#and i think there's something else written on this shirt just below the flowers but i can't be bothered to rectify the caption anymore >_>

[urmom609402]

Part 2 of The Cold

Happy Halloween!! I saw the interaction with the first part of this story and was really relieved to see that people enjoyed it. I hope this new addition will suffice, again, much love <33

PS. this is NSFW- w/w and w/m (I've never written smut so forgive me, but again, any notes or suggestions I will happily read them)

What felt like hours had passed, I was starving and even if I didn’t want to admit it…cold. Beyond all other feelings I somehow felt calm. It wasn’t Otis making me feel this way, but the fact that I was out of the storm. As the sky boomed outside I heard a clash of yelling and laughter roaring from below. Before I could try and make out what they were saying, there were stomps right outside the door. 

“Knock Knock poopy-head!” Baby cackled before busting the door down. “What’d my brother do to you? You dont look too good.” She smiled wide. “You need a new dress, I got just the thing.” she ran out the door before popping her head back in. “I’ll untie you when I get back.” She blushed faintly and sauntered across the hall.

Baby was a peculiar woman, precious in a way but clearly a little out of her mind. I enjoyed her company, although that could just be because she was the only person my age in the house. More than anything else I wish to get out of this rotting maze of a house, but if I step foot out of this room I know I'm going back to my boyfriend in a bodybag. The thing is, we lived near here too. Always driving past that fork in the road, steering clear of it everytime…like clockwork. But I guess it wasn't a total lie to say I needed a ride home, but i chose to walk home because I knew it was close enough before the convertible got to me. 

"I got just the thing.." Baby lifted up two dresses, one, a vintage flower dress from the early 60s. And the second, lingerie and a robe that looked exactly like Mama's. "I wasn't sure which one you preferred but I thought it could be fun to do a makeover." She smiled and sat in my lap. "You got real pretty eyes, you know? I think the blue flowers would match you well…." She reached around me to untie my wrists from the chair. "I'm gonna untie you, but please don't scream, or run. We'll just have a little makeover while my brothers…" she pauses. "Go find more friends." 

I didn't know how to respond as she was clearly covering herself up, but as she untied me I caught her staring at my exposed cleavage a couple times. I didn't feel uncomfortable per say, but I started to feel an unexplainable tension between us. She stood up in front of me, taking the dress off its hanger and putting it in front of me as I very slowly got up on my feet, taking a quick spin to get a better look at Otis' room. The drawings on the wall were unlike any I've ever seen, it was grotesque but beautiful. He had a talent for arts of some kind, clearly, but of what I couldn't tell beyond the walls. Baby quickly grabbed the sides of my hips.

"Hey silly? Gotta take your clothes off if you wanna look nice for Otis!" She smiled wide, spinning me around to face her.

"For Otis?" I asked, face still shocked from her hands.

"Yeah! I saw how he looked at you… you two know each other. I assume you two must've fucked or something-" she laughed softly at my discomfort. "Oh… my bad, but you'll still look very pretty once I'm done…" She blushed gently, holding my arms up in the air to take off my T-shirt. It was drenched in sweat, tears, rain and dirt. I had gone through hell and back and now she just took off all the pressure I've felt for the past few hours. As she undressed me I felt her hands explore a little more than expected. Pulling the dress over my breasts gently sliding up and down seeing if I noticed her touch or not- I had- or how her hands always hovered over mine as I slid the bottom of the dress down my thighs when I sat down again. She looked at me as if I was some goddess, a beauty she's never seen before.

"Thank you…I feel much better now." I said, voice a little hoarse.

"You look much better too… got a nice set of tits on you, huh?" She bit her lip taking me all in. 

"Thanks, not too bad yourself." I saw her mouth curve into a small grin before pouncing me onto the bed.

"You flirting with me?" She plays with my hair, tugging on it gently, as I try to weigh out my options. She tugs on one long strand hard "Heyy!!" She sounded annoyed like a little kid about to throw a tantrum. "Are you flirting with me or not?" 

Putting my hand over hers I tried to calm her down as her gaze became slightly animalistic over me. "Yes." Her face lit up, she readjusted herself so her knees were against my thighs, leaning over me. 

"Otis hasn't touched you has he?" She whispered before kissing my neck.

"No… should I be concerned about that?" I said petting her hair. I was too paralyzed and surprisingly turned on to move away.

"Maybe… he usually doesn't keep someone alive for this long so he must really admire you. Don't be surprised if he does more than touch you though…" she giggles softly and peppers kisses over my head and neck.

I felt a shiver go down my spine as she touched me.. caressing each curve with passion, slowly rocking herself back and forth over my thighs unknowingly. I felt so desperate for escape I just did what I needed to. Explore her. She didn't mind, but I had ever been with a woman, that became clear as soon as I tried to dip my hand between her thighs. 

She giggled, shoving my hand against her inner thigh. "You wanna feel how happy you make me?" She keeps my hand still as I try to glide up and down, a weak attempt at teasing. "Say it!" She said angrily. 

I sat up, hand still between her legs and nodded. "I want to feel every inch of you Baby." I took my other hand and hooked it onto her other leg, spreading them out more, so I can flip her under me. Before I could do that she stuck her hand under the dress knocking me back down onto the bed, kneading my breasts. As my breath grows shaky, I feel my pussy throb, desperate for some kind of touch. As I reached my free hand under the new panties she had given me, before she grabbed it and pinned my arms to my side.

"Let me help." Never breaking eye contact she snaked her way down onto the ground, grasping my ankles and draping my legs over her shoulders. As she dipped her head between my legs, she left long, soft kisses on my inner thighs. When I clamped my legs together she playfully bit my left leg. "I'll be gentle… just keep them apart for me.." she whispered sweetly, all previous emotions out of the window, no more anger, or animalistic urges, she wanted to help me out.

***

Bang bang bang

"Open the fucking door! This is my room Baby you better get your fucking ass out of it before I send a bullet through your god damn skull and drag you out myself!" Otis frustratedly screamed from the other end of the door. 

Baby wiped her lips, and looked behind us at the door. "Make me!" She pushed my legs back into the bed as if nothing happened, leaving me to lay down star-struck in the middle of the bed.

Soon there was a crash, door flying open to see Otis, now shirtless and a little bloodied. As he held himself back from smacking the shit out of Baby, he locked eyes with me, splayed out on his bed, legs trembling as my chest heaved post-orgasm. His stare wasn't how it was before, it wasn't the look of death.. it was a look of the admiration Baby mentioned before. He looked back at me, and then back at Baby, who was now flushed in the face as red as I was, giggling and licking my cum off her fingers trying to continue seducing me from across the room.

"Oh Jesus Baby you didnt!" Otis groaned, ripping her fingers out of her mouth.

"You're just jealous I got to her first!" She said hitting him and wiping the remainder of liquids from her hands on her dress. Otis pushed her out of the room leaving us alone together.

"Baby really touch you?" He gruffed walking over to me.

"She did more than touch.." I smiled.

He sat down on the other end of the bed. "Up." 

"Why?"

"Don't ask questions, just do it." He barked, flicking his finger up at the ceiling.

I felt very wobbly, unable to balance. I stood against the bed and looked back at him. He gave another inquisitive look at my face, and panned down my body.

"What are you doing?" I mumbled.

"Seeing what I'm working with sweetheart." I felt myself cringe at the pet name but tried not to let it show in my face as he edged closer to me, tracing his fingers against my waist. "Baby treated you real good didn't she?" He tisked. "If you just waited for me to come back like I said.. you would've been just as warm." He slapped my ass, holding me up causing me to jump. "You move an inch and I'll rip your spine out, y'hear me?"

I nodded. He let go of my ass and worked his way off the bed and onto his feet, looking down at me, gripping my chin firmly to get me to look at him.

"Here's what's gonna happen. You wanted to feel warm, so I'll make you feel like you're burning." He lifted my dress up. "Baby's?"

"Yeah… gave me a makeover."

"Good…” He took the dress and flung it across the room, taking in every inch of my body. “She gave you bruises, you know.”

“I don’t mind…”

“You don’t mind a little pain with your pleasure momma?” He smirks and leans down. “Baby treated you real good… but I can treat you better.” 

Suddenly, Otis took a quick bite on my neck, causing me to hold onto his shoulder. As he bit he gently kissed the wound, working his way around it with his tongue, noticing how I would jump a little under his touch. He understood I was afraid, and tried his best to control himself. The kisses he gave reached from my neck to my breasts, taking his sweet time. This lasted for nearly twenty minutes, simple kisses, nothing more, he wanted to tease me. 

Seduce me.

But who am I kidding? His goal was to tease.

And it was a success, I felt comfort and lust unlike any previous encounters I've had with a man...which freaked me out. How come a man who looked like he was going to kill me only hours before be able to turn me on so much? A question I’ll never be able to answer, I kept it in the back of my mind letting my body give into this wave of pleasure- forgetting I was stranded in a house of horrors. 

#otis driftwood #otis b driftwood #bill moseley #house of 1000 corpses #otis driftwood x reader #baby firefly #baby firefly x reader #sheri moon zombie #fanfiction #horror fanfiction

[fluffyprettykitty]

Amarillo

Pairing: neighbor! Joaquin Torres x female reader

Word Count: 1714 words

Outline: Your second date with Joaquin goes a little bit different from what you were both expecting.

Warnings: Fluff with smut!, heavy nipple play, hand job, spit as lube, lingerie fetishization, body worship, grammar mistakes, if I missed anything or tagged something wrong please let me know!

Author’s Note: first time writing anything for Joaquin and so far the longest thing I've written, and this is also my submission for the @late-to-the-party-81 and @yarnforbrains all-new challenge, I used these two prompts (I think we found a new kink…, do you like my new...) and I hope I did this story and this character some justice, not beta 'ed, all mistakes are my own!

P.S: dividers by @firefly-graphics​

🌟 Please reblog and comment, all feedback is appreciated and warmly encouraged and allows me to learn what to work on 🌟

Main Masterlist ・❥・Joaquin Torres Masterlist

NSFW BELOW THE CUT. MINORS PLEASE DNI.

In the quiet of your room listening to some uplifting music while you were dressed up for your second date with the cute guy from across the street. New neighbor Joaquin Torres. He had moved to your neighborhood a couple of weeks back and immediately you caught each other’s eyes. Although dating a neighbor is always awkward at first, you kept your distance.

However, after a night out at the local cinema with your best friend, you happened to run into him as you were getting your snacks from the bar. Nachos with extra cheese just as he liked it, he noted, with a bright smile greatly illuminated by his white t-shirt. As soon as your friend saw you two talking, she faked a sudden illness and left you all alone. Gotta love smart friends.

That night out together transcended pure magic and was like the start of something new. He drove you back home and held your hand till you reached your house and with a soft kiss goodbye, he promised a much better date next time. Even better?

And so that was you today, picking through dresses and tossing around clothes wondering what's his favorite color? What is your best feature to accentuate? You remember him telling you that his favorite color is yellow as you pick your lingerie first. Cotton feels with a pretty overlay lace pattern. Hasn’t been long since you bought them but you haven't worn them more than once.

Over it, you chose to wear a semi-maxi dark green floral dress, a new purchase, and your favorite pair of beige faux leather sandals. 'Perfect' you thought as you looked at yourself in the mirror and then proceeded to fix your hair.

Picking up your bag, you proceed to leave your room with a final text to him, letting him know that you are ready. Only to get greeted by him a minute later standing at your front door with a bouquet of roses in his hands. What a gentleman. You place your bag on the table and you open the door for him.

Greeting him with your best-worn smile, accepting the flowers and asking him to come inside to search for a vase to place them in. As you moved around the living room, bouquet in your arms, you twirled around in your dress and give him a cute pose.

"Do you like my new dress?"

"Is very pretty, you look even prettier in it, you’re beautiful, Y/N."

Joaquin smiled nodding his head, sitting close by to the door. Finding the vase and carefully placing the flowers inside, you shoot him another bright smile. However, you noticed his eyes wandering to the slightly exposed strap of your dress. You felt his gaze fixating on it as you run your fingers through the strap to hide it back.

Yellow. Your bra was yellow. His favorite color. Just like you had planned. Naughty ideas begin to form in your head and you decide to let the strap fall down again over your shoulder.

You notice how his breath hitches, probably thinking about your bra and wondering what else you might be wearing. Letting out a deep chuckle as you notice the first droplets of sweat forming in his forehead. He's unable to speak for a few moments and you're only giggling, shaking your head.

Your plan is very much working, what you didn’t know is how much he actually liked yellow. That's when you finally notice it as he brings his hands to cover his crotch. He's getting hard at just the sight of you. A shock overwhelms him and he profusely apologizes and tries to leave.

"I'm sorry, I'm really, I’m sorry, your strap, the yellow, Dios, is driving me insane, I'm sorry, I should leave, this is not okay"

"No, please stay, Joaquin, is okay, I'm flattered, honestly you don't have to leave. You can…"

A wave of confidence washes over you as you take a step closer to him.

"Would you like to see all of it?"

His face is only a mix of shock and want as he nods his head and parts his lips.

"Please, I, I would love to but I don't want to make you uncomfortable."

With a smirk you slowly take both of your dress straps down, exposing all of your bra and your breasts. You take a look at him as you shift in your movement jiggling them for him. All things are better in motion.

“Holy shit, you’re gorgeous, y/n!”

He says in a hitched breath and you can tell he’s getting harder by the way his face looks concentrated and scrunched together.

“Go ahead, baby, touch yourself for me.”

Your commanding tone and your confidence lead him to palm himself at your sight. Pressing his lips together at his touch, a sense of pride overcomes you. He lets out a very small moan and is enough to make you clench your thighs together.

"Could I please, y/n, could I please touch them?"

His voice is close to a plea as he takes in your beautiful sight. Joaquin is licking his lips together just at the thought of touching them. Oh, you were about to make him a very happy man.

You motion with your two fingers for him to come closer. So he does not let a moment go to waste. Immediately grabbing both of your breasts feeling the weight of them in his hands, his breath hitching again and you look at him with a grin.

"Anything you want, baby boy, you can ask for."

"This color looks divine on you, cariño "

He barely manages to say as your next phrase makes his heart beat faster.

"All yours, baby, all for you, you can have them."

With a puppy look on his face, he leaned forward to kiss all over them tenderly but needily, alternating between softly squeezing them and kissing them. His kisses and his incredibly needy nature increase your desire.

Until he stops for a brief moment and looks up at you asking for permission with his beautiful brown eyes tugging at your bra with a pleading face. With a nod you allow him to push your bra down and so he does, taking a moment to marvel at the sight of them complimenting you.

“You look like a Goddess, Y/N. Real Aphrodite coming to life.”

With his delicate fingers, he begins to circle both of your breasts with large strokes, reaching for the areola and easing into a gentle breast massage. After a few moments, he gives them a little squeeze.

Then he goes on to trace your areola without touching your nipples, the sensation leading you to shut your eyes and your breathing pattern to change.

Joaquin moves his fingers to your nipples which are now very erect and hard, rubbing them slowly, increasing speed and pressure as you are reacting to his touch. You were very hot and bothered, your one hand going to wrap behind his neck for support.

That’s when he pinches your nipples, a rush of sensation flowing through you. He goes soft at first but then he pinches your nipples harder making you moan out his name in pleasure. Oh, you were very foregone now.

Switching his movements again he alternates between pulling your nipples and twisting them with his fingers, a very eager expression on his face as you react positively to all of his micro touches. You’re arching your back as you try to press yourself against the bookcase.

His next move is to take his fingers away and start breathing over them, blowing hot air on your now very sensitive nipples. Your mind goes crazy with all of the stimulation.

With a swift move, he takes a nipple between his lips and hungrily licks it in circles with the tip of his tongue. Shutting his eyes as he moans at the taste. Your own panties are now long drenching in your wetness. Your breasts were always the most sensitive part of your body. How on earth did he know? A very lucky coincidence to share.

Doesn't take him long to start sucking on the nipple, utterly desperate at the feel of your breast squeezing the other with the palm on his hand. Then, your hands are going to unbuckle his pants and palm his clothed cock, making him let go of your nipple for a second.

You reach for his cock, pushing his underwear down which only makes him suck harder on your nipple. Joaquin, then he flicks your nipple with the tip of his tongue moving on to cover it with the flat of his tongue.

You spit on your hand, the pure sound of it making him moan again once he realizes what you are doing. You spread it all over his cock and start pumping him slowly up and down. His pure fixation on your breast, his tongue working his magic on all of your sensitive nerves, is making your insides tighten and you’re finding it hard to sit still.

Going back to sucking on your nipple and squeezing the other breast, Joaquin is grinding his hips and cock to your hand, sounds of pleasure escaping both your mouths. Thankfully the windows are closed.

Your orgasm sneaks up on you and you feel explosions everywhere, the sensation spreading throughout your body as the pleasure has been building slowly and gradually. Your climax is powerful and is coming in waves as you are trying hard to grab on to him when you feel your whole body falling apart on him.

Your loud cry of his name, and the way your body trembles are enough for him to cum all over your hand shooting ropes of cum on you and your new dress. His orgasm was muffled by the way he nibbled on your nipple as he felt the wave of pleasure washing him over.

That's how you both finish in your living room, right behind the main door, his cock in your hands, the nipple overstimulation making you finish, which was never something you expected you could do. Oh, he was way too good with his tongue. Looks like he is a man to keep around.

"Guess what, cariño. ”

His voice was soft echoing through the room, after a few moments when you both caught your breaths.

“ I think we found a new kink for the both of us."

#allnew22 #joaquin torres x reader #joaquín torres x reader #joaquin torres #joaquín torres smut #joaquin torres x you #joaquín torres x you #joaquin torres blurb #joaquin torres fic #joaquín torres fic #joaquín torres blurb #marvel x reader #joaquín torres fluff #joaquín torres x y/n #joaquín torres reader insert #joaquín torres headcanon #joaquín torres imagine #selenewrites #marvel #mcu

[endlessymphony]

Hi congrats on 50 Followers !!!!

🧸 : James Potter x reader where he spends a lot of time with the marauders and kinda ignores the reader and forgets their anniversary. So they get into a big argument and James says something mean about her being a muggle born.

Happy ending please 😁

Thank you 🙏

thank you so much lovely anon!

apologies.

pairing - james potter x reader

summary - james forgot your two year anniversary and left you waiting all day, just to come to your dorm and end up starting an argument

warnings - arguments, a bit of prejudice against muggles/muggle-borns, cussing

a/n - im really glad you guys like my james potter fics lol

you awoke, a rush of adrenaline and giddiness taking over as you practically shot yourself out of bed, almost tripping over the blankets you shoved onto the floor. you rushed over to the calendar hanging on the back of your door, bare feet pitter pattering on the hardwood floor, and yes! today was the day! the hearts circled in pen around the date only confirming your excitement.

your two year anniversary with the one and only james potter. your heart pounding a million miles a minute- feeling it ought to beat right out your chest. below the heart was written ‘surprise date’ in his handwriting, as he insisted that he could handle planning this date on his own. he was wrong, although you weren’t aware of that quite yet.

you spun yourself in a circle, making small noises of glee as you tossed yourself back onto your bed, thinking of what james might be up to. “oh merlin, i need to get ready.” you gasped, sitting back up and rushing over to your wardrobe.

it took an hour to find an outfit that you deemed ‘perfect’, settling on a top that you knew james loved. you spent another thirty minutes on hair and makeup, overjoyed to be spending the day with your beloved.

the waiting game began.

at first it was difficult to wait for him, adrenaline still rushing through your veins- body running off of pure excitement.

an hour passed, then two... then five, and soon it was much darker outside, the sun starting to set.

‘maybe he’s held up grabbing flowers, or making dinner reservations’ you thought, trying to push away the anxiety that was slowly creeping in to replace the high that you were feeling before. ‘oh! maybe we’re doing a night under the stars, how gorgeous would that be’

so, you continued to wait

but he never showed.

james finally came stumbling in to your dorm room at half-passed twelve, chuckling at the sight in front of him. you were wrapped up in a blanket, laying in your bed so that your back faced the door, hiding your hurt expression from him.

“hey, love.” he crooned as he walked over and sat down beside you on the bed, gently putting a hand on your shoulder. “the boys and i had a great day today, you won’t believe what we got up to!”

you slowly sat up, turning to look at him. tear stains on full display, mascara making them all-the-more obvious. james let out a small gasp, hand moving to cup your face. “oh no, what’s wrong? did something happen?” he gently smoothed his thumb over your cheek.

you pulled yourself away from his touch, throwing the blanket off like you had done this morning, but a different feeling had taken over by this point. anger. disappointment. hurt.

you dragged him by the arm and pointed to the date on your calendar, tapping the paper with your pointer finger a few times so he would get the gist. “what are you trying to tell me, y/n?” he asked, cocking his head to the side, trying to play the dumb card.

“you missed our anniversary, james. it’s been two years.” you felt defeated, like every ounce of life had been drained out of your body, and you were now an empty shell. “i waited for you” you began, “all day.”

“it’s not that big of a deal, let’s just do something this weekend instead.” he offered, a smile making its way to his face.

god- you wanted to punch that stupid fucking smile off his face.

“not that big of a deal, james? you left me hanging. ALL DAY i waited.” you were starting to get angry, your voice starting to waver as it raised in decibels. “you knew how much this meant to me! or so i thought you did, but lately, it’s like everyone else is MUCH more important than i am.” your hands balled into fists, brows furrowing slightly as you started to let him have it.

“and don’t you fucking dare say this isn’t a big deal, james potter.” you spat, voice like venom as your said his name. “you really let me down, you really fucking blew it this time, i am really fucking upset about this.”

“i should’ve known that muggles overreact over everything.” he muttered to himself, brows practically knitted together as he ran a hand through his hair. his eyes widened as soon as he said that, opening his mouth to apologize to you.

“you know what james, just fucking leave, just get out.” your lip started to quiver, eyes threatening to spill hot tears down your face all over again, you wanted to hold your composure in front of him. your heart felt as if it had completely shattered in your chest. “really? you really want me to leave?” it was his turn to feel defeated, face started to relax from its scrunched up state.

“yeah, i do. now get the fuck out.”

james looked as if he had his tail between his legs, shoulders slumping down as his whole body started to deflate in defeat. embarrassment. shame. “okay.” his voice was small, this version of him was completely different from the ‘regular’ james that you knew and loved. he walked out, turning to look at you, but you just slammed the door in his face.

you cast a quick silencing charm before you began to scream-sob. tears feeling as if they’re burning your skin- falling to your knees as you let the waves of heartbreak, pain, and anger completely take you over. you cried until you couldn’t anymore, head pounding and eyes starting to get puffy and red. you screamed until you couldn’t any longer, voice hoarse and throat feeling as if it were on fire.

you sobbed still, silently, nothing coming out as you had nothing left to give. “thanks james, thanks for making me feel so loved... so appreciated.” your voice was broken, cracking with every word. you laid on the floor, wishing that it would swallow you up, so you could disappear and never have to feel a thing.

you ended up falling asleep, the whole day taking it’s toll on you. you had nothing more to give, no more fight left in you.

james knocked on your door lightly, afraid that you were about to tear his head off the moment that he stepped inside your dorm. “y/n?” he asked, tone merely above a whisper as he slowly opened the door and stepped in. james closed the door gently, eyes finally falling on your figure laying on the floor.

he felt a pang of pain shoot through his heart. “i caused this.” he mumbled, taking a few slow steps towards you and sitting down. he felt tears welling in his eyes, a few managing to slide down his face as he looked at you. james felt nothing but remorse and disappointment for how things went earlier. he had completely forgotten about the anniversary- what a dick move.

your eyes flickered open, vision slightly out of focus as you try to figure out who’s figure is in front of you. low and behold it was james, crying, mumbling about how he knows he fucked up- and it’s eating him up inside, and about how much he loves you.

you began to sit up, blinking a few times to wave the sleep from your eyes. “james?” you asked, voice still torn up. his head shot up, trying to wipe away the tears with his hands. “hey.”

“what are you doing here?” you asked, “sh. don’t talk, you’ll blow your voice out.” james replied. “i wanted to come back and apologize to you. i feel awful about earlier, and i know how much i hurt you with my actions, especially with my comment about muggles.” he gently cupped your face again, “i didn’t mean it, i promise. i really didn’t mean it.” he sniffled, trying to keep the tears away, but despite his efforts- they returned. “i really love you. god, i’m a shitty fucking boyfriend, aren’t i?” james chuckled, trying to ignore the tears now steaming down his face.

