#i am adrift in a sea of time and space and maybe more time that's also wrapped in fog

[brightoakgame]

Author's Marginalia - 4

This year is edging closer and closer to ending, and simultaneously toward the beginning of the new. It feels like there has been something lost in Western culture; back when the winters spanned longer, darker, lit with candles or the shadowed flickering of gaslight, so did our stories trend more to shadowed tales and huddling together for warmth. A Christmas Carol is a ghost story not because it is a seasonal outlier: rather, it was shaped from the coal smoke choked skies of Victorian England, caught between the dreadful and furious progress of industry, and the haunted trappings of ancient tradition.

December is a liminal space, neither here nor there, an end that anticipates a beginning. No wonder, then, how easy it is to feel set adrift.

(content warning: grief and depression)

I, too, have occupied a liminal space these last few months, attempting to push through some of the most severe burnout and depression I've experienced in decades. It has been slinking in the corners of my mind since midsummer, sometimes only glimpsed in the periphery of my vision, sometimes flaring out abruptly and swallowing all thought and reason with its ferocious, ever-hungry maw, so that I too become part of that echoing, dark--nothing. Sometimes it feels like I am inhabiting my own world as a ghost: I go to raise my stylus or address my keyboard, and my hand seems to pass through it entirely. I drift from room to room. I converse without any substance. I am a poltergeist that opens the cupboards and doors and goes through the motions, and yet my efforts at normalcy only seem to disturb the other inhabitants of my life. People turn to speak to me: I am not there. My partner complained recently about the bourbon-soaked phantom that wore my skin the night before, expounding on their very genuine desire to be carted off by the fae and eaten. He was unamused: the tipsy phantom had been in deathly earnest. I reminded him patiently that he knew who I was when he married me, and laughed it off.

The fae did not respond to my summons, which I am grateful and sorry for by turns.

December intrigues me more and more as I grow older, because I see December as a month of both storytelling and death in equal measures. I do not place more weight on tragedies than I do on comedies (if anything, I find comedy much more challenging!), but as desperate as I am for connection in art, death and grief are irresistible as mysteries and great unifiers.

Each breath comes with an inhale, and then exhale; every life will at some point encounter death. And grief, in my experience, loves to tell stories--the things that came Before, the things I maybe did not know, the embellishments given to quite ordinary things, crystalline now as past, exquisite and multi-faceted with loving truths and illuminating falsehoods.

I began writing Bright Oak in 2017: a very different time, feels like, though not so long past in the bigger picture. Between then and now, I've known many deaths and Deaths, rebirths and (quite literal) births, losses and gains. Friendships have washed upon my shores and receded again, as friendships seem wont to do, reshaping my perceptions, sometimes gently, sometimes not, and often leaving treasure in their wake. People are at heart truly, painfully lovely animals, I think.

I write because I want to understand better than I do; I write beloved friends and well-intentioned enemies, and they spirit me away to a world beyond, someplace where the water and air carry our meaning further and with more clarity, but with voices never too loud, never too harsh. I can hear them all. I know them better than I know myself; they know me better than I know myself. And they, too, will eventually fall to ebb tide, and wash back out into the vast sea of a world of things I do not properly understand. But I get to treasure them for that little time, and now I wish to share them with others before they go, like a collection of beautiful shells and pearls wrought from all I fear and all I do not understand.

Death visits us all, and so many, many times. I do not have to dig to know that I start the vast majority of my stories with accidents: I can pinpoint the day I felt my childhood ended, with the loss of a dear friend in a car wreck. The end of one chapter, when things were more heedless, but safe; the beginning of another, when things were dangerous, but a little wiser. There have been many, many chapters since. We are each of us anthologies, to a one; our tree rings show the times of plenty and the times of drought, the fires and the trauma, the slow recovery, the growing-over of scars, the knots and flaws and fine-grained beauty.

My favorite cemetery in town is a public park (and I admit, if this doesn't out me as a former goth kid, I don't know what would). One of my very earliest memories in life is of going to a playground with my mother on a bright weekend morning, trying to bring the sky ever closer while playing on the swing set, and making a new friend in the process. They asked if I knew what ghosts were: I did not, and they explained succinctly that ghosts were dead people that now chased living people, and did I want to play ghosts with them, since there were gravestones right over there-- a clear harbinger of ghosts being present?

I did not enjoy the game; I did not like being chased by ghosts in a rough and tumble round of monster tag. My mother, perhaps to calm me, pulled me aside and proceeded to read to me the poetic epitaphs of the last century headstones that bookended the playground, telling me how much she and my grandmother appreciated these final words set in stone: sometimes rote, sometimes religious, sometimes romantic, sometimes cryptic (pun fully intended).

It often recurred as a setting in dreams during my teens and early twenties. It wasn't until far later, when I moved back to my hometown, that I realized that this was a place that existed in reality, and was not merely a mishmash invention of dreams. After all, what cemetery has monkeybars and a swing set?

It's an old burial ground (at least, by Southern California standards); the graves outlasted the people still around to tend them, and sometime in the last century, it fell into extreme disrepair, and eventually was closed off to the public. Further, it was entirely bulldozed over when miscreants regularly gathered there for the purpose of vandalism and unrecorded mayhem, and after some hullabaloo over the matter, a handful of the old gravestones (belonging, of course, to the more prominent of the permanent denizens) were collected and lined up tidily in the corner of the green space, like a forgotten backstop, craggy granite guardians of the nearby playground.

I love this place, filled as it is with towering old trees, screaming children running amok (and quite possibly playing ghost-tag), people laying out obliviously to sunbathe, or picnicking blithely over the many-hundreds of dead some feet below the surface. It is such a poetic space to me, because try as we may to circumscribe death to a remote and out of the way corner, divorced and isolated from all things Life, it strikes me that death is the very foundation of all life as it proceeds. Death is in the day's end, the unfinished arguments, the words left unsaid, the little losses, the griefs we carry that we are not the person we were, and have not become the person we meant to be. Grief is the bittersweet knowledge that once I was one of those shrieking children, and once I sat on the periphery of the park, oblivious and sipping a coffee, and then I learned its story, and now I am able to tell it--and someday, someday I shall likely forget it, and tell it no more.

We are all the fickle authors of our own stories, and we all know the death that comes with the ending of one chapter, the bittersweet grief of letting it go and beginning anew. I dearly hope December treats every one of you with kindness; that the stories you tell, and those which you tell yourselves, bring warmth and comfort. Even ghost stories are not all bad--particularly when we can all huddle together around the bonfire, peeking at the stars as they show between plumes of smoke.

In this time of intense personal darkness, I am looking through the smoke to those stars. I am grateful for those who huddle at my side, imaginary and otherwise. And I look forward to the beginnings which I know to be just there, over the horizon.

B.

#bright oak #marginalia #longform #game dev #author's note #december #burnout #visual novel #interactive fiction #oelvn #vn dev

[sapphireswimming]

you reblogged that wangxian happy fathers day post unthinkingly,, haha yes cute post domestic gay wizards... cut to me having a mf HEART ATTACK BC I THOUGHT I FORGOT ABOUT FATHERS DAY cut to my logic brain smacking my monkey brain with a hammer bc it. Is march.

oh friend

i hate to break this to you but time is not real in my brain or on my blog

#i am but a simple tumblr user: i see a post i like and i reblog #will i post comic sans valentines in october? yes #will i reblog otgw post with captions about being happy it's the spooky season in january? yes #will i reblog posts made for characters' birthdays on whatever day of the year i come across them? yes #also did i date a document at work 2014 just last week? definitely #and can i tell you what month of the year that father's day normally falls in? absolutely not #i am adrift in a sea of time and space and maybe more time that's also wrapped in fog #please do not try to navigate these seas using any of the posts on this blog #you will drown if you dare mistake any of them for landmarks #replies #ss #also omg i am very sorry for the heart attack #Anonymous

[tellmealovestory]

At Last

Summary: requested by @manymanyenvelopes so buck and reader are both avengers and they fell in love after being friends, then they confessed, yada yada, but they didn't immediately have sex, when they initially confessed their feelings, just cause that wasn't important. so now they they are getting closer and further in their relationship and have to deal with the awkwardness of finally sleeping together. even though it's what they both really want, I just imagine there being some hesitancy and awkwardness. maybe one or the other is worried about being disappointing, or they just feel so excited that it's overwhelming?

Notes: Once again I am so sorry that this took me forever! Also posted on my ao3.

Warnings: Swearing, smut, angst if you squint, fluff. 

Steady hands. 

You tell Bucky one time that's what he has. Countless missions out on the field, enemies rushing at him, friends and strangers counting on him and you’ve never once seen his hands shake. Not so much as a tremor when he’s stitching you up in poorly lit bathrooms in foreign countries after missions gone wrong. Waking from nightmares, breathing heavily, hands that clench around blankets, but still, not so much as a tremble. A confession of feelings and a slew of awkward first dates, the first time he has his hands beneath your shirt exploring new skin and his hands are still steady. It becomes something you're so use to seeing that when you finally do see his hands shake you’re caught off guard.

Laying beneath him on soft sheets in an apartment that’s too small, but it’s yours and it’s homey you’re mesmerized by the way his hand shakes as he helps you out of your shirt. He murmurs a quiet sorry when he sees you staring, presses a gentle kiss to the corner of your mouth before grabbing the pillow by your head. 

“Buc-,” you start, but it’s all you get out before his mouth is slanting over yours and swallowing down the last two letters of his name. In the dark recesses of your mind you know that you should talk about this, but he makes it so hard to think when his kisses leave your head spinning and your body yearning for more. 

Short nails rake down the back of his neck and he’s groaning into your mouth, the sound sending jolts of need straight to your core. Hitching your leg around his waist to pull him closer you’re left gasping when he breaks the kiss. He gives you enough time to catch your breath and then his mouth is back on yours while the fingertips of his metal hand slowly stroke along your side.

The cool metal is a welcome relief against your heated skin, but you'd be lying if you said it wasn't a little surprising. You can count on one hand the number of times he's used his metal hand on you and though it feels good when it slides further up your side, fingertips brushing along the lace trim fabric of your bra it's still an unusual move from him. Again, you know that you should talk about this, but your mind and body are waging two different wars, torn between talking and giving in to the way that he makes you feel. 

Half lidded eyes and you're letting out breathy little pants of anticipation when he kisses his way across your cheek and down your neck. Head tilting to the side, hands roaming over broad shoulders, one flesh and one metal then down the taut muscles of his back. The little grunts he lets out against the crook of your neck spur you on and his name tumbles from wet and swollen lips in a broken chant when he finds your pulse point. Mouth sucking bruises into your skin, light sheen of sweat covering your face and chest, already so close, but it's not close enough. Weight heavy, hand switching to your other breast, mouth moving down to your throat in open mouth kisses.

Muscles ripple beneath roaming hands, his thigh grinds with a little more force against your core and you feel like you're out to sea adrift in a wave of overwhelming pleasure, but the feeling doesn't last. 

Sliding his hand from your breast to the curve of your back you're sitting up just enough for him to reach the clasp of your bra. What should take him no more than a few seconds after months of practice has him fumbling tonight. Letting out a quiet fuck he follows it up with another sorry and it's enough for the fog in your mind to clear. The last time you saw him like this was the first time your relationship moved to the physical side, but that was months ago. Lowering your leg from around his waist he shifts his position and your knee jabs him in his rib. Even with his super soldier serum you don't miss the way he hisses or the way his metal fingers unintentionally pinch the skin of your back. 

It's a flurry of movement, a chorus of mumbled apologies and quiet reassurances that he's okay, that you're okay, it's you sitting up and swatting his hand away, your fingers rubbing where he pinched you, it's him sitting up on his knees, heat rising to your face and hiding behind your hands. It's silly worries and unfound doubts that flow through your veins and cloud your mind. 

"Think the solution is you shouldn't wear bras anymore,” he quips, but the lightheartedness in his voice doesn’t reach his eyes. Hovering over your body he kisses your forehead before murmuring a soft come on and gently pulling your hands away from your face. 

“You would suggest that.” Hint of a smile on his face and he’s dipping his head down to kiss you, but it’s not the same. Unlike the long, drawn out kisses of earlier that left you panting and needing him, these kisses are chaste, hesitant almost and unlike earlier when his hands were exploring your body he keeps them steady on the pillows by your head as if he’s afraid of touching you.

Frustration bubbles up and it’s impossible to get lost in his kisses. It feels like each of you are going through the motions, minus the usual love and passion that flows through. It’s not anyone’s fault and logically you know that, but you can’t help feeling as if the reason neither of you seem able to cross this last physical line is somehow because of you. 

Mind reeling you barely register the feel of his lips working their way back down your neck in a half hearted attempt to fix this night. 

“Buck?” 

A warm puff of air and you’re squirming beneath him when his tongue circles over the earlier bruise he left you. Pushing  his shoulder he gets the hint, mouth pulling away and he’s staring down at you and licking his lower lip.

“What’s going on?” Your voice comes out softer than you want it to. Arms laying limp at your side, strap of your bra twisted around your shoulder and you don’t miss the subtle way he swallows, Adam’s apple bobbing with the motion or the pastel pink that blooms onto his cheeks in a blink and you’ll miss it moment, but he covers it all with a quick and charming smile.

“Well,” he drawls, lowering his mouth again, but you turn your head to the side and his lips land on your cheek. “I was tryin’ to make out with my beautiful girlfriend.”

Another time his joke and compliment would have your heart soaring and a smile stretched so wide on your face it would hurt. Another time you'd be laughing, telling him compliments will you get you everywhere, Barnes with an exaggerated wink because you know it makes him laugh. Tonight though his words don't land the same.

Lifting your hand to his cheek, stubble scratching at your palm you search the depths of his blue grey eyes for a clue into what’s going on with him. Coming up empty you struggle to find the right set of words.

“I’m serious, Bucky,” you say softly, fingers stroke along the jaw you’re convinced was sculpted by the gods. "It's okay to be nervous. I know this is a big step for us."

"Who says I'm nervous?" He says it with such confidence that you want to believe him desperately, maybe if you didn't know him as well as you do you would. You've been together long enough to know when he's lying, when he's hiding things from you and you shoot him a withering look, one that leaves him blushing again and lets you both know he's full of shit.

"I don't know," you drawl, borrowing a page from his book. Fingers dance along his chin and when he tilts his head into the palm of your hand you again think about how easy it would be to shelve this conversation and kiss him until your lips are swollen and the only thing on each of your minds is the overwhelming pleasure of being together. "Maybe it has something to do with your hand shaking. Or the way you were barely touching me and when you did touch me you treat me like glass or mayb-"

"That's not it." 

You wait a beat for him to elaborate on what it is if he's not nervous, but he stays silent, steely eyes drifting to the headboard. You can practically see the concrete walls going up around him, but you refuse to let him shut you out. Tilting his face back to yours you peck his lips and murmur, "So what is it?"

"It's been awhile." 

A heavy sigh tumbles out and you swear your neighbors in the next apartment over can hear it. He rolls off of you and onto his back, legs spread wide and you want to find humor in the way he's stretched out and filling your bed with the pale pink sheets. Missing the weight of him on you and the way his hot skin kept you warm you shiver. Reaching down to cover yourself with one of your discarded shirts or a blanket his words stop you dead in your tracks. A heaviness laces his voice, your heart sinks into your chest and the sound of sheets rustling fills the space as he sits up, back flush against the pile of pillows you insist on keeping at all times. "What if I'm not any good?"

You swear you're going to get whiplash with how quickly you turn to face him. Creases line his forehead, hands ball into fists at his side, shoulders slumped, mouth tilted downward in a frown and all you can manage is to whisper an Oh, Bucky because how could he ever think that? Without giving it a second thought you climb into his lap. Straddling his waist, legs falling open on either side of his thick thighs you cup his cheeks, tilting his face up so he’s forced to look at you.

A whirlwind of thoughts blow through your mind, your mouth closes and opens and you stare down at the man you love trying to find the words that will appease the doubts coursing through his veins. 

“Why would you even say something like that?” You blurt. It’s not smooth nor is it close to what you want to say, but your outburst has the barest of smiles curling his lips up. 

A lift of his shoulders and you watch the concrete wall fall brick by brick. Neither of you are strangers to the uncomfortable conversations that come with being in a relationship, but that doesn't make them any easier to have. 

"'Cause," he mumbles. "Wanna give you everything you deserve, doll. What if after all this time I can't live up to your expectations?" Casting his eyes downward you tilt his head back up refusing to let him hide away from you no matter how painful the conversation gets. 

"Oh, Bucky," you say again because there aren’t enough words in any language for you to explain how wrong he is. Kissing his forehead you take your time to gather your thoughts. "Is that what tonight has been about with the," you pause, nodding at his hand and gesturing to your bra, "because you could never disappoint me, James Barnes, okay? We both agreed that waiting was the right choice for us and this idea that after all this time you think I'd have expectations for when we do have sex is ridiculous when you know that's not true, silly boy."

Your words aren't having the effect on him you were hoping for so you kiss his forehead again, the tip of his nose and finally his lips. He doesn't kiss you back. Swallowing your disappointment you try again. “I love you, Bucky and even if our first time together is a disaster like that night in the back of Sam’s car I woul-“

“Jesus, doll,” he groans and you can’t help laughing at the way he’s attempting to frown. “Thought we agreed not to talk about that?”

It’s your turn to shrug your shoulders. For a second you stare down at time caught up in the way your mind is replaying that night. “Anyways,” you carry on as if he hadn’t interrupted, “That night wasn’t our finest, but it didn’t matter in the end and you know why?” 

His fingers glide up your side and you take victory in the fact that slowly he’s coming back to you. The tension in his shoulders is loosening, his metal hand uncurling, hint of a sparkle returning to those eyes you love so much. You’re not naive enough to think that one conversation will fix his insecurities, but he’s opening up, relaxing and that’s more than enough for you. 

“Why?”

“Because I was with you and that’s all that matters.“

“That right?”

“Mhm.” 

“Fuck I don’t deserve you, Y/N.” Wrapping his arm around your waist he buries his head in the crook of your neck. Warm breath and your fingers are carding through his hair. Silence settles in around you, but unlike earlier when it was thick with tension this time it’s thick with love and a new understanding. 

“Did you not listen to anything I said, silly boy?” You tease with a sigh and kiss to the top of his head. 

“Hard to concentrate when you’ve got your shirt off.”

“Perv.”

This time when he laughs his eyes are full of glitter and crinkles, the sound bouncing around your room and you swear you’ve never seen or heard anything more beautiful in your life. 

A glance at the alarm clock he bought for you when you kept oversleeping for important meetings tells you it’s still early for New York. “If we get dressed now we can get ice cream at that place you like so much before they close,” you offer. 

“Can think of something better we could do,” he suggests lowly, fingers stroking higher, brushing over the lace side of your bra.

Your breath hitches and your heart jumps at the prospect of his words. It takes all your self control not to jump at his offer. Watching him through half lidded eyes you tease, “Better than ice cream? You sure about that, Barnes?”

“Positive.” 

And suddenly you’re not talking about ice cream anymore. A subtle shift in the air above you changing from thick with love to thick with need, bone deep and hair raising you wonder when it happened. After your reassurances? After he cracked a joke? After your sarcastic retort? It's hard to know, but it's there, electricity in the air crackling above you and along with it a sense of excitement at this next step in your relationship.

He can feel it too. Oceanic eyes turning darker, pink tongue wetting lips, fingers going higher still, dancing along the top of your bra. Metal hand holding steady to your waist when your hips accidentally shift downwards earning you a low groan from him.

“We don’t have to,” you whisper because even though he was joking only moments before his touches are still featherlight. And even though his eyes are growing darker, his length growing harder beneath the shifting of your hips you know he’s still hesitant about this. You want to tell him there’s no rush, but he’s tilting his head up and capturing your lips in a kiss that’s as sweet as cotton candy and as gentle as the very first time he kissed you.

Pillow soft lips and his metal hand is guiding the slow movement of your hips. There’s no rush right now and you like it best like this, all long, drawn out kisses and slow touches, each one seeming to whisper I love you into your skin.

Parting your lips he expertly slips his tongue in. Licking into your mouth you’re whining, fingers curling around his hair when you press yourself closer to him.

Nearly out of breath you’re reluctant to break the toe curling kiss even for a second, but when you do your lips don’t stray far from his. A kiss to the corner of his mouth, breath coming out in pants and your hips are grinding down against his with more force. 

“What if I want to?” He breaths.

Smiling against his mouth you kiss him again. Reaching behind your back and now you're the one with fumbling hands, but if Bucky notices he doesn't say anything. In a different set of circumstances you can multitask like a champ, but he makes it hard to concentrate when he’s deepening the kiss.

A muffled moan, fingers falling from your back and your senses are consumed with the way he tastes like cinnamon and how he smells like your warm vanilla body wash he says he never uses. A plea balances itself on the tip of your tongue and you want to beg him to let you get your bra off, but he’s kissing his way across your burning cheek and down your neck. The previous task at hand forgotten about until he murmurs a cheeky, "Need some help with that?"

Mind thick with a hazy layer of fog, underwear growing damper, pit of your stomach burning with the need to have more of him you prepare to answer, but he drags his mouth down your neck to that one spot that always leaves you a gasping, needing mess. 

"Well?" He prompts, teeth nipping at your sweaty skin and for a moment you can't remember what he’s asking about. Hand resting on his shoulder, nails digging into his flesh you whine. His metal hand drags along the curve of your back, fingers toying with the clasp of your bra and you're trying to break through your lust addled mind enough to remove the stupid thing. For a second you entertain the thought of his earlier solution to just not wear a bra, it'd make it a lot easier to get undressed in situations like these. 

Dragging his nose along the column of your throat you let out pathetic little mewls and gasps as you swat his hand away. "I've got it," you gasp and you hope that you do because your'e not sure how much longer you can handle his teasing touches and tempting kisses. In a flash the garment is unclasped, straps hanging loose on your shoulders and you swear to god your heart is about to burst out of your chest with the gentle way that he slides the thin straps down your arms before tossing it aside. You flashback to the first time that you found yourselves in this position and you marvel at how far you’ve both come. For a second everything is still. His chest glistening with sweat rises and falls, his lips pink and swollen from the long kisses, his eyes as dark as the night sky shift between your own that you know must be just as dark, down to your own swollen lips, to the bruises that he left down to your chest, nipples already hard and begging to be touched. 

"Y/N," he breaths and you swear that your heart really does burst because he says your name like you're the most beautiful thing he's ever seen even though he's seen you shirtless more times than you can count. "Fuck, doll." 

You want to tell him, no, beg him to touch you, to please, please touch you, but you can't get a word in when his hands fall to the back of your thighs and in a quick burst of confidence you haven't seen from him since the night began he rolls you onto your back. A surprise gasp at the new position soon turns into a breathless plea for more when the pads of his thumb brush across your nipples. Reaching out for him your hands land on his biceps, nails digging in, head tilting back into your soft pillows, eyes fluttering shut when he leans down to press a kiss to your jaw. "Keep going, Bucky," you urge breathlessly because even with the brief glimpse of your confident Bucky you know in the featherlight way his thumbs are circling over your nipples that he's still nervous about this next step. "Bucky, please."

"Please what?" he murmurs, the words sounding more sinful than sweet when he presses a quick kiss to your collarbone before dragging his mouth down to the tops of your breasts. Squirming beneath him and panting a light sheen of sweat coats the back of your neck and you can't remember ever being so needy or desperate to have him. Your hands fly to his hair when his mouth envelopes your breast, teeth grazing across your nipple and you're hissing at the hint of a sting, but he soothes it with his tongue. Metal hand massaging your other breast and the contrast between cool and smooth and his warm and wet mouth has you arching your back and yanking on his hair. Cradling the back of his head you pathetically lift your hips up in search of some form of friction. A muffled groan from him and a lazy smile is curling up your lips because you know how much he loves when you tug on his hair. 

"God, Bucky," you gasp and you're amazed you're able to get those two words out. "Feels... oh really good." The next set of words are harder to get out, but you swear when the praises tumble out his cheeks are turning pink and he's working even harder to bring you the most pleasure he can with his mouth. And, oh, how he can bring you to the brink with just his mouth. The thought alone has you panting and threading fingers through his hair and when his mouth pulls away from your breast with a quiet pop you think he must be able to hear how loud your heart is beating when he offers you the sweetest smile, eyes locking on yours as he kisses his way down your stomach. 

Unlike earlier when his hands shook trying to take your bra off this time they’re steady against the zipper and button of your jeans. A tug and he's pulling them off, underwear following close behind and you're left to wonder if he's gaining his confidence back or if more likely this is such a familiar position that it’s second nature to him. 

Skimming his fingers along the inside of your thighs your breath catches in your throat. Staring up at him with a hammering heart and half lidded eyes you're torn between letting him take his time and begging him to touch you. Wetness pools between your thighs and the fire in your belly burns hotter the longer his eyes rake over you. 

"Buc-"

"I know, doll," he croons, but his words do little to ease the desire coursing through you. "Just let me look." A murmur, a whisper of a kiss against your lips, fingertips ghosting higher and he's so close, but again, it's not close enough. "You're so beautiful."

