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butgilinsky · 3 years

Text

someone will ache for your soul // np

warning; a lot of language i’m sry, argument btw best friends, talks abt a shitty ex bf but there’s nothing explicit

summary; in a world where you acquire tattoos across various parts of your body once you fall in love with someone, you have to hide yours from your best friend.

word count; 6.7k+

a/n: kind of a soulmate au but not really i guess? i saw this prompt somewhere online and idk where it’s from so the general idea of gaining tattoos from those you fall in love with is not mine but the rest of the fic is. okay thx bye(:

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When you were younger, you loved it. You loved looking down at your ankle and seeing the small butterfly just beside your ankle. You’d had it your whole life, though you still weren’t entirely sure how a tattoo grew up with you, but you accepted it. After all, it’s all that you knew.

Everybody’s born with a tattoo on their ankle, a small tattoo that has theirselves embedded into it. However, the older you get the more you realize that it’s not the tattoo you’re born with that makes the biggest impact on you, it’s others’. Every time you fall in love with somebody, your skin makes room for their tattoo on it. Your mom’s tattoo, a small star on her left ankle, shined bright from its place on your father’s wrist, somehow separate from the couple tattoos he collected over the years.

You remember the day you found out about the tattoos, perched in your mom’s lap and listening to her talk to your aunt about it. You remember tracing their tattoos with your small fingers while they told you various stories about their loves and how they grew up collecting tattoos on their skin. You were scared, asked your mom what happened if you never got any more than your single tattoo on your ankle. She told you that you would, that anybody would be lucky to collect your small butterfly somewhere on their body.

You remember the day you got your second tattoo, the paper plane that sat on the back of your left shoulder that now held the role as a painful reminder of your first love. You loved Cory, but the time for the two of you had come and gone. The paper airplane, though never in your line of sight, was still a painful reminder of the times you shared with the boy and how he broke your heart at the end of it all just before moving to college.

You had to go through senior year alone, newly broken up with and with your best friend hours away from home. You couldn’t blame Nolan, not when he was out doing the thing he loved so much. Being in Brandon was good for him, it was all that he wanted, and it wasn’t all that far away from Winnipeg anyways. You still drove out to see Nolan’s games, even if it ran up the miles on your car and had you spending late nights driving back home by yourself. You would’ve done anything for Nolan, and it truly showed during your senior year.

Nolan’s draft day was a rude awakening for you. You jumped up when his name was called, hugging him as tight as you possibly could before hiding your giddy expression behind your hands. You were excited for him, even if he was going all the way out to Philadelphia. You wanted him to be happy, and you could tell within seconds of his name being called that he was going to do just fine in Philly.

You didn’t notice until you got home and your heart sank into your stomach. Your adrenaline high had worn off, and the reality of everything around you began to sink in. You knew what it was the second you laid your eyes on it, black lines etched into the skin of your sternum. You thought it was an odd placement, though it was hard to miss it when you stepped out of the shower and it stood tall and proud and ready to be found.

You knew what it was, you’d seen the shape etched into Nolan’s ankle far more times than you could count. It mocked you, the snake coiled up the same way your memory sketched it out in your brain, and now it was imprinted perfectly into your skin. You touched it, rubbed it, tried to wash it off. You had just taken a shower, just washed the day off of you and down the drain and now you were standing in the middle of a hotel bathroom, rubbing at the spot between your breasts mercilessly. This couldn’t be happening, not to you, not when Nolan was about to move thousands of miles away from you.

But it was happening, because the black line that followed no real pattern never faded, despite the skin around it turning raw from your insistent attempts at washing it off. It was here to stay, no matter what happened in your life down the road. It didn’t matter that you had no heads up, no warning that you were falling head over heels in love with your best friend.

You knew it wouldn’t wash off, but that didn’t stop you from trying. These tattoos were forever, you knew that. You learned from a ripe, young age about obtaining your love’s tattoo. You learned about it growing up, you talked about it with friends and family, hell this wasn’t even your first tattoo that wasn’t your own. You knew the drill, you knew the routine, but that didn’t make it any easier to deal with.

You were 18, watching him sign contracts and make agreements of his big move in a few short weeks. You couldn’t believe it, that you were losing him in a time like this. It made dropping him off at the airport all that much harder, cheeks wet and eyes bloodshot as you clung to him for dear life. You knew his parents wanted to say bye, that his sisters were waiting patiently while you cried into his shoulder, but you couldn’t let go.

He didn’t know about the snake on your sternum, nor did you plan on telling him. You couldn’t drop a bomb like that on him just before he moved to a different country, finally living out the dream he’d had ever since you could remember. Nolan wasn’t Nolan without hockey, and you were aware of that. You were painfully aware of that.

So you didn’t tell him.

You spent too many nights curled up in your bed, clinging to your pillow to muffle the whimpers and whines that pushed through your lips and out into the air. You tried to ignore the sinking feeling in your chest at any given moment, and you did everything in your power to keep everything under wraps. You couldn’t tell anyone, no matter how bad it hurt to be in love with your best friend that now lived so far away from you.

It was hard, hiding it. You had to hide it from your family and friends, and sometimes that was easy. During the cold months you were seemingly off the hook, but when summer rolled around and your friends dragged you out to the lake every chance they got, you were in a bit of trouble. You had to carefully choose what bathing suits you wore and had to make sure nothing slipped or faltered throughout the day.

You’d made it three years without a slip up. Even on nights when Nolan came home and you were mere inches away from him, you couldn’t find it in you to tell him. Even when he was curled up into your side and holding you against his chest in the most comfortable way, you couldn’t say anything. You couldn’t make a move on him.

And now you were in Philly, standing in an arena that had you shivering but smiling brightly from the opposite side of the glass. You smiled every time Nolan skated by, even more when he assisted Travis in the first goal of the game and scored one of his own late in the second period. You were buzzing, adrenaline pumping and excitement shining deep in your chest. Watching Nolan do what he loved would never get old, not when the smile he wore was enough to wash away any fear or worry you’ve ever had.

You remember nights when you couldn’t sleep and Nolan would hold you. You remembered nights when you were crying over the phone to him and he snuck out of his room and into your own. You remembered fights you had and the way he made you walk home one night after one of your bigger ones.

You were walking out of TIm Horton’s, mere feet away from Nolan’s car before you tumbled into an argument you’d been trying to avoid for a few days now. You were dating Cory at the time, and Nolan couldn’t believe you were telling him that you couldn’t go to his game on Friday night, regardless of the fact that you’d promised him for weeks now that you’d be there. It was hard for you to catch games during the week, but this one was on a Friday night with plenty of time for you to finish the school day and drive over to Brandon.

But now you were telling him that you couldn’t go, and no matter how sorry you were, Nolan couldn’t forgive you. He said you’d blown him off for Cory more times than he could accept anymore. You had to call your sister, figuring she was the only one that would pick you up and give you a ride home without threatening to leave you in the parking lot in favor of beating Nolan to a pulp.

None of that mattered though. None of it mattered when you were faced with the boy you’d fallen in love with doing the thing he cherished most. When he left the locker room with a smile brighter than any of his teammates had seen in a long time that was directed straight at you, you knew none of it mattered.

Your feet left the ground, hanging in the air while your best friend clung to your frame tightly. He thanked you for coming, told you that he scored the goal just for you, that he scored every goal for you. You figured it was the adrenaline talking, that he was just basking in the big win against their biggest rivals. That plus the fact that Nolan could barely come to terms with the fact that you were here all for him.

You’d been in Philly before, had visited Nolan a few times over his years with the Flyers. You’d met practically everyone there was to meet and had gotten fairly close with his closest friends by default, seeing as they were always around when you were. Everything was going well this time around, everyone was having fun and getting along and it almost seemed like nothing could fall out of place.

You were standing in the kitchen with Nolan and Travis when Nolan’s name was called, beckoning him out into the rest of the house while you and Travis rallied drinks for the group. He tried to ignore them, tried to help you pile up on wine and beers for the rest of the group but Travis practically kicked him out of the kitchen. Travis said he could help you, that the two of you didn’t need Nolan’s help and that someone else clearly did.

It took all of five minutes for Travis to spill red wine all over your shirt. Thankfully for him, the few glasses you’d thrown back throughout the night washed over any sense of anger or annoyance you’d usually pick up and you simply laughed it off. He felt so bad, begged you to forgive him and let you buy him a new shirt, but all you did was insist that he find you a new one for now and that you could figure out the rest of it when the two of you weren’t tipsy and surrounded by your friends.

Travis ducked out of the kitchen for a second before turning back up and leading you into a hallway on the other end of the house. He told you that Claude never really let them wander his house without a little supervision, claiming that they break everything that they touch, but this was a special case. Claude loved you, and he wasn’t going to let you walk around with a wine stained shirt for the rest of the night, especially when it’s Travis’s fault in the first place.

You laid back on the bed in the room you were unfamiliar with, smiling up at the ceiling and humming to yourself while Travis dug through Claude’s closet.

“I know Ryanne has a stack of those shirts somewhere.” he spoke gently to himself, refraining from throwing clothes all over the room and instead digging for one through multiple piles. You laughed to yourself, not even sure if he knew that you could hear him.

“Just pick one, Teeks!” he huffed and chucked one at you, laughing loudly when it landed directly on your face.

You whined and sat up, reaching for the hem of your shirt without much thought surrounding the subject before peeling it off. All you could think about was how sticky your stomach had gotten from the red spot.

It was the small gasp that got you, the one that brought you back down to Earth and tore you out of your wine-induced haze. It was Travis’s eyes locked in on the spot in the middle of your chest that triggered every panic siren in between your ears.

“Is that-”

“TK you can’t tell him.” you rushed out, pushing yourself to stand up as you pressed a bright orange Flyers shirt against your chest. Your hands were shaking, and Travis’s eyes were glued to the spot of the tattoo even without being able to see it anymore. He knew what that snake was, he knew it all too well. He’d known Nolan for a long time now, and he’d seen the snake enough times to commit it to memory.

He was sure you had Nolan’s snake in the middle of your chest, and now Travis knew you were in love with Nolan.

“Trav, I’m serious.” he shook his head, trying to clear himself of the intrusive thoughts and nodded gently. He couldn’t tell Nolan. He wasn’t entirely sure how he was going to keep that from him, especially when he had been looking for your tattoo on Nolan’s skin for years now.

Travis wasn’t dense. He saw the way that Nolan looked at you, heard the tone he used when he talked about you. He saw how excited Nolan got when he knew you were about to fly into Philly, and he saw how upset Nolan got when you left. He might not have been the brightest bulb in the box, but he knew that there was something lying under the surface of you and Nolan’s friendship.

He tried to have this conversation before, had tried more times than he could count at this point. The only difference now was that there was hard proof, there was evidence that he was right all along. But now he couldn’t use that evidence, not when you were looking at him with wide eyes and begging him to keep it between the two of you.

“Fine, but we’re talking about this before you go back home.” you nodded, figuring that it was good enough for you if it meant he never told Nolan about it.

Except, there was one small problem.

The door swung open, dark and narrowed eyes landing on you and Travis, less than a foot between the two of you with you topless, a single shirt held between your hands and in front of your chest.

“My best friend?” the disappointment in his voice tugged at your heart and punched you in the gut simultaneously. The guilt hanging in your chest was barely justified, given this was one large misunderstanding, but the look on Nolan’s face was enough to have your shoulders falling.

“Nolan, it’s not-”

“My best fucking friend? Of all people you had to choose him?” his eyes were wide and glued to yours, anger mixing with disgust in the back of his mind. He couldn’t believe you’d do this to him.

“Pat, you don’t understand-”

“Fuck you.” Nolan spoke slowly and clearly, shooting Travis the sharpest glare he could produce. His voice sent a chill down your spine, unsure if you had ever heard him speak with such malice. “Both of you.”

Nolan spun on the balls of his feet and left the room, but you didn’t let him get far before you were following him. You tugged the shirt over your head, not even bothering to turn back to Travis to apologize before you were running after Nolan, calling his name down the hallway.

“Nolan, please-”

“I don’t want to hear it, honestly.” he threw over his shoulder, but you weren’t accepting that. You weren’t going to let him walk away right now, not when you didn’t do anything wrong.

“Just listen to me!” you stopped walking, stopped running. You stood in the middle of a hallway that had pictures lining the walls around you. Smiling faces and cheery laughs suffocated you in a time where you stood toe to toe with your best friend, the same one who was looking down at you like he’d never known you. “You don’t get to assume things and just walk away!”

“Yeah, well you don’t get to come out here after not seeing me for six months and sleep with my best friend! You don’t get to do that to me! You don’t get to use me to sleep with professional athletes.” any words you had swimming through your mind halted at his accusation. They fizzled out, unable to produce a coherent thought after you heard your best friend accuse you of using him.

“After all this time, you think i’m using you? You think that I came here to sleep with Travis?”

“You want to know what I think? I think you’ve always used me. You used me to escape your awful boyfriend in high school and you used me to leave home when things got bad. You used me to get over your shitty boyfriend when he left you in the fucking dust and here you are now, using me to sleep with my best fucking friend.” you were in shock, lips parted and throat constricting as you tried to let his words sit.

“If you wanted to whore yourself out to NHL players, you should’ve just said so, puck bunny.” The nickname weighed heavily in your chest, bringing you back to a time where Nolan went on and on about how much puck bunnies got under his skin. It brought you back to a time when Nolan would never call you that, would never even put you and the name in the same conversation.

“Patty!” Nolan’s eyes left yours, casting over your shoulder and locking with another pair that he might have been more furious at. Sure, he was angry at you. He couldn’t believe you’d do something like this, not after growing up with him just a few houses down. He couldn’t believe you’d stoop this low, but Travis? Travis knew how Nolan felt about you. Even if he didn’t admit it, even if he’d never say that was all true, Travis knew. He knew better than anyone how Nolan felt, and that made it all the more worse.

“Don’t talk to her like that.” you bit down on your bottom lip, hard enough to sting slightly but you couldn’t look away from where your eye level left you. You couldn’t look up at Nolan, not when he was this angry at you, and you surely couldn’t look at Travis. You knew that’d only make things worse.

“Now you get to tell me how to talk to her? Does that mean the two of you are a thing now? That’s funny, seeing as you have a girlfriend, Teeks. Didn’t know you were into home wrecking, y/n.”

“Fuck you.” you spoke softly, not even sure if he had heard you before he looked down at you with a puzzled look stretched across his face.

“So I can pick up TK’s sloppy seconds? No thanks, angel.” you shoved him then, shoved him hard. He didn’t move much due to the way his feet dug into the ground and he had muscle on you, but you got your point across by the force delivered to his chest.

“You’re a dick, you know that? You walk into a room and think you know everything that’s going on, but you don’t, okay? You don’t know what happens when you’re gone. You don’t know what happened in there or what happens at home when you’re here. You don’t know anything, okay?”

“That’s bold, given that I just walked in on you topless, seconds away from kissing my best friend, y/n-”

��Is there a reason you feel the need to keep reminding me that Travis is your best friend?”

“Because I need you to know that you’re not.”

The world titled on its axis then, the rude awakening you’d walked into becoming all too much for you to handle. With the realization that Nolan wanted nothing to do with you, you nodded once and walked around him so you could leave. It was only then that you noticed the audience you’d gathered, the better half of the Flyers roster circled around the room with a few of their significant others. You flashed everyone a pained smile and thanked Claude and Ryanne for inviting you before leaving the house.

You weren’t even down the driveway when your lungs gave way, gasping for air while tears streamed down your cheeks. Your heart hurt and your stomach turned, and you knew it was going to be a long night.

“You really are a dick.” Travis was going to walk past him, was going to avoid the lot of people and follow you outside. He knew you didn’t know where you were, nor did you have a way to get to or from anywhere else. You could order an uber to Nolan’s, but then what? Kevin might let you into the apartment but where would you stay? On the couch in a living room you weren’t welcome in? Not likely.

“I’m the dick? You know how I feel about her!”

“Nothing happened!”

“Bullshit, TK! I know that look on your face and I know that she sure as hell looked embarrassed-”

“I spilt wine on her shirt, you fucking idiot! I knocked into her when we were in the kitchen and I made her entire glass of wine spill down the front of her shirt, so I went to get her another one. I didn’t want her to sit in a soaking wet, stained shirt for the rest of the night so I went to get her another.”

“And she changed in front of you because-?”

“Because she was drunk and knew I wouldn’t make a move on her. Because she knows that I respect you and care about you far more than I care about making a move on her. I don’t look at her that way, Pat. You know I would never do that to you.” Nolan sucked on his teeth then, casting his eyes away from Travis’s and looking down at his feet.

“Do I?” Travis scoffed then, not bothering to give Nolan a response before walking past everybody else and out to his car.

After a few minutes of driving around, he found you at the park just down the street, leaning against the chain that supported the swing you sat on. He couldn’t see your tears from his car, but he could see the way you flinched when he shut the car door behind him.

“You okay?” you shook your head, eyes filled to the brim with tears that blurred your vision and broke Travis’s heart.

“I’m in love with him, Teeks. I love him more than anything in this entire world and he thinks I’m using him. He t-thinks- he thinks I-”

“Hey, it’s okay.” Travis pulled you onto your feet and into his chest, wrapping his arms tightly around you in order to attempt to calm you down.

“He thinks-” your sobs rang through the air, piercing through Travis’s heart and resulting in him squeezing you tighter, letting you get all of it out while no one else was around.

“He doesn’t think that. He knows you’re not using him, he just can’t bear to think about you with anybody other than him.” you shook your head, not allowing yourself to believe Travis, even though he knew Nolan pretty well. If there was anything to know about Nolan, you or Travis would know about it.

“He loves you, okay? He loves you more than he knows how to handle and he can’t handle losing you before he’s even had you.” you flinched when a car backfired, jumping inches off of the ground and making Travis laugh gently from beside you when you let out a shaky breath of relief.

Your eyes found the familiar car drive by, slowing down the slightest bit by the park only to take off towards the entrance of the neighborhood quite quickly. You knew it was Nolan, you knew that car by heart.

You ended up on Travis’s couch the night, wrapped in a warm pair of sweatpants that Travis threw in the dryer for you before giving them to you. You tied the drawstring in a tight knot so they’d stay up and pulled on a hoodie that he offered to you shortly after. He listened to you reminisce on all of the memories you had with Nolan. He learned more about his best friend and who he was growing up, but also learned a fair amount about you as well.

He felt for you. He couldn’t believe Nolan said all of those things to you, but he also knew that Nolan must not be doing well right now. He texted Kevin when he got back to his apartment, saying that you were safe with him, and that he’d text Nolan but didn’t for obvious reasons. Kevin assured Travis he’d let Nolan know you were safe, despite Nolan not asking about your well being. Not that he hadn’t thought about it, but he figured if he asked he’d be left with a less than likable answer.

Nolan didn’t sleep well that night, replaying how bad he fucked up over and over again in his mind. He didn’t believe you at first, didn’t even believe Travis when he told him what truly happened. He did, however, believe his captain when he said that Travis asked him for a shirt for you just a few minutes before it all happened. Ryanne brought out your wine soaked shirt after the two of you had left, and despite Nolan coming to terms with the fact that he was wrong, he couldn’t forgive himself for the things he said to you.

He couldn’t believe he accused you of it all before going on to accuse you of using him for your benefit. He knew it was stupid, since you’d been around far before the NHL. you were there when he got drafted, you were there when he was named captain of the Wheat Kings, and you were there when he almost quit hockey when he was younger. He remembered having you by his side through everything growing up and even now, even while living so far away from each other. If he called, you answered. If he needed help, you helped him. Hockey had nothing to do with that.

He looked down at the butterfly on his thigh, the one that took residence right beside another one of his tattoos, one that he had to keep hidden from you for well over two years now. He traced his finger over the small image, let his mind wander over all the possibilities of where yours could be if you had a snake somewhere inked into your skin. It’s a thought he often had, wondering where you’d want it, if you’d want it.

By the time Nolan came to his senses, it was too late. He’d already gotten through an entire practice and by the time he got back, by the time he got home, he realized you were gone. Your things that were piled into a corner of his room were gone. The jersey he’d given you for the game against the pens was folded up nicely on the pillow of his bed and a sticky note with your unmistakeable handwriting on it left a hole in his chest.

I’m sorry I ever made you doubt me.

He couldn’t reach for his phone fast enough, couldn’t call you enough times to break your voicemail box. He called Travis, pained to hear that you were already on a flight back to Winnipeg. He wanted to leave, wanted to drive to the airport right this second and catch a flight back home to tell you he’s incredibly sorry, but he couldn’t. He had a roadie in a few days and a game tomorrow night and he couldn’t just leave.

He did his best to contact you, tried to call every person in your family and was disappointed every time. Even when both of his sisters sat down and called him to collectively tell him that he was the biggest idiot either of them had ever met. Nobody could believe Nolan blew you off like that, not even Nolan himself.

He knew he fucked up, but he hadn’t realized how bad he fucked things up until one of your friends from back home posted a picture of you on social media a few months later. It had been at least four months since he’d spoken to you, since he saw you. It had been too long of him having nothing but the sliver of content he got from social media. He hated that his friends had chosen your side in the thick of it all, though he guessed it was easier to do that with him in Philadelphia and the rest of you in the same place.

But it wasn’t until a picture of you with a wide smile and a new bathing suit popped up on his phone that he knew the true weight of the situation in front of him. There you were, in a baby blue bathing suit that showed the same shape between your breasts that he’d grown up with beside his ankle. His tattoo was committed to memory, ingrained into his brain with no room to forget about it, especially when he saw it on you, etched into your skin the same way it had been etched into his.

He thought back to the paper airplane on your shoulder, the mark that had haunted him for years. He hated your boyfriend, hated the sight of his tattoo on your skin. He hated everything that had to do with the sheer thought of you with somebody else, even if he didn’t know how to deal with that. And now, with his thumb sitting on the butterfly on his thigh and his eyes on the snake on your sternum, he knew he had to fix this. He knew he had to fix things because these tattoos, though permanent themselves, didn’t guarantee him a life as your boyfriend, nor your husband.

Nolan remembered a time when he thought these tattoos were stupid. He remembered when he thought it was a thing for soulmates and you told him that thought was wrong, that it just reminded you of a love you felt, even if it was eventually lost. He remembers you telling him that you were scared you’d never be loved forever, that you were scared to only be loved momentarily.

But that wasn’t the case. Nolan would never stop loving you. He couldn’t forget about the way your laugh brightened his day without question, or the way your nose scrunched when you laughed. He couldn’t forget about the way you bugged him for ice cream on a bad day, or how good you looked with his name and number stretched across your back.

He couldn’t remember a day he wasn’t in love with you.

So Nolan flew to Winnipeg the second the Flyers’ season was over. He didn’t bask in getting knocked out of the playoffs like some of the other guys, didn’t dwell on the loss in the sixth game of the series because he couldn’t. He couldn’t dwell on a loss when he was so focused on trying to prevent a second one.

He had called everybody he could think of once he got off the plane. Some didn’t answer, some didn’t know the answer to his question, and some just flat out refused to humor him. You weren’t home, he knew that much by the absence of your car in the driveway and your sister telling him that you weren’t there, and that she wouldn’t let him inside even if you were. It wasn’t until he rounded a familiar corner after a phone call he’d been thankful for.

Jordan told him where you were, unable to lie to his childhood friend when you were hanging out with everyone. You were wearing a bathing suit again, though it didn’t matter for a while. The sun was high in the air and you weren’t the only that had shed yourself of your coverup earlier in the afternoon. You were playing basketball with Jordan, oblivious to the fact that he’d given you up just ten minutes prior to the gate door swinging open and Nolan letting himself into the backyard.

Your eyes found him easily, as if he was a magnet you could never repel. Your shoulders fell for a moment, your instinct of wanting to comfort him seeping in before you could tell it not to. Of course you kept up with his team, watching every game you possibly could until the very last one. You knew he’d been knocked out of the playoff less than 48 hours ago, and you had no idea he was coming home.

You hadn’t realized the weight of the situation until you noticed his eyes locked in on your chest. You folded your arms over your chest in an attempt to cover the snake, but it didn’t make Nolan look anywhere else.

“Who told you I was here?” your voice was soft. You knew he didn’t drive around the entire town looking for your car, though you weren’t sure it was something too far out of his reach. Nolan would do just about anything to get something if he wanted it bad enough.

“Bo did.” you glared at the boy not far from you, the one that you shouldn’t have trusted with something like this in the first place. You should’ve known Jordan would do something like this.

“Patty, what the fuck?”

“Just shut up, Bo.” Jordan rolled his eyes and tossed the basketball to Nolan who smacked it away and into the grass.

“Well, I don’t want to talk to you.” you tried to stand your ground, even with Jordan giggling to himself before walking over to your friends not too far from where you currently stood.

“Just give me five minutes.”

Nolan’s eyes bore into yours, the same pair of bright blue eyes that you had been avoiding for months. You wanted to answer every call and every text, but how could you? How could you pick up the phone and listen to his voice through the speaker after all he’d said to you in front of his entire team. And then on top of it all, he left you stranded in Philly, in the middle of a city, country even, where you had nobody to turn to and nowhere to go.

“I know you don’t want to talk to me-”

“Then leave, Nols.” he shook his head, taking a step towards you. “I don’t want to talk to you.”

“I know I hurt you-”

“You’re right! You hurt me! You hurt me so bad Nolan and I can’t go through that again so if you’re here to let history repeat itself, then can you just go?” he shook his head, firmly planting his feet into the ground and refusing to move.

“I know you don’t want to see me or listen to me or give me the benefit of the doubt but I need you to hear me out.” you sighed, letting your arms fall to your side. You weren’t sure how he seemingly broke down all of your walls without even lifting a finger. You watched his eyes flick down to the image on your chest, you even let him raise a finger once he stood in front of you and trace the shape of the snake. “It suits you, y’know?”

“Did you really come all this way to tell me that this suits me?” there was a hint of amusement in your voice, enough of it to bring a smile to Nolan’s lips.

“I know I fucked up-”

“Big time.” you cut him off, shooting him a gentle smile and nod that told you you’d stop interrupting him. “Sorry, continue.”

“I know I fucked up and I said a lot of shit I didn’t mean and that’s not an excuse but- look, I know i shouldn’t have said all of that shit. I should’ve believed the two of you. I should’ve believed you when you told me nothing happened and I shouldn’t have said you were using me. I know you’re not using me. There was no way you could’ve known that I was going to be in the NHL, and you wouldn’t have stuck around all this time just to be a puck bunny.”

It wasn’t like you to forgive all that easily. You drew lines in the sand and refused to let someone fuck you over twice. You weren’t big on second chances, especially when you thought people didn’t deserve them. You were a straight shooter, no bullshit. But those walls cracked for Nolan, they fell for Nolan. None of your boundaries were drawn in place with Nolan in mind. He had broken down every wall, overstepped every boundary since the day he met you. You couldn’t block him out, couldn’t lead him out of your life.

As much as you hated to admit it, you needed Nolan Patrick. You were in love with Nolan Patrick.

And the little butterfly on his thigh told you that he loved you all the same.

Your lips turned up at the sight, your eyes locked in on the place where his shorts had ridden up and the small image danced happily on his skin.

“How long have you had that?” you pointed down at it, barely noticing the way his eyes stayed trained on you through the entirety of the situation. You were looking at his tattoo, but he was looking at you. He was always looking at you, which only made it that much more surprising that he hadn’t picked up on the snake on your chest.

“Since before I got drafted.” he spoke softly, hitting you with a force you didn’t know existed. You were floored by the realization, somewhat thinking that he’d only had it for a small bit of time. You’d seen his thighs, seen his tattoos and you’d never seen the small butterfly etched into his skin.

“How long have you had that?” his finger traced over the snake one more time, sending a chill down your spine that you had felt more times than you could count when you were around Nolan. It was a feeling that was never expected but always welcome.

“Draft day.” you breathed out, feeling the weight of the world lift off of your shoulders. You were finally admitting it, finally letting the love of your life know just how long you’ve been a mess for him. Little did you know how much of a mess he was for you.

“I’m so sorry, y/n.”

“It’s okay.” you spoke softly, a smile gracing your lips at the realization that things were falling back into place, even after all this time of not talking to him.

“It’s okay?” you nodded, taking another step toward him so you were chest to chest.

“As long as you don’t fuck it up again.” he let out a small laugh, his hands finding the sides of your face just before pressing his lips to yours.

“I wouldn’t dream of it.”

italics mean it wouldn’t let me tag you!!

nolpat tag list; @extratragic @babytkachuks @teenagekook @stfukie @kiedhara @sadcupofcoffee @sidscrosbyy @rebel-without-care @baby-cat-nol-pat @creator-appreciator

tagging the himbos as well; @bricksatlandyswindow @damndunner @anxietyandtacos @sortagaysortahigh @dmonchld

#nolan patrick #nolpat #nolan x reader #nolan patrick x reader #nhl #nhl fic #nhl imagine #hockey fic #hockey #hockey imagine #philadelphia flyers #flyers

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the-infamous-coat-of-baron-zemo · 3 years

Text

Missed Opportunities | Helmut Zemo x Reader | Chapter 3

Welcome to Part 3! You've made it this far? I'm impressed. Thank you for sticking around. This is quite the long chapter so, I hope you enjoy the juicy action all around.

And this one was quite the doozy to write. It's 3AM now? Hah, I've spent the entire day writing two chapters. But definitely don't expect more at quite this frequency. But I appreciate you all none the less.

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Tag Requests: @lostghostgirl94 @neoarchipelago @fillechatoyante @fanfics-ig

Did I miss someone? For future tag requests: Please send me a direct message if possible, it's easy to lose people in the mix and I don't want to miss anyone!

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For previous chapters go here: Part 1 | Part 2

Word Count: 5.358

OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO

It had been precisely three hours, forty-two minutes since two Avengers and a criminal mastermind had left the safe house you were staying in.

You were currently staring up at the ceiling with mild boredom waiting for the next round of texts to come in. An alert notification rang through the near empty residence, the noise echoed off the walls of the living room intensifying the reverberation of sound.

Rolling over, you flopped onto you stomach from your position on the couch, stretching your arm out to grab the phone off the coffee table.

Carefully, you read the incoming message. 'No recent signs of Karli, but following up on a handprint Bucky found a couple miles from our initial start position. Zemo has a theory it might lead to a section of tunnel that veers off towards the harbor. Will update again in another hour. - S'

Great.

So they'll easily be gone at least another couple hours, leaving you to your own devices. That's dangerous. There's no telling what kind of trouble you could get into without something to do. Your mind was always processing, constantly formulating new plans and calculating risk probabilities. It's why you were so fidgety and animated. You didn't inherently have ADHD, but your brain was so active the symptoms manifested as such. You had a genius level intelligence, you just chose to down-play it most of the time. You craved activities to keep your mind from going into overdrive; it's why you spend most of your mornings running. To drain your body of excess energy and let your brain rest.