“james.” you started, “no, y/n, i need to make it up to you for how terrible today was. i need to show you that you’re loved, and make you feel important and special, and like the only person in the world.” he started to trip over his words, talking fast out of nervousness, he didn’t want you to kick him out again.

“can we talk about it more later?” you finally managed to ask, “yeah. yeah, sure. definitely. you can sleep in tomorrow and i’ll go and get you some breakfast, does that sound alright?” he was rambling again, trying to ‘fix’ everything. you nodded, a small smile beginning to grace your lips.

“now let’s get you cleaned up, okay?” he stood up and offered a hand to you. “we have time for apologies tomorrow.” you took his hand hesitatingly, slowly standing up, legs a bit wobbly.

james walked you to your bathroom, grabbing you by the waist and sitting you up on the counter. he began to lightly hum to himself as he pulled out a bottle of makeup remover and some cotton rounds, pouring some of the liquid onto the round and gently starting to clean the makeup off your face. he washed your face and brushed your hair for you after, as well.

he helped you change into your pyjamas, and placed you into bed, picking up the blankets off the floor and placing them back on the bed- tucking you in. he leaned in and kissed your head before stripping down to just his t-shirt and boxers, placing his glasses on the nightstand, and climbing into bed beside you.

he spent the rest of the night whispering compliments to you, telling you how much he loves you and wants to be with you forever, and there was no shortage of apologies said. james held you to his chest, playing with your hair until the both of you eventually drifted off to sleep.

#endlessymphony’s 50 follower picnic! #james potter x y/n #james potter x reader #james potter #the marauders #harry potter fanfiction #harry potter imagines #harry potter imagine #harry potter fanfic #hp fanfic #hp drabbles #harry potter universe #harry potter #harry potter fandom #hp fandom #harry potter angst #james potter angst #angst fanfic

[ashintheairlikesnow]

We Keep Going, That’s All

@whimpers-and-whumpers , this is for you. Hope your surgery goes well today!

CW: Aftermath of near-death, hospital whump, recovery whump, survivor's guilt, alcohol use, referenced drug use

Ryan shows up to the hospital with Coke bottles full of liquid that absolutely is not Coke - or not much of it, anyway - and Nate doesn't refuse the gift.

He twists off the plastic cap and takes a drink, wincing at the burn down his throat. "Jesus, Ryan, this is m-m-more Jack than Coke."

"Yeah, well. Figured we could use some relaxing." Ryan gives him a slight smile, and the bruising that's been along his jaw - the obvious press of fingers - is finally starting to fade. Off-white bandages ring his neck, hiding from direct view the deep, slowly healing gashes rubbed in by the iron collar he'd worn for a year.

There are other wounds, Nate knows, underneath the lightly-draped black t-shirt Ryan wears, under his effortlessly casual, perfectly-on-trend jeans.

There are deeper wounds still entirely underneath his skin, inside his head. Nate knows those even better. He doesn't begrudge Ryan the need to find some way to fuzz out the edges of what must be written in stark, bright blood in his memory.

Nate spent a year and a half doing the same, after all, before Bram came back for Danny again.

"How is he?" Ryan asks, settling into a hard wooden chair with plastic back and cushion in a dull pastel mauve. "Any different?”

"Then y-yesterday?" Nate exhales, slowly, rubbing at his unshaven jaw. The stubble prickles his fingertips, itches a little as it grows in. There's a razor in the private room's little bathroom, but he doesn't have the energy to use it. All of Nate's energy now is focused entirely around staying right here, being right here, for the rare moments that Danny is both awake and himself.

"Yesterday wasn't... great.”

"No, it wasn't." Nate sighs, leaning over in the chair he sits in, next to Ryan, reaching out with his good left hand to gently nudge a bit of wavy red away from over Danny's face.

The love of his life - the man he's killed for, twice, and would kill for again - lays on his stomach with his head turned to one side. The hospital blanket is pulled up nearly to his chin, hiding from view the fact that nearly all of Danny seems made of bandages these days, bandages and tubes and wires. He breathes slowly, a drugged deep sleep to let his body rest and try desperately to heal itself around the nearly-fatal place the knife went into his back.

He sleeps, more than he's awake. But Nate makes sure that when his eyes open, someone is here for him, every single time.

"Today has been a little b-better, I think," Nate says after a moment's though. He brushes a crumb from the corner of Danny's mouth. "He ate a l-little, this morning. Just Jell-O and a little bit of cereal, but...”

"But something." Ryan nods, takes another drink, looks out the window. Outside, the day is bright and sunny, with a cloudless blue sky. The courtyard below is full of visiting families and patients taking walks through the landscaped flowers, all of them in brilliant bloom. "Have you even left this room since we got here?”

"No." Nate doesn't bother to lie.

Ryan looks over at him, and smiles very slightly. "Remind me to bring you by some multivitamins do you don't die of Vitamin D deficiency.”

"I'm f-fine." Nate takes another drink, feels the warmth slowly spreading through his shoulders, relaxing the knots and tension that have been slowly building day by day. The 'bed' he has here is just a visitor's couch built into the wall, lumpy and hard, with exactly one flat pillow with a scratchy pillowcase. But he'd rather be here than anywhere else. He'll be here for every single second Danny needs him. "I eat oranges for breakfast every d-d-day. No sc-... sc-... scurvy for me.”

"Didn't we joke about scurvy once?" Ryan asks, slightly faintly, looking up at the ceiling. "After Danny came home the first time?”

"M-Maybe. Don't remember. Why do you c-care if I feel good, anyway?”

“My brother can’t fuss over you right now,” Ryan says with a casual shrug. “So someone has to. He’ll never let me live it down if anything happened to you while he’s here. I’ll get chewed out if you get so much as a headcold and we both know it.”

“I d-doubt-”

Danny shifts a little and both men go silent, watching him move in the bed - just an inch or so to the right, his eyes tightly closed, body tensing as even the slightest movement brings a wash of pain.

"It's okay," Nate whispers, and Danny's eyelids flicker, slowly open. The blue in them is hazy and clouded, but not empty. This time, at least, it's Danny who is looking at him, and not the other one, the one that Nate knows only as someone else. The one who runs Danny's body when Danny can't do it any longer.

"Hey," Danny says, in a hoarse whisper. He tries for a smile, and it's faded and wobbly, but it's there. Then he lifts his head a little, looking over to see Ryan. "Oh, you're both... here. How long was I asleep?”

"Four hours or s-s-so," Nate says, standing up - ignoring the twinge of pain in his bad knee - and moving the pillow under Danny's head to still support him even as he moves. A hint of freckled shoulder shows, with its swirling trace of scars from Bram's knife. There's a star carved into the back of his left shoulder that Nate did, at Bram's command, once.

Ryan's gaze be damned, Nate leans over to kiss it, and to kiss one by one the carved letters that are still there, faded, in the back of Danny's neck. A. D. N.

He tries not to feel the guilt that twists in him at the ownership Bram had meant to make obvious, there. His own first initial with Bram's initials, his own... his own culpability.

“How do you feel?” Ryan asks, leaning over close to Danny. 

Danny’s nose wrinkles. “You smell like a liquor store.”

“Yeah, well. When your big brother scares the shit out of you by getting himself stabbed almost to death because of you, maybe you need a little pick-me-up now and then.” Ryan manages a half-cocked smile, but it’s fragile, and they both know it.

With a hiss of pain, Danny moves his hand up the bed, offering it to Ryan, who takes it without hesitation, leaning over so his forehead rests gently against Danny’s. 

“I’m okay,” Danny whispers.

“No, you’re not,” Ryan whispers back. 

Nate moves to sit back in his chair, then stands again, restless. He doesn’t want to sit there but he doesn’t know where he does want to be... until he looks at Danny, thin and dwarfed even by a small hospital bed. He sets down the mostly-jack-and-a-little-coke and climbs into the bed without hesitating, laying down behind Danny on his side, letting his good hand rest just next to a swirl of Danny’s hair on the pillow. 

Danny’s smile widens - not that Nate can see that, from his vantage point. Although Ryan can. “I’ll be okay,” He corrects himself, watching his brother. “They said there’s no sign of paralysis. I’ll walk, I’ll probably even run after a while.” He tries moving and hisses again. “A long while. It’s going to be okay, Ryan.”

“You always were way more optimistic when you were high as balls,” Ryan whispers, and he and Danny laugh, until the action makes Danny whimper at a new spike of pain. “What do we do now, Dan, huh?”

“Keep going,” Danny says, voice low, barely audible even to the two men on either side of him. “That’s all. We keep going.”

“I keep thinking I should’ve died back there, ten times over,” Ryan murmurs. “But every single time, you took the pain for me. I should’ve died-”

“Nah. You’re my little brother. I need you here.” Danny manages to keep the smile, then, and his blue eyes are warm. “If you feel so bad about it, sneak me some of that booze next time, yeah?”

"Dan, I am not going to help you mix IV drugs and alcohol-”

“Just leave it in a really easy-to-reach place and I’ll help myself.”

“Danny. No.”

“Danny yes.”

“Daniel Michaelson-”

“Ryan Niall Michaelson-”

Nate’s rumbling laughter interrupts them. It’s such a rare sound that both of them go immediately silent when they hear it, and Danny even tries to look over his shoulder, gritting his teeth through the ache to see the smile on Nate’s face. It’s slight, nearly private - a smile barely noticeable by anyone who isn’t looking for it.

But Danny is, and through the fog of the painkillers still coursing through his system, he sees it. 

“What?” Ryan says. “What’re you laughing at?”

Nate lays a hand over the star he once carved into Danny’s skin, and moves to rest his nose, just lightly, against the warmth of Danny’s neck, breathing in the scent of him under the hospital-smell that surrounds them. “Nothing,” He says, and Danny shivers a little as his lips move against the curve of the D at the back of his neck. “I’m j-j-just... realizing I’m g-going to listen to you two do this for the r-rest of my life.”

“Is that a bad thing?” Ryan’s voice is dry. 

“No,” Nate says, eyes closed. He can almost feel them in the cabin, like this, just the two of them on days Bram was gone. Lying in the bed wasting the whole morning being warm, just them together. Warm and safe. It feels like being in Danny’s apartment during their year and a half of freedom, the way sometimes when Nate couldn’t get out of bed Danny would just stay with him, holding him, until the pain inside of Nate had lessened enough to let him stand. 

Now it’s his turn to hold Danny. 

-

@tiddiroki @whump-it @bleeding-demon-teeth @finder-of-rings @whumpywhumper @endless-whump @18-toe-beans @pumpkinthefangirl @goneuntil @swordkallya @astrobly @evermetnotforgotten @whumpiary @card-games-and-pain @raigash @whump-tr0pes @orchidscript @wildfaewhump @doveotions @eatyourdamnpears 

#daniel michaelson's story #hospital whump #recovery whump #recovering whumpee #referenced stabbing #referenced drug use #alcohol use #caretakers #caretaker and whumpee #whump #aftermath whump #the bad arc #injured whumpee #survivor's guilt tw

[its-warm-in-here]

Playing Pretend

I’m sorry I didn't get this up sooner. I gutted the end but here’s the first part of the first chapter of a Heisenberg x reader fic that will probably go on too long. This is more of a prolog. No smut yet! Written with a female reader in mind, but I may have versions for both m and f when the final product goes up. Gonna start out kinda fluffy before we get darker. Comments and constructive criticism are always appreciated!

Summary: This summer trip to Romania was supposed to be momentous, life changing, and the bases for your master’s thesis. Too bad the villagers want you gone and this ‘Mother Miranda’ won't even see you. Luckily, you run into a greasy engineer who says he can help.

Or

Karl tries to take a day off from being ‘Lord Heisenberg’ with the cute stranger who wandered into the village. Things only spiral from there.

~2080 words

Miranda loved the yearly festivals. She always made a big show of the village, flowers and banners everywhere. The townsfolk would bring out their best clothing, even if their best was still black and brown. The dreary village would come alive with drinking, dancing and merry making. Even some of the neighboring villages would join in the festivities. The town would be near bustling, the local tavern would be full, laughter and song would echo from the church to the castle.

He hated it. All of it. Heisenberg avoided the celebrations, instead opting to stay holed up in his factory as much as possible. And it wasn't just because of the excess of people, while that didn't help. No, it was an insidious purpose for these gatherings. He exhaled a ring of cigar smoke.

First, boost morale through the village and reaffirm the people's faith in Mother Miranda. Second, and far more insidious, was to widen the flock, to expand her influence and bring in new blood for her experiments. The surrounding towns were just as small and removed from the rest of the world as Miranda's village. Made it easy to bring new blood under her wing. Youth would meet and marry, a drunk or four would go missing, and some of the visitors would become new members of Miranda's community. More meat for her Cadou grinder.

Heisenberg flicked the ash from his cigar and watched it float down before the wind caught it. The early morning view from the top of his factory wasn't bad. It was his own part of the world: no view of the village, the stench of the reservoir was nonexistent, and the most he could see of Castle Dimitrescu was a massive wall keeping their territory separated. Just him and his machines. He took another puff. As much as he planned to avoid today, Heisenberg knew that he would have to make at least some appearance. All the Lords did, even if it was just for a moment. Just another way to show her power; having all of her ‘children’ before the townsfolk. He grimaced at the thought. Târgul de Fete was set to start soon. At least that gave him the morning to get shit done. Heisenberg kicked a bit of metal scrap off the roof and it bounced off the scrap heap below with a ping! before landing in the dirt. He rolled his shoulder. Time to get to work.

---

"Well fuck you too!" You slammed the door behind you.  Why even bother going through the proper channels? No matter what, they turn you down, tell you to leave and treat you like an outcast. You spoke to towns folk, to village leaders, hell, you even wanted an audience with their 'Mother Miranda,' but she refused to even see you! You stormed along the path and the few people that had not made their way to the Târgul de Fete celebration steered clear of you, opting to give you a side eye and shuffle to their destination. All you wanted was to observe their festival, and maybe take a few pictures, but even that was negotiable. You had even offered to leave your camera behind with them for the day. Why hadn't you gone to Sweden with the rest of your class? No, instead you went to some culty, backwater town in Romania!

You kicked a rock, hard, sending it flying into the tall grass. "God Damnit!" This was supposed to have been your thesis! Supposed to be life changing! No, now you were just stuck, miles from any true civilization and being kicked out of some stupid, ramshackle heap, whose plants can't even grow right in a Romanian summer. Some of the plants were barely green, most appeared dry or yellowing. The flowers were either wilted and falling apart or hadn't even bloomed. You were no botanist, but you were certain that wasn't healthy.

You kicked another rock, it soared through the grass, but it struck something metal this time before landing with a thud. They didn't want you here, didn't want you at Târgul de Fete? Fine, but they didn't take your camera. Without thinking, you dug the old DSLR out of your bag and snapped a picture of the church.

And immediately deleted it.

You signed. Even if the villagers were a bunch of jackasses, this was their culture and they made it very clear that you were not welcome. Even if they had agreed to all this three months ago. And even if they had called you a bad omen, a poison and a danger to the whole village.  You weren't about to infringe. Crestfallen, you huffed your bag over your shoulder and began the trek back out of town. It was at least a four hour walk to your rental car and a good chunk of that walk was more of a hike. Not like there was much you could do other than leave after cussing out the town speakers and nearly slamming the door off its hinges.

The village had felt abandoned when you walked in, and now that everyone had headed off to a celebration, the village was positively desolate. No traditional brightly-colored dresses or intricate belts to be seen. And no wary or hostile glares from the inhabitants either. It was... quiet. Aside from the occasional crow, you might as well have been in a ghost town. It took you a bit to find the correct path out of the grave yard, but after spinning in circles for a good moment, you pushed past a red door and were back on your way. The village wasn't large, most of the paths were poorly maintained and the whole place was enveloped in a strange fish smell.

You bit the inside of your cheek. This was a good thing, really. Who would've wanted to stay in the ramshackle place for more than a few hours, let alone a few days? You groaned and kicked at the ground again. While not lacking in repellent attributes, the pagan worship of the place fascinated you.  They had their own religion but had incorporated traditional Romania holidays into their culture. Where else in Europe could you see that happen in real time? Of course, you could think of a couple of places, but you had picked here in the Carpathian mountains in particular! While you did have a second choice, you couldn't stop the self pity from setting in.

Ugh.

The village was relatively small and was quickly fading to forest, the castle that overlooked the town vanished behind you as you shuffled down a particularly steep part of the path. The trees here looked more normal, less sickly. While it was only marginally, you felt a bit better, a bit less mad. Stepping away from that place was a breath of fresh air.

Your boots skid a bit as you reach a flat spot. With a huff, you grip both backpack straps to center yourself.  If this couldn't be your thesis, that didn't mean you had to hate the walk. This was Romania afterall, when was the next time you were going to be here? The sky may be overcast, but it sort of added to the eerie charm of this place. You sidestepped your way down another steep incline, using one hand to grip overgrown branches for balance. The last step is a bit further, but you find your footing easily.

And the rock gave way under you, tilting forward with an abrupt grinding sound. A burst of panicked adrenaline rushed through as you struggled to stop. You pitch forward, stumbling over branches and underbrush, your eyes forcibly losing focus.

"The fuck?"

That wasn't your voice. You slammed full force into something, another body? And it gives under you. The other person takes the brunt of the fall, landing on their back with a distinct, "oof."

For a moment, you don't speak, too focused on catching the breath. Finally, your vision swims back and you find your voice, "Damnit... are you ok?"

The man under you goans, sitting half way up to look you over. His hair is grey, and a bit too long, but he couldn't be any older than forty, possibly younger. "Get off." Your eyes go wide and that panicked beat fills your chest. "Ya deaf? Off."

"Er, right," you scramble to your feet and, without thinking, extend a hand to the stranger, "Sorry about... that." You gestured vaguely to the path. "Lost my balance."

He lets out an exasperated huff, and knocks your hand away. For a moment, he doesn't acknowledge you, instead retrieving something from the grass behind him. He's wearing a loose linen shirt, sleeves rolled halfway up with black leather gloves. You force yourself to look somewhere, anywhere else, nervously bouncing from foot to foot. When he turns back to you, he has a tattered, wide brim hat in place and is looking over a pair of broken sunglasses. One of the lenses was clearly shattered, but he hooked them over his shirt collar, his attention finally turning to you. "You're not from around here, huh?”

You couldn't help but snort, "What gave it away, the wind breaker? Don't worry, I'm leaving."

"Leaving?" He repeats.

You start moving back to the path. "Yup, your village speaker has made that very clear."

"They were clear? Not all back and forth on it?" He chuckles, "That's impressive, they must really not like you."

You stare at him, was this a friendly face? It was certainly a handsome face, even with scarring and stubble. But a trustworthy one? "You sure you're ok? Didn't scramble that brain when I ran into you? The rest of the town was pretty dead set on driving me out."

" 'Cause they're a bunch of morons, sweetheart," he insisted, "All part of Mother Miranda's big, idiot mob."

"Huh," you are walking ahead on the path, and he's not but a footfall behind you.

"But they don't matter."

"No?"

"What matters is, why didn't they want you here?"

You stop, turning to face this stranger. He was gruff, and more than a little rude, but in comparison to the townsfolk, he was downright friendly. Hell, you were surprised he was so forward with you.  "Masters thesis," you put plainly, hoping he'll leave it at that.

"On what?"

"Anthropology."

He leaned in close. He wasn't that much taller than you, but you couldn't help but move away from his imposing figure. From this distance, you could smell motor oil and some kind of smoke on his clothes. "That's it?" You scoff, the sooner you are back in your car the better. "I just mean, it's surprising they'd want you gone. You sure there's nothing else? Didn't kick over any goat statues?"

"Not that I noticed," you started back down the path. You'd wasted too much time talking to this weirdo anyway. Just based on his demeanor and dislike of the rest of the village, you wonder if you'd maybe tripped over the town pariah. He certainly wasn't dressed like anyone else from the village.

"I could get you back in."

You stopped, not fifteen feet from him. "You're assuming I want to go back in." And didn’t you? You just risk getting yelled at again. But if there was a chance to write your thesis...

“Well, if you're not interested,” he turned to leave. You grit your teeth, your nails digging deep into your backpack straps.

“Hold up!" It doesn't take much to catch up to him. "How exactly are we going to do this?"

"My word carries a certain amount of weight," he carried on, "Though,  the village doesn't meet on these matters till next week."

"But what good does that-"

He isn't listening, "For today, I know a place you can watch the town. Besides, you're an Archeologist, you probably want an interview, right?" Of course he gestures to himself with a sort of half bow.

You roll your eyes, but still follow, "Anthropologist." He gives you a blank look. "I'm studying Anthropology, not Archeology."

He doesn't seem to care, instead pulling a cigar and lighter from his pants pocket. "Got a name?"

"Oh, (y/n). You?"

The stranger is part way up on the path you had tripped down. "Karl," he had extended you a gloved hand. You look from him to his hand, before brushing past him, pulling yourself up next to him without the offered aid.

#Karl Heisenberg #Re8 #re8 heisenberg #karl heisenberg x reader #karl heisenberg x you #Ill keep this going as long as i can #wow creativity is hard #karl can be nice if he tries

[katsukikitten]

In which you find yourself fake dating Bakugou to appease his mother. Thank @bakugotrashpanda​ that I even write. Comment your thoughts below or if you’re shy leave me an ask! AGED UP/PRO HERO AU, and dolls there are currently no warnings.   Part on is HERE

Anger fuels your actions as you withdraw a knife, face twisted into a feral snarl as you close the distance between you and your not so lucky boss. He matches your disgusted features, closing faster than you can to keep your knife from finding purchase between his third and fourth ribs. He corners you out of sight, the woman who was attending to you turns away with a blush. Truly thinking the two of you were having an intimate moment when it was anything but.

"This joke isn't fucking funny." You growl struggling to keep your voice low as his vice grip on your biceps becomes harsher. 

"It's not a fucking joke." He hisses, before one of his hands runs through his hair. A sign of stress you noticed for the ash blonde, while the other hand sets blunt nails into your skin. You blow air through your nose as if you were a steaming dragon waiting for him to explain. 

"My mom won't leave me the hell alone about a girlfriend. Like I fucking have time for one." He starts and you break away from his grip.  

"Then we just pretend." A huff while he shakes his head. 

"But we have to make it look good. She will expect PDA, and a lot of it." You laugh at his statement while he looks away. 

"Please as if Dynamight is touchy feely." You tease making hand motions as you let your fingers play against his clothed muscles. He gives you a pointed look, something odd shines deeply in those dark eyes. Something like hurt, your smile falters for a moment as you watch him peek over a guarded wall. 

"Growing up I was. And still am with people I...know well. Plus she's already seen me in a serious relationship." 

"Then why aren't you bringing her?" The venom escapes you faster than you can stop it. Regret blooms in your stomach as you watch his guard blow sky high, burning sugar fills the air. His glare pure anger as he bites out 

"She only loved me for my Pro-hero money." 

He turns away from you to collect himself, angry that he's still angry over a bitch that should be long forgotten. Still your tongue was sharper than any knife on your thick yet fit body. He sighs, trying to let the tension free from his shoulders before he reluctantly offers you his large, ungloved hand. 

The thought of your bare palm touching his sends your stomach into a summersault before he grabs onto your hand himself, even interlacing your fingers. 

It had been years since you held someone's hand, let alone been close enough to smell them. A cold sweat prickles over your skin before he speaks. 

"Let's make this shit look good." 

With that he pulls you out of the store, setting off rhythmic short blasts so nothing but blinding light can be caught on film. Some camera's lose their lenses thanks to your sly hands as you shove them deep in Bakugou's jacket that he insisted you'd wear over your cute outfit. That his mom would take it more seriously that you wore his clothes that he might have offered to you. 

Your hand feels warm in Bakugou's as he guides the two of you down the street, eyeing jewelry through glass windows here and there. He tries to keep his focus on the way to the bakery instead of how small your hand is in his.

"So is there something special about tonight's dinner? Any sort of occasion?" You prompt, anything to avoid the squeezing in your heart. 

"It's her birthday today." He says nonchalantly as your anxiety skyrockets. 

"Birthday?! Baku-" 

"Katsuki." He cuts you off, sending you a glare, "It has to be Katsuki or some dumb pet name from now on, Princess."

You point daggers as you glare up at him, his slightly messy hair dances in the wind as his faded sides do anything to protect him from the biting cold. You think to offer him his jacket back, it felt three sizes too big. 

"Look, Katsuki a birthday dinner is a big fucking deal. She'll think we are serious." The two of you stop just before the bakery, he let's go of your hand to open the door for you, a habit he's picked up from Kirishima. You step inside the warmth and let the smell of mouth watering sweets over take your senses. The smell fights with the smokey sweet scent that rolls off of Bakugou as he crowds closer to you due to the busy cafe.

