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lesbianrumi · 3 years

Text

— heavy burdens.

pairing. kaeya/gender neutral reader

genre. angst

description. on an important anniversary, kaeya gets drunk off his ass, bonds with a fellow captain, and realizes some burdens can’t ever be set back down.

warnings. spoilers for kaeya and diluc’s character stories. mentions of alcohol and a character (kaeya) being under the influence.

note. four months later and i’ve finally finished this fic after writing it on and off for that whole time mskfjdks a big thank you to sierra, miya, and grace for reading over the previous drafts of this and giving me their honest thoughts, love you ladies <3

He hadn’t expected to get shitfaced when he had first stepped foot in the tavern. Honest.

His plan for the evening was as follows: Go to Angel’s Share, chat with patrons, share some laughs, learn some secrets, and see where the night goes. Only the information he gleaned would tell how it ended; with him stumbling back to his quarters for a night’s rest, or ruminating on how to dismantle schemes that enemies of Mondstadt were concocting in the shadows.

So, the usual. Nothing too noteworthy.

Then he happened to overhear a conversation on the way there.

The two civilians spoke in low, somber tones about how it has been exactly one year since Master Crepus’s death and his son Diluc’s subsequent departure from Mondstadt. How terrible, they mused as they shook their heads, that the new winery master hasn’t been heard from since. He must still be in mourning over his father.

Kaeya nearly stopped in the middle of the crowded street. Was today really the one-year anniversary of Master Crepus’s death? How had it managed to slip his mind? He’s been busy lately with a promising lead, true, but to think that he would forget...

Which, long story cut ruthlessly short, leads him to where he is now. Tuning out his tumultuous thoughts with the help of alcohol and secrets.

Upon entering the tavern to raucous cheers, he had flitted from table to table like the social butterfly he's purported to be. The usual suspects greeted him with varying levels of warmth, inviting him to sit and keep them company. Stable hands and bandits alike shared a drink with him, words spilling from their lips like the fine wine they supped on.

After some time, though, he grew tired of their monotonous days and banal gripes. So he retreated to the bar counter. As he nursed a Death After Noon, he kept an ear out, listening carefully even as he chatted with Charles between customers.

Unfortunately, he hasn’t heard anything juicy yet. So and so is complaining about his wife, while someone else is haranguing her boss, and another is celebrating their birthday. Dull and uninteresting.

Can you blame him for getting so deep in his cups? There’s nothing else to do on such a slow night.

“So this is where you decided to hide out. Colour me surprised.”

Kaeya notes the shadow falling over the counter moments before a familiar drawl reaches his ears. He tilts his head up, blinking furiously when his vision blurs. The drinks he's downed thus far—how many has it been? He lost count after five, how unlike him—have certainly reached his bloodstream.

You stand beside his stool, your lips thinned into an unimpressed line. Despite how inebriated he is, the relevant information he has on you flashes through his mind. A Knight of Favonius. Captain of the Intelligence Team. Once a company grade officer, then sergeant, lieutenant, before ascending to captain upon the retirement of your superior.

As admired as he is by most of Mondstadt, you’re among the minority who are far from his biggest fans. For good reason, he supposes. During your first meeting, he had congratulated you on your promotion, before going on to flippantly insult your old captain. You’ve hated him ever since.

Which is why he’s puzzled by you approaching him first—outside of headquarters, at that. Such a phenomenon is rare, like catching a crystalfly in your hands.

“Captain! Fancy seeing you here,” he greets, adopting a jovial tone. Then your words register in his addled mind. “‘Hide out’, you said? Whatever would I do that for?”

You prop a hand on your hip. “You didn’t make an appearance at the meeting today. Needless to say, the Dandelion Knight isn’t too impressed with you at the moment.” You appraise him, looking underwhelmed by what you see. Ouch. “Strange. You don’t seem terribly ill to me.”

Ah. That. Kaeya had wanted to investigate some curious rumours he’d heard around the city, so he made up a flimsy excuse to dodge the captain’s meeting held this morning. Grand Master Varka likely hadn’t batted an eye over it, but not Jean. She’ll have concerns.

He hums noncommittally. The thought of annoying his oldest ally never fails to bring a smirk to his lips, but he isn’t quite in the mood right now. “Is that so. You must be here to sternly tell me to clean up my act then.”

You scoff. “Surely you don’t need a second babysitter. No, I’m off-duty, so I’m here for the same reason everyone else is: to drink.”

“Hear, hear.” He lifts his tankard as if to toast to you, but the sudden momentum causes him to sway dangerously in his seat.

“Careful!” Eyes widening in alarm, you reach out to steady him. “Geez, Alberich. How many drinks have you had?”

The palm of your hand is warm where it sits on his shoulder; he can tell that even with his furs in the way. He almost leans into the touch but catches himself at the last second. How mortifying. He can just picture your horrified reaction to him drunkenly nuzzling up against you.

Almost falling off his seat in a crowded tavern, instinctively seeking out your slightest touch... He needs to get a hold of himself. Or find a way to halt the conversation here, so he can resume drinking by his lonesome.

“Not nearly enough,” he answers airily, leaning an elbow on the bar counter. You drop your hand to your side; he makes a point to not stare at it as you do. “Where’s your entourage? I’m surprised they aren't following dutifully behind you.”

“They’re my subordinates, not my entourage.” You shift awkwardly. “And they aren’t here. It may surprise you, but they have lives outside of the Intelligence Team. They can enjoy one evening without their captain breathing down their necks.”

He eyes you in amusement. “In that case, you should join me. I would welcome the company.” He finishes off his tankard, then motions to Charles for another drink. The bartender doesn’t even ask which one as he takes the pewter mug. He knows him well by now, after all.

Kaeya expects you to turn him down and find a seat elsewhere. Usually, such an invitation is enough to send you running for the hills. You lean a hip against the counter instead, as if settling in. “If I am not mistaken, you’re needed at headquarters tomorrow. I strongly advise you to call it a night, Captain.”

“Aww, are you worried about me, Captain?” He manages a grin at the scowl his reply elicits. “Don’t be. It won’t be the first time I stumble into work hungover. Certainly won’t be the last either.”

“How reassuring,” you say dryly.

“I aim to please.”

He perks up when Charles returns with a full tankard. The delectable taste of Death After Noon still sits on his tongue, warm and heady. He very much wants to experience it again. When he lifts the mug to his mouth, however, he misses the rim. He steadies the tankard before it empties itself onto his lap, but some of the wine drips down his chin, ruining his vest.

Thank goodness he isn’t drinking red wine. Every adult in Mondstadt knows red wine stains are notoriously difficult to clean. Still, what a waste of a perfectly good sip.

“Oh, for Barbatos’s sake.” That’s all the warning he gets before his drink is rudely snatched from his hand. He protests but can only watch helplessly as you bring it to your lips.

Then you proceed to down it.

His brows raise higher and higher the longer your throat bobs. He's never seen you drink with such gusto before. Shouldn’t you be gasping for breath by now? But no, you empty the tankard in a single go, then slam it on the counter (Charles makes a face, but wisely says nothing) and meet his gaze without flinching.

Wow, is all that his intoxicated mind can conjure up at the feat.

“There, all done. Now let’s go. I am walking you back.” Your voice is firm, brooking no argument. How captain-like of you. “Wouldn’t want Mondstadt’s illustrious Cavalry Captain to be found passed out in an alleyway tomorrow.”

On any other day, he’d be mildly irked by your stubbornness. But he did just spill his drink down his front like a newborn babe. No wonder you brought up his rank. In your eyes, his conduct must not befit that of a high-ranking knight. He doesn’t care what assumptions people form about him, never has, but tonight has been a bust anyway. Maybe it's best to call it quits.

Sighing theatrically, he rises to his feet. “All right, I know when I have been beaten. But don’t change your plans on my account. I can head to the barracks by myself just fine.”

“I’m sure you can,” you say, “but letting you walk alone this late in your state would grate at my conscience. So would you stop talking for once, and let me take you home?”

You get what you want. Your words render him silent.

Home, you called the barracks. He supposes you consider that place your home. But is it his, truly?

He thinks of Khaenri’ah, nothing but a distant, bloody memory. He thinks of his father, and how in their final moments together, the man had stared through him like he wasn’t there. He thinks of the Dawn Winery, where he had spent several years causing mayhem. He thinks of Master Crepus, never dad, and a brother who doesn’t exist anymore.

No, the barracks aren’t his home. Maybe he’s never had one to begin with.

When he comes to, Kaeya registers you leading him in the direction of the tavern door, your hand on his shoulder blade. This quickly catches the attention of the patrons. They call out their goodbyes, some raising their tankards and others chuckling good-naturedly.

“Look at that! Our Cavalry Cap’n had too much to drink, eh?”

“What, are you tapping out already, Captain Kaeya?”

“Has to be escorted out by a fellow knight, no less!”

You wave over your shoulder. “Just doing my patriotic duty, that's all.”

Kaeya gives his audience an exaggerated wink (as well as he can with his one uncovered eye) followed by a lazy hand salute. His grin remains fixed in place until the door swings shut. The wooden barrier barely muffles the sounds of conversation and merriment coming from within.

Had it been that loud while he was inside? He hadn’t noticed.

He isn’t able to dwell on it for long, because you nudge him in the direction of headquarters. “Come on. We have a bit of a walk ahead of us. Let’s get to it.”

“Oh, very well. But only because you asked so nicely.”

“I wasn’t asking.”

“I know. I was being sarcastic.”

You nudge him harder, and he snickers under his breath as he walks.

This time of night, the cobblestone streets seem devoid of life. With the exception of Patton, who’s practically asleep standing up, the two of you don’t run into anyone. It's a stark change from how the city usually is, bright and bustling with crowds.

It suits him just fine, though. The crisp night air is sobering him up somewhat, the fog that had settled over his mind thinning. All too soon, he recalls everything he was trying to suppress.

Master Crepus. Diluc. His callousness and cruelty in forgetting them both.

In hindsight, he should have taken his mug back from you instead of just gaping like a fool. Sobriety is such a drag.

“You’re quiet,” you comment. You’re staring at him intently, your expression eerily similar to Timaeus’s when he is observing an alchemical reaction. It’s as if he is a specimen that you are keen on studying under a microscope.

He wants to scowl, to snap at you. “My apologies,” he says instead, as innocent as can be. “Were you waiting for me to strike up a conversation? Hold on a moment, let me think of a good topic...”

“That is not what I meant and you know it. It’s just, usually it’s impossible to get you to stop talking. The times I have seen you...indisposed”—buzzed as a bee, you undoubtedly mean—“that doesn’t change. You talk more, if anything.”

Curiously, your voice softens, an odd cadence colouring it. One he has not heard from you before, not directed at him at least. “I guess I’m just wondering if something is weighing on your mind. Is that what prompted you to drink so much tonight?”

By now, the two of you have walked down the stairway to the Knights of Favonius’s bulletin board. Of course, Hertha isn’t there this late to assign requests and bounties. The pieces of parchment pinned to the board flutter in the breeze. He stares at the sketch of a Ruin Guard, willing his sluggish mind to craft a suitable answer.

After a beat, his eye slides over to you. An impish grin curls at the corners of his mouth. “My, I had no idea that you watched my every move so closely. I’m flattered by the attention.”

Predictably, you sputter. “What even—that is not—you know what, if you want to dodge the question so badly, fine. We can just walk the rest of the way in silence.”

“As you wish, Captain.”

Although his words were said to fluster you into changing the subject, as you had correctly deduced, Kaeya means them. You have noticed him far more than he realized. As Captain of the Intelligence Team, it’s your job to be observant and keep tabs on others. He knows that. Still, it’s disconcerting to learn that you’ve had a close eye on him in particular.

He operates from the shadows for a reason; he can’t have you jeopardizing that by shining a light on him. Five months into your new position, and already you have proven yourself to be dangerous.

As you wished for, silence reigns as the two of you turn into an alley and approach two flights of stairs, leading to the center of the city. Kaeya resists pressing a hand against the nearest wall for balance. He had walked down a stairway unaided just moments ago, despite how unsteady he felt. Surely ascending some steps would prove to be easier.

Rather than focus on his feet, he looks up ahead. From his position, he can just barely glimpse the blades of a windmill, ever-turning against the dark backdrop of the night sky. He keeps his gaze there as he climbs, his boots scraping against stone.

He clears the first flight of stairs with little issue. See? Nothing to it.

Halfway up the second, Kaeya stumbles.

His surroundings tilt, blurring as he fumbles for balance. It’s a futile effort. Thanks to how inebriated he is, his limbs are too heavy and uncoordinated. The stone below rushes up to meet him.

Before his face can greet it, however, you catch him.

Your side moulds against his, a hand clasping his hip while the other carefully grasps at his spiked pauldron. His gloved hand covers yours reflexively as his racing heartbeat settles. He feels you stiffen at the touch, but you don't pull away. Neither does he.

For a moment, not a word is spoken between you both. The alley is filled only with the soft sound of breathing.

Then you click your tongue. “So much for heading back by yourself. You can barely keep your feet under you.” Your voice lilts with humour.

He knows this song and dance. It has been ingrained in him after all these months. You snark at him, he snarks back. Rinse and repeat. Although this is the first time he has heard levity in your tone; the first time it has been aimed at him, that is. He almost hadn’t thought you capable of it.

He straightens with a chuckle. “First at the tavern, and now in an alley. I just keep falling for you tonight, don’t I?”

You blink owlishly. It takes a moment for the words to sink in. Then a flustered expression crosses your features, before you compose yourself. “You are unbelievable.”

He grins. “I’ll take that as a compliment.”

You roll your eyes, even as the corners of your lips twitch. “You would.”

Kaeya expects you to move away, so the two of you can resume walking, but you don’t. “Not that I mind having your hands on me, but...will you be letting go any time soon?”

“That depends.” A challenging glint appears in your eye. “Can you handle walking on your own? Or do you need me to cradle you the rest of the way to headquarters, like some damsel?”

He guffaws, taken off-guard by the retort. A reply escapes his loosened tongue before he can think better of it, “Archons, that sounded just like him.”

“Like who?”

“My brother.”

In the past, despite being underage, he was sometimes able to charm bartenders at Angel’s Share—new hires unaware of how to deal with him as of yet—into serving him drinks. Diluc would find him eventually, a disapproving twist to his mouth, and put a stop to it.

Back then, Kaeya was a lightweight and had to be supported back to headquarters. Diluc would scowl and roll his eyes the entire way, but there was still a softness in his gaze. His hands were strong, but careful; Kaeya knew that his brother would not let him fall. He could even be persuaded to join in when Kaeya began to sing, their off-key voices disturbing the silence of the night.

Come morning, while Kaeya nursed the inevitable headache and Jean nagged him about violating the Knights of Favonius Handbook, Diluc would snort. “Serves you right,” he’d say, then hand him a draught for curing hangovers.

Now Kaeya must weather the pain alone.

You tilt your head to the side, your gaze fixed on his. “I had no idea that you have a brother,” you say softly.

Had, he nearly corrects. But he has told you too much already.

This is why he is so careful when drinking in the company of others. Alcohol is a double-edged sword; as delectable as it is, it also loosens inhibitions. It’s what he relies on when charming information out of allies and adversaries alike, none of them the wiser of what they have given up.

How the tables have turned.

“Well, now you do.” A trace of bitterness enters his tone.

You eye him, quiet, before pulling back. You motion forward with your chin. “Let’s keep moving. We’ll never make it to headquarters at this pace.”

Relieved by the subject change, he listens. He makes a conscious effort to place one foot in front of the other, gaze trained on the remaining steps below. You stay at his side, closer than you were before. He can feel your hand hovering at the small of his back, ready to catch him should he trip once more, but he ignores it.

It won’t happen again. He’ll make sure of it.

The alley opens up to a view of the market district. Unfortunately, he doesn’t have long to enjoy the reprieve. The two of you turn right, away from the railing overlooking the main square, to climb two more flights of stairs. A left, and more stairways await.

By the time the Knights of Favonius Headquarters looms above you, Kaeya’s legs ache from the walk. He is very much looking forward to retiring to his quarters.

The knights stationed outside stiffen at the sight of you and Kaeya, standing at attention. They perform a salute in perfect unison. Do they rehearse that before every shift? Surely they must.

The guard on the left, with the glasses and unfortunate haircut, chirps, “Good evening, Captains! I hope you are doing well.” He appears wide awake despite the late hour.

At least the one on the right looks appropriately haggard. “Welcome back,” he grunts.

While Kaeya brushes past them with a nod of acknowledgement, eager to head inside, you stop. “Good evening, Athos, Porthos. Your shift ends soon, I hope? It can’t be terribly interesting, standing watch outside headquarters so late.”

“It’s no trouble at all, Captain!” Athos, as you had referred to him, says. “Guard duty may not be glamorous, but it is still important.”

“Much as I agree with the lad, I can’t bring myself to be so damn cheerful about it,” Porthos sighs, his words tinged with self-deprecation. “Must be ‘cause of these old bones.”

“That’s not true, Sir Porthos. Your bones aren’t that old!” the younger knight argues, prompting the older to shake his head with a chuckle.

“Athos isn’t wrong,” you add. “You are far more sprightly than most knights I know.”

“If that’s true, then Mondstadt is in trouble.”

Smiling and shaking your head, you finally pass by them, climbing the short steps to return to Kaeya's side. He lifts a brow as he pulls on one of the large oak doors, holding it open for you.

It’s almost comical how quickly your smile disappears. Your eyes narrow as you enter inside. “What’s that look for?”

“Nothing,” he says breezily, following after you. The door falls closed behind you both with a loud, echoing thud. “Just that I didn’t know you were so chummy with the guards.”

It is blindingly bright inside the Knights of Favonius Headquarters, as if it isn’t nearing midnight. The sconces on the walls are lit up, as is the chandelier hanging in the center of the main hall. The two of you make your way towards the—joy of all joys—staircase. The barracks for knights are located on the second floor, and on the floor above that, separate quarters for the captains.

“I am off-duty right now. It’s not unprofessional for me to speak informally with them.”

His eye widens. “Why, I never said it was unprofessional, Captain.”

You grind your teeth so hard he can practically hear the enamel wearing away. “You implied it.” No, he didn’t. Your distaste for him has you imagining mockery where there is none. As if Kaeya has any room to judge someone for acting unprofessional.

“I did? That’s news to me.” Privately, he marvels at how easily he can agitate you. Him, no one else—he has observed you long enough to know your prickliness is reserved for him alone. Maybe that’s why he annoys you further instead of clearing up the many miscommunications that tend to occur. Not that you’ll believe him, even if he’s being completely honest.

You huff. “How the Dandelion Knight manages to put up with you, I’ll never know,” you mutter.

“How rude, Captain! Jean doesn’t put up with me, she considers me indispensable.”

You cut a look at him. “Yes, I’m sure she thought the same when you failed to show up to today’s meeting.”

“Must you bring that up again? I shudder just thinking of the lecture she’ll have ready for me in the morning. Perhaps my mysterious ailment should plague me for a little while longer...”

“Prolonging the inevitable will do you no favours.” You pause briefly, then add, “Ah, I almost forgot to mention. After the meeting, I ran into Inspector Eroch. He was waiting outside and asked after you. He seemed irked when I informed him that you were absent today.”

If Kaeya was not so skilled at masking his reactions, he would’ve perked up at that. He might have even stopped in his tracks or whipped his head around to look at you. But he knows better than to give himself away so obviously. He leisurely climbs the steps, his features revealing only vague interest. “Oh? Somehow I doubt he was upset out of concern for my wellbeing.”

You glance over. “I wouldn’t know. He did not say anything when I asked why he wanted to see you, or if I could pass on a message. He just brushed me off and left.”

“Don’t be hurt by his shameful conduct, Captain. I for one enjoy your company immensely.”

You ignore his thoughtful statement. “I thought that he might have had a prior engagement with you, which you missed due to being terribly ill.”

He shrugs. “If we did, I don’t recall it.”

That earns him another look, longer than the one before. He doesn’t flinch away from it, his expression remaining serene. Privately, he wonders what you know. Are you merely intrigued by what Inspector Eroch might want with him? Or are you more aware than you’re letting on?

After all, Eroch is the one Kaeya has been secretly investigating for the past year.

Looks like the inspector has caught on. About time. No doubt he wants to figure out just how much Kaeya knows—which is not much, unfortunately. He knows that Eroch has more than just Mondstadt’s best interests in mind; a Fatui spy like him would have just the opposite. But he is unsure what the man is up to, or who he even is.

He does, however, have an inkling. Several, even.

Inspector Eroch had been insistent on covering up the details of Master Crepus’s death. For the good of Mondstadt, he claimed, not wanting the citizenry to lose faith in the Knights of Favonius. Grand Master Varka had ultimately sided with him. It resulted in Diluc resigning his position and leaving the city a year ago.

Kaeya had kept an eye on the inspector after that. He knew there was more to the situation than just preserving Mondstadt’s trust in the Knights, and it had everything to do with the dangerous and evil power Master Crepus had harnessed. It was only a matter of figuring out what. And once he has all of the information...

Well, he knows what Diluc would do, once upon a time. Blazing with righteous fury, he’d take his findings to Grand Master Varka, insisting on Eroch’s arrest and expulsion from the Knights of Favonius. He would see it as retribution for how poorly his father’s death had been handled.

But Kaeya suffers from no delusions. Maybe he looked into Eroch because of Master Crepus. Maybe he wanted some kind of revenge for what happened. Maybe he yearned to atone for his past inaction. None of that means he has any heroic intentions.

If it serves his interests better, he won’t expose the inspector immediately. He will hoard his knowledge instead, keeping his cards close to his chest until it’s the right time to play them.

That is how he has always operated. Master Crepus's death and Diluc's departure have not changed that. For a brief, nonsensical moment, he wishes they had. Then common sense returns to him. A foolhardy sense of justice is of no use to him. He’ll leave that to Diluc.

While he extricates himself from his wayward thoughts, you turn away to clear the last few steps. “If it is important, surely he will try to approach you again,” you say.

“I look forward to it with bated breath.”

You scoff, rightfully skeptical, but don’t respond. Clearly, you are content to leave it at that.

He wonders at how easily you let the subject drop. Had you suspected something, you would have pushed to learn more, wouldn’t you? Now is as opportune a time as any; it’s late, he’s tired and drunk, and the both of you are alone. Does that make you oblivious, or an idiot, or crafty?

Having made it to the third floor, the two of you make your way down the hallway. His quarters are before your own, three doors on the left. He stops in front of his door, reaching into one of many hidden coat pockets to produce his key.

He glances at you. You have yet to leave for own your room. “You don’t have to hover at my side, you know,” he says with a touch of amusement. “I may be tipsy, but I am no longer in any danger of being harassed by ruffians or passing out in the streets. Unless you're secretly harbouring nefarious intentions towards me, Captain.”

“You’ll just have to wait and find out,” is your unruffled response.

Chuckling under his breath, he unlocks his door and lets it swing open wide. It’s dark inside, faint moonlight shining through the small window above his desk. Coupled with the sconces out in the hallway, however, there is enough light for him to stumble to his bedside without stubbing a single toe. He doesn’t bother to close the door on you; he has nothing to hide.

Kaeya knows what his quarters must look like to a stranger. They’re a mess, as if someone had searched them in a haste and not bothered to clean up afterward. The walls are bare, save for a map of Mondstadt that he’d hung up ages ago. Tomes of all sizes and loose leaves of parchment litter his oak desk, pushed up against a wall. A quill lies abandoned atop a half-finished note with ink drying on its nib. His closet door is cracked open, a discarded boot dissuading anyone from forcing it shut.

Yes, his quarters are a mess. But he knows exactly where everything is. Should someone actually attempt to search his things, he would know immediately. Not that they would find anything particularly damning. He isn’t foolish enough to leave important documents or sensitive information lying about—nothing he is unwilling to part with, anyway.

“Horrifying, but unsurprising,” he hears you mutter to yourself.

Kaeya doesn’t even consider slipping out of his ruined clothes or engaging you in further conversation. Now that he has made it back to his quarters, all he can think about is the sweet embrace of sleep. He sinks into his unmade bed, draping an arm over his face.

You continue to linger in the doorway. “You should change before you fall asleep.”

“Mhm.”

“You'll regret not doing so in the morning.”

“Uh-huh.” He still doesn’t move.

“Alberich. You stink of booze.”

“You sure know how to compliment a guy, Captain. I’m impressed.”

You sigh, long and loud. He waits to hear the door close behind you, only for you to walk up to his bedside. Your steps are slow, hesitant yet purposeful. He stiffens, immediately on-guard, but fights his instincts in order to remain still. What are you planning?

He feels you grip his boot. Metal jingles as you undo the buckle. Then you pry it off.

He lifts his arm to peer up at you. “What are you doing?”

“What does it look like?” You set his boot on the ground, then move on to the other one. “If you won’t change, you should at least take off your shoes. You’ll dirty your sheets otherwise.”

Oh, you make it so easy for him to twist everything you say into an innuendo. For once he resists the urge. “You forgot something,” he says instead. He wiggles his sock-clad foot at you. Just to see if you will do it.

You grimace, swatting his leg away. “Absolutely not. I don’t want to be anywhere near those.”

So you say. But you’re taking his boots off for him out of your own volition. There is no need for you to do any of this. It’s not your duty to stop him from drinking himself into a stupor, or walk him back to headquarters unharmed, or all but tuck him into bed. Yet here you are.

What is it that you want? There have been plenty of opportunities for you to try and take advantage of his drunken state, but you have sidestepped every one. Frustration brews in his sternum.

“Do you do this for everyone who you hate?” he finds himself asking, tone purposely lighthearted.

You pause in your ministrations to stare at him. “What? I don't hate you.” At his disbelieving look, you insist, “I don’t. You have always been a pain to deal with, sure, but I never once felt that way.”

He smiles, unconvinced. “Not even when I insulted your dear old captain?”

“Insulted my... That was months ago, when we first met.” Despite your bewilderment, you take a moment to contemplate his question. “I was upset with you, yes. But now that I’ve had this position for some time...maybe your assessment wasn’t off. When I was lieutenant, I didn’t always see eye-to-eye with my captain. They were too set in their ways and scorned most criticism. I respected them, and still do, but I shouldn’t be ignorant of their faults.”

Your gaze meets his once more. “In a way, what you said that day led me to realize that. You weren’t badmouthing my captain; you didn’t have a vendetta or want to get a rise out of me. At least, I don’t think you did. You must have legitimate issues with their leadership, as a captain yourself.”

He watches you shrewdly. Your tone was even, your expression clear. He cannot detect any deception from you. Of course, that means little. Still, perhaps you’re telling the truth. Perhaps you don’t hate him after all.

A headache, newly formed, pounds at his temple. If he were more sober, he would be better equipped to handle such a revelation. He’ll have to come to a proper conclusion later.

You fiddle with the buckle on his remaining boot. “And what about you?”

“Hmm? What about me?”

“You have ample reason to look down on me. Most of the knights know that you aren’t just Cavalry Captain and Quartermaster. Your role is more important than that. Surely you would make a better...” you trail off, your jaw working silently.

Kaeya knows how that sentence ends. Surely you would make a better Captain of the Intelligence Team than me. It doesn’t come as a surprise.

Up until now, he thought he knew you well. You made it no secret you loathed him. You have never said so explicitly, but he has a talent for reading people. It’s a classic case of envy. He has seen it many times before. You compare yourself to him and find yourself wanting. It colours the way you interact with him; your words brusque, your gaze narrowed.

Not only did he insult your captain, but you consider him more capable than you. Your hatred makes sense. It’s predictable.

Or so he believed, until tonight.

“You know what, never mind. Forget I asked.” Uh-oh. Seems he took too long to respond. You busy yourself with unbuckling his boot, avoiding his eye.

If he were to be honest, there are many ways he could answer you. He thinks you are a better captain than your superior could ever hope to have been. He thinks you are a leader capable of inspiring undying loyalty in your officers. He thinks you have a deep, unflinching love for Mondstadt and its people. He thinks you constantly push yourself to greater heights, to the point it lights a fire in him as well.

He admits to none of those things, in the end.

“Give yourself some credit, Captain,” he murmurs. You glance over in surprise. He meets your gaze. For perhaps the first time in a while, he hopes his words sound sincere—not because he doesn’t mean them, but because he does. “I know the officers under your supervision think you’re a good leader. They wouldn’t want anyone else to take your place.” Certainly not someone like me.

Instead of reassuring you, however, his answer seems to do the opposite. You look frustrated. “That isn’t what I...” you trail off. You search his features, silent, before your brow furrows. “I can’t tell if you mean what you just said. Sometimes I’m not sure I ever can.”

He takes care not to allow his features to visibly harden. Of course you would doubt him, the one time he tries to be honest with you. What else did he expect? Maybe you don't hate him, maybe you never have, but that means little. You won’t ever fully trust him. To be fair, the feeling is mutual.

His mouth tastes unbearably bitter. It must be the wine.

“At this point, I’m willing to say just about anything if it’ll mean I can get some shut-eye.” He feels no satisfaction upon seeing your shoulders stiffen. He still manages to grin. “Well, Captain? Any other requests?”

“No,” you say. Then you tug off his boot with a brisk motion.

He stifles a yelp. “Hey, now! No need to be so rough.”

“My sincere apologies.” You set the boot down next to his other one, your lips thinned. “I should go. Wouldn’t want you to lose more sleep than you already have. You have a long day ahead of you tomorrow, after all.”

Talk about vindictive. Despite his irritation, he has to fight a smile. Knowing you, you’ll see it and take it the wrong way, as you usually do.

Having finished removing his boots, you turn and walk for the door without another word.

He’s struck with the odd urge to stop you. To reach out, take your hand in his, and tug you back. Not because he wants something from you, or needs to tell you something. He wishes you would stay a little longer, that’s all. Wants the silence to be filled by your voice instead of his thoughts.

