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bigfrozenfan-fanfics · 3 years

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Chapter 15 - Valley of the Living Rock

Links: Chapter overview, Character list, Map, Glossar Rating: M over all Publishing cycle: each Friday at 6:00 pm CEST dst/UTC +2:00 on (link) Remarks: all my chapters contain carefully selected music tracks. It’s your own decision if you want to use them or not while reading. The purpose is to musically support the respective mood of the plot. If you can please use a browser for reading (not the Tumblr app) due to the text formatting and music.

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Elsa could not avert her gaze as they passed the ice palace on her left about an hour after dark. She had placed her forearms on top of each other on the side of the wagon and supported her chin on her left hand while she visibly enjoyed the sight. A pale blue glow lit up the palace from the inside and made the filigree structure visible from afar. It was like a beacon in the night and beautiful to look at.

“This is what I should have created?” she asked Anna softly, “It is simply fantastic.”

“Yes, that was you, Elsa, all alone. I'll have to tell you the long story about it sometime after. It was your refuge and is now the home of Marshmallow and the Snowgies.”

Elsa turned to her with a questioning expression on her face. But Anna laid a hand on hers before she could ask for it and said, smiling, “Be patient. It's an exciting as well as funny story and you'll certainly have many more questions about it.”

Elsa nodded and turned around again afterwards. “All right", she said very quietly and, "I'd love to have a look at it from the inside,” more to herself than to Anna.

But Anna had heard it and said almost as softly, “You will, sis. We will visit your palace together. Hopefully very soon.”

Suddenly Anna remembered all the events when she was looking for her sister back then. Except for the pure beauty of the palace itself and the fact that she had met Kristoff on her arduous journey, however, she did not have very pleasant memories of it and she was somehow glad that Elsa did not insist on her story right now. There was plenty of time for that in another day; she thought.

But it wouldn't be easy for her to reopen her past, she knew that for sure now. She bit her lower lip slightly as she thought about it, but quickly shook the thought off again. There were more important things to do now and soon they would reach the Valley of the Living Rock. Her eyes fell on Olaf, who was sitting directly opposite her. Somehow he seemed to know exactly what she was thinking, for he nodded at her in a knowing way and looked at her sympathetically.

But as if she had guessed the right moment in advance, Kristoff just called forward in a loud voice and asked Mattias to come back to him. Both wagons stopped and Mattias rode to his side.

“I know a shortcut and we have to turn off further ahead soon. The path is hard to see, especially now in the dark. It's best if I get in front of your wagon and drive ahead. Sven also knows the way and will lead us there safely.”

“All right, Kristoff. I'll let my people know up front, and we'll come after you. How long will it take us to get there?”

“A little over an hour, I'd say. We'll have to walk the rest as soon as the road is too narrow for the wagons. Besides, the area is very rocky and there are active geysers there.”

Kristoff saw, in the flickering light of the lantern hanging outside the wagon, how Mattias looked at him in astonishment, finally just nodded and rode back. Kristoff pulled up slowly when he saw Mattias waving. The wagon in front also had a lantern hanging on the outside and as he drove by he saw two sceptical looking faces. Trygve and Kristina were obviously not very eager to meet living legends from an ancient fable story in the middle of the night. He nodded at them smiling, “Don't worry, folks. The trolls are harmless. I grew up among them.”

But Kristoff did not see them grinning at each other anymore and Trygve tapped his temple with his finger and shook his head.

Olaf climbed to the front beside Kristoff and laughed in his inimitable way: “I am looking forward to seeing everyone again, especially the little ones. They're always so funny.”

Kristoff looked over at him and was about to answer him when Anna's head appeared between them and said to Kristoff conspiratorially quietly, “Kristoff, I think it's better if you go ahead later and make sure that only Grand Pabbie is waiting for us alone. I don't want Elsa to be frightened. You know how trolls are. Maybe you should warn him about her condition right away.” Turning to Olaf, she quickly added, “I'm sorry, Olaf, but you won't be able to see the little ones tonight.”

“Never mind, Anna, we'll visit them some other time soon,” he returned happily and laughed at her.

Anna looked at Kristoff again and he nodded. “All right, Anna. I hadn't thought of that yet.”

She put a hand on his shoulder with a smile. “Thanks, honey.”

When she sat back down again, Elsa grabbed her arm and asked, “Trolls? We are going to see trolls now?”

Anna pressed her lips together with raised eyebrows and wide open eyes and felt caught. Kristoff hadn't exactly been quiet earlier, and Elsa was now certainly feeling insecure. Why hadn't she instructed Kristoff before.

“Um ... well, actually only to one troll. He is very old and wise, has great amount of knowledge. You have seen him twice before and he has known you since we were both little kids. Kristoff and I hope he can help us with your lost memories. He has certain abilities, you know? You don't have to be afraid of him, even if he looks a little ... strange at first glance.” Anna searched Elsa's face to see if she seemed afraid.

But Elsa just smiled and replied, “I think I have many more miracles to prepare for. I'm beginning to feel as if I've woken up in a fairy tale that's come to life.”

~~~

Yelana had now been on the road for hours and stopped at a lively little stream to refresh herself and give the reindeer water. The advantage of travelling cross-country, as opposed to a wagon on a reindeer, was to save time and travel. She knew the area pretty well, so there was no danger of getting lost in the woods. But despite the time saved, dusk had already fallen and she would not quite make it to Arendelle in daylight. It did not make sense to arrive there in the middle of the night.

She looked around and found a good place to spend the night. The foliage of a big tree was very dense and underneath it was a small open area that would protect her from possible rain. At least as long as it did not pour.

She led the reindeer there and tied the line of the harness to a thick branch. Then she gathered lichen, moss and some mushrooms for the animal. Unfortunately, she herself had not had time to provide for her own food, but this area here offered enough plants that were full of edible berries. She gathered enough of them to satisfy her hunger to some extent.

She then cut off some green pine branches from various trees around her and used them to make a temporary camp for the night. Finally she sat down in front of it and thought about her next steps. Would the council in Arendelle even believe her? She had to find Queen Anna first and inform her about the new situation. It would change everything and possibly endanger the newly won peace treaty between Arendelle and her people considerably. Would she be able to help her to regain her place as leader of the Northuldra?

Yelana sighed and shook her head. Probably not; she thought. In order to proceed against Kolgrimr without endangering further human lives, someone with magical abilities would be needed. Someone like Elsa. Right now they were all so dependent on their fifth spirit, however Elsa was unfortunately out of action.

Yelana reached into her bag and pulled out her scarf that she once got from her mother. She put it around her shoulders and wrapped herself tightly in it. Lost in thought, she stroked the five symbols on it and thought of her past, of the time when everything was still in balance and they all lived in harmony with themselves and everything around them. Long before the fateful day when King Runeard appeared and since then everything, but really everything, had gone out of control.

The peace had not lasted long and she would have to fight for it now, even if it cost her her own life. Once again, she had been thoroughly mistaken about someone, for as it now turned out, Gyda had been giving her son shelter for years and unnoticed. It had probably been she herself who had poisoned her son's being with her hatred and had turned him into a monster. Someone who was now even willing to kill.

Under no circumstances was Gyda allowed to lead the people of the sun. Not ever. She would make sure of it. But Yelana did not yet know how she would do it. She needed support. She needed help from Arendelle.

She gritted her teeth in annoyance and disappointment at herself as she thought back to the Norting and what she had told the men there.

Gyda had lied right into her face and she had believed everything.

~~~

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Kristoff stopped the wagon and jumped off the trestle. “End of the line. We have to walk from here,” he called out.

Rocks rose up to their left and right, and the path had become narrow and rocky. Further ahead, the steam of the geysers enveloped the rest of the path.

Kristoff waved back to Mattias and the other two drivers and then went to Sven to make sure that everything was all right with him and that he felt comfortable. Mattias said something to his people and then came forward alone.

“Are we there?” he asked.

Anna replied in Kristoff's place, “Pretty much, Mattias, but Kristoff will go ahead alone first and announce our arrival.”

Mattias nodded and got off his horse to stretch his legs a little.

“I'll be back soon,” Kristoff said as he came back to them and got a torch from inside the wagon. He lit it on the lantern and disappeared shortly afterwards in the fog in front of them.

They waited and it took at least half an hour until finally the other two came to them as well. Trygve carried the lantern from the wagon and asked, “Is there a problem?”

“No, it's all right. Kristoff went ahead alone and should be back any moment,” Mattias replied to them. He saw their skeptical looks, which were directed past him to the front and said, “You don't have to come along if you don't want to.”

“It's okay, General” Kristina said, “We've been through so much already, we don't want to miss the opportunity to encounter a myth.”

She looked at her companion, who nodded affirmatively, “We'll come.”

“All right,” Mattias said, “to be honest, I feel the same way, but keep your eyes open all the time, remember our duty is to protect the royal family at all cost.”

A few minutes later, a faint reddish spot dancing up and down in the thick haze like a will-o'-the-wisp announced Kristoff's return.

After he gave his okay, they all left. Anna walked ahead at his side, followed by Elsa with Olaf, then Mattias, who looked around attentively, and in the end Trygve and Kristina, who looked visibly nervous and kept peering back over their shoulders into the dark. Kristina rubbed her wet palms against her leg dresses.

The little geysers hissed and enveloped them in their damp steam as they passed them. However, after a short time the view became clearer and the narrow path opened up into a lower, almost circular area where there was a large rock. On it sat a quirky looking creature covered with moss, wearing a chain of yellow shining crystals around his neck. It was Grand Pabbie, the king of the trolls, who looked calmly and serenely towards them and had folded his big hands in his lap.

They were already halfway to the clearing when Elsa only now noticed him and stopped in surprise. She stared at him and began to nervously knead her hands in front of her. She hadn't expected this after all. All the others behind her also stopped and waited to see what might happen. Only Olaf ran on and stood next to Anna, who now stopped right in front of the troll. She hadn't noticed anything behind her yet.

The old troll bowed before her. “Your Majesty ..., Kristoff ... it is never a dull moment with you all. Only this time you're going to give me a real challenge.” He looked at Elsa in between them and it took a few seconds before he finally said something again. “She's afraid.”

Anna's head spun around and she ran the few steps back to Elsa, took her hands in hers to calm her down and looked deep into her eyes. “Elsa, you don't have to be afraid of him, really. He only wants to help. Please come forward with me, I'll be by your side at all times,” she said softly and almost imploringly. “Trust me, there's no danger at all.”

Anna felt her sister's hands tremble slightly and for a few moments Elsa didn't react but just stared at the troll. Then her sister took a deep breath and nodded. She looked at Anna and squeezed her hands.

“Okay, let's do it. Whatever come next, we'll do it ... together.”

Anna smiled in relief and led her to Grand Pabbie, holding one hand. They stopped in front of him and Elsa scrutinized him closely, looking at every square inch of the old troll and wondering how such a creature could even exist.

He was alive, there was no doubt about that, but his hair and eyebrows seemed to be made of dry straw and there even grew a small bundle of it out of his ears. His bulbous nose was unnaturally large and the small indentations in it, which were probably the pores of his skin, looked more like the surface of a weathered stone, as did his skin, which showed traces of moss. His moss mantle looked somehow ... fresh, as if it had been harvested in the morning dew and simply peeled off in one piece as a blanket from the ground. The transparent crystals he wore around his neck on a willow rod chain glowed from inside without any visible light source and it almost seemed as if this glow was pulsating slightly.

Finally she looked up into his night-black eyes and held her breath. His gaze seemed to penetrate her and literally nailed her to the spot. His eyebrows lifted and he stretched out his short arms towards her, palms up. He obviously wanted her to put her hands in his. She felt Anna's handshake and her thumb stroking the back of her hand.

She took her eyes off Grand Pabbie and instead looked at her sister questioningly. She now released Elsa's hand and nodded encouragingly. “Go ahead, Elsa. That's just his special way of finding out hidden things inside us. This way he can feel and see what's bothering us. He can help you with that,” Anna said and looked into the troll's face. “At least I hope so,” she then added somewhat more quietly.

Elsa hesitated but finally raised both hands and slowly lowered them onto Grand Pabbie's large four-finger palms. When she touched them, all she felt was a cold, rough surface and a gentle pressure as the troll embraced her hands and held them.

For a while, nothing happened at all, everyone just stood there and concentrated on what was happening. Grand Pabbie had now closed his eyes and his bushy eyebrows were drawn together in deep concentration. There was a tense silence.

