#those ferns were a pain to cut out of paper | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

a-bucket-of-trash · 1 year

Text

The Garden of Horrors- Kelvin x Female Reader – Part 2/?

Part 1

The terror with which you ran and that filled your veins subsided only slightly once you had returned to the bunker you had found and closed the door behind you, hard. You covered your face to cry for a long time, desperate, in panic, with your mind traveling to a thousand terrifying scenarios and hundreds of painful truths. You were stranded on an island, in the middle of the ocean, alone, with no survival experience, surrounded by hostile beings, without skill, without courage, without hope, with your confidence shattered. Your only way out there, alive, had escaped like a rat in a flood, leaving you behind without even hesitating. You didn't know what you were going to do, even if you were going to survive.

You cried for hours, until exhaustion began to dominate your body. The adrenaline had taken its payoff from your body, and you were left somewhat dazed, sitting on the floor, looking around as if you were contemplating for the first time the prison where you would be locked up for the rest of your life. You didn't know what to do or think, so you did the only thing you knew how to do at home when you were too restless and anxious to have a coherent idea: cleaning.

You doubted it would help, but you couldn't just sit still like an unwatered fern, and while you were there, you could at least bring some order to it, find out if there was anything useful in the mess.

And by the time you were done, you could see that it was full of useful things, it was a bunker after all, it was designed for that. You had found a few rations of food, bottles of water, knives, matches, a fair amount of paper, rope, wire, a compass, a hand-loaded flashlight, a large axe, hairspray, medicine, much more. You wondered what they would have taken, if they had left all that behind. Although finding some bullets, you speculated that the most useful, the weapons, were not there.

Being that you had arranged things quite neatly and in pseudo-categories, you opened Alan's huge backpack and began going through the contents, taking everything out, one thing at a time, finding a bit more of the same, but also three of those books about survival that he read so much, a fairly basic map of the island, a couple of journals, water filter tablets, lots of energy bars, a Rolex, ultra soft mega premium pamper toilet paper, tissues, a solar charger for batteries, a towel, mirrors, magnifying glasses, and even more nonsense. At least you were grateful that that moron had left his backpack there.

You checked your phone, again. Obviously there wasn't any type of signal, so that technological brick served you more than anything to listen to the 50 songs you had saved, and to use the flashlight and the alarm clock. Even so, you left it at safe, you would never know what could happen. And since you had no idea what to do now, you checked the books, thankful that Alan was so obsessive with those books. One was a beginner's survival book, with quite a bit of detailed information. Another was a little more advanced but full of vital data, especially regarding how to treat wounds, cuts and what to do in hundreds of cases of health emergencies. And the third was a botany book, to identify trees and plants, their uses and dangers.

You knew that if you were to survive, you had to at least know the first one by heart, so you read it quickly, taking mental notes, checking your surroundings, thinking. You knew that it was already a bit late, that you should sleep, but the fear of something happening during the night did not allow you to even consider it. Besides, you had to learn how to survive, that was urgent.

But you also wanted to rest your mind, even for a second, so you took one of Alan's journals and read some of the content to distract yourself, mostly just monologues about how amazing he was. You snorted, you were going to use those pages as fuel to start a fire.

Eventually you read “Daniel just refused to go to the Pufftons' island, that good-for-nothing coward, he said that the info they took with Sahara indicated that it was highly dangerous. Level 5. Pathetic coward. Don't he realize that an island like this must hide premium information? What kind of moron is he? With how expensive information can be sold... Anyway, I know who to go with... She lives licking my ass, she's so pathetic that she's going to say yes, even though she has no idea what to do with her own ass”.

You were furious, with him and with you. You knew you were that "pathetic licking ass".

"I only let her hang around because she's not totally horrible" You continued reading "I can sleep with her if I need a docile bitch to train, but if it's because of her intelligence and charisma, I'd leave her lying in Alabama" .

And the more you read, the more you realized that your friendship of several years with Alan were nothing more than hoaxes, he had kept you close for convenience, and little by little you realized how foolish you had been to fall in love with someone like him, who found mistreating and manipulating you funny as if you were his toy, filling your head with doubts and lies.

You threw his diary aside, overwhelmed, lying on the wide bed, hugging yourself, scolding yourself, sobbing, feeling highly stupid, deluded, your little self-confidence shattered.

You no longer knew how you were going to survive, you were good for nothing. If Alan had been able to do whatever he wanted with you, there was no way for you alone to take charge of your own survival, especially in a place like this.

Little by little you felt yourself sleeping, and you reminded yourself that, although you were deluded, you were also stubborn. You couldn't let yourself be beaten, not yet, not without a fight.

Part 3

#kelvin #sons of the forest kelvin #sotf kelvin #kelvin x reader #sons of the forest

14 notes · View notes

inmyfxith · 2 years

Text

Should have been careful

Pairing: Claire x sister!reader

A/N: Not sure why I did this

Warnings: Disease (plague) and all that it implies.

Words: 1k5

-> Requested

If someone had ever asked Claire what her younger sister's one and only passion was, the young woman would have probably answered something like hunting or fishing. She would also have taken the time to add a little loving comment about your terrible skills in those domains. Although incorrect, Claire would not have been far from the truth. In reality, hunting and fishing were just excuses for you to be alone in the forest or near streams. You never actually caught any meat, which might have explained Claire's potential reflection on your abilities. The friendly taunts from Claire and Jamie had become a regular occurrence at the end of your little expeditions, but you didn't pay much attention to them.

Depending on your mood, these sylvan trips had quite different durations. However, you always ended up finding a tree trunk to sit on and watch nature evolve around you. The little animals running through the thickets, the birds singing or the light breezes that caressed your face and made the relatively dry Carolinian summer air a little more bearable. Events were never completely the same, so you could sit there for hours without doing anything in particular. It was your way of getting away from reality, from the historical events that as a time traveler you knew only from history books and that you would soon have to face in real life.

That morning was no exception. As usual, your eyes had opened before the sun even had time to show its first rays. The bag you had planned to take with you contained two snacks, a bottle of chilled tea and a small blank notebook with some charcoal sticks. The ridge was still asleep, no one would ever see you go to the forest, so you didn't take the time to make your lie believable by carrying a rifle or a fishing rod.

The air, already very heavy, was accompanied by a light morning breeze, while on your boots small drops of water from the grass moistened by the morning dew were piling up. The sky was now a camaieu of orange and golden colors as if the landscape that was taking shape in front of your eyes was straight out of a master painting. Once you entered the forest, you found your usual place. Putting your shawl on the trunk to avoid wetting your pants, you quickly took out your notebook to immortalize the awakening of a still sleepy nature. Perfectly still, you took your time to draw all the details you could notice, from the butterfly on the greenish moss of a tree to the little pebble sliding by a rabbit, everything was represented on your sheet of paper.

With your attention focused solely on what you could see, your foot unintentionally hit your bag, leaving your now inedible snacks rolling around on the still wet ground. You let out a slight sigh of disappointment before returning to your drawing. Then, after a few minutes, you felt something climb up your leg, clinging to the fabric of your pants. Glancing around, you quickly realized that a rat was trying to reach your lap. Panic-stricken, you quickly stood up, shaking your leg to knock the beast off, which, probably just as frightened as you were, took the opportunity to bite you before letting go and disappearing through the ferns. Swearing in surprise and especially in pain, the place where you had just been bitten was strangely warm. A few drops of blood were running down your leg and the fabric of your pants had been torn. Slightly aware of the risks of an animal bite, you cut your trip short by several hours to get to your cabin.

Harvesting some medicinal herbs in her little garden with Marsalie's children and little Jeremiah, Claire watched your staggering walk with great attention. To get home, you had to pass by Jamie's house, giving you a few minutes to prepare answers to the storm of questions that would soon fall upon you. At first, your older sister only asked you why you were coming home so early before getting to the point when she heard your more than vague answers.

"What happened to you?" Pointing to your shin with her chin, she stared at the small spot of blood, squinting as if trying to guess what had happened. Seeing that you didn't answer, Claire stepped forward so she could examine your wound but you pulled back, telling her that you didn't need her help at all. As an excuse, you said that you had hit a stick, that it was nothing serious, and that you were just going to clean the cut with alcohol and wrap it in a bandage. As a good nurse, your older sister insisted, for a few minutes, before letting you join your cabin, but not without advising you to come and see her at the slightest strange symptom.

Once cleaned, the wound looked like a kind of cut made in a hurry and in a shaky way. At the time, you didn't really feel any pain when you didn't touch it. So, for the first few days, you didn't pay much attention to it. Cleaning every day, changing your bandage just as daily, there was no need to worry about it. However, a good week after this strange and unpleasant experience, the first symptoms of a disease that had once taken its toll appeared.

A heavy fatigue took hold of you so quickly that even a good night's sleep did not make you operational. Moreover, the slightest movement was synonymous with pains identical to those of aches after an intense and repetitive effort. And finally, a swollen and particularly painful bubo appeared in the back of the groin.

Worried about your declining health, Claire tried several times to invite you into her house, but to no avail. So it was through questions asked here and there that she tried to establish a diagnosis. In your mind, the symptoms were usual for a rodent bite and would probably disappear in the next few days. That's why you weren't paying any more attention.

Busy trying to prepare food, Claire entered your cabin without taking the time to knock. With a large bag over her shoulder, she took the time to lock the door behind her. Taking all the information she had in her possession, your older sister had managed to find out what was infecting your body and that meant complete isolation for the good of the colony. Surprised, you asked her what she was doing there.

"Sit down on your bed and shut up" Not having the strength to fight, you complied, suffering from a severe headache and probably a bit of a fever. Helping you remove your corset, Claire confirmed her diagnosis by observing the hot, pinkish skin elevations under your armpits and on your neck. She let out a sigh that was both concerned and almost disappointed that you didn't trust her directly when you came back from the forest. Once you were lying down, your older sister examined your body carefully, starting with your lower limbs where she came face to face with the rat bite and especially the little flea bite that was the cause of your condition.

"You should have told me earlier, the plague is one of the most dangerous diseases when you don't have the right tools to treat it."

"But you do have them, don't you?" Her tone and yours, though trying to sound as neutral as possible, masked with difficulty the fear you both felt.

"It will take me a few hours to concoct a remedy, but even with that I don't know if I'll be able to cure you." She was running out of time, the color of your fingers indicated that you had already entered a septicemic plague phase and if she didn't act, you wouldn't last very long.

The fever quickly turned your head, your forehead was constantly covered with little beads of sweat just like the rest of your body. Constantly soaked, Claire had asked Brianna for help as she desperately tried to bring your temperature down with a cloth soaked in cold water. Although mentally absent, the scents of cider vinegar, garlic, cinnamon, mint, lavender, rosemary, and nutmeg wafted into your nostrils. That's when your treatment began. Helping you to sit up straight, Claire made you swallow two tablespoons of her strange mixture with a very sour taste several times a day. Always leaving someone by your side, she was pleased to see your fingers regain their natural color and your fever go down slightly. This went on for several days, several weeks, during which you were the center of your sister's attention. It was important to her that no one but her or Brianna came near you for fear of spreading the disease.

But you got through it. After much effort from your older sister, you managed to heal after weeks.

"Next time, don't wait until you have real symptoms to come in for treatment, prevention is better than cure."

#outlander #outlander imagines #outlander imagine #claire fraser #claire beauchamp #claire x reader #claire x sister!reader #requested #brianna fraser #brianna mackenzie

24 notes · View notes

passivenovember · 3 years

Note

I love to read anything with vulnerable billy! 🥺

Kitschy, Campy, and Kooky: Pillowcases from Beyond the Veil.

Day Four: Sunglasses

Part One: Rockwell

His mother got into patterning and draping only hours, it seemed, before she disappeared from his life. Her slim, pale fingers cutting and measuring fabric. Sewing strips together and leaving room for true craftsmanship, hands shaking even as the bruises on her arms were laid to rest.

Billy’s mother started out easy, with fleece blankets and cushion covers that complimented the wallpaper in their living room; mustard yellow and fern green and burnt orange. Colors that brought fall raining down from the heavens on even the hottest days of summer.

Autumn was their favorite. Autumn meant snuggling up to watch I Was a Teenage Werewolf and Bewitched, Billy’s eyes drooping closed as his mother read the Archie comics to him under blankets that had little pumpkins and candy corns on them.

Autumn was magical.

Autumn was firewood and hot chocolate and bat shaped fairy lights above the hole in the wall. Halloween. That was always Billy’s favorite.

His mother started sewing pillow cases after Neil caught him sucking his thumb the first time.

It was Autumn. Just before Halloween, or maybe right after. The sky was thick with rain and fog and they were happy.

Happy things never lived long, in their house, for it had to be cultivated. Watered and fertilized. No, their happiness was locked away in a dark room, only to be brought out and held when the house was empty.

They didn’t have enough money in the bank that year to buy a new pillow case, after Billy’s shield was torn to pieces, but they had fabric. Shelves and dressers full of the stuff, spilling out from between the tinges of pain in his cheek.

Neil slammed through the front door and Billy’s mother tried to fix what had been broken.

She got on her knees and straightened his Addams Family pajamas. Took his hands and tried to get him to look her in the eye. “Pick out whatever you want,” She said. His mother’s voice sounded like running water, like swelling rivers. “I have every color. What kind of print do you want, Billy?”

But Billy couldn’t move.

His feet had grown roots, travelling through the hardwood floor and down into the basement. Past his mother’s cutting table and beyond her sewing machine, into the depths of the Earth.

Billy felt himself sinking. Felt himself be buried alive, as his mother rubbed the backs of his hands and tried to bring their happiness back out into the light.

The pillowcase was purple. Just close enough to pink that Billy knew his father would tear it to shreds if he ever saw it himself, but the shade was also mysterious. Blue, like the raging seas during a hurricane. Dark and spooky and smooth like silk against his skin, but also happy, too.

Autumn themed.

Halloween themed, with little bats wearing sunglasses.

“So you can had a slice of your two favorite times of the year, all at once. Summer and Fall, too.” His mother said. She gave Billy the chance to enjoy his gift by hiding the case in plain sight, as the flip side to a slate gray monstrosity that reminded Billy of Neil. Of the eyes, that were always watching.

Billy loved his pillowcase.

Through November and into Yule. Past frozen rivers and into spring, when his mother’s sewing machine disappeared.

Part Two: Bates

The pillowcase was a puzzle Steve knew he was never going to solve.

The fabric was worn thin. Torn and fraying along the seams and sporting a rip down one side, the result of hundreds and thousands of nights in bed with a boy who slept with a pillow cradled against his chest.

Steve wondered if the hideous thing knew how much it was loved.

If it had counted the times Billy had lugged it around the house and on road trips, bearing witness to the battles Steve had lost in trying to suggest they have it replaced with something that didn’t have to be pieced together so it would seem whole.

He hated those bats, too, with their smug little faces. Watching from behind designer sunglasses as Steve tried to pry them loose so he could be closer to Billy. So he could take their place.

Steve would never take their place, it seemed.

He didn’t know why, didn’t understand why, until he came home one afternoon to find Billy on the floor.

Crying, on the floor, or. Dry heaving.

The tears had long since dried, gifting tacky, salt-slug lines down his cheeks as Steve’s husband gripped a long, bat covered piece of fabric in both hands.

“It ripped.” Billy's voice was hollow. Empty. “It tore in half. I didn’t think it would do that, I through maybe I could stitch it back together every time it fell apart, I thought I would be able to keep her with me for a little while longer, I--”

“--Bills--”

“I wasn’t ready for this.” Billy said wildly, clutching the fabric to his tear stained cheek. “I’m not ready for this.”

“It was an old pillowcase, sweetheart, you had to know it was going to happen sooner or later.”

“She’s gone.”

Steve frowned, crouching on the floor in front of him. “Who’s gone, baby?”

Billy’s mouth worked for a long time around words that ended up on the cutting room floor. He trembled, barely letting Steve get an arm around him, as the truth came tumbling out.

“My mama.” He said quietly. “My mama gave it to me.”

“She did.”

“Yeah, she made it for me. Before she left, she said.” Billy chuckled, thick and wet. “She told me it would keep me safe.”

Steve rubbed a hand down Billy’s arm, nodding against a flood of realization. “Yeah, well. She could’ve kept you safe, Bills. She could’ve done that, instead of leaving you with that fucking monster--”

“Can you just.” Billy tangled a piece of purple fabric around one hand. “Can you hold me?”

Steve sat on the ground next to him, and. Tried to understand it.

Coaxing Billy to sleep and failing, day after day, was what made him sign up for the class.

Steve had been hoping the rec center would provide sewing machines. That he wouldn’t have to call Joyce and ask five hundred questions about shit he couldn’t possibly understand. Like presser foots and cutting tables and rounded stencils, and--

“Why don’t you come by the house?” She said. “I could teach you for free.”

“You’d do that?”

“Sure.” Joyce sounded like she was smiling. “I’m free on Thursdays.”

Part Three: Curdle

Autumn was Billy’s favorite time of year for a lot of reasons.

The pumpkins, maybe. Most of all. Boozy apple cider with granny smith juice and far too much cinnamon that made their limbs loose and heavy. Cuddling up on the couch to watch Hocus Pocus and Thriller. Trying to learn the dance moves, and. Crying from laughter when they couldn’t learn the dance moves.

And Steve.

Steve Harrington in warm, mustard colored sweaters and beanies pulled far too low over his eyebrows to ward off the chill when he came home from work, trailing the smell of haze-covered trees and maple sugar donuts after him.

He was holding a box, that afternoon.

An orange and black cardboard thing with a bow on top. “Open it.” Steve said, with that glint in his eye.

That glint did a lot of things to Billy. “How come?”

“Because I made you something.”

Billy’s eyebrows shot toward the sky. “You made something? Like a craft?”

Steve shrugged, wind-chilled cheeks turning pink and bright. “Maybe so.” He said softly. And then, “Open in.” Because they weren’t getting any younger.

Billy tore the wrapping paper carefully.

He liked to save it, folded neatly in the holiday section of their basement. Liked to rifle through the discarded coverings when he wanted to find the perfect pattern for--

“It took months to find the fabric.” Steve muttered. “They discontinued it sometime in the late 70s, but Joyce knew someone in town who used to stockpile the shit, so.”