Now he knows he’s had too much to drink. He’s contemplating such ridiculous things.

Before his addled mind can catch up and he can say something, apologize perhaps, you shut the door behind you. Your footsteps travel down the hallway, slightly hurried. The door to your quarters creaks open then closed.

He’s too late. It’s for the best.

Kaeya lies back and stares up at the ceiling. His vision swims, as if he’s adrift at sea. Closing his eye only makes it worse.

His mind pores over the events of the day. Investigating Eroch, remembering Master Crepus and Diluc, visiting the tavern, running into you. He feels restless, pulled in several directions at once.

With a harsh exhale, he rises to his feet and locks his door. Then he begins his nightly ritual.

His pauldron is first to go. It hits the floor with a dull noise. Then he peels off his gloves and tosses them on the desk. The burns on his hands have long since healed, but he still deals with numbness now and then. Not many know they even exist; he doesn’t want anyone taking advantage of a potential weakness. His eyepatch follows closely after.

He removes the Cryo Vision from his belt last. He stares at it, its blue glow washing over his scarred palm and turning his skin a sickly brown hue. If it’s been a year since Master Crepus’s death, it has been about a year since he was gifted a Vision as well. The sight of it has been a hard reminder ever since. Of how he’d won a difficult battle. Of how he’d finally revealed the truth. Of how he can never speak it again.

He tucks the Vision under his pillow, then collapses back into bed. An odd sensation fills him, as it does every time he completes this ritual. It’s like he has taken off every scrap of armour he has and foolishly exposed himself to danger, despite being alone in the stillness of his quarters.

Ignoring the uncomfortable feeling, he closes his eyes and waits for sleep to take him under.

It never does.

#genshin imagines #genshin scenarios #genshin impact x reader #kaeya x reader #kaeya alberich x reader #genshin impact #kaeya alberich #m writes #i can't believe this is finally finished n uploaded... wrow #never thot i'd see this day #i'm nervy posting this ngl it's been. a while since i've written smth like this #hope y'all like it !!!!

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warrioreowynofrohan · 3 years

Text

Today in Tolkien - March 14th

Minas Tirith, despite exceptionally strong defensive fortifications and extensive food stores, comes to the brink of falling to the enemy after only two nights and one day of siege, largely due to a collapse of morale.

“There is no news of the Rohirrim. Rohan will not come now. Or if they come, it will not avail us. The new host that we had tidings of has come first, from over the River by way of Andros, it is said...They hold the northward road; and many have passed on into Anórien. The Rohirrim cannot come.”

The Rohirrim, in fact, are very near the city, passing through the Drúadan Forest on ancient and little-known roads, led by Ghân-buri-Ghân and his folk. They set off near dawn and travel all day; by noon they are already near Amon Dîn. In order to arrivd at Minas Tirith rested and ready for battle, and since 7 leagues (21 miles) of open ground still lie between them and the out-wall of the Pelennor, they rest and sleep in the afternoon and set out at night, aiming to arrive the next day near dawn.

Aragorn, too, is on his way to Minas Tirith, travelling upriver with the captured fleet; there is no wind, and the men row all day and into the night to come to the city as fast as possible. It is 42 leagues (126 miles) from Pelargir to Minas Tirith via the river. But in the night a wind comes up from the sea, and their pace increases.

This illustrates the vast significance of fog of war to everything that is going on. All the necessary forces for Gondor’s victory are already in place and close approaching the city, but the defenders of Minas Tirith know nothing of them and think their cause is hopeless. This is one of the reasons (there are many others) why the ability to hold onto hope even beyond reason, and to keep going even when hope is gone, is such an important virtue in The Lord of the Rings. Despair is a form of pride (as expressed in the later exchange between Gandalf and Denethor) because it assumes your own omniscience, that you already know everything you need to know and can perfectly judge that there is no chance. Moreover, it disregard the will and volition of others. Tolkien’s ideal of virtue, in this situation, is to do your duty to the best of your abilities, even if you don’t know what anyone else is doing, and leave it to others to do theirs to the best of their ability.

This form of faith in other people is seen in many places, not least in Frodo’s determination to continue with the Quest even after he sees the army rude oyr of Minas Morgul and thinks evrwhere else is doomed, and Aragorn’s march against Mordor to distract Sauron and give Frodo a fighting chance (and, for that matter, Aragorn looking in the palantír to challenge Sauron, and trusting that Minas Tirith can hold out until he can get there). And that last-mentioned gambit is a massive and crucial success - today and yesterday, the forces of Mordor actually have the Ring-bearer (though not the Ring) in captivity, Sam is walking around Mordor wearing the Ring, Sam gets past the strang Watchers of Cirith Ungol (which is highly unusual) and Sauron - who can generally sense when the Ring is worn, as with Frodo on Amon Hen - doesn’t even notice because he’s so focused on fighting Gondor.

Conversely, Denethor’s despair is the flip side of his previous firm self-reliance, because when his own resources and plans give out and everything looks hopeless (granted - again, he thinks Sauron has the Ring, and if that were true things would be pretty hopeless), he doesn’t trust in the initiative of others to make any difference. But his assumptions about what he knows are still based on the assumption that he’s not being deceived or manipulated in any way.

Not that I think Sauron specifically orchestrated Denethor seeing Frodo’s capture in the palantír - as I mentioned, Sauron at this moment is not aware of the capture or its significance. Rather, there’s a general air of malice and deception around the palantíri that are under Sauron’s influence (the Orthanc-stone is safe for Aragorn to use once Aragorn has taken control of it) that will manipulate their users and influence both the things they see and their interpretations of what they see, in ways that broadly serve Sauron’s purposes.

(Nonetheless, it’s hard for me to blame Denethor for using the palantír in the first place. The very fog-of-war that I mentioned makes long-range intelligence-gathering immensely tempting.)

Returning to Sam and Frodo, the narrative gives us a sense of concurrent events when Sam wakes from unconsciousness:

Out westward in the world it was drawing to noon upon the fourteenth day of March in the Shire-reckoning, and even now Aragorn was leading the black fleet from Pelargir, and Merry was riding with the Rohirrim down the Stonewain Valley, while in Minas Tirith flames were rising and Pippin watched the madness growing in the eyes of Denethor.

This is the closest Tolkien comes in his story to genuine narrative contrivance (rather than the real sense of eucatastrophe in the arrival of the Rohirrim at the Battle of Pelennor Fields, and even later in the the victory at Mount Doom, which are very much founded on the characters’ prior choices combined with actions of divine grace), in the orcs of Cirith Ungol killing all of each other off and enabling Sam to rescue Frodo. That said, it is fairly typical orc attitudes, exaggerated by a prize of phenomenal value in the form of the mithril-shirt. (Or, if I wanted to be glib, I could say that orcs were once elves and retain their general magpie-like predilection for shiny objects.)

Sam’s song in the Tower is one of Tolkien’s most beautiful poems, and it and Frodo’s reply is almost certainly inspired, for Sam, by the tale of Beren and Lúthien, which he and Frodo were discussing only a few days ago. Even Sam’s song is similar to one later in the Leithian recalling the beauty of nature as talisman against despair (compare In western lands beneath the Sun the flowers may rise in spring to Farewell now here ye leaves of trees, your music in the morning-breeze!). I’m not suggesting a romantic connection between Frodo and Sam, but rather that Tolkien doesn’t see anything fundamentally less close or less important or less moving in a deep and close friendship than in Middle-earth’s greatest epic romance. The centrality and strength of friendship in his stories is one of the things I love so much about them.

#tolkien #the lord of the rings #today in tolkien #aragorn #denethor #frodo baggins #sam gamgee #sauron

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rurifangirl · 3 years

Note

for the oc asks💅💅

Kayn🌸

photo album: describe one of your OCs’ favorite memories.

Rui🌸

love note: who likes who? crushes? relationships? are they mutual or unrequited?

Shou🌸

mixtape: 5 songs that describe your OC(s) or songs they themselves would like.

Lyva🌸

microscope: zoom in – describe the little, insignificant details about an OC.

Naexi🌸

conspiracy theory: what are your OC’s beliefs? are they skeptics or do they believe easily? who acts on blind faith? who needs to see to believe?

Qiran 🌸

wild card: talk about any OC! anything you want!

Syndra🌸

psyche: what’s their head space like? do they have any mental illnesses? how do they process difficult or emotional situations? what are their coping mechanisms?

Evelyn🌸

compass: who’s the moral compass? in general: what are your OCs’ morality like? do they have high morals, or not? are their morals self imposed, or do they base their morals on religion/family/influence of others?

Hskdkkskwofkk aight here i go bitch

Kayn-

He has many memories, especially from Black Swan, even if they're still sad lookin back @ em. But looking back, if he could choose any memory, he'd definetly describe a lil scene when he was extremely young, like somethin like 6/7 y/o.

Since he's always been really acceptin n empathetic he would've tried to help some of those lil foxes ya see in game, so just, playin in the snow w them, careless n just havin the best time, though there's really noone he knew, rather than just,him being primarly alone, which Is kinda strange cuz he likes bein round ppl, but for him it's oddly reassurin.

But any other memory w the gang/ruri Is still really dear to him.

Rui-

Hamjsjsk honestly y'know that i intended for em to have a love interest? Now It's kinda not there, I mean I can totally see a platonic relationships w Lyva honestly, but at the moment they don't have any type of romantic feeling to really anyone. At least at the moment 🚶‍♀️

Shou-

I have...the worst fuckin musical taste.🧍Ahkdkskwkk honestly both self projectin n bein right, he'd like (Bottom) cover by dongdang n fuckin Honey I'm home by GHOST as his guilty pleasures don't TELL ME HE WOULDN'T HE WOULD😍

Hwkdkskk but anythin traditionally would go well really. He hates rap tho.

Lyva-

Ahkdkdwhjskdo idk what to say bout her that wasn't already said tbh😭😭 Like if I'd say somethin for her It would probably be her motivation to do anythin in her power?? Idk what else, every character Is gonna get development later on, so If anythin they'd all be changed😩

Naexi-

Oh yeah.

If anything they're probably the most skeptical about everyone, especially doin it throughout some kind of proves, really similar to what Shou did initially w Lyva n Rui, but like, even more subdule. Like with Shou's case it's different because now he relies on Qirian, but Naexi doesn't do It to really anyone.

Even later on really little changes on how she views their adventure companions. They don't see them as people as worthy as her life, if not for some details she sees that could be useful to em.

Qiran-

Honestly idk what to talk bout honestly. Like if anythin there's nothin more to add rather than what happened to their friends but i'd rather not go into It.

Oh, mabye a lil bit bout their aibility, since i did mention It like once n then didn't.

They basically have a connection through water, mainly comin because of their parents linaege, as they were a well-known family of mages. Their mother is one, though their father ain't, and that's also the reason they ain't a mage itself, though mantainin some kind of control over magic.

Their older other sister (but they have many other sibling) Is a mage n didn't really want to approve em goin round, and scholded em when they heard bout the Shou thingy(but they didn't know bout him bein a demon, more of "tf you doin at this dudes house" thing).

Idk of it's either them or Evelyns lil sis i wanna introduce tbh, I'll eventually see.

Syndra-

I'm currently rethinkin bout some aspects of her, but the thing Is that One thing still remains, that bein her motivation to desperatly reach anything she'd aimed for. It would do anything and doesn't care about the consequences,even if they're as bloody or as gorey, as she is thecnically on the Gray area, but like a bit darker.

Her headspace Is mainly a mess, that would make her do and had done many awful shit, even to humans. She doesn't know nor understand fully what any of the emotions It is feelin work, so for her, it's like a nightmare most of the time.

The only time she's really at ease it's when her friends are around that don't make her feel certain stuff that I'll talk bout another time.

Evelyn-

For him It's a big "Do shit, fuck 'round" situation, even in the gang. So if anythin they're gray, but slightly leadin into the white area, cuz she isn't as ruthless as Naexi or Shou are tbh (cuz yes fun fact Shou's also leadin like Naexi does), n would rather avoid any worthless death. But they would still make fun of ppl gettin in her way in fights n wouldn't feel too bad bout It.

Tag list undercut:

@a-chaotic-dumbass @spoopy-fish-writes @damnfoxx @dopesaladlady @audre-falrose @nadi-117

(If you want your tag removed/added either dm me/go in the ask thing or do the tag thingy in the pinned comment‼️)

#anyways ARE WE ROCKIN W THIS NEW STYLE OF OC ASKS OR NAH😼#i just realized they're all rainbow colours too im😭😭😭#ruruasks #rurusocs #ruruslore #i think?#oc #ocs #rui #lyva #shou #qiran #naexi #syndra #evelyn #my ocs stuff #dragonraja oc #dragon raja oc

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joontopia · 4 years

Text

Underneath the Ginkgo Tree | KNJ - Teaser

pairings: namjoon x female reader

rating: nsfw, 18+

genre: slight time travel!au, soulmate(if you squint)!au, strangers to lovers, fluff, angst, influenced by the movie The Lake House

series warnings: angst, fluff, pining, language, mentions of death, major character death, talks of mental health, description of hospital scenes, description of car accidents (more warnings will come with each chapter)

teaser warnings: a couple of dashes of angst, slight pining, language? (did i write curse words in this? probably idk) mention of a break up, talks of feeling lost

teaser word count: 2.9k

series release: 1st qtr 2021

a/n: thank you to my twin and soulmate, @escapingreality4now for reading over this and fixing my mistakes. thank you for always being so enthusiastic about all of the random ideas that I have and start to work on (even when it brings me away from the one WIP you’ve been waiting on an update for hehehe). I love you!

The lone ginkgo tree stood out among the others that were outlining the small clearing. It looks absolutely beautiful the way the golden leaves contrast to the dark green around them. It seemed almost magical and you silently scold yourself for leaving your camera back at the studio. You walk across the grass clearing towards the ginkgo tree, examining it along the way. As you get closer, you notice carvings in the wide base of the tree in the shape of a small door, looking to be about a foot tall and half a foot wide.

“How cute,” you mutter to yourself, crouching down to examine the door further. Placing your backpack up against the tree, you notice a small hoop attached to the door, the opening of the ring just big enough for you to hook two fingers. You pull on the hoop, letting out a small gasp of excitement as the door gives way, revealing a hollow opening in the tree. You peak through the doorway, seeing nothing but dried leaves and small sticks. A slight breeze blows past you as you start to close the door, moving around the contents inside the hollowed out trunk. The door was almost half way closed when something caught your eye.

You peak back into the small room, noticing something long and light blue under the rearranged foliage. You look around the hollowed trunk, making sure there’s no hidden creature that could jump out and bite you. “Oh God, please don’t let there be a snake,” you think to yourself as you reach in to retrieve the mystery item. Snatching your arm back, you let out a small breath and chuckle at yourself for the small overreaction.

“An envelope?” you say out loud, looking at the newly retrieved item in your hand. You flip it over while observing it, noticing that it's sealed with nothing written on the front.

“I wonder if anything’s in it,” you mumble to yourself. You reposition yourself with your back up against the trunk of the tree, opening the envelope as you get settled. The paper tears easily and you guess that it must be old. Finally getting the envelope wide enough, you pull out a piece of paper, unfolding it carefully to make sure not to tear it. You were happy to see the writing was still legible with only some minor smudges and dirt marks spread across the page. Noticing a small date at the top, you squint as you bring the paper closer to read, only able to make out a faint 2018 as the rest of the date was ruined by the dirt.

“Two years ago… Wow.” You pull the paper back, taking a quick look around the small meadow before you start to read.

Dear future me,

I hope when you open this letter, it finds you well. Maybe you finally asked out that cute girl in your Art History class. Or maybe, at the very least, grew a pair to introduce yourself to her properly. Anyways, I’m not writing this to give you a hard time. We’re dealing with enough of that as it is. I’m just hoping that writing this will be something to help me gain some motivation. Give me a sense of purpose. Things just feel stagnant lately. I’m in the middle of my Senior year of university and have no idea what I’m going to do once I graduate. Everyone around me seems to have everything planned out and I’m just… here. I’m hoping when you finally read this again, you’ll have found your path. I promise to try my best on my end to get you there.

Starting with Art History girl. Hopefully she likes nature walks or hikes. I would love to take her to this old ginkgo tree for a picnic. So let’s work on step #1. Figure out how to simply walk up to her without falling flat on your face.

This is hopeless. Sending you luck and well wishes from the past. - Joon

You flip the page around to see if there was anything only to be met with a blank back.

“I wonder if he ever came back to read this,” you think out loud. Taking a look around the base of the tree, it seems like this place has been unbothered for quite some time. You assume so, anyways, especially with how covered the letter was when you found it. You continue to sit there against the tree, looking out into the small clearing. “Maybe I should write a letter back.”

You feel a slight gust of wind, closing your eyes as you appreciate the soft chill kiss your face and the beautiful sound of the rustling leaves of the ginkgo tree. “I’m guessing I should take that as a yes,” you say with a giggle. The tiny laugh is cut short as you let out a small scoff and shake your head.

“Great. I don’t know what's worse; me talking to myself or to the wind,” you grumble as you reach into your backpack, pulling out a notebook and pen, flipping to a blank page. “Okay, well here goes nothing.”

You sat at the base of the ginkgo tree writing out your letter back to this Joon. Constantly erasing and rewriting half of it, feeling like you were getting too deep and personal with your reply. It wasn’t until the third revision that you finally told yourself that it didn’t matter. No one was going to find it and read it anyways. Once complete, you reach back into your bag, pulling out a yellow envelope meant for holding photos. You check to make sure it’s empty before stuffing your letter inside and sealing it. You place the envelope inside the hollow base of the tree and close the door.

Standing up, you brush the leaves and dirt off your knees, backside, and hands. Not quite ready to leave your newly found secret hideaway, you look around the area, eyeing many rocks of different shapes and sizes. Most of them being just the right size for making a rock tower. You check your watch for the time, mentally calculating just how much time you have before you need to be back at the studio. “5 minutes until noon. Just one tower, one wish, and then I’ll head back to the real world. Sound good?” you said out loud, looking up at the ginkgo tree. A small breeze picks back up as you start to search for the perfect rocks. The wind softly blows through the leaves as if it were trying to give you a response.

The sun sits high in the sky as Namjoon treks down the now familiar path as the wind blows softly around him. The trees and bushes make the most comforting sounds as their branches and leaves rub together through the breeze. He looks down at the blue envelope in his hand before checking the time on his watch. 5 minutes until noon. He’s out here earlier than usual. A bittersweet surprise due to his class being canceled. The very class where he was finally going to talk to the pretty girl who sat by the window. Or at the very least, sit right next to her awkwardly while not saying anything at all. He hadn’t planned on writing another letter, but with the surge of motivation the last one had left him, he felt like it wouldn’t hurt to do it again.

Namjoon readjusts the strap of his messenger bag on his shoulder as he enters the small hidden meadow. His eyes and lips turn up into a small smile as he looks at the lone ginkgo tree. “Hello, old friend,” he says as he approaches the base of the tree. The branches and leaves sway in the wind as if giving their own greeting back. Namjoon looks around at the empty meadow before placing his bag on the ground and kneeling before the small wooden door.

“I’m not here for long, friend,” he says as he looks up at the tree. “Just dropping off another.” Namjoon reaches for the small loop to open the door. Blue envelope in hand, he reaches in to place the letter inside, pausing when he sees something he didn't expect. There in the middle of the hollow trunk sat a clean, yellow envelope, seemingly untouched by the nature around it.

“I didn’t think anyone else knew about this place,” Namjoon mumbles to himself. He grabs the envelope from the opening, eyes going wide in a small moment of panic as he realizes his previous letter is no longer there. He lets out a low groan. “Oh no, someone read my letter.”

He hits his head with his palm, looking at the stranger’s envelope in his hand “Should I read it? They wouldn’t respond with their own letter just to laugh at me, right?” he thinks to himself. Namjoon looks around before adjusting himself to lean against the wide tree trunk. He opens the envelope, pulling out the letter. The faint scent of a female’s perfume follows, hitting Namjoon’s senses as he breathes it in. Appreciating the lovely scent while also finding it oddly familiar, but he just can’t place it. He takes a look at the letter and shrugs his shoulders. “Well I guess fair’s fair,” he mumbles to himself again as he begins to read the mystery letter.

Dear Joon,

I hope you don’t mind that I read your letter. It seemed to have been left untouched for sometime. I felt the least I could do is write back, even if you don’t ever return to this place. I would like to apologize in advance for using your letter as my own little outlet to vent. I’m sure there’s more interesting things you would like to know about the future if you were to ever find this. Not much has changed in the two years since your letter. The world is still a big mystery where people still feel lost. Myself included. I hope that’s not too discouraging. It’s normal to experience a sense of mispurpose and self doubt in college. Everyone feels lost at least once in their lives. Even if they felt like they had everything planned and figured out. The universe doesn’t make exceptions in that affair.

If you did figure a way out of your stump, let a girl know. I could use some words of wisdom myself. My boyfriend of almost two years broke up with me not too long ago. On White Day, if you can believe it. We started dating my senior year of university and I thought we were on the same page as far as our future together was concerned. But there I was, sitting on a bench in Yongsan Park, thinking I was about to be proposed to and end up getting dumped instead. He always talked about marriage, but I guess people tend to just change their minds.

But here’s the real kicker… my feeling of being lost isn’t from the heartbreak. I wish it were that simple. I'm feeling lost because when he broke up with me and ended almost two years of us, I didn’t feel sad. I felt relieved. Who in their right mind feels relief when the person they thought they were going to spend their life with breaks up with them? I don't know. Maybe love just isn't for me.

Anyways, that was a long drawn out way of saying, don’t place your sense of purpose on a relationship, let alone another person. People will only let you down. That being said, if Art History Girl doesn’t enjoy nature walks or picnics, she’s not the one. It sounds like the perfect date. - Y/N 2♥2♥

Namjoon reads the last couple of lines over again, smirking as he traces the small hearts you drew in place of the zeros of the year by your name. “Cute,” he mumbles to himself as he places your letter on the ground next to him, digging into his bag for his notebook and a pen. He quickly scribbles out a response, grabbing the blue envelope he brought and discarding his unread letter from it. Replacing it with the new one he just wrote. Namjoon sticks the now sealed envelope and letter into the holy trunk, closing the door before checking his watch again. Almost 12:35 PM.

“I guess I have time to eat lunch here.” Namjoon reaches back into his bag, pulling out the carefully wrapped sandwich his roommate made him this morning. After finishing his meal, he leans back against the tree, closing his eyes, enjoying the occasional breeze as the time passes. Deciding he spent enough time hiding from the real world, Namjoon stands from his spot against the tree, grabbing his bag in the process. He takes a quick glance at the small door, eyebrows furrowing as he does a double take, noticing the door is slightly ajar. “Didn’t I close this?” he thought to himself as he kneels back down in front of the door, opening it wider to see if anything was keeping it from closing all the way.

“What the hell?!” Namjoon exclaims as his eyes widen at the sight of another yellow envelope lying in the middle of the hollow trunk. His blue envelope, once again, nowhere to be seen.

You take a step back from your newly built structure, admiring your handiwork. You decided to build the little rock tower at the base of the tree, right in front of the little door. You tell yourself it’s to discourage any newcomers from opening the door, but you know it's just to discourage yourself from retrieving your letter.

“Okay, Y/N, now make a wish.” You close your eyes and bow your head by the rock tower. Searching your mind for the perfect wish, you finally land on the right words. Please let me be wrong about love. Please let it find me in this lifetime. You let out a deep breath as you open your eyes. Grabbing your bag off the ground, you take one more look up at the ginkgo tree before starting back towards the walking trail.

“I hope I’m able to find this place again,” you whisper to yourself as you take a few steps away from the tree. You’re only halfway across the small meadow when the sound of a snapping twig stops you in your track, causing you to turn around, looking for the source of the noise.

“Hello?” You call out as you look around the seemingly empty meadow. Finding nothing, you turn back around towards the walking trail. “The woods make noises, Y/N. Nothing to freak out about,” you mumble to yourself.

You barely take another step when you hear the sound of rocks falling behind you. You quickly turn around, hoping to catch whatever person or woodland creature that could be causing these disturbances only to find that you’re still alone in the meadow. You take a quick scan of the area before your eyes move straight to your rock tower at the base of the ginkgo tree. Or at least what used to be your rock tower. What resides there now is just a pile of rocks. The sight of your fallen tower alone isn’t enough to put you on edge. Rocks fall. You just didn’t expect to see the previously closed door at the base of the tree to now be wide open.

You take slow steps back towards the tree, scanning the surroundings again for anyone or anything hiding in the tree line. Telling yourself that it was just the wind as you make it back to the tree, you kneel down to close back the little door. Your movements halt when you sneak a peek inside the hollow trunk, your eyes landing on what should have been the yellow envelope you just left inside. Instead, in its place, you find another blue envelope. You snatch the envelope from the hollow trunk, tearing it open with so much force that you wouldn’t be surprised if you ripped the letter inside. You pulled the letter from the envelope and began to read.

Dear Y/N,

Thank you for writing me back. I’m going to be honest, I'm a little surprised to have found your letter. I didn’t think anyone else knew about this place, considering it's off a hidden path that's found off another hidden path. But I’m happy someone else gets to enjoy the beauty of this hidden gem of a meadow. Thank you for your kind words. It’s nice to know there are people out there who care enough to try and comfort a stranger. I’m sorry to read about your breakup. Those are never easy, regardless of the tenure of the relationship. I hope you don’t feel too troubled by your feelings around it. It could just be a blessing in disguise. Sometimes you have to close one door for another to open. I believe there is someone for everyone and they will find you when you least expect it. So if you return here to find this letter, don’t give up. Love will find you. I promise. - Joon

P.S. Thanks for the little 2020 joke. Got quite a chuckle out of that one. Maybe we’ll see each other at this ol’ ginkgo tree some day. You know, in the current year of 2018.

#bangtanuniversity #bangtanhq #bangtanarmynet #kwritersworldnet #btsbookclub #bangtanedu #kim namjoon #namjoon fanfic #namjoon fanfiction #namjoon imagine #namjoon x you #namjoon x reader #kim namjoon x reader #namjoon x yn #namjoon angst #namjoon fluff #fic; UTGT

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anncanta · 3 years

Text

Horses of Carfax Abbey

Fandom: Dracula (2020)

Characters: Count Dracula, Agatha Van Helsing

Relationship: Dracula/Agatha

Rating: Teen and up audiences

Warnings: None

My thanks to my reader Lanovh94 for making me think about this.

Read on AO3

Or read below

The clock in the living room chimed melodiously at noon.

Closing the glass door that protects the dial, Agatha took a step back and checked the chronometer on the chain she held in her hands.

That's right, she noted with satisfaction.

A large mahogany grandfather clock with an exquisite copper dial was delivered yesterday morning, but only now Agatha has the opportunity to set the correct time on it and check how fine-tuned the delicate internal mechanism is.

This Scottish antique clock by Joseph Taylor was chased by Agatha for probably two months. Maybe a little less. In any case, when, after a long search, she finally bought them at auction, intercepting at the last moment from the owner of a hosiery factory in the West End, the owners of all the antique shops in London (not to mention the sellers) knew her by sight.

Taking another step back, Agatha glanced at her acquisition. It was beautiful.

‘Agatha, return my pocket watch!’ a demanding voice from the hallway made her flinch and turn around sharply. Clicking on the silver cover, she hid the chronometer behind her back.

‘Why did you decide that I have them?’ she asked Dracula who appeared at the door in the most innocent tone possible.

‘By the method of exclusion,’ Dracula went up to her and, hugging Agatha with one hand around her waist, with the other pulled out the desired object from her palm. ‘The housekeeper does not understand anything about it, the coachman considers it a pointless trinket, and the maid is afraid of it.

‘I’m the only one left,’ Agatha admitted, following the watch with her eyes.

Dracula nodded silently.

‘Finally, perfect exactly?’ he asked, hiding the watch in his waistcoat pocket.

Agatha turned in the direction he was pointing.

‘I hope so,’ she drawled thoughtfully. ‘I thought yours was in a hurry,’ she added absently.

‘On the contrary, it is falling behind,’ Dracula laughed, pulling her towards him. ‘This is my peculiarity, I would say – my style.’

Agatha smiled, running her fingers over the velvet fabric of his vest.

It has been a little over a year since both of them set foot on the English coast, and they lived together for about the same time.

After Peter, Olgaren and the captain had left Demeter, which had lost half of the crew and all the passengers, Agatha sat in Dracula's cabin for a long time, until the sun began to sink into the horizon. She could not say what exactly delayed her – the desire to postpone the moment of the explosion, or simply the tiredness that had accumulated over the long days. It must be both.

In any case, she did not reach the hold.

Dracula intercepted her on the way, and before Agatha had time to recover from surprise at the fact that he survived, fear for the lives of people whom she tried to save from him at the cost of her own life, and an incomprehensible relief – all together – she found herself on deck in the midst of a hideous quarrel, screaming curses and crying.

Dracula later told her that he did not remember the last time he was so angry. ‘Suicide, seriously?’ he growled at her, as if, having conceived such a plan, she encroached on his personal self-esteem. ‘Double murder is better,’ Agatha hissed, looking at the flashes of fury in his dark eyes.

Somehow they managed not to sink the ship and get to the shore, after which Dracula, without saying a word, stopped the first cab that came across in the port, shoved Agatha into it, and sat down behind. They spent all the way to the count's London house in silence, and when they were in place, Dracula, having paid the cabman, dragged Agatha into the living room and, sitting in front of him on the sofa, said:

‘I'll be honest and won't hide anything from you. You saw who I am and you know me. I will always be like this, more or less. But I want you to stay with me. If for this I have to feed on... rats,’ without looking, he caught the animal running by (Agatha asked herself how long the house had not cleaned) and, after looking meticulously, let it go; the rat instantly disappeared in one of the dark corners, ‘then I ask you one thing: promise, that over time my menu will improve. I don't care how.’

