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goldenraeofsun · 2 years

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Day 8: Sober

Cas arrives back on Earth with very little fanfare, waking up on a park bench in Tucson, Arizona at 12:00 pm, October 14, 2022.

The sun bakes down from the clear skies overhead, and Cas actually has to squint to get his bearings. He gives his wings an experimental stretch, and they feel whole and strong, if a little stiff from disuse.

With a single thought, he flies to the Bunker. He’s going home after one year, eleven months, and nine days.

The Bunker door opens for him with a wince-inducing screech, and Cas crosses the threshold.

The air smells stale; no souls glimmer from within the Bunker fortifications.

It’s been abandoned.

Left behind.

Cas descends the stairs to the war room, his insides fluttering with a strange sense of anticipation cut short.

Whatever happened to cause the Winchesters to leave, it wasn’t abrupt.

The entire war table is clear – no papers lay strewn about or stray research notes are crumpled in piles.

In the main library beyond, a few books are stacked nearly on the table, and the bookshelves sit neat and orderly,

The kitchen has been left in similar good order. A fine layer of dust covers Dean’s favorite cast iron frying pan, and the pantry and refrigerator are empty.

Led by an invisible force he can’t label again, Cas pauses outside Dean’s door.

He inhales a breath he doesn’t need.

Inside, blank walls stare back at him. A stripped bed, the memory foam mattress bare to the world, occupies the place of honor in the middle of the room.

Cas runs his hand along the surface of Dean’s nightstand, gritty with neglect. His fingers linger where Mary’s photo rested for years. Turning, he takes a seat. The bed compresses a full inch and a half, and, even after all this time, Cas doesn’t understand Dean’s love for this sleeping surface.

Impossibly, this empty room, above all others, feels quieter than the rest of the Bunker, silent as a tomb. A neatly ransacked mausoleum to what was. Bare of everything that made it special, left with only the bones it started with.

Good bones, of course – but just bones. Bereft of any substance, any soul that made this subterranean, sunlight-deprived Bunker a home.

Eventually, Cas can’t take it any longer, surrounded by the ghost of Dean’s things.

He leaves.

Outside the Bunker, he sees the biggest sign he missed in his initial eagerness to return: the Impala is offensively conspicuous in her absence.

In an almost human folly, he had expected everything to be as he left it. He has returned to the Winchesters after long absences before – more than a few times due to his own demise – and he’s always found them more or less the same.

But something happened differently this time.

Cas pulls out his phone and turns it on. He’s learned his lesson about arriving without prior notice. His finger hovers over Dean’s name before he deliberately presses “call”.

It rings, and Cas clutches the phone tight to his ear, his heart in his throat.

“The number you have dialed is not in service –”

Cas listens, baffled, to the rest of the automatic message. What happened to Dean’s phone?

He tries Dean’s other cell phone.

“The number you have dialed is not service at this time –”

The phone cracks.

Cas pulls it away from his ear, lips pursing at the broken screen. Damn. The glass surface still responds to his touch, so he scrolls down his contact list.

The phone rings once, and Cas half expects another robotic voice, but –

“Cas?” Sam demands.

“Hello, Sam.”

“Hey, man!” Sam says, delighted. “Gotta say, when I picked up I thought someone somehow got ahold of one of your old phones, but it’s really you, isn’t it?”

“I’m at the Bunker –”

“Oh, shit,” Sam cuts him off. “Yeah, we moved out a year ago. Not far, though, just outside Topeka –”

Cas takes off without another thought.

Sam is still speaking as Cas lands outside Topeka’s City Hall, “ – after everything went down with Chuck, we thought it was time for a change. For once –”

Cas unfolds his grace, searching the city limits for Sam’s familiar signature, and flies to a two-story house surrounded by an overgrown yard.

“ – the world wasn’t ending,” Sam continues, “or about to end.”

Cas reaches out to touch Sam’s mailbox at the end of his driveway, charmingly shaped like a miniature version of his house. “I’m glad.”

“About time, right?” Sam scoffs. “Anyway – hey, are you outside, dude?”

The curtains twitch, and Sam’s face appears in the window, his mouth hanging open. He disappears,and the front door gets yanked open. “Cas!” he calls, smiling broadly.

As Cas approaches, Sam wraps him in a tight hug. “It’s good to see you. My god, how’re you here?”

“I flew.”

Sam’s grin widens. “I meant on Earth.”

Cas’s brow furrows. “I’m not sure,” he admits.

Sam ushers him inside, saying, “I’m sure it was Jack. I mean, he did it last time, right?” Cas nods, unable to get a word in, as Sam chatters on, “We haven’t seen him in nearly as long as you, but maybe one of these days I can find a summoning spell that’ll actually work on him.”

Cas stares around Sam’s house. It’s as cluttered and messy as the abandoned Bunker wasn’t. Books and papers lay scattered on almost every available surface, and Cas counts three half-empty mugs.

“Sorry, you didn’t give me much time to clean up,” Sam says cheerfully as he shuts open laptop resting on the coffee table.

“My apologies.”

“Forget it, we don’t stand on ceremony here,” Sam says, his tone warm, as he takes a seat on the navy couch underneath the front window.

Cas wanders around the room, perusing the extensive bookshelves lining the whole back wall. He recognizes more than half of them from the many hours he spent researching in the Bunker.

Photos hang on the opposite wall, mostly of Sam and Eileen. Cas hungrily searches every one for Dean’s face. He finds a few, but none taken in the two years since Cas last walked the Earth.

“ – Nowadays, most of the trouble comes from ghosts or vamps, not demigods –”

Oh, Sam has been talking this whole time. Cas turns from the photos to give Sam his full attention.

“ – Which we can totally handle from here. Sitting on the supernatural motherload was great when we were bouncing from apocalypse to apocalypse, but seemed a bit overboard when everything calmed down.”

Cas waits, but Sam’s evidently done catching him up on what he missed while in the Empty. Never mind that he overlooked the most important update. So Cas has to ask, “Does Dean live here too?”

Sam’s enthusiasm dampens a fraction. “No,” he says. “Dean took… everything, you especially, pretty hard.” His brow furrows.

You, especially.

What does that mean?

But the question feels too dangerous, too big, to ask Sam, so Cas asks instead, “Is he still in Kansas?”

Sam shakes his head. “He moved to North Dakota, near Bobby’s place outside Sioux Falls.” He sighs. “It got… bad, Cas,” Sam says in a low voice. “He was spiraling out, drinking like crazy, taking stupid risks on hunts.”

Cas walks on shaky legs to the couch and sinks down.

Sam continues, “I was really worried, so I started calling around, and Jody came though. She said she could use some drama after Claire and Kaia moved into their own place.” He smiles. “She got him to walk the straight and narrow, drove him to his first AA meeting and everything.” He swallows. “He’s fallen off the wagon a few times, but never as bad as those first six months.”

Cas lets the story wash over him, absorbing the details like a sponge.

“He calls every few months to say he’s not dead,” Sam says wryly. “He quit hunting ’cause the triggers were too much for him,” he says to Cas’s surprise. “He’s doing good, though. Despite everything.”

“I’m glad to hear it.”

Sam laughs. “He’s gonna be pissed you saw me first.”

Cas frowns, his mouth pursing. “Maybe I shouldn’t.”

Sam throws him a bemused look. “Shouldn’t what?”

“See him.”

Sam narrows his eyes. “Why the hell not?”

Cas can’t meet his gaze. “He’s doing well staying away from the supernatural. What am I but another ‘trigger’?”

“Dude, you’re so much more than that,” Sam says, shaking his head. “You need to see him.”

“But he’s been making so much progress,” Cas argues. “Despite his lapses, he’s still trying.”

Sam runs a hand through his hair, pushing it back from his face. “But, Cas, you might be what actually gets it to stick.”

That makes no sense.

“Dean,” Sam starts, at Cas’s look of complete confusion, “is doing this all for you – in your memory, to live up to your last words.”

“But he already has,” Cas says faintly.

“I know that, and you know that,” Sam says with a snort, “but Dean’s pretty dumb when it comes to this kind of stuff.”

Cas stands. “I have to see him.”

“Tell him I say ‘hi’,” Sam says as he gets up too, reaching out to grasp Cas’s upper arm. “Hey, before you fly off, there’s a standing Sunday dinner invitation with your name on it.”

Touched, Cas envelops Sam in another hug.

Sam claps him on the back. “Don’t be a stranger, OK?”

With one final nod, Cas flies to Sioux Falls, South Dakota. He touches back to Earth outside a small one-bedroom house with a freshly weeded garden in the back and a one-year-old separate garage for the Impala. From inside, Dean’s soul burns as brightly as ever, puttering around the kitchen.

Cas steps up to the front door and raises a shaking hand to ring the doorbell.

An impossibly long 147 seconds later, the door flies open.

“Hello, Dean.”

#suptober22 #finale fix it #canon divergence #reunion #destiel #fanfic #destiel fanfic #sam & cas friendship #s15e18 fix it #rae writes fic

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lrdvyke · 5 months

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things your muse will notice about mine !

what they look like. one word may come to mind when looking upon him: pale—skin is pallid in tone, barely a hint of color to it as if he came from the very stars themselves that glow silver in the night sky. yet when color does come to his features, it is almost of a purplish hue. the iris of his eyes are rather pale as well, almost milky in their appearance. they are of a soft, pastel blue that often blends in with the white sclera around it. his hair, cut short to the nape of his neck ( often flattened by the helmet that rests atop it more often than not ), fits the scheme with its notable silver shine, pulling into his ancestry of the nightfolk. darker at the roots, lightened towards the ends, it is pushed away from bright features that find it easier to smile with a wide mouth. regardless, he comes at an average height; he does not loom, nor does he need much give in order to reach, he simply comes off as less threatening than he really is. a point he tries to make well and often.

yet the fingers came, taking hold of him and burnt their frenzy into him. his eyes no longer pale, but a sickly mixture of yellow and orange, reminiscent of flames fed on corpses, victims of a corrupted plague. they rot and fester, burning from the flame that sits inside of him. there is a burn on the side of his face, over his left eye where one of fingers pressed down upon his helmet, burning steel and flesh both. the other wrapped around his chest, the last around his legs and burnt him deep until he could smell nothing but his own cooked flesh as it absorbs the frenzy. in the shape of three fingers, he holds burns that never heal. his left eye has been ripped forth by his own hand, a deep flame can be seen within the abyss of the socket.

what they smell like. steel and leather that covers his body from head to toe. on a more unpleasant side: blood, sweat, gore, the burn of lightning, and whatever else kind of muck he had found himself in or around throughout the day. such scents are not far from him before a bath to take away the grime and dust. but should he find himself on a calmer day, one with less gore and less action, he smells of mint. a trick he had learned from his kinsmen long before the lands between ever called him back; the mothers gave him a recipe for a poultice of mint and other fainter herbs to be dabbed upon the skin behind the ears. it is to keep away biting insects to lessen any sickness from them, but it also can be a nice perfume.

yet upon his change, no longer did he smell of such. only now does he smell of the smouldering of fire and smoke and burnt flesh.

what they sound like. a smooth timber, almost sonorous in its sound. his voice is rich and warm, something that sticks out the most coming through his helm when he speaks. a notion of care sets his tone. a voice meant for quiet moments to ask how you are fairing, if you need any help; but also a voice meant for louder calls, to warn others, to get the attention of an attacker—he uses it to his advantage like another weapon, throwing his voice when need be. his accent is a flowing one, where one word melds into the next, where one sentence fits neatly with the other. it piques in its curiosity, and rumbles in its amusement.

but that too wears down from the frenzy that has nestled inside of him. he barely speaks after, thinking that should he open his mouth, a scream would rip out of his throat instead. due to that, his voice is roughened by months, even years, of disuse, even of screaming each time the flame burns him from the inside out, and the madness builds further and further.

what they feel like. cold. his touch often comes with a freezing press of his fingers that could make anyone retract from it in surprise, as if blood does not run through his veins. yet his flesh is not as smooth. there are marks upon it, scars from his journeys and mishaps. his own fingers are given to callouses. they are rough to the touch, but he attempts gentleness with each press that is allowed.

another change, but smaller this time. his touch is still oddly cold, yet his torso feels as if it is on fire. his skin less and less smooth, the fingers left their marks upon him in way of burnt flesh that never heals. thus it is rough, scar-like in nature, that almost looks molten, as if one touch could crumble it all to dust.

#— study.#a dash meme i stole awhile ago and thought to do it for every one of my characters .. ... i have done two so far lmao #feel free to steal this tho and do it for your characters! there was another that said 'what they taste like' but i didn't want to do that #so if u do that's another lil thing you can add #anyway thought this would be useful for vyke c:#especially since there's two types of appearances for him one) normal guy two) gross melty man

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hebuiltfive · 6 months

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What Should Have Stayed Buried Snippet

When I tell you that What Should Have Stayed Buried lives rent free in my mind, and that I think about it every single day, I'm not exaggerating. I've been having some issues with muse given the current state of the world (writing about a fictional war is tricky when what should stay in fiction is happening globally right now), but one day I hope to actually start the series properly and have it written up. Until then, have another (actually quite long) snippet from what I believe might be the prologue (but that will probably change), this time for another OC.

Warning for mentions of a warzone. Nothing graphic in this snippet but just a heads-up that, if you are triggered/sensitive to anything relating to that, then WSHSB might not be the best read for you.

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U.S.S. Agent Nathan Pickering was a very tough man most of the time. Very little shook him and he was proud to proclaim so at every inconvenience, no matter how minor or major, that he faced.

He was also very proud of the work he did. Some may have claimed his work to have been uncouth, but not Nathan. He truly believed in the job he was doing, sometimes under nothing but candlelight and the threat of being constantly surveillanced, but he knew, deep down, it was what he had been brought into this world for.

His sooted up face and dark clothes made him blend in well as he stalked home under the cover of night. Power outages weren't so uncommon these days, especially in this part of the city. They knew the rebels were hiding out in desolate buildings, some even managing to gain sympathy from residents to use their homes, but the soldiers never visited. Perhaps they couldn't be bothered, or perhaps they knew of the international assistance being provided by the Universal Secret Service and wanted to avoid causing another international incident so soon after their last.

If Nathan was a worrier, he would probably have been more concerned about the why. He often put it down to a more practical reasoning, of them trying to coax the agents and rebels out of hiding — not only did a lack of power make life more difficult for any soul living there but, without power, their communication systems were often no good. That was never ideal in their line of work.

He wasn't going to be driven out, however. None of his team were. They had witnessed what had happened when the Jaspar Network — the only network that had been solely comprised of Berezniki rebels — had tried to relocate; the soldiers had been waiting for them at their new base and every single rebel was taken out, softly followed by any remaining relatives or known associates in the country. His network — the Knight Network — wouldn't make the same mistake.

In the dark, Nathan found his way back by using landmarks, which in this case were the trees. Sycamore Maples lined the roadway leading up to the collection of buildings that sat by the lake. An old tavern, a now-disused laundromat and a cheap road-side motel — all now ruined relics.

Their safehouse was within motel. Rooms 67-68. The old building had been hit by shelling months prior to them moving in. Most of the east wing had crumbled and collapsed, main pillars of the infrastructure falling to create uneven and unsafe areas straight from the entrance.

The site was also infested with vermin, and there was a God-awful stench which they hoped was enough to drive away any searching soldiers that might one day come looking for them. It wasn't an ideal base, but that was why they'd chosen it. The less conspicious, the better.

It was nearing one in the morning by the time he made it back. Nathan, despite the growing aches and pains in his bones, hauled himself over granite blocks that corded off the way to the centre of the motel.

A huddle of rats scurried away as his booted feet landed into the dust with a thud and Nathan bite back a smirk. He couldn't see them in the pitch-black of night, but he heard them. Unshakeable Nathan had never been concerned by the rats like one of his team had been. Rachael had often jumped out of her skin whenever one of the vermin found its way into their kitchenette. After months of working from the motel, however, she had grown accustomed to their presence, which was a blessed relief to the rest of his team.