“Steve--”

“It cost an arm and a leg but I wanted to make it up to you.” Steve took Billy’s face in his hands, thumbs brushing soft over the tears that had appeared there. “I wanted to show that you’re safe now, Billy. With me. That even though you don’t need a piece of fabric to protect you, anymore, it’s still nice to have. Even though it’s not the one your mom made.”

The bats smiled up at him, and it was perfect.

Purple. Just close enough to the pink of Steve’s cheeks that Billy knew it was better than the one that had come before because of what it meant. Dark and twinkling like a sky full of stars. Soft and spooky and smooth like silk against his skin, but also happy, too.

So happy.

#harringrove #billy hargrove #steve harringrove #halloween #cw: neil hargrove #cherry lane challenge #day four: sunglasses

29 notes · View notes

holycatsandrabbits · 3 years

Text

Tollense, an original serial romance by Dannye Chase, Chapter 6

A history professor falls in love with his best friend, a 3000-year-old vampire.

READ FROM THE BEGINNING

Chapter 6

CW: blood, injury

2003 (Four years later)

When Liam brought in his mail that afternoon, he didn’t realize what a dangerous act it was. He should have, he supposed. He’d been getting threatening letters now for over ten years, since before he’d met Kurt. Their postmarks varied and there were no fingerprints. The police couldn’t figure out who was sending them, and neither could Kurt, who’d started investigating as soon as he’d learned of them.

Liam assumed that either he’d done something in his past to offend someone, or that he was a random victim of someone targeting a university with anti-academic talk. The letters said clearly, I will kill you, but Liam had long since stopped believing that it was an actual threat.

But it wasn’t that the letters didn’t upset Liam, and ironically, it was good that they did, because Liam’s reaction to the letter in the mail that day alerted Kurt. Four years ago, on a beautiful night in Germany, Kurt had drunk blood from Liam’s wrist. They’d been close before that, but sharing blood had given Kurt an even greater insight into Liam’s feelings. Kurt knew when Liam was unhappy or frightened, so when Liam found the letter with the typed address, knowing what it likely was, Kurt abruptly appeared beside him, in time to pluck the envelope from Liam’s hand.

“I’ve told you to let me open these,” Kurt scolded mildly.

Liam leaned back against his kitchen counter, and waved a hand in unsolicited permission. “By all means.”

Kurt was frowning, but otherwise he wasn’t too upset. Liam could tell because despite the fact that Kurt had just teleported into Liam’s kitchen, he looked more or less human. He must have been outside somewhere because his dark hair was a bit wind-blown. Liam wished that they had the kind of relationship where Liam could run his fingers through it to settle it down.

Kurt read the letter quietly and then tossed it onto the table in disgust. “The usual,” he said. “When I figure out who’s sending these—”

“They’re harmless,” Liam said, which on that particular day was highly ironic, but they didn’t know it yet.

“They scare you. That’s harm enough.” Kurt reached for the rest of the mail that Liam had set on his table, sorting through it quickly, apparently approving of it. He came to the package last. “What’s this?”

“I ordered some books.”

Kurt shot him a look of amused exasperation. “You have no room for more books. You’re going to have to buy a second house.”

“I’ll find a place for them. Maybe I could take out a wall— what is it?”

Kurt held the package in his hands. “This is awfully light for books.”

That was the last thing Liam remembered until he felt Kurt’s hand on his cheek. Kurt’s fingers were always cold, and the feeling drew Liam back toward consciousness. Kurt had one hand cradling his face, while another finger traced a slow line down from the top of Liam’s forehead to a spot between his eyes.

Liam realized that Kurt was saying something. “That’s right. Focus on me.”

Kurt’s finger traced its downward path again, and Liam felt himself growing more aware of his surroundings, but mostly more aware of Kurt, who was holding his gaze in an inescapable, hypnotic way. Liam could smell smoke and something charred, but he felt no fear, not even of Kurt, who seemed something entirely other than human at the moment. Something very large, because he’d have to be large to hold all the emotions that Liam could feel filling the room, wafting around like clouds. Some were dark and some very light, and they were all Kurt and Liam, mixed up together.

“There you are, my love,” Kurt said softly. “Just like that. Focus on me.”

Liam moved a little, shifting on the kitchen floor, but Kurt put a hand on his shoulder. “Stay still. Let me look at you.” His finger retraced its path down Liam’s forehead, which had the effect of recentering Liam’s attention on Kurt’s bright green eyes.

After another minute, Kurt moved back and released him. “You’re all right,” he said heavily. “No internal injuries. No concussion. Just three fairly minor lacerations to the left leg, and I’ve taken away the pain from those. I shouldn’t have let you stand so close.”

Liam blinked a couple of times as he realized that now that he could see past Kurt’s eyes, Kurt looked very different, but not at all in a mesmerizing, inhuman way. “You’re hurt,” Liam gasped.

Kurt stepped out of reach before Liam could grab him. “You have to be careful with my blood,” he warned. “Don’t get it in your mouth or the cuts on your leg. You don’t— you don’t need it right now.”

Kurt appeared to have taken the brunt of what must have been a package bomb. Liam’s kitchen table had a blast mark on it, and the chairs had all been knocked over. Bits of paper drifted lazily through the hazy air. Kurt was actually far more damaged than the kitchen, with a large wound on his shoulder. But the wound was not bleeding, and Liam realized that though Kurt’s clothing was shot through with holes, some of them bloodstained, the skin underneath was unmarked.

Kurt turned a chair right side up, and dropped into it wearily. “Ow,” he said, sounding as if he might be irritated by a paper cut.

“Are you okay?” Liam demanded.

Kurt waved a dismissive hand. “Been blown up before. There was a grenade at the Somme, for one. Not a pleasant afternoon.”

“But you— you won’t—”

“I’m fine,” Kurt assured him. “But if I’m going to convince the police that I wasn’t injured, I’ll need to eat something. I’m not quite strong enough for group mind control right now.”

“Well, I’m right here,” Liam said hastily, starting to climb to his feet. “Already bleeding too.”

“Sit down,” Kurt instructed in a sharp voice, and Liam was so startled that he obeyed. “You’re injured.”

“Only mildly. You said.”

“Still no.”

Liam tried not to be too disappointed. “Well— Fern then.” Fern was Kurt’s new love interest, and, as usual, was one of Liam’s history graduate students. She was doing her dissertation on World War Two. Kurt always showed enough of his non-human nature to his romantic interests for them to guess what he was before they became his lovers (and a source of blood). So Fern now had the advantage of dating a man who had fought in World War Two and many wars before that.

“Yeah. I called her,” Kurt said. And it wasn’t long before Liam heard someone come in his front door and make their way toward the kitchen.

“Oh my god,” Fern exclaimed, her eyes wide. “What happened? I had the weirdest feeling that I needed to get here right away.” Apparently, Liam realized, when Kurt said he’d called her, he hadn’t meant on the phone.

“Package bomb,” Kurt said.

Liam nearly spoke over him. “Kurt’s injured. He needs blood.”

Fern’s eyes widened even more. “All right. I’ll call 911.”

Liam gave Kurt a confused look. “Oh. I thought you always told them about you before you became lovers.” He realized his misstep when Fern froze on her way to the telephone.

Kurt pressed his lips together, and Liam couldn’t tell if he was fighting a smile or a frown. “You’re getting a little ahead of me there.”

“Oh,” Liam said. “Sorry. How embarrassing.” He looked up at Fern. “It’s okay, Kurt can’t be killed. Or he might actually be already dead.”

Kurt had opened his mouth to say something but now it just hung open.

“I’m sorry,” Liam said. “I’m not good at this.”

Fern did look like she was a little more concerned about Liam than Kurt, but she turned to Kurt, taking in his appearance. The wound on his shoulder was now nothing more than a dark purple bruise. Liam wondered how bad the injuries had been before Liam had seen them.

“Are you a vampire, then?” Fern asked. “That was number two on my list.”

“What was number one?” Kurt asked.

“Street magician who desperately wanted to look like a vampire.”

Kurt laughed, sounding delighted. “I don’t know that I’ve had that one before.”

“You need blood?” Fern asked. She put a hand on Kurt’s uninjured shoulder.

He focused his green eyes on her, with no hint of hypnosis now. “I do. But you’re not my only option. I will be fine even if you say no.”

Fern shook her head. “I’m happy to.”

Kurt nodded. “Liam, we’ll be right back. You just rest. Then we’ll get the police here and figure out who did this to you.”

Liam let his head fall back against his cupboard as Kurt and Fern disappeared. He felt oddly calm, and wondered if that was still Kurt’s influence. Even knowing that Kurt was off with someone else, drinking blood from them instead of Liam, didn’t bother him as much as it usually did. Kurt cared for him. Liam had known it, but right now he could feel it, and he thought Kurt could probably feel it back.

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

READ FROM THE BEGINNING

Updates Fridays on Ao3 and DannyeChase.com (rated E), and Tumblr (rated T)

Want to create fic, art, or other works based on this series? Please do! Just dm or tag me.

My previous serials are for Good Omens: Mr. Fell's Bookshop and Love's Endless Light

My Carrd

#Dannye writes #original fiction #serial fiction #tollense #vampires #romance

20 notes · View notes

daydreamed-snippets · 3 years

Text

Part One Part Two

Personnel in crisp cream uniforms walked the brightly lit hallway with a purpose; either conversing with each other, gazing at datapads, or rushing off to who knows where. Supervillain nodded to some in passing; taking the time to pause with others. Sidekick squeezed in closer, stepping on the back of their boots, grazing their shoulder against supervillain’s arm in a pathetic endeavor to just hide. No one warned them about the trepidation that tugged at their soul, nor did anyone prepare them for the general neurosis of it all. The lights overhead strained their eyes, and the cloister of people moved like an insect hive, an incursion on their senses. They could feel a headache forming. Their various cuts and scrapes burned. Their knees hurt too, body still twitching from electrocution.

And they were all staring at them.

Keeping their head lowered, eyes affixed elsewhere, sidekick could still see all of them through their peripheral. Supervillain’s ‘team’ consisted of far more people than the association originally thought. They tensed as each gaze befell them; probably taking in their tattered costume, unkempt hair, and the collar around their neck.

Eyes curious, judging, questioning.

Shame itched at the back of their neck, screaming to be scratched, but they kept their hands in front of them where they could be easily seen. At least the supervillain wasn’t parading them around, so there was that. The leash was lax and discrete enough so long as sidekick didn’t resist.

But who were they to resist now? They were powerless. It was done and over. Supervillain won. Teammates had no idea where they were if they were even looking for them at this point.

Cramming their eyes shut, they tried to hold onto those little ribbons of faith that gleamed at them through this emblematic darkness. Usefulness dictated importance, which in the Hero’s Association meant a role working with the team. Here it would be no doubt ensure their survival. Usefulness drawing the line between life and death.

They wanted to live, but being of use to the enemy churned their stomach. Policy made no room for turncoats. An informant maybe, but they had no mercy for traitors.

So be an informant.

What was the layout here? What were the dimensions of this hallway? How many doors did they pass? Count the number of people, sidekick. Gather information, no matter how scant. Be docile to the enemy, but pragmatic to the team.

Sixteen. They already passed sixteen people. Good. The Hero’s Association would see just how useful they were once teammates rescue them out of this sterilized hellhole. They will rescue them.

Sidekick bumped into supervillain again, a warm, solid presence, and supervillain turned, looking down. “I’ll let you hold your leash, puppy, if that would make you feel better. At any rate, you keep stepping on me and I don’t want my boot scuffed." They made a motion of unwinding the wire from their wrist and handing it over. But when sidekick moved to take it, the supervillain drew back. "But remember,” they said, voice holding a dark promise. “If you choose to bolt know that I have hundreds of people under my command in this annex alone.”

Sidekick gulped.

Hundreds? Hundreds? So this wasn’t just an assortment of random villains and a handful of henchmen? This was an organization in of itself. One that could rival the Hero’s Association.

Holy shit.

In dismay, sidekick nodded numbly and the wire was placed in their hands. They murmured a thank you before realizing it, and the supervillain started again, sidekick stumbling to follow.

Let it be knowledge to tuck away at a later time. No matter how small, knowledge always proves to be advantageous.

They walked a few more meters and when supervillain stopped again. This time sidekick followed suit keeping a healthy distance between them, shuffling a bit, and looking dubiously at supervillain. They keyed something in a pad—out of sight—and a door swished open.

Their breath caught and, sidekick raised their chin. Here was their cell. They’d probably rot in here, or spend a majority of their time recovering from torture and wondering when their next session would begin.

Hope against hope, they wished it would be clean at least. Were they ever? The association gave no indication on cell parameters, or any information really save for the unpleasantness of it all. Sidekick wasn't delicate but they were averse to pain in general. They were told it made for a bad hero.

Sidekick hesitated, realizing that they should say something smarting. Brave. What would teammates say if they were in this situation? Something wisecracking and sarcastic. But then again, whenever sidekick opened their mouth the supervillain always had some observant retort. Something comment to off-balance them, and set them on their toes.

They opened their mouth anyway.

A hand on the small of their back maneuvered them through the threshold.

Supervillain stepped in as well, and the door slipped back sealing shut, leaving them in complete darkness. Walking past them, their captor roused a computer interface with a verbal command, and the area rustled to life.

Sidekick’s eyes widened at the sight.

This wasn’t a cell. These weren’t even quarters. This was a well-furnished apartment with a full kitchen, dining room, and living area. A hallway split off to their right, where sidekick assumed the bathroom and bedroom lay. No windows, but large light therapy lamps joined regular ones behind traditional furniture and on end tables. A sudden contrast to the hard lines and surfaces of the garrison hallways, an apparent appeal to a softer aesthetic.

What the?

“It’s late,” supervillain called making their rounds, checking on something sidekick was unaware of in the adjacent room. “You will take a shower, and have something to eat before settling in for the night.” Their words held no room for argument.

What kind of game was this? Sidekick leaned back against the door willing for it to open. Policy stated all enemies would treat captors roughly. That they would have no regard for their corporeal needs. Unless this was all a ruse. To get sidekick to trust them, to get them to join the supervillain’s team.

"Don't worry, your collar won't zap you if it gets wet. Medic isn't that sadistic. Not without permission." They came back into the room, eyes sliding back to sidekick with a hidden glint. “I could always bathe you myself, puppy…”

Ducking their head, sidekick shook it vigorously at supervillain’s knowing chuckle. Directing them down the hall, supervillain steered them towards the bathroom: a single shower, sink, and toilet. Newly cleaned. Immaculately decorated. They turned on the shower, showed sidekick how to adjust the temperate then left after unknotting the wire, unleashing their collar. The door remained propped open, a subtle warning not to close it.

A glance down the hallway to assure themselves that the supervillain had indeed left, sidekick shed their costume, tearing a bigger hole in the sleeve in their haste to behind obscure glass and out of the open. Granted, it wasn't like there was much preventing supervillain from entering again.

Still, they glanced back before quickly stepped into the shower, relishing the hot water on their stiff muscles. Blood and grime pooled on the tile floor, circling the drain. It shouldn't have surprised them how much there was. The team called them in to act as a diversion as much as an escape route. Sidekick was hit, but not hard as the wires spread paper-thin cuts along their arms and legs. It was not really that bad if you compared it to broken bones and missing limbs.

It stung like hell though.

The only soap available was one held in a dark grey bottle. Uncapping it, the scent of muted fern and something like vanilla filled their sinuses. Fresh. Admittedly soothing. Bringing it to a good lather, they quickly scrubbed themselves, breathing in the aroma more and more until it clicked. This was the supervillain’s scent they were covering themselves in. In fact, everything smelled like this. Everything in this part of the garrison smelled like it the moment sidekick stepped into the room.

It was maddening.

It was intoxicating.

Sidekick finished up quickly, shutting off the valve, and stepped out, wrapping a towel hanging on a large ring around themselves. It shouldn’t be intoxicating. It should be revolting, or at least off-putting.

Their costume was missing, they soon realized a little too late. In its place a crisp cream uniform, the same as the ones they’d seen everyone else don. Supervillain did sneak in when they were showering, probably when their back was turned. Color filled their face again, as they caught the reflection of themselves in the mirror. Neck red from maltreatment, and a bit too pale.

Taking no chances for their captor to return, and truly appreciate the view, they pulled on the uniform quickly, combed fingers through their shoulder-length hair, and called it a day. What did it matter how they appeared? They couldn’t go home. The team abandoned them, and the supervillain was being… odd. Nothing mattered and all the rules were bent.

They padded out and took a seat in the dining area where a chair had been pulled out for them.

“This will be soft on your stomach,” supervillain said, placing a plate before them before easing into the other chair. “I don’t want you vomiting on my carpet, puppy.”

“I don’t—” sidekick glanced up, searching the plains of their sharp face. The circles under the supervillain's eyes were more than noticeable, in the temperate light they were etched in stone. Supervillain made a noise for them to continue. “I don’t like being called puppy.”

“Give me your real name, and if I like it better than puppy, I’ll stop.”

Their already clenched jaw ground tighter; a compromise they were unwilling to make. Picking up the spoon, supervillain held it aloft, food tucked neatly on it, and directed it to sidekick’s lips. “I need you to eat puppy, so I can go to bed. I don’t want to your pathetic mewling in the night.”

Sidekick’s teeth ground together.

“Have you ever used your portals to injure anyone?” The change in subject was sudden, and sidekick’s lips slackened. “Have you ever cut someone in half before, or even just a limb?” Sidekick looked away, nervous fingers playing with their sleeve. They couldn’t help but tremble. The answer was a resounding no, but they be damned to articulate it.

“Have you ever killed anyone with your portals?” The question brought the sidekick’s attention back, and they tried to fix the supervillain with a dead stare.

They should have known by now it was impossible to win a battle of wills when they looked into the supervillain’s eyes. There was a darkness there so deep, it moved. It took shape. Haunting. Plotting. Sidekick could practically see the desire to devour them completely reflected in those stirring pools.

“I’ll take your silence as a no,” they said evenly, after a beat. “Have you been given combat training?”

Yes, the basics, sidekick thought, but nothing which could defend against a supervillain.

“Have they given you any training besides making you housebroken?”

