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snowbellewells · 4 years

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Self-Promo Sunday: I’d Know You Anywhere

This one has been on my ff.net account for some time, so I apologize to anyone who’s gotten this far thinking it’s a brand new story. It's much longer than any fic I've posted on here before, other than my CSSNS werewolf fic, more involved, and has a completely AU non-magic setting, somewhere around the timeframe of the season two premiere. It's meant to be intense and suspenseful with some slow burn romance building as it goes along. There are elements of different movies I love, from 'The Bodyguard' to 'Sister Act' in here, and most of the police/FBI knowledge I'm using comes from television, but I hope it still melds into its own unique thing and that readers will enjoy it. Definitely still CS, and I'd definitely still love to hear what people think as it goes along.

** It seemed like the perfect time to bring it back though, since @sherlockianwhovian gifted me this stunning fic cover art as a Christmas present!! Thank you so much! I’m just thrilled and really can’t stop looking at it!! :)

Can also be found on A03 and ff.net

Prologue

'Keep going…faster…don't look back,' her mind repeats in terror as her feet hit the pavement over and over. Emma Swan clutches her son's small hand in hers even tighter. She is desperate, knowing he is stumbling, tired, and confused, but not daring to slow down or stop. "Just a little further, Henry," she breathes, trying to comfort him, though her mind is its own horrified blank, and she doesn't know what she's doing or where she's going.

'Think Emma,' she orders herself, forcing a deep breath and trying to focus.

People call out bets, various machines ring and whir, coins rattle and clink, men and women push in all around them until she and Henry are like salmon swimming upstream. All Emma Swan can do is keep looking over her shoulder, praying they haven't been followed, praying they won't be caught.

She had only wanted to ask a question. Things had been routine, normal. She had gone to Spencer's office, wanting to make sure she had the correct job assignments for the day. As head of security at The Kingdom, Vegas' ritziest hotel and casino, and proud of the position which was admittedly an unusual one for a woman, Emma liked to make sure the owner, George Spencer, was pleased, and that she and her team were aware of any new problems or red flags which might be on her boss' radar. She had given her customary curt knock, thought she had heard no answer, and stepped in – as she often did. What she had seen instead shattered her reality in one sweeping moment.

Where she had been expecting Spencer's aged but still imposing figure sitting behind his rich, mahogany desk, Emma had instead seen him holding a revolver against the temple of a very familiar figure, held in place by two of his henchmen, Greg and James.

Emma is no naïve innocent; she'd always known there were shady dealings at her place of employ – though she had never been involved in any of them. Walking in on cold-blooded murder, however, is still a nightmare she can hardly believe. She had frozen for a second, thankfully making no noise, and she honestly isn't sure if she was seen or not. She had quickly backed out, and let the door close silently, then she was running to she, Graham, and Henry's living quarters.

Tears keep streaming down her face, and Emma can only hope that Henry doesn't see; she doesn't want him to be any more traumatized than he must be already. Her hands shake beyond her control, no matter how valiantly she fights to stay calm for her little boy. She simply can't stop seeing the blood, hearing Graham's body thump against the floor, and the horror of that silent moment, viewing her boss' evil look of self-satisfaction and fearing she had been detected. It had taken her only seconds to reach the elevator up a floor, mere minutes to slip into the room she had left Henry contentedly playing in, and scoop all the clean clothes in her dresser drawer and then Henry's into a large duffle, tell her son (with what she'd attempted to make a look of bright-eyed excitement) that they were going on an adventure, take his hand, pull him to the door, scan the hall, and then slide them both into the elevator again unseen.

"What happened, Mama?" Henry looks up at her now, confusion plain in his open, trusting gaze. She doesn't want to frighten him, but she can't risk slowing down to explain, or for them to be heard, so she leans down to give him a quick, gentle squeeze and rub his arm.

"It's okay, Baby," she whispers, looking him right in the eyes, willing her little boy to believe her. "Mama won't let anything happen to you. It's gonna be fine. But we have to be very quiet right now. Can you do that for me?"

Henry nods seriously, as sweet and agreeable as always. For a second, Emma is unnerved once more by the feeling she sometimes has, that her child is a small adult trapped in a five-year-old body. At any rate, Henry says no more, simply holds onto her trembling hand, clutching his beloved Snow White and the Seven Dwarves picture book under his other arm.

The elevator pings as they reach the lower basement level of the casino and the employee car park. Emma debates frantically for a moment whether she should try to find Graham's battered Jeep or not. 'He certainly can't need it anymore,' her tangled thoughts weep bitterly. She decides against the search though, realizing that the parking garage is large and full, and she will waste valuable minutes hunting. Yes, they can make better time driving than on foot, but only if they get into the vehicle and away before someone finds them. Instead, she pulls Henry at her side up out of the lower level onto the packed city street.

Rushing, but not running conspicuously, down the Vegas strip, the night drapes around them in flickering shadows lit and spun by the dancing lights of casinos, quickie chapels, all-night diners, and hotels. Henry trips and nearly goes down, only the fact that she's clutching his hand so tightly prevents his fall. Crying out sharply, he forces Emma to stop for a second, seeing that he has dropped his favorite story. She stoops to grab it before some passerby can knock it away, then scoops both it and Henry up in her arms and keeps going.

She still glances behind her constantly, praying she won't see the known faces of any of Spencer's goons. There have been no running feet following them or angry voices shouting for her to stop, but Emma can't slow the racing of her heart or shake the sense of being chased, of not being far enough away to be safe.

Seconds, minutes, and then nearly an hour slide by. Emma is almost stumbling from exhaustion as well, exertion from hurry, fear, and carrying Henry nearly pushing her beyond the limits of her endurance. Her little boy hasn't made any more noise; she knows he is trying to do as she asked, but she can feel his slender little shoulders shaking beneath the hand she rests on his back, and feels his silent tears wetting the skin at her neck where he has buried his face. "It's okay, Baby," she soothes in a panted whisper. "We're about to stop and rest."

Emma feels his nod, agreeing with her as he always does. Her heart breaks a bit more for her little boy. How is she going to tell him that "Papa" is gone? That they no longer have a home to go to? That she is as lost and scared as he is?

They are nearing the edges of the gaudily-packed street now; there are still bars and restaurants and motels, but the whirl of beckoning bulbs and cacophony of sounds have faded a bit. She stumbles into the most nondescript – and admittedly seedy – motel in sight and makes her way straight to the check-in desk.

"Single room for one night," she states simply, keeping her head down and face partially hidden behind Henry's body. The clerk doesn't ask any questions, simply takes her cash, hands her a key, and slides a clipboard with the sign-in sheet across the desk to her. Thinking quickly, Emma writes 'Mary White' as her name, hoping it's much more common than 'Emma Swan', though she doesn't quite know how the alias comes to mind so quickly.

Nodding to the clerk, she turns away and heads down the hall, letting herself and Henry into the simple room at the far end. She bolts the door firmly behind them and tries to quell the fear inside her insisting they can't stop, they aren't far enough from danger yet. 'Henry's only five,' her mind berates. 'You have to let him rest. And you have to make a plan, calm down, regroup. They didn't see you leave, they can't trace cash, and you used a false name. You don't even know that they're after you.'

Sighing tiredly, Emma lays Henry down on the bed, takes off his sneakers, and then covers him up warmly. She slides out of her own boots and work blazer, leaving her tank and slacks on, in case they have to leave suddenly. It is nearing midnight, but she sets her alarm for four a.m. anyway, wanting to be moving on again before the rest of this nocturnal pit stirs. She isn't at all sure she will sleep anyway – not without sickening images replaying in her head – but she can push her body no further tonight. Where they go from here is a question she has no answer for yet.

Tagging: @kmomof4 @laschatzi @therooksshiningknight @searchingwardrobes @spartanguard @whimsicallyenchantedrose @hollyethecurious @killian-whump (it takes a bit to get there but there is some real whump eventually) @sherlockianwhovian @thisonesatellite @profdanglaisstuff @resident-of-storybrooke @jennjenn615 @optomisticgirl @effulgentcolors @let-it-raines @gingerchangeling @carpedzem @teamhook @revanmeetra87

#self promo sunday #cs ff #cs modern au #cs FBI au #witness protection au #cs mc au #i'd know you anywhere #prologue

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searchforthescars · 6 years

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Litany - Ch. 11/12

Y’all owe @bombshellsandbluebells for editing this and y’all owe both Megan and @maskingtapepoetree for talking me out of deleting this fic and my Ao3 account when things were Bad for the past few months. They’re not Good yet, but they’re getting better.

Thank you to @commanderanya, @daisytachi, @doortotomorrow and everyone else that took the time to reach out to me when I was struggling. I’m really bad at asking for, and accepting help, but know the sentiment was not lost on me and is both humbling and appreciated <3

If you’re still around, I’d love to hear what you think of this. If not, don’t worry.

Also on Ao3

You see, I take the parts that I remember and stitch them back together to make a creature that will do what I say or love me back. I’m not really sure why I do it, but in this version you are not feeding yourself to a bad man against a black sky prickled with small lights.

Murphy would like to pretend he’s not spiraling, but unfortunately, that isn’t much of an option right now.

Raven is noticing. So is Monty, though he doesn’t say anything, and so is Octavia, which means Bellamy knows. Luna figures it out soon after, and, because Lexa isn’t an idiot, she realizes too. Jasper and Emori are the only two in their group of friends - save for Zeke, who doesn’t know any better, and Costia, who stays out of it - who have no idea.

He likes it that way, if he’s honest. He doesn’t have the energy to explain that the thrill of Emori’s return has worn off, and with that disappearance has come the old familiar fears that he will be alone forever, that no one will ever really want him, that it will always be better to be alone then to have another person leave. That fear only intensifies every time Emori inserts herself into Raven’s conversations, joins Monty and Jasper on the quest to steal his kitchen knives, studies with Octavia and Lexa. She’s a perfect puzzle piece, and he’s a jagged piece of glass trying to fit.

Somehow, despite his downward trajectory, he manages to pass all his finals, and the whole house celebrates that no one failed out of college with a raucous night of drinking and terrible movies. For once, Murphy doesn’t participate in the former, although he does sit through the latter.

“You don’t want any?” Emori asks during a break between movies, taking a tiny sip of the ungodly alcoholic concoction Jasper made for her. The Christmas lights Raven put up the morning after Thanksgiving sparkle in her eyes.

Murphy shakes his head. “I’m good.”

Emori puts her cup down on the coffee table and inspects the contents. “Maybe I should take a page from your book,” she says. “This doesn’t look totally safe.”

“It probably isn’t,” Murphy says. He tries for a casual tone, but it falls flat. Worry flits through Emori’s eyes. Let it go, he pleads with her silently, but he knows better, knows that she won’t drop something as small as a shift in his tone.

Sure enough, she stands up. “Let’s go outside,” she says, catching his hand as she steps past him and tugging him out the door.

There’s a thin layer of frost on the concrete blocks that serve as Raven’s back patio. Murphy scuffs his shoes on the pavement, disrupting the delicate pattern of crystals. Emori wraps her arms around her torso - a gesture that means she’s cold, insecure or both, Murphy’s come to realize - and looks up at him. “What’s wrong, John?”

He expects her confrontation to be accusing, not soft, and he’s so taken aback by the care in her eyes that he forgets to answer for a moment. There’s still time to back out, he tells himself. There’s still time to repair the cracks in his own psyche without dragging her down with him.

When he answers her, it’s with a feeble, “Nothing.”

Emori scoffs a little. “Bullshit.”

“What do you want me to say?” He’s not angry. He just sounds like it. He doesn’t really feel much these days.

He pictures her standing in the kitchen with Raven, laughing with Monty and Harper, cautiously allowing Bellamy and Echo to help her move the furniture in her room so her bed is against the window. She invited him into every one of those spaces, but something always held him back. Something always keeps him from what he wants. Raven would say it’s himself. He would argue it’s his own failures as a human being.

“Tell me what you’re thinking,” Emori says. Her eyes plead with him.

The closer you get to the others, the farther you’ll get from me, is what he wants to say. “I’m thinking it’s cold as balls out here,” is what he actually says.