Nathan climbed the staircase that led to Room 67 and rapped his secret knock — because of course they had secret knocks! — on the door. Three knocks, stop, two more knocks, stop and then a final three. He waited for the many bolts to be unlocked, the sound of them echoing out through the courtyard below.

He'd take a shower first. Crawling through enclosed spaces hadn't bothered him, but the dust and the soot was starting to become tiresome. Yes, a shower and then some food, followed by a quick nap.

So caught up in his hastily planned itinerary, Nathan had little time to notice the man clad in a soldier's uniform who opened the door. The butt of the rifle that was knocked into his face was surprising. He staggered back, almost falling through the railing behind him. If he had time to process his thoughts, he would have realised how close to death he had come.

Death would have been a blessing, he would later realise. The soldier caught his jacket, pulling him back from the ledge before Nathan made the drop. He was aware of shouting, of bullets being sprayed and hitting something soft. His head was fuzzy, pain shooting from his surely broken nose.

"Weź to! Weź to!" The soldier bellowed to his fellow compatriots.

Nathan didn't have enough clarity of mind to decipher the language, let alone what it meant. He knew it couldn't have been good. He struggled as best he could but another strike — this time to his stomach — had him keeling over.

U.S.S Agent Nathan Pickering was a very tough man most of the time, rarely shaken and often proud of the work he did... but even unbreakable men could break. He just hoped he and his team would be found before the inevitable happened.

#thunderbirds fanfiction #five fics #fic: what should have stayed buried #trigger warning warzone

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mostlydeadallday · 1 year

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Lost Kin | Chapter XXXII | To Be of Use

Fandom: Hollow Knight

Rating: Mature

Characters: Hornet, Pure Vessel | Hollow Knight, Quirrel Category: Gen

Content Warnings: mentions of cannibalism, body horror, referenced abuse

AO3: Lost Kin | Chapter XXXII | To Be of Use

First Chapter | Previous Chapter | Chronological

Notes: Quirrel begins a conversation. Hornet revisits the past. Some important things being established here, and we may have a little bit of a bond forming, though Quirrel has a long way to go before he fully earns her trust. I've been pretty productive this month, so I may be able to upload the next chapter early—it's a direct continuation of this one, but I had to split it at this point so it didn't stretch to ridiculous lengths. They have a lot to talk about.

○

Quirrel had not found any tea.

He strongly suspected he had not been meant to. In fact, he was all but certain that Hornet’s request was some attempt at a code phrase, given his prior joking reference to tea just after his arrival, and her wordless plea for him to remove himself from the room for her sibling’s sake.

That, and the glaring lack of anything resembling tea in the cabinets.

He was aware that combing through your host’s kitchen storage while they were in the other room was outside the normal bounds of etiquette, but these cabinets hadn’t been used in years. He certainly didn’t find anything that looked like it belonged to Hornet. Only an assortment of dishes and flatware and some murky containers of preserves, dusty and untouched. One drawer contained a rather impressive array of spices and a jar of crystallized honey, though the lid was sealed too tightly to get open without an unacceptable amount of noise. The discovery was a welcome surprise, though. Perhaps he could pull together a decent meal—it looked like some time since Hornet had had one, given the room’s state of disuse.

Having made a full circuit of the kitchen without discovering what he had allegedly been sent for, he dusted off one of the stools and then the countertop, pausing when he noticed fresh scratches in the marble.

He glanced over his shoulder at the darkened doorway. No sound reached him from the adjoining room.

He did not envy Hornet’s attempt to calm her sibling. She seemed frayed, exhausted, and only half-aware of it. These last two times he had met her, she had looked more hunted than hunter.

Quirrel sat down and pulled his satchel off his shoulder, upending it to reorganize its contents. The items he had brought for Hornet he set off to one side, then sorted through his own belongings, placing his shell file and brush back in the bag, followed by his knife and little ball of waxed string. He picked out his whetstone, bottle of oil and cleaning cloth, then reached for his nail hilt.

Ah.

He almost smiled at himself before the impulse abruptly faded.

Placing the cleaning supplies back into the bag as well, he removed his bandana to let it dry, then cleared the countertop and laid out what he’d brought for her. It wasn’t much—especially now that he understood the situation a little.

Well. Now that the situation had been firmly impressed upon him, in the form of an extremely large, extremely wounded vessel, who was, by all appearances, terrified of him.

Or perhaps merely terrified. Whatever they had been through, whatever their captivity in the temple had been like for them, it had clearly left its mark.

He knew now, in a vague way, that they were meant to be emotionless. Terrified was not a word one would ascribe to an emotionless being, but it was the one his instincts chose, regardless.

He could not rule out his own bias, plain as the matter seemed. He had grown attached to the little vessel that dogged his footsteps through Hallownest. Would have been hard-pressed not to—they were some of the only friendly company he encountered, and he had been thoroughly charmed even before they squirmed onto a bench next to him and dozed off, their little horns tipping forward and their breathing slowing almost to a stop. They had been cool, almost chilled, their shell soft and leathery, as if not yet fully formed, and he had watched them as they slept with wonder equal to that with which he regarded the vast, silent ruin of Hallownest, somehow knowing even in his ignorance that here beside him was a mystery deeper than the lowest reaches of the kingdom.

They had never spoken to him, of course, and now he knew why. But neither had they seemed as blank or as passive as he now knew they should have been.

They were the first living vessel he had met, and they seemed to truly live, despite every influence that should have stolen that away from them.

He glanced up at the doorway once again and nearly startled. Hornet had appeared there, chin tucked into her cloak ruff, the string of tiktiks in one hand and a sheaf of papers in the other.

Quirrel cleared his throat. “They’re asleep?”

“They are.” Her voice was low, and rough, as if she’d been breathing smoke. She cleared her own throat, proffered the tiktiks. “Have you eaten?”

He nodded, flicking his antennae casually. “I ate my fill while I hunted. I should not need to eat again for some time.”

“How long?” she insisted, and he could see tired calculations running behind her eyes, supplies added and subtracted, time gained and lost.

“Comfortably, I can wait a day, perhaps two. And I believe my diet will include more plant matter than yours, by necessity. That catch was intended for you.” And then, when she still seemed to hesitate, he reconsidered. “Although I did not factor in your sibling, or what they may require.”

“They have told me they do not eat.” She picked the seat nearest the doorway, setting the papers aside and immediately slicing one tiktik free from the string.

Any questions Quirrel might have had about this development vanished as she slipped her claws beneath the animal’s shell, expertly prying the sections open and sinking her fangs into the flesh beneath.

He was not unacquainted with spiders, having encountered several varieties in his travels, across a range of environments that provoked vast differences in culture and habit. Most predator species in general shared Hallownest’s principles about restricting sapient species from their diet, allowing for cases of ritual capture and consumption as an aspect of warfare, periods of extreme hunger, or the occasional crime of opportunity, often punished harshly. Therefore, he rarely had cause to fear for his shell as a prey species, only needing to defend himself against the more mundane offenses common to travelers.

Instincts, however, were another matter.

He felt his antennae shrink down slowly at the sight of Hornet’s pale fangs emerging in full from beneath her mask, attached to a robust set of chelicerae as black and glossy as her shell. He jolted faintly in surprise as she extended her lower jaw to hold the tiktik in place until her venom took effect, weakening the muscle structure enough for her to tear off and fold a sizable chunk into her mouth, leaving smears of rich blue across her fangs.

He counted himself lucky that she appeared too hungry to notice his discomfiture, tearing back into the tiktik with a singleminded focus that made him reassess his estimate of her last decent meal. Curiosity overtook his immediate unease, especially when he noticed what seemed to be a tongue darting between her fangs to catch the drops of hemolymph—not a feature he had ever expected to see on a spider.

She would likely not be comfortable if he asked for a closer look, so he restrained that impulse, too.

By the time she started on the second tiktik, mere moments after finishing the first, he felt he had wrestled his expression into appropriate neutrality. He refused to fault her on her manners, not when she ate like she was half-starved, or like he might reach out and snatch her dinner from her if she paused to breathe.

She made quick work of it, leaving a second empty shell rocking on the countertop and pausing to lick the blue from her claws. Then she glanced up, seeming to remember he was there.

Rather than ducking her head or turning away, she stared at him flatly. “You act like you’ve never seen a spiderwyrm feed before.”

Quirrel choked on a laugh, recalling at the last moment that her sibling was asleep in the next room. “Indeed, I’ve never had the pleasure.”

Hornet huffed and went back to cleaning her jaws, tucking her fangs back under her mask, leaving the third tiktik untouched. He wondered if she was sated or if it was survivor’s instinct, to store away anything you did not immediately need. Her experience was drastically different than his—she had had relative stability, the ability to return to the same places again and again, to build up resources and form alliances. Whereas he had been constantly moving, foraging, seeking out shelter in new places, never settling long enough to gather supplies, taking with him only what he could carry—

Hornet was speaking. He shook himself. “Pardon?”

The flat stare was back. Or maybe it had never left, and he had just lost his grip on reality for a moment. That grip wasn’t the strongest these days.

“I said,” she repeated, slowly, “I was glad that you recognized what I was asking. I did not expect my sibling to be so… wary of you.”

He cocked his head, lost for a moment until he remembered what she referred to. “Ah.” Glancing round at the kitchen, he raised a hand to indicate the empty shelves and cold stove. “I am rather disappointed that there’s no tea to be had.”

“I haven’t bothered foraging any. I never gained a taste for it.”

“Carnivores rarely do.” He leaned forward, resting both forearms on the counter. “As for your sibling… I regret having frightened them so.”

When she said nothing in response, merely gazing at the speckled marble between them, he spoke again, softer. “They have endured much, it seems.”

“Too much.” A tremor crept into her voice, before she inhaled and steadied it. “Entirely too much.”

She looked up at him, meeting his eyes with a weight of grief hanging behind her own, something he had glimpsed the barest edges of in their encounter on the lakeshore, something he was beginning to fully understand now. Something he sensed that she would have hidden from him, if she’d been able to.

A desperate, wrenching, long-delayed grief, heavy and overwhelming, much like his own, perhaps, pushed away until it could be avoided no longer.

He did not know what he could do to lighten it, not when his own weighed on him just as heavily, but he couldn’t bear not to try.

With a sigh, he leaned back slightly and gestured to the supplies he had piled to one side. “Perhaps this will compensate in some way for my lateness. I made a few stops on the road, partly for myself, and partly for you.” As she leaned forward for a better look, he hastened to say, “Some of this will not be helpful, I see now—I knew only that you were caring for someone injured, not how badly, or…”

“Or how large?” she suggested, reaching to pick up a bottle of resin, intended as part of a kit to patch cracked chitin. It would have sufficed for a major wound on a bug his size. On the Hollow Knight, it might fill a single one of the gaping holes in their chest, but not much more. Their statue in the City below had no indication that it was true to height.

How they were still breathing with damage that severe, he did not care to ask at the moment.

“Or how large,” he conceded. He pushed aside the rest of the kit, handing her instead a cracked shellwood case with tarnished buckles. “These may still be of use, however.”

Hornet took the case and turned it over in her hands before setting it on the counter, flipping the latches, and lifting the lid.

She went still.

Suddenly. And entirely. There was no twitch of surprise, no intake of breath, not a single clue what she was feeling, only that something about the contents of that case had made her briefly cease—well, everything. He did not even think she was breathing.

He leaned to the side, attempting to get a better look at her face, or to meet her eyes. She didn’t respond. Or seem to notice him at all.

“...Hornet?”

○

Quirrel said something. It might have been her name.

She couldn’t quite bring herself to care.

She didn’t know if she was feeling everything, or nothing, or perhaps one very strong thing, but something had taken hold of her as she looked down into the case full of gleaming metal implements, something that would not let her go.

They were pristine, set in a short black velvet, untouched by rust or tarnish, brighter even than her own needle. At a glance, she could not even name all of the tools shining at her fingertips, but their collective purpose was clear.

Surgical instruments. Forceps, scalpels, needles, nimble shears of the kind used for cutting shell. The sort of kit a traveling medic would use, all of their most vital tools at the ready, somehow still well cared-for even though the owner had surely long vanished. For removing stuck molts, or embedded objects, or damaged limbs that would need regrown.

Or for draining burning light from beneath her sibling’s shell, and reshaping what remained. Making their body their own again, even if she had to stain her hands once more to do so.

The meal turned over in her stomach.

Perhaps she should not have eaten so much, or so fast.

As if breaking free from stone, she reached into the case with one claw, brushing the handle of a silver syringe. The scalpels were still sharp when she lifted one to test its edge, the forceps opening and closing smoothly, as if their hinges were oiled only yesterday.

Her work with the shelling knife seemed suddenly more crude, more cruel, than ever, though she knew—she knew—she’d had no choice. She’d nearly thrown the knife away when she found it on the floor while she was cleaning; only the looming task of reopening the remaining wounds had prevented her from doing so. It had still been the best tool she had for the job, even if it made her hand shake to hold it. Stashing it out of sight in a drawer was all she could manage.

And now—

She closed the case, pushing everything she was feeling inside of it as she did so, snapping the latches shut on the sharp edges of her grief and guilt and revulsion. She had to resist pressing it close to her, holding the lid shut, as if Quirrel might glimpse the emotions she was hiding from him.

“Yes,” she murmured, setting it on the counter instead. Her voice was as cold and steady as her hands. “They will, indeed, be of use.”

“I’d hoped so,” Quirrel said, and his tone left room for her to fill in the gaps, to answer the questions he had not asked.

She did not.

He rubbed his fingertips together, clearly uncomfortable but not willing to pry. She thanked the stars unseen that he was the kind of polite she had once thought foolish, the kind that hid behind niceties and circled the point of every interaction. If she imagined having this conversation with someone more like herself, the only emotion she could muster was exhaustion.

“Ah.” The cricket shook himself, reached for another item. “I brought this as well.” He set a tarnished metal cannister in the center of the table, then slid open a panel to reveal a cool, steady glow and several lumaflies dancing within. A hooded lantern.

“This is heavier than anything I would normally carry, and I suspect your eyesight in the dark is quite good, but the City does get dim during the night cycle.” He left the lantern open, casting a wide swath of bluish light across the dusty kitchen, and placed two more items before it—a stoppered bottle and two rolls of white linen. “I also happened across some disinfectant and bandages, although, once again, I suspect there is less here than would be truly useful.

“Although…” He tapped the bottle’s cork with one finger. “I do seem to recall that void was resistant to all forms of infection, not only dream-borne. In which case, perhaps it would be better to reserve this for any potential injuries you or I might incur.”

Hornet said nothing once he finished rambling, wondering if he would again attempt to fill the silence. When he only flicked his antennae and leaned back in his chair, she regarded him—and the rather remarkable array of things he had looted for her—with distant disbelief.

She hadn’t quite made herself realize that he was here, that he hadn’t simply changed his mind and struck out for the Wastes. What she offered him was only another duty unasked for, an exhausting, unglamorous task that she should not have burdened anyone with but herself.

She owed a debt. Quirrel did not. And yet he was sitting at her counter in the cool, lively light of the lumaflies, having brought her a meal, and another set of willing hands, and the very tools she needed to do the job that she’d been dreading.

Another piece of evidence that he wasn’t real, but she doubted she was dreaming. Her dreams were never so agreeable.

She prodded at the thought that this was an illusion sent by the Radiance, meant to seize her mind and warp it into servitude, but could not truly consider it. She doubted anything aimed at infecting her would make her so… uncomfortable.

Aware that she had sat in silence for far longer than was polite, she took a breath, and nodded, and made herself say something.

“I… did not expect all this.” Awkward. And revealing. She sat up straighter. “This will, in fact, make amends for your lateness.”

Quirrel huffed a laugh, half amused, half disbelieving. He relaxed into the chair a little more and bowed his head. “You’re most gracious, your Highness.”

She stiffened, but let it pass, sure that if she remarked on it he would make a point to do it again. He had so far refrained from calling her a princess, but the occasional remark was fair game, especially if she insisted on acting like one.

He seemed to notice, but only sat and watched her, his mandibles twitching as if holding back a smile. Thankfully, he let the matter drop, reaching forward to tap the sheaf of papers she had pushed aside. “May I ask what these are?”