You groaned in irritation, tossing the phone back onto the coffee table. Sam could have at least given you a pin point location so you could do some research on the area where the handprint was found.

Maybe you could read for a bit.

You got up and headed to your room at the back of the apartment. Zemo gave you the last room at the end of the hallway, it also happened to be the only room that had a half bath attached to it. Which in retrospect, was quite thoughtful of him.

As you reached your room, a chilly draft fell across your body, causing goosebumps to raise on your fair skin. You noticed you left a window open in the room and moved to close it. Often times, late at night you sat at the window sill and read to pass the time when you couldn't sleep. Sometimes, you'd crack the window open and simply listen to the sounds of the outside; they were just as soothing. There was no denying it was quite lovely where you were staying. Helmut Zemo had impeccable taste.

You grabbed your book and crossed the room, rubbing your arm to help circulate some heat back into your body, but before you got to the door, a patch of blue caught your eye. Zemo's hoodie. It had been left draped haphazardly over the back of one of the chairs in your room. A constant reminder you needed to give it back to the Baron, but you weren't ready to just yet, and funnily enough, he hadn't asked for it.

Shifting from foot to foot, you debated what to do. It was comfortable. Wearing it one last time couldn't hurt, right? There wasn't anyone here to cajole you about it anyways and you could just take it off before the guys got back. Perfectly reasonable. Before you could talk yourself out of it, you snagged the garment off the chair and pulled it on as you walked back out to the main living room, book in hand.

As you rounded the corner and made your way through the kitchen back to the couch, you heard a loud metallic bang against the entry-way door accompanied with the tell tale signs of door knobs turning. Caught off guard by the sudden intrusion, you had leapt off the ground, clutching the book to your chest.

You stared at the door in fear knowing it was way too soon for anyone to have returned yet. And they wouldn't have caused the disruption in the attempts to break in. Pushing down your apprehension, your senses started to return to you, and you realized you need to get to your phone. Now.

Your eyes moved across the apartment and landed on the coffee table a short distance away from you. Bingo. You took a step forward towards the table when the front doors suddenly swung open and a whirl of red, white and blue flew past your face. The projectile, nearly hitting you, caused you to stumble, knocking you backwards onto the floor. You landed clumsily, but thankfully caught yourself before your head smacked against the ground.

You didn't need to look up to know exactly what object flew at your head. The sound alone was unmistakable.

"Apologies for the erratic entrance, I only meant to use it to help open the door - I hadn't planned on Lemar here unlocking the them so easily. When the doors fell open, it kind of just flew right out of my hand."

Annoyance had now replaced your fear.

John Walker.

You had many opinions of the man based off what Sam and Bucky had told you, but you hadn't had the pleasure of actually meeting him. Until now.

This did not help sway your opinion of him in the very least. If anything, it only solidified that the government had made a rash decision. You don't just had over the shield to anyone.

You glared up at the intruders from your position on the floor. This was completely unexpected. How did he even manage to locate this safe house? Something nagged at the back of your mind that Captain Walker might have had help from people with a questionable background. You shoved the thought aside for the time being.

Lemar had gone around to the back of the couch and pulled the shield out of the wall embedded in between the two stained windows. Walker, who stood next to you, was offering his hand to help you up.

You didn't even make an effort to consider his gesture and got up off the floor without his assistance, dusting yourself off in the process.

Walker appeared undeterred by your dismissal of him and instead put on a winning smile and rotated his hand in the attempts of a handshake.

"I think we got off on the wrong foot. John Walker. Captain America," he proudly stated.

"I know who you are Captain Walker, as well as your friend here," you briskly answered, crossing your arms in front of you.

You could see the smile start to drop off his face and his eyes turn a bit darker.

"And I know who you are as well, you're well documented along with the Avengers, but I was trying to be polite," Walker grounded out with forced effort.

You didn't want to start an argument with the newly anointed Captain America, but there was something off about him that just irritated you.

"Polite?" you sarcastically question. "How is barging into someone's residence, polite? Please, do explain," you shifted your weight onto one side, giving him an expectant look.

"I don't have to explain myself to you. In case you've forgotten, I'm Captain America," he took a step towards you, his body language highly suggesting an intimidation tactic.

You held your tongue and took a step back to place more distance between yourself and Walker. You spared a glance at his partner to gauge his reaction, but his expression was guarded, although he was watching with rapt attention.

"What do you want, Walker?" you bit out. You attempted to keep some of the contempt out of your voice, but he had quickly turned your mood sour this afternoon.

"Where's Zemo?" Walker cut straight to the chase this time.

"Not here, obviously," you held your arms out, gesturing around.

"I want to know where Zemo is. He's coming with us," the captain took another step towards you, this time with a more forceful intention.

You furrowed your brow and took another step back. His posturing was starting to make you slightly nervous.

"Even if I did know where he was, I'm not saying either way. Zemo has been surprisingly helpful to us, and we need him to locate Karli along with the rest of the Flag-Smashers, including the missing vials of serum. And he's more likely to continue working with us, than provide you with any information at all. That I can say with absolute certainty," your words sounded confident, but inside you were trembling.

That was apparently the wrong thing to say to Captain America.

His entire demeanor changed. Once where there was some warmth and light-heartedness, there was only a cold emptiness left in his gaze. He reached back to grab the shield from Lemar, and then without any warning shoved you back against the wall to your left.

You heard the distinct sound of your right shoulder pop as is slammed into the wall along with the rest of your body. The rapid movement from Walker and impact from the shield knocked the wind right out of you. The pressure from the amount of force he was exerting pinned you to the wall and caused the shield to be painfully pressed into your side, separating you from Walker. You could feel the rim of the shield digging slightly into your neck, but not enough to cause any real damage.

"John!" you heard Hoskins shout with alarm from behind Walker.

You swallowed thickly; very real fear had settled into your bones. You were capable of defending yourself, but hadn't actually needed to put those skills into any use. Bucky and Sam had taught you some moves and hold to get out of, but it never crossed any of your minds once you'd have to fight Captain America. You tried to shift your head to the side to see how far away your phone was. What possible options you had. Maybe you could appeal to his partner and deescalate the situation before things got too ugly.

"I'm only going to ask this one last time. Where is Zemo?" Walker spit out, putting force against the shield, which in turn, caused you to grimace in pain.

"Hoskins, you really going to allow Captain America to torture an innocent citizen trying to help in a cause we're all aligned in?" you gasped out, trying to swallow as much air as possible through the pain wracking your body.

You refused to let it show. Holding back as much of the discomfort you were in. You didn't want to give Walker the satisfaction.

"John, ease up. She's not a terrorist, and frankly, I agree with her," Hoskins voiced, his footsteps bringing him closer to Walker with the hopes of gaining his attention no doubt.

The pressure from the shield against your form was lifted slightly, though the shield was still closer to your body than you'd like to admit. You closed your eyes to focus on regaining some stability and figure out your next course of action to get yourself out of this mess.

"Stay out of this Lemar," John replied, but his menacing stature had lessened minutely.

You opened your eyes to stare at Walker. He had removed the shield between the two of you and placed it on his back; however he stepped into your personal space instead and placed a hand against your collarbone, essentially rendering you immobile again.

Well, at least now you could breathe.

Walker peered down at you with distain, "You're really not going to give him up are you?"

You clenched your jaw and lifted your chin defiantly at him.

"No," you answered.

The wheels were turning inside Walker's head. You could literally see the fire burning in his eyes, realizing he wasn't going to get an answer out of you. Not willingly.

He dipped his head and released his hold on you, pointing a finger right at your face, "This isn't over. Not by a long shot."

You saw Lemar walk up and pat Walker's shoulder, "Alright, let's get out of here."

Walker straightened up and stiffly walked away, leaving Hoskins trailing behind. His ego had taken a blow today.

Hoskins gave an apologetic shrug, "He's under a lot of stress."

Before Lemar could fully clear your line of sight, you quietly spoke up, "He doesn't deserve that shield."

Hoskins didn't have a response to that.

OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO

In wake of the aftermath, you had tried to clean up as best possible. You assessed your injuries were non life-threatening, though your right shoulder was most definitely dislocated. The arm was kept close against your body hoping to not jostle it too much. You felt spikes of pain as you cleaned the area where Walker had thrown the shield into the wall, but ignored it so you could get the place back in shape before Sam, Bucky and Zemo returned.

Sam had messaged not too long ago, they were roughly 20 minutes out from the apartment.

Your ribs were throbbing from where the shield had been buried into your side, but you didn't think they had been broken, only bruised. You were going to have to ask one of them pop your shoulder back into place.

You were dreading the conversation, but were determined to remain as calm as possible to help alleviate the immediate reaction they were going to have once you revealed what happened.

The events of the day had finally caught up with you and coupled with the cleaning efforts, your body was signaling it's exhaustion. You were in the kitchen, and honestly didn't think you could make the short trip to one of the sofas; so you carefully sat on one of the chairs in the kitchen and waited patiently.

Sure enough, 20 minutes later, the doors to the apartment opened and the guys swiftly came in to greet you.

"Did you even leave the kitchen?" James inquired, coasting around the kitchen to grab a drink.

You smiled tightly and responded in kind, "For a short while, yes. Did you guys find anything worth while?" You quickly wanted to change the subject but knowing you were only delaying the inevitable.

"Yeah, we think we've discovered a possible building Karli is using to hideout in. We had planned on eating something quickly and then leave again to check it out tonight," Sam explained.

As Sam was talking, Bucky had accidently bumped into you, causing you to wince and pull your arm tighter to you. Luckily, he didn't see your face, but Sam did.

"Hey, you okay?" Sam questioned, voice filling with concern.

You blew out a breath bracing yourself for what you were about to say.

"What happened to my wall?" Zemo piped up, giving you a curious glance, he had moved to run his hand along the diagonal cut, inches deep, in the space between the ceiling to floor windows.

Bucky left his glass and walked over to get a better look, as did Sam. Both of them would know precisely what caused a mark like that to become etched into a wall.

Sam and Bucky snapped their heads back to you as soon as they saw the indention, but it was Zemo who spoke first.

"John Walker was here," he stated, shrugging off his coat and hanging it over the back of the couch he was nearby.

"It was an, eventful afternoon here," you tried to put some overly cheerful, comedic tones into your voice, but failed pretty miserably.

"What happened?" Sam immediately asked.

The trio had made their way back to the kitchen to get answers from you.

Zemo came to stand nearby, eyes roaming your body, searching. With his expertise, there was no question that he would quickly figure out you were injured; so you tried to tell your story as concisely as possible.

"Um, so - Walker and Lemar showed up. He asked for Zemo. I told him he wasn't here aaaaand they left. The end," you hurriedly spoke, wanting to get this over with and not draw any more attention to yourself.

But you could see in Helmut's eyes, he knew there was more to your story. His carefully crafted mask was starting to crack as you saw his gaze drift down to you cradling your arm underneath the island away from Bucky and Sam's eyeline.

"You're hurt," Zemo said. His face showed open concern as he walked the remaining distance to you.

With more tenderness than you thought possible coming from him, he slowly and carefully moved your right arm away from your body. He kept his eyes trained on you for any discomfort or signs of pain.

Once your arm had left your lap though, you reached over with your left hand to grip one of his wrists to prevent him from moving your arm any further.

"Don't, please," you pleaded, gritting your teeth and swallowing down the pain threatening to erupt from you. You were panting now, and more clear than ever something had happened to you while they were gone.

Helmut released your arm without hesitation, but did not leave your side. You saw him exchange tense looks between James and Sam. Normally, Bucky would have been focused on keeping Zemo away from you, but with the current circumstances, he was no longer a priority.

"What actually happened?" Bucky softly called out, he and Sam had gotten closer to take a better look at you. Sam brought a chair out to sit next to you and give you a once over, while you explained.

The expressions on their faces were grim as they anxiously awaited your reply.

"It wasn't - it's not quite as bad as it seems," you started, stuttering out the words as Sam brought his hands up to check your head for any injuries first.

"He just barged right in and was insistent on finding Zemo. He was acting so arrogant and pompous, I just refused to give him any information on his whereabouts," you continued on. "He didn't like the fact I wasn't willing to cooperate with "Captain America" and he got a little.....rough with me."

Sam paused his surveying to meet your gaze. You could see the guilt beginning to creep into his eyes. He turned his head to look up at Bucky, who was angrily flexing his vibranium arm in displeasure. Probably only affirming his notion that Sam should have never given up the shield in the first place.

"What did he do?" Bucky's tone brook no argument. He wanted to know the truth.

You scrunched your face in unpleasantness when Sam checked your lower neck and collarbone, he had found the place on your body where the shield and his hand had met you.

"Is this from - ?" Sam couldn't finish his sentence and he looked away in anger. You could tell he just wanted to get up and throw something, and that was commonly uncharacteristic for him.

Zemo had shifted his position to take a peek at what Sam was doing while he checked you out. You saw how his eyes had darkened with quiet rage taking stock of everything. There was an outline of a thin scrap mark against the underside of your neck and jaw, but it was a clear demarcation that would only be caused from the shield itself.

You nodded sadly and focused on answering Bucky's question as you gave Sam the okay to keep going.

"Walker, didn't get what he wanted, so he did the only other thing he knows how to do," you cleared your throat and rubbed your hand against your forehead.

"Use brute force," Zemo darkly said.

"He used the shield to push me up against the wall over there," you pointed over as you continued re-telling what happened. "I was knocked into the wall pretty hard, but Walker lost all focus and nearly suffocated me from the force of the shield against my body. I think he -" you yelped like a wounded animal, not able to finish your story when Sam touched your shoulder.

Bucky's eyes had widen and became deeply concerned over your pained scream.

Your muscled were clenched tight as you tried to ride out the pain, face starting to turn red.

Zemo had placed a light hand on your back, leaning down to comfort you and remind you to breath.

You fumbled with your good arm as you tried taking in deep breaths and motioned to Sam what was wrong with your arm.

Even with your poor mime animation of pretending to have your arm pulled from your socket, James picked up on what you were getting at. He tapped Sam to switch places with him. Your eyes were watering at this point and you blinked back the tears wanting to fall.

"Alright doll, on the count of three, I'm going to raise your arm and put pressure on your shoulder, okay?" Bucky solemnly said.

Sam gave you a smile of assurance while Zemo ended up taking your good hand, letting you know you could use him to brace yourself. He and James shared a silent conversation before nodding at one another. If Sam had a problem with Zemo providing you comfort, he didn't show it. You figured he was letting some of his dormant humanity rise to surface in this moment.

You shook slightly trying to prepare yourself for the next round of pain once your shoulder was fixed, but James didn't give you any time.

"Three," he commanded, snapping your shoulder back into its socket before you had a chance to even reaction.

You let out another cry of pain, holding onto Zemo's hand tightly, but somehow, the fear of the oncoming pain dissipated as you let go of his hand and rubbed your shoulder with minimal soreness.

You cleared your throat and looked at everyone after a few moments of rest. Surprised at how efficiently James had handled your shoulder, but then again, he was the perfect person to do the job.

You scrunched up your nose at James, "What happened to one and two?"

He huffed out a laugh, "It worked didn't it?"

"Thank you. All of you," you gave a lazy smile through the tiredness that filled you up. "I think I'll be okay now - that was the worst of it. Promise. Walker didn't do any further harm to me. I managed to convince Lemar to get Walker to back down," you glossed over the section where Walker threatened you, but you could bring that up later.

None of them were satisfied with your response, but you're guessing they let it slide given the circumstances.

Zemo reached into the freezer to grab an ice pack. He handed it to you to place on your shoulder helping with your recovery. You accepted it from him extremely grateful. You mused your opinion of him was constantly evolving the more time you actually spent with him.

Sam had asked if you were sure there weren't any other areas you wanted to have checked over for injuries.

You assured him, you were alright, just tired and very sore.

Bucky had swiftly gotten up from his chair and made it known he wanted to go after Walker this evening. You knew he wasn't going to let this incident go any time soon. Sam had also been in agreement after fully understanding what transpired, but Zemo was eerily silent.

"You guys should follow your original plan. Don't let Walker distract you. I'm alive and I am going to be okay. Go follow your lead on Karli," you interjected, trying to be the reasonable one. There was no need for them to go off halfcocked while they were still very upset. You were too, if you were being honest with yourself, but your focus was on your friends first and foremost.

"Well, we're not leaving you here alone. I can stay behind and let Zemo and Sam check things out," James said.

"Actually, it makes the most sense if I stay behind," Zemo chimed in.

"Why is that?" Sam countered warily.

"The particular location you are going to, I have....a history there. It would be wise for me to not be seen in that part of town as to not raise any alarm bells," he reasoned with them.

"And why should we trust you with her?" Bucky asked, suspicion creeping into his voice.

"Because I have no motive to do any harm to her nor shall I allow any further injury come to her. On this James, I give you my word," Helmut replied, the seriousness of his tone was not lost on anyone in the room.

"Okay," Sam relented, moving about the kitchen to pack some food for their evening night out.

"Just like that, huh?" James said with disbelief.

"Yeah, just like that," Sam parroted back.

Bucky wasn't happy about the situation, but there was an urgency to find Karli, so he caved.

James leaned over on the counter to make sure you were 100% okay being left along with Zemo, reminding you at any time you can call and they'd rush back instantly for whatever reason.

You stood up slowly, balancing the ice pack on your shoulder and shuffled over a few steps towards him, "Thank you. Now, go."

OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO

You waved to to your friends a second round of goodbyes for the day. You sagged against the counter, temporarily forgetting about Zemo for the moment. You really needed to lie down.

As if he read your thoughts, you suddenly felt his presence as an arm wrapped around your waist, resting firmly against your hip.

"Here, let me help you get someplace more comfortable than this," Zemo asserted, taking his free hand and dropping the ice pack from your shoulder onto the counter. He then grabbed your left hand, raising your arm and wrapped it around his neck to help support you. So now most of your weight is on your left side, allowing your right to have most of the pressure released from your injuries.

You were so close to him you could smell his expensive cologne and aftershave. It was intoxicating and caused your head to swim a little. You stumbled slightly, but Zemo kept you steady as you both made your way to your room.

In your exhausted state, you managed to sneak in a few glances to Zemo, who was concentrating on the task at hand, not wanting to cause any jarring movements. He deserved more credit than you had been giving him; he truly did seem to care in his own warped way.

Once you had gotten to your room, he guided you to the bed to lie down. Not once had you complained. A true testament of just how tired you were. You couldn't even muster a snarky reply at his disheveled state of being, from practically dragging you down the hallway.

You snuggled into the hoodie you were wearing and tried to lie in a position that wouldn't cause too much discomfort for your shoulder and ribs.

Zemo had stepped into the closet and when he returned he came back with a couple extra pillows. He propped them against your injured side to prevent you from rolling over during the night.

If nothing else, Zemo was incredibly thorough when he focused on something. And right now, that focus was you. It was unnerving, but also thrilling at the same time. Maybe you did have a head injury, because all you could do was smirk at how utterly adorable he was tending to you. It made you curious as to whether this was what Zemo was like before. For the first time, you really wanted to know more about him.

You saw how he was confident in everything he does, and this situation was no different apparently. He had been muttering to himself as he adjusted bedding and made sure there was nothing in the room that you could trip over if you had to get up. He was taking in all the possibilities, like you did.

He had been actively avoiding looking at you though since Bucky and Sam left. You weren't entirely sure why, as he's had zero problems watching you over the past several days. You have a feeling it's because you're one of a few people who have seen beneath the surface of Helmut Zemo, and he's reacting the only way he knows how to at this moment.

Distraction.

You were too sleepy to ponder this any further and turned your head to the side to see what Zemo was fiddling with now.

He had finished up the last of his tasks and looked around the room satisfied with his work. Only then did he turn to look at you.

If it had been anyone else, you would swear that Zemo almost seemed nervous. He was, at many times in your experience, hard to read; so all of these new expressions are a different side for you to see.

Zemo tentatively sat on the edge of the bed next to you.

"Do you need anything?" he genuinely inquired.

You shook your head, indicating you didn't.

All of a sudden he laughed. It ended nearly as quickly as it had began. You raised an eyebrow him in reply, but he simply tugged on the sleeve of his hoodie you were still wearing.

Too tired to be embarrassed about it, you simply mumbled, "Shut up. I still plan on giving it back, although, given it's track record, you should quite possibly get rid of it. After what happened today, I think it might be bad luck."

You saw Zemo dip his head and chuckle at your reply. He look much more carefree when he laughed. You'd have to add him to your daily list. Make Zemo laugh.

His expression sobered rather quickly though and became pensive after that, staring out the window briefly before resting his gaze back on you.

"You keep it. It looks better on you."

Not knowing what to say, caught up in the storm in his eyes, you give a small smile. You can feel your cheeks turning red under the intensity of his stare.

Zemo stood up, getting ready to leave when you stopped him by latching onto his wrist.

"Wait," you murmured.

The swift action caused him to furrow his brow in confusion.

You weren't sure exactly what you wanted from him, only that you didn't want him to go.

"Stay."

You could tell you startled him with your request. Your eyes grew larger realizing the potential double meaning.

"Just until I fall asleep?" you clarified, a yawn escaped as you covered your mouth.

Zemo visibly relaxed and had you relinquish your hold on his arm so he could pull up a chair to your bed. He turned his head around the room in search of something. He went to the nightstand and picked up your book.

Amusement flitted across the features of his face as he read the cover. Zemo sat down on the chair and propped his feet up on the side of the bed.

You shut your eyes and tried to block out the soreness covering your body. Tomorrow would be worse. The next day always is. You had begun to doze off, when ever so quietly, you heard Zemo's voice fill the room.

He was reading to you. Lulling you into a peaceful sleep and letting you know he was still present. Wanting you to know, in his own way, he was upholding his promise to Bucky and Sam. That you were safe with him. That you could trust him just as you had, when you asked him to stay in the first place.

With those final thoughts, you drifted off, listening to the subdued sound of his voice.

OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO

#helmut zemo #helmut zemo x reader #tfatws #bucky barnes #sam wilson #my writing #team zemo #baron zemo #the falcon and the winter soldier #mcu imagine

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spotofimagines · 3 years

Text

Rivals Last ~ Jadon Sancho

A/N: So I had this in my drafts before he signed with man united but that's fine, we move, we adapt. A third piece for the @footballffbarbiex summer challenge. Hope you enjoy it :)

Warnings: none - reader is female

Summary: You love both your brothers dearly, but being in the football world with them can make some things a little complicated.

gif by @archivesbvb - gif by @ermuellert - gif by @italynt

Being a footballer meant living in a special world. Being in a footballing family meant living in a special world too. Being the younger sister of Lucas and Theo Hernandez meant living in a really special world. But nobody told you just how crazy it would be for all three of those things to apply to you.

You truly love watching your older brothers play football. They teach you something new during every match you see; even though you play as a striker, their movements and handling of the ball always inspire you to play better. After all, it was their defensive skills that helped you become a good goal scorer growing up since they never let a tackle go unchallenged in the park and you had to find out how to manoeuvre around them. A lot easier said than done.

Currently Lucas is signed with Bayern Munich. In his time there so far, he has learnt the heritage, history, and importance of wearing the badge and defending its honour in every match they play, especially derbies. Having supported Lucas, it quickly became easy for you to support Bayern Munich too and celebrate their victories like it was your own team. You'd always managed to do it with the clubs both your brothers played for, letting the atmosphere of the fanbase carry you away.

You have just finished your second season in England with Manchester City women's team. You'd settled in nicely now, having learnt a lot of the English language and culture already. The experience was made so much easier because of the help given by your welcoming teammates and the staff that translated things into French and Spanish during your first months there.

Fans were a little disappointed during the 2019 summer transfer window when it was confirmed all three Hernandez siblings would be leaving Spain to play separately in England, Germany and Italy, joking that no one could know what might happen with you all so far away. However, to you, it made things easier, as Lucas and Theo would stop making so many awful jokes about each other's clubs, only to join forces to diss your club even more afterward. Now the only connection you have to the clubs you all play for is the want for your sibling to win with them. And it is a great feeling. A welcome change of pace.

But no new change to your life felt as good as your blossoming "relationship", situationship, whatevership, you have with Jadon Sancho.

It all started with you flirting back and forth on social media, which turned itself into countless hours of DMs no one else could see. You congratulated his goals and he congratulated your wins. All the light-hearted teasing and the warm-hearted compliments stayed in your own little bubble. The only thing peeking out was your silly inside rule that if you were going to comment on a post, it had to be emojis only, stretching to a few words if you really couldn't help yourself - but it would earn you taunts from the other for the rest of the night.

Some eagle-eyed fans noticed how you'd been liking each other's posts every time they appeared for a while now, but it just added to the fun and thrill you got from flirting with him so much.

You weren't meant to be forming a bond with Jadon. He played for your brother’s rival. He was supposed to be the enemy. Someone you should dislike with a snap of your fingers. Certainly not a boy to fall for like you have.

You couldn't help yourself. Lucas and Theo had helped you since you moved to England by being the steady rocks they always were, cheering you on from afar. Your new teammates had helped you since you moved to England by introducing fun things for you all to do together and taking you under their wings. But Jadon had helped you in a different kind of way. He gave you a new kind of comfort and reassurance when you talked. He became someone to turn to with all your interesting news and your curious problems. He told you the good places to visit around the city that he remembered from his time there and taught you English slang to make your teammates laugh. You spoke three languages to varying degrees now, and you'd managed to pick up more German vicariously through Lucas in two years faster than Jadon had done living in Germany in four years, so you'd clue him into rude German phrases you had asked Lucas about, alongside the French and Spanish swear words he used more often than English ones now when you text.

Even though a language barrier comes up once in a while, you have both learnt behaviours from each other and crave the contact you share. Jadon was starting to drop everything to send replies to you, a change his teammates have noticed and jokingly mock him for. Little did they know the unknown girl they joke he is smitten over is the sister of their rival.

Theo is the one in your family you usually tell about the boys you go out with; boyfriends and dates have been shared with him since you were 13 and doting on your first crush. He does the same with his girlfriends; asking advice and telling you more than you need to know at times. So, when you all went home for a bit of family time around Christmas, nothing could stop him from noticing the tell-tale signs that you had something going on. He already figured out through persistence that it was another player you were getting involved with, and his insistent questioning hasn't stopped in his search for who the player is.

But you keep it hidden from Lucas, and you don't know when you'll tell him. He has been your protector since you were kids, comforting you on sad nights when no one else was there, teaching you little secrets about how to navigate through the world, he even punched a boy who teased you once at school. The idea of telling him you were chatting romantically to another player would be trouble enough, but telling him it was a Dortmund player might just end up in another schoolground incident. You hadn't wanted Theo to know for fear he'd go dishing your dirt to Lucas, but he discovered it on his own and there was nothing you could do.

Who knows what might become of this thing you have with Jadon, and lord knows your eldest brother owns a hard as nails death stare that just might do Jadon in, but for now you actually quite like having the secret. A little mystery tucked away up your sleeve.

The rush you always get when Lucas calls your phone as you're typing a text to the Englishman, feeling as though the first words from the other end will be shouts of how he knows everything and he'll never speak to you again for keeping it a secret, fills you with dread at times. But it never is the reason he calls, and it turns out he is just making plans or has something funny to tell you. But the way your heart thumps as you go back to texting Jadon, that is part of the chase you have to admit you enjoy.

Hardcore fans online have noticed the past few months that when you do interviews in English, the odd slang term comes up during jokes - terms you hadn't used before and stem more from London boroughs than northen towns - so speculation of how you'd learnt these things easily coincided with dating rumors.

Lucas had seen the speculation online; seen fans trying to put your interactions with the Dortmund player together through both your instagram stories and comments and the tweets you both had liked about the other. Lucas had even grown suspicious of the little questions you asked him about Germany, German phrases and his lifestyle there, not knowing why you would need nor want to know those things. But Lucas doesn't believe it. He knows that you know better to mix with a Dortmund boy.

Sometimes an older brother just doesn't get it quite right…

Soon, the chance will come to really see if your connection is something you can build on. Jadon's new signing with Manchester United has been confirmed and he will be moving back to England. It is a great opportunity to get to see him more often, rather than the odd rendezvous point or clandestine trip during small breaks in the season. You'll spend more time face to face instead of over the phone. You'll get to wake up in his bed and him in yours, without needing to sneak away from hotel rooms afterwards. You'll maybe even get to go on a proper date, just the two of you, where you can flirt across the table your joined hands rest upon. Hanging out with Jadon won't be the first time you've spent time together in person. However, getting a full day with only the two of you where you won't have to pretend you hardly know who he is, and you won't have to pretend your eyes aren't meeting across the group of people you're in - it fills your stomach with knots and butterflies.

A certain pressure has fallen off you now Jadon has no growing rivalry with Lucas, but not completely. You won't be able to take back the way their teams made the other feel in the past, but the fact there won't be more of it next season comforts you a little. The biggest thing that will hold you back from going public before the new season starts will be the media, but that is an issue you can't even begin to worry about yet. You are too caught up in the excitement of being in the same town as Jadon to care. Rumours are spinning crazier than ever about you two as some of your liked tweets about his move got reposted by sports pages and fan blogs - now joking about him being your rival instead of your brother's - and yet it didn't stop you, no longer all that bothered about keeping a low profile now you both will be living away from Lucas. If he gets mad, all he will be able to do is shout down the phone, and whilst you never want that to happen, you know the time to flourish with Jadon and capitalise on the foundation you have already built is better than ever, brothers be damned.

There are big changes coming for the both of you, yet one thing will remain the same no matter the outcome of your relationship. You can't quite stop being football rivals.

#jadon sancho #lucas hernandez #theo hernandez #jadon sancho imagine #jadon sancho x reader #football #football imagine #oneshot #my fic #my og post

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kohanayaki · 3 years

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Caught in the Middle (Steve Harrington x Reader x Billy Hargrove) Ch 8

Holy shit, it’s been so long since I’ve looked over this story! I found a half completed draft of this chapter in my old files and had a sudden influx of inspiration to finish it. At the very least I wanted to release this chapter, even if I don’t end up continuing or finishing this story. Thank you to everyone who’s read this trainwreck so far <3

LINKS: CH 1 CH 2 CH 3 CH 4 CH 5 CH 6 CH 7 CH 8

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Ch 8 .:Three Runaways and a Russian:.

“Hopper?”

The surly man turned to you with a look of equal surprise.

“(Y/n)? What are you doing here?” Hopper asked, eyes narrowing, “Hold on, aren't you supposed to be in school?”

“Aren't you supposed to be at the police station?” you countered.

He sighed in exasperation and shook his head.

“Listen, kid, I don't have time for this,” he said.

“Well what are you doing?” you asked.

“Nothing,” he said crossly.

“Uh, that doesn't look like nothing,” you said, pointing over to the Slurpee machine where a man with dark curly hair and glasses was inspecting it in wonder. He was handcuffed but still held a large empty cup in his left hand, eyebrows furrowed as he stared at the frozen drink move in circles on the inside of the machine.