He came close to her.

‘Promise.’

Agatha remembered that she was so amazed that for a couple of minutes she could only sit, looking at him and blinking silently. She didn't even really know what she finally answered. It probably meant agreement, otherwise, she wouldn't be here now.

A year and three months have passed since that day, and during this time Agatha managed to learn many things, some of which she never wanted to learn, the other, as it seemed to her at first, would haunt her in nightmares until the end of her life, and the third, although not become a discovery, still did not stop surprising her.

The danger posed by the sun and the cross, as it turned out almost immediately, was nothing more than a fiction – another legend about vampires, in which Dracula believed so long ago that he himself did not remember what for and why. It scattered like dust from old ceilings when they, examining the house, climbed into the attic, and the roof that had not been repaired for years collapsed on them. Agatha remembered how, lying on the floor, covered with debris, they looked up at the rays falling through the holes in the ceiling, gently caressing them, and how they whispered at the same time: ‘It should be the same with the cross.’

And so it turned out.

Much more effort was needed in order to solve the problem of vampire hunger. After sequentially going through several options and making sure that the blood of mammals close to humans in their physiology was the most suitable for Dracula, Agatha conducted a series of experiments and, discarding goats, sheep, pigs, and cows, settled on horses.

Dracula added a large stable to the west of the house and ordered ten thoroughbred riding horses from Yorkshire. And since Dracula needed food, although daily, but in small quantities, after a couple of months, in order to save noble animals from the blues and inactivity, Dracula began to put them on the races. As a result, his capital doubled in a short period of time, and after another three months, having looked through the settlement books, he called his attorney and acquired a stud farm in the suburbs of London.

Agatha looked at it all with a mixture of surprise and curiosity. At first, out of habit, it seemed to her that Dracula was having fun, striving, as he once told her, to learn to live among civilized people and study them properly, before tying a napkin and picking up a fork and knife. However, days, weeks and months passed, and nothing changed: Dracula was kind, led an active social life, went to libraries and theaters and rode horseback, in the evenings he went to the laboratory, which he equipped in the house at the request of Agatha, in order to give her a couple of ideas regarding the properties of horse blood and the similarity of its taste and the effect of influencing to him with human one and, in general, did nothing else.

Agatha tried to convince herself that the count lived for four hundred years, waiting for a convenient opportunity to enter the civilized world and that another two months meant nothing to him at all, but every day it became more and more difficult to believe it. And she had less and less desire to do it.

Agatha perfectly remembered the evening when it disappeared completely.

She was sitting in the living room and writing something in her diary – a new experiment with horse blood was in full swing, there was a lot of data and a theoretical basis, but the formulas did not agree. Deciding to take a short break, she put aside her notes and began to clean the dull nib. Agatha did not know what was the reason – whether the knife was not sharp enough, or the hand lost its dexterity from fatigue, but even before she could understand what exactly was happening, the blade proportioned the skin of her right hand and got stuck at the base of her fingers.

Agatha spent a moment looking at the scarlet streak of blood that stood out in her palm before a long shadow covered the chair in which she was sitting.

Looking up, she saw Dracula standing in front of her.

For a second, nothing happened. As if spellbound, they watched the blood dripping from her hand. Agatha wiggled her fingers to test. Finally reaching consciousness, a raw pain swirled in her hand.

Without looking, pulling up the second chair standing to the side, Dracula sank into it and, taking Agatha with one hand by the forearm, pulled out a knife. Then he took out a handkerchief and, wiping off the fresh drops that had come through, tore a flap from the sleeve of her shirt, and quickly bandaged her palm.

He did all this in silence, without looking at Agatha, and only when finished he raised his head and leaned back. His pupils were bloodshot, but he himself was absolutely imperturbable. Letting go of Agatha's hand, he went to the fireplace and threw the dirty cloth into the fire. The fabric hissed, cringing in the flames.

‘Tomorrow, samples of the second negative will come,’ said Dracula, glancing into the opened diary of Agatha, thrown on the sofa, ‘you can check the calculations,’ and, turning around, left the room.

Agatha sat for several minutes, listening to his steps, and then got up, climbed the stairs, went to the door of his bedroom and knocked. And he opened.

… ‘There will be guests in the evening,’ said Dracula, distracting Agatha from her memories. ‘Two stud breeders from Australia and a professor from Cambridge.’

Agatha raised an eyebrow questioningly.

‘He has ideas on how to improve the breed,’ Dracula shrugged. ‘He is unsociable and usually does not go anywhere. I promised him dinner in a pleasant company and access to a reprinted version of On the Origin of Species. I had to somehow lure him. We met several times in Cambridge, but apparently too briefly. I invited him to participate in the experiment, even offered a small stake, but he refused. I hope today I will be able to persuade him.’

Agatha sighed. She knew well what it meant to ‘persuade’ in Dracula's language.

Dracula handled business with the same careless ease and a certain mocking touch that were inherent in him when dealing with people in general. Not that he disliked or disdained them: watching him day after day, Agatha came to the conclusion that it was just convenient for him – as if, not being able to eat them, he nibbled them with words and a look, held some time in his teeth and let go.

‘The hunting instinct is not going anywhere,’ Dracula smiled in response to her remarks after another visit to another salon or to a party, on which behind him, like on a battlefield covered with black velvet and silk dresses, there were glades of silent condemnation and bloody spots of flaming cheeks.

What a truly warm relationship he had, was the one with the horses. Which at first puzzled Agatha. ‘You drink their blood,’ she said hesitantly when Dracula asked her what exactly she thought was strange about it. He gave her a long look, and, muttering something like ‘who would speak of it’, took her hand and led her into the stable.

There Agatha witnessed one of the most incredible things in her entire life.

She knew that Dracula can communicate with animals, can control wolves and bats if desired, and is able to establish contact with most mammals.

But it was more than contact, communication, or control. Standing in the stable doorway, Agatha watched as he opened the corral and, clasping the head of Lissa, a young mare that Dracula was one of the first to acquire, stood for a long time, pressing his cheek to the smooth skin, smiling and whispering something before embracing becomes stronger, – and after five minutes he opens his hands and, gratefully patting the horse on the withers, leaves the corral.

Agatha never thought it could be so... beautiful. Then she did not dare to ask, but later could not resist.

‘Do you hypnotize them? Fool? What are you doing?

Dracula smiled as if he was waiting for this question.

‘Horses are stronger and tougher than humans. The portion of blood that will cost you a serious illness or put an adult young man to bed is almost imperceptible for a horse. I had never tried drinking their blood before and therefore did not know how sharply and deeply they react to contact. Amazing animals.’

‘But they can't like it!’

‘They like closeness,’ Dracula said thoughtfully, ‘and they are incredibly generous.’

Yes, and also sincere and discerning. Resistant to Dracula's charm, they seem to have loved him for no reason.

During the time that they lived together, Agatha managed to find out that Dracula had two types of charm. The first is the very vampire charm that was written about in books and legends warned about. It was powerful, bright, and beating on the spot. It reminded Agatha of the scent of flowers that appeared in early spring in Holland – hyacinths. Thick, heavy, enveloping odor. Among the peasants, there were stories that if you fall asleep in a tightly closed room, in which there is a bouquet of hyacinths, you may not wake up.

Dracula used his vampire charm mostly for entertainment, or when he wanted to quickly get what he needed. He lavished it generously at balls and appointments, signing contracts with business partners, on walks and social events such as theater premieres and horse races, while sparing no one.

Once they were at the performance of the famous opera diva who came to London on tour, either from France or from Germany, – Agatha did not remember, – and after the performance, Dracula invited Agatha to go into the diva`s dressing room, – ‘to express our admiration for the singer,’ as he said... Agatha agreed, not suspecting a catch. The performance was really beautiful, the diva sang magically, and there was nothing surprising in the desire to personally pay tribute to her talent.

So they did, and everything went well until Dracula – the very kindness and the embodiment of secular courtesy – asked the diva if she would be an encore. Diva replied that, alas, she would not, as she was tired and would like to go home as soon as possible.

And then it turned on. Vampire charm. In vain the unfortunate singer babbled something about how exhausted after the performance she was, – when dark eyes flashed and a soft smile lit up the cramped dressing room, the diva's fate was decided. Hearing the words spoken in an intimate tone about how much his companion loves opera and how happy she will be to hear such a delightful performance again, the singer turned around and silently wandered onto the stage.

Agatha did not speak to Dracula after that for three days. She hated violence in any form.

But there was also another charm, the one that Agatha remembered from Demeter, the same, probably, that made her believe in a cozy living room and soft conversation at chess – more than vampire illusions and drug intoxication.

Agatha called it ‘a charm for his own’, and if she quickly learned to resist the charm of a vampire, and soon completely lost the interest, then she was powerless against this one.

Dracula looked at ‘his’ people with a gentle warm look and smiled with a cheerful, almost boyish smile. It was physically impossible to deny him anything when he was like that, which he shamelessly used during quarrels.

He did not ask, did not demand, and did not scandal. Did not push and did not try to confuse. He just smiled and said: ‘As you say, dragostea*.’

‘Better vampire charm,’ Agatha moaned and vowed to buy a bell so that she could inform him in advance and without words that he had crossed the line.

...Agatha pulled away from Dracula and, smiling, went to the sofa.

‘The poor professor deserves a second chance,’ she said, leaning back.

‘I gave him everything possible,’ Dracula answered, ‘he missed them.’

‘So maybe we should just leave him alone?’

‘No, I need him.’

Agatha waved her hand. It was useless to argue. All she could do for the Cambridge pundit was to arrange for a good dinner and a relaxed, friendly atmosphere at this very dinner. All the rest was, alas, beyond her power.

The clock struck a quarter to one. Agatha thought idly that she should go to the kitchen and discuss the menu with the housekeeper. And let her cook the steaks with blood, she decided vengefully.

***

Professor Theodore Clifferson was a great scientist and no less an idiot. A combination that Agatha did not believe existed until today. But after spending three hours at the table with the aforementioned professor, she had to admit that sometimes intelligence and learning are depressingly different things.

When the door finally closed behind the venerable merchants and the Cambridge celebrity, and it became possible to remove the kind smile from her face and give vent to the irritation that had pursued her all evening, Agatha wandered into the living room and, groaning with relief, fell on the sofa.

‘Why didn't you warn me?’ she asked Dracula, who came in after her.

‘About what?’ he sank down beside her and pulled her to him.

‘How can you know so much and be such a cretin?’ Agatha continued without listening to him.

‘A common story,’ Dracula chuckled. ‘You look from the point of view of someone who, for the sake of knowledge, was forced to fight the circumstances and mine them like gold,’ he said. ‘And your inquiring mind cannot imagine someone who, from his youth, having access to the fruits of progress, does not realize their value. And worse – to whom they are not useful.’

Agatha covered her face with her hands and shook her head.

‘I want to forget this.’

Dracula buried his fingers in her hair and sat for several minutes, fingering the thick strands.

‘Forget this or what he said at the end?’ he asked quietly.

Agatha, leaning back in his arms, straightened.

‘What did he…’

‘Agatha.’

She knew that look too well. Freeing herself from his embrace, she sat up straight, as if in a theology lesson. Come on, she never visited them. Although it might have been worth it. At least, she would have learned – if not to quote freely from the holy book, than to look calm and confident, when she had not a penny neither the first nor the second.

Damn Clifferson.

‘Dracula, you shouldn't, really…’ Agatha began.

He sighed.

‘I thought so. Should I say it myself, or, as before, do you perfectly understand where you are?’

Agatha shivered at the reminder. But he was right – the situations in which it sounded were too similar. And something had to be done about it.

She tried to smile.

‘Of course, I know. But that hasn't... Look, he's just a stupid boy. Saw something and said tactlessness.’

Well, if you could call it that. Agatha briefly thought that the dinner was already as unpleasant as it could, so that...

‘Clifferson said that you and I are lucky,’ Dracula said slowly, ‘since our age is not too different. And that means,’ he added in the deep silence, ‘we are not threatened to live the rest of our lives in separation, without another who has left this mortal world.’

Well, Agatha thought. Well, he said it. It will no longer be possible to pretend that what the unlucky professor blurted out does not exist or none of them heard him.

Turning away from Dracula, she began to look at the copper dial of the clock, which she was winding in the morning.

Time. Over the past year, she and Dracula were absorbed in settling in the new world, taking care of the house, experimenting, in the end, each other, so much that they forgot about time.

Anyway, she forgot. She hadn't thought about it at all. Looking at Dracula again, Agatha suddenly realized that she would not believe for anything, that he hadn`t.

‘I'm forty-two,’ she said quietly. ‘And if I'm lucky, I'll live long enough to bore you terribly.’

He was silent.

‘And even when I... When you live with people, time does not drag on as long as when you spend it alone,’ Agatha felt how with every step the ground beneath her becomes less reliable. ‘When it is filled with events... and meetings…’

Dracula still didn't say a word.

‘In fifty years, I will be…’ she made another attempt, in an almost inaudible voice, knowing perfectly well that it made no sense.

In fifty years, a decrepit old woman will be with him, but he will remain as young, no older than the same forty-five or fifty.

Pulling herself together, she finally looked into his eyes.

‘Sorry,’ she said in response to the silent gaze that met her, and, quickly getting up from her seat, left.

When Dracula went up after her into the bedroom, he pretended to believe her awkward attempts to pretend to be asleep, and Agatha spent the time until dawn, staring into the darkness, trying to figure out how to be and what to do next.

‘How could I forget that you are a vampire?’ having entered the next morning without knocking into the parlor and resting her palms on the table at which Dracula was sitting, she asked.

Dracula looked up from the settlement book, in which he was writing something.

‘Yes, that's my omission,’ he said, leaning back in his chair.

Agatha looked at him for a minute, then turned on her heels and left the parlor.

They did not see each other for the next two days. Early on Saturday morning, Dracula went out of town to choose a place for a new stud farm, warning her through the housekeeper that he would not return earlier than Monday evening, and Agatha, not knowing whether to enjoy the unexpected respite, or be angry with him, considered it best switch to something else, and completely immersed in experiments.

‘Why is your face black?’ were the first words that returned Dracula greeted her with. He stood at the door of the laboratory and surveyed the surroundings with curiosity. To tell the truth, a lot has changed here since he visited it three days ago: then there were many more whole flasks and jars and less broken glass on the floor.

‘When heated to the boiling point, horse blood explodes,’ Agatha said calmly and carefully placed the test tube she was holding in a tripod.

Dracula nodded and, looking out the door, took out a scoop and a broom and began sweeping soot, stone dust, and debris that covered the floor in the middle of the room.

Armed with a rag and a jug of water, Agatha joined him in cleaning the table and chairs from the burning.

‘I'm not angry about your silence,’ she said after about half an hour, distracted from polishing the gas burner. ‘I understand that the problem is not that this question has no answer.’

Dracula looked up. They both knew very well that the problem was that the answer was too obvious.

‘You know it can't be my decision,’ he said.

‘I know,’ Agatha nodded. ‘Give me time,’ she added after a short pause and began scrubbing the alembic.

***

‘Sir, I swear I would never…’

‘Remove your pockets.’

Agatha glanced into the living room.

Dracula stood by the fireplace with his back to her, in front of him was a terrified coachman, drawn to the line.

‘It's a mistake, sir. I beg you…’

‘It was a mistake to keep the silver cigarette case in the dresser. However, so was hiring you,’ Dracula's voice was cold and indifferent. ‘By returning it voluntarily, you will save time for all of us.’

‘I…’

Dracula tilted his head.

‘It's in your right pocket. Next to old tissue paper, dirty silk ribbon, and flakes of tobacco.’

The coachman hiccupped and recoiled.

‘How…’

Dracula held out his hand.

‘It rustles deafeningly,’ he said, taking the cigarette case from the coachman's shaking hand. ‘If you are attracted by the career of a pickpocket, then first learn not to stomp like an elephant when you take someone else's, and not to rattle with loot. You will come in the evening for the calculation,’ he finished, gesturing to let go of the unfortunate man.

Dropping his shoulders, the coachman nodded and went to the door.

‘Vampire hearing,’ Agatha said, letting the unlucky thief pass and entering the room. ‘Strongly interferes with maintaining faith in people.’

‘Those who had the one,’ Dracula smiled. He put the cigarette case on the mantelpiece and turned to Agatha. ‘Looking for the benefits of being a vampire?’ he asked innocently.

‘I'm conducting surveillance,’ Agatha said.

She went to the fireplace and looked at the cigarette case.

‘You knew he stole it because you heard it rub against the lining of his pocket.’

Dracula rubbed the bridge of his nose.

‘He dragged around with it for a week. He had been looking for someone to sell it for so long that I could hardly resist not offering myself as a buyer, just to get rid of this annoying sound.’

Agatha walked around one of the armchairs by the fireplace and stood in front of Dracula.

‘Have you been waiting for his nerves to break down and he confesses, or for the right occasion when you can show me once again the benefits of being a vampire?’

‘How can you,’ Dracula was sincerely offended.

Agatha grinned and sank into a chair.

‘Okay, what else?’ Decently folded her hands on her knees, she asked.

Dracula shrugged.

‘You know all this. After all, you've been watching me for a year. I'm sure you wrote it down and sorted it into categories in those notebooks of yours.’ He nodded at Agatha’s diary on the table. ‘It is unlikely that I can add something else.’

‘Okay, then let's go over the main points,’ Agatha nodded, without changing her pose.

Dracula smiled.

‘You are strong and enduring, you have an increased ability to heal wounds, you can stay awake for weeks and understand some animals.’ She paused. ‘You can control some of them. You can climb walls and send fog.’ Noticing his approving nod, Agatha continued: ‘Let's add to this the ability to keenly smell and hypersensitive hearing…’

‘...tirelessness in bed...’

‘Um, did you notice that I fall asleep in the middle?..’ Agatha got up and walked over to him.

Dracula smiled again.

‘I'm working on it,’ he said, hugging her.

Agatha was silent for a moment and turned away.

‘Is it normal? I mean, how... how right is that?’ absentmindedly running her hand over his shoulder, she said.

‘What exactly?’ Dracula asked.

Agatha frowned and rubbed her forehead thoughtfully.

‘The world works the way it works, for a reason,’ she said slowly. ‘All living beings die, replacing each other. How natural is it to be immortal?’

She lifted her head and looked at Dracula.

‘Vampires are mortal,’ he said. ‘Agatha, the time when I offered you eternal life is over,’ he added after a short pause. ‘But it’s obvious that I would rather live long before I’m ready to face death. I do not know how much this is against nature, but I still have not heard of heavenly thunder punishing parrots, sequoias, and turtles.’

‘Oh my God,’ Agatha laughed. ‘Of the above, I know only sequoias. And then according to the pictures.’

‘And the parrots?’

‘Are they centenarians?’

Dracula shook his head.

‘The oldest ones are four hundred years old. Turtles can live twice as long. Ask Clifferson about sequoias, but as far as I remember, their exact age cannot be determined.’

Agatha grimaced, demonstrating her attitude to the need to learn something from Clifferson.

‘I will not become immortal,’ she said, summing up, ‘but I will lose the ability to eat human food, sleep at night, and breathe.’

‘A matter of habit,’ Dracula shrugged.

‘But I will learn to understand bats.’

‘What scope for your work on small rodents and nocturnal insects!’

Agatha sighed.

‘Are you kidding?’

‘Yes, I am.’

She nodded.

Everything is the same as before.

‘Decide yourself.’

***

‘Please, try to be more restrained in the future,’ Agatha said with a sad smile, holding out an envelope to the boy standing in front of her. The young man nodded, drooping guiltily, cautiously, as if afraid that his touch would burn her, took the envelope from her hands, and, saying goodbye, left the room.

For a minute Agatha looked at the door that closed behind him, and then she also left the parlor and went into the living room.

She managed to persuade Dracula to give the coachman decent recommendations, and a couple of weeks after the unpleasant incident, Agatha found a good place for the guy. Dracula watched all this with restrained skepticism, but remained silent and did not interfere. Agatha suspected that he had threatened the poor coachman with some terrible punishment – the boy was in too much haste to leave their house. But in the end, even she was forced to admit that he got off easy.

In the living room, on the sofa with a book, sat Dracula. When she appeared, he moved, making a place next to him.

Approaching, Agatha climbed onto the sofa with her legs and leaned back, resting her head on his lap. Several minutes passed in silence, broken only by the measured ticking of the grandfather clock.

‘Will it be like with Harker?’ Agatha asked. ‘Will you break my neck and sit down to wait for me to wake up?’

‘God, Agatha, no, of course,’ Dracula put down the book. He looked shocked. ‘Where did you get that?’

‘The first thing that comes to mind. I mean,’ she said, looking sideways at him, ‘the most obvious and simplest.’

‘Didn't you say that you would beat the barbarism out of me?’

She looked up at him.

‘Is that when you burned a five hundred pound electric kettle? I was on edge.’

‘I noticed.’

He brushed a lock of hair from her face.

‘How could you think that I…’

Agatha shrugged.

‘It must somehow... I mean, if in order to turn a person you need…’

‘No damage. This is out of the question,’ Dracula said in an unchallengeable tone.

Agatha looked at him thoughtfully.

‘There are other ways,’ she said, scratching her nose. ‘Strangulation, various poisons. Drowning…’

Dracula bent down and, choking with laughter, buried in her shoulder.

‘Agatha,’ he moaned, ‘your imagination is really scary.’

‘I'm trying to solve the problem,’ Agatha said. ‘That's what the smart do,’ she teased.

‘The smart ones like to complicate things,’ said Dracula, straightening up and looking at her. ‘The most obvious is not always the simplest. Why, of all imaginable and inconceivable ways, did not the most humane one come to your mind?’ He rolled his eyes at her puzzled gaze. ‘Which one of us is the prince of darkness and the lord of shadows?’

‘No one encroaches on your laurels,’ Agatha grinned. ‘Wait. You want to say…’

Dracula bent down again and brushed his lips lightly over hers.

‘My love, you forgot that a vampire's kiss can be very long.’

***

The fabric was red and the earth was red. Heavy woolen floors flowed like a scarlet stream over the horse's white rump, crumpled from above, and ended in a silver fox collar. The rider's long hair was messed and matted with blood, and crimson dawn caked in his wide-open eyes.

Bending down and grabbing the horse by the neck, the rider rushed forward, as if not making out the road, through the black and red forest, in a straight line, to the ancient castle, frozen on the rock.

Bursting into the courtyard, the rider stood up sharply, pulled on the reins. Dismounting, he threw them to the frightened horseman who ran up, unfastened an oblong large sack from the saddle. He walked with a quick step through the gate, dragging his load along the ground. In the great hall, he stopped and threw the sack on the floor in front of him. He raised his head and brushed the dirty, wet strands from his forehead.

‘I said he would be here before sunrise,’ he turned to someone sitting in a dark corner.

‘Is it really him?’ asked from the darkness.

Pulling a knife from his belt, the rider bent down to the sack and cut the thick cloth, soaked and hardened in the frost.

A pale human face appeared in the narrow gap.

‘I said I’ll deliver him,’ the rider said again, put the knife back in his belt and left, not looking neither at the one he was talking to nor at the dead man lying on the floor.

...

Two thick long candles were barely enough to light the middle of the room. Hands were aching from the cold, and he felt as if Transylvanian soil was poured into his eyes. The younger heir to the old Count Dracul raised up, turned several times, on one side, on the other, and finally lay on his back, his meaningless gaze resting on the carved canopy above him.

There are no younger heirs. Neither for princes and kings from distant lands, nor for Wallachian rulers. From ancient times the eldest sons inherit the ruler who has died in peace or fallen on the battlefield. But what if both the ruler himself and his firstborn left God's world in one day? From the elder brother, if he has no male descendants, the younger takes power. The one that survived.

The heir moved his head and gritted his teeth. God knows he did not seek this power, he did not want to. In vain the courtiers grinned in disbelief, clinked their tongues, suspecting treason, the squad whispered in vain when they brought them, father and brother, on a narrow sleigh – without a drop of blood on expensive clothes and without a single paint on their faces. In vain the brother's widow sobbed loudly, rushing in the yard like a thin hungry bird, in vain screaming and howling – you did not keep him safe, you did not rescue him. In vain she threatened to curse.

He did not wish death to either his father or his brother. Never wanted to become a ruler. Perhaps that is why he was not touched by the piercing words of the courtiers, or the cries of his daughter-in-law, or the sidelong glances of the squad. Standing motionless next to the sleigh, he silently looked at the gathered soldiers and household, did not say anything, only wrapped himself in a warm cloak. And only when the wrong old steps were tapping on the stone slabs of the yard, did he turn around.

Old Count Dracul, a patriarch of eighty-seven years of age, dressed in a light marching cape over a simple linen shirt, slowly walked over to the sleigh and sat down beside it. With long fingers, white and hard as a January crust, he stroked the dead faces. Raised his head to the gray sky. Said, addressing the younger:

‘Bring me the murderer.’

The younger nodded.

He did it all, he did it, – the young Count Dracula got up and ran his hand over his face damp with sweat. It took five hours to search, three of which the heir spent on horseback, racing to the border, hurrying to catch up the defector who had surrendered the lord and his son to Turkish spies, and who was about to join the foreign troops. Almost drove father's stallion. Intercepted, managed.

The light from the candle flickered, swept as if alarmed by a sharp gust of wind. Dracula looked around and lay back on the pillows. What a strange night. It feels like there is something, moving in the corner... As if sitting in silence and looking, waiting for the moment when...

‘What's wrong, young heir, not sleeping? Do ya not satisfied with the blood of the enemy?’ a voice, deaf and raspy, rang out very close to him.

Dracula jumped up and backed away.

‘What scared you, noble master? Why don't you meet a guest?’ squeaked mockingly from the shadows. ‘Or are you afraid to look?’

Dracula turned in the direction from which the voice was heard.

A thin, tall man with an unhealthy blush on his sunken cheeks emerged from the thick darkness that began two spans from the bed.

‘Why are you silent, master?’ he asked Dracula, who stared at him in horror. ‘Why don’t you offer a glass, why don’t you invite me to the table?’

Without waiting for an answer, the man stepped forward and stopped at the very edge of the bed.

‘It can't be. I killed you,’ said Dracula.

‘That's right, you did,’ the man bared his teeth and opened the tattered, worn-out sheepskin coat he was wearing. A scarlet slit crossed the shirt underneath from throat to groin. The man lowered his head and, touching the cut, plunged a knotted finger into it. ‘It hurts,’ with a barely audible smack, removing his finger from the wound, he said thoughtfully, ‘it hurts, but you can live.’

Dracula felt sick.

‘How did you manage...’ He straightened up in bed and reached for his belt for a knife.

‘Take your time,’ the man rushed forward, grabbing Dracula's raised hand. His fingers were inhumanly strong and cold as ice. ‘We`ll have all night.’

‘What are you?’ Dracula, recoiling, whispered with his lips, already knowing the answer.

‘I am Grigor Vostritsa, Grigor-The-Traitor, Grigor, whom your gullible dad warmed on his chest, and the crazy grandpa ordered to catch and feed the mad dogs,’ the man replied, grinning. ‘Grigor, who missed the spoil, and came for it. And what a feast it will be...’

Long, sharp teeth gleamed in the candlelight.

Dracula screamed.

...

‘Dracula! Wake up! Dracula! Come on, wake up, it's just a dream!’

Agatha struggled to shake Dracula, who was rushing about in unconsciousness. Not needing to sleep in the usual sense of the word, at night he plunged into a semblance of numbness, which helped him not so much to restore physical strength as to give rest to his mind. This state was in every way similar to a human dream, with the exception that it was more difficult to end it.

Agatha moved closer to Dracula. He looked even paler than usual, shivering and whispering something in Romanian.

Sitting on the bed, Agatha took a deep breath. The sounds made by Dracula were not loud enough to wake her up. But after what happened on Demeter, already here, in London, Agatha sometimes began to sink into his dreams.

Most often they were just scraps of images and vague impressions – reminiscent of flat shadows on a gray stone wall. They were short and blurry, and after them, in the morning Agatha got up with a headache, a feeling of loneliness, and dull melancholy.

Today, for the first time, the dream was so real and clear.

‘Dracula! Wake up, Dracula!’ Agatha tried again.

Dracula groaned and reached for her without opening his eyes.

Agatha bent down and ran a hand over his sweaty chest. Gently stroked, sliding from shoulder to stomach and back, lingering to the left, where the heart was silent, softly touched his cheek. As if alarmed even more by this short caress, Dracula got up and sat up in bed.

For a while, he simply sat without moving, in the light of the moon falling from the window.

Agatha was silent, not daring to turn to him again.

Dracula winced and took a deep breath, and then suddenly opened his eyes and looked at her.

There was such pain in his eyes that it stabbed inside her.

Without a word, she stirred and, sitting down on his lap, hugged him tightly.

‘Everything is fine, everything will pass,’ she whispered, ‘everything will pass, it's just a dream. This is a dream. This is a dream, you killed him,’ she said, kissing his hot forehead and cheeks, ‘you won, he's gone.’

She was saying something else, snuggling up to him and feeling how the nightgown was getting wet from the heat, putting herself under the hands and lips that were taking possession of her – for the first time so strongly, furiously – and so unexpectedly good.

When the splash of pleasure dies down and she opens her eyes, the moon seems higher – the light floods the room, leaving no corner untouched. Agatha looks at Dracula, who is holding her with both hands, and just sits for a couple of seconds, admiring his tired, peaceful face.

The rest is seen as natural as spontaneous. Slightly pulling back, Agatha pushes aside the collar of her shirt, throwing her hair back and exposing her shoulder.