Then the old troll suddenly moaned and stared at Elsa. “You really have a big problem, Elsa, and I'm afraid I can't help you. You're under some kind of spell. Someone with magical powers has blocked the access to your inner self along with your memories.”

~~~

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To be continued ...

I hope you have enjoyed this chapter! Please leave a comment if you liked the story, I would be pleased to read your opinions, even criticisms. If you want to be tagged as soon I publish the next chapter please let me know, except you are already tagged :-)

Tagging: @karma26 @whether-near-to-me-or-far @annaofthenorthernlights @igotelsapregnanthelp @the-fifth-spirit-elsa

#frozen #frozen2 #frozen3 #fanfic #epic novel #the broken bridge #part two #chapter 15 #bigfrozenfan

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davids-cartoon-corkboard · 4 years

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I have said a Lot about the “Raph is a system” theory over the past several months, so this is something of a compilation post. It’s got some new stuff, it’s got some old stuff. (You’re reading Part 1) (Part 2 is here) (Part 3 is here)

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Firstly, “system” is the term for someone with Dissociative Identity Disorder, or DID. (The term can also apply to some folks with OSDD.) Someone might develop DID after experiencing long-term trauma at an early age- roughly five or six years old. To paraphrase the DSM-V:

1. We’ve seen three (possibly four) distinct personality states who speak, act, and perceive others differently.

2. The personality states, or “alters”, don’t necessarily share memory, and Donnie insinuated in “The Clothes Don’t Make the Turtle” that Raph has a bad memory in general.

3. Problems arise when alters don’t get along or aren’t on the same page. That none of them seem to be quite aware they’re a system doesn’t help either; it’s hard to work on communication and cooperation when you don’t know they need to be worked on!

4. This whole situation isn’t a normal part of a broadly accepted cultural or religious practice, or just Raph playing make-believe. (Though I wonder if he had “imaginary friends” when he was younger...)

5. It’s also not because Raph’s been smoking the devil’s lettuce or whatever. “Pizza Puffs” was one long weed joke and he was the only one “sober” (not poisoned) throughout! We don’t see this happen to other mutants, so it’s not a bizarre side effect of mutagen either.

(I’ve seen a few people joke that Mikey has “multiple personalities”, but that’s a tad yikesy and also just plain incorrect. His “doctor” personas are something he does deliberately, and youngest siblings are just Like That.)

So yeah, Raph is pretty heavily DID-coded. We’ve seen four alters so far:

“Host” Raph (HR): He’s our everyday Raph. A “host” is an alter who fronts most of the time and takes care of “business as usual” situations. They are often unaware of past traumatic events, such that they can appear “normal”. (Ex: the host of a child who lives with an abusive parent could be unaware of the abuse. Otherwise, they might cry or be uncooperative whenever the parent is near, further invoking their wrath. This unawareness allows them to be a “good child”, and stay under the parent’s radar sometimes.) Some systems have more than one host, but that the others have shown up so rarely in this story suggests HR is the only host (for now?).

Savage Raph (SR): Debuting in “Man vs. Sewer”, he’s a survival-oriented alter. HR probably could have defeated the Sando Brothers on his own under normal circumstances, but being in the middle of a breakdown doesn’t do much for your fighting skills. SR got pulled to the front to deal with them instead.

“Red” Raph (RR): “Red” is just a placeholder since we don’t actually know his name yet (or even if he has one, not all alters do), though I’ve also heard folks call him “Angel”. He’s got a “tough love” approach to problem-solving, which was probably a helpful thing in the past. LDM were no doubt rowdy children! We were (officially) introduced to him in “Pizza Puffs”.

Mind Raph (MR): MR could just be a manifestation of HR's thought process via Cartoon Goofery, but that possibility doesn’t give me anything to work with so I’m ignoring it. He’s pretty similar to HR, maybe a tad more upbeat. We (officially) met him in “Raph’s Ride-Along”.

When “Pizza Puffs” first aired, I was like “ah yes, this is the alter who has the cranky edgelord tendencies we’ve seen in previous iterations of Raph. He probably broods on rooftops in the rain when he’s in a bad mood.” Combining that with the whole “Red Angel” thing gives off some Batman vibes. And, of course, SR is similar to the Hulk. Those two heroes are pretty different, but they do have one major thing in common...

A sudden, violent loss. Given how prevalent rushing water is throughout “Man vs. Sewer”, I’m thinking a flood came through and separated Raph from his family. (You could probably argue that turbulent water symbolizes a turbulent subconscious? 🤷) Again, DID stems from long-term trauma, so Raph must have been gone for... a while. A couple of months, maybe more? It’s hard to say exactly; we have a little wiggle room when applying human developmental psychology to a human/turtle mutant. Since Splinter still needed to care for the other three, he wouldn’t have been able to devote much time to searching for Raph, and the New York City sewers go on for miles and miles. The longer Raph was alone, the more convinced he would have been that the others had drowned and he was the only survivor.

How old would he have been? I know the turtles are “different ages”, but they were all mutated at the same time so I’m pretty sure Splinter was just like “the littlest one is the youngest, the biggest one is the oldest, and the medium-sized ones are the middle children.” They’re all probably fourteenish by “Finale”. Back in “MvS”, Leo said, “You know how savage Raph gets when he’s alone”. He didn’t say anything like, “You know how savage Raph gets when he’s alone ever since such-and-such an incident happened”. This suggests that LDM straight-up don’t know something traumatic happened to Raph; they were too little to retain concrete memories of that time. In their minds, Raph has always been like this. Draxum isn’t known for his patience, so even though he wasn’t able to immerse the hatchlings in mutagen for long, they probably mature a bit faster than humans. And since humans usually can’t remember anything from before four years of age, three sounds about right for the turtles, though they would have been stronger and steadier on their feet than any human toddler. I doubt Raph would have survived otherwise.

I think he’s sort of... “stuck” back in that trauma. Catching food, building a fire, making a weapon, and getting camouflage aren’t the behaviors of someone who’s only been gone for a few minutes.

When SR called for help, I don’t think he was expecting anyone to answer.

But Raph did manage to hang onto something as he was swept away! It wasn’t much, but that little ragdoll gave him comfort while he was scared and alone.

(The rabbit design on Bruce’s pajamas is probably a coincidence, but...)

Raph seems the type to have sympathy for odd-looking toys. His knockoff Mrs. Cuddles plushie was the emotional crutch he needed back then.

And then he was separated from that as well. Lowkey associating Mrs. Cuddles with this traumatic event would explain why HR was so scared of her. That he doesn’t remember the trauma means he has no context for this fear, making it seem silly and baseless to him (and to the rest of his family), which is why he denied being scared at all in the first part of the “Mrs. Cuddles” episode. It would also explain why he collects teddy bears instead these days, they are a “safe” toy. (The moral of the story is to not make fun of triggers that seem silly.)

(I wonder what would happen if Mrs. Cuddles encountered Savage Raph? Perhaps he’d be quite sympathetic towards such a lonely little raggedy thing! Timestuck as he is, he probably wouldn’t question why a stuffed animal can talk... and it wouldn't be hard for her to persuade her “new bestest fwiend” to get rid of some “mean ol’ nasty sewew monstews” for her.)

That whole “sewer monsters” thing suggests Raph ran into... something while he was wandering alone. Y’all have heard those rumors about alligators living in the New York City sewers, right? Encountering Leatherhead could trigger a flashback.

It would be pretty easy to introduce Leatherhead into the narrative. One of the episodes the Rise crew had planned was titled “The Island of Dr. Noe”, and alligators have very impressive teeth. The Mirage comics had a story where Leatherhead and several cryptids were brought to an island to be hunted for sport.

Noe seems to have quite a few cronies/friends/rivals he could entertain this way. Since he’s got that obsession with Raph, Noe captures him as well, knocking him out with those darts so he can’t waste his energy trying to escape too soon. (Let’s just assume everyone’s powers are glitchy because they all hit another wave of puberty, meaning they can’t just curbstomp the lower-level villains lol.)

HR wakes up on the island and, of course, starts to panic because he’s lost and alone. While wandering, he runs into Leatherhead, which would trigger a flashback to getting attacked by that alligator all those years ago. But Leatherhead doesn’t want to fight! He’s just as scared and confused as HR is, and could really use a partner to help him survive this island.

HR and SR come into conflict because Leatherhead is/isn’t/is/isn’t/is/isn’t a threat. HR eventually wins out, reasoning that even if Leatherhead is that alligator, it wouldn’t be fair to judge him for what he did back when he was an animal.

But time and dissociation can make memories unclear. That our first look at Leatherhead was in Draxum’s “bluh bluh I’m gonna mutate all the humans” bit in “Bug Busters” means he’s a human-base mutant. He wasn’t the alligator back then, but the hunter tracking it. Leatherhead isn’t one of Noe’s targets, he is one of Noe’s guests! And he wants no one to interfere with his quarry, so he’ll play nice long enough for him and the snapper to take out the rest of the hunters and the freaks. Then the two of them will have the island all to themselves...

Years and years ago, Jack Marlin was a big game hunter prowling the New York City sewers in search of an alligator. He did manage to find and kill one, only to realize it had also been hunting! He had inadvertently saved the strangest little turtle creature.

Marlin had become too skilled at this point, the hunt held no challenge for him. This turtle sounded very young, and he was quite big and strong already. An adult could be tough and intelligent enough to entertain him. Marlin tried to get Raph to lead him back to “the others”. But Raph had been lost for some time, and as far as he knew, his family was dead. Hearing that put Marlin in quite the sour mood. A little mutant snapper is a better catch than none at all, so Marlin tried to haul Raph off. Raph fought back and bit off Marlin’s hand. He escaped, but lost his rabbit in the scuffle. Marlin retreated as well, taking some time to recover, scheme, and hunt other game. (And to pocket that rabbit. The blood loss had made him woozy, and he wanted to have some kind of proof he hadn’t just hallucinated the snapper.) Perhaps he turned that alligator’s hide into a vest, which provided the genetic material for his mutation when he eventually got bit by an oozesquito. Like his Mirage counterpart, Marlin didn’t take losing a limb as a sign he should retire, and instead got a tricked-out prosthetic. Who knows what he could do with it in such a mystic setting as Rise.

Raph eventually reunited with his family, but those distrustful, high-strung survivalist traits he had picked up weren’t helpful anymore. He once again had to be the good and patient big brother who didn’t bite when someone play-tackled him or shook him awake at three in the morning because they’d had a nightmare. Those two states gradually got partitioned off more and more, and now they know little, if anything, about each other.

So Leatherhead and HR are chasing away some mothmen or whatever, and things are going pretty well... until one of them knocks Leatherhead over and a familiar ragdoll rabbit falls out of his pocket. SR realizes that Leatherhead is Marlin and switches in to fight him off again. They’re evenly matched, or perhaps SR is even in danger of losing, when LDM arrive to provide support. Leatherhead is enough of a tactician to know that he should retreat. Donnie and Mikey pursue him while Leo stays behind, placing the rabbit in his stunned brother’s hands. “Remember when Pops made this for you? You were always really gentle with it, ‘cause he wasn’t good at sewing back then...”

(This thing really needs patching up, he’s got sewing stuff for whenever he needs to fix his bears/Blue isn’t a threat on his own/Wasn’t he just back at the lair?/Blue gave back the rabbit/Why does he feel like he got hit by a train?/Blue doesn’t want to fight?/ ...Leo?) And that’s enough for HR to switch back in. He’s probably missing memory from his whole time on the island, so while Leo does his best to tell him what happened, they don’t have enough puzzle pieces between them to truly figure out what's going on.

They defeat the bad guys, release the cryptids, save the day, etc. (Leatherhead managed to lose Donnie and Mikey in the woods. A battle for another day.) Once they return to the lair, HR gets help from Draxum to modify the memory spell from “E-Turtle Sunshine” so he can try to fill in the gaps. Surely he wouldn’t get rejected by his own subconscious... right?

Cue part three in the saga of Raph Punches Himself In The Face. SR isn’t happy that HR is essentially trying to poke at an improperly-healed wound, and attempts to chase him off. HR assumes that SR is just a psychic white blood cell like the Lou Jitsu constructs in Splinter’s mind, and retaliates.

But, of course, fighting is not the answer here. All that accomplishes is giving the body bruises. Eventually HR realizes “stay away” and “back off” are a little different than “get out”, and that SR is just scared. So HR tries another tactic. Over the following days and weeks, he tunes in to calmer memories and just sort of... talks. About what happened yesterday, about his teddy bear collection, about how he finally managed to get a good picture of that pizza pigeon. It takes a while to establish a connection, and even then, it’s spotty at best. Using the spell too much can cause headaches and nightmares. There are days when SR is nearby, and days when he’s not there at all. But he shows up when he can.

And then there’s awkward, stilted conversation and questions neither of them know how to answer and questions neither of them want to answer and more scrapes and bruises and strained silences and apologies, but they finally, finally reach a compromise. SR still doesn’t let HR near those memories, but he tells HR what happened as best he can. (The audience would see those memories, with SR as a voiceover.) Afterwards, HR still visits the mindscape that’s starting to become more solid. They talk some more, they watch light and shadow flow around them, they listen to half-forgotten lullabies on scratchy old cassette tapes. Eventually, HR doesn’t even need to use the memory spell, meditation is enough.

They’ll never get along all the time. But it’s a start.

(SR is going to be so clingy when it finally clicks for him when he finally lets himself believe that his family is alive.)

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This took eight million years lmao. Parts 2 and 3 will come out eventually, they’ll focus more on MR and RR. Let me know if I need to tag this stuff as anything.

The usual disclaimer applies, I am not a system or a mental health professional so if you’re one or both of those things then feel free to give me some of that good good constructive criticism.

#you called for help... but nobody came.#rottmnt #rottmnt theory #the 'raph is a system' theory #rottmnt raph #savage raph #mrs. cuddles #leatherhead #jack marlin #plot bunnies free to a good home lmao #long post

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wlntrsldler · 4 years

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No Clue (Bucky Barnes Imagine)

PROMPT: Y/N and Bucky hate each other. Nobody knows why. Whenever someone asks, the pair just say, “I have my reasons.” Some think that something happened between them when Bucky was in hiding. Some think that Bucky did something to Y/N when he was the Winter Soldier. Some think that there’s no actual reason- they simply hate each other.

MASTERLIST

There was an ongoing bet in the Tower. What was the real reason as to why you and Bucky hate each other? The problem is, nobody really knew exactly why you two did. It was like an unspoken truth that you both kept to yourselves and promised to take to the grave. The only thing people knew about you two was that you knew each other before you both joined the team. But of course, everyone on the team had their own experience with Bucky and yourself, individually, more so terrible and potentially life-threatening experiences over a pleasant ones.

“Can you not fight in front of the food?” Nat rolled her eyes, taking another spoonful of cereal to her mouth. “Your energy is upsetting me.”

“It’s not my fault Barnes doesn’t know how to say excuse me.”

“Who the fuck stops in the middle of the hallway?” Bucky hissed. “Like seriously? Who walks then just stops?”

“Who the fuck doesn’t look at where they’re going?”

“Again, your energy is upsetting me.” Nat said again, this time her tone harsher. “Stop bickering.”

“He started it.”

“Did not.”

“Did too.”

“Did no-”

“I give up.”Nat stood up, taking her bowl of cereal with her to her own room.

Bucky stared at you from across the table, his eyes burning holes through your skull. His nostrils were flared and you could see exactly where the coffee stain hit his white shirt. “So you’re not even gonna apologize for spilling coffee on me?”

You didn’t mean to make him spill his coffee. He ran into you, not the other way around. “I didn’t do shit to you, Barnes.”

“You spilled my coffee on me!” He exclaimed, waving his arms up and down to emphasize the stained state of his shirt. “And it was hot too. It burned me.”

“That sucks.”

Bucky sighed, closing his eyes and rubbing his temples. “You’re such a bitch, Y/N.”

“Thanks.”

He shook his head one more time before picking up his half-empty coffee mug and walking out of the dining room. You giggled under your breath, loving the way you were able to piss him off with the smallest things. He was so fun to mess with.

You can’t lie. Sometimes you purposely did things just to piss him off. What can you say? It was funny. Bucky always reacted so dramatically whenever you were involved and it was more fun pushing his buttons than doing the paperwork you were meant to be doing. You had a way of getting under his skin. You were the only one that had that effect on him so naturally, you took advantage of it.

Bucky’s skin got irritated by this one brand of dryer sheets. He’d break out in small patches of rashes and he would always end up having to go get medical ointment to calm his skin down. Bucky was shy as is, so him, a 100+ year old super-soldier, chunky and built, having to make himself as small as possible to go unnoticed to buy some ointment was the highlight of your long, long days as an Avenger. So of course, whenever you did the shopping, you made sure to pick up that exact brand just to make him take that humiliating trip.

He also hated Strawberry jam, stating that it was too sweet for his tastebuds. You’d joke about how he probably had diabetes because of his old age- to which he would reply with his own witty comment. Just to spite him, you always picked up Strawberry jam, even if you were a Grape jam lover yourself. He would curse you, irritated that he wasn’t able to have his PB&J sandwiches because of your practical joke. The man was attached to the snack, it was borderline unhealthy.

But, as fate has it, he was also the only one who had that effect on you, too. Just as much as you bothered him, he bothered you. He would purposely embarrass you in front of important people and find ways to make your life just that bit harder so he could have the final laugh.

You were the only one in the team who drank almond milk, not being able to stand the taste of regular cow milk, so whenever Steve went grocery shopping, he always made sure to buy you a carton for yourself. And low and behold, you would drag yourself out of bed at around 11AM to make yourself some breakfast and you’d find Bucky in the middle of the kitchen, a smirk on his stupid face while he drinks out of the carton of your almond milk.

You’d start yelling at him, calling him an asshole, a dick, and just about every name in the book. Steve would come rushing in, worried at all the commotion just to walk away disappointed because you and Bucky would be arguing again. Steve would just slide you a $5 bill to buy yourself another carton of milk, just for the same thing to happen the next day.

You and Bucky had a special relationship, indeed. And only the two of you understood it.

“Sam,” You laughed, wiping the sweat off your forehead. “Give it up. I’m not telling you.”

“Come on, Y/N,” He whined, trailing behind you as you walked out of the training room. “I promise I won’t tell anyone.”

“I am not telling you why I hate Bucky.”

This was a phrase you grew to memorize. It seemed like everyday someone from the team would practically beg you to tell them exactly why you hated Bucky. You were sure that they also bothered Bucky with their annoyances after they bombarded you. Thankfully, Bucky was smart enough, shocking to you, to not tell them a thing either. The team was frustrated at your stubbornness, wanting nothing else but to know what lies behind the mutual hate and absolute resentment for one another.

You bid Sam a farewell and walked to your room, ready to take a shower. You looked down at your bruised knee from a mission for one second, not realizing someone was in the middle of the hallway to your room. You looked up to apologize but your sympathetic smile quickly turned into a scowl when you realized who it was. Bucky. “Get out of my way.”

“It’s not fun when you’re on the other side, huh?” Bucky smirked, referring to your encounter in the morning. “Now imagine getting burned by scalding coffee with that too.”

“Did you seriously wait in the hallway just for me to bump into you?” You tried to shove past him. His hard chest made that difficult. His feet were planted on the ground he stood on, not showing any signs of leaving any time soon. “You don’t have anything better to do?”

“I just wanted to give you a taste of your own medicine.”

“Fuck off.”

“I actually had something to tell you, if you would just shut your pretty little mouth for one second and let me talk.” You could practically feel his smugness. It was dripping off his voice like sweet, poisonous honey. “We have that mission together tomorrow. Or did you forget?”

“I’m a professional, Barnes. I don’t forget.” You replied, you took a sip from your water bottle, nearly moaning at the refreshing feeling of the cold drink. “I don’t get why they choose to pair us up knowing we don’t like each other.”

He finally moved out of the way, leaning against the wall to let you pass. “They know we work well together.”

That was true.

Despite the way you two were at each other’s throats all the time, no pair could ever accomplish a mission as efficiently and flawlessly as you and Bucky. You shrugged before walking away from him, disappearing into the dark hallway, but not before you raised a finger up in the air for him to see.

And yes, it was that finger.

Bucky chuckled when he saw you raise your hand to flip him off. You were truly something. He was about to retreat to his own room for the night when Sam saw him, running towards him excitedly. Oh, great, Bucky thought, here we go again.

“Buck nasty,” Sam started, cocking an eyebrow. “Will today be the day when you finally tell me the history between you and Y/N?”

“Not a chance, Wilson.”

“What the hell is wrong with the two of you?” Sam groaned, punching Bucky’s metal arm in absolute annoyance. “For two people who hate each other, you two seem to have a mutual trust pumping through your veins. You remain loyal to each other over the rest of the team.”

“What can I say? Me and Y/N are an unusual pair.”

“You two are the devil’s incarnates.”

Bucky just laughed at the comment, silently agreeing. There was something devilish about the way the two of you kept your secret between just the two of you. There was a rush, like you were in on a secret that would blow the team’s minds. Quite frankly, if they knew why the two of you despised each other, they would be shocked. Or maybe they wouldn’t. Sometimes Bucky thought that the reason was so obvious, basic even, but other times he laughed silently at the reactions the team might have upon finding out. Such a shame that he’ll never know if they’ll actually respond as he imagined because the team would never find out about the truth.

“Okay, now that they’re off on a mission, any updates?” Tony asked, looking around the room.

It became a tradition in the tower to hold these meetings whenever you and Bucky were off to a mission. The team did their own individual research about your past lives and reported back to the team before you two got back home. Sure, maybe, it was a bit overboard for them to basically hold a town-hall meeting just to find out information that they truly had no business even looking into, but what were they meant to do? You and Bucky both had hard exteriors that nobody could ever crack.

Even Steve, Bucky’s oldest pal, was left in the dark by his best friend. Every time Steve brought you up, Bucky would just get up and walk away. Even when they were in potentially dangerous situations, midst missions and all.

There was a time when Bucky and Steve went to Russia to capture a HYDRA agent. They hid behind a shipping container for a few minutes to get some protection before running back into the field of gunfire. Steve thought that there was no way Bucky could avoid answering the question now. But he was mistaken.

“So Buck,” Steve started, checking the surroundings to make sure they were safe for the time being. “What’s the story between you and Y/N?”

Steve stared at Bucky long enough to see the brunette roll his eyes. Steve heard some shuffling behind him so he turned to look, only to find nothing. When he turned around to face Bucky, he had already emerged from behind the shipping container into the open space, blocking bullets with his arm.

Steve sighed, “If you didn’t wanna answer, you could’ve just said that, Buck.”

Because of that story, the team understood just what great lengths the both of you would go through just to avoid answering the question. So since neither of you would ever give them the time of day, they had to do their own research.

“Nada for me,” Nat groaned, throwing a stack of papers that lead to a dead-end onto the coffee table. “It was like Y/N was a ghost story, just like the Winter Soldier.”

“Okay, whatever they’re hiding might just be the cause of the possible end of the world because this is just ridiculous.” Sam stated, throwing his hands up in defeat. “Why are they so adamant about not telling us why they hate each other?”

“Who knows?” Wanda chipped in, shrugging and returning her attention back to her phone. She was one of the few who completely gave up on trying to figure things out, following Steve. She accepted defeat, realizing that the two assassins simply did not like each other. It never bothered her personally so she let it go. “Why are we still trying to figure this out? It’s been months. I say we give it a rest.”

“I agree.” Steve replied, nodding towards Wanda’s direction. “It’s their business, guys.”

You leaned back on the back seat, chest rising up and down, a bead of sweat rolling off your temple. You shifted your leg to get more comfortable in the small space in the car. You looked over your shoulder to look at him, a smirk displayed on his face as his breathing mimicked yours.

“You good?” You asked, giggling after catching your breath.

“Perfect,” Bucky nodded, reaching over your waist to pull you closer to his body. “Always so good with you.”

You playfully shoved him off, starting to clean yourself up. You would never admit it to him but you always loved to relish these short, yet sweet, moments that you two shared. Your shirt was on the floor, next to his pants and your hair was in disarray. The windows were fogged and the car smelled distinctly of sex and fresh pine, the car freshener that Bucky picked up in the liquor store on the way home, knowing what will happen next as it always happened after every mission. You looked out the tinted window seeing the outline of the Avengers tower. “How long do you think it will take for them to finally realize we’re fucking?”

You felt him shrug behind your skin. “Who knows? I thought we’d only have to keep this up for a few weeks but it’s been a few months now and they still have no idea.”

“Some Avengers they are.”

Bucky laughed at your comment, leaning over to leave a quick peck on your lips. “Agreed.”

#Bucky Barnes #bucky barnes smut #bucky barnes imagine #bucky fanfic #bucky barnes one shot #the avengers #the avengers imagine #marvel #marvel one shot #marvel imagine #winter soldier #winter soldier imagine #winter soldier one shot #sebastian stan #sebastian stan imagine

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nikanndros · 3 years

Note

I just want you to know that I think about From Eden at least once a week and I've lost count of how many times I've reread it. If you ever wanna share what comes next amd what other ideas you had for that universe i'm here to listen op 👀

Thank you, I love you! When I first wrote that fic, I had two other parts (at least) that I wanted to go with it, and since they’re partially written I’m happy to share those bits with you:

From Eden Part 2

“It’s just unfair, you know,” the girl said. Her words were slightly slurred. To be fair, they were in a nightclub after midnight. Everyone was slurring. “I was there for him, and I paid his bills while he went through college and now! He has a real job and he dumped me for his secretary.” She started sobbing.

Damen, who was six foot three, strongly built, and also carrying a loaded weapon, took her hands and made a sympathetic noise. “Lykaios,” he said, because he --unlike Laurent-- had actually listened when she’d introduced herself. “I think the best thing for you now is to forget about him. He didn’t deserve you.”

Lykaios sniffled. “You think so?”

“Of course I do,” Damen said. “I’ve only known you for a few minutes and I already can see that you’re incredible. Right, babe?”

“Right,” Laurent deadpanned. He glanced at his watch. “It’s quarter to.”

Damen nodded. Still holding Lykaios’ hands, he turned to Laurent. “Security?”

“Just the two.”

“Great.” He looked back to Lykaois. “Listen, doll, we’ve got to get down to business, but I want you to remember what I said, okay? You’re worth a lot more than that guy gave you. And your mascara is running a little. Maybe you should go fix it up in the bathroom and wipe your tears?”

“Okay,” Lykaois sniffed. “Thank you.” She left.

Damen gave Laurent a grin, the crooked, teeth-baring one that appeared whenever they were about to do a job. “Ready?”

“You never call me doll.”

“Do you want me to?”

“Try it sometime and see.”

Damen yanked him in by the jacket and kissed him, slowly and bordering on indecent. “Alright,” he said, after he pulled back. “Show time.”

As Damen disappeared into the crowd, Laurent grasped his --still full-- drink, turned, and threw its contents at the roughest looking guy in the place.

“Hey, what the hell?” The guy squared his shoulders; he was intimidating even covered in lemonade.

“Fuck you,” Laurent replied.

At this point, three months of travelling and stealing and, most importantly, Damen, Laurent had become pretty efficient at inciting fights. He didn’t need to see the punch coming to know that it was, he just sidestepped and let the man stumble into the back of another patron. It took less than thirty seconds before half the clientele were involved in an all out brawl.

The two security guards rushed in, and were immediately overwhelmed enough that the only bartender -- a youngish lad with a crooked nose -- had to join in to get everything under control. Laurent punched him.

Eventually, the fight got calmed down enough for fingers to point to Laurent and the lemonade clad man as the inciters, and guards hauled them both out into the parking lot.

“Let me go!” Lemonade guy yelled. “I’ll fucking kill him.”

“You can try,” Laurent said, a lot more willing to be subdued by the guard that had him by the arms.

“Don’t make us call the police, man,” his guard complained. “The both of you can go your separate ways, come on.”

The door behind them opened.

“Sweetheart,” Damen said, chidingly. “I step away for two minutes and you get yourself into trouble.”

---

They go back to a motel after this and Damen reveals the money he stole from the tills while Laurent was being a distraction. Sexy times ensue. Damen eventually falls asleep and Laurent stays awake with the tv on. The news comes on and an interview is shown with Lykaios being interviewed about the robbery at the bar -- she gives a completely inaccurate description of what Damen looked like, and Laurent reflects on how easy it is for Damen to charm people to taking his side.

From Eden Part 3

Their most recent car was a much older model. The aircon was busted and they had to wind down the windows themselves, but at least the radio worked. It was hot, despite it being a couple of hours past sunset.

Damen was singing with the radio. He wasn’t going to win any awards, but his voice was deep and he had a nice enough sense of the music. He grinned at Laurent. He was always happy. It was part of what made him so magnetic.

Laurent smiled back. After two years with Damen, the expression felt natural.

Except for them, the road was empty. Damen reached over and took Laurent’s hand in his.

“Watch the road,” Laurent said.

Damen laughed. “But you’re my favourite view.”

“I won’t be happy if you kill us in a car wreck.”

Obediently, Damen looked back to the road. And then, because it was Damen, the car sped up.

Laurent’s hair flew about chaotically, longer than it had ever been when his uncle had been keeping a hand of Laurent’s appearance. It needed a trim, but as much as Laurent trusted Damen, he didn’t trust him to do that. Damen had offered to take him to a salon, somewhere quiet where there was no chance he’d be recognised, but Laurent wasn’t fond of the idea of being trapped in a chair like that. He was too used to freedom by now.

“Left here,” Laurent instructed.

They’d had to slow down once the got near the town. It was best to avoid anyone’s attention for as long as possible. (An admittedly difficult feat when traveling with someone like Damen).

They drove a little way past the house, until they found an obscure little dirt road to park down. It wouldn’t do for someone to see the car. They grabbed their things, and looped back to the house on foot.

Quietly, Damen was still singing.

“Stop it,” Laurent said.

“You love it,” he replied. “This is your birthday present, baby, at least look like you’re having fun.”

“This is literally the worst place we could get caught.”

“No it isn’t,” Damen replied. “I checked out the police station last time I was here. Breaking out of the cells would be too easy.”

“You know that’s not what I meant.”

“There were no lights on when we drove by. No one is home.”

That was true. And they’d timed it perfectly, assuming schedules hadn’t changed in the last two years. The house was silent when they got to it, not a light in sight as promised.

Laurent took a deep breath.

“Chin up,” Damen said. “Let’s go rob your uncle.”

The spare key wasn’t where uncle used to keep it, so they went around the back and Damen fucked with the lock until it opened. It was almost hard to walk into the house, full of so many bad memories, except it had never truly been Laurent’s home and he could just tell himself this was another job.

“The study,” Laurent said, leading the way.

They crept up the stairs together, torches on their lowest settings.

The study was a formidable room with the big, mahogany desk, and the shelves of books that existed solely to make visitors feel stupid. “Look at this,” Laurent said, pulling out one of the books. “War and Peace in Russian. He doesn’t even know Russian.”

Damen reached past him, and nonchalantly, tipped a stack of books off the shelf. They clattered noisily onto the floor. “Oops,” Damen said. He turned away. “Where’s the safe?”

“Under the desk,” Laurent replied. He was busy searching through the books, finding any early editions to pilfer. They’d probably be able to sell them to an antique store for a bit of quick cash.

Damen worked away at the safe for a bit, guessing potential codes Laurent had told him about. “None of these are working, sweetheart.” The safe made a beeping noise. “Oh, wait. Got it. Wow, he really deserves to be robbed.”

“I’m sure he thought I’d never come back here.”

Damen made a vaguely angry noise. He didn’t like reminders of what had happened to Laurent in this house. He’d even tried to convince Laurent that they could just murder his uncle while they were here. Laurent wasn’t sure he wanted to add cold-blooded murder to their repertoire just yet though. However tempting.

Damen stood up, suddenly. Hands full of Laurent’s uncle’s emergency cash. He grinned.

“Happy birthday - to - you,” he crooned.

Laurent couldn’t help it. He laughed. “I love you, you beautiful fucking bastard.”

Abandoning the books, Laurent moved in and kissed him. Carefully, Damen put the money down on the desk so that he could cup Laurent’s face in his hands. It was always intoxicating to kiss Damen. There was something about him that made Laurent forget himself until there was only the press of their lips.

“I love you too,” Damen whispered, pulling back a little. He’d stopped smiling; it was a moment of complete genuine emotion. He did that sometimes, always out of the blue, and it always made Laurent want to clutch him tighter and maybe cry.

“Let’s finish up here,” Laurent said, “and then we can go find somewhere nice and fuck under the stars.”

“You always know just what to say to seduce me,” Damen said.

They bagged the money, and the books Laurent had picked, and then they made their way down the stairs again.

“Wait,” Damen said.

“What?”

“I’m hungry.” He turned into the kitchen and opened the fridge. “Oh hey, chocolate.”

Actually, that was an idea. Laurent followed him into the kitchen and went straight for the pretentious temperature controlled wine fridge. “Pinot noir or Shiraz?”

“Whatever is more expensive,” Damen replied. He was adding strawberries and oranges to the bag as well. Cream?”

“It’ll go warm too fast.”

“I feel like we should unplug the fridge before we go, at least,” Damen added. “If you’re still against me putting bleach in the milk.”

“Wouldn’t that make it curdle?”

Damen shrugged. “I don’t know. I had a cement mixer in a bar once but that was lime juice.”

“You can unplug the fridge. If he dies from food poisoning, that’s on him.”

Damen started to look for the cord to the fridge.

“Wait,” Laurent whispered. “Did you hear that?”

They froze, listening.

There it was. The soft sound of the stairs creaking. Fuck. Silently, Laurent gestured towards the back door. Damen nodded. He was carefully reaching over to the knife stand.

“Renaud?” came a small voice.

A young boy, no more than thirteen, stepped into the kitchen. He was wiping at one eye sleepily in a childlike gesture. Less childlike were the bruises on his arms. Laurent knew he and Damen had matching expressions of horror.

The boy’s eyes widened as he took them in. “Who are you?” he said.

Damen’s expression was one of barely concealed fury. He looked at Laurent. “I’m not leaving until that man is in a shallow grave.”

“Don’t scare the boy,” Laurent admonished. He turned to the child and tried to look as non-intimidating as a late-night home invader could possibly look. “What’s your name?”

“Are you Renaud’s friends?” The boy asked.

“No,” Laurent said. “Definitely not. I’m Laurent.”

The boy was frowning. “You used to live here.”

“Yes.”

“Well,” he straightened up, suddenly hostile. “You’re not allowed to come back. He doesn’t want you anymore; I’m better.”

“Where are your parents?” Damen asked.

“We’re not giving him back to parents who-”

“They’re dead,” the boy said. He didn’t sound upset.

The boy is obviously Nicaise. They hear a car in the driveway and Laurent locks Nicaise in the pantry. Laurent’s protective instinct rears up and he insists they kill the uncle now. Damen is fully down for it. Murder ensues. They let Nicaise out and keep him away from finding out that the uncle is dead in the next room. They tell Nicaise to pack a back and discuss what to do with him. Damen suggests dropping him off at a hospital or somewhere like that where someone can get help for him (since they can’t exactly go to the cops).

Nicaise overhears and says that he doesn’t want to have a new foster parent; at least his current one has a big house. Laurent hearing that feels too wary to risk Nicaise getting another bad household. Damen is like, well I guess we can keep him if you want??? Laurent agrees. They go get in the car and drive away.

Anyway this AU was directly inspired by the film clip for Hozier’s ‘From Eden’, you should watch it bc that’s the story I intended to write

#captive prince #the criminals au #my writing #dancyon

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tripleaxeldiaz · 3 years

Text

maybe one day i’ll fly next to you

chapter 3/8

read on ao3

start from the beginning

The two weeks before Skate America breeze by, every hour filled with skating or conditioning or trying not to creep on message boards to see what people are predicting for the season. Buck feels good, the best he’s ever felt this early on. He tries to reign it in, that voice in his head reminding him that he could still lose it all at any moment, but it’s muffled and quiet and easy to ignore.

He’s also been seeing more of Eddie, now that he knows he’s not the douchebag he always assumed he was. They condition together, watch each other's jumping passes and offer tips, even take their lunch break together, talking about everything skating and some non skating things too. It’s easy and nice and the best parts of Buck’s days, if he’s honest. He maybe always thinks about talking to Eddie, picking his brain for his thoughts on various skaters’ programs, watching him laugh with his whole body at some snarky comment Buck makes about someone’s horrible choice in costume. Buck likes the way he laughs, likes the way he feels a little warmer when he makes him laugh.

He should have known this brief bubble of happiness would be popped sooner rather than later.

The day before they leave, he and Maddie get an email — an email — from their mother, inviting them to dinner while they’re in town for the competition. To say Buck’s surprised would be an understatement.

“How’d they even find out it’s in Reading this year? Did you tell them?”

Maddie rolls her eyes, stabbing her salad with a little more force than necessary. “I haven’t spoken to them in longer than you have, so no. They’ve probably seen ads or something.”

“We could lie, tell them Bobby’s really strict about non-skating things during competitions?”

“Sure, but then they might just call Bobby on their own and blow our whole cover.”

“We could tell them we’re sick? Food poisoning? Then miraculously get better?”

“If that didn’t work when you tried to get out of taking your SAT, I don’t think it’ll work this time, either.”

“I wasn’t even planning on going to college, why did I—” Buck huffs as Maddie shakes her head at him sympathetically.

There’s really no way for them to get out of this.

The thing is, their parents aren’t bad people — a doctor and a PR manager who are on every non-profit board in the county, volunteer at the local animal shelter, and donate plenty of money to plenty of charities. As parents, though, they somehow manage an interesting balance of using their children’s successes for their own bragging rights and making them feel like they’re always just shy of good enough. They supported them growing up, sure, paid their way through lessons and competitions before endorsements started coming in, but it always felt like it was serving their own clout more than helping Buck and Maddie follow their dreams. When they moved out to LA, it was easy to distance themselves, rescheduling calls indefinitely until their parents eventually just stopped trying.

The last time Buck talked to them was right after his leg surgery — they called under the guise of “checking in on him”, but spent most of the call figuring out the quickest way to get him back to practice, offering to pay for extra surgeries and PT to speed up the process. He’s sure they thought they were helping, but it felt more like they were eager for him to get back to winning medals so they could tell their friends about it.

As much as he loves to win, it’s not the same when someone else is pushing you more than you’re pushing yourself.

He sighs again, slumping down in his chair. He hadn’t been nervous at all about Skate America, but now the itch of self doubt has made a home right under his skin, and it wasn’t even for a skating reason. Maddie reaches across the table to grab his wrist, squeezing lightly.

“It’ll be two hours max, then we’ll make an excuse about early practice and leave. It won’t be that bad.”

Buck nods, turning back to his lunch, suddenly not hungry as his stomach continues to churn.

~~~~~~~~~~

He didn’t expect to get this nostalgic, but the familiar drive toward Reading and the Sovereign Center (Santander Arena now, because capitalism is a prison) fills him with jittery excitement and a weird sense of calm, just like it did when he was a kid competing in the regional circuit. The arena was a palace compared to their rink in Hershey, and it always made him want to skate well enough to be worthy of the ice there. It’s where he won his first medal ever, his first gold, his first trip to Nationals, and would hopefully now serve as a stepping stone once again, this time leading him towards Beijing.

Eddie’s lounging on his bed, shirtless and flipping channels, when Buck gets to their room. It wasn’t a surprise this time — they’d requested to room together anyway — but seeing Eddie like this, soft and relaxed and somehow at home in a hotel room, makes Buck’s heart flip a little bit.

Buck’s heart has been flipping a lot around Eddie, and making him think about stupid things like kissing him and how his abs would feel under his fingertips and how he’d prefer his eggs in the morning. It’s taking up a lot of real estate in his brain, and it’s going to get even worse now that they’re sleeping 10 feet away from each other, he’s sure.

That doesn’t stop him from sneaking glances at Eddie while he unpacks. Just to get it out of his system so he can focus.

It’s fine.