Hornet slid them across the table to him, and he sobered as he took them and scanned the first sheet. Rather than explaining, she let him sort through his own conclusions, and she knew when he looked up in faint, bewildered wonder that he had the right of it. “These are signs you’ve taught them?”

“Only the first two pages. The remainder I have reserved for later.”

“I did wonder how they told you they did not eat.” He folded back the first page to compare the signs on the second, then the third.

“I was hoping you could verify that.” She spread her hands, then let them fall limp on the marble. “I have been able to ask them a few questions, but not many, and my knowledge of vessels is… lacking.” Mostly restricted to how to kill them, but she did not say that, not while there was any chance Hollow might hear her.

She did not know what they would do if they ever learned of it. She did not know what she would do. Wrestling with the knowledge herself was bad enough; imagining how her sibling would feel if they knew was enough to make a cold lump of dread rise in her throat.

Eventually. She would tell them when they were ready, although she did not know if she would ever be ready for them to hear it.

Instead of answering, Quirrel looked up. “Do you have a pencil?”

She withdrew a piece of charcoal from her cloak pocket, and he pulled a blank piece of paper from the back of the stack. “Proper note-taking will serve us later, I suspect.” He hesitated, flipping the charcoal back and forth in his fingers, and then swallowed and moved on. “Begin with what you’ve learned through observation, and we will move on to theory afterward.”

“Very well.” She could see the wisdom in that; better to have her memory unclouded by conjecture. Casting about for somewhere to start, she landed on the pile of sketched signs by Quirrel’s elbow and decided that was as good a topic as any.

Taking a long breath and lacing her hands together, she began, “Like other vessels, they appear to be entirely mute. Except for what sound occurs when they breathe, as you heard. I recall them being silent when I was young—”

Quirrel interrupted her with a sharp look. “You had contact with them before?”

“Of course.” Her answer sounded cold, indignant, and Quirrel did not deserve it. He had never met her before leaving the kingdom. Likely he had never even been to the Palace; it was a rare thing to receive an invitation.

She softened her next words intentionally, though speaking of her fostering always made her draw inward, like a baldur into its shell, recalling the bright lights and strange faces. “I was brought to the White Palace as an adolescent. My sibling was fully grown then, although any contact I had with them was incidental. And short-lived.”

He nodded, finished his sentence, and hovered over the next paragraph, waiting for her to continue.

“I suspect what sound they make now is the result of damage to their lungs and throat. At one point, I asked them to speak to me, if they could. They… appeared to try, though nothing happened.”

Quirrel hummed, and the charcoal scratched over the page with a flourish. He looked up. “They tried to speak to you?”

She looked down, but though her claws ached to clench, she did not let them. “I ordered them to.”

“And they follow your orders?”

“As well as they can.” She huffed. “Sometimes too well. I suspect that some of what I ask of them may be contradicting with commands they received in the past. I have no way to know what other orders they are under.”

“It would be helpful,” Quirrel said, tapping one blunt fingertip on the countertop, “to know everything you have asked them to do, and what they did in response.” His gaze was somehow both distant and intense, not quite seeing her, seeing only possibility. “Start at the beginning. You said you found them in the elevator?”

“Yes.” She paused, recalling what she had told him and what she had left out, filling the gaps in her story like potholes in a crumbling path. “Lying on the platform, as if they had collapsed. I thought they were dead at first, but they stirred when they saw me.”

Squinting, she felt her way back through the exhausted fog of the last few days, back to the white-hot shock of finding her sibling free. “They were unable to stand. I was wary of them attacking me, and they recognized that, I think, and threw their nail down the elevator shaft.”

The thought made her drop off into silence. She saw her sibling once again, pushing up onto their knees with all the strength left in their body, gripping their nail in a shaking hand. She had been too frightened, then, to see it, but the nail had been little more than a crutch, a prop to lean upon, and once they cast it away, they had had nothing.

“They collapsed again, after that.” Her voice was faint, flat, and she made herself swallow and put the strength back into it. “When I saw their wounds, I understood why.”

An intake of air whistled between Quirrel’s mandibles. She ignored it; if she stepped wrong now, she sensed she might crash through the thin planks of her composure, falling down into the pit trap of grief and anger that awaited her. As it was, her voice quavered, a single crack slipping in before she restrained herself. “Their chest was nearly caved in. Multiple stab wounds through to their back. Lesser damage to their legs, slashes and spell burns, the same sort I—”

Stop. Stop.

—the same sort I took, when I fought their sibling.

Quirrel looked up. She didn’t meet his eye.

A long breath. Another, longer breath. She couldn’t admit to that, not here, not now. Couldn’t admit to attempted murder of Quirrel’s friend, the ghostly wanderer he was obviously fond of, the last little vessel that had trailed her through the thickets, their eyes always upturned to track her as she flitted away, leading them deeper, knowing they would follow, luring them into an overgrown arena with high walls and open spaces, where she would have the advantage—

Then again, she had attempted to murder Quirrel, too. Perhaps he expected nothing less of her.

She choked down a half-hysterical laugh before it could bubble to the surface. That was what she was now, what she had always been, since her father had chosen her to do his bloody work. She had been named Protector—of the kingdom, of the Dreamers, of the Black Egg—but her actions had allowed Hollow’s imprisonment, their torture, to continue.

Had there been other vessels who could have taken their place before now? Had she killed or driven away another who might have cut short their suffering? Would they still have their arm, if she had seen the truth sooner? Would their mask be whole? Would they be less terribly afraid of every wrong word spoken, of every moment spent alone?

She had been named Protector. But what was she protecting, really?

Her father’s folly. Her father’s lies.

Quirrel was still staring, damn him, no doubt aware by now that she had had some kind of realization. For a second she wouldn’t have been surprised if he could see it, smoldering and black-edged like a hole burnt straight through her, showing the ugly, bloody truth beneath her shell.

This was not something she would confess to. This would not go down in his notes. This was not something that should be remembered—by anyone but her.

This open, seeping wound of guilt was a small price to pay for what she’d done.

“They were infected,” she started again, with difficulty, feeling how her resolve strained, how close she was to breaking through. To her relief, Quirrel only gazed at her a moment longer before beginning to write again, reluctantly. “Their body only—there was no light in their eyes. The cysts had taken over their shoulder, removing their arm, and spread from there, I suspect.”

Blinking away images of bright rot and dark void pooling between the flagstones of the elevator, she pushed on. “I bound them, though they were already weak. I feared they might take me by surprise. I’ve seen them fight; they could have beaten me, easily, in their prime.”

Quirrel made a faint noise, agreeing with her, she thought. Her calm gradually returning as she continued, she told him of the moment the elevator stopped, of the first orders she had given them. She glossed over the long walk through the city, her doubts about the actions she had taken, her utter disregard of how painful that journey must have been—with Hollow splayed out behind her on the rough stone, cold rain soaking them through, still bleeding, still dying, as she dragged them through the streets and into the dingy house. She’d almost forgotten dropping them as soon as she made it through the door, and she winced but related that as well, knowing it was the least of the pain she had caused them.

Perhaps she could explain the logic behind that much of her actions, without venturing too close to the reason she had clung so tightly to believing it.

“I had been told that vessels felt no pain.” By her mother, first—though looking back now, she wondered if Herrah had believed everything she told her daughter in that moment. That, though, was a revelation for another time; she pushed it away, only to be met with the memory of her father’s last meeting with her, when he had reiterated what Herrah told her.

Her body went cold. With fear, with rage. She wasn’t sure. But she could still see the slow, considering tilt of his head as he looked her up and down, still feel the blur of her thoughts as she clung to her identity in the presence of a deity, still hear the echoing clack of the empty mask he set on the table between them, bone meeting marble in the ringing space of the Pale King’s audience chambers.

“You have a new duty.”

His voice, half whisper, half unearthly rumble, was as clear and inescapable in her mind as it had been then, and she twitched her head, as if to throw off chilly drops of rain.

Not now. She was not revisiting that now.

What was wrong with her? Her mind was spitting out horrors like an aspid full of venom, nightmares catching up with her before she fell asleep. Perhaps it was the exhaustion, or perhaps the act of confessing what she’d done, even in part; the tiniest trickle was enough to weaken a dam.

Pathetic. She had to keep it together. Quirrel was not here to listen to her spill all her greatest regrets onto the table between them; he was here to help Hollow.

Helping her sibling. That was something she could latch her claws into, a reason to push the memories away, a reason to continue the story without another glance back.

She hoped.

The scholar was looking at her again. Shit. What had she said last?

Breathe. In, out. Shaky, but it helped.

“I had been told,” she repeated, “that vessels did not feel at all. Pain, certainly, but also fear, anger, grief—anything that mortal bugs understood. I was told that they were not even alive, in a sense, that they were merely empty corpses walking.” She swallowed. “I certainly would have treated them better, had I known that was not true.”

Quirrel heaved a sigh, and she looked up, eager to shed the burden of his attention. At her questioning glance, he dropped his chin in his hand, heavily. “I had wondered,” he said, his voice losing some of its polish, becoming rough around the edges. “Before—well.”

He paused, and tapped the charcoal on the paper. “I tried not to question anyone else’s role in the perpetuation of the kingdom. Only my own. Then the Wastes took even that knowledge from me, and every doubt I had was scattered to the winds.”

“Are you a poet, as well as a scholar?” Hornet mused quietly, half teasing.

“I assure you I am neither,” he returned, with a sidelong look at her. “As I said before, I was only the Madam’s assistant. I did not know enough of the plan to see its flaws.” Another sigh, this one deeper. “But she did.”

“And she sent you away,” Hornet said, a slow chill growing in her stomach. “She saw reason to fear.”

He shook his head and leaned back. “I still do not know what she feared, exactly, though it could not be much worse than what came to pass.” Pausing for a long moment, he seemed to lose focus, to lose sight of the room once again, and she had to wonder if she looked as lost as he did when she slipped into the past, if her shoulders slumped, too, and the shine left her eyes. “To come back to it now…”

She clenched her claws, sinking them into her palmpads, leaving dents in the callused skin. She had no room for pity, when Quirrel had been spared the worst of it. He had come home to a rotting corpse. She had been forced to watch it die.

“They were never hollow, were they,” he said, faintly, as if from a great distance.

“No.” By contrast, her whispered reply was too close, almost smothered, barely stirring the air around her mask. “Not as they were meant to be.”

“Perhaps she knew of the vessel’s impurity,” he continued, flatly, as if it didn’t matter. “Perhaps she knew that the seals would soon be all that stood between this kingdom and oblivion.”

“A poor job they did,” Hornet said, though something in her flinched at profaning her mother’s sacrifice. Nothing, it was all for nothing, and she had feared that for so long that she had almost forgotten what a ruin she stood in. To speak the truth of it, after everything that had happened, still hurt—like pulling a splinter from a wound that had already healed over.

Quirrel only huffed. “A poor job, indeed,” he said, rubbing one hand over the top of his head, brushing his long antennae back and then letting them rise again, slowly. He picked up the charcoal again and sat forward, a clear end to his reverie. “Please, continue.”

She grasped for the thread of conversation again, finding it more difficult than before. With the lanternlight flickering across the kitchen, and the heavy drone of rain on the dark windowpanes, the evening seemed timeless, but it must be drawing late.

In a sudden fit of paranoia, she tilted her head to the side, listening for any stir from the other room, and heard only the faintest whistle at the peak of Hollow’s inhale. A long, long moment passed before she heard it again, confirming that they were still unaware of the discussion going on while they slept.

It would be some time before she could join them.

○

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ussgallifrey · 2 years

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(She Moves With) Shameless Wonder | 19

✦ Summary: Your badge clearly said SHIELD consultant, so you weren’t entirely sure where Fury was getting this whole make you an Avenger idea from. But you had a feeling it might have something to do with the recent discovery of an artifact at the bottom of the Arctic Sea.

✦ Pairing: Steve Rogers x Female Reader

✦ Warnings: Canon divergence, language, mentions of WWII.

✦ Word Count: 5.4k

✦ Playlist: Here

✦ Author’s Note: And now we officially enter the Age of Ultron arc. This section of the story will be experiencing some of the biggest changes to the canon as I try to fix the mess that was the second Avengers movie.

[Master List]

The work you did was strictly off the books, so to speak. After the fall of SHIELD, you quickly disappeared into the shadows - much like the infamous ghost of a man who had been used like a puppet by the infernal organization that had grown within the once trusted global security organization.

Humans were used to that from you, though. Unlike the flash and fantastic showboating of Tony and his suits, or the iconic alter-persona of Dr. Banner, you were just in the background. You rarely appeared on newsreels after the Battle of New York, three years prior. And only a few glimpses of your person were to be shared in the aftermath of the Triskelion disaster.

No, you preferred it this way. So similar to the way you used to exist within these mortal confines on Earth.

Nick Fury had changed that aspect of your life once the trickster god seemed fit to cause chaos in the human realm. You enjoyed the anonymity of your previous existence and it was one you were more than eager to return to - especially when said ex-Director requested your help in dismantling the old regimes of HYDRA.

When Agent Carter dropped the entirety of SHIELD’s files onto the internet, far more than what should have ever been buried was recovered. Maybe it was a sense of guilt - knowing you had participated in years of the organization without noticing this evil growth from within - that sent you on trail after trail.

Like connecting points on a spiderweb, the bases and old headquarters appeared from within their dusty tombs, encrypted evidence falling to the wayside in the aftermath.

Warsaw is one more checkpoint on the seemingly never-ending list of missions. Deep within the depths of the Political Science and International Studies building, lost behind fake walls and hidden staircases rests yet another HYDRA remnant of post-war Europe.

The air itself is stale and stagnant from disuse. Dust floats down in an ongoing cascade within the beam of ancient overhead lights. You had suspected as much - this close to the general populace, it would have been a miracle if this place was still in operation. But still, you sweep the rooms - from the offices to the medical ward, to the holding cells. Carefully skimming through the few remaining documents left behind by the previous occupants.

You had only discovered the location of this particular bunker two weeks ago. And from there, it had been over a month since finding the vague mention of a Polish bunker within the notes of a report from a facility in Finland.

The surprisingly large underground compound must stretch beneath the entirety of the central university, so you assumed. With its twisting hallways and flickering lights that give it an all too familiar eerieness about the place. Not to mention the time it had taken you to scout out the entrance and finally calculate a time in which you could slip inside unnoticed by the students.

Nick would be content to mark another check on the list, even if this particular place gave you little information that wasn’t already common knowledge for HYDRA operations.

As you exit the ex-commander’s office at the end of the hall, a folder of possibly useful files in the crook of your arm, you come to an immediate stop when you hear the sound of muffled voices up ahead.

Pressing against the wall, craning your neck ever so slightly to try and distinguish the sound. You had observed this place for well over two weeks now and never once had you seen a single person stop at the hidden wall entrance. The amount of dust and decay within proved that you had been one of the first people to open this particular tomb. But perhaps an unknown alarm had been triggered?

Preparing yourself, as the sound of feet grows closer and the voices come to a sudden deafening silence, with a steadying breath you round the corner of the hallway and immediately have to throw your arm up to block the attack.

Sharp rounded metal meets the backside of your forearm, bouncing off of your body with a reverberating sound as the object hits the wall before being swiped up by the assailant once again.

Bringing your hands up to a defensive stance, the adrenaline rushes from your body as you stare down the three familiar faces just a few feet away.

“Steve?”

The supersoldier, with his shocked gaping mouth, slowly lowers his shield and takes a hesitant step forward - as if expecting you to vanish from sight.

“Athena?”

Your lips break into a smile as you cross the floor to meet him halfway, eyeing the shared look that Nat and Sam share just behind the man’s back.

“Wow,” he blinks, lips curving up into a warm smile though his features are slightly obscured by the harsh lighting in the tunnel, “Are you… are you good? I wasn’t expecting to - you know,” the supersoldier gestures vaguely at your arm.

With a laugh, you say, “Come on, you know it’ll take more than that shield of yours to get me.”

He shakes his head, chuckling, “Right, right. So… still doing Fury’s work?”

