#The memory has haunted my waking hours ever since That Day Which Shall Not Be Named

[annushorribilis]

#TheSimpsons 1117: Bart To The Future aired on this day in 2000 #bart to the future #the simpsons #lisa simpson #mickeybruce2020 #mickeybruce #i animated this scene #The memory has haunted my waking hours ever since That Day Which Shall Not Be Named #prescient #MalteseAnna #anna maltese #annushorribilis

[aliceslantern]

Give/Take, a Kingdom Hearts fanfic, chapter 8

Ienzo has been too busy since the war to be overwhelmed by the past. But with little progress to be made in his work with Kairi, old nightmares start to invade.

Riku is a glorified housesitter. Lonely and faced with no choice but to wait for a way to find his friends, he eagerly accepts when Ienzo asks him to help do repairs around the castle. Before long, the two strike up an unlikely friendship, united by their dark pasts and their attempts to be better people.

But just as they begin to consider something more... Kairi wakes up.

Ienzoku (Ienzo/Riku), post-Melody of Memory, slow burn. Updates Thursdays until it's done. Chapter summary:  With Riku gone, and their work done, Ienzo and the others try to move on.

Read it on FF.net/on AO3

---

With their work over… with Riku and Kairi on the other side… Ienzo and the others… had to try and move on.

The lab was a disaster storm of papers and books. After everyone was gone, and after several hours heatedly discussing whatever the hell had just happened… in an exhausted haze, they cleaned up. Even was still muttering about the ridiculousness of it all, and it annoyed him and Ansem both until finally Ansem just said softly, “Even, please, I think we could all do with some silence.”

Even just shook his head and stormed off to his own labs, not, Ienzo was sure, out of anger, but out of confusion.

Ienzo kept sweeping the papers into their piles. He felt so… heavy.

“I suppose we can ask Aeleus or Dilan to help us move the chair,” Ansem said. “We could always leave it until tomorrow, eh?”

“Right,” Ienzo said.

Ansem shook his head. “One has a sensation of “what now,”” he said.

“Yes. Exactly.”

Ansem smoothed his own pile of research. “Well, I could very much go for some ice cream. What do you say?”

“...Yes… alright.”

It wasn’t until both of them had their bars in hand that the silence broke. “He’ll be okay,” Ansem said. “I’m sure of it.”

“I know he will,” Ienzo stuttered. He watched a bead of ice cream roll down the bar; he had yet to bite. Finally, he did, only to get stabbed with a pang of nostalgia. There had been a reason he’d avoided getting one of these, despite his old love for them.

Holding Ansem’s hand walking down the hall to the labs feeling like a very good precious boy for scoring full marks on Even’s test--

“Oh,” he said.

“What is it?”

“It tastes like the past.” He felt tears welling in his eyes, and wasn’t completely sure why. “It tastes like…”

Ansem patted the small of his back. “I know.”

Weeks passed, then months.

Ienzo was never quite sure of what to do with himself. Since he’d woken as this new Ienzo, he’d always had a goal, something urgent hanging over his head. First it was trying to give Roxas a body. Then it was examining Kairi’s heart. Now… pure nothing.

He tried to do some work on the repairs, limited as his knowledge of that sort of thing was. Dilan was insufferable about it, but Aeleus was patient. “It seems like a long while since we've had more than a passing conversation,” Aeleus said. “Hand me the wire cutter.”

Ienzo did. “Yes. It does, doesn’t it?”

“You were always in that lab, or on the phone. One wonders if you even slept.”

“Barely,” he admitted. “Now I feel as though… everything’s just stopped.”

“A moment to breathe,” Aeleus said. He spliced together two wires in the wall and taped them together.

Ienzo shook his head.

“That’s not something you want?”

“I’m not used to it,” he said. “All my life I’ve been going, going, going, and now…”

Aeleus spliced together a few more wires. “Perhaps that will be good for you.”

He snorted. “Hardly.”

“It’s time for us to move on, which is no easy task. For you especially.”

“What do you mean?”

He shot him a look. “I can tell you feel overwhelmed.”

Ienzo sighed.

“It’s understandable for human emotion to feel like too much. We’re all on the same page, Ienzo.”

“Emotions were not nearly so complex when I last remembered them,” Ienzo said.

“You grew up,” Aeleus said.

He looked down into the toolbox. “Do you feel guilty, Aeleus?”

He paused. “I do. Yes. The memories of what we did… are everywhere.”

Ienzo nodded. Now that he had no directive to be in the lab, seeing that closed, sealed door leading down into the basement… Well. He’d started having nightmares more, about the faces of the people he’d broken, and he’d woken up sobbing more than once. How could he put it right? How could he sit here doing nothing ? But what else could he do to help?

Mixed with these memories were others. What do you think if we did this, Ienzo, is that something you’d like to do? He could see the manipulation more clearly now. I’m sorry. Master Ansem isn’t coming back. He’s gone mad.

“Can you try it now?”

“What?” Ienzo asked.

“The breaker.”

Ienzo switched on the panel. Immediately, the lights in the hallway got much brighter, and he winced.

Aeleus nodded once. “Better.” He started packing up the tools. “Ienzo--”

“Yes?”

He shut his eyes tightly. “I must apologize to you,” he said.

“Oh, Aeleus, you weren’t stealing me away from anything.”

“Not that. For… being unable to protect you better.”

“In Castle Oblivion? Aeleus, it’s all--”

“From Xehanort.”

Ienzo froze.

“I knew there was something evil about him, something wrong,” he said. “But he knew just the right way to stoke one’s ego, the… darkness in one’s heart. If any of us had been anything but selfish we could’ve stopped you from falling onto the path too.”

He sighed. “It’s alright, Aeleus.”

“No, it’s not,” he said. “But regardless… I hope our own sins don’t hold you down.”

He wasn’t sure what else to say to that.

“Shall we move on to the next one?”

---

Forgiveness.

The notion of it haunted Ienzo. He felt certain he did not deserve it from others. He hadn’t thought he’d be asked to ever give it.

He tried not to be bitter at the others for what they’d done in their past, but the longer he spent here in this castle with these memories and nothing substantial to do, the more he tried to wrap his head around their lies. Tossing his father away and lying to him about it.

Ienzo made his next major task cleaning up the library. It was a disorganized, chaotic mess, and though it kept his hands busy, the silence was utterly piercing. Had Riku and Kairi arrived at this “unreality”? Had they found Sora? Were they okay? He knew he had to trust in them both, but at the same time, he worried. Given that his bond to Riku had changed radically…

He missed him.

He felt tenderhearted, and a fool. Riku was the only real friend he’d ever had near his own age, and Ienzo did not feel secure in his relationships with the others to talk about anything really substantial. It ached .

Time passed.

---

“Be careful with the nitrogen, Ienzo. I thought I’d taught you better lab etiquette.”

Ienzo sighed heavily and adjusted his grip on the canister. He was supposed to be helping put samples of… something, on ice. Even had told him what, but he couldn’t remember. Lately everything seemed to be in one ear and out the other. He felt scattered.

“Careful now.” With his hair in a cap, and the goggles making his green eyes bulge even more, Even looked a little bit like a bug. What creatures we are, Ienzo thought. “I do so miss the days of our powers. I wouldn’t have needed to fuss with all these chemicals.”

“Do you?” Ienzo asked, carefully pouring in the fluid.

“The magic,” he said, with a sigh. “As much as I try to strengthen what I have left… it will never be as it was. That’s enough. I said that’s enough. ”

Ienzo set the canister down. They both watched the steam roll as the nitrogen boiled, and Even shut the lab’s freezer.

“Indeed, what has gotten into you?” Even asked. “You were never one for absent daydreaming.”

“I’m sorry, Even,” he said dully.

He frowned. He took off his goggles and gloves and went over to the sink to wash his hands. “Are you alright?” he asked.

“Yes. Fine.”

“Will I need Aeleus to drag you to bed again?”

He scowled. “No.”

Even took off the cap, a long braid falling over his shoulders. Not for the first time, Ienzo noticed that the ends of that hair were singed . He caught Ienzo staring and raised an eyebrow. “How have… things been for you?” he asked awkwardly.

“What do you mean? The days are the same as they ever were.”

“Are they?” Even asked. “I’ve been seeing you wander the halls aimlessly. If you need something to do , Ienzo, we can catch up on your chemistry education.”

He shook his head slowly. “With… no life or death task at hand… lately I feel as though… I’m stuck in mud.” He started shedding his own protective garments.

“That’s no surprise. I do too.” He sighed. “To suddenly be thrust back into a normal life… is to suddenly be thrust back into a normal life. After some ten years of abnormality.”

“...Quite.” He recalled when he was a child, and he'd felt quite comfortable telling Even everything.

Even, in fact, had been the one to tell him about Ansem. “What does that look mean?” Even asked.

Ienzo frowned. “I’m… curious. Why did you do it?”

“What? These samples? I’m exploring a new type of replica tech for Xion, Roxas, and Na--”

“Not that. Why did you lie to me all those years ago?”

All of the color left Even’s face, and the only audible sound was the soft hum of the machinery.

Ienzo pulled the bobby pins from his bangs. “I don’t ask this to be confrontational,” he said. “I just… truly, the more time passes, the more I want to know.”

Even squeezed his eyes shut and opened them again. “The truth, the whole, complete truth… is that I feared for our lives.”

Ienzo rolled his eyes.

“I mean it,” Even said in a low voice. “Even with darkness gnawing at our hearts, do you think we didn’t know Xehanort was twisted? That we didn’t know what we were doing was wrong? The thing is… with darkness… with sheer old-fashioned cognitive dissonance… we believed that the discoveries we were making… offset the human cost.” He sighed, and sat down heavily on one of the stools.

Ienzo waited.

“He wanted more subjects,” Even said tiredly. “Once we had run through our mill of the willing… then the coerced… after that, Ansem had found us out. And that he had… well. We were hungry. If Ansem didn’t disappear, and the experiments didn’t continue, he would instead use us . Namely… you. He was interested in children by then.”

Ienzo felt weak.

“It’s the hardest, and worst, decision I’ve ever made in my life,” Even continued, “Seeing we obviously became experiments ourselves. But I think the three of us were… trying … to protect you in the last way our twisted and darkening hearts could. It was Ansem or you and I chose you.”

He felt dizzy.

“I shouldn’t have lied, I know that much. Or even if I lied I should’ve told you the truth soon afterwards, when you could take it. But I was deathly afraid of word of you knowing somehow getting back to Xehanort. I’m not sure why that felt so urgent. Maybe you would’ve said something ill against him, and you were so small , I was afraid he’d…” He swallowed. “Ienzo, I’m not sure how I can impart to you how sorry I am. I don’t deserve your forgiveness. If I could go back right now and stop it all I would. I was vain, I was foolish, I thought it was… all worth it. But none of it was. Nothing.”

Ienzo had never seen this side of Even before.

“And yet somehow we’re still alive,” he continued wryly. “We’re alive. We’re whole. Somehow the town hasn’t come after us with torches and pitchforks. That has to mean something. I… plan to dedicate whatever’s left of my life to making things better, easier, for the people of this town. I know it’s some hope.”

“I see,” he said, numbly. “Thanks for that.”

“It’s because of all that you grew up a husk,” Even murmured. “And for that… I’m sorry, Ienzo.”

Ienzo realized he didn’t forgive him. Not yet. “I know,” he said.

Even stood. “I think you, out of all of us especially, get to deserve to try for something like happiness,” he said.

“You do?” he asked dryly. “But I… even I have done awful things--”

“Things you wouldn’t have done, I’m certain, if we hadn’t guided you onto that path,” Even said.

“Don’t exonerate me,” Ienzo said, with something like panic.

“It’s the truth,” he said. “You can’t expect your younger self to have magically risen above. If you’d gone against us, Ienzo, with no Ansem, where would you have gone? Would you have known how to survive?”

Something tight and hot surged in his breast and throat.

“You wouldn’t have,” Even said. “You were a… a rather sheltered child. Ienzo, I just… I hope you can learn to forgive yourself. You’re too young to suffer your whole life.”

He felt like he couldn’t breathe, like he was being crushed from the inside out. He found himself being eased onto one of the stools. He was sobbing, disjointedly, an awful aching weight inside of him beginning to lift because Even was right.

“Oh dear. That made it worse, not better, didn’t it,” Even said. He offered Ienzo a tissue.

“No,” he sobbed. “I… I think I understand.”

“Let it out,” he said. “Let it go.”

So Ienzo did. Awful, and humiliating, but at the same time a weird pressure was beginning to ease. Even rubbed circles into his back. It seemed to take a long, long time, and when he was through he felt exhausted, but not as horrible as he thought.

“There we go,” Even said, in a voice Ienzo remembered from his childhood. “Better?”

Ienzo swallowed. “I… I think so.”

---

Ienzo… took time. He walked a lot, even as the fall deepened into winter into spring. He read a lot of novels and kept doing repairs and tried to understand what it meant to be human.

Ienzo missed Riku.

Nobody had heard from any of them since the last he’d seen. He thought often of their kiss, what it had made him feel. Wondered if he would ever get to do it again, or if it were just a memory. Wondered what exactly this affection meant. More than like, more than attraction. Surely not love, not yet? He tried not to dwell on it much, tried to let the feeling pass like it was a bad cold. But it didn’t.

He was dozing over a pile of books in the library when his phone rang. It was late at night, so late as to be early. Sleepily, he stirred to look at the caller ID, and his heart jackhammered into his throat. He looked--he was sure he looked absolutely hideous--he scrambled to smooth the hair over his face. “Hello?”

The lighting on Riku’s video was awful, but Ienzo could see most of his face, some of it partially obscured by hair that had gotten even longer. He looked a bit thin, and very tired. “Ienzo. Ienzo.”

“You’re back.” He couldn’t restrain the emotion anymore.

“I’m back. I’m home.”

“You’re okay?” They were nearly talking over each other.

“I’m fine. I’m fine. I just got in, I just saw my parents, I knew I had to talk to you. I wanted to. I needed to. I…” He sounded choked up.

“How are your friends? Did you find him? Are they okay?”

“Sora and Kairi are fine. They’re with their families. We’re home.”

“You’re home. It’s okay. You’re okay.” He wasn’t sure if he was stating a fact or trying to comfort him.

“I’m sorry I’m so emotional--”

“No, don’t be, this is huge.” Ienzo swallowed his own tears. “It’s so good to hear your voice.”

“Yours too.”

A long pause. “You must be exhausted,” Ienzo said. “You should try to get some rest.”

“I just wanted to let you know I’m here.”

“Thank you.” He wondered if he should admit it. “I’ve… thought of you often.”

He laughed. Ienzo noted it sounded quite weak. “What, did you miss me?”

“Much to my chagrin.” His heart was in his throat. “Though I guess you were too busy adventuring to think of me at all.”

His face fell just the slightest.

“I’m… I’m sorry. That was a bit tactless.”

“It’s not you,” Riku said. “It’s just… it was really… a lot, I’m still… trying to accept how it all went down.” He took an audible breath. “But I did miss you. Kairi… wouldn’t let me live it down. Guess we didn’t seem so slick.”

He laughed a little.

“I’m not even sure how long it’s been for you guys, between the… the worldines, and the unreality, and the… I’m dizzy. ”

“Six months.”

“...Oh. Wow, that’s… more than I thought.”

“I’m just so glad you’re alright. I’ve been worried. You made me worried.”

He laughed. “Well you don’t have to worry anymore.”

“I guess not.” He didn’t quite feel the relief yet, still shaky with adrenaline. “Thanks for calling. You didn’t have to do it instantly. ”

“I sorta did,” Riku said. “I wanted to let you know.”

“When things… settle, when you get some rest. Will you call again? Or write me? Tell me what exactly you’ve gone through?”

“Yes. I will, I’m just… I should… talk to my parents, my mom’s watching me out of the backdoor to make sure I don’t disappear.”

“Of course. Be with your family. Be home. I hope you can enjoy it.”

“...Thank you. Um--”

“Until next time.”

“Right. Yes.”

He hung up, and for a long time Ienzo just sat starting at the blank phone screen. He let out a long, long sigh.

Riku was back. Riku hadn’t forgotten about… whatever they’d had. He’d made it a priority.

Ienzo hugged the phone to his chest, feeling like a schoolboy.

#give/take #ienzoku #ienzo/riku #ienzo #riku #even (kingdom hearts) #aeleus #ansem the wise

[ladybugsfanfics]

Shut Up And Kiss Me [11/?]

Pairing: Tom Hiddleston x reader

Style: Multichapter

WC: 2k

Warnings: mention of blackout, exstreme awkwardness, 

Summary: You and Professor Hiddleston have been colleagues for many years now, and through those years the hatred for each other has only grown. Now, as a new school year starts, you’re being told that you have to share a classroom or a class. Neither are happy about the outcome, but knowing you’ll never come to an agreement, you let the class choose for you. Team-teaching is rare in 2019, but it is a lot harder to do when you can’t stand the person you’re doing it with. 

A/N: aaaa, i have been so absent, I know. This has taken forever, but now I can promise you I’m gonna be back. Not only will this, hopefully be updated more often (I have inspiration), but I also got like a ton of writing mojo (wrote 4k words yesterday) and a Loki!Piarate au is soon done and i have other shits, my requests are becoming easier though turns out they’re getting long. Anyways, I hope this can please you and I hope to be able to post more in the coming time. I love you all so much ^_^ P.S. it’s close to christmas and a christmas party... ;)

Previous | Seires Masterlist | Part Twelve

You can’t place the feeling. Not really. All you know is that something feels… off. Wrong. 

It’s Sunday, three days since halloween and you met Emma’s friends. Even though that was fun and all, the night could have been better had you stuck with the people you know. Not only would you be able to continue to get Tom being nice (which had your heart race a mile a minute), but you could also, maybe, have more fun seeing as you wouldn’t panic everytime you said something. 

However, three days later, something feels off. You’re not even sure if it has anything to do with Halloween (if it has anything to do with Tom lending you his coat because you were barely dressed in your costume),  or if it has something to do with the fact that you have no recollection of what you did last night. 

All you know is that something is not as it should be. 

You try to shake off the feeling and reach for your phone, where it lies on your nightstand. The clock on it reads 07.39 AM and you curse your annoying drunk self for always making sure you wake up early―it’s not that you go to bed early, no rather late actually (like you gotta stay up ‘til at least 3 AM), but more that whenever you do get drunk, you actually fall asleep right away and you actually sleep. Maybe that’s the cure. 

Despite wanting to continue your slumber, you decide to get up. Maybe you can figure out what’s giving you this feeling of something being amiss. 

One slightly wrong, though not that surprising, thing lies on your couch. Y/BFF/N has their face half planted in one of your pillows, though the angle works for them to breathe. One arm hangs loosely off the couch and their legs have tangled themselves in a blanket, where one is thrown over the back of the couch. You have no idea how that can be comfortable, and you bet they’ll tell you how much they regret it when they wake up. 

Yet, you know that’s not the feeling that haunts you. Seeing your best friend crashing on your couch is not a rare sight, though it is becoming rarer as time passes. 

Nothing is amiss in your apartment. Everything where you left it when you went out last night, even the now half-full bottle of wine you opened before leaving that sits on your countertop. 

The mystery continues, but the answers are not in your apartment. One thing’s for sure, you’re not about to go out and find out. 

Before you decide to check any messages or notifications, you find a glass, fill it with water and down it in seconds. Pulling your head back you become aware of the ache in it, and with the water helping you clear your mind a little, the pounding slowly creeps into a loud drum. 

Okay, so you’re not getting away from being hungover. Good to know. 

Not being able to focus with the drums really taking off in your head, you rush to the bathroom and find aspirin. You take two and swallow them with another glass of water. It’s gonna take a little while before they help so you slide down the bathroom wall and sit there to let yourself ease into the beating that keeps interrupting your thoughts. 