Tips of his fingers spread your slickness around and you’re clawing at his biceps while panting in anticipation. Taking his time he kisses you, teeth nipping at your lower lip, middle finger slipping past wet folds and you're moaning in relief as he's groaning into your open mouth. "So wet for me." A rush of warm breath against your already scorched face and you’re tangling a hand in his hair, hips tilting upward in a silent plea for a little more. He gets the hint, second finger sliding in, lingering kiss to your jaw and he's talking again, but it's hard to focus on the low timbre of his voice when all you can focus on is the slow pull and drag of his fingers against the heat of your core. "That feels good, doesn't it?"

You want to answer him, but when you open your mouth to speak all that comes out is a low pitched whine, but it's enough of an answer for him. Grin stretched wide across his face he kisses your shoulder, pad of his thumb rubbing tight circles over your clit and you're melting into your bedsheets and falling under his spell.

"Bet I can make it feel even better." A kiss to your collarbone and you can't be sure, but you think you respond with a please, the sound becomes muffled around his throaty laugh and the rustling of sheets. "That what you want? For me to make it feel better?" 

Again, you can't answer, but he doesn't press you to and you want to tell him how much you love him for that, but the words are lodged in the back of your throat. Settling himself between your thighs like it’s his home he presses a kiss to the inside of your thigh and you're tossing your head back when the stubble of his beard rubs over your skin. One hand on the back of his head urging him closer and the other is tangled around sheets that are becoming damp with sweat and arousal. Your hips tilt upwards and this time when you part your lips the words do manage to come. 

"B-Bucky..."

Leaning up on elbows your eyes nearly roll back when you catch sight of him between your thighs. Hair a mess, cheeks flushed your favorite shade of pink, fingers still dragging through your folds as his mouth teases your inner thighs you swear to god you've never seen him look more attractive before. His shoulders are fully relaxed, his attention on you and only you and you take pride in the fact that he's slowly gaining his confidence back after the mishaps of earlier. Your heart is working overtime and you swear if he doesn't stop teasing you're going to combust and it's not an exaggeration. Carding your fingers through his hair you encourage him quietly to keep going, but he needs no encouragement when he replaces his fingers with his tongue without warning. 

"Jesus!" You cry, body falling backwards with a flop. "Oh fuck." A string of obscenities follow soon after and you're not sure what you're blurting, all you know is that it feels good. Really good when his tongue delves between your soaking folds and you never want him to stop. Bucking your hips up you clench your eyes shut as his mouth latches onto your clit. 

Moaning against your core the vibrations send your back arching and there’s nothing sexier than knowing he’s getting pleasure from getting you off. 

Grinding his hips into your bed for relief against his straining erection he curls his hand around your thigh, pulling his mouth back enough to press a teasing kiss to your sensitive bud. The fire in your stomach burns hotter when he draws you closer to his mouth, tongue swirling over your sensitive bud leaving you gasping and crying out, “Don’t stop!”

Two fingers slip in, curling in a come hither motion and he takes your clit back into his mouth sucking harshly. Digging his fingers into the soft flesh of your thigh you roughly shove his face closer to your dripping core as you continue to buck your hips up. 

“Jesus, Buck,” you choke, fisting the bedsheets. Your mouth drops open when he adds a third finger, sliding it in deep and hitting that one spot that has you seeing stars behind your eyes. “Shit, yes, right there, god Bucky, right there!” Gasping for breath and with tears threatening to spill at the overwhelming pleasure you know you’re not going to last much longer. 

“I know you’re close, doll,” he rasps and you swear the tone, so reminiscent of his throaty morning voice that you love hearing is enough to push you over. “Let go for me. Show me how good I’m making you feel.”

A warning on the tip of your tongue, but it’s lost to the chants of his name and the endless stream of oh god, Bucky’s. An arch of your back, sweat dripping down your neck, fingers clutching to his hair, hips bucking upwards and the fire in your stomach is a full blown inferno when your release hits you full force. It’s intense and you’re not sure if it’s because of his talented mouth or the earlier conversation that drew you closer to one another. Either way you’re left panting and shoving his head and fingers away when the sensitivity becomes too much and he doesn’t know when to stop.

Moaning he swipes his tongue through your folds one last time, lapping at your release before sitting back on his knees to watch you come down from your high. Release coating his beard and chin, hair sticking up haphazardly, erection straining against his jeans he crawls his way up your body littering your sweaty skin with gentle kisses and nips as he goes.

“That good, huh, sweetheart?” He teases at your blissed out state. A lazy and satisfying smile curves your lips up. Tilting your head you kiss him softly. The taste of you lingers on his plump lips and warm tongue. 

Taking a moment to bask in the afterglow your body thrums with excitement the closer you each get to finally being together. “It’s always good with you,” you whisper in between kisses, adding, "This is going to be good too." Because you can see the tension finding its way back into his shoulders. It’s the last thing you want after what just took place and the confidence he had shown. 

Resting your fingers on the top of his jeans you pause only for a second when you hear his breath hitch. A nod from him and you’re undoing his button, tugging the zipper down and slipping your hand beneath the waistband of his boxers. Hot, thick and throbbing you both moan when your hand wraps around him.

A gentle stroke, a choked moan from him and he's yanking his pants down so quickly you want to tease him about being eager, but he's moaning again, eyes fluttering shut and you're too distracted with seeing him get lost in the pleasure to do much more than pull his boxers down to join his pants around his knees.

"How's that?" You ask, punctuating your words with a gentle squeeze.

Head dropping into the crook of your neck, hot breath panting, hips thrusting into your hand as his metal hand finds purchase amongst your pillows. "Fuck," he grunts, struggling to get the one word out. "Doll... you gotta... fuck, Y/N, you gotta slow down or this is gonna be over soon."

Biting your lip and nodding your head you slow your pace, but keep your hand wrapped around his length as your thumb brushes across his tip.

"Yeah, better," he chokes out. Sucking in a breath he pulls his head away from your neck. "Gotta... hold on." And it's such a contrast from moments ago, gone is your confident Bucky who touched you like a man who knew exactly where to touch you to make you see stars, who knew exactly how to kiss you until you were breathless and dizzy. In his place is the Bucky of earlier, all fumbling hands as he tugs his jeans and boxers from his thighs, kicking them off the bed. He offers you a shy smile, cheeks bursting with pink and you can't help thinking of how the theme of the night has been two steps forward and one step back. 

You'd do anything to help ease his nerves and show him how his darkest thoughts and fears of not being good enough for you are bullshit. Removing your hand from his length you sit up, cringing as you shift over the dampness of your sheets. Keeping your voice quiet you ask, "Do you want me to be on top?" The relief that floods his face before he tries to cover it up has a crack forming in your heart, but your core clenches when he nods his head and you again find yourself in a battle of wills between knowing that you should talk about this and giving into the pleasure that's only moments away.

Limbs tangle together and get caught up in twisted and balled sheets, you bite back a giggle when his toe catches the corner of your sheet and he’s sprawling on his back. It’s easy to forget that he’s a trained assassin when he looks so helpless trying to lay down. Readjusting so his head is propped up against your pillows and his thighs are spread you swallow down the mixture of nerves and excitement pooling in the pit of your stomach. 

Cupping his cheek you kiss him softly, thumb brushing across his jaw you will him to relax as you deepen the kiss. “Ready?”

“For you to do all the work? Yeah.” Cheeky smile and you’re laughing against his mouth and kissing him once more. 

Memories of kneeing him in the ribs are only too fresh in your mind and after coming so far tonight you’re extra careful when you straddle his waist. Wrapping your hand around the base of him you glide his tip through your wet folds. The groans he’s letting out at the barest hint of contact between your bodies has your walls clenching and your mouth watering. His fists clench by his side and his eyes are slamming shut as you slowly lower yourself down taking him inch by inch.

No stranger to the girth or length of him from the countless times you've had him in your hand and mouth it still doesn't prepare you for the near unbearable sting as he stretches you. Hands fly to his chest, nails digging crescent shapes into his skin and you've only sunk halfway down.

"Fuck," he moans, dragging the syllables out. Flesh hand hesitantly moving to your hip, fingers stroking your skin and you can tell it's taking all his self control not to slam his hips upwards. 

Sinking down another couple of inches and you're reminding yourself to breathe and relax, but it's easier said than done. Tearing your eyes away from his you glance down to his chest, red from your nails clawing at him down to where your bodies are connected and he’s disappearing into you. A strangled moan leaves your mouth and you swear you're going to leave his chest torn open and bleeding by the time you finally take all of him. 

Forceful grip on your hip and he’s letting out low grunts that you swear are going to be the death of you. “Y/N,” he chokes out, head slamming back against your pillow. “Sweetheart, fuck you’re tight.”

Breathing heavily you take a second to admire him. The flushed and sweaty cheeks, his parted lips, the half lidded eyes, the whir of his metal hand still clenching and unclenching by his side. The filth that’s spewing from his mouth and the sinful noises he’s making spur you on, lowering yourself down until he‘s fully sheathed inside you. He stretches you in a way no man has before, filling you to the brim and it’s delicious.

“Buck,” you gasp, taking a beat to get used to the fullness.

The pain still lingers when you slowly lift your hips up and lower yourself back down, but the way he moans makes it worth it. "How's that?" You ask again, setting a slow pace as you splay your hands across his broad and sweaty chest.

Skimming his hand along the curve of your hip he grunts. Hesitantly, he thrusts his hips up and the pleasure that shoots through you has you chanting a string of broken yes. 

“You like that?” 

Unable to answer you nod your head frantically and he does it again, the second time feeling even better. “Feels so good, you feel so good. Keep going, god keep going, Buck.” Babbling nonsensical words and tossing your head back you roll your hips against his, nails sinking back into his chest as the pleasure begins to overwhelm you.

Grunting, his metal hand crawls up up your stomach, thumb brushing across nipples. “Y/N,” he moans, eyes slamming shut, “Come on, need you to move those hips a little faster for me, sweetheart.”

His words have your walls fluttering and you pick up the pace with his help. Arching your back you can't believe how good it feels to have him inside of you. Thick and pulsing you feel every vein and ridge bumping against your walls, spurring you on, but even though it feels good you need just a little more. 

“Touch me,” you plead, words drifting out amid the rhythmic creaking bed and  headboard bumping against the wall no doubt annoying your neighbors.

He doesn’t need to be told twice and though his hand doesn’t shake his touch is still featherlight when he slips a hand between your sweating bodies to stroke your clit.

Your thighs begin to burn from the exertion and punishing pace you’ve set, but you push the thought to the back of your mind when Bucky’s thumb circles your clit with more pressure and the fire in your belly stirs hotter. 

“Just like that, Bucky,” you praise, breasts bouncing as you rock your hips faster against his. “I’m so close. Just a little more.”

“Gonna spend the rest of the night buried in you.” Sitting up and wrapping his arm around your waist the quick movement and new position has you crying out. “Fuck we got a lotta missed time to make up for.” 

Bodies slick with sweat and neither of you can keep your hands or mouths off one another. Sloppy kisses and even sloppier thrusts as you each near the end. 

“B-Buck!” you cry out, hands clawing at his shoulders and clutching to his short hair in a desperate bid to hold on to something, to anything.

The fire burns into an inferno and with a strangled cry you’re struggling to keep up the pace enough for him to reach his own release. A flash of white bursts behind your eyes and you’re reduced to nothing more than loose limbs and gasps of his name as you coax him to let go.

“Y/N,” he growls, hips faltering, body growing tense and he’s letting go, teeth sinking into your shoulder he struggles to contain the moans and grunts he’s letting loose.

Without the sounds of your moans and his filthy words, the headboard bumping against the wall and the bed creaking your room is eerily silent save for your ragged breaths. 

Slumping against his chest he’s the first to break through the silence when he lets out a breathless love you, following it up with a kiss to your shoulder where his teeth had been only moments before. Dragging his nose across your collarbone and up your throat you hum at the gentleness that accompanies his movements. 

"I love you too." Whispered words that are second nature spill from your mouth. Another hum, body shifting over his in an attempt to get off, but he's pulling you impossibly closer, muffled whine escaping his lips. Thighs burning, body sticky with sweat and your releases, you know that you need to go to the bathroom, get cleaned up, but when his mouth searches yours out in a drawn out kiss you forget about all of that as he pulls you back under. 

"It was okay?" He breaths, fingertips stroking across your lower back, painting your sweaty skin with words of love and you find it endearing how after everything that's happened he's still uncertain. 

"It was perfect, Buck, you were perfect." Pushing a sweaty lock of hair away from his eyes your lips land on his forehead and you take an extra moment to bask in the way that it feels to be wrapped up in his arms after your first time together. The stress and anxiety that led up to his moment are gone and in their place is a sense of calm and love. "But I really need you to let me go because I have to go to the bathroom," you whine, hips shifting over his as your hands loosen their hold from around his shoulders. The peaceful afterglow is shattered with your laugh and his groan, but you like it best like this, when his guard is down and he's relaxed. 

"Go," he murmurs, stealing another kiss that for a second makes you think about staying like this for another few minutes, but he's loosening his hold, yawn escaping from him and you know if you don't leave now your resolve will crumble and you will spend the rest of the night like this. 

Climbing off his lap you pick up a pile of clothes not caring or knowing who they truly belong to as you head to the bathroom to get cleaned up. Exhaustion nips at your limbs, the emotional turmoil of the night taking its toll on you and by the time you finish cleaning up and head back to your room you're met with the sight of Bucky on his back, sheets pulled to his waist, snoring quietly. You watch him for a minute, the way sleep has come easy to him tonight and you make a mental note to continue the conversation in the morning. Climbing into bed next to him you kiss his cheek, smiling when he doesn't so much as stir before curling into his side and letting sleep overtake you as well.

Tags;

@breakfast-at-kelseys​

#bucky barnes x reader #bucky barnes x you #bucky barnes smut #bucky barnes imagine #bucky barnes fanfiction #my writing

[thenameisel]

Origin Stories Part Five: Follow Me

My first impression is of the pain. Agonizing, prickling pain. Like a million tiny needles stitching me back together.

But it fades so quickly, was it even there in the first place? I’m not even exactly sure what hurt. My lungs? My ribs? My throat? Everywhere?

There's an ache in my side that's subsiding too.

What happened? Did anything happen? I feel lost. Adrift. But also weightless and uncaring like I’ve just come out of a drugged sleep.

I open my eyes.

My hands are resting in my lap. Lose, relaxed, forgotten. I’m sitting on something hard and cold. The same unyielding sensation is at my back. I find it comforting.

There's a glint of white and I jerk my head upwards to see a small flying drone less than a foot from my face. It’s star shaped, facets shifting back and forth. With something moving to focus on, the fog in my head starts to thin.

Somehow I just know it's studying me.

“Titan. Updating calculations.” The masculine voice is calm and factual. “Pleasure to meet you. I have a lot to discuss with you, but I’m going to need you to follow me. This area is not safe.”

I open my mouth to ask… and a dozen questions come to mind. But before I can decide on one a primal yell pierces the air. The ground tremors.

Any remaining shreds of apathy is chased away by a shot of cold adrenalin.

I look around quickly, absorbing my environment. I’m sitting on a wide sidewalk, concrete wall to my back. The four lane road is pitted and cracked. Rusted out cars line both sides, and various other debris litter the pavement. The buildings are tall and square. Uniform and utilitarian.

The ground tremors again. Stronger this time.

Whatever is making it, is coming this way.

The done gets even closer, filling my vision.

Somehow I can tell he's agitated.

“We need to go. Now. Whatever it is, by my figures, is approaching at a rate that would have it here in five minutes. There’s an outpost fourteen blocks from here. If we can make it there, we’ll be safe.”

“Allright.” I say, my voice sounds dry. Unused. I push myself upright, the drone bobbing impatiently. “Lets go.”

He takes off down the street, and I have to follow at a brisk jog to keep up. I manage, somehow, despite the weight of the leather and metal armor I'm wearing.

We continue for a few blocks, without seeing a soul. Each open space, intersection and break between buildings, the drone checks carefully before stepping out into the open.

Soon I pick up the habit too. I have no idea what we’re looking for, but this empty world looks abandoned and dead.

Suddenly I see movement in my peripheral vision. I stop in my tracks, absorbed with what I see.

In the cracked and pitted glass of a once reflective window, I see a man. He’s got a stern face with chiseled features. Wide square jaw. Piercing eyes set under a heavy brow. Large nose. An unkept mess of blond hair frames his face, complementing the light bronze skin. The figure fills the pane.

The drone realizes I’ve stopped and comes back to my side. He looks to the reflection and back to me and makes an odd beeping chirp.

“Yup. That’s you. That’s what you look like.” he seems slightly regretful. “I wish we had more time. But we need to keep moving.”

I tear my eyes away and we set off again. We can still feel whatever is making the ground shake, but we thankfully seem to be outpacing it. Good.

Around the halfway mark I see a figure down one of the side streets. I duck behind a vehicle and wave at the drone. But he's turned away, checking another area. I don't dare touch him, in fear of startling him into making noise.

I yearn for him to turn around.

Suddenly he does, and is beside me in a heartbeat, silent. His singular eye pulsing rapidly. A wave of worry and concern hits me like a gust of wind.

Something clicks. I understand.

I try my best to picture what I'd seen, and where. Add in a few hand gestures for good measure, hoping I can get the point across.

The drone bobs once, and I get a distinct impression of acknowledgment. Good! Not sure how he understood, but he did.

Suddenly the little drone spins as if deciding something, then zips towards my head. I throw my hands up instinctively, but before he impacts, he vanishes in a flurry of sparks!

'There. This will be easier. Don't make a sound! I'm still here. Just… not in the material 'here'. Only you can hear me. I can hear you too, if you concentrate like you just did. I'll explain more later. But just know we're linked.'

I nod. Then unsure if he could see the gesture, tried to think 'yes'.

'Good good. Just like that. And I can see what you see. And a little more. Now peek around the corner again.'

I do so and come face to face with a set of four blue glowing eyes. They blink one at a time in rapid succession.

It screams.

I punch it.

From fist to shoulder my arm is covered in arcing blue electricity. But it doesn't hurt, in fact it barely tickles.

The creature, it's certainly not human, collapses to the ground twitching. It's facial features, whatever they were, are a pulped mess of purple ichor and gore. Its neck is at an odd angle. Within moments it stops moving entirely.

I killed it. I didn't even know what it was. What it's motives were. And I killed it. I didn't even wait to see if it was a threat. Did it have a family? Friends? And I JUST KILLED IT. MAYBE IT WASN’T HOSTILE. AND I JUST-

'Stop! Please! It's ok. It's ok.' The drone says in my head. Trying to be soothing. He manages somewhat. 'That was a Fallen. An invader from another world. And trust me, if you hadn’t struck first it definitely would have attacked.'

I shudder. Try not to think about it. But I just killed-

'Let's go. There will be more on their way.'

Ok. We resume our jog, this time the drone pointing out directions from inside my head. We don't see anything else.

Three blocks from the outpost a wave of agitation envelopes me. I don't know why.

'RUN!'

The screams come from behind, hooting and hollering. A hissing bolt flies past my head. Cold fear grips my gut.

I muster as much speed I can, weaving to keep anything between myself and my pursuers.

'LEFT! The building! Inside!'

I follow the directions, ducking through a broken door. Inside, the building has seen better days. Most of the adjacent wall is gone. A good portion of the roof too.

What purpose it served I can't tell with the rubble, especially since I'm doing my best to not trip.

'OUT! Then left again.' the drone says 'I'm trying to contact the outpost.'

I hope he's successful.

We continue ducking through buildings, trying to lose the Fallen. Or at least get some distance. But we're unsuccessful, the gap is closing.

Damn they move fast.

'Ok. I got through! They know we're coming! Just right round the next corner, down the road, and the outpost is right ahead. You can't miss it!'

I dart round the corner onto a wide avenue. More of the boring boxy buildings line each side. Ahead on a slight incline is a traffic circle. Right in the middle is a newer looking concrete bunker.

That has to be it.

Unfortunately, there is very little cover.

'Don't think just run!' the drone urges.

I nod and push myself as fast as I can. Safety is within sight.

I notice the door to the bunker open and a figure emerges. It's a little far for details, especially since I'm running for my life, but I get the impression of a large figure, all dressed in white, and a bright splash of orange at its middle.

Pain bursts through my left arm and I stumble. Somehow I manage to catch myself and keep going.

'Don't look back!'

I look back. And immediately regret not listening to the drone. There's at least a dozen Fallen behind me. The insect-like creatures jump and dart unnaturally. A few of them take shots at me with long rifles.

"WHAT ARE YOU DOING?" a new voice. Female. "RUN YOU IDIOT."

I turn back just in time to see a white figure on top of a nearby truck. This one is much smaller than what came out of the bunker. She's wearing a white and pink cape and holding a graceful silver recurve bow.

She starts firing on the Fallen.

I stagger forward. Clutching my arm I do my best to keep moving. But I'm running out of energy.

The woman sees and chucks a grenade at me. I flinch and try to dodge. There's an odd noise and a flash. Recovering, I notice my body has developed an odd transparent shimmer.

"TRAVELER’S SAKE JUST RUN!"

I do my best. But all I can manage is a jog. With the cloaking, I hope it's enough.

We clear the halfway mark, then two thirds. The cloaking fails with a sputter. The woman with the bow a couple dozen paces behind, keeping the Fallen's attention. The sound of their rifles fills the air.

Then the ground rushes up to meet me.

I crash into the pavement. Hard.

I manage to push myself up enough to see the Fallen getting way too close. The woman is almost on top of me now.

I can hear another set of footfalls, these truly deafening, coming from the direction of the bunker.

"DOWN!" she screams as she dives towards me.

The air vibrates with a sound like a truly giant bell has been rung. One deafening peal.

Something very large and very purple flies over the two of us.

The sound of the Fallen's rifles is suddenly muffled. As if a wall was in the way.

The woman laughs and stands up. The bow is gone. In her hands is an ornate hand cannon. She turns towards the Fallen and starts firing.

I push myself up on my elbows again, and I am greeted with a hell of a sight.

Between the woman and the Fallen is a massive figure in heavy armor. The helmet has bull-like sweeping horns. Shoulder pauldrons that are almost comically large. Bright orange sash at the waist. The armor is white, but a purple aura shimmers back and forth overtop like turbulent waves at sea. The figure holds up a glittering purple shield, from which projects a large translucent wall.

Amazingly, the Fallen's shots bounce off the wall, but the caped woman's pass right through. Within moments she's killed half of our pursuers, and the rest scatter, terrified.

She waits a few moments to be sure, then leaps atop a car for a better view. She snaps off a few more shots before raising her arms and hollering in triumph.

The figure in the heavy white armor drops the shield, which dissolves into thin air, the purple aura with it.

Footsteps thunder as this behemoth turns, and walks to me. Crouches and offers me a hand.

"How ya doin, New Light?" The voice is female, and synthetic sounding. Powerful and space filling.

I take the offered hand. The armored giant pulls me up. Surprisingly she's about my height.

"You can come out now little Ghost." She booms. "It's safe. Come heal your Titan."

That's the second time I've heard that. 'Titan'.

And the first time I've heard 'Ghost'.

I want to ask who these people are, what she means, but the drone appears in a sudden burst of sparks.

He makes a humming noise and hits my bleeding arm with a blue light. A weird sensation like thousands of tiny needles prick at the wound. Before I can register the fact that not only my arm, but also the hole in the leather are being rapidly closed up, both are gone entirely, as is the pricking sensation.

I stare dumbfounded.

"You haven't been around long, eh?" The giant asks, removing her helm. Wide eyed I study her metallic, almost skull like, face. It's covered in orange and blue stripes. Her eyes glow.

"Look at that wonder!” she says, “This is why I love pulling outpost duty!"

She laughs, a full bodied laugh, and pats me on the shoulder.

"Let's go inside. We can sit and chat. I'm sure you have questions." Her hand is still on my shoulder, firmly pushing me towards the bunker.

The first woman appears suddenly beside us, flashes a thumbs up, and darts toward the bunker.

"That's Chiri Ra. She's a Hunter. Damned good one too."

Another figure appears in the bunker doorway. This one is robed like some kind of priest. His outfit is also white, but accented with sky blue. Chiri runs up to him and hugs him.

"That's Chiri's husband, Sig Ra. He's a Warlock."

The little drone keeping pace beside me is twitching. I can feel the anxiety.

"And I'm McKay. Titan and leader of this little band." McKay notices the drone and grins. Or, a close approximation of a grin on that metal face. "Go ahead little Ghost. I take it your introductions got interrupted?"

The drone bobs once.

McKay pats my shoulder again and nods.

"Go ahead. When you're done, join us inside, ok?"

With that, the giant robotic woman who called herself a Titan, went inside the bunker, ushering the other two ahead of her.

Once alone, the two of us just study each other for a few moments. His tiny body, made up of metal facets, rotates back and forth around a central sphere.

Eventually, he starts.

"I am so sorry. None of that went according to plan. At all. I tried to calculate for a stress free first day but when I found your spark… I just... I couldn't control myself. Couldn't think. I just had to…. It won't happen again."

The poor drone's voice is as twitchy as it's star-shaped form. It's clearly embarrassed by the whole thing. I can't quite grasp why though.

"Hey." I say, my voice firming as I finally use it, "It's ok. Why don't you start now? It's safe here, I think."

The drone holds position in the air, his outer shell moving in measured, clipped movements. I can tell he's thinking.

"Ok." He says, sounding more confident. More like the first time.

He does a little circle, darting a few paces away, then back. On his return he seems ready.

