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maulusque · 4 years

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WHAT IF MAUL KIDNAPPED ANAKIN RIGHT OFF OF TATOOINE

(I started writing this and then it got out of hand and now it’s 3:30 in the morning, rest of it’s under the break so i don’t monopolize your dash)

So for whatever combination of reasons, Maul spits out the kool-aid and gets really disenchanted with Sidious a lot earlier than in canon. He starts wondering things like “why is he not telling me his master plan if i’m so important to it?” and “why do i get nothing more than vague promises of power sometime in the future, when i should be guaranteed a position as his second-in-command, after all I’ve done for this guy?” and “why does he treat me like i’m disposable, and then constantly tell me i’m crucial for his plans?”

and he starts thinking things like “hey wait a minute, none of that childhood torture made me better at anything sith-related, it just gave me crippling trauma that actually impairs my capacity for self-control and incredible violence” and (possibly due to his experiences at Orsis Academy) “oh whack looks like kids learn a lot better and faster when they’re, like, having fun? Whatever ‘fun’ is?”

and anyway by the time he gets to tatooine with orders to “find that stoner jedi and kick his ass”, Maul is pretty annoyed at his master. And when he senses not one, not two, but THREE powerful force-presences on Tatooine, one of which vastly eclipses any other force presence he’s ever felt, and belongs to a nine-year-old slave boy, Maul gets an idea. You know, (he thinks), his master sure would love to get his hands on a force-baby like that. Master Sidious sure would be evilly thrilled to have an extremely powerful nine-year-old delivered directly to his doorstep on coruscant, with the jedi having to do all the heavy lifting of training the kid. Master Sidious would probably want nothing more than to have this kid be taken in by the Jedi, so he can start grooming a new apprentice.

And Maul, full of spite and an as-yet-undiscovered need to adopt every force-sensitive in sight, decides to deprive Sidious of a potential apprentice. He follows Anakin to Naboo (in this universe, Anakin still wins the podrace, still wins his own freedom), and, after the fighting is over, sees a prime window of opportunity, and kidnaps Anakin right out from under the Jedi’s nose.

(In this universe, Obi-Wan does not cut Darth Maul in half and dump him down the garbage chute- Maul, unwilling to do his master’s bidding any longer, doesn’t go full out against Qui-Gon, doesn’t kill him, and Obi-Wan doesn’t get that grief-and-rage filled boost that helped him dismember Maul last time. The fight ends, the Jedi are convinced that Maul is dead, and Naboo is freed).

Once Maul has the kid, since he’s a pragmatic guy, he also returns to Tatooine and takes the kid’s mom. Maul doesn’t know how to cook, do laundry, tie shoes, or any of that shit. He doesn’t want to have to PARENT the kid, he just wants to train him.

Maul has zero money, and also zero subtlety, so he stomps into Watto’s shop, grabs him by the neck, and says “The boy's mother is coming with me. You will disable her slave chip and let her leave unharmed, or I will squeeze your head off.” Watto complies. For Anakin, this is his first real impression of Maul- storming the junk shop and threatening his former master for the freedom of Anakin’s mother.

Maul is determined to do a better job training Anakin than Sidious did training Maul. Because FUCK Sidious. Maul can be a WAY better Sith than Sidious ever allowed him to be. And since Maul is slowly realizing how... unhelpful... the way he was raised was, he’s determined to figure out how to do it better.

So he reads. He reads training manuals, child psychology books, teaching books, studies on motivation and performance, anything he can get his nerdy little hands on. He learns that frightened children don’t perform well. He learns about “trauma”, and how “trauma” makes it hard to control your emotions sometimes. Well, you can’t have THAT in your ultimate sith apprentice. Okay, so no scaring Anakin and no traumatizing him. Maul quickly realizes that literally everything he does frightens Anakin or his mom, and frightening Anakin’s mom also frightens Anakin (cut him some slack, he’s literally never been in a positive relationship, Maul has no model for any behavior other than “evil abuser” and “subservient slave”).

Maul is not an idiot. He knows he’s not doing it right. He’s reluctant to start teaching Anakin ANYTHING until he knows he won’t accidentally damage his precious spite-apprentice. So he mostly ignores the kid while he reads and learns.

He also observes. Specifically, he observes Shmi Skywalker. Somehow, she seems to be able to interact with Anakin without scaring him. She can even tell him what to do without scaring him. She can teach and correct him without scaring him. And she never physically hurts him at all. Maul is kind of blown away- he didn’t even know it was possible to interact with people like that? HOW does she DO it???

So Maul watches and learns. He practices. Shmi helps, guides him, tells him when he messes up and tells him how to do it better. Maul gets a lot better at restraining his murderous urges. Turns out, if you immediately kill everyone who annoys you, it’s hard to ask them for advice after. The other person Maul gets pointers from is C3PO, the protocol droid the kid dragged along. Maul understands 3PO better than he understands Shmi and Anakin. 3PO is a droid. Maul was raised by a droid. Maul knows how to talk with 3PO, whereas talking with Shmi or Anakin feels like wandering around in a fog full of landmines.

So anyway, Maul and 3PO become unlikely friends, and, as Maul, determined to out-parent Sidious in every conceivable way, learns more and more social skills, emotional intelligence, and interpersonal skills, he truly comprehends how fucked up his own childhood was. There’s rage. There’s grief. There’s murderous desire for vengeance. But there’s also Anakin. Who would be scared if Maul smashed the ship or killed random people to vent his anger. Anakin, who needs something called a “positive role model”, who needs to be taught how to use the Force, and who needs the adults around him to have their shit together. There’s also Shmi, who makes him soup and hot chocolate when he’s feeling bad, and tells him off for breaking things, and who helps him get better at being a real person, and who doesn’t seem to want anything from him other than a general expectation of not hurting her or her son. So Maul deals. He grows. He heals, slowly. There’s setbacks, and gains. And somewhere in there, he starts teaching Anakin how to use the Force.

The problem is, Maul learned to access the Force first through fear and anger. Turns out, it’s really hard to teach someone fundamentals of force usage via fear and anger without first having to traumatize them. So right away, Maul hits a barrier. He doesn’t have any clue how to teach Anakin a different way though. He needs help.

But also, FUCK the jedi. NO WAY is Maul asking the Jedi for help, he hates the Jedi. Maul is still a Sith, he’s just a new, better kind of Sith, the kind that trains apprentices who are gonna kick WAY MORE ASS and be HEALTHY WELL-ADJUSTED PEOPLE while doing it (let him dream, ok?). So Maul starts hauling Shmi and Anakin around the galaxy, seeking out any non-Jedi Force-users they can, to learn Force techniques that the Sith didn’t teach Maul.

They spend time with the Guardians on Jedha, with those weird duck-people from that one episode with Jar-Jar’s girlfriend, with some wacky monks on a tiny island in the ass-end of nowhere, and even some time with a long-lost sith cult in a box system in the middle of the Unknown Regions. Maul learns. Anakin learns. Maul uses what he learns from the other force-users, combines it with what he knows, and teaches Anakin even more. The Jedi and the Sith are really the only two groups who really use the force for Big Impressive Things, like telekinesis and lightning and whatnot, so while the other force groups would have a lot to teach them both, they wouldn’t really be able to teach Anakin how to levitate something. And you can’t be the kick-assiest, bestest Sith Apprentice Ever if you can’t levitate shit. So Maul takes takes all these new techniques, like “being calm and chill when you meditate instead of super pissed off” and “using the Force while not being filled with incredible rage” and “mindfulness techniques” and “who knew you could do cool stuff like floating rocks without having to exhaust yourself by hating everything in existence, including yourself” and applies them to the skills and methods he already has. He and Anakin have to do a lot of fumbling and exploring and mistake-making, but they figure it out. And Anakin learns. And he kicks ass.

When Anakin is 11, Maul hauls him off to Ach-To to dig a crystal out of the roots of an ancient tree. He tells Anakin to hold it and meditate, to let his emotions rise around him, to feed them, to pull them through the crystal, let it resonate, let it take on the shape of his strongest feelings. After all, that is how Maul was trained to bleed his crystals. Maul’s pain and fear and anger yielded him red crystals.

Anakin comes out with yellow. Determination, fierce protectiveness, drive, hunger for justice, righteous fury. That is Anakin’s lightsaber.

Anakin grows up, planet-hopping with his Mom and Uncle Maul in a beat-up freighter with under-the-hood enhancements out the ass (Maul ditched the Scimitar right after Tatooine so his master couldn’t instantly track him down, and Maul and Anakin are both huge mechanics nerds and bond over things like “but what if you put ANOTHER PLASMA CORE IN THE ENGINE”, so this ship is, uh, certainly some sort of thing). Anakin grows up learning a hundred different Force traditions- just about every major Force tradition in the Galaxy (except for Jedi), and more than a few obscure ones. He grows up, tinkering with his droid, learning Juyo from Maul and how to sew a button from his mom. He grows up, beholden to two destinies only: “Help me take down Sidious, because he’s an asshole and a shitty Sith Lord” and “do whatever the fuck you want, because you are a Sith and no one gets to tell you what to do” (”except me.” Shmi interrupts. “Sith Lords still have a bedtime.” “Sith Lords still have a bedtime,” Maul amends, having no desire to repeat what happened when he encouraged a ten-year-old Anakin to ignore all the rules on purpose).

And what Anakin wants to do is what he’s always wanted to do- go back to Tatooine and free the slaves. Maul thinks that a big project like that would be an excellent learning opportunity for Anakin. He also wants Anakin to succeed, so he sits him down and talks logistics. How do you free the slaves without hundreds of slave owners detonating their chips when they hear what is happening? How do you keep them free once you do that? How do you get them jobs, clothes, food, houses? What about the ones who want to leave Tatooine? What about the ones who want to stay? And what about the economic upheaval that will happen when you deprive a whole planet of its cheapest source of labor? When Anakin is fourteen, they start planning.

When Anakin is eighteen, they make their move. Anakin, coordinating with Shmi, who returned to Tatooine three years earlier to organize things on the ground (living with a woman named Beru Whitesun, who is a gateway to the Freedom Path network), activates several massive orbital EMP devices, frying every electrical device on the planet, including slave chips. (The EMPs came from a pirate friend of his mom’s, who seems to do whatever she wants as long as she makes him hot chocolate). All over the planet, lights go out, slave chips fry, and radios go silent. And Shmi’s agents get to work. Ordinary citizens all over tatooine grab their rifles and head out. They meet up with others in their settlement, and the teams sweep the area, following a plan devised by Skywalker and Whitesun. They systematically visit every house in every settlement, city, spaceport, and town that is known to house slaves, and tell the slaves to grab their families and most treasured possessions and follow them.

(Tatooine is a sparsely populated planet- you can count the major settlements on two hands. If it weren’t, this would never have worked.)

Not many slaveowners put up much of a resistance- fifty angry masked people pointing guns in your face tend to make you compliant. The only slaveowner who puts up more than a token resistance is Jabba the Hutt. His resistance, however, lasts about thirty seconds, before Anakin cuts off his head.

Maul meets Anakin at Jabba’s palace, where he’s rounding up the last of Jabba’s cronies.

“No trouble?” Maul asks.

“Nope,” Anakin replies. “You?”

“None.” Maul said. Turns out, it’s like, super easy to take down an entire criminal organization when you can turn up to a meeting of the Hutt family heads, kill them all, and waltz out past all their security forces without breaking a sweat. (Seriously, it’s kind of hilarious how Maul is literally just that good).

“The slaves here are freed?”

“Yep,” says Anakin. Then frowns. “Hold on...” He senses a presence. Big, hulking, simple, and starving. He can sense that, whatever it is, it hasn’t seen the sunlight or been able to move freely in years.

So anyway, that’s how Anakin turns up at Mos Espa at first sunrise, riding on the back of Jabba the Hutt’s pet rancor. “Who’s a good girl,” Anakin says, scratching behind her ear nubs. “You are!” And she is a good girl. Padme (”I just think it sounds like a nice name, you know?”) is very good at dispersing angry slaveowners who look like they might start rioting.

The slaves freed overnight have been gathered together at pre-designated safe zones-mostly warehouses or large buildings that Shmi has been buying up over the years for exactly this purpose.

(The slaves living in remote settlements, at moisture farms and homesteads, didn’t get a visit from the freedom teams. However, Shmi had a plan for them too. She has made overtures to the Tusken tribes. Once she managed to negotiate her way into speaking to one of the leaders without getting killed, she sold them a story, a dream. A revolution. Free the slaves. Transform Tatooine. She doesn’t promise the Tuskens to expel humans from the planet entirely. She promises them equal rights under the law (she also promises the existence of laws in the first place). She promises them the right to raise Banthas, the right to traverse their ancestral lands and the return of sacred sites taken from them, the right to trade, the right to control who passes over their lands. She promises them the right to water and shade. And, she promises them half the seats on the ruling council she plans to set up. And so, on the night the EMPs blow, Tusken raiders visit every homestead on Tatooine (again, there’s only a few hundred, a thousand at most), and kidnap the slaves. Perhaps not the most reassuring experience for enslaved peoples who have been taught their entire lives to fear the Tuskens, and not without reason, but, nevertheless, it is freedom).

As the new day dawns- Tatooine’s first dawn as a free planet- Anakin, Maul, and Shmi know that the easy part is over. Now, they have to house tens of thousands of people currently cooped up in warehouses with nothing but the clothes on their backs. They have to establish and keep iron-tight control over the planet and its settlements, and quash any violent reprisals before they gain momentum. They also have to completely rebuild an economy completely upended by the overnight emancipation.

However, Shmi’s not the only one who’s been busy for the past few years. While Shmi was on Tatooine, planning a revolution, Anakin and Maul were traversing the galaxy, gathering resources, using the Patented Maul Method (TM)- breaking into the headquarters of powerful organizations and threatening to kill everybody in charge unless they did what they said.

As the second sun rises, ships begin arriving in Tatooine’s orbit. Pop-up housing is dropped onto the outskirts of Tattooine’s settlements, the kind that mining companies use to set up new bases on mineral-rich asteroids. The accommodations are small and sparse, but each family has a kitchen, bathroom, beds, and private space. Huge generators are hooked up to cool the new housing. Anakin knows that the already-existing slave quarters, made of stone with no windows and mostly underground- are already built to keep the occupants cool, but he refuses to make the former slave population live in slave quarters. Some of the freed people are moved into Jabba’s old palace, some into buildings abandoned by rich business owners who fled the planet when they saw what was happening. Food, water, medicine, clothes, books, toys, tools, and shoes are deposited. (the Republic’s equivalent of the FBI had been utterly baffled when Galaxy’s three biggest criminal organizations started moving cargo that looked less like a drug trade and more like a disaster relief mission).

Anakin walks among the newly freed slaves, reassuring them- yes, you are free. Yes, you will be fed and housed and clothed as long as you need it. Yes, we will try to find your child/husband/wife/mother who was sold years ago. Yes, you can go home, you can do whatever you want.

He also asks for volunteers. And he gets them. Hardly anyone would say no to the chance to work with the Skywalker, who once was a slave like them, but freed himself and returned, who freed the slaves in one night of glory, and appeared at sunrise riding a rancor.

Anakin sends out messengers, all across the planet. “Tatooine is a free world,” they say. “All slaves are hereby freed, by order of the He who Walks in the Sky. Any slaveowners who, by their own free will, turn over their detonators will not be harmed. Any who resist, will be.” Not many resist.

At the end of that first day, as the suns are setting, once the freed peoples of Tatooine are fed, and given water, and sheltered, Maul comes to Anakin.

“I am proud of you.” He says. “You have come into your power, you have mastered yourself, and so have mastered the Force. You have the freedom and the power to do anything you choose. You are no longer my apprentice. Lord Skywalker, you are a true Sith Master.” Anakin pulls him into a hug. He maybe cries a little bit. Maul maybe cries a little bit. Maul maybe also feels mildly annoyed that Anakin is a full head taller than him now.

(Sidious would be truly, utterly offended at Maul’s criteria for Sith-Lord-ness. “THAT’S NOT SITH” he would have said. “THAT’S BARELY EVEN DARK SIDE ADJACENT, YOU ARE DILUTING OUR THOUSAND YEAR HERITAGE-” but Maul wouldn’t care about Sidious’ stupid opinions, anyway).

And Anakin and Shmi get to work. They employ the newly freed people of Tatooine, constructing permanent houses, tearing down slave markets, building critical infrastructure. Anakin pays them more than a living wage, thanks to the extremely deep pockets of Crimson Dawn. He brings in doctors and teachers, and guarantees healthcare and education for all who want it (whenever one of Crimson Dawn’s higher-ups says “wait, why are we dumping massive amounts of money into this one random-ass planet?” Darth Maul just casually sidles up behind them with his lightsaber until they remember that he can literally just show up anywhere, at anytime, and kill them unless they do what he says. If Maul’s busy, he sends 3PO instead- 3PO’s been outfitted with about ten times as much weaponry as is legal, and can be very convincing when he wants to be).

While Anakin works on infrastructure and supporting the freed peoples of Tatooine, and unfucking the economic trainwreck they caused, Shmi and Beru work on the government. They write down a few, very basic rules-Tatooine is to be ruled by a council of people, half of whom will come from the Tusken tribes, all of which shall be selected by fair and free election. All citizens of Tatooine shall have the right to vote in these elections, and the right to vote shall be guaranteed to all- except for those who have ever owned or sold a sentient being. (it was a huge debate in the Lars-Whitesun-Skywalker household, this matter of restricting voting rights. In the end, it was decided that slaveowners, and ONLY slaveowners, were to be the sole exception for universal suffrage). Every citizen of Tatooine is guaranteed access to food, medicine, and water, and has the right to have their grievances addressed by the council.

Shmi works quickly to gather her council- she knows she has to do it fast, to prove to the Tuskens that she is as good as her word. The first elections are chaotic, and perhaps not completely non-violent, but in the end, there is a council of twenty representatives, with Shmi Skywalker representing Mos Espa.

The Council proceeds to have raging- and occasionally violent- debates about the structure of their future government. What rights to guarantee citizens. Should they have a court system? What about a financial system? How are they to guarantee water, food, and medicine to everyone? What even are taxes?

The Rebuilding of Tatooine is long, and hard, and contentious. There are arguments and rage and fighting- the repatriation of traditional Tusken lands is especially fraught. But Shmi promised, and so she makes it happen (Anakin and Padme may have helped too). Maul, for his part, keeps training Anakin, and keeps managing the criminal underworld with a careful balance of death threats and actual death, but mostly stays out of the way of Anakin’s Senior Project.

Soon, Anakin is able to re-purpose the pop-up housing, since most people have moved into traditional Tatooine-built homes, suited to the environment. The newly restructured economy is tentatively taking its first steps, and Tatooine’s baby government is becoming less and less dependent on intergalactic criminal funding (partially thanks to Anakin confiscating the entirety of Jabba’s personal fortune). He spends a lot of time in Council meetings, trying not to scream at people while also trying to stop Padme from eating them. The Council debates what is next for Tatooine, and eventually, they vote to petition the Republic for membership. Tatooinians, as a people, including the Tuskens, are fiercely independant, but, as Shmi points out, joining the Republic would guarantee them to certain things like humanitarian aid, a voice in decisions affecting interplanetary trade routes and taxation, legal legitimacy and the right to call on the Republic for aid should their sovereignty ever be threatened. Most importantly, slavery is illegal on all Republic planets, which means that if any slave-owning organizations ever pushed in on Tatooine, there would be another (much better funded) organization to call on to help quash it.

The Republic requires that a petitioning planet’s head of state visit the Senate on Coruscant to ask the Senate for entry into the Republic. The Council, grumbling, re-jiggers their constitution to allow for a “chief councilor”, and promptly elect Anakin to the position (”Fuck me,”) Anakin says. Maul laughs at him, then sobers and tells him to be careful on Coruscant (”My former master lives there.” he says. “Mind your shields, and do not let him know your true nature. You are not yet ready to take him on, and you have your planet and your people to think of.” “Yes, Uncle Maul.” Anakin says. “I will be careful.”).

Anakin shows up in the Galactic Senate, sandy robes, uncombed hair, and half smirk on his face. “I am Anakin Skywalker, free person of Tatooine,” he says. He presents the case for Tatooine’s admittance to the Republic in a booming, confident voice, drawing on his inner strength- his righteous anger and determination to ensure his people’s future- to keep his voice from wavering.

There are grumbles. Muttering. No Senator wants to be the one to blatantly say “no”- it’s a sort of miracle story, Tatooine, the little planet that rose up and threw of the shackles of slavery and now wants to join the Republic- the exact sort of mythos that the Republic itself is built on. It’s bad PR to vote against that little planet. But at the same time, Tatooine is a sandy, useless dustball that’ll need fiscal support from the Senate, with nothing to offer in terms of economic value. Many Senators are debating with themselves, not whether or not to say “no”, but how to vote “no” without losing ten points in approval ratings.

Until the Senator from Naboo, a diminutive woman who somehow reminds Anakin of his rancor, stands up. She gives an impassioned, off-the-cuff speech, reminding the Senate of how her own planet had thrown off the shackles of oppression not ten years ago, how the Republic was founded by planets like Tatooine, and how, most importantly, they had no legal basis to deny them entry, and if the Senate voted no, Naboo’s lawyers would litigate the issue six ways from taungsday- which, due to a clause in the Senate’s constitution that forbade them from passing legislation while the issue of a planet’s admittance to the Republic was on the floor, would effectively paralyze the Senate until the courts made a ruling. And, as Padme made sure to emphasize, if the court’s decision was not favorable, she would appeal. She could feasibly stop the Senate from doing anything for years, if necessary.

Tatooine is admitted to the Republic.

“Two Senators,” Anakin demands. “In order for my people to be fairly represented, my planet requires two Senators.” When complaints are made, Jar-Jar Binks threatens to explain the complicated dynamics of a planet attempting to grapple with a colonial past. He doesn’t have to. Tatooine gets its two Senators.

Anakin meets with Senator Amidala in her office, to thank her.

“Of course,” she said. “I remember a little boy who helped free my planet- how could I not help you when you needed it?”

“Uhh, thanks, yeah, that’s, really nice of you. Like your hair. Which is nice. In an objective sort of way,” Anakin says, because there is no universe in which Anakin is not a complete idiot in front of Padme. “I named my rancor after you,” he blurts.

Before Anakin is scheduled to leave Coruscant, the Jedi send a knight to scope out the new planetary leader. Obi-Wan Kenobi shows up at Anakin’s hotel room, and goes “Oh. It’s.... you.”

“Obi-Wan!” Anakin grins. He only knew him for about two days when he was nine, but he still greets him like an old friend, like a brother. They fall into easy, teasing conversation. “I thought you were dead, I confess, after you disappeared from Naboo,” Obi-Wan admits. “I am truly sorry that I was unable to fulfill Qui-Gon’s promise to train you as a Jedi Knight.”

“That’s ok,” Anakin waves his hand dismissively. “I got trained as a Sith instead.” Then he freezes. Oops. He was not supposed to say that. Maul would be so disappointed in him.

“Beg pardon?” Obi-Wan says.

“I, uhh, got trained, as a, uh, sift...er? Instead? A sand sifter? I sift sand for a living?”

“You said Sith.”

“No I didn’t, I definitely said sift.”

“No, you said Sith.”

“I definitely did not.”

Anakin changes the subject, and Obi-Wan lets it drop. He’ll tell the Council, of course, but he honestly cannot fathom the concept of this kid being a Sith. He senses nothing Dark about him- well, at least no more dark than is present in any sentient. Besides, it’s not like there are any Sith Lords around anymore, ever since he killed Maul (luckily, Obi-Wan doesn’t see the picture in Anakin’s wallet, a candid shot 3PO took in the cockpit of their family’s ship. Fifteen-year-old Anakin, at the controls, hyperbrake still on with his hands on the hyperdrive lever, Maul, standing behind him, hands gripping Anakin’s seat and face distorted half-way through a panic-induced rant about flight safety, and Shmi, sitting in the co-pilot’s seat, laughter on her face and knitting needles in her hands).

Anakin contacts his mother, tells her the good news. The Council, moving with alacrity, elects Tatooine’s first Senators. And four days later, one year after the Dawn of Freedom, Senator Shmi Skywalker and Senator Ooutrigh (a Tusken warrior) of Tatooine arrive on Coruscant and address the Senate for the first time.

Of course, while Anakin has been growing up, planning for Tatooine’s future, and annoying the shit out of Maul, Palpatine’s own plans have continued apace. Barely four months after Tatooine is admitted to the Republic, Obi-Wan finds himself in an arena on Geonosis. The battle goes much differently this time, partially due to the fact that Anakin has retrofitted the cargo bay of his family’s ship to house Padme (the rancor, not the Senator), and descends onto the Arena sands just as Yoda and the Clone Troops arrive, and deposits both Padme’s (the rancor, and the Senator) into the melee.

“Hi, Obi-Wan!” Anakin calls, whipping out his lightsaber to deflect the hail of blaster bolts (Maul would disapprove, but Maul isn’t here, he’s ten clicks away, chasing down the Jedi dropout Sidious replaced him with).

“Anakin, what the FUCK” Obi-Wan says, staring at Chief Councilor Anakin Skywalker of Tatooine, riding a rancor and swinging an honest-to-Force yellow lightsaber.

“Master Yoda, what the FUCK” Anakin says, later, after the battle is over, when he finally gets Yoda to answer his questions about the clone troopers. “You found out about an entire-ass army of slave child soldiers commissioned AND PAID FOR by one of your own council members, and your reaction is ‘oh thank goodness, now we have an army?’ What the FUCK is WRONG with you?!” Yoda tries to explain to Councilor Skywalker that the situation was dire, they’d had no choice, but Councilor Skywalker just keeps repeating “AN ARMY OF SLAVE CHILD SOLDIERS” at him. “No choice, we had,” Yoda says yet again.

“BULLSHIT, you had no choice!” Anakin yells. “You could have chosen to not use the entire army of slave child soldiers that you legally own!”

“Let Kenobi and the others die, you would have? Hmm?”

“PROBABLY, YEAH!” Anakin hollers (”Thanks,” mutters Obi-Wan). “Sometimes the choices you have all really suck, but you still have to make them! You can’t just pretend you didn’t have any options, you HAD OPTIONS, and you chose the one that involved using a SLAVE ARMY OF CHILD SOLDIERS.” He gestures behind him to the battlefield, where clone troopers and medics are moving amongst the bodies, white and red stark against the sand, tallying their dead brothers.

Yoda shakes his head. “emotional, you are, young Skywalker.” he said. “Cloud your judgement, your feelings do.”

“Yeah, I’m fucking emotional!” Anakin practically screams. “I have personal beef with slavery, so excuse me if I feel emotions about it. Your problem is that you’re able to use an ARMY OF SLAVE CHILD SOLDIERS and not feel bad about it! Your lack of emotions is clouding YOUR judgement!” He stomps off. Yoda shakes his head. Skywalker is young, and too close to the issue of slavery to really have perspective on it. He does not understand. It was a great loss to the Jedi Order when the Council rejected him, all those years ago- if he had been trained as a Jedi, he would have learned to put aside his emotions about slavery, and he would have understood why it was necessary now. If Anakin could have heard what Yoda was thinking, he would have turned right back around, picked Yoda up, and punted him like a limmie ball.

Anakin and Maul return to Tatooine. Maul offers to assassinate the entire Jedi Council, but Anakin says no. He’s still fuming about his conversation with Yoda. He knows he gets emotional. He knows that Yoda isn’t entirely wrong- he knows he lets his emotions cloud his judgement sometimes. It’s something he’s worked hard on, over the years, him and Maul. How to take a step back from the emotions howling in your head, and how to view the situation without them getting in the way. And what kinds of situations you should let your emotions guide you. Anakin thinks he’s damn well entitled to strong emotions about slavery.

Short of declaring war on the entire Jedi Order, Anakin doesn’t know what to do about the Republic’s slave army. The Tatooine Council releases a public condemnation of it, explicitly calling it slavery and calling for the clones to be freed. The Council seriously debates joining the Separatists, until Padme (the Senator, not the Rancor) and Shmi look in-depth at the Separatist Council, which is buried deep in the pockets of corporate interests. Shmi files a lawsuit, under the Republic’s anti-slavery legislation, suing for the freedom of the clones. It’s a battle of miserable inches, and meanwhile, the war rages.

With Dooku gone, Sidious’s only means of controlling the Separatists is through Grievous and Ventress, both of whom are loose cannons whose loyalty (and competence) he seriously doubts. It’s frustrating for him, and not necessarily better for the Jedi and their army (of slave child soldiers). Sidious needs to keep the war in careful balance, neither side gaining too much ground, to draw it out and grind the Jedi down and manipulate their public image until he can heap all the blame on them. Without Dooku to pass down his orders, he has no way of keeping a firm check on the Separatist Council, and the Seps are in serious danger of completely overrunning the Republic. The droid army is fifty times as many as the clones, and the Separatists have the Trade Federation, the Banking Clans, and all of the major military tech corporations on their side. Honestly, it’s a testament to the Jedi and the Clone Army that they haven’t lost the war in the first month.

Speaking of that first month, Anakin doesn’t spend long on uninvolved in the war. Scant weeks after Geonosis, the Separatist Army threatens to roll right over Tatooine on their way to gaining control of the Outer Rim Hyperlanes. Tatooine has no army, doesn’t even have a police force. It has no fleet, no orbital defenses, and the droid army headed their way has ten times more droids than there are guns on the planet. The Council faces a choice. Ask the Republic to send in the GAR to defend them- ask for an army of slaves to be sent to die on Tatooine, to stain the sand with enslaved blood so soon after Tatooine clawed her way to freedom, or do nothing, and almost certainly ensure the annihilation of Tatooine and her people. To die, or to live by the blood of slaves who died for you. It’s not a pretty choice.

