#he probably found their journal by accident and learned the truth | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

lustbile · 3 years

Text

The Journal

TenxReader

Word Count: 7.3k+

Summary/Warnings: Smut with plot, semi public, a lot of biting, mentions of supernatural and just general weirdness, and small amount of blood play

Apart of the Club X series: Masterlist (can be read alone or within the series, but unlike others it might just be the slightest amount confusing)

“So that’s what you’re into now,” your best friend’s voice is bored and distant, her task of wiping down the bar that stretched out in front of her taking a majority of her attention away from the babbling you’ve tried to subject her to since you entered the empty restaurant only about 20 minutes before, “weird demon sex clubs?”

—

“Ah ah, I never said they were demons,” you correct quickly, the thought of defending yourself never crossing your mind as you petulantly slap your hands against the polished wood, “I just said it was…. weird.”

“Weird is an understatement,” she scoffs quietly as she turns to dip her dirtied rag back into the bleach water and ring it out, “I mean look, I’ve always been supportive in the witchy stuff you’ve been into but this…. is a bit much.”

“I don’t see how this is any different than any other thing I’ve read into.”

“Oh you don’t see?” you finally manage to pull her attention towards you as she harshly slaps the rag back onto the wood with a stern glare pulled on her pretty features, “you’re talking about vulnerability and abandoned warehouses and public sex. That last one is definitely new.”

You fully expected this type of response, only hoping she’d be busy enough that you would dodge the motherly scolding she liked to give you when you pitched your schemes to her with your eyes wild and wide, but nevertheless, she was completely right.

It came from an old book, tattered and torn from being flipped through one too many times, that you found at your favorite antique store. The store itself was already notorious with your tight inner circle of friends as the creepy shop that was corrupting your brain, a constant taunt being that the little old woman that ran it was the actual devil and she was just waiting for the right time to jump you and eat you whole, but this did nothing to stop you from visiting at least once a week.

But the book, it was different from any other you had found. It was completely handwritten, including amazingly done sketches in a deep unfading ink, and spoke of outlandish things.

Some were easily brushed off, like a murder that happened in the 50’s that was known to stay in the mouths of the older folks, both to them and the book it was widely believed to be the doing of some long tongued and wild eyed creature, until a local sweet old man admitted on his deathbed that it was instead his one crime of passion.

He had been a young soldier that snuck into his lover’s room one night, and upon learning that she was to marry a nice lawyer the day after he was meant to deploy, his mind went blank and his hands were carving out her heart. He luckily escaped any questioning after being shipped off, and once he returned home he captured the heart of a pretty young girl and lived out a long life sitting on top of a horrid truth.

So yeah, stories of those sorts, having been solved in your lifetime, meant very little to you, but the one you were going on about now, meant the world.

The writing looked like it had been put down by a panicked chicken rather than the woman who’s name was written neatly in the front. It lived in some of the pages towards the back of the small book and spoke of a dark club. Club X.

She went on and on about stumbling across the club purely by accident, and meeting another woman with glittering eyes. Graphic details of being taken in the middle of the dance floor with a million eyes looking but not fully seeing her as she fell apart against a dancing and eager tongue made your heart thump lodged in your throat. But the more and more she visited the club, the more incoherent her words became, but towards the end the writing had become stained and obscured by a deep brown stain, before it stopped altogether.

Thankfully, the details of where the building was was completely visible regardless of being the thoughts of a mad woman, and with a lot of thinking and staring at the town map, you’ve come to believe that you knew exactly where the mysterious club stood.

Only a street down from the restaurant you sit in now.

“Listen, I know it sounds ridiculous, and it probably is, but what’s the problem with just going to check right?” you scramble to pull the delicate book from the bag that sits in the stool beside you as your friend moves closer and closer to where you sit, laying it flat to show her the page you’ve had bookmarked since you read it, “and look at the name she puts, I think it’s the man who ran it and it’s a long shot, but maybe he’s still alive, or if not maybe some family is! Right here, Asm-“

“Don’t say it again,” she’s quick to interrupt, sliding her free hand to hover above the page you’ve glued your eyes to, “I don’t wanna hear any old man names, especially that one it gives me the ick.”

“It’s just a name,” murmur to yourself, but move to put the book away regardless, “but anyways, I have something that most people who were going to the club didn’t, knowledge of what exactly I’m walking into. I can just go and look around, worst things worst its still a freaky sex club and I just go home, but I’m willing to bet this lady was just off the shits and its just an empty building with some funky vintage beer bottles that you can add to your collection.”

You feel like you’ve won an award you weren’t even trying to compete for when she finally breaks out into a soft smile. The huff that leaves her chest is endeared, and you swear your heart began to vibrate when she reached to run a gentle thumb across the swell from your cheekbone.

“Fine, do what you want, but if the bottle isn’t completely intact when you find it I don’t want it.”

“So you’re not coming with me?” your head tilts to the side in confusion as with things of this nature in the past, she’s always followed along to ensure that you didn’t do anything to stupid. You never felt like the company was fully necessary, but it was appreciated regardless.

“Baby, as much as I’ve enjoyed your info dumping you’ve done tonight, the other person that was meant to clean with me had to leave early with a stomach bug so I’m busy pulling a clean up job that’s truly a job for about five people. But you seem to really believe in this little adventure of yours,” she leaves the rag in a damp mass next to the stack of dirty glasses beside you to take your hands in her’s, her slightly wrinkled fingers are still warm and the way they lace with yours makes you feel like nothing in the world could hurt you, “besides, you’re as smart as a whip and I know you have me on speed dial. I trust you.”

——

You no longer love the feeling of being trusted.

When your friend had given you the heartfelt speech only a little over half an hour ago, you felt like you had been put on a nice pedestal before she handed you a cookie with a pat on the head.

Now the “cookie” had turned to rot in your belly and you were faced with your own perfectly dreamed up reality.

It was already late by the time you had walked into the restaurant your friend works at, the sun already setting and the last few customers gathering their things and paying the bills, so once you got her stamp of approval and we’re heading out the door, the only light left was a bright and full moon, and flickering street lights.

You took your time walking in the direction that your book and personal sleuthing had pointed you in, the closer and closer you got to the one warehouse in town that seemed to never be bought back from the city, the knots in your belly pulled tighter and tighter.

But regardless of the almost painful twist in your gut, you surprisingly almost missed the building in its entirety.

It was as if your entire being blocked out the thumping bass that shook the sidewalk and the blinding red light that spilled from beneath the entrance and out the fractured windows. Your brain trying to force itself from entering the building you spent so many weeks trying to locate.

But the way your heart thuds in your chest when you stand in front of the entrance is something you couldn't even pretend you didn’t feel.

Your tongue digs into the side of your jaw, and you're confused at the feeling of warm tears burning at your waterlines. It’s exactly the way the owner of the journal described it in her manic writings, weirdly exact considering the other stories that surrounded it that dated it back far before you were even born.

You want to go in, the shaking steps your legs take is evident to that, but the tense muscles of your shoulders and stomach makes you hesitate and even grumble out into the air.

You almost jump out of your skin when you hear a shuffling to your side, your throat tensing when you look over, and are put slightly at ease when you see two men who you assume are acting as some type of security. You almost expect them to look up and ask you for some type of ID when you’re being very weird and blatant about your presence, but they seem too preoccupied with the dim screens of their phones and the way they lean forward at different times as if they’re waiting for someone.

Your hands are shaking slightly as they scramble down to grab for your bag, desperately looking for something to occupy you to walk by them without being even more weird, and when your fingers wrap around the flaking leather that binds the book, you grab it like a lifeline.

Your fingers flip through the pages with perfect muscle memory as you trip up the few steps that lead to the door, the tabs you carefully placed on the first page mentioning the club not even necessary with the way you could find the page even in your sleep.

You subconsciously hold your breath when you walk past the two men, almost as if the book is instead something wildly illegal and you're trying to sneak past your parents, and your washed with a temporary wave of relief when you pass through the doors without even a glance from the two.

Though the relief is stolen from your bones the second your feet touch the floor of the club.

It’s as if you’ve entered a place you’ve known your whole life, and from the amazing descriptions from the woman in the past, its not a completely surprising feeling.

But another part of you feels like this is the first time you’ve seen human beings in the flesh.

You can't help but to feel like you must look like an absolute nerd as you pull the book up to your face as you start to survey the club, but thankfully the book told at least one truth, and many of the club goers are too busy grouping and grinding against one another to even acknowledge your existence.

More truths come to light as you flick your eyes between the pages and the walls.

The bar is still tucked in the same far corner as she described, the flittering red and blue lights making it feel like a beacon of calm regardless of it being surrounded by drunken forms and its intimidatingly pretty bartender.

The dj is just a stoic and unimpressed looking as the one from so many years ago as he subconsciously bobs to the beat that he creates as he messes with the nobs and switches in front of him. He’s actually so similar, you wonder if you were right and the owner did have family floating around, and maybe the dj is one of them.

You stumble further into the room as you pick out small details she wrote about so lovingly. Your legs carry you to the back of the building as you smile at the sight of the wine stain the writer claimed to have created when her lover shocked her with a playful bite to the neck.

You almost feel like the universe is gifting you everything you could have possibly asked for when you see the loose board that she said a friend of hers would always trip over, and electricity zips up your spine in excitement when you spots the large painting that still hangs over the booth she claimed as her favorite, and she meticulously sketched out next to a paragraph about what she thought the artist was feeling.

All these things though, lead to the things that make your jaw hang slightly open.

The large balcony above you is larger than you ever imagined. The hundreds of bright red carnations she loved to sketch drip from the golden bars like water, and the black velvet curtains that hang over the room it leads to look heavy enough that they suffocate someone if they fell.

She seemed so intensely in love with the place you stand in, and the woman she met there, and those emotions were more than evident from the way the recreated the energy of the club with her words and art. Which only tips you towards the part that caught your attention perhaps the most.

It was exactly where it was meant to be. Just below the balcony that hangs high on the wall, gaping wide and dark like the mouth of a hungry monster coaxing you to enter its throat. The only issue that you can see being the hanging rope that blocks you from entering, but with only shining bright clasps holding it onto hooks on the walls, you don’t think you're above sneaking past it with little guilt.

The hall was the one thing that taunted you the most about the story the woman spun in the little worn book. The empty and dark vass space being something that coaxed her as well, but unfortunately for you, and maybe her as well, the parts of her journal that began the tale of her passing the temping rope, was the exact spot that was stained with bleeding ink and a suspicious brown color.

You survey the space around you, looking for anyone that could possibly be a worker or just a stickler for the rules, but seeing as everyone in your range of vision was attached by the mouth on someone’s neck or sloppy lips, you figured you were in the clear.

You drop the book gently back into your bag before you step slowly forward. Your heart feels like a wild animal trying to break out of the cavity of your chest, and it feels like your intestines have been successfully replaced with writhing worms that are desperately trying to reach your gut. You feel heat traveling up your chest and neck, and as you get within a few feet of what feels like the end of your life, your body begins to shake.

If you had the ability, you would have screamed, and if you had the strength, you would have fought back. But right when you're about to reach the threshold of the hall, and right when you feel like your legs are about to collapse from underneath you, strong fingers clasp over your trembling mouth, and an arm wraps tightly around your waist.

You’re turned faster than you can blink, the sudden motion making your brain swirl in your skull and making you go lightheaded and dizzy. And while keeping their hand clasped tightly over your mouth, the person that cages you in slams your back into the cold wall and knocks the air from your lungs.

The eyes that meet you are cat-like and dancing wildly, the grin the man you're faced with now smiles at you wickedly, and when your hands dart up until your nails dig harshly into the skin of his forearms, his smile only widens.

“Now,” he starts, the remains of a chuckle shaking his chest and his words slightly, “what exactly are you up to?”

You wait for a moment for him to release you from his hold, and when after a minute or so he still hasn’t budged, all you can offer in response is an annoyed arched brow.

“What?” he has the audacity to ask with taunting sincerity, “you thought you were smart enough to go wandering around, so you should be smart enough to figure out a way to talk around my hand right?”

It’s with immense irritation that you realize the two possibilities you’re faced with.

From the book you know about the weird concept of soul mates or whatever they were meant to be. The woman and the mysterious dancing girl she met so many years ago, and similar stories from the friends she met during her many visits to the club who had almost identical tales that she had to recount.

So with that information you know the possibility of this grinning man being your person is high, but your person or not, he was lighting a fire in your chest regardless.

You don’t think or even weigh the negatives before you send him a hard glare, and you show very little hesitation when you push forward to sink your teeth into the first finger you can catch.

His yelp is covered by the blaring music, but you hear it loud and clear before he reaches his free hand up to pinch at the bridge of your nose to pull you off like a rabid kitten.

“You know what I’m up to,” you huff petulantly as you lean back into the wall with your arms folding over your chest, “or at least I’d assume you’d be smart enough to use your context clues right?”

His lip curls when he glances back up to you as he pets at his now bruising finger, but even with the thin veil of irritation on his pretty features, you can tell he enjoys the sarcastic tone you’ve adopted.

“Yeah you’re sticking your nose where it doesn’t belong,” he bites back as he steps closer, crowding your personal space and pushing his chest tightly against yours, “you’re lucky I’m who caught you and not boss man.”

“Boss man?” you ask, trying not to show you excitement over him spilling the treasured information about the club that you want so desperately.

He doesn’t answer you verbally, and the sly wink he throws at you shocks you more than you would like to admit, but when he tilts his head back quickly you don’t hesitate to follow his line of sight to the edge of the balcony.

If it weren’t for the thin wires of light that create hatching over his eyes and mouth, you probably would have missed the masked figure that leers at you from over the railing. His hands and shoulders are covered by the masses of flowers, and the hollow black where he hides his eyes stares down at you two with a look that you assume is annoyance and possible curiosity.

The moment you two look up, the figure jerks back. Your eyes flick quickly between him and the man in front of you, and from the bratty grin he wears as he looks up, you feel as if the masked man didn’t have any intention at being caught.

You get lost slightly in staring at the man pressed against you, his teeth that look sharper in the red lighting and his eyes twinkle in mischief, and even with the obnoxious start to your interaction, you’d be lying to say you don’t find him beautiful.

It takes you a second to regain your senses, tearing your eyes away from the fascinating side profile of the man, but when you glance back up to the balcony, the mask man has retreated back.

“He doesn’t like much when we take people back there before they’re ready,” he attempts at an explanation as he turns back to you, and seems unfazed when he misses the mark and just confuses you further, “he let the two goons outside have a little exception, but that's because they don’t know how to go easy y‘know.”

“No,” you shake your head at him with a quiet scoff, “I have absolutely no idea what you’re talking about.”

“I think you know more than you think,” his voice drops as he speaks now, and as he speaks he reaches out his hand to hold himself propped against the wall next to your head while his other hand moves to run gently up the side of your neck, “I mean, you know who I am at least right?”

“I have an idea,” you admit with a huff, but you also admit to yourself that this probably means you won't be getting into the hall. You do mentally jot that down as a loss, but decide to take the man pressed against you as a win and you reach to grab at his shirt in retaliation, “but you could at least give me a name to work with.”

“Hm, I didn’t expect you to be one for such formalities,” his head tilts in amusement at his own words, and the action nudges the tip of his nose into yours and makes your heart flutter up into your throat, “but you might as well know the name of the man you’ll be destined to fall in love with.”

You roll your eyes hard enough for them to start to ache, and he quietly laughs and moves to press his nose into the soft flesh of your cheek as he feeds off your annoyance.

“Ten,” he answers quietly, his lips brushing the shell of your ear as he moves to whisper the syllable in your ear, and you never thought that with just one word he’d have a shiver rushing up your spine.

You respond quietly with your name, but the word comes out strained and rushed when he begins to nibble on the lobe of your ear and pushes his knee harshly between your thighs.

Both your hands now hold tightly onto the sides of his shirt, and when his lips move to trail against the side of your neck that isn't enveloped by his hand, you tug roughly at the fabric and your back arches slightly away from the wall.

His tongue is hot when he lays it flat on the center of your throat, and when he swipes it up until it flicks against the end of your chin, you can't help but cringe slightly at the feeling regardless of the way it makes heat pool in between your thighs.

The wicked grin on his face never falters, it only grows wider and more hungry when your eyes meet again, and with his staring so deep that you fear he may be collecting every ounce of your soul, you two have a silent agreement on the unnatural waves of electricity that connect you.

When his lips finally land on yours, it's the roughest and clumsiest kiss you’ve experienced. Both of you fight each other with hungry and eager tongues and the way your teeth gently knock together has your skull rattling in a way that, if you weren’t so hell bent of devouring each other whole, you’d probably have to take a breather.

Your hands reluctantly release the wrinkled fabric of his shirt, and in a desperate attempt to stay occupied, they shoot up the tangle tightly into his hair. You admit, you probably tug harsher on the strands than you probably should, but the groans he pours into your mouth, and the way his hips rock roughly into yours, has you tugging again and again.

He presses you further and further into the wall, and without thinking your hips begin to kick and tilt down until you're grinding harshly and sloppily against his tense thigh.

You let out a quiet whine that's muffled and garbled by his moving at the feeling of him pressing his thumb gently into the dip beneath your jaw, and pressing into your jugular. The sound is followed almost immediately by a small yelp when he latches his teeth to your bottom lip and gives you a stinging bite.

You’re frustrated almost immediately with the lack of friction you can feel from the layers of clothing between you, and now the slight shooting pain from the tensing skin between his teeth, you can feel the impatience in your belly crawling up and invading your chest and throat.

He’s quick to pull away when you retaliate with your own nipping bite to his top lip, your teeth still sinking down when he does and making his sting probably just as much as yours. And when he eyes you as his eyelids droop down into an accusatory squint, you assume he’s not used to getting a taste of his own medicine.

He mutters something to himself about your feistiness, and a sly comment about how he shouldn’t be surprised as he was expecting to get a handful, but he gives you no time to make a snide comment or even question about any of the words, before his fingers are closing firmly but loosely around your neck.

He keeps you rooted in the spot that you stand, the only change in your posture he allows is pulling you slightly away from the wall, just wide enough for him to slink behind you and tug you roughly back into his chest.

“You like poking around into business that isn’t yours?” he asks rhetorically as his free hand reaches around your shoulder to push past the neckline of your shirt, and right as he pressed down the center of your chest and his fingers brush the bottom of your rib cage, his fingers curl and he starts to drag his blunt nails up your sternum as he continues, “need to know and see every single little thing right? So… what’s the harm of being on the other side of it for once?”

“What are you on about?” you as sharply as you try to turn your face towards him the best you can, but his hand tilts under the bottom of your chin until your head is forced to lean on his shoulder and he’s nothing but thrilled at the way it makes you struggle.

“To be seen, or not?” he presses his lips back against the shell of your ear, and the way he whispers roughly makes you shiver again as your thighs press tightly together, “you know what I mean, and you know the answer I want, but its all up to you in the end.”

The electric and slightly humiliating buzz of being seen in a mass of bodies committing the same sins as you was something the woman in the book went on about frequently. She mentioned that there were a few times where she and her lover snuck off to get alone time of course, but the almost blinding pleasure that came from being worshiped by not only one person, but the eyes of an entire room, was addictive. And you wanted just a taste.

You grumble in response, the idea of admitting to the already confident man that you did indeed wanted the same amount of attention as he did made your chest burn even more than it already was, and you’d rather take your chance with his terrifying looking boss than to give him the satisfaction of your verbal confession.

He seems unaffected by your nonverbal confirmation, the way you press into him as his hand wraps around your waist again and creeps down to the button of your shorts, and your own hand grabbing onto the sleeve of his rolled up long sleeve shirt to guide him to undo the clasp or just dip below the waistband, is enough of an answer for him to know.

He chooses to pop the button, and once he has the zipper pulled down enough that he can work with, he begins to shove the worn denim down your hips along with your underwear until they are wrapped around your knees and he can push his fingers roughly between your thighs.

You try to clear the fog that he creates in your mind from his teasing fingers long enough to reach your free hand back to give the same treatment to the dark jeans that wrap tightly around his hips and thighs in a way that had you mentally drooling from the moment you got to get a full look at him, after he ambushed you of course.

You’re not sure how he undid your shorts so quickly without being able to see, but as you fumble and scratch your nails against the sensitive skin of his hip, you give yourself the benefit of the doubt seeing as your trying to work while his middle and ring fingers tease over your entrance and the heel of his hand presses clumsily into your neglected clit.

He, on the other hand, doesn’t give you any benefit of the doubt. He at least has the decency to press his lips across your cheekbone and temple to muffle his quiet laughs, but to make your task even more difficult, his fingers shallowly curl up into you just enough to make you twist and curl.

Once the button of his jeans finally releases, you instinctively let out a huff and sink your shoulders back into his chest as you reach past the fabric to wrap your hand around his stiff length and pull it from the confines until you can press it against his lower belly. And you get just one tally on your side of the boards you’ve created in your mind when his amused laughs devolves into pleased grunts and tilting hips.

“Please,” you start quietly, trying to rock more against the parts of his hand that press against you while running your palm up and down the length of him and smearing him with his own pre come, “I can tell you’re just as impatient as me.”

He swears in your ear, using his hold on you with both hands to shift your hips up and pull you closer before he clears his throat to speak, “well could you imagine, looks like we are a match made in heaven.”

“More like hell,” you retaliate, digging the heel of your own palm into the skin just below the tip of him to egg him on even further, “but either way, that's the point isn't it?”

“I should have expected you to be just a little bit of a smart ass,” he mutters a half hearted complaint, but he only contradicts his own words when he pushes your hips away enough for you to guide him between your thighs and to glide against the arousal that spilled from your body and his hands spread messy along any available inch of skin.

He thrusts smoothly against your back a few times, bringing his arm down to guide him towards your entrance painfully slow, but when you let out a gravely moan of his name, he cant deny himself for any longer, and he’s sinking into you until your eyes start to gently flutter.

Once he’s seated inside you, his hand tenses slightly tighter around your neck, and when you both start pushing towards each other to meet in the middle of your thrusts, his other hand takes the opportunity to map any inch of you he can reach.

He gropes almost painfully at your chest, traveling over your stomach and up your shirt to dig his fingers into your skin until you swear he’s tattooed his finger prints onto you, all while nipping and lapping at the skin of your jaw and neck.

No one immediately in front of you is watching, they’re all in their own worlds of flesh and saliva, but you can still feel eyes of someone on you. His first and foremost as they burn holes into the side of your skull and glance to watch where you push back against him desperately, but there’s another feeling you get of being seen and studied thats so intense that you’re a little shocked when you chance a glance up and see that whoever the masked person was from earlier wasn’t there at all.

So no, you have no idea who, or what is watching you right now, but you can feel the unusual heat it stirs in you as your body flutters around him as he fucks you sloppily. You feel a deeper relation to the woman that owned the book that still rests in the bag that feel unceremoniously from your shoulder when he first put his hands on you, and you hope that maybe you’ll eventually slip into the life of bliss that she meticulously wrote about and possibly learn what happened that demolished the stories that lived in the back of the journal.

You could feel the pleasure crawling up your spine like a monster out creature, your panting breaths tipping the man that works you over off to this even though you’re sure he was already aware before you were, and you think your legs are back to the edge of collapsing when his creeping fingers dance along the expanse of your stomach to find their place back between your thighs.