"Pleasure to meet you.” he does a little bob. ”You are a Titan. Strong, brave, reliable. And I am a Ghost. I brought you back, from the dead. To help protect what’s left of Humanity. I will always be there to support you however I can. I'm your Ghost, and you are my Titan. "

That helps some. But now that we have a moment to ourselves, my lack of knowledge is becoming hard to ignore. As for the complete lack of memories before today… that's disturbing. Especially the being dead part.

"Can I... ask some things? I feel a little lost."

"Of course! Anything! If I can answer it I will!"

Exhausted, I lower myself to the ground, bunker wall at my back. It's solidity makes me feel… safe.

I consider what to ask first.

On a whim I rest my hands, palm up, on my lap. The drone, no, Ghost, looks first to me, then my hands. After a moment he gracefully sinks and settles into my hands. I could close them entirely over his tiny body.

The sole eye watches me patiently, waiting for me to speak next.

Eventually I make my decision.

"What… is going on? What are you? What am I?"

The eye rotates slightly. Concern. Which dissipates to humor.

"Oh. Yes. We’ve… got a whole lot to go over don’t we?”

We talk for hours.

The sun sets.

The night sky becomes rife with stars.

Eventually my head sinks to my chest in exhaustion. He’s busily recounting some grand war, but I just can't stay awake any longer. My last thoughts before falling asleep is while I’m still rather lost, I’m glad I’ve got this little Ghost by my side. He seems to know what's what.

#Destiny #destiny the game #destiny 2 #Hunter #Titan #Warlock #Ghost

[startanewdream]

the fall

Summary: James lives. Sirius falls.

Notes: Sometimes people ask if in my Jily Lives AU series, Sirius dies like in the book. I like to think not, but I never wrote one way or another, because after all I don’t want Sirius to die.

But if it happened like in the books, here it is how I imagine it would go (not really part of the series, but it mentions events there):

Sometimes James still dreams of the fall.

It was something he always feared.

Most people wouldn't guess but he always had a fear of heights; that was the reason he first mounted a broom and took of for the sky - more than any fear he felt, James loved taking risks, being dare. It made him feel alive.

He never stopped fearing the height, but he trusted his broom and in all his short career at Quidditch there had been only one accident, one time a bludger hit him too hard and he fell - later he would claim he had blacked out, but the truth was he stayed awaked through all his fall, until someone managed to grab him and save him.

James never forgot that feeling of being adrift in the air, condemned to fall in that one-way trip. He remembers thinking that this must be like the angels felt when they were falling from grace.

His mother had been Catholic and she had told him all the stories. He had not paid attention to most - his father's adventures stories were much more to his taste - but there were some that caught his attention. Daniel in the lion’s den. Samson with his hair. The fallen angels.

He always thought it must have been hard for them, being cast away from heaven. James loved flying, loved being above everything and feeling free; he would have hate being trapped on the ground.

He would hate losing his wings.

When he was six, his father allowed him to stay awake well past his bedtime and they camped in their backyard. It was a cold November night, but James was too excited to feel cold; his dad was telling stories of long lost heroes when James saw the fall for the first time.

It looked like a line of light crossing the night sky, something falling quickly in the space of a blink of an eye and vanishing before he could understand. And then another and another, after a few seconds or minutes, a number of little lines appearing in the starry sky. It was beautiful.

It scared him.

'Are those angels, dad? Are they falling again?'

His father had smiled.

'No, James, those are falling stars. Shooting stars. Make a wish'.

James did not feel like wishing for anything. Stars were made to be in the sky too. They shouldn't fall.

When he told that to his father, he smiled again and hugged James.

'Those are not really stars, son. Those are meteors, parts of a comet that came too near Earth. What you see is just the meteors entering our planet and burning in the process'.

'It's strange'.

'It's just an event, like eclipses or the phases of the Moon. But this one is special, it happens once in thirty years. The first time I saw it I was your age'.

'Does it hurt them? Those meteors when they burn?'

'No more than the water is hurt when it's raining', his father assured him. 'They are just rocks. I thought you would like it. This meteor shower is called the Leonids'.

'Like the Greek hero?

'Like the constellation Leo, actually'.

This picked up his interest even more. James loved lions, loved the courage they represented and loved how they were the symbol of a House he would be someday.

He watched the rest of the meteor shower in a blissful mood and that night he dreamed of falling stars that were not really stars nor they were falling.

A decade later, he convinced his friends to fly to the top of the Gryffindor Tower, equilibrating precariously on the bricks of the tower, to watch another meteor shower.

Remus slept right away, tired even in a moonless night, and Peter was trembling too much to enjoy the show, but Sirius stayed awake with him all night, watching the stars, almost clapping each time he saw a shooting star (this meteor shower was much less impressive than the other James saw, but it didn't matter. It was never about the stars).

'Do you think wishing upon a star really works?', Sirius asked him in a low voice.

'Depends. What are you wishing for?'

Sirius had turned to look at him.

'If I tell you, it doesn't come true', he said as if it were obvious, but James just stared back at him, waiting.

He knew Sirius would tell him because there were no secrets between them. They trusted each other too much for that.

And just like he knew it would happened, Sirius blinked.

'I wished - I thought of my family -'

James frowned then, still remembering the raining summer night where Sirius had appeared in front of his house, wet and trembling, and had told him he had run away from home. James had done the only sensible thing - he had stand aside to allow Sirius to enter and had helped him change his clothes.

He didn't understand what Sirius could wish about his family - as far as James knew, none of them were really Sirius' family and he was much better away from them.

'My brother, actually', Sirius whispered, sounding guilty of even having this thought. ' I wish I could have him back'.

James thought of the first day of classes that year, when Sirius had come face to face to his brother after running away, and how Regulus had turned his back on him, had refused to hear Sirius calling him, and how heartbroken Sirius had been.

'You don't need him', James said forcefully, hating to see Sirius so down. Sirius was made to shine even more than the star he was named for. 'I am your brother. I won't ever leave you'.

Sirius beamed at him them, his eyes full of love and James knew he was right. They were more than best friends. They were brothers.

Years later he would feel guilty when he found out the truth about Regulus, how he had been brave after all and how Sirius never discovered it.

Years later he would watch Sirius fall and the only wish he could make was that it was all a dream.

But right then they didn't know better, so Sirius offered his hand, which James ignored in favor of hugging him, and they stood together watching the meteor shower.

That was how James and Sirius did most of the things. Together.

They laughed and they pranked and they made mistakes together. They wronged together too and they faced detentions - when they started to get separate detentions, they invented a mirror to talk to each other.

When James realized he fancied Lily Evans, he told Sirius first - Sirius didn't seewhat attracted James in Evans, but he supported, helped him with some cheesy lines (none of it worked) and promise he would marry James if Evans was still rejecting him by the time he were thirty. James knew how much that meant for Sirius, who never really seemed to care about dates and relationships.

And he didn't doubt Sirius would be there for them to grow old together.

When he finally started dating Lily, he told Sirius, even before telling her, that he was in love with Lily. And then, as he said it (Sirius had rolled his eyes, but James knew he was happy for him, because that’s how they were with each other - if one was happy, the other was too; if one was that sad, the other found the reason and punched it in the face), he realized that he had never told Sirius that he loved him too.

'I love you, Padfoot'.

Sirius had stopped to look at him, looking only confused.

'Yeah, I know. We are brothers'.

And then James felt stupid for thinking he had to said how he felt out loud. He never once doubted Sirius loved him either; of course Sirius would feel the same.

Nothing change after they graduated. Sirius was with him in the Order, for the most important and most boring missions, for the days were hope were lost and for the small victories they managed.

Sirius was his best man in his wedding, making a speech that made everyone cry and filled with puns about dogs and stags that made James laugh even if none of the other guests understood. And Sirius was by his side when his parents died.

Years later James would see Sirius hearing about his mother passing away with just a blink, but when he heard about the Potters, Sirius came and hugged James and they cried together, because they were both losing their parents. Sirius had not only been a brother to James, but also a second son that his parents had loved fiercely - and Sirius had loved them back, had found in them all the care and support he lacked from his own parents.

And then Sirius was somehow the only family James had (Lily was part of him, so it was different), until Harry was born - and it was obvious that Sirius would be the godfather.

And even more obvious that he would be their Secret Keeper.

Except it didn't happen like that because Sirius had an idea and James had believed it was the best, because he wouldn't dare to mistrust Peter (he was already hiding things from Remus and that hurt him too much).

But Peter - who James had also loved too, but maybe he should have told him that more - betrayed them and by the tiniest luck James and Lily and Harry survived. Peter died. James tried not to think about it.

For the next years there was some peace. Sirius got to fulfill his wish of being an Auror, James went to his studies, Lily went to preparing her potions. And Harry grew up happy and with his family complete.

Until the fall.

If James had to describe it, he always thought it would be much like the falling star. The angel would be thrown from the sky and at first he would trust his wings to keep him from falling like they always had done; but much like the meteor, the wings would burn brightly upon entering Earth and the fire would consume them, until there was nothing of the feathers and the angel would just fall, in what would seem forever - but the ground would be nearer and nearer until, finally, the angel would hit it.

The angels survived in the stories, but James remembers the story of Icarus, who dared to fly to close to the sun and fell to his death in the sea.

Sirius was no angel and, like Icarus, he always flew too high, James knew, because there was nothing holding him back.

James had a son and a wife to protect with his life and somehow this grounded him, made him think more than when he was young. Sirius loved them all, but he was free.

That didn't worry James for a very long time. Sirius was a star. It was okay for him to be high in the sky. He was made to be there.

Until the fall, where the laws of the physics didn't seem to matter.

In hindsight, James thought he should have paid attention. Sirius had been dismissed from a work he truly loved, had to hide for being hunted after telling the truth the world didn't want to hear. He had lost everything he had fought for in the last fourteen years and he was forced to hide in his old parent's house, the one place he had tried so much to run away from. He was careless and out of practice.

Lily tried to warn him and James didn't listen. It had been so long since James had worried about Sirius - instead, it was Sirius that was always comforting James with his worries and problems. At some point in their lives Sirius had become the older brother to him, just as much as a godfather - a second father - he was to Harry.

Harry loved him and he never thought of Sirius like anything other than his family too. Harry would hear Sirius and trust him and care for him.

They should have expected Voldemort to use it against them. Voldemort could not use James or Lily - Harry wouldn't believe it - but when he came for Sirius, if only pretending to, Harry didn’t doubt it for a second and feared and didn't care about anything other than saving his family.

It was a trap and as soon as they found out, they came to rescue Harry. Someone should stay behind to tell Dumbledore, but Sirius never considered waiting while his godson was in danger.

James never expected him to. He knew Sirius enough to know he loved a challenge and he loved Harry even more.

But James never expected Sirius to fall either.

James remembered the first meteor shower he saw. In one moment there was nothing, just the a normal night sky, full of stars and constellations he would someday learn about. And then the lines were crossing the sky, flashes of light that seemed to either last one second or fall forever until they vanished in the horizon.

That's how Sirius falls. Forever until the horizon comes.

He is dancing with Bellatrix, a dance of lights and carefree laughs with a cousin that is not his family - James is his family, the Potters are his family - when the spell hits him. It's not green, so James is not concerned, but then Sirius falls behind, gracefully, quickly, into a veil that seems to welcome him with open arms just as James did the night Sirius ran away from home.

And then he is gone.

Not dead. Gone. 

Like the falling stars in the meteor shower, vanishing into nothing.

James wishes for him to return with all his heart, but nothing happens. He begs to any god that might be listening. No one answers. Nothing changes.

After all these years he has an answer to Sirius' question (it's a waste of time to wish upon a star) and he can't even tell him.

He stares at nothing, feeling numb, for once not hearing Harry's cries and then Lily is there, hugging him and it's only when James can only breath through his mouth that he realizes he is crying, kneeling in the ground in front of the veil, his hand raised expecting Sirius to grab his hand so James can save him.

Nothing happens.

He doesn't know how he survives the next week. He doesn't remember anything except for a few flashes - punching Fudge (because that's what Sirius would do) destroying the motorbike that Sirius left on the Potters house, attacking with a kitchen knife Sirius's mother portrait (it works, and they manage to take her out - Sirius would have been happy).

It's only when Harry returns from school and asks him in a very quiet voice if he blames him, that James feels like waking up.

'No', he whispers. 'It's only Voldemort's fault'.

He doesn't blame Harry - his son did what he thought it was the best with the few information he had -, he doesn't blame Dumbledore for trying to keep Sirius away, he doesn't blame Snape for being a dick and messing with Sirius' head and he doesn't blame himself for not being able to prevent what happened.

The only one he has to work on not blaming is Sirius, who should have know better, who should have been more careful, who should not dare to leave James' side.

But then again, when he got the chance, Icarus flew too high too. And Sirius was not made to be locked.

He finds Harry in the backyard of the house some day, looking at the destroyed motorbike; there is a toolbox next to him, and James remembers Sirius teaching Harry about motors a long time ago, sharing his passion with his godson.

Harry doesn't ask why the motorbike is destroyed; he seems to understand whatever anger made James do it. He just starts fixing it and, after a while watching his son working, James grabs some tools too.

It's a hard work, under scalding heat, but they never complain.

'I asked Nearly Headless Nick how ghosts were made', Harry whispers one afternoon, while he is changing the tire.

'He wouldn't return', James says without taking his eyes from the cylinder, trying not to sound resentful. 'He would have gone on'.

'Dumbledore once told me death is just the next adventure'.

'Sirius would never refuse an adventure'.

Harry smiles at him, with tears shining in his eyes, and he nods.

It's a long summer. James wakes up screaming sometimes - it's the fall, always the fall - and Lily is there for him, kissing him and embracing him until he falls asleep again.

She is the sun for him, the one star he can count on to keep shining, to return every day after it sets.

Lily is mourning too (she loved Sirius too, even though people would forget it), and sometimes he catches her crying silently; he is the one to embrace her, and then what happens is that they cry together.

But being with Sirius mostly of his life taught James that pain, like happiness, is better when you have someone to share.

It's Lily who suggests they make a funeral for Sirius - not a sad event, just something to represent him and a place to let them pay their respects - not with flowers, because Sirius never cared for them, but James thinks he would like to receive motor magazines from time to time.

So they place a tombstone near where James' (and Sirius') parents are buried. It's empty, no coffin and no one to pay the homage Sirius truly deserved (a big speech, music playing, lots of people crying), but it feels somehow like an ending really, when James stares at the silver tomb and sees the name of his best friend and brother there.

Lily was right after all; Sirius isn’t there, not really, but James comes to that place to talk to him, to tell him what's happening, even if it makes him sad to realize how much Sirius is missing.

He hopes that wherever Sirius is (in heaven, pranking innocent angels at least and waiting for James), Sirius gets to hear and cheer too for all the good news.

He never stops missing Sirius, just like he still wishes his parents were still there. When the war is over, he takes a break to come to see Sirius, to open the champagne they promised they would toast to when Moldy-Voldy was finally gone. It's a lonely toast, but James pretends Sirius is there; a dog passes by - it's not black, it doesn't look remotely like Sirius' animal form -, but James sees it a sign.

The next day, after he visits a shelter and returns home with a black dog, Lily just smiles.

'Hello, Padfoot', she says letting the dog sniff her then lick her face, and just like that the dog is already part of their family.

Sirius is not there for Harry's first hangover (he would have laughed and give Harry various tips on how to avoid passing out, and also various tips of preparing the best drinks), he is not there when James and Lily get pregnant (he would have complained about not being godfather again) and he is not there when Harry marries (Sirius would have cried harder than James).

And he is not there when James sees for the first time his grandchild, a beautiful tiny boy that brings tears of joy to his eyes when a very tired Ginny lets him hold his first grandson.

'He is perfect', he whispers, unable to look away from the baby just as once he couldn't look away from his son. At his side, Lily is letting the baby hold her pinky, beaming. 'Did you decide a name for him after all?'

'Well -', Harry begins, sitting right next to Ginny on bed and taking her hand.

'We always thought of naming after you if it were a boy', Ginny says, exchanging a look with Harry.

James looks up.

'I am honoured -'

'Until we saw him for the first time', Harry interrupts him, his voice soft. 'When he opened his eyes, I swear there were like a million stars there shining for us. So we thought of - something else'.

'What?'

'Sirius', Harry says simply. 'Instead of making it his second name, we thought of calling him Sirius. Sirius James Potter'.

James looks back at his grandson. It's fitting.

'He does look serious', he whispers, and some part of his mind hears Sirius' barking laugh, teasing him indignantly for going for that old joke.

More than the tease, James swears he can hear the happiness too. Sirius was always a Potter anyway, this is just one way of making it somewhat official.

'It's a lovely name', he agrees, smiling, and indeed when the baby opens his eyes, James sees all the stars there that won't ever fall.

#James Potter and Sirius Black #Jily Lives AU #But not a happier world this time #Angst #With some sort of happy ending #t: fanfiction

[novelconcepts]

I’m so pumped to see the ficlets you decide to write!

Not to start OFF will Hill House right off the bat but...Nell says Shirley almost always picked up the phone for her in the past—would you consider writing one of those conversations where Shirley actually DID help Nell?

(We don’t get a lot of it in the show but Shirley’s relationship with Nell is kind of the one I relate the most to out of all of the siblings and so it’s always the one I wonder about the most)

The phone is ringing again.

The phone, it seems to Shirley Crain, never quite stops ringing these days. It’s Steven with excuses, or Theo to say she’ll be working late; it’s the rehab center with updates that make Shirley tired, or Dad trying to patch something too long broken to even find all the pieces. It’s people, mostly, strangers Shirley doesn’t know and can’t help letting in anyway--people who are aching with loss, adrift in their own shock, saying, “I don’t have much, but I want to do right by her--is this enough? Do you have packages that could...”

The phone is ringing, and Shirley is exhausted. A fifteen-hour shift, a headache that seems only to swell when she baits it with aspirin and cold water, a creeping guilt that never entirely fades when she catches sight her own reflection. 

It’s ringing. Still. Always. She closes her eyes, taps her fingers against the back of the phone case. Flips it over. 

Nell.

Of course. 

Shirley has never much believed in sixth sense magic--in Theo’s furtive need for gloves, or Nell and Luke with their “twin thing”, or Dad’s peculiar brand of talking to shadows--but she always seems able to tell when the call is coming from her youngest sister. There’s an extra vibrato in the ringtone, somehow, when Nell is calling. An extra tremble in Shirley’s hand as she lets her finger hover over the accept button.

Oh, might as well. Nell will only call again in an hour, or two days, or next week. Might as well see what’s on her mind.

“Hello?”

“Sorry,” Nell says instantly. “Sorry, it’s late.”

Shirley’s eyes slide to the computer monitor, to the white numbers announcing an accusatory 9:07. Shit. It is. “Honestly, I hadn’t even noticed.”

“Oh.” A beat. Nell had clearly been prepared for sharp words, had clearly been ready to shield herself in endless apologies until Shirley came back to a level she could approach. Am I like that? Shirley wonders with a wince. Do they need armor to make this call? 

“What’s up, Nellie?” Too casual. Too smooth. She sounds like she’s trying to play Theo’s role, all cool eyes and darting snark. “I’m--it’s good to hear your voice.”

It is. She misses Nell more than she truly knows what to do with--misses Nell’s easy smile, the way she leans forward into a conversation with hands clasped between her knees, the furtive little looks she sends across the room to whichever sibling is making the most sense that day. Nell’s choice to move across the country had been reasonable--at least to Nell--but to Shirley, it had felt like one more battle lost. One more sibling stepping over the line to Steve’s way of thinking. 

“Nell?” She thinks for a minute the line has gone dead, that Nell has abandoned whatever worried twitch sent her hand skittering for Shirley’s name in her contact list. “Are you...”

“Sorry,” Nell repeats. “Sorry, I had--it was a weird day. Do you have those? The ones where you just...really need to hear someone’s voice?”

Someone stable, she doesn’t say. Someone who isn’t hiding out in a nightclub, or warding off the urge for a needle, or pinning all the family trauma to a butterfly board with the biggest, sharpest knives he can find.

“Bad dreams again?” Shirley asks, and Nell exhales. Laughs. It’s shaky, that laugh--it sounds like Mom did, near the end of that summer, when she’d been all dressing gowns and pounding headaches. Shirley closes her eyes.

“No. I mean, yes. Yes, I guess. Always. But no. I think I just...you remember movie nights? I miss movie nights.”

Nell, always going back. Nell, always finding little ways to dig up the past. Sometimes, it’s like this: mundane, sweet, nostalgic. Sometimes, it’s harder to stomach. Shirley is grateful she's having this sort of night, the kind steeped in monotony. 

“What movie would you watch, if you could?” she asks. She leans back in her chair, lets her muscles slacken, lets Nell’s surprised giggle drag her over the line from exhausted mother, wife, businesswoman to sister. 

“This is stupid--I can never remember the name of it--the one that used to scare the pants off Luke? You remember?”

“Going to need to be much more specific than that,” Shirley says, smiling. Luke hadn’t found a movie he couldn’t run screaming from until he was almost twelve years old, and even then, it had been a matter of stiff upper lip above actual courage. 

“The one with the sea monster,” Nell says. “And the guy--the kid from those hockey movies--”

“Magic in the Water,” Shirley intones, remembering all at once a mock sleepover in Aunt Janet’s living room, sleeping bags spread across the floor. Theo, pretending she was too old to care about a baby movie; Luke, pretending he was too old to flip out whenever the screen got even remotely dark. 

“And Luke hated it so much, she agreed to switch movies halfway through,” Nell goes on. “And she put on--”

“The fucking NeverEnding Story,” Shirley finishes, laughing despite herself. 

“Luke just screaming when the luck-dragon shows up for the first time,” Nell says fondly. “And I’m trying to remind him that’s a good guy. That’s a good thing to have turning up. And Luke just goes--”

“Why,” Shirley recalls, “would you want a dragon in your house?” She waits for Nell’s giggles to die down, for Nell’s breath on the other end of the line to level out again. “So, which one would you put on right now?”

“Easy,” Nell says simply. “The Secret Garden.”

It’s so out of left field, so perfectly Nell that Shirley bursts into laughter again. She can hear Nell grinning, can picture her perfectly: dark hair curtaining a hopeful face, eyes bright as she leans across her table or into the comfort of her couch. Nell no-longer-Crain, with a ring on her finger and a house she’s made into a home miles and miles away from anything Shirley can touch. 

“I miss you, Nellie,” she says, shutting her eyes against a surprising well of emotion. “I really do.”

“Come out,” Nell says. “Next time you get a break, fly out and stay with us. Arthur would love to see you.”

Next time you get a break. Nell, dreaming again. Nell, believing with her whole heart that life is simple enough to allow for breaks, for impulse flights, for sisterly bonding time just because it’s needed. 

“You’re okay?” Shirley says, sidestepping the invitation for now. “You’re doing all right with all that sunshine?”

“Sure,” says Nell without missing a beat. Shirley imagines her smile dipping, the tension drawing back into her shoulders as she hunches smaller in her seat. “Sure. It’s great.”

It’s great, Shirley. I’m great, Shirley. I only call because my head is ringing with monsters too big to shut out even after twenty-odd years, Shirley. 

She isn’t Mom, Shirley thinks. She isn’t Mom, muttering to empty rooms, or Dad, all vacancies and no space to rent. She’s just Nell: a heart laid open, beating too hard, waiting for someone to patch her up again. And if that never happens? If no one ever learns quite how to stitch her shut?

She has Arthur, Shirley thinks, and there’s relief in the idea. Arthur and Nell, a closed circuit. Two people with all they could need in one house. Maybe there will be kids someday, or maybe they’ll sweep in at Christmas with expensive gifts and wild laughter, and it’ll all be--it’ll all just be--

Great, Shirley. I’m great. 

She hangs up gently on Nell’s soft goodbye, and wonders why it doesn’t quite feel like Nell was telling her the truth. 