In the end, the choice is taken away from them (and perhaps it’s a kindness, that they weren’t forced to choose, perhaps it’s the coward’s way out, but it is what it is). A GAR cruiser shows up in orbit, and the Council is hailed by a man identifying himself as Captain Rex, commanding officer of the 501st legion of the GAR.

“The Republic sent you here?” Anakin asks, incredulously.

“Well, not exactly.” Captain Rex hedges. “The 501st is due for leave on Kamino, but the hyperdrive was making funny noises, so we decided to stop off in the nearest Republic system to check it out.” Rex shrugs. “If a bunch of tinnies just so happen to show up, it’s not like we’ll just sit back and watch.”

“Why are you doing this?” Anakin asks the clone captain, once they’ve got him on planet and in the council room. He’s got a lump in his throat, and his eyes are stinging. The 501st has no Jedi on board, no natborn officers, and no orders to go to Tatooine. Rex and the 501st showed up here of their own free will. Because they wanted to. To defend Tatooine.

“Geonosis.” Rex says. “On Geonosis, you saved the lives of over two hundred of us. Including me. We couldn’t stand by and let your planet fall to the Separatists, Councilor Skywalker.”

After the battle, during the cleanup, when Tatooinians are passing through the rows of injured, giving out water- giving out life- Rex tells Anakin the other reason.

“We all know about Tatooine, sir.” He says, quietly. “A bunch of slaves who stood up and said “no,” and took their freedom.” He shrugs. “Stories like that, it gives us hope. For the future.” He fixes Anakin with a stare. “If we let that hope die, we die too. Tatooine cannot fall.”

That is the first time Anakin and Rex fight together. Somehow, when the 501st leaves Tatooine, Anakin goes with them- officially, as a consultant/observer, appointed at the request of Senator Skywalker to observe the GAR and monitor the health and wellbeing of the troopers. Unofficially, Anakin and Rex become a lethal team, making the 501st one of the most effective legions in the Galaxy. Anakin isn’t dumb. He knows he’s being a massive hypocrite, running around with an army of slave child soldiers. Rex, however, insists that it’s different.

“First of all, we asked you to come with us.” he says. “Second of all, it’s not like you staying behind would have made any difference in our situation. And besides, scrapping clankers isn’t the only reason I asked you to come with us.” Anakin raises an eyebrow.

And Rex introduces Anakin to his older brother, Cody, commander of the 212th (Anakin is happy to see Obi-Wan again, but appalled to meet Obi-Wan’s fourteen-year-old togruta padawan, because why would you put a CHILD in a warzone, in a COMMAND POSITION). And Cody brings Anakin in on The Plan. The clones will not remain slaves forever, and they will not wait for some elusive promise of gratitude after the war is over. They will take their freedom, and they will defend their own, and they’re asking Anakin, who freed the slaves of Tatooine, to help them do it.

“So basically, you want me on as a consultant.”

“Basically, yeah.” Cody says. “And also as a guy with a lightsaber who can leap fifty feet into the air and dodge blaster bolts. Those are always handy to have around.”

So Anakin and Rex and Cody, and Cody’s small circle of commanders, lay their plans. And in the meantime, there’s a war to fight. Shmi’s still on Tatooine, but Maul comes with Anakin and the 501st. He and Rex get along like a house on fire, but you wouldn’t know it from watching them- they do nothing but argue and needle each other. Rex sarcastically calls Maul “Commander Maul” because it pisses him off so much, and it catches on with the whole legion. Maul constantly mutters about murdering and/or poisoning Rex.

But after Ventress almost chokes Rex to death, and breaks into his mind to make him do her bidding, Maul doesn’t leave Rex alone for a week, and clutches his hand tightly in the medbay. Rex doesn’t mention it, so neither does Anakin.

Padme, on the other hand, makes no secret of how much she loves Rex (the Rancor, not the Senator, though she likes him too). Padme seems to have concluded that Rex is some sort of long-lost hatchling, and can be seen chasing Rex down the hangar bay, trying to corral him into the nest she’s constructed in the corner reserved for her. Rex gets used to surprise cuddles from a massive predator.

The Jedi Council are at their wit’s end with Skywalker, but their hands are full and honestly, he’s a benefit to the war effort, so they assign Obi-Wan to “supervise” the legion, and leave them to it. Obi-Wan and Anakin strike up a deep friendship, unfettered by the baggage that comes with being master and padawan. Obi-Wan finds himself having serious questions about the Jedi’s role in the war, since Anakin is not at all shy about challenging him on the whole “slave army of child soldiers” thing. Obi-Wan is also, quite frankly, too busy to effectively teach a padawan, and by this point, he knows that Anakin’s had some sort of Force training. He’s fought beside him enough to be confident in his skills, and often sends Ahsoka on extended missions with the 501st, and explicitly begs Anakin to help him fill in the gaps in her training. Anakin obliges enthusiastically.

Of course, Maul helps train her too. Obi-Wan shows up on the Resolute one day to pick her up, and asks how her training’s going.

“Great!” She says. “Skyguy’s weird uncle is teaching me jar’kai-”

“Anakin has an uncle?” Obi-Wan asks, surprised. “Who knows jar’kai?”

And so Obi-Wan and Maul meet once again. And Obi-Wan is just absolutely pole-axed.

“Darth Maul?” He splutters. “Is your uncle?”

“Not biologically,” Anakin shrugs. “He practically raised me, along with my mom. He taught me everything I know about lightsabers and the Force.”

“...”

“...you did say Sith, Anakin, you bastard, sand-sifting MY ASS-”

“Oh, it’s you.” Maul says. “I won’t kill you, but only because Anakin likes you.” Obi-Wan throws up his hands.

Somehow, Obi-Wan and Maul come to an understanding. Somehow, Obi-Wan doesn’t turn him over to the council.

At one point, a giant of a zabrak, easily eight feet tall, with skin a poisonous yellow, shows up, claiming that Maul is his brother, and that he’s here to bring him home to Dathomir. Maul takes one look at Savage and goes “Fuck that”. “I will train you in the ways of the Force,” he says. “I can show you power like you’ve never wielded before.” he says. “You shall be a great and feared Sith Lord,” he says. “Have some hot chocolate, you look cold,” he says. “Put on a sweater.” Savage, slightly bemused, comes to terms with the fact that he’s just been adopted.

It’s Maul who figures it out, of course. How could he not? He was raised by Sidious. He knows how devious he is, how his plans have layers upon layers, backups upon backups, contingencies stacked from here to the Outer Rim. Once Sidious moves, you can be sure that any reasonable outcome will be in his favor, because he has completely engineered the situation before you were even aware it existed.

The Sith caused the war and are playing both sides. The Sith caused the clones to be commissioned (these things are trivially easy to figure out, if you’re paying attention). The Sith want the Jedi dead.

“Contingencies,” Maul mutters. “It’s always a trap, and there’s always contingencies.”

When he finds the chip in Rex’s head, he shakes with rage and refuses to talk to anyone, fearing, for the first time in years, that he will lose control and hurt someone he loves. It is Rex who talks him down, who manages to get close to him, who embraces him and lets him cry on his shoulder, then scream and rage and punch the walls. When Maul is able to explain, Rex has to choke back his own terrified, horrified sobs. He holds them back, and calmly looks at Maul and says “What are you going to do about it?”

The surgery, they discover, is simple enough. An astromech can do it in two minutes (C2PO can do it in seventy seconds, and Artoo can’t stand it). When Anakin is told, he goes quiet for a minute, and when he looks back up, it is not Anakin, Rex’s friend, Maul’s kid, who is sitting at the table in the briefing room. It is He Who Walks in the Sky, Huttslayer, Breaker of Chains, who looks back at them. Anakin Skywalker has always wanted nothing more than to free all the slaves. And Anakin Skywalker’s destiny has always been to do what he wanted.

They tell Cody. They modify their plans. They quietly contact medics throughout the GAR, and Artoo quietly sends the details to every military astromech he trusts. When the army is safe from Sidious’ control, Anakin, Rex, and Maul conspire to lure him off of Coruscant. Maul takes over Mandalore, exiling the duchess and announcing a New Sith Empire. Sidious shows up, declaring that Maul has become a rival, disowning his former apprentice and attacking him, with intent to kill. Savage loses an arm. Maul almost loses his life. But as he lies on the ground at Sidious’s feet, arms trembling with the effort of holding the parry keeping Sidious’ saber from his throat, he hears “We’ve got the face shot! Go, go go!” in his earpiece. Gunfire, real slugthrowers, difficult to block with a saber, erupts around him. C3PO and his arsenal, along with Fives, Jesse, and Echo, the 501st’s best ARC troopers, open fire on Sidious. The Sith is forced to back away, raising a hand to stop the bullets in midair. Maul leaps to his feet, and Anakin joins him, lightsaber drawn.

The fight is quick, but brutal. Maul’s hands threaten to tremble with terror, facing down the horror of his childhood, the monster whose treatment of him is woven fundamentally into his psyche, whose shadow has haunted Maul all his life, and still invades his dreams. But he reaches out to his family, to Rex, beside him, steady, full of faith in him, to Anakin, a blazing sun of love and anger, a shield of raw power, and to Shmi, all the way in her Senate offices on Coruscant, cool and calm and soothing like a desert spring as ever-present as the stars. His hands do not tremble. He raises his lightsaber against his master, beside the blade of his son. Together, they beat the Sith Lord back. Anakin binds the Sith’s blade, knees him in the ribs, and while Sidious is thus occupied, Maul cuts his head off.

“You were a terrible parent,” he pants, and spits on the corpse. Then, he collapses, and Rex is there to catch him, and Maul clings to him and shakes, and cries. Anakin reaches out to put a hand on his shoulder, and Rex pulls him in with a look, and together, they surround Maul, a bulwark against the rest of the world, a safe circle for him to fall apart for a little bit. At some point, one of them unstraps the small camera that Maul had been wearing on his chest. Ahsoka has, at that point, already sent the footage to every major news office on Coruscant.

That evening, plastered all over the galactic news, is a video of the Chancellor himself, showing up on a neutral world and attacking its sovereign leader, wielding red lightsabers of all things. And it’s obviously the Chancellor; there’s a clear shot of his face when he knocks Mandalore’s ruler to the ground and the camera gets a good view right up into his hood.

It’s a massive scandal. One tabloid shows the footage with a little counter in the corner, counting up every treaty and galactic law that Palpatine violates onscreen. The only thing that saves Palpatine from impeachment and arrest is the fact that he’s already dead. Inquiries are launched, investigators are sanctioned, documents and hard drives and testimony are subpoena’ed. Padme (the Senator, not the Rancor), spearheads the investigative committee, and within a month, they’ve uncovered decades worth of bribes, backroom deals, contracts with droid manufacturers, clear evidence of Palpatine authorizing Republic funds for weaponry that went straight to the Separatists, and even communication records between the Chancellor and the two military leaders of the Separatists. Grievous and Ventress go into hiding (the Tales of Grievous and Ventress, unlikely buddies forced on an intergalactic road trip on the run from the cops, is a story for a different absurdly long post at 3am). The Separatists break down in chaos, and the war grinds to a halt. In the middle of all the political hurricane, Cody enacts his plan, and the entire GAR simultaneously deserts, and fucks directly off to Tatooine. This ignites another scandal, with Senators calling for Tatooine’s expulsion from the Republic. Shmi stands in her Senate Pod, hands tucked into her roughspun sleeves, listening attentively while Senator Burtoni of Kamino accuses her of theft.

“If Tatooine does not return the stolen military assets, the Senate may sanction the use of force!” the Senator from Ryloth threatens.

“Pardon me,” Shmi says, “May I ask what army the Senate is planning sending to invade Tatooine? I was under the impression that the only Republic army was already there.” There’s a bit of an awkward silence.

In the middle of the shitstorm, before Shmi is arrested and Anakin declared an enemy of the state, Shmi’s lawsuit finally receives a ruling. And just like that, the clones are legally free. And the judge orders the Senate to pay reparations. Anakin cackles with glee when he hears.

Rex and Cody, with the full support of the people of Tatooine, begin the long, hard, work of resettling their brothers and building a life for the vod’e. Shmi files a lawsuit against the Zygerrian Empire. Savage receives a new arm, courtesy of Anakin, who may or may not have added a few extra utilities to it. Ahsoka is knighted, and controversially invites Anakin to be present at the ceremony, along with Obi-Wan. Maul admits, very quietly and where only Rex can hear, that he doesn’t actually want to poison him. “I know,” Rex says, smiling at him. Anakin, meanwhile, finally marries Padme, the love of his life (the Senator, not the Rancor).

And in Mos Eisly, there is a stone slab, pulled from a crumbled wall and stuck upright in the ground in the middle of the square. No one knows who put it there, but someone carved fifty-seven names into the stone. The fifty-seven names of the clone troopers who died defending Tatooine from the Separatist army, at the beginning of the war. The last slaves to spill their blood on the sands of Tatooine.

#maul adopts anakin #and invents a new kind of sith #which is almost nothing like the old kind of sith #just co-opts the name really #rex/maul #kinda? it wasn't on purpose it just happened #my writing #maulusque's writing #might slap this up on ao3 later #we'll see

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hongism · 4 years

Text

liquorice and ivories - k.hongjoong

➻ pairing: hongjoong x fem!reader ➻ wc: 16.5k ➻ genre: smut, tad angsty, fluff, e2l, pianist!hongjoong, pianist!reader ➻ rating: M, 18+ ➻ warnings: public sex, semi-public sex, explicit smut, oral sex: m & f, fingering, handjobs, choking, lowkey hate sex at first, sex on a piano, degradation, praise, marking, biting, multiple orgasms, cum swallowing, creampie, unprotected sex ➻ summary: you and hongjoong are competitors, of course. two people, one dream - there’s never room for two in this industry. neither of you care who you have to step on to get to the top.

Your fingers hit the ivories with a thud. The sound echoes through the practice room, reverberating against the walls and sending the sickeningly sweet sounds to the ears of all the people in the room. You sit back, satisfied with the performance, and glance over at your small audience. The professor is the first to clap, and he sends a small smile your way before standing up. Five of your classmates mimic his movements, but the sixth remains stony and cold, unmoving except for the slight curl of his lips that echoes his disgust with your performance.

Kim Hongjoong.

The two of you have never cared for each other; both are so competitive that you can’t stand to be around one another for more than five seconds. You are arrogant to a degree, but only because you think about how far you’ve come and how much you’ve developed over the years. Hongjoong, on the other hand, is just arrogant. There’s no need to beat around the bush and think harder about it. You’ve known the man for about two years now – you both joined the university at the same time and now are in your junior years together. Given the minimal size of your program though, it means that you have to share every single class with Hongjoong.

When you started your journey in the program, you didn’t notice Hongjoong. He’s a short-statured man – still taller than you yes, but small compared to your other male classmate – and he was relatively quiet during the first year of school. A fashionable student, even with the awkward uniform you’re all required to wear, but he always manages to style it in a way like no one else. Whether it’s a beret on his head or a sudden change of hair color, Hongjoong always adds a new flair to his outfits. Once he even had a mullet, which you had never seen before in person, but as much as you hate to admit it, it actually suited him quite nicely. Now, however, his hair is bright blue and parted right down the middle. His bangs frame his forehead, exposing just enough skin to entice, and if you didn’t hate his guts so much, you would understand why all the girls at this school want to get in his pants.

As you said, you didn’t notice him during your first year at university because he was so quiet and kept to himself. That all flipped during the second year though. Hongjoong became bold all of a sudden; the bright-eyed boy of freshman year was long gone and replaced by a cynical man who sought to tear everyone down. You became his primary target of attack. You weren’t sure why at first, but it became glaringly obvious once your professor admitted that you and Hongjoong were the top two students of your generation. It is a competition, in which you are his biggest competitor.

Exchanged insults, glares and scowls sent in each other’s direction, attempts to outdo one another in practices and recitals and competitions. You fight each other tooth and nail. Your professor seems totally unbothered by the hatred you bear for one another; he claims that it’s a healthy way to challenge each other, even though everyone knows that it is the opposite of healthy.

All that to say – you are not surprised in the slightest to see his disdain. Your professor on the other hand cannot stop grinning after your performance.

“Fantastic job, Y/N. Really stunning. I think you’re doing better than ever with this piece. I have no doubt that you can win the next competition if you continue practicing hard and performing at this level.”

You push the piano bench back just enough to step out, bowing to your professor at his kind words.

“Thank you, sir.”

“Mr. Kim, you’re up next.” Hongjoong stands as he’s called forward. The two of you pass without sparing so much as a glance in the other’s direction. You take his now empty seat, one leg crossing over the other as you lean against the back. Hongjoong sits on the bench, fiddling with the adjustments and distance from the keys a bit. “Remind me of your piece?”

“Chopin’s Nocturne, Opus 48, number 1.”

“Ah yes. Start whenever you’re ready.”

As soon as Hongjoong’s fingers hit the keys, you’re reminded of why you hate the man so much. It’s not because he’s arrogant and egotistical for no reason. No, he’s sickenly good at playing the piano. That infuriates you even more. If he was bad and full of ungodly rage, you might be able to rectify his attitude, but no. He’s the best pianist you’ve ever met, ever heard, better than some professionals that you’ve gone and seen in concert. He plays the piano as though it’s an extension of himself. The ivories are like his muscle and bone, he treats each one like it’s a part of him, and he knows how to recreate a piece of music in a way that is so authentically original yet completely his own. Yea, you fucking despise it.

Over the years, the biggest complaint you’ve received from teachers and judges is that you cannot properly express the music. You can play it perfectly, recreate the notes as they were written, and copy them to perfection. But that’s not what the judges or teachers want. They want you to be unique and diverse. They don’t want a perfect replica. They want you to take the piece of music and make it your own, create something flawless and make it even better by putting your own heart and soul into the notes. Hongjoong does that with such ease that he makes it look effortless.

This piece he plays now gives him the perfect playing ground to do that again. The way his fingers dance across the keys, a feather-light touch that brings the slightest notes out and the hard-hitting chords that resound in your ears. His performance is as flawless as ever, he has no trouble making the song his own. You hate it. The perfection under his fingers nearly makes you sick to your stomach because the player behind the keys is nothing but a self-righteous asshole.

You honestly want to smack some sense into Hongjoong, maybe rough him up a little and try to make him less of an asshole, but you doubt that would work. You settle for glaring at the side of his head throughout the performance, despising each perfect note he plays until he finishes the song. You return the favor of not clapping when he finishes the piece, six long minutes of torture, but everyone else in the room applauds his performance with fervor. He stands up and steps around the piano bench, bowing to the professor then turning to look right at you. A smug smile spreads across his lips. He knows how well he did, and he knows how much you enjoyed the piece. You don’t give him the pleasure of returning the glare any longer and glance away to stare at the floor instead.

“Fantastic job, Mr. Kim. Near perfection, I would say. Be sure to watch the tempo as you play. Otherwise, I have no advice for you.”

“Thank you, professor.” Hongjoong’s voice mimics the sickly sweet tone of his playing, a melodious sound that grates against your ears despite how pretty it is. He rubs at his wrists as he pulls away from the piano, and his expression is blank when you look back up at his face.

“Alright, that’s all for today. You all did well with your performances. Be sure to keep practicing. I’ll see you at the competition on Saturday. Watch your emails as I’ll be sending out information about the bus ride to the concert hall. Dismissed!”

You waste no time in standing up, snatching up the bag at your feet and slinging it over your shoulder without thinking twice. You’re out the door within seconds. It would be a wise idea to drop by a practice room and work on your piece some more seeing as there are only a few days left until the competition, but too much rage boils in your gut. You want nothing more than to go home and stew in fury on the couch while watching some awful drama. So, that’s exactly what you do.

The bus ride back to your apartment is quick and easy, as is the walk up the stairs to your room. When you step inside, a small black cat darts out from under the couch to greet you. You stoop down to scratch at his chin, cooing as he rubs against you with a happy purr.

“Hi, Victor. Did you have a good day?” The response you get is a quiet meow. “Yea, I had a good day up until practice. Fucking Kim Hongjoong.”

You step around the small cat to plop down on the couch, dropping your bag to the floor with a thud. Digging around in your pockets, you pull your phone out to find a littering of texts across the screen as well as two missed calls. With a sigh, you tap the screen to return the call, immediately greeted with a loud scream in your ear.

“Y/N!”

“Yea, hi, Woo. Why’d you call?”

“I can’t just call my best friend out of nowhere?”

“No, because you never call unless you want something,” you sigh into the receiver. Wooyoung replies with a dissatisfied click of his tongue.

“Wow, I see how it is. I get absolutely no respect. None! You hear that, Seonghwa? No respect!” You hear Wooyoung’s roommate hum quietly over the phone, and Wooyoung grumbles at his nonchalant response. “Anyways, you’re right. I called because I want something.”

“I fucking knew it.” You sit straight on the couch, elbows coming to rest against your knees. “What is it this time? Calculus homework? You know I’m not a math major…”

“No! No, if I wanted help with Calculus, I would just ask Hwa.”

“Okay, so what is it?”

“I’m having a party tonight and–”

“No.”

“You didn’t even hear me out!”

“The answer is no.”

“Come on, Y/N! You never go out!”

“I don’t want to.”

“It’s a chill party!”

“You say that every time then the cops get called and suddenly it’s no longer a ‘chill party’.”

“Okay, but this time it really is.”

“How so?”

“It’s small. Only seven or eight people are coming. Including you, maybe?”

“More always end up showing up, Woo.”

“Not this time. I’ve limited it. Mingi and San are not allowed to bring anyone over, I’ve made it glaringly clear. So please? Pretty please? Seonghwa and I will buy you dinner for a whole week!”

“Um, when did I agree to that?” Seonghwa’s voice carries over the phone against, his tone full of protest as Wooyoung makes the offer.

“Make it two weeks and you have a deal,” you respond, voice flat.

“What? No! That’s way too much. One week.”

“One and a half.”

“I’ll give you one week and Hwa will buy a whole bag of cat food for Victor.”

“Deal.”

“What?” Seonghwa’s shout of protest resounds again. “I did not agree to this!”

“Too bad, so sad, Hwa! She’s coming!” Wooyoung cheers, voice quieter as he pulls away from the phone for a moment. He comes back right after to talk to you again. “Okay, be here by eight. That’s when people will start showing up. Seonghwa’s getting us some good good alcohol so we’re really going to have fun. I promise!”

Wooyoung doesn’t give you the opportunity to respond; instead, he hangs up the phone and leaves you in silence again. You drop the phone to the couch with a sigh, glancing over at where Victor is now perched on the armrest.

“I’m going to regret this, aren’t I?”

He meows back at you, amber eyes wide with curiosity.

“Yea, that’s what I thought.”

…

The house is already booming with music when you arrive at the front door. Wooyoung is lucky to live with Seonghwa because the man is filthy rich and can afford to rent out a whole house to live in for the school year. It allows for loud parties like these, although the house is relatively small and the other houses around it are very close, they can at least have the luxury of not sharing a whole apartment building with hundreds of other people.

You don’t bother knocking, twisting the knob and stepping into the noise. Wooyoung is there to greet you at the door, two cups in hand, and he grins when he sees you.

“Y/N! Let’s get this shit started! Rum and coke?”

“Yea, yea.” You snatch one of the cups from his hand and start sipping at it without a second thought.

“Hey, that was mine!”

“Well, it’s mine now!”

“You little shit.” Wooyoung scrunches his nose up, then drops a hand to your back. “Okay almost everyone is here. San is in the middle of dragging Jongho over by the ear, then we’re gonna be in full party mode.”

“I can’t wait to make a speedy getaway.”

“You say that every time. Then you stay all night. Make up your mind, woman.” Wooyoung elbows you in the side. He catches sight of Seonghwa a moment later, rushing off to go stand with the older man. You watch him go with a small shake of your head. As much as Wooyoung doesn’t want to admit it, he is absolutely infatuated with his roommate. Every time they have a party like this, Wooyoung ends up in Seonghwa’s bed, and they wake up as though nothing happened. Part of you wishes you could have a relationship like that – fuck and move on without a care in the world. The two won’t admit that it’s something exclusive but you know Wooyoung wouldn’t dare sleep with anyone else, and Seonghwa doesn’t bring anyone to the house or spend the night elsewhere. They have an unspoken agreement, an undefined relationship. Still, it bothers Wooyoung that Seonghwa won’t speak up about his feelings, and you’ve had to console the man through drunk tears on occasion. The only action you get, on the other hand, is hearing Wooyoung’s stories about how they fucked and getting gross details of all the positions Seonghwa put him in throughout the night.

You shake your head at the thought, downing some more of your drink to expel the image from your mind. You glance around the living room, searching the faces of the people who are already here. Wooyoung was at least telling the truth, and there are only three people talking in a small circle. All are faces you recognize: Wooyoung’s friend Mingi, Seonghwa’s old flame and best friend Yeosang, and Yeosang’s current boyfriend Yunho. All people you know well enough to be friends with, so you approach them without any hesitation. It’s only when you step past Mingi’s outrageously tall form that you catch sight of a much smaller form, one with bright blue hair that you recognize in an instant.

“He fucking didn’t…” You mutter to yourself as you drag your gaze over the man’s form. “Jung Wooyoung, I swear…”

You spin on your heel just before going to where the group is standing. You make a beeline for Seonghwa and Wooyoung, catching the younger man by surprise when you grab hold of his shoulder and yank him back.

“Woah! What? What happened?”

“You fucking invited Kim Hongjoong?” You ask, tone incredulous as you glare at your best friend.

“I-I – oh shit. I forgot! I forgot you weren’t friends!”

“How did you fucking forget, Wooyoung? I tell you how much I had him on the daily!”

“Mingi asked if he could bring his roommate! I didn’t know that his roommate was Hongjoong, I swear. I’ve never met him before, I just assumed it was some random person. Please don’t hit me!” Wooyoung flinches away from you as you raise a hand to smack him across the back of the head.

“I can’t believe you,” you grumble as Wooyoung yelps. Seonghwa laughs at your exchange with Wooyoung, eyes forming soft crescents as he smiles. “You didn’t think to ask?”

“Why would I need to ask? We’re friends, I just assumed his roommate would be chill like he is!”

“No, it’s Kim fucking Hongjoong, the least chill person in the fucking universe. I’m leaving.”

“Woah, woah, woah! Please don’t, Y/N. You just got here, come on. Stay for just a little bit. You don’t even have to talk to him, okay? Just stay with me or Seonghwa. Or San when he gets here! I know you like him!”

“Shut up!” You turn away at the accusation, cheeks heating up as he points out your minor crush.

“I’m just stating facts,” Wooyoung huffs. He crosses his arms over his chest and sticks his tongue out at you.

“I’ll stay as long as I don’t have to breathe near Hongjoong.” You send a glare at the blue-haired man’s back even though he can’t see you. You don’t even know if he’s seen you yet; he’s still glued to Mingi’s side without a care in the world.

“What’s the deal with you two anyway?” Seonghwa asks as he brings his drink up to his lips.

“He’s a self-righteous fucking asshole who tears people down so he can feel better about himself,” you grumble back. Seonghwa’s eyebrows shoot up, and Wooyoung shakes his head.

“Competition. They’re both good at piano. Thus… they’re competition to each other.”

“Yea, yea… it would help if he wasn’t such a fuckwad.”

“Ooh, fuckwad. That’s a new one. Hey, Hwa, how kinky would it be to call you fuckwad during sex?”

“I – what?”

“Please spare me! I did not come here to hear about that again.”

“Oh, fuckwad, harder!” Wooyoung cries out, leaning closer to you. You try to swat him away with weak hands.

“Not as kinky or hot as you think,” Seonghwa chimes in, clicking his tongue against the roof of his mouth.

“Maybe we can try it tonight and see if I change your mind.”

“I hate it here,” you chime in, trying to hide behind your drink.

“Sure you do.”

“No, I really hate it here. This is disgusting, I didn’t sign up for this.”

“I mean, you can watch if you want–”

“No! Oh my god, no. Wooyoung!”

Wooyoung cackles as he pulls away from the two of you, moving over to where the others stand with their drinks, and leaves you and Seonghwa to stand at the edge of the kitchen.

“What am I going to do with him?” Seonghwa asks as he watches the short brunette walk away.

“Marry him?”

Seonghwa releases a small laugh. “We’ll see, we’ll see.”

You smile at the taller man, glancing at his love-stricken expression out the corner of your eye before downing the rest of your drink. Casting another glance over at Hongjoong’s back, you spin on your heel and enter the kitchen to make yourself another drink. The amount of rum you put in is almost shameful, and it’s a good thing that your recital is on Saturday and not tomorrow because you know you will end up absolutely wasted before the night is over. You don’t even bother to put soda in this time either, just leaving the liquor and a few cubes of ice.

The alcohol burns as it sears down your throat. Seonghwa has moved forward to join Wooyoung with the others. You know you’re going to have to go over there eventually, but Hongjoong’s lurking form is deterring you from doing so for now. Just your luck too because the doorbell rings as you step out of the kitchen.

“I’ll get it!” You call out over your shoulder, making your way over to the door. You already have an inkling as to who it might be, and that is only confirmed when you crack the door open. San and Jongho stand behind it, bright smiles on both their faces. You bite down hard on your lower lip at the sight of the former and try not to let your gaze rake over his body as he steps over the threshold.