“I’m not—!” The opportunity supervillain had been waiting for came, and they shoved the spoonful into sidekick’s mouth with a look that dared them to spit it out. They chew slowly, stomach in knots but it was good.

“Let me guess, you’re not a dog,” supervillain supplied lazily. “Eat.”

“I have had training. In multiple areas,” they picked up the spoon with a shaky hand, stomach rumbling. “But I’m not going to answer your questions. If captured, policy states that I am not to give out anything besides my affiliation to the Hero’s Association. I am not going to give you any information," they let out a shaky breath, a spoonful of food in their cheeks, "not even under extreme coercion. Teammates would never forgive me, and the Hero's Association has a zero-tolerance policy."

“What kind of ‘heroes’ organization punishes you for breaking under torture?”

Sidekick’s voice squeaked. “That’s not what I said. They’ve… been good to me.”

“In what way?”

“I-I’m not answering that.”

Supervillain relented, and sidekick ate in tense silence.

Once finished, the supervillain led them to the living room. A small cot pulled out from one of the couches. After dressing it, supervillain pulled out a chain from one of the end table drawers and clipped it to a ring recently drilled into the wall. They then handed sidekick a glass of water and tucked a small pill into their hand.

“No, I—”

“It’s melatonin, and it will help you sleep. It won’t put you to sleep.” They poured several into their hand and tossed it into their mouth as they wandered to find water. “You’ll need it," they called. "You’ve been shaking since you got out of the shower. Get some rest.” Their footsteps became more distant as they went down the hallway to the bedroom, bed creaking as they entered it.

The lights clicked off and the sidekick was left in darkness.

They shrugged into bed, pulling the light sheets over themselves while kicking off the comforter. A cold sweat claimed them, and they stared at the ceiling for the better part of three hours, thoughts churning, churning, churning.

So what if they’d never hurt anyone with their powers before, that didn’t mean they weren’t a threat. That didn’t mean that the supervillain could treat them like a patsy. It didn't mean that they were incapable.

They could do it if they wanted to.

They could do it to supervillain if they wanted to.

Why, they were just sleeping in the next room. Sidekick could hear deep breathing and the stutter of a dream-filled sigh. There was no need to use their full power to slip a link in the chain or to silently creep over to the room. They could make a sliver of a portal for half a second, and endure the buzz from their collar.

Sidekick set their plan in motion.

After the mini-portal, they blacked out for a second and woke with a gasp. Part one done. They were free, chain hewn in two. They probably had moments before anyone noticed, so they needed to move quickly.

Have you ever used your portals to injure anyone?

Supervillain's words came back to them, as they wandered the hallway, honing in on the dark bedroom. They stepped through the threshold, a thought sparking of how they were invading. How a bedroom spoke of intimacy, a cozy and solitary space.

A single red light blinked from the ceiling corner. Sidekick's eyes were already well adjusted to the dark that they could see supervillain's outline on the bed, lying on their back, arms spread out defenselessly.

They could picture it now. Sidekick fails the demon supervillain. Sure they might die in the process, but it would serve the association. It would cement them in the annals of heroic feats.

Have you ever killed anyone with your portals?

Moving to the side of the bed, sidekick’s hands hovered, not yet touching. Faltering in their pursuit. Where was that rage their felt earlier? Where was that appetite for vengeance? It was there, they could feel it under the surface, but it was a poor substitute for bloodlust. A poor replacement for the mindset needed to end a life.

Could they do it?

"Why don't you go back to bed like a good little labradoodle? You don't have to stomach for this."

Sidekick almost jumped at the sound. Hands reached up to boldly clamp onto their wrists.

"Let me go!"

"I warned you, puppy."

They lunged for the supervillain's throat, the heat back again. Volatile, it roared to life. Erupting, unpredictable, but sidekick was grateful for its presence now. It wasn't bloodlust, but it possibly could be damaging enough.

Supervillain pulled them on top of them, and sidekick's legs swung around their body, hoping to get a better angle to grip their neck. "You think I'm going to cooperate with you? I will fight you at every turn. You will regret keeping me alive. I will gather enough intel that once I escape, teammates will be able to take you down."

"If they want you back."

The statement made sidekick pause. "What did you just say?"

"If," the repeated, slowly, the next words in a rhythmic manner. "If they want you back."

"What do you mean if?"

Supervillain's eyes drift up to the red light winking steadily at them.

Blood drained from sidekick's face.

"It records video, but no sound. Makes it easier to edit, I'm told. And I have people in my employment that can edit anything. They can and will make this little tussle we've having look like a lover's tryst." They let go of sidekick's wrists and trailed a pitying hand down their cheek. "What would teammates think of you once I send them this video of us in bed together? Would they jump to the conclusion that we've been joined this whole time? That our affair was the reason why you closed the portal? Did you choose to stay with me? Or would they assume that since you have such a weak constitution, that it only took one day for me to seduce you?"

"This was a trap. You knew," sidekick licked their lips, and supervillain's eyes followed the movement. "You set this up from the beginning."

"I set up fail-safes in case you chose this path."

"You tricked me."

"You disobeyed me," they said, voice hardening and a chill crept down sidekick's spine. They sat up, moving sidekick to their lap, and gripped their chin roughly, face inches from theirs. "I was nice before, and you squandered my kindness. Now you will face the punishment."

Wire detached from the ceiling like vines, wrapping themselves around sidekick before they had a chance to scramble off the bed and bolt. Their feet lifted off the ground. Once again they were suspended, drawn tightly to the four corners of the room. Supervillain didn't spare a glance at them as they got out of bed, and left the room, all but ignoring sidekick's screams.

#not my prompt #continuation #my writing #sidekick #supervillain #part 3 #just keeps getting longer and longer #part 4 after I've taken a break from this story

82 notes · View notes

wellhalesbells · 4 years

Text

fic help

i recently finished a fic project that got well out of hand and i’m having trouble jumping to my next. since this last wasn’t sterek, or even tw, i would very much like to scarper back there but i cannot seem to settle on a project that does it for me (or, well, they kind of all do it for me, hence the problem).

if you have the time and inclination and want to help me choose, i would very much appreciate it!

He opens his eyes to sharp sunlight, rays that’ve had time to hone themselves, coalesce, and start stabbing at strategic places in the apartment. Like the backs of Derek’s eyelids. The comforter around him is rumpled up, bunched in places from a restless sleeper. Which he isn’t. He frowns before it comes back to him.

Laura’s bed.

Stiles.

He’d woken up earlier in the pitch black with Stiles’ forehead pressed into the valley between his shoulder blades, breath a warm and reliable puff through his thin t-shirt, his hand clenched on the hill of Derek’s bicep, snagging him, pulling him back against him.

Derek hadn’t brushed him off. Though it had given him a moment’s pause, strange without the swell of breasts between them, fingers digging and pulling him close to an unmistakably masculine chest. But only a moment’s; he’d been asleep again minutes later.

He scrubs at the rough brillo on his jaw, the scent of coffee finally breaking through the haze of exhaustion. He swings his legs out, toes flexing on the warm floorboards, and squints out the window at the brilliant day. “Rain finally stopped,” he says, voice scratchy and breath foul.

[notes: a total au set in new york. laura’s been murdered and stiles was laura and derek’s emissary, though never that close to the grumpy younger brother. now they have to work together to find out who killed her, while coming to terms with the fact that the piece that made them work is gone.]

“You’re letting demons possess you.” It should come out scolding, furious, but Derek is too numb from the revelation. Too willing to be wrong, to believe he’s misunderstood Stiles’ meaning.

Stiles squints, that slow roll and stretch of his muscles shifting his weight, clenching and unclenching his fingers on his forearms, an absentminded exploration of his regular capabilities now he was back in control of them. “Can we really call it a ‘possession’ when I’m calling more shots than they do? I advertise like an Air BnB and run the place like Alcatraz. If I enjoy the power bump of my fire rose, well, isn’t that just a reward for doing the dirty work? It’s all win-win on this side of the negotiating table.”

[notes: this is wholly because of the exchange between stiles and a recently met liam in canon, when stiles explains he was possessed by an evil spirit, and liam asks, “what are you now?” and stiles says, “better,” instead of ‘human.’ and i had a ‘well, well, welllll’ moment.]

After a week or so, his mail’s transmuted from warm air and a spattering of dirt into a flyer for a pizza place roughly five miles away and an offer for a credit card. He walks back up, the stairs offering a little less protestation, papers gripped tight in his hand and slips through the half-open door, rolling it closed behind him.

The heartbeat that knocks against his eardrums is sudden and unbalancing.

His head whips up, fangs dropping.

“Total cry for help, didn’t need a warrant.” Gloved hands with bare fingers walk up the underside of a dried, brown leaf and the sick-sweet scent of decay slides into one of freshness and health. The fern blossoms above the scratch of blunt fingernails along spidery veins. Green belches out, overflows from the small clay pot.

[notes: um, definitely a derek returning to beacon hills fic and an uber powerful stiles, beyond that... ??? but i can make it a thing, heh ;)]

Stiles rubs the pads of his fingers together, wiping the sticky residue off on his jeans. Goes back in with his teeth. A piece of electrical tape from the handle of his bat tears away. It’s lost some of its adhesive but it’ll work for his purposes. He catches the call before the last of ‘Good Old Days’ can fade out.

“‘Sup, Growls?”

A disappointed whuff of breath greets him. “Your camera’s blocked because—?” Scott cuts him off before he can even attempt a reply. “Injured, lying, or underground?”

“You know one day I’ll score that entire trifecta and then? Then I’m going to Disney World.” Scott doesn’t bite and Stiles sighs. “Busted it chasing those lady-hyena-things. On the upside, I’m only one phone away from filling up my punch card.”

[notes: a harder, living-away-from-beacon-hills-after-he-and-derek-broke-up stiles in this and hunting down supes on his own, because he’s reckless and terrifying and an emotional landmine waiting to explode.]

“No. No, no. Hey, no. I see what you’re doing over there and I don’t ap—” The stack of books leans too far and cascades down the front of the dresser, hits his floor, and explodes in every direction. “What did I just say?”

His door whaps open, knob meet wall, and Scott stands there with a baking sheet held aloft in his hands. “We don’t have renter’s insurance,” he offers, swinging it wildly in front of him.

“You say that as you put a knob-sized hole in my wall?”

Scott opens his eyes, which he’s scrunched closed as he pendulumed the baking supplies around. He frowns at the flung door. His stance goes from ‘making cookies my bitch’ to ‘depressed egg.’ “In my defense, I assumed we were being robbed.”

Stiles pats his head now that the baking sheet is no longer a weapon. “And you also thought the robber would be compassionate enough not to rob us if he knew we don’t have renter’s insurance.”

[notes: i have literally no clue, i don’t remember the impetus for this AT ALL but i could definitely work with it, lol.]

Stiles had finally arrived home for the holiday break, two days after he’d initially promised and with a half-hearted, what-can-you-do sort of shrug that offered little by way of explanation or excuse, and he’d flung himself out of the Jeep with his arms uncovered. Derek had frowned hard seeing it for the first time.

He’s still frowning now.

Galaxy black ink bands both of Stiles’ wrists like delicate bracelets and creeps up his forearms in curving, flowing lines that vary in size and width. It might look something like seaweed dancing in an underwater current if not for the fact that, well — Derek glances down at his own bare forearms —

If not for the fact that it looks like pain. Pain the way he knows it, secondhand and agonizing. Pain that is tarry black anguish glutting his veins and poisoning his blood.

He’s not going to analyze why Stiles would choose to etch that into his skin.

Mostly because he doesn’t need to.

Derek knows what the nogitsune did to him, and he knows Stiles hasn’t come close to putting that behind him, or done much to try to.

[notes: long after stiles has contented himself with being the token human of the pack, his spark manifests, unfortunately not... well and doubly unfortunately, long after deaton has left town. scott will only accept one emissary now so stiles has to try to figure out how to properly become one. it’s not going well, and not only because no one can seem to figure out why his spark ‘works’ the way it does but also because, after the nogitsune, power hardly rests easy on stiles’ shoulders.]

It’s really fucking with his head how much Derek’s whole creature-of-the-night thing isn’t jiving with his sleeping-until-noon existence.

And it’s not just that Derek can’t seem to grasp that Stiles’ skin is a living record. That when there’s the clear afterimage of a mouth on his neck, he and his dad have to valiantly pretend neither one of them notice it for the next week. It’s not just that though. It’s also—

Stiles has secrets. He likes them. Collects them. It’s a comfort thing, a control thing maybe. Sometimes they’re big, sometimes they’re not, but they’re always his. Theories, actions, thoughts, things of his own that will only ever be his.

Except.

Except he doesn’t have secrets, not anymore, not around a fucking werewolf. Derek can smell them through his pores, hear him chasing them down from across a crowded room, cock his head and listen to the lie in his pulse. There’s nothing sacred anymore, nothing private, and Stiles can’t anymore.

[notes: okay, it’s just... i never see this? and, being honest, i could not date a friggin’ werewolf. i’m not even a secret person as much as i just enjoy being alone and you would have to make sustained EFFORT to be alone - you’d have to go farther, mask whatever you did if you didn’t want it known, have someone who wouldn’t ask why or what you were doing (which is just like when people ask me NOW what i’m doing and i don’t want to say ‘writing explicit gay sex, thanks for asking, mom’). i’m not on board. i could totes see stiles not being on board and, of course, he’d rather magic a ‘solution’ than have a conversation, my dumb little dummy. this one would definitely need the most work since i would probably rewrite everything i’ve already got, it just doesn’t... gel well.]

#five more under the cut #all #sterek #teen wolf #hoping you guys can point me in a good direction :)))))

53 notes · View notes

caddy-whump-us · 4 years

Text

I need to whump Nikolai more. I love him and therefore want to whump him. But he’s a little harder to write than Etienne because he’s not as rebellious and difficult. Etienne’s just like “Come at me, bro!” and gets whumped for it whereas Nikolai reasons that being a little more agreeable means a little less pain. So while he hates his situation, he’s not about to cause himself more trouble. Now the aftermath of his captivity… But I digress.

As requested here’s some angst with a soft fluffy middle.

(Honestly, I think the saddest thing here is realizing how puckish Nikolai used to be and how cowed and fragile and subservient he is now.)

---

There were voices coming from the room when Nikolai approached it. A postulant had brought him a message from Adrastos as soon as evening began to come on. And so, Nikolai had answered it.

The doors were shut. Nikolai slipped up to the door and pressed his ear against it. His master was almost certain to hear him (there were times when he felt sure his master could hear his heartbeat wherever he was in the house), but he still listened for a moment before he opened the door.

There was a stranger in the room.

“Is the young man your son?” the stranger said.

“My ward. He came to me because he needed a firmer hand, given his age.”

“I see.”

“The house where he was raised--well, he was left to run a little wild,” Adrastos said. There was the sound of paper tearing; he was reading his letters. “I try to endure it, but he pushes me beyond my limits sometimes.”

Nikolai stood still, holding the doorknob. Do I?

There was the sound of metal against metal--not weapons, but more like tools, instruments, something small. Medical instruments--and the phrase floated up in Nikolai’s mind and his stomach tightened.

“Sir, excuse my saying so, but I would have preferred to have come somewhat earlier in the day--” the stranger was saying until Adrastos interrupted.

“Yes, but with my obligations, there was no other choice.”

There was a breath of silence. Then:

“Yes, sir. Of course, sir.”

“And you needn’t worry about the trouble of coming all this way. I’ll be certain to--”

Nikolai opened the door and stepped into the room, quiet, humble, head held low.

“--ah, there he is,” Adrastos said.

Nikolai bowed--first to his master, then to the stranger--and shook his hair out of his eyes as he stood up.

“He doesn’t seem as wild as I expected,” the stranger said, smiling. He wore a white smock and shiny buttoned boots. “Well, come here and sit down.” And he patted a stool set up in front of a dresser and mirrors.

Nikolai looked towards Adrastos, who waved him on and went back to reading his letter. Nikolai sat down and set his feet up on the rungs of the stool.

The room reflected in the triple mirrors was new, unfamiliar, more a dressing room than anything, and better suited for a lady, all soft colors and high windows and mirrors. This was a lady’s vanity, not a commonplace dresser. And certainly, up to now, the room and the furniture were unused (but that was nigh-undetectable: the whole room was cleaned and newly done too; there was still a faint smell of lemon and vinegar in the air). Though there was a sheet laid out on the floor under the stool.

Nikolai raked his hair back again after looking down at the sheet and tried to look anywhere but at the mirror.

“There, that,” Adrastos said, pointing at him with the corner of the letter; he caught Nikolai with his hand still in the air. “It’s unbecoming. He looks like an urchin or a farmboy when he does that.”

Nikolai dropped his gaze and brought his hand down again, resting his knuckles against his mouth. He saw now that there was a cloth or a towel on the dresser with shears and combs and scissors and a razor laid out on it and he closed his eyes.

“We’ve been invited to the home of one of my relations and I just can’t take him when he looks like a street urchin.”

The barber scruffed Nikolai’s hair. “Well, I’ll tidy him up for you,” he said and took up the scissors.

“Better you do it than I do it,” Adrastos said, looking at the letter in his hand.

The barber draped a towel around Nikolai’s shoulders and Nikolai looked down at his feet in their thin leather slipper-shoes and waited.

He’d never bothered with his hair particularly. He’d have it cut, then let it grow as it pleased (he kept it off his shirt collar at least), until his uncle scolded him for it. And Nikolai would roll his eyes, have it cut again, and then let it grow until his uncle scolded him again. It was as regular as any farming season: harvest, growth, harvest again. Though perhaps it was more like keeping sheep.

And perhaps he had been a little wild, running around in the woods and fields as he had. His aunt and uncle ignored him as often as not until they were appalled with him over something. Then he’d be punished until they tired of punishing him and he’d be overlooked again and he’d go back out to the woods and fields--which was how he had met Jonathan anyway.

Jonathan had liked his hair, though Nikolai disagreed: Jonathan was the one with the coppery-bronze hair that shimmered in the sunlight and Nikolai said his own hair was just black. Although when Jonathan had called him “funny little blackbird,” perhaps he’d not minded it quite so much.

That had been that autumn, before they gave each other their rings in the summer after.

