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secretobsessionstuff · 3 years

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Infection

Here is the Dakota infection fic that I mentioned before! There is emeto in this because I can't resist.

Content Warning: Description of infected wound, blood, vomiting

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The smell of grilled sausages greeted Dakota before he opened his eyes. They were having a real fire-cooked breakfast that morning because Blair insisted on making the most of their camping trip. It didn’t matter that there were muffins in the car; they were in the great outdoors, and they would act like it, gosh darn it!

Madix and Riley appeared to only have gotten half the message because they were fine with roasted hotdogs, but not so eager to leave their phones in the cars. At least there was good music coming from the speakers. Ah Ariana Grande—the sound of nature.

It took Dakota’s groggy mind a second to remember that he spent the night in a tent, but his achy muscles soon reminded him. Actually, his whole body hurt as if he ran up and down a hill all day yesterday.

Oh wait, he did do that.

The four of them had walked to the lake where they found a rope swing attached to the biggest tree. It was the perfect spot for launching themselves into the water because of the hill that the tree grew from. So, they spent the day running back and forth between the water and the rope.

Their perfect camping grounds were hardly a secret, but that was okay because it meant someone provided them with a rope swing. Unfortunately, it also meant that the ground was littered with metal and glass from disrespectful campers. They picked up as mush as they could find before doing flips off the rope.

Apparently, they didn’t have the best eye for trash because Dakota’s foot found a piece of a glass bottle that they missed. He had been coming back from the water, soaking wet with the biggest grin on his face, ready to jump again, when the glass shard cut into the bottom of his foot. Now Dakota, like the campers who littered in the first place, had been quite drunk. He felt the pain, certainly, but he soon forgot about it when the water washed the blood away. Until he got back to the campsite where he covered the cut with a bandage, he walked around with his skin torn open.

Dakota didn’t know it, but that cut was what made him wake up with the sickest stomach, and it was the cut that would eventually make him collapse during a hike. Well, not the cut, but what got into it.

The bandage was still on his foot when he woke that morning to the smell of breakfast being cooked. The smell turned his upset stomach, forcing him to crawl out of the tent.

Everyone was already awake, meaning he must have slept in if Riley was up before him. Blair was kneeling by the fire, turning the sausages as they cooked. Madix and Riley were sitting in their camp chairs around the fire, munching on peanuts. Chipmunks joined them for breakfast as well. The little animals scurried to where Riley held his hand open. When Dakota zipped open the tent, his friends all looked his way.

“Morning, baby!” Blair called. Her hair was in a messy bun that Dakota knew for sure wasn’t done deliberately. She looked sunny and wonderful.

“How did you two sleep?” Madix asked while shooting a glance at Riley. “Hopefully, nobody invaded your sleeping bag in the night.”

“Hey, I told you I got cold.” Riley countered. “And I heard a noise that sounded suspiciously like a bear.”

“And I told you there are no bear sightings in this forest.”

“Fine, it was a fox then.”

“What does—”

Dakota didn’t listen to his friend’s playful banter. It was a lovely morning with lovely company, but he wasn’t feeling so lovely. Everything from his head to his feet hurt, and one foot hurt more than the other. It almost felt like he had the flu, with burning eyes and aching muscles.

What made the morning even lovelier was seeing Blair so smiley. That at least helped how he was feeling. God, he really hoped he wasn’t getting the flu in the middle of the forest.

“I slept okay,” Blair said as she placed the sausages on a paper plate, “How about you, Kota? You’re waking up pretty late.”

Dakota couldn’t remember anything disrupting his sleep, but the fatigue in his bones made him question his answer. “I slept fine, but I feel weird.”

“Weird how?” Madix asked, accepting a plate from Blair.

“I don’t know. A little sick.”

“Well, you look sunburnt,” Riley said. “It’s probably from the heat.”

“Maybe.” Dakota shrugged and crossed his arms over his middle. The smell of the food was getting to him bad. It churned his stomach, reminding him of the reason he crawled out of the tent. He really didn’t want to worry Blair and take the smile away from her face, but he could feel the need to puke getting stronger. His mouth filled with saliva, and not because he was hungry.

While his friends ate, he pulled himself out of the chair and began walking away. He had to get far enough away so he wouldn’t upset Riley. Running wasn’t an option he discovered, as he needed to keep weight off his injured foot.

Dakota barely got twenty feet away from the fire before bending over with his hands on his knees. He only needed to burp once. The belch dislodged something in his stomach and suddenly he was retching up last night’s dinner onto the ground.

“Oh shit.” He heard Madix say. He didn’t know what Riley was doing, whether he was running away or covering his ears, but he felt bad either way. He hoped Riley was running away because he wasn’t close to being done.

By the time the second gush rushed up his throat, Blair was by his side. She patted his back as mostly-digested burgers and smores splattered at their feet. “Easy, babe.”

Dakota didn’t take it easy. He didn’t know how. He threw up everything in his stomach without stopping. He was hot and sweaty when he finished. Rather than feeling light-headed, he felt the opposite. His head pounded as if someone were trying to shove a million cotton balls in through his ears.

“Sorry,” he said simply while wiping his mouth. “That happened fast.”

Blair was still rubbing his back. “Are you hungover or something?”

“I don’t know.” This felt different from a hangover. He wanted to let his legs go out from under him. He wanted to lie down forever. He also didn’t want to stop Blair from having a good day.

“Are you okay? What do you need?” she asked, like he knew she would. She started leading him back to the tent with a comforting hand on his shoulder.

He let out a groan as he entered the tent. “I need to go back to sleep. I’m fucking exhausted.”

From outside, he heard Madix and Riley come back to the site. Madix poked his head into the tent. “Hangover or heat exhaustion, that is the question.”

“I’m sorry, Mads. I’m so sorry.” Dakota said with his hand over his eyes.

“Don’t feel bad. You couldn’t help it.” Madix looked back, probably checking on Riley. “Now, did you drink too much, or do I need to worry about heat stroke?”

God, no, Dakota thought to himself. Madix would undoubtedly make them pack up their tents if he had heat stroke. He didn’t think he was sick from drinking, but he wasn’t about to end their trip so soon. “I’m probably hungover. I just need to sleep it off.”

“Are you sure, baby?” Blair cooed while running her hand through his hair. “You don’t look good.”

“Listen, you guys go to the lake this morning while I rest, and I’ll be good to go on the hike this afternoon.”

Blair put two water bottles by his pillow. “You have to promise to drink lots of water.”

“I will, I promise.”

His friends eventually agreed to leave him in the tent to rest. Everyone wanted him to get better so that he could enjoy himself later.

Everything will be fine; it isn’t heat stroke. Dakota’s groggy mind replayed this sentence until he fell asleep.

He was right about it not being heat stroke, but wrong about the other thing.

…

Rustling in the nearby bushes woke Dakota from his nap. Checking his phone, he realized that he slept for nearly four hours. He let his head fall back onto his damp pillow. The nausea was slightly better, but everything else was worse. Every part of his body was throbbing in pain so maybe that’s why he didn’t bother to check the heat emanating up his ankle. Besides, there was enough heat on his forehead to roast that night’s marshmallows. The water bottles that Blair gave him were still full and now warm. He was sweating out every ounce of fluid left in his body, but the thought of filling stomach with liquid made him want to zip himself up into his sleeping bag and use it as a casket.

The rustling got louder and was accompanied by voices. It was his friends returning from the lake. For some reason Dakota suddenly thought that chugging the water bottles would make everyone happy. It would ease Blair’s worries about him being sick, and maybe it would even give him the energy to get up. And he wanted to get up so bad, so that’s what he did. He quickly found clothes in his duffel bag that would be good for hiking.

The water sloshed in his stomach as he greeted his friends around the firepit. He braced himself on the back of a chair and put a smile on his face.

“Hey, how are you feeling?” Blair asked. She got up on her tiptoes—a sign for Dakota to bend down so she could kiss him.

“Better. I think a hike will be good for me.” Said no one ever who just finished puking their guts up. Dakota just said it, but he was a liar.

Apparently, he was a good liar. “Yay!” Blair exclaimed while swapping her flip flops for running shoes.

It wasn’t long before the group was ready for their hike. It was an uphill hike. Yippee, Dakota thought. It also wasn’t long before he started to fall behind in the marching order. Blair led the charge with Riley. The two of them played twenty questions while leading the way. Madix fell back as well. Dakota wasn’t being very subtle in his suffering. He knew that Madix was keeping an eye on him.

He huffed his way up the trail, feeling worse with every step. Feeling even worse with every other step as his right foot momentarily held his weight. He was back to being nauseous and dizzy, and feeling like the sky switched places with the earth. With how blurred his vision was, Dakota was surprised that he didn't trip. Maybe it would be okay to trip. It would give him a second to rest on the ground.

Aw hell, he didn’t need an excuse to rest.

Dakota called out to Madix in a weak voice. Luckily, Madix heard him even when a coughing fit broke up his request to stop. The coughing turned into gagging and forced Dakota back into the position from that morning with his hands on his knees. It was the sound of him gagging that made Madix call out to Riley and Blair, telling them to keep walking. He and Dakota would catch up soon.

Madix carefully stepped around protruding branches to reach his friend. “Why don’t you sit down.” He gestured to a group of large rocks on the side of the trail. Well, he picked a good place to stop.

Dakota held up a finger and then heaved up the water that sloshed and gurgled in his belly. It didn’t take many retches before the water was gone, leaving only bile left to throw up. One harsh retch had him toppling to the ground where he finished being sick on his hands and knees.

“Jesus, Kota,” Madix said while helping him up. “What, are we back in our undergrad?” He meant it as a joke; a throwback to the dorm room hangovers that made even water impossible to keep down. Madix’s easy expression turned serious when Dakota sat on the rock with his head in his hands. He looked bad. Far too sweaty for how little they walked. And something else seemed wrong. Madix put his hand on Dakota’s shoulder. “Hey, are you shaking?”

Dakota was indeed shaking. Shivering in the summer heat. “This is gonna sound ridiculous, but I’m cold.”

Madix frowned. He moved the hand that was on Dakota’s shoulder to the back of his neck. His skin was burning hot and slick with sweat. That wouldn’t have been too weird, but it was the shivering that worried Madix. “I think you have a fever. Something is making you sick and it isn’t the booze.”

Dakota was hardly listening. Everything hurt. He didn’t have the energy to theorize with Madix about what was making him feel like garbage. The ache in his head and his stomach was nothing compared to the throbbing inside his shoe.

“Dakota, are you hearing me? I want to take you back to the campsite.”

The boy didn’t move. He didn’t say anything as he bit his tongue in pain.

“Dakota?”

The shaking of his shoulders managed to pull him out of trance. “Sorry, sorry it’s my foot. It’s killing me.” He couldn’t take the pain anymore and kicked off his shoe. “I cut it the other day and it still hurts like hell.”

“Let me see,” Madix said, moving off the rock to get a better look. Immediately, the red and yellowish stain on Dakota’s sock made him worried.

Once Dakota took off the sock and the bandage, Madix recoiled with a hand over his mouth. “Oh God, fuck, why didn’t you say anything?” The smell hit Madix first. It wasn’t as bad as some wounds that he’d seen at the hospital, but it still caught him off the guard.

The cut was deep enough to warrant stitches, but the biggest problem was the yellow pus leaking from it. The entire bottom of his foot was red and swollen. After getting over the sight of the cut, Madix started thinking about how painful it must be to walk on.

“Is it bad?” Dakota asked, though he already knew the answer from the look on Madix’s face.

“Yeah, it’s bad. It’s infected.”

“Can you fix it?”

Madix shifted on his knees, trying to see the cut from a better angle. “If you showed it to me before it got this bad, then maybe, but not now. You need to go to the hospital.”

“Shit,” Dakota mumbled as he carefully put his sock and shoe back on.

Madix helped Dakota up and let him lean on him. “Shit is right. God, why do you make me worry so much?”

“It’s gonna make Blair worry too.” She was going to be even more upset than Madix. He hated being the reason she was upset. And it wasn’t even because he cut the trip short, but because he didn’t take better care of himself. “If only I weren’t so lovable.”

“Ha, you won’t have to worry about that anymore,” Madix said breathlessly. It was a lot harder to hike when a whole person was hanging off your arm. “See, all the appeal was stored in your foot, and now we’ll have to cut it off.”

Shockingly, Madix was being facetious. There would be no foot chopping that day, or any day. There might be a scolding from Blair but that was it. The cleaning of the wound would hurt less than the look of concern that Blair would wear. It was that look that would eventually make Dakota paranoid about treating every single cut, no matter how small. He could never see that look again.

#emeto #emetophilia #emeto fic #emeto fiction #infection #fever #infected wound #tw blood #Dakota #Blair #Madix #Riley #vomiting #puking #camping #my ocs #sickfic

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backdraft-bimbo · 3 years

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rule number two

After years of avoiding his trauma, Bucky finally confides in Sam.

Words: 2893; Chapters: 1/1

James "Bucky" Barnes/Sam Wilson; Episode: s01e02 The Star-Spangled Man Coda

ao3 link

“Why don’t you get some shut eye, Buck? It’s gonna be a long ride home.”

Bucky glances at Sam from his makeshift cargo perch across the fuselage. The bags under his eyes must be getting bad. Leah gave Bucky the impression last week that he needs concealer for his skin or something. But he’s a 106-year-old ex-assassin; who the hell is he trying to impress at this point?

After a few seconds pass, Bucky notes that he should probably respond instead of just staring blankly, because that’s what people do, right? They talk to each other, they share, and they trust so easily. It’s such a simple question, but Bucky’s urge to deflect any possible social interaction has decided to rear its ugly head tonight. Sam can’t be a fan of it either, since he’s the charismatic one of the two of them. He’s not the guy with the staring problem.

It’s just… Bucky doesn’t have normal conversations without being reminded of the restored freedom to speak his mind. The habits HYDRA drilled into his brain incite an unpleasant knee-jerk reaction– don’t speak or they’ll beat you –but Bucky has gotten better at managing the vestiges of his trauma. At least now he’ll be able to defend himself if his careless mouth puts him in hot water. And maybe he could just be honest with Sam; it wouldn’t hurt anything. But that almost kindles a burst of laughter in Bucky: the concept of himself not hurting somebody. What a world that would be.

Don’t get him wrong–Bucky used to like talking to people. He used to be good at it. But that was a long time ago; far longer than anyone should be able to recall. Even now, Bucky’s early 20th century days as a staff sergeant feel like a distant dream. He almost misses the wartime; when everything was simpler. Sure, it was bloody and violent and horrible, but at least Bucky knew how to fucking talk to people he considered friends. When it comes to his loose tongue nowadays, there’s an ugly history waiting to make an unwanted appearance; bared teeth and all.

“I don’t,” Bucky answers finally, his voice trembling a fraction more than he’s comfortable with. He doesn’t think he can do more than two syllables right now. If Bucky somehow musters up the courage to tell Sam about his nightmares, he won’t make it through a single sentence without bursting into tears like a twelve-year-old.

The fact that Sam could somehow see Bucky’s eye bags across the shadowy fuselage does not convince Bucky that Sam didn’t hear that slight embarrassing waver in his voice. But even if he did, the guy doesn’t comment on it. Sam has been laying in a supine position on the flight seats for the past hour, drifting in and out of sub-consciousness, and really, he’s the one who looks damn tired. It’s been a long day for both of them; they’re bruised and achy after their loss against the Flag-Smashers–more proof that Bucky shouldn’t bother Sam.

