at him. "Do I get a reward?"

Davey froze. He wanted nothing more than to kiss Jack. He wanted to pull him into the freezer and shut the door and kiss him until his lips and fingers went numb. Instead he shook his head. "Perfect swirl then you will." He was banking on Jack not being able to do soft serve.

He showed him how to make sundaes and smoothies first, mixing a small smoothie that Jack drank in one gulp.

Jack was extremely eager to try the soft serve machine. Davey saved it for last. Jack practically cheered when Davey grabbed a cone, expertly filling it and swirling the top.

Jack tried it as well. He could barely get the ice cream in the cone. It was a sad lopsided mess. Davey really wished it was perfect.

"Jack," he started. Jack looked concerned. "That's hideous."

Jack sighed. "This is harder than it looks." He took a bite of the ice cream, grimacing. "It doesn't even taste good now."

"I don't think how it looks has anything to do with the taste." Davey was having trouble following Jack's train of thought.

"Can I try again?"

Davey nodded. At least Jack was determined.

Jack tried again. And again. And again and again until he was clearly frustrated.

"That one wasn't bad, Jack." Davey lied.

Jack groaned. "Yes it was. I need motivation."

Davey knew he said he wouldn't kiss Jack till he perfected the swirl, but he really wanted to. Jack was looking at him with those gorgeous eyes and Davey wanted him to get it.

"One more try." He said.

Jack sighed. He tried again, as terribly as last time. "This is horrible." He set the ice cream cone down and looked at Davey.

Davey touched Jack's cheek, leaning in.

Jack stopped him. "I didn't get it?" He sounded confused.

"That's okay." Davey was frozen until Jack responded. He didn't want to push it. Jack grinned. He leaned in, kissing Davey finally. Jack's lips were soft and tasted like soft serve. Davey didn't even like ice cream but he wanted to keep kissing Jack.

Jack pulled away anyways, holding Davey at arm's length. "As much as I want to keep kissing you I think if we keep going I won't be able to stop."

Davey laughed. He felt light headed, his lips tingling. "Are you done with the swirl?"

"One more try." Jack tried again. It was perfect.

"Jack! Could you do that the whole time?"

Jack grinned a little sheepishly. "I figured it out after the first one. I just wanted to see if you'd keep your word."

"You're impossible." Davey couldn't fight back his grin.

"Is there any chance other customers are gonna show up? It's hot."

Davey checked the time. "Actually I usually sit in the freezer around now. Care to join me?"

Jack let Davey pull him to the freezer. Jack kissed him the moment they were out of sight. "Gotta stay warm," he said against Davey's lips.

Davey laughed. "We can't stay in here too long or we'll get in trouble."

Jack kissed him to shut him up.

#shows up 15 minutes late with javid #ive been writing this for so long #all i do is post fics here oops #david jacobs #jack kelly #javid #my writing

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celticnoise · 4 years

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FORTY-ONE years ago today, Celtic staged the most remarkable comeback to claim the title in a phenomenal finale against old foes Rangers at Parkhead.

With the legendary Billy McNeill in charge in his debut season, the Hoops, with only ten men, fought against all the odds to be crowned champions.

CQN goes back in time with EXCLUSIVE edited extracts from Alex Gordon’s book, ‘CELTIC: The Awakening’, which was published in 2013.

Enjoy, Celtic fans!

JOCK STEIN would have been proud of Billy McNeill who did his best to ease the tension. ‘I didn’t expect us to be in this challenging position and I still say if we make it to Europe next season we will have done very well all things considered.’

That was for public consumption, inside the dressing room was a different matter. Murdo MacLeod said, ‘He wanted that title, you can be sure of that. All season he had driven us towards it.’

Rangers had been relentless in their pursuit. The situation for McNeill’s team was clear cut; a triumph would take the Premier League championship to Parkhead. A win or a draw would suit Rangers who still had two more games to play against Partick Thistle and Hibs. That being the case, Celtic, in McNeill’s return, would have to settle for second best. McNeill was never comfortable with that mantle.

The manager recalled, ‘I talked to the players as a team unit before the game. I didn’t pick out individuals as I didn’t think that would be fair. Jock, of course, did that every now and again, particularly with Jinky, but, then, he was exceptional, world class and could handle anything thrown at him.

CHAMPIONS…Billy McNeill leads his backroom staff out of the dug-out to celebrate a memorable triumph as the final whistle sounds.

THREE CHEERS…Billy McNeill, flanked by skipper Danny McGrain and Andy Lynch, has a glass of champagne to celebrate.

‘On this occasion, I just wanted to remind the players what we had all been through to get the club into this position. We were ninety minutes away from winning the league.

‘I reminded them, “And listen to that crowd. That’s your fans out there. They’re worth a goal of a start.” I sensed a very determined mood in the camp.’

The hottest ticket in town was for Parkhead on the Monday evening of 21 May when football’s greatest and most ancient foes would lock horns. The scramble had been more frantic than ever with a union strike keeping TV cameras away from Parkhead. If you wanted to see this one, you had to be there. Only flickering images shot by a fan from the terracing still exist.

A thriller of epic proportions was, sadly, never witnessed by millions. As kick-off time approached, Celtic Park throbbed and pulsated, the old ground’s foundations heaving and rocking, as a capacity 52,000 frenzied fans, engulfed in wild emotion, prepared to watch a spectacle that would unfold in the most dramatic of circumstances. It was a night for the strong of heart.

In the ninth minute, a deadly hush swept over the Celtic end. Rangers were a goal to the good after Alex MacDonald had knocked one wide of Peter Latchford. That goal was to trigger off a remarkable series of events as Celtic desperately tried to respond. There was no change in the scoreline, though, by the time the interval arrived.

HAIL THE HEROES…Danny McGrain is held aloft by Roy Aitken and Peter Latchford as team-mates Tommy Burns, Vic Davidson, Murdo MacLeod and George McCluskey join in.

