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saintsofwarding · 10 months

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WE SHALL BE MONSTERS

Header by keltii-tea

Chapter 21: A Family Meeting

A long time ago, Miranda had carried her here before. A small, squalling bundle, a red-faced baby in a tiny pink sweater, howling for her parents in fear and confusion. Her father was gone, torn away from her. Her mother had changed, and this new one was strange, sharp, wrong, crooning an unfamiliar lullaby as she cradled her softly against her downy feathers.

"My little Eva," Miranda had whispered to her. "My darling girl. You and I are going to be together. No matter what happens, nothing can separate us again. Not time. Not my false children. Not even death."

Slowly, she'd lulled the baby, slowly rocked her into calmness. Little Rose's cries had quieted down, and she'd stared up at her new mother as she began to sing once more. Little girl, lost in the forest. The wolves are coming, sweet one.

But I shall protect you. I shall be with you.

Now, and always.

***

A long time ago, her father had carried what he thought was his daughter from her sacrificial altar, from the writhing black forest of the megamycete's tentacles. He'd bent his head to hers, even as his skin had crumbled into white crystal, glittering like salt on her skin as he brushed his thumb over her baby cheek.

"Goodbye, Rosemary," he'd whispered, while Heisenberg stood, grim-faced and bloodied and smoking slightly from his recent mutation, watching Ethan die before him, unable to save more than the child in his arms.

"I love you," Ethan told Rose. "I love you so, so much." And the little girl had slept on, peaceful, the remnants of her afterbirth clinging to her skin.

***

The tunnels wound deep beneath the earth, lined with ancient niches and gates, burnt-out candles in alcoves, pitfalls and sinkholes plunging into pure, unbroken darkness, their depths never to be touched by light. A few lycans snarled and scrabbled at heaps of carrion down the tunnels, streaking pools of gore and viscera over the stones.

"Go away!" Moreau yelled at them, making a shooing motion with his hands. "Lords...coming through!"

No sound from Ouroboros echoed from overhead; they were too far down. This was the Black God's territory, now, and evidence of the dead megamycete was everywhere. Roots of crystal bursting through the walls. The crumbling remnants of buried walls, of doorways crushed under the weight of the stone above, the passageways beyond sealed off for untold decades or centuries. Statues of saints stood in niches, surrounded by waxen lumps of burnt-out candles.

By offerings, too. Rose wondered if the dusty sheaves of grain, the great, curled goats' horns, the stacks of lei and delicately-carved crystal ornaments had been left by devout villagers, or by Miranda herself, plumbing these depths to honor the god that had given her power.

Great metal spikes and huge, torturous machinery swung from chains or slumped into rusty fragments in the occasional stretch of corridor or cavern, a dry, chill breeze whistling past their points. These Heisenberg glanced at with a smirk, his hammer propped over his shoulder, he and Donna leading the way through the darkness.

"Your work, I assume?" Rose asked him.

He shrugged. "I liked a bit of a show back then."

"Back then?" She dug her elbow into his side.

"Shut it, kid, before I kick you down a hole."

"We're here," Donna said, softly.

Heisenberg's flashlight struck metal and wood. A pair of vast double doors faced them down the rocky hallway, stout planks decorated with whorls of wrought iron, forming a pair of winged saints that stared down at Rose with mournful, crystal-set eyes. Heisenberg splayed a hand, and with the shuddering, squealing creak of ancient rust, they shuddered wide.

Beyond was a curious church. Half cavern, half chapel, it soared toward a cleft in the roof that allowed a bare trace of firelight from the still-burning factory, allowed a faint trace of falling snow to filter down to the cracked stone floor.

Balconies rose up, and up its irregular walls, painted with more saints, more holy creatures. Cobwebs fluttered in the breeze, pelts of dust turning everything in the church- pulpit and pews, gilded saints and once-lavish brocade tapestries, a collection of ornate chairs shoved against the walls- pale as milk.

Rose knew this place. She'd seen it before. As she stepped over the threshold and into the still, musty air, faintly tinged with the lingering scent of incense, memories flared through her, sudden as a camera flash.

She took you here...

A baby, a holy child, to be...anointed, to be made ready...a blessed thing, a sacrifice-

There was a frightened villager, bringing chemicals, medical apparatus. Rose had begun crying again as Miranda injected her with something in a syringe, then crushed a handful of herbs into an enameled bowl and set them ablaze.

The fire had underlit her pale, pretty face, had made her golden eyes glow, and the fumes of the burning herbs had twined into Rose's head, quieting her once more. Strange visions flickered over the dark planes of her infant mind, as if from a half-forgotten dream. Long-faced kings crowned in stone. The heartbeat of something great, something sleeping, further belowground still. A child arrayed in silver and wolfsbane, lying still and cold beneath a blue, blue sky.

She didn't understand the visions, and yet there was something to them, something unfurling inside her, calling out-

The cave church had shook, then, as if struck by an earthquake. Miranda had smiled. "You hear that, sweet one?" she'd whispered to Rose. "The Black God is calling to you. It's waking up. And soon, all of this will be over."

Now, Rose took a deep breath as she strode to the pulpit. Donna began lighting candles, and soon the cave church was full of shivering golden light.

The others followed her in. Dimitrescu took her place in a massive chair, seemingly made for her unique proportions. Donna came to her side, Angie in her lap, chattering her teeth and wriggling her spindly fingers as if in anticipation. Moreau took the empty spot by her left hand. Only Heisenberg was left, shoulders hunched, hat brim lowered.

He stood in the dust before her with Mia. Rose couldn't see Heisenberg's eyes, but she knew him well enough to tell he was watching her. Sizing her up where she stood.

"Heisenberg," Rose said. Her voice echoed through the cavern. "We need to begin."

"Yeah? Got a meeting plan?"

"Yes." She pointed down at Mia. "Chain her."

"Kid," Heisenberg growled.

"Chain her up," Rose said, louder.

Heisenberg didn't move. A length of chain burst from the detritus and coiled around Mia's wrists, twanging tight; with a gasp, she was yanked to the ground, falling to her knees before the Four Lords, before Rose. She looked up at Heisenberg for a moment, brow furrowed, but Heisenberg was already ambling away.

He sprawled onto an empty pew, bracing the head of his hammer against the flagstones, and flipped his hand, as if to say let's get this shit over with.

"Good," Rose said. She cleared her throat and stepped forward, clammy hands set on the pulpit. Her only leadership experience was filling in for the absent captain of her class debate team, Freshman year of high school, and that had ended with her a stuttering mess. "I...I don't know how Miranda did it, but...uh. This is the way I'm gonna do it now. I declare this meeting of the Four Lords in session."

"What are we gonna do?" Moreau burst out, his voice rising in a warbling wail. A few lycans, gathered around the church's heights, snarled in response. "The outsiders...they found a way in, they have big guns, they blew up the factory-"

"Maybe if you hadn't been such a slow, useless lump, we might have had time to fight 'em off," Angie squealed, nearly springing from Donna's lap.

"I ran as fast as I could," Moreau said, his eyes slick and wet again, though maybe that was just always how they were. "I...I tried, Rosemary, tell them I tried..."

"Listen-" Rose began.

"Yeah, yeah, you tried, you tried," Angie went on. "Just like I bet you tried when Daddy Ethan came a-calling. We nearly got him, and all Donna had were some flowers-"

"Oh, stop putting on airs, you porcelain Pierrot," Dimitrescu drawled, draped languorously in her chair like she once again wore her finest couture, not battered-up armor still stained with black streaks of her own blood. "If I'm not mistaken, Winters took you down with a pair of rusty scissors."

"Better than him shooting you down like a clay pigeon!"

"This isn't a freaking contest," Rose said, loudly. "We're not here to discuss how my dad killed you all, okay? We've got bigger problems. Namely, her."

She pointed down at Mia. Her mother looked up at her, face pale and set.

"If Heisenberg's right-" Rose started.

"I am, kid," he said.

"If Heisenberg's right," Rose repeated, "Mother Miranda made an escape hatch for her own death. A way to resurrect herself, through her. Is that right?"

Mia nodded. "As far as I can tell. She wasn't exactly revealing her master plan while she was cutting me open."

"From what I saw," Heisenberg interjected, "If you don't mind me giving all of you a scientific lecture. You don't mind? Right- so the deal I figure is that Miranda implanted a sample of her own biomatter into Mommy Mia here, and her regenerative abilities, plus her own polyphenic cells, allowed said biomatter to stay dormant yet still living within her host until specific circumstances'll trigger a full physiological and cerebral transformation. Old matter consumed, recombined into new matter. Then- boom. Say hello to Miranda Two Point Oh."

"Specific circumstances?" Rose said.

"That's what I said."

"What circumstances?"

"Hell if I know."

Rose looked to her mother. "Do you have any ideas why hasn't she taken you over completely, yet?"

"No." Mia exhaled. "Believe me, if I did, I would tell you."

Rose chewed her lower lip. What was Miranda's game? Why not bust out, transform, take control of the Four Lords, do whatever she wanted? Was there some other part of the plan she was missing, some piece she hadn't slotted into place?

Her throat ached. God, was this how Chris felt all the time?

"Okay," she said. "Fine. Any ideas?"

"I say we kill her." Dimitrescu lifted a hand, letting her claws slide out a few inches, admiring their black gleam in the candlelight. "Can't hurt."

"If only your brain was as big as the rest of you," Heisenberg muttered. "You think I didn't consider that?"

"I don't want to contemplate what horrors of the psyche you have and haven't considered," Dimitrescu said.

"Maybe you should! Maybe you wouldn't have lost all three of your fuckin' kids and then died if you hadn't been such a-"

Dimitrescu rose with a guttural snarl, her claws fully extended, now. "Mention my daughters," she said, "insult them again, and I'll-"

"Sit down, Dimitrescu," Rose ordered, cutting her off. "You, too, Heisenberg."

"This is pointless." Dimitrescu lifted herself to her full height. "Those foolish little mortals invading our territory is the matter at hand, not this..."

She made a dismissive gesture toward Mia. "...this...experiment of Mother Miranda's. How do we know she wasn't a failure? How do we know, save by her word alone, that she is what you claim at all?"

"I saw it," Heisenberg said.

"Did you? You weren't taken by her duplicitous charms? By her clever, conniving wiles? Do remind me, Heisenberg. Weren't you desperate enough before to work with a mortal who had invaded our valley?"

He jabbed his finger at her, a little bolt of electricity snapping over his glove. "You're just mad because you didn't think Winters was a big enough threat to matter and it ended up going to shit for you!" "Perhaps," Dimitrescu said. "But at least I fought with honor."

"You still think clinging to your devotion to Miranda is honorable," Heisenberg muttered. "Fuck, she really had you whipped the second she gave you that ugly-ass castle, huh."

"I...I could try," Moreau piped up.

All eyes went to him. Even Angie craned her neck over to look at him with her unsettling, bug-eyed stare.

"I could..." He paused for a long moment. "I could...take her to the...the clinic...my clinic..." He twiddled his fingers. "There's...stuff there. Medicines and equipment. Things I could do. To help her. Look inside her...now that your factory is gone..."

He spared a nervous glance at Heisenberg. "I'm...I'm sorry, Karl, about...what happened..."

"Eh, whatever, wasn't your fault, fishstick," Heisenberg said, with a dismissive wave of his hand.

"Where's your clinic?" Rose asked.

"The...reservoir, on a hill...looking over the lake-" Moreau gestured toward one of the cave walls, rather unnecessarily.

"That's through town, you fool," Dimitrescu muttered. "I doubt Ouroboros is going to be very intimidated by you flopping about on land like a dying trout, even if you did manage to pull yourself together enough to transform."

"I can do it!" Moreau faced her, hands fisted. "I can swim there. I can take Miss Mia and we can go together."

"You'd do that?" Rose said. Moreau swung round toward her, his humpback pulsating wildly with, she guessed, excitement and fear. "You're sure? It could be dangerous."

"For you, Rosemary," Moreau said. "Ohhh...anything."

Cold rushed through Rose. She felt, again, Heisenberg's eyes on her. Behind her, Angie gave off a low, sinister little laugh.

"I'm not gonna force you, Moreau," Rose told him. "Not again."

His eyes went to the floor.

"You don't have to," he said quietly. "I...I want to help. I...failed everyone last time. I saw what Mother was gonna do to me and I got scared. I don't wanna be scared again. I don't wanna fail us again."

His eyes met hers once more, and Rose saw something in them, deep down. A flicker. More than his usual glazed desperation.

"Not like the first time," he whispered, the words almost lost under the mumbling way he spoke.

"What?" Rose said.

Moreau looked away quickly. "I don't know. I don't remember."

He didn't speak again. Rose looked out at the others. "Then we start there," she said. "It may be dangerous, but-"

"Dangerous?" Dimitrescu scoffed. "More like disastrous. This...creature...was always delusional, and now even more so. There's no telling whether there even is still a clinic to utilize, much less the necessary supplies to remedy our little problem..."

"I can tell," Moreau said. "I've been here all this time. Not you!"

"Do forgive me," Dimitrescu said, her voice deeply caustic. "I forgot you were playing dollhouse with my castle. You should speak to Beneviento. She might have some suggestions for you."

"That's rich," Heisenberg snorted.

"You...don't need to be so mean!" Moreau's slimy hands wound into fists as he shifted forward. Snarls filled the air; Rose glanced upward as the lycans descended, crawling from scaffolding to railing, lips pulled back from sawblade teeth.

She swallowed, her throat dry. "Moreau-"

"Always looking down on me. Always saying I'm...stupid-" He began to quiver, tendrils nosing out from beneath his makeshift coat. A lycan dropped to the ground by his side, staring with hunger at Dimitrescu. "I'll...I'll show you what...what I can do-"

"That's enough!" Rose cried.

She flung out her arms. Power rippled through the cave church; it blasted aside the dust; it extinguished candles in a wave. Mold burst from under her feet, black veins arcing their way through her skin so that within moments she was cocooned in a writhing coat of them, the pool at her feet churning in an iridescent black slurry.

Moreau cringed; Dimitrescu lifted a fine brow.

"We don't fight each other," Rose said. "You did that before, and look where the hell it got you. I'm not gonna watch you turn against each other. No one...no one dies. Not again. Understand?"

She cast her eyes over the Four Lords assembled before her. "What Miranda did to you- to all of us- it's not going to happen again. Not with me."

Heisenberg shifted on the pew, glove leather creaking on the handle of his hammer.

"Not with me," Rose said again. She drew a short breath, her mold collapsing into nothingness. "It's like they say. Us monsters have to stick together."

***

Rose found Moreau a little ways down the outside passageway, contemplating a flooded section of the cave system. Fat, pallid catfish cruised through the dark water, and his eyes followed their movements, round and round and round again.

"Moreau," Rose said.

He lifted his head. "Do you...need anything?"

"You know something. Don't you."

"No, no." He looked back down. "I don't...nothing. I'm sorry."

"Yes, you do."

He stayed silent. Rose let out her breath, then went to his side, climbing onto a rock so she could sit next to him. His reek was powerful- rotting fish, stomach acid, something sweetish that coated the inside of her mouth with every breath. She didn't leave him. She watched the fish with him in silence for a long time.

"I'm sorry, Moreau," she said, at last. "What I did to you back there. I'm so, so sorry."

"You...you had to."

"Maybe. But I still shouldn't have done it. Did Miranda make that excuse to you, too?"

"Mother did what she needed to do. I...I just wanted to...help her. And I failed her. By being...this. By being wrong."

"Maybe she failed you."

"No! No!" He scrabbled at his gelatinous belly with his stubby fingers, the movement anxious. "Mother Miranda was right to treat me this way. I...promised her. I promised her! And I broke the promise."

"What promise?"

"To...save her."

"Save...Miranda?"

"No." His voice dropped to a whisper. "To save Eva."

Silence fell once more. Eva, Miranda's daughter. The dead girl that was the point of all this, that Miranda had spent over a century destroying hundreds of lives to save. Rose's mind whirled as she put the pieces together, as it dawned on her.

Then that meant-

"Did you know her?" she asked. "Before?"

A long pause. Then- he bobbed his head, up and down.

"You're the oldest one, aren't you? The first one of the Four Lords she made."

Again he spoke quickly, words slurred together. "I don't remember."

Maybe he was keeping it from her, feeling that spilling his guts- so to speak- would be some kind of further betrayal of Miranda. Maybe he really didn't remember. Maybe it wasn't so much a memory as a feeling, a knowledge, ingrained so deep in his subconscious it wasn't a matter of forgetting or remembering at all.

He hadn't saved Eva. Whatever that meant, whoever Salvatore Moreau had been before he'd been twisted into the creature he was now, he still felt the guilt of that failure, the pain of that death, reverberating up through the decades of his strange, heartbreaking second life.

The guilt of having lived, when another had died. Of remaining alive when so much was gone, was lost, and lost forever.

"But-" Moreau started up. "But...she...she was always smart. So smart. The smartest person in the whole world. And she, she always...made p-p-prototypes. So that...when she really wanted to...she'd get it right."

He cut off. Rose sat there, staring into the dark water. She thought she was beginning to understand.

"She didn't get it right with me," Moreau whispered.

Rose hesitated.

Then she lifted her hand and set it to Moreau's shoulder. He flinched violently, turning with a wet gasp to stare at her with his mismatched eyes. Rose made out the gleam of his sharp teeth behind his parted lips.

Rose began to pet him. Slowly, carefully. Acid burned against her fingertips, but with her regeneration, the abraded skin healed almost as soon as it turned red. She began to hum a little. Nothing specific. The sound filled the shadows, keeping them both company.

Moreau's eyes slid shut. He faced front again, and Rose kept petting him even after she'd stopped humming, long moments of silence, together in the darkness.

***

She returned to the cave church, to Donna, waiting where Rose had left her. The candles had begun to go out, but Donna and Angie sat by a lit cluster of them melting atop an ancient table, painting the dust with flickering amber, eerie shadows cast across the cavern walls. Dimitrescu and Mia sat on the opposite side of the cavern, not looking at one another.

Rose wondered, with a weary glint of humor, if they'd chatted at all. What would they even talk about? The pros and cons of motherhood? Top ten Romanian wine varieties? Maybe they were swapping tips on coping with total family annihilation. Ha, ha, ha.

"Do you still want to do what we discussed?" Donna asked her as she stopped on the far side of the table.

"Yeah."

"You're sure."

"Are you?" Rose said.

Donna faced front, the barest hint of her face visible beneath her veil. "It may be...dangerous," Donna said. "The results might be catastrophic."

"I get it. But I have to know."

"Have to know, have to know," Angie groused. "Can't anyone just be happy with staying put and staying humble."

"You mean what you said back there, kid?"

Rose looked round. Heisenberg stood behind her, hammer shouldered; he'd gotten hold of a cigar somewhere, and its bittersweet smoke plumed up from beneath his hat brim, filling the dusty air with a faint blue haze.

With a last glance at Donna, Rose faced him.

"I said a lot," she told him. She crossed her arms. "You'll have to be more specific."

"What you said to the Gruesome Foursome. Us monsters have to stick together, blah blah blah." He tilted his head. "And that you're not gonna be like Miranda. Interesting choice of words. You plan on running this dog and pony show once the dust settles?"

"If it settles."

He let out a bark of a laugh. "C'mon, kid, I didn't teach you to be pessimistic."

Rose lifted her head, drawing breath to blow him off, to send him on his way with a snippy taunt. Their main form of communication. The silence stretched.

She closed her mouth.

"Something's happening to me," she whispered. "Something bad. I...I don't know- I felt it when I was a little kid, with you, but then...not for a long time. Not until the Embryo..."

She looked away, into the shadows.

"And with Moreau..." she went on. "And with you..."

She trailed away. Her throat was tight, her eyes hot. Don't cry, she urged herself. Oh, God, don't cry.

"Kid," Heisenberg said.

She still didn't look at him.

Warmth touched her cheek, brushing away her tears. Heisenberg's hand. Ungloved. He traced the cut on her cheek that Dimitrescu had inflicted. She felt the rasp of his scars against her skin, one of her oldest memories.

"Come with me," he said.

"There's not-"

"There's time for this."

Rose paused, then nodded. "Okay," she said, her voice small, trembling, like a little girl's again, despite all her best efforts.

***

Up a back flight of narrow steps, chapped by centuries of monastic feet. Out a weathered trapdoor, back into the cold and darkness of the midwinter night. Snow swirled down, illuminated by the distant flames of the factory, by the searchlights cleaving through the mist. Ahead rose the dagger-sharp towers of Castle Dimitrescu, black against the deep blue sky.

Heisenberg pressed against a rock shelf, deep into the shadows. The only sign they were there at all was the orange glow of his cigar tip, flaring each time he inhaled. Rose hunkered down, gripping her knees as she pulled them to her chest.

Her sword rasped against the stone. Heisenberg gave it a level look. "Nice pocket knife, kid."

"It's bigger than yours."

"Shut up before I smash your skull in." "That's child abuse."

"I'll show you child abuse. Want some?" He held out his cigar.

"Uh. No thanks."

He shrugged and stuck it between his teeth again. He stared out across the hillside, the village, the lights of Ouroboros visible amidst the crystal thicket.

"Just like old times, isn't it, kid?" he said at last.

"You mean the village, or us freezing our asses off while faced with certain doom?"

"Either or." He blew a stream of smoke into the night. "So. Let me guess. You think you're succumbing to the same urges of control and destruction as Miranda."

"Basically."

"Are you?"

"I don't know."

"You gotta have an opinion one way or another."

"I-" She took a sharp breath. "I think- uh. Ever since the beginning...you were under my control. The second Ethan gave me to you, I...I think..."

She couldn't go on. Her throat was tight. "I needed protection so I made you want to protect me," she forced out. "Put spores in your brain. Toggled its paternal on switch. Whatever, I don't know the science."

"Yeah, I kind of figured the same."

Rose blinked, jerking her head up. "Huh? Really?"

"Yep. I mean, look at me, kid, I look like someone's dad to you?"

"You do now."

His mouth flexed. The small betrayal cracked something inside Rose. Heat slid down her face; she scrubbed the tears away with her palm. Fuck, this was so stupid. Stupid tears. His stupid scarred-up face.

"You...you don't hate me for that?" she asked.

"Nah. I admire your survival instincts, really. I'm more concerned with the here and now. You gonna be the overlord of the village? Put us under your thrall? Start it all again, resurrect your father, keep the whole thing going, et-fuckin-cetera?"

"I don't want to-"

"Then don't."

"Then you don't think it's inevitable?"

"What?"

"The past. Coming back." She rested her chin on top of her knees. "It always comes back. And then more people get hurt. And then it all starts again. Over and over."

"So give up. Lie down in the dirt. Choke on it."

She looked at him sideways. "You suck at giving advice."

"Heh." He grinned at her. "And you suck at taking it."

"It's gotten me this far."

"That's what worries me."

Rose stared out at the landscape before them. The castle, the mountains. This ancient place, the site of distant wars, distant secrets, long-ago tragedies that clung on past all reason.

She should wish that none of this had happened. That she was any other girl, that she was safe somewhere in some shitty apartment in some faraway city, worrying over homework, or crushes, or fitting in. Maybe she was sick in the head, irredeemably fucked, but Rose couldn't help but be, in some way, grateful. This place, and the events that had transpired here, had given her this life. It had given her Heisenberg, her years with him. It had given her this moment, this silence, watching the snow flurry round the castle turrets, glimmering like stars in the winter wind.

"It's beautiful," Rose murmured.

"Huh?" Heisenberg squinted. "Eh. Yeah, I guess."

"Does it have a name?"

"I..." He trailed away. "I don't know. Maybe once. But for Miranda, this village was the only village. If it ever had a name, she took it from the town's collective consciousness and she devoured it. Ate it up. If she can't have something...well, fuck, no one can."

"She took so much from everyone. From..." Rose looked down. "From my mother, too. I...I don't know if I can ever get used to her being around..."

"Yeah, I get it, kid."

"I'm going with Donna to get to the bottom of this. I think together we can take a look at my memories. Find out what's really happening with me and Miranda."

"You expect to find some answers that way?"

"Hopefully."