He can totally handle this.

~~~~~~~~~~

Skata America is a much bigger deal than ACI — more cameras, more interviews, more people watching in the stands and on TV. That should mean it’s all more intimidating, too, but Buck is thriving under the lights and camera lenses. This will be the first real chance to show people — not just skating people, but everyone — what he can do, and the anticipation of how it will be received buzzes through him constantly. That buzz practically dictates his every move through practices and his short, finally ceasing as he hits his final pose. It’s quickly replaced by elation — he knows he nailed everything, he knows the resounding applause is deserved.

He knows he’s in first place before they even announce his score.

When they do, he’s right, and he’s thrilled, but there’s also a pang of disappointment, because the margin is tight — only three points between him and Eddie in second. Bobby hands him his protocols in the green room, and his stomach clenches when he sees that his step sequence and his sit spin were downgraded to level threes. His brain starts spinning, mentally combing through every revolution and edge to figure out where the hell he fucked up, when he feels a warm, solid hand on his shoulder. He looks up and sees Eddie, but instead of pity like he expected (or gloating like he feared), he just sees understanding in his eyes, maybe even a hint of the same irritation he’s feeling.

“They screwed me over too, my camel should have had a plus three GOE at least.” Eddie says, squeezing Buck’s shoulder. Somehow, he’s already feeling better.

“I bet it was the French judge, he’s always been a conniving bastard.”

“We could take him out, we have time before tomorrow.”

“Don’t tempt me,” Buck says, as Eddie offers his hand and pulls him up to stand. He tries not to miss the warmth when he lets go.

“For what it’s worth,” Eddie says quietly as they make their way around skaters and coaches in the hallway toward the press room, “I think you should be at least 10 points ahead, if not more. You were something else out there.”

Buck can’t make his brain come up with a proper response by the time they take their seats on the makeshift stage in front of the reports, so all he can do is smile and hope it comes across as totally chill and not as dopey as it feels.

Eddie smiles back, and Buck thinks he’s beautiful.

The presser goes just as expected — a few questions lobbed at the Candian skater currently in third, more for Buck since he’s in first, but the most still go to Eddie. Being the favorite for Olympic gold doesn’t go away after half a competition, and the reporters are rabid as ever. Buck’s seen Eddie’s press routine — the humble charm and gracious smiles, cracking jokes like he’s talking to friends and not a bunch of strangers with tape recorders. He’d spent years mentally rolling his eyes at what he thought was the fakeness of it all, but after getting closer to Eddie, he knows that’s just how Eddie is. Kind and patient, actively listening to what people are saying, taking his time to form thoughtful answers.

But whatever’s happening now is not the Eddie he knows — his laughs are forced and almost too loud, his smile is tight and boarding on a grimace. He keeps fidgeting with his credentials and the sleeve of his Team USA zip-up, eyes darting around like he’s charting his path to get out of the room as fast as possible once they’re done.

He’s nervous. Buck doesn’t think he’s ever seen him nervous, at least not like this, and it’s honestly a little unsettling. So much so that all Buck wants to do is fix it, bring the light back to Eddie’s eyes, bleed the tension out of his shoulders.

There’s probably not an easy way to do that while answering questions about his performance.

He waits until he sees the “wrap it up” signal from the event worker off to the side, the next reporter giving one last question to the Canadian skater. He doesn’t think about it too hard, just stretches his leg a little to the right, slowly, until he and Eddie are ankle to ankle. It’s not much, but Eddie still looks over at him, first confused and then grateful, a small, real smile on his face, his shoulders falling away from his ears.

Eddie’s quiet on the ride back to the hotel, but he looks calmer, listening to everyone else talk about their events and what could happen tomorrow during free skates. He’s still jittery though, leg bouncing as he sits next to Buck on the bus. Whatever was bothering him during interviews is clearly still lingering, and Buck has to fight the urge to reach out and calm his shaking with a hand on his knee.

They make it back to their room, door barely clicking in place behind them, before Buck breaks.

“Are you okay?” he asks. Eddie freezes in front of him, half turned around like he was about to ask Buck something before he steamrolled over him. “You seemed stressed during the presser and on the ride back, and I just...wanted to make sure you’re good.”

Eddie looks stunned for a second before letting out a breath, hand rubbing over his face. “I knew this would happen, you know? The extra attention. It happened after Pyeongchang and the bronze medal, but it died down eventually. I thought I’d have more time to mentally prepare for it again, I guess.” He shakes his head, hand falling to his side as he shrugs his shoulders helplessly. “Today was just a lot.”

Buck nods, patting Eddie’s arm in understanding because he gets it. Most of the time he basks in any form of attention, but some days the lights are too hot and the voices are too loud and faking a smile through it is impossible. The one Buck sees now is real though, he knows it, and he’s happy to see Eddie relaxing now that they’re away from the vultures.

“Well, lucky for you, I’ll be out of your hair tonight, so you’ll have plenty of time to yourself,” Buck says, crossing the room to his bed, digging through his bag for his dinner clothes.

“Where are you going?” Eddie asks, and when Buck looks back at him as he heads to the bathroom to change, he swears he looks disappointed, briefly, before it shifts to confusion. “We don’t have any team stuff tonight, right?”

“Nah, Maddie and I got suckered into dinner with our parents.”

“Are Buckley family dinners always black tie affairs?” he asks when Buck comes back in slacks and a white button down, struggling to knot his tie.

“No, but they told us to dress nicely, so we’re probably going to some fancy restaurant downtown. Knowing them, we’ll also be dragged to some party one of their friends is having that’s conveniently close by.”

He groans in frustration when his tie comes out crooked again, and Eddie laughs, taking pity on him and coming to do it himself. Buck tries to keep cool, willing his cheeks not to turn red, but it’s hard when he can feel Eddie’s breath on his chin, feel his fingers run across his collarbones, and he’s so close, if he just leaned in—

“Sounds like it wouldn’t be the first time.”

Buck sighs through his nose. “I love my parents, they’re just...better from a distance.”

Eddie winces in what looks like sympathy, smoothing Buck’s tie and the front of his shirt as he finishes. Buck misses the motion as soon as it’s gone.

“Maybe they’ll prove you wrong this time,” Eddie says.

Buck rolls his eyes at that, but can’t help a small part of him desperately hoping that Eddie will be right.

~~~~~~~~~~

Eddie is so wrong.

Not only is there a party, it’s a party at their parent’s house, which is in full swing by the time Buck and Maddie pull up in their Lyft. Their mother opens the door, hair up, dress immaculate, lipstick-stained wine glass perched precariously in her hand.

“Evan! Maddie! Come in, so glad you could join us!” She kisses both their cheeks and hugs them quickly before taking their hands and dragging them deeper into the house. There are people everywhere, some faces Buck remembers and some new ones. There are waiters milling around too, passing bacon wrapped figs and mini bruschetta, and Buck feels his stomach rumble.

“So I guess we’re not doing dinner, huh Mom?” Buck asks, trying to keep the sarcasm to a minimum. Judging by the look Maddie gives him, he’s not doing a great job.

Their mother, of course, doesn’t bat an eye. “Sorry, sweetheart. We didn’t realize we were double booked, and we’d already moved this party once. There’s plenty of food in the kitchen though, you can eat after I’ve introduced you to some people. Everyone’s so excited to hear about how you’re doing. Philip, there you are!” Buck spots his father too, a head above the crowd, tie loose and cheeks flushed. He shakes Buck’s hand firmly, kisses Maddie on the top of her head, and is gone in an instant when someone beckons him towards the bar set up on the back wall of the living room.

“Nice to see you, too. We’re doing fine, thanks for asking!” Buck says under his breath before their mother is whisking them away again.

They spend the next hour flitting between couples — the Whiteheads, the Culls, the Carters, and a bunch of others he can’t differentiate — getting whiplash from their mother’s flipping between actual praise and backhanded compliments.

“Evan’s one of the top skaters in the country, though not as highly ranked as he was before his accident. We’re hoping he’ll be back up there by the time the Olympics roll around so he’ll make the team.”

“Maddie’s been with her partner for about three years now, right darling? They don’t have as many golds as she had with Doug, but they do skate well together.”

“Yes, that skater from Japan is very good Rebecca, you’re right! Evan, do you know him? Maybe he can give you some pointers about your edges going into your spins? I know you struggle with those.”

On and on and on, Buck and Maddie barely able to get a word in. They see their father only a few times, and each time he’s gone as quickly as he comes, pulled away by colleagues or board members or whoever it is they’re entertaining tonight. Buck is exhausted, and not just because it’s been a long day already, but from having to keep up the good natured laughs and graciousness when he doesn’t even feel like a person. He feels more like a trophy, being shuttled from room to room to be admired for a while before being shoved into a closet where no one can see you. Because that’s exactly what’s going to happen — their parents will tout them around for the night, send them back to the hotel, and not speak to them again until they need something.

Buck really forgot just how small this big house can make him feel.

Eventually, he breaks away, making an excuse about needing the restroom before quietly sneaking up the back staircase to the second floor. Maddie finds him 15 minutes later, sliding down to sit next to him in the guest room closet.

“Old habits die hard, I guess,” she says, and Buck smiles weakly. He hid in here a lot when he was a kid, sometimes with Maddie and sometimes alone. When it was all too much — the pressure from their parents or his coach or himself — this is where he came to quiet his brain. The darkness and the smell of the cedar chest full of their mother’s old sweaters was comforting, and it wrapped around him like a blanket until he could breathe again.

“None of their habits have died, that’s for sure,” he says. “Is it sad that I thought they would?”

“It’s not sad to hope for better. It’s just hard when all that hope is for nothing.”

Buck sighs, head thumping against the wall. Maddie threads her arm through his and rests her head on his shoulder. They sit like that for a while, quiet, both in their own heads, though he’s sure Maddie is thinking about and wishing for the same things he is.

He shifts eventually, head resting on top of hers. “Can we go yet? We could probably sneak out the back door. If they haven’t come looking for us yet, they definitely won’t notice.”

“Should we just go back to the hotel? It’s only 8:30.”

“What else are we gonna do?”

Maddie types furiously on her phone for a minute. “Chim, Hen, and May are down to hang out. And WhirlyDome is open until midnight.”

“That place is still around?”

“Apparently, and they have half price appetizers after 9.”

The thought of mozzarella sticks and onion rings makes his stomach growl loudly again. “Alright, let’s do it. But I’m inviting Eddie too.”

Maddie just smirks at him, getting up and out of the closet before he has a chance to ask what the look was for.

It would just be rude not to invite him.

And maybe part of Buck wishes he had stayed in with Eddie tonight from the start.

[to: Eddie] tonight sucked. we’re going to play whirlyball and eat fried food. u in?

[from: Eddie] ????? What the hell is whirlyball?

[to: Eddie] omg now u HAVE to come. meet us here in half an hour

He sends the address and does not smile like an idiot when Eddie says he’ll see him soon.

~~~~~~~~~~

“So it’s...bumper cars?”

“Bumper cars plus lacrosse plus basketball, kind of. It’s super fun and only a little dangerous.”

“Can I watch for a bit first?”

“Sorry Eds, first timers have to play. You’ll be fine, I promise.”

Eddie still looks skeptical as they get ready for the next game, carefully sitting in the car and picking up his scoop.

A bell rings and the cars come to life, rumbling around the room as everyone starts scrambling for the ball. It takes about 30 seconds for Eddie to get the hang of steering, and by the end of the first game, no one would ever guess he’d never played before. He leads their team to three victories in a row, laughing and cheering loudly along with everyone else, like he hadn’t been overwhelmed with anxiety just a few hours earlier. Something warms in Buck at the thought that he helped with that smile, and it’s a feeling he thinks he could get used to, a job he wouldn’t mind having if it meant Eddie was this happy more often than not.

Despite it all — despite good friends and good food and the feeling of Eddie’s shoulder pressed against his, Buck still feels the tendrils of doubt and panic floating around him. They’re bad enough during competitions normally, but pair them with what happened at his parents’ house — being reminded of how he’ll never live up to their lofty image of him, even if he does make it to Beijing — and everything just feels dark and cold, and he doesn’t think his lungs are working properly. He leaves the table, says he’s going to the bathroom, but ends up outside instead. WhirlyDome is in the older half of a shopping center in downtown Hershey, and the outside has been renovated since he was last here, now featuring an elaborate fountain surrounded by benches and newly paved pathways to the other stores. He sinks down on the nearest bench, the cool October air grounding him, making it easier to think, easier to try and smash down all these swirling emotions he’s trying not to feel.

Eddie finds him there, sits down next to him on the bench without saying anything. They stay in companionable silence, watching the fountain dance and the people bustle back and forth across the plaza, getting last minute shopping in before the stores close.

“I’m sorry dinner sucked,” Eddie says eventually, quiet and sincere.

Buck shrugs. “I knew it would. Just got my hopes up too high that things would be different.”

Eddie nods, eyes drifting back to the fountain. Now that they’re alone and the excitement from the games is gone, he can see the slightly weary lines of Eddie’s shoulders, see how he’s still curling in on himself, like he’s trying to escape into his own body.

“How are you?” Buck asks, knocking his knee against Eddie’s gently. “I know this isn’t exactly a quiet night in.”

“I’m alright. Better than I would be, thanks to you.”

“What did I do?”

Eddie’s staring at the ground, but his cheeks are flushing pink, and Buck wants to reach out and feel the heat of them under his fingertips.

“You were there,” he says. “I’m usually alone when I start feeling like that, and nothing makes it better. But I wasn’t alone this time.”

I don’t want you to be alone, Buck thinks, and these thoughts he’s been having — about Eddie, about being with Eddie — are getting louder and louder and harder to ignore. Especially now, when it’s just the two of them, and Eddie’s eyes are sparkling like gems under the street lights.

It’s almost hilarious that barely six weeks ago, and for 10 very long years, he could hardly stand the sight of him.

Eddie finally looks up from the ground, facing Buck, and they’re so much closer than he thought they were. He can count every eyelash, smell his cologne, watch his eyes trace over Buck’s face, from his eye to his lips and back again.

Buck doesn’t even realize he’s leaning in until his vision starts to blur, and he stops short. He tries to move back slowly, casually, but then firm hands are cupping his jaw, pulling him forward until soft lips meet his own. There’s no fireworks, no angels singing, just warm molasses in his veins, spreading to every part of him until he’s so warm he’s certain he must be glowing. His hands twist into Eddie’s jacket, pulling him as close as possible until he’s practically in his lap. They move to his shirt, feeling the abs he’s been thinking about for weeks now, and he almost melts right to the ground at the sound Eddie sighs into his mouth.

He’s not sure how long they kiss, but it doesn’t feel like long enough by the time they come up for air. He doesn’t go far, still close enough to feel Eddie’s breath fan across his lips, but he’s not sure what to do now. He wants to know what this means (if it means anything at all), he wants to know what Eddie’s thinking, he wants to memorize the way Eddie tastes and feel his abs for real.

His phone buzzes in his pocket, making them both jump. It’s a text from Maddie, telling him they’re car is here and asking where the hell they went. He looks back at Eddie, still so close, and swallows down the urge to kiss him again and tell his friends to leave them here.

“We should— we have to go,” he says, gesturing toward the parking lot. Eddie’s eyes are flitting over his face again, unreadable but still bright. He nods finally, standing up and offering his hand to Buck. He can’t fight the smile or the blush that he feels, so he doesn’t, taking Eddie’s hand to help him stand. They stay put for a minute, until Eddie squeezes his hand and drops it, smiling that soft smile again as he turns away.

Buck smiles himself, still full of warmth and lips still tingling, before following Eddie to the car.

~~~~~~~~~~

The ride back is quiet, everyone tired and settling back into the competition mindset they were able to let go of for a few hours. Buck feels it too, already running step sequences in his head again, but he keeps getting distracted. Eddie’s sitting next to him in the back seat of the Lyft, head tipped back and eyes closed, looking at peace for the first time all day. Buck tries to stop, tries to keep his focus, but his eyes keep drifting back to Eddie’s jaw, the cut of his cheekbones, the stubble shadowing his cheeks. It’s hard to remember what edges he’s supposed to hit tomorrow when he keeps thinking about how that stubble felt under his lips.

They silently make their way back to their room, and Buck knows they need to talk. He’s trying to figure out where the hell to start as he turns on the light in the small entryway, illuminating everything in a light that feels too harsh for whatever is currently simmering between them. Eddie’s right behind him when he turns around, looking just as unsure as Buck feels. It’s comforting, them being on the same page, but Buck hates that he’s responsible for making Eddie feel like this.

He can’t figure out where to start, mouth opening and closing like a fish as he tries to figure out what to say. Eddie takes pity on him eventually, reaching for his hand again.

“Let’s talk tomorrow?” he asks. “After free skates.”

It’s an out that Buck is more than willing to take. Not that he doesn’t want to talk, he just...can’t. Not right now. So he nods, squeezing Eddie’s hand in thanks. He goes to pull away, but Eddie’s grip stays firm.

“It wasn’t nothing to me,” he says, tilting his head until Buck meets his eye. “I don’t know if that’s a good thing or a bad thing or what it meant for you, but it was something for me.”

Buck’s doesn’t know what to do with that, either. He wants to kiss Eddie again and he wants to run far away from him and he wants to skate, but he can’t until the morning. So he just nods again, and it seems to be enough. Eddie nods back, finally dropping his hand as he heads into the bathroom and shuts the door.