MIGHTY MURDO…it’s the title clincher and Murdo MacLeod celebrates as Davie Provan drops to his knees and Andy Lynch races to add his congratulations.

Ten minutes after the turnaround, McNeill winced as he saw his side go down to ten men. Johnny Doyle was involved in a scuffle with MacDonald, both fiery characters, and the referee dismissed the Celt for retaliation. He sobbed uncontrollably as he raced off the pitch. The game restarted at a punishing pace during this rawest and most rumbustious Old Firm confrontation, a rollicking rollercoaster, one of the most nerve-shredding in memory.

Breathtakingly, Celtic drew level midway through the half as Roy Aitken surged forward to belt one past Peter McCloy. In the 74th minute the roar that went up from the east end of Glasgow must have registered on the Richter Scale; Celtic were ahead. George McCluskey, wily and skilful, got through on the blindside to thump the ball low into the net. Two minutes later, it was 2-2 with Bobby Russell scrambling one past Latchford from close range.

This pulverising confrontation was going all the way to the wire. Rangers sat in, obviously more than satisfied to take a point. Celtic, driven on by McNeill from the touchline, had other ideas. Six minutes were left when McCluskey fired in a dangerous low effort from the wing.

It was an awkward one for McCloy to deal with. The towering keeper got down to parry the ball up and away where it struck the inrushing Colin Jackson. The defender could only look on in horror as the clearance bounced off him into the net. Cue bedlam on the terracings. Parkhead became a rhapsody in green and white. Could there possibly be anything left to witness in this no-holds barred, shuddering conflict?

IT TAKES TWO…full-backs Danny McGrain and Andy Lynch celebrate.

‘I remember picking the ball up in midfield,’ said Murdo MacLeod. ‘I knew it was late in the game, but I didn’t know how late. There was a pass on to either side of me with team-mates breaking forward. I just kept going. In an instant, I knew I was going to shoot, there was no chance of me passing. I thought to myself, “Hit this as hard as you can and, even if you miss, the ball will go away into the Celtic end and it will waste time.”

‘But I struck the shot really well and it went high and dipped over the keeper’s right hand into the top corner. I still had no idea how long there was to go. We all geared up to go again when the referee blew for time-up seconds after Rangers had kicked off. I must have been the last Celtic player to touch the ball that evening. It was my best-ever night in football. I had a few memorable ones, but nothing ever touched that. No team could have stopped us even when we were down to ten men.’

A jubilant Celtic crowd brought the house down with their frenzied celebrations, a wall of noise enveloping the stadium. No-one had a thought of dispersing until their heroes emerged for a lap of honour. ‘The boys deserved it,’ recalled McNeill. ‘It was simply fantastic. I have never seen a game like it. When George McCluskey scored to make it 2-1 for us, I just couldn’t believe it. Then they came right back. One minute you’re up there, the next you’re down here.

‘My players would climb a mountain and then find there was another waiting for them. Our ten men did extraordinary things. To score four goals in just over half-an-hour with only ten men against Rangers was just incredible. Unbelievable.

‘John Greig was one of the first to congratulate me and I really appreciated that. He was as proud a Rangers man as I was a Celtic man and he must have been hurting, but he still sought me out to shake my hand. A great gesture from a genuine sportsman.

‘I was overjoyed for my players and I even had to persuade Johnny Doyle to go out there and take a bow. He didn’t want to go because he thought he had let us down. Eventually, I think I threw him onto the pitch!

‘All of my players, including Johnny, were heroes.’

https://ift.tt/2ykcYns

#CelticNoise #Celtic #CelticFC #CelticQuickNews

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routinely-unamoosed-blog · 6 years

Text

13x05 ~ Alone, Not Lonely

*cue the chorus of Fight For Me from Heathers the musical*

Character(s): Maddie Rayner, Sam Winchester, Dean Winchester, mentions of Jack

Word Count: 8,058 oops

Summary: Maddie notices Sam’s anxiousness of Jack and finally sends him back to Dean. Finally alone, she takes on a task of her own: finding Jack before the boys do and making sure Heaven is out of the equation.

Masterlist

“Go,” she finally said, setting her beer can down on the windowsill of her motel room.She currently sat in the squishy sofa that was probably used for sex, but it was at this point in her somewhat career that she didn’t give a shit anymore. With Lucifer’s kid walking the Earth, who had time to worry about male reproductive organisms on a couch in a shitty motel?

Sam was seated on the bed facing her back. She felt his eyes on what wasn’t covered by her athletic bra; tonight's was a gray and pink Reebok bra, with the straps crossing in an X on her back. It didn’t bother her slits, but she could tell Sam was entranced by it. Ever since he’d seen her wings, he’d been (obsessed wasn’t the correct word here) fixed on trying to see her wings, let alone her without a shirt on.

She could tell his eyebrows were raised in confusion. “W-what?” he asked sheepishly and innocently as if he had no idea what she was talking about. Idiot Winchester, she thought.

Maddie let her bent leg fall to the floor from the seat. She was looking out one of the two windows in the entire room, and it was this one she chose to look out of because it was the one facing the woods. The last time she was in the woods was when she was tased by Sam. The thought made her shudder slightly, but she looked up at Sam nonetheless.

She stared at him for a moment. He was already dressed, shocking since it was at least three on a wonderful Thursday morning. His chest seemed thicker in the tan canvas jacket that covered a red and black flannel, and the jeans that crawled down his legs seemed to make her want to tear the entire outfit off him.

Very unbecoming, Maddie, she thought, the least you could do is offer to have him take your clothes off. You wouldn’t mind that, would you? No, sir, she would not.

She finally blinked when he raised his eyebrows even higher when she didn’t respond right away. She inhaled deeply and let it out with a sigh, her body forcing itself to its feet as she made her way towards the bed behind him. “Go help your brother with this Nephilim problem. I can . . . I can take care of myself.”