#fanfiction #ficlet #the haunting of hill house #nell crain #shirley crain #no idea how to tag sibling dynamics for this show but all the same

[mxrstar]

hey do you ever love a fic so much you want to draw fanart for it? but you are not very good at drawing so you decide to try out collage for the first time in your life? well, let’s just say that i quite liked the last published chapter of  @gerrydelano​​‘s fic 

[ID: the image is a collage. the background paper is pastel blue, and towards the top right corner there is a group of birds, drawn in white. they are eating and the lines of the drawing are smudged, so that the white drags out from them in vague shades. on the top left corner, there is a single window frame; the frame is green and the glass is black. there are a series of eyes taken from various paintings glued on top of the glass. from behind the frame, comes a single butterfly’s wing, which is red yellow and white. on the bottom right corner, there is a tiny, white drawing of a person helping another on a small boat. the drawing is framed into the corner by an arch. the colors of the arch are graded from dark green to dark red. a red and yellow leaf is glued on top of the arch, and there is a tiny piece of paper glued onto the leaf. the paper says: “-G”. right in the middle of the drawing, we first can see (looking at it from the bottom to the top) a picture of some kind of body of water, upon which two boats are sailing. upon that first picture, acting as shore for the water, there is a picture of outer space. it is red, green, violet and white, and it is a bit shiny. there is an old stairway glued right in the middle of outer space. at the bottom of a stairway we can see a yellow figure (maybe a kid, with long hair and a backpack) and the top of the stairs connects to a door. the door belongs to a blue room. there is a big clock glued upon the door, and there is a drawing of a man, looking tired and facing the other way, right in the middle of the room. the top and bottom right corners of the room are framed by two colored vortex, which are incidentally two of the stars from Van Gogh’s “Starry Night”. from behind the left side of the room, comes out another butterfly wing, which perfectly mirrors the one that comes out of the window. on the right side of the paper, we can see the sentence “I’d say you have at least somewhat of a chance” spelled out in different letters. at the bottom of the paper, a white piece of paper says “two ships passing”. /end ID]

under the cut I have written an explanation of the meaning behind the,, symbols? I am not going to pretend I had super strict idea to begin with, but as I started to find things I liked on random high-school books I (un)consciously  assigned them a meaning. feel free to indulge my pretentiousness and read my ramble I guess + (also under the cut) close-up pictures

okay so let me just run down a list: — the window okay, so. that’s meant to represent the background world, the things Gerry and Jon are going to have to live with whenever they step outside of their refuge. the glass is dark, because they try to protect themselves for as long as possible, but there are still various Eyes peeking in, mostly looking aggressive or extremely focused (fun fact: all of these come from paintings; i perhaps should have written down which belongs to what but i forgot) — the birds this is a reference to the ongoing “birds in jon’s stomach” metaphor. they are eating because that’s what they were drawn doing on the paper i miraculously found dsgfghk but if you want to push it you could say that they are all going “finally, some good fucking food” at Jon’s joy in meeting Gerry?? + they lines are smudged because,,,,,,, (god i am so sappy) because it gives an impression of movement? like, they are at ease but part of them is free to fly — the butterfly’s wings so, take “one dropped stone can change the way the whole ocean moves” but make it boring, and suddenly it’s the butterfly’s effect. the wings connect both to the outside world, to the window and the Eyes /and/ to the room (which I will get to later) because their meeting changes everything. it changes how they interact with the world and (at least partially) it saves them from it + it changes them as people, and gives them a space to be happy, to be with each other — the sea + outer space the sea with the two boats is quite an obvious one so i am not going to say anything about it. outer space is,,,,,,,,,, Miriam? I know she is more ocean vast that she is space vast, but I guess the contrast is nicer this way. she has been the shore to their sea, the vast, contextless freedom through which Jon and Gerry have connected, and Gerry has healed — the yellow figure in my head, that’s Gerry. i don’t know about the yellow, it came with that so i didn’t choose it and i don’t really have a meaning for it (unless you want to be really emo and decide that “Gerard just looks at him like he’s seeing the sun for the first time, and then looks away like he’s surprised by how much it hurts” is suddenly reversed in this last chapter, and Gerry is, in a way, Jon’s sudden source of light). the figure is that of a kid (I think, at least?) with a backpack. it’s Gerry as a kid, meeting Jon in that chance Miriam has made possible and relatively durable — the stairs those are a reference to the stairs in Portia’s house, but they also mark the passage of time (that’s sort of represented by the big clock on top of the door). by the time Gerry gets to the top, Miriam has left and suddenly he is in another room — the blue room + the man the blue room is where Jon is stuck now. he is facing the other way, he is adrift. the man doesn’t look like Jon but we’ll forgive that because in the original full drawing he is sitting onto a rock which is connected with some ropes to a boat. the blue room is framed by those vortexes (which are actually two starts from Van Gogh’s Starry Night) because i had made a mess with glue and i needed to cover up the corners sfgsdfg but if we want to think well and hard about this, perhaps they are the lights Jon still has but cannot, won’t see. he is not looking at either of them. wow now im sad — the door Gerry and Jon don’t meet in the universe, nor in the blue room. they meet beyond the door, in their sacred, private space. they both need to get in in order for this to work — the bottom right corner okay, in my head that’s sort of a page number. something that marks our position in the story. there’s this drawing of a man helping another on a boat (which comes from the same drawing I found the man in the blue room in!) cause, you know. it’s reunion time. the arch was originally part of a circle which was rainbow-coloured. it reminded me of that idea which I think is in the Official™ gtcmu™ lore- that thing about Jon having no specific colour, but colouring everyone else, sort of being the rainbow. it’s not obvious cause the arch isn’t a full rainbow, but I was indeed thinking about it. i guess i also wanted to somehow convey that it’s not just Gerry that is giving something to Jon. they are both sharing something meaningful with each other. Jon is still making him bright. then, there is the leaf, because this happens in Autumn, and the small “-G” which is a reference to the note Gerry leaves to Tim — “I’d say you have at least somewhat of a chance” the quote is obviously very cute and the moments in which both Gerry and Jon say it (though this is Gerry’s phrasing) are CUTE. but i chose this one because it’s superficially warm + as a standalone could mean something more. it’s simple and it’s complex. it’s “yeah im totally bi” “yeah i would indeed like to kiss you” and it’s “sometimes it feels like the entire world is against you and your life has been so so hard, but I’d say you have at least somewhat of a chance”. and this is their chance. so they take it

OKAY i made myself emotional thank you for get quite as far as you are reading this!

pictures next:

#tma #tma fic #sometimes i talk #collage #my collages #art tag

[brokenjardaantech]

absorbance of the deep (chapter 6: new duties)

kinda rambling for this because it's more of a filler chapter than anything.

also on ao3

To Simon, the decision to include him in the meeting was, quite frankly, absurd. They had never listened to him before and including him in anything was considered a waste of time - even when it was his own fault that his mind just refuses to focus on matters that didn’t interest him - so why now? It wasn’t like he could suddenly force himself to listen to their boring babbling after all these years but the fact was that he was dragged to school on a day that was supposed to be a holiday, so good luck to them to make him focus.

Unfortunately, his brain seemed to have other ideas.

‘After this incident, we have determined that Simon Parrell is no longer suitable for the school,’ the voice that said this was semi-familiar. The headmaster, maybe? His homeroom teacher? His subject teacher? Hell if he knew. It didn’t matter. ‘The students involved have been expelled, logically, but it will be up to you to decide if you would like your son to be transferred to schools that are… more to his speed.’

Simon scoffed under his breath, but it came out more like a usual exhale. ‘Meaning?’ he heard his mother ask.

‘A school for the differently talented,’ another voice, another new term. ‘It will be quite far away from here, though my understanding is that you’re planning to move to the city anyway?’

City? Simon’s mind snapped into a state of alertness. City meant being away from the sea, away from their home, away from Markus, and what would he do? Where would he be? What would become of him? He found himself shaking his head frantically; that, at least, was a gesture that both he and others understood. He didn’t want to go to the city; he wanted to stay here. This was where he belonged.

‘There will be no need,’ his father replied. ‘We already have plans for him.’

‘Oh?’ the first voice. ‘May I ask what it is? We can help you with the withdrawal, but you’ll have to give a valid reason.’

‘Someone will have to maintain the lighthouse when we’re gone. Simon can do it, can’t you?’

It took him a long time to realise that the question was directed at him instead of the school’s… whoever they were. What did his father say again? Right. Staying here. Not going to school. Being a lighthouse keeper. And although he wasn’t sure if he would be up to the task - his interest was in the ocean, in Markus - he would do everything to stay. So he nodded.

‘I’m glad,’ the second school voice said. ‘Good. The matter’s settled then. I trust you can handle the position transfer on your own?’

‘Yes, we will.’

His father stood so Simon did as well. He wanted to get out of here.

‘Good luck, Mister Parrell.’

He skipped all the way home, every brush of sea breeze against his cheek a caress, every crash of the shore an encouragement, a celebration of a monetary victory. His father, thankfully, left him be. They returned to a house that was half-emptied already. Simon’s things were left alone, naturally, just as the furniture and bigger household items, but the cushions on the sofa, the cups and dishes in the cupboard, even some of the soap and perishables - all the things Simon didn’t bother to notice before, their disappearance were felt acutely now. His father quickly vanished to find his wife, and when Daniel came downstairs with a bag full of things, instead of greeting Simon directly like he used to, his gaze darted away as if he was the one ashamed for once. ‘Do whatever you like,’ he said dismissively. ‘Just stay out of our way. Dad will brief you on what your work will be like when we’re done with packing.’

So he picked a spot he imagined he would spend a lot of time at: the top of the lighthouse. The giant lamp was turned off for the day, the ships having no need for extra light to guide their way while there is daylight. The door to the small office was unlocked because there was never a need to - no one would do such a boring-sounding job for such a small salary now, according to Josh - and he sat in the hardwood chair and brushed the pads of his fingers on the surface of the desk made out of the same material. Both of them were worn out but study and cool and smooth to the touch, and with only a two-buttoned keyer and a radio on the desk, Simon envisioned a spacious working environment. He fit his pointer and middle finger into the two keys and imagined them moulding into the shape of his fingers as time passed. His arms weren’t as long as his fathers so he would have to drag the keyer forward to make himself comfortable, but with the muted sound of the ocean as company always… he could get used to it.

He didn’t know how long he sat there idly tapping nonsense with the keyer along the beats of the sea until the door creaked open, breaking his solitude and dissipating the fog that he had shrouded himself in. ‘Care to use some company?’ North asked as she set a dictionary - a full-sized one this time, not the one he usually brought with him for convenience. Simon nodded and looked around for an extra chair, but North had already perched herself at the corner of the desk. ‘You know they’re abandoning you, right?’

Abandon? Simon frowned in confusion. He flipped to the page explaining the world and checked if it suddenly had a new definition - dictionaries get updated every year, after all - but no, it still meant the same thing. [they - are - just - leave - for - the - city - with - brother,] he manages to construct. [they - are - not - abandon - me]

‘But they are!’ North exclaimed, and Simon’s hands flew up to cover his ears from the loud noise. ‘Don’t you understand? They’re taking everything they can away! They’re moving for good, Simon! They aren’t coming back!’

Simon thought of all the empty spaces he would fill with his own things instead of being told no because there weren't any more places they could put new stuff into. He thought of a quiet house where there was no one whispering about him as if he wasn’t there at all. He thought of falling asleep at dawn to the music of the waves and then waking up at dusk to activate the lighthouse with Markus at his side one way or another. No more school, no more sudden outbursts from either his father or twin brother, no more being ignored by his mother. He would be free. [I - do - not - see - any - problem - with - it]

‘Your entire family is leaving you behind in this shithole and you don’t even care?’

Simon was offended. [this - is - not - a - shit - hole,] he argued. [I - have - mark - us - and - you - and - J - O - S -H]

North was quiet for a while, and somehow, that worried him more than her shouting. ‘You know both of us are going to leave sooner or later, don’t you?’

It gave Simon a pause, but it didn’t take long for him to realise that it made sense. [you - are - from - the - city - J - O - S -H - is - smart - so - he - also - goes - to - the - city - because - there - is - not - enough - here]

‘You will have no one.’

[I - will - have - mark - us]

‘What if you two break up?’

As if on cue, a sudden gust whipped past them as the air suddenly cooled down. Then Markus was scooping Simon up and sitting in the chair with the human on his lap. ‘Simon is my intended,’ he declared. ‘Nothing will separate us. Not distance, not time, and certainly not ourselves. Have I not proven myself to you, surfacer?’

North recovered quickly from the sea’s sudden appearance. ‘Sometimes I don’t even think you’re real,’ she muttered, and she was gone before Simon could explain himself.

Markus held him silently for a while. Are you alright? he asked, his voice quiet and soothing in Simon’s mind. I do not hold the highest regard for your family, but this -

I’m okay, Simon interrupted before the ocean could finish. I will be as long as you are with me.

The sea kissed him. Alright.

They were on solid ground, but somehow, for some reason Simon was suddenly too tired to wonder about, he felt as if he was adrift at sea on an enclosed raft, the endless gentle bobs and lulls that terrified most people the softest lullabies to his body. Markus held his hand in his, and despite his circumstances, Simon found himself falling asleep.

When Daniel finally called him downstairs for dinner, the ocean had retreated, leaving a long, slumbering human behind.

His father didn’t say a word about lighthouse keeping that night, but Josh did break the news to him when Simon’s parents dropped him off at his house for the last of their packing - whatever that meant.

‘I’ll be leaving for university after this school year ends,’ he said, straightforward both because there was no way to get around it and also due to Simon’s inability to understand anything more. ‘I have been accepted into one. Full scholarship.’

[how - to - spell]

Josh flipped to the page directly.

[good - for - you - congratulations]

‘Thank you, Simon.’

They read together in his room for a few short hours, during which Simon learnt quite a few new things about the ocean that he had to ask Markus to show him, and he happily asked Josh if he could borrow the book for tonight when it was time to go home.

‘Actually,’ Josh cleared his throat, ‘you can keep it. Forever.’

[why]

‘It isn’t like I am bringing all these -’ he gestured at the books overflowing from the ceiling-high bookshelves which lined three of the four walls - ‘with me. I’ll bring some, of course, but the rest are yours.’

Simon paused in his tracks and let himself take in everything. So Josh was leaving a lot behind, but why? Why didn’t he take everything with him like his family if he was leaving like them? And he asked as such.

‘I’ll come back and visit if I need the books, though I don’t think I will - the book part, of course. I’ll try to visit at least once per year.’

[for - how - long]

Josh shook his head. ‘I don’t know, Simon. It all depends on how busy I will be and how much it’ll cost to come back.’

For the first time since they met, Simon hated the answer his friend gave him. [just - tell - me - when - and - i - will - prepare]

‘You don’t have to -’

He hopes that his firmness goes through by his loud flipping, though the softened paper of the dictionary dampened the impact. [i - will]

‘Okay. Of course.’

They walked to Simon’s house together. Josh initially offered to help carry a few of the books so that they didn’t have to bring them all later at the same time and potentially needing to bother North to borrow her car, but Simon decided against it because he didn’t want to add to the mess that was already stressing him out; either that or it was in fact that so many things were changing suddenly was the actual reason. Either way, he made himself scarce for the next week while strangers entered the house and more and more things disappeared, and in no time, he no longer recognised his home, which felt both liberating and terrifying.

He slept in his cave in Markus’ arms that night and didn’t return until the evening when his family was scheduled to leave. They at least told him that much. He hadn’t known they had a large car, he hadn’t known his father knew how to drive, but these were just two more things on his to-forget list because it wouldn’t matter in the future.

‘Take care,’ his mother said, the first sentence she uttered to him directly in years.

‘Here,’ his father said, handing him a folder no thicker than Simon’s thumb and Simon’s thumb was thin. ‘This is all you need to know on lighthouse keeping.’

‘I’m sorry,’ Daniel said, and Simon didn’t know what he was apologising for. He didn’t ask his twin to clarify because he knew Daniel couldn’t stay.

Then they were gone, the car disappearing behind the slope that led to the lighthouse. Simon didn’t even notice that Markus had appeared until his legs finally buckled and he fell back against a warm chest. Let’s get inside, he heard the sea clearly in his mind. Tell me what they took away and what you need.

He turned on the lamp before starting to catalogue the things in the house under Markus’ guidance, discovering that he really didn’t know a lot about practical living, and at some point North and Josh arrived to help as well. There was a look in North’s eyes that Simon couldn’t decipher, but from the way Markus kept glaring at her while they, once more, substituted dinner with canned soup, it wasn’t anything good. Josh took the chance to stock up some of the books he was going to leave to Simon’s care, and North brought a few furniture catalogues and picked a combination that would bring colour to the house and made the place Simon’s properly; Simon let her choose for him because he got overwhelmed by the colours and examples on the small, thick booklets. With things settling down and their decisions made, they arranged two trips, one for groceries, one for new decor, and North and Josh left close to midnight with the promise that they would guide Simon through everything. Simon didn’t manage to process everything until the moment before he fell asleep in the cave, and he made up his mind to thank his friends properly before their eventual departure from the village.

The grocery trip wasn’t that overwhelming given the limited choice in the village’s grocery store and Markus’ and his friends’ calming presence by his side - despite the arguments between Josh and North that he mostly toned out of - but the furniture shopping was - how should he describe it?

Don’t do that again, he told Markus as they wheeled a cart full of new cushions and bedsheets out of the furniture store with too-bright lights and noisy customers. I hate this place.

Markus laughed visibly, though Simon wasn’t sure if it was silent in reality or not because it seemed to echo in his mind instead of being heard from his ear. I’ll find you something better next time.

‘Are you two gonna stand there all day while we do everything for you?’ North’s voice cut through the small bubble that somehow always appeared when Markus was close. Simon had half the heart to tell her that yes, everything was hers and Josh’s idea and therefore they should do the brunt of the work, but since the sea offered to help, he followed him and loaded their new purchases into the car just to return to his house and unload everything again and placing them in the correct spot. They took their time to admire their handiwork, and North proposed, ‘We should paint the walls.’

It took Josh a few seconds to formulate his answer. ‘Agreed. The colour combination will be nicer.’

[no,] Simon grabbed his dictionary and said. [do - not - like - paint - smell]

‘There’s paint that doesn’t smell.’

Simon thought of how many extra things they had to do that time his father repainted all the walls within and outside the house. He didn’t think he had the energy to do it then, but in the future… [maybe - later]

‘Sure,’ North accepted the suggestion quickly. ‘Just hit us up whenever. Not sure how much school work we’ll have in the future, but we’ll always make time for you, won’t we, Josh?’

‘It’ll be fun,’ Josh nodded.

That was the last mention of the renovation project between the three of them. With Simon’s inverted daily schedule and North and Josh’s increasing responsibility in their studies, it was difficult for all four of them - Markus included - to coordinate time to spend together. Sometimes he went to Josh’s for breakfast after spending the entire night on the lighthouse, sometimes North came to his house to do the same, and once per week Simon would stay up to have brunch with them on the beach with an assortment of snacks and food they could prepare with a camping stove. They would hang out together until Simon passed out with his head resting on one of Markus’ body parts - one way or another. He assumed that they always packed up and left afterwards, Markus carrying him back home so that he could have a good rest until the sun started to set. This happened every single week until after Josh and North had their final exam, which marked one step towards Josh’s departure.

Simon threw a party for his friend the day before the big date, or as much of a party as it could be with four people inside a house that was more patchwork than everything else. Instead of moving all the books to Simon’s, Josh merely gave him the key to his house and told him to let himself in whenever. ‘It’s easier this way,’ he said. ‘Besides, it isn’t like you’ve got a lot of room here. I trust you not to wreck my house.’

[cannot - do - it - even - if - i - want - to,] was Simon’s reply. [do - i - look - like - i - can]

‘Not on your own,’ North took a sip of her beer. He had no idea how she got alcohol in the first place given that none of them was of drinking age, but if someone could withstand alcohol, it would be her. ‘But with Markus? Yes.’

‘I promise I won’t destroy your house,’ Markus said solemnly. ‘Not unless you give me a reason to.’

‘I won’t,’ was Josh’s reply. He took a sip of beer from North’s can and was promptly sent into a coughing fit for the next five minutes.

Simon had been awake for more than 16 hours at this point so everything was hazy and blurry, but it didn’t stop him from dragging his friends for a marathon on his favourite documentary. Josh had to leave midway to prepare for his departure, but North stayed until she fell asleep on the sofa. She woke up when Simon tried to tuck her in, and she left and drove back home. Markus made them some tea so that they didn’t fall asleep, they watched over the lighthouse together and waited for ships that never came, and when the sun peeked through the horizon and turned the edge of the sky white, he leant on Markus while they walked to Josh’s house to send him off. He was too tired to feel and do anything apart from waving goodbye and watching the van drive off away from the village by then, but he woke up that night feeling empty, the events and the passage of time sinking in. Markus stayed with him until midnight, after which he returned to the ocean for his own business.

He was all alone in the world now.

It was as if Josh’s absence severed one of the lines holding their group together. There were no more canned dinners on the beach, no more trips to the library, no more squabbling over whose home they should stay at next; Simon was bad at reaching out, his body reacting before his mind did whenever he tried to get close to the school, North’s house was too far away to reach on foot, and North herself no longer seemed interested in ‘hanging out.’

‘Not everyone can be a genius like Josh,’ she snapped one day when Simon finally flagged her down out of what seemed to be pure chance. ‘Not all of us can have a job where you can fuck around all day and get a paycheque delivered straight to your bank account. Someone actually needs to work hard on their grades to get out of this place, so stop bothering me, okay? There’ll be time after this whole exam shit is over.’

But there would not be. Before the exams were apparently university applications, then came the exams themselves, then more university application things which Simon didn’t understand, and the next thing he knew was that North was leaving for the city. Back to where she came from, though he supposed whether she actually went to the city or just another village like theirs wasn’t important; the village was… the village, of course, while everything else was simply ‘out there.’ ‘I’m sorry, Simon,’ she said after he walked all the way to her house to find her, ‘but I really need to leave. You know how long I’ve been looking forward to this.’

The door slammed shut then, and it didn’t take a lot for Simon to realise that it was a cue to leave North alone. When he returned the next day to check, no one answered the door.

He didn’t even get to say goodbye this time.

Josh visited a few weeks later, having decided to actually use his summer break instead of studying this time, and he told Simon that North contacted him and told him to tell Simon that she wouldn’t come back. ‘It isn’t about you, don’t worry,’ he added as Simon continued to stare at his glass of juice. By that point, Markus hadn’t shown up in two months. ‘Village life just isn’t for her.’

[but - no - contact - at - all]

Josh did not have an answer for that, but he did say, ‘I guess this is growing up.’

Simon turned to face him. Questioning.

‘People drifting apart to do what they want now that they can. Deciding that the old life isn’t worth their effort. Moving on. Stuff like that.’

[maybe]

The space between him and Josh suddenly seemed so far now.

#simarkus #dbh simon #dbh marksu #dbh josh #dbh north #dbh daniel #detroit: become human

[duchess-of-mandalore]

The Fragility of Noble Flaws

Obitine, Anidala, Anakin & Satine, Anakin & Obi-Wan

Prompt: Anakin travels to Mandalore to tell Satine that Obi-Wan’s alive (mid-Rako Hardeen arc)

This started out as a writing exercise: I gave myself 500 words to write a ficlet exploring Anakin and Satine's dynamic together, since we see so little of them together on the show.

I failed the exercise and ended up with a 5,000 word exploration of the bond they share through their love of Obi-Wan Kenobi.

Oh, well! You can't succeed at everything!!

---

Duchess Satine wasn't expecting him. They were acquaintances, but not friends. Not really. He didn't have to reveal anything to her. He was taking a risk in coming to Mandalore, and she would find out the truth soon enough. Along with the rest of the galaxy. But in spite of his orders, and in spite of the fact that it felt so perversely good to defy the Council after the stunt that they'd pulled, Anakin Skywalker knew he was doing the right thing. There was perhaps no one else in the galaxy who more deserved to know that Obi-Wan Kenobi was still alive.

He probably could have found a secure holo-terminal and contacted her that way. It would have beat the long trip to the Outer Rim, but Anakin felt this news should be given in person.

When he'd arrived, it was already evening in Sundari. Perhaps it wasn't proper protocol – Anakin wasn't really in the mood to care – but he went straight to the throne room, where he was informed by the palace guard that the Duchess had already retired for the evening with orders not to be disturbed.

"Contact her anyway," Anakin said bluntly, already annoyed that the guard had insisted on taking his lightsaber. "She will want to know what I have to say."

"Sir, that is quite impossible. But I can show you to a guest room tonight and you will be granted an audience with her grace tomorrow."

Anxious irritation swirled in Anakin's gut, as if a Rishi eel were writhing inside and trying to get out. He wouldn't wait. He waved his hand in front of the guard's face. "You will tell Duchess Satine that I am here now."

"I will tell Duchess Satine that you are here now," the guard intoned. He turned obediently, and Anakin shoved down the flare of satisfaction that came from being able to so easily direct others. Obi-Wan would have chastised him for that if he were here. It wasn't becoming of a Jedi to relish wielding power over others, even in relatively benign matters.

But Obi-Wan wasn't here.

That was the point.

Anger blazed in Anakin, and for a few indulgent seconds, he made no move to tamp it down.

Eventually though, he breathed deeply, trying to think of other matters. He would be meeting with the Duchess, and she didn't deserve to be on the receiving end of his own emotions. He turned in a circle to stare around the throne room. It'd been nearly two years since he'd last seen the impressively vaulted space. That was when he'd arrived to escort the Duchess and her neutral allies to Coruscant, and at the time, the room had shimmered gloriously, gently diffused light streaming through the windows. Or were they technically walls when they made up almost the entire building? In any case, the artificial sunlight had bounced around the space, bathing everything in a hazy, peaceful ambiance while also creating a steely warmth that bespoke the purposeful actions that took place in this room. When Anakin had met Duchess Satine, he had felt it a perfect reflection of the woman herself.

But now, the lighting of the domed city had dimmed for the night. The transparisteel no longer reflected light back in on itself. Instead, Anakin could see directly out into the sea of buildings that surrounded the palace. Except for the pinpricks of light from certain windows, the darkness of the city stretched in every direction. Literally every direction, Anakin thought, starring down at the transparent floor beneath him. It was like being suspended in space . . . adrift in cold, unyielding nothingness. Anakin Skywalker was an accomplished pilot and was no stranger to such a feeling. He'd never panic in such a situation. But this was different. Standing in the darkened Mandalorian throne room, he felt utterly exposed.

Fragile.

Breakable.

Footsteps echoing around the vast cavern brought Anakin back, and he centered himself as the armored guard reentered the throne room.