Buck doesn’t bother waiting for his turn, just strips out of his dress clothes and crawls into bed. He falls asleep fast, dreams of brown eyes and triple axels — taking off, rising, and falling, falling, falling…

~~~~~~~~~~

He knows he’s falling before his ass hits the ice.

It was inevitably, really — he felt like he was fighting himself through the entire program, trying to keep it from completely unraveling. He knows that to anyone else, any casual fan and even some analysts, he looked good, strong, put together right until the end. But he knows that this isn’t his best. And this fall is definitely going to cost him.

He recovers quickly, finishing the rest of the program as close to perfectly as he can manage. He smiles and bows, waves to his friends in the stands, tries to pretend like he’s okay with knowing that he’s definitely not winning this gold.

It’s his own fault. He’d let his parents worm their way into his brain again, amplifying the self doubt that was already lingering, making him second guess every move, even the things he knows are good. Pair that with the fact that he can’t stop thinking about Eddie — not just the kiss, but his smile as he took the ice, his effortless jumps — and it was a miracle he only fell once.

He takes silver, four points behind Eddie’s gold. The fact that it was that fall that did him in stings worse than anything.

At the medal ceremony, he catches Eddie’s eye for the first time all day on the podium, and surprises himself with the genuine smile he gives him. It’s certainly not Eddie’s fault, what happened today — he didn’t ask to take up most of Buck’s thoughts, Buck let that happen. And if he keeps letting it happen, he doesn’t know if he’ll be able to skate clean again.

He knows they still need to talk, and he knows exactly what he needs to say, but he really doesn’t want to say it.

Luckily, he doesn’t have to say anything right away. Eddie disappears after the presser and doesn’t join him and May in the stands for the free dance. Buck tries to ignore the empty seat next to him, but it’s harder than usual.

They have a late flight back to LA, and Eddie’s already packed but the time Buck makes it back to the room. They stand across from each other in the entryway, just like last night, but the tension in the air feels wary under Buck’s skin instead of hopeful.

“You were amazing today,” Buck blurts out, not at all how he wanted to start this conversation. It’s worth it, though, for the smile and blush he gets from Eddie.

“Thanks,” he says, eyes on the floor. “So were you.”

Jesus, just tell him, Buck thinks, and he squares his shoulders like he’s preparing for a fight.

“It was something for me, too,” he says softly. “Yesterday, it— it definitely wasn’t nothing.”

Eddie looks at him, waiting, and Buck hesitates.

He really, really doesn’t want to say it.

“But?” Eddie prompts, because of course he knows there’s more.

“But,” Buck sighs. “But I can’t— We should wait. Until after the Olympics. I don’t think either of us want to be too distracted before then, and I don’t know if you know this, but you are very...very distracting.” Eddie snorts and rolls his eyes, and Buck lets his gaze rake over Eddie from top to bottom, distracting himself for just a little bit longer.

“You’re right,” Eddie says quietly. “Let’s wait. And I’ll try and be less distracting, so I can keep kicking your ass fair and square.”

“Oh really?” Buck laughs, and Eddie’s laughing too, and it feels good and normal and Buck doesn’t want it to stop. But it has to. Because as much as Buck wants to dive deeper into this...whatever this is with Eddie, he wants to win more. Not much more (which is a thought he never expected to have about anyone), but definitely more.

And if anyone in the world understands that feeling, it’s Eddie.

There’s a knock on the door, Bobby giving them a 15 minute warning before they’re supposed to head to the airport. Buck moves to head toward his things so he can pack, but Eddie grabs his arm before he can go too far. His eyes look soft and sad and hopeful and a million other things Buck is feeling too, and he just wants to drown in them, in this moment, before he has to go back out into the world, alone.

Eddie leans forward, softly kissing Buck’s cheek, lingering in his space before he heads out of the room, door quietly shutting behind him.

#buddie #evan buckley #eddie diaz #911 fox #buddie fic #911 fic #9-1-1 #fs au #ficcery #the self indulgence really popped out on this one because i lOVE whirlyball sm #also they continue to be idiots but that's not totally my fault #they're just Like That

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1heartsickfics · 4 years

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Hey can you do one where Hazel and Nathan are on a date and Nathan gets food poisoning during the date and Hazel looks after her. (Random fact about myself because why not: I have never had food poisoning)

Hey anon, thanks for this! I actually have never had food poisoning either, but fun fact: most people haven’t, even if they think they have. Actual food poisoning requires hospitalization. A lot of the time when someone says they had food poisoning or when we write about food poisoning, it’s really just a “foodborne illness” from eating old food or something weird. But real food poisoning is from the ingestion of one of several types of really bad bacteria that can actually kill you if you aren’t hospitalized soon enough.

Sorry, I’ll stop nerding out now. I’m a biology major so these are the kinds of things running around in my head. But I’ll just write the fic now.

TW: depictions of vomit

Nathan almost made it home. Almost being the key word...

The chicken he’d had for dinner had been weird, and he knew it. But for some reason he had just eaten it anyway, because he was a dumbass apparently. By the time Hazel had finished, his stomach had been churning already.

They’d been planning on going to a movie after dinner, but Hazel had taken one look at his face once standing up, and promptly knew that something was wrong, the way she always did.

“I think the chicken was bad,” he’d told her, pulling at the collar of his dress shirt. He felt too warm all of a sudden, sweat dampening his clothes and making him feel claustrophobic.

“Your stomach?” she’d asked, already grabbing him by the arm and pulling him out of the restaurant as he nodded. She had fished around in his pockets until she found his keys, unlocking the car and helping him into the passenger seat before getting in herself to drive.

“How we doing?” she asked, drawing him from his thoughts.

“Not great,” he said, teeth gritted in an attempt to keep his stomach in place.

“Just hold on a few more minutes, okay love? We’re almost home,” Hazel said sweetly, reaching over to squeeze his knee as she drove, pressing down on the pedal a little harder than she normally would.

“Hmm,” Nathan hummed, biting back a groan as his stomach sloshed and churned inside of him. He had undone his belt as soon as they’d gotten in the car, hoping to relieve some of the tension on his stomach. His shirt was untucked in the front, his hand slid in between two buttons, rubbing at his stomach desperately.

“Haz I feel so sick,” he moaned, squirming in his seat. It had gotten bad so fast.

“Oh sweetie I’m so sorry,” Hazel frowned, glancing over at him worriedly.

The stoplight they were approaching turned yellow, too close for Hazel to make it through the intersection. She had to step on the break pretty hard though, sending Nathan pitching forwards slightly. Unfortunately it was just enough to cause the lap belt to press into the bulge of his stomach.

“Blaargghhhh!” Nathan doubled over, head dropping down between his knees as he vomited up the dinner that was upsetting his stomach so much.

“Shit,” Hazel muttered, reaching over to rub her hand across his back as he continued to heave his stomach up onto the floor of his car. “You’re okay honey, breathe through it,” she said, trying to keep an eye on him and the road at the same time.

By the time Nathan had finished throwing up, they’d reached their apartment. Hazel parked quickly and got out, walking around to Nathan’s side. She helped him out of the car, avoiding as much of the mess as possible. Once he was safely on his feet, she shut the door behind him, then wrapped an arm around his waist and led him inside to the elevator.

“Hazel,” Nathan gulped as they stepped into the elevator. One of his hands had moved to cradle his lower tummy and he was bent forward slightly.

“Just close your eyes and take some deep breaths, we’ll be home in a few seconds,” she said, somewhat desperately.

“M’not feeling so good,” he mumbled, dropping his head down onto her shoulder and grabbing her hand to squeeze as the elevator started to move upwards. The motion wasn’t doing him any favors, but four flights of stairs would’ve been even worse.

“Almost there sweetie,” Hazel murmured, rubbing her hand up and down his back.

They made it to their floor, thankfully, and began to make their way down the hall. Just a few doors away, Nathan stopped suddenly, face draining of all color. Hazel grabbed him by the arm, yanking him towards their room. He brought a hand up to hover over his mouth as she pulled out her keys, quickly unlocking the door and practically shoving Nathan inside, as gently as she could, of course.

As she shut the door behind her, Nathan half ran half stumbled to the bathroom, dropping down to his knees with a thud as she followed behind him. No sooner had he hit the floor he was hunched over the toilet, coughing up mouthfuls of mushy brown stomach contents. He quickly shut his eyes, feeling his nausea level ratchet up from the sight of it.

“You’re doing great love, just get it up,” Hazel said from behind him. She pressed one hand between his shoulder blades, pressing her other one to his forehead, so he could lean against her hand. His arms had started to shake from holding himself up as he vomited up wave after wave. He hadn’t even eaten that much, where was it coming from?

With one last dry heave and a queasy belch, Nathan was finally finished. He let Hazel pull him away from the toilet and sit back against her. She unbuttoned his shirt, peeling the sweaty garment off of his skin, then she slid her cold hands up under his t-shirt to rub his stomach.

As exhausted as he was, he sighed at the feeling of her hands. Their coolness felt soothing against his overheated tummy, overworked from the effort of vomiting. He closed his eyes as she rubbed away some of the discomfort in his bloated stomach.

“Feeling better?” she asked after a few minutes, when he’d seemed to relax a little.

“Mmm, I guess so, still queasy,” he shrugged, bringing a fist up to his mouth to muffle a belch that Hazel’s rubbing brought up.

“Do you think you’re done being sick?” she asked.

Nathan shook his head miserably. As if to agree with him, his stomach let out a loud gurgle, flipping beneath Hazel’s hand. She sighed sympathetically, leaning forwards to kiss his flushed cheek.

“Well if we’re going to be here for a bit, I’m gonna go grab a couple of things,” she said, shifting him forward so she could slide out from behind him.

“Don’t leave,” he whined, as she helped him lean back against the bathrub.

“Shh shh, I’ll be right back,” she said, kissing his forehead, before darting out of the bathroom. She went to their bedroom first, grabbing a fresh undershirt and a pair of basketball shorts for him to change into. She also grabbed one of their spare pillows and a blanket, since she had a feeling they might be spending a good portion of the night in the bathroom. Hazel quickly filled a glass of water in the kitchen, then walked back to the bathroom.

“Here love, take a few sips,” she said, holding the cup to his lips once she’d set everything else down. She tipped it up enough for him to take a few small drinks of water, then set the cup down on the counter.

“S’hot,” he groaned.

“I know, let me help,” she said, reaching for the hem of his shirt. Hazel pulled the undershirt over his head, deciding not to bother with the other one, then helped wrestle him out of his jeans and into the shorts. “That feel better?” she asked, wetting a wash cloth with cool water to press to his overheated skin.

“Little,” he shrugged, sighing when she pressed the damp rag to his skin. She dabbed off his face, his chest, his shoulders, hoping to cool him down and relax him.

“Good. Now how about you try to rest a little bit before the next round,” she suggested, placing the pillow in her lap.

Nathan nodded, rubbing his eyes tiredly. Hazel held her arms out to him, helping him carefully lay down in her lap. He squirmed around a little, trying to get comfortable on the cold hard floor, especially with his stomach churning. Hazel draped one arm over his waist, and began carding her fingers through his hair with her other hand.

“You’re okay, just relax,” she said softly, reaching up to flip the lights off in hopes that she could put him to sleep before he got sick again. His body had to be exhausted, and they were probably going to have a long night.

#sick nathan #caretaker hazel #food poisoning #bad food #tw vomit #vomit trigger warning #emeto #sick tummy #tummy rubs #nathan and hazel #fluff #comfort #sickfic #illness #sickness #upset tummy #my ocs #ocs #oc story

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chaotic-mom-friend · 4 years

Text

Stardew Fic for Shane (aka babey). Hope y'all enjoy.

You've been living here in Pelican Town for roughly a year now. Long enough for people to know you're just a little bit strange, yet endearingly so. You're the first to get to the bottom of the mines, talk with the mysterious beings of the town, and even rebuilt the community center. With the help of the Jumino spirits, of course.

But by far, the strangest choice you've made was falling for the grumpy, moody drunk who first showed his affections for you by cramming a whole-ass pizza into your mailbox. All the same, you saw something in him. You saw the hurting inner child who just needed to know he didn't need to be ashamed, that there were people who loved and supported him. He still had some trouble opening up, but slowly, you were helping him learn to feel safe. True, the other residents could never understand your ultimate choice, but they could appreciate it. After all, Shane did seem much happier with you. He even quit drinking, and every other week went into the city to talk to a therapist. Things were going well...

But the day you find him asleep on the bathroom floor, the thick stench of vomit hanging in the air, a familiar fear creeps into your stomach... Your mind flashes back to finding him on a cliff, drinking away his inhibitions, trying to work up the nerve to jump. Had he fallen off the wagon? He was doing so well... You start practicing in your head what to say to him. Relay that you aren't angry, that you still love him. That you're just disappointed, because you know he can do better.

However, you're both relieved and confused when you come closer, and the smell of alcohol doesn't seem to be anywhere on him. Okay, so he's not drunk... You reach up and feel his cheek with the back of your hand. Oh... Now it makes sense. His skin is clammy and sweaty. You can hear his teeth chatter as his stomach squelches and roils. Shane was doing better (quitting that awful job at Joja and coming to live with you helped), but he was still learning how to take care of himself. You didn't put it past him to eat something bad and give himself a case of terrible indigestion in the process.

Your warm touch brings him around. He opens his bleary eyes with a moan, a few lingering tears sliding off of his cheek. "Unngh... Babe?"

A sigh of relief escapes you. At least he's somewhat aware. "I'm here, Shane..." Your hand moves from his forehead to cup his stubbled cheek. "How long have you been here?"

"Don't know," he admits, shuddering as another noisy gas bubble churns its way through his system when you help him sit up. "Just woke up, maybe an hour ago? Came in here, and I-" He was cut off by a small, strained burp, covering his mouth with a fist. You brace yourself for action, but thankfully, it seems to be just a burp. "Ahhh... Sorry." He blushed. "M-my belly's not really happy with me right now..."

"Let's get you into bed, ok?" You figure he'll be more comfortable there. Pulling his arm over your shoulder, you make sure to move slowly as you stand him up.

As you make it from the bathroom, his hand comes up to absently rub his bloated tummy to try and ease whatever's going on in there. His brow pinched as another squealing gurgle pushed his intestines around. "O-oh, Yoba..."

"I know, babe. I know it hurts..." You pause a moment, letting him regain his composure. When he nods, you take baby steps with him down the hall. Making it to the bedroom without incident, you help him stagger to the bed. It breaks your heart the way he curls up on his side, arms around his noisy gut. His shirt is tight around his bloated middle, still churning with whatever wants out. "I'll be back, okay? I'm just gonna grab a few things."

He nodded, though you're not sure if he really heard you. Not that you could be upset with him for it; he was probably focused more on the immense pain in his belly.

You come back up with a bucket, along with a clean rag, a few bottles of water, and some mint candies. You remember Carol telling you that mint helps a bad tummy. Tentatively, you sit beside him and rub your knuckles against his scratchy cheek again. "You awake?"

"Can't sleep with a demon inside me," he half-jokes.

"Aww, sweet potato... Can I help?"

At your question, he blushes a little. His voice is barely above a mumble. "C-could you... Maybe you could just rub my belly...?" He avoids your line of sight for it.

You smile sympathetically. "Of course. C'mere." Positioning yourself against the headboard, you encourage him to sit up and lay against your shoulder. Rubbing your hands together to warm them up, you lift his shirt a bit and tenderly press your fingertips into his angry tummy. He closes his eyes with a contented sigh, letting his head fall back. One hand works the front of his achy belly, while the other rubs the side in up and down motions. Another gurgle stirs around in his digestive system, telling you that something is moving. Another burp escapes him before he can stifle it, though he at least manages to turn away from you. "S'cuse me," he mutters, still embarrassed, but looking a little more relieved at the room it made for his stomach.

You can still feel his intestines shifting around, quite noisy as they did. "Can you remember what you ate?"

"Urm..." He turns away again and burps into his fist. "Oysters. They... They tasted a little off, I think. But I was so hungry..."

Food poisoning. Somehow, you're not surprised... But if it gets worse, you resolve to take him to Harvey.

He lets out another little belch, this one airy and choked off.

"Shane?" You pause your ministrations, watching the color drain from his face.

"I d-don't feel so good," he stammered out, voice thick with nausea.

You act fast, swiping up the bucket from the side of the bed. Switching your positions, you bring him to his knees and help him lean over the plastic container. You're long since used to this from his mornings of hangovers in the past. You just hope it doesn't hurt him as badly.

He keeps a white-knuckle grip on the sides of the basin, his stomach cramping and gurgling. "Ohhhh..."

"I know, cupcake," you soothe, bracing his forehead to help him stay steady. When he takes in a shaky breath, you know it's coming. His breath hitches at the end and he gags hard, belching up a torrent of sick. Violent splashes hit the bottom of the bucket as his stomach puts in overtime to get it out. This is much worse than when he'd get sick from drinking. At least then, he'd just puke and get it over with, likely feel better after. Here, you could already see him gearing up for round two, shaking and sweating all over.

"It hurts...!"

"I know it does, baby, I know..." You keep his bangs out of the splash zone as another wave of bile joins the rest of the mess in the bucket, your free hand steadying the container. "Oh honey, I know that's gotta hurt... Just get that nastiness out." The third heave isn't as hard, but maybe it's because he's getting tired. You feel an ache in your chest as he's only able to let out a pitiful whine, before getting sick a fourth and fifth time. "I know, pumpkin. I know... Just get it up. That's it, good job... Good job."

"Guh..." He finally gets a moment to breathe, keeping his eyes shut so he doesn't have to see the mess. His tongue felt like it was coated in fuzz. "I think... I think I'm finished." He spit into the bucket one final time.

You set it aside for now, taking one of the bottles of water to give him a few sips. "Slowly. Just to get the taste out."

He nodded, doing as instructed. He didn't feel so confident about putting anything in his system just yet, but he wanted that acrid sensation off of his tongue...

With that out of the way, you work on cleaning his face off. With the same water bottle, you dampen the clean rag and gently wipe it over his face. You wince as you realize that somehow, he'd managed to get it in his eyebrows. Once he was cleaned up, you reward him with a kiss to the cheek. "My poor baby..."

He leaned into you, taking slow, deep breaths. He looks ready to fall asleep. Or pass out. Whichever one brings him some kind of comfort...

Once you're sure his stomach has settled for now, you stand up and take the sick bucket. "Ok. I'm gonna rinse this out. I'll be right back."

He nods absently, indicating that he at least got the gist of what you were telling him. You head back down the hall, dumping out and flushing the mess in the toilet, then rinsing the residue out in the tub.

Unfortunately, Shane's stomach can't keep it in for long. You're in the middle of disinfecting the bucket, when he staggers in, sweat pouring down his face. You look back, alarmed at the sight. One hand grips the sink, the other arm around his gurgling, cramping belly. "Shane?"

"Babe, you gotta move." His voice is strained as another cramp rips through. His knees buckle.

"Shane, what's wrong?"

"I don't-" his knees buckle together, both arms wrapped around his tummy. "I really can't hold it...! Please, I don't want you to see this!" His voice is filled with panic, and he goes absolutely stiff.

You get the message. You manage to slip past him, letting him quickly shuffle to the toilet as you close the door behind him, just as he's able to pull his pants off. At least one less thing for him to worry about... You wait outside to make sure he doesn't pass out on the toilet. A few seconds pass before you hear him groan in pain, just as what sounds like a bucket of water dumped into the toilet. Worried, you knock. "Shane? You okay in there?"

Another bout of diarrhea violently exits his rear. You can tell he's crying by how he sounds when he speaks. "It feels like my insides are falling out of me..."

"I know, baby... Do you want me to co-"

"No, please don't..." Another choked sob leaves him. "I'm sorry, I... I don't want you to have to see me this way..."

"I don't care about that! I just want to help you feel better. I don't want you to hurt anymore..."

Silence met you from the other side, causing your chest to seize with fear.

"Shane?"

A few more seconds pass, before you hear the toilet flush. The water in the sink runs for a moment for him to wash his hands, before the door knob turns. He's an absolute wreck when you see him. He's pale as a baby sheep, drenched in sweat, deep violet bangs clinging wetly to his forehead.

"Oh, Shane..." You open your arms to hold him, letting him tumble into your arms. He sniffles, frustrated and exhausted as you stroke his sweaty hair.

"It hurts so bad," he whispers hoarsley into your shoulder.

This was the first time you'd ever seen him so vulnerable. Honestly, it scares you just a little. "I know it does..." You gently guide him back to bed, bringing him to lay on his side. It's easier for his achy belly and his sore backside in this position. You lay down behind him, pressing a kiss to the back of his neck. "I'm gonna be right here with you, okay?"

He nodded, too exhausted to be embarrassed anymore. He's glad to have you here. Just the thought of being sick and alone like this scares him. He hoped you knew that without telling you. He could barely form a sentence for the moment. He can barely keep his eyes open.

Seeing this, you drag the blanket over him and up to his shoulders, kissing him again on the back of his head. "I'll be right here, muffin... Just get some sleep."

He nodded again, wincing at the residual cramps that still bubbled up from time to time. Taking your hand, he brought it back to his belly. "Please rub," he croaked. You gladly oblige, tenderly pressing your fingertips into his abused intestines. You're sure to be gentle, trying to help him fall asleep. Now and again, his breath hitches as another cramp hits. Thankfully, you feel his breath even out instead of reaching for the bucket.

But when he wakes up an hour later, you find yourself helping him back to the toilet. It's going to be a long night...

#stardew shane #x reader #emeto #vomit tw #diarrhea tw #sickfic

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letswritebangtan · 5 years

Text

Mafia!Jungkook x Reader

You were glad that it was raining heavily outside. It simply drowned out the painful screams and cries of agony coming from downstairs. How much longer were you to take this?

Being born into one of the most powerful gangs in the city, you were exposed to all kinds of harsh realities that were out there. Your brother Yoongi, he’d come home every single day with a bleeding, whimpering man on his tail. His eyes held no sympathy, no concern, it was with a cold, blank and empty gaze that he looked down on the pleading man. And just when he had enough he’d press his finger against the trigger and shot out whatever life was left in that poor, unfortunate soul.

Yoongi was the only member of your family you had left. And that’s why he made it a point to protect you, he swore upon your parents’ grave.

“You can’t keep me in here forever!” you yelled.

“Yes I can, and I will.” he snapped angrily. “Listen y/n, you have no idea what’s going on out there. One foot out of that door unaccompanied you’d be lying in your own pool of blood. Is that what you want?”

“I can fend for myself.” you retorted. “I’m not a child anymore, Yoongi. I’m a part of this family, I’m a mafia by blood. Let me do my part-”

“I wish you were there to see it, maybe then you wouldn’t be so insensitive.”

“See what?” you scoffed.

“The look on mom’s face before she died. She was crying, she was breaking down in my arms, and she kept pleading over and over that I keep you alive. That if anything should happen to you it would be my fault, and I took up on that responsibility. I don’t think you understand how important your safety is to me, and to others y/n. So stop being so selfish. I just want you to be safe because I love you. Mom loves you.”

Yoongi always pulled the ‘mom card’ on you. Ever since she passed, you always felt some form of guilt. She passed just after giving birth to you, and as much as people tried to convince you that it wasn’t your fault you couldn’t help it. From then on, whatever you could do to honour your mother, you did it without hesitation.

“Throw him out!” you heard your brother yell.

The rain had died down, and you were relieved from all the noise coming from the earlier commotion downstairs. You heard men shuffling in, probably to carry the corpse outside and dispose of it. Usually after incidences like this Yoongi would go up to his office and smoke a cigarette. But since you were feeling a little bored today, you thought you’d bring one downstairs and light it up for him. He kept his cigarettes in one of his desk drawers, usually locked to keep you from smoking them. But what he didn’t know was that you’d rather drink your own pee that take a drag from one of those poisonous sticks. They smelled at felt horrible, you had no idea why people could get addicted to those things.

You grabbed a spare pin from your dressing table and walked into Yoongi’s office. Once you picked the lock open (something you’ve done countless times just for the fun of it) you grabbed a pack and a lighter and shut the drawer, making sure to lock it again. As you walked down the stairs you heard your brother speaking, but the person he was speaking to didn’t sound so familiar.

“So? Did they deliver it?” an unknown voice asked.

He sounded young, but his voice was slightly deep too.

“They better have had them delivered otherwise they’d be happy to find out that their asses are going to be shot at tonight.” you heard Yoongi grumble.

You peeked around the corner and spotted your brother conversing with another man. He was way taller than Yoongi, every muscle in his body built to perfection. His chest and shoulders were broad, enclosed with a white button down shirt. You could practically see his defined muscles through them. His hair was long and curly at the ends, you wished you could run your hands through it to see how soft it was. His face was perfection, he was so incredibly handsome in his formal clothing. His voice was sweet, but you were sure they could get lower and raspier if he tried. He had a light smile on his face, probably amused at your brother’s stressed out reaction.

“Calm down, hyung. I’m sure they did a good job. My men are hard workers, they got this under control.” the handsome man said.

His men? He just went from hot to hotter. You imagined him being authoritative, strict and merciless with the people that he dealt with. That made him look so good in your head.

“y/n what the hell are you doing just standing there?”

You snapped out of your thoughts and realised that Yoongi and the handsome stranger were staring right at you. You got slightly flustered, not expecting your first meeting with this hot stranger to be so awkward.

“I heard you were finished with the body so I thought you might want a smoke as usual.” you said stepping forward.

You could feel the stranger’s gaze rake up and down your entire body, almost making you shiver. You were only dressed in some pyjama shorts and a t-shirt, making yourself feel exposed.

“I thought I told you not to touch those.” Yoongi groaned.

“Alright, I guess I’ll just keep them back-” you teased as you turned around.

“Dammit, wait. Just give them to me.” Yoongi grumbled in frustration.

He put the cigarette in his mouth and let you light it up for him. You were still holding the pack, unsure of whether or not to offer some to the attractive man next to you.

“y/n, this is Jeon Jungkook. Head of the east district. He’s partnering up with us to get some work done. So if you see him around here a lot, don’t freak out. Jungkook, this is my little sister, y/n.” Yoongi introduced.

You made eye contact with Jungkook, and he sent you a half smile and a half smirk. He extended his hand towards you for you to shake.

“Glad to meet you, y/n. Yoongi mentioned quite a bit about you.” Jungkook said.

He grasped your dainty little hands in his big ones. He licked his lips after his small introduction and it sent your brain spiraling out of control at the sight.

“I-it’s nice to meet you too. Cigarette?” you offered awkwardly.

“No thank you, I don’t smoke.” Jungkook smiled as he shook his head slightly.

“O-oh, oops, sorry. It’s just that all of Yoongi’s friends have a habit of smoking.” you apologised.

“Don’t worry about it, princess.” Jungkook said smirking lightly.

That nickname made you swallow nervously and you turned to look at Yoongi.

“Well, you’re welcome for the cigarette, I’m gonna go to my room now.” you told your brother.

“Hey wait, I need a favour.” Yoongi said.

You huffed, “What is it?”

“I need to leave for a bit, I gotta sort out some things at the bar. I told Jungkook that you make one hell of a good burger and that’s exactly the kind of food Jungkook’s into.”

“You want me to make him hamburgers?” you asked in disbelief.

“Yoongi it’s okay, I’m sure I can find a restaurant nearby. And I’m sure they’ll be better.” Jungkook said with a glint in his eye.

You gaped slightly and turned to look at him. “Okay Jungkook, you may be new around here and all, but I’m not taking shit from anyone about my burgers. I make them well and I make them good.” you argued fiercely.

You saw Jungkook’s eyebrow cock in amusement. “Oh yeah? Then show me what you’ve got, babygirl.” he challenged.

“Don’t ‘babygirl’ my ass, just go sit at the table and be prepared to be proven wrong.” you retorted, and then stormed off to the kitchen.

“Don’t take this the wrong way, but your sister is really hot when she’s mad.” Jungkook said, his eyes not leaving your behind.

“Yeah, I’m definitely taking this the wrong way.” Yoongi said glaring at Jungkook.

time skip

“I would have gotten ten burgers if I dined in a restaurant by now.” Jungkook complained.

“Jeez, who knew you could be more annoying when you’re hungry?” you mumbled as you watched the meat patties cook.

Jungkook chuckled, “You know when I first saw you, I never thought you were a feisty one.”

“Hm, so?”

“So it means I find you incredibly beautiful, hot and sexy because of it.”

You froze for a few seconds and then turned around to look at him. He was smirking at you again, his chin resting on his palm as he gazed at you from the counter top.

“Did you just hit on me?” you asked in disbelief.

“Sweetheart, I’ve been doing it all along.”

You scoffed and laughed slightly. “You have no shame.”

“Why should I be ashamed for hitting on a really beautiful woman?” he retorted.

“Jungkook, I suggest you don’t tick off the person who’s cooking your food.” you said and turned around to smile sweetly at him, with obvious malice under your tone.

You heard him chuckle at that, making a small genuine smile break out onto your face. Thank god your back was facing him so that he couldn’t see. Once you finished making the burgers, you put two on his plate and one on yours. He smiled and thanked you when you handed him the plate. You sat across him and waited patiently to see his response. He wasted no time in biting into the burger. When he did, he paused for a few seconds, chewing. And then his gaze met yours. He let out a loud groan, and then wasted no time in taking another bite.

You smiled, feeling accomplished. “Not too bad, huh?”

“These are fucking amazing! Where did you learn how to make these?” he asked enthusiastically like a boy.

I guess Jungkook did have an innocent, kind side of him too.

“It’s my mother’s recipe.” you said and let out a soft smile.

Jungkook’s eyes widened briefly before resting in a sympathetic gaze.

“I’m so sorry, I had no idea-” he began.

“No it’s alright. I’m sorry I was rude earlier I just, it really hit a nerve when you talked about it like that. This is most of what I have to remember her by.” you said as you played with your fingers on the table.

“Oh damn y/n, I really am sorry. I didn’t mean to.” Jungkook apologised again.

“I know you didn’t. I’m kinda glad you said it though, otherwise I would never have made some for you.” you replied smiling a little.