Sam acted as if it was the most bizarre thing she’s ever told him. “Really? I-I mean, I don’t have to go. Dean’s probably got this taken care—”

“Would you rather have Heaven have the kid or Winchesters? Trust me, as an enemy of the Great Penthouse, I’d go with Winchesters without a doubt . . . actually, let me help you.” She rolled her eyes at herself when she found that last bit leaving her lips, and it was to her shock that Sam smiled at her offer.

She hated that smile.

He gathered one of the duffle bags on his arm and slung another over his shoulder. “What makes you wanna help Jack?” he asked.

She didn’t really know why. Heaven (and Hell) were on her ass 24/7, but it was the least she could do. It would make her less of a target anyway. Why protect herself when she knew that this Jack couldn’t control himself? Maddie shrugged as part of her answer as she replied with, “Who knows? Maybe Hell’s interested in the bastard, too. Guess that means more me-time if it gets Heaven and Hell off my ass.”

Sam, looking at his feet, nodded slightly with a bite of his bottom lip. She hated that. She hated how her legs twisted over each other to try and control herself. She hated how hot that was, how every nerve in her body and core sang in rejoice at that stupid little action.

Finally, he looked up. His hair shifted to rest just above his shoulders in a way that complimented his blessed facial structure.

“Alright . . . well, check in, will you? Even with Dean distracted he could still have his sights on you,” he said with a final wave. Maddie smiled as he opened the door. Just as he was about to step out, she scuffled to him and wrapped her arms around him. She had to stand on her toes for her little arms to hug him, but she didn’t care.

She took in the smell of old books and gunpowder. She could still smell the woods on him despite that he showered every day when she was with him. She thanked him through his shoulder, to which Sam’s hand reached up and held the back of her head. His other hand wrapped around her back, his arm careful as to not disturb her slits.

Maddie jumped at the contact. The last time someone did that was before they died. It was the last time she felt intimate contact with her that wasn’t followed by a sharp blow. She felt tears form in her eyes, but she blinked them away as fast as they had come. No more love, she thought, love gets people killed.

“What do you want?”

Maddie stabbed her staff into the ground and made sure it stayed upright. The concrete floor created veins of cracks when her weapon was deep enough to remain straight by itself. She put her elbow on the handle and leaned on it, crossing her ankles as she stared at the angel. The Heavenly being was bound with chains to a chair settled in a ring of holy fire. The chains, enchanted with extra restraining powers, rattled as the angel struggled.

She crossed her arms with an authoritative expression. She could taste the angel’s fear radiating off its vessel, pulsating and vibrating. The angel shook in its restrained seat, the chains reminding her of her lovely time with Dean Winchester.

Leaning forward, she spat, “I want you to tell me about Lucifer’s kid.” The answer must have surprised the angel, for its head was thrown back and a bitter laugh slipped from its lips. A cheerful sigh made the laughter fade, and a grin widened its mouth.

“Lucifer’s kid? We don’t know squat about him, unlike Temperance. Heaven’s been looking for him, as has Hell.” The angel leaned forward in its bonds while mimicking her expression. Its eyes squinted slightly and narrowed with that same patronizing grin. “But don’t think we’ve forgotten about you. Heaven might crack down on your little fling with Sam Winchester after you’re dead. Dean’ll probably kill himself before that happens, so poor old Sammy will walk the Earth with nobody. Doubt he even knows about your feelings toward him.”

She glared behind her a bit at a deceased angel, wearing an African-American meatsuit, named Temperance. She boasted knowledge of the Nephilim child, going as far as to bargain with her on if she’ll live or not if she spilled. Maddie promised the angel her life, and it was after that the angel told her everything that she stabbed the vessel in the heart after a polite thanking for its service.

A soft smirk lifted the corner of her mouth. Her mind immediately went to Castiel sitting in the Empty. She had to give him props for being with Sam and Dean, but the reason he died was for nothing. Going against Heaven was unheard of since Lucifer’s days; even she knew the punishments and she hasn’t been to Heaven. Heaven seemed to be on the fence with their reaction to the Seraph’s untimely death, but that certainly didn’t stop them from spreading rumors that it was her that put the bastard down.

Maddie spun the angel blade on her fingers and stabbed the wretched creature in the heart, grace lighting up its mouth, nostrils, and eyes. The light intensified until she could hardly look at it without squinting, but the dull pain in her eye sockets faded when the light disappeared. The angel now slumped in the chair, stared at nothing as its wings were scorched into the wood and concrete floor.

The basement she turned into her very own private torture room cooled. Hairs on the back of her neck rose as she turned to face the wall closest to the staircase. It was now that she felt the sweat sticking her clothes to her body. She had started shedding her layers not five minutes into this torture session, and now she was only clad in a white tank top, jeans and boots. Numerous chains were attached to small hooks in the colorless wall, and it was the chains that snaked to the wrists of angels.

Looking up from the deceased angel, she raised her eyebrows at the terrified angels shaking in their bonds. Her head swayed to the right slightly with a soft smile spreading across her face. Her lip arched up as she lifted the corpse out of the chair (and chains) and tossed it behind her, where the body was plopped on the growing mound of other dead vessels. She’s already gone through seven angels including the angel that just died, a low-ranking Seraph named Apollyon.

“Anyone else?” She made eye contact with the rest of the angels quivering in their places. Their eyes were wide with fear at her presence and a few of them averted their eyes when she looked at them to her pleasure. Making the most powerful beings on Earth tremble in her presence due to her adoptive family’s name brought a warmth that made her smile softly.

A particular angel, donning a male vessel, looked at its brothers and sisters and back to her. Its chest shook as he gathered a breath, spewing words that would make it regret them: “You ... you’re sick!”

Maddie’s head swayed upwards again like a dog hearing a whistle. A grin clawed its way to her mouth as she slowly made her way toward the angel. Its mouth slapped closed with its fists clenching, a gulp being heard from across the room.