“He's an extremely dangerous criminal,” Hopper said, “I'm. . . transporting him.”

“Okay, then why is Joyce here?” you asked. She was standing next to the unfamiliar man trying to show him how the dispenser worked. At that moment she turned to Hopper only to make eye contact with you.

“(Y/n)?” she said, eyes wide.

“Hi Mrs. Byers,” you waved awkwardly. What the hell was going on here?

“You got her mixed up with this too?” Joyce chided Hopper, her expression hardening as she walked over.

“I didn't get her mixed up in jack shit,” Hopper said incredulously, “She just doesn't know how to mind her own business.”

“Yeah, I'm right here, guys,” you said in annoyance, “And sorry if I 'intruded' but you're in a 7-11, not your office, so if I see a guy in literal handcuffs I'm going to poke around because that's suspicious and you know it.”

Upon seeing you point at him the man in glasses smiled at you, waving as much as he could while his hands were restrained. He then went back to fiddling with the Slurpee machine and you walked over to him, taking the cup from his hand.

“You have to press down on it,” you said, holding the lever down and filling his cup with the cherry flavor. You stuck in a straw and held it out to him which he accepted with a wide grin, nodding his head.

“What's your name anyways?” you asked him.

He just tilted his head, spluttering slightly as he turned to Joyce.

“His name is Alexei,” Joyce clarified.

“Hold on, does this guy not speak English?” you asked in disbelief.

“Uh, n-no,” the man said, able to read some context from the tone of your voice, “No English.” His words were followed by him speaking in a foreign language and making gestures with his hands.

“I'm sorry, where the hell did you find this random Russian guy?” you turned to Hopper for an explanation.

“Top secret police business,” he said, frowning, “Butt out.”

“So I'm not allowed to know about this 'top secret police business' but Joyce is?” you crossed your arms.

“What's that supposed to mean?” Hopper raised his voice.

“I'm just implying that some favoritism is being applied when it comes to breaking your precious rules,” you scoffed.

“Trust me, kid, you have no idea what the big picture looks like right now, okay? A lot of shit went down when you were gone that you couldn't even begin to imagine. This is dangerous.”

“I'm not a kid anymore so don't call me that,” you glared, “And if this is so dangerous then don't I deserve to know?”

“No,” Hopper said coldly, “Now listen to me and drive your ass back to Hawkins High before I have you turned in for truancy.”

His words made the situation painfully ironic when you all turned towards the front of the gas station as the roar of an all too familiar engine rang out. Billy's blue Camaro skid to a harsh stop as he climbed out of the driver's seat, running over to the door as he saw you through the glass. Once you got over the initial shock your mood soured as Billy made his way inside.

“(Y/n) I have to talk to you-”

“Save it,” you glared at Billy, cutting his sentence short, “Hold on, did you follow me?!”

“Please just hear me out,” he said, a rare crack of desperation in his voice, “Listen I'm-”

“What? You're sorry?” you scoffed, “You're not sorry. You clearly didn't give a shit about me from the beginning, so if you think everything's going to go back to the way it was after some half assed apology then think again.”

“What the hell is this?” Hopper asked Joyce off to the side.

“Lover's quarrel,” Joyce whispered back, “Just let them talk it out.”

“Well if you won't let me apologize then what the fuck do you expect me to do?” Billy said in frustration.

“Nothing!” you shouted back, “Don't talk to me, don't talk about me, just move on to your next little conquest and you'll forget all about this in a week.”

You felt a sharp pang in your chest as the words left your mouth. You didn't want to believe them but you felt like it was true. There was no changing Billy Hargrove, and even if there was, why would you of all people be the one to be able to do it? You weren't anything special, but Billy felt the exact opposite.

He didn't get the chance to say anything back, though, because at that moment the sound of a second car engine was heard as you saw Steve's car pull up to the gas station.

“Oh, you've got to be shitting me,” you groaned.

Steve was panting as he ran inside to the gas station, barely catching his breath before speaking.

“(Y/n), I wanted to-”

“I'm sorry, I thought I made it clear that you two are the last people I want to talk to right now,” you said coldly.

“Wait, hold on, what's going on here? Why aren't any of you at school?” Joyce asked, coming to the realization it was 12:34 on a weekday.

“I broke some stupid guy's nose, it's a long story,” you mumbled, “What I didn't expect was these two idiots following me.” You glared at them, trying to put as much distance between you two as you could.

“I was worried about you,” Steve said, causing Billy to roll his eyes.

“Oh please,” Billy scoffed under his breath.

Steve's expression hardened as he turned to Billy.

“Hey, you don't get to say shit,” he said, “You're the one who led her on and made her cry in the first place.”

“Led her on?” Billy's voice rose as he go in Steve's face, “Listen, pretty boy, if I remember correctly I beat the shit out of you a little less than a year ago. You asking for a rematch?”

“Yeah, maybe I am,” Steve glared, “Because I'm sick and tired of you treating my friend like shit.”

“Oh, 'your friend', huh?” Billy chuckled, “Bet you wish you were more than that, don't you, Harrington?”

“Both of you cut it out!”

Something in you snapped as you forcefully separated the pair, keeping them on opposite sides of the isle. Silence blanketed the rest of the convenience store as you spoke.

“I never asked for either of you to follow me here,” you said, feeling a wave of emotional exhaustion take you over, “As a matter of fact, I asked to be left alone, so you two need to get that through your thick fucking skulls because this is seriously the last thing I need right now.”

Alexei just stood innocently by, wondering what all the yelling was about and if he could do anything to help.

Through all the commotion none of you noticed the way Hopper was staring out the convenience store window, his stomach dropping as he saw a tiny figure on the road drawing nearer. Upon closer inspection he could see the silhouette of a man on a motorcycle.

“Get down,” Hopper said suddenly, not taking his eyes off the man.

His words made you freeze, all your senses on high alert as you could feel something was wrong.

“Wait, what?” Steve said in confusion.

“I said GET DOWN!” Hopper shouted, pulling you and Joyce to the floor just as a gunshot rang out and the windowpane shattered into pieces. Shards of glass fell onto your shoulders as you ducked behind one of the isles and panic quickly settled in.

You could feel Hopper dragging you further away from the door, your body frozen in fear.

“Listen to me, you need to get the hell out of here, all of you,” Hopper said.

“Hopper, what the fuck is going on?” you asked, your hands shaking.

“I don't have time to explain,” he said quickly, “Joyce, get them to Murray's house as fast as you can.”

“What about you?” you said, “If you think we're leaving you here like some shitty action movie you've got another thing coming.”

“I'll buy you some time,” he said, “And besides, he's after me, not you, but that doesn't mean he won't shoot you if you get in his way. Do you understand? Get out of here!”

Before you could say anything back Hopper was thrown back against the wall by a muscular man in a leather jacket. Joyce immediately grabbed you by the arm and started pulling you away along with Steve and Billy. You could hear them yelling but it felt like you were hearing things underwater. Your heartbeat pounded rapidly in your ears as you turned around, every nerve in your body shouting at you to run.

Your heart nearly stopped as another gunshot rang out in the store and the tile cracked beneath your feet as the bullet landed a mere few feet from where you'd been standing seconds earlier.

“Don't you dare, you son of a bitch!” Hopper growled as he tackled the man to the floor, getting a few solid hits in. The man grunted as his back harshly met the ground, his head slamming into one of the shelves. As Joyce turned you around again to get out you could only pray that Hopper would be okay.

“There's no way we can fit everyone into one car,” you said as you neared the exit to the parking lot, “Where's Hopper's police van?”

Joyce looked off to the side.

“Oh, um, it's. . . on fire in the middle of the woods.”

“It's what?!”

“I promise I'll explain everything to you once we're safe,” Joyce said, “Right now we need to figure out how to get everyone out of here.”

You turned over your shoulder and winced as the man landed a solid hit to Hopper's gut, knocking the wind out of him and making him stumble back into a rack of chips. Hopper grunted in pain but immediately fired back with a punch of his own, his right swing hitting the man square in the jaw. Hopper took the chance to follow up a knee to the man's gut, knocking him down with one last hit, although he knew he wouldn't stay down for long.

As Hopper struck him down you caught a flash of silver fly out of the man's jacket pocket and skid across the floor. You stared at the keys for a moment before your gaze flew up to the Harley parked outside the gas station.

'This is a stupid idea,' you told yourself, but in the moment it was the best you could do.

“Take my car,” you said to Joyce, tossing her your keys, “I'm jacking his ride.”

Joyce, Steve, and Billy looked at you like you'd just sprouted wings.

“Oh no you're not, it's way too dangerous,” Joyce said, incredulously, “He'll be close enough to shoot you if you make a run for it now.”

“I'll go around the outside,” you said, “If Hopper keeps him distracted I can make it.”

“Have you ever even ridden a motorcycle before?” Billy tried to reason with you.

“As a matter of fact I have,” you said, your eyes narrowing. You didn't mention the fact that it was just one time with your dad years ago but hey, you were a fast learner.

“Just trust me on this,” you said, “Think about it, even if we do manage to get out of here he'll catch up to us in no time on a motorcycle. If we take his transportation away he won't be able to find us again, or at least it'll make it harder.”

Joyce swallowed hard, shaking her head.

“I can't believe I'm about to let you do this,” she said.

“I'll see you in ten seconds,” you promised, “Get everyone in the car and we'll pick up Hopper on the way out.”

“Be careful,” Steve said, and despite you still being mad at him the life or death situation compelled you to say:

“You too.”

And with that, Joyce started to lead everyone outside to the parking lot towards your car.

You forced down any doubt you had in your mind and took a deep breath before running towards where Hopper and the man were fighting. You slid to a stop as you snatched the keys off the ground and made a break for the front of the store.

The man seemed to notice what you did as he snarled and reached for his gun, but Hopper was too quick. In one swift movement he knocked the gun out of the man's hand grabbed him by the collar of his shirt, throwing him as far away from you as he could.

You thanked Hopper silently as you put the keys in the ignition, the engine roaring to life. Your heart pounded in your ears as you leveled yourself on the motorcycle. You spotted Hopper out of the corner of your eye as he sprinted towards the store front, Alexei practically flying behind him in his grip. The Russian let out a small yelp as Hopper threw him unceremoniously into the backseat of the car, his body sprawled across Billy and Steve.

“Floor it, Joyce,” Hopper huffed, scrambling into the passenger's seat.

She didn't need to be told twice. The smell of burning rubber drifted past you as the tires squealed, all the passengers forced backwards at the force of the sudden jolt of speed.

You leaned into the turn as you moved to follow the car, daring one last glance over your shoulder at the man in the leather jacket. He threw what remained of a shelf off of his shoulders as he staggered to his feet, his expression terrifying as he stared you down. With a deep breath you turned to the road, quickly catching up with your Jaguar and leaving the infuriated man behind.

“Woah woah hey, my fucking car is still back there!” Billy shouted as you sped away.

“Really, that's what you're concerned about right now?!” you shouted over the wind, tempted to reach around the car and slap him. Your focus was forcefully pulled back to the road as you felt the cycle waver, quickly adjusting your weight as you tried to get use to the feeling. You were suddenly acutely aware of the helmet you weren't wearing. You took a long draw of breath in through your nose as you tried to calm your buzzing nerves, your knuckles white as you gripped the handlebars.

“Alright, Hop. You wanna tell me what the hell that was about?”

Taglist: @in-my-dreams-2000 @ggclarissa @iris1697 @5sosxgrethan @ohnoniella @sarcasticalphaofthelooserspack @aspiring-fangirls-world @wow-im-so-tired @hopesxxhigh @justanothercrazyassfangirl @too-many-lanes @whimsylavender @bish-ima-clown @amarachoren @mosiacbrokenheartstf @mcuvlxgs @xapham @metuel18 @immirandaq @nellaphine @multi-madison @gingertalksshit @jojo-buttercup @kyberhearts @mvdelaine @minnie-marvel @caitlin-rose28 @zandaleekrz @r3inventedd @void-fire-rose @macymafia @wanna-be-idle @newtsshelbys @kimmydespell @weyheyokay @r4ttusr4ttus @cynthianokamaria @spookyartisanmuffineggs @youcanstandundermyamberella @ashadowoftheforest @shrektiledysfunction @arithatonegirl @banannie25 @daddyuwuss @truthdaze @supervoldejaygent @gigi-maria-argu @dolan-mendes @mavix @reflectionsofyouruniverse @angelsarefalling @billyhargrovescigarette

#stranger things x reader #stranger things #steve harrington x reader #billy hargove x reader #stranger things season 3 #Billy Hargrove #steve harrington #reader insert #x reader #jim hopper #original characters #fanficton #stranger things fanfiction #alexei smirnoff

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snowdice · 3 years

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Finding the Time to Study Fic 2 [Day 42]

Here is my starting post for today’s study break stories session. See this post for more details and feel free to send me asks to keep me going! It’s been a lot of fun so far! I will reblog this post with the story as I write them today. I’ll be constantly looking for ideas of times and places for Janus to have missions, so feel free to send in any you can think of at any point!

If you are a new follower or just don’t want all of these posts clogging your dash, please feel free to block the tag “study break stories” as all posts and voting about it will go there. You can still see the finished product of the story even if you are blocking that tag as I will not tag the edited chapters with “study break stories” but with the tag “folds in paper.” See edited chapters below. None edited chapters are under the cut.

My Masterpost Part 1 Part 2 Part 3 Part 4 Part 5 Part 6 Part 7 Part 8 Part 9 Part 10 Part 11 Part 12 Part 13 Part 14 Part 15

I also have a playlist on youtube (because Spotify didn’t have one of the songs I wanted). It’s short, and not really for serious listening, but I had fun with it.

Gotta finish my first draft of my research paper today, so let’s go!

Arc II What We Do to Each Other

Chapter 16:

As it would turn out, Janus and Virgil did not get in trouble for hooking up the old phone to Virgil’s integrator, mostly because it wasn’t really a mistake on their part. The phone cleared all virus checks that the tech people both from the university and the TPI ran on it. The phone should have been clean and should not have caused an issue.

In fact, they were still trying to pin down the code on the general university server. They could tell that something was mucking about on the system but what or how was a mystery. This also meant that there was no telling what information had been compromised and considering how many things Silver Mountain had its hands in, that was… a bit worrying.

Another worrying thing was there was suddenly more activity of late at the TPI. There were more time distortions popping up every day. Usually they would be few and far in between. There had been 3 total recorded the year before, but over 12 in the last week. Some of them were fake like the one Janus had investigated, but some of them were real. It painted a distressing picture and also was a drain on their resources. Khalid was actually looking to advertise positions to hire new recruits which was something she rarely did as she liked to keep appointments to the TPI in house.

They’d even loosed the number of field agents needed for each mission and Janus and Remus had been splitting up just to get everything done. Today, he and Remus had thankfully only two missions scheduled for the day.

“Are we going together or separate today?” Janus asked Remus.

“Think they’ll burn me at the stake for being a witch if I go alone to either of them?” Remus asked.

“I don’t know. Probably. I think we’re getting a bit late into the 1700s for that in Cuba, but I have no idea about Mesopotamia.”

“Let’s just go together. I did not like almost drowning yesterday because I was the only stranger in town when the weather was going wonky.”

“Surely it isn’t because you opened your mouth. Ever.” Janus said dryly.

“How was I supposed to know he was the local clergyman’s son?”

Janus rolled his eyes. “On second thought,” he said, pushing a button on his desk to choose Cuba as he next mission, and standing up. “I don’t want you coming with me.” Yet, he did not protest when Remus also signed up for the Cuba mission and he waited for him by the office door before going to talk to Rhi.

Rhi was a bit frazzled when which meant quite a bit as she was usually incredibly put together. Remus didn’t even seem inclined to tease her today.

“Okay,” she said once they’d closed the door behind them. She flipped through some documents on her desk. “Picani and Clockson. Camaguey Cuba 1755. Do you know Cuba?”

“Uh,” Janus said. “Yeah?”

“Like you’re reading the things, right? I don’t have to babysit you, right? You got it? The Seven Year War was happening, but it won’t affect you much as it hasn’t really hit Cuba. It’s the middle of the Camaguey Carnival. Everyone will be everywhere and there will be chaos so as long as you don’t really fuck up you should be fine. Um…apparent races.” She looked up at them and studied them each for a moment as thought looking at them for the first time despite having known them for years. “It’ll work. Go to costuming.”

“Shouldn’t we…” Janus said, “sign things?”

“…Yep,” she said, fiddling with her desktop and then sending documents over to their side to sign.

Janus and Remus both did before sending them back.

“Great. Good.” She stood and grabbed some things from behind her. “You can go.” She sat back down as they took their things and Janus noticed a message pop up on her desk. She looked up at Remus looking exhausted. “What?” she asked.

“Just open it,” Remus said.

Rhi tapped it and a photo opened.

“I got her a new mouse toy!” Remus said happily as Rhi looked at the picture of Diesel Fuel attacking a cloth mouse.

“That is… appreciated Agent Clockson,” Rhi said. “Now get out.”

They did, leaving to get their costumes on and checked. Costuming was just as busy and frazzled as Rhi had been and they actually had to wait for decon because there’d been a mix up with the agents leaving before them. They landed in Cuba without issue. Janus could already hear the festival in full swing outside the small building they’d were in. Remy was standing there with a very not time appropriate mug of coffee.

“Sue me,” Remy said when Janus raised an eyebrow at it. “Please just… get in and out without causing trouble. Seriously. I don’t want to have to deal with that on top of everything else.”

“We’ll do our best,” Janus assured.

Remy pulled his sunglasses down to look at him. He looked exhausted. “God please do more than your best.”

Janus nodded tightly. “We’ll be in and out,” he said, already glancing at his timepiece. It had been disguised as a golden bracelet which made it a bit harder to actually use, but wrist watches wouldn’t be invented for more than a century, so they’d have to make do. “The time distortion, if that’s what it is, should be in the middle of town. Let’s go.”

He and Remus exited the building onto the packed city street.

Janus was immediately bombarded with all types of sights, sounds, and smells. There were many colorful articles of clothing and costumes as people went every which way along the street talking to other members of their community, playing instruments, and dancing. There was the sound of people speaking Spanish, still mostly almost pure Castilian Spanish with perhaps a bit of influence from Taino as the Haitian revolution had yet to push the Creole language over to Cuba. People must have been hard at work cooking different dishes for the carnival as many different spices wafted through the air. It was sticky hot considering it was the middle of June in the tropics and Janus was immediately sweating despite the temperature appropriate clothing he’d been outfitted with.

He glanced around their immediate area, just scoping out the crowds. His eyes were immediately drawn to one person near them.

“Oh, you’ve got to be kidding me,” he said out loud when he saw Pat. Remus looked in the direction Janus was.

Even if Janus didn’t recognize him the moment he laid eyes on him, he probably still would have ended up staring as he was the only person in the area who clearly did not know how to do the dance he was attempting.

Remus snorted and Janus shook his head in secondhand embarrassment. “Well, would you look whose boyfriend’s here,” he said to Janus. Make that firsthand embarrassment. “Has anyone told him the Mambo wasn’t invented until the 1900s and also that’s not how you do it?”

Chapter 17

Pat stopped dancing the moment he saw Janus approaching him, but he still bobbed cheerfully ( and unrhythmically) to the music. “Hi Janus,” he said pleasantly.

“You just have to rub it in, huh?”

There was a flash of confusion across his face, but then he smiled. “Well, I know where in our relationship you are. How was France?”

“You’re a bastard.”

“You stole the phone,” he laughed.

“You stole the bomb,” Janus countered, “and you wanted me to steal the phone. You booby trapped it.”

“No,” Pat correct, putting a finger up. “We have security on my phone because in high school I once forgot it in the school locker room and long story short, the three of us ended up in a lake. So, then Lo made sure I always had some sort of tracker on it. When I started time traveling, he updated it and when I met you we updated it again in case there was ever an opportunity like that. Lo calls it using our weaknesses to our advantage.”

“He’s a bastard too,” Janus growled.

Pat just laughed.

“Is someone talking about me?” Remus asked, stepping over to them. Janus rolled his eyes.

“Oh,” Pat said, blinking at Janus’s partner for a moment. “Remus.” He hesitated slightly. “How are you doing?”

“Me?” Remus asked. “Uh, I’m doing good. A little stressed out with work, but fine.”

“Good,” Pat said with just a little too much heartfulness to it.

“What?” Janus asked, eyes narrowed at Pat. “What is that?”

“What is what?” Pat asked. He met Janus’s eyes briefly and it made panic surge up Janus’s spine because the look Pat was sending him wasn’t one that said he was playing dumb. It was a warning.

Oh, Janus did not like this. That look told Janus Pat had some foreknowledge that he absolutely could not tell Janus about without messing up the timeline spectacularly. This was why this mess the two of them were mixed up in was so bad, but it seemed Janus did not have much of a choice when it came to Pat.

Despite how bad of an idea he knew it was, he still wanted to push, because whatever Pat was hiding could be very, very bad and it had to do with Remus. There were so many reasons Pat could be acting like that around Remus, but the worst ones were definitely the ones on his mind. Death, injury, illness. They were all possible especially in their line of work and especially with how time was being screwed with right now. And Pat knew. He knew exactly what the answer was, and oh did Janus want to push.

Experience knowing what worse things could come out of having foreknowledge made Janus bite his tongue.

“So, what are you two doing here,” Pat asked, and Janus unhappily let him change the subject.

“Oh, like you don’t know,” Janus replied.

“I don’t know,” Pat said innocently.

“There’s another time distortion,” Janus said, “and while you didn’t know what it was the last time I saw you, I’m pretty sure you do now.”

“Oh, I didn’t know there was a time distortion here. I can help you if you like,” he offered sweetly.

“Oh, yeah, sure. Then why are you here?”

“I wanted to see if I could find the Flying Dutchman,” Pat told him.

“And so you went to Camaguey?”

“Uh huh.”

“One of the farthest places from the ocean in Cuba?”

“Is it?”

“I don’t trust you.”

Pat just shrugged. “Well, if you don’t want my help finding the time distortion, I’ll just be on my way then.”

“Wait,” he said when Pat went to turn away. Pat paused. Janus turned to Remus. “Remus, do you think he’s bullshitting me so I let him wander off and do whatever the hell he’s doing, or do you think he’s bullshitting me into letting him come with us.”

“Hmm,” Remus said, looking Pat up and down. Janus could immediately tell he wasn’t going to get any helpful answer. “Well, if we’re going with the how much do I get to see his, admittedly very sexy, ass criteria.” Janus pinched the bridge of his nose. “Letting him leave now means instant gratification and a nice full image when he turns away. However, letting him go with us means many more opportunities to get a glimpse, but they’d probably just be glimpses. So, yeah that’s a tough call.”

“You didn’t even bother to give me an actual hidden suggestion with that bullshit,” Janus groaned. He glanced at Pat only to see him hiding his very red face in his hands. Janus blinked. “Oh,” he said. “You got him, Remus.” Janus was surprised. He’d expected a bit more tenacity for someone with Pat’s personality. Of course, Janus was used to Remus, so that perhaps had some effect. Pat made a muffled distressed sound behind his hands and Janus raised an eyebrow. “You really got him.”

Pat flapped one hand around while still using the other to completely hide his face. “It’s just. His face. Saying that. Is weird.”

Janus could not say that he didn’t feel a slight spark of joy at seeing Pat flustered. After all, Pat’s weapon of choice had often been flirting with Janus in the past. However, he still smacked Remus on the shoulder when it looked like he was about to continue with something likely far more inappropriate. “We are here for a reason,” he reminded. He turned to consider Pat and squinted at him. “You’re coming with us, I’ve decided. I don’t want to let you out of my sights. Don’t,” he said empathically turning to Remus as the man opened his mouth once more.

Pat had mostly recovered, though his cheeks were just a bit pink still. “Yeah,” he said. “I’ll go with you. Where do we start?”

Janus glanced at his timepiece. “It’s not showing up on our trackers yet.”

“It messed with your tracker last time,” Pat pointed out.

“I know,” Janus said. “Which means it could be another fake one or whatever is causing it hasn’t started yet. If things start going wrong, but it still doesn’t show on our radar, it’s almost certainly a fake one, but some of the fake ones haven’t blocked our technology.”

“Here, I can check,” Pat said.

“Please don’t pull out an iPhone,” Janus begged.

Pat stuck out his tongue at him, and then smiled. He reached for the bracelet on his wrist and twisted it back and forth a few times before pressing his palms together. He glanced around them quickly to make sure no one around them was watching and then peeled apart his palms like he was miming reading a book.

“What the fuck is that, and how do I get one?” Remus asked immediately. It was innocuous, whatever it was. If someone from this time caught a glimpse of the display, they’d likely assume it was a trick of the light, but staring right at it, Janus could tell it was a map of the surrounding areas with a softly glowing blue light marking their current location. Janus could see no screen or origin of a hologram. It looked like the image was drawn onto the man’s palms, but as he watched, the image shifted to zoom out.

“There doesn’t seem to be anything major yet,” Pat said wiggling his fingers a bit. The display changed slightly to some sort of colorful overlay Janus did not understand. Pat hummed. “Did you two come from that building recently?” he asked nodding at it.

“Yes,” Janus replied. “How do you know?”

“There’s sometimes a slight temperature change when people time travel,” Pat explained. “I can read it on here.” He tilted his head. “There also seems to be a big enough temperature change in a church a few blocks away that could indicate time travel. Want to check it out?”

“We might as well,” Janus agreed.

“And if it’s nothing, we can get drunk on the communion wine!”

“He’s going to get immediately struck by lightning,” Janus said.

Chapter 18

“If we see anyone,” Janus said as they entered the church. “You keep your mouth shut. Do you understand me? Remus, do you understand me?”

Remus immediately turned to Pat. “You know, I didn’t grow up Catholic,” he said to Pat who looked at him in confusion. “So the first time I ever entered a Catholic church, you can’t blame me for being a little confused about the whole cabinet thing with a wall between them. After all, everyone was singing about glory to god and what not. So I…”

Janus slapped him. “This is why you were almost burned at the stake yesterday.”

“Excuse you,” Remus said, putting his hand over his heart. “I was almost drowned.”

“You were almost drowned?” Pat asked, his voice seeming legitimately distressed.

Remus shrugged a smile on his face that caused a Pavlovian migraine to start up behind Janus’s eyes. “It’s one of the hazards of the jobs, and really it would have all been worth it if I’d actually gotten to drown in that man’s…”

“We’re in a church!” Janus cut him off switching from Spanish to Swahili in the hopes that no random passersby would be able to understand him in this time and place. “Don’t talk about lewd sex things. Don’t talk about sex at all. It’s a Catholic church!”

Remus continued to speak in Spanish with no regard for anything. “But not talking about lewd sex things takes away 3/4ths of my personality,” he pouted.

“More like 9/10th,” Janus grumbled, “and the other 1/10th is just normal stupid.”

“Hey, you shouldn’t be mean,” Pat scolded, in fucking English for some reason, “but Remus, honey, you probably shouldn’t be saying things like that right now.”

“No, no, he has a point,” Remus said switching to English.

“He’s my partner, I have the right to call him stupid,” Janus insisted.

“And I love you too!” Remus said in Greek because he was really, truly, stupid.

Pat looked between the two, but then seemed to accept it, dropping the concerned expression for a slightly amused one. “If you say so.”

“Can I… help you?” A voice asked. All three of them whipped around to see a young boy looking at them and seeming very confused. Which was fair considering that to his ears, they’d just been speaking nonsense.

“We’re here to pray!” Remus claimed, then he turned to wink at Pat and said under his breath in Swahili, “to that ass.” Pat went immediately bright red again, which was doubtlessly Remus’s aim. Janus subtlety stepped on his foot while smiling at the boy.

“Oh,” the boy said. “Okay.” Thankfully, he didn’t seem interested in questioning the random strangers in front of him further. “I’m going to go back to the celebration now.”

Janus smiled at him. “Have fun,” he said. He waited for the boy to leave through the front door before slapping Remus on the back of the head.

“Ow!” he whined sounding far too pained for how hard Janus had actually hit him.

Janus rolled his eyes. “Let’s just start investigating,” he said.

“Sure, sure, you never let me have any fun,” Remus said, pulling up his wrist and spinning the golden bracelets on his arm. “Hmm…” he said.

“What?” asked Pat.

“Either I put on the wrong jewelry this morning… or my timepiece isn’t working.”

“Well, then I’m guessing we’re in the right place,” Janus said. He turned to Pat. “Your stuff still working?”

Pat brought up whatever device was on his hands. “Yeah,” he said, “and it looks like something is just starting.” Just as he said it, there was a violent crash of thunder.

“Well,” Janus said. “We should probably find the source and soon. Which way?”

Pat glanced around himself and then motioned with his wrist. Suddenly there was a 3D display of the church in front of them.

Janus could see immediately where the problem had to originate. There was a swirling mass of some sort of energy centered at the top of the bell tower of the church. As he watched, he saw the picture of the church glitch out a bit. He had a bad feeling about that.

“Is there something wrong with your display?” he asked, or more hoped.

Pat shook his head slowly. “I don’t think so…” The room seemed to shift suddenly underneath their feet. It felt a bit like time travel, but also wrong. The picture on the display flickered harder, part of the building fracturing and dissolving before appearing back in place. The room settled after a moment, but Janus’s stomach did not.

“Whatever is going on,” Janus said, “We need to stop it right now.”

Pat nodded. “The quickest way up would be that way,” Pat said pointing. The display closed as he did.

“Then, let’s go,” Janus said.

The world was eerily calm as they all started off in the direction Pat had pointed out. In fact, it was almost too quiet.

“Where’s the nearest window?” Janus asked when they came out on the second floor.

Pat glanced at his hand. “There should be a couple a few feet that way.” Janus nodded and left them standing there. When he glanced out of the first window he came to, it appeared to be night. Yet, when he walked to the next window, he saw daylight.

26606

“Time is fracturing,” Janus informed them. “We need to be careful.” This time distortion was much more intense than any of the other ones the agency had been tracking down over the last few months. It had also come on much faster. Usually there was some time between when the time distortion began and it started having extreme effects on the environment. He was suddenly very glad that he and Remus had not split up today. He was even glad for Pat’s company, no matter how aggravating he may be sometimes. Not to mention, he was glad for the man’s technology that seemed to circumvent whatever was blocking Janus and Remus’s timepieces.

He backed away from the windows and returned to the others.

“Whatever you do,” Janus said. “Don’t let anyone be in a room alone.”

“I know what time fractures are this time,” Pat promised.

“It was as much for the idiot as it was for you,” Janus said.

“You accidently bring a bubonic plague infested rat to 900BC one time and you never live it down.”

“I’d say I should put a leash on you, but you’d twist it into something disgusting.”

“Probably,” Remus agreed.

“Where next?” Janus asked, ignoring him.