Later in that same autumn, he’d set off of an afternoon to Jonathan’s house, down through the woods rather than by the lanes and roads--hardly a distance, only a few miles, though longer by the lanes.

He still walked the distance going the long way around, looking for rabbit snares along the way, snapping a fox trap shut with a rotten branch like a gamekeeper (the sight of a fox in a trap still rose up in his nightmares). The fields were mown and barren for the moment, all the late-summer work done. The smoke from the cottagers’ fires was blue against the trees until it turned gray against the sky. Someone was shooting in the distance--grouse, geese. He tramped through the leaves, turning them over and smelling mixed mold and spice.

Jonathan’s house (his family’s house, really) flashed gray and grand through the trees as the woods gave on to the parkland around the house. The grass wasn’t quite brown with frost on the rise up to the house, but stones of the house looked cold and the ivy along the back arbors was red from the frost.

Nikolai tripped up the hill on the grass rather than the path and slipped around to the back of the house, jumped the stone wall and trotted up the steps to the windows that looked onto the gardens. He passed them, low, crouched, but peering up into each one to see who, if anyone, was there. And, at last, in the library windows, he saw Jonathan. Propped up against the sill and balanced on the tips of his toes, he tapped at the window.

Jonathan started at seeing him there; Nikolai waved at him through the glass, grinning. Jonathan draped his book over the arm of his chair and came to push open the window. Nikolai set his elbows on the sill and pulled himself up a little closer.

“Let me in.”

Jonathan looked around the garden: empty, quiet. Gardeners weren’t needed for fading flowers. He took hold of Nikolai’s arms and Nikolai scrambled into the room.

He hopped from the windowsill and into Jonathan’s arms and they stood there together for a moment.

Jonathan kissed him at his temple, then leaned back in close again. Smoke, cold, the spice of leaves. “I can smell the autumn in your hair.”

Nikolai caught his hand and held it; his fingers were cold and Jonathan’s hand was warm. “Come out with me. It’s chill, but it’s wonderful.”

“My mother has company.”

Nikolai looked around the room, then back at Jonathan. “You’re not with them now. Take your coat. Come out with me.”

Jonathan looked aside for a moment, then down into Nikolai’s eyes (bright, sparkling from the cold air). He sighed and smiled. “All right. Wait for me outside.”

He helped Nikolai back out the window again, looked over his shoulder for a moment, and closed the window again.

Nikolai leaned against the wall of the house--which was warmer than he had expected but then the sun had been beating on it all afternoon. He pulled his cap a little lower over his eyes, leaned against the wall, and waited.

Jonathan came back to the window, now wrapped up in a jacket and scarf and cap, and clambered down. He pushed the window as shut as he could from the outside.

“It’s hardly fair that you’re tall enough to climb in and out without help,” Nikolai said.

Jonathan pulled up the brim of Nikolai’s cap. “You have your ways of getting out and I have mine.”

Nikolai grinned again and took Jonathan’s hand in both of his. “Come to the woods with me. I don’t have anything to talk about. But come walk with me. There might be stags or a fox.”

They hurried down the hill and into the woods again, Nikolai sliding a few steps ahead of Jonathan. The house at their backs, they passed through the orderly parkland near the house and into the real woods.

It was all well and good to carry on a romance with whomever one chose when one was young. But here, they were both going to university in a year--less than a year now. And that was quite old enough to have outgrown those freewheeling affairs. So it was only when they were in the woods, shuffling and crunching across the dead leaves, in between fading ferns, that they took one another’s hand and walked together.

A hawk passed over, calling, and Nikolai pointed--

“Sir? How does this suit you?”

Adrastos answered, “Perhaps a bit…” He trailed off. He must have gestured.

Nikolai opened his eyes to see clots of his hair scattered on the sheet under the stool. The barber tipped his chin up with a comb and Nikolai closed his eyes before he could see himself in the mirrors.

--Evening came on fast in those cold days. They had toyed with the idea of starting a small fire, perhaps on the stones on the banks of the stream, but instead kept walking.

They stopped at the top of a ridge and sat down under an oak. It kept its dead leaves for the winter and would lose them only in early spring and the dead leaves rattled. A crow called and another answered. They leaned against each other and held to each other’s hand.

As evening came on, the light poured down from behind them and down into the hollow below them and fell golden on the next rise across the hollow. The trees cast shadows on each other, but the leaves below them were all caught in that gold light.

Their shadows stretched out before them and down into the hollow and across to the other rise. Nikolai stood up and stretched his arms over his head, watching his shadow. It disappeared in the dark of the hollow, but stretched up the rise.

“I might be able to climb in that window if I were as tall as this.”

“You might be able to climb in my bedroom window if you were as tall as that.”

“And I would too, you know,” Nikolai said, turning to him. “I couldn’t stand up in your room, but I’d still come to your window. Every night.”

“And every morning?”

“Oh, yes, of course.” He sat down again. “And every afternoon.”

They looked across the hollow at the golden, liquid light. Nikolai turned to Jonathan and Jonathan leaned in to kiss him, once, softly. The tip of his nose was cold, but his lips were warm.

Nikolai put his hands around Jonathan’s face and kissed him in return. And one kiss led to two, to three, to four.

Jonathan tucked a lock of Nikolai’s hair behind his ear. “We should go back before it’s fully dark.”

--There was something cold on the back of Nikolai’s neck--no, that hadn’t happened that afternoon. That was the razor, that was the razor scraping on the back of his neck--

“I know. But just a moment more. It’s not dark yet.” And he smiled, crooked and sly.

The golden light rose up the trunks of the trees, turning from gold to rose. And only when it had slipped from the tops of the trees did they stand up and turn back towards the house--

“Oh yes, that’s far preferable,” Adrastos said. “He actually looks civilized and respectable now.”

Nikolai still kept his head low, hiding from the mirrors. The barber was shaking the towel out and brushing Nikolai’s shoulders off.

“See the footman at the door on your way out,” Adrastos went on. “He should have something for you.”

“Thank you, sir.” The barber collected his tools and rolled them into a leather kit. At the door he turned back and gave a fussy bow before leaving.

The door shut. Adrastos came over and set his hands on Nikolai’s shoulders. “Look at yourself,” he said.

Nikolai kept his eyes turned down. Clumps and strands of his hair were scattered on the sheet. Some postulant would collect it and shake it out a window, perhaps.

And then, perhaps, birds would find it and make nest of it.

And, perhaps, Jonathan would find one and know where Nikolai was and find him--but that was fantastical nonsense.

“Look at yourself,” he said again, an order, a command.

Nikolai looked up to find himself reflected around the three mirrors. At least he’d not cried. Where his hair had once fallen as it pleased on either side of his face and down between his eyes, now it was cropped short around his ears (mercifully not scraped bald) with a rough forelock hanging over just to his eyebrows. He tugged at it, then touched the back of his neck: that was shorn.

(Jonathan’s hands in his hair. “Funny little blackbird.”)

“I like you looking the way I choose. That is how it should be, don’t you think?”

#whump #vampires #traumatic haircut #fluffy angst #angsty fluff #Nikolai #jonathan #adrastos #control #dehumanization #memories #nostalgia

18 notes · View notes

justplainwhump · 4 years

Text

Ultrasound

This is another angsty thing on Alicia, this time from the caretaker - Katie’s - PoV.

It’s fairly long - 1500 words, and it’s actually canon. Also, you will meet someone new to hate, who might actually be Jason’s fundamental opposite.

Cw for mentions of past sexual assault and for heartless medical professionals (let me know if I forgot something)

***

Katie hated her shifts in the experimental labs with a passion. Her assumed identity, however, did the contrary. Officially, she was here for her doctoral thesis on the effects of magic on human physiology, and nothing was as important for science as the work that was done here. Thus, she was looking through the security glass wall with a fake smile on her lips, while on the other side Alicia fought to hold up an energy shield against a steady rain of rubber bullets. She was doing a good job, but Katie vividly remembered the cries of pain from moments when the mages were too weak to hold up the shield. They need to be motivated, her boss had explained. Otherwise those yellow pigheads never try their best. Katie almost shuddered when she recalled that conversation.

"Gotta check on inmate Rivera." Her superior tipped on one of the screens with her too long fingernails. "Her pulse is running wild again. Should be stable at that level. Did someone get me these tests I ordered?"

A shy voice spoke up behind them. One of the other PhD students, Fern. "I ran the blood test, doctor, but I need to double check, it seems highly unlikely and..."

Doctor Rosewood spun around in alarm. "What does seem unlikely?"

Fern scrambled for some papers. "I... Well... The hormone test..." She took a deep breath before she looked up again. "It seems, inmate Rivera is pregnant."

"What?", Katie whispered tonelessly, but her voice was drowned by her boss.

"Abort the experiment, right now", Rosewood yelled, before she hit the speak button at her microphone. "Inmate Rivera, report back immediately."

Alicia released the shield, the needles of the instruments around Katie dropping when Alicia's magic dispersed. She frowned in their general direction, unable to see through the glass.

"Shit, we need to be careful with the suppressants", Rosewood mumbled. "Can't endanger the embryo. Fern, give her a dose of the Carantomin, should do for now. And Kate, get the ultrasound equipment ready."

Katie steadied herself against the table, supressing the violent shivers that raced through her. Alicia. Pregnant. The girl she was here to protect, and had failed to, too often. For the greater good, she told herself. She couldn't get Alicia out of Ainsville, if she openly went against Reynolds. But this? This was too much. Too much for Alicia, but also for herself. She forced herself up, to walk over to the ultrasound machine and get it ready. Maybe it just wasn't true. Maybe there was a mistake.

But somewhere inside, she knew it had to be true. She just had caught a glimpse of what Alicia went through, but it all fit together smoothly.

From the corner of her eye, she saw one of the guards by the door talk to someone outside. "Get Reynolds here", he hissed. "Quickly."

She felt sick to the bone. Of course. She wasn't the only one who knew. But most likely, the only one who cared.

"Hadn't thought Rivera was one to be sleeping around", Rosewood said, while looking towards the training grounds expectantly. "She seems rather reserved. But I guess we'll find out." Her voice was almost excited. "Dear God, I hope it was another mage. But honestly, this is gold either way."

***

Alicia was calm, while she was being led in by Fern, hands restrained, legs shaky from her injection. She always seemed to be calm, even right before her anger broke through and she'd attack someone. But right now, there wasn't anger simmering underneath. It was fear, what Katie saw in her eyes, when her gaze flicked from the euphoric Rosewood to the ultrasound device that Katie had set up.

"What is it?", she asked carefully.

"Just some routine test", Rosewood replied, voice quivering in hopeful anticipation. She nodded to the guards. "Help the inmate out of that overall, please, and then fix her to the stretcher."

Alicia's back snapped straight and she stepped back. "Why... Why would I need to undress?"

"You're not in a position to be coy, Rivera. We're medical professionals. And for the examination, that thing needs to go off." Rosewood waved at the guards. "Do it."

Katie forced herself to look elsewhere. Her fingers trembled when she typed Alicia's name into the machine, but at least it gave her something to do, while Alicia was stripped to her underwear.

She only looked up when she heard her boss whistle. "These do look like some marks of passion there, inmate. Who's the lucky guy?"

Katie almost flinched when she saw what Rosewood referred to. Alicia's collarbones and chest were bruised and covered with bite sized marks, her upper arms held dark bruises from hands gripping too tight, and there was a scaring cut wound on her arm.

Alicia stared at the ceiling, mouth clenched shut, tears forming in her eyes.

"Those aren't marks of passion", Katie said sharply. "Those are marks of a crime. She was assaulted."

Rosewood turned back to her incredulously. "Kate? How dare you. Ainsville is a respectable place. There's mechanisms installed to prevent such incidents."

"There's mechanisms installed to prevent inmates engaging with each other as well, and what do you think now, would it be easier for some lovestruck inmates to circumvent these measures, or some malevolent authority fig-"

"What's going on here?"

Katie recognized his voice instantly, but had she not, it would've been obvious by the way Alicia's whole body seemed to tense and then slump in defeat.

Commander Reynolds.

She turned back to him, not even trying to fake politeness. It wouldn't have been necessary anyway. His eyes were focused solely on Alicia.

He seemed to have been interrupted in training, dressed just in dark sports shorts and T-shirt, blond hair an unkempt mess. His authority didn't require a uniform.

"Is there anything I should know?"

Reynolds stepped in and pointed at Alicia's bruises. "What happened to this inmate? I doubt your rubber bullets have that effect, or do they?" He placed a hand on her shoulder, a gesture that could've seemed caring, hadn't Alicia flinched violently at his touch. Her jaw was clenched shut. "It seems she doesn't want to talk, hm?"

Rosewood had blanched as well at his sudden appearance, but quickly regained her composure. "We're not sure yet, Commander. We're just examining her. We assume she might have had sexual encounters lately. Her blood test indicates she might be pregnant."

Alicia gasped, a tiny noise full of terror and despair, that made all eyes in the room settle on her. Her free hand shot up and clasped around Reynolds' arm as if calling for help. "No", she whispered. "No. Please, no."

"We'll find out", Rosewood snapped. "Lay down, inmate."

She waved at Katie impatiently. Katie stared from the device in her hand to Alicia, trembling and silently crying, eyes turned away, still clutching the hand of the monster responsible for all this.

"No", Katie whispered and stepped back. "No, I can't."

"It's alright." Fern's voice was soft but firm. "I trained with a gynecologist. Let me." She took the device from Katie's hands, and approached Alicia. "I will need to take off your underpants, inmate Rivera. May I?"

Alicia sobbed, but she nodded once, quickly, without even looking at her. It hurt to see. The consent of someone who had learned her consent wouldn't mean a thing to those acting around her anyway.

"Good. Now bend your legs, please." Fern spoke in a soothing voice, while working carefully and efficiently. Katie had never seen her like this. To be honest, she had never seen anyone of the people assembled in this room like this. Fern cool and professional, Rosewood childishly excited and impatient, Alicia passive and fearful. And Reynolds in his sports clothes, out of words for once, seemingly terrified, his hand on Alicia's shoulder reassuring himself as well.

Everyone but Alicia stared at the little black and white monitor, only half of them aware what they were searching for.

"There it is", Fern said finally, pointing at the screen. "Indeed. You're carrying a child, Miss Rivera."

Alicia made a tiny wailing sound, choked when she pressed her arm on her mouth. Still, her body was rocked by silent sobs.

"Amazing", Rosewood whispered. "A pregnant mage. Here in Ainsville."

"This is unacceptable", Reynolds said sharply. "All of this is."

Fuck you, Katie thought. Lying bastard. This is your doing, all of this.

"We need to know who fathered the child", Rosewood said thoughtfully, still lost in her own world.

"First, we need to know how we deal with this situation." Reynolds’ grip around Alicia's shoulder had fastened. Surely his hands matched the bruises on her body perfectly, Katie thought bitterly. "I will talk to the inmate. She might open up more easily in private."

"Shouldn't it be-" Fern started, but one glare from Reynolds silenced her.

"This is a precarious situation. We shouldn't act on impulse here. Right, Miss Wang?"

Katie flinched at hearing her name. "Of course", she mumbled.

"We could endanger more than it seems at first sight", he continued, and Katie wondered if she was the only one hearing the icy threat lining his words. "So, would you please leave us for a moment?" He nodded at Rosewood who was staring at the ultrasound photographs in silent anticipation. "This goes for you as well, Margaret."

#this is quite hard to tag #angst #i guess #emotional whump #tw assault #captivity #experiment #lady whump #female whump #unwanted pregnancy #fear #my writing #alicia #katie #jason #fern #rosewood

23 notes · View notes

fontainebleau22 · 6 years

Text

Box of Frogs (Part 4)

From @tramstrams‘ not-at-all-serious prompt, ‘an AU with magic, but something has gone terribly awry and people are being turned into frogs. Only Sam Chisolm can stop this madness’.

Part 1 here. Part 2 here. Part 3 here.

———

‘New hobby?’ asked Teddy, peering into the habitat on the bookshelf with sunny interest.

‘Not as such,’ said Goodnight gloomily.

Teddy watched as the frog scratched at his head with a hind foot. ‘Cute little thing.’

‘That’s Faraday.’

As though he heard his name, FrogJosh croaked loud and clear, and Teddy jumped back, turning to Goodnight suspiciously. ‘You having me on?’

‘Wish I were,’ said Goodnight. ‘That’s Billy in the big tank, and Jack’s in the bathtub.’

Teddy regarded FrogBilly, perched at the edge of his pool, with a mixture of awe and horror. ‘What happened?’ He turned, eyes wide. ‘Not catching, is it?’

Goodnight sank onto the corner of the sofa. ‘There’s this woman… Faraday got on the wrong side of her, no surprise there, but she turned him into a frog, just waved her hand.’

‘And it didn’t wear off?’

‘No. Vas took Billy and went to reason with her, but she turned Billy too; then Jack thought he could persuade her, and …’ He gestured in the direction of the bathroom, then put a hand to the glass of Billy’s vivarium. ‘I’m trying to do my best by them, but it can’t go on like this.’

‘What are you going to do?’

‘Sam,’ said Goodnight firmly. ‘I’m counting on him. He said he’d be back Saturday.’

He focused on Teddy. ‘Come to ask a favour?’ Teddy cast another anxious glance at the tanks, but held out his hand to show a cut across the palm, shallow but ragged, and Goodnight tsked. ‘Gotta take more care with those tools.’

He beckoned to him to sit, then took his hand and massaged over the injury with his thumb, lightly at first as Teddy winced slightly at the pain, then more firmly, and Teddy relaxed as the warmth spread from Goodnight’s fingers.

‘How come they’re all here with you?’ he asked curiously. ‘Why aren’t Vas and Red looking after them?’

‘Good question,’ muttered Goodnight fervently. ‘Vas took off somewhere yesterday, and Red… well, he’s not himself.’

Vas had left, stormy-faced and preoccupied, abandoning FrogJosh to his care, and Goodnight hadn’t heard from him since; his phone was ringing unanswered, and when Goodnight had tried the café he’d got such a tirade from Mary, furious at being left short-staffed, that he’d felt the phone start to melt in his hand, and had to hang up hurriedly before it began to drip through his fingers.