It feels like it takes forever, but when you check the clock, the pounding starts to wind down a little after more or less fifteen minutes. You don’t have the energy to get up from the warmth of the bathroom floor, so you continue to sit as you open your phone. 

You have three snaps, five messenger texts, two texts and eleven missed phone calls. The phonecalls belong to three people; three from Tom (your heart skips a beat at the thought that he thinks of you), six from Benedict, and surprisingly, two from Chris. 

The two texts are one message of having voicemails (three), and one message from Tom; I heard from Benedict. He’s worried, are you okay? - Tom. You ignore it, making a note to reply and listen to the voicemails after checking messenger and snap. 

It takes three seconds to regret checking snap. Two of the snaps are from people you have no idea who are, but who you probably added last night. The last one is a video of you from Y/BFF/N embarrassing yourself to the nth degree on the dance floor. You know they saved it, and you know there is no point in asking to delete it―no matter what, you know they won’t post it anywhere. 

In a state of shock, checking messenger becomes more automated that anything else. You read the messages; one with a similar name to one of the snap usernames that you ignore and delete the friend request seeing as the message itself is not one you want; one that’s from a groupchat with you, Y/BFF/N and another mutual friend that you don’t see that often as they live abroad, but whom you trust fully and therefore has replied to your drunk texts about wanting to fuck a certain person whose name shall not be mentioned; three texts from Chris asking what’s going on, if you’re okay and if there’s anything he can do to help. You only reply to Chris’s by asking why he wonders, saying yes and asking him if he knows anything about what happened last night―you do not admit to having no memory of the evening. 

Waiting for a reply you listen to the voicemails. All three are from Benedict; one he sounds mad in, one he sounds worried in, and one he threatens to call the police and tell them that you’re missing and that you might be in danger―it feels a little weird not knowing if that actually happened. 

You sigh, blowing your hair so it falls in your face. Well, well, gotta keep searching. 

In the living room, Y/BFF/N lies in the same position as before. You ignore them, instead focusing on the low rumble from your stomach. 

Hopefully, some food will help clear the mystery. 

The food itself doesn’t help. However, the replies from Chris does. 

Chris: asking because you seemed very drunk and i wanted to know you’re okay, good that you are, and no, i don’t know since you never really gave me anything to go on

You: okay, well, there are no other messages between us, anything I did to alert you??

Chris: uhh, no, actually it was Tom that called me

You: Tom?? Hiddleston?? The dude who I teach with?? 

Chris: yeah… i was surprised too, maybe talk to him?

You: yeah, im gonna 

Of course, that’s what you tell Chris. You know, with every ounce of your body, that you will not pick up the phone and either text or call him because you know that that would be the death of you. 

You will wait, as long as you can, to ask Tom why he called Chris. The thought of it alone just has that feeling of wrongness expand. You shake it off, put away your phone and return your attention to your food. 

 --

Going into work on Monday is not on your list of fun activities, but it is something you have to do. You suppose it would have been on your list of fun if not for the looming conversation you need to have with a certain professor. 

It takes little time after your first class to meet him. Usually, your schedules don’t coincide but you guess the universe isn’t on your side today. 

“Hi.” Tom purses his lips and puts his hands in his pockets. 

You nod. “Hi.”

“How was your weekend?” he asks. 

“It was good,” you say and nod. “You know what, I can’t really talk right now. Catch you later?” You shoot him a pained smile and hurry away before Tom can answer. There is no way you’ve ever been in a more awkward situation (and the worst part is that you don’t even know what it is that made it awkward―what the fuck did you say?!). 

You try not to think too hard about it as you make your way back to your office. With two hours of office time, you can get back to focusing on your research project and get your mind off Saturday night and your possibly very embarrassing utterance to Tom. 

God, what the fuck did you say?

It takes a solid five minutes for your mind to rush back to what’s been circling around the last twenty-four hours. 

“Okay, you know what?” you say out loud to the silence of your office. It does not reply back. However, in the need to say it out loud, you act as if it did. “I have to just ask. I’m gonna go to wherever he currently is and I’m gonna ask what I said and I’m gonna cut right to the chase and it’s gonna be alright. It’s gonna be okay. It’s probably not as bad as I think it is.” 

However, you don’t get up. It’s like you’re glued to your chair and no matter how much the nerves in your brain tells your legs to get up, they don’t move. 

For two hours, you just sit there. Almost so you’re late to class even. 

 --

“We’re doing a what?” 

Both you and Tom frown at Dean McHallan who, though with a slight roll of his eyes, nods. “You’re going to a conference in Scotland. I know it’s sudden and it seems weird, but they specifically asked for you two to speak.”

You raise a brow. “They asked for us to speak about what exactly? Do I have to prepare some kind of presentation or something now because, honestly, I’m not ready for that.” 

“They asked for you both to speak on team-teaching creative writing. They wanted input from your students as well so during the week now, ask them some questions that you can quote them on. And they wanted you, Y/N, to speak on your research project as they find it interesting and they weirdly enough hadn’t thought about it before. They would love to hear how you’re going about it.” 

Your mind races as you nod along to his words. What are you supposed to do? Say no, nope, you can’t do that. You literally have no choice because he’s already said you’re going and McHallan makes the final decisions and he also knows neither of you really have anything that important going on currently. 

“Okay, I guess we’re going to Scotland next week.” You’ve always wanted to go so maybe it’s an opportunity you should take anyway. 

“It’s settled then. Tom?”

The literature professor nods. “I can’t argue with your reasoning so I guess we’re going. I have some inquiries. Accomodations? Travel? Food? And when?”

McHallan hands each of you a piece of paper. “You will be in the same hotel, though different rooms. I think they’ll be just across from each other or something. You’ll fly there on wednesday morning, together, and have all wednesday evening to settle in and make the last preparations and so on. Food will be accounted for unless you eat above budget. There are breakfast and dinner included at the hotel, and lunch is served with the conference. If you eat anything outside of that it will be out of your own pocket. The schedule for the conference is on the back of that paper and the information you need about your flights just under there.”

You nod, going over the paper as McHallan talks and making different mental notes. Some of those make no sense, and one of them is ‘get trapped somewhere so you have to ask Tom what you did on Saturday’, though you’re afraid that one might be the hardest one to see through with.

#tom hiddleston #tom hiddleston x reader #tom hiddleston fanfic #tom hiddleston imagine #tom hiddleston fanfiction #fanfic #fanfiction #thomas william hiddleston #twh #marvel #loki #rpf #real people fanfiction #professors au #professor hiddleston #tom hiddleston professor #slowburn #enemies to lovers #au

[musesbleuses]

From the writing case of Dr. G. Pepridge:

Dear [Redacted]

I've finally equipped my cabin with all that I need for the foreseeable future. I'm stocked with furniture, equipment, hunting supplies, and of course, paper. I will send this out the next chance I get. Though the winter may yet be young, the snow is thick and unyielding, and the boy has not come for the weekly supply run. The flakes of snow are small but many. Their crystalline bodies cut each other off and bounce away, obscuring the horizon.

In them I see all the possibility in what I do not yet know. The fresh snow drifting down is picked up and played with by the wind before settling on the flakes that came before it, only to be picked up and thrown about again. I see in the distance, atop a nearby hill, the ghost of an old tree. It draws my gaze, hardly an hour goes by that I am not compelled to stare up at it. The steadfast silhouette of it, I am beginning to see it in my dreams.

The world turns white and sparkling in the morning sun, and in the evenings the world moves to shimmering blue scale. Yet the blunt outlines of the corporeal shadow atop the hill stay black and haunting. As a solid specter, it stands fixed in the shifting, curling world around it. The stark shape a relief from the ever present blue/grey of the sky.

It's unfazed and accustomed to the world. The life it leads is on a scale incomprehensible to us.

I cannot help but wonder if there is a way to understand it.

In truth, my dear, I am rather envious of it. Since the moment I last saw you, I have been envious of every creature or thing that has never seen you. Their hearts don't know the pain that is missing you.

Always thinking of you,

G

Dear [Redacted]

I know that days are passing, but it feels to me as though time has come to a standstill. The sun circles the sky but it never rises, never sinks. When I breathe, I breathe in dark, perpetual, glittering blue. The boy has not come round for some time now, but I have lost track of the days.

The ghost atop the hill has become my only comfort in this cold world. I feel as though I never sleep, although, that I never wake up. Perhaps a storm broke one of my windows, the wind smothering my fireplace and inviting the frozen air to come in and make itself at home. Perhaps I was asleep when this happened. My blankets and furs losing the battle between themselves and the cold onslaught. My body will, as bodies tend to do, fail. I don't wake up to feel this failure. Being conscious is deemed too taxing during a time when energy must be preserved. The fight against the brutal air a loosing battle. In my unconsciousness, my body has permission to fade into itself, until there is nothing left for this world to observe.

Ah, this is naught but a fiction. But I do find myself comforted by it. I am awake, I am always awake, and kept company by the looming silhouette always close by.

When my body is tired, I lay myself down on my bed and close my eyes. I am ready to embrace the unconscious world, but my mind is called elsewhere. I am transported. I fly through the wind, for once unbothered by the whistling, cutting breeze. I see my familiar specter waiting for me, always, patiently, waiting. It's twisting branches and solid trunk stand darkly silhouetted against the blue backdrop of sky and snow. I slow as I approach, eager to connect, but reveling in the anticipation. And secretly, scared too.

I can admit to you, my dear, that in the moments before I reach her, I am scared. The closer I get to her, the smaller I grow. Parts of me are received by her before others; I look down at myself, see my translucent hands stretched away from me, pulled into her. The rest of me follows, and abruptly I'm within her, a part of her.

We can see everything.

As much as I try to prepare myself for this moment in my waking hours, I cannot help but gasp in wonder and pain at the brusque exposure of my senses to her world.

My consciousness when my eyes are open is so puny, so pitiful. All it knows is the pain of its heart, it's lungs, it's hands with the blackened fingertips.

But oh, darling, when I'm a part of her I am aware of so much more! I can see the stars underneath the earth! I push through the void, searching for pockets of bright supernovas and twisting galaxies of energy waiting to be explored. I push my roots towards them, exploring them eagerly. Animals and fungi travel their way towards me. I am like gravity to them, my roots and wood are salvation to them.

But I am, as always, torn from her power and comfort. My eyes open, and I resign myself to another day in this accursed body. Were that I with her forever, the world would not be so bleak.

Thinking of you,

G

Dear [Redacted]

I apologize for the state of my handwriting. My gloves are thinned from use and I found it necessary to spend an evening removing the blackened remains of my picky and forefinger on my writing hand. I used a heated blade. I remember learning about that a lifetime ago, but through literature or lecture I can't recall. I do not think I did a bad job, though the smell of heated metal on dead flesh caused me to lose my lunch. I know enough to know that they are not infected, and I was able to fashion a crude sort of hand wrap from the remains of the squirrels I have taken to hunting.

I don't want to lose more of my hands. I have use for them still. These letters to you keep me sane in this harsh, waking world. When I close my eyes, it mattes not. My hands are always whole when I visit my friend atop the hill.

She has been calling to me more. She craves my touch, misses my attention, feels empty without me. I am beginning to feel empty without her. The more my body breaks the less it feels like my body, the more she begs me to stay, the more I want to obey her.

I don't know how long I've been here. This endless winter creeps into every crevice of my brain, eroding all that I used to know. I don't remember why I came here. I know I miss you, but I don't remember why you're not here with me. Sometimes, in the space between my body and hers, when I fly through the air and look for my shadow on the pristine ground, even though I know that souls don't leave shadows, I feel as though you could almost be flying next to me. I never look. If you are I would have to react, and if you weren't all my hope would be dashed. I live in a static world, choosing limbo over pain or pleasure.

But then I reach her, and she reaches for me with strong branches and welcomes me in. I close my eyes and fall into her embrace, and again I can feel the earth move. Time, which already does not seem to pass in this everlasting, lukewarm light, slows even more to negligible increments.

We live in awareness, without the pressure of action or reaction. We move on a scale so vastly different to the rest of the world that we have no choice but to accept all that happens. In those moments, I can breathe in quiet relief, thanks to her comfort to a mere spirit taking refuge in her space.

The snow weighs our branches and chills our bark, but her memories tell me that this shall pass, we only have to wait. In time, the snow will leave, as all things do, and it will return to us again, cooling us after we're warmed in the sun of summer. These things happen, without our input or meddling. These moments are medicine to my soul.

When I open my eyes, torn once more from shelter, I am forced to react. My skin demands warmth, so I build a fire. My stomach demands food, so I leave in search of meat or edible vegetation.

The senses of my body are not longer adequate. My hearing, attuned now to the sounds of wind, and rain, and the gossip of other plants and fungi, searches for these connections and find none. The snow dulls the sound that travel over the land.  My eyes, which can only see in the one direction I point them, are stifling. The white of the ground reflects the ceaseless sun, and I am blinded. My face is sore from all the squinting I must do. And I cannot feel anything through these bloody layers of clothing I wear over my skin! I cannot remember the last time I was free of clothing. Was it with you, my dear? How long ago did you leave me?

Through this pain, still yours,

G

Love,

I linger with my silhouetted branches atop the hill. I watch them through my window. They shimmer in the snow, and I'm afraid that one day they're going to shimmer away, and they were nothing but a mirage. The beauty of this sight chills me, for it seems too uncorrupted to be a part of my world.

I believe I saw the sun move yesterday, the light is beginning to change again, ever so slightly. Each day is no longer colder than the one before, though they are not warming yet either. Time is returning to me.

I wish it wouldn't. I have found comfort in eternity.

When I join with her atop the hill, our memories tell me that as the snow melts, new life that hid away in the ground will begin to emerge. It will gather latent strength and push up through the thawing dirt. I think I knew that, from before, a lifetime ago, but I cannot remember when or where. It's unimportant.

I am excited to experience this. We can feel ourself preparing for the sun, slowly shaking awake, leaving dormancy behind for another year. Our roots, spread so far, so deep, can feel animals and seeds alike tensing for a chance to escape their life underground and move on to the next life in their heavens.

I too am beginning to look forward to my next life in the heavens. When I opened my eyes again yesterday and saw above me dead wood and paint I could not breathe. So disoriented was I! I had lost my wind, lost my sky, my stars, my sun, lost the universe beneath my feet, feeling so isolated from everything! Where had they gone? Why had they abandoned me?

You will be pleased to hear that after my initial panic I took action! I knew I could not live like this anymore. The walls surrounding me, cutting me off from the world, was driving me insane, I could feel it! I took my hammer and used the lean-to to climb to the roof.  I pushed off as much of the snow as I could, and when there was no more snow, a layer of ice that had taken all winter to accumulate confronted me. I smashed it with a crack that echoed through the valley, and pushed off the ice as well.

I found my way across the newly bared roof, atop to where I guess my bed would be, and I started beating the shingles. This loathsome roof could no longer imprison me! I would not let it.

It took time and a great deal of energy, but I prevailed! I got down from the roof and made my way inside. I took the parts of roof that had fallen on my bed and threw them in the fire, which flared at me in gratitude.

That night when I lay in bed, preparing to close my eyes and rejoin my other self on the hill, my body lay bathed in moonlight that glinted and danced across the snowflakes drifting towards me. Gentle breezes from above encouraged more crystals to find their way to me. It's all connected, and I was not missing out. I'm connected now, too. I did that, took my fate into my own, maimed hands, and connected myself to the cold of this world.

Am I still connected with you?

Love,

G

[Redacted]

Have you ever danced in the snowlight, my love? I thought I saw you today. The wind tossed up the snow blanketing the earth and it fell on the air in your shape. I was sitting peaceful atop my hill, and you danced around me, playing with the tips of my branches, brushing your cold fingers past my bark. Your body sparkled in the frosty light surrounding us. I sat graceful and steady, my slimmest branches returned and shared your movement. I missed you less in that moment then I have ever missed you before. Have you finally chosen to join me?

I spend more time as a ghost then I do as a real person. I think this should frighten me, but it doesn't. It feels right. I think I was born to be a ghost in this world. The physical pain of being real is almost overwhelming now. Even as I write this, I feel tender and sore, bruised down to my core.

Can I confess to you a truth, my love? I can feel shame burning inside of me for my efforts to keep this knowledge hidden. Maybe if I tell you, my shame will ease, and it won't hurt so to be real.

Here is my secret.

I have never visited the silhouetted tree as a real person. Oh, the shame! Of never touching my love with real hands, even back when they were whole. I will tell you why I've avoided her.

I'm afraid she's not real. I visit her, I join her, I become her, but only when I close my eyes. Were I to visit her in the stark, unfailing daylight, I might never reach her. As I walk towards her will she move away? Will I reach the top of the hill, only to find her shimmering form perched atop the next one? Am I cursed to chase the source of my peace forever?

What if she isn't real? A true ghost? A mirage of a silhouette of hope which I can never caresses, which can never steady shaking body. Is everything I love in this life doomed to fade away when I am close enough to touch?

Now you know my fear. I hope you do not think less of me. I am letting this fear control my days. I dare not wander too close to her, but when I close my eyes she draws my spirit to her. When my body isn't holding me back, I am able to embrace her. I welcome her summons. I welcome her direction, her distraction.

It's my cursed body. Without it I would be free to be with her. As one, we could simply exist. Doesn't that sound wonderful? To simply....be. A life without heartache or physical pain. I have found it, but I'm not allowed to stay.

Why am I not allowed to stay? Why am I afflicted so with this possibility of release! It teases me until I am begging. My body tells me of my obligations, food, water, heat, but I'm starting to forget why they're important. I'm never warm anyway. I welcomed the cold inside and the cold has made itself my home.

The parts of me that still dreams, dreams of you.

G

My love,

For a single moment I saw your face as you were years ago. Your light brown hair shone red in the sun, a small yellow flower tucked behind your ear. You were laughing, trying to hold still as a fat, clumsy bumblebee tried to drink from it. Your eyes looked almost closed, so happy and smiling you were!

The sky behind you was a blurry, warm blue. The only thing in focus was your face, and the shining, welcoming blue and green of your eyes; your beauty stunned me. This blue was so different from the cold blue I've been living in. I forgot that this feeling was possible, this warm blue feeling. I forgot how your smile warmed the world.

You've inspired me, my darling. With your smile nestled deep my heart, protecting me from within, I've decided to face my fears. I'm going to visit my soul's home in person. Last night I sunk deep into her, wishing I could stay with her forever, my ghost merged as one with her. My body jerked me back, as always. The tether between me and it fading, but still holding fast.

This may be my final letter to you. My body is weak, I can feel it waning whenever I'm present in it. My outer clothes hang loose and grotesque from its frame. My inner clothes I feel have become inseparable from my skin. My body is no longer fit to hold my spirit. I am afraid that if my body fails without ever have confirmed if the ghost on the hill doubles as a real thing in this material plane, or if it's merely a figment of my dying mind, that my spirit will not be able to find it when my body departs.

As much as I loathe the tether my soul has with this wretched body, some deep part of me understand that with this tether I am able to understand direction enough to find my way to her. Without something to leave behind me, I'll never know which way is forward. Without this shackle I would be able to hear her call, but never could I find the source. I would be exposed, without my body or my home, vulnerable, unable to process all the information of the universe without the shelter of her wood. I need to touch her, while I am still in control of this body. I need to physically pass on my tether from this body to hers. The heavens will not scare me if I am nestled in her heart.

I will no longer be able to write to you, my love, but do not cry for your loss. I will not be entirely gone from this world. I have found a new home for my spirit, a better home, one that does not mourn or feel loss or pain. In my time with her I have felt the deaths of other, distant trees, and they are not scared. They understand that they will turn into new and different life. I was once so separate from the world, but soon I will be part of it.