"Good. She needs to think we are. Before you say anything else it's one dinner. She won't remember by Christmas." He snarls, pressing his hand into your lower back to gently push you forward in line. Suddenly someone behind the counter waves to catch your attention. 

"Ah Dyna-" The clerk clears his throat before he causes a frenzy, most people already too timid of Bakugou to approach him, having you the tough as nails hero by his side makes him seem even deadlier. 

"Bakugou-sama. I just finished the decorations for the order. Would you like to approve it?" 

"Yea yea." He says cooly, eyes glancing over his usual cup of an iced americano, he taps the lid and the Barista gives him her full attention. Lashes batting as she practically squirms with pleasure beneath his weighted gaze, you fight to keep the disgust off your face. How could anyone fawn over this wet blanket?

"I need a toasted white mocha iced coffee with sweet cream." His voice is smooth and she begins to get to work even without his please but you're caught too off guard to scold him.  How did he know your coffee order? 

You always went to get the coffee with Kirishima and only then for an excuse to get out of the office and away from a pig headed blonde. 

"Trying something new?" She asks as she sets it down, her number clearly written on this cup as well. You keep your face blank as she ignores you. 

"Maybe." He says giving her little eye contact as the owner pushes her away to show off the cake.  He removes the lid of the box and before it is all the way off a genuine, although small, smile forms on his face as he stares at the beautiful array of flowers in icing. Another surprise that his face can go so soft before it changes in an instant. His normal cocky smile returning as he removes his wallet and over pays for it all. 

"This is too…" But the owner is cut off by a nasty vermillion glare before he passes you your coffee grabbing for his own and the bag. 

"See ya round." Is all he offers before slipping out of the ringing door. Stunned into silence you drink your delicious drink as you two make your way back to his car. 

"It's cold enough that the icing won't get fucked up. Are you cold? I want to get that hag one more thing. Not sure what though." He says gently placing the cake into the floorboard of the back seat. 

"Well for starters I'm sure she'd love it if you stopped calling her a hag. That's rude, dickface." You say finishing your coffee, body singing from the much needed energy. He rolls his eyes at your comment, grabbing for your trash as he tosses his empty cup as well. 

"Yea well, she pisses me off." He grunts, eyes shifting for cameras before letting his hand slide down your forearm to your hand. You jolt from the touch but absentmindedly lean into his warmth. 

"Mmhmm." You affirm with a bit of an attitude. He sneers down at you as the two of you actively look for anything that screams Bakugou Mitsuki. 

Although you aren't so sure you know what that would be. Your mind wanders to what his family is like as his molten eyes rove over window shops and glare at passer byers. Anyone with their phone out and aimed at him gets an especially intimidating look. 

"Do we have a background to our fake relationship?" You ask, curiosity bubbling through your bloodstream carried by caffeine. 

"Kinda explains itself doesn't it?" He prompts, "We work together a lot. She's heard your name before." 

"Oh." Is all you can say, would his mom ask for details? Well it wouldn't be too hard to believe that she would want the story most likely from you, hoping you'll gush over the details any other man would skimp. A sigh leaves your lips before your eyes catch an odd glint in the light, ahead of you two is a small woman beneath a parasol as if the lazy winter sun threatened the day. Your eyes blow wide as she turns, heart racing in your chest as you see the black kimono and fox mask slightly askew. 

Quickly you grab onto Bakugou's black dress shirt, backing yourself up against a brick wall, guiding him with you. 

"What are you doing?" He hisses as your brain panics, he sees a rare twinge of fear in your eyes. Setting him in high alert, his skin crackles as he tries to summon his quirk. 

"It's just...I think I saw my ex and I'm not ready to see him yet." A lie, a bold face lie as you fight the screaming need in your blood. To withdraw a knife, to send it through that bitch's third eye chakra. 

But if you did, then everyone would know. 

Bakugou would know. 

You gulp down the instinct. 

"Where?" He growls leaning closer to you to block your face. The busy crowd overlaps the petite woman in black before it parts again leaving you with an uneasy pit in your stomach. 

"I-" You catch your breath, smoothing his dress shirt as your eyes are fixated to the spot, "I guess I only thought I saw him." 

Your voice threatens to crack and in the three years the two of you have worked closely together, he has never seen you like this. Worried, disheveled almost. He leans in close, leveling himself to you as he stares into your eyes. 

"Did he…?" His eyes linger over your scars for a second, unknowingly and for the first time, Bakugou makes you feel weak. Your eyes screw into a nasty sneer before you give him a light shove. 

"No." You hiss, wanting to cross your arms but after what looked like a kiss, you gently relax your face, grabbing for his hand as you pull him along.  Suddenly tired of the easy stroll and knowing exactly what to get his mother.  

"A watch? Not a bad idea." He says as the two of you look over the case. 

"No, too old fashioned. Your mom would like this." A smile forms on your lips as your finger taps the glass case over a silver bracelet. In your head you've seen four different ways to take the bracelet without alarm or notice until it was much too late. Instead you flag someone down. 

"Do you all still inscribe in house?" You ask, earning a nod from the attendant, "Perfect. Now Ba- Katsuki you just have to think of something nice to say." 

He glares down at the bracelet for a long time before he writes something down on the form. After an hour the man returns asking Bakugou to confirm the writing after a nod and a few minutes the hot head is passed a delicate white bag. 

Time blurs together as your eyes search the crowd for a haunting fox mask while Bakugou guides the two of you to the car. Shutting the passenger door behind you and only then do you let out a heavy sigh of relief. 

The drive isn't long before Bakugou pulls up in front of a nice two story townhome, parking his black sports car.

"Get out." He states, slipping out of the car himself only to wait impatiently by your door. 

"This is turning into a lot more than half a day." 

"Make it through this dinner and I'll make it worth your while." He snarls, picking up the gift and cake before heading to the front door. He slides in his old key and opens the door to his childhood home expecting you to follow him in. Tentatively you do, slipping off your shoes much slower than him as he rushes to the kitchen. Your heart rushes in your ears banging against your ribcage as your mind races. You had never been in a home so nice before, well not invited anyway. You always had to resort to climbing through windows or picking the lock to reveal the shiny contents of inside. 

Was this what it was like to grow up in a home?

Your third thought only after mentally logging the windows and doors, listing the valuables in descending order. Your eyes wander over the pictures on the foyer table, you smirk to yourself as you see a tiny Bakugou with what must be his mother and Father. They are all laughing and for a moment your heart hurts as you think of your sister shivering under a piss covered blanket.

"Oi! Come here." Bakugou calls from somewhere within the house, you pass the stairs and small hall into the dining room with tatami doors that open into the kitchen. 

"Sit." He orders, pointing to the low dining room table. 

"I'm not a dog, I'm your 'date' Asshole." You snarl, "What are you doing anyway?" 

"What's it fucking look like? I'm cooking! Ma will be home by the time I'm done. Get comfortable, bitch face." 

"Wow what a great pet name." You hiss, collapsing into the pillows with a sigh, part of you wished this was a kotatsu so you could take a nap. Instead you stare at the ceiling mind wandering as the smell of something good floats through the house. You think of how warm the home feels compared to the blistering wind that whips outside, reminding you that maybe you should fix your hair before meeting his parents. 

"Bathroom?" You whine, still unmoving on the floor. The hot head sticks half his body over the threshold to stare down at you. His glare speaks a thousand words. 

"Yea yea hands to myself I got it." 

"Upstairs, to the right."

"Got it boss!" You fake salute from the floor before rising. Taking the stairs quickly, fully intending to take a right but the door at the top of the stairs is slightly open. A faint smell of caramel tickles your nose as you near closer. Peering inside you see what had to be Bakugou's childhood bedroom, seemingly untouched. Bed made, All might and singed villains hang from the walls, some long forgotten laundry in a basket and a bookshelf filled with a variety books. 

His room was bigger than your current studio apartment and all you can do is sigh. And wonder. Trying not to feel jealous over the nice life he clearly had growing up while you were kept in a dark room to "strengthen your mind" for days at a time. Still it's not as if it were Bakugou's fault, he was just lucky. And you wouldn't wish your childhood on anyone. 

Not even Bakugou. 

Your record mentioned your thefts but never your much darker past. And how could they? It had been drilled into you how to clean up after yourself.

Habit forces your hand for something, anything as you snatch a small keychain of Allmight and shove it into your jeans pocket. 

"You lost?" Bakugou yells through the quiet home. 

"No, a woman takes her time!" You shout back slamming the door. Staring into your reflection as you wish for the night to end. 

It doesn't end as quickly as you'd like but it goes by at a decent pace. Introductions come easy and Mitsuki smiles brightly at you which feels like a good sign. Dinner goes by smoothly, the food delicious as you even help yourself to seconds. 

Surprisingly the Bakugous are easy to talk to, it felt as if you'd always know his parents. Laughing over shared stories and even listening intently to their work and fashion. 

"So what did you think?" Mitsuki asks as Katsuki goes to clear the table. You try to stand to help only for his broad hand to land on your shoulder, forcing you back into a seated position. You straighten your back. 

"Ah dinner was delicious. I didn't know Katsuki-kun could cook so well." You smile as her face begins to sour. Uh oh.  

"KATSUKI ARE YOU NOT FEEDING HER? HOW HAS SHE NOT HAD YOUR FOOD NOT ONCE? YOU JERK YOU BETTER NOT BE SOME ASSHOLE THAT MAKES THE WOMAN COOK!" 

"LISTEN YOU HA-!" He stops himself and glances at you causing you to quickly intervene. 

"Oh Bakugou-san…" 

"Mitsuki-san." She inturrpts, suddenly level headed as she looks to you. 

"Mitsuki-san, Katsuki and I have only been dating officially for a month. We haven't had the chance for a home cooked meal yet." You lie with a sweet worried smile that Mitsuki buys. 

"I see, so what is it that you like about my bullish son?"  

Nothing, is what you want to say, looking at him to buy you time as you think. Slowly the words come to you. You think of how he knew your coffee order, how angry he looked on your behalf when he thought the person who carved you up was someone you once loved. 

"Underneath all that brutish attitude is a really nice guy. He can be kind and caring. He is heroic despite his mouth." He looks as surprised as his mother when you speak before she smiles. Bakugou keeps his eyes trained on you as he returns from the kitchen with the cake and gift. 

"Here." Bakugou sets the small gift box in front of his mom, who tears into it immediately. She smiles looking down at the bracelet as she turns it to see the inscription inside. Her eyes water as Masaru smiles reading the words aloud. 

"Family first." He rubs Mitsuki's back as she quickly wipes away a stray tear. 

"I think it's time for the photo album." 

"NO!" 

"YES!" She slams the old book down, flanking your other side to look over the pages with you.  Awkwardly you offer a smile as Katsuki groans beside you. 

"Mooooom!"

"Hush ungrateful brat! It's my birthday!" Mitsuki says as if it's final, Katsuki grumbles in defeat. 

She pours over the pictures, pointing out things here and there, after a while you begin to smile. Relishing over the fact you're probably the only person who's seen their boss' embarrassing baby pictures. 

"I should blow these the fuck up!" Bakugou growls, reaching for the album. You grab onto his poppin hand to stop him. 

"No, you're so lucky you have these…" Fuck, you're about to make things super awkward, there will be a dreaded question and no matter how many times you answer it, even if it is a lie, it hurts. Feeling as though an icy hand cradles your heart as it beats, fingers becoming an uncomfortable vice. 

"Why? Did something happen to your photos?" The pity in Mitsuki's voice digs beneath your skin, you sigh. 

"They were lost to a fire." An easier lie to the actual truth. Honestly you weren't even sure if you had ever been photographed before. 

Maybe just your mug shots. 

Still you couldn't stomach the thought of telling Mitsuki that you didn't know whether your parents died tragically or if they left you and your sister to die in the streets. 

After a moment Mitsuki presses her hand to your back, a brief rub before she presses into your shoulder blade, as if you remind you she was there. 

"Well, you always have family here dear." She smiles softly, your heart flutters. The Bakugous, even if it was supposed to be pretend, felt like family to you.

"Thank you." You smile back as Mitsuki allows you to flip the page. Your smile forms into a smirk as you see a smaller version of your hot headed boss standing next to a boy with curly emerald hair. 

"You and Izuku used to be good friends huh?" You tease, "What happened?" 

Bakugou doesn't react as you expect him too, he is not raging and cursing instead his face is calm, open. 

"Pride got in the way." His words somber, "But Deku's over it." 

A small silence falls over the room from Katsuki's honesty, Mitsuki glances at her husband who gives a small nod. Still you stare at the ash blonde who starts to crowd you, something odd sitting on his face. 

"Are you?" The question falls from your plush lips. Bakugou grits his teeth

"Turn the fucking page." And you do, the next picture his graduating glass and you are elated, excited to see your newfound friends in their youth. 

"Eijoru-kun! Gods look at his hair. It was so short then! Look at how close you guys are!" 

The next hour is shared over cake and memories. It feels good to be "family" if only for the night. 

"It is getting late Mitsuki dear." Masaru says softly, pulling a sigh from his wife. She stands and everyone follows. She gives hugs out by the door, squeezing you especially tight. 

"Oh Katsuki! The two of you should have Christmas dinner here, we are having fried chicken!" Mitsuki exclaims, immediately Bakugou shuts it down giving you a look as if you gave her the idea  

"No! We havta work." He shrugs his shoulders, holding out his jacket for you to slip into. Slowly you slip your arms in as you watch disappointment wash over Mitsuki's features. 

Don't say it, don't say it don't say it. 

You ignore the voice in your head and say it anyway. 

"Actually, Eijirou forced us off Christmas remember? Since we've worked so many in a row." Bakugou bristles, obviously agitated as he roughly places the jacket on your shoulders, resting his hot hands there. 

"Come on we didn't have any plans right?" 

A part of you does it for the money, another part of you does it out of loneliness.

He glares at you, squeezing you so hard you're sure it'd be bruised. 

"Fine." He bites out while Mitsuki grabs at his ear. 

"Don't act as if we are a chore!" She taps her bracelet, "Family first!" 

"Family first." He growls and you're learning this is what they say instead of 'I love you'. He tries to guide you out to the car but his mother grabs his sleeve. 

"It'll be just a moment dear." She smiles at you, Bakugou goes into his pants pockets for the keys for you but you are already dangling them with a devilish smirk. His eyes harden as you turn to give him your back. Hand smoothly removing the old All Might keychain to attach it to his keys. A part of you will wonder if he will notice. 

Meanwhile Mitsuki gives Bakugou a deadly look before an even deadlier hug. 

"I really like her." She pulls away allowing Bakugou to step outside, "Don't fuck this up." 

#bakugo x reader #bakugou x reader #bakugou katsuki x reader #bakugo fake date #bnha x reader #bnha au

[bringingglory]

@eerna oh my god acshdgagaahhdvsahsv I never expected you to see my post, so I won't lie, I feel like super embarrassed acsgsga

anyway! not gonna lie, this wip has been sitting in my drafts for months now because I wanted to see if I could plan stuff but then I got stuck because Details are hard to figure out BUT I did write out a few scenes, so I'll put them below the cut because they're kind of long. the first one is the "opening" of the fic and the second one is a sort of reimagining of the Silent Princess memory. i have a few other scenes sort of scribbled out, but these are the most "polished" of the stuff i've written alsdkfjasdfk

the opening lol

Link wakes to a faint buzzing in his ear that sends little darts of pain shooting through his skull. He waits for it to end, and when it doesn’t he groans and rolls over, smacking the space around him to find whatever was making that noise and make it shut up. He can’t fathom why his brain is rolling through his skull like that and why there’s an intense pressure behind his eyes, but when he rolls onto his side, he has to press a hand to his abdomen to settle whatever was sloshing around inside his stomach.

Ah. He’s hungover.

Link peels open his eyes and the light sends a fresh wave of pain ricocheting through his skull. He blinks once, twice, and then forces his eyes open to find a phone the size vibrating against the ground a few inches away from his hand.

Link groans and pushes himself up to a sitting position before grabbing the phone and dismissing the alarm. When the phone falls silent in his hands, he finally looks around and tries to assess the situation.

He’s sitting in a bathtub, the porcelain slightly damp from what he hopes is just water. His shirt smells vaguely of cheap vodka and he still can barely look at the sunlight streaming through the window without wincing.

A moment later, he realizes the phone in his hands isn’t his.

Link holds the phone up to his face and rubs the grogginess from his eyes. He swipes up on the screen, surprised that it isn’t protected by a password.

The phone is open on note in the notes app, and it reads:

link, if you’re reading this right now, im so sorry for leaving you in the tub like that!!! my dad’s supposed to come home from the office today and the document case i was telling you about is missing and he cant know i lost it. i know we just started getting along, and im so sorry to ask you this, but could you find the document case? impa’s in my contacts and she can help you. also you have permission to dig through my phone, just dont judge me if i have anything embarrassing on there. can you find the file by midnight? his flight leaves at 3 and i can stall him until then.

it’s 6:11 right now so i have to run before he gets back, but please hurry! i’ll be waiting for you

-zelda

Link blinks and turns the phone off.

Last night? What happened last night? Why can’t he remember anything?

Well, if his raging headache tells him anything, it’s that he had probably blacked out last night.

Link isn’t usually a drinker or a partier. He isn’t really one to go to big social events. So he’s really confused as to why he woke up passed out in a tub with zero memories.

And also, why Zelda left her phone with him.

a version of the Silent Princess memory but they're at a party and its modern

Zelda laughs. “I think I got a little too sober from the Yiga incident to enjoy the party now.”

Link isn’t sure if he’s supposed to laugh with her, but nods anyway. “Do you want to get some air?”

Zelda gives him an odd look, then sighs. “Yeah. Yes. That would be a good idea.”

Surprisingly, she grabs his forearm and leads him through all the bodies pressed against each other. He can feel the heat of her hand wrapping entirely around his arm like a hot glove, even above the heat of the late summer air and the heat from other people in close proximity.

Somehow, they make it to the other side of the house. Zelda pushes the back door open and pulls him past the other stragglers outside before they find a nice tree with a patch of grass that seems generally clear of alcohol and vomit.

Zelda releases his arm as soon as she finds the tree and she sits down, dropping her head against the trunk.

“Are you okay?” He asks.

Zelda waves her hand vaguely.

Link pauses. “Do you need water?”

“If you get me any more water, I’m probably gonna piss myself,” says Zelda. “Sit down.”

He sits down.

The crickets hum vaguely around them, mingling with the distant buzzing and thumping bass of the music from the party. But without people pressing in from all sides and an open field in front of them, it finally feels like he can take a full breath.

The silence settles over them like a blanket. It feels comfortable to him, but he isn’t sure if it’s supposed to be.

“Oh, Link, look.”

Link cranes his head to see Zelda twist around and point out a blue flower glowing vaguely in the dark. It was beautiful with blue petals so light they looked almost white, and a sky blue bleeding out from the center before fading out.

He wants to give her a questioning look, but she’s transfixed on the flower. He can see the smallest of smiles creeping up onto the corners of her mouth.

“It’s a Silent Princess,” she says. “It was my mom’s favorite flower.”

He can tell something important is happening, so he keeps his mouth shut.

“She said that we can’t grow them domestically yet, despite our best efforts.” Zelda breaks into a full smile and it’s radiant. “The Princess can only thrive out here. In the wild.”

They both turn to look back at the house as another loud WHOOP cuts through the air, followed by the sound of a can being crushed against a head.

“Nature is beautiful,” says Link.

Zelda swats him and he has to bite back a laugh.

She turns and runs a gentle finger along one of the petals before sighing and leaning back against the tree.

“Thank you,” she says suddenly. “For being there with the Yiga. And for being there the whole party.” He can hear her swallow. “I’m sorry for being a bitch.”

“You weren’t being a bitch,” says Link.

“I was, though.” Zelda inhales beside him. “I mean, just because I’m under a lot of stress from my dad doesn’t mean I’m allowed to take it out on other people. I was acting like a kid.”

“To be fair, your dad sounds like an asshole sometimes.”

Zelda snorts. “Yeah. He can be.” He turns his head to see her lean forward to fiddle with the grass. “But he’s got a lot on his plate. And it probably doesn’t help that his daughter doesn’t want anything to do with his ‘legacy.’”

“Just because your dad’s under a lot of pressure doesn’t mean he’s allowed to be an asshole,” Link points out.

Zelda finally looks up at him and offers him a small grin. “Fair enough.”

“And besides, you’re your own person. You don’t need to follow in his footsteps.”

“That’s what I said,” huffs Zelda. “But of course it’s, ‘blah blah you have a responsibility. I didn’t raise you like this so you could waste your time researching pointless things.’” She sighs. “It’s fine. It’s whatever. I came to this stupid party to blow off steam, I guess. But Goddess, I did not eat enough today to drink that many cans of shitty beer.”

Link sits upright, alert. “Do you need to get food or—”

“No, no, that’s fine.” And that smile returns and Link wonders what else he can say to make it stay. “You’re sweet. But I’ve probably gotten drunk enough tonight.” Her eyes slide up to him and the mischief in them stops his heart for a moment. “You still have to try the Hot Frog.”

Link blinked. “...what is that?”

--

the endings are abrupt on both of them just bc i wasn't entirely sure how to end them akldjfasd. also the "Hot Frog" is gonna be some kind of mixed drink that gets link really drunk -- me trying to allude more to the original memory from the game haha

anyway, thank you so much for the ask! and thank u for coming up with the shitpost because it made me laugh the first time i read it hasdklfj hopefully i'll continue this one day and do ur shitpost au justice!

#lmao i just realized i titled the fic 'the lelda of zelda: breath of the weath' bc of a meme i saw at the time of making the google doc #also this is completely unimportant but im normally a past tense kind of gal #so it was a bit of an experiment writing in present tense for this #i might end up switching to past tense again later anyway aksjdfhasd #anyway thank you again for the ask <3 #eerna #asks

[pepperpills]

The Harvest - RE8 fanfic

The Harvest

A Resident Evil 8 fan fiction by Joana

Karl Heisenberg x Female Reader

NSFW content

Hi, guys, hope u're enjoying it and if u want, feel free to send a message and share your thoughts.

This is the second half of Part I, when The Harvest actually takes place, as I promised I would be posting it today. Part II will be out next tuesday and has more of Karl's participation.

Part I - Destiny (1)

Part I - Destiny (2)

The site was formed by four giant statues, each one in a corner, in the opposite side of the gate, a low stone fence protected people from falling from a cliff into the misty unknown that laid below. All of its surroundings were made of grey, antique stone, carved directly into the mountain. In the middle stood a symbol in the ground in the shape of an umbrella where the Giant’s Chalice was placed.

Mother Miranda was right in the middle, dressing her usual priest like costume, only this time her areola was bigger. The parents, your parents included, with their anxious expressions, were on the left side, forming a mid-circle. No other villagers were allowed in The Harvest except the children’s guardians, it was exclusive. You smiled to your folks reassuring them that you were okay, prepared. Your mom buried her head deeper in your father chest, but smiled insecurely back at you.

You couldn’t help the feeling that a couple of eyes were laid on you, you felt observed and finally gave up to your curiosity and stared at the lords. Closer to Mother Miranda, on the right side of the site, stood tall Lady Dimitrescu, the tallest person you have ever seen and also one of the most elegant. She wore a white dress that resembled the Greek columns with three black roses on it, red lipstick and a black wide hat. She seemed excited as she analysed the 20s.

Then followed Lady Beneviento, her face covered in a grief veil, she was all dressed in black, except for her doll, Angie, who wore an unclean wedding dress and was laughing almost hysterically for no reason. It would have given you the chills if you weren’t so strangely calm.

The next was Lord Moreau, forever bowed with that bone crown topping his head, he looked like he enjoyed the spirit of the festival, more entertained by its totality than the young people there.

And at last, Lord Heisenberg, a couple of steps from you as you all closed the circle. He was smoking a cigar, making a mess of bracing smoke. He was wearing round sunglasses even though it was already very dark there, his clothes were crumpled and even a bit dirty, but had an explorer’s charm to it as he wore a once-white half unbuttoned shirt, a worn hat, a camel-coloured overcoat and some kind of baggy pants.

You had the uncanny feeling it was his glance that caught you since you arrived there, but couldn’t be sure, once his eyes were hidden from you. The other thing you noticed was that he has kind of handsome with his somewhat grey hair on the height of his bearded chin. Overall, he seemed rough, a brute beauty, but beauty anyway.