Fortunately FrogJosh had proved easy to care for, eating with a healthy appetite and dozing in the sun, and though the idea of sharing his bathroom with a bullfrog had fazed him initially, Jack had been positively obliging, allowing himself to be transferred to the washbasin while Goodnight showered and punctuating his off-key singing with rhythmic brorps.

Red was the one who seemed to be taking the situation hardest: distress and agitation had driven him permanently into his avian shape, wheeling in the sky over Goodnight’s house, letting out shrill distant cries.

Goodnight rubbed until the skin of Teddy’s palm was smooth again and let go. ‘There.’

Teddy worked his fingers, satisfied. ‘Appreciate it.’

‘Quid pro quo,’ said Goodnight, and Teddy smiled shyly. ‘I’ll have a word with your azaleas before I go.’

Neither Goodnight nor Billy had ever exactly understood Teddy’s way with plants – humming to them, stroking their leaves or communing with them in some indefinable way – but a single session of apparently aimless wandering in a neglected yard left it lush and flourishing, and over a month of intensive pep talks he’d even managed to persuade their little lemon tree to produce some actual lemons.

Teddy opened the door, then froze, one foot in the air. ‘You know there’s another frog on your doorstep?’

‘What?’ Goodnight hurried over and sure enough, a plump green frog was sitting under the sill.

Teddy had turned as green as the frog. ‘It is catching.’

‘It could just be an ordinary frog,’ said Goodnight, though his heart was sinking. ‘Lost its way, got dropped by a bird, or, I don’t know, just rained down from the sky. Maybe someone went by whose ability is making it rain frogs, and every house on the street has one.’

They looked down together at the frog which was making a valiant effort to climb over his doorstep. ‘I – I have an – have to be…’ Teddy bolted for the gate.

‘But the azaleas…’ called Goodnight pointlessly after him, then sighed in defeat. He bent down to scrutinise the frog. Amphibian expert as he was by now, he had to admit that it didn’t look like a common or garden frog: it was bright green, round and shiny, and still scrabbling at the doorsill. Sinking feeling complete, he scooped it up and took it indoors to examine.

Who was it? And what kind of frog? He deposited it on the windowsill where the light was best and picked up Amphibians of the Southern US, flipping through the pages to compare pictures. The vivid shade of green said tree frog: white throat, white spots on its back … did it have stippled thighs? He reached out a hand to pick it up for closer examination, but the frog leapt nimbly out of his reach. Maybe best not to look too closely. He turned another page, and there it was: Mexican dumpy tree frog. So.

Goodnight pinched the bridge of his nose and breathed deliberately. OK. OK. I can cope with this. Billy is a frog, Josh is a frog, Jack is a frog and now Vasquez is a frog.

He could guess how Vasquez had contrived to get himself transformed, but it answered some of their questions that he’d then managed to navigate his way here, back to safety. It also demonstrated that being transformed into a frog negated people’s abilities: FrogVasquez was pudgy and short-necked, hardly handsome, and – he looked down – not there any more.

Goodnight scanned the windowsill in consternation. No, there he was, scaling the side of the bookcase, heading for the shelf where Frog-Josh’s tank was stationed. No room for doubt: as FrogVas reached his destination he plastered himself against the glass of the tank, clinging with lobed fingers and toes. Goodnight carefully peeled him off, opened the lid and plopped him in, and FrogJosh let out a series of joyous ribbits.

Goodnight stood for a while trying to come to terms with it all, but it didn’t get any better. Eventually, Come on, he told himself, pull yourself together. Everyone is depending on you. What did a dumpy tree frog need?

He sat down next to Billy’s habitat, and after ten minutes with his manuals he reached for the list he’d already drawn up – brown crickets, curly-winged flies, vitamin powder, spare circulation pump – and at the bottom added lighting timer, large ferns and mealworms? He considered the list for a while, then slowly bowed his head until his forehead was resting on the paper. How had it come to this?

A movement in the big vivarium attracted his attention, and there Billy was, jewel-bright, gazing at him seriously: Goodnight knew he wasn’t imagining the sympathy in his round dark eyes. He put his fingers to the glass. ‘Sweetheart,’ he said sadly, ‘I wish I could be in there with you.’ At least Vasquez and Faraday were together again, he thought sentimentally; he cast a glance up at their tank, then quickly averted his gaze at what was going on in there.

Billy blinked and hopped closer. Did he look hopeful? Or was he just hungry? Goodnight picked up the list. I can do this. Only two more days.

The clerk behind the desk broke into a welcoming grin as Goodnight pushed open the door of the pet store. ‘Mr Robicheaux! Pleasure to see you back so soon.’

Goodnight grimaced, but the clerk burbled on cheerfully. ‘We’ve restocked the amphibian mineral supplement you were asking about.’ He reached up, his arm stretching and thinning as it went, to pluck a package from the topmost shelf.

‘I’ll take two,’ said Goodnight resignedly, unfolding his list, ‘and all of these.’

‘Flies are just in,’ said the clerk, scanning the paper, ‘take me five minutes to sort them out,’ and while he went out back to fill the order Goodnight wandered the aisles at random, on the lookout for ideas to enrich Billy’s habitat. Would any of the fishtank ornaments be appropriate – a castle, maybe? Or a very tiny mirror? But maybe that would be too disturbing…

Absorbed in thought, he took a step backward and bumped elbows with someone else; a plastic bucket went skittering across the floor. His collidee proved to be a small, angry-looking woman, her red hair drawn back unflatteringly tight from her face.

‘I’m sorry,’ he said, retrieving the bucket and offering it back to her; she frowned, but said stiffly, ‘My fault. I was trying to reach…’ She gestured to where a tangle of leather dog harnesses hung from a hook.

Goodnight looked back to the counter in case the elastic-armed clerk was available, but no one was in sight. ‘Allow me,’ he said, and turned over the bucket to balance on while he reached up at full stretch to bring down the harnesses all together in a tangled clump, handing them down with a smile.

‘Thank you,’ said the woman, grudgingly, turning away as she began to work the thickest strap free from the tangle.

‘Big dog, huh?’ asked Goodnight conversationally.

That brought a spark of interest to her face. ‘He’s a Bernese. Sweet as anything, but he’s in a new house and he tries to run back home…’ The dawning smile was gone as quickly as it had appeared.

‘Just moved here?’ asked Goodnight sympathetically.

‘Yes. After my husband-‘ She bit her lip in an attempt to maintain her composure, and Goodnight thought he understood her red-rimmed eyes.

‘I’m sorry,’ he said awkwardly. ‘It’s a hard thing. My husband’s – away right now, and that’s difficult enough.’

‘Mr Robicheaux?’ interrupted the clerk from behind the counter, ‘We can get you mealworms freeze-dried, but not live.’

‘Frogs,’ explained Goodnight, seeing her expression, then, with a shudder of relief, ‘Freeze-dried is fine.’ The woman seemed to be looking at him oddly, so he added, ‘I – inherited them unexpectedly. Not something I would have chosen. But I need to make sure they’re properly cared for.’

Two spots of colour stood out on her cheeks as she opened her mouth to speak, then closed it again, twisting the harness in her hands. ‘How did you-‘

She was staring at him so intently that Goodnight was unnerved; ‘I-‘ he began, but the words stuck in his throat. They stood frozen for an awkward moment, then suddenly the woman turned heel and fled.

The clerk frowned as the door slammed behind her. ‘She pay for that?’

‘Stick it on my total,’ said Goodnight, with a pang of sympathy. At least he still had Billy to go home to, blue and stripy though he currently was; he couldn’t begin to imagine what it would be like to lose him.

‘Sure you don’t need any mice?’ asked the clerk optimistically as he handed Goodnight his bag. ‘Could do you a reduced rate.’

‘No,’ said Goodnight, preoccupied by his strange encounter. ‘If Jack wants mice then Red can human up and get them himself instead of hunching about miserably on my roof.’ He picked up his package, gave a brisk nod to the startled man and squared his shoulders as he headed to the exit. Sam. When Sam comes back it will all be OK again. Sam can fix this, I know he can.

#mag7 #the magnificent seven #goodnight robicheaux #teddy q #joshua faraday #billy rocks #jack horne #red harvest #vasquez #emma cullen #still no Sam #honestly what is he doing?#if he doesn't come back soon everyone will be a frog #box of frogs au #this is not over

20 notes · View notes

we-were-legends · 6 years

Text

“Champion’s dawn”

Chapter 24 - “Superior hunter”

Previous chapter | Next chapter

It felt wonderful to wake up wherever he wished. Oropher focused from his dreams and scretched out his sore muscles. He felt but a few cramps and the pain quickly faded and it actually felt pleasant to move his congealed body.

He decided to lay in bedding for few more moments in complete peace and quiet. There was no one knocking stubbornly on his door and none of his soldiers barged into his room to get him up in an instance. He could finally get some peace.

He dreamed of dark navy sky once more and he stated that it was probably not the last time he would see it in his dreams. He didn't know what this could mean or if it meant something at all, but those dreams were always pleasant to recall, though Oropher barely remembered what happened there.

All of sudden he remembered Celduin and he sighted with a bit of longing. Surely he will sent a falcon to Celegil and tell her everything that happened, but he will include a paper to his dear Celduin as well. He wished to tell him that he arrived home whole and safe and how he regretted that Celduin's home was somewhere else. Maybe, just maybe, Celduin will decide to move to Doriath and live near Menegroth with his kin – this was a bold thought and Oropher suspected that it was also unreal one. Celduin loved Ossiriand too much to leave it – he was of those elves who understood nature around them and walked freely among the dangers of wilderness. Celduin won't ever leave his home.

Oropher sighted and got up deciding to treat himself and taking a longer bath this time. Crossing his bedroom, he threw his bedding clothes off himself and stepped into the water immediately sinking fully, sighting with clear relief. He grabbed a lotion that was always nearby and rubbed it into his hair. Smell of mixed flowers rised up around immediately and lotion streamed down his body into the water with soft current that took it away immediately.

It was strange that they didn't have sunflowers in the West. This sudden thought made Oropher open his eyes. He hoped that the Golodhrim would listen to his guidance and that Sunflower told her uncle all that was to know. And Oropher needed to meet once more with the King to ask him about getting back and helping the Noldor even more. Maybe he will take his division with him, though he felt uncertainity about taking his young soldiers beyond the Girdle.

Pile of sudden duties hit up Oropher immediately and he sunk down into the water to escape from this. But first things first, now he will meetwith his father and spend with him pleasant time.

When he took away all the lotion from his hair he quickly dried himself and dressed up in his usual uniform. He left his bedroom and looked at the Mountain Grass above the fireplace – the weapon was still silent, though Oropher had impression that the blade warmed up a bit and didn't seem so distant.

Oropher laughed a bit to himself and left his room, carrying no weapons at his side. He will give himself more time to rest and taking his heavy weapons with himself wouldn't make this any easier.

He went down the corridor of the apartments of House Elmo and once he encountered an attendant he asked to bring cold drinks to the Fern Room, where his father loved to be and then he bid to call Lord Erthor himself. The elf nodded to him graciously and went on to perform his wish and Oropher continued his way down the corridor. It was not long when he encountered his uncles in one of the many rooms. They were talking quietly to themselves and they turned their attention to Oropher when he appeared on the corridor before the entrance to the room.

'Had a good sleep?' Galadhon said and Oropher was not sure if his uncle was being nice or he should expect a further comment.

'Give it a rest.' Edwethon growled a bit at his brother and Oropher admitted that it was truly rare those times that Edwethon stood at his side.

Edwethon got up from his armchair and embraced Oropher who returned the gesture. Oropher always regretted that his relation with Edwethon worsened as he remembered from his childhood that he enjoyed spending time with his uncle. Edwethon had a talent in encursted writing and the books he made were a piece of art. During their childhood, Edwethon always tried to teach them a bit of it, but everytime it ended up in smears and doodles.

'It's good you are back.' Edwethon said and patted his arm before he walked out of the room and Oropher looked at Galadhon who was still sitting in his chair. Oropher didn't know what get Edwethon in such softness towards him, but he didn't complain.

Galadhon watched him as if considering, but it seemed he won't torment Oropher with his lecture and something entirely else was in his mind. Something Oropher wouldn't have predicted in his wildest dreams.

'Amdír is back in Menegroth.'

Oropher barely understood the words Galadhon just said. It had been countless seasons, centuries since Amdír left to the Western Tower and never looked behind. Oropher remembered well his cousin's words, even renouncement that his foot won't ever step into Menegroth ever again. What could have made him to change his mind? And most importantly, what was his purpose to appear here?

'He arrived here with his commander, Hinnor Emlinion who performs duties of the Great Marchwarden.' Galadhon said partially answering few of Oropher's questions, but this sounded even more suspicious. Oropher knew Amdír very well and he knew that his older cousin wouldn't acknowledge an order as soon as he would have some profit from it. And this alone should bring insecurity to anyone who knew Amdír even a bit.

'I hope he keeps his head low.' Oropher managed to say and Galadhon nodded at his words.

'Nothing happened yet.' he said and then tilted his head. 'Don't concern yourself with this now.'

Oropher took his leave from his uncle and went on towards the Fern Room. How could he not concern himself with this? Amdír was like a pesky wasp that no one liked, but at the same time it was dangerous nontheless and able to stir peace in perfectly balanced beehive. Now Oropher started to worry. He hoped Amdír have not taken Arvellon as his target of quarell for his young cousin would stand no chance against his own older brother.

The only thing that consolated Oropher enough were his uncle's words – Galadhon said that Amdír kept his head low and Oropher hoped it will stay that way. Nonetheless, he will meet his older cousin as he was curious what made Amdír come back to his once home.

When he entered the Fern Room cold drinks were already waiting there and fresh apples as well. Oropher didn't manage to get himself comfortable when his father entered the room and smiled warmly.

'You look so much better, Oropher.' Erthor said as he approached his son and embraced him heartily. 'Though, I hoped you will think of yourself and rest more than you did.'

'Don't worry, Adar. I promise I won't overstrain myself too much.' Oropher said holding his father in embrace as well. He knew he was in shape since he killed a wolf with a dagger, but it will do well for his muscles to not carry any weight for some time. 'How much time has passed? The King decided anything about the Golodhrim?'

'The sun rose three times, it's daytime now.' Erthor said when they pulled away from each other and sat next to themselves at the table. 'And as for now, the King holds the matter of Noldor quiet. Not even whole Council is aware of this.'

'So King Elwë shared this with chosen advisors.' Oropher said as he took a sip of his drink.

'All our family is included.' Erthor said. 'Respective Heads of the Noble Houses and few more councillors, including Saeros and Raeg.'

Oropher looked at his father knowing there was a reason that he mentioned those elves. Erthor didn't hold those two elves in great respect nor he gave them credit for wisdom, neither he looked kindly about their talkings with Edwethon, but they were councillors nonetheless and as a Head of the Coucil, Erthor needed to take their words into account.

'Yes, they cause troubles, especially Raeg.' Erthor said answering Oropher's unsaid question. 'They wish to cut off from the Golodhrim and isolate Doriath from any of their impact. They meant what they are saying, even in much harsher words than I did now.' Erthor sighted a bit. 'I know that many will agree with them. Doriath can't afford to help Ossiriand and Noldor alike, our reserves are not endless after all, and we can't let our soldiers to travel back and forth through the lands. Their duty and families are here.'

Oropher knew it was the truth. His own wish to travel back and see his new allies could not blaze away his duty. No matter how much he wished to come back, the last words belonged as always to Elwë and Oropher will have to submit to his King's will.

'But the King do not wish to leave this matter like this.' Erthor continued. 'If anything, he wants to know what lead thrm back to this shore and if Finwë is here with his sons.'

Erthor fell in silence and Oropher looked at his father closely. There was something on his mind that couldn't leave his mouth and Oropher suspected what this could be.

'Do you think the King will send someone to the Noldor?'

'I am more than afraid that he will send you.' Erthor said aggrieved by this lone thought. 'You were already gone for so long, you could have not come back this time! Though Melian said that Arien forced away evil creatures, the darkness still lingers there.' he sighted. 'I can't think of you being away for so long once more.'

Oropher cought his father's hand. He knew how anxious Erthor was everytime he left and his sudden leave to the western lands didn't make it any easier for his father.

'Ada, I am not going anywhere now.' he said and smiled delicately at his father, trying to cheer him up. 'But you know well that I never ride alone. My soldiers are always with me.' then he sighted a bit knowing that his escapade to the west was rabid like all of himself. 'My leave to Lammoth was sudden and reckless, uncle is right about it. And I am sorry for causing you such worry.'

'Sadly, this is your duty. I can do nothing about it, no matter how I wish I could.' Erthor said bitterly and then he shook his head. 'We would have send scouts to the west either way. You saved someone else from such dangerous journey.' he looked at Oropher and smiled. 'Don't get me wrong, my son. I am proud of you beyond measure seeing your bravery and resolution. But having a child such as you is both pride and curse for a parent.'

Oropher had no words for this. He couldn't change who he was nor he was able to change his duty. It Erthor who needed to finally cope with this, but Oropher couldn't help his father with this – it was something Erthor needed to do on his own.

Erthor gripped his hand in turn and Oropher didn't know how to make it easier for his father. His duty was not easy neither it was safe, but Oropher could not afford to reduce his obligations to the army – he had his orders and he won't send his soldiers where he won't go himself.

Erthor sighted and closed his eyes for a moment getting back to his previous balance.

'Oh, don't listen to me, Oropher. It's just a gab of your old father.' he said and smiled a bit to his son. 'I bet Taranir will tell you of happenings and new orders that were given during your absence. In the meantime, I will tell you how proud you can be of Arvellon.'

'What do you mean?' Oropher asked at the same time feeling a needle of concern.

'Their ride back from Ossiriand was troublesome. They encouneredna large pack of wargs on their way.' Erthor said and Oropher waited him to continue. First anxiousness passed quickly as his father was calm and by this he could be sure that no one was injured. 'Arvellon shot down three wargs himself, those were his first kills as you well know. Even Orthon's gratulations were sincere and this means something. Everyone is so proud of him.'

Oropher nodded with content barely preventing smile entering his face. A thought of a danger they face on their way back was entirely dimmed by pride and he was sure Faron and Celeborn will tell him more about it.