Jungkook smiled back at you, “Well thank you for sharing this with me. It’s great.”

“I’m glad you think so. My mom taught it to Yoongi when he was four. And then he taught me. Sometimes I get jealous you know? He got to see more of her than I did. That’s something really special.” you said.

“Despite that though y/n, I’m sure your mother still loved you so much. I’m sure she was incredibly happy to have you.”

You looked up at Jungkook to see that he was staring intently at you. You knew he truly meant what he said. You smiled at him thankfully. “That’s a really beautiful thing to say, thank you.”

“You’re welcome.” he grinned and continued to eat his burger.

Time passed quickly at the dinner table. You and Jungkook talked and talked, and you found yourself liking him even more.

You yawned softly and rubbed your eyes, Jungkook noticed this and pulled your fist away from your face.

“Okay sleepyhead, it’s bedtime.” he said standing up and walking over to your side.

“No, I can stay up.” you complained.

“No, you need to sleep. Yoongi will kill me if he sees that I kept you awake until this hour. Let’s get you to your room.”

“I’m not a kid, I can stay up until whenever.” you huffed.

“Don’t make me put you over my shoulder, babygirl.” he warned.

You glared at him for a while, and after realising he was serious you sighed and got up, following Jungkook as he led you to the room. You collapsed onto your mattress and Jungkook chuckled. Something about that point in time made Jungkook look a lot more attractive, his lips more kissable, and you didn’t know whether it was your drowsy state or your own confidence that made you do it, but when Jungkook leaned down to pull the blanket up to your shoulders, your arms latched onto the back of his neck, pulling him closer and pressed your lips against his.

You heard him grunt in surprise, but soon his hands were on your back, pulling you closer and his mouth was moving against yours in a fast, feverish way. You moaned softly when his fingers dug into the flesh of your hips, and his tongue explored your mouth. He pulled away to place hot kisses and bites all over your neck, making you squirm and cry out his name.

“Jungkook.” you gasped when he placed his cold hand on your thigh, and started to slide it upwards.

“You okay with this, baby?” he asked as he stared into your eyes.

You nodded quickly, urging him to continue.

“You have no idea how much I had to restrain myself around you.” he whispered lowly.

“Do you know, baby, hm? How hard it was to not take you right then and there?” he said and then pressed his hips against yours creating friction.

You threw your head back and shut your eyes as Jungkook worked his magic.

“Fuck, you’re beautiful.”

time skiiiip cuz I can’t go any further >-<

“Just one more before I leave.” Jungkook begged.

You sighed and rolled your eyes playfully before leaning forward and kissing him softly. He whined when you pulled away, making you giggle.

“Head of the east district my ass.” you scoffed and giggled afterwards.

“You saw just how powerful I can be earlier just now, babe.” he smirked.

You blushed and pushed at his chest. “Okay it’s time for you to leave. I’ll see you tomorrow, Kook.”

“Hmm, fine. Can you make hamburgers again tomorrow?” he asked with puppy dog eyes.

You giggled, “Of course.” You ran a hand through his soft hair and then pushed at his shoulders lightly.

“Let’s hope I don’t run into your brother on the way out.” he said as he slipped into his pants.

“That would be horrible.” you agreed.

“Goodnight, princess. See you tomorrow.” he said as he placed one last kiss on your lips and then opened the door.

“I fucking knew it.” Yoongi said as he stood cross armed at the entrance.

“S-Shit, hyung, it’s just, um, l-let me-” Jungkook began.

“Come on, y/n. Him?” Yoongi asked disappointedly.

“Excuse me, what does that mean?” Jungkook asked offended.

“Yoongi, just let it go.” you giggled.

“Yeah, it’s not my fault your sister’s attractive.” Jungkook complained.

“You make an excuse one more time and I’ll beat your ass, Jungkook.”

____________________________________________________

:DDD like and reblog pretty please <3

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not-close-to-straight · 5 years

Text

Just Into You (Three)

In which Tony is sick and Steve rides to the rescue, there is a storm and Steve has to stay over for fan fiction reasons, Sam is just... just Done and whoops there is (sleepy) dry humping and oh no Steve flails about in Gay Panic.

MASTERLIST HERE!

******************

“So you’re not into him, huh?” Sam folded his arms and leaned against the door jam, leveling Steve with his most judgmental look. “Which is why every morning for a month straight you’ve scampered your happy ass out this door to buy him ridiculously overpriced coffee and talk about what-- how you both have hard ons for terrible movies?”

“Cut it out.” Steve scowled at him. “I think Tony’s right, you’re just mad because we’ve been friends for like ten years and all the sudden I’m branching out and making new friends.”

“I’m wounded to my very soul.” Sam said flatly. “Yes. You caught me. That’s why I’m busting your balls about Tony. Because I’m jealous that you have a new friend. Damn it, you are my friend and I don’t want you having another friend. That’s exactly right. I’m mad because Tony is your friend.”

“You’re being weird again, Sam.”

“And you’re being dumb again, Steve.”

“Tony and I are just friends. I’m not into guys.” Steve’s phone rang and his face lit up as he answered,” Hey! Tony!”

“Hey Tony.” Sam mimicked and Steve winged a spatula at him. “Ack! Okay! I’m leaving!”

“Tony!” Steve grabbed his keys off the counter. “I was just on my way out the door. Remind me again where this new place is? You said on 3rd?”

“Steeve.” Tony sniffled loudly and coughed. “M’sick. Can’t have coffee. Pretty sure I’m dying of the plague.”

“Like... like the black plague?” Steve tried not to laugh into the phone. “You’re dying of the black plague?”

“Look.” Tony sniffed again. “I googled my symptoms and it’s definitely either the plague or SARS. There’s a mild chance it’s the common cold but that seems unrealistic all things considered.”

“All things considered, the common cold seems unrealistic?” Steve changed direction and dug through the fridge for the leftover soup from last night and then rifled through the cupboard for some bread. “Okay why don’t you get in the shower and get warmed up and I’ll come over with some soup and cold medicine.”

“No no don’t come over, I’m fine.” Tony coughed again and Steve tsked sympathetically. “Plus I’m super whiny and purposefully obnoxious when I’m sick and you don’t want to deal with that.”

“I promise I don’t care.” Steve jogged back to his bedroom and snagged his favorite worn blanket and an extra hoodie. “I’ll be there in just about an hour okay? Go get in the shower.”

He hung up and turned around to leave and--

“Sam.” he sighed. “I’ve never seen anyone eat cereal so judgmentally in my entire life.”

“Steve.” Sam returned. “School is actually cancelled because some ridiculously big storm is supposed to land tonight. Like hurricane force rains. They cancelled classes so the students and teachers with later classes wouldn’t get potentially stuck in the storm. And you’re going to drive forty five minutes across town to take your ‘friend’--”

“--the air quotes aren’t necessary.”

“--oh ho, the air quotes are necessary, my man. You’re driving forty five minutes to take him soup and your favorite hoodie.” Sam took another bite, staring balefully at Steve over his Fruit Loops. “Remember that year we went for Spring Break in Mexico and I got food poisoning and ended up in the hospital because of dehydration?”

“...yeah?”

“Did you bring me soup and your favorite hoodie?” Sam shook his head when Steve tried to answer. “No. You didn’t. You got all handsy with which ever girl was drinking the most tequila and ended up passed out on the beach like a dumbass. All I’m saying is-- you’re doing things for Tony that you don’t normally do for your friend-- Steve?” Sam groaned. “Steve are you even listening to me?”

“Hm?” Steve looked up from his phone. “No. I told him I was bringing him a hoodie and he said not orange because it makes him look like an Oompa Loompa.” His smile was just a hint past stupid. “As if. He probably looks good in any color.”

“I give up.” Sam decided to a now empty room as Steve bolted out the door. “I give up. The man is impossible.”

******************

“Sam’s back on that whole ‘you hang out with Tony too much’ thing.” Steve said as he pulled soup from the microwave and stirred it. “I told him he was just jealous.”

“Yeah, cos this is definitely well with in the boundaries of what friends do.” Tony had swapped Bucky’s hoodie for Steve’s and was nearly drowning in it, just the top of his head and eyes peeking out from folds and swaths of dark blue cloth. “What kind of soup?”

“Potato and corn? Sam makes it with cream and its much better than mine, I promise.”

“That makes it a chowder.” Tony scooted over on the couch and Steve sat close enough to hold the bowl so Tony could have a bite. “Cream base makes it a chowder.”

“You know weird things.”

“Yeah.” Tony slurped noisily at the spoon. “Yeah, I really do.”

“So is it the plague or just the sniffles?” Steve fluffed up the pillow behind Tony and left his arm there across Tony’s shoulders. “Or something far far worse? How many days do you have left before I have to start writing a speech for your funeral?”

“You might not need a funeral speech. Depending on how I type my symptoms into Web MD, it might actually be pregnancy.” Tony commented. “You ready to be a daddy, Steve?”

“Ohhhh let’s not joke about things that give me heart palpitations.” Steve decided and fumbled around for the remote. “What do you want to watch?”

“I’m going to take some cold medicine and go into a coma.” Tony poured a dose of NyQuil and tossed it back, grimacing at the taste. “If you’re going to leave, thank you for the soup. If you’re going to stay, be prepared to be used as a pillow.”

“Oh.” Steve didn’t know why he sounded a little nervous or why the word came out a little breathy but he leaned back into the couch and opened his arms wider for Tony. “Come here, sickie. You can lay on me, come here.”

“Kay.” Tony pushed and prodded at him until Steve was stretched out all the way, and then curled into his side. “Just push me off if my sniffling gets gross. Also I snore with NyQuil and it’s terrible. Rhodey has told me I talk in my sleep and Natasha has confirmed that rumour.”

“Why do Rhodey and Natasha know you talk in your sleep?” That-- that didn’t sound jealous, right? No way. Sounded perfectly normal.

“Because when I’m sick or just over tired I sleep on who ever is closest. Usually Rhodey.” Tony wound his leg through Steve’s and sighed happily-- or as happily as he could while congested and sniffling and breathing through his mouth. “Sometimes Natasha if Bucky is out of town and she doesn’t want to be alone. One terrifying time Bucky came over when Nat was out of town-- that guy is the most intense cuddler I was honestly scared for my life. Nat is a very brave woman.”

“You’re rambling.” It was easy to press a kiss to Tony’s forehead and Steve told himself he was checking for a fever. “Close your eyes and get some sleep.”

“But I want to talk to you about my weird friends.” Tony whined. “I told you I was purposefully obnoxious when I’m sick. You signed up for this.”

“I did sign up for this.” Steve acknowledged. “And I’m not going to push you off even if you snore. Are you warm enough? Do you want another blanket?”

“M’fine.” Tony sighed again and added with a giggle, “So weird how Sam thinks we’re dating, right?”

“It is weird.” Steve agreed and Tony laughed against him. “I’ve taken care of him when he’s sick, I dunno why he’s being weird about me taking care of you all the sudden.”

“Oh yeah, no this is definitely what friends do.” Tony was laughing harder and Steve felt like he was maybe missing the joke. “Definitely. I have no idea why he thinks we’re dating. No idea why.”

Steve just smiled and hugged Tony closer to his side. “Get some sleep.”

The day went by in a blur of Tony snoring on Steve’s chest, waking up to demand more soup and more medicine and then back to being basically comatose.

The rain started around two pm and by the time Tony woke up for more soup and dinner, it was coming down in sheets, thunder rolling along outside the building and the occasional crack of lightning.

“Holy crap.” Tony rubbed at his eyes and stared out the window in shock. “Did you know it was going to storm?”

“Everyone knew it was going to storm, Tony.” Steve put his magazine down and motioned for Tony to come back to the couch. “it’s practically a hurricane out there. How did you miss the news?”

“I’ve been in a Nyquil coma for most of the last twenty four hours.” Tony pointed out and when Steve frowned, he explained, “I wasn’t feeling good yesterday at coffee either so I called out of work and have been high off cold medicine ever since.”

“Oh for goodness sake.” Steve motioned for him again and this time Tony came back and curled up on his side. “I might have to stay here tonight if that’s okay. Doesn’t look real safe to drive.”

“Steve.” Tony blinked up at him. “Of course you can stay the night. I’d love if you stayed the night. Are you serious? Yes stay.”

“Poor thing, need someone to take care of you?” Steve laughed and Tony rolled his eyes, “Yeah Steve, I want you to stay the night because I want you to take care of me. That’s exactly why.”

“Are you ready for some more food?”

“I’m ready for some alcohol.” Tony decided and clambered off the couch to head for the fridge. “Nyquil and Vodka is fine, right?”

“Tony, NO!”

*****************

(Sleepy dry humping coming up if you want to avoid it? Idk some people are weird about sleepy sexy times)

*****************

Steve was dreaming.

Something about rain and thunder, what sounded like a musical on the background which didn’t really make sense but hey, dreams were weird, right? The edges of his consciousness felt fuzzy, his limbs weighted down and he was holding someone soft and warm over his heart, someones breath puffing at his neck and soft fingers slipping under his shirt to press at his abs and into his sides.

Mmmmm Steve was comfortable, so comfortable and perking up as his hands slid and up over the curve of a very very well rounded rear, the breath at his neck catching when Steve squeezed experimentally and oh look now things were perking up even more.

It had been a long time since he dreamed about this sort of thing and dreams were dreams so Steve didn’t worry when “Tony...” slipped from his mouth instead of.. instead of a girls name.

Dreams were crazy.

“I’m not sick enough you have to feel guilty about this.” Someone giggled and Steve sleep mumbled something back, rucking up a thick hoodie to dig his fingers into a lean back and encourage that soft warm body to wiggle further up on top of him. It was easy to fit his thigh into the vee of narrow hips, and oh god it was nice when their bodies lined up and he could rock up into the welcome weight.

Holy shit had it been a long time since he’d dreamed about this sort of thing.

“You feel good, oh my god, I can’t believe how good you feel.” A quiet whisper into his ear, accompanied by what could have been a kiss on his cheek-- who knew? Dreams were weird-- and Steve tightened his grip on what had to be the best ass he’d ever squeezed and thrust up sharply. “Oh fuck, yes.”

Yesyesyes seriously how long had it been since Steve had had sex? Or even since he’d played palm pong by himself in his room? Was he really having a wet dream right now? Everything was warm and hazy and hot and hard-- oh he was so hard, so hard he was actually seeing stars or--dreaming stars?-- whatever. It was good. Sososososososo good.

“Don’t stop.” Panting now, hands roaming his chest and brushing his nipples and then everything shifted and for just a split second before Steve madean embarrassing noise and ruined his jeans, he thought-- Huh, I feel like there are two dicks in this situation, I definitely feel another dick right now.

“Steve.” a quiet moan that was so sexy, so breathless that Steve almost wished it wasn’t a dream so he could get up and at ‘em again, but the dream was already fading as he slipped back into deeper sleep, nothing left but lingering heat and the feeling that his head was spinning.

Fucking storm dreams.

Crazy.

When Steve finally did wake up all the way, Tony was asleep at his side still and embarrassingly enough Steve had in fact had a wet dream and boy howdy was he uncomfortable.

“Tony.” he whispered and Tony just grumbled at him. “Tony let me up so I can use the bathroom.”

“Mmmph.” Tony mumbled. “Blreghff. Lemme sleep.”

“Okay, let me just scoot out--” Steve tucked Tony back onto the couch and waddled to the shower, peeling out of his ick jeans and getting into ice cold water.

He hadn’t just-- he hadn’t just had a wet dream about Tony, right? He hadn’t done that. Definitely hadn’t just come in his pants thinking about Tony’s butt. Because that would mean that he was attracted to Tony, that he wanted Tony and that-- that was weird. Tony was his best friend and Steve didn’t like guys and--

“Steve?” Tony called through the door. “You woke me up when you got off the couch so I’m going to kick your ass later. But first I’m going to order food, do you want some?”

“Just some extra of whatever you’re having!” he called back and then thumped his head on the shower wall.

Oh no. He wanted Tony.

Oh. No.

****************

“So then, he grabs soup and bolts across town like his ass is on fire.” Sam said and Maria’s mouth dropped. “Yeah. I KNOW.”

“So wait. So Steve doesn’t think they’re dating?”

“Nope. Thinks they are friends.”

“And he just-- he’s spending he night there?”

“Apparently.”

“Alright.” Maria shrugged. “Well when the sex starts happening he’ll figure it out, right?”

“You’d think so?” Sam raised his eyebrows. “But you’re under estimating exactly how in denial Steve is.”

“Oh for fucks sake.”

“I’ve said that so many times in the last month, you don’t even know.”

***************

“Hey, the storm blew out.” Tony’s hand was warm at Steve’s back when he came up behind him at the kitchen sink. “Looks like you might make it home today after all. Damn shame.”

“Damn shame.” Steve kept on washing plates. “I’m getting used to this high end apartment living. Going back to sharing with Sam will be a real downer.”

“You could always move in here.” Tony took a dose of cold medicine and washed it down with a swig of coffee. “It’s big enough.”

“Too far from work.” Steve decided and Tony smiled, soft and a little unsure.

“Are you okay? You’re acting a little weird.”

“It’s nothing.” Steve scrubbed at a non existent spot on the plate. “It’s just um-”

“Yeah?” Tony’s eyes were very wide, his fingers clutching nearly white at his cup. “Steve?”

“I had a dream about you last night.” Steve said in a rush and he wasn’t sure what to think about the look that crossed Tony’s face. “Sure seemed real and I guess I can’t get it out of my head.”

“Was it a good dream?” Tony sidled closer. “Hm?”

“I uh---” Steve swallowed hard, tried to tamp down the panic threatening to choke him. “It really really was.”

********************

SAY SOMETHING ABOUT THE CHAPTER!

(I tried to tag everyone who requested! Remember, if I’m going to tag you be nice enough to drop a comment or at least a like and reblog!)

*********************

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#ncts fics #stony #tony stark #steve rogers

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glowwormsmith · 4 years

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I wanna know ALL the angst questions for Iris, my latest fascination, because I’m always a slut for Eden’s Gate ocs and her playlist is full of BOPS seriously you have excellent taste in music 👌💕

asdfds thank you!!💗 I’m glad you like the playlist for her, I worked hard on it. It’s half sad, soft girl who loves her flower girlfriend, half horror movie villain lol. I also really like talking about Iris, since she’s an unrepentant follower of Faith and Joseph and I can make a complex villain. Let’s get into the angst.

oc angst questions here for reference!

(cw for child abuse/domestic abuse/mental illness/sexual trauma mentions/self-harm/suicidal thoughts and idealization below the cut. Let me know if you need anything else tagged.)

💙 If Iris were dying near Faith or Joseph, her final words would be nothing but gratitude and love for saving her, accepting her into their family and giving her purpose. With Faith, she would tell her she was the only person she ever loved and promises she’ll wait for her in the afterlife, even if she doesn’t truly believe in such deep down. If she is dying in the presence of her enemies, she will curse their names and go down like a bitch: taunting and spitting poison at them, defiant to the end.

In my story, Iris survives the Collapse and the events of “New Dawn;” she’ll most likely die of natural causes down the road, which the Deputy and Iris’s other victims find unfair.

💧 The worst physical pain she was in was when her father brutalized and locked her up in the basement for three days when she was fourteen because she was hanging out with a girl after-school and they came across her giving the girl a kiss; she doesn’t remember much about her past that was rife with abuse, but this moment has stuck in her mind due to the fact that this was the first instance of severe abuse and when she became a prisoner within her own family.

The worst pain she was in mentally was when Faith died. She had mainly healed from her past thanks to being with Faith and the Project; even when the Project was under siege by the Resistance, it was fine because she had Faith. When she came across Faith’s body in the river, Iris had a complete mental shutdown, simply holding Faith’s body in her arms and sitting on the river bank, talking to her as if she were alive. Only Joseph was able to pull Iris away from Faith and Iris needed time alone/with Joseph to process her grief.

🔷 While Iris does not regret leaving her dysfunctional and abusive family, she notes that it was a great leap of faith that culminated in more abuse while on the road; the only reason she never tried to go back was because she could not bear to be locked up again under the grip of her cruel and sadistic father, uncaring and cold older sister, and an awful uncle, aunt and cousins who helped in the abuse.

She was abandoned by her birth mother when she was ten, who had been her only source of comfort. Her mother’s abandonment gave Iris both a feeling of low self-worth but also a desire to be as brave as that woman to leave her prison one day, even if it was into an unknown and uncaring world.

🔵 Her home life was never pleasant and it grew worse when her mother ran off when Iris was ten. She became a captive within her own family at fourteen and she developed severe depression, anxiety, severe anger problems, suicidal idealization, and even sadistic tendencies as a result. She was able to escape after killing her sister in a fit of rage, though it didn’t get better as Iris became homeless and was further exploited on the road.

It is all a blur to her and she prefers it that way, with only a few key memories standing out in her mind. She had to overcome a lot of sexual trauma to show physical affection for Joseph and Faith, and even then they are the only two she allows to touch her. She has an inherent distrust of law enforcement (her aunt was a detective that helped to keep any suspicious people away) and has developed a fear of men, dogs, sex-repulsed, sharp objects, confined spaces and loud voices. She also wonders, in her moments of self-reflection, if she would have been a better person without her dysfunctional family, or if she was always this cruel and vindictive.

❄️ She regrets having to turn to prostitution, thievery and even murder while she was homeless. While she knows it wasn’t her fault that her family treated her awfully, she feels shame and disgust over what she had to do on the road, to the point where she wonders if she should have just died instead of kept going. Faith and Joseph have to continuously remind her that no, she’s not “dirty” or “bad” for having to survive and that if she chose to die, then they would never have gotten the chance to know her. While it makes her feel better to hear this from the two people she loves, the negative intrusive thoughts refuse to go away, so she copes by projecting onto others, becoming a bully and tormentor herself.

💦 She tended to self-harm before Eden’s Gate and she still tends to do it at her lowest of lows or if no one’s around. She also has the urge to be a huge asshole to others, as a way to get her pent-up frustration and bitterness and negative emotions out. This unfortunate habit is supported by EG because, even though Joseph wants to save as many people as possible, he allows his followers to fight the Resistance and she takes the opportunity to be cruel to “sinners.”

She has become somewhat reliant on the Bliss, since being in the Bliss makes all the bad thoughts go away.

🌊 Iris is a pretty mean-spirited and petty person, but she can hide it well to put up a sympathetic and sincere front. When she’s hit her low, she drops the facade and goes hard; pray you aren’t on the receiving end of her anger or if you’re dealing with her during an episode.

If she becomes triggered or has a panic attack, she’ll dissociate and find a quiet place out in the woods to curl up and wait to settle her mind. She’ll look to Joseph or Faith for comfort and reassurance she is fine, that they won’t leave her or let anyone harm her.

☄️ She does, though it has gotten better due to healing from Joseph and Faith. She only opens up to these two, though she has enough emotional intelligence (probably due to healing from them) to understand that they are the only two she can even genuinely love at this point. She is complex: on first glance, you’d think she wasn’t affected by her past at all, but more time and learning about her history that her experience has shaped Iris into her current personality and behaviors, even if she suppresses much of her memory. By the time of “New Dawn,” she has completely forgotten her past and only knows Eden’s Gate; the only trace memory of her past life is that “monsters made me a monster.”

🔹 She has scars on her arms and thighs from both self-harm and the abuse from her family. Her family were more careful not to leave evidence of the abuse, so most of the scars from them are mental. She hates looking at the scars because she sees them as her weakness and impurity, so she covers them up when she can. Iris has gotten so good at burying her past that most of the Resistance or even regular EG members simply believe she is an asshole or monster, without realizing that her past has made her this way.

To quote Daenerys Targaryen, “If I look back, I am lost.” Iris refuses to dwell on the past, purely seeing them as monsters she had to face before she found her true family, her true father who loves and protects her, and her true love of her life. By refusing to give thought to her birth family and life on the road, she both allows herself to bury the abuse and let the trauma and hurt manifest itself in her personality, relationships with others, and behavior. It’s both good and bad, and just like the Seed family, she really needs proper counseling but will never truly get it so she copes in different, sometimes even unhealthy, ways.

📘 Theme: Meet-Cute (have an angsty drabble with a happy/hopeful ending lol)

I want to die. I don’t want to, but I do. It hurts too much to keep going, but I’m too scared to end it.

It was funny how Iris realized the folly of her desire to both live and not live, how beautiful it would be to lie down in the field of white bell-shaped flowers, close her eyes and stop breathing, rotting back into the soil and letting her bones become home to the flowers and weeds and worms.

Before she was taken out of school, her English class had read Hamlet and she had been idealizing Ophelia since, a beautiful death, and she had looked at any river she passed with a longing to enter it and not come out. But then she remembered her mother, the ghost of a woman whose only true strength came in her running away into the unknown, and any attempt to end her life was half-hearted and abandoned, with the next thought turning to how she would get her next meal, with only three dollars in her pocket.

It doesn’t matter now. Food, shelter, dying by my own hand. They’re found me. Iris had seen them when she wandered into that small town, putting up pictures of her at sixteen near a dive bar and speaking to the town’s preacher. She had frozen only briefly before he slunk back into the shadows of the forest line and kept wandering. They had been searching for her the whole time since she killed the Bitch and left the Cage; the Monsters that had the nerve to call her blood. She allowed a small, bitter chuckle that it took two years to cross her path; she always knew she was the smart one among them...And then a hysteric sob burst out as she fell to her knees, her tongue tasting iron as her lip broke. She would die easy by their hands; they probably wouldn’t even kill her as they dragged her back “home.” The memories were coming back, no matter how she tried to push them down into the darkness: the Beast’s hands and voice and evil laughter, being dragged into the Dark Room again, feeling the pangs of hunger....Iris stopped her sobs, only letting the tears form but never cry.

No. She would not let herself be drawn back there. Not after escaping, not after putting herself through cruelty on the world just for the sake of freedom. Only she had the right to her body and mind and thoughts; no one, especially those Monsters, were going to take it away. Only she would be the decider of her fate.

Just as Iris was about to reach into her pocket to pull out the switchblade and steel herself to fight against her survival instinct, she heard singing. It was soft at first as Iris looked up and around the field of bell flowers.

“H-Hello?” she called out, voice hoarse. Perhaps I’m already dead. She then stood up and walked towards it, both curious and more of her survival instinct keeping her alive as long as possible.

The singing became clearer as Iris spotted a figure twirling in the field. It was a pretty sound, but there was no lyrics, just melodious humming and chiming.

The singing belonged to a beautiful young woman and Iris felt any unease at meeting a strange ease; she only had fear and mistrust of men, and this girl...was an angel. She was clad in a pure white dress, her dirty blonde hair hanging loosely to her shoulders and she was holding a flower as she danced without a care in the field. Even her bare feet looked untouched and mildly muddied, which only endeared Iris to this wood nymph.

She then took note of Iris, who was conscious of how dirty and plain she looked compared to the lovely girl’s pristine appearance, with matted red hair, grimy face, stench and tattered clothes she pulled from Goodwill and hardly replaced. Rather than look surprise or disgusted, the angelic girl smiled kindly.

“Hello, friend. Do you need help?”

“I...” Iris was unaccustomed to speaking to anyone in such a pleasant manner since her time on the road, let alone anyone asking her for help so kindly and without any secondary motivation. She blinked in confusion then looked behind her, afraid her family would suddenly appear with their horrid faces and harsh words to drag her away. She must have looked panicked when the girl’s brow furrowed in concern, though the sweet smile was still on her face.

Iris saw the girl open her hands towards her and she feared she would be touched so she drew back, but the girl kept her hands open, waiting for Iris to take them herself. Iris felt her hands fold together and began picking her skin with her nails, her eyes drawn towards the soft, clean hands. She had no right to touch them with her own dirty ones.

“I can take you to my home. We have warm food, showers and a place to rest. You seem to have been traveling for awhile. There’s no need to be afraid of me. My name is Faith; what’s your name?”

“...I-Iris. Umm...” God, she’s so pretty and kind. Like a real angel. Can someone like me be so lucky to be in her presence?

“That’s a beautiful name. Iris, would you like to come home with me?” Faith asked. “You’ll be safe there.”

Iris felt her mouth twist into a scowl. “Nowhere’s ever safe.” She cringed and thought that Faith would turn away from her now that she showed her ugliness, but Faith nodded and gave a quiet hum in agreement.

“I know all too well how unsafe this world and people can be. But there’s no where quite as safe as Eden’s Gate,” Faith said. “I know I’m a stranger to you, but all friends start as strangers, and if you come with me, you’ll finally feel the safest you’ll ever be.”

Iris looked to Faith and noticed her brown eyes, like a doe’s. All the barriers she put up with people melted away as she looked at the open, beautiful face, the soft lips curved in a smile. Iris gulped. Who knows how long the Monsters will be in this area for. “Alright. I’ll...I’ll take a leap of faith.”

Faith let out a chuckle at that, which sounded wonderful to Iris’s ears, and the girl took Faith’s hands into her own, was lead out of the field and into a new life.

#iris #fc5 oc #oc ask meme #abuse tw #self-harm tw #suicide mention tw #hope you like it #this really got long and heavy #casino-lights

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unfortunate-stranger-losers · 5 years

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Six Baudelaires AU, Part Three {AO3} {Masterlist} {Part One} {Part Two}

Chapter Five → in which Nick gets to climb something again

“How do you know who we are?” Lilac asked, jumping to her feet.

Her siblings also quickly stood, and the sweatered scout said, “I thought you might be headed this way. And, well, there are five of you. Where’s the other toddler?”

“Sunny’s been captured by Count Olaf.” Violet said quickly. “Are you VFD?”

“In a way.” the boy said. “But stay quiet. Bruce is a light sleeper, and if the kids catch us, they’ll either tattle or want to tag along. Come on.”

He gestured, and Nick quickly said, “How do we know we can trust you?”

Klaus and Soli both grabbed tightly onto his hands as they all looked to the scout. He watched them for a moment, and then said, “Xenial.”

“I’m sorry?” Violet said.

“Xenial is an adjective that starts with X,” he explained. “It means ‘being welcoming to strangers.’ Having a good vocabulary doesn’t guarantee that I’m a good person, but it does mean I’ve read a lot, and in my experience, well-read people are less likely to be evil.”

Nick narrowed his eyes. “We may have had some different experiences.”

“I’m very sorry,” the scout said, “But we don’t have time for this. We need to get to Headquarters quickly.”

“Take your mask off.” Nick said, slowly picking up Solitude.

“I can’t. If any of them wake up, I don’t want to be recognized.”

“Why not?”

“Nick,” Violet carefully said, “He knows the way to headquarters.”

“Violet, we can’t-”

“If he tries anything,” Klaus said, “We’ll protect you. Promise.”