I will be able to make the pilgrimage to her once, and it will take everything I have left in this body. Assuming she is real, assuming she is something I can rest on, I will push my way through the frosted snow in the cold morning sun. I will clear a small space for my body and settle between her roots and rest my head back against her trunk. I will close my eyes, I will breathe deep, and my spirit will not have to travel to find my new home. My final act in this body will be gifting my soul to my savior.

As the earth turns and winter waves goodbye, my old body will invigorate my new one. I will dance with you again and again as the world turns, grows cold and warm and cold again in turn. The wind will bring you to me as light and snow, as golden leaves, as pollen and the promise of new life, as invisible laughter twirling on waves of heat.

And when many years pass, when I can feel my sanctuary begin to fade, I will cast myself out and find a new home. Maybe, hopefully, I'll find you there too.

Goodbye for now, darling, dearest, loved [Redacted].

G.

#fiction #short story #depressin #cw: body horror #cw: suicide ideation #my writing #poetry #prose #poetic prose

[petersmoan]

Fluorescents

Pairing: Quentin Beck/Peter Parker TW: Depression, mentions of self-harm, eating disorder Read on AO3: here

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His back was wet from sweat, his pyjamas stuck to his hot skin. When he woke up, for a brief moment he thought he peed himself right in their king sized bed. But it was just sweat, on his back, face, in his hair and between his legs. One of the worst nightmares from the past few months came back to haunt him, to wake him up with a heartburn and make it difficult to breathe. He struggled to take a deep breath for a few seconds and it made him panic. It made his partner wake up as well and get to him as soon as possible.

“What- What’s wrong?! Peter?!” Quentin grabbed him so he could stop shaking like crazy; in fact, Peter almost fell off the mattress. “Calm down. Breathe, please.”

Peter held onto his partner like he was about to lose him forever. Like he was about to lose Tony. He didn’t want to lose Quentin too, ever. He breathed in his scent as much as he could at that moment and when he felt he was really there, he was alive and with him and wasn’t going anywhere, Peter exhaled.

“Easy there, Peter. It’s alright. Just a bad dream.”

Every time after Peter calmed down, there was a waterfall of tears coming right up. Sometimes it was out of pure sadness and depression, sometimes it was because Peter was frustrated. Tired, frustrated and fed up with constant nightmares haunting him from time to time, exhausting his body and mind. How was he supposed to get healthy if he kept having these dreams and draining attacks?

Then he was reminded exactly how. It was so simple, yet so difficult to understand how did it all work. Quentin hugged him from behind, when Peter was sitting at the edge of their bed, sobbing. He was the one who helped Peter start feeling things again, giving a damn about anything and just trying.

Quentin got up and went to the kitchen. Peter learned not to panic every time he left for a moment. He was given a glass of water, took a big sip and breathed out again.

“Drink it now, Pete. You’re dehydrated.”

Peter nodded and politely drank it all. He didn’t feel like his body lacked any water, but he listened to Quentin because he was worried. He was always worried. He has been worried since they first met and Peter spilled his guts. A depressed and devastated man in grief did not care about keeping secrets. Quentin found out about his identity and challenges he had had to face already.

Lying on the bed, Peter was remembering their first session ever. He remembered aunt May talking to Dr. Beck on the phone in the living room, standing in front of the window, while Peter was sitting on the couch, his knees under his chin, hugging his legs and looking awkwardly at her. At that moment he hated Dr. Beck, he hated the fact he needed to talk to him and tell him his aunt can’t stand him anymore.

He went to Beck’s office dressed in his pyjamas, since he barely got out of bed that morning. Beck greeted him, refusing to smirk at his patient’s pink Hello Kitty pants. Peter was obviously not in the mood.

“Please sit down. You’ve got water and napkins here just in case, feel free to use.”

They were sitting across each other; Peter seemingly exhausted, didn’t even have the energy to look uncomfortable. He would fall asleep right here and right now if he could. Quentin on the other hand, was focused. He was looking at Peter, slightly frowning, analyzing his body language. It was after 10-ish minutes when he started.

“So, Mr. Parker. Or shall I call you by your name?”

“Peter” the boy nodded slowly, staring at his thighs, “Peter’s fine.”

“Okay, Peter” Quentin’s voice was smooth and calm. Peter noticed it was relaxing just listening to the man. “I want you to tell me how do you feel right now. No i’m fines or i’m terribles. Elaborate. Use different words than when you talk to your aunt.”

Peter’s eyes welled up with tears. He knew he was going to sound like a childish emo, but in this case his words had so much more meaning.

“You will never understand any of it, Mr. Beck.”

“Just try me. I like challenges.” Quentin smiled in encouragement, which Peter saw because he lifted his gaze for a moment.

“For the record, I’m not schizophrenic. I don’t have hallucinations. I… I actually wish I did. I wish it weren’t true, what happened.”

Quentin just nodded. Didn’t say a word. “I’m not here to judge you, Peter. You probably heard that a lot. And I am going to believe you. You seem like a reasonable kid.”

Peter took a deep breath and exposed his watch wrapped along his wrist to Quentin. He hadn’t taken it off since the last time he went to class and got a panic attack.

He simply let the spider web from the watch grab a glass of water settled on a desk near the doctor. Beck’s face was in fact priceless – he frowned, his eyes bigger than ever, trying so hard not to look… shocked.

“I am, what they call me, Spider-man, sir” he let go of the glass and hid his wrist under the sleeve. “I installed a tiny web machine, to keep it simple, in this watch, and I forgot to take it off a couple of weeks ago. Thought it might be useful now.”

He waited for a moment; Quentin didn’t say a word. His gaze remained surprised and unprepared.

“I have been dead for five years. I came back, and right after that I am responsible for Tony Stark’s death. I feel guilty.”

These were only two things that made Peter a wreck over the few months. Quentin knew that, and was willing to ask for more. He knew he was stepping on a thin ice there.

“Was your contribution to Mr. Stark’s death firsthand?”

Peter frowned, still not looking at Quentin. “Like… did I just go and kill him? With my own hands?”

“Yes.”

The boy shook his head. “I, uh… I did not… He… He saved the universe. It… It consumed him. The power he used.”

“Were you able to help him in any way, to stop this? To save the universe and his life?”

“N-no, I… He saved our lives, all of us, and then he already… he was… he was dying. Right in front of me” Peter’s eyes finally fell on Quentin. Tears streamed down his cheeks as they did. “Right in front me, sir. I couldn’t do anything.”

This memory hit him like a thunder in the middle of a cozy night. He thought about their first meeting because he wanted to feel better, but it did the exact opposite at first.

Peter was a very broken and lost person, and Quentin knew that. Later on at the meeting Peter’s eyes were dripping with tears basically all the time he was speaking.

“Aunt May sent me here to get better. I don’t think I ever will, so please, sir, give me one good reason to believe I’m getting better when it happens.”

He wiped his face with another napkin and took a sip of water. Quentin didn’t say a word, just listened – he saw the boy wanted to spill more of his guts at that moment. “I keep starving myself for some kind of punishment. I cannot sleep because I’m feeling hungry and guilty”, another sip, another napkin, this time to blow his nose. “My weight keeps fluctuating and I can’t remember the last time I slept through a night without the need to just shed my blood. Just like Tony did.” A longer pause after, he finished, “I’m so sick of feeling alone. No one seems to understand that pain.”

It always triggered him, recalling those words he spit in the office. Then he remembered Quentin’s last words when he was leaving the office after two hours of spilling his guts and listening to the man.

“Peter?” Quentin stopped the boy right before he left, “You’re no longer alone in your tragedy. I believe you. Tony was arrogant, but he would be proud.”

It was the first hint he ever got that Quentin knew Tony personally. It wasn’t a good hint, Peter would admit later, because everyone knew Tony was arrogant. He remembered the framed picture of him and Tony, both in expensive suits, shaking hands as the symbol of agreeing to sell Quentin’s work to Tony. They were both smiling; Peter could tell Tony’s smile was genuine. Quentin’s on the other hand, was… sad.

It was his first time at Quentin’s apartment. They were still having sessions, of course, but one day he just invited Peter for dinner, since they had a lot in common besides the therapy. Peter dressed casually, this time not in pyjamas though. When he arrived, instead of shaking hands as a greeting, they hugged. The hug was longer than the usual ones. It wasn’t the first time Peter hugged him; oh god how safe did he feel in Quentin’s strong arms.

“Feel free to explore, I’ll look at the food.” So he did explore. He went to his bedroom and seeing a king sized bed placed near the windows made him imagine how comfortable it must be to sleep there with Quentin.

He quickly got rid of this feeling and started analyzing pictures on the wall above his desk. Next to the huge The Beatles poster there was a high quality photo with Quentin holding a hand with a man. This man was Tony Stark. Peter’s eyes turned big, he leaned closer to check if his vision was correct. Indeed, he wasn’t mistaken.

Quentin knew Tony. They were probably close, coworkers, colleagues even. He knew Tony and was probably as hurt because of his death as Peter, and yet he listened to him without a word, without a bit of grief or any personal feelings. Peter started admiring him even more. He needed to talk to him as soon as possible.

The smell of food hit Peter’s nose when he entered the living room with kitchenette. There he was standing, with his back turned to Peter. The boy approached him and grabbed his forearm, making Quentin look at him immediately. Peter’s eyes were big and shiny; he almost started crying.

“Y-you knew him… You knew him all along… and didn’t even…” when the words escaped his mouth, it was much harder for Peter to stay calm. He wasn’t mad, obviously. He was shocked and all the grief has hit him again.

“Oh, you saw the… the pictures” Quentin turned off the cooker and faced him. “Are you mad?”

“No, of course I’m not, Mr. Beck, I… I’m surprised. And impressed as well, since he was your acquaintance, you must have mourned… I mean...”

“We weren’t exactly, you know, friends. I, uh… I’ll tell you everything in a minute, okay?”

Quentin turned into an awkward mess instantly. Peter offered his help with the food, so he could hear him out as soon as possible. It was truly stressing him out; they sat across each other at the table, both wanting this awkward situation to end.

“I’m sorry Peter, I... I’m sorry I didn’t tell you. I decided against telling you about this, because I didn’t want you to be afraid of telling me anything. I needed to keep it professional.”

“I’m not mad, Mr. Beck-”

“Quentin.”

Peter sighed a little, “Quentin. I’m not mad, really. I get it. I’m just... I don’t know, amazed. I didn’t see that coming.”

Although he did start eating, it was a very slow process. Quentin noticed the urge to ask him everything about their history, and the most important thing – did he know from the start about the kid? The new Avenger?

“When you first came to me, Peter, I didn’t know. You were just another kid named Peter in my timetable. But when you used your watch...” he paused, took a sip of tea and continued, “I understood. You were the Spider kid he would always talk about. The next Tony Stark. Once in a bar he told me about that web watch you invented, so I did quick math. I already knew why you came here, why you looked and acted like you did. But I couldn’t spill anything, it would make everything just more difficult.”

Peter was speechless. When he didn’t know what to do, he’d usually check his phone or drink his water, but this time he drank the whole tea down and started crying. He covered his mouth with one hand, the other resting on the table. Quentin gently grabbed it and squeezed.

“Hey. If you want to go home or anything, that’s okay-”

“No, no no no no, I don’t want to go home. I want to be with you” Peter shook his head and poorly wiped his tears. “I’m fine. Just a little crisis, but I’m fine.”

He gave Quentin a reassuring smile and continued eating. “You said you weren’t... friends. Were you enemies, then..?”

Quentin sighed, “No, it’s not like that. I worked for him for years. We developed some kind of relation, but I know he wouldn’t, like, die for me. And it kind of hurt, because there were times when I would die for him.”

Peter realized his therapist just confessed about his feelings for Tony Stark. The shock he felt has grown even bigger, his eyes wide open again.

“Oh... I... Did he... Did he know?” Quentin snorted, “No, he did not. He was all about Pepper. And I was fine with that. I didn’t expect anything from him, ever.”

The sadness in his voice could be heard from a mile. Peter felt it in his bones. He felt extremely sorry for Quentin. Though now he would be as devastated as Peter was; actually he was lucky it wasn’t his lover who died, just an acquaintance.

“So... how did you end up on that photo, shaking hands with him?”

“He convinced me to sell my project to him, so I could focus just on my PhD in neuropsychology. I really wanted to improve myself, so he won. I’m not saying he made me, but you could tell he would do anything for my project. Though he then named it B.A.R.F.”

Peter knew about that project, he was told about it by Tony many times. It was bizarre, to finally find out about his therapist’s relations with his biggest inspiration and father-like authority.

They finished dinner and washed the dishes together, still chatting about this whole Stark situation. Peter found out he was on Tony’s mouth most of the time, if they weren’t talking about work or every day stuff. It warmed his heart, but the pain stung a little as well.

Remembering this visit stung a little too, because Peter was sensitive and always felt like crying when thinking about how far he has come with his therapy and with getting his life back. He was standing in their bathroom now, looking at his pale face in the mirror, Quentin approaching him from behind after a while.

“How are you feeling?” he asked.

“Good” Peter answered hesitantly, “I’m revisiting some memories to calm myself down.”

“Oh. Any special examples?”

Peter turned around to face him and gently grabbed Quentin’s shoulders, looking him in the eyes, “Remember when you invited me over for a dinner? And I saw the pictures.”

“Yeah. I do” the man grinned at the memory, placing his hands on Peter’s hips and pulled him closer.

“I... I actually cried the whole evening after I came home”, and there Quentin’s smile was gone, “Though it wasn’t sadness. It was some kind of... Relief. Like I actually felt I’m going to be okay. Like I’m really not alone anymore, because you are with me. I think that was the first time the thought of being in love with you came to my mind.”

Quentin felt like he had on their first date. This time he didn’t act shyly or reassure his every movement – they both have already learned their boundaries and ways to show affection. He leaned closer and kissed Peter, hugging him, his muscles relaxed and his mind clear. Beard brushing against Peter’s soft skin, it reminded him of their first time in bed, when he could feel this beard everywhere on his body, face, neck, chest, between his legs. He remembered how much noise they made, and how the bed creaked underneath them.

“Have you done this before?”

Nervously Peter ran his hand through his hair, leaning against the kitchen counter during one of their first sleepovers at Quentin. Aunt May didn’t have any problem with their growing relationship, she was happy Peter finally started to feel alive. To act alive.

“Uh, no. I mean, I used some toys on myself back in the day, but… I lost interest after the blip.”

“It all depends on you, Pete. If you want to do it with me tonight, great. If not, well, also great. I’m going to be there for you while you prepare yourself.”

“Thank you, Quentin” Peter felt his body tense, then relax again. He was really nervous, and very thirsty for Quentin at the same time. “I… I don’t know…”

Quentin chuckled softly and decided to help him, “Do you need my opinion?”

Peter usually needed his opinion on everything. “Yeah, please.”

“So in my honest opinion, you should relax and think clearly of it. Nervousness is always there, it doesn’t matter if you want to have sex or not. It doesn’t show how much you’re ready” he took a sip of water from the bottle near him, “You should shake this feeling of concern and then decide, do you feel like doing it today or wait and prepare yourself better.”

God damn, he was so smart. It immediately turned Peter on even more.

“I… I wanna do it. I want to do it with you, now.” His words were sure, his tone solid and decisive.

The contrast between the normal Quentin and the Quentin in bedroom was incredible. He took a few steps towards Peter until he was just a few inches in front of him, staring down at the boy, completely in control. He caressed his cheek and asked quietly, “Can I take you to my bed then?”

Peter closed his eyes and nodded. Quentin’s voice sent shivers down his spine. He wanted him for so long. He wanted him in every way possible, and now he could make this dream come true.

“Yes, please” he whispered, his hungry eyes never leaving Quentin’s.

When his back touched the sheets on the bed, the man took his shirt off and laid all his weight on Peter’s body; a couple of kisses later they were both naked, Quentin asking Peter for permission to touch him here and there, always reassuring Peter’s going to like what they’re about to do and he’s in good hands, he’s safe.

Indeed, Peter felt comfortable and safe while being held by Quentin, he focused all his senses on the pleasure he was given and on his partner, the sounds he made, his touch and words during sex. When he asked Quentin to do it harder, to move faster, he asked “Are you sure?” and it made the boy smile to himself. “I’m very sure, Quentin, please, just do it” he responded.

Sloppy kisses and caressing each other’s bodies were things Peter remembered the most, right after the feeling of being filled by his partner. He was so gentle, and when Peter wanted him to be rough, he was rough.

After they both reached their orgasms, rode it all out, Quentin left Peter’s body and went to the bathroom. Peter was on his back, breathing heavily with eyes closed and palms still tightened on the sheets. Then he felt a wet piece of cloth on his belly and between his legs; Quentin cleaned him up and everywhere their cum was around Peter as well.

“Let’s go under the sheets, shall we?” the man asked, suggesting Peter should probably get up to do that.

“Y-yeah, yeah.” Peter fell into his arms, tired and satisfied, a dull ache bothering his butt.

“Are you alright, Pete? How are you feeling?” Quentin mumbled in his hair.

“I’m great. Really, I... I feel good. I’m glad we did it.”

He was glad to this day they’d done it, standing with Quentin in the bathroom months later, in the middle of the night. He almost forgot about that nightmare he’d had, he was focused on his partner he loved deeply.

He stopped kissing him, “Thank you, Quentin. For everything you’ve done for me. I... I’m so grateful...”

Again, he felt his eyes welling up with tears, because he was so emotional, especially when talking about these emotions.

“Hey, you shouldn’t thank me for anything. At first it was my job to help you, then it became... My own free will. Because I love you.”

Quentin hugged him, let him cry into his chest. This time his tears were the happy ones. He was finally happy with his life. The nightmares and bad days from time to time were just something he fought with, and never lost, thanks to Quentin, who was always there to talk him out of any dark thoughts and offer him all the help in the world he could.

“Do you want to come back to bed with me?” he asked the boy when he calmed down.

“Only with you” Peter responded, looking at him with a sudden grin. “For the rest of my life.”

Quentin’s embrace was so comfortable that he would always wish it lasted forever. Warm and safe, every time he felt he could fall asleep in a moment.

That reminded him of the first time he had a sleepover at Quentin’s place. They hadn’t been engaged in any serious romantic relationship yet, it was just that one time when they spent too much time talking while drinking wine and eating snacks. Way past Peter’s usual curfew; he texted aunt May that he was sorry, and he’d get home as soon as possible, Quentin wanted to offer him a ride, but the weather was terrible. It was a storm outside, devastating the weakest trees in the neighborhood, that’s why May called him and ordered him to stay at Quentin’s. She trusted the doctor so much, after many dinners they had together to talk about Peter and other, more every-day stuff, that she was totally okay with it. And she was right. The man agreed for him to stay and said he’d take the couch. Peter didn’t want to be any trouble and blurted a suggestion they’d both sleep in bed, since “I-it’s big enough for the two of us… I mean… I didn’t mean it in any way, you know…”. It was so awkward and cute Quentin just started laughing.

“Calm down, Peter. I don’t mind sharing a bed with you, it’s just sleeping. If you don’t have any problem with that, neither do I.”

Peter exhaled deeply and nodded, “Okay, that’s what I meant. Thanks, Mr-"

“Quentin.”

“Quentin. Thanks.”

“I just hope you don’t mind me reading with the lamp turned on for a couple of hours.”

“Sure, why would I? I-I’m your guest after all” Peter giggled, grinning after that, exposing his teeth; this made Quentin’s guts twist more than ever.

God, he’s so beautiful.

“I’m gonna give you some sleeping clothes. They’re way too big for you, but they should be comfy enough.”

And off he went to his bedroom, looking for the clothes. Peter, on the other hand, got up and decided to clean up the table after their little drinking and eating party – two glasses, an empty bottle of wine, three empty bowls of snacks Peter had brought and all the crumbs they’d left in the process.

“Oh wow, thank you, Peter, you didn’t have to!” Quentin came back, his eyebrows risen and a little smile on his face. “Here you got everything I thought you’d need. Tell me if there’s anything more, okay?”