Emori scoffs again, this time with frustration. “Ever since I came back, you’ve been-” She starts a little bit, looks him up and down with a quick flick of her eyes. “Is it me? Did I do something to-”

Murphy cuts her off because he loves her, even as he knows he’s losing her. “No. It’s not you.”

She nods, squares her shoulders as if to steady herself. “Then what?”

Of course she won’t let it go. “Just fucking let it go already,” he snaps, and Emori recoils as if he’s struck her. “Go back inside to your friends.” He spits the last word.

“They’re your friends too.” She says it defiantly, stepping closer so they’re almost literally nose-to-nose. “What’s going on with you, John?”

“You know what,” he says, because what the hell, he’s numb anyway, and he’s not even drunk. How much could this hurt? “Maybe it is you. Maybe I’m just pissed off that you came back and just...just took over, like everything is fine.”

Emori looks stung. Murphy knows he should care, but all he can concentrate on is how, for the first time in months, he feels something. “John, what-”

“You can’t take everything away,” he tells her. He’s not drunk, but he feels like he is. He’s hot, then cold, and the whole world is tilting on its axis. “You can’t take over me and Raven and the house and-”

“You’re jealous.” Her statement makes him stop cold. There are tears sparkling in her eyes. “You’re jealous.”

“Damn right. Everyone likes you, and you left. I don’t even have that, and I’ve been here the whole time.”

Emori’s mouth snaps shut. She turns on her heel and stalks inside. In the time it takes for him to catch his breath, a cold wave of fear that has nothing to do with the weather washes over him.

“Shit!” he shouts into the darkness before bursting back through the kitchen door.

“She went upstairs,” Raven says from the living room. Murphy wastes no time in following her. “J, what-?”

He ignores her. He takes the stairs two at a time, nearly tripping over the top stair, and all but careens down the hall and into her bedroom.

The door is open. Emori’s standing in the middle of her room, her hands over her face, her shoulders trembling. From where he’s standing, it looks like she’s sinking her teeth into one of the smaller fingers of her left hand.

“Hey,” he whispers, or tries to. His voice sounds like gravel. “Emori. Stop. Don’t do that.”

“What the hell do you care?” she snarls, turning to him. One of her fingers has teeth marks in it. Murphy sees them when her hand falls to her side. “Get out, John.”

“Emori-”

“NO!” She shouts, actually screams, and Murphy hears the entire house fall silent at once. Costia’s barely-there footsteps on the stairs, followed by Raven’s laborious ones, don’t deter him from meeting Emori’s eyes. “Get OUT!”

She takes a step toward him and, automatically, he flinches. “Emori, why-”

“You don’t get to say that to me!” she hisses. Her voice is livid, but her hands are trembling. “You don’t get to stand there and tell me that I deserve how you’re treating me just because I’m making a home for myself and you’re still punishing yourself for things you can’t let go.”

“That’s not-”

She shakes her head. “Yes. It is. Think, John. You know that’s why.” She scoffs. “You’re just like him. Neither of you really want me to have this.”

“Have what?” All of a sudden, Murphy remembers her standing in a park, flinching as her brother tells her she’ll never have a future. The memory stabs him in the gut. “Oh.”

“Yeah,” Emori whispers. “Oh.”

They regard one another for a long moment. Murphy can hear the rustle of Costia’s skirt and Raven’s uneven breathing. They’re both standing in the doorway, he guesses, or at least, waiting on the other side of it.

“Get right with yourself,” Emori says finally. Her voice cracks. “Then come back to me.”

She turns away. It feels like a door is slamming shut. He wants to rewind time and undo what he said on the patio, but that won’t heal the wound that’s been festering in him far longer than he’d care to admit.

He leaves the room. He goes into his own and lets the tears stinging his eyes fall.

He has a choice. The choice is simple, but the emotions they evoke are not. He can either burrow into his inadequacy or he can allow Emori, Raven and whatever forces exist outside of him to pull him kicking and screaming into the right side of humanity.

“You’re an idiot,” Octavia succinctly informs him as he makes breakfast twelve mornings after his fight with Emori.

Case in point.

Raven throws a spatula at her from across the kitchen, nearly hitting Murphy in the side of the head in the process. “What?” Octavia protests. “He is!”

“This is bigger than Emori,” Luna says sagely from the armchair in the living room. Murphy turns to glare at her over his shoulder. “Isn’t it?”

“I’m not incriminating myself,” Murphy says drily, swiveling on his bar stool to face Raven, who’s raising an eyebrow at him. “What?”

“It is, though,” she murmurs. Octavia is across the room now, so only he can hear her. Briefly, his mind flashes back to high school, when he and Raven would mouth words through one of their kitchen windows, silently asking if the other one was okay, or if they needed rescuing from their mother.

Murphy’s eyes flit to the window over the kitchen sink. The cinder block he used to stand on in middle school is long gone, but he swears he can see echoes of his face, aging over time, always worried about his best friend, always wondering if this would be the night she starved to death.

“Why do you still live here?” he asks suddenly, seeking a distraction, and also truthful answers. “After all the shit your mom put you through here, why didn’t you just offload the house?”

Raven looks taken-aback. “It wasn’t worth it,” she says after a moment. “There’s a bedroom on the first floor, the place was paid for, and it was near college and town. I didn’t want to leave. Plus,” she gestures around the room, “you guys.”

“Even after…” Murphy trails off, the implication of her mother’s death hanging there like a weighted curtain.

Raven sighs. “Yeah.” She shrugs. “Mom isn’t here anymore. I do what I want.”

Murphy can’t fathom that kind of actualization. If the tables were turned and he was still at his parents’ house, he thinks he would’ve burned the whole place down.

He hears a tiny creak on the stairs and turns just in time to see a piece of Emori’s green jacket disappear into the shadows. He wants to follow her. His hands ache for her. He balls them into fists, studies the calendar on the fridge, the one that announced her impending arrival what feels like months ago, just for something to do.

Then, he sees it. Emori Moves Out. There, three weeks away, right before the start of the semester, written innocuously in small red letters.

“What the hell?” he asks, then says it louder when he can’t hear himself over the blood rushing in his ears. “What the hell, Raven?”

“What?” She seems confused, a little irritated, until she follows his gaze. “Oh.”

“You weren’t going to tell me?” Murphy sounds stung, petulant even.

Raven’s eyes are sad when she looks at him. “It wasn’t mine to tell.”

When Murphy knocks on Emori’s door, he doesn’t expect her to answer. When she does, he’s surprised to feel his mouth go dry.

“You’re moving out,” is all he says after a moment of her staring at him, eyebrow raised, waiting for whatever he thought was important enough to say.

It dawns on him that she probably isn’t hoping for an apology. That hurts him more than anything.

“Yes,” she answers, softly. “I don’t think I should be here anymore.”

She moves to close the door. Murphy reaches for her wrist before she can. “Please,” he whispers, eyes stinging, heart aching. “Please don’t go.”

Her eyes widen. She stares at the place where they touch when she says, “Why? All I do is take everything away, apparently.”

Her voice holds equal parts venom and exhaustion. Murphy doesn’t let go of her arm. “I’m sorry,” he says softly. A tear falls over his cheek and lands on his arm. “I shouldn’t have said any of that.”

“No,” she murmurs, looking up at him. Just like the first time they met, he’s trapped by her eyes. “You shouldn’t have.”

“Can I convince you to stay?”

She sighs. “No. But you can show me why I should.”

He tries. He puts away the paralysis and comfort that accompany his self-destructive desires, and he tries. For her, because he doesn’t want her to leave, he tries.

He forces himself into a routine. Wake up at eight, do housework and help Raven, cook lunch, read a little, watch a movie with Octavia, help Bellamy with dinner. The surprise on Emori’s face when she realizes he’s in a practiced habit of doing things, of playing nice and working hard, is worth it.

“That’s not why you should be doing this,” Luna informs him on Christmas Eve morning. She slept over last night, or so Murphy thinks - he can’t keep straight who Raven’s fucking, and it doesn’t really matter as long as they don’t cheat like that fucker Finn - and she looks more comfortable sipping from his chipped blue coffee mug than he ever did. “You should be doing this for you.”

“You and your masters in psychology can shove it,” he grumbles, even as he spoons scrambled eggs onto three plates and hands one to Luna. “Reyes! Breakfast!”

Raven appears in the kitchen with a clatter and a litany of curses. Her brace strap is caught on a metal rivet. Before Murphy can divest himself of the plates, Emori appears at Raven’s side, speeding down from the stairs and skidding into the kitchen on sock feet.

“I got it,” Emori grunts, disentangling Raven and patting her on the back. “You’re good.”

“Thanks,” Raven sighs, shoving hair out of her face. “I probably could go without it but-“

“No!” Luna, Murphy and Emori all say in unison. Luna laughs shortly. Murphy and Emori exchange awkward glances.

“What?” Raven is either genuinely oblivious or a damn good actress. “Listen, I fell that one time.”

“And you broke half the plates in the kitchen!” Octavia exclaims, sweeping into the kitchen with her arms full of laundry. “We’re still using Bellamy’s.”

“I asked for a new plate set for Christmas,” Raven grumbles to Octavia’s back. As Octavia loads the washing machine, Raven reaches above her to grab a laundry basket from the shelf and thrust it into Octava’s line of sight. “Use this.”

Octavia swats her hand away. “Is this what adulting has come to?” she asks dramatically. “Asking for practical things as gifts? When did we get so boring?”

“Speak for yourself,” Raven says magnanimously. “I am full of adventure and surprises.”

Murphy snorts, as any best friend would, but his mind and eyes are on Emori, on the way her eyes sparkle with amusement as she looks from Raven to Octavia and back again. The subtle shifts of time have been kind to her; the shadows under her eyes are lighter and the glimmer in them is brighter. Her smiles - the best thing about her, in his opinion - no longer hold sadness behind their bared teeth.

“When are we getting our Christmas tree?” Monty asks, breaking Murphy out of his thoughts.

“Are we getting one?” Raven asks, confused. Octavia crosses the kitchen to the cupboards and grabs her mug. Luna, probably sensing the conversation no longer applies to her, reaches for her bag and starts reading a textbook. Emori picks at a scab on her arm. Monty just blinks, confused. “Hello?”

“Gee, Reyes, I don’t know,” Murphy says finally. “Would you like to get a Christmas tree?”

“I want a Christmas tree,” Emori says softly.

Murphy, Octavia and Monty go get a Christmas tree.

“How did you say we do this again?” Octavia shouts in the general direction of her phone. Only her legs stick out from under the tree they’re attempting to set up in Raven’s living room. The sight would be comical, Murphy thinks, except for the fact that he’s not looking much better; he’s covered in pine needles and sap, and his arm hurts from bracing the tree that none of them can figure out how to set in the base.

“Are you sure it’s in all the way?” Bellamy’s tinny voice asks from Octavia’s phone speakers.

“No!” Octavia yells. “That’s why we called you!”

Murphy cracks a smile at the sigh Bellamy heaves. “I’m going to be there in two minutes. Hold on.”

Octavia extracts herself from the tree and brushes pine needles from her hair. Murphy makes a big show of switching the tree’s weight from one arm to the other. Octavia rolls her eyes. “Better make it a minute,” she says into the phone. “Murphy’s holding up the tree until we can screw it into the base. You know he can’t handle more than five pounds.”

“Hey!” Murphy protests as Bellamy laughs. Octavia relieves him of his tree-holding duties and Murphy escapes upstairs to his room before the younger Blake can convince him to help her a second time. The first time was a rookie mistake

He’s at a loss for what to do in his spare time. His old habit of knocking on Emori’s door tugs at his hands, but he pulls away after a moment of staring at the worn brown wood like a pining idiot. Instead, he goes into his own room - leaving the door open in a moment that lacks his usual paranoia - and flings his closet door open.

“What are you doing?” he hears Emori ask him as he rifles through the mounds of papers, clothes and books shoved into the dark corners of the closet.

“Looking for something,” he responds, trying to keep his heart from leaping out of his chest at the sound of Emori’s voice. It’s low, a little cautious, but not angry. He’ll take it. “What’s up?