Stopping in front of the angel, she took its vessel’s jacket and unbuttoned it, exposing a white dress shirt beneath a burgundy tie. Instead of killing him right there, she grabbed the lapels and yanked the angel off its rack, the chains snapping off the mount on the wall. The ring of fire separated as she dragged the screaming angel into the chair, and it closed after she restrained the angel once more.

Protest filled the makeshift dungeon. The angel began struggling and apologizing, but even she knew that that wouldn’t get it anywhere. She grabbed the angel’s shoulder and slammed it against the back of the chair, her face lowering to be level with it. Instead of trying to be professional, she separated her legs and straddled on the angel’s lap.

It was on instinct did her hand bring up her staff, which shortened to the length of an angel blade with a glare, and rest the tip on the angel’s chin. She was much taller than it even when she was sitting on its lap, and with that brought an overwhelming sense of authority.

Her eyes squinted a bit. “What’s your name?” she purred, tossing her head back slightly to arch her eyebrow at the angel.

“A-Azrael,” the angel said.

Maddie lifted her head up a bit and dragged the blade across the angel’s cheek, sending a scream to grow from its throat. She dug the blade in deeper just for the fun of it. A tiny fountain of blood sprayed from the cut, some of it dripping to the vessel’s nice jacket and shirt. What a waste of clothing when you know you’re going to be killed, she thought.

She cocked her head again. “Wrong,” she snarled, grabbing the lolling head and straightening it so it could look at her. “Because Azrael died a few years ago from the Fall, so, I’m gonna ask you again. What is your name?”

The angel screamed again when she stabbed the angel blade in its cheek and let the blade hand there for a moment. She saw the sweat of the vessel gleam in the glow of the holy fire. With a final gasp of air and a spitting of blood, the angel groaned, “Tabbris. M-my name is Tabbris.” Its speech was garbled from having blade in its mouth, but it was fairly intelligible.

She finally lifted her hand to the blade and yanked it out of his cheek. She turned her head so she could see inside of the hole, her eyebrows raising at how clean it was. She crossed that off the bucket list, and now it was her goal to finally get some info on Jack before Heaven found out about what was happening to its inhabitants.

“Well, Tabbris,” she said, whipping her head back to look at the angel, “I should take your tongue for that. Those other words that are begging to be let out will never be spoken, mostly because you don’t have the balls to do it. That was brave of you if I’m being honest. But you know your fate, so, really, that was quite useless. Like you and your precious brothers and sisters.”

A sickening laugh filled the room. She gave a disgusted face to Tabbris’ amusement and plunged the blade into his chest. She kept the majority of the blade out, so if he didn’t cooperate, she could deepen the blade at any time. The angel, however, smiled through the pain.

“That half-assed, I-own-the-world attitude is gonna get him killed. Better yet, we’re gonna kill him while you watch. You are gonna get him killed.”

The final six words made her snap. Her lip arched up as she put pressure on the staff (slicing the shirt in half in the process) with screams of anguish echoing in the basement. Tabbris’ head rolled back as he shouted at the ceiling, sending ringing too high to be perceived by human ears. She carved the staff downward toward the vessel’s navel. Her mind dissolved the thought that there was a living person in that mind; all she cared about was sending Heaven a message.

The ringing increased in volume as she retraced her slice, this time stopping a third of the way to the top, rotating the scepter at an angle and creating a second line. She finally stopped with this line beneath the vessel’s nipple. She let Tabbris bleed for several minutes. It was during those minutes did the glass on the windows to her left and right shatter to pieces.

Heaven’s getting closer, a voice said.

As she plunged the blade back into Tabbris’ chest, this time carving a line downward toward the left hip bone, the angels still chained to the wall began muttering in Enochian. Their words were translated in her head almost instantly, and frustration was added to her anger when the words were basically pleas for mercy.

She glanced behind her numerous times before darting to the other side of the ring and grabbing angel blades that were confiscated and hurling four of them at each of their owners. Explosions of grace filled the room along with burn marks of wings on the walls, floor, and staircase.

She turned to face Tabbris. It was almost dead; she could tell by how weak its grace felt in her back. Her wings were crying with pain, which only fueled her anger toward Tabbris and every other angel, dead or alive. A growl bled through her clenched teeth as she pulled the blade out of the bastard’s chest.

She brought her face to Tabbris’. A thin line of blood was leaving the corner of his mouth and it was thickening by the minute, which made her hesitate. She could let this thing live. Let it live and be her messenger to Heaven. The mortal part of her begged to let it live. She could spare the human their life, however, if they ever ejected Tabbris, then they’d be eternally scarred with her warning.

Her hand had other ideas. It took the staff and let it hover over the wound that would kill Tabbris. Strands of her hair fell in front of her face, which seemed to terrify the angel. The rage displayed across her face was downright scary, apparently, by how horror radiated from the vessel.

Finally, after a moment of staring at Tabbris, she said, “You will never kill him, you will never hurt him.” She looked up through the window to her left and raised her voice. “You hear me?! Lay a hand on him and you’ll wish you never came down here centuries ago.” She stabbed the staff into the center of Tabbris’ chest, where angel grace shined through her artwork.

Screams filled the basement, and it wasn’t until the brightness of dying angel grace faded and did the light settle on the vessel of Tabbris. Etched in its skin and covered in blood was the letter K. It was a simple carving and not very small, no, it spread from Tabbris’ collarbone and stopped just above his navel. The Latin word the letter stood for was written in angels’ blood in the ring of holy fire: calumnia, translated as false accuser.

Her phone began ringing at two-thirty in the morning. Her head was pounding from the ringing that still reverberated in her ears, and the added noise didn’t help. Sleep didn’t help either, so here she at an odd hour in the night writing down as many things as she could about Nephilim.

Her eyes skimmed over her list and the now empty beer bottle sitting next to the paper. She glanced at her phone and picked it up, answering it with a swipe of her thumb without looking at who was calling.

“What the hell do you want?” Her voice was plagued with sleep-deprived frustration.