Your back stiffens at the first touch of his rolling finger on your clit, and your head tilts even farther back onto his shoulder than he already had it. He doesn’t seem interested in coaxing you to your finish slowly, at a pace that would have mercy on your melting mind and shaking form, but he instead abuses your clit until your whimpering out and stumbling and stepping slightly on his toes.

You feel like you’re waiting out the suspense of a horror film that’s score is too obvious to the incoming jump scare. You tilt your neck in a way that seems normal to him, but in reality your trying to feel the many rings that decorate his fingers with the delicate skin of your throat to test if any of them could possibly be sharp enough to cut you and draw blood. You know what blood means to him, and you know it's something he’ll have to do soon if he truly can feel how close you are to the edge.

You feel like you’re floundering a bit, confused from the possible deviation from the story you’ve committed to memory. Was there any chance in this world that this wasn’t your person?

You push this thought away as soon as your panicked mind can construct it though, because there’s no way the spell that it feels has been placed on you would be there if that was the truth, and your body is heated almost like a furnace, but you suddenly love the idea of being burned by him.

You pull in a gasping breath of air that pierces through the music and grunting that rattles in your ears, the taste of your orgasms dancing on the back of your tongue and your back arching so harshly you fear that one of your muscles might seize up and cramp. And right when you feel his hips start to stutter in tandem with yours, and when you’re only seconds from blabbering out mixed syllables that you could only hope would come out as a coherent question, you feel it.

His teeth latch onto you again, his canines not sharp enough to make a clean cut as they dig into the muscle of your shoulder, but his determination is strong enough.

It burns painfully, and makes hot tears well up in your eyes, but almost embarrassingly, is the exact thing that pushes you scrambling over the edge.

You feel like it hurts to breathe, your lungs so focused on letting out puffs of air and broken moans that they can't seem to remember how to bring oxygen in, and your eyes roll for a completely new reason for the man and much more painfully.

It’s when you feel him start to suck the rushing blood from your newly christened wound that you also feel the rumble of his groans against your skin and feel him start to come inside of you. His fist tightens again around your neck as he pushes aftershocks through your nerves with his own orgasm, and with flying hands you grab at both of his wrists, not to ask in any way for him to ease up, but from a sudden wash and need to hold onto him possibly until you die.

He lets you collapse to the floor once he pulls out, but he follows your sinking form and sits alongside you and partially underneath you as you both try to catch your breath.

The club scene in front of you is now blurs of flashing lights and abstract writhing forms, and if it wasn’t for the zaps of energy you feel from every brush of his finger tips, your brain would probably be too muddled to register him fixing both your clothes and his.

You become just slightly more aware when he shifts your body against him enough to grab at the strap of your bag with the heel of his shoe, and you try to sit up faster than necessary and give yourself a small head rush when he pulls it to himself and flips it open.

“You seemed a little weirdly unaffected by the whole,” he flails his hands in front of you for a second as he speaks, and your lagging mind takes a second to catch up with his attempts at implication, “not the fucking part clearly,” he teases, “but the leading up to it. The meeting part and all.”

“I know what this place is,” you admit, and if your legs had gained just a bit more strength you probably would have stood and requested a glass of water just from how gravely your voice had become, “I knew I was probably going to run into you.”

“But you weren’t looking for me,” he tries, and fails, at hiding the slight edge of offense his voice shows, “if you knew I was here why didn’t you look for me?”

“I didn’t worry about it,” you say, warming up a bit again in the fear that it may have come off slightly rude, “or, like, I mean I knew you’d be able to find me easier than I could find you. I was more interested in finding answers.”

“Answers to what? You said you knew this place, or at least what it is?”

“Well I only know the basics,” you shift in his hold, knocking his hands away as they sift through your bag, and grabbing blindly until you can pull out the book, “I found this journal and it-“

“A journal?” he asks in a volume that could have been obnoxiously loud if it weren’t for the thumping bass that shook the floor beneath you, and pulls the small book from your hands.

“It was written by a woman who came here a long time ago,” you explain, deciding to not take offense to his rough and grabbing hands, “I found it and tracked the club down, I needed to see if it was real.”

“Oh it's real alright,” he laughs as he starts to flip through the pages, stopping for a moment to smile at a simple sketch she had done of a cat that she said lived in the back alley, “hey wait I think I know this name, and these people.”

“What are you on about?” you ask with a scoff as you tug the book from his grubby fingers, “you can’t possibly know these people, this was written in like the fifties. Stop pulling my leg.”

“Oh I see,” he smacks your thigh playfully as he leans over your shoulder to glance at the first page that mentioned anything about the date, the ink clear enough to read 1953 in the swirling handwriting, “you think you know everything.”

“I do know everything, fuck you,” you glare playfully at him over your shoulder, “or I would know, if you’d let me go into that weirdo hall.”

“No hall, for now at least,” he sighs, the gears in his head turning as he thinks of the next thing to say, “but you know, time doesn’t exist the same way here, the woman who wrote this probably didn’t know that at the time, so I’m not surprised you don’t either.”

“What do you mean time doesn’t exist?” you look at him as if he’s grown a second head, but do you really have the nerve to question him like that? Considering that entire concept of the club you are very aware of its existence now, a time situation shouldn’t be the most shocking should it?

“Well, it's hard to explai-“

“Then don’t explain it,” you almost jump fully out of his lap at the deep voice that rattles above you, and both him and you look up at the figure that looms over you now.

The man is tall, his black hoodie looking weird in contrast to the clothes of the other club goers, and with a squinting observation and a familiar and annoyed sigh from the man seated behind you, you realize you’re being stared down by the mysterious entity that is the DJ, his hands shoved deep into his hoodie pocket in annoyance.

“Huh?” Ten lets out more in the form of a noise than a word, as his arms wind tightly around your form.

“I said don’t explain shit,” the man begins to tap his foot in irritation as he speaks, and you wonder if he’s aware that he’s in rhythm with the song that surrounds you, “you need to chill out with the loose tongue, its bad enough we have the big mouths outside.”

“I wasn’t gonna go that far,” Ten sounds reminiscent of a scolded toddler, and considering the man is hindering you from getting information that you wanted so badly, you can feel yourself mirroring the pout he wears, “I know what I’m doing alright man? Why are you over here anyways, shouldn’t you be at your little booth minding your business.”

“No one minds their business over at that booth, and you should know that better than anyone pervert,” the words are sharp, but the curl to his lips and the underlying playfulness to his tone tells you the likeliness of them being friends is high, “anyways, I know we don’t follow any regulations or anything here, but I’m still gonna take a fuckin’ break or two.”

“Well breaks over,” Ten reaches out a hand to playfully swat the man away, “I didn’t wait this long for you to just interrupt my bonding time with my person alright?”

“Alright, alright,” he finally starts to shuffle away, throwing one last comment about Ten being bitter his person showed up first over his shoulder with a grin.

“What a loser,” Ten starts, looking at you playfully and rolling his eyes, “too bad he’s like my best friend or whatever.”

“You seem to have a lot of fun around here don’t you?” you take a shot at voicing your observations, your heart fluttering in a completely new way at the warm smile he shoots you.

“Just wait a see, my love. Just wait and see.”

#nct smut #ten smut #chittaphon smut #nct imagine #nct series #nct fic #ten imagines #ten oneshot #nct oneshot #kpop smut #wayv smut #wayv imagine #wayv oneshot

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out-there-so-it-isnt-just-me · 3 years

Text

Hey guys...I have an idea if you aren't sad enough yet. I was struck by a painful comparison sort of crossover idea. It would never be canon, but I'm mourning the end of Campaign Two, and I want to be sad and over-dramatic. Essek, but as Eliza from Hamilton in “Who Lives, Who Dies, Who Tells Your Story.” But, it’s for the entire Mighty Nien. Some of the lyrics are so on point for a poor Essek who will probably outlive all of his friends (Elves still generally live longer than Firbolgs by a good 200 years). Anyway, enjoy.

Every other founding father's story gets told

It occurs to Essek, during one of the many periods without one of the Mighty Nein (the time that he dwells on them the most), how unfair their whole situation is. They saved all of Exandria, and no one knows. They are amazing, and odd, and frustrating, and no one knows. They will die loved deeply, but not widely. He knows they prefer it that way, all things considered. But, everyone else who saves all of Exandria becomes legends, while the people he loves best will be forgotten, remembered only by him.

And that. That sounds unbearable.

So, in-between the times he sees the Mighty Nein, he begins to gather accounts. He writes down stories from those they helped, or simply left an impression on. The people who have met the Mighty Nein have an air about them that he gets good at detecting. They attracted the oddballs and the outcasts. And if they're entirely normal (whatever that means), then they usually get a certain twitch if you ask for stories about interesting strangers. About half the time, a certain blue tiefling pops up in them. He almost has a heart attack when he hears “go fuck yourself,” in Jester’s cheerful voice, when he knows Jester isn’t anywhere near there. He ends up getting the kenku’s story, and the voices of his friends are weaved into it. Essek thinks the Mighty Nein are the best people in the world, in their own rambunctious way. Part of him wants the world to love them as he does, or at least have the option to. Everyone should have a chance to get to know them, even if it's just through tales. The world would be a better place for it.

...And when you're gone, who remembers your name?

Who keeps your flame?

Who tells your story?

Once there is only him and Caduceus left, this becomes a more prominent part of how he spends his time. After...after a long, long period of mourning. He has so much life left to live without most of the people who made it worth living.

I put myself back in the narrative

I stop wasting time on tears

I live another 50(0) years

He stops hiding his past and bears his sins and his story to the world. Essek tells his story so their story can be appreciated to the fullest; his part in their story emphasizes the depth of their compassion and chaos. He tells his story, but not as himself. Essek continues to drift from town to town under a vast number of aliases. Everywhere he goes, he spreads his stories of his friends, some serious, most silly. He disguises himself so he can stay alive to do a little more good, tell a few more stories, to truly live the life his friends wanted for him.

...I try to make sense of your thousands of pages of writings

You really do write like you're running out of time.

Eventually, he gets his hands on some of Beau’s journals, Jester’s diaries, and Caleb’s research. Well, he always had the research, but he gets to the point where he can share it with the world. He slowly begins to share and explain their thoughts and personalities with excerpts from those. Maybe he also has letters that he shares parts of (though most of those, those words specifically for him, he keeps to himself, for himself). He wonders if they'd be angry at him for spilling their private thoughts. But neither Beau nor Jester filtered their thoughts very much in the first place, and he keeps anything truly painful out of the public eye. Caleb, well, Caleb was always about sharing his knowledge and research, provided it wasn't dangerous. And they were all dead anyway. One of the last things they told him was to be happy. And talking about his friends, learning more about his friends even after they were long dead, that made him the happiest he'd been in a while. So he hoped they wouldn’t begrudge him this small joy he’d managed to grasp and forgive him, should it be necessary.

I rely on Angelica

While she's alive, we tell your story

She is buried in Trinity Church near you

When I needed her most, she was right on time

Caduceus isn’t particularly interested in being well known or famous, but he never shies away from telling a story about any of his friends. Plus, he thinks it’s a good project for Essek. It's a way to continue to show his love for them and keep them alive in the only way they can be now. When Caduceus eventually passes away, he joins the eight other graves (Veth refused to be buried apart from Yeza) that lay in a tucked-away corner of the Blooming Grove. There is one space left, nestled between where Caleb and Jester lay, but it will be empty for a long time yet.

And I'm still not through

I ask myself, what would you do if you had more time...

...You could have done so much more if you only had time

And when my time is up, have I done enough?

Will they tell your story?

He keeps adding to his tale; he stretches it longer and longer with every shred he can remember. But, even his memory, as long as it is, runs out eventually. And their story finally ends, but he doesn't. He throws himself into activities that remind him of them. He does a lot of gardening ( mostly tea, poisonous plants, and flowers). He teaches children some rudimentary dunamancy in his spare time, for Caleb. He messes around with alchemy a little. Eventually, he publishes the last of the research that he and Caleb worked on together; ones that took him decades to solve by himself. He even finds himself drawing a surprising amount of dicks on random surfaces near the very end.

Oh, can I show you what I'm proudest of?

...I help to raise hundreds of children

I get to see them growing up

The time that doesn’t go towards his now worrying amount of hobbies, he spends doing what he has done since the beginning: caring for the Mighty Nien’s true legacy. He looks after and visits their children. He takes care of descendants of Luc, of Jester and Fjord, of the random teenager that Beau and Yasha seemed to adopt completely on accident, of TJ, of the Clays, and of a lovechild of Kingsley’s that found out who his father was and then somehow found Essek himself to learn about him. In an embarrassing show of sentimentality, Essek always keeps at least one offspring of Caleb's very first cat. There is a very funny story about Caleb thinking the animal was spayed when it was, in fact, not. He visits the different generations every couple of years or so (he has a schedule). The drow makes sure they know the stories of their ancestors, the adventures of the Mighty Nien; he tells them it's all real. He gives them ways to contact him if they’re in danger, or need any kind of help really ( he has funds to spare at this point). Every once in a while, a few of them will get it in their heads to write him yearly updates. It’s nice.

In their eyes, I see you, Alexander

I see you every time

And when my time is up

Have I done enough?

Will they tell your story?

It is strange and painful to see the attitude and mannerisms of the Nein in the descendants who have never met them. It is wonderful too. His stories of the Mighty Nein have become well-known tales that no one can decide how much is truth and how much is fiction (it’s true, it’s all somehow, hilariously true). He preserved them in his own way, in the right way (time travel is something he thinks of with a growing hunger the more years pass between when he last laid eyes on his friends). But in these men, these women, these children, they are truly alive.

One little half-orc girl has Jester’s mischievous eyes and infectious joy. Another halfling man squints just like Veth when she's trying to figure out if someone is bullshitting her. There’s a boy who charmingly bumbles his way through most social encounters, as Fjord did. A firbolg woman who has Caduceus gentle smile. A tiefling girl with all the audacious bravado of Kingsley. A man with eyes just as piercing as Beau’s, and a tongue just as sharp. Even Yasha’s kind and gentle demeanor somehow shines through in one small boy, despite her having no direct descendants. He gets to see these flashes of his friends in those who survive them, and it thrills him as much as it cuts him. (Sometimes, when the current cat has ruined some item of his, the pleased look it wears resembles the quiet glee Caleb exuded after he pulled a successful prank, but he’s pretty sure that’s just fanciful thinking.)

One of the last things Essek does before he dies is fully publish, in print, the entire tale of the Mighty Nein. How they came together, every person they helped along the way. The love, the loss, the kindness, the chaos, every moment he could recall or record was put into this one account (necessarily stretched out into several separate books). There is only one set, and he hands it over to the Library of the Cobalt Soul in Rexxentrum. Then he goes on his lonely way.

Oh, I can't wait to see you again

It's only a matter of time

There are now ten graves, each one as unique as its owner, nestled in a small corner of the Blooming Grove. One grave has the dirt still fresh around it. And somewhere, beyond the Divine Gate, there are cheers and laughs and cries of joy as the Mighty Nien become the Mighty Nine once more.

fin.

It’s my head-canon that by the time Essek dies he’s practically a mythical figure among the select families he looks after. It's to the point that in certain locations ( that have a lot of Nein remnants) he becomes a local legend, the guardian angel of nien (no spelling specified and with no real distinction of what that means), with skin like the night sky who drifts (literally) through towns and helps those who meet a certain requirement, unknown to the general populus. There are rumors that certain people have bestowed upon them a token they could use to call upon the angel’s aid. Of course, the people who have the tokens (sending stones or something similar. IDK how he would get that many wondrous items, but I focus on satisfying narrative not, like, plausibility) know Essek and know that he has died and that the tokens no longer work, but for a while they keep them as heirlooms, to show the love of one drow wizard for the friends he had long, long ago. Eventually, one of Veth’s descendants sells off their set because sending stones are worth A LOT, and the money seemed more practical. They have their stories; those are enough.

And before anyone complains about the Kingsley bit, I felt compelled to add a smidgen of Kingsley content because Essek loves Jester and Jester’s with Fjord and Kingsley is with both of them for years. I’m sure they get to know each other well enough that seeing traits of Kingsley is vaguely nostalgic and warming, even if it lacks the depth and love he feels for everyone else. Also, there’s no convincing me that Molly/Kingsley doesn’t have at least one illegitimate child running around from various trysts, he was basically the Scanlan of this campaign. It goes with the hedonistic vibe he gives off.

Also, is it normal that I completely designed the Nein’s burial site in my head because I did? Like I imagine they’re all spaced out in a circle. It’s almost like a stone gazebo but there’s not really a roof; it’s just a group of nine pillars that support a stone circle. The entrance is the Traveler’s door with dicks around the edge, and each of the nine pillars/supports is designed to look the knowing mistresses staff. The stone circle is covered in carvings of storm clouds and lightning. Wires are strung across the center of the stone circle to form the symbol of the Cobalt Soul. Not that you can see the wires, because vines have been grown all around them. Once you step through the Traveler’s gate, you’ll find yourself on some kind of rough mosaic floor, with depictions of a peacock, a pyramid, a snake, a sun, a moon, and (oddly) a pirate ship. The mosaic is made up of buttons of various materials and shapes. In the center is a saltwater pool/spring (depending on how magical we can get idk) and floating above it is an eternal flame encased in some sort of dunamancy magic that doesn’t actually exist that keeps it floating and eternal. Look I'm running out of ideas.

I can’t imagine what everyone’s grave marker would be, but I’m pretty sure Yasha’s is a simple stone that says "YASHA NYDOORIN: wife of Zuella and Beauregard Lionette," and the place where’s she’s buried is just covered in wildflowers that spread outside of the gazebo to encircle the structure entirely up to the gate. Also, everyone has a stone tarot card by their grave with the picture and designation that Molly gave them. Beyond that grows a weirdly dense thicket of trees and bushes that make finding the Nein's resting place rather hard. It’s said only the descendants of the Nein’s family or those favored by the Wildmother (or Traveler, Or Ioun, or Storm Lord) can find their way to them. And one tree, directly behind Yasha, is dead, struck by lightning who knows how long ago.

And they’re buried in this order: Yeza/Veth, Caleb, Essek, Jester, Ford, Kingsley, Yasha, Beau, Cad. I know there’s a good chance that a) Kingsley would just eff off and die somewhere unknown and b) Cad would probably want to be buried with the rest of his family, but shhh let me dream.

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summerstardust · 4 years

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Did You Miss Me? Part 5

Dhawan!Master x Reader - Previous Missy x Reader

Summary: You, after a normal day in your life of coping with losing the love of your life, discover what had made the noise you heard the night before. Did You Miss Me? Masterlist

Warnings: none that I know of

Word Count: 3447

You walked down the street in the direction of your university, passing by the metal staircase along the side of your building that led to the roof. You stopped a few steps after you passed it, turning back around to inspect the ladder leading to the first level of stairsteps. It was pulled down to where it was street level. You had never seen it like this, the ladder had always been folded up, so no one could climb it and disrupt someone’s privacy. The metal staircase directly went by apartment windows, including your window. Fear instantly erupted through you. You wondered if someone pulling the ladder down caused the loud crash that occurred the night before, interrupting your investigation of Missy’s journals. If that was what happened, you wondered then who was using the staircase and what if they were watching you. There was probably a simple and innocent reason for everything, but on the remainder of your walk to your classes you could only think of the worst situations.

You appeared in your first class of the day disheveled. A friend of yours in the class asked if you were okay, and you nodded, not wishing to be a bother. You managed to make it through the class without your friend trying to distract you from the class and the notes you were taking and without thinking about whatever was going on around your apartment, but as soon as the class ended, your friend asked you what was wrong again. Again, you told then that you were fine, that you were just tired.

“Whatever you say, Y/N, but how about we go on that double date?” They had a massive grin on their face, hopeful that you would actually agree this time.

“I hope that this is the last time I have to tell you this, even though I don’t think it will be. I do not want to go on a double date with you and your partner and whoever it is you think I will like. I guarantee that I will not like them.” You growled at your friend, tired of this discussion, but you grew even more aggravated when you remembered that you had your next class with them too, so this conversation was unfortunately going to have to continue.

“You are going to have to move on one day, Y/N.”

“No, I don’t. I know Missy would never move on from me, so I refuse to move on from her.” Your friend had really liked Missy, they thought that she was the best person for you, and they were devastated when you told them that Missy passed away. You, of course, lied and said that it was a car accident, but the sentiment was truthful. Your friend helped you through the recovery more than The Doctor and the fam, but they also wanted the best for you and didn’t think that wallowing for the rest of your life was the best. But they obviously didn’t know the whole story, so you would continue to have this conversation.

“Will you just go on one date? Not to try and get to know the person, but just so we now have an excuse for not wanting to go on any more dates!” You asked why she said ‘we’ instead of ‘you’ in her statement. “Oh, the person is just getting very pushy and upset that you keep refusing to see them.”

“And you want me to date this person?” The two of you shared a quick laugh before concentrating on your next class. You weren't really able to concentrate, however. You were able to take detailed notes, but if asked, you could not name a single thing you learned in that class. You kept thinking about the date. You were not excited for it, quite the opposite. From what you had heard of the person, they were not your type, but that’s why your friend chose them. But besides that, you didn’t want to be disloyal to The Master. You believed so adamantly that he was alive, that you couldn’t leave him now. If Missy was able to survive, you knew that The Master could survive his battle with the Kassavin, it was just a matter of time before the two of you found each other again.

However, a thought crossed your mind. You were well aware that The Master was a jealous person, both from your own experience and the writings and accounts Missy had saved, giving very detailed accounts of how she felt and everything she wanted to do to the person who made her jealous and to you to show you who you belonged with. You figured that if The Master was alive like you believed, then if you went on a date with some stranger, The Master would have to act.

The rest of your day was filled with imagining what it would be like to have The Master back in your life. You knew that you wanted to convince him to take a break from pursuing The Doctor, but if you couldn’t do that to the extent that you wished, you would explain to him that you wanted tangible memories with him as you did with Missy. It would be a difficult conversation, given everything that happened around the events of the Kasaavin invasion. You knew very little, but you knew that if you were to keep him safe, you needed to know the details.You hoped that he would understand that and take some time for you to form your new relationship and cope with the time apart and his new regeneration.

Your hopeful fantasies were dashed, however, when you walked back to your apartment and you saw that the ladder was still pulled down. You assumed that if it was because of an emergency that happened that night that it would be up by now. You tentatively walked into your beginning, checked your mail, and asked the person who sat at the front desk if they heard any loud noises the night before. They said that they did, and by their description, it sounded like the same noise you heard. This worried you even more. You wondered if some stranger was in your building, or in your room. You knew that you wouldn't get to sleep tonight at the thought of some stranger being near or in your personal space.

You quickly entered your apartment and turned on all of the lights and locked all of the doors and windows. You decided to stay in the main room and do your homework on top of a tall table so you could see the entirety of the apartment. You also collected a few weapons, including a baseball bat, a large torch, a heavy book, and a slightly sharp knife. Everything seemed safe, but it began to grow dark and your friend kept texting you about the date, making you even more anxious.

