#this is a slice of life fic where each chapter would be its own contained narrative im just building up bits before i try to post it LOL

[yabakuboi]

WIP Wednesday — Steddie + CC Roadtrip

They’re in the middle of nowhere Montana—on hour five of their drive that day—when Steve hits the blinker and pulls them off the interstate. Gareth, riding shotgun for once because Eddie’s snoring in the back of the van, doesn’t even question him. They’re all pretty tired, having spent the last few weeks sleeping in the back of their cars through Chicago and Milwaukee—one night they had actually pitched a tent in a national park, but Steve was the only one who knew anything about camping and Jeff had infected everyone else with his fear of bears, so no one got any sleep that night and Steve pawned the tent as soon as he could after that. He was real bitchy about it too, but Gareth really couldn’t blame him. He was pretty sure Steve wasn’t going to make s’mores for them ever again, and that was a tragedy in itself.

It was when Steve pulled up outside of a Western Union that the stomach dropped out of the bottom of Gareth’s stomach. Before he could say anything though, Steve was already getting out of the van and heading for the payphone outside.

In the parking spot beside them, Jeff pulls up in the station wagon. He and Freak are looking at Gareth with wide eyes.

“Eddie,” Gareth hisses, and bodily crawls between the front seats, smacking at any part of Eddie he can reach. “Eddie, fuck, S.O.S. man, your guy’s gonna call his dad.”

The part of Eddie that Gareth can reach happens to be his crotch unfortunately, and Eddie wakes up kicking. “What the FUCK, Gareth?”

“It’s Steve!”

“Steve would NOT wake me up with a nut shot like that, shitass!”

“No sicko, I mean Steve is calling his dad for money right now!”

“Oh fuck.”

Eddie tumbles out of the back of the van and sprints across the parking lot, limping.

#steddie #wip wednesday #this is a slice of life fic where each chapter would be its own contained narrative im just building up bits before i try to post it LOL #hashtag steve harrington has OKAY parents dw #i love outsider povs so much #shush mal #the research i did into wiring money in the 80s for one sentence is silly but here i am

[party-hearses]

i am a nightmare, you are a miracle // 3

do i get callous, or do i stay tender

series masterlist | previous chapter | next chapter

pairing: joel x ofc!reader, ex!tommy x ofc!reader (NO USE OF Y/N)

rating: explicit, MDNI 18+

word count: 8k

chapter summary: the boundaries of your new relationship with joel are explored.

chapter warnings/tags: no outbreak AU, soft!joel, age gap, alcohol, language, characters eating food, alfred hitchcock, allusions to verbal/mental abuse (not joel), dry humping (i guess?). let me know if I’m forgetting anything!

a/n: this feels very ‘slice of life’, but it’s important to me, dammit! I love each and every one of you (yes, you!) who read, comment, and reblog. this fic is my baby, and every interaction means the world to me. @nostalxgic beta’d for me, because she’s the best human in the world and I love her to pieces.

comments and reblogs are appreciated! support your creators!

There was, Joel knows, a depth to the things you had shared with him. He just doesn’t know how to piece them together.

You had led him, a proverbial blindfold over his eyes, to the darkest recesses of your psyche. Allowed him to graze those things with his fingers. Not to grasp, never to grasp, but to ghost the ridges of his rough digits against the truths they contained. Visceral and unrefined, flexing without giving, beneath his prodding touch. A reluctant invitation.

He had wanted to claw his way in. He had wanted to rip you apart, to gorge himself on your suffering. To lick your velvet bones and make his home inside your ribcage. Half heaven, half hell.

Instead, he finds himself turning your words over in his head again and again, whiskey a thick smoke on his tongue. The television is still on in the background, the light flickering across the angles of the room, casting everything in jagged shadow.

Frustration curls tight in the pit of his stomach. Understanding feels just out of reach — as if the words you had spoken had been in secret tongues. If only he could decode it.

It will take time, he knows, to learn your language. To speak the complexities, to articulate the syntax. To appreciate the nuances from the inside, wrap his tongue around the letters. It will be an exercise in patience, he is sure, but one that he will commit himself to. He hungers to be fluent in reading and speaking you, to savor the delicate flavors of your dialect.

You, the unknowable creature asleep just down the hallway. That his hands had been on; that had made his cock twitch and ache; that had looked at him with those wet, pleading eyes, desperate to be known.

He rolls the wrist that holds his whiskey glass in a circular motion, eyeing the contents intently.

Asking you to stay in his home was a calculated risk. It had been when he’d first done it, and it remains to be the longer you stay. Tommy’s involvement — even in the capacity of ‘ex boyfriend’ — makes things complicated, and Joel knows that those things will border on volatile once he finds out where you are.

Not if, but when.

And truly, Joel doesn’t know what he’ll do when that happens. He hasn’t thought that far ahead, his vision too clouded with you, you, you.

He had known, since the first time you stood in his kitchen, a case of Shiner in your small hands, that the hot knife of devotion he felt when your eyes met his would eventually destroy him. Inevitability twisting its hands into his gut, whispering in his ear to prepare for his own eventual decimation. Lamb, meet slaughter, it said.

He’d let Tommy beat the shit out of him, he thinks, if it keeps you in his proximity.

The acute awareness of it had caught him off guard. Mutual, useless damage — two unfillable voids recognizing one another from across the room. A collision of fire and the ocean floor.

You, in a little black tank top and jean shorts, the tender flesh of your thigh peeking out just below the hem. Shoulders bare, warmed from the afternoon sunlight, skin aglow. It took strength he didn’t know he possessed to not sink his teeth into you right then and there. Lick up the slender column of your neck. Feast.

Tommy, grinning and oblivious as all fuck to the cosmic shift taking place two feet away from him.

Joel wanting to slug the smugness off his younger brother’s face. He knows Tommy — knows him always as a collector of people, of experiences. Not handling things — beautiful, fragile things — with the care they ought to be handled with. Leapfrogging from one thing to the next, nothing but ruin in his wake.

And oh, how Joel wanted to ruin you — but not in the way he knew Tommy would.

Your words to him tonight make his skin itch with that same recognition. That same inevitability. Asking you to stay meant there was no going back — that you would either let him swallow you whole, or he’d die trying to.

Throwing his head back to drain the glass, he savors the burn of the liquor sliding down his throat before flipping the television off and rising from the couch. Retracing his footsteps past your room, a dull throb settles again between his thighs at the thought of your body pressed against his.

It wouldn’t be difficult, he thinks, to open your door and take. He knows you because he knows himself, and what little restraint he has left is stretched thin.

But he will be patient, because it is you. Because he knows how this ends. Because he wants you to want it, too. To need it like he does. To reveal yourself to him in your own time, fragment by fragment. To recognize the inevitability.

And so he closes the door to his bedroom, himself on the wrong side of it, knowing that that is what a better man would do. And like a better man should, he falls asleep to images of your supple skin rippling beneath him, your mouth open and wanting.

You are unknowable, but you have never been a stranger.

You’re still in your dress when you wake up the next morning.

The hem is bunched up around your waist, your panties on display for the four walls of the empty bedroom. The slippery material clings to you, flesh slick with sweat, in a significantly less flattering way than it did last night.

Everything about you is less flattering than it was last night — the shimmer and sugar of it all worn off in the sweltering light of midmorning.

With a groan, you roll onto your back, the hard edges of your phone cutting into the flesh of your hip beneath you. You can’t bring yourself to look at it, to relive the previous twelve hours of…well, everything. Hands and drinks and tongues and flesh and desire and Joel’s voice.

Something else shifts into focus from behind the hazy veil — Joel carrying you to bed. Half-asleep and just on the other side of drunk, drippingly saturnine and pathetic. The recollection of it makes your chest pinch; the most recent admission into the museum of your naiveté.

You scrub your hand across your eyes, thick black flakes of mascara crumbling off your lashes and landing on your cheeks, chalky streaks of it painted across your knuckles. A strange laugh bubbles up in your throat — you can’t even imagine how wrecked you look.

Sharp hesitancy crests your lungs, tempts you to curl up further into the blazing bedsheets, to avoid. To shrink back into yourself. You raise a hand to your still-swollen lips, delicately pressing your fingertips into their fullness, the memory of Peter’s mouth slotted over yours replaying behind your eyelids.

You wish you had been drunk enough to forget that part of the night — but only that part.

Ava’s fingers interlocked with your own, the holographic sheen of her love wrapping around you, the way all of your pain had spilled out into her waiting hands on the dancefloor. Her magic had dug its tendrils into the soft muscle of your heart, her dreamy voice in your ear an incantation: I have the best feeling about you staying with Joel.

It was those things that you never wanted to forget.

And Joel — Joel. The way he had angled his body towards you, had been so attuned to your words. The consideration in his face as he absorbed them all, brows knitted in concentration. The restless twitch of his fingers.

Him sliding his hands beneath your body, pulling you close to his chest.

Everything had poured out of you so naturally, without any of the apprehension or anxiety you’d come to call companion. The sutures you had sewn years and years ago had been neatly, delicately, untied by Joel’s nimble fingers, in a way that you don’t even think he understood. And it took almost nothing.

Like something magic.

Fire crawls across your already heated skin, not so much a realization but a possibility.

It’s the only reason you get up, and peel your dress off of your sticky body, and let the cold water of the shower chill you. Your lungs open up, the buzzing of your nerves quieting under the stream.

Joel hears the quiet patter of your bare feet on the hardwood before he sees you. The beating of his heart matches the measured pace of your steps, both quickening as the distance between you closes.

He glances sideways, pulse hammering when you finally enter his line of vision. The wet ropes of your hair cling to your neck, dripping down the fabric of your threadbare t-shirt. There’s something so cozy about it, a significant intimacy that comes with knowing you’re just out of the shower.

It’s vulnerable in a way that he’s all too cognizant of.

“Hey.”

Your voice is sweet, if not apprehensive. Testing the waters. You gently pop a hip into the lip of the kitchen counter, next to the full, still-steaming coffee pot. Joel is situated at the stove, pan of something resembling food in front of him, his own mug clutched in his left hand.

“How ya feelin’, champ?” There’s a crooked smile on his face, one that disappears behind the curve of his mug as he brings it to his mouth.

You laugh, a gentle sigh of a laugh — a laugh that invigorates his blood more than the coffee does.

“I’m actually okay. Y’know, considering.” You tip your head to the side, watching as he stirs whatever it is in the pan. A grin tugs at the corners of your mouth, seeing him cook. It’s endearing, being allowed a peek into his life.

The way his cheeks round out tell you that he’s still got the same small smile painted on his face, despite the way it’s hidden.

“Mind if I have some?” You gesture with a flick of your chin to his coffee, clocking the way his face immediately falls, eyes narrowing in your direction.

“Y’already know the answer t’that.”

Gaze darting back to the stove, he’s quick to set his coffee to the side, muttering a curse under his breath as he lowers the flame burning under the pan. You twist your body to grab a mug from the cupboard and fill it with the blazing hot liquid, crossing the kitchen to settle at the table.

The subsequent silence is companionable, and you let the coffee rouse the parts of your brain that haven’t quite caught up with you, yet. You watch the strong muscles of Joel’s back, rippling and pulling under his shirt, as he extends his arm to pull a plate down from a different cupboard.

It’s mesmerizing, the agile way he moves, so it catches you off guard when he slides the plate and a fork in front of you, steam rolling off the scrambled eggs and slices of toast.

You hadn’t even noticed him using the toaster.

“Oh,” you squeak, blinking away the surprise you know is written all over your face. “You shouldn’t h-”

“Wanted to.” It’s kind, but matter-of-fact. A stern statement to dissuade you from arguing back.

As he lowers himself into the chair across from you, tossing his own full plate onto the table, you can’t help but remember his hands on your jaw the last time the two of you had been here together.

Together.

He immediately digs into his food, shoveling it into his mouth and slurping his coffee. You drop your gaze to the plate in front of you, picking up the fork and gingerly shuffling the contents of it around.

Something close to guilt needles at your stomach, and all too suddenly the words are hot on your tongue.

“I lied to you last night.”

Joel doesn’t flinch, doesn’t look up at you — just keeps chewing and swallowing.

“Yeah?” Another bite, more chewing, swallowing again.

“I…I kissed someone. At the club.”

The confession hangs between you, though he remains as taciturn as you’ve ever seen him. It’s only when he draws his mug up to his mouth that he even meets your eyes, subtle amusement dancing in the liquid amber of them.

It’s candy Pop Rocks compared to what would have been Tommy’s dynamite.

Joel hasn’t stilled at all, continuing to drink his coffee and scoop his eggs on top of his toast.

“You…asked if I met anyone. And I lied to you.”

Toast halfway to his mouth, the small pile of eggs perched atop it dangerously close to slipping off, he pauses. His brows pull together in a question that you can’t quite read. An epiphany that you’re not privy to.

Lowering his arm, your eyes follow the eggs as they fall to his plate with a muted plop.

“Y’don’t owe me anythin’, Peach.”

Liar.

“But I-”

He shakes his head, and whatever it was that you wanted to say dies in your throat. “Y’had a reason to not tell me. And that reason belongs to you and you alone.”

You scrunch your brows together, an unfamiliar feeling building in your chest. He watches as it happens, his own chest pulling tight at the recognition of your uncertainty, of the doubt in your eyes. He’s quick to lean over the table, over the momentarily forgotten plates of food, to soothe your skin with a knowing drag of his thumb. The fork in your hand falls, clattering against the ceramic.

“Hey. Soften up, darlin’. Just don’t want you to think y’have t’tell me anythin’ y’don’t want to.” His voice is low, eyes intently searching yours. “Doesn’t mean I don’t understand why you’re tellin’ me.”

There’s something so tender about the way he tells you this, the way he touches you, that you’re sure you’ll spontaneously combust. Nothing has ever belonged to you — and only you — before. Not even your thoughts have ever been your own, the space reserved and velvet-roped for the ghosts of your shortcomings.

And you know that though Joel doesn’t quite grasp the gravity of what he’s saying, the words are bubblegum and champagne to you. Exactly, perfectly right.

“You’re good. It’s okay.” He gently brushes a still-damp tangle of your hair back over your ear, and you wonder if he can feel how hard your heart is pounding. “Y’don’t always have to be so…hard on yourself.”

You’re good.

“Say it, Peach.”

Like he can read your mind. Like he can reach directly inside you, all those ties he’d undone, to extract the most vulnerable parts. Soften them. Shield them. Nurture them.

As though he can taste the desperation surging off your skin.

“I’m good.” Your own voice is so small, you hardly recognize it. The words taste bitter, grapefruit with the sugar dusted off. Unearned.

“You’re good, sweetheart,” he repeats, the rough tips of his fingers sliding along your jaw as he pulls his hand back, dropping it to retrieve his abandoned toast. “Now please eat. It’ll help.”

Hesitantly picking up your fork again, you mirror him — biting and chewing thoughtfully, humming as the toast settles in your stomach. Sipping your coffee. It’s almost easy.

Joel makes it easy.

Every now and again he flicks his eyes up to watch you, to make sure you’re actually eating, silently pleased as the amount on your plate slowly diminishes. He finishes before you do, shoving his plate forward and tipping back in his chair, fingers wrapping around his mug comfortably.

Moving the last bits of egg around the perimeter of your plate, you take the opening as Joel’s shoulders relax against the slatted wood.

“I, um, didn’t think you’d be…like this.”

It catches him off guard, a warm laugh betraying his usual stoicism. The levity of it curls around your limbs, climbs the length of your spine. “Oh yeah? ‘N what’d you think I’d be like?”

Avoidant. Brooding. Grumpy.

“Much less…pleasant?” You crinkle your nose at the word, not satisfied with it. “Or, like, you’re kind of…nice?”

This time he laughs out loud, angling his head back and opening his mouth wide. The sound of it lights you up from the inside, sparkly and hot.

“I mean…oh my god, that’s so stupid. I just mean…like, I think being here…will be good for me.”

You’re babbling now, skirting around the fact that you think being around him will be good for you. But something deep in your stomach tells you that he already knows. That he’s always known.

Dropping his head to his chest, you think you see a light sprinkle of pink break out across his tanned cheeks and nose. He clears his throat, mouth obscured by his coffee mug.

“I’m nice t’you, sweetheart.”

The remainder of the day is spent zeroed in on your work laptop, still at the kitchen table, legs stretched across the chair Joel had occupied that morning.

He had slipped out after breakfast to run errands — a few work related, a few personal — asking if you’d wanted to come. The invitation had made your heart swell, the feeling of being wanted stirring in your veins. It was hard to resist, the promise of more time with him so incredibly alluring, but you’d declined, work hanging over your head like a raincloud.

“It’s Saturday, Peach,” he’d murmured, eyeing you as you’d flipped open the slender screen of the device.

“Good thing I don’t have any plans, then,” you’d replied, clicking the trackpad to open your multiple files — budgets and spreadsheets and invoices stacking one on top of the other — thoughts turning to how much you’d rather be climbing into Joel’s truck beside him.

But he’d backed off, dropping a quick squeeze to your shoulder before leaving.

It’s not until he’d been gone for some time that it strikes you how different the interaction was with Joel than it ever had been with Tommy — no exasperation, no stomping out of the house, no argument. And you can’t compare them, you know, because he’s not Tommy, and he’s not your boyfriend —but it’s stable, sustainable. A quiet admission of knowing what you need. Of some kind of trust passing between the two of you.

A disruptive ringing snaps you back to reality, your fingers still resting on the keyboard of the laptop. The screen has gone black, an indication of the amount of time passed.

With a slight shake of your head, your eyes track to the smaller screen, your sister’s name and picture lit up. Uneasiness rolls through you, as it always does when she calls.

“Hey, Kit.” You drop your head back onto the curved wood of the chair, exhaling shallowly through your nose.

“Have you been avoiding me?”

You can hear the shrieking of children in the background, the clatter of pots and pans and running water.

“Are you doing the dishes?” It’s in your best interest to sidestep the question, her giving you the perfect opportunity to do so.

“I didn’t think you’d actually answer.”

The fingers of your other hand find the bridge of your nose, squeezing gently.

“I’ve been…busy. Work has been a lot.”

Liar sits just below your diaphragm, pendulous and dark.

“And how has living with Joel been?”

You should have known that she’d cut straight to the point. Like she always does.

“It’s fine, Kit. It’s been going really well, actually.” You can’t help but snap, the tranquil feeling of Joel’s confidence in you waning into annoyance at being treated like a child by your sister.

Beyond that, a significant part of you is determined to protect the strange, placid thing between you and Joel, whatever it is. Whatever it isn’t.

Kit sighs, but it’s soft. “I’m just calling to say hey. We haven’t talked in so long.”

“You’re calling to check up on me.”

“Is there something so wrong with that? I’m your sister.”

“Not my mother.”

You regret the words as soon as they pass your lips. You can feel her hurt seeping through the phone, from thousands of miles away. It cuts to your core.

“Kit, I didn’t-”

“You’re right. I’m not your mom. But you could at least be fucking kind to me, because I am all you’ve got.”

Your breath catches in your throat. Kit rarely — if ever — curses, and it hits you like a punch in the stomach.

“I’m sorry,” you whisper, tears immediately swimming in your line of vision. “You just, remind me of her so much sometimes, and…and I…”

“Have a lot of unresolved bullshit with her.”

“Yeah.”

She’s never said the words aloud before; it’s a subject the two of you had always avoided into adulthood. The crevasse between you, wide and gaping. Hearing her say it, acknowledge it, feels like sucking fresh air into your lungs after holding your breath underwater for too long.

“Daniel! Stop hitting your sister!” She suddenly calls out, and the moment crashes down at your feet.

“Look, um, I’m working. Let’s talk later this week, okay?” You sniffle, salty tears threatening to spill over. “Love you.”

You click to end the call before she can protest.

Rubbing your hands down your face, you wish you hadn’t even answered. Talking about her is never easy, but talking about her with Kit is something you’d danced around for years.

The phone begins to vibrate again, and you almost swipe to ignore it, assuming it’s Kit angrily calling back. But it’s Joel’s name splashed across the screen, and your heart thrums with familiarity. With relief.

“Hey, darlin’.” He says when you answer, the warm timbre of his voice washing everything else out of your head — Tommy and Kit and work included. “I’m thinkin’ about orderin’ pizza, that sound okay t’you?”

“Please, that sounds great.” And it does. Easy. Low maintenance. Comfortable. Exactly what you need. “But only if we can have beers, too.”

He chuckles, the sound low in his throat. “Read my mind, Peach.”

“You’re in the same exact place you were when I left,” Joel exclaims as he walks through the door, a rack of beer on his hip.

“Money never sleeps,” you reply, closing the laptop with finality and stifling a yawn.

“Maybe not, but you need to.”

“Mmm, pizza and beer first,” you hum, pushing yourself up from the table and joining him at the counter, his hands already tearing at the cardboard.

“Anythin’ excitin’ happen while I was out?” He holds a bottle out to you, fingers grazing yours as you take it. A thrill shoots down your spine, settling between your legs.

You lean back against the sink, drawing in a deep breath before tipping the beer back into your mouth. “Nothing I’d love to revisit at this moment.”

The only thing you’d love in this moment is to bask in Joel’s magic — let it wash over you, head to toe. Erase the terrible things you’d said to Kit. Be good again.

He quirks a brow at you, but doesn’t press. Instead, he holds his phone out in front of him, a pizza app pulled up. You shake your head, pushing it away.

“I will eat literally whatever you order.”

Shrugging, he drops his gaze to the screen, thumb flicking up to scroll through the menu slowly. “Hope y’actually mean that. Might try to order a gross pizza just to call y’on your bluff.”

45 minutes later, you’re both on the couch, beer and pizza in hand, an old movie playing in the background. One of your favorites — a sprawling mansion on the English coast, a haunted marriage, the shadow of a mysterious ex-wife, Rebecca. One of Hitchcock’s best, in your opinion.

Joel is happy to oblige, love a good black ‘n white slipping out of his otherwise full mouth.

As much as you love the film, you’re preoccupied with the way the evening sun casts the room in a golden glow, and how it seems to accentuate Joel’s innate softness. A softness you feel privileged to see, to have lavished on you. You want to drown in it — let his kindness corrupt you, let him untangle you.

Selfish fizzes at your fingertips, creeps up the span of your arms.

You shift your focus to the ropey muscles and tendons of Joel’s neck, gaze climbing up his strong jaw, covered in a smattering of salt and pepper scruff, to the long line of his aquiline nose. He balances his half-empty beer bottle on his knee, fingers wrapped around the neck of it.

And if you’re being perfectly honest with yourself, you don’t want to think about anything else. You don’t want to consider what it all means, yet. You want to just exist, here, with him. Watching the way he watches the movie, the way he gulps his beer down.

Hidden from the rest of the world.

Tucking your legs up underneath your body, you let your head loll on the cushion of the couch. You’d hide forever, if you could.

You stretch your arms above you, a sleepy, dopey grin splayed across your mouth — secure glowing fluorescent at the apex of your thighs. The movem ent draws his attention, as though he’d heard your pulse cry his name.

“Tired?” His voice thick, eyes tracing the soft shape of your arms as they reach skyward.

“Mhm. But I wanna finish the movie.”

A coy, sideways smile pulls at the corners of his mouth, and he leans forward to place his pizza plate on the coffee table.

“C’mere, sweetheart,” he drawls lowly, sloping back to slide his hand across your shoulders and wrap his fingers gently around your bicep to tug you closer. Turning, you meet him with wide eyes, glittering in the dark, your heart a trembling magic eight ball — are you sure this is okay?

And without words, he lets you know that it is. Lets you know that he wants you to.

Guided by his large open palm, you carefully curl into his side, dropping your head to his lap. You pull your legs up to your chest, both hands nestling narrowly under his thigh. His hand hovers over the soft curve of your hip, a barely-there touch that makes you ache.

You draw in a deliberate breath, holding it deep until he finally lets his hand drop to the exposed flesh between the band of your shorts and raised hem of your t-shirt.

A million sparks of light burst over your skin, fireworks exploding across the creamy silk of it. Your eyes flutter closed, hyper-aware of every tense of his fingers. The movie continues to play, but the whole world has fluctuated to both start and end in the exact place that he touches you.

As though there is no before this moment in time, only after.

Inevitable.

His hand slides up the length of your body, over the notches of your ribs, and higher still so that his fingers skim the delicate line of your neck. You can feel him relax further into the cushions of the couch, broad body molding to its shape, and you wonder if he’s concentrating on you as hard as you are on him.

In an answer to your unspoken question, he begins to tenderly stroke the spread of your hair, fanned down your shoulders and pooled in his lap.

“Y’know,” he mumbles, eyes still cast to the television, “we had breakfast and dinner together today.”

“We did,” you agree, a slight simper at your lips.

“‘N the world didn’t end, did it, Peach?” He angles his chin down to look at you at the same time you tilt your head to look up at him. He hasn’t stopped caressing the silky locks of your hair, and when you meet his eyes, he grasps a fistful of it gently. The pleasurepain of it makes your blood hot.

“No,” you whisper, “it didn’t.”

He leans closer by just a fraction, and you can’t help but be entranced by the shape of his mouth as his plush lips form the words that cross them.

“Want it to be like that everyday.”

He’s looking at you like there’s a peephole into your soul — a pinpoint view of the feral thing inside of you, on display for him. He’s looking at you like it excites him.

“Me too, Joel,” you breathe, the possibility a white static between you.

Not a single thing outside of the two of you exists in this moment. He prefers it that way, having you all to himself.

“Like you bein’ here, sweetheart.” There’s not a trace of hesitancy in his voice, but he says it like it’s a secret. “Like you workin’ at my kitchen table, and havin’ pizza and beer, and watchin’ old movies with you. Like wakin’ up knowin’ you’re here.”

He moves to trace the outline of your bottom lip with his thumb, and you’re suddenly looking up at him through half-lidded eyes, breathing stilted.

Closing the distance between you, he noses along the soft cut of your jaw, burying his face in your hair. He wants to drink down the way you gasp when he does; the sound burned into his brain, knowing it will come back to him when he’s stroking himself off later.

The elastic compulsion of his need so prominent, so inescapable, that the next words out of his mouth surprise even him.

“Go to sleep, Peach.” His mouth is on your ear, goosebumps rising in the wake of his breath over your skin. “‘M not goin’ anywhere.”

Taking one last deep breath of you in, he pulls back, resuming running his hand up and down the hills and valleys of your body.

The most that he’ll allow himself.

“I said some fucked up things to Kit today. She called while you were gone.”

The words fall out of your mouth, buried shame and anger spilling out with them. A confession.

Joel hums, hand still roaming, almost absentmindedly. It’s reassuring, a reminder of his words — you’re good.

“Siblings are…hard,” he suggests, emphasizing his point with a quick press of his fingers into your hip. “They get your best ‘n your worst, and don’t have a choice. It’s…safe to put the hard things on ‘em.”

“And bein’ the older one is…is…” he continues, pausing to clear his throat, voice tinged with something you can’t name, “a lot of responsibility. ‘N y’always wanna do right by them, y’know? Protect ‘em. But sometimes y’can’t. Hafta let ‘em figure it out on their own. Fuck up on their own.”

The silence that hangs in the air is charged with unsaid words. Unasked questions. Realities and consequences that neither of you are ready to explore the depths of. Guilt.

“Do you think I’m fucking up?”

“No, sweetheart. But I can’t say the same for other people.”

He squeezes your side again, letting his fingers linger just a touch longer than he had before. Dizziness snakes up your vertebrae, cloudy and disorienting. Desire. Want.

It’s a torrid kind of want, one that burrows under your skin and makes itself known. You think Joel can feel it, too, the way his touch roves over you — can feel it burn ing hot at the intersection of your skin and his.

But your brain pulls your body back, settles it to a low simmer. Reminds you to think instead of act.

And eventually, you fall asleep doing exactly that.

When you wake up later, sleep-drunk and unsure of the time, a too-bright infomercial in place of the movie, Joel is still there, just like he’d promised, head dropped to the flat of the couch, softly snoring. Chest steadily rising and falling, fingers curled into your flesh, firmly clasped just below your ribcage.

You don’t move an inch, afraid to wake him, and fall back asleep to the sound of his breathing.

A week passes. Then two weeks. And before you know it, summer winds into autumn, and the two of you slip into an easy routine — somewhat delicate, somewhat hesitant, but comfortable. And you feel silly, now, considering how naturally effortless it is. As though it could have always been this way.

And truly, that’s the hardest part to navigate. Drawing the line between what is, and what you want it to be.

Neither of you has brought up that night, at least to one another. But after you’ve gone to bed each night, you replay it in your mind, the feeling of his hands on you the image at the forefront of it; his name a whimper on your lips as your own fingers crawl beneath your panties.

Each night, wishing they were his.

It’s far too easy to overthink, second guess, dissect the way Joel’s fingers brush yours as you hand him his coffee, or the way his lips quirk up while he watches you struggle to assemble a bookshelf.

“Peach, please let me help. Promise it’ll be so much faster.”

Your indignant scowl, arms twisted over your chest in defiance. His soft laugh, deft hands picking up where yours had left off, piecing the cheap wood together without a hitch. Sitting back on his haunches, massive fingers tugging at your forearms to untangle them. The sticky warmth in his eyes when you let him.

“See? Coulda just asked me.”

Ensuring a soft landing, in every sense of the word.

The routine you’ve created is grounding, satisfying. Something to focus on aside from your intensely confusing feelings about Joel, something that pushes everything else to the back of your mind. Something to lose yourself in.

It’s not much — no caviar and lingerie and nightcaps, but it’s yours. An ardent, fulfilling thing that makes you feel steady on your feet. That makes the sharp, prodding fingers of your thoughts dissolve into a gleaming mist. Even the edges of the words in your head, the angry curvatures of your mother’s voice, bleed into nothing in the safety net of him.

The magic of it lies in its simplicity: taking turns cooking, laundry on Sundays, greetings with warm smiles even when you have to work late or spend entire evenings parked in front of your laptop. Some evenings he’ll go to the local dive with friends, some nights you’ll bury yourself in a book in your bed. The divine act of surviving.

The foundation of something, being constructed slowly from the ground up. Methodically. Each brick a meaningful gesture, word, moment.

You, being rebuilt from the ground up, at the skilled hands of Joel Miller.

A way back to yourself.

And it’s not like you don’t catch him watching you while you work, or let him drag your legs over his lap while your laptop perches precariously on your thighs on the couch. His hands are on you in some way or another more often than not, and you like it. You want it.

If only it were that easy.

If only it could be so uncomplicated — some semblance of normal.

But it’s not. And you know it never will be. So you take what you can get — reveling in the hours spent watching movies together, the errands run together, the shared jokes and spilled chinese takeout. Your own brand of normal.

And he tells you, often, how much he prefers this kind of normal — the one with you in it.

“You ‘n me, Peach, remember?”

The line a continuous, hazy blur — what is, and what you want it to be.

“Hi babe! It’s been ages since I’ve seen you, so we should go out tonight? Thoughts? No, wait — don’t think about it, we should just driiiink about it! Love you!”

Ava’s chocolate-box trill fills the cabin of your car. Rain drizzles lazily down the windows as you click to replay the voicemail, the familiarity of her elongated words and upward inflection making your heart ache. It’s not the first time she’s invited you out since what you’ve come to refer to as the incident, but it’s the first time you’ve felt genuine remorse at turning her down.

But you will do so without hesitating, the grocery bags in the trunk of your car being the only thing on your agenda for the dreary Friday evening.

Typing out a quick text to Ava (sorry babe! raincheck!), your thumb lingers over the thread just below hers. Clicking it open again, the words on the screen send a languid fire rolling through your veins.

You: I’m cooking tonight

Joel Miller: whatever you want, peach

Whatever you want.

The possibility licks hot at every inch of you.

The kitchen has become your favorite place in the house. The heart of it, the life of it. You’ve memorized every nook and cranny, each knot and split of the woodwork. The contents of all drawers and cabinets, the haphazard organization of it all.

You move around the room fluidly, exuding a sense of belonging that’s not lost on Joel. Body propped against the doorframe, he watches as you pour and stir and salt — as comfortable, as confident, as he’s ever seen you.

A bittersweet conception stirs in him, the edges of it coming into soft-focus. Before it can fully form on the screen of his mind, grow roots in the cavern of his heart, he clears his throat to get your attention.

“Peach.”

“Hmm?” You twist just enough to catch his gaze, clocking the expectant look in his eyes. Immediately laying the spoon in your hand on the counter, you face your entire body to his, matching the open expression.

“Close your eyes.”

You obey without question, squeezing them shut and unfolding your hands in front of you like a prayer. There’s the sound of his feet and a quick hiss as Joel opens and closes the refrigerator, placing something cold and dewy in your open palms. Your fingers automatically close around the curves of it.

A wine bottle.

Dragging your bottom lip with your teeth, the corners of your mouth quirk up. Your lashes flutter open, gaze sweeping over the intricate label — a golden goddess, surrounded by ribbons of different shades of pink and blue, dotted with tiny golden star details. The shiny, beveled type spells out Prophecy just below the image.

“This is my favorite.” There’s awe in your voice. Reverence. It shines in your irises as you look up at Joel, who is posted up against the counter, arms crossed over his broad chest.

“Was on sale.”

He breaks into a smirk, cheeks flushing as your sweet laugh fills the space between the two of you.

“Either way,” you respond, humor bleeding into the edges of your voice, eyes rolling fondly, “mind opening it up while I finish everything else?”

Raising his hand to retrieve the bottle, he’s quick to wrap his fingers around the arches of yours. He tugs once, firmly, pulling both you and the bottle close to his chest.

It rattles the air in your lungs, the tiniest oh fanning the base of his throat. He dips his head to meet your gaze, breath punching warm across the bridge of your nose and cheekbones. It’s dizzying, the closeness.

“How’d you know?”

You’re asking about the wine. There’s two inches of space separating you, and you’re asking about the wine.