“Yeah, sure!” Peter nodded vigorously, feeling bits of happiness and peace crawling into his mindset, “Thank you.”

“I’ll go grab a smoke outside, if that’s okay. You can use the bathroom, or do anything you actually want to do at this point” Quentin laughed at the end of his speech since he realized that Peter is a big boy and doesn’t need instructions how to function. “Sorry. Sometimes I’m a bit too... protective? I don’t know.”

“You’re a guy who works with mentally ill people for a living, of course you’re protective. And sometimes you talk to me like I’m five” the boy turned his face to look at him and smile, marking the fact he wasn’t upset about that. He totally understood, he always did.

“Yeah. It’s hard to stop bringing work to personal life.”

He went to the balcony and closed its door to prevent the rain, the cold and the strong wind getting in. There was a lot of space and a big roof above so he didn’t get wet, though it was indeed difficult to light the cigarette. In this moment Peter finished the cleaning and decided to take a shower and change into his brand new sleeping clothes. He looked at the stuff Quentin had given him; it was so sweet to notice not only the neatly folded T-shirt, pants and a pair of boxers, but also a towel and a new toothbrush. Peter liked the way he cared about him.

After using the bathroom and changing, he walked right to Quentin’s bed. It was already made for them, just waiting for Peter to climb onto it and drown in its big, cozy sheets.

Meanwhile on the balcony, Quentin watched the storm bother his neighborhood while thinking about his relationship with Peter and all the feelings he had towards the boy. His cigarette burnt long ago, he needed a few more minutes to just stand here and think. He wasn’t doing anything wrong – Peter was in his early twenties and they had regular sessions once in three weeks, because Peter’s mental health was getting better and better. They still managed to be professional and as formal as needed during their official meetings. Their relations outside his office didn’t disturb anything and anyone.

He came back inside, closed the door and got rid of the cigarette. Realizing Peter was already in bed, probably sleeping, he went to the bathroom. It took him around thirty minutes to be ready for bed, so he was actually surprised to see Peter still on his phone, the sheets covering his whole body except his head and hands.

“Aren’t you tired? You drank more wine than I did” Quentin chuckled.

When Peter looked at him, he tried his best not to freeze and stare at Quentin’s bare chest for longer than two seconds. Of course Quentin was going to sleep, so he just dressed in his normal sleeping clothes including sweatpants only, but Peter had to lose it and stare.

And of course Quentin noticed it.

“Is it, uh, is it okay for you..?” he gestured on his body; Peter blinked and quickly moved his eyes to Quentin’s face.

“O-of course-yes!” he exclaimed a little too loud and Quentin found it unbearably adorable. “It’s your house, you dress as you please!”

“These pants are what I usually wear when I’m home alone, so yeah, sometimes I sleep in them as well” the man explained while settling himself next to Peter. “Don’t stare at your phone too much.”

Peter snorted and looked at Quentin like he did at May sometimes when she tried to lecture him on something he was way too old to be lectured on. He relaxed, reminding himself that Quentin wasn’t anything to be afraid of – he could be as awkward and as silly as he wanted to be around this man, and it wouldn’t change Quentin’s mind about him.

As he had stated before, it was time for him to read. Peter continued checking his phone, all the socials he was using, mostly incognito, so no one would stalk him later in case anyone found out about his secret identity. At some point, he stopped looking at his phone and just pretended to do so, while actually checking Quentin out. The sheets covered his lower parts only, leaving his belly and chest exposed to his view. He was a well built, strong man, subtle body hair on his skin. Luckily, Quentin didn’t noticed him staring this time, because he was too involved in the book, a thriller settled in the sixties of twentieth century.

“Didn’t know you were a smoker” suddenly came out of Peter’s mouth, making Quentin look at him. Peter blushed. “S-sorry, I didn’t wanna interrupt you-“

“Relax” the man gave him a reassuring smile, “I wouldn’t say I’m a regular smoker. Sometimes when I need to think about things, I go and grab one. No biggie though.”

When he needed to think about things? What did it mean? Peter didn’t want to ask further, especially since he had some ideas.

“I see” he nodded. An instant yawn attacked him, “I think I’m gonna go to sleep, at last.”

“Good idea, it’s way past your bedtime” Quentin approved, making them both chuckle, again that day.

Peter turned off the lamp on his side and buried himself in the sheets. No matter how much he begged his body not to spread across the whole mattress in his sleep, it did so anyway. He remembered waking up almost on Quentin’s chest, his arm on his belly and his leg on his legs, and his immediate panic that went along with it.

“Holy shit, I’m sorry, I-! I’m so sorry!”

The innocently sleeping man was then woken up by Peter’s loud apologies. He opened his eyes and looked at the boy, seeing zero problems in the way they slept together that night.

“Boy, calm down. You were asleep. Unconscious. Give yourself a break.”

Thinking of the way Peter panicked made him smirk months later when he recalled that morning. Quentin was totally chill with what happened, and he just couldn’t stop thinking about it. Actually neither could Quentin, but he was good at forcing himself not to smile every time he thought about it.

At this point, Peter would laugh at almost every situation in which he panicked, got anxious or stressed out because of his reckless actions towards Quentin. It always meant so much to the man, he always considered them adorable. Peter was so bad at hiding his nervousness and it was obvious he’d get very nervous around Quentin sometimes.

Lying in their bed, months later as stated before, it all seemed like a beautiful dream. But it wasn’t that at all, it was Peter’s life which turned for the better thanks to the man he was hugging right now. He finally made peace with what had happened before and the nightmares that haunted him were just the remains he would get rid of in his own time. That’s what he needed – time and space to heal. And Quentin was the one who had given him both of these things.

Peter couldn’t be more grateful.

#my works #spiderio #quentin beck #peter parker #spider-man #spiderman far from home #jake gyllenhaal #tom holland #depressed peter parker #starker #mysterio #avengers #avengers endgame #marvel #tony stark

[draculalive]

Mina Harker's Journal.

Later. -- He has come and gone. Oh, what a strange meeting, and how it all makes my head whirl round! I feel like one in a dream. Can it be all possible, or even a part of it? If I had not read Jonathan's journal first, I should never have accepted even a possibility. Poor, poor, dear Jonathan! How he must have suffered. Please the good God, all this may not upset him again. I shall try to save him from it; but it may be even a consolation and a help to him -- terrible though it be and awful in its consequences -- to know for certain that his eyes and ears and brain did not deceive him, and that it is all true. It may be that it is the doubt which haunts him; that when the doubt is removed, no matter which -- waking or dreaming -- may prove the truth, he will be more satisfied and better able to bear the shock. Dr. Van Helsing must be a good man as well as a clever one if he is Arthur's friend and Dr. Seward's, and if they brought him all the way from Holland to look after Lucy. I feel from having seen him that he is good and kind and of a noble nature. When he comes to-morrow I shall ask him about Jonathan; and then, please God, all this sorrow and anxiety may lead to a good end. I used to think I would like to practise interviewing; Jonathan's friend on "The Exeter News" told him that memory was everything in such work -- that you must be able to put down exactly almost every word spoken, even if you had to refine some of it afterwards. Here was a rare interview; I shall try to record it verbatim.

It was half-past two o’clock when the knock came. I took my courage à deux mains and waited. In a few minutes Mary opened the door, and announced "Dr. Van Helsing."

I rose and bowed, and he came towards me; a man of medium weight, strongly built, with his shoulders set back over a broad, deep chest and a neck well balanced on the trunk as the head is on the neck. The poise of the head strikes one at once as indicative of thought and power; the head is noble, well-sized, broad, and large behind the ears. The face, clean-shaven, shows a hard, square chin, a large, resolute, mobile mouth, a good-sized nose, rather straight, but with quick, sensitive nostrils, that seem to broaden as the big, bushy brows come down and the mouth tightens. The forehead is broad and fine, rising at first almost straight and then sloping back above two bumps or ridges wide apart; such a forehead that the reddish hair cannot possibly tumble over it, but falls naturally back and to the sides. Big, dark blue eyes are set widely apart, and are quick and tender or stern with the man's moods. He said to me:---

"Mrs. Harker, is it not?" I bowed assent.

"That was Miss Mina Murray?" Again I assented.

"It is Mina Murray that I came to see that was friend of that poor dear child Lucy Westenra. Madam Mina, it is on account of the dead I come."

"Sir," I said, "you could have no better claim on me than that you were a friend and helper of Lucy Westenra." And I held out my hand. He took it and said tenderly:---

"Oh, Madam Mina, I knew that the friend of that poor lily girl must be good, but I had yet to learn -- -- " He finished his speech with a courtly bow. I asked him what it was that he wanted to see me about, so he at once began:---

"I have read your letters to Miss Lucy. Forgive me, but I had to begin to inquire somewhere, and there was none to ask. I know that you were with her at Whitby. She sometimes kept a diary -- you need not look surprised, Madam Mina; it was begun after you had left, and was in imitation of you -- and in that diary she traces by inference certain things to a sleep-walking in which she puts down that you saved her. In great perplexity then I come to you, and ask you out of your so much kindness to tell me all of it that you can remember."

"I can tell you, I think, Dr. Van Helsing, all about it."

"Ah, then you have good memory for facts, for details? It is not always so with young ladies."

"No, doctor, but I wrote it all down at the time. I can show it to you if you like."

"Oh, Madam Mina, I will be grateful; you will do me much favour." I could not resist the temptation of mystifying him a bit -- I suppose it is some of the taste of the original apple that remains still in our mouths -- so I handed him the shorthand diary. He took it with a grateful bow, and said:---

"May I read it?"

"If you wish," I answered as demurely as I could. He opened it, and for an instant his face fell. Then he stood up and bowed.

"Oh, you so clever woman!" he said. "I knew long that Mr. Jonathan was a man of much thankfulness; but see, his wife have all the good things. And will you not so much honour me and so help me as to read it for me? Alas! I know not the shorthand." By this time my little joke was over, and I was almost ashamed; so I took the typewritten copy from my workbasket and handed it to him.

"Forgive me," I said: "I could not help it; but I had been thinking that it was of dear Lucy that you wished to ask, and so that you might not have time to wait -- not on my account, but because I know your time must be precious -- I have written it out on the typewriter for you."

He took it and his eyes glistened. "You are so good," he said. "And may I read it now? I may want to ask you some things when I have read."

"By all means," I said, "read it over whilst I order lunch; and then you can ask me questions whilst we eat." He bowed and settled himself in a chair with his back to the light, and became absorbed in the papers, whilst I went to see after lunch chiefly in order that he might not be disturbed. When I came back, I found him walking hurriedly up and down the room, his face all ablaze with excitement. He rushed up to me and took me by both hands.

"Oh, Madam Mina," he said, "how can I say what I owe to you? This paper is as sunshine. It opens the gate to me. I am daze, I am dazzle, with so much light, and yet clouds roll in behind the light every time. But that you do not, cannot, comprehend. Oh, but I am grateful to you, you so clever woman. Madam" -- he said this very solemnly -- "if ever Abraham Van Helsing can do anything for you or yours, I trust you will let me know. It will be pleasure and delight if I may serve you as a friend; as a friend, but all I have ever learned, all I can ever do, shall be for you and those you love. There are darknesses in life, and there are lights; you are one of the lights. You will have happy life and good life, and your husband will be blessed in you."

"But, doctor, you praise me too much, and -- and you do not know me."

"Not know you -- I, who am old, and who have studied all my life men and women; I, who have made my specialty the brain and all that belongs to him and all that follow from him! And I have read your diary that you have so goodly written for me, and which breathes out truth in every line. I, who have read your so sweet letter to poor Lucy of your marriage and your trust, not know you! Oh, Madam Mina, good women tell all their lives, and by day and by hour and by minute, such things that angels can read; and we men who wish to know have in us something of angels' eyes. Your husband is noble nature, and you are noble too, for you trust, and trust cannot be where there is mean nature. And your husband -- tell me of him. Is he quite well? Is all that fever gone, and is he strong and hearty?" I saw here an opening to ask him about Jonathan, so I said:---

"He was almost recovered, but he has been greatly upset by Mr. Hawkins's death." He interrupted:---

"Oh, yes, I know, I know. I have read your last two letters." I went on:---

"I suppose this upset him, for when we were in town on Thursday last he had a sort of shock."

"A shock, and after brain fever so soon! That was not good. What kind of a shock was it?"

"He thought he saw some one who recalled something terrible, something which led to his brain fever." And here the whole thing seemed to overwhelm me in a rush. The pity for Jonathan, the horror which he experienced, the whole fearful mystery of his diary, and the fear that has been brooding over me ever since, all came in a tumult. I suppose I was hysterical, for I threw myself on my knees and held up my hands to him, and implored him to make my husband well again. He took my hands and raised me up, and made me sit on the sofa, and sat by me; he held my hand in his, and said to me with, oh, such infinite sweetness:---

"My life is a barren and lonely one, and so full of work that I have not had much time for friendships; but since I have been summoned to here by my friend John Seward I have known so many good people and seen such nobility that I feel more than ever -- and it has grown with my advancing years -- the loneliness of my life. Believe, me, then, that I come here full of respect for you, and you have given me hope -- hope, not in what I am seeking of, but that there are good women still left to make life happy -- good women, whose lives and whose truths may make good lesson for the children that are to be. I am glad, glad, that I may here be of some use to you; for if your husband suffer, he suffer within the range of my study and experience. I promise you that I will gladly do all for him that I can -- all to make his life strong and manly, and your life a happy one. Now you must eat. You are overwrought and perhaps over-anxious. Husband Jonathan would not like to see you so pale; and what he like not where he love, is not to his good. Therefore for his sake you must eat and smile. You have told me all about Lucy, and so now we shall not speak of it, lest it distress. I shall stay in Exeter to-night, for I want to think much over what you have told me, and when I have thought I will ask you questions, if I may. And then, too, you will tell me of husband Jonathan's trouble so far as you can, but not yet. You must eat now; afterwards you shall tell me all."

After lunch, when we went back to the drawing-room, he said to me:---

"And now tell me all about him." When it came to speaking to this great learned man, I began to fear that he would think me a weak fool, and Jonathan a madman -- that journal is all so strange -- and I hesitated to go on. But he was so sweet and kind, and he had promised to help, and I trusted him, so I said:---

"Dr. Van Helsing, what I have to tell you is so queer that you must not laugh at me or at my husband. I have been since yesterday in a sort of fever of doubt; you must be kind to me, and not think me foolish that I have even half believed some very strange things." He reassured me by his manner as well as his words when he said:---

"Oh, my dear, if you only know how strange is the matter regarding which I am here, it is you who would laugh. I have learned not to think little of any one's belief, no matter how strange it be. I have tried to keep an open mind; and it is not the ordinary things of life that could close it, but the strange things, the extraordinary things, the things that make one doubt if they be mad or sane."

"Thank you, thank you, a thousand times! You have taken a weight off my mind. If you will let me, I shall give you a paper to read. It is long, but I have typewritten it out. It will tell you my trouble and Jonathan's. It is the copy of his journal when abroad, and all that happened. I dare not say anything of it; you will read for yourself and judge. And then when I see you, perhaps, you will be very kind and tell me what you think."

"I promise," he said as I gave him the papers; "I shall in the morning, so soon as I can, come to see you and your husband, if I may."

"Jonathan will be here at half-past eleven, and you must come to lunch with us and see him then; you could catch the quick 3:34 train, which will leave you at Paddington before eight." He was surprised at my knowledge of the trains off-hand, but he does not know that I have made up all the trains to and from Exeter, so that I may help Jonathan in case he is in a hurry.

So he took the papers with him and went away, and I sit here thinking -- thinking I don't know what.

#vampires #vanhelsing #dracula #draculalive

[thebarsondaily]

Nochebuena

for @barsonaddict

Title: Nochebuena Author: canis_m (unicornmagic) Rating: T Summary: The Bensons and the Barbas get ready for Christmas Eve. A/N: Please forgive the partial gift, barsonaddict! This will be part 1 of 2, I think. The rest will be along as soon as I can manage! Happy holidays to you and yours.

Snow starts to fall when they’re on I-87: big, fat flakes that melt on the asphalt and the windshield of the rented Expedition. The wipers sweep over the glass as Olivia flicks them on.

“Here it comes,” says Lucía, finger wagging. “Three to five inches, that’s what the weather said.”

Olivia can practically hear Noah squirming in the back seat. “Is that enough for sledding?”

“Plenty.” She’d wanted to leave sooner, but her “half day” at the precinct had turned into two-thirds of a day, and it was mid-afternoon by the time Noah, Rafael, and Rafael’s mother—and all their luggage, Christmas presents and grocery sacks included—were loaded into the car.

“How much farther?” Noah asks. It’s not a whine, quite. Just an inquiry.

“At least another hour,” says Rafael.

“How come they’re called the Catskills?” Noah sounds both leery and intrigued. “Did people kill cats there?”

“Good question. Let’s investigate, shall we?” In the rearview mirror she sees Rafael frowning over his phone. “Aha. The area is not named for cat murder. In Dutch, ‘catskill’ means ‘cat creek.’”

“Why’d they name it in Dutch?”

Rafael launches into a more exacting (if condensed) history of the state’s early invasive Europeans than Noah had probably banked on. Olivia smiles and keeps her eyes on the road. She’d loaded the iPad with movies, but so far Rafael has kept Noah occupied without resorting to screen time. The back seat contingent’s doing fine.

In the front seat Lucía clutches her purse. “I hope to God I didn’t forget anything.”

“With all those bags?” says Rafael, who’d helped load them. “I’m sure you didn’t.”

“It’s not like there’s a Latino grocery in—what is it, Claryville?”

“If we’re missing something, we’ll improvise,” Olivia says. They won’t go thirsty, if nothing else; at least one whole tote’s devoted to wine (reds and sparkling), scotch, rum, and a bottle of some homemade concoction courtesy of Lucía. “If we get there before the roads turn bad, I’ll drink to that.”

*

They stop at a tree farm just outside Claryville. Pickings are slim on the 23rd, and Noah has to be talked down to a tree that’ll fit in an SUV already crammed to the gills. They settle on a three-foot Douglas fir—a little lopsided, maybe, but still handsome. With effort Olivia gets it wedged between Rafael and Noah in the back seat. The scent of evergreen permeates the interior of the car.

“Just a few more miles,” Rafael tells Noah, and sure enough, as twilight falls they pull onto the narrow dirt drive, one that curves uphill through beckoning trees to the cabin at its end.

A white dust of snow covers the ground. The cabin looks the way it had in online pictures, like a tired city-dweller’s dream of a woodland retreat. Dark logs brace the roof of the porch, where Adirondack chairs and a small table sit. A wreath of freshly cut cedar, ribboned in red, hangs on the door.

The instant Olivia shuts off the car, Noah launches himself toward the porch. “It looks like a gingerbread house!”

The rest of them follow more slowly, shouldering their various burders. Noah dashes onto the porch and peers through the window, his breath fogging the glass.

“I think it’s bigger than the other one.”

“What other one?” asks Lucía, sack of groceries cradled like an infant in her arms.

“The one I went to with Grandma Sheila.”

Olivia tenses, almost fumbling the key in her hand—she can feel Rafael’s gaze on her from behind, feel its weight of concern—but she gets the door open, and reminds Noah to take off his boots before he tracks snow all over the floor. In stocking feet he zooms through the cabin, exclaiming at the size of the stone fireplace in the living room. A cathedral ceiling stretches up to peak over the loft. When Olivia turns on the lights, its warm wooden beams seem to kindle and glow.

Noah skids back into view. “Can we build a fire?”

A supply of firewood waits, neatly stacked, by the stone hearth. There’s more on the porch outside. “We will,” Olivia promises. “After we unload the car.”

