#will storms out after having said the unspeakable.. goes somewhere and gets caught in the crossfire.. cue the body pulled from the quarry

[bylertruther]

the brainrot is so bad that i'm sitting here trying to watch the godfather just thinking to myself "damn..... how can i make a byIer au outta dis... 🤔📝"

#karen's actress is italian... maybe karen is too... she's a civilian but mike gets roped into it bc ted is more involved as an accountant. #her family loves him and ted loves money and being able to provide for his family and all that Macho Family Man^tm stuff and #sure karen wants mike to do big things—bigger than just messing around with his friends—but she isn't sure that having him get #chummy with her family is the right idea. mike does it anyway bc it's what he's Supposed To Do and he's Getting Older and karen #thinks well... okay... if this is what you want... ❤️ and mike just nods and agrees like he always does bc thts easier than speaking up #or trying to figure out what the hell to do after uni and Much less scary than working on that book he's been working on since forever. #will's a civilian ofc he gets brought along to mike's family things bc mike wants the company but he doesn't Like that world and the #way they look at him. whenever lonnie used to get fired from whatever job he was working at then he'd end up doing ''favors'' #for one of the other families and even though will's nothing like his father and he and his brother and his mom aren't even remotely #involved in that kind of life he still has his last name and it's a brand tht sticks. smth smth the romeo n juliet vibes of it all.... #in this au maybe hopper hasn't been reformed bc there's no tragedy to pull him out of that so maybe he's on the wheelers' payroll #and he has a daughter tht they want to introduce to mike... smth smth mike going to will's apartment in the dead of night to get #patched up.. smth smth mike taking el to things instead of will.. smth smth will and mike getting into A Big Fight bc will doesn't #want to see mike continue to get hurt or lose himself in this world and become this person that he doesn't even recognize anymore #and mike starts goading him like oh why do you care so much huh blahblah and they've been dancing around this all their lives #but it finally comes out and it doesn't fix anything bc will doesn't want This mike and mike can't stand the way will looks at him now and #will storms out after having said the unspeakable.. goes somewhere and gets caught in the crossfire.. cue the body pulled from the quarry #parallel when el calls him immediately after she finds out from hopper and there's a horrible few hours where they don't kno if will's #gonna pull thru. he does ofc much to their surprise.. wake up calls n apologies are eventually had... hurt/comfort ensues.. mike talks #to karen and opens up for the first time ever bc they've gotten closer now.. smth smth um . gay people 🫶 #mike in suits n gloves + will learning to not ask questions + el seeing tht will's apartment looks more like it's will-And-mike's #apartment bc there's so much of him and his things there and he always walks in n moves around like he owns the place + #will's hands shaking as he tries to tend to mike and he manages to keep it together until mike's all patched up but when he turns around #to clean up his shoulders are shaking and mike jus comes up behind him n hugs him through it bc he knows this hurts will more than it hurts #him (which is saying smth bc mike's blood is literally all over will's hands n dinner table rn so like) #SOOOOO self-indulgent but idc im free . (<- said thru gritted teeth and while closing my eyes so i don't have 2 look at this post) #also i say brainrot but i think tht has bad connotations now. i am just an Enjoyer a Lover a Scholar an Enthusiast one might even say.. #mine

[armazeilor]

19 but with 28 ... ∠( ᐛ 」∠)＿ wink wonk fuck me up.

@illdivine — soulmate au prompts.

19. the one where soulmates are reincarnated and keep finding each other throughout their different lives.28. the one where some people can see the red string of fate and follow it to their soulmates.

He felt as if he’d eaten something rotten. Festering somewhere between his chest and stomach, a feeling he couldn’t shake like dread hanging upon his shoulders, like reminiscing, stuck between sickly and restless to the point he wondered whether that wine he’d had was one to blame. The lover’s ache, is what they’d call it; out in the summer kitchen his grandfather had found him standing, scouring the fridge for anything he might have had that wouldn’t sit right, wouldn’t look right, re-purposed water bottle filled now with a medium-dry held up against the window light to check for anything abnormal. “You’re up early,” he’d greet the boy, “And already you’ve got the wine?” But he sees the look on the lad’s features, ‘all good,’ he reassures but fails to fool his knowing elder. “Get us some bread,” he tells him simply; “And let us talk about it over breakfast.”

Summer. Golden blur of afternoons and roaring storm clouds never quite loud enough to clear his mind, half-opened gaze grasping at shards of moonlight amidst the far lull of the singing crickets. Of course he knew what bothered him; he mulled and mulled over it still walking the path down to the corner store, shrouded in morning fog, not a creature there to stir the grey-green of this early daybreak save for a hound somewhere, yonder, barking from across the hills. He looks off to the side, looks to where the fir woods climb along the slope so steep and he thinks he sees something, a mirage—a berry bush perhaps in bloom, the faintest inkling of red like thread caught in their thorny brambles and for a beat he swears he’s dreaming, blinks only as he finds the trail is leading up to him. There, innocuous upon his finger, the thread was tied like it belonged. The startled leap of his heart stops him in his tracks; pale greens follow the thing down to the forest floor and further on until sheer impulse begins to tug him closer, beckons for him once more to stray from the beaten path like he had done too many years ago, a creature of the wild side not to trust, not to be seen.

A creature simmering with lightning.

“Where are you off to now?” scolds a voice from across time but still he wouldn’t listen, bewitched he looks up to the secret trail ahead.

“—I’ve seen something,” he breathes only, and off he goes amidst the thickets to see at last that it was true. Set out like cunning bait the thread went up and up and higher till he could see its trail no more, and far too young he is to think of danger when he remembers, when he recalls at once he knows no fear and follows quick, heaving, expectant, when he climbs through ferns and moss and evergreens to reach the summit—to look below.

And how it surprises, how he recoils, a drop somewhere in his soaring spirit when the winds pick up form down the valley, down where the sisters’ convent stood. Tiny thing crowned with its pointed crosses yet rattling the pagan so, scorching is his gaze as eyes narrow, not understanding. He sees the thread snaking through gardens and vanishing so far below beyond the abbey’s door unseen; a furrow of his brow alone shows interest fade to distaste, a scowl there not unlike resentment for the sorcerer looks like he takes offence.

And it would haunt him throughout his days, the flimsy phantom thread upon his finger connecting to someplace unknown. He scarcely remembers a time when he couldn’t see it, when he couldn’t feel its ghostly tug. He still thinks of that golden evening when finally he’d found her; beautiful melting dusk out far into the deeper forests, air heavy with nectar and sweet almost as the nun that woke from her untimely sleep, opening those night dark eyes to the green smoulder of his own. She had enraptured; struck him somewhere he’d thought was secret, heel of Achilles for the pagan’s creed when reaching out she’d clasped his hand and he saw it, crimson as blood: the thread on her dainty finger connected, he knew now, to his own.

For days he’d thought about it, when she had stuffed him back into that closet—closer than he thought he’d know her, scaring off the god within his eye and letting through the meekness, guilt, the strange foreign desire for a kind of thrill to him unknown.

It aggravated him, how later he would find himself searching for her, lingering around her convent like a wolf circling the sheepfold. Horia knew that she would come: she always did, as though she felt him, dreamt maybe the dreams he had, heard something in the sparrow’s song that guided her out to the hills, the forests.

“They tell me many things,” cryptically he would confide, yet still they wouldn’t say what mattered. What did matter to him was unspeakable, he knew; shame heavy within his faithful heart and redder even than the twilight bleeding across his countenance when the nun would smile to him, too understanding, when she would stare in knowing silence.

“Like what?” she’d said then drawing closer, a hum lacing her voice like sweet delight, a melody.

“That’s between me and the trees,” he’d teased. What had been meant to be a smirk however had come out like a sketch of it, bashful instead and boyish. He remembered then, the tilt of her head, her soft hand reaching over—brushing fiery strands away, tucked behind his ear as he held his breath almost, unthinking. He might have leaned in closer still had he the nerve to, a sinful pull of greenest gaze down to her lips, so slow, so careful. He could have kissed her then: it ran through the monk’s mind like it had never done before, a thought too far beyond all of his limits that he had failed to see its gravity.

“You’re so silly.”

—Of course.

The cashier laughed, watching him fumble with the foreign money until he found at last the currency he needed.

“Right. God. Sorry, it’s a force of habit.”

“Youths these days! You must be in love. Go home and eat well, honey, you’re all skin and bone.”

A strange day it had been, just like the ones before it. He’d dreamt that night, a stranger dream: he’d stood there by an edge of woodlands and he had heard the church bells ringing, ghastly echo across the mountains. He recalled the birdsong of a day like summer resounding bright yet faded, and felt a drop within his stomach—dread, dread and desire mixing poisonous together to form a black concoction like the night dark eyes now staring, the lilac evening heavy round them, settling. Louder did the monastery bell ring—lower did his gaze sink, thoughtless, again landing on lips forbidden when softest hands cradled his visage guiding him to her, nearing, her air close enough to taste. He recalled, he recalled, without a word she’d met him and beneath the gaze of God he’d answered, he’d kissed her back so tentative, docile under her touch.

‘Judith,’ he’d breathed.

The text that just came in had said so. Her name read at the very top, a trail of hearts before and after. Horia took another bite of his bread slathered in eggplant spread, stifled a laugh at Judith’s message.

‘miss you too. eat something btw. dummy.’