The air became denser, like it was charged with electricity, however, scanning your mates, everyone appeared to be still bewitched by Beneviento’s powers, paying attention only to Mother Miranda. It had nothing to do with you disliking Miranda ever since you laid your feet in the Village. No, this was another thing. You were attracted by something else, tempted even to look to your right. Being too suggestible to battle this urge, you moved your head only to be certain that Lord Heisenberg was looking straight at you.

You quickly turned your attention back to Miranda as she played with a black liquid inside the Giant’s Chalice. She called you all her children and made a speech about destiny and natural forces that pull you to it.

“Night demands you, my children. The moon reveals your fate and today your sacrifice will be noticed.” Miranda chanted, her voice floating through all of you, reverberating the ground.

She blessed you, walking the circle and pinning a dot of the Chalice’s black liquid in your foreheads. It moved, itching a little, as her words filled the ceremony site.

“Very well.” She spoke. “Now I shall call your names, the ones I call, please step to the right part of the site, the ones I don’t, to the left.”

A shiver flowed through your spine, awakening every part of your body, bristling your hair, hardening your nipples making you feel completely unclad – which kind of reached the ceremony idea of a virgin blossoming. The sensation was curiously similar to electrical shock, even the iron taste on your tongue reminded you of the electricity discharge, nonetheless, for your surprise, it wasn’t exactly unpleasant, definitely made your feel alive and even dilatated your pupils.

When it happened, you swore your heard Lord Heisenberg chuckling alone, he was contained for obvious reasons, but it disturbed you to see a smirk playfully on his scarred thick lips. No one else appeared to be bothered though, they hadn’t noticed the man acting schizophrenic, but it also made sense, they were all absorbed by Miranda’s discourse and, somehow, that grin was intended, presumably, only for you.

Just then you realized that Miranda had already been calling names and people were actually moving around you. Two of the boys who came with you were now on the very right side of the site. You were getting tense, the magical feeling that drove you to that place was slowly fading away, giving space to the cold sensation of fear. The girl to your left got called, she lost her breath as she heard her name, but rapidly joined her new, and temporary, team.

You looked up to your parents, your mom had that overwhelmed expression lines on her forehead again and you were most sure she was crossing fingers as she is a little stitious, not super, though.

Right now, you don’t believe that any herb, crystal, sacrifice, nor witchcraft would have spare you from your doom. A part of you knew it, even at that moment, as Mother Miranda made your name thunder in the site. Your mom held a scream, your dad looked down. You must go on.

Trembling a little, you went to the right side, closer to Lord Heisenberg, as he was the last one on the lords’ line. Your mates were rigid, the other girl was holding tears, one of the boys had desperate written all over his face, but the other one preferred to show bravery and you chose to stay with him in his decision. It didn’t past unnoticed to Heisenberg, but he constantly peering at you wasn’t of your greater attention, so on you didn’t acknowledge his offbeat interest.

You weren’t going to lie to yourself, you were afraid. You didn’t want Lady Dimitrescu to use your blood in her famous Sanguis Virginis, neither to be with Lady Beneviento and her forever tea party, Lord Moreau frightens you, due to your thalossophobia and for Lord Heisenberg, his temper is well known and poorly spoken by the villagers, he tends to get angry easily, not to say that no one knows what goes on in that factory, the bridge that leads to it emerges from the water, activated by some sort of mechanism that is inaccessible from the Village, so no one goes in, no one comes out.

When The Harvest ended, the villagers were exempted before the Miranda and her family, and you were allowed to go home, the lords knew you were supposed to say goodbye to your loved ones, after all, they aren’t monsters, right?

Thus, you walked back home in your parents embrace, they didn’t let you go, neither you wanted it. Being held like that made it feel better as if you had a bad dream and that was all. Your mother even sang you your favourite childhood song about a girl who gets lost in the dangerous woods inhabited by four monsters and a malevolent witch, but in the end, her parents save her from the beasts.

In the dawn, no villager was asleep, so you spoke to a lot of people, all your siblings, friends and acquaintances. Some of them cried, others smiled and a couple encouraged you saying it was going to be okay. You doubted it, but didn’t say a thing, you were too shaken still trying to be brave.

When the sun rose, you heard the chicken starting their day. You got up, put on a Victorian black dress with long sleeves and a corselet for the thorax area, and packed your few belongings, taking good care of your bow and arrows that once were a secret and now, you thought, might be discarded, but you would still be stubborn and give it a try, maybe they would let you have it.

You left the bedroom, leaving behind your talisman made by the cabin people with a note to your younger sister. Once she was born in the Village, she didn’t know much about the cabins, but you were sure it would protect her after you were gone.

You believed you could go away unnoticed, but your mom was sitting in the kitchen table, waiting for you, looking restless, but she found vitality to smile a good morning at you.

“You look pretty.” She said as she walked towards you and twirled your hair.

“Thank you, mom.” You simply replied, thinking that touch was soothing.

“We will miss you.” She sighed. “I will miss you, deeply, my angel.” Your mom is one of the kindest people you know, she always took good care of you even when you got older, you will miss her too.

“I will miss you too, mom… I love you.” You added and hugged her. You must be strong; her smell of country flowers softened you tempting you to run away from your fate.

“Promise you will try to write.” She pleaded, staring into your soul with her woody-brown eyes.

“I promise.” You meant it and did afterwards.

“It is okay, angel, you may go now, I won’t make it any harder.” She stepped aside, giving you space to walk to the door, when there you looked back one last time and waved goodbye.

At the ceremony site, they said you should gather again at the Chapel. A part of the building is destroyed, you are not sure what was responsible for it, but there are parts of the ceiling and the ground that are missing and underground tunnels with Gods know what meandering under your feet. The others arrived not long after you and less than an hour later Mother Miranda joined you.

She spoke from the pulpit. This sight gave you an uneasiness. You never liked her manners, always thought she considered herself too much of a priest, but you were not sure for what gods she spoken, in addition, she was also very domineering. There were stories of her whispered by mourning souls saying that she would tear some locals apart while laughing and enjoying the bloody spectacle. Maybe she was crazy. Believing it or not, she didn’t please you at all.

“Children.” She began. “Destiny calls you. You must fulfil your role in this circle. It is a sacrifice for all of us, so we can preserve our way of life.” Miranda went on like this for some more minutes before getting to the point.

“Each one of you has been designated or requested by one of the four lords. I will now say your name and the name of your Lord.” She finally said.

Your heart rate was worrying, your anxiety levels were high. You breathed heavily, trying to regain composure. Miranda called the brave boy first, he went to Moreau. Two girls got sent to the Dimitrescu’s castle, one more boy went to Moreau, another girl went to Lady Beneviento. Thus, there was only you left and Miranda’s phrase reverberated through the Chapel with its angelical acoustic turning horrifying.

“Y/N. Lord Karl Heisenberg.”

Your stomach sunk. You didn’t know if you were relieved or even more preoccupied. But then you felt that shock sensation again, the iron taste made you salivate and you thought it might have been worst, maybe all he expects from you is some cleaning, laundry and your normal daily routine.

Still, one thing that Miranda said echoed in your head: did you get designated or did he request you? You didn’t know which one would be better.

#resident evil #re8 #karl heisenberg #re village #karl heisenberg x reader #resident evil 8 village #heisenberg #heisendaddy #heisenberg resident evil #resident evil viii #resident evil 8 fanfic #original post #resident evil village #re8 karl heisenberg #resident evil heisenberg #fanfic #re fanfic #the harvest

[bookwyrminspiration]

Shattered Upside Down

A kotlc wings au: masterpost here

Chapter 19: The Past Reignited

word count: 8.6k

chapter summary: Sophie has been so afraid of her own secrets, she's let them interfere with her friendships. Now, she has to fix them, but some things are irreparable.

warnings: injury/medicine mention (very vague), self-judgement, tension between friends, intentional misuse of grammar, and I think that's it!

taglist: I’ll reblog with it. let me know if you want to be added or removed!

This is the last full chapter I wrote during NaNoWriMo! Nothing changes for you all, but it's very excited for me to be more up to date and be back writing things, seeing as until yesterday I hadn't written a word since November 30th. Please enjoy <33

ao3 link here or read below

Don’t tell any gnomes she’d said this, but Sophie Foster was really starting to hate trees.

She’d stumbled into three in the past few minutes alone, tripping over branches and scraping her arms against the bark--well, the compression sleeves protected her skin, but emotionally she was getting scratched.

“You really don’t do this often, huh?” Fitz called out, breathing heavily as he ran beside her. If you could count a dozen feet of distance between the two of them as “beside” each other. Forests were like that at times.

Swatting a leaf from her face, she stuck her tongue out at him. “I’m actually a world renowned runner. I’m just--” she cut off, shrieking as she tripped over an unseen root, wings catching her and spurring her forward. Note to self: running through the forest is only easy in movies. “I’m tripping on purpose. To test you.”

“That doesn’t make any sense,” he laughed, slowing down slightly and cutting through the trees so they were running closer together and at a more reasonable speed for her short legs. He didn’t seem nearly as winded as she was, every word through her mouth a wheeze.

“You don’t make any sense,” she grumbled. “Who runs this early in the morning? And through a forest, too?” Slowing further, they came to a complete stop, Sophie leaning over to brace herself on her knees as her lungs struggled to catch up with the lost oxygen.

Truth be told, she liked the burn, the way she knew her muscles would be sore in a few hours, the satisfaction of having done something with her body. It distracted her. She couldn’t think about councilor riddles or creatures made of walls or hidden leaping crystals when all she had the time to focus on was where the next tree was, where to put her foot to keep from falling, how to breathe to get as much oxygen in her blood as possible.

Fitz offered her a hand, the other fanning out his shirt, face flushed from the heat of the exertion.

Taking it, Sophie righted herself, looking around, up, to the ground, taking in the sights and sounds and tastes at the same time.

“I can see why you like it,” she told him, turning around as her gasping gradually slowed.

Little mushrooms climbed up the trees, amber sap dripping from a few, leaves falling all around them, flowers sprouting between the roots in the grounds, yellows and blues and other flora she didn’t recognize. A bird chirped far off in the distance, brief and loud, screaming in hopes someone else would hear.

Sophie wanted to scream, too.

But aside from that...nothing distracted them, forest and tranquility and life thriving on every side of their bodies, the two of them just a part of the scenery. Once upon a time if they’d stood so known in the open, they’d have been torn to pieces in minutes. Now the creatures of this forest saw them as one, watched them watch it, equals.

As much as they could observe the place, the place observed them too.

Fitz squeezed her hand. “It’s...relaxing, I guess. Definitely not for everyone.” She smiled slightly, so she scrunched up her nose at him in response. “But I like it. It’s just me when I’m out here. No one expects me to do anything or even pays attention to me and I’m...” he trailed off, clearing his throat. “It’s pretty, I guess.”

Sophie didn’t respond, watching him.

“But we can fly back now,” he told her, stepping back and dropping her hand, turning back the way they'd come. His wings rustled behind him, stirring the dust in the air and blowing a bit of the pollen on her skin to the ground.

“No no,” she stopped him, smiling in what she hoped was encouragement, voice gentle. “We came out here to run.”

Embarrassed, he laughed, cutting off in shock as she started up again. “You sure?” he called after her, jogging behind to catch up with her pace, though she certainly wasn’t quick.

“Absolutely.”

Hand pressed to her side, Sophie walked beside Fitz, who didn’t seem bothered in the slightest. She’d lost track of the time they’d spent racing through the woods, childish competition overwhelming her and making her push her damaged body harder than was likely wise, but she loved it. No, she loved him, and he loved this. That’s the place it held in her heart.

“What kind of stamina do you have,” she panted, throat burning with the rough movements of air as her lungs worked overtime.

Fitz shrugged. “I gotta keep up with you somehow,” he smiled, flicking her forehead.

“Keep wha--oh. Your brain is perfectly fine, idiot.”

He held up his hands in mock surrender, walking backwards slightly to better face her. It took more self-control than she expected not to push him over, send him tumbling to the ground. He must’ve seen something in her face, as he took several steps away from her, but that only encouraged her to chase after him more insistently, increasing her pace.

“What are you--AH!” he yelled, a combination of rough terrain and the force of her hand pushing against his chest sending him to the ground--but he latched onto her wrist, taking her down with him.

“Ow,” she said, laying half atop him, though it didn’t actually hurt. “How dare you.” Pressing off of him, she arranged herself to be sitting beside him, and he looked up at her from the ground.

“How dare I?” He put his hand to his chest as though outraged, but couldn’t keep a straight face. “You’re the one who pushed me over--it’s only fair you fell, too.”

Sophie scrunched her nose at him again, running her fingers through the tangles in her hair, strands falling in her face and sticking to the sweat soaking her skin, her shirt, everywhere. Fitz wasn’t faring much better, shirt stuck to his chest and wrinkling in ways that looked uncomfortable.

“Fly back?” she asked, offering him her hand as she stood.

Without hesitation, he took her outstretched hand, letting her lift him to his feet. “Absolutely.”

Clapping her hands together in excitement, Sophie didn’t even wait for him before jumping into the air, the wind produced by the buzzing of her wings cooling her down as she moved upwards.

“Whe--no fair,” he called after her, laughing. The trees were too close together for him to follow her; his feathers would scrape against the tree bark and he couldn’t maneuver amongst the branches the way she could.

Laughing to herself, trying to contain the elation, she darted back down to him, swooping down to touch him, just a moment of contact and then she glitched them higher and higher, dragging him through the atmosphere until they were above the treeline.

Then she dropped him.

Shrieking, Fitz fell backward as his wings shot out, roughly steadying him until he could circle back around to come up and barrel into her, stirring up the air and the pollen, making her sneeze.

“That was rude,” she told him, though she didn’t mean it.

Taken aback in disbelief, he emphatically gestured to the sky, the trees, the place she’d dropped him. Starting and not finishing several sentences, letting all his hands do the talking as Sophie failed to suppress her smile.

But he smiled along with her, the two of them in midair, existing above the world.

Sophie couldn’t remember the last time she’d been able to watch the sunrise, but the colored sky had followed the two of them the entire flight home.

And now she got to watch the sun’s path through the sky from the comfort of a bench she’d found, the railing in front of her torn and dangling. She’d have to fix that one day.

Fitz had departed a few moments before to head for the showers, though it’d been heavily implied she’d needed one more than him. But she had to check in with Elwin first--he’d said he’d look her over in the morning, and she wasn’t gonna risk upsetting the process with an ill-advised bath.

Though the morning run would’ve probably done more damage than a bath ever could; she wasn’t going to think about it. It’d been worth it, any setback, to see Fitz smile, to forget about her own troubles.

So many of them yet to be shared.

She’d promised answers later and her injuries had saved her from following through, from facing that shame of everything she’d tried and failed to take on on her own, but it’d all come to a head soon enough.

A dragon at Havenfield, a burning field, a tracker that she’d refused to think about since she’d hidden it.

That one hurt the most.

There’d only been one place with trackers like that, only one interaction that could’ve ended in her being tracked. She’d had that shirt on for a day at most and there were only so many places she’d been.

Only one with access to trackers.

The Underground.

Reaching out her foot, Sophie kicked against the railing slightly, testing its stability. A horrid splintering sound came from the ground beneath her, so she pulled her foot back in, instead fiddling with her hands in her lap as a distraction.

She’d put it off long enough.

Sophie played back through that day, the moment she’d entered the Underground, traversing the tunnels, the footsteps belonging to people she didn’t know and didn’t want to know up ahead. Appearing beside Kesler, more people than she’d bargained for waiting for her, each terse and loaded, desperate word exchanged with her mother and then--

There.

I love you, you know. I hate not knowing if you’re okay.

Those had been Edaline’s exact words as she cupped her face, slid her hands down to her shoulder, rearranging her shirt, the collar.

That’s where she’d found the tracker not even a day later.

Edaline had put a tracker on her.

How tainted that memory became, that moment of vulnerability between the two of them. Sophie’d thought it to be nothing more than love, an affection for her and a desire to hold her close.

“Oh, there you are,” a voice said, drawing her out of the spiral she was slowly losing herself to. No. She refused to follow that train of thought further. The day had started off so pleasant, so warm, so comforting, she couldn’t let it be adulterated by actions of the past.

Nothing good came from reminiscing.

“Hi, Elwin,” she responded, turning away from the view, trying to quickly blink away the spots the sun had left in the edges of her vision. They’d stayed stubbornly there, colorful little specks.

He adjusted his glasses, bags under his eyes. “I didn’t expect to see you up so early given how Dex said you passed out.”

“He told you?” For some reason it hadn’t occurred to her that others could report on her well being, too. If she wouldn’t supply information, there’d be other ways for him to go about acquiring it, though it hadn’t really come to that ever before.

She’d learned the hard way all those years ago that he couldn’t see everything, and that he depended on her to take care of her. Those hours-long migraines from looking into the light...she never wanted a repeat of those ever again.

“He mentioned it in passing,” Elwin offered, leaning against a section of railing that was actually secured in place, not ravaged like the rest of this place. “Made a joke about it. When did you wake up?”

“I don’t have a clock.”

“Give it your best guess.”

“Early.” He raised his brow at her. “Two or three maybe. It was still dark out.”

He nodded to himself, filling that information away somewhere she didn’t understand. She’d never studied anything to do with medicine, but maybe there was something about the amount of time she spent asleep that affected her healing. Pressure on her wounds as she lay horizontal, time passed, something else?

She wanted to ask, but it didn’t feel like the right time.

“Do you want me to check you over now so you can go take that shower?” he finally asked, turning back to her.

“How did you--”

He laughed, interrupting her. “You look absolutely winded, Sophie. I think your shirt has permanently molded to your body,” he teased, so she glanced down. Just as he’d said, the fabric was practically suctioned to every part of her body--how hadn’t she noticed?

Unsticking it as she stood, she nodded, indicating for him to lead the way.

Elwin still looked around each time they moved, the flowers and scratches and the lives that’d once built this place. Utterly awed, history left out to rot.

“I want to fix this place,” she blurted out, watching his eyes roam as they walked in silence. His exuberant personality seemed dulled, his voice quieter and his movements slower, a weight to each step.

She hadn’t thought to ask him what he was doing up so early.

He hummed to himself. “Fix it how?”

She shrugged, unsure how to respond, but he couldn’t see that from ahead of her so she tried to put it to words. “It’s just...this place was so beautiful, I just know it. And now it’s falling apart. And if it collapses, there will be no record of all the people who’ve been here, the people who...never got to leave.” She winced at the words, but cleared her throat. “Their lives were left here, and I don’t want to lose that. I’ve already fixed a few bridges and cleaned up a few places, but there’s so much left and it’s so big. I don’t know, I think it’d be...nice.”

She trailed off, Elwin coming to a stop in front of her, holding the door open to let her inside first, that same space she’d been in just the day before.

“I think that’s a lovely idea, Sophie.”

For some reason, her face flushed. That desire to clean the place up, to make it whole again to the best of their abilities...it had been a secret wish. They’d all been through so much so quickly, the thought of taking the time to repair this whole place seemed so unbelievably selfish. How could she put forth that effort when everyone else wanted her a million different places.

Elwin gestured for her to take a seat, grabbing his bag to drag a little closer, little clinks and such sounding from inside.

How hadn’t he run out of medications yet, she wondered.

“I make my own elixirs, you know. There’s plenty to be used in the surrounding area and in the event I can’t find something I need, you have a pathfinder I could borrow. This, however, I’m running a little low on,” he said, handing her a bottle of youth. Right. When you got burned, one of the things to look out for was loss of fluids.

“Did I say that out loud?” she asked, thinking back over the moment. She hadn’t thought she’d said anything, wasn’t going to bother him with a question like that while he worked.

Elwin nodded, reaching out for her arm, much more professional and less talkative than she’d ever seen him.

Not wanting to interrupt him further, she let her mind wander, but not so far as to return to those spiraling thoughts he’d snapped her out of when he found her. Instead, she played the morning back in her memories, though sped up as to make actual progress through it.

That leaping crystal in the bee--the bee! She’d left it at Fitz’s; once Elwin had done whatever he needed to, which felt like a lot of balms and creams and wrapping her arms back together, she’d need to go back for it.

Not only because of the mysterious crystal she’d found hidden in it, but she also liked carrying it around. Ella had a home on her bed, but that’s where she’d stay.

Bee, however, felt like it was meant to stay by her side, to be taken from place to place. And perhaps the idea of leaving that crystal unattended had all her senses on high alert, her leg bouncing in place, and her eyes darting from side to side. Never mind that it’d lived in the space beside her bed for weeks and nothing had happened. Her anxiety got the best of her, however, and she couldn’t think of anything else.

At one point Elwin asked if she could settle down, though she tried with little success.

How was she supposed to process this? Stuck here, though she loved Elwin, she wanted that bee in her hands, in her lap, just somewhere she could see.

Distraction, that’s what she needed.

Chewing on her tongue, she cast her eyes about. They were in the first section of that gnomish house they’d put Marella and Linh after the first dragon incident--out of what, three?--with an open doorway leading to another at her back. Fitz and Keefe had been asleep on a couch together, but she couldn’t see it when she turned around to look.

Nearly everything had been moved out of the way. Why?

Squinting into the room, trying to angle herself to figure out what was back there, Elwin’s room or a set-up for him to make elixirs and creams like he’d said, the curiosity helped ease the adrenaline pumping through her body.

“I’m taking care of Biana, if that’s what you’re worried about,” he told her, and with a jolt Sophie realized she...hadn’t actually been worried about her. Biana’s disappearance, her reappearance with Marella...so much had happened in the hours since that she’d slipped her mind.

How could she forget?

“Do you know what happened to her?” she asked instead, still looking into that room. Somewhere in there was Biana, kept away from the more frequented parts of the house where she currently sat.

Elwin shook his head, voice flat as he answered. “She’s not responding to a lot, but she isn’t injured in any way I can determine. Her body is perfectly fine--flourishing, even. All I can do is keep her that way while we wait for her to wake up. Like when Keefe first got his new ability.”

“She’s still unconscious?” Like when Keefe had gotten his new ability? She’d thought Biana would’ve awoken by now, though it seemed foolish to be so optimistic.

“You don’t happen to have any information on what could’ve happened, do you?” Right. He’d said that if needed, he could get information from others when the patient themselves wasn’t able to give it, so she could tell him anything she knew the same way Dex had shared information about her.

Looking towards the ceiling, she thought over it for a moment. “I wasn’t--I didn’t see what happened to her. I was with her before, but she disappeared.” Frowning, she closed her eyes, going back back back to that moment.

At the edge of the cavern, the facility stopping and pitch black beginning, the kind she didn’t think any night vision could pierce.

The last moment she’d seen her, she’d been coughing, eyes watering as she stumbled slightly, the air so so thick.

We have to find her, she’d said, but Biana wasn’t there.

The next time she’d seen her, she’d been unconscious in Marella’s arms, and she still hadn’t woken from it. It hadn’t been more than two days, but the hours ticking by loomed larger and larger as the growing sense that something unnatural had happened to Biana.

Sharing what she remembered with Elwin, he thought over it for a moment. “Coughing. I doubt that has any bigger meaning, but thanks for the input. I tried to ask Marella,” he began, which stopped her next suggestion: ask Marella as she’d found her. “But she was too out of it at the time. It was almost like I’d woken her from a 1,000 year nap and she’d forgotten how to be a person. I’ll check back in with her later, but for now I don’t have a lot of information.

Sophie’s heart rate increased, turning around to look back into that room, though she still couldn’t see Biana.

“I’m not worried,” he assured her, and the steady pace of his breathing seemed to reaffirm the statement. “I just want as much information as I can get. She’ll be okay.”

Nodding, she finally looked down at what Elwin had been doing to her arms as she worried away, lost in the storm clouds. Little balls of light clouded through the morning air, reflecting in the shine of creams all massaged into her skin, a tingling cool spreading through the tissue, the same relief you got when pouring cool water over a wound.

Flexing her fingers, she turned her arms from side to side, watching the light catch in the surface; she looked as though she’d just stepped out of a pool, similar to how Tarina had always looked.

Tarina. Sophie hadn’t seen her in forever, didn’t know what had happened to the trolls and all the other species. Not everyone had moved underground, only the elves and the gnomes beside them, a few goblins and ogres serving as bodyguards following their charges, but those warrior species hadn’t wanted to.

She’d never thought to ask what’d happened to the others.

Not now though, now was not the time.

Elwin grabbed a roll of gauze from his supplies, holding it up to her. “Now, were we back at the Healing Bubble, we could probably get away with just wrapping you up to protect your skin from the outside world while it finishes healing, but given that you keep moving around and abusing your body, I’m keeping you wrapped a little tighter for extra protection. Got it?”