Nick took a deep breath, looking between all of his siblings. Then he approached the masked scout, stopping just short of him.

“If you hurt my siblings,” he said, very darkly, “I will kill you, and it will not be fast.”

“I understand.” the scout said, not even seeming very concerned, but maybe a little sympathetic. “Now follow me.”

The Baudelaires glanced to each other, and then slowly followed.

He led them to the center of the room, slowly stepping over sleeping scouts, before pointing a flashlight from his pocket. He gestured upwards, and the Baudelaires looked up to see a large hole in the ceiling of the cave, wisps of smoke disappearing into it.

“The official name is Vertical Flame Diversion.” the scout whispered. “It serves as a chimney and secret passageway, running from his cave straight to the valley of four drafts. If we climb up there, we can reach headquarters within hours, instead of hiking up the mountain. There used to be a pole there so people could slide down and hide in this cave during an emergency, but it’s gone now. There should still be carved toeholds on the side.”

“How do you know that?” Lilac asked, as Nick held tight onto Solitude.

“I read it.” he said. “In The Incomplete History of Secret Organizations.”

The Baudelaires jumped; most of them hadn’t thought of that book in a long time. Nick started to speak, but they heard a low whisper. They turned, to see Carmelita muttering in her sleep, “Give me those earrings…”

“We’ll talk when we reach headquarters.” the scout said. “Can you all climb?”

“Not well.” Klaus said.

“A little.” Lilac said, while Violet and Nick nodded. “Soli might need help.”

“There’s some extra rope in our supplies.” the scout said. “We can tie her to someone’s back.”

“I can do that.” Nick volunteered, before running to find the rope.

“You should also put your masks back on.” the scout said. “The air will be smokey, but the masks might be able to filter that.”

“Copy that.” Lilac nodded, rushing to grab their masks.

Violet walked over to the sweatered scout, putting a hand on his arm. Something about him seemed familiar, though she wasn’t sure what. “Can you really help us?” she asked.

“Of course.” he said, sounding very soft. “It’s what Volunteers do.”

Nick returned, and Violet helped him tie Solitude to his back, while the toddler whispered instructions on how to avoid Babbitt in her pocket. Lilac brought their masks over, which they put back on, as Solitude pulled the poncho over her face again. The Sweatered Scout went up first, cautiously climbing his way up to the Vertical Flame Diversion, and then Violet helped pull Klaus up before going up herself. Nick hesitantly followed, after making certain Solitude was very secure, and then Lilac.

And then, quietly and carefully, they climbed.

Sunny clambered out of the casserole dish, yawning to herself and pulling her coat over her. She’d just heard the adults yelling, and she’d much rather be prepared for whatever they were doing than hiding in her dish.

Her former coworkers were chatting with the White-Faced Women, while the Hook-Handed Man tried to fix a fallen tent. Esme must’ve still been in her tent, because Sunny couldn’t see her, but Count Olaf was standing by his henchpeople, barking directions. He turned to see Sunny, and he called, “You! Orphan! You’ll cook breakfast for us! We’ll need the energy to do unspeakable crimes!”

Sunny gave him a look. “Planka?” she asked, which meant, “How am I supposed to cook breakfast on the top of a freezing mountain?”

“Too bad your brain isn’t as big as your teeth, you dentist’s nightmare.” Olaf said. “You’re talking nonsense, as usual.”

Sunny paused, staring at him, and then she smiled. “Sneakitawc,” she said, which meant, “Of course, because you can’t understand me, I can say anything I want to you, and you’ll have no idea what I’m talking about.”

The Hook-Handed Man jumped, giving her a look as she giggled and Olaf said, “I’m getting tired of your ridiculous speech impediment.”

“Brummel,” Sunny said. “In my opinion, you desperately need a bath, and your clothing is in shambles.”

The Hook-Handed Man waved his hooks to try and get her to stop, as Olaf ordered, “Be quiet this instant!”

“Busheney,” Sunny said. “You’re an evil man with no concern whatsoever for other people.”

“Shut up!” Olaf shouted, and he threw the car keys at her. “Get the groceries out of the trunk of the car and get to work!”

Sunny paused, picking up the keys. She could probably drive the car herself, but… well, that mountain path looked dangerous. She wouldn’t want to miss a turn and go flying off a cliff.

She toddled over to the trunk, unlocking the car and flipping it open, hoisting herself up to see what supplies she had. Unfortunately, a thin layer of frost seemed to cover every item, meaning she had to use her sleeves to wipe the ice away; everything was very frozen over. She found a bag of coffee beans and a frozen hunk of spinach, as well as a bag of mushrooms and a completely frozen jug of orange juice. Sunny pushed aside some cold cheese, a can of water chestnuts and an eggplant about her size, she found a jar of boysenberry jam and a loaf of bread. She hmmed, brushing her bangs out of her face as she considered what she could make with all of this.

“Olaf!” Esme called, as Sunny pulled the bread to the edge of the trunk. “I need longer to choose what I’m going to wear! It is not In to burn own a headquarters without wearing a fashionable outfit!”

“I can’t imagine why you need all this time.” Olaf huffed, as Sunny started dropping ingredients onto the ground. “I usually just wear one outfit for weeks at a time.”

“Boss!” Hugo called. “I can’t find the soap!”

“We don’t have any. Why would we?”

Sunny slowly pulled some cups out, and started chopping the coffee beans with her teeth, combining it with snow to make iced coffee. She walked over to a blanket that had been laid out, presumably for the meal, and put the cups down, before ripping apart the loaf of bread and starting to spread jam.

“What are you doing, baby?”

Sunny looked up to see the Hook-Handed Man had stopped just short of her, watching curiously. “Breakfast.” she said.

“That’s very smart of you.” he said. “I thought for sure you wouldn’t be able to make anything.”

Sunny brightened, and then said, “Hamo!” which meant something like, “I know a way you can help!”

“Oh, the boss wouldn’t like me to-”

Sunny held out the mug of orange juice, and said, “Aurantiaco,” which meant, “Chip away at the juice until you have shavings, so I can make orange granita.”

The Hook-Handed Man looked very impressed, and after glancing over his shoulder, he sat down and started chipping. “That’s a good idea.”

Sunny smiled and shrugged, and once she’d finished with the bread, she ran back to the trunk, pulling out a bouquet of ivy and placing it in an empty cream dish, walking back and placing it down as a centerpiece. She took the orange shavings and started spreading them out.

“You’re very good at preparing a meal.” the Hook-Handed Man complimented.

Sunny sighed, smiling a little, remembering once when she was small, and had been hanging out in the kitchen with her mother, who was throwing together a salad. Sunny had mostly busied herself dropping a fork onto the floor to see what it sounded like, but he remembered Beatrice Baudelaire saying, “This isn’t a very complicated recipe, Sunny, but if I arrange the salad very nicely on fancy plates, people will think I’ve been cooking all day.”

“Defero,” Sunny said, repeating what her Mother had said next- “Often, when cooking, the presentation of the food can be as important as the food itself.”

The Hook-Handed Man nodded seriously, and once Sunny had finished arranging, she stepped back and said, “Breakfast!”

The rest of the troupe approached, and Sunny backed off, smiling slightly, but her face fell as Olaf picked up a cup and yelled, “What is this? It looks like coffee, but it’s freezing cold!”

“What is this orange stuff?” Esme asked suspiciously. “I want fashionable, in food, not a handful of ice!”

Colette picked up a piece of bread. “This toast feels raw. Is it safe to eat raw toast?”

“Of course not.” Hugo said.

“The baby is trying to poison us!” said a White-Faced Woman.

“Actually, this coffee isn’t so bad.” Kevin said. “Though it’s a little bitter. Could someone pass the sugar?”

“Sugar?” Esme screeched.

Olaf grabbed onto one end of the blanket and pulled as hard as he could, and Sunny ducked as all of her hard work went flying into the air.

“All the sugar in the world couldn’t save this terrible breakfast!” he shouted. “Orphan! I told you to make a nice, hot breakfast, and you gave me cold, disgusting nonsense! Do you realize how high up we are, you little shit? If I threw you off Mount Fraught, you’d never survive!”

Sunny shrunk back, but she hissed, “Bull!”

“I don’t have time for your nonsense!”

The Hook-Handed Man, who looked a little uncomfortable, spoke up. “She’s calling your bluff, boss. Says you can’t kill her without losing her fortune.”

Olaf gave her a cruel look, and Sunny felt even colder than she had before. “Is that so? Well, little orphan,” he took a step forwards, and Sunny tried to move back, only tripping over herself and falling into the snow, “I don’t need to kill you to punish you. We have ways of making you behave. Didn’t your dear brother tell you what finally got him to shut up?”

Sunny hissed, and the Hook-Handed Man said, “Boss, I really don’t think-”

“I don’t pay you to think!” Olaf said.

“You don’t pay me at all.” said the henchman. “But I was just saying, maybe it was difficult for the baby to prepare a hot breakfast without a fire-”

“Oh,” said a deep, low voice behind them that caused everyone to jump, “But there is a fire.”

Everybody turned to look behind them, and Sunny instantly detected an aura of menace from the two people now standing behind them, having somehow snuck up on the group without alerting them to their presence. One was a tall man with a beard, but no hair, and the other, who’d spoken, was a woman with hair, but no beard.

“It’s good to see you, Olaf,” said the sinister woman, stepping forwards, and Sunny scooted back against the car. The woman pulled a wooden toboggan behind her, making an eerie scraping sound against the ground. “We were worried the authorities might have captured you.”

“You look well,” said the man with a beard but no hair, with a hoarse voice. “It’s been a long time since we’ve laid eyes on one another.” He gave Olaf a wicked grin, and Sunny started to feel very, very scared.

Olaf wouldn’t meet their eyes, which did not help Sunny’s anxiety; in fact, everyone seemed terrified. “Hello.” he said nervously. “Did you, um, say something about a fire?”

The woman and man looked to each other and laughed, and Sunny covered her ears with her hands, trying to think about her siblings, and how Lilac and Klaus would be hugging her right now. “Haven’t you noticed that there are no snow gnats around?” the woman said.

“I just assumed they were no longer in.” said Esme, who seemed to be trembling.

“Don’t be ridiculous, Esme,” said the man with a beard but no hair. “The gnats aren’t around because they can smell the smoke.”

“I don’t smell anything.” said Hugo.

“That’s because you’re not a snow gnat.” replied the woman with hair but no beard. “We did you a favor, Olaf. We… took care of the VFD Headquarters for you.”

Sunny started, and before she could stop herself, she shouted, “No!”

The two new adults turned to look at her, and Sunny straightened up then, and tried her best to look brave.

She tried her best to not look like a baby.

“The top’s up here.” said the masked scout. “We’re almost out of the woods.”

The Baudelaires very much doubted that, but they managed to finally push themselves up and into a dark tunnel. It seemed to be some dim hallway with a small grate on the ceiling, but they could all clearly see the Eye etched into the grate.

The scout helped Klaus up, and then Violet. Nick just pushed himself past him, before untying Solitude and making sure she was alright. Lilac climbed up, moving a bit awkwardly.

“Are you okay, Li?” Violet asked.

“Fine.” Lilac said.

Violet moved to her sister, and then flinched. “Your sleeve’s torn- shit, what happened to your arm?”

“Just grazed something on the way up. Not a big deal.”

Violet paused, and then said, “Well, um… we might have matching arm scars now, that’s pretty cool.”

“Where are we?” Klaus asked, turning to the scout, who was sadly watching the sisters.

The scout paused, and then gestured to the grate. “That’s where the smoke escapes. Leads to the very center of the Valley of Four Drafts, so the winds scatter the smoke before people can get suspicious and investigate. If a Volunteer needed help, they’d light one of these.”

He pulled a box from his jacket, pulling out some green tubes.

“Is that a cigarette?” Lilac asked.

He shook his head. “Verdant Flammable Devices. It sets off a dark green smoke.”

“I’ve seen that box before.” Klaus said, standing up and looking shocked. “In Father’s desk. Why would he-”

Nick huffed. “He was hiding them from us, Klaus. Obviously. Keeping them secret, like everything else in this hellhole.”

“Everything is secret in VFD.” the scout said sadly.

“It makes things very difficult.” Lilac said, crossing her arms. “We had to learn the secret location of headquarters from a secret code on a map.”

“I had to draw my own map.” the Scout reached into his pocket, pulling out a dark purple notebook. “In my commonplace book, I gathered information from The Incomplete History and other books from Dr Montgomery’s study.”

The Baudelaires jumped. “Monty?” Solitude asked, and they could hear Babbitt let out a muffled, soft chirp from her pocket.

“Long story.” the scout said. He held out the map and said, “Look here, this passageway branches off in two directions.”

“This is a really well-drawn map.” Violet said, impressed.

“Thank you.” the scout replied. “I’ve been interested in cartography for quite some time. But anyway, if we go left, there’s a small area for sled and snowsuit storage. If we go right, we’ll arrive at the Vernacularly Fastened Door, which opens to the Headquarters’ kitchen.”

“Then let’s go.” Violet said.

“No!” Nick grabbed Solitude, jumping to his feet. “No, we can’t just-”

“Nick, one of our parents might be there.” Violet snapped.

“So could anyone else!”

“We’ll be careful.” Lilac put a hand on Nick’s arm. “We’ll be careful, I promise. But we don’t have anywhere else to go.”

Nick shut his eyes tight, clutching onto Soli, who gave him a tight, comforting hug. Klaus put his arm around him, and then Violet turned to the scout and said, “Lead the way, mystery boy.”

The scout hesitantly nodded, and then said, as they walked, “It’ll be safe, I’m sure.”

Nick didn’t respond, instead just leaning onto Klaus’s shoulder. They started down the hallway, with the scout leading the way. It started to feel colder, and Solitude curled up against her brother and shivered a little, and Lilac grabbed onto Violet’s hand, and Klaus and Nick held each other for a while. And after a minute or two, Violet reached forwards and grabbed the scout’s hand, too, not wanting him to feel left out. The corridor was starting to give off an eerie, powerful feeling, and none of the children wanted to feel alone.

At last, they reached a large metal door, with a strange device, looking a bit like a spider, where a doorknob should have been. Wires were spread from it, going in all directions, and at the head was a typewriter keyboard. Violet immediately broke away from the others and ran forwards, taking off her mask and pulling her hair back with a ribbon to inspect it.

“Careful.” the scout said, as Lilac ran forwards to join her. “This is a coded lock. If we don’t operate it properly, we won’t be able to get into the headquarters.”

“How does it work?” Violet asked, as her siblings also discarded their masks.

“I’m not sure. I couldn’t read through the pages it had in The Incomplete History.” said the scout, taking out his commonplace book as the other Baudelaires crowded around the lock. “I was more interested in the maps, honestly, and then I lost the book.”

“Well, it’s called the Vernacularly Fastened Door.” Klaus said. “So it operates on language. Vernacular means ‘a local language or dialect.’”

“That makes sense.” Violet nodded. “Look how the wires are curled around the hinges. They’re locked in place, unless you type the right sequence of letters on the keyboard.”

“I know you’re supposed to type out three specific phrases in a row.” the scout said, looking down at his commonplace book. “The phrases change every season, but for right now, the first is the scientist most widely credited with the discovery of gravity.”

“That’s easy.” Lilac said, and she leaned forwards and typed in S-I-R-I-S-A-A-C-N-E-W-T-O-N, and when she was finished, there was a muted clicking sound, as if the device was warming up.

“The second is the Latin name for the Volunteer Feline Detectives.” the scout said. “That’s Panthera leo.”

Violet typed in P-A-N-T-H-E-R-A-L-E-O, and the wires near the hinges began to shake a little.

“What’s the third phrase?” Klaus asked.

“I don’t know.” the scout sighed. “Another volunteer told me it’s the central theme of Leo Tolstoy’s Anna Karenina, but I haven’t read it.”

“We did.” Klaus said, turning to smile at Nick. “Do you remember what Mother told us?”

Nick stared very hard at the ground as he nodded. “A rural life of moral simplicity, despite its monotony, is the preferable personal narrative to a daring life of impulsive passion, which only leads to tragedy.”

“That’s a long theme.” the scout said.

“It’s a long book.” Klaus said, as he began to type.

He worked very quickly, and as he did, the Baudelaires could see the wires begin to curl and uncurl very quickly, and the door start to quiver. When Klaus finally typed out T-R-A-G-E-D-Y, the children stepped back, waiting.

The door stopped shaking, and the passageway fell dead quiet.

“It’s not opening.” Lilac said.

“Maybe that isn’t the central theme of Leo Tolstoy’s Anna Karenina.” Violet said.

“It seemed like it was working.” the scout said.

“Maybe the mechanism is stuck.” Violet said.

“Maybe a daring life of impulsive passion leads to something other than tragedy.” the scout said.

“No.” Nick said quietly, and they heard a low rumble. “No, Violet was right. It was just stuck.”

The door swung open, with a slow and eerie creek. The Baudelaires started up excitedly, only to immediately back up and cough, as smoke filtered into the tunnel.

“No…” Lilac muttered, as Klaus rushed forwards into the remains of headquarters, and his siblings hastily followed.

The entire headquarters had gone up in smoke, and as they stepped over ashy debris and burnt pages, they felt their hearts sink to the floor. They had stepped into what used to be a kitchen, which they could only tell due to an overturned, singed table and the remains of what might have been cabinets or ovens, as well as a fridge in the corner. Violet let out a small cry, and Solitude started to wail, clinging to Nick, who stumbled back against what was left of a wall, shaking uncontrollably.

“No, no, no…” Lilac said, looking around. They could see other rooms to the side- the remains of what might have been a library, what could have been a recreational room, or a study, or a dorm.

“Mother!” Klaus shouted, his voice breaking. “Mother! Father!”

“Mother!” Violet joined him. “Mother! Father!”

“Dad?” Lilac shouted, hearing only their own voices echoing back. “Mom?”

There was no response.

“This headquarters is gone.” Klaus said, shaking.

“And there’s no survivor.” Violet said, tears streaming down her face.

“No.” Klaus shook his head. “No, that can’t be.”

“Klaus-” Lilac began.

“Jacques Snicket said there was a survivor of the fire.” Klaus cried.

The sweatered scout, who’d been walking around the headquarters, seemingly just as in shock as the Baudelaires, stopped dead in his tracks. “Jacques Snicket said that?”

The Baudelaires turned to him, and then Klaus nodded.

The scout quietly said, “Then he was right. There is a survivor of the fire here.”

“Where?” Nick asked.

“Here.” said the scout, and then he took off his mask.

The Baudelaires stepped back in shock, and Solitude whispered, “Duncan?”

“I’m Quigley Quagmire,” said the scout, “And I was hoping to find my siblings here.”

#asoue #asoue netflix #asoue movie #a series of unfortunate events #six baudelaires au #six baudelaires official fic #the slippery slope #mine #my fanfic

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7deadlycinderellas · 5 years

Text

The Second of Spring

Ao3 Link

Sansa

Sansa expects anger the next morning, she expects disbelief. She expects someone (Father most likely, or maybe Robb) to have to be talked down from racing after them.

Sansa does not expect this.

The day is clear, and warmer than it has been in ages. The snow on the stable roofs has begun to turn to slush, horses being led out taking time to try and lick at it before being pulled away.

Everyone is energized by the sudden warmth, and this leads them all apart. Sansa doesn’t even see her parents while breaking her fast, and Bran leaves after only a few minutes to chase after Maester Luwin.

It’s not even until the evening meal, when, during Robb and Father discussing road clearing, when Father suddenly stops and changes topics,

“Has anyone seen Arya?”

Suddenly Sansa her face redden and her mouth force itself shut, while everyone else chatters

“One of the servants said she wasn’t in her bed this morning, but she does get up early sometimes.”

“Bran were you two causing mischief again?”

“No, I was with Maester Luwin all day.”

“I didn’t see her in town either,” Robb comments.

“Sansa was she with you when you were with the Septa?”

Sansa shakes her head, still squeezing her mouth shut.

They go back and forth for a few more minutes. It’s not even all that serious even. Everyone seems to assume there must be a reason.

Then Father makes a move to call over someone to start a search, when Sansa can’t hold herself anymore, and lets it out.

It’s not in words though. It’s a noise, like halfway between a sigh and a squeak.

It gets everyone’s eyes on her though. Sansa doesn’t like it, she’s never liked being put on the spot, even for something good. So once she realizes everyone is staring, she reaches into her pouch, pulls out the scrolls and hands them out without saying a word.

She’d sent off Jon’s earlier that morning. To her eye, it had felt the fattest, which made sense to her. Arya had always been close to Jon, she probably had a lot to say to him.

Robb’s isn’t too thick, and he’s always been good with his letters. Sansa can tell immediately when he’s finished reading, because he starts laughing.

Hard.

No one else reacts though.

Bran is the next. Somehow he doesn’t seem too moved. He ends by setting it aside and returning to his dinner with a soft, “That explains a few things”.

Mother and Father both take their time, and their expressions are solemn.

Then Mother puts down her paper and cracks a smile.

“Your sister could always be counted on to take things into her own hands.”

Father is the only one who looks pained as he finishes his letter, the longest one here. When he’s done, he sets it down on the table and rubs his eyes.

Then he meets Sansa’s gaze.

“She trusted you with this?”

Sansa can barely convince herself to nod. Inside she’s all warm though. Arya had trusted her with this, and that felt terribly important.

Father sighs.

“Be careful what you wish for they always say.”

“We did so wish the two of you would get along,” Mother adds.

Father stands, and gestures to Robb and Bran.

“The two of you, prep to leave tomorrow and follow them. I don’t want you to try and bring them back- not that I even think you could, you both know what your sister’s like when she’s made up her mind- but check on them. And once everyone gets to Storm’s End, try and get a feel for the going-ons there. See if you think Renly’s up to anything suspicious. There’s a few things I’d like to check into on the way as well, but I’ll bring you up to speed on those a bit later.”

Bran and Robb get up to attend to this. Robb looks dutiful, but Bran looks excited.

“And Bran, when the two of you return, I think it’s time we discuss you becoming a squire.”

Bran leaves to follow off his brother suddenly looking as if he’s on cloud nine.

“Are you really worried that Renly might have some sort of agenda?” Mother asks.

“Renly’s never feuded with his brothers; Robert and Stannis did enough for all three of them. But there are persistent rumours about him, specifically about his ability to produce heirs, so I feel it’s worthy to check up on.”

Sansa feels her heart sink. She had never thought this would be any bigger than just their family. She looks at Mother, who’s still smiling a bit, but also looks quite burdened.

“Are...are you really not angry at her?” Sansa asks carefully.

Mother takes a deep breath in. “Sometimes storms come out of nowhere. But sometimes you see them coming, dark clouds on the horizon and the smell of rain in the air.”

“We knew better than to promise your sister’s hand to anyone, especially without her consent. Her not being a firstborn made that easy enough.”

“You can prepare for a storm, take precautions. You can pray it will pass you by, but you cannot stop it.”

Well, that analogy seemed far too appropriate, considering where Arya was going. Sansa tries to pull up anything she knows about the Stormlands, and can’t recall anything other than them being known for being, well, stormy.

“Though now it feels as though I invited the storm into the front door.”

And with that, Father gets up to leave, but Mother remains at the table. Neither her or Sansa has touched their roast pork. Mother lifts her fork and takes a bite.

“I’m ashamed to say I never paid much attention to the boy.”

There’s a pause, and Mother looks at her long and deep.

“Did you? Did he seem good to her at least?”

Sansa nods sympathetically. “She told me she spent so much of her life thinking no one would love her without having to change herself, and that Gendry never once wished that of her.”

Mother breaks her gaze and returns to her food.

“Her naming day is in a fortnite. She will be seven and ten already. This game we play will take all of you from us at some point. I was so grateful for this winter, keeping us all together just a little while longer. But it seems winter too must end.”

Sansa and Mother finish their meal in silence, and Sansa leaves.

Dwelling on her mother’s words, she is suddenly grasped by a thought that fills her with glee.

Not only had Arya, wild, untamed Arya, gotten married, she’d been the first of her siblings to do so.

Ned

“Have you decided if we should do anything to punish Sansa?”

Ned was still sitting up though him and Cat had retired some time ago. The day had been long and was still weighing heavily on his mind.

“I don’t see what good it would do. She’s never needed convincing to behave before, and I fear it might threaten her romantic heart.”

Cat was already stretched out in their bed.

“With spring coming, we should send out invitations to other families seeking matches for some of the others. “

Ned nods to himself, as mixed about the slow loss of his children to marriage as Cat had been earlier.

Cat laughs to herself softly again.

“I really was so certain Sansa would be first. If not her, Robb.”

“Arya befuddled all of us. At least we didn’t actually have to deal with Sansa marrying that Lannister brat.”

Ned pauses, suddenly deep in thought. Then he begins to laugh uproariously.

“I should write to Robert and tell him he got his wish. I’m not sure this is quite what he meant though.”

Arya

Dear Sansa

I’m writing along the road so I don’t forget anything. I don’t want to risk sending Lyanna before we reach Storm’s End. Without her, I won’t have an easy way to reach you. So maybe this will be more diary than letter. I’ll send it all at once.

We’re just in the middle of the group, helping Mya keep her herd together. Edric is in front, and the rest of his guard behind us. I never realized mules could go so much longer than horses, you couldn’t tell by looking at them.

Gendry’s never ridden much, and you can tell. Thankfully, Mya’s herd is so sturdy, or I would fear him toppling out of the saddle. It would be awful for him to have to spend the rest of the journey stuffed into a supply cart.

I picked him a handful of snowdrops the other day. Where we are, they’re already showing their heads through the snow. We can sleep beside each other when we camp, but there are so many people we haven’t been able to lie together since the night in the Godswood. I guess we could, but it wouldn’t be worth the jeering, though part of me is so desperate for him to touch me I think I might have to.

Seven hells, I’m starting to sound like you.

The birds are awake again, Gods above how I’ve missed it. We woke to them singing this morning, despite the remaining snow on the ground.

Gendry keeps asking me what I’m writing to you. Despite Father having made sure him and all his siblings knew their letters, I think it’s still a bit of a mystery to him. I almost want to make him write something to you himself. Father’s right, the vast majority of smallfolk being illiterate can only lead to others taking advantage.

We’re getting close to Moat Cailin, it would be a good shelter but the snow is still so heavy upon its buildings. I hope Bran takes the time to look at it, he always loved the stories about first First Men.

I really hope they’re not trying to be stealthy, because one of the guards told us we were being tailed the second day, and soon after gave us a description.

Wasn’t able to write again until we got through the Neck. It rained the entire time that we were on the causeway. A couple of times we stopped hard when Mya’s mules wouldn’t go another step until it slowed a bit. Stubborn as a mule indeed.

It’s spring for sure here though. I don’t think most of these trees are the kind that ever lose their leaves, and their all as green as can be. Flowers in all colors too, peak up through the swamp waters, and along the sides of the causeway.

Gendry asked me about the people who live here. I told him what little I knew of House Reed and the crannogmen. How they hunted frogs and fished to survive, how they were still fierce fighters who were hard to conquer, and how a single graze with a poisoned arrow could fell a grown man. He just gazed out over the swamp and said it rather looked like one of the hells. I told him others had probably said the same of Winterfell. One of the other guards kept making japes about mudmen. If only I could make him regret that. Father always spoke well of Howland Reed. Gendry bristled at the jokes too. He’s a bit sensitive at people being made a joke of just for the fact of their births. He and Jon would have much in common.

The rain doesn’t let up at night, but someone in Edric’s caravan had the foresight to pack lots of oilcloth. There’s no real way to keep a fire going, so our camp is always dark. The storms combined with the cover they give, and the darkness of the trees has given us the first semblance of privacy since Winterfell.

This last morning before we passed through the end of the Neck, it was only raining lightly. The early morning sunlight was just barely making its way through the tree canopy, and the rain caught some of the light in its drops. It made for a strangely beautiful morning. Mornings like this I could understand being a mudman, rowing a boat through it’s waters, no matter what the world thought of me.

Then Gendey rolled over underneath my arm, muttered something about when we’re going to be getting out of here. Apparently he doesn’t appreciate being wet.

I wish I could tell Robb and Bran to be careful. If the rain keeps up the way it’s been, the causeway could wash out.

The inn at the Crossroads is a nice break from sleeping on the ground.

It wasn’t terribly full, so Edric treated us all to mead, and his singer sang a few rounds. Everyone was happy. I’ve never realized, but it’s really much easier to get to know people when you’re dry and warm and well-fed. Edric’s a bit dramatic to be sure, but he spins a good yarn. Honestly, you would probably find him intriguing, but we’re already sisters, so I don’t fancy you marrying my husband’s half-brother.

That seems to be the high point for Gendry. Father bringing him to Winterfell not only led to him finishing his apprenticeship somewhere nicer than Flea Bottom and getting something resembling a formal education, but also gave him an actual family.

There’s even more, Edric says. More than him, and Mya and Barra. As far as the sources he’s followed has been able to find, Robert fathered at least ten more bastards. Gendry officially has more siblings than I do.

It’s wonderful having an actual bed to ourselves too. More details to tell you, but you’ll have to visit for them, I’m not writing them down.

We’ve reached King’s Landing, and the skies are now mostly clear almost every day. I was hoping that we might be able to avoid having to pass through the city itself, but the roads around it are still flooded from the spring rains.

Gendry’s been a bit cross about it for a few days. Bad memories he says. King’s Landing, to him it seems, is just memories of crushing poverty and his dead mother. Maybe I’ll sneak off and get us a couple of apricot tarts to bring up his mood.

We did have a very interesting encounter with another group of travelers leaving the city while we were still camped outside the walls. Jamie and Tyrion Lannister, traveling in the very early morning, with both Tommen and Myrcella. Ser Pounce was even napping on Tommen’s shoulder, though he’s not as spry looking as he used to be. We didn’t exchange much more than casual greetings, but Myrcella did get to tell me that it was decided that her and her brother would be better off in Casterly Rock for the time being. Suddenly I remembered that rumor I told you about, and I hope nothing bad happens to them. Neither of them deserve it.

Also, Tommen’s taller than me now. If you’re fine with being surrounded by kittens, you might still get a chance to wed a prince.

The route through the city didn’t take us through Flea Bottom thankfully, Gendry was really quiet the whole day. He barely even nibbled at the tart I smuggled him.

At night when we were camped outside the gate, he whispered to me that the times I used to pester him in the streets while fleeing the Red Keep were often the sole bright moments in his days.

The guards say there’s no more sign of our tail. I hope Robb and Bran are well.

They’ve build a bridge over the Blackwater Rush. I wasn’t looking forward to the ferry, and neither was Mya’s herd.

Edric says we’re really close now, a few days away. And all of a sudden, I’m nervous. Neither Gendry nor I have ever met Renly before, we only know him by reputation. Edric tried to put my mind at ease, saying Renly was very far from serious about anything, much less scheming and trickery.

And then Gendry pointed out that as a blacksmith, he can work pretty much anywhere. He told me that if we had to flee, it wouldn’t be the end of the world.

I swear Sansa, some days I really still can’t believe he actually loves me.

Robb and Bran