You were interrupted from your homework when you heard a creak of the floorboards come from your room. No one was with you at the moment, no one had visited your apartment since you arrived, and you didn’t have any pets because your landlord hated them, so you knew that someone was in your room. You grabbed the baseball bat and made your way to your bedroom. You slowly turned the knob on the door before swinging in open with great force, discovering that the lights had been turned out. A figure could be seen even in the darkness of the room, being illuminated by the streetlamps seen from the open window. You didn’t hesitate and leapt forward to hit the strangers legs with the bat, making them curl into themselves and fall to the ground.

The stranger screamed in pain then questioned, “Ouch, Y/N, why would you do that?” you knew that voice, but you didn’t think that it was possible, even though you hoped. You scrambled to find the lightswitch, once found, light flooded into the room. Before you was The Master clutching his legs in pain in the middle of your bedroom floor with a disgruntled look on his face. He was wearing the same clothes he was wearing when he was taken by the Kasaavin. You couldn’t form words, you could barely think. The bat eventually slipped from your fingers, clanging when it hit the floor. You stood open mouthed, a tear managing to slip out from your eye while The Master tried to stand, but you leaped forward and hugged him back to the ground. He groaned when you tackled him, but quickly hugged you back, giggling at your affectionate behaviour and ignoring the pain radiating through his legs.

“How long have you been back?” You eventually asked after becoming comfortable with the idea of him really being back. The two of you remained tangled together on the floor of your bedroom, moving occasionally to be more comfortable. Both of you would reach up and ghost your hands and fingertips over the other’s face, in an attempt to prove that you each were really there.

“Your time: I arrived back in this dimension last night. My time: it's only been a couple of days, but those were still very long days.”

“Especially after 77 years of being alone.”

“Yes, especially after 77 years of being without you.” The Master brushed his thumb across your cheek bone, leaning in and brushing his nose against yours. You smiled softly and comfortably, leaning in as well. Then there was suddenly a knock at your apartment door, which confused you until you remembered that you had scheduled plans for the night. You jumped back from The Master, just as your lips were about to connect, then quickly stumbled up until you were standing to run toward the door. You opened the door to see your friend all dolled up and ready to drive you to the date.

“What are you doing Y/N? You're not even dressed! We have to leave soon if we want to be on time!” You heard The Master’s fancy shoes click on the tile of your apartment, notifying you that he had followed you.

“Mate, I’m busy.” You gestured your head to The Master, who waved his hand at your friend, boyishly.

“Well, you move on fast don’t you, what perfect timing!” They were joking, but were happy for you.

“I don’t think that it can be considered moving on, but thank you for understanding.” Your friend gave you a confused look, then assumed that you were just referring to the person they had set you up with and the fact that you cannot move on from someone you hadn’t even met yet. Not knowing the true nature of The Master.

“Anyway, I’m off! Don’t do anything I wouldn’t do!” They winked at you before turning around and walking in the direction on the exit, retrieving their phone from their pocket to text their partner of the change of plans. You rolled your eyes at their behaviour and closed the door as they rounded the corner of the hall. When you turned back around to The Master, you saw him glaring at you with his arms crossed, but the shambled state of his clothes deterred from the sternness housed in his eyes.

“Who was that?” It surprised you to hear the same tone that Missy used on you when she was jealous come out of his mouth, but you regained yourself and chiperly told him the truth. You were so happy to have him back you almost forgot about your plan to make him jealous, but now, with the unintentional help of your friend, you could draw out how much The Master missed you.

“Oh, just someone from one of my classes at university. They helped me through a lot of stuff.” You moved to your kitchen to get some wine and glasses for the pair of you, along with supplies to make The Master’s favorite human food.

“What did they want?” He continued to speak in his jealous tone while stalking over to where you stood so he could maintain eye contact with you. You knew what he was doing, Missy did it too. The Master wasn’t one for maintaining eye contact except, mainly, when he was trying to decipher whether or not a person was lying.

“They had been asking me for months to go on a double date with them and their partner and someone they thought that I would like.” You knew that it was best to be truthful now. If you were truthful now, there would be less haggling later when you tried to convince The Master to not kill someone. The Master nodded along with your statement, making sure that you weren’t lying to him, but it took him a couple of moments to actually register the last part of your sentence. His eyes widened and his jaw tightened as he clenched his fists when he finally realised your truth.

“Do you know the name of this person that was interested in you?” His eyes darkened as he lowered his head in a glare.

“I am not going to let you kill some random stranger just because you are jealous, Master.” You told him off, but were happy that he was so protective of you.

“I thought you said that you would prefer to be loyal to someone you loved than see someone new who wouldn’t understand your past?” The Master sauntered over to where you were standing, making dinner while facing the kitchen counter, and placed his hands, heavily, on your waist. You turned in his arms voluntarily.

“One: stop being so passive aggressive. Two: you know full well that I would never break my loyalty to you. And three: I know you well enough to know that you would never let me see someone else as long as you were alive.” You smirked when you saw the gears in his head working.

“So this was just a test.” He joined you in smirking, proud that you knew him so well.

“Yes, and you passed. Lucky you, you're not dead.” You placed your hands on his shoulders before quickly placing a peck to his lips. You then turned back to what you were cooking, while The Master wrapped his arms around you and rested his forehead in the crook of your neck. He helped you occasionally, but resided to hold you as long as he could. You understood why and you were perfectly happy for him to do that, but you had to keep working on the food to try and formulate your future conversation with The Master.

The two of you ate quietly, wrapped up in each other. You tried to focus on your reconnected love, but you were also still trying to focus on what you were going to say. The Master would occasionally move his head to look at you, he could feel that you were distracted by something. This would make you giggle and smile every time he did it, causing him to smile genuinely. After finishing your meal, you finally brought up the topic you didn’t want to talk about. You knew that you needed to, but that didn’t distract from the fact that you didn’t want to discuss it or hear The Master’s stubborn and predictable answer.

“So what’s your next plan in destroying The Doctor?” You looked away while placing your’s and The Master’s dishes on the coffee table.

“Why does it matter?” That shocked you, he was usually incredibly prideful in his schemes, especially those against his best enemy.

“Because you are always talking about it, and you seemed quite determined before Paris.” The Master winced when you brought up Paris, causing you to reach out and comfortingly massage his arm.

“That was then and this is now.” He was quiet as he stared at his feet.

“Meaning?” You questioned, but you tried to be quiet.

“Meaning,” He finally looked up at you, “I lost you again for 77 years. Then when I almost got you back, I was ripped away from you, yet again. I’m tired of always losing time with you because I’m consumed by the rage The Doctor causes me. I should have listened to you after I was injured. I should have taken a break.” He reached his hand up and cupped your face. You assumed what this meant, but you needed to hear him say what you needed.

“You're staying?” A tear escaped your eye and The Master wiped it away with the pad of his thumb.

“Of course I’m staying, my love.” He smiled sadly, upset that he hurt you so much. You quickly lunged forward again and hugged him tightly, and he reciprocated. You eventually let go, and rubbed your nose against The Master’s, insinuating that you wanted him to kiss you, which he happily obliged.

“So will we be going anywhere special in the TARDIS as a reunion present?” You asked and giggled after the two of you tried to catch your breaths after breaking apart from the kiss.

“Unfortunately no. I have to use the TARDIS as little as possible, just in case The Doctor is monitoring its use. So I’m going to have to pretend to be a Human again until I’m ready to fight against The Doctor. So … what do Humans do?” You laughed at his innocently naive question.

“You spent over 77 years around Humans? Shouldn’t you know?” You couldn’t believe he was asking about Humans like this.

“I didn’t pay attention! I just tried to stay in the shadows!” The two of you laughed, but it eventually died down into an awkward silence. You eventually caught each other’s eyes and saw the sadness of the lost time written all over them and hugged each other tightly again. You both knew that the two of you would have time, finally, time to talk about what happened with the Kasaavin, time to talk about how humans work, time to talk about each other later.

“Do you want to go to bed, I’m very tired.” You exited the hug even though neither of you wanted to.

“Of course. I’m tired, too. We both need our sleep.” The Master kissed your forehead before you got up. You lead The Master to your bedroom, making him lock your window with his TCE before he could join you in bed. Both you and The Master ridd your selves of your clothes until you were both in your underwear. You climbed beneath your covers and pulled them back far enough for The Master to climb in, but The Master was distracted by looking around your room.

“Thank you for taking care of her.” He pointed to his TARDIS before crawling into your bed beside you.

“I should be thanking her for taking care of me, she helped me a lot while you were gone.” This saddened him again when he remembered the pain he put you through, but you tried to pull him out of his negative thoughts by massaging his arms. The two of you stared at each other for a while in silence. Every once in a while, the two of you would move closer together and wrap your bodies around each other until your noses were touching.

“Please promise me that you won’t leave me again, Master.” You said after a while.

“I can’t promise that, Y/N. You know my life, you know how dangerous it is.” He held you tighter out of fear of failing you and out of fear that you will leave, thinking that he was weak. It was an interesting dichotomy, he hated the idea of you leaving him, but he couldn’t promise that he wouldn’t leave you.

“Then lie. Just this once. I just need to hear you say it, Master.” He sighed deeply, contemplating everything. Then his head fell to your shoulder before speaking.

“I promise that we will never be apart from each other, from this moment forward, Y/N.” You cupped his face and brought his head up to yours so you could kiss him, before moving to hold each other comfortably enough to sleep. The two of you didn’t do anything that night. You just laid in each other’s arms and fell asleep to each other’s heartbeats. That’s what the two of you needed right now, just to hold each other and prove you were with each other. The two of you would deal with everything serious later, you just needed to be comforted by each other’s presence now and rest.

#doctor who #doctor who imagine #doctor who x reader #sacha dhawan #dhawan!master #dhawan!master imagine #dhawan!master x reader #the master #the master imagine #the master x reader #personal post #request #fanfiction #anon

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alia-turin · 3 years

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It has been a WHOLE minute since I have mentioned Caranthir so here is a fic for yall. I have alot of ideas about young Caranthir, his relationship with Avallac’h, him joining the red riders etc.

@house-of-inspiration you asked for Caranthir joining the red riders, where as I said I was just writing it, so I hope you enjoy.

Fic Name: The Last Straw Fandom: The Witcher (Aen Elle) Characters: Eredin, Caranthir, Avallac’h, Imlerith Pairing: none Warning: Angst, mention of rape (no one is actually raped, just a mention) AO3: Click Summary: A very young Caranthir discovers how he actually came about and that a lot of what he thought about his life has been a lie. After he confronts Avallac'h he takes a decision that will change his life.

Avallac’h was somewhere again, to see the king or on one of these trips to the Aen Seidhe world where he never took him even if Caranthir loved going to other worlds. He was bored out of his mind, already had read every book he wanted to read, tried every spell that Avallac’h had forbidden him to try...

There was a place that had been off limits for him and he had always been curious about. It was a room, the door always closed and locked with magic. He had tried opening when he was very young, probably ten or so, but the door didn’t move. He had also tried different spells through time, every few years when he learned a spell that might help, he would wait for Avallac’h to be away and he would try, but nothing had happened. This door had become an obsession of his, at some point he didn’t even care what was behind it, although he did wonder why the Sage was so secretive. It had become a test of his skills, somehow he felt that if he opened that door, he would prove he was better than Avallac’h.

Caranthir knew today was his day to open the door. He had learned a new spell and found some other useful tricks. For all he knew behind that door could be just a collection of these drawings Avallac’h always did of naked women. His curiosity was just eating him and he also couldn’t admit to himself that there was a spell he couldn’t crack.

Caranthir placed his hand on the wooden door and cast the spell. He was surprised when he felt it unlock, he really didn’t expect it. Almost fearfully he walked inside. If Avallac’h had locked the door so well, what was stopping him for putting traps inside? He couldn’t however sense any traps, at least not magic, and he slowly walked inside. He wondered what the Sage would do to him if he figured out Caranthir had been here. He had been punished few times as child and he did not have fond memories of it, but he wasn’t a child anymore and he could certainly stand his ground.

The room he was in was...a study of a sort. There were bookshelves, a desk, chair, glass vials, papers all over the place. He looked first through the books, not all of them were magic. There was anatomy and history, but not history of the Aen Elle, it was history of families, genealogy and alchemy.

He sat behind the desk and the first thing that caught his attention was a journal with his name on it. Caranthir opened without even thinking if that was wise or not. He started reading and the more he read the sicker he felt. Page by page there was his whole life, the way he learned magic, the way he used magic, manipulating time, using space, travelling...he had to toss it away half way because he just couldn’t read any more. He grabbed another journal, there were scraps of paper inside, old paper, some of it damaged. It had notes on Navigators, Auberon looking for travel to different realms, experiments on…

“What are you doing here?” Avallac’h was standing at the door.

“Making sense of my life.” Carathir grabbed the journal with his name and opened it on a random page. “You have never been good with words, but reading that makes me sound a bit like an...experiment.”

Avallac’h didn’t answer and that was more of a response than words would have been.

“All my life I was trying to figure out what was wrong with me.” Caranthir looked around the study, books, herbs, glasses and other tools. “All my life, I knew you were not my father, but I wished you were. I was just stupid child and I didn’t know better. Here it was little old me, a child without his parents, the scars on my face and body and the great Sage Avallac’h was teaching me. Me of all elves out there.”

“Caranthir…” Avallac’h started, but he did not give him a chance to finish.

“You can explain, I’m sure. Go on. Try to make it believable.” he taunted his teacher.

“When we lost Lara…” Avallac’h stopped for a second, even mentioning her name was still painful for him. “We lost the Elder Blood power. I needed to find a way to fix that....we couldn’t leave this world anymore, not without being ‘lucky’ and stumbling on a portal and that took time. I started working on how to fix things...came to the idea of what became the Dearg Ruadhri Navigators. But it wasn’t good enough. None of them was good enough, the portals were not stable and accidents happened.”

He read some of that in the notes, about the Navigators and how it was difficult for most of them to keep it going. No one was ever as strong as the Elder blood no matter how many Navigators they tested. Most of them couldn’t even pass the trails created by Eredin.

“Where do I come in all that?” he asked after Avallac’h did not volunteer any more information.

“You...were supposed to be a Navigator.” Avallac’h finally said. Supposed? All his life he had wanted nothing more than to join the Red Riders, what did ‘supposed’ mean? “You were my most successful...subject.” Caranthir grinded his teeth when he heard that word. But he was a subject wasn’t he? He was a product of an experiment that is usually called subject. “I knew you have power since...I believed that having the ability to travel again will save us, but I saw what Eredin is doing and Auberon is going weaker. That is whyI never brought you to Tin na Lia or even introduced you to Eredin.”

“How did you do it? I read the notes, you picked families with potential, did my parents know?” he read the notes in detail, the herbs, the magic, the other material added...at some point he had felt sick imagining some woman, his mother, being strapped to a table and pumped with all that. The notes did not specify how exactly it happened, but he had imagination. Maybe his parents did hate him, his mother for sure if Avallac’h used her as a test tube.

“They did.” Avallac’h admitted.

“Did they dump me at your door or you took me away.” Caranthir was not sure what he wanted to hear. Probably both would hurt just in a different way. When Avallac’h did not respond, one way or another, he knew they had just left him. All his life he believed that his parents gave him to the great Sage Avallac’h so he can learn to be Sage as well. Was even anything in his life real? He never thought much of his parents, but now he knew for sure they hated him. “Come on how did you do it? Was my mother forced? That’s why she left me, she didn’t want anything to do with me? The little abomination.”

“She was not raped, if that is your question.” Avallac’h answer was very measured and controlled, again what he didn’t say meant more than what he actually said. Caranthir thought himself stupid for not seeing that sooner. The Sage had always been like that. Half answers. Half truth. But he never lied, did he? He just said what was convenient and whatever was going to inconvenience him, was left out. He always thought he was smart but he missed that. Maybe he wasn’t as sharp as he thought he was.

“I read a book once.” Carathir got from the chair, Avallac’h following him with his foxy eyes. “It was about this mage, he really wanted to create life out of nothing. Necromancy really as he collected corpses and built them into one powerful being. The thing was ugly and grotesque, but it was powerful.” Caranthir started laughing, hysterical, he just couldn’t stop himself. “You know what I thought when I read the book? That this is sick! Robbing all these corpses and just the ugliness.” he ran a finger through the scar on the right side of his face, it was starting just above the ear and then running down to his jawline and slipping onto his neck. “I guess you didn’t build me from corpses, necromancy is not your thing, I know. I’m the ugly, grotesque and powerful monster, am I not?”

His laughing gave way to anger, he could blow this place to pieces, everything, maybe even have a go at Avallac’h. He opened a portal behind himself.

“Caranthir, wait!” Avallac’h’s shout became just a distant echo as he stepped through the portal.

He was in the mountains overseeing Tir na Lia, snow was covering everything around. He had found this place with Avallac’h years ago when the Sage had taken him to explore the nearby area. Caranthir must have been...sixteen or seventeen at that time, still a child. He had been absolutely fascinated by snow, the purity of everything, but also the destructive force of the cold. He remembered thinking if he could be something he wanted to be that. The winter storm that just covers the earth and hides everything. He felt the need to destroy something, hurt something more than he was hiring right now, his mood gave way to magic and a powerful storm wrapped the mountains.

Caranthir waved with hand and all the old fires and candles in the ruins lit. He sat on the cold floor looking at the storm outside. He wondered how long can he keep it going...hours, probably days if he really tried.

All his life has been a lie, but he could not even blame Avallac’h for that. The man was secretive and Caranthir never asked questions. He knew there was something strange about his life, how he had no friends, how he was never allowed to do things others did. He remembered once telling Avallac’h he wanted to be one of the Red Riders, he must have been seven or eight. The Sage just told him that will never happen. Caranthir had taken that as lack of ability on his end and he had found motivation in it. Since then he has been looking for opportunities to watch the Red Riders, whenever Avallac’h will take him to the castle. He remembered seeing Eredin for the first time, dressed in armor, on his horse...regal.

Avallac’h was going to hide all that from him. He was meant to be one of them. He was meant to be with Eredin and the rest.

He was created with a purpose, Avallac’h never cared about him beyond that purpose. Looking back at his childhood memories it all made sense. Avallac’h had spent a lot of time training him, teaching him, showing him how to control his powers, but he had never disclosed anything to him. The man was secretive, but this secrecy had gone out of hand. Caranthir had been a child then and he didn’t understand so he had made the stories he believed. He wasn’t a child anymore, he was almost a grown man.

He spent the night awake thinking, he let the storm run its course as well, his mood had moved from anger to depression and regret. His life was ahead of him, he wasn’t even hundred years old. He could do...anything. Avallac’h couldn’t stop him, from what Caranthir knew he might be more powerful than the Sage.

In the morning he found Eredin in the countriyard with Imlerith, training. He watched them for a while, not wanting to interrupt. Eredin was like...wind. The sword was moving as if it was part of him. Imlerith was...brute force. Caranthir never understood how that could be helpful, the man was massive and that made him significantly slower than Eredin, but at the same his mace was leaving holes in the ground every time he aimed at the Red Rider’s leader.

“Somehow I suspected I might find you here.” Avallac’h came to him, but Caranthir ignored him. It wasn’t the first time he watched Eredin and Imlerith go at each other, he liked watching them dreaming one day he might join them.

“My lord!” Caranthir jumped from the wall he was standing at and ran at Eredin.

“What?” the leader of the Red Riders turned toward him, expression absolutely bored.

“I want to take the trails.” Caranthir had to control himself not to shout that as he was so excited about it.

“Are you even allowed to drink?” Imlerith asked laughing.

“Caranthir, no!” Avallac’h jumped in.

“Do whatever.” Eredin didn’t even look at him when he said that but Carathir didn’t care. He was used to everyone’s attitude. He had always been Avallac’h shadow, the kid that was hiding his face and never talked much. They all treated him as if he was invisible, but he knew he was better, not because of what he saw in the study, but he knew his power.

“Eredin, he is too young, he cannot!” Avallac’h sounded concerned but Caranthir just smiled. Everyone was underestimating him, but was going to end today.

“Is he your slave?” Eredin looked at the Sage with interest. “If he is not your slave, he can do whatever he wants. Also didn’t you tell Auberon some time ago that he is your best...experiment.” the man’s grin was cutting through his lips. “Your Golden Child. If he is that good, he will live. If he isn’t…” the man just shrugged in apathy. Two portals opened in front of Eredin and he looked at Caranthir. “Come on. Off you go. You need to find your way back to the other portal.”

He didn’t hesitate for a second, he didn’t look at Eredin or Avallac’h, he just went through the portal not even sure what he would find there.

Imlerith leaned on his mace watching at the portals with curiosity. The last idiot who tried the trails came back, his whole body burned, he died maybe a few minutes later. The one before that never came back, given that the kid was probably half of their age, he was not holding his breath.

More enterianting was the staring match between Avallac’h and Eredin. The Sage was not an emotional man neither was Eredin so that was a bit like two statues looking at each other with hate.

“Calm down, Avallac’h, he is just a lab rat, I’m sure you can find some poor woman to breed and do whatever nasty experiments you were doing on her.” Eredin grinned knowing that was going to throw the Sage off the rail. Imlerith made a step back, whatever magic these two were going to use, he was not going to be in the way.

Before Avallac’h could answer the kid showed back from the portal...in one piece if it was not for a wound on his shoulder. Imlerith was impressed, but most importantly Eredin looked impressed as well.

“Interesting.” the leader of the Red Riders said and looked at his general, Imlerith couldn’t hide the smile on his lips. “How old exactly are you?”

“Forty three.” the kid didn’t even look tired and his shoulder was bleeding but he was not showing pain. Imlerith had no idea what exactly was in the trails, Eredin and Avallac’h had created them some time ago to ensure the Navigators would be able to manage their work. However, he had seen Navigators return after these trails and nobody had made it as quick as this kid did.

“You will be the youngest Navigator and Red Rider.” Caranthir was smiling at these words, it was a cocky smile, confident, Imlerith knew the feeling every time he won against an enemy and smashed their skull. “Get him patched, get him an armor.”

Imlerith just stared at Eredin, he wasn’t a babysitter, but he was going to obey.

“Come on, kid.” Imlerith nodded at him. “Taking you to the healer.”

“My name is Caranthir.” the Navigator corrected him stubbornly but followed, surprisingly Avallac’h as well.

“Whatever, kid.” Imlerith teased and he saw the anger in the pale blue eyes of Caranthir. He missed having someone to tease and make angry. It wasn’t the same as the rest of the Red Riders because they were all terrified of him and well he was their general. Eredin was their leader so he could give him a hard time only in private. That kid had to grow some tough skin and Imlerith knew exactly how to help him.

#caranthir ar feiniel #avallac'h #eredin #aen elle #my writing #the witcher fandom #wild hunt

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my-muses-in-op · 3 years

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Light wounded

"You know better than cutting yourself like this. What happened, yoi?" Marco checked the wound on Thatch's hand, which was bleeding heavily. It wasn't that deep, he concluded, though it would need some small stitches. He gazed up at the cook, seeing a faint embarrassed blush on his cheeks, which was so rare. A lovely color on him and Marco wished he could make him blush more.

Not seeing how Marco gazed at him, Thatch answered. "Well, I was slicing the meat for the sandwhiches for our brothers on night shift, when I somehow lost my concentration." It was the truth, though he didn't say just what made him lost his focus. Normally Thatch paid a lot of attention when in the kitchen and it was really rare that he ended up in the infirmary from an accident in the kitchen.