He leans down further, the slope of his nose pulling across your cheek to graze the shell of your ear. His breathing is deep, measured, in control.

“You brought’t over for dinner once. Said the same thing — was your favorite. I just remembered, that’s all.” He says it casually, as if discussing the weather. As if knowing your favorite wine is the most natural thing in the world to him. “Wanted to get you somethin’ special.”

Whatever you want, Peach.

Your fingers draw swirls against the bottle, the heat from his leeching overtop of them. His grip tightens, words ringing in your ears. You can smell his shampoo, his cologne, him. The spicy warmth of it is mesmerizing — it infiltrates your senses, knocks you off balance.

The rest of the world feels a million miles away.

“Shit!” you hiss suddenly, wrenching your hands away and spinning to remove the saucepan from the flame. “I don’t want it to scorch.”

Joel hums amusedly, hands scrambling so the bottle doesn’t slip and shatter. You then hear him begin to drag open and slam closed multiple drawers, the clang and clatter of various utensils nearly drowning out the swearing under his breath.

“Where’s the damn—”

“Here.” Using your hand not balancing the saucepan, you stretch to retrieve the corkscrew buried in the drawer closest to you, watching through your lashes as he meets your extended grasp to take it.

His gaze lingers on you a split second, corners of his mouth downturned, brows drawn low. Analyzing. Memorizing. It doesn’t last long, him turning on his heel to retreat to the kitchen table.

Something about the way he does it pulls at you, a tangle that you can’t quite find the end of. It’s kindling to the fire smoldering low in your belly, the one you’re desperate to keep at bay — the one that roars back to life as Joel carefully pours your favorite wine into two plastic solo cups.

You can’t help but watch, the repetitive glug glug glug of the liquid into the cup matching the beat of the nearly-boiling blood in your veins. A sheepish smile overtakes his stoic facade, his eyes meeting yours across the room.

“Don’t have any wine glasses.” He nods to the plastic cups, a gentle laugh at the very edge of his words.

“Wouldn’t want one anyway,” you reply, mirroring the way his cheeks round out in a grin.

You’re just spooning the pasta and sauce onto plates when he materializes at your elbow, making a grab for both dishes.

“Uh! I don’t think so!” You click your tongue against your teeth teasingly, blocking his body with yours. “You go sit. I’ll bring them over.”

“You cooked,” he protests, smooth palm grazing your ribs in another attempt to bypass you.

“So you can clean, if you’re worried about it.” Flashing another brilliant sideways grin at him, you pick up a plate in each hand and nudge him backwards with your hip.

“Yes ma’am.” It’s a capitulation, a willingness to step back and let you lead him.

The notion strikes hot against you, nestles in the aching space between your thighs. It scales your stomach, gains speed in the span of your arms, makes your fingers tremble as you set the plates on the table.

“Cheers,” you mumble, scrabbling to pick up the flimsy cup, tipping it just so in his direction before taking a sizable gulp.

As he parallels your action in bringing the wine to his mouth, you wonder if there will ever be a time when he doesn’t trigger the roiling heat in your veins.

Then again, you think, maybe you want him to stoke that in you — always.

Fingers delicate around the body of your just-refilled red solo, you make your way from the kitchen to the couch, where Joel is slouched back, legs parted. It’s impossible not to drag your eyes across the muscled heft of his thighs, to not linger on the way his jeans stretch to accommodate him. His heavy hands rest on the bulk of them, fingers spread languidly.

While you watch him, he’s watching you. You can tell by the way his digits flex and relax, callused pads pulling patterned lines over denim. Keeping his composure, despite the way the wine ignites him. Despite the way you ignite him.

The lights in the room are low, the comforting drum of fat raindrops on the glass panes of the window constant. Your limbs feel loose, a combination of Joel and the wine. There’s a record on low in the background, but you don’t know who. You’d settled on the cushions while he’d taken the shiny disc out of the dust jacket gently, dropped the needle softly, with the most care you’d ever seen, and let the smooth rhythm of it fill the room.

“You gonna cook like that more often?” It’s casual, airy. As if the walls of the room aren’t closing in on the two of you, pushing you nearer and nearer to him.

Inescapable.

You giggle — you fucking giggle — stepping over him to curl back into your place on the couch.

“If you’ll let me.”

He scoffs, turning his body to face you. “Let you?”

You smile dreamily, looking up at him through your lashes. He’s close enough that you can climb over him, bracket his thighs with yours, take his hands and drag them up the length of your body.

There’s no voice in the back of your head telling you not to, for once. No whispers admonishing you, reminding you that you’re wicked and worthless and unlovable.

So when he repeats himself, asking “let you?” in a thick voice, you do.

Your body moves before your brain has time to react — you throw one leg over his lap, hands grasping for purchase on the back of the couch for balance, situating your thighs on the outside of his. It’s a snug fit, one that opens your hips wide, the stinging stretch of it pushing you forward. You relax your core over his, the zipper of his jeans biting into the ice-cream flesh of your inner thigh.

And when your brain finally does catch up, all you can feel are his big palms cupped around the backs of your thighs, kneading the exposed flesh there. His fingertips barely graze beneath the hems of your sleep shorts, and you’re all too-aware of how close they are to your center.

There’s a satisfied hum on his lips, a knowing growl in his throat. A silent admission of how long he’s waited for you. A confession of a different kind of hunger, a kind with legs and buoyancy.

His eyes burn into yours — no traces of hesitancy, surprise, guilt woven into the golden gleam of them.

Twin masks slipping at the same time. Resolve stretched to snapping, satisfaction within tasting distance as you grind down into him — just once, desperation sliding down your spine.

“You can have whatever you want, Peach.” His voice is low, a wanton whisper that punches somewhere near your throat.

Those words again.

Whatever you want.

You’re looking down at him, his irises shining with earnestness, and you can’t help but raise your hand from the couch to card through his thick waves. But he catches your wrist before you can, bringing it down to the heat of his mouth to press his lips to your open palm without breaking his searing gaze.

You moan. At least, you think you do, though it’s a quiet, broken thing. A whine. A plea.

His thumb swipes back and forth over your wrist, your hand small in his grip. You watch through hooded eyes as he lowers it to the crotch of his jeans, your breath catching in the cavern of your chest as you feel him for the first time.

It’s somewhat surreal — the thickness of his hard cock in your palm, separated only by the material of his pants. Every fantasy you’ve harbored about him unwrapped at the tips of your fingers, his hand pressing yours into him, unforgiving and firm.

His other hand swallows the curve of your thigh, chases up your side to grasp at your hip, dragging your cunt over him. He drops his head back, repeating the action, the ropes of muscle in his neck pulled taut as he bites back a groan.

Your head is swimming — Joel’s heady scent and bruising touch combined with the wine makes everything feel soft-focus and shimmery, like a dream. You cant your hips again, focusing on the way his jaw ticks when you do, lost in watching the way his body responds to yours.

The reality of it sits heavy between the place his skin meets yours — breaths mingling as a cry of finally, finally, finally. It consumes you both in such a way that neither of you hear a key turning in the lock, the door slamming open, or heavy boots in the entryway.

It’s not until he speaks that both you and Joel snap your heads in his direction, chests heaving, hands climbing. Caught.

“Guess it’s true, huh? Y’really are enjoyin’ my sloppy seconds.”

#joel miller #joel miller fanfic #joel miller x reader #joel miller x f!reader #joel miller x you #the last of us fic #joel miller tlou #tlou fanfiction

[midorishinji]

Disappearing act - chapter II

Geto observed her more carefully, trying to decide whether she was being serious or not. — Killing non-sorcerers? — It's an option, but I don't take it seriously. Do you? — Yuki pressed him with a loaded question. Suguru Geto thought of them all — Shoko, Nanami, Haibara, Riko, Kuroi, his parents, Satoru — and his chest filled with an unbearable pain, but also an incredibly monumental love, so much that it felt like it would stretch and burst at the seams of his heart that could not contain it. He thought of his father again, reading him "Night on the Galactic Railroad" when he was young, and he thought of Satoru reading his own copy now during his leisure nights. He thought of Giovanni and Campanella, and of the Scorpio of the night sky, and of the nobility of sacrifice, of setting yourself on fire to warm the world.

Satosugu ｜Finalized｜Long fic｜Also being published in Portuguese and on AO3

Chapters: I - II - III - IV - V - VI - VII - VIII - IX - X - XI - XII - XIII - XIV - XV - XVI - XVII

Chapter II: remembering is only a new form of suffering

Another day passes. And another, and another, and another. Two weeks. September was approaching quickly, and it finally arrived, bringing the promise of a peaceful autumn. Satoru remained busy on consecutive missions, and days merged into each other, a blur of curses, screams and nightmares; everything merged into an indistinct watercolor of fright, in which day and night became one. It was difficult to distinguish being awake from being asleep if both were just a continuous nightmare.

At the same time, Geto was also involved in missions, trying to put everything out of his mind. Toji Fushiguro had pointed a gun at Riko's head, and he would have shot her, if not for Satoru's miraculous recovery putting him in the right place at the right time to stop him with a fatal blow. Everything could have taken an infinitely more sinister turn if it weren't for this small detail. Toji was willing to sacrifice the life of a child, and anyone else he met along the way, for money. Due to bizarre beliefs, that damned cult tried to take away a life to avoid Master Tengen's “impurity”. Riko Amanai and everyone around her were nothing more than game pieces in the hands of these figures.

Despite this, life went on. The missions piled up, and Suguru Geto became more and more tired. Exorcizing spirits. Consuming them — the terrible taste of each one, something no one would ever understand. Repeat. His body reached its physical and mental limits, one step away from succumbing.

What was the point of all this?

Someone sat next to him in the Jujutsu High garden. Satoru handed him a can of energy drink, while he opened another for himself. A bag with the name of a restaurant was among them. — I brought it from Okinawa. It’s close to where I went on a mission.

Geto's eyes lit up. — Okinawa?

— Yeah. They’re fine. We should go there this October, it's her birthday. She joined the new school's badminton team... — Satoru rambled, smiling. He looked proud.

— We should. Let's take some time off, have a little vacation there.

— I brought chirunko for us. — Gojo said, taking a package out of the bag. Two slices of cake were packed. They both ate in silence, contemplating the garden.

— I still think about everything before I sleep. When I close my eyes, it's like I'm there again. — Suguru confessed, taking a long sip from his can.

— I only see blood. Everywhere. — the other replied, remaining silent. Red everywhere: on his hands, his uniform, his body, on their bodies, on the floor… He changed the subject: — The Time Vessel Association is still going strong. I thought the damn council was going to dissolve it, but…

— But nothing will change.

Silence.

— They fell for the story that the cult took their bodies. In fact, the cult didn't deny it, which is pretty strange, come to think of it. — Satoru said, crushing his can.

— They sent me a letter a few days ago, thanking me for my collaboration. I set it on fire.

That information seemed to surprise Satoru Gojo. — Wait, they did what…?

— They think we did it to help them out. That we drank their Kool-aid, or whatever. — Geto confirmed.

— I should have killed them all.

Suguru sighed. — If you’d said that a month ago, I would have told you not to even think about it. A sorcerer's job is to protect others, not to kill them. There needs to be a reason to kill someone, we aren’t animals. But now, every time I close my eyes, I see the barrel of the gun pointed at Riko, and I'm not so sure anymore.

Gojo threw his crushed can, contorted into a metal ball, away. — I should kill all the elders, and those bastards from the Time Vessel Association, and Q… Rebuild jujutsu society from scratch. I should erase the miserable existence of these worms from the face of the Earth.

— Maybe one day, Satoru. Maybe one day you will make all these changes. — Suguru said, hugging him — But not today. Not like that. As long as I live, I won't let you get your hands dirty.

And for that moment, that promise was enough. In fifteen days, we will take some time off, and we will forget that all of this exists, Satoru thought. Despite this, he knew that the non-disbandment of that damned cult meant that some powerful figure was calling the shots from behind the scenes, someone whose interests went beyond Riko, evidently.

Footsteps in the garden, approaching. Satoru let go of the hug, forcing a smile and his typical carefree ways as he waved in the distance: — Nanamin! Haibara!

Kento Nanami detested the infamous nickname, and could frankly strangle Satoru Gojo in his sleep without much regret. Despite this, they were still friends, even though the clash of personalities couldn't be clearer. Yu Haibara, who had great admiration for the heir of the Gojo clan, did not understand the tension that existed between both.

— You know I hate it when you call me that. — Nanami grumbled, impatiently.

—Nanamin, I brought you a gift, and this is how you treat me? — Gojo replied, pretending to be hurt, as he took two packages of chirunko out of the bag — One for you, and one for Haibara.

Accepting the gift willingly, Yu smiled excitedly. — Wow, thanks! I didn't even expect to get anything!

Nanami still didn’t give in. — …Thanks.

Getting up from the grass, Geto picked up his empty energy drink can. — Hey, Satoru... You haven't seen Shoko since she came back, have you? I'll go after her, she’s probably studying.

It was a good excuse to get out of there. Suguru said his goodbyes to everyone with a friendly smile and his usual calm manner, going away with light steps. Gojo didn't seem to mind, as if he even expected it. Despite this, Nanami couldn't shake the impression that they had interrupted something.

Suddenly, it was Haibara's turn to want to leave the scene, as if he noticed something in the air. — I'm going to buy myself some tea, does anyone want it?

— I'll have one, please. — Kento replied.

— Don’t worry about me. — Gojo said, seeing him walk away. The two remained silent for some time, before he said something — I like Haibara. He is a good person.

— He is. — the other agreed — He always sees the best in people. The world would be a darker place if someone wasn't able to see that good still exists. Sometimes I forget that, but he reminds me.

— Hmm.

An unsatisfactory response from someone who was thinking of other meanings for that phrase.

— What did you and Geto do with the girl? — Nanami asked suddenly.

As much as he tried to divert the subject with charm and persuasion, the acting didn't convince him this time. — Me, Nanamin? We didn’t do anything, the Association…

Kento interrupted him. — That’s bullshit. They just wanted to stop the merge, they didn't want anything to do with her body, there’s no reason why they couldn't have returned it, why we had to bury two empty coffins.

The words were like knife blows, making the lie crumble. For the first time, Nanami saw Satoru Gojo become serious: — There’s no body.

That, however, did not answer his doubts, as expected. — What do you mean? Did they destroy the body, or…?

— Nanamin… There is only a body if there is death.

A few seconds of uncomfortable silence passed, but Kento didn't show anything. — So you and Geto…?

— They are fine, in a safe place. It no longer matters to the Association, nor to the sorcerers, the time window is over. — Satoru replied.

— Then why did they lie that they had their bodies?

Gojo sighed deeply. — That's the same question Suguru and I are asking ourselves.

The answer left him thoughtful. — Hmm…

— Don't you want to know why we did it? — Gojo considered the silence and the slight nod as a “yes” — Because Riko said she wanted to live. The last days we spent together, she... She never had the right to that. Having fun, just being a normal teenager. She had never lived until that moment. And I don't know what we were thinking, but Suguru and I decided that she didn't deserve to be forced into this. And if this bomb ever goes off, I will take full responsibility.

Nanami closed his eyes, looking worried. — You know, everyone always thinks that you’re just a selfish, spoiled asshole, and I always knew that behind that attitude, there was something more than that. I'm glad that I’m right. You're a decent person, Satoru.

He accepted the compliment in modest quietness. Geto had always been his moral compass, he owed that thought to him, just as he owed it to him not to have murdered anyone from that damned cult. He owed him everything, and those were difficult words to say out loud.

#jujutsu kaisen #jjk #gojo satoru #geto suguru #satosugu #nanami kento #haibara yu #shoko ieiri #toji fushiguro #megumi fushiguro #kenjaku #writing #fanfiction #jjk fanfic

[yespolkadotkitty]

I’ll Be by Edwin McCain came on the other day and instantly got me into my Zach feels. Something about it was so him - the mood, the 90s, the flannel. The line “rain falls angry on the tin roof as we lie awake in my bed” in particular sticks with me. If you have time, can I get a little nugget of Zach? Fluff or smut, or fluff with a wee kernel or smut? I love your writing.

Right so as discussed you didn’t ask for a multichapter fic but as I’ve got 4 chapters so far  LET’S DO THIS

So many shoutouts for this so here goes:

THANKYOU @kindablackenedsuperhero for this STUNNING BANNER.

THANKYOU @thestrawberry-thief for US library advice

THANKYOU @heatherbel for the beta and UK library advice

THANKYOU @knittingqueen13 for the encouragement

THANKYOU @pedropascallion  for the library clerk advice!

THANKYOU @disgruntledspacedad and @alienprincesspoop for screaming with me about this fic.

Chapter One

Warnings: Scenes of assault, attempted sexual assault  ~ Words: 1380

Pairing: Zach Wellison x OFC Martha Song

Walk with your keys in your hand and keep a key between each finger.

Watch your shadows and reflections - a split second’s notice is better than none.

If they take you and put you in the trunk, kick out the headlights.

These are all things girls are taught from a young age. Things I knew, almost unconsciously. Things that were smart.

But did knowing these things stop me from taking a shortcut through the park after the sun had set?

No, they did not.

I had my hand in my pocket, around the keys. I did not have headphones on - needed to hear if someone was approaching.

Usually, I did all the safe things at night. Walked in the road if it was appropriate, so someone would have to come out from the pavements and buildings to grab me. Stuck to well lit areas.

But, well, I was tired, and hungry for the Chinese takeout leftovers in my fridge, could already taste the sticky pork ribs in my mind, and I took the lazy, unsafe shortcut.

I’m sure the media would have blamed me for what happened next.

I heard them before I saw them. I turned slightly. Two guys, one wearing a beanie, another with his hood up.

It wasn’t even seven pm, but in January the sun set earlier, and darkness had descended, filling up all the corners that daylight usually illuminated.

I quickened my pace. I’m sure they’re just coming off shift.

“Hey, babe,” one of them called.

I glanced around. No one else in the vicinity, and the park spread flat enough for me to see. A single streetlight ahead beckoned and I headed for it, the bag of books from work on my back slowing me down.

I thought about ditching it, but: books. I value books more than anything. I couldn’t sacrifice them even for my own benefit.

“Not gonna stop and talk?” the other one called.

They’re just cat-callers, nothing to worry about.

It was just shy of seven in the evening - where the fuck was everyone? LA should have been busy, was always bustling, but I had somehow chosen the one time where this section of the popular park was empty.

“Come on baby, spare a little sugar?” the first one called. Their steps got closer. The second one was snickering and I felt the little mouse of fear skitter down my spine.

I clenched my keys tighter. Shouldn’t have taken the shortcut.

The streetlight got closer, and I watched it, saw the first guy’s shadow with a hair’s breadth of notice. I spun as he reached me, the keys poking out between my fingers, but I was scared and all my punch did was piss him off.

“Pretty girl,” he half wheezed as he grabbed for me. “Don’t pretend you don’t want it.”

I struggled. Under the streetlamp I caught a glimpse of the first guy’s face, straggly mousy brown beard, cold eyes. The pit of my stomach fell.

“Let me.” Guy two was at my back, hands on my waist. He smelled of alcohol and something like old food, and bile rose up in my throat. “Loosen up, baby, we only wanna make you feel good.”

I tried to shout, but the noise died on my tongue. Fear had clutched itself around my body and the muscles weren’t responding. My keys fell from my fist.

Help, I thought. My tongue stuck to the roof of my mouth as the first guy slid his hand down my body.

No, no, no.

Then suddenly a rush of adrenaline hit my veins - come on, what would Katniss Everdeen do? - and I shoved my knee up into guy one’s groin. Not as hard as I wanted to, but he cried out, a litany of swear words falling from his lips. I kicked out, but guy two was stronger, and had an arm around my throat before I could move.

“Come on now. Don’t be like that,” he cajoled, his sour breath licking at my cheek.

By then guy one had recovered, his face caught in a snarl, white skin pasty under the streetlight. I felt like I was in a sort of backwards ballet, a dystopian dance where there was no way I could make the right moves.

“Hey, assholes.”

The new voice, deep, with a bit of Texas drawl, made me turn. 

A man, mostly in shadow, a large duffel bag by his feet, wielded what looked like a big section of industrial metal pipe.

Guy two huffed out a laugh. “Oh look, it’s the little soldier boy and he brought a new toy with him.”

“Let her go, man,” the stranger called out, taking a step closer.

Guy one had recovered from my knee to his dick. “Or you’ll do what?” He grabbed for me again, but he was distracted by my would-be rescuer, so I took the opportunity to knee him again, but this time, like I meant it, like my life depended on it.

He buckled, and the release meant I could drive my elbow back into guy two’s kidneys. He was stronger, through, and he tightened his arm around my throat. I grabbed for his wrist, scrabbling, barely noticing the stranger moving out of my sight.

“Duck!” He yelled, and I summoned all my strength to yank my head down.

In a moment, a loud thunk confirmed my suspicions, the sound of metal on flesh and bone, and guy two toppled like a tree.

Breathless, I turned to scoop up my keys, and stared at my knight in - dirty jeans. He was panting, his arms still holding the pipe up.

“You okay?” he asked, and I saw him clearly under the streetlamp, the glow picking out the gold in his brown-sugar hair. A patchy beard, more stubble than anything, hugged his well defined jaw. His eyes were soft, kind, the deep brown of hot cocoa.

“I am thanks to you.”

Below him, guy one writhed on the floor and, feeling too angry to think, I stomped on the part of him closest to me, his hand.

He cried out and I couldn’t have cared less.

“You wanna call the cops?” the stranger asked, but his tone was wary. As if I might have been just as likely to call the law about him as the attackers.

I thought it over. I’d likely be raked over the coals for having the audacity to walk alone at night (as if anytime after sundown could be counted as night) and my attackers would get a wrist slap. If that.

“Nah.” But I stomped on guy one’s wrist again for good measure.

He whined.

“C’mon,” Brown Eyes said. “I’ll walk you to the edge of the park.” He set the pipe on his shoulder and crossed over to the waiting duffle bag. It was the size of his torso. I took in his weathered, unshaven appearance, and wondered if the canvas fabric contained his every worldly possession.

I checked behind me, but the stranger was quick to reassure. “They won’t be back for a couple days.”

“You’ve… seen them before?”

He ducked his head, and in the glow from a nearby streetlamp I saw a faint flush of rose on his cheeks. “I’m... here a lot.”

He’s homeless. But of course I didn’t say it out loud.

We reached the edge of the park. People milled about, some queueing outside a deli popular for its pizza sold by the cheesy, greasy slice.

I didn’t miss the way the stranger’s head jerked up towards the scent of pizza.

How long since he’d eaten?

“Want some pizza?” I asked.

Something unreadable passed over his face. “I’m not a charity case.”

“Oh, but I am?”

His head whipped around. “What?”

“Did you come to my defence just now because you felt sorry for me? Oh look, there’s a woman of colour being attacked, gosh I feel sorry for her-”

“No, of course not, what the-” then he huffed out a laugh. “Touchė.”

“It’s just pizza. And a thank-you. I’m Martha.” I held out a hand.

He looked down at my outstretched palm for a second, as if surprised that I wanted to touch him. Then he shook my hand, his own large, warm, callused. “Zach.”

***********

Tagging: @thegreenkid @reluctantlyresponsibleadult @littlemissthistle @havenforafrazzledmind @myheart-pedro @john-in-the-sky-with-paul @idreamofboobear @rae-gar-targaryen @miulola @abuttoncalledsmalls @buttercup-bee @strangelittlenobody @qseomilk @jazzelsaur @songsformonkeys @mourningbirds1 @pajamasecrets @myoxisbroken @just-the-hiddles @skdubbs @nelba @badassbaker @nelba @f0rever15elf @synystersilenceinblacknwhite @mylittlelonelyappreciation @theravenreads @filthybookworm @aeryntheofficial @toomanystoriessolittletime @lannister-slings-and-arrows (Zach Pit) and @absurdthirst might like this <3

please ask to be added or released from the tags!!

[zenithlux]

Tendrils of Regret - Part 1

Read on AO3 Here!

My DMCWeek fic, Tendrils of Regret is finally here! I’m really excited about this one and all the follow-up stuff I’ve got cooking up for it! I’ll be posting a chapter a day for the rest of the week around the same time (and bumping them in the evening) so hope ya’ll enjoy :)

You still remember those frightful days, trapped in the body of a demon. You’d been there for a week and a half kept alive by a vine that pierced your body with magic you didn’t understand. Most of the time, you drifted in and out of sleep, alone in the darkness and dreaming of the world you were missing. Other times you were forced to watch as the thing you were playing host to gleefully pierced the hearts of others with its vines and tendrils, sucking away their blood and devouring their life itself. How you trembled with fear, uncertain whether to pray for a rescue or hope for your end. 

Then, there was him. The man that became your savior. A tall, tattooed, black-haired man with remarkable demons that sensed who you were. “Well, well!” A talking bird demon said. “There’s a human in here.” When he landed on your demon’s head,  you felt him peck it before flying back to the arm of the man. “What’s the plan, V?”

V you thought as the man swung his cane with a low chuckle. “We’ll just have to tear them out.”

Your demon screeched, slamming its vines down around the man. But V just scoffed as he slipped out of the way. A black panther lunged… and that’s all you remembered. When you woke up, you were in his arms with the panther nuzzling your side, a large, rock creature sitting behind him, and a whispered promise; “I’ll protect you.”

And, for the next month, he did. V taught you how to use your new powers that the vine embedded in your chest gave you. He fought alongside you, destroying the vines of that demon tree that nearly destroyed your home. His demons became your friends. You slept by Shadow’s side almost every night, while Griffon cuddled up next to V after complaining that it was “the kitty’s job” almost every time. All five of you had been close- as close as you could be considering how little time you actually had. 

Then, one day, he gave you two bracelets made of black cords and a blue rose charm on each. “Hold on to these,” He said. “And when I see you again, you’ll return one to me.” Then, he smiled and kissed your forehead before disappearing for months with no sign of coming home. Another acquaintance of yours, Dante, also disappeared, leaving you, Lady, and Trish to keep Devil May Cry going in his absence. 

Not a day went by that you didn’t think of V. But you had to keep moving forward. You couldn’t let your feelings consume you, not when you still had a piece of a demon latched to your heart. Lady and Trish treated you well, though you didn’t miss the occasional pity in their eyes, as if they knew something you didn’t. But you never got a chance to ask, and they never told. All three of you simply worked together under Morrison’s guidance, with you taking all the jobs your powers could handle. 

Still, you couldn’t help but feel disconnected from the world. You were missing something important. A piece of your life that you couldn’t get back. 

“So what’s it today, Morrison?” Lady said as she hopped on the desk and swiped a piece of pizza. Trish rolled her eyes but took her own slice. You slunk over to the second desk you’d recently bought to store all the paperwork and the blue rose you’d bought a few weeks ago. You touched your hand to the soil, feeling its life pulse in your fingertips. The petals bloomed under your touch, reinvigorated. 

“Nothing important today,” Morrison said, waving a letter in the air. “Except some paperwork.” He tossed the envelope and you caught it without looking. “Can you handle that, Rose?”

Rose wasn’t your real name, but you’ve never shared it with them. You were a different person now after you were a part of that demon. You’d never returned to your family, accepting this new life as your own. And Dante had tried plenty of other names - Sunshine. Sugarplum. Little Leaf. Vine Lady. - but it had been V who’d overridden him, calling you “my little rose”. The women had accepted it, and Dante had eventually let his silly nicknames go. “What’s it today, Mori?” You ask, opening the letter. Inside was a stack of letters, bills, and invoices. You click your tongue. “Finances.”

“Yep,” Morrison said. “Your favorite pastime.”

“I’ll take care of it.” You plop down in your seat, tapping the power button of your computer. You’d insisted on getting one of these after Dante left after proclaiming that he was living “in the dark ages”. Trish and Lady had agreed with it, but progress was slow. Dante’s backlog of bills was still a problem that you were trying to solve. But with Lady and Trish’s help, you’d be all caught up in the next few months. 

And since you were the only one who lived here, you were very dedicated to making it as comfortable as possible. 

You often wondered if Dante would be proud of your work or laugh at you for trying too hard. 

“Have you eaten today, Rose?” Lady said after gulping down another slice. 

You waved her off. “I have enough sustenance.”

Lady snorted. “Out with the plants again?”

“Gotta keep the vine happy,” You said as you patted your chest. “And it’s not a big fan of pizza.”

“More for us,” Lady said with a grin, but it slipped away as you returned to your work. “Seriously though. You gotta take care of yourself. Can’t have you passing out on us again.”

You frown, not looking up. “That wasn’t my fault.” After V disappeared, you’d be left to navigate your powers alone. What you didn’t realize was that V had been providing a certain sustenance - demonic blood you later found out - and was redirecting a portion towards you through his familiars. Regular food only did so much, and you’d nearly died fighting off a pack of demons. Luckily, both Lady and Trish had been there for that mission and Trish guessed what had gone wrong. Now, you were careful to absorb any demonic essence you could find but often forgot to eat as food was bland and useless now. 

“Are you sure you’re okay?” 

You shrugged. “I’m fine.” And that wasn’t a lie. Not technically. You were fine, just not great. Nights were often lonely without the company, but you never complained. All you had to do was fall asleep at a good time and everything was fine. At least, that’s what you told yourself. Your version of “at a good time” had gotten progressively later as the weeks went on. You often found yourself lingering on the computer, aimlessly searching through things that didn’t interest you for that chance to find one thing that did.

Lady just shook her head, but her smile and relaxed posture returned. “That was almost convincing,” She said with a shrug. 

You smiled, glancing up over the monitor. “It’s as close to the truth as I can get.”

Lady hopped off the desk, reaching for Kalina Ann. “May as well patrol,” She said. “As exciting as those finances are…”

You waved her off. “Have fun.”

Lady rolled her eyes. “Always do!” 

Then, the door opened. 

Your head shot up in surprise. Lady sucked in a sharp breath of surprise. Trish’s eyes narrowed as she leaned against the desk. A man in a red coat walked backward into the office. “... And you’re going to love it,” Dante said as he spun around. His eyes immediately darted between the three of you and he froze, caught between a genuine smile and a look of shock. Behind him stood a man you’d never seen before, but someone that was clearly related to Dante. If his hair were down and his face a little more grizzled, they’d be almost identical. When his gaze fell on you, it was stiff and uncomfortable. 

“Hello ladies,” Dante said with an awkward wave. “Long time no see.”

“Seven months!” Lady snapped. “And you gave the deed to Morrison!?” She looked ready to slap him, but you didn’t miss the weary gaze she gave the second man. “You brought him back?”

“Of course,” Dante said with a shrug. “He’s on our side now.”

You blinked. Now? What did that mean? Why wasn’t he before?

Wait…

“Where’s V?” You said, unable to contain the fear in your voice. The second man’s eyes narrowed as Dante’s gaze snapped to you.

“Sunshine…”

“Where is he?” You repeated, standing up. “He went into that tree with you. Why’s he…?” You trailed off, eyes widening. “No…” He couldn’t have… he promised…

“I’m sorry,” Dante said, his tone solemn. No one was looking at you. “But V… well the V you knew is… it’s complicated.”

“The V I knew?” You said. “What do you mean?”

Dante glanced at the girls, his eyes begging for help, but neither of them said a word. “Well you see… my dumbass brother Vergil here…” The other man scoffed, but Dante just glared at him before continuing. “He split himself in two.”

You blinked. “What?”

“His human half,” Dante said, putting his hands to one side. “And his demon half.” He moved to the other. “So V is…” He hesitated, then held both hands out toward Vergil. Wiggling them for extra effect. “Well… Tada!”

You stared at him, mouth agape. You couldn’t believe what you were hearing. Not one second of it. But the way the other man - Vergil - just stared at him was… disconcerting. This was V… but not V? How was that even possible?

Wait…

“Then what happened to his demon half?”

This time, you didn’t miss the pointed glances Trish and Lady gave each other or the pained look on Dante’s face. Vergil didn’t move, nor had his gaze left yours since he’d walked in the door. You pulled your jacket tight around yourself, trying not to let it bother you. “Well… You know that demon in the tree?” Dante said. 

The world seemed to freeze as your mind caught up to what he was saying. You closed your eyes, unable to hide the tears. “You mean… the one who put me in that… thing?”

“Rose...” Lady said. 

“Did you know?” You said. A pulse of pain emanated from your chest as everything snapped into focus. The feeling of life nearly overwhelmed you. The rose on your desk. The plants beneath the floorboards. The vines that had yet to dissipate nearby.  You could feel them, calling to you. Begging you to set them free. You swallowed, shoving the feeling back down. But you couldn’t stay here; the vine would nag at you until you gave in. And with your emotions breaking down…

“It happened to us too,” Trish said, her tone quieter than you’d ever heard. “But we made it out without… your affliction.”

Affliction. “But V saved me,” She said. “He’s the reason I’m alive… the reason I know how to use this.” She tapped her chest. 

“Use what?” Vergil said. 

You couldn’t help but glare at him, even through the ever-mounting tears. “You don’t remember?”

Vergil just stared at you and Lady groaned. “Of course not. That would be too simple.”

“Urizen got to her,” Dante said as a matter of fact. “Tied her up in some plant demon and wrapped a vine around her heart. Now she’s got demon powers.” He looked back at you. “And no one’s figured out how to get rid of the thing?”

“Not without killing her,” Trish said.

You choked back a sob, slamming your eyes shut again. No. You could still remember the voice of the demon in your head. That thing that had taken your body as its own host. 

You couldn’t do this.

You couldn’t bear to look at him. 

You darted for the door. Dante leaped out of the way, but the Vergil just stood there, stopping you short. “Move,”  You snapped, glaring at him. His eyes narrowed and his shoulders stiffened, but he didn’t move. More tears slipped down your cheek. “Get out of my way,” You said. 

“What was he to you?” He said. 

“Shouldn’t you know?” You replied, bitter and resentful. “Since you were him or some nonsense?”