‘Come on. I'm not afraid,’ she says, moving closer to him again and screwing up.

For several long minutes, nothing happens at all.

Opening her eyes, Agatha stares blankly at Dracula. He sits motionless and looks at her, smiling openly and tenderly.

‘No, Agatha,’ he says. ‘Not today. Not this way.’

***

‘You're avoiding me?’

Agatha met Dracula at the entrance to the living room and stopped, blocking his path.

‘Where did you get it?’

‘Oh, I don’t know. Maybe it's all because we haven't seen each other since last week.’ Agatha shrugged.

‘I have a lot to do,’ Dracula tried to walk past her into the room, but Agatha did not budge.

‘You leave home in the morning when I’m still asleep, and you come back after midnight,’ she said. ‘If you come at all. On Tuesday and Wednesday, you were not here, although the carriage did not leave the gate and all the horses remained in the stable.’

Dracula took a deep breath.

‘If I wanted to lead a secret life, I should have chosen someone not so observant,’ he said with a short smile.

‘At least,’ stepping aside, Agatha nevertheless cleared the passage.

After following Dracula into the living room and sitting next to him on the sofa, she was silent for a while.

‘I don’t believe it’s because of what happened that night,’ she said quietly at last. Lowering her eyes, she absentmindedly smoothed the folds of the dress. ‘You and I knew worse times, and I saw you in a much more unsightly light. If now...’

‘Agatha.’ She raised her eyes and met his gaze. ‘You know that's not true,’ he said.

‘I know,’ she sighed. ‘And I also know that you never lied to me or hid anything from me. Even on the Demeter.’ She waved off when she saw the protesting expression on his face. ‘You didn’t deceive me – all I needed to know about what was happening was in front of my eyes. I just didn't get it right away. Which, of course, doesn't make your behavior acceptable,’ she said immediately. And added: ‘You drank my blood and made me a favorite dessert, but you did not lie to me.’

Dracula was silent.

‘You were honest, although you fed on me, and took me to the ship against my will,’ Agatha continued. ‘That is why your behavior seems all the more strange to me... now when I said ‘yes’.’

Still silently, Dracula leaned back on the sofa. His lips were tightly compressed, and his eyebrows were furrowed, as if for a long time he had been trying to solve a problem that turned out to be too difficult, and could not bring himself to stop thinking about it.

Agatha regarded him thoughtfully.

‘Maybe…’ she began slowly, ‘maybe this is the whole point? That I agreed?’

Dracula turned his head and looked at her amazedly.

‘Count Dracula, the Wallachian ruler,’ said Agatha, ‘cannot choose the daughter of a merchant from a distant province as a life partner. Which has neither a title, nor a suitable name, nor a sufficiently well-born family.’ She looked straight at Dracula. ‘The laws of blood are harsh and unbreakable.’

‘Agatha,’ it was clear from his look that her suggestion took him by surprise, ‘Agatha, I have been living with you for over a year.’

‘It's one thing to live together, sharing leisure and bed, and even going out by the arm, and quite another,’ she smiled, ‘to enter into a relationship under the hand of the clan and under the coat of arms of the dragon. You could reject me when I become a vampire,’ Agatha said, not allowing him to object, ‘reject, as soon as I would bore you – but it was not accidentally that you called those you turned brides. Obligated to you with a new life – no matter how terrible and gloomy it might be – they have become part of your family. As I would. And even you wouldn't be able to change that. Wherever I went and wherever I lived my indefinitely long centuries, I would forever remain Dracula's companion, recognized and accepted by him.’

The silence that followed her words was long, but contrary to her expectations, it did not seem depressing. For a couple of minutes, Dracula just sat, still frowning and unconsciously rubbing the ring on his ring finger.

‘Four hundred years ago I was baptized in Orthodoxy,’ he said thoughtfully.

‘What?’ Agatha did not understand. She leaned back slightly and eyed him suspiciously.

‘I presume, you are a Catholic,’ Dracula continued, as if he hadn’t heard her. ‘It is unlikely that we will be married under this condition, so, apparently, I will have to convert to Catholicism.’

Agatha looked at him in amazement.

‘Why not me – to Orthodoxy?’ she asked blankly.

‘Because considering what you just told me, it would be offensive to me.’

They looked at each other for several seconds until Agatha turned away, covering her face with her hands.

‘Am I making up nonsense?’ muttered, feeling him hug her.

‘You're too smart,’ Dracula smiled, kissing the top of her head. ‘I should have taken this into account when I suggested to you... I should have talked about it with you right away. Everything you said’ he pulled away and looked at her ‘is absolutely reasonable and absolutely real. Except that has nothing to do with you and me.’ He brushed the hair from her cheek and added: ‘I have not been a Wallachian ruler for a long time, Agatha. Not in the sense in which you described it. And even if I were still a sovereign medieval seigneur, I would be free to choose a wife to my liking. I would have offered you my hand and heart a year ago,’ he said when he saw Agatha trying to protest, ‘if I thought it meant anything to you.’

Agatha averted her eyes.

‘I thought... I thought after I agreed...’

‘I suddenly realized with all clarity how you would humiliate my good name,’ Dracula laughed. ‘This is perhaps the best thing that I have heard about myself in four hundred years.’

‘But still...’ Agatha did not stop.

‘You were right,’ Dracula interrupted. ‘That night I realized for the first time that it was serious. And I wondered if I really want this for you?’

‘You told me...’

‘Agatha,’ he said, burying his fingers in her hair, ‘it's a long life, Agatha. A life in which values, people, traditions, and customs change. The future and the present, as before, become the past. Only now you don't go with them. Others leave – relatives and acquaintances, faithful servants, and old friends. Not all of them you can take with you. And sometimes you just have to look after them. It hurts, Agatha.’

He fell silent again. Raising her hand, Agatha ran her fingers over his cheek. ‘You will be with me,’ she wanted to tell, but she held back. They both knew perfectly well what a world closed for two could turn into over the years.

Unexpectedly to herself, she laughed.

‘Changing faith can be easier than coming to terms with yourself,’ she said in response to his questioning look. ‘But if trees and birds can,’ Agatha added, remembering their conversation with Dracula about longevity, ‘then I can too.’

He looked at her uneasily and incredulously, and it was like their first evening in this house.

‘And you know what else?’ Agatha said. She hesitated. ‘I want to ask you: do not create any illusions by doing this. I want to know what's going on. I go for it with open eyes, and I want it to apply to everything.’

Dracula smiled and covered her fingers over his face.

‘As you wish,’ he replied.

***

November 15, 1898, Times

‘We are pleased to announce that on November 15 of this year in London, at Carfax Abbey, the wedding of Count Vlad Dracula and Miss Agatha Van Helsing took place.’

Agatha put the newspaper down on the dressing table and cast a thoughtful look at the ring on her hand. A thin strip of gold glittering in the twilight of the room seemed like a spark on the surface of the calm sea. Agatha chuckled shortly. A sea that she never intended to enter. It was not only about her past as a nun – her stay in the convent was short and rather forced than chosen at the call of her heart. Marriage as it was just never seemed attractive to her – or useful from any side.

She was distracted from the contemplation of the wedding ring and, straightening, began to remove the hairpins from her hair. Agatha hated complicated hairstyles, but for a sophisticated lady, especially in her current status, a wedding hairstyle was a must. Agatha sighed. It was already good that they managed to avoid a magnificent celebration, limiting themselves to a modest wedding in a local chapel.

The door to the room creaked softly as it opened and closed again.

Freed from bobby pins and hairpins, the hair fell to the shoulders in a heavy wave. Agatha looked in the mirror.

‘I look like a witch from old fairy tales,’ she said, turning in her chair, lifting her head and looking at Dracula standing in front of her. ‘Who appeared without an invitation to the royal palace.’

Dracula smiled.

‘Witches usually have a much more interesting past than the daughters of foresters and crown princesses.’

‘Maybe,’ Agatha agreed. ‘Did you let the servants go?’ she asked, getting up.

‘Gave them leave until next Wednesday.’

‘So long?’ Agatha, approached the bed and began to unfasten the hooks on the dress, anxiously turned around.

‘I think it will take less time,’ Dracula came over and freed a lock of red hair stuck in one of the fasteners. ‘Still, it’ll be better if you and I will be alone in the next week and we don’t have to look back at the door.’

Agatha nodded. Her fingers returned to the hooks and laces. Having straightened with them, she shrugged her shoulders, and the dress slid to her feet.

She did not see Dracula, but she knew for sure that he was watching her. Stepping over the dress, she straightened the lace shirt on her chest and, walking slowly to the bed, climbed onto it.

Slightly closing her eyes, she watches as Dracula locks the bedroom door, extinguishes the lamps one by one, leaving only the candle at the head of the bed to burn, and, going up to the bed, reaches for a silk scarf tied with an elegant knot around his neck.

Once next to her, he sits down behind and, holding Agatha to him, runs his palms over her hands. His fingers stop at the shoulders, freeze as if in thought, grasp the shock of hair that has been scattered down her back, and lift it up.

A slow, long kiss on the back of her head makes her arch and bite her lip. For a few seconds, Dracula does not move, and then he kisses her again and sinks lower, his hands slide forward, to the buttons of the shirt, lower the thin fabric from her shoulders.

Closing her eyes, Agatha completely surrenders to her feelings. From fleeting touches, the body burns and melts, filling from the inside with a silent ringing, opening and dissolving, almost disappearing, until it gathers again at one point to the left, where the neck passes into the shoulder.

...Soft darkness surrounded her from all sides. There was absolutely nothing frightening about it: Agatha stirred and tried to turn her head rather out of curiosity.

‘Don't resist,’ Dracula's voice rang through her head. And a second later – a chuckle. ‘You'll like it.’

***

The awakening was... sharp. And in a completely literal sense. Smells, sounds, colors were sharp. From the world hanging over Agatha, details seemed to appear and emerge at once.

Dust particles on the dark red velvet curtain of the bed. A scent of fresh varnish rising from a parquet floor painted three weeks ago. Spiky sheets that scratch the body with the skin of an ancient beast. Electric discharges from the back of the head and lost in the thick of long hair.

Agatha closed her eyes. The raging sea of spots of color disappeared and was replaced by a thin squeak.

‘When will the convulsions begin?’ Agatha asked into space without opening her eyes. Her own voice sounded low and hoarse, heavy in her ears.

‘So you want to try?’

Agatha opened her eyes. Dracula's pale face bent over her. A mosquito hovered carefree beside his right cheek.

‘Not that I wanted,’ Agatha said slowly, shifting her gaze from the mosquito to Dracula. ‘I just thought it was part of the process.’

‘Apparently, not always,’ Dracula held out his hand and helped her to rise and sit, leaning on the pillows. ‘How are you feeling?’

‘Loud,’ Agatha muttered, wincing.

‘It's okay,’ Dracula leaned away and reached out to the side. ‘You are hungry?’ asked. Agatha lowered her eyes to the crystal glass that appeared in his hand. The dark scarlet liquid in it looked unusually tempting.

‘I don’t know,’ Agatha said barely audibly and looked at Dracula in dismay. ‘I can't,’ she blurted out and closed her eyes, once again dazed by the sound of her voice.

‘Agatha, this is not human blood,’ Dracula reminded her gently. ‘And if you're not ready, we can still wait. It's just that the sooner you satisfy your first hunger, the less strong and uncontrollable it will be later.’

Agatha nodded silently.

Swallowing shortly, she stretched out her hand to the glass – and immediately leaned back, groaning exhaustedly.

‘Agatha?’ Dracula asked worriedly.

‘So many... so many things,’ she said, shaking her head and licking her lips.

Dracula put his hand on her forehead. The rough skin of the palm felt like a touch of stiff paper, but it was cool and soothing.

‘You’ll get used to it,’ Dracula said quietly. ‘In the beginning, it is always like that.’

Agatha could not resist a skeptical smile.

‘It has advantages,’ Dracula whispered conspiratorially, bending over slightly. ‘And a lot.’

‘I remember,’ Agatha snorted. ‘The ability to hear rats scratching under the floor, to catch negligent coachmen...’ Hot lips, catching her earlobe, silenced her. ‘Give me a little time,’ she said with an effort, ‘maybe I can find more.’

He laughed.

Agatha turned and looked again at the glass on the nightstand.

‘Lissa?’ she asked.

‘No,’ Dracula shook his head.

‘Are you afraid that I will find out your secrets with her?’ Agatha teased him. She climbed higher on the pillows and made herself comfortable. The first shock receded, and the deafening world gradually became just unusually bright and clear.

‘Too much information confuses newbies,’ smiled Dracula. ‘Besides, Lissa is active and willful. Her blood may excite you unnecessarily. This is Richard, a stallion from Angola, who arrived four weeks ago. Gentle and meek like a sleeping child.’

Agatha reached for the glass. She held it in her hand for a moment, staring at the dark liquid inside. Then she raised it to her lips and took a quick sip.

Nothing happened, and the curtain of the bed did not collapse on her head. It felt as if she had taken a sip of old thick wine. The metallic flavor confused her at first, but the further she drank, the more acutely she became aware of her hunger and the satisfaction of being able to satisfy it. A piercing blue sky, humid winds, and a light rustle of hot sand were felt in the shades of taste.

Having drained the glass to the end, Agatha put it back on the nightstand and licked her lips thoughtfully. Neither the taste, nor the sight, nor the smell of blood made her lose her mind, which she most feared. Perhaps, she mused, the insanity of many newly turned vampires was not caused by the craving for blood as such, but rather a consequence of the ‘return’ and the wave of impressions and feelings that attacked them.

Suddenly the silence of the room was broken by a sharp, persistent rustle. Like someone... Agatha turned quickly towards the sound and saw a large rat crawling across the floor.

Agatha squinted at Dracula. He gazed at her in silence, without a shadow of a smile, but his nostrils fluttered in a very familiar way.

‘You will not get it,’ she said.

* Dragostea (Romanian) – love.

#dracula 2020 #bbc dracula #count dracula #agatha van helsing #dragatha #geth #drama #romance

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buckstaposition · 4 years

Text

I cling to your lips like gloss (1)

a Javier Peña x OFC story

now also on AO3

author: @youhavereachedtheendofpie (if u wanna come say hello on main)

rating/warnings: swearing, mentions of character death

words: 5521

Author’s note: dude this chapter fought me every step of the way but it’s here now so suck it, muses or whatever

---

Tag list: @keeper0fthestars @opheliaelysia @dindjarindiaries (thank you sweeties whom I will hold forever in my heart)

(message me if you want to be added to the list)

Masterlist

Prologue

Chapter 1 - The Informant

'Liliana' the file said. I was tucked away in the locked bottom drawer of his old desk, the one he hadn't even had time to clear out when they'd sent him away. To be fair, Javier had only known to look because Murphy had called him to tell him about this informant. It sounded too good to be true. An informant coming to them of their own accord, ready to spill valuable inside secrets of the Calí cartel, and they didn't even want payment? One would be forgiven, in their line of work, to smell a trap. But Murphy had vouched for this one, and he trusted Murphy, knew that his partner (former partner) did his homework with due diligence. That, and the first batch of intel Murphy had brought back from their first few meetings had already proven invaluable.

There was apparently only one hiccup, and it was that the informant refused to talk to any agents other than him or Murphy. It had even led to Steve having to postpone his return to the States for almost two months, until it was clear that Javier would return to Colombia. Fair enough, he'd need to make up his own mind about them anyway. He collected the file and tucked it into the box that held all the stuff he'd cleared out of the desk, since he would now officially be moving a an office of his own.

Upon arriving in said office, he kicked the door closed and sat, lighting a cigarette and reaching for the file. As thin as it was, it still took him almost an hour to work through it, though half of the time was spent deciphering Murphy's chicken scratch mess of annotations. The rest was spent on making his own. After checking the time, Javier fetched himself a cup of the same old tar brew that passed for coffee here, lit another cigarette, and dialled Steve's new office number in Miami.

"Murphy."

"Alright, I've read the file." Javier started without preamble. Perhaps that was a bit short. He grimaced, then added, "About the informant. Liliana."

"Yeah, I figured." Steve exhaled probably puffing away at his own nicotine habit. Javier meant to quit, but kept pushing it off. The intent was all there was to it, at this stage. "So what're you calling me for, big boss?"

Javier elected to ignore the taunt, knowing it was friendly.

"You've met her. Is she legit?"

"Why, you smelling a trap?"

Pathological mistrust was a feature one acquired while on this job. Those who didn't ended up dead. Those who did would still end up dead, just later and more jaded. Either way you'd get a lot of other people killed on the way. "Just making sure."

They spent the next half hour and a bit going over the file together, comparing notes, catching up, thinking aloud - all of which were much easier to do when they had each other to bounce off of. It felt good, almost like old times. Javier went through close to a third of his pack of cigarettes, the air growing heavy in the windowless room. Just as well that it was almost time to wrap this up. A look at his watch told him that it was getting late in the day, and that Steve would want to get home to his family. All Javier could hope for at this point was avoiding resident CIA-asshole Bill Stechner on his way out, at least on this day.

"You won't be able to pull your usual shit with this one." Steve remarked, accompanied by the sound of shuffling papers. Javier bristled, even though he knew the things people said about him, both behind his back and to his face.

"What's that supposed to mean?" Knowing didn't mean it didn't, occasionally, sting, but he'd given up on trying to influence other people's minds long ago. A reputation once acquired was not easily shed, not that he'd made much of an effort to.

"It means that you shouldn't. Pull your usual crap with this one. For one I hardly think it'll be necessary."

"That would be new." Javier snorted. He could hear Steve's eyeroll through the phone.

"Still the same asshole-" Steve snarked. "I'm just saying be nice for once, especially since that woman's intel is the only reason you still have a job. She's a nice lady, so with a bit of luck some of that might even rub off on you."

"And I'm the asshole..."

"So everyone keeps saying."

"Fuck you, Steve."

"Go fuck yourself, Javi." Steve's chuckle told him it was all in good humor. "And don't fuck this informant."

"Yeah, yeah," Javier waved it off. The woman was an accountant, for fuck's sake. Note exactly his usual type. Or the type he usually attracted.

--- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- ---

They were meeting at one of the small restaurants lining the edge of Parque Sabaneta in Medellín. Over the phone her voice had sounded... hesitant, above all else. Tinny, too, but he blamed the connection for that. And he'd brought her a satellite phone for future contacts; her driving out to remote phone cells and him waiting for calls after hours in his office just didn't cut it.

There hadn't been a picture in the file, but Steve's description had been quite accurate and Javier was able to pick her out at the table she'd chosen before making himself known. Dark hair and darker eyes behind large, slightly old-fashioned glasses. She was almost tall and hid her figure underneath loose-fitted clothing; today a flowy blouse and high-waisted dress pants, and a bulky cardigan against the spring chill that lingered even into the late morning. Her hair was pulled back into a low bun that reminded him of his fifth grade math teacher, Ms Jenkins. Javier approached the table.

"Diana Rivas?" She froze for a split-second before relaxing again, returning his greeting softly. In real life her voice was deeper than he would have anticipated, raspier too, but not unpleasant - the kind of voice one would expect first thing in the morning, just after waking up.

"I do hope your drive was not too tiring, Agent Peña." she said as he sat. He grimaced slightly. The drive had been long, above all else. Not his first choice of how to spend a Friday morning. Well, he'd endured worse for this job. But next time he'd definitely travel by plane.

"Do they serve decent coffee here?" Javier scrubbed a hand over his burning eyes and settled, resuming his assessment. She squirmed slightly under his unrelenting gaze, but squared her shoulders after a moment, meeting his gaze head-on and motioning a waiter over with a flick of her delicate wrist.

"Of course they do, this is Medellín!" She sounded mildly offended, then ignored him in favor of telling the waiter their order. Javier took the time to observe her further.

No make-up, no jewellery, save for a simple, functional watch and a small silver locket on a long, thin chain. No wedding band either, but the paleness and indentation around her ring finger still indicated that she'd worn one in the recent past. Her features were soft and feminine, with high cheekbones and a pointed chin, all making her look younger than she purportedly was. His gaze caught on her defined cupid's bow just a second too long. Her complexion seemed far too sunkissed for someone who spent most of their time indoors, in air-conditioned office spaces. In conclusion, undeniably lovely to anyone with eyes who cared to look, but obviously taking great pains to discourage closer scrutiny, to look as mousy and plain as possible. It worked, to a degree.

It occurred to Javier that maybe he should actually talk to her, since that's what he'd come here for.

"Do you always begin your interrogations with the silent treatment? I can see how that might be effective." She beat him to it, just before the coffee cups were set on the table in front of them.

"This isn't an interrogation." he groused, taking a tentative sip of the coffee. The scent of it alone was enough to wake the dead; it was heavenly. He'd have to see if he could weasel some halfway decent coffee out of his budget at the office.

"Regardless, I only have until noon today. We can meet again tomorrow; I can make myself available all afternoon for you, Agent Peña."

Javier huffed out a breath before taking another sip. "Why can you suddenly do Medellín anyway? You had Murphy travel across half the country to meet you."

She made a face at that, something between annoyed and apologetic. "My aunt, she... she's sick and been getting worse. I make the time to come down here every other weekend now to help her."

"And your employers are alright with that?" He hadn't exactly pegged the Calí cartel for employers of the year. Or to pioneer part-time models so their employees could care for sick relatives.

"As long as the work gets done, yes. It means I work ten to eleven hour days Monday to Thursday, but I am the only one left in this family..." She sniffled a little and swept the tips of her fingers under the plastic rim of her glasses, wiping at her eyes. Javier looked away, pretending it was to give her privacy. He imagined this unusually forthright woman walking up to Pacho Herrera to ask for reduced work hours so she could care for her aunt- That could really have gone either way, but somehow he thought that was probably not how it happened, or whom she'd asked. He just couldn't picture it. Maybe one of the brothers; they liked to style themselves as charitable family men, to a degree.

"Anyway, Medellín's closer for you, and we're less likely to be found out here. They like to keep security pretty tight in Calí. My friend Angelika calls it the Calí Stasi, and she's from the former East Germany, so she'd know."

He hummed in acknowledgement, his coffee almost gone and him almost feeling like a living human being again. He flagged the waiter down for another.

"In any case, I am glad that we can keep this to Spanish now. My English is not very ...confident." She prattled on, sipping from her own cup. Murphy had told him that she'd brought a dictionary to their first meeting, and apparently, with his former partner's dismal language skills, they'd actually needed it.

"I'm sure your English is better than Murphy's Spanish." Steve had told him as much, but then again, Steve's Spanish was shit, so it really wasn't saying much. There was something else niggling at the back of his mind.

"Why me?"

Her glasses slid down her nose half an inch or so in surprise at his -admittedly abrupt- question. "I'm sorry?"

"Murphy said you wanted to speak to me specifically when you first called. Why?"

She hesitated a moment, squirmed a little and averted her eyes, then pushed her glasses back up her nose before answering, softer than before. "Gabriela said you could be trusted."

"...Gabriela?" He said sharply, neck flushing at the thought of the beautiful redhead.

She shrunk in on herself, hands fidgeting nervously in her lap. Perhaps his voice had come out a little bit harsher than intended. He hadn't even thought that she'd actually tell him her real name. He'd just been a client after all.

"Yes," Miss Rivas breathed out, her voice so soft now that he had to lean halfway across the table to even catch it. "She's my best friend. We've been inseparable since the firts day of school. We tell each other everything. She told me she knew a DEA agent; that's why I told my cousin to go to her when she ran into trouble with Pablo Escobar-"

"Your cousin???" He almost roared. It came out as more of a whisper-yell, but she still flinched, eyes going wide behind the lenses.

"Yes, my cousin," she said carefully, "Maritza Rincón."

"Maritza–" he patted his pocket for a smoke and swore under his breath when he remembered how he'd left them in the car with the intention of advancing his 'quit smoking'-idea beyond idle talk. "What is this, a fucking trap? Very elaborate setup just to yell at me, missy. Unless you've got some buddies of yours here to–"

"What- what are you *talking* about? I don't blame you for Maritza's death!" By now people were staring. Not a lot of them, since it wasn't really the time yet for the midday crowd and too late for the morning rush, but the few pensioners and whatnot were definitely sensing the tension at their table. Javier gave up on his cigarette search and took a deliberate breath, willing himself to calm down.

"Maritza is dead?" He hadn't known that. He wasn't sure how he would have learned of it, but it still shocked him regardless. He looked over to see her fidget with her locket, lips pressed tight and trembling. Shit. Another informant on his conscience, fucking great.

"I'm sorry, I didn't-" he started, his voice catching. He bought himself time with his now lukewarm coffee, "Look, I'm sorry. I didn't know that. I-"

"It's alright." She whispered, in a tone of voice that clearly indicated it wasn't. She swept her glasses off with trembling fingers and pressed beneath her eyes, as if to restrain the tears that pooled in her lashes.

"I'm sorry." Javier said again, insistent, soft, sincere. "What happened?"

"We- I don't know. She called me to say she was in trouble with Escobar, and I helped her set up the meeting with Gabi."

"With me." He remembered that evening, that young girl sitting in Gabriela's apartment, ready to be sprung on him. Part of him had resented it; Gabriela had been someone he'd sought out to get away from the damn narcos and their dealings. Miss Rivas nodded.

"Yes. It was that idiot Jhon. He was one of the neighborhood kids. Growing up he'd always had a crush on her..." She talked a lot, he found. It should irritate him more, the way she'd throw in seemingly irrelevant asides without explaining further. Instead he only found himself worrying that someone so pathologically honest could not possibly keep the Gentlemen of Calí off her tracks, at least not if she kept spilling her life story so eagerly.

" ...and then she hid out on her uncle's farm again, where my auntie - her mom - grew up and went back to after my uncle - that's Maritza's dad - died of a heart attack. Auntie had been out for the day and when she came back- "

He can't bear to listen to it, but forces himself to anyway. In the sea of his regrets, what's one more? Besides, there's nothing else he can do for the girl now; the least he can do is witness how he failed her.

For all her unassuming bluntness, Diana Rivas is not one to hold back, even on unsavoury details. At least he doesn't get the sense that she does it to torment when she tells him how they found Maritza's lifeless body with her young daughter next to her.

By the end of that sorry tale, he has his head in his hands, Miss Rivas is still just this side of openly weeping, and all the other patrons have demonstratively averted their attention so as not to impose on what must, on the outside, look like an urgent case for a damned good couples' counselor.

"I'm sorry, I know this is a lot." And why in the hell is she apologizing?

"No shit." And yeah, he has to digest this before he can even think of making any attempt at non-destructive human interaction. "You couldn't tell Murphy any of this?"

She gave him a look.

"Yeah, alright. Sorry." More than just a language barrier, got it.

"I didn't come here today with the intention to relive this, you know?" She said archly. He supposed she had all the right to be upset. And he'd never had a meeting with an informant turn this harrowing, which was really saying something.

"I'm sorry." He said again, putting the weight of sincerity behind the words. Her hands were in the table now, fidgeting again as she sat slightly hunched over, staring into her coffee cup.

"Unless your government has a time machine to spare, I would prefer not talking about it again. At least not more than necessary." She replaced her glasses and checked her watch. "1 pm tomorrow?"

Javier nodded dumbly, already plucking a few bills out of his wallet to pay for the coffee. "Yeah, 1 pm is okay. Where?"

"Meet me at the church. Santa Ana. You know it?" He didn't particularly, as in he didn't know its name before now, but he could see the building's tall white facade from where they were sitting.

"Iglesia de Santa Ana, 1 pm tomorrow." Javier confirmed, rising as she did. The stared at each other for a moment, unsure of how to conclude this meeting, until she stuck her hand out for him to shake. He took her smaller, slender hand in his, squeezing it wordlessly.

"Until tomorrow, Agent Peña." She said, managing a sad little smile. "I hope you'll get some rest. You look like shit."

Javier bit down every one of the snarky replies that sprung to mind, not least because he knew it was true. His bags had bags and he itched for a smoke.

And to think, this was Murphy's 'nice lady'.

--- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- ---

Somehow it hadn't occurred to him that at the church meant inside the church. Not until a very miffed face peered out between the heavy doors, giving him a look as he stood there smoking.

"It's barely been five minutes!" Javier defended himself, stubbing out the cigarette beneath his heel.

"It's 1:07pm." She informed him matter-of-factly, pushing the glasses back up her nose pointedly as she made to turn back inside. Javier caught the door, crowding perhaps a bit too close, but the damned thing was heavy.

"Sorry." He said simply, seeing no point in making a scene out of it. She had to crane her neck just the slightest bit to meet his gaze.

"Wait here, I'll be out in a minute." And with that she stalked off. Javi watched her sweep down the aisle, her hair and skirt fluttering behind her. She wore her hair loose today, the ends of it curling around her shoulders, and a simple off-white shirt dress that reached down to mid-calf. He let his eyes trail after her, leaning his weight more fully against the heavy wood of the door to lever it open. She walked around two thirds of the way down the pews before stopping by a... baby carriage?

She bent over it before carefully wheeling it around and starting back towards the door. Javier racked his tired brain. The file hadn't said anything about a kid. Married five years but no children. That didn't seem like the kind of thing one would easily miss, and he knew Murphy to be thorough in his inquiries.

"Who's this then?" He peered inside the carriage -more of a buggy really now that he got a closer look- and barely caught a glance of a dozing toddler with soft brown curls, while hoisting the door open wider to let her pass more easily. "Didn't know you had a kid."

"I don't." The buggy caught on the threshold and jolted, and a displeased cry came from inside it, making her curse under her breath. "This is Maritza's daughter, Salome. I've got it! Just- the door, just get the door!"