*

With some trial and error—and more advice from both Barbas than is strictly necessary—she gets a fire going. Its cheerful crackle brightens the room. They find a spot for the little tree on an end table, and give it a strand of colored lights and a garland of ribbon before piling the unloaded presents underneath. Noah bounces on the plaid sofa, mourning that it’s too dark to go outside.

“Just think,” Olivia says, “when you wake up tomorrow, everything’ll be covered in white, and you can go sledding. We can have a snowball fight. You and me versus Rafa and Tia Lucía.”

“Oh no,” says Lucía. “No snowballs for me. I’m on kitchen duty.”

Olivia raises her eyebrows at Noah, then at Rafael. “I guess Rafa’s a one-man team.”

“Objection,” says Rafael. “Unfair advantage.” He pauses in the doorway to the kitchen, hand on the frame. “Anyone else hungry?”

Noah flails. “Me!”

Dinner is an indoor picnic of sorts: deli sandwiches and soup reheated on the stove, so no one has to worry about cooking tonight. Noah eyes the cranberry relish on his turkey sandwich with suspicion, but after tasting it, he eats without complaint.

Lucía points a finger at him from around her glass of Beaujolais Nouveau. “You better save some appetite for tomorrow, kiddo, ‘cause Tia Lucía’s not messing around.”

“What are you making?”

“Well, it’s a kind of pork roast. If you’ve ever had a pulled pork sandwich—”

“Lechón asado,” says Rafael, with deep relish, as if the word itself is delectable to pronounce. “Steeped in mojo. Slow roasted for hours, until the meat falls off the bone.” He pinches his hand and opens it, a chef’s kiss minus the kiss. “Remember what we had for dinner last year?”

“Nuh-uh.”

“Jamon. Y boniatos y judías verdes.”

“Oh yeah!”

The memory startles Olivia. Not the fact that Rafael remembers what they ate, down to the last green bean, but the strangeness of remembering that they’d been together then, last Christmas Eve, without yet being together. His mother had gone to Miami, a case had kept him in New York, and Olivia had offered, hesitant: if you want to have dinner with us….

He’d still been Uncle Rafa to Noah then. Now he’s just Rafa, and his mother is Tía, because it rhymes with Lucía (which pleases Noah), and because Olivia’s wary of attaching the title Grandma to anyone. Maybe Lucía herself isn’t ready to be abuelita to a boy who’s no relation of hers, yet. In the eyes of the law.

Rafael plants both elbows on the table. “Lechón asado will take that ham to the cleaners. It’ll knock that ham out of the park.”

By now Lucía’s laughing. “Heyyy, easy on the hype. It’s been a few years since—”

She trails off. Her laughter wanes, and she presses her lips into one another, the way Rafael sometimes does when he’s withholding some emotion, or trying to, even as it invariably shows in his eyes. Rafael puts a hand on her arm, then turns again to Noah.

“A grand jury would indict that ham for not being lechón asado.”

Noah giggles. Olivia levels a look of mild reproof. “I thought the ham we had was pretty good.”

“No one’s saying it wasn’t. But there’s ham, and then there’s….” He dangles the pause in front of Noah like bait.

“Lechón asado!” Noah yelps, without having tasted it once.

Rafael’s eye catches Olivia’s across the table. She tamps down a smile and gives him the nod he’s looking for, one that says smooth, very smooth. Rafael’s chin moves in a tiny pleased-with-himself waggle, and he sits back with satisfaction in his chair.

Lucía balls up her sandwich wrapper. “Well, I’d hate to disappoint, so I better get started.”

Olivia blinks. “What, tonight?”

“Oh, yes. The meat has to marinate.”

“Can I help?”

“No, no, no. You worked all day and got us here in one piece. Go sit, go put your feet up.”

After clearing the table, Rafael draws Olivia aside. “Best not to argue.”

“I’m not arguing.”

“I know. And I know you’re used to taking the wheel.”

“Believe me, I am more than happy to put my feet up.” By way of proof Olivia refills her wine glass and flops into the easy chair in the living room, slippered feet propped on the ottoman, toes pointing toward the roof. The easy chair’s enormous, big enough for two if you’re feeling cozy, upholstered in plaid to match the generous sofa. Noah clambers into the space beside her, nestling into the crook of her arm.

“What’s Grandma Sheila doing for Christmas?” he asks, as if it’s just now occurred to him to wonder.

Olivia’s last swallow of wine threatens to come back up. “Staying in, I would think,” she says, sounding less perturbed than she feels. “But I’m sure they have…activities…at the place where she’s staying.”

“Do you think she got the card I made?”

“I’m sure she did.”

She’s about ready to reach for the remote, turn on the TV, put on Home Alone or Frosty the Snowman or any other distraction she can find, when Rafael discovers the game cabinet, and calls Noah to come and look. Noah immediately lobbies for a round of Uno.

“Uno,” echoes Rafael. “You sure about that? Sure you didn’t mean to say ‘Scrabble’?”

“Scrabble’s boring. And you always win.”

“All the more reason to practice,” says Rafael. “So you can finally, triumphantly defeat me after years of—”

“Uno!” declares Noah. He snatches the box of cards and shuts the cabinet door.

Olivia makes her way back to the table, glass in hand. On the way she drapes her arm around Rafael’s waist, hugging him to her in silent thanks.

*

In the middle of night she starts awake. There’s no bedside clock, only her phone face-down next to Rafael’s on the bedside table, and she doesn’t look at either of them, only lies there bracing herself against her thudding heart.

Rafael is quiet beside her, a good sleeper when he’s not haunted by future or present or past. Increasingly so, over the months since he’s become a fixture in her bed. His presence goes some way to calm her, but only some. Olivia slides out from the warmth of the covers, wraps a cardigan around her and creeps out of the room.

She makes a round of the main floor of the cabin, reassuring herself with the sight of Noah’s boots, still by the door; his coat, still in the front closet; the Expedition, now shrouded in white, parked and silent in the drive outside. The snow’s stopped, for now, and a muted moon glows faintly through cloud cover. She stops at the foot of the stairs to the loft, one hand on the hewn wood banister. For a long while she stands there, listening, as if even from this distance her straining ears might catch the sound of Noah’s breathing from above.

It’s the chill that finally drives her back to bed. When she crawls under the comforter, Rafael rolls toward her. His whisper is drowsy, and no less concerned for that.

“You okay?”

She wishes she’d at least pretended to use the bathroom. Flushed her paranoia down the toilet. “All good.”

In the thin moonlight from the window she can almost see the soft lines of his face, the wry and gentle skepticism in them.

“Just…having an irrational moment,” she amends.

He sees straight through to her fear. “They wouldn’t get far. My mother hasn’t driven a car in years.”

Chagrined, Olivia rolls to stare at the ceiling. “I know your mom’s not really gonna run off with my kid.”

He reaches for her. She resists for a split second, then lets herself be drawn. His hand strokes her side, up and down, down to the curve of her hip and over it.

“How much snow’d we get?”

“Three inches?”

“Noah’ll be happy.”

“He will.”

“Hey,” he says, very softly, “It’s okay.”

And it is, then, or nearly so. Rafael presses his mouth to her shoulder, as if to kiss her skin through the cotton of her shirt. His hand lingers on her hip.

“You want some help getting back to dreamland?”

The offer’s not even salacious, just playful, conspiratorial, laced with daring awareness of the sleepers upstairs. Olivia thinks about it, about letting his long fingers work their magic, but right now she wants to hold on more than she wants get off. Wants to clutch some dear thing close.

Uncertainly she lifts her arm. “Maybe just…”

He offers himself to that need, too, scooting in and tucking his head to her breast, rubbing his cheek against her like a cat. After settling he starts to whisper to her, almost singsong, with scarcely any voice.

“A la nanita nana nanita ea, nanita ea. Tu niño tiene sueño, bendito sea, bendito sea.”

Olivia knows the lullabye, has heard him murmur it to Noah, the way his mother and grandmother must’ve murmured it to him. She hears the nightingale in the forest, the clear running of the spring. She wraps her arm around his head and holds him, stroking, pressing her face to his hair, until the last of the restless tension in her eases, and her heart quiets under her ribs.

*

The next time she wakes, there’s a faint, delicious smell in the air, and a conspicuous space beside her. After a minute’s disorientation, she remembers where she is, and why she doesn’t need to lurch out of bed. She stretches her legs legs languorously under the covers. Cracking open one eye, she blinks at the brightness of the light streaming through the little window, and sees Rafael at the foot of the bed.

He’s already dressed, sort of, in sweatpants and sweatshirt, pulling a second pair of thicker socks over the ones on his feet. He hasn’t bothered with his hair beyond running a comb through it, which means it’s destined to go under a hat in short order. When he sees her awake, he crawls up the bed and hunkers into the narrow space beside her. He kisses her good morning, morning breath and all.

“My mom’s in the kitchen.  There’s eggs and toast. Noah’s eager to get started on the snow fort. I promised to help.”

She peers at the time display on her phone. “How’d I sleep so late?”

“Means you needed it.”

“I guess I did.” She stretches her arms, then lets them flop atop the comforter, hands down. “You go ahead. I’ll be out in a bit.”

A portion of eggs is waiting for her, covered on the stove, when she finally makes it to the kitchen. The toast is cinnamon raisin. After eating Olivia puts her plate in the dishwasher, then hovers. Lucía’s at the sink, rinsing a bowlful of black beans.

“Going out with the boys?”

“I am,” Olivia says, “if you’re sure there’s nothing for me to do.”

“All under control. Salad and wine, that’s what you’re in charge of.” Lucía’s crooked smile as she turns is uncannily familiar. “It looks like more of a production than it is. I cheated on dessert. There’s this bakery in Woodside, their rum cake is better than anything I could ever make. I was never a baker, you know? Cooking, sure. Baking, forget about it. My mother, she could do it.”

“If Noah and I bake, it’s cookie dough out of a tube,” Olivia admits.

“Who has time for anything else? When you’re retired, maybe.” Lucía turns back to the beans. “Go on, go make sure they don’t wind up in the creek.”

*

Under Noah’s direction, the snow fort shifts mid-construction into a snow ramp for sled-launching purposes. Rafael survives three madcap downhill plunges in a saucer sled without hitting any trees, and three treks back up the interminable hill without his heart or lungs giving out, though on the uphill slogs he gets winded. Between ski pants and hat and thermal underwear, he hasn’t even frozen any bits off, though his nose is sniveling, and probably florid red.

Noah’s having a blast, that’s the important point—the point of being in the woods instead of the city—and Rafael thinks he’s acquitted himself without shame. Everything’s sugarplums, right up until Olivia sneaks up behind him and stuffs snow down the collar of his coat.

Rafael shrieks. There’s no other word for it. Icy wetness slides down his spine, searing his skin. He scrabbles at his neck with gloved hands.

“You fiend,” he rasps. “Diabolical—”

She scuffles away, grinning like some sort of radiant snow imp, and ducks behind the trunk of a tree.

“Gotcha,” she calls.

“Oh, this won’t stand,” says Rafael. With a swoop of his arm he scoops up snow in a handful, mashing it into a projectile ball. “Noah, are you with me?”

“Yeah!”

Olivia swaggers out from behind the tree. “Sure, I’ll take you both on.” Her parka’s the puffy kind, stuffed with down. The ball on top of her stocking cap flounces pertly. “I’ll take you both out.”

Her aim’s better than his and Noah’s combined. Aim, speed, merciless accuracy—hasn’t she done time on the NYPD softball team? More like hardball, thinks Rafael. She knows how to use cover to her advantage, too. Noah shows no compunction about flinging volley after volley against the only mother he’s ever known, but few of his throws even graze the target. After taking a second snowball to the chin, Rafael raises an arm to wheeze for time out.

“Bathroom break,” he calls weakly, and trudges back toward the cabin.

As he closes the porch door, warmth envelops him, and with it the smell of roast pork and spices: garlic and cumin and oregano. For an instant he’s transported, back to childhood in his grandmother’s cramped apartment, alight with tinsel and bodies swaying, deseando a todos mil felicidades ringing from the record player behind the tree.

The same album’s playing now from his phone, left on the table with a portable speaker so his mother can have music while she cooks. Rafael sheds coat and boots and ski pants with relief—the pants are a relic of ski trips past, too snug now around the middle—and ducks into the bathroom. He emerges to find his mother in the kitchen, ground peanuts and milk and sugar arrayed around her on the counter, a saucepan ready on the stove.

He catches her in his arms and sets his chin on her shoulder. “Turrón,” he croons happily. “You shouldn’t have.”

“'Course I should, it’s your favorite.” His mother pauses. “Noah’s not allergic, is he?”

“To peanuts? No, no. No food allergies that we know of. Other than the allergy to unfamiliar cuisine.” Unhanding her, he steals a stray peanut that survived the grind. “Was I that picky at his age?”

She swats his hand away. “You ate anything anybody put in front of you. He’s a little indulged, that boy.” She waves at the living room. “There’s a whole can of mixed nuts on the table. Quit stealing my ingredients.”

“I’m just here for more coffee,” he says. But Celia Cruz is belting que noche buena para bailar from the other room, so he spins his mother in his arms and dances her around the kitchen, humming tunelessly along, until she bends with laughter and fends him off.

“I saw you getting pummeled out there,” she says knowingly, returning to the turrón-in-progress. “Battle of the sexes.”

He reaches for the coffee pot and his abandoned mug. She must’ve made a fresh pot; the coffee’s still steaming. “Noah and I are doomed.”

“You’re good with him,” she says. “Really good.” She pours the milk into the saucepan, then sets down the measuring cup. “You know, I never expected. You were on your own for so long, and now—”

Her gesture encompasses everything: the two of them in the kitchen, the two outside, the picture-perfect cabin, the freshly fallen snow. All of them together on Nochebuena.

He stirs milk and sugar into his cup. “Too good to be true?”

“I hope not. After Mom died—”

Her eyes shine wetly. He tries to soothe her. “Mami.”

“No, just lemme get this out. After Mom died I swore I was gonna tell you, if there was someone, someone special you weren’t bringing home, because you thought we wouldn’t approve of what they looked like—you should bring them. You know? Life’s too short not to spend it with the people we love.”

For a second Rafael’s mouth hangs slack. He’d thought he didn’t need to hear it, that it didn’t matter anymore, moot since the moment he’d understood to whom his heart was given. Doubly so since the moment he’d understood his love to be returned. But maybe it does matter, after all—that if Olivia had been an Oliver, his mother would’ve opened her arms in welcome still—because the corners of his eyes are blurring, too.

She isn’t done. “Olivia is a remarkable woman. She has a beautiful son. I see the allure, I get it, I just want you to happy.” She puts her hands on his shoulders. “Happy means being honest with yourself.”

He blinks hard, then shakes his head hurriedly. “It isn’t like that that.” He speaks in a rush. “I’m not giving anything up to be with Liv.”

“No?”

His gaze finds no purchase anywhere. He needs her to believe, to understand that he isn’t living a lie, that he wouldn’t do that, not to Olivia—not to himself, either. He grapples with the words of admission, even knowing his mother’s waiting for them, for some form of them, anyway. His hands grip the edge of the counter, not white-knuckled, but red.

“It was never just one or the other,” he manages. “For me.”

“Well.” She eyes him, then covers his nearer hand with hers. “Lucky you.”

He feels dizzied, as if a stifling weight’s been lifted, one he’d almost forgotten was there. “Lucky me.”

“I mean, I thought it must be real, all that time you spent mooning.”

“I did not moon, I never mooned.”

“Sure you didn’t. Big puppy dog eyes.” His mother smiles. “Remember how you used to complain about her? Then all of a sudden you stopped complaining.”

Rafael draws himself up with dignity. He gropes for his coffee and downs it in a final swig. “You’ll have to excuse me. I’m needed in snowball court.”

“Hold on, c'mere. Give your progressive mother a hug.”

He obeys her, clinging hard, and pinches his eyes shut before they can blur again. His voice comes out hoarse and small. “I love you, Mom.”

“Love you too, baby.” She pats the back of his head. “You found a good one. Took you long enough.”

“The best things come,” says Rafael.

*

#barson #olivia benson #rafael barba #& secret santa exchange #secret santa exchange 2018 #from unicornmagic #to barsonaddict #gift 1 of 1 #submission

[myuntoldstory]

Mystic Messenger | To Rest Deservedly

AO3 | FF.net

Half-Awake, Fully In Love

Part two because I can’t stop writing, apparently. Also, I realised I should have written something *for* Jihyun than the other way around. In saying that, though, still happy with what I first produced. So I hope this one is just as adequate?

Now, on to the thing!

Enjoy.

Rating: PG-13

Pairing: V | Jihyun Kim/Main Character

Warning: N/A

Word Count:1,607

To Rest Deservedly

“I’m home!” Lux called, stepping into the foyer and closing the door.

Silence. Not even an echo answered… but she wasn’t expecting it anyway. Before venturing further inside, she removed her shoes and put on the slippers. She made her way to the studio, detouring to the bedroom to deposit her things on the bed. As she approached the door, she noticed the tray before it. Sighing, she crouched. The glass of juice was full, the sandwich and fruits she had prepared untouched. She ate a piece of browned apple before rising and knocking on the door. “Jihyun?”

Silence again. She opened the door and looked inside. The studio was dark, but not completely; silvery moonlight found its way through the gaps the curtains had left, giving the room a dim glow. Lux walked inside, leaving the door open to let some of the hallway light in. She saw him on the bed, wrapped tight in a thin blanket. She walked to the curtains and drew them apart; then, she faced the canvas he’s been working on for two months. It’s nearly halfway finished… but it’s been that way for four weeks now.

Lux breathed deeply. It was the sixth piece for his upcoming exhibition and it seems to be his toughest to date. Jihyun never said anything; he didn’t want to worry her, but she sensed his struggle—his desperate and urgent need to break through the walls that blocked him. Being unable to do so easily made the ordeal more excruciating. She dearly wished she could do something for him, destroy the walls herself, but… this was a hurdle he must overcome himself as an artist, as his new self. All she could do was support him, ensure he ate and rested properly—though, right now she seemed to be failing spectacularly at that.

Guilty, she turned to him now. The blanket had nearly hidden him from view. She sat at the edge of the mattress and gently brushed away his fringe from his eyes. She noticed the dark circles, the result of his sleepless nights. The line of his jaw and cheeks were more pronounced. Lux stroked his hair, listening to his deep breaths. It’s best he stayed asleep a bit more… at least he’d have some respite. She kissed his temple and adjusted the blanket around him before leaving. She picked up the tray, left the door ajar, and walked to the kitchen.

She better make some proper for him to eat.

***

“Jihyun?” Lux returned to the studio after nearly an hour of cooking. She shook him gently. He stirred, lids fluttering open. She smiled at him as he stared at her, eyes dazed. He mumbled her name and she stroked his arm. “Are you okay?”

Shaking his head, he took her hand and pulled her to him. She followed where he led her until she lied next to him, pressed tightly against his body with his arms securely around her. He sighed and nuzzled into her neck. “Recharge…”

“Recharge?” Lux repeated, chuckling. “Been picking up Zen’s vocabulary, are you?” Jihyun remained silent. She smiled—she could feel him blushing. “Jihyun?”

“I… heard it from Jumin.”

“Jumin!?” she snorted. It was impossible to imagine such words coming out of the stoic corporate heir. “S-should I ask?” she bit her lip to keep herself from laughing at Jihyun’s determined silence. “M-maybe not, then…”

Silence fell between them. Jihyun’s breaths were warm on her neck and it comforted her as she ran her hand along his arm, giving him as much comfort as she could in return. Before them, the canvas glowed underneath the moonlight. Even at night Jihyun’s creation looked as glorious as it did during the day. Now, however, it seemed to taunt them in their peace, exacerbating Jihyun’s insecurities when it meant to challenge them. Lux glanced at him and saw that he was staring at it, eyes now clear and dark. She turned in his arms, blocking his view, and placed her palm on his cheek. “Talk to me?”