But this is here and now. The sky is starless as a humming inky black abyss, the RS-834 cruising about 40,000 feet above sea level, far beyond the stratus clouds, and everything feels tranquil in that seldom gentle way it does sometimes. It’s as if the world consists only of Sam Wilson and Bucky Barnes, and that illusion is a tremendous comfort to the ex-assassin. When it’s clear that Bucky isn’t going to elaborate, Sam lets his neck muscles relax, drooping his head back to face the opposite wall that reflects the drowsy slur of his voice.

“C’mon, man...I know at least three percent of your body is metal, but that don’t mean you never sleep.”

Bucky pauses. Tries not to glance at his left arm. He has to be careful; guys like him have a tendency to overshare when it’s late. It’s just that something about the night brings a facade of protection, as if anything he says can be written off as a dream, so he can bare himself to the bone in front of anyone he wants. It doesn’t matter since it will be forgotten in the morning. The night is unreliable, thus Bucky uses that to his defense.

“Aren’t you worried I’m gonna like...”

“Kill me?” Sam snorts, a bit of energy returning to his voice. “I think if either of us really wanted to kill the other, one of us would be lying in a heap by now. Just saying.”

Bucky can’t argue with that. Like Dr. Raynor so elegantly puts it, it is so sad, but Sam is probably Bucky’s only real friend at this point. Add that with the fact that he doesn’t really want to kill anyone anyway, and someone who doesn’t know better might call what Sam and Bucky have a “healthy relationship.” Bucky swings a hand around Sam’s vicinity, willing his voice to level out this time.

“Are you tired? You should go to sleep.”

A deep sigh resonates out from Sam’s dark corner. “Man, I forget sometimes how good you are at that.”

“What?”

“Changing the subject.”

Oh.

Bucky wonders which part of him that came from: James “Bucky” Barnes, or his HYDRA-conditioned brain. Perhaps it was just a defense against people trying to crowbar their way into his thoughts. As long as he can distract them, he’s safe. Bucky exhales a heavy breath, combing a hand through his greasy hair.

“Look, I just... I’m not the most pleasant person to sleep with.”

A moment of unwonted silence passes. Bucky’s gaze wanders away from his hands and toward Sam. By the time his eyes have adjusted, the guy has propped himself up on his elbows, teeth shining through the dimness in a quiet grin. The suggestive phrasing of Bucky’s words finally catches up to him. His cheeks redden. Well, if Sam decides to take it that way… Bucky technically hasn’t gotten laid since the 1940s. From what he remembers, it hadn’t even been very good. But hell no–that’s the kind of mental rabbit hole Bucky isn’t in the mood for. He coughs and slaps his thighs.

“We have like three more hours. Go to sleep, Sam. It’s not the end of the world.”

“Now you gon’ make me feel bad about it,” Sam smirks. “Shame on you, Barnes.”

Bucky ducks his head in exasperation. “You’re an idiot. What, you want me to sing you a lullaby?”

Sam visibly brightens at that. “Ooh, for real? You know any?”

Great , so now Sam is standing up, walking toward him, the grin on his annoying face widening. And because Bucky is a fucking mess, his tongue gets tied up in about fifteen knots before he gets the chance to open his mouth, and he’s already forgetting what he was going to say. Hell, if Sam smiled any brighter than that, he’d be the fucking sun.

“Uh, well, y’know,” Bucky says eloquently. “HYDRA was kinda lacking in that department.”

Sam laughs again, making himself at home on the red seats adjacent to Bucky’s perch, and Bucky feels a miserable sort of swell in his chest. Why is Sam purposefully gravitating toward him? Who the hell wants an ex-HYDRA assassin in close proximity?

“You gettin’ shy on me, Buck?” Sam tilts his head slightly downward, gazing up at Bucky with his big brown eyes and thick eyelashes, and what the fuck. “You ain’t gotta look so shook up; I don’t bite.”

“That’s a surprise,” Buck replies weakly, trying to force his face to cool down. There’s so much spit caught up in his throat right now, and Bucky knows it’ll look weird if he swallows in front of this guy, like he’s some nervous teenager with a school crush. Sam just laughs softly, the corners of his cheeks tightening, his lips curling up in a way that is too fucking charming to be on the face of a man sitting right across from a mass murderer. But honestly, Bucky can’t find it in himself to be embarrassed anymore; any time Sam laughs because of him is a win.

God, maybe I am good for something.

An overlay of silence reigns over the two men, and the white noise hum of the plane almost makes Bucky want to doze off. When he blinks himself awake for the fifth time, Sam’s familiar cadence cuts through the air like a knife to warm butter. He sounds wide awake.

“Nightmares, huh. So that’s why you don’t sleep.”

Bucky pales a shade, shifting atop his crate in discomfort. He supposes he wasn’t as subtle as he thought he was being. Sam lifts his hands in a placating gesture, his voice much more benign now. “I used to get ‘em sometimes too. Hell, even nowadays I do; service will do that to you. Not tryna say I completely understand what’s going on in that big cyborg brain of yours, but…I get it, to a degree.”

Bucky wonders if Sam behaves like this whenever he’s talking to veterans in his therapy group, or if he’s reserved this for Bucky alone. He finds himself craving the latter to a degree that is both confusing and hopeless. “I…” he mutters, pointedly not looking at the other man. The miserable swell from before is morphing into something much more sad, and Bucky doesn’t know what to do with it.

You’re alone. You have no friends, no family.

The harsh words bounce around Bucky’s head like a game of Pong, contrasting starkly against Sam’s kind and gentle tone. A spark of indignation thaws the insides of his chest. It’s not fair, it’s not true; Bucky’s got proof right here. Fuck you, Dr. Raynor. Despite all you think, at least I’ve got this dumbass with me.

Sam speaks again, leaning back in his seat. “Look, you ain’t gotta tell me anything you don’t want to. I’m just lettin’ you know that you ain’t gotta fight this alone.”

Bucky hates tip-toeing around his trauma like it’s some massive landmine. Part of him just wants to lay it all out; explode with everything he’s never willingly told another soul; reopen his wounds and expel all the ugliness in the hopes that maybe he’ll heal up properly this time. He wants to scream to Sam that he never got a fucking break; it was abuse upon abuse. HYDRA buried him alive just to water his grave in guilt and horror and self-hatred. There had never been the option of peace for the Winter Soldier. He was the asset, the weapon, the tool, the plaything, taken out of a dusty closet any time somebody wanted a turn with him.

“It was never a fight,” Bucky whispers. “They never gave me a chance.”

Sam looks slightly taken aback, as if he wasn’t expecting the ex-assassin to actually respond. Bucky would be surprised too if he didn’t feel so utterly lost right now. Instead, he settles for staring past Sam’s shoulder into the back of the fuselage, trying to find answers in the dim blue lights blanketing them. Despite how hard Bucky tries not to see it, Sam is shifting, his face crumpling into...something. He can’t put his finger on it but hopes to God it’s not pity. Steve used to give him that look, always catching himself doing it, and then getting all guilty about it afterward. So before Bucky can stop himself there, let his words fester in comfortable ambiguity, he’s taking off and nothing is going to stop him.

“So yeah, Sam,” Bucky continues, gritting out the words, “I get nightmares. I remember every single human being I murdered with this stupid fucking metal arm, and now I have to deal with it for the rest of my ‘overextended life.’ Is that selfish? Is it selfish of me to say that I wish I died in that fucking ravine when I was supposed to? I don’t belong here, Sam. Just the fact that I’m alive in this era is unnatural. But I’ve gotta make amends with my laundry list of everyone I hurt, because dying just isn’t going to cut it. ”

Bucky still isn’t looking at Sam by the time he finishes, snapping his mouth shut like an animal being muzzled before he can bite anyone else. Even though Bucky can’t tell what Sam is thinking, can’t see how his expression has undoubtedly contorted from pity to hurt, Bucky is overwhelmed by instinct. He doesn't know which side is currently winning over: the Soldier’s desperation to submit before his handlers put him through “corrective treatment,” or Bucky’s longing to apologize to Sam for hurting him. Make amends, make amends, don’t hurt anyone. Rule number two.

The latter ends up taking the tug of war, and Bucky whispers out a choked, “I’m sorry. I’m sorry, Sam, I–”

“Hey.”

Sam is standing close beside him, their shoulders almost level while Bucky is slouching. He can’t suppress the shiver that shoots through his body like lightning as a hand carefully grips his flesh arm. “Hey, man, look at me,” Sam says–somehow firm and gentle at the same time. His thumb brushes over the fabric of Bucky’s sweater, and Bucky wants to let his hand come up to clench Sam’s, but hell if he doesn’t know how that’ll end. It’s been so long since he’s been touched in a way that doesn’t end in bruises.

“Hey, hey… Listen to me, man. I hear you,” Sam says warmly, burnishing the chasm where Bucky thinks his heart used to be. “And it’s gonna be all right. You may not think it yet, and I should’ve said something earlier, but…” Sam trails off, pauses, then nods to himself. “You’re a good man, Bucky.”

A tight, burning ember of anguish flares up in Bucky’s throat.

A good man.

The Winter Soldier seldom got oral approval from his handlers, and even when he did, it was for chaos and carnage disguised as HYDRA’s regurgitated “gift to mankind” bullshit. To James “Bucky” Barnes, praise was a concept he never considered, since he’d have to be deserving in order to get any. Goodness is reserved for people , and Bucky crossed the line of humanity a long time ago. He isn’t a person anymore–just a monster.

People who fall under the category of “good” are the ones like Steve. Like his sister Becca. And like Sam Wilson specifically, standing here next to him with the true mantle of Captain America; a man so much damn worthier of that title than Bucky is, and he thinks Bucky is good . The same guy who has killed more innocent people than he has fingers and toes. And that’s not counting the unnameable ones–the collateral damage–caught in the crossfire.

Just the thought of all he’s done makes Bucky want to fervently deny Sam; to prove him wrong; to show Sam his track record with big red letters at the bottom of the page emphasizing that Bucky isn’t good . In the memories of hundreds, maybe thousands of people, he’s the cruel, terrifying mercenary with a history uglier than most want to comprehend. If Sam saw all that Bucky had done, would he change his mind? Would Sam look at Bucky the way he looks at himself in the mirror?

Sam is saying something now–maybe his name. But Bucky can’t hear him. He doesn’t know when the tears began, so he quickly ducks his chin so Sam can’t see them streaming down his face. God, it’s so fucking cold. Sam lets out a soft hum–not sad, but caring–and Bucky knows he’s failed at hiding again. Sam’s hand brushes up his arm and around his shoulder, pulling him gently against Sam’s warm body. Eventually Bucky leans into it, shutting his eyes tight.

“Been a while,” Bucky mutters, almost a whisper; it might just be a vivid thought.

“Yeah, I know, Tin Man. I mean it, you’re a great guy. And before you start, I know you don’t believe me, but I’m gonna keep reminding you till you do.”

“Yeah,” Bucky sniffles, voice muffled as he buries his face into Sam’s shoulder. “Thank you, Sam.”

The words, the touching–it’s all too good to be true. It has to be too good to be true, because if it’s real, then Bucky might just have a bit of hope left. And if he has hope, then he can’t jump into battle without care for his own life anymore. He’s going to have to exist correctly this time around. So if Sam means what he says, if he really thinks Bucky is a good person, then Bucky is going to live up to that image or die trying.

Once they pull away, it’s felt like hours. The plane is still going steady through the early morning, the lights still that calming shade of blue, but something has shifted in the air, something neither Sam nor Bucky can seem to put their finger on. It’s a certain kind of rawness; an ache Bucky is thoroughly familiar with; a feeling that always comes with the moon and foolish amounts of trust. Bucky mumbles a flustered apology for the wet spot now stained into Sam’s sweater, but the guy just shakes his head and grins in a way that makes Bucky fall in love with him.

“Anytime.”

#sambucky #tfatws #sam wilson #bucky barnes #fanfiction #angst #hurt comfort #winter soldier #ptsd #ao3

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choco-glow · 3 years

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Fall Like Rain On Sunday, Pt. 12

The next waffle was perfect, crispy golden and almost a perfect circle, with beautiful melted pools of chocolate dotting the surface, with two almost perfectly in the Eevee pattern’s eyes, and Jason passed it over to Steph’s plate as he chanted a few Latin prayers, grinning as she burst into cackles at his terrible imitation of a priest. He’d utterly butchered the old prayers, but eh, it wasn’t like he was practicing anymore, and it made Steph laugh, so he still felt it was doing right by a God he’d long since stopped believing in.

“Oh god, you’re Catholic, aren’t you?”

“Eh, technically I’m a Resurrectionist—” She snorted at that, loud and adorable and perfect (everyone always looked weirded out, and Jason had, early on, always done his best to snort the same way. Weird dead Robins had to look out for one another.) He snickered in response. “But yes, I’m a former Catholic. Used to go to St. Maria’s as a kid, before Father John cleaned the place up.”

“…And the chanting?”

“Look, we only fucked up one waffle! Gotta bless it before shit goes south again.” She laughed at that, bold and happy and loud, and he planted kisses all over her face before turning back to the waffle maker and getting it going again. Glancing back over his shoulder, Jason grinned to see Steph holding up a fork with a triangle of waffle, topped with whipped cream and one of the raspberries she’d washed up, and he took the offering with a nom, groaning as the concoction melted in his mouth. Chewing, he gave her a thumbs up, already planning on making one for himself, and she chuckled, spraying on whipped cream and tossing on raspberries with abandon, then diving right in.

“Ooohhhhh this is soooooo good.”

“And somewhat healthy, that’s the lowfat whipped cream and everything’s organic.” He grinned after swallowing his mouthful of heaven, mouth watering already as he watched the waffle maker count down with hungry eyes; together, they switched off and a half-dozen waffles for each later, plus bacon and eggs, they were settled on Steph’s tiny couch and snuggled up close, groaning over their shared food babies. Jason had tucked a warm blanket over them both, because the rain coming down outside was just a little chilly for his tastes, and her apartment was…definitely on the list to be reno’d.

“…mmm…”

“Hmm?”

“This is really nice, Jay…”

“Yeah it is…” He murmured, tucking her head into his shoulder and pressing a kiss to her forehead, scarred fingers gently playing with a long curl of her hair before shifting to comb through the rest of her curls, making her purr against his neck.

“Ohhhh yes…please don’t stop…” He chuckled and shifted just a little so that he could bring his other hand up; with both hands, he started working on the knots in her neck and shoulders, on up into her scalp and back down, careful to comb away her soft curls so that they didn’t tangle. Steph melted into his chest, all the tension from the week just falling away as they snuggled to the song of rain and thunder outside, and Jason hummed softly as she whimpered at the release of one particularly bad knot in her right shoulder.

“You okay, sweetheart?”

“Yeah…fuck…been hurting there for a while now…”

“Why didn’t you say something?” She snorted softly, then sighed.

“You know how everyone is…”Do yoga, work it out, or just deal with it.” Jason heaved a heavy sigh himself at that, wincing.

“Touché, not being a part of the daily Batdrama made me forget about Bruce’s general masochism about pain and aches. Well, tell ya what; whenever either of us is hurting, how about we either work on each other, or go see an expert? I’ll foot the bill.”