"Mm." He flicked ash out into the night, his head tipped back. "Good. 'Cause I really don't want to kill you like I thought I might have to."

A strangled laugh burst from Rose. "You were thinking about killing me? Seriously?"

"Nothing personal, kid."

"Oh, not even a little, I'm sure."

"While you and Donna go trip balls, I'm staying with Mia. Gotta make sure Dr. Freak-enstein doesn't start eating her intestines or some shit. Hope you don't mind."

"You have a crush on her or something?" Rose shook her head as he drew breath. "Never mind. Don't answer that."

He did anyway. "I owe her one. Long time ago."

"I guess that's not personal either."

"Not to you." A pause. "You gonna be okay?"

"Maybe."

"Miranda was scared of you. Remember that. All her power, a hundred years of manipulation and getting high on her own supply, and she still had to neutralize you into crystal shards five seconds after she brought you here. Get it?"

"Kind of."

"You scared?"

"Yeah."

He was silent for a few minutes. Rose thought he was done, that he was about to climb to his feet with some smart-ass remark and head inside again.

He didn't.

"After the explosion," he began. "After your papa gave you to me, uh..."

He muttered for a little bit under his breath.

"...I was scared, kid," he said. "Marooned in a world I'd only peered at from the outside. Echoes in the dark. I was going off nothing, off instinct. And I was stuck with you, with this fragile little thing, and I was sure I was gonna break you. All I wanted was to protect you. From everything. From Miranda. From me. From this place..."

His eyes slid shut, as if he couldn't take the sight of the village anymore.

"Fucked it up," he told her. "All of it."

"Not everything," Rose said.

He glanced sideways at her with one pale eye. "Yeah?"

"I really did like that exploding pony you made for me that one time."

"Before or after the explosion?"

"Uh. Before."

"Fuckin' spoilsport." He paused, then reached out to smooth his hand over her hair, like he had when she was a little girl. "Rosie, I...uh."

"Say it. This time."

Heisenberg gave her a small, scarred smile.

"I love you, kid," he told her. "Now, and always. Spores in the brain, your creepy little hands pulling my strings, I don't care. Fuck all of that. No matter what, you'll always be my girl. I'll always fight for you."

He paused, gave a little scoff, and shook his head, as if bemused with himself. "Can't believe it's come to this," he muttered.

"Shut up," Rose told him. "I hate you so much."

She leaned against him, and after a minute he hooked his arm over her shoulders, pulling her into a one-armed hug, swift, and hard, and ferocious. He smelled of sweat and motor oil, tobacco and ozone. Rose was pretty sure she wasn't any better.

Over at the factory, a rippling boom shook the ground, and nuclear blue-white flames crackled skyward.

"Ah," Heisenberg said. "There goes the reactor."

"Don't change the subject," Rose murmured, against his chest.

And for a moment, for a moment, as long as they could, they huddled together against the cold, as the flames from the burning factory roared into the sky.

#saints of warding #re8 fic #re8 fanfiction #rosemary winters #karl heisenberg #alcina dimitrescu #lady dimitrescu #donna beneviento #salvatore moreau #resident evil village oc #resident evil village #resident evil #re8 #chapter 21 #mother miranda

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things4your · 2 years

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valhallanrose · 2 years

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The Garden in Bloom

The masterlist for any and all flavors of OC interactions regarding Zelda. Quick key that will apply to all fics regardless of pairing:

🍋 - mature content. 18+ only, minors DNI.

💕- romantic relationship

✨- friendship

Headcanons

Mannerism Alphabet

NSFW Headcanons 🍋

Fics

ft. @arcanecadenza’s Dante 💕

A Kiss For Losing a Bet (by arcanecadenza)

What You Say Before You Speak

A Little Desperation in Everything I Do (by arcanecadenza) 🍋

Pandora’s Box 🍋

Chemistry 🍋

Firelight (by arcanecadenza) 🍋

Kiss Prompt #34 (by arcanecadenza)

ft. @ilyamatic’s Andrico 💕

Call Me (WIP)

ft. @sunrisenfool’s Amparo 💕

Letters

From Amparo (by sunrisenfool)

From Zelda

ft. @sunrisenfool’s Anatole ✨

Letters

From Nana (by sunrisenfool)

From Zelda

From Nana (by sunrisenfool)

Header from Oleanders (1888) by Van Gogh

#zelda oleneva

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alexseanchai · 3 years

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Fanfic 2020 in Review

I got tagged by @kasienda @noirshitsuji and @marvelousmsmol and I am tagging whoever wants to play!

1) List of fics completed this year in the order they were finished:

*filters own works to complete and updated in 2020*

1 - 20 of 57 Works by AlexSeanchai

nope. *adds filter to include only works of at least 1000 words*

unless otherwise indicated, these are all Miraculous Ladybug:

“don’t bake it lying down”, post-reveal Marichat vs Felix Graham de Vanily

“veracity”, canon divergence from “Ladybug” featuring Mister Bug and Verity Queen (so also Marichat, I guess)

“(no request is too extreme, if) your heart is in your dream”, in which Hawkmoth wins, for the thirty seconds or so before Emilie saves Ladybug and Chat Noir’s lives

“tell me you love me and make me believe it”, in which trans girl Chatonne Noire ropes Ladybug into helping plan her civilian self’s escape slash social transition

“kingmaker, oathbreaker”, in which Hawkmoth wins and Emilie watches her son remove himself from the family

“stay and let me watch you break it down” (Twelve Dancing Princesses), a modern setting

“set a course for winds of fortune”, in which trans girl Chatonne Noire has already escaped and Gabriel and Nathalie are trying to bring Gabriel’s son home

“we ground love in a hopeless place”, in which post-reveal Marinette’s attempt to remain resolutely not in love with her partner dissolves like sugar in coffee when they start a pun war

“ring the bells that still can ring”, in which Alya is deeply confused about why Adrien and Marinette are planning a wedding when last night both were single

“burning wishes at both ends (the cold wind and long loud wail remix)”, in which Gabriel made a monkey’s paw wish and Emilie makes another

“words cannot espresso”, in which Marinette’s OC roommate is justifiably worried for Marinette’s safety, and meanwhile Adrien takes care of Marinette

“the compromise of truth” (the chronologically second-earliest part posted to date of nine lives, snake’s eyes), in which Adrien tells his friends how he won some freedom and respect from his father

“At The Present Time”, the Ladrien/Ladynoir marriage proposal follow-up to @art-deco-shrimp‘s “Your Presents Required”

“j'ai rêvé (so I don't have to dream alone)”, in which the events of canon must just have been a series of dream sequences, Marinette and Adrien both think, until they both arrive at Chloe’s Halloween masquerade dressed as themselves from the dreams

2) Number of words written:

ahahaha no. I am not counting all my scattered fic drafts and trying to figure out what I did and didn’t write in 2020. I refuse.

AO3 says I posted 162K in 2020. it is counting all of keeps you guessing (like any real love), which (a) I started posting in 2019 (b) is co-written by @galahadwilder; it is counting all of my meta snippets collection, much of which was written in 2019; it is counting the Vimeo passwords for my vids. but I probably cleared 150K by a safe margin.

3) Your most popular fic:

“veracity” has a four-digit kudos count, wow, when’d that happen? this is also the 2020 work with the most hits and the most bookmarks, but “tell me you love me” has four-thirds as many comments as its nearest competitor.

4) Your personal fav:

“cannot break us, not with a thousand swords”, no question about it. this is the one in which Ladybug proposes marriage to Chat Noir via Princess Bride meme on Tumblr. (if you intend to download the work or otherwise to consume it with creator style off, you want the accessible version instead of the primary version.)

5) Your fav scene:

aaaaaaaaa

—okay so this is cheating and I know it, since Uncertain Humors (the one where Marinette/Adrien is both Orpheus/Eurydice and Theseus/Ariadne) is nowhere near finished, never mind posted (maybe I'll get “Sanguine” done to post on my birthday?)

but it is still my favorite of the year. as you might guess from that description of the story, this scene has content notes for character death:

Hell is a maze. Marinette walks.

This acrid passage has little to see but damp stone, seeming blood-stained in the dim carmine light. At about the height of her heart, the faintly glowing thread cuts through the not-clammy air; it ought to be pulsing at the same rate as the heart it's bound to. She might be able to see her own reflection if she looked down at the open sewage pipe, or at one of the puddles that now and again she splashes through, dampening the canvas of her shoes. She might see reflected what's behind her.

She remembers Mme. Mendeleiev lecturing on human physiology. In healthy humans old enough to have learned how, urination is a voluntary action: one may not know which muscles one tenses and relaxes in order to do so, and probably isn't paying attention to those details when one is doing, but one has conscious control over whether one does. Usually. Stress and anxiety mean some people are unable to relax the relevant sphincter muscle and others are unable to stop themselves. It's voluntary for cats, too: it's one way they mark their territories. Cat-boys have other ways.

There is a moment in every human life when all one's muscles relax at once. Some Parisians have had several such moments.

The thread is braided with itself around her left fourth finger, rows of tiny red half-hitch knots, and falls loosely over the back of her hand to loop twice around her wrist. She holds it wrapped between the fingers of her right hand to keep it at a constant tension, as though knitting with this insubstantial thread, so fragile for something two (two dozen, two million) lives hang from—too thin to sew with, no thicker than one strand of his hair. As she walks, she winds it around and around and around her wrist.

Between her ring finger and her right hand, it loops twice.

Marinette's shoe lands in a puddle she didn't see. The rainwater splashes soundlessly onto her bare ankle and on the stone.

(With cat-like tread, upon our prey we steal— It's a very loud song.)

She walks on.

6) A fic or scene that challenged you:

where the firelight fades, no contest. this is the second story I’ve ever been able to stick with more than a couple hundred words past the 20K mark, but it’s easily the twentieth novel-length I’ve begun. (though also, you know that kedreeva post? well, 90K later, I’m less than 15K from completing this 10K fic! I think.) and I have been learning so much about long-form fiction.

there has also been a lot of weeping and tearing my hair. case in point: I just trashed the chapter 15 draft because I figured out the reason it wasn’t going anywhere! I can probably keep the first few hundred words of that draft without any editing, and another few hundred with some revision...

7) A line of writing you’re proud of:

from “j'ai rêvé (so I don't have to dream alone)”:

Everything about their partnership is fragments of sentences in the dream diary Adrien writes in ultraviolet pen. Disjointed flickers of thought even when examined under the black light he hides in the snack cabinet under packets of Super Yoyo sandwich cookies and bags of cheesy Monster Munch potato chips and boxes of petit écolier butter cookies (chocolat noir)—none of which explains the gym-socks smell. All fleeting incoherent flashes, invisible between the mundane lines of La Modification shelved at his bedside between Leroux and Dumas. None of it is solid. Adrien has more proof his room's haunted.

okay let me break this down for you!

* Adrien started a dream diary to make sense of the memories

* in invisible ink, in a book that (according to Wikipedia) is thematically appropriate and won’t (if Gabriel sees it) look like anything other than Adrien developing an interest in French literature

* shelved between Phantom of the Opera and The Three Musketeers

* look I didn’t come up with the name “black light”

* or “chocolat noir” for what English speakers call “dark chocolate”, or “petit écolier” (that is, “little schoolboy”) for that sort of butter cookie

* also not my fault that “chocolat noir” sounds remarkably like “Chat Noir”, which, attentive readers may have noticed, is not a name that appears in the story after the header and before Miraculous Cure

* I found the website of a store in Boston, Massachusetts that caters to French expats, and the yo-yo cookies and the monster chips were right there in the photos, y’all

* the snack stash and the black light live in the cabinet where, in canon, the Camembert lives; yes, that cheese smells in the real world like gym socks

* this story’s akuma was not able to affect anything but squishy human memory: nobody affected remembers anything about Ladybug or Chat Noir or Hawkmoth, not in any solid way, not even when they read news articles about the subject, and this includes Marinette and Adrien not being able to see or hear or remember their own kwamis—but you know what Adrien’s Insta post about his poltergeist and Adrien’s Insta post with the floating sock don’t show and don’t explicitly refer to?

* I love this paragraph so much (my housemates may have been lovingly mocking me over it)

8) A comment that touched you:

there are people (y’all know who you are) who said y’all are studying my style. I ded of blush.

9) Something that inspired your writing:

by volume of fic drafts that can be blamed on any particular person, the winner is probably @norakwami

10) Your proudest accomplishment (that one scene; finally finishing that one fic; posting your first fic; etc):

so that longest-story-ever-written record I set in 2007 with the 89.5K story that, till where the firelight fades, was the only story I’d gotten much past 20K?

I broke that fucking record!

and then I deleted the draft of firelight chapter 15 😭

11) Do you have any writing goals for the next year?

I’m starting work on a fantasy novel, a Sleeping Beauty retelling in which I explore (among other things) the economic consequences of the king’s ordering all the spinning wheels burned, and I want to make significant progress on that. and I want to not make my hands any worse; I kind of need those!

(breaking news alert: bodies fucking suck. so does giving yourself repetitive stress injuries in doing one and a half to two people’s worth of work for an organization that was never ever going to pay you more than one person’s worth of pay.)

#by alexseanchai #miraculous ladybug #tag game

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suffering-and-happy-about-it · 5 years

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Updated Messy Masterlist:

The master list is undergoing maintenance at the moment - I'm creating headers and such for better orientation, but I won't be updating it fast enough I think.

Killshot

Description: The occupation as a member of SAS came with many restrictions and rules one had to follow to a dot. It could get even more intense for a soldier carrying a lot of trauma and not enough self-love, if any at all. Thank God, this lonely soldier meets a lonely florist one day, and as they say - animals have the best judge of character.

Pairing: Simon Riley x fem!reader

Read more: h e r e

Stressed Out (FINISHED)

Series despription: Once upon a time, there was a lonely dog locked up in his own home. The lonely dog became sad and angry - until a woman came to stay at the lonely, sad house one day.

Pairing: Sirius Black x fem!reader

Read here: H E R E

The Big, Big Bang (SCRAPPED AS OF NOW)

Series summary: Sometimes, you might feel lonely in the entirety of the universe; of all of the stars, planets and constellations... Until it comes. The big bang that turns the world upside down, the reason why all the stars collide and why you, in the first place, are alive.

Pairing: Remus Lupin x fem!reader

Read here: H E R E

Football Time (Mini series) (FINISHED)

Series description: Every twenty years, Carlisle Cullen has the courtesy to invite his old-time friends to his residence to have time to catch up with them and play a game of baseball. This time was supposed to be different, though; the Cullens found an entire pack of players to expand the teams.

Pairing: None, at least not in this one

Read here: H E R E

Chop and Change (Mini series) (Seth Clearwater x fem!reader) (FINISHED)

Series description: Twenty years ago, you’ve given a promise to a boy who claimed to imprint on you. Against your will, you decided to keep it and to visit La Push just to see if anything has changed.

Warning: It’s highly recommended to read the Football Time miniseries first since this contains an unlike pairing which is explained in the series, also the circumstances are given there.

Read here: H E R E

A White Demon’s Love Song (Jacob Black x fem!reader) (STOPPED)

Series description: A new job was what the reason you found yourself on a lonely roadtrip on the western coast, ending up in the woods of Olympian Peninsula. Yet a sudden car malfuction was what cause your unplanned stay in Forks. To your surprise, there was a lot of sinister things going on under the veil of fog.

Read here: H E R E

Shattering the TIme (Ekko x fem!reader) (Stopped as of now)

Description: A long time ago, there was a peaceful state ruling over the Lanes of Zaun. Yet one day, the protector was murdered by his rival and Lanes had gone to shit ever since, leading to the establishment of an independent Firelight base just out of Zaun. But this peace was to come to end soon with old friends coming back, rising from the dead, and getting killed.

Read here: H E R E

Intercity Relations (Vander x fem!reader one-shot)

Description: Spending years studying Interstate relations at Piltover's academy, you made both allies and rivals during your studies. Unlucky for you, Cassandra Kiramman hated your guts ever since you first met. The woman ensured you'd never see Ixtal or Shumira but rather serve as an intercity negotiator between Zaun and Piltover.

Read here: H E R E

Tales of Priestesses and Witchers (Geralt x fem!reader) (FINISHED) - GOING THROUGH COMPLETE REWORK

Description: Geralt of Rivia, also known as the infamous Butcher of Blaviken or the White Wolf, was traveling the Continent along with idiotic, yet humble and kind bard Jaskier, settling in a small town near the free city of Novigrad. That was when Geralt bumped into an old friend of his - and realized that all the wrongdoings he had committed in the past will eventually come back to him.

Series master list: H E R E

The Incapable Bard’s Contract (Jaskier x fem!reader) (FINISHED)

Description: Geralt of Rivia isn’t always there to watch over Jaskier, his best, yet incapable bard friend. Sometimes, when the Witcher knows that there is bad blood between the bard and someone else, he writes a contract and offers a job - silently watching over Jaskier traveling the roads.

Series master list: H E R E

Perks of Being a Woman in the World of Men (Geralt x fem!witcher) (SCRAPPED, ENDED)

Series description: The Butcher of Blaviken has a long and famous past, thanks to his friend Jaskier. Yet, neither of those dies easily and it still lurks behind Geralt like a shadow after all those years. History, neither unfriendly relationships, doesn’t die easily.

Series master list: H E R E

Borderlands Fandom:

Pieces of the People We Love (Scooter x fem!reader, in the end) (STOPPED)

Description: Not many people had the chance to see a vault or to mean anything in the world of Pandora. Will a hardly built relationship in the loneliness of the desert have the potential to change anything in the world of anarchy and chaos - or will the friends try to murder each other?

Series master list: H E R E

WhatsApp? (Steve Rogers x fem!reader) (FINISHED)

Description: You’ve never been lucky with guys. You just wanted to catch someone’s eye, to be loved. One day, that’s about to turn completely - with one fake, completely imagined number a guy gave you.

Warnings: Long-burn romantic story happening on WhatsApp for the bigger part. Sam and Bucky being my iconic duo of divas and lil Pete Parker being the chaotic friend.

Master list: H E R E

Peter Parker's iPod (Peter Parker x fem!reader) (FINISHED AS OF NOW)

Series description: The blip was hard. Dating Michelle Jones was a daily pleasure in Parker’s life. So… It was even harder to swallow when MJ announced to Peter that things weren’t working as she wished they would. That happened one month before college. Now, Parker is unsure if he can handle falling for yet another amazing girl.

Master list: H E R E

One-shots:

An Unlicensed Therapist (A Steven Grant One-Shot)

Description: Your life was simply too good to be true - a bunch of the best friends on the planet, a job in one of the best attorney offices in Manhattan, and a nice guy you were seeing. But one day, your best friend Carly suddenly decides to get married to her boyfriend of five years... And that was when you felt like your life was crumbling apart.

Read: H E R E

Series:

The Eighties Blasts Collection (SCRAPPED AS OF NOW)

Description: Jim Hopper died as a hero. But with that, one certain problem rises up - who will now lead the cops of Hawkins? Hopper thought of that - he decided to write a letter, naming his niece, nineteen-year-old student of Indianapolis police academy, Y/N Hopper as a sheriff deputy in a letter. But anybody in the town doesn’t have a clue that being a cop in Hawkins is way more dangerous than it might seem.

Pairing: Steve Harrington x Hopper!reader

Master list: H E R E

Sriracha (James Hopper x fem!reader)

Description: A problematic college student gets the worst summer job of the ‘83 - Jim Hopper, the Chief of police in your hometown will have you as his secretary since his old lady Flo has two months lasting holiday. It was agreed so Hopper could keep you far away from all the trouble.

Pairing: James Hopper x fem!reader

Master list: H E R E

One-Night Stands (Stopped as of now) (James Hopper x fem!reader)

Description: Chief Hopper was a mystery since he appeared back in town. Most of the people thought of him as a “lost, whoring-around alcoholic junkie”. But what if he actually manages to find a friend amongst all of the known strangers he meets in Hawkins daily?

Master list: H E R E

One-shots:

Rasputin And His Queen (Steve Harrington x fem!reader)

Description: Everyone loves Halloween. And when you say everyone, you mean everyone - the kids LOVE trick or treating, teenagers love Halloween parties and the adults love both decorating the house and having a nice, calm night. And since one particular day, Steve Harrington fell in love with that day as well.

Read: H E R E

Euphoria HBO Fanfic series:

Mount Everest Ain’t Got Shit On Us (Fezco x fem!reader) (FINISHED)

Description: You were always told that your life will be as you wish it to be if you’ll study enough. That it will pay off if you work hard. And some people were given you like a scary example of what will happen when you don’t obey. But sometimes it feels good to disobey.

Master list and declaration before you read the series: H E R E

Love Lies (Fezco x fem!reader, follow up) (SCRAPPED, WON’T BE UPDATED)

Description: Carcrash, coma, drug usage, partying, heartbreak... You’ve been there. After 18 months of “corrective” stay at your grandmother’s in Minnesota, it’s time for you to move back to East Highlands. Yet, it was to be expected that while some things change, some stayed the same.

Master list: H E R E

Ghost of Tsushima:

One-shots:

The Onsen (Pt. 1)

Pairing: Jin Sakai x fem!reader

Description: Jin Sakai is known as a proud Samurai living on a small island near the great Japanese empire - Tsushima. And when he gets washed on a beach near your home, it obviously caught a lot of attention.

Read: H E R E

A Lonely Ronin (A requested follow-up to the ‘Hot Water’, Pt. 2)

Description: Tsushima had found its peace again - Kotun Khan and his men had left the island, the Mongolian invasion had ended. Yet its remnants were sure to last in your home for a long time.

Read: H E R E

Watch Dogs (Ubisoft Games):

Summer Hideout (Raymond Kenney x fem!reader) (STOPPED)

Description: Ray, otherwise called T-Bone, was a man you were meeting on a daily basis during your shifts in your hometown. You were working as a waitress in one bistro near the beach in the summer of 2014, not knowing the man in front of you was one of the biggest whistle-blowers of the history of America.

Read: H E R E

Naughty Dog Games:

Series:

I want to tell you... (Nathan Drake x fem!reader) (RE-NEWED, STOPPED)

Description: Nathan Drake is not the exact definition of an unhappy man. His job is steady, his friends still see him from time to time, he plays football, but his marriage is his main problem. Many things will change when a special person comes to his life.

Read here: H E R E

Short stories:

Little Sadie (Samuel Drake & fem!reader) (Finished)

Description: based off on a Last of Us II. Gameplay trailer and the song from Crooked Still is a story about falling for your best friend, finding love and losing it. But after fifteen years, he’s back. Read here: Part one | Part two | Part three | Part four

The Girl With A Red Shirt (Young Victor Sullivan x fem!Reader) (Finished)

Description: Victor Sullivan, treasure hunter and a businessman in his late thirties. One day, he got back from his gig and met a cute girl in his favorite laundry; just to forget his talisman there. And so, the trouble with the girl starts. Read here: Part One | Part Two

Shaken, not stirred (Samuel Drake & fem!reader)

Description: You’ve been living with your boyfriend Samuel for quite some time now, and he has finally come home from a seriously long treasure hunting job. And he found his new weakness - every single James Bond movie ever made. Read here: Shaken, not stirred

The Princess of the Prom (Teen Sam Drake x fem!Reader)

Description: Y/N and Sam were the best friends of high school, no denying in that. Even tho Samuel’s Prom was actually amazing and fun, Y/N doesn’t feel good about going on her own. Read here: The Princess of the Prom

Dangerous (Charlie Cutter x fem!reader x Samuel Drake) (FINISHED)

Description: It was your best friend’s bachelorette party in one of London’s best clubs when two men had closed a bet if they would be able to seduce you. And in the end, the night ended up way better than you originally anticipated. Read here: Part 1 | Part 2

Headcanons: H E R E

Favored Ones (2020 Remastered Edition) (FINISHED - Going through re-imagination and a complete rework)

Pairing: Joel x afab!reader (Part II. rendition - post-outbreak, age difference) Description: Many things were surely fucked up in the year 2038, but no one ever told anyone how all of it went down. What happened before a group left for Seattle to handle personal matters? Why did one girl refuse to leave all of it? And why there were so many dead in the end? Master list & declaration: H E R E

Rules (Ongoing as of February 2024)

Pairing: dbf!Joel x afab!reader Series description: Coming back home was a doozie - it felt like starting anew. Meeting your dad’s new best friend, however, turned your life upside down - and it was the two of you who had to set the record straight and figure out how to move on. Master list: H E R E

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fangirlxwritesx67 · 4 years

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No Lover Like A Hunter: Part One- As Many Times As You Want

There are not enough words to thank @thoughtslikeaminefield for the work she has done with me on this story. She calls it a beta read. I call it a transformative crash course in writing smutty fanfiction. She read and reread and pushed me and questioned me until I tore this series down and rewrote it from the heart outwards. She also made me the header graphic as a present. Seriously, if you are not reading her work, I cannot stress how much you should be. Thank you, hon.