The causeway had washed out. Badly. When the two of them had tried to ford through the riding water, Bran’s horse had become spooked and bolted. Robb has chased him into the marshes, and the two of them had become lost.

“What should we do?” Bran asks, seeming frightened and young again. His brother was nearly six and ten now, but once again sounded the role of the youngest child.

“We have to get back to the Kingsroad, it’s the only safe passage through the Neck”.

They do their best to follow the sun to find their way, but the canopy disguises it. And soon the rain begins to pour down even more heavily. Robb is beginning to despair.

Eventually they come to an area where the ground is fairly solid and covered by enough trees to be drier than what’s around it.

“We’ll stay here tonight. Try again in the morning.”

The ground is too soft to camp, so the two of them eat on horseback, and Bran volunteers to take first watch. Before Robb makes to try to sleep, as best as he could on the back of his horse, Bran comments.

“Going to be really mad if we go through all of this and Arya attacks us as soon as we get there.”

“Arya won’t attack us unless we try and take her home. Which we shouldn’t have to. You’ve spent time with Gendry, yes, he seemed like a good man to you right?”

Bran can agree to that.

“Still seems strange to me. I could never picture her in love, or as a wife.”

He also didn’t really understand what Gendry had seen in her.

“I could never picture it for any of you, you all seem so small to me still. “

“What about you?”

“Women are great, but I’ve never met one I wanted to spend all my life with.”

“That’s because you only meet girls with Theon.”

After that Robb finally manages to drift off, Bran stares off into the murky green-black darkness. It’s the strangest place Bran has ever spent the night, and he’s not sure he’ll be able to sleep when his turn comes. The swamp, rather unlike the forest, felt alive all around him, as if it had a blood and heartbeat all it’s own. There were chirps and squelching wet noises coming from things he could not see, and Bran feared something else would spook his horse.

After some time, he feels like his eyes have begun playing tricks on him. Spots of light seem to appear out in the darkness. In the shadows he thinks he might see a figure in one of the trees across the clearing.

Suitably ill at ease, Bran resists the urge to squeeze is eyes shut, and waits desperately for Robb to wake.

When he finally does, Bran thanks all the Gods, and tries to sleep. He barely makes it, when suddenly Robb is shaking him awake. It’s very early morning, only the tiniest hint of sunlight making it through.

And while there’s no figure crouching in the trees, there is a spot of lantern light across the horizon. It’s not coming closer though, it’s just hovering.

“Who are you?” Robb yells out into the semi-darkness. He doesn’t sound terribly lordly right now, but Bran doesn’t feel it either.

A figure emerges, holding the lantern in one hand, and a sharpened spear in the other. Bran can see that it’s a young woman, around Robb’s age, dressed in scale-leather, dark hair tied in a single braid.

She walks to them with confidence, and her spear clutched tight.

“I am Lady Meera, of House Reed. You are out of your place. State your reasons to be in our lands.”

Suddenly all the fear leaves Robb’s voice.

“Robb and Brandon, of House Stark. The section of the Kingsroad we were on is washed out, and we got lost. “

Meera looks them both over. She reminds Bran of Arya in a way, a similar wildness to her. He also notices that she’s rather beautiful, in a similarly wild way. She loosens her grip on her spear.

“My father, Howland Reed, spoke highly of your father.”

“And ours of yours”.

Meers nods to them.

“Follow me. You’re far from the Kingsroad, but we know other ways through the Neck. We’ll let you rest up and then get you on your way.

As Bran and Robb begin to follow Meera through the swamp, Bran notices several other people emerging from the darkness of the night. Several people in the dress of the Crannogmen, both on the ground and in the trees. Suddenly, last night seemed more normal.

And soon his gaze shifted back to Meera, leading them through the marsh.

Robb watches him warily.

“God’s above, Bran,” he thinks, “Not you too.”

#game of thrones #a song of fire and ice #gendrya #Arya and Sansa #fic

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tenspontaneite · 5 years

Text

Peace Is A Journey (Chapter 5/?)

In which Rayla and the Princes both learn some unfortunate truths.

(Chapter length: 11k. Link to Ao3 version)

They spent the rest of the evening in relative ease, the tension around the issue of Rayla’s hand ebbing from the boys in the face of cooked food and a cheerful campfire. The fish itself was variably tasty – the river trout were delicious, and a few of the others, but a couple types tasted so unbearably fishy it was hard for Rayla to stomach them. Still, she did her best to eat as much as she could, urging the others to do the same – they could carry some of the leftovers with them, but they wouldn’t stay fresh for long.

She ushered everyone to bed when the sun had barely set. “We need to set out as early as possible tomorrow.” She informed them, in no uncertain terms. “We lost time today, and there’s probably people tracking us. We need to get as far from the lake as we can, as fast as we can.”

Thus, their little party settled down for their second night in the pilfered tent.

Callum was no less active in his sleep this night than the first, and judging by the ambient rustling, Ezran was just as bad. Rayla stubbornly faced away from them and did her best to ignore it. The presence of the two humans in the tent was, at least, less jarringly foreign and unsettling now, and she got a bit more sleep that night than the previous. She woke up at dawn and shook both princes awake at the same time, slipping on her boots and hurrying outside to get a start on packing up the camp while they were still blinking groggily at the tent roof.

After a breakfast of cold fish, Rayla led them off on their journey while they were still half-asleep and yawning every other second. Neither of them woke up enough to hold conversations for a good half hour of walking, which suited Rayla just fine. She was used to silent travel.

As they receded from the lakeside, they travelled into a forest that was composed mainly of birch, beech, and elm – a fairly young-looking forest with rotting stumps that indicated a cull within at least the past human generation. Evidently, it was close enough to human habitation to be used for logging every decade or so. It made Rayla a little wary of potentially running into woodcutters, but none of the stumps seemed even vaguely recent, and there weren’t any suspicious branches or wood chips laying around to indicate recent activity, so it was probably fine.

Still. They’d be crossing the road at some point today, which held a considerably higher risk of humans. She’d stay alert, and maybe ask Callum for a time estimate once he was awake enough to make a comprehensible reply.

Eventually, one of the boys did summon the presence of mind to talk.

“Do we have to get up this early every day?” Ezran asked plaintively, when he finally gathered his wits enough to attempt coherent speech.

“Better for us if we do.” Rayla answered, watching as Callum lifted his head to listen, still with that bleary half-asleep look in his eyes. “Starting our walk at this time of day means we can stop in mid-afternoon to make camp, and still get a good seven or eight hours of walking done.”

Both princes groaned in concert at that. “Eight hours.” Callum bemoaned, voice groggy but somehow still expressive enough to evoke dismay. “My poor legs.”

Her lips quirked at their woebegone expressions. She remembered the early days of her journey to Katolis. She’d had the advantage of a near decade of training and excellent physical fitness, but her legs had still objected vehemently to the amount of travel. “Yeah, your legs will probably hate you for a while.” She said, only a little sympathetically. There was a certain satisfaction in being able to speak from the position of experience. There was also satisfaction in the knowledge that her legs, by now very well-accustomed to travel, probably wouldn’t pain her at all until they got to the mountains.

“What do you even do when you walk for that long?” Ez wondered, raising a hand to rub at his eyes. Bait hopped along beside him, looking as grumpy as ever. “‘I spy’ would get really boring after that long. Or word-association. Or – any game.”

“Mostly you just walk. And daydream.” Rayla said honestly, thinking back on her long weeks of travel. Certainly the assassin squad had conversed among themselves while they travelled, but always quietly, to ward off the risk of becoming unwary and opening themselves to attack or ambush. All things considered, her last few days of travel had been much louder than she was used to.

“I guess I’m pretty good at daydreaming.” Ezran allowed, after a moment. “I bet it still gets boring after weeks though. You were travelling for months. Didn’t you get bored?”

Rayla had generally done her very best to avoid looking even vaguely bored or inattentive during the course of the journey, because Runaan had a near-supernatural sense for that sort of thing. The second he suspected her attention might be lapsing, he tended to materialise behind her to make her recite some aspect of her book-learning. Poison-making processes, sometimes, or the most common edible plants in the eastern Pentarchy, or how to make a decent wound-cleaning poultice in the absence of actual good medicine. The other assassins had found it very amusing up until he started doing the same to them.

It had been a very well-educated squad of assassins that finally arrived at Katolis, after two months of that.

“…Well, you find ways to pass the time.” Rayla said eventually, after a conspicuously-long pause.

“We’ll manage just fine, Ez.” Callum said, apparently unconcerned, from the lofty position of someone who could draw while walking.

She eyed him. He looked vaguely more alert now. She waited until he noticed her staring and then promptly engaged him in a discussion about their map and the likely distance to the road.

(In conclusion: Callum said he would be able to judge their distances and walking speed much better after they actually reached the road, but until then he really didn’t know.)

The day fell into a rhythm that Rayla was very familiar with; periods of wordless travel broken by nothing but the sound of their footfalls in the forest, and occasional interludes of idle conversation. The reality of the long journey ahead of them was starting to sink in for the boys, it seemed, because a lot of their talking seemed centred around the things they’d miss while they were gone, and how many lessons they’d have to catch up on once they were home again, and how worried certain family members must be, and how maybe they should send a letter, and how exactly they were supposed to send a letter from the middle of a forest with no trained crows.

Rayla stayed very carefully out of those conversations. Guilt prickled nearly as unpleasantly as the ache and the burn in her bound hand.

The princes seemed at least vaguely accustomed to physical activity, because the relatively-brisk walking pace on flat land didn’t leave them out-of-breath or panting. They started complaining of stiff legs alarmingly early, though.

“I already miss the boat.” Ezran declared, around three hours into their walk. Rayla snorted loudly at that, attracting looks from both boys.

“You have to admit, the boat saved us a lot of walking.” Callum said to her, one eyebrow raised as if to dare her to deny it.

She ignored it. “Maybe so. Doesn’t mean I miss the boat, though. I’m much happier to be walking.”

There were a few seconds of quiet, uninterrupted walking before Ezran spoke up. “Rayla, can I ask something?” She looked at him, finding curious eyes staring back at her. She slowed a little, to allow him to fall into pace with her.

“What is it?” She inquired, a little wary of his caution. Neither he nor his brother had asked about her hand again, but she was aware of their attention flickering to it from time-to-time; now didn’t appear to be one of those times, but…she was still anxious about it.

She’d need to tell them about the binding, and soon. She was uncomfortably aware of it.

He hesitated, and bent to pick up Bait, who had croaked up at him in a plaintive sort of way. “…Were you always scared of water?” he asked, and she stilled for a moment, skin prickling with an entirely different sort of discomfort. “Or did something happen?” he hefted Bait in his arms, settling the weight of the glow toad against his chest. Callum looked over at the question, plainly curious about her answer, even if he’d not been the one to ask the question.

It was on the tip of Rayla's tongue to deny every hint of fear, even given what they'd talked about the day before, even given they knew. Admitting to fear was just – not done. Shameful. But these were humans. It's not like they understood that. It was...probably fine. "…Nah. Nothing happened. I've just always been scared of water. Even when I was a wee thing."

“Huh.” He considered that, mulling over whatever implications that had for him, and after a moment concluded aloud “so that means you were already scared of water when you learned how to swim?”

“Well, yeah.” She admitted, thinking back on it with a shiver. “Mind, didn’t get around to it until I was a bit older. But yeah.”

“But you did it anyway.” Callum pointed out, the hint of a smile at the edge of his lips. She watched him warily, just a little tense, braced despite everything for accusations of cowardice. “That’s more bravery for you.”

She blinked, befuddled, her posture loosening. “…Oh. Er…”

“You were scared of water but you learned anyway.” Ezran agreed, in what felt like a solemn repetition of their post-lake-monster discussion. “That’s super brave.”

Back home, she’d be getting side-eyed, maybe muttered about. There was a low-level, unspoken acknowledgement that people were scared of things, that fear existed – but showing any sign of it? Allowing it to affect your actions? There were more effective ways to damage your reputation, but not many. And here they were calling her brave for it. “…If you say so?” She offered, uncertainly.

“Well, yeah. You could have just…refused to learn to swim, right?” Ez said, and then looked momentarily flummoxed. “Or would people have made you?”

She huffed. “No one would have made me learn.” She said, tempted to laugh a little at the mere concept. Runaan would have garrotted anyone who tried. Even if he was silently disapproving of her cowardice himself all the while.

“So, you were brave.” The littlest prince affirmed, with all the assured confidence of a child who knew how things were. “You learned, even though you were afraid.”

“Well, yeah.” She snorted, and narrowed her eyes a little balefully at the thought that provoked. "Not learning to swim is like askin' for water to kill you."

Callum laughed at that, sounding surprised. “Well, that’s one way to put it.”

She raised an eyebrow at him. “And how would you put it?”

He considered it for a second, and said “’Going near water before you know how to swim is dangerous’, maybe. At least, that’s what dad used to tell Ezran when he was a tiny thing, back when we visited the Great Bay.”

Ezran’s face scrunched up, and thankfully Callum’s attention seemed more on that than the way Rayla couldn’t help but tense whenever the King was mentioned. “I don’t remember that.” He complained.

Callum reached over to ruffle his brother’s huge hair. “Well, you wouldn’t. You were like, shorter than dad’s knees. But you liked the water – kept trying to play in it, even though it was dangerous.”

He snickered. “Like Bait!” The glow-toad made a grumpy noise at that, eyes rolling to the side.

“Pff. Yeah, like Bait.”

“…How old were you when you learned to swim, Ezran?” Rayla asked after a moment, curious despite herself. She’d learned late, once she’d managed to find the courage for it. When did humans usually learn? Did they all usually learn, or was it just a high-class-human thing?

The boy’s face screwed up again. “Uh….”

“You were six.” Callum said, patiently, and smiled as he looked ahead, eyes half-lidded as he recalled the memory to mind. “You learned in a little pool-thing full of seawater. It had mosaics of whales around it. Don’t you remember?” Rayla huffed a soft laugh at that. Callum would remember the poolside artwork, wouldn’t he?

Ezran squinted. “….Was one of the whales purple?”

“…There was not a purple whale, no.”

“Then nope, I don’t remember a thing.” He declared, entirely unconcerned, and put Bait on top of his backpack so he could adjust his straps. “I do remember that time you freaked out about us drowning, though.”

Callum laughed sheepishly, as if embarrassed, while Rayla just – stopped short for a second, creating a noticeable pause in her stride, which didn’t go unnoticed. “Sorry, did you say drowning?” She asked, incredulous, absolutely certain that there couldn’t have been anything that dire in their pasts, if they mentioned it so casually, and went swimming so casually.

“I didn’t do even a little bit of drowning.” Ezran attested, eyes bright, as if relishing an oncoming opportunity to mildly embarrass his sibling. “But Callum-“

“Ez.“ Callum groaned, raising a hand to his face. “It’s not – look, it was perfectly reasonable!”

Rayla tilted her head, curious, and fell into step with Callum as they walked, sensing a story. “…What happened?”

“It was a few years ago, maybe?” Callum hedged, looking uncomfortable. “There’d been a storm a few days before we got to the Great Bay – and, well, some of the sailors…They were telling all these horror stories, about how it was lucky no one drowned, and about times when people had drowned, and – I think I was very sensibly concerned!”

“He made a huge scene at the harbour.” Ezran explained to Rayla, smiling almost fondly. “Wouldn’t let anyone get in any boats. He got really worried about me, the big doof.”

She squinted at him, uncertain. “…That makes sense?” She tried, glancing at Callum as if to gain some insight as to why Ezran seemed to find humour in the situation. “I’d have been worried too?” Granted, she was a little biased on the matter, as she took it as a given that water would attempt to kill anyone who ventured near it, but…

“Thank you, Rayla.” Callum said, with a pointed glance at his brother. The brother in question answered him with a sunny smile.

“Well, yeah. But like, he didn’t just leave it there.” Ezran beamed up at his brother, who looked away, conspicuously uncomfortable. “Callum’s a worrier. So he got Aunt Amaya to teach him some field-healing, just in case I got hurt.” Field-healing? Rayla eyed him, intrigued.

The elder prince folded his arms, defensive. “Look, it was a useful thing to learn! Plenty of people learn field-healing!”

“Yeah, but you learned it because you cared about me.” Ezran said, still beaming like a miniature sun.

Callum did not deny it, but did look a bit grumpier. “So?”

“So, stop being embarrassed about it.” Ezran told him. “I think it’s nice.”

Rayla looked back and forth between them as this proceeded, eyebrows raised. Apparently, accusing Callum of being a concerned and caring person was an easy way to embarrass him. She silently committed that information to memory, considering ‘field-healing’ with interest. He shifted a little, shoulders hunching slightly under her assessing eyes. “Field-healing?” She quoted, keen to chase up that mention of a potentially useful skill. “What does that mean for you?” With luck, it was what she thought, and there were more practical skills in these humans than she’d previously known.

“Er.” Callum hesitantly met her curious gaze, and shrugged a little, sheepish. “Well, sort of basics to do if someone gets hurt? How to wrap bandages and stuff, or what to do if someone chokes, or stops breathing.”

“Oh, we have that too.” Rayla recognised, pleased, with a vaguely victorious-feeling thrill at the confirmation of her guess. Maybe someone in this group other than her knew something useful, after all! “Except we call it ‘first aid’.”

He looked interested now, too. “Makes more sense as a name than ‘field-healing’, I guess. I mean, I know it’s mostly soldiers who learn it, but still.” He straightened, earlier embarrassment evaporating in the face of his fascination. “I wonder if elves and humans teach the same things?”

“Well, one way to find out.” Rayla said, and shot a half-grin at him. He tentatively smiled back at her.

Ezran looked between the two of them, and sighed. “This is going to turn into two hours of listening to you guys talk about field-healing, isn’t it.”

“…Honestly, I could probably use the refresher.” Callum admitted. “It’s been a couple of years.”

“I’ll just be glad if there turns out to be more than one of us who knows what to do with a bandage.” She said, and then, true to Ezran’s prediction, the next good hour was nothing but discussion of the differences and similarities between elf and human first aid. Runaan would have been proud of such productive use of travel time.

Rayla learned some interesting things: for example, humans had almost no antibiotics whatsoever, and therefore did a lot of dying of infection when they got seriously injured. They used distilled alcohol to disinfect – a small bottle of which she’d purloined from the Lodge – but if infection set in there was little they could do to stop it. They used some tinctures known to help fight infection, but had no refined medicines for it like elves did. They could mostly only soothe the symptoms.

It made her wish, sincerely, that she hadn’t had to leave all of her things behind. The assassins’ first aid kit had been very comprehensive. She resolved to keep an eye out for any potentially useful medicinal plants along the way.

For the most part, though, it seemed that you cared for injured humans much the same way as you cared for injured elves. They apparently had the same general heart rates, suffocated just as quickly if their airways were blocked, and the thing to do with someone who’d choked or drowned and wasn’t breathing was pretty much the same.

It was half-way through discussing resuscitation of non-breathing people that Rayla realised that, surely, there had to be a difference here.

“Wait.” She said, abruptly enough that everyone stopped walking, Callum falling silent in the middle of what had been a description of how humans did chest compressions. “How do humans restart someone’s heart if you don’t have mages?” They didn’t use dark magic, did they? …But how else would they do it?

Callum stared at her blankly. She wasn’t sure if that was just confusion at being interrupted or a sign that something was very different here. “…Restart someone’s heart.” He repeated, brow furrowing, and glanced bemusedly at Ezran, who shrugged helplessly. “Like…uh, what do you mean?”

“When you’ve got someone whose heart isn’t working right.” She elaborated, a tad impatiently, but also with a distinct sinking sensation in her gut. “How do you get it going again without a sky mage handy?”

There was a brief period of silence. Then: “You’re saying elves can restart hearts?” Callum exclaimed, eyes wide, and…that was a pretty clear sign that her hunch had been on-point. That was…unfortunate. “How?”

Rayla stared back, similarly wide-eyed. “….There’s a spell?” She explained, scrambling for the words. Everything had been so similar up to this point that it was abruptly difficult to try to think of explaining something so obvious to members of a species who had no way to restart hearts. So…did their version of resuscitation ever actually work on anyone whose heart had stopped? How ridiculously low must the survival rate be? “A sky magic spell. It uses lightning to start the heart again?”

Both boys looked utterly flummoxed by this knowledge. It was not a promising sign.

“…Lightning can restart hearts?” Callum offered, weakly, after several moments of mutual astonishment.

“Does this mean Callum can learn how to restart hearts?” Ezran added, after a moment, and the mage in question looked like he might fall over with shock and glee at the mere words.

“Er…maybe if he spent a month training under a master sky mage. Or master healer.” Rayla hedged, and watched Callum’s face fall, a little regretful at having to disappoint him. “I don’t know the spell’s words, let alone the rune, and even then – I’m pretty sure you need training to use it right.” Still, her mind automatically tried to think of what sort of thing you’d call a heart-starting spell. Had she not heard it mentioned in her classes? Surely it had a name. She was sure she remembered something like that. Something that reminded her of the word ‘impulsive’, maybe?

“…I suppose it would be pretty weird for you to know a super specific heart-starting lightning spell when you don’t know the normal lightning spell.” Callum said, ruefully, and after a moment kept walking. “I still can’t believe elves can restart hearts.”

“I still can’t believe that humans can’t.” Rayla retorted, and followed after, the three of them falling back into step as they walked onwards. “What do you do if you get someone who’s not breathing and has no heartbeat, then? Just leave them for dead?”

“Well, you can try to do life-breaths and compressions for a while, and see if their heart starts on its own, but…” he looked almost apologetic as he trailed off.

So, in essence, human resuscitation only really worked on people whose hearts were still beating, and they had no goal of ‘keep going until the nearest sky-healer arrives’ to work towards, because they had no sky mages. That was…incredibly unfortunate.

“I mean, I don’t know how it is for elves, but for us having no heartbeat means you’re dead.” Ezran informed her, looking up with a light frown. “Even I know that, and I’m only ten.”

Rayla considered that, and then pointed at both of them sternly. “Neither of you are allowed to go near water until we get to Xadia. Or heart-stopping poisons. Or lightning.”

“What if it’s my lightning?” Callum asked, reasonably, and she rolled her eyes.

“Well, if it’s your lightning spell, it’s just the people around you that need to worry.” She informed him, and then stopped. Her mind, still half-stuck on trying to remember the name of the heart-starter spell, clicked over on the world impulsive, and her mouth opened into a silent ‘o’. “Inpulsis,” She announced, after a second, sure that that was right, a flutter of triumph rising in her chest at having remembered it.

Callum and Ezran both blinked at her, perplexed. “Impulsive what-now?” Callum inquired.

“Inpulsis. That’s the Draconic word for ‘shock’. I’m pretty sure it’s part of the heart-starting spell – and that doesn’t help you, since we don’t have the rune, but-“

Excitement dawned on his face as he caught her meaning. “-but it might work for the lightning rune I know?” he finished, eyes lighting up. He was reaching for the primal stone before she could get a word in edgewise.

“Wait just a minute,” She chided him, grabbing him by both wrists to stop him from doing anything, well, impulsive. “If you’re going to test out that spell, you’re going to do it somewhere more open than this. In a clearing. With the two of us a safe distance away from you. Alright?” Her left hand felt tight and sore in its grip around his wrist; she let that one go first, and then the other, bringing her good hand over to rub uneasily at the bad one.

Callum, for his part, looked mildly startled at having been stopped in his tracks like that, but registered the sense in her words after a few moments. “…Yeah, that may be a good idea.” He agreed, somewhat chagrined, and turned the primal stone in his hands a few times before he reached to put it away. “Maybe we can stop somewhere for lunch soon and try it?”

“In an hour or so, maybe.” Rayla decided, rolling her bad hand carefully. It felt strange – and stranger by the hour. Oddly numb, yet still painful. It prickled with electric tingles of pain and a nearly cold-feeling sensation every time she moved it…but if she didn’t move it, it started aching awfully.

Callum’s eyes didn’t miss the motion. They tracked her hand for a few seconds, narrowing slightly, and then returned ahead. He offered a smile. “Well, let’s get moving then. And then later we can find out if Inpulsis is the right word for the lightning spell.”

Inpulsis was not the right word for the lightning spell.

“It felt – weird.” Callum tried to explain after the fact, apparently having difficulty putting the experience into words. He tried to flatten down his hair for the fifth time, with no more success than before. His fingers crackled with static. “Like the rune was fighting the word. It felt like – I forced the magic through a shape it didn’t fit into? It was close enough to do something, but – the rune didn’t fit the word. The magic – well.”

“The magic didn’t like it.” Rayla summarised, dryly, trying to pat the static from her own hair. Ezran wasn’t even trying to sort out his, abandoning it as a lost cause.

“It really didn’t.” he admitted, eyes all disappointed and mournful at the primal stone in his lap.

The spell, when forced through the mismatching word, had crackled outwards in a shapeless mess, causing an outwards surge of weak, unfocused electricity that gave all of them a mildly unpleasant shock. Ezran had checked on the egg and reported it delighted with the situation, but the rest of them had certainly not enjoyed it.

“Cheer up, maybe there’s another rune that’ll work with that word.” She said, a little guilty at having provided the wrong word in the first place. Really, what had she been thinking? The lightning spell probably wanted a more strongly lightning-y word than ‘shock’. Like whatever ‘lightning’ was.

…Wait.

Rayla stared straight ahead for several seconds and then buried her face in her hands, uttering a despairing groan. ‘She might have called me a fool’, he’d said. Lightning. It was so obvious. If anyone was a fool, it was obviously her; how could she have not remembered it?

“…Rayla?” Callum questioned, sounding vaguely alarmed.

“Did you get zapped too hard?” Ezran added a second later, similarly anxious.

“Fulminis.” Rayla said, and then sighed gustily, thoroughly abashed at not having remembered that to begin with. “That’s the draconic word for lightning. You said what’s-her-name – Claudia? – called you a fool. I bet she was actually saying fulminis.”

There was a brief, somewhat stunned silence.

“…That would make sense, but also I’m not in the mood to get shocked again if it’s wrong.” Callum admitted after a moment, eyeing the primal stone warily.

Ez passed the egg, currently situated in his lap, over to his brother. “Hold the egg? I think it pulls in lightning. Maybe it’ll help if it goes wrong again.”

Callum paused, put down the stone, and carefully accepted the egg. He pulled it into his lap with a strange expression, and Rayla wondered if he, too, was realising that this was the first time Ezran had passed the egg to anyone since they left Katolis. He observed its gentle glow for a few moments, and then took a careful breath. He reached for the primal stone, settling the egg more solidly in his lap with the other hand, and then raised it with his finger poised to Draw. “Time for you guys to stand back again.” He said, and both of them scrambled for the treeline.

Rayla watched from the shadow of a conifer as he drew the crackling line of the rune in the air, heart racing a little from the apprehension of it. Would it be right this time? Were they all about to get shocked again? She really hoped she wasn’t wrong again.

“Fulminis,” he said, in a clear voice that rang the length of the clearing, and in a sudden sharp motion, pointed the hand that had drawn the rune at the ground in front of him.

Lightning cracked, with a sharp flash and hiss, and disappeared into the ground within a second. It was somewhat anticlimactic, actually. At least for a moment.

A heartbeat passed, then another, and then “it worked!” Callum cheered, delighted, throwing his hands up. He nearly dislodged the egg, and lowered his arms hastily around it to stop it from falling. Cautiously, Rayla approached, Ezran beside her, as Callum stood with a brilliant smile. She wondered if he was about to shout about magic again, like he had the first time he’d realised he was a mage.

Instead, he passed the egg over to Ez and in the next second threw his arms around her shoulders. She startled, hands jerking up in surprise, and wavered uncertainly for a few seconds before she warily returned the embrace. “Well, I’m glad it worked this time?” She offered, startled at the sudden hugging. Apparently, the new spell had made him a very happy mage indeed.

He pulled back a second later, still beaming, though he looked vaguely more self-conscious about it now. He brought up a hand to make another try at flattening his hair, sheepish. “Yeah, me too. Thanks, Rayla. Now I’ve got two working spells.”

Ezran inspected the two of them for a few seconds, head tilted, as if considering something. He shook it off and raised the egg. “I think the egg’s sad you didn’t hit it.” He commented. “It really likes sky magic.”

Callum shot him a strange look. “Well, I mean, I could always intentionally shoot lightning at it, now I know the spell?” He suggested, brow furrowing. “I don’t know if that would be safe, though. Fulminis seems like a strong spell.”

The two of them looked at Rayla then, as if she were any more of a dragon egg expert than them. She raised her hands to forestall the notion, the left one sending complaints of pain up her arm as she moved it. “Don’t look at me, I don’t know how dragon eggs work.”

“Better safe than sorry.” Callum decided, after a second. “No shooting lightning at the egg of the Dragon Prince.”

“Sounds sensible.” Rayla agreed, and after a moment, held out a hand in the direction of his sketchbook, slung securely-closed over his shoulder. “Have you got any spare paper? Maybe I’ll try to see if I remember any more Draconic while we walk.”

By the time the forest started thinning out, becoming little more than groves of saplings around groves of coppiced stumps, Rayla hadn’t had much success in remembering anything definitively sky-related, but she’d managed some things. Mainly she was just writing down every word she could remember, idle phrases and idioms and names of calendar months included. It was probably mostly useless, but she reckoned Callum would probably get a kick out of it anyway.

She closed the paper and handed it back to him, interrupting what had been a quiet background conversation between the brothers on the topic of the relative scariness of various waterfowl. “I’ll try to remember more later, but for now, shh. I think we’re close to the road.”

“…How can you tell?” Ez asked, obeying her by at least keeping it to a whisper.

She waved around them. “Younger trees. Lots of woodcutting.” She explained briefly, and watched them stare around them as if noticing the state of the forest for the first time, eyes wide and dawning with recognition. For a second, she was briefly disorientated to watch them looking about like that, their knowledge and experience so immensely distinct from her own that something as obvious as the artificially-thinned forest was a surprise to them.