He pressed send without so much as thinking twice. Placing the phone down again he noticed it, the ghostlike string that weeks ago he could have sworn he’d just imagined—innocuous upon his finger, discreet yet always there, stretching towards the floor and farther off beyond the door right at his back, the river, beyond the mountains headed somewhere he couldn’t see.

He couldn’t see, but somehow he felt like he knew—the trees had told him many things.

#illdivine #( A HUNDRED YEARS LATER......I FINISH THIS........ #slams this onto the dashboard without a readmore or anything #who cares #just. have my love #I have no shame any more #really tried to blur the line between past life and present life jfdislsjkgkjdoeiwf I still live for this jojie.... #getting back to this has brought many wonderful memories #love you #hope you're ok #take care all right? #love you )

[iwroteinapastlife]

Family

I have been working on finishing this nearly every day since Chlonath Week, but the chapter just KEPT GETTING LONGER. But it’s finally ready! Finally, here’s @chlonathweek day 6, Family! Enjoy~

***

On day one of the art project, Nathaniel learned that Chloé’s favorite color was gold and that she didn’t have a favorite song. She wrote with pen because she, quote, ‘never makes mistakes,’ and her pens were a range of fiery colors—reds, oranges, yellows. Black ink only when absolutely necessary. She would only eat fruit flavors of ice cream and sprinkles were only permitted on strawberry, because, ‘they only look right on pink.’ On hot summer days, she drank mango iced tea, but the rest of the time, she liked hot coffee for waking up in the morning and hot tea for relaxing at night. And if her hot drinks didn’t have steam rising from them, they weren’t hot enough.

He also learned to never ever suggest that pineapple is a valid pizza topping.

On day two, he learned that nothing drove Chloé insane more than someone repeatedly clicking their pen. Pencil tapping was also maddening. He unfortunately learned this the hard way.

But that day, he also learned that she loved the sound of rain on the roof of a quiet room and the scent of asphalt as the first drops begin to fall. Nothing ever scared or excited her quite as much as the first strike of lightning in a storm and by observation alone, he realized that she had a very particular hum she emitted in reaction to the resonance of thunder in her chest.

On day two, she had told him that she rarely wore headphones while walking around, but on day three, she admitted that she wears them every time she goes out in public on her own. Because by the age of 15, she had realized that she would never learn not to listen when she overheard people talking about her.

Day three was also the first time he ever witnessed her 100% complete genuine laugh. He had never thought her so beautiful.

On day four, he realized there was something they would always fight about.

“But Brotherhood sticks to the story of the original manga!”

“That doesn’t mean it’s automatically better! It just means it’s different!”

“Yeah!” Chloé tossed her arms up in the air. “Different better! The original was a clusterfuck with filler that didn’t know what it was doing! Brotherhood was way more organized and well-paced and complete!”

“The original wasn’t bad though!” He argued. “It’s like its own thing separate from Brotherhood! I’m not saying it’s better, I’m just saying it has its own individual value!”

She crossed her arms. “I think you’re just blinded by the nostalgia factor.”

“And I think you’re blinded by newer, shinier animation.”

They never really reached a conclusion there. They went back and forth for a while until eventually they got distracted talking about the story itself. It was somewhere in the middle of Chloé’s rant on why she liked Mustang and Hawkeye more as a platonic ship that it actually occurred to him: his soulmate was a closeted weeb. Watching her go on, eyes spirited and a baseline smile fixed to her lips as she spoke, he was beginning to see why they were soulmates. And when he heard her laugh again, he realized that that sound was quickly becoming his new favorite song.

Day five was the first time he ever found the lines of his pencil coming to resemble her face as he mindlessly sketched in class.

They didn’t really need to meet that day. Their project was done. There were some spots that they could still throw in some extra detailing if they really wanted to, but it wasn’t necessary. The project was finished by the time Nathaniel had gone home on day four. And yet, neither of them said anything about it. Nathaniel still came over to her hotel suite after school and she still welcomed him.

So they did that extra detailing. And they asked each other more questions. And he got to listen to his favorite song again and again and again.

It wasn’t until he lay down at the end of the night that he realized he didn’t have an excuse to spend time with her anymore. He supposed they were still soulmates and that was probably an excuse in itself, but would she be okay with that? And if they were to hang out without an academic excuse under the reasoning that they were soulmates, would it be a date? Were they ready for that yet? Was he ready for that yet?

Nathaniel pulled out his phone with the intent to text her even though he wasn’t sure what he wanted to say.

She beat him to it.

CB: Want to come over on Saturday to watch the FMA movie? I never actually watched it.

A slow smile spread across his lips as he typed his response.

NK: I can’t believe you had the audacity to pick that fight when you never even saw the movie

CB: I stand by my actions.

CB: So?

NK: Definitely.

Spending time with her wasn’t the most natural thing in the world. They were awkward, both of them. But with time came comfort, and with comfort came ease.

Week two was when Chloé started talking to him at school, in sight of other people. Not a ton, of course—it wasn’t like she was eating lunch with him or walking around with him—but when they crossed paths in the halls, there were actual words exchanged. Pleasant ones.

It was somewhere in week four that he began anticipating and even looking forward to those brief interactions. And it was on Monday of week five—after a family trip to the coast had made him go a whole weekend without talking to her—that those interactions started making his stomach flutter.

That next Saturday, as they enjoyed the sunny afternoon out in the park, Nathaniel stumbled across his first opportunity to talk about weres.

“So you two broke up because of a bad kiss?”

The day was warm, with that perfect hint of a breeze that brushed the stray strands of hair about her face just right. The trees above had dappled her skin in an array of shadows, but they left an open window of sunlight just for her eyes. They absolutely glowed as they stared at him like he was an idiot.  

“Well when you say it like that it sounds shallow,” he laughed. “It wasn’t just a bad kiss, it was…nothing. The complete absence of any feeling or passion or desire…” He trailed off as he caught himself looking back and forth between her eyes. Was she wondering the same thing he was? “We both knew that a kiss shouldn’t feel that way. Not with our soulmate.”

Chloé seemed to consider that a moment. In that single breath of silence, his eyes did the unspeakable and stole a glance at her lips—her pink, glossy lips. “Do you think all kisses with the wrong person feel that way?” she asked a second later. As he met her eyes again, he hoped beyond hope she hadn’t noticed where his had traveled.

“I-I don’t know,” he said, scratching the back of his head with a nervous smile. “My only other kiss was Alix and she was dared to do that.” The corners of her lips turned up in an amused smile. Nathaniel cleared his throat and forced himself to look away before his mind could travel further down the track of wondering what flavor her lip gloss was. “What about you? Have you ever kissed anyone?”

She shook her head with a tiny laugh. “Not unless you count kissing my best friend when we were five.”

“You kissed Sabrina? What was that like?”

“No, not Sabrina—,” Chloé cut herself off mid-sentence.

When she didn’t continue, Nathaniel turned to look at her again—and was confronted with a heart breaking sight.

Her eyes almost seemed to dull over and he watched as the tiny smile she had worn all afternoon slowly faded from her lips. “Never mind,” she said, tone suddenly somber. She vacantly watched the children playing across the park, but it was clear that her mind was somewhere else.

He found himself scrutinizing her profile for answers. She looked so melancholy all of a sudden when up until then, they had been having a good day talking and laughing. Where did that come from? And if it wasn’t Sabrina, who did she kiss? Who else did she ever call her best friend? And why did the thought of them make her so—

Oh shit.

You knew him right? Did you know? Weren’t you friends? What did he look like as a cat?

The younger voices of his classmates began echoing off the walls of his head as he recalled that day. The only day Chloé came to school and didn’t talk. The only day everyone wanted her to talk.

Did your dad know? Did he have anything to do with the fire?

He remembered sitting in the back of the class and watching with shamefully vested interest as the other kids surrounded her desk and berated her with a never ending onslaught of questions. Watching with shamefully vested interest as she said absolutely nothing. As she stood up and left without a word. As she didn’t come back to school for a week.

Her gaze had grown hard, as if her mind was retreating further and further into a dark place.

“Was it Adrien Agreste?” he asked quietly.

Chloé winced at the name, but her expression remained unchanged. He wondered how many times circumstances had forced her to practice that absolutely unyielding look.

“Yeah,” she answered curtly, voice just above a whisper.

This was his chance—albeit a less than ideal one. Throughout all of their interactions, he had always kept the topic in the back of his mind, always kept looking for any signs and signals of what she might think. But if ever he was going to have a chance to talk about it—really talk about it—it was with the topic of Adrien Agreste.

He felt like every nerve in his body was shaking. He tried not to let it show as he welled up the courage to ask her something—anything—about it. Finally, in a strained and quiet voice, he pushed out the words, “Did you—?”

“Nathaniel.” If the sharpness of her tone didn’t cut him off, those hard, almost pleading eyes as she turned to look at him surely would have. She softened the harshness in her voice but spoke her next statement slowly, stressing the importance of her words. “I really don’t want to talk about it.”

He watched those eyes, studied them, trying with every bit of detail oriented observation power he had to discern any meaning behind them. That was the clear look of someone who really didn’t want to reveal their feelings—someone who didn’t want to open up, didn’t want anyone to know. But he needed to know. If nothing else, he needed to know why she didn’t want him to know.