“She and V were close,” Trish said. You didn’t want to hear it, but you didn’t stop her either. “Like sharing the same room close.” You saw Vergil flinch and it only soured your mood even more. How dare he act like that. Did you really mean nothing to him? Did he really forget everything you and his… his what did?  His “other self”? His “human half”? Did V even exist anymore? Or were you just stuck with this asshole standing in front of you?

“Move,” You said.

Vergil watched you for a moment longer. His sharp blue eyes were unsettling. The power within you swelled unexpectedly. A harsh desire washed over you. A desire to prove… something. A desire to… to what? 

What was happening?

“Rose,” Lady said. “You need to breathe.”

“I need to leave,” You said. 

“Come on, Verge,” Dante said. “Let the girl go.”

Finally, Vergil stepped aside and you rushed out into the night. 

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

Lady found you half an hour later on a low rooftop surrounded by plants you’d raised from the ground before you crawled up there. You pulled more than usual tonight, cocooning yourself in vines covered in small, white flowers, giant sunflowers that had surprised you, and a couple of large roses fueled by your despair. Redgrave was destroyed already. Your plants just made it prettier. At least, that’s what you told yourself as you peered up at the moon through a small opening. 

“Can I join you?” Lady said.  You hummed noncommittally but tapped your fingers. Two of the vines fell away, opening a small door until she stepped inside. You used to do this with V, as it was a good practice of your control. Of course, you’d only managed a few plants with him. After months of your own practice, you’d gotten much better. 

Not that you showed it off to many people.

“It’s okay to be upset,” Lady said as she sat down beside you. “I know it’s a lot to take in.”

“Why didn’t you tell me?”

She didn’t hesitate. “To be honest, we weren’t sure what was going to happen. Dante had left to kill his brother, and V himself was deteriorating… as I’m sure you remember.” You nodded, but you didn’t look at her. “But we should have guessed Dante would find a way to save him. And he sure wouldn’t survive forever away from his beer and pizza.”

“And his friends,” you offered.

Lady snorted, but she smiled. “He was probably happy to be away from us for a while.”

You shrugged. “He’s probably glad to see you both again.” Your gaze lifted back to the moon. “Unlike V… Vergil.” The name was still bitter on your tongue and you weren’t sure if you’d ever get used to saying it. You could imagine V right here, telling you the truth. How much you would have laughed with him over the very imaginative name he’d given himself before he would lull you to comfort with poems and Shadow’s purrs. How little you would have cared then. V was V. His own person. The man you…

You sighed. “Now what?” 

Lady was silent for a moment, eyes drifting to the moon. “I’m not expecting you to have the same feelings for Vergil that you did for V,” She said. You didn’t look at her as tears threatened to fall again. “V is a part of the whole, yes, but he isn’t… the whole.” Lady sighed. “It’s…”

“Complicated?” You said.

“Something like that,” She said. “Just don’t let him get to you.” She hesitated again, then sighed. “Last time we met… he wasn’t the nicest guy. But maybe he’s changed. Who knows?” She muttered something under her breath, but you only caught the words “I” and “wouldn’t”. Your heart sank at the implication. I wouldn’t trust him.

“What should I do then?” You said. “Just… accept it?”

“I don’t know,” She admitted. “But I wanted you to know that I’ll be here for you, okay? If you need anything, don’t be afraid to come to me.”

You closed your eyes, letting the tears fall. “He’s really gone,” You whisper. As much as you knew V, you didn’t know Vergil. You didn’t even know if you could trust him. The sheer fact that he’d been the demon to seal you away, the very reason you had to give up everything you loved… was heartbreaking. How could you look at him the same? How could you see the man you’d grown to care for and ignore the awful things that had happened?

“Life’s never easy for people like us,” Lady said. 

You shook your head. “Of course not.”

#dmcweek #dmcweek2020 #vergil/reader #vergil/you #vergil #dante #lady #trish #enemies to friends #slow mutual pining #remnants of V

[another-rogue-trevelyan]

Five favorite writing bits from 2020

I was tagged by @kunstpause and @potatowitch thank you so much for this tag! It was fun to reflect on my writing from this year. I only really started in July, so I’m looking forward to things to come!

Mostly, this will be passages from my Cullen/Trevelyan fic, but there is a Greedfall excerpt that I technically think I wrote last year???

Under the cut because this got long

Sides of the Coin (unpublished as of 1/21)

“Kurt, clearly I’m useless today. Perhaps we should try again tomorrow. I’m sure I have enough bruises for one day.”

“Anyone who wants you dead won’t care if you’re distracted and bruised. I’m not letting you get yourself killed because you’re having an off day. I can’t always be there to watch your back. You need to be able to save yourself. Now raise your blade and try it again.”

She lunged toward him, but he easily parried the strike, which had been performed more in irritation than any thought that it may be a good idea.

“Still sloppy.” He advanced on her, and Corinne barely managed to swat away his strikes with her blade, stumbling backward on exhausted legs.

“Kurt…”

“Come on Green Blood, defend yourself! I know I taught you better than this! What would your uncle think of this performance?”

She swung hard, meeting Kurt’s blade with unexpected force and pushing him back. She advanced on the offensive, landing blow after blow as he frantically parried aggressive strikes.

“Corinne-“

His unusual use of her name did nothing to dissuade her assault as she hailed down upon him. She was an indomitable storm, striking mercilessly as Kurt did his best to block without harming her.

“Corinne, what are you-“

“Stop… treating me…. like a…. child!” she panted through her onslaught.

“I’m not!” Kurt yelled as their blades clashed. They pushed against one another, eyes meeting across the steel. “I’m treating you like someone I don’t want getting killed!”

“You’re talking to me the same way you did when I was fifteen! What are you going to do, tell on me to my uncle? Go ahead! He’s months away by sea!”

“That’s not what I meant and you know it!” Kurt shoved hard, both of their blades swinging wildly to the side as they both stumbled backward. “I don’t understand why you’re so angry!”

“Because I am a grown woman, Legate of the Congregation of Merchants, and the only reason Constantin hasn’t destroyed the colony yet, and you’re talking to me like a teenager with her first blade!”

“Because you’re fighting like a teenager with her first blade!”

Hearts Like Lions, Chapter 18

“I’ve been told you were romantically involved with the Empress.”

“I didn’t take you for a gossipmonger, Inquisitor,” Briala said, smiling sadly.

“Is it true?”

“Would it be so terrible if it was? It is lonely at the top, Your Worship - something it seems you know well. Is your own Commander not warming your bed?”

“My personal affairs are not threatening Empires.”

“Aren’t they?”

Hearts Like Lions, Chapter 17

Evelyn looked him over, sensing the dread that filled him. Though he insisted otherwise, the group that had accosted him had shaken him. If she could help it, it wouldn’t happen again.

“Cullen, what if I told you there was a way to keep them off of you?” She looked up at him nervously, and Cullen’s brows knit together in confusion.

“What do you mean?”

Evelyn pulled the silken kerchief from her breast pocket, running her thumb over the embroidered lettering.

E.T. Modest in Temper, Bold in Deed.

Bold, indeed.

Hearts Like Lions, Chapter 3

Cullen hastily took the reports from the scout and set about finding a quiet corner of the Chantry to work in. Ordinarily he’d prefer to work outside, but he had been waiting for the reports from the Hinterlands since the Herald… no, Evelyn... and her team had left weeks ago, and their importance required a focus only a quiet room could provide.

Cassandra’s was on top. Unsurprisingly, her reports were clean and concise, detailing their endeavors and findings in the form of an organized list. Her information was useful, and Cullen took note of anything he may need to pass on to Josephine and Leliana. As he copied down the details, he noticed Cassandra’s final entry, written below her other notes.

Our arrival at the Crossroads was met with resistance from rebel mages and Templars. The Herald was pinned beneath a Templar and held by the neck. I was able to stop the Templar, but the Herald suffered minor bruising. After a week of fighting beside her, I have determined her lost footing was not a mistake. The Herald is an extremely well-trained rogue.

CP

Cullen stared at the report, as though his gaze could bring further explanation. One of the first rules of combat training was to never let your enemy take you to the ground, especially for rogue fighters, who often wore lighter armor. He pulled out the next report, hoping it would contain more information.

The next came from Solas, who had thoroughly described the area, citing historical sites, locations of natural materials, and possible locations to camp. It was actually quite useful, but didn’t answer his question about the incident with the Templar. That was until he realized the pages had stuck, and there was one more note on the final page.

Evelyn suffered a minor injury to the neck caused by an altercation with a rebel Templar. Though she claimed to not be bothered by it, she moved her head tenderly, and the discoloration turned to dark bruising. I applied an elfroot salve to the affected area that evening, but there was not much that could be done for it. It has been healing well on its own.

Solas

Cullen flipped immediately to the next report, hoping to find something else.

Curly,

Have I mentioned that I hate the wilderness? The Ferelden cold bites as harshly as its war dogs. It has been two weeks since we parted with civilization. Since then, it has been nothing but hastily made camps. Rams feed on the grasses of rolling hills, while their predators lurk in hidden caves beyond view…

Cullen groaned. Varric’s report was far thicker than the others. His clean yet elaborate scrawl continued for pages. While entertaining, it made it difficult to find the information he needed. He skimmed through until he found what he was searching for.

When we arrived at the Crossroads, we were attacked from both sides by mages and Templars alike. Our team was caught in the middle, and neither group cared to differentiate between us and the enemy. They even went so far as to turn hostile against Inquisition soldiers and refugees. A Templar almost killed a refugee woman, but Evelyn tackled him to the ground at the last moment, giving her enough time to escape and saving her life. Unfortunately, once on the ground, the Templar was able to pin Evelyn down by the throat. The Seeker managed to pull him off and kill him before things could get worse, but the Herald was bruised for days. Trust me when I say we need to watch her, Curly. I’ve seen firsthand what this world does to heroes.

V.

Hearts Like Lions, Chapter 10

“Of course,” Evelyn said, intently picking lint from her sleeve. “I’ll be down in just a moment.” Once they were gone, Evelyn looked toward the floor, appearing far more sullen than she had just moments prior.

“Is something wrong?” Cullen asked. Evelyn sighed.

“It’s Alexius’s judgement. It’s one thing in the field, when someone attacks you - when you know it’s you or them. But to sit on a throne and condemn… What Alexius did was terrible, but he only wanted to save his son. I can’t say I don’t understand. Sometimes I wonder if I’d have done the same, in his place. But then I remember that future…” she placed her hands on her hips, biting her lower lip and trembling with rage. “It was horrible, Cullen. They imprisoned our friends - used their bodies to mine red lyrium. It infected everything! Then they tortured Leliana, destroyed the Inquisition, and I didn’t know what happened to my family, or what happened to you, and I… Dammit!” As she dabbed a tear away with her glove, Cullen impulsively wrapped his arms around her. He did so awkwardly, at first, but then he relaxed, resting his chin atop her head as Evelyn eased into him.

“Why didn’t he attack me? Why couldn’t I have killed him then, in the heat of battle, without having to worry about whether or not it was right? And now I don’t know if I can…”

“You can,” Cullen said softly. “I know it won’t be easy, but you can.” Evelyn breathed deeply, allowing the comforting scent of oakmoss to calm her.

“I’m sorry,” she said when she finally pulled back, immediately missing the comfort his arms had brought. “I don’t know what’s gotten into me.”

“Don’t be sorry, Evelyn. It’d be more concerning if nothing troubled you.”

“Tell that to my parents,” she said sadly, gazing at her boots. Cullen gently tilted her chin upward with his hand, guiding her eyes to him.

“You can do this. I’ll support whatever you decide. And I heard from a reliable source that the kitchen staff have been baking cakes all afternoon, so when it’s all over we’ll get you a slice of cake and a glass of that wine Josephine hid in here. Alright?” He slid his hand through her hair and Evelyn laughed, sniffling a bit.

“I do love cake. But no more than one glass of wine. I’m a bloody lightweight.”

“I’ll remember that.”

“Thank you, Cullen.” Evelyn smiled up at him, feeling a bit better. The gaze changed when she realized just how close they were, his hand resting on the back of her neck, and she couldn’t stop her eyes from wandering to the scar on his lip. Her heart pounded as she realized he had done the same, and the desire to feel his lips on hers consumed her.

Then she remembered where they were.

How long had it been since she last had a man in her bedroom? Alone? And this was not just any man. It was Cullen. Cullen, who she looked forward to seeing each day, who she thought of frequently in the field, who had cared for her after the fall of Haven, who she worried for at night. There was no denying she cared for him, and if the look in his eyes was any indication...

The thought made her nervous, and she glanced toward the bed and back to him, cursing herself as he followed her glance. He blushed furiously when he realized where she had looked, and Evelyn felt the heat rising in her own cheeks as they pulled away.

“Perhaps… we should…” Cullen spluttered.

“I… should get down there,” Evelyn managed.

“Of course.” Evelyn started toward the door, then turned to find Cullen still looking after her.

“You should come.”

“Right,” Cullen said, quickly following.

Tagging @kemvee @noire-pandora @hawkeish @musetta3 and anyone else who wants to!

#tags #another rogue trevelyan fanfiction #dragon age #dragon age inquisition #dragon age fanfiction #Greedfall #inquisitor x cullen #cullen x trevelyan #cullen rutherford #commander cullen

[plumblossomkun]

𝙲𝚑𝚊𝚙𝚝𝚎𝚛 𝟷:「𝙻𝚒𝚔𝚎 𝚝𝚑𝚊𝚝 𝚜𝚝𝚊𝚛, 𝙸'𝚕𝚕 𝚋𝚎 𝚋𝚢 𝚢𝚘𝚞𝚛 𝚜𝚒𝚍𝚎 / 𝚕𝚒𝚔𝚎 𝚝𝚑𝚎 𝚖𝚘𝚘𝚗, 𝚠𝚒𝚕𝚕 𝚢𝚘𝚞 𝚜𝚑𝚒𝚗𝚎 𝚘𝚗 𝚖𝚎?」

word count: 3.5k

setting: student!Taeyong x writing assistant!Female Reader, University!AU

warning[s]: none for this chapter besides some angst. later chapters will have more sensitive topics and they will be mentioned. 

chapter summary: in which Taeyong reminisces & tries to forget, but doesn’t stand a chance against the stars & their song. or, in which Taeyong & y/n meet again under the same sky, after years apart.

a/n: this is heavily inspired by Love Deluna; a big thank u @starxblossom for the help on this fic, which is VERY loosely based on something between a boy & me that began sweet. here is chapter one, as inspired by my messy [love] life. 

READ ME: this story will contain a LONG series of chapters :) i will italicize flashbacks in their entirety & indicate any changes in scene or point of view in bold. furthermore, chapters will alternate between Taeyong and y/n unless otherwise indicated.

other tags: @bunny-doyounq! enjoy~ ♫ 

moodboard | playlist | main masterlist | a map of the campus | extras | fun facts

previous | next

Exactly 4 years ago—

“What are you looking for?” he asks, leaning into her so that their shoulders are barely touching. She stares up into the dark, cloudless sky, eyes focused on something he cannot see, painted coral lips slightly parted.

He wonders if one day he’ll feel them against his skin, instead of the winter breeze. Instead of the knowledge that her heart is somewhere else, has always been somewhere else.

“The stars,” she replies, abandoning her search in favor of looking sideways at him with a faint smile. Her gaze is distant, though, and it feels like something sharp has lodged itself in his gut, because he can’t remember if she’s ever really looked at him. “I love the city lights. I really do. But I want to see the stars, I want to see the sky covered in them.”

And then her eyes turn back to the heavens.

He wishes he could anchor her, bring her down from the clouds— but he knows she won’t let him. At least, not as they are. 

Not as he is.

So, instead, he places his hand on top of hers, the words he really wants to say stuck somewhere between his heart and his throat, threatening to choke him as he assures her, “We’ll go somewhere you can see them, someday.”

Someday, when I return, he promises silently.

She looks at his hand, then at him, and her voice is tiny, barely audible when she asks, “How far?”

He sees the glimmer of fear in her eyes, and takes his hand away, missing the warmth of her even as he does so. But he knows better than to linger too long and spook her. 

“As far as you want.”

Now —

Daly City, CA

 —in one word, home

How many moons has it been, since he last set foot in this tiny city, engulfed in a sea of fog pierced only by the headlights of the Model Y Teslas that speed away towards the skyscrapers of the big city to the north?

Too many.

And yet, though he’s returned to the place he’s loved most out of all the homes he’s forged, he feels like he is about to make the second greatest mistake of his life. 

He scales the moss-lined steps leading up to the park from the main road, relishing the way the sounds of traffic are muffled by the towering, groaning pines. But when he steps off the uneven dirt path, his heart drops a little when he digs his heels into the earth and finds that the soccer fields have been filled with fake grass and rubber dirt.

He shuffles towards the library, passing through the playground and its vacant swings, sparing a wistful glance for the sand pit, which is filled with mud and litter and not a single child to dig through it. It’s early, the sun hasn’t even started to peek its head over the horizon, but he remembers when he was a child, the seesaw was always creaking away, and the swings were never left unoccupied.

The jingle of a bell lifts his chin from his chest, though, and he sucks a breath in between his teeth in disbelief. There’s no way it’s the rickety old ice cream truck that used to come around when he was a kid, the one with the smiling old man and his wife.

And he’s right, though he’s never wished more in his life that he was wrong. 

It’s a cluster of kids on their bikes, ringing their bells like mad and whooping as they zoom through the parking lot, past the basketball and tennis courts that have always been worn and gray, but seem all the worse for wear without the thud of shoes against the cement to fill the spaces in between the groaning fences. 

He shoves his hands in his pocket and walks back to his car, shoulders heavy with the knowledge that the world he left behind was not untouched in his absence.

You included, though he knows better than to think you’d be waiting for him. You would never have looked back, not when he’d left like that, without warning, without so much as a goodbye.

You probably hate him for it.

So he gets back into his car, grits his teeth, and promises himself, later, he’ll forget about it. He’ll start at a new school, make new friends, focus on his classes, and act as if the past doesn’t still have its claws in his heart. 

Later, he’ll pretend he doesn’t miss the days you’d sit at the top of those steps and drink Arizonas together, wasting the hours until the sun set and you had to decline call after call from your overprotective father, insisting you come home because it was getting too late.

Later, he’ll unpack his boxes at the university apartments, and thank his parents for leaving out the pictures of you and him.

But for now, he grips the steering wheel and takes the I-280 south, all four windows down, using the roar of the autumn wind to drown out the voice inside that says he’s made a mistake, coming back home to California. The voice that insists he came back not for a new start, not because his parents insisted he finish his education abroad, but to see you again.

Santa Clara, CA

— the place you imagine when you think California vibes.

“You know, Taeyong, you didn’t have to come all the way from Korea to bring me flowers.” Johnny eyes the bouquet of violently pink hydrangeas that Taeyong has just produced from the passenger seat of his car like they’ve offended him. “These are pretty, but you know I have allergies, right?”

“They’re not for you,” Taeyong snorts, lifting his computer tower from the backseat with a grunt. “Can you grab the other box from the back?”

Johnny grabs the storage box filled with peripherals and shuts the trunk. “Who else would they be for?”

“My mother told me your mother was visiting.” Taeyong kicks the door closed and locks the car twice, holding his beloved computer tower close to his body and the flowers under his arm. “And that we’re getting lunch together, apparently. Also, since when have you been allergic to flowers?”

“Since I saw these.” Johnny wrinkles his nose at the flowers. “And we’re not eating on campus— I never thought I would say this, but I am sick of burritos.” He shudders as he taps his ID to the scanner at the front entrance, and holds the door open as Taeyong tiptoes through, careful not to trip over the door frame. “There’s a good Korean barbecue place in San Jose, ten minutes out from here. Mom’s checking out the stationery store at Santana Row, said we can call her when we’re ready to go. Have you toured the campus yet?”

Taeyong laughs. “No, I haven’t had the time to look around—”

“Seriously?” Johnny purses his lips in an exaggerated pout. “Okay, come on. Let’s put this stuff away, and I’ll show you around.” He ushers him through another set of double doors, past a small expanse of grass complete with a volleyball net and red flowers draped across a wooden pavilion, shining steel grills polished and ready for the next Sunday playoffs, to the ground floor apartment of a building on the opposite side of the complex.

Taeyong can’t help but already imagine himself sitting on the grass, when he has time after classes, taking the time to watch the sun sink below the rooftops, coffee in one hand and music filling his ears. He can imagine himself mapping the skies, searching for stars.

He catches himself there, shakes his head at his own foolishness. “Lee Taeyong,” he mutters, running a hand through his hair, “this is no time to think about stargazing.”

“Stargazing?” Johnny echoes, emerging from the bathroom with his hands still a little wet, waving them about to dry them. “We have an observatory, if you’re interested in that.”

Taeyong tries to act like the idea hasn’t excited him, bending down to tie his shoes to hide the grin splitting his face. “We can check it out if it’s not too out of the way, I guess.”

Johnny chuckles, closing the door behind him. “Of course. Last and least on the list.”

Palm trees overlook the majority of the campus, leaning low over the buildings and casting long shadows along the pavement. And where there isn’t red or gray brick, there is carefully curated grass, neatly clipped hedges, and collections of too-perfect, too-saturated flowers highlighting each walkway.

It’s a little artificial, a little unreal, but Taeyong can’t deny that, with the afternoon sun beating down on his shoulders, casting golden light without a single wisp of fog in the air, and a slight breeze nipping at his fingertips, it feels like a slice of paradise, straight out of the movies.

Near the end of the main road, Johnny points out a pastel rainbow of roses that lead to a side path that wraps around the church, under a canopy of vines and branches and ornately wrought wood. “I like to come here instead of on the quads; it’s quieter. Some people even take wedding pictures here when the weather is nice.”

Taeyong spots a bench a little ways down the path, surrounded by roses— the perfect spot to take a picture, one to remember his first day back under the California sun. 

When he turns back to ask his friend to capture the moment for him, Johnny is already motioning for him to hand over his phone, a knowing smile playing across his face. “I’m surprised you didn’t ask me to take a photo earlier.” Taeyong laughs, brushes rose petals off of the bench before he sits, squinting as he finds a spot that is both well lit and doesn’t have the sun blazing directly into his eyes. “This is too pretty to pass up.”

“Ready?”

Taeyong nods, smiling chastely into the eye of the camera.

“Okay, three, two, one—”

Click.

“Another pose~ three, two, one—”

He adds a peace sign. He knows his mother will definitely ask for one of him and Johnny later, and makes a note to take one at lunch.

Click.

“Last one, look sexy, Taeyong-ah, say mwah for the camera~”

Taeyong bursts into laughter at that, but Johnny snaps the picture anyway.

Click.

“That’s the candid I was looking for,” he says, clearly pleased by his work, handing Taeyong’s phone back to him. “You look good.” And for all his teasing, Johnny is right about the photos— he looks sun-kissed and happy. Nothing like how he’d felt earlier that morning.

He takes a deep breath, taking in the rich scent of the roses around them as the church bells sound, signaling noon. He gathers a handful of pink petals and marvels at their unmarked, silken beauty. “I feel good, too.”

“What did Seoul do to you?” Johnny asks thoughtfully, looking him up and down as if this is the first time he’s really looked at him all day. 

Taeyong tosses the petals in the air with a chuckle. “What do you mean?”

“I mean, when we were teenagers...” Johnny snaps his fingers, looking for the right words. “You look like you know yourself better. Is that it?” A girl’s wail splits the air before he can answer, followed by the pitter-patter of quick footsteps. “Excuse me, I’m laaaate—” 

Taeyong steps aside automatically, and as the girl runs past him, long hair whipping him in the face despite his quick reflexes, he catches a whiff of summer, of wildflowers, jasmine, and something of the ocean breeze.

And while he doesn’t recognize the perfume, his heart sinks when he realizes he does know that voice. 

Your voice.

His phone drops from his hand, and he jumps to his feet.

There’s no way.

Luckily, Johnny snatches up his phone before it hits the ground, and when he sees the expression on Taeyong’s face, leans in front of him with a concerned look, waving a hand to catch his attention. “Whoa. You good, buddy?”

Taeyong’s eyes don’t even register the movement. He presses a hand to his chest to check if his heart is still beating, and has to sit down on the bench again, because he is shaking like a leaf caught in a hurricane. 

He feels like all the breath has been sucked out of his lungs, like the bones in his body have suddenly become hollow and thin like glass. “I… was that...?”

Johnny follows his gaze, staring at the back of the girl who is still rushing down the path. “Oh...” he exhales, craning his head to get a better look. “Oh.”

Slowly, he nods his head, and the confirmation is like a death rattle to Taeyong. “I heard she was here, but, you know... I didn’t really go looking.” 

Johnny places a firm hand on Taeyong’s shoulder, and his voice is gentle when he reminds him, “You shouldn’t either.”

Taeyong closes his eyes and shakes his head, because after all this time, despite the years he’s spent under a different skyline— here you are— here—

The thought chokes him. It wraps icy fingers around his heart and crushes it, crushes him. 

He can’t remember the reason he left, only that it wasn’t right, only that he should’ve stayed.

And though he has only caught a moment’s glimpse, shared a single breath, he can’t deny it, he hasn’t changed at all.

He is still the same boy, praying that a flower that lives for starlight will bloom for him instead.

6 and a half years ago— 

Taeyong did not want to attend Winter Ball— in fact, he would rather have eaten dirt—  but Yuta and Ten ended up buying him a ticket anyway. He had tried to escape after the last bell, ducking towards the door before the teacher had even dismissed them, but Johnny locks an arm around his shoulders before he can escape.

“You can skip every dance after this one,” he bargains, clicking his tongue, and drags Taeyong down the street to his house to lend him clothes for the night. “Come on, it’ll be fun. Live a little. Dance a little.”

“No, it won’t,” Taeyong grumbles, but puts on the white collared shirt and black tie ensemble anyway, Mrs. Suh cooing “So handsome!” a thousand times at them as she snaps photos to keep in her newly-bought scrapbooks, before ushering them out. “Be back by midnight, okay?”

And now, he plays the wallflower in the small gym, watching in faint amusement as the people dancing freeze in confusion as they try to guess at what song is playing next, the DJ’s transitions between songs awkward and stilted. Despite that, towering over everyone in the very heart of the crowd, Johnny dances like there’s no tomorrow. Yuta and Ten had tried to get him out there, too— they had tried to drag him, princess-carry, and Yuta had even tried to throw him— but Taeyong isn’t in the mood to dance.

A flash of silver catches his eye, and he momentarily forgets that he is supposed to be uninterested in everything that the evening has to offer.

A girl strides towards him, sparkling white glitter sliding off her collarbones like someone has poured starlight on her, refracting tiny pinpoints of light onto her face. She is smiling, and her cheeks are a deep shade of rouge, but her smile is more like a lioness baring her fangs, and the rest of her expression is cold and hard. 

Her lips purse as she stares at the half-open door to his left, and the wind whispering behind it. She pauses in the doorway, gaze flicking back to the crowd.  And then to him. 

When she sees that Taeyong’s looking back at her, her expression lightens, the corners of her eyes crinkling in true mirth. 

And then she’s gone, the door swinging shut behind her with a sigh.

He finds her perched on the railing outside, on the balcony that overlooks the entire campus, watching the last snatches of day start to die away. She turns as he approaches, the light on the horizon line pooling around her, framing her figure in gold and scarlet. The breeze bites at his cheeks, and her midnight blue chiffon dress clings to her body, but unlike him, she does not shiver; instead, she leans into the icy caress of winter like it is an old friend. 

So when her eyes burn into his, he is already half-convinced that she is some ethereal creature. He opens his mouth to speak, but she shakes her head, as if the sound of his voice will break the spell she’s cast, one that blurs the noise behind him in favor of the shifting world before him. 

A wry smile curls her lips, like she’s laughing at some unspoken joke, and she pats the railing next to her, inviting him to join her in the moment.

Mutely, they watch the sky until it darkens and the northern star has begun to twinkle, the last murmurs of gold plunging below the school buildings. So much time passes, in fact, that when she suddenly takes a deep breath, consuming the night air like it is her lifeblood, it startles him, and he almost falls off the railing into the uneven hedges below them.

She laughs aloud then, and says, in a low, almost husky voice, “Are you afraid I might bite?”

His brain fizzles as he tries to think of something to say that isn’t stupid. He settles for the truth. “You look like you might just fly away if I come too close.”

She looks startled, like she wasn’t expecting him to respond with those words, and then shakes her head, that same mysterious smile curving her lips. She tips her head back and lets the wind comb through her long hair. “I wish I could fly. Don’t you?”

He thinks about it, looks up into the sea of gray clouds filtering the moonlight into ivory shards. “Maybe. Where would you go, if you could?”

She leans back a little too far and loses her balance for a split second— and he instinctively reaches out to catch her, gripping her hands in his. 

Her hands are small, and freezing, but still, they do not shake. Her heartbeat thrums against his palms, and she laughs breathlessly, the noise dragging his eyes up to meet hers. 

He can’t help but flinch; her gaze is filled with stone that had not been there a second before. It does not soften until she has extracted herself from his hold, and the cold railing is the only thing they share in common. 

Only then does she answer his question, clearing her throat. When she speaks this time, her voice has lost its airy quality, becoming sweeter, softer. He loses himself there, and openly stares at her, awed by— everything about her. “I think I’d see if heaven existed,” she breathes, reaching towards the stars, cupping the curve of the moon within her hands. “Go as high as I could until my lungs cried out for mercy.”

She slips down from her perch, lighting down quietly on the hard cement. On level ground, she is quite a bit shorter than him, and yet he feels intimidated by her proximity when she leans towards him, face impassive as she studies his.

“What?” he asks, jutting out his chin in challenge.

The girl rolls her eyes, unimpressed. But whatever she finds in his expression, she clearly doesn’t dislike because she says carelessly, tossing the words out at rapid-fire speed, “I’m going to go find a better view, and real food. Feel free to tag along, if you want.” 

And then she’s walking away before he can even accept the invitation, tugging off both her heels in one fluid motion and dangling them off of her shoulder as she starts heading down the five flights of stairs leading down to the main entrance, completely barefoot and humming a tune he does not know.

He looks back at the gym. He doesn’t see Yuta, or Ten, or Johnny through the glass— in fact, he’s sure they won’t notice him leaving, either, not while they’re dancing— so he makes his choice. 

He can be back by midnight, if he keeps track of the time.

“Wait—” he calls after her.

She pauses, and their gazes lock. For a split second, something flickers to life in her eyes, summons a peal of laughter from deep within her throat. She licks her lips, head tilted up towards him, and he understands it then. She is lovely, and the moonrise suits her, but she is no ethereal being, no angel, no goddess.

“Catch me if you can, then.” 

Still— he can’t look away.

He can’t help but chase after her.

a/n 2.0: feedback of all kinds is appreciated! ♥ luv y’all

#nct #nct fics #taeyong fics #taeyong smut #taeyong #lee taeyong #nct smut #nct imagines #taeyong imagines #taeyong x reader #taeyong x female reader #nct fanfics #taeyong fanfics #taeyong was my first bias in nct ever #everyone involved in this fic is legal #dulce et feram

[darkmindsotome]

Risque Rouge pt5

Tagging: @umbralaperture​ @otome-smut-queen @silver-fox-of-azuchi @tsundere-mitsuhide @jennacat84

General warnings for the whole fic: Angst, some fluff, Mental health issues, emotional things, trauma, blood, death and possible triggers. Please read responsibly. 

Darkmindsotome Masterlist

**This chapter might be triggering for some so please be warned.**

---

Chapter 5

It was like a dream in a nightmare as she looked at the shattered vials around her and the shimmering opalescent medicine seeping away as if it were nothing but a mirage. There was no explanation for the siren’s call as it continued to pour its poisoned words into her or the smaller voice of reason that fought against it telling her to focus and fight back. There was also no solid foundation to prove that voice crying out as a warning was right as it pushed through the din and screamed that this was life or death, only that every part of her responded as if it were an undeniable truth that could not be ignored.

Both eyes stung as she tried to steady herself against sobbing further. Her bones ached and her throat felt like it was dry and closing up. She wanted to scream but nothing came out except her panting and gasping as her lungs continued their struggle to supply oxygen. Her vision was clouded the only clarity was the shocking pain as it ransacked its way through her every nerve.

She could feel her heart giving strong slow thumps as it struggled to form a normal beat. Every vibration from her struggling body joined with her heart’s struggle like a slow solemn death march played on a drum only she could feel. Somehow in all of the melee that was raging war inside her, one message came through loud and clear at the back of her mind and she realised it was hunger.

Everything she could remember feeling before when her illness kicked in paled by comparison to this which was much more intense. There was a very vague memory that when she was really small something had happened and she remembered being told that there was no cure. She had been thankful for the kind doctor’s knowledge and sympathy at the time.  She was also pleased that he seemed to have some medicine to help her even if it would never remove the illness it helped prevent it from being this extreme. What she didn’t understand was why she was now being attacked by her own body. Why was it that at the centre of all this fear and pain was it something like hunger that she felt?

She scrambled around on the floor attempting to some relief even if she had to suck it up from the broken glass. She was desperate and the pain was only growing into a smouldering fire inside which scared her. Grabbing hold of one large shard in her shaking fingers she tipped it gingerly towards her mouth. Trembling lips parted as her ragged breath caused ripples over the milky liquid and she gave a silent prayer that it wouldn’t spill.

The jagged edge of the glass cut into her fingers as she steadied her grip, determined to not lose this drop of salvaged hope. She was burning up she could feel her skin prickling with heat as a cold sweat formed on it. Crimson rivulets followed the edge of the glass from her injured hands and joined the medicine as she sucked every last drop clean from the shard. Her lips and tongue suffered the same wounds where the sharp edges sliced like a razor into them, but the sting of new pain was easily ignored when the rest of her body was still in the throes of that all-encompassing fire.