“Oh, Y/N! I didn’t know you were going to come too. What a pleasant surprise!” San says. His hand finds your waist as he pulls you in for a warm hug. Your heart does small cartwheels as he presses against you, and you feel the need to down a whole bottle of rum to expel the feelings.

“Yea, I-I, uh, Wooyoung convinced me to come,” you stammer out, glancing away from San’s face. Jongho smiles at you but says nothing, and he looks a lot less excited to be here than San. You understand the feeling at least and pass a sympathetic smile in his direction.

“I’m glad he did. I don’t see you nearly enough.”

“Oh shut up. You’re just one building over, you can always visit me in the practice rooms.”

“And risk seeing asshole supreme? I’ll pass.” San laughs as he shuts the front door, and you know exactly who he’s talking about.

“Don’t speak too soon. He’s here with Mingi.”

“Oh fuck. Where’s the alcohol? I’m gonna need it.”

“Kitchen.”

“Bless you.”

“Mhm,” you hum over the rim of your cup. Your eyes shift back over to where the others are standing. Your heart plummets in an instant as you see Hongjoong’s gaze on your form. That familiar hatred is lingering in his stare, and you return it immediately with an equal amount of fury. Rather than staying any longer to see him, you move to follow San into the kitchen, downing a good amount of alcohol along the way.

“You know, I should’ve brought my girlfriend with me,” San says as you step into the kitchen. You freeze in your tracks, mouth falling agape as your brain processes the words. It’s almost a physical pain that spreads across your chest when you realize what he’s saying. You don’t let it show on your face though; the pain is covered with a shaky smile and laugh.

“W-What do you mean?”

“You’re always the only girl at these parties. It must suck to not, I don’t know, have another girl to talk to, you know?” San brings a cup to his lips, sipping at it quietly as he looks at you. You swallow roughly.

“Right, yea. Of course. I… Honestly, I barely notice. I have Wooyoung.”

“Good point, good point. I’ll be sure to bring her to the next one though. I think the two of you would get along! Hell, you might even know her. She’s in the piano program.”

“O-Oh, wow! Wow. Wow. What a coincidence!”

“I know right? Her name is Minnie if you talk to her at all.”

You nearly choke on your drink as San says the name. Not only do you know the girl in question, she is one of your closest friends – if not your closest friend in the piano program. Not once did she ever let it slip that she was dating your crush. The crush you have mentioned to her on multiple occasions. Nice. Fuck, this nice just keeps getting better and better.

“I-I, no. No, uh, I’ve not talked to her too much!” You lie with another weak smile. “But I’ll be sure to introduce myself soon. I’d love to chat with her about music and stuff.”

“Yea, absolutely. I can give you her number if you’d like?”

“No, no! It’s okay! I’ll see her tomorrow in class. You don’t need to do that.”

“Oh yea, I forgot you guys have practice together every day. She speaks highly of your playing, by the way.”

Your smile is beginning to hurt your cheeks as you strain to keep it going.

“Oh please, I’m not that good. Nothing special.”

“Humble words for the best in the program,” San replies with a lilt to his tone. Your cheeks feel like they might collapse if you maintain the grin any longer. Thankfully, San steps away from the counter and motions towards the living room a moment later.

“I’m gonna go say hi to the others.”

“Yea, go ahead. I’m just gonna get a refill on my drink!” You don’t need another refill, you still have half a cup left. You throw it back when San disappears though in the hopes that it’ll take the sting in the corners of your eyes away. It wasn’t even a straight-up rejection. Still, you’ve spent months pining after San and trying to get close to him, only for this to happen. One of your closest friends to up and date him behind your back? Yea, that hurts a lot more than you’d like to admit. Once the alcohol is fully down, you drop your cup to the counter and begin to pour another glass of straight rum. You don’t even notice when someone else steps into the kitchen with a drink in hand.

“Even at a random party, you manage to annoy me.”

Hongjoong. As though your night couldn’t get any worse, he decides to come and bother you. How perfect. You should’ve said no to Wooyoung.

“Shut the fuck up. I’m not in the mood to deal with you.” You slam the bottle of rum against the counter and bring your cup back to your lips. Hongjoong comes closer to the counter, shaking his head at your behavior.

“Such a model student you are.”

“You’re one to fucking talk.”

“The mouth on you is absolutely foul.”

“I didn’t realize we weren’t allowed to cuss.”

“It’s not pretty for a lady to cuss.”

You nearly toss your drink in his face but somehow you manage to hold back from doing so.

“My patience is already minimal.”

“Rejection ruin your night?” Hongjoong reaches across the counter to pick up the bottle of alcohol. You bite the inside of your cheek so hard that you think you’ll draw blood. “Everyone in class knows that Minnie’s dating San. How did you manage to miss that? Especially seeing as you’re the one who talks with her the most?”

“She neglected to tell me.”

“Probably didn’t want to crush your dreams.”

Your grip on the cup in your hand tightens. Hongjoong’s words shouldn’t get to you – they normally don’t, but right now you’re already in a bit of a fragile mindstate, so the stinging in the corners of your eyes returns in a rush. You inhale sharply. Hongjoong glances up at you as he hears the sound. His fingers pause on the bottle of rum.

“Are you crying?” He asks. You squeeze your eyes shut as though it will hide the evidence of your tears, but it only serves to cause them to run down your cheeks. “Fuck, I-I’m sorry. I di-didn’t mean to make you cry.”

Hongjoong’s apology is quite the shocker. You half-expected him to laugh in your face and call you all sorts of names. When you glance over at him again, his expression is one full of regret and guilt. You wipe furiously at your cheeks with one hand, keeping the other on your cup of alcohol.

“Shut the fuck up,” you say again, albeit with a much shakier tone this time. All the remorse on Hongjoong’s expression melts away in an instant. He glares at you in response and returns to pouring himself another cup of alcohol. You turn away and move towards one of the counters, hopping up on it and mulling over your drink in silence.

“You’re really going to sit there and mope all night? I should’ve known you were boring as fuck just from hearing your performance quality.”

It didn’t even take a minute for Hongjoong to return to insulting you. The temptation of chucking your drink at him returns, but once again you manage not to do that.

“What do you get out of being mean to me? Does it make you feel better? Is that it?”

“No. You’re just so easy to rile up. Makes you worse at playing the piano too, which means it makes me that much better than you. Eliminating the competition, love. That’s all.”

“Don’t fucking call me ‘love’.”

“Why? Does it get you going?”

“I hate you so much, I swear. Don’t you have a line of girls you can fuck around with whenever you’re bored?” You hiss the question at Hongjoong. He laughs a little, one corner of his lips curling up as he takes in your questions. He hums and pushes the bottle of alcohol away again, then brings his cup up to his lips. After a long and slow drag of the drink, he pushes it back down to the counter. You watch his movements with wary eyes as he steps around the counter and moves closer to where you’re perched.

“What’s the fun in that?” He asks, head tilting to the side as he draws closer to you. “Why not play a little game of cat and mouse? Tease, poke fun, see how much it takes for someone to give in. That’s real fun.”

“So I’m a game to you?” You spit out as Hongjoong closes in on you. He pauses in his tracks, only a few feet away from you now.

“A game? You aren’t the game itself. You’re just a piece in the game. The true game is getting under your skin.”

Hongjoong continues to move forward until he hits your knees. Despite his short stature, he’s just tall enough to be eye level with you at this angle. You lean back, head thudding against the cabinet behind you. There’s nowhere for you to go, and you stare back at Hongjoong with narrowed eyes. You bring your cup up, effectively blocking him from coming any closer, and down some more alcohol in the hopes that it’ll drive away the sudden warmth in your gut that arises when Hongjoong grins at you.

“Cat got your tongue all of a sudden, princess?”

“No,” you rush to answer. Hongjoong’s smile persists, and he places his hands down on the counter. They close you in, dropped on either side of your form. He’s putting an awful amount of trust that you won’t knee him in the balls like this, because you’re at the perfect angle to do so.

“I’m going to kiss you,” Hongjoong says. Your breath catches in your throat when you hear his words, and you panic, shoulders tensing up in an instant. Hongjoong hesitates, watching your movements with careful eyes. “Unless you don’t want me to?”

“N-No, I… I…” You can’t finish the sentence. Your gaze travels down the slope of Hongjoong’s nose to his plush lips, their dark red color enticing you to lean forward. It’s the alcohol in your system, it really must be, because otherwise you wouldn’t even dream of kissing him. Hongjoong leans even closer, his breath mixing with yours. It smells like alcohol, and as he gets closer, you can see a faint blush across his nose and cheeks. He must be feeling the effects of the drinks as well, which should be a sign for you to stop and know that you’ll regret this in the morning. Hell, you aren’t even drunk yet. You’re barely tipsy. So why the fuck do you want to Hongjoong to pin you to the bed and fuck you senseless?

You don’t think any longer than that. You drape your arms around Hongjoong’s neck and close the distance between your lips. His lips are soft and warm when they hit yours, slotting together like puzzle pieces. He sighs into the kiss. He pushes against you as his hands shift to grip your hips. Despite the smell of alcohol on his breath, his lips taste sickenly sweet, almost like liquorice candy. Strangely, you can’t get enough of you. His tongue prods at your lower lips, swiping across the skin in a way that causes shivers to run down your spine.

A slight gasp escapes you, and Hongjoong uses that to his advantage. He presses his tongue between your lips with ease. It hits yours in an instant battle for dominance, and that sweet liquorice taste is on his tongue as well as though he’s been eating the candy for hours.

He pulls back for a moment, letting the two of you catch your breath. Your eyelids flutter as he moves, and your head falls back against the cabinet behind you. Hongjoong takes advantage of the motion. He leans forward and presses his lips to the column of your throat, tongue dragging over the skin there. Small gasps of air leave you as he sucks gently at the skin as well, and you know you should stop him because he’ll leave marks. Marks that won’t be gone within two days for the competition. Yet you don’t mind it too much ask his tongue lavishes your neck. What you do mind is the fact that the two of you are still in the kitchen. Which has no doors. So anyone could walk in and see the two of you going at it like this at any second.

You nudge Hongjoong’s shoulder, and he pulls off within an instant.

“What’s up?” He asks in the most nonchalant and casual tone ever.

“Upstairs bedroom. First door on the left. I’ll meet you up there in five minutes,” you say through a series of gasps. Hongjoong arches a brow, your confident tone catching him off-guard as well as the confirmation that the two of you are taking this further. He pulls away from you. His hands slide down your thighs as he moves in a teasing manner, and the gleam in his eyes tells you that he knows exactly what he is doing. You wait until he’s completely gone from the kitchen to release the breath you were holding, eyes falling shut. You take another chug of alcohol and finish off the rest of your glass. It’s just enough liquid courage for you to hop off the counter and pace around the kitchen, hands pressed together as though in prayer.

Now that Hongjoong is gone, you’re suddenly second-guessing this whole… situation. The two of you hate each other, that fact hasn’t changed in the slightest, you know that he still hates you as much as you hate him. It’s just the alcohol. It’s just the alcohol, it has to be. You’re still thinking straight and clearly though. It’s the arousal in your gut then. That was not there before Hongjoong kissed you or when you pulled him into said kiss. Then… perhaps the rejection that wasn’t really rejection from San. Maybe it’s that. Surely it’s that. Or maybe the two of you just need to fuck this out of your systems and carry on with hating each other.

Thinking is getting you nowhere. You don’t wait any longer, dipping out of the kitchen and taking the stairs up to the second floor without a second thought. The door you mentioned to Hongjoong belongs to Wooyoung, and he may not be happy about you using his bedroom to fuck your sworn enemy, but he’ll be wasted and distracted with Seonghwa within an hour anyway. You push into the bedroom with a sudden burst of confidence, but that dissipates the second you step in and lay your eyes on Hongjoong.

He’s stripped the leather jacket he was wearing off, leaving him in black pants that are far too tight, and a tucked-in tee that looks so effortlessly good on him that you hate it. You hate how damn perfect he is without even trying. He barely gives you time to shut the door before he’s approaching you, pressing you up against the wood. Your lips find each other again, and you moan out of surprise. The sound spurs Hongjoong on; he grabs hold of one of your legs and hikes it around his waist. The show of strength sends a surge of arousal to your core. He presses his tongue between your lips again, and you eat that sickly sweet taste of liquorice up as though starved.

“Are you sure?” Hongjoong asks, pulling away for a brief moment to look you in the eye.

“Yes,” you respond without any hesitation. “Yes, so fuck me.”

“Fuck…” Hongjoong mutters. He pulls you off the wall, and you press your other leg around his waist as he moves for the bed. You’re glad Wooyoung at least didn’t leave his room a complete mess otherwise Hongjoong would be tripping over clothes and shoes. He makes it to the bed with ease, however, dropping you to the mattress. The air leaves your lungs in a huff. You sit up on your elbows. Hongjoong stays back for a few moments, tugging at his belt until it’s completely gone, then his shirt follows quickly. You barely noticed the obvious tent in his pants prior to this but in all honesty, your eyes were looking anywhere except for his groin. His stripping encourages you to do the same, pulling at your own t-shirt and discarding of it on Wooyoung’s floor. Your shorts are harder to inch off, but as you tug at the zipper, Hongjoong’s hands land on your hips.

He doesn’t say a word, yanking your pants down with such ease that you nearly melt at the sight. Now he’s the one overdressed though, tight pants still clinging to his form, while you’re left in the black set of lingerie that you wore without thinking you were going to end up like this. Hongjoong doesn’t seem to mind one bit, bending down over you and dropping his hands on either side of your body. You welcome him with a kiss full of teeth and saliva.

“Fuck you’re hot,” Hongjoong says as he pulls off your lips for a second. He reaches around your torso and unhooks your bra, yanking it off you. Cold air hits your chest, and you suddenly feel very embarrassed at the exposure. Hongjoong’s eyes rake over you. He brings a hand to drag over your chest, pinching your nipple without warning. You gasp at the sensation, and your back arches off the bed under his fingers. Your reaction encourages him to repeat the motion, and he dips down to latch around your other nipple with his lips. You cry out from the sudden stimulation, Hongjoong’s teeth grazing over your breast lightly, and your hands reach down to find purchase in his bright blue hair.

He doesn’t waste much time though, lips quickly leaving your breast and trailing wet kisses down your bare abdomen until he reaches the band of your underwear. A grin spreads across his lips, eyes twinkling with mischief as he snags the material with his fingers and pulls it down with ease. You don’t even have time to think before he reaches between your folds and flattens his tongue against your clit. Another startled yelp escapes your, legs jerking, and Hongjoong hooks his arm around your leg and grasps at your opposite hip with the same hand. The other hand lingers at your core, teasing your dripping folds while his tongue goes to work at your clit.

“Fuck, you taste so good, princess,” Hongjoong purrs against your lower lips. You glance down at him, making eye contact as he drags his tongue through your arousal. You can see your juices on his lips. The dirty sight causes you to writhe against him. He stills you by pressing two fingers into your heat.

“Ah! Ho-Hongjoong, oh my god,” you stammer out as he immediately curls those two fingers inside you and nips gently at your sensitive bud. “F-Fuck, fuck.”

“Such a dirty mouth for a dirty little slut, huh?” You can’t respond with words this time, but his statement draws a high-pitched whine out of you and your walls tighten around his fingers. Hongjoong teases the corner of his mouth with the tip of his tongue. “Dirty talk then? Or degradation?”

You answer by squeezing around his fingers again, and the sensation is so tight that Hongjoong grits his teeth.

“You’re gonna be so good around my cock,” he hisses out. He squeezes a third finger into your heat, scissoring you open with relative ease. That damn tongue continues to tease your clit. He flicks over the small bead and draws small circles around it. It edges you closer and closer to an orgasm, but Hongjoong senses that and pulls away within an instant. He drags his tongue lower instead and pushes the wet muscle into your heat with his fingers. The added stimulation makes you cry out, and your hand grips Hongjoong’s hair and tugs at the strands. He nearly growls, the vibrations of the sound reverberating through your core in just the right way. It causes your orgasm to hit all of a sudden, back arching off the bed and body going slack as the intense waves wash over you.

Hongjoong guides you through the orgasm, fingers still curled inside you as he pulls his tongue back to lick the juices off his lips.

“Ready to take my cock in that dirty little cunt?”

“Yes, fuck – fuck, yes. Please fuck me.”

“Since you asked so nicely, I suppose I can do that.”

Hongjoong pulls back from your core, hands going straight to his pants. He has to stand up to tug them down, and he yanks his underwear down in the same motion. You’re surprised by his size in all honesty. He’s rather short compared to the other men you’ve been with so you weren’t expecting much in that department, but he’s much larger than you expected him to be. He doesn’t give you time to gape any longer though, kneeling back on the bed and pulling your legs up around his waist. He guides his member to your entrance. You swallow in anticipation and watch him slowly enter you. He continues moving forward until he bottoms out, a low groan leaving his lips when you instinctively clench around his cock.

“Tell me when you’re ready,” he grunts out, leaning down over you again.

“Just fuck me already,” you say in response. You curl your fingers around his neck and bring his head down to yours. Your lips connect as he pulls out, and the sharp thrust of his hips against the back of your thighs breaks the kiss. You throw your head back at the sensation, the curve of his cock rubbing against your sweet spot at just the right angle. You can’t keep the moans from slipping out; the feeling is far too good for you to keep quiet, and it spurs Hongjoong to thrust faster. He picks up a relentless pace, hips slamming against your thighs at an almost bruising pace.

“Fuck, you’re so tight,” he groans. You tilt your head to the side and press your lips against your bicep, biting down on the flesh in attempts to quiet your moans. Hongjoong must not like that because his fingers close around the base of your throat. “Eyes on me.”

You follow the order without thinking twice, snapping your head back to look Hongjoong in the eye. Your quick obedience brings a stutter to his thrusts. He dips down to capture your lips in his own. Despite the fact that you just hit one orgasm, the drag of his member inside your walls is already spurring you to another one in a short amount of time. Your sporadic clenches around Hongjoong’s cock signal that oncoming orgasm.

“Are you gonna cum again, slut?” He growls against your lips. You nod a few times, tongue darting out to taste his liquorice tasting ones. He pulls just out of your reach and leans back. “Do it yourself.” His words draw a surprised gasp from your mouth. You can’t tell whether he’s being serious or not until he pulls his still hard member out of your heat. You swallow roughly, eyes trailing over him in disbelief, before pulling yourself up to be eye level with him again.

“T-Then let me ride you,” you say. Hongjoong arches a brow and bites his lower lip. Still, he doesn’t move. You blink at him. You don’t know what he’s wanting you to do or expecting you to do, so you do the only thing you can think of. Pin him down against the bed, throw a leg over his hips, and grip his member by the base. He groans at the action, watching you guide his cock back to your drenched folds with a cocky grin. You wipe the smile off his lips with a sudden drop of your hips. You take his whole length in again and don’t waste any time in picking up your pace until it matches his previous one. Even as you bounce on his member, he doesn’t grip your hips or guide your movements, just laying back and watching you do all the work. It reminds you of how much you hate the man, even in the throes of pleasure, he’s still an arrogant and self-righteous asshole. That thought doesn’t keep your orgasm from approaching quickly. Your bounces slow down as you grow ever closer to your high. When it hits, you release a loud cry, freezing on top of him with pulsing walls as the strength leaves your body. You stay like that for a few seconds, unable to move because of the intense orgasm, then pull off slowly.

He watches you with a narrowed gaze as you lower your mouth to his cock. You lap at his member, collecting the juices and precum from it, then take half of him into your mouth. He nearly bucks up into your mouth. You have to comb a few strands of hair back when they fall over his member. Hongjoong releases a wanton moan. You bob your head up and down along his cock in efforts to make him cum faster, and the plan works in your favor. Moments later, he is spilling hot cum down your throat. You swallow every last drop. When you pull off his softening member, you wipe at your lower lip with a satisfied grin.

“You fuck better than I thought,” Hongjoong says through a deep sigh.

“You’re not half bad yourself,” you answer as you fall back against the bed. Your whole body aches and burns from the sex, but you feel extremely satisfied as well. Hongjoong moves with you, head hitting the pillow at the same time yours does.

The two of you refuse to look at each other even in the afterglow of your sex. You don’t know what to say to him, or if you should say anything for that matter. All you can do is stare at the ceiling. Based on the noise that resounds from across the hall, Seonghwa and Wooyoung are already getting down to business. If you hadn’t just fucked Hongjoong, you might find this predicament awkward.

“I’m going to shower,” Hongjoong announces after the silence drags on for a few minutes.

“Y-Yea, yea, go ahead. Help yourself to a towel and stuff. Wooyoung won’t mind.” You watch the man get up and head into the bathroom. The awkwardness is now setting in, and you aren’t sure what this means for the two of you. Perhaps it was just hate sex, but it certainly wasn’t drunk sex because the two of you were surprisingly sober before you even started fucking. It shouldn’t change anything at all.

At least, that’s what you have to keep telling yourself. As Hongjoong passes you on his way out of the bathroom, he doesn’t even spare you so much as a glance. You take a shower of your own in complete and utter silence, mostly spending your time staring at the wall with a blank stare. It’s only when you step out of the shower and look at yourself in the mirror that you say something

“God, how fucking dumb can you be, Y/N?” You towel your body dry and reach down to snatch one of Wooyoung’s spare shirts off the floor, not caring that it might be dirty as you tug it over your head.

When you step back into the bedroom, Hongjoong is long gone. You shouldn’t be surprised. You really shouldn’t. You knew he wasn’t going to stay, and you knew that this was nothing more than a quick fuck for him. However, you are not the type to just have a quick fuck and go. So when you slide under the covers of Wooyoung’s bed, you only feel cold and dejected. Sleeps doesn’t come for quite some time, and you refuse to admit that there were tears on your cheeks at any point in the night. It was just a quick fuck and nothing more. You really have to keep reminding yourself of that fact.

…

“Come on, ladies! Quit moving so slowly! We’re on a schedule.”

You release a huff. The bus seat under your ass is wildly uncomfortable, and even though two days have passed, you aren’t any less sore from your little sex escapade with Hongjoong the other night. It’s the morning of the piano competition now, and you have managed to fully avoid Hongjoong in every way up until now. Because for some unknown and dumb reason, your professor decided that he needed a seating chart for the bus. And he thus decided that putting you and Hongjoong next to each other was a brilliant idea. You can only be glad that you arrived before he did, taking the window seat and pressing your headphones in so that you don’t even have to interact with him in the slightest.

It feels like some bad karma is against you at the moment, the same bad karma that perhaps caused you to fuck Hongjoong in the first place. Being forced to sit next to him is a punch in the gut. You thumb through your music on your phone to find the piece you’ll be playing for the competition today, letting the chords and notes resound through your ears and take over your thoughts. You don’t even notice when Hongjoong climbs onto the bus and sits down beside you, but the sudden lurching of the vehicle causes your eyes to snap open. You glance around in surprise, the music completely distracting you from what was going on around you. When your eyes fall on Hongjoong, you taste liquorice on your tongue. More than that, you fucking smell the candy.

You understand why after a moment, Hongjoong’s fingers toying with a small cube of the black candy. He pops it between his lips, tongue darting out to drag over his lips and collect the rest of the sweet treat’s taste. Then, he glances at you out the corner of his eye and catches your lingering stare.

“What the fuck do you want?”

You were right about one thing. Nothing has changed between the two of you. You opt not to respond and turn away from him with a huff. You return to your music, trying your best to only focus on the notes and all the notes you got from your professor over the past few weeks. Thankfully, Hongjoong doesn’t bother you any longer and actually lets you have some damn peace and quiet. However, you blame him for the fact that your mind keeps drifting back to him, thinking about everything from his body to the way he fucked you the other night and how good it felt. With each intruding thought, you crank your volume up higher and higher. It does nothing to expel the thoughts but at least it gives you some peace of mind.

That is, until Hongjoong elbows you harshly in the side. You yank one of your earbuds out and whip to look at him.

“What?” You spit out with venom in your tone.

“Turn your fucking music down. I can barely think with how loud it is.”

“That’s not my fault.”

“It’s your damn music,” Hongjoong hisses back with an equal amount of anger to his voice.

“Fucking deal with it.”

Hongjoong’s hand darts out and closes around your thigh. You choke on your saliva, coughing as he squeezes your leg. His fingers are dangerously close to your core, and due to your surprise, you pressed your thighs together and effectively trapped his hand between your legs. Hongjoong leans closer to you, and you pull away in response.

“Turn your damn music down.”

You can smell the candy on his breath, and it reminds you of the taste of his tongue and feel of his lips. You almost want to lean in and revisit the taste, but you resist that burning urge. Instead, you manage to plug your earbud back in and turn the volume down a few notches. It’s enough to satiate Hongjoong for the time being. His grip on your thigh disappears, giving you a chance to breathe again but it’s much harder to breathe now that he’s gotten you a bit worked up like this. You curl further against the window and glare at the passing scenery as the music continues to play in your ears. At some point, you fall asleep to the rhythmic beats of your piece. You don’t even realize it, head still pressed to the cool glass of the window as the bus rumbles onto your destination.

You wake up once the bus comes to a halt, and you wake up with a jolt. However, it’s not because of the bus’ sudden stop; no, it’s because your head has somehow managed to come to rest on Hongjoong’s shoulder as you were sleeping. How that happened, you have absolutely no clue because you were angled towards the window and you’ve never been one to move much in your sleep. Hongjoong must have fallen asleep as well, because as soon as you jolt upwards, your head smacks against his and he wakes with a start.

“What the fuck?” He cusses, bringing a hand to rub at his temple where you hit him. You rub at the sleep in your eyes in attempts to hide the evidence of your tiredness before your professor catches sight.

“Wake up, shithead,” you mutter as you shove his shoulder. “I need to get past.”

“Your fault for choosing the damn window seat.”

“And it’s your fault for falling asleep.”

“Were you not just sleeping yourself?”

“I hate you.”

“The feeling is mutual,” Hongjoong spits back, eyes narrowed at you. He gets up regardless and steps away, and you take the chance to leave the bus with your bag in tow.

The one thing you hate the most about these recitals and competitions is the fact that you have to dress up nicely for them. It would be nice to show up and perform just the music, hell maybe even just play behind a curtain. But no, the judges need to see you and you have to be immaculate in every way. It’s not cheap in the slightest, but you’ve opted to reuse one of your previous recital dresses in the hopes that none of the judges will be faces you recognize.

Your professor leads the way into the concert hall, and you linger at Minnie’s side, as ironic as it is. Despite still being madly angry at her for not telling you that she was fucking dating Choi San behind your fucking back, she is still your closest friend in the program. That and she can’t seem to shut up about some movie she watched the other day. Her noise at least distracts you for the time being, especially as Hongjoong slips past you and runs a hand through his blue locks. The action is far too enticing and attractive for your liking. Again you’re left to blame it on horniness.

As you walk through the concert hall, those familiar gnawings of anxiety bite at your heels. Minnie is chattering away in your ear but you can’t hear a word she’s saying. Your hands grow cold quickly, and you tighten your grasp on your bag. You only relax a little once you get backstage and settle into a small dressing room.

“Alright, get ready quickly! Y/N, you’re the opener for the competition so you should get ready first.”

You respond with a few shaky nods before ducking into one of the bathrooms in the room. You change with haste, tugging the dark blue dress over your form until it rests comfortably on your body. You took care of your hair and makeup before coming; that was the first thing you did in the morning. All that’s left it to put on your shoes and get warmed up for the performance.

“Y/N, the room across the hall is where you can warm up,” your professor says when you step back out of the bathroom. You answer with another set of nods, moving for your bag to put your casual clothes back inside and replace your shoes.

“You’re gonna kill it!” Minnie drops a hand to your shoulder, squeezing you tightly.

“Thanks,” you mutter back as you fasten the straps of your shoes. When you stand up, you catch sight of Hongjoong staring at you. Your immediate response is to glare at him, which he returns just as quickly. “What?”

“Don’t fuck up too much. I don’t wanna have to clean up our reputation for you.”

You puff your cheeks full of air and stomp out of the room, not bothering to fight back at Hongjoong’s insult. You head straight for the practice room across the hall. It takes a few adjustments of the bench and your shoes, but you manage to get seated comfortably at the piano.

“Emotions. You need to show the emotions, Y/N,” you murmur to yourself as your fingers touch the ivories. It isn’t even the real thing, you should just be warming up and practicing the parts you had troubles with, but you still put your all into it as though it is the real thing. By the time you conclude the last notes of the song, you aren't even sure that you did what you needed to do. You can’t hear the emotion in the notes, you can only play them and hope for the best.

How Hongjoong does it is a mystery to you. He plays each note like it’s his very blood and bones, his life story laid bare before the keys. For someone so full of hatred and anger, it seems even more confusing to you, and as much as you try to reconcile it, you can’t.

“L/N Y/N to the stage. L/N Y/N to the stage.” You glance up with a start, eyeing the small speaker in the corner of the room. There’s a growing lump in your throat, and it only grows larger as you walk out of the room. Your professor is waiting there for you, his hand coming to rest on your shoulder as the two of you begin to walk towards the stage.

“Remember the time signature and tempo. Watch your crescendos. And emotion! Put feeling into it!” He says as you walk ever closer to the front. You can’t respond due to the lump in your throat. Your attempts to swallow it down and dispel it do nothing either. As you reach the curtains, you catch sight of a certain blue-haired man at the edge of the stage. Your gaze hardens on him. Hongjoong never comes to stand by the stage and watch you perform. He’s toying with another black liquorice candy when you walk up to him, popping the candy between his lips before dropping his hand to mess with his cufflinks.