“You bought me a tree.” It’s a statement, said with carefulness and a little bit of wonder.

Murphy extricates himself, rocks back on his heels, and looks at her. “Well, it’s for everyone but… yeah. Of course we did.”

She frowns. “That’s not an ‘of course’,” she says.

“It is for us.”

After a moment, Murphy looks behind him. The item he seeks is in plain view, for once. “Aha,” he mutters, pulling the heavy cookbook from the shadows.

Emori frowns again. “A cookbook?”

“My dad’s,” Murphy says, touching the stained, worn cover. “All the best recipes are in here. He changed a lot of them. I don’t really go by the book anymore; just his handwriting.”

Emori holds out her bigger hand and lets him take it to hoist himself to his feet. When she moves to pull her hand away, he holds it a little tighter. “You’re not covering it up.”

She shakes her head. “I… I wanted to try it.”

Murphy gives it a gentle squeeze, feeling a deep sort of affection surge through him at the feeling of her tough skin against his. “I’m proud of you.” The words grate on his throat. He hopes she hears the I’m trying underneath.

It’s not his place to say. He thinks about it after the fact and feels relieved when she doesn’t punch him for it.

“Thanks,” is all she says, with a soft smile. Then she tilts her head to look over his shoulder. “Your closet is a mess.”

Murphy looks back at it, at the piles of books and papers spilling out and the mess of dirty laundry on his floor. “Yeah,” he says with a short laugh. “I guess you could say that.”

“I am saying that.” Emori steps around him and kneels down in front of the open doors. “Do you need these?” she asks, scooping up a pile of papers.

“You don’t have to-”

She cuts him off with a wave of her hand. “We don’t have anything better to do. Now come on; do you need these or not?”

Murphy sits beside her and together they sort through his mess, one dirty article of clothing and wrecked piece of paper at a time. Emori finds an old photo album that used to belong to Murphy’s mother and flips through it, smiling at Murphy’s first birthday picture and touching his parents’ wedding photo with the fused fingers of her left hand.

“Your mom looks beautiful,” she murmurs, tracing the fall of the wedding veil with a careful hand. “They look happy.”

Murphy pointedly avoids looking at the picture. “They were,” he says gruffly, clearing his throat. His eyes flit to the cookbook on the floor near his foot. “For a while, anyway.”

“What happened?” Emori asks softly. “I mean, if you don’t want to tell me, you don’t have to.”

Murphy shakes his head. This isn’t a piece of him he cares about, not like his abandonment issues and his valleys and mountains. This is the way life was. “He died. He had bad lungs, I guess. Caught the flu from me, but he didn’t get better. He got worse and he died. Mom blamed me, started drinking and died from that.”

It sounds callous, but he thinks he’ll lose his mind if he goes too far back to those times. Ontari had come onto the scene about three months before his mother died. She got him out of the house and the few times when she was kind were good enough for him. Looking back, he was probably just grateful that no one was hitting him. When she made him do something much more damaging, he didn’t mind; he owed her, he reasoned. He owed her for making her put up with him.

Emori frowns softly. “I’m still sorry.”

Murphy shrugs. “At least, when they were both alive, they loved me. And each other.”

Emori nods and goes back to the photo album. Murphy knows better than to believe she’s let the subject drop. She’ll think about it and come back minutes, hours or even days later with another thought, a strange observation, some perspective he never even entertained. It’s who she is.

He loves that about her.

Emori sets the book aside without another comment and goes back to the closet. She pulls out two shirts - both of them wrinkled and stiff - and scrunches up her nose. “John! It’s like you’re in high school!”

Murphy rolls his eyes at her, then yelps when she throws the, admittedly, very dirty laundry at him. “Hey!”

“Get a clothes hamper!” She laughs when he tries to fling a shirt back at her, but only succeeds in smacking himself in the face with it. “I lived on the street for three years, and even I know a hamper is a better solution than this!”

Murphy decides not to touch on the whole “living-on-the-street” thing. Instead, he reaches for the laundry basket of clothes he still hasn’t folded, dumps the clean clothes on the floor and throws his dirty shirts inside. “Happy?”

Emori eyes the clean clothes on the floor, then blinks at him. “You haven’t folded your laundry either?”

“Good behavior comes in small portions,” Murphy snarks, a little bit of truth coloring the frail joke. Emori merely hums and scoots over to start folding his socks.

Is it a little weird to see the girl you possibly love folding your underwear? Yeah. But Murphy doesn’t mind, not when the faint sunlight from the window dances over her hand and she sees him watching. She gives him a tiny smile and rolls his socks into neat balls.

They sit like that for a while in comfortable silence until his closet is organized and his clothes are put away, and then Bellamy breaks the quiet by shouting a litany of curses as what is presumably the tree creaks and crashes its way to the floor.

Murphy and Emori laugh the whole way downstairs, and laugh even harder as Bellamy lays there, on the floor, arms sticking out from either side of a mass of pine needles.

Eventually Bellamy rights the tree. Raven gripes endlessly about the fact that Jasper and Monty’s roomba (“We’re not calling it Stabby!”) was better than a regular vacuum at getting the pine needles out of the carpet, and Lexa and Octavia appear mere seconds after the cleanup ends with arms full of wrapped presents.

“Have you been hiding those this whole time?” Bellamy asks, scratching the back of his neck. When Octavia nods cheerfully, he rolls his eyes. “Of course you have.”

“Can Costia come over to open presents with us?” Lexa asks. When Raven gives her a thumbs-up, Lexa whacks Bellamy on the back. “You should come and bring your hot girlfriend.”

“You have a hot girlfriend too,” Bellamy points out, the wry twist of his mouth emphasizing how awkward it is for him to say the phrase. Murphy is sure he finds it objectifying. “But if Raven doesn’t mind…”

“Everyone can bring someone for all I care,” Raven says casually. “If they can fit, they can sit.”

“Like a cat,” Monty says from the kitchen. Raven doesn’t dignify that with a response.

Murphy looks over at Emori, who’s holding a tiny glass ornament in her hands, presumably plucked from one of the boxes on the couch, which are full of Christmas decorations from Raven’s attic. It’s a small crystal ornament, heavy and solid, with beautiful etchings and a tiny red ribbon to hang it by. Murphy thinks it was a gift from Raven’s grandparents to her mother. Oh well. No love lost there, clearly.

Emori tucks it back in the box after a minute. When she turns her back, Murphy pulls it out of the box and casually crosses over to the dining room table, where Emori’s jacket is draped over a chair. He reaches for it, then remembers he’s trying to do better.

Raven is sitting on a stool in the kitchen, going through his cookbook. “Your dad has surprisingly neat handwriting,” she tells him when he approaches her, the crystal cool in his hands.

Murphy holds up the ornament. “Can I give this to her?” he asks Raven in a low voice.

Raven cocks an eyebrow at him. “Why?”

“She likes it.”

Raven’s eyes shift. They go hard, then questioning, then soft. “Sure.” She shrugs. “Mom never really liked it anyway.”

Murphy tucks it into Emori’s jacket pocket. The pride in Raven’s eyes is unmistakable. For the first time in a long while, he lets himself be proud too.

#litany fic #memori #dailymemori #bombshellsandbluebells #daisytachi #sarcasticdebate #maskingtapepoetree #slytherinandreski #i think that's everyone idk

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lifesizehysteria · 6 years

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United We Stand | An AdamsFoster Fic

Prompt: (Day 30) “If you insist”

A/N: For day three of the #elitewritingchallenge. I decided to do the prompts in the order they inspire me rather than in numerical order since I’m not staying on schedule anyway.

A/N: This is the haunted house story that precedes the flashback in The Night Before Christmas. It was cut from that fic because it didn’t feel necessary but I’d written it and wanted to share it. So I held onto it until I was able to tweak it into a full, standalone one-shot. This prompt seemed like the perfect opportunity to share it.

“Look, look!” Brandon pulled at Stef’s hand and pointed through the rows of white tents and food carts, toward a haunted house on the other side of Fall Fest. “Can we go? Please, please, please?” Brandon danced before his moms, his hands folded under his chin as he begged.

“Maybe not today, B,” Lena said.

Brandon’s face was already forming a pout. “Why not?”

Lena looked down at the two children who stood between her and her partner. She couldn’t see how this could possibly be a good idea. They’d only been fostering the twins for a few months but the alarm bells sounding in her head made her very wary about how either of them would handle a haunted house. A shared glance over their heads told Lena that she and Stef were on the same page.

Stef turned to Brandon. “I think maybe it’s a little too scary, bub.”

“I’m not scared!” their son declared and puffed out his chest.

“You’re not the only one here,” Stef reminded him. Brandon was still adjusting to having siblings and he wasn’t always good about considering their feelings.

“Well, if they’re scared, can’t you just take me by myself?” he complained with a scowl.

“Brandon,” Stef warned.

“I wanna go too! I’m not scared!” Jesús piped up, breaking from beside his sister to join Brandon.

Lena looked at Stef again, trying desperately to communicate through near imperceptible facial expressions and telepathy.

Finally, Stef shrugged. “I guess, if you both really want to go, I can take the two of you through the haunted house.” Lena cleared her throat and looked to the ground to stifle her shock. Clearly the telepathy had not worked. “Mariana and Mama can meet us at the end.” When Stef looked to Lena for agreement on the compromise, there was a No on the tip of her tongue but Mariana broke in first.

“If they’re going, I’m going, too,” her little voice chirped.

Lena touched the girl’s shoulder. “You don’t have to go, sweetheart. It’s okay.”

When Mariana looked up at her, determination flashed in her eyes. “I want to. I’m not scared.” With her chin jutting in the air, she marched over to take up rank next to Jesús.

The three stood in a line of protest — defiant and unmoving, demanding their right to be scared out of their minds.

Stef threw her arms out to the side in surrender. “Okay. If you insist.”

The boys whooped with delight while Mariana’s face paled.

“Last one there’s a rotten egg!” Brandon slugged Jesús on the arm to give himself a head start as the boys took off in the direction of the attraction.

“Hey, wait for me!” Mariana called and ran after them, her fear forgotten at the threat of being the rotten egg.

Stef looked helplessly at Lena.

“I guess we’re all going,” she said with far more amusement than Lena felt. When they looked back in the direction of the kids, they were already alarmingly far ahead. “Hey, hey! Slow down! No running!” Stef called out a warning as she followed them in a brisk jog, leaving Lena standing alone.

“I guess we are,” Lena said to herself before trudging in the direction of her family who were all barreling toward this terrible, terrible idea.

By the time Lena caught up to her brood, Stef had managed to wrangle the boys as much as one can contain a whirlwind. At least they were no more than a few feet in front with Mariana lagging behind them and Stef bringing up the rear. The boys were trying to one-up each other with the possible horrors that awaited them in the haunted house. They had quite the imaginations and as each new suggestion was more gory and detailed than the last, the distance between them and Mariana continued to grow.

“I can’t believe you agreed to this,” Lena hissed as she came up beside her partner. She walked with her arms crossed tight over her stomach.

“I’m sorry, love,” Stef whispered back. “How was I supposed to know she’d want to go?”

“She doesn’t want to go,” Lena scoffed, shaking her head, wondering how Stef couldn’t see that. “She just doesn’t want to be left out. And even if she did, I don’t think a haunted house is a good idea.”

“Okay, sure, maybe it’s not ideal but I don’t think it’ll be that bad. We went with Brandon last year.”

“Yeah, Stef, and he ended up sleeping in our bed for a week.”

“Sure but look at him now.” She gestured toward him as he pretended to projectile vomit while Jesús was doubled over in a full belly laugh. “It obviously didn’t traumatize him or he wouldn’t be dying to go this year.”

“Brandon has had a very different life than Mariana and Jesús have,” Lena stated, her tone bordering on condescension. They may not have been fostering the twins for very long but Lena already knew that Mariana, though courageous in the truest sense of the word, was a highly sensitive soul. She was such a clever girl with a keen imagination and some very deep-seated insecurities that her short yet troubled life had given her. That coupled with an environment meant to elicit fear was a recipe for disaster. And Lena wasn’t too eager for Jesús to go through, either.