The clouds in the sky must have moved as a single pool of light covered her from above. Soft silvery whispers of cool light caressing her body as if in an attempt to calm her. The thought had often occurred to her that when the light filtered through the skylight like this that it was like floating in an ocean. You could lose yourself laying on the ground imagining you were floating as the light reflected on the surface only managed to penetrate the depths of the watery abyss so far before it vanishes. She found it to be a relaxing notion but now it was an oppressive weight around her neck.

There was no calm here under the moonlight. Her body was still crying out as she stared into a bottomless void feeling invisible threads wrapping tighter around her as they pulled her towards it. The puddle of moonlight that surrounded her felt like a taunting cruelty placing hope just out of reach while she sunk further into darkness, cast out and forgotten. Emotions swirled in her chest and she felt tears falling once more. A pitiful cry escaped her lips swallowed up by the silence in the room. It was a call for help when she knew there was a very good chance she would not be found in time.

Fear of being lost, of never being found. Scared of the dark and of yourself. Pain and confusion, all very human concerns. But what could you expect when the Princess in the ivory tower believed that was exactly what she was?

---

Climbing walls was something better suited to spiders they imagined. Rumour and myth, it seemed really were little more than fairy tales told to scare children. The reality that whilst a vampire was indeed more than a human, they were still lacking that edge the stories allotted them. Truth be told they had tried without the aid of a rope several times and came up short each time. Gravity was a certainty even in this new life with increased strength and speed.  

A stealthier visitation to the object of their obsession would have been more ideal but that was not an option as their impatience won out over flare and ego. Instead, they climbed with a little difficulty to the second floor of the back of the building and pulled free the boards that held the shutters closed. The rusted nails creaked ominously in the wood but complied with little other noise as their frenzy of force succeeded in opening the hidden window.

Sliding through the opening they looked a little like a liquid decanting itself into a new container. A small laugh escaped them at the thrill of being so close to their Princess without fear of others disturbing their little tryst. The smile that formed on their face looked a little twisted as the delirium of their minor success gave way to a kind of madness.

The closer they got to her room the more their mind wandered down the path of ruby lights, the fluttering feathers and that temping scent of danger. How the light touched her in ways they dreamed of and how her eyes only looked at them. It was a seductive whisper in their mind, calling out to them, begging for tonight to be the night. For the moon to bear witness as the fated destiny of their union draw to its conclusion. They would make it so her eyes would never look to another. She was their Princess and no one was going to take her away from them now.

They relished the sensation of the heavy fabric of the curtain on their fingers as their imagination continued to run wild. How often they had dreamed of arranging a meeting in the night with her, their very own Angel of fury and nightmares. How beautiful her poison was, and it was going to be all theirs. The roughness of the weave felt like small electric currents pulsing through their fingertips.

Pained whimpering came from behind the curtain. A light of malice filled their eyes and the almost blissful smile on their face twisted into a cruel smirk of knowing. There were some things that only improved with time and this was one that they had discovered they struggled to maintain even a basic level of patience for. The Princess would find her salvation and finally see them. She would accept all that they were and they would take the stage together in a long-awaited performance foretold by fate itself. They pulled and as the curtain drew back it revealed nothing but the darkness beyond it. Their once soft brown eyes now sharp as a dagger searched for their prey finding this game almost too easy.

Her small form was huddled over on the ground amongst shattered glass that shone in the moonlight scattering it’s rays like pale raindrops around her. The inky flow of black hair tumbled free and wild over her. The nightgown she had donned previously had shed its innocent aura and lay scandalously tempting over her figure. Burst buttons and cream coloured fabric turned partly translucent with sweat clung to her newly exposed flesh. Their mouth watered at the sight of that pulsating vein in her neck, the exposed collarbones and her heaving chest.

“You are gorgeous…”

Their words drew her attention even as she struggled to focus. Two glowing green orbs staring at them were the things that made their dreams so enticing and their nightmares spellbinding. This was nothing like their first encounter where those eyes had them rooted to the spot in fear. They were drawing them nearer, two forest green willow wisps marking a path to her.

Without taking their eyes from her they crossed to a chair and adjusted its angle taking a seat to observe as she once more contorted in agony and confusion on the ground. They didn’t wish to waste one glorious second of this fantastic sight. She let out a groan that in their twisted mind was more sultry than tormented.

When did the line blur so much for them that such a sound of torture had taken on the ability to draw out such desire in their mind? They had once taken an oath to ease the pain and suffering of others, to help them with their illnesses and cure them. Ever since that night they had started to change, bit by bit. The very fabric of them was rewoven and dyed a different hue. They still healed and cared for those that required them, but this was also now part of who they were. Was this what happened when you tasted forbidden fruit? How much more would they change if they were to take a second bite?

“Delicious. Oh, Princess do you have any idea what you do to me? Of course, you don’t such a cruel girl.” The warm coffee brown coloured eyes from her memory of earlier in the day were nowhere to be found. Even the voice that had been soft and gentle was barbed and taunting. She clawed at her throat imagining some rope wrapping around it preventing her speech and denying her air as she fought to speak. Faint red lines bloomed on her skin where her nails scraped against it.

“W-w… wh--?”

“Why? I’m afraid I don’t understand the question. Why is this happening? Why you? Shall I give you answers where you gave me none?” They were sitting hidden from her blurry vision just outside the shroud of falling moonlight. Their voice and gaze reaching her clearer than any other detail. They had tilted their head, she could make out at least that much from this distance. A deep rumbling chuckle came after another seizure tore through her body causing her to curl in on herself and more tears to fall as she felt her bones creak. They were enjoying this watching her body fight against itself, taking note of every twitch and grimace. “Oh, sweet Princess that is not the look I wanted to see. Not from the one who cursed me with such a love as this. Everything I have ever done has all been for you. All I ever wanted was for you to accept me.”

There was sincerity in their words. They truly believed in their actions and that she was the focus of such desires which made her insides churn in another way entirely. She heard their feet drawing closer, felt the warmth of a hand cupping her cheek. Hot, her skin felt like it might blister in the heat and her stomach gave a sudden flip. A growl escaped her and she clamped her trembling lips shut, eyes searching the figure before her in a haze. “And how does the cruel Princess taunt me? Performing for all as a seductress, declaring to the world I could never be enough. Displaying your affections under my nose, in my presence with another man?”

They had gone mad. It was the only rational thought she had in her possession as their voice contorted from soft and loving to sharp and cruel. The tang of her own blood caused her own mouth to water even as the pain of the open cuts inside her mouth objected to the moisture. This was wrong, every part of her cried out more as her internal battle raged but she could feel herself fading.

“Come now don’t try to deny it.” Their hand moved to tilt her chin and she squeezed her eyes shut fearing the unknown. “You can’t keep that pure innocent act up forever. At the end of the day, you are nothing but a cruel, deceitful temptation. Luring men to the pits of hell and watching as the flames devour us as we willingly wait for your command. Well, I’m done waiting.” Strong hands wrapped tight around her shoulders and pulled her to her feet. The grip on her was strong enough to register through the rest of her pain. Her eyes opened at point-blank range and the nearly unrecognisable figure of the doctor from earlier filled her vision. He leaned in and with the very tip of his tongue lapped at the blood and spittle leaking from her own lips. “Tonight, this ends. You will see me and you will look only at me for the rest of eternity.”

Her body bounced as it was thrown unceremoniously against her bed. Being tossed quickly from the area of soft light back into the shadows of the room was as good as a blindfold being placed on her. She cried out in a silent scream her voice once more stolen from her as the jolt from her landing rolled through her setting off clusters of fireworks all over her body as it went. Her consciousness was certainly slipping she could feel it like a small battle between two halves inside her, that rational voice screaming at her to move and get away was being drowned out by the force she felt crushing her from the inside out.

It was hard to explain and something that could only ever be described as pure instinct. She sensed movement, it was a shift in the air and a rush of sensation like scent had taken a physical form. As her attacker rushed forward intent on continuing with their sordid plans. She used all the strength she had left, raising both legs and landing her feet in one solid motion deep in the solar plexus of the other person. It was a show of force even she didn’t realise she possessed as she felt the crunch of something underfoot and wondered if she had broken a bone. A gush of air-popped out of the attacker like cannon fire and they were sent hurtling backwards to tumble onto the floor where she had been. Their body grated painfully over the broken vials in the pool of moonlight causing them to yelp.

They were groaning and writhing on the floor as she had been. The shards embedded in their body opening hundreds of small wounds that quickly started dripping crimson. A sweet in toxifying scent filled the air. Her attacker was clawing at the fragments etched in their skin, desperate to remove the offending articles from their body as the burning from each one spread. It was a futile effort as each pass with their hands and figures only served to make the wounds larger and look that much more inviting. The sweet scent blended in the air with a faint metallic taste that gathered in her mouth as her green eyes blew wide in the darkness.

Her world had been a haze until now. Blurred vision either from pain or tears had distorted it and her mind had fought hard to stay tethered to rational concepts. The time was over, her vision returned to her with pinpoint accuracy as her body drew on the invisible threads that brought her limbs under control. She could see the fresh flow of blood cresting the surface of the flesh with each pulse. The details in the room that had been cloaked in darkness were there clear as daylight before her.

The ravages of all the small battles she had fought against her illness seemed to melt away, replaced by something primal. The fear she had felt, the confusion and all that pain the faint voice of self from before was extinguished. She still had no idea what was going on but that lost little girl was no longer present and everything felt focused now at that moment into a single notion, hunger.

They were still struggling to remove the poisonous shards from their flesh and were so focused on their task that they didn’t notice the change as the switch flipped. How her eyes glowed deeper as they dilated with desire. Her body slowing down as it carefully reconstructed itself against the shudders allowing it to regain movement. They missed the feral predator they had once met all those years ago as it was returned to them. They only noticed when they were enveloped by something from behind.

The scent of fresh blood was stronger here at its source. Hunger, anger, lust. Pulses rose higher, the scent became stronger and it was hardly a surprise that these were sensations listed as deadly sins. These were all very strong emotions and held a lethal combination, and that was without throwing in supernatural powers.

The forces argued inside her as her hands reached out and grabbed her freshly wounded prey. The anger at the idea of how they treated her, everything they had planned to do. Hunger, she felt it in every corner of her body as the smell of blood filled her lungs like a macabre perfume. She traced the figure trapped in her arms delicately and felt them shudder as they stilled as if they had fallen under a spell. Rage bubbled up like a hot magma inside her as she dug her fingers deep into the open wounds and tore flesh from bone. Terrified wails were swollen by her mouth as she covered theirs with her own. Once more their body stilled and they relaxed back into her body with a strangely euphoric look on their face.

She brought her nose close to their nape running her tongue across it and felt them shudder in her arms. The glass that had dug deep into them was ignored as they groaned at the soft sensation and a gasp as with a small crunch that was similar to a pop against their skin told them of their fate. Their body had been overpowered not just in sheer force but by the sudden mind-numbing pain that threatened to stop their heart. They tried to get a look at the creature wrapping around them, but found they were held firm in her embrace.

There was something familiar about this, a dormant memory attempted to surface but failed to show itself clearly. Pulling free she used the flat of her tongue and made a long pass from their shoulder to the artery pulsing madly in their neck. Another groan escaped from her prey’s lips as they delighted in finally being accepted by her. She noticed the pain and shuddering in her own body had ceased after that first bite. The warm liquid coating her mouth removing that burning in her throat allowing her to breathe and think. Was this what they meant? Was she nothing but a cruel temptation? Sitting in wait as others were drawn closer to a sanatorium.

She felt like a spider catching a fly as instinct took control and her mouth pressed down on the soft flesh once more. The fangs she was unaware of until now punctured fresh marks near the ones and with a combined pop that sweet warmth filled her mouth once more. It was addictive, as she drew more in, she felt her frayed nerves being soothed, the emotions from before surging again. The anger rising enough to force her on with her actions even as the confusion gave way to despair as to what she was doing.

A single tear rolled down her cheek as she tightened her grip on the doctor in her arms. She found no comfort in this, it was a simple natural order in progress. Kill or be killed, eat or starve. And for all that it made perfect logical sense, she still felt this to be wrong. The moonlight bathing them like a spotlight on a stage felt surreal as whimpers of ecstasy escaped past pale lips. It urged her to take more and so she gulped down more of their blood, unconcerned with the heat of the body turning to ice as she did so. The question from before resurfaced in her mind, What is wrong with me? The answer lingering in the back of her mind was one she was too terrified to look at. I’m Sorry.

---

[sincognito]

Familiarity | Prologue

Universes: Only Undertale in this chapter.

Pairing: None yet.

Warnings: Major Character Death (Not a Sans or Papyrus), Violence

“Rus is a young mage, his life is simple and for that he is greatful, that is, until a monster turns up on his doorstep late one evening and throws his entire world into disarray. Now he must battle with all new feelings of love, loss, and guilt as he is forced to adapt to this new way of life.”

A/N: And here we have the long awaited Mage AU spicyhoney/puppymoney fic that I promised to post in October since that’s the month of all the spoopy magic and monsters!

Next

Read on AO3

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The light of the sun had been blocked out by the heavy clouds above, and the wind that whipped through the valley brought with it flakes of fresh snow. One could have easily mistaken it for a bitter winter’s day and not the soft snows of early spring. The higher he climbed up the mountain the harsher the weather became, and Papyrus found it most fortunate that his travels were almost concluded.

Before him stood the cave’s entrance, a small gap in the rigid wall of stone that could be easily missed by the unprepared. He knew that the cave had been purposefully selected due to its rather remote location. While it worked to keep most amateurs at bay, it did little to deter the more powerful monsters. Papyrus knew for a fact that the poor weather conditions were of the least of his concern.

He leant back into his saddle, gently pulling back on the horse’s reigns. The mountain pony dutifully came to a stop, snorting loudly and giving a shake of its head. The mare had thick, lengthy fur that served to keep her well insulated against their icy surrounds, and her stocky build allowed her to easily navigate the treacherous path that ascended the mountainside.

Papyrus lifted his leg over the side of the horse, dismounting in one smooth motion and landing in the snow with a soft thump. He reached into one of the saddle bags, removing a small satchel that he was quick to swing over one shoulder. After ensuring that he had all of the required tools he walked towards the cave, trusting that his temporary companion would remain in place until his mission had been completed.

The skeleton took a moment to regard the cave’s entrance, his eye lights rolling over the ancient symbols that had been carved into the stone. He ran his phalanges across the deep gouges in the rock, feeling the resonation of an old power, far more ancient than Papyrus himself.

It was a relief to finally step inside the cave’s walls, shielding the rest of his body from the bitter wind that bit at his bones even through the thick furs he wore. It was completely pitch black within, the light from outside barely penetrating further than a few feet. Papyrus raised a hand, warmth spreading down his arm and toward the centre of his palm as a small flame flickered into existence.

Papyrus reached out to the small torch that hung from the wall, allowing the flame from his hand to cross onto the torch and ignite it with a bright flash of light. He allowed the fire on his palm to dissipate, instead wrenching the handle from the wall so he could carry it with him. He ignored the rest of the torches, choosing not to light them as to avoid any unwanted attention.

It only took a short while for him to finally reach the first room of the inner cave. While many called it a cave, it was, in fact, a temple that had been built many eons ago with the sole purpose of containment. The walls were built of bluestone, an extremely strong material that would keep the building secure against most magical attacks from the outside.

In the very middle of the room stood a large goblet-like structure and around it the floor was surrounded by large rings that grew thicker the further they were from the room’s centre. Between the rings were further runic markings, each of them spoke of ancient and dangerous magic and Papyrus was quick to remove his notebook from his satchel.

The light of his torch was just enough for him to read each of the markings and it was easy enough for him to quickly scribble them down with his unoccupied hand. He would have plenty of time to translate the words once he finally returned home, but he had to work fast if he had hope of noting down everything in the room.

Once he had finally managed to copy everything, Papyrus slid the notebook back into his bag before reaching for the thin vile he had brought with him. He calmly walked back towards the stone goblet, looking into the dark water within. He was unsure of what liquid lay inside the bowl but he knew better than to mess with anything enchanted by the mages of old.

Removing the cork stopper from the end of the glass, he tipped the contents into the black abyss of water, watching as it swirled around before mixing together. Papyrus could still smell the lingering scent of iron as he once again stowed the now empty glass, trying to ignore the way it burned at his nasal cavity as caused his magic to spark.

He reached out with both hands, feeling his magic begin to gather around his bones, lighting up a bright orange. Papyrus’ eye sockets slid closed as he began to recite the old words, his magic sparking against the surface of the water as causing the once black contents to begin to glow and brilliant crimson.

Papyrus’ magic too changed, taking on the red colouration as he allowed the power to resonate within his soul. The runes across the floor flashed brightly with magic, the room rumbling as it violently shook, one of the walls lowering to reveal a second passageway concealed by darkness. Just as the skeleton finished the spell and allowed his magic to calm he watched as a silver object began to emerge from the depths of the water. He reached out, grasping the item and rolling it about in his hand, getting a feel for the weight and magical output of it.

The dagger glinted brightly under the light of the nearby torch, the symbols that lined the blade’s handle shone a bright red, matching the rest of the ruins in the room. Papyrus grinned broadly, giving the weapon a test swing, feeling how it sliced through the air like an extension of his own arm. He would certainly learn to utilise the blade.

It was only when he looked back up to the door that had revealed itself that Papyrus realised he had allowed himself to get too distracted. The monster was only just able to leap aside as a large section of stone was hurled in his direction. He scowled at the giant beast that stood across the room from him, watching as it dragged its hulking form towards him.

The creature was extremely large, its whole body covered in grey fur that had perhaps once been a brilliant white. It looked almost like a common goat in shape, with huge, curled horns and its typical body shape. Across its face were ominous black markings and its face seemed to be pulled into an unnatural grin. Throwing its head back the monster roared, charging towards Papyrus, its head lowered to crash its skull against him.

Papyrus easily evaded the beast, his magic sparking to life once more as he summoned a row of attacks that he thrust in its direction. One of them made contact before it reacted, swiping at the remaining attacks and shattering them as though they had been made of glass. It lunged forward again, bearing down on the skeleton in the blink of an eye, snapping its jaws at him.

From the ground an array of vine-like tendrils erupted, easily breaking through the stone underfoot as they too reached for Papyrus. He managed to slice the plant matter with a second set of attacks but was not fast enough to stop the animal as it barrelled into him, knocking him from his feet. Papyrus grunted as the beast snarled down at him, its rancid breath making him ill due to their close proximity. Fortunately, the monster had done exactly as the skeleton had anticipated.

The goat monster was about to clamp its teeth down around Papyrus’ skull when its suddenly tensed, its whole body going rigid as a pained breath escaped it. One of its paws reached toward its chest, clutching at where the dagger had imbedded itself into its flesh as warm crimson spoiled its coat.

The nimble skeleton pulled the dagger free, rolling out from under the monster just before it came crashing to the floor with a loud thump. He looked down on the creature, watching as its eyes began to glaze over, no longer seeing, and the body crumbled away into nothing more than a pile of dust.

Papyrus frowned to himself, wiping the blade clean with a cloth from his satchel. It was rather disappointing, he had hoped for a little more of a challenge.

#a dragon writes #familiarity #mage au #Spicyhoney #Puppymoney #Papyrus centric fic #major character death #Papyrus #Asriel #Violence

[faintblueivy]

A Cup Full Of Smiles - Chapter 1 - An Ordinary Day

Hello guys! This is my submission for Borusara Fanfiction Week for day 2. The prompt is - Coffee! So here am I presenting you with my new Coffee Shop AU! But it is just a debut to what is to come, but I won’t be able to give you updates before I end up finishing my other multichapter fics – ‘Is she beautiful?’ and ‘Matters of the Heart’. Sorry about that.

This fanfiction is based on my amazing friend @ionica01’s BNHA fanfiction (for Todomomo ship) called a cup of magic. If you’re interested then go ahead and give it a read. I promise you won’t be disappointed!

Finally let’s come to the Fanfiction! Hope you enjoy it!

Summary- Sarada tried her best to convince herself that this cafe has only become a part of her routine because of its cozy homelike atmosphere, definitely not for a blond haired, blue eyed boy who personified sunshine itself. Well, maybe it is really his fault after all.

…

A Cup Full Of Smiles

Chapter 1

An ordinary day

The strong aroma of rich coffee wafts through the streets, attracting people towards it like a moth to the flame. A large board of beautifully carved framework saying ‘A Cup Full Of Smiles’ is highlighted with pink and blue lights. 

The inside scene of the building is alive with all the smiles and giggles, clearly giving a meaning to the name of the cafe. All sorts of people occupy the seats, ranging from retired civilians to lively youngsters. And all of those people were clearly enjoying their time here.

Boruto whirled around the tables with an amazing swiftness, hands balancing trays of coffees, shakes and pastries. A bright never faltering smile was curled upon his lips and his blue eyes shined with warmth that all of his customers adored.

A cup full of smiles - was a cafe run by all male Baristas. And you can obviously guess that it must have been pretty popular among ladies. After all, where can you get young, hot and handsome men serving you with a smile on their faces? Though a cup full of smiles was pretty famous among males as well because of the friendly and welcoming attitude of the staff.

Boruto made sure that everyone coming to a cup full of smiles was provided with the best service irrespective of the gender. They were all his customers and he deeply adores being able to bring smile on the faces of people.

The love he has for a cup full of smiles is unparalleled.

And for the grand success of his quest, he was supported by an amazing staff putting everything they had to make this cafe a place to call home for him and also for their own selves. Yes, they were eccentric and a little rough around the edges but they were a part of the family of a cup full of smiles and Boruto unarguably cherished each and every one of them.

The way he adored every member of the staff, similarly the dedication that the staff poured into managing and running a cup full of smiles also stemmed from their fondness towards their employer. The way Boruto knew each of them personally, they too always observed him and his little quirks.

That is why it did not escape other’s notice that despite the brilliant smile, how often his eyes would roam to the gates every now and then. When the door bells chimed, every time, he would look up and grin which only dampened in the eyes a little when he would realize that it’s not her.

She was definitely running late today.

A few orders are given and taken when Boruto is called out by Inojin.

“Boruto! Your girlfriend is here!”

A tinge of red covers his cheeks when he hisses, “Dammit! Inojin, you know, she’s my customer - not my girlfriend.” Even though, his words are supposed to contain semblance to scolding, his tone is laced with happiness.

He immediately takes up the vacant counter left by Inojin as she approaches. Boruto gives her a signature smile but his blue eyes are shinier, brighter. She couldn’t help but return it.

"The usual?” He asks as he turns to prepare her coffee.

She leans over the counter and smiles, “Yes, and a double chocolate cake, please.”

Even though his back is towards her, he could not help but chuckle, “Hard day at work?”

She wonders how he knows her so much. Maybe the fact that he’s known her all their life helps.

“Yes. The presentation went smooth but the dealers we had this time were extremely nitpicking. It was annoying.”

“Hm…looks like you’ve had a rough day, huh? You’re tired. Go to your seat. I’ll bring your order in a bit.” He says as he pours the adequate amount of steaming milk in her coffee.

“Nah, I’ll stay here. I wanna talk to you.” Her voice is tired and her posture is lethargic, and he doesn’t like it..

“Don’t argue Sarada.” He says sternly even though the warm fuzzy feeling in his heart is hard to ignore, “Go to your seat and I’ll be there. Then, we can talk as much as you want.”

It was rare for him to get this serious but Sarada liked it. So, she follows his orders and saunters over the farthest chair on the other side corner of the cafe. It was funny how he would always refer to this particular table as her seat. But she cannot argue because this is the only seat in the entire cafe that she really enjoys to sit at.

It was an unspoken rule that even when the cafe was at its busiest peak, no one really occupies it, as if it was solely reserved for her. Knowing him, it probably was. This particular spot allowed her to observe the entire café without interruptions and it also provided a lot of privacy. Her eyes flicked across all the customers and found herself shaking her head at a group of googly eyed teenager girls appreciating the baristas roaming around and performing their jobs. Well, it wasn’t exactly a rare situation to see.

Then there was rowdy group of young boys at another corner. One of the center table was occupied by an old day smiling fondly at a child by her side who was happily enjoying his big piece of rainbow cake. Another table held a young couple on a date. And then, a young man was busy scribbling something on the last corner surrounded by lots of scattered papers and a large size cup of hot chocolate. Observing so many people here made her heart warm. It’s weird to say but noticing different customers was oddly relaxing and in some way, it makes her understand Boruto a little more.

Sarada looked up, her eyes automatically resting upon a working Boruto. Seeing him smile and put his all in for his passion was definitely a heartwarming and inspirational sight.  

…

“Sarada!” the call of her name from a familiar voice made her turn head. Mitsuki approached her, carrying an empty tray and smiling his usual smile.

“Mitsuki! How are you?” She grinned at her friend.

“I’m good. But looks like you had some troubles.”

Sarada laughed at his blunt observation. “Yeah, I had a little troubles but nothing to worry about.”

“Hm, I’m glad. Hope your meeting went well.” He said.

“Of course! You know I would never settle for something less than perfect.”

He laughed, “Definitely. Though, your delay was causing him to get antsy. I think he was just a hair breadth away from barging into your office to grab you.”

“Oi! Mitsuki! Stop ratting out on me, will ya? And can ya please grab the counter? I’ll take my break now.” Boruto pouted as he carried a tray of her caramel Macchiato and an extra-large size of double chocolate cake and something else too. Sandwiches?   

Mitsuki nodded and gave her a parting wave and left as Boruto slid into the chair in front of her.

Sarada pointed at the plate of Sandwiches and poked him, “I didn’t order that.”

“I know, but you haven’t had your dinner, right?” He asked while placing the tray for her.

Sometimes, she gets overwhelmed with his habit of looking after her. There was a time when he was dubbed as the reckless one out of them. But now, it’s as if the tables have turned. She doesn’t understand how he manages to read her like an open book with a simple glance, albeit, she can do the same…but he is a type of guy who wears his heart on his sleeve. Dedicated to his cause to a fault, capable of making friends easily, always smiling and trying to cheer everyone up, willing to risk everything to help his friends. To her, he was sort of predictable.   

But she was slightly different. Yes, she was a woman focused on her goals but making friends along the way like nothing was just not her forte. She was far from unsociable but still she always had a hard time opening up to new people. Suppressing her emotions and putting up the logical front, that is how her brain works. So, knowing her like that should be difficult, right? But Boruto made it look so easy. Though because it was him, she didn’t mind being readable and vulnerable.

She took a bite of the sandwich and softly smiled. They were mild flavored…just like how she liked. Her hand then immediately went to her coffee as soon as the warm creamy liquid came in contact with her taste buds, she sighed in bliss. The coffee was so Boruto. No, it was so her.

Made by him…just for her.

Perfect.

Or maybe better than perfect.

She placed the coffee back on the table but her mouth watered at the sight of the chocolate cake.

It looked so damn good.

Grabbing a fork and slicing through the soft dessert, she put it into her mouth and moaned in delight. The spongy cake layered with chocolate filling and then covered with delicious ganache made her grin at the explosion of sweet-bitter taste. A trace of coffee could be detected but rather than covering the taste of chocolate…it simply enhanced it.

As she took alternating bites of her sandwich and cake, she noticed Boruto taking a sip of her coffee. He closed his eyes and hummed softly as if analyzing the taste and picking apart every measurement of every ingredient involved. After a lot of thinking and two other sips, he put it down in front of her and grinned proudly.

“It’s good!”

She tilted her head to show her approval and pushed the plate of cake at his direction and the fork too. He took a bite and nodded but pushed it back towards her.

“It’s fine but too sweet for me.” 

She laughed knowing that despite the fact that the café specialized in confections, Boruto had always loved spicy food, or maybe he’s just developed an aversion to them, tasting them all the damn time. Sometime, she would feel jealous of him for it.

Another difference between them.

It might have been flustering to other people to share food with each other the way they do but Boruto never feels embarrassed. They had practically been sharing spoons since birth. It was nothing to be awkward about. And they were both glad about it.

As the closing time of the café approached, it became more and more vacant. And by the time the clock struck ten, all of the seats were empty except for the ones they occupied.

Sarada was about to pull out some bills for the payment when Boruto chuckled, “It’s on the house.”

Sarada smirked and shook her head. “You cannot always say ‘it’s on the house every time I order something, silly’. You do it almost five times a week!”

He cutely pouted at her words and made denial, “I don’t do that ‘always’. And anyway, a cup full of smiles belongs to you as much as it belongs to me.”

His words freeze her. He simply runs to his staff to help them with the chores leaving her behind still sitting on the table to contemplate. Yes, this is not the first time he has said that. But every time these words escape his mouth, it overwhelms her beyond belief.

A cup full of smiles was Boruto’s dream. His biggest accomplishment ever. Its success was a fruit of his hard labor and one tracked mind. If there is someone who is aware of all the struggles that Boruto had to face to bring a cup full of smiles to life, then it was her.

A cup full of smiles represented his triumph over his insecurities, fears and demons. It was a reason of his smile and the fact that he was willing to share it with her left her breathless.  

A cup full of smiles belongs to you as much as it belongs to me.

His words echo in her head again and again and her eyes begin to shine.

After a few moments pass, she lifts herself off from the chair and grabs a broom to sweep off the floor. Nobody stops her. As they make preparations for the next day, a part of Sarada is overflowing with happiness at being able to contribute something for this café.

Her café.

His café.

Their café.

A cup full of smiles.

Sometime later they step out in the cold night. The doors are locked securely and parting greetings are made. As Boruto and Sarada walk down the road side by side a comfortable silence engulfs the two best friends. Her long midnight locks sway with the wind, as if celebrating their freedom from the confines of her bun – the hairstyle she keeps for work.

A warm touch brushes against her palm which makes her look at man beside her. His boyish charm blazes through with the grin he offers her. The slight blush on his cheeks make her smile as she curls her index finger around his. This gesture from her seems to embolden him and instantly, his large hand has her smaller one in a soft grip.

Side by side, they head to home.

And somewhere along the path she makes a realization.

‘A cup full of smiles’ is her home as well.

So, this is not your typical ‘I saw you in my coffee shop and fell in love with you.’ I’m sorry if you were expecting that. But this fanfiction is going to hold a much deeper symbolism and plot. Hope you don’t mind.

Although, I REALLY WANT TO KNOW YOUR THOUGHTS FOR THIS FIC! Please. I wrote it with a lot of heart. So, please let me know your views!

Thank you! See you again!

P.S. And my master post will be containing all of my submissions for the week, please visit it when if you haven’t read them.

#borusara #borusarafics #bsffweek #borusaraffweek #bsffweekd2 #word prompt #coffee shop au #boruto x sarada #boruto and sarada #boruto uzumaki #sarada uchiha #boruto naruto next generation #adi writes #i really love this work of mine #it was upper fun to write! #hope you like it as well

[hella-slow-writer]

Fic update

Okay, i finally have time and motivation to continue working on 3 of my most important fics. It’s too gay to be fucked 3, Garrett/Andrew PWP (yes pwp cuz im nasty), and a big multi-chapter YT FGO AU that no one cares about lmao.

It’s gonna get fucked 3 is 70% done, still fixing some last part of the chapter before i send it back to my friends to be beta-ed. 

Garrett/Andrew PWP is sadly still 20% WIP, mainly because lack of... motivation. Hopefully Shane’s new series contains more Garrett/Andrew interactions to boost my motivation to continue it lmao.

YT FGO AU still... 10%. I still haven’t decided if i want to make it some slice-of-life genre where its about the YT Servants interacting with each other or more serious story with heavy plot (kinda like a fusion between FGO’s Lostbelt+Singularity arcs). Although i already have a long list of Youtubers who i will use in the fics (all bbs boys will be featured ofc). More talk about this AU under Read More.

Okay, now yall know. I just want to give a little bit of update since i keep gaining more and more followers and i dont want to give an impression of this blog being abandoned. Wish me luck and thanks for still sticking around waiting for my not-so-good writings lol.

Oh, hey! If you read this, oh god do you actually care or show interest in this AU???? Hit me up boi and lemme know so i wouldnt be so depressed thinking no one would read this shitty AU lmao.

Current list of Servants who would appear in the first arc/chapter is: Vanoss, Laurenzside, and Moo Snuckel. I think maybe those three will be like FGO’s Mashu, who will stick around until the end of time lmao. Other than those three, there’s Ohmwrecker, Gloomgames, Kubz Scouts, Cartoonz, and Garrett Watts who also played major part in the first arc/chapter. I will also possibly adding Andrew Siwicki and Jacksepticeye, although i still haven’t deciding what their role going to be.

Oh yeah, Daithi de Nogla and Mini Ladd will also appear. Although they are not Servants like the other, their role is going to be a normal human who manages Chaldea (kinda like Romani Archaman and Da Vinci lmao).

Below is kinda like in-game stats of the 8 servants featured first. I do this so i will remember what skill and class they have, and also because creating a stats of them is really fun lmao. I wont show what their NP gonna be though, because it’s a secret winkwink

Vanoss aka Bat Owl, Evan Rarity: SSR Saber Cost: 16 ATK: 1.841/11,755 HP: 1,695/11,554 Grail ATK: 13,112 Grail HP: 12,768 Attribute: Earth Growth Curve: Linear Star Absorption: 86 Star Generation: 10 % NP Charge ATK: 0.82% NP Charge DEF: 4% Death Rate: 19.4% Alignments: Neutral・Good Gender: Male Commands Cards: QQABB (Quick: 2 Hits, Arts: 2 Hits, Buster: 1 Hit, Extra: 4 Hits) Skills:  - Charisma C Increase party's ATK for 3 turns. - Disengage A Remove own debuffs. Recovers own HP. - Superhero Strength A Charges NP gauge. Increases own NP strength. Noble Phantasm: ??? 