'And I as well could no be prouder.' Oropher said. 'Arvellon will be a great soldier. I know it, it's in his blood.'

Erthor glanced a bit on his son knowing that there was something on his mind. As always there was no possibility to hide anything from his father, but Oropher will stay silent about this matter and he changed the topic to more serious.

'Uncle told me that Amdír is back.'

'Indeed, he is.' Erthor said with a sight. 'He arrived as one of the wardens at the side of their commander. But as for now there is no need to worry.' he looked more cautiously at his son. 'Still, be careful. I know it was long since you and Amdír saw each other, but you both were always close. If you wanted this or not, Amdír had influence on you and it was not always a good one.'

Oropher knew it was true. Amdír was his older cousin and despite himself Oropher often found himself prone to the words of Amdír and his infuence. And giving the fact that they spend much of their time together Oropher sometimes was more eager to hear his older cousin and quickly forgot the words of his Elders, or even what Celeborn was telling him.

'I was long since I saw Amdír.' Oropher said. 'And even I changed from who I once was. I am no longer so prone to hear his words.'

'I know.' Erthor said, sighting delicately. 'But he can change you, without you even noticing. In your days, you and Amdír matched well. You two would have made a good team if some things would had ended differently.'

Many said that they would have made a great team with Amdír. Even that wretched Beleg said it. But Oropher strongly doubted that Amdír would fit into any division – it was a very core of his character that prevented him from being a trustworthy soldier. His sick need for freedom and evading any responsibilities crossed his line to be of any use to the marchwardens, to the army or even to their House.

'Don't worry, Ada. I got this.' Oropher said and leaned closer to his father embracing him and laying head on his arm.

This side of him only went out it the presence of his family, especially around his father. He wouldn't even dare to treat his family with his usual staggering confidence – Celeborn and Galathil would take none of it, Erthor despite his calm nature was able to hold him down with ease and Galadhon would be fast to show him back his place. He inherited his character from them after all.

Erthor embraced him back and Oropher knew that his father always loved to hold him as if this was his strange reassurance of safety, just that Oropher was here beside him.

It was Erthor who always was a good uncle between Edwethon and Galadhon. Always when Oropher, Celeborn, Galathil and Amdír did something they were not supposed to, they always went first to Erthor as they knew he won't stay angry for too long, instead thinking of the solution to the problem they created and also, if they were all unharmed. Their second choice was always Edwethon as he was as well a bit more easygoing, but it was clear that if they didn't get slating in this very moment they will receive it after Edwethon will take care of the problem. And they always tried to evade going to Galadhon as if dodging fire – Galadhon never rised his voice at them, but his calm words showed far more than mindless shouting.

Oropher realised he started to drowse off, eased by his father's presence. His father was always this calming presence that eased down his fierceness. In public, Oropher never dared to oppose his father and listened to him with no falter. No matter how great his fury was and how desperately he wanted to prove his strength once more, Erthor always managed to hold him at bay and Oropher stood beside his father livid like a storm above the ocean, but he would not defile the words of Erthor and he always stood down, letting his father to contain him. It was only Erthor who was able to do so.

He would have defiled Erthor's words only if there was clear threat that needed to be taken care of. If else, Oropher didn't let himself to show his father such disrespect.

Oropher realized he had never saw his father with a sword in hand. His father thought about the art of weapon mastery as Celeborn – it was a matter to certain goal and nothing more. But Erthor sometimes took either his word or bow in hand and just seeing how his father handled the weapons Oropher could tell that he new them well and no wonder – during the March and before Menegroth was built there was a need to protect their people and Oropher was sure that his father had all set of weapons with himself at those times.

'Do you want to spar with me one time?' Oropher asked and Erthor laughed hearing his words.

'You want to drag your poor old father into this?' he shook his head. 'I have not handled a sword in good centuries, my son. Sadly, my weapons are hidden somewhere deep in a case and by now they are most likely all blunt.'

Oropher rised his head interested and wondering why he never asked his father to show him.

'Will you show me?' he asked, curious how they looked like. Galadhon always told him that it was possible to learn a lot from the lone appearance of the weapons that someone handled. And now Oropher felt strong interest how his father's sword and bow looked like.

'Oh, I will have to search well for it.' Erthor said. 'But I will try. And once I will find my old weapons, I will show them to you.'

Oropher smiled realising his duties came running at him. Taranir did all the work for enough time and he needed to hear from his officers about new orders and changes that happened in the army during his absence. He will have to speak with Taranir face to face and learn what his friend wished to tell him – only for him to know. And then Oropher will surely have to meet Mablung and two generals – Heardin and Egnaspen. There was so much to do before him.

'How does uncle feel about Amdír being here?' he asked then knowing how hard this topic was to speak about and Erthor sighted deeply.

'It was not a pleasant reunion. Truth be told there was no reunion at all.' he said. 'Amdír didn't appear to meet his parents or even family and I don't know if he met with either Celeborn or Galathil, but surely he didn't speak with Edwethon and Arradis.' Erthor sighted and shook his head a bit. 'Poor Arradis can't cope with her son's nature. She don't know what's beneath it.'

Oropher could only imagine how hard this situation was for Edwethon and Arradis. It was as if they already lost their son and it seemed that Amdír felt no remorse about his doings. Maybe Oropher will be able to talk a bit of sense to his older cousin, though on the other hand maybe it was for the better that Amdír stayed away from his parents – if he had nothing pleasant to say then he should not deepen the open wound of Edwethon and Arradis.

Erthor held him a bit tighter for a moment lost in own thoughts. Oropher was glad for having such relation with his father who suported him against everything, even his own fear. Oropher wondered if it would have been the same with his mother.

'I need to check on my soldiers.' he said and Erthor nodded at his words still not fully present as he was still deep in his own toughts, but then he focused quickly. He as well had much work to do for sure and Oropher suspected that the matter of the Noldor was still in talkings.

'I know, you must come back to your duties. But make sure to not overstrain yourself.'

'I won't. I promise my first changes to be peaceful.' Oropher said. 'Maybe I will take my young soldiers for training.'

'And they had such pleasant time without you.' Erthor laughed a bit and Oropher shook his head. He was actually curious of Halloth, Amrun and Tinnu made any progress and if their horses were well trained by now.

Oropher got up and Erthor did the same. They left the room talking quietly and he decided to walk his father to his own office before he will head off to the military fields. They quickly left their family's apartments and entered the Court faster than they anticipated as their walk seemed shorter while they conversed.

'Uncle! I was looking for you!'

They both turned hearing a well known voice behind them and Celeborn was quick to focus from Erthor to Oropher.

'Here is my stupid cousin, riding alone where he is not supposed to.' Celeborn said as he cought Oropher in embrace that was returned. It wasn't fair to leave Celeborn, to force him in such way to let him go. They both knew it by heart. Duty knew better.

'I'm sorry.' Oropher said, truly not knowing what he should say more. They pulled away and Celeborn patted his arm.

'You better be! I don't know what you will have to do to make this up.' he said and when he turned his attention on Erthor, Oropher did the same. His father stood on side watching them with fondness. 'The Council is gathering. Are there any other matters you wish to bring up?'

'Nothing else than we spoke of.' Ethor said as he approached them and reached out straightening Celeborn's elegant coat. It seemed to be a habit of every Elder to do that. 'And it will be you leading the Council meeting.'

'Uncle, you are the Head of the Council.' Celeborn said. 'There are some looking awry at you doing so. Some even start to say that you wish to step down.'

Oropher frowned as he looked at his father. Erthor didn't show any clues that he wished to do so, but on the other hand he fulfilled this duty for well amount of centuries since Menegroth was build. Maybe he truly wished to take up responsibility ofhis House and leave the Council to someone else.

'Don't look at me like that, you two.' Erthor said. 'I will stay on my post for much longer time. But I enjoy to give up the lead to someone else sometimes. And it's a pleasure to listen to you Celeborn, you handle yourself well in the role of the Head of the Council.'

'Celeborn the Wise.' Oropher snarked with a smirk as he crossed arms on his chest and Celeborn turned to him immediately.

'Shut up!'

'Alright, don't start to call each other names!' Erthor said stepping in immediately before Oropher opened his mouth to say something more. His father knew them well, tough he also knew they were not doing that in seriousness. 'Let us go take care of the councillors.' he said as he glanced first at Celeborn then at Oropher and slowly started to walk away. 'And don't overstrain yourself, my son.'

They moved in different dirrections, but they didn't walk far when they both turned to say one more word to another. Erthor immediately shot them a knowing glance they he knew what they were doing and after this Celeborn and Oropher turned from each other for good and walked their own way.

Smell of horses and forges was like a balsam. Weapons clinged in countless duels and horses neighted around, hoofbeats echoed between the walls and swoosh of loosed arrows was clear like water in mountain streams. Talks and laughs around, called orders and commands ensured Oropher that he truly came back home.

Before he will gather his officers, Oropher first decided to go to his own office. He strolled through the fields, from time to time receiving salutes of his soldiers and lower ranking officers and he answered with quick nod. He climbed the wooded stairs and walked inside his cabinet without a worry that he will be lost in piles of reports and orders. Taranir as always made sure that everything was finished on time and placed where it belonged and surely Saida helped in maintaining the place clean and able to work in. Truth be told the office belonged as much to Oropher as to Taranir.

He didn't even manage to sit behind his desk when a door closed shut as someone entered the office and pushed them close and Oropher barely turned around when his lips were cought in a kiss.

Alagos embraced his waist holding him tightly and Oropher felt his hands running from his pelvis and through ribs as if Alagos wished to recall all that he remembered about him. And Oropher let him embracing Alagos in turn, caressing his muscled back, savoring in the taste of his lips and usual smell of the forge and coal. Neither of them yielded down and their kiss was all messy as each of them wanted it their own way. Oropher remembered soft kisses he shared with Celduin and pleasant shivers at their every touch. With Alagos all he felt were bolts going through his body, encouraging him to get more of what he wanted.

Oropher's hands got under Alagos's shirt to feel his bare skin, warm as always, and he grabbed Alagos roughly pulling him closer, but Alagos had not yielded down and he pushed back on Oropher so he was forced to lean on the desk behind him.

He got his hand low enough to feel twitching abdomen muscle and it forced a moan from Alagos that was muffled in their kiss. And Oropher smiled at this biting Alagos's lower lip who had not remained in debt for long. Then, in the middle of this, Oropher remembered unhandy detail and he pulled away from Alagos breaking their kiss.

'How is your affair with Lalveth?' he asked calming his breath from their heated, long kiss.

'All is going in the right direction.' Alagos said as he unbuttoned the top of Oropher's coat unveiling neck for kisses. 'She is so much like me. We will be married before we realize.'

And despite this Alagos was still here with him. If what Alagos said was true, that he and Lalveth were so much alike, than maybe they will have an open relationship, but as it was for now Oropher was not so fast to get into previous relation with Alagos that they used to have.

He couldn't deny that Alagos's kisses felt wonderful and he moaned softly at what his friend was doing to him. Despite his thoughts, Oropher tilted his head to get even more and Alagos hastily unbuttoned his coat and then Oropher felt Alagos shooving hands under his shirt caressing his body and teasing hardening nipples. His touch sent pleasant shivers down his body and Oropher sighted delighted at this.

Alagos almost managed to urge him into this. Almost.

Oropher pushed Alagos away, not violently, but with enough force to tell him to stop. And Alagos did as he was bidden though surely with great discontent.

'Your place is with Lalveth.' Oropher said when Alagos took his hands away and no longer kissed him ferociously, but surely by now he managed to make few marks that could be easily hidden beneat the coat.

'She won't mind.' Alagos said as he still kept himself close and layed head on Oropher shoulder.

'I don't know this. And you can't be sure about this either.' Oropher muttered tough he caressed Alagos's head and combed fingers through his brown hair. 'Give it a rest, Alagos.'

His friend sighted deeply, but didn't press the matter further. Oropher knew he was right, that this decision was right and they needed to control themselves. What the future will bring he didn't now. But relation which Alagos wanted to form with Lalveth was serious and Oropher won't step in between them.

'I'm glad you are back.' Alagos said still keeping himself close. 'It started to become woriesome that you were gone for so long.'

'There were some complications.' Oropher said knowing all too well that he needed to stay silent about the Golodhrim he encountered in the west.

'So I can imagine.' Alagos said and he looked up at Oropher. 'As you probably know by now, your older cousin Amdír in in Menegroth and I saw him quite often strolling through the fields. I don't know what is his purpose, but he stirrs no problems.'

'Keep an eye on him.' Oropher said, worried that Amdír seeked Arvellon for reason unknown, yet definately not to be ignored.

'You in turn should speak with Taranir.' Alagos said. 'Hinnor arrived here with ten marchwardens. Amdír was among them, as was Taranir's father.'

Oropher frowned at this. This matter was not unknown to him and he knew well that Taranir despized his father probably even more than the Dark Lord. Taranir didn't even presented himself as a son to anyone – he always said that he was the son of Mithel, his beloved mother.

Oropher needed to check if Taranir was fine enough with this situation and if he wanted to spend time with his family instead of being here. Truth be told, Oropher may do just that, though he knew that his friend very reluctantly left his station and duty to somebody else.

Oropher leaned closer and kissed Alagos's temple, holding him briefly for a bit. Despite that their specific relationship eneded, Alagos will always hold a special place in his heart and nothing will ever change it.

'Call the others. I need to hear what has changed.'

Alagos nodded at his words and left him walking out of his office and Oropher immediately felt lack of his presence and warm body so close to him.

Oropher shook away his sudden regrets and focused on a job he needed to do. He didn't have time now for any affairs.

#oropher #celeborn #galathil #amdir #arvellon #sindar #doriath #House of Elmo #ofc #omc #original female character #original male character #we were legends #champion's dawn

1 note · View note

andwinterfell · 4 years

Text

#9 - blinded

from goretober 2020 prompts characters included: μ mossell, emmeray holt, & laylah du golgota (with guest appearance from finnegan aendryr since it’s kind of a continuation from here, kind of) warnings: eye horror / eye trauma, violent loss of a limb, blood, dissociation, etc

1539 words

It hurts. He’s never felt pain like this before. There were other pains (broken bones, insect bites, poison), and if he survived this there would be many more. But somehow this was so different.

It was a strange feeling, like floating, like dreaming. Strangely serene when the blade slipped between his eye and skull, causing a ringing in his ears that makes him stop squirming under her grasp. The woman’s long, dark hair fell like a curtain over the two of them, contained. He looked up at her - cold slate gray eyes carving out his amber - and the way she was gritting her teeth, like trying to force a smile. There’s an unbelievable burning, slicing through his skull. It stopped his heart, it caused a hitch in his breath.

What a strange sort of intimacy.

“It hurts,” he chokes. His hand goes up to the collar of her dress.

“It’s supposed to. That’s the point.” She’s being careful with the blade, she’s making sure she gets it all.

***

He’s rarely afraid, even in the face of the worst dangers, even when threatened with death. Ray always chastised him for it, getting closer to monsters in the swamps, climbing weak looking trees or crumbling cliffs to get this or that thing.

When they found the open convent, Ray had snatched μ up like a cat and set him onto a lower branch on a tree. “Climb up there, wait until it’s safe, then go find those druids again. I think this here’s what they were talking about.” He’d discounted μ’s curiosity, he’d discounted μ’s reaction to something so different he just had to look, he’d discounted how attached μ had grown to him, and he probably hadn’t even imagined what form fear would take in μ.

To be fair to that last one, even μ couldn’t imagine that until just now.

He’s rarely afraid, but the sound of Emmeray screaming in pain is just terrifying.

(He rarely shouts, yells, or screams. His voice is always an even monotone, except when he’s telling stories. Always even, always controlled. Even in a fight, even in pain.)

Instead of going to the druids, he instead bolted towards the sounds of screaming.

***

(We existed in peace with them for many years, despite their preferences. Their desire for chaos came with the requirement of there first being a balance to tip, and a cycle of that. Just as we believe: growth and decay.

Until recently…)

***

He’s stuck between something contradictory. On one side, there’s a deep fear that shakes him to his bones, a despair that makes him want to fight and crawl away, to either find some form of sanctuary or a place to lay until he bled out and his body broke down into fertilizer for the soil. Something rock bottom. On the other was a sort of ascendance of the soul, where his mind slips away from the searing pain to wonder and wonder and question these new feelings, this strange intimacy. Something that wanted to stay right here and let it happen so that he could pull this moment apart, understand it, get to the guts of it. It wants badly to see through those gray eyes, to have someone else’s mind and work through it, to slip away.

It might be a different sort of fear.

A fear of being afraid.

If he survives this, he doesn’t want to walk away afraid. So instead, he questions.

“Why, why why why wh -!”

(He realizes he’s screaming, has been for a while now most likely.)

***

(What changed with them? We don’t know. We don’t ask.

Like the town that sent you, we too have had siblings of our circle come back with missing limbs, missing tongues, missing eyes, missing organs, missing lives. We will say this: we do not work with them. But, nor will we actively seek to destroy them.)

***

It was a stupid thing to do. He’d had nothing on him but the small blade Ray was still teaching him to use and a little bracelet made of delicate fern leaves from the druids he and Ray had gotten direction from. And, when he finally finds him, he’s out in the open. One small gnome standing in front of four figures with robes and habits that were going from white to red with each cry his friend let out. One small gnome running towards four figures with robes and habits and knives that glowed around the red of Ray’s blood. He’s easy to grab.

One of them snatches him up like a cat, and then slams him down to the ground. The fern bracelet tears from his wrist and - though he does not see it - dissolves into the ground. Rapid decay.

***

(However, you’ve helped us, protected us. So we will help you in return.)

***

He focuses on the thing right in front of him. The thing - woman - with cold gray eyes that puts a hand on his throat, forcing him to look straight up to the gleam of the knife. “If you move too much, the blade will slip. It’ll hurt even worse.” She sounds just as bored as Ray always does, but there’s an edge, like there’s someone she’s trying to impress. Someone watching. (Who’s watching.

Who are you doing this for?)

“Ray!? Ra - ouch, ah -” he’d turned his head, looking for Ray, looking for whatever it was that wanted this. The knife slid, and opened up his skin so easily, like it was paper.