Jihyun now looked at her. She smiled encouragingly. With a sigh, he held her hand. “During my time overseas,” he began, voice low, “I was alone.”

She nodded. “Yes.”

“But… I was also free.” Breathing deeply, he looked away from her as his thoughts travelled to a place she couldn’t reach. “Without the ropes of my history binding me I could… say whatever what I wanted, be whoever I wanted without feeling guilty. There I… could say I was an artist, be honest with that part of myself, and believe it. Because no one knew who I was.”

Lux didn’t say anything. She only continued to listen as she stroked his cheek.

“Returning… it’s as if I bind myself once more.” He closed his eyes. “The ghosts of my sins and inadequacies haunt me. Once again I wonder if I truly deserve—if I could even be—” he stopped, shaking his head with a sardonic chuckle. “No, I’m sorry. Forgive me. I’m worrying you with insecure nonsense.”

“No—”

“I don’t regret returning home, Lux,” he continued, determined. “I don’t. I’m glad to be here with you. To be with the RFA. This is… the pressure of the exhibition reaching me. I’ve hit a block on my new piece and it’s… resurfaced memories.”

“It’s okay.” She kissed his forehead. “I understand. You don’t have to hide it from me.”

“I want to.”

“No, please.” She smiled when he looked at her again. “Would it be better if it was overseas?”

“Perhaps… but I want to start here. I want to work here.”

“Then start here.” His fringe was in his eyes again. She brushed them aside. “The past… is something you can’t forget. Not because of your ties here, but because it’s a part of you. But that doesn’t mean you can’t start again. You... now live as the person you want to be—the person you’ve always been. It seems difficult now because you had to be someone else for a while.”

Jihyun said nothing and only looked at her.

“You deserve this,” Lux continued. “You can do this. You’re doing the best with your art, like you always do with everything. As long as you put your heart and honesty in everything you make you can’t do wrong.” She beamed. “When they finally see what you made it will reach them. They will hear you and respond. They’ll see you as the person you are and react positively.”

“Will that happen?”

His eyes were glistening. He looked into hers so deeply, so desperately, looking for something she was trying her best to give. Ever since his return almost all days were good days—days when Jihyun loved himself, what he did, and no amount of doubt dragged him under. Some days, though, were like this: when doubts overtook. Days like this when she tried her best to give him faith. “Yes, it will,” she said, “I know it will. I believe it.”

Swallowing hard, he closed his eyes and nodded. “Okay.”

“As you said: this is a block. Blocks can be overcome,” she whispered. “You will overcome this and when you do, everything else will follow. I promise you.”

He nodded again and kissed her hand. “I believe you.”

“And I believe in you.” She tapped his nose.

Finally, he smiled and her heart melted at its brilliance. “Thank you.”

“Oh, I’m just telling you the truth.” Once again his fringe had fallen into his eyes. Chuckling, she swept them away once more. “Which sometimes you don’t see because of this long hair of yours.”

He laughed quietly. “But I like it this way.”

“So do I, honestly.” She leaned in close, rubbing their noses together before kissing him. He pulled her closer. She smiled against his lips, leaning away before he could deepen the kiss. “Shall we eat?”

“Mmm… no.” He shook his head. “I want to sleep more.”

“Okay.”

“Please stay with me,” he said, nuzzling her neck again. “Just a bit longer.”

“Of course—but you have to eat when we wake up.” He looked at her and she raised her brows at him. “You didn’t eat the whole day.”

He winced. “I’m sorry. I’ll eat everything you made, I promise.”

“Good.” She stroked his hair, watching as he his eyes closed. Soon, his breaths evened and he returned to slumber. His expression was calm and that made her happy. Two years ago, during those fateful five days, though he slept often it was drug-induced. One thing she noticed as she watched over him was the worry on his face, how it looked permanent because he didn’t look any different when he was awake. Even in dreams, he couldn’t rest; he couldn’t let go of his guilt and his sense of responsibility. It was as if he wasn’t allowing himself respite.

Now, though…

Now he no longer looked worried, no sign of restlessness about him. He even has a hint of a smile on his lips. It must have been a tough time overseas, being alone and trying to convince himself that he was allowed to sleep in peace, to rest without guilt. It was the struggle he had to endure to arrive here, to a place where his darkness could not reach him often. As she watched over him now she prayed to any higher being listening to let him continue this peaceful rest, this brighter life. She wished for him to live his days without any more guilt, to live it as the person he’s always been.

After everything that’s happened, it’s the least he deserved.

#mystic messenger #jihyun kim #mysme v #mysme jihyun #fanfiction #mysmefanfic: oneshot #mysmefanfic: jihyun kim #fanfiction: mystic messenger #mysmefanfic: mc #v deserves better #jihyun kim deserves better #i finished saeran's route three or four days ago #im in a state of shock tbh #so i've been writing to cope #and replaying v's route as well #which is a lot more than what i did to cope after jumin's route lol #all i did was make a zen playlist #i've been listening to that too hahaha #this is an actual shock blanket situation #mysmefanfic: love

[queen-of-deans-booty]

Hell House- Part 1

Pairing: Dean x Reader

Word Count: 2,386

Warnings: Typical Supernatural violence, angst, language, minor character death, blood, you know the usual

Summary: You have to get your mind off tings so to do so, you take a case in Texas. It’s not what it seems.

Author’s Note: I do not own anything from Supernatural. All credit goes to their respective owners. Please, if you want to be tagged for this series, let me know and I’ll add you! If you want to be tagged for my other fics, I’ll add you! I want to hear what you guys think about this. If you want something requested, send it in!

Feedback is always appreciated

Tags at the bottom

Read the backstory here:

Smoking Pot with Dean

Events from the past few days were taking a real toll on your body. You were exhausted and worn out. You were sad ever since you met Meg. You felt numb and you didn’t know how to cope with this new information.

Meg was the one who killed your mother and there was nothing you could have done to stop it. Days after the recent events, your heart was still heavy and you didn’t feel like doing anything. Yeah, Meg was dead and she wouldn’t be any harm to you but you had the feeling that she was the one who won.

You spent your whole life trying to find the thing that killed your mom only to come face to face with it years after it happened. Somehow, your mother’s death was your fault and you had no idea why it was. Were demons coming after you because of something your mom did?

What was that evil thing she mentioned in her letter? What was she keeping from you? Even in death, your mother was trying to protect you. But she wasn’t here anymore so it was up to you to get answers. All you could do right now is save people and hunt things while you searched for answers.

That is why when you found a case, you were eager to get a jump on it. You needed something to distract yourself with because otherwise, you wouldn’t be able to survive with the thoughts running through your head.

“Okay, munchkin, do you remember what I taught you?” Your mother asked with a huge smile.

“Yeah! You have to stir it a lot until all the stuff mixes together.” You giggled, standing on a step stool while you mixed the cookie batter as best as you could.

“That’s right.” Your mom said, kissing your head.

“I hope Dean likes the cookies. He’s sad all the time and I just want to see him smile. He’s my friend and none of my friends are allowed to be sad.”

“Honey, I bet Dean will love the cookies. He’s lucky to have a friend like you. You know he’s been through a lot recently.”

“His mommy died.” You said quietly as you stirred.

“Yeah, she did. That’s why he needs a friend right now and you’re the best friend he will ever get.” She said, watching you stir.

“You’re not going to die, right mommy?” You asked, looking at her. She smiled and brushed some hair away from your face. She kissed your cheek and shook her head.

“I’m not going anywhere.”

“Sweetheart?” You were pulled from your thoughts and you looked at Dean who was driving.

“What?” You asked, not knowing what he said, if he said anything.

“I asked if you were okay. You looked like you were spacing out.”

“I’m fine. Where are we?” You asked, changing the topic quickly.

“A few hours outside of Richardson. We are almost there.” Dean said, looking back at the road.

“Look at Sam. He looks so peaceful.” You said, sliding closer to the younger Winchester who was fast asleep.

“Let’s wake him up, shall we?” Dean grinned and felt around his car and held up a plastic spoon. For how much the man loved his car, he kept it rather dirty. He gently reached over and placed the spoon in Sam’s mouth, careful not to wake him up.

“He’s going to get pissed at you.” You sang and leaned back to watch the show. Whenever the boys played little pranks on each other, you were always the one to step back and watch it happen instead of participate. You didn’t want to relieve the tragic times you got hurt because of them.  

“He’s a big boy, he can handle it.” Dean grinned and took his phone out and flipped it open, taking a picture of Sam with the spoon.

“Dean, eyes on the road.” You warned. As much as you loved Dean’s driving, no one should be on the phone while driving. Dean put his phone away and grinned, looking back at you.

“Cover your ears, sweetheart.” You did as you were told and Dean put the music all the way up, singing at the top of his lungs. Sam jolted awake and once he realized something was in his mouth, he spit it out and grimaced. You giggled and kept your hands over your ears, waiting for Sam to turn down the music.

Dean started drumming his hands on the steering wheel and you grinned, thinking Dean was so adorable. You were glad he was yours.

“Ha, ha, very funny.” Sam said, turning the music down.

“Sorry, not a lot of scenery here in East Texas, kind of gotta make your own.” Dean said, driving. You put your hands back down and grinned, watching the exchange.

“Man, we're not kids anymore Dean. We're not going to start that crap up again.” Sam scoffed quietly.

“Start what up?” Dean asked, trying to feign innocence.

“That prank stuff. It's stupid, and it always escalates. Right, Y/N?”

“Oh no, I am not getting involved this time. Remember what happened last time I got involved? You broke my arm and I couldn’t hunt for three weeks. This is why I stay out of this. Prank each other all you want. I’m done with it.”

“See what I mean, Dean?”

“Aw, what's the matter Sammy, scared you're going to get a little Nair in your shampoo again?” Dean joked around.

“Alright, just remember you started it.” Sam said after a while. You rolled your eyes and promised yourself you wouldn’t help either boy with any of the pranks; no matter how hilarious it might seem.

“Ah ha, bring it on baldy.” Dean grinned.

“Where are we anyway?” Sam wondered, dropping the topic of pranks.

“Almost to Richardson. About a month or two ago, this group of kids goes poking around in this local haunted house.” You started to say, leaning forward so both boys could listen.

“Haunted by what?” Sam asked.

“Apparently, a pretty misogynistic spirit. Legend goes, it takes girls and strings them up in the rafters. Anyway, this group of kids see this dead girl hanging in the cellar.” You said, looking out the window. You memorized what you read on the computer so you didn’t have to look at it later.

“Anybody ID the corpse?” Sam wondered.

“Well, that's the thing. By the time the cops got there the body was gone. So, cops are saying the kids were just fooling around.” You shrugged.

“Maybe the cops are right.” Dean said.

“Maybe, but I read a couple of the kids’ firsthand accounts. They seemed pretty sincere.” You said, not believing what Dean said. You had a knack of knowing when things were wrong and when they were right. You couldn’t explain it away.

“Where'd you read these accounts?” Dean asked, suspicious as to where you got the information. You blushed immediately and tried to avoid both Sam and Dean’s stares at you. You had to do some serious digging on this case and you couldn’t help yourself.

“Well, I knew we were going to be passing through Texas so, last night, I surfed some local paranormal websites.” You said quickly so the boys wouldn’t understand you but luck was not on your side today.

“And what's it called?” Sam asked.

“HellHoundsLair.com.” You said quietly.

“Let me guess, streaming live out of Mom's basement?” Dean said with a scoff.

“Yeah, probably.” Sam answered for you.

“Yeah. Most of those websites wouldn't know a ghost if it bit them in the ass.”

“Look, we let Dad take off; which was a mistake, by the way. Now, we don't know where the hell he is, so in the meantime, we gotta find ourselves something to hunt. There's no harm checking this thing out. Maybe Y/N is onto something.” Sam said, coming to your defense.

“Alright. So, where do we find these kids?” Dean wondered, giving in for now.

“Same place you always find kids in a town like this. Remember where we always used to go Dean, back home?” You grinned and thought of the fond memories of the place.

“Oh yeah, those were some good times, sweetheart.”

“Why? What happened? Are you talking about the place you and Dean went to without me?” Sam asked. He was always too young to hang out with you and Dean and the stuff you did were pretty illegal for under aged kids.

“Yes I am. We had to go without you. If John found out what we did, he would have never let us out of the motel rooms.” You giggled, seeing a smirk form on Dean’s face. It was probably a good thing he didn’t say anything.

“Why? What did you do?”

“Let’s just say we were lucky we didn’t come home drunk or stoned.” You giggled and looked at Sam.

“You really did that stuff when you were 17?” Sam said like he was judging you.

“Like you never wanted to.” Sam chuckled and shook his head, looking at the road.

It was night when you arrived at the local fast food joint called “Rodeo Drive”. You knew that the kids who went to the haunted house would be here. You knew what they looked like and it wasn’t hard finding them.

They were scattered throughout and you, Sam and Dean interviewed them all. You had 3 very different stories come from three very different people. While one thought the room was red, the others thought differently.

One said that there were crosses and stars but another thought pentagons. However, two things were the same in all three stories. There was a girl, hanging from the rafters and a man named Craig Thurston took them there.

“Holy shit, there is 2 hours I won’t get back.” You said after you were done. You looked at Dean to see him still processing the information they gave him.

“I think we need to go talk to this Craig guy. They told me where he was. He works at a music shop near here.” Sam said, looking at his brother.

“I thought I saw the shop when we passed by. It wasn’t far at all. We can walk there.” You said. You grabbed Dean’s hand and you three walked to the shop. When you entered, you smiled, seeing all the albums. You were always fond of record albums and record players but with hunting, you could never have one.

“Dean, these record albums are amazing.” You ran to one of the tables and sorted through them but you had work to do. This would just have to wait. You looked up when you saw an attractive young man walk from the counter and over to you three.

“Can I help you with anything?” He smiled.

“Yeah, are you Craig Thurston?” Sam asked. The man nodded and waited for more information on you and the boys.

“Well, we're reporters with the Dallas Morning News. I'm Dean, this is Sam and that’s Y/N.” You smiled when your eyes met his. He seemed excited by this and walked closer to you.

“No way, I’m a writer too. I write for my school’s lit magazine.”

“Well, good for you.” Dean said sarcastically. The look on Craig’s face faltered and you touched his shoulder.

“Don’t listen to him. I think that’s pretty cool. You like writing? Is that what you want to do?” He smiled again and nodded. “Then do it. Don’t let others discourage you.” You heard Dean clear his throat and you stepped back, remembering why you were here in the first place.

“Umm. We're doing an article on local hauntings and rumor has it you might know of one.” Sam said after.

“You meant the Hell House? I didn’t think there was a story to tell.” Craig shrugged.

“Come on, there has to be some story to it if people are so interested in it. Why don’t you tell it to us?” You smiled sweetly. Craig looked behind him as if he didn’t want others eavesdropping on him but he talked anyways.

“Well, supposedly back in the '30s this farmer, Mordachai Murdoch, used to live in this house with his six daughters. It was during the Depression, his crops were failing, he didn't have enough money to feed his own children. So, I guess that's when he went off the deep end.

“I guess he figured it was best if his girls died quick, rather than starve to death. So, he attacked them. They screamed, begged for him to stop but he just strung them up, one after the other. And when he was all finished he just turned around and hung himself. Now they say that his spirit is trapped in the house forever, stringing up any other girl that goes inside.” You looked at Dean and for once, you were thankful you were a girl. Maybe you could lure him out but you figured Sam or Dean wouldn’t let you.

“Where did you hear all of this?” Dean asked.

“My cousin Dana told me. I don't know where she heard it from. You have to realize, I didn't believe this for a second.” Craig said in a hushed whisper.

“But you do now?” You asked.

“I don't know what the hell to think. You guys, I'll tell you exactly what I told the police, ok? That girl was real and she was dead. This was not a prank, I swear to God. I don't wanna go anywhere near that house ever again, ok?” Craig looked genuinely scared and you nodded, not wanting him to break down.

“Thank you for your time.” You turned away from Craig and walked out of the shop.

“What do you think about it?” You looked up at Sam and Dean.

“I think we should pay a visit to this Hell House while it’s still daylight out.” You completely agreed and that is what you did.

The place was so isolated that you weren’t sure how people found out about this place. The path was muddy and as much as you hated getting mud stuck on your shoes, you didn’t complain. You and the boys always wore working boots and you were thankful as this time they came in handy.

Masterlist // Series Rewrite Masterlist // Buy me a Coffee?

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[lyannas]

A Thousand Silhouettes - Part Three

Summary: The last thing Brandon Stark remembered was darkness, and it was darkness he woke to.

Brandon Stark survives King’s Landing with scars both physical and emotional. The world as he knew it has changed, and at the center of it all is a bastard boy with his mother’s eyes.

Rating: Teen and Up Audiences Archive Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply Categories: Gen Fandoms: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin Relationships: Brandon Stark & Lyanna Stark, Brandon Stark & Ned Stark, Jon Snow & Brandon Stark Tags: Brandon Lives, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Hurt/Comfort, Uncle-Nephew Relationship, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, (just in case), Platonic Relationships, Family Dynamics Chapters: 3/4

Read at AO3, or read here:

XX.

The hunting lodge was Brandon’s paradise. It was a single story cabin on the edge of the wolfswood, made up of four rooms, a kitchen, and a standalone shed behind it. There were no long corridors, only two servants, and best of all, no noise.

Well, no noise until Jon was weaned and the wetnurse took her leave.

Jon had hardly cried in his presence before, but it seemed now that he cried all the time. He cried when he was hungry, cried when he had soiled himself, cried when he was tired, cried when he refused to sleep. Brandon would stay up, rocking the boy in his arms until he himself nearly cried from the agonizing headaches the boy’s screams brought on. He fed him soft foods from his own hands, irrationally fearful that utensils would hurt his soft gums-- and after his experience with a teething, irritable Jon, Brandon decided he would rather do with cleaning his hands half a hundred times a day than accidentally knocking a spoon into his tender gums or sensitive milk teeth.

For the first 92 days, Brandon was sure he had made a mistake. What did he know of raising children, really? Being an older brother was nothing like being a father-- he never spent any nights sitting in front of one of his sibling’s beds too busy worrying over them to go to sleep. He had never had to wake in the middle of the night to rock them back to sleep. Yet here he was, short on sleep, more agitated than usual, eyesight foggier than ever, wondering if he should trade Jon for a quiet hunting lodge.

XXI.

When Jon comes running to him after skinning his knee, when he curls into his side as he sleeps, when he sits on his lap whilst sucking his thumb, when he giggles as he blew raspberries onto his stomach, when his small hands run over the short hairs of his beard, when he calls him “nuncle” and presses wet kisses to his face-- those were the sweet moments that made up for the hard ones. They made up for them a hundred times over.

XXII.

“Nuncle,” Jon called to him, tugging at his hand. “Nuncle, look.”

Brandon’s eyes followed his nephew’s finger to a spot near the woods. There was not much to see; at that distance, everything was blurry and indistinguishable to him, but Jon didn’t understand his uncle’s limitations.

“What is it, Jon?” Brandon kneeled down to his level.

“Dog,” the boy answered. He edged a little closer to his uncle. “Big.”

Brandon squinted, hoping to perhaps catch a glimpse of something dark and moving amongst the trees, but to no avail. He rose to his feet and picked him up.

“What color is it?”

Jon considered his answer. “Black.” His little fist bunched up the back of Brandon’s shirt. His eyes were wide and scoping.

“Don’t be frightened,” Brandon reassured him. “The dog’s all the way over there, and you’re right here, with me.” Still, his nephew’s fist did not relax. “You want to scare off the dog? Roar at it, like a bear. Come now, roar!”

Brandon demonstrated, roaring as loudly as he could toward the direction of the trees. His nephew responded with giggles that rocked his whole body.

“What are you laughing at?” Brandon inquired with a smile. “Roar!”