“Our first performer of the day, Miss Y/N L/N. She will be performing Franz Liszt’s Etude Opus 161, Number 3, La Campenella,” the announcer says, his voice booming through the hall. You don’t have time to think before your professor is pushing you forward onto the stage, and you nearly suffer the embarrassment of tripping over your feet on the way to the piano.

You reach the instrument without any issue, by luck of a miracle. The lump in your throat subsides as you sink onto the piano bench, and your fingers dance over the knobs on the bench to adjust it to your liking. Lift your left hand high, right one at the ready on the keys for the cue from your left. You drop your left hand to the keyboard and begin playing your piece to the best of your ability.

All your focus becomes consumed by the keys and music in your ears. You can’t even glance up to watch your professor or Hongjoong’s expression, too enraptured with your playing to think about anything other than the piano. Your whole body follows the tempo of the piece. You sway back and forth, following the movements of your hands as they dance across the ivory keys, and your heart leaps a little in your chest with each successful chord and note. Even if you aren’t able to fully capture the emotions behind a song, you can at least perform. And performing is what you do best. Replicating the notes, decrescendos, crescendos, chords, octaves and leaps, your runs and arpeggios all executed to absolute perfection. The entire performance is full of the excitement in the piece up until your last note after the five and a half minutes of playing.

Your fingers hover over that final note, letting it ring out and coat the ears of your listeners, and when you pull back, your foot slips off the pedal to let the music die out into silence. Applause greets you as you rise from the bench and bow towards the judges. You leave the stage the way you came, joining your professor and Hongjoong at the edge just behind the curtains.

“That was better than ever!” Your teacher cheers as you reach his side. He beams from ear to ear, eyes hidden behind the smile of his eyelids, but you don’t pay him any attention. Rather you look to Hongjoong in attempts to gauge his expression. If he’s impressed in the slightest, he does well to conceal it.

“Following Miss Y/N L/N, we have Mr. Kim Hongjoong, playing Chopin’s Nocturne, Opus 48, number 1.” The announcer’s voice rings out again, calling Hongjoong onto the stage. He glances away from you as he steps out from behind the curtain.

“They put us back to back?” You mutter the question to your professor, who just looks down at you with a glint in his dark eyes.

“The judges requested that you two play back to back,” he explains, maintaining his grin.

“Oh…” You exhale and turn back to watch Hongjoong sit down at the piano. His performance is always a thing of beauty, but you know exactly why the judges would want the two of you back to back. Whilst you exude perfection in every note, Hongjoong does more. More with the piece, he plays with the rhythms and tempos, creating music that sounds wholly his. He plays as though he is the sole creator of the piece and no one else. Each piano he plays becomes part of him. You are polar opposites when it comes to performing. And that’s what they want to see. They want to see the two of your challenge each other with your differing play styles.

The lump in your throat returns as Hongjoong begins to play. Something feels off in the very first note. A spring of anxiety pops up in your gut as you hear it. It isn’t the same as usual, something in the way Hongjoong’s fingers glide over the ivories is not right. The professor still looks quite pleased though, almost like he doesn’t even notice the difference. When you glance out over the panel of judges, they bear similar expressions. It’s a mystery to you how they don’t notice the difference because in your ears, it is so stark and unable to be missed.

The next six minutes carry on with that same vibe. You can’t place what is going wrong until Hongjoong presses his fingers to the final note. The wrong note.

You lurch forward. Hongjoong freezes. The chord echoes through the whole hall, the glaringly obvious mistake resounding without stop even as Hongjoong pulls his fingers off the keys. He stands. Bows to the judges. Heads back towards where you’re standing without a word. It’s not like Hongjoong to make a mistake, not like him at all. You don’t think he’s ever made a mistake, even in practices he is always meticulous and perfect.

Hongjoong’s hands are trembling when he comes off stage. He strides past you without sparing you a glance. He doesn’t look at anything in fact, his eyes are unfocused as he moves forward. You can only stay rooted to the spot and watch him move away without a word. It happens in a millisecond, and if you blinked you would have missed it for certain. Hongjoong’s legs give out and he begins to collapse. Your professor rushes to his side as fast as possible. He grips the blue-haired man’s arm and pulls him back up, draping his arm over a shoulder and rushing down the hall. He’s calling for a medic and an ambulance, and as soon as those words process in your head, you choke on air.

Your feet move before your thoughts do. You chase after the pair, hiking your dress up a bit as you run. The old man carries Hongjoong back to your shared dressing room. Your fellow students dash out of the room as he brings Hongjoong in. You pause in the door frame, watching the scene unfold before you with a plummeting heart. An emergency nurse pushes past you to get in and effectively blocks your line of sight. All you can see is the blue strands of hair atop Hongjoong’s head and nothing more.

Someone catches hold of your arm. It’s Minnie, and she tugs on your wrist as she spews words in your direction. However, you don’t hear a thing. Your ears still ring with that final wrong note Hongjoong played, eyes unfocused as you try to look at Minnie. She’s pulling you to the aside, away from the hustle of bustle of the other people in the hall, and trying to catch your attention. You refuse to look at her, however, and opt to stare back at the room where Hongjoong is with wide eyes. The shock hasn’t drifted from your bones in the slightest.

You don’t get any form of relief until the emergency nurses file out of the dressing room. They don’t carry Hongjoong out on a gurney which is a small relief in and of itself. Your professor appears in the doorway next, sweat on his brow and glasses in one hand. The other runs through his hair – the minimal amount that’s left, that is – and he addresses the other students first.

“You all are to wait at the stage for your performances. You can go into that room across the hall if you need some more practice time, but you are not to enter the dressing room again until the end of the competition. Understood?”

You watch the students share a chorus on nods. Minnie releases your arm to move away with the rest of the students, but she sends one final look your way, one that seeks answers you do not have. Once all your classmates have filed away, you are left to stand across from your professor with bated breath. He doesn’t say anything at first, and neither do you, so the two of you just exchange forlorn stares without speaking. The silence drags on for so long that you think you might pass out; you’ve been holding your breath the entire time as well and it’s really starting to make you feel a bit lightheaded.

“What happened to him, professor?” You ask when the silence grows unbearable.

“He’s fine. Just a small accident.” The answer is spoken with haste, and his tone is flat. The way he says it almost implies that the words are rehearsed.

“A small accident wouldn’t warrant such a reaction from you though,” you reason, lifting a hand to scratch at your scalp.

“I need to go up to the stage to be with the other students, Miss L/N.” Your professor speaks with such finality that you don’t dare press the subject any further. Instead, you watch him walk back to the edge of the stage, waiting until he’s completely out of sight before pressing into the dressing room where Hongjoong is yourself.

You don’t see him immediately, which surprises you to a certain extent, but then you notice that the unisex bathroom in the back corner has an open door and the lights are on. Hongjoong must be in there, but it seems odd for him to have left the door open when anyone could walk in. You’re tempted to call out to him and ask if he’s alright. Something prevents you from doing so, however, and you merely creep closer to the room with quiet steps.

Whatever you might have been expecting goes out the window as you catch sight of Hongjoong’s blue head of hair. He is hunched over the toilet, an awful retching sound leaving his form every few seconds, and you can’t believe that the nurses and your professor dared to leave him alone in a state like this. Hongjoong hasn’t caught sight of you yet, but you certainly make your presence known as you stumble back. Your heel catches on the short train of your dress, you throw your hands back to brace yourself for a fall, but instead catch hold of a table and manage to stay on your feet.

Hongjoong whips his head towards you as you stumble, however, and all of his attention is suddenly directed at you. There is a small excess of vomit lingering on the corner of his mouth, and he wipes at it with the back of his hand as he looks towards you. There’s no explanation that would be suitable enough to explain what you’re doing or why you’re doing it, because frankly, you don’t even understand why yourself. That fact alone is slightly more terrifying than you would like to admit.

“What the hell do you want?” Hongjoong spits out. He slowly stands up straight, legs a bit wobbly as he moves, and moves for the sink to wash his hands and face. “Come to see me suffer? Does that get you going?”

Your jaw stutters as you fumble to come up with some sort of response. Nothing comes out for a few seconds and you’re left to just stare dumbly at Hongjoong with nothing but a blank expression.

“Figures…” Hongjoong mutters. He leaves the bathroom and heads for his small travel bag. You watch him move without saying anything, eyes tracking each of his movements with scrutiny. As he bends down to open the bag, Hongjoong winces. His arms jerk, back straightening for a brief moment, then his body returns to normal as though nothing happened. Hongjoong hisses, teeth gritted as he continues to push down and get whatever he was looking for. When he stands back up, you catch sight of a toothbrush and toothpaste in his hands. It’s strange, because those aren’t items he would typically bring to a competition like this one which lasts less than a day. The behavior makes it seem like he almost knew that this was going to happen.

“What’s wrong with you?” You ask out of the blue. Hongjoong all but ignores you in favor of walking towards the bathroom again, this time with toothbrush and toothpaste in hand. “I mean – what happened to you?”

“You’re going to have to elaborate because there’s plenty wrong with me.”

“On the stage, Hongjoong. You fucked up and missed the last note. You never do that.”

“Yea, well, I did this time. What do you want me to say?”

“You collapsed as soon as you were backstage. Something is obviously bothering you now since you puked. What the hell is going on with you?”

“Why do you care all of a sudden? Wanna know why your competition is getting worse? Get used to it.”

“No…” You trail off, unsure of what to say next. Hongjoong brushes his teeth with ferocity, and his gaze remains on the mirror rather than looking to you while you speak. “I just want to make sure you’re okay.”

You aren’t sure where the desire came from. It’s foreign to you, as it the worry that bubbles in your gut as you look over Hongjoong’s form. He seems frail all of a sudden, and that’s just so unlike him in every way that you can’t get past it. He doesn’t respond right away – probably due to the fact that his currently scrapping his toothbrush over the expanse of his tongue. You wait for a reply in silence for two minutes, then Hongjoong spits in the sink and washes his mouth out again.

“Parsonage-Turner Syndrome,” he says. His eyes find yours, still as void of emotion as ever, but you blink back in shock. “Do you know what that is?”

“N-No, I’ve never heard of it,” you answer honestly. Hongjoong sighs and returns to his duffel bag, pushing his toothbrush and toothpaste back inside. He digs around a bit more in the bag before standing up straight again. A small wrapped candy lingers between his fingers. He undoes the wrapper with quick motions, then pops the black liquorice between his lips.

“Idiopathic brachial plexopathy or neuralgic amyotrophy,” Hongjoong recites the words as though he’s heard them thousands of times. You don’t doubt that he has based upon the look in his eyes. “A rare disorder consisting of a complex constellation of symptoms with abrupt onset of shoulder pain, followed by progressive neurologic deficits of motor weakness, dysesthesias, and numbness.”

Hongjoong pauses and purses his lips. He looks away from you, but the way his eyes well up with crystalline tears doesn’t escape your notice. You gnaw on the inside of your cheek in silence. If there’s anything to be said, you certainly don’t know what it is.

“In short, I’m losing the function of my arms. Eventually, I won’t be able to use them at all. The more I play the piano, the bigger risk I run of destroying them further. How ironic, huh?” Hongjoong releases a dry laugh, but the humor is gone from his tone. As his words sink it, your heart sinks further and further. You dare to glance up at his face from across the room. The tears in his eyes have fallen down his cheeks. It’s the most vulnerable you’ve ever seen Hongjoong, but you also can’t imagine how difficult it must be for him. “How fucking ironic…”

Hongjoong’s voice dies off a little, cracking as he finishes his sentence. A moment of silence passes. You debate saying something but every time you try to speak, your voice dies in your throat. A scream of anguish leaves Hongjoong’s throat. He swings for the wall with his left hand, fingers clenched into a fist so tight that his knuckles are white. He hits the wall with such force that the sound echoes in your ears, and you flinch away from the table you’re leaning against. Hongjoong sinks to the floor, knees hitting the ground with a thud. His fist never quits its rhythm against the wall; he continues slamming his hand at the surface. You’re frozen in place, watching his fist hit the wall over and over until red flecks begin to spread across the pristine surface of the wall.

“Hongjoong–” You start towards him, a sudden urgency rushes to your bones, and you hurry to keep him from abusing his hand any more than he already has. “Hongjoong, stop. Stop it, Hongjoong, stop.”

You snatch him by the wrist, and he relaxes into your touch within an instant. He slumps forward until his forehead hits the wall. It takes a few seconds of silence, then a strangled sob escapes his slacked body. You catch him before he completely falls over and drag his weight in your direction instead. He doesn’t even complain, fingers finding the material of your dress and balling around it without a word. He cries against you. You can’t imagine how long he’s been holding it in, how long he’s known that this was his fate, that the thing he loves the most will lead to his destruction. It’s heartbreaking and horrible to think about. The fear of even spraining a finger haunts you sometimes, but Hongjoong has to live with the knowledge that his fate is to lose his ability to play forever.

“It’s okay, Hongjoong,” you mutter against his hairline. A laugh leaves his lips, but it’s wet and full of mucus. He nearly chokes as he continues to laugh.

“How the fuck is this okay? In what world is this okay? Answer me that.”

“I-I don’t know. I’m sorry.”

“Everyone is always fucking sorry. Yea, come say sorry again when you have your only passion stolen from you.”

“Ho-Hongjoong. No, I-I – stop. It’s not been taken away from you yet. You still have tim–”

“How much time? How long until I fuck my arms up to the point of no return?”

“Can’t they do anything?” Your question is spoken in such a quiet tone that you fear that Hongjoong might not hear it.

“There’s no cure. Just fucking physical therapy and acupuncture to slow the muscle denervation. Electrotherapy. Nothing that fixes it.”

“But it would slow it?”

“For a time.”

“Isn’t that worth it then? Even to just… try? The hope that maybe it will fix things enough to let you play is worth it isn’t it?”

“Worth it to what? I’ll never be able to play at the level I want to. I’ll never get to achieve my dreams, not in this condition. Not with this disease. I’m doomed no matter what. Physical therapy won’t do shit. If I’m gonna lose my arms, then I’m gonna do what I love until I can’t anymore.”

Hongjoong’s resolve is strong, even through the weakness he’s showing right now, and you can’t blame him. His behavior makes sense now. The hatred and disdain for you, the ego and arrogant nature about him, the flaunting of his skills – it was all just an attempt to hide the fact that he was breaking inside.

“Then you’re robbing yourself of an opportunity… you never know if something is going to work unless you try, Hongjoong. Even if you’re not a miracle patient who gets cured out of the blue, just trying could give you the ability to play longer. Not because you need to be the best or play better than everyone else or even play at a high level. But because it’s something that you love. And at least having the ability to do something you love is better than losing it altogether.”

Hongjoong doesn’t respond to your words. His tears aren’t slowing down, and you wonder if he’s in any pain in this very moment. His shoulders tremble but because of the sobs that wrack his hunched form. As you cradle him against your chest, you can’t help but look down at your own hands. Your fingers are trembling against Hongjoong’s back. In that brief moment, you imagine yourself in his shoes.

The first sear of pain through your arms. The continued abuse over weeks. Finally going to see a doctor. Being told that it’s a disease. That the longer you play, the worse it will get. That eventually you’ll lose the use of your arms completely. The dream you’ve had since you were a child – you wonder if it was Hongjoong’s dream too, before he was given the news. You wonder if Hongjoong had the same bright eyes and hopeful dreams of becoming something great, someone great. You imagine that dream being wrenched from your grasps. It hurts. Just the thought of it hurts more than a thousand knives in your chest.

All you can do is pull Hongjoong closer. There is nothing to say, nothing you can say or do that would make this any easier or better. You settle for this and press your cheek against his head.

…

The time has escaped you yet again, and you glance up from the keyboard to see that the clock reads six o’clock already. You wanted to get some rest in your apartment before nightfall hit because Wooyoung somehow managed to drag your ass out for another party even after what happened last time.

You push the bench back and close the lid of the keyboard. Your fingers linger on the wood, however, and you look at the instrument with a strange tightness in your chest.

It’s been three weeks since that competition. Three weeks since you’ve seen Hongjoong. He hasn’t attended class, you haven’t seen him in the practice hall or rooms at any point in time, it’s almost as though he disappeared off the face of the planet. You hate it. Class is too silent. It’s boring. Without Hongjoong, you have nothing to do except think about when the class is going to be over. It’s almost funny how only now that he’s gone do you realize how much time you spent slaving over the mere thought of him.

During the first week, you watched the door and waited for Hongjoong’s blue head of hair to step through. You always had your snide remark at the ready: “Late for class? At least you bothered to show up this time.” Hongjoong never came though.

The second week you guessed where he might be. Thought about what happened in the aftermath of his meltdown at the competition. They took him to the hospital, forcibly prying him from your arms, and that was the last you saw of him.

And then the third week passed by, and you began to wonder if the damage to his arms had already been done. Even now as your thoughts are occupied by the thought of him and him alone, you wonder if that’s the case.

As you get to your feet, the door behind you slides open. The sound is almost silent, and if you had still been playing you wouldn’t have heard a thing. You whip around to face the intruder. You nearly don’t recognize the form standing before you. Formerly blue hair has been replaced with a bright red, and it’s only when you look at the man’s features that you recognize him. Your darting gaze flits down to his left hand. It’s wrapped in a white gauze, fingers loose and flexing in the wrap. A good sign, perhaps. At least the damage isn’t fully done yet.

“Ew, it’s you,” you say, trying to contain the smile that threatens to overtake your lips when you see Hongjoong.

“Wow.” Hongjoong glances around the practice room. There is something sad and longing in his eyes as he looks around. You open your mouth to say more, but he continues speaking without you having to ask. “I, uh, I dropped out.”

“You what?” You just about fall over upon hearing the news. It catches you so off-guard that you choke on the saliva lingering on the back of your tongue.

“I dropped out of the program.”

“Yo-You – but, but the program – you were one, you were one of the only ones to get – what?”

“I thought about what you said. I, um… Yea, I dropped out. Started doing general studies instead. Think I’m gonna go for a teaching degree. Maybe try to be a piano teacher one day.”

“Why?” You aren’t being very eloquent, but the shock is too strong for you to even think about putting together a coherent thought.

“I kept thinking about what you said. Robbing myself of an opportunity… losing something I love. I love the piano, and I love playing the piano more than anything. I can’t lose the ability to play it. That’s – That’s taking away a part of me I can’t lose. Without piano… I would be nothing. I’m not ready to lose it because of some stupid fucking disease that can kiss my ass.”

Your breath catches in your throat. It’s the last thing you expected to hear from Hongjoong, especially since he resolve to be the best regardless of what happens to him was so strong. He saves you the trouble of coming up with a reply.

“I started going to physical therapy. They started me out on some acupuncture treatments, then worked me up to doing strengthening exercises and range of motion exercises. We’re going to try some electrotherapy next but the doctor said I’m making really good progress.”

“R-Really? Hongjoong, that’s amazing. Honestly. That’s truly incredible. I’m so ha–”

“Thank you,” he interrupts. His gaze is on the floor, fist clenching here and there, and his tone is quiet. “Thank you for giving me my dream back.”

You don’t have time to think before Hongjoong is walking towards you. He catches you by surprise, arms wrapping around your waist and pulling you against his chest without hesitation.

“You don’t need to thank me,” you murmur in response. Your arms drape over him, and hesitance fills your motions unlike his hasty ones. He is warm and soft under your touch, so unlike how he was that day of the competition – cold and stiff.

“I do. Please, I-I…”

Hongjoong doesn’t need to finish the thought, but you don’t need him to. You can guess what he might be trying to say. You aren’t sure you need to hear it or if you can handle it. Instead, you settle for this comfortable embrace. Hongjoong’s breath is hot against your throat, and curse you for thinking about it because it leads your thoughts in a bad direction. Hongjoong shifts his head closer to your neck, lips caressing the skin there that barely peaks out from under your collar.

“C-Can I…?”

“Yes,” you exhale when Hongjoong inches closer to your lips. He brushes over your skin with such a gentle touch that you wonder if it is actually real. He deepens the kiss a moment later, however, and presses against you with more fervor. Your lips slot together, warm filling your chest and gut. He guides you backwards as his hands find your hips. You gasp into Hongjoong’s mouth when your ass hits the lid of the piano. Hongjoong doesn’t seem to mind though. He uses it as an opportunity to press his tongue between your lips. That familiar taste of liquorice lingers there, and you smile into the kiss.

You let him take over, his tongue exploring your mouth with a newfound interest. It’s so different from your first time together; that time was filled with fervor and passion and arousal. This is slow, gentle, almost romantic. You can’t get enough of it. Each kiss leaves you wanting more, each lingering touch makes you want to take more, and when Hongjoong’s fingers hook around the back of your thighs, you moan into his open mouth. He lifts you with ease although you do worry for a split second about straining his arms. He dispels that worry with haste, propping you up on the lid of the piano without a care in the world.

His lips attack your neck next, pulling away from your mouth to leave a saccharine trail down your skin until he stops at the base of your throat. You bring a hand to his freshly red locks as he sucks at the skin there and roll your head to the side to give him better access. Your gaze flits down to the door he entered through, and the lock on the handle isn’t turned. You should be worried because being caught having sex on a damn Steinway would be atrocious, but Hongjoong pushes that to the side as well. Deft fingers work the buttons on your blouse apart and push the material back until you’re stripped of the shirt. He pops the clasp of your bra next and drops the lingerie to the floor. You bare your chest to him, ready for him to dive in and mark up your breasts in a similar manner but he doesn’t.

His hands instead go to the waistband of your skirt. He unhooks that button and zipper, tugging the material off of you as quickly as possible. All of a sudden you’re left only in your underwear. Hongjoong doesn’t let you stay nearly naked alone for long. He leans back to tug his own shirt off, then his pants are quick to follow. As the material drops, you catch sight of the prominent bulge in his underwear. Without thinking, you reach out and grab hold of his constrained member. He groans into your touch, hips automatically bucking forward from even the slightest touch. You don’t wait to dip your hand past the band of the underwear and take hold of his semihard member.

“Y-You’re the devil,” Hongjoong hisses out as you pump his cock ever so slowly. In response, you drag your thumb over his slit, collecting the precum there and using it to help you pump his cock with more ease. You release a small laugh as his hips thrust into your touch. The laugh is cut short when Hongjoong presses the palm of his hand against your core. “Something funny, princess?”

You can do nothing except gasp in response, back arching off the lip of the piano. Hongjoong must enjoy the sight before him because a low moan slips through. His free hand darts around your back and collapses the music stand atop the piano. He seems ready to move you up even higher on the piano, but you stop him with your hand.

“N-No, wait – I just, I want you to fuck me. That’s all.” Your hand slides across Hongjoong’s bare chest, leaving goosebumps in your wake, and Hongjoong nearly shivers. Your words seem incentive enough for him, however, and he dips down between your legs to tug your underwear off. His follow soon after; hardened cock finding freedom at last. You slide a bit further down the lid of the piano in efforts to get more comfortable. Hongjoong braces your hip with his left hand and the other goes to your dripping folds. You’re nearly wet enough to drip all over the floor, positioned carefully so that you don’t sully the piano any more than you are already.

He works you open with deft fingers, two pushing into with ease thanks to your wetness. He uses those fingers to scissor your heat open and stretch you. You moan under the touch. The loudness of your moans is a bit worrisome considering you’re still in public, so you try to conceal them at least with the back of your hand. The moment you try to cover your lips however, Hongjoong reaches up and tugs your hand back down to the piano. He covers your lips with his. The position lets you moan freely into his mouth until his fingers disappear from your heat altogether.

“F-Fuck, I can’t wait any longer,” Hongjoong hisses. He uses the juices of your arousal on his fingers to pump his cock a few more times before lining up with your tight hole. The stretch isn’t painful; quite the opposite really, but a high-pitched whine breaches your lips. Hongjoong hesitates halfway, eyes tracking your expression for any sign of discomfort. He only moves again when you nod. Once he’s completely buried in you, you expect hasty thrusts but they never come. You blink at Hongjoong, eyes wide in expectation.

He stares back at you with an unreadable expression. His brow has furrowed and he almost squints as he looks into your eyes. You open your mouth to ask if something is wrong, but he speaks before you get the chance.

“I wanna try… us.”

“You want to what?” You ask, taken aback by the sudden statement. It’s hardly a proper time to bring up a serious subject, but maybe it’s the best timing in the world. How are you supposed to know? It’s not as though you fuck people on the daily in a practice room atop a piano like this.

“I wanna take you out. Spend time with you. Go on dates. Be in a relationship. With you and only you.”

“You’re asking after you’ve fucked me twice now?”

“Haven’t fucked you the second time yet, actually.” Hongjoong winks at you, a smirk curling across his lips. “Is that a yes or no?”

“It’s a ‘ask me again after you’ve fucked me senseless’.”

“I’d rather have your senses intact when I ask you.”

“Yes, Kim Hongjoong. In case you didn’t notice, I’m a bit more than interested in you.”

“I don’t know. I couldn’t tell when I was… you know, in you.”

“Shut up and fuck me already!” You protest, slapping his chest with the back of your hand. Hongjoong pulls his hips back and snaps them back against you without warning. You release a strangled moan that quickly evolves into a whine at the sudden thrust.

“I’ll make the rules, princess.”

You nod hastily in reply and brace yourself against the pillow for Hongjoong’s next thrust. He goes slower this time though, taking his time with each thrust, and you know he’s only doing it to rile you up because of the cheeky grin on his face. You want to either kiss or slap it off him, but he makes you choose the former by pushing forward. Your lips slot together with ease. It’s comfortable, easy, relaxed – like you’ve done it a thousand times and will do it a thousand more.

His thrusts do pick up in pace after that, his tongue entering the mix as well as he pries your lips open with the wet muscle. You allow yourself just let go under Hongjoong’s touch. You drape an arm over Hongjoong’s shoulder, nails raking down his back as he fucks you with reckless abandon. The angle is near magical because each thrust seems to hit deeper than the last, and your moans are borderline shouts of pleasure. Hongjoong doesn’t let up once. You’re glad for it because you’re pretty certain that if he does stop, you’ll slip off the piano entirely.

Your head falls back, lips disconnecting from Hongjoong’s, and you struggle to stay upright with the way his cock rams against your sensitive g-spot. An orgasm is approaching quickly. You can’t manage to get any words out, but Hongjoong seems to understand when you drag a hand to his shoulder and squeeze tightly. Your walls clench around his member without warning. Hongjoong’s thrusts stutter as you squeeze his cock, then he reaches up to pull your face back to his.

“Ca-Can I cum in you?”

“Yes, yes, fuck yes. Please. Please, Hongjoong.” The man presses his lips against yours after you get the words out. You can’t hold the orgasm back any longer, and it washes over you with a sudden intensity that leaves you trembling in Hongjoong’s arms. He joins you not long after, hot seed spilling into you, and you moan at the sensation of his cum filling you up. He hunches forward and his head hits your shoulder. Both your chests heave from the exertion; you can’t seem to get enough air in your lungs. Gently you bring a hand to Hongjoong’s hair again and comb through the red locks with light fingers. Hongjoong sighs into the touch, shivering as your nails brush over his scalp.

“So… is this when I take you to dinner or?” Hongjoong lifts his chin to look you in the eye. You roll your eyes ever so slightly as he grins. The hand in his hair moves to smack him upside the head.

“You’re supposed to do that before you fuck me.”

“Eh, I’ve never been one to do things in order like that.”

“Good thing you can fuck well then or else I might not want a date at all.” Hongjoong’s smirk morphs into a wide smile, and his nose scrunches up as he looks at you. You smile back at him then press a quick kiss to his lips. “I’ll take that date now though.”

“One specialty Kim Hongjoong date coming right up. Though you better be prepared to stay up late tonight.”

“And you better be able to keep up with me. Hopefully all those exercises they’re making you do can help.”

Hongjoong grumbles at your comment, pulling back from you with a pout on his lips.

“I’ve got great stamina, thank you very much.” Hongjoong pauses his sulking for a moment to wear a serious expression on his features. “I’m serious about this, you know. You aren’t just some… some quick fuck to me. You didn’t have to be nice to me or give me a chance or anything, especially with the way I’ve been treating you over the past two years. So, uh, yea. Yea, I’m serious.”

You cup Hongjoong’s cheek gently and pass him a small smile before leaning your forehead against his.

“I believe you. And it’s not like I was any kinder to you. But if this is a chance to make things right, then let’s do it.”

“Y-Yea, yea, you’re right.”

“Now let’s get dressed before someone walks in on us like this. Then you can take me to dinner.”

“Sounds like a plan.” Hongjoong pulls away with a grin still on his lips. For a moment, you just sit there on the lid of the keyboard and watch him move around collecting articles of clothing. The warmth in your chest is foreign and unknown, but comfortable nonetheless. You never would have expected things to play out the way they did, but it was a happy accident and you want to bask in it for as long as possible. You slip off the lid of the ivories. The taste of liquorice is still on your tongue.

☽ ☾

➻ requested by: @atinyinwonderland ➻ prompts:

“Ew, it’s you.” “Wow.”