The last part of that came out high and sharp, much like the crack of a whip, and in direct response to Javier's attempt to swoop in and help heave the buggy over the worn-down threshold. He jolted back on instinct, grunting when the door swung squarely into his spine. Who the hell was responsible for all these old-ass church doors being solid enough to squash an actual living human between them?

After some fumbling they managed to make it out with most of their dignity still intact. Javier bent down and quickly shoved the bag he'd brought into the wire basket underneath the buggy's seat, next to her purse.

"Where to?" He asked, straightening up again. Miss Rivas still looked cross, her lips pressed together.

"Follow along. There are some secluded benches a little walk away." And off she was, leavin him to catch up.

"If your intention is to disguise this meeting as just another family enjoying the sun I suggest you slow down a little." Javier hissed under his breath. He'd actually had to jog a bit to keep up with her steamroller pace. She looked even more annoyed and declined to grace him with an answer, but slowed with a sigh that told him that this was indeed her intention. It was a smart enough plan, he wouldn't dispute that.

At least the kid seemed to have calmed from her little jostle-startle, seeing as she was now quietly babbling away as if narrating the sights. Javier tried to loosen his tense shoulders and to look like he was enjoying himself as they fell into step ambling along the walkways between the lush greenery.

"How old is she?" he asked, thinking that perhaps some small talk would ease the woman's sullen mood.

"Almost two and a half." Or not. Well, he tried. Javier wasn't exactly an expert with kids and none of his previous informants had ever shown up with theirs. Not that that would have been appropriate considering the circumstances. They walked for about a quarter of an hour, which Javier spent agonizing about how to smooth over the sudden mood change Miss Rivas was displaying compared to the day before. By the time they'd made it to their destination he was no closer to that goal.

She sat with a weary sigh, shaking out her flowy skirt before sitting and rolling her sleeves up to her elbows. It was much warmer today than when they'd met previously, only in part due to the later hour. Stiffly, Javier sat down next to her at a distance that instantly belied their 'family outing' cover. She turned to him after checking on the baby, peeling back the sunshade of the buggy to allow her to look around.

"You can smoke if you want to." Miss Rivas said offhandedly, her tone forcedly polite. Javier cleared his throat.

"I'm actually trying to quit."

Her lips quirked into a pleasant curve. "And how's that going?"

Javier sighed. "I'm thinking I might have chosen the wrong time."

"Or the wrong job."

The laugh that bursts forth from him is short, but not altogether hollow. "Yeah, or that."

"Very well, then you may not smoke even though you might want to."

Javier smiled. Couldn't help it, really. He had been worried that he'd somehow managed to offend her during their last meeting. He said as much, and she shook her head with a look of remorse.

"No, it's not your fault. It's just..." She pushed her glasses up and rubbed at her eyes, revealing the dark rings that had previously been hidden beneath the plastic rim. "Yesterday dredged up some things, and I didn't sleep well as a consequence. That always makes me snippy. And to top things of, this one," she leaned over to unbuckle the child and heave her into her lap, "was being fussy all morning, which didn't help. Sorry for being so short with you earlier."

"In this job, people usually shoot at me. It's alright, really. You're alright." Truth be told, he was glad she pulled herself out of this funk. Maybe she was as nice as Murphy claimed after all. The kid looked at him with large, round, strangely sage eyes. I got your mommy killed. I got your mommy killed and you had to watch. If he had gotten her that visa- The thought made him gulp, made him dizzy and nauseous and if there was anything to be glad for in this situation it was that he was already sitting down. Miss Rivas replaced her glasses and looked at him with furrowed brows. He felt like he was being read.

"I already told you that I don't blame you for Maritza." Javier tried his damnedest not to squirm underneath that discerning stare. Screw read, he felt like he was being flayed open. "Obviously you still blame yourself."

"Wouldn't you?" He shot back, defensive. She didn't answer for a moment, gently rocking the kid who had grabbed a hold of her locket and started to play with it.

"I have enough regrets of my own, Agent Peña." Part of him wants to scoff, even just to dispel the heavy moment, but the severity in her tone nips that impulse in the bud. Instead, he clears his throat and gestures to the buggy where he stored his bag earlier.

"I brought you something."

Her features soften into not quite a smile, but something close enough. "What a coincidence, so have I."

And then she hands him the toddler, who lets out a displeased cry at having her toy wrenched from her chubby hands in so unceremonious a manner, and Javier freezes as her squirmy weight is settled in his lap, only his hand shooting out to steady her on instinct. Up close her big brown eyes are even more enormous.

"Um, hi. Nice to meet you, Miss Salome. I'm Javier." He says awkwardly and is met with a pout. This is patently terrible and reminds him of the few times he'd been handed baby Olivia. She'd started crying instantly nine times out of ten. He hopes against hope that today will be a deviation from that norm. Salome considers him a long moment, blinking owlishly and making that certain kind of skeptical face that little kids so often do. He's had less tense moments in interrogations. He might be sweating in a way that has little to do with the midday heat.

And then Salome blows him a raspberry and dives for his wrist to investigate the shininess of his watch. And when he can breathe again he allows himself a smile. Of relief, mostly. In stark contrast to the smile Miss Rivas wears as she regeards them both, which is pure mischief with a dash of smugness.

"Well look at that. You passed muster, Agent Peña." Miss Rivas set both their bags down in the space between them, then leaned over to press a quick kiss to little Salome's soft curls. And Javier has been much closer to many women than this; his heart shouldn't lurch at the sudden proximity, the waft of her perfume or the light brush of her soft hair over his bare forearm.

"Ladies first." Javier gestured at the bags between them. She smiled and rummaged through hers, producing two thick stacks of folded papers, either parcel secured with a rubber band.

"Trade you?" she motioned at the girl, who was now intently examining the fingers of his right hand. Reluctantly, he let Miss Rivas pluck the small child from his lap and stand her next to the bench. Salome frowned adorably for a moment at having been interrupted in pulling his pinky finger off, then realized she was free to roam around and brightened instantly, hitting the bench a few times with chubby palms and babbling.

"Yes, of course I have your toy, sweetie." Miss Rivas said earnestly, presenting a brightly colored ball. Salome grabbed for it with a squeal, her momentum propelling her straight onto her backside. Miss Rivas turned back to Javier with that soft, fond expression still on her face and handed him one of the parcels.

"Do... did you want to go over this? While I'm here to explain things?"

"That complex, huh?"

"Well, it's a lot to do with creative book-keeping and tax law loopholes. It's more about how they structure their business to launder their incomes than anything else, but it'll still be helpful in building a case, no?"

It is, which is the whole reason he's been sent back here apparently. And while it's nothing the analysts back at the office can't handle (probably), he still likes being in the loop. And also maybe because he enjoys the sound of her voice. In any case he peels off the rubber band and unfolds the stack of papers, keeping a careful hand around it to ensure that nothing blows away in the spring breeze. Miss Rivas pulled out a pencil from her purse and shuffled closer. Close enough that he can smell her perfume again. - - - Over the following hour and a half Javier realized several important things:

One. Diana Rivas is likely one of the cleverest people he has ever met. By page eight his head is swimming with numbers, but her even explanations make even tiered corporate tax rebate systems sound fascinating. Even in his line of work, he'd never truly considered accounting to be the stuff of suspense, but she makes it sound like a thriller that even the brightest heads in Hollywood would have trouble coming up with.

Two. Having to do anything while keeping an eye in a rambunctious small child who is still learning to walk is a uniquely stressful experience. Little Salome is bouncing around the small patch of grass in front of the bench much like her ball, endowed with seemingly endless reservoirs of energy. She crashes into his knee a few times while chasing her ball or deciding that playing hide and seek underneath the bench is a better use of her time, and it puts him on edge that he feels responsible at all.

Three. The Rodríguez brothers make more than enough money from their few legitimate businesses to never have to worry themselves financially. Not that this had been in question, technically, but to see the numbers in black and white is still galling, even if he's not nearly as incensed about it as Miss Rivas seems to be. And while Javier is far from a religious man, he does consider greed that is levered with blood to be at least distateful.

Four. It's not her perfume he smelled earlier, but her shampoo, bright and fruity, with high notes of citrus.

Five. As long as this is all they have and all she can get, the DEA cannot make a move against the Calí cartel. His orders had been very clear on that. Nail them down beyond escape and make absolutely sure you get them into custody, in that order. It means that whatever Miss Rivas can reveal about the inner financial working of the cartel is valuable, but on its own won't be enough. As always in this job it's sorting through a haystack with a rake in search of needlepoints.

Which brings him to the next thing he needs to ask her. Needs to ask her to do for him, and the operation, to be specific, and he can already tell she'll say yes eagerly. Eager informants should be a blessing, but their eagerness seems to directly correlate with their likelihood of getting killed, or close enough.

"This is for you." He says instead, handing her the satellite phone. There's directions that go with it, but he takes the time to walk her through it nonetheless. Also his numbers, both office and home, just in case. He watched as she carefully tucked everything into her purse.

It's later in the afternoon now - past three - and Salome comes toddling over, handing Javier her ball and sitting down on the grassy ground with a world-weary sigh.

"Okay, time for your nap I think, young lady." Miss Rivas plucked the child from the ground and stood to deposit her back in the buggy, then holding out her hand to him expectantly. He hands the ball over after a split-second of dumbstruck hesitation.

"Well, goodbye then, Agent Peña."

He stood. Offered her his hand to shake, which she took. "I'll call you during the week. What time is good for you?"

"Any time between seven and ten. I'll probably be in Medellín again in a month. I'll let you know if I have more intel by then." He nodded, finally releasing her hand after realizing he still had her fingers clasped in his. She smiled and turned to leave, wheeling the buggy around from its resting position and onto the footpath. "Oh, and Agent Peña?" She turned halfway, throwing the words over her shoulder with a smirk. "Gabriela won't be available tonight, just so you know. We're meeting for dinner and general catching up."

His neck flushed hotly, both despite and because he'd had no intention of visiting her.

"Thanks," he said stiffly, "Give her my best."

"Will do!"

Shaking his head, Javier watched her retreat until she disappeared from view behind a bend in the path.

-------------------------------------------------------

Further author’s note bc apparently I have more to say:

I’m gonna play a bit fast and loose with the timeline, because the show makes it look like Javi was sent back pretty much immediately and it only took those ~6 months to take down the cartel bosses, but in reality Escobar died in December of 1993 and the Calí godfathers weren’t arrested until summer of ‘95, so I’m sending Javi back to Colombia in the first half of ‘94 (April to be specific), meaning the time frame for this story is about a year

also I thought Maritza’s daughter in the series was still a baby, but upon rewatch it is actually stated in s2 ep4 that she’s two, and now I had to rewrite those parts. As to why she doesn’t speak, that’s actually something that will come up later and has nothing to do with my bad memory of the series. though tbh I probably assumed that because Olivia was a baby for like three years. (also according to the timeline I determined Maritza’s daugher would actually be between three and four at this point, but I’m going to disregard that. I’ve already had to age her up once and for the purposes of this story I need her to be still this little)

Chapter 2

#narcos (tv)#javier pena x ofc #series #I cling to your lips like gloss (series)#multipart #javier peña #narcos #narcos fanfic #javier peña fanfic #my writing #part 1 #like gloss tag

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curiousconch · 3 years

Text

Fight or Flight

Chapter 13 of Ricochet (An Open Heart AU)

Catch up here: Series Masterlist

Chapter Synopsis: Bryce and Heather both need to make major decisions as they face the final revelation about what truly transpired during Heather's kidnapping.

Pairing: Bryce Lahela x MC (Dr. Heather Song) ft. PLATONIC Ethan Ramsey

Words: 3.5k+ | Genre: Crime, Suspense/Thriller, Romance

Rating/Warnings: Mature (16+) / language, hints of violence

Author's Notes: So this took too long to write, and frankly, I'm still reeling with it. I have long planned the conclusion of this series but I am still shocked with how I came up with this final twist. I do hope you forgive me for sitting on this for far too long. Life wasn't making it easier.

Also, disclaimer: Majority of the characters are owned by Pixelberry, except the main character Heather Song.

"You can't go back to the case, Lahela."

Bryce pounded his fists on his oak desk in frustration. He just came out of a meeting from Chief Tanaka, requesting for him to be assigned back on the Farrugia case.

Victim - prosecutor relations. Possible disbarrment. Termination. To sum it all up, his career will be in jeopardy.

These are the looming threats over Bryce's head if he didn't back off the case. Not that he had much choice. Now that his and Heather's faces were plastered across every Boston online article from the gala.

He couldn't help but to think that someone planned to stop his involvement in the case. Probably because that person knows he's doomed once Bryce works his way to untangle the web of conspiracies that transpired.

Resolved, the ADA swears to himself to get to the bottom of it before he lets this go. Sitting down, his mind ventures to Heather, wishing that her day back to Edenbrook was going much smoother than his was.

***

Unfortunately, before noon, Heather found herself in a supply closet.

It was proving more difficult to go back to normalcy after everything that has happened. Patients recognize her from the news coverage. Doctors, nurses, even half the staff was treating her like something fragile. Even the usually grumpy attending that was her boss wasn't trying to get on her toes today.

For Heather, it was incredibly disorienting.

But the probable reason behind how everyone was acting weird around her was that early morning incident.

While taking on an emergency case, she froze up. The last time she did was during her intern year. And that was for an entirely different reason. This time, her head blanked out because she thought she saw Ed Farrugia in that gurney. The slithering snake of a man he was. She couldn't move her fingers, nor speak because of the mixed emotions of her imagined vision.

Edenbrook was where it all began.

Luckily, Dr. Naveen was around to sub for her.

And thus began her slow downturn, reaching the tipping point in this condemned supply closet.

Eyes closed and breathing slowly, Heather struggled to free herself from the suffocation she was feeling. She loved Edenbrook, she loved working here. But now, why does she only feel dread the first day she again set foot on it?

Beep beep.

The sound of her pager momentarily freed her from her prodding mind. It was Ethan. He wanted to see her at Chief Banerji's office. Sighing deeply, she fixed herself and got out of the closet, wondering what this meeting might be about.

An elevator trip and a couple of minutes later, she knocked on Naveen's door and let herself in. Ethan Ramsey was already inside.

"You asked for me?" Heather said, closing the door behind her.

Her mentor and grand-mentor exchanged looks of concern before straightening up.

"Grand-protégé, have a seat," Chief Naveen gestured towards the comfortable chairs in front of her desk, where Ethan already took a seat on one.

She obliged, taking the seat opposite her boss. Dr. Ramsey didn't take long to speak right after.

"We know you've been through a lot recently Dr. Song and we-"

"Please don't put this delicately, Ethan. I can't get anymore fragile," Heather spoke up, demanding for both doctors to tell it to her straight.

"Of course, Heather." Ethan coughed, before sitting up in a more commanding posture.

"Johns Hopkins have offered a long-term position to the Cancer research partnership we have with them," Naveen said. "We both think it's in the best interest of you and Edenbrook to take the opportunity, given that it's your target specialization and -"

"It's not in Boston." Heather finished the sentence for him.

"Yes," Ethan nodded. "We don't want your career to be overshadowed by what has been going on. You have a lot of potential, and this would make you a forerunner in the advancement of cancer research."

"It's frankly what you can call it, hitting two birds with one stone," the eldest of the doctors added.

"How long will it be?" Heather asked, weighing it all in.

"A year, a year and a half, at least." Ethan replied.

"And what of my position in the diagnostics team?"

"You'll stay on to consult remotely, but your responsibilities will be diminished given that we want you to spend more time on the cancer research."

Heather swallowed hard. They're putting me into self-imposed exile.

Sensing her hesitation, Ethan reached out to her and patted her arm.

"We only want what we think is best for you Heather, so please at least give this some thought."

She met her mentors' gaze and nodded at them, before rising to stand up.

"I will think about it," she said, leaving the office.

***

Pulling all the strings he had left, Bryce Lahela stepped foot into the mansion of Massachusetts' prolific senator. Isolated by house arrest, thinking about Ed Farrugia made the young ADA's skin crawl.

As he walked the carpeted floors into a receiving room, he couldn't help but notice the select macabre portraits that showed war scenes hanging on the stuffy walls. Says alot about its owner, that's for sure.

The double doors he entered in opened, and a tall imposing figure in unflattering maroon satin robes came in. He looked a bit older, yet, somehow, more formidable.

"Ah, ADA Lahela. I see you are not backing down?"

Bryce almost snorted at his arrogance, immediately sensing the pretend machismo in his foe's tone.

"We'll see about that, Senator," the prosecutor replied politely. Didn't want to cross the point of no return before I had the answers I wanted.

"So, what does the young and promising prosecutor want from a disgraced politician today?" Ed sat down on one of the most pretentious armchairs Bryce has ever seen in his life.

"The truth," Bryce smiled cheekily, standing opposite the other man, matching his bravado.

The senator's response was to lean back on the too comfortable chair, crossing his legs.

"Well ADA Lahela, are you certain you are ready for the truth? It may get closer to home, more than you will ever think," Farrugia replied, a sinister grin masking his features which suddenly made Bryce feel queasy.

I don't like where this is going. He thought to himself, staying quiet.

"I thought so," Ed Farrugia nodded, watching the lawyer's stoic facade slowly crumble. "But to hell with it, it's just going to be fun to watch how you had a hand on all of what happened to your precious Doctor Song."

The former senator snapped, and in came a butler that carried a tray. In the tray was a white envelope, and a tumbler of what Bryce smelled as scotch. The politico grabbed the glass and sipped the rich liquid, neither offering Bryce any nor pouring him another glass. Instead, he reached for the white envelope and raised it to Bryce's level.

"Recognize the handwriting, young man?" Ed Farrugia was now sneering at him, expectant.

As Bryce's sight slowly trailed the cursive handwriting, he sensed the familiarity of the strokes. Ed Farrugia's name was written, but there was something about the way it was written.

When his eyes fell on the top left side, he recognized the insignia almost immediately, the hairs at the back of his neck standing up.

There it was, the name he tried to get away from since his adolescent life. Lahela. The logo of his parents' godforsaken company that duped so many families.

Bryce can only freeze in place, as the horror of the realization that his parents somehow had a hand in all of the things that happened to Heather slowly dawned on him.

"Heather Song was the doctor that saved my ass, ADA Lahela, so of course I didn't have the motive to hurt her, you know. She prevented my assassination, and I'm not an ungrateful hypocrite," Ed Farrugia began to explain. "But Heather knows this... I am not to shy away from people who can give what I want, what I need, you understand of course? You're a smart young man."

"So in exchange of a generous donation to my campaign, I am to concoct a plan that will mutually be beneficial to me and my donors," Farrugia continued. "My donors wish to teach you a lesson, make sure that you do not forget where you came from, remind you that no matter where you go, once a Lahela, always a Lahela."

"That's why we went with a warning first, remember? Get out of Boston, or else," the senator shook his head. "Your parents didn't think she'd be a good influence to you. Frankly, an orphan with an absentee father? She'd set you up for failure. At least that was what your parents thought."

"And of course, I wanted to gain something more with it, might as well do the work right? I had my kidnapping staged, that dashcam footage you received? That's from me so that you can arrive at the scene before I get killed by that amateur wannabe Jordan. What's in it for me was public sympathy - as the survivor of a second assassination attempt. Public sympathy equals votes. As simple as that."

Ed stood then, and padded his way to the nearest open window, before looking back at Bryce.

"I used my own enemy, the Travis Brothers, to deflect suspicion, of course. I also a used a middle man, someone who already wants payback from Dr. Song, someone with motive... So Declan Nash worked for me, in exchange of leniency in his role on Panacea's medicare fraud." He smirked, satisfied with the grandiose of his plan. "My only mistake was that I underestimated that ungrateful piece of crap though. Who would have thought he had the brains to record me?" his fist connected on the windowsill, startling Bryce.

"So you see, young man, everything that happened, is on you. No one is to be blamed more than you. All because of your ambition to become something you are not. Something you will never be, be apart from your family name."

Stunned into silence, Bryce can only gape at the senator. The turmoil within though, was unparalleled.

The anger that was boiling in him in the revelation that all this time, his parents was the cause of so much misery. Bryce's heart was so quenched of the discovery that he hasn't completely escaped them, nor their relentless hunger for taking control of his life.

His fists clenched, wanting nothing but to smash every single thing in that wretched room. He didn't care anymore.

What right do they have after putting him in so much pain? What do they even want to achieve? Do they want to make him crawl back to them as if nothing happened? Do they want the same pretentious respect that so many others had just for their mercy?

How does he even begin to explain all of this to Heather? That everything that went downhill for her was because of the person she loved? How can she accept him now? How can she love him now?

And as if on queue, Bryce's phone began to ring. When he saw the caller ID, he almost dropped it.

It rang once again. And he knew he had to take it.

"Bryce? Can we meet?" The voice from the other line was firm, but fragile.

He tried to level his voice, not wanting to have her worried. At least not now.

"Sure, babe. Where do you want to go?" Bryce replied, walking out of the mansion that was sucking the life out of him.

"In that cafe, where I bought you coffee that first day we met. Do you remember where?"

Bryce sensed the urgency in Heather's voice. Has she found out? He hoped not.

"Okay, what time?"

"I was hoping now. If you're done working, that is."

He was done. No reason to delay the inevitable.

"Okay, I'll drive there now. I'll see you."

With a heart heavier than it has ever been in his entire life, he drove down to where it all began, praying so much that it wouldn't be a trip to full circle.

***

Heather nervously sat by the glass wall of the Cafe, in a quiet corner. She already ordered two caramel macchiatos, the same drinks she and Bryce had the first day they met.

She rehearsed what she was about to say in her head, hoping that repetition will make it less taunting. Once she sensed Bryce, she waved him to the table and stood up.

He instantly saw her, and the load he was bearing suddenly become a little lighter. But the guilt was still there. The guilt of being the person to have caused much misery in her life.

But years of practice of showing everyone else the facade of his unbreakable confidence helped him hide what he was truly feeling at the moment, and instead smiled at her.

Her beaming return smile proved to be almost too much.

He reached out to her and intertwined his fingers with hers, almost nudging the cup of coffee in front of him.

"Hey, you remembered," Bryce was touched.

"Of course, it's probably the only thing you ordered during those meetings." Heather chuckled, brushing his cheek with her knuckles.

Her chuckle was lackluster, not her usual one full of wit.

"What's going on, Heath? It can't be that you just missed me," Bryce asked, straight to the point, hoping to dodge her intuitive powers of observation.

She sensed the edge in his voice, making her eyebrow quirk. Heather discerned it was best to ask him first.

"No, Bryce. What's up?"

For the second time that day, Bryce was stunned into silence. Heather's sharp perception of him was unimaginably accurate. And he knew he'd explode if he didn't tell her.

So he did.

From the denial and threats of Chief Tanaka, to his prodding, which led him to the heavy weight of the truth of Senator Ed Farrugia's admission. He didn't spare any detail.

Heather listened intently, trying to comprehend exactly what he was saying. She saw the guilt in Bryce's eyes when he told her that his parents set the wheels in motion, apparently for some sick and twisted lesson he needed to learn, like he was still under their supervision, under their control.

The more she heard, the more overwhelmed she got. But she didn't let go of the grip she had on Bryce's hands, reassuring him that she's there to not judge, but only hear out what he learned of the unnerving truth. And to acknowledge the strength of Bryce's character to not hold out the truth to her.

That was what she loved about Bryce. He was never one to back down from the truth, when it mattered. At least that's the case with her.

She has spent half the day pondering about her own decision. She took Bryce's position into account but she didn't expect this other factor to come into play.

If she stayed in Boston, she'd stay with him. And he won't be able to help her case. She knew Bryce, and he'll be unnerved not to be able to personally oversee it. And with this new discovery, he'd want to all the more take this case. This was personal. And Bryce wasn't one to back down against it. She's going to hold her back.

If she left... Well, Bryce would be able to take on the case.

Either way, she'll lose him. And the mere thought of it pained Heather to the core.

Bryce noticed Heather's lack of reply, the contemplative look in her face made him sense something was about to go south.

"What if there's a way, Bryce?" Heather finally spoke. "What if there's a chance for you to fight all this? Would you take it?"

"Heath, I don't think I want to know where this is heading..." Bryce stared at her, confused.

"Answer me first, Lahela. If I give you an out where all those hurdles goes out of your way, will you go through with it?" The intensity with which her eyes bore into his was unparalleled, yet rendering him clueless.

It took him a few moments before answering. Everytime he asked himself the same question, the answer was never different.

"Yes, Heath. I'll fight this to make sure those bastards can do you no more harm." his answer was firm, but as to her way, he still had reservations.

She nodded, her heart screaming not to do this. But she had to do it, else, everything her and Bryce will have between them will be diminished to nothing but resentment and guilt. With him claiming responsibility for his own parents' actions, yet unable to do anything about it. And Heather resentment, because she can't guarantee that a day won't come that she'll blame him.

They can't be together. Not until this is all resolved, not until they can leave everything behind.

Laying it down the line, Heather had to choose. She had to choose for both of them, even if it will surely hurt them both.

"Do you trust me, Bryce? Do you trust us?" Heather was firmly holding his hands, determined.

He nodded, despite himself. He feared what she was about to say, so he held his breath.

"So be it, Bryce. I'll give you an out. I'll give you what I think you need now,"

Bryce was afraid to ask the next question in his mind, but he did anyway, fuelled by Heather’s fire.

"What's the cost, Heath?"

"I'm leaving for Baltimore, Bryce," she said quietly, biting her lower lip, clearly putting in an effort to hold back tears. "I hope two years is enough for you to fight everything alone, because you'll have to. We both have to fight this separately, it seems."

Bryce's blood ran cold. No, no, no, no fucking way.

Seeing the panic in his eyes, Heather soothed him by brushing her fingertips on the back of his hand, sadness beginning to creep into her expression.

"It's the only way, Bryce, it's the only way..." she repeated, as if to convince herself rather than him.

"No, Heather, I can't lose you, not this time, not ever." Bryce's voice was pleading with her, yet he knew, deep down, that she was right. That this seemed to be the only way to fight all the remaining battles of their lives.

"If we concede now, Bryce, it would only break us. If we avoid this now, it will eventually haunt us and we'll succumb to it. We'll just end up hurting each other." She struggled to reassure him, but she pressed on.

"This way, we're not bowing down. We stand more of a chance to overcome this if you'll fight this. If, we will fight this." She rose from her seat to take the chair beside him. She wrapped her arm around his shoulders, comforting him. "We're merely carving our own way around it. It's not going to be easy, but I know we'll overcome... Because you're one hell of a prosecutor, Lahela. You're the best and you know it."

"How come you're the one who's so brave about this?" Bryce stared back at her, tears brimming in the corner of his eyes, aware that this may be their end.

"Because I believe so much in you, Bryce. Because you can do so much for this world more than how your parents defined you. You are your own person, and nothing can ever take that away from you," she paused, brushing the hair away from the beautiful amber eyes that gazed down at her. "Most importantly, because I love you so, so much. And what I can give you now, the love I have now in me, is less than what you deserve. I want to heal, for myself Bryce. I want to be whole again, so that I can give my 100%. When all of this is over, I'll come find you, that's a promise."

Bryce couldn't help himself anymore and pressed his lips against hers with fervent passion, knowing that this will be the last time in a long time before he can find her in his arms like this. Agreeing to this course of action, they bid their goodbyes, never as uncertain as they were about the decision they just made.

In less than a week, Heather left for Johns Hopkins, bidding goodbye to everyone except Bryce. Hoping the moment she stepped inside the plane, life would give her this chance to start over, to completely heal, to become whole again. Because Bryce Lahela deserved more than the fraction of what she could give. He deserved everything of her, no inhibitions, no limits, no holding back.

Bryce watched her go from a distance. He watched her plane took off from the ground, all the while concocting a plan to defeat the shadows of his past lurking around so that he could be with her again. Freely, completely and irreversibly.

That day, two open hearts chose to fight. Fight for the things that hung over their head so that it was no more. But in their decision to fight, they lost the comfort of each other. They embarked on their separate paths with the promise of meeting again one day.

The path to the summit was often lonely. It is in their hopes however, that the moment they reach the end of this hard path they were in, they would no longer be alone anymore.

More than their willingness to overcome another hurdle in their way was their certainty to trust in each other, in the strength of their love for one another. In their endurance. In their hope.

For them, that was more than enough. It has to be enough.

Author's Notes 2: If you're reading this, I want to thank you so much for taking time to read this series. There's an epilogue in the final edits and I promise to tie the loose ends of this final chapter! Please do share your thoughts in the comments, I would really appreciate it!

Tags: @eleanorbloom @ejustlurkshere @choicesficwriterscreations @openheartfanfics

#open heart #bryce lahela #open heart 2 #choices #choices fanfiction #open heart fanfiction #bryce lahela x mc #pixelberry #fics of the week #choices fic writers creations #play choices #open heart au

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twilightknight17 · 3 years

Text

Today on P5S, we’re taking a nice relaxing dip in the hot sprin--

Fukuoka, Kyushu! The plan was to keep going straight through to Kyoto, but Makoto was hurting from all the driving, so we pulled over with the intention of spending the night in a proper hotel and having a good meal. Which, of course, means ramen, because we gotta try the local ramen in each place. ^_^

Even Morgana wanted to try, though he requested that Akira blow on it, first, because “feline tongues are sensitive.”

The plan was to stay in Fukuoka until Makoto was feeling better, but Zenkichi called and basically said we had to get to Kyoto right away. So after a night of sleep, we got up the next morning, and we finally learned why Haru hasn’t been driving, despite having her license.

My wife has a lead foot.

Apparently no one but Joker and Queen ever drove the Mona Bus, because everyone but Makoto seemed extremely surprised.

Supposedly it was eight hours to Kyoto. We were there by noon.

Anyway, this old bar is apparently Zenkichi’s safe house, if anything ever goes wrong on an investigation.