Saving people, hunting things - the hunter’s life was a lonely business. The few friends Dean and Sam Winchester had were closer than family. Every so often, working a case, they crossed paths with someone they knew, someone else in the hunting business. Of all their fellow hunters, Jody Mills was a favorite. A kick ass sheriff at work, a firm but caring mom to her ragtag group of adopted girls, she was always a welcoming home.

This particular weekend, they had solved the case - a truck stop serial killer that turned out to be trafficking in black market parts for cannibalistic monsters. They had killed the monsters but not in time to save every victim. Bruised and tired, they returned to Jody's to clean up, eat and rest. Passing bowls of spaghetti and loaves of crusty garlic bread around the table, they teased one another and swapped stories. Wine flowed freely, and with it laughter.

After dinner was done and the dishes washed, the girls headed to their rooms. Jody, Dean, and Sam went to the living room with their glasses of wine to continue talking. A fire crackled in the fireplace, sending gentle flickers of light across the room. Comfortable and full, Sam couldn't help yawning. "Ready for bed, big guy?" Dean asked. Sam drew his hand across his eyes and nodded. The brothers said goodnight to each other, and Jody gave Sam a gentle squeeze before he trooped upstairs.

Jody settled back into the oversized armchair next to the fire, drawing her feet up beneath her. Dean sprawled on the couch, his feet up on the worn coffee table. Their voices got softer as they talked, their stories more personal. Dean found himself watching Jody as she talked. In the firelight, she was radiant. Her high cheekbones and straight nose were striking in the shadows. The flames leapt in her dark grey eyes when she laughed and played in her messy hair, streaking the salt and pepper color with golden light. He had never seen her quite like this- so soft and desirable. Eventually, they settled into comfortable stillness.

Finally, Jody reached out and placed one hand on Dean's knee. Her touch sent a shiver straight to the core of him. "Dean," she whispered, her voice low. "Haven't you ever thought about us, about making this something… more?" Dean was caught off guard. Had his desire been that transparent? "Jody... I- I don’t know." Jody cupped his strong jaw in her hand. "Dean." Dean pushed her away, not unkindly. "Jody, we're friends, we're hunters! We're not-" "Lovers?” she asked. “But what better lover than a friend? And who knows a hunter's life like a hunter?"

Dean looked at Jody with newly appreciative eyes. The fire cast shadows over her high cheekbones and into the little crinkles gathered by her eyes. Her chin was set, but her lips were still full and soft. He could see her life story in her face - all her love and loss and courage. He knew her. He respected her. Could he love her, at least for tonight?

While Dean tried to gather his wayward thoughts, Jody waited. She had seen the man behind the handsome face. She had experienced first-hand the big heart that hid under his tough, ass-kicking bluster. She knew his story, too, knew things he had never shared with anyone else. She trusted him, wanted him. Before Dean could answer, doubt rose in Jody's mind. She began to second-guess herself: what if she had misread Dean? Jody thought of him as an equal, a friend and a safe place. Maybe he thought of her differently, as too old or undesirable. Maybe he didn't think of sex as something they could share. Hot shame crept up her cheeks.

"Dean, I'm sorry," she spluttered, standing up, "I thought we shared this feeling but now... now..." "No!" said Dean, reaching up quickly and taking her hands in both of his. "No, you don't understand, I want this, I want you! I never thought you saw me as more than just a friend! Jody, you are one of the most beautiful women I've ever met and-" his voice dropped to a growl. "I've dreamt about that ass since the first time I watched you turn and walk away."

Dean pulled her down to sit beside him and slid his hand up to cup her face, running his fingers over her cheekbones and into her hair. Her messy hair was surprisingly soft under his touch. Holding her face, Dean kissed her. Their first kiss was soft, and then grew deeper as they explored one another. The kisses quickly turned hot and passionate. They kissed until they were both out of breath. Jody pulled back and looked at Dean. Her dark eyes flashed with desire. "So we can do this, just this once?" Dean's eyes crinkled and he laughed delightedly. "Oh, Jody, baby, we can do this as many times as you want." He kissed her again and again, as Jody leaned into his strong embrace. Wrapped in his arms, she felt safe.

The fire began to burn low, and the room grew darker. Dean got up to get more wood on the fire. Jody took advantage of the moment to strip down. When Dean turned back around, his jaw dropped. Standing there in a only dark grey bra and black cotton panties, Jody felt suddenly vulnerable. "Dean," she asked, only half joking. "Are you disappointed?"

Dean's voice was husky and certain, "Disappointed? Hell no." He leaned back on the couch and reached for her, "You're magnificent, Jody, everything I dreamed of and more." Dean wrapped his arms around Jody's hips and then slid one hand slowly over her round ass and down her legs. She shivered under his touch. "And your legs, damn!" Dean kissed the stretch marks that ran in a line across her soft lower stomach. Then he began to kiss her right hip and down her thigh. When he planted a kiss on the outside of her knee, her knees buckled. Dean laughed as he caught her and laid her down gently on the couch. She trusted him so much, not to let her fall, not to let her down. Dean traced a line of kisses up the inside of her other leg, until his face rested between her thighs. "Jody," he murmured. "Take off your panties for me." The feeling of his words against her made her sigh with pleasure. She tilted her hips up and pushed her panties down so Dean could pull them down the length of her legs. They locked eyes, and in the firelight, Jody was luminous.

Finally, Dean spread her legs. He looked down at her wet, enticing pussy. Dean wanted her so very, very much, and lowered his face into her. This was not what Jody expected but very much what she wanted. She arched her back and pushed into him. His strong tongue quickly found her sweet spot. Jody moaned softly. Dean grinned. Jody could feel his pouty lips curl against her. Over and over, Dean's enthusiastic mouth brought Jody to the brink of climax and then backed off, every time pushing her higher. He wanted to take his time, making sure she was absolutely satisfied. Jody enjoyed every moment of his skillful efforts. Her legs trembled on Dean's shoulders and then tightened around him. She moaned, long and low and shuddering. Dean threw his head back and laughed, his wet lips curving with delight.

Once Jody could catch her breath, she held out one hand for Dean to pull her upright. She rested her head on his broad shoulder and nestled into the base of his neck. He turned his head to kiss her, his mouth open against her warm lips. Jody whispered, "Your turn now." Dean's mouth turned up on one side. "Oh, yes." Jody slipped her hand around Dean's waist and up under his layers of shirts. "Take your clothes off," she told him.

Dean stood up and peeled off shirt after shirt. Jody's eyes followed his movements appreciatively, trailing over his broad arms and muscled chest before dipping lower. Feeling her gaze, Dean gave his hips a sexy wiggle while he undid his belt. As he kicked away his jeans and underwear, Jody took a step towards him. She unclasped her dark grey bra, letting her soft warm breasts fall free.

For a long moment, they stood there in the warm firelight, taking in the sight of one another's body. Both of them were long and lean, in peak physical form. Both of them bore the marks of time, the scars of the hunting life. They knew each other well, but this was something entirely different.

Jody closed the space between them. Dean took her tightly in his arms. As they kissed, their hips ground together. It was rare for Dean to be with a woman who almost matched him in height. He cupped her ass, that amazing round ass. Jody felt his erection press hard against her thigh. She reached down to stroke him. My god, he was even bigger than he looked.

A moan escaped Dean's lips. "Dean, let's-" Jody began. "The couch?" he asked at the same time.

Jody shook her head. Turning to the couch, she pulled off a blanket and several pillows, tossing them to the floor. Dean knelt down, spreading out the blankets as he reached for his discarded jeans. He put on a condom in one swift motion as Jody settled down, lying comfortably on her back.

Dean leaned over her and took Jody's breasts in his hands. They were a grown woman's breasts, full and ripe in his hands. He kissed one and then the other, enjoying the weight and the velvety softness of her skin.

Dean had never seen Jody like this, bare and warm and soft. Her vulnerability was so appealing to him, he didn't want to wait any more. He moved over her, settling between her legs. He looked up to Jody's face and she nodded. That was all he needed.

He thrust into her and she gasped with delight. They moved their hips together, seeking a rhythm. Suddenly Jody felt a wave of toe-curling pleasure - Dean had hit her g-spot. She wrapped one strong leg over him to pull him close. "Yes, Dean, yes!" she gasped. She grabbed his ass as if she could press him even closer, as if they could disappear into one another. Their bodies ran together like a river, moving swift and hard. Jody let that river carry her to another orgasm. She threw back her head as the current of pleasure swept through her, like tumbling down a waterfall.

Dean bit his lip as he felt Jody shudder and gasp underneath him. That was all he needed to stop holding back. He groaned as he rode to his climax deep inside Jody.

Dean and Jody lay on the floor, facing one another. They gathered pillows and blankets around them until they were comfortable. The firelight played over their faces, warm and flickering. There were so many things that could have been said, but none of them needed to be spoken. They knew one another now like never before, inside and out.

Dean laid his hand on Jody's cheek, ruffling his fingertips through her thick cropped hair, and running his thumb along her swollen lower lip. They kissed once more, slow and tender. "Oh Jody," he murmured, "you beautiful, sexy, magnificent woman." Jody smiled just a little, her dark eyes warm and liquid. "There's no lover like a hunter, is there, Dean?"

...

Tag list: @tloveswriting, @awesomesusiebstuff, @idreamofplaid

#sexy jody mills #supernatural fanfiction #dean winchester #dean x jody #jody mills #fangirlxwritesx67 #no lover like a hunter

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bitsandbobsandstuff · 5 years

Text

A love that never leaves (11)

Summary: Sometimes when you go looking for the past, you find things you never expected. When an accident brings him face to face with something he never knew he lost, Bucky Barnes begins to understand an age old truth – it’s so easy, sometimes, to love the things that destroy us.

Characters: Bucky Barnes x Reader Warnings: Bad language. Descriptions of depression. Some pretty heavy sads.

A/N: Flashback time. Grief can be all consuming and overwhelming. This time, we follow her while she tries to learn how to live again, before a night in 1946 changes everything.

And again...I am sorry.

Links don’t work, so if you want to access the full ALTNL Masterlist, just click the MASTERLIST header on my blog.

Previously...

In her hand, is a ripped piece of faded blue cloth, with a familiar gray patch sewn into it; smudgy rust-red splotches color the edges like fingerprints.

Wings. Gray wings. Nostalgically familiar, because back in the war, each of the Howling Commandos wore one on their left sleeve, a mirror image tribute to the one painted on Steve’s helmet.

Including Bucky. Who wore one on the left sleeve of his coat.

The left sleeve of his blue coat.

Now, he stares uncomprehendingly at the piece of cloth. “What - “ he starts, but his voice fades. Small shivers are running through her body as she watches him, her face filled with dread. Taking a shaky breath, she whispers.

“There was one other time we met.”

*****

February 1945

The telegram informing her of Bucky’s death, written in Steve Rogers’ messy, cursive scrawl, sits on her kitchen table for a week. Across the creamy white paper are crinkled watermarks and trickles of black ink, where the paper swallowed her teardrops and bled out the sorrow of Steve’s words. One night, in a fit of anger, she tears it to shreds and feeds each piece to the hungry flames licking up the stone wall of her fireplace. There is immediate relief at the words disappearing, but even without their physical presence, the grief always returns.

March 1945

The plush wool feels soft in her hands. A week after his last visit, she saw the bundle in a storefront and bartered two of her old dresses for it; the color was a simple heather gray, but she knew it would look perfect against the deep blue of his coat. Every evening, she would knit until her fingers ached, but in a few weeks, she had a thick wool scarf, one of her old hair ribbons tied around it for a bow. She thought she would keep it as his birthday gift. Now, on what would have been Bucky’s 28th birthday, she wraps it around her neck and crawls into bed. Sleep doesn’t come, but every memory of him arrives like a fresh bullet, punched clean through her chest.

May 1945

Over! The war is over! Relieved cries reverberate through the town when VE Day arrives, children running down streets screaming with excitement, mothers and widows weeping joyously in the streets. Healing will take decades, but with those words, the world begins to plan for what comes next. Life is breathed back into the village and in the crowded town square, she lifts her face to the sunshine and closes her eyes. Fingers the chain around her neck holding the St. Michael medal Bucky gave her for their engagement, and wonders if she will ever be warm again.

July 1945

Wildflowers grow in riotous bursts of yellow and red and purple, filling the space behind her chicken coop with color. Laying amid the blooms, she sits in the baking summer sun, tracing her fingers over the colorful images on the postcards Bucky gave her. She thinks about traveling. About visiting those places, seeing them with new eyes, free from war. When she looks at the Brooklyn postcard, she wonders about visiting his family, but then she sees the crooked hearts he drew on the back, and she knows it would be too much. She puts the cards away.

September 1945

Leaves begin to fall, carpeting the grassy bank near the stream. Going through the motions, she dumps clothes from her basket, dunking them in the gurgling water, scrubbing them clean under crystal clear moonlight. Humming under her breath, she sings to pass the time, but the only words she can find are the ones she sang the first night Bucky found her by the creek and walked her home. We’ll meet again, don’t know where, don’t know when. It hurts too much, so she just stops singing.

October 1945

Soldiers have been returning for weeks. Gaunt and haunted, new men arrive every few days, and do their best to pick up the threads of their old lives. One Saturday morning, she walks through the stalls of the market, examining produce and talking with the vendors. A young soldier steps aside to let her pass, quickly pulling off his hat and smiling. Offering a quiet hello in response, she finishes her shopping and leaves; the soldier jogs after her and nervously asks, could he perhaps walk her home? The earnest look in his eyes is so familiar, it makes her sick. She gently tells him no.

December 1945

Taking a sharp kitchen knife, she goes into the trees and cuts an armful of pine boughs. She spreads them through her house, taking deep breaths of the sharp, piney scent. In the white vase on her table, she tucks them carefully in place and adds a small sprig of holly, the red berries shining brightly. Curled in the armchair beside her fire, she drinks tea and listens to the staticky crackle of Christmas hymns on her new radio. It’s a daily battle, but it happens. Life really does go on.

February 1946

Coming home late one evening, she unlocks her back door and hangs her coat in the hallway. Rubbing chilly hands together, she walks into her kitchen and turns on the light. She skids to a stop. Filling the small space, are two hulking men dressed in black. One steps forward and quickly grabs her arms, while the other plays with a length of rope and smiles at her. “We’ve been looking everywhere for you. Someone wants a word.”

There’s a cursory struggle, but she doesn’t fight hard. She thinks to herself, if they kill her, maybe she’ll see Bucky on the other side.

That thought makes her smile, before the world goes dark.

*****

For the second time in her life, she awakens in a cold cell. Stretching her aching limps, she knows immediately this most certainly isn’t heaven.

Hell has a very specific look to it. One she knows far too intimately by now.

The small cell is clean, containing a lumpy bed and a worn blanket; in the corner is a pitcher of water and a bucket, and high on the wall is a small window letting in slivers of light. Her hands are bound in front of her, rough pieces of rope looped so tight around her wrists, the skin has rubbed itself raw. Blood soaks into the bristly rope fibers, staining it with streaks of black.

Where is she this time?

Leaning back against the wall, she blows out a long breath and there’s a strange satisfaction in her realization.

She just doesn’t care.

*****

Hours or maybe days later, her door creaks open. Outlined in the doorframe, is a tall Hydra guard dressed all in black, a mask over his face, a pair of reflective goggles covering his eyes. When he sees her, the gun in his hands trembles the slightest bit, before it steadies once more.

So, she thinks. Here it comes.

Motioning with the gun, the guard indicates she should stand, but she mutinously stays on the bed. If she has to go, she will be defiant to the end.

Stepping forward, he hesitates briefly, before grasping the rope and jerking her to her feet. Balancing his gun at the back of her neck, he pushes her forward.

Down a long hall they go, moving through a set of wooden doors. With a mute resistance, she refuses to walk, forcing him to physically drag her instead. Finally, he simply picks her up and throws her over his shoulder, stalking down the hallway with a series of breathless grunts.

She kicks him the entire way.

When he arrives at a heavy oak door, he bangs three times and throws it open.

The room is surprising. This is no torture chamber, filled with metal tables and metal chairs and the metallic taste of electricity on her tongue. It is warm and cozy, a roaring fireplace on one wall, armchairs strewn casually around, tall shelves lined with books.

In the middle of the room, stands Colonel Richter, a glass of whiskey in his hand.

“Please, come in,” he says cordially, laughter in his voice. “I’ve been waiting for you.”

The guard dumps her in a sprawling heap and departs. In the flickering firelight, she struggles awkwardly to her feet and readies for battle.

“You again. What do you want? You know I won’t help you,” she snaps, her eyes roaming around the room, searching for threats.

Richter looks amused. Sipping his whiskey, he comes slowly closer until he is only inches from her face.

“First things first. Before, when you stole away in the dead of night - that was a bit rude, don’t you think?”

“Go fuck yourself.”

The quick crack of his backhand sends her stumbling sideways. The heavy ring he wears rips open a fat gash on her cheek and she instantly feels blood begin to ooze.

“Such language for a lady. Did you learn that from him? Let’s try again, shall we? I have a story for you and I’d like you to listen,” he says. “A few months ago, we were working on him and in the middle of one of his delirious rants, I hear something interesting. Can you guess?”

Glaring at him, she remains silent.

“No guesses?” he grins, raising his eyebrows. “Alright then. Through all the screaming and crying, I hear him say your god damn name. Imagine my surprise.”

The first prickles of confused fear skate up her back. “What the hell are you talking about?” she spits out.

“It took some digging, but we managed to trace the path he and that wretched group of assholes from his unit made the last couple years of the war. I sent a few search parties out, and low and behold - here you are.”

Bucky told her once, how he and Captain Rogers parachuted from an airplane. She remembers him laughing about the free-fall, how it made his stomach swoop in a million directions. That feeling of free-falling sweeps over her now, turning her blood to ice.

“What do you mean? Who?”

Richter smiles widely, his eyes gleaming. Grabbing the bloody ropes around her wrists, he yanks her forward and pushes her into the shadowy corner of the room.

“Wait here. I have a surprise for you.”

Outside the door, she hears voices arguing. The scuffle of feet and the sharp bite of an angry voice. Suddenly, the door swings open and four guards enter, dragging a fifth man.

From the dark shadows, she muffles a scream.

Bucky looks exhausted. Dressed in a long-sleeved green shirt and ragged brown pants, he’s thinner than the last time she saw him. Rings of black circle his eyes, the vibrant blue now dull and listless. All his beautiful dark hair has been buzzed short and she can see bloody sores scabbing over along his temples. The left sleeve of his wool shirt is empty, pinned up at his shoulder and his right arm is tucked behind him, a leather strap looped around his wrist and stretched across his chest, keeping his good arm immobile.

“You didn’t tell me it was a party,” he rasps mockingly. “I would’ve put on my fancy clothes.”

One of the guards grabs a fistful of his shirt and drags him closer. “Jesus Christ, I am so fucking sick of your fucking mouth,” he sneers and Bucky shoots him a cocky grin.

“Sweetheart, you’re adorable when you’re mad,” he stage-whispers. In the blink of an eye, the guard draws back his arm and smashes his fist into Bucky’s face. Dropping to his knees, Bucky’s mocking laugh turns into a rattling cough that comes up with a spray of blood and he spits strings of red on the floor. “Like being kissed by your mom,” he says weakly.

Swearing ferociously, the guard moves to kick him, but Richter holds up his hand.

“For god’s sake, every fucking time. You know he does this, why do you let him get to you?”

The guard is visibly furious, but he says nothing. Instead, he grabs Bucky by the back of his shirt, hauling him roughly to his feet. Bucky sways precariously, before he finds his balance. Taking several deep breaths, he fixes his mouth back into that mocking smirk and lifts his chin.

“Evening boys. What the fuck can I do for you today?”

Richter gives him a congenial smile. “We have a visitor tonight. I thought perhaps you’d like to meet her.”

Bucky barks out a hollow laugh. “I sincerely fuckin’ doubt that.”

Richter’s smile grows impossibly larger. “Well, let’s see, shall we?”

Pulling her from the shadows, he throws her forward and she stumbles into the light.

Here’s the thing.

Bucky Barnes is so weak, he can barely stay on his feet. For the last five days, he’s eaten nothing more than a loaf of bread and a pitcher of water. When he walks, he greatly favors his right side, still unbalanced by the loss of his left arm even a year later, and when he speaks, his voice has a perpetually guttural sound, his vocal cords shredded from months of screaming. Sprinkled across his shaved head, are a mess of pink scars where the dull razor blades they used bit cruelly into his scalp.

He looks exactly as one would expect. A prisoner of war.

For weeks, he’s been on the verge of collapse, but the moment he sees her, none of that matters.

Horrified disbelief fills his face and his eyes flick from the tears on her face, to the trickle of blood down her cheek, to the blood-soaked ropes around her wrists.

With a feral howl, he lunges toward her.

Throwing off the shocked guards at his side, he head-butts the man in front of him, sending him flying back. With a well-aimed kick, he knocks the legs from under the fourth guard and the man falls hard, before Bucky levels a savage kick to his head.

Richter laughs delightedly as he watches the show, until Bucky rushes for him. Lifting his gun, he sets it casually against her temple and cocks it. At the click of the hammer, Bucky skids to a stop, his mouth still twisted in a vicious snarl. Sweat dripping down his face, blood dripping from his busted lip, his chest heaves furiously.

“You god damn motherfucking cocksucking piece of shit, you let her go. Let her fuckin’ go, or I’ll fuckin’ gut you.”

“I thought so,” Richter says smugly. “So, our Soldier has something to fight for. How utterly inconvenient.”

“You’re god damn straight I fuckin’ do,” Bucky hisses, staggering under the rush of adrenaline. “Hurt her and I swear to god, I swear to fuckin’ god, I will slit your fuckin’ throat.”

With a dramatic sigh, Richter keeps his eyes on Bucky and bends down to speak in her ear.

“Apparently this one’s special, fights harder than anyone I’ve ever seen. Every time we wipe him, every memory comes back in a couple days. I don’t know what Zola did to him, but his brain fixes it too fast. Basically, he just won't fucking stay down.”

“Fuck no I won’t,” Bucky interrupts.

“See what I mean? You know what happened last time,” Richter says softly, his breath hot in her ear. “I don’t care if he is Zola’s little pet, he’s a wild fucking animal and I’m not above putting him down. So here we are. You fix him or I kill him. Your choice.”

“What the fuck is he talking about,” Bucky asks, looking directly at her now. “What - darlin, what the hell does he mean?”

Looking into his eyes, she thinks about that lovely blue. For the rest of her life, she knows she will see it everywhere. In everything.

Behind him, the guard he head-butted lumbers to his feet and manages to get his forearm locked around Bucky’s neck.

Richter stands behind her, waiting. Against her skin, he presses a light kiss and she shudders at the hideous feel.

“Come now. You love him, don’t you? Do the right thing.”

Clasped in a tight chokehold, she can see Bucky’s face turning red as he splutters for breath.

“No,” she chokes out. “I won’t. I won’t.”

Cruel fingers dig into the back of her neck and he hisses in her ear. “If you say no, I will put him in that chair and fry his fucking brain every single day for the rest of his life and I will make you watch. Even if he heals fast, he still screams like a baby. Trust me on that one.”

Bucky is still fighting, his throat working uselessly as he tries to draw a breath.

Every scenario, every choice, every possibility, flies through her head. Trying desperately to come up with a solution, with a way to save them both, she thinks and thinks and thinks.