Moo aka Moo Snuckel, Brock, Early Bird Rarity: SR Rider Cost: 12 ATK: 1,259/8,084 HP: 1,573/11,160 Grail ATK: 10,325 Grail HP: 13,882 Attribute: Earth Growth Curve: S Star Absorption: 195 Star Generation: 8% NP Charge ATK: 1.4% NP Charge DEF: 5% Death Rate: 26.90% Alignments: Neutral・Good Gender: Male Commands Cards: QQABB (Quick: 2 Hits. Arts: 1 Hit, Buster: 1 Hit, Extra: 3 Hits) Skills: - Feather Illusion C+ Chance to stun one enemy. Reduces NP strength.   - Sharpening A+ Increases own Buster and Quick performances for 3 turns. - Superhero Strength B Charges own NP gauge. Increases own NP strength. Noble Phantasm:  ???

Lauren aka Laurenzside, Protector of Universe, Cosmic Deity Rarity: R Caster Cost: 7 ATK: 1,128/7,215 HP: 1,236/8,600 Grail ATK: 8,657 Grail HP: 11,055 Attribute: Sky Growth Curve: S Star Absorption: 84 Star Generation: 11% NP Charge ATK: 1.80% NP Charge DEF: 5% Death Rate: 38.7% Alignments: Neutral・Good Gender: Female Commands Cards: QAAAB (Quick: 3 Hits, Arts: 2 Hits, Buster: 1 Hit, Extra: 3 Hits) Skills: - Cosmic Blessing A Grants one ally's invicibility for 1 turn. Charges their NP gauge. - Clairvoyance (Demi-God) Increases own Critical star drop rate. - Lunar Light B Recovers party's HP. Remove own Debuffs. Noble Phantasm: ???

Kassie aka Gloom Rarity: R Alter Ego Cost: 7 ATK: 1,177/7,113 HP: 1,650/9,421 Grail ATK: 9,818 Grail HP: 12,812 Attribute: Man Growth Curve: S Star Absorption: 100 Star Generation: 10% NP Charge ATK: 0.43% NP Charge DEF: 4% Death Rate: 36.4% Alignments: True・Neutral Gender: Female Commands Cards: QQAAB (Quick: 2 Hits, Arts: 1 Hit, Buster: 2 Hits, Extra: 4 Hits)  Skills: - Samantha Increases own Buster performances for 3 turns. Chances to inflict Charm on [Male] enemy. Cancel other skill's effects.  - Hannah Increases own Quick performances for 3 turns. Gains critical stars generation every turn for 3 turns. Cancel other skill's effects. - Vera Increases own Arts performances for 3 turns. Recover own NP every turn for 3 turns. Cancel other skill's effects.  Noble Phantasm: ???

Jay aka Kubz Scouts Rarity: R Assassin Cost: 7 ATK: 1,288/7,062 HP: 1,571/8,662 Grail ATK: 9,633 Grail HP: 11,990 Attribute: Man  Growth Curve: Reverse S Star Absorption: 102 Star Generation: 20.4% NP Charge ATK: 0.24% NP Charge DEF: 4.12% Death Rate: 28.7% Alignments: Chaotic・Good Gender: Male Commands Cards: QQQAB (Quick: 4 Hits, Arts: 2 Hits, Buster: 1 Hit, Extra: 3 Hits) Skills: - Planning B+ Increases own critical star generation rate for 3 turns. - Threaten C+ Chance to reduce enemy's NP by 1 Reduces ATK for 3 turns. - Presence Detection C Chances to removes their Evasion buffs. Grants self Evasion for 1 turn.

Ohm aka Ryan, Ohmwrecker, The Red Demon Right-Hand Rarity: R Saber Cost: 7 ATK: 1,232/8,012 HP: 1,388/8,063 Grail ATK: 10,455 Grail HP: 12,550 Attribute: Earth Growth Curve: S Star Absorption: 90 Star Generation: 10.5% NP Charge ATK: 1.33% NP Charge DEF: 3.12 % Death Rate: 30.2% Alignments: Neutral・Good Gender: Male Commands Cards: QAABB (Quick: 3 Hits, Arts: 3 Hits, Buster: 1 Hit, Extra: 4 Hits) Skills: - Battle Continuation A Grants self Guts status for 1 time, 5 turns. - Proof of Friendship C Chance to reduces one enemy's NP gauge by 1. Chance to inflicts Stun for 1 turn. - Teamwork C Increases party's Arts performance for 1 turn. Increases party's NP Strength for 1 turn. Noble Phantasm: ???

Cartoonz aka Luke, The Red Demon Rarity: SR Rider Cost: 12 ATK:  1,612/9,447 HP: 1,673/11,076 Grail ATK:  11,018 Grail HP: 12,667 Attribute: Earth Growth Curve: Semi S Star Absorption: 165 Star Generation: 10% NP Charge ATK: 1.18% NP Charge DEF: 2.77 % Death Rate: 30.2% Alignments: True・Neutral  Gender: Male Commands Cards: QAABB (Quick: 4 Hits, Arts: 1 Hits, Buster: 1 Hit, Extra: 6 Hits) Skills: - Pirate’s Honor B+ Increases own attack for 3 turns. Grants self Guts status for 1 time. (Revives with 1 HP.) Reduces own debuff resistance by 50% for 3 turns. [Demerit] - Voyager of the Storm A Increases party's NP damage for 1 turn. Increases party's attack for 1 turn. - Demon of the Sea EX Increases own Buster performances. Increases critical strength for 3 turns. Gains self-Invisibility for 1 attack. Reduces own defense [Demerit] Noble Phantasm: ???

Garrett aka Accused Wizard, Eternal Mage, King of Badger Rarity: R Caster Cost: 7 ATK: 1,312/7,556 HP: 1,752/8,272 Grail ATK: 10,126 Grail HP: 10,885 Attribute: Man Growth Curve: S Star Absorption: 48 Star Generation: 11.4% NP Charge ATK: 1.43% NP Charge DEF: 3% Death Rate: 36.2% Alignments: Chaotic・Good Gender: Male Commands Cards: QAAAB (Quick: 2 Hit, Arts: 3 Hit, Buster: 1 Hit, Extra: 5 Hits) Skills: - Jokester B+ Chance to reduce one enemy's NP gauge by 1. Charges own NP gauge. - Immortality (False) Gains self-Guts status for 1 time, 3 turns. - Spellcraft A+  Increases own Arts performance for 3 turns.  Noble Phantasm: ???

Okay, there you go. Some of the stats are from FGO’s servants lol and if it looks too OP for you fgo players, dont sweat it. The stats doesnt really matter in the story so lol.

Those are the characters that will appear on the first arc minus Nogla and Mini. Since i haven’t really decided to put Andrew and Jack, i won’t show their stats here but their class will be Lancer (or Caster, haven’t really decided it either) and Saber, respectively 

P.S: There will be ships, it won’t be the focus of the story if i use the heavy/more serious plot but there will be :P

Again, thank you for your attention and hopefully i can finish all this soon enough.

#rambles #fic update #my writing #cartoonz #laurenzside #garrett #vanoss #moo #ohmwrecker #gloomgames #kubz scouts #fgo au

[quentinsquill]

The Magicians: “Midway Between Gods and Beasts” (Fic)

Midway Between Gods and Beasts

Author: Lexalicious70 (all-hale-eliot)

Fandom: The Magicians

Genre: AU, some canon events included

Word Count: 20,868

Warnings: Possible triggers for mental health treatment, some mention of sexual assault

Summary: Successful hedge witch Eliot Waugh finds his comfortable life in Chelsea with his best friend Margo unexpectedly interrupted when young, untrained magician Quentin Coldwater comes into his life, pursued by those who believe he is mentally ill and by a terrible beast from another world who wants to use Quentin as an unwilling pawn in its takeover of a magical world.

Author’s Notes: This is for the Welter’s Challenge Trials Big Bang, Tier 2! I don’t own The Magicians, this is just for fun and to pass the time until my next therapy session. Thanks to @kings-of-fillory, @justcallmeasmodeus, and @highqueenbambiwaugh for advice and inspiration!  Comments and kudos are magic! Enjoy, and thanks for reading.

Midway Between Gods and Beasts

By Lexalicious70

 CHAPTER ONE

 Spring in Chelsea didn’t arrive all at once.

 It wasn’t like the arrival of winter, which often came with the suddenness of a busload of tourists tumbling off a trendy, double-decker Gray Line. Spring was an ambling, wayward urban explorer more intent on finding hidden architectural gems than visiting tired tourist traps. As the last piles of dirty snow retreated under shade trees, park benches, and store alleyways, where they finally melted away, sun-warm breezes made their way into the neighborhood that promised its trees, shrubs, and flower boxes would be rioting by May, now only four weeks away.

 They were, in fact, the kind of breezes that almost made one not as sorry he had ever been conceived.

 “Christ, Eliot, close that window! It’s April, not July!”

 Eliot glanced up from the window seat and the cigarette he was enjoying to see his roommate and best friend Margo standing in front of her bedroom door in a sunflower-yellow robe, her long brown hair damp and tousled. She put her hands on her hips.

 “Come on, seriously, I just took a shower and that air feels freezing!”

 “So use a warming spell or dry your hair. You know I don’t like to smoke in here with the windows closed.” Eliot replied. His fellow hedge witch narrowed her dark eyes for a moment before crossing the high-gloss hardwood floors of the loft they shared. A slim metal carafe sat on the counter in the roomy kitchenette, and Margo filled a mug with the blonde roast they both preferred.

 “You’re lucky you’re the only person on this whole planet I can stand to be around for more than five seconds.” She groused, sipping the coffee before adding a packet of natural sweetener.

 “I’m so very flattered.”

 “You should be.” Margo took her coffee into the living room and sat on the couch, her feet tucked up under her thighs as she reached for a leather-bound notebook. Inside, dates and names were inscribed in Eliot’s slanted, elegant scrawl. “Are we seeing anyone today?”

 “Mmmh.” Eliot nodded as he crushed out his cigarette and flicked the butt out the window and into a ceramic urn that sat on the fire escape. “Two hedges from Soho. Low level and looking for introductory thermogenic spells.” He got to his feet and stretched, his tall, thin frame elegant instead of gangly, as many tall men appear to be. A glance at the window dropped it closed, but not before a final warm breeze ruffled Eliot’s dark, curly hair. He went to the kitchen and took a coffee mug down, the hem of his open satin robe flapping around the black silk lounge pants he wore. His chest was bare, but he and Margo had lived together for more than two years now, and he knew it would bother her no more than occasional glimpses of her bare breasts or panty-clad ass disturbed him.

 “Thermogenic spells.” Margo sipped her coffee. “Are we sure we want to sell those to newbies? They might accidentally set themselves on fire.”

 “You know our disclaimer. Magic is likely to maim or kill you, cast at your own risk, et cetera. We’re here to provide a service, not wet nurse a bunch of inexperienced hedges.”

 “Hey, we used to be inexperienced hedges.”

 Eliot tapped a bit of sweetener into his coffee and frowned at her.

 “Correction, Margo darling. We chose to be inexperienced hedges. One semester at Brakebills was enough to show us that learning magic formally is bullshit and that it’s much more profitable and fun to discover spells and hone our skills on our own.” He went to sit next to her and she leaned against him.

 “The cottage was all right.” She allowed, and Eliot nodded.

 “Though not terribly private.”

 “El, you entertained a different guy every night.” Margo pointed out, and Eliot glanced down at her.

 “So did you. Sometimes we both entertained the same one on the same night.” Eliot sipped his coffee. “I used to hate it when they’d gone to you first . . . smelling your perfume on them always made me flaccid.” He ducked the throw pillow Margo swung at him almost before he finished speaking, covering the rim of his mug with one hand so it didn’t spill. Margo narrowed her eyes at him.

 “A, you better go get ready to meet these hedges and B, eat me!”

 “Oh, Bambi.” Eliot sighed as he got to his feet and dropped an affectionate kiss on top of her head. “I won’t even look at sliced cold cuts at the 8th Avenue Gourmet Deli.”

 The throw pillow connected solidly with his ass as he walked toward his room and he gave a token yelp of protest before hopping up the four steps that led to his room, which was quartered off from the rest of the loft with hand-painted flexible wooden panels. The door was connected to a curved archway and featured ten rectangular frosted panels, etched with delicate Japanese cherry blossoms. Eliot shut the door behind him and shed his robe before slipping out of his lounge pants. He was under the hot spray of the glassed-in shower a moment later, letting the water and goat’s milk sandalwood soap wash away the smell of tobacco and the musk of deep sleep.

 Of course, Margo hadn’t been wrong in her estimation of how many young men he’d entertained in his room at Brakebills, the school for magical pedagogy, during their time there. His telekinesis and ability to throw a party had made him popular on campus, but as far as Eliot was concerned, he’d had his fill of rigidity and rules growing up in rural Indiana under the thumb of his father, a religious fanatic who had no patience for a son who was nothing like him.

 When Eliot’s telekinetic ability announced itself by allowing him to force-push his bully in front of an oncoming bus at the age of fourteen, his mother had packed him off to a cousin in Ohio, where he’d attended high school. A month after graduation, a dressing room in a local department store had opened up into the world of Brakebills, where he’d passed the introductory exam easily and met Margo. While they were both highly adept at learning magic, the formality of the school had urged them to strike out on their own as self-taught casters, which formally-trained magicians called hedge witches.

 Now, two years later, he and Margo were both successful, high-level hedges, and their talents were sought out by others like them, as well as Brakebills students who wanted spells that were forbidden to them by the school. Eliot’s loft, which was on the top floor of a building inhabited entirely by magical adepts under the watchful eye of their stern landlord, Henry Fogg, was the young hedge’s domain and he held meetings the way a king might hold sway over his court. He was unforgiving when he had to be, fiercely protective of Margo, and feared in the underground magical community for his power and reputation, mostly spread by those who had crossed or severely annoyed him.

 Learning what magic is and isn’t on your own has taught me more than I ever could have learned at Brakebills, Eliot thought to himself as he rinsed his hair and turned off the shower. A wall of mirrored cabinets faced the shower door, and Eliot glanced at himself as he reached for a towel. The insides of his long arms were covered with star-shaped tattoos, and each of them contained a number in its center. The ink ambled up his skin in clusters, petered out at the elbow, then regrouped on the back of his neck and shoulders. The final tattoo, resting between Eliot’s shoulder blades, was slightly larger than the rest and read a single number in stylized, wine-colored ink:

 300

 “Top bitch in Chelsea—maybe even the whole city. Why anyone would waste their time at Brakebills, I’ll never know.” Eliot murmured to himself as he went to his closet to choose an outfit. Outside the door, he could hear the soft babble of voices as Margo let the Soho hedge witches in. He dressed quickly and straightened his paisley tangerine tie. New hedges meant spending the afternoon drinking good wine, a stimulating barter session, and money in his pocket.

 All in all, it wasn’t bad way for a Brakebills dropout and a former farmer’s son to pass the time.

 CHAPTER TWO

 Dolborough Mental Health Facility

Queens Village, Queens, N.Y.

 “Quentin? Quentin, are you listening to me?”

 Quentin Coldwater glanced up across the wide wooden expanse of the desk his doctor sat behind. The pudgy man, who had thinning blond hair and wore steel-rimmed glasses, frowned at him.

 “You know deflecting my questions and trying to deliberately sabotage these therapy sessions with silence won’t help you.”

 “I do know that.” Quentin nodded, pushing back his lank, tawny hair with one hand. The roots were dark with oil—he hadn’t bothered showering that morning. Or the morning before that. “Because nothing you’ve done in the nine fucking months I’ve been here has helped me at all.”

 “Quentin, you’re eighteen. You’re quite brilliant, from what your father tells us, and you could have a happy and productive life outside these walls, but you have to want it!”

 “Happy?” Quentin’s fingers slipped into the kangaroo pocket of his grey hoodie, which was almost two sizes too big for his skinny frame. “Do you want to define that for me? Is it a set of objectives everyone should work toward, or is happiness for me different than happiness for you? And if that’s so, then how can you define what it is or isn’t for me? I think happiness is the illusion and how I feel every day, that’s the reality, Dr. Beekman.”

 “That’s the reality if you choose it to be!” Dr. Beekman pulled a prescription bottle from his desk drawer. “Now. We’re going to start you on these this evening, since the previous medications we’ve tried haven’t been very successful. They should start to elevate your mood. Once we accomplish that, these therapy sessions should become more effective.”

 Quentin gazed at the transparent orange bottle, the inside stuffed with pink and grey capsules.

 “I don’t want to take them.”

 “Quentin, your father is quite concerned that you haven’t made much progress since you’ve been here. I’m concerned as well.”

 “You should be concerned about how the meds are for shit . . . and they won’t keep Him away forever.”

 “Him—your father?”

 “No.” Quentin’s Adam’s apple bobbed. “Capital Him.”

 Silence spun out for a few moments and Dr. Beekman folded his hands on the desk’s faded blotter.

 “I thought we agreed that He didn’t exist.”

 “No. I told you He did and you decided He didn’t. I think the drugs have made it harder for Him to track me, but He’s going to find me. Soon.”

 “That’s the medication working, Quentin. The more you allow us to help you, the less He will be a presence in your psyche!” The doctor’s pale blue eyes dropped to Quentin’s wrists, which became briefly visible as Quentin shifted in the chair. Vertical scars ran from the base of his palms to just past his wrists. “You will come to understand that this—this—”

 “Beast.” Quentin supplied, tugging the sleeves of his hoodie back down until only the tips of his fingers showed.

 “That this Beast you believe is pursuing you is a hallucination, brought on by anxiety, paranoia, and depression! Once you embrace your treatment fully, you may able to transition to outpatient status. Until then, it’s time for you to return to your room. I’ll inform the night nurse about the addition of the new medication.” The doctor rose and opened the door. “Gordon will escort you back.”

 Quentin stood as he eyed the long shadow of the orderly who stood just outside the door. He came into view as Dr. Beekman spoke, a beefy twentysomething with a football player’s neck and squinty green eyes. He wore a military crewcut but the front had been left slightly longer and spiked with gel, making his carrot-colored hair look like the teeth of a rusty saw. Quentin stepped into the hall and the taller man wrapped his hand around Quentin’s left bicep.

 “Come along then, Quenny.” The orderly cajoled him, and Quentin scowled without looking at him.

 “It’s Quentin.”

 “See you soon, Quentin!” Dr. Beekman called as if they’d been having tea, and the office to his door swung shut. Pain radiated up Quentin’s arm as Gordon Kozak tightened his grip.

 “Your name is what I say it is, you little sack of shit.” The orderly murmured through clenched teeth, nodding at doctors and nurses as he passed them. “Maybe you need another reminder?”

 Quentin looked away from the sweaty-smelling orderly to glance into patient rooms as they passed by. Some were open and contained a single human, either confined to a bed or drooling in a wheelchair. Others, Quentin knew, were locked all the time, like his own door. Kozak marched him into the elevator at the end of the hallway and jabbed the up button with a thick finger. The doors parted, and they stepped into together. The moment the doors slid closed, Kozak’s hand moved from Quentin’s upper arm to the back of his neck, where it squeezed until Quentin gasped.

 “What’s your name? Huh? Answer me, Pisswater!”

 “Quenny.” Quentin ground out as the man’s big fingers dug into the sides of his neck. Kozak rounded him, his hand slipping around to grip Quentin’s throat. Quentin kept his eyes on the elevator’s floor indicator lights, counting them off as the elevator rose to the 25th floor.

 4, 5, 6 . . .

 “Wrong!” Kozak’s other hand dropped down between Quentin’s legs, where it gripped him. Quentin tried to bring his legs together.

 12, 13 14 . . .

 “Try again!” Both hands tightened. Quentin could feel his Adam’s apple bob against Kozak’s big hand.

 “My name is whatever you say it is.” Quentin murmured, and the hands fell away.

 “That’s a good boy.” Kozak nodded, leaning in toward Quentin. A moment later Quentin found himself losing half his air as Kozak shoved him against the back of the elevator wall. It jerked to a stop, and Kozak yanked him forward and out. The hallway was deserted and the orderly half-dragged Quentin down to room 2505, unlocked the door, and shoved him inside. Quentin stumbled and caught himself on the metal footrest of his bed as he looked over his shoulder to see whether Kozak was going to come after him. The big man filled the doorway, his expression filled with disgust.

 “Take a fucking shower, Pisswater. You stink.”

 The door slammed shut and Kozak’s keys jingled briefly as he locked Quentin in. Relief flooded through Quentin; sometimes Kozak locked the door from the other side and gave Quentin one of his lessons, the kind that left his knees bruised and his jaw aching. He gave the door a single, sullen look, pushing down his disgust and anger as he crawled into bed and pulled the rough grey wool blanket over his head, ignoring the stale odor of his unwashed skin. The flat, thin mattress, spartan bathroom, barred windows, and the room’s single decorative item, a tattered poster of a sunrise framed with flexible material and shatter-proof plexiglass inscribed with the caption, “EVERY DAY IS A NEW BEGINNING,” were a far cry from the comfortable home he’d shared with his father since he was nine and his parents had divorced, and light years away from Yale with his best friends James and Julia, where he should be sharing a dorm room with James and squabbling boyishly over wall outlets and closet space and the best lighting.

 Instead I’m here, Quentin thought as he brought his knees to his chest.

 It had started with the dreams. At first, they seemed like common nightmares where Quentin was pursued down a garden path by a monster he couldn’t see, yet knew was there. From there, they became night terrors, and Quentin would scream himself and his father awake, thrashing in his sheets, his lap a sodden mess of hot urine. Ted Coldwater, who had always been a bit puzzled by his introverted but brilliant son, took him to a therapist. Quentin and his father left the office ninety minutes later with a Prazosin prescription and on the way home, Ted spoke up after ten minutes of silence.

 “It was the divorce, wasn’t it.”

 “The divorce?”

 “That made you this way. That caused your—your strangeness.”

 “You think I’m strange?” Quentin asked, and Ted shook his head a little.

 “I don’t know what else to call it. You’re seventeen, but you’ve never had a girlfriend or even shown an interest, you never picked up a sport, you’re obsessed with magic tricks and those damn Fillory books—and don’t think I don’t know that you still play pretend when you vanish for hours on the weekends! Imagining you’re Martin Chatwand and I don’t know what else!”

 “It’s Chatwin. And—and there’s nothing wrong with imagination, dad. It helps me cope.”

 “If you ask me, it’s hurting more than it’s helping, and it’s high time you stopped. Or do you want to go into Yale with the mindset of a schoolboy?”

 So Quentin had stopped—at least when it came to reading Fillory books in front of his father or sneaking off to cosplay with Julia, when he could talk her into it. For him, the land of Fillory and its questing, magical Chatwin children that had ruled the land and protected its magical creatures in a series of five books, had always felt more real to him than his own life in Brooklyn. Quentin’s own urban quests were mostly the last of his boyish urges to wander, but in the back of his mind, he was always hoping he’d find a way to Fillory, just as the Chatwin children did in each of the books. Then one day, while Quentin was out on his own, he’d followed a path into a community garden that led him into thick foliage and where the slant of sunlight seemed to change. A single moth, electric blue and larger than any Quentin had ever seen, appeared out of the foliage, and then another and another until the air was thick with them. A man had stepped onto the path then, his face obscured by more of the fluttering moths, their scent musty, like old clothes that had been stored away unwashed.

 “Quentin Coldwater.” This creature, this beast, had purred. “There you are!”

 Quentin had stood frozen, his throat thick with the awful smell, and a strong hand with multiple, seeking fingers had closed over his mouth, making him breathe through his nose in panicked snorts. What might have happened if a nearby factory whistle hadn’t gone off down the block and startled the thing into retreating, Quentin didn’t know, but since that day, he had felt the thing’s presence close by, malicious and deadly. It pursued him through his dreams and he caught glimpses of it wherever he went. When Quentin had tried to escape on a more permanent basis by opening up his wrists with a razor blade, mental health services had convinced his father that Dolborough was the best place for him.

 Except He’s going to find me here, sooner or later, and I won’t be able to get away from Him if He does, Quentin thought to himself. I have to find a way to get out of here.

 A muffled thump out in the hallway caught Quentin’s attention and he emerged from his blanket burrow to sit up. Footsteps sounded back and forth past his door and he crept over to peek out through the thick mesh of the small window. Orderlies were carrying large cardboard boxes and stacking them at the end of the hallway, next to Quentin’s door. He could see that they were filled with coils of computer cable, old, dusty monitors, clunky-looking 90’s-era keyboards, and hard drive towers. Some of the boxes were overstuffed and hung open, and others had been shut with their flaps folded. Quentin knew there was a storage room at the opposite end of the hallway, and the orderlies must have been recruited to clean it out.

 They’re stacking that stuff by the elevator, which means it’s probably all getting donated or chucked out. Quentin plucked at his lower lip with a thumb and forefinger for a few moments before he turned back toward his bed. A large button printed with the outline of a nurse’s cap hung from a white cord, and he thumbed it several times before throwing himself onto the floor in front of the bed. He heard the door unlock and swing open a few moments later as the young floor nurse, a pretty brunette named Monica, came to answer the call button.

 “Mr. Cold—” Quentin heard her stop just a few inches away as he began to fake a seizure, letting his limbs flail and spit run out of the corner of his mouth. Her hand touched his chest, then his face, before Quentin heard her footsteps rapping away down the hall as she went for help. Quentin knew the duty desk was out of sight of his door and that he only had a minute at best to escape. He cracked an eye open and then crept to the open door before bolting for the abandoned pile of computer equipment near the elevator. One of the boxes was larger than a coffin and about four feet deep. It contained an old monitor and a pile of cables, but the other side was empty. Quentin dove into it, hastily shoving the monitor aside before he pulled the flaps shut. He curled up, drawing his knees to his chest, his heart hammering in his ears. The elevator dinged a moment later and Quentin held his breath as the two disgruntled orderlies stacked the boxes inside.

 “Fuckall, some of these are heavy!” One of them groused, and Quentin squeezed his eyes shut as he heard footsteps approach in a hurried way from the other end of the hall. The elevator doors rumbled shut, and Quentin gave a tiny sigh of relief as he felt himself carried away from the 25th floor. It was impossible to tell how far down they were traveling, but when the car bumped to a stop and the doors opened, Quentin heard the muffled sounds of street traffic. The steady, pulsing beep of a large truck backing up rang out a moment later, and one of the orderlies spoke.

 “All of this is going to the Bowery Mission!”

 The box shook and Quentin tried not to grunt as the monitor thumped and banged against his back. The thick scent of truck exhaust filtered into the box for a moment before it settled, and then a door slammed shut. The truck lurched briefly before pulling out of the alley and Quentin clapped both hands over his mouth as he felt it carry him away from Dolborough. Tears spurted from his eyes.

 Away. I’m away!

 As the truck headed away from Queens, the motion lulled Quentin into a doze where he plunged through a darkness filled with the white noise of a thousand musty, fluttering wings.

 CHAPTER THREE

 Eliot used his telekinesis to yank down the wooden grate of his building’s converted freight elevator, a bag full of trash dangling from each hand. He rode the elevator down to the ground floor and carried the bags down the short hallway, where he hip-bumped the rear door open. A steady rain darkened the pavement and pattered against the large dumpster the residents of his building used. He hunched his shoulders against the fat drops of rain as he tossed the bags into the open side of the deep unit, where they tumbled down inside. Wine bottles clinked together, the chiming muffled, and as they settled, Eliot heard another sound, almost like the mewl of a newborn animal. He paused, his head cocked to one side, and the sound floated up from the inside of the dumpster again.

 “Oh, what fresh hell is this?” Eliot sighed to himself. The alley was a private one, so Eliot cast a spell that allowed him to levitate above the unit. Another murmured spell caused light to spill from his fingertips, and he pointed them downward.

 From the innards of the dumpster, empty all but for two discarded pizza boxes and the two bags he’d just tossed inside, a skinny teenager peered up at him in mild awe. The grey hoodie and checkered lounge pants he wore were smeared with muck and grease, his ankles dark with dirt. Worn leather slippers covered his feet. The kid pressed himself into the corner, his dark eyes hollow and hunted. Eliot used his telekinesis to open the opposite lid and close the other so he could crouch on it and look down at the kid at the same time.

 “Hello.” He said at last. The kid brought his knees to his chest as rain started to pelt into the dumpster, but he didn’t respond. Eliot frowned. “You do realize this is a private trash receptacle?”

 “M’sorry.” The kid murmured at last, and in the grey light of the rainy morning, Eliot could see that he was shaking. “Saw the pizza boxes. Climbed in but then couldn’t get out.”

 Eliot sighed. It was Tuesday, which meant it was trash day and the trucks would come to empty the dumpster no matter what was in it. And pizza boxes? Was the kid going to eat out of the dumpster? Eliot’s stomach lurched at the thought. Two blocks over, a garbage truck’s engine droned and the boom of a dumpster being lifted and emptied echoed in the alley. Eliot could almost sense tiny devil and angel versions of himself appear on each shoulder as it began to rain harder.

 Leave the kid where he is. It’s not your business or your fault he’s down there.

 You could be where he is if not for a few strokes of luck and good fortune. Give the kid a hand.

 “Karma better pay me back for this in spades.” Eliot muttered after a moment as he gazed at the kid and lifted him out of the dumpster with his telekinesis. The kid didn’t seem surprised that he was rising into the air and when Eliot set him on his feet, his legs folded under him like a wounded deer and he thumped down onto the concrete. Eliot judged that he was maybe two or three years his junior. He was also thin, filthy, and obviously a drug addict.

 “Thank you.” The kid said in a raw, croaky whisper, and Eliot nodded.

 “Sure. You better move along now, though.” He said, although he made no move to turn back toward the building’s back door. Rain dripped off the ends of the kid’s hair, which looked like it had been washed back around last Halloween or so. “You can, can’t you?”

 “If I could just sit in your doorway a minute? Then I’ll go, I swear.”

 “All right.” Eliot allowed. The kid managed to get to his feet, but even taking the few steps to the doorway seemed to exhaust him. He sat down and pulled up the filthy hood of his pullover hoodie. Eliot stepped around him. “Take care.”

 The kid sniffled in reply and Eliot let the door shut behind him. He got halfway down the hall when muffled sobbing made him pause. He shook his head, took three more steps, then stopped again.

 “You’re going to regret this. You know you will. Idiot!” He said to himself before turning back to the rear door. He opened it to the sight of the kid’s shoulders shaking, the grey hoodie dark with rain.

 “Hey.” Eliot said, and the boy’s head jerked around, the dark eyes startled.

 “I—I’m sorry. I’ll go. I’ll go.” He struggled to his feet and Eliot held the door open wider.

 “Wait. I thought maybe you might be hungry. I have plenty of leftovers . . . I cook as sort of a hobby, you see. I could heat something up for you.” He rolled his eyes as the kid’s gaze turned wary. “Please. If I wanted to harm you, I would have done so when I pulled you out of that dumpster. Well?” He asked after a moment of silence. “I’m not going to stand here all day.”

 The kid stood with difficulty and mopped his face with his sleeve. It did nothing to improve his appearance.

 “Thanks.” He murmured as Eliot ushered him into the hallway and walked him down to the elevator. The kid walked like a drunk with a serious case of DTs and he reeked like month-old pot roast, but there was something about how he had trusted Eliot when he’d freed him from the dumpster that roused curiosity in the hedge witch. Most people would have run screaming at such a display of magic, but the kid didn’t seem to be afraid of him.

 And Eliot was used to being feared.

 “Where are we?” The kid asked as Eliot pulled the elevator door down and it began to rise.

 “The building doesn’t have a name, but we are almost precisely in the center of Chelsea, on the west side of the glorious borough of Manhattan.”

 “What day is it?”

 “Tuesday. April 9thth.” Eliot added as an afterthought. The elevator reached his floor and Eliot opened the door as he pulled his key out. Magical wards protected the apartment, but Eliot preferred the security of a solid steel deadbolt as well. He unlocked the door and crooked a finger at the kid.

 “Come in. What’s your name?”

 “Oh. Uhm—Martin. It’s Martin.”

 “I’m Eliot.”

 “Hi.” Martin’s eyes darted around the loft. “This is yours?”

 “Mmm.” Eliot nodded, wondering if it would to do spread a towel over one of the kitchen nook chairs to keep the damp, dirty seat of Martin’s lounge pants from soiling it. His pants weren’t the only issue, though. Margo’s bathroom had a tub, maybe—

 Sure. Then you can comb out his hair and watch him shake himself off to sleep. And if Margo catches you at this, you’ll be the one taking a bath—in the toilet, when she dunks your head in it for bringing a junkie into the house!

 A thump brought Eliot out of his thoughts to see that Martin had fallen again. He looked up at Eliot as he got to his hands and knees.

 “I’m sorry. I—I haven’t eaten in a long time. I’m sorry.” He barely got the last word out before he passed out at Eliot’s feet, his cheek pressed against the hardwood floor.

 Eliot closed his eyes a moment as he weighed his growing empathy for this kid against the odds of death by Margo.

 “She can only kill me once, right?” Eliot muttered to himself as he visualized the bathtub taps turning. As the tub began to fill, Eliot force-tugged Martin to his feet and floated him toward Margo’s room. He cast a spell to mask the sound of his movements and held his breath as they passed Margo, asleep on the other side of the room. The tub was nearly full and Eliot used a simple tutting spell to strip the kid’s filthy clothes off him before settling him into the water. The jut of his ribs was visible under pale skin as Eliot propped him up. Thick scars on his wrists stood out under the bathroom’s lights.

 Kid looks like a refrigerated turkey carcass, Eliot thought to himself as he rolled up his sleeves and set down a folded towel next to the tub to kneel on. Using a bar of soap he’d collected from one of his many hotel stays, Eliot lathered up a sponge glove and washed the unconscious teen the best he could, staying well above the waist. As he lifted Martin’s right arm, Eliot noticed a sturdy white plastic bracelet on his skinny, scarred wrist, the kind you wore during a hospital stay. Eliot lifted Martin’s arm to examine it more closely. It contained three typed lines, in all caps, with a bar code underneath:

 DOLBOROUGH M.H.F.