“Yes, please. I’m…well, I don’t know how to massage someone properly? I’m guessing you learned from Alfred…”

“Talia, actually, and Nyssa while she was part of the League. Ra’s thinks it’s stupid, because it’s a ‘women’s weakness’ or some bullshit, but Talia and Nyssa both used massage as a tool, among their subordinates and with one another. And me, I guess, I was the odd duck out; most of the men were under Ra’s, while Talia’s personal guard was exclusively female.”

“She knew you, though.” Jason smiled at that, sad at the memories, and nodded, kissing her cheek now as Steph shifted up to meet his eyes. He normally didn’t like making a lot of eye contact with people, hence the hood, but Steph…it was different. Like Nyssa, in a way…Talia I never did, because she would take that as a challenge, but Nyssa and I grew to be good friends, and it was…easy with her. B always thought I was interested in her, but no; she’s just a familiar soul, I suppose. Steph, however, was even easier; there was always something in her gaze that reminded him of his own reflection, and he was sure that could be psychoanalyzed into oblivion, but he wasn’t gonna go that deep.

“She did. Damian…probably doesn’t remember all that well, but I was basically his babysitter for Talia for the short time I was there; she trusted a Robin, even one as much a zombie as I was at first, because even with the Pit madness, I was…well. Protective.” She smiled a little, and he smiled back, stroking her cheek now. “I never shoulda left him there, but…well…”

“You did what you could.”

“Yeah…and Talia was fine with me kiting off; taking Damian would have gotten me killed again. I’m just so glad she turned him over to Bruce…”

“Me too. It’s…B’s not the greatest parent, but he’s really working with Damian, which is huge given the crap he’s pulled with all of us.” Jason chuckled at that, nuzzling her cheek, and she kissed him softly, settling against his side. He tucked her close, pulling the blanket up over her shoulders, and rubbed her lower back now, grinning as she melted back into his shoulder.

“I think Damian reminds him of Dick, in a lot of ways, just more aggression, like me. So, instead of Tim, who’s learned, like Bruce, to control all his emotions in one clean, collected package, he has a Robin with attitude and a whole lotta baggage again, and he’s having to jump through hoops that he could largely train out of both Dick and I. Fortunately, Damian’s just as stubborn as B, and it’s kinda great that he’s been able to force some changes of his own.” Steph chuckled at that.

“Like Batcow, Alfred the Cat, Titus…”

“Fuckin’ Goliath, and lemme tell you, Demon Kitty was not on the list of potential pets B was willing to consider.”

“Which was why Damian just brought him home and didn’t care.” Jason snickered, laughter rumbling through his chest, which made Steph snuggle in more, much to his delight.

“Yup, and the look on B’s face is one I’ll treasure forever.” She giggled, and kissed him again, and Jason melted into the kiss, groaning when her hand started rubbing up and down his neck. He rolled a little more onto his side so that her arm didn’t cramp, and let out a full body sigh, snuggling around her. “Ohhhh baby you don’t have to…”

“I want to, Jay…tell me if I do something wrong?”

“I doubt you will, but yes, if it comes up…fuuuuuuuuuuuck oh hell yeah, right there.” He almost whimpered when she started scritching his scalp, nuzzling her hair with a moan of relief. It was better than sex, in a way; this was…grounding, and comforting, and more intimate. “Ffffucksofuckinggood.”

“This is for making me waffles, you amazing, wonderful, glorious man. I’m not sure I’m ready for sex yet, so hairscritches are at least a decent substitute?”

“Sosogoodbetterthansex.” He mumbled out, and she giggled again, shifting him so that he was facedown in the pillows and Steph was straddling his hips, working her hands up and down his back over his teeshirt, and Jason just went limp, eyes rolling with relief as his scarred muscles were carefully worked free of kinks and knots. Steph had said she hadn’t a clue, but she was gentle on his back, not pressing too hard, nor was she too light on the scars; her hands were softer than his, less callused, and so the gnarled skin over each old wound didn’t tense or ache from too much sensation. She mapped out his back with care, and with a sigh, he reached a hand back and patted her thigh.

“Babe, don’t let anyone ever tell you you’re not a genius, because that is amazing.” He could almost feel the brightness of her smile, and he chuckled as she leaned down to kiss his shoulder, purring at the warmth of her body on top of his. “Seriously.”

“I’m so glad…I hope your scars aren’t hurting?”

“Definitely not, not even twinging like usual from the rain…How about you?” She sighed a little, snuggling in closer, and he craned his neck around, worried. “Babe?”

“I’m…a little achy, but it’s in weird spots…I don’t wanna be gross…” She murmured, nuzzling his shoulder, and he gently rubbed his hand up and down her thigh, ignoring the awkward position.

“…It’s not gross if it’s things that hurt.” He murmured, and she shifted back, letting him turn and face her, green eyes earnest. “Cramps? Period? I can run out and get you whatever you need?” She blushed, shaking her head, then nodded, then sighed, and he gently drew her back into his arms, tucking her between his legs and wrapping the blanket around her, snuggling her close. “The scars Sionis gave you too?”

“…Yeah. I…Look, this is gonna be…really fuckin’ gross, but when he tortured me…he…he didn’t just limit himself to my stomach and breasts…” She murmured, gulping a little, and he closed his eyes, swallowing back the sudden rage. “He didn’t put the drill in me, thank fuck for that, but things are…kinda fucked up down there. And yeah, it’s my period going, so it’s just…extra gross…” Steph blushed bright red, and he gently stroked back her curls, eyes soft, patient. “…I have to wear the disposable underwear that old people use…”

“…Oh sweetheart, that’s okay. Does it work?” She glanced up, eyes brimming with tears, and he gently kissed her brow, her cheek, her nose, her lips, brushing soft kisses all over her face, but she nodded, one lone tear overflowing. He gently brushed it away, cupping her cheek. “Then that’s all that matters to me. I won’t be grossed out, I won’t be upset. Hell…when you do see me naked, you might run away. I’m…not exactly in great shape down there, either. Missing one of my balls and my dick ain’t the straightest.” He followed that with a fake grin, still embarrassed, deep down, but she saw right through him; Steph shook her head and wrapped her arms around his neck.

“If Roy and the others didn’t care…I won’t. Besides…” She huffed out a laugh, and he felt a real smile touch his lips again. “It just means we can be fucked up together. But…thank you for not being grossed out anyway. It’s…you’re the first person to know besides B and Leslie…and B only knows because he hacked the hospital records. And you’re the only person who’s…probably ever gonna see them, which…I’m fine with.” He smiled at that, and she smiled back, kissing him softly. “So long as you intend to keep that proposal available.”

“Baby, it’s all yours; hell, we could go out one of these days and get a set of rings.”

“…You really want a set?”

“Fuck yeah I do, I wanna be a kept man.” The snort she gave was absolutely adorable, and Jason grinned wide at that, feeling their previous good mood return finally, and Steph kissed him, full and happy and perfect, before snuggling back into his chest.

“…So, kept man…could you rub my lower back again? Cramps are hitting me hard…” He placed his hands over her hips, gently rubbing and warming the area, and Steph sighed, dropping her head onto his shoulder, the tension bleeding out of her limbs. “Fuck…thank you…”

“So welcome, sugar…Wanna watch something mindless?” She smiled, and as Jason grabbed the remote, she let out a soft sigh, snuggling in closer, and he pressed a soft kiss to her forehead once more, running his hand over her lower back and keeping her safe and warm.

Yeah.

He really loved Sundays.

#JaySteph #Stephanie Brown #Jason Todd #tw: past body mutilation #cuddles and snuggles #fluff and romance #discussion of period #supportive partner #waffles #gothambysunlight #solarpunkgotham #rainy sundays

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soyeahitsmiddleearth · 4 years

Text

Stubborn

Eomer x Reader

Eomer comes back from a ride with his fellow Rohirrim, but he got hurt and hates visiting the healer :(

Calling Eomer reckless would be an overstatement, because he certainly is not. He always considers every action carefully, and when they're in a tough spot, he's sure to only take well calculated risks. What he is, is obstinate, headstrong, kinda difficult at times, and very very stubborn. He's also devilishly handsome, loyal, strong, and honorable, but that's not important at the moment.

Now, don't get me wrong, you love him very deeply and would do virtually anything for that man, but god he's so infuriating.

He was out on one of his little Rohirrim patrols to weed out any sort of danger which may appear and he and his men were the subject of a sneak attack. His horse had unintentionally bucked him off, and then he had to defend himself from the ground since he couldn't run after his steed in the midst of battle.

There were no serious injuries on him thankfully, but when he got back, instead of going to the healer like everyone else, he came right back home and pretended as if nothing was wrong.

And whats worse? Not only did he hide his injuries from you, but he also neglected to tell you about the attack altogether!

It was at least 2 hours since he got back when you finally found out. If you hadn't accidentally touched one of the cuts on his bicep and noticed the way he flinched away from your touch, though, you would've never known. Eomer was perfectly content in never telling you, or anyone for that matter, about it.

When you stopped talking in the middle of your sentence after he reacted in pain at your actions, he knew he was in trouble.

He tried to change the subject, but you weren't having it.

You made him take off his shirt and you were surprised to see his torso and arms littered in angry red skin from getting hit, some not-serious bruises, and lots of dirty, bloody cuts. You began to wonder if he even checked himself.

All of this leads you to now.

You have Eomer sat on one of the stools in the middle of your kitchen, his shirt resting on the counter while you search around the house for various things to clean him up.

He insisted multiple times that he's fine and doesn't need you to take care of him, but you just told him to hush his mouth and stay put. Naturally, he knew better than to argue with you further.

A small bowl with warm water is the first thing you brought over, and following after it came a few small towels and some solution the healer gave you a while back when you'd cut your hand open.

Eomer opens his mouth to speak, but a withering glare from you silences him.

"Not a word, if all you intend is to spit excuses." You grumble, soaking the towel in the warm water so you can begin to clean up the cuts and scratches.

"I'm a prince, you know." He comments dryly, watching as you take the towel out of the bowl. "People generally don't talk to royalty like that."

You almost laugh at his ridiculous words, so to hide you amused smile you move behind him and gently dab at some of the still-bloodied skin. "I will talk to you however I please if you're going to be foolish."

"I dislike going to the healers..." He says slowly, turning his head a bit to look at you.

It's a poor defense and he knows it, but still you humor him.

You can't even keep the sarcasm from your voice, "And why is that, my dear?" You ask while placing two fingers on his cheek to push his head to look forward again.

"They are not as gentle as you." He grumbles, looking ahead at your urging, "And there were men with far worse done to them."

Aw, if you weren't so mad you'd probably swoon and give him a big hug.

"Oh please, I'm sure you can come up with something better than that." You reply curtly, continuing to clean the dirt and blood from his back.

It seems he doesn't like that you don't believe him, because he then exclaims, "But it's the truth!"

You don't reply this time and instead squeeze some of the, now pink, water out into an empty bowl you brought and dip it in the clean water once more, squeezing some of the excess out before crouching down slightly to clean a particularly long scratch that slices across his lower back from hip to hip.

A disapproving 'tsk' leaves you as you, as lightly as you can, dab at the swollen red skin there, sighing softly as you clean it as quickly as you can.

Once the majority of the blood and grime is gone, you reach for the 'ointment' and begin to spread it generously on his open wounds.

As soon as the cool gel-like substance touches his skin he tenses and sits up straighter, but he doesn't flinch away or tell you to stop.

After you've thoroughly applied the solution to every problem area on his back you linger a bit, gliding your fingers up his side slowly. Seeing him all beat up like this (no matter how he tries to deny that he's beat up at all) makes your heart clench painfully.

With delicate hands, you brush his hair away from his skin and press a gentle kiss to the nape of his neck.

You can feel him physically relax at your tender touches, and you're glad to know that you can calm him even when he knows that he's distressed you greatly.

You walk back around to his front with the towel and two bowls in hand, placing said bowls on the counter next to you so you can reach them easily. The discharge bowl becomes more full as you squeeze the reddish towel's contents into it again, and once it's just damp, you dip it again and ensure that it's not too saturated.

His front doesn't seem to be as littered with injuries as his back, however some of the wounds on his chest and arms are a bit worse. More like lacerations than scratches or small cuts.

Eomer studies your face carefully as you properly assess the damage done to him. Ignoring the fact that you're angry with him at the moment he observes you similarly to how you do to him, and he can confidently say that he thinks you're incredibly cute when you're so focused on something.

Of course, he doesn't dare voice that for fear of what wrath you would bring down upon him.

You lift his heavy arm up so it's at eye level and begin to rub and blot at his skin, disregarding the very distracting muscles that flex beneath the skin when you move his arm this way and that.

The very cut that betrayed Eomer's battered state to you is probably the worst of his injuries, for not only is the skin around it bright red and raw, but it also starts to bleed again once you clean it out.

You furrow your eyebrows and poke it lightly, glancing up at his face to gage his reaction.

He flinches slightly and his eyebrows knit together at the unpleasant feeling.

After you see that, you look back down at his arm and press your finger onto it more firmly to see how deep it goes. As much as you don't want to pain him further, you have to do this to determine if he needs stitches or not.

Eomer grunts quietly and his arm flexes as blood begins to well up in his wound again, and though you very much do not want to touch his blood, you soldier through it.

"I'm sorry, love, I'll be done in a moment." You attempt to soothe so that he can relax again, glancing up at his face apologetically.

"No, don't apologize. I asked for this, after all."

He's definitely just trying to win your favor again, and surprisingly, it's working.

"Well, you're lucky that it won't need stitches." You stop pushing at his wound now and drop his arm back into his lap before continuing, "I'll be right back. Don't move."

You walk off to get something to wrap his arm with, and once you find an appropriate covering you return and are pleased to see that he quite literally has not moved. He lifts his arm for you when you come back and you hum gratefully as you begin to wind the makeshift bandage around his bicep.

Besides that, everything else fixes pretty smoothly, though he's most certainly going to be really sore and achy tomorrow.

After he's slathered up in the healing ointment, you grab both his hands and pull him off the stool (though you can't actually hold his weight since this B is HEVAAAY), and lead him to the bedroom.

He follows you willingly... way too willingly at that, "I thought you were mad at me?" He questions slyly, clearly taking your actions the wrong way (or he's just teasing you). "Not that I would complain."

You glare back at him with a pout, shaking your head, "I'm not mad at you, but I'm also not trying to seduce you. You need rest, not that." You scold lightly, sitting him down on the bed.

The Rohan prince reaches for you after you make him sit down, but you twirl out of his grasp and stand just out of arms reach. "No, you take a nap and I'll go clean up that mess you made."

It seems your dispassionate demeanor doesn't please him all too much, because he becomes kinda sulky but he does keep his hands to himself.

A few beats of silence pass by with his gaze pointed at the ground, and you can see that he feels slightly ashamed for hiding something so important from you like that. Because it was an awful thing to do, and you don't know if you can trust his assurances of being alright anymore.

But at the same time, you don't want him to feel bad on top of being wounded.

You tap your foot on the ground a few times before stepping up to him and wrapping your arms around him, careful to avoid his injuries, pressing your face into the junction between his shoulder and neck.

His arms come up to gather around you right away, and you can feel his head lay on top of yours while he has you sit on the bed betwixt his legs.

"I am deeply sorry, my love. I meant not to distress you in my silence... only that is exactly what I did." He rubs a heavy hand up and down your spine, pressing a kiss into your hair.

You can never stay mad at him for long, so you turn your head up to look at him and peck his cheek with a quick kiss. "I know, but you have to stop doing these things. My heart will surely stop beating at some point if you keep pulling these... shenanigans."