“Eyes on me.”

this highkey turned into a Thing and idek how that happened but here we are aosidjfosijdfo also i did some research into PTS (parsonage-tanser syndrome) and it’s a rather rare disease apparently but this kinda issue with no longer being able to play piano and being forced to give up your dream kinda stemmed from my personal life and my sister and how i saw it impact her so it’s very real emotions and reader’s thoughts about being in hongjoong’s shoes are thoughts i’ve had myself and it truly is hard for me to even think about especially since music means so much to me but yea i cried while writing this, i hope you all enjoyed im going through it imma head out

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bounce-a-coin-off-your-witcher · 4 years

Text

Just Breathe

A little Ever After (1998) crossover because I am a SLUT for the Renaissance Aesthetic and also for Drew Barrymore and Dougray Scott’s performances.

This one’s for you, @221bsunsettowers and @thecomfortofoldstorries

tw: mentions of past abuse, forced servitude

---

“Friends and honored guests, it gives us great pleasure, on this festive occasion, to not only honor Signore Vesemir...who seems to have disappeared; but also to tell you of a long-awaited decision,” the King began his announcement.

At the back of the party, gossamer wings spread wide behind his shoulders and sparkling blue eyes surrounded by rhinestones, Jaskier stood in terrified silence. This was the big moment. The one where he would bare his soul and his true status in life to Geralt. Hopefully his sweet, caring, introspective Prince would be able to accept him. To love him still, despite his position in life.

“Breathe,” he told himself quietly, “Just breathe.”

“It is my great privilege to announce the engagement of my son, Prince Geralt, to-”

But Geralt cut his Father off, stepping forward and away from the dais where the royal family had been standing. He rushed down the short staircase and across the red velvet carpet to where his darling Julian awaited, his hand outstretched and his breathing shallow. “My Father said you were getting married.”

“He was misinformed.”

“Then you are not engaged?” the Prince gasped, beaming. The servant in noble’s clothing shook his head and laughed wetly.

“No, I’m not.”

“I was about to make the biggest mistake of my life.”

Geralt had assumed that the watery-eyed smile Julian gave him in reply was one of happiness, or else he would have stopped right then and asked the younger man what was wrong. He would have saved them both the heartache of the following hour. The following week. The following month, even.

But the eager Prince was too absorbed in his own excitement; he didn’t stop to ask. He only saw his ethereal love, his Julian, wrapped in the white silk-and-velvet doublet. He saw the lace at the Viscount’s neck and wrists, so teasingly sweet, and the delicate pearl buttons that ran along his wrists and throat. He saw the matching white velvet breeches fastened below Jaskier’s knees, holding up a pair of fine silk stockings. On his beloved’s feet were a pair of embroidered blue-and-white dancing slippers in an old style; the style of Julian’s parents, probably.

“I’ve even invited the troubadours,” Geralt smiled, gesturing at the colorful troupe of guests off to one side.

“That’s lovely, Geralt, but I need to speak with you for a moment before anything else transpires.”

“Whatever it is, the answer is yes!”

“Wait-”

Geralt took the man he hoped to marry by one trembling hand and led him back up to the dais without letting him finish his sentence. Surely the Viscount was shaking with excitement. Surely the willowy brunette knew that Geralt intended to wed him and make him Consort. Didn’t he?

Yet when the handsome Prince looked down into the Viscount’s eyes he saw only raw terror and guilt building there. Like a terrible blue wave about to knock him off his feet. The horror hit full-bore when, a moment later, the Baroness Marx grabbed hold of Julian’s left wing and ripped it from his doublet, throwing the torn gossamer appendage to the ground and stomping on it with her expensive leather dancing shoes. Jaskier cringed; Vesemir would be heartbroken.

“Madame, contain yourself!” the Prince demanded. The Baroness wilted under his glare but only barely.

“He is an imposter, Your Highness. His name is Jaskier Pankratz and he has been a servant in my household for ten years!”

Everyone froze. Jaskier’s heart stopped beating entirely, he was sure.

“Julian,” Geralt swallowed thickly, his golden gaze turning to his one true love. “Tell them the truth. Tell them…”

“He is a devious, grasping little pretender and it is my duty to reveal his lies to you, Your Majesties,” the Baroness continued her speech, curtseying deeply, still standing atop Jaskier’s crushed wing. “I am sorry that he forced me to reveal it so publicly, but I couldn’t let you make so grievous a mistake, Your Highness.”

“Julian?” Geralt whispered. His voice was hoarse and low. Disappointed and tinged with anger. “Please?”

“It’s true,” Jaskier sniffed. A pair of twin tears made their way slowly down over his grimacing cheeks, dropping to the carpet below. “Julian de Lettenhove was my Father. I am what she says.”

“The apple,” Geralt realized. “That was you?”

“I can explain!”

The King interrupted with a growled, “Well someone had better.”

“First you’re engaged…” Geralt breathed carefully, still trying to control his boiling fury. “And now you’re a servant?”

“Geralt, please!”

A shocked gasp rippled through the crowd and the Prince’s posture tightened visibly. His body language changed entirely in the span of a second; he pulled away from Jaskier and straightened to his full height, squaring his shoulders and raising his chin to glare down the length of his nose. The younger man flinched back as if struck, the wing still attached to his doublet shuddered and shimmered in the air.

“Do not address me so informal, monsieur. I am the Prince of Kaedwen and you...you are just like them.”

Jaskier heard the impossibly loud crack of his heart shattering to pieces in his chest. He gasped sharply, feeling an ice-like stabbing sensation echo through his ribcage, and backed away from the dais slowly. His feet tangled with each other when he tried to turn around and he dropped to his hands and knees with a cry. Geralt jerked instinctively as if he was going to help him up but caught himself just in time, going still as stone.

His eyes were still narrowed and his nostrils flared with righteous fury. He couldn’t believe that Julian...that Jaskier would lie to him. The man who rescued him from troubadour bandits and spoken to him openly about philosophy and went swimming in his underclothes in the wilds of Kaedwen and debated life and love with a famous artist as easily as breathing…

The Prince watched as the thin brunette struggled back to his feet and took off at a sprint for the exit. His sobs echoed across the open-air dance floor and filled the torchlit space with the sound of pure anguish. The troubadours were looking on with open disgust written across their features. Just as Geralt was about to break down and go after Jul-Jaskier, the Baroness’s hand closed around his upper arm like the cold iron of a manacle.

“Such a sad day, Your Highness,” she sighed.

Geralt could only nod and wrench his arm away, turning and running in the opposite direction as quickly as his legs would take him. He needed a moment alone.

---

“He is your match, Geralt,” the artist argued. He gestured in the direction of the Baroness’s estate and glowered at the Prince, who sat crouched in the castle shadows, hiding from his Father’s wrath. “Do you have any idea what that boy went through to get here tonight?”

“He lied to me.”

“He came here to tell you the truth,” Vesemir snapped. Geralt looked up; he’d never heard the old man sound so angry before. His thick grey eyebrows were drawn together and his tone was thunderous and low as he spoke again, “He went through Hell to come here. He was beaten. He was whipped. He was locked in a root cellar by that horrible Marx woman and you fed him to the fucking wolves.”

“You walk on water and you make flying machines, yet you know nothing about real life,” the Prince replied. He suddenly remembered last week, when he’d tried to hug Jaskier and the boy had cried out. It wasn’t surprise; it was pain. Jaskier had been...he’d been in so much pain and Geralt had been waxing poetic about politics and love and...Jaskier had suffered to be with Geralt. And what the Prince done in return?

“I know that a life without love,” Vesemir sighed, placing Jaskier’s lost shoe in the Prince’s line of sight. “Is no life at all.”

The old man wandered away, whistling a familiar song as he went. It was the song Jaskier had composed for him in the woods that day, as they’d ridden back to the Marx estate with the rescued painting. Geralt shook his head to clear it; this wasn’t the time for reminiscing.

He had to pledge his heart to the Princess of Redania. He had to do what all Princes had to do: give up their dreams in the name of their country.

---

Geralt burst from the side of the church and ended up running directly into Jaskier’s step-sister, Margaret. “Where is he?”

“Who?” Margaret raised an eyebrow.

“Jaskier, where is he?” Geralt begged. Margaret shook her head sadly and filled the Prince in on everything that had happened over the past few days. At last the royal pulled away, his face twisted in guilt and pain, “Sold?”

“The Baroness didn’t want him around distracting you in case you came to propose to Valdo, Your Highness.”

“Speak of this to no one,” Geralt begged. “And you shall be greatly rewarded. Jaskier spoke kindly of you, Lady Margaret.”

“As well he spoke of you,” she replied. The affirmation of Jaskier’s seemingly endless trust in him only served to pierce Geralt’s heart further; he had betrayed the only man he’d ever loved. He really had fed him to the wolves. And the wolves had sold him to a fucking weasel.

---

Geralt rode up to Count DeStael’s manor and was shocked to find Jaskier already making his way through the garbage-scattered courtyard. He looked completely different than when Geralt had seen him last; or ever. The noble’s clothes were gone. The pearl-knit snood was absent. The velvet doublets and high leather boots were absent. The air of easy confidence that usually swirled around him was also gone. Making his way slowly across the dirty yard in only a tattered blue chemise and dirty brown trousers, a pair of cheap leather slippers laced around his feet and dirt smeared across his face, Jaskier looked incredibly small and fragile.

He somehow managed to shrink even further in on himself when he glanced up at last and set eyes on the Prince. “Hello,” Geralt greeted, swinging down off his horse to approach.

“Hello.”

There was a pregnant pause before Jaskier spoke again.

“What are you doing here?”

“I, uh, I came to rescue you,” the Prince admitted.

“Rescue me?” Jaskier scoffed, stepping past Geralt, “A commoner?”

“Actually I came to beg your forgiveness,” Geralt blurted. His heart leapt hopefully in his chest when the brunette man paused walking away. Slowly, Jaskier turned back to face him. “I offered you the world and at the first test of honor, I betrayed your trust. Please, Jaskier…”

“Say it again,” Jaskier demanded. Geralt could see that tears had sprung to his eyes. The blue of his irises somehow seemed darker, now.

“I’m sorry.”

“No,” the younger man shook his head emphatically. He smiled sadly and sighed, “The part where you said my name.”

Geralt huffed a laugh and stepped carefully forward. Jaskier had every right in the world to reject him right now. He could spit on the Prince’s face and run screaming into the woods and Geralt would want to follow with all his heart, but he wouldn’t. He would let Jaskier go if that was what the other man wanted. But the brunette didn’t move, so Geralt took another careful step. “Jaskier.”

Jaskier’s eyes closed and his chest lifted with the force of his gasped breath. He had never felt so alive before this moment. Hearing Geralt say his name, his real name, even if it was just this once, was heaven.

Even...even if it was just this once.

Jaskier slowly opened his eyes again and let them settle on the Prince’s face.

Geralt pulled his missing dancing slipper from the back pouch at his belt and held it out as if in offering, “I was actually wondering if you could help me find the owner of this rather remarkable shoe.”

“Where did you find that?” Jaskier asked, his hands fluttering out to touch the rhinestone-studded material of his Father’s antique dancing slipper. He thought it had been lost to him forever in his moment of foolishness, a constant reminder of all the loss he’d ever faced. And here it was, safe and sound with Geralt.

The Prince stepped forward until their chests were nearly touching and began to speak in a low, careful tone. Jaskier heard the love in every syllable, “He is my match in every way. Please tell me I have not lost him.”

“It belongs to a peasant, Your Highness,” the servant bit his lip and turned away, stepping over to the low stone wall and leaning heavily against it. He couldn’t support his own weight; he was going to swoon. “Who only pretended to be a nobleman to save another servant’s life.”

“I know,” Geralt smiled softly. He knelt before the commoner and Jaskier gasped, his hands flying to cover his mouth. He shook his head, disbelieving. “And the name’s Geralt, if you don’t mind.”

Jaskier leapt forward and slammed their lips together, kissing his beloved Geralt for all his foolish royal ass was worth. He threw his arms around the Prince’s strong neck and melted when Geralt’s arms encircled his waist in return. Neither man was sure which one of them was holding the other closest and neither wanted to let go. Eventually the Prince stepped away and knelt again. He had to do this right.

“I kneel before you today not as a Prince, but as a man in love.” He slid the cheap, poorly-made leather boot from Jaskier’s foot and replaced it with the bejeweled silk dancing slipper. “But I would feel like a King if you, Jaskier Pankratz, would be my Consort.”

Jaskier burst into happy tears. Real happy tears this time. Tears that ran in rivers down his pink, smiling cheeks and into the dirt below. Tears that Geralt wiped away with the pads of his thumbs, as reassuring and careful as any Prince had ever been when handling great treasure.

Jaskier was overwhelmed with the love in his heart. He wanted nothing more than to bury his face in Geralt’s broad, strong chest and never come out again. He would build a castle between his lover’s arms and find no need to leave. He would, if Geralt would let him, claim the Prince as his home forever.

Never unwanted.

Never a nuisance.

Never a pebble in anyone’s shoe.

He nodded and flung his arms around his Prince once again. Jaskier allowed himself to be swept off his feet and swung through the air. Geralt was kissing him the entire time, wherever the Prince’s lips could reach. His nose, his closed eyelids, his mouth, his cheeks, his forehead, even down his neck and in his hair. Jaskier laughed and laughed, the happy sound ringing through the dark courtyard of the Count DeStael’s grim-faced manor house.

“We, my love, are going to live happily ever after,” Geralt asserted.

And they did.

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refriedweeb · 4 years

Text

AND WHEN YOU’RE GONE I’M GODLESS (HAWKS + READER)

AN: refriedweeb here! this is a continuation of this oneshot that I did (so if you didn’t read the first one go and read it now!), as requested by @roseanddaggerlarry ! I’ve had the idea of this spewing around in my head and wanted to get as close to canon!Hawks as possible! So here you go! If you want a part three/to make this a series, lmk!

Tags: angst, fluff, general feelings

word count: 3,443

A side effect of your quirk was that you dreamt the nightmares of those that you used it on. While your quirk was something that was magnificent in its own right, being known as nightmare often became a literal translation for you. It didn’t matter how short of a period you kept someone trapped in their reality-made nightmare, or how severe it was. You dreamt what they saw. And the worst part was that they didn’t go away after just one dream. You’d see them time and time again, blended into the reel of dreams from every person you’d ever fought or used it on. It was an awful feeling, not being able to dream your own dreams, see visions of happiness that everyone else got to when you closed your eyes. All you ever saw was nightmares. All you ever saw behind sleeping eyes was horror.

The world around you might have been black, in various stages of coming and going consciousness, but there was one thing that stayed the same. It was the nightmare you’d brought out of Keigo Takami’s mind the minute you’d snapped on your promise to never use it against him. It ran through your mind like a child with reckless abandon, a constant loop that you couldn't shake from your mind no matter how much you strained to jump into someone else’s dreams that had taken residence in your mind. It was a violation of Hawks’ trust in you, even if he had been the one to attack you, skewer you with a feather and leave you no other choice. You had known that Hawks’ childhood was anything but normal. The Hero Commission that you both worked for raising him, if it could even be called ‘raising’. Trained as a weapon that was expendable, that served no purpose if it couldn’t deliver results. Wholly different from what you’d had growing up, you hadn't realized how deeply embedded in trauma his entire life was, even when you’d been hooking up.

Trapped in the nightmare, the first thing you saw was Keigo Takami as nothing but a child. Avian eyes still too large for his head, sunrise colored eyes looking around the blank walls with innocence, curiosity, and the hint of fear. A head full of hair that even in youth had an unruly characteristic to it. Red wings that would become his calling card sitting politely, folded against his back. He was a child that had deserved better, so much better, than what he’d been given. There’d been so much that Keigo had suffered through just for the sake of being a hero, that it would have made sense if nightmare solely revolved around what the Hero Commission had robbed him of with his childhood.

What you weren’t expecting to see was your place in it.

You were stood not far off from where Keigo’s tot form was, mirroring that same age yourself. Young, with a skinned knee and gapped smile from the baby teeth you’d lost. Hair in high pigtails and eyes wide with the same emotions sprinting through Keigo’s veins. The tinier version of yourself turned around, and trotted over to him, holding out a sticky hand that had no doubt been dug into a sweet of some kind at one point.

“Hi! I’m (Y/N)!” Came your excitable voice, young and full of life. “Your wings are pretty cool, can I touch them?” Before Keigo’s small, timid voice could even answer, there was a sharp tug on your arm. It caught you by surprise, and Keigo was helpless as a man dressed in a black suit started pulling you away from him. And though you were reliving Keigo’s nightmare, you were experiencing it through both yours and his perspective. “Wait, that’s my friend!” Came your cry, tossing a distressed look over your shoulder as you were both helpless Keigo and the scared child version of yourself.

“Wait...” finally came the small voice, shocking you how sad it sounded for a boy so young. You watched from the omniscient view as the handler that had come for you turned into something vile. With a grin too large and mines of pointed teeth that would have made a shark’s mouth look dainty. “Don’t...” Keigo’s childlike voice was a little louder, but still helpless. “Don’t take her!”

Defiance nestled in Keigo’s throat as he charged forward with his cry, running after you, seeing something only he could see while you were more than content to wander alongside a monster. His hand was outstretched towards you. A smile started to stretch across your features, glad to have this new friend coming with you, and reached a hand out in return. Only to have it sharply slapped away by the handler. You gave a cry of pain as you cradled your hand to your chest, about to cry when you heard Keigo’s boyish yelp of pain. He had been hit in the face, and harder than you judging by the welt of a hand print blooming against his cheek.

“Keigo...” you whispered, though your voice sounded further off, far from where you and your childhood presence were.

Young Keigo looked up at you from the ground, tears running down his cheeks. There was an indescribable pain there, and it ran deeper than anything you could identify with. For such a young child to have felt so much pain... “Kei...go...” you whispered again, extending a hand despite what happened, to cradle his head.

It was then that the scene changed, like the fast forwarding of a movie. The scenery swept past you in an unmarked blur until you settled into a new scene. There you were, a couple of years older and strapped into a chair. What looked like doctors were around you, a large needle filled with a substance of dreamy purple colors in it. They were whispering around you, a background of white noise you couldn’t decipher. Still from that omniscient point of view, you could feel your fear. The unease that gnawed it’s way through your belly running rampant. And there was anger, but you couldn’t detect the source. “Just think...if we can train her to turn her nightmares lethal, the commission would have a trained killer. Trapping someone in their nightmares to the point of heart failure...of fear...” came there trickling sound of one voice. “She could be the best hero the commission has ever produced...a weapon...” was another. “Alright then...inject her.”

Fear rippled our against your skin on goosebumps, and you start to fight the restraints as the syringe draws closer to you. “No!” You screeched, though it comes from the same far off place from before. You’re helpless as you snapped, kicked, and pulled as best as you could. “Don’t do this!” At the very same moment, you heard the overlapping sound of boots hitting the ground in a sprint, replacing the rapid sound of your heartbeat. While being both in that room and not in it at the same time, you saw an older Keigo bursting down the hall, the sound of boots belonging to him. His eyes are narrowed into predator-like focus, his breathing heavy as his wings extended out taking up the rest of the hall. His mouth moved, though he is silent.

“Keigo!” You scream this time, though still too far off for anything to register. His eyebrows narrowed over his eyes and he pushed himself harder. Pain erupted as the needle broke skin, the purple swirl of serum sinking into your skin. It sent a blur of blind pain coursing through your system, but all you could do is scream. Your voice feels raw, but there’s no noise coming out of it. The taste of blood is in the back of your throat, but you don’t feel any. Something collided with the window of the room you were trapped in, and through the overcoming haze you saw that it was Hawks. Anger etched into his face, beating his hands against the glass so hard you swore it shook. You screamed his name again, that same echo off in the distance vibrating through your ears. He screamed yours back, the sound a canon of noise as he continued to beat on the glass. There were tears in his eyes, a righteous fury that took your breath away. He was the source of anger, the need for rejection. You strained against your restraints, doing what you could to fight the wave of darkness that was threatening to overcome you, wanting nothing more than to reach out and take Keigo’s hand.

The world around faded once more, the next scene opening up to you like the beginning credits of a movie. Once the camera focused in you see...Keigo dressed in his hero uniform, cradling something...no, someone. Your heart clutched as it zoomed in closer and closer until you recognize the design of your own hero costume. Keigo wasn’t cradling just anyone, he was cradling you. Through your omniscient point of view, you come to stand just in front of the two bodies, Keigo with his head bowed over you and you...limp. Your head is slumped over his forearm, though your expression is one embedded into your mind immediately. Gone are the pupils of your eyes, the entire eye filled with a black and white continuous swirl, like something a hypnotist would use. And from your tear ducts..there’s blood. It ran from your duct to your hairline. The look in your expression is vacant. The sound of Keigo’s sniffles, the soft sobs, it confirmed what you had desperately wanted to ignore. In this nightmare, you’re dead. And it didn’t take long for you to put two and two together.

Keigo Takami’s worst nightmare wasn’t what happened to him growing up in the Hero Commission, though the elements were there and you didn’t doubt that there would be more glimpses of this nightmare for the rest of your life that you hadn’t seen. Keigo’s worst nightmare was someone he loved, you, going through the same thing that he had been put through. Though it won’t do anything, as it’s a dream, you reach out a fragmented hand to touch him. Just as you went to do so, he looks up. He looked directly at you, wet eyes and broken expression. “Wake up.” His words sounded like they were coming from right behind your ear, and you blinked. “(Y/N), wake up.”

You snapped open your eyes and sat up in bed. Immediately, you’re aware of the pain in your stomach, in your arm from where Keigo had impaled you with one of his feathers. The room is spinning, and the air you choked down in order to get some focus on your world isn’t helping. Nightmare. Keigo. Where’s Keigo? Wait, why did that matter? He was a villain, he’d attacked you. The air in the room felt suffocating and you didn’t think you could possibly get enough of it. Your fingers wrapped around the blanket that had been on top of you, only to pause as you looked down at it. This was Keigo’s blanket. As the world stopped rotating at a disastrous pace, you realize that this is Keigo’s bedroom. A place you hadn’t been in for months, if not longer.

You felt like you were going to be sick.

“You’re awake.” You looked to the sound of the voice, already knowing who it belonged to. But hearing the somber, tentative tone doesn’t change your reaction as you scampered out of bed. The sheets were wrapped up in your legs, and you’ve tumbled out of bed in an attempt to be graceful. The fall to the ground landed you on your injured arm, crying out in pain as you crawled. You’re still in your hero uniform, which means it couldn’t have been long. Right? Right? Keigo said your name, and you heard the flex of feathers as he moved. “(Y/N), stop, you’re injured. Sto-(Y/N).”

You’d grabbed the nearest thing to you and flung it at him. A pillow that had likely hit the ground when you had. It’s easy enough for Keigo to grab, and he dropped it to the side as he looked at you with a stern look. “You’re a traitor,” you spat. The strained tone from your arm is evident, and Keigo sighs. “You tried to kill me! You attacked me!” By this point you’ve kicked your legs free from the sheets.

“Kid,” Keigo says, his tone one of warning. “Listen to me.”

You’re on your feet, injured arm clutched in your hand. There’s fresh blood, but you don’t pay it any mind. “Why should I? So I let my guard down long enough for you to finish the job? Go off with your best friends in the League?” Keigo took a step forward. You shook your head. “If you take one step closer I’ll do it again.”

The reaction of pain that registered in his eyes before quickly falling away, lets you know that at least for now, the distance between you is on your side. You didn’t care that you were shaking, or that the images of Keigo as a child, wobbly and teary-eyed were burned into your mind. As far as you were concerned in that moment, Keigo Takami was your enemy. “It’s not what you think.”

“You kicked me into a wall and then had the nerve to stab me in the arm.” You grit your teeth. “How else is it supposed to look, Keigo?”

Keigo looked to the side, avoiding your glance. Out of fear of you using your quirk again or because he actually felt shame over what he’d done, you didn’t know. Told yourself you didn’t care. But that image of that broken little boy...it haunted you. Keigo ran his hands through the windswept mess of his hair, and sighs. “I can’t...I can’t tell you.” His mouth hung open and he closed it before talking again. “There are things I can’t...I have to keep private.”

“If you think for one second, I’m not going to tell the Hero Commission that you’ve switched sides-” You started, but Keigo cut you off.

“They know.” It’s your turn to be breathless. Keigo looked back to you, the miserable and lonely look back in his eye. There must have been a question in your eyes, because he repeated himself. “They know. They asked me to do this. To be a double agent.”

“You attacked me like it was real.”

Keigo’s eyes dropped to your arm, and on instinct you tried to hide the fresh spot of blood that had appeared. “I had to.”

“Keigo I almost died because you were trying to kill me.”

“I would have never let yo-” Keigo stopped short, his tone full of anger at the idea that you thought he would ever let anything happen to you like that, taking a draw of breath in. You feel his fear, and your mouth hung open just slightly. “I wasn't expecting you to use your quirk on me. You promised you wouldn’t.”

Keigo dropped his eyes. He wanted to know what it was you’d seen, though he couldn’t bring himself to ask. You’d told him about the nightmares that replayed after you used it in the past. The last thing he wanted was for you to look at him with pity because you’d seen his nightmares. Keigo never talked about his emotions, too numb to them because of the things he’d done. The lack of love he’d felt throughout his entire life ever since he’d been whisked into the Hero Commission. For so long he’d been seen as a weapon, a tool to use. He hadn’t been seen as a human being in so long, and then there’d been you. Dropping into his life at some silly hero convention with a mischievous look and it’d been a face he hadn’t seen in years.

A face that he hadn't been able to save all those years ago.

He’d been shocked that you hadn't remembered anything, or rather, wouldn’t. But seeing you...not knowing that you didn’t remember...it made Keigo want to get close to you all over again. To protect you a second time around where he’d failed the first. If you had even a notion that his nightmares were more than just nightmares...Keigo didn’t want to be responsible for the meltdown, it was more guilt and weight on his shoulders that he didn’t think he could handle.

“I thought you were going to kill me!” Your voice was raspy from the hands he’d put around your neck, and you don’t doubt it’s bruised. Your mind wandered to a much darker thought than you wanted to acknowledge. If he’d been willing to go toe to toe with you like that, how many other heroes had he fought? Were any hero deaths related to him?

“I could...” Keigo rasped. “I could never do that to you. I tried to warn you, kid. I told you to stay out of it.”

“I can’t do that, you know that. We’re...I’m a hero, Keigo. I can’t let villains escape.”

“It had to be me. Dabi..Shigaraki...Toga...they would have killed you, you wouldn’t have stood...it would have been bad, (Y/N).”

You took a step back, feeling as if you’d been slapped. “You don’t think I could have done my job, is what you’re saying? So you toyed with me instead. To protect your mission when they’re running around reckless and hurting others! Killing us!” He dropped his gaze, his hands clenched. “This is why you cut me out, isn’t it? Because the Hero Commission set you up for this. Because Keigo Takami is the only one who can do any of the complicated jobs and he just can’t ask for help.” You didn’t now when you got so emotional, whether it was from the pain wracked in your body or because of the escalating situation with Keigo.

“I can’t let anyone help me. Someone...” you “Could get hurt.”

“Fuck you, Keigo.” You needed out of his place. There’s too many reminders of everything Keigo Takami in that space. Of nights in that same bed. How he’d told you he wanted nothing more than that right there. And now to hear the fact that he was a double agent, that he couldn’t have even shared that intimate of a detail with you. It was because he didn’t trust you. It was because he didn't think you were capable. “For your information, I can take care of myself. I have always been able to take care of myself.” Your body protested as you moved, energized with the anger from feeling so demented by someone you cared about. Keigo gingerly raised an arm as you made your way towards him, perhaps in an attempt to stop you. To continue the conversation. But as far as you were concerned, it was over. “Don’t you dare touch me.” Your voice shook, not even caring that your vision was blurred from the tears you were doing your best not to let fall. You stomped over to the door, grabbing onto the handle of a place you’d always thought was incredibly lonely.

At least now you understood why.

“You know what, Keigo...I get that you went through some awful things growing up. I can’t imagine what you’ve been through. But I trusted you, I loved you, and I thought there wasn't anything too high for you to reach.” You scoffed, feeling one tear roll down your cheek. “Apparently there isn’t anything too low for you to go after, either.” With that you wrenched the door open and slammed it shut behind you. For a moment, you leaned in against that door, the heels of your palms pressed into your eyes as the weight of emotions and pain and the awful reality that was both sank in. You couldn’t stay there for long, you knew that. You wiped the wetness at your eyes and pulled yourself together as best as you could, and left.

On the other side of that door, Keigo stood where your words had rooted him. His hand still raised, he stared down at his palm. There’d been so much he had wanted to try to say, to explain. But your anger had always been enough to plow down a city. Yellow eyes that usually burned so bright, were flattened down to a stormy sunrise. Keigo felt that guilt in his heart. That loneliness that he had only began to feel erased once he had you back in his life. How did he begin to tell you about what the Hero Commission had made him do in becoming a double agent when he couldn’t even tell you the truth about you? He would have denied any chin wobble as he looked down at his open palm, felt the overwhelming emptiness in his place start to settle in on his shoulders as it always did when he came home to it empty. “See you around, kid.” he breathed.

The knot in his stomach told him it wouldn’t be the last time he saw you.

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unmaskedagain · 4 years

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I Knew You Were Trouble

I got really inspired today. This is another crossover fic. It’s actually with one of my all-time favorite childhood movies. Can you guess the crossover before the end?

Marinette knew he was trouble the second he walked in.

Like there was nothing Marinette was surer about than the fact that she was in some serious trouble.

Not school trouble. Not friend trouble. Not boy trouble. Not bully trouble.

No. The trouble that resulted in Marinette’s parents attending her funeral.

“Care to introduce yourself,” Bustier smiled at her newest student.