Raising a brow, Marco found all he needed to clean the wound, stitch it together and bandage it. Thatch held a cloth over it, preventing the blood from spilling too much. "That doesn't sound like you. Where did your mind drift off too, yoi?" The first division commander started to work on the wound.

Still somewhat embarrassed, Thatch turned his gaze to the window. "I ... I'll tell you when you're done fixing my wound." He didn't want to say it now and it seemed that Marco didn't mind. When it came down to it, Marco probably didn't need an answer, he was just curious. Thatch couldn't blame him, as it'd been a long time since he last needed treatment after an accident in the kitchen.

Silence fell upon them, as Marco focused on the wound. As a finishing touch, he let his flames dance over the wound. It would help the healing progress, but Thatch would have to stay from using the hand a day or two. Which was perfect, as the cook did need some time off anyway.

"All set. Two days of rest. I mean it. Don't use your hand too much for the next two days, yoi." Marco was serious, his tone saying he would drag Thatch out of the kitchen, if he used his hand.

Thatch pouted, but didn't want to risk Marco's punishment. "Fine." He could still use his other hand and he could supervise in the kitchen. It wasn't like Marco forbid him to be in the kitchen at all. Not this time.

Smiling, Marco cleaned up. "So what was on your mind, yoi?" This time he did see the blush a little clearer and he smiled more. "Oh did I disturb your focus, yoi?" He teased, as he stepped closer to Thatch - the cook now standing. The blush deepened and made Marco chuckle, before placing a hand on Thatch's cheek.

"If you wanted to see me this badly, you should just have come by. I don't mind your company here, yoi." He teased, before placing a soft kiss on his lover's lips. "Next time, stop using sharp tools when your mind drift off to me, yoi."

Thatch grinned lightly, but then noticed that Marco was also blushing and he pulled the slight smaller man closer, using his good hand. "I'll do my best, though it's hard when you're on my mind so often. Maybe I should learn to not let it distract me. Or at least not go where it went earlier." His tone changed slightly, becoming a little deeper with the last sentence.

The effect was immediately. Marco's face turned completely red, as the meaning of Thatch's words sunk into his mind. Chuckling, Thatch leaned down, capturing Marco off guard, when their lips met. It took not even a second before the doctor melted into the kiss.

"Let's go to bed. It's getting late, yoi." Marco whispered, as their lips parted. He got free, before grabbing Thatch's hand and started to walk. He could always add this wound to Thatch's journal tomorrow. Right now he had something else he wanted and was more important. Spending time with the man he loved.

#drabble #my fanfic #fanfic #the blue phoenix (marco)#dashing cook (thatch)#MaTch #marcoxthatch #yaio #fluff #light wounded #tw: blood #tw: cutting

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sardonic-courtney · 4 years

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Crowley x Reader. We met before. P1/7

Summary: You end up living with Bobby after your parents die. You go to church and meet Priest Crowley and you end up getting along (if you know what i mean). A few years later when Bobby passes you move the the bunker with Sam and Dean and end up meeting Crowley again.

Warnings: Mention of death, Spelling mistakes.

Part 2 Part 3 Part 4 Part 5 Part 6 Part 7

Around 2200 words.

Backstory:

In 1991 Y/N L/N was born. You were raised up by your parents. You loved them you really did, but they were never really there, with being hunters and all. You didn’t know much about the hunting business. But as you grew up you got to learn that all myths had a form of truth behind them and you gained some basic fighting skills to protect you in an emergency, and a knack for sorting lore. But that was it really. Your parents never discussed the details of work at home and being hunters, you moved around a lot. Which meant no real friends were ever made. You were lonely but getting a new book each time, you moved helped with that. Life was okay, until the accident.

You were 14 at the time. It was 9pm Tuesday when your parents left to hunt a vampire nest, whilst you were sat in a dodgy motel room waiting for them to come back. 3 hours later. 10 hours later. 12 hours later. You began to worry, but there wasn’t exactly anything you could do, you didn’t know where they were to try and find them, so you waited.

35 hours later. 8am Thursday and your parents still weren’t back, and you knew what you should do. You opened your old notebook to the back page and rang the emergency number just like you had been told. It rang a few times and then a gruff voice picked up, he had obviously been woken up by the phone call.

“Who the hell is this and why have you woken me up at this ungodly hour?” the voice on the other end of the line grumbled.

You froze. What were you supposed to say? It was only Bobby so you don’t know why you were so nervous.

“Hello? If this is you Dean, I swear the next time I see you” he trailed of.

“No.” You spoke still unsure. “It’s Y/N. Y/N L/N.”

“Oh, hello kid, why the sudden ring this early? Parents need a place to sleep again?”

“No Bobby its… they...” You trailed of. “they went on a hunt and its Nearly been 2 days since I’ve seen them and they said if this ever happens to call you and so I did and I’m sorry for waking you up its just I don’t know what to do and I don’t know where they are I just….”

“Wait, slow down. Where are you?” He interrupted.

“Jim Thorpe. Pennsylvania.” You replied.

“Where were they going before, they left? “

“To deal with a vampire nest.”

“all right kid, you did the right thing calling me. Pennsylvania? I’m 19 hours away so I’ll tell you what I’ll do. I’m going to call some buddies of mine to see where they are, I think they are near the area and they will come and stay with you until I can get there okay? I’m going to call them now and then I will call you back, all I need you to do is tell me what motel you are in and stay there until I call back okay?” he explained trying to hide his worried tone.

“I’m at the ummmm…. Penn Terrace Motel. Room 12” you replied looking at the branded paper near the phone.

“Okay kid I’ll call you back soon. Don’t worry everything’s going to be fine” and with that he hung up.

You sat on the stiff motel bed looking down at the phone in your hand. You were numb. You weren’t exactly sad or worried, you were just numb. It was probably because you knew there was a chance your parents were gone but it just hadn’t synced in yet. So, you just sat, empty minded until the phone rang again.

“Right kid, my friends are only 15 minutes away, so they should be there in about 20 tops. I’m going to get a few things together and then leave to come and see you. It’s about 8:30 now so I will leave around 8:40, it will take me around 19 hours and I’ll need to fill up gas at some point so another 5 mins, and then I’ll need to take a break halfway for about an hour for food so I’ll get there at about….5:00am tomorrow. Is that okay?”

“Um yeah”

“Are you going to be okay? How are you feeling? As soon as I get there, we will go looking for your parents okay?”

“Yeah I’m fine, okay”

“Right so my friends names are Sam and Dean. They will knock at your door and take you to get some food and will help us find your parents when I get there, but for that you’re going to have to find your dads maps, or evidence he has and give it to them. Can you do that?”

“Yeah I think I know where it is.” You respond looking at the bottom drawer next to their bed.

“You sure you’re going to be okay kid? Do you want me to wait on the phone until they get there?”

“No, it’s okay you can go get ready and I’ll find the evidence” you reply awkwardly to your godfather.

“Okay, well just ring me if you need anything else. Oh, and don’t worry about Sam and dean, they are nice just don’t open the door unless they say its them. Got it?”

“Got it”

“Right okay, I’ll see you soon kid”

“Bye Bobby” you hung up the phone. Looking at the clock it was now 8:35 which meant his friends wouldn’t be there for another 15 minutes. But might as well be prepared. You got up of the old bed and made your way over to the other side of the room. Leaning down and opening the bottom drawer to find it so full it was hard to open. After cramming somethings down, you managed to open it and you unload piles of paper, until you reach a leather journal.. It’s your dads and you know you aren’t allowed to touch it let alone look into it so you pick it up and discard it on the bed next to the drawer, you aren’t sure why you do this as it’s not like he is there to see you but either way you do.

You still have a while to wait so you sit on the bed and decide to busy your mind with sorting out the evidence. You know that if you sit there and do nothing you will end up worrying yourself so this is a way to keep you busy, plus you like organising and it will make you feel like you have done something to help.

You first sort out newspaper articles, then maps, then printed pages of lore and then finally notes scribbled across paper. You look at the maps and the slightly indescribable pen marks over them and start to get an idea on where the nest is. You had just narrowed it down to 3 places all abandoned within the radius of the killings when there was a knock at your door. You froze. You hear raced and you stayed silent. Another knock. You look over to where the knife your father got you for your birthday when you see the clock, it read 8:52. You had been sat sorting for 17 minutes and you hadn’t realised. Which meant it was probably Bobby’s friends at the door, still you were hesitant as you stood up and peaked out through the blinds, you were met with the sight of two men stood at you doorway. One with long brown hair wearing a grey t shirt with a brow zippy over. The other with shorter lighter hair wearing a green button up who was shorter than the other. Both looking tired and worried as they once again knocked on the door.

“Y/N” The taller one called through the door. “It’s Sam and Dean, we are the people Bobby sent”.

You slowly opened to door and let them in. Once they were in the room it was quiet. No one knew what to say so you all just stood looking at each other until the smaller one spoke up.

“Hey, I’m Dean this is my brother Sam. How are you doing?”

“Fine. I’m Y/N but you already knew that. How are you?” it was true. You were fine. You weren’t sad, certainly weren’t happy just fine. You knew you weren’t going to be a set emotion until you knew for sure where your parents were so for now you were fine.

“Alright thanks, and well in that case did you manage to find any of your dad’s resources?” The one who turned out to be Dean asked.

This got you interested. “Yeah, over on the bed. I sorted them out and I think I found a few places where the nests are likely to be. I wrote some notes on the back of a recite. I look through it all but there might be some more in my dad’s book, but I’m not allowed to go through that sooo” You trailed of.

All three of you looked over to the green duvet bed. The brothers headed over and started shuffling through some of the files, you just perched on your single bed which was nearest you. The room returned to silence. You fiddled with your laces on your trainers until Sam spoke up.

“You organised this yourself?”

“Yeah it was all jumbled and I had some time to spare before you got here so I thought I would try to help”

“Well it certainly does help. So, you think that either the mill house, fire department or cottage is where they went?” Sam asked picking up the map with the recite you had scribbled your theories on.

“It seems most likely”

“Damn seems Bobby was right Sammy we got a smart one with us” Dean said looking up at his brother smirking. “Be careful she may be better than you” Sam rolled his eyes and Dean turned to look at you. “You hungry? I could definitely go get a burger and some pie.”

“Mhm sure.” You said unsure, truth be told you didn’t know if you were hungry. You hadn’t eaten for a while and there was an ache in your stomach, but you didn’t know whether that was from missing food, or your parents.

“Right well let’s go”

So, you went to the small dinner just down the road. You nibbled on some food but didn’t end up eating much. After you returned to the motel the boys settled down re checking the evidence, they ended up agreeing with you, and you sat staring blankly at pages in a book or staring as the small television in the room. You don’t know how long it had been, but you must have fallen asleep because next thing you know you were woken up by the front door closing.

You blinked and looked around the room, the boys were no longer there, the room was empty. It was 7am so you must have slept for a while. Just are you sat up Bobby emerged from the kitchen are with a mug of coffee.

“Morning kid, how do you sleep”

“Hey, and fine thanks, how are you Bobby? When did you get here?” You replied your voice still rough from sleep.

“I’m fine as well and about 5 like I said but I thought it best to let you sleep. The boys have gone out to find your folks now and trust me they are the best hunters I know so they will find them. Now you want anything?”

“F/D if there is any left please”

“Coming right up.” He said and got you your drink.

You sat and did nothing waiting for the boys to come home. 3 hours later you heard the car outside and when they came in the room alone that’s when you knew. That was when you no longer felt numb. Everything around you seemed like it was moving in slow motion. Bobby got up and asked them something, but you couldn’t hear you couldn't focus on the voices.Your suspicions were confirmed when he turned around and headed for your bed with a frown on his face. You had no family. They had gone and now you were completely alone. You were crying and you didn’t rely it until bobby wiped a tear from your face.

“I’m so sorry kid”

You couldn’t reply only stare at him, tears streaming down your face as you tried to process the fact that you would never see them again. That was nearly 4 years ago.

In between then and now you moved in with Bobby as he was your godfather, and he basically became a real father to you. He was very protective of you and you grew really close. Same with the brothers, who became part of your family as well. You weren’t alone, and of course you missed your parents, but your life was good. You had tried to persuade Bobby to let you hunt with the boys, but he wouldn’t allow it until you were 18. That’s when you could start proper training. So, until then your days were filled with helping Bobby out with lore and evidence other hunters needed, he said you had a gift with that, and going to the local church. You didn’t exactly know what you believed in to be honest. But it got you out of the house and Bobby didn’t object. Especially after Dean went to hell and befriended an angel. You had only heard stories of course but they made going to church seem a bit more worth it. And now your sat watching a film with Bobby the day before your 18th birthday. The day you can finally start training and properly helping on hunts.

#crowley #crowley x reader #crowley x you #supernatural #priestcrowley #xreader

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sincerely-raine · 4 years

Text

Lovesick (Todoroki Shouto x Reader)

love·sick

/ˈləvˌsik/

adjective

in love, or missing the person one loves, so much that one is unable to act normally.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

(Kinda short, also one of my first 'x reader's)

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Almost everybody has a voice, whether they use it or not. Kouda? He uses it to talk to animals. Tokoyami? To communicate with Dark Shadow. And Shouji? He's never been one to talk much, but he likes to converse once in a while.

Todoroki has always been quiet. Even quieter around you. You never understood why. 'Is he shy?' You thought, 'Though he seemed fine talking to the others? Maybe I'm out of his league...he is Endeavor's son after all, and a handsome rich kid too, why would he need a normal person like me in his life to be anymore than just another fan?'

You wouldn't let that get in the way of making new friends. Whether he likes it or not.

But the truth was...your thoughts were completely wrong. Little did you know, his feelings for you were so strong he may as well take the world record for being the biggest lovebird to live.

Everytime you were around, he got so nervous, felt so fuzzy inside, he couldn't bring himself to speak. Caught up in his head, thinking about how beautiful you are, how adorable every expression you made was...how you were so nice towards him, even before the sports festival. He would be so blatantly rude to you, block you off, straight up tell you he didn't need friends, yet you still tried to invade his social life.

You're so persistent, and thoughtful, and understanding...once the sports festival was over...he couldn't stop thinking about you.

How he wished he could speak to you. Everytime you said something, he would just stare into your eyes with an expression so hard to read.

"She probably thinks I'm not interested in her...but how can I show my true feelings when all I can do is stare?" He murmured to himself before sitting up on his bed.

He looked over to a notebook sitting on his desk. That was it! He can write to you! Surely, that'll work!

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

He sighed once he made it to your dorm. All he needed to do was slide the paper under the door, that was all! 'Who cares if they don't replicate your feelings, right?'

...right?

He was shaken from his thoughts when he saw your door open. You were standing there, 3 inches apart from him, with bedhead and adorable pajamas. Barely even awake.

"Hey, Todoroki," you said ever so quietly with the cutest blush,"Need something?"

...

"Todoroki? Hello? Anyone in there?" you giggled at your own reaction as he just stood there. "Well uh...it was nice playing stand infront of someone's dorm room with you, but I really should brush my teeth now. Gotta stay hygienic! Bye-bye!" he watched as you walked towards the elevator. What was he doing? Who cares. He was so close to you...he could smell your sweet, natural, cotton candy scent. He could almost touch you, hug you, even kiss you.

Wait...the letter! He was supposed to give you that love letter! And you were gone. Well, nothing's stopping him from giving you a late love letter...maybe even checking out your room? No...that's creepy to do that without permission...but it's not creepy if they don't know.....

He reached for the door handle and turned it, opening the door to reveal all the things you love in one dorm.

All the equipment and gear for the sports you love to play, every doodle and sketch you've ever drawn, a twin bed covered with multiple blankets and pillows with your favorite fandoms on them. He looked over to the corner of your bed and saw a journal with a lock on it. Your diary? Maybe so. And you were even foolish enough to leave the key right on your pillow.

He set the letter down and used the key to unlock the diary, and read anything he found interesting. He hoped you wouldn't walk in on him reading your book of secrets.

Over the past 5 minutes, he's already learned so much about you. Your pet cockatiel you had to leave at home to abide dorm rules, your older sister who you missed so much, all your past crushes and friends, and even enemies. And finally he got to the one page he needed to read.

And he read every last word.

"I always wondered why he never talks to me...did I say something? Am I annoying? And why do I have to like him? The one person who doesn't even bother to speak to me. I wish I never had the ability to feel, I know this will end in heartbreak and our relationship being even more awkward than before. It always does.

But I won't stop talking until he makes me. It'll teach both of us something! He'll learn to use his words instead of waiting for someone to use their mind reading quirks and I can work on whatever he tells me to!"

Were you talking about him? Who do you have feelings for?? He didn't know what to think.

He closed and locked your diary, left the letter and closed the door behind him. Walking back to his dorm, he was lost in his thoughts, hoping he'd get answers.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

"My legs hurt..." you whined, plopping onto the couch. "You'll get used to it!" Mina chimed in,"I always felt that way after playing Dance Dance Revolution but it gave me dancer legs after a while, and cool moves~" you giggled at her once she started doing the strangest dance she could think of.

"Thanks for taking me to the arcade, guys, it really did take my mind off him for a while."

Kaminari sat down next to you,"Don't worry bout it, but hey, if you just mentioned him, doesn't that mean you're thinking bout him right now?"

"Why don't you just ask him what's up?" Kirishima chimed in.

"Yeah, and keep asking over and over until he gives in."

You stood up "Sero, if I do that I'll just annoy him so bad that I'll have an even lesser chance to hook up with him...but thanks for the idea?"

He shrugged in response. "I'm gonna go to bed, sleeping will make Saturday come faster."

"Goodnight!" Uraraka said as you walked by. "G'night, chako."

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

You opened your door and saw a piece of plain, lined paper sitting in the middle of your bed. "Did I leave this here?"

You gently picked it up and laid down.

"Dear (Y/N),

I'm sorry if I upset you with my silence. I don't mean to leave you hanging all the time. But your presence makes me so flustered, I get lost in your words. I can't even use my own words to talk with you.

You make me lovesick. It's impossible to function as a normal human when you're around.

Everytime I see your sparkling eyes, my heart skips a beat. Everytime I hear soft voice, I feel like I'm listening to music. When I smell your sweet scent, I could faint.

I love you so much it's unhealthy.

Please forgive me for being so rude.

Your secret admirer, Todoroki."

...Love?

......Secret?

Todoroki???

Okay, for one, it's not secret when he tells you his name?

You were so shocked, you were expecting him to confess, but you weren't expecting a love confession! Not that you were mad, you were anything but mad. You didn't think you'd visit the arcade, come back, to try sleep, then get hit with a love letter from the one guy who acts like he hates you! (Even on accident!)

That night, you dreamt of red and white.

Part 2? Maybe? Possibly?

And don't be scared to let me know if I made any mistakes or give me suggestions!

#bnha shoto todoroki #todoroki x reader #todoroki x y/n #bnha #bnha x reader #bnha fanfiction #shouto x reader #mha shouto #bnha shouto #shoto+todoroki+x+reader #shoto todoroki #x reader

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salt-warrior · 3 years

Text

WHEN EARTH TURNS TO ASHES

Masterlist

Chapter Eleven: Little Miss Independent

"Stop beating yourself up, Crown." Thorne shoved in another bite of waffles, boysenberry jam staining his lips purple as he did so. "It's not your fault that you're the nosiest person on the planet and she hates herself. Get over it."

Kai rolled his eyes. Thorne was a great friend; he was always there for Kai no matter what. But he was the worst at giving sane advice or motivational speeches. "It just wasn't my business."

"You really should have gone into journalism," Thorne said, his words slurred by the food in his mouth. Kai looked down, his heart heavy at the comment.

When Kai had been young, he had wanted to do nothing more than write, and his mother had encouraged that. His father had even been fine with the whole idea, even if it meant that Kai would not go into the family business. All of it had changed when Kai's mother had died. Kai stopped writing—stopped doing most things he loved. It was too painful.

"Yeah," Kai muttered. "I should have."

"Anyways," Thorne waved his fork erratically through the air, nearly spraying Kai with blue jam. "You need to just rip the bandaid off. Show her that you care— more than you should if you ask me–" Kai glared. Thorne sighed. "She really needs someone on her side, even if she thinks she's little-miss-independent."

Kai looked down into his mug, completely empty except for small flakes of chocolate. It wasn't that Kai didn't want to talk to Cinder—quite the opposite, really. He just didn't want to scare her away. He would never be able to forgive himself.

"It's just, there's something dark about her. She's hiding something," Kai remarked.

"Gee, thanks, Captain Obvious. I don't think I ever would have figured that one out on my own." Thorne threw his arms around his head in exasperation, before ticking off fingers. "I mean, she freaks every time someone calls her by her given name, she had a sister that died while they were alone together and no one will say how it happened, and everyone she once knew hated her. I wonder what that girl has to hide."

"Okay, okay!" Kai drummed his fingers anxiously across the square table. "I'm only thinking out loud, no need to go ballistic."

Scraping chunky jam out of a plastic container, Thorne rubbed it lovingly across the last of his waffles. Kai watched, nose scrunched in disgust. Kai hated berries. They were just too sour, too mushy, and left the back of your tongue scratchy. They were gross.

Thorne smothered whipped cream on top of his creation, practically drooling all over it. "Oh, hey, I almost forgot. Did you learn anything from the Principal or that Chris girl?"

"Cress," Kai said quickly, his palms growing sweaty.

"What?" Thorne looked up, confusion scrawled across his fair features.

"Her name is Cress, not Chris." Kai clarified, his cheeks heating up as he babbled. "And your incredible timing stopped me from learning anything really important, so thanks for that."

An impish grin came across Thorne's face, and Kai knew what he was thinking. If ultra-red was a color, then ‘Kaito Crown's face when talking about pretty girls’ could have been the crayon for it. "Yes, she was cute, but not my type, so please don't ask."

"Ah," Thorne slapped a hand dramatically across his heart. "I would never suggest anything of the sort. I know how attached you are to your hot angel." Thorne quirked an eyebrow devilishly.

"Well, what were you going to ask, then?" Kai grumbled, turning his blazing face down. He hadn't much thought about Cress, considering that she had a mysterious past with the girl he was fighting for. He didn't know if Cress had been a positive or negative factor in Cinder's life, which therefore made her hard to look at in any other way than a source of information.

Thorne played around with his fork before answering, "Well, you must have found out something new. Even the tiniest bit of news. I mean, unless you're hiding it from me." Thorne grinned wickedly, and Kai cursed himself mentally. "You're a terrible liar, Crown."

"Okay, fine. I just feel guilty about the whole thing." Kai rubbed his palms against his sleepless eyes. "When I went to talk with Cress, she told me that Selene—Cinder—kept a bunch of secrets." Kai paused, gauging Thorne's face. He looked almost bored, which send a stab of agitation through Kai.

"And?" Thorne pressed on impatiently.

Kai sighed. "And she told me that Cinder lied about what happened to her mom. Even her records don't have the truth; I would know. The nurses told me that Sel– Cinder's mother was put into prison when she was only six, but apparently that's not true."

Thorne motioned impatiently for Kai to continue, but Kai shrugged his shoulders. Thorne huffed. "What actually happened to her mother?"

"Well, I would know if it weren't for your incredible timing." Kai leaned forward in his seat, glaring at Thorne.