Sophie gave him a thumbs up, peeling the hair that’d stuck to her neck with sweat off her skin with her free hand as he wrapped the other.

“Will I be able to actually shower in this?” she blurted out, realizing that water might interfere with whatever he was doing.

Elwin hummed in affirmation. “I know humans have a bunch of specifics about when you can and can’t bathe when healing, but elves work a little different. You’ve had your fair share of sponge baths, but this won’t be one of those times. All the skin under your bandages is clean, and the compression sleeve is waterproof--like I said, elven design--so as long as you don’t tear it off in the shower, you’ll be good.”

“I hate sponge baths,” she grumbled, trying to lighten the mood Biana’s mysterious condition had brought down.

Elwin laughed alongside her, finishing the bandages and helping her into the sleeves, showing her the way the fabric moved and stuck to her skin, keeping everything beneath it tight and sealed. None of those human coverings necessary.

“Give it another day and you’ll be all set, Star Patient. Though please take it easy and stop getting yourself hurt.” He gave a fancy flourish towards the door, though he blinked slowly, his smile sagging slightly. He desperately needed to take it easy, too.

Sophie made a face as though she were debating his request, that perhaps she’d refuse to stop getting hurt, as though she had any control over it. He rolled his eyes at her with affection, but she couldn’t help but peek over her shoulder as she made her way towards the door, trying for a last glimpse at Biana.

One foot through the door, the angle worked, and for a single moment she could see Biana, lying in a full bed instead of just a cot.

Atop the blankets, she lay curled on her side, wings spread behind her an inch above the blankets. She didn’t move aside from deep, slow, even breaths, her hands held close to her chest.

Only the clear sight she’d grown more and more accustomed to each day reveal the most unsettling detail of her slumber. Her eyes moved back and forth beneath the lids, rhythmic and incessant and unstopping. Back and forth and back and forth and back and forth.

What had happened to her?

“You went where?” Tam asked, leaning forward, bewildered. “And you thought that was a good idea why?”

Sophie covered her face with her hands, embarrassment flooding her cheeks bright red. “When you put it like that it does sound stupid.”

“Stupid is certainly one word for it,” Maruca commented, picking at her nails, the sharpened talons they’d turned into. Rolling her wrists, forcefields shimmered into place over her hands, flush with the skin as she moved, fading away and coming back as though it were unconscious.

Eight of them in a circle, sitting atop benches and beanbags in the same place they had so many nights ago, right before the dragons had made themselves known in the sky.

Each word she shared, each secret and failure she divulged made her skin crawl and the back of her mind worry. But these were her friends. Her family. They deserved to know and the longer she waited the more it would hurt.

Everyone was there but Biana, still unconscious, and Linh, who’d mysteriously disappeared--except not like the first time. This time, she’d said there was something she needed to take care of quickly, but that she’d be back, so they’d let her go. At least, that’s what she’d been told; she hadn’t been there for it.

They’d all crowded around, curious for her side of the story, politely demanding she finally fess up to the cryptic things she’d hinted at on the mountain.

So she did.

Word after painful word, detailing her story from trailing after Marella, who sat stoic across from her as she spoke, to the name Phoenix she’d found, to finding the dragon, to starting the everblaze in the field, and she’d just gotten to the part where she went back to the Underground for help when Tam had interrupted.

“I love you, Sophie, but that was not your best moment,” Keefe added, watching his legs dangle over the side of the platform, back to her as he listened. His wings were light grey today, the tips betraying a bright white.

Sophie sighed. “Yeah, I get that now. But it made sense at the time!”

“Wait, are they the ones who put the tracker on you?” he blurted out, turning around to face her, tilting his head to the side.

Cringing, she nodded. “I think so.” She’d already thought about that too much today, so she tried to turn away, dismissing the topic.

“A tracker?” Wylie cut in this time, and it was then she saw the unease littering everyone’s face, the way they sat up, Marella glancing from side to side, Dex scanning the trees.

“I took it off before I came back,” she assured them. “I was...going to get to that later.” Giving Keefe a side-eye, she scrunched her nose at him. “But someone had to cut in.” She rolled her eyes at the lopsided grin he gave her in response, as though it would hide the trembling of her fingers.

No one seemed to know what to say for a moment, now that her share of the story had been completed. They’d gotten details about the dragon at Havenfield from Keefe; she’d been the final piece they needed to hear. Of course, everyone would have questions for Biana, but until then, there was nothing else to do about it.

Luckily for them, Linh’s quick and light footsteps interrupted the silence, all their heads turning off towards the distance as she rounded a corner, spurred forwards by the excitement of her wings.

Sophie raised a hand in greeting in response to her wave, but it faltered as what Linh had gone to do became clear.

Gasps and shock echoed through the morning air as two dragons rounded the corner behind her, the little grey one bouncy and exuberant, the little yellow one crouched low to the ground, suspicious, pawing at the planks.

“I’m sorry--what?” Dex hissed, bringing his hands up to either side of his face, his reaction not unique. Each of their faces had fallen into disarray, stark bemusement, confusion, looking between each other.

Tam had closed his eyes, hands fisted in his hair as though he could somehow block out what Linh had done.

“Hey! Why’s everyone all together; we don’t do that often,” Linh said, watching her feet as she crossed the final bridge to meet them all, the two dragons staying a ways back, though the grey one looked curious, staring at them all as its tail swished from side to side, scraping against the wood floor.

“Um. Hello,” Sophie responded, utterly lost. She glanced to Fitz for assistance, but he seemed just as bemused as her. “What...what are they doing here?”

Linh blinked at her for a moment, then glanced over her shoulder, seeming to realize the source of their reaction. “Oh. Them. Well, I felt bad leaving them up on the mountain with only each other, separate away from everyone else with no support. And you all know about them now, so I thought it would be better to bring them back here. I just…” she trailed off, struggling with the next words. “They don’t have anyone right now.”

“Those are dragons,” Marella said, and it was in that moment Sophie realized she’d never seen them. She’d been sent back to the village by Sophie and hadn’t taken the climb up the mountain, hadn’t gotten soaked in the tunnels, hadn’t seen their dragonfly wings or the bright colors adorning them.

The grey one sneezed, sending a shock wave through the platforms they all sat against, making them all shriek as the floor wobbled beneath them.

“Yeah that's definitely a reasonable thing to do,” Maruca said. “Bringing baby dragons here. Are you doing okay?” she asked suddenly, looking between Linh and the dragons across the bridge.

“Why do they get to be here?” Marella cut in, voice blank, looking to Sophie. A hint of hurt leaked into her voice, everyone else averting their eyes as the light joking attitude they’d teased her with plummeted.

Oh.

Sophie fiddled with the edge of her shirt. “I’m sorry, Marella. I shouldn’t have followed you and I shouldn’t have spied on you. And I shouldn’t have interrupted whatever you were doing--I was scared for you. Because you didn’t seem like yourself and there was a huge dragon right next to you. But you were...I didn’t trust you and I should have.”

The others seemed to studiously be avoiding the conversation, pretending they weren’t listening to every word. It didn’t work; their attention was obvious.

Marella looked at her for a moment, weighing her words. “I don’t forgive you. I’m still mad at how much you interfered, but at least you were better for Linh. But...I understand why you did it. That doesn’t make it better, but I understand.”

“I deserve that,” Sophie nodded, opening her mouth to say more before Marella turned away, done with the conversation.

“What are you going to do with them?” Marella asked Linh, changing the topic. As she said that, the hairs on the back of Sophie’s arms rose, a dry static crawling along her skin. The yellow one’s eyes were glowing.

Linh put a finger to her mouth in thought, looking back over her shoulder. “I don’t know. I’m not in charge of them, just looking out for them for now. The yellow one is suspicious,” she added, waving to them.

Sure enough, the little dragon had remained low to the ground, teeth bared as it maintained an unwavering stare only Fitz could compete with, watching their every movement, electricity sparking across its scales, the pulsing glow in its body mirror to the hair raising on her arms.

“Damn, what did we ever do to you?” Keefe joked, holding his hands up in mock surrender, addressing the dragon. “There’s a lot of aggression here that I don’t think I deserve.”

Linh laughed slightly, a chorus of light amusement sounding from the group.

She’d opened her mouth to ask another clarifying question, unsure whether or not there really was anything she could say about it, as she wasn’t in charge of Linh, but someone else beat her to it.

“Is that what I think it is?” Coming from behind her, Sophie turned alongside everyone else.

Elwin stood a little ways back, mouth agape as he readjusted his glasses, squinting at the two creatures just sitting there in the middle of the village. The yellow one growled, eyes sparking to life with electricity, but its sibling shared none of its reservations, darting forward ahead of it, bounding off the air towards Elwin, someone entirely new.

No, that’s not what it was, Sophie realized as her stomach dropped.

Elwin smelled normal, so unlike the monstrous scents of this forest.

With a sharp gasp, Sophie lurched forward, but the creature had reached him before she’d put two and two together.

The little dragon crashed into him, nearly knocking him off his feet with the force, teeth snapping and thunder rolling from its chest in what sounded almost like laughter.

A moment passed, everyone behind her holding their breath, moving forward like she was. Stupid stupid stupid it was to have a creature here with someone so elven.

It was precisely because the ten of them weren’t fully elves anymore that allowed them to be on the surface at all, their presence hiding his amongst them. Nothing came near here, thinking they were just like them, the way the little echo saw no difference between her and the creature caught in the vines, just another friend who could help.

Only a moment had passed, but the horror striking through her heart was full blown.

But the dragon didn’t attack him; Elwin didn’t look harmed in the slightest, only bewildered and slightly terrified, his heart rate doubling.

“That one’s the nice one,” Linh added offhandedly. “It’s just playing with you.”

“Ah. You don’t say,” Wylie grimaced, settling back into the beanbag chair, putting a hand to his chest. His heartbeat had increased alongside everyone else's.

Apparently, they’d all thought Elwin was going to die right in front of them.

Instead, he stood there, a dragon rubbing up against his leg like a cat, completely frozen in place. “What...did you make the noise earlier?” he asked, talking to the dragon as though it would respond. Good to know Sophie wasn’t the only one to treat everything like a cat.

Linh nodded, though didn’t offer any further explanation.

“Incredible,” he whispered to himself, looking down at the thing, hesitantly reaching out a hand to place it on its face, running his fingers along the scales as he observed the thing observing him.

The yellow one paced back and forth in its original spot, shaking its head side to side, agitated.

“I’m not the only one freaked out right now, right?” Keefe asked under his breath, leaning towards her a little like a child who didn’t understand how to whisper.

Sophie shook her head, intertwining her fingers to keep from pulling at her lashes. “I don’t know what’s going on right now.” Tam observed Linh with a careful suspicion she brushed off, as though he were looking for something the rest of them couldn’t see. Wylie and Dex had taken up a conversation Fitz occasionally contributed to, giving him their complete attention as he went on and on, their eyes shifting to those mechanical wings every so often. Maruca and Marella sat near each other, but neither of them spoke--but she could feel Marella’s eyes on her, the unabashed stare as she moved.

“I thought a house had fallen over or something,” Elwin told the thing. “But it was just you, wasn’t it. Don’t scare me like that again!” He adjusted his glasses, smiling.

“If it keeps doing that, it might actually knock one over,” Tam said over his shoulder, squinting suspiciously at the small rumbles rolling out of its chest, the tremors shaking through the floor barely perceptible, but growing.

Linh waved a hand at him, her skin catching the morning light and glowing to life, iridescent. “It won’t cause any damage on purpose.”

“That’s a dragon, Linh,” Maruca cut in. “Don’t you remember how dangerous they can be? The huge storm when Marella blew up the sky? They may be little now, but they’re not safe.” Silence fell as though other conversations faded away, no one speaking. Sophie hated being in the middle of things, but then again, she’d put herself in the middle of it by interfering with dragons that first time.

Struggling to find her words for a moment, Linh spoke. “Well...they don’t have to be in the village, but I’m not leaving them on that mountain.”

She wouldn’t budge on this, Sophie realized. She loved them all dearly, but when it came to what she wanted the hurricane of her conviction could only be weathered and tolerated. As observant as she could be, it was almost as if she was ignoring all of their cues, the discomfort, pretending she couldn’t tell how anxious everyone had become at its presence, the confusion and reluctance.

“Okay. They don’t have to go back to the mountain,” Sophie cut in before anyone else could object or say something to make the tension rise further. “We can figure something out. Just um...a little warning next time? This is a big change you kind of sprung on us--not that I’m mad about it! But having two dragons nearby will be...something to get used to, so I just want everyone to be happy with the arrangement. Does that make sense?”

Thinking over it, Linh didn’t look at her when she responded, instead looking towards the anxious little yellow dragon, her hand reaching towards it slightly, unconsciously. “Yeah. Yeah we can do that. Sorry. I didn’t think it would be such a big deal.”

“If Linh gets to work it out with you, I want to, too.” Marella’s head cocked to the side as she said it, looking between the two of them, her voice carrying a sort of finality Sophie knew she wouldn’t argue with.

“You want to what?” Wylie asked, his confusion mirrored on the faces all around the group.

“I want you, Sophie, to take me to where you left it. The dragon you took from me.”

Sophie winced, watching the glow of heat move beneath Marella’s skin. She’d known it was coming, but facing her interference again and again and again curdled something inside her, an overwhelming discomfort she couldn’t name and could only weather.

“Okay.”

The little bee held close to Sophie’s chest kept her from screaming into a pillow, though there wasn’t even one nearby.

Marella wanted her to take her to see the dragon as soon as she could, which would be as soon as she was done talking to Linh. Linh, who sat with her legs crossed in the beanbag chair across from her, a dragon at either side.

The yellow one had its head in her lap, eyes wide open as it stared at Sophie, malice glittering in its gaze. The grey one, however, couldn’t seem to care less about what the other thought, curled up on the floor and fast asleep.

Perhaps it was the influence of all the books she’d read as a child, but she’d never seen a dragon quite like these before. Unsettling in a way Linh didn’t seem to notice, those were the best words she could find to explain it.

Innocent. Innocuous. They’d done nothing to personally affront her, yet the sight of them raised the hairs on the back of her arms. As fun and approachably and pet-like as they seemed, these were dangerous creatures that would only become more so with time.

Did she truly not notice? No, there was no way she had just brushed past the sharpness of their teeth, the power boiling in their veins, the way she let them get so so close. If they wanted to kill her she’d have no time to block them.

“I don’t think they like the ground very much,” Linh said, resting a hand on its head as she spoke, drawing Sophie back to that painful conversation: where to put the dragons.

Nodding along like she understood, she cast her mind about her entire memory of this place--she hadn’t seen the whole thing, only coming and going as needed, but there had to be a way to work this all out.

“Well, if they were on a mountain, that makes sense.” Sophie had no clue how to have this conversation.

Linh wanted the dragons here, but they unsettled everyone aside from her.

“There’s a house without a roof near my place--they can settle there for now. That way they’re near me and away from everyone else, as I’m not close to the rest of you. Far enough no one ever caught me leaving. Does that work?”

Sophie nodded before even thinking through what she’d said. “Wait. I’m going to follow your lead on this, but can I just see the place you’re talking about first? Not that I don’t trust your judgment, but so I can understand what you’re talking about.”

And maybe because she didn’t fully trust Linh’s judgment. She’d waltzed in with two dragons as if it were nothing. Sophie loved her to death, but the disappearing and reappearing without explanation felt off, like it wasn’t Linh.

Linh carefully stood, easing the dragon head off her lap, though the grey one didn’t stir.

“Are we just--should we--” Sophie began in reference to it, but Linh didn’t seem bothered, stepping around it as she started off towards the location, a dragon at her side; Sophie had to stand a few feet back to avoid getting hit with its swinging tail, jagged spiked burning with electric sparks as it moved.

Several minutes later, Linh pointed ahead of them. “There. That’s where I think we should put them.”

Sophie’d never seen this part of the village, living possibly the furthest away from Linh out of everyone. She should really create a map of this place, but she didn’t know the first thing about cartography aside from the name.

As the building grew closer and closer, Sophie moved around Linh and the dragon, hopping into the air and using the speed to get up close.

Despite Linh telling her it had no roof, she hadn’t anticipated it’d be this dilapidated. Not only had the roof fallen off--or been torn off--long ago, but the destruction carried on down the walls, some places the structure reaching barely a foot above the floor. Peeking inside, all the furniture aside from a few rough beanbags and blankets had been cleared away, though she didn't know where they’d gone. It was...empty. Alarmingly so. None of the flowers she’d come to expect in these places, the light wood floors cold and unassuming.

“I started cleaning out the place a little bit ago just in case I needed to bring them here, I just didn’t tell anyone about it,” Linh supplied, sensing her confusion.

Oh. That’s why it looked so empty; Linh had been preparing it for something just like this. Similar to the barren nature of that mountain, this place would provide more comfort than that chill. And if Sophie knew Linh, this was only the beginning of what she’d do for them. She’d go to the ends of the earth and tear herself into pieces if they asked her to. Not pets, but a personal responsibility she’d taken on.

“You’re...oddly prepared for this,” Sophie said, landing on the ground as Linh approached, the dragon at her side cocking its head in curiosity, having observed her in the air.

Linh shrugged. Perhaps she hadn’t been unobservant of their unease, having already created the perfect space Sophie couldn’t object to. She’d known, she realized. The entire time, she’d known how strange this would be to everyone else, but that’s all she’d ever known. So she’d brushed it off, done what she wanted, and minimized the impact her life would have on everyone else.

Surging forward, Sophie wrapped her arms around her, pulling her close.

“Wha--” she started, arms hovering in the air for a moment before settling them against Sophie’s back, digging her fingers into her shirt, sighing into her shoulder as all the tension drained from her body.

“I’m sorry for doubting you. You made me nervous and I care about you, but I should’ve trusted you the whole time.” The words poured from her mouth, dripping off her tongue and pooling to the ground, needing it all out out out. How could she doubt Linh, especially after how her doubt of Marella had gone so wrong? How foolish could one person be?

“It’s okay,” Linh told her, just holding her tight.

“No. No it isn’t.” Sophie pulled back, but she couldn't bring herself to look at Linh’s face as she laid herself bare before her. “You’re my friend, Linh. You deserve to have my trust and to be able to do these kinds of things--” she gestured vaguely towards the cleared out house, the dragon poking around inside, though it never took its eyes off her-- “without hiding them and without us doubting you. I’m sorry. If you do something like this again--not that I know how you could ever top this--just...I’m here for you, okay? Do you understand?”

Finally meeting her eyes, having been staring at the floor, Sophie chewed at her lip, aware of every movement she made.

Tears fell down Linh’s cheeks, lingering as she blinked them away, brushed them away with her shoulder, finally using her ability to lift them from her face, tears dancing through the air like mini water bubbles, akin to those in the mountain. As though water had been spilled in outer space, that’s what they reminded Sophie of.

What was she supposed to do here?

“Yeah. I understand. Thank you,” Linh choked out, clearing her throat as she pulled Sophie back in for another hug, squeezing her extra hard before letting go.

The dragon snapped at a few of the tears floating by its head, momentarily distracted and child-like for a blissful moment.

“Okay. Do you need anything right now or…” Sophie trailed off, wiggling her hands around to ask her which she needed.

Shaking her head, Linh ran her fingers through her hair, pulling it back as she began to tie it up. “I’ve got this from here, Foss-boss. Go do your thing.”

Giving two thumbs up, Sophie began to back away, hoping Linh hadn’t noticed the glassiness in her own eyes, the disappointment in herself and her doubt as she left. Never again. These were her friends, how could she have let anything keep her from loving them and knowing them the way she did.

Just because she’d been acting different, unsure of herself and impulsive, didn’t mean that everyone else suffered the same. She’d remember that next time, if there was one. She’d write it on her forehead if it would prevent the sinking pit roiling in her stomach.

But Sophie didn’t have the time to spare to think it over, to process that pain and that discomfort. She’d been made leader, and as such she had a job.

Marella needed her. She needed to right her wrong.

If only there weren’t so many of those.

“Are you going to trust me this time?” The question stung, but Sophie was in no place to deny the accusation, though Marella had hardly meant it to be rude. A genuine question that hurt, that’s all it was.

Feet dangling over the edge as she sat, Marella held her hands before her, licks of flames curling against her skin, dancing in and out of her fingers in time to her breaths. Sophie stood a little ways behind her, having just approached. The sun bright overhead, for a brief moment she, too, felt like she could feel its flame, the power it held, though she’d never get close to the draw Marella felt.

“Yeah. I’m going to trust you,” Sophie said, and Marella turned, flames dissipating as she pushed to her feet, wings readjusting as she fiddled with her clothes, her fingers worrying a hole through the fabric of her shirt.

Marella nodded. “Okay. Then let’s go.”

Extending a hand, Sophie took it, interlacing their fingers as she eyed the area, trying to decide which method of transportation would suit this trip best.

A clear memory of the fields came to mind as she stood there, something clicking in her mind as she turned to look at Marella, who seemed faintly unsettled by the look in her eye, taken aback.

“Then let’s go,” she repeated, eyes falling closed as they fell into the void.

Grass scraped against her legs, a faint salty breeze blowing in off the nearby cliffs, the humidity threatening to choke her but so familiar she’d let it drown her.

“Where is it?” Marella asked, straight to the point. She turned in a circle, scanning the horizon, the sky, the fields as she stood on a foot, adjusting her shoe.

“Hmm?”

“Where?” More of a statement than a question, she didn’t even seem to bother with Sophie as she nearly lost her balance, wings steadying her as she put herself back on two feet. Sophie had simply been her way of getting here, but as soon as she set her sights on that dragon she’d become irrelevant. She tried not to let that bother her.

Sophie started off through the fields. “The last time I saw it it was a little over this way, but Havenfield is big so it might’ve moved somewhere else. Though it looked very...sleepy,” she commented, choosing her words carefully as she led the way.

She’d given them a bit of space so they could approach it from afar as opposed to just appearing in its vicinity. It hadn’t liked when she’d gotten so close the first time, and the second...well, the second hadn’t gone great either, but that wasn’t the dragon’s fault.

Marella took the lead, brushing past Sophie and into the overgrown fields, warmth pulsing beneath her skin.

Sophie stayed back, quiet. Marella would find her dragon on her own, Sophie just didn’t want to leave her alone, wanted to make amends. Maybe ask a question or two if appropriate.

Turning a corner, Marella stopped dead in her tracks, wings tucking in tight behind her as she stared off into the distance. Strange. Sophie would’ve expected more of a charge towards the beast once she’d found it, but this was clearly outside of her realm of understanding.

Catching up, she moved to walk alongside Marella, unease building as the sense that she was missing something grew. What was Marella staring at?

Sophie turned, facing the same way as Marella, and every teasing question died on her lips.

Because there were two figures standing in the fields before that dragon, both haunting her in the back of her mind.

Right up close to the dragon, hand extended as though she’d reach out and touch it, was that little girl. Bright red hair catching the sun, puffy dress snared in the grass, a fear more mature than her age marring the wonder in her eyes.

But that’s not who stopped her heart.

It was the second figure, recognizable even as mutilated as his skin had become, the blonde hair and pointed ears seared into her memories.

Fintan Pyren.

#cliffhangers my beloved #it may be cruel but it's so satisfying from an author's perspective #anyways!! #happy wings au day!! #I didn't forget it this week #so please enjoy <33 #quil's quill #kotlc wings au #shattered upside down #kotlc fic #kotlc fanfic #oh also this brings it over 150.000 published words #which is a lot #this is an entire novel now #every time I post a chapter I get more and more convinced I'll bind this fanfic when it's done #for the satisfaction

[gentlemancrow]

Written in the Stars Will Have to Do

OK so I saw @hey-there-hunter ‘s JMart Wedding Challenge and I pretty much fan ficced immediately??  Like it was an instantaneous plot bunny that stabbed me in the brain and would not let me free until I made it exist.  SO HERE YOU GO!  Read it here or head on over to AO3 below!  And enjoy some unapologetically aggressive fluff with weddings!  Also subtitled someday Crow will stop abusing excessive astral imagery and symbolism for extended metaphors, but today is not that day.

Read on AO3 instead!