COLDWATER, QUENTIN  SEX: M

DOB: 07/20/92

 “Dolborough?” Eliot looked down at the boy. “And not Martin, either. Kid, what the hell have you—”

 “A-HEM!”

 Eliot flinched at the sound and looked over his shoulder to see Margo in the doorway, wearing her yellow satin pajama set and fuzzy pink slippers. Her small stature made her gaze no less imperious. Eliot gave her what he thought of as his most charming smile.

 “Good morning . . .?”

 Margo put her hands on her hips as her dark eyes narrowed. Eliot read the promise of hellfire there.

 “Rub-a-dub-duck, what the actual fuck!”

 CHAPTER FOUR

 “You need to get rid of him.”

 Eliot focused on the cranberry spritzer he was making at the kitchen bar, which ran along a cherry wood counter on the far side of the sink. Bottles gleamed in a glassed-in cabinet above the shelf, and an open cabinet filled with tumblers and built-in wine glass holders sat below it.

 “Eliot!”

 “Mmm?”

 Margo’s eyes narrowed.

 “Now!” She commanded, pointing one lacquer-tipped nail at the kid sleeping on the couch. He was cleaner now, his hair more dark blond than brown once Eliot had shampooed it several times. He wore a tee shirt that Eliot found in the back of his closet, one of those garish “I ♥ New York” souvenirs, left at the apartment by one of Eliot’s guests. It had a red wine stain at the hem but it fit the kid otherwise. The sweats were much too big on him, as he was about nine inches shorter than Eliot himself, but Eliot had burned those awful lounge pants and gross slippers to ashes out on the fire escape.

 “Margo, be reasonable. It’s pouring outside and he’s obviously starved. I know we’re supposed to be arch and haughty and look down on most people, but there’s not much sport in doing that to something this pathetic!”

 “You can’t start taking in strays!” Margo glanced over at the kid. “Even if they might be somewhat reasonably cute. I don’t want the responsibility, and if word gets out, we’re going to have them on our doorstep every day! Not only that, but what do you plan to do with him? Did you even think about that before you brought him up here?”

 Eliot began to reply when a rapid pounding sounded out on the other side of the apartment’s main door. He sighed, sipped his drink, and pulled the door open to reveal the perpetually scowling face of his downstairs neighbor, Penny Adiyodi. Eliot groaned inwardly. Penny was young, handsome, and reminded Eliot of a rebel monk turned punk, but he was also touchier than a badger with punctured scrotum. He was a talented magical adept, like most people in Eliot’s building, and his ability to read minds, astral project, and travel would have made him highly attractive to Eliot if he wasn’t so Goddamned pissy all the time. And straight. And had a temperamental girlfriend who specialized in battle magic.

 “Yes, Penny?” He asked the scowling psychic, who shouldered his way into the room. “Won’t you come in?” Eliot drawled, trying not to spill his drink. Penny turned.

 “You do realize that I can hear everything you say when you start arguing like that? I don’t even have to read your minds.”

 “That’s fucking rude.” Margo pointed out.

 “What’s rude is ignoring the rules Mr. Fogg set for us when he opened this building to give magical adepts a safe place to live! You’re going to get us all kicked out!” He glanced around. “So where is it? Because if you’re not gonna get rid of it, I will!”

 “Where’s what?”

 “Don’t give me that Jack Tripper shit! I heard you! You brought a stray animal in here! It’s against the rules and I’m not gonna get kicked out because of some bleeding heart hedge! Now I’m gonna ask you one more time before I start punching you in the throat! Where is it?”

 Eliot lifted one shoulder and gestured behind Penny’s shoulder to the couch. Penny turned and his scowl melted into confusion.

 “The fuck . . . that’s a kid!”

 “Well spotted, Inspector Lestrade.”

 “Just—the way you were talking, it sounded like you were hiding some starving dog up here or something.”

 “Not that it’s any of your business, but he was trapped in the downstairs dumpster.”

 Penny watched Quentin shake in his sleep.

 “Kid’s an addict. He’s gonna rob you blind.”

 “And how would he hold us up, exactly, seeing as how he can’t even hold up his own head?”

 Penny fell silent before his usual scowl showed itself again.

 “Whatever, man.” He stared at the kid for a minute and then backed off, his eyes widening. “Whoever he is, he’s got some fucked up dreams. Shit.” Penny headed for the door. Eliot sipped his spritzer.

 “Always a pleasure!” He called as Penny left without shutting the door. Eliot stepped over to pull it closed. “Twat.”

 “Twat or not, he’s not exactly wrong about this kid being an addict, El.” Margo folded her arms across her chest. “We can’t have him here.”

 “Wait—just let me show you something.” Eliot picked up the hospital bracelet from where he’d left in on the counter. “I found this on him.”

 “Quentin Coldwater? My God, with a name like that, I’d take drugs too.”

 “When I got him out of the dumpster, he told me his name was Martin. Do you know what the Dolborough facility is?”

 “Yeah. It’s a mental health place in Queens. Mostly inpatients who have gone permanently off the deep end. What about it?”

 “That’s where this kid was, and I have a hunch that they don’t know he’s gone. Why else would he give me a fake name?”

 “Um—because he’s a nut job?” Margo replied, sounding out her words slowly, as if speaking to a simpleton. Eliot frowned and went over to a glassed-in bookshelf, crooking his fingers and muttering a spell to unlock the wards that protected it. The five shelves were filled with spellbooks, and Eliot ran his fingers over the spine of each until he pulled one out. “What are you doing now, when you should be tossing this kid out?”

 “I’m pretty sure whatever he’s addicted to, it’s prescription. Dolborough is known for its use of serious psychotropic drugs.” Eliot’s long fingers flipped pages.

 “So what are you looking for?”

 “A spell that will heal him . . . get all that negative shit out of his system.”

 “In case you’ve forgotten? We make a living off casting and selling spells. And we didn’t get to where we are now by doing it for free.” Margo tapped her fingers on the countertop.

 “I haven’t forgotten any of that. But, well . . . sometimes you have to work pro bono.”

 “I’ve known you for almost four years and I’ve never seen you do anything pro bono.”

 “Excuse you!”

 “Okay, fine.” Margo held up a hand in supplication. “Almost nothing. My point is, Eliot, why do you care about some dorky-looking kid who probably ran away from home or cut himself when daddy took away his X-Box?”

 Eliot flipped another page and tapped it before glancing up at Margo.

 “For one thing, I think he’s a magical adept.”

 Margo blinked over at the skinny kid, still fast asleep and sweating under the blanket Eliot had thrown over him.

 “You think—that?” She pointed. “Is like us?”

 “I do. Except he might not know it.” Eliot went to the cabinet where he and Margo kept their spell ingredients.

 “Exactly how do you know this? And even if he is, didn’t you say just the other day that it’s not our job to wet nurse newbie hedges?”

 “He’s not a hedge, Margo. He’s not anything, he’s like—like a spell with one ingredient missing.” He held up a glass jar with a handful of dried herbs in it. “And the telekinesis gives me kind of a sixth sense about other people’s magical abilities. It’s like . . . well, almost like a shiver. And I feel it with this kid. He’s capable of something, but he’s missing one thing that makes magic work.” He sat down next to the kid with an armload of ingredients. “Are you going to help me?”

 “No. I have to go scrub out my tub for the next eight weeks for which, by the way, you. So. Owe. Me.” Margo replied.

 “Put it on my tab.” Eliot bent over the spellbook and Margo stormed back toward her room, muttering about putting tabs where they usually didn’t go and how she was going to insert them sideways. Already focused on his task, Eliot placed one big, elegant hand on Quentin’s thin chest and began to cast.

 CHAPTER FIVE

 The first thing that lured Quentin toward consciousness was the smell of frying bacon.

 It was an insistent scent, growing stronger with every passing moment, and Quentin used it as an anchor as he crawled up from a darkness that was blessedly free from dreams. He forced his eyelids open and they felt sticky, like they’d been closed with a weak glue. The surface underneath him was soft, and a high ceiling with vaulted beams met his muddled gaze.

 Not Dolborough, He thought to himself. His memory of the four days since he’d escaped the facility were fragmented, like a jigsaw puzzle with some sections missing. He’d hid much of the time after sneaking out of the truck at the Bowery Mission, fearful they would send people to look for him. Begging for change had netted him about $1.50, which bought him a plain burger at the local McDonalds the same day he’d escaped. He remembered wandering, being hungry, an empty dumpster, and—

 Quentin sat up all at once, ignoring how it caused his head to spin. The smell of bacon made his stomach clench with a powerful hunger pang. He turned his head to see someone he thought he’d dreamed: the tall stranger with the wild, dark curls and eyes like sunlit amber. He was plating the bacon next to a pile of fluffy scrambled eggs that made Quentin struggle not to drool.

 Eliot. That’s what he said his name was.

 The taller boy glanced up as the couch creaked. Quentin met his eyes for the space of a heartbeat and then lowered them to stare at his hands more out of habit than actual shyness—meeting anyone’s gaze at Dolborough was usually perceived as a challenge.

 “Well, you’re awake.” Eliot brought the plate over, along with a cup of something steaming that smelled rich and sweet. “How do you feel?”

 “Uhm . . .”

 “Weak? A little washed out?”

 “Yeah. How did you know?”

 “I’ll explain that in a moment.” He set the plate in Quentin’s lap. “Try to eat some of that.”

 Quentin stared down at the food. The bacon was delicately crisped and the eggs had tiny cubes of fresh tomato mixed in. It was light years away from what he’d been eating at Dolborough, which was mostly powdered eggs, tough biscuits, and lumpy, bland oatmeal. He picked up a slice of the bacon and took a bite, and his stomach responded with an eager gurgle. Under another circumstance Quentin might have been embarrassed, but the bacon was filling his senses and before he knew it, he was eating two and three pieces at a time.

 “Hey! Easy . . . I don’t want to have clean vomit off my suede couch!” Eliot offered the mug, and Quentin sipped from it. Caramel, whipped into something frothy and topped with cinnamon. Bliss.

 “Do you remember me?” Eliot asked as he offered Quentin a napkin. Quentin took it and wiped bacon grease from lips and chin.

 “I think so. Eliot, right?”

 “That’s right. And this is my place. Which, by the way, you passed out in the middle of almost exactly 24 hours ago.”

 “I—I’ve been asleep for a day?” Quentin asked, and Eliot reached one hand toward the kitchen. A second steaming mug of latte floated into his hand and he sipped it.

 “Asleep, unconscious . . . whichever you’d prefer. Do you remember me getting you out of that dumpster?”

 Quentin took a few bites of egg.

 “Yeah.”

 “You didn’t seem frightened.”

 “I guess I was pretty out of it, but—can I ask you something?”

 “As long as it’s not personal or professional.” Eliot replied. “That’s a joke.” He added when Quentin avoided eye contact for over thirty seconds.

 “Oh. So—are you a hedge witch?” He asked, and Eliot drew back a bit.

 “I am. And how did you know that?”

 Quentin looked down at his plate.

 “I know this is going to sound stupid, but . . . I’m really into, uhm, magic. Or I used to be. I taught myself card and coin tricks, and there’s lots of magic shops in Brooklyn—that’s where I’m from—and I used to hear things. Rumors about real magic and people who knew real spells. That’s what I heard them called. Hedge witches.”

 “Before you went into Dolborough?” Eliot asked, and this time it was Quentin’s turn to flinch.

 “Dolborough?”

 Eliot opened his hand and Quentin’s ID bracelet fluttered into it. Quentin frowned.

 “Where did you get—”

 “Off your right wrist when I cleaned you up . . . Quentin Coldwater.”

 “Oh. Oh shit.”

 Eliot waved a dismissive hand.

 “Relax. I haven’t called the police, no men in white coats are on their way here. What were you in for?”

 “You wouldn’t believe me if I told you.”

 “Kid, you’d be surprised at what I’d believe.” He watched Quentin lick bacon grease off his fingers and handed him another napkin. Quentin set the empty plate aside.

 “This is pretty crazy, even for what a hedge witch might believe.”

 “Try me.” Eliot replied, and Quentin closed his eyes a moment before he opened them again to look out the window, where rain was still falling in a steady mid-April patter.

 “I used to be normal. I mean . . . as normal as a sixth grader who had to have his math classes outsourced to the local college could be. They always told me I was smart, but I never really felt smart, if that makes sense. My best friend Julia and I never really cared that much about all the academic things. We mostly hid out in the park or at her house and read the Fillory and Further books. I don’t know if you know them.” Quentin said, the tips of his ears going red. Eliot nodded.

 “From a very long time ago.”

 “I started studying magic because of them. Not real magic, I didn’t know it actually existed. But card and coin tricks, like I told you. Julia got over the books by the time we started high school, but I never really did. They always felt so real to me, so tangible. And they helped me cope during high school.” He pushed a lock of tawny hair behind one ear. “I know how stupid this must all sound to you.”

 “People cope with their shit in different ways.” Eliot lifted a shoulder. “Go on?”

 “I started having dreams last year. Bad dreams. At first I thought they were just stress dreams . . . you know, like the ones you have about being naked in school or having to take a test on a subject you know nothing about. But in them, something was chasing me. I never saw it, but I could feel how bad it was. Then, one day when I was—I was out walking, something happened.” As much as Quentin wanted to trust the man who had probably saved his life, there was no way he could admit that he’d been cosplaying alone as Martin Chatwin that day. “I followed this path into a community garden a few blocks from my house. I don’t know what happened. It was like the path just got longer and longer and then I saw—” Quentin paused and wiped a hand over his mouth. Eliot waited.

 “I don’t even know what I saw, really.” Quentin continued. “It was some kind of—well—monster, I guess. Like a man, but his face was obscured by these huge moths. They were blue and bigger than my hand, and they had this musty smell. But this thing, he called me by my name and put a hand over my mouth, like he wanted to smother me or maybe even break my neck. One of the warehouse whistles went off and it must have startled him because he bolted and vanished back down the path.” Quentin looked away from the window to Eliot to find the hedge listening, no trace of amusement or disbelief on his face. He paused. “You believe me.”

 “This is one world among many, Quentin. Just because people don’t or can’t believe that doesn’t mean it isn’t true. What happened after?”

 “I ran home. I didn’t tell my dad . . . I couldn’t. My mom left us when I was nine and after the divorce, he worried about me all the time. But I felt this thing’s presence all the time after that. My dreams got worse, and it was like that smell followed me wherever I went. It got really bad one night . . . I was alone in the house, uhm . . . my dad had gone to his bowling league. But it was like this thing—this Beast, it was all around me.” Quentin slid his hands up under his arms. “I tried to get away the only way I could think of.”

 Eliot thought of the thick scars he’d seen on Quentin’s wrists when he’d bathed him.

 “You tried to kill yourself.” He said, and Quentin nodded.

 “And that’s how I ended up at Dolborough. It’s funny . . . if my dad hadn’t forgotten his bowling shoes and come back for them, I’d be six feet under.” Quentin’s gaze slid away from Eliot’s again. “I’m still not sure I’m better off.”

 “How long were you at Dolborough?” Eliot asked.

 “Almost ten months. I managed to escape by getting out of my room and hiding in a cardboard box stacked with a bunch of old computer equipment that they were donating to the Bowery Mission.”

 “Clever!” Eliot nodded as he rose and gathered the empty plate and cup. “But once you got out, you had a hard time finding food, I’d assume.” He set the plates in the sink and waved a hand at them. The sink turned on and Quentin watched, round-eyed, as the dishes washed and stacked themselves in the nearby drainer.

 “Uhm, y-yeah, pretty much. The drugs they gave me at Dolborough, I think they threw the Beast off track for awhile, but He was going to find me there and I would’ve been trapped! I had to get away.”

 Eliot crossed the room to his bookshelf and pulled down two spellbooks, which he brought to the couch.

 “I performed a detox cleansing spell on you—you were coming down too hard. But don’t worry, this building is well warded, and there’s no way this Beast can get in without me knowing. Now . . . you know what I told you before, about there being more than world out there?”

 “Sure.”

 “Sometimes we open doors to them without even realizing it. You said the Fillory books always felt more real to you than your own reality and that everyone thought you were crazy because of it. But I don’t think you’re crazy at all, kid. I think you might be a magical adept and opened a door to a world that was making itself visible to you.”

 “What—what are you saying . . . that Fillory is real? And that’s where this Beast is from?”

 “Some mythical worlds have their basis in fact.” Eliot opened one of the books.

 “Fact, but—wait, did you say I’m a magical adept? What does that mean?”

 “It means you might have natural magical ability, and that’s why this creature is pursuing you. If it’s crossed over, it might be looking to gather power from whoever it can. Most of us protect ourselves with magical wards, but if you’re not aware of what you can do, you’re vulnerable.” Eliot’s long finger traced down a page and then tapped an ink sketch as he showed it to Quentin. “Look.”

 Quentin leaned over to look at the drawing and his heart leapt into his throat, where it crouched and trembled for the pace of half a dozen heartbeats before he swallowed hard. The drawing of the electric blue moth was too realistic, like it might leap off the page and flutter into his face, filling his senses with that dead, dry scent. He pointed.

 “That . . . that’s what I saw. The moths that cover the Beast’s face! Does it say what it is?” Quentin glanced at the text below and frowned when he discovered it wasn’t in English. “Does it say what this thing is or why it’s after me?”

 “It’s not like an instruction manual, Quentin. It doesn’t offer specific details.” Eliot turned a page. “You mentioned how much you love the Fillory books . . . have you collected any original memorabilia?”

 “A few things. A couple of posters, I have a collection of first edition books, and a button I bought from this guy near my favorite magic shop. He’s a homeless guy, I think, and he’s got this cart full of odds and ends. He knows how much I like Fillory and told me it was the same button that the seafaring rabbits gave Jane Chatwin so she could travel to Fillory whenever she wanted to.”

 “Did you believe that?”

 “No, of course not, but I felt sorry for the guy. I gave him fifty bucks for it.”

 “When did you buy it?”

 “About two weeks before what happened in the garden.”

 “Where is it now?” Eliot asked he closed the book.

 “It’s hidden in my room. I put away all my Fillory things because of my dad.”

 “So it’s still in your house?”

 “Yeah . . . unless my dad found it all and tossed it out.”

 “Right.” Eliot crooked a finger at him. “Come on, can you get up?”

 Quentin threw the blanket aside and got to his feet, one hand hitching at Eliot’s too-big sweats.

 “Yeah, I feel stronger. Where are we going?”

 “To play a hunch.”

 “Where?”

 “At your house. Either that button you bought was a very expensive piece of plastic, or the man you bought it from is working for whatever is chasing you.”

 “You mean, he wanted me to have it?”

 “Precisely. I think Fillory could be very real, and that this button is the key to its door.”

 CHAPTER SIX

 “So. Quentin Coldwater, hmm?” Margo watched from her bedroom doorway as Quentin tugged on the hunter-green sweater Eliot had bought him from the discount clothing store on the corner. It was no fashion statement, but better than the stained tee. “He’s not that cute.”

 “Shh!” Eliot hushed her as he tugged her back into her room and closed the door to give Quentin privacy: he’d bought a pair of serviceable jeans, a pair of clean boxers, and sneakers to go along with the sweater so the kid—who it turned out was only two years his junior, wouldn’t have to go out in those droopy sweats. “Christ, he’ll hear you!”

 “I thought you wanted me to be down with this?” Margo asked, her dark eyes tipping up to Eliot’s, the corners of her mouth quirking up. Eliot sighed; the introduction between Margo and Quentin had gone better than he’d expected, but he’d forgotten how damn perceptive her natural abilities made her.

 “I do want you to be—down—” Eliot frowned at the expression. “Because I need your help with this and so does Quentin. But you don’t have to get into my head, all right?”

 Margo reached out and squeezed his hand.

 “Don’t worry, El. Your secret is safe with me.”

 Eliot cleared his throat as he turned from the doorway to check his appearance in Margo’s full-length mirror.

 “There is no secret. So I find him attractive. So what? It means nothing.” He adjusted his shirt collar. “Are you going to help us?”

 “God knows someone has to come along on this fucking quest-cum-break in.” Margo rolled her eyes.

 “Quentin lives there, Margo! How do you break into your own home?”

 “He hasn’t lived there for almost a year. You do realize you could get arrested?”

 “I’m trying to help him. This Beast is real and it’s after him for some reason! I need to get a look at this button.”

 “Fine. But if you get us arrested, I’m making you my prison wife!”

 “That’s my Bambi.” Eliot bent down to kiss her cheek. “Always thinking about my welfare. Come on.”

 _______________________________

 The Coldwater home turned out to be a modest but stately three-story affair in a suburb about thirty minutes from downtown Brooklyn. The low-trimmed yew hedges were starting to green, dripping with rain, and Quentin stood between Eliot and Margo as they loitered on the opposite corner, looking up at the house.

 “I can make a portal. Or if you know away around back, I can float up to your bedroom window and we can get in that way. We could also use a teleportation spell, but it’s cooperative and—” Eliot broke off as he realized Margo was tugging at his sleeve and that Quentin was no longer standing next to him.

 “Where—?”

 Margo jerked her chin at the house, where Quentin was jogging up the front walk. He stopped at the front door, bent down, and retrieved a spare key from under a realistic-looking rock nestled in a nearby flowerbed. He unlocked the front door and looked over his shoulder as Margo and Eliot caught up with him.

 “You guys better stay out here. I know where everything is and I can grab it all quick, all right? Try to stay out of sight, we have a neighborhood watch here.” Quentin slipped inside before Eliot could protest. Margo glanced down the street.

 “There’s a bus stop shelter at the corner, we can watch from there. Come on.” She took Eliot’s arm and hurried him away as Eliot looked over his shoulder.

 “Are you sure we should have let him go in there alone?”

 “It’s his house, I’m sure he knows what he’s doing! Come on, we need to look inconspicuous.”

 Inside the silent house, Quentin climbed the stairs to his room. He felt like time had slipped backwards and he’d been doing nothing more than whiling away a few hours at the downtown library. He paused at his father’s closed bedroom door a moment: his father would be at work, editing the latest issue of some district textbook. He moved down the hall and opened the door diagonal from his father’s.

 The room looked like it hadn’t been touched in the nearly ten months since Quentin had been away. His bed was made, the blue quilt he’d had for years pulled up over the pillows. The closet door was closed but Quentin knew his father probably hadn’t gotten rid of anything, hoping his son could be cured enough to return home. A few high school pennants were still tacked over his bed, and a shelf across from the bed contained an impressive collection of academic trophies and ribbons. Quentin barely glanced at them as he crossed the room and moved aside an end table to reveal a small door. It was locked with a hook-and-eye combo, which Quentin pried open before he yanked the rectangular door open to reveal a crawl space. Inside were his rolled-up Fillory posters, his vintage messenger bag (identical to the one Martin Chatwin carried to Fillory with him in The World in the Walls,) his first editions of the Fillory books, carefully bagged, and the small velvet bag containing the button the homeless vendor had sold him. Quentin slipped the button into the messenger bag, along with all his Fillory books, then opened the closet to add a few shirts and several pairs of jeans in as well. He tugged open his bedroom window and lowered the bag as much as he could, dropping it into the bushes below. It shimmered and vanished a moment later—Eliot’s handiwork—and Quentin grinned.

 If Eliot is right and I am a magical adept, he can teach me what he knows! Magic . . . real magic, just like I always—

 “Hello, Curly-Q.”

 Quentin turned, his heart giving a startled thwack at the words. His father stood in the bedroom doorway, his expression somehow sad and angry at the same time.

 “Dad.”

 “I knew you’d come back here eventually.” Ted Coldwater stepped into the room. Quentin glanced around, sudden anxiety crowding his chest.

 “You—you’re supposed to—I mean, I thought you’d be at work.”

 “I took some time off when you went missing from Dolborough.” He held up both hands and approached Quentin. “Don’t you worry, son. Everything’s going to be all right. You don’t need to be scared . . . no one’s angry that you left the hospital. We’ve all been worried, that’s all. Very worried.”

 “We?”

 “Yes, son. Myself, Dr. Beekman, everyone at Dolborough. But you don’t need to worry. Once we get you back there, we’re going to try some new treatments that—”

 “No! I’m not going back there! Ever! I’m eighteen now dad, and—and I met people after I left there! Friends who are going to help me!”

 “Quentin. Ever since you harmed yourself, I’ve had power of attorney. You can’t make decisions on your own, you have no idea what’s best for you!”

 Outside, from the other end of the block, sirens began to sound. The wails grew closer, and Quentin stared at his father.

 “What did you do?”

 “What’s best for you, Curly-Q. I called them the moment I saw you downstairs. They’re here to help you and so am I—”

 Quentin bolted, pushing his father aside as he raced out the door and down the hallway. He took the steps two at a time, hit the landing, and yanked open the door to find Dr. Beekman and half a dozen policeman standing there. Dr. Beekman smiled, but it never touched the man’s eyes.

 “Quentin. We’re very glad to see you safe, very glad indeed.” He nodded to the policemen, who seized Quentin by the front of his sweater and dragged him from the doorway. Quentin fought them as they carried him bodily over to the ambulance, followed by Dr. Beekman and Quentin’s father.

 “Please, don’t hurt him, not if you can help it, he doesn’t understand what he’s doing!” Ted said, and Quentin looked around wildly.

 “Eliot!” He cried.

 At the end of the block, Margo had Quentin’s messenger bag slung across her chest as she used both hands to hang onto Eliot’s arm. Eliot was struggling in her grip as he watched the cops heft Quentin off his feet and carry him to the ambulance.

 “Eliot, don’t! You can’t just charge over there tossing battle magic around and you know that! Not only will that get you arrested, it might possibly get you dissected at the nearest government facility once they see what you can do! Damn it, El, stop!” Margo felt her grip slipping.

 “Kinnimear, a’thane azu!” She chanted it three times, in rapid succession, and felt the magic shudder down her arms and through her fingertips, freezing Eliot where he stood. Only his eyes moved, and she rounded him so he could see her. Despite his locked expression, she could see the fury there.

 “I’m sorry. Don’t hate me, El, but I’m not letting you get arrested and God knows what else because of some kid you’ve known two days! We can help him, but not like this!” Margo said, hardening her heart as Quentin called Eliot’s name, then hers.

 “Let me go! Get off me! Eliot! Margo!” Quentin shrieked as the cops hauled him into the ambulance and many strong hands buckled him into a stretcher. Thick leather restraints snaked around his wrists and ankles and he lifted his head to see his father standing by the open doors, watching. Tears stood on his unshaven cheeks.

 “It’s gonna be all right, Curly-Q. They’ll take care of you. I’ll come see you when they say I can.”

 “No! Dad please, don’t let them do this! He’ll find me there, we need to open the door before He does, you don’t understand! You have to let me—owwwww, no, please!” Quentin cried as Dr. Beekman rucked up his sweater sleeve and slipped a needle tip into his inner elbow. Quentin felt the warm sensation of liquid sedative entering his vein there and it spread rapidly, making his extremities numb and his thoughts lose their cohesion. He tried to speak, but his lips felt like as useless as those of a dying fish, gasping out its last pointless breaths at the bottom of a trawler. The sound of the siren chased him down into unconsciousness as the ambulance pulled away from the curb and headed east, toward Queens.

 CHAPTER SEVEN

 “It seems that Quentin’s issues go far beyond depression and hallucinations, Ted.”

 The words echoed in a bubbly quality that Quentin almost couldn’t make out. The faces of his father and Dr. Beekman seemed to float high above him, like untethered helium balloons. He could sense that his wrists and ankles were restrained to the bed, the same one he’d slept in for the past ten months.

 Since being returned to Dolborough, Dr. Beekman ordered that Quentin be kept moderately sedated and under physical restraint. In the 24 hours since, Quentin had done his best to keep Eliot’s face in his mind. Despite his efforts, the drugs made it fade and blur, and with every moment he didn’t show, Quentin’s certainty that he’d been abandoned by his new friend grew.

 “Is there anything that can be done?” Ted asked as he looked down at his addled son, and Dr. Beekman nodded.

 “I believe the answer is an anterior cingulotomy.”

 “What does that involve?”

 “It’s a psychosurgical treatment for schizophrenia, depression, and certain types of OCD. We place bilateral lesions in the anterior cingulate, which slows or stops certain impulses to the cingulum bundle. It should eliminate Quentin’s hallucinations about this Beast creature and ease most of his depression symptoms.”

 “What are the risks?”

 “Possible hemorrhaging, seizures . . . but those are usually rare. He might experience headaches, nausea, some vision problems, but those should fade with time. Ted . . . I know that brain surgery isn’t what you wanted for your son, but I believe it’s the best option for him. We have a surgeon over at John Hopkins that works with our facility that could perform the procedure—Quentin would be in good hands.”

 Ted reached down and touched Quentin’s face.

 “If you really think it’s the only answer.”

 “I do. Come with me to my office. I’ll make some calls and have you sign some papers.” Dr. Beekman led Ted out the door, leaving Quentin to struggle with his opium-soaked thoughts.

 Gonna crack open my skull, he realized as he moved through a fading consciousness that was filled with shifting lights and the slow mental thunder of cognitive impairment. Can’t stop them. Eliot, where . . .

 Darkness rushed up to envelop him, and Quentin fell headlong into its embrace.

 ________________________________

 “Are you ever going to talk to me again?”

 Eliot glanced up from the bar, where he was mixing a drink with more force than was probably necessary. Margo watched him from the couch, her feet tucked up under her thighs.

 “Eliot. Come on. I know what I did was wrong—”

 “Wrong?” Eliot slammed the lid down on his stainless steel ice bucket. “It was more than wrong, Margo! You used restraint magic on me! In the three and a half years we’ve known each other, you’ve never cast on me like that!”

 “I know.” Margo stood up and went to him. His slender frame stiffened but he didn’t retreat, as he’d been doing since she’d released him from the spell at the bus stop near Quentin’s house. “Because up until yesterday, I didn’t have to. You know damn well what would have happened if I’d let you go over there and blast the cops with battle magic! They would have shot you into so much big eye swiss cheese and then played Operation with your corpse at the nearest morgue! It wasn’t the answer, and the only one who would have been regretting it is me, because you’d be way too fucking dead to reconsider your poor choice!”

 “He was calling for us and we just stood there and let it happen. We let those bastards take Quentin back to that hell hole of a psycho ward! Do you know what he must be thinking, if they’re letting him think at all?” Eliot glared at her. “Do you even care about him?”

 “He’s your pet project! I didn’t realize I was required to care!”

 “You—” Eliot began in a sharp, rising tone when a knock on the front door interrupted him. His amber eyes flashed. “If it’s that menu boy from Pei Wei again, I’m going to turn him into a fucking human potsticker!” He yanked the door back. Penny stood there, along with his lover Kady, a temperamental high-level hedge with flashing eyes and wild brunette curls. Eliot scowled. “Oh, marvelous. Punch and Judgey. What?” He asked, and Penny returned the scowl in equal measure.

 “For one thing, your mental wards need serious repair. And for another? We can hear you right through the fucking ceiling! Will you just fuck or kill each other or whatever the problem is so Kady and I can get some peace?”

 “And will you mind your own business for once?”

 “Who’s this Quentin?” Kady asked, shouldering her way into the apartment. Penny followed her and Eliot’s fists clenched at the intrusion. Margo sighed.

 “Just tell her, Eliot.” Her gaze slid over to Penny. “Maybe they can help us.”

 “And why would they do that?”

 “Look.” Penny interrupted. “If what you said is true and that skinny nerd you had here really is like us, we can’t let a bunch of head peepers keep him locked up. Way too many of our kind are dying because no one helps them understand what they are, and those that do find out end up smoking themselves trying spells they aren’t ready for!”

 “That’s not the only issue. Quentin unlocked a door to another world and now some kind of Beast is chasing him. It’s how he ended up at Dolborough in the first place, because no one believes him! They think he’s hallucinating.” Eliot adjusted the collar of his shirt. “If you really want to help one of our own, then help Margo and me break Quentin out of that place before it’s too late.”

 Penny and Kady traded glances and Eliot could almost see the silent, telepathic conversation that took place before Penny nodded.

 “Fine. You’ve got a deal, Schmendrick . . . if you make me a drink before we talk about it.”

 __________________________________________

  “This sounds like a bunch of nerdy fanboy shit.”

 Eliot rubbed the bridge of his nose with two fingers as Penny leaned over the spellbook and peered at the image of the moth Quentin had identified. They were four whiskey sours into their meeting, and Eliot had gone over Quentin’s story twice now.

 “I know what it sounds like, but you know as well as we do that what Quentin saw was real. But no one at the hospital is going to believe it, and now that he escaped, they might Randle McMurphy him to make sure he doesn’t cause any more trouble!”

 “That’s their answer for anything they can’t explain away.” Margo sipped her drink. “And the kid doesn’t deserve this . . . he’s eighteen and he hasn’t even had the chance to become a magician.”

 “The only way we’re going to get into Dolborough is by acting like we belong there.” Eliot said, and Kady shook back her curls.

 “You mean pose as patients?”

 “No. According to their website, Dolborough partners with a few medical universities in the city, and it’s a teaching hospital twice a week. With some scrubs and illusion work, we can pose as medical students and get to Quentin that way. We find his floor, Penny travels into his room to unlock it from the inside, and we portal our asses out before anyone knows we’re even there!”

 Penny knocked back the rest of his drink and grimaced at the excited light in Eliot’s amber eyes.

 “I’m gonna hate this.”

 CHAPTER EIGHT

 “Right this way, move along please, follow me.”