And she comes up empty, because the answer is simple.

There is no solution.

Then what choice does she have?

She remembers the parade of men from before, the sound of their screams as the chair rocked bolts of electricity through them again and again. The thought of Bucky strapped in that chair, his body convulsing as the electric currents wrack his body, as he screams for her to help him - it is inconceivable. She knows what she has to do. She knows.

What choice does she have?

“Yes,” she sobs, her eyes filling with tears. “Fine, yes, I’ll do it, please just - let him go.”

Motioning to the guard, Richter points at the floor. The man releases his death-grip on Bucky’s throat, kicking his feet from under him and Bucky falls hard to his knees. Wrenching herself from Richter’s harsh grip, she rushes to catch him before Bucky’s face hits the floor.

“You have one minute,” Richter warns, fading into the shadows of the dark room. “And then you do it. If you leave anything behind again, I will kill him.”

After everything, here they are. Together.

Kneeling in front of the fireplace, the warm light cocoons them in their own world, one last time.

Bucky rests his head on her shoulder, closing his eyes when she cradles his thin frame against her. In the quiet room, his short, shallow breaths echo raggedly. Carefully, she runs her fingers soothingly up his neck, over the spiky tufts of dark hair and his body wilts in her tight embrace.

Sighing wearily, he picks his head up and touches his forehead to hers. Cupping his face, she brushes her fingers over the scratchy stubble lining his sunken cheeks and he gives her a rueful smile.

“Hey, I’ve been thinking. You okay with a one-armed husband?” he breathes. “Promise I can still love you just as hard.”

Tears streaming down her face, she returns his smile. “I love it. It makes you look dashing.”

“That’s exactly what I said,” he replies, pushing his nose against hers. Precious seconds slip by as they sit in silence, breathing each other in. Both trying their damndest to remember everything about the other, before they lose it all. Finally, she whispers her favorite words in his ear.

“I love you, Bucky.”

He hums contentedly and smiles. “I love you too. Don’t ever forget it, okay? I know I won’t.”

It takes every last drop of willpower for her not break down. Because he will forget. He will forget, and she will make certain that he does.

Rubbing her cheek against his, she presses her lips to the shell of his ear, giving him one more thing that the rest of the world cannot take. Something that is theirs, and theirs alone.

“You’re everything for me, Bucky Barnes. You’re the love of my life,” she murmurs, and he leans his head against her. When he opens his eyes, she finds an endless ocean of sadness pouring from the blue depths and he speaks quickly under his breath.

“Listen to me. Whatever happens, I need you to do something for me, okay?” The desperate urgency in his voice makes her heart skip. “No matter what happens, don’t you dare stay here. I can see it in your face honey, don’t you stay here, stuck in this room inside your head, thinking you could’ve done something different. You understand me?”

Swallowing hard, she tries to answer, but he cuts her off. The words are full of fear, holding a message he needs her to accept. “Please, I’m begging you. When you get out of here, you find a way to go on. Find a way to live.”

Losing him again will break her. That fact is as certain as the sun rising in the east.

There’s no way she can do this again, but in her heart, she knows that’s not what he needs. He needs her to agree, he needs her to try, and if she has to send his mind into a graveyard of buried memories, at least she can do this one thing for him.

She owes their love that much.

“I will,” she says. “I promise, I will.”

“That’s my girl,” he whispers with a tired smile. Staring into his eyes, she does everything she can to memorize the love she finds there, before Bucky gives her a crooked smile and tells her one more secret. “You know what? I don’t regret anything that happened. If I had to do it all over, I wouldn’t change one damn thing. It all led me to you, and I’ll remember every piece of us to the end. Because this kind of love, it never leaves. Right?”

“No, it never leaves,” she echoes. Placing her hands on his cheeks, she kisses him full on the mouth, tasting blood and salt and love, trying with her whole heart to carve even a small bit of herself into his bones.

Breaking the kiss, her heart plummets at the sight of his sweet smile.

Blinking away her tears, she takes a deep breath.

And then she tears her entire world apart.

Surprise fills Bucky’s face when he feels the heat begin to pulse from her hands, when he sees the soft glow of white light from her fingers. Watching her in confusion, his lips part as though he wants to say something, but no words come. Concentrating harder than she ever has before, she gathers everything, all those beautiful memories that make Bucky Barnes the man he has become and she wipes them all away.

All his stories about the Howling Commandos. That spring day he caught a foul ball at a Dodgers game. Steve Rogers’ floppy blond hair shining in the summer sun at Coney Island. The way his mother sang while she baked, and the fairytales he read his sister before bed. How he felt looking in the mirror the first time he put on his uniform, pale and scared to death. Watching a brilliant red sun sinking in the ocean, the day he sailed for England. Every memory he has of her. The thrill of their first kiss and the way she held his arm when he walked her home from church and the first time they made love and how nervous he felt asking her to marry him.

How god damn much he loves her.

Every colorful memory he owns, she siphons away. Nothing is left behind, because this time, she can take no chances.

The white light burns hotter, so bright Bucky squeezes his eyes closed and still she watches him through it all, until finally, finally, finally -

She lets go.

Bucky slumps unconscious, his chin tucked to his chest. Pressing one final kiss to his forehead, her silent tears splash to the floor. She wants to stay forever, to be there when he opens his eyes, to force herself back into this new life, to make him remember her. To make him remember who they are together.

My god. Oh my god, what has she done.

Before she can say a word, the guards rip him from her arms. Dragging him away, his head lolls to the side and the last thing she sees, before they exit the room, are Bucky’s eyes beginning to flutter open.

“Wait -“ she says, panic filling every last cell in her body, “no, please wait, don’t - please, where are you taking him?”

“He has work to do,” Richter says dismissively.

Sick with heartbreak and drowning in regret, she remains kneeling on the floor, and every last piece of her soul shatters.

*****

Day later, there’s a screech of metal, and her door bangs open.

Richter saunters in, a length of cloth folded over his arm. Behind him, is the Hydra guard who escorted her from her cell last time, his gun cocked and aimed.

Caked in dried mud and an obscene amount of blood, the bright blue of Bucky’s Howlie jacket is nearly unrecognizable. The left arm is mostly torn away, the thick material hanging in ragged strips below the elbow. With a grunt, Richter tears away a piece of fabric at the shoulder and tosses it at her.

“Here. Thought you might want this,” he says coldly.

At her feet, the cloth looks dark and dirty, but in the midst of grimy blue, she sees the gray wings Bucky had sewn into his jacket sleeve. She remembers tracing her fingers over them, asking what they meant. Bucky had grinned, his chest swelling with a bit of pride, before he wove tales for her about the Howling Commandos. He glossed over their missions and focused on the men instead, and she remembers how wonderfully he could tell a story. The small bits of humor he found amid the bleakness of war painted a bright world for her to see.

Now, she picks it up, touching the rusty-red smudges lining the edges of the wings. She looks up at him.

“Why?”

Richter says nothing, but a grim smile pulls at his lips. He draws out the pause, savoring the expectation in her face, before carelessly dropping a bomb.

“Zola lost him during a routine experiment. He coded on the table. Guess we haven’t made our soldiers as durable as we need just yet.”

This bomb, it finishes the job Steve’s telegram began. For the second time, she learns the love of her life is dead and now there is nothing but cold emptiness where her heart used to be.

“We no longer require your services. We have a new machine that should work just fine,” he tilts his head, looking down at her. “But thank you for your help.”

Spinning on his heel, he shoves the remains of the blue coat at the guard still waiting in the doorway.

“Burn it,” he orders. “And leave her here to rot.”

The door bangs shut and the lock clicks with a sickening finality.

*****

No food. No water.

For two days, she hears footsteps marching back and forth in front of her door. Something seems to be happening, but through it all, no one pays attention to the woman locked in the cell at the end of the hall, waiting to die.

In her dreams, she sees Bucky strapped to a table exactly like the one they used for her. Was he scared? Did he go willingly or did he fight? Did it happen quickly? Did it hurt? Did he realize what was happening before his heart stopped?

Was there any part of him, maybe buried deep down, that loved her to the end?

She dismisses that last thought. No, of course there wasn’t. She made sure of that fact.

In a strange way, she finds a perverse relief in Bucky’s death. At least this way, he will never know how she betrayed him.

Perhaps if there is an afterlife, someday she can find him there and beg his forgiveness.

On the morning of the third day, sunlight flows through the rectangular window near the ceiling and she waits on her bed. For someone to come. Anyone. To save her. To kill her. Either would work, she’s not picky. Watching the slow crawl of sunlight move across the floor, she counts the minutes, until she notices something peculiar.

Silence.

Sitting up takes a massive effort and rising to her feet almost knocks her out. Knees wobbling dangerously, her sweaty hand presses to the wall for balance, and she stumbles to the door.

“Hello?” she croaks, but it comes as nothing more than a rough whisper. Wrapping her fingers around the bars of the door, she rests her forehead against the cold metal. Summoning her strength, she tries again. “Is anyone there?”

Silence.

No one answers. No lights illuminate the hallway. There is no hum of electricity, no sound of a distant radio playing, no raucous laughter. There is no one there.

So. They left her to die then.

Angry tears fill her eyes, and she bangs a weak fist on the door. Without expecting a solution, she grabs the door handle and rattles it, hot tears spilling over and streaking through the dirt on her cheeks.

But miraculously - the door opens.

Stepping cautiously into the doorway, she scans the hallway and finds nothing. Perplexed, she looks down and her confusion grows. Outside the door, a cloth bundle is propped against the wall. Crouching down, she hesitantly pulls at the loose knot and it falls open, revealing a loaf of bread, a wedge of cheese, two apples, and a cracked leather canteen full of water.

Common sense screams at her to think, but she throws caution to the wind. Grabbing the canteen with trembling fingers, she flips the lid and chugs the cold water. It has a dusty, alkaline taste, but she cries with relief. Tearing off a hunk of bread, she stuffs it in her mouth, her eyes drifting closed at the taste. It hits the hollowness in her belly so fast, she almost retches, but she manages to keep it down.

The rest, she wraps up in the cloth sack and hugs it to her chest.

She walks down the hall. Through a small office, down another hall.

With every step, she expects to be stopped. But nothing happens.

At the end of the hall, is a heavy black door. When she opens it, sunlight spills in and she takes a deep breath of fresh air.

From the outside, the base looks like a series of old buildings, but there is literally nothing else. No people. No vehicles. Nothing but the peppy chirp of birds warbling in the trees. For one brief moment, she stands in the morning light and thinks about giving up. Such a soothing thought.

But then the sound of Bucky’s voice fills her head.

Find a way to live.

The years that follow will be filled with devastating sadness, but beneath it all, she will hold these words close to her heart. She can do this for him.

So, she starts walking.

Down the ruts of the narrow access road leading away from the building, one foot in front of the other. She anticipates bullets hitting her from behind, but nothing happens. On she walks, through a forest of trees, one step after another. Into the open, where the access road joins up with a small country lane. She turns left and keeps going. Five slow miles she traipses along, until a town appears.

On the edge of the main street, she sees a small grocery store and walks inside. Covered in grime, shivering from head to toe, she tries to speak, but instead, she collapses. An older woman looks up from behind the counter, and her curls of thick black hair bounce when she rushes around the front counter shouting in Italian for help.

For two weeks, she stays there recovering, but no one comes.

In that sleepy Italian town, she finally understands.

After everything she has done, after everything they stole from her, after they broke her one last time - it appears that Hydra really was finished with her.

With freedom should come relief, but that is an emotion reserved for saints, not sinners like her. What she has done, she can never undo.

She will live with that fact, from now until the end of her days.

*****

Next Chapter

*****

#bucky x reader #bucky barnes x reader #bucky barnes #bucky #bucky fic #altnl

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samsexualdeancurious · 4 years

Text

Many Dark Places | Chapter 1

Pairing: Thor x Reader (Eventual)

Words: 1,363

Warnings: hurt!Reader, trauma/PTSD, references/flashbacks to past torture, emotional and physical hurt/comfort, past and attempted kidnapping, Thor being a darling.

Summary: When cleaning up a camp of dark magicians near the new Asgard, Thor stumbles upon Y/N - the daughter of an Asgardian nobleman, who disappeared before Thor first traveled to Midgard in 2011.

A/N: I started writing this fic pre-Endgame and, as such, it exists in a strange world where they didn't make new Asgard on Earth and also maybe Thanos didn't win? Idk. (Loki's still dead, though. Sorry.)

Betaed by @samsgoddess and @the-soulofdevil

Header by me

Check out Thor's scent!

---

The raid comes late in the evening.

You can hear the shouts of warriors and the clash of weapons. A deep voice is calling out instructions but you can’t make out any specific words. Just his voice. You can't do anything, really, except kneel in the center of your wagon-cage and try to lift up enough to not irritate the rope burns on your wrists more than you already have. The sounds eventually die down and you can hear distant, muffled conversations accompanied by the tramping of feet around the camp.

The raiders won, you decide sleepily, wondering who they are. Perhaps they're bandits. If so, they'll either keep you as a slave, sell you for cheap, or just kill you. You can’t bring yourself to stifle such a treacherous yearning but nonetheless, part of your heart hopes for the latter.

The lock on the wagon door rattles, startling you from your thoughts and sending your heart racing in a panic. Whoever it is gives up trying to unlock it and you hear the smash of metal against weaker metal. The sound draws an involuntary shudder up your spine and you instinctively try to squirm away.

The door opens, light from torches and the dying fires of your captors spilling into the small space. Silhouetted against the warm light is a huge figure.

“May I take your torch?” he says to a smaller figure that passes, his voice the same timber as the one giving orders earlier. He must be the leader, then. Good. Better to get this over with as soon as possible.

The torch is handed over and the man is lit up, as well as the interior of your wagon. Your stomach knots and you twist your body away before you can stop yourself, a base instinct telling you to cover your nudity despite how normal it's become.

He is handsome, that much you know even after all this time. His strong jaw is bearded and his hair is short, shorn close on the sides and a little longer on the top. He wears armor that seems somewhat familiar to you- in all honesty, all of him seems familiar but your tired and frightened mind can't place him. A long red cape hangs from his broad shoulders and he wields an enormous ax in his other hand.

His eyes go wide when he sees you fully, and he rushes forward to cut your wrists free with a small knife he pulls from his belt. You yank yourself beyond his grasp with a frightened noise, scrambling away until your bare back hits the wall. He steps forward but stops when you try to make yourself seem even smaller. Instead, he crouches- even then he is huge and when he reaches out a hand, you shrink away with a whimper you can't hold back.

The sound seems to startle him and he freezes a second before turning his palm towards you in a placating gesture. Slowly, he sinks back until he sits cross-legged like a child.

“Hello,” he says, his tone soft. In the torchlight, his eyes are warm and endearing. “What's your name?”

What is your name? You stare for a long moment, trying to dredge up memories locked away long ago. They're slow to come but eventually, you find what you're looking for.

“Y/N,” you croak, the word strange on your tongue. Your voice is hoarse from not doing much besides screaming, and it surprises you to find that speaking now hurts. The dark magicians must have liked your screaming, for they never decided to remove your voice as they did to many others who came and went over the years.

“Y/N,” he rumbles, and a tiny part of you likes the way your name rolls off his lips. “Y/N, daughter of Lord Týr, betrothed of Bjǫrn?”

The names are familiar and conjure images of loving smiles and embraces and home, the memories sparking warmth in your chest. You nod.

He smiles at you, sweet and a little boyish. “Do you know who I am?”

You wish you did. His identity is on the tip of your tongue but your mind is sick of digging through the past and refuses to relinquish its hold on the memory. You shake your head.

He doesn't seem hurt. “I suppose it's been many years and I did look a bit different. I am Thor Odinson, King of Asgard.”

Thor. How could you have ever forgotten? He's older- obviously- and there's something in his face beyond age that has changed him- you're not sure what yet. But he is unmistakable.

You curl your arms around your body even tighter, suddenly very aware of your nudity. “My King,” you mouth, digging your fingernails into your biceps hard enough that you're going to find little red marks later.

His smile is kind and welcoming and his hand is still outstretched. “May I come closer?”

You hesitate a moment before giving a small nod. Thor lifts up and scoots a few feet closer as a smaller, more female figure appears in the doorway.

“My King,” she says, silver-grey armor gleaming in the firelight.

Thor throws up a hand to stop her, though. “Not yet, Brunnhilde.”

She huffs, cocking a hip, and you can feel the tense fear creeping through your body again.

“Y/N,” Thor says softly. “Look at me. Don't look at her.”

You turn your eyes back to his face and the tension slips away a little.

“You're shivering,” he observes. “Are you cold?”

Are you? Probably. You weren't paying attention, to be honest.

“Here.” Before you can respond, Thor is unhooking his cape and swinging it around to offer it to you. “You can use this until we can get you something decent.”

You eye the rich fabric a moment before reaching a tentative hand out. Part of you is still afraid it's going to be pulled back, even though you know in your heart that Thor would never be that cruel. As soon as you get a hand on the cape, you dig in and yank it close.

“There you go,” he murmurs, smiling as you cover yourself the best you can in your position. “Better?”

You nod and can feel yourself relax even further.

“Sire, we need to move,” Brunnhilde says, a little impatient.

Thor nods. “We do. Y/N, can you walk?”

You don't want to but it's probably unavoidable, at least for a little while. “Yes,” you whisper, gathering the cape close and beginning to rise. Your feet are covered in tiny cuts, despite the calluses from going barefoot for so long, and you remember too late the damage that was done to your ankle during a particularly brutal punishment yesterday. Said ankle gives out as soon as you put weight on it and you find yourself crumpling with a cry.

Thor is suddenly there, powerful arms encircling your body and supporting you. “No, don't hurt yourself. I'll carry you, if that's alright?”

You nod, fighting the roll of your stomach at his touch. He murmurs soft words, though, as he helps you adjust the cape so it's wrapped around your shoulders and the turmoil in your belly calms.

When you're sufficiently covered, he helps you limp to sit on the edge of the wagon before hopping down himself. Brunnhilde is holding the torch now and Thor is free to loop his arms behind your shoulders and knees and lift you against his chest. You squeak, a little caught off guard even though you knew it would happen, and some bruises protest but you don't voice that. This is considerably better than walking.

“Rest a little,” he encourages as he begins his journey to wherever- you don't particularly care. “We found the dark magicians because they wandered so close to our camp. It's not far. Once there, we'll get you cleaned up, your wounds dressed, some proper clothes, and a place to sleep.”

He continues to speak, both to you and to the warriors who cluster around. His voice rumbles through his chest and into your body, deep and soothing, and you find your eyelids drifting shut.

---

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---

Team Forever: @mrswhozeewhatsis @manawhaat @laughing-at-the-darkness @tumbler-tidbits @imsuperawkward @books-and-icecream @emoryhemsworth

Team MDP:

#many dark places #thor x reader #my writing #marvel #mcu

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today-we-will-survive · 5 years

Text

As The World Burns Around Us, Ch. 3

header made by me

Pairing: Jungkook x Reader ft. Taehyung

Genre: Apocalypse!AU, Angst, Thriller, Romance

Warning: dark themes, violence, gore

Word Count: 9.5K

Parts can be found in the masterlist under “As The World Burns Around Us”

Summary: You haven’t seen the sun in two years. The Virus wiped out a good three quarters of the world’s population and then the wars that followed wiped out half of that. After everything happened, it was only a matter of time before the different countries started blaming each other and emptied their nuclear arsenals. You’re still surprised Seoul survived – if you can call what it has become “surviving”.

You don’t know how much longer you stay there practicing, but by the time you’re done, the sun is setting and your target looks like it’s gone through a wood chipper. Your skin has a light coating of sweat on it, your breathing is shallow and your palms ache but you feel better than you have in months. Years actually.

As you make your way back toward camp, you swat at clouds of mosquitos and fiddle with one of your knives, slicing it through the air at an imaginary target. Taehyung’s remark about your skills becoming rusty irked you. And now you’re set on proving him wrong.

You’ve made it back to the front of the train and are imagining you’re facing off with a raider so you spin and duck, cutting your blade up to gut the guy when a hand clamps down on your wrist. Your breath catches in your throat causing a surprised shriek to escape as you meet Jungkook’s dark eyes.

“What are you doing?” he asks with a nervous chuckle. If he hadn’t caught your hand, that blade might be buried in his chest right now.

He releases you and you stand up slowly, putting your knife back in the sheath under your arm. “Just attacking a raider,” you mutter sheepishly. “He was about to clock me with a crowbar.”

Amusement replaces the startled expression on Jungkook’s face. “Did you get him?”

You match his smirk. “What do you think?”

“I think you haven’t eaten yet today,” he says and puts his arm around your shoulders. “And now it’s time you did.”

With warmth growing in the pit of your stomach, you lift your hand up to intertwine your fingers with his and the two of you walk together around the front of the train and toward the glow of the bonfire.

“This still all feels like a dream to me,” you utter as you look up at the darkening sky.

Jungkook leans in and kisses the side of your head. “Well then don’t wake up or you’ll ruin it for all of us,” he says causing a giggle to bubble up and out of your mouth.

The bonfire rages before you, fenced in by the silhouettes of all these boys you just met. As you near it, a sense of nostalgia hits you and you’re immediately reminded of the bonfires you used to have on the beaches in Busan. Jungkook must sense it too because he tightens his grip on your shoulders and brings you close to his chest.

Taehyung sits back in the shadows at the base of a tree away from everyone else so only the red glowing end of his cigarette is visible. Again, you find yourself wondering when the heck he started smoking?

“Y/N!” You spin around to find Jimin outlined by the fire, practically prancing toward you. He holds out two plastic plates to you and Jungkook, each weighed down with pieces of glistening, charred meat and a puddle of dark colored beans. You flash him a grateful smile as you take one from him. Jungkook takes the other and mumbles a thanks. Satisfied, Jimin turns and goes to join Hobi and Seokjin near the covered table.

“They all seem nice,” you say quietly and pick up a bean between two of your fingers.

Jungkook chuckles. “To you, maybe,” he says. “They fixed your hands. All I got was an arrow to the back.” He rolls his shoulder blade and winces. Then a thought hits you. Maybe he and Taehyung don’t want to stay. You feel panic seize your lungs with an invisible, icy fist. The bean smashes between your fingers.

“They thought you guys were going to hurt me,” you say hoping he can’t hear the underlying desperation in your voice. “You seemed to hit it off with that RM guy earlier.”

Jungkook makes a noise in the back of his throat. “Yeah, he’s alright, I guess.” He takes a bite of his chunk of meat. It takes him a minute to chew it. “And they did make you better,” he adds.

“I think it’s safe to say we can trust them,” you say hoping you sound convincing enough for him to agree. “Let’s stay just a bit longer.” You think about adding in a please but you don’t want him to know how terrified you are of venturing back out on your own.

Jungkook glances back at Taehyung who is still just barely visible behind the red glow of his cigarette. “Yeah, okay,” he finally says and you feel your insides unclench.

Though the relief is short-lived when you watch him make his way past the outer ring of the fire’s reach and settle down beside Taehyung at the base of the tree he’s perched under. With a sigh, you follow. Jungkook scoots over to make room between them.

Perfect.

The rest of dinner is spent sitting between Taehyung and Jungkook with your back against the trunk, watching everyone else as they talk and joke around.

You’ve often wondered how other people were surviving in this world. If everyone else was just as miserable as you, just as worried about where they were going to get their next meal or when the next wave of raiders was going to find them. But these people don’t seem to have that problem. Sure, they’re roughing it, in a sense; sure this probably isn’t how they thought they’d be spending the rest of their lives, but they aren’t just surviving in this world. They’re living.

Hobi stands up from his seat by Jimin and Seokjin holding a clear bottle filled with some sort of amber colored alcohol. He makes his way closer to the fire and takes a swig. When he stumbles a bit, Yoongi shoots a hand out and grabs the back of his shirt so he doesn’t go head first into the fire. The jerking causes him to spit the alcohol out and it sputters into the flames, creating a big fireball that quickly dissipates. The other boys whoop and clap for him, Jimin springing to his feet and reaching for another bottle on the table so he can try it next.