Written in the Stars Will Have to Do

Jonathan Sims always thought of himself as a man with a deep appreciation for the great literature of the world.  A passionate turn of phrase, crystalline motes of clear imagery like snowflakes reflecting light in his mental scape, a devastating contemplation on the nature of good and evil in the hearts of all mankind, everything that could express the beauty and tragedy of the world in ways he never could.  Prose was a bright paintbrush on a ragged canvas of the universe he had known from an early age was swathed in shadow and pain and evil, and those words on those pages, for at least a moment, were another world he could hold in his hands, could cradle and protect, could mourn.  He liked the power of them as well, of the tinkling brightness of alliteration, the oaky sophistication of a well-aged metaphor, the evocativeness of the idiosyncrasy in a simple simile, laying bare truths in ways he never could have articulated for himself.

There was one thing he could not abide by in language, however, one cardinal sin liable to besmirch any piece of lush and sparkling verse or prose and taint it forever.  And that was idioms.

Jon loathed idioms and their dismally quirky cliches dressed in familiarity’s tacky clothing almost as much as he hated spiders.  Perhaps it was something about their reliance on common knowledge and repetition.  He couldn’t bear reading the same book twice, or even a book that felt too familiar, it only made sense that hearing a hackneyed phrase repeated in that awful singsong sardonic tone of someone who knows full well they’re saying something asinine that has been repeated ad nauseum for millennia would scrape at the back of his skull and down his spine.  They were too whimsical and blasé, crutch words for when one’s limited lexicon came up empty, or worse, for ill comedic effect.  They reinforced that staunchly English notion of skirting about the true depth and breadth of emotion for clipped niceties and unfeeling banalities.  Idioms to him were mere verbal window boxes, colorful and meaningless, dressings for untold disasters behind the shining windows they peacocked before.  

He hated them all with vaguely equal rancor, but there was one he could definitely single out as the one he hated the most, and that was the one about hanging the moon.  Such and such thinks you hung the moon, to me you hung the moon, and so on.  This particular rhetorical felony attracted his wrath only marginally because any moon symbolism never failed to feel outlandish and infantile, a mawkish image of love and care rampant in nursery rhymes and cheap commercialized slogans for t-shirts and wall art.  That was the least of it.  He hated the idea of hanging the moon mostly because once, another lifetime ago now it seemed, Tim Stoker had lobbed it in his face in a fit of smoldering rage and he had been completely, complacently, ignorant of its magnitude.  

Funny thing was, he couldn’t even remember what the actual fight had been about any longer.  Though he could remember exactly where he was standing, cornered next to the file cabinet for the year 1985, January through February, and the label had been peeling up on the upper left-hand corner.  He remembered he’d discovered a hole in the elbow of his jumper that morning and he had been obsessing over it all day, fussing with the dangling green thread and tugging at the knit as if it might magically close the wound.  He’d put his finger clean through it with his arms crossed haughtily over his chest without even realizing he’d been fiddling with it when something flippant about Martin came out of his mouth.  It hadn’t even been cruel, he couldn’t even remember how Martin had come up in the argument in the first place, he could only remember Tim’s mouth moving like he wanted to say something else, then him forcibly stopping himself before he snarled.

“Yeah well, god knows why, but he thinks you hung the moon, so you might try treating him at the very least like a human being once in a while.”

It was such a small thing.  Small words for a small feeling cloaked in a chintzy veneer of idiomatic dismissal.  A trembling little bird cupped in his scarred and battered hands and smothered.  Or so he thought.  Sometimes trembling little birds turn out to be phoenixes, and those who looked to someone else to hang the comfort of a wise, silvery moon in the sky already have the hammer and the picture wire at the ready.

As far as Jon was concerned, the moon only rose on their Somewhere Else because Martin deigned to pull the strings every night, not him.

It was Martin who brought him tea every morning, set it down on the breakfast table with that little flip of the tag and the deft, one-fingered turn of the handle toward him.  It was Martin who scolded him because whites are a separate load, Jon, were you raised in a barn?  Martin who talked him through every episode of the Doctor Who reruns that were the only thing their ancient aerial could pick up.  Martin who planted flowers in the garden and brought muffins from the sweet old lady at the grocers because they traded baking recipes.  Martin who still looked at him with diaphanous pools of ethereal moonlight in his eyes and his smile like he alone hung it in the sky over his head to wash him in its radiance.

Even after everything.

Even after it had been Martin who had to hold the knife buried in his chest as he lay gasping wetly for breath in an alleyway in Another Chelsea to keep the hemorrhaging at bay.  Martin who had cupped his face in his bloody hands with tears streaming down his and forced him to focus, furious love blazing in his sea mist eyes as they locked with his, screaming at him and him only, heedless of anything else.

“Look at me.  LOOK at me, Jon!  Stay with me!  Stay with me, DAMN YOU!”

Stay with me had not been a plea, it had been a command.  He had never once said please because it was never an option.  Shivering, breathing blood through his teeth, the streetlights a fading, star studded halo in Martin’s strawberry blond curls be damned, he was right.  Against every tangled thread of fate twisted deep into his flesh, or perhaps because they had been the only thing that held his torn innards together, he made it to the part where he awoke a few fractured times to nothingness, and then to fingers he knew every inch of inextricably bound up in his and a fierce whisper in his ear.

“I’m here, Jon.  I’m still here.  I’ve got you.  I’m going to fix this.  I’m going to get us out of here.  We’re going to be okay.”

It had been Martin who orchestrated their clandestine escape from the hospital the moment they both agreed he was well enough to survive under his rudimentary medical care and before the authorities got too invested in an urban ghost story of two men who didn’t exist.  Not to mention one of which should, by all medical and logical law, be dead.  It had been Martin who had stolen the necessary antibiotics, drugs, and wound care supplies, Martin who had picked enough pockets to buy passage on a midnight train to the only place they could think to go, and expressly told Jon not to ask where he learned how, even though he knew full well he would later.  Martin who had fought for everything and kept him hidden and safe while he lay in a dingy hotel room somewhere in Scotland, drifting in and out of consciousness between kisses, cold compresses, spoonfuls of whatever he could get him to swallow and keep down, and desperate ‘I love you’s.

Martin had been the one who hung the moon even on the nights Jon couldn’t see it, just so he knew it was there, that the light might finally guide him home.  Not him.  He could have never done something so selfless and simple and beautiful.  No not him.  Not The Archivist.  How could he have ever known that?  Stupid, myopic, pedantic, all-seeing and blind.  A blustering, sanctimonious Tiresias in a sweater vest and half-moon glasses.  And how important was the moon, anyway that he was expected to hang it too?  Would not night still come and the stars still shine?  The stupid, vapid saying should have been about the sun anyway.  Something that nourished and guided and warmed.  Not the moon.  Not the thing of night and hungry wolves and quiet loneliness.  Not a thing of the darkness they fought and still not won, not exactly, not in a way that mattered.  How could he have known the weight of such a thoughtless, frivolous, meaningless phrase and how far and how long Martin had borne it for him to protect he who hung his moon?  

He could see the weight of it so clearly now.  He could see it especially on the darkest days, which came, in grotesque mockery, the moment they found something like their safehouse and rest at last.  Jon had conned his way into a job at the village library with an ancient head librarian who didn’t care much for too many questions, or background or credit checks, and was more than happy to pay in cash.  With Martin’s help of course.  Martin himself had taken up stocking at the village grocers, and their life had teetered onto something so close to quaint and normal it suddenly laid bare the gravity of the depths of darkness they had escaped.

No longer did they have to run, no longer did they have to fight, they could finally lay down the chase and curl in upon each other to lick their wounds in quiet.  But without the driving, primal instinct to live, to survive, that ushered in the days where all the hurt came back to roost and brood and fester.  The days where he couldn’t bring himself to get out of bed, or the days Martin couldn’t bear the sound of his voice, or the days they shouted themselves hoarse, stormed apart for hours then came back, silent and broken, red-eyed and exhausted to hold each other and weep into the spaces between neck and shoulder where it still smelled like love and home.

He could see so painfully clearly the toll following him to the ends of the cosmos and back had etched its marks into his goodness, his body and soul, see how often he would walk down the road from their cabin, just a little ways, to stand on the heather spotted hills and gaze out into the frigid infinity of the gray sea.  Cold terror would grip him then, incite a desperate want to run after him, to throw his arms around him and bring him home, but also the fear it would only be to have him turn to mist and slip through his fingers forever.  He always had a cup of steaming tea waiting for him when he came back, just in case.

But again, and always.  It was Martin who would pick up Jon’s hands, kiss every slender, scarred finger through his tears and be the first one to utter ‘I’m sorry.’  Martin who told him with just a single scathing flash of stern blue eyes and not a single word uttered that he was certainly coming to bed and not banishing himself to the couch like an idiot.  Martin who wrapped him in his arms and warmth and boundless love and reminded him, “One way or another.  Together.  That was the deal, right?  You don’t get to back out now.  No returns, refunds, or exchanges, I’m afraid.”

And even through the deepest sobs he would find the laugh Jon didn’t think was in him.  Martin sifted through the mire and the muck and held fast to the tiny, shining things so easy to lose in the darkness.  Things Jon was certain were lost forever, only to be reignited and hung in the brightening sky of their story.  Even if they weren’t quite the moon yet.

It had also been Martin who, on a perfectly ordinary day, on a simple walk through the local farmers market, stopped to peruse one of the usual unremarkable stalls filled with crystals and oils and trinkets.  Jon had wandered off to procure the parsnips and the strawberries, unrelated recipes Martin swore, he had been tasked with finding.  When he returned he found him, a radiant monument tall among the faceless locals, rusty curls caressing his face in the salty breeze, carved of marble and rose quartz and gazing down at a pair of hematite rings on a velvet display box.  His eyes were distant, but not in the enthralled, disembodied way they were when he looked at the sea, or the broken way when they weren’t speaking, but in the contemplative, regarding of puzzle pieces way when he would look into the fire during their talks and turn his words in his mind over and over again like a rock tumbler until they were polished just right.

“Getting into crystals now, are we?” Jon had joked, “Surely I’m not so dull to be around that that’s becoming an attractive hobby.”

Martin snorted and shook his head.

“Supposed to mean healing, or grounding, or something.  Aligning your meridians, I think the lady said?  Whatever that means,” he elaborated, reaching out to touch.

They clinked weightily together, thick and glossy and the dark astral gray of a moonless night.  Martin turned over the card that went with them and read.

“’A grounding stone that belongs to the planet Mars.  It strengthens our connections to the earth and aids the warrior on their journey.  It is a stone of invincibility, but also fragility.  It balances yin and yang energies with its magnetic properties for the perfect reflection upon one’s own soul, astral, physical, and spiritual.’”

“Hematite, is it?” Jon asked, “Also more commonly called bloodstone.  You know if you scratch it, it leaves a red mark.  Like it’s bleeding.  Watch.”

He picked up one of the rings and firmly ran it down the corner of the card Martin had been reading from.  Sure enough, the black stone had left a faint, but starkly crimson mark on the yellowed paper.

“It BLEEDS?” Martin exclaimed in horror.

“It’s just a kind of iron oxide, so, rust, basically,” Jon explained with a chuckle, “Kind of weirdly romantic if you think about it?  This intimidating shiny black stone like armor, made of iron to boot, but with a bleeding heart at its core.”

“I just thought it was pretty, I didn’t know it bleeds,” Martin had laughed in that incredulous way he always did when Jon was telling him something he didn’t actually want to know, but appreciated anyway.

“I find that the strongest, prettiest things often do,” Jon had said in reply.  He remembered saying that particularly clearly, waxing poetic, feeling a swell of affection for the hugely beautiful man he leaned against and was adorably aghast at bleeding rocks.

“Yeah, I reckon they do,” Martin murmured back.

And then his cheeks had flushed bright red under his freckles and the stone steps of his shoulders crumbled a bit under the crushing ancientness and vastness of what he had originally been pondering.

“So, I mean, before you spoiled it with the blood thing.  I was thinking… Well, I was just having a browse and I saw these and I thought they were quite fetching, and then the lady told me they meant grounding and healing and a journey, like on the card.  A-And there were two of them, all by themselves, and everything else was so colorful and flashy these were just so… Um.  Maybe the blood and rusty iron thing makes it more poetic now, actually?  I don’t know.  Sorry I-  This sounded so much better in my head.”

It wasn’t his fault, Jon remembered thinking.  Martin couldn’t find the words because there weren’t any.  Not in this universe or any other.  Not for what they’d gone through, and especially not for what they meant to each other.

“I guess I was just thinking.  If… I bought one.  And wore it.  Sort of like.  Um.  You know.  Would… Would you-?” he had asked, his voice trembling.

Jon had never said yes, yes of course he would, faster or with more conviction in his life.  And there was that look again, rising from the ashes, that flooding of golden, unbound love and light, of eyes turned sky blue, of looking at the man who hung his moon in the sky come back to him.  He could still hang Martin’s moon all over again after so many nights of black clouds and darkness, even if it was only paper.  They’d paid for the rings in rumpled bills, exchanged them right then and there, and kissed each other as the crowd of oblivious people in a world they did not belong in flowed like a river around them.  Jon forgot the bag with the parsnips and strawberries.

But it didn’t matter.  It didn’t even matter that Martin’s fit nicely on his ring finger, but Jon had to wear his on his thumb, and even then sometimes on a chain around his neck for fear of losing it.  It didn’t matter that it was the closest thing they were ever going to get to a proposal and a wedding, consigned now forever to the shadows in a borrowed reality with only each other.  Because it was theirs, and they could begin to figure out how their broken pieces fit back together again.

But like most things that don’t matter, it didn’t until it did.

It began as simple things.  Seeing a wedding on some program they weren’t actually paying much attention to and Martin making a flippant, innocuous comment as he combed his fingers lovingly through Jon’s long and silvered chestnut hair in his lap about how he would have loved to have a cake that had a different flavor on every tier at their wedding.  Just so everyone could have something they liked.  And Jon woke up from his half catlike stupor and looked up at him with such aching regret as those words settled into the pit of his heart alongside ‘he thinks you hung the moon.’  

And soon they began to gather a collection of completely innocent remarks that ran the gamut from ‘would they have worn black or white?  Or one of each?  I don’t know… does it really matter?  And were these engagement rings or wedding rings?  I don’t know.  Neither?  both?  And do we say husband instead of boyfriend now?  Fiancé?  Whatever you want, Martin…’ To the heavier, cancerous weights that sank to the bottom of his gut, even below hanging the moon, like ‘I know Tim would have thrown the most amazing bachelor party for both of us, and his mum had always talked about him getting married someday like it was a farfetched pipe dream, but she would be happy for them, he thinks.’

He could never answer those questions.  There was too much at stake, too much finality and familiarity in them, a strange weightlessness in a world that weighed far too much.  The sun and moon continued their eternal dance of time, ignorant, unbothered, but Jon kept collecting those silent debts of normal life, secreting them away in a hidden singularity in his heart that only grew heavier and metastasized farther the more times Martin walked out at night, not him, beaming starlight from his eyes and his fingertips, to hang the moon again.  So soft, so full of wooly cows and pink heather and the smell of tea and sea salt and Martin’s shampoo on the pillow next to him did it become, that it was almost inevitable that one morning Jon awoke absolutely convinced none of it could be real.  

The moment he decided that, everything made so much more sense.  He could breathe again.  There was a reason he could never sit still, never just feel at ease or talk about the future like it was a real thing that could still happen.  He knew why the silence made his brain itch and why he still glanced around corners and glowered at anyone who dared let their gaze linger on his Martin too long.  Why Martin’s ring fit and his didn’t.  There was too much debt to the universe to be paid, too many broken promises, too many corpses in his wake, he had done nothing to deserve this idyllic life of love and peace and smallness and Martin.  It had to be Her doing, It’s doing, some carefully woven torture chamber that would lure them to the apex of their joy, the center of the web, where they would just be devoured over and over to empty husks and set up like chess pieces to fill with love and light just to knock down again.  He wasn’t free after all.

Jon had been halfway into his coat and halfway out the door to do, he didn’t know, something, anything, to go to the library to use their computer and research something he didn’t know he was looking for when Martin had seized his hand and whirled him around.

“Jon.  STOP.  It’s over.”

And he’d stopped.  He’d looked into those baleful blue eyes, fallen into their depths, landed on the precipice of madness, and broken.  It wasn’t over.  Not for him.  He finally understood.  It was still there.  The Eye.  It always had been.  Though not really, he understood slowly as he wept on his knees in their doorway into Martin’s chest, it had indeed closed forever on him, but it lingered as distant static, like a phantom limb, a metaphysical itch that could never be scratched.  Martin had cradled him close and listened, listened so patiently as he ripped the jagged black fear from the deepest, ugliest part of his heart, hauled it up bloody and messy from his throat and finally laid it bare for both of them to see.  And when it was done and he couldn’t cry anymore Martin had locked eyes with him in a way that made him forget any others could have ever existed outside of crystalline blue and filled with moonlight.

“Listen to me.  I know you think you have some cosmic burden to bear.  That you’re still wearing some… some fucked up crown and sitting on a throne of skulls and death and eyeballs or whatever image you want to put there, and that you have to sit and hurt and watch over everything so it doesn’t happen again, but...  Sorry, Jon, but that’s bullshit.  It’s just a scar now.  That’s all.  Just like the rest of them.  Ugly and beautiful and proof that you —Jonathan Sims— are still alive.  And you are not The Archivist anymore.  You’re just mine.  My Jon.”

He’d held his Jon’s stunned face in his hands and peppered kisses over the pock marks in his skin, over the slash on his throat, the burnt fingers that still couldn’t bend quite right, even the one on his chest, the one almost always hidden by fabric but the one he didn’t need to see to find.  His heart and fingers would always remember exactly where it was.  And he’d kept his lips there a moment, then turned his ear to his chest and wrapped his arms around his waist to listen to his heartbeat like a trembling little bird.

“If I can hear it and feel it.  So can you,” he whispered.

Unsteady fingers curled desperately into Martin’s silky locks, hematite loop cool against his scalp, “Thank you…”

Martin stayed for the kiss on top of his head he knew was coming and smiled.

“Okay, so it’s simple to fix if you think about it,” he murmured into Jon’s chest, “We just need that thing, you know?  The thing that makes you feel like you’re still doing the thing, but you’re not.  What was the word for it again?  A placeholder?  Like when you quit smoking and you hold a pencil or a straw or something that’s not actually a cigarette so you can wean yourself off the ritual?”

Jon blinked owlishly down at him as he dried his eyes.

“A… placebo?  Are you talking about a placebo?”

“Yeah!  That’s it!  We just need to find you a placebo for Knowing things!  That’s all.  Like… reality shows, or-or zoo cams or something!  We’ll figure it out together.  Alright, love?  I promise you.  It’ll be okay.”

Jon was skeptical, so very skeptical, but if Martin was determined to find a balm to soothe his jagged, ontological scars he would happily play the part of lab rat for him.  They’d tried a myriad things to replicate the feeling of Knowing and looking something deep within him still craved.  The zoo and animal livestreams were a bust, cute and entertaining as they were, but animals weren’t ever the purview of The Eye and the camera itself was barely a scrap.  Reality shows came closer, the more salacious the better, but even that temporary fix wore off when Jon’s disgust with the overall content and participants outweighed any benefit.  Martin was just happy to have finally converted him to Bake Off, at least.  They tried people watching in the square in the village, but it made Jon far too self-conscious and guilty.  He used the binoculars exactly once, and that was to look at the cows in the fields, and the choose-your-own-adventure books Martin had been certain would strike a sagacious chord wound up in the donation bin at the library.  But that was when he was struck with a bolt of genius.

Unbeknownst to Jon, which brought him no small measure of glee, Martin ordered, received, and then set up with a literal bow in their back garden the finest telescope he could afford on his meager savings.  He’d researched for days, asked on every amateur astronomer forum he could find, and had it delivered to the grocers so he could make it a proper surprise.  He’d even gone so far as to attack and blindfold a hapless Jon the moment he made it home from work on the day it was ready, and stood behind him giddily bouncing as he tore the tea towel away from his eyes.

“A… Telescope?” he’d blurted dumbly.

“Yes!  It’s perfect, right?  I asked around to find the one that had all the best features, and this one has the best overall magnification and the most lenses, but it doesn’t have the little satellite positioning thing?  I figured you wouldn’t want that anyway, you always like figuring things out and finding things on your own better.”

Martin had been positively radiant.  Jon had just stared at the gawping black tube and chewed the inside of his cheek as he processed what to say.

“I mean… thank you, Martin, really.  It was a sweet thought, but if the binoculars didn’t-“

“Screw the binoculars!  This is different!” Martin happily insisted, “You can look at so much more!  Stars and planets and galaxies and what have you, and it can maybe be sort of like you’re looking for other worlds?  Wormholes or whatever?  Or signs of The Fears and where they’ve gone?  Or even if the stars are the same here as they were back before?  Space literally has so many things to LOOK at we can’t even count them!  This has got to be it!”

Jon tried to smile and laugh and agree to try it out, at the very least, if only because Martin was beaming so sweetly with pride and hope.  Though that first night he didn’t, ushering them back in with promises of tomorrow, Martin, I promise tomorrow.  Tomorrow had been a lie.  As had been the next night.  In fact, it took Jon a full week to even remember they even had a telescope, and that was only after getting the smuggest, Cheshire grin out of Martin after casually mentioning there would be a visible, if partial, lunar eclipse that night.  He’d relented, only because he’d entrapped himself, and they’d both bundled up, looked in the manual for the best size lens to view the moon with, poured a few glasses of wine, and turned their eyes to the stars.

Martin had gone first, gripping the eyepiece and adjusting the focus all the while gasping in awe.  It was so beautiful he’d burst into poetry with a crooked grin.

“Art thou pale for weariness?  Of climbing heaven and gazing on the earth, wandering companionless among the stars that have a different birth, and ever changing, like a joyless eye that finds no object worth its constancy?  Sounds a little familiar, eh?” he joked, casting a wry look over his shoulder.

Jon rolled his eyes fondly.

“Gross.  Keats again?”

“Nope, Shelley this time, and even he thinks you ought to have a look at the moon.  I think you’ll find you have a lot in common.”

Jon had sighed obligingly and shuffled to the telescope, fully expecting to look at something bright and round with a bit of a shadow on it that was distinctly unremarkable, have another glass of wine, and then go back inside to snuggle by the fire.  What he saw in that tiny pinhole of light pierced straight through the hazel brown of his eye and plunged him into another world entirely.

The sands of the moon glowed the purest white in the refracted light of the distant sun with which it waltzed.  He could see in crisp, shadowy relief the innumerable scars she bore, the depth and breadth of Ptolemaeus, the boundless lonely flatness of the maria, named for the oceans they were once thought to be, an insult to the rock plains forged a millennia ago in birth by cataclysmic fire.  Every crater remained wrought in perfect, frozen detail with no erosion or foliage to slowly heal them over, and she beamed them proudly, ostentatiously in her heavenly light.  A hulking, ancient protectorate, hung by the hands of creation at the dawn of time for a fledgling planet, hundreds of thousands of miles away, and yet so crystal clear and unafraid as he perused her millions of years of cosmic sentinel through a lens.  It was dwarfing, humbling, viscerally awe inspiring in a way he dared not voice for fear of snuffing out the fragile glow of wonder and excitement welling in his chest he had been so certain was gone forever.

Astronomy had never been something that had particularly interested Jon, back when his entire reality from the moment his childish hands had touched a single book was spent peering into shadows and watching his own back.  There was no point in wondering what lay among the stars when danger and death lurked so close behind with slavering jaws ever poised at his throat on terra firma, but now.  Now, he had been living in an alternate world, dimension, reality, somewhere, he couldn’t even say for sure.  He’d been hurled potentially through the very stars that twinkled coquettishly above, flashed through their nebulous veils and curtains under their indifferent gaseous gazes, but seen nothing.  Here was a vast expanse of complete chaotic indefiniteness inviting him in to see what few had ever seen, to guess and hypothesize and gesture wildly at secrets only the stars could keep.  To Know.

Jon had jerked back so suddenly from the telescope to survey the entirety of the astral dome above them that Martin had choked on his wine.

“Jon?  Are you quite alright?”

“Yes, I…” he’d murmured, only even half hearing that Martin had said anything at all, stars reflected in his wondering dark eyes, “I’m fine, I just… How… How much more can this see?  How deep does it go?”

Jon hadn’t seen the victorious smirk on Martin’s face as he set down his wine glass and picked up the instruction manual and lens guide.  They’d watched the rest of the eclipse, of course, marveling through the lens at the inky trickle of shadow over craggy white, but then they’d changed the lens to the strongest one, according to the guide, and spent the rest of the evening triangulating their position beneath their slice of the universe and plotting out the various stars, planets, and constellations above.  Jon had even dashed inside to grab a mostly blank notebook and had filled several pages with notes and observations and things to research later, all while Martin held back tears watching him come so alive over a project he didn’t even know he needed.  Eventually though, sleepiness and cold claimed him, and he kissed his beloved goodnight and left him, more than gladly, to ride out the intellectual flare up until it burnt both him and itself out.  