"Hey! You told me to call the second the girl woke up. You can't blame me for a job well done," said Thorne defensively.

Kai threw his body back in his seat, feeling exhausted. He was used to getting a solid eight hours of sleep, but that had gone out the window ever since the accident. It was starting to wear on him. "I know, Thorne. And thank you for being there, it meant a lot."

"It better have." Thorne folded his arms across his chest defensively. "That girl of yours is not an angel."

A chuckle escaped Kai, earning a glare from Thorne. "She's a piece of work!"

"She's not easy," Kai admitted, thinking back on his only encounter with a conscious Cinder. She was different than anyone Kai had ever met, one moment rageful and fiery, and in the next small and pitiable. It was hard for Kai to feel anything but compassion for someone who had clearly suffered much. She had fought her whole life, never leaving her enough time to feel peace or love.

There was something so terribly sad about the fact that Cinder couldn't understand why Kai would save her. She was just a girl—not a woman, but a girl—and she needed at least one person on her side. If that one person was Kai, then he would be one damn good cheerleader.

"Why was she so mad at you in the first place? What did you say to her?" Kai asked, recalling the phone call and Cinder's brief acknowledgment to Thorne's visit. "She seems to hate you even more than me."

Thorne waved his hand as if swatting a fly. "Oh, you know. Some women just can't take no for an answer is all."

"Carswell, please tell me you did not flirt with her the second she woke up. She nearly burned to death!" Kai exclaimed, imagining all of the terrible puns and flirtatious jokes Thorne could have made.

"Oh, don't get your panties in a wad." Thorne rolled his eyes. "I was perfectly pleasant as always."

"No wonder she hates me so much," Kai grumbled to himself. "I unleashed you on her, and now she's probably frightened to death! She's only nineteen, Thorne."

"And I'm only twenty-two." Thorne countered.

Kai put his head in his hands, his face flushing with embarrassment and... was that jealousy? How could Kai be jealous that Thorne had tormented a girl with his flirtations, or was it the fact that Thorne was able to flirt with her?

Thorne seemed to read Kai's face like a book. He leaned forward teasingly, his voice sing-songy. "Ooh, is Kaito jealous? But of what, may I wonder?" Thorne rested his cheek in his hand, looking like a gossiping school-girl. Kai had hardly ever wanted to hit him more.

"Not jealous." Kai got out through his teeth. "I just don't want you messing with her. She's been through enough."

"Sure, sure." Thorne tossed the words around teasingly. "Anyway, she's not my type. I've always had a thing for gingers. Those devil's wenches. I was thinking about asking out the other nurse."

Kai ignored this, knowing as well as anything that Thorne preferred blondes. Thorne had only ever been out with one redhead, and that date had not been his best.

"I just don't know what to do," Kai whined, getting back on track. Whenever Thorne was involved in a conversation things always got out of hand.

"Go talk to her. She's had a night to think things through and realize that she was rude and irrational. Appeal to your gentler side; women like that."

Kai wrinkled his nose, deciding that was enough advice for one day. It was true that Cinder had been given plenty of time to think things over and decide how she felt. It was unfair of Kai to shove so much information on her all at once. He would be slower, more patient and gentle this time.

"Thanks, Thorne," Kai said, standing from his seat and sliding his body into his coat.

"Anything for my brotha," Thorne winked, throwing out a fist.

Kai bumped Thorne's fist with his own, twisting it and then spinning his fingers before he walked away and out of the café.

***

"How are you doing today, Cinder?" A nurse with vibrant blue braids practically skipped into the room, carrying a tray with milk, chocolate pudding and something that resembled oatmeal. Cinder tried not to wrinkle her nose. At least this nurse had called her by her preferred name.

The first nurse that Cinder had met had been curvy and dark-haired. She had called Cinder 'Selene' so many times that Cinder had yelled for her to stop. The second nurse hadn't spoken at all to Cinder, except to ask her the rudimentary questions, though that may have been the night-shift speaking.

"Fine." Cinder commented, not in the mood for conversation. There was a TV going on in the background, but Cinder had only glanced at it for a few seconds before growing bored. She would much rather be reading a book. Those at least didn't make her eyes burn and head throb.

The room was plainly furnished, with the bed in the center of the room, the said TV across from the bed, and a small plastic chair beside the bed for visitors.

"I brought your breakfast, and your medicine. Now that you're awake, we want to start you on oral medication and ween you off your IV so you can go home." The nurse placed the tray on the over-bed table. "I'm Iko, by the way."

Cinder ignore the last part. "Wasn't I in a medically induced coma? Why didn't they just keep me awake and give me my medication like a normal person?" Cinder questioned, her words tinged with agitation.

"It's part of the treatment," Iko said, her voice cool but firm. She was not a woman to be messed with. "People heal better while sleeping, and this particular treatment can be tricky."

Iko moved around the bed to shift Cinder into an upright position. She fluffed the pillows, and smoothed down the blankets in an affectionate fashion. Cinder almost felt guilty for being so bitter toward such a kind person.

There was something reassuring about Iko's presence. Cinder relaxed her shoulders, not realizing how tense she had been. She had been putting up a mask for so many years; it was nice to let it down, even for a second.

"Take these," Iko handed Cinder a small cup with an assortment of colored pills. Cinder put them all in her mouth at once, washing them down with a chug of milk that made Cinder almost gag. She had never been fond of dairy products, but she didn't want to be a snob.

The nurse seemed to dance around Cinder's bed, fixing monitors and IV bags, changing the lighting, turning the volume down on the TV. She appeared to know exactly what Cinder needed the most to make her comfortable. It was an odd sensation, to be cared for. Cinder hadn't experienced anything of the sort in too many years.

After seeming to finish with her practicality, Iko settled down in the plastic chair next to Cinder's bed. She clasped her hands daintily in her lap and smiled at Cinder. Only then did Cinder begin to marvel at the ageless quality Iko possessed. Her dark skin was clear and unblemished, her golden eyes bright, yet wise, and her blue braids gave her spunk.

"So," Iko smiled teasingly. "You seem to have a couple of male admirers. I hope that I'm not stepping the line when I ask you which one would happen to be your lover."

That took Cinder aback. Her shoulders tensed, and while normally she would have been agitated, or even mad with such an assumption, all Cinder could manage was a laugh. And laugh she did; big, ugly, loud laughing that shook the bed and caused the heart monitor to race.

Iko stared at Cinder in astonishment, and looked nearly appalled when Cinder began to cough and choke. She stood from her seat, placing a hand over Cinder's chest and muttering about smoke inhalation.

"You thought–" Cinder coughed, unable to control her laughter, "–that I was–" A wheezing began at the back of Cinder's throat. "–with one of those stupid–"

"Hey, hey," Iko was practically yelling at Cinder. "Stop with that, or you'll stop breathing soon enough. Hey!" Iko grabbed Cinder by the shoulders, trying to calm her.

Cinder stopped laughing, though it was gradual. She coughed once more before regaining her composure and staring at her befuddled nurse. "I'm okay." Cinder wiped at her eyes, though no tears had escaped. That was odd.

"I'm sorry," Cinder whispered, her voice hoarse. "It's just, I've never met either of those men before. I only know Kai because he saved me and I'm guessing Thorne is the guy that dared him to do it."

Iko softened and looked as if she were about to say something, but someone else, hidden in the shadows, spoke before she could.

"I'm so sorry to interrupt, but I would like to speak with Miss Linh."

#when earth turns to ashes #wetta #a burning world #marissa meyer #tlc #the lunar chronicles #lunar chronicles #tlc fanfiction #kaider fanfiction #linh cinder #selene blackburn #prince kai #emperor kai #carswell thorne #cress darnel #iko #salt warrior stories

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emachinescat · 3 years

Text

The Casket of the Armadillos (by Edgar Allan Nope)

A Psych Fan-Fiction

by @emachinescat

@febuwhump day 9 - buried alive

Summary: When Shawn confronts a grad student turned murderer, he learns a very important lesson a very hard way: Don’t piss off English nerds - especially the homicidal ones.

Characters: Shawn, Gus, Juliet, Lassiter, Henry

Words: 5,924

TW: panic attacks, buried alive, claustrophobia

Note: If you liked this classic lit-inspired Psych fic, you can always check out this one I wrote, inspired by To Kill a Mockingbird: The Finch and the Mockingbird

Keep reading here, or on AO3!

If you enjoy, please consider liking, commenting, or re-blogging, and you can follow me for more content like this! :)

I forced the last stone into its position; I plastered it up. Against the new masonry I re-erected the old rampart of bones. For the half of a century no mortal has disturbed them. In pace requiescat!

- Edgar Allan Poe, “The Cask of Amontillado”

Her name was Olivia Hale, she was a twenty-three-year-old grad student at UCSB, and she was working on her doctorate in American lit. She was attractive in a cute librarian sort of way - short and petite, with long, curly auburn hair she kept in a bun and oversized glasses with thick lenses, and a smattering of freckles across her slightly upturned nose. She knew a little bit about everything when it came to literature as a whole, a rather impressive amount about American literature, and absolutely everything there was to know about the life and works of one Edgar Allan Poe.

She was also batshit crazy and currently pointing a .22 pistol directly at Shawn’s head.

“Don’t move,” she growled, disengaging the safety.

Shawn did a cursory glance around the empty classroom, looking for anything at all he could use to his advantage, to distract her or attack her with or - worst case scenario - to use as a shield. But Olivia had found him snooping around on the tiny fourth floor study room that she’d been given to use by the department chair as her thesis headquarters. She’d really made herself at home here, piling books and journals and what seemed like hundreds of loose sheets of paper on every available surface.

But he was stranded in the middle of the room, with nothing close enough to use as a weapon, and so Shawn used the most powerful tool he had, one that had saved his life and many others, wooed women all over the country, and ordered more chili cheese dogs than he could count.

He started talking.

“Look, Olivia, I get it,” he said soothingly. Slowly, in the most non-threatening manner possible, he lowered his hands. Olivia gripped the pistol tighter but didn’t shoot. “I know what happened. You didn’t mean to kill him.”

Her eyes were wide and fierce, her lips pursed into a thin line. “No,” she admitted. “It was an accident. But he was going to--”

“Yeees,” drawled Shawn, slowly raising his left hand and putting it to his temple, very well aware that he was probably pushing the limit with all of this movement after she had expressly ordered, at gunpoint, for him to stay still. “I see it. Dr. Graves was feeling guilty, wasn’t he? A fifty-five-year-old professor with a fancy PhD and tenure, and a devoted wife and three kids and two grandkids, to boot. The perfect life. But oooh, it wasn’t enough for him, was it?”

Shawn immediately answered his own question, something that he had become exceptionally good at over the years since he was usually the only one who could keep up with himself. “Of course not! What’s the perfect job and family when you’ve got a smokin’ hot, super smart student in her mid-twenties who thinks you’re the most impressive man on the planet?”

She sneered, and Shawn noticed with some trepidation that the hand holding the gun trembled just the tiniest bit. When she spoke, her voice warbled with rage. “My age and appearance had nothing to do with it - and even if it did, there was nothing wrong with our relationship! We were perfect for each other, intellectual equals. We were on each other’s levels - he was my soulmate! So don’t you dare belittle what we had like that!”

Ah. So he had hit a nerve. This could now go either one of two ways, in Shawn’s extensive experience in being held hostage: Either she would get fed up and send a bullet screaming through his body, Garth Longmore style, or she would let her emotions distract her, and cause her to make a stupid mistake. Obviously, Shawn hoped for the latter.

Now Shawn had to make a choice, because he could proceed in one of two ways: Either he could back off and try from another angle, or he could further antagonize her into (hopefully) making a mistake. Naturally, Shawn went with the latter.

“Sure, sure,” he agreed airily. “Older men and younger women do it all the time. But to say there was nothing wrong with your relationship? The man was married, and you were his student. I’m not the headmaster here -”

“Dean,” she corrected sharply, and this further proved that Shawn had pegged her correctly as a know-it-all literature wunderkind who had to be right one thousand percent of the time. “This isn’t Hogwarts.”

Shawn gave a tiny shrug. “To be honest, all big schools look like Hogwarts to me.”

“Because you have the mind of a child.” The words were accusatory and patronizing, but Shawn flashed a dazzling smile.

“Thank you,” he said. Before she could respond, he continued his earlier thoughts, “Even though you were the ‘perfect couple,’ you were furious with him for even suggesting that you stop seeing one another. The affair was too risky, and he missed his wife. He wanted to tell her the truth, fix things.”

“It would have ruined everything!” Olivia hissed, and the sound of her voice sent shivers down Shawn’s spine. There was an unhinged quality to it, something raw and dangerous that he hadn’t sensed before. He fought the sudden urge to backpedal as far away from her as possible. “We were perfect together! And if he told his wife and she let it slip, I would be kicked out! All my research, all my time and work here, everything would be gone! He had no right to make that decision for me, to take away my future!”

“Maybe,” said Shawn, and it was like he was watching from outside his body, because he knew that what he was about to say was a big mistake, but he was helpless to stop the words from tumbling from his lips, “you should have thought more about your future before you pursued your married Shakespeare teacher.”

Fury etched itself into every feature of her face, turning her from a beautiful librarian to a feral monster, but her voice was slow and measured as if it was taking every ounce of self-control she possessed not to shoot him where he stood. “He taught Southern. Gothic. Masterpieces.”

Shawn tried to backtrack, to undo whatever damage had been done by his unpredictably big mouth. “But,” he pressed. “Killing him was an accident. You didn’t mean to push him down four flights of stairs.”

She considered this. “No, I didn’t mean to kill him,” she reaffirmed, and then an odd calm smoothed out the angry crevices between her eyebrows - the peace, perhaps, of having come to an important decision that she knew was absolutely right. Shawn recognized the look because he’d seen it on others’ faces before (very rarely, if ever, had he seen it upon his own). “And I don’t think I will kill you, either.”

Whatever Shawn had been expecting, this wasn’t it. Everything about this woman screamed insane and vengeful. If Shawn lived, he would turn her into the police, and she would go to jail for a very long time. She was incredibly intelligent - surely she knew this!

And then she clarified, and the world started to make sense again - though Shawn would have honestly been perfectly content in this alternate reality where the bad guy suddenly has a miraculous change of heart. “Well,” she amended, “I won’t kill you directly. I’ve never shot anyone before - I only have this little guy here because I’m a young, pretty girl on a big college campus, and I have two night classes. Besides, your death shouldn’t be so easy.”

Shawn swallowed. “Olivia, you don’t have to do this. You haven’t intentionally killed anyone yet. If you turn yourself in now and cooperate, your sentence will be a lot shorter than if you kill me - directly or not. Because make no mistake, even if you kill me, you will still get caught. The SBPD has some damn good detectives, and they’ll bring you down even if I don’t.”

She didn’t respond to him directly. Instead, her expression was flat save for the dark gleam in her eyes, and she intoned words that in and of themselves had no meaning to Shawn, but that still managed to strike a chord of fear deep inside of his soul. “‘The thousand injuries of Fortunato I had borne as best I could, but when he ventured upon insult I vowed revenge.’” Shawn was utterly unnerved by this point; it was like she had been taken over by something both sinister and incredibly well-spoken.

And indeed, in many ways she had, as Shawn soon found out, she was quoting the beginning of a story by Edgar Allan Poe.

Presently, however, Shawn had no context for her strange words or sudden shift of demeanor. His skin crawled and his heart pumped with more get-up-and-go than he’d ever been able to muster in his whole body before. “Uh, Olivia…”

“Move,” she ordered.

This time, though it was contrary to his nature, Shawn did what she said without arguing. This side of the student, with stolen words sliding evilly from her mouth, was a million times scarier than the enraged Olivia who had very nearly shot him between the eyes.

She marched him out of the room and down the three flights of stairs to the main lobby of the English building. It was dark outside, nearing midnight, and Shawn kicked himself for thinking he was clever for coming to investigate this late. He’d thought she’d be at home sleeping. He should have realized that as a grad student, sleeping was the one thing she wouldn’t have time for! And now he was in very deep trouble, alone, and no one knew where he was. He should have waited until morning, until the building wasn’t deserted, should have at least called Gus and told him what he was doing. But it was a college campus, and she was a tiny little literature nerd - it should have been safe!

As she forced him down one flight of stairs, then two, then three, and finally, into a stairwell off the beaten path that had to be unlocked with a key card - which she had - she continued to encant, her voice slowly losing its flatness and growing into something twisted and sing-songy with every word.

“‘You, who so well know the nature of my soul, will not suppose, however, that gave utterance to a threat. At length I would be avenged; this was a point, definitely, settled - but the very definitiveness with which it was resolved precluded the idea of risk.’”

“Olivia--”

It was as if she hadn’t heard him as she shoved him into the basement, and now her voice stilled from a chant to a slow, measured whisper.. “‘I must not only punish but punish with impunity.’”

Shawn wasn’t sure what impunity was, but it sure as hell didn’t sound good.

Their final destination ended up being a small, partially finished storage room near the back of the basement. Dusty boxes and rusted cabinets and archaic old computer monitors lined the walls and cluttered most of the walking space. Shawn was reminded grimly of a school supply graveyard.

Olivia stopped him when they came to a brick wall that had been busted through to fix some issue with the pipes - Shawn saw the water stains on the concrete floor near the break in the wall, and there was a brand new water pipe joined to an old, yellowed one at about eye-level in the small open space between the bricks and the drywall beyond. Shawn also noticed that the new bricks had been neatly piled up near a sealed bucket that almost certainly contained mortar, right outside of the hole. Someone was in the process of walling this section back up.

“Nice wall,” Shawn joked, relieved that Olivia had finally stopped her creepy recitation and desperately trying to lighten the mood and bring things back to some sort of normal - honestly, he’d take being threatened with the gun again to the horror movie stuff he’d just witnessed. “I bet all the other walls are jealous of it.”

It was a lame joke, but her eerie dramatics had him all kinds of messed up. He expected her to tell him to shut up, or to threaten to shoot him again, or to actually shoot him, but instead she asked him a question in that same cold, calm voice as before. “Have you ever read ‘The Cask of Amontillado,’ Shawn?”

Shawn blinked. “I make it a point not to read anything that’s not a magazine from the 80s or WikiHow articles on ‘How to Escape from Dangerous Forest Animals.’”

The corner of her lips lifted in a mockery of a satisfied smile. “Good. Then you’ll get to experience it for yourself, first hand. Just wait until you get to the ending! You’re going to love it.”

Somehow, Shawn doubted that very much.

Still holding the gun on him with one hand, she reached her free hand into the cross-body bag she wore and pulled out a pair of handcuffs. Shawn groaned.

“Come on! What college student just carries handcuffs in their school bag?” Then he remembered that this particular student had until recently been having a passionate affair with her teacher. “Wait - never mind. It makes perfect sense.”

She laughed, even though what he said wasn’t even remotely funny. The sound of it was strange and discordant - light and tinkly with a threatening undertone that made the hair on the back of his neck stand on end. Then she gestured at the hole in the wall and ordered, “In.”

Shawn had known it was coming, but had tried to shove that knowledge into the corner of his mind - something that was quite difficult to do for someone with a photographic and eidetic memory - in an effort to convince himself that even she wasn’t that cruel. He tried to appeal to her one last time: “Olivia, it’s not too late to stop this. I mean, are you really going to do this to another human being - seriously, look at this place - it’s dusty and moldy and I’m almost certain there’s no room service! If you’re going to chain me to a pipe, why not do it in a five star hotel?” When she nudged him with the gun, eyes gleaming with something dark and triumphant, he reluctantly stepped into the small space and implored, “I’ll even settle for a seedy motel off a poorly lit backroad. I’m not too picky.”

She didn’t answer him as she stood on her tiptoes and handcuffed Shawn’s wrists around the pipe, cinching them so tight that the metal dug into his skin and he doubted that even his dad’s lessons on escaping handcuffs wouldn’t be much help here. Already he could feel his fingers going numb, and his shoulders and back had started to ache from the hunched position he was forced to take due to the height of the pipe and the awkward angle of his arms.

Well, Shawn thought glumly as she smiled at her handiwork and carefully backed out of the small space, maybe all wasn’t lost. Surely someone would come down here and find him. This place was dusty, but it couldn’t be abandoned - work still needed to be done down here, after all. And he could always yell for help once he was sure Olivia was gone. She was booksmart, but maybe she wasn’t criminally minded. He might be in for an uncomfortable night, but in the morning someone would find him and he could have his vision and the cute little psychopath would go to jail for a very long time.

He waited for her to leave, but instead, she used a crowbar to pry the lid off the bucket of mortar, and the pit in Shawn’s stomach became a whole-ass trench. He should have seen this coming - his heart pounded madly against his rib cage as if trying to free itself, with or without him. He couldn’t blame it. “Olivia, please,” he said, and this time, there was no joke, his voice imploring and terrified. “You don’t have -”

Again, she cut him off. “How would you like to hear a story before you die, Shawn?” she asked in a tone so casual that she could have been asking him if he wanted to grab a taco.

“How about you tell me a story and then I don’t die?” Shawn bargained weakly.

“Mmmm… If you stay alive, my whole life will be ruined,” Olivia reasoned. “And I have worked far too hard to allow that to happen. So. You just stand there - quietly - and I’ll tell you the story of Poe’s most beloved tale of revenge. I won’t tell you word for word, of course - we don’t have time for that - but for posterity, I do have it memorized.” She sounded grotesquely proud of that fact. “It’s my favorite of his stories, after all.”

And so, as she slowly began to brick up the hole in the wall, with Shawn trapped, helpless and in a dissociative state of panic, she told him the story of two men with really stupid names that Shawn somehow managed, despite his raging fear, to file away for later as possible nicknames for Gus.

“Our story starts in Italy, during the carnival, and our narrator is a man named Montresor, who has a grudge against his once-friend, now-foe, Fortunato…”

The story was an interesting one, even to Shawn, who preferred watching over reading and especially over listening any day. And as it turned out, Olivia was a really good storyteller. If he had been in any other position, Shawn might have actually enjoyed the suspenseful tale of revenge.

But as he stooped there and was forced to listen, all he could think about was about how terrified this Fortunato guy must have been, and then he started wondering how long it had been before the man hadn’t been able to hold his bladder or… other things… anymore, and then about what had happened when he was too tired and dizzy to stand up, if the manacles on his wrists had pulled so hard against his flesh that they cut into him, and if lack of water or oxygen killed him first, all the while he knew that he wasn’t asking these questions for the sake of the fictional character. He was asking them for himself. Olivia had made it exceedingly clear - for a literature scholar, she was surprisingly un-subtle about any underlying meanings or motives - that Fortunato’s story was now to be his story.

It wasn’t until she had begun discussing with rapture the brilliance of Poe’s use of the Italian carnival as the setting of a story about murder (because of its abandonment of social order, whatever that meant) and had built up all but the last two bricks, leaving a hole around Shawn’s eye level, that came to the most horrifying realization yet. He’d been so focused on his own thoughts and fears with Olivia’s words washing over him like an acid bath that he’d barely registered that the dim light in the hole had been darkening incrementally with each new brick placed. Now he came to the bone-chilling understanding that once she placed those last two bricks, he would be completely in the dark.