“See. Keep still.”

When the vines rip out from the ground it knocks the thing on top of him over. Things are light again, he can breathe again, the sky is wide and open and

he’s stuck between something contradictory. The feeling of loss (liquid seeps down his cheek in a steady flow that’s so foreign it feels nothing like tears) the feeling of loss (that confined little space with gray eyes and a silver knife in front of him) the feeling of loss (the mystery of it) the feeling of loss (the reason behind it) the feeling of loss (one bloody eye with muscles and nerves still attached in strings in the hands of a woman who swings a silver bloodied knife behind him) the feeling of loss (she never answered his question

why?)

The feeling of gain (is he really alive?) the feeling of gain (the plants that carry him to the arms of the person behind him) the feeling of gain (he sees Emmeray too, pale and bloodless but still breathing, and moves to his side - he still has herbs and salve deep in his pockets, and though his hands are shaking and he can hardly see and he feels like he’s about to pass out, he starts to tie a tourniquet over the spot where the figures sawed Ray’s leg off, starts pulling out herbs and salve while Ray keeps choking idiot, idiot, idiot, lay down, you’re still -)

the feeling of loss (Emmeray’s leg, the bone splintered and cracked from where they gave up sawing and just twisted, the places where skin and muscle and meat was turning black from some poison or magic, his blood pouring out and feeding the earth itself

the feeling of gain (new knowledge, what it’s like to fear, what it’s like to feel something cut from him so easily, what Ray looks like when he’s so afraid he’s angry, what Ray looks like without his leg)

the feeling of loss

(The eye, the leg. What are you using them for?)

“H-ey, hey! H- wh-at are you u-s-using th-em f -” he tries to choke the words out, but the thief is already gone, and he’s being hoisted into someone’s arms like a child, and the vertigo it all causes him to black out right then and there.

--- --- ---

μ finishes his story surrounded by the eyes of Savras in Finn’s small cabin. He ends the note on a laugh, one that’s more hollow than Finn is used to hearing from him. “Where I grew up, they called me the Bonesaw, you know? Wonder what they would have thought of those guys.” Strange that he’s still smiling, strange that he’s still laughing. “I still want to see her again. I wanna ask what she did with my eye, and Ray’s leg, and all the other parts they stole from people.”

Why are you like this?

“I guess I’m more afraid of being afraid than I am of her. If I stayed afraid of her, of them, then I’d never want to question or explore anything ever again. She could kill me, she could torture me

but being frozen in fear for the rest of my life?

For me, I couldn’t handle that. For me, that’s worse than death, or pain, or torture. So -” he shrugs, “- I decided to force myself to want to see her again.”

“Uh… I see?”

μ hums, “it’s okay if you don’t get it. Sometimes I don’t even get it. Ray told me it sounded like some sort of cognitive dissonance.”

“Well, at the very least I can tell you it doesn’t surprise me. Not coming from you.”

“Should I say thanks to that? Or: well that’s mean?”

“Either. Let me fill up your glass.”

“Thank you!”

#ch: mu mossell #ch: laylah du golgota #ch: emmeray holt #ch: finnegan aendryr #source: dnd campaign #prompts: goretober 2020 #prompts: goretober

0 notes

moonbeatblues · 6 years

Text

everybody works/you don’t want to see me like this

Diana doesn’t know any of your music- she eats up your playlists like a new flavor of food, a new continent on the tongue, a new note between B and C- but she knows music. Her fingers feel like a harpist’s when she’s over you, drumming up new things in the flint-catch-back of your throat. Fire to fray the ceilings and umpteen-note octaves strummed right out of you like thin, sweet demons.

You dragged back Sucy’s hair to see her other eye once. Yeah, it was what you’d thought, but it was like pulling shower curtains.

Flipping on the lights to turn over the shadows in rooms you already know, sent belly-up to hiss briefly under fluorescing eyes before shoving back the axis and sending them sliding back behind the cracked door. She always glitters like cats’ eyes until you shut off the flash and she doesn’t catch on the light- Sucy’s softer in the dark, rolls easy and grumbling low when you crawl in next to her, snaps her sarcophagus-sleepy arms open to let you in, a tomb for two. She’s prim in ways she hides like that left eye, shows her teeth at Diana but doesn’t use them. No one would bat an eye if she wrung all her shampoo out of the little red-capped mushrooms by the windowsill, but no, she’s all lavender.

The eye is just so, pale red-baleful like you’d expect, but softer, somehow. Soft like how she sleeps with her face squashed to your shoulder blade, soft like when she bites your lip for you with those shark teeth and you shiver but don’t bleed, soft like when you vault your bunk and over her and look down hazy with enamor and myopia, soft like her thighs when you press down and in on them, soft like how her voice is under the silence barrier and she won’t put anything else in your drinks, she’ll do anything if you just please please Lotte please—

You’re not afraid to bleed a little.

You don’t know why you always go for pillow princesses, big eyes and hair that fans your pillows like jungle ferns, fragrant and dark. Something about ‘em; here at least, keeps you spinning, keeps the dream on. You burn and smoke a mile off, American metal and rust and you bite when you kiss and you pull like a magnet.

But Akko liked to trace your ribs, those paper-sheet lines over the hollow where they met, where the skin tugged tighter and a little too soft for metal and rust, pressed her thumbs in you like clay and dug you up. Yosh, Americans are fun, she crowed and swayed off you like a streetlamp, and she made you so so dizzy.

Akko was never something you could have, though. She was like holding on to the fuse of a firecracker, either let her burn right out of your hands and streak up to fizz and bang over the parking lot or inch up to hold on and sting when she burst.

You could never have Diana, either, but you knew that going in. She did not crawl you like ivy, laugh and tug at your freezing fingers when you slid them under her shirt, snort when you looked at her a little too long after coming down and ghost her thumbs over your cheeks like your eyes were resting on sparrow’s wings.

No, she was all quiet, all dangerous, all cold glances that swiveled fast to the floor, squirmed a little if you kissed her too long and soured when you talked too much and dragged you behind her with her nails in your wrist and your feet skipping and skidding on the floor. She was brisk, painful, a reminder when you were drifting slow and disparate to fucking pay attention, idiot; liked shoving you into the library shelves, liked to push you to sit on the polished sink counters in the bathrooms and kneel with her arms crossed over your thighs and her face turned up at you, liked wordless and edging on painful and fanning the sparks from clashing personalities. But you think she liked it even better when you were in her room, when you were skulking lanky and low and she settled herself on her bed and looked down it at you. Not inviting, exactly, but expectant.

She liked the ability to kick you out when your eyes got a little too soft, liked to tip up your chin with her thumb so your mouth closed when she wanted to hear you breathing like a draft horse or bracketing your face so she could kiss you and you’d breathe bliss and peppermint into her (you always kept the mints on you because they stung your nose like handstands in a pool and felt like inhaling a blizzard; you always needed reminders that you were alive).

You like when Hannah and Barbara sneer at you, now. Bare their teeth- fuckin’ poodles- and Diana silent between them. Because she’d never tell them, but you can’t count the time you’ve spent winding and unwinding her like clockwork, like tightening the violin you played when you were in middle school until the strings snapped and cut you as they split.

And they cut deep, too. You knew she’d leave and flock to Akko when she was brave enough, gather her up all sheepish with her hair falling into her eyes, and Akko would squeal and press her face into Diana’s neck like she did when she sat on the front of your broom while you watched the birds for big warm updrafts, where the wind carried you into a big rushing spiral and you barely needed magic to stay up, but not quite. Less nervy glee, more soft and cat-like.

You knew and it felt like spooning cinnamon under your tongue. Not entirely unpleasant, if you swallowed slow, but a little bitter.

7 notes · View notes

modernart2012 · 6 years

Text

Whispers in the Night (Tread Softly in the Dark)

@sumigakure Halloween Event 2017

Prompt 8: Eldritch Abominations

Rating: T (for safety)

Word Count: 1395

On AO3

Don’t mess with Konoha, they whisper. Don’t cross Konoha. Don’t. Don’t. Don’t. Not if you value your life, they say. Not if you value your mind, they breathe. Not if you want to survive.

First came the writhing horrors, wood no vines no ferns no moss green green green consuming rotting springing forth and smiling with the promise of pain, the shape they called Hashirama. The rushing water sharpened claws lightning ice contradiction who slaughtered and bathed in blood and was not appeased. The burn quick burn slow burn promises of pretty realities wreathed in flame but walks in shadows Madara Uchiha. Ink and tricks and sly mischief and anger and suffering and barely contained power that only came out when it suited Mito Uzumaki, who rarely set foot on a battlefield but to whom the very nature of reality bent away from, to, and back again. To look upon them was to to be driven insane, they said. Just look at Kazuku of Takigakure. With Founders like those, they murmured, huddled close as if their words would summon the horrors from the deep dark shadows, no wonder Konoha produced so many monsters. Once a generation, always.

Power attracted power after all, and power flocked to Konoha. The not human not animal not human bared fangs snarling ripping hunting Inuzuka and leeching crawling silent swarm ccrrruNNNch suck Aburame and dark dark dark kunai in the night frozen still Nara and screeching screaming clawing zombie vegetable brain melting Yamanaka. The list goes on, power that gathered power, but those monsters are not the monsters that they talk about sotto voce, not the ones they refuse to name more than once, not the ones whose names are better off written and alluded too, in case the old stories are true and speaking their name draws their attention. Everyone’s always better off without the Leaf Monster’s attention. Look at Ame, look at Ame. A Monster took interest and look at what happened.

The second ones were a sharper type of monster. Not variably tempered, not like the Founders, not as volatile not as liable to leave jagged marks across the landscape lifting mountain ranges just as quickly as turning them to rubble, crushing land into lava into rivers lakes streams creeks ponds; sharper and honed and quick to lurk where no one would notice their presence. They’d flash faster than light and you’d be caught, no escape. Kagami, Torifu, Danzo, Hiruzen, Koharu. Though their tales be things only known to the dead, they are no less fearsome, no less worthy of averted gaze and respectful bow as the others. That no one ever lived to tell their tale speaks to their skill, they say. That no one ever caught them screams there were never any survivors, they utter. You do not need a story to understand that there is something lurking just there in the corner of your eye speaking of your death. No, that needs no story.

There were the ones they told stories of, that were admired and feared in equal measure, the ones who were so oft spoken of it was unheard of to not have heard of them. The third tried to wear human shaped skins, wolves among the sheep. They succeeded, and they failed. Legends to inspire, legends to beware. Battlefields destroyed just by them stepping foot onto the field, armies decimated with a turn of their whim. Shinobi built from the ground up, shinobi that turned, shinobi that rattled the stars with their skill and their tears. They say Tsunade’s screams at the death of her brother rent holes through the sky, made flesh writhe and the earth turn to water, killed grown men twenty miles away with their brains turned to so much soup and then made them live again. Orochimaru’s cackles birthed unholy chimera that even the most hardened shinobi shuddered to see - venom nerves starlight burns searching searching searching knowledge that flamed across the brain in a tangle of insect mammal fish bird scale leaving behind a caricature of what used to be. And of Jiraiya, Jiraiya who played human so much better than the others, Jiraiya who wore the mask of a pervert and a teacher and a writer, but whose .... otherness, his monstrosity, bulged and warped and warted and ripped and clawed and broke tainted by insanity and the whirl of ink and time-space. Dimensions within dimensions within dimensions that were better left to conjecture than speech.

Little wonder that the monsters trickled down after the Sannin broke through their human-shaped flesh sacks. Fool them, with their future monsters cut down in the wars before their monstrosity burst forth fully fledged from the safety of the nest. Others would scoff, those who survived, those who stalked out of the night unscathed for all they walked where even Death feared to tread, they were the best of the little monsters, the strongest and anyone who thought that Konoha’s monsters were lesser for their trials by fire were tempting prey. Especially when their monsters smiled genially but thirsted for blood, faster than light and quicker than sound, slick snick spatter splash blood twist wind claw thunk and whoosh twist ink hate hate iron steel diamond that pulled out your very soul and consumed it in mindless animalistic fury that raged against its cage. Namikaze Minato, the Yellow Flash, and Uzumaki Kushina, who needed no extra title to be known as dangerous, monstrosities among monsters, of the tens of distinguished as a cut above in the wars. They whisper that the Yondaime Hokage and the Uzumaki were both killed, dead, but everyone knows that things such as them never die. Death could never take them fully, only expire their meat-suits so they had to abandon them for the non-corporeal, and that was so much more dangerous. Where they could slide in and pour just a touch of their vast knowledge in in in and fry minds with the heat of it all. No, dear ones, best ward yourselves well tonight, they said checking for ears they would not see even if they were there, those without form are the ones to be most wary of.

Fifth came Hatake Kakashi, the master of a thousand jutsu and the creator of a near perfect assassination jutsu. Fang fur smile read slink hunt wrap tight chirp lightning smoke mirrors underneath underneath underneath still more until you’re not sure which way is up and what is true. A thousand million shards broken into a wretched cold wrapper draped in blood. Other hidden villages tried their best to produce as good a monster as he, but what is a mortal to something that slips between the spaces in words and dimensions like it was so much rice paper doors? In some ways he was better than the rest, more true for all that he did not ever show his true face; he never pretended he was anything other than what he was, and that makes him safer than the others. Still do not cross the White Wolf, Kakashi of the Sharingan, Friend-killer Kakashi, Rokudaime Hokage Kakashi. Wolves are ambush predators, slink along the dark and attack when you least suspect, but he is no wolf and nothing mortal besides.

Then there are his students. The Legends made again, made better, made of mountain rubble and hurricane wind and ash and tricks and smoke and mirrors and smiles that hide razor sharp teeth and crooked maws and froth with a billion tiny life forms being born and subsumed and dying and reborn in an endless decaying cycle and thousands of them cloaked in fury and storm and raging firestorms to break and twist and pound to produce countless more unknowable tortures. They fought a Goddess and her armies and won; there is little anything the importance of an ant can do in the face of beings who have wrenched reality from the grasp of Gods to suit their whims.

Don’t mess with Konoha, they whisper. Don’t cross Konoha. There is a reason their Hokage have always been Monsters, my dears, for Konoha loves them best, knows their substance of their souls - whatever that is - and says good more. Don’t cross Konoha. Don’t. Don’t. Don’t. Not if you value your life, they say. Not if you value your mind, they breathe. Not if you want to survive.

#sumigakure halloween event 2017 #prompt 8: eldritch abominations #art writes #now back to your regularly scheduled programing

9 notes · View notes

strawberry--sunrise · 7 years

Text

Shadow Girls

(Part one!!! Very excited to share. I mean, I’m always excited to share, but listen. This is my first historical setting, and the 70s were mad fun to learn about. To refresh, this story is about Hana, who deals with the fallout of her father’s scandal and investigates missing girls the next town over. The second part will be up next Thursday. Enjoy!)

Part One: Roots

My mother looked across the table at me, through the fresh, pink-petal roses she had cut this morning.

“And what plans do you have for today?” she asked, steam rising from her untouched coffee. She held her fork in her hand, but made no move to eat. Not until Dad came to the table.

I pressed the tines of my fork into scrambled egg. “School, of course.”

The roses gave me a limited vision of Mom. A drop of dew fell from the edge of a petal, hitting the table. Distrust slipped into her voice. “Of course.”

Footsteps came down the hall. Heavy and firm, focused on their destination. Like a model down the runway. I allowed myself a smile. Dad was far from a model anything. I’d known it my whole life. The only difference was, now the whole town did too. And ever since, Dad had been on the warpath. Even to breakfast.

He emerged in his armor, suit pressed and tie straight. His eyes glanced at me, quick and calculated. “Hana,” he said.

“That’s me,” I replied, taking a bite of food.

He pulled a chair out. My mother tutted, either at my response or my choice to eat. I chewed, looking at the roses. They had replaced my mother’s head.

“The damn Gazette,” my father hissed. “They’ve done it again. Those damn spiders.”

“You shouldn’t read that trash,” Mom said, voice quiet. “You know they’re all lies.”

Mom’s hand reached for his. He allowed the touch. He talked only to her; like I was wallpaper; thinking I had no interest. I kept eating.

“You have to know the enemy to beat them,” Dad said. I saw the Gazette tucked into the lapel of his suit. He used to read it at the table, humming at a turn of phrase, or scoffing at an editorial.

“Why don’t you clear the air?” I asked.

Two pairs of eyes turned to me. I sat up straighter, staring back. “If they’re lies,” I continued, “set them straight. Write your own piece. Do an interview. The town won’t go back to normal until you do.”

“If?” My father’s ring hand turned into a fist. His face reddened and his eyes widened, the whites of them bloodshot. “Whose side are you on?” he spat, showing his teeth.

A battle lost. I stood from the table. “I’ll get going, then.”

“Come right home,” my father barked at my back. I turned, gauging his expression, wondering which it was he had a concern about: My disappearance, or my voice. For a moment, I wondered if he even knew what was happening right outside our county. His world had narrowed a lot, ever since the news broke.

I held my tongue, managing a nod. I already knew what he wanted from me. “Of course.”

He nodded back, a threat buried in the single motion.

My mother, her head full of roses, remained beside him at the table, not uttering a single word.

I heard the click of the camera shutter, but didn’t see the person behind it. Wasn’t there a law about taking someone’s picture without their permission? I opened my mouth to shout a protest, then wondered if I cared that much.

I continued down the driveway, gravel crunching in the gray-morning silence. I went past the line of thick forest, wary of the branches. I imagined girls swinging from them.

That was ridiculous, though. They hadn’t recovered any bodies yet.

I took the bus to school, listening between the chatter for mention of the disgraced Liftgates. I only heard talks of boyfriends and girlfriends; sports and Calculus; a brief mention of Cadillacs. Though we sat on the back of the town’s mind, Howard Liftgate had become last week’s news. I let out a breath.

A body took up space next to me, smelling faintly of jasmine.

I turned, knowing who would be there. I blinked. Then blinked again. The left half of Sophia Braxton’s face was smudged black.

“Tough few days, right?” she asked, tilting her half-gone head.

I fought to keep my breathing steady. I pressed my nails into my palm. Focus on the pain. Keep calm. Don’t be known as the corrupt politician’s daughter, who had a breakdown.