 Eliot, Kady, and Margo marched along with the two dozen or so other med students from Queens University, led by an attending physician and dressed in blue scrubs and dark shoes like the rest of them. The hedges each wore a lanyard with a laminated ID card clipped to it; Eliot had picked them up at a souvenir stand near Central Park and had changed the photos of the Statue of Liberty into student IDs with a bit of illusion work. They had left Penny in the lobby, shielded from sight with an invisibility spell, until they could find Quentin’s room number. It had been simple enough to slip into the crowd of students as they had gathered in the lobby: in their identical scrubs, they blended in, and the attending physician had barely glanced back since gathering them.

 “Did you bring it?” Margo asked Eliot from the corner of her mouth as they were led along, and Eliot nodded as he slipped one hand into his pocket and closed his fingers around Quentin’s plastic ID bracelet.

 “We need to get to a nurse’s station where we can scan it.” He replied quietly as the attending slid his ID card through a security pad and opened the doors to a restricted area.

 “Move quickly now!” He barked, and Eliot straightened his spine as he scanned the area beyond the door. There was a small lobby, two vending machines, and diagonal from that, a semi-circular nurse’s station. Two older women stood behind the counter, glancing at charts and murmuring to each other. Eliot cut a glance at Margo and Kady.

 “That’s where I need to be.” He hissed. “Create a diversion!”

 “What do we—”

 Crack! Kady’s open palm snapped against Margo’s cheek, cutting off her words and making the shorter hedge stagger back a few steps. Eliot stared at Kady, his mouth falling open. Kady’s green eyes glittered with challenge, and Margo recovered.

 “You bitch!” She was on Kady a moment later, her hands twisted into Kady’s curls, and the two of them went to the floor in a barrage of curses and flashing, painted nails. The other students, the attending, and the station nurses rushed over to separate them, and Eliot ducked down to slip past them and behind the counter. A scanner sat to one side of the station monitor, and Eliot pulled the bracelet from his pocket. A red light reflected against the shiny plastic, and the small readout spat back Quentin’s information at him.

 “Room 2505.” Eliot murmured as he risked a peek over the counter. Margo and Kady were still in the middle of the knot of shouting, staring crowd as the nurses and attending tried to break the girls up. Eliot dropped his mental wards and let Penny in.

 2505. I’ll meet you there in five minutes!

 Eliot hurried toward the nearest elevator, knowing Margo and Kady could extract themselves from the melee and make themselves scarce before the others realized they wouldn’t be able to say for sure who had started the fight.

 ______________________________________

 Penny felt the familiar shiver in his nerves as he traveled from the lobby to Quentin’s room. He took a moment to glance around at the surroundings: a dresser, barred windows, and a metal-frame bed. The kid Penny had come to think of as the Nerdling was strapped to the bed with thick leather buckles, both hands and feet, and it roused a sick, angry feeling in the traveler. No one of his kind deserved this, even a dork like this. He dropped the invisibility shield and leaned over to pat the kid’s cheek.

 “Hey! Hey, come on, look at me! Yo! Nerdling! Snap out of it!”

 Quentin’s eyelids twitched and then blinked open. His dark gaze was muddled, his irises blown wide with prescription dope. Penny began to work the heavy buckles open.

 “I don’t wanna have to carry your skinny ass, so come on!” He slapped Quentin smartly on one cheek, and Quentin stared up at him.

 “The hell.” He mumbled, and Penny got his hands free.

 “Hell is what these people are gonna put you in unless you try and focus on what I’m saying!” He freed Quentin’s bare feet and shoved them into a pair of sneakers from the dresser. He pulled Quentin into a sitting position when a distorted chiming sound began behind him. Penny turned, his stomach clenching as the air wavered with dark magic. A hand stretched out from the tattered framed poster on the wall, one with many extra fingers. It gestured, stretching the frame into the size of a full-length mirror, as if it was made of taffy. A figure stepped out as the plexiglass wavered like a pool of still water that had been disturbed.  The creature, dressed in a natty grey suit and polished dress shoes, was whistling. His entire face was obscured by fluttering moths. The doorknob to the room rattled and Eliot’s voice rang in Penny’s head.

 Let me in!

 “Ah ah!” The Beast chided Penny as he stepped closer to the bed. “I believe that’s mine!” He shot a hand out, deformed with many extra fingers, and Penny gasped in pain and surprise as he was flung against the opposite wall. His head struck the dresser and dark spots bloomed in front of his eyes. Agony wracked his senses a moment later and he gave a breathless gasp as he turned his head toward the door. Eliot’s shadow loomed in the small square mesh-lined window.

 Penny! Open the fucking door!

 Penny lifted a hand toward it, but the spell died on his lips as the syllables fell into a meaningless jumble within his addled consciousness. The sound of the doorknob rattling took on an echoing quality as the Beast tugged Quentin from the bed by his arms and pulled him across the room. Quentin turned his head and stared at Penny, wide-eyed and helpless, as the creature whistled a happy little tune, dragged the teen through the poster frame, and vanished.

  Part Two: One World Among Many

 CHAPTER NINE

 “He’s dead, Margo.”

 Margo glanced up from the loft’s bar at Eliot’s words. Kady sat with Penny on the couch, dabbing at a swollen, red lump on the back of his head with a damp cloth. Margo brought them each a glass of brandy and frowned when she had to push the tumbler into Eliot’s hands before he would grip it.

 “We don’t know that. Yes, the Beast took him, but it has to be for a reason! If he’d wanted to kill Quentin, he would have painted that room with his brains with the flick of his hand!”

 Eliot closed his eyes and let his head fall against the back of the Eames chair. The four exhausted hedges had managed to portal themselves out of Dolborough before security reached Quentin’s room, with Kady and Eliot having to almost carry Penny. The traveler was stunned and had only just begun to come around as they’d regrouped at Eliot’s loft.

 “She’s right.” Penny nodded, his voice a bit stronger than it had been a half hour ago. “The Beast said, ‘I believe that’s mine’ right before he—fuck!” Penny flinched as Kady pressed a square of gauze to his head wound. “Right before he dragged your buddy off. How the hell did he find us, anyway?”

 “Quentin told me the drugs they were giving him at Dolbrough made it hard for the Beast to track him, but it was only a matter of time before the bastard found him! I warded him when he was with me, but once they took him back to Dolborough, he was vulnerable.” Eliot pushed his dark hair back with one hand. “The door Quentin opened had to be to Fillory. It’s the only thing that makes sense! Once he had that button, Fillory presented itself to him, only the Beast was guarding the entrance. Guarding it, and waiting for him.” Eliot rubbed a hand over his chin. “He told me it happened right in his own neighborhood, in Brooklyn, but I don’t know the exact location, and there’s no guarantee that the door will open for us, even if we find it.” He drained half the brandy from his glass. “We have to find another way.”

 Margo got to her feet and left the room. Kady taped the gauze to Penny’s head and squeezed his hand, and he allowed her to touch her forehead to his before resuming his usual stoic expression. Margo returned, Quentin’s messenger bag in one hand.

 “Fuck me if I didn’t forget we brought this from Quentin’s house the day they took him back to Dolborough!”

 “And what good will that do, exactly?” Eliot sighed. “I already looked inside, there’s nothing but clothes and those Fillory books.”

 Margo opened the bag’s clasp and up-ended it over the couch. The Fillory books slid out, each one encased in a protective plastic sheath, along with a small assortment of clothing. She frowned and pulled the bag open wide, dipping one hand in and feeling around. Her fingers slid along a thin mouth of fabric, and she tugged on it. A Velcro pocket opened and Margo smiled as she pulled out a small black velvet bag.

 “Oh yeah, smart guy? What do you call this?” She pulled the drawstring open and shook a clear plastic octagonal white box into her hand. It was about the size of a half dollar and contained an eggshell-white button. Eliot and the others stared at it.

 “Is that . . .?” Eliot asked, and Margo set the case on the table before popping the lid open. Penny leaned close.

 “Fuck me! Can you feel that? Like it’s practically leaking magic!”

 Kady reached out with both hands, her slim hands working in the air above the button.

 “Wherever that kid got this from, it’s the real deal.”

 “Quentin told me he bought it from a homeless vendor in his neighborhood. Whoever that was or is must have been working for the Beast . . . He wanted Quentin to be able to open that door.”

 “But if he didn’t know he has any magical ability, what good would that have done either of them?” Penny frowned. “That’s like giving someone a key to a car that has a fucked-up motor.”

 “Except that Quentin isn’t fucked up.” Eliot’s stomach turned as his quick mind began to make connections. “He’s untapped—what’s inside him is pure, and that’s what the Beast is after. For whatever reason, He’s taken Quentin to Fillory to gain access to Quentin’s magic.” His hand tightened around the forgotten tumbler in his hand. “To drain him.”

 __________________________________

 “Wakey Wakey!”

 Quentin struggled to consciousness at the sound of that voice, the one that had filled his dreams with terror and his bed with rank fear sweat and urine for months. He forced his eyes open and a pained, surprised whimper of pain escaped his throat as he realized tough steel manacles encircled his wrists, paired with thick iron chains that suspended him from a cold stone wall. He kicked his bare feet, only to find that they were secured as well. A cold, fetid dampness against his skin made him shiver, and he realized as he came fully conscious that he was naked—the blue-checked hospital gown he’d been wearing when the Beast claimed him was laying in a nearby corner in a sad heap. The Beast himself stood in front of him, his face still obscured with the large moths. Panic gnawed at Quentin’s nerves as that musty, dry smell assaulted his nostrils.

 “Quentin Coldwater.” The voice purred, laced with a posh British accent. “I’m so pleased to have you in my company! It’s been much too long since we last met, wouldn’t you agree?”

 “Who are you? How do you know my name?” Quentin asked, trying to arch his back away from the damp stone. It was impossible to see the man’s face, but amusement laced his tone.

 “Why, I’ve known it for years!” One multi-fingered hand reached out to stroke Quentin’s cheek. “My poor lad . . . you really have no idea who you are, do you.”

 “I’m—I’m just Quentin. Please, whoever you are, you’re making a terrible mistake!”

 “There’s no mistake, dear boy. The prophecy is at hand . . . the events that are destined to bring my reign and my life to an end!” The Beast’s voice rose in pitch, cracking with anger.

 “Your reign? Fillory . . .” Quentin glanced around the cold stone room. A Fillorian crest, faded but visible, covered much of the space on the wall opposite him. “Fillory is real.” He murmured, and the Beast chuckled.

 “Of course Fillory is real! And you’ve known it your whole life, Quentin. Even as you played your silly questing games with Julia, you always looked for a way in that went far beyond fantasy. The truth slept deep within you, and now it’s awake, but it slumbered too long, it seems! I was a wily fox, you see, and I gave you a way to unlock the door, only I was waiting there to trap you, at last!”

 “The button.” Quentin yanked at the manacles that pinched and rubbed against his skin. “Eliot was right! You gave that button to the vendor to sell to me!”

 The Beast’s open palm cracked across Quentin’s cheek.

 “He can’t help you, and he can’t help Fillory! The prophecy is at an end, my sweet boy, and once I drain you of your magic and make a tasty meal of your flesh, every door into Fillory will be mine to command!” A hand with extra, seeking fingers wrapped around his throat. “I’m going to devour you, and when your would-be magician king sees what I will leave of your corpse, it will drive him mad!”

 Quentin swallowed hard, his Adam’s apple bobbing against the creature’s hand.

 “I don’t understand.” He said in a strained voice. “Who are you?”

 “I rule all of Fillory, past, present, and now, the future!” The hand fell away from Quentin’s throat and he screamed in terror and sense memory as the moths engulfed him, their wings landing dust-filled kisses against every inch of his skin.

 CHAPTER TEN

 A late-April shower was moving through Chelsea, drenching empty sidewalks and dripping off storefront awnings in a steady patter. Thick rivulets of rain scrawled down the glass of Eliot’s loft windows, making shadows on its occupants’ faces like tribal tattoos. Eliot, Margo, Penny, and Kady stood in a circle around the coffee table, their hands joined. The button sat in its case there, the lid open.

 “So . . . if anyone wants to bow out of this little field trip, speak now and forever reveal your cowardice.” Eliot said as he slipped one of Quentin’s Fillory books into the pocket of his camel coat, his gaze flicking to each member of the party, one by one. Penny’s eyes narrowed.

 “Fuck you, like you’re not shitting dry peach pits?”

 “Have your pissing contest later, boys.” Margo squeezed Eliot’s hand. “I don’t think Quentin has the time.” She glanced at the book. “What’s that for?”

 “It has maps in it. I was thinking that might be of help to us.”

 “Are you sure this is even going to work? If Quentin had the button all this time, why didn’t it take him to Fillory when he touched it?” Kady asked.

 “Because he hasn’t accessed his magical abilities yet. He’s untapped . . . the button might have sensed his innate powers but couldn’t make the connection with him.” Eliot looked down at the button. “Are we ready?”

 “Ready.”

 “Yeah.”

 “Just fucking touch the stupid thing!”

 Eliot opened the hand that gripped Margo’s just enough to float the button into his palm. When he closed his fingers around it, the air in the loft seemed to implode with the sound of a pile of wet laundry hitting a tile floor. Eliot felt himself being drawn inward, as if he was turning liquid and being sucked up through a very long straw. He struggled to hang onto his consciousness as his inner ear spun like a risky carnival ride. His form then solidified again and he tumbled through crisp, sweet air before falling with a heavy splash into chilly water. He fought his way to the surface, gasping like a landed fish. The others popped up all around him, struggling to get air in their lungs as well, and Eliot realized they’d fallen into the waters of an ornate fountain. A granite statue of a centaur, three times Eliot’s height, graced the center of the round fountain, and water spurted from its mouth and from the tip of the gilded spear it held. Eliot half-paddled to the fountain’s edge, climbed out, and then pocketed the button before he helped Margo onto dry land as she coughed and shuddered.

 “Fuck!”

 “Are you okay, Bambi?” Eliot asked, pushing her sodden hair from her face, and she thumped him on the chest twice with her small fists.

 “No, I’m not okay! That fucking button turned me into a human enema and squirted me up the multiverse’s motherfucking colon!” She hit him again. “You dick!”

 “All right, okay!” He took hold of her wrists. “I know it wasn’t exactly first class on Jet Blue, but it worked. It’s pretty clear we aren’t on earth anymore.” He looked up at the fountain. Kady pushed her curls back and wrung water from them.

 “How can we be sure we’re in Fillory?”

 “Children of earth!”

 The party turned as one as the deep voice spoke. A towering male centaur, his coat a mix of silver and white, stood watching them. He held a spear in one hand. His curly hair, the same color as his coat and tail, fell well past his bare shoulders. His eyes were the color of wet slate. The group stared at him as he gave a graceful bow.

 “I welcome you all to Fillory.”

 Eliot cleared his throat as his heart tried to climb up into his trachea.

 “I think that’s a pretty telling clue.”

__________________________________________

 The centaur’s name was Clabbercloud. He worked as a sentry for the Northern Meadows clan, who worked mostly in weaving and textiles. As children of earth, Eliot and the others were welcomed with solemn but sincere respect by the clan and given dry clothing, hot black currant tea, and delicate oat cakes in Clabbercloud’s rangy tent. The interior ceiling was draped with gauzy silk squares of material in varying shades of red, giving the space an Arabian Nights pastiche.

 “Long have we awaited more children of Earth to visit Fillory. Many had given up hope you would ever arrive, and we would be forever ruled by the Many-Fingered King.”

 “The Many-Fingered King?” Penny frowned. “Hang on . . . that thing I saw in Quentin’s room at the hospital! It had a bunch of extra fingers! That’s the king of Fillory?”

 Clabbercloud snorted.

 “He is more a ruthless dictator than a king. We live in fear of him! But it was not always so . . . when he came to Fillory as a boy, he and his siblings ruled wisely, but over time, our king’s quest for power grew so that he began to study the dark magic, spells that twisted his heart and mind. He learned of the prophecy of the Light Bringer, and since then, he has worked to destroy the one who would dethrone him.”

 “Wait, hold up.” Margo held up a hand. “What’s the Light Bringer, what prophecy, and who was this Squidward-looking asshole before he was a king?”

 Clabbercloud moved over to a wooden chest filled with books, their covers thick and ornate. He chose one from the pile and brought it to the group, opening it to a marked page.

 “Look upon this.”

 Eliot took the book and settled it across his knees. The others leaned over his shoulders to see. The left page featured scrawled Fillorian text, and the other, which was torn away at the upper right corner so about a quarter of the page was missing, featured two figures ascending from a fountain. One was radiating with light and reaching for an open jade crown of many colors, which was surrounded by a cloud of what appeared to be butterflies or moths, but the other figure was mostly missing from the torn page. Only the legs and feet were visible.

 “The Light Bringer.” Kady glanced up at Clabbercloud. “And who’s this?” She pointed at the incomplete figure.

 The centaur shook himself.

 “There are many who believe he is little more than a guide. Others think he is something of a page to the Light Bringer.”

 “So where is this place?” Penny asked pointing to the drawing, and Clabbercloud cocked a hind leg as he worked through a plate of oat cakes.

 “The fountain is said to be the same that can be found at Coronation Beach, where all Fillorian rulers are crowned. It lies twenty miles south of our village.”

 “When I saw the Beast, he wasn’t wearing that crown.” Penny nodded to the drawing.

 “The Many-Fingered King wears no crown, Traveler. It is power and submission, not fame and attention, that he desires most. The crown lies in a chest at Coronation Beach, and none but the Light Bringer can open it.”

 “So you believe this Light Bringer is your next king?” Margo asked, and the centaur nodded.

 “Only Children of Earth can rule here.” He replied, and Margo glanced at Eliot.

 “So technically . . . any one of you boys—you or Penny or even Quentin—could be the king they’ve been waiting for.”

 “But we don’t know where Quentin is.” Eliot said, his fingers tightening around the cup he held. Clabbercloud turned his head to reply when another sentry approached the open tent flap, his spear jabbing at the back of what looked like an oversized ferret. The thing was walking on its hind legs and it had one deformed eye that made it bulge from its socket like an infected boil. It carried a miniature version of Quentin’s messenger bag and wore a red and black leather jerkin, but nothing else. The sentry goaded the creature inside.

 “This intruder says it has a message for the children of earth!”

 Eliot rose to his feet. Although the ferret barely came to his knees, the creature didn’t cower. It withdrew a velvet bag from its jerkin.

 “The High King of Fillory and Lord of All He Surveys and Beyond offers parley for the life of the human called Quentin Coldwater! He sends this, in the hopes that it will spur you to bargain quickly.”

 Eliot took the bag, pulled the top open and shook it out. A pinky finger tumbled out into his hand and he jerked back, color draining from his cheeks. While the digit bore no identifying marks, Eliot’s heightened senses and his familiarity with Quentin’s aura told him that it belonged to the younger magical adept. The skin and meat around the first knuckle had been gnawed. Cold arrows of dread punched into Eliot’s gut and spread before the tips burst into flame and replaced it with fury. His long fingers curled around the severed thing as Margo, Penny, and Kady stared with varying expressions of shock and disgust. The ferret bared its sharp teeth.

 “His Highness will bring Quentin Coldwater to Coronation Beach at sunrise and offer you his bargain there. If you refuse or do not show . . .” The ferret licked its lips suggestively. Eliot took a deep breath and turned his back on the creature.

 “Are you supposed to return to His Majesty with my answer?”

 “No, magician. Your presence or lack of it at sunrise tomorrow is your answer!”

 “Excellent.” Eliot spat the word out before he turned and shot out his left hand, the air around it shimmering with magic. The force push knocked the ferret off its feet, drove it through the air, and impaled it on the sentry’s spear by the back of its head. The force of the push popped the deformed eye from its socket, leaving it to drip thickly off the tip while the creature twitched the last of its life out on the shaft.

 “You literally killed the messenger.” Margo said after a few moments of silence, and Eliot slipped Quentin’s finger back into the velvet bag.

 “Pity it didn’t live long enough to appreciate the irony of the message I gave it in return. The bastard used Quentin’s finger as a fucking teething toy.” Eliot said as the sentry shook his spear and sent the dead mammal flopping to the ground. “Clabbercloud, which way is it to Coronation Beach?”

 “My sentries can take you as far as the Rainbow Bridge, but we cannot venture any further. Beyond our borders, child of earth, you and your companions must face the Many-Fingered King alone.”

 CHAPTER ELEVEN

 Coronation Beach was a stark study in negative contrast: soft black sand stretched for nearly ten miles against seawaters that were foamy white instead of blue. Dawn approached, wrapped in thick swatches of fog as Eliot and his companions reached the beach and stood near the fountain Clabbercloud had mentioned. In the center of the pool, a granite king stood with his sword at the ready. Eliot squinted into the near-darkness and frowned.

 “I wonder if the sun rises in the east here. Wasn’t there something in the books about a daily eclipse?” He paused and pulled the Fillory book from his coat to flip through it. “Quentin would know.” He said, almost to himself, and Margo peered off into the horizon.

 “We can’t even be sure Fillory operates the way it does in the books. At least I don’t remember a psycho moth man in any of them.”

 “Flattery will get you nowhere, dear girl!”

 Eliot turned at the words, his heart volleying up into his throat. The Beast was approaching from the opposite direction, dressed in the same fine suit Quentin had seen him in previously. He walked with a skip in his step, the moths swirling around his face in a noxious cloud. He dragged Quentin along behind him on a length of enchanted chain, the other end clipped to a black collar that seemed to writhe and shift against his skin like an agitated snake. Quentin stumbled across the sand, dressed in a pair of ragged linen breeches and nothing else. His right hand and arm were painted with blood, and in the low light, Eliot could see the ragged stump of the pinky finger. The Beast halted a few feet from the group and glanced at the rising sun.

 “How considerate of you to be punctual!”

 “Fuck your faux manners.” Eliot replied in conversational tone. “The talking rat you sent told me you wanted to meet here.”

 “My loyal servant, who you killed in cold blood. He was unarmed. Quite cowardly of you!”

 “About as cowardly as abusing a kid you gaslighted into a mental ward!” Margo snapped, and Eliot gave her an approving glance before he stepped forward.

 “And speaking of cowards, why don’t you show me your face before we make a deal? I’d like to know who I’m speaking to.” He flicked a glance at Quentin, whose wordless plea was clear.

 Be careful.

 “Very well. I don’t suppose I have any reason to conceal myself anymore, do I?” The Beast waved a hand and the moths dispersed, seeming to dissolve as they moved away from his face. Behind his living mask, Eliot saw a man with a rather bored countenance, a man with graying hair and a weak chin—a man you wouldn’t look twice at if you passed him on the street. Only his eyes gave a clue to his power, and they glittered as he met Eliot’s gaze.

 “Dude looks like a life insurance salesman.” Penny muttered, and the Beast chucked.

 “You clueless children. You have no idea who I truly am . . . although perhaps our dear Quentin here might tell you. I’m the once and future High King of Fillory, the missing sibling of a group of children who ruled here long ago. One who found a way to remain here always, to remain and rule, as I was always destined to!”

 Quentin stared at him.

 “Martin Chatwin.” He murmured, and the Beast nodded.

 “Precisely. Now.” He turned back toward Eliot. “As to the terms of my bargain. You give me back my button, agree to forsake the prophecy, and leave Fillory forever. In return, I will allow all of you to live.”

 Eliot tipped his eyes up to the dawning sky as he considered the terms. He thought of Clabbercloud, the story of the Beast’s complete rule over Fillory, his cruelty, and the good he and the others could bring to Fillory—if he could defeat the powerful magician in one-on-one battle.

 I learned magic for my own purposes and gain, Eliot thought to himself. But if what the centaur told us is true, I may have a destiny here. And what good is having all this power if I can’t outwit and out-cast this asshole? Top bitch in Chelsea . . . time to prove that to yourself and to everyone else.

 “Here’s my counter offer.” Eliot said, removing his long camel coat and undoing the buttons on the linen shirt the centaurs had loaned him. It was ill-fitting across his shoulders and down his arms, so he stripped it off, exposing his hedge tattoos. “We battle, one on one, for the crown. The winner gets control of Fillory, and the loser goes six feet under.”

 “Eliot, no!” Quentin spoke up, and the Beast yanked on the length of chain, choking off any further complaints. He stroked his goatee.

 “An interesting wager!” He eyed Eliot’s tattoos. “I see you’re a hedge witch . . .” He led Quentin to a nearby boulder and used magic to weld the end of the chain into it, trapping him there like a disobedient dog. “Isn’t it ironic that I learned magic in much the same way!” He glanced at Margo and the others. “You realize, of course, if you lose this battle, the lives of your friends, including this delicious little dish—” He nodded to Quentin— “are all forfeit as well.”

 “Then bring it.” Penny challenged, eliciting a nod from Kady. Marg scoffed.

 “If El goes down, which I doubt, then it’s three against one, Beast Boy.”

 “You’d battle me for table scraps?” The Beast asked, glancing at Quentin. “Courageous but idiotic.”

 “Do you agree to my offer or not?” Eliot asked, and the Beast nodded, looking almost jovial.

 “Agreed—let’s end this, shall we?” The older magician raised his hands before he finished speaking, a magic missile blasting from his palm. Eliot cursed and strengthened his wards with one move of his hand. The blast rocked him backward and he murmured in Arabic. A blue glowing rope of pure energy flowed from his fingertips and entangled the Beast. Eliot jerked the rope, adding a dose of telekinetic energy to it, and yanked his enemy’s face into his closed right fist. The Beast grunted as the cartilage in his nose shattered under the impact. Eliot then force-pushed him into the air and sent him flying across the beach, where he bounced off a cluster of rocks before swaying to his feet, bleeding from his nose and chuckling.

 “Impressive, hedge witch! Now let me show you what true power is!” He raised one hand, spread his thumb and index finger apart, then began to pinch them together slowly. Eliot gasped in surprise as his air supply was cut off, and he struggled to counter it. His lungs burned in panic and he fought the sensation, using his fading energy to summon his telekinesis. He envisioned the Beast’s fingers smoking, then glowing like banked embers, before bursting into flame. The ruling king of Fillory screamed in agony as those two fingers imploded in a flash of bright orange flame and then fell to the ground in ashes. Margo pumped a fist.

 “Yes!” She hissed, and Eliot took three gulps of air before moving his right hand in rapid circles, the fingers moving precisely in repetitive motions until glowing runes flowed from them. They hissed and crackled and Eliot drew that hand toward his chest before flinging the runes outward. They slammed into the Beast, burning away some of his suit and leaving deep, bleeding groves in his chest and arms. The older magician fell to his knees, stunned, and Eliot advanced on him, gearing up for another volley.

 Take him apart piece by piece if I need to . . .

 “It seems . . . I underestimated your abilities, hedge witch!” The Beast said, deep, glowing gashes visible in his torso, the edges charred. “But Fillory is mine, and who lives or dies is at my command! Perhaps you need proof!” He turned toward Quentin and raised both hands. A white-hot whip, made of pure energy, grew from both palms and twisted into a thick braid. Quentin watched, chained to the rock and helpless. The whip hissed and writhed like downed power line, and Eliot whispered a speed spell with his ebbing magical energy. He felt his wards flicker and fail as the spell allowed him to move at five times his normal speed. He reached Quentin, shielding the boy with his body, his bare arms stretched wide, and Quentin screamed as the whip sliced into Eliot’s left shoulder and cut diagonally across his body, opening him like a flayed trout. Quentin screamed as blood sprayed upward in a crimson arc.

 “ELIOT!”

 “EL!” Margo’s cry of agony echoed Quentin’s as Eliot dropped to his knees, his expression filled with the knowledge of his death but quietly triumphant as well. He fell to one side, his amber eyes half-open, blood staining the sand in a wide, spreading pool. The Beast watched, laughing.

 “The king is dead!” He shouted in a wounded but jovial tone. “Long live the king!” He threw his arms in the air. “And now . . .” He turned to Margo, doubled over as sobs wracked her frame. Penny dropped into a defensive crouch as he and Kady moved in front of her. The Beast grinned. “Oh children . . . you mustn’t even try, there’s no point in it, it will only make your deaths more painful!” He took two steps toward the group, his hands raised, when thunder rumbled over the water. The Beast looked up, frowning, as roiling black clouds, lined with lodes of molten gold, raced over the sky. They cast the beach into near darkness, eating up the dawn, before one of the glowing molten lines split open the clouds. Rays of pure white light shot out, lined with gossamer sheets of flickering, shifting colors. They engulfed Quentin and he stiffened, his dark eyes wide, his mouth dropping open in a sudden fit of awe and ecstasy. The enchanted chain and collar melted away like warm taffy and Quentin flung his arms outward as the rays lifted him into the air.

 The others watched, stunned, as Quentin’s injured hand seemed to light up from the inside and his pinky finger reformed before the rays turned him and another of the golden lines reached out from the clouds, more delicate than a jellyfish tentacle, and vanished into his bare back. Quentin stiffened, his lean form jerking, and then golden lines began to fill up his skin. The lines formed, then connected, until they formed a hedge star. The gold filament withdrew, but not before it formed a stylized Q in the center of the star. A kind of serenity filled Quentin’s expression, replacing his usual timid, anxious countenance, as the rays faded and he dropped to his feet on the beach. He faced the Beast, who scoffed.

 “How very dramatic, that! Pity it’s come too late!” The Beast raised both hands, firing off red bolts of energy from both palms. Quentin raised his own hands, batting the bolts away as if they were spitballs as he walked toward the Fillorian king. The Beast paused, scowled, then used his remaining fingers to squeeze the air from the young hedge. He watched, his expression shifting from triumph to disbelief as Quentin kept on approaching, his dark eyes ringed with molten gold. He seized the Beast’s hand as if to give it a vigorous shake and twisted the appendage off his wrist as if opening a stubborn pickle jar. The Beast gave a high-pitched, breathy scream of agony as Quentin tossed the hand over one shoulder and buried his right hand into the man’s hair, forcing him to his knees. The Beast stared up at him.

 “Quentin. Quentin, my dear boy, listen to me, please . . .”

 “I’m done listening to you. I’m done being afraid, and I’m done running.” His eyes blazed down at the king. “You killed Eliot. You killed the only person in the whole world—any world—who ever gave a shit about me.”

 “But you have no idea what I could offer you! Power, fortune . . . allow me to rule you, and you could have all that you ever dreamed of!” The Beast countered, and Quentin closed his eyes a moment.

 “I had what I dreamed of. I had someone who was like me. Someone who could have taught me who I really am . . . who might have loved me.” Quentin gave the Beast a somber stare. “You took that away.”

 “Quen—”

 The dark magician’s words were interrupted by the cracking of his own spinal cord as Quentin twisted his head around in a complete circle, then kept twisting until the Beast’s head separated from his body. A cloud of moths roiled from the neck’s stump and fell to the sand one by one, like a musty cloudburst, until the Beast’s headless body fell backward and landed, motionless, among the insects’ twitching corpses. Quentin threw the head in the dead man’s lap and raised one hand, casting a fire spell as if he’d been doing it for years. The head and body burst into flames and burned to ashes within moments. Quentin stared at the ashes, and then Penny approached him. Quentin turned, that gold glow in his eyes fading but still noticeable. Penny raised both hands slowly, palms out.

 “Yo. I’m on your side, remember?”

 Quentin nodded and Penny flicked a glance at the pile of ashes.

 “So what the fuck happened? What unlocked your magic, and why is it so crazy strong?”

 Quentin turned his head to look at Eliot, laying motionless on his side.

 “Eliot.” He murmured, padding across the sand. As Penny, Kady, and Margo gathered around them, Quentin sat cross-legged by the body and lifted Eliot’s head into his lap. Margo wiped a shaking hand across her mouth.

 “He stepped right in front of you. I felt his wards fail . . . he must have known what would happen.” She said, and Penny nodded.

 “He knew.” He said. “But protecting Quentin was all that mattered to him.”

 “You used my real name.” Quentin said, glancing up at Penny.

 “Yeah, well. Figure I owe you one for killing that asshole Beast.”

 “How did you even do that?” Kady asked. Quentin shook his head.

 “I don’t know.” He stroked Eliot’s face. “I don’t know, but it doesn’t matter, it’s all for nothing, it’s all for nothing!” He cried, the last words hitching on tears as he bent over and kissed Eliot’s rapidly-cooling lips. Several tears dripped onto Eliot’s long, pale throat and slid into the top of the terrible wound the Beast had made. A low thrumming sound bloomed from the gash, and it began to glow gold before a glittering sheer curtain of humming energy covered the open flesh. Quentin watched: the sound seemed to be coming from everywhere at once and contained an entire symphony of tiny chimes, all at different keys, as the gauzy netting of magic undulated over Eliot’s wound and left Eliot’s bare chest whole and unmarred.

 “Look.” Kady murmured after a few moments, pointing to Eliot’s face. Color was blooming back into the hedge witch’s high cheekbones and turning his pale blue lips pink. The chimes grew louder and then both Quentin and Eliot were rising into the air, ascending over the fountain.  Eliot’s eyes opened, his expression almost comically surprised. Out in the sea, the water began to bubble and hiss before a jade crown surfaced, its surface flashing in the sun. Golden shafts of light erupted from Quentin’s fingers, bathing Eliot in a radiant glow as the crown floated into his hands as if it belonged there. Margo, Penny, and Kady watched as the two magicians circled each other in midair before their lips met in a long, explorative kiss. They descended together a moment later, the crown in Eliot’s left hand.

 “Fuck.” Margo breathed. “The prophecy had it wrong the whole fucking time! The future king of Fillory isn’t the Light Bringer at all.”

 “Nope.” Penny sighed. “It’s Quentin.”

 CHAPTER TWELVE

 “So what Clabbercloud showed us in that old book didn’t tell us the whole story.”

 Penny paced around the area where Eliot had faced the Beast less than an hour earlier as he spoke.

 “The story of the prophecy was handed down orally. All the people had to go on was what they had been told, and that drawing.” Eliot replied. Since being resurrected, Quentin had helped him clean himself up in the water and brought him his coat. He wore it over bare skin, the centaur shirt having gone out with the tide. He stood flanked by Margo on one side and Quentin on the other, and the sensation was so comfortable he wanted to wear their presence like a second skin for the rest of his life.