A smile brightens his handsome face when you forgive him, and he hugs you a bit tighter. "I love you, Y/N." His voice is as deep as ever, and it successfully makes your heart flutter.

"And I love you, Eomer." Your reply is much more chipper now that your anger has subsided, but you take on a more serious tone when you mumble, "But you really must rest."

"I will, I will. But only if I get to keep holding you like this..."

#reader #tolkien #originally posted on ao3 #the lord of the rings #lord of the rings #eomer #eomer of rohan #lotr #éomer #eomer x reader #reader insert #fanfic #romance #humor

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yourdeepestfathoms · 4 years

Text

Ceaseless Discharge

In which Cassandra gets stung by a monster. Also there’s quality Cass and Eugene brother-sister content in here 👌👌

Word count: 6414

TW: Blood, vomit

———————

A crunch echoes in the darkness. Cassandra freezes in her cot. The moon is full, but the night is overcast, so she strained to see in the darkness when she sat up. A small cluster of bushes lined the clearing she was sleeping in, along with gnarled old trees that cast needle-like shadows across the grass from the firelight.

When she listened, there are no bells or hoofsteps, so it can't be a carriage approaching. Besides, this doesn't sound like the clatter is wheels on a dirt path, but a rasping scrape over gravel.

Movement in one of the further bushes. The clouds part. A shaft of moonlight glints off something shining among the leaves and brambles.

It's nighttime. She’s the only one awake in the camp. She’s heard tales of a beast stalking the countryside: the Fen Lion. A ghost, a monster, a hoax, depending on who you ask. It'd make an awfully good story if she saw it. That was the plan of this excursion, anyway— The King wanted to rid the kingdom of the creature stirring terror, and Rapunzel’s answer to that was to find it and ask it nicely to leave, or at least settle down. Of course, that dragged Cassandra and Eugene into the “quest”, as well, which was why they were sleeping out in the middle of the woods in the first place. Rapunzel had said something about the creature possibly having answers to the Black Rocks, which was a horrible way to convince them to agree, yet here they were.

Cassandra stood up slowly. The dying fire only provided some visibility outside the perimeter of the camp, so she had to squint—not that it helped. She had to go check out the sound, though. It could be a threat or someone in trouble. Or maybe she was just really curious, plain and simple.

She liked to do things thoroughly, so she grabbed her sword and slunk out of the fire’s glow and into the woods. She made sure to keep low and in the shadows, hoping the crunching of leaves and twigs beneath her boots weren’t as loud as she was hearing them.

Silent as a ghost, Cassandra paused just at the edge of the brush where she swore she heard the rustling. If she listened very carefully, she could hear something breathing.

She wondered if it could hear her heartbeat, which seemed to thunder in her ears.

Instead, there is a whimper. And then, slowly, something poked out of the dense cluster of leaves. Cassandra’s breath catches.

It isn’t the Fen Lion, but it is a wolf. It’s yellow eyes seem to glow in the dark, but as it swings its head from side to side, looking up and down the road, Cassandra can’t help but think that it looks scared. The wolf just looks so sad. Her heart goes out to it.

She stepped a little closer. After hesitating for a moment, she extended her hand. The wolf sniffs it; it’s definitely a flesh-and-blood animal, not a ghost.

“What’s wrong?” She asked. “Can I do anything?”

She wasn’t actually expecting an answer, but it replied with a strange combination of yelps and rumbles. Suddenly, clicking fills the air, and it goes silent. It glances up and growls. Cassandra looks up, too.

Good news: She found the Fen Lion.

Bad news: She found the Fen Lion.

It was a lot bigger than she was expecting, as tall as the trees themselves, which made her wonder how it had taken them so long to find it. It was also a lot less lion and a lot more snake because it had a flat, serpent-like head and was covered in iridescent scales that glinted in the moonlight leaking down from the canopy of leaves overhead. A tail with a menacing barb at the end flicked back and forth in the dirt. Eyes a color Cassandra has never seen before narrowed and, suddenly, there’s a large paw pinning her to the ground.

Cassandra tried to yell, but had no choice but to shut her mouth when razor sharp claws pressed into her flesh. She clenched her jaw, feeling utterly helpless as the creature weighed her down.

The Fen Lion rotated its head like an owl would, which doesn’t sit well with Cassandra’s stomach. She squirmed again, but the talons press harder and she hisses in pain.

“What do you want?” She spat with as much ferocity as one could muster when pinned beneath a giant monster that could kill them with one swipe.

The Fen Lion tilted its head to the other side, then a giant frill opened up along its neck, bordering the skull like a mane.

Maybe that’s where the name came from, then...

Colors flowed through the scales like a waterfall- red, blue, green, purple, yellow, pink, orange, red again; Cassandra felt like she was being hypnotized. She struggled once more, but was halted when a sharp pain seared through her left side. She looked down and was horrified to find the creature’s stringer embedded in her flesh.

The Fen Lion tipped its head up and almost seemed to be smirking smugly at her. It made a series of clicking noises and wrenched the stringer to the side, causing Cassandra to whimper in pain. She began to worry if it was going to kill her or gore her with its tail, but then the tip pulled out with a small spurt of blood.

The Fen Lion lifted its claws from where they had Cassandra pinned and stepped back. Another animalistic smirk twisted on its snout until Cassandra can no longer see it when inky black spilled over the scales and camouflaged it with the night. She can only stare in shock at where it used to be and listen to its footsteps walk away.

There, Cassandra lays until dawn. By then, the bleeding has stopped and she can see the wound clearly- it’s a tiny little thing, only around the size of her thumb, but had a mouth of red flames and drooled pus down her waist. At least, she thought it was pus. It did look a little too dark to be such a fluid, but it also wasn’t red, so it couldn’t be blood. When Owl flew down at her weak whistle, he took one sniff and reeled back in disgust.

“Great,” Cassandra grunted. She tried to sit up, but her limbs felt like they were made of ten ton lead. “This is just great...”

Owl hops onto one of her arms and peers into her tired eyes with a hoot. She glowered at him.

“No, I don’t need you to go get Rapunzel and Fancy Pants.”

Another hoot.

“No, I’m not going to tell them!”

Another, this time with more skepticism.

“God, why do I even try talking to you in a crisis situation?” Cassandra grumbled. “I’m fine. It can’t even be considered a cut.” She abruptly pushed herself up, sending colorful stars bursting across her vision. She blinked rapidly to fend them off from consuming her. “See?”

Owl gave her an unamused look. She shooed him away before standing up, at least finding that a little easier. But then she takes one step forward and nearly keels over again. The “I told you so” hoot from her avian companion doesn’t help, either.

It was going to be a miserable day.

———

They saw the creature on a cliff. It was perched on a pillar of rocks further in the distance, hunched over like a lurking vulture. When it noticed the group gawking at it, it sat back on its haunches and raised its long neck and large frill.

“Oh, look at that,” Eugene said. “I wonder if that’s why it’s called a ‘Fen Lion.’”

His voice sounded a million feet away in Cassandra’s ears. She wanted to focus on his words, on Rapunzel’s amazed comments, on Max’s breathing, but she couldn’t think about anything but the colorful eyes boring into her very soul and the hole festering in her side.

———

Monday.

It’s been two days since the run in with Fen Lion, and Cassandra has cleaned up her wound pretty well, yet she woke up feeling like she had a fever. She moaned softly and lifted a hand quaking with tremors to press against her forehead; it was quite warm, much to her dismay.

“Ugh...” She groaned. “Fuck this...”

After wallowing in bed for ten more minutes, she finally hauled herself out to put on her damned lady in waiting dress. Luckily, the exertion from doing so woke up her muscles, and the feverish feeling diminished into mere warmth behind her eyes once she splashed her face with some cold water.

Perhaps the day wouldn’t be so bad after all...

———

Tuesday.

Three days since the run in with the Fen Lion, and Cassandra’s fingernails feel like they’re shooting out of her fingers. They only stop hurting when she grates them against a solid surface. Rapunzel deals with the sound it makes when she does so while cleaning her room until she can’t anymore and politely asks her to stop. Cassandra obeys and stops.

Twenty minutes later, Cassandra starts again without even realizing it.

Rapunzel doesn’t say anything this time.

———

Wednesday.

Four days since the run in with the Fen Lion, and Cassandra feels itchy and achy all over. First, it starts at the site of the injury and she accidentally makes it bleed when she rips off the bandages and scratches desperately, then it spreads to other parts of her body until it feels like she had rolled in poison ivy.

“Uhh... Cass?” Rapunzel said at dinner.

“Yeah?” Cassandra replied.

“Are you okay?”

Cassandra blinked at her. She lowered her hand from where it had been itching her neck for at least five minutes straight. The marks it made glowered a seething pink in the open air.

“Yeah.” She said again.

“Cassandra has fleas,” Eugene said helpfully.

“I do not have fleas.” Cassandra growled as she scratched behind one of her ears like an itchy dog.

She didn’t have fleas, but there was something under her skin, making its home in her body. She wanted to claw her flesh open and rip it out, and such a lust for that violent alternative scared her.

———

Thursday.

Five days since the run in with the Fen Lion, and Cassandra thinks she’s turning into it. Her insides are beginning to burn.

———

Friday.

Six days since the run in with the Fen Lion, and fangs are growing in over the teeth that are already there—flat teeth, human teeth. Those have to go.

Her joints ache from kneeling on the cold stone floor of her bedroom; even the thin cloth of her lady in waiting dress does not dispel the chill.

The scales don’t come in right, growing into her skin, itching and scratching. She rakes her long, hooked nails over her ribs until she rips her dress and draws blood and yellow pus.

New joints bristle beneath her flesh, as itchy as the scales.

There are bruises on her wrists and wasted biceps, purple and yellow. No fault of anybody- her skin has become so delicate that even the gentlest bump against a surface leaves a mark.

Fever chills, seizures, blood from her bitten tongue, staining her blankets and drying in a crusty mess on her face.

She bars the door to her room and tells a passing guard with the most human voice she could muster that she would not be turning up to work that day.

———

Saturday.

Seven days since the Fen Lion ran off to a new location, and Eugene was strolling the halls of the castle after third training with the guards. An oncoming storm caused them to end early, which was fine. That meant he could go see Rapunzel sooner than usual.

However, on the way there he finds Cassandra in a dark corridor that was lit only by the crackling torches thanks to the dark grey, nearly black clouds outside. She was clenching a basket of clothes she was supposed to wash, and leaning against the wall. Such a moment where she let her guard down was a strength for Eugene in their ongoing feud over who could insult the other the most, so he quickly slid into the opportunity at full force.

“Too weak to even carry some clothes, Cassandra?” He teased. “And here I thought you were strong! Here, let me.”

He took the basket of clothes without permission or waiting for a response, and found that it was way lighter than he expected. He internally laughed; this was too easy!

He opened his mouth to make another remark and essentially gain another point on his side, but stopped when he realized that Cassandra hadn’t snapped at him or yelled or even taken a swing. She showed no signs of annoyance or anger.

“Cassandra?” Eugene waved a hand in front of her face- no reaction. “Cass?”

Eugene set the basket down and leaned over. Cassandra’s cheeks have an odd color tinting them. He also notices her eyes are kind of glassy and she’s…hot. Like, fever hot. He bends closer and sets his hands on the girl’s shoulders to steady her, and he can feel her shaking slightly. She opens her mouth and pants like a tired animal, and her teeth look really sharp. Glinting.

Cassandra reached out and gripped his arms for some kind of grounding, and her nails start tearing his sleeves. But that isn’t normal, is it? No, because she has claws and there’s a tiny hole with black, root-like veins in her side that Eugene can see when her shirt lifts up slightly.

“I think something is wrong with me,” Is what Cassandra whispered hoarsely right before she goes unconscious in his arms.

———

Saturday.

Seven days since the run in with the Fen Lion- since the Fen Lion ran off to a new location— since the Fen Lion stung its prey, and there’s an unconscious girl in Eugene’s bed and claw marks on his neck and back.

The rumbling, fire breathing sky is pouring out rain, and the wind was howling as if the kingdom was falling beneath its elemental talons. Raindrops that had to be as big as oranges pattered against Eugene’s bedroom windows loudly, making him worry that they may break, but he quickly turned his attention to the bigger issue at hand.

Cassandra is struggling to stay awake. She’s breathing harshly and blinking her eyes rapidly, fighting to keep away black spots from her vision—or maybe it was to keep back tears. Eugene would have teased her for the latter option if it weren’t for the intense worry he was feeling. Cassandra looked like death itself. Her skin was paler than usual, except for her cheeks, which were dark red from fever. Her face was soaked in sweat, plastering tendrils of damp black hair to her forehead. Not to mention the obvious claws and fangs and seemingly-infected hole in her side.

“Cassandra, can you hear me?” Eugene called out. He sat down on the side of the bed, carefully brushed back her sweaty bangs, and placed a wet cloth on her forehead. Doing so elicits a small noise of relief through grinding breaths and feeble whimpers. “What happened to you?”

“F-Fen Lion,” Cassandra panted. Her eyelids flutter shut for a moment, but she forces them back open. “It-it stung me. During th-the night.”

Eugene grimaced. He wouldn’t say he was surprised, though; hiding a possibly-venomous and fatal wound was very in character for Cassandra.

“Geez, Cass...” Eugene muttered. “I should get the doctor and Rapunz-”

“No—” Cassandra reached out and grabbed Eugene by the sleeve. “I-I d-didn’t just let you c-carry me here for y-you to blow it.” It was impossible to see her as threatening when she was like this and her voice was shaking so badly her words could barely be discerned. Eugene gently eased her back into a lying position, but she kept talking. “Y-you can’t—you can’t—” Her eyes become very cloudy. Eugene quickly swipes up the rag, which had fallen off, and dabs Cassandra’s hot face with it.

“Easy, Cass,” He murmured. “Breathe.”

“You can’t tell anyone.” Cassandra finally forced out. “P-please. You c-can’t.”

Eugene went to argue, but then he saw the look in Cassandra’s eyes and broke. He looked away in defeat.

“Geez, don’t give me those eyes—” He sighed. “Okay. Fine. I won’t.”

Cassandra manages a weak, thin smile.

“Thank you.”

Moments later, she blacks out from exhaustion. Eugene tucks her back under the blankets, places the rag on her forehead again, then goes to see Rapunzel. He keeps his word, however, and tells her that Cassandra went on a last minute excursion with a battalion of guards that were short handed. It would take her a few days to get back, he said.

Rapunzel buys it.

———

Sunday.

Nine days since the Fen Lion ordeal, and now sometime after midnight. Cassandra is asleep in Eugene’s bed as Eugene sits by a lantern and sharpens a sword. He couldn’t help but constantly glance over at the girl he was harboring in worry, which nobody could blame him for. Especially when she began to writhe and whimper.

“Cass?” Eugene put his tools down instantly and went to the bedside.

Cassandra rolled over and stared up at Eugene with eyes he’s never seen the color of before. They looked almost like a mix between silver, red, and blue, and were filled with tears that Cassandra didn’t have the energy to hold back.

“S-something is wrong,” She croaked.

Something was wrong, Eugene knew, and not because of the illness. He, too, could hear the subtle cracks and pops of Cassandra’s bones.

The wings came first.

They started out as little bumps that Eugene saw bulging underneath Cassandra’s shirt, but then they grew out and out and out until the shirt ripped and the skin ripped and they burst free with a splattering of blood.