I flashed Sophia a smile. “You could say that.”

Sophia closed one blue eye, and leaned back. “The Gazette was particularly harsh today. Not even on your dad. They also took shots at a lowly high school club.”

I searched my memory. “You run the... What is it... The Lotus Division, right?”

16 teeth stretched into a wide grin. “Yes! Who knew we could piss off a bunch of old farts by writing about women’s struggles? And trying to organize a rally?” Sophia reached into her bag, pulling out a flyer. She pressed it into my hands, voice eager. “Let your dad know that if he wants to be on the right side of things, he might as well start here. His reputation couldn’t get any worse. No one wants another Nixon now.”

I glanced down at the paper. A call for funding for women’s scholarships, statistics about equal pay, and intellectual opportunity. In the back of my mind, I recalled how my father had voted on this particular legislation last year. He’d favored reconstruction on a park frequented by drug users, in a one-two combo for environmentalism and safety.

Fat lot of good that had done him.

“I’ll let him know,” I promised, tucking the flyer into my own bag. Sophia had already gone to the next empty seat, chattering away. I watched her talk to a mousy freshman, candid and charming. The left side of her face remained a black hole, no matter where my vision went.

My fingers uncurled. I might be going crazy, but I wasn’t going blind. I could work with that.

From there, it was business as usual. I went through the day at school, ripping down hastily-drawn posters calling for my father’s resignation. I ignored the graffiti in the girl’s bathroom calling him a hypocrite. I pretended not to see the hard glimmer in my teacher’s eyes. I had been groomed in how to maintain an image and, tarnished or not, I was bound to keep it.

The whispers finally bubbled over in math, lapping at my hearing and sucking me in.

They said he hired twelve prostitutes.

Escorts. Not hookers. And there were only two.

He makes thousands, dodges jail time, and my dad gets laid off from the mines?

The mine were, and always had been, structurally unsound. Did he want another collapse?

I heard he pumped the drugs in right after he cut hospital funding.

That, I couldn't defend.

I kept my eyes forward, letting the waves wash over. I kept my head above water until the final bell, and opted to walk home. A classmate shoved me on her way out, slamming me against a locker.

My English teacher kept going, even as a dark bruise formed along my arm. I bit my tongue, raising myself up. I walked as tall as the reeds, through a sea of accusing eyes. I knew better than anyone what my father had done, yet they thought they could pass judgement?

I kicked the school entrance open, the door cracking against the brick.

A reporter was waiting for me at the gate. No matter how they tried to blend in as someone’s parent, I could spot them from a mile away. I wondered if I should give him something to chew on.

“Miss Liftgate,” the reporter greeted me on approach. “As observant as always.”

“I don’t think you’re allowed to loiter around underage children,” I said.

The man renewed his smile. “Are you ready to make a statement?”

I narrowed my eyes at his wording. “I didn’t realize you were the police.”

“You’re not legally obligated to say anything, of course,” the reporter backtracked. He pulled out a blinking recorder from his pocket. “And, in a show of faith, I’ll confess that I’m recording you. With your permission, I’d like to give you the opportunity to tell your side. The town has concerns that you support your father’s actions. Also, that you want to help him cover up his...indiscretions. Why else have you remained silent?”

“Is that what you’ll tell them to think?” I asked.

The reporter shook his head. “I’ll simply tell them the truth.”

My hand tightened around the strap of my bag. “The truth is a little more complicated than what you’ve been writing.”

He shook his recorder meaningfully, its single eye shining. “Care to clear the air, then?”

I took the recorder from his hand, bringing the plastic close to my face, the red light spilling over my mouth. “Why aren't you writing about missing girls, Gazette man? If you're too busy focusing on me, I'll take your job from you.” I shoved the recorder back in his hands. “Just what you were afraid of.”

The man's eyes darkened, his smile fixed in place. “I see that Miss Braxton has swayed you. Pity.”

“If you're going to take my picture, aim for the left side. And get this in there too.” I flipped him the bird before turning, adding: “Stay away from my house, or I call the cops.”

“I'm sure your father has them in his pocket too,” I heard him mumble. I stopped, keeping my back to him. The wind picked up, leaves rustling in the trees overhead.

“Do you really want to find that out?” I asked.

He didn’t reply. I kept going.

I hung a right at the drugstore, heading into town. I worked against the throng of students going home, hand reaching out for the brass handle of Antigone. A bell chimed as the door swung open, the scent of smoke and coffee breezing past the threshold. I stood there for a moment, taking in the book-filled cases, tiled floor, and half-empty cafe. Music spilled from a radio in the back, parsed by the sounds of the kitchen. I spotted a familiar silhouette by the gigantic window fern, legs crossed and brow furrowed.

“Hey, Lil,” I greeted, sitting across from her. She looked up and stubbed her cigarette, closing her book.

“The disgraced one herself,” Lilian declared, throwing her arms out. From behind her ear, she handed me a cigarette, freshly rolled. She looked me over as I lit up, biting her lip. “Damn, if I wasn’t your friend before, I wouldn’t want to be now.”

“Thanks, Lil,” I said, muffled.

“People have given me shit for it already. The store had its fair share of robberies, thanks to your dad’s...policies. Or lack thereof.” She took a sip from her mug. “But I don’t need to remind you of that.”

I sucked in a sweet lungful of tobacco, exhaling slowly. “No,” I said, “you don’t.” I brought out a copy of this morning’s Gazette, Sophia’s flyer leafed between the pages. It fell to the floor as I smoothed out the newspaper. Lilian picked it up with an interested hum.

“Sounds pretty radical,” she said.

“In a good or bad way?” I asked, distracted.

“That depends.”

“On?”

“What kind of a politician’s daughter you want to be.”

I frowned at Lilian. “I don’t want to be anyone’s daughter. I want to be Hana Liftgate, writer and editor.” I stuck out my hand. “Now give me a goddamn pen.”

Lilian obliged. “Are you sure you don’t want to get into politics? You’re brash enough for it. You secretly want to be the next Bella Abzug, don’t you? You can tell me.”

“Lil, even if I wanted to, there’s no way now,” I said. “No one will trust a Liftgate.”

“Not with that attitude,” Lilian said. She turned to the counter and raised her arm. “Ruth, my girl needs a double.”

The owner of the bookstore, a short, tattooed, woman, laughed. “I’d say she needs somethin’ more stronger than that.”

“Underage, Ruth,” Lilian reminded her, halfheartedly. I glanced at the cigarette in the ashtray, noting the faint, musty smell that still lingered.

“You’ve already dipped into the illegal honey pot once today,” I said, shrugging.

“Nobody likes puns,” Lilian said sharply.

Ruth walked over with a fresh mug, jewelry singing with each step. She placed the saucer delicately on the table, a cookie tucked alongside the cup. She patted my arm, touch heavy. “Hi, hon.”

“A bold move,” I said. “Don’t you know I’m a leper?”

“Hush,” Ruth said. “This will blow over.”

“I’m sure there was some blow involved,” Lilian muttered.

“Lil, you goddamn hypocrite!” I shouted, throwing the pen at her. She laughed it off, overpowering the music. I fought the smile that threatened to break, losing. “Come on, seriously. I’ve got an hour, at most.”

“Shorter and shorter,” Lilian complained, drawing out this morning’s edition from the next county over.

Ruth left us to our task, knowing better than to ask. Dead girls would spoil the brew. Lilian handed me back my pen as I looked between the Gazette and the Stark Tribune. Three missing faces stared back from the latter print, all presumed dead. From our town, my father glowered back, disgraced and close to trial. I thought of him waiting in his red leather chair, impatient, dark presence filling the room. I drew my hands into fists.

“I told someone on the beat today that he should talk about these girls,” I said.

Lilian looked up, surprised. “They’re still following you?”

“Dad disconnected the phone, so they can’t call about interviews anymore,” I said. “They took my picture this morning.”

“Someone ought to have documented that outfit today,” Lilian said, looking back at the Tribune. “I don’t think I’ve ever seen you so clean cut.”

“An old lesson,” I said, copying down the last known locations of the missing trio. “When you feel your worst, look your best.”

“You should write a book,” Lilian teased.

I shook my head, taking in the traits of the women. 16-20. All over 5’3. Brown hair. Different eye colors and races. Different occupations. I bit the end of my pen.

“There has to be a connection they aren’t mentioning,” I said.

“We’ll just keep working with what we’ve got,” Lilian said softly. “Give it to me.”

I added the new details, Lilian spinning them into concise sentences. We warned against walking alone at night. We noted the partial license plate that had been caught. We listed the same numbers to call that we had written last week. With a sinking feeling, I read aloud the next date scheduled for a search party.

“Does that not work?” Lilian asked, catching my hesitation.

“I... It’ll be tough.” I cleared my throat. “I overhead my mother the other day. She had Mrs. Woole over for lunch.”

“And?”

“She wants me to meet her son.”

Lilian raised an eyebrow. “You two have lived in this town your whole lives. You danced in the same line at the festival last year. Are you going to tutor him on his step?”

“No, she wants me to meet him, meet him.”

Lilian dropped her pen. “What?” Her voice went low, anger seeping in like the tide. “You aren’t even 18. You haven’t--You don’t want this, do you?”

“To go from being someone’s daughter to being someone’s wife?” I snapped. “Of course not. This isn’t the era of political alliances. They can’t just marry me off.” I scribbled in the margin of the Tribune. “But hell if they aren’t going to try.”

“And you’re skipping this meeting, right?” Lilian confirmed.

“It’s another luncheon,” I said. “Mom wanted to spend the morning...getting me ready.”

Lilian gagged. “Oh God.”

“Yeah,” I said, rubbing my forehead. “That’s the sentiment.”

“So what are you going to do?”

I blew out a breath. No matter what I did, I’d be making a bad choice. Joining the search party would get me closer to the danger. We might even...find something. Someone. But staying at home would draw me closer into the hornet’s nest, further under my father’s thumb. The place where all his dirty secrets lie.

I pressed my lips together. “Both.”

Lilian whistled. “I guess we’ll need a big breakfast, then.”

I smiled. Leave it to Lilian to be practical in a crisis.

#mystery #1970s #feminism #fiction #s-s writes #flowers #corruption #newspaper #trust me it isn't really that supernatural #so don't let the missing faces fool you

3 notes · View notes

taeyangfmd-blog · 6 years

Text

❀ ｓｅｌｆｐａｒａ ❀ ❀ ｇｒａｐｈ - 𝘭𝘦𝘵𝘵𝘦𝘳 (january 2018) wrd count; ~1,686

“it’s a shame that there’s snow today,” taeyang observes, tightening his grip on the ceramic bowls left behind by a certain foursome from an early lunch. after they clatter to the sink from his disposal, he gathers another set of dishes, four mugs, some filled with now cold green tea and others coffee, cradling them in one arm and turning the dial of his old-fashioned radio to ‘off’ with his free hand. he has no time to be distracted by the slowly gathering powdered snow outside, as nice as he might have found it a month ago. it reminded him of the catholic christmases spent back home, cutting daikon radishes and soaking rice for a tableside dinner while jesus’ manger rocked close to the brick fireplace in the family sitting room. the squeal was a comfort against the scary wind blowing outside warping the windows in on themselves. the little wooden manger was a project of his father’s and taeyang didn’t care much for the meaning of it as a kid once it was finished as much as he cared about the mesmerizing rocking it gave from side to side.

‘it’d make a nice folksy piece in the living room now,’ he realizes after finishing the risky journey to the kitchen and planting himself in the center of the living room to assess the rest of the mess left around. other than the smell of stale coffee and expensive cologne, the flat is back to the normalcy of usual, and misha and cain, dogs more lax than their sentimental owner, burrow themselves under the large piano reflected in the walls of glass windows of the room. it’s a pinterest worthy sight, especially with the tall order of bamboo plants winding up the sides of the scene and meeting ferns hanging from the walls. beneath the feet of the piano, a large rug, nordic print and low-cut unlike the large white shag one in taeyang’s bedroom, catches the water that overflows from them from time and makes a good ground for the ladder taeyang stands to reach the hung arrangements. that, and the struggle of feeding the koi fish in the large tank opposite the windows and past the kitten gray-colored couch that taesung and haejun crammed themselves onto not too long ago, were just a few of the banes of taeyang’s height.

“they cleaned me out, guys,” taeyang sighs to his pups, crouching by the piano and petting them through oversized sleeves after hiking up his glasses. “it’s high time i fill these cabinets anyways. you guys need more food, hungry fiends,” he continues, nodding to himself as if their watery eyes and eager ears are an answer to his musing. if anything it warrants a good scratching behind the ears for each of them and shrugs himself into a dark sweater and black mask to boot, diving down to the parking garage to walk to the overpriced market closer to the heart of gangnam than his enclosed housing complex.

a bundle of carnation colored envelopes sit on the gray stained wood coffee table once holding the boys’ mugs from earlier, abandoned by taeyang for the last five days; they eye his boots as they clip the door upon leaving and the open door resolves with a bark from the dogs.

the convenience store is near empty this time of the evening, not that the high prices draw in many people besides someone like taeyang anyways. people want to buy bulk beef at low prices and don’t care how much tug it gives. a decade ago he might’ve agreed, before his tastes got expensive. even then, the rich and bored folk living in the penthouses just feet away from the market go cheap with their meat or settle for noodles. taeyang’s never liked a person who couldn’t cook for himself, whether they ate with a silver spoon or not.

he supposes him and his little plastic basket full of black truffle and white bok choy are inseparable that way.

taeyang doesn’t pick up too much, just a parcel of fish, bones in for soup, more vegetables, ingredients for dog snacks, and a great deal of candies and cakes that wait for the cartons of milk he’s eying up in the dairy aisles. his lips turn in on themselves in conclusively and he pulls his mask down, no fan or dust threat here, to take a deep breath of the cold air. ‘is bagged milk better?’ he’s asking himself as he gathers a carton of milk, two actually, one strawberry, and nestles it in between his matcha custard snack cakes and boxes of water before paying.

his black card doesn’t see the light as much as it used to. cash is more humbling and reminds him more of a simpler time than those of the rolex in his jewelry box back home unworn for a year. he’s thought about pawning it a few times, but knows it would draw attention of anyone was more meddlesome than they needed to be. something about the idea of the ghost of the media, decipher’s taeyang, going broke and losing control over his life would be a good ten pager for bc-anti netizens to gnaw at on exclusive, he’s sure of it. so his greens and sweets get paid for in won bills and he’s on his walk back home, mask replaced.

there’s nothing more refreshing to him than being able to stroll down the street, unwatched and unfilmed, and for once a slice of normalcy presides over his life.

after the groceries are packed away and the puppies are fed, taeyang finally puts his feet up. for the majority of his worries to center around entertaining his brothers and taking care of pets is a softening fact, like the bulbs of his tulips he notices opening prematurely, and he can’t help but crack a smile at the blank television staring at him. he’d comment about the size of the thing feeling imposing if the sudden appearance of the letters in the corner of his eye, once in his blind spot, didn’t knot a cherry stem in the pit of his stomach.

‘taeyang,’ his name hangs on the envelope like the planters from his ceilings, ink shaky and ‘g’ dangling on the head of the envelope from a frail writing hand. there’s a dove drawn on the side of the parchment and a decalcomanie-fashioned family seal presses itself in the upper corner. he knows where it’s from at first sight, and perhaps he knew earlier when tossing the mail to its deathbed in the first place.

either way, he’s calm enough by the time he grabs the letter up now and breaks the seal, rolling his thumb over the stationary. the texture is like old litmus paper and feelings soft under his thumb, and the heady scent of ink and leaflets is a familiar essence that makes his stomach hurt.

“my mochi,” taeyang sighs aloud with his mother’s tone in mind.

“you’ve grown so big.” (he appreciates the lie. it’s always been her favorite.) i headed to seoul recently, since your father refuses to deal with the city. i thought to buy my first phone in years, but i think our little landline at home is enough. i know you won’t answer my calls anymore, and that’s okay, but seeing your face all over the city made my heart soar. it’s perhaps why i almost bought the phone. i want to hear your music, i want to see you, i want to know how your career’s going. do you still model? how are your group members? are you all eating well? i bet they’ve grown too since the last time you’ve mailed us photos of you all. they’re not as old as they think they are. your father is the one getting old, i think. he’s complaining about his back and gray hairs that suddenly bother him. i want to tell him that they’ve always been there. well. please write me back. button and mang miss you very much. (his former horses) did you know mang gave birth? you can call the landline xx-xxxx if you’d like to know more. stay healthy and eat well, my big strong ricecake. mom.”

misha and cain are nuzzling their heads in taeyang’s lap by the time he finishes the letters. he hasn’t talked to his mother in years, and smoothing his thumbs over the photos of the new foal of his old horse bloats his stomach further, a cinnamon feeling like tears burning in his eyes. the photo is more painful than the guilty of a rolex or a black card, and the empty mugs sitting on the drying rack in the kitchen are a painful reminder of how lonely he is. his parents refuse to move to the city, no matter how much money he sends back to them. his mother didn’t even let him know she was in the city. the hours long distance between the farm and seoul is worth the re-opening of decade deep wounds, worth any scheduling inconvenience in the world. how he’d long to have his mom count his freckles, to meet his dogs and comment about how much he hasn’t changed after all. how much he’d long to show her off to his brothers and watch them blanch away from her kisses.

the limelight and the distance have burned him and the high of his career, once built higher than his nineteenth floor residency, sinks the letter to the floor in ashes. his hands don’t bother to shift through them and the cinnamon in his eyes turns quickly to hot and salty tears that stop short of his chin and make him look like nothing more than a child. he hiccups loudly in the lonesome house, uncaring of his masculinity being compromised, or the loudness of his sobs over his ringing phone. he’s always been emotional and once his faucet is turned on, he doesn’t stop.

on the couch, he falls asleep rocking himself back and forth like jesus’ manger in his old home, calling out to mary and joseph and the crystal snow.

he knew he shouldn’t have opened that letter. |

#| ❅ SONNET - 𝐬𝐞𝐥𝐟-𝐩𝐚𝐫𝐚𝐠𝐫𝐚𝐩𝐡 |#(reposted because i messed up my post order

0 notes