He was going to die, alone, terrified, and in utter darkness with fear as his only friend. He thought in that moment that he might die of a heart attack before he could even think about dehydrating or suffocating. Honestly, it sounded like an easier way to go.

“Well,” said Olivia finally. “I can’t say that it’s been a pleasure to meet you in any way, Shawn, but I suppose I should thank you. Ever since I found out about this unfinished wall down here, I’ve had this unscratchable itch to recreate the titular scene from my favorite Poe story. You gave me the means and justification to do it!”

Shawn was so overcome by the surging sea of fear and early-onset claustrophobia that he couldn’t even muster up the gumption to make a joke about the word titular. Instead, as Olivia knelt down next to her bag, rooting around for something, he jerked madly against the handcuffs, desperately searching for any give in the metal or the pipe he was handcuffed to (or even his wrists, at this point he wasn’t picky). But the pipe was new, and it was sturdy, and so was the fitting that connected it to the old one, which itself didn’t seem too keen on budging, either.

A sick grin teased at Olivia’s parted lips. “Oh, Fortunato tried that too. But then he stopped crying and struggling and chose to die with a shred of dignity. But I highly doubt dignity is something you’re capable of.”

And then, with the finality of fitting a lid to a coffin, she slapped a piece of fluorescent pink duct tape over his mouth and a fresh wave of panic ravaged Shawn’s everything. He didn’t remember this happening in her retelling of the story! Then again, the Fortunato guy had been sealed into catacombs deep underground. Shawn was in the basement of a heavily trafficked university building. Someone would actually hear him if he called for help, so she took his voice away from him too. He couldn’t even sing “99 Bottles of Beer on the Wall” to pass his time or distract him from the inevitable. As if it wasn’t bad enough that he would die in the dark, he would die in the quiet too - and silence was, as his incessant need for chatter plainly proved, Shawn’s worst enemy.

“Goodbye, Shawn,” Olivia said, and she added one brick, layered on the mortar, and then gave her captive one last satisfied glance before adding the last brick and leaving Shawn in total, impenetrable darkness. He would never forget that last, terrible look in her eyes before his world went black - she was no longer human; she had elevated herself to the level of the storytelling gods and she relished in the twisted power she held over the life of another human.

As her footsteps clipped away, her voice, obscenely gleeful, called out, “In pace requiescat!”

***

The next ten hours were the worst of Shawn’s life, and they consisted of five main elements all bundled together into a nightmare that would stalk him for the rest of his life.

Cold. It was the middle of January, and though it couldn’t have been less than forty-five degrees outside, the basement - especially behind the walls - was chilly, and with the musty smell and the dust and the pitch black, Shawn was reminded far too much of a grave and knew that he might as well be in one, because this was going to be his. It was the kind of cold that bit deeper than the skin and wormed its way into the very core and dug its icy fangs in and refused to let go - the chill of death, an open invitation from the dead to join them in their home beneath the ground. He shivered a lot, but he couldn’t be sure if it was the cold, or the panic. It was probably a little of both.

Dark. The darkness that surrounded him had an unreal nature that could easily trick the eyes into thinking that they were already closed. It was oppressive and thick, pressing in from all sides, inky black water dredged from the depths of the sea.

Shawn had never been a fan of the dark, but neither did he exactly fear it. That changed the second that the last brick was put into place and he found himself in a darkness so severe that were in not for the feeling of floor beneath his feet he could have been suspended in the depths of space so remote that not even stars could reach. The darkness swarmed his senses - it had a physical presence, and it didn’t lessen, never permitted Shawn’s eyes to adjust to it in the slightest. It just hung there, surrounded him, assaulted his mind with its infinite arsenal of nightmares.

After experiencing true darkness, Shawn would never sleep without a nightlight again (which unfortunately meant he couldn’t judge Gus anymore for using one, either).

Pain. At first it was just the pull of his shoulders, the ache in his back. Then, about five minutes after he’d been sealed up, he realized his wrists were screaming with agony - he must have torn them badly when he fought to get away, but the adrenaline staved off the pain until now. He vaguely wondered how deeply the cuffs had cut - it felt like the skin on his wrists had been flayed - but quickly remembered that it didn’t matter where he was going.

Then there were the hunger pangs, and they mingled with the cramps from holding his bladder longer than he ever had before, and at some point muscle spasms in his arms and chest and legs joined the choir of suffering. At one point, he shed a few tears, but they could have just as easily been from anxiety or exhaustion, which itself produced its own kind of pain - he longed to sleep, but his body refused to allow him even that comfort until the very end, right before he was rescued, as if he were being forced on pain of death to endure the pain of death right up until the very moment of his painful death.

At least he didn’t have too much trouble breathing. There must have been a crack somewhere in the wall in front of or behind him, because fresh air was entering somehow. He did, several hours into his imprisonment, begin finding it difficult to pull in a full breath, and by the time he was rescued he was giddy with light-headedness, but he didn’t know if it was from the air quality or exhaustion or panic or from being forced to breathe only through his nose for hours, but he really didn’t care.

Quiet. Even worse than the cold and the dark and the pain was the quiet. The tape over his mouth prevented him from doing the one thing that could bring him comfort in even the most difficult of situations. Talking was what Shawn did - he utilized mindless prattle to distract bad guys, to make people underestimate him, to quell fear and panic in himself and those around him, to annoy and wheedle those whose opinions meant the most to him (and who he was most afraid to be real with), and most importantly, to distract himself from all the pain and baggage that his exceptional memory had filed away for him throughout the years. Talking nonsense meant that he wasn’t thinking about or acknowledging the parts of himself that arguably needed the most attention, those bits that were scared and unsure and hurt and vulnerable.

Shawn had always detested silence, and now it had invaded so intimately that even he could not drive it out.

And all of these culminated in a constant, agonizing state of absolute, unrelenting fear.

Panic attacks are horrific things that take your natural instincts in potentially dangerous situations and turn them against you in the cruelest of ways. They suck the air out of your lungs and make your heart pound so fast and so hard that you are convinced it’s going to give out in pure fatigue and never make it to that next beat. It makes your skin crawl like there are thousands of spiders nesting there, and your chest hurts and your breath is short and stunted and you know you are dying, that the next breath will be your last, but it isn’t, and the fear just continues and sometimes you curl into a ball or rock back and forth or scratch at your skin.

Panic attacks generally last anywhere from five to twenty minutes. Shawn was stuck in a state of raw, unfiltered panic for ten hours. When the EMTs at the scene took his heart rate, it was 160, had been the entire time he’d been buried in a collegiate tomb, knowing that he was going to die.

Put simply, Shawn Spencer spent ten hours in his own personal hell.

***

It was nearly three in the afternoon when Detectives Juliet O’Hara and Carlton Lassiter, with the help of a frantic Gus and a worried Henry that tried his damndest not to show how worried he was, made the final connections in the case and tracked down the woman who had slept with and then killed her lover like a hyper-intelligent, book-loving black widow. Juliet and Gus remained on the college campus to continue investigating while Lassiter and Henry went on to the station to question Olivia. She had refused to say where the missing psychic detective was, however, and only offered one bitter phrase, spoken in another language that sounded to the questioning party like a curse being placed on their heads:

“Nemo me impune lacessit.”

It was Gus who figured it out after Lassiter related the cryptic saying over the phone.

“I know that phrase!” he exclaimed to a swell of raised eyebrows. “It’s Latin! It means no one wounds me with impunity!”

“You speak Latin?” Juliet seemed impressed.

“Not much. But I recognize that particular saying, because it’s from a story that gave me nightmares my entire sophomore year of college.” He shuddered. “It’s from the second-most terrifying Poe story.” He didn’t elaborate on what the first-most terrifying one was, largely because he didn’t want to give the others fodder to use “The Tell-Tale Heart” against him like Shawn already did. Then the full implications of the words sunk in and he gasped, “We have to find Shawn, now.” The horror in his expression sent a chill down Juliet’s spine.

“Gus - what the hell are you talking about?” Henry was no longer trying to hide the panic in his voice.

“It’s from ‘The Cask of Amontillado,’ Gus clarified, his own panic making it difficult to express himself clearly.

“Guster, this is hardly the time for you to have a glass of wine,” Lassiter barked. “Now stop talking in riddles and just spit it out!”

But Juliet had now made the connection as well and answered for Gus. “Oh my gosh - isn’t that the one where the guy is sealed into a wall and left to die?”

The dread in Gus’s eyes said it all.

“He’s got to be somewhere on campus,” Henry reasoned, and his voice shook the tiniest bit. “Lassiter and I are on our way back to you now. In the meantime, check with the school and see if there are any places that are easily accessed and under construction.”

No one said it aloud, but the possibility that her words hadn’t been a hint at all and that Shawn was somewhere else entirely hung in the air amongst them. It was funny, Juliet thought - though it wasn’t funny at all - she urgently needed Gus’s theory to be right, because otherwise they would have no leads, but at the same time, she was terrified of the implications if it were true.

Her heart felt as sick as Montresor’s when he placed the last brick as she and Gus raced to the administration building and prayed they weren’t too late.

***

When they broke through the wall, the sight that greeted them was one that would never leave them - any of them. Even Lassiter, who made it his sacred duty to remain unfazed by anything his job threw at him was visibly disturbed.

A moment of silence, a beat where time stood still and everyone was afraid to move, and then -

“Shawn!” The four rescuers surged forward as one, but Henry got there first, his trembling fingers groping for a pulse - thank God, but it was racing, dangerously fast, and in the background he heard Lassiter radioing for an ambulance.

Shawn woke up as Henry gently peeled the hideous pink duct tape (an affront to all duct tape everywhere) off of his mouth. It wasn’t a gentle waking, a flutter of eyelashes or the murmuring of a name - it was violent and erratic, fueled by terror.

Henry had had to deal with panic attacks before - mostly Gus’s when he took the boys camping together, but once or twice when Shawn was really young and he’d had a bad dream. This one was the worst that he’d ever seen - Shawn woke with a muffled yell, panting through his nose, writhing, tears streaming down his face, eyes squeezed shut against the trauma he’d been subjected to, and he threw himself against the handcuffs so fiercely that Henry feared he’d break his wrists.

Soon his wrists were freed, though, and Henry, with the help of Lassiter, helped a weakened Shawn out of the wall and into the basement and lowered him to the floor. Henry sat with him and rubbed his back and spoke quietly to him, Juliet took his hand, and Gus reassured him while Lassiter ran up the stairs to check on the ETA of the ambulance.

Twenty minutes later, Shawn had been placed onto a stretcher and carried up the stairs and out into the sunlight - sensing the warm rays, he opened his eyes only to pinch them shut again as the brightness after so many hours in the dark nearly blinded him. He had been given something to calm him down, and he would be going to the hospital to be checked over and observed overnight, and a psychiatrist would be sent in to evaluate him in the morning, and everything was moving so fast that Shawn leaned over the side of the stretcher and deposited the remnants of the last thing he’d eaten, nearly twelve hours before.

“There’s one thing I still don’t get,” he gasped as he was eased back onto the stretcher. “Where do the armadillos come into her plan?”

The EMTs exchanged a concerned look at the stretcher, probably wondering if there had been some carbon monoxide poisoning after all. Gus, however, just rolled his eyes.

“Amontillado, Shawn. It’s a kind of wine.”

“The story is called ‘The Casket of the Armadillos,’” Shawn argued stubbornly, going so far as to cross his arms over his chest, pulling at the IV in his right hand.

Gus was going to argue, to insist that he’d actually read the story (and why the heck would someone fill a casket with armadillos?), but then Gus saw the plea in Shawn’s hazel eyes, that need for jokes and silliness, and understood that his best friend was clinging onto his last shreds of control.

“You know what - I forgot,” Gus corrected, shaking his head and giving himself a light smack on the forehead for good measure. “It is ‘The Casket of Armadillos.’” He glared out at Henry, at Lassiter and Juliet and the EMTs, defying them to challenge his claim. No one did, but they all shared a similar baffled expression.

Well, they could deal with their confusion, Gus thought protectively as he watched Shawn and Henry disappear into the ambulance. Shawn had been through a night of unspeakable horror, so if it was armadillos he wanted, then it was armadillos he was going to get.

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soranihimawari · 4 years

Text

Shatter continued

A story in several parts:

tw: reader chan’s sibling is a toxic force to be reckoned with; officers mentioned in later parts (civil servants for young adults); mentions of accidents and scarring [both emotional and physical]; young adult 18+ for strong and suggestive language

word count: 6.8 K

tagging @oikawa-obvs @m0nstergeneration20xx

the characters and other tie in works:

seijoh 4: oikawa, iwazumi, hanamaki, mattsun

spin off of the Running at 6a.m. feat. hanamaki and his s/o [plus s/o family]

Little side notes: mattsukawa issei means “it’s all right.” // fuyu no rairakku fuji means “my beautiful wisteria tree” // mitsuketa means “I have you”

Throughout this story, mattsun & q learn how important the actions of others does not define a set path.

Images based via Pinterest

Image 2 based off this post

<< Back

III

The day before you leave back to your side of the city, you tell your friend what has transpired between you and mattsun on movie night:

“That’s great! I knew he’d like you. They all do,” she says. “I mean, you did fall asleep next to him for a little while before they walked us home that night.”

“Yeah, I know,” you reply. “I’ll be out with him all day…”

“You’re not going to know what hits you until it shows, Q.”

“Life is not like the hallmark movie channel, Chise!”

Your friend’s stubbornness and your counter argument came to a close when her aunt and uncle stepped in to act as a mediator between the two of you…

“Your sister is coming to pick you up, Q,” her uncle informs you. The news was not a welcomed one at all; the blood in your veins ran cold.

“What?! Uncle, you can’t be serious,” your friend states, wide eyed. “Q just got here…She can’t go back! Her sister is not right. Please recon—”

“There’s nothing we can do,” her aunt replies. She explains all the sound reasonings why.

“How long do I have?” You wonder. Chise storms out of the room and when you hear her door shut, you inhale and exhale a deep breath silently counting down before you rationally think things through. You were gone for a total of four days & three nights; it takes about an hour or so for the train, but if your sister does a ride share, you have less than that.

“She’s on her way, isn’t she?” Your voice betrayed your expression.

“Yes,” you’ve never seen your friend’s uncle so abruptly twist in disgust. You know both he and his wife would try anything to help you, but considering how they presented the facts, it was going to be a losing battle.

Nodding, you thank them both for the news and the hospitality they offered, but you ask them to leave as politely as you can. You were seventeen years old when you realized that the hardest thing and right thing are not always the same.

Your sister wasn’t always this way. She was the elder & you needed to listen to her. You were always like water, one with the moon & stars; she was like fire, warm and with enough energy to harbor the solar flares. She wasn’t always an unhappy brute; the accident that tore your family apart was the catastrophe which estranged you to this day.

“What do you mean Q’s leaving?” Makki asks. He sits up hearing his girlfriend’s voice fall into a panic.

“It’s an emergency; you know I told you about y/n’s relative right?”

“Yeah. What’s wrong?”

“Takahiro, I’m worried for Q because that’s the one who’s coming to pick her up. She can’t go back to that house on a whim! Her sister might beat her up worse than before!”

“Stay where you are. I’m getting a hold of Iwazumi & Mattsun.”

“Mmk. Hurry because I don’t know what time that witch is arriving.”

—18:43—

“Call the authorities,” was what you hear your friend’s relative instructs. One of them has to keep the objective line of sight here and now all there is left to do is wait.

You stand outside your friends house with a dark expression. Your sister’s arrival meant you could try to fight, yet you knew words are just as damaging. You come face to face with her just as the boys arrive.

“Come little sister,” she says. You don’t move. Your friend is behind you, but when the boys arrived she lets them in the side gate: Makki leads followed by Iwa, and finally Mattsun. Your friend fills them in and now they stand at the ready to help you if you need it.

“Q. Come now. Don’t make it anymore difficult than it has to be.”

“No.” Your voice is absolute.

“No?” She sarcastically replied with a scoff.

“Did I stutter?” You retort. Your friend and her family is on the porch watching this.

“I don’t know what your game is, but this is a family affair…”

“Do not bring them into this mess,” you warn as you walk toward the spot on the lawn where your sister stands. There is a few feet of grass between you.

“Enough,” she says in a menacing tone. “Quantum stop being foolish before I burn you and cast you out. Black sheep or not, you are my sister and you will do as I say.”

She takes out a lighter from her purse and one of the oldest journals you have. It was a tome you had since you started middle school.

“Burn it for all I care,” you spat. “Because as far as I am concerned, we are no longer family. You stopped being in mine before I started high school you bitch. Touch me again and I will make you regret finding me.”

At this point, your teeth are bared and your voice is as even as it can me. You know there is truth in those words, but with your found family behind you, you have the higher ground.

“Like hell little sister,” she spits. “I rather you drop dead and die because you are what makes me insane: this ends today.”

You sister burns the book regardless. You stomp out the flames in time that a good portion of the damage book is scorched down to a delightful singe. You wonder how long your sister has been without her medication. The gargantuan illness does not leave her nor do you want to find out because the shadow of her hands comes into contact with your left side of your face.

She leaves without batting an eye at you. Rather, you feel the residual sting of a slap across your face from a hand that is not your own. The sound is like a whip cracking in the wind.

“Mattsun, Iwazumi,” your friend’s face is pulled into Makki’s side where he whispers something in her ear, probably to watch you say the final nail in the coffin:

“You have no power over me; I am not afraid of you,” you defy her orders again.

“You cheeky little shit,” your sister says before your fist makes direct contact with her face and when it knocks her to your left, you roundhouse kick her in the ribs thus knocking her wind out of her.

“Did you know she could fight like that?” Makki asks. Your fist is unclenching because your wrath is unlike anything they’ve witnessed, sure Iwazumi smacks Oikawa with a volleyball, but when ther collectively see what you can do, they look at each other. Except Mattsun, he reads the situation and what you told him at the movie night the day before finally clicks.

I am not ready because I am not fully healed yet. I am left alone to deal with my own demons. Everyone has dragons to slay and for today that dragon is your sister. His thoughts are strung together, yet he sees what you mean in practice and honestly it explains your cynicism, your perception of what it means to have someone who is just as toxic and how they tried to break you.

“Holy shit,” you clearly hear your friend gasp behind you when she pushes herself off of Makki. When your sister lands on the concrete border of the lawn, you don’t care to notice the winter wind whipping around your short locks. Your breathing is becoming more unstable, yet when you stand to inspect the damage done, you glance down with an oddly satisfying expression: You’re a survivor and you’d be damned if your sister thinks she could shatter you further.

You pick your sister up by the collar until she is eye level with you. You whisper something in her ear which makes her furious: “Fuck you and the high horse you rode in on sister.”

“Go,” your best friend says one word while Makki holds her back; Mattsukawa and Iwazumi sprint to where you are holding your sister and all that woman sees is red thereafter.

Her mouth lets out an in humane scream as she lunged forward, her hands have a vice grip on your exposed flash. You feel her nails dig and leave marks. The action carried through as hands reach for your neck to crush your windpipe. You know of the western saying “to choke on your words,” but you’d never thought of it being done physically.

As soon as this occurs, you notice your sister’s wrists are almost snapped by the sheer force Mattsukawa exerts in holding you from behind. Your gasping for air is by far one of the most horrifyingly haunting things he’s ever heard (and you all you can emote is telagraphing I am terrified. Don’t let me go). It takes you a moment to register that it is because you hear him breathe behind you.

“I got you,” Mattsun holds you; he holds you for as long he can to make sure you don’t slip on the residual frost on the lawn. He runs a hand through your hair calming you down further. Your hands are not by your side anymore, rather you feel them grasp on to his own. You close your eyes and he repeats those three words until your breathing and panic subsided.

This occurs while Iwazumi corners your sister and she leaves your friends’ property. Sirens wail in the distance and it doesn’t take very long for the authorities to take your sister into custody for verbal and physical abuse charges whereas you claim self-defense. It’s hard to talk currently, so you write it out on the report form. Makki and your best friend are filling out witness statements while Iwazumi is being checked out by one of the health officials right after you sign the report documents. Mattsun doesn’t leave your line of sight at all, for that you are grateful. Your knuckles have the suture glue on them aid the healing process. The EMT gives you a neosporin antiseptic for the scratches on yout face left behind from the slap your received from the guilty party already in the backseat of the squad car that had already left for the booking station in the west side of the neighborhood.

When the witness statements are done, you are asked to come to the precinct first thing in the morning for a secondary assessment for your wounds,but this is bypassed as soon as you mentioned your previous case serial numbers.

“She’s as lucky as they come,” one of the officers says in passing. “We’ve been trying to pin her relative’s location because of the fact this isn’t her sibling’s first attempt at attempted murder.”

“You did the right thing as soon as you called sir,” his partner praises your friend’s aunt and uncle. “That woman is a danger to herself and others. How did one sister’s grief spiral while the other chose to move forward is beyond me, but miss Q has some good people around her.”

“She’s our niece’s closest friend, so please make sure that woman has all ties cut with the victim,” you heard her uncle say. “We’ll take her in, but please make the arrangements to have some of her things brought here before the holidays.”

“Understood sir,” the first officer says tilting his hat. “Ma’am, we’ll be going then. Good day.”

Iwazumi takes his leave shortly thereafter and reminds Makki to give you all some space. Mattsun asks if it’s ok to take you away for a couple of hours. You finish passing along the case files while this occurs. You’re not ready to talk about what just happened, but you find yourself ready to move past this ordeal. Families are different, yet your relationship with your sister is one of the worst after the story of biblical twins.

“Of course. Take her out for as long as she needs. You have my number, so text me later,” your friend says with a warm smile. She bops her head toward where you still stood basking in the frosty atmosphere. “Gods know she needs a break. Oh, and Mattsun?”

“Hmm?”

“Thank you.” She hugs hun quietly along with her uncle who lays a hand on his shoulder. Her aunt mentioned something about how they’re going to remodel the room you stayed in to a permanent one. “She is family after all,” was the last thing he heard as the three of them went back inside their home.

On that note, Mattsukawa returns back to your side. He marvels at your new marks bestowed by what had transpired a couple hours ago. It’s nearly eight in the evening on a Tuesday night. Winter break has finally come, but here he notices you’re ok. Or rather, as ok as you make it seem.

“I should get you a bell,” your sense of humor is impeccable, but when the tears that never come do make their way known in other ways, you stop to turn your face back to the skies. You close your eyes thanking whatever lucky stars you have for having good people gravitate toward you; with one final breath, you return your focus back to your guard dog even if he towers over you with enough power to eclipse the graying skies. As he reaches for your hand, you know this is the first time he sees a glimpse of how much you shine.

“It’s quiet now,” you said, returning your undivided attention to him. “Thank you.”

The young middle blocker moves forward with you mentioning something along the lines of you had a date to keep.

“Do you still want to go?” He asks you this to gage how you’d react. He doesn’t want you to over exert yourself, so when you say yes, he leads the way to one of the closer neighboring shopping plazas.

One trip to a tea shop down the street leads you and him to have a quaint seat by a window. The both of you talk like old friends. You don’t let the dread of what looms over you break you, you’ve been through worse and you’re not going to let anything happen to make him feel like that again. You could tell how frightened he really was earlier when he kept you in front of him on the lawn. You pour some more mango black tea into your cup. You know you two barely say much, yet an entire epic is laid out between you two.