“That way,” Pat said.

They walked together to the door he’d indicated. “Please don’t be bullshit,” Janus prayed. He opened the door and immediately got bowled over by a stream of salt water.

Chapter 19

Janus landed flat on his back, a wave of water splashing over him and then quickly retreating, but still leaving him absolutely drenched. He sighed, looking at the ceiling. “Don’t,” he warned, “say a word.”

Of course, he was with the two most impossible people in all of space and time, so neither of them headed him.

“I thought you said we were far from the ocean, Jan,” Pat said.

“Yeah, Janny,” Remus immediately jumped on board because he was an asshole. “I thought we were far from the ocean!”

“Maybe I’ll achieve my goal of finding the Flying Dutchman after all!”

“Ooo ghost pirates! I’ve never gotten to fight ghost pirates before. Any good with a sword Patty?”

“My friend has a sword and he let me use it before… but all I did was cut a hole in our couch, and then Lo was mad at us.”

“I mean… just pretend the pirates are a couch and we’ll be good!”

Janus slowly sat up. There was still water on the floor and every so often a wave would crash into the room as though the door frame signaled the edge of a beach. Pat reached down to offer him a hand up and Janus slapped it away.

“Rude!” Pat claimed, but his eyes were alight with mischief.

Janus shoved himself to his feet on his own power.

“You deserve it,” he hissed. “For all of this!” he waved his arms around.

“Water you talking about. I didn’t do anything wrong.”

“You are on thin ice.”

He looked down at his feet with a contemplative expression. “Looks like water to me.”

“Arg!” Janus spat, throwing up his arms.

“I don’t sea why you’re screaming, Janus.”

“Yeah,” Remus contributed. “You seem overally emotional to me.”

“Yes, yes,” Pat replied. “Very em-ocean-al.”

“One may even say he’s pretty salty.”

“I know where you live, Remus,” Janus reminded.

“Alright, alright Remus, reel it in,” Pat said.

Remus opened his mouth to respond, but Janus cut him off. “Why don’t the two of you dedicate all of that brain power to figuring out how to cross the literal ocean in the next room,” Janus suggested hotly.

And it was a literal ocean. If one ignored where they were and the fact that there was a staircase climbing out of said ocean about 80 or so meters away. There was sand being washed up across the door frame and a seagull flying in the distance. At least it looked like a nice day in the room with the way the sun was glinting off the water. At least it wasn’t storming there. Yet.

Janus’s head throbbed with the thought of what had to be happening with the time distortion to plop a piece of the ocean into one single room in a church. Usually they’d be calling the TPI for backup or at least for information, but that was a loss. Even if they tried to get out of range of whatever was disrupting their timepieces, time was so unstable, they’d very possibly get dumped somewhere dangerous. It was better to just get to the time distortion as quickly as possible and stop it.

“Hmm,” Remus said. “I wonder how deep it is. Do you think there are man eating sharks in the water? Or giant jelly fish? Remember that one time I got stung by a jelly fish and almost died?”

“Yes,” Janus said, lips pursed, “and it was entirely your fault.”

“I just looked so squishy!” he declared, “I didn’t know it was a murder blob.”

“I think I have a boat,” Pat said.

They both turned to him. “What?” Janus asked. He was looking at his hands and just hummed in response to Janus’s question. The next thing he knew, Pat made some motion with his hand and a yellow raft started to autofill from his palm. “...Why?” Janus asked.

“I… recently started carrying a wilderness survival pack in my time device.”

“I’m not going to question it. It’s better than swimming.” By the time the raft was completely deployed, they’d all been shoved into the walls by it.

“Huh, on second thought. I probably should have put the raft in the room before blowing it up.”

“You think?” asked Janus.

Pat glared at him over it. “I never really thought about how to open it in a narrow second floor corridor.”

“Just try to shove it through the door without popping it.”

“Why are you looking at me?!” asked Remus.

They managed to somehow squeeze the raft through the door into the other room after a few minutes.

Pat squinted at the tottering raft he was holding to the door frame. “After you,” he offered.

Janus glared at him.

“You’re already soaked!” Pat defended himself.

Janus sighed and very carefully climbed into the raft. It tottered dangerously, but he didn’t immediately fall out, so that was a plus. The other two of them slowly also climbed onto the raft with him. They then sat in it for a few seconds. “Is there an oar?” Janus asked.

“Oh right!” Pat did something else with the device in his hands and an oar slowly unfolded from his hand.

“Seriously, I want one of those,” Remus said.

“Let’s just get out of here,” Janus said, snatching the oar. The staircase luckily wasn’t too far away. They probably could have swam it if necessary, but the raft gave them some modicum of protection. Everything seemed to be going in their favor, which of course meant everything was about to go incredibly wrong.

They were about halfway across the water when the entire world around them rumbled.

“…I hope that was a giant jellyfish,” Remus said.

It was unfortunately not a jellyfish or any sea creature at all. The world around them fractured, the ocean seeming to split right down the middle so the water right of the staircase was 6 feet higher than on the left. The sky flashed red and yellow before the water split completely like Moses splitting the Red Sea.

There was a millisecond as the split widened until it was only a few feet from them, to decide whether when they landed they wanted to be on the side with the water or on the side without it. On one hand, going towards the side without water could mean they fell to their deaths or the water crashed back down on top of them when it settled. On the other hand, if the fissure was closing or shifting to a new area, it was very possible that they’d end up trapped in the middle off the ocean with no connection to the church.

Well, the best chance to actually get to where they were going was probably the side without water. It seemed everyone had the same idea at once because as he grabbed for both of them, they both grabbed for him and they all went tumbling off the raft into what could have very well been a bottomless pit.

Janus learned after a couple of seconds of free fall, that it was definitely not a bottomless pit. He landed hard, flat on his back and saw stars. The next moment something landed on top of him, squeezing all of the air out of his lungs.

Something else fell half on top of his legs.

“Ow,” Pat said from near his ear.

“Yeah, well you’re the one on the top,” Janus groaned though his teeth.

“Wow, I never took you for a bottom, Janus,” Remus said from near his feet. Janus kicked up his legs into whatever part of him was on top of Janus and he gave an “oof.”

Pat snorted a bit and Janus glared at his… shoulder? He shifted around a bit so he was less thrown across Janus and more just on top of him. Janus blinked. There was a wooden ceiling above them, so that was a good sign, though there was also a giant dark hole of nothingness directly above them which was not as good.

Janus moved slightly. He could tell he was going to be bruised later, but he didn’t seem seriously injured. “We should,” he started, but was interrupted as the hole above them pulsated and dumped a bunch of sea water.

Pat shrieked as they were all drenched with the chilly water. Luckily, they seemed to be on higher ground because, while water kept pouring out of the hole, it drained away just as quickly instead of drowning them.

Water still hitting his back relentlessly, Pat peeled his head up to look Janus in the eyes. A giggle bubbled out of his mouth.

“It isn’t funny,” Janus informed him. Pat just giggled more, leaning his head against Janus’s chest and cackling.

Janus just rolled his eyes. “Yes, yes, this is an entirely appropriate reaction. Thank you for your contribution to our very important mission.”

Pat seemed incapable of stopping laughing completely, but he did calm himself enough to peel himself off Janus’s chest and lean forward so their noses almost touched. “It’s hilarious and you know it,” he claimed.

“In what way is this ‘hilarious’?”

“In many waves,” was the joy filled answer.

“You’re horrible.”

Pat hummed. He hadn’t moved to get off of him even though they really should be moving in case something worse than water came through the hole in the ceiling. He hadn’t even moved his face away.

“No, no, you two just tell me when you’re done being gay for each other,” Remus interrupted. Janus was surprised to see he’d stood up at some point and was now hovering over them.

Janus flipped him off even while Pat laughed once again. Pat finally drew away and rolled off of him so Janus could sit up. Pretty much everything hurt when Janus moved, but he was able to stand up, so he was probably fine enough. “So,” he said looking around. “Where are we now?”

Chapter 20

Janus looked around himself while Pat booted up his map to try to figure out where they were. They were in a small room that may actually be considered a large landing as there were staircases on either side of it. The water that was still coming out of the ceiling was running down the staircase that led down from the room.

Something was stopping the water, creating a pool on the steps that was already about to overflow into the room. With the speed the water was flowing, they should have enough time before the room completely filled up with water and drowned them.

Janus wondered if they were in the church or not. It was not out of the question and there was church like décor around them, but who knew? He could feel a strange vibration in the ground and the one window in the room shone with green light.

“Hmm,” said Pat. “That looks not good.” He’d projected his map so they could all see everything.

The map itself was moving. Rooms were phasing in and out of focus and fracturing down the middle. One room was even spinning lazily around in circles. Janus could see the room they were in. It was connected to the bigger blob of rooms, and there was a black line connecting it to another room from the top which was obviously the hole spewing water at them.

“Well, at least the time distortion is still coming from the bell tower,” Remus said. Janus shot him an unamused glance. Said bell tower was currently upside down and shuddering as well as divided from any other room by at least two inches of empty space.

28842

“How are we supposed to get there?” asked Pat.

“We don’t,” Janus said. “It’s literally impossible.”

“There has to be some way,” Pat argued with a frown.

“If we try to use time travel, we’ll definitely get shredded by the warping time and space around it and walking there isn’t an option. There aren’t even any entrances!”

“Well, there were at one point.”

“Yeah, before,” he gestured wildly to the ceiling that was still pouring water into the room.

“So?” Pat asked.

“’So’?! What do you mean ‘so’?!”

Pat shrugged. “When one door closes, cut another one.”

Janus froze and looked at him for a long moment. “Where the hell did you hear that?”

Patton raised an eyebrow. “You.”

“I don’t think like that anymore.”

“Well then I guess we’ll die,” Pat said lightly. “Of course, that’ll make an even worse time loop considering I’ve met older versions of you.”

“Fuck,” Janus spat. “Fuck. Fine. Give me a minute to think. Not that I even know if we have a minute because,” he gestured once again to the room.

“Okay,” Janus said. “The room with the source of the time distortion is separated from us by a swirling pool of dark nothingness and there is no way to get to it. But, the only way we’re going to stop the distortion from ripping apart time and killing us as well as probably a bunch of other people is to get to it. That is an impossible situation. There is no solution. That door is closed to us. What other ways are there to look at it?” He looked at the visual representation of the rooms. One of them suddenly went spinning out and his eyes tracked it. We need to be in the same place as the source,” Janus said. “That is fact, but we don’t have to get to it.”

“Um, what do you mean?” Remus asked. Pat shushed him.

“If you want thing A and thing B to be in the same place, there’s more than one way to do it. If you can’t move thing A to thing B, you might be able to move thing B to thing A. Pat, you have a working time device. We can’t travel with it because that would kill us, but if we can make it do a stutter warp, it could draw the time distortion to it.”

“You…” Remus said. “Want to create another time distortion in hopes that the original time distortion will be pulled into this room?”

“Yes.”

“Well, sounds good to me!” Remus said.

He maybe had expected Pat to argue, but he didn’t. Instead, he moved his hand to his wrist. There had been nothing there before, but when he touched down on his wrist with two fingers, there was suddenly a metal bound around it that Janus immediately recognized from the times he’d seen Pat’s timepiece before. How was it made invisible? He shook the thought off as Pat offered it up wordlessly. Janus took it and Pat leaned over his shoulder to look.

Despite the fact that the device looked nothing like his own, the interface was surprisingly convenient. “I assume you have safety setting to prevent a stutter warp,” Janus said. “How do I turn those off?”

Patton pointed at a gear icon on the screen. “You put it under your normal settings?” he asked.

“I have to put in my password or use my fingerprint!” Pat defended.

“It doesn’t matter right now.” He navigated through the settings. He was interested to see that there were many different saved default security settings, but he didn’t get much of a chance to read what all they did. He just turned them all off.” It popped up with a message to put in the password and Pat pressed his fingertip to it. Another message popped up warning them that turning off these settings could cause damage to the machinery, the person using it, and time itself. Janus pushed “okay.” A message popped up that asked “Continue” and Janus pressed “yes.” One last message popped up that said “Security functions disabled.” Janus pressed “okay.”

“Anything else I’d need to disable?”

“Nope,” Pat confirmed.

He navigated back to the main screen and then bought up the manual travel input screen. Yet another message warning him not to do this flashed and Janus once again ignored it. He copied the space time coordinates that the device said they were currently at and put it in the ‘travel to’ location. “Well,” he said. “Here it goes. Let it be known that if I die, it’s my own fault for allowing Remus into a church.”

“Really?” Remus said. “That’s what you’re choosing to be your last words?”

Janus just raised an eyebrow.

“Love you too Janus.”

Janus nodded and hovered his finger over the travel button. He quickly mashed his finger to the button 22 times.”

The device warmed in his hand enough that he almost dropped it. Time literally froze for a few breaths as whatever Deity that may or may not exist processed their stupidity.

Janus was not a scientist or technician, but he had a good idea of how badly they were fucking up right now. The timepiece was attempting to travel over and over again to the exact same place and time. This basically punched a small hole through time, that if left unfixed would grow and disrupt space time all around them. As it was, their current position, all gathered around it and staring at it while one of them had it literally in their hand, was perilous.

There was a rumble under their feet and the world tilted on it’s axis. The all went tumbling down in a pile of limbs to new floor of the room which had once been a wall.

Of course, this change of gravity caused the water that had been building up in the staircase to dump on top of them.

Janus would have cursed, but he was too busy being under the water. He maneuvered himself away from the other two flailing bodies and managed to shove his feet against the wall turned floor. His head popped above the water in time to see the ceiling, or well, it would be the opposite wall, rip in two and the other walls/floor/ceiling start to fold in.

“Give me a boost!” Pat called over the noise of water rushing and walls crunching.

“Give you a boost where?” Janus asked.

“Up!” Janus wasn’t sure if ‘up’ really existed right now, but he still nodded. The water was a few inches over his head, so he held his breath and interlaced his hands so Pat could put his foot in it. He was shoved down into the water, but it gave Pat enough leverage to shoot up out of the water. When Janus resurfaced, he saw that the man had grabbed ahold of the crumbling wall and was pulling himself up into what for all appearances seemed to be absolutely nothing.

It took a moment, but then Janus blinked, and he was suddenly in a new room entirely or perhaps it was the same room. He honestly didn’t know at this point. Remus was next to him. He couldn’t recall if he’d been there before the shift or not, but they were both treading water. Pat crashed into the water next to them. Janus’s wrist buzzed as his timepiece came back online. “Got it!” Pat declared when he resurfaced, holding a device up. It looked almost the same as the device they’d found in France, but this one was definitely different if it was able to cause that much chaos that quickly.

Janus looked around and pointed at what appeared to be a set of stairs. The three of them swam over and pulled themselves out of the water.

“Where are we?” Pat asked.

“Looks like a basement,” Remus replied. “A flooded basement.”

Janus pulled up his timepiece and pushed some buttons to stabilize Pat’s timepiece. It slowly stopped vibrating and cooled. “Here,” he said, handing it over to him. “I suggest you put the safeties back on now.”

Pat nodded and took it.

“We’re still in Cuba,” Remus informed them, looking at his own timepiece. “Same church too, but in the basement and… two and a half centuries later.”

“Remy is going to be pissed,” Janus said.

Remus shrugged. “He’s always pissed… at least at me.”

“Well,” said Pat, slipping his timepiece back onto his wrist. “Thanks for being willing to pool our resources.”

Janus rolled his eyes. “Stop.”

“Ah, mi sirenito-”

“I hate you.”

“-never.” He disappeared with a pop which was when Janus realized, he’d never handed over device that had caused the first time distortion.

“…You bastard!” he yelled at thin air as though the man could hear him.

“Well,” said Remus, “that mission went swimmingly.” Janus reached over and shoved him back into the water.

Chapter 21

“We should probably get out of here,” Janus said, very much not helping Remus out of the water. Remus pulled himself back up onto the staircase and shook like a dog. Janus crinkled his nose as water droplets hit him. They didn’t smell salty anymore, he noted. In fact, there was a broken pipe spewing out water on the other side of the room.

Janus and Remus cautiously snuck out of the church, not wanting to be seen and blamed for the flooded basement. They came out on a city street that was much different than the one they’d entered from.

They walked down the street a bit, Janus’s eyes scanning the buildings. His eyes caught on a sign and he tugged Remus towards it.

They entered the small paladare and the person delivering food to one of the tables blinked at them both. Right. They were in clothing from the 1700s and were soaking wet. He met eyes with the woman, challenging her to say something. She did not.

They found a seat at one of the tables.

“Ah…” the worker said, approaching them. “English?”

“Ron,” Janus said, “por favor.”

Remus turned and started ordering the both of them food in Spanish. Janus didn’t pay attention to what he did.

After his second shot of rum, Janus sighed and brought up his timepiece to ping the TPI. The reaction was almost instantaneous from their perspective. Remy all but kicked down the restaurant’s door and walked over to them. “How the fuck?”

“Ah, Remy,” Janus said calmly. “Have a seat. We’re waiting on our food.”

He did, but probably only because people were looking at them. “What are you doing here?”

“It’s been a long day,” Janus answered, “and I’m hungry.”

“Yeah, it certainly looks like you’re interested in the food,” Remy said, eyeing the empty shot glasses.

“Let’s just say, I’m glad Cuba started letting paladares legally serve liquor a few years ago.”

It’s clear that Remy wanted to ask them what had happened, but he also was cautious enough not to make a scene here and Janus wasn’t planning on getting up until he’d at least gotten his food. “Why are you soaked, by the way?”

“Turns out the ocean isn’t as far away as we thought,” Janus said.

“Also, a church basement is flooded,” Remus said.

“Fantastic,” Remy replied.

They sat there mostly in tense silence until their food came, and then Remus and Janus ate. Remy slapped down some pesos once they were done and then proceeded to all but physically drag them out of the restaurant.

They were led to an alley way and then through an old almost hidden door. Remy immediately rounded on them. “What the hell happened?” Remy asked.

“The time distortion caused level 5 time fractures in its vicinity, we almost drowned three times, and the worst person in the universe fucked me over again.”

“To be fair,” Remus said. “He did save our lives before that.”

“I saved our lives first,” Janus said. “I don’t have to be fair.”

“Oh, yeah, Mr. Curl Up In A Ball And Perish. I’m sure we would have been fine without him.”

“Anyway,” Janus said to Remy. “If you want your lump of flesh, I suggest you take it now, because Khalid is going to murder me, and then fire me, and then rehire me so she can put me on desk duty and make me do paperwork until the end of time.”

“What did you do?” Remy asked.

Janus grimaced. “Made a time distortion.”

“You were the one who made the time distortion?” Remy asked.

“Not exactly,” Janus answered.

“He made the second time distortion,” Remus said. “It was actually pretty cool.”

“It was not cool,” Janus snapped. “It was irresponsible and dangerous. I shouldn’t have done it.”

“We would have died,” Remus said.

“And we could have done worse than dying if it had gone poorly,” Janus argued. “I just…” he tugged on his hair a bit, and Remus gave him an alarmed look. “I’m going to go talk to Khalid,” he said. He didn’t give Remus any time to speak, but just waved his hand to travel back to the TPI.

Remus followed him instantly, of course, but Janus proceeded to ignore him until they were out of decontamination. Janus walked himself straight to Khalid’s office.

He knocked on her door and she called for him to come in. He did and sat heavily in the chair in front of her. She frowned at him. “You really should go to Cultural Outreach first.”

“Just fire me,” he said.

“What?” she asked.

“I just shouldn’t work here anymore,” he said. “At least not as a field agent. Really any type of agent.”

She paused and reached to her desk to pull up some file on the screen there. “I’ll fill out the incident report myself instead of Dr. Eran then,” she said. “Tell me exactly what happened.”

Janus explained everything that happened, and Khalid diligently wrote it down. It was far outside her job description, but she didn’t explain or really react to anything he said more than nodding to say she’d gotten it recorded.

When he was finished, she saved the file and leaned back.

“Well,” Khalid said, folding her hands in front of her and scrutinizing him. “Honestly, this isn’t anywhere near a fireable offence.”

“But I…”

“You went against policy certainly, but policy sometimes has to be broken in disaster scenarios. You know that.”

“It was stupid,” he bit out, feeling sick to his stomach.

“Is it if it worked?” she asked.

Janus didn’t answer.

“The major reason I originally assigned you to be a field agent is because you’ve always been good at thinking your way out of difficult situations even when they go against the rules we set. You have good instincts that I trust, but you haven’t seemed to trust them lately,” she said.

“You shouldn’t trust them,” Janus said darkly.

Janus felt his throat tighten as she considered him for a long moment. “This isn’t the first time you’ve asked me to fire you,” she said. “You wouldn’t tell me why then, and I respected it at the time, but…” she paused. “You’ve changed, Janus.”

“Well then I’m not any good to you.”

“I’d beg to differ,” she replied, “but fine.”

Janus was actually surprised by that. He looked up at her. He somehow thought he’d feel better when this happened, but he didn’t in that moment. He just felt ill.

“I’m not firing you,” she continued, meeting his eyes, “but if you don’t want to be a regular field agent, fine. I have a particular mission in mind for you.”

“What?” he asked.

“This ‘Pat’ thing is getting ridiculous,” she said. “I don’t have enough resources to focus on it right now considering how much is going on, however, but I trust you and you’re already involved. So, I’m going to reassign you. No more missions. No more dealing with in department duties. You find him and his source of time travel. That’s your job. Whatever you think you need to do that job is fine. Request whatever trips or resources you need. Bring on Remus when you need or even Fred and Lena.”

“You’re…” he said. “Giving me more freedom and resources?”

“Like I said, Janus. I trust you. The one time I didn’t, after all, Pat ran off with a timebomb, so I learned my lesson.” She smiled briefly and stuck out her hand. “Deal?”

Janus sighed and once again resigned himself to staying at the TPI. “Fine,” he said. “Deal.”

Chapter 22

Janus sighed. This was stupid. What was he even doing? He glared at the large hologram that took up a good portion of his office now. During the day, he usually shrunk it so he could only see part of the diagram he had up, but right now the office was abandoned other than him, so it took up and entire two walls. He rubbed his forehead. Why had 2pm Janus thought putting a bunch of words on this hologram was a good idea? Even the pictures were starting to look like they were vibrating. He drew a red line between “Nick Jonas” and “iPhone,” and he honestly wasn’t even sure why at this point.

His board didn’t even make sense. Why did he think this would be a help? He swiped a picture of the first device he’d found that had made the time distortions off to the side with his own (bad) artistic rendition of the one Pat had stolen. There wasn’t a pattern with Pat’s behavior that he could see other than, perhaps, a liking for early 21st century pop culture.

Frustrated, he turned away from the board. He needed a walk, he decided. He stepped out of his office into the TPI hallway and chose a direction at random. There were still some people in the building as even this late at night, someone had to be on call, but for the most part, the building was abandoned.

He wasn’t paying attention to where he was going, and even if he had been, he likely wouldn’t have realized where he was because he’d never been to the AMO offices since he’d gotten his house, and they’d moved since then.

He paused in front of it the doors, eyes touching on the lit-up names on the door’s screen. He focused on his own last name until it stopped looking like letters at all.

“Did you need something?” a familiar voice asked.

Janus jumped and whipped around. “You… it’s late, what are you doing here?” he asked Emile.

“There are at least two AMO workers at the office at all times. Today is my night,” he explained.

“I… see.”

Emile tilted his head. “Did you need anything?”

“No,” Janus said, perhaps a bit too fast. He bit his lip. “I was just going for a walk. I didn’t mean to come here.”

Emile folded his hands in front of him and rocked onto his heels. “I heard that you almost died,” he said.

“Yeah,” Janus said. “I fucked up.”

Emile arched an eyebrow. “And is that why you got a promotion?” he asked in that mild tone of his that informed Janus that his brother was wholly convince he was an idiot. Janus looked away and Emile sighed.

“Well then,” Emile said, walking past him to the door. Despite himself and the fact that it was his fault, Janus felt hurt at how short Emile was letting the conversation be. Then he felt disgusted with himself that he even dared to feel that way.

Yet, Emile paused at the door. “If you ever decide you want that help, I offered, you know where my office is now.”

He wouldn’t, Janus thought, but he didn’t say anything. He just let Emile push open the door to the AMO and disappear inside.

Why was he even here right now? Janus wondered to himself. It was the middle of the night and he didn’t remember the last time he’d slept. He didn’t remember the last time he’d been home.

Yet the house by the lake wasn’t home, was it? Going there to the nothing that pervaded the place made his throat tighten. He’d had different homes in his life. The small childhood home, the claustrophobic apartment he’d had in his college days, the first home the AMO had assigned him which he’d shared with his brother, but none of these were available to him anymore. He brought up his timepiece. There were only three pre-programed space-time coordinates in his device. The first would only take him back to his office with the frustrating board that wasn’t giving him any answers and the third took him to the lake house he couldn’t bear to see empty right now.

That left him with only one option. He selected the second saved coordinates and stepped forward into Remus’s house. He landed in total darkness, which was expected considering it was around 3 in the morning and Remus lived about 3 decades before electricity was invented. Janus stumbled forward in the dark, his eyes very much not adjusted, until his shins hit the couch. He carefully turned and sat before blowing out a breath.

“Mew?” came from the corner, and Janus titled his head to see eyes shining in the dark.

“Hello,” Janus said. “Sorry to wake you.”

Diesel Fuel make a little burrhr sound and padded over to him.

#study break stories #not writing

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theastrophilearchitect · 3 years

Text

Just keep swimming, just keep swimming...

Writing journey #4.

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

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

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

So. Let’s brainstorm.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Go write that idea!

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write-a-bad-romance · 4 years

Text

Conversation Over (Isaac x Mozart Modern AU)

Characters: Isaac Newton and Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart from Ikemen Vampire, some OCs

Pairings: Isaac x Mozart

Rating: T

This is a companion piece to Stolen Batteries. Also available on Ao3.

Take out your heart and let it sit in the freezer.

Wolf lifted his head from the crook of his arm and stared into the darkness of his apartment.

Well, if it weren’t for the sunlight filtering in from the window. Reluctantly, the young composer rose from his chair to close the curtains.

Wolf hated the city lights. To him, they were nothing but noise when contrasted against the dark, unpolluted skies of the countryside.

“This is the best condition for stargazing.” The young man in front of him beamed as he set up the telescope.

That was another reason why Wolf kept the curtains shut throughout the entire night.

His surroundings were silent, save for the distant noise of traffic down below. Begrudgingly, Wolf admitted that his father had a point in pushing him this far. Otherwise, he wouldn’t have received enough commission to rent this high-rise apartment, with all its perks.

“Must be great having included housekeeping and laundry,” a voice called from the bathroom. “You can doss around on weekends and catch some sleep.”

Wolf returned to his desk and took a swig of cold, bitter coffee. Drowsily, he reached for his iPhone and unlocked it. It was 8 a.m. And there were three missed calls from Antonio.

That geezer. Immediately, Wolf pressed ‘call’ and barked to the other man. “What business do you have calling me this early?”

“Wolf! Good to know you’re already up and running!” Antonio greeted him cheerfully with his trademark raspy voice. “Get to the studio. There’s some trouble with the lyrics for the final track in the soundtrack.”

“Lyrics? You think I’m a pop singer or something?”

“You- argh! We haven’t got time!” Antonio yelled. “Come on, Wolf. Help me out here!”

The white-haired youth sat down and stared at the hardwood floor in thought. He wasn’t in the mood to hear the old man rave, but taking a break from composing and seeing what his colleagues were up to seemed like a savory idea.

Better than wallowing alone in this empty apartment, at least.

“Alright. Give me an hour.” He sighed.

Wolf stared into blank space as Antonio and Cerise, the producer, went back-and-forth with the two girls over some lyrics sheet. Compared to Cerise’s composed tone, Antonio’s rankling voice was an irritant to his ears.

“Look, I understand you feel the need to do some experimentation with this piece,” the dark-skinned woman spoke coolly to the fuming man. “But you gotta at least listen to what the girls want. This is their song, after all.”

“You, you don’t get it!” Antonio yapped. “Don’t you want to produce something more than uninspired bops that the billboards churn every month or so?”

“If we’re talking about direction, then we need to go back to the lyrics and the impression you wanted to make,” Cerise turned to Bo-ram, one of the singers. “What did you have in mind while writing this?”

“Well,” Bo-ram shuffled through the notes and pointed at one of the papers. “It’s not made for any particular scene or anything. We just thought it’d fit these two characters…”

Wolf leaned back in his seat and gazed at the ceiling, propriety be damned. It wasn’t as if they acknowledged him or anything.

“You’re kinda quiet today, Wolf. Something the matter?” Cerise suddenly called to him with a hint of concern.

The young composer returned his attention to the bickering group, who were now gawking at him in silence.

“Eh, don’t mind him.” Antonio waved. “He’s gotten his panties in a twist since last week.”

You were the one who called me here, dummkopf. “Watch it.”

Although, had it really been only over a week?

Wolf dismissed the thought, “Let’s get to the recording booth, then. I want to hear what it sounds like."

Wolf closed his eyes as he listened through the entire song.

While it wasn’t something that he’d composed (mainstream pop wasn’t exactly his cup of tea), but he had to admit that it was easy on the ears and that the vocals were indeed powerful. While he didn’t have much faith in the girls at first, they’d really outdone themselves this time.

"What’s the problem then?” He turned to Cerise and Antonio.

“The problem,” Cerise flashed a dry smirk. “Is that this guy here wants to add another rap on top of that existing rap.”

“You don’t understand!” The other man screeched. “I’m doing this for Bo-ram’s favor. I mean, the way she raps!”

You know jack about rap. Wolf wanted to say. Neither do I, to be honest.

While he did show some interest in rap once in a while, he never really took the plunge. Wherever his heart led, his brain would follow. There was simply not enough room for rap on top of his piling lists of concerns, both musical and not.

But Antonio was right. There was something in the way Bo-ram fired her words. He had to be sure.

“Let me hear that rap one more time,” Wolf instructed. “Without music.”

Bo-Ram did as she was told, under the strict man’s scrutinizing gaze. But even that wasn’t enough. “Again, with music.” He demanded.

Wolf listened intently to every word Bo-ram fired. It wasn’t just her (admittedly, brilliant) play of words and rhythm, but there was also her intensity with which she uttered her lines. He never once pictured anybody conveying such raw energy through meticulously crafted strings of words.

“What was the idea behind the song, again?” He asked Cerise pointedly.

“Oh, it’s about the game’s main character separating with his first girlfriend and some leftover feelings.”

Leftover feelings.

Clearly, the rapper knew how to speak from the character’s point of view. She was his mouthpiece —or was that the other way around?

To him, she was rapping all her intent and emotion to a phantom —someone who wasn’t part of the audience. He supposed that he and the rapper had a lot in common. Even the most amateur of listeners could pick up all his emotions in every stroke, every note that flowed through his fingers.