Jungkook lets out a chuckle beside you. “Hey Hobi,” he calls. The tipsy, dark haired boy perks up at the sound of his name. “Mind sharing some of that?”

“Aaayyyy, be my guest,” Hobi replies running over and pressing the bottle into Jungkook’s hand. “Don’t get too carried away, though. These are our only two bottles and actually they’re Yoongi’s.”

“It’s a special occasion,” Yoongi says from his place by the fire. “Drink to your heart’s content. And then Hobi can go get me more tomorrow.”

“Hey!” Hobi yells before heading back toward the table to see if he can convince Jimin to share.

Yoongi lifts his own cup which must contain more of the alcohol up to cheers and Jungkook raises the bottle in response before putting the opening to his lips and tipping his head back.

You watch the amber liquid flow down the neck of the bottle before disappearing into his mouth. His face pinches as he swallows. “That’s strong stuff,” he says with a quick shake of his head.

“I’m not really a fan of hard liquor,” you say eying the bottle.

“Yeah, yeah,” Jungkook says. “You like to stick with the weak drinks, don’t you? Never could convince you to try anything stronger.”

“Still won’t,” you say with a smile and nudge his shoulder with yours.

“Hey, pass it here, man,” Taehyung says from your other side and you watch as the bottle passes in front of you.

He plucks the cigarette from between his lips and tosses it on the ground, crushing it with his boot before taking a swig from the bottle. “Ah, it’s like pure paint thinner,” he winces. “Come on, Y/N, you gotta try it.”

“Not after seeing your reactions, I’m not,” you say and push the bottle away as he tries to hold it out to you.

You feel hands on your arms as Jungkook pulls you back to rest against his chest. From here you can feel his warmth and heartbeat and still look at the others that took you in. That saved your life.

The bottle obstructs your view just then as Taehyung holds it out in front of you. You glance over at him and his eyebrows lift as if he’s urging you to take it. Fine. Your fingers wrap around the neck and you hold it up so the firelight reflects off the whiskey, making it look like honey.

“Here goes nothing,” you utter.

You tip the bottle back, feeling the weight redistribute as the liquid catches on the edge just before sloshing down the neck and into your waiting mouth. It definitely doesn’t taste like honey.

You’ve never tried whiskey before. Jungkook tried to get you to back in school but you always refused, liking the sweeter drinks that masked the taste but had the same effect. This is the first time you’ve tasted such a concentrated dose. It covers your tongue in a burning, furry sensation before making its way down your throat, warming all the way to your stomach. You feel your face tweak involuntarily as the aftertaste assaults your taste buds and numbs your tongue. Your throat closes and you sputter, sitting forward to cough. Both Jungkook and Taehyung let out amused laughs, though Taehyung’s is more of a chuckle and Jungkook’s is much louder.

Between the three of you, the level of whiskey in the bottle has significantly lowered by the time RM emerges from one of the cars carrying something big and clunky. As he gets closer, firelight bounces off the object like it’s made out of metal. More details become visible as your blurry vision clears.

“A boom box?” you crack.

An amused smile pulls at RM’s eyes, causing deep dimples to appear in his cheeks. Taehyung lets out a humorless cough. “What a waste of batteries.”

“Happiness is just as important for your soul as food is for you body,” RM says and puts the boom box down on the table.

“Yeah, Tae,” Jungkook says taking another swig of whiskey. Then he makes his way clumsily to his feet. “Just lighten up a little, will ya?”

RM presses a button and the night air swells with hypnotic music. Jungkook holds a hand out to you and you study it for a second, noticing the dirt that has permanently settled into the cracks and creases of his skin. Then you reach up and let him wrap his fingers around your wrist. He pulls you up, tugging you back, away from the fire and into the darkened perimeter. The others are just sitting quietly around the fire, listening to the music but Jungkook has you pressed up against him, swaying to it.

The alcohol in your system heightens your senses but at the same time, mutes your surroundings so only Jungkook and his smell and his warmth fill you. Neither of you say anything. You’re both probably still in a bit of shock over this whole situation. It’s all too surreal. You tighten your grip around his neck and press your face into the space under his jaw, relishing in the fact that there aren’t layers upon layers of clothing separating you. You’ve been living in a protective shell for the past two years now but you can actually feel Jungkook’s heart beating rapidly in his chest against your own.

“Mind if I cut in?”

You look up to find Taehyung standing just beside Jungkook. You can barely make out his solemn expression as the firelight only illuminates half his face. Jungkook cranes his neck to look at his best friend. His arm tightens around your waist protectively then he looks back at you as if to ask if it would be okay.

“Sure,” you finally utter. Jungkook keeps his eyes locked on yours as his hands slip from around your waist. You immediately wish you could take it back.

“Yeah, I think I need to drink more anyway,” he says scratching his neck. Then he walks away.

When Taehyung steps up to you, you rest your hands on his shoulders and stiffen when you feel his own hands on your hips. It’s not like he’s trying to cop a feel; in fact, he holds you cautiously as if you’re some sort of wild animal he doesn’t want to scare away.

“I didn’t know you danced, Tae,” you say trying to quell the uneasiness in your gut.

Taehyung shrugs under your hands and quirks a brow. “Maybe there’s a lot you don’t know about me.”

You chuckle. “I’ve known you for five years now,” you say, your words slurring a bit. “I doubt there’s much I don’t know.”

A crooked smirk raises one side of his mouth and he lifts his eyes to look at the fire behind you. Tiny orange flames reflect in his dark irises and he bites his lip like he’s trying to decide what to say. Finally he opens his mouth. “Did you know I used to have a crush on you?”

A stream of ice water makes its way down your spine. “No, I didn’t,” you say.

“When you were delirious, you kept saying my name,” he continues.

You furrow your brow. “I did?”

Taehyung nods.

You aren’t about to tell him that for the past year you’ve been having nightmares about him. That the longer you go having these dreams, the more you miss how it used to be. The more you miss the old Taehyung. But you never liked him as anything more than your boyfriend’s best friend. As your best friend.

“I mean, I guess I’ve just been thinking a lot about how it used to be, you know?” you ask. “How everything was before…your internship.”

You feel Taehyung stiffen under your hands.

“What did happen, Tae?”

He dips his head, looking down at the space between you before stepping into you a bit more. “I…don’t remember. They did something to me…put me somewhere…where it was really dark and cold. The only thing that kept me from going insane, Y/N, was thinking about yo—”

“Can I have her back now?”

You almost audibly sigh with relief as Jungkook eyes you. Taehyung glances between the two of you then nods and steps back.

“Thanks for the dance, Y/N,” he says then shoves his hands in his pockets and trudges farther into the darkness toward the train.

You watch until he disappears down the tracks, then Jungkook puts his arms around you again and pulls you close. The dark sensation you were feeling suddenly slides away and you lay your head on his shoulder. You’re home again.

When you look over his shoulder, your eyes settle on the rest of the guys where the sit around the fire. Seokjin has started singing along to the music, making up his own words as he must not know the right ones and the others are laughing and swaying along.

Jungkook breathes in deep, making the hairs on the back of your neck stand up. “I don’t remember the last time your hair smelled this amazing,” he sighs and you take your head off his shoulder to look at him.

“Was that supposed to be a compliment?” you ask lifting an eyebrow. A smile lifts his face.

“Yeah, I guess I have no room to talk. But you’ll have to forgive me,” he utters and buries his face into your neck before inhaling deeply again. “I think that soap was laced with mind-altering drugs.”

You chuckle and lay your head back down against his chest. The slow song begins to melt into another. This one isn’t as slow but still hypnotic. Jungkook’s hands slide from the small of your back, across your sides and then rest on your hips. Your bodies sway together to the music and you close your eyes, wishing you could just live this night for the rest of your life. Jungkook lifts his head and touches his forehead to yours. When you open your eyes again, his are staring into yours and you can’t help but smile. You’ve been doing so much smiling all day. You wouldn’t be surprised if you wake up with a sore face in the morning.

Jungkook’s breath tickles your lips. “I know the last few years have been rather…suckish,” he mutters to you. “But I wouldn’t trade a minute if it meant I couldn’t be with you.”

In response, you close the tiny gap and press your lips against his. You feel his own mouth curve into a smile and he brings his hands up to rest on either side of your face. The music and the sounds of the others start to fade away until only the two of you remain, standing in the field, your bodies melting together.

Something like a moan rumbles in the back of Jungkook’s throat as he tilts his head to deepen the kiss, digging his fingers into your freshly cleaned hair. You feel a spark ignite in your chest as your hands clench his t-shirt. You wish it wasn’t there.

Then you hear a burst of laughter and suddenly, you’re back in reality. You pull away from Jungkook as heat creeps up your neck.

“Let’s get out of here,” Jungkook whispers raggedly though doesn’t give you a chance to agree—which you do, whole heartedly—before pulling you back toward the train. You run down alongside the tracks until you get to a car that’s far away from everyone else’s. Jungkook pulls you up into it and you slide the door closed.

Rust has chewed a hole in the roof and the stars shine bright above you, finally freed from their polluted cage of acid rain. You haven’t seen them in so long. You almost forgot they existed. But there they are, winking down at you as if they’ve shared the secrets of the world with you.

In the pale blue light, you can just make out Jungkook’s face, leeched of color. When he kisses you again, you can still taste the whiskey on his tongue. Your hands roam under his shirt and you break the kiss to lift it over his head. You have to stop and remind yourself to breathe because the sudden sight of his bare torso makes your lungs freeze up. Slowly—because you’re afraid that, along with everything else, he’s going to disappear—you reach out and put your hand on his chest.

It’s been two years since you’ve seen him like this. Two years of hiding behind layers, only ever taking them off to clean yourselves and only ever doing it a certain way so if there was ever an intrusion, you wouldn’t have to waste time getting dressed again. For two years, you’ve been robbed of the warmth of skin against yours. Only ever getting your fix with stolen kisses, observed out of the corner of Taehyung’s eyes. You were never truly alone. But now there’s no one else but you and Jungkook. And for the first time in two years, you’re really touching him. His bare arms, his chest, his back. You’re tracing the freckles on his skin, feeling the goosebumps appear beneath your fingertips. The ridges of his stomach muscles, the curves of his hipbones.

He takes your face in his hands and lifts your head so you meet his eyes through his dark bangs. “What’s wrong?” he whispers and brushes a thumb against your cheek.

You didn’t realize you’d started crying.

“Nothing is wrong,” you say. “Absolutely nothing. Everything is perfect.”

Jungkook studies you for a moment before his face finally smoothes back out. Then his eyes trail down to your lips and with a shaky breath, he pulls you into him.

You don’t know what time it is when you open your eyes the next morning but the sky is an unyielding ceiling of blue through the hole in the roof of the train car. Another perfect day.

You roll onto your side so you can watch Jungkook. You used to watch him sleep under the harsh glare of the fluorescents where you slept at the lab or by the ghostly, gray light of the polluted Seoul sky, but now the sun reaches into the car like a golden hand and rests on him, making his skin glow and his dark hair shine. He looks like an angel and you feel like you’re in Heaven.

Something like a moan escapes his throat as his nostrils flare and one of his dark eyes cracks open so he can squint at you. His lips curl into a sleepy smile. “Hi,” he rasps.

You feel the corners of your own mouth tug upward. “Hi,” you whisper.

The clattering and laughter of the others out in the field cause both of you to get up, get decent and make your way outside. Everyone else is already up and a fire rages in the pit.

“It’s about time you two got up,” Hobi calls from the stump he sits on.

Jungkook rubs his eyes and runs a hand through his hair. “What time is it?”

Hobi shrugs. “Who knows anymore? But we’ve all been up for a while so I’d call that sleeping in.”

Before you realize they were missing, Jimin and RM come out of the woods, each carrying a couple small, dead animals.

“Breakfast?” you ask Yoongi, who sits at the table wiping down a handgun.

“Breakfast?” he retorts with a chuckle. “Try lunch.”

Your cheeks get hot and you make your way silently over to the table and sit down across from him, Jungkook sitting beside you.

“How are your hands doing?” Yoongi asks without looking up from the dull gray weapon in his grip.

Your eyes fall to your hands. “Uh…good.”

“You probably don’t need the bandages anymore,” Seokjin says from the other end of the table. He, once again, stands over the camper stove, this time with a beat up looking frying pan sitting on top.

“You think they’ll be okay without them?”

The words barely leave your mouth when something furry and very much dead lands on the table in front of you. With a gasp, you shoot up out of your seat. It’s not like dead animals gross you out but the sudden occurrence of one dropping onto the table in front of you pulled the shriek from your throat before you could catch it. Of course, no one else knows that and now the witnesses are caught in fits of laughter. From behind you, Jimin holds his stomach and giggles silently, his eyes shut tight. Obviously he’s the culprit.

“Don’t worry, Y/N,” RM says between his own bouts of laughter. “It’s not going to come alive again and attack you.”

“Zombie squirrels!” Hobi pipes in from over by the fire. “Now that would have made for a good apocalypse.”

“Nuclear war wasn’t exciting enough for you?” Yoongi asks with an amused smirk.

“Nah. It’s been done before. Planet of the Apes, The Day After, Terminator. Heck, even Star Trek took place after a nuclear holocaust.”

Jungkook’s eyes meet yours and widen. “You really know your stuff,” he says to Hobi even though he’s still looking at you. Finally, another person for him to nerd out over movies with.

“Does it really matter?” Seokjin asks from the stove. “The world is crap, most everyone is dead and you’re thinking about how much cooler it would’ve been if zombies wiped us out instead?”

“Squirrel zombies,” Jimin corrects him.

If looks could kill, Seokjin would have incinerated him right there.

“Better watch it, Jimin,” RM says, clapping a hand on Seokjin’s shoulder. “One of these days he’s gonna crack and pummel you to a pulp.”

“Nah, Seokjinnie loves me too much,” Jimin replies then reaches between you and Jungkook to retrieve the thankfully dead—not undead—squirrel. Then he looks at you. “I really didn’t mean to scare you.”

“I wasn’t scared,” you crack which makes Jimin’s eyes crinkle again in amusement.

You didn’t realize you’d gone for your knives when you’d initially bolted up from your seat and now your hand begins to ache where it grasps the hilt of one tightly. You pull it easily from its sheath and tilt the blade to catch the sunlight. Taehyung isn’t anywhere in sight but if he was, you imagine he’d give you some sort of look saying you should keep practicing so you don’t get rusty or whatever. You never see him practicing his shooting. Then again, he isn’t here so where is he?

“Hey Jungkook,” RM says, “Want to help me find more firewood?”

Jungkook gives him a nod then turns to you. “Wanna come?”

“Nah,” you say. “I’m going to go practice throwing some more.” Taehyung’s smug expression haunts your thoughts. “Gotta stay sharp,” you add.

Instead of commenting, he leans down to give you a quick kiss on the cheek before following RM toward the bend in the tracks. You watch him go, memories of the night before coming once again to the forefront of your mind.

This time instead of going along the tracks, you decide to make your way through the woods. The sound of birds and the chittering of bugs is still so foreign to you after two years of silence. It’s captivating. It drowns Taehyung’s voice out in your head. Dissipates his taunts, low and murky like oil spilling from that smile of his. You miss his old smile. The one that lit up his eyes and made his whole face glow. Now it seems there’s only ever emptiness in those dark eyes. You shudder as the summer wind rustles your hair and tickles the back of your neck.

It’s been so eerily quiet in Seoul for the past few years. Only the occasional dog fight in the distance or the sound of the acidic rain pounding against the buildings interrupted the silence. Other than that, it was just conversations between the three of you that kept you from going insane.

The world was never meant to be silent.

You don’t realize how important noise is to a person’s mental state until it’s suddenly gone. Especially in Seoul where the hustle and bustle of the big city was a constant. The traffic, the people; on foot, on bikes, on their cellphones.

After the bombs went off, it was like the earth had taken a deep breath and held it. Now two years later, you’re still waiting for it to exhale.

A bird caws and flies out from a tree somewhere above you, rustling the branches and causing you to jump. Your heart jolts at the sudden movement and you lift your eyes to take in your surroundings. Where once you could see the tracks through the trees, you now only see more woods. You’ve gone further than you thought along the path.

“Oops.”

Everything looks the same. You couldn’t have wandered too far off, then again, you tend to lose track of time when you get caught up in your thoughts. Your eyes scan the forest as you spin in a slow circle until they land on a tree. The bark at just your eye level looks like it’s been hacked at with any number of weapons. Gouges, holes and splintered bits pepper the trunk as if this particular tree has been used by many as a target. You take one more look around. No one else seems to be nearby. This is as good a place as any for some throwing practice.

After emptying your holsters the first time around, you make your way over to pull the knives back out of your target. A narrow path leading straight to the tree has been worn into the ground from others doing the same thing you are. The bark is weak and soft so your blades have sunk pretty far in. It takes a bit of work to wiggle them back out but after a few good yanks they come free.

“I figured it wouldn’t take long for you to find this place.”

You spin around, knife at the ready, but catch yourself just before sending it flying into Jimin’s chest. He steps back with raised hands.

“Sorry. I didn’t mean to scare you.” You let out a heavy breath and lower the knife. “No, it’s okay,” you say. “I was just practicing.”

Jimin smiles and runs his fingers back through his orange hair. “Seems like you do that a lot.”

“Gotta stay sharp.”

He nods in agreement then looks down at his feet and toes the dirt with his boot. He has a bow and a quiver of black arrows slung across his back.

You make your way back to your place facing the target and square your shoulders. After letting another couple knives go, you glance over at Jimin. He hasn’t said anything else and now he leans against a tree, glancing at you a little awkwardly. Maybe he isn’t used to the silence, especially with how loud the other boys are. You, on the other hand, are used to the silence and concentrate better in it. Though him watching you is really starting to get under your skin.

“Want to practice with me?” you finally ask.

Jimin gives you a grateful smile then pushes off the tree and takes the bow from across his back. He comes to stand next to you and you watch as he takes an arrow from his quiver and strings it. You barely blink and suddenly, the arrow is twenty feet away, buried deep in the trunk of the target tree.

“So what’s your story?” he asks you.

“My story?”

“Like what were you doing before all this happened?” It seems like he’s not only waiting for your answer but for you to take your turn as well. You throw your blade sloppily and it sticks near the base.

All of a sudden your mind is blank. You have to stop and try to think of what life was like before crap hit the fan. It’s weird how something can be totally comprehensible in your mind yet you can’t put it into words. Something will make perfect sense to you but when you try to say it, all you get in return is a confused look.

“Jungkook and Tae and I are from Busan,” you finally say. “Tae went to do an internship in Seoul for Bang Pharmaceuticals and—”

“Aren’t they the ones that started this whole mess?” Jimin asks lowering his arrow to look at you.

You shift uncomfortably on your feet. “Yeah, we didn’t know they were developing the The Virus. Tae didn’t know either. At least I don’t think he did.”

“What do you mean?”

You fiddle with one of your knives and bite your lip, trying to organize the thoughts that clutter your mind. “Well, when he started his internship, we would still like text and Skype and stuff. But then about a month in, he told us he thought they were doing something shady and wasn’t really sure he wanted to continue the internship. The idea was that he was going to tell them he’d be dropping out of the program the next day. And then, that was the last we heard from him until after…” you look around. “…all this happened.”

Jimin seems completely enthralled now, ignoring the bow and arrow in his hands, his body turned toward you as he listens intently. “So how’d you find each other again?”

“Jungkook and I left Busan and went to Seoul to search for Tae. We eventually found him but he was…different.”

“You mean he hasn’t always been such a creeper?” he asks realigning his bow with the target. The arrow hits the tree and he looks at you again.

You smile sadly and look up to meet his eyes. “No,” you say. “He used to be warm. He had a way of making anyone he talked to feel special and loved. He liked to make people laugh.” You can feel tears pricking the corners of your eyes. “He had this smile that would make his mouth spread into this big rectangle and his eyes sparkle. He used to be so happy.”

“What happened?” Jimin asks quietly.

“I don’t know,” you utter. “I lost my best friend two years ago and I still feel like I haven’t gotten him back.”

“I’m sorry,” Jimin says. “That must really suck remembering how he was and seeing how he is now.”

“Yeah,” you say then sniff hard to clear your sinuses and flip the knife in your hand. You fling your arm hard, sending the blade hurtling toward the tree. It sinks to the hilt in the soft bark. “What about you?”

“I’m actually from Busan, too,” Jimin says releasing another arrow. “But I was in Gwangju going to school for dance. It’s a mess over there, too.”

“It’s a mess everywhere,” you utter and slip your last knife out from under your arm.

“True.” After you each empty your arsenals, the two of you trek down the worn path to the target tree. “That’s where I met Hobi,” he continues. “His mom was one of the first in their neighborhood to die from The Virus.”

“What about your family?” you ask when the two of you are back at your throwing spot.

“I don’t have one.”

Now it’s your turn to falter. Your grip loosens too soon and the knife you threw arches up and disappears into the canopy above. The leaves rustle as it makes its way back down and sticks into the dirt a few feet away from the tree. You and Jimin are silent for a second.

“Sorry,” you finally say wiping your sweaty palms on your pants.

“It’s okay. Anyway, Gwangju was hit pretty hard but the two of us managed to catch a ride up this way with a group of some other survivors.”

“What happened to them?”

“People kept splitting off from the group. We lost a couple in an attack. Another one became too sick to walk so we had to leave him.”

You clench your hands into fists. Taehyung and Jungkook should have left you behind. You only slowed them down. It was a good thing Jimin found you instead of a raider. Or a ravager…

“We ended up wandering over here and met RM and Yoongi and Seokjin,” Jimin says. “I guess we’re pretty lucky. Hobi had a hard time seeing it that way. It took him a long time to recover after losing his mom. She was all he had left.”

“It can be hard to find the silver lining,” you say.

When you look at Jimin again, his eyes glitter and the corners of his mouth are curled up into a knowing smirk. “Is Jungkook your silver lining?”

You dip your head as you feel your ears heat up. “I guess,” you whisper and twirl the hilt of another knife in your palm. “What about you?”

“The rest of the guys have become my best friends. Closer than that,” Jimin says. “More like brothers. They’re the family I never really had.”

You throw your blade and it clips the side of the trunk, slicing off a big chunk of bark before falling to the ground. A disappointed sigh escapes before you can stop it.

The evening brings with it a warm wind smelling like grass and pine. Crickets chirp from somewhere outside the glow of the fire and the stars overhead seem to shine brighter than you’ve ever seen. They look so close, like you could reach up and scatter them with your fingertips.

You’re sitting with Jungkook and Taehyung against the tree again, away from everyone else. You’ve been fiddling with one of your knives, absentmindedly twirling it between your fingers then stabbing the blade into the ground up to the hilt without really noticing when Taehyung leans against your shoulder. It causes you to snap out of your thoughts.

“It looks like you got your groove back,” he says.

“What are you talking about?” You didn’t used to mind Taehyung’s lack of awareness when it came to personal space but now it just makes your skin crawl.

“You seem to be handling the knife pretty well again.”

“Were you ever worried?” you ask. You feel Taehyung shrug against your shoulder then he digs into his pocket and pulls out yet another cigarette and lights it with a plastic lighter. You managed to whittle a pretty decent sized hole in the earth without even realizing it and now you scrape at the loose dirt to cover it back up. “Well, you shouldn’t be,” you say. “I can take care of myself.”

Taehyung lets out a short bark of a laugh under his breath. “Right. You proved that perfectly by letting your hands almost rot off.”

You cut a new hole into the ground next to the other one as you bite your tongue to keep from lashing out at him. Surely, that’s what he would want anyway and there’s absolutely no way you’re giving Taehyung what he wants. Jungkook stirs on your other side and his fingers intertwine with yours.

“Stop being a jerk, Tae,” he says then gives your hand a sympathetic squeeze.

You slip your hand back out of his and get up, brushing the back of your pants off. “I think I’m going to go figure out where I’m supposed to sleep.”

It takes you a second to spot Yoongi. He’s sitting on a rock, his attention fixed on the fire as his hands expertly disassemble then reassemble his handgun. As you make your way toward him, you can hear Jungkook and Taehyung bickering behind you. Surely, Jungkook is getting on him about being nicer to you but you spent the last two years with this new Taehyung. It seems like a lost cause at this point.