“Hello to you, too,” Sam greeted with slight shock. Her head perked up at his voice and her back straightened. She made sure all the blinds were closed before letting her wings out, the muscle groaning with relief. She stood from her seat at the kitchenette table and went to the fridge.

She opened the door and took out yet another beer. “Hi. Sorry, just . . . tired and frustrated. Why’re you up? It’s two-thirty in the morning where I am.”

A sigh was heard over the line. “I could ask you the same thing. I’m tired, too, let me tell you. Dean and I are on our way to Washington to look for Jack. It was my turn to drive, anyway, so I needed someone to talk to.”

“And Maddie Rayner is at the top of your list? Wow, Sam, I’m honored.”

He laughed at her joke. She smiled softly at the sound, and her body warmed at the feeling that her comment made him happy.

A flashback to yesterday’s events with Tabbris flew through her mind, and his, along with the other angel’s, haunting threats echoed in her ears. We’re gonna kill him. A twinge of anger flooded through her, making her grip tighten on the phone. Poor old Sammy’ll walk the Earth with nobody. She felt the screen crack in her hand. She walked toward the nearest wall and braced her hand on it as her breathing became a struggle. Doubt he even knows about your feelings toward him.

A scream of anguish burst from her throat as she slammed her fist into the wall. The plaster caved in like paper, and her bloodied fist brought out insulation and dust. She held the phone to her ear as she stared down at her knuckles, the skin there was split and gleaming with blood.

“. . . hello?”

She adjusted the phone for no reason. “Yeah, I-I’m here. I, uh, needed a moment.”

There was silence on Sam’s end. She didn’t wait for him to speak, nor did she expect him to. She stared at her feet and glanced at her fist. A small pool of blood was dripping from the floor from her knuckles, which would have been shattered if she were human. She lifted her hand to inspect it more, but Sammy’s voice interrupted. “You okay?”

She sighed. She didn’t want to bore him with details on last night, but Tabbris’ threats were still fresh. What if he was telling the truth? What if Heaven was now after Sam, too? She didn’t want to lie to him, either, and she was already worried about him when he had a ticking time bomb of a brother.

“Yeah. Yeah, I’m . . . fine.” The lie slipped from her tongue as easily as honest words. Her eyes closed when Sam said it was fine, and she smirked when he told her to go to bed. She taunted him jokingly as a response, saying that she would if he pulled over and got some sleep himself.

Maddie could tell he was smiling at how his voice sounded. “Dean’ll get mad if I do. You’re not planning on meeting us there, right? I don’t want you to get too into this.”

Weighing her options, she found herself wanting to go to Washington. She knew it wasn’t necessarily a suicide mission, but it was dangerous nonetheless. If she went, Sam will be on her priority list and vice versa. If she went, Dean would be even closer to ending her life.

She wasn’t that stupid, though. Dean was already trying to find her while wrestling with Jack. Being stupid would be going to Washington and staying with the boys. Even her acquaintanceship with Sam was a death sentence combined with being with Dean for five freakin’ weeks.

Her foolish head found herself saying goodbye after denying profusely that she wasn’t going to Washington. Sam still seemed to be skeptical even when Maddie reassured him that she’d be fine. A chill ran through her as she told him that, but she shook it off as she hung up.

After twenty minutes of reading over her list and omitting things, she snatched the paper and crumpled it into a ball with a growl of frustration. She tossed it towards the trashcan filled with a growing mountain of other lists of great knowledge. Her eyelids drooped when she stared at the blank space on the desk. Her mind was racing, yet sluggish as she stood and grabbed her leather jacket.

Let me know if you need help, she typed into her phone and sent the text to Sam. He replied seconds later with a simple “Okay.” She rolled her eyes and smirked at the candid word before shutting her phone off and grabbing her duffle bag.

The air was cold when the door shut behind her. A sigh left her lips as her eyes were cast on her feet. She didn't remember putting on her steel-toed boots, but she recalled the day she got them. It wasn't that long ago, either; she had to be in her late twenties.

"Going hunting?" the clerk asked with an oblivious smile as she hoisted the pair of boots onto the glass counter. Maddie stared at the man. His fair skin, dark hair and lanky frame told her he didn't work out much, let alone belong in the hunting life.

"Sure," she replied with a weak smile.

A deep breath made her lungs sting slightly with cold air. She wheezed softly and a cough followed, billowing with it a plume of oxygen to cloud in the air. She felt her back pocket for a pack of cigarettes. Nothing bulged from her pants, and an eyeroll seemed to judge more than her lifestyle.

It wasn't that she was a smoker. Her body, naturally, couldn't become addicted to things. So, yes, she smoked. Yes, she knew she had a problem with alcohol and its glorious effects of making the previous day's events all a beautiful blur. And no, she didn't plan on stopping. She didn't necessarily preach it to the choir, but a small voice in the back of her head—the human part—whispered sweet nothings to her whenever she felt like a smoke would drown out her troubles.

The skin on her back that was mangled and horrifically scarred opened to allow her wings to slide through. The regular pins and needles feeling buzzed throughout the appendages as the air wrapped around them like a blanket. Jet black feathers, bristling in an effort to warm the raw skin beneath them, spread wide when she took a glance around her.

A gust of cold air blew in her face as she took a running start. She shivered in her skin, goosebumps rising along her entire body. The trees in the outer rims of her eyes blurred together when she finally managed to break into a clearing. It was dark out still, with soft flakes of snow drifting to the ground. Leaves crunched beneath her feet that skidded to slow her gait, her body preparing to shrink down in a jump skyward.

Slight pain spiked in her calves when she finally jumped with a grunt. She figured the pain was because of her torture from Dean, but she had taken a note of how the rest of her body was fully healed. The extent of her injuries given to her ultimately calculated the amount of time it would take her to heal, and since most of the injuries seemed to be hell-bent on permanently crippling her, she wasn’t shocked when some parts of her body still hurt.