Cassandra was now rocking back and forth on her knees and elbows as the wings awkwardly flapped on her back, heavy from all the fluids and cocoons of flesh swaddling them. She made a pained noise no human could make, and scales began to devour her skin. Each part of her they tough gets reformed- muscles twisting and turning, tendons reconnecting, bones snapping like twigs and reshaping entirely. It was all too much for her. She lost herself to the pain.

—

Eugene clawed wildly at his face when his friend’s blood splattered into his eyes. He rubbed vigorously, trying to watch and see and monitor what was going on, but he was momentarily blinded. All he could do was listen to the cracks of bone and tear of flesh and squelch of blood and sobs of pain, and maybe even thank whatever deity that he couldn’t see.

Eventually, the noises died down, replaced by rustling and low, very nonhuman sounds. Eugene opened his eyes and stared at the creature on his bed.

It was...small. Small for a monster, at least. It had to be only slightly larger than Max and could comfortably fit in his room. Firelight glimmered against raven black and navy blue scales. Mahogany and amber speckled the folded mane of frills around the neck. The eyes were the same indescribable color from before.

“Cass?” Eugene called out cautiously.

It- the thing- Cassandra looked at him and blinked. Then, she looked at her talons and screeched. She scrambled off the bed in a panic, tripping over her own tail in the process, and smashing into the wall. Watching her stagger around and then writhe on her back with her legs flailing awkwardly in the air genuinely made Eugene laugh- he couldn’t help it! As worrying as it was to see his friend and little sister figure turn into a giant (well, moderately sized) monster, this was priceless.

And then a guard knocked on the door and ruined it all.

“What’s going on in there?” The voice demanded.

“Uhh— Nothing!” Eugene called out. He frantically tries to shut up Cassandra, but she was too caught up in her monster panic attack.

“Open this door!” The guard ordered.

Eugene obeyed, but just opened it enough to where he could just peek his head out. He attempted to reason with the guard, but the man stormed inside with his weapon drawn to find...nothing. Nothing but a trashed room, of course.

“I told you!” Eugene said after a moment of bafflement.

“What happened here?” The guard asked.

“I was training. And it got a little out of hand.” Eugene answered.

The guard looked at him like he was crazy and then sidled out without another word. Eugene quickly closed the door, locked it, then turned around frantically. In the corner, he saw a shimmer and, suddenly, Cassandra appears in a mishmash of pale green and purple scales.

“Neat trick.” Eugene commented.

Cassandra can only reply in a chirp.

———

Monday.

One day since Cassandra has become a scaly, color-changing, draconic creature, and Eugene was taking her through the forest where the Fen Lion had been, hoping to find some way to reverse the effects of being stung.

When they arrived at the spot where Cassandra’s blood was dried in the grass, Cassandra tipped her snout up and sniffed the air. Then, she clicked at Eugene and tossed her head towards her back. For a moment, the man is very confused.

“Do...you want me to get on?” He asked, slightly unsure.

Cassandra clicked again, so Eugene straddled her back as if she were a horse and not a beast that could kill him with one swing of her deadly claws if she wanted to. Before he could ask what this was about or even get a proper grip on her scales, the creature catapulted forward, nearly launching her friend off of her back.

Headed straight for a cliff side where the Fen Lion was last spotted, which dropped into another section of the woods below them, Eugene began to question Cassandra’s sanity, even if she had wings (which she didn’t know how to use just yet); however, she leapt at the last moment, although that still didn’t make this first time dragon-riding any less traumatizing.

Eugene gripped onto Cassandra’s neck with the tightness of a drowning man clutching onto the edge of a boat, and the quake that jostled through both their bodies assured him that they had landed on something. But Cassandra’s mobility did not last for long, for within the next moment, they were again airborne for another fleeting instant of terror. It seemed that, as Cassandra’s animal senses had been heightened, she could detect a grove better and far more secretive than she could have ever discovered as a human. And, Eugene had to admit, she did seem more agile and able within this state.

“I think you’re getting too comfortable in that body,” He had said mere hours ago. It seemed as fitting now as it did when he had first said it- after he woke up that morning to Cassandra relaxing in a ball in the corner of his room. But now, after being like this for just ten or so hours, her harmony with the body of the monster seemed complete, almost natural. Yet this time….this time things were different.

The jerk of the next landing sent Eugene’s thoughts and upcoming worried internal monologue flapping away with the rustling leaves Cassandra had disturbed upon her fall. Eugene looked about and saw an archway made of bark, where two branches of different trees had reached together and woven around the other. It was a magnificent sight, for the trees around them were of some mysterious species that he had never seen the like of before. Boughs twisting elegantly about themselves, and their roots jutting up and out of the ground to curl around those near. Their green leaves, shaped as majestic crowns, whistled in the gentle winds. Above, the trees sprang into a canopy, as if shielding its very existence from the outside woodland world.

“How did you find this place?” Asked Eugene, impressed with the girl (could she even be referred as such?), yet rather worried.

No chirp or growl replied. Instead, Cassandra moved onward, totally aware of all her surroundings- but was she aware of her own mind?

Indeed, Cassandra struggled, trying hard to concentrate as she propelled herself forward. She could feel her human consciousness slipping farther away with every step she took. If she could not soon learn how to muzzle the inner animal and be the alpha out of the two of them, she feared she would lose her sanity forever.

But when there came a faint odor upon the air, her mind fogged, and her last effort in fighting back the thoughts of the monster failed.

All at once Cassandra reared, and Eugene was thrown to the ground. Brown tumbled before his eyes, and he tossed back his bangs to watch in horror as Cassandra excitedly sniffed at the air, burnt orange and scarlet flickering through her silver and dark blue scales like fiery embers. Drool began to pour out of her mouth. He could see one of her eyes at his angle, and what reached out from Cassandra’s colored socket frightened him: an insane gaze of hunger, licking at the air it smelled.

He pushed back the fear, gaining his footing on the ground of the hidden forest. Slowly, he approached Cassandra.

“What do you smell?” He tried, hoping that his voice would force his friend’s senses to return to her.

But her reply came in an angry growl, and though every bone, muscle, and nerve within Eugene screamed for him to back away...he moved closer.

“Cassandra...it’s me. Eugene. You’re okay. There’s nothing to be afraid of. I won’t let anything hurt you.”

And for a moment, the true eyes of the monster seemed to flash with Eugene’s answer, but a savage darkness regained the creature quickly, and it sped off under the archway of the trees.

“No, Cassandra! Wait!” Eugene cried, racing after the girl.

There were so many winding paths, closed in by the density of the woods, and Eugene soon found himself becoming lost. It seemed that the wood was a labyrinth, narrowing in some tunnels, others ending abruptly by rows of trees. Yet there were still few pathways for any visitor to stray through; though, as Eugene soon discovered, some of the roads twisted about into areas he thought looked the same as other places he had already passed. This forest...it felt like a place where humans should never roam.

Just as he thought he had lost himself completely within the woodland maze, Eugene heard the trickling of rushing water. He guided himself along by his ears until he spotted, between a patch of trees, a spring which filtered lightly along two small waterways. Along the muddy bank were talon prints far too big for a regular animal. His companion wasn’t completely gone yet.

Eugene did not have time to pat himself on the back for solving his missing dragon problem, however. He needed to find out what had happened to Cassandra- both with her being what she was now and what just happened. He doubted that the confusion of this place had bothered her ability to navigate, for it was in an animal’s nature to be able to sniff their way out of any dangerous circumstance. Yet, what was it that Cassandra had smelled on the air? Eugene could detect no odor other than the scent of the rain sticking to the leaves and bark in the cold morning air. Although, he had nowhere near the amount of olfactory cells she had, so it was no wonder he didn’t catch onto what she noticed.

Eugene no longer had to rely on his muddy path when he heard a shuffling noise coming from further ahead. In an upcoming clearing, the fire orange and caramel brown and ocean blue dragon was hunched over some object. Eugene approached slowly as to not startle her, but when he came to Cassandra, he was the one who was horrified.

Cassandra crouched over long dead travelers, the smell of their clothes and hair and flesh a putrid perfume. Eugene nearly vomited but he composed himself within an instant. What exactly did Cassandra think she was doing? Her jaws ripped at the leather armor and garments covering one ancient man, the rotting flesh exposed to the cooling rain that continued to drench their bodies.

“Do you know what you’re doing? Don’t you dare!” Eugene yelled, running up to her.

Cassandra turned and, lowered on her haunches, growled insanely at his figure. She rattled her stinger on some rocks as a warning not to come any closer. Deep red bubbled through her scales, and Eugene halted mid-step and backed away only a few paces. His friend had truly become deranged, he could see.

“Stop that right now! You’re not like this! This isn’t you!”

Cassandra ignored his presence and dug her maw back into the decayed flesh. She tore at all her teeth could reach, feasting upon the dead victim with a passion that scared Eugene. How would he ever….

“Cassandra, do you understand what you’re doing? You have to stop right now. If you don’t, you’ll just be another monster, just like the thing that made you into this.”

Eugene didn’t mean for his words to come out like shards of glass, but maybe the harshness of his tone would make Cassandra realize what exactly she was scarfing down and bring back her human mind.

It didn’t.

No, instead, Cassandra snarled like a wild dog with rabies. She flexed her claws in the dirt before rising up on her hind legs to her full height, easily towering over Eugene. She spread her wings and flared her ruff, letting dark red billow through her scales. Even in the dull, grey lighting of the rainstorm, her eyes still glinted with the ferocity and hunger of a feral beast.

For a long moment Eugene wondered who he was even looking at anymore. Was that Cassandra? Or was it the creature? Had she lost herself to the beast within? It seemed that way, with her claws primed for blood and her jaws dripping with gore.

And yet? He held out his hand. He held back a flinch as blood dripped to his fingers and palm, held tight to the ridges on her back with the other arm as red smeared up across the scales. He held her face, held his breath, and held tight to all the courage he could muster.

The beast he was clinging onto let out a long, guttural snarl that vibrates Eugene’s rib cage as he’s pressed against the thing’s softer underbelly. Hooked, barbed black claws raise up and hover mere inches away from his back. He feels blood and drool and maybe some foam drip onto his head and run in gooey trails down the back of his neck.

The deadly talons flex, just barely tear the fabric of his shirt, and then fall down limply to the monster’s side.

Cassandra, and Eugene was sure now that it was still Cassandra, stooped down to press her head to his chest. Though mute in this form, he could see the grimace on her mouth and imagine the words she was longing to say.

“I’m sorry”

Eugene gently strokes one of his quivering hands over the top of Cassandra’s head. He murmurs to her softly and it doesn’t matter how softly he speaks because he knows she will always hear him soothing her.

For a long time, man and monster stay tangled in an embrace. Eventually, though, Cassandra pulls away so she can revert forms and be free from this animalistic insanity that shrouds her mind.

The transformation is forced and as painful as the first one that day, but it leaves behind more throbbing and burning in her exhausted muscles. She blinks away black spots and then shook her head, like she was trying to expel the remnants of her feral thoughts. Her horns and webbed frill remain in this form, along with her tail, which is tucked in between her legs like a scared dog’s. Ironically, she’s not trembling in the form with flesh and no clothing. Eugene immediately shut his eyes and put his cowl on her, buttoning and tying it securely, seeing Cassandra was a bit too out of it to do it herself or even be embarrassed over her nudity.

“Are you all right?” Eugene asked. The rain is beginning to lessen its brutality as it lashed against their bodies.

Cassandra did not respond. Instead, her face became rather pale, which was impressive given that she was already ghost white. More concerned than curious, Eugene raised a hand as if to draw her attention up to his eye level. However, in that moment, Cassandra buckled to the opposite side, a line of vomit splattering from her lips. She sank to her knees, clutching her stomach. As she rocked herself, Eugene placed a hand against her forehead.

“I’m not feeling that great,” Cassandra gurgled through cringing lips.

“You’re not kidding.” Eugene said, “Must have been...”

He stopped because Cassandra retched again, so she most likely didn’t want to be reminded of what exactly she had done in her feral state. It didn’t help that she was still wet with blood, gore, and goop from decayed human flesh. She vomits once more.

“I’m just gonna...sit here for a moment.” She panted.

“That’s alright.” Eugene assured her, rubbing her back and quickly pulling her messy hair out of the way. “It’s okay, Cass, it’s okay. Just get it out.”

She was trying. She was trying really hard but it came to a point where her body felt like it didn’t need to throw up anymore and was ready to start feeling normal again. But she wasn’t ready. She became so desperate to purge the human flesh from her stomach that she half-mutated one of her arms and shoved monstrous fingers down her throat just to make herself vomit again.

“Cassandra!”

Eugene grabbed both of her wrists, feeling one of them shift back to normal beneath his fingers. Cassandra is crying, struggling to breathe over an oncoming panic attack that’s taking over her mind, just like the inner monster had.

“It’s okay, Cass. It’s okay. It’s over now. Nobody is going to hurt you, I promise.”

Cassandra whimpered and shook her head as tears spilled over.

“Other people aren’t going to be the ones doing the hurting.”

Eugene stared at her in disbelief as she sobbed below him.

“It’s like I was hallucinating,” Cassandra started softly, “I couldn’t control myself anymore. I smelled meat and thought I saw something, so I went after it. Eugene, I was hunting them.”

Cassandra put her head in her hands and shook it miserably. Her frill droops and fades into a mix between deep blue and pale green- sadness and fear, if Eugene had to guess.

“Oh god, Eugene, I’m a monster. I’m no different than the other creatures!”

“Don’t say that.” Eugene said firmly, “You are not them.”

“I chased the people I saw,” Cassandra whispers hoarsely, “I chased them to the ends of this place and they ran from me. They were scared of me.”

“You won’t be like that.” Eugene assured her. “It’s alright. I promise.”

“No,” Cassandra croaked, shaking her head softly. “No, no it’s…s’not alright, is it? For you to be-”

“Cassandra, honey,” Eugene interrupted softly with a sigh.

Suddenly, there’s hands cupping either sides of her cheeks and she flinches, then waits for her neck to be snapped. It’s the fate she deserved. But, instead, her chin is lifted and she makes eye contact with Eugene kneeling in front of her.

“Whatever you’re going to say, save it.” He said. “There’s no use, because you’re not going to get rid of me.”

“But-“

“But nothing.” Eugene stopped her. “If you think you being infected with some dragon gene that turns you into a creature is going to be the defining factor that ends the dynamic we have going on, then you must be crazy AND too weak to hold a basket of clothes.”

That prompts the smallest laugh out of Cassandra. She sniffled and leaned forward, collapsing into Eugene’s arms. He practically pulled her into his lap, but she couldn’t really care. She was dying to be held after all that’s happened, and Eugene seemed happy to comply with that need.

“Plus,” Eugene went on. His fingers stroked delicately through Cassandra’s tangled hair. “Okay, actually, first- we seriously need to get your a proper hairbrush. What is with this bedhead style?”

“Shut up,” Cassandra growled. She quickly shut her mouth when she felt her monster rumble within her and she buried her face against Eugene’s chest, trembling again. The arms around her hold her even closer, more securely.

“Anyway,” Eugene continued. “It’d be a huge bummer if I couldn’t tell people my little sister was a dragon...hybrid...thing.”

“Your...sister?” Cassandra echoed. She peeked up at Eugene, but whipped her head right back down when she saw that stupid smirk on his face.

“What should I call you? You’re clearly more than a friend.” Eugene mused. “Just not in that way. No offense, but I would NEVER date you.” He paused. “What about platonic significant annoyance?”