 “They were wrong about the future king being the Light Bringer. And it wasn’t the crowning that unlocked Quentin’s magic . . . it was Eliot’s sacrifice.” Margo looked up at him and then he was doubling over as she elbowed him in the gut. “And that, by the way, is for getting your asshole self killed right in front of me!”

 “Noted!” Eliot wheezed, and Margo threw her arms around him.

 “You cock!” She whispered fiercely, and Eliot recovered enough to put his arms around her.

 “If you’re jealous, know that I would’ve done the same thing for you.” He said, lifting her chin and wiping away an errant tear from her left cheek. “Bambi.”

 “I don’t think you’d be standing here if you had.” She glanced over at Quentin. “Hey . . . Droopy.” She said, and Quentin glanced up, not quite meeting her imperious gaze, but then her features softened. “You did good.”

 “Thanks, Margo.” Quentin replied with a shy smile.

 “There’s still some shit that isn’t clear to me.” Penny said. “Like the Beast must have thought that Eliot was the Light Bringer, otherwise he would have killed Quentin a hell of a lot sooner. If he was so powerful, how did he get that wrong?”

 “He didn’t. He knew all along.”

 The group turned as one as the new voice spoke. By the edge of the fountain stood a young girl in what looked like a, English schoolgirl’s pinafore and skirt. A blue beret sat perched on her head. Quentin stared.

 “Holy shit.” He said, his voice cracking. “You’re . . .?”

 “Jane Chatwin.” The girl nodded. “And just as you always felt deep within your heart, Quentin, Fillory is very real and has existed for centuries.”

 “What do you mean, the Beast had it right the whole time?” Penny demanded, and Jane came closer.

 “My siblings and I once ruled Fillory. We understood that other children of earth would come eventually . . . all but Martin. That’s why he began to study dark magic. He wanted to live forever, and to rule forever. So when the seers of Whitespire foretold of the coming of a new king, it sent him into a paranoid rage. He made it his quest to find The Light Bringer and destroy him. It was my brother who ripped the page from the seer’s book.” She glanced at Eliot. “The book you carry in your coat . . . may I see it?”

“Book—oh! Forgot I had it.” He pulled the first edition book out and gave Quentin an apologetic glance. “If it’s damaged, I’ll buy you a new one. We thought it might come in handy.”

 “It’s okay.” Quentin nodded, watching as Jane opened the book. On the inside of the first page was an identical drawing of what the group had seen at Clabbercloud’s tent. Jane murmured a few words in Arabic and then teased the page open further, where it unfolded into a complete image of what they’d been unable to see before. The other figure was no page or guide—shafts of light were streaming from his fingers, surrounding the other in an ethereal glow.

 “Most people in Fillory knew about the prophecy, but thought the future king would be the one to bring the light. What they didn’t know is that the king would be brought to Fillory because of his love for the one my brother would steal from him.”

 “If your brother knew Quentin was The Light Bringer, why didn’t he just smoke him back at the looney bin?” Penny asked, and Jane smiled and shook her head.

 “My brother always had more than a touch of the theatrical to him. He loved cat-and-mouse games. He simply couldn’t resist playing one last time.” She glanced over at the pile of ash. “I always said it would be the death of him. Now . . . I think it’s time to crown the new kings and queen of Fillory.” She nodded as an ornate wood chest appeared at her feet and popped open, revealing two more crowns.

 “I call High Queen!” Margo announced, and Eliot gave her a warm, approving grin. Quentin took the crown from Eliot’s hand.

 “Kneel, Eliot Waugh.” He said, and Eliot’s smile widened. Quentin felt heat rise to his own cheeks.

 “Come on, it’ll just take a minute.”

 Eliot bowed his head. “As you wish, Light Bringer.” He said in a somber tone, but his amber eyes gleamed with humor. He knelt on the black sand, and Quentin stepped forward with the crown in his hands.

 “I know all of this was supposed to be spelled out in some kind of prophecy . . . but I think that destiny is bullshit when you’re a magician. Our futures, the kind of people we are, or turn out to be . . . it’s in our hands, no matter what the storybooks about us say.” His dark eyes filled with tears as he spoke, meeting Eliot’s bright gaze. “And I know that you are going to be a really, really good king. More than good. So—I, Quentin Coldwater, the Light Bringer, crown you High King Eliot, the Spectacular.” He placed the circlet of jade on Eliot’s head, and Eliot’s long dark lashes swept down in an expression that was close to ecstasy.

 “Thank you, Quentin.” He said after a moment. “I will do my best to live up to your expectations.” He offered his hands, and Quentin took them as he helped Eliot to his feet. Their gazes remained locked, and then Eliot leaned over to kiss the younger magician’s cheeks, then his lips. Surprise mixed with joy lit up Quentin’s face as Eliot pulled away. Margo glanced at Kady and Penny and shook her head, and Eliot grinned at them. “It’s good to be the king!” He turned to the chest and picked up a delicate crown made of gilded gold leaves. “Margo?”

 Margo went to him, her dark eyes tipping up to him.

 “I’m not kneeling.” She said in a jovial half-challenge, and Eliot nodded.

 “And I don’t expect you to.” He raised the crown and gently placed it on her head. “I hereby crown you High Queen Margo, the Destroyer.” He bent forward and cupped her face with his large, elegant hands. “I’ve known your worth since the day we met, Margo Hanson . . . and I wouldn’t want to rule Fillory without you by my side.” He said before kissing her cheeks, then her lips, as he had with Quentin, and Margo looked up at him.

 “We’re going to be legendary.” She said, and Eliot nodded.

 “And I thought being top bitch in Chelsea was a lofty position.” He picked up the last crown, silver shot through with delicate veins of gold, and turned to Quentin.

 “Kneel down, my Light Bringer.” He said, and Quentin went to one knee before him. “You bested the Beast, Quentin, but even before that, you were much braver than you ever believed, and you deserve to shape your own destiny. So, that being said, I hereby crown you King Quentin, the Courageous.” He set the crown on Quentin’s head and helped him stand. Quentin smiled.

 “No one’s ever called me courageous before.”

 “Except that you are. And not just because of what you did. You’ve been brave your whole life, Q . . . anyone else who lived the way you did without knowing they were a magician would have been dead a long time ago.”

 “Maybe.” Quentin looked up at the High King. “And if you’d allow me to be brave for a moment longer, I—I want to tell you that—uhm, I care about you, El. And you’re the only one who’s ever cared about me.” Quentin’s glance skittered away from Eliot’s as he finished speaking, and Eliot reached out to touch his chin with his thumb and index finger, stroking Quentin’s skin until the younger man looked up at him again. Eliot then claimed his lips as well as his gaze, their crowns creating a shining halo around them as their heads touched and the Fillorian sun bowed on the horizon for their joining.

 Epilogue

 Castle Whitespire

Six months later

 “Oh, My God . . . are you two at it again?”

 Eliot glanced up from the bed he, Quentin, and Margo shared. The mattress, stuffed with pegasi feathers, tilted as Quentin’s tousled head emerged from a mountain of blankets. His full, curved lips were shiny.

 “Oh! Uhmm—hey, Margo!”

 Margo sighed and put her hands on her hips.

 “The High King and the Bi King.” She drawled. Quentin sat up.

 “I guess I’m still getting used to this whole polyamorous marriage thing.” He admitted, and a small smile quirked up the corners of Margo’s mouth.

 “It’s fine, Q. I’ve actually admired your efforts over the past few months.” She took a few running steps and jumped into the roomy bed with them. Quentin slipped an arm around her as she leaned against Eliot’s shoulder, and Eliot smiled down at them both as the muted sounds of life at Whitespire went on as usual outside the walls of their castle sanctuary.

 In the months since the Beast’s defeat, Fillory had transformed from a fear-filled and dreary world to one of plenty and burgeoning joy. Eliot, Quentin, and Margo all ruled equally, and at Eliot’s suggestion, the three of them entered into a polyamorous trio that only strengthened the people’s trust in them. While Eliot and Margo remained close as ever, Eliot left the physical aspect of their relationship up to their husband, who was eager to explore his newfound sexuality with both his partners.

 “Any word from Kady and Penny today?” Eliot asked, and Margo settled in between them.

 “They’ve found over half a dozen doors into Fillory so far, not counting being able to travel with the button.” Margo glanced over at a nearby glassed-in shelf, protected with multiple wards, that held their magic button. “Kady is more than happy to act as our general and gatekeeper, just to make sure no nasties get in. She and Penny are still living at their loft, but they asked about maybe keeping a room here at the castle, too.”

 “Life with Penny. Just what I always wanted.” Quentin groaned, and Eliot chuckled as he reached over to stroke Quentin’s hair, which he was growing out.

 “Don’t worry, Q. As king, you can always decree that he not speak while he’s in the castle!”

 “Something tells me he’d find other ways to annoy me.” He slipped from the bed and pulled on a red and gold silk robe before going to the window. Outside, Fillorians bustled around the nearby village and along the roads, trading, working, building. Structures the Beast had destroyed were being rebuilt, and the stain of his terrible rule was slowly being wiped clean.

 “Q?” Eliot asked after a few moments. “What is it?”

 “I was just thinking about where I was six months ago . . . and where I am now. It’s everything I wanted, but nothing like I imagined. You know?” He asked, turning back to his partners, and Eliot nodded as he got out of bed and put on a robe.

 “It’s a far cry from Chelsea, but I don’t really miss it.” He went to Quentin and touched his face with both hands before slipping an arm around Margo as she followed him to the window. “For better or worse, Fillory is my home now. There’s a lot of good we can do here—at least as good as hedge witches can be.” Eliot picked up his crown from the purple velvet pillow it rested on while he slept and put it on, artfully arranging his dark curls around the glittering points of jade. As a few of Fillory’s residents spied Margo at the window and began to cheer, Eliot looked down at Quentin.

 “My Light Bringer.” He whispered, and leaned in to capture Quentin’s lips in a long, loving kiss. As the people outside continued to chant and cheer, Quentin pulled back and let all his fears, worries, and terrible memories of the past fall away into the promise in Eliot’s bright amber eyes as he reached up to touch his face.

 “Long live the king.”

 FIN

#The Magicians #fic #Queliot #The Trials #The 2017 Welters Challenge

[thestuckylibrary-bigbang]

Canon ‘Verse

This post contains sbb2017 works that fall into the category of canon compliant. They are sorted chronologically by when the story takes place.

The categories are Pre TFA, TFA Era, Post TWS and CACW/Post-CACW. Take your time and look through what authors and artists have been working on since June!

AU Part One | AU Part Two | AU Part Three | Masterpost

Pre TFA

The Olive Groves by AgentCoop

Rating: Teen and Up

Words: 25k

Archive Warnings: Major Character Death, Graphic Violence

Tags: 1940s, Bucky Barnes Recovering, Bucky Barnes Feels, World War II, Musician Bucky Barnes, Artist Steve Rogers, Living TogetherMutual Pining, Off-Screen Major Character Death, Angst, Recovery, Suicidal Thoughts

Summary

In the summer of 1942, war is on everyone's minds. Jobs are scarce, and boys are shipping out daily, but Steve Rogers and Bucky Barnes have each other.

Steve wants to fight, and Bucky doesn't. In the end, it won't much matter.

Told in four parts, this story encompasses a year in Steve and Bucky's life prior to Bucky's draft notice, his time on the Italian front, his life for the next five years as he tries to pick up the broken pieces of his shattered mental state and put everything back together,and his inevitable return to Brooklyn for Steve.

TFA era

a perfect soldier by SouthSideStory

Rating: E

Archive Warnings: Graphic Violence

Words: 20,243

Relationship: Steve Rogers / Bucky Barnes

Tags: canon-compliant, WWII fic, suicidal ideations, implied/referenced suicide, period-typical homophobia, antisemitism, descriptions of past torture, PTSD, unhealthy relationships, minor Bucky/OFC

Summary: Steve looks like a stranger these days, but at least the way he smiles at Bucky is the same: soft, fond, and a little bit smitten. It used to bother him, that the friend he considered a brother didn’t see him the same way. He’s never thought any less of Steve for it, but he also wasn’t quite comfortable with being the object of his affection. Now Bucky couldn’t care less how Steve loves him, as long as it means that Steve loves him most.

fanvid by shirasade | youtube | tumblr

gifset by shirasade​ | tumblr

Meet Me On The Darkest Night by Cryofreeze

Rating: Teen and Up

Archive Warnings: Graphic Depictions of Violence

Words: 70k

Relationships: James “Bucky” Barnes/Steve Rogers, Peggy Carter/Steve Rogers( But she really just flirts with him)

Characters: Steve Rogers, James “Bucky” Barnes, Peggy Carter, Howling Commandos, Colonel Phillips, Arnim Zola, Howard Stark

Tags: Canon-Typical Violence, Blood and Gore, World War II, Captain America: The First Avenger, Canon Compliant, Protective Bucky Barnes, Steve’s identity crisis, Rescue Mission

Summary: 

“I know you think it wasn’t my fault, Buck…”

“You had to make a decision, there was no right or wrong choice.”

Steve blinked miserably at the stone step beneath his knees, grinding grit into his so-called uniform. “Maybe I’m not cut out to be a Commanding Officer.” He forced back a lump in his throat threatening to constrict his voice. “Or Captain America…”

~ ~ ~ ~

After the Howling Commandos’ last mission goes awry, Steve questions his morals and self worth as a soldier… and as Captain America. He struggles to believe in himself and the man he thought he was, but being thrust back out on another dangerous mission gives him little time to choose between his own self-doubts or giving his all to save 1,000 prisoners of war from Hydra’s clutches.

With the aid of Peggy Carter and the unwavering support of Bucky Barnes, they set out on a rescue mission inside the confines of a medieval fortress in WWII Europe. However, Steve isn’t the only one to find the ghosts of the place crawl under his skin…

There’s angst, action and an emotionally driven core to the tale of how Steve Rogers is forced to come to terms with what it really means to be Captain America.

Art by @samthebirdbae (10 black and white drawings)

Art by FieryEclipse (AO3) is embedded in Chapter One of the fic

The End of a Century by whatthefoucault (tumblr)

Rating: M

Archive Warnings: None

Words: 20,000

Relationships: James “Bucky” Barnes/Steve Rogers, Peggy Carter/Angie Martinelli, Mr. Proctor/Rebecca Barnes Proctor, Rebecca Barnes Proctor/Original Female Character, Peggy Carter & Steve Rogers, Peggy Carter & Rebecca Barnes Proctor, Howard Stark & Rebecca Barnes Proctor, James “Bucky” Barnes & Rebecca Barnes Proctor & Steve Rogers, Natasha Romanov/Sam Wilson

Tags: Slice of Life, Period Typical Attitudes, Recovery, Artificial Intelligence, Jewish Bucky Barnes, New York City, Canon-Typical Violence, Hospitals, Sexual Content, Pregnancy, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Post-Captain America: Civil War (Movie)

Summary: This is the story of a sister and her brother.As the shadow of the war fades and gives way to new conflicts, Becca Barnes battles the constraints of the twentieth century: an education, a marriage, a career, with the ghosts of her youth never far from her memory.  As the twenty-first century barrels on through its awkward teenage phase, Bucky Barnes builds a new life, with new friends, and a burgeoning relationship with his lifelong companion Steve, the erstwhile Captain America, as they struggle to find their place in the world.

The last time Becca saw her brother was on the eve of war; neither of them expected, some seventy-something years, a hip replacement, and one new arm later, to be reunited.This is a story about family.

Art by @samthebirdbae

Art by @blue-pointer

The Rabbit in the Hat by poppyfields13

Story by @poppyfields13fic​(AO3) Art by @kikisloveschocolate​ (AO3) Art by @ewburnthatshit​ (AO3)

Words: 37586 Rating: Explicit Tags: Alternate Universe–1940s, WWII, Bucky Barnes-centric, veteran Bucky Barnes, bisexual Bucky Barnes, skinny Steve Rogers, Gay bar, roommates, friends to lovers, friends with benefits, pining Warnings: Graphic violence, battle scene, PTSD, disability, period typical ableism, ableist slurs, period typical homophobia, Bucky/OCs, emetophobia trigger, smoking Summary: What if Bucky doesn’t meet Steve until the night before he leaves for the war? Bucky didn’t think he would ever see Steve again, after their one night together. But when he returns from the war, injured and struggling to readjust, he advertises for a roommate, and is surprised when Steve is the one to answer. Bucky realises he wants more than just friendship from Steve, but he doesn’t know if he’s ready, or if Steve even feels the same way about him.

Post TWS

Cause Two Outta Three Ain't Bad (But Three Outta Three Is Better) by AdelenMontgomery

Rating: Teen and Up

Words: 25k

Archive Warnings: None

Tags: Non-Graphic Violence, Period-Typical Homophobia, Internalized Homophobia, Implied/Referenced Torture, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Happy Ending, Minor Character Death, Minor Violence

SummaryBucky Barnes could tell you the exact moment he knew what love felt like. Not love in the family sense, or the friend sense, or anything like that, but in the love of his life or we’re soulmates kinda way. Not that he knew it at the time, of course, because how could he have possibly known? He knew it was love, sure, but how could he have known that it was the kind that was life-altering? But, as they say, hindsight is 20/20.

Ceremony of Innocence by @velvetjinx

Rating: E

Archive Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply

Words: 22.8k

Relationships: Steve Rogers/Bucky Barnes

Tags: alternate universe: canon divergence, no cryo for Bucky, Captain America: Civil War spoilers, Fluff and Angst, Shameless smut, emetophobia, canon typical/compliant violence, choking, Bucky Barnes-centric, Bucky Barnes recovering

Summary: After saving Steve Rogers from the river in the wake of the failed Project Insight, Bucky is on a mission to find himself. As the memories come back thick and fast, he has to figure out exactly who he is now. But when someone blows up the building where the Sokovian Accords are to be signed and the Winter Soldier is blamed, he finds his new life at risk and realises that, for him, the fight may never stop.

Vid by @dracusfyre

Meridian

by

tippet 

Artwork

by

theladymania

Rating: T

Archive Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply

Words: 31,700

Relationships: Bucky Barnes/Steve Rogers

Tags: Natasha Romanov, Sam Wilson, post-CA:TWS, standard winter soldier warnings, recovery, ft. a literal long and winding road

Summary: The finding goes both ways. (Steve goes missing; the soldier goes after him.)

Stop and Say You Love Me by eyesofshinigami 

Rating: Explicit

Words: 20k

Tags:Fluff, Smut, Light Angst, Mentions of memory loss, lots of book talk, Friends to LoversTen points to anyone who gets the book references 

Summary: Bucky doesn't ever remember he and Steve's shared past. Steve doesn't fault him or blame him, it just is what it is. They're dealing with it together, even though their friends don't always seem to understand. None of that stops them from figuring out how they used to fit together. It's not the same, but maybe it's something even better than before.

The Grand Plan by velleities

Rating: M

Words: 25k

Archive Warnings: Chose Not To Use

Tags: Canon-Typical Violence, Some angst, Dealing with PTSD, Some Alcohol Use, Bucky Discovers This Brave New World, Happy Ending, Bucky Barnes Recovering, Pre-TFA Relationship

SummaryThe Soldier doesn’t mean to be menacing, even if it's become the impression he naturally gives off. He wants to be a person, first and foremost, but he wants to be the right kind of person too, and that leads him to one irrefutable conclusion: he owes an apology to Captain America– an apology that he has to deliver, if the Soldier wants to be who he aspires. It’s just proving out to be a little harder than he thought...

CACW and post CACW

A Song for Eurydice by Optimustaud @optimustaud

Rating: M

Archive Warnings:  Chose not to Use Archive Warnings

Words: 19999

Relationships:  Steve Rogers/Bucky Barnes

Tags: cursing, torture, medical experimentation, suicidal ideation, mental illness, body horror, cannon divergence, motown and soul

Summary:  Ten years after the events of The Winter Soldier Steve tracks Bucky to an abandoned Hydra base in Siberia.  

Read the fic on AO3

Art by @riakomai / @artbyria

in these times of dying By: Marley Mortis

Rating:  M

Warnings: Graphic Violence

Tags:  Depressed Steve, Suicide Attempt, Self-Harm, Codependency, Binge Eating, Hurt/Comfort, Angst with A Happy Ending, Asexual Steve Rogers

Relationships:  Steve Rogers/James “Bucky” Barnes

Summary:  Steve’s fine. Bucky would rather be in cryostasis than anywhere near Steve Rogers, but Steve’s doing a-okay. Who cares if he’s angry all the time? He’s just peachy. Those weird fevers he’s been getting? Nothing to worry about, because Steve’s finer than frog hair. All he’s gotta do is destroy the last remnants of Hydra, figure out a way to disable Bucky’s code words, grieve Peggy’s death, and figure out what in the Hell to do with himself now that he’s not Captain America and Tony wants his head on a silver platter. Still fine, though.

A canon compliant character study into Steve Rogers’ mental state following the events of CA:Civil War.

Art By: Turn_turn_turn

Mirrors in the Smoke by JudeAraya

Tags: Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Dissociation, Mental Breakdown, reference to past torture, steve has repressed feelings, Therapy, CBT, EMDR, Psychotherapy, reference to food triggers, Dom/sub Undertones,Happy Ending

Summary

Steve told Sam and Natasha once that even when he had nothing, he’d had Bucky. The truth, he realized, was that without Peggy and Bucky, without the world he knew, Steve couldn’t even be Steve. But he could be Captain America. Steve’s been a stranger in a new world for a long time and Captain America was his best secret keeper.

Having Bucky back should be the thing that puts him back together, right? Finding him, being with him – it’s everything Steve’s pinned his hopes on. It’s a fucker of a truth now, to find this out – that Steve needed Captain America as much as anything else.

Only, Steve gave him up. Steve is no longer Captain America and he is definitely not well.

~*~ My contribution to the 2017 Stucky Big Bang. Spans from 2012 (post Steve coming out of the ice) to past Civil War

Perilous Underside of the World by eyres

Rating: Mature

Words:52k

Archive Warnings: Graphic Depictions of Violence

Tags: Post-Captain America: Civil War (Movie), Action/Adventure, Competence Kink, Human Experimentation, Hurt/Comfort

SummaryAfter Steve becomes an unwilling subject in Ross's pet weapons project to make a next gen super soldier, Bucky is awakened from cryo to join a daring rescue operation to save Steve from an impenetrable government base on the Antarctica coastline. When things go belly up, Steve and Bucky must strike out on their own across the hostile landscape, with Ross's men close behind.AKA 'The one where Steve throws a snowmobile at a helicopter.'

The Way to a Man’s Heart by TetrodotoxinB

Rating: E

Archive Warnings: Graphic Depictions of Violence

Words: 54k

Relationships: Sam Wilson / Bucky Barnes / Steve Rogers

Tags: Torture, Disordered eating, PTSD (multiple characters), Medical procedures, Suicidal ideation and behaviors, Steve/Sam/Bucky, hurt/comfort, Canon typical violence, Happy ending, Smut!!!!

Summary: Bucky wakes up from cryo in Wakanda eight months after the Accords and the fracturing of the Avengers. With the collective scientific genius of Stark, Banner, and Pym, Bucky has the priming sequence erased permanently from his mind. No longer the Winter Soldier, and having been cleared of his crimes following a dissolution of the Accords, Bucky returns to the states to try his hand at a normal life, or at least at doing good in the world. That normalcy is shattered when, after a mission gone wrong, some of Bucky’s conditioning reasserts itself and he’s forced to start back at square one. Bucky fights the physical and mental pain of his conditioning to learn to eat again after years of never being allowed solid food by HYDRA. At the same time, Steve is forced to confront his longest held beliefs. Through all of it, Bucky, Sam, and Steve fall together in different ways as they are forced to face their troubles and their pasts.

Art by TheRothwoman and ICouldDoThisAllDay

things of dry hours by jinlinli, 

Rating: T

Archive Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply

Words: 32,154

Relationships: James “Bucky” Barnes/Steve Rogers

Tags: Canon Compliant, Angst, Slow Burn, Post-Captain America: Civil War (Movie), Captain America: Civil War (Movie) Mid-Credits Scene, Painting, Art History, Character Study

Summary: Bucky’s clothes rustle when he pulls a pocket knife from his jacket. He eyes the scratchings in the trees before carefully carving his name next to a crude stick figure with a gun. “You remember what it was like,” Bucky says, knife still in hand. “Don’t you?” Steve thinks of the flat surface of an ocean, the dreams of floating. A lukewarm sea lapping against his knees as he drifted alone. Water dripping off his chin. His eyes opened in a strange bed and a strange world. “Just a little, yeah.” Bucky nods. “I don’t feel cold anymore.” “I—me too.”

In the year after they leave the bunker in Siberia, Steve and Bucky find solace in painting, and maybe in the process, relearn how to be around each other again.

Oil paint colors art by Artbyria

Bucky’s self portrait art by artbyria

Two Idiots and a Baseball Game by RealTJHammond 

Rating: Mature

Archive Warnings: Chose not to Use Archive Warnings

Words: 20k

Relationships: Steve Rogers & Bucky Barnes

Trigger warnings :Light to medium BDSM,Spanking,Anal sex,choking,Homophobes.

Important Tags: post-civil war, bdsm, spanking, anal sex, pet play, homophobia, library, ptsd

Summary: It’s a year after civil war, I’m working a library just to kill time and so that I don’t have to deal with Stark complaining at me. Stark’s pranks get worse, so I stay near Steve, slowly falling in love with him, feeling the assassin part of me slowly disappearing. Steve and I fall more and more in love, soon getting together. I love when Steve gets dominant and soon we find out we want to have a BDSM relationship. I stay at Steve’s feet during movie nights,dinner, wherever and whenever he wants. Art by chalenmimi-frenchtoast  (http://chalenmimi-frenchtoast.tumblr.com)

Unspooling by mage_girl

Rating: T

Archive Warnings:  Chose Not to Use Archive Warnings

Word Count: 53K

Relationships:  Steve Rogers & Bucky Barnes, Thor & Jane, Clint Barton & Laura Barton

Tags: Geeks, Star Wars, Reconnection, Meta

Summary: After the events of Civil War, after Bucky is free of his trigger words courtesy of Wakanda, after the rescue from the Raft, the former Avengers get together for what Steve hopes is the beginning of a reconciliation and the mending of friendships.Bucky has never seen any of the ‘Star Wars’ movies so they decide to watch the movies together.Cue loads of conversation, geeking out, inside jokes, and maybe, just maybe, some resolution.

Art by whatthefoucault

#sbb2017

[chaotic-melody]

RWBY Fic: And We Go Marching On

Prologue

Rating: G

Ships: Jaune/Ren/Nora OT3

Word Count: 15,158

AO3 Link: Prologue Chapter 1

Summary: The remnants of Team JNPR carry a lot with them on the way to Mistral - trauma, depression, and uncomfortable feelings. But at the very least, they still have each other. And after everything they've lost, they're far too afraid to let that go.

Author’s notes: After Vol 4, it’s clear to me just know much the three of them need each other.

They’re too weak and injured to protest when the airships take them away.

“We can’t leave, not without Jaune and Pyrrha!” Nora croaks out, gasping in pain as they load her onto a stretcher. But the doctors don’t listen, and they’re whisked away.

Jaune is found later, wandering the streets, shellshocked and wide-eyed, and Ren has never been as happy to see someone in his life.

NotagainnotagainIcan’tlosethemagain-

Jaune’s first question is, “Where’s Pyrrha?” Silence falls and they don’t know.

It isn’t until Glynda comes to them, bearing a tiny bundle wrapped in red cloth, days later.

“I’m so sorry. Miss Nikos was an excellent Huntress.” Her voice breaks and she hands it to Jaune, the leader. He unwraps it slightly, and Ren can see the remnants of her sword, her shield, her crown, warped by fire but still shining.

Jaune crumbles, and Ren and Nora crumble with him.

Nora is the first one to reach out to Ruby, Jaune is practically catatonic, going about his day in almost perfect silence, like a robot – except not like a robot, because Penny was a robot and she was so vibrant, Ren thinks - but Nora is pragmatic. She’s determinedly cheerful, because somebody has to be. Ren has caught her crying when she thinks no one is watching, but he’s never brought it up. It’s not like he hasn’t been doing it too.

The response is slow, but it’s disappointing. Ruby still hasn’t woken up yet, Mr. Xiao-Long writes, but he’ll let them know immediately. Yang has been doing as well as to be expected.

Ren interprets that as “Yang is doing badly.”

A letter arrives a few days later, postmarked the day after the first one, letting them know that Ruby has finally woken up, and invites them to write to her. He warns them that she doesn’t remember much about what happened on top of the tower, and expresses his condolences about Pyrrha.

“Ruby said she was wonderful. I would have liked to meet her,” he writes in careful, neat penmanship. Ruby did mention that he was a teacher.

Most of the other people have been moved back into their own homes, as the Hunters take back the city block by block. There’s still lots of rebuilding to do, but except for a few stragglers, the Grimm have mostly been contained into Beacon. The students from other academies were able to retrieve some of their belongings and were flown out, but the three of them refuse to leave. Ren and Nora have nowhere to go to, anyway. Jaune is still silently stubborn.

The food rations in Vale aren’t too bad. At the very least Ren can make something out of them. They’ve been spoiled by the Beacon cafeteria, Ren thinks as he pushes back the distaste at the measly sack of rice and slightly wilted vegetables. He and Nora scavenged far worse from village dumpsters. Jaune doesn’t complain, and Ren knows from experience that he’s probably not tasting anything right now. Nora cracks jokes around the fire, and they huddle closer to her warmth. She’s always been dependable. Ren may know how to cook, and how to keep her on task, but he knows he would have died long ago without Nora. He doesn’t like to think about that possibility.

They find odd jobs around the camp and Vale. Nora works construction. “I’ve always been good with hammers,” she laughs as Ren rubs knots out of her shoulders and back. Ren helps out at the soup kitchen, getting extra food that is a little old to legally give out to the refugees. No sense in putting it to waste. The children of the camp need more protein. Jaune does a little bit of everything. He scrubs floors and does laundry, experienced with the messes a large family makes. The children scurry around his feet and it’s the first time Ren has seen him smile. He wishes he was better with kids, but he can barely talk to people he doesn’t know. He used to be better about it, but at one point he just started letting Nora do the talking.

He meets Cardin in the soup kitchen line, and it’s more awkward than he could possibly imagine. Most of the students from their school have been resettled. Worst of all, there’s no line behind him so he stops to chat.

“Listen, I’m real sorry about Pyrrha,” and ugh, he actually sounds like he means it. Ren shrugs, staring down at the tray of sandwiches he’s supposed to be handing out.

“If you need anything, the rest of CDNL is at the southern camp. They’ve been asking for Huntsmen to help out with defense, so we stayed behind. You should join us sometime.” Ren wonders if he could use his semblance to disappear from this situation. Someone comes up behind Cardin, and he starts to move on.

“Cardin, thanks. I’ll pass the message on.” He doesn’t. The last thing Jaune and Nora would want is pity from Cardin Winchester.

They sleep side by side, the tent getting colder as winter approaches. Ren’s in the middle, because Jaune thrashes and screams and nothing could possibly wake Ren. Nora curls into his side, small and warm, the way they’ve slept since they were small. He usually wakes up with Nora’s arms around his waist, and his arms around Jaune, pinning him down.

On weekends they join the hunts. It feels good, hacking and slicing and shooting and watching the Grimm disintegrate into puffs of smoke, drifting on the wind. They have to adjust. They used to be able to slip into well-defined roles while fighting, but without Pyrrha… They huddle around the fire and draw plans in the dirt, and Jaune lights up while discussing strategy, waving the drawing stick enthusiastically as he gestures wildly. He and Nora butt heads over her over the top ideas, and Ren just laughs quietly. It’s almost back to normal, but then someone will say something and Jaune will shut down again.

Ren has seen this cycle, lived this cycle time and time again, but he doesn’t know the words to say, or what to do to break it. Occasionally the teachers check in on them, when they have the time. The other schools have promised to take Beacon students, Glynda tells them, urging them to go.

“You’ve all made some great progress,” she says. “I’ve seen you hunt recently, I’m impressed. You should continue your training. Move forward.” They’ve talked about it, vaguely. But the fear is still there, and it’s paralyzing.

Whatifithappensagainwhatiftheyseparateuswhatifwhatifwhatif-

So they don’t go. Not until they can decide together.

The letter arrives from Ruby a month after she wakes up. The last leaves are falling, and winter should be arriving soon. Nora’s breath swirls around her face as she reads.

“Should we go?” The question hangs on the cold air like a ghost. Jaune paces around the tent, then opens the tent flap. Nora yelps as the cold air rushes into the tent.

“I’m so sick of looking at it,” he confesses, and Ren follows his gaze to the top of Beacon Tower. There’s nothing left of her body, Ren knows that, but he can’t help but think that she’s still up there. It’s morbid, the place where your friend died standing over you. Beacon, which used to grace the skyline with its striking architecture, has never looked uglier.

“I think we should leave,” Ren says quietly. He feels like a coward. He always leaves the dead behind.

They quit their jobs, and gather what little they have. They don’t tell Glynda what they’re doing. She would never forgive herself if the rest of them died. Better to not tell her.

In the end, it’s Nora’s idea.

“We should hold a funeral,” she says. “Put her to rest.”

Ren’s never been to a funeral before. He’s seen plenty of dead before, though. But they have nothing to bury, nothing to burn.

So they each write a letter to her. Jaune and Nora write theirs easily, spilling their feelings onto page after page. But Ren has never been good at expressing himself. Concise it is, then.

I’m sorry I couldn’t help you. Please, be at peace.

And as they silently burn them, he wonders if he’s writing just to Pyrrha, or to everyone he’s lost.

#rwby #rwby4 #jaune arc #lie ren #nora valkyrie #Team JNPR #fanfic