Not a word is said because there is an definite understanding in the delicate exchange here. Mattsun sips his tea and as he learns you’re exhausted of fighting on your own. It dawns on you if given the chance stories about being wronged in the past leads you to be bound by love later on. Tell me you want to help me too, Mattsukawa.

“If you’ll have me, please let me be your kintsugi,” he places the dwarf tea cup down on its saucer. You sit across from him as the fluorescent lighting causes your eyes to flicker amusedly at his features. You rest your chin in your hand when he does this.

“You don’t have to ask,” you reassure him. With your free hand, you hold one of his with residual heat. Why are you doing this? You like each other. Hell, he’s the one who made sure you’re alive. He’s amazingly kind, so what is stopping you?

“I already run with you at six in morning. It’s plausible after--Mattsun? Hold on a sec. Why are you looking at me like that?”

“I like you,” Mattsun’s voice is as casual as he makes it seem. Don’t make me go through that again; I almost didn’t get the chance to show you how amazing you really are.

You see what he means behind those eyes of his. He’s honest, kind, and strong; almost like steel, but you’re just as strong like titanium. You work well together, you think. If this is what it feels to fall in like with someone, you’d proactively seek it every time from him until you learn how to love yourself for all parts of you. He has a subtle way of telling you he likes you. Acts of love and kindness aside, you want to cherish this setting, precisely because you live the way you tease him in a friendly manner. For a moment, the veil of winter’s shouldering dreariness stops. Your lips curl into a Cheshire’s grin. His heart nearly stops for the second time that day.

“I like you too,” you chuckle. “Who knew you were such a romantic at heart Mattsukawa?”

“You did.”

You nod. “I should have known. So, where would you like to take me now?”

After you two finish speaking at the teahouse, Mattsun escorts you toward another part of the same plaza. Your face illuminates in the refraction of the street lamps, your hands bump into each others whilst you walk the promenade.

There are no words exchanged because neither of you want to see each other with the image seared into your minds’ eye; his arms that evening were clicking on to your waist, his his center of gravity shifting so when he pulls your body backwards, you hear his voice reminding you he has you, you’re safe here. You nodding closing your eyes when his warmth emits a calming aura. You both ignore the subject, but you’re really fucking thankful to have him (along with the company you keep, each showing a different type of love from the international myths you loved to read): you both walk with the same thoughts that evening: Don’t scare me like that again, whatever you do, stay alive. We haven’t even seen what our story might look like. Just please, prove to me you’re still here; catch the fire from me to you and live.

Mattsukawa and you walk past a pillar and stop to take a glance at the community announcement boards. A few of the paper lanterns are already lit. The street lamps are beginning to hum.

“There’s a night market happening,” you read aloud, slowly, you feel yourself relaxing more into your surroundings. Your hand points to the sign and Mattsukawa notices the minute change in your behavior. You’re much more free and outgoing than before; you’re a winter’s tale and a dahlia, but he knows the flower thing might be a tad bit off, so he keeps that content to himself for now.

“We’ll take the others here later,” he informs you about thinking about how his classmates, especially Oikawa, would handle not coming.

“If you say so,” you reply. You both continue to walk and browse through the various shops, but when he takes you into one the art stores, you ask him to wait a moment to let other patrons walk in. He is perceptive enough to understand your feelings, so he does what he thinks is best: he reminds you you aren’t going inside alone.

“I got you,” Mattsukawa repeats from earlier. “We’ll go inside whenever you’re ready. Does that sound fair to you?”

“...ok.”

“Do you want to go call it a day then?”

The moment you nod, he walks at a quicken pace. Eventually you tell him to slow down when you pass by a neighboring plaza. This one was more serene than the last.

“What’s on your mind?” You ask you impromptu date.

I’m learning to trust you a little more and I’m afraid of this continues, would you run from me?

“Mattsukawa. Don’t overthink it,” your voice is unmistakably calm, yet it is driving him to let go and live a little; so you do. You let his hand go for a little while, and now you stand in front of him and you have a mischievous glint in them.

Fuck it. I don’t care if you’re here for four days or four minutes. I am not running away from this, from you, and the possibility of you staying.

Mattsukawa tilts your face up with one of his fingers and when you feel his lips ghost over your own, you close the gap. First kisses in the winter are not rare, but the ambiance of being surrounded by the wisteria trees dyes the world into a violet haze. Love is not as fickle as you think. This one is different, you both relish in this display of affection. He breaks the kiss briefly, and to him, seeing you like this makes him finally understand the sentiment of seeing a whole universe in one person.

You stop him dead in his tracks because as soon as you feel Mattsukawa’s warmth leave your face, you understand how much he was holding back; you both were. His face is tinged a little bit flushed out slightly by the curious softened stare you give him. He wanted to see you worked up before, but he wasn’t expecting to see you act so hastily. You drag your bottom lip through your teeth before you sigh much to your own chagrin because you knew what he felt was true.

“Mmhm,” you’re driving him insane in this short game of stolen glances because he received no further warning when you pull his lips back on yours. Your hands traverse upward from where your hands initially were on his shoulders and eventually looping around his neck. There is a secret kindness you want him to have; he owns this part of you, the wild capricious love of the cold is gorgeously delightful. You’re ok even when he deepens this kiss and he draws this sounds of want and need from you the more you let him. You taste his love in the way your hands love to tousle his hair; you hear his chest rumble in amusement when he opens his mouth slightly teasing you with the residual taste of the tea from earlier. Don’t be afraid to fall, you muse.

Mattsukawa draws you in closer to him as he snakes one arm around the small of your back while the other hand he has used to tilt your face moves to your shoulder before finding solace on your neck. He lost a to the way you move your body and you both don’t succumb to each other’s prowess. What you both crave you found in each other. He dips you to one side like in those old movies you so love. You’re mine, my dear; irreplaceable and hopelessly in my loving arms. Safe you’ll always be.

You catch your breathing when you part, he places you back in a standstill position. You’re smiling together, like a firefly lamp in the summer, casting a halo ring around you two. A few of the flowers are blown away in the brief wind and apparently land all around scattered like gorgeous mosaics on the concrete. You turn your head slightly to hear his heart drum on; you tell him things via tracing the kanji on his shirt little messages like “future,” “brave,” “loyal,” “true,” etc. he chuckles because it tickles a bit, but he reminds you wildhearts can’t be broken so easily. You concur taking a deep breath, watching as your exhale leaves little pufts of moisture to dissipate in the air. He rests his head against your shoulder in a slight variation of an acknowledging bow; his breath tickles against the nape of your neck, his mouth teasingly nips at the midpoint of your ear.

“Fuyu no rairakku fuji,” he crowns you a new name; his lips press against your cheekbone. You grin at the new nickname.

“Mattsukawa Issei,” you remind him when you two begin walking again and he pauses dumbfounded by the tone you use. It dawns on him that perhaps his best friend’s girl told you his name in full. You return the wisteria name he bestowed upon you with a much simpler one for him. “Mitsuketa.”

— spring forward—

You wonder if he could remember that when you sleepover for the first time; you find out he can and does so the moment he lays you down on his bed to make you remember how being loved by him is going to leave you breathless one step at a time, and true to his word, his hands are sturdy.

This love is messy, but you enjoy every moment of being enamored by him. You don’t look back anymore, but forward when he calls your new name right as you pull him back toward you before you both ruin the sheets that support you. You place a hand over his chest to stabilize his figure over you. “Watashi no utsukushī fuji,” his voice has you defenseless the moment you humbly accept him as solely yours.

“My first love, come here,” your lips were always inviting toward him and he listens to the way you both praise each other while he brings your unscarred arm above your head; your scars are now inked with wild wisteria flowers he so affectionately called you a few months ago.

Luckily one of your case workers knew someone in Miyagi who does tattoos pro bono for victims of abuse survivors. Languid wisteria blossoms iluminate your arms under a blacklight, but the white ink outlines remain visible like small embroideries tying you to the blossom to ward off evil. The subject came about one evening during the routine cafe shoppe run with the boys and your best friend:

“All I’m saying is that if she wants it done, we know someone in Miyagi who can,” Makki reasons with your friend.

“I was thinking about it,” you speak up before your friend completes her ‘harrumph.’

The table falls quiet. “I was thinking of having the wisteria blooms cover the worse of it.”

“Wisteria, huh?” Oikawa asks. “I think that’s a good choice. Iwa-Chan! Let’s— ”

“No.” Honestly, when he found out what had transpired via the group chat with his friends, he nearly cut his family vacation short to fly back to check on you.

Instead, Iwazumi took over by sending him photos of both Makki and your best friend eating a crepe one night followed by one of you and Mattsukawa after he gifted you a wisteria branch necklace.

Presently, your hand coaxes Mattsukawa into leaving marks of his love blatantly across the exposed parts let him meet. The bruises his lips left behind are just as intoxicating as you remember.

“You’re still so daring,” his voice drowns out the pleasurable noise you let him hear.

“You’re~ahh~ staring,” your hands find their way to the collar of his half undone dress shirt. He pauses for a moment, smirking through his gaze when he envelopes you in his arms. Your hands are too quick when you unbutton the rest of his shirt. You’re wearing one of your old high school gym baseball shirts when you came over to visit for spring break. (The first time you sleep overnight was quite entertaining to say the least, but you both prove you’re capable of this sort of love too.) His hands move to coerce your legs slide over his thighs and here you sit, knees slightly bent and he has you where you both want to be.

Your breathing is ragged and labored as he kisses you slowly, hands slipping under your shirt.

“Please," your voice is barely above a whisper. One word was all he needed and fuck were you worth it. Mattsukawa assists you in pulling that fabric over your head before you push him down back on the bed. Your arms are cut around his shoulders for support as he picks up where his kisses left off. Your love bites haven’t fully disappeared yet from last time: bites across the mounds of your breasts are yellowing now; the ones over the inside of your thighs are still healing beautifully. His wisdom lurks in how well you handle his sexual desires with every time you consent to it. You both seek no other tangible means to prove how far you’ve come (with and without his help).

“You’re still pretty,” he says. He marvels at the fact you’re still with him in the present moment. Your hair is tangled in his hands and he beckons you to make him remember what you told him in the park one winters day.

“Mesmerizing me is what you do best,” your mouth haunts his own pulling out the lewd sounds of his satisfaction. He hisses as you return his favor; he holds you tighter until you are comfortable in his hold. Those eyes of his remain on yours because you told him the first time to keep his eyes forward.

“You’re really something else,” he groans as you bite the space in the space between his shoulder and neck. You don’t let him come undone without you a little less than an hour later; he makes good on his promise of always saying he got you and you return with remembering you have him. You ran with him every day at six in the morning for a solid year, but forgot that sexual escapades with him are more often a marathon than not. Eventually, you catch up to him, and the cycle begins anew with you. Mattsukawa is a fierce lover, but within the walls you share with him, he realizes you’re just as lethal as a jaguar in his bed.

Yes, love in the spring always came in waves for the outside world, it here, once the sheets were changed, you and Mattsukawa take care of each other first before he has your drowsy form (smelling like the rain) clean and clothed in just an old pajama top of his (he wears a pair of a different style sleep pant) he lays you down first before he climbs in with you.

Loving each other is never as messy as you heard from those around you. It’s only because you both let each other propel forward; your love is maddening since you and Mattsukawa are firm believers the shattering parts make you the most beautiful. So when you wake up in each other’s touch, his lips always trace over the sides of you where he loves you strongest, whistling the melodies that cause flowers to bloom.

End

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#mattsukawa x reader #tw: violence #tw: toxic behavior #tw: mentions of scars physical and emotional #tw: death and blame #reader chan learns she is strong too #angst to fluff #this be some heavy shite #🌻— flying around collecting pollen—queue #🌻.txt #🌻sora scribbles

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thoughts-n-paper · 3 years

Text

When people speak of fairies, they often think of the wise fairy Godmother or the tiny passionate Tinkerbell, but let me tell you the truth, fairies can be as vicious as any wolf you might encounter in the woods. Take my mother, for example, I am about to fail a class and might not be able to graduate but here she is shouting at the principal, questioning his competency and making things worse. To be honest, I should have known this would happen. Ever since I was a toddler, my mother was ready to fight the Alaskan giants if she felt that they insulted me, although that seems a lot better than calling the man, an imbecile elf.

I had never been good at school, I was not born to do this. I cannot do magic, cannot fly. I do comparatively good at empathy, but that is probably due to my human side. All my teachers earlier were very understanding in cutting me some slack, but the new guy doesn't want to bend the rules and my mom just doesn't understand that.

As we entered the house from a tiresome argument with no conclusion, I watched my mom sink in her bed as she tried to push her tears back to space behind her eyes. On the side table there stood three photographs, one of her with her husband on her wedding day, one of her holding her baby and one of me and her on my first day of school. The one with her baby was the only one facing towards her pillow so that it is the first thing she sees when she opens her eyes. I was never jealous of him, but I did feel that my mother's life would have been easier if she never interchanged us.

I wound up the music box, placed it beside her and tiptoed to my room as the lullabies of her ancestors brought her calm.

I often wondered what the other me would be doing right now, my brother from another mother and raised by my own. And just in case, miles away he wondered that too, I started keeping a journal where I would write everything that happened on the day. I would walk him through every road that I mapped, what conversations mother and I had and what kind of jokes she laughed at. Just in case if he ever plans to return, he would never have to feel out of place because he had me to guide him, and just in case if I ever went back, I think I would have the same.

A knock broke my nap. As I looked outside the tiny round window, I could make out the prettiest face I had ever seen. We were in the same class but it was incomprehensible that she would be standing outside my window. And then it hit me, I looked her in the eyes and said firmly, "You don't fool me."

"Not fair. I need to practice my deception spells." saying that, the figure in front of me transformed into my childhood friend, Jaadu. One of the rules of bending spells, if the target of the trick sees through the rouge, the trickster has to come clean.

"It was good. If not for my trust in my status as a loser, you would have convinced me."

"Ah! I should study the target more. Will keep that in mind. Are you coming?"

Jaadu and I always went to the edge of the forest in the evenings. With the sun coming down and night beginning to rise, you can watch the shadows of all the travellers passing by. Some of them would sit and have their meal or set up camp, completely unaware that we are hiding behind the tree mere steps away, watching them. But the most exciting moment is when you see someone go from one realm to another. Sometimes you can see their shadow change shape or colour or sometimes nothing changes, it is always a surprise how the inter-realm travel reacts.

Jaadu enjoys it because it is something he might never do, he was to be part of the administration, like the fairies of his family before him. This was his way to vicariously travel through these evening rituals.

For me, it was the time I had felt closest to my mother. Although her husband was a traveller, she only planned one journey in her life. The one to save her baby.

In a way I had already travelled from one realm to another, I was just unaware of the magnitude of it. I sometimes think of going back, maybe visit my birth parents, might even bring my mother's son back. She would be delighted beyond belief, and maybe then, she wouldn't regret taking him. But I would always push the thought back, too afraid of the unknown.

The next few weeks were spent retaking and retaking the test until I was cleared to graduate school. There are three categories of fairies, one that is naturally gifted in all arts, whether it is music, the science of medicinal plants or chants and jinxes, they are fluent in all. Then there is the average category, the ones that work hard and learn and the last are the week students, ones who work even harder. And then there is me, the human among magical beings. I am the only one around like me, earlier there used to be a lot of us but with the danger of exposure and the spiritual fabric between realms weakening, it is just me. Potions are easy and I am good with plants and animals but I can't cast spells, at least not the high-level ones. So, it took a lot of convincing the new principal to test me only on the spells that I can do, but I finally succeeded.

Later that night, my mother organized a celebration for me, every house within a mile was invited, distant relatives came too. Some families brought a dish of their choice, some helped clean up space and some brought with them the sweetest water of different streams. But with all the gifts and praises, come the whispers too, how I was not one of them, what an achievement the real son would have been. When I was younger, my mother would often cast a filtration spell on my ears so that I wouldn't hear what they said about me but as I grew older, the spell weakened. She never herself told me the story, would always insist that I was hers just born with different abilities or as I see it, no abilities.

From what I could gather, my mother was with the child when her husband died. The grief was too much for her and the baby and so he was born with defects. A shaman told her that the milk of a human could cure him and so she left him in the first crib she could find and took me from mine as her own.

"Oh my son, come sit with me." my great-grandmother called me."How are you feeling? You are a big fairy now?"

"I am not a fairy Gre-ma." I sighed as I sat beside her.

"Oh, it doesn't matter what elements bind you. Tell me, Elven, how, do you think, is your mother?"

"She seems fine. I think she is alright."

"She is strong, but separation and loneliness often mould us into something much fragile. She has lights of sorrow surrounding her, you must make her happy. Bring her joy before the black lights swallow her."

After the celebration ended, I kept thinking about the words my Gre-ma said to me. She was the most powerful empath in the town, nobody could dare take her words lightly, especially if she said something like that. This was serious, I had to do something to cure my mother.

The next day, when I and Jaadu were sitting in the woods, relaxing as the shadows disappeared around us, I told him what Gre-ma had asked me to do. "Getting a good position in the council would cure all the sorrows of my mother." Jaadu joked.

"I am afraid, that doesn't work for mine."

"I know! My point is, only you know what will make her happy."

I thought about it for a while and by the next morning, I had an idea of what to do. I made up an overnight camping trip with some friends from school, which in retrospect, how mother agreed or believed any of that is beyond me. I checked in my bag to confirm I had the fairy dust with me that Gre-ma had given me the other night, without it, I would not be able to cross over. The plan was simple, follow the map she used years earlier and just knock on the door. Jaadu came to see me off, he wanted to see how my shadow will react.

I, on the other hand, just felt a slight current run through me, and on the next step, everything changed.

It took me at least five minutes of coughing to get used to the air around me. The map was magical, which meant that it would alter according to the destination desired and the time and space which surrounded it. But there still was no magic that can help me introduce myself to my birth parents or tell me how I am supposed to walk when each step is followed by a loud noise and a beast flying past me in a blink of an eye. The first thing I noticed was humans were tall, back in woodland, I was the tallest there, here I barely come up to the shoulders of some of these giants. And they all had different feet, different colours, shapes and textures. And walking for a few feet made me understand why. After walking a small distance, my feet were coloured black, they were damp and a new pink coloured flower had found a way between my toes and was now stuck to my skin. But ignoring it all, I marched ahead.

A few yards away stood the blue gate I had dreaded all through the journey, a million thoughts ran through my mind with each step till I lifted my arm to knock.

I looked around the house as I waited for them to make sense of everything that I had just finished telling them. Surprisingly, it was not that different from my house. it was filled with photographs except for the giant black frame in the middle of the room, which stood empty. Lamps were hanging from the walls, but there was probably some human magic that made it not look like fire. There weren't as many windows, or plants, outside or inside. We all sat on cloud-like cushions with brown milk in front of me.

When I introduced myself, I showed them my infancy photograph which my mother had taken with her. Then I told them about fairies and woodlands. I told them about magic and music, potions and pirouette. And then I told them about my mother, my fairy mother.

"So, you are ours?"

I nodded.

"And, you were kidnapped?"

"Exchanged!" I nodded

."And you live among fairies?"

I nodded.

"And, our son was a fairy?"

I began to nod and then stopped midway, "was?"

"He died ten years ago. Road accident." said the human mother and started sobbing.

My father stood up and came towards me with open arms, "We want to believe you, but we can't, at least not without tests I hope that is alright with you."

"Oh, I can't stay. I just came to take my mother's son back to meet her. I really should go now."

"NO!" my human mother shouted and holding my shoulders requested me to stay.

"I suppose I could stay for another day."

"Wonderful!" the mother smiled and ran to the kitchen mumbling recipes to herself. "She is going to make his favourite food," Father said to me. His eyes followed me suspiciously as I sat back down in my spot.

"Hey Dorothy, Can you do me-." A stranger walked into the house and stopped mid-sentence to stare back at me. "Family member?" she said while pointing at me.

"How can you tell?" mother came out of the kitchen.

"Well, he looks so much like Steve."

"Doesn't he?"

"Well, let's not get ahead of ourselves. We still have to run tests."

"What do you mean, Steve?"

"Yes, what do you mean, Steve?"

"Uhm, I am just saying..."

"Wait, but who is he?"

"Oh! It's a miracle from Jesus. My son has returned."

"Jesus! Dorothy, honey."

"Your son, the one whose funeral I helped organize."

"No, you see, he was exchanged, Uhm kidnapped."

"Jesus! Dorothy!"

"And now he is back, back at home."

Finally, silence fell. I looked up and all three were staring at me. "Hello," I said in a low voice. "I come from the woodlands. My mother who is a fairy..."

"Well, he is still processing his trauma." Father interrupted me. "Don't worry, we will have him checked shortly." Saying that he led me upstairs to a closed-door with the picture of a masked man on the door.

"This is your room. I will call you when food is prepared."

I had just turned back to stop him, he shut the door to my face. I tried to open it but it seemed locked from outside. I sat down on the small bed, trying to process whatever happened in the last few minutes. And then I remembered the word funeral being uttered. Their son's funeral.

My mother's son. The one I came to take back with me.

I had to get out immediately.

I stood in front of the door and chanted a simple admission spell. I tried to open the door again but it stayed locked. I tried the spell again, but it was all in vain. Casting spells in a new environment is always difficult, even for skilled casters. You have to be able to borrow magic from your surroundings. Often before any major spell, fairies perform cleansing and calming rituals to make the elements around them aware of their intentions, and once the fairies and every particle around them are in agreement can they cast the spells successfully. I did not know anything about those rituals, nor have I ever performed magic in an unaccustomed environment. Being human and bad at magic did not help either.

I sat back on the bed and waited for the door to open from outside. I looked around the room, there stood various balls of different colours all around the room, on a shelf placed in the corner, there were several miniatures beasts like the ones I encountered on my way. On the walls, there were drawings of different humans in various attires and figurines made of cotton and stone of different animals. I lied down and my eyes sparkled as on the roof I could see the sun and the moon and all the stars that the roof could fit, it was the only thing that reminded me of home. I could look at it for hours like I did back in the woodland, I smiled at the memories, glad that I could find at least one familiar thing.

A few hours later, the father came rushing in and closed the door behind him.

"Hey, buddy! There are a few people who want to meet with you. They are super nice and very friendly. They will ask you some questions. You don't have to worry, just nod when I answer those okay?" It was a question he did not wait for an answer to. I was held from my arms and pushed into the front room. There stood the two women from earlier, a man with an unusually shaped head and another woman with a toy in her hands. They all had their mouths in a curve and their teeth were exposed, I think they were trying to smile. The father sat me down and placed himself beside me.

The woman nodded and pushed the toy towards me.

"Hello, I hope you don't mind introducing yourself once again. Your father had already told me about you."

"Uh...my name is Elven."

"His name is Simon. He thinks his name is Elven and he was kidnapped by fairies. He is still recovering from the incident." The father interjected.

"Okay." The woman looked at the man and then back towards us. "Can you elaborate on the fairies that abducted you?"

I looked at the father he gestured me to go ahead. "I wasn't abducted, I was exchanged. My mother, my fairy mother gave birth to a weakling which could only be saved by human milk."

"We believe that the kidnapper left her disabled child with us in hopes to raise a healthier child, obviously for her benefit." The father looked towards the woman, and they both nodded. Like they agreed to not believe anything I said.