“I am aware of that, Lena,” Stef replied, her words terse in defense.

Lena softened. “I just don’t want to put them through anything that’s…” She paused, searching for the right words. “They’ve finally started to feel safe with us and I don’t want to undo that.”

“Neither do I. But sweetheart, as much as we want to, we can’t protect them from the whole world and trying to is just going to end up hurting them more in the end. We have choose when to protect them and when to give them the space and the agency to make mistakes. If that means we deal with a week of nightmares, then we’ll deal with it.”

Lena exhaled and let her arms fall to her sides. She knew that if their roles had been reversed, she would have told Stef exactly the same thing.

“So you do listen to me sometimes,” she teased, moving closer to slide her hand into Stef’s, their fingers lacing together.

Stef gave a nonchalant shrug, a smug glint in her eye. “Sometimes.”

Lena shook her head, her face alight with laughter. “Do I sound that pretentious when I say things like that?”

“I plead the fifth.” Stef winked and nudged Lena with her shoulder.

The two women closed the distance between themselves and the kids as they approached the line for the attraction. The boys were still going with the graphic predictions as they queued up to wait their turn.

“Boys.” The single word was a stern warning from Stef.

Jesús dropped the conversation without question, hanging his head a little, but Brandon looked at her, affronted. “What, Mom?”

“That’s enough.” Noting her seriousness, he huffed but relented as he turned away.

“There are lots of other kids around and we don’t want to scare them,” Lena clarified. After the explanation, Jesús’ head perked up. He had a real tendency to lay blame on himself for any and all minor behavioral corrections. Since noticing, Lena had been making a conscious effort to offer more explanations along with corrections and so far she had noticed quite an improvement.

The line moved at a steady pace. Groups were being let in about three minutes apart. The three children were involved in a game of I Spy, which kept them occupied as they waited. Lena and Stef stood behind them, touching at the shoulders and sharing snippets of conversation between lengths of easy silence. As they neared the front of the line, the sounds from inside the house began to reach them. Squeals and shrieks drifted out of the makeshift building and with each one, Mariana looked more apprehensive. By the time the family before them entered, the little girl’s back was rigid and her hands were balled in tight fists by her sides.

Lena nudged Stef with her elbow, nodding her head in the direction of their foster daughter.

“You alright, sweet pea?” Stef asked. Mariana jumped at the question but turned her head over her shoulder and nodded, her black ponytail rippling down her back.

In the presence of Mariana’s trepidation, the family grew quiet during the rest of their wait. Lena chewed the inside of her lip. She wanted so badly to yank her out of the line for her own sake. As if she could read Lena’s mind, Stef’s hand slipped into hers, affording her strength with a gentle squeeze. If only that telepathy had been working earlier; they wouldn’t be here now.

“Okay, folks. You’re up.” The gentleman working the attraction beckoned them forward. He rattled off his script like a seasoned flight attendant. “Remember, keep your hands to yourselves; no touching, no running, and certainly no hitting. You’re here for thrills, they’re here for bills; the monsters are people, too. Have fun and happy screams.” He waved them toward the entrance and the two women held their breath, waiting for Mariana to move. She didn’t.

“C’mon, Mariana,” Brandon urged. He was inching closer to the entrance, impatient after waiting in line so long.

Mariana’s feet had taken root in the grass.

When the host looked expectantly from her to the two women, Lena offered an apologetic wave. “Sorry. Just give us a minute.”

“Can I let the next group go?”

“Of course. Thank you,” she said as she knelt down on one knee beside Mariana. “It’s okay if you’re scared.”

“I’m not scared.” Her quiet voice trembled, giving herself away.

“You know, I get scared too, sometimes. Especially when I don’t know what to expect.”

The girl’s brown eyes were bright with worry and curiosity as she looked at Lena. “You do?”

“Yeah. All the time.”

Mariana fidgeted with the hem of her shirt. “Are you scared now?”

Lena nodded. “A little bit.” Of course, it wasn’t the haunted house itself that scared her but she kept that detail to herself. “Are you?”

The girl’s eyes dropped to the ground and she hesitated before nodding her head.

Jesús took his sister’s hand before Lena had a chance to speak again.

“If you’re scared, we don’t have to go.” His disappointment was obvious when he looked with longing at the dark entrance in front of them but his jaw was set with certainty. Lena felt a tightness around her heart at the touching gesture. He was alway so willing to sacrifice for his sister.

“Yeah, it’s okay if you don’t wanna go.” Brandon stepped in front of them, facing Mariana with his hands on his hips. “It’s just a lame haunted house. It’s probably not even good.” Pride swelled in Lena’s chest at her son’s sudden change of heart and she shared a quick look with Stef who seemed just as surprised as Lena. Maybe he really was getting a hang of this big brother thing.

Mariana looked between Brandon and her brother, her mouth pursing as she considered his offer. Finally, she shook her head.

“I wanna go. I won’t be scared if you guys are with me,” she said and reached for Brandon’s hand. United, the three turned toward the haunted house, their hands linked while they waited for their turn. Lena shared a look of love and pride with Stef as she returned to her side. She took her hand and squeezed it gently, grateful despite herself that Stef had agreed to this terrible, wonderful idea.

#elitewritingchallenge #adamsfosterfic #the fosters #adamsfoster #otp: adamsfoster #written by lifesizehysteria #fanfiction

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anoutlandishfanfic · 6 years

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AnOutlandishChristmas - #3

Beacon Hill is alive with the sound of Christmas carols!

Bear with me now... I’ve jumped ahead to Christmas in my Sound of Music AU. The last I left you, Jamie and Claire were in their honeymoon suite... There will be a chapter in between that and this, which will cover the von Fraser’s escape to Switzerland, aka Boston. This was really meant to be a part of the epilogue of the AU, but I didn’t think you’d mind the sneak peek as a wee Christmas gift.

You can read previous chapters of my Sound of Music AU fic here.

Late Evening of the Twenty-Fifth of December, Present Day. Boston, Massachusetts, USA.

The mattress shifted, announcing Jamie’s arrival. I reached out my hand without lifting my head from the pillow or opening my eyes and asked, “Everyone settled?”

“Oh, aye,” he chuckled as I pulled him down beside me, “I think wee Maggie was asleep before her head hit the pillow.”

“Christmas will do that to a fellow,” I groaned.

The last forty eight hours had been an emotional roller coaster that left me completely exhausted. It was our first Christmas together as a family and the first holiday spent away from Scotland, to boot…

Come to think of footwear, I felt quite like the old woman who lived in a shoe, with all nine of us cram-jam packed into our four bedroom, one and a half bath house on Fury Street. There wasn’t room for anyone to have their own space, which meant things came to a boil rather quickly as each processed these milestones in their own way.

Jamie’s cold hands tickled at the warm skin of my lower back and I squirmed, opening my eyes to see his smiling down at me, “Too tired for one more gift?”

I took his lower lip between mine in answer. He tasted of mouthwash and toothpaste, with a hint of something sugary hiding along the edges.

“You snuck another cookie,” I laughed.

“Mmhmm, I did,” he rolled me onto my back and his breath tickled my skin as his hands and mouth roamed my body, “but you taste sweeter still, mo nighean donn.”

Now wide awake and thoroughly aroused, I moved in kind, protesting in a fit of giggles as he blew gently into my navel.

“That tickles!”

He lifted his head, a tender expression on his face. His fingers fanned out as the heel of his palm bumped against my pubic bone and I held my breath as his eyes softened.

I know, his soul whispered to mine.

Tears burned at the back of my eyes as I pushed away from him and tucked my knees to my chest, protecting the growing life within me.

I’d been the sole survivor of the crash that claimed the lives of my parents and uncle, and the doctors had told me as I reached adolescence that there was a very good chance that I would be barren, and if I did manage to conceive, it was likely that I’d be unable to carry the child to term due to my injuries. It was something that haunted me ever since my marriage to Jamie and a topic we’d only had one conversation about. He’d assured me then that I was more than enough for him, that he had children aplenty, but only one Claire.

Would he feel the same if we lost this fragile, tangible creation of our love?

Would I still be enough for him then?

“Mo chridhe,” he followed me up to the pillows, his voice breaking along with my heart. “Claire, please, look at me.”

Jamie’s hands framed my face as his thumb wiped away a trail of moisture that escaped my tightly scrunched eyelids. He moved closer, curling himself around me, forming a barrier between me and anything that dared to pose a threat to our child. Slowly, my pulse settled into a rhythm that matched his as I clung to him.

“I’m sorry,” I sniffed.

He kissed my brow, “Ye have nothing to apologize for.”

“I should have told you.”

“Nae, lass,” he moved his face back a little bit as I blinked rapidly, trying to focus on his face through my tears, “ye did tell me.”

“What?”

Jamie smiled, “Your body told me when ye didna have the words to say it aloud.”

“What the hell does that mean?”

“Ye havena been a day late in your courses in the six months I’ve lain with ye and —“

“You kept track?! We’re bloody refugees and you kept track?!”

“Oh, aye,” he admitted nonchalantly as his hand gently cupped my breast, “and ye’re changing too, my own... Right before my very eyes. Ye already have that look about ye… that glow.”

I wiped my nose on my sleeve, “I do not glow.”

“Well, maybe no’ in the dark,” he grinned unabashedly, “but, aye, ye do.”

Jamie brought his face close to mine, tenderly kissing me in a way that somehow rid me of the nagging feeling of dread that had followed me for the past five days.

“I… I haven’t taken a test yet,” I admitted.

He nodded in understanding, “Do ye have one?”

“No,” I shook my head, my fingers twining themselves in and out of his curls, needing to touch him, to hold him. I untucked my legs and pulled him closer, “I haven’t been anywhere without the children since… since I realized that I might be… pregnant.”

The word sent a thrill of exhilaration through me with bone chilling fear right on its heels. I felt myself begin to tremble and vainly tried to stop, pressing my body against Jamie’s and tightening my grip around his neck.

He eased us both back beneath the warm covers and began to whisper something low and almost rhythmic into my ear as he held me close, letting me all but choke him in the process. The soothing tone of his voice and the warm vibrations of his chest slowly stilled my tremors. They melted away, leaving me breathless and broken in my husband’s arms.

“I’ll fetch ye one in the morn, aye?” He crooned, rubbing smooth circles on my back, “We’ll find something to occupy the children and steal away up here for a time…”

I felt Jamie inhale deeply, his breath almost catching as he exhaled, his voice falling to the most reverent of whispers as he held me close.

“Dinna fash, mo chridhe. I’ve got ye and I willna let ye go.”

…

True to his word, Jamie was up and out the door nearly before the sun was up, returning with an armload of pastries and coffee and a hidden pregnancy test in his coat pocket. He’d also picked up a film from the RedBox while he was at Walgreens, and instructed the children not to come upstairs save an emergency until they’d finished it and went outside for at least an hour.

By my calculations, we had roughly three hours before we’d be bothered... possibly longer if my instincts were correct and Jamie had, in fact, bribed them with extra donuts.

There was barely enough room for the both of us in the tiny bathroom at the top of the stairs. It housed just a toilet and a sink as the only shower and tub were in the downstairs bathroom off the kitchen, but it served our purposes and offered the distance and privacy we needed from the children. I’d managed to elbow Jamie in the gut and step on his toes several times before I even took the test, and showed no signs of stopping as we waited together in the cramped quarters.

Jamie sat on the closed lid of the toilet, allowing me to pace in the four square inches between the end of his knees and the edge of the sink. He caught hold of me ‘round the waist and pulled me onto his lap as the final minute ticked down on our timer, murmuring into my neck, “It will be alright.”

I nodded silently, darting my fingers in and out of his hair as I absently studied a crack in the plaster of the wall.

“Claire,” his hands pulled my face to his, “the bairn will be healthy and strong, just as you are.”

“We don’t even know if there is a baby,” I vacillated.

Jamie smiled as he kissed me, “Oh, I ken.”