Cassandra snorted against his chest. She could scales bristling back up along her shoulders, but she couldn’t bring herself to care at that moment.

“No, I- I like sister.” She said shyly.

“Sister it is, then...sis.”

“Don’t wear it out.”

Eugene shifts her in his arms, but doesn’t let go. She feels him press a kiss to the top of her head and her ears flame red.

“We’ll get through this, Cass. I promise.”

“I’m just- I’m so glad you’re okay,” Cassandra whispered. “I don’t know what I’d do if I-“

“It’s not going to happen,” Eugene answered definitely. “I’m okay and you’re going to be okay too, Cass. You’ll see.”

If it were anyone else speaking these words to her, Cassandra would have never believed them. But Eugene, with all his frustrating flaws, was different. And maybe, just maybe, one day Cassandra would be able to see herself the same way he saw her.

#tangled the series #rapunzel’s tangled adventure #tangled #tts cassandra #tts eugene #eugene fitzherbert #tts rapunzel #tts fanfiction #tts fanfic #tw: blood #tw: vomit #tw: emetophobia

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stevenroguers · 4 years

Text

we are soldiers

Summary: ‘The last time Steve had lost him, on the train, there had been no goodbye.

It’s only fitting that this time there is a month for farewells and loving kisses and broken words that mean more to them than anyone will ever be able to understand.’

Something is wrong with the serum in Bucky’s body. At least he has Steve.

Warnings: Angst, Smut, Terminal Illness, Main Character Death. This fic ignores the latter part of CACW. Basically, Bucky joins the Avengers after HYDRA is destroyed.

Rating: Explicit.

Word Count: 4.2k (yes, I know, it is very long for a Tumblr fic but I had a lot to write for them.)

A/N: This fic has been written for @youngmoneymilla ‘s 15k challenge and if you’re not following her, you totally should because her writing style is mature, fantastic and so captivating. The background score I used as inspiration is here.

The first time it happens, Bucky is making coffee.

He feels the tremor in his right shoulder, just as he picks up the cup and before he knows it, he’s spilt burning coffee all over his front and the granite countertop.

Burns hurt Bucky more than he’s willing to admit, so when Steve comes in to the kitchen, bleary eyed and adorably rumpled from sleep, it’s to the sight of Bucky dabbing a dry, wet cloth to patches of reddening skin on his chest, wincing in pain.

‘Jesus, Buck, what happened?’ Steve asks, eyes widening as he takes in the overturned coffee cup and Bucky’s shirt lying discarded on the floor.

‘Spilt the damn coffee,’ Bucky mutters through clenched teeth. ‘Hurts like a bitch.’

Steve shakes his head and the fondness Bucky sees there still makes his heart clench with wonder. ‘The way you’re fucking going at it, rubbing like that, it’s going to hurt even more. Put that rag away, I’ll get you some ice.’

He turns towards the refrigerator, the rays of sunlight coming in through the windows arcing off his back like golden dancers and Bucky stares, momentarily distracted from the pain.

Steve is fucking gorgeous.

Bucky realises it in the stolen moments when he knows only he’s looking, really looking at Steve.

The few moments of calm after a battle, when everyone is just taking in the surroundings, the wreckage, the disaster– Bucky looks at Steve. Takes in the line of his jaw, the set of his shoulders, the relief and grief battling in his eyes which go from clear blue to overcast skies in the matter of seconds.

Some mornings, he wakes up before Steve and has the privilege of watching the way his blond hair fans out behind his head, almost like a halo, making him look like the goddamn angel he is. He’s soft in sleep, his eyelashes fluttering, his lips parted and his forehead free of the lines that usually crease them.

And now, as the sun dances over the expanse of Steve’s back, Bucky hungrily drinks his fill, feasting his eyes.

They’re soldiers- every moment is precious.

Steve turns back around and picks up Bucky’s shirt from the floor, wraps up a bunch of ice-cubes in it and walks over to where Bucky’s standing, leaning against the kitchen counter.

His brow furrows up in concentration as he presses the ice to the reddening patches of Bucky’s skin.

‘You don’t hafta be so… diligent, Steve,’ Bucky says, his voice gruff. ‘It’s going to heal in a couple seconds anyway.’

‘Doesn’t mean I like to see you hurt,’ Steve says immediately, looking up at Bucky through his fucking perfectly curled eyelashes. It makes Bucky want to lean down and kiss him stupid, so he does.

Their kisses go from chaste and soft in the mornings to heated and filthy in the showers to longing and desperate when one or both of them are about to go away on a mission.

Now it is gentle, searching, soothing as Steve traces his tongue over Bucky’s bottom lip, making him smile into the soft touch.

It makes him forget the strange feeling that made him drop the coffee all over himself in the first place.

–

Bucky wakes up after a particularly vicious mission where his ribs had been battered and bruised beyond belief, feeling achy and sore.

It isn’t something he’s used to- the serum heals him in a few hours, maybe a day at most.

He’s been hospitalised a couple of times, of course, but that’s only when he’s lost a life-threatening amount of blood or when he’s been hit in the head particularly terribly or something else that makes Steve turn pale and his mouth draw into a thin pinched line. If Bucky dares object at being shoved into an ambulance and rushed to a facility, Steve turns furious eyes on him and picks apart his battle techniques and self-esteem issues.

‘You think you’re fucking dispensable,’ Steve had told him once, almost on the verge of tears. ‘How do I make you understand you’re the most precious thing I have left?’

He stopped objecting after that.

But this mission had been harsh and he’d definitely pulled almost every muscle in his body and sprained a couple joints, but nothing too serious.

Which doesn’t explain the pain he’s feeling everywhere, because it’s been almost twelve hours and if not completely healed, all he’s supposed to feel at this time is a slight twinge here and there.

He gingerly walks to the bathroom and takes off his shirt and has to bring his hand up to stifle the gasp that escapes when he encounters his reflection.

The bruises across his abdomen that are supposed to have healed by now are going from red to an angry purple. There’s red lesions everywhere that haven’t healed and a particularly nasty gash on his right arm which seems to be bleeding slightly.

He brings up his metal arm to touch one of the bruises and winces as his muscles seem to shrink away from the touch. The pain is tolerable- Bucky’s been through much worse but he knows this isn’t how it is supposed to be.

So he turns the warm water on (there are perks to living in a tower made by Stark- there’s warm water all the time, anytime) and draws himself a bath, sinking down and hoping the issue resolves itself after a good night’s sleep.

It does- he wakes up the next day to a body that feels and looks untouched by war and detriment but something about the experience leaves an uneasy feeling curling in his gut.

–

Steve notices something is wrong when they’re fucking on the couch.

He’s riding Steve, and it feels like fucking heaven because Steve knows exactly where to touch him to make him see stars but with one particular thrust Bucky arches too far back and cries out from the pain that shoots across his spine.

Steve is on alert in a second, reaching out to grip Bucky’s shoulders in firm hands, pulling him down to meet concerned blue eyes.

‘What’s wrong?’ Steve asks, worry dripping from his tone. ‘Did I hurt you?’

The slight incredulity in his voice stings and Bucky scowls (which is laughable because Steve’s dick is still in him) and says, ‘I don’t know why I bother fucking you, if you’re going to be such a fucking pussy each time I make a sound.’

He cringes the second the words leave his lips and Steve’s eyebrows shoot up. His dick is going soft inside Bucky. The discomfort and embarrassment make Bucky pull off and fall onto the couch beside Steve where he curls in on himself, facing away.

A hand rests on his shoulder and he leans into the touch, even as Steve remains silent, waiting for him to explain. Steve knows by now that sometimes, Bucky says things that he doesn’t really mean when he can’t get across what he wants to say. It all comes out anyway, because Bucky is Bucky and Steve is Steve.

‘The rogue SHIELD branch in Ukraine,’ Bucky murmurs after a while. ‘One of the fuckers got me in the lower back.’

‘But–’

‘I know,’ Bucky sighs. ‘I still haven’t healed.’

He feels the tug on his shoulder and turns around to face Steve with a resigned huff. The concern on his face is overwhelming.

‘It’s been a week, Buck,’ Steve says, worry shrouding his irises. ‘How are you still feeling it?’

‘I don’t know,’ Bucky responds, not quite meeting Steve’s eyes.

‘Bullshit,’ Steve says immediately, tone flat. ‘What aren’t you telling me?’

Bucky sighs and shakes his head. ‘It’s nothing, really. Nothing to worry about anyway. Just that, these days… the healing, it’s not working as well as it used to.’

‘What?’

‘Couple of missions, really,’ Bucky hastens to explain, almost frightened by the shock in Steve’s voice. ‘The ones over the last couple of months.’

‘Last couple of months? Buck, what the fuck?!’

‘Steve–’

‘You don’t fucking talk to me! You’ve not been healing for a couple of months and you didn’t fucking tell me!’

‘Steve–’

‘No!’ Steve’s eyes are blazing and he’s pointing a finger at Bucky. ‘No, you don’t get to fucking Steve me right now. We’re going to Bruce tomorrow morning and you don’t get to argue.’

Bucky would very much like to argue. But one look at Steve’s shaking finger and the fear in his eyes makes him shut up. He nods in acquiescence and Steve pulls him into a hug that’s even tighter than the ones he usually delivers.

‘I love you,’ he murmurs into Bucky’s hair and presses a kiss to his temple. ‘I love you so much, fuck.’

‘Fuckin’ sap,’ Bucky mumbles into Steve’s chest and that’s that.

–

Bucky pleads with Steve to let him go to Bruce alone and finally, after an hour of arguing, Steve says fine with a scowl and stalks out. Then he comes back, scowl still in place, kisses Bucky hard and brutal on the mouth, nipping at his lips and pulling on his tongue.

When he pulls away, he still looks upset but his voice is soft when he says, ‘I want you to tell me exactly how it goes.’

Bucky pulls him into a gentler kiss in response.

Bruce looks alarmed when he hears what Bucky has to say.

‘You’re telling me,’ Bruce says, looking at Bucky over his spectacles, ‘that the main property of the super-soldier serum is not… working for you?’

‘It isn’t the main property, strength is,’ Bucky says. ‘Isn’t it?’ he adds dubiously.

Bruce shakes his head. ‘Strength is a result of that property. The reason you have that much strength is because the serum heals you against weakness, if that makes sense.’

Bucky shrugs. ‘Well then, yeah. It’s not working.’

‘I need to do a blood test. Send it to the lab and get some results,’ Bruce says, looking more worried than Bucky thinks he should.

‘What could be wrong?’ Bucky asks him.

‘Any number of things. You didn’t get Erskine’s serum like Steve did. You got whatever mutation Zola managed to come up with. There’s no documentation of what actually went into your body all those years ago. I don’t know what could be wrong and that’s what’s worrying me.’

Bucky feels the first shred of fear curl around his chest.

Bruce’s eyes are kind when he says, ‘Look, Barnes, I didn’t want to sugarcoat it for you. Figured you’d appreciate no one lying to you. But don’t worry about it till the blood comes back with a bunch of papers telling me what’s wrong with you.’

Bucky nods.

‘And Barnes?’ Bruce says, tone a little sharp. Bucky looks at him in askance.

‘Don’t lie to Steve.’

Bucky shudders.

–

He tells Steve who buries his head in his hands and stays silent and unmoving for long minutes. Bucky doesn’t know what to tell him so instead he crawls up to Steve and runs his metal fingers through Steve’s hair. It usually relaxes him but this time Steve reaches up to take Bucky’s hand in his and though Bucky can’t really feel anything, the sensors Stark put in this arm lets him know just how hard Steve is gripping it.

‘You’ll be okay,’ Steve murmurs, focusing on Bucky’s chest instead of his face. ‘You’ll be okay.’

Bucky doesn’t know if Steve is trying to convince Bucky or himself.

–

As it turns out, Bucky isn’t okay. Bruce comes into their rooms with a sheaf of papers and a grave expression, telling them both to sit down and Bucky immediately knows something is terribly wrong.

He hopes for Steve’s sake that it’s bearable.

Bruce hesitates before he begins and Steve’s grip tightens on Bucky’s waist.

‘You’re dying,’ Bruce says and as soon as the words leave his mouth, he looks horrified. Steve jerks in shock and Bucky still hasn’t really processed what the words mean so he looks at Steve for cues on how to react but Steve just looks… there isn’t really a word.

‘I’m sorry,’ Bruce says, taking his glasses off and wiping them against his untucked shirt. His hair is a mess and there are shadows under his eyes. ’I never practiced, I don’t have a good bedside manner so I don’t have a clue how to do this but… it’s true. Barnes is dying.’

Steve screams.

It’s so uncharacteristic that both Bucky and Bruce startle. In one swift move, Steve pulls Bucky to him and screams into his shoulder and all Bucky can do is bring his hands up to Steve’s hair, brush through the golden strands and try to process what dying even means.

When Steve finally stops, his voice is hoarse as he asks Bruce why and how and what.

The serum Zola put in him is losing potency at an alarming rate, Bruce explains, his voice detached and clinical. His systems are now dependent on it and so they’re going to shut down in due course because there will be nothing to sustain them as putting anything new into Bucky’s body is basically asking for either a painful death or genetic mutation. There’s no way around it simply because of that, Bruce says, hands clenching and unclenching. They don’t know what’s in Bucky’s body. It’s been tested and though isolated elements have been found and explained, the risk is too much.

‘We’ll keep testing,’ Bruce says, as though it will make Steve’s blank, lost expression disappear. ‘We won’t give up.’

Bucky knows they don’t stand a chance.

–

They make love that night, on the bed in their room.

Bucky’s on his back, his nails digging into Steve’s back as Steve gently fingers him open with first one finger, then two, brushing occasionally against his prostate. Bucky cries out, letting all his inhibitions go, pushing into Steve’s thrusts with eager wantonness. He’s always been vocal but today he’s being loud and filthy as he screams Steve’s name into the air surrounding them, heavy with the impending conversations and pain.

‘Fuck, fuck, Stevie, more,’ he cries out as he turns his neck to the side, gasping into the cool sheets underneath. ‘Give me more, please.’

Steve’s barely said anything since they received the news, looking far off into the distance but holding Bucky close with an iron grip. Bucky read and watched one of their favourite films on TV but nothing helped– Steve looked just as blank as he had when Bruce had left. It’s only when Bucky had gently kissed him on the neck, hoping desperately for some reaction that some life had reentered Steve, his eyes brimming with tears as he pulled Bucky into fierce kisses, pushing him down on the bed, holding him there and kissing every inch of him, sucking hickeys down his body, worshipping him.

That’s how they’ve ended up here with Bucky gasping and arching on the bed with want and Steve going agonisingly slow, nothing like the fast, brutal pace he sets in the bedroom. It’s driving him insane.

Steve works in three fingers and Bucky howls with the feeling of them sliding in and out of him, the lube slicking their way. Steve relentlessly targets his prostate, hitting it with every thrust and Bucky has had enough so he finally says, ‘Swear to god, Rogers, if you don’t put your cock in me now–’

Steve jerks his fingers out, leaving Bucky whining and empty from the lack of contact. In seconds, the blunt head of his cock is nudging at Bucky’s hole, gently slipping in, filling him up, piecing him back together.

‘I love you,’ Steve says and his tears fall on Bucky’s face as he moves up Bucky’s body, pressing open mouthed kisses to the corner of his lips, to the shell of his ear. ‘I love you, Buck.’