Tapping the folder once, you reply, “You know it. Better question, what are you three doing in the middle of Warsaw?”

It had been nearly three months since you had last caught up with him in New York. And between Nick’s request for limited contact, you were really only able to tell him about the various locations you tackled after the fact.

At that, he glances back at his companions, looking a hint hesitant to admit, “This was one of the first places Buck was taken to after… the train.”

With a little hum of understanding, you pull back, “I’m not sure what exactly you’re expecting to find here, but I only grabbed these from the commandment’s drawers - nothing more than a collection of generals and possible locations.”

He gives a terse nod, deciding to take a look around for themselves anyway. Without another word, you return to the interior entrance of the bunker - by the concrete stairwell - to wait for your friends.

You knew that Steve had continued looking for Bucky after the events in D.C., but the few times you spoke about it together he had made very little progress. Even with the help of Tony and his access to the millions of cameras within the nation’s capital, the man had still managed to disappear without so much as a footprint left behind.

It wasn’t any wonder that Steve had turned to tracking him through the past. Who knows what little piece of information could give value to his old friend’s current whereabouts?

The four of you walk companionably through the University’s main courtyard, trying to look as inconspicuous as possible - though with Steve walking next to you, even with his baseball cap and sunglasses, it was hard not to be noticed.

He had not found whatever it was he had been searching for, apparent in the grim frown on his face as he emerged from the hidden bunker complex. It had merely been a stop between the Alps and Moscow in Bucky’s journey, he told you. Maybe there had been records at some point, but with the University basically destroyed to its foundation in the war, and the way the Nazis had departed when the Soviets came in, well… it was a miracle that any record from 1945 had survived.

“So, where are you staying?” you ask, glancing over at Sam.

He huffs, eyes flicking further over to Natasha who’s walking beside him, “Nowhere yet. And I’ve had my fair share of trying to sleep on the jet.”

The thought of the three of them crammed into the seats of a quinjet makes you smile, “Well, there’s plenty of hotels and such around here, pretty cheap too. Though, I’m sure you - ” you direct that towards Natasha, specifically, “ - probably have a good contact for that.”

She nods, typing something on her phone, “That I do.”

“And you?”

You turn to look at the man on your right-hand side, pausing at the crosswalk for the busy street along the river. He looks calm in the afternoon light, with only the faintest dusting of worry around his eyes. Steve shoves his hands into his pockets, rocking back on his heels for a moment as he stares you down - a small smirk ready to form on the outer corner of his lips.

“Where am I staying, you mean?”

He nods. The crosswalk clears of traffic.

Clutching the folder to your chest, you answer, “Nick has a place for me in Old Town. Been there since the fifth. Right above a tea house.”

You can feel the heat of his body next to yours, though your arms barely even brush as you walk down the sidewalk, side-by-side. Behind you, you can hear the very muffled noise of Sam and Natasha conversing, though you can’t make out the words for the life of you as cars zoom by and more tourists pass you.

“So,” Steve’s forearm lightly collides into your own, “You’ve been in Poland since the fifth?”

You laugh, having to crane your neck slightly to get a better look at his face, “No, I’ve been in Warsaw since the fifth. I was in Lębork before that, and Koszalin before that. So… about six weeks or so?”

“What?” Sam chimes in, “Can’t use your zap zap teleport powers?”

Your features furrow for a moment, “Not since the fall of SHIELD. Thanks to Nick, Pierce got a hold of the formula they used to track my arrivals. Cosmic energy released on a small scale, but noticeable enough if you know where to look. So, I keep the journeying pretty limited these days.”

The other man gives a thoughtful ahh, looking like he wants to ask possibly more questions of you, but seems to find a reason to close his lips once again. You look over at Steve, but his own gaze seems to be pulled in the opposite direction.

Eventually, the colorful brick masonry of Old Town comes into view. Castle Square is bustling with people: tourists posing by Sigismund's Column, locals seated outside of the Italian restaurant, all set to the sound of a plinking street organ grinder somewhere nearby.

Glancing over at two of your companions, you watch as Natasha pulls at Sam’s forearm to which he replies with a hushed okay okay. Steve seems oblivious to them as he slowly takes in the Square. You instantly feel the need to move alongside him as he squints against the radiant light from overhead.

“First time in Warsaw?”

He blinks, gaze lost in a realm known only to him as a distant voice passes his lips, “No… not my first time.”

At once, you understand in so few words. You nudge his arm with your elbow as you lean into his space.

“It took years to get it back to this. Had to rebuild everything from scratch, basically.”

He sniffs, eyes a little glassy when he asks, “When did you…?”

“April 1945. And again in ‘52, ‘65, ‘83, and ‘91. I’m probably missing a date or two, but I think that’s the gist of it. I worked at the National Museum for a year, you know,” you watch as his eyes seem to pull their focus back towards you and away from whatever long-gone memory had held his attention.

Steve turns his body towards yours, interest piqued, “Where did you work?”

With a knowing smile on your face, you look up at him, “Would you be that surprised to hear that I oversaw the Gallery of Ancient Art?”

At that, he tilts his head back and laughs.

“It’s a bit of a personal specialty,” you say with a playful curve to your lips.

“Hey! Shieldmaidens.”

You both turn towards Natasha who has a permanent smirk on her face, though there’s something else there - in her eyes. Steve gives an exasperated huff, clearly in disagreement over the given nickname.

“I’m gonna take this one,” she pulls on Sam’s arm, “and get the three of us a place to stay for the night.”

Steve presses forward, “Okay, we can catch up later - ” he smiles down at you, a hand on your shoulder as he goes to leave.

“Hey, you two go on. Looks like you were reminiscing and talking about shared interests or whatever it is you two do,” Sam grins. “I’m just carrying the bags and then I plan on passing out once she gets us a room.”

“Yeah,” Natasha agrees. “Don’t let us spoil you two catching up. It’s been, what Rogers, three months?”

The supersoldier in question coughs roughly into his fist, all of his attention focused away from you, “If you’re sure,” he says with a slightly biting tone that you’re surprised to hear.

“Positive,” Sam beams, allowing himself to be led away by the redhead.

The silence stretches between the two of you as you watch your companions walk away, disappearing into the crowd of people and down one of the first brick roads. Steve seems rigid beside you now, as he flexes his fist next to his side. You’re still not sure why there’s been a sudden change in his demeanor, but it had been three months since you’d had the chance to catch up with each other.

“So…” you start, feeling shockingly cautious as you turn towards the man next to you.

With a long exhale, Steve slowly turns towards you, “So…?”

The tea house is off the tourist path. A small sign next to the door is its only indicator of existence - though the larger sign for the pub next door seems to garner most of the attention from passersby. At the end of the entrance hall stands two sets of stairs: the keycard-locked wooden staircase that leads up to the rental apartments and the slightly curved stairs that lead down to the hidden restaurant.

Steve has to hunch his shoulders and duck his head to make it through the bottom stone archway.

The room is cave-like with its candle-lit aura. Curved archways made of light-colored bricks make up the small room. Several small petrified log tables line the outer perimeter of the chamber, with cushioned ottomans and wooden chairs dispersed evenly throughout. A luminescent counter rests along the back wall between a shelf of tea boxes and the main seating area, with antique teapots lining the wooden serving surface.

You pick the table in the far corner of the room, in a small alcove where the outline of a now bricked-up window resides. A carefully stacked bookcase rests beside the table where a long white-stick candle is already lit and waiting.

For the middle of the week, the patronage is low for the time of day. With only a group of young women occupying the table next to the stairs.

Steve takes a seat on the ottoman opposite yours, ruffling his hair with his hand after pulling his baseball cap off and tucking it away on his knee. His sunglasses remain folded on the hook of his shirt collar.

After tucking the folder away for later, you shyly meet his eyes in the low light of the room, “So… how bad is your Polish?”

He folds his hands onto the tabletop, taking a long sweeping glance around the room before answering with a genuine, “Bad. Very bad.”

With a knowing smile, you drop your elbow onto the table and stare at him - glad for the companionship once again, “If we were anywhere else in town, you’d be in luck. Almost everyone speaks English, German, or Russian here - helps with the tourists.”

His blue eyes seem to sparkle as he rests his cheek on his hand, “I’m guessing there’s a but to that?”

“However,” you smirk, “You’re very fortunate that your dearest friend is quite fluent in Polish these days.”

The blonde laughs with a warm chuckle, muttering a low, “Very lucky, indeed.”

You order for the two of you at the counter, seeing the way that Steve has turned almost fully in his seat to watch you from across the room.

Poproszę grzane wina i czarne herbatę. Och, i lawendowy sernik, you tell the server before returning to your table and immediately telling the supersoldier that he’ll just have to trust your ordering-ability and maintain a little bit of patience.

An indie rock station plays in the background as the two of you sip from your drinks - you from your mulled wine and Steve from his black tea. He had spent an inordinate amount of time looking over the painted porcelain of the cup and saucer he had been given by the waitstaff.

“So,” you begin, lowering your drink, “If you’re retracing his steps, where’s the next stop?”

His eyes flick over his cup to your face for a moment as he finishes drinking from his tea blend, carefully placing it back down on the saucer before responding.

“I don’t actually know. I was hoping we’d find the smallest lead down there, but… here we are. Square one, again.”

You make a low hum in your throat, folding your hands onto your lap as you watch a new group descend the stairs in search of their own table.

“And I assume there have been no sightings since…?”

Steve gives a shake of his head, eyes pressed closed.

“I’m sorry, for what it’s worth.”

You reach across the small table to squeeze his free hand and his eyes blink back open. His thumb is calloused and warm as it rubs over the back of your hand.

“Thanks,” he ducks his head for a second, cheeks pink from the heat of his drink. “But we don’t have to talk work.”

“Okay,” you lean back in your seat, allowing your hand to slip from his grasp - if only to rest on the table just a breath away from his own. “How’s living with the resident playboy billionaire then?”

Steve huffs into his drink, a smile spreading to his face though he tries to hide it behind his cup, “Surprisingly good?”

Your brows raise in their own volition, “Really?”

He nods as you take a long sip from your wine.

“Mostly stays down in his lab, so not a bad roommate. Bruce is around a lot. Sometimes Clint or Nat. It’s a little… modern for my taste. But, I can’t beat the gym he has set up. Have you ever seen the training rooms there?”

“Once,” you admit, eyeing the lavender cheesecake that the waitress brings over to your table. You wait for her to leave before prodding, “So, are you still looking for your own place in the city or…?”

With a lackluster shrug on his part, “I don’t know. A place in Brooklyn is worth more than I’m willing to spend. And, I hate to say it, but it’s not all that bad living at the Tower.”

Scooping a piece of the dessert with your spoon, you can’t help but let out a small moan of satisfaction as the flavor hits your tongue. You miss the way that Steve’s eyes flash and darken all at once.

“Mmm,” you swallow, offering a sheepish smile, “There’s nothing wrong with that though, Rogers. Probably good for you to be around people like that. Well… maybe not Tony necessarily.”

He chuckles, watching you with a comfortable look on his face - golden light from the candle making his features appear more rugged than usual, “Think I could ever convince you to get a room there?”

Your spoon freezes halfway to your mouth as the words hit you.

“Are you serious? Me? Live there with you nutcases?”

The candlelight’s flickering flame dances in the depths of his ocean blue irises as he stares at you from across the table.

“Thor does.”

You blink.

Steve reiterates, “Thor. He has a room at the Tower. Comes and stays for a few weeks at a time.”

“I… I thought him and the astrophysicist were - they are, were, living together last I knew.”

It wasn’t often that the two of you conversed, you and the God of Thunder. But the last meeting, some six odd months back, he had been gushing over the good Jane Foster, and did you ever try rollerblading? He had grown quite fond of it thanks to her.

Had so much changed since that last conversation?

“Huh,” is all you can manage, staring into the swirling reds of your mulled wine for a moment.

“Just a thought,” he says quickly, as though it had merely been a silly idea on his part and not an actual very serious suggestion. The rapid tapping of his fingers against the table makes it clear how quickly the conversation has shifted.

“So,” he breathes out in a rush, forcing a smile, “You’ve been here for a month and a half. And the other six weeks?”

Grateful for the change in topic, you eagerly begin regaling your journey from Sweden to Finland, sailing across the Baltic Sea. More bunkers and compounds and abandoned (or not so abandoned) research facilities stretching between Estonia and Lithuania. Traveling across half of Europe without your powers, you remind him.

He listens to your stories, enraptured as your drinks cool in their cups and more and more people fill the tea house.

Steve tells you about training with Natasha and following strange leads across Southern France in search of Bucky. You hear all about Sam’s new baby nephew and how he can’t stop showing them all photos on his phone every time his sister sends him one (per his request). The two of you talk and talk until you can barely hear each other over the sound of the crowd.

Placing his hat back on, though forgoing his sunglasses, Steve holds the folder for you as you collect your coat and go to pay and tip the staff.

Back in the hallway, you can hear the muffled sound of the raucous patrons from the neighboring pub. When you look down towards the front door, you can see the shop lights flickering against the darkness of the evening dusk. The two of you linger, there, in the space between.

“How long do you think you’ll be staying here?”

The supersoldier tilts his head in thought, “Maybe a day? At most.”

A sudden frown seems to find its way onto your lips and it brings with it the startling realization that you aren’t willing to say goodbye to him just yet.

It was silly, really. Nearly two thousand years on this planet, traversing the globe on your own for centuries at a time. And yet, with only three years of knowing Fury’s team, you had grown strangely attached to them all.

It was almost painful to admit that someone like Steve Rogers had successfully fused himself into your life. Six weeks on your own, with only text messages on a burner phone shared between you and Nick, and here you were aching for the first bit of familiar human contact you came across.

And as you look at your companion, with his looming physique and soft blue eyes, you find yourself asking, “Do you, uh, wanna come up?”

Gesturing at the closed-off stairs behind you with your thumb.

Steve blinks once - twice - before slowly nodding, a smile tugging at his lips.

“Yeah,” his voice is shockingly low in its tone, “Think I have time for that.”

The rented apartment is warm and inviting with touches of older detailing throughout the small space. On the third floor of the building, up a metal spiral staircase to the fourth floor to access the slanted-ceiling bedroom. It was cramped quarters for sure if more than two people were staying there. Luckily for you, it had perfectly fit your needs for the past two weeks.

But with the hulking presence of the supersoldier suddenly there beside you, invading that already small space, things become far tighter than you realized they could ever be.

Steve lays his folded leather jacket over the back of one of the two dining chairs, watching as you slide off your boots and make for the chest of drawers under the small wall-mounted television set to deposit your folder of files at long last.

When you look back at him, it's with a sudden burst of nervousness that makes you laugh and hold out your arms, “Home sweet home.”

He gives a surmising nod, looking over the tiny kitchen in the corner of the U-shaped living area - with the staircase right dead center in the room, “It’s no Olympian temple.”

You catch the playfulness in his gaze as he slowly makes his way over to you.

“Probably for the best. Gold and glamour never really suited my taste anyway.”

“So,” he comes to a stop just a foot away from you, “How long are you staying here?”

That was a much lesser known fate, you had to admit with a shrug, “However long until Nick sends me another location to scout out.”

The huff of breath that escapes his lips sounds sour to your ears as he asks, “You plan on doing all of Fury’s work for him?”

You smooth your hand over your shirt sleeve, “Keeps me busy.”

Truth be told, you probably could have said no to the ex-Director at any given time and he would have accepted it and found another agent to fill your shoes. This job, though, did keep you busy. It kept you from thinking about Olympus and the betrayal of SHIELD. It was a single-track direction with a clear endpoint.

Was it lingering guilt still keeping you rooted in the position? All those years working for the security agency and never once clocking into the nefarious group buried in the underbelly of SHIELD.

Steve’s face softens with the quietness of your voice, offering a gentle, “Sorry. Guess we both have our own reasons for following these old paper trails, huh?”

You give him a half-smile in reply.

“Was a nice surprise seeing you down there today, actually.”