Moon and Sun help them when they got to Xadia, was all she could think. Hopefully by then she’d have squashed some useful knowledge into their skulls.

Rayla pressed a finger to her lips again, to reinforce the command for quiet, and led their suddenly much-stealthier party through the young trees. Predictably, before long they reached the road. It was broad and loosely paved, covered in rows of carefully-placed wide stones that had been beaten flat and smooth by the impact of many, many feet and hooves. Mosses and weeds grew out from between them, disturbed in places by recent traffic.

There weren’t any humans in sight, or within the range of her hearing. Silently, she gestured them across the road and into the treeline on the opposite side, and kept them moving. About ten minutes of brisk walking later, she said “well, that was anti-climactic.”

Taking that as permission to speak again, Callum shrugged. “Would have been pretty unlucky if people were passing through at the exact time we crossed.”

“Yeah, exactly.” Rayla agreed, a little grimly.

Ez tilted his head at her. “Did you think we’d run into people anyway?”

She patted him on the shoulder and paused for a moment to answer. “Let me share an elven proverb with you: when you’re travelling in a human kingdom with humans after you, don’t rely on luck to keep you alive.” It was almost even an actual proverb. If you counted phrases frequently-uttered around a campfire of assassins to be proverb. Of course, if she were being accurate to the source material, she’d have finished it with ‘because luck is a fickle ballsack and should not be trusted with anything important’.

The little prince considered that. “Good advice, I guess.” He assessed, and kept walking.

“How long do you think we were walking, to get to that road?” Callum asked her a second later, reading for his sketchbook-map with that increasingly familiar thinking-about-things look on his face.

Rayla took a second to gauge her constant awareness of the position and movements of the moon, accounted for the half-hour or so they’d spent having a break, and said “’bout five-and-a-half hours.”

“Nice.” Callum pronounced, and spent the next hour filling in an absurd amount of detail on his map, and periodically tripping over tree roots in the process.

The walk to the road and its accompanying time-stamp allowed Callum to make a pretty decent estimate of not only the scale of his map, but also their walking speed. With that in mind, he started drawing in as many towns, minor rivers, mountains, and roads as he could think of, thinking on every map of Katolis he’d ever been shown. It was actually pretty absorbing work, so he didn’t notice Rayla scoping out their surroundings for a good place to camp until she caught him by the shoulder to stop him walking on without her.

“We’ll stop here for the day.” She announced, setting down her bag and the tent pack with a decisive thunk. Callum was reminded, abruptly, of how much more weight she was carrying than the rest of them. He felt briefly guilty, but reassured himself with the knowledge that he was at least learning useful camp-things, like fish-cleaning and tent-pitching.

“Thank goodness.” Ezran sighed, parking himself and his bag and also Bait on a patch of grass. He, apparently, had been paying attention, and was not surprised by the sudden end to the day of walking. “My legs feel weird.”

“Weird how?” Callum inquired, whose legs felt sore and stiffer than usual, but mainly around his joints. He’d sort of expected the actual muscle-parts of his legs to hurt, but they were alright for now.

“Like my knees and hips are going stiff.”

“That’ll be worse in the morning, and also you’ll probably feel it in your calves and thighs too.” Rayla informed them, sitting herself down next to the bags. “It’ll be much worse once we start taking on the mountains.”

“Joy.” Callum deadpanned, and after a moment, sat down with the rest of them, shrugging off his bag and putting down the sketchbook-map. Rayla watched him interestedly for a second, then nodded towards his book.

“Can I look at that?”

He passed it over. “Sure.” She opened it carefully at the map and ran analytic eyes over it, humming approvingly and nodding at parts. He assumed she was considering routes, so left her to it, shuffling over next to Ez. He stretched out his legs, shaking them a little to try to exorcise some of the growing stiffness of them. “So, what do you think of our first full day of walking?” He asked, settling comfortably next to his brother.

His brother considered it. “Less boring than I thought.” He said, optimistically. “There’s lots of stuff to look at. I used to walk around the woods a lot back home, but these are all new.”

“The views get pretty great up in the mountains.” Rayla commented absently, still looking over the map. “Even if it is cold as-“ She broke off her sentence abruptly, not even seeming to realise she was doing it. He wondered for a second if she’d been distracted by something in the book, but, nope. He shrugged a little, and returned his attention to the map, and the mountain range they were approaching.

“Whereabouts did you cross over the Belt?” He asked, after a moment, and shuffled over to her instead. She looked up, blinked, and then smirked, indicating a point on the map near a point of interest he’d marked out.

“Round here, ish.” She said, in a suspiciously nonchalant voice. He eyed her a little sceptically, and looked back at the page.

“Wouldn’t have thought you’d risk crossing the mountains that close to a fort.” He commented, eyes lingering on where he’d drawn a sort of square for the best – and most heavily guarded – crossing through the mountains.

Her smirk widened again, and he found it very suspect indeed. “It was the best option for us.” She said, delicately. “Wasn’t exactly risk-free, but then – it’s not like there are any easy or risk-free routes, through this mountain range of yours.”

Even though she was acting downright shifty, he could still agree with the sentiment. One thing that decidedly obstructed travel in Katolis was their longest mountain range, creatively dubbed the Belt of Katolis. A mountain range that, shortly, they would have to contend with.

It ran in a sort of loose curve of peaks from the northern land-mass of the kingdom to the south-east, coming around to enclose a portion of the southern kingdom in a hook of mountains, and stretching along the Great Bay. The tallest mountain in Katolis, mount Kalik, was near the southern-most edge of that hook, and Castle Katolis itself lay within the lowland cradle of the Belt. There was pretty much no way to travel to Xadia by land without having to get past the Belt…and there was only one somewhat-easy way through.

“The Pass of Viatori is pretty easy, but that doesn’t really help us much.” He said, watching her reaction with narrow eyes, as he poked at the square representing the fort that, allegedly, her team of assassins had passed quite close to.

She blinked at him innocently. Too innocently. “Isn’t there a fort there?” She asked, as if they’d not just mentioned the fort less than a minute ago.

“Yes. Yes there is.” He fixed her with a suspicious stare, which she blatantly ignored.

“I vote we don’t try to cross the Belt at a guarded fortress full of human soldiers.” She said, cheerfully.

“…Yeah, let’s not do that.” He stared at her for a few long seconds, in which she did not offer any explanation for all the smirking and suspicious reactions, or remove the unusually self-satisfied expression from her face. Finally, he raised his hands up, and said “Okay! What is it? What’s – what is it about Fort Viatori that you’re smirking at?”

She eyed him for a few seconds, plainly amused, then finally conceded. “…We didn’t cross near the Pass.” She admitted, looking somewhat smug about it. “We went through it.”

He stared. Ezran, who’d been listening in, looked impressed. “How, exactly, did six elves get through one of the most heavily-defended places in the Pentarchy?” Callum asked, at last, honestly baffled.

She leaned over and patted him on the shoulder. “The answer to that, my human friend, would be ‘Moonshadow elf powers’.” She informed him, with some cheer. “We used our first full moon in Katolis to cross it. No one saw a thing.”

For a second, Callum stilled, remembering the shadowy half-visible forms of the assassins at King Harrow’s door. Remembered watching them flow like living darkness around the guards trying to save his father’s life. He shivered, then pushed the recollection away as violently as he could. Pushed the thoughts of home and family away just as insistently.“…That’s pretty cool.” He managed, not entirely naturally. Rayla’s good humour dimmed a little as she looked at him, a hint of concern passing over her face. He hoped she wouldn’t ask.

If she’d been planning on it, Ezran neatly derailed it with his curiosity. “So you get special powers at full moons?” he inquired, eyes wide with interest, and Rayla leaned back from Callum to blink at him.

“…Yeah.” She said, after a moment. “I forgot you didn’t see it. I was in my Moonshadow form when I came to find you, but I think Bait’s light counts as sunlight. Turned me right back.” She shrugged, eyes wandering to Callum again.

Fascinated despite himself, he perked up a bit. “Huh. That’s interesting.” He commented, looking across at the glow toad held in his brother’s arms, then back at Rayla. He hesitated. “I…actually saw some of the other assassins, when I went up to the tower.” He admitted, voice a little low, and she looked at him sharply. A second later, her features softened with understanding. “I didn’t get a great look at them, though. They were all sort of…shadowy. Kind of almost invisible.” He shrugged. “I’m guessing that’s how you got past the Fort Viatori guards?”

After a few moments, she nodded. “They weren’t expecting us, so it was pretty easy. Just had to pass through when no one was looking, one by one.”

Ezran observed them, eyes a little solemn as he picked up on the mood. Then, determinedly, he looked at the map, and pushed to conversation elsewhere. “So which way are we gonna go?”

A second passed where Callum and Rayla looked at each other and silently, somewhat gratefully, agreed to let the uncomfortable topic drop. Rayla shrugged, leaned over to indicate their current route of travel, tapping the map with a slender finger. “We’ve just got to get past a couple of towns and then we’ll be near the foot of…whatever this mountain is called.”

He glanced at it. His handwriting, admittedly, had been very squashed in that region. There were a lot of mountains to name. “Dorel.”

“Yeah, that one. Callum, are all these mountain-squiggles to scale?”

He checked. “You mean, did I draw bigger lines for the bigger mountains?” She nodded at him, and he tilted a hand each way, uncertainly. “Sort of. I drew the really big ones bigger, but the rest…I can’t remember how big those are meant to be.”

She huffed, sounding more thoughtful than annoyed. “Well, whatever. We should try to cross over…Dorel, and past…” She squinted at the map. “I...as…solek?”

“Iasolek.” He confirmed.

“Past that. And then onto this….I’m not even going to try to read that. Then maybe if we’re lucky we can follow this river valley here instead of having to go over this…other mountain, too.” Ezran snickered a little, apparently amused by the illegibility of his mountain-names. Callum rolled his eyes and declined to try to fill in their knowledge.

“We’ll definitely be able to follow that river. It’s one of the two biggest in Katolis, completely cuts off the Belt from the northern mountains. Has a huge valley with its own, like, farms and villages and stuff.” He informed them. It was called the Rhodane, but he doubted either of them cared about that.

“Well, yay.” Rayla said, unenthusiastically. “Then we can follow that river to – actually, Callum, what do you think the chances are of us finding some sort of boat here?” She moved her finger over to where the Rhodane cut eastward towards the sea, coming out near the narrowest part of the Great Bay.

He inspected it. There were a lot of big towns along the edge of the Great Bay, some of which he and Ez were very familiar with from their yearly visits. The joining of the Rhodane to the Bay in particular was home to one of the largest cities of the kingdom. “I mean, there’s a lot of towns there. If we couldn’t find something, I’d be surprised. Worst-case, we might have to stow away on something.”

“That’s not what I’d call worst-case.” She said, in tones of dark humour. He was briefly curious about what she did consider ‘worst-case’, but she moved on too quickly for him to ask. “But okay. So, we travel to here and try to get a boat across the bay. Save ourselves a week or three of walking.”

“Maybe if we’re lucky we can find a boat to go along that river, too.” Ezran suggested, drawing a disgruntled look from Rayla.

“….Maybe.” She agreed sourly, and sighed, leaning back to stand up. “Well, that’s our route for the next couple of weeks planned, at least. I’m going to go fill up our waterskins. Can you two get started on the tent?”

“We can get the poles done, easy.” Ez declared after a moment, leaning over to roll her tent pack towards him.

“Good. Callum, if anything attacks you while I’m gone, hit it with lightning.” She instructed, and he felt himself break into a silly grin at the reminder of his second functional spell.

“Got it.” He agreed happily, and she rooted for their now-empty waterskins and disappeared into the trees within the minute. He watched her go for a second, then shuffled over to help Ez pull everything from the tent pack.

By the time Rayla returned, they’d got all but one of the poles assembled and set into the outer-tent, and were half-way through pushing the last one through. She dropped a waterskin between them with an idle warning of “the stream was pretty leafy, so there might be some pine needles in there.” She settled beside them, inspecting their work on the poles and apparently deeming it perfectly satisfactory as they both took a drink.

It seemed, really, that they were starting to get the hang of this camp thing. That they were starting to fall into a routine, their various roles becoming more practiced and starting to slot properly together. It left Callum feeling even more cheerful than the day’s success with magic had, and when he braced his end of a tent pole against the ground, waiting for Rayla to push the tent into shape-

Everything had been going so well. He wasn’t expecting it to suddenly go wrong.

He didn’t see what happened, but out of nowhere, Rayla let out a strangled scream, dropping the tent and clutching her hand to her chest, face twisting with pain. He was scrambling haphazardly over the still-flat tent towards her before he could fully process what had happened, Ez shooting to his feet from where he’d been sitting a couple of metres away. “What is it? What happened?” he demanded as he reached her, heart suddenly in his throat and pulse thrumming with alarm.

“Are you okay?” Ezran echoed, anxiously, arriving just a second later, staring up at her with worry. She was exhaling in a slow, measured breath, and didn’t look at either of them for a few seconds. When she did, her eyes flickered uncertainly between them, the look on her face settling into something considerably more worried than pained.

“…It’s fine.” She said, softly, after a few seconds. She was still holding her hand to her chest, its dark fingers cradled beneath the pale skin of the other. “I just – slipped. Hit my hand.” She looked away.

He’d noticed the darkening colour of her hand, of course he had. He’d noticed the way she carefully avoided using it for anything too intensive, too, avoiding supporting much weight on it or moving it too quickly. He hadn’t asked, because it was pretty obvious from the previous evening that she didn’t want them to. But…

“…Look, I know you don’t want to talk about it, but – your hand,” He gestured at it, a little lost for words. It very clearly was not alright, and now, was very clearly hurting her.

She said nothing, averting her face from their eyes. Her shoulders had hunched upwards, and it ought to have looked defensive. With her expression, though, and the way her body closed in as if to shield her hand, she just looked…scared. It was a bit frightening to see.

“Rayla.” He said again, helplessly, and held his hands out. “Just…let me see?” She hesitated, face turning ever-so-slightly their way, and he added “Please?”

She sighed, very quietly, and slowly uncurled the hand from her chest, extending it warily towards him. Ezran watched wide-eyed from his side, fingers clutching at his own sleeves as if he could draw support from their fabric. He leaned against Callum’s side in a way that told him better than anything how worried his brother was.

He hesitated, and moved his hands out to reach hers, his fingers settling on the bruised-looking skin as gently as he could. He watched her carefully, but if it hurt she didn’t show any sign of it, so he turned her hand over, looking in dismay at the state of it. Surreptitious glances hadn’t been quite sufficient to reveal how badly-off it seemed. It looked swollen, engorged and angry with dark blood, and up along the wrist…

She watched him, silent, as he trailed his fingers up to feel at the silvery ribbon-thing. It was punishingly tight, squeezing the wrist so tightly that the dark swelling even extended a little way up the arm. She hissed a little when he poked around it, and he drew back from it instantly, his hands settling around her cool skin. Was it supposed to be that cold?

He looked up at her face, and she still wasn’t saying anything. “Rayla.” His voice felt almost like he was pleading, at this point. He wished she would just – say something. Even if it was ‘mind your own business’. He exhaled, heavily, and in the face of her ongoing silence, spoke again. “At least – tell us if there’s anything we can do to help? This looks-“ He stopped, and swallowed back the word. It looked bad, is what it looked.

She exhaled, softly enough that he could barely hear it, and finally spoke. “…Thanks. But there’s not a lot to do about this.” She hesitated, and then drew her hand back from his, fingers of her right hand settling over the ribbon on her wrist. Her shoulders slumped, as if in defeat, and eventually she said “This is an assassin’s binding. I’m sorry. I didn’t want to tell you, but – I have to.” Her eyes closed tightly shut for a moment. He’d never seen her look so afraid. Not even in front of the river. “I have to.” She repeated, quieter.

Ez shifted, anxious and uncertain against Callum’s side. “…What does it do?” He asked, voice uncommonly small.

Her jaw clenched for a moment. “It’s-“ She started, then stopped, helpless. “The night-“ She tried again, apparently unable to find the words. She shook her head violently and, almost angrily, forced the words out. “We all bound ourselves. All six of us. It’s – it’s a Moonshadow elf ritual. We bind ourselves to take a life – and if we don’t-“ She hesitated again, fingers cradling the viciously-tight band at her wrist.

Understanding dawned on him, horribly, a second behind a bigger realisation. “It’s getting tighter.” He said, the other part of the knowledge just-there, his mind just a second away from making the connection-

She met his eyes, and said “this binds me to the death of Prince Ezran. It’ll never come off while he’s alive. It’ll just get tighter and tighter until I lose my hand.”

Ezran’s fingers clenched in Callum’s jacket, tightly. He stared at Rayla, wide-eyed, apparently tongue-tied. Callum wasn’t doing any better, unable to manage any words himself for a good few moments.

He didn’t for a second consider distrusting her, he realised. He wasn’t sure when, but…at some point in the last few days, he’d got to know her enough that the idea she might kill Ezran to undo this binding – he couldn’t even fathom it. He didn’t trust as quickly or easily as Ez did, but…he knew she wouldn’t. “Oh, Rayla.” He spoke quietly, understanding, and hating the understanding.

She shifted, nervously, as if concerned about the direction of his thoughts. “I’m going to pay that price,” She said, quickly, insistently. “I won’t – I’m not going to hurt Ez.”

Ez sniffed, and finally left Callum’s side, stumbling forwards to hug his would-be assassin around the middle. “I know you’re not going to hurt me, Rayla.” His words were muffled, but utterly crestfallen. “You’d never. It’s just –“ he broke off, sniffling, and Rayla’s arms slowly lowered to settle around his shoulders. The look on her face was a bit heartbreaking. Relieved, but horribly conflicted.

“It really sucks.” Callum finished, for his brother, unable to look away from her face. She seemed to find the eye contact uncomfortable, and dropped her gaze to Ezran’s hair, but – no wonder she’d had a hard time saying this.

“Yeah.” Agreed Ez, miserably, still pressing himself tightly into the embrace. “That.”

“…I guess so.” Rayla offered, quietly, after a moment. She stiffened suddenly, looking alarmed. “Ez?” Callum followed her eyes and saw that Ezran’s shoulders were shaking – he was crying. Not hard, maybe, but… “Ez – it’s-“

“It’s not alright.” He cut her off, pulling back to stare at her fiercely, his eyes brightly, coldly blue. They were all the more vibrant for the tears at their edges. “It’s not fair. You shouldn’t have to lose your hand because – because-“ His face screwed up and he pulled an arm back to wipe at his eyes.

Rayla looked incredibly bewildered by the sudden manifestation of crying-Ezran. Callum might have found her expression funny if not for the circumstances. “Ez – okay, it’s not fine, but there’s worse things than losing a hand. I’ll be alright.” She rested her good hand on his shoulder, hesitant, plainly uncertain of what to do.

He refused to be soothed, upset transmuting fast to an almost indignant affront with the situation at hand. “Isn’t there anything we can do?” he demanded, stepping back to ball his hands tightly at his sides, still seeking comfort even though he’d stepped away. “Can’t we cut it off? Or – or find some kind of spell to get it off?”

Her head lowered, eyes averting to the side. “…Believe me, I’ve tried.” She said, regretfully, and slowly flexed the dark fingers. “If there’s anything that can break this stupid binding – it’ll be in Xadia. There’s no way my hand will last that long.” She exhaled, heavily, and Ezran’s bubble of protective fury burst like a balloon. “It’s okay.” She tried to assure him, not sounding especially certain of the words herself.

Callum stepped forward then, jaw tight, and settled a hand on Ezran’s shoulder. “It’s not okay, Rayla.” He insisted, firmly, his brother’s agitation rousing his own. “Come on – there’s got to be something. Some weird counter-ritual, or weird spell, or weird amulet that can break magic – I don’t know, a weird something. Just think. Maybe there’s something you haven’t thought of!“

Her eyes snapped up to his, now looking vaguely annoyed. “No. There’s nothing. Like I said, if there’s anything that could help, it’s in Xadia.” Her words were shorter, now. Clipped. She folded her arms around herself and turned away, as if to close the subject. “It’s not nice, but – I’m going to lose this hand. I’ve accepted that, okay? You need to accept it, too.”

He tugged Ezran back to his side, straightening unhappily. “Maybe you’ve accepted it too fast, Rayla. Look – maybe you can’t think of anything now to take that binding off, but what if we at least…saw a healer, or something?”

She cast a look at him that was almost scathing, bristling like a frightened cat defending her space. “What do you think a healer could do about a magic wrist binding?” her voice was cutting.

“…Maybe there’s magic healers.” He suggested, half-heartedly.

“In the Pentarchy? If there are, they’re dark mages.” She glared at him, looking offended at the very thought. “I’d rather lose both my hands than get treatment from that.”

Her voice was so poisonous on those words he didn’t even think of trying to suggest otherwise. He threw up his hands, frustrated. “Then just a regular healer! Who knows, maybe they’ve got some medicines to – slow it down, maybe?”

Rayla cast a sharp, abrasive glance his way, then looked stubbornly to the side, folding her arms. “Leave it. There’s nothing anyone can do. That’s it.” There was a warning edge to her voice, unpleasantly reminiscent of yesterday, just before she’d snapped at Ezran.

“But if we can get you more time-“ He started, initially stubborn, but cutting off quickly when she suddenly whirled around, fast as a striking snake.

“There’s no point, Callum!” She hissed, thrusting her hand out as if in demonstration. He winced at the sight of it, the entire thing dark as a bruise. “Look! The binding’s tightening and nothing’s going to take it off! I should just-“ Her other hand twitched in the direction of one of her swords. “I should just – cut it off now, so I can start healing from it sooner.” Her fingers brushed the folded form of the blade.

Ezran’s eyes went wide with alarm, and Callum was sure his weren’t much better. He shot his hand out to grab hers away from the blade. “-Don’t!” He said hastily, grip tightening a little on her fingers. She narrowed her eyes at him but didn’t move. “It’s – look, Rayla, I get what you’re saying, but – what if we do find something? Some sort of – magic thing, I don’t know, or something that can cut your….assassin ribbony-thing. If you cut your hand off now – if we find something? It’ll be too late.”

She stared at him, jaw clenched, and said nothing. Tentatively, Ezran shuffled over, and looked up at her, eyes pleading. “Callum’s right, Rayla. If we see a healer, maybe there’s something we can do to…help you, or slow it down, or…make it hurt less, even. And then we’ll have more time to find something to help you.”

Still she said nothing. “Do you want to lose your hand?” Callum demanded suddenly, unable to withstand her silence. “Don’t you want to try to find a way to keep it?”

Finally she spoke, ostensibly at Callum, but seeming to have a hard time meeting his eyes. “Of course I don’t want – of course I – I mean, no, I don’t want to lose my hand, but-“ She waved the hand in question at Ezran. “Look, I bound myself. And since I’m not going to kill Ezran, my hand’s the price. That’s how it is. And that’s fine! I’ll happily lose this damned thing if it means I don’t have to kill him.” She forced a conflicted, drawn-in smile for Ez. “You’re a good person, Ez. Worth losing my hand for, easy.”

Callum’s expression and grip both tightened, unhappy. Ez exhaled, deeply, and reached out to carefully take her ailing hand, like a mirror of Callum. “I…I appreciate that, Rayla. You’re a good person too. But you shouldn’t have to lose your hand for me. You should never have been meant to kill me at all. It was because of the Dragon Prince, right? Because everyone thought he was dead – there had to be revenge? But he’s not dead. And you shouldn’t have to lose your hand just because people didn’t know what really happened.” His expression went firm with resolve, eyes staring at her with unshakeable will. “This binding isn’t right, Rayla. It isn’t justice. If we just let it take your hand off without doing anything to try to stop it – that isn’t right either, don’t you see? You’ve got to let us try.”

Sometimes, when things were serious, and he stopped goofing around…Callum could see the future king in his brother. Could see their dad in Ezran. This was undeniably one of those times. He inhaled, breath shaky, and felt so proud of Ez that it hurt. He looked up and met Rayla’s eyes as he spoke, his fingers still clutched around her own. “Maybe we can’t save your hand. And…like you said, there’s worse things than losing a hand, if that’s what happens. But Ez is right – you shouldn’t have to lose it. Please, Rayla. Let us at least try.”

She stared at them, plainly conflicted, eyes flicking between him and Ez, and then down at her hands, held in their own. She produced a tiny, nearly inaudible sigh, noticeable mainly by the slight dip of her shoulders as she exhaled. “….Fine.” She said, quiet, tired. “We can try. I don’t think it’ll do any good, but-“

She was cut off, abruptly, as Ez barrelled forwards to throw his arms around her again, sending her stumbling backwards a few steps, hand falling from Callum’s. “I’m so glad.” Ezran mumbled into her armour, and after a second of hesitation, Callum stepped forwards to join in, one arm around her and one around Ezran. She was tense, but, well, that made sense.

“…You dumb humans.” She sighed after a moment, voice exasperated and fond, and tentatively returned the embrace. She allowed it to hold for a few seconds before stepping back, expression settling into something firm. “We’ll maybe go into some towns and – talk to healers, or whatever it is you think will help. But we’re not going out of our way to do it, okay? No wasting days just because you want to detour to – Human River Town, or Human Mountain Town, or wherever. And no putting our whole mission at risk!” She folded her arms and stared at them expectantly. “I’m an elf. You’ll be more likely to find an angry mob than a healer that’ll treat me.”

“We’ll figure something out.” Ezran said contentedly, beaming brilliantly at her, entirely satisfied with her agreement to let them try. She looked away after a second, and he understood why – Ez could be hard to withstand, when he was that…bright.

“…Don’t get your hopes up.” Rayla harrumphed, not meeting their eyes, sounding rather like she was trying not to get her hopes up. Callum eyed her, worried and sympathetic and not sure how to help, settling eventually on distracting her. He put a hand on her shoulder to get her to look at him, and then nodded in the direction of the flat and shapeless form of the tent.

“If it’s hard for your hand, maybe try to show me whatever it is you do to get the tent up, and you can do what I normally do.” He suggested.

Her eyes fixed solidly on his for several long moments, half-guarded and half-grateful. He felt it when her shoulder slumped, some of the tension easing from her body. “…Alright. Let’s give it a go.” She sighed, and smiled tiredly at him. After all the stress of this whole conversation, he was happier to see that smile than he could quite put into words.

His own posture loosened, as if his tension had been tied to hers, and he offered his own grateful smile in turn. “Come on, then. Camp isn’t going to make itself.”

Something about the way she looked at him seemed softer, then. Warmer, maybe. She reached out to tug him over to the tent, and he followed, wondering at the changes a difficult conversation could bring.

End chapter.

Timeline: This chapter takes place very slightly on 15.05, but mostly on 16.05, day 6 since start of canon, day 4 since start of travel. (In canon, this is the day Azymondias is born.)

On geography: if it’s not obvious by this point, I’m taking some pretty large liberties with the geography of Katolis, though its general shape remains the same. Some names of things are taken from heavily modified Latin words, some from heavily modified real European place names, and the Rhodane in particular is named after the Rhône, one of the major European rivers. Some locations in canon, like Mount Kalik and the Moon Nexus, have been shuffled around a bit, or a lot, to suit both plot and my own geographical additions.

On Rayla’s history: If canon declares that some childhood event prompted Rayla’s fear of water, I’ll edit this chapter. Otherwise, I’ll go with the explanation in this chapter, because I’m somewhat tired of characters’ fears always having a conclusive instigating event.

On worldbuilding: This section is pretty egregiously full of infodump, apologies in advance. I can’t not worldbuild.

In the piaj world, medical science is relatively advanced, due to the advances in knowledge and practice that magical understanding of the world allows, as well as magical tools. Elves are considerably more advanced than humans in this respect, but various avenues of espionage usually ensure that the human kingdoms still vaguely profit from advances in Xadian medicine. The human kingdoms have recently started pioneering hollow syringes, and have these available for administering medications in the largest, wealthiest cities. They are trying very hard to figure out how Xadians make their refined antibiotics and other medicines, but they are unlikely to accomplish this easily, as the processes involve magic.

Elves call first aid first aid. Humans call it field-healing, as it exists primarily among the military for use in the field. It is becoming more common for civilian humans to learn, especially among the household staff of the nobility. Most small villages will have someone with basic field-healing, and most towns will have several, as well as a proper healer.

The defibrillation spell is inpulsis vita. ‘Life shock’. When the rune is drawn and the words spoken, electric charge builds in the mage’s arms and will release through the palms of the hands, which are positioned on the patient as defibrillator pads would be. This spell acts as a biphasic defibrillator. Like real-life defibs, it only generally works on hearts that are in a ‘shockable’ rhythm – someone whose heart isn’t moving at all would get no benefit from it.

While casting the spell is relatively simple, actually using it properly is extremely difficult, because: 1 – the mage needs to be able to determine when the heart should be shocked, which needs either incredibly finely-tuned magical senses or otherwise a magical device to track the heart, 2 – the mage needs to be precisely aware of how long the charge takes to build before it releases, and match that delay to when the heart needs to be shocked. There is a leeway of several seconds where the charge will rest in the hands, and very skilled mages can prolong this, but after this it will release whether the patient is ready or not. Sky-healers generally need a lot of training to be able to use inpulsis vita successfully.

The spell was developed with the help of Sky dragons, some of whom were able to feel the electrical impulses in living bodies, and who advised elf Sky mages on what was happening (electrically speaking) with certain cardiac rhythms.

Afterword: this chapter took a while partially because I wanted to get chapter 6 finished before posting it and partially because, well, this is an important chapter with some emotionally charged parts and I wanted to be sure it was right. Good news, chapter 6 is finished! Also it’s 15k, which kind of explains why it took me so long. I started ch7 today and churned out a whole 2.8k scene, so that was nice. Probably don’t expect an update for another week, maybe. It’s going to start slowing down now.

Thank you so much for all the comments and support, I really really do appreciate it. If this chapter hit you in the feels, be sure to let me know. This is where I start making Rayla suffer, basically. Even just next chapter we have several thousand words of condensed Rayla suffering. (there’s also lots of fluff though!)

#tdp #rayllum #tdp fanfic #tdp rayla #tdp callum #tdp ezran #piaj #piaj chapters

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