The audience was aware of his desires, but for whom?

They could build an image from bits of emotion they managed to gather, but never the entire portrait. The song is a fragment of stories, painting disjointed scenes of strife and peace without telling the tale in its entirety.

Wolf picked up his pen and set it on the paper. He rarely ever put his emotions into words, but for some reason, just this once, he wanted to try.

"Give me a second. I think I can come up with something.”

In the quiet of the next room over, Wolf stared at the blank sheet, his trembling hands capping and uncapping his pen.

Leftover feelings were not something he dealt with often since separations, throughout his history, were clean and impersonal, in his own words.

He had so far lived up to his reputation as an ice king, cold. So why?

It never mattered to him who pulled the trigger and left the other to bleed. Wolf wasn’t always harsh. His upbringing compelled him to apologize when he needed to (with a straight face, of course), and leave. The sooner, the better.

He always made sure there were no pieces left to pick.

So why? He twirled the pen between his fingers. Why? Why? Why?

He loathed the feeling of waking up to an empty apartment. He wished for the physicist to step out of his door again, his hair all ruffled and eyes surrounded by dark circles after pulling another all-nighter.

How ugly he looked as he sat on the table, scowling at his coffee mug and muttering about accidentally deleting parts of his thesis draft or complaining about his nagging supervisor.

In that window of time, when the other man let his guard down and showed his humanity was when Wolf felt most normal.

It was painful seeing him stumble along imaginary walls that he erected himself. So much so that the rare (turned not-so-rare) moments when he coaxed his little hedgehog with soothing whispers was rewarding in its own.

Those eyes the color of cherry-blossom (not him, it was one of Napoleon’s girlfriends pointing it out) always looked like they were on the verge of tears. But they beamed even brighter than a supernova the moment he launched into one of his rants about the position of stars and the latest astronomical findings.

He once thought they looked like glass, but really they were a mirror. A mirror he painfully admitted wanted to see himself reflected on. Always.

He knew full well he didn’t deserve any of that.

Wolf was never new to spouting blunt nonsense— to harming people. It was a necessary evil for him to get by amid deadlines and obligations from his father in Vienna. It was his power and weakness.

Whatever good he had with any of his previous partners, Wolf always knew there would be a point where they’d have to part. That was that. By the time he even uttered farewell, there were none of these leftover feelings that Cerise and Bo-ram talked about.

There was always a goodbye , and despite what people think of him, a sorry . The latter was often devoid of weight, to be honest.

And yet the heaviest one was the one he couldn’t say out loud.

It’s never them, it’s me. Wolf scratched the pen over and over until it left behind a yarn of angry black lines. It’s not you, it’s me.

For the first time in his solitary excuse of a life, he felt pain over a wound he knew for sure he had inflicted on someone else.

Sighing, he picked up the pen and began to scribble the lyrics— no, words he meant to say.

Isaac, I…

“I don’t think that part needed any rap. Keep it that way.”

“Eh, are you sure? The girls love it, Cerise loves it and so do I! What — ”

“I’m sure. The song is good enough as it is. Tell that to the girls.”

Some words are best kept to yourself.

#ikevam fanfic #ikevam isaac #ikevam mozart #mosaac #ikevam bl #riri tries ikevam

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nekoabiwrites · 4 years

Text

Theatre Technicians are basically Vampires

This was an idea that I had after many conversations about how being a vampire would be easy to hide if you were a techie. Also was inspired by a first draft of an old secret santa thing I was doing... but I like this a lot!

AU: Vampire/Human Pairing: Implied Pinning Logicality Words: 4228 Warnings: Vampires, talk of death, blood, mauling, suicide, illness, injury - all are backstories of how they turned. Anything else, please let me know!

Summary: Six men live under one roof. They seem to have nothing in common, besides their chosen career paths, but there is one thread that ties them all together...

Logan adjusted his glasses as he flicked through the prompt copy of the script he’d spent the last few days completing. He had a video up on the computer screen adjacent to him showing footage of the final rehearsals before tech week was to begin, allowing him to add the final blocking notes to scenes that were fine-tuned just before the deadline. It had taken him a long time, likely multiple days, but it was rewarding work to see such flawless execution. Logan turned the final page and sat back in his chair, sighing contently.

Then a loud shout, a shuffling of feet and a thump from outside the study. It had been going on for a while now, but that last noise was the final straw. Logan pushed himself up from the chair, stretching out his arms as he walked across the room. He rested a hand on the door handle and steeled himself with a deep breath before swiftly opening it, “What is going on?”

The regret was immediate as was the slight throbbing of his head.

On the floor directly before him were two men, utterly motionless as they looked up at the man in the doorway. Three more figures scattered the room; one nervously chewing at his bottom lip as he stood over the two on the ground, one sat at the dining table with a glass in hand and an expression of light amusement, and the final one perched up on the kitchen counter, a smug grin pulling at his lips.

Logan put a hand to his head, massaging his temple, “Patton, tell me what happened?”

“Why do you ask him?! He’s not even involved!”

“Because, Roman, I expect he shall provide me with the fairest outlook of the entire situation. Both you and Remus would attempt to argue that your side was not at fault.” Logan flatly responded, eyes shifting down to the one pinned to the ground.

Roman, still entangled with Remus’ limbs, pouted harshly but quickly relaxed, “Alright, fair enough.”

“Well, Patton?” Logan absent-mindedly adjusted his glasses as he locked eyes with the other.

Patton stood up to full height and rocked back and forth on his feet, his own glasses slipping down his nose a little, “I’m not really sure of everything, but I did see Remus sneaking into the sewing room again and then I heard a crash before I could say anything or even try to stop him. Then he ran out and Roman followed. They kinda circled around the couch a few times, I tried to stop them! Honest, I did! But, Remus kinda got caught on the edge of the mat and tripped and fell down, and Roman couldn’t stop in time so he fell on top and then they started fighting and rolling around!” Patton clapped his hands together and put on his most innocent face, “I tried to separate them, Logan! But you know… they’re stronger than me…” His gaze fell to the side, as if he were ashamed of his ability.

“Patton, it’s alright. I didn’t expect you to stop it, but your attempt is very much appreciated. Thank you for telling me everything.” Logan couldn’t help the twitch his lips gave when his compliment made Patton’s sunny grin return full force. He quickly turned his attention to the two still on the floor, eyes narrowing, “You two. Up.”

The twins fought to scramble to their feet quicker than the other. Remus may have pushed Roman back onto the floor and Roman may have used Remus as a hand hold and squashed him down, but who could really say.

“If the floor is damaged yet again, you are the ones who are repairing it. It’ll be a fine use for your skills, I’m sure.” Logan offered a falsely pleasant smile as the two gaped at him.

A loud bark of laughter had everyone’s attention turning across the room over to the kitchen. “That’s the best awful idea you’ve had, L. Good thing I’ve got work for a while. Wish I could see the shit show from a safe distance though. Dee, take notes for me?” The glass holder nodded before taking another drink, “Sweet.”

Logan pulled the glasses from his face and cleaned them, “Virgil, have you received the file from the designer yet? I was told there were some issues in getting it to you.”

Virgil hopped down off the counter, holding his phone out towards Logan as he exited into the main body of the room, “Got it today, thank god. Or else I may have actually had a heart attack or something.”

“You say that as though it’s possible.” Dee pointed out smoothly, only watching Virgil out of the corner of his eye.

The standing man seemed to retreat into himself at the comment, “It’s just an expression, geez.” Virgil shoved his hands into the pockets of his hoodie, eyes cast downward in embarrassment, “Can’t say anything around here anymore… I’ll be in my room. Call me when it’s time to go.” With that, Virgil stalked off.

Just after the door shut behind him, Patton turned sharply to Dee and purposely crossed the room to stand in front of the still-indifferent man, “Dorian! You know not to provoke Virgil like that. That was mean and we’ve already had the talk about being mean! When you see him next, you will apologise, right?”

Dorian shrugged, but after he caught sight of Patton’s harsh father-like glare, he gently smiled and nodded his head in a bow, “Of course I will. I promise.”

Patton narrowed his eyes suspiciously but seemed content enough to leave Dorian alone for now. He took a seat on the couch and stared at the dent in the floor.

Both Roman and Remus had vacated the room and headed into their own workspace once Virgil had begun to leave. It gave the remaining three a good look at the large dent in the floor. “Boy, it’s a good thing we own this place, huh? Imagine if we didn’t! Like what if we were on a floor above someone else! We’d be found for sure…” Patton blew out a breath, puffing his cheeks in the process, and cradling his chin in his hands. It bounced along with the alternating bouncing of his legs as his elbows rested atop his knees. Logan crossed to join him, seating himself alongside Patton.

“How is the script coming along? I saw you were up for a really long time.” Patton attempted to ask casually, trying his best to not to sound concerned.

“Patton. You are aware that none of us require sleep.” Patton went in for a rebuttal, but Logan continued, “To answer your question, the prompt copy is completed as much as it can be at this moment in time. Noting down every aspect of blocking takes a long time, but it is extremely satisfying to see the finished product.”

“As long as you’re happy with it, Lo. You are the one who needs it after all!” Patton giggled and grinned widely. “I hope to not have to give you too many things to add, but I’m not the designer so I can’t really promise anything! Though, from what I read, I can’t imagine there being that many cues, not like that one time where there were over 800. That was so crazy! I feel bad that you had to call all of those!”

Logan snorted lightly as he smiled, “You still surprise me, Patton. Your empathy and concern seems to have no limit, which is admirable…”

Dorian downed the final part of his drink and placed the glass back onto the table almost soundlessly. “I would just love to stay here and watch the two of you. Unfortunately, I have to prepare myself for the day’s work ahead. I shall see you later.” He headed into his own room, leaving the two spectacled men alone.

“I almost can’t believe it’s been so long… I mean, 689 years is a really long time! I wonder how they feel…” Patton’s eyes drifted towards the twins’ doors.

“I am confident in saying that they are more than accustomed to their lives now. There is nothing to be worried about.”

“But… why do they fight? Even after what happened?”

“Uh, well… likely because they are siblings. It is a common thing, to fight.”

Patton hummed, “I guess… Still, I would think that Remus would be more careful with him… I mean, he did save him and all…”

Logan had no response to Patton’s musings. The twins had been turned years ago in a horrific incident. They had been living normal, unassuming lives when the tragedy struck.

Two creatures of the night infiltrated their home and found Roman sleeping soundly. They seized the opportunity and attacked but hadn’t accounted for there being another presence in the home. Remus had heard a bone-chilling screech of pain and fear followed by more screams of agony, so he rushed from his room to the source of the noise. Upon throwing the door open and calling for his brother, Remus was also attacked by one of the figures in an instant. Somehow, he managed to fend it off and it fled the scene once the mortal had swung a broken leg of a stool that was propped up nearby at it. Roman’s cries were no more, and Remus was having a hard time keeping his balance as he felt far too woozy to do much more than stumble over to the creature still looming over his brother.

Unbeknownst to Remus, the creature he’d scared off had been cut in the initial attack with the leg and a few droplets of blood had fallen between the man’s lips. It was quickly passing through his system, though he had no reason to be suspicious of a few small droplets of blood. It remained dormant until he was within reach of the second creature.

Remus doubled over in pain, feeling something changing about himself. He didn’t know what, but he did notice that his jaw was in pure agony for what felt like forever before dulling to a gentle throb. New instincts kicked in and Remus was reenergised. He knew immediately what he had become. Before taking a second longer to think, he threw himself at the other creature, tackling it to the ground with surprising strength. It quickly fled after its companion and Remus scrambled to his feet.

“Roman! Roman! Hey, say something!” Remus shook his brother roughly, trying in vain to get any kind of response out of him, but it was useless. Roman was fading fast, getting close to succumbing to death. His new instincts told Remus what to do. He used his sharp fangs to slice a cut on his finger and drip some of his blood into Roman’s open mouth.

Seconds felt like minutes as Remus waited to see if he had managed to act in time. He was about to try a second time when Roman coughed violently and curled up in pain, grasping as his mouth. A tear of relief slid down Remus’ cheek before he dived on top of Roman, cuddling him tightly as he wept. The brothers hadn’t moved for the rest of the night, both figuring out what they were going to do.

They were both years ahead of them all. At least they’d never been alone. A sad reality that faces most vampires.

“Logan? You still with me?”

“Huh?” Logan snapped back to the present, seeing Patton’s concerned face mere inches from his own. If he’d been able, he likely would have flushed at the closeness. Instead, Logan cleared his throat awkwardly, “Oh, yes. I apologise. It seems I got a little caught up in my thoughts, Patton.”

“No problem, Lo! Just wanted to make sure I hadn’t lost you is all.” Patton smiled warmly, settling back on the couch, turning his attention to the TV that sat directly opposite.

Time crawled on by, with the normal daily sounds filtering under the doors of the bedrooms all around them and the sounds of people beginning their days outside the window, mixed with the varying audio from the television. Eventually, Patton stretched out his limbs in front of him and made a loud noise to accompany it. He then stood, “It’s almost time to get going! I’m gonna grab my things. Want me to get yours too? Saves you getting up! I bet you have all your stuff in a bag already and all organised too!”

Logan graciously thanked Patton for the offer and took him up on it. He sat and continued to simply exist in the living area. It was quite strange to think that he and Patton had met so many years ago, and that the twins had entered his life before even that. ‘I suppose time has little meaning to an immortal being...’ Logan mused.

The door shutting and a small surprised yelp pulled Logan from his thoughts. Patton had gone over on his ankle by stepping in just the wrong place in the newly formed crater in the floor. Time slowed as Logan stood and sprinted over to Patton, catching him before he hit the floor.

“Are you alright?”

Patton seemed to falter for a second before grinning and hoping out of Logan’s arms, “Yup, all good! I’m gonna need to get used to that, haha!”

Logan narrowed his eyes, “That will not be necessary.” He stalked over to the two doors located directly next to each other and banged on them both loudly. Patton, behind him, was fretting and telling Logan it was fine, there was no need to interrupt them. But it was too late for that.

“What do you want?”

“Yeeeeees?”

Both doors opened almost simultaneously. Roman’s face held an annoyed pout, while Remus was grinning in an unhinged manner. However, both their expression faltered as they caught sight of the death glare Logan was giving both of them. “You will repair the floor today. You should have already dropped off your things, so you shouldn’t need to come along with us. If your presence is necessary, I shall call you. Do I make myself clear?” Both of them nodded sharply before slamming their respective doors upon Logan’s gesture.

“Right. Shall we fetch Virgil and Dorian? I believe it is time for us to head out.” Logan asked, completely softening as he looked back to Patton.

“Uh… y-yeah!” Patton agreed after a moment of hesitation. No one would dare argue with angry Logan. It had been a painful lesson for each of them to endure. Patton scurried off to Virgil’s room, knocking specifically before entering in order to let the man inside know it was him. Logan approached Dorian’s room and knocked significantly lighter before calling out to him.

Their odd quartet made their way through the streets, all huddling under their parasols. They used to get a fair few stares from the locals, but everyone had become accustomed to them by this point. Seeing the bright colours of Patton’s attire contrasted by the dark colours of Virgil’s, the oddly formal outfit of Logan’s alongside the more casual outfits of his companions, and all of this didn’t hold a candle to Dorian. He wore a veil over half of his face, completely shielding it from view. They always seemed to be in a rush as well, especially on extremely sunny days like today. But it was normal for them, so they managed to reach their destination without incident.

After dropping their belongings into their respective positions, three of them took up seats in the crew room and waited for the rest of their colleagues to show up. Logan was absent as he was doing last minute checks over at the prompt corner, preparing it to his liking. He did make an appearance before all the cast and crew once they had arrived in order to introduce himself and reaffirm the point of the technical rehearsal.

It went well. As well as the first day of technical rehearsal can go for such a large show. Logan had to call over comms multiple times to tell the director that the technical departments were not ready to continue on just yet as Patton was working to programme lighting for the entire show, and it was not as simple as programming a few washes to change. Virgil had several issues with QLab messing up and not playing the sound files correctly, meaning that it took an extended break to sort out the issue each time it occurred. The one who was least stressed was Dorian as he sat up on the fly floor each time there was a long break, which was basically after every scene change. Comms were particularly busy, and tensions were already rising in the theatre. Thankfully, they had the evening to go and cool off in order to come back the next day refreshed.

“Thank you Virgil.” Logan said, as Virgil signed off comms for the day. “DSM off cans.” He finished, just to be thorough, even though he’d already heard everyone else sign off. He hung the headset up on the prompt desk and ran his hands down his face, sighing heavily. His technical notes were a complete mess and it was already stressing him out, but nothing was truly set in stone yet so Logan couldn’t do much but wait. He groaned to himself before resting his forehead on the desk.

“Not doing so well?” Dorian’s voice called from behind, causing Logan to sit up sharply.

“Just a little stressed is all.” Logan said plainly.

“I can’t understand why at all. That director was just a ray of sunshine the whole time, never losing his temper once…” Dorian drawled sarcastically, crossing his arms.

Logan shh’d him, “Be careful what you say in here. He could hear you.”

“Not that he’d even know who I was, but I understand.” Dorian held his hands up in defeat, “I’ll attempt to be more careful from now on.”

“Thank you. Shall we head back home? I believe we could all do with a break from being here.” Logan suggested.

“I thought you’d never ask.”

The way home was far easier. The sun had already set and so they slowly meandered back to their joint home, venting their frustrations about the production on the way. Virgil was extremely outspoken, even going so far as to illustrate some of his threats with gestures that made Patton gasp in horror each time. It was a far cry from his quiet attitude during the work day, but no one minded.

As they walked, Logan watched Dorian out of the corner of his eye for a while. The veil was on the opposite side of him, meaning that Logan could at least see some of the man’s face. He’d only joined them recently – well, if you could count 125 years ‘recent’ – and there was still a level of trust they were yet to reach with him. They did know the reason he covered his face, however. His turning had not been easy. It had been a vicious attack by particularly ferocious vampire, who’d torn away at his face and neck for some unknown reason. Thankfully, Logan had been passing through the area nearby and came across the mauling. He fought off the attacker and helped Dorian, offering to ensure that he turned in order to save his life. Only Logan and Patton had seen the injury left from the attack and Patton had almost thrown up once he saw it. He apologised immediately, saying he didn’t expect it to be such a fresh wound and be so bad. Patton began crying and had hugged the man, but since that day, Dorian had kept the scarring hidden from all around him.

“Oh no you’re not! You’re sitting here and we’re having family time!” Patton’s stern voice alerted Logan to the fact they had already reached their home. He watched with vague amusement as Patton wrestled with Virgil in order to get him to sit in his chair before running over to fetch Roman and Remus. Dorian casually took a seat and gestured for Logan to join them.

Virgil groaned, “Why do we have to do family night? I just wanna go sleep and forget this day happened…”

“Virgil, c’mon!” Patton pleaded, puppy dog eyes in full effect, “Family night is important, and we can’t have family night without the full fam, now can we?”

“I dunno. Seems like you could, especially since I barely count anyway.”

Patton and Virgil continued to go back and forth whilst the twins took spaces on the couches.

“What are we doing for the family night?” Roman asked, brushing small pieces of thread onto the floor. In his hands, he held an in-progress sewing project. It was a small extra piece of costume that Logan had to inform Roman about as the director had demanded it be added – after yelling for five entire minutes about how it was crucial to the character or whatever.

“How about something exciting!?” Remus twisted up onto his knees from his cross-legged position on the floor, “Like strip poker, or truth or dare, or Russian roulette! I have a gun in the prop room, I can go get it ri-”

Patton squeaked, “No, no, no! Absolutely none of those! We’re playing a nice easy board game tonight!”

“Can’t wait to hate you all again.”

“Dorian! What did I say about being nice?”

“I don’t quite recall.”

Family nights had always been chaotic when only four of them had attended, but now that both Dorian and Virgil were opening up to them all a lot more, it was getting far worse… but not particularly bad. It was a chaos that encompassed them all and it made them feel, well, like a family. An odd, pieced together, hodgepodge of a family, but a family, nonetheless. Logan had given up hope a while ago about Virgil ever getting comfortable enough with them all to sit down like this. Let alone allow Patton to drag him in and convince him to actually stick around.

The two had gotten off to a rocky start, and that was still an understatement.

Patton had been strolling through the woods nearby, stretching his legs and just enjoying some alone time after a hectic day of helping out the twins with their projects for an upcoming client. It was supposed to be peaceful and calming, but Patton got the shock of his life when he found a body hanging from a tree. As quick as he could, Patton got the young man down and checked for signs of life. There was a faint pulse, but not much else. As he was fretting about what to do, a flash of white caught his eye. A folded note was nailed to the tree the man had previously been in. It took only a sentence or two for Patton to realise it was a suicide note and that this had been self-inflicted, which only served to make Patton even more distraught. Here, before him, was a young man, with his entire life ahead of him, and he’d chosen to attempt to get rid of that life. Tears welled up and Patton acted rashly. A drop of blood later and Virgil began to turn.

Once he regained consciousness, he was a little confused. Patton explained what he’d done and started to tell him why, but Virgil lost his temper. He screamed and shouted, cursed and cried. He called Patton every name synonymous with stupid as well as more than a few unsavoury terms. Tears fell like rivers down his cheeks as he screamed his throat raw. Virgil then ran off into the forest. Patton couldn’t move for minutes afterwards. He was in a state of shock. No one had ever said anything like that to him. No one had said such harsh things. Least of all a stranger, someone Patton wanted to help. Silently, he cried. Patton walked back home and launched himself into Logan’s arms as soon as he could.

Weeks passed and not a soul had seen Virgil anywhere. After a short meeting, the four of them had decided to each take a night in rotation and search for him, but absolutely nothing had turned up. Until…

“I found hiiiiim!” Remus sing-songed, holding a squirming Virgil in his grip as he burst through the door one night.

From then on, Virgil had a room in their home. It took a long time, but he started to trust Logan, and then Roman, and then Remus. It took well over 100 years for Virgil to come to terms with what Patton had done and forgive him somewhat. But no one would ever have guessed that the pair had been at odds ever if they saw them now.

After a stressful day and a lot of reminiscing, Logan was thankful that his own turning was simple and boring. The same could be said for Patton’s, who had actually asked to be turned as he was dealing with some incurable illness at the time. But that was all in the past. Logan was here, in the crowded living room, with his five family members, playing some childish board game for entertainment. He wouldn’t have it any other way.

My other stuff: http://nekoabi.tumblr.com/myworks Mobile Accessible Masterlist: http://nekoabi.tumblr.com/post/181954641376/fic-masterlist

General Tag List: @not-so-innocent-bi-sander @didsomeonesayprince @llamaly @justanotherpurplebutterfly @iaminmultiplefandoms @ultimate-queen-of-fandoms2 @lowkeyvirgilobsessed @louisthewarlock @fangsandrainbows @xxladystarlightxx @sleepyssnail @ao-koshka @notalwaysthevillian @pumpkinminette @doces-e--tuga @coloursintheblur @safesandersides @hogwarts-my-love

#Sanders Sides #Fanfiction #Logan Sanders #Patton Sanders #Roman Sanders #Remus Sanders #Virgil Sanders #Deceit Sanders #Logic Sanders #Morality Sanders #Creativity Sanders #Anxiety Sanders #Vampires #Blood #Suicide #Injury #Scarring #I'm a techie #I can say this stuff

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tulipscomeinallsortsofcolors · 4 years

Text

Shed-Skin

Prologue: Waste Not, Want Not

Her plans haven’t been working out. She’s not entirely sure what happened, but She does know something went wrong. Good thing She’s got another one, and all it involves (for now) is waiting. She’s gotten good at that.

Warnings: Spooky Eldritch Shadow Nightmare Monster Mama being Eldritch (She’s doing Her best), referenced antagonist death, implied unsympathetic!Deceit?, vaguely implied gore, SESNMMama’s interpretation of main character death and grief, I’m trying to cover all my bases but honestly this isn’t that bad I think.

Words: 2658

Violet “Writing so good it gets a fandom wiki and fanfics based off it because not only is the world compelling, the characters believable, and the plot fantastic, they’re a fantastic, lovely, genuinely good person who manages to make everyone feel comforted by their mere presence” inspired me after 2 ½ years without writing. And because I’ve been reading LAOFT since… Brother came out I think? (gosh how has it been that long.) I decided to give in and do something for it. And as I started drafting, Putting Others First came out and gave us more of our Evil Just a Snek Boi and inspired me even more, and then I made up like 3 mental pages of true name lore for reasons that at the time of writing this isn’t /technically/ wrong, but two cakes! This cake just happens to consist purely of ultra-specific hyperfixation lore that I aggressively made to fit with my Plans. I could honestly rant about all my fun facts about this for days, but I’m trying to keep this coherent. (Tolkein I love you, but there is a time and a place for excessive worldbuilding) So if you love to hate The Serpent King, but also really like sympathetic Dee, well… So do I. And so, apparently, does my brain. I don’t know how long it will be, but the answer is going to be “too long”. I already have two chapters properly plotted out.

☙❀❧-☙✿❧-☙❀❧-☙✿❧-☙❀❧-☙✿❧-☙❀❧-☙✿❧-☙❀❧-☙✿❧

Something was Wrong. It was Spring, and it was far too dark. She liked the dark, and the cold, but everything had it’s time, and this was not the time. Her Virgil was awake, and Her town had changed, and Her Durant had a ghost. These were not Wrong. Her Virgil had only recently fallen asleep, being awake was his usual state. Her town was always changing, filled with mortals as it was, even with its ever-growing Presence. Her Durant having a ghost was new and unexpected, especially with the state it was in, but not Wrong. And if it was not Her Virgil, or Her town, or Her Durant, then it was Her. Her Forest was Wrong. And She did not remember Her Name. That was not Wrong, or even new or unexpected, but it was something She noticed, as She felt She had in the past. This was more disconcerting than it should have been though, so much that She nearly missed Her Younger Son dying. Key word being nearly.

That was not Wrong, but it was not Right either. It was the ghost’s fault, who was no longer Her Younger’s. Perhaps the ghost was more Wrong than She had thought. Catching Herself before She missed what was clearly Important, She focused, and there It was, the flickering remains of what She had given to make Her Durant. She pulled it back to Herself, returning the essence of Her Youngest to Its source before It could fade out of this world completely. A distant Part of Herself, the Part that still had a Name, felt like she should feel something… painful? Sadness was the closest match she had felt from Her Virgil, but that was Wrong. The thought that She should be feeling was Wrong too, so as with all that was Wrong She pushed it away, crushing it beneath Her Presence.

Turning Her attention to what She had gathered, She focused inward. It was easy to distinguish from the rest of Herself, with sharp edges and a coiling, scale-smooth surface, like the snake It had used to be part of. She started to Shape It, return It to Herself as It had been before She Made Her Youngest, but It would not stick. It molded Itself into Her shapes, broke and tore like Her Youngest’s body, and reformed together at a thought, as the rest of Her would, but It refused to return to Its original state, as part of Her. Unless… It was not? She had taken part of Herself, and Given it to Her Youngest, the closest she could come to Giving a Name, and She had done that as well. She had Named the parts She had Shaped into Her Youngest, and Her Virgil, and His Sisters. It made sense that They were no longer Her, as She had thought. This sharp, coiling, scaly shadow was not returning because It was already complete. It was what was left of Her Youngest, that She had Given to Him, and as a Gift It was not Hers to Take Back anymore. That… Complicated things.

She remembered Her Virgil telling Her that Her Youngest was Wrong, and She was dimly aware of talking, fretting, and explaining. Explaining what had happened. She was not sure She understood well, but She thought She understood well enough. Her Youngest had caused this Wrongness in her forest, this too dark Spring, or at least Her Virgil believed so. And Virgil was Her Regent. She could not return Her Youngest to the Courts while Virgil still lived, it would cause anger and sadness and more than likely end up in Her having to gather Her Youngest’s Essence again, it would not be worth it. She did not want to get rid of It, that would be a waste. Even waiting for Virgil to die would not be foolproof, though She had clearer knowledge of how Her Son was separated from Her, Virgil was still Like Her and could fade like She had. And even if Virgil did die, Her Youngest had not worked as he had been supposed to the last time. Her Youngest would need a guide, but there were none to be had at the moment, and She could not take that mantle on. So She resolved to put away the issue for the moment and turned Her focus to Her Son, and then to the Mortal, Witch, and Spring that seemed to have captivated Virgil. She examined them, curious as to why exactly they had caught Her Son’s eye. Apparently, however, Her interest caused them fear, so She decided to respect Virgil’s desire to have His Loves left alone. She had enough information now anyway.

One was a mortal. Blessed, but a mortal nonetheless. One was a witch, magical, but ultimately mortal as well. One was a Spring, a powerful one at that, but a green-man. Wild. Her Son was setting Himself up for sadness, yet they brought Him such joy. Every one of them was absolutely priceless to Him. This was Important. She pondered on this, though she kept it to the back of her mind. It seemed She needed to be more present, lest She cause Virgil undue concern. Then, so soon, She sensed joy coming off of Her Son like snowdrifts, and excitement. She did not remember Him ever being so happy, so She paid attention.

It was exhausting, forcing Herself to follow the days and nights alongside the Inhabitants of Her Forest, but soon enough it proved itself worth it as She watched Her Son and His Loves bind themselves together, swearing by Moon and Stars and Sun, and Dark and Light, and Rivers and Fire, and Air and Earth alongside everyone else They called Family. For the first time in centuries She Saw and Heard, instead of sensing, and tiring as it was She undeniably did not remember ever being so happy. She was There for Her Son’s Wedding! Time slipped by Her more than usual after that, but She was still Present, still Aware of when Virgil would speak to Her, and that was far more Important.

Then They began wanting a Child. She could not Feel the others, but Her Son felt Wrong, and as with all that was Wrong She wanted to push it away, to crush it beneath Her Presence, to make the Wrongness Right. Well, that was something She could help with. It had been some time since She had Made someone, but not nearly so long that She could not remember how. She was as gentle as She could be as She took what She needed from each of Them, gathering the pieces not all at once, but slowly. They wanted a Child, so she would make them a Proper Child. Bit by bit She balanced out what would make this new creation Different. On the First Day of Autumn, She was ready. The Child would have no Mothers, so a Name Given by a Grandmother would suffice.

I Name You Linda. You Are the Daughter of Winter, Mortal, Witch, and Spring. You Are a Lynx. You Are a Princess. You Are Autumn, Unseelie, and Fae. Wake.

There is less of a difference between Granddaughter Asleep and Awake than She expected, but the Witch-Hazel is blooming, and She must bring Her Son. It takes Pushing and Pulling, but Her Son goes, and brings Granddaughter to His Loves. She draws back. Everything has been going quickly, and She has not thought about what this, Her Son marrying His Loves, Her Making Granddaughter, means. So though She stays alert, Her focus shifts from Her Son and Granddaughter to Herself, and the issue of the sharp coil that remains safely tucked away. She thinks, and considers, and questions, and finally by the end of it all has a plan. All it involves for now is waiting. She has gotten good at that.