"The Duchess will see you now." He sounded a little flustered, and Anakin wondered if he'd been given him a tongue-lashing for disturbing her. Anakin smirked and followed the guard; he didn't know Satine well, but it was obvious she was a force to be reckoned with.

It was obvious when they reached the Duchess's personal spaces, and not just because of the guard standing sentry outside the door. The corridors – made of actual walls, not transparisteel – were narrower, the ceilings far lower than the more public areas. Less exposed. Anakin was grateful for that.

The guard who directed Anakin motioned to the other to stand aside. He waved his hand in front of the panel and the door swished open. "The Duchess will be with you shortly," he said as Anakin stepped inside.

Even with Mandalore's minimalistic tendencies, Anakin thought Satine's apartment was uncharacteristically subdued for a planetary leader . . . or maybe it only seemed so in light of his wife's own love of the ornate. This wing of rooms still exhibited the same simplistic feel that characterized Sundari more generally, but it felt cozy nonetheless. Floor to ceiling windows overlooked the city on one side, but heavy brocade curtains stood ready to block out even that view when greater privacy was desired. The furniture – all in the blue and silver color scheme of Clan Kryze – was sleek and unembellished, save for the soft wool throw thrown over the sofa. A tea service cart sat along one dark blue wall, kettle heating on a burner. Several vases of Mandalorian peace lilies sat along the walls as well, which were empty save for one surprisingly informal portrait of the duchess and a red-haired boy. Anakin remembered him from the time he dropped Ahsoka off – the boy from a pacifist system who'd been enamored with Ahsoka's Jedi lightsaber. So that must have been Korkie, Satine's nephew. But the eyes . . .

"Master Skywalker." Duchess Satine's crisp voice broke Anakin's gaze away from the portrait. Satine had entered from what looked like a bedchamber, clad in a white nightdress covered by a blue dressing gown. Her blonde hair had been haphazardly pinned back, but her demeanor was every bit as regal as every other time Anakin had seen her. "To what do I owe this pleasure?"

Her voice was diplomatic, but with an unmistakable edge to it. He bowed low. "Hardly a pleasure, your grace. I know you asked not to be disturbed."

See, he could be diplomatic when the situation called for it. Or maybe it was that this woman had a strange effect on him. In spite of the informal setting, she compelled a formality Anakin didn't grant to just anyone. And yet, there was a warmth about Duchess Kryze as well, one that said that every conversation she had was personal, not simply a mere formality.  He was awed by her ethereal regality in a way that reminded him of that fateful day when his very own angel had walked into his life.

She nodded once, and Anakin knew that he'd been absolved of his trespassing. Her next comment held a lighter tone. "I assumed you wouldn't have barged into my palace if it weren't something important." She gestured toward a narrow armchair before taking a seat on the sofa. "Though I am curious as to why the Council didn't simply call, as they usually do."

Anakin sat on the edge of the chair and grimaced. "Well, my lady . . . your grace," he stammered. "They wouldn't have, because . . . they don't know that I'm here."

"This isn't a Council matter?"

"Oh, no. This is definitely a Council matter," he said, before continuing pointedly, "but the reason I'm here . . . that's a personal one."

"Oh?"

"Yes, in fact–" Anakin rubbed his neck, suddenly self-conscience about the whole situation– "what I'm about to tell you is something that you can't tell anyone else. Especially not the Council."

The duchess's brow furrowed in apprehensive confusion as she stared at him directly. "Master Jedi – please – tell me what you came to say."

Anakin breathed. "Obi-Wan's alive."

Continue reading on Ao3

#Obitine #Anidala #Anakin Skywalker #Satine Kryze #Obi-Wan Kenobi #Obi-Wan & Anakin #BroTP: You were my brother #Darth Vader #Star Wars #The Clone Wars #SW: TCW #TCW #I can't help it #I just want Obitine and Anidala to all be friends #My fanfic

[derpytoad]

New Breakout: Tales of the Wishing Lotus

📖 It’s time for another new Breakout episode. In this chapter, we are returning back to the story of the Guild Adventures of Milk, Purple Yam, Dino-Sour, and Mala Sauce Cookie. Oh. I forgot to introduce myself. I am Blueberry Pie Cookie. Cinnamon Cookie may have convinced me to take a brief excursion from the Archives as a benefactor for my health.

🪄 That’s right! It helps to get outside and away from everything for a bit. It does get a bit stuffy and repetitive when you get cooped up inside all day, right?

📖 I suppose so-

🪄 Besides, I’m sure Moonlight’s gonna be fine with you taking a break. She’s probably been watching over you all that time through the skylight!

📖 You know… you’re probably right. The moon has provided solace in some of my misadventures in keeping the Archives in order… also because your friends are in the other room crowded around the TV. You did check with the owner of this building that she’s alright with this, right?

🌰 Yep! She’s cool with us staying! She’s like the cool aunt I want to have, but she doesn’t want her name given out. Maybe she’s camera-shy? Now come on, Cinnamon. Show me that card trick again!

🪄 I’ll be there in a bit! You’ll do great, Blueberry Pie. Everything’s right in front of you. [Closes the door]

📖 …so that’s that. We last left off with our adventure with the quartet where they recently finished their encounter with Pitaya Dragon Cookie. An earthquake has separated the four into pairs, with Milk and Dino-Sour drifting off to the Dragon Archipelago where they met Mango Cookie and Ananas Dragon Cookie. Those chapters were noted in October 2019 and April 2020 respectively, but it’s August 2021 now, and the story must continue.

Mala Sauce and Purple Yam are adrift at sea where they were rescued and taken to safety by our two featured Cookies this month: Bellflower Cookie and Ginseng Cookie. As thanks, the two help Bellflower find the rare herbs her group is looking for. During their search, Bellflower talks about Lotus Paradise’s Wish Festival and the Dragon that watches the region. The two then head off to the festival to learn more about the dragon. The village and festivities may seem lively, but the villagers are not…

In this Breakout episode, you will run with 10 Cookies in 7 Stages that align themselves with the adventures that Mala Sauce and Purple Yam endeavored on. There are also some features of note to consider:

The map begins at sea where you travel through Hortensia Town before reaching the Wish Festival.

In the town, you can pick medicinal herbs for special boosts. The herbs you pick will determine the bonus effect.

In Hortensia Town, use the balloons to jump and stay in the air longer. This essentially reduces the speed at which you descend.

At the Wish Festival, you have the opportunity to launch yourself from a cannon. You can either take a ride in the cannon and blast through the stage quickly, or avoid it altogether to run through the stage itself to collect anything in the stage, as the cannon will usually take you over any jellies on the ground below.

Weekly rewards include Crystals and an unnamed Legendary Cookie. We do not know who will take the space as the Legendary Cookie yet, or if a Trial will be provided.

Bellflower Cookie & Playful Herbert

Bellflower Cookie is a hard-working Cookie who will go anywhere to collect medicinal herbs. When her skill activates, she will begin collecting herbs. Press either button with precise timing to pick them for points. Collect them all for a bonus score. With her Magic Candy, the last herb is a rare herb that is worth more points than the others.

Playful Herbert makes Herbal Decoctions regularly to restore a Cookie’s energy. The more you upgrade Herbert, the more frequently Decoctions are created, and the more points they’re worth.

This month’s treasure is the Panacea Pestle. Collect enough medicinal ingredients to grind them with a mortar and pestle to create Panacea Jellies.

Costumes

🥕 ALRIGHT, MOVE OVER, PIE! I’LL TAKE IT FROM HERE!

📖 I- uh-

🥕 Don’t say anything. I’ll be fine here. [Ushers Blueberry Pie into the break room] *ahem* And for this month’s costumes, we have three of them:

My “Floral Chef de Cuisine”

Beet Cookie’s “Blooming Chef de Partie”

Spinach Cookie’s “Pouch of Wishes”

That’s right! I’m opening a restaurant at the Wish Festival, and Beet said she’d help! She’s surprisingly quite skilled in the kitchen! Test your skills with Beet Cookie later this month with her Infinite Trial! Both our costumes are Super Epic, while Spinach’s is just- well- Epic. In the Diary Shop next update, you can also get the Fragrant Lotus Paradise Lobby Design!

Recaps & Undos

Aaaaaaaand just a recap of some things that the devs wanna undo since mistakes were clearly made on their end, and you guys voiced your concerns about them more frequently (and cordially, in some cases) than when I found my carrot harvest stolen by none other than Pancake Cookie.

Cookie and Pet skills will now immediately activate when the run starts where it’s possible. There are a few exceptions, since most of ‘em are passive. It’s also obvious that our Common Cookies will not be influenced by this change.

Invocation Cards can’t be used in Breakout, Trophy Race, Guild Run, Champions League, and Cookie Trials. That’s so the competition is slightly more fair than before, since nobody can estimate scores with those cards messing things up! Sure, someone would’ve eventually cracked the code, but it would’ve taken a good few months for everyone to do it.

Other Events

Alright, let’s get the elephant out of the room since this one’s still going. The Summer Season of Custom Runs will still be available for a while after the update launches.

Cookie Rumble: We haven’t covered the rules to this score attack challenge on this blog yet, so here’s how you win the Cookie Rumble:

Beat the target score to clear the stage and recap the story of what happened BEFORE what we’re seeing with Mala and Yam right now. If you were there for the original story, then there’s probably no more lore than a story recap for you, since it’s mostly a recap of what you already have access to in the Story archive.

There’s still some rewards like Crystals and Rainbow Cubes to keep you motivated to go.

There’s also a hard mode where you can challenge yourself against other players’ scores in existing stages, but there’s a few more things that you should probably know:

Use the listed Cookies and Treasures for more emblems to get even more rewards, although you just need to get the target score to win.

At the end of the hall, challenge the current master in one final battle to possibly BECOME the master, and for the time being, hold the title of reigning champion until someone beats YOUR score!

⚠️ Just a heads-up, though. Competition to be the Master WILL get fierce after a while, and only the most prepared, diligent, and determined (or just being rich enough to whale on it) will prevail. Last we checked on that event back in June 2020, we also spotted some hackers on the horizon. If the Master’s score is excessively high, but their combi is no greater than something low-leveled like, say, level 4 Princess with level 2 treasures, then you’ve probably found yourself a hacker! Report it to the devs and keep the competition clean and fair!

MAX-UP!: Complete tasks to rapidly upgrade one lucky Cookie, their Magic Candy, and their pet to max level! November 2019 featured Whipped Cream Cookie for the MAX-UP! event, but now that it’s August 2021, our lucky Cookie of the month is: SORBET SHARK COOKIE! Complete tasks throughout the month to get Sorbet Shark and Helmsman Will to level 15 in no time! Even if you have them maxed, you’ll get the difference back in coins!

Friendly Run: We haven’t covered how that works (somehow, despite the Butter Painting Affair having that event), so here we are:

Find a friend, either from your friend list or randomly out in the open, to run with at the same time!

Coordinate your run with your friend to run far, collect plenty of coins, and complete missions along the way to multiply your winnings! You’ll also get a base multiplier on your coins based on the rarities of your Cookies and their levels.

Special Giant and Blast Jellies can affect both of you!

If you fall in an open hole while the cloud platforms aren’t active, it’s Game Over! All you can do now is watch your friend run and wait for them to finish so you can run again. Or you can disconnect and get it over with.

Cookie skills are not active here, but certain Cookie combis can have special effects. For example, Brave and Bright can restore energy every few seconds, and Knight and Princess will blast at given intervals. Use these combis to complete special missions for crystals and Friendship Badges.

In most cases, if not all of them, Coins are NOT MAGNETIC. You’ll have to run, jump, and get ‘em the old-fashioned way! Although your score is limited only by your Cookies, you can only keep about half a million coins that you get from Friendly Runs in a day.

Collect Badge pouches and complete special combi missions to add Friendship Badges to your balance, which can be exchanged for special items in the shop! Watch out, though, as you’ll lose ‘em all once the event ends!

After cutting a connection with a random player, you have the option to send them a friend request!

Ginseng Cookie: A calm and composed Cookie that travels the world to treat other Cookies. We’ll find out more about him later in August.

That’s all for today- wait- what?! There’s one more thing? Oh, yes. This should definitely be interesting once we get a release date, but what could it be about…

#cookie run #cr ovenbreak #cookie run ovenbreak #new breakout #bellflower cookie #ginseng cookie #sorbet shark cookie #cookie run oven smash

[chrysalispen]

EPILOGUE. of truths sunk too deep for war

it’s done. now i take some time to finish some one-shots and plot out the next arc (which will take us through ARR, possibly to 2.55, though i am pondering making the CT raids its own separate multichapter fic because it’s so much on its own...) anyway, thank you all for reading ;A; i hope you enjoyed it and i look forward to starting on the next part! 

... though i think... maybe not today LMAO i need some sleep

AO3 Link HERE

================================================

(||Feel||))

Aurelia sank into darkness so deep and vast that time had no meaning. It might have been minutes, hours, days of wandering aimlessly, set adrift in a fathomless ocean stretching malms past any known horizon.

And as she drifted, she dreamt.

Snatches of memory caught at her mind’s eye like errant flotsam curling in eddies about her soul.

She saw herself at a dying man’s bedside, a Roegadyn woman weeping inconsolably while watching her kiss him goodbye, unable to save him.

She saw the parting of clouds as black as pitch as Dalamud descended over the fields of Carteneau, a terrible secret still locked within its flaming belly.

She saw her adolescent self curled upon the carpeted steps of a cold marble staircase in the middle of one of Garlemald's eponymous blizzards: shivering beneath a coverlet she'd dragged from the bed hastily made for her, trying to weep as quietly as she could while her new guardians fought over what they felt should become of her.

She watched broken shards plummet to the earth from the heavens, bathed in brilliant fire. An impression of white and gold, sobbing both in rage and in heartbroken agony. Tears seeped into the fabric wrapped about her fading form like rainwater into soil.

(don’t cry. don’t cry, I’ll save you---)

The trail of fire twisted this way and that before it faded into the background of an intricate vine pattern she recognized. Green brocade wallpaper imported from Thavnair. This was a memory from her early childhood.

Aurelia stood silent in her parents’ bedchamber as if she were a neutral onlooker rather than reliving her own memory. L'haiya’s strong hands were braced firmly upon the shoulders of her younger self, expression flat and stoic and sunset-colored eyes dark with grief. They fell upon the dying woman who lay in the bed: a great four-poster carved from Eorzean mahogany.

The figure weeping over that wasted frame, clinging to a pale and withered hand, was likewise one she knew. Julian rem Laskaris, begging his wife not to die and leave him alone. Promising he’d save her if only she’d try to stay with him a little longer.

If only.

If only-

As soon as she thought about her mother the scene was gone entirely. She was, instead, lying in the grass in the middle of a garden she recognized by scent if not sight. Sunlit warmth spread like a gentle embrace over her skin and into her bones, and dappled patterns like leaves rustling in a breeze beneath the summer sun cast their soft furred impressions behind her eyelids.

A burbling noise caught her ears and she listened for a few confused moments before she realized what it was. The fountain, she thought. Of course, that sound was the little fountain with the Doman koi in it. Father had had it installed in the garden as a conversation piece for visiting officers. It sat among the beds of lavender Elle had helped her plant when they’d pulled out the weeds. Althyk lavender, a rare variety and the only kind that would grow in a place as arid as--

Gyr Abania.

Something high and yearning rose in her. Home. She was home.

A cool, dry breeze fluttered in small wisps through golden forelocks that had escaped their confines. Wrapped snugly in her favorite grass-green pelisse, feet bare beneath her muslins, Aurelia sighed. Her fingers flexed, curled into a handful of soft ryegrass, and as she opened her eyes she saw overhead the strangely shaped leaves and heavy twined branches of a persimmon tree. Nearby was the old zelkova that framed the artfully arched parlor windows that faced the Menagerie promenade.

She was propped head and shoulders in someone’s lap. She could feel slim fingers carding gently through her hair and she could smell jasmine and tea rose, a mild and gentle lady’s sachet.

Her breath caught in her throat. That was a scent she knew.

When she opened her eyes to look upon her companion, the face smiling back was not L’haiya’s. She took in a wealth of long auburn curls, soft brows and fair skin, the delicate pearlescent oval in the center of the forehead that marked the woman as a pureblooded Garlean. Dark blue eyes, the exact same shade she saw every time she looked in a mirror.

Aurelia only barely remembered this face. She had been so young, and so many long years had passed that it was one she could now recall with true clarity only from paintings and daguerreotypes. But she knew it well enough to speak a name.

“Mama?”

The word was spoken in a voice that sounded hoarse, almost rusty, as though it had languished from long years of disuse. Vittora cen Remianus only smiled, tracing a small path from her daughter’s hairline to the upper rim of her third eye with the edge of her thumb.

“Hello, sunshine,” her mother said. “It’s been a very long time.”

Why are you here?

Misgiving swept over her in a small flood. Her mother had never seen their house in Ala Mhigo. After Vittora’s passing, there had been a small memorial in which her ashes had been spread over the Estersands. That was several months before Aurelia’s father had put in his transfer request to the XIVth Legion.

She certainly shouldn’t be in their garden.

...Where am I?

Aurelia had to know. “Am... I’m not dead, am I?”

“No, of course not.” Vittora was still smiling, but it had taken on a pensive cast, and she seemed to be looking at something Aurelia could not see. “Not dead. You’re just very deeply asleep. Come and see for yourself.”

Her limbs seemed to weigh several tonzes apiece; merely bracing her elbows against the grass felt like a heroic effort, but after a great deal of strain she managed it well enough to sit up.

She followed her mother’s gaze and her eyes went wide.

The boundaries of the garden she remembered began to fragment at the edge of the fountain, in segments of empty space that were uncannily symmetrical. A few years ago during one of her summer lectures, Aurelia had had the opportunity to watch students at the Imperial Magitek Academy researching Allagan tomestones from excavations further afield. She remembered the same sense of unease at the sight of a screen showing the compilation process.

It had looked very much the same as this. Empty blocks where the tomestone data was corrupted or truncated. Or missing.

Beyond the garden lay… nothing, as far as the eye could see. Shimmering lines of aether lapped at the edges of this facsimile, borders receding and advancing in turns like waves upon an ocean shore moving with a great and ancient tide beyond her understanding.

“Where is this?” she asked, in a small voice.

“A place that you will not see for, I hope, many more years to come.” A pale, slender hand folded over Aurelia’s, and a mote of light caught Vittora’s wedding band as she squeezed. For the first moment since she had laid eyes upon her, Aurelia realized how weightless her mother’s touch felt. Indistinct. “Our souls return here at the end of our mortal coil. They are drawn to the Lifestream and swept away on its currents.”

The edges of the mirage garden trembled with Aurelia’s agitation. She bit her lip.

“Then why did you bring me here?”

“Me?��� Her mother seemed genuinely surprised. “Oh, sunshine. I didn’t bring you here. You brought yourself.”

“I don’t understand.”

“Most mortals will never see the aetherial sea while they live. A small number may take to its currents only by way of forbidden magicks, and not without considerable peril to body and soul.”

A chill ran down her spine. With an abrupt swish of her skirts, she regained her feet and reached the edge of the tableaux in three long strides. At the lip of the fountain, she held her fingers beneath the running water.

There was no pressure and neither warmth nor chill. Her hand came away just as dry as it had been before.

“But you are different from most,” her mother continued. “Your soul may travel here and can even resist the Lifestream’s call for a time. Because of your gift.”

((Hear. Feel. Think.))

“My gift,” Aurelia echoed. “Is that- do you mean the conjury?”

“Yes and no, although this selfsame gift does allow you to harness and manipulate aether. You should not be able to do that, either. And yet here you are.”

“But why all of this now? Why me?”

“Why not you? Our star holds many mysteries. Some are readily explained and still others have yet to be unraveled, and this may well be one of the latter.” Vittora’s hands folded primly at her waist as she approached her daughter’s side; between thumb and index finger she spun an errant blossom. The petals fluttered with each rotation back and forth. “But I doubt you came to ask for answers I don’t have.”

Aurelia opened her mouth, then shut it, her brows knotted in hapless frustration.

“I don’t,” she wrapped her arms about herself, cupping her elbows in her hands and staring out over the star-shimmer shore, “I don’t know that any of it matters, Mama.”

“Why not?”

“I tried to set out and make my own path. Uncle and Aunt wanted me to make a match with a family of their choosing.”

“Many a soul has chafed beneath the weight of others’ expectations,” Vittora said. “You are far from the first scion of the imperial aristocracy to have put off a betrothal until they felt themselves ready to commit to a marriage, and I sincerely doubt you will be the last.”

“It was never a matter of readiness. I would have been perfectly happy finishing my schooling and leaving the capitol for good.”

“I see.”

“ ‘His Radiance’s Will’ can go hang. It would have done no harm for Uncle to allow me to choose for myself or not at all.”

Vittora’s brows raised. “Something tells me that Janus would not see the matter thus.”

“He didn’t. But he and Aunt could not very well prevent me from serving out my enlistment. I thought it would give me that much more time to decide.” She made a helpless gesture at the wide emptiness of the sea. “Instead, I lost everything.”

“Endings are as much a part of the vagaries of life as aught else, Aurelia. Your father rejected that truth. I would not see you do the same.”

Aurelia did not answer for a long time. Her mother moved closer, and with her drifted the watery, delicate scent of her sachet.

“Mama, I’m worried.”

“Why?”

She didn’t have enough left in her to dissemble. “Because I don’t know if any of the choices I've made have been good ones.”

“Sometimes there is no good choice, sunshine. Sometimes there are only choices.” Vittora bowed her head. The expression she wore was something like sadness. “But be they for weal or woe, the one thing you cannot do is be so afraid of making a bad choice that you do not let yourself make any decisions at all.”

The rebuke was gentle but pointed.

“If I were stronger then perhaps I would not concern myself so much with the outcome.”

“You are strong. I remember the girl you once were. And I think you are far stronger than you have been given cause to believe. You will make the most of what you have been given- as our people have ever done in hard times.” A pale hand patted her cheek. “It could be that you were meant to come to Eorzea all along.”

“Perhaps. But I think I could just as easily have elected to follow Uncle Janus and Aunt Marcella’s wishes, then called it destiny if the outcome were personally beneficial,” Aurelia said. “Life is what we make of it.”

Vittora laughed, the sound of it somewhat dry. “That rather sounds like something a certain Dalmascan would say.”

“What do you believe, Mama?” Aurelia watched the lavender blossom spin out of her mother’s fingers and float in lazy drifts to the grass. “Do you believe in destiny?”

“That is a difficult question to answer. But I think- I hope- that it is both. And in any case, I think a lack of belief in a higher power makes your capacity for kindness all the more precious. Please, sunshine, don’t ever lose that compassion.”

“Mama, I became a chirurgeon to help others. I should hope that compassion is the least virtue to which I could lay a claim.” She couldn’t take her eyes off the scattered petals of the blossom. “...But you have my word.”

The shade released a long, soft sigh, something that sounded very much like satisfaction..

Before her eyes, the outline of that slim, graceful figure began to warp into something that reminded her of heatwaves upon stone in summer, the facial features becoming slowly and steadily translucent. Aurelia’s heart lodged in her throat.

“No,” she said. She thought she had cried it aloud, but sound did not carry in a place like this. “No. You can’t go yet.”

“I must.”

“There’s so much more I want to talk to you about. Please.”

“You don’t belong here.”

“But-”

“No, sunshine. Your place is with the living. Go back to them.” Vittora’s gentle smile returned, and she reached up to tuck a stray curl behind her daughter’s ear. “You are very young yet and your future is still uncharted. It waits only for your pen to fill its pages. Take the new life you have been granted, and live it.”

The steady burble of the fountain had ceased. Flowers and trees and stone all began to disintegrate, leaving in their wake only the otherworldly glow of shining white-capped waves.

Her mother’s transparent hand fell to her side, and Aurelia felt its withdrawal as the faintest whisper of a breeze against her cheek as Vittora cen Remianus stepped forward into the line of stardust foam that surged onto the shore. Aether washed around her ankles and lapped at the hem of her skirts but she did not appear to mind or even notice as she took another step, and then another, and another.

The cascade of bright auburn curls Aurelia recalled so well turned to sepia before fading entirely as that lonely figure drew farther and farther away and disappeared, leaving her daughter to linger upon the edge of mortal consciousness.

Leaving her alone again just as she had done all those years ago. Aurelia’s eyes burned.

“Remember me,” the shade of her mother said as it walked out into the aetherial sea, drawn back into its vast currents. “Remember me, and I will always be with you.”

No, she thought. No, you can’t just leave me alone like this-

She made to step into the sea, to follow- and was soundly denied. A deep, resonant chime echoed from somewhere within the living currents of her own soul as her feet defied her mind’s order to move.

An unknown and unseen Something was pulling her back.

I can’t-

(Remember.)

There were words. Words that

||Hear. Feel||

echoed like a mantra as her eyelids, suddenly heavy as lodestones, fell shut once more.

(Remember-)

=

She could hear birds.

For a long moment, she did not move. Her eyes shifted beneath the curtains of her lids, following the dapple-pattern of shifting leaves while she turned her attention to the nearby trilling. A warm breeze brushed her cheek like a mother’s touch, soft and soothing, and water burbled steadily from someplace not too distant, and she knew she lay upon something (a bed? a lap? She wasn’t certain) soft and yielding.