“How was your second day of consciousness?” Yoongi asks when he notices you approaching him.

You shrug. “It was alright,” you say then catch yourself. “But, seriously, thank you for everything.”

Yoongi’s lip twitches and his dark eyes sparkle in amusement. “Well, we couldn’t just leave you to the looters, you know.”

“Looters?”

Yoongi stands up. “Yeah, those idiots that think they’re entitled to our stuff. What do you call them?”

You glance around as several other pairs of eyes stare back curiously. “Uh,” you stammer. “We’ve always call them raiders.”

“Raiders?” Seokjin asks from his place near the table. “This isn’t Fallout.”

“Well it kind of is.”

“Aish, shut up, Hobi,” Jimin says with a playful whack.

Hobi shrugs and cracks a smile. “Raider sounds so much cooler though.”

The fire finds an air pocket in a log and pops loudly causing everyone to jump at the sound. Yoongi stands up then and grabs a flashlight off the table. “Let me show you around a bit more,” he says and starts toward the train. “Jungkook and Taehyung got their tour the other day.”

Before following after him, you throw a glance at Taehyung. His lips curl into a smile and he winks just before placing his cigarette back between his teeth. You turn away quickly and follow after Yoongi.

“Alright,” Yoongi says as you near the train. It’s a dark, ominous ghost sitting there on the rusted tracks and for the first time, you wonder how long it’s been waiting here alone before these people found it. “This front one is our weapons car,” he says and pulls a key out from under his shirt. You watch as he slips the cord it hangs on from around his neck and unlocks the sturdy looking padlock. Once the key is back around his neck, he heaves the door open. It slides to the side with a loud, creaky rumble.

When he clicks the flashlight on, the dark cave floods with light and you have to squint. Guns, knives and weaponized melees sit in piles and stack on crudely made shelves. You spot Jungkook’s shotgun and Taehyung’s pistol on top of a short shelf close to you. Your hand goes to grip the handle of one of your knives.

“Why did you take their guns?” you ask trying to sound more curious than nervous.

Yoongi turns the flashlight back off and starts to slide the door closed. “We confiscated them as soon as we brought the three of you back here.” The door sticks and he shoves hard with a grunt, closing the last couple of feet with a resounding clang. “They haven’t asked for them back so I figure we’ll hold onto them a bit longer.” Then his eyes settle on your thigh holster and he smiles. “Don’t worry,” he says. “We won’t take your knives from you.”

Your shoulders relax as you let out a silent sigh of relief. Then you follow him on to the next car. Instead of opening it up, he just hits the side with his palm. “My room,” he says then turns to look at you. “I sleep better knowing the weapons are safe.” Then you continue in the same way down the tracks. The shower car is next, followed by the one holding their food and supplies. Yoongi opens that one up revealing more cobbled together shelves stacked high with cans and boxes and bags of things they’d accumulated from the surrounding areas.

“A couple of us go on supply runs a couple times a month. Looks like I’ll need Jin and Hobi to restock a few things,” he says and pokes at the almost empty sack of potatoes near the door with his flashlight.

You move on to the next car. “Here’s the infirmary car.” Then he turns to you and smiles. “But you already knew that.”

Of course you did. You apparently spent your first two days there. Next is the common area, only ever used when the weather is bad, and the ones following that are the bedrooms and then just empty cars.

The car you and Jungkook spent last night in was uncomfortably bare—though you didn’t really care at the time. “So which one is mine?” you ask wanting nothing more than to just lay down.

Yoongi seems to understand this and only holds your stare with a cocked eyebrow for a few seconds before beckoning with his head for you to follow him back the other way.

“I had Seokjin put blankets and sleeping mats in this car here,” he says stopping in front of the one just behind Jimin’s.

You utter a “thanks” and tug on the door until it finally gives. It opens with a squeal that echoes down the tracks before breaking free of the tree line and fading into the darkening sky. Three bright blue sleeping mats have been unrolled in the center of the car and a small stack of blankets sits on the middle one.

“You’re gonna miss out on RM’s music hour,” Yoongi says as you heave yourself up into the car.

“I think I’ll pass tonight,” you say and shove the blankets aside so you can slump down on the middle mat. “Sleep sounds like the most fun thing right now.” Your eyes are closed so you can’t see the face Yoongi makes but after a few silent seconds, he sighs.

“Well, alright then,” he says. “Don’t want to impede on your good time.”

Before he has a chance to shut the door, you sit up. “Yoongi, I know I already said this but seriously, thanks for everything.” Yoongi pauses with his hand resting on the handle. You study your hands to keep from meeting his eyes. “I’m sorry I’m such a downer but I’m just not used to so many people, I guess.” Finally, you do look up and he nods like he understands.

“I wasn’t either at first,” he says. “But these guys have become my family. And you’re welcome to stay for as long as you’d like.”

“Thanks,” you utter.

Yoongi gives a nod. “Well, nighty night and all that.”

“Night, Yoongi.”

He shuts the door, leaving you alone in the darkness. While the air has cooled significantly since the afternoon, it’s still a lot warmer than you were used to in Seoul so you crumple one of the blankets up and use it as a pillow, leaving your body exposed to the stagnant air that fills the car. It doesn’t take long after that for you to fall asleep.

You’re still between worlds when the door creaks open and you faintly recall hearing Jungkook’s and Taehyung’s whispers but even as you try to hear what either of them are saying, you feel yourself slipping away. You’re floating, tumbling through space until you finally land hard on the floor in Jungkook and Taehyung’s dorm…

When you wake the next morning, you’re curled in a ball with one of your knives clutched to your chest. At first you’re surprised you didn’t accidentally stab yourself in the night and then you’re filled with terror at the possibility that—while you didn’t hurt yourself—you might have hurt Jungkook or Taehyung. It only takes a second to extinguish that thought, though.

Light filters in through the partially open door so you’re able to see that Jungkook is still lying on his back snoring softly beside you. Taehyung’s spot on your other side is empty. There’s no blood on his mat or on your knife so you figure it’s safe to assume he’s fine. Though maybe a little knick wouldn’t have been a bad thing.

Your feet barely touch the gravel outside the train car when Jimin bounds up to you. “Hobi and Seokjinnie have already left on their supply run and I’m bored. Want to go hunting with me?”

You look down at the knife still clutched in your hand at the same time Jimin does then give him a nod. “I guess I’m probably okay enough to try hunting again,” you say as Taehyung’s face appears in your mind. Don’t want to get rusty.

You haven’t really done any hunting yourself since killing that dog back in Seoul and though that wasn’t even very long ago—which blows your mind since it seems like it was ages ago—you can tell that you’re going to be spending a lot of your time retrieving your knives without an animal stuck on the other end of the blade. Jimin, on the other hand, has already collected himself a nice little stockpile of squirrels and birds, enough that the bag slung over his shoulder is too full to add any more. You look down at your own empty sack, a knot forming in your stomach.

“So, what were you going to school for?” Jimin asks obviously trying to distract you.

You shrug. “I switched majors a couple times while I was there but I never really figured out what I wanted to do. Jungkook and Tae seemed to have their lives set from the get-go.” Just then the two of you freeze as you hear rustling in the bushes ahead of you. You crouch down, slipping a knife from its sheath. Of course, at that moment, whatever animal it was that was hanging out in there decides to dart away in a flash of gray fur and you straighten back up with a sigh. “Jungkook was an art major and Tae wanted to get into pharmaceuticals,” you continue. “It was his dream to follow in his father’s footsteps. To help people. He really was a good guy.”

“Sounds like it,” Jimin says.

Another louder rustling comes from behind you, this time sounding like something much larger than an animal is approaching and at a much quicker pace, and you whirl around. A few seconds later, Taehyung bursts into view, anger glowing like fire in his dark eyes. “Where’s my gun?” he snaps.

“Speak of the devil,” Jimin utters as he lowers his bow then straightens up. “How would I know?” he asks loudly with a shrug. You’re a little surprised that Taehyung’s anger isn’t affecting him—then again, he seems to bicker with Seokjin a lot.

Taehyung stabs a finger at him. “You were the one that shot me with an arrow. When I woke up, my gun was gone. You took it. Where is it?”

Why does he suddenly need it so badly? You step in front of Jimin. “Tae—”

“Shut up, Y/N,” he growls then turns to Jimin again. “Where is it?”

Now he crosses his arms over his chest. “Well, if you’re going to cop that kind of attitude, you’ll never get it back.”

“You’re attacking the wrong person, Tae,” you say. “You want your gun back, talk to Yoon—”

“Y/N,” Jimin quickly cuts you off. When you look at him, he shakes his head no.

Suddenly, motion behind Taehyung has you shifting your focus to the trees surrounding you. Everything looks still, at first. Then the branches shutter and a tree shifts, morphing into the shape of a man.

“Tae, get down!” you scream.

After two years of fighting together, you’ve learned to follow each other’s orders without hesitation. Because of this, Taehyung dives to the ground just barely avoiding your knife, which buries itself to the hilt in the soft spot between the ribs of the masked man behind him. As soon as the raider’s back hits the dirt, Taehyung swivels on his foot and snatches a rusted machete out of his slackened hand.

Already a dozen more raiders have flooded into the clearing. Jimin launches arrow after arrow at the oncoming horde while Taehyung rushes forward, connecting blade to flesh at lightning speed. It doesn’t take long for you to get down to your last knife and then you leave Jimin’s side to join Taehyung in combat.

The searing heat of sharp metal cuts across the back of your thigh and you spin to face your aggressor. White-hot pain renders you blind for just a second but it’s long enough for the raider to throw a fist and crack it across your cheekbone. You go down hard and the air escapes your lungs before you can catch it. You roll over quickly and watch through a haze as the raider draws back his knife. Then with a flash of honey colored hair and pale skin, he’s thrown away from you. Without a word, Jimin grabs your wrist and pulls you to your feet before planting an arrow in another raider’s chest. Several ear-shattering shots ring out.

When your vision has finally cleared, bodies clutter the ground and you and Jimin stand there, shoulders heaving as you try to catch your breath. Taehyung rolls to his feet and swipes the back of his hand across his bloodied bottom lip.

“I want my gun back,” he says before turning and starting back down the path he came.

Only now do you realize that Yoongi is there too and immediately you remember the flash of light hair and the gun shots. How did he get there so quickly? He puts a hand on Taehyung’s chest, stopping him in his tracks.

“You’ll get your gun back when you’ve earned it,” he says, his voice low, his gaze piercing.

Taehyung glances back over his shoulder, locking his eyes with yours for a second before stepping around Yoongi and disappearing down the path. Yoongi looks at the two of you and gives a small smile before hefting his gun in his hand and turning to follow Taehyung back toward the field.

“I should probably go talk to him,” you utter as you put your knives back in their sheathes.

“Just don’t mention anything to him about Yoongi having the key to the weapons car,” Jimin says toeing a dead raider. Then he looks back up at you. “We don’t need more trouble from him.”

With a guilty nod, you trudge off down the path after Taehyung. It takes you jogging to finally spot him ahead of you.

“Kim Taehyung!” you yell after him.

He doesn’t stop so you pick up your pace to catch up with him.

“Hey,” you growl when you finally reach him. You grab the sleeve of his shirt and spin him around to face you. When he does, his glaring eyes meet yours. “Yoongi and the others have been nothing but nice to us. You can’t talk to him the way you did.”

“Like hell they have,” he barks back. “Maybe they’ve been nice to you because you’re a girl and they probably haven’t seen one in a year but I feel like a prisoner here.”

You clench your fists at your sides. How dare he assume something so shallow about these boys that have been nothing but generous to all of you? “Why do you even need your gun?” you ask. “You obviously can handle yourself just fine without one.”

“Why do you need your knives?” Taehyung asks and closes the space between you till his breath is hot on your face. “Want me to take those and see how you feel?”

You step back. “Don’t you dare touch my knives.”

Taehyung towers over you still and suddenly you feel like the blades at your side wouldn’t be enough if he decided to try anything. You bite down hard until your jaw aches but you continue to hold his gaze, refusing to back down as he tries to intimidate you. You search his dark eyes for any trace of your old best friend but it’s as if you’re looking at a stranger. Those eyes hold no familiarity for you. It’s like there’s nothing left of him in there. At last, you feel your body relax, your eyes turning down in sadness.

“What happened, Tae,” you finally whisper. “Where’d my best friend go?”

You see his steely composure crack for a split second, his eyes widening and he takes a jolting step backward.

“Y/N!”

You and Taehyung turn at the same time to see Jungkook jogging toward you down the path. He steps between the two of you and put his hands on your arms. “Yoongi just came back and said there was an ambush, are you okay?”

“Yeah, I’m fine,” you say breathlessly. Why are you trembling. Your eyes dart past Jungkook’s shoulder to Taehyung standing behind him.

Jungkook turns too. “You?”

“Just peachy,” he says then turns away.

The two of you watch Taehyung as he digs his hands into his pockets and trudges away again. When he’s out of sight, Jungkook turns back to you, his brow still furrowed with concern. “You sure you’re okay?” he asks, though you aren’t sure he’s talking about the raider attack anymore.

“Yeah,” you say. “I think so.”

Dinner that night is delicious, served by these people that took you in. And of course, you can barely keep yourself from licking the plate clean. Hobi and Seokjin still aren’t back yet from their supply run but according to Jimin, they won’t be back until tomorrow morning anyway. Yoongi took over the cooking for the day and, while Seokjin seems to have a special touch, the food is still good.

Jungkook shifts closer to you on the log you sit on until you can feel his bare arm brush your own. You still can’t believe how warm it is here compared to the biting cold of Seoul. It makes you wonder what’s going on there right now.

What happened to Bang Pharmaceuticals after you hightailed it out of there? Was it overtaken by raiders? Were they there now, eating your food, sleeping in your beds?

You shudder causing Jungkook to lean in even closer. When you look up at his face, his eyes bear a worried look.

“I’m fine,” you crack quietly enough so no one else can hear you.

He doesn’t look convinced.

Finally, you get up. “I think I’m going to go to bed,” you say glancing around the circle. Jimin gives you a small smile and you should return it but all you can think about is getting to your train car and cutting yourself off from the rest of the world.

As you lay there on your mat in the darkness, you can’t shut your brain up. No matter how hard you try, memories keep forcing their way out of the depths of your mind. Memories of your college days, mostly of Jungkook and Taehyung and your late night antics. Study sessions turned into midnight food runs, One Piece marathons turned into wrestling matches, you miss it all. You miss how things used to be. You miss your best friend with all your heart. The sound of his genuine laughter is already fading from your mind. And as your eyelids begin to droop, you find yourself welcoming the nightmare that you know is waiting for you on the other side of consciousness. You don’t care about the pain or the terrible ending. You just want to relive the memories. You just want to see your best friend again.

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saintsofwarding · 10 months

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WE SHALL BE MONSTERS

Header by @keltii-tea

Chapter 20: An Explosive Conclusion

The storm raged, blizzard descending by the minute, but even that wasn't enough to cow Lady Dimitrescu. She mutated, and in a few wingbeats, she, Rose, and Donna had sailed from the ruined crags of her castle and onto the far side of the crater Chris's bomb had bitten from the earth, onto the cliffside overlooking the factory itself.

The great stone bridge leading to Heisenberg's factory was crumbling away, overgrown with yet more of Miranda's calcified tentacles, bursting upward to wind around and over the bridge as if to pull it down into the ravine below. Far down, a river raged, bursting its banks; the freezing spray whipped Rose's cheeks as she strode over the bridge, Donna at her back, Dimitrescu once again in her humanoid form.

Around them loped lycans. Moreau's lycans. It was uncanny to see them there, clambering over the tentacles and ancient stones with ease, snarls and weird howls and other vocalizations filling the wind as they signaled to one another, not attacking, but...guarding. Guarding her, guarding Donna and Dimitrescu.

Her control over them, through Moreau, was a flexing tension, an omnipresent pressure in her mind.

A web.

A network.

Branching, like the roots of some great fungal colony growing, stealthily, belowground. How the hell had she done it? Easily, she told herself. As easily as she'd taken control of Heisenberg when she was just a baby, stealing his power away from him at her whim. As easily as she'd slithered into that BSAA commando's head, had killed him almost without thinking, had invaded the Embryo creature's mind to read it like a bar code.

Her mouth tasted bitter. She shook her head, shook off the pressure. But it was always there, always growing. A matrix of paths in her mind, pathways of glistening black. Blood vessels, rivers. Chains.

This is who you were meant to be. Special child. Holy child. Don't you understand?

More lycans filled the ravine and the darkening landscape of the village, the sky growing more and more begloomed by the moment as night set in. Their torches glowed in the darkness, a sweep of guttering points of firelight filling the shadows.

The lycans' yelps and howls rose into the sky, fading as Rose and the others crossed the bridge, toward the factory looming beyond. Its myriad chimneys poured black smoke, underlit with a dull red glow that must have been a furnace going at full blast.

Rose surveyed the field of dead grass past the factory gates, filled with heaps of rust that must have once been pieces of Heisenberg's experiments, the junk of decades cast-off when they proved unusable for his grand ambitions of murder and freedom.

No sign of Ouroboros out there. Had they infiltrated the factory? But then why turn it on, if their aim was stealth?

Something was wrong, here. Very wrong. She should be cautious, approach this from a smarter angle.

She didn't want to approach this from a smarter angle. She wanted this to end. Now. Tonight. In blood and tears, if possible.

One of the lycans snarled, scrambling to the parapet beside her. Rose turned. "Stay back." She sensed Moreau's feeble attempts to gain control of them. "Stay back."

It rounded on her, fangs glistening. Rose stared up at the monster; it snapped, then, with a shudder through its whole body, it backed off. Head lowered, it climbed down the side of the bridge, joining the others thronging all down the cliffside.

Rose let out her breath, then glanced at Donna, just behind her. Her expression was impossible to gauge under her veil, but Rose felt her eyes on her, felt the weight of her regard.

Angie leaned in to whisper something to Donna, and Donna nodded, slowly, never taking her eyes from Rose.

I had to, Rose wanted to scream at her. Don't you get it? I had to. But Donna would never listen to that excuse. Donna had heard it before, and had only believed it then out of desperation. Now, it wouldn't cut it again.

Rose made herself look away from the pair, her throat tight, her eyes hot. No. She couldn't stop now. She couldn't look back now.

And if your mother's in there?

What then?

Mia Winters was a shadow. A memory of a memory. How many of those memories were of her, anyway? How many of the real Mia Winters, and not of Miranda? She'd been so young when Miranda had captured her mother, less than six months old. Miranda had impersonated Mia well, but in the end it was still her. By all rights, by all memory, Miranda was her mother, not Mia.

That will make this easy.

The main factory gates looked like something from one of the many cities Rose and Heisenberg had lived in over the years, fencing off a shipyard or scrap-heap. They were orange with rust, clanging in the icy wind, loops of razor wire strung over the top. Through them, the field was silent; nothing moved save that wind, save the ripple of the grass.

"Open it up," Rose told Dimitrescu.

The gates burst open with a slash of her talons. Rose stepped through; an alarm went off in the distance, a high wailing trill echoing from hidden speakers. She drew her sword, but there was nothing- no commands, no rattle of bullets. Huge pylon towers creaked in the oncoming blizzard. The rustle of grass sounded like whispers, a crowd of them surrounding her in the snow-mist.

Rose grit her teeth, her heartbeat ticking in her throat as she and the others stopped before the main entrance to the ramshackle old factory, big weathered barn doors held shut with a stout chain. This place didn't look like the sort to birth a corpse army, an endless stream of mechanical monstrosities. But, then again, neither did Heisenberg.

"Hey!" Rose shouted. "Ouroboros! You wanted me? Here I am!"

She lifted her hand, summoning a burst of mold that writhed from the grass like a nest of snakes. "Here we all are! You find my dad yet? You wanna come talk about it face to face?"

"Child," Dimitrescu muttered, her shoulders braced, her claws still unsheathed. Her eyes were narrowed as she surveyed the factory, chest rising and falling. Smelling something. "I do not think this is-"

"Come on!" Rose's voice rang off the factory doors. The mold roared higher, becoming a tentacled barrier circling her, round and round. "Are you in there, Mom? Come and get me! I'm here! I'm right here-"

A rumble sounded from within the doors; it cut off Rose, the noise increasing in strength as she stood, tense. A split appeared between the doors, darkness within; Rose braced, like Dimitrescu, waiting for gunfire, waiting to bring her mold up in a defensive wall and send it slashing outward, destroying everything and everyone it touched.

But there was nothing. No one. No one but two shadows standing in the cargo lift beyond.

Rose blinked.

Electricity arced and snapped, blue-white in the darkness.

Rose slashed out with her mold as shrapnel sliced toward her face; it pealed off the mold shield, going wide, embedding itself in the grass around her, where it smoked and sparked, still humming with power.

"What the fuck?" The voice echoed past the pulse of blood in her ears. "Dimitrescu? How the shit are you fuckin'-"

Rose choked, "Heisenberg?"

***

The mold fell.

He was there. He stood before her in the lift, his hands raised, shrapnel and old tools orbiting his upper body. He wore clothes identical to those she remembered from her childhood: trench coat streaked with grime and grease, hat, tanker boots, and all.

Lord Heisenberg, Rose thought, somewhere through the shock. He stared at her, squinting from behind his new round shades, as if she might not be real, as if he might still attack.

He didn't. He blinked. He opened his mouth.

It took a second before any sound came out.

"Kid?" he said.

"Heisenberg-" Rose stepped forward, heart pounding. "Wait- how- what happened to you? You...you blew up...on the Osiris-"

Her pulse shocked down to her fingertips, mingled relief and dread radiating through her with every beat. She wanted to rush to him, to spring into his arms, but she forced herself to stop a few yards off. "I thought you...I thought-"

"Can't kill me so easy, kid. I see you got some new friends." Rose saw him look at Donna, heard the faint hiss of Donna's exhale. His eyes moved on, traveling up and up. He scoffed at Dimitrescu. "No accounting for taste-"

"I might say the same," Dimitrescu said, her voice smooth and cold as glacial ice. "Though we both know you always did like the broken ones, didn't you?"

Her eyes settled on the shadow behind Heisenberg in the lift, head lowered, hands in fists. For a moment she thought she was looking at her own shadow. The way she stood; the tilt of the head, the shape of the face.

Cold twisted into her heart.

"Hey, Rose," her mother said.

Rose's blood sloshed in her ears. The cold drove deeper. She understood, then, with a dark, radiant thrill. It was all gonna be okay. Heisenberg must have escaped, must have figured out Rose would go back to the village, too, had taken Mia as a hostage and come here to meet her, knowing she would want her vengeance.

"You got her, Heisenberg. Nice job." She was stepping forward, lifting her hands, her mold rising, twining up her sword's blade to dull its gleam beneath rippling darkness. Kill her, she urged herself. Mia stared back at her, not pleading, but resolute. Strangely satisfied. She screwed up your life. Don't you want this to end?

She did. It would. "Get ready to die," she snarled. "You-"

Heisenberg grabbed her by the shoulder, stopping her short. Rose gave a small gasp; she set her weight against him, but he dug his fingers in.

"Get out of my way," Rose told him.

"No chance, kid."

She stared at him. He stared back, gray-green eyes gleaming behind his glasses. His face was stony, his aura of power vibrating through his grip on her.

"You're not-" Rose looked at Mia. "She's not- she's not your prisoner?"

"Not this time."

"Have you gone mad?" Dimitrescu strode toward them, a sneer of pure, dripping disdain on her face. "Kill the mortal and let's be done with this ridiculous little reunion. There are battles to be fought, unless you've lost your memories along with your mind."

"No can do, Alcina." His fingers bit into Rose's shoulder. He still hadn't looked away from her. "Plans have changed. There's a new bully in town."

"What," Dimitrescu enunciated, "Is that. Supposed. To mean."

"You can't be protecting her," Rose whispered. "You- you can't-"

A muscle twitched in his cheek. "Listen to me, kid-"

"I did," Rose said. "For years. And you lied then. You kept the truth from me then."

"And look how well you're handling it now."

She ground her teeth together. "I never really knew you, did I? What you were. What you were capable of."