☙❀❧-☙✿❧

The Witch died. She has a new word for a feeling, a name for the unnameable pain: grief. He had sworn on his body of Fire and Earth, and had fulfilled those vows. She does not remember it well, but the first time He met Her, He had tried to hide His fear with boldness and brightness, and kept His Spark until He could keep it no more. It is curious, She thinks, how Important one mortal witch could be. She leaves Her Son and the Mortal and the Spring and Granddaughter to mourn. (It feels Wrong, not being able to truthfully think “His Loves”, but this Wrong cannot be made Right. She can only push it away.)

☙❀❧-☙✿❧

Granddaughter was crying. Time was harder to grasp, but the Witch’s death had been three seasons ago. She was unsure of how long grief kept its hold, but Her Son and His remaining two Loves seemed better. She did not want Granddaughter to cry. Without thinking, She reached out a shadow and prodded at Granddaughter’s mind. An incomprehensible flood of feelings and words poured out, like blood from a wound. She cannot understand, cannot translate what She could do to Right this Wrong, cannot speak, but She tries her best, and sends an old picture, one of Her Son and His Sisters and Linda curled up together in an old hammock. It just makes Granddaughter cry harder. She leaves.

☙❀❧-☙✿❧

The Mortal is dead. No one is shocked, but that doesn’t seem to make Their grief any less. By the Rivers and Earth of His body he had sworn, and she remembers the rivers He had cried on that day. He tried to stay steady and grounded to counteract the Air in his Blessing, to keep Himself rooted even when everything seemed to be crumbling. She cannot bring Herself to feel much of anything, even though every moment She is aware of means a moment from which she can measure the time she has left to wait. She still does not understand. The part of Her that could have, perhaps, felt and empathized with Their grief is gone. But this time She does not ask. She does not understand, but She has learned that some Wrongs cannot be made Right, or pushed aside, or crushed. She does not like it, but lately She has learned She does not like many things, including, to Her surprise, waiting.

☙❀❧-☙✿❧

Granddaughter is mourning again. This is fresh, a mortal that Granddaughter had cared for had died. This mortal had not been Family, so She was confused in a way She thought she could fix. She reached out a shadow, but this time She did not prod, only wrapped Granddaughter’s wrist; gently, She remembered. She had never properly spoken to Granddaughter before, so She tried to send words instead of images as She asked

Why do you grieve?

Granddaughter startled, and couldn’t seem to respond. Flashes passed through Her, memories and feelings that She could only barely understand, until they stopped abruptly and were replaced with something She could.

He was family.

She understood what it meant, but did not understand why Granddaughter said that. They shared no blood, and had not bound themselves together through vows or oaths. But She did understand that Granddaughter meant it, and just because She did not understand, that did not mean it could not be understood. She let Granddaughter be.

☙❀❧-☙✿❧

Time passes. She has moved beyond Ancient, and can barely bring Herself to consciousness most of the time, let alone remembering. She does still remember some things, a blooming Witch-Hazel, Her Son, four pairs of hands bound together with silver, and Granddaughter, but sharpest of all is the Essence She holds that is Of Her and is Her no longer. She cannot remember what It is for, besides that She must Make something, but must wait to do so. There will come a day where Her Plan will be complete, and until then She must wait a while longer. She is simply waiting, season by season, cycle by cycle, until all at once She feels pain. For a single moment She thinks grief, then dismisses the thought. This is not just grief as She has learned to recognize it, this is Wrong. She gathers Herself and focuses on Her Son and His… heartbreak that even now is quickly dulling into shock.

The Spring is gone, just as broken in body as Her Son in spirit. She switches focus to the pond where Granddaughter and Granddaughter’s Love and the Summer are, and cannot bother being gentle as She grabs Granddaughter’s attention.

Grandmother?

Come.

She registers confusion and hesitance and there was no time.

Come now.

Granddaughter followed Her lead to Her Son and the moment Granddaughter saw the scene, She could feel it. But that did not matter, because Her Son could not live on without His last Love, so rule of Her Forest would pass to Granddaughter, and She was almost done waiting, but Her Son was dying here and now and She had to pay Attention. She tightened around Granddaughter as She spoke.

Goodbye.

She knew Granddaughter understood, as Her Son was laid down. She wrapped Herself around Their hands and tried to give reassurance.

Mercy. Mercy.

I know.

She forced herself to be Present as she had not been in centuries, Her Son deserved proper Words, and Granddaughter needed the comfort.

My Son. My Son, Give Me Your Name.

He was apologizing, and the Summer was soothing Him in a way She was unable to do. Though She could not soothe, this, finally, was a Wrong She could make Right.

Dear Child. Your Name.

I am Virgil. Spider Prince of the Winter Court, Lord of the Forest, Bruderspinne, Husband of Mortal, Witch, and Spring, Father of Autumn.

A moment, a last goodbye, and then-

Virgil. Spider Prince of the Winter Court, Lord of the Forest, Bruderspinne, Husband of Mortal, Witch, and Spring, Father of Autumn.

Go Home.

It is painless, and that may be the worst part. A string has been cut, severing Her Son, severing Virgil’s connection to life and to Her and to Her Forest and the heartbreak She had felt was gone but so was Her Son! She retreats, and thinks that perhaps She finally understands grief.

☙❀❧-☙✿❧

As Her Forest changes, so does She. The Courts are in safe hands and as they are moving on, so is She as She begins to bring to fruition centuries worth of waiting. She knows that this will Right a Wrong, though She cannot remember what or why or how it was Wrong, She knows what and why and how She must do this. She takes the sharp, scale-smooth shadow and begins to work. Some pieces are taken out, and She does Her best to take this essence that She had Shaped before and return It to what She had first Made. It is memories that She most concerns Herself with, and it is difficult, delicate work based mostly off of half-present instincts. She takes immense care, both with cutting the memories and with the parts of Herself that She shapes and shaves off to Give. She tries to Give what She thinks She remembers Her First Creation had, things to soften Its sharp coils. It is nearly done when She lets It shift and slither to the Witch-Hazel. She Makes It a body, a little younger this time than before, and binds essence and form together. There is a child in the Witch-Hazel, who She does not think She should call Her Son, and who is the solution to a very old problem. It takes more effort than She’d like, but She coalesces to speak, to Give Him a Name from a Mother.

I Name You Durant. You Are a Snake. You Are a Prince. You Are Winter, Unseelie, and Fae. You will be Protected. Wake.

The Child wakes. For the first time in centuries, the Witch-Hazel is in bloom.

---

V: this is absolutely STUNNING and i love it so much! oh when i say i CRIED alskjak im so SOFT

#laoft fic #not mine #shed skin #submission

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starlene · 4 years

Text

The night before Henry Jekyll's wedding to Emma Carew, John Utterson has to make a very difficult decision.

Wedding preparations

For as long as he could remember, John Utterson had dreaded Henry Jekyll’s wedding day.

It was late and John’s thoughts circled around the ceremony tomorrow. His shoes were polished, his suit brushed, his tie ironed, his hands shaking. Only one thing left to prepare anymore.

Or two, keeping in mind that he was supposed to be giving a speech at the dinner tomorrow. He hadn’t put any thought into that. If, by some miracle, the wedding day proceeded without incident all the way to that point, he could certainly improvise something about the bride looking radiant and the groom unbearably dashing and commendably non-murderous, so please have a nice rest of your life together, have my blessing to make plenty of babies and see you in hell.

At the moment, John was more concerned about the details of his outfit.

It was a ridiculous thing, really. John’s uncle had given it to him on his 21st birthday. Just the sort of gift you’d expect from Uncle Abraham, honestly, ceremoniously handed to him with a solemn speech about the importance of a young man arming himself against the forces of evil. As far as John was concerned, it was better to avoid places where you’d expect to encounter forces of evil altogether, so for years, the sword cane had stayed hidden in the back of his wardrobe.

This time though, he couldn’t really avoid facing the evil. And before morning came, he would have to make his choice: should he take the weapon with him to Henry’s wedding?

It was a true wonder John hadn’t gotten himself discharged from his work yet. Ever since his first meeting with Edward Hyde a few weeks ago, he had spent his nights worrying, unable to sleep, and his days resting his head on top of the ever-growing piles of poorly drafted wills and contracts that were taking over his desk.

Worrying – or, lately more often than not, wide awake with Edward Hyde in his bed.

It was nothing to be proud of, but after having opened his door to Hyde once, John had ended up welcoming him into the house nearly every night. It was not Henry, but it was the closest he was ever going to get, and since Hyde always initiated it… John didn’t have it in him to say no.

That didn’t mean John didn’t always feel terribly guilty afterwards. What was he doing, taking such risks and doing such things with the devil that was tormenting Henry? And, supposing Henry was in there somewhere, aware of what Hyde was doing, feeling everything – well, how could John ever justify his own actions to him? John was certain Henry wouldn’t agree to him using his body like this. In all likelihood, their meetings were just one of Hyde’s many ways of making life more miserable for Henry.

Still, John wanted it so much he always let Hyde in. Let him in and thought about Henry.

Upon their first meeting, John had been certain – had desperately wanted to be certain – that Hyde was a completely separate creature from Henry, a surplus soul possessing his body. Every time they had met each other since, it had become harder to hold onto that belief. John was disturbed by Hyde’s sense of humour. It was disturbing that the demon had a sense of humour to begin with, and it felt even worse to realise how familiar Hyde’s tone actually was. John could hear Henry in Hyde’s snarky, often scornful words. The only difference was that Henry never aimed his truly biting remarks at John, trying his best to make his friend laugh by describing others instead, while Hyde’s derision was usually directed towards him.

Besides the ways they moved and the ways their voices sounded like, there were two big differences between the two that John could notice, as far as he could notice anything while receiving Hyde’s full attention. Henry had shame where Hyde had none, and while Henry had always been temperamental and tactless, Hyde was downright cruel, both in his words and in his actions. Hyde couldn’t take no for an answer – not that John was in the habit of refusing him, but everyone has his limits – and while John was stronger and sturdier he was, the punches hurt all the same.

Despite everything, it terrified John to see how skinny Henry’s body had gotten, so he didn’t strike back.

On the nights that Hyde did not knock on his door, John had plenty of time to think about him.

Most nights, John thought about an article he had read in the newspaper, complete with a gruesome illustration, about a girl being murdered at a brothel and the murderer getting away unnoticed. A girl that looked, as far as you could tell based on the messy illustration of her mutilated body, all too familiar, in a brothel that John could well recognise.

How could it be possible that Henry had created something that was capable of such senseless, ultimate cruelty?

And could it be possible that Hyde would do it again?

John had a certain respect for Emma Carew. Sure, when Henry had first told him about her, he had wanted to tear her head right off for taking away the last sliver of a chance that John could keep Henry to himself. But, upon meeting her, it had turned out he had a very hard time actually hating Emma. She was too clever for that, too quick-witted and down-to-earth. John had a feeling that, had Emma been born a man, she would have made a better lawyer than he could ever become.

Had Emma been born a man, there would also have been no wedding to worry about.

And had Emma been born a man, maybe she would have been able to take Hyde’s blows like John did. As she was, with her short stature, John was not so certain.

The pre-wedding dinner that evening had been the most excruciating affair John had ever taken part in.

It was the first time he had seen Henry in weeks. Of course, he had seen his body – the thought of how familiar, in fact, he had become with Henry’s body made John’s face burn – but this was the first time in weeks he could see Henry in there. Could be sure that the body’s original occupant was in charge of it.

If John still had some doubt as to whether Henry was aware of Hyde’s doings, the way Henry turned red at the sight of him cleared that from his mind. Clearly he could remember.

Most of the evening was spent in agonising silence. Emma’s bridesmaids, Elsie and Clara, tried their hardest to tease the groom-to-be and to talk with Emma, but their efforts were met with stone-cold silence. Sir Danvers mumbled a couple of awkward sentences about young people and pre-wedding nerves and spent the rest of the dinner quietly fiddling with the stem of his wine glass. John, Henry and Emma spent their time by, in turns, trying to catch and trying to avoid each others’ eyes.

While the dessert was being served, Henry excused himself with some unintelligible words and rushed out of the house. No one knew what to say to that, so the rest of them continued spooning away at their puddings without a word.

As John was about to leave, Emma caught up with him in the empty hallway.

“John. You have to tell me what’s wrong with Henry.”

“I don’t know.”

“Don’t lie to me. You have no idea how this feels like. First I don’t see Henry in weeks, then he comes here tonight, looking completely unwell. He doesn’t speak to me, and for half the dinner, you two keep exchanging weird looks, and then he simply runs away. Clearly you know something that I don’t.”

“I said I don’t know.”

“I said don’t lie to me!”

“Miss Carew… Emma… if you’re so worried about him, have you considered…”

“Now you’re going to suggest I should call off the wedding, right? You would think it’s that simple, wouldn’t you! For Christ’s sake. After what happened with Simon… I can’t. It would ruin father, it would ruin me! You understand there is no way I’d be getting a third chance at marriage after that, do you?”

A silence.

“It’s not fair! I’m supposed to be marrying him tomorrow, I’m supposed to be moving into his house to live with him for the rest of my life, but it’s like he doesn’t trust me at all. It’s clear he’s telling you something he’s not telling me.”

“He doesn’t tell me anything anymore either.”

“John, please be honest with me. Don’t tell me what’s wrong with him if that’s such a bloody huge secret, but please, tell me this. Do you think he is ever going to get better?”

A silence, again.

“I don’t know, Emma. I really don’t know.”

The clock struck three in the hallway. For a short little moment after the unfortunate dinner party, John recalled, he had considered telling Emma the truth.

Had he loved Henry any less, he would have told her.

What was there to do? If Sir Danvers knew his precious daughter was marrying a murderer, he would use all his influence to get Henry before a judge and a jury before the day was out. John knew that to speak of what he knew would be to condemn Henry to a certain death, no matter if Hyde ever came back or not.

But not to speak… Henry had clearly been smitten with the girl Hyde had murdered. Henry had been best friends with John since they were twelve years old, yet Hyde had threatened him with a handgun, had hit and disparaged him… What if it wasn’t Henry who stood by the altar tomorrow but Hyde, and what if Emma looked at him the wrong way? Or what if Sir Danvers got in his way, or someone else? What if Hyde didn’t arrive unarmed?

Could John stand there and watch and not do anything?

For as long as he could remember, John Utterson had dreaded Henry Jekyll’s wedding day.

Placing the sword cane by the clothes he would put on when morning came, he wished, for the millionth time, that the day he would have to attend his best friend’s wedding would never come.

#Jekyll & Hyde #Jekyll and Hyde #Henry Jekyll #Gabriel John Utterson #Emma Carew #abuse cw #violence cw #and to finish off this smörgåsbord of charming #dubious consent cw #(not that either Hyde or Jekyll have any problems with it – but Utterson here doesn't know that)#trying to tackle the difficult question: what goes through one's mind when he decides to take a deadly weapon to his best friend's wedding #otp: nuoruuden hairahdus #my stories.

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kd-holloman · 3 years

Text

The Traveler’s Gift Deleted Scene

I haven’t posted any deleted content lately, so here’s a deleted chapter from D3 of TTG. This chapter--or something really similar--managed to make its way through three drafts before I decided to get rid of it. For some reason (one I can’t think of now that Draft 4 is done) I was reluctant to get rid of it. I’m glad I did, because the story just flows so much better without it.

Warnings: Drug use, mentions of nsfw content, implied molestation, violence, language, and murder.

Louis didn’t know what he was doing crammed in the back seat of the SUV, but he wasn’t sure he liked it.

Johnny was lounging in the front seat next to Mark, while Damien sat on Louis’s left. On his right, Slater unapologetically did his best to take up as much of the backseat as possible.

Louis was still hurt over what had happened to Rodney and he wasn’t about to forgive the brute in the passenger seat for the role he’d played in his murder. That was what he deserved for getting so attached. There was a reason that many of those who worked for the mob kept their home and work lives separate. If they didn’t, things got messy.

Louis had distanced himself from his family to the best of his abilities without raising suspicion. His intimate relationships had a history of being nothing more than one-night stands or brief flings with no emotional attachments. He hadn’t kept up with his childhood friends after returning from the war. They’d had their own lives, families, and jobs to worry about. Once he’d been hired by Marcello, the only person he’d kept up with had been Javier, but only because they’d been partners.

Look where that got you, he reminded himself bitterly. Javier is dead too.

“Oh, don’t be like that, blondie,” Johnny grumbled, his crooked nose pressed against the tinted glass to watch the city streets slide by. “It was just business.” The smirk was audible in his voice.

Louis scowled and slouched against the supple leather of the seat, a quiet spark of fury igniting within him. He was in the car with two other gifted individuals reputations just as red as the blood on their hands. It would be wise to keep his trap shut. With that in mind, he swallowed his heated retort and settled for glaring past Damien, through the window, instead. “Where are we going?”

“Rick has given us an errand to run,” Mark explained.

Slater spoke up for the first time since they’d left the apartment. “If I wanted to waste my time I’d spend it watching videos of dogs that can walk on their back legs. This is stupid.”

“It’s not a waste of time. We’re just reminding Marco who he’s dealing with. If you run a drug ring from one of O’Shea’s buildings, you pay the rent.”

“They’re street trash. I don’t associate with street trash.”

“You’re not associating with them. You’re associating with us.”

“Why did you drag me along again? Johnny is here and he likes to crack skulls together. I’m sure he’s more than capable of getting the job done.”

Mark tightened his grip on the steering wheel so much his knuckles cracked. “Yes, but he doesn’t have your reputation. Your face in a room is enough to make a grown man shit his pants. Don’t argue with me or I’ll put Rick on the phone.”

“Please do. I can’t wait to tell him to go fuck himself.”

“No! I’m not going to call him so you can piss him off. You’ll get all of us in trouble.” He pulled up to the curb in a shady, industrial, part of town. “Go in there, scare the shit out of a couple of drug rats, and we can all go home.”

“He does have a point,” Damien piped up. “If we have Slater, why do we need him and Johnny?”

“I don’t know! I don’t make the fucking rules.” Mark twisted around so he could look at Slater. “You have to be on your best behavior tonight, O’Brien.”

Slater wore a liar’s smile. “I’ll be on my best fucking behavior.”

“I’m too old to deal with this shit,” Mark grumbled before opening the door. “Dee, stay with the car. I don’t trust these bastards not to take a baseball bat to it.”

Damien obediently leaned against the bumper to wait.

There was nothing particularly special about the grimy building. It was a handful of blocks away from the main stretch of road, nestled in the shadows, and out of reach from any street lights. A few cars sat out front, dented, rusting, and paint fading. Their bumpers sat low to the ground, their windows too dark to see inside.

Louis unsnapped his holster, ready to draw his gun if necessary. It didn’t seem like it was going to come down to a shootout. Nobody else seemed concerned, even if the quiet stillness of the night seemed to whisper danger.

Mark rapped on the door in a patterned series of knocks before it swung open.

A haze of smoke hung in the air, curling in lazy wisps overhead. The smell of marijuana was so pungent that Louis felt like he was going to get gowed-up just from breathing.

A man was sitting on a lopsided couch, a woman in his lap was being none-too discrete with her hand down his pants. He jolted upright fast enough to send her to the floor. He pulled the reefer from between his lips. “Who the hell are you?”

Another man had been weighing white powder on a scale sitting among a trash-littered coffee table. At the sound of the other man’s voice, he stopped what he was doing and picked a gun off of the table next to him.

“None of that shit,” Johnny said. He waved his hand and the gun went skidding across the room.

Mark gave an approving nod. He held up his hands to show that he wasn’t about to pull any weapons. “I’m not here to fuck up your shit. Are you Marco? Rick O’Shea sent me. He says your rent is due.”

The man on the couch nodded. He had a tattoo on his face, an X, the blank ink was faded and looked slightly green against his skin. He slid a suspicious look from Mark to the rest of them. “Why did you come with such a big crew if you aren’t here to start trouble?”

“You can never be too careful. I didn’t know if you were going to have twenty guys waiting to punch me full of holes.”

Marco nodded, seeming to decide that it was a fair precaution to take. “Get your ass up and get the hell out of here,” he snapped at the girl sitting at his feet with red eyes and black streaks of makeup down her face. “Don’t you have somewhere better to be. Go on, now.” He gave her a nudge with the toe of his boot.

She was slow to get to her feet and slightly unsteady once she got there.

“If you see Drew or Kevin when you get out there, tell them to mind their own business outside until I tell them to come in. Got it?”

She looked like she hadn’t even registered a word he’d said. She was too high to pay attention.

“Bitch, did you hear me?”

She jerked, the sudden boom of his voice startling her. “Uh, yeah … yeah. I’ll tell ‘em.” She shuffled to the door. It slammed shut behind her.

“Jesus,” Mark said, “she’s fucked up. What is she on?”

The man sat back down on the couch and twitched his fingers toward his friend. Once he had fat stacks of cash he began to count it out. “Just herb, y’ know what I’m saying? Good dealers don’t use their own product.” He licked his finger and continued to count cash. “Your boss is asking for his cut a little early, isn’t he?”

“No,” Mark said. “He’s doing you a favor. He gave you an extension, remember? It’s time for you to pay up. I’m sure you discussed the terms and conditions of the late fee.”

“I know my business,” Marco replied coolly. “I thought I had another week before I paid up.”

“Take that up with him. What’s in the back room?”

“That’s where I keep my supplies.”

Mark looked from the doorway in the back corner of the room to Louis. “Mahoney, take a look back there and make sure we aren’t going to have any surprises.”

Louis touched the brim of his cap in acknowledgement. He looked at the dark room, imagined himself standing next to it, and willed himself there.

Once his shoulder was pressed up against the wall next to the door, ignoring the burning in his bones, he raised his gun and peered inside.

There was nothing but a couple of locked gun safes against the back wall. There was another couch, even more stained and lopsided than the first, to his left. Trash littered the floor, the room smelled like mildew and marijuana. He checked each corner of the room before he gave Mark a thumbs up.

“Oh,” Marco laughed, amused, “you got yourself a bunch of freaks here. I almost forgot that O’Shea had a bunch of them on a leash.” He didn’t look up from counting the money when he asked, “What about you, red? Any tricks up those leather sleeves of yours?”

Slater fixed the drug dealer with a ferocious sneer. “It will be a bad day for you, if you ever find out.”

In the stillness of the night, a series of shrieks came from outside. It sounded like the woman from earlier hadn’t gotten very far and she was having an episode.

“Don’t mind her,” Marco dismissed with a wave of his hand. He gestured for his friend to hand him more money. “She’s always carrying on about something. Back to you, Red, are you going to show off your moves for me?”

“It’s a disappearing act,” Slater replied.

“Really?”

“Yeah and if you watch closely, you can see just how I do it.” With that, he turned tail and walked through the front door.

Mark did his best to appear unconcerned, but Louis saw his jaw twitch from where he stood. No doubt, Slater was going to get an earful once they got back in the car.

Marco finished counting out the cash. “There’s that and here’s the extra chunk I owe him for his generosity.”

Johnny dropped a backpack on the coffee table in front of him.

“Don’t forget that you’re just a phone call away from losing everything, Marco,” Mark reminded the dealer. He accepted the loaded backpack from Johnny. “Keep the boss happy and we won’t ever have to have this conversation again, understood?”

The sharp glimmer in the other man’s eyes showed just how sour the threat sounded. “Of course, of course. I wouldn’t want him to send The Reaper after me. That’s his name, isn’t it? Or is that some sort sick joke your boss made up?”

“I don’t know,” Mark replied with a shrug. “The Reaper just stepped outside. Why don’t you ask him yourself. Mahoney, go get him.”

Louis nodded and disappeared from the stuffy drug den and emerged in the sticky night air. He found Damien leaning against the SUV’s bumper. “Is Slater in the car?”

He shook his head and pointed to the backside of the building. “He went that way, where that girl was screaming. Christ, you don’t think he killed her, do you?”

That was a grim thought, but part of Louis was skeptical. “I don’t think so.” He jogged to the rear of the building, where Damien had indicated that Slater had gone. He only slowed when he heard the staccato smack of a closed fist hitting flesh.

Louis’s heart beat faster as he rounded the corner.

Slater’s red hair was unmistakable, even if the rest of him was hardly visible in the barely-there light.

The woman sitting on the ground, slumped against the tire of a car the color of cigar ash. Her shirt was crooked and her skirt had been hiked up past her hips, revealing too much of a bright pink undergarment. Her head bobbled every once in a while, the way it did when someone was nodding off and trying to stay awake. She was alive.

Louis turned his gaze from the woman and back to Slater. Why? He wondered. Why is he fighting with these strangers when he could kill them in their tracks? Why was he choosing to throw fists when he could end it in an instant? What’s the point?

Judging from the way the redhead stood with his hands in the pockets of his , he wasn’t concerned about the two men circling him like sharks preparing to feed.

“You think you can just come around here and stick your nose where it doesn’t belong?” The taller man asked, his voice raspy. There was an unthreatened melody to his tone, like the idea of a fight didn’t scare him.

Slater’s face split into a grin. “Do you know who I am?”

“From what I hear, you’re the guy that everybody’s afraid of. I can’t see why. You look like a pussy to me. What do you think, Drew?”

The shorter of the men smirked, “He looks like a preppy motherfucker to me, Kev.”

“Run along, Reaper. Let me fuck this bitch and get on with my night.”

Their jibes seemed to have little impact on Slater. He simply stood where he was, watching them from behind his sunglasses. “The only ones getting fucked tonight are the two of you.”

The taller of the two men—Kevin—moved, a snake striking in the tall grass. It was sudden and the force of his punch was hard enough to snap Slater’s head to the side. The hiss of air slipping between his teeth was as sharp as a gunshot.

Slater reached up and brushed his thumb across his upper lip. He inspected it for a moment before he laughed in delight. “Now, this is starting to get fun!” When the man swung again, he ducked out of the way before retaliating with a jab of his own.

In an aggressive flash of fists, Drew joined the fight. It was unfair, two against one, and obvious that the two men wouldn’t stop until Slater was unconscious or dead.

Louis contemplated intervention, but stayed put. He was interested in seeing how this deadly boxing match would end. Whatever the outcome was going to be, Slater didn’t appear concerned.

In fact, with each blow struck him, it seemed to drive him faster, made him burn a little brighter. The smirk on his face continued to grow, even with the bruises already forming on his fair complexion. He showed now signs of slowing down.

The door banged open and Mark scrambled around the side of the building with Johnny on his heels. He skidded to a halt when he saw Slater in the midst of a fight. Then, he pulled a device out of his pocket and lunged for Drew, it crackled and spat in a flash of blue light.

Kevin stopped and looked at Mark, but his attention was jerked back to Slater when the redhead spoke. “If you touch them, I’ll kill you.”

It must have been a credible threat, because Mark hesitated.

His pause was enough time for Johnny to extend his hand.

Drew hardly had enough time to let out a startled yelp before he went flying backward. His body crashed into the brick wall behind him hard enough that Louis heard a crack. Then, he slumped onto a pile of garbage bags, eyes rolled into the back of his head.

Slater’s eyes snapped to Johnny, the smile on his lips vanishing, his expression frigid.

Kevin didn’t need an invitation to send another fist flying. This time, the punch was fueled by even more rage. It slammed into the side of Slater’s face with enough force that Louis’s own jaw ached in sympathy. It sent the two of them into another round of snarls hissed between clenched teeth and battered knuckles.

Apparently, Slater’s arctic glare had been enough of a message to keep Johnny from intervening again. He didn’t make a second move to put an end to the fight.

How much longer is this going to go on? Louis wondered. Are they going to keep going until they’re unconscious, dead, or until Marco comes out with his friend, guns blazing?

Enough was enough.

Louis’s approach didn’t go unnoticed. Mark stepped in front of him to block his path. “Stay out of this, buddy. This isn’t your fight.”

He flicked Mark an unimpressed look. Having something—doors, people, or walls—in his way had never stopped him before and it wasn’t going to work now.

“Did you hear me? Are you deaf or are you stupid?”

“Probably just stupid.”

Mark made a move, the Taser in his fist crackled angrily.

One moment Louis was there, the next he was standing between Slater and Kevin.

Everything went still. The only sound was sound of the fighters and their ragged breathing, their attack thwarted by Louis’s sudden presence.

Louis had done what he could. He’d gotten their attention. Now, he had to keep it.

“Move,” Slater ordered.

He stayed put. At this point, if The Reaper wanted him dead, he had nothing to lose.

“Get the fuck out of my way before I kill you.”

Louis stared down at him, seeing his own reflection in the lenses of his shiny, bent, glasses. He thought about what Damien had said, that Slater had blown a man’s head clean off his shoulders with only his mind. Obviously, he’d been deemed The Reaper for a reason. If he truly wanted Louis dead, there was nothing stopping Slater from killing him. He didn’t look away. “If you were smart,” he warned Slater’s opponent, “you’d get the hell out of here.”

He didn’t have to turn his head to hear the other man run off into the night.

Slater was still glaring at him, four inches shorter than Louis.

It reminded Louis of a game he and James had played when they were kids, one where they stared at each other before the other looked away.

Louis looked back for what felt like an eternity, every muscle drown rigid with anticipation. If felt an awful lot like staring down the wrong end of a loaded gun. Each second dragged as he waited to see if Slater would pull the trigger.

“Johnny,” Mark said, “go tell Damien to start the car. Come on, O’Brien, you’re coming with us.”

Slater kept his gaze on Louis for a few more deliberate moments before he followed Mark without a word.

Louis exhaled a breath he hadn’t known he’d been holding. The tension resolved once those hidden eyes were no longer burning him to the core. He gave the girl, propped up against the wheel of the car, one last look before he followed the others.

On the ride back, Johnny broke the uncomfortable silence by complaining. “Why do we even let O’Brien come with us? That asshole gets off on picking fights. I swear—”

Slater, now in the passenger seat, reached out with a bruising and bloody had to flick on the radio. He twisted the knob for the volume until nobody could hear Johnny bitching.

Once the car was turned off, Johnny started again. He slammed the car door hard enough to make it rock. “You want to know what I don’t understand? I don’t get why Boss keeps you around, anyway. You’re a loose fucking cannon. I mean, just ask the new guy, I can kill people too. Big fucking deal! You aren’t spe—”

If Louis hadn’t been watching, he would have known what happened. One moment, Johnny had been going on and on, without a breath between words; and the next, he’d collapsed to the concrete of the parking garage floor, lifeless.

There was a breath of stunned silence among them before Mark reacted. “O’Brien! What the fuck?!”

Slater’s expression was smooth. There wasn’t the slightest hint of emotion on his face. He looked at the body with disinterest before he turned to the other man. His voice was just as blank as his face when he said, “I warned him to stay out of it. I warned all of you. He just didn’t listen.”