In the wake of the Agreste fire, Chloé would have thought just like everyone else that there were no survivors. That Gabriel, Emilie, and Adrien Agreste all were dead.

Before they were outed as weres, the Agreste’s were known family friends of the Bourgeois’s. Audrey Bourgeois and Gabriel Agreste old friends and icons in the fashion industry and their children, born the same year, raised as friends from birth. Adrien Agreste—Paris’s collective crush—was famously known to have exactly one friend, and that was Chloé. Chloé Bourgeois—Paris’s heiress. Pictures of them could still be found floating around social media, ranging from when they had just begun to walk, leading all the way up to the very same month of the fire. The very same month the Agreste name was cursed in the angry chanting of mobs and the Agreste mansion went up in flames.

A hint of betrayal could be discerned in her eyes, that much he gleaned. But was it betrayal because her best friend turned out to be the enemy? Or was it betrayal because her best friend didn’t trust her with the truth?

Had she known the truth? Was she aware that whole time growing up that her best friend had the blood of a cat? Did he tell her? Did she find out?

Did she out him?

He needed to know if that was the hurt of shame, anger, and betrayal begging him to drop the subject in that moment, or if that was the hurt of mourning. If he were to tell her that Adrien was alive—that he escaped and had been safe all these years in hiding—would she cry tears of relief or would she speak words of fury? If she were to see him—to confront him in the flesh—would she wrap him in the embrace of an old friend? Or in the embrace of death? Would she speak a word of it to anyone? To her father? To the akumas? To a hunter? Or would she keep the secret held tightly in her grasp, safe and sound, where no one could ever harm him again?

He didn’t know. He needed to know. But looking in those eyes right then, right there, the only thing he knew was that she wasn’t ready to tell him. Not yet.

“Will you?” he asked. “Someday?”

She watched him, and in her then, he could see his own analytical gaze mirrored. Assessing. Gauging. Trying to decipher if he could be trusted or not.

Her expression softened with a slow exhale. “I’m sure I will,” she whispered, and the way she said it almost sounded like a resignation to herself. An admittance. “Someday.”

Someday wouldn’t come for a long while, but hints started to trickle in after that. He couldn’t be sure if it was because she was trusting him more or because she was filtering around him less, but either way he found himself feeling safer and safer around her with each passing week. It was the occasional grunt of disgust when akuma propaganda popped up on her facebook feed or the subtle eye roll when a rally could be overheard nearby. None of the hints were concrete; all of them could be attributed to baseline annoyance or contextual displeasure. But they were there. They were there and each and every one was adding to his growing hope.

It was a warm night in month three, leaning over the bridge railing to watch boats float along the River Seine, when she confessed the words in a hushed whisper.

“I miss him.”

The lapping of the water down below. The music of a street performer down the street. The giggles of children running along the bridge. Those were the sounds that faded away as Nathaniel’s entire world seemed to zoom into focus on her and her alone.

Chloé kept her gaze on the reflection of city lights rippling along the surface of the river. Her eyes weren’t as hardened as he might have expected them to be. Not as guarded.

“I couldn’t save him,” she continued, voice low, her words for him and him alone. “When news broke out about the fire, I ran straight to his house. By the time I got there, the entire building was in flames, the exits blocked. Sabrina’s father caught me trying to claw my way through the police barricade. He held me back, hid me from view. He thought he was doing me a favor. Wouldn’t want word getting out that the mayor’s daughter fought for the life of a were.” She paused, narrowing her eyes in such a way that he knew she was staring at the police chief’s face in her mind. “Such bullshit,” she muttered under her breath.

He waited until he was sure she was done speaking. Softly, gently, he asked, “Did you know?”

Just when he thought those eyes couldn’t get sadder. “No. He never told me.” She let out a long sigh, dropping her head below her shoulders. “I can’t blame him. Even if he trusted me, there’s no telling what could have happened. Look at what happened without him speaking a word. I just wish…”

She never finished that thought.

With a deep breath, Chloé picked her head back up, stood up straight, and turned to fully face him. She leveled him a look built on courage and riddled with fear.

“So that’s who your soulmate is, Nathaniel,” she said. Her voice was still quiet, but strong, and suddenly he realized why she chose to bring it up. “Someone who nearly put their life on the line for a were and would do it again in a heartbeat. We’ve danced around the subject long enough. I need to know if the same is true for you.”

Steadfast blue eyes reflecting every light in a dark city. Determination and fear inextricably wrapped up in one another—wrapped up in a dance of hesitation and necessity. A lonely soul held in the arms of a confrontational spirit.

Nathaniel had never seen anything so beautiful in his life.

“Well?” she asked, her eyes darting about his face in every effort to find her answer.

The next breath he took was one of the easiest in his life. Somehow, he had never felt so safe outside of his own home. He didn’t have the voice to respond—nor did he know what words to use if he did—so the best he could give her was a soft smile and a silent nod. She thankfully accepted that.

On June 26th, Nathaniel learned that Chloé wore strawberry lip gloss.

It was the last day of classes and instead of the summer sun that everyone anticipated, they got rain.

Their intermittent laughter and the splashing of their footsteps as they ran through puddles was the music that followed them down the street on their way to the cafe. He could feel water droplets on the back of his neck and dampness soaking through his shoes, but with Chloé’s hand in his and his favorite song on repeat, those things couldn’t be further from his mind.

“You’re getting a bill from my hairdresser,” she laughed as they took refuge under a nearby awning. For the first time in his life, he watched as Chloé pulled the hair tie out of her hair, letting the long, tangled strands fall loose about her head. It was damp and frizzy, and her efforts to comb her fingers through it were hopeless from the start.

As he spoke, he found his hand reaching out, fingers taking delicate hold of a strand that was blocking his view of those beautiful eyes. “I don’t know; I think you look pretty great like this.”

“Oh really?” she scoffed, flat and sarcastic. She gave him a look to match, gaze rising to meet his—a glowing summer sky amidst spring rain.

An easy smile spread across his lips as he tucked the hair away behind her ear. He didn’t drop his hand, fingers threading delicately through tangled strands. “Yeah,” he said softly. “Really.”

The very air around them stilled and the world faded away and suddenly it was just them—two soulmates a breath apart tucked away from the rain. He didn’t try to stop the urge to glance at her lips this time, nor did she. The pull to Chloé was more familiar than the pull of gravity, more natural than the ocean’s currents. Her forehead was warm against his and her breath was cool on his cheek. The moment their lips touched was the thunder after the lightning, the day after the night—the undeniable fate of nature taking its course. Her kiss was more than inevitable, it was right. Like breathing itself, the touch of her lips against his was easy, simple—and something he couldn’t imagine living without.

And it was just one kiss. Their lips parted like the tide’s retreat back into the ocean, leaving the faint taste of strawberry lingering on his lips, but neither of them moved. Her breath still tickled his cheek. His forehead still rested against hers.

“So that’s how that’s supposed to feel,” he whispered.

He opened his eyes just enough to see the delicate curl of perfect lips. Chloé reached up and took hold of the edges of his jacket. His palms likewise found the perfect curvature of her cheeks, fingers threading through the hair at the base of her neck. And they came together again.

By the next week, Nathaniel had learned that Chloé rotated lip gloss flavors. Strawberry that first day in the rain, cherry behind the theater that weekend, lemon in her room two days after that. And forever after that next Thursday, Nathaniel would always remember the distinct taste of raspberry as the flavor of the truth.

His arm was numb, but he couldn’t bring himself to care. Not when it was tucked so perfectly under the crook of Chloé’s neck.

The queen had deigned to grant this lowly peasant the sight of her with her hair down once again and though he suspected she may make him pay for it later, he was taking full advantage of it. His fingers tangled through the soft golden strands at the base of her neck, no doubt making a storm of knots that he would hear about later. For now, however, she didn’t seem to mind. Not with her hand on his waist, thumb dancing along the skin just under the hem of his shirt as she pulled him close.

Their lips moved in perfect tandem, a rhythm born in instinct and refined in practice, and his body molded to hers with such an ease he hadn’t thought possible between two people. Kissing Chloé was so much more than he ever could have predicted it would be. Time was lost when they came together, all semblance of thought gone and reality limited to her skin under his fingers and her tongue against his. The kiss of a soulmate. The taste of raspberry.

“Ey dude, you in here?”

A sharp intake of breath and the kiss was broken as the lights in the room flicked on. Both he and Chloé immediately sat up on the couch, totally inconspicuous. Pins and needles prickled his fingertips as feeling slowly returned.

An amused grin spread across Nino’s cheeks. “Watcha doin in the dark, kids?”

Nathaniel cleared his throat as he clenched and unclenched his hand to get blood circulating. “Watching a movie.” It wasn’t technically a lie; that was what they were doing before Chloé had—

“Oh yeah,” Nino said sarcastically, looking past him, “that menu screen looks absolutely enthralling.”

Chloé snorted behind him. He turned to look and sure enough, Spirited Away sat on the main menu.

He leaned in toward Chloé and lowered his voice—not that it made Nino any less likely to hear him, what with him coming close and leaning on his elbows on the back of the couch. “When did it end?”

She hummed in thought, fingers beginning their endeavor to undo the knots he’d made. “Somewhere around the time you started messing up my hair.” She closed the statement with a tiny glare and he just grinned. He rather liked the way she looked with less-than-pristine hair.