It was more than nice. It was like a breath of crisp winter air - a relieving balm on the ongoing ache of your solitude. Though the position of his body next to your presence sends your heart racing from the close proximity and the tight space of the apartment becoming an overwhelming force. You back away, to the balcony window - in need of truly fresh air.

“You know,” you gasp softly, trying to steady the flush of heat coursing through your body, “You can’t quite get a view like this back in New York.”

That makes him raise his brows with curiosity as you gesture for him to follow you with the tilting of your chin. Pushing the two-paned window open, you hop up onto the sill and tuck your feet in to hop through to the small metal balcony.

The very distant starlight is barely visible over the brightness of the city. Instead, it's the glowing golden orbs of streetlights that fill the night sky. Steve’s boots make a heavy thud as he lands next to you, resting his arms on the railing as he looks out over the cityscape. A boat horn echos off the Vistula River.

You find that you don’t mind the closeness of the supersoldier out here so much as you did inside.

“Sometimes, I miss the way the stars used to light the sky.”

He turns his head towards you but remains silent.

“Before automatic lights and gas lamps and lanterns. When the moon and stars were enough,” you explain with a distant sort of voice. “All good inventions, but… nothing beats the view of an unpolluted night sky.”

Steve’s eyes are nearly black in the low light that emits out of the window from inside the apartment. His elbow is jutted up against yours on the railing and you find yourself wanting to lean into his radiant heat - if only to stave off the chill of the evening air.

“Sometimes, I remember…” he stops for a moment and clears the hitch in his throat. “When we were taking down HYDRA bases, just the seven of us, we’d find shelter in all sorts of places. Blown-to-bits churches, abandoned barns, sometimes just a makeshift foxhole.”

He stares out over the city, but you imagine it’s not what he’s seeing in his mind’s eye.

“Never could sleep much on those nights. Just remember looking up, seeing that blanket of stars up there, and wondering how the hell something that beautiful could remain untarnished by everything going on down around us. You know?”

You meet his pointed gaze.

Staring at each other for a long silent moment, comfortable in each other’s familiar presence. Steve’s eyes flicker across your face as he suddenly turns to face you, a large warm hand reaching down to gently encircle your wrist.

“Athena…” he murmurs, lowering his head slightly as his eyes flicker down to your chin before moving back to your eyes.

There’s a beat of a moment where you think something’s happening. With the sudden closeness of his face to yours. And you almost find yourself slipping into that moment of unknown with him.

But it’s the sudden shrillness of ringing bells that makes him pull back, angrily fishing his hand into his pocket to retrieve a phone. You give him a small smile, backing up enough on the tiny balcony to give him the idea of space.

“Yeah?” he all but barks into the receiver.

You can’t make out the words from the other person, but his brows shift together as he nods, “Yeah, she’s here.”

Tilting your head in question, he continues to listen to the caller with an increasingly deeper furrow on his face.

“Mhmm, twenty minutes. Yeah. Okay. Got it. Bye.”

He presses the power button and stares at the blank screen for a long moment.

“Dare I ask?”

At the sound of your voice, he pockets the phone once again and says, “That was Nat. Tony put out the call. Thinks he has a location on Loki’s scepter finally.”

Your brows raise in surprise.

It had been three years since the Battle of New York when the STRIKE team had supposedly taken the scepter into SHIELD’s safe hands. It had been a year since the Triskelion. Nearly nine months since Tony had started sorting through every single file and organizing an ongoing list of people and locations and terrorist groups.

“Where?”

Steve rubs his hands together, looking like he’s all but ready to leap back inside, grab his things, and go.

“Sokovia.”

You nod in understanding, “Well, you better get going then.”

His eyes widen slightly and his head quirks to the side as he looks down at you, “Could probably use another person to even out the team, you know?”

Crossing your arms over your chest, you eye him up, “Is that so?”

He shrugs, “Unless you were looking to be Fury’s loyal agent and go searching through more empty bunkers for him?”

There’s a particular teasing tone of voice there, one that you try to ignore despite the growing smile on your face.

When you throw together your duffel bag of items, tucking the latest folder on top of your belongings, Steve leads you down the stairs and out of the apartment. On the cobblestone streets of Old Town, you could pass for any other tourist couple as the man wraps his arm around your shoulders and guides you to an idling car.

At the airport, in one of the hangars, Sam and Natasha are already waiting for your arrival. The other man stifles a yawn behind his hand as the Russian smirks at your approach, pocketing her phone as she calls out.

“Hope I didn’t interrupt anything.”

Steve brushes past her, walking up the ramp of the quinjet with a brisk, “Not at all.”

You settle into the secondary seats behind Steve and Natasha - content to let the humans do the flying. Next to you, Sam is already dropping off to sleep, head lolling to the side as you fly over the border of Poland into Germany.

Every now and then, Steve turns in his seat, glancing back at you. For your part, you’re surprisingly happy to find yourself back on a real mission again after all this time. And if it meant that something as big as the scepter was finally put into the right hands, then it was a much better use of your time than running across Europe for Nick.

Offering Steve a gentle smile, you ease yourself back into the hardback chair and settle in for the next few hours of the flight back to New York City.

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#steve rogers x female reader #steve rogers x reader #marvel fan fic #series: shameless wonder #my fic

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saintvainglorious · 1 year

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Fics I Enjoyed in February

5 fics total. Includes fics from the following fandoms: Avatar (The Last Airbender), Black Sails

clay kids by suzukiblu Avatar: The Last Airbender | Jet/Zuko | 35k (WIP) | Teen & Up

“I don’t think you want someone like me in your group,” Lee says, stepping back, and Jet steps forward quick and grabs his wrist. “Believe me, you don’t know what I want,” he tells him, his eyes intent on Lee’s. On Lee’s gold eyes. “I get it, man. Dirty little secret. You think you’re the only one who’s got it? Me, I got off lucky—I take after my mom.”

(Never) Forget Who You Are by mindbending Avatar: The Last Airbender | Gen | 10k | Teen & Up

“Hello, my name is Joo Lee,” says a young man in cheery spring green, his smile stretched to the point of pain. “I have been given the great honor of showing the Avatar around Ba Sing Se.” “Zuko?!”

Let the City Pull You Under by MadSeason (naive_wanderer)/@madseason Avatar: The Last Airbender | Jet/Zuko | 8k | Teen & Up | Part 1 of up in the city (until the stars lost the war)

[He’ll wonder all that, later; but in this moment he kisses a boy who thinks he’s something other than he is, and clings to the bolt of revelation that strikes him in the dark: maybe nothing in life matters except grabbing onto whatever brief moments you have to feel good.] Before joining the Avatar, before choosing his path on the crossroads of destiny, and before he finds a poster for a missing bison, Crown Prince Zuko of the Fire Nation has a teenage affair in Ba Sing Se. Featuring wheat crime boy Jet and horrifically understanding parent man Uncle Iroh.

No Reason to Run by MadSeason (naive_wanderer)/@madseason Avatar: The Last Airbender | Jet/Zuko | 31k (WIP) | Teen & Up | Part 2 of up in the city (until the stars lost the war)

[In another life, Zuko finds a poster for a missing bison outside Pao’s teashop, dresses himself in black, and resumes his mission with the kind of single-minded focus he hadn’t been able to muster for months. In this life, Zuko finds a poster for a missing bison, stares at it for a bit with his insides roiling around his heart like a ship caught in a storm, and crumples it up in one hand before tossing it into the trash and going back inside.] Sometime during late spring in the city of Ba Sing Se, Zuko serves tea (badly), falls in love (maybe), and deals with a chronic illness of the soul. AU continuation of "Let the City Pull You Under".

don't come closer, don't let go of me by youatemytailor/@annevbonny Black Sails | James Flint/John Silver | 3k | Teen & Up | Part 1 of unfinished business

"Why are you here?" Convinced it would look too much like startlement, Silver does not let his eyes shift downwards at the sound of Flint's voice, roughened with disuse. He watches the displaced dust around the rafters above, instead, swirling in the air as the men walk on deck. "Ben mentioned you were refusing your rations." "So?" "So, I'd rather you not die. Not now, not when we’re so close."

#fic recs #fanfiction #avatar the last airbender #atla #jetko #black sails #silverflint

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wsdk-artwork · 7 months

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The Surgeon a Doctor Who Short Horror Story

TW: Slight Gore/Body Horror, Restraint/imprisonment,

Six Months… six months since you lost contact with the rest of earth alliance. The Colony is on its own. After years of mining Amxodrite for them, with hundreds of workers across the planet slowly all getting horribly sick, they’ve just abandoned you. They’re Too busy fighting their War against the infinite to care about an outer system mining colony.

You turn to see what’s’s woken up in the middle of the night. your communicator is slowly flashing red, Illuminating the cabin around you, followed by a low droning beep as an alert has been triggered.

As you get dressed you feel an ache in your whole body, your muscles and very bones feel like they’re going to collapse. You slowly strap your boots on and wrap yourself in your protective gear. grabbing your respirator before you leave. It’s hard to breathe outside in the winter, the dust storms contain snow and chucks of ice. The cold air bites against your skin even under all your protective gear.

You search the Mine where the alert has been triggered. It’s a rather pointless job now, you think to yourself, being a guard for a Mine with no workers. Everyone threw down their tools once off world communications were cut off and this place had been empty ever since. or so it would seem, this alert had gone off every couple days now, someone had to be going down there. At first you thought it was just kids messing around, but people had now began disappearing from the settlement and these mine tunnels went down a long way. It would be easy for someone to get lost down here, or to hide down here.

You begin to cough violently, even with the respirator on breathing had become difficult. Too much Dust in you lungs from the Amoxidrite, years of working in those mines and living through dust storms had taken their toll. you were one of the the lucky ones you think to yourself. At least you didn’t have it as bad as the Miners themselves, radiation poisoning was slowly getting to them all and it had been a long time since any supply shipments had arrived, least of all any containing medicine.

Suddenly you stop, you hear the faint sound of a respirator but you seen no one. until a light appears in the distance in the dark of the tunnel, A Headlamp. You rush towards it, expecting to find one of the missing people. You stop in your tracks though when you see it’s not one of the missing person. You see them illuminated in the darkness, the light on their head spreading out, allowing you to see the rest of them. A figure stands there, wearing a padded gown, face wrapped in bandages and machinery plugged into their chest. Atop the bandages you see what looks like a pair of heavy duty goggles, although they look like they’re pressed into the skin. Around their head is more machinery, what looked like handle bars around the head, with a heavy duty light between them at the top of the figure’s head. Frozen in terror and confusion, you can’t move. They reach out and you feel an cold icy touch on your shoulder, no… not a an icy touch, a steel touch. suddenly a jolt of pain goes through you and you lose consciousness.

You awake up to find your arms and legs strapped to a table. looking around the dark and dirty room you see a table next to you, covered in surgical equipment, rusted and broken. You’re in the old medical wing, deep within the tunnels and disused for years.

As you slowly regain feeling, You feel a burning through your body and see where parts of you have been cut open and worked on. You cannot make it out properly as your head is strapped down too but you can faintly see a gaping hole in your chest, and what appears to be a metal camp holding it open. Before the terror and disgust can sink ins An acidic spray is suddenly blasted onto your skin, from a dark bottle; held by the figure now more illuminated by the lights of the room and even more terrifying, a bloody Scalpel and a spray bottle in another. Behind them you see something even more terrifying, organs resting on A Table them, just discarded of.

“What the Hell are you doing to me!!!” you scream as they spray the bottle onto the flesh they must’ve exposed with the scalpel. It’s not just your chest they’ve worked on, but your legs as well, you can’t see it, but you can feel it

“Anti-Septic, infections must be prevented. Flesh is weak and must be protected”

The Voice is more normal than you expected for the horror you see before you. it sounds human, but with a uncomfortable robotic echo at the back of it.

“HELP!!!! SOMEBODY HELP ME” the sound of your screams for help echo through the hallway and the mines past it, but you know deep in your heart that they fall on deaf ears. No one’s ever down here anymore, let alone at this time. The Figure takes no notice of your yells, they know as well as you do that no help is coming.

“It Burns!” you scream, writhing in pain as they spray more onto your open wounds.

“Pain reduction is not relevant to this procedure”

“Please I’m begging you stop, please, it hurts, just let me go” you feel desperate and afraid, the pain is getting so bad you can’t even tell what hurts anymore.

the figure pauses and looks at you studiously though it’s confused by your pleas

“No… You shall remain until your procedure is complete”

“You’re a Monster” you tell the creature as any sense of hope you had slowly fades.

“Incorrect, I am your Saviour”

“Saviour?! you’re killing me!” you scream in rage attempting to kick yourself free of the table, to no avail.

“I am helping you, your lungs have been damaged by the dust, your eyes as well, they need repairing”

“Please i’m begging you stop”

“I cannot… do not worry, the pain will not matter soon. We cannot stop the pain… but we can prevent the damage the pain causes to you”

“You have no soul” you say, disgusted as you finally begin to give up, your arms ache from thrashing and that’s hardly the worst of it, you feels as though your insides are being boiled alive. He turns to the table of equipment, a mechanical whirring can be made out, presumably coming from the device in their chest.

“A Soul? it is the receptor for pain, for emotional pain. Do not worry We Shall purge you of your soul”

He approaches you, now with some kind of drill in hand. holding the end against your temple and in his he holds other hand a headset, the handlebars and headlamp that you can see atop his bandaged face,

“Rejoice, for you shall be purified”

The Drill is the last thing you hear before losing consciousness.

When you wake back up, all the pain is gone, you see the room through a mesh and screen of heavy duty goggles, your eyes feel different. your breathing feels smoother than ever before, you look down to see a respirator over bandages, plugged into a device in your chest.

You think to yourself that there should be a feeling of great pain, but there’s none. In fact you now can feel nothing at all, No more Pain, No more Fear, No more terror, and No more of anything else, you feel no relief or Joy from the lack of those things that once haunted you. Your entire life feels like just a faint dream of another time… all you know now is that you must save the others as you have been saved.

Hope you enjoyed my little dip into Horror. I don’t often post my writing, but figured it’s Halloween so may as well, I also figured Tumblr was a good place for it! If you have any thoughts or feel like it then Let me know that you think, thank you 😊

#cyberman #cybermen #doctor who #doctor who horror #creepy art #creepy #dr who fanart #dr who art #dr who #doctor who fanfiction #tardis #big finish #doctorwho #halloween #short story #8th doctor

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disastermages · 2 years

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Almost All Alone Ch. 6[end]

[read it on ao3]

Despite all of Wei Ying’s protests, Lan Zhan sends him to bed. Wei Ying has been awake all night while Lan Zhan slept, it’s only fair, they can deal with finding the graves of the Wens later, after Lan Zhan has had time to watch the videos and listen to the voice recordings.

It would have been easier, if Wei Ying hadn’t let him sleep, they could have done an empathy session, they could have tried to capture voices with the recorders Wei Ying had found, there were many more things they could have tried if it had been the both of them, but Lan Zhan won’t allow himself to hold any of it against Wei Ying. He’d only done it because he’d wanted him to rest.

Frame by frame, Lan Zhan scrolls past nothing, writing orbs off as dust particles or bugs when he zooms in, but then he sees him. Wen Yuan looks almost similar to how he looked in Lan Zhan’s dream, even if his clothes are older, even if the lower half of his little body is transparent. A dull ache settles into Lan Zhan’s stomach as he leans back against the dining chair.

When he’d been leading him off somewhere, Wen Yuan had felt as though he’d been Lan Zhan’s for all his life, but looking into that small, ghostly face, Lan Zhan can’t help but feel sick. Wen Yuan was young, and he’d already been orphaned, how he’d died hadn’t been fair, it hadn’t been right. It was murder, but the courts had let his murderers off with little more than a slap on the wrist, and Wen Yuan had been left behind, albeit not by himself.

Quiet rage builds quickly, rising up in Lan Zhan’s throat like acid. He grips the computer mouse harder than he means to, but he can’t make himself let go, even when it creaks in his hand. He should watch the rest of the frames, he really should, but Lan Zhan can’t make himself flip fast Wen Yuan’s face.

But the vibration of his phone on the tabletop startles him into looking away, and when he looks back, he struggles to place Wen Yuan’s face again.