Martin had no clue what time it was when he finally returned, and it didn’t even matter.  All that mattered was at some point, a practically frozen Jon had climbed into bed, snuggled up close behind and wrapped his arms around him to kiss the back of his neck so softly like the wings of a butterfly and whisper.

“Thank you.”

Another victorious smirk and a loving murmur.

“Told you so.”

Where there had been nothing but an Eye shaped hole in him, scarred around the edges and aching in its vacuum, Jon had filled it with the names of nebulas and quasars, of the myth of Andromeda, and Orion, and Castor and Pollux, or Hercules, and why they had all been hung in the stars for eternity.  The stories were much the same as he remembered, but he’d found slight eccentricities, tiny irregularities in the sky which fascinated him even more so.  Night after night he would look at a different astral body, chart it down in his notebook, then come bounding in with starlight beaming from his eyes and his fingertips with some cry of eureka.

“Martin!  Did you know here Polaris is in the south and Sirius is in the north?”

“Martin!  Did you know the Andromeda Galaxy is actually a little closer to the Milky Way here?”

“Martin, you have to come see this!  Oh, no it’s not weird this time, it’s just I finally got Saturn in the telescope and you can actually see the rings!”

His nightly herald would always be different, but Martin would always rise from the comfort of the couch, put his slippers on, and let Jon talk as long as he needed to about his latest discovery, watching him smile again while he, too, watched the matching smile it never failed to ignite illuminate Martin’s face and they lit each other up in the fused brilliance of a binary star.

Martin no longer hung the moon for Jon, he’d finally just up and quite literally given it to him, and there was no mortal way to repay him for that.  Or so he’d thought.  It came to him, as most flashes of brilliance do, on a night he hadn’t even been thinking about it at all.  All he had been doing was sitting in a lawn chair with his telescope long after Martin had gone to bed, chewing his pencil idly, vaguely missing a cigarette and pondering notes on Vega and Lyra between watching it through his lens.  He’d been stuck for days on Vega and its potentiality for another solar system and what that could imply for their new Earth and their new sun, as well as Lyra and the tragic tale of Orpheus and his doomed love.  Even in their new reality he still turned back at the end of the story, still could not contain the roiling, effusive adoration to his own downfall.

Bitterness had risen like bile in the back of Jon’s throat as he replayed the myth again in his head, unsure why it was vexing him and rewinding in his brain so torturously.  “Stupid, stupid man, if he’d only just…” he’d thought again and again, each time giving the star-crossed musician a different decision, a different choice, urging him down another path somewhere, anywhere along his journey, but in the end, he’d always looped back around to the original.  It was the point of the story, after all.  Not so much the love itself or even the loss of it, but the power of it over one man and the creation born from his mourning and eventual destruction.  Patently Greek.  But the chorus would always begin again in Jon’s head.  If he’d kept his Eurydice, if his songs had been happy, if he hadn’t spent the rest of his life mourning so intensely he was eventually destroyed for it, would he have become the paragon of healing he was, the oracle, the lynchpin of the fate of the world he had eventually become?  Which of them was the stupider man?

Jon was only mortal now, he was no longer all-seeing oracle and dark savior, he had no authority to say, but it was a trifle easier to ponder the hubris of Orpheus instead of his own.  He couldn’t help but think, achingly, sometimes the heroes just deserved to pull their beloved from the pit of Tartarus, promise to love them for eternity, and then simply get married, ride off into the sunset, and live happily ever after.  A story wasn’t a story if it didn’t write itself upon the very bones and sinews of its heroes, that was the law of the universe, but when the story was done and the cracks and fissures in their tissues had faded to myth and legend, what became of the heroes who did not die a tragic or heroic death and were not hung in the stars?  What happened to heroes left behind?  Twisting his bloodstone ring on his thumb idly as it caught the shivering fire of those stars in its dark mirrored surface, the musical arrow of the muses pierced his heart, wide-eyed in wonder.  He’d asked the universe, but he already knew the answer.  He’d always known.  He knew, and he knew it with such clarion joy as he had never known anything before.

He could no longer be the man who hung Martin’s moon, he hadn’t been for a long time.  That much was clear to him, but he could certainly do something else.  Perhaps they had grown past the need for moon hangings in the first place.  He knew how their story ended.

It took months of saving, secreting, preparation, and then finally just simply waiting for the perfect, clear night.  The moment it came, the moment he knew it was the night, Jon struck without hesitation.  Poor Martin wanted nothing more than to collapse onto the couch, into Jon, when he returned from a late shift at the grocers, but found himself instead stuffed right back into his coat with a picnic basket in hand and hauled out into the frigid night in a flurry of Jon with little time to protest.  He bounded up the hill behind their little cottage beneath a perfect blanket of stars flaming coldly overhead, trailing Martin’s hand in his behind with his breath coming in silvery puffs of clouds, and paying no heed to the whining.

“Jon, whatever it is, does it have to be NOW?” Martin panted, “I am absolutely knackered and it’s beyond freezing and wouldn’t it be nicer just to curl up with a cuppa and fall asleep in front of Star Wars or something?  Doesn’t that have enough stars and space in it?”

Dauntless, Jon only tugged harder.

“There’s tea in the basket, and I’ve seen Star Wars.  And yes, it has to be tonight, it’s really important, I promise.”

“Look.  I love you.  So much.  You know this, and please know it is with the utmost love and deepest affection in my heart that I point out that you say that every time, and you’ve still shown me Pluto like, a hundred separate times.  While I quite like it, and I still feel sorry for it being bumped out of the solar system and all, it’s just a dot?  How many times can you look at a dot?” Martin sighed.

His words finally threw a caltrop into Jon’s warpath, and he paused, turning over his shoulder woundedly.

“What?  No, it’s not Pluto, I swear just- Please, Martin?  I’ll never ask again if you don’t want to, but just for tonight, please?” he pleaded.

Martin winced, and immediately folded under the onslaught of doleful honeyed brown eyes under a nimbus of stars.

“Oh, lord there you go with the puppy dog eyes.  Okay, okay fine, but there better be a nip of whiskey in this,” he chided lovingly with a gesture at the thermos in the basket.

The smile flared back to life brightly on Jon’s face as he turned back up the craggy little footpath to the top of the hill.

“Of course, hot toddy with tea.”

“Ooh, lovely, you do know me.”

The rest of the way was trivially short to the small, flat hilltop surrounded by heather where Jon had already set up a blanket and the telescope over a pristine vista of the dark line where the stars sank into the sea.  He ushered Martin to sit down first, then perched on his hip beside him and poured him a generous helping of tea and whiskey from the thermos before pouring his own.

“Thanks, much.  Right then, what exactly are we up here to look at that we couldn’t see from our garden?” Martin asked, accepting his cup of potent hot toddy and sipping it gratefully around the lemony steam that billowed up.

Taken aback by the sudden logic lobbed into the center of his romantic posturing, Jon looked momentarily stunned, as if someone had slapped him upside the head.

“Oh!  Oh, um, well-!  Ahah, that is to say- Uh.  There is a reason for all this.  It’s not that we couldn’t see it from our garden, we very much could have.  B-But it’s so beautiful up here, and you can kind of hear the sea?  And it’s nice and peaceful, and the heather is still blooming a bit and um…” he trailed off, cheeks burning.

“Okay…?” Martin probed, frowning a little.

“Er, actually...  It’s less about the stars than it is- W-Well it is about the stars.  Let’s get that clear.  But to be completely honest I mostly just… I-I well.  There’s something I need to tell you?”

Jon was ill-prepared for the look of abject horror on Martin’s face as he went paler than the moon overhead.

“Shit, what is it?  Did you find something?  You saw something?  There’s been a sign of The Fears?  Oh god it’s not HER is it?” he asked frantically, nearly slopping hot toddy all over his lap.

“What?  No!  No, none of that!” Jon spluttered, aghast.

Martin regained a modicum of color in his face and breathed in measuredly.

“Okay, so then what is it?  Oh god, you’re not… Jon you’re not ill, or something, are you?  Please, you can just tell me if-“

“No, I am not ill either, damn it, Martin!  If you would just listen to me!  I-!” Jon moaned exasperatedly, “I just wanted to do something… nice.  Something nice for you.  And nicer than I normally would because I am apparently much worse at crafting romantic moments than I thought and-“

“Wait…” Martin cut in, eyes gleaming with realization, “Jonathan Sims… Are you grand gesturing?”

“Well I am certainly trying but you are making it exceedingly difficult!” he retorted, red in the face and breathless.

“Oh my god, you are!  I’m so sorry!” Martin laughed brightly, “Oh god Jon you poor thing I’m so sorry, I’m awful, I’m the absolute worst!  No please!  Don’t let me spoil it.  Please go on.”

Grinding the heel of his palm into his forehead, Jon tried to summon the words again, only for Martin’s strong, warm hands to take it from him and tip his chin up to gaze into his eyes.

“Hey.  Hey, Jon.  Look at me,” he breathed, looking into his eyes idolatrously, “I’m sorry.  I love you.  You can tell me.”

Taking the steadiness from those clear blue depths he needed, Jon focused on them, on the strawberry blond curls tossing in the icy breeze, of the kiss of chilled pink under his freckles, and that eternal, sunshine smile.

“Okay,” he finally answered, smiling softly.

With a deep, shuddering breath, and a long swig of whiskey laced tea for good measure, Jon drew himself up and fished deep in his soul for the words he had waited a millennium to say.

“Okay… So here it is.  Um… I’ve um, I’ve had a lot of time alone lately with my new hobby, as it were.  So, I’ve been doing a lot of thinking.  A lot of it is overly complicated and ridiculous and doesn’t deserve to live outside of my head but… a lot of it has been about you, about us.  And I know we don’t need to-to put a label on us or put us into a… a box or anything like that.  But every time I look at this ring on my finger, I can’t help but remember we never actually talked about what they meant,” he began, holding out his left hand and fidgeting with the loose band around his thumb.

“Oh Jon, don’t worry about that.  It was just me being a big sappy, sentimental dork.  And if I recall correctly, we’d had a pretty awful row a night or two before, and I just wanted to feel close to you again, I guess?  We both know what they mean to us.  It doesn’t matter,” Martin assured him sweetly.

“Except that it does!” Jon insisted passionately, “That’s the point!  You are a big sappy, sentimental dork, Martin.  I bet you were the kid that had a dream wedding all planned in a notebook with pictures cut out of magazines and everything.  I adore that about you, but big sappy sentimental dorks should have big sappy, sentimental moments like huge, expensive seaside weddings with three-flavor cakes and all your friends and family and rose petals and dove releases and whatever else your heart could dream up.”

Martin snickered and shook his head, charmed at least by the mental image of kissing Jon on a seaside cliff at sunset while doves flew in glorious formation around them and everyone they had ever known and loved cheered.

“Pfft, I don’t need a grand wedding and all that, I just need-”

“Me.  I know,” Jon finished for him with a smirk, “I knew you’d say that.  Maybe not.  But you deserve one.  And I know I don’t use that word lightly, but it’s necessary in this case.  You deserve it.  All of it.  Me on one knee with a ring in a box, you deserve us picking out flowers and tuxedos and arguing over the font on the invitations.  You deserve Tim’s awful bachelor party and laughing at me at the altar because I had to read my vows off a card and they’re still so stiff and awkward and they pale in comparison to the beautiful poem you wrote about me.  You deserve smiling so hard your cheeks hurt and crying as we exchange rings.  All of it.”

Martin weighed his words carefully on his tongue with a sip of his boozy tea to chase away ghosts of things that never even were.

“I mean, sure, not going to say I never wanted that.  And I did have that stupid wedding notebook, by the way.  But all that became a pipe dream the minute we wound up here, right?  No use being upset about something that can never be.”

“That may be so, but the crux of it is… you also contented yourself with the idea of it never coming true not because we’re here, but because you didn’t think I wanted it,” Jon answered, his unspoken truth hanging heavy in the chill night air between them, “Every time you tried to tell me you wanted to be with me forever, I brushed it off and painted it gray and tucked it away and carried on the way we always were like nothing happened and it didn’t matter.  Because it was alright, really, you were just so happy to have what we have, that I didn’t die in your arms that night, that we were still together after everything.  That I at least kept that promise after I’d broken so many.  You were so grateful just for what you were gifted after we thought we would end with nothing you didn’t dare think to ask the universe for more and I am so, so sorry it took me so long to see that, Martin.  I’m so sorry.”

His voice broke.  The breath caught in Martin’s chest as he reached out to touch his wrist comfortingly.

“Jon, I-“

“No, please.  Please let me finish I… I can’t give you any of those things.  I can’t give you our friends back, I can’t give you cake and doves and the sunset and crying through vows in front of the vicar.  I can’t even give you an elopement at the register office because we still don’t legally exist.  And I guess for a long time I resented myself for that.  For all of it.  For stealing that from you, for dragging you through literal hell only to give you a shadow of a life stuck here with me because I betrayed you.  But- no stop, don’t say anything yet I’m not done.  B-But now I finally realize.  You’re right, Martin.  You were always right.  It doesn’t matter.  Those things are all just… things.  I said to you once, a long time ago, and I’m still not even sure if you really heard me, that I didn’t want to just survive.  It was true then, and maybe it wasn’t true for a while, but it’s certainly true again.  We did not fight tooth and nail to just survive.  We fought to live, and live together.  So what I’m saying is… I know now I don’t have to give you tuxedos and white roses as long as I give you something… Something to prove to you that you are my everything, my entire world, something to show you that I love you more than I have loved anything in my entire life.  That I want forever with you.  S-So I…” he trailed off, sucking in his breath to give his gesture of undying love the ardor and grandeur it deserved, “I bought us a star.”

The proclamation rang out like the toll of a bell, its gravity sonorous and quaking.  Martin blinked.

“You… I’m sorry?” he squeaked.

Jon set his empty thermos cup aside, flailed his hands in the air and shook his head frantically

“I-I know, I know it sounds mental just hear me out!” he protested, “Technically I didn’t buy the star, if we want to get picky about it.  I mean obviously no one can own a star.  Just the rights to name it?  It’s a thing you can do online.  I was a bit gobsmacked it was real to be honest.  I just had this silly idea when I was out looking at the stars.  I was looking at Lyra and thinking about you and Orpheus, and I… W-Well I just typed it in, ‘can you name a star?’ and it came right up.  Right then and there.  It um… comes with… hold on.”

Remembrance placed a gentle bookmark down on Jon’s fluttering thoughts, and he rummaged in the picnic basket for a moment before pulling out a navy-blue manila folder covered in stars and full of the paperwork and certificates that had come with registering theirs.  He handed it to Martin, who took it in place of his own empty cup, numb, muscles quivering under his jaw, and opened it to the glittering gold typeface that proclaimed ‘Congratulations!’.

“It comes with paperwork, too!  See?  So, it’s official, at least?  The Jon-Martin star.  Not a marriage license I know, but at least our names are together on something legal?  Our real names?  I figured even if we manage the fake identity thing we’d have to get married as not us.  Not really.  So…  I-It could be like our marriage certificate?” Jon explained, chewing his lower lip.

Martin said nothing as his hand turned the pages of the documentation, his eyes distant in a way Jon had never seen before.  Not disembodied and enthralled, not broken, not even regarding puzzle pieces.

“Oh!  Um, also I-I got us a binary star.  I forgot to mention that bit,” he went on, filling the sudden void, “It’s, ah- What a binary star is- It’s technically two?  But they’re caught up in each other’s gravity and they orbit each other so tightly they look like one star together, one that just shines a little brighter.  They’re bound together forever by the most powerful cosmic force in the universe.  Just like us.”

Only silence answered, punctuated by one last crisp whisper of paper, and then the folder closing with Martin’s spread fingers atop it, bloodstone gleaming in the vivid pale light of the night.  Jon’s heart pitched frantically in his chest, and desperate, stranded tears pricked at his eyes.

“I uh… I would have rather gotten us a whole constellation.  Heh, you know?  But they don’t do that, obviously,” he tried softly, his fingers barely brushing Martin’s knuckles, “They record heroes in constellations, after all.  Great deeds, doomed romances, lovers who can be together no other way… That would have been a better way to honor us, I think.  Our story.  A-And who knows?  Maybe back on our world there are a few new stars to remember what we did, to mark the place we left it, so that everyone we left behind can look up and remember us.  They don’t know how the story really ended, and they probably never will, but we do.  We do, and I want to end it right here, right now.  With our star shining above us ‘and they lived happily ever after.’”

Martin still said nothing, but his head bowed, casting a slice of shadow over his eyes, and his shoulders quivered as a thin, bright line of wet silver trickled down his cheek.  Jon felt the very sky shatter above and begin to crumble around him.

“Please… M-Make no mistake, Martin.  P-Perhaps the gesture is silly and meaningless, but it was all I could think to do to go with everything I’ve said tonight.  Martin… Martin, don’t you see?  These are my wedding vows to you.  This is me saying ‘I do’ and also ‘Martin K. Blackwood would you do me the honor of making me the happiest man in the universe?’  All at once.  This is me saying I swear to you I will be yours, through everything, until the end of time.  M-Maybe I wasn’t before.  Maybe I was still punishing myself, but I’m telling you, I’m ready now to have my happily ever after.  With you, Martin.  If you’ll have me.  If I haven’t-“

He would never finish.  In a dizzying blur of blue folder, flashing hematite, and a wreath of golden curls, Martin kissed the words off his lips.  He kissed him so hard and so fierce, through wracking sobs with his hands woven so raptly into his long, wavy locks he thought his lips would bruise and his fragile soul would finally shatter to pieces in Martin’s arms.  Undone, all Jon could do was surrender and kiss him back with equal passion, thumbing away the hot tears as they spilled freely down his cheeks and anointed them both with their cleansing, hoary heat.  Their lips parted and they panted softly against each other in the space between, each afraid to break the sacred, pulsing silence.

“You’re crying,” Jon whispered at length, “I’ve said something wrong. Martin, darling I’m so sorry.  I never meant to-”

Martin laughed, raspy with tears, but ethereal, sparkling, like stardust floating on the breeze.

“People are allowed to cry when they’re happy you stupid, silly man,” he murmured in between kissing him again, and again.

“Oh.  Oh.”

He kissed him one last time, that idiot man who always burnt the toast and always knew the facts but never knew what to say, who finally figured it out and bought him a star, and threw his arms around him, enveloping his slight, fragile form protectively in his embrace.

“I love you.  I love you so much.”

Jon sank into that warm, familiar comfort and buried his face in his shoulder.

“I love you, too, Martin.  I want to be yours for the rest of my life.  I want to be me, I want to be us.”

“I know.  I’ve always known.  Oh god, you do know that right?  I know that you love me, it’s written in everything you do and say.  I have never, ever once doubted you love me with everything you are.  Even in the moments I was afraid that… that maybe we just weren’t meant to be together, I still knew it wouldn’t be because you didn’t love me.  Never because you didn’t love me.  Just maybe that we didn’t fit together anymore,” Martin replied in a small voice through his tears as they spilled down his cheeks.

As much as he wanted to vehemently deny there was ever a chance they might have not fit back together again after they had both been so shattered, to kiss him and tell him not in a million years would there ever have been a future where they weren’t Jon and Martin against the world, Jon knew it to be inescapably true.

“I’m so sorry you ever had to be afraid of that,” he swore, digging his fingers into Martin’s back pointedly, “After everything.  After we fought so hard to escape fear itself.  That I almost let it truly win in the end.  That I couldn’t just let go… Because… Because this was never about The Eye, was it?”

A heave of breath and its shuddering exhale shook Martin’s body free of lifetimes of grief, and fear, of ugliness carried far beyond the borders of their souls.  His fingers curled tighter in unspoken reply.

“No Jon, no it wasn’t, but I’m so very glad you finally figured that out.”

“Me, too…” he whispered.

They held each other in the quiet wake of being a moment and let the astral plane wheel calmly overhead.  An impatient star twinkled.

“Wait… you never answered me,” Jon finally said as he pulled back, sliding his elegant fingers down Martin’s strong arms.

“Huh?” Martin blurted, scrubbing under his eyes with the sleeve of his coat.

“About marrying me tonight.  You never actually said yes, so…”

A twinkle in his eye and a slight mischief to his grin, Jon dove back into the picnic basket and emerged with a velvet ring box.  Martin’s hands flew to his mouth.

“You didn’t.”

“Of course I did!  Nothing fancy, but I thought it was high time to retire the blood rings,” he explained rising from his former perch on his hip to kneel properly.

The box cracked neatly open, and inside lay a simple, white gold band with a tiny circle of milky moonstone embedded in it on a midnight-blue satin cushion, blindingly bright against the dark.  Martin sobbed joyfully all over again.

“So, uh… I suppose if it had just been us, if we’d just been together, without everything, and we’d arrived at this moment.  I would have done much the same.  I would have brought you somewhere beautiful, somewhere I could teach you some inane fact you didn’t actually care about, but liked because it came from me.  Emulsifiers in ice cream and rum raisin…” they both snickered, “And I would have tried my best to make it into some sort of romantic metaphor but completely bunged it up and you would be laughing as I got down on one knee, just like this.  And it would have just been simple.  To the point.  Just… Will you marry me?  So…”

Jon assumed the traditional position, on one knee, arms outstretched, his every slender point a star in a perfect constellation of love.

“Will you marry me?”

Their eyes met, across a thousand different realities, across a thousand different worlds, carried on celestial winds to fall hopelessly, inexorably, into each other’s orbit.

“Yes, yes I do believe I will.”

With one last farewell kiss upon it for what it had meant for them both, Jon slipped the bloodstone ring from Martin’s finger and replaced it with the delicate band made of starlight.  It took its place radiantly, and shone as Martin drew his hand back to admire it with an equally radiant grin before it dimmed with concern.

“But what about you?” he asked worriedly as he watched the old ring entombed lovingly in the box.

Jon only smirked and produced a second box from the basket, which he offered on his open palm out to Martin.

“Naturally, I got one for myself.  Couldn’t pass up a chance to get a wedding ring that actually fits, could I?  It’s just… Don’t you think you deserve to give it to me the way you would want?” he urged.

Martin took the box eagerly, biting his lower lip in thought.

“Not sure you want to give me that freedom.  I had about five different ways of asking you in my head and all of them you would have hated so, so much.  But I’d be lying if I said that wasn’t kind of the point,” he answered wryly.

Jon chortled.

“Sorry I, the unromantic one, sprung this on you, the romantic one.  But I did want to surprise you.  I-I mean you can still write me a vows poem later?  If you want to, of course.  I’d love to have it, even if I don’t actually get to hear it at our wedding.”

Martin’s face flushed immediate crimson and his eyes darted coyly away as he toyed with the wedding band box in his lap.

“Oh that?  A-Actually I… I have it memorized, i-if you really wanted to hear it.”

“You- WHAT?” gasped Jon, his cheeks flushing in tandem.

“Oh yeah, I wrote my vows poem for you ages ago and I’ve gone over it so many times I know it by heart.  It was comforting, okay?  I-I’d read it again when times were good and I thought maybe you’d actually- um… a-and when times were not so good, when you were gone, in your own head, when I was afraid we were broken for good, whenever I needed it.  I’ve read it over a thousand times and never changed a thing from the first time I penned it.  Never needed to.  I’m surprised I haven’t recited it in my sleep at this point,” Martin admitted sheepishly.

Jon’s entire body flushed with a solar heat that melted his joints and his heart into a swirling flare of adulation.

“I can think of no better way, then, to receive my ring,” he breathed, reaching out to cup Martin’s cheek in his hand, “I’ve had my turn, now it’s yours.”

In mirror ballets of love exchanges, Martin cradled Jon’s hand against his cheek as he spoke the first lines of the vows etched ever on his being softly into his palm.

“Let he who, shadow dwelling, must In paper, pen, and book be bound Shake off the chains of dark and rust And chart his own bright fate unfound.

Let he with lifelong burdens borne Cut paper wings with thread of gold And hand in hand, the sky forsworn Flit clouds and sun in laughter bold.

Let he whose blood and soldier’s ken The world did shield from dark and fear Heal fast those wounds, be whole again And sleep at last, held close and dear.

Bring him to me with spirit free With stars in eyes and music sung From lips a joyful promise be One soul conjoined, one fate’s thread strung.