“Dude you owe me one for intercepting Aunt Abigail on her way in here.”

He turned his attention back to his cousin. “Mom would have been fine.” Nino raised an eyebrow at him. “...I think. Anyway, what’s up?”

“Family trip to the coast tomorrow,” he reported, drumming his hands on the couch. “Leaving early in the morning, so Chloé has to go home in a couple hours.”

“Your family takes a lot of trips to the coast.”

Ice water down his back. Nathaniel felt the color drain from his face as he shared an apprehensive look with Nino. He was glad Chloé was behind him at that moment and couldn’t see him panicking.

“Yeah,” Nino replied, giving him a look. “We do.”

“Why?”

He raised his brows at him and Nathaniel could practically hear the ‘Dude, you gotta tell her,’ echo in his mind. Nino knew that Nathaniel had already gotten clearance from the rest of the family and that Chloé had told him in explicit terms that she supported weres. He’d been pestering him for weeks to tell her and the only reason Nathaniel had been able to give him as to why he hadn’t yet was just ‘I haven’t had a good opportunity.’

It was bullshit and they both knew it. The reason was just that he was scared.

Retrospectively loving a friend thought dead who she hadn’t known to be a were prior to his alleged death was very different from being in a current relationship with a were who was very much alive. He’d be lying if he tried to claim that there wasn’t still a part of him—albeit increasingly small—that worried she would reject him upon learning that he had scales when completely submerged. That worried she would be disgusted by him.

“Dunno,” Nino finally said. His voice kept casual so as not to alert Chloé, but the look he was giving him was anything but. As he stood up straight to leave, the message rang loud and clear. Tell her.

Nathaniel swallowed nervously as the door shut, leaving him and Chloé alone once again. “I mean the coast is nice and all,” she continued, “but you go like, two or three times a month. I don’t even know the last time I went.” He turned to face her once again and found her with approximately half of her hair somewhat tamed while the rest was still frizzy. “Do you think I could come actually? It’s been way too long.”

Blue eyes found him as she continued combing her fingers through the mess, absolutely oblivious to the anxiety welling within him. Clear summer skies parting a raging storm.

Nathaniel interrupted her progress by threading his fingers through her hair once more and pulling her into a kiss. A single slow, perfect, calming, centering, breathtaking, mind clearing, soul completing kiss. A soulmate’s kiss.

Nino was right. If she really was his soulmate—which was beyond a shadow of a doubt with a kiss like that—then he should be safe with her. Whether he had kissed her to strengthen his resolve or to savor what could be his last though, he couldn’t say.

“Nathaniel?”

“There’s something I need to tell you.”

#chlonathweek2k19 #chlonath #miraculous ladybug #soulmate au #soulmate tattoo #werecreatures au #supernatural creatures AU #this is it #angst #tragedy #mourning

[qqueenofhades]

Okay, I know I've sent way too many of these, but if you are at all inspired to share missing Flint/Miranda/Sam scenes from TDH or write anything Flint/Miranda/Sam in general, I would probably cry a lot (in a mostly good way but also a feelsy way)

Happy Bi Visibility Day! Or, I rediscovered this prompt buried in my inbox and, in honor of everyone’s favorite bisexual pirate prince, am posting it for you today. This takes place at the end of chapter 33/during chapter 34 of The Dark Horizon, after Sam rescued Liam, Regina, Lord Archibald, and Miranda after their escape from Jamaica. Sam/Miranda and Sam/Flint feels ahoy. Decidedly rated M.

Miranda just managesto make it into the cabin before her legs start to give out. She leans againstthe wall as the Whydah rocks gentlybeneath her, even that motion nearly too much to cope with after several daysadrift in a tiny rowboat. She is shaking from head to toe, a fine, constantvibration that she can’t seem to stop, as she raises her hands before her faceand stares at them. She is not entirely convinced that she is not dreaming,that this is not the sort of hallucination said to grip men at the mercy of sunand salt and thirst. Sam Bellamy can’t be here, this can’t be real, they can’tbe safe – but nearly more than she has prayed for anything in years, for mostof her life, Miranda Barlow begs the Almighty that he is.

After a moment, shegets hold of herself, and crosses the cabin to sit on the davenport, oddlytimid about presuming to the bed. Sam kissed her when she threw herself intohis arms, but she does not know what happened in Antigua, or since then, andout here by himself, without James or Killian in consort – a brief, unspeakableterror seizes her insides, and she can scarcely breathe. Then she remindsherself that no matter what, Sam would not leave them behind if they were indanger. Not when they did not leave him.

She sits there for alittle while, listening to the sounds outside the door, supposes that Sam isfinding somewhere to put Liam, Regina, and Lord Archibald, tending to hisguests, being a captain. Miranda does not want him to wait on her, so she getsup, goes to the desk, and pours a cup of water from the pottery jug. She drinksit down, suddenly aware that she is parched as a desert, and then another. Shedrinks nearly the entire jug before she stops, gasping. She is nowaware of another acute discomfort: she has not taken off her corset, or any ofher clothes, in days, and after being doused in salt, dried, doused again, andbaked in sun, she half-wonders if the bones have grown into her own.

Miranda has had causeto remark before that much of women’s clothing is designed on the assumptionthat you will have someone around to get you into it – even common women intheir working stays have a sister or a daughter or a husband to pull the lacesfor them – but living alone on Nassau, she has either made do herself, ortailored them to go up the front, rather than the back. Of course, she is notwearing such a helpful garment now, and once she’s rid herself of thesun-bleached, salt-stained tatters of her dress, the laces of her bodice arehopelessly snarled in a salt-crusted knot. She expels a breath of frustration,takes a dagger off the pile of several on Sam’s desk (he looks to have had anextremely successful run of raiding recently) and awkwardly saws through them, barelymanaging to avoid cutting herself. Finally, however, the corset loosens for thefirst time in a fortnight, and Miranda gulps with agonizing relief, whimperingunder her breath as she eases it off her abraded torso. It looks as if she’sbeen horsewhipped. Fashion is a damned stupid sacrifice.

She is now onlywearing her shift and stockings, and she pulls off the latter as well, crumpledand half-rotted. Her feet are cracked and sore, and the sensation of the woodenfloor makes her hiss. She sinks onto the davenport again, hair comingdown in thick brown curls from its pins. Closes her eyes, but the sight ofHenry Jennings jumping into the boat after them swirls up, leering. She canfeel the weight of the oar in her hands, the crack of bladed wood against bone,sees the spray of blood as he topples, and her eyes jerk open again, her breathcrumpled like paper against her sternum. The old bullet wound in her side, theone that nearly killed her on Nassau, aches like fire. He’s dead, she tells herself, even as she has already admitted toLiam that she does not think it was enough. He’sdead, and even if not, he can’t find you here. But he will, he will, he –

“Miranda?”

She jerks around,startled for another reason, as the cabin door shuts behind Sam. He is watchingher in confusion and concern, and she sits upright fast enough to make theworld reel. He crosses the boards to her in about half a stride, kneels beforeher, and takes in the damage, the bruises, the sunburns, the corset welts, the cutsand scrapes and the hollowness of her face. “Jesus Christ,” he says quietly.“Look at you.”

“I’m quite all right,”Miranda says, her usual well-bred reflex, even as it is reasonably plain thatshe has been far better, and feels about as substantial as a bit of dandelionfluff in the wind. She caresses his cheek with the back of her hand, as he toolooks thin and dark and gaunt and haunted, a heavy, unshaven black scruffclinging to the clean lines of jawbone and cheek. His hair is half-loose fromits ponytail, but the light in his eyes, however weary, remains Sam. “Whatabout you? What are you doing out here? The others – James and Killian, whereare – we had to go to Jamaica, the pardon for Emma – we – Jennings, he caughtus, we barely escaped from the Bathsheba withour lives, and then the storm – ”

Sam cuts herflustered, half-coherent explanation off by leaning forward, cradling her headin his large, callused hands, and kissing her. Miranda is caught by surprisefor a moment, but then slides off the davenport, and into his arms, onto thefloor. She clings to him almost desperately, running her fingers through hishair, tilting his mouth to bring it closer to hers, as he gets a better grip onher with one arm and cups her head with the other. They barely bother to stopfor a proper breath, quiet and fierce and disbelieving, until they finally moveapart just enough to rest their foreheads. Miranda’s eyes are half-closed, hernose pressed into the hollow beside his, his hand still petting and stroking inthe tangles of hair at the nape of her neck. She lies on his chest, listeningto the steady, deep thump of his heart, and can feel herself starting to shakeagain. “Samuel…”

“Shh.” He gets to hisfeet, and pulls her up with him; her legs have thoroughly turned to liquid bynow, and she holds tightly to his forearms, fearing to fall. He sweeps her up acrosshis chest without an effort and carries her to the bed, shifting aside thecovers to deposit her on the mattress, then pulls them over her. He starts tolet go, clearly intending to let her sleep, but she claws out convulsively,catching his wrist. She does not, she cannot, want to lose sight of him again.Not just now.

Sam pauses, then kicksoff his shoes, pulling the leather bandolier with his pistols over his head,shucking his much-worn black velvet coat, the gold lace looking tattered anddirty. He drapes it on a chair, stripping down to shirt and breeches, and thenslides in beside her, spooning her, arm settling around her waist as he burieshis nose in her hair. Miranda reaches up with her other hand to take hold ofhis, snuggling against him as closely as she can, still half-afraid that one orboth of them will suddenly turn to dust. She thinks of sleeping here withJames, that night that the two of them and Sam finally came to each other inthe dark. Sam was too wounded, and then she was, for it to be everything forall of them, but they have shared more than enough, intimacy and flesh andspirit. Soul, who knows.