“Oh shit!” Damien gasped from Louis’s elbow. “Oh, holy shit!”

Now Louis understood how Slater had earned his nickname. It hadn’t been a myth and Damien hadn’t been exaggerating his power. He had really killed Johnny just by looking at him.

He studied the corpse with morbid fascination. Blood ran from Johnny’s mouth, nose, and ears, pooling beneath his head on the oil-streaked concrete. His eyes were wide open in a blank stare.

Louis looked at Slater, palms sweating. Maybe he shouldn’t have stepped in to stop the fight. By doing so, he had probably signed his death certificate.

Slater paused in front of Louis on his way out of the garage. He leaned in close, reeking of sweat and leather. There was a bruise blooming on one of his high cheekbones. His voice was a whisper, “Consider this your warning. Don’t get in my way again.”

Louis swallowed the nerves that had formed into a ball in his throat and watched Slater disappear into the night.

Tag List: @tricksexual, @wildler, @ganseyboii, @surrealirist, @obsessionandstuff, @pertinax--loculos, @pe-ersona, @a-curator-of-nonsense, @angelolytle, @aslanwrites, @aurumni-writes, @andrewminyardd, @lordkingsmith, @gloriafrimpong

#the traveler's gift #slater michael o'brien #louis elijah mahoney

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cdelphiki · 5 years

Text

Jason and the Three Terrors, Ch 1, rough draft. 3k words.

I’ve posted bits and pieces of this before, but I actually rewrote a lot of it and now have it completed. I’ll keep slowly working through this whole story. I hope to get a complete rough draft, on this level, of the entire thing before I start posting to Ao3 but I have no self control so posting on Tumblr is how I deal with that. 😂 I’m anticipating ~25 chapters.

Jason was awake the moment his bedroom door opened.

Sitting up, ready to defend himself, awake.

He kind of really hated being tested randomly, but like hell was he going to let some idiot get the best of him, either.

But, for once, his vigilance wasn’t necessary. Because the person who so rudely barged into his room in the middle of the night was Talia Al Ghul. And Jason was pretty confident she wouldn’t attack him.

No. Instead, all she did was throw a mostly packed duffle bag at him and start furiously digging through his meager possessions kept in the wardrobe.

“Ugh,” Jason groaned, flopping back on the bed and hiding his face under a pillow, “Can’t we do whatever this is in the morning?”

He was fine with being shipped off to yet another trainer. It was what he wanted, after all. The training. But did it really have to happen at 2 in the morning?

“Get up,” she hissed, shoving something into the bag that was laying on top of his feet, “we haven’t time for your dramatics.”

Maybe it was the tone of her voice, or the ferocity at which she was throwing Jason’s clothes at his bed, but something made Jason sit straight up and stare at Talia. “What’s going on?”

“Get dressed,” she snapped, and yep. It was the voice.

Because Talia sounded…. Scared.

She had that protective fierceness about her, the one he’d only ever seen on the streets in Gotham. When muggers were picking on single women with children. Fathers with young children. And…. Bruce… with him. A few times. Back before he let Jason die, then replaced him with a better Robin.

Not the point.

Talia was afraid. Afraid and desperate. And Jason couldn’t help but listen.

He got dressed in about three seconds flat, then helped her finish loading up his bag before slipping on his boots.

“We have to go,” she said, shoving the bag at him, “the children are already packed. We must leave immediately.”

“Children?” Jason asked, whispering harshly.

“Yes.”

All Jason could do was blink, as he followed her out into the corridor, allowing her to keep lookout for who, he didn’t even know. Because he had no idea who Talia was talking about. He had never seen another kid anywhere as long as he’d been with the League.

Which, granted, it had been barely a year since he ‘woke up’ in that damn pit. But still. There were no kids, as far as he knew.

“What children, Talia?”

“My children,” she snapped, shooting him such a withering glare that normally would have caused him to sit down and shut up.

But Jason was going to blame his confusion on being woken so suddenly. “Wait,” he said, stopping in his tracks, even though Talia had a hold of his wrist and was dragging him along, “you have kids?”

“Yes,” she whispered harshly, “And they are in danger. We haven’t time for this. Keep moving.”

There were so many questions swirling around Jason’s head. How many children? How old were they? What were their names? Why had Jason never met them? Or even heard of them? But for some dumb reason, the only question that made it out of his mouth was, “Who’s the father?”

Talia’s glare turned vicious, and Jason knew that was so not the question she wanted to answer at that moment.

Which also answered the question for him.

Because she always got into a mood when he came up, in any context.

“We are not going to him,” Jason snapped, because if that was Talia’s plan, Jason would not go along. He’d help Talia get whatever kids out, because, hello, the were just children. But that was it. He’d go his own separate way, after.

“No,” she agreed, “but we must leave.” She jumped, slightly as a door slammed open somewhere down the next corridor, and Jason saw as she turned from frightened to downright determined.

“There is no time,” she said, pointing down the opposite corridor, “Turn left, then right, then fourth door on the left. Get Mara.”

“Mara,” he whispered, nodding his head. A daughter. Cool. Bruce’s daughter.

He so couldn’t do this.

Another door slamming pushed Jason forward. From the sounds of it, it was his door, just around the corner. They were running out of time.

“Meet me by the cliff you like to frequent,” Talia whispered frantically, and Jason nodded.

Get Mara.

Meet by the cliff.

Don’t think about Bruce.

He could totally do this.

Jason swore as he ducked around the corner, listening to the footsteps stomping through the building. For a cult obsessed with being ninjas, whoever this dude was they were avoiding was pretty damn loud.

Almost like he wanted them to know he was coming.

Left then right, Jason reminded himself, trying not to think about his unknown enemy.

One door, two doors, three doors…

He quietly cracked the fourth door open and slipped inside, then immediately had to duck. Because the occupant had thrown a dagger at him.

“Shit, can you not?” he snapped, whisper shouting as he put his guard up, “I’m already stressed as fuck as it is. I don’t need this.”

It was only after he took a breath did he take in the ridiculous little girl, crouched low, standing on her bed. Her hair was sticking out every which way, a red streak prominently hanging right over her eyes. How the hell she could even see was beyond Jason.

“What do you want?” she hissed, in English, which was such a fucking Godsend, because his Arabic was okay, but he was a little high strung and it’s hard to think when he was like that. And he definitely needed to think to speak Arabic.

When the girl pulled another dagger out of her waistband, Jason snapped, “I’m not here to hurt you. Talia told me to get you and get out.”

“Lady Talia,” Mara asked, because Jason was just going to assume this was Mara. He supposed it could be a different child, but it’s not like kids were common in the League. Jason had thought he was the only one. And yet, apparently there were at least two other fucking kids he didn’t even know about.

But coincidences were stupid and Jason didn’t believe in them. Talia said this was Mara’s room, so this had to be Mara.

She didn’t look anything like Bruce, though. Jason could see a bit of Talia in her. More of Ra’s, for sure. But nothing to hint she was Bruce’s.

Maybe he’d misread Talia?

Or maybe Mara just lucked out in the roulette wheel of genetics, and got all of the Talia and none of the Bruce.

That was certainly possible.

“Yes,” Jason whispered, “That is what I said. She told me to get you and bring you to her.”

“Why?” Mara asked, her eyes so narrow, Jason was surprised she could see anything at all. Her demand to know every detail and make her own decisions was definitely a Bruce thing.

“I don’t know,” Jason huffed, “she woke me up throwing shit around demanding I help her save her children. She said you were already packed. Did she lie?”

Mara blinked, seemingly dumbfounded by what Jason had said. It took her a good two seconds to recover, because she asked in sheer disbelief, “And she sent you after me?”

“Yes, Mara,” Jason exasperated, “Do you have a bag? We need to go.”

After hesitating a second longer, Mara jumped down off her bed and pulled a backpack from under it, then slowly stepped closer to Jason.

“Who are you?” she asked, raising one eyebrow at Jason, as if her skepticism could make Jason spill the beans and admit he was actually an assassin there to kill her, “One of Lady Talia’s servants?”

Fuck no.

“Jason Todd, at your service,” he bit out, “now grab your shoes and let’s go.”

“Where are we going?” she asked as she slipped on her boots. Jason ignored her in favor of listening to the hall outside. He needed to determine whether it was safe out there.

He had no idea who it was he was running from. The League, he was going to assume. Why else would they be escaping in the middle of the night, in secret? If not to escape the League itself?

But who could he trust? Probably no one. But who could he distrust less? Did every guard and assassin pose a threat to them? Jason knew how to get off the compound without encountering a single guard, of course, but that assumed security hadn’t been heightened.

Something had to have set Talia off, right? Triggered all this?

Who the hell was actively chasing them?

Jason grabbed Mara’s wrist and dragged her out of the room as soon as she was ready and said, “Hell if I know. Now pipe down.”

Mara yanked her arm away, even as she continued following Jason. “Do not touch me, peasant.”

“Sor-ry your majesty,” he whispered, straining to hear. He could hear a scuffle down that hall, so he turned the other way. Hopefully it wasn’t Talia. Jason knew she could fend for herself, but he had no idea how old the other kid was. Or kids. He had no idea how many more children there were, either. If Talia was carrying a baby or toddler, fighting would be difficult.

“Come on,” he told Mara, “Out the back.”

“I am not going anywhere with you.” She planted her feet, nearly stomping one of them, and Jason dreaded having to hoist her up and drag her, kicking and screaming.

That was not going to be quiet.

And he’d probably get stabbed a time or two for his efforts.

“Listen,” he whispered, kneeling down and not putting his hands on her shoulders, just barely, “I don’t know what’s going on, either. But Lady Talia was afraid. Of what, I have no idea. But she said you kids are in danger, and we have to get out of here. She told me to come get you and bring you to her.”

Mara faltered and looked at Jason, uneasy. “She really sent you to protect me?”

“Yes. And you’re making it exceptionally difficult. So come on.”

With a single nod, Mara followed behind. And somehow, they managed to slip out of the building without running into anyone. Not even a guard. Which was just making Jason more wary.

He decided their best bet for getting outside the compound was by scaling one of the walls. He chose one, on the far side, as far away from any of the guarded entrances as he could.

But just as they slipped out from behind one building to run behind another, they finally found where some of those missing guards were.

“Fuck,” he said, side stepping a sword as it swung at him. He backflipped to avoid another guard lunging at him and used the momentum to land on the third’s shoulders and knock him off balance. He bashed the hilt of his sword against the guy’s skull, effectively knocking him out.

Killing these guys was not something he wanted to do. It wasn’t their fault, after all. And Jason had no idea if they were actually on opposite sides. This could all just be one big misunderstanding.

Mara drew her own sword and lunged at one of the remaining two, so Jason went for the final one.

“Don’t kill them,” he said, as he watched Mara take a rather risky move, her sword swinging right for her opponent’s neck.

“What?” she hissed, “Why not?”

“They’re just servants, they aren’t our enemy.”

“Hmph,” she huffed, leaping out of the way of a lunge before she retaliated with her own move, “This is ridiculous.”

Jason’s guy managed to back him up against the wall, so Jason used it to jump up and over the servant’s head, grabbing hold of the collar of the guy’s robe as he went, bringing him down to the ground. With another quick blow to this one’s head, they were down to just Mara’s opponent.

She was good, Jason could tell. Despite her size, she knew how to wield a sword effectively, and was easily holding her own against the highly trained guardsman.

But she clearly had no idea how to fight without killing. Jason pulled a knife from his belt, one with a sheath, and threw it at the man.

The butt of the knife hit him square in the temple, sending him toppling over instantly. Jason retrieved his knife and grabbed Mara’s hand to drag her along to their destination. Because there was no way no one had heard that scuffle.

“I had him,” she snarled, snatching her hand away from Jason, “I did not require your assistance.”

“Yeah, I believe you. Running low on time here, though.”

“Why did they attack us in the first place?” she asked, her voice only slightly lowered. It was kind of pissing Jason off. They needed stealth here. For the child of a cult obsessed with being shadows, this little girl could be fucking loud.

“Less talking, more running.”

Mara sighed loudly, but thankfully did shut the fuck up.

At the wall, Jason quickly hoisted Mara up and over, then tossed both their bags after her. She seemed only slightly reluctant to leave the compound, but clearly they weren’t safe inside anymore, so Jason guessed that’s why she didn’t give him more lip over it. Jason just hoped Talia would be at the cliff to explain to her kid what the fuck was happening.

He backed up several long strides, so he could get a good running start at the wall. Just as he was about to run, he heard the sound of quiet feet on gravel headed in his direction. As quickly as he could, he ran at the wall and propelled himself up and over as quietly as he could, then landed gracefully next to Mara.

“Why did those servants attack us?” Mara demanded, her arms crossed when she should have been admiring how sick Jason’s landing was, “Are we defecting? Because I do not wish to defect.”

“Fuck if I know,” he said, grabbing his bag and shoving hers back at her, since she hadn’t even bothered to pick them up from where they landed.

“That is not an acceptable answer!”

“I’m sorry but I don’t fucking know,” he snapped, as quietly as he could while directing her away from the wall. Where sound most certainly could travel across. And, like, reveal their location.

When, after they’d gone about fifteen yards further down the hill, away from the compound, Mara planted her feet and refused to move any further, Jason growled and turned to face her. “Talia woke me up, threw a bag at me, and told me to come get you. That’s all the information I have.”

Mara narrowed her eyes, so Jason just groaned and ran his hand over his face.

Talia owed him so much for this.

“Talia will meet us out by the cliff,” Jason added, hoping the promise of seeing Talia would calm Mara. Maybe. Just a little? Please?

But of course it didn’t. Just made her more suspicious. “You keep calling her that.”

“What?” he asked, because now he was just lost. Kept calling her what? Talia? That was her fucking name. He wasn’t gonna go calling her mom like this girl probably did. Or mother. Talia seemed like the kind of woman who would teach her children to call her ‘mother.’

“It is disrespectful. I do not believe she would allow a servant to address her as such.”

Kid or not, Jason just wanted to smack her now. Yep. Smacking her would be fun. If the other kid or kids were just like Mara, Jason would have to learn more restraint than he already had to prevent from actually smacking children.

Child abuse. Bad.

“I’m not one of her servants.”

Fear flashed across Mara’s face, quickly replaced by skepticism. She took a step back and grasped onto the hilt of her sword as she asked, “Then what are you?”

Jason threw his hands up, hoping to convey that he wasn’t gonna fucking hurt her.

“I’m— I don’t know” her lover’s charity case? Her enemy’s former partner? “Her project? Protégée? Something like that. She trains me.”

“Why have I never heard of you?”

“I don’t know,” he exasperated, “Why have I never heard of you? I thought I was the only kid in this entire damn compound, but come find out there’s at least two of you.”

“Everyone knows about Damian and me,” she said, narrowing her eyes again, and shit they didn’t have time for this.

But also, great. Now he had a name. Damian. Probably a boy. Bruce’s son. Fantastic…

“Well Talia didn’t think I needed to know, apparently, can we go now?”

“I don’t trust you,” she said, still not moving. And if glares could kill, Jason would be toast.

“Great. Thanks for telling me, I could fucking tell. Now can we please go to the cliff? If you don’t like what Lady Talia has to say, then you can come back, okay? I don’t give a fuck what you do, as long as you come to the cliff with me to meet Talia.”

After a moment of contemplation, Mara relaxed and rolled her head. “Fine. But if we are defecting, I will have nothing to do with it. I will turn you all in to Grandfather for your insubordination.”

“Fantastic,” he mumbled, finally turning back around to lead her toward his and Talia’s cliff. It was about a fifteen minute hike, down and around the mountain on which Nanda Parbat sat. They would, thankfully, be out of sight from the compound walls within a couple minutes.

Mara’s steps behind him weren’t quite silent. Not with the slight crunch of snow under her boots. It was summer, but with as high in the mountains they were, there was never not snow on the ground.

It was rather tiring, in all honesty. Never having a break from the cold. But at least they weren’t in a hot desert, he always reminded himself. There was plenty of water around him, if he had to escape. If he had to run. And, thankfully, Talia had provided him with warm enough clothing that he didn’t usually have a problem. Besides, it would only be a days hike before they were low enough to feel the summer heat.

He hoped that wasn’t what they were about to do. Because hiking through the mountains with few provisions was not on his bucket list. No sir. No thank you. Especially not with a couple brats, assuming Damian was just as bad as Mara.

Whatever was going on, though, Jason had a feeling it was bad.

#Jason todd #fanfiction #jtat3t #mara al ghul #Talia al Ghul

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bigtittyhimmler-blog · 5 years

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Who Goes Nazi? Brooklyn Edition

If you’re anything like me, a twenty-something Twitter leftist with an advanced degree in the humanities, you hate absolutely everyone around you and badly want to kill them. You live in a brownstone playground of Timorese food and adult coloring books, and you want to suicide bomb the L train but leave a note blaming it on manspreading or whatever, so people don’t think you’re one of “those” random mass murderers (the bad kind). You hate having to tell people at parties that you “work in content,” and you hate the fact that they all also work in content. You hate that they all make content for outlets that are slightly cooler and more prestigious than the outlets you make content for. You hate that none of them have even fucked you for like thirteen months. You hate that you can’t even hate them for the ways in which they’re different to you, because there aren’t any. But fear not! There’s one thing you’ve got that nobody else does: you know that you’re definitely, 100% Not A Nazi.

But what about them? Imagine if the Nazis took over America and it was suddenly cool and prestigious to be a Nazi, and there were trendy Nazis on the TV the whole time, and they once again sold soap with slogans like “Dove: The White Pride Soap for Hating QTBIPOC and Not Amplifying Their Voices.” But also don’t imagine, because that’s exactly what’s happening.

This game was invented by Dorothy Thompson in her classic 1941 Harpers essay Who Goes Nazi?, in which she presciently pointed out that intellectuals are definitely more Nazi than aristocrats, but not nearly as Nazi as union leaders. But she set her essay at some dinner party in the Hamptons or wherever, and last time I went out there I went swimming in the sea and a wave hit me and I lost my bikini top and a bunch of bros in boat shoes started laughing and pointing at me in a way that despite my white privilege I still feel was somehow like imbued with racism, and then afterwards I just stayed inside for three weeks writing content and ordering groceries online, so the setting needs to be updated. Let’s look at your group DM. Which of these Twitter creatives who live in Brooklyn would go along with it and become a Nazi? (All of them.) And who never, ever would? (Me.)

Mr A isn’t actually in your group DM, and you’ve never encountered anyone like him irl, but you literally can’t stop talking about him, so he gets included anyway. Mr A is a short ugly loser, and he’s already a Nazi. He doesn’t even live in Brooklyn, he lives in his mother’s basement, and eats chicken tenders, and he doesn’t get laid, but in a different way to the way you don’t get laid, which has to do with patriarchy. Mr A is a Pizzagate. Mr A is a Gamergate. Mr A is a segregationist. Mr A opposes the reforms of the Emperor Diocletian (284-305). Mr A won’t shut up about the superiority of a “free silver” bimetallic monetary system over gold specie, and keeps on talking about the “gold shills” in a way that doesn’t really make sense until you realize that your own name is Goldschmidt, and yeah, he doesn’t really care about expansionary monetary policy at all, he’s talking about the Jews, and specifically you. Mr A is basically a pathetic worm whose life sucks and nobody likes him, but also he represents the whole of the repressive forces of society and he’s at the top of the social hierarchy. Everyone you’ve ever met is actually Mr A, wearing various masks. He is the source of all your problems. He must be killed, and once we kill him, we need to find more people like him to be the source of any problems we have left over.

Mr B is in your group DM, but you also have a separate group DM with everyone else except Mr B in it. He keeps trying so hard to be nice, and says stuff like “so how is everyone’s day today” with a smiley emoji, and when you’re talking to him you get this airless feeling like you’re about to suffocate in his treacly good-natured presence. Every time you see Mr B at a party you’re afraid that he’s going to blurt out that he loves you, but you can’t keep your distance too much because he’s so clearly autistic, and you don’t want to be ableist. Anyway once in the group DM he said that while he obviously thought divining for water with Y-shaped copper rods was good and important and valid, he didn’t understand what it had to do with socialism. That made everything better, because clearly he’s a Nazi. The whole group DM expended hours of emotional labor educating him about how dowsing is part of LGBTQ+ culture and how his dismissive bro-y attitude was reactionary and gross, and eventually he posted a video of himself crying and begging for forgiveness and promising to do better, because you guys were the only friends he had. This was classic white fragility, but in the end you let him stay. You just have the other DM now, where you make fun of him and it’s ok, because if the Nazis came and he had license to start being cruel and sadistic to other people, he’d definitely do it.

Ms C is one of those women who doesn’t like other women, and you know this about her because you can’t fucking stand the bitch. Plus she says stuff that’s really not ok, even though it costs nothing to have empathy and be kind. You’ve personally heard her use the D-word, the H-slur, and the L-pejorative, all while laughing and holding a glass of white wine by the stem, like she doesn’t need to consider the harm this does to others, just because she’s “funny” and “an artist.” She’s the Cool Chick. She makes nude self-portraits (the bad, skinny kind), and she’d throw you under the bus in a second for male attention and approval. She’d definitely go Nazi. But the worst thing about her is that she has the impudence to be bisexual and Asian, which makes it really hard to call her out. But then you realized that all Asian people are collectively responsible for the long history of anti-Blackness and misogynoir in their communities, and you’re thinking of holding her collectively responsible for the Rape of Nanking too, once you’re certain she’s a sushi Asian and not the dim sum kind.

Ms D’s boyfriend works in finance, or like accountancy or something, or I think I heard he was a musician? Maybe a drummer or possibly he used to bartend at a place where they had live music. Anyway they definitely have vanilla cishet sex in the missionary position and you can’t stop thinking about it, his body, her body, naked, moving, breathing, together, almost silent, tender, disgusting. She says she’s a socialist but doesn’t devote every minute of her waking life to getting mad about people online. This means she’s just vaguely following a trend, and if the trend were being a Nazi (which it is), she’d be a Nazi (which she therefore is). You can’t imagine yourself actually hitting her but it’d definitely be punching up to maybe poison her food?

Mr E used to be a comrade, but then he did a tweet that got 38.6k RT’s and now he’s moved to Los Angeles to spend his whole time in writers’ rooms. Last you heard he was pitching an animated show for adults about a snail with borderline personality disorder. It hasn’t even been greenlit yet, but you’re already thinking about all the ways in which it will be a missed opportunity and do harm and perpetuate tropes. Mr E will definitely turn out to have been a Nazi, and then you can start an anonymous petition to get the show cancelled so he has to move back to New York. Once he’s back you can send him a long email about how much it sucks his career burned out and how (even though you won’t say it in public) sometimes people do actually take the social-justice thing too far. That way he’ll be a comrade again, which is good, because we believe in rehabilitating people who have a genuine change of heart.

Mr F probably thinks he’s better than you. He’s a union organizer. So are you (you added “#Unionize” to your Twitter name), but his union stuff involves workers who aren’t in tech, content, or grad school, and he probably thinks that makes him more in touch with “the real workers,” who he probably thinks are just a bunch of cis white males in a factory, who are probably all racist and probably have thick, heavy dicks that intrude on your mind in a kinda #MeToo way a lot of the time. He talks about class, and you agree that class is important because you’re not a lib (you support Bernie, you just want him to Do Better). But from the way he says it you’re certain he doesn’t acknowledge all he/him lesbians as part of the working class. He’s trying to save a tiny sector of the workers from a necessary and important socio-economic shift that will impoverish them and make their lives worse, and that’s what being a Nazi is. This is why his union needs to stop dragging their heels, change all of their rules and priorities, and let you get him fired.

Ms G (me) will never go Nazi, because she is beautiful and kind and pure, and has all the good opinions instead of the bad ones. Because of this she’s allowed to do things that other people can’t do. She can totally fail to understand what having an authoritarian personality actually means, and construct a version of the Who Goes Nazi? essay in which the people who go Nazi are just people who are already right wing, having confused politics with personality, probably because she herself has no personality other than her politics. She can minimize, ignore, or even encourage the infliction of actual suffering when it happens to the wrong kind of people. She can write that “nothing that terrible has really happened” since the publication of Mark Fisher’s Exiting the Vampire Castle, even though Mark Fisher himself is mysteriously not around to appreciate that fact. She can do some shit with threatening to leak an unedited draft that I don’t even want to go into. She knows that the Nazis don’t come promising hatred but promising to be your friend, but it’s ok because she doesn’t really have any friends, just mufos. She’s doing great. She’s building a better, kinder world. She will never, ever be the Nazis.

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chriscdcase95 · 4 years

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Halloween: Why the Thorn Trilogy was as underrated as "Twenty Years Later" was overrated

So yeah, I said it. And now I’m gonna explain it.

This may be some nostalgia of mine talking but as a long time fan of the Halloween series - I am talking when I was ten years old, when I was first getting into horror genre- I grew up on the old Halloween sequels consisting of the Thorn trilogy and the Twenty Years Later story lines. I know they are considered separate continuities and timelines, but y'know broad strokes, Easter-eggs, and the fact early script drafts for Twenty Years Later (Or H-20) intended to tie them together before they were cut from the final film, you can make the case they are ostensibly canon to each other, but that’s about it.

The Thorn Trilogy isn’t considered the best of the series; many fans looking down on the fifth and sixth film as being the least popular of the films. I think the only reason they aren’t considered by fans the worse in the series is because Resurrection exists, and was that followed by Rob Zombie’s remake duology. On the flip side, H-20 and 2018 are considered the golden calves of the franchise, and for the life of me, I never saw the appeal of the formers popularity. Now I can see why people have problems with the Thorn trilogy - especially regarding the cult and curse plot element of the sixth film. Unpopular opinion, but the sixth film was my favourite of the series - maybe has to do with my autism appealing me with both world building and the familiar - or that it seemed to tie up one storyline, but at the same time set up so much that I was disappointed that it didn’t continue.

For context, this post is partially inspired by Schaffrillas Productions video about Shrek 2. In this I will be using the criteria of what he describes as a “Perfect Sequel” which I’ll apply to the Halloween series, and as his Shrek 2 video says, there’s no such thing as the perfect movie; there’s too many variables to cover in a single movie alone, while a movie can preform it’s functions as a sequel perfectly even that doesn’t mean the movie itself is perfect. The “Perfect Sequel” criteria goes as such; expanding the universe; continue the story; introduce new themes or expand on old themes; leave an impact on the franchise.

Like Schaffrillas Productions, I will use this criteria to determine what the Thorn trilogy did right over H-20. Now am I gonna throw the 2018 sequel into the equation ? Maybe for compare and contrast purposes, but the 2018 sequel hits those same beats. There really is no competition between H-20 and 2018, I don’t question why the latter is considered a fan favorite. What I am primarily doing here is comparing the old sequels, and 2018 barely comes into the equation.

Does the Thorn Trilogy expand the films universe ? Does is continue the story ? As far as continuing the story goes ? Well that’s a no brainier; Halloween II begins where the original film ends; Return of Michael Myers picks up ten years later with Michael waking up from a coma after his seeming death in the second; Revenge follows Return and that leads to Curse. You get the picture, there’s an overarching story here.

“But does it introduce new themes that impact the franchise ?” You ask. Not the Thorn trilogy itself, but the second film does. Halloween II kinda sorta introduces a supernatural element to Michael by hinting a connection to the an ancient element of Halloween - more specifically the lord of the dead Samhain- but more importantly revealing that Michael and Laurie are brother and sister. The supernatural stuff is explored exclusively throughout Return to Curse, but ever since it was revealed the entire Halloween series hinged off of Michael and Laurie’s familial connection. Even in 2018 where they discontinue the sibling aspect, the theme of family permeates the plot, with the focus hear being on Laurie, her family drama, her need to protect them and how Michael not only affected her but her family.

In what’s relevant here is Michael and Laurie’s family connection is the focal point of the Thorn Trilogy, albeit not through Laurie herself; our lead character in Return and Revenge is Jamie Lloyd, the orphaned daughter of Laurie Strode and niece of Michael Myers, and she is what made their relationship the most plot relevant. Before Michael even wakes up from his coma, we are introduced to Jamie being haunted and even bullied over the fact that she’s and orphan and how her uncle is the infamous boogeyman. Her mother is gone, and she never even met her uncle, and yet both their shadows hang over her. Once Michael learns he has a niece that’s still alive, that’s all he needs to get up and at ‘em and nothings gonna stop him from getting his hands on her. And once he does in Curse ? It’s their baby he’s after next! Yes, their baby. Michael is the biological father of Jamie’s son Steven, who becomes his new target and finds an adoptive family in Tommy Doyle, Karla Strode, and her son Danny, who take the responsibility to protect Steven from not only Michael, but an evil cult that will no doubt be following them for some time. So we have something set up; a possible future confrontation between Michael and his vengeful son, and defeat the cult that has been mentoring Michael and orchestrating his rampages from behind the scenes.

So what comes next ? H-20 gives us Dawson’s Creek with a serial killer. One of the things I mark against H-20 was I felt it lacked the same kind of substance as the previous trilogy. For something that was conceived as the finale of the Halloween saga, I just couldn’t get emotionally invested, and maybe it had to do with the later release of Resurrection and the knowledge of what comes next. Maybe I was deflated that Jamie wouldn’t get justice, or that we wouldn’t find out what became of Little Baby Steven. Sure we got a plot about Laurie being a protective mother towards her son John, but for some reason I couldn’t really empathize with John in comparison to Jamie - not helping his case is that 2018 Laurie has a new daughter in Karen who has the same kind of baggage John had with Laurie, was a more interesting in characterization. John was a just a Dawson’s Creek student who serves as someone Laurie needs to fight for, only to be forgotten in Resurrection. Unlike Jamie or Karen, John was more of a plot device than a character.

As far as expanding on the previous films themes go, H-20 doesn’t really do this. It’s focus is on Laurie and her incoming “final” confrontation with her brother…but it doesn’t feel like it has the same weight. Laurie’s having her nightmares, she’s living in paranoia and the constant fear of her brother inevitably coming after her again, and how it took a toll on her relationship with her son. That’s all well and good, but the problem is the emotions feel underwhelming here. I’m not bashing the acting or anything, but I think I was supposed to take Laurie and John’s screaming match when they argue about Michael more seriously than I actually did (their second scene together by the way). Maybe they should have focused more on Laurie’s angst, and her relationship with her son, but it all felt rushed and emotionally underdeveloped in comparison to Laurie’s emotional scars shown in 2018, which felt like they had a little more weight here. 2018 gave us a slow burn with them, H-20 gave us the last three episodes of Game of Thrones.

Also the fact its Halloween night is barely a factor in this movie. There’s more focus on a trip to Yosemite Park than the actual holiday, and none of the characters don’t even go on the trip itself. Hell, this movie and it’s sequel were released in the summer.