Colder air brushed its fingers along her face. Her nose grew cold in seconds, a feeling she hated. She didn’t understand why it bothered her so much, but she didn’t let it hinder her flying.

The trip to Washington took at least three hours. The drive would’ve taken at least twenty-six hours minus stops. She had been grounded twice for snow, but she managed to fly above the clouds most of the trip. She flew in jet streams when she could, and had flown with a flock of eagles. Their behavior hadn’t changed when she flew into their formation, and they even moved to allow her to get in a position toward the front.

She chose the hotel closest to the border in case things went south fast. It was a one-story motel, one of the first ones in a long time. She didn’t have a preference; it just happened on random occasions. Once she checked in, she was pleased to see an outdoor pool. She couldn’t remember the last time she went for a swim.

Her room was a weird layout. The kitchen was toward the back, with the bedroom being the first thing she saw. The sheets were a pleasing brown color in a plaid combined with lighter browns and beiges. It was a queen with two dark oak end tables on both sides, each consisting of a table lamp and small cactus. An alarm clock was on the left end table, one of those digital ones from the nineties that never seemed to be laid to rest no matter what year it was.

“The least you could do is upgrade to the early two-thousands. God, it’s twenty-seventeen, get with the ages a little,” she muttered to herself at the sight of the poor kitchen. Hideous green counters were in a U-shape along the walls. White appliances stood out against the burgundy walls.

The bathroom was a different story. She shuddered on smell, and she soon found the source. A dead rat was lying belly-up in the bathtub that seemed to match the kitchen counters in a lighter color. Flies were crawling around its carcass, with its ass already decomposing. She picked the nasty thing up with her least favorite shirt she had packed, and tossed it and the rat away in the lake a mile away. “Disgusting.”

Her phone chimed in her pocket when she returned. The door behind her shut, and the first thing she did was take her laptop out and set it on the couch. It matched the bed color-wise, and she was pleased to see that it wasn’t that uncomfortable. She grabbed a beer from the gas station across the street and fell back into the sofa.

It was a text from Sam. He had asked if she was doing alright despite her seeing him last night. She chuckled at his worrying and replied that she was doing fine. She set her phone down and leaned forward to gather her things from the coffee table. Her laptop was by far the only thing on there, save for the motel’s tiny notebook it had in the dresser drawer and a beer bottle.

After stealing a swig from her beer, she lifted her bare feet onto the table. The glass was cool against her heels to her pleasure.

“Alrighty, Sam. Let’s see where you and your idiot brother are,” she muttered, opening the computer’s code system. The black screen stared back at her and awaited her commands. She cocked her head to the side a bit and began typing, her fingers flying across the keyboard.

She managed to find the last ping on Sam’s phone. It was in North Cove, which was an hour away (when she flies, of course) from her room in Spokane. A twenty-minute flight and a few muttered Latin words later and an angel was screaming its head off in a ring of holy fire.

The heat made her start shedding layers again. She tossed her thin flannel to the side, leaving her in jeans, boots and a crop top. She pulled her hair into a ponytail to relieve the angel, who she soon discovered was named Usiel, of its pain.

Heavy breathing left the vessel’s lips. It was a Caucasian male, one that wasn’t that bad looking, if she were judging by looks. He had to be in his mid-forties with graying brown hair and hazel eyes. A thin beard outlined his jaw and mouth, with flecks of gray glowing against the flames. Those eyes were cast downward, fear radiated from the body.

“Where’s Jack?” she asked again, this time her voice was tense with impatience. She’s been at this for close to two hours and the disgusting little maggot hadn’t spilled its guts. She picked up the drooping head by the hair and lifted it up so it could look at her. “WHERE IS HE?”

“I don’t know! I don’t know, I swear,” Usiel screamed back, its chest heaving up and down. Blood dripped from the hole in its forehead, where she could see the brain if she really focused. She was shocked nothing important had come to mind (pun intended, of course) during the torture, but it didn’t seem to be well-informed on the whole angels-having-Jack.

She arched an eyebrow and dropped the angel’s head with an annoyed eyeroll. She muttered an Enochian word to the fire, and it separated to allow her to pass. Glowing sigils inside the ring kept the flames from weakening its powers on the angel at hand.

She tossed Usiel’s own angel blade on the chair she had set up. On it was a toolbox of enchanted weapons that were keen on hurting angels: a cleaver that burns the vessel, hex bags filled with ingredients that can do a myriad on vessels, and the most powerful thing in it was a syringe.

Her days of being tortured when she was young came rushing back to her when she picked it up. “If you don’t know, then . . . guess you’re gonna have to find out if you wanna keep all your grace.”

Usiel’s eyes widened. His vessel was, thankfully, chained to a wooden chair encased in the ring of holy fire. It began struggling harder than it did before, and she was eager to take it to a higher level. She made her way back into the ring, the fire, again, allowing her to pass through with ease. Her hand lifted the needle and positioned it right above the vessel’s heart.

“Tell me.”

“I don’t know.”

“Are you sure? Because the fear in your eyes is telling me I’m not the only thing you’re scared of.” Maddie let a smile crawl its way to her mouth. “Is it of the Devil’s kid? Probably not since your whole mission is about the damn kid. Or is your superiors? The ones that shaped you into the coward that you’re displaying for me. Are they supposed to be your alibi to your commander or are they the ones who’re gonna tear you a new one when you show up empty-handed?”

She cackled when Usiel screamed in frustration. She sighed with delight and looked back down at it with a grin. She repositioned the syringe in her hand so she gripped it in a fist and stabbed the vessel in the throat, instead. Another scream filled the shed she found, this time with agony. She began pulling on the plunger. Beautiful grace began filling the tube slowly.

After another minute or two of extracting did the angel start spewing answers. She lifted her head curiously in a mocking manner when it mentioned North Cove. She huffed softly and dropped to a squat so she was level with the angel.

“Are you saying that you lied to me?” she whispered with slight anger in her voice.