Sam pulls his arm up,and runs his hand over the side of her thigh, caressing the tensed lines of themuscle until they ease. They remain there for who knows how long, until he stirsfrom their shared reverie. “Have you had anything to drink?”

“Aye,” Mirandamurmurs, floating in the ether. “Most of your water.”

“You need more,” Samsays decisively, rolling away from her – Miranda reaches for him with a smallsound of deprivation – and retrieving the empty pitcher. “I’ll be right back.”

Miranda lies curled upin the bed, watching the last of the daylight recede down the timbers and thetwilight advance, until he returns, having evidently made a trip to thefreshwater casks in the Whydah’s hold.He pours her several more cups, and sits watching until she’s drunk them, withan air like a stern but concerned father that makes her laugh weakly. “There,”she says, polishing off the last swallow. “Is that better, Doctor Bellamy?”

“Not nearly.” Sam getsup, goes to his trunk, and removes a few pottery vials, gadrooned bronze pots, abrown glass bottle, and something that smells evil when he uncorks it. Then hereturns to her and begins to tend her various injuries. He rubs soothingointment into the scrapes and burns, dabs tallow onto her cracked lips, andcleans the cuts with a few drops of the evil stuff – which, to judge from theway it stings, is four parts straight alcohol of five. The brown bottle provesto be poppy syrup, good for pain, but Miranda doesn’t want any. Poppy can sometimesproduce detailed and vivid hallucinations, and she does not want to wake in thenight and think that Jennings is there again. She might accidentally hurt Sam,fearing it was him. She would prefer to suffer.

Sam urges her to takesome anyway, but puts it aside when she refuses once more. He removes a bottleof some fine rosemary-scented oil, then an ivory-backed brush, and sits Mirandabetween his legs, so she can rest her arms on his knees, as he begins to workat the snarled mess of her hair. He is gentle and deft, never pulling, andMiranda closes her eyes, barely feeling real. “Where did you learn to do that?”she murmurs. “Your sisters?”

“Aye. I did this forthem often. And Mariah a time or two, as well.”

Miranda knows solittle about his family, his past, the lover on Cape Cod he still presumably plansto return for some day – the Puritan girl, with a strict father who regardsvery dimly the idea of his daughter running away to sea with a pirate, nomatter (and especially because of) how dashing. She and Sam have both left anentire life behind in England, and she wonders if he ever mourns it. “You havefour, don’t you? Sisters.”

“Aye. Elizabeth, Mary,Anne, and Jane.” She can hear a faint smile in Sam’s voice. “I never knew mybrother Stephen – he was the eldest child, he died before I was born. I neverknew my mother, either. She died three weeks after my birth, lived scarcelylong enough to see me baptized. My father remarried to my stepmother, a fewyears later. She was barely older than us, and my father, I think, wanted amother for the children and someone to cook and clean and keep the house forhim, but not so much a wife. He was never cruel to her, but he missed my mothertoo much, and he did not know how to move past that. She was sweet, she triedhard, but it was… difficult. I realize that more now. I often found hercrying.”

Miranda tries toimagine Sam’s childhood, growing up on a poor farm in rural Devonshire, so farfrom the glittering balls and society suppers of her wealthy London birdcage.“So you left,” she says quietly. “To go to sea, and make your fortune for themall.”

“So I did. It was theleast I could do, for how they cared for me. I never knew we were poor exceptwhen other men told us so, when the landlord came to extort and terrorize. Idid not want to see them subject to it any more.” Sam works carefully at atangle. “And yet, it would be too dangerous to send a letter, or return forthem – now that I have made myself such a known man. I fear often that someonehas found out who they are. That they have been made to suffer for theirassociation for me. So tell me, is that helping?”

Miranda winces at thebitterness in his voice. “You’ve done the best you could.”

Sam doesn’t answer, thoughhis fingers tremble as he takes up another lock of hair. The silence returns,sitting on the davenport with them like a quiet old hound, until – half notwanting to know and reprimanding herself for it, reminding herself that she hasno right to jealousy or threat – Miranda says, “Tell me about Mariah.”

“Oh?” Sam soundssurprised.

“Aye. I want to knowabout her. You love her, and I… I’m curious.”

“Ah. Well.” Sam seemsto be considering how to start. “We met when I arrived in Cape Cod the first time,fresh off leaving the Windsor inBoston and meaning to make my own name in the world. Penniless and ragged-arseand angry and naïve, but a fetching lad for all that, I suppose. She was a fewyears younger than me, and… well, to be quite honest, I don’t recall we didmuch talking, at least at first. She’s brave, Mariah. It’s not easy to grow upin that world, with everything they tell you about how a woman is supposed tobe and to act and believe, and challenge it, in even the smallest degree.”

“No, it isn’t.”Miranda has never been nearly that strict in her own observance of Puritanism –the attraction of it for her is the right to read Holy Scripture for oneself,to be the arbiter of one’s own salvation and the moral judgments thereof,rather than have it filtered through the corrupt and creakingly archaicCatholic Church – but she knows everything that goes with it. “But her fatherdid not think you suitable.”

“Not at all.” Samsounds wry. “And Mariah refused to leave without his blessing. I thought somemoney would change his mind, but when I returned there last summer, when Ifound Emma in Eastham, I discovered that instead of objecting to my penury, henow objected to my piracy. No pleasing the old bastard, so…” He blows out abreath. “I’ve been generous to the village, I’ve tended their problems, I’veprotected them from the exactions of the Royal Navy. Still it is thus. I wonderperhaps if Mariah likes the idea of me, the thought that I periodically returnfrom some exotic adventure abroad with tales and gifts and a night to spendtogether, and then vanish into the horizon again. That it is easier to have mefor a little while, and then to know I will go, rather than risk me staying forgood.”

“Do you wish it wasotherwise?”

“I do want her to – Iwish I could make her see that she shouldn’t have to stay there, in that place,with those people.” A faint edge of frustration is audible in Sam’s voice, buthe keeps it level. “I cannot take her from her own home without her consent,and against the wishes of her father – since those are also, for the moment,her wishes. If it was a matter of him keeping her prisoner against her will, ofcourse I’d free her. But if she still intends to stay, then stay she must.Perhaps we both hope the other will change. As yet, we have not.”

Miranda wonders if sheshould not have brought up the topic. She looks down at the ring on her finger,the ring that James proposed to her with on Sam’s instigation, the one that hesaid was meant for Mariah, one day, if she would ever take it. “Is she kind?”

“Very kind.” Sampauses to put more rosemary oil on the brush. “It is what I first admired abouther – well, nearly the first. I was a lad of barely twenty when we met, andother attractions were more apparent. But she is the sort who carefully carriesan insect out of the house rather than kill it, who gives her few pence fromthe market to some hungry child or ragged beggar. She always likes to listen tomy stories, to marvel at where I have been or what I have done. We’ve knowneach other long enough for it to be comfortable, easy, a safe port in a storm.But for all those years, we’ve only ever passed a few days together.”

Miranda looks down atthe ointment glistening on her ankles, the bandages on her arms. She is notsure what to think of this. Mariah Hallett’s reasons for staying on Cape Codwith her family are her own, and no woman can be eager to spend months and monthson a warship with a hundred and fifty men, in a dangerous and uncertain (andless than clean) life always barely ahead of the law. But Miranda, who hasloved pirates a long time and become accustomed to their ways, also thinks thatif this were on offer to her, this devotion from this man, she would take it.Fathers’ blessings are well and good (her own was already dead when she marriedThomas, and she wonders still what he would have thought of it), but if thatwas the only thing stopping Mariah… it does not seem so, and Miranda has nodesire to pass judgment on the other woman, not when they have never even met.She knows, after all, how insidious the grasp is, how you can kneel in churchof a Sunday and hear the preacher rail and rant, how even if it is somethingyou want with your whole heart, something else insists to you that you aredamned if you take it. Miranda knows that too well. Thinks of Pastor Lambertback on Nassau, and his earnest determination to save her soul. And yet, he only ever saw me as a witch.Beautiful, desirable, but a snare of Satan sent to challenge him, and which hemust, in his turn, cast down.

She tenses, and Samcan sense it. “What?” he asks. “Miranda, are you all right?”

Miranda supposes thatanother man might have asked if she was jealous, prodded to see what effectthis discussion of another lover was having on her, even if she was the one toraise the subject. But of course, Sam Bellamy does not. “I just…” She has no ideahow to even enumerate the things that are not right, numberless as stars in thesky. “Sam, I’m tired.”

“Aye.” He pauses, thenfinishes his brushing, carding through her now-silken hair with his fingers,and doing it up into a long plait. “Come to bed, love.”

Miranda does not needto be asked twice. She turns around and lets him take her in his arms, pullingher against his chest as they settle under the quilts. She still has morequestions, she wants to know what happened on Antigua, with Gold, with Hume –if she feels entitled to call so many of his ghosts to account. But not now.She wants to lie here with him, in the dark, and keep them quiet a littlelonger, and to sleep.