“What about expanding the films universe ?” As I said above, I think the main thing I liked about the Thorn trilogy was it’s world building. It is next to 2018 with the most lore filled storylines in the series, (and I expect more to come from 2018’s sequels). And the Thorn trilogy not only captured the atmosphere, but tied the lore of the actual holiday of Halloween much better than H-20. And for better or worse, we dig in a little more into the mystery that is Michael Myers and his family. Or do we ?

Short answer is “Depends on what version of the sixth movie you watch.” Yeah I know the sixth movie introduces the Thorn cult and curse, but there is are differences between the Theatrical Cut and the Producers Cut on account of things that have been added, cut or changed outright between the two versions. The Producers Cut is the only version Michael being a puppet of the Thorn Curse and tool to this cult. The Theatrical Cut plays around with this idea but doesn’t explore it beyond a theory Tommy has, but isn’t verified in the cut itself. As far as the Theatrical Cut is concerned, Michael is just a rage driven psychopath.

And honestly I get that one of the supposed appeals to Michael Myers is the mystery of his character. Everyone goes off about how he was such a cool villain in the first movie was because of his mysteriousness and the questions left unanswered and go on and on about it. But here’s the thing, the point of a mystery is the need to solve it, the need to explore and find out more about this mysterious figure. Michael being a mysterious figure can work in one or two movies before it gets boring and he just becomes a blank slate, a carboard cut-out. And really that was one of the problems Michael had in H-20. The Thorn Trilogy gives three movies to find out more about Michael, and his familial connection to Laurie Strode is the focus, even with Laurie out of the picture. Some would say because we find out more about Michael, his status as a villain is cheapened, but I always thought he becomes more interesting the more we find out about him.

In H-20, we got nothing with Michael. We don’t find out anything really new or interesting, or anything that really makes him that much of a threat. The whole movie was about a showdown he was going to have with Laurie twenty years after his first rampage, but there’s no real substance with Michael this time around. And this isn’t the same as 2018 going back to basics by following only the first movie - H-20 explicitly follows the second movie so this is the same Michael who hints at a supernatural element, the same Michael who is revealed to be Laurie’s brother, but none of that is really important here. The brother and sister element - the crux of these two characters, isn’t of importance here as it was for the Thorn trilogy; the closest we get to that is the scene where Laurie kills someone she thinks is Michael, which leads to Resurrection.

Michael and Laurie felt more related in 2018 than they ever did in H-20. And speaking of 2018, I know they brought Michael back to his original form, but considering there’s two sequels to that movie in the works, there is only so much you can do before Michael becomes “cheapened” by finding out more about him or become boring by keeping him a blank slate. Like I said, Michael can only really get away with being enigmatic for one or two movies before it just becomes a crutch and excuse which would result in him becoming boring.

As far as world building goes, the H-20 storyline doesn’t really expand the universe besides taking us to a boarding school in California, but I can give it leniency since it was gonna originally be a follow up on the previous trilogy. Now onto comparing characters.

Laurie Strode as a Protagonist

While it goes with out saying that Laurie Strode is a runner up when it comes to being the OG Final Girl. In the same way Michael helped define the slasher villain, Laurie is helped define what the final girl is. In just about every timeline and storyline in the Halloween series, all it took was one night to shape Laurie as her fateful encounter with Michael. In the first two movies, Laurie was a great protagonist, she was the naive, inexperienced teenage girl, and even a sisterly figure to Tommy Doyle. She was a protective babysitter who risks her neck to not just survive the night against a psychotic stalker, but protect the kids that are in her care. And that was just the first movie.

The second movie (which takes place on the same night mind you) things get personal with the brother/sister relationship. In this movie, the family aspect did impact Laurie; Laurie was the first person who finds out the truth and has a dream induced flashback of when she met Michael when she was younger shortly after her mother told her she was adopted. Laurie wakes up and the revelation that the seeming stranger that just murdered her friends is her brother, it puts her into a brief catatonic shock…although she might have been faking it while planning an escape. Point is the brother revelation had an effect on her.

But watching II and Twenty Years Later back to back, I just didn’t feel that it the same impact as it did in the previous movie. Michael’s relation to Laurie wasn’t as important in this film as it did the previous films. If it wasn’t for the fact that the brother-sister thing was mentioned a few times, it didn’t feel like it had that much of a weight to it. It didn’t feel like Laurie was afraid of her brother here, but rather just the guy who terrorized her. Like I said, above, Laurie and Michael felt more “related” in 2018 than they did in H-20, despite that aspect being cut out. The closest we get to Laurie having a moment of “this is my brother” is the scene where she kills some poor sap she thinks is Michael.

The focus in both H-20 and 2018 is about Laurie’s trauma and paranoia about Michael coming after her and her children. But overall I felt 2018!Laurie was the better take on the character, especially in that aspect; we see how strained her relationship with her daughter is and how close she is with her granddaughter. 2018!Laurie’s life effectively went down the tubes and Michael never stopped haunting her, and has burned himself into her very soul, that it would be irrelevant whether or not they are blood related. It’s gotten to the point where her daughter barely has a relationship with her. Despite this and having little to lose, 2018!Laurie has spent forty years preparing for a showdown with Michael, and is just itching for him to come loose again, arming herself, fortifying her house, keeping herself in shape the whole nine yards. Because it makes her that much stronger, makes her a little bit harder, makes her that much wiser, so thanks for making her a fighter.

H-20!Laurie spent twenty years just living in fear of Michael that at some point to the point that she faked her death, but doesn’t do much of else. And honestly despite her trauma and paranoia in this movie, I was less sympathetic to this take on Laurie, because she has a lot more to lose. She hasn’t had her life ruined by Michael in the same way 2018!Laurie has, in fact she lived a more comfortable (dare I say) privileged life, as the headmistress of a boarding school in sunny California, and still has a considerably more positive relationship with her son, and it’s only after Michael catches up to her, she’s ready to confront him and (seemingly) kill him. And I just couldn’t feel the same emotions with H-20!Laurie as I did with the 2018 counterpart.

I thought that H-20 was a little rushed with her character development and arc. But I think what made me unsympathetic is because Resurrection made it hard for me to root for in retrospect, and the fact H-20 was originally going to be directly tied with the Thorn trilogy; keep in mind as far as the Thorn trilogy goes, Laurie was killed in a car accident, which left her daughter Jamie virtually alone, with her mothers death taking an obvious toll on her, which dear old uncle Michael is out to kill her. H-20 reveals Laurie faked her death, and considering the original plans to tie the two stories, this effectively means that Laurie faked her death, abandoned Jamie with seemingly no regard for her, and let Jamie go through Hell alone. And I’m supposed to feel sorry for Laurie because of twenty years of nightmares ? Yeah, 2018!Laurie is the mother that Jamie deserves.

Which leads us too…

Jamie Lloyd as a protagonist

Now Jamie was considered a fan favorite upon her introduction, and in my opinion is one of the most thematically important characters in the series. As I explained above, Jamie is the linchpin of Michael and Laurie’s relationship, being both Laurie’s daughter and Michael’s niece. From such, both characters shadows hang over Jamie, despite and because of Laurie being out of the picture. Despite being a child, Jamie is subjected to the trauma of her mothers passing and her relationship with the boogeyman being public knowledge (and other children bully her over it, I can’t get over that).

Now there’s two kind of protagonist dynamics that Laurie and Jamie fill that contrast each other; Laurie is the protector of the cute, Jamie is the cute. But Laurie’s not around, and Jamie would be completely alone if it where not for her foster sister Rachel, Rachel’s friends, the local and state police and a mob of vigilantes. Well unfortunately, the Jamie Lloyd Protection Squad are a non issue to Michael who had squad of his own in the form of the Thorn cult, and these fuckers don’t play around. The world will stop at nothing at kicking Jamie down, and kicking her while she’s down, just for existing. If that’s not enough, she is held captive for years by a cult, forcibly impregnated by Michael and disemboweled in the sixth movie.

Did I mention Jamie was an eight to nine year old kid in the fourth and fifth movie ? I can see why Danielle Harris is disgruntled that she couldn’t return. Fun fact, Danielle Harris wanted the sixth film to have Jamie die killing Michael once and for all to save her baby. But because this is Jamie Lloyd we are talking about, she’s not allowed to get justice. You could make the argument that Jamie gets points dying to save her baby in the actual movie…but it wasn’t Danielle Harris playing, so whatevs I guess.

As I already said, what made Jamie a little more interesting for me than H-20!Laurie is that her connection to Michael being more emphasized here than with Laurie. This was first shown in the fourth movie and expanded upon in the fifth, which implies Michael has some sort of psychic and emotional link with Jamie. Under Michael’s influence, Jamie attacks her foster mother, and is subsequently institutionalized, and is still terrorized by Michael through nightmares, visions and seizures, as Michael continuously taunts Jamie with the murders of her protection squad. That’s when it hit me; Jamie and Michael are Ying and Yang, and that’s why it worked. Where Jamie was innocence, Michael was purely evil.

Michael is the human personification of evil, it only makes sense he be connected to someone who is pure and simply innocent. These two effect each other, and compliment each other. I’m honestly curious how this connection played out during Jamie’s captivity, because despite everything she’s been through, she was still innocent enough to try to reach out to Michael a final time. In the fifth film Michael has a bizarre moment of humanity and feels brief remorse due to Jamie’s influence and on the flip side, Jamie has a brief moment of darkness due to Michael’s influence. So of course I’m going to avoid a certain Mad Titan’s quote about perfect balance, because the meme is too easy. It dawns on me that I may be reading into something that isn’t there, but dear reader is what all theorists and analysts such as myself do ?

And speaking of perfect balance, that is another reason why I think a storyline about baby Steven introduced in the sixth film is a wasted chance. Not only is his *ahem* “origin” anti-hero backstory material, but think about what Steve represents; he’s a living combination of Jamie’s innocence and Michael’s evil. He is someone who not only carries Laurie and Jamie’s legacy on his back, but Michael’s legacy as well. Thematically speaking, he is prime material to be the one to one day kill Michael once and for all. But we got more of Michael fighting Laurie, so I guess that’s cool.

Michael Myers as a villain

Okay, what can I say about Michael as a villain that hasn’t already been said ? I mean what movie does him best ? Many would say the first two. But what does a better job at “expanding” Michael. Many would also say the 2018 sequel, but that’s not primarily what I’m comparing here, so we are sticking with the old school sequels. Michael’s main appeal to the bulk of the fandom was the mystery aspect of him in the first movie. But “Michael is cool because he’s mysterious” can only work for one or two movies before it becomes a crutch and as a result turns Michael into blank slate. And considering that 2018 has two sequels in the work, Michael is likely to get some “expansion” to keep him interesting, and that’s because the appeal to a mystery is the inherent need to solve it.

But that is beside the point. In my personal opinion, Michael’s appeal wasn’t that he was a mystery, but that he was the human personification of evil, and from such I think the only way Michael can really be cheapened is if he was given something to humanize him like love, empathy or sympathetic qualities. And no, the single tear in the fifth movie ultimately means nothing considering what happens down the line. So as long as Michael is evil and doing inherently evil deeds, I don’t see it as cheapening him.

So how does one expand on Michael and his evil correctly ? Make him a bigger threat with each passing sequel, and give him more heinous deeds under his belt.

In the second movie, he massacres a hospital to get to Laurie. The fourth movie has him slaughtering an entire police force and a vigilante mob just to get to Jamie. The fifth movie has Michael track down Jamie’s friends and foster sister, and display their corpses as a way to taunt Jamie. Sixth movie, he disembowels Jamie after she gives birth - mocking Jamie for trying reach out to him no less! - before seeking out and trying to kill their baby, and massacres a group of followers for thinking they can control him. There’s also Steven’s conception, which is universally regarded as too far even for Michael. 2018 has Michael kill a child onscreen, exceed the body count of the first movie before he even gets his mask back -and just to get his mask back- kills several people in different houses in a matter of minutes, and uses a cops severed head as a makeshift Jack-o-Lantern. You see that ? In almost each sequel, Michael was more of a threat, and was more “creative” when it came to his evil. He fulfilled a function as a villain and evil personified with no real humanity and no moral restraint.

What about H-20 ? Compared to those other movies, Michael was boring here. He kills three people at the beginning of H-20 and three more in the third act, but isn’t really creative or spectacular (except for using a skate for one kill). The bulk of the movie is Michael just traveling to the boarding school Laurie is hiding in, but doesn’t really do anything of substance. I wouldn’t mind too much, but back in the day this was billed as the final movie. The only creative thing Michael does is fake his death and that isn’t revealed until Resurrection which was near universally disowned by the fandom. Give Resurrection this, it adds more to Michael’s rap sheet. We do get a brief montage at the beginning of H-20 that implies that Michael has gone on a killing spree across the country, but the problem is it breaks the “show don’t tell rule”.

I’ll give them this, we do get a comic book miniseries called Nightdance set in the H-20 continuity, that expands on Michael’s evil and menace in ways I won’t spoil here because I recommend it, and it’s not as well known as Resurrection despite being considered by some to be the better follow up. It’s almost a shame this wasn’t made into a movie, because in the actual movies in that timeline Michael didn’t feel as threatening or menacing, took a lot of the edge off his character, and made him especially weak compared to the previous sequels. You could make the argument that the movie was mainly focused on Laurie’s facing her demons, the problem was that everything was rushed and undeveloped in that department, so Laurie’s character arc doesn’t really make up for it.

Compare and contrast this with 2018, which gave us a slow burn focus on how Michael effected Laurie, Laurie’s relationship with her family and quickly shown us the stakes Michael’s threat poses. It really makes me question why H-20 was seen as such a golden calf back in the day. It seems to me that is was mostly because Jamie Lee Curtis made a comeback for that movie.

Conclusion

So that’s my reasoning for why the Thorn trilogy hits the “Perfect Sequel” beats over H-20; it had more lore and world building; had a greater focus on the themes introduced in the second film; a more sympathetic protagonist; Michael’s evil was empathized more; and an atmosphere closer related to the actual holiday of Halloween. 2018 had some of the same beats at the Thorn trilogy, but I’m not gonna a final decision until the 2018 sequels are finished. It’s a personal standard of mine to wait until the story is over before I make a final decision.

I will give 2018 points so far for building it’s new lore and developing it’s new characters in one movie, but I think it has it’s problems too. Mainly that 2018 felt more like a big “Fix It” fanfic brought to the cinema, and was a little heavy when it came to self referencing humor, call-backs and leaning on the fourth wall, and fandom wish fulfillment. 2018 isn’t a bad movie, it’s one of my favorite sequels, but even so I can’t get around the whole “fanfic-ish” feel I got from watching it.

Pretty much the one thing H-20 has over 2018 was that it didn’t try too hard to be Scream, which was a formula most late 90’s horror films followed. At most we were given a quick Scream cameo, that could possibly shatter the canon if I think of it too much. H-20 went out of its way by not copying Scream during the writing process. Little known fact, but while H-20 was intended to be the last Halloween film, the studio had this rule was that Michael Myers wasn’t allowed to actually be killed off, so a sequel was planned in advance to clarify he was still alive; the original plan was that “Michael” would be a obsessed fan and copycat; that idea was scrapped possibly for following the “Scream formula” too much, and what we got instead was the infamous paramedic twist in Resurrection.

#halloween #Halloween Return of Michael Myers #Halloween Revenge of Michael Myers #Halloween Curse of Michael Myers #Halloween Twenty Years Later #halloween resurrection #Halloween Nightdance #michael myers #laurie strode #Jamie Lloyd #Steven Lloyd #tommy doyle #John Tate #Jamie Lee Curtis #Danielle Harris #unpopular opinion

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witcherislovewitcherislife · 5 years

Text

Steggy Week 2019 - Day 7: Free Choice

I decided to write some smut for Day 7. Shocker. I had a lot of old drafts that had various smut in them so I combined them and added some new stuff to make this. I hope you all enjoy!

What a wonderful experience my first Steggy Week has been too. I loved seeing and reading all the new fanfics, artwork, posts, and edits. I still have a lot to catch up on too! I hope you all have enjoyed my contributions! :D

Paris Nights

Read on AO3

Celebrations were roaming all throughout the city and really all throughout the country. After a week long battle and years long struggle, Paris was free from Nazi control.

The French Resistance, Allied Forces, and the SSR drove back the Nazis, reclaiming the city of Paris.

Everyone was celebrating, people from all walks of life, men and women, children and adults, young and old, rich and poor, none of that mattered. All that mattered was that they were free once again.

Fireworks boomed in the sky and the Eiffel Tower was illuminated bright. Songs were being sung in the streets and taverns alike.

The Commandos were drinking and singing away while playing a rowdy game of cards. Peggy noticed Steve make some goodbyes and sneak out of the room before anyone could stop him. She found Steve sketching away from a balcony atop the hotel the SSR was being stationed at.

“There you are. I thought maybe you’d turned in for the night.”

Steve was startled by the intrusion but he didn’t seem to mind, “Oh, uh, no. Just needed some fresh air.”

“Can I see what you’re drawing?” Peggy asked, nodding her head towards his sketchbook.

Steve walked the few steps over to her and handed the book to her, “Just the Eiffel Tower, there is a great view from here.”

“I see that. This is really lovely, Steve. You have a real talent.”

Steve blushed at her kind words and averted his eyes. Peggy always had that effect on him when she complimented him.

Peggy reached a silky gloved hand to his cheek and turned his face back towards her.

“Seems we’re finally alone.”

“Seems we are.”

Their lips met instantly and the sketchbook fell to the floor as Steve engulfed Peggy’s lithe body with his broad arms.

They pulled back breathless after who knows how long. Both were panting and red faced, Steve had lipstick marks on the corners of his lips that Peggy reached up to rub away with a grin on her face.

“I’m so happy we can do that outside of cramped offices, storage closets, or some old couples farmhouse in the countryside.”

Peggy giggled and it was the most beautiful sound Steve had heard, “Yes, well. We shouldn’t dally out here too long. Someone might come along and ruin our fun.”

“Too late!” A voice piped up from the glass doorway, startling both Steve and Peggy.

“Dugan. How nice of you to join us. Or rather, interrupt us. How long have you been standing there?”

“Not long enough to see any of the good stuff,” he said, earning a sharp glare from Peggy. “Well, I was gonna see if you two lovebirds wanted to play some billiards but I don’t think that’s as fun as what you two are about to do.”

“And what is it that we’re about to do, Timothy?”

“Uh, oh. The full name. That’s never good. I’ll just be going now. You two kids keep it down!” Dugan said, half laughing, adding, “And use protection!” when he was safely out of Peggy’s shooting range.

“Remind me to kick him in the ass,” Peggy joked.

“Will do.”

They grew silent again, just staring into each other’s eyes before Peggy cupped his cheek again. Steve leaned into the touch as Peggy leaned up and brought her mouth to his ear.

“Take me to bed, Steve.”

Steve didn’t need to be asked twice, he took Peggy’s hand and led her off the balcony, down the hall and to his room.

“Is this the honeymoon sweet?” Peggy inquired as she stepped into the room. It was about four times the size of a regular room and had a separate living room area as well as a small kitchen with a breakfast nook. Glass sliding doors at the back of the room led out to another small balcony that had a table and chairs atop it.

To the right, there was a large bathroom with double sinks, a large tub big enough for three at least, a toilet, and a shower adorned with beautiful light brown tiling. Peggy felt that a shower and tub was excessive, seeing as how most homes nor hotels even had showers but she wasn’t going to complain. She’d never gotten to properly enjoy a shower before, only getting to use one at base camps.

In the center of the room there was a large circular bed covered in fluffy pillows and a blood red comforter. Peggy was incredibly looking forward to doing a lot more than just sleeping in it.

“Uh, yeah, the honeymoon sweet. Howard got it for me. He thought it’d be funny.”

“Well, I suppose I should thank him. I think this bed is a lot better than any other in this hotel. Shall we?

Steve didn’t respond, instead opting to act before his words could get in the way of what he wanted to do.

He placed his hands on Peggy’s hips and pulled her close, kissing her with intensity.

Peggy’s mouth moved to his neck, she bit and sucked at it, leaving bruises that she knew would be gone by morning but she liked seeing how his skin looked painted with them.

Peggy bit that spot under his ear and Steve let out a low groan as his head fell back. Peggy leaned up and tugged on his earlobe before she spoke again.

Speaking slowly and quietly, Peggy whispered into his ear, “I’ve thought of you on so many cold nights, Steve.”

Steve swallowed audibly before he choked out, “Tell me.”

“How shall I? With excruciating detail?”

Steve could hardly speak. He found his mouth dry from Peggy’s seduction, “Details. Please. Every last one.”

Peggy spoke slowly and quietly, making sure that Steve’s heightened hearing be put to full use.

“When I lay alone in my bunk, I’d lift my slip up to my waste. Slide my hand down my stomach and under my red cotton panties.

Steve’s mouth went dry, “Keep going.”

Peggy’s hands were keeping occupied by threading through Steve’s hair, massaging his scalp lightly as his hands gripped her waist, sure to leave bruises that she so wanted, “I’d spread my folds, slide my digits into my soaking cunt. Moan your name as I fucked myself.”

‘Fuck, Peggy.”

“I’d cum screaming your name into my pillow. My fingers would be covered in my wetness and I’d suck them dry, imagining your mouth instead of my own.”

“Please, Peggy…” Steve didn’t even know what he was saying please for. All he knew was that his cock was throbbing and needed relief.

Peggy kissed his collarbone and pulled his shirt out of where it was tucked into his trousers and began to unbutton it.

Peggy slid his now unbuttoned shirt off his shoulders and down his muscular arms. Her hands moved to his abs, rubbing them and digging her nails into the toned muscle. She was always amazed at how soft his skin still managed to be despite the muscle. Peggy bent slightly and flicked her tongue over his nipple before taking it in her mouth making Steve yelp and jump in surprise.

She gave each nipple attention before licking a stripe down his abdomen and kneeling down in front of him. This used to be the part when Steve would say “You don’t have to do this.” But after Peggy made it very clear that she wanted and loved to do this to him, he finally shut up saying it.

She eyed up the growing bulge in his pants. The outline of his cock very evident in his tan trousers. Her eyes looked up at him, hers were filled with hunger desire and lust while Steve’s were already struggling to stay open at the sensation she was giving him.

She got the belt undone, the metal making a pleasant sound as it clinked together, and pulled his pants down first, revealing his red and white striped boxer briefs. They were bunched up from being constricted in his trousers the whole day. They were tented slightly but mostly his cock was angled down and nearly hanging out of the bottom. She could see the outline of his shaft and the fabric above the tip was partially damp from his precum. Peggy used the palm of her hand to rub up and down his shaft before she kissed him through the fabric before pulling them down around his ankles as well. He stepped out of both as Peggy took him in hand, giving him a few warm-up strokes before her real fun began.

Her thumb touched his pelvis right above his cock, she rubbed through his short, neatly trimmed pubic hair. She hummed appreciatively, glad that he took care to do so, knowing that she hated too much body hair on a man.

The slit of Steve's cock was shiny and oozing. Peggy licked up the underside of his cock, starting at his balls all the way to the tip, flicking her tongue when she reached the top. She left her tongue on the bottom of the head, twisting and flicking it teasingly. Precum was dripping into her mouth slowly, the same way rain dripped off a gutter after a storm. She loved the taste far more than actual cum and lucky for her, Steve was like a faucet for it.

Peggy took his head into her mouth first, sucking deeply and sharply on it before sliding her mouth down further. She took him as far as she could, keeping her mouth planted firmly on him when he sat sheathed in her mouth. She could feel his cock pulsing and growing to it’s hardest state inside her mouth and it made her panties soak up more than they already were. She reached down and rubbed herself through her skirt, giving her momentary relief from the ache between her legs.

Peggy moaned around his cock and Steve reciprocated one above her, his head lolling back.

She pulled her mouth back agonizingly slow, making sure no part of Steve’s shaft went unloved. Peggy released him with a pop before diving back in quickly. Her mouth moved faster this time, up and down his length in quick succession. She made sure her tongue kept moving, licking the parts of his cock that her lips weren’t touching.

Steve’s hands threaded through her hair, he didn’t pull or yank, they just sat there in her silky brunette curls. She could tell by his sped up labored breathing that he was close. Peggy sped up her ministrations, adding her hand to the end of his length to touch every part of him until he exploded into her mouth. She took every last drop from him, more so to not leave a mess on the hotel room carpet rather than actually enjoying the taste.

Peggy pulled off him again and gave him a few last pumps before rising back to her feet and tilting her head up to kiss Steve. He gave in to the kiss easily, his tongue battling with Peggy’s for control. He tasted himself on her lips and tongue and loved every bit of it.

They kissed for a few minutes before Steve backed Peggy up and pushed her down onto the comfy bed. She couldn’t help but be turned on by his sudden roughness.

She got on his knees and threw Peggy’s legs over his shoulders.

“Wow, Captain. Someone’s hungry.”

Steve response was more of a grunt than words as he wasted no time hooking his finger in the band of her panties..They were red and lacy, see through in parts like right above her center. Peggy had picked them out specifically for the point of seduction and she was glad that Steve took the time to properly appreciate them. He pulled them down and tossed them onto the chair across the room. Peggy was neatly trimmed as well, a simple stripe of brunette hair was neatly manicured above her core.

Steve leaned in and licked a stripe up her core, from her entrance to her clit. Peggy moaned and Steve repeated both motions. He gradually sped up as Peggy’s noises grew louder. It all felt too slow for Peggy and clearly Steve could tell because he dove in, ravaging her cunt like an animal.

Peggy’s whole body quivered as his tongue and mouth devoured her. Her back arched and fell rhythmically. Steve’s hand moved up to cup her breasts but not for long as Peggy’s body was spasming in pleasure uncontrollably. His left hand moved to hold her stomach and his right was on her waist. Holding her in place while his tongue slid deep into her cunt and back out again multiple times. His nose touching her pubic hair, occasionally rubbing against her clit when he sped up his rhythms.

Steve traced the letter “z” along her pussy with his tongue. Starting at the clit and working his way to her entrance, slipping in momentarily and then tracing back up to her clit.

Peggy was getting close, her ragged breaths and raspy moans filling the room and seeping out onto the balcony through the crack where the door was open. If there was any neighbors in the room next door, they were getting quite the audio show.

A wave rumbled through Peggy as she exploded. Her back came flying off the mattress as she let out a shout, cumming hard onto Steve’s eager tongue. She fell back instantly as Steve continued licking her, riding through the waves with her until her body went limp on the red blanket.

Steve crawled up above her on the bed and kissed her passionately, “I love you, Peggy,” he whispered.

“Steve, oh, Steve. I love you.”

They kissed for a long time before Peggy could feel Steve’s growing hardness poking her, “I need you, Steve.”

“Yes, ma’am,” Steve said in that special voice reserved only for her ears.

Steve gripped his length and slid into Peggy’s warmth. It felt like sliding him after hitting a ball into deep right in the ninth inning.

They both let out low moans as Steve started thrusting slowly. Peggy’s arms wrapped around him and her red nails dug into his flesh.

Steve’s pace sped up slowly until he was fucking into her at a quick pace, Steve knelt back just enough to wrap his mouth around Peggy’s nipple. His hand cupped her other breast and kneaded the soft mound. His thrusts slowed but the pleasure she was getting from him paying her breasts extra attention more than made up for it.

Steve sat up, holding Peggy’s body close to him, her breasts squishing up against his chest as their nipples rubbed together.

He pulled her into a sitting position, her back straight and legs stretched out fully on either side of him. She was fully sitting in his lap.

Peggy began grinding up against him. There was no room for thrusting, it was just rubbing and grinding and having Steve filling her was delicious. The bed shook with their movements and they both moaned into each other’s ears.

Steve kept his arms wrapped tightly around Peggy as he moved to his knees and laid her down on her back. He took her right leg and flipped her. Steve arranged himself between her legs and slid back into her soaking cunt.

Steve began thrusting into her quickly, the sounds of his pelvis slapping into her ass downright filthy and beautiful at the same time.

Peggy made a loud choked sob and sucked in a harsh breathy moan. Steve stopped his motions and reached around to cradle her face in his palm.

“Peggy, I’m sorry, did I hurt you?”

“No, no, Steve! Please, keep going! You feel so fucking good,” her words were strained but she got out what she needed to say for him to begin thrusting into her again.

He sped up again and her back arched as if she was a gymnast. She continued making those same moans and groans but this time Steve wasn’t stopping. And she couldn’t be more thrilled.

Her whole body was on fire. She was sore and tired and yet she never wanted to stop. She wanted the ache he gave her. Never wanted his cock to leave her. She wanted him inside always. Wanted him thrusting into her for hours and hours. And with his super-soldier stamina, it was a possibility. She loved the weight of him on top of her. Loved his moans into her ear. Loved the way a bead of sweat would occasionally drip from his forehead and chest onto her back.

She couldn’t explain it. Her relationship with Steve was about so much more than physical attraction. And yet, here they were, naked in a hotel room, and the primal love they had for one another took over.

Steve gripped Peggy’s shoulder and straightened his back, allowing him to fuck deeper into her pussy.

The mattress engulfed Peggy’s choked sobs, her red lipstick smeared on the white pillows and the sheets were stained with evidence of their love.

Steve arched back over Peggy, he was almost laying atop her but was careful not to collapse his wait on her. His mouth moved to her ear and he sucked her earlobe into his mouth before moaning her name.

The second Steve reached his arm around to rub her clit, she screamed his name as her walls clenched, trapping his cock inside her. Her orgasm had a chain reaction, causing Steve to empty himself inside her.

Peggy rolled over in his arms and cupped Steve’s face.

Steve hovered above her, his arm wrapped around her upper back. Both of them were breathing heavily and both were covered in a sheen layer of sweat as well. The moonlight shining in through the window glistened off of Peggy’s skin, Steve thought she looked like an angel in that moment. Well, even more so than usual.

A bead of sweat rolled down Steve’s forehead and dripped onto Peggy’s cheek.

“Sorry,” Steve said, wiping the bead away with the pad of his thumb.

Peggy just smiled and teased, “Steve, I just had your cock in my mouth. I can handle some sweat.”

Steve laid his head down on her chest. She was still breathing heavily, her chest rising and falling every few seconds.

“Gods, look what you do to me, Peg. I can run ten miles without slowing down, But one round with you damn near puts me out.”

“That was a bit more than one round.”

“Guess I lost track after you made me cum the first time.”

Peggy’s hands went into Steve’s sweat soaked hair. Naturally his hair was blonder but now it seemed almost brunette. It was disheveled and soaked and a few thick strands fell over his forehead like they had when he was that little man in basic training.

“We forgot protection, you know.”

“I know. It’s fine, it isn’t my time.”

“Do you think we should have waited? For this, I mean. Until the war was fully over?” Steve asked into the darkness as he rubbed up and down Peggy’s arm.

“We’re young. And we’re alive. We should take all the pleasure we can out of these horrid times. I don’t regret this.---Do you?”

“Not one bit.” Steve said as they drifted off in each other”

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