He’s barely thrusting now, just shifting and moving deep inside Bucky’s body. One of his hands curls around Bucky’s cock and the other moves to Bucky’s metal arm. Bucky runs his own hands all over Steve, touching him, feeling him, committing him to memory (as though he hasn’t already).

‘I love you, too,’ Bucky says, looking up at Steve and for the first time since he’s been informed that he’s going to die in a matter of months, the tears rise in his eyes. ‘Stevie. My Steve.’

And this time, Steve’s crying as he buries his head against Bucky’s shoulder and speeds up his thrusts, making Bucky in turn cry out at the feeling.

He’s nearing orgasm, he can feel it being pulled from him with every stroke of Steve’s hand against his cock and he begins clenching his rim around Steve and the pleasure of it is so unbearable for both of them that they hurtle over the edge almost simultaneously.

When the high wears off, Steve moves away from Bucky’s shoulder and looks into his eyes. There’s a desperation there Bucky hasn’t seen since the last time he slipped into the Winter Soldier’s headspace which had been almost eight months ago.

‘I can’t follow you there like I did in the War,’ Steve says and his voice is so small that Bucky’s heart breaks. The truth of where ‘there’ is hangs like an unspoken weapon between them. ’I can’t follow you there, Buck, so where will I go?’

And because Bucky has no answer, he pulls Steve close and lets him cry against his chest.

–

Bucky gets worse as the days pass. His strength is disappearing so fast that he wakes up each morning feeling like he’s aged ten years. His ninety years are catching up to him now and when he says as much to Steve, Steve gets a hard, cold look in his eyes and tells Bucky to stop joking about something like that.

It’s weird because usually sickness has medicine but Bruce is against putting any foreign substance into his body and that leaves Bucky with an incurable illness and no medicine. When Natalia comes to visit, he tells her and she pulls his head into her lap and they sit in silence for three hours.

Bucky’s accepted it, he thinks.

He knows what’s coming- he knows the end is near and there isn’t anything he can do about it.

‘Your life is not your own,’ Steve had once said when he’d found Bucky standing on the edge of the rooftop, looking down at the lights and busy roads of Manhattan. ‘Keep your hands off it.’

The dead do not know what comes after, but at least they find out.

The living must deal with never knowing.

For those who live, the concept of Heaven and Hell is a comfort. It is a blanket of warmth in a world of cold, hard truths. For those who are about to die, those concepts feel like a tightening noose.

Bucky hopes the afterlife is a void, that is to say he hopes there is no afterlife.

He cannot live somewhere else, knowing that Steve is apart from him, mourning him.

Or worse, forgetting him.

And the possibility of himself forgetting Steve is far too painful to contemplate when those baby blue eyes haunt his dreams, nightmares and waking moments and so Bucky hopes for the void during the sleepless nights where Steve’s breathing beside him is shallow and disturbed from nightmares.

This he tells Stark, who looks at him like he understands and there’s a silent agreement between them that Steve will never know about these thoughts, these conversations.

They make love every night and though Bucky sometimes wants it hard and fast and brutal, the achingly slow pace Steve maintains these days is comfortable.

It gives him more time to appreciate Steve in the throes of passion– that moment before he comes when his eyes fall shut and his lips are swollen and bitten, the moment he first slips into Bucky, the moment when Bucky slips into him.

They are soldiers, every moment is precious.

–

The day Bucky knows he is going to die the minute he wakes up, he coughs blood onto the white sheets, staining them a coppery red.

Steve says nothing, just lifts Bucky up and changes the sheets. He’s stopped going on missions for the past month, opting to stay in the tower.

Sometimes Sam comes over and it had been a weird moment when he’d gone all misty-eyed as he’d insulted Bucky for being on his death-bed. He knows that’s Falcon’s emotionally stunted way of saying he’ll be missed but it had been… strange and Bucky hadn’t known what to do with it or the mist fogging up his own eyes.

The last time Steve had lost him, on the train, there had been no goodbye.

It’s only fitting that this time there is a month for farewells and loving kisses and broken words that mean more to them than anyone will ever be able to understand.

Natalia says goodbye and though she tries to keep it short, unemotional, almost clinical, the long silences she spends in his company speak otherwise.

Stark comes in late in the evenings, sends Steve out to socialise with the others in the tower for a couple of hours much to his chagrin(‘being cooped up here with one person for a month will end up in you becoming some sort of cryptid and we need you, Cap’) and they sit and talk about science and war and sometimes death. It’s both easy and hard around Stark but Stark has accepted that Bucky will die with a sort of stoic cynicism and after Steve’s inability to accept it at all, there’s comfort in Tony’s dark humour.

Bruce comes in one day, sits on the floor and shatters a bunch of glasses against the wall because Bucky is too far gone for any research progress to help him now. Bucky tries his best to comfort Bruce but he doesn’t know what to say that won’t make him sound suicidal so he says nothing.

Wanda once came in awkwardly with a bunch of baked cookies and cried on his shoulder for an hour before telling him that if he ever wanted it, she could come and put him to sleep and ensure he enjoyed some good dreams.

And he’s glad he’s gotten all the goodbyes out of the way as Steve wipes the blood from his chin because he knows, somehow that today is the day he finally finds out what comes after.

He thinks he should tell Steve but when he pats the spot beside him on the bed, Steve sits and the look in his eyes tells Bucky that he knows too.

So Bucky closes his eyes and asks Steve to read to him and Steve does, in his soft, lilting voice the last few chapters of the Great Gatsby. The fact that Steve picks this book makes him smile, and he forgoes the pillow in favour of Steve’s lap and falls back asleep, surprisingly content with the reality of his death.

When he wakes up again, he can barely breathe.

He looks around him and they’re there– Stark and Bruce and Wanda and Natalia, even Sam and Vision. They aren’t surrounding the bed but they’re milling about, in the bedroom, in the living room that he can see from the bedroom and probably in the kitchen because he can hear someone using the sink there.

‘Steve,’ he rasps and beside him, there’s movement and Steve is gripping his hand so tightly that Bucky thinks that strength alone is enough to breathe back life into him.

‘Water,’ he manages and there’s a straw in his mouth that lets him sip in water little by little.

‘They’re here for you,’ Steve whispers and Bucky smiles.

‘No, they’re not. They’ve been here for me for the whole time I was dying. Now that I will, they’re here for you.’ He’s breathless and by the time he’s done speaking, he’s panting hard.

Steve has cried himself dry and Bucky isn’t surprised by the lack of tears in his eyes now. They’re red and swollen but dry as they fix on Bucky.

‘I’ll miss you,’ Bucky says, suddenly, looking at Steve, who clenches his eyes shut. ‘So much.’

‘Wait for me, then,’ Steve says and his eyes are wide, entreating pools of blue that reminds Bucky of the sunshine he hasn’t seen in days. ‘Wherever you are, wait for me.’

He takes him in, the slight stubble Steve hasn’t shaved off in a couple of days, the tense set of his broad shoulders, the warmth of his hands. He can feel his life slipping away and he knows Steve can too because the pain intensifies on his face.

He knows he has just moments left and he can feel his eyes closing but he struggles to keep them open as long as he can, spending those last seconds staring at Steve, falling in love again and again and again.

They are soldiers.

Every moment is precious.

When his eyes finally close, the world turns white.

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carmenlire · 5 years

Text

In Sickness and In Health

read on ao3

Magnus wakes up with a wall of heat plastered against his back. Instead of comforting warmth, it feels like he’s landed in a furnace.

With a grimace, he pulls away from Alec and carefully sits up, letting the sheets pool around his waist. Looking over his shoulder, he sees his boyfriend sleeping. It doesn’t look to be restful, though, and instead of those adorable little snores he's grown used to, Magnus's eyes widen a little as it sounds like a goddamn chainsaw has started in the bedroom with Alec's next breath.

His frown matches Alec’s as he considers his boyfriend. His eyes sweep from sweat-damp hair to where his lips are chapped from breathing through his mouth to his shivering form under a pile of blankets. He reaches out and gently lays the back of his hand on Alec’s forehead.

Almost immediately, he winces even as Alec sighs in his sleep, relaxing into his touch.

Looking at the clock that rests on the bedside table, Magnus sees that it’s early morning, before even Alec’s alarm is set to go off. In the blink of an eye, Magnus makes a decision and summons his boyfriend’s phone into his hand, unlocking it before swiping the alarm off.

He sends a text to both Isabelle and Jace and climbs out of bed, making sure to rearrange the blankets around Alec. Taking his own phone with him, Magnus makes his way to the kitchen where he puts the kettle on for his own morning blend before pouring a cup and heading to his apothecary.

Settling down in his chair, Magnus takes a bracing sip from his mug and opens his laptop. He spends the next half hour or so cancelling and rescheduling the day’s appointments before spending another hour checking his email and generally catching up on work.

The sun is just peeking over the balcony’s railing when Magnus pushes away from his desk and drains the last of his cup, bringing his arms up in a leisurely stretch. With the thought that Alec might be waking soon, Magnus stands and pokes around his apothecary, selecting a few herbs and other ingredients for Alec’s own blend of tea that will help with whatever’s taken him ill.

Magnus didn’t know that shadowhunters could even get something so mundane as the flu or a particularly bad cold but he supposes that it shouldn’t be all that surprising. He’s been with Alec for over three years now and this is the first time Magnus has seen Alec laid low with anything remotely resembling so pedestrian as a stuffy nose.

Bringing the few ingredients to the kitchen, Magnus makes a tea, adding a generous dollop of honey when he hears a wracking cough from the bedroom.

Pouring the tea into a large, homey mug that they'd made on a date last year, Magnus brings the tea with him to their bedroom and pauses in the threshold. Alec is just rousing and Magnus waits to see what happens next.

His alarm should have went off almost forty five minutes ago and Magnus gives him points for not sleeping longer. He watches as Alec groans a little, reaching across the bed for him in a move that does not make Magnus’s heart clutch a little before sinking into the bed with a muttered curse. However, the sun is washing over Alec’s face and it doesn’t take more than a few seconds for his eyes to fly open as he realizes that he’s overslept.

Magnus watches as Alec curses again, this time much more vehement, before throwing the covers off in a mad dash.

“Easy,” he chides, pushing away from the door frame just as Alec swings his legs out of bed. Even from across the room, Magnus sees the way Alec shivers at the cold.

“What are you doing up,” Alec mumbles as Magnus walks over to him. “I’m running late-- I need to get ready and be at the Institute in fifteen minutes.”

Magnus stops him from standing, laying a hand a hand on Alec’s chest while holding out the tea in the other. “You’re sick, darling, and I won’t have you gallivanting across town and taking out your piss poor attitude on innocent shadowhunters-- most of whom don’t deserve it,” Magnus ends with a small smile.

“I’m fine,” Alec insists and shakes his head a little as he distractedly takes Magnus’s hand from his chest and brings it up to his lips, kissing the knuckles before moving Magnus out of the way.

Magnus sighs a little to himself, though he moves without resisting, setting down the tea on Alec’s table.

“Alright, Alexander,” Magnus says easily enough. “Go ahead and get ready. If you can do that, I won’t stand in your way if you want to go to the Institute today.”

Alec studies him for a second, blinking owlishly as though he can’t believe Magnus’s acquiescence but all Magnus does is wave his hand in a prove me wrong gesture that’s at least sixty percent sarcastic, no matter that Alec doesn’t notice.

Magnus watches with a raised eyebrow as Alec takes a shuddering breath and stands. He sways a little in place, blinking furiously before he starts toward the bathroom at a slow pace. It’s not Alec for a few reasons, not the least of which is that he’s running late and Magnus has only known his boyfriend to leisurely stroll when they’re on a date.

Alec makes it to the bathroom, pausing to rest at the door and Magnus can hear his breathing-- a little labored-- from where he’s still standing next to Alec’s side of the bed.

However, Alec throws a victorious look over his shoulder and the door shuts with a little click as he makes it the rest of the way into the bathroom.

Rolling his eyes at his boyfriend’s stubbornness, Magnus putters around the bedroom while he waits for Alec to admit defeat. He changes the bed sheets and cleans up his jewelry from where he’d left necklaces, rings, and a body chain out the night before in their haste to go to bed.

He estimates that twenty or so minutes have passed when the door eases open with the shower still running. Looking up from where he’d been placing a warming spell on the tea mug to keep the tea from running cold, Magnus hides his own victorious look as Alec stands hesitatingly just outside of the door.

“I don’t feel good,” Alec admits sheepishly. “I think I might be sick.”

With a little sound of sympathy, Magnus doesn't gloat, he just walks over to Alec and wedges an a shoulder under his arm. “Now, I wonder where you got an idea like that,” he replies dryly and steers them back to the bathroom.

“I’m tired, babe. Can’t we just go to bed,” Alec mutters, leaning against his side.

“As soon as we get you into clean clothes, darling,” Magnus says, muscling his very tall and very disgruntled boyfriend in front of the shower. The water’s warm, the mirror fogged up and Magnus has just eased Alec’s shirt over his head when he asks, “What were you doing in here for twenty minutes--”

“I was sitting down,” Alec admits before Magnus can even finish. “I turned the water on but then I just sat on your vanity chair. Getting ready seemed like a lot of effort.”

“Well, now that we both know you aren’t going anywhere, let’s get you clean and into new pajamas.”

Alec follows instructions as Magnus strips him and guides him into the shower. With a sigh, Magnus strips too and the two of them take a blistering shower. Alec’s lethargic and seems a little out of it as Magnus efficiently washes them both with quick, economical moves.

He smiles just a little whenever Alec’s eyes close whenever he washes his hair but he’s cursing the next minute as Alec lists sideways, falling asleep on his feet.

“Come on, sweetheart,” Magnus murmurs. “Just a few more minutes.”

Alec glares at him, hazel eyes burning just a little brighter with his fever as they finish the shower and Magnus dries him off with a giant, fluffy towel that Alec jerks away from.

“Stop,” he mutters. “It hurts.”

Knowing that Alec’s probably achy and getting chilled now that the water’s off, Magnus just makes soothing noises as he finishes the job. He summons one of his robes, wrapping it around himself before he’s getting a pair of sweatpants and a hoodie for Alec with another snap of his fingers.

Alec’s in bed a few minutes later, all but crawling under the covers with a sigh of relief. Magnus hates to disturb him but he reaches for the mug of tea anyway, its contents still steaming even if it has been almost an hour since he first brewed it.

“Here, Alexander,” Magnus murmurs. “Just a few sips.”

Alec doesn’t move and as Magnus thinks over ways to make his boyfriend drink the tea that will help bring the fever down and ease some of his symptoms, he’s struck with an idea that only makes him feel a little bad.

Gently carding his hand through Alec’s damp hair, Magnus leans down until his lips are close to Alec’s hear. “Please drink some of this tea I made you, darling. For me?”

Nothing happens for a minute and Magnus is forced to consider alternatives when Alec grumbles and opens one eye. “I’m tired,” he mutters woefully but Magnus doesn’t let that stop him from helping Alec to sit up.

“You’ll feel better after some tea,” Magnus promises and has to smother a laugh whenever Alec grouses and sits up with a force that looks like it takes everything he has, glaring dazedly at Magnus before taking the cup in Magnus’s outstretched hand.

Alec’s taken just a few careful sips, throat working with each swallow, when his eyes widen and his mouth parts on a sharp inhale.

“I need to call the Institute and let someone know I won’t be in today,” Alec says before his hands fly to his pockets before reaching over to the nightstand.