The next few days aresomething of a blur. Sam has assigned Liam and Lord Archibald to quarters withthe rest of the crew (which takes aback Lord Archibald, who was clearlyexpecting preferential treatment) and, being the gentleman that he is, offeredRegina the davenport in his cabin. Miranda does not want to dispossess her, asthey have, after all, been through the same ordeal. But nonetheless, she findsherself not in the least guilty when Regina – who can clearly see that theywant to be alone together – opts to spend most nights below with Liam anyway.

At the end of theweek, they chase and capture a ship, a Dutch merchanter out of Sint Maarten,the De Vries. Miranda sits in thecabin and watches through the window, until Sam comes in later with a present:a cameo on a velvet ribbon, which he fastens it around her neck. “There,” he says. “The cargo was mostly tulip bulbs, but thosethings are worth more than their weight in gold. I’ll find some taker for themlater. And there were a few chests of the usual sort, so I’d say we did quitewell.”

“Of course.” Miranda glances at the lookingglass once more, then back at him. “So you – have been pirating, then? SinceAntigua?”

Sam goes tense, the word hanging in the airas if etched in fire. After a moment, he says, “Aye. James and Killian wantedto return to the Maroons’ island – Emma is near her time, you know – but I… Iwanted to be who I am, for a while. I didn’t want to leave you, any of you. Ijust… needed to be away.”

“Of course,” Miranda says again, softly.Comes to him, rests her hands on his chest, as he takes her by the waist andthey stand there, listening to the raucous talk and laughter of the Whydah’s crew dividing up the spoils.“Sam, what – ”

He smiles, with that bitter, far-off lookin his eye, then bends to kiss her forehead. “James killed Hume,” he says,abruptly and unexpectedly. “They nearly hanged me and Robin Locksley, but Jamesand Killian arrived in the nick of time. Saved us, cut us down, and then Humekilled Locksley. I nearly – Jesus, I… somehow, after everything he did to me,that was when I hated him the most. I don’t know what I would have done, but Jamesshot him. Then we got the fuck out of there and had to put a leash on Vane andBlackbeard before they sacked the place. Which we did, but Jesus. I don’t think I would have troubled myself at all, not losta single wink of sleep, if the godforsaken lot of it burned.”

Miranda flinches. This is so unlike the manshe’s come to know, the chivalrous, temperate, dashing, generous captain, whonever allows his crew to kill except in justified self-defense and even now didnot spill a drop of blood in taking the DeVries, that it frightens her. Not of him, for she could never be afraid ofhim, but for what darkness is still trying to take root, even in a soul asstrong as his. She brushes a long black lock of hair out of his eyes. “Sam.”

“It’s all right.” He takes hold of herhand, brings it to his lips and kisses it. “I… thanked James later. Hume isdead, which is all that truly matters. But you can perhaps understand why goingto pirate holds a certain appeal.”

“Aye.” Miranda is well aware what sort ofthanks he means, and the image of it – James’ red head and Sam’s dark one, thetwo of them entwined together, fighting and fucking at once, tender and roughand raw – makes her shiver with both terrible desire and terrible grief. Sheloves them – God, she does, hasalways known and loved James more than anyone, but what she feels for Sam istoo strong and sad and sweet for any other name – she loves them both, and ithurts her heart. That James, who has not been with a man since Thomas, stillsees Thomas’ shadow whenever he turns to Sam. Of course he does, of course hecould do no differently – she does not want to let go of Thomas either, sheknows why he remains to haunt their life and their home and their bed – and yetjust then, selfishly, impossibly, Miranda Barlow longs for ease. For ease, andpeace, and Sam.

Perhaps he senses this, again, as he pullsher closer, and she stands on her tiptoes as he bends to kiss her properly. Sheopens her mouth for his tongue, and he explores lightly, as gentle as if she ismade of spun glass, even as she fists her hands in his half-open shirt andjerks him against her. They kiss until they’re breathless, lips wet and bruisedand marked with teeth, and she walks him back to the bed, pushing him down ontoit. She climbs atop him, hitching her skirt up to straddle him. Reaches tounlace his breeches, draws him out hard in her hand, and utters a whimper asshe sinks down onto him, taking him inside her with a sweet stretch and burn, ashe steadies himself with a hand on her hip. “Miranda, love – ”

“Shh,” she whispers, as he did to her. “Please.”

Sam hesitates, then takes her other hip,adjusting the fit with a brief sharp breath from both of them, as her knees braceon either side of his thighs. He looks up at her, letting her ride him,responding in small thrusts or strokes to match the pace she sets. She closesher eyes, mouth open, letting it shudder through her to her core. He fills hersolidly and steadily, simply and generously, never looking away. She bendsforward on all fours, hands and knees, pressing closer still, needing the raspand friction, the heat, as she ruts her hips up against his, to the place theirbodies are joined. “Sam,” she breathes, and it is more than half a prayer. “Sam.”

It’s not a shattering pleasure of climax somuch as a sense of indescribable relief, of milk and honey flowing through herfrom head to toe. She lets herself fall fully onto his chest, head on hisshoulder, as his hand comes up to rest on her back, fingers splayed on herspine, tracing circles. They’re still nearly fully dressed, and after a longmoment, she slides back on her knees, letting him slip out of her. Rolls overand lies next to him, staring at the ceiling. The echoes of his flesh continueto pulse in hers, until he finally sits up, pulls his breeches over his leanhips, and laces them again. “I’m going back out for supper with the men. You’rewelcome, of course, if you’re hungry.”

“Not just yet.” Miranda manages a smile.“Go out and celebrate with them. It was a most impressive capture, after all.”

Sam kisses her once more and strides out,as she watches his tall figure in the falling evening. He is so indisputablythe captain, the fearless leader, though some of these men are older and moreseasoned sailors than him – he is only twenty-eight. Miranda is not quite oldenough to be his mother, but as she is marking her forty-first year in May, sheis closer to it than not. She wonders if Sam would be happier with Killian andEmma than with her and James. They are his peers in age, and have so much lessdamage, so fewer impulses to hold back everything that he deserves to be given.Not to say that they are immaculate, or forever forthcoming, or without flaw,as no one is in this world – but perhaps. Perhaps. Yet in either case, theyneed to get that pardon back to Emma, or this all will have been for nothing.

Regina sleeps on the davenport that night,understandably not wanting to be around a bunch of rowdy men just in case,though Miranda feels that any man of Sam’s who laid an unwanted hand on a womanwould be relieved of it faster than their head could spin. So they merely sleepas well, and in the morning, after Regina has dressed and left, she asks himabout sailing back to the Maroons’ island. They were due to return a while ago,and if James and Killian returned and found them gone – would they come afterthem? She does not know. But Emma is just about to give birth, and with all ofthis – they have to.

Sam considers, then nods. He vows that theywill get the pardon to Emma, Miranda has his word on that, and perhaps heshould speak to Liam as well. He does not seem either to like or dislike theelder Jones brother, treating him with cool, correct civility, mindful ofLiam’s status as a guest on his ship, under his protection, but still too awareof Liam’s judgment to let down his guard. In another world, perhaps, they mighthave been friends, but this one, as ever, remains too fractured.

They capture another ship that day, aBritish trader from Portsmouth, the Georgiana,full of righteous indignation at their temerity; the captain informs them thatthe Royal Navy will hang them straightway. Sam only smiles dangerously andremarks that he does not think so, as Miranda sees the captain’s eyes flick toher and wonder if she is a helpless Englishwoman taken prisoner by thisbarbarous lot. James, as it happens, is from Portsmouth, born the only son ofCaptain Adam McGraw of HMS Venture, trainedand groomed for a career in the Navy from his first steps. If this captain hadbeen taken by his fellow citizen, he could expect much worse than what Sam hasoffered, and Miranda takes a few steps closer to him. The man can think her thepirate’s wife, or his whore, or his witch. It is no role she has not playedbefore, after all.

After the Georgiana is stripped and sent on her way, with one of the Whydah’s men sentenced to lose his sharefor shooting a sailor unprovoked, Miranda can feel Lord Archibald’s gazefollowing her as she walks to the rail with Sam. Doubtless he feels that shehas sullied the honor of the Hamilton family name enough, and does not evenhave the decency to refrain from her liaison with a pirate before his veryeyes. As if he has any moral authority to talk, as the one who hired Jenningsin the first place and being willing to finance privateer activities moregenerally, but they have called agreat deal of trouble on his head. As the alternative is death, at eitherJennings’ hands or Gold’s, Miranda is of the opinion that Hamilton has gottenthe best of a bad bargain. He is welcome to watch all he pleases, as she reachesup and brushes Sam’s heavily stubbled cheek. “You’re getting quitewild-looking. You should let me attend to this.”

“If you want.” Sam grins, looking more likehimself than he has yet. “I think it makes me rather fearsome, don’t you?Though it’s true, there’s already one Blackbeard.”

“No lighting explosives on your person, if you don’t mind,” Miranda says. “Comeon.”