He’s tracked the list of names that we found in the lab back to a politician called Jyun Owada, who was apparently a Shido supporter. This guy would benefit from changes of heart, and one of his supporters is the CEO of Madicce, Mr. Akira Konoe. They determine that Owada wouldn’t have a Jail himself, but that he’s probably getting Konoe to influence people for him. Which means that, since Sophia sensed a Jail in Osaka (that we missed because we were all screaming at Haru’s driving), it’s most likely that Konoe is a Monarch.

So my dart hit the board, I just gotta see how close to the bullseye.

Zenkichi heads to Osaka for a meeting with Konoe to try to get his keyword, and convinces the kids to stay behind. They need to rest and recover so they can be at their best for the Jail. Plus, he’s put them up in the nicest hotel in Kyoto! Which means it’s time to go to the hot springs!

The boys are having a lovely time relaxing. Even Morgana’s chilling on a rock with his tail in the water, basking in the chance to really unwind.

.......Atlus. We need to have words.

Not only was this absolutely unnecessary...

It’s the exact same scenario as P3. We’re even in the same goddamn city. If I thought Gekkoukan would be willing to spend 40K per person a night, it might as well be the same hotel.

Apparently, the boys went in right before the time switched over, and didn’t realize. And now, once again, they’re up for an unjust execution. At least Yosuke and Teddie were actually peeping in P4.

Personally, I think a better plan would have been to start yelling, “Who’s there?” as soon as the girls came in. Sneaking just makes it look like you’re up to something nefarious. It was an honest mistake. And really, trying to get out without causing a scene isn’t a heinous crime.

We don’t see who knocked over the thing that got them caught, but they do get caught. There’s no gameplay here. Defeat is inevitable. And...

The girls jump immediately to accusing them of being perverts. Never mind that they’re wet because they just got out of the damn hot spring. And the boys try to explain. They try their best. They explain that they didn’t realize the time had switched. They explain that they’d gotten locked in without noticing, because the men’s side doors lock when it switches over. “It was an accident,” Akira says, plaintively.

And Makoto looks at these boys that she’s fought alongside for over a year. The ones who risked their lives to save her and everyone more than once. The teammates that she stood beside as they shot a god and saved the entire damn world. The ones who, on this very roadtrip, stepped in to defend Haru from Natsume being a harassing jackass... And she says...

She sounds actually angry.

And she beats them up.

For an honest mistake.

I know this is a trope, but in this particular instance, it’s stupid, and it feels incredibly out of character. None of the boys deserve this, but Akira least of all. He’s your goddamn leader; he’s done more for any of you than anyone else. He’s been falsely accused of shit over and over, and now he has to deal with it from his own teammates?

For shame, Atlus. Shitty writing, especially because this event is never going to be brought up again. Was this supposed to be funny? Because in this situation, it wasn’t at all.

...now that I’m done being cranky, let’s go check how Zenkichi’s meeting in Osaka is going.

Hm. Nowhere, apparently, because Konoe’s gone for the day. Weird. Zenkichi had an appointment and everything.

Now let’s check on... well fuck.

Commissioner Kaburagi, Zenkichi’s boss, is summoned by the commissioner general and the previously mentioned Owada. This asshole is claiming to have evidence that the Phantom Thieves are behind all the changes of heart. They hacked into EMMA!

You’ve got a lot of fucking nerve, when you’re the one behind this.

.......maybe this lady is better than I thought.

She says that there’s not enough proof, and that they need to look into things more. The commissioner general counters that the Thieves are going to be tried for murder. Because apparently they killed that poor man at the Okinawa facility after they learned how to get into EMMA.

Kaburagi knows this is bullshit and wants to investigate more, but they basically tell her to do it or else. And promise that she’ll be commissioner general one day. After the current commissioner general launches his political career with the capture of the Phantom Thieves, of course. And she’s just going to follow orders. Never mind. God. I didn’t misjudge her at all.

Konoe goes on TV and announces that they’re shutting down EMMA temporarily, because the Phantom Thieves hacked it and stole personal information. He also informs everyone that they murdered one of his employees. Zenkichi and I had the same reaction, which was “WHAT?!”

Look at this asshole.

Zenkichi realizes what’s going to happen and takes off for Kyoto. Cut to that night, where there’s an entire fucking squad of police outside of the hotel in riot gear. For seven teenagers. Zenkichi shows up and basically pleads with Kaburagi to stop and think, because the real mastermind is still out there.

Kaburagi snaps back with, “You mean like with your wife?” and Zenkichi shuts up. Low blow, lady. She also points out that he seems very attached to criminals.

Before Kaburagi can have the police storm the place, Zenkichi yells for the kids to run, and gets arrested for it. The kids make it to the safe house, but when they find out about the arrest, they want to go after him. They end up agreeing to let Makoto handle that, and then we get a look at King Asshole himself.

I hate how nice this man’s office is.

And I’m kind of afraid of EMMA.

Good luck with that, though. You’d have to break them first; you can’t change the heart of someone stable enough to have a persona. Not that this fuck would know that.

God, he’s like if Shido and Maruki had a fucked-up kid. He wants his own personal team capable of entering the metaverse and changing people, to make the world “better”. Holy fuck.

Somehow I don’t think you’re the one in the right, when you’re talking about making us a “sacrifice to bring about [your] new world order.”

So the next day, the Thieves get a text from Akane’s phone number, that basically says she’s been kidnapped. It’s clearly a trap, but they all agree that they have to go. According to the text, if they want her back, they need to come to Inari Taisha.

Also known as Fushimi Inari, the largest Inari Shrine in Japan. I’ve been there.

I have literally been right there. I have a picture:

And so the kids head into a Jail based on Fushimi Inari where the keyword is “Phantom Thieves”, and I try not to explode from sheer glee because oh boy I thought I’d have to wait a lot longer for this and also I didn’t expect it to be somewhere I know.

Eeeeeeeee~

They find Akane tied up and all go running towards her. Futaba trips, and before she can catch up, a huge cage snatches up the rest of them, because surprise, the Jail Monarch is Akane, and she’s absolutely ready to lord it over them.

Meanwhile, Zenkichi is getting beaten up in interrogation and taking it like a champ.

But it’s okay, because Makoto called in a favor. <3

Futaba managed to get back to the safe house, and Zenkichi met up with her there after Sae got him released.

So you know that bit in P5 where the phan-site poll hits 100% belief and we summoned a demon the size of a skyscraper? That’s Zenkichi right now, except he’s hitting Maximum Dad Energy and I’m pretty sure he’s going to summon his persona.

There’s a cool stealth sequence where you have to sneak by a bunch of shadows, because Zenkichi doesn’t have a persona. Futaba runs navigation for him, but it’s so funny because he... sneaks like a regular person. He doesn’t leap into cover with superhuman speeds.

It might have been cool to play Zenkichi With A Gun, but stealth mode was fun, too. XD

And then the confrontation with Akane. She gives the Thieves a choice of who wants their heart changed first, but before anyone can stupidly volunteer, Zenkichi shows up, and a few more things get revealed. Most importantly, the fact that Owada is the one who killed Zenkichi’s wife, and Zenkichi got death threats directed at Akane if he didn’t stop investigating. No fucking wonder he couldn’t solve the case. But Akane is too disillusioned to listen, because she doesn’t understand. And Zenkichi is forced to confront that at some point, he compromised his morals, telling himself he was doing it for Akane.

This line wasn’t sung, but I kind of wish it was, considering who his persona is. :P

Zenkichi admits that he might have been wrong. But he was doing it to protect the only family he had left.

“But at least I know what makes a person evil. Evil only cares about itself. It’s the mark of a man who would bring another to ruin and dare not show remorse.”

And his awakening was badass.

Shitty picture, but his literal shadow had glowing eyes while it was forming the contract. It was so cool. :D

Wolf is awesome. After beating up a whole hoard of shadows by himself, Akane got away, the Thieves were freed, and we all went back to the safe house to rest. And I swear, you take a nap for one hour, and cannot get any peace. XDDD

Thank you, darling. Now I gotta figure out what deck that’s from.

So that was today. Technically I only played for like...2 and a half hours?? But god, we hit the hot springs and everything just flung itself directly off a cliff and all I could do was hold on.

I have so many thoughts about things!!! But I need to see more first. But this has been fantastic overall.

#god this is a long one #Li plays P5Scramble

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goldenkamuyhunting · 4 years

Text

Ramblings and crazy theory time about GK chap 231 “Birth”

So new chapter and it’s a chapter about some really important things among which there is…

Yeah, courage.

No one would think GK characters are lacking guts, they’re veterans they can face bullets and dangerous situations and yet, almost all of them show they’re afraid to face what really matters: their own inner fears so I’m really glad to see them trying to do so in this chapter.

But let’s dig into the story.

We’ve left Tanigaki and Inkarmat reaching Huci’s house.

We see that Huci’s next move is to go call Osoma’s mom so she can provide her help as a translator (Huci doesn’t talk Japanese) but also during the childbirth.

Personally I’m glad to see Osoma’s mom. Previously we never got to see her, only Osoma’s father, so I was a bit worried Osoma was another motherless character. I’m glad that’s not the case, though I wonder why Noda, in addition to telling us this woman is Osoma’s mom, didn’t tell us her name as he had done for Koito’s mom.

Normally hiding a character’s name in Golden Kamuy often ends up meaning we need to learn more about that character, so it can be Osoma’s mom is more than she looks like. Wouldn’t it be interesting if it were to turn out she’s Ariko’s relative for example? She doesn’t share his tanner skin nor his eyebrows but her oval and the shape of her nose might remember the ones of Ariko’s mom, Ikaripopo. Not that Tsurumi mentioned Ariko having another sister beyond the one who moved to Hidaka but it can be he just didn’t finish his list. Or maybe Osoma’s mom is meant to be relevant for something else, something that’s uniquely hers and not related to a relative. We’ll see.

On the other side as Osoma’s mom is an Ainu there’s the small chance Noda hadn’t found a suitable name for her yet.

Again, we’ll see.

It’s a bit sad but I’ve noticed Noda isn’t really ‘naming Ainu prone’. Many of them are labeled just for their relations to Asirpa or Huci… probably because coming up with Ainu names isn’t as easy as coming up with Japanese names for Noda (it’s worth to mention we don’t have yet Huci or Asirpa’s mom name either!).

Back to the story as Tanigaki worries ONLY NOW about how the 7th division might be keeping watch of Asirpa’s village, Osoma’s mom informs him he’s a lucky man as the guy the 7th division sent to check on the village… gets regularly drunk thanks to Makanakkuru offering him a lot of alcohol to the point Osoma can step on his face and only wakes up around noon.

Really, I don’t know what they were thinking when they sent such a fail to keep guard.

On a sidenote I still wonder if Tsurumi has a spy in Asirpa’s village. It would make sense as that village was Wilk’s village and Tsurumi knows all of the people involved in the gold incident and their relative, as we saw when he dealt with Ariko. It would explain the choice of such a soldier for keeping it controlled. The soldier is just for outside appearance. As they’ve someone inside, they don’t really need a capable soldier to check the place. Oh well, we’ll see.

Meanwhile Tanigaki worries about what Huci is doing to Inkarmat.

We get some explanations about how Ainu think they can figure out if the baby is a boy or a girl and how they handle those two childbirths differently due to their own beliefs. What’s more though we learn of how Huci was assisting births since she was 19 and she’s a veteran midwife who assisted Asirpa’s birth as well.

On a sidenote I normally don’t pay much attention to the line on the cover because it’s usually something not Noda but the editor wrote but I’ve to admit I particularly like how, this time, it says ‘purpose is handed down from heaven’.

It’s a call back to the line that’s written in each Golden Kamuy volume 'Kanto orwa yaku sak no arankep shinep ka isam' [“Nothing comes from heaven without purpose”] an Ainu proverb that’s important in this story because it well remarks how everyone matters.

Anyway now, since Tanigaki thinks he can leave Inkarmat in Huci’s hands, he points out how Tsukishima, pardon, the Tsukinator, knows about that Kotan, would probably realize they came there and therefore how Tanigaki plans to lead him into the mountains to face him in a terrain that will be advantageous to Tanigaki.

Well, this isn’t completely bad, at least Tanigaki figured out he has been BEYOND OBVIOUS in choosing that place to hide, that the Tsukinator will figure it out and that drawing the Tsukinator on a terrain in which Tanigaki would have the advantage would be a good idea.

Of course it would have been ENTIRELY MORE INTELLIGENT to make a PLAN prior to go rush save Inkarmat and not attempting to make one after everything has gone downhill due to complete lack of planning but whatever, I think I stressed how bad this was in the previous chapters.

Back to the story Inkarmat though has probably figured out that, advantage or not, Tanigaki isn’t even remotely a match for the Tsukinator and tells him not to go.

Tanigaki, either thinking he’s being reassuring, protected by his noble goal or that Sugimoto’s supposed immortality is infectious claims ‘he’s immortal’ so he’ll be back. Honestly he would have been more reassuring if he had said he has a plan, or that he knows exactly what to do or knows of the Tsukinator’s weakness. Everything but trying to feed an adult, intelligent woman an impossible story.

So, of course, Inkarmat, who’s not a child and who has a working brain, points out how no, Tanigaki isn’t immortal and should just escape.

Tanigaki instead blindly runs out to face the Tsukinator … and basically doesn’t make in time to make a step out of the house that the Tsukinator has ripped from him his rifle, used the butt of the stock to hit him in the face and then kicked him in the face for good measure, sending him back into the house.

So much for Tanigaki’s immortality and his plan to ‘face Tsukishima into the mountains’. -_-

So time for plan 2. Tanigaki tells the Tsukinator he MUST NOT lay a hand on Inkarmat, Huci or the rest because he only needs to kill him.

Note I don’t know why Tanigaki felt the need to include Huci and the rest in the equation.

I can understand the Tsukinator wanting to kill Inkarmat, as she can be a threat to Tsurumi’s plans but Huci and the rest are specifically kept alive by Tsurumi to draw Asirpa there. They aren’t deserters or anything and it’s worth to point out the Tsukinator is in his full rights to kill Tanigaki, as he’s a deserter.

However, as long as no one tries to get in the Tsukinator’s way, there’s no need for the Tsukinator to make a massacre there all due to Tanigaki.

Anyway okay, plan 2 is even worse than plan 1, really, as Tanigaki is overvaluing a lot of things here:

- his own importance (Tsukishima won’t sacrifice Huci, an important paw to draw Asirpa, just to punish Tanigaki)

- his influence on the Tsukinator (yeah, of course Tani, if you tell the Tsukinator do not lay a hand on them he won’t… he’s so scared…)

- the Tsukinator’s murdering impulses (Tsukishima isn’t someone who likes to murder everyone, Tanigaki, please!).

So Tsukishima (yeah, I’ll call him Tsukishima here) gives him a reality check. They didn’t end in that situation due to Tsukishima. They ended up in that situation because Tanigaki screwed up, long, long ago and kept screwing up and he’s still not realizing it.

Yeah, Tanigaki has been screwing up from a long time, from when, after he broke his leg and said leg healed, he decided not to come back to the 7th division (and this only because Tsukishima doesn’t know that Tanigaki actually could have turned back even sooner, when he had been saved by Nihei… or maybe even prior to it if he were to manage to walk that much). Tanigaki, who had blamed Ogata and Nikaido for deserting, is actually no better than them. He wasn’t allowed to just decide he won’t go back to the 7th division but pursue his own sidequests (capturing Retar, repaying Huci, bringing Asirpa back…).

Although it might not look like it, the 7th division is not just Tsurumi’s fanclub, from which you can decide to drop out if you grow out of love for him, it’s an army division and you don’t drop out of the army at will, this is called desertion and it’s a crime.

I think deep down a side of Tsukishima was always a little angry at him as Tanigaki had been allowed by Tsurumi (for Tsurumi’s own goals) to do as he preferred as if he were a spoiled child instead than continuing to serve in the division as the others were forced to do, and Tsukishima was probably even more annoyed by how Tanigaki didn’t seem to realize it. Tanigaki basically deserted when he decided to pursue Retar and in a way deliberately got in Tsurumi’s way by trying to support Hijikata and Sugimoto into having Asirpa met her father but Tsurumi took him back in the 7th division after Abashiri without even giving him a slap on his wrist and Tanigaki didn’t even seem to realize how lucky he was not to end up having his nose and ears cut before being forced to commit Seppuku (Tsurumi declared this would be the punishment for deserters).

No, what’s worse is that Tanigaki not only didn’t realize it, in Karafuto he seemed to think HE could just drop out at will, ‘sorry boys, I’m a Matagi, your silly Wajin problems don’t really regard me’

and when Tsurumi tells him ‘sorry, no, it REALLY doesn’t work this way and if you hadn’t gotten it before I’ll make sure you’ll get it NOW’ Tanigaki just attempted to shrug it off again and Tsukishima should have felt he really had enough.

While Tsukishima had to threaten Koito to stay loyal or he would have to kill him,

Tanigaki went and though he could desert AGAIN. And now he’s painting things as if it’s Tsukishima who’s being mean and he’s being noble and self sacrificing when actually if Tanigaki hadn’t deserted in the first place they would have never gotten to that point. Really, I think Tsukishima is feed up and, if this wasn’t bad enough, Tanigaki doesn’t even seem to realize Tsukishima isn’t enjoying this a single bit.

He doesn’t want to have to shoot Tanigaki and Inkarmat but he views himself as ‘forced to do so’.

In the middle of all this Koito, who also has figured up where Tanigaki would escape (because really, who in the world wouldn’t have?) reaches them.

Really, the Karafuto trip did good to Koito as he had the good sense to chase them on a horse (Tsukishima has chased Tanigaki, who was on a horse, by foot).

Koito calls Tsukishima, ordering him to stop.

Tsukishima’s face his shadowed and he barely turns to look at him, asking him if he followed him just to see if Tanigaki and Inkarmat would manage to escape safely. Really, this makes me think Koito and Tsukishima exchanged words at the hospital before Tsukishima started chasing Tanigaki and Inkarmat because he knows Koito isn’t there to help him get them back but to support them in their escape.

Instead than answering Koito tries to get Tsukishima to reason.

He points out killing them would do any good because actually Tanigaki isn’t their only way to find Asirpa so, if Tanigaki doesn’t want to help them and wants to run away with Inkarmat they should just let him go.

This… seems a really nice solution but Tsukishima points out the foolishness of it, the real core of the problem.

A threat loses its meaning if one isn’t willing to go through it and won’t serve as a warning to ‘anyone else’ (read: ‘Koito’ in this specific case... but also anyone else really because if Tanigaki can drop out, what would stop the others to do the same?).

Tsukishima then claims he has warned Koito he would kill him if he were to get in his way. I think this doesn’t refer to just what they said in chap 210, probably Koito had already tries to stop Tsukishima when they were at the hospital and Tsukishima had told him to stay out of his way… because Tsukishima then points his gun at Koito and asks him if he’s also planning to betray Tsurumi.

And this is part of what pushed Tsukishima to become the Tsukinator, I think. He HAD to kill Tanigaki and set an example for Koito, so that Koito would know Tsukishima’s threat was serious, wouldn’t try to betray Tsurumi and Tsukishima wouldn’t have to kill HIM.

So Tsukishima tries to scare Koito into compliance again. His gun pointed on Koito he asks him on which side Koito is, if he’s going to join the traitors because he and his father were used and therefore this caused him to lose faith in Tsurumi.

The scene is interesting. On the upper part we can see Tsukishima’s eyes. They’ve a lot of stress lines and on the right side of his face we can see that the veins are still prominent due to Ienaga’s injection. The shadows on Tsukishima’s face are made with a swirling screentone that usually points to inner turmoil. The background behind him moves from dark to a very clear grey as the panel moves toward Koito.

In fact on the lower part we can see Koito.

His panel is small compared to Tsukishima’s and it’s worth to note next to it there’s also the previous panel with Tsukishima.

Koito’s panel is surrounded by Tsukishima’s panels, pressed down by them, trapped by them.

Also, contrary to Tsukishima, Koito’s eyes are barely visible, as if to conceal his feelings (or better his eyebrows as they often betray what a character is feeling). From the little I can see he still seems to look straight at Tsukishima, possibly with a determinate expression. We can well see that there are many stress lines below them, maybe even more than there were when he let Tanigaki and Inkarmat go. Although the screen tone on his face seems to slightly darken near his eyes, it’s barely noticeable and not swirling. He’s not sweating and his mouth is close in a firm line. It’s the background behind him that’s made by many swirling lines.

I think the idea is that the focus is on what Koito will say now, that’s why Noda is showing us his mouth, because we should listen him, and listen him well.

And, I’ll be honest, Koito will be almost as awesome as Shiraishi here!

In fact this time, Koito won’t let himself be intimidated, nor he’ll panic or will let his feelings overtake him.

Calmly, looking straight at Tsukishima, he ORDERS him to lower his weapon.

‘Jū o orose, koreha jōkan meirei da’ [銃を下ろせ、これは上官命令だ “Drop the gun, this is your superior officer's order.”]

He then says that he has every intention of watching Tsukishima and Tsurumi to the very end, but this time he’s not doing it from the position of a blackmailed man, but from a position of power. It’s HIS decision to watch, something he chose on his own, not something Tsukishima forced him to do. Tsukishima doesn’t control him, Koito is still his superior officer, as he underlines in his order, and Tsukishima is the one who has to obey him.

And this is probably the very first time we see Koito acting like an officer with Tsukishima. Normally Koito deferred to Tsukishima and, even if here and there he told him to do something, it was clear Tsukishima would do it only if he were to be okay with doing it. We see it right in their first interaction when Koito tell Tsukishima to make him some glue and Tsukishima flatly refused (chap 101).

Koito was the officer but we saw him asking Tsukishima tons of times what to do. When he acts on his own is never from an authority position but from an impulsive position, with Tsukishima scolding him afterward.

This time though, Koito is his own boss and his compliance has nothing to do with Tsukishima’s threats or his dependence to him.

Tsukishima is clearly surprised.

In a way this is the second time they have a serious conversation, the first being in chap 210 when Koito asked him explanation but back then Tsukishima didn’t take him seriously and, although Koito had done some solid thinking back then, he still wasn’t in control as he is now. He asked Tsukishima for explanations, he clearly wanted Tsukishima to give him reassuring answers, when he didn’t get them he lost it and didn’t manage to remain in control of the conversation.

He was upset, sweaty and grew angry and rash when he didn’t get what he wanted, to crumble completely when the truth he should have been expecting came out. He knew Tsurumi had used him, that Tsukishima had been his accomplice… but wasn’t really ready for it and that’s why he crumbled and Tsukishima took control of him, forced him into compliance.

Now time has gone by and Koito is finally ready to face Tsukishima for real.

He’s firm, he’s calm and, what’s more, he’s willing to listen Tsukishima.

Koito refreshes Tsukishima’s mind on what he told him, about how if Tsurumi uses people to save them, then people has no right to complain. Koito says he can agree on that. In a way he humbles down, he accepts that he can be used as a pawn for a greater purpose, that people don’t own him the truth or to view him as an equal… but he claims he’ll accept this, only if the purpose is something his sense of justice can accept.

Koito won’t bow blindly to Tsurumi anymore. He wants to know his goal and wants to be allowed to judge it, decide if it’s a goal he can accepts working for. Salvation isn’t enough if the price is supporting something he can’t accept otherwise he believes he’ll be tormented by feelings of guilt and regret.

While there’s a bit of Koito’s prideful self, in how he believes Tsurumi’s goal, to be valid, should live up to KOITO’s standards of justice, when Koito is clearly not a model of virtue or impartiality, his reasoning is still very solid, much more solid than Tsukishima’s idea of blindly following Tsurumi in hope everyone would be saved without really knowing where they were going.

Koito’s position might be self centered, but his stance is valid. One has to know the goal of the leader he’s following and share the belief it’s a goal worth pursuing or he can end up supporting him to reach a horrific end, one that would disgust him as well. One must not give his all for a cause that’s wrong for him. Blind obedience always ends up leading to disaster.

And that’s why Koito thinks they must absolutely not kill Tanigaki and Inkarmat. Because killing them goes against Koito (and Tsukishima’s) idea of justice and if they were to do it they would be tormented through their whole life.

Tsukishima counters it’s too late for him.

This time it’s Tsukishima who’s losing his composture, not Koito. Koito has found the right words, he has affected Tsukishima he has stuck a nerve. Tsukishima overreacts because Koito’s words were the words he needed to hear and yet, at the same time, he rejects them, he’s afraid to accept them.

He points out that he has killed too many and used too many, causing them to die. As he says so he thinks back to Edogai, whom he clearly regretted leaving behind.

Tsukishima is clearly not in the ‘redemption’ camp.

He doesn’t believe he can get redemption. He knows he did evil, he believes this can’t be fixed and, therefore, to him, this means he can’t do anything else but evil. Tsukishima too has a black and white mentality and, since he is black now, he believes it’s too late for him.

‘Will all great Neptune’s ocean wash this blood/Clean from my hand? No, this my hand will rather/The multitudinous seas incarnadine,/Making the green one red.’

Once a murderer, always a murderer, since he can’t fix his wrongdoing he must continue doing wrong.

It clearly pains him but… at the same time it’s a very convenient mentality as it requires him to do no effort to improve, to correct his way and… and it’s terrible at the same time because it means he won’t stop doing wrong. That since there’s no salvation for him, no redemption, to way to fix things, then he’ll have to continue murdering, using people and leaving them to die… because that’s what happens to people when they stop believing they can turn page, they can change their life.

It’s unlikely they’ll shoot themselves in the head, they’ll just continue doing wrong and before justice, human or divine will reach them they would have caused the death and suffering of many others.

So yes, I know many in the fandom are sick and tired of redemption stories but that’s why instead I find them SO IMPORTANT.

Many focus on how when someone has done too many wrongdoings he can’t pay back the victims.

It’s true, it doesn’t take a genius to say even in this case Tsukishima won’t be able to pay back his victims as, for Tsukishima’s own admission many of them are dead and Tsukishima can’t resurrect them… but he can stop making more victims for a change.

We can fix the past but we can try working for a better future.

So no, Tsukishima can’t make up to those he has abandoned, to those he has killed and to their families who suffered for what Tsukishima has done.

In this he’s right. It’s too late. Too late FOR THEM. He can’t save them anymore. But it’s not too late for Tanigaki and Inkarmat. He could save them. He can turn page.

And Koito slams it on his face.

It’s not too late, Tsukishima doesn’t have to continue on a way HE KNOWS IS WRONG, A WAY HE REGRETS FOLLOWING IN THE FIRST PLACE.

And at this Tsukishima points out something really relevant. His problem is not just he hurt others. His problem is not just he stepped over his sense of justice and did things he knew were wrong.

Tsukishima’s biggest problem is he gave up on what was truly important to him and threw it away.

As Tsukishima says so, we see images from chap 150, images that points to how Tsukishima accepted Tsurumi’s words about Igogusa and, so as not to get further hurt, threw away her hair. He gave up on her, gave up on returning back to her. He was afraid to discover Tsurumi lied to him and she’s dead and because he was afraid to know the truth he gave up on knowing the truth, on trying to find her. He was torn.

He believed Tsurumi lied to him yet he couldn’t accept the idea she was dead for real so he refused to know the truth. When he refused for Inkarmat to find something for him, it wasn’t that he was afraid she was trying to turn her to her cause. He was afraid she could tell him the truth.

If Igogusa is dead… he believes for him this would be a heat shattering pain. But if she’s not… he had given up on her and this is equally horribly painful. Tsukishima is stuck between a rock and a hard place and obeying to Tsurumi is his own idea to hide his head in the sand and escape from the pain.

Tsukishima believes it’s too late for him because he is simply afraid to turn back and discover there’s nothing but terrible pain waiting for him. By not knowing the truth, he thinks he can protect himself.

The truth can be terrible after all, Koito had to face it first hand… but, differently from Tanigaki, who discovering Kenkichi didn’t murder in cold blood his sister couldn’t just go back to his father, tell him as well the truth and admit he was wrong in pursuing revenge or from Tsukishima, who has been actively trying to not know the truth at all, Koito has faced the truth. Sure, he has suffered, he has hesitated and almost bowed to the crushing weight of truth but now he’s reacting.

He’s fighting.

He’s not focusing on his mistakes in the past, he’s looking straight at his future and trying to see what he can do. In short he’s being awesome and I’m proud of him.

So when Tsukishima claims all that’s left for him is to do his job, Koito doesn’t just wave his words away. Koito listen to him and understands him. He understands Tsukishima is being so unbending because what he threw away was SO VERY HUGE… but by understanding it, by voicing this, Koito helps Tsukishima to face again what he thinks he threw away.

Igogusa.

We finally see her face, how she smiled as she looked at Tsukishima.

And as Tsukishima concedes himself to think back at her all of sudden he can’t give up on her any longer and finds the courage to try to ask Inkarmat if she…

he trails off, his expression broken but still Inkarmat stretches her hand toward him.

She’s willing to help him to try to read and find what Tsukishima is desperately searching but… call it bad luck or the tiger curse, anyway Tanigaki’s baby can’t wait any longer.

Inkarmat bows in pain and Osoma’s mom, the other awesome person in place tell the men they can finish their business later as Inkarmat is about to give birth. Then, without waiting for them to answer, she starts to assign them jobs.

Tanigaki has to boil water, Koito to gather straw and Tsukishima to watch Sakamoto and O-gin’s child and this is maybe the most clever thing. Tsukishima needs some gentle human contact right then, something soothing and at the same time something that won’t mentally exhaust him. Holding a baby, carrying for him while the baby can’t question him or threaten him or judge him is perfect for him to get human contact, get a sense of self worth and, at the same time… emotionally rest.