Two hearts rejoice in love renowned. We lift our heads, alive, uncrowned.”

He waited until the last couplet to pull the ring from the box and slide it onto Jon’s finger where it too, fit perfectly, like it had always been there, and shone defiantly bright in the moonlight.  Jon wept.  He had been weeping since the first words of verse left his beloved’s lips, but seeing that ring like a piece of his missing soul returned to him undammed the tears effusively.

“God that was… Martin, I don’t have words.  I-It was… so beautiful.  You’re so beautiful.  Thank you,” he cried fervently, “I wish I could tell you properly how much that meant, but I just-“

“Hey… That’s alright.  I’m the words guy.  You’re the emulsifiers guy.  Making you cry is all I need to see to know how you feel,” Martin assured him warmly, reaching out to brush his tears away as he chuckled.

“Yeah… add this one to the running tally.”

“Oh, I have,” Martin snickered, “Speaking of!  Now we’ve done the crying through vows bit.  Shouldn’t we say the ‘I do’ bit, as well?”

Jon pursed his lips with a shrug as he reached out with his left hand to take Martin’s left as well, twining their fingers together

“Yes, I suppose we should.  I don’t see why not.  Well then, Martin, do you?”

“I do.  And Jon, do you?”

“I do.”

“You may now soundly snog the groom.”

“Martin…”

The emphatic drawl of his name the way Jon only called it when he was frustratingly enamored of him perished gently against Martin’s velvet lips as they caressed his.  They kissed slowly and reverently, sealing a pact ordained by the heavens long before either of them had seen the stars in the other’s eyes, lighting with white flame the torch to guide them for the first time, forward.  They broke it only to punctuate it with two more featherlight kisses and a breathless laugh, bowing their foreheads together in deference to the forces of fate and the universe.

“I know this isn’t the wedding either of us ever dreamed of, but as far as I’m concerned, it was perfect,” Jon murmured, nuzzling closer into his husband, swaddling the new, fledgling and beautiful word in his heart.

“Well, hey, what is a wedding really other than just a formal declaration that this is it?  This is us, we’re forever, no matter what.  We did it.  And you did it for me, in the STARS, Jon… Can we just remember that again?  You put us in the actual stars.  I am so writing a ballad for our constellation later, you do know this.”

“Oh lord.  Of course you are.  But really, it was the least I could do, after you’ve done so much for me, sacrificed everything for me.  Waited for me for so long.”

“And you came back to me,” Martin reminded him passionately, “And I don’t just mean back to life, here, in this world.  I mean you came back, Jon, MY Jon, the Jon I was in love with the moment I laid eyes on him.  The fidgety and obstinate Jon who can’t make a decent cup of tea to save his life, who puts on two different socks in the morning because his nose is already in the paper or a book, who teaches me about bleeding rocks and binary stars and still reacts to the simplest acts of kindness like a warm cranberry orange scone without asking for one like they’re divine miracles he is undeserving of, who looks at me like I hung the moon or something every time.  Even when I thought I was a complete and total waste of a human being, you, Jonathan Sims, the most beautiful, amazing, brilliant man to ever walk the Earth, looked at me like I hung the moon.  And that was… Still is… everything to me.”

The heavens shifted, the stars wheeled, the last piece clicked smartly, smugly into place.

“W-What did you say…?” Jon asked with such urgency, grabbing his hands so fiercely, Martin startled.

“Wh-I-I don’t-?  Which part?  The moon hanging part?” he stuttered, rolling his eyes fondly as he realized mid-sentence, “Oh, right.  Ugh, Jon are you seriously going to get after me about your weird vendetta against idioms at our wedding?  Because if you are that would be annoyingly adorable and so intensely you and kind of perfect, but also can you not on THIS particular occasion?”

The laugh that tore from Jon’s throat was half mad, half euphoric as the weight of the moon lifted from his shoulders and became naught but an indifferent sentinel disc in the sky once more.

“No no no, it’s just… It’s funny, I had more than a few things very, very wrong for a very, very long time.  That’s all.  Don’t worry about it,” he explained, leaning in and pressing a delicate kiss to Martin’s forehead, “If you’re the one who hung the moon after all, then I suppose ‘written in the stars’ will have to do for me.”

Martin lit up with literary glee.

“Oh ho!  Two space related idioms in one go?  What a rare treat!  Maybe this is your gateway drug into puns…” he teased impishly.

“Absolutely no chance in hell.”

They both laughed, laughed with the billowing icy breath that reached with victorious fingers up to the heavens.  They laughed, messily sniffing back the pesky drip of tears and cold.  They laughed with lightness of the encumbrance of hematite armor shed, its bloody protections no longer needed to cage wounded hearts and keep them safe and close.  They laughed in breath and also in the dancing points of light in their eyes as they fell into one another free from gravity.

“So uh… Do I get to see my star tonight, or don’t I?” Martin finally remembered, relishing the utterly horrified yelp from Jon.

“Oh god I completely-!  Y-Yes!  Yes of course, it’s already set up at the proper coordinates!” he had already sprung to his feet, “Oh, though, hang on, it took longer to get to the star viewing part than I anticipated, so I might need to adjust it a bit.  Oh!  And I have a little strawberries and champagne, if you like?”

“I do like, please and thank you!”

Jon set to readjusting the telescope to the proper ascension and declination while Martin poured them two glasses of crisply bubbling champagne.  They twined their arms to drink a toast from each other’s glass, ‘to us’ or ‘to happily ever afters’, or to several other messily rambled toast worthy sentiments.  They couldn’t decide and toasted to all of it.  They ate plump red strawberries and licked the juice from each other’s fingers as they looked at their star, which was, after everything, just a dot, just like Pluto, but Martin had to admit that he rather liked looking at dots after all.  And that one was their dot.  The warm intoxication of love and champagne begged for music, and someone fumbled in the cold for a wedding playlist on some app, somewhere, it didn’t matter, just as long as they could join hands, gaze into each other’s eyes and dance inelegantly, stepping on each other’s toes, under the umbrella of stars in a gentle rain of moonlight.

“I don’t see your problem with cliches, idioms and all that, really…” Martin mused at length, laying his head on Jon’s shoulder as they slowly spun to the rhythm of a longing ballad and the song of the sea, “Like this stupid, great song.  They’re familiar and cozy and everyone knows them.  They’re like… like old friends.  Always there to rely on when we can’t come up with the words ourselves, because sometimes we can’t.  And if something trite and silly sums up the way you feel, why not just let it be?  Sometimes things are said over and over again because some truths are universal, you know?  They’re just… human.”

Jon pressed a kiss into the mop of curls that tickled his nose and smelled faintly of toasted sugar and lavender and mused on all of the romantic cliches that had just passed through his mind unbidden.  Who was he to deny he was but one star in the sky, a single gear in the grand mortal mechanism of the universe.  If he had handed himself over to the humanity of it all instead of rusting, stopping, looking outside where there was never anything to see, perhaps he could have had this dance much sooner.  It didn’t matter though, until it did, because that night Martin took his breath away, made his world go round, he was head over heels for his match made in heaven, and better than heaven, they were written in the stars.

“You know what, Martin?” Jon laughed in reply, “Tonight, being what it is, I am willing to concede.  You are absolutely right.”

“I’m glad…” came the tender acceptance, followed by a distinctly puckish beat of silence, “Then does this mean I can I start saying love you to the moon and back?”

“Don’t push your luck...”

#The Magnus Archives #TMA #Magnuspod #JonMartin #JMart #jmartweddingchallenge #hey-there-hunter #Jonathan Sims #Martin Blackwood #Fan fiction

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Like Old Times - Anyone You’d Like

this is the first thing I’ve written in about a year now, but I hope you enjoy it nonetheless. I’m not sure how frequently I’ll post things and some might be longer than other. Happy reading my lovelies! Tell me who you imagined it with! xx

"I don't understand how someone could be on 'good terms' with an ex", your friend piped up, putting the phrase 'good terms' in air quotations, when the topic of your most recent relationship popped up in conversation. You playfully rolled your eyes given that she'd told you that a billion times already, along with several other people, but it wasn’t like the break up was messy. You two were still civil, there wasn’t any tension between you. So why couldn’t the two of you stay friends? "I don't feel the need to make an enemy out of every ex I have", you replied, earning a laugh from the other girls as you threw a wink her way since she had a reputation to be a bit of a firecracker, and everyone knew it.

"If this cocktail wasn't so damn expensive, you'd be wearing it", she retorted as you shot her a look as if to say 'yeah right'. She wasn't wrong about you still getting on with your ex though. He was still very much a part of your life. You'd text him good luck occasionally on a match day if it was a particularly big game, or if he'd scored, you even had notifications for his team turned on on your phone to see how they were getting on. His parents even sent you a card a bouquet of flowers for your birthday a few weeks ago. He became integrated into part of your routine and you didn't want to offset it. Clearly your girls were against it though, they were never a huge fan of his in the first place. Saying you could do better. Saying he wasn't the one. Saying that whilst keeping little rituals like that in your life was lovely and all, that you'd never get over him - but you were over him. Definitely. Nevertheless, they supported you through the breakup as if they'd never said a bad word about him. Although, you couldn't miss the unimpressed faces they pulled when he walked into the club with his a couple of teammates.

"What's he doing here?" One of them were quick to comment as he made his way in the direction of the bar to get in a round of drinks. "Probably come to celebrate the win", you struggled and diverted your eyes away from him in a desperate attempt to avoid eye contact, that was the last thing you needed to throw you off the flow of a good night. "Of course you'd know", another one of your girls piped up and elbowed you in the ribbed mockingly, making your group laugh once again.

"I think it's mine turn to get drinks in, who wants what?" You slid out of the booth and grabbed your clutch from beside you. Your friends weren’t stupid, they knew exactly why you were so eager to get the drinks in but there was only so many times they could tell you that you weren’t right for each other.

"Passion fruit martini please" "Make that two!" "Vodka cranberry" "I think I'll pass this time, thanks" "Mines a rum and coke"

You nodded in an attempt to look like you'd remember what they'd just told you, but the second you properly laid eyes on him at the bar, their orders fell out your head almost instantly. He looked as good as he did the day you two broke it off. Dark ripped jeans, dark shirt with the top few buttons undone and sleeves cuffed a couple of times to show his arms that were glazed with a rich tan from his Dubai holiday that you'd seen plastered across his social media a few week ago, paired with silver watch that he'd bought himself last Christmas on his left wrist and grey trainers with hair styled neatly like it always was.

'Jesus Christ, keep your shit together', you scolded yourself for staring for too long but before you could tear your gaze away from him, he'd caught you in the act.

"You haven't change a bit, darling", a smug grin appeared on his face, using your pet name that you hadn't heard in months, as he rested a hand on your back, making you suddenly deeply regret your choice to wear a backless dress when you jolted under his warm touch. "Looking gorgeous, as ever", he added and leaned down a little further meaning you could smell the familiar scent of his cologne and fabric softer of his shirt when you inhaled heavily to compose yourself. You’d intended on going over to him, but the thought process hadn’t got as far as to what you were going to say to him, nor did you know why you felt the need to interrupt your girls night out to see him.

"Thank you, congrats on the win this afternoon", you replied, thanking him for his compliment that could have easily been mistaken for a flirty comment. ‘You haven’t changed either’, you thought when his arms tenced slightly when he leaned against the bar, allowing yourself a subtle glance over him - but eager to not fall for his charm a second time so changed the topic of conversation quickly. "Thanks, darling. How have you been?" You made polite conversation for a while, just like old times. With the drinks order for your group of friends long forgotten and presumably the same for him, you made your way outside with him as he guided you through a back exit, his hand still on your back.

"Seeing anyone new?" He asked out of the blue, initiating a conversation that you really didn't want to discuss with him and it confused you as to why he'd brought up the topic all of a sudden. "Nope, not been seeing anyone for months", you popped the 'p' on nope. Your response made him raise his eyebrows at you, pulling an expression that, even after an 18 month long relationship, you couldn't read what it meant. You weren’t going to tell him that he was in fact the last person you’d seen as that might give off the wrong message that you weren’t over him.

"What about you? Surely you've had girls practically throwing themselves at you?" You scoff involuntarily, sounding overly bitter. Yuck.  Clearly your comment caught him off guard because it was one of the few times his cool, calm demeanour had flaked away, resulting in you looking flustered. "No one actually, how could I when I see pictures on your Instagram of you looking that good". He eyed you up and down, shamelessly flirting with you, passing the flustered feeling over to you as you shifted under his gaze for a second as he took in your appearance better than he could when you were in the club. Strappy heels that he knew hurt your feet but made your legs look incredible, that short backless dress that he'd be thinking of taking off you since the second he laid eyes on you, hair curled at the ends so it bounced below your shoulders blades and light makeup, because you had no one to impress - or so you thought when you left your apartment.

"If you didn't like it, you know where the unfollow button is", you told him, trying not to sound defensive. "Who said I didn't like it?" He was quick to throw back his response with his signature smile plastered on his face, the same smile that had you falling for him the first time. Whilst you mustered up something to say, he began to lean in closer again allowing you to inhale the same familiar mixture of scents that intoxicated you less than an hour ago. You watched his eyes flutter shut with parted lips as his head tilted to the side, it was a natural reaction of yours to mirror his actions as you leaned in closer too. His hand on your back pressed more firmly against it to pull you closer whilst one of yours instinctively went to run through his hair and then settle on the back of his neck. The kiss was tentative, neither of you really wanted to take control in fear of losing the other one again.

“I’ve missed this”, he said as he continued to move his lips against yours, snaking his hand round to rest on your waist. You pulled away from his abruptly after that and leant your forehead on his. “Don’t say or do anything you might regret. It’s the alcohol talking”, you stated and looked at him, lips almost touching again. “You saw me walk in, I’ve not had a drink all night”, he told you and pulled away so the warmth of his body no longer comforted you as the atmosphere around you both suddenly became heavy. He was right though. You were the only one that was intoxicated after a few shots and two cocktails.

“I want you back”, he confirmed bluntly and tried to make eye contact with you but you denied him. “Okay - but we need to talk about this, not here”, you gestured to him, he nodded in agreement as a group of people stumbled out of the door, after clearly consuming more alcohol than they could handle. It had also started to drizzle slightly, the moisture weighing down the loose curls in your hair. “Come back to mine? Please?” His gaze still on you when you met his eyes but were deep in thought given his invitation. You weren’t prepared to let him smooth talk you into his bed like you knew he was capable of doing, and catch feelings again, only resulting in you tearing yourself apart again when he dips out of your life. Over the months that you’d been apart, you’d learnt your own worth - he wasn’t going to have you that easily.

“Okay”, you nodded as a grin appeared on his face. “But only to talk”, you added making him laugh and sling an arm round your shoulder. “Of course, babe. What else?” He raised an eyebrow at you and threw you a cheek wink before knocking on the window of a taxi that was parked nearby. “Have I told you how good you look in that dress?” You jabbed him in the ribs and rolled yours eyes, hoping that the dim streetlights would hide your blushes. “Don’t you dare say what I know you going to!” You warned him, knowing he was going to make a comment about how he thought the dress would look better on his bed room floor. He threw his head back as a laugh left his lips whilst a hand casually fell onto your thigh when he sat down next to you, just like it had done hundreds of times before. You laced your fingers over his, content with the company you were in.

#ben chilwell #football imagine #james maddison #kai havertz #mason mount #christian pulisic #dele #harry winks #jason sancho #jack grealish #dominic calvert lewin #tyrone mings #premier league #footballer imagine #trent alexander arnold #jude bellingham #marcus rashford #eric dier #john stones

[whenisitenoughtrees]

Prompt 59: “You’re so drunk.” Janus saying it to his boyfriends Patton and Remus? Both who ended up drinking a little more than planned lol

thank you for this prompt!! this is probably one of the fluffiest things i’ve written in my whole life

prompt list here (prompts currently open!)

Title: and days of auld lang syne

Word Count: 1,778

Content Warnings: alcohol consumption, vague sexual innuendo

(fic masterpost)

In his defense, he doesn’t mean to lose his boyfriends. But Remy’s house is very large, and there are a lot of people here, a lot of chatter, a lot of food, a lot of champagne flowing, and that makes it incredibly easy to get sidetracked. He spends about an hour discussing obscure philosophers with Logan, and then Dot and Larry draw him into conversation for almost as long, and by the time he realizes that he has no idea where Patton and Remus have gotten off to, it’s nearly midnight.

And that simply will not do. He’s not bringing in the new year without his boyfriends by his side. It’s tradition, after all, and he’ll admit, he’s just a bit concerned about the fact that he hasn’t seen them since just after they arrived. Usually, he is confident in Patton’s ability to curb Remus’ most foolish impulses, but in a crowd like this, with this kind of festive atmosphere? There is no telling what kind of mischief Remus might think up, and even Patton’s most disappointed stare might not be enough to stop him.

So, he goes looking, which turns out to be a more monumental task than he thought. Because really, why does Remy own such a huge house? How does he have so many friends? It’s truly ridiculous, and Janus is getting tired of navigating through all these people, half of whom are strangers and all of whom are decidedly not who he is looking for. He is excellent at putting on a show of politeness even on his worst days, but he can feel his smile wearing thin around the edges, can feel his eye begin to twitch.

But finally, he bumps into Virgil, who rolls his eyes and directs him to the second floor balcony, the one overlooking the back gardens. He makes his way there with no small measure of relief, and finds that the second floor is, at least, less crowded, which does wonders for his mood. He pushes the balcony doors open, and feels the tension drain from him as he lays eyes on his boyfriends, sitting on the floor and leaning in toward each other, whispering conspiratorially.

He clears his throat.

“Is this an exclusive meeting,” he asks, “or might I join you?”

Both Patton and Remus swivel their heads toward him, the motion almost in perfect unison. And that is when he first gains the inkling that something is off here; there are no lights on the balcony except for the stars, but the illumination from inside spills from the still-open doorway and across their faces, highlighting the flushes on their cheeks, the dilation of their pupils. And as they both stand, their legs seem unsteady, wobbly, as if the floor is rocking beneath their feet. Or at least, as if they think it is.

Patton reaches him first, a wide grin splitting his lips. He stumbles, and Janus reaches out to steady him, grasping his arms, and Patton beams at him as if he hung the moon.

“Hi!” he exclaims, far too loudly for the lack of distance between them. “I’m so happy to see you! Remus, look, it’s Janus!”

Remus has reached him by now, too, and he slings an arm around both Janus’ shoulder and Patton’s, leaning in close. He is steadier on his feet than Patton is, but only just, and Janus can smell the alcohol on his breath.

“Give him the thing!” he insists, somewhat ominously, and just as loud as Patton. Janus winces as his eardrums protest the noise’s proximity, but his attention is distracted by Patton, who giggles and nods, taking his arms back from Janus and reaching into his shirt, pulling out— something. Janus can’t tell what it is; it’s too dark, and Patton moves too quickly, shoving whatever-it-is roughly onto his head. He frowns, raising a hand to touch it, trying to figure out what his new adornment is, but Patton pouts at him, yanking his arm back down.

“Don’t take it off!” he pleads. “We match now!”

Remus nods in eager agreement, and Janus squints at both of them, trying to figure out what they’re talking about. It only takes a moment, now that he’s looking for it; they both have circlets of vine resting atop their heads, clumsily tied together but seeming to hold up just fine. They appear to be made of more leaves than anything else, but they are speckled with delicate white flowers. He has to admit that it’s a lovely effect, overall, and he can’t bring himself to complain about being made to wear one.

“So we do,” he says. “Dare I ask where you got these from?”

Remus grins at him and points at the far corner of the balcony, where a mess of vines curls over the railing. There are clear signs of tampering, of some vines being torn off and flowers being plucked, and Janus hopes that Remy is not particularly attached to this plant. Also in that corner, he notes, are a great many discarded champagne glasses.

“Found ‘em!” Remus proclaims proudly, and Patton giggles.

“He was trying to jump off the balcony, and, and into the pool,” Patton says, using a tone that is clearly meant to be a confidential whisper, but doesn’t quite make it there. “I told him no, ‘cause then he’d be all wet—”

“—and I told him that I’d just take off my clothes—”

“—and then I told him that we had to wait until we get home until we do that, and then I saw the flowers and I thought we could make you something instead!” Patton smiles again, wide and bright, like a puppy eagerly seeking approval. He grabs Janus’ sleeve, tugging on it slightly. “Do you like it? It’s pretty, just like you!”

Janus can feel his face heating up, and hopes that the darkness conceals his blush. “Of course I like it,” he says, and Patton rocks back and forth on his heels, delighted, while Remus thrusts both fists into the air and lets out a loud whoop, a noise that gets lost in the veritable din coming from inside, and from the people that have begin to spill outdoors in anticipation of New Year’s fireworks. And seeing them both like this, so happy and content, he can’t help but smile back at them, shaking his head. “You’re so drunk,” he says, and he’s glad that no one else is around to hear how his voice turns disgustingly fond.

Remus nods rapidly, eyes wild, but Patton frowns at him. “Nooooooo,” he moans, and pitches forward, throwing all of his weight against Janus’ chest. He barely manages to keep them both upright. “’M not drunk, ‘m jus’ having a whole lotta feelings.”

Remus cackles, launching himself forward and into the two of them, and this time, Janus can do nothing to prevent them all from tumbling to the ground in a tangled heap. He grunts as both Patton and Remus land firmly on top of him, but he can’t be angry, not now, not tonight, not with the two of them here with him, no matter how inebriated they might be. Patton starts to giggle again, burying his face into Janus’ shirt.

“Whole lotta feelings ‘bout my butt!” Remus proclaims, plastering himself against Janus’ side and hooking one leg over both of his.

“Maybe later,” Patton informs him, his voice muffled, and Janus breaks at that, dissolving into laughter.

He can’t move. Can barely breathe, with the weight of both of his boyfriends pressing against his chest. But the stars are shining bright above them, glittering and twinkling just past the roof, and in the distance, the night sky blooms into reds and greens and golds as the fireworks begin, and there is absolutely no place that he would rather be.

“I love you both so much,” he says, and Remus sighs contentedly, snuggling in closer. Patton shifts, resting his head just above Janus’ heart.

“We love you too,” he says, voice slurred. “More than, more than anything. More than puppies. More than cookies, and, and—”

“And worms,” Remus supplies, “an’ more than brains, an’ zombies, an’ blood an’ guts. More than butts, even.”

Patton hums. “More than butts,” he agrees, and then after a brief pause, “But you do have a nice butt.”

And they both fall back into giggling at that, and Janus joins them, their joy utterly endearing, utterly infectious. He loves them. He loves them so, so much, and to this day, he has no idea how he can be so lucky as to have them, what he did to deserve Patton’s cheer and aching kindness, Remus’ eccentricity and unstoppable enthusiasm. They are all so different from one another that some days, he is still surprised that they fit together as well as they do, but he has never once stopped being grateful for it, grateful for them.

From both inside the house and below the balcony, there comes the unmistakable sounds of counting.

Ten. Nine. Eight.

He wraps his arms around them as best he can from this position. Patton takes up the count under his breath.

Seven. Six. Five. Four.

Remus wriggles in even closer, grasping at both of them, practically vibrating in his excitement.

Three. Two.

One.

The cheer rises up all around them, and Janus has no time to react before Patton is smacking a wet, sloppy kiss against the corner of his mouth, followed shortly by Remus doing the same, but only managing to capture his upper lip. And  he watches in amusement as they attempt to kiss each other, too, their noses bumping clumsily against each other as they try to find purchase.

He laughs. “Come here, you two,” he says, and smiles at both of them as they turn to look at him. Patton ducks down first, and Janus kisses his lips, gently, softly, and Patton sighs in contentment. And then it is Remus’ face hovering above his, waiting his turn with a patience uncharacteristic of him, and Janus kisses him just as sweetly. And they both settle against his sides as the fireworks pop and roar and bloom, brightening the night into day and ushering in the new year. There is sound and there is music, and there is joy and there is laughter, the party still in full swing, but he feels no need to join it, because he has his joy and his laughter right here.

The new year is a time of resolutions, and in this moment, he makes his: to keep this, to keep them, now and forever and always.

General Taglist: @just-perhaps @the-real-comically-insane @jerrysicle-tree @glitchybina @psodtqueer @mrbubbajones @snek-boii @severelylackinginquality @aceawkwardunicorn @gayerplease @elizabutgayer @dwbh888

#deintruality #intrualiceit #janus sanders #ts janus #patton sanders #ts patton #remus sanders #ts remus #my fic #cat does prompts #*chants* first prompt! first prompt! first prompt! #this was a joy and a pleasure to write