Hawkins was never supposed to survive what came after Vecna.
Neither were the people in it.
You're Dustin Henderson's older sister, the quiet genius who helped save the world more times than anyone cares to count. But after the chaos of March 1986, you did the unthinkable - you left Hawkins behind on a full-ride scholarship to Stanford, determined on building something that didn't revolve around monsters and loss.
Steve Harrington stayed.
Now, eighteen months later, Hawkins is sealed behind military barricades, the Upside Down starts bleeding through reality, and Steve is holding what's left of the town together with a radio station, a beat up minivan, and sheer stubborn will power. You're two thousand miles away, listening through static and late-night phone calls, pretending distance makes things safe.
It doesn't.
When you finally come back, Steve realizes two things at once: You are not the girl he remembers. And he is absolutely, catastrophically screwed.
You're sharper. More confident. Unapologetically beautiful. And hiding a side of yourself that doesn't fit the image Hawkins has of you. A side that Steve can't stop thinking about, no matter how hard he tries.
As monsters close in and walls finally come down, desire collides with fear, guilt, and everything left unsaid.
Some things are impossible to unsee.
Some fantasies refuse to stay in the margins.
And once you become someone's centerfold, there's no folding you back up again.
A Steve Harrington x Henderson!Reader fic, set parallel to Season 5! New chapters every Friday!
AU - Bucky x you - You are starting a new job, courtesy of one Tony Stark. Tasked with becoming the head of medicine and research for the Avengers and their companions. What you don't expect is to get under the skin of one ex assassin turned good guy, James Barnes.
PART 1 ~ PART 2 - PART 3 - PART 4 ~ PART 5 ~ PART 6 - PART 7 - PART 8 ~ PART 9 ~ PART 10 ~ PART 11 ~ PART 12 ~ PART 13 ~ PART 14 ~ PART 15 ~ PART 16 ~ PART 17 ~ PART 18 ~ PART 19 ~ PART 20 ~ PART 21 ~ PART 22 ~ PART 23 ~ PART 24 ~ PART 25 ~ PART 26 ~ PART 27 ~ PART 28 - PART 29 - PART 30 ~ PART 31 ~ PART 32 ~ PART 33
<3 Rom-Com - Friends to Lovers - Stuck x You <3
Three best friends since high school suddenly find themselves living under the same roof again. You're married to Steve, and Bucky needs a place to stay. This brings up long-buried feelings, fears, and secrets that no one wants to see coming.
Fumbling in the dark :smutty fluffy Congressmen!Bucky x You fics - can be read as stand-alones
About damn time ~ Taking care of you ~ Cramps
⚠️It Gets Dark Here⚠️
Intoxicated -Breaking The Rules -
PREDATORS
Out Of Mud You Rise
Their world is burning, the land stripped to nothing. James has taken the one peaceful people and shaped their hurt and pain into a weapon. He is the one at the front when he is struck down. Their only hope lies in the hands of an immortal swamp witch.
Shane Hollander wins ‘Player of the Year’ and celebrates with his husband, Ilya Rozanov. Shane drinks a little too much, but thankfully, Ilya is glued to his side.
words: 4.5k
chapters: 2/2 (complete)
tw: none
note: drunk Shane gives me the same happy vibes as high off painkillers Shane 🫶🏻
🧚♀️ find more heated rivalry fics here 🧚♀️
✨if the author has tumblr, please let me know so I can tag their blog✨
100 years after Armageddon’t, Adam passes away from old age. His funeral allows Aziraphale to reconnect with his very old friend, but Crowley, busy giving away his power to save Earth, is only the shadow of himself. In the meantime, a young woman starts asking questions.
Why we love it
There’s an incredible feeling of melancholia through this one. Our beloved are OLD. They are old and suffering from each other’s absence. This fic is both sad and hopeful, Percy’s youth comes as a renewing breath and the beginning of a new cicle. I absolutely loved reading this!
Tags: Post S1, Hurt, Comfort, Happy Ending, Open Ending, Canon Compliant
【 content; morax | rex lapis x reader , slow burn , mutual pining , multi-chapter , archon war period , afab!reader 】
【 note; i need to stop saying "dw guys next chapter wont take that long!" every time i do i get pulverised by a boulder | read on ao3 】
【 word count; 6.305 | previous chapter - next chapter | masterlist 】
- Chapter 13 - Dissolution
Your poor forehead was itchy the entire day following “the incident”, it didn’t bruise nor form a large bump, thankfully, but you still felt sore if you pressed on it…
“It looks fine, just be glad it didn’t poke your eye out, idiot,” Ming Hui says after having tugged your head down to inspect it. She’s thankfully not mad at you anymore, not after you offered her both the youtiao—about four boxes of it, four sticks in each… she berated you for the number of them for a few minutes but seemed satisfied when you offered to take one box for yourself.