Brandon roared again, after which Jon mimicked him, throwing both arms up as he yelled something between a roar and a shout. He fell into a fit of giggles immediately after, one that required Brandon to brace his body to keep him from tumbling out of his arms.

“Is the dog gone?” Brandon asked him when his laughs subsided. “Bye-bye, dog?”

“Bye-bye,” Jon repeated, grinning from ear to ear. The two sit on the porch until the smell of dinner wafted from inside the cabin. Brandon kissed his temple and brought him inside.

XXIII.

Brandon visits Winterfell often, as promised. If he went more than a fortnight without making the hour-long journey, Ned would show up at his door instead. Ned’s sullen glares and why-didn’t-you-visits grew tiring after the first few times, thus Brandon made sure to make the journey to Winterfell before it came to that.

Jon had seen two namedays and was at an age where he stopped crying and started speaking his desires, however simple that speech was. The change had made Jon a boy who was rather calm and sweet for his age, as opposed to his cousin Robb, who, despite his newfound speech, still screamed his demands.

They rode for Winterfell with Jon’s little fists gripping the reins, dwarfed by Brandon’s larger hands that covered them. He asked after every edifice that passed and called out the names of the animals he spotted along the way. He had inquired after every soul in the winter town by the time they reached the gates to Winterfell. Brandon hopped off their horse by the stables, and beckoned for Jon to slide off the saddle he had shared with his uncle and into his arms. He carried him inside, where he found Ned and Catelyn in Ned’s solar.

The two paused their conversation upon their entry. Brandon nodded in greeting and put Jon down on his feet.

“Greet your lord father,” Brandon commanded the boy gently, mouth barely able to form the words that made up the necessary lie. Jon clutched his pant leg, hiding behind him. “You were talking my ear off the whole way here, and now you’re playing at being shy? Come now, you saw him just the other day. Jon.”

The sterner tone urged Jon out from behind him. “Hello, father,” he said shyly. Brandon did this best to ignore how the muscles of Catelyn’s jaw shifted beneath her skin.

“Hello, Jon,” Ned returned warmly, walking around the desk to scoop him up in his arms. “Robb has been asking after you ever since you left. Shall we go see Robb?”

Jon nodded, and the two exited the solar together, leaving Brandon and Catelyn alone. Catelyn does not meet his eye, but her annoyance rolls off her in waves.

“You disapprove,” Brandon commented as he idly rubbed his scars.

“It is not my place to approve or disapprove. My husband may do with his bastard as he wishes,” she replied cooly.

“Even love him?”

Her jaw sets. “Even that.”

Brandon chuckled to himself. “Thank your gods you did not marry me, Lady Stark, for I would love him just as much, and our children far less.”

It was an unkind truth, but a truth all the same.

XXIV.

His housemaid snored. Not big, rattling snores, but it was a soft, consistent snore that grated on Brandon’s still sensitive ears. She was lucky she was warm and had lovely tits, else he might have kicked her out of his bed so he could get a full night’s sleep.

Instead, he got up from his bed and pulled on a pair of trousers, moving through the familiar darkness as his hands guided him through the small house. Brandon was half blind in daytime, but damn near fully blind at night. It was touches and textures that led him into Jon’s bedroom.

The boy slept peacefully in his bed; all he could hear was Jon’s soft breathing, a comforting sound that he’d grown to love ever since they lived in this house together. Brandon found the edge of the bed and sat upon it. He gently nudged Jon to the far side of the bed.

“Nuncle,” Jon whined sleepily as he moved over to make room.

“Hush, I’ve gotten less sleep than you,” Brandon grumbled as he pulled the covers over the both of them.

Jon only sighed with the countenance of an old man. When he fell back asleep and his soft, lulling breaths returned, Brandon slipped quickly and easily into slumber.

XXV.

Jon is five when Brandon teaches him to ride a horse. Brandon shared the saddle with him, as they had done before half a hundred times, hands covering his little fists as he showed him how to grip the reins and coax the horse into a trot. His nephew was a quick learner with a sharp mind; it takes only a few turns around the yard before he was leading the horse without his uncle’s help.

“I should have put you on a horse an age ago!” Brandon exclaimed, delighted at the boy’s quick progress. “Look, Jon, you’re doing it all by yourself.”

“I am?” His nephew asked, eyes wide as he briefly diverted his gaze up into Brandon’s face.

“Yes, you are. Shall I get off so you may ride the horse alone?”

“Does Robb ride by himself?”

Brandon grinned. “I’m certain he doesn’t. You’re more like me-- a natural rider. Did you know I started riding when I was even younger than you?” The boy shook his head. “Yes, and your moth--” Brandon caught himself. “Your aunt Lyanna was even earlier. I taught her to ride when I was only a little older than you.”

Jon made a face that meant he was doing some maths in his head. “But you were small,” the boy said.

“Yes, I was, and I was already a better rider than half the men.”

His memory picked at him, nostalgia bled into sorrow, and once again he was thinking of Lyanna. She would approve of her son learning to ride at an early age. In fact, she would surely haunt him if he had allowed Jon to go another year without learning to ride a horse.

“Here, pull back on the reins and make the horse stop,” Brandon instructed. Jon obeyed. “I’m getting off, and you’ll go a few more turns on your own, aye?”

Brandon jumped down from the saddle. His nephew turned his face to look at him in wide-eyed astonishment, reins held tight in his small fists.

“Be brave. I’ll be walking right next to you,” he assured him. The words were enough for fear to give way to trust, and Jon gave a little “hy-ah” before he stirred his horse to walk again.

XXVI.

War arrived again. The Greyjoys had made some noise in Lannisport and brought the might of the Seven Kingdoms upon them.

Brandon had entertained the idea of joining the fight for a while. It would have pleased him to throw some krakens back into the sea, but he was reminded kindly by Ned that a warrior who could not see clearly past 30 paces was useless to everyone.

Instead, Brandon took up Ned’s mantle in Winterfell while his brother fought the king’s war. This meant tending to the troops and lords that passed through and sending enough hunting parties to keep stores stocked, but mostly it meant watching his nephews and niece play together.

He spent more time with Catelyn too, who often sat across from him in the den as she embroidered or sewed. It almost felt like they were wed, and he the Lord of Winterfell, as it was once meant to be. Granted, they hardly spoke to each other and there was a swell to her middle that she did not care to explain to him, but perhaps that was as it was meant to be too.

XXVII.

The boys were asleep on the floor, tangled up in each other, while Sansa sat on his lap, curled up against his chest as her bright blue eyes opened and closed, fighting sleep. The night was so peaceful, and the den so warm, that Brandon had closed his eyes too.

Then suddenly, Catelyn wept. Her sobs were likely meant to be quiet and soft, but they woke Brandon anyways.

He rubbed his eyes. “What is it?” He asked her groggily.

Her eyes flickered to his in surprise. “Nothing,” she insisted hastily, wiping away at the tears on her fair face.

Brandon stared at her through heavy-lidded eyes, absentmindedly rubbing circles on Sansa’s back the way that Jon liked it at her age. “He’ll be home soon,” he said in a low voice. “It’s nearly over. The Greyjoys are retreating, the war is won, and Ned’s just cleaning up the coast, tossing whatever krakens that wash up on shore back into the sea.”

Catelyn nodded as she wept. Even weeping she is graceful and pretty.

“He may even be home in time for that,” he added, and gestured to her round belly.

Catelyn nodded again. “I want him to be,” she sniffled.

It was Brandon’s turn to nod.

XXVIII.

Eddard Stark returned to Winterfell, and Arya Stark followed after a single day.

Brandon had never seen Ned so delirious with joy. He had carried his daughter all over the castle for days before Brandon had a chance to hold her himself.

“It’s Lyanna,” he murmured, fingers trembling as he brushed the soft wisps of dark hair. “Gods be good, Ned, it’s her.”

“I know,” Ned answered with a somber smile. “I know.”

XXIX.

While caught up in Ned’s return and Arya’s birth, Brandon almost neglected to notice another new addition to Winterfell.

“Tell me your name,” Brandon commanded of the dark-haired boy when he found him petting a horse in the stables. He knew his name already, knew his reason for being here, but he could not let himself go unknown. It was the Stark in him, still clinging to fondness of Winterfell, that required him to know who its new lodger was.

“Theon Greyjoy,” the boy answered tremulously.

“How old are you?”

“Ten.”

“Do you understand why you’re here?”

Theon lowered his eyes but did not answer.

“I asked you a question.”

“I understand why."

“Do you know who I am?”

Theon shook his head.

“I’m Brandon Stark. I’m Lord Stark’s older brother.”

“But you are not Lord Stark?”

“I am not. Be glad of this, for my brother’s heart is kinder than mine.”

The boy lowered his eyes again.

Brandon supposed he should pity the boy; he had been torn away from his home so he could be held as a glorified hostage of the crown. It was necessary, of course, as all actions taken in politics and war were deemed necessary.

“You will mind yourself under Lord Stark’s care.” Or rather, your father should mind himself.

“Yes, my lord.”

“I’m no lord, boy. ‘Brandon’ will do.”

XXX.

Jon took his lessons with Maester Luwin, who after instructing Robb in Winterfell, rode to their cabin to deliver the very same lessons.

Brandon, who had been glad to put such lessons behind him, did not sit with them as the maester explained maths and history to his young nephew. It was usually a restless couple of hours, as Jon was his only worthwhile company at the cabin. As they studied, he sat on the porch steps, taking a whetstone to his already-sharp sword.

He continued in this until the maester’s approaching footsteps bid him to stop. Brandon rose to greet the old man, who smiled sagely at him in greeting.

“He does well in his lessons,” the maester informed him. “Bright boy. He is not so fond of maths and writing, but he spares his attention for history. He spares more attention on the whole when he doesn’t take these lessons with his half-brother. I’m glad on the days that I see him here and not in Winterfell.”

Brandon warmed at image of his two nephews distracting each other when the good-natured maester wasn’t looking. “He’s smart, unlike me. He’s always asking me questions about those kings and lords you tell him about, but I tell him to save them for you.”

The maester chuckled. “I’ll be on my way. I hope to come by tomorrow as well.”

“Thank you, maester.”

Brandon saw the maester off before returning indoors, where Jon still sat at the kitchen table, books strewn in front of him. He looked bored and slumped in his seat, but upon seeing his uncle return, he straightened and lit up. “You sharpened your sword,” his nephew remarked suddenly. “But you said you were going to let me do it!”

“I had to do something while you and the maester sat in here,” Brandon returned with shrug and smile. He sheathed the sword and placed it on the table between them.

“Maybe you should sit with us and learn something,” Jon mumbled sullenly. For a boy of seven he could be remarkably mouthy, but that was most likely a consequence of Brandon’s lenient child-rearing.

“It’s more a torment for me than for you-- without you I’ve got nothing to do.”

Jon sighed. “You can train, or go riding, or make a new cloak like you promised.”

“Those things are more fun with you.”

Jon sighed again, and Brandon ruffled his hair. Jon half-heartedly pushed his hand away. He was wearing that sullen, serious expression he usually wore when he was in deep thought. Brandon knew to wait patiently until a question was formed.

“Uncle,” Jon began, his eyes focused on his finger as it idly traced patterns in the leather sheath. “What’s a bastard?”

Brandon supposed he ought to have known the question would be coming. He had never said it to Jon, and surely Ned never did either, but he knew the word was eventually going to introduce itself to his nephew. “A bastard is a child born from people who are not married,” Brandon explained.

“Like Lady Catelyn and father?”

“Yes, they’re married, so their children are trueborn.”

“Robb and me have the same father,” Jon noted. “We’re brothers.”

A lie was a lie, and Brandon hated lies-- but he also learned to hold his tongue, even when it wanted to speak the truth. “Yes. But your mothers are different.”

“So I’m a bastard, but Robb isn’t?”

“He’s a Stark. You’re a Snow.” That much, Brandon supposed, would always be true. His nephew was a bastard no matter who he said his parents were.

Jon grew silent again, making that same thoughtful expression as before. “Who is my mother?”

Despite his better senses, despite the fact that he knew he would be asked the question one day, Brandon’s mouth went dry. He wanted so sorely to answer his nephew with the truth-- of who his mother was, even who his father was, why he was here, why he mattered, why Brandon loved him despite it all.

But he couldn’t. Not now, when he wouldn’t understand why or how or the importance of keeping it a secret.

“I don’t know who your mother was, Jon,” Brandon answered quietly, hoping that lowering his volume would soften the pain of the lie. The burden of this secret felt heavier now than it ever had been before.

Jon appeared crestfallen at this response. He lowered his eyes back to the sheathed sword and gave a sigh that aged him beyond his seven years.

A rush of affection swelled inside his chest, and Brandon found himself taking hold of his nephew’s chin to raise his face. “Stark or Snow, it makes no difference to me. We share the same blood, you and I. We share that, and so much more.”

We share fates. We share a home. We share a life.

Jon Snow pulled his face away as tears welled up in his eyes, and for a devastating second Brandon thinks he’s said something to upset him. His nephew suddenly rose to his feet, then rushed to embrace Brandon, cheek pressed to his uncle’s broad chest.

Brandon returned the embrace, his nose buried in Jon’s soft hair. In a moment that spanned a lifetime, Brandon tried to imagine this with a son of his own, or with Robb, with Sansa or Arya, but nothing felt as sweet, as right as this. It had been a hard and hurting path the gods had set him on, but it seemed to him that they had led him into something kind.

“Alright, Jon?” Brandon murmured into the boy’s hair. He nodded in response, tickling Brandon’s nose. “Good, because I think I’ve another sword in the shed that needs sharpening.”

Jon grinned when he pulled away from his uncle, and ran to take a head start.

#a thousand silhouettes #brandon stark #jon snow #fic #gotfic #asoiaf

[readbookywooks]