Mama, she thought, and opened her eyes.

There was no sign of her mother. She lay on a small infirmary bed barely larger than an army cot, tucked under a light blanket. Someone had taken the trouble to wash her and dress her in a plain hempen robe. Her gaze peered through the fine folds of a transparent cloth the likes of which she had not seen in so long that it took an embarrassing few moments to realize it was some sort of protective netting- probably, she thought, intended to keep out midges and chigoes. High overhead a canopy of leaves danced in the gentle wind, turning like troupes of tiny dancers upon their branches.

On the right side of her bed, she sensed a soft weight. Aurelia blinked slowly, once, twice, and the world came into focus as she looked down.

A small Miqo’te girl dozed with her head pillowed upon the edge of the mattress. Her short dark hair spilled over the blanket in an unruly mess, eyes shifting side to side beneath their lids, and one ear flickered in tiny erratic twitches even as her tail lay curled limp and unmoving on the grass. In that brief moment of silence, Aurelia heard a tiny snore escape her slack lips.

Despite the sorrowful ache that still lingered in her own chest, she smiled and carefully slid a hand from beneath the blanket to rest it upon Vahne’s shoulders.

“The conjurers said she’s not slept since we arrived here.”

The voice came from the infirmary bed next to her. Its occupant sat atop the mattress with her back propped up by a pile of pillows, a tome in one hand with her fingers marking the page. Her right arm was in a sling and, like her leg on the same side, it was encased in plaster. More pillows cushioned the woman’s heel, and like Aurelia she was clad very simply in a hempen robe. Her auburn hair had been cut short.

“She’ll be happy to see you up when she awakens,” Rhaya Wolndara said. “She’s been very worried about you. She was furious with me when she found out I’d sent you packing. Wouldn’t talk to me for the better part of a sennight.”

“I-”

The word came out as a croak. Without further prompting Rhaya set her book aside, reached for the tin cup and water pitcher on the small stool between them serving as a side table, and poured. Aurelia accepted it gratefully and took small sips, sloshing the water around her dry mouth before swallowing as Rhaya watched.

“Take your time. You’ve been asleep for the past two suns.”

“Where is this?”

“You don’t recognize your own guild?” Aurelia squinted through the netting and canvas and finally spied the huge old tree where she had conducted much of her training. As Rhaya had said, they were in the Stillglade Fane, abed in the infirmary area reserved for patients that were not in dire need of treatment. “The Wailers dragged us out of that ruin. Brought all of us here for treatment. You collapsed. From exhaustion, I suppose.”

“The last thing I remember was-” She paused, straining to recall. The taste of soot seemed to linger on her tongue. “...The fire. Did-”

“Sergeant Epocan told me what happened. One of the village Wailers - a Lieutenant Daye, I think he said - was able to sneak out and run to the Druthers for help. It was fortunate he did. Their commander set a brushfire from the creek embankment that spread very quickly, but the Wailers and some conjurers from Quarrymill were able to put the fires out. With the village’s help, of course.”

Aurelia watched a grimace flash across Rhaya’s face as the other woman shifted in her bedclothes.

“On that note,” she said, her voice curiously brisk, “I owe you an apology. ‘Tis like my captors and I would have died in that fire without your intervention.”

Sewell.

“Sewell didn’t make it, Rhaya.”

“I know,” she sighed. “I was told. He came through in the end, though, didn’t he? Poor man. To have come so far only to die like that...”

Aurelia stared down at the small, spindly shoulders under her hand.

“He wanted me to tell you he was sorry for everything that happened.” The ache in her chest intensified, crept up her throat. “I did try to save him.”

“Come now, I see those tears. You’re only one woman; you can’t bleeding well save the realm entire, you know,” Rhaya chided her, taking the emptied cup from her hands to set back upon the stool. “Not a soul could reasonably ask more of you. You helped run the Empire out of a village full of people who could well have turned on you the moment they found out what you were.”

“Sergeant Epocan told you about that?”

“Only because you had told him that I realized you were a Garlean. That was a very brave thing you did, you know. You took a big chance on all of them, revealing yourself like that.”

“I like to think that most of them would at least have the sense to see I was on their side. Although I imagine,” Aurelia said dryly, “that stealing a flash grenade and using it to incite them to riot didn’t hurt.”

“I’m sorry for my part in it. I shouldn’t have said those things to you- no, let me finish. I knew when those men fled that they’d be back, and at the time I… well. Your friend set me straight on a great deal.” She eyed the small girl. “And this one too. If she hadn’t run to you for help, I don’t know that I would be here now.”

“She’s a good girl.”

“She is. She still has some growing to do yet, but she is.” Rhaya’s smile faded. A pained expression tightened the corners of her mouth. “My youngest sister Kheni got herself mixed up with some bad sorts when Vahne was younger. The one sensible thing she did was to leave the girl with me. I never meant to raise children of my own, and it’s been bloody hard going it alone.”

“Sergeant Epocan tells me that Keeper families are often large,” Aurelia frowned. “Did you not have other siblings who could have helped you?”

“Aye. Two sisters and a brother, all younger than me. We weren’t on speaking terms.”

She did not miss that past-tense had. “You talk as if something happened to them.”

“They answered the Twin Adder’s call to fight the Empire last spring. My brother was cross with me when I didn’t do the same; I suppose he had grand notions of the Wolndara family fighting the Garleans in the same unit, or somesuch. Anyroad, I felt it were naught but folly to risk my life and leave Vahne without anyone to look after her, and I told him thus. And he- they,” Rhaya took a deep and visible breath, “they all three of them marched off to join the main force at Carteneau and - just like a lot of other folk - they never returned. Vahne is all I have left so I feel responsible for her safety. But… mayhap I have been a little too strict as her guardian. Just a little.”

Her gaze on Vahne’s slumbering form softened.

“I’m proud of her.”

"So am I.”

"Good." Aurelia lay her head back and shut her eyes again. She was still very tired. “I think I’ll let her be a little while longer.”

“I’ll call for one of the conjurers,” Rhaya said. “Rest. You still need it.”

She thought she nodded her response, but she wasn’t sure. The other woman’s words seemed to float into her ears and spin in small drifting circles, like lazy eddies of water, as she lapsed into another light doze.

This time her sleep was peaceful and dreamless.

~*~

27th Sun, Fifth Astral Moon, Year 1 of the Seventh Umbral Era

“Up!” the voice shouted. “Put your backs into it! Mind the bleedin' base!”

Summer was winding down, but something of it lingered still in the air. A flock of sparrows descended upon the nearby fence with a great flutter of wings, trilling beneath the afternoon sun’s warm and benevolent gaze, and Aurelia Laskaris listened in an absentminded way from her vantage point in a fallow field. She was watching the villagers' combined efforts to raise the walls of a new house. The ropes went taut as a section of wall lifted by ilms, ash planks and iron nails to be lashed in place as the joints met.

“Hoist!!” the voice shouted again, and among the ensuing calls to coordinate the teams, she could hear the steady clattering clamor of tools working the wood.

“You lot have made an art of this,” she said. At her side Frieda Miller let out a small cackle.

“We work quickly,” the weaver shrugged, gently jostling the infant girl in her arms. “It’s the neighborly thing to do. Though if you told me this time last year we’d be doing something like this outside the village...”

She trailed off, hesitation crossing her features, but Aurelia thought she knew what Frieda meant. The people of this small and secluded forest village seemed to have taken if not a kinder view of outsiders, at least a slightly warmer one. They had unknowingly harbored a Garlean for moons and when Aurelia’s countrymen had attacked she had sided with them against her own kind: something none of them would have expected. Not only that, the hamlet’s entire defense against imperial incursion had been spearheaded by a Keeper Miqo’te: a man whose people were so often jettisoned to the fringes of the Shroud, and treated with suspicion and disdain by many.

Their familiarity with him, and with Aurelia, had forced many people to re-examine their assumptions about their world, and while some still clung stubbornly to old grudges and commonly-held wisdoms, others had made friendly overtures one by one. For better or worse, change had come to Willowsbend, heralded by the fall of Dalamud, and it appeared to be here to stay.

Whatever they might think of her, or of the surrounding events, Aurelia could only hope that their attitudes towards their neighbors continued to soften.

“So,” Frieda continued, “you two are to leave on the morrow.”

“So I am.”

“Are you sure you don’t have any plans to stay here? The Guild could always take Trevantioux back instead.”

She smiled, a little ruefully.

“Hardly any need for a third wheel, now that he and Noline have called things off.”

“He seems to be taking it rather well.”

“Ah. Well enough, all things considered. I’m still sorry I couldn’t be there with you to help deliver Isa, but-”

“Oh, never you mind that, Aurelia! What you did gave me a safe place to bring her into the world and that’s just as important.” Frieda grinned. “At any rate, no harm would have been done, I can trust Trevantioux to do his work properly. The man might be a bit of a jackass and a fool in love besides, but he’s a good conjurer, and he’s earned his place in the village.”

“Then it seems to me that you’re in good hands.”

Despite her words, Aurelia couldn’t help the pang of sadness she felt.

It was likely she could have remained in Willowsbend did she wish it, but there had been Trevantioux to consider. The events of that fateful night had changed him. Ever since he had made the hard decision to break his betrothal, he had seemed a shell of his previous self, rendered nigh desolate by Noline’s infidelity. His work was all he had left- and he had been tending to the village under Ewain’s tutelage for four years.

As fond as she had become of Frieda and Hugh and all the others in her own short stay here, Aurelia couldn’t bring herself to take his home from him on top of everything else. Thus, it seemed trivial to contact E-Sumi-Yan and explain the situation - and even more so to formally request an end to her current assignment, seeing as there would now be no open position to fill. It was an olive branch, but one Trevantioux had accepted with a great deal of grace. These days there were no sour remarks about her origins or sullen glares when she went on rounds. He had even been the one to offer the village’s assistance in rebuilding the Wolndara homestead, something that had surprised everyone - not least of all Rhaya herself.

Maybe that was the most important part of the whole outcome. If someone as stubborn as Trevantioux could change his tune, it should be no hard task for the rest of them.

In Frieda’s arms, little Isa made a loud blatting noise and swatted at a stray lock of her mother’s hair- and was thwarted by the casual sidewise tilt of Frieda's chin. “Be that as it may, know that you’ll be missed by myself and the boys, at the very least. Do you promise to come and visit us when you can?”

Aurelia smiled. “You wouldn’t forgive me if I didn’t at least make the attempt.”

“I’ll make sure to have my best pies ready and waiting for you to take tea with me. Speaking of which,” Frieda said, “it looks like you’ve a friend coming up the hill.”

She followed the woman’s pointing finger and saw a willowy figure loping towards them across the empty field. The Miqo’te had grown a good two or three ilms over the season and showed no signs of stopping, but she was still more child than adolescent yet. She nigh vibrated with excitement, her tail lashing against her leg as she drew to a halt.

“Miss Aurelia, Shadow’s having her kittens!”

“Be well, Frieda.” She patted the woman’s shoulder. “Give Rauffe and the boys my love.”

“I will.”

At the foot of the incline, Vahne fidgeted, rocking from side to side as she waited for Aurelia to reach her. Some yalms distant, another section of heavy oak beams began to lift from the newly packed ground, and carpenters’ hammers continued to mark increments of time and progress in short beats.

“They’re moving very fast,” she said, smiling. “I daresay they’ll have your house finished in the next fortnight.”

Vahne nodded, in a vague sort of way - she supposed the particulars of housing construction didn’t much interest a young girl. That small face looked troubled despite the tranquility of the day and after a moment, she burst out,

“I don’t want you to go back to Gridania!”

“Vahne, darling, I must. It’s not up to you or me.”

“Can’t you just stay here? With me and Aunt Rhaya? We have plenty of space and since you two patched things up she'd be happy to-”

Aurelia sighed. She had been dreading this. “I can’t. It’s not that easy.”

“But I don’t understand why,” Vahne protested. “You could just leave the guild and go anywhere you chose if you wanted to, couldn’t you? You could become an adventurer! People do it all the time!”

There were a great many things that she thought she could have said in that moment. She could have lied, spun some bit of fiction she knew Vahne would accept. She could have attempted to tell the truth, to explain all of the sordid details and confluence of events that had brought her to Willowsbend, and hope that she might understand.

Instead, she reached for Vahne’s hand.

“Part of being an adult means having to make choices. Sometimes it means hard choices, even when you know it’s the right thing to do. Do you understand?” At the girl’s nod, she said, “Those choices don’t ever stop coming to your door. I would love to stay, Vahne, but I can’t. My choice to leave Willowsbend for good lets a man keep his home and it keeps the rest of you safe from the Garleans besides.”

“Safe from what? Those men are gone. You killed their leader and now-” Aurelia was slowly shaking her head, and Vahne’s lower lip began to tremble. “Please don’t go. You’re the first real friend I’ve ever had.”

“I will visit when I can, but life is taking me elsewhere. I can’t say when I’ll be back to stay,” she said gently. “It’s quite possible the answer is never.”

“I hate this! I hate saying goodbye. I feel like it’s all I’ve done my whole life.”

“It’s true that sometimes life feels like nothing but goodbyes, but sometimes in order to have a beginning you have to have an ending.” Vahne, to her credit, didn’t cry, but the hand around Aurelia’s felt almost crushing. “When I leave, I want you to do me a favor.”

“What kind of favor?”

“Visit Goody Miller when you can? She’ll be in need of a friend herself and now that the villagers know you and your aunt, I’m sure you’ll be able to make even more friends.”

Vahne didn’t look altogether convinced, but the nod she gave Aurelia was slow and solemn.

“In the meantime,” the Garlean righted her posture, her tone briskly cheerful, “let’s cheer up, shall we? Tomorrow hasn’t arrived just yet, after all. It is still today, with plenty of light left in it, and I believe you were saying something about your barn cat.”

The Miqo’te brightened; her rain-grey eyes seemed to come alive at the reminder.

“Oh, yes! Have you ever seen newborn kittens?”

“I’m afraid I haven’t, no.”

“Good! That means I get to show you your very first litter.” She squeezed Aurelia’s hand and began to tug her arm in the direction of the reconstructed barn, rather impatiently, in the way a girl half her age might have done. “She’s made her nest in the back of the chocobo pen.”

Feeling unexpectedly light-hearted for the first time in what felt like forever, Aurelia followed her young friend. The grass parted for their passing and concealed their steps as though they had never traveled through the field at all.

What the villagers built here wouldn’t replace Rhaya’s home nor the memories that had formed within its walls. No force in the world could turn back time to recover the things they had all lost, she thought. Not truly- and perhaps that was for the best. A new home blessed with companionship would provide ample space for new memories and the promise of new friends. It was a symbol of renewal as sure as any spring.

In short order the pair had retreated into the stable, itself still smelling of sap and fresh-cut hay, to bear witness to these small new lives. And as men rebuilt and the forest resumed its vigil, time turned its inexorable wheel into the cusp of a new Age.

#reborn by fire #epilogue: of truths sunk too deep for war #aurelia laskaris #garlean warrior of light

[naralanis]

Any chance of a soft cissamione one-shot of them social distancing in Hermione’s London flat?

Sorry this took forever!

Not All Bad

- a Cissamione ficlet thingamajig

“You know,” Hermione said softly, stirring her attempt at stew forcefully, trying to scrape the burnt bits off the bottom of the pot. “This isn’t so bad.”

She didn’t need to look at Narcissa to know the blonde was rolling her eyes. OK, so maybe things were not exactly great. Maybe they were stuck in her flat in Muggle London and the world -- Muggle and Wizarding alike -- had been turned upside down because of an insane pandemic.

“You’re quite right,” Narcissa quipped sarcastically. “I am having a grand old time.”

Hermione furrowed her brows. Maybe, just maybe, someone was a little annoyed because they had just happened to return from an overseas trip exactly two minutes before the Ministry put Floo and Apparition lock-down measures in place. 

“I resent the sarcasm,” the brunette retorted, without any bite in her tone. She brushed off Narcissa’s snark with practiced ease nowadays--she knew the other woman couldn’t help it. Narcissa was anxious, and so it was easy to not take her sarcastic quips to heart. “Sure, everything out there sucks at the minute, but at least...” she trailed off, giving up on the ruined stew. “At least we’re stuck together.”

She saw Narcissa’s reflection on the window relax out of the corner of her eye. Hermione approached, and Narcissa gave her a little sheepish smile. 

“I’ve been dreadful, haven’t I?”

Hermione flashed her a grin as she stepped into Narcissa’s space, hands coming to rest on her waist. “Terrible. Awful. I can’t take it anymore. As soon as we can see people again I’m going on a serious dating spree.”

Narcissa chuckled, pinching Hermione’s side playfully before returning the embrace. Her hands rested at the nape of Hermione’s neck, and the brunette felt herself relax as Narcissa played with her hair, tugging ever so gently and twirling it around her fingers. 

“I absolutely despise sitting idle. This has been a special kind of torture.” Narcissa said with a heavy sigh. Hermione nodded. 

“I know; I hate it too. But we haven’t been entirely idle,” she said with a suggestive waggle of her brows. 

Narcissa laughed; it was loud, bright and pure, and it felt so right in Hermione’s cozy dining room overlooking the empty streets of London. 

“You truly have a one-track mind, don’t you?” She chuckled. “Who would have thought that the Brightest Witch of Her Age had such... limited focus?”

“But it is intense focus.” Hermione argued, biting at her bottom lip and making a show of dipping Narcissa low. She nuzzled at the witch’s neck, delighted in how it made Narcissa squirm as her breath tickled at her skin. Narcissa’s hair smelled of Hermione’s shampoo, and her skin smelled of the lotion she had given Hermione last Christmas. She wore one of Hermione’s old, old sweatshirts, one so large it hung over her thin frame, exposing her collarbones and part of her shoulder, and a pair of Hermione’s boxer shorts--a navy-blue one with white stripes. 

Hermione had never seen anything so beautiful in her life. Narcissa looked so much younger, then, even with the flashes of white hair at her temples and the crinkles around her eyes; she looked absolutely carefree, and Hermione loved that she could see her like that when they were together. 

She looked down into darkened blue eyes that glimmered in the fading light of the sunset, and she felt as if she were adrift at sea, holding on to the lifeline that was Narcissa Black, and she planned on never, ever letting go. 

Narcissa suddenly scowled, nose scrunched in a way Hermione found utterly adorable. “Do I smell burning?”

Hermione nodded, not moving a muscle. “It’s dinner--or rather, was dinner. We might have to order in again.”

Narcissa sighed. “It’s the third time this week. Maybe I could cook, for a change.”

The Gryffindor shook her head in the negative. “Absolutely not. My toaster oven has yet to recover.”

Narcissa flushed a deep shade of red. “Well, maybe you can teach me more about these vexing Muggle appliances. All I’ve got is time.”

Hermione considered it. “Maybe. We’ll work our way through kettles and washing machines, and maybe, maybe, you’ll learn enough to navigate Zoom.”

Narcissa’s brow furrowed. 

“What in Merlin’s name is a Zoom?”

#anon #ficwriting #ay gave it a shot #naralanis at it again #Cissamione #how's y'all's quarantine going

[skvaderarts]

Hiraeth Chapter 20: Arrears

Masterlist can be found Here!

Chapter Twenty: Arrears 

Note: And just like that, we’re on chapter twenty for the third time. That’s totally surreal, isn’t it? Sorry that my replies were a day or two late this week and that this chapter is a few hours late. I fell asleep. I was out of town Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday with a friend, so my uploads and response times were not quite as quick as I would have liked. But it’s okay because I’m back! Now let’s get on with this fic.

(-~-)

Once they were gone, the doors to the front office swung shut with a resounding bang, sending an echoing boom through the entirety of the front room. In what had to be a rare moment of silence for the normally noisy space, there was no music playing and no ceiling fans spinning due to the lack of electricity present within the building. It was welcome, but also strange as he had finally begun to grow used to the sound of Dante���s particular brand of loud metal and rock. And although he couldn’t say that he enjoyed the exact music that Dante did, he found that he didn’t mind it as much as he used to when he’d first heard it. Maybe he could even convince him to play something else… 

The Darkslayer took a moment to lock the door behind himself before proceeding, not so much because he was worried that they would be attacked or that someone would attempt to actually break in and rob them. No, that would be an absolute dream as far as the eldest Son of Sparda was concerned. Having the opportunity to teach a wayward criminal a much-needed lesson without the moral implications that came with cold-blooded murder or fratricide was a welcome change of pace for him. No, they needed to be alone for this, and he didn’t need any of his younger brother’s associates interrupting them with any trivial or annoying requests, especially given their current circumstances.

As the devil hunter in the blue coat approached his brother’s desk, Dante shook his head, reclining in the chair at his desk as he awaited his older sibling’s response. He was somewhat sure that he already knew what he was going to say. After all, Vergil had been looming over him like a literal physical manifestation of the shadow of his immense debt ever since they had returned and realized that the power was once again turned off. That had surely given them both enough time to contemplate what they both expected the other to say and, in turn, what they would add to the conversation themselves. That was, if there was a conversation at all. While they had made remarkable progress in the short time that they had been gone from the office, he didn’t put it past his older sibling to still want to settle this the old-fashioned way like they always had. And at this point, there was a part of him that expected nothing less than that, regardless of the progress that they made. The real question was how they would go about this process, and what the fight would be about this time, not so much if there would be one in the first place.

“I know, I know. This is the part where you barely hide how mad you are at me, and they you give me a piece of your mind before you stab me again, right Vergil.” Dante laughed grimly as he spoke those words, watching his twin slowly approach the desk. That was what was to be expected under these circumstances. And he’d dealt with Vergil enough times to know that-

“Why are the utilities always off, Dante? Am I to presume that you are in some form of arrears to the utility company, then?” Vergil said calmly as he reached the halfway point of the room. He stopped a few feet from the desk, looking around the room for a moment before continuing. “It came to my attention just after we had first returned from the underworld that you might be hiding something. It clearly wasn’t the first time that you had gone without electricity since you didn’t appear to be surprised by its absence, but considering our initial fight with Nero on the front steps upon arriving, my general mood at the time, and the lingering unrest in the atmosphere around the office as to my presence, I was unwilling to bring it up at the time. But now I require answers.”

His calm demeanor took Dante somewhat by surprise as while he was indeed expecting his brother to ask him why the power was off again, he wasn’t expecting him to do so with such a genuine level of curiosity. There didn’t seem to be any real anger in his voice as he asked that question, which admittedly turned things on their head a little. Dante was expecting to be lambasted for several minutes before things either turned violent or Vergil gave up and went to bed. This was… well, this was entirely too diplomatic to be an actual response from his older twin brother. What the hell was going on here?

“You caught onto what was going on that quick, hu? Well damn. I thought I was doing a better job of hiding it.” Dante said, dragging out a long, tired sigh. It was out in the open now, and that brought with it a sort of strange euphoric sense of release that he hadn’t expected, given the circumstances. “So… what happens now? Are we gonna skip the part where you stab me, or go straight to it? I’d just like to know what I’m getting myself into this time, ya know?”

Vergil stepped out of the shadows and approached the desk, unfolding his arms and using them to prop himself up against the desk. He seemed calm in a manner unlike what Dante was used to when it came to his older sibling. From what he could tell, the devil slayer in blue almost seemed to be considering something or even patently awaiting his response. But whatever he was doing, Dante wasn’t sure how he felt about it. As unpleasant as most of his older sibling’s reactions were to basically everything that he did and didn’t do, they were at least almost entirely predictable. This was the farthest thing from that that Dante could imagine, and it made him somewhat apprehensive as to what to do now. He was in uncharted territory, adrift at sea with no wind in his sails and now oars to row with.

“I am… attempting a new approach. My old methods have hit a dead end. And predictably so, at that.” Vergil let loose a barely audible sigh, looking down at the floor as he considered his next words carefully. He wasn’t entirely sure how to put into words what he was thinking, but he did, in fact, know what he actually wanted to do. Talking to his younger twin had never been something that he was particularly adept at, but that didn’t stop him from trying. After all, when had Vergil been the kind of man to do things by half? “As you know, I do not enjoy predictability. So in light of recent revelations, I am now attempting to actually communicate with you instead of simply folding to my baser instincts and using less civil means with which to get my point across.”

Dante sat up and leaned in towards him, looking at him as though he were speaking a foreign language. No, he couldn’t possibly be hearing that right. Had his older twin truly just insinuated that he might be tired of… that couldn’t be possible, could it? Well, it could. That was entirely possible. But he just never thought that he would live long enough to see the day that Vergil would succeed defeat and decide that maybe stabbing his younger sibling to death constantly was perhaps not the best method to achieving his goals. The thought had crossed Dante’s mind on several occasions, but he had just never been able to actually find a way with which to make those ideas into reality. But now…

“So if I’m hearing you right, you’re saying that you actually plan to not stab me right now, and instead you want to talk to me?” Dante wasn’t sure that his humorous tone of voice and sarcastic mannerisms alluded to the deep-seated elation that he felt at that prospect, but that didn’t make it any less true. He had waited a lifetime for the day that his brother might come to the conclusion that it might be a good idea to simply speak to him. And while he hadn’t helped to make that outcome anymore likely, and had often worked directly against it in ways large and small over the years, that didn’t make the possibility of that outcome becoming a reality any less joyous to him. “Am I getting that right, or has someone left and opened a valve that lets out toxic gases in here and we’re both just secretly dying right now or something?”