Add to this that in a way Tsukishima and that baby are connected, as they’re both the children of people Tsukishima deemed monsters and therefore condemned to grow up as terrible people according to Tsukishima. Holding that baby can help Tsukishima to revalue himself, to realize he wasn’t born rotten.

So as we see the other working and giving their all to help Inkarmat, Huci and Osoma’s mom and getting instructions and information and then working some more all in a frenetic way, we also see Tsukishima sitting, the child in his arms, letting the little boy gently touch his face.

As the moment of the delivery comes and the men are chased out of the house we can see that he’s sitting down, clearly emotionally drained, his gaze downcast and looking really small, like a lost child not like our always in control and competent Tsukishima. Koito, who, is worth to mention, was still convalescent and yet has left the hospital and rode till there, has retrieved the kid and is holding him, letting Tsukishima have a break even from caring for the child (Koito is good with little kids), while someone should have bandaged Tanigaki’s arm and we can see he tries to peek back in the house, clearly nervous.

In the last pace we can see the baby finally had birth, and we can hear her crying voice. She’s probably a girl as Ainu believes girls has to be delivered facing up and boys facing down and she was delivered facing up.

We can’t see Inkarmat. I hope she’s well. Honestly, I worry for her. From her survival depends not only Tanigaki’s happiness now but also Tsukishima’s and possibly Koito’s.

They got the tiger curse and, unless it’s broken (but can be broken) the three of them are fated to a unhappy life but I hope the idea won’t be that Inkarmat will have to die to reach this goal.

On a sidenote I wonder if the baby will get named after Ienaga, who gave her life to help them to escape… or, since Tsukishima might help them, after Igogusa (are we going to finally learn her true name?).

Last but not least… we still have no news of Nikaidou who also was in the hospital from which Inkarmat escaped. If Koito could track them… Nikaidou can probably track them as well and Nikaidou has a grudge with the three of them, Tanigaki who caused him to be attacked by a bear, Tsukishima who watched as Tsurumi cut his ear in punishment for his betrayal and Koito who stole his prosthetic hand and his chopsticks.

Really, I’m worried but, at the same time, I’m really glad I got to see Koito further growing up, managing to overcome his fears, managing to keep his calm, managing to stay rational and managing to be supportive and pursuing the right concept of justice.

He’s been a complete spoiled brat for a long time but he’s finally growing and he’s growing well.

And I’m glad Tsukishima is trying to face his fear too. Tsukishima, for his own admission, did plenty of wrong things, things that probably can’t be forgiven, things for which people won’t forgive him also because they can’t, as they’re long dead and you can’t fix this… but I hope he can at least turn page.

Tsukishima… like almost everyone in GK, wasn’t born evil. He took the wrong path. I think it would be awesome if he could finally find the way back and now pursue the right path or, at least, try to do so. Face his fears, his actions, Tsurumi himself and improve. I’m so very afraid he won’t get the chance but at the same time so very wishing he will get it because this would be so important, so beautiful, it could help not just Tsukishima but also so many people…

But, as usual, we’ll see.

Lastly... I hope Tanigaki will profit as well from this experience, not just becoming a father but also by doing some personal grow, learning that he might need to revalue people as they aren’t so black and white as he seems to think and can even change and also learning to revalue himself. He got into his mess because he made a mistake after the other, starting, as Tsukishima said, when he felt entitled to remain in Huci’s village, which basically equated to deserting the 7th.

Well, actually Tanigaki’s mistakes dates before than that, when he didn’t listen to his father and chased Kenkichi pursuing an useless revenge but it would be nice if he were to get at least some of them. Only when you realize your mistakes and face them you can grow and improve and I want for Tanigaki to grow and improve. Maybe holding his own child will also help him to realize he’s stubborn and hardheaded as his father and finally make up with him.

Last point worth to ponder, this chapter showed Tsukishima with his eyes nearly closed when he talks of how he had given up what really mattered, his eyes nearly closed like Usami's were when he said he did what he did (murdering Tomoharu) because Tsurumi told him (to fight there).

Not only same expression means same feeling but I wonder if this is meant to be our clue that, for Tsurumi, Usami sacrificed Tomoharu, which, despite what Usami said, also really mattered to him. We’ll see.

Anyway Noda really delivered a great chapter and I can’t wait for the next.

#Golden Kamuy #Asirpa #Tanigaki Genjirou #Inkarmat #Tsukishima Hajime #Koito Otonoshin #Tsurumi Tokushirou #Koito Heiji #Osoma #Makanakkuru #Golden Kamuy Ramblings and Theories #Susupo #Harumi Chiyo

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rivalsforlife · 4 years

Note

oooo i'm sorry but one more scene for commentary if youre up to it: maya and phoenix talking in chapter 6?

Of course, no need to apologize!! Once more, keeping this under a “keep reading”:

Around noon, his apartment intercom buzzed. “Nick, it’s Maya! Let me up.”

Maya? What was she even doing here? Maya never visited him out of the blue anymore… Whatever. She’d probably think he was at his office. She’d go away soon.

There was another buzz. “Nick! I know you’re in there! I called your office, you know!”

Kids these days. Selling out their bosses that easily… Maybe he should cut Athena’s salary. Nah, he wasn’t Edgeworth. … Edgeworth.

“don’t think about Edgeworth don’t think about Edgeworth -- ah damn it”

“Nick! Hello! Nick!”

She had to give up eventually, right? Whatever she was here for, someone else could help her…

“Security’s coming after me, if they arrest me you’re gonna have to defend me, you know, do you want that? I’m not even gonna try to pay you for it since it’s gonna be your fault —”

Ugh.

Phoenix stumbled out of bed and buzzed her in. “Fine. Come up.”

“Thank you!” she chirped in a sing-songy voice. “Hey, you heard him, let me go…”

Maya’s Obnoxious Little Sister Energy is eternal. Her next strategy was to break from the guards and dash as far as she could go trying to break her way into Phoenix’s apartment which... wouldn’t have ended well haha.

Also! Like I mentioned in the previous ask, a lot of this fic was just Phoenix’s Relationship Issues, and the way I characterized him in this fic was a lot of... he needs to have people around or he kind of falls apart, and his history of having people around was that these people needed him in some way -- Maya after she was accused of murder and then hanging around for Mia’s sake, Trucy being abandoned and needing looking after, even Miles to an extent needing to be saved from his corrupt ways and the von Karma influence -- and now that they’re all growing up and don’t need him anymore he thinks they’re going to abandon him.

That’s a long-winded way of referring to that one sentence of “Whatever she was here for, someone else could help her”

Also... I don’t live in an apartment and haven’t visited many apartments? So I’m not totally sure how the whole buzzing someone in process works. no one’s called me out on it though so I guess I’m okay.

Phoenix sighed and wondered if he should make himself look presentable. There probably wasn’t enough time. Maya wouldn’t notice that he hadn’t changed his clothes for two days, right?

She probably would. But he couldn’t do anything about it, as just then there was a knock on the door. Figuring he should appease her so she wouldn’t give security anymore trouble, he reluctantly let her in.

Indeed, there was Maya, looking cheery as ever. “Hey, dude. What’s going on with you?”

“Nothing,” said Phoenix, and in response to Maya’s raised eyebrow as she took in his appearance, “Just not feeling well. Why’re you here, Maya? I thought you were busy up at the village.”

passive-aggressive “oh aren’t you supposed to be busy?” from Phoenix here...

One of the other major changes I made to this fic in the editing process was cutting out a LOT of Maya content. I really love her and wanted her to be here more, but to properly go through the Phoenix Characterization Study I had to make it seem like she wasn’t around as much so that Phoenix would feel more lonely. again, sorry, Phoenix... but like originally she came down for the picnic in chapter 3 and was around at the beginning of chapter 4, so it would be SO WEIRD if she showed up in every single chapter except for chapter 5 and then Phoenix accuses her here of being too busy to hang out with him. She was there all the time! So I only had her show up for the wedding and added in a few more lines alluding to her not being here as much as she used to in trilogy days.

“I am,” she admitted, pushing her way into his apartment. “But your daughter called me yesterday morning and said that if you didn’t call, I should check in on you. So. Here I am. And I know you’re not just sick.”

Kids these days indeed! Like Phoenix didn’t feel bad enough, his own daughter had to go and parent him. “Look, Maya, everything’s fine. I’m sorry Trucy made you think something was wrong.”

One writing tip I got and I’ve been working on implementing is like... trying to have a general idea of what every character is up to when they’re not “on screen”, so to speak. Even then, what they’re thinking about when they’re not the POV focus. So basically after the call with Trucy just prior to this scene, she immediately decided to call Maya (because she could tell something was Off with her dad and Miles, given his reaction when she mentioned his name,) and then told her to check up on him because he really scared her during that phone call... though she wouldn’t admit it. She basically saw it as a hint of returning to a sort of... disbarment-era depression, which she didn’t want, so she wanted to make sure someone could check in on him as soon as he could since she couldn’t.

Also another small aspect of Phoenix characterization (that’s going to be like 99% of my commentary about this fic I’m sorry) is that the way he deals best with depression is like... being around people, and doing things with people. It’s obviously not a method that works for everyone, but it keeps him from dwelling on things and kind of gives him a purpose, helps him feel like he’s needed. Mostly got this headcanon from RFTA where he says he was unable to take on any cases when Maya was gone until Ema showed up... and then even at the beginning of 2-2 he does seem pretty down. Trucy kind of knows some of this since she was the main thing keeping him together during disbarment era, at least enough to know that when Phoenix is depressed he’ll do much better if he’s got someone he cares about around.

Anyways, Trucy probably told Maya just to call in, because she knows her aunt is busy and part of the reason Maya hasn’t been around much is because she’s stuck with all sorts of Master responsibilities at Kurain, but Maya herself wanted to come down and check on Phoenix in person because she knows how he can get and if it was enough to worry Trucy, then she was pretty worried too.

Maya planted her hands on her hips. “No way, mister. I did not take a two hour train ride down here for you to tell me everything’s fine. Do you know how difficult it was to get permission to leave?! I had to pull the old ‘I need to visit my boyfriend’ card for them to let me go!”

Phoenix groaned, despite himself. “Have they still not caught on about that?”

“Their desperation for an heir has blinded them to common sense. They made me drink some disgusting fertility tea before I left, so you really owe me one.” She lowered her hands and sighed. “Look, Nick, I know something’s up. So talk to me. Please.”

I took a few liberties to sprinkle in my Kurain headcanons in here... which I’ve rambled about more in depth elsewhere, so I won’t go into too much detail, but basically: hereditary spiritual power leads to a lot of pressure on people who have said hereditary spiritual power to reproduce so they can pass it on to the next generation. Particularly with Maya (and Pearls to some extent though I believe Maya would willingly take the heat on it) since the two of them are the only remaining spirit channelers of the Kurain technique. And since it took Maya a really long time to become the Master officially (I don’t buy the idea that she wasn’t skilled enough by the end of T&T, my headcanon is the Master training process involves two years in Khura’in but she put that off until Phoenix was in the clear regarding Kristoph stuff) they probably don’t want her leaving the village to “goof off” unless she’s doing it to produce an heir. her biological clock is ticking! haha! (... ugh.)

And this kind of leads to -- in the elaborate backstory of this fic that I can only touch on through DVD commentaries which is like half the reason I do these things -- Maya and Phoenix agreeing that if Maya needs to get out of the village but whoever the other people in the village are start putting pressure on her, she can say she’s “visiting her boyfriend” who they think is Phoenix but really isn’t... and I guess they assume they’re getting up to heir-making activities but oh darn! didn’t work this time! guess I’ll have to go again next week! (obviously they’re just out getting burgers or something.)

Hence people in the village pushing fertility tea on her because they think the problem is that she’s not getting pregnant... although they’re kind of misunderstanding the reason why she’s not getting pregnant... because no amount of fertility tea in the world will lead to a spontaneous pregnancy without other activities first. which aren’t happening. I feel like I need to clarify this multiple times just in case someone misunderstands.

Pearls both knows about this agreement and knows that Phoenix and Maya aren’t actually dating because she’s like nineteen now? She’s probably known for years, she never brings it up during DD and SOJ.

“I won’t go into much detail” oops. I’m so sorry.

Phoenix didn’t say anything.

Maya took him by the arm and guided him to the couch, plopping him down none-too-gently before sitting next to him. “You can trust me, right?” she asked. “You’re my best friend. I’m here for you, even if you did something really stupid.”

Phoenix laughed a bit. “Yeah… I did something really stupid.”

“Okay. Tell me.”

Phoenix buried his face in his hands with a sigh, then rolled his head to peek through his fingers at Maya. She looked — angry, sure, he wasn’t exactly being the most cooperative of people right now, but — open. Prepared. Like she was actually going to listen.

I know that SOJ called Miles Phoenix’s best friend, which don’t get me wrong I absolutely loved, but I do wish Maya was ALSO considered Phoenix’s best friend if not one of his closest friends, because they’re so obviously best friends. They’re a different flavour of best friends than Phoenix and Miles, because Phoenix and Miles are the “it’s complicated and there are secret romantic feelings possibly but we trust each other unconditionally” best friends, Phoenix and Maya have a twenty-five step secret handshake they have to execute every time upon meeting.

But of course that doesn’t mean they can’t be serious, Maya is absolutely here for her dumb best friend

“It’s…” He sighed, again. “Have you ever — have you ever wanted something for a really long time, but — but you never thought you’d get it, and then you have this chance, and you just… panic?”

Maya nodded solemnly. “Steel Samurai movie premiere tickets. I won a raffle, but I forgot I signed up for them and thought it was a hoax, and didn’t get to accept them before the deadline. The bad Wi-Fi didn’t help, either.”

“But that doesn’t mean they can’t be serious” um

The one constant among all the ace attorney main characters is that NONE OF THEM WANT TO TALK ABOUT THEIR FEELINGS EVER

Also I struggled a lot with this fic trying to figure out... exactly what was going on in Phoenix’s head, and how he would interpret what was going on in his head. I kept changing opinions all the time and it was so off before I did editing haha. Even this line is still a little weird with the “Have you ever wanted something for a really long time” because he probably shouldn’t be aware that he has wanted this for a long time. ... I’m going to stop pointing out the flaws in my own fic now--

At Phoenix’s glare, she added, “I’m just kidding. Thought I’d lighten the mood a bit. Is this about Edgeworth?”

“What makes you think that?”

“‘Cause when is it not about Edgeworth with you,” asked Maya, cutting straight to the heart of things, as always. “Did he ask you out?”

“Not even that.” Phoenix turned his gaze to the floor, ashamed. “He said he loved me. I… I told him I didn’t feel the same.”

Maya was silent for a moment. Phoenix didn’t dare look at her. “Do you?”

“I like being around him,” said Phoenix. “I like seeing him smile, and laugh, and — and he makes me happy.”

What he wouldn’t give to see Edgeworth smile and laugh at him again.

“Not what I asked, dude.”

“Nick’s being really broody again it’s GOTTA be Edgeworth...”

Anyways that second-to-last line there is sticking out at me and I’m pretty sure it’s one I wavered back and forth on deleting before deciding to keep. ... at least I think I kept it? I’m taking these from google docs so there might be a few tiny changes from the ao3 version but I don’t think there’s anything too major I changed while doing last-minute edits.

Again we run into the problem of Phoenix Is Incapable Of Admitting He’s In Love With Miles -- which is the whole psyche-locks thing that pops up in the scene after this. The psyche-locks were also a pretty last-minute addition plot-wise... I think this fic was the most I deviated from my outline, but I was pretty rushed for time so I didn’t do as much planning as I normally would.

Hm I think there’s another ask where I can talk more about the psyche-locks? I’ll talk a bit here because I put a lot of thought into it. Basically I ran with the idea of black psyche-locks hiding something even the owner isn’t aware of, and that those psyche-locks are (typically? who knows about Kristoph) inflicted through traumatic events. Phoenix has three because I came up with three main Issues he had to work through, but some of them kind of blend together... two of them came up through specific traumatic events (Phoenix guesses them in chapter 8) and another one is just general overall trauma. if no one brings up the particular scenes by the time I get to that other ask, I’ll talk more about them, but basically there are three locks from three separate traumas and three occasions where they break -- someone guessed one of the breaking scenes on the narumitsu discord, but no one’s brought up the other two yet!

Long-winded way of saying that the psyche-locks are the reason that Phoenix can’t admit that he’s in love with Miles yet... and it’s kind of a cheap fantasy visualization of the trauma, basically? Maybe not the most elegant way of addressing it, but I never claimed to be writing for a series which addresses issues elegantly.

“But — but can you even imagine it?” Phoenix demanded, raising his head to gesture fully at the ridiculousness of it all. “Me and Edgeworth?”

“Yeah,” said Maya, simply. “It’s not that hard, really.”

Phoenix had no response.

“You two balance each other out well, and you trust each other, and you both care a ton about each other,” Maya elaborated. “If you love him, what’s the problem?”

oh Phoenix you have no idea. you and Miles are so easy to imagine together that you’re the number one pairing on ace attorney ao3 by a longshot.

Also one thing I kind of wanted to avoid was less of the... “you and Miles are PERFECT for each other how do you not SEE this” thing. nothing against the trope, of course! Just the whole concept of people shipping their friends intensely is something I’m not super familiar with and tbh would make me pretty uncomfortable...? It’s sort of the deal with rpf. Of course this is fanfiction with fictional characters but from an in-universe perspective...

So Maya’s taking the approach of more “Yeah, I can see you and Edgeworth as a couple, I think you’d work well together” rather than “you two are SO perfect together and I’ve been shipping you since 2016!!” because while that may be what Maya is THINKING it’s definitely not what Phoenix needs to hear right now.

“It just… seems like a recipe for disaster. I wouldn’t even know how to… like, this isn’t my first time feeling like this, but when I think about us, me and Edgeworth, it’s…” Why couldn’t he find the right words? “It’s too much.”

Maya brought a hand to her chin and tilted her head thoughtfully. “So — tell me if I’ve got this right — you like Edgeworth too, but for some reason, when he confessed to you, you panicked and you don’t know why.”

“I guess…” Phoenix returned his face to the comforting darkness of his hands. “I don’t know what it is. I-I shouldn’t have a problem, right? But the thought of a-actually admitting that I… or being in a relationship, it feels like I’m standing at the edge of a cliff and am about to fall off.”

Maya was silent for a long time. Phoenix just hoped that whatever she said next, it would somehow magically fix all his problems.

Instead, she said the most ridiculous thing Phoenix could possibly imagine. “Maybe you have trust issues?”

It certainly lightened the mood. Phoenix threw his head back and laughed harder than he had in a long time.

Phoenix is a very trusting person, absolutely, but you can’t tell me this man walked out of the Dahlia Debacle without quite a few romance-related issues. It’s kind of a weird sort of contradiction...

“No, I’m serious,” she persisted, through his laughter.

“What are you talking about, Maya?” Phoenix managed to get out, once he had that fit of mirth under control. “There’s no way I have trust issues. My whole thing is trusting people and believing in people until the end, you know?”

“Yeah, I know. But trusting someone not to be a murderer is a bit different, isn’t it?”

“It’s not like that’s as far as it goes,” Phoenix argued. “I trust you, I trust all of our friends, more than just not being murderers.”

“Yeah, sure, but romance is kind of on a different level.” She leaned back into the couch thoughtfully. “When’s the last time you’ve been with anyone?”

“... At least not since I got Trucy,” Phoenix admitted, only a little shamefully. “You try hooking up with people while having the world’s most perceptive daughter who’s desperate for a ‘new mommy’.”

“Been with anyone seriously, I mean.”

Phoenix winced. “... College.”

“I rest my case, Your Honor.”

Prettty self-explanatory here, I managed to get most of my thoughts on the actual fic instead of wanting to put it in an appendix or something. Basically... you can trust people in different ways? Phoenix can trust someone to not be a murderer to the extent of putting his own life on the line for them... but when it comes to revealing any sort of details about himself, or general emotional intimacy, he’s kind of stingy about it. Of course the out-of-universe explanation is “Phoenix doesn’t talk about this stuff because we need suspense so the player keeps playing the game instead of an exposition dump as soon as the issue comes up” but I like finding in-universe explanations for out-of-universe stuff.

I think I just regurgitated my points in a few excerpts oops.

Last little comment there regarding the idea of Phoenix presumably having a casual sex life -- Iiiiii am super asexual, have known that for a long time, generally kind of squeamish about the concept and also live a very sheltered life. so I don’t know much about people hooking up... like how people just go out and do these things. But I know people do these things so I try to reference it within my limited knowledge. Anyways yeah presumably that was happening in the background throughout the trilogy in the universe of this fic. probably not an important point. i’m moving on now.

“I’m not hung up on that!” Phoenix insisted. “Iris was a good person, she was the person I trusted. I’ve known that for years, now!”

“But she did lie to you,” Maya pointed out. “And you thought she tried to kill you for five years. I dunno, if it were me, I’d have a hell of a lot of relationship issues now.”

“Do you want me to psychoanalyze you too, now, Maya? It’s not gonna be pretty.”

“Oh, no thanks, that’s what therapy’s for,” she said, far too cheerily. “But really, Nick.”

Anyways I’m pretty invested in the whole Iris-Phoenix dynamic post-Bridge to the Turnabout, because like on the one hand, hypothetically the woman you were in love with but you thought was a killer coming out to say that she actually didn’t kill anyone and was actually in love with you should resolve all your lingering relationship issues resulting from that... but I don’t see that actually happening.

It probably took Phoenix the whole five years to come to terms with the fact that Dahlia hated his guts and tried to kill him, because I do believe he was seriously hardcore in love with her at the time. Well, Iris, but he didn’t know the difference. And then finding out Iris actually loved him... but not enough to actually, say, tell him this beforehand?... makes things kind of messy. Phoenix probably thinks he should be all better now but really the whole Dahlia-Iris thing was messed up and undoubtedly messed him up a lot.

Last little bit is just me squeezing in that Maya probably also has a lot of messed up relationship issues and also definitely needs therapy. (And is getting a bit of therapy in this fic! Good for her!) I have a lot of thoughts about Maya’s trauma... but unfortunately this fic is about Phoenix so I couldn’t go too in depth about that. Sorry, Maya. One day.

Phoenix sank further into the couch. “I don’t have trust issues.”

“Y’know, there’s still a lot of stuff I don’t know about you,” said Maya. “You never tell me anything personal until there’s a murder or something and then you have to. What happened to Edgeworth, both times. The whole Dahlia thing. It took me ages to get you to tell me how you got disbarred, even! And, like, romance has this level of intimacy to it, where he’d need to know stuff about you that I wouldn’t know, that Trucy wouldn’t know. And Nick, you know I love you, but I know you’re scared of that.”

“What do you know about it?” Phoenix snapped. “You’re barely ever here.”

He felt horrible as soon as the words left his mouth. Maya gave a sharp inhale and stiffened, her eyebrows knitting above an angry and hurt glare.

“I’m sorry,” Phoenix apologized, looking at the floor. “That was… that was unfair.”

“Yeah,” said Maya. “Yeah, it was.”

yep regurgitating my points from above. Anyways, highlights: platonic “I love you”s are great, we should have more of those. Just... emphasizing that it’s platonic because the Phoenix and Maya friendship is one of my favourite things in the series.

And there’s that “You’re barely ever here” comment that I had to cut Maya out of most of this fic to fit in, because otherwise it wouldn’t make any sense. In the universe of this fic Maya was pretty distant being busy with training and spirit medium Master stuff after the trilogy... and presumably hasn’t seen Phoenix as much as either of them would like. She loves hanging out with her best friend, and probably feels super guilty too, that Phoenix is dealing with all these issues and she can’t be there because she has other responsibilities -- so obviously it upsets her when Phoenix kind of accuses her of not being there for him, because she definitely would be, if she could, and if Phoenix would let her.

Pretty much you can’t always be around for everyone all the time, Maya would be so worn out if she had to juggle coming down to the city to hang out with Phoenix all the time on top of all her other responsibilities. She knows this, Phoenix knows this too, he’s just kind of lashing out right now because he’s hurt and confused and misses all his important people, but Maya just happens to be in front of him right now.

And yeah what Phoenix said was pretty uncalled for, which he realizes right away, and Maya acknowledges -- a pretty short fight, I don’t think these two would stay mad at each other for too long.

They sat in a tense silence for some time, until Maya sighed and brushed back her hair.

“Look, I’m saying these things because I’m scared of it, too,” she said, barely above a whisper. “After Mia, and Mom… I don’t want to be left behind again.”

“Maya…”

“Just think about it, okay?” She extended a pinky towards him. “Promise.”

Reluctantly, Phoenix linked his pinky with hers. “Fine. I’ll think about it.”

points at this and says Maya’s Definitely Got Trauma From Trilogy Events then brushes it off to get off the uncomfortable emotion topics

“Good.” Maya hopped up from the couch and stretched her arms above her head. “I’ll forget about what you said if you buy me lunch, okay? I’ve got a client this evening, so I can’t stay long, but I’ve got enough time to stop by Eldoon’s.”

“If you insist,” said Phoenix with an exaggerated sigh, and Maya laughed, so Phoenix willed himself to push the conversation from his mind for now. Maya would be spending four hours on a train today for his sake; Eldoon’s really was the least he could provide.

and in true Phoenix and Maya fashion we’re just gonna forget about the emotions and go get ramen!

Anyways thanks anon for requesting this scene I apparently have so many thoughts about Phoenix and Maya friendship... sorry if this is totally incoherent I should not have started this so late it’s like 11:30! But thank you! I will do more of these tomorrow... hopefully.

#dvd commentary meme #the catch-up game #asks

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sylvari-bouquet · 4 years

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Shadows remain

Shadows remain will be a multi-part fic set somewhere between the Heart of Thorns and the Living World S3, focusing on my sylvari characters and what happens when past events catch up with the present. I’ll update this part to include links to future chapters when they’ll be posted.

Chapter 1 [Click Here]

Prologue: And so she ran

The Soundless Isle was same as ever, serene, vibrant, dull. But all that suited Sylvia's needs well, if the most interesting thing in her future daily life would be watching jellyfishes lazily drift in the lake like the clouds above her, then that be it. Sometimes, fish too curious for its own good swam near one, and it was stung and paralyzed by the long tendrils of the slow yet cunning predator. Sylvia watched half-interested as the tragic play unfolded itself deep within the surface, the fish being unable to resist, to break free from the demise that its destiny had set a course upon. Or maybe that’s how one of those fancy poets and skaalds of Shiverpeaks would describe it - to her, it was just another fool sticking its nose to somewhere it didn't belong and carrying the burnt of the consequences.

The noon hours would have been busiest time of day in any other settlement, but the soundless followed their own rhythm - they had no rules, hierarchies or connection to dream, so they slept and ate when they pleased, lived and left the village like a wind passing by. It wasn't complete anarchy or resistance towards the main population - after all, wardens like Sylvia guarded the town from stray bandits and wild beasts, and Soundless made trade in the nearby market and other settlements in the area. Hardly any of them seemed to venture close to the Grove - a one sentiment that Sylvia could share with them. She didn't wish to return there either, yet as many times as she had tried to cut herself off from the Dream, something in her refused her to sever that connection entirely.

Sylvia had been a warden for two months - well, more like warden-in-training, since her job was to watch over the the isle and its inhabitants. Had she joined the wardens any earlier, the job would have been far more riskier, as the soundless were the favorite prey of the Nightmare Court. But after Mordemoth and his call ravaged through Maguuma, the court was in shambles, merely a shadow of what it had once been. It was deeply ironic that in attempt to rid themselves of Pale Tree's influence, they had only fallen into much deeper end of being controlled by rules they could not dictate.

This boring and quiet existence was still better than what her life had been at the Court.

She could only blame herself that she chose that life. Or rather, that she ran from the Dream, from the memories that weren't hers, the weight of a secret that she- no, someone had died for, yet she did not know why. What had been so important that someone sacrificed their own life to protect it?

She had tried to approach the other one that she remembered first, the firstborn who lived in Grove, but was rarely seen outside her house. Sylvia approached the lone building surrounded by water, but with every step forward she felt coldness creep to her legs and make them shiver with numbness. She lost the little fragments of courage she had had, and ran without looking back.

Somehow it had been so much easier to join the Court, to give off an impression that this was the place she had been seeking, rather than a person. It was almost laughably easy to fake taking delight in being horrible, some nights she wondered if it had been rubbing off her like a scent you cannot get rid of. Still, for all her effort to get close to the Grand Duchess, it was for naught, as eventually the secret would be revealed to her and all sylvari. It had come back to her when they all heard the call. The secret, the burden of knowing something so terrible, yet being unable to do nothing to halt it, or even share it with anyone. Her own death, and how she had asked Caithe to do it. The faces of her siblings, her friends, and those she had feared even if they had been her siblings. The Pale Mother, too, much closer than Sylvia had ever seen her. Somehow, in those early days, she had felt closer, like she had been a mother rather than a concept.

Tugged both by the memories and the primal call, Sylvia felt like she was about to burst apart, and she couldn't take it anymore. And so she had ran, once again. Only after the news of Mordemoth being slain by the commander, and by the sacrifice of the marshal - no, her sibling, - no, the first born - she found herself returning to the Maguuma Jungle. Although her memories were clearer now, her courage had not returned, if she ever had it in the first place. That's how Sylvia was again in a middle of somewhere, yet not belonging to anywhere.

Sylvia might have spent the rest of her afternoon shift in these thoughts, had it been for the voice that cut through her day-dreaming like an axe through a soft log.

"Sylvia? Is that you?"

Shit. Sylvia recognized that voice. Anyone who wished to survive in the savage wasteland that was the halls of the court memorized the calls of the most dangerous beasts - not the ones that were loudest, but the ones that were the deadliest.