MINA HARKER'S JOURNAL

23 September. - Jonathan is better after a bad night. I am so glad that he has plenty of work to do, for that keeps his mind off the terrible things, and oh, I am rejoiced that he is not now weighed down with the responsibility of his new position. I knew he would be true to himself, and now how proud I am to see my Jonathan rising to the height of his advancement and keeping pace in all ways with the duties that come upon him. He will be away all day till late, for he said he could not lunch at home. My household work is done, so I shall take his foreign journal, and lock myself up in my room and read it. 24 September. - I hadn't the heart to write last night, that terrible record of Jonathan's upset me so. Poor dear! How he must have suffered, whether it be true or only imagination. I wonder if there is any truth in it at all. Did he get his brain fever, and then write all those terrible things, or had he some cause for it all? I suppose I shall never know, for I dare not open the subject to him. And yet that man we saw yesterday! He seemed quite certain of him, poor fellow! I suppose it was the funeral upset him and sent his mind back on some train of thought. He believes it all himself. I remember how on our wedding day he said "Unless some solemn duty come upon me to go back to the bitter hours, asleep or awake, mad or sane. . ." There seems to be through it all some thread of continuity. That fearful Count was coming to London. If it should be, and he came to London, with its teeming millions. . .There may be a solemn duty, and if it come we must not shrink from it. I shall be prepared. I shall get my typewriter this very hour and begin transcribing. Then we shall be ready for other eyes if required. And if it be wanted, then, perhaps, if I am ready, poor Jonathan may not be upset, for I can speak for him and never let him be troubled or worried with it at all. If ever Jonathan quite gets over the nervousness he may want to tell me of it all, and I can ask him questions and find out things, and see how I may comfort him. LETTER, VAN HELSING TO MRS. HARKER 24 September (Confidence) "Dear Madam, "I pray you to pardon my writing, in that I am so far friend as that I sent to you sad news of Miss Lucy Westenra's death. By the kindness of Lord Godalming, I am empowered to read her letters and papers, for I am deeply concerned about certain matters vitally important. In them I find some letters from you, which show how great friends you were and how you love her. Oh, Madam Mina, by that love, I implore you, help me. It is for others' good that I ask, to redress great wrong, and to lift much and terrible troubles, that may be more great than you can know. May it be that I see you? You can trust me. I am friend of Dr. John Seward and of Lord Godalming (that was Arthur of Miss Lucy). I must keep it private for the present from all. I should come to Exeter to see you at once if you tell me I am privilege to come, and where and when. I implore your pardon, Madam. I have read your letters to poor Lucy, and know how good you are and how your husband suffer. So I pray you, if it may be, enlighten him not, least it may harm. Again your pardon, and forgive me. "VAN HELSING" TELEGRAM, MRS. HARKER TO VAN HELSING 25 September. - Come today by quarter past ten train if you can catch it. Can see you any time you call. "WILHELMINA HARKER" MINA HARKER'S JOURNAL 25 September. - I cannot help feeling terribly excited as the time draws near for the visit of Dr. Van Helsing, for somehow I expect that it will throw some light upon Jonathan's sad experience, and as he attended poor dear Lucy in her last illness, he can tell me all about her. That is the reason of his coming. It is concerning Lucy and her sleep-walking, and not about Jonathan. Then I shall never know the real truth now! How silly I am. That awful journal gets hold of my imagination and tinges everything with something of its own color. Of course it is about Lucy. That habit came back to the poor dear, and that awful night on the cliff must have made her ill. I had almost forgotten in my own affairs how ill she was afterwards. She must have told him of her sleep-walking adventure on the cliff, and that I knew all about it, and now he wants me to tell him what I know, so that he may understand. I hope I did right in not saying anything of it to Mrs. Westenra. I should never forgive myself if any act of mine, were it even a negative one, brought harm on poor dear Lucy. I hope too, Dr. Van Helsing will not blame me. I have had so much trouble and anxiety of late that I feel I cannot bear more just at present. I suppose a cry does us all good at times, clears the air as other rain does. Perhaps it was reading the journal yesterday that upset me, and then Jonathan went away this morning to stay away from me a whole day and night, the first time we have been parted since our marriage. I do hope the dear fellow will take care of himself, and that nothing will occur to upset him. It is two o'clock, and the doctor will be here soon now. I shall say nothing of Jonathan's journal unless he asks me. I am so glad I have typewritten out my own journal, so that, in case he asks about Lucy, I can hand it to him. It will save much questioning. Later. - He has come and gone. Oh, what a strange meeting, and how it all makes my head whirl round. I feel like one in a dream. Can it be all possible, or even a part of it? If I had not read Jonathan's journal first, I should never have accepted even a possibility. Poor, poor, dear Jonathan! How he must have suffered. Please the good God, all this may not upset him again. I shall try to save him from it. But it may be even a consolation and a help to him, terrible though it be and awful in its consequences, to know for certain that his eyes and ears and brain did not deceive him, and that it is all true. It may be that it is the doubt which haunts him, that when the doubt is removed, no matter which, waking or dreaming, may prove the truth, he will be more satisfied and better able to bear the shock. Dr. Van Helsing must be a good man as well as a clever one if he is Arthur's friend and Dr. Seward's, and if they brought him all the way from Holland to look after Lucy. I feel from having seen him that he is good and kind and of a noble nature. When he comes tomorrow I shall ask him about Jonathan. And then, please God, all this sorrow and anxiety may lead to a good end. I used to think I would like to practice interviewing. Jonathan's friend on "The Exeter News" told him that memory is everything in such work, that you must be able to put down exactly almost every word spoken, even if you had to refine some of it afterwards. Here was a rare interview. I shall try to record it verbatim. It was half-past two o'clock when the knock came. I took my courage a deux mains and waited. In a few minutes Mary opened the door, and announced "Dr. Van Helsing". I rose and bowed, and he came towards me, a man of medium weight, strongly built, with his shoulders set back over a broad, deep chest and a neck well balanced on the trunk as the head is on the neck. The poise of the head strikes me at once as indicative of thought and power. The head is noble, well-sized, broad, and large behind the ears. The face, clean-shaven, shows a hard, square chin, a large resolute, mobile mouth, a good-sized nose, rather straight, but with quick, sensitive nostrils, that seem to broaden as the big bushy brows come down and the mouth tightens. The forehead is broad and fine, rising at first almost straight and then sloping back above two bumps or ridges wide apart, such a forehead that the reddish hair cannot possibly tumble over it, but falls naturally back and to the sides. Big, dark blue eyes are set widely apart, and are quick and tender or stern with the man's moods. He said to me, "Mrs. Harker, is it not?" I bowed assent. "That was Miss Mina Murray?" Again I assented. "It is Mina Murray that I came to see that was friend of that poor dear child Lucy Westenra. Madam Mina, it is on account of the dead that I come." "Sir," I said, "you could have no better claim on me than that you were a friend and helper of Lucy Westenra."And I held out my hand. He took it and said tenderly, "Oh, Madam Mina, I know that the friend of that poor little girl must be good, but I had yet to learn. . ." He finished his speech with a courtly bow. I asked him what it was that he wanted to see me about, so he at once began. "I have read your letters to Miss Lucy. Forgive me, but I had to begin to inquire somewhere, and there was none to ask. I know that you were with her at Whitby. She sometimes kept a diary, you need not look surprised, Madam Mina. It was begun after you had left, and was an imitation of you, and in that diary she traces by inference certain things to a sleep-walking in which she puts down that you saved her. In great perplexity then I come to you, and ask you out of your so much kindness to tell me all of it that you can remember." "I can tell you, I think, Dr. Van Helsing, all about it." "Ah, then you have good memory for facts, for details? It is not always so with young ladies." "No, doctor, but I wrote it all down at the time. I can show it to you if you like." "Oh, Madam Mina, I well be grateful. You will do me much favor." I could not resist the temptation of mystifying him a bit, I suppose it is some taste of the original apple that remains still in our mouths, so I handed him the shorthand diary. He took it with a grateful bow, and said, "May I read it?" "If you wish," I answered as demurely as I could. He opened it, and for an instant his face fell. Then he stood up and bowed. "Oh, you so clever woman!" he said. "I knew long that Mr. Jonathan was a man of much thankfulness, but see, his wife have all the good things. And will you not so much honor me and so help me as to read it for me? Alas! I know not the shorthand." By this time my little joke was over, and I was almost ashamed. So I took the typewritten copy from my work basket and handed it to him. "Forgive me," I said. "I could not help it, but I had been thinking that it was of dear Lucy that you wished to ask, and so that you might not have time to wait, not on my account, but because I know your time must be precious, I have written it out on the typewriter for you." He took it and his eyes glistened. "You are so good," he said. "And may I read it now? I may want to ask you some things when I have read." "By all means," I said. "read it over whilst I order lunch, and then you can ask me questions whilst we eat." He bowed and settled himself in a chair with his back to the light, and became so absorbed in the papers, whilst I went to see after lunch chiefly in order that he might not be disturbed. When I came back, I found him walking hurriedly up and down the room, his face all ablaze with excitement. He rushed up to me and took me by both hands. "Oh, Madam Mina," he said, "how can I say what I owe to you? This paper is as sunshine. It opens the gate to me. I am dazed, I am dazzled, with so much light, and yet clouds roll in behind the light every time. But that you do not, cannot comprehend. Oh, but I am grateful to you, you so clever woman. Madame," he said this very solemnly, "if ever Abraham Van Helsing can do anything for you or yours, I trust you will let me know. It will be pleasure and delight if I may serve you as a friend, as a friend, but all I have ever learned, all I can ever do, shall be for you and those you love. There are darknesses in life, and there are lights. You are one of the lights. You will have a happy life and a good life, and your husband will be blessed in you." "But, doctor, you praise me too much, and you do not know me." "Not know you, I, who am old, and who have studied all my life men and women, I who have made my specialty the brain and all that belongs to him and all that follow from him! And I have read your diary that you have so goodly written for me, and which breathes out truth in every line. I, who have read your so sweet letter to poor Lucy of your marriage and your trust, not know you! Oh, Madam Mina, good women tell all their lives, and by day and by hour and by minute, such things that angels can read. And we men who wish to know have in us something of angels' eyes. Your husband is noble nature, and you are noble too, for you trust, and trust cannot be where there is mean nature. And your husband, tell me of him. Is he quite well? Is all that fever gone, and is he strong and hearty?" I saw here an opening to ask him about Jonathan, so I said, "He was almost recovered, but he has been greatly upset by Mr. Hawkins death." He interrupted, "Oh, yes. I know. I know. I have read your last two letters." I went on, "I suppose this upset him, for when we were in town on Thursday last he had a sort of shock." "A shock, and after brain fever so soon! That is not good. What kind of shock was it?" "He thought he saw some one who recalled something terrible, something which led to his brain fever." And here the whole thing seemed to overwhelm me in a rush. The pity for Jonathan, the horror which he experienced, the whole fearful mystery of his diary, and the fear that has been brooding over me ever since, all came in a tumult. I suppose I was hysterical, for I threw myself on my knees and held up my hands to him, and implored him to make my husband well again. He took my hands and raised me up, and made me sit on the sofa, and sat by me. He held my hand in his, and said to me with, oh, such infinite sweetness, "My life is a barren and lonely one, and so full of work that I have not had much time for friendships, but since I have been summoned to here by my friend John Seward I have known so many good people and seen such nobility that I feel more than ever, and it has grown with my advancing years, the loneliness of my life. Believe me, then, that I come here full of respect for you, and you have given me hope, hope, not in what I am seeking of, but that there are good women still left to make life happy, good women, whose lives and whose truths may make good lesson for the children that are to be. I am glad, glad, that I may here be of some use to you. For if your husband suffer, he suffer within the range of my study and experience. I promise you that I will gladly do all for him that I can, all to make his life strong and manly, and your life a happy one. Now you must eat. You are overwrought and perhaps over-anxious. Husband Jonathan would not like to see you so pale, and what he like not where he love, is not to his good. Therefore for his sake you must eat and smile. You have told me about Lucy, and so now we shall not speak of it, lest it distress. I shall stay in Exeter tonight, for I want to think much over what you have told me, and when I have thought I will ask you questions, if I may. And then too, you will tell me of husband Jonathan's trouble so far as you can, but not yet. You must eat now, afterwards you shall tell me all." After lunch, when we went back to the drawing room, he said to me, "And now tell me all about him." When it came to speaking to this great learned man, I began to fear that he would think me a weak fool, and Jonathan a madman, that journal is all so strange, and I hesitated to go on. But he was so sweet and kind, and he had promised to help, and I trusted him, so I said, "Dr. Van Helsing, what I have to tell you is so queer that you must not laugh at me or at my husband. I have been since yesterday in a sort of fever of doubt. You must be kind to me, and not think me foolish that I have even half believed some very strange things." He reassured me by his manner as well as his words when he said, "Oh, my dear, if you only know how strange is the matter regarding which I am here, it is you who would laugh. I have learned not to think little of any one's belief, no matter how strange it may be. I have tried to keep an open mind, and it is not the ordinary things of life that could close it, but the strange things, the extraordinary things, the things that make one doubt if they be mad or sane." "Thank you, thank you a thousand times! You have taken a weight off my mind. If you will let me, I shall give you a paper to read. It is long, but I have typewritten it out. It will tell you my trouble and Jonathan's. It is the copy of his journal when abroad, and all that happened. I dare not say anything of it. You will read for yourself and judge. And then when I see you, perhaps, you will be very kind and tell me what you think." "I promise," he said as I gave him the papers. "I shall in the morning, as soon as I can, come to see you and your husband, if I may." "Jonathan will be here at half-past eleven, and you must come to lunch with us and see him then. You could catch the quick 3:34 train, which will leave you at Paddington before eight." He was surprised at my knowledge of the trains offhand, but he does not know that I have made up all the trains to and from Exeter, so that I may help Jonathan in case he is in a hurry. So he took the papers with him and went away, and I sit here thinking, thinking I don't know what. LETTER (by hand), VAN HELSING TO MRS. HARKER 25 September, 6 o'clock "Dear Madam Mina, "I have read your husband's so wonderful diary. You may sleep without doubt. Strange and terrible as it is, it is true! I will pledge my life on it. It may be worse for others, but for him and you there is no dread. He is a noble fellow, and let me tell you from experience of men, that one who would do as he did in going down that wall and to that room, aye, and going a second time, is not one to be injured in permanence by a shock. His brain and his heart are all right, this I swear, before I have even seen him, so be at rest. I shall have much to ask him of other things. I am blessed that today I come to see you, for I have learn all at once so much that again I am dazzled, dazzled more than ever, and I must think. "Yours the most faithful, "Abraham Van Helsing." LETTER, MRS. HARKER TO VAN HELSING 25 September, 6:30 P.M. "My dear Dr. Van Helsing, "A thousand thanks for your kind letter, which has taken a great weight off my mind. And yet, if it be true, what terrible things there are in the world, and what an awful thing if that man, that monster, be really in London! I fear to think. I have this moment, whilst writing, had a wire from Jonathan, saying that he leaves by the 6:25 tonight from Launceston and will be here at 10:18, so that I shall have no fear tonight. Will you, therefore, instead of lunching with us, please come to breakfast at eight o'clock, if this be not too early for you? You can get away, if you are in a hurry, by the 10:30 train, which will bring you to Paddington by 2:35. Do not answer this, as I shall take it that, if I do not hear, you will come to breakfast. "Believe me, "Your faithful and grateful friend, "Mina Harker." JONATHAN HARKER'S JOURNAL 26 September. - I thought never to write in this diary again, but the time has come. When I got home last night Mina had supper ready, and when we had supped she told me of Van Helsing's visit, and of her having given him the two diaries copied out, and of how anxious she has been about me. She showed me in the doctor's letter that all I wrote down was true. It seems to have made a new man of me. It was the doubt as to the reality of the whole thing that knocked me over. I felt impotent, and in the dark, and distrustful. But, now that I know, I am not afraid, even of the Count. He has succeeded after all, then, in his design in getting to London, and it was he I saw. He has got younger, and how? Van Helsing is the man to unmask him and hunt him out, if he is anything like what Mina says. We sat late, and talked it over. Mina is dressing, and I shall call at the hotel in a few minutes and bring him over. He was, I think, surprised to see me. When I came into the room whee he was, and introduced myself, he took me by the shoulder, and turned my face round to the light, and said, after a sharp scrutiny, "But Madam Mina told me you were ill, that you had had a shock." It was so funny to hear my wife called `Madam Mina' by this kindly, strong-faced old man. I smiled, and said, "I was ill, I have had a shock, but you have cured me already." "And how?" "By your letter to Mina last night. I was in doubt, and then everything took a hue of unreality, and I did not know what to trust, even the evidence of my own senses. Not knowing what to trust, I did not know what to do, and so had only to keep on working in what had hitherto been the groove of my life. The groove ceased to avail me, and I mistrusted myself. Doctor, you don't know what it is to doubt everything, even yourself. No, you don't, you couldn't with eyebrows like yours." He seemed pleased, and laughed as he said, "So! You are a physiognomist. I learn more here with each hour. I am with so much pleasure coming to you to breakfast, and, oh, sir, you will pardon praise from an old man, but you are blessed in your wife." I would listen to him go on praising Mina for a day, so I simply nodded and stood silent. "She is one of God's women, fashioned by His own hand to show us men and other women that there is a heaven where we can enter, and that its light can be here on earth. So true, so sweet, so noble, so little an egoist, and that, let me tell you, is much in this age, so sceptical and selfish. And you, sir. . . I have read all the letters to poor Miss Lucy, and some of them speak of you, so I know you since some days from the knowing of others, but I have seen your true self since last night. You will give me your hand, will you not? And let us be friends for all our lives." We shook hands, and he was so earnest and so kind that it made me quite choky. "and now," he said, "may I ask you for some more help? I have a great task to do, and at the beginning it is to know. You can help me here. Can you tell me what went before your going to Transylvania? Later on I may ask more help, and of a different kind, but at first this will do." "Look here, Sir," I said, "does what you have to do concern the Count?" "It does," he said solemnly." "Then I am with you heart and soul. As you go by the 10:30 train, you will not have time to read them, but I shall get the bundle of papers. You can take them with you and read them in the train." After breakfast I saw him to the station. When we were parting he said, "Perhaps you will come to town if I send for you, and take Madam Mina too." "We shall both come when you will," I said. I had got him the morning papers and the London papers of the previous night, and while we were talking at the carriage window, waiting for the train to start, he was turning them over. His eyes suddenly seemed to catch something in one of them, "The Westminster Gazette", I knew it by the color, and he grew quite white. He read something intently, groaning to himself, "Mein Gott! Mein Gott! So soon! So soon!" I do not think he remembered me at the moment. Just then the whistle blew, and the train moved off. This recalled him to himself, and he leaned out of the window and waved his hand, calling out, "Love to Madam Mina. I shall write so soon as ever I can." DR. SEWARD'S DIARY 26 September. - Truly there is no such thing as finality. Not a week since I said "Finis," and yet here I am starting fresh again, or rather going on with the record. Until this afternoon I had no cause to think of what is done. Renfield had become, to all intents, as sane as he ever was. He was already well ahead with his fly business, and he had just started in the spider line also, so he had not been of any trouble to me. I had a letter from Arthur, written on Sunday, and from it I gather that he is bearing up wonderfully well. Quincey Morris is with him, and that is much of a help, for he himself is a bubbling well of good spirits. Quincey wrote me a line too, and from him I hear that Arthur is beginning to recover something of his old buoyancy, so as to them all my mind is at rest. As for myself, I was settling down to my work with the enthusiasm which I used to have for it, so that I might fairly have said that the wound which poor Lucy left on me was becoming cicatrised. Everything is, however, now reopened, and what is to be the end God only knows. I have an idea that Van Helsing thinks he knows, too, but he will only let out enough at a time to whet curiosity. He went to Exeter yesterday, and stayed there all night. Today he came back, and almost bounded into the room at about half-past five o'clock, and thrust last night's "Westminster Gazette" into my hand. "What do you think of that?" he asked as he stood back and folded his arms. I looked over the paper, for I really did not know what he meant, but he took it from me and pointed out a paragraph about children being decoyed away at Hampstead. It did not convey much to me, until I reached a passage where it described small puncture wounds on their throats. An idea struck me, and I looked up. "Well?" he said. "It is like poor Lucy's." "And what do you make of it?" "Simply that there is some cause in common. Whatever it was that injured her has injured them." I did not quite understand his answer. "That is true indirectly, but not directly." "How do you mean, Professor?" I asked. I was a little inclined to take his seriousness lightly, for, after all, four days of rest and freedom from burning, harrowing, anxiety does help to restore one's spirits, but when I saw his face, it sobered me. Never, even in the midst of our despair about poor Lucy, had he looked more stern. "Tell me!" I said. "I can hazard no opinion. I do not know what to think, and I have no data on which to found a conjecture." "Do you mean to tell me, friend John, that you have no suspicion as to what poor Lucy died of, not after all the hints given, not only by events, but by me?" "Of nervous prostration following a great loss or waste of blood." "And how was the blood lost or wasted?" I shook my head. He stepped over and sat down beside me, and went on, "You are a clever man, friend John. You reason well, and your wit is bold, but you are too prejudiced. You do not let your eyes see nor your ears hear, and that which is outside your daily life is not of account to you. Do you not think that there are things which you cannot understand, and yet which are, that some people see things that others cannot? But there are things old and new which must not be contemplated by men's eyes, because they know, or think they know, some things which other men have told them. Ah, it is the fault of our science that it wants to explain all, and if it explain not, then it says there is nothing to explain. But yet we see around us every day the growth of new beliefs, which think themselves new, and which are yet but the old, which pretend to be young, like the fine ladies at the opera. I suppose now you do not believe in corporeal transference. No? Nor in materialization. No? Nor in astral bodies. No? Nor in the reading of thought. No? Nor in hypnotism. . ." "Yes," I said. "Charcot has proved that pretty well." He smiled as he went on, "Then you are satisfied as to it. Yes? And of course then you understand how it act, and can follow the mind of the great Charcot, alas that he is no more, into the very soul of the patient that he influence. No? Then, friend John, am I to take it that you simply accept fact, and are satisfied to let from premise to conclusion be a blank? No? Then tell me, for I am a student of the brain, how you accept hypnotism and reject the thought reading. Let me tell you, my friend, that there are things done today in electrical science which would have been deemed unholy by the very man who discovered electricity, who would themselves not so long before been burned as wizards. There are always mysteries in life. Why was it that Methuselah lived nine hundred years, and `Old Parr'one hundred and sixty-nine, and yet that poor Lucy, with four men's blood in her poor veins, could not live even one day? For, had she live one more day, we could save her. Do you know all the mystery of life and death? Do you know the altogether of comparative anatomy and can say wherefore the qualities of brutes are in some men, and not in others? Can you tell me why, when other spiders die small and soon, that one great spider lived for centuries in the tower of the old Spanish church and grew and grew, till, on descending, he could drink the oil of all the church lamps? Can you tell me why in the Pampas, ay and elsewhere, there are bats that come out at night and open the veins of cattle and horses and suck dry their veins, how in some islands of the Western seas there are bats which hang on the trees all day, and those who have seen describe as like giant nuts or pods, and that when the sailors sleep on the deck, because that it is hot, flit down on them and then, and then in the morning are found dead men, white as even Miss Lucy was?" "Good God, Professor!" I said, starting up. "Do you mean to tell me that Lucy was bitten by such a bat, and that such a thing is here in London in the nineteenth century?" He waved his hand for silence, and went on, "Can you tell me why the tortoise lives more long than generations of men, why the elephant goes on and on till he have sees dynasties, and why the parrot never die only of bite of cat of dog or other complaint? Can you tell me why men believe in all ages and places that there are men and women who cannot die? We all know, because science has vouched for the fact, that there have been toads shut up in rocks for thousands of years, shut in one so small hole that only hold him since the youth of the world. Can you tell me how the Indian fakir can make himself to die and have been buried, and his grave sealed and corn sowed on it, and the corn reaped and be cut and sown and reaped and cut again, and then men come and take away the unbroken seal and that there lie the Indian fakir, not dead, but that rise up and walk amongst them as before?" Here I interrupted him. I was getting bewildered. He so crowded on my mind his list of nature's eccentricities and possible impossibilities that my imagination was getting fired. I had a dim idea that he was teaching me some lesson, as long ago he used to do in his study at Amsterdam. But he used them to tell me the thing, so that I could have the object of thought in mind all the time. But now I was without his help, yet I wanted to follow him, so I said, "Professor, let me be your pet student again. Tell me the thesis, so that I may apply your knowledge as you go on. At present I am going in my mind from point to point as a madman, and not a sane one, follows an idea. I feel like a novice lumbering through a bog in a midst, jumping from one tussock to another in the mere blind effort to move on without knowing where I am going." "That is a good image," he said. "Well, I shall tell you. My thesis is this, I want you to believe." "To believe what?" "To believe in things that you cannot. Let me illustrate. I heard once of an American who so defined faith, `that faculty which enables us to believe things which we know to be untrue.' For one, I follow that man. He meant that we shall have an open mind, and not let a little bit of truth check the rush of the big truth, like a small rock does a railway truck. We get the small truth first. Good! We keep him, and we value him, but all the same we must not let him think himself all the truth in the universe." "Then you want me not to let some previous conviction inure the receptivity of my mind with regard to some strange matter. Do I read your lesson aright?" "Ah, you are my favorite pupil still. It is worth to teach you. Now that you are willing to understand, you have taken the first step to understand. You think then that those so small holes in the children's throats were made by the same that made the holes in Miss Lucy?" "I suppose so." He stood up and said solemnly, "Then you are wrong. Oh, would it were so! But alas! No. It is worse, far, far worse." "In God's name, Professor Van Helsing, what do you mean?" I cried. He threw himself with a despairing gesture into a chair, and placed his elbows on the table, covering his face with his hands as he spoke. "They were made by Miss Lucy!"

#Dracula