You straighten again after she inspected it, and wonder if you should tie a ribbon around your forehead to cover the small raise of your skin. “I didn’t sit under its trajectory on purpose,” you grumble—how are you the idiot for a branch falling on your head? You don’t have the reflexes to knock it away or dodge… if anything, you just sat there and watched it plonk down towards you.
She turns around to grab some bottles off the table behind her, setting them on a tray before walking past you—while you’ve been… otherwise occupied, Ming Hui has been studying medicine and healing arts under Ground Mender. You feel a bit bad for missing out on the lessons, but perhaps you can convince Ground Mender to let you attend as well. “What are you doing?” you ask curiously as she pops open the jars and bottles.
“Making a tonic that numbs your mouth,” she says and starts… just pouring all of the liquids into one larger jar, the colour is blue and a bit misty.
“Ah…” you make a sound of understanding. You’re not sure what it would be used for, perhaps oral infections…? “Does it not require more… gentle mixing?”
“Doesn’t matter once it’s all in there,” she says, closes the lid, and shakes it wildly.
Sure. You’ll take her word for it.
In the few days after arriving, there wasn’t much for you to do—you feel like a war general in a province without war. There were no patients suffering from afflictions relating to foul energies in the infirmary, mostly just routine injuries that you helped dress, keep an eye on, and assist the patients themselves be comfortable.
You’ve never been much of a nurse, always preferring the ‘you’ve been cleansed please go home and rest’ approach…
Just as you’re tossing out some dirty shirt— a poor man has been vomiting endlessly for the last few hours and always just barely misses the basin before it comes out, and thus has gone through a few shirts since the morning—you spot a white robe moving in the corner of your eyes and see that Ground Mender has decided to grace the infirmary with her presence.
She’s been busy, you assume, as she has barely come around the infirmary in the last days—so you seized the opportunity and quickly jogged after her. “Ground Mender!”
At the call, the adeptus stopped and turned towards you, eyes curious. “Ah, my apologies—I’m in a bit of a hurry, I’ll have free time tomorrow if you want to chat.”
She didn’t give any details, as usual—you don’t expect the adepti to tell you anything at this point unless it’s very important. “Oh, it’s okay, I’ll talk to you later then,” you quickly reply. You would like to ask her where she’s going, or what she’s doing, but Ground Mender is already halfway down the hallway by the time you could think of what to ask her.
Next time, then…
Feeling so restless is annoying, you can’t even relax and read a book or take a walk after leaving the infirmary without feeling as if you should be doing something else, something more important… doing what you always do.
There’s no one to cleanse in the capital, there’s no one—at least that has been brought to you—suffering from afflictions relating to foul miasma or strange energies… but you know that somewhere, in places outside of the well-guarded cities, there are people suffering, perhaps sick and unable to get better, because their illness is not the cause of bacteria or themselves, but a foreign energy invading their body.
You kick a rock in front of you as you walk through the city streets, it bounces four times before you’ve approached it again give it a good swing, causing it to bounce ahead of you again.
Perhaps… it’s okay if you leave for a while—there’s not much for you to do anyway, you can always just be summoned again if something happens?
You’re not used to being so… tied down to a place, to feel like you don’t have the option to leave whenever you’d like—but you’re unsure why you feel like you can’t leave, it’s not like you’re being held here, you doubt you’d be dragged back kicking and screaming if you expressed that you truly wanted to leave.
But you can’t bring yourself to pack your clothes and depart. It’s been on your mind for two days now, and no matter how it bounces back and forth in your head like this stupid pebble, you can’t figure out whether you want to go or not.
Besides… who knows where that massive demon went, staying here for the time being would be the safest option—but you’ve never been particularly pressed about your own safety over others, what if he’s devouring people by the villages as you’re wandering the city streets and munching on rice cakes?
Finally, the pebble you’ve been abusing for a while bounces off to the side and down a stream that hugs an empty home—you won’t go digging for it, so you keep moving.
Coming to the stall you were looking for, old man Zhou’s son has reached much popularity with his mixed cuisine, taking what he learned in the west and both selling specialties he learned there, as well as integrating them into local dishes.
There is a row of people that splits into two waiting to be served, and you can see the top of his head behind the stall, as well as two shorter heads running to people waiting by the side with their ready orders—his cousins, if you understood currently from your brief visit yesterday.