“Have you become an obstetrician overnight,” I poked him, pulling away enough to narrow my eyes in jest, “or do you have some sort of firsthand knowledge of the future?”

“Neither… I have faith, mo nighean donn.”

#outlander #outlander fanfic #sound of music au #an outlandish christmas

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hekate1308 · 6 years

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All I Want for Christmas is Drowley - Day 7!

Hello! It is your friendly neighborhood Drowley fic-giver,back with the 7th and final offering!I had to sneak writing this in today during the one free hour I have in between cooking for the holiday tonight, so please forgive any mistakes on account of the rush.I truly hope you enjoy this one, and am SUPER THRILLED that you have seemed to like the previous offerings as well!

This one takes place in a post-S12 AU world where Crowley is brought back to life, but is still a demon. He’s helped the boys close the gates of hell, and is working with them (albeit a little reluctantly) with this scene taking place immediately following a hunt that went a bit sideways. The fic itself doesn’t follow a prompt or related to the season at all, but *shrugs* Happy Christmas all the same!!

Factory Settings

“Damn it, Crowley! Why you gotta be such a jackass?” Dean growls, frustration at his companion bleeding through every word as he tosses their gear into the Impala’s trunk.

Crowley lifts both eyebrows, before gesturing towards the center of his chest, and saying with clear and slow annunciation. “Demon.”

Dean shakes his head, “Nah, that excuse doesn’t fly anymore, Buttercup.”

“And why ever not?”

Dean slams the trunk lid shut, shaking the whole car in the process, then turning to face Crowley. “Because we both know better! Sure your moral compass is facing due south, but following the damn thing is your choice.”

Crowley sneers. “Oh, that easy is it?”

“Nah.” Dean shakes his head. “It ain’t. Hell knows I know it ain’t. But we also both know that you don’t have to follow it if you don’t want to.”

“Who says I don’t want to?”

Dean levels an intense look at Crowley, taking two long strides to close the distance between them, until they’re sharing the same breathing space. “Me. You wanna pull some weird-ass macho crap with Sam and Cas and everyone else, making pretend that you keep tagging along with us because you’re bored and not because you give a shit about anything. Fine.” Dean nods his head, offering Crowley a half-shrug and a smirk. “But you’re not fooling me. I know you, Crowley. And I know why you’ve stuck around, and it ain’t just because the gates of hell are closed and you’re out of a job.”

“Do you now?” Crowley’s too well controlled to allow his voice to tremble, but the amount of effort that it takes for him to avoid doing just that is considerable.

“Yeah. Yeah I do.” Dean holds Crowley’s gaze for several long, drawn out seconds. Crowley digs his nails into the palm of his hand to avoid looking away. “Just like I know what it is you want. What it is your hoping is gonna happen. With us.” Dean’s eyes drop to Crowley’s mouth for a split second, almost so quick that if Crowley’s whole world wasn’t currently narrowed down to the other man’s face, he’d have missed it.

“And, cards on the table? I want it too.” The breath gets caught in Crowley’s throat at Dean’s impossible to believe statement. But the look on Dean’s face is more open and honest, and yeah maybe just a little bit pained, than any Crowley’s ever seen before. Crowley’s heart is somewhere in the vicinity of his throat when Dean continues.

“But it’s not gonna happen - it can’t happen, Crowley - if you don’t try harder to avoid following your factory-default evil settings.”

Fear and rage and frustration boil up and explode out of Crowley at that damning sentence. “I’ve been trying! How the bloody hell do you think I’ve been managing all this time? Running around with you lot? Ignoring my gut instincts to maim and torture first, ask forgiveness never? I’ve got a constant bloody mantra running through my noggin’ of ‘What Would Dean Winchester Bloody Do?!’ just so I have half a bloody chance of not messing it all up! So please, excuse me, if every now and again I forget to focus on the idiot of the week and instead prioritize saving yours and my hides from a painful and gruesome death!”

“Crowley…” Dean sighs, reaching up to scrub a hand at the back of his neck and looking away for the first time since the conversation began. “Look, I get it. But saving people is what we do. And if you… you need to be on board with that or this… it’s never gonna work.”

“And what, you’re not one of those people I’m supposed to be saving?”

Dean shakes his head. “That’s not - they gotta come first. I can take care of myself.”

Crowley barks out a bitter laugh. “Your track record on that front isn’t stellar. You’ve died how many times now?”

“And I’m still here.”

“Forgive me if I don’t find that reassuring.”

Dean heaves out a breath, the warmth of it ghosting against Crowley’s face. “Just… can you promise me you’ll try?”

Crowley arches an eyebrow at the request. “You’d accept the word of a demon?”

Dean gives him an exasperated look. “When that demon’s you? Yeah, I would.”

All witty remarks and snarky retorts that Crowley perpetually has at the ready abandon him in that second. Leaving him with a completely inadequate and inelegant “Oh” as a response.

“Yeah. So, we gotta deal or what?”

Speechless, Crowley just nods.

Dean’s face lights up at the action, before a slow, mischievous smile spreads over his face. “Nah. You know the rules, Crowley. I’m gonna need to hear the words.”

Crowley rolls his eyes, but gives in. “Fine. I promise to try harder to prevent idiot humans from getting themselves killed.”

“Even if you don’t know said idiot humans.”

“Even if I don’t know said idiot humans.”

“There, was that so hard?” Dean takes a half-step back, holding out a hand to Crowley as if to shake. Crowley looks at it with amusement.

“Nuh-uh, Squirrel. You know the rules about how these deals are sealed.”

Dean laughs, the sound light in the air. “Yeah, but that would be giving you your reward before you’ve earned it. Can’t have that.”

“Hmm, well in that case, how about we discuss the terms regarding exactly what I’ll be getting in exchange for keeping my part of the bargain? Say, over drinks?”

The shade of red that fills Dean’s cheeks is by far and away Crowley’s favorite.

“Sure. Why not?”

#all i want for christmas is drowley #spn #eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee this is perfect and i can say nothing else about it thank you so much omg #submission

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actuallylorelaigilmore · 6 years

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my fic: the masterpost

For those who don’t prefer the convenient AO3 link, here is the ultimate guide to my multifandom collection. You can find everything I’ve written under this tag, and all my WIPs and future ideas here. ~Last updated 2/9/2018.

The Blacklist

Lost in the Forest of This Heart - Lizzington, epic on the run slow burn WIP What You're Running From - Lizzington, post-3x10 angst Who You're Running To - Lizzington, pregnancy confession Lovely, Dark And Deep - Lizzington, Red babysitting Agnes For Tonight - Lizzington, a red dress For Facing the Truth - Lizzington, a confession Dreaming Of Things Yet To Come - Lizzington, beach vacation fluff All We Know Is Don't Let Go - Lizzington, reunion after Red’s shooting Darkness And Fears To Appease - Lizzington, a violent rescue And Bleed, Red As Blood - Lizzington, wounded on the run Between the Daylight and the Deep Sea - Lizzington, first kiss All We Know is Touch and Go - Lizzington, trembling hands Monsters and Men - Lizzington, a place to rest Starry Skies and Deep Blue Eyes - Lizzington, this is a shipping ship I Could Be The One - Lizzington, tourist AU What You Need the Most - Samar x Red, hospital visit Sheltered By The Night - Samar x Red, subterfuge When You Can't See Through - Liz x Samar, hideaway Alone With Our Changing Minds - Liz x Aram, comfort food

Buffy The Vampire Slayer

Strain This Chaos, Turn It Into Light - Xander x Oz, a messy, painful affair You Are The Wolf, I Am The Moon - Faith x Oz, the Slayer loves the wolf Animal Instincts - Faith x Oz, like recognizes like Rare Is This Love - Willow x Angel, a spell-driven WIP Consequences - Willow x Angel, soul-bonded coupling after Buffy’s death

Charmed

We Could Steal Time, Just For One Day - Piper x Mark, Piper finds a loophole We Were On Fire - Prue x Cole, S3 AU where Prue fell for him instead

The Doctor Blake Mysteries

Homesick For The Real - Lucien x Jean, Lucien angst after Jean’s death WIP Solving For X - Lucien x Jean, blatant math smut Never Knew My Heart Could Sing - Lucien x Jean, first time he heard her sing As Fate Would Have It - Lucien x Jean, parenting fluff Nothing So Well As You - Lucien x Jean, Much Ado about angst Take On Me, Take Me On - Lucien x Jean, 1980s high school dance AU Meet Your Storm - Lucien x Jean, comfort smut after the honeymoon Family Found - Lucien x Jean, Jack returns to the Blake home No Appointment Needed - Lucien x Jean, awkward first meeting AU Sugar and Spice - Lucien x Jean, bakery AU For Better or Worse - Lucien x Jean, ‘you nearly died’ kiss after the wedding Undercover - Lucien x Jean, pretend to be NOT married AU We Built Monuments To Each Other - Lucien x Jean, modern mutual pining AU Double Date - Matthew x Alice conspire to set up Lucien x Jean Three Little Words - Matthew x Alice, first declarations of love Two Weddings and a Morgue - Matthew x Alice, post-wedding cuteness The Prettiest Sight to See - Matthew x Alice, a kiss under the mistletoe No Idea About Me And You - Matthew x Alice, makeout interrupted And A Happy New Year - Matthew x Alice, hungover after New Year’s Eve At Last, My Love Has Come Along - Matthew x Alice, soulmate AU Brothers in Arms - Matthew x Alice, Alice stops Matthew from avenging Lucien This Feeling Calls For Everything That I Am Not - Matthew x Alice, gratitude Girls In White Dresses And Boys With Old Crushes - Matthew x Alice, teen AU Novis Initiis Et Felix Consummatio - Matthew x Alice, dog-adopting AU Tea and Tricks - Matthew x Alice, Novis the dog sequel Words That Haunt And Heal - Matthew x Alice, more Novis the dog angsty fluff This Sudden Burst of Sunlight - Matthew x Alice, dinner party matchmaking These Inconvenient Fireworks - Matthew x Alice, a morgue romance Hurry Home To My Heart - Matthew x Alice, Alice can’t sleep without him Subterfuge - Matthew x Alice, WWII spy/soldier AU The Soldier and The Spy - Matthew x Alice, expansion of WWII AU A Matter Of Honor - Matthew x Alice, Matthew gets bloody defending Alice The Sound of Silence - Matthew x Alice, silent moments-a Secret Santa gift You're The Eighth Wonder - Jean x Alice, fluffy bakery AU Lost In Your Light - Danny x Mattie, a reunion in the city I Am Here Tonight - Lucien and Mattie, night terrors and found family angst Our Scars Make Us Who We Are - Jean and Alice, sympathy and friendship

Elementary

In Sickness - Joan and Sherlock, taking care of each other Cold Winter, Sink Your Teeth In Me - Joan Watson, winter self-care

Firefly

For All the Ones Who Hurt the Most - Mal x Simon, a turning of the tide Caught Me in the Tide and I Caught You - Mal x Simon, complications All The Satellites In Your Atmosphere - Mal x Simon, injuries All the Days Ahead - Mal x Simon, near-death experience WIP A Holiday To Burn This Town - Zoe x Wash, vacation fluff

Gilmore Girls

If We Only Tried - Luke x Lorelai, snowed in WIP Movie Rules - Luke x Lorelai, Netflix and chill Bitter Sweets - Luke x Lorelai, birthday present Shelter You - Luke x Lorelai, hugs

The Greatest Showman

In Your Arms When The World Is Burning - Anne x Phillip, in the hospital

iZombie

I Can’t Love if You Lie - Peyton x amnesia!Blaine, post-S2 reckoning WIP King And Queen Of The Weekend - Peyton x Blaine, post-breakup smut WIP

Once Upon A Time

I'll Keep Finding, Finding You - Emma x Regina, end-of-the-world kiss

One Day At A Time

I Believe In A Thing Called Love - Penelope x Schneider, friendly massage that turns into more WIP We Hide Within Our Veins The Things That Keep Us Bound To One Another - Penelope x Schneider, a surprising kiss Five Times Schneider Kissed Penelope’s Forehead, and One Time She Kissed His - Penelope x Schneider, slow burn angsty fluff The Feeling Inside Keeps Building - Penelope x Schneider, Schneider keeps his quinces look and drives Pen crazy This One Is Gonna Hurt - Schneider, Schneider confronts Victor as he leaves Elena’s quinces To Have And To Hold - Elena and Schneider, a wedding day moment