"It is really you! I almost didn't recognize you with that fancy new warden armor." The one who spoke was a rose-pink sylvari, sweet expression on his face but Sylvia knew very well it was just a mask - as it was the same expression Dinadan wore when he was playing his games with some poor sapling.

"You sure shed your old leaves quick, darling", he almost purred his veiled accusation, like dipping a knife into honey before sticking it to someone’s back.

"What do you want?" She had to stop herself hissing out her question.

"Now now, is that how you talk to an old friend?" Dinadan tutted, his expression dropping slightly as he stepped closer to Sylvia. Uncomfortably close, he seemed somehow towering even when he could only reach Sylvia’s chin.

"I could expose your secrets any moment, and you'd end up rotting in the very same cell you guarded yesterday”, the honey in Dinadan’s voice turned to much familiar poison.Sylvia let go of the axe handle she had been gripping, and Dinadan smiled at the gesture. It was not a friendly smile.

"Now, I was looking for someone to deliver a message to an old friend, and you happen to suit the part perfect. What would you say about a quick trip to Grove, hmm?" He said his command as if it was a question.

Sylvia knew that it would never be as simple as only delivering a message, but she nodded, and was given a letter with directions, and Dinadan disappeared as quickly as he appeared, only leaving an afterimage of pink butterflies behind, taunting and watching her even if he wasn’t there. Sylvia inhaled air for after what seemed an eternity, yet she felt like a fish out of water, desperately gasping for something she couldn’t reach.

She cursed the Nightmare, for nurturing infestations like him to blossom and thrive. She cursed the Pale Tree, for in the effort to protect her children, she turned herself into a hypocrite. She cursed Dinadan, for being a pain in the ass. She cursed the memories, for not letting her to choose her own path in life, always following someone else's guidance or command. She cursed herself for being a weak and a coward. She cursed herself for not running away when she had had the chance.

#sylvia tag #dinadan tag #setting up the stage for more to come #guild wars 2 #gw2 #my writing tag

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lady-olive-oil · 4 years

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Dog Days Chapter 2

Note: Hey y’all!!! It has been a long as while since i have updated and for that i apologize. Life has taken over and is hectic af right now. But it is here finally, the next installment of Dog Days! Let me know if you wanna be tagged!

Warning: dirty “I miss you public sex>” If ya squint

Word count: 2,467

Taglist: @maddiestundentwritergaines || @dc41896 || @honeychicana || @themyscxiras || @dc41896 || @crushed-pink-petals || @fumbling-fanfics || @champagnesugamama || @bugngiz || @badassbaker || @melinda-january

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Charity events were always a buzz around town. Whether you’re a socialite: a social media influencer, stylist, designer, you name it. Anybody who is anybody, knew about them. This one in particular was one for the ages.The annual Charity Ball of Hope, was more of a gala of sorts but nevertheless one for a good cause. Upon seeing all the glitz and glamour of the posh and pampered, outside of the limo window, It felt like old times all over again.

My dress was anything but simple, yet tasteful floor length royal blue mermaid halter top dress with a gold beading around the chest. My hair was in tight curls all over my head, my make up was kept light and my little rose gold studs pulled the look together. The not so subtle keyhole drew the attention I wanted and even brought in some donations for the organization I was in charge of for the night.

The Los Angeles Angels foundation, for single hard working moms was an organization I started after Vinny died. He left Javi and I something even though he was a terrible person. Looking over at the crowd below me from the balcony, I felt like I owned the place. Which is how I felt at every event regardless.

“Bring back any memories?” A soft yet gentle voice awoken my senses back to reality. I saw Henry approach with a couple flutes of wine and handed one towards me. Graciously accepting the bubbly, we clink our glasses and look back over the crowd.

“I’d say so.” Looking at him from the side, I smirked. “I’ll say Mr. Kent, you clean up nicely if I do say so myself. What are the odds of us matching?”

“Well Miss Calhoun, I’d say 1 in 100. Not too many people can pull off royal blue.” His infamous subtle smile would bring anyone to their knees but for me, I'm used to it so I just smile back and think about how corny we both are to be calling each other by character names.

Fiddling with the rim of my glass, leaning firearms against the railing, I sighed in deep thought. “I still haven’t heard anything back yet about my audition. I hope I get it honestly, it would be a dream of mine to bring a character such as Nubia, to life. Especially for my baby sister Davina, she looks up to me and Morgan a lot. I want this for not just me, but for my sisters.”

Henry had pulled me closer to his side, making it hard for me to not look at him. His soothing blue eyes, with a hint of brown in one of them, made me forget what I was wallowing in pity about.

“You will get this role and be an inspiration to all young women like you, my love. I know that for a fact, you were amazing at your audition. Who else can actually sneer at me while smirking at the same time, while giving a great performance?”

“Oh Henry, you’re just saying that because I’m your friend.” Offering a soft glance at him was short lived, being that he lifted my head up by my chin to look me in the eye.

“I’m not just saying it to say it, Miyah. You’re phenomenal at everything that you do and I wish you’d see that, just as I do.”

His words were true, solid to the core and faithful. Like a quiet day after the rain. No other man had made me feel as loved as he did, and he made sure I knew that. With a gentle nod, I gave in and smiled sweetly.

Placing the empty flute on the serving tray, I sighed happily. “Why don’t we make our rounds and greet people? I’m sure your people are expecting you just as much as my own.”

Taking my hand gently we made our way down the curved staircase, greeting our fellow friends and members we haven’t seen in years. We’ve managed to keep in contact with our mutual friends, mainly for logistics reasons. Nonetheless it’s been a pleasant few years, mainly because they told us what the other was up to. Made us both feel closer in a sense before reconnecting.

I was receiving compliments on my dress that made me feel like a goddess. All I was missing was a sword in the back of my dress, like how Diana had hers in the Wonder Woman movie. Yet with all the pleasantries out there way, awards being given to the charities, I felt an uneasy presence.

Looking around the room, to see if I could spot the person who I could feel in the room. Henry went off to talk to his friends, so that I could venture off and try to schmooze more people. Which was a big mistake in itself, yet strangely enough the feeling wasn’t so frightening. It was warm and inviting.

“My, my. You have outdone yourself Amiyah, long time no see.” The soft crooning voice of a seasoned Italian brought back memories.

“I do try, Marco. I have learned from the very best haven’t I?” Embracing him in a tight hug, I tried to suppress my emotions but it was to no avail. The water works were flooding back.

Marco was like my guardian angel, when Javier and I were living with Vinny. He has been there for her through the whole situation, considering he was his nephew. He knew of Vinny’s motives and habits when he was with me. I practically made him the godfather, which didn’t sit well with Vinny at the time, but he never got a say in how I raised my son because of how he treated me. I haven’t seen Marco in years since Javi and I moved away for good. He is family, and this reunion made all the difference in the end.

“You are glowing my dear, gorgeous. Simply gorgeous as always. How are you and Javier?” Placing a gentle kiss upon my head he chuckled in a joyful tone.

“Thank you Marco, I appreciate it. Time has been good to us lately, since you know.” My voice was caught in my throat a little but I remained content.

“All good things have happened, good to hear. Listen, I'd hate to cut this conversation short my dear, but a few of my colleagues would like to speak with you at some point in time. Whenever is convenient for you, perhaps?”

I knew exactly where this was going. Well partially anyway, but the statement sounded familiar in itself. I always kept my guard up regardless of the situation. Then it clicked, I realized at this moment I would be offered a new opportunity.

I arched a brow in curiosity. “Depends on the colleagues.”

“You remember them, Lorenzo and Matteo. They are all for the main decision at hand.” A gentle smirk was etched on his face.

I knew where this was going. “Well I am free in a few weeks. Have them meet me at Wanda’s on 5th street at noon, on that Wednesday.”

He texted the info to the boys just so they’ll know. “Done and done. We shall see you soon, Lady Amiyah. It was great seeing you again.”

Giving him one last hug, I sighed happily. “You too Marco. Don’t be a stranger now, Javier remembers you vaguely. Stop by the house, I’ll send you the address seeing as though I still have your number.”

“Good to hear, Bella. See you soon and say hi to Henry for me.” Watching him leave with a pep in his step, brought back old memories.

“Will do.” With that I felt at ease and I had to find my saving grace. Like clockwork, Henry found me.

“Everything alright Miyah? Who was that guy you were talking to?”

As I arched my brow again, I could tell that my gentle giant was getting rather jealous. “Henry, are you jealous?”

He feigned a gasp of shock, scrunching up his nose. “Me? Jealous? Never, whatever gave you that idea?”

“Your nose flared before you scrunched it. If you must know, Marco is Javier’s godfather and a very generous donor too.”

“Really? Marco Ricci, as in Vinny Giovanni?” His eyes went wide as he said the names in a hushed tone.

“Yes, the very same. I’m meeting up with him, Lorenzo and Matteo for some meeting in a couple weeks. They wanted to discuss something with me.”

“Why do they want to meet with the Queen ?” Adjusting his tie, I averted his attention towards me to have him look me in the eye. I could tell the power shifted in my favor, with the way he spoke.

“Something about a business proposition, from what I’ve gathered. Everyone wants to meet with the queen, but only a few will do so.” Placing a gentle kiss along his jaw, I saw him visibly shiver in anticipation.

A smirk gradually appeared on my face, as I saw his expression. An idea had appeared in my head once I laced our fingers together and dragged him towards a less crowded area. What a bold move I made to not wear any panties under this dress.

“You seem a little hot and bothered my love. Is everything alright?”

“Not when you’re sweet lips tease me my dear. I can barely concentrate, let alone form a complete sentence. You’re more persuasive than you give yourself credit for.” His breath hitched in his throat as I guided him into the bathroom, locking the door behind us and shoved him against the wall.

Thank god for 6 inch heels because there would be no way, I’d be the same height as Henry. He makes me feel like I can be and do anything, and right now I felt invincible.

“How persuasive am I, Cavill?” I whispered against his ear, pressing a gentle kiss on it then felt his strong hands grip my hips. Next thing I know, he lifts me on top of the counter and kisses my neck with such passion that I couldn’t even muster.

“Extremely. To the point where you have me wanting to do unthinkable things to you right here, right now.” He whispers in my ear, locking my ankles behind him as my fingers carded through his hair.

“Do it Cavill. I want you to, I need you to.” My voice shook with desire and need, I couldn’t take it anymore. I practically ripped his shirt open, he unzipped my dress slowly in a teasing manner.

The way his lips were on mine was like a drug, a need to be filled and replenished. Thankful for me being on the pill because when he sheathed himself inside of me, I felt my whole body freeze as my warm heat gripped him tight. He noticed it because he bit into my neck causing the sensation to heighten.

“Oh Henry..” the want in my voice only stirred him even more into a frenzy as he sped up his movements, causing the back of my head to hit the wall.

“That’s it princess, louder. so everyone knows who you belong to.” His heated lips were whispering sweet nothings in an attempt to console me, but the gears shifted once I placed my lips on his neck

The gentle small gasp that escaped him as my lips glided down the side of his neck before resting at the curve. Your other hand slid lovingly under his button up shirt, and up his side before resting my palm against his exposed chest. A small, shriveled moan escaped his slightly parted lips as his hands gripped the fabric of my dress, that pooled at my hips . I teased my lips against his sensitive skin before obliging him with fervent kisses to the side of his neck. He panted in full ecstasy, broken moans encoring your efforts as I grew more aggressive. We knew there were probably people listening to how loud we were, yet we didn’t care at all.

Pulling his hair to get a better look at his flustered face, I felt a smirk dance across my face. To up the ante, I leaned my hips back and squeezed my kegel muscles as tight as I could around him. The noises he made caused me to let out a few noises myself in pure ecstasy. Dragging my nails down his toned chest caused him to drill into me faster and harder, the grip I had on his hair stayed. Remaining in constant eye contact.

“I know you’re very close to cumming, my love. I can feel you throbbing inside of me. Let go, I want you to come inside of me.” My lips danced against his ear.

The floodgates came rushing through is both, releasing a symphonic moan, clutching each other like a leech. Having him slide out made me feel empty, like I was missing something desperately to fill the void. We helped each get cleaned up and redressed, before making an appearance out to the public. Fluffing out my curls, I saw him fix his hair as well.

“Next time, we should try cock warming because I need you in me at all times.” Licking his bottom lip, I made him shiver again, then I walked away from him to unlock the door.

“You’re gonna be the death of me woman.” He gave my ass a good smack and proceeded to walk ahead of me.

“Just call me kryptonite.” Sending a wink in his general direction, we agreed to meet back at the fountain after the event was over. Some folks definitely heard us because the looks I got were full of jealousy. Which I didn’t care one bit, he’s my man and I do what I want.

Just to end the night off with a bang, my charity received the biggest donation of the night. It only goes up from here for everyone in my circle, and I wouldn’t have it any other way.My good mood shifted once I saw a few strands of blonde hair waving in the distance next to Henry. His boisterous laugh caught my attention more, that is until I saw the face of the blonde in question. Sabrina Daniels, Henry’s old fling from our time apart. One glance at me and she smirked with an evil gleam in her eye, simultaneously touching his arm to spite me.

We may not have publicly announced us being together publicly but, people know we have been spending time together. As god as my witness, if this girl does not stay in her place I will for sure kill her myself without hesitation. Come to think of it, I may have people to do my dirty work now.

#henry x reader #henry cavill fanfic #henry cavill x amiyah leon #henry cavill #amiyah leon #Dog Days Ch 2 #Meagan Tandy #Dog Days

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theoriginalsuki · 4 years

Text

His

A Reylo Star Wars fanfic

"Don't ever undermine my authority in front of General Hux again." He pivots so abruptly Rey has to stumble backward to prevent from running into him. He reaches out with one gloved hand and grips her arm, steadying her. She makes the mistake of looking up -- directly into the face full of poorly-mastered passions.

They stand in the council room on the Steadfast, though everyone else has departed. Rey doesn't actually get a say in First Order procedure, and won't until she submits to Force training by the Supreme Leader. Like that will ever happen. The fragile ceasefire with the Resistance rests on a knife's edge. The two of them suspended in a kind of purgatory. And Rey won't risk upsetting the balance either way -- either by joining him or leaving him. So she insists on escorting him on all matters of office which she can divine with some degree of certitude -- from whatever he lets slip in passing, the gaps in his known schedule, Hux's moodiness, and general star trooper gossip.

The first time, she interrupted a very tense report by dragging a chair from the corner up to the end of the table, wedging it between Phasma and Pryde. After that, Kylo made sure she had a designated place to sit -- on his right hand side, at a more-than-satisfactorily safe glaring distance.

She pointedly jerks her arm out his grip and feigns casual interest. "What is it with you and him, anyway?"

"Don't change the subject. Rey."

She makes a small hum in her throat and looks up at him, trying very hard not to look affected. He shouldn't be able to put her out this way.

"Do you understand me? I am the master here. You will cooperate if you want to have your positive influence on the new regime."

"Yes, Master." She realises it is a mistake, as soon as the words are out. Oh, why must she bait him? She can't help herself, he's so, so --

He's looking darkly down on her still; but somehow the texture of it has changed. A warning pulses from her lizard brain. It branches throughout her nervous system. His animal-soft eyes, forever hinting at a depth just out of reach, search her face. It gives her the odd sensation of watching rainfall in reverse.

She swallows. Licks her lips.

Wrong thing to do! There is a hitch to his breathing and his pupils dilate. His face lowers toward hers, crashing through any safety perimeters previously erected; his arm snakes around to cup the back of her head and tilt it up to him, just so. His eyes close.

His familiar presence, steel-sharp and smooth, darts into her mind, parting through it like hands in a curtain. His work is formal, unaffecting. Which is not at all what one would expect from the man barely holding it together at any given moment, Kylo Ren. Rey has the uneasy feeling that he is making a concerted effort to be so.

She cannot quite grasp onto what he is looking for. Whatever it is, it's none of his business. She resolves to give him hell for this later. Maybe lurk through his Academy-days when he is asleep and his guard is all too permeable. Maybe she'll find the little box neatly labelled Armitage Hux and unpack it with delicious spite. She broadcasts her plans for revenge loud and clear. Lift that, Ben Solo. She thinks the hated name at him with extra rancour.

Then his searching gets wider, shallower; he is only skimming, flipping through the pages. He has not found what he is looking for.

He lets her go then. The abrupt end causes them to physically repell one other, scattering several steps between them. Rey blinks, trying valiantly to retain her indignation. But he's looking at her with a strange kind of serenity, the likes of which is so unnatural on him a tiny traitorous part of her worries he is ill.

She opens her mouth to take a deep breath. Again, he is watching her too close, with too much interest. "W-what?" she stammers.

"I - I was just checking -- I thought --" He closes his eyes and turns his head, first to one side, then the other.

Rey cringes; her voice betrays an alarming amount of vulnerability. "Ch-checking for what--?"

Kylo opens his eyes onto her. He takes a step back, then another. Why can't she decrypt the look on his face? Some Kylo-specific hybrid of relief and envy? Why does it burn her skin like noon-day sunlight on the equator of Jakku?

He starts to turn, his cloak fanning out, rippling behind.

"Ben -- checking for what!"

But his retreating back is all the answer she's going to get.

Then he is gone. And Rey won't think -- no, she definitely won't think on -- how his departure vibrates along the same pitch as when she wished, oh how she wished, for a family to come and take the loneliness away. *** Kylo didn't want to dwell on why he urgently needed to know. Why that phrase, coming from her, should cause his mind to go there.

Yes, Master.

It was absurd. He knew she didn't mean it like that. The scavenger girl possessed the sex appeal of an adolescent, and the body to match. And yet, the question mark, once materialised, pressed iron-hot into his psyche. That burning -- it was new but also familiar. Anger with a special sort of desperation.

He had to know.

Oh, she would give him hell for it later. He was aware of her telling him as much; but only as one is aware of someone throwing tiny pebbles into water from a distance. He was unwavering. And as he filed through her experiences, her memories, looking for that which did not rightfully belong to him, he found ... nothing. Nothing at all. Rey was as fresh and untouched as first snowfall.

He couldn't begin to put into ordered thought what he felt about this revelation. He snapped back before the slideshow of impressions could cross over to her. They landed like lightning strikes in the shadowy corners of his brain, illuminating briefly, then going dark again.

When he at last lies down to sleep, he allows the words to form, however nebulous. Kylo Ren does not want anyone in the galaxy -- man, woman, or sentient -- to have that kind of carnal knowledge of Rey.

Rey is his.

As usual, I just *cannot* do sexy without establishing a nascent love, even if the characters themselves have no idea that’s what it is.

If you liked it, there’s more where that came from. Check me out on AO3.

#reylo #reylo prompt fill #reylo fanfic #kylo ren #ben solo #rey #kylo x rey #fanfiction #reblog

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seenashwrite · 4 years

Text

"The Lone Survivor"

Category: SPN Fanfic; Angst; Fluff; Smut; all the things because this is co-written with an OpenAI program Rating: 18+ (just in case) Character(s): Dean, Sam, and anyone I can think of, including Whyenne Pairing(s): I’ll let the AI decide Warnings: I’ll make sure there’s nothing triggery, we’ll keep within show-level stuff, but I won’t stop it from cursing or doing the sex, etc. Overall Summary: This is a Supernatural fanfic co-authored by me and a bot, no idea where it’s going. It even came up with the title. I put in “The title of the story was” and that’s what it gave us. 😁 Author’s Note(s): More scoop on what this is after the cut

- INTRODUCTORY SCOOP -

Basically, I’m feeding short prompts into a bot, it was given a nice upgrade on November 5th and kicks serious ass.

Even though it’s going to look like shit, I’m bolding the lines that I’m feeding it - it will only kick out a certain amount of characters/words, so I’m going to have to prompt it each time, and I’m going to give it about three lines in order to steer it in the direction of a coherent plot. I have a feeling it’s going to fight me, though.

But I won’t fight back too much. For the most part I want this to be, all at the same time, tropey and cliche and still better than what any of us have read and/or written lately. I welcome our matrix overlords. I will use my best judgment and might combine elements of 2 separate runs (I give each prompt three or four because it will occasionally kick out nonsense) to keep it cohesive. I mean, I *am* the co-author, after all. And if it leaves me a fragment of a sentence at the end that will keep the flow going, I’ll just feed it that fragment.

Oh and if I have to change a word - like, in the first paragraph I changed “girl” to “woman” - then it’ll look like what you see, with a cross out and bold. I won’t change any whacky grammar or anything, though. I’ll split scenes with a black line.

Tell me if you want me to do some sort of special divider for when the updates happen so all you have to do is scroll til you see it.

Let’s roll.

~ "The Lone Survivor" ~

Dean stared at her, trying to gauge her sincerity, and after a few moments he lowered the gun. And then suddenly, in three long, quick strides, he was standing in front of her. And then he kissed her, taking her breath away. The kiss was tentative, not quite daring, not quite confident, not quite desperate. It was a warm, passionate kiss. The girl woman tried to pull away, and he kissed her again. And again. And again.

Eventually the kiss became intense, and he thrust his pelvis forward, pushing her against the wall of the shower stall, making her stumble. He moved her hips to meet his thrusts, making her gasp and moan in pleasure. And he was moving her-----

Dean awoke with a start, sweaty and gasping. He could still taste her on his lips. The dreams were getting more intense. More violent. As if in response to his desperate cries, the room seemed to darken as the walls were covered in darkness, the darkness filling his eyes as he closed his eyes in desperation. He heard a low and guttural voice inside his mind. "You are not dead!" the voice shouted as it became more and more loud, it had the audacity to claim it was his, as if it was the last thing he heard before he died. It sounded like someone who couldn't stop himself from laughing. Suddenly, he heard footsteps behind him and the room went black.

Dean sat straight up in bed. Now nightmares were following the dreams. He was beginning to wonder if it was a curse or some other supernatural thing, lulling him with her, then striking when he was vulnerable. The dreams made him feel ill, and his stomach would flip up like a leaf. He would scream and writhe and throw the sheets aside. The nightmares and the sickness in his stomach were making it hard for him to concentrate, hard for him to think straight. He would lie there and try to ignore the thoughts that would come to him, trying to ignore the pain.

But Dean was good at ignoring pain, and so that’s what he did. He took a shower, got dressed, and by the time he entered the kitchen, he had his typical casual demeanor in place. His brother was seated at the table, and as he passed by on his way to the coffee, he spoke.

“Mornin’, Sammy.”

Sam didn't turn to look at Dean, just continued eating his breakfast.

A few minutes passed before Dean spoke again. "Okay, Sam, why are you here again?"

Sam swallowed a mouthful of his breakfast. "Well... we're not going to talk about it for a while. We'll talk when the time comes. Just wanted to know if... um... if you had a date for tonight. If it's okay."

"I do not have a date for tonight," Dean said without looking up from his plate, "and I don't plan to."

"Oh, fine." Sam turned and went back to his breakfast.

It was just before noon by the time Dean came down the hallway and into the library.

"What's happening?" asked Sam. "That girl?" Dean asked, not sounding bothered by the question. "The one you brought out for lunch? Is she alright?" "She was with some girls from school, but there's no real reason for her to be with them at all," Sam said, his voice barely above a whisper. Dean made a note in his head. "Why would they bring her here anyway?"

"I'm not sure," answered Sam.

"I have a theory," said Castiel as he entered.

Sam frowned. "You're serious?"

Castiel looked around, taking in the scene. "Yes. I believe that the presence of an angelic being in this area is something of a… concern to the powers that be. Perhaps to the archangels themselves. It would seem likely that they want to use you as leverage."

"What do the angels have to do with those girls?" asked Dean.

"They have a lot to do with it."

"So, what is it?"

"It's not a game."

"The hell it isn't," Sam snorted. "So, let me get this straight. You're saying it's just the girls we need to worry about?"

"We need to be able to recognize the spirits."

"You mean, just girls?" Dean growled.

"No, they are very different from girls," Castiel clarified.

"Oh, yeah, well, then we don't have to worry about them. You just need to figure out which one you're dealing with."

"They're not girls. They're angels."

"You're lying."

"They are a different species. Angels don't have vaginas."

"What?!" exclaimed Dean and Sam at once.

Just then, Sam's phone vibrated - it was a text, from Whyenne, and she said:

Hey, I'm sorry, but I've just got some work to do. I'll try to get back to you as soon as I can.

Dean sighed - he knew why - then looked at the time: 5pm. That wasn't good.

Sam was at his usual place, on his laptop, and it seemed like he hadn't seen him in like five minutes.

"Sam." Dean's voice sounded so different. Like he was really worried for him. "I'm not going anywhere. I'll be at the bar if you want to talk. Come on."

Sam nodded, still trying to process what had just happened. He knew he'd have to make the first move. "Okay. That's cool, Dean."

Dean went back to his room to get ready to go to the bar.

Dean walked into the bar and scanned the room. It was noisy and crowded - and in the crowd he happened to spot Whyenne. Dean's first thought: she had lied to Sam. Then he remembered she had been drunk. It was too late.

"Oh shit," Dean muttered.

He pulled off his shirt jacket, and his shirt sleeves were rolled up to his elbows.

Whyenne looked at him. "Do you want a drink?"

Dean shook his head.

"Okay."

They walked down the block and into another bar. Dean had his back to the door and Whyenne was leaning against a wall.

"So what happened to your face?" Whyenne asked.

Dean looked up at her and smiled. "Oh yeah, I got a face full of a bullet."

"A gun?" Whyenne laughed. "That's crazy."

Dean laughed too. He looked at her carefully, wondering if he should confront her. He decided he should.

"Why did you tell Sam you were working tonight?"

"I needed to be in the right place at the right time."

"And that's why you went to this club tonight?"

"I knew that you'd be there here. And I wanted to make sure you he wouldn't be here."

"You have to take responsibility for your own actions, or else you'll never learn your lessons."

"I was drunk and stupid and I'm paying for it. So are you."

"I am."

"I was under the influence of alcohol. Sam is not a drinker."

"That's a lie."

"Oh, I see." She frowned.

"What did you think of the dance tonight?" Dean asked, trying to change the subject.

"The dancing was good. It was more fun than I thought it would be."

"It is, isn't it?"

"Yeah."

"And what were you thinking about?" Dean pressed.

"Sam was so cute."

"He is. And what did you think about me?"

"You're sexy, Dean."

Whyenne's voice was thick and full of lust. It immediately caused Dean's mind to go back to that night, the night of passion they shared after a hunt. It was before she and Sam had even kissed, but they'd sworn to keep it a secret.

"I know you. I know what kind of girl you are. I just don't think you're all that interested in getting laid tonight."

"Dean?"

"It's not you, sweetheart, it's me."

"What about you? Are you in any way, shape, or form interested in getting laid tonight?"

"I can take care of myself," Dean said.

And with that, Dean walked off without even a backward glance.

The next day, Sam and Dean were following up on Castiel's lead, about the group of girls who were supposedly angels. Dean had a nightmare-free sleep for once, so he was happily singing rock songs under his breath as he drove down the road. But of course, Sam brought up Whyenne.

"I sent her a text earlier but she hasn't replied," Sam said with a sigh. "I don't think this is going to work."

Dean didn't respond.

"That's okay," he said. "I'm used to it. I'm used to not having someone I can always talk to."

"We should try and make more friends," he Dean said. "I know they'll keep us safe."

Sam nodded. "That's why I keep doing what I do," he said.

"I think you're a good person," Dean said, pulling into a parking space and turning off the car; Sam immediately opened the door.

"Thanks for believing me," Sam said. He got up and walked away.

He didn't want to talk to anyone after that.

Castiel was correct - those college girls were angels, but he was incorrect in that they did indeed have vaginas, Dean and Sam checked each one----- er, that is, they checked with each of the ladies, who assured them their human vessels were intact.

The angels also told Dean and Sam that they meant no harm, that they had been sent on a mission, and it was not to cause trouble with the archangels - they had been sent by the archangels. But their mission was a secret. They were not allowed to tell anyone, not even the Winchesters.

The angels were told that they were not to tell anyone that angels were real, or that they had a mission. The demons were also told that they were not allowed to tell anyone about their mission, but the demons were told that they were not allowed to tell anyone else about angels, either. The demons were told that they were only to be used for the express purpose of destroying Sam and Dean. If they were able to kill the two of them, the demons were to be killed as well. The demons were also told that they could not tell anyone that they had been sent to kill Sam and Dean.

It was a very confusing case.

And they could've used Whyenne's help. But she wasn't answering any of Sam's calls. Perhaps more concerning, she wasn't answering any of Dean's calls, either. So they went on with their work.

Once they got out of the clutches of the forest, they turned to find a woman. A woman with no arms, no legs. A woman who was completely human, all her organs, blood, and other bodily functions were present, but her spine was obviously deformed. However, since that wasn't really abnormal, it was probably nothing to be concerned about.

She informed Sam and Dean that there was a method to verify the aura that was emitted when the Goddess Aura Amara was released, the aura that was produced when she made her most powerful attacks. She also wanted to talk to them about the Slayer data on Dean's laptop.

Sam allowed her to talk to Dean on his behalf, but once they were back at the bunker and he sat down, Sam immediately noticed that Cas was fidgeting and nodding his head as he started talking about how Dean's vampire blood caused all this. Which made sense, because apparently they now not only had angels and Amara to worry about, but a vampire slayer.

"Cas, how do we find a slayer?" asked Dean. "I don't want her accidentally staking me."

"Don't you already have a tracker in your pocket?" asked Cas.

Dean shrugged. "A first aid kit."

Sam rolled his eyes.

"I've been sitting on it for a while now," said Castiel.

"A good while?" asked Dean. "Where?"

"Yeah," said Cas. "I think it's she's just around the corner."

The Winchester brothers' eyes grew wide. Just then, they received a group text from Whyenne, and it said:

"Meet me - I'm up at the street corner."

To be continued.....

#spn fanfic #supernatural fantic #nash writes #well #nash co-writes

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