Sam cocks an eyebrow, but follows herobligingly into the cabin. It’s a fine, fair day, and they open the windowsover the stern as he takes off his shirt and sits in the carved armchair, andMiranda removes the shaving kit from the trunk. On the one hand, she supposesshe should drape a sheet around his neck; on the other, she is rather enjoyingthe view. She whisks the soap to a thick white froth and spreads it on his chinand cheeks, strops and whets the razor, and carefully begins to scrape. Hewatches her with gentle affection, not talking (unlike James, who always seemsto become the bloody Oracle at Delphi whenever she does this for him) as sheworks. She takes the cloth, buffs him clean, and gives him a quick rinse, thenpats a bit of the ointment onto the small spot where she nicked him. “There.You look altogether more civilized, I’d say.”

“Ah?” Sam smiles devilishly. “No chance ofscratching you if I should kiss between your legs, you mean?”

Miranda blushes, despite herself. “Samuel Bellamy.”

“If you were going to scold me properly,you should know my full Christian name,” he remarks, as he gets out of thechair, but only to go to his knees in front of her, running his hands down herskirt and lifting the hem of it away. “It’s Joshua. Samuel Joshua Bellamy.”

“How very prophetical of you,” Mirandamanages, slightly breathlessly due to the fact that Sam’s fingers are slidingfarther up her inner thigh, then still farther, teasing at her wetness. “Soundthe trumpets of Jericho too, did you?”

He looks up at her, eyes dark with lust.“Why, did you want a demonstration of the sorts of things I can do with mymouth, Mrs. Barlow?”

Miranda starts to answer, but forgetsaltogether, breath driven out of her in a rush, as he licks at her, grasping herfirmly by both thighs, making sure she reaps the full benefits of his newly barberedfacial landscape. She utters a choked gasp as he nips her with a light sting ofteeth, playing her nub in slow, considered strokes, and braces her foot on thechair, hiking her knee up to allow him better access. He muses and mouths andtastes her, working lower, sliding his tongue into her with a few quick ghostsof thrusts. Then he moves to kiss her stomach, the jut of her hipbones, thesoft rasp of her mound, the slickness of her folds. Still preoccupied with hiswork, he murmurs, “You really should marry James, you know.”

Miranda blinks. Much as matters might beunorthodox between the three of them, this is nonetheless a surprising topic ofconversation when between a woman’s legs. Then again, she asked him aboutMariah earlier, so she can hardly cast stones. “If we’re ever – ” She graspsfor the desk to steady herself. “If we’re ever in the same place again – ”

“You will be.” Sam pulls back to look up ather. “I promise you that, love. The two of you need each other. And you have been engaged for quite some time.”

“Only if – ” Miranda bites a gasp as hemoves back in. “Only if you perform the ceremony.”

She feels himsmile softly, against her secret skin. “I suppose that can be arranged.”

That night, as Miranda sleeps in his armsand the world becomes the strange, eternal, echoing place that it does in thedarkness, where it is only him and his unquiet thoughts and the great black seahis mind sails so much as his body, Sam thinks again, for the first time sinceit happened, of Antigua. Both of it, and what came after.

He doesn’t remember consciously deciding togo to Flint. He made him a promise, to be sure, and he certainly intended tokeep it. But calling off Vane and Blackbeard, and escaping into the Atlanticahead of any pursuit (he thinks again of the Scarborough burning in the harbor, how he only wished to have setthe flame himself, and how he sometimes still wishes to burn the Windsor, David Nolan’s ship or no, toscour the very memory of it away, leave no trace) was chore enough. Nor did heintend to go to Flint on the Walrus; itwould be difficult to achieve the necessary level of privacy, and the lastfucking thing he wanted was for John Silver to pop up after, with those knowingeyes and glib ripostes. But after they reunited with the Whydah and headed for St. Ursula and the Virgins, once they wereagain a proper pirate cohort with a spot of pillaging on the mind… then it’sthat night beneath the Caribbean stars again, and he is standing on the deck,and hears a rowboat pull softly across the water. Hears it clatter against theside, and the hoists creak. Until a dark shadow materializes, unpins the turbanwrapped over his face, and regards him with glittering green eyes. “Goodevening, Captain Bellamy.”

It's spoken with that spurious courtesythat Flint does so well, nearly enough to sound genuine, but edged with the icethat keeps you at arm’s length. It’s clear that Flint feels he shouldn’t havehad to be the one to initiate this conversation. There is a considerablyawkward silence as they stare at each other, both waiting for the other to dosomething. It’s Sam who breaks the spell. “Can I help you, Captain Flint?”

He doesn’t feel that it’s explicit thanksthat Flint wants, and would think less of him if so, if he felt that hisservice in killing Josiah Hume deserves payment in kind. They circle eachother, almost unconsciously, drawn as if to similar points on a lodestone. ThenSam, with a glance at the dim, anchored silhouette of the Jolie Rouge a few hundred feet away, thus to ensure Killian isstill safely occupied on his own vessel, beckons Flint after him with a brusquejerk of his head. Across the boards, and into his cabin.

It’s decently sized as such things go –though it’s smaller than it used to be, as he’s modified the ship to fit moreguns – but once the door shuts and it’s just the two of them, it feels absurdlytiny. The thick tropical air turns still thicker, weighing on them, as Flintunravels the rest of the turban and sets it aside. His ginger hair is darkenedto russet with sweat, which glints in a sheen on his cheekbones. The silencehas become nearly enough to set off a barrel of gunpowder without call for a spark,by the time Sam speaks again, in a low, level, almost expressionless voice.“You had no right to do that.”

James Flint, a man not in the leastaccustomed to asking anyone’s permission before he does anything, especially killinghis enemies, arches an eyebrow. “Oh?”

“No.” Sam takes a step; he’s several inchestaller than Flint, an advantage he now uses to look coolly down his nose at theolder man. “Hume was my monster. Would you agree without turning a hair ifsomeone stepped in to kill yours for you? Even meaning it well?”

Flint’s tongue touches his lips. There’s anunderlying goad in his voice when he speaks – that, and something else. “That’snot what you said before.”

Sam comes close to punching him, just for amoment. Instead, he reaches out and pushes Flint in the chest, hard, whichmakes him rock on his heels, but not actually give any ground. This man doesnot back down, one can say that for him, and he clearly dislikes having to tilthis head to continue meeting Sam’s eyes. They’re standing close enough by nowthat most of the space between them has unaccountably vanished. Very softly,Flint says, “I’m not sorry.”

Sam did not expect him to be. Did not wanthim to be, not really. But as he struggles so hard to keep his head abovewater, to remember who he is and wants to be, he is so damned close to givinginto the darkness anyway, and if he does, it seems absolutely unbearable thathe didn’t even get to murder his tormentor himself. Instead, somehow, this iseven worse. Have Flint do the dirty work for him, trying to save his soul, andyet not be strong enough to hold off the plunge anyway. Sam Bellamy has spent agreat deal of time assuring everyone else that it is no weakness to do so, nolasting stain or defect on their character. And yet, when he comes to theprospect himself, standing on the edge of the abyss, all he can do is fear thefall with more-than-mortal terror. He can’t go down there, he thinks. He can’tgo down there and survive.

Flint seems to sense his struggle. Raises ahand to his cheek, in the closest thing to a gentle gesture that Sam has everseen from him. The backs of his fingers ghost without quite touching, both ofthem aware that they can’t actually make contact without breaking a dam, andbeing unable to control what they unloose. “Sam,” James says, in a gravellywhisper. “Sam, don’t.”

Sam has no idea what he means – don’t fallto the darkness, don’t feel guilty about the prospect, don’t be afraid, don’tstop yourself, don’t bleed like this before me, don’t take this on yourself,don’t, don’t? It could be any or all or none of them. He closes his eyes, forhalf a haunted instant, since he can’t bear to keep looking. Hears only thesoft creak of the Whydah’s timbers,the susurrus of sand in the great hourglass on his desk, and the catch and gulpof their increasingly strained breathing. If they’re not planning for anythinguntoward to happen, Flint should go. Really should.

He doesn’t. Instead he takes another step,until there is nothing but fractions, whispers, slivers of space between them,if that, and his hand is so close to Sam’s face that Sam can feel it burning.Flint curves his fingers, ever so slightly, and that brings them into contactwith Sam’s cheekbone. Just a bit, the barest brush. And yet, just as promised,as feared, as perhaps so terribly hungered for, they both snap.

Sam’s hands come up, seizing Flint by theshirt, shoving him backwards against the wall, and almost lifting him off his feet.It’s a rush of uncoiled ferocity halfway between a push and a lunge, as hedrives into Flint with all his weight and strength and his fists jerk againstFlint’s shoulders. Then before either of them know what the fuck they’re doing,they’re kissing – if kissing isremotely the word for this savage, starving, gulping, biting communion. Theyturn their heads, twisting and tugging and pulling closer again, Sam tastingblood in his mouth where Flint has bitten his lip – inadvertently, he thinks,but he honestly isn’t sure. Their hands grope and grapple, catching hold ofeach other, letting go to claw hold into the other’s upper arms, at theirheads. They don’t stop kissing long enough to decide.

There’s a slight shove and scuffle, andFlint turns it around on Sam – or at least tries, that insatiable, eternal needto always be in control attempting to reassert itself. But Sam plants his feetand doesn’t let Flint change their places, or alter their position at all. “Ohno,” he whispers. “You came to my ship, didn’t you? I’m the captain here. This is mine.”

He can feel Flint’s mouth twitch in somethinglike a sardonic smile, acknowledging the point. Their hands grip each other’sheads, and the renewed kiss is gentler, if only somewhat, but still an unspokenand unrelenting clash of lips and tongue and teeth, their hair coming loose,their bodies straining. “Fuck you,” Sam whispers. “Fuck you.”