The boy gave the class a polite smile, “Kal.”

Marinette swallowed hard as she fought the urge to run from the classroom; run, call her grandmother, never look back. But she wouldn’t. She couldn’t. Her Aunt Aggie had always told her to be brave when faced when the forces of evil.

She wouldn’t run from the likes of Kal.

Marinette just had one question.

How was he here? How was he alive? How did he look exactly the same now as he did in the pictures from twenty years ago?

Her cousin had destroyed him, like she did his father. In the battle of light versus darkness; good versus evil, Good won. Light won. Kal had been sucked into an endless void, dead, never to be seen or heard from again.

…Until today.

The handsome dark haired boy looked around the class with clear distaste. He wore a shirt and black pants. He eyed the students, with a bored expression on his face. The girls swooned when he smirked there way. Marinette kept her face black as his eyes looked over her; doing her best not to draw attention to herself.

Then the oddest thing happen; Kal didn’t blink twice at Marinette. He barely looked like he knew she was in the room. That didn’t mean much to Marinette. The bluenette practically radiated magic some days. He’d figure her out in no time. No, Marinette couldn’t play defense with the likes of Kal. Offense only.

Bustier directed him to the back of the class, to the only empty seat available… Next to Marinette. And once again, the bluenette cursed her rotten luck. However, her heart was filled with hope with Lila got involved.

“Maybe Kal can seat next to me,” Lila said. “There’s enough room with me and Adrien. I know what it’s like to be new. I can help you.”

Kal rolled his eyes, “I’m good. But thank you.” And swaggered to the seat in back. As he sat down, he winked at Marinette. Marinette smiled brightly at him like she would at nearly anyone. Though to do so, she had to stab herself in the leg with a pen to stop herself from stabbing him.

The class started. Bustier began teaching her lesson unaware of the drama that was just about to happen in her class.

“Must be my lucky day,” He leaned in and whispered to her. “I get to sit next to the prettiest girl in school.”

Marinette kept the smile on her face, as to not draw any attention their way, though not it felt more like baring her teeth, the same way some animals did when they attacked. “How’s your father?” Marinette whispered back. “Kalabar, wasn’t it?”

Kal’s black eyes widened in shock before settled on a pleased expression. “A witch,” He stated. “Good. I’d thought I’d end up killing myself stuck around mortals.”

“They’re not that bad,” Marinette was quick to defend. Her mother was mortal after all. “Mortals that is. The kids in this class,” Most of which were now her ex-friends. “Kind of suck. Why are you here?”

“They suck,” Kal chuckled. “And yet you’re here. A long way from...” He seemed to remember where they were as he cast a quick look around and his voice lowered, “Our native land.”

Marinette pretended to flip through the pages of her textbook. “You’re a long way from the dark pit in hell you crawled out of,” She hissed. “Planning on taking over the world again? Because I have no problem kicking you right back there.”

Kal snorted. “Such righteous fury. You remind me of…” The amused looked turned into a glare. “Cromwell?”

Marinette giggled and nodded, “Marnie’s my cousin.”

Rage overtook Kal’s face. All the lights in the classroom suddenly exploded. Shadows grew stronger as Kal’s magic was unleashed, and seemed to overtake half of the class room. The only light came from the sunlight behind Marinette, and radiated from the bluenette as she let her magic rise in all its glory.

And once again, the darkness of a son of Kalabar and the light of a daughter of Cromwell battled against other.

The kids panicked.

“Everyone remain calm,” Bustier said. “If there is an akuma we’ll be alerted. Ladybug will take care of it. Everything will be fine.”

“Akuma?” Kal asked, his eyes still trained on the Bluenette, with a raised eyebrow.

Marinette shrugged, “Welcome to Paris.”

Then he smiled at her; really, honestly smiled. It was the most mesmerizing sight. And she forgot. For one second, she forgot the evil that she was always warned lurked in the heart of a Kalabar.

But now she understood why her cousin had fallen so hard for him when she was a teenager. Marnie hadn’t just been a foolish, naïve teenager head over heels for some guy she just met. No, there was more to it. There was something alluring about the way Kal held himself, the aura he projected; the way his magic sang to hers.

Marinette just wondered one thing…

Why does the devil look so much like an angel when he smiles as you?

The class went by quickly. Witch and warlock feigned relaxation, while going over every spell they had ever learned in their heads.

When the bell rang, Marinette was gone. She flew out the door as fast as her feet could take her. She couldn’t go home, she knew; not yet. So instead, she headed to the library. In the far back where they put all the outdated computers.

She sat down on the top of an old table and tried to catch her breath. Then out of the shadows, literally, walked Kal. He shook his head at her, “Don’t you know?” He asked the Cromwell witch. “No matter how fast light travels, it finds the darkness has always got there first, and is waiting for it.”

Marinette crossed her arms, “And yet all the darkness in the world cannot extinguish the light of a single candle.”

Kal raised in hands in surrender, “I don’t mean you any harm.”

“That sounds like a lie.”

“I’m serious,” The dark haired teen stated. “You can tell. I know you can. It’s a Cromwell gift. You can always tell when someone is lying. Listen to me carefully. I, Kal, son of Kalabar do not mean you any harm. I was not aware you went to this school. I was not aware any witch of the Cromwell bloodline was in France. Okay?”

Marinette wanted to stomp her foot in protest. He was telling the truth. “Why are you even? Why do you look like that? Aren’t you like in your late thirties?”

“I should be,” Kal frowned, “I should be thirty-five. I should be a graduate of Witch University. I should be back home, in the family mansion, with a family of my own. Or about to start one. I should be an adult, living a life of my own. Do you want to know why I’m not?”

“Why?”

Kal sat on top of the table across from Marinette, “Because after the fight with Marnie was sent somewhere; in a prison the forces of light and dark had created during our battle. I was stuck in a place outside of space and time. Outside of reality. That existed everywhere and nowhere. An endless void. Every world and realm I went to was frozen on the moment I was sent there. Just after midnight on Halloween night. And it never changed. The clocks never ticked, not once. The sun never rose or set. The moon was never full or new; just a crescent in the sky. The flowers never bloomed. There was nothing and no one but me; wandering from empty town to empty town. I never knew how much time had passed. Sometimes it felt like an eternity had gone by, sometimes just a few minutes. It didn’t matter one way or another; I never aged. The tricky party was not going completely insane. And I spent a lot of time wondering I had or not. If I deserved this what I did, for the people I hurt.”

Marinette remained silent as he talked; truth ringing in his words.

“I read every book in the Witch University library,” Kal continued. “I read every book in the Oxford University library. Half to keep myself from going crazy, half to try to figure out a way home. I never did. Some things just don’t make sense. Like a bunch of Cromwells being powerful enough to break the barrier between our world and mortal realm.” He laughed a bit there. “Then one day, the entire world shook, literally. And then I’m falling, and the next thing I know I’m landing in the middle of your Agatha Cromwell’s kitchen. She looked exactly the same too so I think I hadn’t been gone that long. Then she tells me with this pitying look on her face; twenty had gone by.”

Kal closed his eyes as anger coursed through his veins. He clenched his fists. “Twenty years. I had been gone for twenty years. In twenty years, do you even know can happen? You were born. You grew up. You are the exact age I was when I left. And still you are younger than the amount of time I was there. When you said you were a Cromwell; for five seconds I thought you were Marnie’s daughter. Because that’s how long it’s been. Both realms have changed and left me behind. My friends are all grown up; they have kids and lives and stories. My mother passed away while I was gone. I don’t recognize my own home; the place I was born, raised, lived, laughed, and loved. And that same place doesn’t recognize me either. Saint Agatha Cromwell took mercy on me and sent me here. You were right, I did crawl out of hell.”

It went quiet. Neither knowing entirely what to say. She couldn’t believe her aunt didn’t warn her she was sending a Kalabar her way. Oh, she was so telling her grandma.

Marinette broke first. “You didn’t deserve that,” She said. “Sure, you turned everyone in your world into human. And everyone here into monsters but no one hurt. Most don’t even remember. You didn’t deserve an eternity of nothingness. Prison, yes. But not that. You were just a kid. You’re just a kid.” Like me, she didn’t answered.

He nodded stiffly.

“If it means anything…” She said. “Marnie still swears you were the toughest villain she ever fought. And she took down a guy who tried to steal her family magic, hired a witch killing knight, and tried to destroy the doorway between the worlds forever.”

Kal blinked, a bit stunned, “That’s a compliment if I ever heard one.”

Marinette giggled. He smiled. And once more, Marinette fought not to look away. She was a Cromwell witch. She would not go weak in the knees over a Kalabar. “Let’s just agree to stay away from each other.”

He got off the desk, letting the darkness of his magic flair up, and he leaned toward her, “I don’t make deals with Cromwells,” He whispered. Marinette’s breath caught in her throat. “So why don’t you be a good little witch and stay off my bad side.”

“I’m not afraid of you,” Marinette whispered. “This is my city.”

“Then prepare to see it burn.”

Marinette couldn’t stop the giggle that came from her. “You’ve already had time to catch up on Batman movies?”

Kal grinned, “That was the first thing I did.” He smirked. “I think you and I could have a lot of fun, Marinette. Teach the mortals a thing or two. I’ve been here less than a day and I already want to turn half the class into toads. Specifically that Lila girl.”

“Yeah,” Marinette shrugged. “That feeling never quite goes away.” It gotten worse, if anything. Her friends had all turned against her; fell one by one to Lila’s lies. “But I’m a big witch. I can handle them myself.”

Kal stuffed his hands in his pockets, “Yet you haven’t. And I don’t think you want to. Even though every part of you screams you should.”

Marinette shook her head, “We’ve evolved past that.”

Kal shrugged, “If you ever change your mind…” He moved to leave but then turned back around, a rose was in his hand, “Or maybe I really did inherit my father's attraction to Cromwell witches.” He gave her the rose.

Marinette took it, a small smile on her face. “You shouldn’t let your magic do you’re talking for you.”

He didn’t answer; just disappeared back into the shadows.

Yep, Kal was trouble.

And Marinette was definitely in trouble.

#ml fic #ml salt #class salt #halloween town #marinette dupain cheng #Marinette deserves better

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beybladefanboy · 3 years

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My Top 5 Least Favourite Beyblade Characters

I've talked about this in a few asks but I thought I'd go more into detail about the characters I hate most in this metal top show. Remember, I like more characters than I don't like and some of the characters I'm going to talk about are actually well-written characters objectively, they just annoy me personally. Starting with:

5) Masamune

Masamune is lowest on this list because I don't hate him. I personally find his personality annoying but he is a well written character. He gets good development over the course of Metal Masters and Metal Fury and his friendship with King is really cute. However, he is completely full of himself. The difference between him and someone like Kyoya or Ryuga is that at least in comparison, Kyoya and Ryuga don't actually talk themselves up that much. They let their actions speak for themselves for the most part. They are absolutely arrogant and do brag but not to the same degree as Masamune, who is far less skilled in comparison. He also doesn't know when to shut up and was a really shitty friend to Toby and Zeo. However, at least the show calls him out for what he did to Zeo and Toby and makes it part of the plot. Still completely selfish and horrible though.

4) Johannes

Cat-boy thingy is creepy and I don't like him. He makes me uncomfortable. I don't have a reason really I just don't like the way he is. I’m a cat person too but the way he literally acts like a cat, meowing and sitting like one, is just weird. He’s also just some annoying boring villain underling, like Jack or Reiji without the brainwashing and sympathetic backstory, which spared the two of them from this list by the way. I may not like either of them but they are interesting to talk about and I get why other people like them. Johannes meanwhile is just there to get in the way. He doesn’t do anything interesting he’s just weird and annoying to me. Tetsuya is the same way to me by the way and I could’ve put either him or Johannes on this list.

3) The Garcias

I'm lumping this entire family together because while I have separate small reasons for hating them individually, I hate all of them for the same big reason: I hate their attitude. They act like they're better than everyone else because they apparently "suffered more." First of all, suffering is subjective. Saying that one person has suffered more than another diminishes their suffering and is just arrogant. Yes, the Garcias live in poverty in a harsh neighborhood. They had a hard life and are trying to get out of it but that doesn't excuse them being obnoxious cheaters. I hate how they act like no one else has suffered more than them when LITERALLY EVERYONE ON GAN GAN GALAXY IS HORRIBLY TRAUMATIZED. Besides Masamune at this point but he didn't get out of season 2 unscathed. Meanwhile, the rest of them were at Battle Bladers. They all had to watch their friends get murdered by Ryuga or tortured by Reiji. Tsubasa was one of the people who had to battle Ryuga and came out of it infected with dark power, hurting himself and his friends. Meanwhile, Yu was manipulated and taken into the Dark Nebula and later kidnapped when he tried to leave. Don't even get me started on Gingka. I HATE hearing these know it all Garcias talk about how bad they've had it compared to the characters I've seen get traumatized for the past 70+ episodes at that point. It makes me not give a shit about their suffering because they're flaunting it and using it to excuse their frankly obnoxious and disgusting behaviour. Even Reiji, Jack, Damian, and Ryuga didn’t do that. Ryuga and Jack even admitted their mistakes later in the series with Ryuga especially taking actual steps to better himself. Meanwhile the Garcias stick to their bullshit philosophy to the end, even after it was proven wrong. They’re not any better in Fury either. They pretend to be fighting to manipulate Zeo and Toby to help them just to try and win a battle. It’s just frustrating to watch. Meanwhile, as individual characters, they still annoy the shit out of me. Enzo is an annoying brat that constantly repeats the same phrase over and over, which gets really annoying really fast, Selen's tactics make her battles against Masamune and Gingka frustrating to the point of boring, and Argo is an over the top borderline psycho, and not in a fun way. I don't have a specific reason to hate Ian but I don't really like him either so he gets lumped in with the rest of his siblings, since they all have similar attitudes. They also made Shogun Steel even more of a pain to watch.

2) Ryo Hagane

My reasons for this are mostly in Metal Fusion. He allows his teenage son to believe he's dead for reasons he claims are righteous, all while using this lie to justify hurting his son. Gingka's point counter being broken does drive him to take things seriously and push himself to fight harder to get into Battle Bladers. That is important to the plot and I won't deny that. But did it have to secretly be his dad who broke it? No. It could have been any random person, it could have been Tetsuya. Having his dad do it is an act of abuse, not to mention theft and property damage. I know no one gives a shit about the law in Beyblade but this is still messed up. I don't like the twist that Ryo lives but he does give Gingka semi-important information in the final episodes of Fusion and I might have been able to stomach this twist a little more if Ryo hadn't broke Gingka's point counter. That was a step way too far for me. I still wouldn't have liked Ryo though because allowing his teenage son to think he was dead is still messed up. He's also a terrible director. It frustrated me so much to see him force the Japanese and African teams to battle despite nearly all of them not being well enough to battle because they don't want to "show favouritism." How the fuck is it showing favouritism?! You shouldn't be making any teams fight when they're injured! It's not "showing favouritism" it's common decency. Gingka and Kyoya shouldn't have been allowed to battle when they were in such poor condition and Ryo was being both a bad director and a bad father by forcing them to battle. It seems like a small thing but it makes me hate Ryo even more than I already did. In short, Ryuga was right: "l always knew that your old man and his bey were second rate."

1) Rago

He killed Ryuga. That's it. What, you wanted an essay? Do I really need another reason? Well, he's also a one note villain without any traits to make him stand out among the other power-hungry villains of the series. He could have been replaced by a robot and his impact on the plot would have been the exact same. He's as boring and lifeless as a plank of wood. People say the new characters in Fury are boring. In this one case, I agree. This series has no excuse. Ryuga in season 1 was an excellent nuanced villain even though he and Rago's motivations were technically the same: power. Ryuga however had charm, he was scary, his greed for power began to physically control him by the end, giving us a hint of depth to a previously one note psycho. Doji was effective through his plans and presence in season 1, even Ziggurat had more to him than this "Rago" bitch. Ziggurat had an interesting plan and brainwashed children, Rago is just nothing. He does nothing interesting or memorable and the only reason I remember his name at all is because the one memorable thing he did was murder Ryuga. That alone wouldn't be enough to justify saying he's the worst character in the series but the fact that he's also a lazily written villain seals the deal for me.

Okay, there’s my list. Again, I like way more characters than I dislike and if you like any of these characters, that’s fine. I know for a fact Masamune, Johannes, and the Garcias have fans and while I don’t really understand why in the case of those last two, I can respect that opinion.

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soiruntotheriver · 4 years

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On the subject of Silver

It’s come to my attention that there’s a lot of theories about John Silver’s motivations floating around out there. I’m a relatively new member of the fandom so forgive if any/all of this has been said, but here’s my two cents on the subject.

When we first meet Silver he seems to have one main motivation: Survival. As subsets to that category one could say he also would like to Get Rich Enough To Never Worry About Going Hungry and Not Feel Feelings Too Much, Thanks. He endeavors to achieve these things through whatever means necessary, abandoning pride, lawfulness, and any sense of guilt to do so. That is not to say that he doesn’t care about anything/anyone else, but his own survival supersedes pretty much everything. He can justify this, in part, because he sees the world in shades of gray. He would consider himself a realist, but is actually a bit of a pessimist. Life has revealed itself to be chaotic and cruel, so much so that John cannot imagine that there is any meaning behind it. And even if there is some grand purpose, my god it must be horrible, so yeah no thanks. Silver would rather have faith in nothing except himself because it’s the surest way to not get hurt and/or die horribly. This outlook sounds dour but it probably felt very freeing once he’d gotten the hang of it. I’m sure John convinced himself that he was dancing through life, though really he was only kinda sneaking through it.

Now I think our boy would have carried on his merry way, manipulating and thieving until he got a share of the treasure, before disappearing off the face of the earth. IF. IF. He hadn’t met Flint. And, subsequently the crew members he befriended, Madi, etc. But it started with Flint. That magnificent, crazy bastard.

At first, Flint was just the most likely means of securing the treasure. Silver saw a dauntless, conniving, ambitious, intelligent, commanding, dangerous, ginger sexpot, honed in on dauntless and dangerous, and decided that Flint had the makings of a powerful, but very much temporary, ally. That was the plan.

Unfortunately for Silver, somewhere along the way, he started to get sucked into Flint’s orbit. He wasn’t a believer, not yet, but he did start to enjoy the push and pull of engaging with his equal in both intellect and will. And maybe he began to be seduced a little, despite himself, by the feeling of belonging as a member of a crew, by being one half of a partnership, by being able to stand alongside such a strong and intriguing character as Captain Flint. He begins to feel valued and, horror of horrors, connected to something. But then Flint’s priorities shift. And he not only lies to Silver about it, he also attempts to manipulate Silver’s loyalties by reminding him that, outside of the crew, he doesn’t matter/no one gives two shits about him. Yikes.

And so we’re back to every Silver for himself, just the way it should be. The only goal is the gold. Fuck everything else, Captain Flint especially. Except, oops, it looks like there was some collateral caring left over because when faced with the choice between avoiding danger or betraying the crew, Silver surprises everyone (including himself) by choosing the crew. He looses his leg in the process, along with his independence and a good chunk of his self-esteem.

This is the point where it starts to become clear that the Silver we met at the outset of this story is being unmade in a number of significant ways. He is obliged to depend on others, he no longer has access to the freedoms he once enjoyed, he must find the strength to weather the grueling pain of his injury, he has to reconcile with the fact that he’s opened himself up to others (i.e. Muldoon) and thus to a whole slew of complications (ew feelings). This is also where he begins to align himself more definitively with Flint.

So we see Silver becoming resilient in ways he hadn’t had to be before, redefining his identity, setting goals that benefit others besides himself, taking on more responsibilities, and falling a little in love with his Captain. Even if you’re tracking this as a platonic relationship, you’ve got to admit that shit got heavy and weirdly intimate. Just saying.

Eventually, somewhere between postulating that Flint might be a god who controls the sea and earning Madi’s regard, we witness the full metamorphosis. Silver has been brought to a place where he can imagine that Flint’s determination, ingenuity, and righteous fury, combined with Madi’s vision, resolve, and uprightness, might be sufficient to rally the numbers and amass the resources needed to achieve the impossible. Hell, for a second, he even believes in himself.

Yes, for one brief shining moment in time John Silver’s whole world-view teetered as he considered how beautiful life could be if only wars like theirs could be won. If only lending his support to the two most important people in his life didn’t mean clawing down a road paved with nothing but endless exhaustion and fear and bloodshed. If only he was capable of truly loving and being loved in return.

But, alas, a rock met a hard place, dissenters rallied against the cause, parties worked to divide steadfast partners, one of Silver’s loves was presumed dead, each side double-crossed the other, trust degraded. For Silver, it was reality reasserting itself, and he was left wondering what in the hell he was going to do with his two very stubborn idealists. One so angry, so committed to vengeance against the society that had killed his beloved and named him a monster, that his only recourse was to burn it all down. And the other, fiercely brave, principled, and responsible for the liberty and well-being of a whole people. Flint and Madi would never stop. They would fight and die for what they believed in. For Silver, who had never been given any reason to believe in anything so lofty as freedom from tyranny, it must have seemed like an incredible waste. It must have also been terrifying to be hurtling towards a future where two such bright, beautiful souls would undoubtedly be extinguished. What was John’s life, without them? What kind of world would it be if they were not in it?

So our desperate, lovesick, cynical idiot did what he felt he had to do - he took their choices from them, betrayed their trust, and forfeited his right to remain in their good graces (while also realizing one of Flint’s greatest desires i.e. the destruction of ‘Flint’, which is to say nothing of the reunion with Thomas if you believe that’s how it really went down). Silver did all this even though it surely meant that he’d earn the disdain of one or both of the people he cared deeply about, and he explicitly states that he did it anyway because at least they’d be alive to hate him.

Did Silver make perfect choices? No. Was his love unquestionably pure? Absolutely not. Was he potentially short-sighted, too controlling, and a little bit of a coward? Yeah, maybe. But he was also a traumatized, complicated man who was experiencing perhaps the closest thing to love he’d ever felt in his life. His final acts were ones of helplessness and hopelessness. To say that he didn’t care, that he wasn’t invested, is absurd to me. I think Silver deserves empathy and I think he deserves forgiveness every bit as much as Flint does.

#john silver #Black Sails #black sails meta #silverflint #silvermadi

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halothenthehorns · 3 years

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MOONY, WORMTAIL, PADFOOT, AND PRONGS

Lily screamed when he reappeared with the two of them knocked out. Remus hurried forward at once, and grabbed hold of Sirius by himself, while Lily came on his other side and helped support his dad back into the living room.

"What happened," Lily demanded as she laid James out on the couch, much like Harry had been when he'd first arrived there. Remus had taken Sirius over and put him down on the other sofa.

"I don't know," Harry said miserably, "I found them just like this, so I brought them back here."

"You don't think they've lost their memories now do you," Lily demanded, watching Remus prod at both boy's gently, muttering a few spells over them, "or worse," Lily continued, her voice continuing to heighten in fear, "they were attacked!"

Before anyone could respond, Sirius groaned, rolling into the cushions of the couch and muttering something about the light being on.

"Sirius? Padfoot, can you hear me?" Remus prompted, leaning right into his friend's face.

"Course I can hear you," he groaned, the words muffled by the pillow, "you're yelling in my face you twat."

Remus couldn't suppress the grin that came over him then as he prodded further, "Alright then, sit up will you. Come on, please, just look at me."

Sirius groaned before he really did roll over and give his friend a disdainful look and muttering, "What?"

Then his eyes ghosted around the room, landed right on Harry, and recognition came back, along with the righteous fury that had possessed him to break his promise and leave. He sat up so suddenly, his head crashed against Remus' but that didn't stop him from lunging to his feet and looking to make his way to the door all over again.

"Wait!" Harry said desperately, more prepared this time and making it there first, "Sirius, please, just listen. I, I can't imagine what you're feeling right now, but just listen! I found you passed out, after you disapparated away from here! Something happened to you when you left, and what if it happens again?"

Sirius really did hesitate then, his eyes ghosting back to James as he asked, "Him?"

"Same," Harry nodded eagerly, his tone still soothing as he kept his Godfather's attention, "he was just passed out. I don't know why it didn't happen to me, but I'm telling you, it has something to do with you lot leaving here. I just knew something bad was going to happen," he finished, trailing off into mutters.

Then James began groaning from the couch, doing much like Sirius and trying to roll himself into the cushions and looking like he just wanted to take a nap.

Sirius sighed, giving one last longing look at the door, but acquitted that there was nothing for it. If he truly was just going to pass out, then he would just have to take his chance and murder that blighter the next time that traitor came over here. That gave him pause for the cruelest smile Harry had ever seen, making him want to take an automatic step back.

After much the same conversation with James when he came to, they sat around for a moment and eyed the book like it was living poison. They all desperately wanted to keep going, but this turn of events was still plaguing them, so Lily finally found her normal voice again and asked, "Don't suppose you know why we can't leave the premises then? Is it permanent?"

"No," Harry began with conviction, then dissolved into his usual stance of pressing his hand to his temple and looking agitated at being unable to explain more, "I don't know why, I just knew something bad was going to happen if you leave. I think-" he began, casting his mind around for an answer that wasn't there, "something about time magic or-" he choked off, then crossed his arms and just grumbled for a few moment's about his inept mind.

The four of them exchanged world weary looks, not much appreciating what any of that implied, but what could they do? They most certainly weren't going to stop now.

James still didn't even believe this was happening! He'd gone after Sirius to try and stop him from doing something crazy, because of course that's what it was. He wouldn't believe Peter capable of this anymore then Remus or Sirius, not one of his friends. He didn't like that he could not come up with a way out of this though. He had of course realized the exact same things as everyone else, the fact that Scabbers had a missing finger and that had been the largest bit of Peter ever found. How Remus had said they'd switched Secret Keeper's from Sirius and hadn't told Remus, well who else would they switch to but Peter? There was a member of the Order who was passing along secrets, someone who Dumbledore suspected was close to the Potters... and still he couldn't fathom it coming from Peter any more than the others in this room. If Sirius had been forced to do those terrible things and been framed for it, surely Peter had the same thing happen to him!

Sirius was beside himself, well past denial as the other things clicked together for him. That rat had been acting out of it since Sirius had escaped. He hadn't been going after Ron at all, but the rat he kept on him! Those nights he'd snuck in with the knife, it's no wonder he acted like a loon as his future self had clearly been trying to act on what was pulsing through him now. The only thing he still couldn't work out was why he'd let himself sit in Azkaban for so long. If he could have turned into a dog and broken out at any time, why hadn't he been hunting down the rat this whole time? He didn't really care about the answers anymore though, he'd gotten what he wanted. The only thing stopping him from acting on it was the cruel world he lived in, which knocked him unconscious and only allowed him to wake up with a splitting headache when he was returned here!

Lily sank down into the couch, shaking white and feeling so cold and empty inside she was sure a dementor was lurking in a corner. Strangely though she couldn't find the tears to go along, couldn't really feel anything but shock at how betrayed she felt. Peter had been here less than two days ago, had held her son and hugged her goodbye. She'd even taken to calling him Wormy recently for the jokes from his friends of how much he'd been moving around and could never stay in one spot. She'd thought he was just stressed like everyone else in the Order, but never would she have spotted this.

Remus, didn't really know how to put into words everything he felt. Insulted that he hadn't seen this sooner, the clues had literally been staring them in the face since Harry met Ron. He wanted to go and curse that backstabber for literally being every source of trouble they'd had since they left school, and he was now going back and trying to count every instance of what all had gone wrong because of him! The only reason he hadn't gone after James and Sirius in time was because he'd been stuffed with his own self-hatred that he'd somehow managed to put all of this on Sirius, still always thinking of himself rather than going to help them like he should. Sure it was a good thing he hadn't now as Harry might not have been able to get all three of them back, but he still could not seem to do anything right by any of his family anymore.

Harry just sat there, convinced this had to be his fault somehow. He would trade away all of his memories all over again, give up anything if he could just understand how this all went so wrong. What had made such a good friend of his father's turn around and have this happen? Was it because of Harry, had this family been much better off if he'd never been born? He got the feeling he never even got the full understanding of this either, was never given the reason for Pettigrew's betrayal. He was the only one who seemed to want to keep going at this point, hoping there was still some way to change this, he'd bargain away his own life it that was what it took to make sure this never happened. He took another good look around the room and saw how wretched everyone looked, the book lay where it had fallen from his mother's hands half under the sofa and he wondered if it shouldn't just stay there.

No one looked even remotely prepared to continue, but he knew that there was more to come this night. Unbelievably, though the large amount of pain had left, there was still something inside of him urging him that there was another very important thing to happen this night. How could it get worse though, as he was sure that's what it had to be. Another bad thing to come in a long list of his life. The compulsion eventually won out though, and he ducked down to retrieve the book that was currently poisoning his family's life. He knew though, that it wasn't really ever going to get better. They could sit here for the next year and still be in shock over what they'd just learned, so Harry decided the best thing he could do for them was push forward and try to get out the full story, try to end this dreadful year and come up with a real plan on how to stop this mess from ever happening.

Remus realized what he was doing first, and though he couldn't even pretend at a brave face anymore, his voice came out in a ghost of his old joking tone, "I think that's mine, as Lily did cut me off."

"Chapter was done," Lily mumbled back, her dark green eyes still vacant as graves but going to rest on her son with her hand out, "so it makes it my turn anyways."

Harry hesitated, he didn't want to put this burden on anyone else, they all looked like limp soulless versions of themselves, but when he didn't make to hand it over some life sparked back to Lily and she gave her son a challenging look, now holding her hand palm out and saying with real force, "you heard me young man, we've had a good system going this whole time, no need for skipping now."