Stranger Things

A Change of Scene - Joyce x Hopper, chaperoning a trip, jetlag ensues WIP Some Days Like I'm Barely Breathing - Joyce x Hopper, unexpected visit Touching From A Distance - Joyce x Hopper, insomnia and longing Another Night, Another Heart - Joyce x Hopper, casual sex gets complicated

Supergirl

You Saw The Truth In Me - Kara x Lena, Kara tries to comfort drunk!Lena Can't Deny It - Kara x Lena, drunk!Lena knows the truth

The West Wing

Mine - Josh x Donna, formalwear smut Leaving Things Unsaid - Josh x Donna, a campaign affair Things You Said With No Space Between Us - Josh x Donna, five moments Where the Past Comes Back to Life - Josh x Donna, facing the past Just Give Me A Reason - Josh x Donna, revelations while waiting on a diary Take the Heart Right Out of Me - Josh x Donna, at her side in Gaza Look Back At Us Now - Josh x Donna, pining!Josh POV after Donna leaves All In - Josh x Donna, a Gilmore Girls-themed coffeeshop AU Now You're The Future - Josh x Donna, pregnancy news Hands-Free Mode - Josh x Donna, Donna takes charge smut A Thrill Of Hope - Josh x Donna, a Christmas AU with no helicopter Say You Were Made To Be Mine, Part One - Josh x Donna, soulmate AU To Be Your Harbor - Josh x Donna, comfort fic after Noah’s death Refuge at First Light - Josh x Donna, sequel fic after Noah’s death One Thing Right - Josh x Donna, parent fluff Whistle All The Airs - Josh x Donna and CJ x Toby, double date night Leave Us In Pieces, Scattered Everywhere - CJ x Toby, seeking answers The Deepest of Needs - CJ x Toby, AU after Andy breaks his heart These Things Which Are Forbidden - CJ x Toby, a doomed love story Safe Places - CJ x Toby, comfort food I Want Your Midnights - CJ x Toby, hidden in plain sight Where You Go To Rest Your Bones - Josh x Sam, Josh goes to California Just Give Me Something to Hold Onto - Josh x Sam, consolation Rain On Me Your Sweetness - Sam x Ainsley, Santos administration reunion And To All A Good Night - the West Wing family, Christmas dinner A Very Brief Career at the Hoover Institute - Ainsley Hayes, after Leo’s death These Things I'll Never Say - Amy and Donna, “Commencement” conversation

Xena: Warrior Princess

The Bold And The Bard - Xena x Gabby, the storyteller and her muse

#my fic #fic masterpost #fanfic #i have many stories #lol #this took time

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lady-divine-writes · 7 years

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Kurtbastian fic - “A Dalton Boy Heartbroken” (Rated NC17)

After Kurt gets Sebastian home, it's time to start helping him heal.

But that's a difficult thing to do when you're kind of a mess yourself. (6830 words)

Warning for mention of assault, bruises pertaining to non-consensual violence, and thoughts of self-harm. Also warning for mention of Blaine and some Blaine wank - particularly what happened between Kurt and Blaine back when they were dating. If you can stomach it, please read it, as it's pertinent to Kurt's backstory. Otherwise, just stop reading at the bolded words and pick up again at the bolded words, and remember for later installments - Blaine bad xD

Follows A Dalton Boy Intervention

Read on AO3.

Kurt has wanted to drive a Porsche ever since he was introduced to one working part time at his father’s auto shop. Flat 6, manual transmission, 300 horsepower, all-wheel drive, and in his all-time favorite car color.

Ink black.

Because of liability issues, sixteen-year-old and newly licensed Kurt Hummel wasn’t allowed to even back it out of the bay.

But he could sit in the driver’s seat while he polished the leather interior and daydream.

He did get another potential opportunity to drive one as an adult. The first time his club turned a profit, he took himself down to the closest Porsche dealership to celebrate its success. He was going to go for a test drive and finally get the feel of one. He’d wanted to give himself a goal to strive for, wanted to prove to himself that everything was going to be alright.

That he hadn’t just survived, but that he could thrive.

Kurt Hummel belonged in the driver’s seat of a Porsche. He knew that for a fact.

But he backed out at the last minute, old doubts cropping up to spoil his fun: What if his success was temporary? What if his club was only bringing in business because it was new and edgy? What if, when the thrill wore off, everything went belly up?

So he put his test drive on the back burner and let it simmer there, on hold until he knew for sure.

He didn’t want to risk falling in love with something he might not be able to keep.

Sebastian has a gorgeous car – a truly exceptional piece of machinery. And it’s not factory, either. It’s a special edition, which makes it a little more painful that it’s being driven around Ohio by a boy who can’t legally drink yet. But the more time Kurt spends with Sebastian, the less he sees that as a travesty, and the more he’s begun to equate that handsome car with its owner. They’re one in the same – sleek, classy, powerful … and out of Kurt’s league.

Kurt has been fiending to drive Sebastian’s car for months, and now he is. Sitting in the driver’s seat (which fits him like a glove), flying down the highway, with that phenomenal engine purring seductively in his ears, should feel like a dream come true.

But it doesn’t. Not when he gets to drive it like this.

When Kurt and Sebastian left the dorms, the jackals converged. Knowing that following them out into the parking lot would be asking for trouble from the assistant dean, the boys stopped at the main threshold. Others chose to look down from the windows like kings on high watching the commoners flee. Kurt ignored them. It was easy.

He’s had a fair amount of practice treating losers like they don’t exist.

But as Kurt started loading Sebastian’s stuff into his Navigator, with Elliott already behind the wheel, Sebastian turned to look at his Porsche sitting alone beneath its cover in the parking lot. That car, more than anything he owned, symbolizes him. It’s like an extension of him. He isn’t the only boy on campus who drives a Porsche, but his is still a part of his identity. Everyone knows that car.

Everyone knows its owner.

“M-master?” Sebastian said softly so as not to bring attention to the title.

“Yes, preppy?”

“Would it be alright if we took my car with us? If I leave it behind, I’m afraid …”

Kurt looked from his sub’s eyes up and around to those watching them, some with the gall to smirk. If these assholes could tie a living human being to a chair against his will with a pillowcase over his head and a gag stuffed in his mouth, then they were definitely capable of destroying Sebastian’s car.

And of finding some way of getting away with it.

It was just a car, an object, not equal to Sebastian’s health or his life, but that wasn’t the point. The goal of tonight’s little escapade was to tear Sebastian down. Kurt knew that. And he wasn’t about to give these assholes any more ammunition.

“Of course, preppy,” Kurt said with a vindictive smile. “I catch your drift. You have the keys?”

Sebastian felt his pockets, fear creeping into his eyes at the thought that he may have left them behind and would have to go back for them.

He could do it with Kurt by his side, but he really didn’t want to.

But, luckily, he ended up finding them. He pulled them out and held them up.

“Well, let’s get to it, preppy,” Kurt said, pointing the way. “I’m getting sick of the stench of bullshit that permeates this place.”

“W-would you drive, Master?” Sebastian asked suddenly. “I---I don’t think I can.”

Kurt stared at the keys in Sebastian’s hands, salivating like they were an expertly prepared prime rib. He was fully prepared to leap on that grenade; his whole body had been ready for this moment for a while. But those keys held out to him, jingling slightly as Sebastian trembled, clawed through him. Sebastian had once joked that Kurt could beat him within an inch of his life, but no one drove his baby. When it came down to it, it wasn’t Kurt who’d beaten Sebastian into submission, and that made Kurt’s blood boil. Not because he felt cheated, but because this boy he cared for, whom he had taken responsibility for, had been abused non-consensually, and Kurt hadn’t been able to stop it.

Kurt hadn’t been able, by his name or his claim, to protect him.

Kurt checks the rear view for Elliott following behind them in his Navigator, then looks at Sebastian, sitting in the seat beside him, arms wrapped around himself, eyes closed. Kurt isn’t sure whether or not Sebastian is actually asleep. He wouldn’t be surprised if Sebastian did fall asleep after the night he had, but he seems too at peace. He’s probably just sorting things out in his head, Kurt thinks. Or maybe he’s taking advantage of the dark in the car and the lull of the engine to think of nothing, feel nothing. Either way, Kurt decides not to bother him. There’ll be time for talking later on.

Sebastian has earned the right to disappear for a while.

It’s not a long drive from Dalton to Kurt’s house; it only seems to take longer. Along the way, Kurt occupies his mind putting together lists – things he needs to buy since he’ll be feeding the two of them (even though he’s already taken to stocking his cabinets double since Sebastian is over at his house all the good God dammed time), phone calls he has to make, appointments he’ll need to re-arrange, events he’ll need to postpone.

And he should ask Elliott to slide him a little extra green bud. He has a feeling he and Sebastian are going to burn through what’s left of his stash before the weekend’s out.

Kurt pulls Sebastian’s Porsche into his driveway while Elliott parks the SUV behind it, shielding the car from view and trapping it in. Kurt doesn’t know if Sebastian’s friends have any other plans, or if they know where he lives, but he’s not putting anything past the little fuckers. With the amount of money and resources among them, who knows what they think they can accomplish.

Better safe than sorry.

“Alright, preppy.” Kurt cuts the engine, but Sebastian doesn’t turn around, which leaves Kurt talking to his back. “We’re here.”

Sebastian nods. “Yes, Master. Thank you, Master.” His voice sounds lifeless, monotone, but beneath the lack of emotion, it shakes ever so slightly.

Kurt puts a hand on Sebastian’s shoulder and squeezes. “It’s gonna be alright, preppy. I promise. I’m gonna get you through this.”

“I know, Master,” Sebastian says, trying to sound chipper. “I trust you.”

Kurt doesn’t know what to say to that. Hopefully, he’ll find a way to be more brilliant once he gets Sebastian inside. He still blames himself, still thinks that if he was better at his fucking job, this would have never happened. But how? How was he supposed to know? How could he have anticipated this?

He couldn’t have. Kurt got his intel second-hand, and nothing Sebastian has ever said about those assholes led Kurt to believe that they were capable of something like this. But teachers? Coaches? Adult-type authority figures who see these kids day in and day out? They should have been savvy. By all accounts, Kurt didn’t drop the ball. Dalton Academy did.

Which makes Sebastian another poor soul that Dalton promised to protect, and then failed to deliver.

“Take your time, preppy,” Kurt says, opening the car door. “I’m just gonna go send Elliott on his way.”

“Yes, Master.”

Kurt climbs out of the car. Elliott, striding over, tosses Kurt the keys to his Navigator.

“Thanks for this, Ells.” Kurt catches his keys and goes in for a hug. “I owe you one.”

“It’s cool.” Elliott hugs Kurt hard while he has the chance. He gets the feeling he’s not going to see him again for a few days. “It’s not like I had much going on tonight anyway.”

“Really? I cut short your first scene in weeks, and you’re giving me that dismissive shit?”

Elliott shrugs one shoulder. “This was more important.”

Kurt raises an eyebrow, but doesn’t say anything. He doesn’t want to screw up this moment by saying something too sentimental or teasing. All he’s wanted since that stupid Christmas party was for Elliott and Sebastian to get along. Kurt knows Sebastian is willing. Sebastian will do whatever it takes to please Kurt. It’s Elliott who’s been acting like a mule.

Maybe this is the start of Kurt watching that tide turn. Elliott did tell Sebastian that what happened to him tonight officially makes him one of them.

Does Elliott actually believe that?

Elliott glances over at the car with Kurt’s sub sitting inside. They watch him silently, waiting for him to move. When he doesn’t, the weight of what happened that evening settles heavily between them, bringing with it stomach-turning memories of past bullying, past violence.

“Take care of your boy, Kurt,” Elliott says, a thickness in his voice that Kurt has only heard a handful of times before. It’s as much empathy as it is sympathy. “Give him a few swats on the ass for me.”