"Do you think drugs were involved?" The man asked the father.

"Well, listening to the absurdity, I am certain that the woman herself took drugs and gave my son some too. That seems to be the only explanation for his conviction."

They kept saying the word "Drugs", I didn't know what it meant, but I could conclude that it was bad. And if they think my mother gave them to me, they would never let me go back to her.

"Look," I stood up, "I should go, my mother would be worried."

"I think that should be enough for today, I will answer the rest of the questions." The father said as he directed the mother to take me.

"Oh, just a picture of the family would be great." The woman stopped me and the mother.

All three of us stood side by side as the man took out a small metal from his pocket and a light flashed towards us. I couldn't see for a while but I could feel being steered somewhere.

I was sitting on the tiny bed again, while my human mother was sobbing with her head in my lap. I looked up at the painted night sky and dreamed of the real one.

The next day I woke up to the sound of a crowd of humans in front of the house. A lot of them were holding the same toy as the day before, some had big boxes on their shoulders and behind them was a long queue of the white beasts. The father came in with a gentle smile and said, "Son, how are you? Breakfast is ready. And you remember yesterday, the people in the front have the same questions. Whenever you are ready, we will talk to them. Is that alright?"

I could simply nod. It was very clear that I did not have any choice in that.

The mother came in afterwards and asked me to take a bath, but when I asked for the stream nearby, she started crying again. The father came in and showed me to another room where twisting on a knob I could make it rain inside. He laid down a drying cloth, top and bottom covers and coverings for my feet. It was a strange feeling to not have my feet touch the earth. For fairies, it the only consistent relationship between them and the ground. Although it did feel better to not have my feet be dirty or cold. For breakfast the only thing that looked familiar was fruit, so I picked a red apple and bit into that, while the father and mother stood in front of the black frame, only this time it had a man talking in it.

"We have something like that in woodland too, motion paintings. It is a very complex spell though. My mother's uncle is famous as the most proficient in a 1000 step radius."

They both looked at me and the mother ran out of the room looking like she was about to burst into tears again.

"Hey, why don't we stop talking about woodland in front of mom." He gave me that non-smile again.

The whole day was just sitting in front of strangers and nod as the father told lies. And every time I tried to stop him or correct him, it was blamed on trauma, another word they kept on repeating. According to them, I had a trauma because of drugs and my mother was a criminal and she should be locked up. I did not most of the words in that sentence. They asked me to do magic to prove my story but when I failed, they simply smiled. When I first showed them my journal, they scanned through it within minutes and gave it back to the father. Mid-way through the day, I gave up. I might have been naïve in the human ways but I knew what a lost battle looked like.

They kept asking to take a picture, after a few I gathered they were just still drawings of us. Out of the corner of my eye, I would often catch someone pointing at me and chuckling with his or her friend. The mother spent most of the time crying and repeating that she was just glad to have her son back and she loved the other one too just like her own. In between taking pictures and answering questions, some would come up to me or the father and offer their condolences.

Everything resembled the kind of community I had left in woodland, but that was all it was, a resemblance, a mirror image. People offered help and sympathy but always from a distance. Some neighbours brought their children in hopes I could make friends with them but whenever I tried to talk to them, they pushed me out of the circle and talked amongst themselves, mostly in gibberish I might add.

I missed my mother, I missed Jaadu and Gre-ma. I missed the smell of freshly bloomed flowers in the morning and the lullabies of the moon as it sang us to sleep. Out here all I could smell was something burning, constantly. The food was like eating mould and every variant of the juice I was offered did not taste like its name. I wanted to see the real night sky and not the fake colours on the roof.

By midnight, the father and mother had fallen in deep sleep. And that was when I slipped out, fairies were of course famous for being light feet and my mother had taught me a few tricks early on. I decided to leave my journal with them, in case they ever wanted to visit. Although they would have another day of asking and answering and crying over my departure, I did not feel bad. I realized they were not my parents and this was not my world, my only link was my brother. He was supposed to be my guide, and without him, I had no purpose but to get lost.

I stood at the gates in the woods and waited for the sun to go up and night to fall. And when the moment came, as I stepped through the fairy dust, into the realm of my home, I could make out a figure that I was much too familiar with. And as I inhaled the blossoms, I could see Jaadu smiling at me. And I smiled back.

#shortstory #life #fairy tales #fairies #changeling #originalshort #original #original story

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rosegm · 4 years

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[ ALISHA BOE , CIS FEMALE , SHE/HER ] shh ! ROSE GWENDOLYN MORRISON , the TWENTY - TWO year old THIRD year JOURNALISM major from OSLO , NORWAY , is known as a TOURMALINE around here. SHE was invited to join because OF HER DRIVE & HER SUCCESSFUL DETECTIVE WORK, and now, they’re here to stay. SHE reminds me of DRINKING RED WINE AND IT STAINING YOUR LIPS , A FURROWED BROW , & A PENCIL TUCKED BEHIND YOUR EAR .

hiiii friends !! i’m honestly SHOOK that i’m here and i’m so so excited to have the chance to plot and write with everyone !! my name is diana btw i’m 24, use she/her pronouns , & i’m from the est timezone ––– here’s my bb rose lil nancy drew angel & hmu on here or discord to plot some shiz !! @opalsmedia

––– backstory

rose was born in oslo, norway to a very middle class family. she grew up reading a lot, loving to learn, and overall just someone who was kind of a people person but also loved her alone time. one would say she had a fairly normal childhood, and she was someone who matured very quickly at a young age due to her love of literature and her perceptiveness.

everything really changed when rose was in a hit and run car accident with her parents and younger brother. she was 16 at the time, and her brother actually passed away due to the accident. after that, her family could never really recover. her parents grew fairly cold and distant, the house felt emptier without her little brother’s presence, and rose spent a lot of time grieving. however, when the authorities dropped the case of looking for the drunk driver who crashed into them, that’s when rose turned her grief into action and started looking into it.

she really figured out her talents and limits when she would charm the detectives to give her records and documents, she’d interview neighbors, and basically she cracked down the case with intention and drive and purpose to help her finally get closure.

ultimately, she actually found the driver, and he did confess to being drunk and accepted his punishment, though the process of getting him there was hard and long. rose made sure her parents got the closure and justice they deserved, though they never really appreciated rose for her efforts. to them, it wasn’t therapeutic, instead brought up memories both were struggling to move on from.

picking up context clues and putting puzzle pieces together, as well as being the one to see the truth in the situation and persevere is what made her interested in journalism. she applied to strathmore due to their excellent program, and ultimately got in due to her success story and the article she wrote that was published in her local paper about her success.

rose was brought into the society by philip, her predecessor, who is a huge role model for her. she’s curious and always asking questions and observant af, and now with poppy’s disappearance, especially someone from her year, rose is more determined than ever to solve this stuff, and won’t back down without a fight.

––– personality

actual definition of “she loved mysteries so much she became one”

she’s smart and oftentimes likes to open up just enough where people think they know everything about her but actually don’t know much.

she does have a good heart and has good intentions

she’s probably more headstrong than other tourmalines, but she’s also an expert at reading the room

horrible cook - mostly lives off pizza and frozen food

her secret talent is that she is v v good at chess & she did some competitive gymnastics at a young age

her favorite movie is interstellar. the flavor

despite everything pointing rose to being an introvert, she really is a people person too. loves to talk when she lets loose, loves to learn about people and hear their stories

she’s pretty good at catching someone in a lie

good at deception, tbh. she’s silent but lethal in the best way possible

can be snarky, loves to laugh

she never goes anywhere without a little notebook and a pen.

she takes her studies very seriously. like girl is a nerd

doesn’t really smoke or drink much but she’ll dabble in it 4 funsies

a hardcore slytherin & leans true neutral & gemini trash s m h

––– circlet relationships

since rose is so loyal, i truly imagine the circlet is her best friends and her ride-or-dies. even if they don’t have the best relationship, rose will always protect, even if it’s from a distance.

wanted connections

#opalsintro #wssup party people !!!!

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missizzy · 3 years

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An Account of the Lives of the Weyard Sisters, and Fian Ollivander's Three Most Remarkable Descendants, Chapter 6

(Read entire work on AO3)

Unfortunately, the only real account we have of the confrontation between Dian and Gumboil of Wye is Dian's. Gumboil himself was not a writing man, or one who discussed his more tender feelings with anyone, and it seems when Dian's rejection hurt him enough he therefore did not talk about it, except to heap scorn on her, and tell a few tales that are almost certainly untrue. Dian does not deal with this meeting either in any great length, in the account she wrote of her history with Gumboil, she dedicated only a single paragraph to it:

We didde meet at the time and place at whiche we hadde agreed, and there I tolde him whatte I truly thought of him, giving him a fulle account of alle he had donne to offende. He didde shew himself to be a blinde foolle, for alle he had failed to see. He was taken with a madde fury, and hadde I been weaker with my wande I might have even feared for my swete lyfe. But he had not attemptede to laye hande nor wande on me, when he spoke curses to me insteade, if notte of the kind thate would do me harm, and then turned and lefte me there alone. Ne'er again woulde I lay eyes upon him.

The family might never have seen Gumboil again, but someone else would. Presumably looking to take revenge on Dian, and finding himself willing to do so by going after one of her loved ones, that afternoon he went to the market when Golpalott was known to be there making his daily purchases of potions ingredients, and contrived to "accidentally" fall in with him. An herbalist who recognized them both and witnessed the meeting, wrote about it in a letter to his sister, "All could see he meant it as no accident." According to him, Gumboil invited himself along with Golpalott while he finished up his shopping, and the latter, who of course would have no idea that they were no longer both seeking to marry a pair of sisters, seemed to welcome his company.

The two of them then went off together, and, unfortunately, theirs is another meeting of which there is little record. Golpalott did keep a journal, but he rarely wrote in great detail in it about anything other than his work, and in reference to that meeting, he only spoke of what Gumboil said to him as "enlightening," an adjective he would later retract when he learned that most of what the man said to him that day were lies.

Our only source of knowledge of what those lies were are third-hand, coming from what he told Gaius-Claudius, and what he told Nian much later, and then from what she wrote down about it. The basic gist of it appears to have been that not only had Dian admitted to him that she had led him on from the start without ever having an intention of accepting him, but he had also gotten out of her that apart from Fian, who had, according to Gumboil, only agreed to marry Gecundus to secure the financial support of the Ollivanders for her and her sisters, they had all agreed they would lead on and disappoint someone famous, as this would increase their powers. He accused Cian of doing that with Overdramblus.

He apparently was convincing enough that Golpalott not only believed him, but in his anger he decided to stand Nian up. All the afternoon and well into the evening Nian was left to sit waiting, until finally Gaius-Claudius Ollivander, having heard from Dian a less than honest account of what had happened between her and Gumboil, and determined to benefit from at least one advantageous match, decided to pay the famous potioneer a visit.

Golpalott, who had not believed any ill of the wandmaker, invited him in and informed him of Gumboil's accusations. This made him aware of Dian's deceit, but he was not entirely willing to believe the story that all of the sisters together had formed such a conspiracy, and he told the potioneer so. However, he seemed unwilling to admit to his own behavior in the matter of Overdramblus, and Golpalott seems to have sensed that he was being less than honest. It was likely partly due to this that his attempts to persuade him that Nian was innocent of wrongdoing did not succeed that night.

When he got home that night, he had a meeting with both sisters still living under his roof and their parents, where he informed Dian of the consequences of her actions, which by his own admission he might have exaggerated. All three of him, Nian, and Dian described her great distress upon learning what had happened. She first pleaded with her sister and parents for forgiveness, which they granted, as none of the three of them were ones to deny it when a member of their family had truly not intended the harm she had caused, and was so greatly repentant. Nian did call her a fool, however, something nobody protested. Gaius-Claudius ended the meaning with a promise to Nian to do what he could for her, one certainly sincere on his part.

However, if Dian's feelings of guilt did not go away after the meeting, in the hours afterwards, about which she later wrote, "I slepte not a wink thatte night," as she thought the situation over, she eventually found herself thinking, perhaps rightfully enough, that she was not the main one to blame, but that Nian's unhappiness was in fact because Gumboil had chosen to take his revenge in the way he had. By morning, when it became their unhappy task to visit their two married sisters and break the news to them, she had decided the most appropriate thing for her to do was take revenge herself on her former suitor.

Luckily for him, Gumboil of Wye, probably in reaction to such a great disappointment, chose that day to leave London, and in fact headed south and eventually left Britain all together for the continent, on which he would stay for a number of years. All of Dian's efforts to seek him out, done over the following weeks, would be in vain. However, her quest would bear other kinds of fruit.

She made her first attempt the day after, sneaking out of the Ollivander residence very early the next morning, before anyone else in the household woke up, and would repeat this pattern four more times in the following days. The first three days she lurked around Gumboil's residence, and met with no one more significant than his neighbors, who on her third visit told her they believed he was not currently there. One believed, mistakenly, that he had temporarily taken residence in a concealed place outside London. Her fourth morning out took Dian outside the city walls, trying to determine where that could possibly be. There she first met Tuck and Tarra Potter.

At this point in time, the later famous couple were so poor they did not even have a proper home. They were living out in the open, with only what spells they could cast to shield them from the elements, always on the move except when they had to stop to sleep, owning only what they could carry without too much extra effort. This was a life they took on with the same cheer that they would become known for doing everything with. When they happened upon a young, sad-looking witch, they thought nothing of inviting her to walk and talk with them until she had to go back home for the day.

To Dian, overwhelmed with anger and guilt and uncertainty about what she even wanted in life, the complete lack of these feelings from two people whom she recognized as being much more unfortunate than herself had been unfathomable. Their words and philosophy were ones which under most circumstances she likely would have scorned. But on that day, her mind was in the exact place where she instead listened, and their words had a great impact on her.

She certainly did not change her ways completely. She would even go out several more times in search of her vengeful lover. But each time, she would end the search early to instead spend the afternoon with her two new friends. She was by now becoming persuaded that the neighbor had either told or heard a false story, and with no other leads, it was not too difficult for the Potters to talk her into letting go of her quest.

Instead, the Potters introduced her to another friend of theirs, another potioneer named Sigrid Gurndrune. They probably did not do so with the thought that she might rope her into another quest for revenge, even one that would eventually prove unnecessary. And they certainly had not intended for Dian to goad Sigrid into openly trying to steal customers from Golpalott. Dian insists in her writings, however, that she did not need much encouragement. Apparently she was an ambitious woman.

By this time, several weeks had passed, during which Gaius-Claudius had not sat idle. He had now decided to admit the truth about Overdramblus, only to have two more attempts to talk to Golpalott rebuffed. Finally, he went to Overdramblus, and asked him to go to the potioneer and tell him exactly what had happened with Cian himself.

Overdramblus still was not happy with the wandmaker, and he almost certainly had an even lower opinion of him after that day, with him even afterwards quoted as viewing him as "the worst of grasping merchants." But he retained a strong fondness for all four of the Weyard sisters, as well as a great respect for Cian, and he admitted right away he disliked hearing her name slandered in such a manner. So a few days later, for their sake, he went to talk to Golpalott.

Nor had Nian been willing to give up the man she wanted without a fight. While her guardian had been trying to talk to him in person, she had written letters, lengthy ones, sometimes taking hours over them. She might not have continued had she known he threw out the first two unread, but when he received a third lengthy missive, delivered by what he described as "a likely overtired owl," he finally gave in and read it.

From both their accounts, it was mostly pleas, intermixed with the occasional ramblings about potions she thought he might be interested in reading. After reading it, Golpalott wrote "I can't doubt thatte she likes me very much, both from how much she wrotte and how close she has paid heed to alle I did saye to her, both about my own selfe, and about my work and my field of study." Still he was not entirely satisfied of her innocence. Also, he too was about to leave London for a few months, traveling to meet with a Welsh potioneer he was planning to exchange recipes and brew more experimental potions with. From his writings, it seems he decided not to think further on the matter until his return.

Many years later, Nian would express a wish that she had thought more about the fact that he hadn't sent her at least a brief note. "I woulde have rested far easier thatte month," she said, and she certainly would have. Instead she spent it writing letters that grew desperate, and then angry, and her letters from late in the intervening time period would include a few things that would actually give Golpalott further pause about forgiving her; he described some of her more angry words as far beyond anything he was used to hearing from anyone. Nian would also later wish she'd paid more attention to the obvious signs of his self-importance.

One wonders what would have happened had he at that time learned that her sister had instigated a conspiracy to steal his customers. But while he did note a slight drop in business that month, he apparently didn't think much of it. It wasn't enough to seriously inconvenience him financially, and he would never be all that interested in wealth.

While Dian and Sigrid's campaign to cause Golpalott trouble was not a success in its goals of truly hurting him or getting his attention, his rival's business did enjoy a substantial boost, and her profile rose in London's society. She began forming her own social circle, which of course included Dian, as well as the Potters. Gaius-Claudius also became something of a member of it, especially since he thought any potential husbands he picked out of it would likely be ones Dian would be willing to have.

Dian's sisters, too, also befriended her new friends. Fian and Gecundus grew very close to the Potters, especially since, of course, they would name their eldest two children after them. Gecundus would also set about trying to improve their situation, and they believed it was due to his influence that they shortly afterwards offered the place on the caravan traveling to Wales, where of course they would first develop the set of charms that would become their first claim to fame.

Also in Sigrid's circle was a distant cousin of hers named Brom Constantinis. Although only two years older than Dian, he was already know as an accomplished duelist, and if he had not had the kind of adventures Gumboil had been able to boast to her about, he was still very well-traveled. He seems not to have impressed her much at their initial meeting, and while her opinion of him was generally good, other older, more experienced duelists she was introduced to interested her more, at first.

It was instead Gauis-Claudius who singled him out as a good candidate for her husband. His reasons mostly involved who else he was related to. On his father's side he had two uncles, Rowan and Wiliam Constantinis, who were looking likely to make the Council sooner or later, and his great-grandmother, Margat of Harlowe, was a very famous witch, known for having traveled as far as China. Within days of meeting him, he was already plotting out how to maneuver them into marriage. He knew, of course, that Dian could not know of his hand in it. But Sigrid too had thought of the match, especially since while Brom had not quite caught Dian's eye, she had caught his. He easily persuaded her to work with him to bring it about.

Though Gauis-Claudius does not describe exactly how they managed it, he claims it was due to their machinations that the two youths found themselves spending time together regularly, running errands from their elders or even find each other's company during their free time. It did not take very long for Brom to fall fully in love, at which point he began to openly woo. Dian admits to being thoroughly charmed, and quite ready to be won. Gaius-Claudius must have felt triumphant indeed on the day she burst into his study and announce whom she wished to marry, and he genuinely surprised her when he said he approved of the match. So much so that she made no protest when he then suggested he do proper negotiations with both Brom and his parents.

Later, she would say that perhaps she ought to have suspected then she had not found her husband as independently as she'd believed. Although even then she did suspect Sigrid's hand in events, but her interference she didn't mind. She would, two years later, finally learn the truth, which would leave her quite irked at her former benefactor, but, she wrote, "however he became so, Brom is now mine own heart's love, and I shalle not give him up, merely for what Master Ollivander has donne; for I thinke my husbande hadde no knowledge of that." The evidence does indeed suggest Brom didn't know. It is unlikely either of their elders would have trusted him not to tell her.

Having finally brought about an advantageous match, Gaius-Claudius certainly not willing to risk losing it by giving Dian much time to find the truth out before the wedding. It had to be alarming enough when, a week after the engagement became official, Dian stormed into the house and declared all was over between the two of them, though it was only three hours later that an owl from Brom changed her mind back. Much later, everyone would become used to such behavior between the volatile couple, but at the time, both Gaius-Claudius and Brom's own family were keen to get things done as soon as possible. Within three months of negotiations starting, the young couple had received a settlement consisting largely of his grandmother's money, and they were married almost right after, on May 17, 1043. Initially they too settled in London, though they ultimately would not stay there very long.

By Dian's wedding, Golpalott had returned to town, and then he finally wrote to Nian, saying he would like an interview with both her and her benefactor. Arranging things with the latter took another month or so, during which the Weyards found one reason for joy: Cian was expecting the first of the five children she would ultimately give birth to. Nian expressed a worry for if they would like to have the stresses of children so soon, but generally the young couple and their families were pleased by this new development.

The grandparents-to-be, especially, began talking of trying to stay in London indefinitely. Arthur and Sinead had by now been there so long they had gotten used to the easier life they were able to live there. They were also old enough to start to lose their hardiness. Nian had even expressed a concern for her mother's health if she returned to their homestead. They and their daughters, having now become a reunited family, very much did not want to separate the way they had in the past either.

When Golpalott returned to the Ollivander household, it was considerably emptier than it had been when he'd last visited it. Still, he apparently decided to talk to everyone else in the household before talking to either his would-be bride or her guardian, including her parents. Gauis-Claudius was left to worry what his younger children would say about him. He need not have; Golpalott records them as having said nothing but good of their father. Sinead Weyard apparently rambled at length in response to only a couple of questions from him, and left him uncertain what to make of her words.

From Arthur Weyard, however, he got a clear, thoughtful appraisal of Gaius-Claudius Ollivander, as well as something of the story of what had happened between Dian and Gumboil, which seems to have finally cleared Nian of wrongdoing in Golpalott's mind. It might have even improved his opinion of the wandmaker enough to make him mind the subsequent negotiations with him less.

Finally, he asked to see Nian, and she was summoned downstairs to see him. She apparently had only become aware of his being there an hour previously, which was nonetheless time enough for her to write out and tear up several speeches to him. Her mother would comment to her the following day that she had never in her life seen the eldest of her daughters look uncertain or frightened, until she saw her descend the stairs.

She need have neither worried, nor gone to such lengths to prepare her words. Barely had she began her entreaties before Golpalott assured her they were no longer necessary, and things were quickly settled between them.

Between him and her guardian, however, matters took longer. During the subsequent months, Golpalott even seriously considered breaking negotiations off and marrying Nian without any aid or goodwill from her guardian. He might have even asked her to do it if not for Fian's being married into the man's family; he knew well that nothing was more important to the sisters than each other, and did not want to risk Gauis-Claudius pressuring her not to see them.

In the end, however, he finally got the wandmaker to be generous by offering to take not one, but all three of the final Weyards left in his house off of his hands. Everyone by then had become aware Arthur and Sinead did not want to go home. But Gaius-Claudius did not want to keep a pair of adults in his house for much longer, and Golpalott was quick to guess that.

He quickly hinted that a large settlement on Nian could be used to support her parents as well. Gauis-Claudius made an offer he afterwards declared as big as he'd hoped for, and the two men also made arrangements that would help them both acquire many of the ingredients of their respective trades in the years to come. They also talked about sharing and even collaborating on research, but their plans to do so would never come to fruition.

Nian Weyard was married to Golpalott on January 5, 1044. Dian wrote not long after it, "Nonne coulde look more triumphante on the day they wedde than she." She had reason to be, perhaps. Of the four sisters, she was the one who had truly fought for her choice of husband, and had suffered a true extended ordeal of not knowing if she would ever have him. Which makes it ironic that while her sisters' marriages would all have their ups and downs, Dian's especially, hers would be the one that was ultimately unhappy.

#Harry Potter

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