“Your half right, Dante. That is, in fact, what I am trying to say. But on the last account, you are incorrect. We are not secretly dying.” The Darkslayer paused for a moment, lingering on thoughts that he would have preferred to have kept buried deep below the surface to hide his apparent suffering. He had been through much, and a large percentage of his suffering in life had been through the lens of death. Talking about it wasn’t something that he cherished the opportunity to do. It was unpleasant but necessary. And yet, here he was, willingly doing so. Vergil had pivoted from defiance to indifference in some respects, and then he had made a sharp left into uneasy acceptance. For now, that was all he could do, and he had decided that focusing on what he was capable of instead of beating himself down with the combined weight of everything that he couldn’t might just be the best thing that he could do for himself in moments like these. “Every living thing is at all times marching towards their death. There is no secret in that. It is the inevitability of mortality. Some of us simply make it there quicker or under less desirable circumstances than others. But in the end, we all share the same fate.”

Giving his brother a much more serious look now than he had been a moment ago, Dante leaned back slightly in order to physically give himself space to take in what Vergil had just said. He had the distinct feeling that he now knew what this was about, and that was both a good and a bad thing. While it was far past time that they tackled this topic, he just hadn’t expected things to come to a head like this when they had. It would have been wonderful to have had forewarning so that he could have prepared and… no. No, had had time to prepare himself for this. From the moment that he had stepped foot in the Qliphoth and found himself standing face to face with the doors to Urizen’s throne room, coming to grips with the fact that the monster on the other side of those doors was indeed his twin brother, he had been preparing himself for the worst. When Vergil had reluctantly agreed to return to the human world with hum under the resigned fatalistic view that it couldn’t get much worse, he had known that they would have to have this conversation one day. And now that Vergil was here, it was time to have it. They had needed to get this off of their chest for quite a while now.

“Say what it is that you really want to say, Vergil. I’m not stupid enough to not be able to tell that there is more to this than what you’re saying. You know that, right?” Dante straightened his back out slightly as he reclined in his desk chair, peering out at Vergil from the bangs that hand now found their way in front of his eyes again. He needed to put some space between himself and his brother, if only to keep himself from developing claustrophobia. As much as Vergil utterly despised unwanted or involuntary physical contact, it was one of his best methods for making someone that he wanted to put on edge uncomfortable. Being at the mercy of both his impressive height in respect to most people, and his cold, unflinching stare was normally enough to make the average mortal flinch and back down, and in that respect, even Dante folded, even if only just a little bit. Being stared at the way that Vergil stared at people when he was trying to make a point was enough to make literally anyone want to back away from him. The Demon hunter wondered for a moment if his older brother even noticed that this was something that he did, or if it was something that he did involuntarily out of reflex.

A look somewhere between surprise and acceptance crossed Vergil's face as he nodded in agreement, standing up straighter as he shifted his weight to one hand and then quite literally looked down on his younger twin. There it was again. That noticeable change in him that had not been present when they were younger. Vergil understood it now more than he had when he had first noticed that something was drastically different about his twin now. It was his maturity level. Dante had indeed learned from his past, and seemed to be haunted by the mistakes and regrets that he harbored, much like he himself still did. He recognized it as his own, the poignant grief that he now realized deep within himself that they both shared. It was… well, he couldn’t say that it was something that he’d ever wished for Dante. There were plenty of unfortunate occurrences that Vergil would have brushed or even wished on his brother during his youth. Not so long ago, he would have been ready to exact those very injustices upon him with his own hands. But in that same light, he now understood something that he hadn’t then: the fact that Dante himself felt the same way. He just buried it under a thick layer of humor and sarcasm

He saw it in the moments that they were alone. Dante didn’t possess the same energy that he’d once had, the same spark that he had carried in his youth. And that wasn’t something he could blame completely on his age. Some things were lost along with the youth of the person who possessed them, and hope was one of those things. But hardship, regret, and suffering were great at enhancing those characteristics in a way that few other emotions could match, at least in regards to negative connotations. He would have never pegged Dante as the sort to think that deeply about his actions and their consequences when they were younger, much as he was willing to believe that his younger twin probably didn’t think he himself did back then. And they might have both been right under certain circumstances. But now they were older and they had lived through the folly of their youth. And they were ready to move on from it.

“You’re terrible at keeping things from me, Dante. You always have been. I had the feeling that something was amiss financially in regards to your personal life, and I see that I was not incorrect. But that does not concern me.” Vergil tilted his head slightly to the left, attempting to make brief eye contact with his younger twin as the slightly younger man attempted to not think too hard about the situation that he now found himself in. Things had taken quite the turn since Lucia had left the office with V and the others. He couldn’t say that he knew for sure whether or not his brother had specifically waited for them to leave before having this conversation with him, but he was willing to believe that that was more than likely the case. And that in of itself was admittedly fascinating to him. Vergil had never really cared about shaming him out in the open. Had he actually done so in order to not embarrass him any further than he was embarrassing himself due to the fact that they had company over who were not blood members of their family? Because if so, that had been uncharacteristically compassionate of his older twin. “If I had come here with the expectation that you had everything in your life under control, then I would not be able to claim to know you at all. Your financial troubles are something that can be fixed, unlike some of our other troubles.”

Dante couldn’t help but laugh at that statement. “Oh, brother! See, that’s where you're dead wrong. There is no fixing the amount of debt that I’m in. It’s a whole lot worse than just a few power and water bills.” Shaking his head, Dante leaned back and attempted to open the drawer to his desk, cursing himself internally when he had to pull on it much harder than he normally would. He’d shoved something in there before he’d left, and the sliding mechanism had been jammed, but it opened nonetheless. He then produced a worn brown ledger, tossing it onto the desk with a responding thud. Completely unwilling to even look in the general direction of the book, he slid the door shut and glanced over at Vergil, shrugging slightly. “You want a better answer as to what kind of mess I’m in? It’s in there. But you’re not going to like what’s in it.”

Leaning over to pick up the ledger, Vergil gave it a once over for a moment before opening the cover and flipping to the middle of it. Dante had to admire his twin’s insanity for a moment, likening the action of jumping to the middle of someone’s financial history with diving headfirst into ice water without knowing how to swim. Oh, wait… V had literally done just that. Perhaps reckless insanity for the sake of self-preservation ran in the family? Regardless, the frankly calm and placid look on Vergil’s face turned rapidly to confusion and perplexed frustration as he looked over the numbers. He then immediately turned back a few pages, only to realize that his answers were elsewhere. A moment later, he turned back to the very front of the book before furrowing his brow and jumping immediately to the end of the ledger to try and assess the damages in full. There was no point in trying to make sense of something like this. It was simply the kind of situation where you looked at how deep you’d fallen into the hole, and then tried to figure out what you could stack up to try and climb towards the surface again just to have a chance at jumping towards the general direction of the surface that you could probably barely see due to how far down you were. And you could only hope that you were able to grab onto something when you made that just, because if you didn’t? Well, you would just be back at the bottom where you had started in the first place all over again, and at that point, what had you accomplished?

Upon realizing the depth of the issue at face value, Vergil closed the book along with his eyes before letting out a long, exhausted sigh. He then tossed the book back onto the desk as though simply touching it was enough to make him contract some sort of lethal virus. He slumped over the desk for a moment before glancing back towards the back office door and making a b line for it. Dante watched him go, trying his best not to laugh. Yes, now that was a feeling that he could relate to.

“Where ya headed Vergil,” Dante asked, barely hiding his amusement. It was time to see if his twin brother’s new anti-stabbing ethos was something that he was willing to stand by, even in the face of such a frustrating realization. He imagined that Vergil was more than ready to stab him right now.

He stopped, his back to his twin brother. After pausing for a moment, he peered over his shoulder, a slightly disbelieving, shocked, and overall surprised look on his face. “I need a nap, Dante. I think that jetlag has just set in.” He said simply before turning back in the direction of the door.

“You’re telling me, Vergil. Why do you think I sleep so much?” Dante said with s slight laugh, shaking his head as he faced forward into nothingness again. It was incredible how dark it got in there at night without lights to combat the inky blackness.

“Depression? A desire to avoid your problems for a bit longer? Other ill-defined reasons that I care little to discuss at this point in time?” Vergil shrugged nebulously, seemingly resigned to the reality of his fate. How in the world had those numbers gotten like that? It defied logic. It defied reason. Hell, it defied science and math, too! “Those are just the reasons I can think of off of the top of my head. I am not your phycologist.”

At that point, Dante actually did laugh. It seemed that his financial state had managed to strip what little will to live and energy that Vergil still possessed in his body. That many zeros tended to do that to you. “I mean yea, that’s fair, but you don’t have to say it. I have feelings, you know?”

“Do not awaken me until either the utilities are restored or the office burns down Dante. This will take a substantial amount of work, and I am not at all well-rested enough as it currently stands.”

With that, Vergil closed the door to his bedroom, and a moment later, Dante could hear what was definitely his older twin hitting the bed with enough force to go through it. That right there was a mood, and he was positive that he had never once related so much to his brother’s questionable coping mechanisms. Maybe a good night’s rest was in store for them both. It was dark already anyway. What could it hurt? He was sure that no one would mind, least of all Vergil. Considering the way that he slept on the rare occasion that he actually did, he wouldn’t mind literally anything for a very long time. That could only be a good thing at this point.

(-~-)

I couldn’t tell you why, but Google Docs has decided it hates my guts lately. It decided to crash no less than 7 times while I was writing this, taking whole paragraphs with it. It was a nightmare to write. In fact, it crashed once while I was writing this footnote, so this is my second time writing it. Joy! Anyway, happy 2nd DMC5 anniversary everyone! I hope you all had a good time reading this one! Can’t wait to read your comments. Now time to go cry in the corner over my lost paragraphs! Duh du du du du!

#Dante #Vergil #Post Devil May Cry 5 #Post Devil May Cry V #Hiraeth #Fanfic #Sons of Sparda #Devil May Cry #DMC #DMC5 #DMCV #Devil May Cry 5

[edelwoodsouls]

grace requires nothing of me (spent my whole life searching desperately)  - ch. 1

He never wanted to hurt anyone. He never wanted to be dangerous. But he can be. [When Alice goes missing, Caleb lets his darkness free]

(shoutout to @exhaustedwerewolf for once again listening to my midnight screams - please direct all crying and angst towards him :P)

Word Count: 1,701 | Also on Ao3 | Other Chapters: n/a (yet)

They come for Caleb at night.

One moment, a dream: the dapple of sunlight through trees. An endless stretch of green-tinged sky, green fields, green light. The warmth of summer and laughter and fingers threaded through his own.

The next, a dark shadow. Clouds, heavy and bruised, choking the sun. They appear from nowhere, an invasion of his hazy verdant world.

He wakes up the moment they try to gag him.

The world is dark, lit only by the pool of moonlight filtering through the curtains at the foot of his bed. But he doesn’t need his eyes to sense them - the deadly, detached calm held solid in their bodies like cement. Not fluid and shifting as emotions usually are, but fixed, unnaturally still.

He yells out, struggles against them, his panic spilling out into the room in amber waves. It floods away the moonlight, the shadows, the steely hands against his limbs.

And the pressure is gone. Like a cloud passing briefly across the moon, the reaching fingers vanish. He senses only his own amber tidal wave, swirling around the space like a hurricane, pouring out into the hall.

He doesn't bother to check, to wait - he is drowning, needs air, needs space, needs green.

He jumps out of the window and flees into the night.

~#~#~

Adam can't sleep.

This isn't a new occurence, or even a rare one, but tonight the air is heavy on his chest, warm and thick against his skin. Rain has begun to drizzle gently against the window, choking the world in mist.

Summer drowns him, only feeling all the worse for his blue spells.

The only good thing about summer break is being in the same city as Caleb - just a few minutes walk between them rather than hours.

On nights like these, they still feel worlds apart. Hamlet swims before his eyes, his body begging for sleep that won't come.

It's nearing two am when he hears the insistent tap on his window. Like a bird pecking its beak against the glass - loud, more frantic than Caleb's usual, dorky secret knock.

Something's wrong.

He throws his book aside, sliding the window up in a single, adrenaline-fuelled motion.

Caleb tumbles into the room, sprawling onto the carpet. He's still dressed in what he usually sleeps in - shorts and nothing else - his hair flattened by the rain.

There's a vivid bruise beginning to form around his wrists.

"Caleb?" Adam crouches down to his boyfriend's level, careful not to touch him. He's shivering - but not from cold, Adam thinks - eyes darting around the room like a wild animal. "Caleb," he tries again, softly, "what happened?"

"I- uh- I-" Caleb's voice is no more than gasps. His eyes finally zero in on Adam, and he tries to level out his own panic. Be the island of calm in Caleb's storm.

"It's okay. You're safe. You're with me."

Slowly, so slowly, Caleb's breaths begin to level out. He takes deep gulps of air, as if he's been suffocating underground for years.

Adam grabs his Yale hoodie from the back of his chair; Caleb accepts it with a wordless nod, his jaw working in an attempt to find voice.

"I, uh- someone just tried to kidnap me."

"What." Adam's emotions spike immediately but he doesn't have the energy to try to be calm. "Caleb, what the fuck?"

"I don't know." Caleb shakes his head, pulling the hoodie over himself distractedly. "One minute I was sleeping and the next- fuck, the next they were trying to gag me."

"Fuck." His thoughts are beginning to swirl with panic, worst case scenarios, fear. His parents behind masks. His boyfriend splayed out on an operating table. Blood on a sterile floor. "Okay. Wait. Who's they?"

"I don't know," Caleb shrugs again, starts pacing back and forth with an energy that seems to leech into the room, rile Adam's anxiety up until it sits in a weight on his chest. If Caleb notices, he doesn't say, too distracted by his own panic.

The rain breaks out into a full-on thunderstorm. It feels pretty fitting.

"Do you think it was the AM?"

"I don't know. I didn't even see their faces. I just felt them."

"Wait, then how did you get away?"

"I-" Caleb stops short. His fists flex in and out in spasms, the way they do when he's trying not to say something, trying to figure out what to say. "I don't know."

It's a lie. The realisation hits Adam like a slap in the face. He and Caleb don't lie to each other, not after everything they've gone through. Not after missing information and secrets have caused them so much grief already.

"You're lying to me," he says quietly, not bothering to keep the hurt out of his voice. Caleb can feel it all anyway.

Caleb is looking anywhere but him. Staring out of the window at the moon, partially obscured by rain clouds.

"Caleb, what did you do?"

"I don't know!" The shout is too big for this small room, echoes between them like the snap of piano wires. He's never been more glad for his parents to be at a conference on comparative biological methods. "One moment I was being held down by, like, five guys, and the next they were all gone!"

"They can't have just vanished, Caleb."

"I mean, it felt like they did. I don't know. I just, I was so scared, and I could barely contain everything, and then suddenly they were gone. Their calm. I couldn't find it anymore."

Something uncomfortable shifts inside Adam. "Because they weren't there anymore, or because they weren't calm anymore?"

Caleb stares at him, eyes wide and filled with horror. But it's not the horror of an awful suggestion, a how dare you insinuate what I think you are.

It's the horror of being known.

Adam swallows, throat dry. "Tell me you just managed to hit one of them or something, and they got scared. You're really strong, right? You must've just pushed them away and they decided to regroup for help."

Slowly, Caleb shakes his head. "It... it started about a month ago."

"What started a month ago?" He knows, he already knows, and can't begin to figure out how he feels about it.

"I can... push emotions onto other people. Like, if they're feeling angry, I can make them calm."

"If they're feeling sad you can make them happy?"

Caleb's eyes go wide. "I never- I swear, I would never do it to you! I've got this under control."

"Do you?"

"Yes!"

"Okay then."

"You- wait, what?"

Adam folds himself into sitting back on the bed, looking up at Caleb. "I trust you, Caleb. Did you really think I would- what, hate you for this? Something that isn't your fault? If you didn't have this power, it sounds like you'd be zip-tied in a van somewhere right now."

He stands slowly, like approaching a scared animal. Caleb is still staring at him, startled. He wraps his arms around him, holding him close, as if he can still the tremors and fend off the world with nothing but his body.

"I'm just sad you felt you couldn't tell me," Adam says softly, voice muffled by Caleb's shoulder.

After a moment of hesitation, Caleb returns the hug, the fear uncertainty melting out of his body. They mold together, one entity, in perfect harmony. Steady breathing, steady heartbeats.

"I was so scared," Caleb's voice cracks with unshed tears. "I never wanted to hurt anyone. Or manipulate anyone. And if I can make people feel things, how am I any different from Damien?"

"You're nothing like Damien," Adam says fiercely, pulling away just enough so he can look into Caleb's bright green eyes. Puts a hand up to his face, letting Caleb lean into it. "You're Caleb Michaels. You're the love of my life. You're kind and empathic and you care. You're nothing like him."

Caleb lets out something between a laugh and a sigh of relief. "Thanks."

"I am far more concerned by the people who just tried to kidnap you from your own home. How did they even get in?"

"I dunno. I might have forgotten to lock the back door before I went to bed, I guess? Me and Alice were playing quidditch..." Caleb's voice trails into silence.

"Alice."

Adam doesn't need empathy to feel the fear spilling back into the room. "Call her. Now."

She doesn't pick up. The phone continues to ring on every try, and eventually goes straight to voicemail.

Dead.

Sickness churns in Adam's stomach.

"This is my fault," Caleb whispers, hands running nervously so fast through his curls he's a breath away from tearing it out in chunks. "They couldn't get to me so they went for her."

"We don't- we don't know that," Adam tries to be the voice of reason, though the waver in his words betrays him. "Maybe she's just asleep? She's a teenager, you know they can sleep through anything."

Caleb continues to pace. The room feels thick and warm, panic seeping into the air, into Adam. It fills him up like rain filling a well, a steady rise that creeps up on him, invades his insides.

This panic that is not his, but has the familiar, soft edges of yellow he knows belong to Caleb.

"Caleb," he starts, panic that is only partly his own hitching the last syllable. "Caleb, stop."

The panic continues to rise, overflowing. He is adrift, drowning under a green sea that is far more yellow than blue.

"Caleb!"

The invasion vanishes, like a band snapping back from stretching. It feels like the air being stolen from his lungs - he feels empty, hollowed out, barely more than a flickering ember of blue.

"I'm-" Horror etches itself into every inch of Caleb's features. It's a sight that won't leave Adam's memory any time soon. "I'm sorry. I- I need to leave."

"Wait- Caleb!"

But Caleb has always been faster than him, far more impulsive.

In a single motion he vaults through the window and vanishes into the trees at the bottom of the garden.

Thunder cracks across the skyline, a mirror of Adam's world breaking apart.

#fanfiction #the bright sessions #the college tapes #caleb michaels #adam hayes #tbs #tct #all the titles are from sleeping at last yes #own work #morgan writes

[space-blue]

Time’s Arrow

I wrote this in memory of a man I was smitten with for a long long time... It is the only story where I wrote a passage that felt written through me, made perfect by some greater force. A flow as good and deep as during your best tetris jams...

'Damn Ellen, Paris is off the maps forever isn't it?'

'Looks like it. No more visits to the Louvre for our holidays.'

'Well, instead of visiting the museums, we'll get to visit the Glass Sea of Paris.'

'When radiations cool, in half a million years?'

'You know this is the work of Russia's Harbingers. It's gonna be fine for tourism in fifty years tops.'

'How can you tell it's the Russians behind that? The news don't know yet.'

'It's a safe bet. Of all our enemies, no one else has the missiles required to fuse stuff the way that news drone is showing. At least not enough for a crater the size of Paris.'

'Fair point, Bobby.'

My husband is smart even when he's drunk, or rather, he becomes sloppy a while after I'm too drunk to notice. The news on TV have been drinking material for weeks now, but we try to contain both our drinking and TV time. Our little wine shelf is almost empty, and we need to keep the best for our last evening.

'I still can't believe it's all happening.'

'Yeah, feels like we'll realise we were watching the Sci-fi channel all along, doesn't it?'

Except there are no more fancy channels now. I let myself slump against Bobby. The world swirls, like we're on a raft. Adrift and going down the drain. I feel his fingers plunge in my hair, his voice rumble out of his chest as he comments on the never ending horror show of the news. I need to sleep. We have so much work to do, and so little time to finish now.

----

In my dreams I'm twenty and Bobby thirty-five again, just old enough to feel scandalous, but smart enough to obsess me. We meet once more in the hall of my building at NASA. Our programs, about to join and merge like our lives and our love later would, is still about space exploration, and not yet about human survival. But time has gone by, as time is wont to do. The past only lives in my dreams.

----

One day I had offered to exit stasis first, and spend a few years setting up our new abode, developing relationships with our new neighbours–if there were any–just to even out our age gap. He'd laughed at that, refused to be robbed of the privileges of a young wife.

"Besides," he'd said, "if the dinosaurs are back, I'd want to be there to defend you, tame them and learn to ride them..."

"If our stasis tanks last long enough for dinos to re-evolve, we could give ourselves a Nobel Prize of all sciences compounded."

Truth is, we don't know how they'll fare, or if they'll even take us through the war, as brief as it'll probably be. We've tested them before, short sleeps increasing to two full years in 2036-38. Our tanks have few changes from the original deep-pods we built for NASA. But a single glitch could mean death. I plunge my hand in the depth of a panel, feeling my way up the thick cooling lines and slowly tugging coils of them out in the open. Ten years working on these machines and I still can't shake the feeling of disembowelling them when the cables flop in my lap. A huntress in a lab-coat, oil a dark-blue blood under my nails. I run my fingers along the length of the cables, inspecting every joint, looking for wear and pieces to replace. How many years before one of them ruptures, a tremor from our dying world snaps them out of place? The deep-stasis pods Bobby and I worked on at NASA were meant to last almost indefinitely, easily up to a century without physical check-up, but within ships which propel themselves smoothly, and won't risk getting bombed or running out of power.

'Bobby, which wires did you say you wanted me to look at? This is all fine.'

'Bundle B1A, Ellen. And maybe T4A too, if you have time.'

'I always have time for this. If you're worried, then so am I.'

'I'm sure it'll be fine. The installation is ready, the power systems have been running smoothly for years. The sleep should go as planned.' He cleans his hands in a rag. 'All the auxiliary systems are good, I'm done with my check list, and just in time.'

I make a face at my handsome, grubby looking husband.

'I wish we could go back in time, instead of freezing it.'

'We're not freezing time, only removing ourselves from it.'

'Nothing in physics keeps time from flowing back, I wish I had studied more... Invented something to turn the arrow of time.'

I picture the glass sea of Paris contracting, liquefying itself in a mass of living people, monuments and pastry shops, the missile collecting its fragments and taking flight, propelled only by the inexorability of time. I imagine arguments being swallowed back, wine spit in glasses and gurgling up bottles. I imagine my ring sliding off my finger, Bobby's lips hot on mine for the first time again, and then unknown to me. Time doesn't seem to ever be kind.

----

Many cities have joined Paris into oblivion before the TV went quiet, and we drink in their name, and the name of all the people snuffed out by the war. The wine is red, french, our best and last bottle. Bobby looks at me anxiously before opening it. He fears it might have turned to vinegar. But it hasn't, and we make the best of it, drinking and fucking like teenagers all night long.

When morning comes we leave our bedroom for the cellar, bleary eyed, down our bunker, to our new beds.

'Ellen, Ellen, I'm scared.' His hands are around my face, cupping it behind my ears, turning me in some sort of parabolic dish directed towards him, tuned to receive the warm radiations of his love. 'I'm so scared of losing you.'

I cover his hands with mine and tell him how since I love him more, I'm the most scared, and drink in the sight of his face crinkling in a lavish smile.

'I'll see you in a hundred years handsome, but it'll feel like ten minutes, like last time. And we'll be together again.'

I hate to see him like that in his tank. It feels like bending over a metal coffin. I kiss him deeply, listen to his speech slur as the drugs take over, his eyes, until last, never leaving mine.

My own tank is cold and clammy, and the slow chime of the console as the computer helps me launch the last protocols sounds like a soft electronic bedtime tune. I listen to my breath, to my slowing heart, and the world goes dark.

----

Waking is horrible, no matter how long you've slept. I've been puking for a while, panting, coughing, and my head won't stop spinning. I'm halfway out of my tank, shivering in the cold air. There are voices speaking all around me, and a thick cover wraps my shoulders.

'Bobby?'

'Nej, sisa.'

'Huh?'

I look up into the face of a complete stranger. A woman, making cooing sounds at me. Around us are bright lights and more people wearing face masks.

'What the...'

Behind her shoulder, Bobby's tank is open. My mind trips to make sense of how open it is. Panels unscrewed, bowels dark and grey and missing. It's so wrong.

They're taking me away, I'm too weak to fight it. They're not slowing down, no matter how loud I cry.

----

A man settles in front of me, and props a little apparatus on his knees. It's a flat, metallic object, the size of a hand, without screens or special features. He taps it, speaks over it in his alien tongue, and the machine translates his words to English.

'My name is Martek, I am Fransken. How do you feel? Do you need medical attention? What is your name?'

I gape. Questions fight to come out first.

'I'm fine, my name is Ellen Vorden, I–'

The man smiles at me, and repeats my name.

'What year is this?'

'We're in 1750.'

'What?'