“Will do.” Kurt watches Elliott stroll over to his motorcycle parked against the garage door, concealed by the shadows the roof throws beneath the light of the moon. He climbs on, puts on his helmet, throws the kickstand up, and backs down the driveway. He fires the engine, shifts it into gear, pulls a slow turn toward the street, and drives away. Kurt watches him go, as perplexed as he is relieved by his friend’s behavior tonight. He could chalk it up to the fact that Elliott loves him, and despite his and Sebastian’s differences, Elliott made a promise to always be there for Kurt.

But there’s something else. Not an acquiescence because that’s not in Elliott’s nature.

Kurt can’t put his finger on it, but whatever it is, he isn’t looking any gift horses in the mouth.

Kurt walks back to Sebastian’s Porsche and opens the passenger door. Sebastian hasn’t moved, but his eyes are open, staring at the ground beneath Kurt’s shoes. Kurt waits for any sign of acknowledgment, but not once does he look up at Kurt’s face.

That could be conditioning, Kurt reasons. Or it could be Sebastian attempting to find subspace and escape to it.

Kurt can understand that. He can help him with that.

“Come on, baby. Let’s get you inside.” Kurt gives Sebastian a hand, but Sebastian doesn’t rush to get out of the car. He seems content to sit where he is for the rest of the night. But he takes his Master’s hand and holds it as if it’s a buoy on the water in the midst of a terrible storm.

As if he’s going to drown without Kurt’s hand holding his.

Kurt is torn between the next thing he needs to do and letting go of Sebastian’s hand, but he has to. Because caring for a broken heart is as much in the details as it is the big displays. Kurt wants Sebastian to know that he hears him - he knows the things that are important to him, and nothing he cares about is inconsequential or silly. So he stands his sub off to the side and, without Sebastian asking, puts the cover on his car. He tucks every last gleaming inch of Sebastian’s Porsche beneath its protective shield and thinks, God, I love this car.

He may actually mean something more complicated than that, but it’s what he’s willing to admit to right now.

He leaves Sebastian’s things in his Navigator and leads his boy to the house. He unlocks the door and steps inside with Sebastian following solemnly at his heels. Sebastian obediently takes of his shoes, preparing to go to Kurt’s room and kneel in his spot, but Kurt stops him before he goes.

“Take a seat at the kitchen table,” he says, locking the front door. “There are a few things we have to do before you turn in.”

“Yes, Master,” Sebastian says, the disappointment in his voice bred from not being allowed to serve. Kurt knows that Sebastian serving him the way they have designed would probably take his mind off of things, but Sebastian can’t hide from this. He can’t run away from it. He has to face it head on and put it behind him, or else it’ll just be waiting for him later on when he thinks he’s in the clear. The one thing that Kurt has always strived to be with Sebastian is honest, and Kurt knows for a fact that tackling problems and putting them to rest always ends better than burying your head in the sand, even if it’s for the sake of your sanity.

Kurt watches his sub walk, the way he moves when he sits at the table. He’s sluggish, his cocky swagger gone, as if the essence of who he was before has been sucked out of him. If Kurt had seen this boy in his club from behind, he wouldn’t know him from Adam.

He needs to fix this.

“Here.” Kurt puts a pad of writing paper on the table in front of him. “I know you probably don’t want to think about it, but I need you to write down everything that happened to you, every detail you remember. Don’t leave anything out, no matter how small. I’d let you do it later, but it’s best to do it while it’s fresh in your mind.”

“I understand, Master.”

“Then, we’ll take some photographs, and I’ll … I’ll put you to bed. I promise. No session for tonight. You need your sleep.”

“Yes, Master.” Sebastian doesn’t even try to smile. He takes the pen that Kurt left for him and starts writing while Kurt puts a kettle on the stove. As Kurt gets tea cups and saucers from the cabinet, he glances over at Sebastian writing furiously on the pad of paper. Kurt thought he’d need a grace period, a few seconds to get his thoughts together, but he hits the top sheet of paper with the point of the pen and doesn’t stop. Once or twice the pen trips over a word, but he crosses out and continues on. The pen trembles in his hand, but he doesn’t stop. He’s still writing when the whistle on the kettle blows. Kurt pours hot water into two cups, adding a drop of honey and a touch of milk to one, the way he knows Sebastian likes his best.

“Here.” Kurt puts the cup of tea down in front of his sub, assuming he’ll stop to take a sip, but he doesn’t. It’s as if he can’t. Now that the flood gates are open, he has to get it all out, put it down on paper so he doesn’t forget a minute of how it felt. Kurt sips his tea quietly, watching Sebastian flip the page and keep going. Sebastian’s tea cools, but he keeps writing. He wants to condemn those boys with these words – Thad and Jamie and all the rest. Especially Hunter. Fucking Hunter! He almost ruined everything!

Except no, he hadn’t. Because Hunter never had the power, just like Sebastian had said. Hunter can’t touch him. Not really. He can’t derail Sebastian’s life.

The worst thing that happened in that room - even worse than Sebastian being tied up, unable to breathe - was that Sebastian didn’t give Kurt enough credit.

He didn’t give what they have together the credit it deserves.

He gets to the part in his statement when Kurt showed up to save the day and that’s when his pen slows. He pauses to take a sip of his tea, his hand shaking the cup so much that it spills, but Kurt’s hand is there, steadying it so Sebastian can bring his lips to it and drink. It’s neither hot nor cold. It’s just right, the way everything feels now that he’s with Kurt. Sebastian empties half the cup, the liquid soothing his turbulent stomach, unwinding the cramps that had begun to twist as he recounted his time in that chair.

When he starts to yawn, Kurt helps him finish, then guides the cup down to its saucer.

“It looks like you might be crashing,” Kurt says, wrapping his fingers around Sebastian’s hand and holding it, lending him his strength.

“I think … I might be … Master,” Sebastian says through a barrage of stifled yawns.

“Let’s take those pictures before you fall asleep in your seat,” Kurt suggests. “Here.” He moves his sub away from the table, setting him up in a chair underneath the brightest light in the room. “Remove your shirt. We’re going to take a couple now, and a couple more in the morning when your bruises get a little bit darker.”

“I understand, Master,” is all Sebastian says, and Kurt sighs. He wishes Sebastian would just fucking unload, even if that means ugly crying, screaming and cursing.

Give him time. He just needs a little more time.

Kurt takes out his iPhone as Sebastian removes his shirt. Kurt had seen some of Sebastian’s bruises when he’d helped his sub change. They weren’t too bad then – the angry red outlines of rope marks and clustered, purpling masses that could be finger prints. But given time to develop, they’ve become grisly. The ropes bit into Sebastian’s skin harder than he’d let on, or maybe his time with Kurt has desensitized him. Either way, indents mar his arms and legs, clearly enough so that anyone can tell what made them. Above those are definite finger marks. They vary in thickness, different hands having grabbed hold of Sebastian to keep him still. Kurt can tell that a few twisted as they held, indicating that Sebastian fought hard and they had to work to restrain him.

Well, good for fucking Sebastian!

But the one that pisses Kurt off the most is a solid round mark between Sebastian’s pecs where someone held him with both hands compressing his chest. Kurt is careful when he bruises his sub, each mark he makes placed for maximum impact with minimal permanent injury. And every one means something. It carries a message, either to Sebastian or somebody else. He’s never left marks like these on Sebastian’s body – senseless, meaningless, violent trash littering his sub’s gorgeous skin.

Kurt said it once, and he’ll say it again - someone’s going to pay for this.

Kurt focuses his iPhone camera on the bruise on Sebastian’s chest and snaps off a few pics. The way these look, he’s surprised that Sebastian doesn’t have any broken ribs or internal bleeding.

“You know,” Kurt says to break the silence that’s starting to drown him, “I’ve done so many of these that, after a while, it becomes old hat.”

“When was the first time, Master?” Sebastian asks to take his mind off what Kurt’s doing and why. He has a hunch it might have been Elliott, considering how close the two of them are, how protective of one another. But aside from confirming his suspicions, he’s just plain curious. There’s still so much about Kurt’s past that he doesn’t know.

“Well, to be honest, preppy …” Kurt takes a step forward and starts photographing the rope marks on Sebastian’s arms “… it was me. After I left Blaine.”

Sebastian, whose gaze had been trained on his hands this whole time, raises his eyes to look at Kurt, but Kurt shifts his gaze away. He comes closer, puts a hand to Sebastian’s chin, and takes a picture of the fabric burns around his mouth.

“I joined the scene for Blaine,” Kurt admits, tilting Sebastian’s head back further to take a picture of his neck. “I didn’t need it. I would have been more than happy without it, I’ll tell you what.” It’s such a determined statement, Sebastian knows Kurt had to have thought about it more than once, what his life would have been like if he’d avoided the scene. “Some guy at Dalton who had the hots for Blaine while we were dating introduced him to it, apparently behind my back via text messages and emails. He gave Blaine tips, and told him about places that catered to the BDSM scene in New York.” Kurt’s eyes meet Sebastian’s momentarily as Kurt moves Sebastian’s head the opposite way. Sebastian sees the regret in them, the sorrow. “He was grooming Blaine, you see, for the two of them to be together once we moved, but Blaine didn’t pick up on that. He could be a bit dense when it came to guys flirting with him. Blaine was so damned excited about it, and that excitement had been building within him without my knowledge. When he finally brought it up to me, and introduced me to his friend, I agreed to give it a shot because I was sure that if I didn’t, I was going to lose him.” He laughs. It’s dry, bitter, and steeped with hate. But hatred for Blaine? Hatred for Blaine’s friend? Hatred for himself? Probably all three. “What did I know? The only stuff I knew about BDSM came from cheesy, second-rate pornos. Pornos I didn’t even want to watch! I thought D/s was about handcuffs, spanking, whips, and gaudy, leather outfits. People calling other people Sir and Master …” Kurt shakes his head. “I didn’t take it seriously. It was a joke to me, the way it was for you.” He stops his picture taking to run his fingers through Sebastian’s hair, finding comfort for himself in the silky strands and the fluttering of Sebastian’s eyelids in response. “I didn’t know it could consume you,” he whispers. “I didn’t know how badly it could fuck with your head. I got all of my information from Blaine because I was too scared to look it up for myself. I didn’t want that shit on my Google search history.” He chuckles, returning to the photographs. “I wasn’t all that comfortable with sex, not the way Blaine was. And I was stupidly naïve. I trusted him too much. I mean, he loved me, right? Plus, he was a natural leader. He was charismatic. People gravitated toward him. I thought that those leadership skills would translate over. But that isn’t enough in our world. It’s not about acting the part. It’s about being it. Blaine isn’t a Dom. All Blaine is is an actor.” Kurt puts down his phone. He looks tired all of a sudden. Done. “Take off your pants, preppy. We need to get the rest of them.”

Sebastian doesn’t register the command right away, and when he does, he can’t move. He’s numb from the story that Kurt has told him so far, and since they have yet to get to the part when Kurt leaves Blaine and photographs the bruises on his body, Sebastian can only assume it gets worse. Admittedly, Sebastian entered the BDSM scene because of Kurt, but he did it of his own free will. Kurt never forced him, tricked him, or manipulated him. On the contrary. He gave Sebastian every opportunity to back out if he wanted. And Kurt bending over backwards to hold on to Blaine? Sebastian has seen pictures of both men during their time at Dalton; found them in old yearbooks in the Dalton Academy library. Even though Kurt has done a complete one-eighty as he’s gotten older, Sebastian can no more imagine him as insecure and vulnerable, scared of losing the man he loves and agreeing to this life, any more than he could picture himself traveling to Mars on a purple unicorn.

But here they are.

And if not for that, if not for Blaine, Sebastian would have never met Kurt.

Sebastian doesn’t know if he should be pissed about that or grateful.