“Hello? Ge?” Lan Zhan speaks carefully, it isn’t often that his brother calls him first anymore, “Is everything alright?”

Lan Huan’s voice doesn’t come right away, and when it does, it’s rusty from disuse, “A-Zhan, do you remember when you used to see Mother?”

Maybe if he’d been born to a different family, Lan Qiren would have shaken his head at his nephew and written off his claims as the wishes of a grieving child, what had happened instead was Lan Qiren ordering Lan Zhan not to acknowledge his mother’s spirit. His uncle had told both Lan Zhan and Lan Huan that their mother would move on much faster if they didn’t acknowledge her, but how could Lan Zhan ignore her?

“I remember.” The sick feeling in Lan Zhan’s stomach fades, only for his heart to feel as if something has been stuck inside of it and stirred up. Their mother had been confined to one of the houses on the large, sprawling property; they were only supposed to see her once a month, but every night, through their lights, she would say goodnight to Lan Zhan, and Lan Zhan would say it back. Lan Zhan’s mother kept up the routine for months after his uncle had told Lan Zhan that there was no point in going to her little cottage anymore, and for years after Lan Zhan had realized what gone meant.

Once a month, their mother would come to the window and wave at Lan Zhan, a hurt smile on her face and her other hand pressing against the glass.

Lan Zhan could never ignore her, he couldn’t even try.

“A-Zhan…” Lan Huan pauses and Lan Zhan hears the catch in his voice. He’d told Lan Huan the story, because he could trust his brother with his secrets, and Lan Huan had never told their uncle, he’d kept Lan Zhan’s secret as well as he could, “Mother’s cottage… I saw him. I saw A-Yao at her window.”

A flurry of knee-jerk reactions and feelings pass through Lan Zhan like a hard, cold wind, leaving him breathless. Double edged relief, at first, because Lan Huan has been trying for months, for almost a year and a half to contact Meng Yao’s spirit, and then anger. Anger that Meng Yao would move himself into a place that had been their mother’s, even if she was no longer there, even if Lan Zhan knows that his mother would only pity someone else for being kept in that cottage.

Lan Zhan doesn’t need to see his brother to know that he’s curled in on himself, that his forehead is almost touching his knees. If he were home, he might’ve come to kneel beside his brother, Lan Zhan still feels the compulsion to do it, “Brother,” Lan Zhan starts, but he doesn’t know how to finish. What should he offer his brother? Help? Comfort? Should he call his uncle and tell him to see to him?

“Tell me how you spoke to Mother.” It’s a plea, Lan Zhan can hear it in Lan Huan’s voice, but his own throat still sticks to itself.

The language of flashing a light on and off feels sacred, something that was only meant to pass between Lan Zhan and one other person, Lan Zhan wants to be selfish, he wants to keep it tight against his chest, but then he hears it, the dry, aching sob of his brother, who ran out of tears six months ago.

“Lights, you have to turn them on and off.” Lan Zhan finally says, feeling as if he’d given away something precious, but Lan Huan would treasure it too, wouldn’t he? Couldn’t Lan Zhan trust his brother to hold it against his chest like he has?

Silence follows, and Lan Zhan swallows thickly, he can only hear dead end on Lan Huan’s end, as if he’d set the phone down to do something else. Vaguely, Lan Zhan can hear something, something being moved around while his brother breathes heavily, and then, the clicking of something, one click, and then another, followed by silence, and then more clicks. He doesn’t realize what’s happening until he hears Lan Huan laugh. It’s little more than a sigh, but it’s more than anyone has heard him laugh in almost two years.

Lan Zhan should be happy, he should be happy for Lan Huan, but it still feels as if something has been ripped away from him, something that he can’t forgive Lan Huan for so willingly taking, but in the end, all Lan Zhan can do is quietly end the call.

He turns his phone face down and looks up, and a cautious warmth laps at all the hurt edges like the ocean in summer when he sees Wen Yuan staring at him curiously from the other side of the room.

“Do you need something?” Lan Zhan forces himself to ask the question gently, as if he were Wen Yuan’s babysitter and Wen Yuan was nothing more than a normal little boy.

Wen Yuan wasn’t planning on being noticed, that much is obvious from the way he startles and takes half a step back, but Lan Zhan doesn’t move, he won’t. He doesn’t want Wen Yuan to run from him.

Without taking his eyes off of Lan Zhan, Wen Yuan points towards the box on the other side of the table, the box with everything still inside of it, from Wen Ning’s medicine, to Wen Qing’s needle, to the toy that they’re supposed to re-bury him with. “Wei Ying and I will give it to you later.” And then Wen Yuan will have it forever, he won’t have to look for it anymore.

Slowly, Wen Yuan’s arm drops to his side, but he can’t hold still for long and he ends up playing with his own hair. Just as slowly, Lan Zhan allows himself to sink onto his knees on the floor, trying hard to get on Wen Yuan’s level even with the distance between them. Usually, Wei Ying was the one who did this, he was the one who directly spoke to spirits, but Wei Ying is asleep right now, and Wen Yuan is standing right in front of him, he hasn’t even tried to run away or disappear yet.

“Where were you taking me before?” Wen Yuan might’ve just been leading him out of the house, but he might’ve been leading him towards his grave, to all three of their graves, whether he meant to or not. Wen Yuan says nothing, nor does he gesture again, he only stares at Lan Zhan before he turns to look over his shoulder.

His uncle would chide him. He would insist that Lan Zhan was opening himself up for possible possession, but Lan Zhan doubts that Wen Yuan would try, “Were you trying to show me where you rest?” Round and round again, Wen Yuan’s finger curls into his hair, only to be released as he looks around the house, either because this is the first time he’s noticed it, or because he doesn’t want to answer Lan Zhan’s question.

Whichever it is, Lan Zhan doesn’t move, only taking a moment to say Wen Yuan’s name to get his attention, but the bedroom door upstairs is opening, and Wei Ying is calling for him, his voice sleep-laden and unpanicked. Lan Zhan makes the mistake of turning his head towards the stairs, when he glances back, Wen Yuan is already gone, as if he’d never been there in the first place.

As he comes downstairs, Lan Zhan sees that Wei Ying hasn’t even bothered to brush his hair yet, and he shouldn’t be charmed, but he is, it makes it easy for him to come over and meet Wei Ying halfway between the stairs and their makeshift work table. “You’re supposed to be sleeping.” Lan Zhan chides gently, finding that he doesn’t have to try. It’s a relief.

Wei Ying’s arms wrap around him like vines and Lan Zhan allows himself to sink in against his husband. “You know I can’t really sleep without you, Lan Zhan.” Wei Ying presses his mouth against Lan Zhan’s shoulder in a lazy kind of kiss, the kind of kiss that’s reserved for slow, heavy mornings spent in bed because they’d overworked themselves the night before. Wei Ying isn’t lying, Lan Zhan knows that he isn’t, but he still smiles.

“Wei Ying is trying to flatter me.” Lan Zhan wraps his arms around Wei Ying’s neck to keep him close.

“Maybe I am. Are you going to punish me, Er-gege?” Wei Ying’s fingers comb through Lan Zhan’s ponytail, soothing rough, sharp edges that he couldn’t know existed, not unless he was lingering at the top of the staircase while he was on the phone with Lan Huan, and Lan Zhan knows that Wei Ying hadn’t. That he wouldn’t.

“Are you alright?” Wei Ying asks and presses another kiss to the top of Lan Zhan’s head, his other hand already sliding up Lan Zhan’s shirt. Lan Zhan pretends not to notice it, acting as if it isn’t there at all.

Shaking his head, Lan Zhan tightens his arms around Wei Ying’s neck, “Brother called, then I saw Wen Yuan.”

“Which one were you talking to just now?” Wei Ying asks, both of his palms pressing warmly against Lan Zhan’s shoulder blades. His shirt is already wrinkled around Wei Ying’s forearms, but Lan Zhan doesn’t think he’s trying to start anything now.

“Wen Yuan.”

“Did he answer you?”

Lan Zhan thinks hard about how he should answer, he hadn’t gotten anything of substance, but Wen Yuan hadn’t disappeared, he’d lingered on and watched Lan Zhan like Lan Zhan had watched him. “He wanted his toy, that’s all.” Lan Zhan finally answers, remembering the pleading look on Wen Yuan’s face when he’d pointed at the box. He’d been transparent, but his large eyes had been no less dark and heavy on Lan Zhan. Lan Zhan doesn’t tell Wei Ying that he’d nearly caved and handed it to Wen Yuan, regardless of what they’d planned just hours before.

“What about Huan-ge?” Wei Ying asks softly, tiptoeing around the subject as carefully as he can. Without a second thought, Lan Zhan shakes his head and presses himself against Wei Ying’s shoulder.

“Don’t want to talk about it, or can’t?” Wei Ying’s hands start rubbing up and down Lan Zhan’s back, trying hard to soothe him again. Accusation is kept out of Wei Ying’s voice and Lan Zhan is grateful for it, it’s what makes it easy for him to press two fingertips into the base of Wei Ying’s neck, giving his answer without having to say a word. He would tell Wei Ying, he would, maybe not today and maybe not tomorrow, but he would tell him, they both have to know that.

Finally, Wei Ying’s hands ease out of his shirt, and Lan Zhan manages to pull himself away from Wei Ying’s shoulder long enough to look at him.

“You know I won’t make you, Lan Zhan, but if there’s anything you want, or anything you need, I want you to ask, okay? Don’t worry about what I want right now, and don’t worry about any rules, just ask me for anything.” Wei Ying’s hands are gentle on his cheeks, his thumbs stroking just underneath Lan Zhan’s eyes, making his eyelashes flutter.

It’s just now noon, once they knew where the graves were, it wouldn’t take long for Wei Ying to dig them up, even if he refused to let Lan Zhan help. They had time, didn’t they? Sliding his hands forward and resting them on Wei Ying’s chest, Lan Zhan brushes his lips against Wei Ying’s jaw and then against his pulse.

“Want to be close to Wei Ying.” Lan Zhan says simply, feeling Wei Ying’s heart beating against his hand.

“Close how, Sweetheart? You want me to lay on top of you? Or do you want something else?” Wei Ying tugs at the short, wispy hairs at the back of Lan Zhan’s head, not hard enough to hurt, just hard enough to remind Lan Zhan that he’s there. It’s almost enough to make Lan Zhan melt against him completely, but he forces himself to stay up, he won’t allow himself to lean the whole of his weight against Wei Ying just yet.

“I want to be close to Wei Ying,” Lan Zhan repeats, curling his fingers into the fabric of Wei Ying’s shirt, “in whichever way Wei Ying will allow me to be close.” He wants to remember that he doesn’t have to share Wei Ying with anybody, that there won’t ever be a day where someone will call him and demand to know the intricacies of communicating with Wei Ying, but Lan Zhan can’t say that. He can’t say that without telling Wei Ying everything that he’s trying hard to bury.

He sinks his teeth into Wei Ying’s collarbone without meaning to, but Wei Ying only hisses once, his fingers flexing against Lan Zhan’s back and neck.

“Alright, Alright, I get it.” Wei Ying smiles, but he doesn’t laugh, even as he steps far enough away to pick Lan Zhan up, one arm underneath Lan Zhan’s knees and the other wrapped around his back. They take the stairs slowly, one at a time, wary of any tricks that might be about to be played, but somehow, they make it to their bedroom without being disturbed even once.

“Don’t let go.” Lan Zhan demands and clings closer as Wei Ying moves to set him down, his arms wrapping around Wei Ying’s neck again. He won’t allow himself to be peeled away, he doesn’t care if it’s childish, he doesn’t even care if Wei Ying laughs at him. The laughter never comes, though, instead, Wei Ying kisses one of Lan Zhan’s arms and then turns his head to kiss the other before he climbs onto the bed after him, enduring the awkwardness of it just to indulge Lan Zhan.

“I’m not going anywhere, Lan Zhan, I’m gonna stay right here with you.” Wei Ying strokes his cheek again, starting to settle his weight on top of Lan Zhan, a steady, constant reminder that he hasn’t gone anywhere, that he won’t go anywhere, it should smooth down the rest of those jagged edges, but Lan Zhan wants more. Lan Zhan needs more.

He crushes his lips against Wei Ying’s, biting at Wei Ying’s bottom lip as his fingers card through Wei Ying’s hair, messing it up more than it already was. “Touch me.”

It’s a command, a desperate, dissolving kind of command that makes Wei Ying’s lips part and Lan Zhan takes advantage, licking into Wei Ying’s mouth and then sucking on his tongue. “Please, Wei Ying, touch me.” Can’t Wei Ying see how badly he’s needed? Can’t he take one look at Lan Zhan and just know?

There’s barely a breath of air left between them, but Wei Ying is the one to close it, his hands finally wrapping around Lan Zhan’s wrists and pinning them to the bed, his grip just tight enough to hurt. It’s exactly what Lan Zhan needs right now. “Settle down and I’ll give you just what you need, alright, Lan Zhan?” Wei Ying’s lips move against his as he speaks and Lan Zhan’s teeth ache to sink into Wei Ying’s bottom lip again. “Can you be a good boy and let me get you undressed?”

What Wei Ying calls undressing is generous, he only strips Lan Zhan of his shirt and then pushes Lan Zhan’s skirt up around his hips, bunching it up and wedging it underneath his bottom, undoubtedly wrinkling it horribly. Lan Zhan doesn’t mind, he can’t, not right now. Wei Ying undresses himself just as quickly, shucking off his shirt and pants and everything else as if they were doing nothing more than slowing him down.

“Look how beautiful you are.” Wei Ying whispers and Lan Zhan chokes something back as he leaves long, lingering kisses against his chest and belly, his hands sliding against the softness of the sheets to hold onto both of Lan Zhan’s hands. “Prettier than the glow of the moon.” Wei Ying kisses down Lan Zhan’s body until his lips brush against tight, dark curls and then he works his way up again, their cocks rubbing together for one short, blissful second.

It makes Lan Zhan gasp, his eyes widening and his mouth falling open, giving Wei Ying the chance to kiss him again, their tongues wrapping around each other. “Is that what you want, Lan Zhan? I’ll give it to you, I’ll give you anything you want.” Rolling the both of them onto their sides, Wei Ying drapes one arm over Lan Zhan’s side while the other wraps around both of their cocks, stroking slowly and thumbing over their slits. Wei Ying’s name is on Lan Zhan’s lips like a prayer, but he’s only kissed again, Wei Ying’s free hand coming up to hold him by the jaw, either to keep him close or to keep him from pulling away. Lan Zhan doesn’t know which it is, he doesn’t care, either.

“You’re my favorite, Lan Zhan.” A thin string of spit still hangs between their lips and Lan Zhan doesn’t have the heart to lick it away, it’s just what he wants, something to keep him connected to Wei Ying always. “I wouldn’t do this with anyone else, you know?” Focusing on Wei Ying’s words is hard and getting harder when he starts to stroke the both of them faster, the glide made easier by precome.

“Wei Ying!” Lan Zhan moans, heat spreading from his ears to his cheeks, the fact that Wei Ying could say this now of all times, and the fact that he can say it so blatantly, without even thinking to look away from Lan Zhan is astounding. “Wei Ying is shameless!” Before Wei Ying can come up with something, a comeback or worse, something even sweeter than he’d already said, Lan Zhan takes the chance to kiss him, one hand tangling in Wei Ying’s hair and pulling while the other joins Wei Ying’s hand around their cocks, but Lan Zhan struggles to match the pace.

“I mean it, Lan Zhan, and I don’t just mean this. I mean all of it.” Wei Ying doesn’t have to explain what all of it means, Lan Zhan already knows. Around their cocks, Wei Ying laces their fingers together, making it easier for Lan Zhan to match pace with him, even as both of their faces redden more and more the closer they get. “You’re the only one for me, Er-gege, you’re the only one I want.”

It makes Lan Zhan want to cry, but the only sound that comes out of his mouth is a high whine that he can’t hope to contain, his legs locking tight around Wei Ying’s hips as he’s dragged even closer. He won’t last much longer than this, he knows it, and Wei Ying knows it, but Wei Ying just keeps talking, his voice growing tight and feathery against Lan Zhan’s mouth. “I love you, Lan Zhan. I love you more than I thought I’d ever get to love anybody.”