He glanced up at the other Lords. "I could say the same for you, kid. I'm curious. What do you think I'm capable of?"

"Not this. Not betraying me. Not betraying-" She shook her head, swallowing down the lump in her throat. "She make you a better offer or something? Ouroboros promise you the world? Is that what you always really wanted?"

"No. Fuck, Rose, just shut your damn mouth for once and listen-"

"I'm done with listening to you." Mold snaked around his hand and wrist, constricting down with all the force Rose could muster. Bone crackled; he yelped, releasing her. She twisted free of his grip. Mia stood before her, hands lowered, eyes on hers. She didn't move as Rose advanced, as she lifted the sword, to bring it down, to shear her in two-

Agony ripped through her. Rose screamed; the shard of shrapnel burst from her shoulder, tearing open the deltoid like a rotten orange. Her hand opened, grip strengthless. The sword spun away as her arm flopped to her side, wound spewing blood and mold.

She whirled on Heisenberg. His glasses shone blue, reflecting his lightning.

"Sorry, kid," he said.

Rose could barely breathe. White flashed through her nerves, even as warmth in her shoulder told her the flesh there was knitting back together, her arm usable again. Sickening, awful. Dimitrescu let out a resonant laugh, tossing back her head.

"You're such a fool, Heisenberg," she said. "I knew, even years ago, your little fatherly charade would crumble through your fingers. You're incapable of anything more than greed and-"

A massive gear sailed through the air and clocked her on the side of the head, so hard it sheared away part of her scalp and skull. Dimitrescu let out a howl, her upper body snapping back; she actually staggered. The wound poured blood, and she slapped a hand to it as it began to knit slowly back together, one burning golden eye staring down at Heisenberg with incandescent fury.

"Whoops!" Heisenberg said.

"You disgusting mongrel," Dimitrescu hissed. "You'll pay for that when I drain the life from your ridiculous little body."

Heisenberg splayed a hand. "Good to see you haven't changed a bit, Alci," he said, his voice weary.

With a crackle, a hum, a massive metal hammer welded together from scrap slapped into his palm. Dimitrescu's roar filled the air; she lunged, and when Heisenberg stepped to meet her, it was with an impact like a freight train.

Rose was blasted back, electricity crackling around her. She rolled, skidded, came up spitting grass.

The sky roiled with the reverberation of blow after blow. Dimitrescu cleaved out with her claws, and Heisenberg ducked each strike, weaving in to clash aside her talons with the hammer; sprays of sparks burst into the mist, illuminating it from within.

"You can't win, Heisenberg," Dimitrescu cried. "I was always stronger than you."

"Hah!" Heisenberg's grin flashed pale blue in the light from his electricity. "Keep dreaming, Alcina, might as well have something nice in your fucked-up little parody of a life!"

He smashed her next blow away, whirling the hammer round his head, bringing it down against Dimitrescu's breastplate with the crack of metal against- well, Rose didn't know what the armor was made from, it couldn't be metal if Heisenberg wasn't using it to his advantage.

Dimitrescu actually stumbled, shockwave ripping the grass from around her feet. Rose saw her wince of pain and remembered what she'd said about being hungry, about not having enough blood.

Oh, god.

Her regenerative powers were failing her. Was Heisenberg capable of killing her now? Would he do it if he had the chance? He'd stopped short of killing her before when he had the advantage, but- but now?

Now, Rose wasn't sure of anything anymore.

He brought a hand into the air. The nearest pile of junk around the field disintegrated with a crackle, soaring into the air; the scrap shot forward, stabbing into everywhere on Dimitrescu that was unprotected. She slashed away some of the shrapnel, but there was more and more, swarming her like a hive of angry wasps. Cuts appeared on her face and throat, dripping black fluid.

"More, Alci?" Heisenberg began to laugh. "You still the strongest? You still the biggest baddest bloodsucking bitch in town?"

Rose's eyes darted, frantic, to Donna. She stood still as a shadow, Angie in her arms. Rose sensed again Donna's regard.

Will you do it? Order her to attack, too?

Then she looked to Mia. Her mother was pressed against the elevator doorway, rigid, staring from Dimitrescu to Heisenberg and back again as they fought, as they tore one another to pieces. Heisenberg let out a strangled "Agh!" as Dimitrescu's claws snagged his torso; she screamed as he bashed her with the hammer. The ground was slick with blood and mutagen.

Mia's eyes were wide, bright. They flicked to Rose.

A jolt went through her.

A tide of memories.

A field, shimmering with sunlight. A little girl in a black dress. A carved wooden goat. The spiraling wolfsong in the night. Old books, and buried secrets, and a people crying out for salvation, save us, save us, bring it all back. Love, unbearable. Grief, unending. Nothing else mattered. And at its heart, as ever, the dark pit, the answers waiting within-

-This is always who you were meant to be-

Rose shuddered back into reality. Her mouth tasted of mold. She lifted her shaking hands, but they were flesh and bone, not white crystal. She'd seen- no, that couldn't be possible-

"Stop," she said. Her voice was dry, a bare whisper. She faced Heisenberg and Dimitrescu, still hammering on one another, blow after blow.

"Stop!" she yelled.

They didn't hear her; maybe they didn't care. She broke into a run, tearing her way through the waist-high grass and toward them. The hum of Heisenberg's power coursed through her head, singing in the backs of her teeth; she set her jaw and pushed on. Mold unfurled from around her as she ran, as she shoved her way between them, flinging up her arms.

A black wave of mold erupted around her. "Stop it now," Rose cried, facing Heisenberg, then Dimitrescu, her arms outstretched. "You'll kill each other! Don't you get it? That's what she'd want- stop it right now!"

Heisenberg's hammer, already on the downswing, shuddered to a halt inches from her face. Rose stared up at him, breathing hard.

"What are you doing, child?" Dimitrescu said.

Rose lowered her arms. "Making things right."

She glanced at her mother, still standing in the elevator.

"Something's wrong with her, isn't it?" Rose asked Heisenberg.

"Yeah." He inclined his head, expression unreadable beneath both his glasses and the shadow cast by the brim of his hat. Shouldering his massive hammer, he drew a short breath. "Should have heard me out, kid-"

"And you shouldn't have done a lot of things, either, so shut up." The mold fell into a slurry around her boots. "It's Miranda. Isn't it. She never really died. She's been waiting this whole time. Waiting for us."

"Waiting for you," Mia whispered.

She cut her eyes over to her mother. "Why?"

"I don't know. Just that...you're important. More than just her child. More than just little Eva." Heisenberg gave a violent shudder at the sound of the name, glove leather creaking as he gripped his hammer tighter. Mia's voice fell, low and grim as the echo from the bottom of a well. "The ceremony isn't over yet."

Rose glanced up at Heisenberg, then back to Mia, Dimitrescu, Donna, who had crept closer and now stood just outside the circle of flattened grass from the fight. Dimitrescu breathed hard; the cuts on her face were healing, but slowly, and under her poise Rose could tell she was flagging.

"You must have had a plan," Rose said quickly, facing Heisenberg. "You...you wouldn't have brought her here if-"

"Yeah, kid, I did, before you and the peanut gallery tromped in here and fucked it up."

"Well, excuse me," Rose muttered. "Will this plan of yours work?"

"Of course it will."

"Good. We-"

"Rosemary! R...Rosemary!"

Donna stepped aside as a shuddering, shambling shape emerged from the gloom, wheezing with every labored step. Moreau. He'd recovered some kind of clothes with which he'd swathed his heavily-mutated body, and from his limping gait, the pain in his eyes, Rose guessed it had taken a hell of a lot of effort to run here.

"Rosemary, it's...it's bad, it's really bad..." he managed, between breaths.

"What is it?"

"I...ohhh, oh, no, oh, no-" Moreau wailed.

He collapsed, all at once, green bile spewing from between his teeth; Dimitrescu scoffed, turning away with arms crossed, but Rose stepped in, bending to grab one clammy arm, keep him from going down all the way.

His goggle eyes slid to face her. There was suspicion, there, and fear. Little wonder. Worst, though, was a kind of sick reverence, an uncontrollable devotion. A fanatic's obsession with a cruel god, cowed by its power, chained to it by terror.

"What's wrong?" Rose asked, trying to make her voice gentle. She wasn't fooling anyone, not even Moreau.

"To the...southeast..." He pointed back the way he'd come. "I saw them. Big flying machines. I tried to hide, but...they saw me...they saw me and now they're coming!"

He pitched over and retched again, acid splattering the grass. Rose let him go and stepped back, heart pounding. She heard it, then, over the sound and overwhelming stomach acid-and-rotten fish reek of Moreau's illness, over her own pulse in her ears.

Chopper blades.

Close, and getting closer.

Searchlights burst over the rise, plunging down to sweep the field. The black shapes of helicopters filled the sky; Heisenberg lifted his hands, debris heaving itself into the air as he prepared to send it toward the Ouroboros helicopters, dash them from the air.

He never got the chance.

With a splitting, screeching detonation, a burst of flame rocketed from the lead chopper. It streaked through the dark sky, aimed straight toward the heart of the factory.

No- Rose thought, but there was nothing she could do.

An instant of silence-

Then, in a great, blazing fantail of yellow-white flames, the factory exploded. Another rocket followed the first, and another, hammering the factory, turning it in seconds to a pulsing core of molten metal and raging fire.

With a crumbling roar, one of the great smokestacks disintegrated, sloughing sideways into the heart of the flames, consumed in an instant.

"No!" Heisenberg roared. "My factory!"

A rocket cratered the field, mere yards from Heisenberg; he stood his ground, facing down the choppers.

"You'll pay for that!" he bellowed, scrap orbiting him faster, faster. A second rocket exploded, showering him with dirt and charred grass. He advanced with each word, broad shoulders lowered, hair lifted by the force of his power- "I'll tear you apart- feed you to the lycans- bring you back, do it again, and again, and again, until you get the fuckin' message-"

"Heisenberg, no." Rose plunged toward him, grabbing him by the arm before the next rocket blasted him into spare parts. "They'll kill you-"

"Hah! Let them try!"

"And they will," Rose pressed. "Until we're all dead. Is that what you want?"

"Get off me, kid."

"No!" she screamed, slamming her fist into his beefy deltoid. He faced her, then, staring down with eyes lit orange and gold by the flames. "I am not watching you die."

"Rosie-" he said.

"Don't you freaking dare Rosie me. It's your turn to listen now." She wound her fist into his coat, hanging on. Making him hear her. "I came here to save you. To save you. Get that? Now come with me before I kill you myself."

Still he strained against her. Still she felt his resistance, his rage, just below the surface, as ever. She felt all of it- the loss of his factory, a limb severed, something else of his torn away and destroyed. The churn of his power, ready to explode forth in its unstoppable magnetic warp, lay waste to the mortals that had invaded his one-time territory.

Mold twined from her hand, into him, into him. His pupils dilated, hard and fast, and it was easier this time, easier even than Moreau.

You listen to me, now.

Rose reached inside his head and took control.

Make him-

She yanked him, hard. They stumbled back together, collapsing behind a pile of metal scrap in a tangle of limbs. Seconds later the grass where they'd stood burst in a spray of flames and char, a hit that would have reduced them both to ash.

Above, the choppers circled round, banking away, out of even Heisenberg's range. The factory burned before them, a raging inferno fed on chemicals and gasoline and God knew what else, so hot Rose felt her hair begin to crisp.

Despite the heat she and Heisenberg stared at one another, numb and rigid, unable to move from their ungainly tangle on the ground.

"Fuck, Rose," he breathed. He climbed to his feet, ash raining from his coat. Around them the dry grass blazed with dozens of small fires. "What the hell was that?"

"I-" she began, following him up. Her control over him was gone again, retracted almost as soon as she'd reached into his mind and forced him to move his ass. "I saved your life-"

"That's not what I'm talking about and you know it." He advanced on her, and despite everything, despite her relief at his being alive, despite all their years together, she backed off. The look in his eyes was a terrible thing. "What have you done? What the fuck have you done?"

Rose had no answer, no excuse.

The searchlights swung on, choppers now circling the village. A crackle came from the speakers mounted on the fence; the sound echoed from the village, too, transmitted over the entire archaic PA system, at last tearing Rose's focus away from Heisenberg.

"People of the village." The voice was cool, masculine, English, sending a chill through Rose. "Such as you are. You may know us, or you may not. The important matter is this. We are Ouroboros, and your valley houses something we want. The organization we represent is not a cruel one, nor wasteful. We recognize the plethora of scientific marvels contained within this single mountain valley, and don't want to destroy it like the recent, regrettable loss of House Heisenberg's ancestral factory. But if another such loss becomes necessary..."

The weighty pause rang out, crackling with static.

"Bring us the corpse of Ethan Winters, and the body of Mia Winters, dead or otherwise," the voice went on, "by sunrise, or we will be forced to take action. And this time, believe me. There will be no resurrections."

The speakers went silent. The roar of the flames grew higher, hotter; smaller explosions went off in the factory depths, rumbling under Rose's feet. She stared into the inferno, then turned to face the Four Lords before her.

Dimitrescu, bloodied and shaking with starvation. Moreau, staring up at her with that mixture of adulation and fear. Donna, silent and still; even Angie was unmoving. And, by her side once again, Heisenberg.

Rose found her sword in the grass. She picked it up and slid it home in its sheath on her back. Mia watched her, arms crossed, hugging herself. Rose watched her, too. Her mouth tasted bitter, ash and blood and mold.

"They're not gonna take it," she said.

She tore her gaze away from her mother's and searched the Lords' faces, one by one. "And we're not gonna give them anything. Not Ethan. Not my mother. Any protests?"

"None here," Heisenberg said. "Besides. Never did like lying down and taking it like a bitch." He winked at Mia. "Where's the fun in that?"

Mia gave him a dry smile.

"Is there a place we can go from here?" Rose asked, trying to pretend she hadn't seen that. Shit was weird. "Hide out?"

"I won't run and hide," Dimitrescu said. "Not again. Not from pathetic mortals and man-things such as those."

"We need to regroup. No point in fighting when you're dead on your feet," Rose told her. Dimitrescu drew her lips back from her teeth in a sneer, but didn't challenge her.

Rose's gut twisted. You were made for this, a voice whispered, deep, deep in her mind. Special child.

"I know a place," Donna said, softly.

Rose nodded. "Good. Then let's move." She stepped forward, the flames roaring at her back, the hellish, spark-filled wind off the burning factory whipping her hair in a pale storm around her face. "Once we're there, we figure out what the hell we're gonna do about Miranda-"

She lifted her head, facing the village below, swept with spotlights, its skies thrumming with the incongruous throb of rotors.

Their village.

My village.

"Then," she went on, "we figure out a way to murder those Ouroboros bastards."

#saints of warding #re8 #re8 fanfiction #re8 fic #karl heisenberg #rosemary winters #alcina dimitrescu #lady dimitrescu #donna beneviento #salvatore moreau #mia winters #ethan winters #mother miranda #resident evil village oc #re8 oc #resident evil village #resident evil #chapter 20

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things4your · 2 years

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Arcane Headers

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#Arcane Headers #Arcane Header #Arcane #header #headers #Firelights #Singed #Silco #Firelights headers #firelights header #Firelight Arcane #Silco header #Silco headers #Silco Arcane #Singed header #Singed headers

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owlish-peacock36 · 5 years

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Never Doubt I Love: Part 6 (REPOST)

So, Tumblr really deleted this chapter because of the header image... Which was literally hands on a bare back, but whatever... ANYWAY, here it is reposted WITHOUT THE HEADER IMAGE BECAUSE WE CAN’T HAVE NICE THINGS ON TUMBLR.

Previously:

Part 1 Part 2 Part 3 Part 4 Part 5

NSFW Warning. J/J/C Warning.

“John… I… We need to be honest with you.”

John was still staring at Claire, the unshed tears in her eyes holding him hostage.

“You see… I… We… Well…” The words stuck in her throat. Claire Fraser at a loss for words? Unheard of.

“Is everything alright?”

“Aye,” Jamie’s voice rose from behind him. “Everything’s fine. Claire is just—“

“John.” A deep exhale. “We have been friends for a very long time. The three of us.”

“Yes…” John wasn’t sure where the conversation was leading. “And I value that friendship. Above everything.”

“We know that, John. But… It's… more than that, isn’t it?”

Surely she didn’t mean… The Englishman could feel the beat of his heart strong beneath his shirt. He wondered briefly if the Frasers could hear it.

“Pardon me?” John choked, feigning innocence.

“It’s alright. You aren’t alone. We–Jamie and I–we feel the same, you know.”

Thoughts flew from John’s mind, unable to process the words. Surely it was just a misunderstanding of meaning that caused his heart to stop.

“Claire, I’m not entirely sure what–”

The woman’s mouth swallowed John’s words, erasing them from his thoughts. It was a tender pressure, soft and chaste. But, John felt his blood boil and his limbs paralyze. He was under her spell, stricken with so much want and need that his body could not respond to the increasing urgency of the kiss.

Perhaps it was a second–perhaps an hour–but the two finally broke apart with gasps of air. John pulled away quickly, only to drown in the molten gold of Claire’s eyes, dripping with concern.

“John? I’m so sorry. I just assumed that… That you felt the same. I… shouldn’t have… I’m sorry.”

Sorry? Did she take John’s surprise for disgust? Oh, no. That simply wouldn’t do.

“John, did you hear me? I’m so–”

It was his turn to interrupt her. Grasping her face with both hands, he crushed her to him, pressing his lips firmly to hers. She squealed in shock, but the sound quickly pitched to become a low moan that reverberated through John’s body. He opened his mouth to her, wanting to breathe her in, to take her completely. She met his open mouth with her own, tentative tongues dancing.

In the headiness of it all, John almost didn’t feel the large hand that landed heavily upon his shoulder. Almost.

“Mind if I join ye two?” The low burr tickled John’s ear, and he felt the warm breath upon his skin. “I dinna want to miss out on all the fun.”

Without an answer, Jamie’s lips pressed lightly against John’s neck. The Englishman could feel the rough stubble and hard jaw against his shoulder, so different from the softness of the woman in front of him.

“I’ve often imagined this.” A nip on the ear cause a shiver to run down John’s body. “You, between Claire and I. Where ye belong.”

Jamie spoke with a growl, the end of his sentence punctuated by his teeth on sensitive flesh. John groaned loudly, breaking his kiss with Claire.

“We should…” Her breathy whisper penetrated the hazy thoughts of her companions. “Get a bit more comfortable. Wouldn’t you men agree?”

She was teasing them, the firelight glinting in her eyes.

Jamie spoke first. “Oh, aye, Sassenach. Sounds like a bonnie idea.”

***

It was a standoff. The three stood in a triangle, eyes locked on each other. Who would be the first to break the spell?

It was Claire. Bold, beautiful Claire, her body shadowed beneath her shift. Her long fingers stretched toward her neck, loosening the tie that held the garment in place. Eyes flickered to both her men before pulling the shift from her shoulders, the fabric fluttering to the ground.

John was sure he’d never see a woman comparable to Claire. Pleasantly curved and pale, like an old sculpture of Aphrodite.

“Well… fair’s fair.” A wicked glint shone in her eyes. “Who’s next?”

Jamie’s mischievous grin matched his wife’s. He reached for the buttons of his breeks, shimmying until they pooled at his feet. He stood in just a shirt, his legs muscled and thick.

John felt emboldened. “Your shirt too, Jamie.”

“Says the man that’s fully dressed,” the Scot teased, but did as he was bid.

Where Claire was fair, Jamie was golden, his body sunkissed from years out of doors. The lines of his body were long and hard, shadows filling in where his muscles dimpled the skin. Blue eyes flickered toward John, crinkled with barely contained passion.

“Yer turn.”

Time seemed to slow as John carefully undressed before the Frasers. Cool air met his exposed skin, pebbling beneath the briskness. Every nerve ending was frayed; John could feel everything. The slight warmth of the fire behind him. The heavy breathing that tickled his hair. The scratching of wool as he lifted the shirt from his body.

There was a pause, a moment of reflection. Every pair of eyes roamed the bodies of the other two. It was incredibly arousing: bare, but not touching.

The three came to an unspoken consensus before colliding, becoming a tangle of bodies in the middle of the room. Hands flew, squeezing, testing. John sought out Jamie’s lips, kissing him roughly. His long red locks tickled the other man’s face. Claire sidled up to the men, gripping them both in her small hands.

They all moaned simultaneously.

Not wanting to leave her out, John reached for her, gently tracing a breast with his fingers. She threw her head back, and Jamie broke the kiss to attack her throat. John followed his lead.

The sound of panting and smacking lips filled the room.

“Bed…” Claire groaned.

The stumbled together, not wanted to break apart, collapsing on the over-sized Laird’s bed. Claire sat facing the men, both hands reaching to caress their lengths. John wondered briefly at her ambidexterity, but that though soon fled his mind. He leaned closer the woman, eye level with her breasts. Testing, his tongue slowly circled the pebbled nipple, eliciting a loud moan from her. Through his ministrations, he threw his hand to the right, helping Claire work Jamie’s cock.

“Ahhhh…”

They worked in tandem, bringing their red-haired man to the brink over and over again. But they would show no mercy. Not yet.

“Damn it, ye two!” Jamie’s complaint rang through the room. “John, lie down on yer back.”

The authoritative tone made John painfully hard, and he did as he was told.

“Claire, use yer mouth on him.”

She grinned, climbing up his body until she was eye-level with his length. A swipe of the tongue, and John almost lost himself.

“Do ye like that, John? Do ye like my wife’s mouth on ye?”

John could barely concentrate on the words, his mind focused on the warm, wet mouth that surrounded him. “Y…y…yes…”

“Good.” Jamie began pumping himself at the sight: Claire’s arse in the air, John lying prone beneath her. He made his way to John, the blond man’s lidded gray eyes following his every move.

“Will ye use yer mouth on me, then?”

Without pause, John gripped him, bringing him into his mouth. Jamie braced his hands on Claire’s arse, her head bobbing with her movements. He moaned as a tongue swirled around the tip, bolts of pleasure shooting through his body. He couldn’t. Not yet…

Removing himself from John’s mouth, Jamie positioned himself behind Claire. One, two, three licks to her slit had her mewling, the sound vibrating pleasurably through John’s body.

In one swift motion, he entered his wife, the impact felt in all three of them. He thrust hard and fast as Claire’s movements became more frantic. None of them would last much longer. Hands gripped: Jamie’s on Claire’s hips, Claire’s on John’s hips, John’s in Claire’s hair.

It was too much… too much…

John came first, finishing in Claire’s mouth. Panting, he watched the Frasers at their end. Jamie was rough, eyes closed, and Claire met his every thrust. She collapsed, trembling, and he followed soon after.

***

“I don’t think I’ve ever felt like this before.”

“Like what?” Two pairs of inquisitive eyes glanced John’s way, heavy-lidded and glassy from exhaustion.

It was simple. It always had been.

“Whole.”

#outlander fanfic #outlander fanfiction #never doubt i love #part 6 #repost #jamie x claire x john #jojamaire #poly au

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politicalmamaduck · 6 years

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through the darkness hails the light

My contribution to the 2017 @reylofanfictionanthology: Celebrate the Waking. Read it on AO3 here. A huge thank you to @southsidestory for the gorgeous header, and to my amazing editors @rapturousaurora, @reylotrashcompactor, and @shelikespretties!

Kylo mused on the strange young woman in his arms as they carefully traveled through the forest. There would still be many hours of travel, even on horse, before they would reach the ancient cairn.

She was clearly a sign of something, but of what? What were the gods trying to tell him?

Her presence felt like spring, even at the dawn of winter. It was incongruous and intoxicating.

She was the awakening he had felt; he knew it in his bones.

If trained, she would make a powerful ally. Her magic implied healing and nurturing more than the woman herself with the way she had fought him. He knew how intimidating he looked in his armor, and the way it must have appeared in the dark of the forest.

He was a vision from a daydream, from a nightmare, and the girl fought him anyway.

The fire within her would not be easily contained, he knew.

He wanted to be farther along in the forest before she awoke and demanded answers, answers he was not sure he could give.