Actual tears slipped from the angel’s eyes. She didn’t feel sorry for it in the slightest. Lying to someone was rude but to a Rayner? Death was the immediate consequence.

“I-I-I-I’m sorry, ma’am. I’m so sorry. I-I didn’t mean to . . .” Its voice trailed off when it looked up at her with fear and sadness in its eyes. She actually chuckled at its attempts at redeeming itself.

She left the syringe in the angel’s neck. She back up toward the edge of the ring, with the fire remaining closed. Until she muttered the word, it would remain closed. She felt flames begging to lick her calves, but she made sure she stayed away from them. Maddie shook her head and stormed toward the angel.

“I was thinking about killing you, but I’m guessing your superiors got my lovely message a few days ago. So, might as well have some fun,” she grabbed the syringe and pulled hard on the plunger, which filled the tube up with grace in seconds. Screams bounced off the walls.

Maddie ended the night by taking the hex bags and gathering them in her hands. She examined each one, taking note of their ingredients and deciphering their effects. One of them, she was sure, would burn the vessel to a crippling extent. When she placed a hex in Usiel’s lap, she was pleased with the outcome: hissing filled the room, along with the smell of burning flesh and bones; burn marks appeared on the vessel’s skin.

Usiel died twenty minutes later.

As she extinguished the holy fire, tossed the chair aside, and unchained the motionless vessel, her thoughts turned to Heaven. Surely they knew of her actions. She was ninety-nine percent sure that they got her message from Tabbris’ mutilated corpse. If they did, then she should see a decrease in angels hunting her down.

But would that still make them go after Jack? Or Sam? Her mind sent dangerous thoughts to her. Her heart shook when she thought about it. Heaven wouldn’t hesitate to use Sam against her, he was human. They could do whatever they wanted to him to make sure she was powerless and weak. Dean would be beyond pissed, and if he found out Heaven’s motive as to why they have Sam, he would surely kill her.

“Shut up, Maddie. Nobody wants to know about that,” she muttered. She hurled the body over her shoulder and settled it on the pile of lumber in the far corner. She looked at the corpse with a slight head tilt. Burn marks covered most of the arms and neck, with more faded burns on the face and legs. “Shame you didn’t live longer.”

Walking to the chair with her equipment, she closed the toolbox and shoved it in a spare duffle bag she bought at a Cabela's downtown. She took out a rusted gasoline container and took the cap off, aiming the nozzle at the lumber pile and squirting gasoline on it.

After ten minutes of gathering her things and making her way out of the shed, she was enveloped in a blanket of cold. Her breath clouded in front of her as she lit up the box of matches in her hand, and stared at it for a moment. She thought about extinguishing it and letting Heaven find Usiel’s body. Surely they were already wary of her message, but what could hurt with another one?

She decided to toss the lit matches in the shed. In seconds the thing burst into flames, with the chipping and creaking wood giving in to the heat and collapsing. The second it made impact an explosion of embers and sparks filled the air, their tiny paths of orange and yellow crawling their way to the cloudless sky.

Her hands reached out and warmed themselves. Despite wearing her flannel again, she was still growing cold as the flames licked the horizon. Her wings slipped from her back and surrounded her body to keep warm. She glanced at her phone and saw a notification that she had set up to tell her when Sam’s phone was being used. She smirked at her accomplishment and tucked the device back into her pocket, turning on her heel and leaping into the air.

The second she got to North Cove, the town was so tiny that she immediately felt angels near the north side. Her back tightened so much her wings locked in their positions in the air. She felt gravity being a little shit and taking her down to the ground like an anvil in cartoons. She angled herself so she would land on her feet, but she managed to land by rolling on the ground.

Gravel crunched beneath her boots. The police station was made of mostly brick, with a glass entrance and small vegetation making the building look homier. She saw the Impala sitting in the gleaming sun, its paint left untouched after decades of use.

A scream came from the back.

Her bracelet slithered down her hand and transformed into a sword. The sunlight hit it just right as she squatted a fraction of an inch. She trekked toward the back of the station, shade relieving her exposed skin of the blistering heat despite the winter months. A soft breeze brushed past her, sending her loose hair over her shoulders.

Her back was tenser than it already was, which sent shocks of pain to shoot up and down her spine. She fought through it as she decided to go the stealthy route.

She gripped the sword in one hand while the other dropped her duffle. She was thankful she had found weapons of her family’s a while back, for the things inside were truly a dream to have when one was outnumbered. She sunk lower to the ground and dipped her hand into the bag, taking out two grenade-like canisters filled with holy oil and gripping them tightly in her hand.

She brought the grenade to her lips and pulled the pin with her teeth. She watched the silver time bomb start to glow, and after five seconds she tossed it into the cluster of angels. Soft ticking was all that was heard until the grenade exploded. A giant cloud of white light filled the small patch of land, sending the angels screaming as their vessels were scorched to piles of ash. She leaned her head out to make sure every angel was dead.

And then there was one. It was a female vessel with auburn hair. She trekked toward the angel on quiet feet, her hand lifting the sword to stab the angel and—

The angel spun on its heel and slammed its fist into her cheek. Her head whipped to the side sharply, and her mouth was left agape. She scoffed and felt the immediate copper taste of blood in her mouth. She stood there for a second, a devious smile widening her lips when she looked back at the angel.

The foul creature’s eyes widened a fraction. “Rayner.”

Maddie lifted her eyebrows slightly while keeping the grin. “You’re gonna wish you never did that,” she said. She hurled her body into the angel’s vessel, which slammed against the brick wall. She grabbed the throat and squeezed before feeling the presence of another angel behind her. Glancing behind her, she waited until the other angel went to stab her before unfurling her wings and taking a quick leap upward.

The angel stabbed its sister in the heart. Grace exploded from the vessel’s mouth and nose, sending volleys of white light to shine on every surface nearby. In the midst of the other angel’s horror, a strained grunt left it as Maddie’s sword was plunged into its chest. It died, too, and collapsed next to its sister, wings brazed into the ground and sides of the police station.