The raw emotion and the bare truth in Wei Ying’s voice is what pushes Lan Zhan over the edge, it’s what dredges up the noise that he makes from deep within his belly as he comes, painting both of their fists and their stomachs with streaks of white, but he drags Wei Ying along with him, leaving the both of them to gasp for air while refusing to separate, their foreheads still pressed together long after their come has cooled.

“Wei Ying.” Lan Zhan calls, his voice soft and quiet in the early afternoon light of the bedroom, “Wei Ying?”

“I’m here, Lan Zhan, tell me what you need.”

“I love you.”

“I love you too, Lan Zhan.”

Wei Ying wipes the both of them clean with his own shirt, catching it just before it falls off the edge of the bed, and Lan Zhan allows it, there will be time to clean it later. For now, Wei Ying settles just on top of him, their chins resting on each other’s shoulders while they lay on top of the blankets.

“There’s a shovel in the tool shed.” Wei Ying mumbles quietly, his knuckles stroking Lan Zhan’s cheek, “I found it when I went looking for the axe the other day.” It makes sense, even if there weren’t graves on the property, the yard still had to be kept neat and tidy. “Do you really think it’ll be as easy as pulling the needle out of her forehead?” Wei Ying’s eyelashes brush against Lan Zhan’s neck as he turns his head, but he doesn’t pull away, he doesn’t even come close, but Lan Zhan still wraps his arms around Wei Ying’s back.

“I do not know.” Lan Zhan answers honestly. Wen Ning had seemed sure when he’d spelled it out for Lan Zhan, but he hadn’t said how deeply the needle was embedded in his sister’s forehead, maybe he hadn’t even been sure. “I hope it will be as easy as it sounds.” This was supposed to be their vacation, they weren’t supposed to be dealing with spirits right now.

“Me too.” Wei Ying says quietly, his hand sliding down to rest against Lan Zhan’s throat. He doesn’t squeeze, but the gesture still relaxes Lan Zhan even further.

They don’t fall asleep after that, but they both drift off to some middle place between waking and dreaming until the sunlight streaming in just starts to turn orange, and only then does Lan Zhan nudge Wei Ying with his knees, just the barest hint of a squeeze, but Wei Ying is awake and hanging over him in a moment.

“Are you ready?” Wei Ying kisses him one more time as he sits up, giving Lan Zhan room to follow after him. They would need to start soon if they wanted to get it done before nightfall, they can only guess what might happen if they tried it after that.

“Mn.” Lan Zhan nods his head and sits up slowly, but he can’t help but stare hard at Wei Ying, his fingers twitching on the bed, “May I brush Wei Ying’s hair?” Wei Ying’s hair had already been a mess when they’d started and Lan Zhan had only made it worse, now it’s sticking up in odd places.

“Anything you want, Lan Zhan,” Wei Ying smiles and they both dress quickly, with Wei Ying throwing on clothes that can get absolutely filthy and Lan Zhan doing his best to straighten out clothes that Wei Ying had wrinkled in passioned hurry. Lan Zhan makes a point of tying Wei Ying’s hair up and out of his face, it wouldn’t do for it to get in his eyes while he was working.

The walk out to the backyard feels much, much shorter than it has any right to be, but they still walk out, hand in hand while leaning against each other like cats. The shovel hangs heavy in Wei Ying’s free hand and Lan Zhan nearly wants to take it from him and hold onto it himself, to forbid Wei Ying from doing any of the work himself, but Lan Zhan knows that Wei Ying would never allow that, not in a hundred years, not in a thousand.

“We should start where Wei Ying found me sleepwalking.” Lan Zhan murmurs against Wei Ying’s shoulder, his mouth pressed against it.

“Alright.”

Before they were married before they were together, Wei Ying had worked on his own, he’d developed new inventions and new methods that were supposed to help with this sort of thing, but whenever Lan Zhan had to watch his eyes glow red, a cold feeling wrapped around his stomach and squeezed it tighter and tighter. It still squeezes his stomach tight as he watches Wei Ying figure out where the graves are, the glow of his eyes just barely bright enough to catch in the light.

“Over there. She’s in the middle.” Wei Ying grips his hand tightly as they start towards Wen Qing’s grave, the glow of his eyes already starting to fade. The tall grass brushes against their legs as they walk through it, Lan Zhan shouldn’t be surprised, the current owners were either trying to conceal the graves or maybe they didn’t even know they were on the property, Lan Zhan doesn’t know which, but he still glances back towards the house. He can’t find Wen Ning’s blank face watching them, no matter how hard he looks, it almost makes all of this worse.

Wen Yuan’s toy hangs heavy in Lan Zhan’s skirt pocket, but he couldn’t even think of leaving it behind, Wei Ying had even checked to make sure that he had it before they left. It made Lan Zhan’s chest feel warmer than it should have, but truly, it was only cementing something that Lan Zhan already knew.

Wei Ying would be a wonderful father someday.

Someday soon.

The sun sinks lower and lower, but eventually, Wei Ying’s shovel hits something that sounds too hollow to be a rock. Sweat is running down Wei Ying’s forehead and his back, but Lan Zhan can’t crawl into the hole to wipe it for him, there’s room enough for just one person, leaving Lan Zhan to kneel on the grass above. “Wei Ying, be careful.”

Wen Qing’s coffin is nailed shut, but Lan Zhan watches as Wei Ying wedges the shovel into the gap between the lid and the coffin itself, they both hear it as it comes free with a crack, but what lays in the coffin makes them both gasp.

They’d expected bones, white and clean and dressed in aged rags after years of laying in the ground for decades, but Wen Qing doesn’t look as if she’s aged a single day since she was buried. Her skin is still fresh and still, her clothes are still intact, without even the barest hint of age clinging to them. If Lan Zhan didn’t know any better, he’d half expect her to open her eyes and sit up, he expects to see her chest rising and falling with her breathing, but no such thing is happening.

The needle still stands proud in her forehead, the rust and earth clinging to it the only indication that time has passed between the time it was put in and now. The sun is beginning to burn red in the sky as it threatens to set and Wei Ying looks up at him, brown eyes wide and unblinking. “Should I just pull it out?”

Lan Zhan very nearly wishes that they’d dealt with something like this before, if they had, they might have been prepared for what to do. Lan Qiren might’ve known what to do, but it’s too late to call him, their window is already closing. “Pull it out, find out what happens.”

It’s the only way to see, isn’t it? Lan Zhan watches with his mouth in a fine line as Wei Ying leans forward, his fingers overly careful as they hover just above the needle. He glances upwards and Lan Zhan understands. He’s climbing down into the grave with Wei Ying as carefully as he can, ignoring how tight the fit is as he covers Wei Ying’s hand with his own and pushes forward.

They pull the needle out together, and for a moment nothing happens.

And then Wen Qing’s eyes open, wide and unseeing and Lan Zhan can’t help but pull Wei Ying back, his arm around Wei Ying’s stomach, but there’s only so far they can go. Wen Qing’s mouth opens and closes before she screams, years upon years and decades upon decades catching up to her all at once, leaving Lan Zhan and Wei Ying to watch as she dissolves into nothing but bones and rags in front of them. The fine white of her funeral robes stains with dust and dirt that should have already been there before it shreds, as if moths had gotten to it.

Wei Ying’s grip on his wrist is nearly tight enough to crack bones, but Lan Zhan can’t hold it against him, he’s holding him just as tight, if not tighter. Wen Qing’s scream rings in their ears long after she’s rotted away, leaving the both of them standing in her grave, holding onto each other longer than it should.

“Lan Zhan…” Wei Ying says softly, starting to turn around once he’s sure he can turn his back on Wen Qing. His hands are covered in dirt; they have two new blisters each, but Lan Zhan still lets Wei Ying press them against his cheeks, he still wraps his hands around Wei Ying’s wrists and presses their foreheads together.

“Wei Ying, can you dig up one more?” Lan Zhan asks the question carefully, willing to hear no, his Wei Ying had worked hard tonight.

“I think I can do it if you promise me that nothing else will scream like that.” Wei Ying laughs and Lan Zhan leans in and kisses him quick. There’s no way Lan Zhan can promise that, but he can hold Wei Ying through it if Wen Yuan screams like his cousin had.

Lan Zhan climbs out of the grave first, boosted by Wei Ying’s hands, he doesn’t turn to look until well after he’s pulled Wei Ying up after him. He would do all the re-burying, it was only fair, Lan Zhan has already decided.

“Wei Ying, look.” Lan Zhan had only seen them out of the corner of his eye, but he pulls on Wei Ying’s sleeve to make him look.

Wen Qing’s eyes are wet when they look at her, but she blinks it away just as quickly, her throat working soundlessly as she glances back at Wen Ning and Wen Yuan and then back at Lan Zhan and Wei Ying.

She bows to them in the old way, her fist against her hand before she backs away slowly, her hand curling around her brother’s fingers. Wen Ning ducks his head silently, a smile warming his pale face. Wen Yuan is the only one to go to the effort to wave at them, and Lan Zhan squeezes the toy too tightly in his pocket. They would put it in his grave for him, they really would.

All three of them are gone in the blink of an eye, leaving Lan Zhan and Wei Ying to stand motionless in the tall grass. Wei Ying’s thumb rubs over Lan Zhan’s knuckles in small, tight circles.

“We still need to give A-Yuan his toy.” Wei Ying says quietly, sadness clinging to his voice as he stares straight ahead, where Wen Yuan had stood with his cousins only seconds before.

“We will, we promised.” Lan Zhan says, letting his head lean against Wei Ying’s shoulder. A chill runs up Lan Zhan’s back, drawing a shiver out of him and making Wei Ying pull him in tight to keep him from shivering more than he already has.

“I think summer is over, Sweetheart.” Wei Ying says absentmindedly, his thumb rubbing back and forth over Lan Zhan’s forearm.

“Mn,” Lan Zhan agrees, feeling the last of the heat that had burned Wen Qing and her family alive starting to fade from around them, “it is getting colder.”

#wangxian #wuji #mdzs #the untamed #cql #mdzs fic #cql fic #untamed fic #lan wangji #wei wuxian #wei ying #lan zhan #lwj #wwx #its finishhhhhed #im done with it #goodbye i am going to go back to my cave #lemon

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beardedmrbean · 2 years

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Hong Kong — Two former chief editors of a now-shuttered media outlet in Hong Kong went on trial Monday for publishing "seditious" content, the latest prosecution of journalists in the business hub.

Sedition, a once little-used hangover from the British colonial period, has been embraced by prosecutors alongside a new national security law as China cracks down on dissent after democracy protests three years ago.

Chung Pui-kuen, 52, and Patrick Lam, 34, were jointly charged alongside Stand News' parent company Best Pencil Limited, of "conspiracy to publish and reproduce seditious publications."

The two journalists, who have been detained for the last 10 months, have pleaded not guilty and face up to two years in jail if convicted.

Stand News was a popular online news portal that provided detailed and often sympathetic coverage of Hong Kong's democracy protests and the clampdown that followed.

National security police raided its offices late last year and froze HK$61 million (US$7.8 million) of the company's assets.

Stand News folded soon afterwards and deleted its content.

Prosecutors accuse Chung and Lam of "inciting hatred" against authorities with 17 articles and three videos published on Stand News.

The trial is being overseen by Kwok Wai-kin; a District Court judge handpicked by the government to try national security offences.

Sedition was wielded by Colonial Britain against pro-China leftist newspapers in the 1950s and 1960s during periods of social unrest.

It fell into disuse for decades afterwards until police dusted the law off in the aftermath of 2019's huge and sometimes violent democracy rallies.

More than 220 people — the bulk of them activists, former elected lawmakers, unionists and journalists — have been arrested on national security charges since Beijing imposed the sweeping law in mid-2020.

About one-fifth of those arrested have been hit with charges of sedition.

Recent jailings under sedition include a group of unionists who published a series of children's books about the democracy protests, two people who applauded and shouted slogans and a court hearing and an online radio host who broadcast fiery criticisms of the government.

National security charges, including sedition, were also brought against Apple Daily, a popular pro-democracy tabloid that also folded when its assets were frozen.

Senior executives, including its jailed owner Jimmy Lai, are set to go on trial in December.

Critics say Hong Kong's national security campaign has eviscerated freedoms and begun transforming the city's legal system.

Beijing says order has been restored in the wake of the demonstrations.

Earlier this year, Hong Kong plunged 68 places in an annual press freedom ranking by Reporters Without Borders to 148th, sandwiching the business hub between the Philippines and Turkey.

In RSF's first report in 2002, Hong Kong had some of the freest media in Asia and ranked 18th worldwide.

#nunyas news #honestly a bit surprised #there hasn't been more of a exodus from HK

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hashirun · 1 year

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My first ride in months. I missed this!

After my off-road duathlon race last August, I signed up and began preparing for a marathon and hadn't gone out for a ride since.

My bike languished in a corner, gathering dust and cobwebs, slowly being eaten away by rust and disuse. I felt guilty everytime I looked at it, but at the same time, my mind was filled with thoughts of the marathon as well as the burden of operating a business at a loss. I simply could not find the time nor energy to go for a ride.

After my marathon, I was too spent physically and mentally to do any form of workout. Thankfully, trail running two weeks after the marathon cured that. I was able to bounce back and started running again. I also began planning my race calendar this year and decided to sign up for another duathlon event. So today I brought my bike to the local bike shop for a tune up then had my stock suspension fork replaced with a rigid fork. I'd been thinking about replacing my fork for the longest time so I thought now was the best time to do it.

I decided to go for a spin after my bike tune up, and where else would I go except to my favorite coffee shop, Sspace. Was super happy to see the owners and staff again!

Since it was almost evening when I got there, I had Matcha Strawberry instead of coffee, then opted for the new item on their menu, the Chicken Katsu Burger, for my early dinner.

It was a cold ride back home plus my knees ached like crazy but I was so happy to be back on the saddle! Hopefully I can find the right balance between running and riding this year so I don't have to neglect one in favor of the other.

#biking #bicycle diaries

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fleetwoodmoth · 5 months

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Cold Nights

The ficlet the comic was based off of

Something I wrote this morning about Omen and Dabi's potential first meeting. Will likely change a bit but I liked it enough. Enjoy 😉

“Huh, it's snowing,” Moth says sleepily, watching as thick flakes begin to build on the hood of the van.

Looking to the right, there he was, that lanky man with the ragged jacket and jeans, a thin white t-shirt beneath and little else. Was he wearing dress shoes? In this weather? It was a miracle he wasn't shaking to death, in fact, he almost looked like he was steaming. Or maybe that was his breath and the cigarette he was smoking, the third one in about an hour.

Moth looks around. There's no one else in this alleyway, and he looks kind of like a wet dog.

“Hey,” they call out of their rolled down window and at first he ignores them.

“Hey,” they call again.

“I'm not buying,” he calls, not even looking up, voice a scratchy husk in the eerie snowy silence.

“I'm not selling anything,” Moth says flatly, and almost decides to give up then and there.

“You cold?” They call out after another minute.

“Nope.”

“Liar.”

“You don't know me,” he snaps.

“And you don't look very warm.”

Another beat of silence.

“You can sit in here if you want, it'll keep you dry,” Moth says, finally extending the offer.

“What do they say about not getting into stranger's vans?”

“What do they say about standing in the snow?”

Silence. Then he moves.

He's lanky, scrawny really, like a mangy alley cat, and he moves that way too, slinking along to the side of the van, and when he comes into the dull glow from the street lights Moth can see he's stitched together like a raggedy doll. All scar tissue and pink flushed skin from the cold.

“You're not going to drug me and steal my organs, right?”

“If I was, would I tell you?”

“Is that a yes or a no?”

“No.”

“Good, cause my organs are shit anyways,” he says as he opens the passenger door and climbs into the van beside Moth.

Once the door is closed and the two of them are locked in silence, Moth gets a better look at him. He smells like cigarettes and something like burning dust, like turning on a space heater after months of disuse. But despite everything else, he was handsome beneath the hair dye fried hair and burn scars.