“Now that.”Flint’s amusement is grim as granite, cold as ice. “That is what you said before.”

And with that, whatever insubstantial wispof self-control they had left, any idea that they were going to be able to pullapart and walk out of here with nothing more than bruised mouths and breathlessclutches, vanishes in the gloaming. Flint makes a noise that is half a laughand half a snarl, and so does Sam, and the next instant they’re ransacking eachother’s clothing as brutally and intently as any prize they’ve taken on theseas. Flint’s shirt tears as Sam hauls it over his head, and Flint’s fingersshake as they do away with Sam’s, and there’s a soft slap and clink as theyundo their belts at almost the same moment. They shuck down their breeches andkick them away on the floor, and then it’s only them, bare in their skin.

Sam’s hand cups Flint’s head, tangled inhis hair, in order to press their mouths closer, as Flint’s hands run down thelean column of his back and help themselves to a healthy proportion of hisarse. Flint utters a choked grunt in the back of his throat as Sam thrustsagainst him, grinding their erections together as they walk (or stumble) towardthe bed. Tumble on it in a tangle of limbs, Flint on top as he settles betweenSam’s legs, bracing his weight on his elbows. He looks down with a flash of whiteteeth in the dimness; he really is an absurdly ginger tomcat, freckled acrossarms and chest and doubtless elsewhere, eyes two slivers of emerald. He is likelyabout to say something cynical and clever, but Sam grabs his head and kisseshim instead.

They do so again for several wet, thoroughmoments, with more of those low, growling noises, until Flint pulls back, nipsSam under the jaw, and slides slowly down the length of his body, until hishead settles between his legs. Kisses and bites in the cut of Sam’s groin, thenwith a brief, economical movement, takes him in his mouth.

Sam jerks, but Flint has prepared for thisand uses one hand to hold his hip down, preventing him from thrusting too farand hitting the back of his throat. He is efficient and merciless at his task,and grips Sam by both thighs with strong, callused sailor’s hands, working athim with consummate dexterity just this side of roughness. His head rises andfalls in time to his movements, he licks a slow stripe, and then pulls away – leavingSam flushed and quivering but not entirely satisfied, as he groans and makes agrab for him, but Flint bats his hand away. He slides up on Sam, mounting him,with a brief, dry rut between his legs – clearly indicating that this will be,as the saying goes, tit for tat.

Fine, then. Bloody fine. Sam sits uphalfway, reaches for the drawers beneath the bed, and pulls out a small vial ofoil. He has had enough experience to know that spit is in no way an actuallubricant, and besides, the last thing he wants just now is any ghost of Hume.He holds it out to Flint, a silent challenge, and sees a brief surprise, almostuncertainty, in Flint’s eyes. Not from any lack of wanting, but this – still.This is something.

Just as the words flit to Sam’s lips towhisper, to wonder if the great and terrible Captain Flint is frightened, Flinttakes it from him, flips it open with a deft one-handed twist, and spills someinto his palm, slicking them both to a good thorough sheen. His slipperyfingers twist in Sam’s tumbled black hair, their entangled bodies reflecting inthe low light of the candles like carved marble, sprung from the chisel ofMichelangelo or some other Renaissance master (and, Sam thinks, Michelangelowould have no objection to the context of the comparison). Then Flint pulls himaround, back to chest, and wraps an arm around his stomach. His fingers strokeover Sam’s thigh, as he hitches himself up. For the first time since this hasbegun, he speaks. “Well?” he whispers. “Is that what you want from me, Sam?”

Sam’s breath is rasping raw in his throatand he feels as if every nerve is on fire, as if he needs Flint’s ferocityalmost more than his gentleness, but he can still appreciate the fact thatFlint is just as aware of Hume’s vengeful ghost, and will not venture furtherwithout explicit permission. There is silence filled only with the sound oftheir heavy breathing, as Flint bends to set his teeth into the muscle of Sam’sshoulder, hand remaining low on his stomach but not any lower. Then Sambreathes, “Yes.”

Flint remains frozen for a moment longer,then moves. Nudges at Sam very slowly and carefully, gripping hard on histhigh, as they kneel in the middle of the bed. Slips inside a bit, and then abit more, never too hard or too far, with astounding restraint in the face oftheir heated, brutal tryst thus far. His oil-slick hand drifts lower, gets Samin a firm grip, and he strokes with his thumb, half-dreaming. Sam thrusts intohis fingers, writhing, as finally, what feels like forever after they started,he feels Flint’s hard, muscled thighs press against the back of his own, feelshim seat himself all the way in, beating like a heart. Sam is made of glass,and a touch will shatter him.

Flint remains where he is, chin on Sam’sshoulder, hand on his cock, both of them breathing as if they have been runningfor their lives (and perhaps, after all, they have). Then Flint begins to move,slowly at first, muted and shallow, little butterfly flutters. His other handcomes up to grip at Sam’s hip, curling into the bone hard enough to bruise, ashe whispers something – a name – that doesn’t quite sound like his. Is thereand gone too fast to be sure, but nonetheless, Sam would wager good money thatit was Thomas.

Something flashes through him then, halfwayto jealousy, bitter as a burning draught, as he shoves back on Flint, hard, andfeels the jolt of visceral, grinding, gasping pleasure deep inside him,punching a gasp out of him like a blow to the chest. Flint’s hand on him movesfaster, as Sam arches his back and the two of them engage in a protracted,wordless duel. As Flint presses against him with absolutely insolentthoroughness, stomach and hips and cock and thighs, muscles tensed andquivering in brief, punching bursts, as Sam bends over almost on all fours, andFlint’s fists clench over his on the sheets, clawing and jerking in time totheir strokes. “Fuck,” one of them breathes; Sam is genuinely not sure which. “Fuck. Fuck.”

It’s not much longer until they both comeundone completely, hissing and trembling and swearing, as Flint pushes Sam flaton the bed and bites at his shoulder again, hard enough to leave a red crescentin the flesh, the heat and salt and whiteness coursing through both of them.Perhaps it is a blessing that they cannot meet each other’s eyes, for Sam isnot entirely certain that they could stand it, would not blow apart on theinstant like flawed glass, scattered and sparking. They lie there like felledgiants, still entangled, as Flint’s gasps sound halfway to sobbing. His fistsremain locked around Sam’s. They are vast, they contain multitudes, and yetthey are nothing at all, are less than the smallest speck in the great expanseof time and space and grief. Ashes toashes, Sam thinks. Dust to dust.

After an endless moment, Flint withdrawsfrom him, as carefully and incrementally as he came, and they lie side by sidein the tangled quilts, not looking at each other or speaking. Sam feels as ifhis bones have turned to liquid, to molten stone perhaps. He counts hisbreaths, can feel them travel from head to toe, raw and scraping and stingingin his veins. He wants to sleep, very badly, and wake in a hundred years to thetaste of a prince’s kiss.

Finally, Flint sits up, slow and dazed anddrunk. His voice sounds almost absurdly matter-of-fact in the dimness. “Ishould be getting back.”

Aye, Sam supposes, he should. It’s not forhim to ask Flint to stay, and he likewise is not altogether sure he could bearit if he did. Sits up as well and watches as Flint searches in the dark cabinfor his clothes, pulls them back on. His shirt is still torn; Sam attempts tofeel guilty about it, and can’t. He remains where he is, watching Flint dress,sensing the pendulum of the world trying to shift back to wherever the fuck itwas before, and having no idea. They seem entirely alone in an orb of dark ink,floating on an endless sea beneath a never-ending sky, the weird and wildwaters of world’s end. Unmanifest, unmade, the nothingness before creation. And the earth was without form, and void;and darkness was upon the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God moved uponthe face of the waters.

Does it? Does He? Samuel Bellamy has notbelieved in God for a very long time – or rather he does, in a fractured,piecemeal, unavoidably inherited sort of way, but his opinion of the worldlychurch, and its sanctimonious, hypocritical, power-grubbing clergy, is about aslow as it can get. It’s possible, though Sam does not remember, that Hume tookthat from him too. As if any god that could look remotely and pitilessly uponthat sin in the darkness of the Windsor’sorlop deck, and raise no fingernor turn no hair at all, was one that might exist, might hold the fabric of theworld together even so, but not one that Sam could ever countenance worshiping.

(He misses it, almost. Misses trusting thatsomething, Someone, other than him could take a hand, and hold him close. Lethim lay his head, and sleep.)

Flint finishes dressing, and glances backone more time. Seems about to speak, and doesn’t. Nods instead, stiffly anduncertainly, as formally as if taking his leave of the court. Crosses thecabin, turns to shadow, and the door opens and shuts. Sam can hear the hoistsagain, the boat lowering. Can imagine Flint rowing back across the dark waterto the Walrus, and whatever reckoningawaits him there, in his own lonely bed. By morning, no doubt, this will all begone. It is best that it is. For both of them, for this, for everything.

Sam closes his eyes, feeling the echoes oftheir coupling resounding in him, like a great drum has been struck and held,resonating on the edge of hearing. It is foolish, perhaps, but there are worsethings in the world than being a fool. Lies still, then, and begins to countsheep.

#tdh #the dark horizon #sam x miranda #sam x flint #bi awareness week #bi visibility day #extasiswings #ask