Magnus stills his frantic movements with calm fingers. “No need,” he assures Alec. “Already taken care of.”

“What,” Alec asks owlishly. “When?”

Magnus just looks at him drolly. “Whenever I woke up in the dead of the night to you sweating through your shirt and your wheezing breaths.”

Alec grimaces, muttering a, “Sorry,” that has Magnus smiling at him quietly.

“No need to be sorry, sweetheart. I just knew whenever I woke up to you with a fever that you wouldn’t be in any condition to work. I texted both Isabelle and Jace to let them know and--”

Magnus breaks off as the phone he’d set on the nightstand when he’d brought the tea vibrates. Leaning away from Alec, Magnus takes a moment to read the screen before his face lights up and he returns to Alec with a bright look.

“Dear Isabelle just replied and said-- and I quote-- 'Let me know if you need help wrangling him into bed. He’s rarely sick but when he is, he’s the world's worst patient. Tell him if he even thinks about coming to the Institute today, I’ll let Stonebridge know that Alec thinks his key lime pie is so disgusting that not even Alicante’s rats would eat it.'”

Alec pales, making his flushed cheeks stand out all the more. “She can’t do that,” he exclaims weakly. “Stonebridge thinks I love his baking and he gives me valuable intel from Idris in exchange for being his tester.”

“Best not to test your sister then, wouldn’t you say, darling?”

Alec blinks, not saying anything, before his shoulders slump even more than they were before and he mumbles, “I guess.”

Magnus has to resist the urge to pinch his boyfriend’s cheeks-- he’s so cute when he’s being petulant, after all.

Magnus watches as Alec slowly drinks all of the tea, sighing when he’s finished and holding out the empty mug to him with a pleased expression.

“Good?”

“It tasted like gingerbread,” Alec says slowly, as though he doesn’t trust his taste buds.

“It did, indeed,” Magnus confirms, reaching out a hand to test Alec’s temperature as his boyfriend relaxes onto his back in bed, pulling the covers up to his chin.

He’s still hot and Alec sighs at the coolness. Magnus lets his hand rest against Alec’s chest, over the steady if slightly accelerated beat of his heart. It’s soothing and Magnus feels like he could sit here all day and watch over Alexander in the quiet of their bedroom.

Alas, he has things he needs to do even if he did cancel his appointments for the day but Magnus waits until he’s sure Alec’s sleeping before standing. He doesn’t even take a step away from the bed before Alec’s snagging a hand out faster than he should be able to, though, and pulling him closer.

“What’s going on,” he asks, half-asleep. “Where are you going?”

Leaning over Alec, Magnus lays a tiny kiss on his forehead, frowning a little at the sheer heat radiating from his boyfriend.

“Rest, darling. I’ll just be in my study.”

If anything, Alec just becomes more stubborn, pulling sluggishly on Magnus’s arm.

“No,” he insists. “Stay with me.”

And who’s Magnus to argue with that? With a small huff of laughter, Magnus shoos Alec back to the bed and just holds up a hand whenever Alec whines-- whines-- as he thinks Magnus is leaving after all.

Instead, he walks around the bed and climbs in on his own side, shuffling over to Alec. He barely settles before Alec’s closing that last bit of distance, throwing an arm over his waist and laying his head over Magnus’s chest.

Almost immediately, Alec’s turning boneless against Magnus and his congestion makes it seem like he’s honest to God purring as Magnus starts carding a hand through his hair.

Magnus quickly loses track of time after that. He’s distantly aware of the sun rising higher in the sky but their bedroom seems removed from reality all together as Magnus lets Alec cuddle him to within an inch of his life. He’s shivering no matter that he’s overheated and Magnus figures he has a couple of hours before he’ll rouse Alec and persuade him to try some broth.

In the meantime, he’ll let Alec sleep and revel a little in the fact that he gets to have this.

It’s nothing glamorous but it is real. And it’s his. He gets to take care of Alec-- who is mostly a model patient for him, once the man realizes that he is, in fact, too ill to work-- and he gets to suffer as Alec’s body heat radiates and he gets to wince as his boyfriend, still sleeping, gets snot all over his Italian silk robe with his runny nose.

Alec trusts himself enough to be so vulnerable and that means more than Magnus can say to be the one Alec lets in when he’s sick. That doesn’t mean that he doesn’t carefully sit up from Alec’s tentacle grip a little while later though, and summon the book he’s translating for a client. He gets a little work done, levitating the book in front of him while one hand scrawls the translation-- to be typed later on along with any notes-- and the other sweeps over Alec, constantly soothing even when he’s sleeping.

Alec wakes up in the early afternoon feeling even worse and Magnus makes Alec a simple lunch-- a soup he can barely remember his mother making him all those lifetimes ago-- while he throws together a little potion to help his boyfriend.

Alec’s fever breaks late in the evening to Magnus’s relief-- and to his delight, Alec decides to stay home the next day, too, reasoning that he was tired and sore and just wanted to rest a little more before carrying on as if nothing had happened.

No, Magnus reflects as Alec’s snoring is particularly potent that night, there’s nothing glamorous of taking care of a sick patient, even if they’re the love of his life.

Still, he always wants to be Alec’s calm in the storm just as Alec has been his time and time again. He’s seen Alec in all manner of distress from demon wounds to poison-riddled infections and this is barely a blip on his radar. It’s almost a relief, really, to deal with something so mundane from his boyfriend who seems to court danger no matter how hard he tries not to.

Sighing a little, Magnus barely flinches as he feels Alec start drooling. He’s tired himself after a long day and it’s with that thought, that Magnus lets himself fall asleep to snores that are still music to his ears, even if the person they originate from is still a little congested and stuffy and all around, a little gross.

Magnus has been in love plenty of times-- most of which weren’t easy or perfect. Nothing’s ever felt quite so much his, however, as his boyfriend coughing while squeezing him closer.

I guess this really is love, Magnus wonders, and falls asleep before Alec can finish his latest snore.

#in sickness and in health #my writing #malec fic #fluff

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chaossmagic · 7 years

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Prompt: WILLIAM SEEING OLIVER'S SCARS FOR THE FIRST TIMEEEEE.

Trying To Be Brave

William hadn’t left his room in four days.

Each time Oliver had tried to coax him out, offering food and hot beverages and full control of the Netflix queue, he’d been met with silence on the other side of the door. He wondered whether William was feigning sleep, or engrossed in the comic books he kept in his backpack, or perhaps lying on his bed staring at the four walls and wishing he were anywhere but where he was.

It had been three weeks since Samantha died. Since he’d had to look his ten-year-old in the eye and tell him his mother hadn’t survived the final attack on Lian Yu, since he’d bought an apartment with an extra bedroom and had William’s things shipped from his old house to Star City because Oliver was the only family he had left now.

Guilt and worry gnawing at his stomach, Oliver had spent more time thinking about William than he had focusing on the day-to-day duties of being Mayor. Every time he closed his eyes, he saw Adrian Chase aiming a gun to his own head. He went over those hours over and over again, racing through the wreckage to find his friends; Dinah, a deep cut on her head that had matted her long hair with blood; Rene, concussed and suffering from two fractured ribs; Curtis, having sprained an ankle while trying to run from the explosions; Felicity, minor burns on her hands and arms, the ends of her hair singed, a nasty bruise on her stomach from a fall onto jagged rocks.

Diggle, unconscious and not breathing, a neck wound that left a trail of blood and Oliver’s desperate attempts to perform CPR in the middle of the burning forest when his best friend’s heart stopped.

And he always circled back to William, the frightened boy whose entire world had been turned upside down all because his father was Oliver Queen.

There had been one thread of hope, however; on day three of William not leaving his room, Oliver had left a glass of orange juice for him outside the door. When he returned later that evening after a meeting, it was empty.

Done with the tasks required for the day, Oliver decided to head home and check on William, and see if he was perhaps up to talking or eating. On the way, he stopped by a small bakery that he and Felicity had often frequented, due to their cinnamon buns being, in Felicity’s words, “the best damn baked goods in the entire tri-state area”. He picked up a couple of the said buns, still warm from the oven, in the hope that something sweet and wonderful-smelling might cheer his son up, at least for a little while.

“William?” he called out as he stepped in the door. “I’m home!”

Nothing. Loosening his tie with one hand, he put the warm buns on the kitchen countertop and quickly checked his phone for any new messages - there were none - before switching on the coffee maker. It was a habit he’d picked up since they’d returned from Lian Yu and Felicity was coming over more and more often, and they’d act like shy teenagers on their first date as they held hands and shared tentative kisses, re-discovering what it was they’d lost between them over a year ago. It was wonderful, and exciting, and felt new even though they’d been in love with one another now for almost four years.

It wasn’t something Oliver thought would ever get old.

With the coffee maker revving up, his discarded his jacket and tie and headed for the bathroom, intending to take a shower before Felicity inevitably showed up. Before he did, he knocked on William’s door.

“William, there’s some cinnamon buns in the kitchen if you want them,” he called. “Just help yourself, okay?”

Again, no answer came, but he heard the creak of bedsprings and some shuffling from inside the room. He thought he heard a book being snapped shut and the rustle of pages, or perhaps he wanted to hear them because he needed to know the poor boy was at least moving around and doing something, even if he didn’t want to be in his company right now.

It was hard knowing how to help when they were both so new to the father-son arrangement. And with William’s mother gone…

Shaking his head to remove those kinds of thoughts from his mind, he went to the bathroom, undressed, and jumped in the shower, letting the almost-scalding water soothe him and take away some of his worries for a short time. The grime of the day washed down the drain and he took himself away from thoughts of City Hall and instead focused on the plans for that night’s patrols, which he, Felicity, and a bed-bound Diggle had decided on earlier. Dinah and Rene wanted to train before heading out, so Oliver would arrive at the bunker earlier to meet them, Felicity, Curtis, and Thea following later.

He must have stayed under the water longer than he’d realized, as it had turned from almost too hot to just warm, his skin lobster pink, bringing out the angry lines of the scars that littered his body. The newer injuries stung slightly under the spray, his muscles still a little achy and stretched tight.

Shutting off the water, he climbed out and reached for a towel, wrapping himself in it and padding across to his bedroom. He didn’t need to go out again until much later; wearing starched, pressed suits all day made him feel claustrophobic, the fabric of his formal shirts compressing his chest, like he was wearing a noose around his neck. Being able to step out of the constricting costume of a Mayor and into something he actually felt comfortable in always improved his mood and helped to take some of the edge off the thoughts that plagued his mind.

He still heard no noise or sounds of activity from William’s room, so he headed straight for the closet and started to change. Perhaps, he thought as he reached for a pair of soft pants, he should just let him work through his grief privately for now. Oliver didn’t want to push him into something he didn’t feel ready for, and if William was isolating himself from him, he didn’t want to provoke an adverse reaction by forcing him to communicate. From past experience, he knew that hunkering down against any attempt at intervention was usually the response to feeling pressured to share; he’d done it himself countless times, a protection mechanism against the pain and fear and anger and hurt that he knew would come pouring out if someone gave him the opportunity to talk.

It was only as he went to grab a shirt that he heard the squeak of wooden floorboards and a sharp intake of breath coming from behind him, a noise of surprise and horror that made his stomach twist…and then drop.

William was standing in the doorway, barefoot, his hair in disarray, one cheek creased with pillow marks where he had been lying on it. He gripped the doorframe tentatively, as if worried he might not be allowed to touch it, and was staring straight at Oliver’s chest with huge eyes, his face pale and greyish.

“What are those?” he gasped, pointing at the scars that marked his father’s body. “Why are they so big? How did you get them?”

Oliver was at a loss for words. How to even begin to explain the jagged lines and misshapen marks of knife wounds, bullet holes, arrowhead piercings, and burns he’d accumulated over the years? How to explain to someone who was still a kid what human beings were capable of doing to one another?

Then, a tiny squeak, almost a whisper, left his son’s lips.

“Did he give them to you?”

He. William meant Adrian Chase.

Oliver didn’t see the point in lying. Twisting his shirt in his hands, he braced himself. “Some of them, yes.”

Memories shoved themselves up to the surface of his mind; being held in chains for days, no food or water, lashes brought down on his bare skin and Chase laughing, grinning, his otherwise handsome face twisted with rage and hatred.

The blowtorch searing his chest where the Bratva tattoo was, his nostrils filling with the smell of his own burning flesh. Semi-consciousness from the pain.

More of Chase’s laughter, his taunting.

Showing him pictures of his friends, his family. Felicity’s glasses.

William’s picture from his elementary school.

A brutal kick to the ribs.

A small hand rested on his elbow. “Dad?”

He came out of the memory and realized he was shaking, his knuckles white where they gripped the item of clothing in his hands.

“I’m sorry,” he whispered, his voice hoarse. He thought he could taste blood at the back of his throat. “I’m sorry, William.”

Sniffing, William gripped his arm tightly, pressing his face into his skin. He could feel the tears that dripped down his son’s face, wetting him anew.

“I never wanted anything like this to happen to you,” Oliver said. “You do believe that, right?”

Without looking up, William nodded. Then, he let go of his arm, moving his hands to the scars on Oliver’s chest, touching them tentatively. He stopped for a moment on the pink line under his ribs, then the gash on his lower stomach. He opened his palm and placed it flat on the burn where the Bratva mark once was.

“Does it hurt?” he asked, his voice thick with tears. “It looks like it hurts.”

Oliver shook his head. “Not so much anymore, but when it first happened…” he lowered his voice conspiratorially, “it hurt like hell.”

William giggled wetly. “Mom said I’m not supposed to say those words.”

“Well, you shouldn’t,” Oliver agreed. “But since it’s just us, I think we can make an exception.” He managed a small smile. “Only in the house though, okay? I don’t want to get a letter from your new teacher telling me you’re repeating bad language at school.”

….which is why it might be a good idea not to let Rene do any extensive childminding, he made a mental note for himself.

“Okay,” William said.

Oliver crouched down in front of him, taking his son’s small, white face in his hands, just as he had when he’d pulled him from Adrian on the boat. That time, he had been checking for physical injuries. Now, he was taking care of emotional ones.

“My scars….I know they’re scary, but you don’t have to be scared. I haven’t told you a lot about what I do, about the things I’ve done, but I will, because you deserve to know. But for now, you’ve had a lot of things happen to you and not a lot of time to process it, and if you feel like you need to talk, or want some space, or….you want to tell someone about your Mom, please, talk to me.”

Oliver swallowed thickly around a lump that had suddenly risen in his throat. He stroked William’s cheek instinctively with his thumb, wiping away the residual tears there.

“Do you understand?” he asked.

“Mmhmm,” William nodded quietly, blinking rapidly. Several more tears spilled over onto his cheeks, and Oliver wiped them away, like a father would.

Like the father that he was.

After a moment, Oliver stood up, stretching. “Okay. I’m gonna finish getting dressed, and then we can get something to eat. There’s some pastries in the kitchen if you want.”

“I know,” William replied, and a faint light came back into his eyes. “I can smell them.”

Oliver smiled, clapping him gently on the shoulder. “Help yourself, kiddo. I’ll be right behind you.”

William turned to leave, and Oliver finished pulling on his shirt. Before he reached the doorway, however, he turned back around.

“You’re brave, aren’t you? My Mom said you were.”

Brave. What was bravery, anyway?

“I try to be,” was what Oliver said in reply.

#alexiablackbriar13 #lorna's writing #arrow fic #arrow #oliver queen #william clayton #oliver x william #queen family #s5.5 spec

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