“To be fair,” Moth begins, “how do I know you aren't going to steal my organs?”

He cracks a smile and Moth sees that charm beneath the grunge, not that they were a beaming light of mental health and allure.

“What would I do with organs anyways?” He says in that gravelly voice that seems to cut the air.

“You said yours were shit, maybe you could use them,” Moth says, oddly at ease with this stranger in their van.

He chuckles, and it's like his voice being dragged over sandpaper, a rough wheezing sound, but Moth likes it.

“Well, you better watch out then,” he says and holds out a cigarette in an asking manner.

“You want something better than that?” Moth asks, leaning over into his space to open the glove compartment and grab a mint tin.

“Ah so that's the pitch, get me warm first then ask,” he says and it seems he's only half joking.

“No, no pitch,” Moth says, pulling a roach from the tin and lighting it, taking a pull and offering it to him.

“You got some kinda hero complex?” He asks bitterly and it almost sounds hostile, making Moth shutter, but they let out their lungful of smoke and cough as they laugh.

“Hero complex? Hero complex? You're joking right?” They sputter and he fixes them with a skeptical look, “not to judge based on looks but I assume you're as homeless as I am, since when is a hero homeless?”

“Doesn't mean you can't be one of those hero acolytes,” he huffs.

“Again, homeless, what has a hero done for me? What villain is here they can punch and make this all better? It's a system that heroes actively uphold,” Moth says with an eye roll.

“So you're a villain sympathizer?” he asks but this time he sounds more curious than before.

It takes Moth a minute to gather their thoughts, handing over the roach which he does end up taking.

“I've met more noble villains than heroes,” Moth says with a shrug and that seems to satisfy him.

“Does that scare you?” They ask after a moment, elbowing him in the arm as he takes a drag.

“Nah,” he says in an exhale, “I've seen the damage heroes do to those around them. I'd rather take a smoke from a noble villain than a shitty hero any day.”

Moth smiles, vision swimming a little from the few hits, watching the stranger as he seemed to relax into the worn out van seat.

“So what are you?” They ask.

He shrugs, “I'm just Dabi,” he replies quietly.

“Nice to meet you just Dabi, I'm Omen.”

#dabi #my writing #otp: Moth to a flame

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littlespidermonkey · 3 years

Video

It felt a little alien, reaching out for the knob on the stereo after all these months. There was even dust on it from prolonged disuse, but I turned it, flipped the old thing on. The station was playing some old pop song. I should have hated it, would have hated it yesterday, but today, I just let the noise wash over me like the waves had when I’d jumped.

This felt better than that, though. And it was a lot safer too.

Jake didn’t take his eyes off the road, but he did glance at me out of the corner of his eye. “Bells?”

“I don’t know,” I said, letting my hand fall back onto his arm. “I just feel like maybe I’m ready to try some things again.”

He smiled, but it was tinged with something I couldn’t name. Shock, maybe? Panic? “Uh, did you hit your head when you fell?”

“I think it would hurt more if I had,” I said, rubbing it over to check. No tender spots, which was good. “But I think the jump was good for me. I’ve said goodbye to that part of my life and now… I can let it go.”

Jake’s eyes were now glued to the road like his life depended on it. When he spoke, his voice cracked a little bit. “And what, you’re ready to move on to bigger, better things now?”

He said it like a joke, but I could hear the real question hidden there. It was the question he’d asked me quietly with the candy hearts and the gazes and even the motorcycles.

Now, I could finally give him my answer.

I wrapped one arm around his shoulders and pulled myself closer to him. “Yeah. Yeah, I think I am.”

We let the radio play for the whole drive home.

#team jacob #jacob x bella #new moon #jacob black #bella swan #twilight #twilight saga #lee's wild scribbles

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aenaxes · 3 years

Text

chasing fountains

[fives x afab!reader] it's so easy to forget that the man you love is war incarnate. and maybe that's exactly why he can't be yours.

warnings: nsfw, angst, breakup sex, cunnilingus, unprotected vaginal sex

w/c: 2.6k

a/n: wrote this while listening to the reverb edit of good days by sza and definitely didn't cry idk what you're talking about

"Are we gonna be adults about this, or are you gonna give me the silent treatment until I guess what I did wrong?"

Fives's tone is no longer a novel sound in the dark walls of your apartment, a jagged sneer sawing through the silence as he sets his helmet down hard on the countertop. It's the kind of sound that doesn't cut deep but cuts wide, leaving a broad swath of gnarled scar tissue that will never heal quite right. (The worst kind.)

The holodrama in front of you drones mindlessly over the midnight channel.

You tell yourself that you've grown used to it, the cold and bitter thing that found home between you after the rosy light he flooded into the room faded away leave after leave, tour after tour. It helps you cope. But your body remembers what your mind tries to forget—memories of first leaves in months and boyish glee as Fives swept you into his arms and kissed you breathless in the narrow berth of your kitchen—and you flinch anyways.

"Isn't it obvious?" you sigh. It's a labored thing that crowds the bottom of your lungs up to your collarbones and chokes your throat with what's left of your straining heart.

You don't think it's anger.

It's something muted, something like the ache of a rusted plasma turbine sputtering out what last dregs of fuel it has left, numb and rote but the only thing it's ever known before it careens off the side of a landing bay and into dark waters. It happens, disrepair, discord. But the fact that it happens somehow makes you feel even worse, makes it feel like it was bound to happen.

"No, cyare, it's really not," Fives frowns.

You can hear the scowl in his voice.

"You forgot to call," you mumble, shifting your arms tighter over your chest, and you aren't sure whether the pressure in your chest is anger or the desperate claws of sorrow trying to remind you that you used to care. That he used to care.

"Cyare, I'm sorry I forgot to call, but I was in an active warzone. I can't just call you whenever to tell you goodnight because I'm usually writing condolences to the training squads of the men I bury."

You can hear the anger tearing at the fine threads of his restraint, his voice rising and rising until it's another sound away from a full-bodied yell. Before now, that sort of volume, that sort of presence, had been exclusive to late-night speeder bike joyrides and chasing fountains of youth over sandy dunes—the types of adrenaline rushes that felt good. You wonder if it's now become resentment or regret or a combination of both.

"You forgot to call for our anniversary," you say at last. Maker, you can't believe how pathetic you sound.

"I'm sorry, but I almost lost my entire squadron out there. I have to prioritize... differently, on the field," Fives says after a moment's pause (so he really did forget), his voice soft again but no less cold, no less tired of raising hellfire and being greeted with an impassive glaze over your eyes.

Silence settles through the room again, thick enough that the holodrama playing before you is reduced to a low buzz, and you tell yourself that your fingers feel numb because you always let the air conditioning run colder when Fives was on tour.

"Look, I'll try to make it up to you next time, cyar'ika," Fives murmurs, picking across the threshold and dropping down onto the couch beside you.

You aren't sure if there ever will be a next time when Fives only exists because of this endless war that cracks open the earth and swallows battalions whole. But when you drop your head onto his shoulder; when he tugs you close and cradles your head with a rough, warm palm; when you both pause and breathe the same breath together, you can pretend for just a moment that things are good again.

"'m tired," you mumble.

"What can I do?" It's the most earnest his voice has been all night, seeking gaps in the armor, places where he can reach in past the stony impasse and to that pearlescent light you've long since hidden from him. It's the closest to an apology you'll get.

"Take me to bed," you say.

Fives gently untangles you from around him, clicking off the holo before he secures his arms beneath you and carefully lifts you into his arms. Bittersweet memory, fragrant and dusted from months of disuse, floods your tongue as you loop your arms around Fives's neck and feel him press a kiss to your temple.

It's muscle memory, really. Nothing more. But it completes the little show of normalcy. It shifts you away from the hazy fugue of the present and back into better days when touch carried with it tender intent, more than ritual motion.

Fives presses a second kiss to your neck when you reach the bedroom door, mouthing his dry lips softly over your pulse. You cling to him and sigh. A third on your jaw, the next on your cheek, and another, another, another over your lips as he shifts you upright and lets you wrap your legs around his waist so you can tilt your head and push your tongue into his mouth.

It's muscle memory when, after he's thrown his armour off into the darkness of your room, you shift your hips down against his, gasping softly over his tongue as you catch the bulge in his blacks and heat floods your core. He groans into your mouth, fisting one hand in your hair and kissing you so hard it's almost crushing. It's muscle memory.

"Fives," you breathe, and it's becoming harder to tell performance from truth as something else hums in your chest.

"I've got you," he murmurs against your lips. "I'm right here, cyare. I'm always gonna be here." And the way he says it almost makes it believable.

You kiss him before he can say anything else, your teeth clacking against his as you swallow his words with a low moan, too afraid that if he says any more, you might actually convince yourself that this is more than an elaborately rewound memory.

Fives is no fool.

He knows, too, laying you carefully on the bed where he would usually toss you onto the mattress with a gleeful laugh and tumble in after you. In the darkness, you catch him hastily twisting out of his top, the low light catching over rippling muscle and warm skin before he rushes between your thighs and drops to his knees. He kisses the soft inner skin of your thighs like he always does, but this time, he does not linger instead kissing you for the sake of motion than playful desire.

This is choreography.

But performance as it might be, you do not need to pretend your pleasure when his heady exhale over your clit serves as a brief warning before Fives licks a broad, wet stripe over your cunt.

In the early days, you had been eager to chalk it up to the end of the gilded shimmer of the honeymoon phase, an entry into a stabler shared life that would be just as sweet. You're not certain what you've become, he and you, but it isn't that.

Whatever you are now, it has no concern in this moment because Fives still knows how to coax pleasure from your deepest parts, finding your softest, most vulnerable places and calling you to something better than a frigid spat to welcome him home.

You clap your hand over your mouth as Fives wraps his lips around your clit, pulling a raw euphoria from your heaving lungs that has you moaning louder than you have in too long. He groans your name into your own skin, gasps, and delves deep again.

"Fives, Fives," you plead, reaching down to grope for his head in your blind pleasure.

"Cyar'ika?" Fives pauses only to respond then plunges his tongue back into the saccharine wetness of your cunt, feeling you jump and spasm around him.

"Fuck me," you cry over a groan, knotting your fingers in his hair.

"You didn't come yet," he murmurs into your skin, almost irritated, his voice thrumming straight to your core as you cry out again.

"It doesn't matter, it doesn't matter," you chant. The intimacy will only prolong the ordeal of greed, will only make you want more when you're already drowning under the weight of what little remains now. "Need you inside me, please."

Fives hums his assent, curls his tongue into your cunt one last time, and leaves you with a ghost of a kiss pressed over your clit. He staggers up off his knees, hardly bothering to lick your slick smeared over his lips—to savor it with the mischievous delight he no longer shares before you—and cups the back of your neck to pull you into a crushing kiss that might almost be painful if you weren't so desperate to soak up every last touch he has to give.

"Tell me if it hurts," he says like he has every time he's pulled you into his arms and parted your thighs. Except this time, there is no lingering gaze, no silent professions of something more than physicality in a moment of heat. Fives only kisses you one last time before he buries his nose in the crook of your neck.

This is a performance, you tell yourself as you press close.

And then he's pushing into you, stretching you open around him and filling you in every way you forgot that you needed, in the way only he could as he cages you between his arms.

He sets a pace that is altogether the same and yet nothing like how you remember him. You're playing out something you had done before arguments lasted weeks and couches became occasional beds. Yet it feels just like the real thing, his thighs sticking to the skin of your ass as he plunges up into that spot that whites out your vision and curls your toes tight.

It feels so real that if you squeeze your eyes shut and release the tension coiled at the base of your neck, you can pretend that when you meet his eyes, Fives will flash you the smile that crinkles around the corners of his eyes and bubbles laughter from his chest.

Instead, he shifts your ankles from the base of his spine, his brows knit tight and his chest heaving as he hefts your legs over his shoulders. You sob as he fucks into you harder now, hard enough to nearly fold you in two and fill the bedroom with the sharp clarity of his skin pressing into yours. You wonder if it's to crowd you close, to mold himself as close as he may ever be and take one more fleeting taste of you.

"Fives," you cry out one last time, the flared ridge of his cockhead catching your clit as he pulls out.

Desire crests so high in your core you almost feel sick with want for more. You cling to the feeling, committing to memory what you will later try to scrub away: how you flutter around the ridges of Fives's cock, how he fucks you in the way only months of true, genuine desire would allow him to know, how when your legs jerk and he lathes his tongue your shoulder that you might have called this love.

It's ironic how that's the one thing that crosses your mind when you squeeze your arms around his neck and come with a strangled sob. His hips connect hard with yours, fucking into you in one swift motion that has your back arching off the sheets. You blindly kiss over the coarse stubble of Fives's jaw, and it crushes the air from your lungs as he takes your chin in his hands, all gentle and trembling restraint, and kisses you so sweetly it burns.

A few more sloppy thrusts, and Fives bows his head low and pushes deeper than he has all night. Groping over his shoulder for his hand, he frantically laces his fingers with yours, squeezing tight. And when you squeeze back, you hear him make something of a moan and a sob pushed into one as he finishes inside you.

He overwhelms you with one last gesture of him as you pulse around his softening cock, and you can't help how you look to him with stars in your eyes, just like before, just like how it was supposed to be. He notices—opening his eyes to reveal something forgiving and warm—but before whatever it is drags you both into its inescapable orbit, he takes you into his arms and collapses onto his side.

Fives pulls out of you with an obscene noise, something you might have laughed at before the thorns of distance had grown long and sharp between you. You only sigh at the slow drip of his come sliding over your skin and pooling over the sheets as he pulls out.

For a while, you lie there, the sheets kicked to the foot of the bed and your cheek pressed to the sweat-slicked skin of his chest. You don't remember what you would do to fill the buzzing silence of afterglow, but you remember it felt better than what you're feeling, the slow descent of gilded curtains in a dark room, falling, falling.

Fives takes the guesswork out of it for you, though. There's a semblance of real tenderness when he kisses your brow and shifts away just enough that he can't meet your eyes but instead can keep you close enough to touch.

"When's your next tour?" you whisper into the quiet as he lifts his hand to your face.

"I have a week of leave," Fives responds. He traces his fingertips over the highest points of your cheeks and nose, memorializing in touch what the darkness tucks away.

"Where to?"

"Ringo Vinda." His fingers curl over your chin, cradling you to his skin before he slowly sweeps them up the edge of your jaw.

"That's far," you say.

"Not too far," he chuckles, hollow and weak as he runs his thumb over your ear. "I can still call you at night."

"You don't have to."

"I want to, y/n."

"Don't," you whisper, and you hear his inhale catch in his throat.

It's where this entire evening has been going from the moment he stepped foot into your apartment until now: one final, cresting movement pressed into the absence of space between you, impossibly wide and impossibly close all at once as Fives's hand stills over the skin just beneath your eye.

"Don't call?" He knows his answer, but he says it anyways, desperate rhetoric clinging to something that has already been gone for months.

"Don't," you manage to say over the heat in your eyes and the asphyxiating swell at the back of your throat. "Please."

There's still a part of you that wants him to fight. Wants him to rear back, raise his voice, and look you in the eyes to say horrible things to fight for the sum of you and him like he always has. Because it isn't right for it to end like this, a lonely blip over the comm channels that cries once then blinks out forever. It isn't right.

But you're tired.

"I'm sorry." Your calm breaks with a trembling sob.

And when pries his fingertips from your face to wrap his arms around your shoulders and pull you close, you know it is the last time you will fly this close to the sun; the last time you will bear witness to the glorious, warm light that had only soured in the time you shared.

"I'm sorry," you hiccup.

"It's okay," Fives's voice rumbles under your ear, backgrounded by tight, shallow breaths that only close the vice tighter around your throat. "I'm sorry, too."

And you let him go.

(He doesn't call.)

#(screams into a pillow)#i just want fives to have everything good in the world is that so much to ask #also heheh a week before ringo vinda because im a sucker for pain #fives x reader #arc trooper fives x reader #the clone wars x reader #yaej.writes

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