Still he felt that call to the light, even more strongly with another magic user in his arms. Snoke would have ordered him to kill her on sight, and he did not. Leaving her alive was a calculated risk Kylo could not help but take.

There was something about her that drew him to her. Their paths crossing in the deep of the forest during the long dark was not a coincidence.

It was a few hours later when she awoke. They were soon to reach the night’s darkest point, and then hopefully only a few more hours would get them out of the forest. They would reach Newgrange by the solstice dawn.

They had to. It was calling to Kylo almost as strongly as the light.

The girl stirred in front of him, and he moved his arms in closer to her waist so that she would not slip from the saddle as she regained consciousness.

“Where am I?” she asked, looking about her.

“You’re my guest,” he said, trying not to frighten her and thus cause Macha to rear, sending them both flying. “We’re still in the forest,” he added, sensing her displeasure at his answer. “We should make Newgrange by the dawn.”

“Why are you taking me to Newgrange?” she asked, and he truly could not answer her, even after reflecting upon that very question during the past hours.

“You have awakened in your magic. You need a teacher. I can show you the old ways.”

“Why should I trust a creature in a mask?”

Reigning Macha in, he slowly unclasped his helmet and tucked it into his large saddle bag when she stopped. The woman twisted around to look at him, and confusion appeared on her face.

Kylo felt tendrils of her power reaching out to meet him, recognizing a kindred. His own power crackled in response, reaching out to meet hers. She felt this, and looked even more startled. He longed to see her face in the light, to read her eyes and palms. Their magic swirled around one another, searching each other out, revealing more than what could be with the naked eye in the dark.

Even as he did it, he knew why he nearly always left his helm and armor on rather than removing them. It was a sign of weakness, and an intimacy that he granted her, and he could not say why he had done it for her. A good soldier did not remove their helmet. Kylo’s magic provided him the element of surprise on the battlefield, granted him a power unseen. His helm allowed him to seem even more powerful yet, more frightening. He had taken pride in covering his face the way his grandfather had, unlike the other Roman centurions.

No one had seen his true face in quite a long time. He lived a solitary existence despite his association with the Empire.

He felt exposed, and unsure how to proceed. It was too late, and he could see better without his helm anyway.

“Tell me about your village,” he said, urging Macha to keep going and with the force of suggestion in his voice.

She had nothing by way of information to offer him, prattling about the petty dramas of Jakku village life. He noted that her village was not far from Tuanul; she had surely heard the news of the raid. She did not mention it, nor did she seem afraid.

“How did you find your magic?” he asked, and she paused.

“I had a vision,” she admitted, and then her back became straighter, rising in seeming understanding of something.

“I saw you,” she said, turning her chin to look back at him once more. “You saved me, from someone who was coming for me with a pike.” She shook her head, recalling the vision that overtook her in the firelight, only wise old Maz noticing.

“You led the attack on Tuanul, didn’t you?” she whispered, the words seemingly draining her. “You’re one of the Empire’s centurions.”

He would not, could not lie to her. “I led the attack, but I am not a centurion. I am the Master of the Knights of Ren,” he said, but the words seemingly had no impact on her.

“What was worth all the lives of those innocent people? Your Emperor wants to bring order, but he does so through bloodshed, through wrenching people away from their traditions and twisting the old ways to dark ends.”

“My master is wise, and powerful.”

“But you’re afraid. You’re afraid you’ll never be as powerful,” she spat back at him. He hissed at her, but she kept going. “You’re afraid you’ll never be as powerful as one of the Dagda’s champions.”

He flinched, and pulled back from her, reeling that she had seen through him as clearly as he had seen through her.

The night’s darkest point had come, and his dark magic should have been at its strongest. The solstice, the shortest day of the year, would dawn in hours, yet the light called to him more strongly than ever.

“I go to Newgrange to seek the Dagda’s blessing, yes,” he admitted, his voice breaking on the words.

“The gods do not take kindly to those who would undermine their influence by killing for an Empire that worships elsewhere,” she said, staring straight ahead into the forest.

They fell silent at that, and he did not know how to regain the conversation. They stopped once, when Macha was slowing. He offered his powerful horse water and an apple, and the woman the same.

It was when he offered her his skein that he realized he did not know her name.

“I’m Kylo Ren,” he offered. “And you are?”

“Rey,” she responded, quietly.

Their destinies were intertwined, the magic was telling him, and it must have been so. He did not know what would happen when they arrived at the great mound, but he knew the threads of fate had drawn him to Rey.

They mounted Macha, and continued on their journey, only hearing the distant howling of wolves once.

Hours passed, the dark not yielding, and Newgrange beckoned.

The world was quiet around them as they approached the ancient mound, even the mighty River Boyne seeming to cease its flowing.

They waited, and listened, and stepped forward and into the sacred center.

It was still dark on the interior; dawn would stretch her arms toward their green isle shortly.

The presence of the ancients and their power overwhelmed them, surrounded them, filled them. It was nearly overwhelming, as if the silence were singing and the earth breathing with the power of a pantheon of gods and warriors long gone.

Rey could scarcely breathe, yet the magic forced her to, forced her to draw it within herself with each breath. She was overcome by the ancient power in a way that she had not expected to be. She felt at peace in a way that she had not since her abandonment all those years before.

She heard rather than saw Kylo walk ahead of her, then he stopped, suddenly, as if waiting.

Grey was beginning to creep around the entrance, and they stood, waiting for the dawn.

It came upon them, suddenly and powerfully. The world was enveloped in light from the roofbox above them, and the tomb was illuminated.

Rey felt warm light embrace her, surround her, become one with her. Truly, this place was blessed by the gods. She felt more full, and alive, than ever she had before.

Kylo fell to his knees before her, his head in his hands, overcome by emotion. She turned away, wishing to allow him his moment with the gods.

The light surrounded him, called him, embraced him like his long lost mother. He had not allowed himself to realize how desperately he missed her and loved her, even after all they had been through.

Kylo began to weep. He knew in his innermost self why he had needed to come here, had craved the Dagda’s blessing. He had wanted to be free of his pain, of the conflict within him, and he had found his answer.

He could not receive the Dagda’s blessing subservient to the dark, to the Empire that sought to tame his wild green island home, to make it something it was not and could never be.

He needed his father’s forgiveness, to repair in death the rift he had not wanted to repair in life.

He sank down to his knees and truly prayed, speaking frankly to his ancestor rather than in the desperate, begging manner he had in the past when he was trying to commune with the dark.

I have come back to the light, Grandfather. I sought the wrong meaning from your bones, and I am sorry I did not listen to your message.

Neither his grandfather nor the Dagda answered at that moment, but Kylo was overwhelmed by the light surrounding them.

Perhaps that was all the answer he needed from the gods and his family.

Rey’s skin glowed in the sunlight, illuminating her eyes. She could have been the goddess Brigid, daughter of the Dagda himself for the way she looked. It took Kylo’s breath away.

She smiled at him, and took his hand, pressing it gently.

The new year would begin, and they would greet it together as they had greeted the dawn. The darkest midnight had come, and passed, and they had hailed the light.

#reylo #reylo fanfiction anthology #celebrate the waking #reylo fanfic #irish mythology #winter solstice #my writing #fan fiction

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jonsa-creatives · 7 years

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An Invitation to all Jonsa shippers...... The ABC of Jonsa

To celebrate the good ship Jonsa, we’d like to invite you all to take part in an A-Z of Jon & Sansa.

We have some creative, funny and talented people on board and would like to encourage you all to flood our tag with fun, positive Jonsa posts.

Great! How do I take part?

There are a number of ways that you could participate.

Fancy making a gif or pic set like THIS or THIS that was made for the HP fandom?

How about writing your own Jonsa Headcanon Alphabet?

Join us in our A-Z of Jon & Sansa with your own alphabet.

Or perhaps you could invite your followers to send you letters and respond with your corresponding headcanons? i.e...

E - End if the day (canon au) - they both like to sit together in the solar before they retire to bed. Sansa sews in the firelight at the hearth whilst Jon pretends to be reading scrolls (he’s actually too busy stealing glances at Sansa to pay attention to any of his missives) F - First Kiss (modern au) - the first time they kissed Sansa initiated it but it actually came as a bit of a surprise to both of them. They were alone in the Stark’s kitchen. Jon was the only person to offer Sansa help to wash up after a large family meal. She pecked him on the cheek to say thank you and then her gaze was pulled to his lips. Rickon found them later - Jon pinning Sansa firmly against the fridge with one of her legs hitched over his hip and a hand up her shirt. They bribed him with new video games not to tell.

You could even make a game of it and start your headcanon alphabet off, then tag some mutuals to continue.

It’s completely up to you! We would just love to continue to see the Jonsa community to what it does best - having fun!

GIF header courtesy of the very talented @effleuresense - thank you! xx

#Jonsa #Jon x Sansa #Jonsa Alphabet

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kelinswriter · 7 years

Text

Less Than Perfect

Chapter One: Kiss the Girl

Somewhere between Maggie’s right, we should kiss the girls we want to kiss and Wait, you want to kiss me? and Holy fuck, Maggie Sawyer is kissing me, Alex’s entire world changed. Changed, expanded, rearranged itself into a life before Maggie and a life after. All with one gob-smacking, knee-melting kiss.

And another. And then another.

They ended up on the couch somehow, migrating there by degrees until Alex was laying with her head propped against its arm, pillow tucked beneath her, with Maggie on top, her slender, jeans-clad legs intertwined with Alex’s while one thigh pressed deliciously close against Alex’s center. Every time Maggie shifted, Alex felt it through the thin cotton of her pajama pants, a deep, electric sensation that moved outward, spreading throughout her body until even her skin seemed on fire. But that was just one among the many extraordinary things that seemed to be happening in this strange, delirious symphony of pleasure. Because Maggie’s groin was pressed against Alex’s hipbone and Maggie’s breasts were sliding gently against Alex’s chest and Maggie’s lips were everywhere, coaxing her mouth open so she could explore inside, nibbling at her earlobes, dropping teardrop kisses against Alex’s neck and chest. And that didn’t even count the hands that framed Alex’s face, touched her skin, caressed her breasts through her shirt.

I finally get why teenagers can’t stop doing this.

Alex slid her hands down the back of Maggie’s shirt — her jacket had been discarded somewhere in the direction of the fireplace, and Alex truly hoped it hadn’t been singed — and teased over the top line of Maggie’s bra, catching at it and pulling gently in a way that made Maggie gasp and slide against her. Feeling brave, she kept her hands moving downward, tracing the curve of Maggie’s spine, the small of her back. Her index finger mapped the top edge of Maggie’s jeans, the knuckle dragging over the hard curve of Maggie’s belt while her fingertip grazed the smooth, bare skin that lingered just within reach. But Alex wasn’t quite adventurous enough for that yet, so she kept her hands on the outside, feeling the outline of a back pocket, the round shape of a quarter and two nickels tucked inside on the left and the slim bulge of a wallet on the right, and then a slow, rounding curve, a seam, a —

Oh, Jesus Christ.

Maggie let out a laugh and nipped Alex’s lower lip with her teeth. “Go on and grab hold. I don’t mind.”

“You’re sure?” Alex asked, wanting to so much. But a sudden terror was gripping her, that they were moving too fast, that her inexperience would get in the way of Maggie’s pleasure, that she would suddenly revert to the nervous, fumbling thirteen year old that she knew was hiding beneath her twenty-nine year old skin. Sixteen years that I could have spent figuring it out, and now it’s like I’m starting from scratch.

“Hey,” Maggie said, pressing her hand against Alex’s cheek, and Alex knew that Maggie must have seen the fear that was rushing in on her from all sides. “Alex, it’s okay to touch me. In fact, it’s better than okay.” She smiled, those brown eyes sparkling, and Alex felt like the sun was bathing its light across her face. “I don’t want you to be afraid of anything, okay? Just do what feels right.”

“But what if it’s something you don’t like, or…” Alex frowned, her terror only increasing at the thought of so much freedom. “I just…I’m out of practice in general, to be honest.”

“How long’s it been?” Maggie asked, and Alex felt a blush rise to her face. But Maggie just looked at her calmly, as if the answer to the question didn’t matter so much as the fact that Alex felt safe to answer it. And so Alex took a deep breath, swallowed, and told her.

“About three years, probably? I can’t exactly remember. But I do know it wasn’t like this.” She dropped her eyes, not wanting to see the look on Maggie’s face when she said, all in a rush, “It was in a bathroom stall in a club, and I was drunk, and I didn’t even know his name.”

She looked up then, fearing that she would see disappointment in Maggie’s eyes. Instead, she found understanding and compassion — wisdom, even. “Sometimes it gets bad like that,” Maggie said, her voice quiet, as if Alex’s confession had struck a familiar chord. “Doing things that aren’t necessarily safe, things that maybe aren’t you, as a way of trying to figure it out.”

Her words hit Alex like a smack in the face — both because of what Maggie had said, and because it made sense, suddenly, giving her a reason for what she’d done beyond I got really fucked up and put myself at risk. She’d always been haunted by how ugly it could have gotten had any one of her half-dozen drunken, club-fueled hookups been in the mood to inflict some pain or forgo a condom — by how she had allowed herself to be vulnerable in ways that could have left her sick or hurt or even dead.

All because I was afraid to look at who I really was.

“There was a time — a really bad time after we thought my dad had died — where I did things like that because I wanted to feel,” Alex said, and saw Maggie nod, as if she too knew what it was to inflict agony on herself just to keep another pain from hurting. “But I never felt anything, not really, and then something happened that forced me to change, and after that, it just wasn’t…” She trailed off. “Important, I guess.”

Maggie nodded again. She’d been caressing the sides of Alex’s face this whole time, Alex realized; coaxing her on, encouraging her to get the words out, to be honest about a time that she hadn’t really been honest with anyone about — not even Kara, for Kara would have taken it on herself, would have tried to fix it with her smile and her love. Only back then, Alex hadn’t wanted to be fixed.

But the acceptance in Maggie’s gaze was fixing it now, changing it from something dark and shameful to just a piece of Alex’s experience, a journey she had to travel to get to this place, to her understanding of herself, to being in Maggie’s arms. It felt good — felt right somehow, as if a broken piece had finally healed.

And so she lifted a hand to Maggie’s cheek, softly saying, “I’ve been tested, in case you’re wondering.”

“I wasn’t worried.” Maggie brushed the hair back from Alex’s face, her fingertip grazing Alex’s ear in ways that made her squirm. “I have too. After I broke up with my last girlfriend a while back.”

“You had concerns?” Alex asked, lifting one hand to rub slow circles against Maggie’s back.

Maggie shook her head. “I just…wanted to be ready, maybe?” She smiled so broadly that her dimples seemed to leap out of her face, making Alex want to kiss her senseless. “I guess you’ve been under my skin for a while now, Danvers.”

“Mine too.” Alex felt Maggie shift against her, her left leg stretching out enough to put pressure in just the right place, and felt a shudder roll through her. “God, Sawyer.”

“Sorry,” Maggie said, but she didn’t look sorry at all; looked, in fact, like she’d done it on purpose. “So, are you ever going to put your hands where I’m dying for you to put them, or do I have to keep doing that until you give in?”

“Well…” Alex snickered, and then Maggie stretched against her again, and Alex’s hands slid down to grab at the underside of Maggie’s ass, not just because Maggie wanted her to, but because she needed to pull her closer, needed the pressure of their bodies against each other. Maggie pushed up on her elbows and just looked down at Alex, her dark eyes reflecting the firelight until it seemed they were ablaze.

“We fit,” she said, and Alex nodded, her throat so tight she could hardly breathe. The urge to move was intense, almost primal; but so was the desire to stay still, to remain frozen on the cusp of the precipice until time itself ended.

And then Alex’s stomach growled. Loudly.

Maggie’s eyes crinkled and she burst out laughing, kissing Alex when she tried to bury her face in Maggie’s shoulder. She rubbed the back of Alex’s head, murmuring, “Guess it’s a good thing I brought over that pizza, huh?”

“Next time you want to kiss me, you don’t have to come bearing gifts,” Alex said, drawing Maggie down until she rested in the crook of Alex’s shoulder. “I don’t want to move from here, like, ever. But I’m also starving.”

“Me too.” Maggie twisted back onto her stomach and slid her hands up to frame the sides of Alex’s face, one side of her mouth tilting sideways. “So at the risk of riling you up and bolting, I think we should hold off on...” She tilted a shoulder in the direction of Alex’s bed. “If you’re okay with that.”

“How long?” Alex asked, anxiety flaring at the thought. “Because life is short, and I’ve got a lot of time to make up for when it comes to kissing the girl I want to kiss.”

“I am very much looking forward to helping you with that,” Maggie said with a grin. “But this is new for you, and there are things that should be savored. And besides, I think we should go out on a proper date before I —“ She broke off, her eyes flashing with something that Alex could only interpret as pure, unadulterated desire.

“Before you what?” Alex asked, and watched a slow, lazy smile spread across Maggie’s face. “Come on, don’t leave me in suspense.”

Maggie chuckled. “Okay, Danvers, you asked for it.”

And then she pressed her mouth to Alex’s ear and described, in very specific detail, just what exactly she was planning to do before said proper date was over.

Alex slid her hands up to Maggie’s back, holding her in place for a moment while she considered those words. She drew breath to speak, drew it again, and finally said, “So when is this date taking place?”

Maggie let out a cackle and kissed the underside of Alex’s ear. “I don’t know. How’s Saturday sound? We can make a day of it.”

“That’s five days.” Alex nodded, trying to stay very still for fear she’d spontaneously combust if she moved against Maggie even a little. “I could do that. I mean, short of an alien invasion or Cadmus killing us all, what could possibly go wrong?”

She would soon regret asking that question.

----------------

The week dragged by. The days were busy enough — the DEO was tracking shipments tied to Cadmus, and Alex spent as much time out on raids as she did in her lab — but the nights were tough, especially when Maggie had to work late and she didn’t. She got a brief reprieve on Thursday — Maggie was able to stop by for a beer after work, though based on the way Maggie was looking at her and how fast both their shirts ended up draped over the back of the couch, Alex was fairly certain a beer wasn’t what had really been on Maggie’s mind. Alex wasn’t complaining — her skin on Maggie’s, Maggie’s on hers, was intensely erotic, and all she wanted to do was explore the sensation. Yet she resolved to abide by this unwritten rule they had set for themselves; to take it slow, or at least as slow as they could manage. Two months of bickering and smoldering glances and side eye had left them both on edge, and as much as Alex was enjoying this gradual build up of sexual tension, a part of her just wanted to get on with it. So she would never quite know how she managed to lift her head, how she stopped herself from letting out a mournful cry, when Maggie said, “I should probably go.”

Of course, Maggie had decided to say this while she was tracing her lips across Alex’s upper abdominals. She had worked her way down there from her starting spot just beneath Alex’s right ear, combing over every inch of skin with the methodical detail of a forensic team sifting for trace evidence. There had been pauses, however — some of short duration, some of extensive length — for Alex to do some exploring of her own. So far she knew that Maggie loved being kissed at the base of her throat, that she giggled when Alex tickled between her shoulder blades, and that rubbing a thumb over her nipple in slow circles, either on top of or beneath her bra, would cause her to make a low noise and go very still.

But right now Maggie’s tongue was taking point, and she was using it, with aching slowness, to trace the hard seam between Alex’s ribs. Alex tensed, feeling sudden shocks run through her body, and let out a low groan. “I’m going to start calling you Livewire 2.0.”

“That crazy bitch has nothing on me,” Maggie said, her laugh reverberating through Alex’s body. She slid up to rest her head on Alex’s shoulder, her fingertips tracing across the fine hairs that covered Alex’s arm. “You know I don’t want to go, right?”

Alex turned her head to look down at Maggie, seeing those eyes, so full of light and warmth, turned up to look at her. She nodded and slid her hand down to rest against the small of Maggie’s back, the skin smooth under her palm. “I do. But I also know that you have to work early, so you probably should.”

“Yeah.” Maggie leaned in to kiss Alex’s shoulder. Her hair skimmed across Alex’s bare skin like fine cobwebs, each one leaving a trail of sensation in its wake. “You okay with getting started around ten on Saturday?”

“That works.” Alex sucked in a deep breath, wondering how she would survive until then without seeing Maggie, without having this small, soft, warm, impossibly beautiful body against her own. Four days of this, and she was already addicted. She pressed a kiss just above Maggie’s temple, softly asking, “So where are we going?”

“It’s a surprise,” Maggie said, turning to look at Alex with a decidedly mischievous gleam in her eyes. “Just make sure your bike is gassed up and ready to make some miles.”

“Got it.” Alex traced hand over Maggie’s face, wanting to memorize each line and curve of the straight nose, high cheekbones, and lush, impossibly sensual lips. She leaned in and kissed her slowly, murmuring, “If you don’t move soon, I’m going to toss your shirt into the fire so you have to stay.”

“I’d be annoyed,” Maggie said, punctuating every word with a light, teasing kiss. “I really like that shirt.”

Alex grinned down at her, gently pinching her hip. “Like you don’t have at least a half dozen other long-sleeved gray shirts in your closet.”

“Yeah, yeah.” Maggie rolled on top of her, kissed her slow, and then braced her hands against the arm of the couch and pushed onto her knees, her bra straining to keep her breasts in check. Alex caught a tantalizing glimpse of cleavage, a quick flash of darker skin as one nipple was revealed, and then Maggie was sitting back on her heels, wincing, her left hand cupped over the stitches on the right side of her chest. “Dammit.”

Alex scrambled to free herself from Maggie’s weight and sat up, her doctor’s instincts on full alert. “Did you tear them?”

“No, it’s good, it’s just sore,” Maggie said, though she looked a little ragged around the edges, as if sore was a euphemism for it hurts like a fucking bastard. She pushed her right hand against the back of the couch, her face tightening as she braced herself to step onto the floor, and Alex caught at her arm, pulling her back down and urging her to sit. Maggie turned her head, frowning. “Alex....”

“Maggie…” Alex said, in exactly the same tone.

Maggie stared daggers at her, and Alex just shrugged and gave them right back until, with a soft laugh, Maggie relented. She turned and tucked one leg beneath her, sliding her bra strap down so she could present the wound that ran from her collarbone to the edge of her side ribs for inspection.

Alex shifted onto her knees and leaned in, her fingertips tracing the unblemished skin around the margins. The wound looked clean, with little sign of redness, and the stitches showed no sign of tearing. She lifted her head to look back at Maggie, feeling heat rush to her cheeks when she realized that Maggie had apparently been watching her the whole time with calm, steady eyes.

“It’s healing nicely, though you should keep a bandage over it so it doesn’t get irritated by your bra strap.” Alex leaned back on her heels, one hand still resting on Maggie’s shoulder. “You might also want to lay off the making out for a bit.”

“I would, but this girl I’m dating would be awfully upset,” Maggie said, her dimples appearing as she gave a sideways half-smile.

Alex felt her face light up at the declaration. I’m dating Maggie Sawyer. Maggie Sawyer is dating me. Still, she tried to hold it together, to not act like a giddy teenager at the words, much as she wanted to. Instead, she retrieved Maggie’s shirt from the back of the couch, holding it open and helping her put her right arm through the sleeve with a minimum of jostling.

“Button-up shirts might be a good idea for a few days,” Alex suggested, her whole body tingling at the feel of drawing that knit cotton across Maggie’s ribs.

“I’ll see if I can find one that doesn’t need ironing.” Maggie pulled Alex’s dark blue Henley off the back of the couch and helped her slide it over her head. She smoothed Alex’s hair, brushing the tangle back from her face, and smiled, her thumbs tracing Alex’s cheeks. Then she pulled her in close, her kiss tender and sweet. “Thanks for making out with me.”

“Anytime.” Alex ran a hand through Maggie’s hair, her body already longing for the sensation of it drifting across her shoulders and stomach again. She wondered what it would feel like against her thighs and found herself blushing.

Maggie smiled as if she knew what Alex was thinking. “Saturday, Danvers,” she said. “That’s not so long to wait, right?”

Alex nodded and kissed Maggie again, the sort of slow, sensual kiss that she’d been waiting to give someone her entire life. And this time when she pulled away, she noticed that Maggie’s cheeks were a little red too.

#sanvers #Less Than Perfect AO3

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