“We talked about it, but not enough. Not as much as we should have,” Kurt continues, helping Sebastian with the fly to his jeans when he doesn’t undo them. “We decided to start as switches, but it always seemed like me on my knees for him more than he ever was for me.” Kurt tugs down Sebastian’s waistband, and Sebastian lifts up to help him. “We kept it to ourselves, in the bedroom. I thought we were together on that. But he had other plans.” Kurt pulls Sebastian’s jeans to his ankles. He spots a particularly nasty bruise, and stops to take a picture. “Not only did Blaine want to be more public with that part of our relationship, he didn’t want to necessarily stay exclusive.” Kurt runs a gentle finger over the raised, purple mark, then leans forward and kisses it. The touch of Kurt’s lips to Sebastian’s leg startles him, but it’s an anesthetic for what Kurt says next. “He started sharing me without my permission, humiliating me in ways we’d never discussed. He ignored my safewords, trying to make himself look tough, powerful. The kind of Dominant he thought other Dominants would respect, especially since we were in New York.”

Kurt moves to the other leg, not looking into Sebastian’s devastated face. “One night, I found myself doped up, in the middle of an orgy, and I had no idea how I got there.” Kurt pauses when he hears Sebastian catch his breath, taking longer than necessary fussing over his next pic. “One of Elliott’s partners at the time found me. He was a pay-for-play Dom and a gay-for-pay submissive, but he was cool. That’s how I met Elliott, which is funny considering we’d been going to the same college the whole time and had never once run into each other. Ells and his friend took care of me. I moved in with them that night, pretty much left everything I owned behind at mine and Blaine’s apartment. Never did get a lot of it back. They tried to get me to press charges, file a restraining order, but law enforcement doesn’t traditionally look too kindly on people of our deviation.” Kurt rests his head on Sebastian’s knee and looks off into nothing, watching the events scroll by in his mind. “And I was right. When I finally got up the nerve to go down there, the police twisted my words around. They said I wanted it, that I had consented because I was there in the first place, that I knew what I was getting into because I had ordered drinks, because I had taken off my own clothes ...” Sebastian feels what he swears is a tear roll down his skin as Kurt returns mentally from wherever. He pockets his phone and dabs at his eyes so slyly, Sebastian barely notices. “After that, I did a little online research about the legal system and how it pertained to me. It wasn’t all that helpful, to be honest, but I got the gist. I had Elliott take pictures of what was left of my bruises from that night, and I kept them, just in case.” Kurt pulls Sebastian’s jeans the rest of the way off his legs so his sub can walk. “I dropped out of school and I quit my job because those were two places I knew Blaine could find me, but I couldn’t avoid him forever. I needed to put some distance between me and him, and Ells said he needed a change of pace, so the two of us packed up, moved back to Ohio, and opened our club. I didn’t know what I wanted at the time, but I knew I needed to take back control of my life, so I became a professional Dominant. We made our club into the dungeon of our dreams, and found people from all over who weren’t just good people, but responsible Dominants and submissives - supportive, mentoring, knowledgeable, all of the things that I could have used back in New York with Blaine. I was determined that I wasn’t going to let another person end up like me. The more people I met in the scene, the more I came across people like me – people who had gone in wide-eyed and ignorant, usually for someone they loved, and ended up on the bad end of an ego trip. Without knowing it, we started catering to not only the kinky subset of Ohio, but to a large group of abused submissives. We became sort of a safe-house. The people who come to our club have been coming there for years. It’s like a second home … to all of us.”

Kurt helps Sebastian to his feet, but when Kurt tries to get him to walk, he’s unable to take that first step. Kurt turns to look at him, gets a good look at his face.

Sebastian looks positively heartbroken - his eyes red, his cheeks wet with tears, his chin quivering but his jaw locked, as if he’s been holding back the inevitable.

“Oh, Sebastian. I take it my story didn’t make you feel better.”

Sebastian snuffles in unattractively, but he’s stopped caring how he looks. He’s naked, physically and emotionally. He’s never felt so naked in front of anyone, especially not in front of Kurt, with these new, foreign bruises on display. He hates them. He hates that he has them. Kurt’s bruises are a work of art to Sebastian. A badge of honor. When he has them, they fill him with a feeling of strength and belonging. These bruises he has now are disgusting. They make him feel like an outcast. But mostly, they’re embarrassing.

They make him feel violated and weak.

They make him feel worthless.

“W-was it supposed to, Master?”

“Yes. But maybe not the way you think.”

“Then h-how?”

Kurt’s arms circle Sebastian’s waist. He rests his head on Sebastian’s chest, on that circular black-and-blue that he loathes so much. And there Kurt is - there Sebastian’s Dom is - covering those marks with his body, filling in the cracks and crevices, and making Sebastian feel complete again.

“It’s supposed to make you feel a little less alone. There’s a lot of us out there, baby. A lot of people who were dicked over by someone they trusted. If you ever think you have no one in the world you can turn to, just remember, Pavarotti’s Prison is your home now, too.”

And that’s one more hole filled. A huge one. When Sebastian left Dalton with Kurt and Elliott, he’d felt cheated, the way Kurt said he had back when he was in high school. That place Sebastian felt was his second home was a lie, and losing it threatened to destroy him. But he’d already had another home, even if he didn’t realize it. It was Kurt’s club.

It was Kurt.

That’s when Sebastian finally lets go and the tears begin to fall.

Kurt leads Sebastian down the hallway towards his bedroom, bringing the pad of paper and pen with them in case Sebastian remembers something later on that he wants to add. He drops both on his bedside table and, with his heart in his throat, starts the task of freeing Sebastian from tonight.

It’s not that Sebastian hasn’t spent days on end at Kurt’s place before, but for the first time, Kurt is taking care of not just his needs as a submissive. His deeply emotional ones, too. This is something that should annoy the shit out of Kurt. He’s not a big fan of people relying on him for emotional stability.

So why does this excite him so much?

Kurt starts with a shower, turning the water to hot, then stripping down in front of Sebastian with his sub’s eyes on him. Kurt demanded it, to root Sebastian in the here and now so that, should he find his way to subspace, he’ll remember he’s with Kurt and that he’s safe, that the person touching his body and commanding his mind is Kurt, and not those sick motherfuckers from his school.

And while they shower, Kurt gives Sebastian permission to kiss, permission to touch, permission to cry, which he does out of anger and frustration. With other submissives, this would be the time for Kurt to exercise strict control, but that’s not what Sebastian needs. He’s still a teenager, and sometimes he needs that young, carefree, puppy-dog type of affection.

So Dom and sub put everything else on hold while Kurt lets Sebastian kiss him; lets Sebastian push him up against the wall and pin him there, hands roaming freely up and down his body; while he lets Sebastian mark him with hickeys on his neck and shoulders, one bite hard enough to draw blood, and Kurt, with his eyes rolled back in his head, cums. Kurt returns the favor by sinking to his knees and blowing him, letting Sebastian cum down his throat, fill him with his pain. And like that evening in December when Sebastian dropped, Kurt washes him with his own body wash, dries him off and slathers him with his signature lotions, marking him with his scent along with his kisses and his teeth.

More than anything, Kurt wants to cover those bruises with new ones, blot out the petty hate with his own brand of caring and ownership. And he knows Sebastian wants it, too. But he can’t. Not yet. Not until these have been completely documented, and that will happen in the morning.

Kurt will start early so that they can get to work obliterating them – possibly for the entire day.

Kurt puts Sebastian to bed unbound and tucks him in. They don’t speak. There’s nothing left to say. So they kiss instead, Sebastian wrapping his arms around Kurt’s body and taking while he can with Kurt lying back and enjoying it because, hey – Sebastian’s an awesome kisser. But there comes a point when those kisses become sloppy and soft, with Sebastian sinking more into the mattress than he does into Kurt until eventually his lips stop moving altogether and he begins to snore.

Kurt holds his sub while Sebastian drifts off to sleep, kissing his forehead and his damp hair. Kurt tries to sleep, too, wound around Sebastian, so comfortable with his sub in his arms, so warm sharing his body heat. But he can’t. He’s riled up, his instinct not to reach for unconsciousness, which is only a shut eye away, but to get out of bed, drive back to Dalton, and start wailing on whomever he can find. It would serve those bastards right to wake up in the morning, tied to their beds with their dicks wrapped in razor wire, the words, “Hands off my fucking property until the end of time! Signed KH” carved into their chests.

Legally, however, that could prove problematic.

He does everything he can to put a kibosh on the vindictive thoughts popping up in his head and black out the way Sebastian has, but he can actually hear the gears whirring in his brain as he subconsciously contemplates a plan of revenge. He decides to try blocking it out with music, or maybe some ocean sounds – meditative shit that Elliott turned him on to shortly after his father’s last heart attack. Kurt peeks over at his bedside table, but the only thing he spots is Sebastian’s statement, resting haphazardly on top of everything, where Kurt left it.

Kurt stares at it, undecided as to what he wants to do about it. He wants to read it, but on the other hand, he doesn’t want to read it. He should read it so he knows how to proceed tomorrow when they drop by the police station. Kurt doesn’t know the whole story, and he doesn’t want to be caught off guard.

But he also wants to be able to sleep peacefully tonight.

Seeing as he can’t find his iPod, he left his phone in the bathroom in the pocket of his pants, and he doesn’t want to leave his bed (or Sebastian) to find a magazine to read, he reaches over and behind, slowly so as not to wake up his sub, and grabs the pad of paper.

The first few words leap immediately off the page and slap Kurt in the face, Sebastian’s handwriting surprisingly neat considering the condition he was in when he wrote this.

Kurt sighs. There’s going to be no easing into this one.

He tries to read it from top to bottom, step away from it, remove emotion from it and ingest the information like he would the news (though, to be honest, he stopped reading the news a while ago for similar reasons). But he can’t. After the first paragraph detailing how Hunter had baited him, giving the other boys time to jump him; how he felt trapped, couldn’t breathe; how he thought he had lost something important to him; Kurt has to put it down. He’s so fucking angry, and if he can’t go to Dalton and break a few kneecaps, he might explode.

He needs some sort of release, something to work out his aggression. He searches his room, goes over his options. He could smoke, mellow the fuck out, but he doesn’t want to disturb Sebastian. He could masturbate, but, that again, might wake his sub up, and besides, it would be a pity to go at it solo when there’s a gorgeous man lying beside him in bed.

Kurt peruses the contents of his bedside table, the removal of the pad of paper revealing the contents underneath – lotions, lubes, and cuffs, his lighter, a bong, his last bag of weed, an empty beer bottle, a razor blade ...

Kurt stops on the blade. It’s a fresh one, the sharp edge wrapped in cardboard. It’s been waiting there for Kurt’s next session with Sebastian, but he could turn it on himself, indulge in self-pity and slice up his legs, tear up his chest. It would help him relax, feel in control – a feeling he’d lost somewhere in between getting Jeff’s text and finding Sebastian tied up. Of course, that’s a feeling he could regain with his sub cuffed to his bed, a gag in his mouth, and a hook up his ass, but Kurt can’t wake Sebastian for that. The only option he has is to damage himself – either by doing this, or going down to the club, finding a willing slave, and whipping them for all they’re worth.

But he can’t do that either. He made a promise. Sebastian is his one and only for as long as they’re together. Kurt said so himself.

He can’t call on anyone else. Not even Elliott.

Kurt isn’t going to cheat.

God! Kurt rolls his head on his neck. Cheat! As if they’re an item! As if they’re a thing!

Kurt lets out a sigh in retaliation of himself. He’s so fucking pathetic. He has to stop fighting against it and man up, stop playing as if Sebastian doesn’t matter as much as he does. He has to come to terms with the fact that that’s what they are. And Kurt has himself to blame more than anyone. He’s the man in charge. He’s the one who let it get this far.

And worst of all, he has no regrets.

Sebastian begins to whimper, and all of Kurt’s thoughts go to him. He turns his back on the blade and wraps his arms around Sebastian again. The second he does, Sebastian stops, and Kurt knows he can’t let go of him – not tonight.

“It’s all right, preppy,” Kurt says into his hair. “It’s going to be all right, I promise … Sebastian.”

Pulling him close, Kurt closes his eyes, and falls asleep.

#kurtbastian #sebkurt #sekurt #frankie writes #Dom!Kurt #sub!Sebastian

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