He actually managed to muster up a smile for her attempt. He knew he didn't feel a portion of the feelings everyone else in the room did, it just wasn't as personal to him. He was more caught up in what he'd lost, whereas they were coming to terms with someone they'd known their whole life wasn't who they thought; and still through all of that emotional wreckage as Lily went to find her place, the boys bucked themselves right back up. Each of them realizing that whatever they wanted to do or how they wanted to react in that moment, it literally had to wait until they could find some way to act on it. For now though, the story continued.

Harry and Ron hardly had to exchange a look before both agreed the older men were both being ridiculous. Harry pointed out that Pettigrew was dead.

James felt bile rising thick and fast in his throat, desperately wanting to agree with them, but unable to get that image out of his head of his son's face, the same one he always made when the proper memory had returned to him. Harry may not have the full memory back now as his thirteen year old mind was still agreeing with his friend, but something in Harry now was clearly telling him he'd been wrong and they were right.

Black agreed he'd meant to kill him, and he was going to now. He shot to his feet and made a lung at Ron, landing on his bad leg.

Sirius didn't look like he felt bad about that here anymore then he had then, this was a kind reaction to what his hands were twitching to do. He was confident if he did still have a wand on him then, this problem would have been fixed already.

Ron screamed in pain but still managed to keep Scabbers safe in his arms as Lupin came forward and caught hold of Sirius, dragging him off and telling him he had to explain. Black snapped back they could explain later,

Funnily enough Remus didn't look that way now, his clenched teeth and the murderous looks making it all to clear he'd rather hear about a body first and they could explain whatever they wanted later. Harry supposed that was because Professor Lupin had twelve years to stew and come to terms with what happened, had probably been waiting for an opportunity to confront who he'd thought to be the traitor all these years, and even if he'd come across the wrong suspected person this night, he still wanted his answers. Now Remus was getting the brunt of the emotion shoved on him now, and clearly wouldn't be as cool headed.

his mad eyes still watching the rat squirm for his life, leaving deep scratch marks against Ron's neck who was still holding fast.

'Ron's probably going to break his spine he's holding onto him so hard' James thought wildly, still forcing the image of an innocent animal, still adamantly refusing anything else until he had no other choice.

Lupin was still fighting him though, saying that Harry had a right to the truth.

That mellowed both of them out. They still didn't look happy about it, but the one thing they'd both agree on is that Harry had more a right to know the truth then anyone, and Sirius only hoped he wasn't so far gone he'd still at least recognize that.

Black stopped then, though his eyes remained on Ron who was holding his pet despite his bleeding hands,

'Ron seems to be getting the most abuse from this' Lily couldn't help but think in pity for him, he was nearly as involved in this as Harry.

but agreed Lupin could say whatever he liked so long as he hurried, he wanted to commit the murder he'd been put away for.

That gave them all a horrible pause and flinch. They'd spent over twenty four hours now, looking to skin alive the fool who'd done this to Sirius, each of them convinced he'd been set up or in some way forced to do this, and now they had their man, and...and it wasn't the satisfaction they'd been picturing.

Ron told them they were all being crazy and tried to get to his feet, but Lupin pointed his wand at Scabbers.

Lily was starting to feel really concerned that Remus was starting to act as psychotic as Sirius, pointing a wand at a child even if it wasn't direct. Not that she could blame them one little bit, she reflected she wouldn't be much better in that heat of the moment.

Lupin told him sternly Ron was going to hear them out so long as he kept his hold on Peter.

'There's a sentence I never thought I'd hear' Sirius thought with something akin to insanity coloring the edges of his mind. He couldn't ever remember being so angry in his life, that the word anger just wasn't appropriate enough. Not when he'd run away from his parents' house, not even when the other Marauders had turned on him after his horrid stunt involving Snape. The only comparable feeling was whenever he heard mention of those Dursleys and what had been implied they'd done to Harry, but this was still somehow worse, because that was only implications. Harry refused to tell what things were really going on there, so he was murder suspicious, instead of the red haze of blood he truly wished for now.

Ron screamed back it wasn't Peter, it was Scabbers!

"Poor kids in denial," Sirius hissed with the blackest of disgust, not realizing his best friend would do anything to agree with Ron right then.

He lost the battle with his leg though, and sank back down onto the bed in pain. Harry caught him and made sure he was okay, before turning his attention back to Lupin and ignoring Black for now.

Remus bit his lip so hard he nearly drew blood to stop himself from making the joke he finally had proof Harry liked him more. That was his fall back after all, that was all of their default to make a joke when they'd much rather be screaming their head off, but Remus constrained himself for the sake of the story.

Harry pointed out the witnesses who'd seen Black kill Pettigrew, and Black snapped back that's what they'd thought. Lupin agreed everyone had thought that, even he'd believed it,

Remus was clearly fixing to do exactly what he'd told off Sirius for doing, make a run from the room and bury himself in a hole if he didn't feel so limp from delayed shock and disgust at himself for believing it.

The worst part was that James clearly wasn't giving him any sympathy for that, he was still refusing to believe it of the friend who was being shoved into the spot, he couldn't fathom how Remus had worked out this was ever okay. After everything they'd been through together, he found this nearly as insulting as what it was being implied Peter had done.

Lily and Harry wanted to stick up for him, protest and say that everyone had believed this and logically Remus shouldn't be judged for it, but Sirius got there first. He leaned in and whispered something in James' ear, and James jerked back looking outraged. He opened his mouth, clearly fixing to fight back, when Sirius hissed, "it's exactly the same." Sirius had to inhale slowly to keep going in a steady voice, still throwing concerned looks at Remus to make sure he was listening, "I did something stupid, I've regretted it the rest of my life, and you didn't forgive me for that until I got hurt, badly, and if we're being honest it was a stupid reason to forgive me because if you two hadn't accepted my apologies before you shouldn't have then. You might not have ever if that hadn't happened."

James didn't look happy, but he didn't argue the point anymore either. Instead he slumped into himself, just feeling tired. He was suddenly starting to feel as guilt ridden as Remus as he realized that all three of his friends, his brothers, had been pushed away from him, because of him. He'd been so horrid to Sirius after that accident with Remus, Sirius had avoided them for months, had nearly quit the Quidditch team and what if he was right? What if they never had made up for that fight and that game had saved them? Now he was doing the same thing to Remus, and it occurred to him that what if what Peter had done was his fault as well? Had he said something, done something to make Peter feel like he wasn't worth being in the Order, that made him turn on his family? Had he finally found what had caused his death, his wife's, and it was his own fault? He'd accept that blame, but it still wasn't enough for him to believe it really had been Peter to give them up to Voldemort. Surely whatever James had done to him wasn't that bad?

Remus' jaw was still chattering so hard it was a wonder he could hear anything between that and the clear guilt eating him alive. Lily and Harry were at a complete loss as to what to do to help him either, because the only person who could have convinced Remus he shouldn't walk out of here in shame was Sirius, and he was still watching James.

Sirius seemed to realize that he'd gotten through to James, who didn't look mad at Remus anymore, but he looked about ready to burst into tears anyways. Sirius just thought that he'd finally caught up with the rest of them and had moved past denial, so no one was going to pressure him into saying more and Lily convinced herself it would help if she just got it over with.

until he saw the map tonight, and Peter on it. Harry looked at him then back at Ron. Both agreed this was impossible, that Black was clearly as mad as everyone had always said, but why was Lupin in on it?

"Cause he's always played along with my games no matter how stupid he found them," Sirius said bracingly, reflecting on the irony for the moment that he was actually being the calmest of the group right now. He'd finally gotten his answer, and while he was in no little bit okay with it, he'd learned long ago how to bottle up anger in particular and let it out when needed. Right now as that was his dominant emotion, he found it much easier to play the role his friends had been trying for him this whole time, and be the support.

Remus' eyes flashed wildly to him, hope warring with confusion as he realized from that little sentence alone Sirius clearly didn't hate him like he should for his own betrayal in this tale. He wanted to say something, but couldn't decide which would be worse, for Sirius to just be making a joke he didn't mean, that he really hated and rightly now resented Remus, or that he really forgave him which Remus most certainly didn't deserve.

Hermione spoke first, trying to point out that this just couldn't be true, while Lupin responded back perfectly calmly that why not?

It occurred to Lily at the same time it had Sirius, that Remus then was being perfectly normal about this situation then while here he was a mess. She still didn't know how to help other than to keep going on.

Hermione argued back that Pettigrew couldn't be an Animagus, she'd looked up all the registered one's for her class,

"Of course she did," Harry muttered to himself with remembered amusement at just how much Hermione put into her homework, even this year.

and Pettigrew hadn't been on the list. Lupin agreed that was true, because he hadn't registered. Black was starting to get edgy as he snapped at Lupin to hurry up, he'd waited twelve years for this moment, he didn't want to keep waiting.

"I never was the patient one," Sirius nodded solemnly, little bits of ice nearly cracking from his voice he sounded so cold at what he couldn't be doing right now. It really was a bleeding miracle he was letting Remus explain at all rather than acting on it, he sincerely doubted he'd have that same restraint now.

Lupin agreed he was getting to it, when the door opened behind them without anyone touching it.

"Err," Lily began, looking at the boys for confirmation that this was perfectly normal. None of them reacted to it much, still to stemmed to react to much of anything normally, but Harry's face told her quite clearly he in no way thought that should be ignored, but he said nothing which meant it would be a bad idea to ask.

Lupin went back to shut the door with a frown while Ron said this place really was being haunted. Lupin disagreed, and said that the Shrieking Shack wasn't haunted at all, those noises had been made by him. That's actually where this really started, with his being a werewolf and how foolish he'd been.

That snapped James out of his own funk, for the time being at least as he gave Remus a scathing look. That made it sound like it had been Remus' fault, when he'd been just a kid! The only person's fault it had been was that original werewolf!

Lupin began by saying he'd been young when he'd first been bitten, and back then there wasn't a cure.

"Does that mean there's a cure then?" Remus blurted out, his mind possibly catching on the one thing that could have jolted him back into the current story. That potion they'd been wondering about, was it really possible. He hadn't even dared believe it before now, and he felt all the more selfish and guilty when he realized that what had caught his attention was again something all about him, but it had worked. He was now far more interested in listening to Lily then his continued self-hate.

Now there was a potion that Snape had been making for him once a month, that if drank every day the week before the full moon it allowed him to still hold his mind while he curled up in his office as a wolf until the time was done.

Lily couldn't actually read that without her eyes going so wide they nearly fell out of her head in shock. She glanced up with her mouth still half open and for the first time in hours she burst out in pure laughter at the look of shock on all of the boy's faces as well. She actually couldn't help it. While this in no way took away the pain and suffering they all still felt at the discovery of the betrayal, it was the first glimmer of hope and reminder that something good had actually happened, could still happen. Lily kept reading now in nearly giddy pleasure.

It was called Wolfsbane Potion, but before that he had turned into a monster once a month.

"I hope I smacked you for that then, you know damn well that isn't true," Sirius grumbled without any real heat, still looking punch drunk from the swirl of emotions ranging from every kind of happy his friend seemed to have found something as close to resembling a cure as it could get, and the left over hatred he doubted would go away anytime soon as he constantly remembered what all of this related to.

Remus didn't reply, he used the term loosely to explain how he was during those times, and while yes he had believed it for quite some time before his friends half managed to convince him otherwise, he had a good feeling he'd gone back to thinking it without any of them around anymore.

He never could have been allowed to go to school around other children in fear he would attack one of them, but then Dumbledore became headmaster and gave him the chance. Dumbledore set up this house and the Whomping Willow to stop anyone from coming down here while he was dangerous. Harry didn't see the point of this story,

Even though Harry did know the end results now, he was still listening with interest. Mostly to get rid of that annoying plague that he should have done something about that door opening, that he'd forgotten about something...or someone?

but was still listening curiously. Lupin explained how painful his transformation was, that without anything to attack he had been attacking himself and the noise it caused made the local villagers fear the place. During school though he'd made friends, Sirius Black, Peter Pettigrew,

That name caused a reemergence of those same feelings as before. Sirius went back to muttering death threats and glaring at the front door like it was a pit of fire he'd be all too willing to jump over if he could have his end results. Remus had to close his eyes and pinch the bridge of his nose hard to stop himself from mimicking Sirius' earlier words, that or get on his knees and beg Sirius to forgive him for making the worst mistake in his life in ever clearly thinking Sirius had been the one doing this. James still looked likely to vomit and shook his head furiously unable to picture it, to even properly form where that name lead until he had it shoved in his face and even then there had to be a good reason for it.

and Harry's own father James Potter.

James remembered a much more pleasant time, like an hour ago, where he would have made a joking pout about having been named last. About how they all would have made jabs at each other for whatever order that had come out because they were such good friends it had always equaled out...and now he damn near sobbed that he'd come out last because his name had probably been the worst one to say for his friend, because he was the only one who was actually dead.

They had of course noticed Remus disappeared once a month, and when they figured out why they did something no one would have guessed. They became Animagi. Harry blurted out his dad really had?

That never got easier to hear, and James gave a wince all over again for the blunt reminder that his son knew virtually nothing about him, and he was learning it now of all times! He was the first to have the reflection that this was the vaguest form of answers as to why Remus had been avoiding Harry all year. Since Remus had believed Peter really had died by Sirius' own hand, then talking about this would be the worst form of punishment to his friend.

Lupin agreed that all three of them had worked it out, but it had been dangerous. It was why the Ministry kept tabs on who became Animagi, the transformation was so complicated, and Peter had needed all the help he could get.

James made a sound in his throat like he wanted to protest that. Yes Transfiguration had been one of Peter's worst subjects, but Remus made him sound daft. It sounded all the harsher coming from Lily's icy tones like she was reading about Snape abusing Neville all over again, but James was truly finding it hard to come up with any way to protest this. He felt like he was alone on an island, trying to hold out hope this still wasn't true, but the longer this went on the smaller that land was getting.

They had done it though, in their fifth year, and could each become an animal whenever they wanted. Lupin explained this had helped him because now that James and Sirius could turn into such large animals, they could keep him company while he was a wolf. Werewolves bites didn't affect animals, only people. Black snapped at Lupin to hurry up again, still watching Scabbers with hunger.

"To be perfectly honest I think you about covered it," Sirius hissed, his face looking remarkably close to how it had then, Harry reflected, even if it was directed at a door now instead of a living thing.

Lupin agreed he was getting to it, while still explaining that his friends became rather drunk with their own power, now that they were such big animals they could keep him in check and roam the grounds and local village. They'd come up with the nicknames for the map after themselves, himself being Moony, Sirius being Padfoot, Peter being Wormtail, and James being Prongs. Harry tried to interrupt and ask what animal his dad had turned into,

"You couldn't have worked that out?" James asked breathily, he was starting to feel like the oxygen in the room was running out but was still taking any tiny chance to keep his attention on his son. "How many animals do you know that have prongs?"

"I wanted a specific answer," Harry responded back with a light smirk, still trying to stay as calm as possible so no one would guess he was still turning over every detail looking for a way to change this and make it right. He knew that if any of them discovered what he was thinking, he had a very good feeling they'd try to convince him it wasn't his fault, but he knew better. He'd heard the longing in Remus' voice as he'd told this story back then, how close the friends all used to be and the only thing he could work out in his head was that it must have gone wrong when he was born.

but Hermione cut across him by telling Lupin off for how dangerous that could have been, he could have attacked someone. Lupin agreed that the idea still gave him nightmares of all the times that had nearly happened.

Lily couldn't help a little bout of suspicious anger in her voice, they'd never told her of those parts of the stories, but since clearly nothing had happened or Remus probably wouldn't have forgiven himself and spoken of it so lightly, she decided now wasn't the time.

Lupin agreed they had been stupid, and just carried away with how smart they were. He'd spent all this year arguing with himself on whether to tell Dumbledore that he was the reason Sirius was an illegal Animagus,

"It was our decision," Sirius scoffed, "you make it sound like you'd tied us down and forced us into it."

Remus didn't respond, and Sirius now understood how his friends had felt about him through this horrible story. He didn't like how quiet they were being, it really scared him, but he'd just have to keep trying.

but he'd convinced himself that Sirius must be using something else to get into the castle.

"Well I praise Merlin for whatever stopped you," James said with forced happiness, putting everything he had that it must have been lingering trust that Sirius must have been up to something good, that Remus still wouldn't betray him because something was telling him he shouldn't.

He said it was because he was being a coward,

James flinched like he'd been slapped, but didn't respond. He still believed his own line of thinking, as Remus was many things but never a coward. Whatever he was admitting to now was in the heat of a horrid retelling of his life, he would and should feel awful after having spent the past twelve years thinking about Sirius and so Remus would put himself in a bad light.

that if he had it would mean telling Dumbledore he didn't deserve Dumbledore's trust, which meant everything to him.

That caught Sirius' attention more than the others for a different reason. They all knew how much Remus cared about Dumbledore's opinion of him for this very reason, and Sirius couldn't help but flash back to the stinging realization that Dumbledore had believed him corrupt. Had Dumbledore somehow convinced Remus of this as well? He still found it kind of hard to believe Remus would believe this of him even if Sirius didn't blame him for it, but it must have taken something to make Remus see there was no other way. Why hadn't they told Remus they'd switched? There's no way James would have agreed to that, even now he trusted all three of his friends unconditionally. Did Dumbledore still have a bigger hand in this? He didn't say anything though, because he still had no proof. It was just another one of those things like Harry's first year where Dumbledore seemed to be doing something more with Harry's life, their life, then they'd ever really thought.

Snape had spent the school year trying to convince Dumbledore he wasn't to be trusted, and he now realized Snape had almost been right. Black's attention was finally torn away from Scabbers to bark the name Snape in confusion.

"That would do it," Sirius muttered aloud, and the others took his garbled tone to mean that they thought he was still thinking on Pettigrew, not now thinking on someone else so no one asked.

Lupin explained that he was a teacher here, and explained for the students that Black had played a cruel trick on Snape that had involved Lupin. Black didn't look ashamed one bit as he said Snape had deserved it.

"Glad to see how much you regretted it," Lily muttered to herself. She knew Sirius was much more focused on other things and bringing up someone he despised wouldn't put him in any better of a mood, but he'd clearly not gotten any better about his careless comments.

Sirius hardly paid his own comment any mind now, still too lost in thought to show Lily he meant it anymore now then he had then.

Lupin explained that Snape had spent his school years in equal to theirs, and had spent much of his free time trying to figure out where the four friends went once a month. Black had gotten fed up one day and told Snape how to get into the Willow and he'd see what was going on, and Snape had fallen right for it. Harry confirmed that's why Snape hated Lupin, he'd thought Lupin knew about the joke. A new voice answered that was right.

"The bloody hell-" all three boys began to shout in surprise, meaning Lily had to nearly shout the final sentence.

Snape was in the room, pulling off the Invisibility Cloak, his wand pointed at Lupin.

Harry groaned and shook his head furiously, he knew he should have remembered that! Sirius though looked outraged as he spat, "pointed at Remus? Is he out of his bleeding mind! He's been there the whole f'ing time, and I'm in the room, and all he's heard was shit he already knew about Remus, but he's got his wand pointed at him! He should be looking to me, not him!"

Remus dearly wanted to laugh that his friend was pissed off he wasn't the target, it finally gave him some solid proof that Sirius didn't hate him which he still didn't even understand, but he was far too invested with worry. Snape was there, and they hadn't really explained anything! Just stuff that they already knew, Snape couldn't cut in there! Pettigrew could get away with his farce and Sirius, bloody hell Sirius could go back to Azkaban and get Kissed!

Lily was thinking exactly the same thing as she edged to her feet and shuffled over to hand the book to James. If Snape's attitude was anything to go by, then his presence was only going to make things worse in an already tense situation.

#Harry Potter #fanfiction #reading the books #PoA #Marauders #James Potter #Lily Potter #Sirius Black #Remus Lupin

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nokomiss · 4 years

Note

J. When words aren’t enough. (if you still do DC, 2 Robins or a a Robin and a Bat of choice?)

(I definitely still write DC! I have come around fannishly full circle and that’s all I’ve been writing the last few months! ♥)

Dick was in the middle of a fight with a handful of Two Face’s henchmen when an alert started buzzing in his ear. He swiped it away on his communicator between punches, scarcely taking the time to note what it was before returning his full attention to the fight at hand. Four months into being Batman and he already understood why Bruce had been so dour and convinced that vigilantism was only for the best of the best -- everyone that came at Batman came twice as hard as Dick was used to. There absolutely were downsides to the legend preceding you.

He was dodging a burst of gunfire when familiar colors flew by, and Robin was kicking the henchman with the gun in the face, sending him sprawling to the concrete floor.

Another henchmen got a lucky hit on Dick’s side, and he focused on the matter at hand, though something about what had just happened bothered him. Familiar colors, familiar grin, the flash of bare thigh as Robin kicked the henchman---

Oh, shit. Dick punched the henchman he was fighting with more force than necessary, knocking him out cold as he turned to stare at Robin, who was finishing up with the last goon

“You’re welcome,” Robin said, giving the goon a nudge with his green pixie boot. Yellow cape, red suit, green panties, and Jason’s unabashedly bright smile. He’d forgotten how that smile had looked.

Dick continued to stare, then looked back at his communicator. The alert he’d brushed aside was still flashing. Temporal anomaly.

“We need to go,” he said gruffly, turning on his heel and letting his cape swirl around him as he headed out of the warehouse. He wordlessly typed in a request to Oracle to call the henchmen situation in to the GCPD as he went, unwilling to say even that much aloud. Jason didn’t know who Oracle was. Jason’s Barbara was still Batgirl, was still running around in those yellow boots---

He nearly stumbled as he thought of all the things he could say to Jason, of all the things he could keep from happening. He glanced back, and Jason was following, earlier brightness dimmed somewhat. He looked suspicious, Dick realized suddenly.

“Hey, Mr. Grumpypants,” Jason said loudly, as though he was reading Dick’s mind. “What was that back there?”

Dick didn’t want to turn to face him. He’d forgotten how whip-smart Jason had been even in the early days, how Bruce had bragged on him in their phone calls while Dick had been trying his damndest to leave Gotham and the Bats behind.

He led them up a fire escape, onto a rooftop. A few jumps and they were on a building that was mostly abandoned but still within sight of the warehouse so they could observe if something went wrong before the GCPD arrived. By the time Dick perched on the ledge, he could practically feel the suspicion radiating off Jason. Off Robin.

God, he was tiny. Bigger than Damian was, but contrasted with the Jason he knew now, the Jason that had reached his adult height? This Jason was scarcely more than a baby.

“What do you remember from before the fight?” Dick asked, and braced himself. He knew there was no way Jason would think he was Bruce, no matter what he was wearing.

“What do you-- wait,” Jason said. The narrowed-eye look he gave Dick was all too familiar; Dick saw that one regularly on the Jason that had grown up. “You’re not Br-- You’re not Batman.”

“I am Batman,” Dick said, voice as gruff as it always was when he said those words. Bruce would have known how to handle this. Bruce wouldn’t have been tempted to alter things. “What happened before you entered the warehouse?”

Jason moved away, fists tight at his side. “Nothing. Just patrol. Who are you?”

“Batman,” Dick said again. “Just not Bruce.”

Jason’s fists slowly raised, held in front of him defensively, and he barked out, “What did you do with Batman?”

For the thousandth time since he put on this suit, Dick wished Bruce was still alive. “Jason, I was asking what happened before you joined the fight in the warehouse because this isn’t your time.”

“Isn’t my-- Are you fucking kidding me? Time travel?” Jason said, fists dropping back to his sides. He looked out over the Gotham skyline, and Dick knew how much it had changed.

“We need to figure out how it happened,” Dick continued, watching Jason’s expression shift as he realized the truth of what Dick had said. “Do you remember anything?”

“There was a light,” Jason said slowly. “It’s why I went into the warehouse, I thought it was a flash-bang.”

“Anything before that?”

Jason paused. “Batman-- My Batman -- mentioned seeing something strange. An orb? He was going to investigate and I was supposed to stay put.”

Dick had been Robin, too. He knew perfectly well what Robin did when Batman insisted he stay put. “You followed him?”

Jason rolled his eyes. “Obviously. I’m here, aren’t I? I went after him, and when I came around the corner, I saw the light, and then I was in the warehouse kicking ass and taking names.” He illustrated this point by doing a kick in the direction of an imaginary bad guy.

Dick refrained from pointing out that Jason hadn’t, in fact, taken any names, though he had done an admirable job of kicking ass. “We should go to the spot where you traveled through. Get some readings. Figure out whether it was magic or tech.”

Below, the GCPD finally showed up at the warehouse, sirens blazing, and officers rushed inside to secure the henchmen and evidence.

“As soon as they’re gone,” Dick amended.

They sat side-by-side, Jason keeping a healthy distance but Dick could feel his eyes on him. Trying to place his visible features, most likely. Finally, Jason burst out with, “What happened to him? My Batman?”

He was unwilling to use Bruce’s name, even though Dick already had. It hurt, seeing a Jason who loved Bruce wholeheartedly, without reservation. Who hadn’t yet been dealt the blows that had turned his relationship with Bruce sour.

“He’s away,” Dick said vaguely.

“Away like hurt? Away like with the Justice League? Or away like--” Jason’s voice cracked on the last word. “How far in the future am I, anyway? Things don’t look better.”

Things look worse, he clearly wanted to say. It was true, too -- Gotham, for all the work they’d poured into her, remained resolutely corrupt and vile. Dick almost admired that about the city.

“Away,” Dick said firmly. The temptation was still there -- he could warn Jason about his mother, could keep him from making so many mistakes, could keep so many terrible things from happening.

The only problem were the good things intertwined in there -- if he warned Jason, if Jason never died, would Tim come into their lives? Would Cass? What about all the lives Barbara had saved as Oracle, what about all the things they’d all done-- was the future a house of cards that could crumble with a single warning?

Dick had dealt with time travel plenty over the years and the same questions always lingered. He hated the choice he knew he had to make. Hated that he was essentially going to condemn this bright, caring boy to death when he sent him back to the past unwarned.

But he just couldn’t risk it. Couldn’t speak up.

Jason scoffed at him. “You’re not him, you know. I knew immediately.”

“Not trying to be.” That was mostly a lie, too. Dick wished that Jason would steer to more comfortable conversation topics so he wouldn’t have to skirt the truth so much, but then it really wouldn’t be Jason, would it? “But I am trying to get you back to him.”

“Worried about fucking up the time stream?” Jason pushed himself up, began walking along the edge of the ledge with his arms held out to either side, looking like an amateur tightrope walker. Dick resisted the urge to correct his form. “That’s why you’re not telling me shit, right?”

“...Right.” Dick seized the chance to actually tell the truth for once. “It’s inadvisable. Part of the time travel protocol.”

“You knew my name, so that means you know me,” Jason continued, easily ignoring concepts like time travel protocol. “Or will know me? Either way, that means this can’t be too far in the future, since you definitely recognized me.”

Dick tensed, even though Jason had no way of knowing how accurate that statement was. Or why. He was still at the age when your own mortality was something you took for granted.

“So that means Batman should still be Batman. He isn’t that old.” Jason narrowed his eyes at him. “He’s dead, isn’t he?”

There was no way in hell that Dick was answering that question. “If you figured out that much, you know there’s no way I’m going to confirm or deny that. He’s away from Gotham at the moment. That’s all you need to know.”

Jason sat down heavily. “You have to tell me something so I can save him. You can’t… you can’t send me back now knowing how to save him.”

Jesus. Dick was at a loss. He’d been so preoccupied with worrying about Jason’s impending death that he hadn’t thought about what the presence of a strange Batman -- and Bruce’s absence -- would mean to the kid. Bruce was his world.

Words failed him.

“You have to tell me something, you bastard!” Jason snapped, realizing that Dick wasn’t going to cooperate. “You have to. He saved me, I can’t let him… I have to change whatever went wrong.”

His breath was coming fast, and he looked like he was ready to punch Dick if he didn’t say something soon. Dick knew that particular snarl, that arch of his eyebrows-- it was the same fury as when he talked about his own death.

Dick briefly, intensely hated Bruce, for leaving him to face all these mistakes, but that feeling couldn’t last in the face of all of Jason’s love and righteous anger in honor of the man.

“I-- There’s nothing you can do,” Dick said, finally. “You’ve always done everything you can.”

It wasn’t enough, but nothing could be. There were no words to bridge the years, to fix things preemptively. Dick knew he couldn’t change things, not without--

Not without sacrificing everything they’d all become, the people they all were.

Jason seemed to deflate. He looked desperately in need of a hug, but Dick didn’t have that right. Jason didn’t even know who he was, didn’t need reassurance from a stranger. Dick knew what he needed.

Below, the last of the cop cars were pulling away from the warehouse. The diagnostic he had run on temporal signatures indicated that the orb Jason had seen was still there, and likely still active. It should be a simple thing to return him to his time.

Dick could only hope that he hadn’t screwed up this interaction too badly, that Jason hadn’t been altered by the conversation they’d just had. Maybe for once things would be merciful for Jason and he wouldn’t remember any of this.

“Come on,” he said, gesturing. “Let’s get you back to your dad.”

Jason nodded mutely.

#my fic #dick grayson #jason todd #batfamily #dc fic #batman #warning for mentions of (temporary) canonical character death #merfilly

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secret-engima · 4 years

Note

Can we get Nyx’s POV of the Axis’ meeting? Someone outside the immediate emotional clash, anyway.