Sam’s voice was soft as he called, “Dean? Dean!”

Her head snapped up. Two angels appeared ahead of her and didn’t seem to see her by how they strode inside without a cautious glance. The angels, one with short gelled blonde hair and the other seeming to be of Mexican descent as vessels, seized and yanked the emergency exit door using its powers. She was almost hit by the damn thing, but she managed to dodge it.

Ringing filled her ears. She cocked her head in frustration when all she heard were angels spewing words at each other, but a few were enough to peak her interest: “He’s here. We have the boy.”

She could hear punches being thrown. She stalked inside and tossed the second grenade outside after twisting one half so it would activate upon the command of an Enochian word. The blonde angel was struggling to pick up a boy that seemed to be in serious pain, and judging from his facial expression, she could tell it was angel radio.

A grunt left the other end of the jail cell. Her head flicked to the other angel landing punches and kicks to Sam, who struggled to gain the upper hand. Instead of going after the angel handling Jack (or so she assumed it was him), she stormed into the cell and stabbed it in the back. It wasn’t a vital part of the vessel, but at least it took its mind off Sam.

Her teeth clenched when she lifted the sword overhead, which sent the angel to rise with it and let the vessel to fall from it when she twisted it back down behind her. She yanked the staff out and slammed her boot on its head to make sure it stayed down.

Sam sat up after wiping his mouth of a thin line of blood that had begun to drip from his mouth. He leaned against the wall and looked up at her, chest rising and falling heavily. “Maddie?”

She grabbed his forearm and lifted him to his feet. “Thank me later,” she muttered and instructed to make that blood something useful while she stalked to the blonde-haired angel. She reached out and grabbed its shoulder, wrenching it from Jack’s side, and landed a punch on its cheek.

Maddie clenched her fists in the angel’s outfit, bringing its face close to hers. She slammed her head into the vessel’s and snarled, “Mess with him, you’re gonna wish Heaven spared you the mission.”

“H-hey!” She turned her head and saw Sam slap his palm over a banishing symbol. Both angels screamed and disappeared in a flash of bright light, which even Maddie had to shield her eyes from. Jack collapsed from one of the angel’s grasps with a thud. She glanced down at him and spared him. Just a kid trying to survive in a world that hates him.

Another door opened, revealing a third angel. She lifted her head and stared at the vessel, but she wasn’t fooled for a second. She stepped out of the jail cell, with Sam following, and positioned herself in front of him. Her wings were shaken out with a roll of her shoulders, and the two appendages rose and hid Sam almost completely, save for the very top of his head and his long legs.

Miriam lifted her head in authority despite the fear that shone in her eyes. “Madalyn. Glad to see you’re still in one piece,” she taunted with sarcasm.

“Glad to see Atheed’s bitch is still Upstairs. What happened this time, huh? Sleep with one of your superiors like a good little slut? I’m not surprised. Atheed would be very disappointed in you, Miriam.

“Here’s what you’re gonna do. Leave these boys alone, and maybe I won’t kill you. But if you decide to be a little bitch about it, then Heaven is gonna look like a daycare center when I’m done with you.”

The angel chuckled. “Oh, Maddie. Heaven is a daycare center. Crying babies about their father leaving the building? Always complaining and blabbing on and on and on! But at least Heaven’s gonna be much better with him in it.” Miriam turned her head to Jack, who stood a hair’s breadth away from her.

Sam gripped an angel blade in his hand. “Don’t,” he warned. Maddie’s sword shortened in her hand to be the length of a dagger. She saw Miriam’s head turn to see it, and looked up at her. She arched an eyebrow with a smirk.

The angel sneered at Sam. “Or what, other one?” It seemed to be proud of its taunt, and Dean’s response made it glance behind its shoulder. Sam warned it again to stay away from Jack, and this time it offered him its blade. “You’re right. But if you can’t have him,” she continued, turning the blade and swinging it into Jack’s chest. “No one can.”

The second the blade stuck in Jack’s chest was the same second both Sam and Maddie made a move on Miriam. Maddie shoved the Hunter back and grabbed the angel by its shirt and lifted it off its feet, slamming its back against the wall furthest from the boys and planting her blade to its throat.

She glared at the Hunters. She felt a spike of pain in her back when voices came from outside, but she ignored it when she stared into Miriam’s eyes. She put pressure on the blade and smiled when drops of blood began dripping onto the vessel’s chest. Maddie watched eyes grow wide when she dragged the blade across the skin in a swift motion, digging the blade in as deep as she did.

Beautiful, pure grace drifted out of the separated skin. It looked for another vessel. It was kind of funny to her when the vessels for both Michael and Lucifer were standing in the same room together with free-falling grace trying to find a host.

She watched the grace slowly float toward her. She opened her mouth willingly and felt the pure energy course down her throat. She closed her eyes when she felt her body being cleansed, the grace shining on her skin in her veins. She heard ringing in her ears, but no pain followed. She lifted her head up and opened her eyes.

In a swift motion, she turned to face the Winchesters. Her eyes must’ve glowed blue, for the horrified look on Sam’s face made her toss a mocking laugh.

“You should take your pretty little ass out of here if you know what’s good for you; more of these maggots will be coming.” She glared at Miriam’s vessel slumped on its side at her feet. Sam, staring at her, grabbed Jack’s arm and dragged him from the cell and toward the door. He stopped and turned, his eyes roaming her figure.

She was on him in a second. Her hands snatched him by his orange jacket and slammed his back against the wall that supported the prison bars. Her mouth was set in a silent snarl. She lifted herself on her toes, bringing her face close to his. “Am I speaking Greek? GO!”

#horrors and hunters #supernatural #supernatural fanfic #fanfiction #spn #season 13??#sam winchester #dean winchester #maddie rayner #jared padalecki #jensen ackles #odette annable #Sam X OFC #sam x maddie

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