For a moment I think of the year 1750, however impossible Time Travel might be. But the man's smart black clothes, long braided hair and advanced technology don't look very industrial revolution.

'Ah, sorry' Martek flushes, 'in old English it is the year 2350.'

It takes me a long time to process that, to imagine how a hundred years sleep more than doubled itself. The best explanation...

'Where is Bobby?'

No. No, why is he frowning?

'The man in the other machine?'

'Yes.'

----

He left me a message, of the sort that could withstand time, carved and gouged into the stone floor. Like an old pyramid treasure room, they unearthed our little bunker and found us, relics of the past. Me in my metal sarcophagi, Bobby a skeleton propped at my side. From what I gathered, critical system failures made the computer launch his awakening eighty-eight years in our sleep. With irreplaceable broken parts in his stasis monitor, there was no going back to sleep for him. Outside data must have been terrible, because he chose to dismantle his tank to tinker and enhance mine. At the bottom of his message are some universal scribbles, present over all the greatest buildings of mankind and whatever school desks might have survived the ages: a B+E in the middle of a heart, and under it 2030– and the looped symbol of eternity. Time folded back on itself.

Ah, Bobby, you tacky bastard, you old romantic. How do I live after you?

----

Ellen love, I hope you make it and we won't go down in history as another stupid, star-crossed couple of scientists. I had no choice. I watch you sleep. It's so hard to keep from waking you up. I think of Time like you did sometimes, wishing for it to roll back. But it doesn't. You'll have to let it flow too, when you wake up. I hope the world will be a better place then. Until the universe cools and time ceases to matter, when past is present and we can be together again, you touring me around your labs, proud like a little peacock, so adorable, so brilliant – I'll be yours, always.

Bobby

~~ November 2016 – Theme : 1750

#original story #original work #competition #scifi #romance #favourite

[alleiradayne]

Unconventional A J2 x Reader RPF Series

After a rousing evening of Friday Night Karaoke at the Supernatural convention, you’re tired and about to go to bed. But then a distinctly familiar laugh echoes through the hallway outside your hotel room door, and sleep is the last thing on your mind.

Part VIII - Emotional

Summary: What do you do after a weekend full of Jared and Jensen? Warnings/Tags: Angst. Like. A lot of angst. And some fluff... Characters/Pairings: Jensen Ackles/Jared Padalecki/Female Reader Word Count: 5,032 A/N: For the love of everything good in this world, assume everyone involved is single or polyamorous. No. Wife. Hate. Allowed. This series as a whole will fulfill my Polyamory square for @spnkinkbingo but not until closer to the end. Beta’d by @atc74 because she’s awesome and managed to read this hella long buncha nonsense.

In the interstitial space between asleep and awake, your subconsciousness floated, adrift on an endless sea of unadulterated bliss. Dreams clamored for your attention, visions of salacious fantasies that teased at your senses. You lingered there between those worlds, between fact and fiction, desperate, anxious, and even a little scared. You struggled to shake the idea that, were you to awaken, that easy peace you had found would cease to exist, and a grim reality would replace it.

Hope. Some stray sense of hope had lulled you to sleep the night before. So, you latched on to it, to the sore muscles and warm skin and familiar sleepy breaths that marked a steady cadence in your ears. Most of all, you trusted that you were not alone, and that, when you did decide to shrug off your sleep, you would find yourself in the arms of two people that felt the same way as you.

Whatever happened next, you left up to fate, and opened your eyes.

The three of you had hardly moved in the night. Jensen yet lay on his back, his hand on your arm draped over his chest, and the other on your thigh crossed over his hip. Jared had curled in so close to your back, you could barely tell where he ended and you began. One leg laid over yours and an arm wrapped around your waist to hold you tight against his entire torso. Afraid to wake them, you did your best to remain still and waited for them to come to on their own.

You had expected to learn something unpleasant about at least one, if not both men overnight. Snoring, maybe drooling. Or needing to defend yourself from elbows and knees. But, no. Instead, they were perfect and slept sounder than the dead. Jensen’s eyes remained still behind his lids, undreaming. So close, you counted the freckles that dusted his nose and cheeks until you nearly fell back asleep. When you turned over your shoulder, you found the most incredible image of Jared you’d ever seen. The sheet had fallen off him completely—he must have kicked it off in the night—and his hair covered his entire face but for the tip of his nose.

As though he felt your eyes on him, Jared breathed in deep and exhaled with a contented hum through his nose. His arm squeezed you tighter for a hug as he buried his face in the crook of your neck and kissed you, his hair teasing your skin. A subtle sigh of your own roused Jensen, who rolled onto his side and entwined his legs with yours. When he found no space for his arm around your back, he reached further to envelop Jared in his embrace, his hand resting on his hip.

“Morning,” he whispered against your lips, then placed several short, sweet kisses there. “Sleep okay?”

“Slept great,” you said with a laugh, hoping to hide the quaver in your voice. “Although I imagine I was completely exhausted after last night.”

Jared sighed as he continued to nuzzle your neck. “It was… something else, that’s for sure.”

An unsettling hint of emotion distorted his voice, hidden like an undercurrent that threatened to sweep you away. Did he worry like you? Had he thought of all the implications, the impossibility of the situation?

“Y/N?” Jensen mumbled. “You okay?”

“I’m… fine,” you said with a sigh and an unconvincing smile.

He propped his head up on his hand and cupped your cheek. “What’s up, honey?”

You searched his eyes for the answer but found nothing except more questions. Over your shoulder you spotted Jared’s gaze averted, staring into the middle distance. “I don’t… what do we do now? Do I just… go home?”

Jared pulled his hair back from his face as he sighed but said nothing. A swell of pink colored his nose and brow as his eyes reddened, still staring off at nothing. When you turned back to Jensen, you found him staring at Jared, a knot of worry etched into his brow. “I’m afraid we all need to get back to reality.”

Your worst fear rekindled, fueled by Jensen’s truth. You knew, had known all along, that what you wanted was impossible. Where would you live? What would you do for work? And how would society in general even accept such a lifestyle? Could you keep it entirely private? Ceaseless questions spiraled out of control until Jensen interrupted your thoughts.

“Hey, no tears okay, I…” he paused with a hitch in his breath. “I can’t handle that shit, I’ll start crying, too. And Mr. Waterworks back there is probably already doing it, so I’ll be a mess in a few minutes anyway.”

With a deep breath, you did your best to rein in your emotions. “This sucks,” you muttered. “I want… I know what I want is impossible.”

“It is,” Jared agreed as he returned his lips to your skin. “But we feel the same way, if that helps.”

You turned to your back and the two of them curled in closer. “Our plane is leaving soon,” Jensen started. “We shouldn't waste any more time. Need to get some rest tonight since we're on call sheets tomorrow.”

“At least you got Monday off,” you said. “But… I almost regret it. You should have left last night. Before all this…”

Jensen rubbed your stomach as he spoke. “The damage had already been done. Last night was just a confirmation of how we all felt after Friday and Saturday.”

Great. You had ruined three lives in two nights. “I'm so sorry, guys. I wish I hadn't made things so messy. It was just supposed to be a fun weekend. I thought I could go home today and go back to my life but…”

“Trust me, Y/N, that's the last thing we want,” Jared sighed. “We’re as crazy about you as you are about us. But we do have to go.”

You promised yourself you wouldn't cry, but the tears welled so suddenly, you had no chance of holding them back. “Fuck, I'm sorry.”

“It's okay,” Jensen soothed. “We’ll never forget you. This con was one for the record books. It'll always have a special place in my heart.”

“Says the guy who hates chick flicks,” you replied.

“Oh, he's full of shit, he loves them,” Jared teased.

You raised a questioning brow at him as Jensen shrugged and said, “Guilty.”

His laughter filled your heart near to busting, but you fell quiet once more. Thank God for their mutual silence. For letting you lay there with them as long as you wanted. Maybe you would remember them better that way. Maybe, when you looked at the pictures you took and your photo op with Jared and their autographs, you would remember that exact moment, laying in their arms, above all others.

“It’s time, Y/N,” Jensen started. “We have to go.”

A frustrated grunt followed Jared as he quite forcefully shoved himself from the bed. Cold, you shivered in the void that replaced him, and though you wanted to reach out to stop him, you remained beside Jensen. Jared gathered his clothes and headed for the bathroom without even a cursory glance at the bed.

“This is gonna be really rough on him,” Jensen started as he pushed to sit at the edge of the bed.

You followed him and asked, “Why? What’s wrong?”

Jensen snatched his boxers off the floor and slipped them on. “I think he’s gotten quite attached to you,” he explained. “And he might not be alone.”

You looked to the bathroom door as you considered Jensen’s words. “Are you sure?” you asked as you hopped from the bed and gathered the scattered pieces of your clothes. Your suitcase sat on the other side of the room, and there you sorted through your clothes for something comfortable to wear on the flight home.

“Yeah,” Jensen nodded as he righted the sleeves of his shirt. His socks followed and he retrieved his boots near the door. He brought them to you and set them near the bed as he spoke.  “I’m sorry, Y/N, we never meant for things to get like this.”

“I know,” you said. “It’s nobody’s fault,” you continued as you slipped into a pair of underwear and a fresh bra. “And then again, it is everyone’s fault.”

You pulled on a pair of jeans and a t-shirt, then immediately slumped in Jensen’s arms again. Before either of you spoke, Jared burst from the bathroom, dressed and hair tamed. He paused a moment as he spotted you, then crossed the room for the door. Without another look, he wrenched the door aside and strode into the hallway. The door slammed shut after him, loud as a clap of thunder.

“Oh, I am so sorry, Y/N,” Jensen said as he kissed the top of your head. “He’s in a lot of pain.”

Numb dread chilled your toes and your tears stopped. “I understand,” you said. “You should go.”

Jensen parted from you with a pained scowl plastered to his face. “I hope to see you again.”

“Me too.”

He turned for the door and pulled it aside, but not without one last look over his shoulder. “Goodbye, Y/N.”

And just like that, the two of them vanished from your life. So suddenly alone, you slumped onto the foot of the bed and sat in stunned silence.

In the hallway, Jensen headed for the suite at the end of the hall and pounded on the door. “Dude, open up.”

The door swung wide without delay and Jared towered over him, face red and wet. “What?! I’m packing! We need to get going!”

When he tried to slam the door shut, Jensen blocked him and shoved his way into the room. With a disgusted scoff, Jared returned to his packing, slamming things into his suitcase.

“Look, man, I know this sucks,” Jensen started, “but what are we supposed to do? We can’t bring her with.”

“I know!” Jared bellowed. “Go pack so we can get the fuck out of here!”

He had not expected that. Hell, at the very least, he had expected Jared to fight back. But that? He couldn't argue with him.

Jensen turned on his heel and strode through the door. He stomped down the hallway, headed for the elevators, but froze as he reached your room. The image of your numb resolution returned to the fore of his mind, a fresh memory that mirrored Jared's anguish. And the longer he stood there, the worse he felt until the sting of his own furious tears welled in his eyes. Nothing would make things any easier than they were at that moment. So, he forced one foot in front of the other, fighting every desire in his body to say one last goodbye, and rounded the hallway for the elevators.

The call button opened an elevator door immediately and he rushed into it, eager to be on his way. But when the doors closed behind him and it lurched into motion, he wept.

The hour passed uneventful. The first fifteen minutes you hadn’t noticed. The next half-hour dragged. And another fifteen rounded out the hour. You had finished packing in the first five, then created other things to do for the remaining fifty-five. A few hands of Bridge on your phone consumed ten minutes. Social media consumed another fifteen. Work emails warranted at least twenty minutes before you remembered you sat in your hotel room and should head to the airport soon. And at ten minutes shy of the hour, you confirmed it took a mere twelve strides to cross your room.

You almost made it out the door before you spotted the watch on the bedside table. Silver with a bright blue face, it glinted in the lamplight as though it beckoned you. You returned to the bed, a heap of sheets piled atop it, and sat on its edge as you hefted the watch.

The frame of the face rotated under your thumb as you inspected the timepiece. It must have cost a small fortune. Given the side of the bed on which you had found it, you assumed it belonged to Jared. And after waiting over an hour for Jensen to return like had promised he would, you figured that, at the very least, you’d make some money pawning it.

The thought broke your heart. Tears welled and blurred your vision. It was the only thing you had left of him, the only thing to remind you of what had transpired that weekend. Sure, there were the autographs and photo ops. But his watch? That had to mean something, some sort of symbolism.

You shoved it into your suitcase and promptly forgot about it.

At the door to your hotel room, you wiped the tears from your eyes and steadied your breath. One last sweep of the room accomplished absolutely fuck-all besides tug at your heartstrings again. You could hardly look at the bed without wanting to scream. Best to just leave then, get to the airport a little early. Eat lunch, read, maybe even write. After that weekend, you had plenty of emotion to draw on for some particularly depressing scenes.

Through the door you pushed your suitcase and shifted your backpack on your shoulder. Without another look, you started down the hallway for the elevators. You couldn’t look back. If you did, you might never leave.

The door slammed with a thunderous crash as though a tomb had sealed shut on an expired life. Your mind blanked in the wake of that sound as you stared at the elevator. And then in a final fit of rage, you punched the call button with your solid fist, cracking the plastic and breaking open your knuckle.

“Shit.”

“Alright, we’ve got about an hour before we board, you wanna get a drink?”

Jared glared over the top of his book. “No.”

Jensen’s lips thinned to naught but a line as he pushed to his feet. “Fine, I’m getting a drink.”

“Don’t be late!” Jared insisted under his breath. “I want to get out of here.”

Jensen stopped beside him as he said, “You know, you could have at least said goodbye.”

When Jared rolled his eyes, Jensen scoffed and walked away for a nearby bar. Hopefully, he’d pick up a waitress and fuck her in the bathroom. Might help him get over Y/N. Then that way he’d stop bringing her up every five minutes.

Jared wanted nothing more than to forget all of it. As amazing as it had been, the pain in parting had been far too great for them both. Jensen rolled with it well enough. But Jared did not. Had he lingered any longer in her bed, he would have succumbed to his base desires and capitulated to everything Y/N wanted.

He couldn’t stand the thought of you thinking about him in that way, a blubbering mess and begging for you to uproot your life, to follow him across the country. Or God forbid he put his foot in his mouth and ask you to wait for the show to end, to wait for him to find some sort of normal life and return to you when he had the time. Fuck that. Fuck all of it. How could he ask you for any of that? What kind of asshole did that?

His phone chirped in his pocket with a short buzz. When Jared withdrew it and found a text from Jensen, he almost ignored it.

Almost.

Jackles: I can hear you thinking all the way over here.

Jared rolled his eyes as he slumped further into his seat.

Sasquatch: Then move further away.

Jensen’s response arrived a second later.

Jackles: Dude, I’d have to move to the moon to not hear your heart breaking right now.

Jared shoved his phone back in his pocket only to feel another text come through.

Jackles: We didn’t have to leave her like that.

Sasquatch: Will you just forget about it already? It was a one-night stand.

Jackles: Technically, it was two nights. THREE for her.

Sasquatch: I know! Why do you think I feel like such a giant piece of shit?!

He turned his phone to silent, shoved it into a pocket in his suitcase and returned to his book. At least they would be boarding soon, and after a nap, they’d be in Vancouver and back on set. He couldn’t stand to think about that weekend any longer, lest it rip his heart from his chest. Fuck, but he had been so stupid. He thought he could have some fun, share a woman with his lover, then move on. But Y/N had proved him so wrong, he damn near regretted everything that had happened since the moment you had found him in the hallway.

He stared at his book, reading the same passage over and over and retained none of it. After the fourth attempt, he threw it into his bag and stood in a huff. He should get a drink. Jensen was right, a drink or five would help. As he leaned down to retrieve his phone from his bag, he checked his watch.

Except he wasn't wearing his watch.

“Shit.”

The line for security had taken ten minutes. The walk to your gate, despite your very slow trudge, took two. The decision to get a drink at the bar took five. That left you with an hour before boarding.

Might as well get hammered.

At the end of the short terminal, your gate sat between two others and a bar. Empty, the bar seemed the perfect place to get smashed and forget the weekend had ever happened. Nothing better to get over a one-night stand than a wasted flight home.

If only it had been one night.

As you approached the bar, you spotted the bartender busied herself with cleaning and organizing, bottles situated and glasses gleaming. You wended your way through tables to the middle of the bar directly in front of her, sat down in a seat that had been angled askew, and found it warm. A subtle hint of a familiar scent teased at your nose, and you searched with a hurried glance in both directions, but as before, the bar remained empty.

Before your chair and angled against the rail sat a large iPhone in a black case, nondescript but for its worn-in use by a large right hand. When you settled, the bartender leaned over the bar and said, “What can I get you, honey?”

You looked up from the phone and handed it to her. “Double of Bowmore, neat. And this was sitting here.”

She took the phone from you and nodded. “Oh. Musta been that looker with that hat,” she started. “He had a big enough broken heart for both of us,” she said as she placed it by the register on the back counter. “He’ll be back, expensive phone like that.” She paused at the wall of liquor, grabbed the bottle of Bowmore off the middle shelf, then looked over her shoulder as she asked, “You said a double, sweetheart?”

“Yeah,” you sighed.

She poured out your drink and handed it to you. “’Nother broken heart, huh? You shoulda met that other fella. He was sittin’ right there not five minutes ago. Peas in a pod you two woulda been.”

You sipped from your glass as she rambled, half-listening. She went on about him for the better part of fifteen-minutes, about how crazy his weekend had been and how eager he seemed to be to tell her about the woman he’d met. But you sipped your drink, remained silent, and tuned her out. Not like you cared about some random fucking guy’s weekend fling.

“What about you, darlin’? What’s got you half into a glass of the hard stuff?” she chirped.

You stared at her for a second before you took a deep breath and said, “I fucked two famous dudes three nights in a row, the third of which was a threesome, and now they’re flying back to Vancouver to film their TV show.” A sip of your drink punctuated your statement, and the clunk of the heavy glass on the bar closed the topic.

Big brown eyes started at you for a beat before the bartender burst into laughter. “Oh, sweetheart, you are quite the character,” she said as she poked buttons on the screen of her register.

Of course, she didn’t believe you. Who in their right fucking mind would believe such a ridiculous story? Hell, if someone else had told you a story even remotely like yours, you’d laugh in their face, too. But that was before the absolute insanity of that weekend.

“I broke up with my boyfriend and I’m flying back home,” you said, and you hated just how close that came to the fucking truth.

“Oh, honey. I’m sorry. You’ll find another, pretty gal like you,” she said as she returned to her cleaning.

More small talk crossed between you for several minutes before she returned to talking about her previous patron, surprised that he hadn’t yet returned for his very expensive phone. While you listened, you retained hardly anything she said, choosing instead to continue thinking about nothing. The bartender blathered on, her endless gushing about wide brimmed hats, freckled noses, green eyes, full lips, and big shoulders boring you to… to…

Son of a bitch.

“Give me that phone.”

The bartender stopped mid-sentence as though she had been punched in the gut. “Excuse me?”

“The phone. I know who it belongs to,” you stated.

“I can't do that, he might—oh, good timing!”

You caught a subtle whiff of his scent before you heard your name all but sung in his perfect baritone.

“Y/N.”

That sound should have sent a shiver up your spine, put a quake in your knees. Hell, it should have ruined your god damn underwear. A voice like that was most women's wet dream.

But for you, it was your worst nightmare, and your heart broke all over again.

His hand enveloped yours on the bar before you turned to him. If you looked at him, it would all be over. There would be no turning back, no going home. At least in the hotel, it had been quick, like a band-aid ripped from your skin. The sting of parting ways had been sharp, but short. Nothing but a dull ache left you sore. But that wound would open again if you looked.

“You got my phone back there, sweetheart?” he asked the bartender.

You kept your eyes glued to your drink as the bartender silently handed Jensen his phone. “Thanks.” He returned his attention to you as his fingers slipped into your palm as you gripped his hand tighter than a vice. “You can keep squeezing, honey, but it ain’t gonna break.”

“Dammit,” you choked with a laugh despite your impending tears.

“Come here,” he insisted as he coaxed you from your chair. Not that he had to do much convincing. You slipped from the stool and wrapped your arms around his waist as Jensen held your head to his chest. “God, am I glad you’re here. But I didn’t realize you weren’t from town.”

“Jared knows,” you started as Jensen parted from you. Eyes still averted, you continued. “I showed him my driver’s license, remember? That’s why he wanted to get out of here so bad.”

“Y/N, can you at least look at me?” he asked as he cupped your cheek. “Please?”

You shook your head with a firm frown. “I can’t. You said goodbye already, I can’t go through it again.”

“I’m sorry,” he said as he took both of your hands in his. “I never meant for things to go this way,” he continued. “Please, just look at me.”

Over the intercom, a boarding announcement began. Jensen groaned as he cursed, then leaned into your ear and whispered, “Honey, I'm begging you, please look at me.”

“If that's your flight, you should go,” you said. “It's for the best.”

His knees hit the floor before you said another word, and his green eyes—red and full of tears—bored into yours. “If you won't look up at me, then I'm gonna do this on my knees. I want you to be at the next con.”

The pit of your stomach dropped as though you rode a rollercoaster. “What the fuck are you doing, Jensen, get up,” you hissed as you tried to pull him to his feet.

“No. I need to say this to your face, not the top of your head, and you refuse to look at me,” he said, “so you've got me on my knees for probably the third time this weekend. And I’m begging, also probably for the third time this weekend.”

You gawked at him, his words brazen and unrepentantly lurid. “Stop that!” you demanded as you looked at people slowing to watch.  “Get up, you're making a scene.”

“Fuck those people,” he said as he tossed a cursory glance at onlookers. “If they wanna watch, let 'em. I perform better with an audience anyway,” he added with a coy smirk.

“Jensen!”

“What?” he laughed as he wiped his tears away. “C’mon, Y/N. Come to the next con. We’ll fly you out, you can kick it in the green room all you want. We mostly just sleep in there.” He paused with a thoughtful gleam in his eye. “Although, there was that one time Jared and I were alone—”

“Seriously?!”

“Yeah, it was pretty hot, he just bent me over the arm of the—”

You clamped a hand over his mouth before any more salacious details of green room sex spilled out. “Cut it out!”

“Say you'll go to the con,” he started when you removed your hand. “I want you to come with us to Vancouver right now,” he added. “But I know that's not—”

“I'll go.”

His mouth shut with a click of his teeth. “To the con?”

You leaned into his embrace as a nervous twitch of a smile tugged at the corner of your lips. All or nothing. That had been the truth of it since Friday night. And the further into the weekend you went, the harder it had been to ignore it. You wanted everything they had to offer and you were willing to make the biggest sacrifice for it. So you dove in headfirst despite that welling sensation in the pit of your stomach.

“Both. I can do Vancouver for a few days. And the con next month,” you said.

How could his eyes shine any greener? They were the stuff of fairytales. So full of hope, he asked. “Really? What about the cons after that? Can we fly you out every month?”

His arms wrapped around your hips to grasp your backside as yours encircled his shoulders. “Hell yes. I don’t know why you didn’t ask in my room.”

The floor left your feet in a rush as Jensen stood, legs wrapped around his hips and holding you so tight, you felt as though you might burst. With his lips against yours he spoke. “I don't either, honey. All I know now is that we should have.”

He barely gave you a moment to breathe before his lips landed on yours. Relief so sweet coursed through every fiber of your existence. Cleansed of your apathy, you gave yourself entirely to Jensen and never looked back.

Countless seconds passed before the intercom interrupted the moment again. Jensen parted from you with a curse and set you on your feet. “That’s our flight.”

“Jen?!”

Jared’s bark of yell sounded around the corner of the bar as he loped into sight. The second your eyes met, he stopped dead in his tracks, nearly stumbling to a halt. For a single beat of your heart he stared, wide hazel eyes flashing so bright with suddenly renewed hope.

He said not a single word. Three long strides crossed the space between you, his towering frame bearing over you as he picked you up in his massive embrace. His lips landed on yours for a firm, desperate kiss that lasted far too few seconds. When he parted from you, he spoke. “Fuck, I missed you.”

“We were apart for two hours,” you muttered into the crook of his neck. “Speaking of which, I have something of yours.”

As he set you on your feet, you dug into your pocket and withdrew his watch. When you handed it to him, he wrapped your fingers around it, his massive hand enveloping yours. “Keep it. That way you'll always remember our time together when we’re apart.”

Thank God for Jared's emotional perception. As the tears threatened to return, one hand dove into your hair at the nape of your neck and you melted into his embrace as the other circled your hip. He pressed closer, and damn all the extra eyes and gawking mouths that fell open as they stared. His lips found yours for another kiss so tender, so full of need, you worried the bathroom on the airplane might not be big enough for the both of you.

When he parted from you once more, his eyes fluttered open, wide and bright despite the dim bar light. Several long seconds ticked by until the intercom announced the final boarding for Vancouver. Jared glanced overhead, then returned his gaze to you. “I think I love you.”

“I think I knew that,” you started, “And I’m pretty sure I love you, too.”

“I’m going to throw up.”

Over your shoulder you glared at Jensen and said, “And I’m damn near certain I love you, too.”

Jensen's derisive gag started a fit of giggles in you. When you turned back to Jared, he said, “Now or never. What do you think?”

You smiled as you took Jared by the hand and headed for the gate.

“I think you've picked yourselves up a stowaway.”

Fin

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