Hmmmm I’ll try?

Nyx is just as shocked as everyone else when a younger, Hunter-garbed Axis appears in a flash of light after their Axis cut himself on an old ruin, because seriously, that’s the kind of thing that happens in the Old Stories, not modern times.

He’s not the only one paranoid that the younger Axis might be some kind of shapeshifter, a creature of the Old Days hoping to steal their souls, but a few cautious questions puts that fear to rest. The kid (because this Axis IS a kid compared to them and Astrals were they really that small after the Burning, that skinny and wary? It looks way worse from the outside than it did back then) immediately starts looking around in agitation, no doubt looking for his Tredd and Luche since the three area almost always glued to the hip, and the glaives help look. No one appears, probably because only C!Axis got cut up on that stone, and after some grumbling from the younger Axis, the kid comes with them to the glaive outpost. They’ll sort out what to do with him in the morning.

Nyx doesn’t notice at first the way N!Axis looks at his counterparts, the worry and tight line in his shoulders, the kid is jus nervous and yea it’s weird seeing yourself and your friends older and decked out in military gear. N!Axis also gives Nyx a long, baffled stare that he refuses to explain, but Nyx doesn’t mind. Maybe the other Nyx has long hair or something and it’s weird seeing it short.

Things don’t start going wrong until they’re at the glaive outpost, passing out the (illegal) drinks Captain pretended not to notice them smuggling (the man might be hard and rigid on all the other regulations, but at least he let them have their small vices so long as they didn’t let it impede their work). Tredd drinks more than he should have, and sure enough, he starts badmouthing. It’s his venting mechanic, and at first they all ignore him as he complains about the outpost, about the Nifs (which they can all agree on at least). Then ... then he starts tearing up the nobles and they get uncomfortable. Tredd doesn’t mean anything by it, Nyx knows that, but Tredd is edging dangerously close to badmouthing the royal family and that could get him in serious trouble. Not to mention the king, for all his faults, HAD taken them in, had given them magic and always made sure that at least their families had enough to live on.

Crowe, who has little patience for Tredd’s mouthing off on a good day, tells him to knock it off but he doesn’t, because Tredd. and Nyx is just thinking of baiting Luche into reining in his Furia (Nyx is a little surprised Luche hasn’t done it already, but Luche’s in a bad mood too) when someone shoves him roughly aside and strides right into their group.

By the time Nyx identifies the newcomer as the young N!Axis, who had been brooding in a corner rather than drink with them, Tredd is already on the floor with a broken, bleeding nose. N!Axis’s fist is cocked back, dripping Tredd’s blood and already prepped to strike again and Nyx feels himself take an inner step back when the boy growls, low and dangerous, “You take that back.” The glaives freeze, because the Arra temper is legendary and Axis is scary when he loses his last restraint sure, but they have never, EVER seen him lash out at Tredd like this. Couldn’t conceive any Axis breaking Tredd’s nose like this. Nyx can see N!Axis’s face as he breathes in and sees the teenager struggling to rein himself in.

“You. Take. That. Back.” He repeats and Nyx’s skin prickles at the feral snarl coating the words, the bared teeth that flash as he speaks. N!Axis is furious, for reasons frankly lost on Nyx, and one wrong move will result in them having to try to pin down an Arra set on a bloodbath and that will not be a good time. The kid takes another deep breath and growls “How dare you. How dare you pretend to know what it’s like. How dare you wish our fate on anyone, let alone the Chief who took you in. Maybe our conditions could be better, and maybe he doesn’t do enough but at least he tries. You hold his magic in your skin and you think that gives you the right to curse his entire Clan and say none of them ever suffered?”

Tredd bristles on the floor but doesn’t move, and Nyx is grateful when C!Axis steps up and rests a hand on his younger self’s shoulder, “All he means is-”

N!Axis swats aside the hand and shifts to stare at his older self. Nyx sees his expression flicker, something like grief and anger in his eyes, some kind of ... realization that seems to break a tiny piece of the younger Arra before he bares his teeth again in renewed anger, “I know what he means,” snarls N!Axis, “and I know he’s full of pyre-ash. If you had any idea what it’s like to have been born with their full weight of magic, the full touch of the Draconian’s Blessing rather than the pittance you think makes you impressive-.”

Tredd opens his big mouth again, “What, and you do?” and the growl N!Axis gives hits a pitch that makes all of Nyx’s hair stand on end and he steps in with Lib at his side to try and keep a genuine fight from breaking out.

Nyx is mildly surprised when N!Axis grudgingly allows him to nudge the young Arra back, Nyx talking soothingly the entire time about how Tredd is just drunk and they all need to cool their heads.

It might, MIGHT have worked if Tredd hadn’t opened his big, dumb mouth again. Taunted N!Axis and told him that he might think the king is kind now, but that was naive, give it a few years and he’d think just like Tredd, and now the Furia is DEFINITELY in court martial territory. Several glaives hiss at him because too far is too far even for Tredd.

Nyx feels the vibrating tension of N!Axis against his arm suddenly relax and something in his head, the little primal instincts that have kept him alive for years, starts screaming.

N!Axis gently nudges Nyx’s arm down (he lets him only because he’s genuinely starting to fear if he doesn’t his arm will get broken), looks his counterpart and the counterpart of his two friends dead in the eyes with an eerie calm that belies the burning HATE in his eyes-.

Spits on the ground at their feet, “Storm-Father as my witness,” he intones in a too-calm, utterly serious voice, “I’ll gut myself with my mother’s blades and feed my entrails to the Voretooths before I become a filthy little Pink-Tongue like you.”

Nyx can no more stop the fight that breaks out than he could stop the tides. He’s too stunned, frozen in place in HORROR at hearing Axis (any Axis, any version of him) call Tredd a slur like that. It isn’t until Tredd has gotten his head pounded against the floor several times and Tredd has kicked N!Axis away from him and sent him crashing through a table that Nyx and the others snap out of their horror and lunge to break it up. N!Axis has gone feral, he bucks in Nyx’s arms, fighting to get free despite his bloody cheek and split lip and probably bruised ribs, screaming more and more slurs and hate at his counterpart and the counterparts of what should be his two best friends and Nyx’s mind almost blanks from the horror of it (this younger Axis is declaring a blood feud in all but name, he’s using all the words that NO Galahdian is supposed to use at another unless they mean to spill entrails onto the sand and he doesn’t UNDERSTAND why N!Axis is doing this, saying this. Tredd shouldn’t have said that stuff about the king but this is too far-)

They drag him to the far side of the Outpost and Nyx and Lib keep guard on the kid all night, both to ensure he doesn’t pick anymore fights and also to ensure no one tries to slit his throat in the night.

The moment Tredd, Axis, and Luche are out of sight, N!Axis stops fighting their grip, just goes limp and then curls in the corner and broods with fury-darkened eyes. He refuses the potion Libertus offers past his own righteous indignation (because a war declared on one glaive is war declared on all the glaive, surely, but this is a hurting teenager from another world and Lib won’t raise a hand against him) and the night is long and cold and uneasy.

The next morning, a shout goes up, a stranger approaching the base. Nyx leaves Lib in charge of guarding their guest while he goes to see.

Astrals above it’s a kid. He can’t be older than fourteen, thin and scraggly and unmistakably a refugee, with black hair in a ponytail and blue-blue eyes that watch them calmly as he explains he’s here to find a friend. They were exploring the nearby Solheim ruins together when they got separated and he followed the trail to the outpost.

No way. No WAY.

Except when they let the kid in, he makes a beeline right for N!Axis, like he has a beacon leading him right to the young adult despite N!Axis being on the other side of the outpost.“Hey, Axis,” the kid says easily, as if he’s out for a walk and not apparently FROM ANOTHER WORLD.

Nyx watches N!Axis stare, then sigh, and wonders at the way all the tension bleeds out of the Arra’s frame at the sight of the younger boy, “What are you doing here, idiot,” he asks, but there is no bite or venom to the words, only relief.

The kid has gone stiff at the sight of N!Axis’s injuries and pushes a potion on his friend as he says something about calling in a favor and how they need to get going.

Something about the way the kid watches N!Axis niggles at Nyx. Something about the way the kid moves, the way he looks in the light of rising sun as they begin marching out of the outpost, glaives whispering on their heels. Something … something Nyx can’t … can’t place.

Until Tredd comes out of the barracks, Luche and Axis on his heels and yells out a vile curse, fist already cocked back to punch N!Axis one more time, and Nyx starts to step forward to try to keep the bloodshed at bay-.

Freezes with all the others when the scrawny teen is suddenly there, between N!Axis and Tredd, a lethal, furious pressure rippling through the air as a host of ghostly weapons point right at Tredd’s heart, “Are we going to have a problem?” The teen asks and there is something eerie underlying his voice, some kind of echo of voices, old and cold and cruel that makes him seem suddenly not a teen at all but something entirely ancient and inhuman.

Lucis Caelum, wheezes something in Nyx’s mind as he struggles to breathe, angry, ANGRY Lucis Caelum.

N!Axis calls him off, which surprises Nyx until he sees the look in the younger Arra’s eyes. Loyalty. Fervent, utter loyalty. A devotion given only to the best of Chief’s and closest of family.

And oh. OH. That … that explains the rage, the fury, the slurs and the screaming. N!Axis wasn’t defending a foreign king who distantly aided refugee’s.

He’d been defending the father of his Chief. The father of family, for all the boy doesn’t wear an Arra braid (yet. If N!Axis doesn’t put a braid in that boy’s hair by the end of the month Nyx will eat his shoes).

No one moves to stop them as they leave, hands linked together, straight backed and thin, worn down but proud.

Nyx eyes the expressions on he faces of Tredd, Luche, and Axis and feels uneasy for reasons he can’t name.

#SE asks #anon asks #Secret Engima Rambles #Nox verse #Nox verse Main

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ashintheairlikesnow · 4 years

Text

The Rescue: Danny’s Mom, Part 2

(since everyone wanted Danny’s Mom, Part 2, here you go! I give you Ryan Michaelson’ s first major protective outburst on Danny’s behalf post-rescue! CW: serious parental emotional abuse/manipulation and certain coping mechanisms common to children who spend time in foster care are referenced here in a big way. Danny’s parents/background actually feeds heavily into his difficulty in recovery. Also referenced/implied non con/abuse/torture while he was with Bram)

Tagging @spiffythespook, @special-spicy-chicken, and @bleeding-demon-teeth - ask to be tagged if you want! After this I’m going to start working on Bad Things Happen Bingo

Continued from The Rescue: Danny’s Mom, Part 1

“How could you let that happen to your face?”

There’s a half-second, in the little break room, where the only sound is the soft humming of the vending machines and the low chatter of other people speaking down the hall. Even that soft sound is nearly drowned out by the simple rhythmic rush of the blood in Danny’s veins.

“Oh, sweetheart,” Corrine murmurs, turning his head from side to side to take a better look. Danny is so good at holding still, now, for touching he doesn’t want. He is so, so good at it. He takes a deep breath as silently as he can, holds it for five counts, slowly exhales.

Her eyes trace the line of his scars, noting the way they perfectly echo the shape of the metal, the tiny pockmarked spots where the jagged edges were designed to dig in and hurt worse. Danny is a good boy, there is no lesson from Abraham he has not learned, and he holds himself still under her touch.

Hands there are always more hands

Please stop touching me

Please stop

Stop

He keeps all of it, the disobedience, the pleading, the rebellious wrong thoughts, behind his teeth. Abraham would be proud of him, he thinks, and hunches himself over just a little more, until he is nearly down to Ryan’s height, his shoulders up near his chin.

Corrine’s mouth twists, just a little, as she notes where the wounds have covered over the freckles that she once told a very young Danny, with an impish sort of smile, set him apart from the crowd. Oh, honey, don’t be ashamed of your freckles. It’s good that you look so different from us in the photos. “What did you do?”

Ryan freezes, his mouth open. Corrine’s expression isn’t new - the memories Abraham trained out of him flash past, half-glimpses and moments of a life he barely remembers living now. He’s not supposed to remember, and he tries to remember Abraham instead, but he can’t quite force Danny all the way back down.

She has always looked at him this way.

Oh, Danny, did you get in a fight again? Well, ask yourself - what are you doing to get those boys to pick on you so much?

(now, little Red, I want you to tell me what you did to deserve what I’m about to do to you)

Your father found the stash you’ve been hiding in the treehouse, young man. Shouldn’t you be over this by now? How long exactly do you need to be out of that group home before you stop hoarding food?

(you did such a good job cooking our dinner tonight, didn’t you? oh, no, you won’t be eating it. you haven’t been good at all tonight. maybe you’ll be feeling a little more well-behaved by breakfast, hm?)

Honestly, Daniel Michaelson, what were you thinking? How could you be so stupid? It’s like we don’t even know you!

(I know you so well, sweet thing, I have cut open all your mysteries and made them mine)

Oh, Danny, of course we care deeply about you, it’s just…

(nate and I are the only ones who could ever love you now)

Clearly, this was your idea, once again. You're the bigger brother, you were supposed to be smarter than this! I swear, sometimes I regret ever adopting you-... oh, Danny, darling, I didn’t mean that, I swear… you forgive me, right?

(what a good, good boy you are for me. you’ll be my good puppy and forgive me everything)

"I don’t know what I did,” He answers, honestly. After four years, he still doesn’t know what sin he committed, what grievous error, that meant he had deserved this. “I’m so sorry."

His lips almost don’t move, air barely turns to sound. Her fingers on his face are too much like Abraham’s - the ends are cold, although her palms are warm. In one of the pulses of memory he isn’t allowed to have (there is no life before Abraham) he suddenly knows Corrine has a circulation problem, her fingers are always cold, have always been cold.

“Don’t worry, sweetie,” Corrine says gently to him, with real affection and concern. “We’ll make sure no one gets any shots of this on the way out to the car.”

Ryan stares at Corrine with his mouth hanging open, his hand out to grab her by the arm to pull her back. “Jesus Christ, Mom! You think he gives a shit about that right now? What the fuck is wrong with you?”

Danny’s eyes swing to Ryan, blinking away the tears that had tried to protect him from the look on Corrine’s face, and he nearly quails before the righteous anger on his little brother’s. Sometimes Nate gets angry like that, but Abraham always makes him so very sorry he ever tried to fight back.

Don't argue, Red and Daniel think simultaneously, for once the beaten puppy and Corrine Michaelson's broken son agree. It only makes it worse. Please, he likes it when they fight back at first.

(you’ve got a mouth on you. I’m going to fix that)

“What?” Corrine turns to look at her younger son and her hands finally - finally - drop from Danny’s face, but he can still feel them, still feel the imprint of fingers along his skin, the slight scratch of the long nails, the chill of her fingers. “What did I say? He won’t want anyone to see his face like this, and the last thing we need is photos out there circulating-”

“What did you… you have got to be kidding me. You are literally the only person in this room who gives a shit about whether or not some dumbass takes a cell phone shot of his fucking face. Mom. You know what you just said is shitty!”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Corrine snaps back, the first hint of real temper breaking her perfectly calm, I-am-the-best-mother façade.

Danny flinches, then catches himself, balling his hands into fists until the pain of his nails digging into his palms helps him keep himself still.

Never flinch.

(good boy)

“All I did,” Corrine says, her voice suddenly dripping with exaggerated patience as two of the police walk past the breakroom door and glance in on their way, “was ask how this happened.”

“No,” Ryan says coldly. “That’s not what you said and you know it, Mother.”

Please stop fighting, please stop, please don’t argue

(what the fuck, Nate? I took him because I love you!)

B-Bram, please, d-don’t say you’re h-h-hurting him because of me-

(I did all of this for you! Isn’t this what you wanted, a real house, a real family? I forgave you for killing mine, and I gave you a new one, and this is how you thank me?)

“Oh, don’t you Mother me, Ryan Michaelson-”

“And don’t you Ryan Michaelson me! I’m twenty-four years old, Mom, go ahead and pull out the middle name, you’re about to see that that shit doesn’t work anymore.” Ryan’s voice is too loud, too full of fury. Danny cringes away from them both, taking one step back, hoping no one will be angry with him for breaking a rule, even this much.

“Patrick, be a dear and close the door,” Corrine says coldly, and her husband glances up from his phone, apparently unbothered by the familial conflict taking place right in front of him. He moves to the door, closing it until it clicks.

Danny’s breath catches.

Don’t lock me in, don’t lock me up, I’m sorry, whatever I did, I’m so sorry. I swear I won’t do it again.

“Oh, yeah, can’t let the Canadians see you being like this, can we?” Ryan rolls his eyes. “One of them might start calling American newspapers from the sheer scandal, huh? Like police officers don’t have more important shit to think about!”

“Ryan, you need to calm yourself down. I don’t know why you’re so upset with me, but look, you’re scaring your brother-” Corrine gestures towards Danny, who stares down at her hand as it moves, terrified she’ll touch him with cold fingers again. “-and it’s been four years since we’ve been together, so let’s try and make this reunion more pleasant, hm?”

“Okay, first off,” Ryan yanks a sweater and jeans out of the plastic bag he brought in with him, all but throws it on the table, and rounds on his mother. “First off, you haven’t seen him in five years, or did you forget you basically threw him out of the house when he said he wouldn’t work for the company?”

Danny’s eyebrows come together in confusion. He doesn’t remember this. Is this a true thing? Sometimes his memories aren’t real, any longer, and he loses too many of them to tell the difference. Sooner or later Abraham cuts them out again.

Corrine puts one hand up to her collarbone. “Ryan, how dare you. We never did any such thing-”

“And secondly, and no you’re not going to stop me, Mom - he didn't let anyone do anything! I can’t believe I’m explaining this, you are my mother, if anything you should be the one explaining it to me!” He moves to step in front of Danny, who steps just as quickly back and away from him, hugging the blanket around himself.

Never pull away

(never pull away from me)

But they're not you, Abraham, is it still true if they’re not you?

“Well of course that’s not what I meant,” Corrine replies, and the distantly angry chill in her voice is too much like Abraham when he disobeys, when he’s a bad dog. “Don’t put words in my mouth, Ryan.”

“Mom. It's not 'putting words in your mouth' to repeat the exact thing you just said. What the absolute one hundred percent fuck? I genuinely cannot believe you can’t find it in yourself to be nice to him for five minutes, today of all days!"

“The boy’s got a point, Corrine,” Patrick rumbles, slipping his phone back into his pocket. Danny knows he uses the phone for business - he was probably checking on a deal or something, Daniel Michaelson thinks - and knows, the same sudden way he remembered about Corrine’s hands, that Patrick was the one who told him not to come back to the house until he agreed to work for the company and stop wasting his time being anything but a Michaelson boy. “Ryan did tell us to give the poor boy some space, for God’s sake.”

Danny’s eyes flicker to his father - or as close to one as he’s ever had - and there’s sympathy in Patrick, faded and by no means guaranteed, but even the amount he sees is a surprise to the man Danny used to be.

“Stop victim-blaming my big brother, Mom!” Ryan sounds exasperated. "I just. Seriously, this is why you should have spoken to Dr. Laurent before you came in here to see him. You obviously shouldn’t-... I shouldn’t have called you." Ryan glances over his shoulder at Danny, who tries to settle his face into calm acceptance, submission, whatever Ryan wants to see.

I can be good, I’m being good, this isn’t my fault, please don’t punish me.

“I’m so sorry, Dan,” Ryan says, and there’s no anger in his voice, no hint that Danny will be in trouble for causing a fight like he usually is. “I’m sorry that they managed to turn this into an argument when you haven’t seen everyone in so long.”

"You’re the one who lost his temper, and she is not victim-blaming him." Patrick glances sidelong at Corrine with an isn’t that just like our boy? expression, and Ryan looks nearly ready to explode. "Honestly, Ryan, the dramatics."

“I’m not being-... look, can you guys just step out and talk to the cops? We need to get Danny and Mr. Vandrum out of here so they can go back with me to the hotel.” Ryan turns back to Danny, giving him a slight smile. “The room has two beds and a fold-out sofa, so there’s lots of space for everyone, okay? I told you when I saw you before that I’d bring Mr. Vandrum back with us for now, and I meant it. Okay, Danny?”

“Oh-okay,” Danny whispers, looking down as Ryan pushes a folded sweater and jeans into his arms. Somehow, Ryan manages to do it without touching him even once, and Danny feels a nearly-painful spike of gratitude. "It's Red, though."

And I sleep on the floor, puppies don’t sleep in beds unless their owners say it’s okay, and Abraham’s in a hospital, he can’t tell me it’s okay.

Maybe if Nate says it’s okay? Maybe I can sleep with him?

(nate, you have to understand how it works. I took him because I love you, because when you’re like us, you need to have someone ready and perfect until you can make them on your own)

"What?" Ryan blinks.

"My name is Red and I belong to Abraham Denner." Danny points at his neck before he remembers that the police took his collar away and his hand falters, drops nervously back to his side, his other arm clutching the new clothing tighter to his chest. “Thank you for new clothes. Am I allowed to wear them?”

“Yes, sure, Red, of course you are, sorry I got your name wrong, okay?” Ryan’s eyes search his, and Danny hopes whatever he finds in them is enough that he doesn’t regret that Danny is alive, doesn’t think maybe he’d have been better off dead.

Sometimes Danny thinks it might have been easier if-

“We’ll get you changed,” Ryan says gently, speaking in a low voice. His hands go out as if to take Danny by the shoulders, and when Danny steps back, Ryan’s hands drop. “S-sorry, man. I’m kind of a hugger... you remember right? I’m trying to remember not to, I just...”

“I remember you are,” Danny says. “I remember. Please don’t, though.”

(you keep saying you don’t like this but we both know you do)

No, I don’t, please, I don’t-

(good boy, you know you don’t get to choose, this body doesn’t belong to you)

“I won’t, D-... Red. I won’t, I promise.” Ryan looks over his shoulder. “Can you guys just go, maybe? Just go on. I appreciate you bringing his clothing and everything, but… but I don’t think this was a good idea.”

“Ryan, we are his parents!” Still, Corrine’s protest seems half-hearted, and the part of him that is still who he used to be thinks she looks relieved, not upset.

Danny, what is wrong with you? Taking your brother with you to see those delinquent friends of yours? Bringing him home drunk and claiming it was his idea? I don’t want to see your face right now, young man!

(show me your face, puppy. god, you’re so beautiful now. has anyone ever told you you’re beautiful?)

Sweetheart, I don’t want you thinking about a career outside of the company. Don’t you think three years is enough wasted time after graduation?

(don’t worry, sweet thing, I would never let you die, I want to keep you forever. there could never be enough time for me to be finished with you)

Mrs. Verona was cleaning your room and found this. Care to explain to me why you have a backpack in the back of your closet? Are you planning to run away, young man?

(go ahead, try to run away. we’re thirty miles from the nearest anything. you won’t get far, and I’ll come for you, and you’ll regret that you ever, ever tried)

This is a family business, Daniel Michaelson, and if you want to be welcome in this house, you will be a part of it! Walk out that door and you may as well not be part of this family at all!

(this is your family now, little Red)

“... at least go talk to the trauma expert first, okay?” Ryan is still talking, and Danny tries to focus on him, the hunger in him buzzing and buzzing around his mind with the memories he’s not supposed to have. “Like I did? She said it’s going to take a while, maybe a long time, for him to feel comfortable with us again, and you-... you’re…” Ryan sighs, and Danny feels an urge to reach out and hug him, and the terror of the thought locks his muscles in place. “You’re not helping.”

“Oh, God,” Corrine whispers, and when Danny looks at her, there are tears in her eyes. “Oh, we’re not, are we? I’m sorry, Ryan. We’ll go see if Dr. Laurent can be reached to speak with us, and we’ll meet you at the hotel tomorrow, okay?”

“Okay, Mom,” Ryan says, visibly relieved. “Okay. Thank you.”

You’re not sorry, the snide voice in Danny whispers. You just noticed the doorknob turning and remembered someone might hear you. Can’t look bad in front of people, can we? No, we’re just a wreck in private like every other family-

Stop it, these are wrong thoughts

Stop having the wrong thoughts

Sure enough, the door swings open, but it’s not the police, or detectives.

It’s Nate.

Corrine and Patrick turn to look at him with confusion, but Danny is already moving, and Nate is only looking at him. Nate is always only looking at him.

From the moment Danny came back to himself in the truck, Nate looks at him the way a man might look when given water in the desert, and he is moving too. Danny buries himself into Nate’s side, his knees shaking, lightheaded from hunger and fear and worry, but here is something he knows, here is the man who still smells faintly of gasoline and smoke, sliding an arm around him, and Danny fits easily against him the way he always has.

“I assume,” Patrick says, with a note of confusion, “that this is Mr. Nathaniel Vandrum.”

“Th-that’s me,” Nate says, his eyes scanning Corrine and Patrick thoughtfully - his eyes are always thoughtful, calculating, analyzing. Danny tucks his head into the crook of Nate’s neck. “I’d sh-sh-shake your hand, b-but my right h-hand doesn’t work. Pleased to m-m-meet you.”

“Of course we should thank you for saving our son,” Corrine says, suddenly warm and relieved and every inch the image of the perfect mother. There’s a hint of distance even to her act, though, and Danny thinks Nate isn’t fooled.

“No n-n-need. Only wish I c-could have saved him s-s-sooner.” There’s real pain in the words, and Danny closes his eyes, his ear against Nate’s collarbone, feeling the vibration of his speech through his chest.

“I thought you said he doesn’t touch anyone now,” Corrine says, softly, to Ryan.

“Just Nate,” Ryan replies, bitterly. “Just him. Go on and ask about Dr. Laurent. I’m going to get these two changed and see if the cops’ll let us go back to the hotel for the night. I know they want us back in the morning. Dad, I’m sure you’ve got company business, just let me handle it.”

“You’re twenty-four, are you sure you’re capable-”

“Dad. I got this. Just go.” There’s a pause, but Danny doesn’t open his eyes. He listens, instead, to Nate’s heartbeat, to the sound of his breathing. He’s listened to it so many nights, crying into Nate’s shoulder praying Abraham won’t wake up at the sound, sleeping curled around him to get as far from Abraham as he can without breaking the rules on the nights he is told to get into the bed, the nights he is sick and Nate lays with him on the floor next to his mat until his fevers break.

“Just go,” Ryan says again, more heavily. “I’ll call you when they dismiss us. My room number is 218, and there’s only the one hotel so I can’t imagine you’ll struggle to find it. Mom, can you start looking for a therapist, I think he’s gonna need-”

“I’m sure he will, dear.” Corrine is quiet for a second, and then she says softly, “We’ll see you later, Danny, okay, darling?”

Why call me ‘darling’? It’s not like there are any cameras here

Shut up stop it

(no one else will ever love you now)

Joke’s on you, they didn’t love me then

“Red,” Danny mumbles against Nate, whose arm tightens just a little, warm and solid around his back. Nate is safety - Nate is certainty - Nate hasn’t ever hurt him without being forced to. “My name is Red and I belong to-”

“She knows, buddy,” Ryan says quickly. “Good night, Mom. Night, Dad. I’ll call you later.”

The door closes, and Danny feels they are gone, but he doesn’t open his eyes. He just lets himself rest against Nate, trying to remember that he is safe, that Abraham is locked to a hospital bed, tied down the way he used to tie Danny down, voiceless the way he used to make Danny voiceless.

“Th-those are your p-p-parents?” Nate asks, and Danny luxuriates in the simple safety of his low, deep voice.

“Yeah.” Ryan sighs, heavily. “I left you some clothes on the table. I don’t know how well they’ll fit, I mostly just kind of guessed, but the cops want what you were wearing when you set the fire, so… you’ll have to change. Look, I got us a hotel room. They’ll want you back tomorrow, but the last person I spoke to said it looks like you’re good to come back to the states after that.”

There’s a silence. “I d-d-don’t have anywhere t-to go,” Nate finally says, a little heavily. “M-my... everything is g-g-gone. I don’t-”

“Yeah, you do.” Danny hears the door open again, Ryan’s voice a little fainter with distance. “I’ve been living in Danny’s apartment, so he still has it.” There’s a long pause.

When Ryan speaks again, he sounds like he’s being forced to eat something he hates. “You’re coming home with us. With... with Red and I. I don’t know what the shit happened to him, but I can already tell I can’t do this by myself and trust me, my parents will only make it worse. I don’t like it, but… you’re coming with us. Get changed. I’ll go talk to the cops.”

The door closes, and the two of them are alone. Danny enjoys the silence, this time. It’s the silence he wants. He’s so hungry, but he can tell Nate about it later and Nate will give him permission to eat. Right now he just wants to breathe, to feel Nate’s warmth, to have something he knows here with him after it’s over.

Someone who is safe to talk to, to have wrong thoughts with. Someone who has wrong thoughts, too.

“R-Red?”

“Hm?” Danny finally pulls back, just enough to stand up at his full height, looking down a little at the older man. The self-protective coldness he holds himself with is gone now that they’re alone, his jaw softened, his mouth lifted in a half-smile right where the scar cuts slightly into his top lip. Danny loves him, he is so good for him, he will always be so good for Nate.

He belongs to Nate, now - now that Abraham is not his owner any longer, it has to be Nate, who saved him.

“I don’t th-th-think your b-brother likes me very much,” Nate says dryly.

Probably because he knows I’m yours, now, instead.

(look at you, puppy, I’ve made you so perfect for my Nate)

Danny huffs a nearly-soundless laugh.

Abraham is right, he is always right, about everything.

He is so perfect, for Nate.

He is so good.

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