They had just closed the stall when you came here last night, so you were out of luck getting something warm—but Zhou’s son, Shi Hao, had told you to come again early the next day… it seems even leaving at sunrise wasn’t early enough to avoid the crowds.
Preparing to wait for a while, and taking a spot at the back of the queue, you couldn’t help but listen in on a conversation between a young girl and boy waiting in front of you. “—uncle told me there’s ghosts in the west, I wonder if the buns here are made of ghost hairs.”
“What?” the boy next to her gives the girl a confused look. “Why would anyone make buns out of hair? It’s made of dough.”
“Pigs have hair, why can’t buns have hair? When I poke father’s pig, it feels like I’m poking dough,” the girl shakes her head. “And ghosts have a lot of hair, you can’t cut your hair when you’re a ghost.”
You decide to tune out of their conversation, every time you listen to kids talk you feel like you understand them less and less.
The wait stretches on forever, you’re halfway into the queue and feel as if you’ve been waiting for two hours—though it could also have only been one. After an eternity of waiting, it’s very hard to wait when such delicious, strong smells of cooking are wafting by you every second. The sun has risen into the sky, but it’s not very warm despite the brightness… people are dressed in warmer layers as they wait for a hot meal or snack. You hear chatter as a woman behind you keeps rubbing her hands together to keep them warm.
Shi Hao barely notices that it’s you when you step up to the front, the headband he’s tied around his forehead to keep sweat from dripping onto the food news changing soon and his hair looks as if a dragon blew him away. “Good day, precious patron!” he calls as he ducks down to fetch more herbs from below. “What could I make for you today? Please look at the menu!”
You already knew what you wanted, as you had visited the night before. “One traveller’s delight, please,” you lean a bit over the stall so that he could hear you—just as the man shoots up into a standing position and almost knocks heads with you. “Oh—”
“Ah, I’m sorry, I didn’t realise it was you!” Shi Hao grabs your left arm and shakes it heartily, and you have to grit your teeth to not flinch—that guy’s grip is intense, and your poor arm doesn’t take shaking very well, not shaking like this at least! “I’ll get on it right away—Qi Xuan! Orders seventy two and ninety eight are ready!”
One of his cousins came running, it was far before noon and they already seemed as if the two had run three laps across the capital. Maybe you should fetch some water for them after having your meal.
You step aside after giving Shi Hao your order as well as setting the sufficient more in the little box on the counter to let the next person approach. While this stand seems to be doing very well… it’s blocking the narrow street that the entrance to Thousand Pots lies in quite a bit. The large crowd both waiting in line and for their food on the sides doesn’t make it easy to spot the small restaurant.
Making the mental calculation that your food would likely not be ready in the next seven minutes, you duck into the alleyway and see that Thousand Pots is open as usual, and despite the crowd outside there were still three people inside having a nice meal.
As soon as you took two steps in, something hard knocked you on the back, you make a sound of surprise and discomfort and turn to see what had hit you—only to be met with Zhou, holding a ladle, the offending weapon. “Ow… master Zhou, why are you—”
He whacks you again, but the old man doesn’t exactly have good joints, so it makes it easy for you to predict the next whack and dodge accordingly—by almost banging your hip on a table a poor fellow is eating on. “A youngster like you should be able to fend off an old man like me more easily!”
You don’t recall making Zhou angry, and as you almost fall over when your foot hits a chair in the small space, the ladle whacks you on the forehead—right where you had been sore already—and you groan, halfway to falling to the floor and barely able to hold yourself up by grabbing the side of a table next to you.
“It was a small tap, don’t tell me you have a skull like a tea pot?” he taps you with it again, and this time you grab the long arm of the ladle and hold it away from you.
“Ow… why are you attacking me?” you grumble, rubbing your poor forehead as Zhou lets go of the ladle, leaving it in your care. “Isn’t the restaurant open? I didn’t break in.”
Shi Hao’s cousin enters the restaurant behind the old man, holding a sealed basket—likely your much anticipated meal. “Gramps does that every time we do something stupid,” the girl says and hands you the basket. “Like when uncle was teaching me to make fish soup, but I forgot to gut the fish.”
“I don’t recall fumbling a fish soup,” your eyebrows draw together as you’re suddenly holding both your food and the damp ladle Zhou had been using, you extend the ladle to the girl and she accepts it. “But I’m sure I would, I’ve never made one before.”
Zhou makes a humph-ing sound and takes the ladle from the girl, but doesn’t take another swing at you—thankfully. “We heard all about your condition, and right as you were getting better, you up and leave! I had prepared a week’s worth of delicious meals for you!”
“Ah…” your lips part, and you’re not sure what to say; for one, who is feeding this old man information from within the palace? You feel a bit bad immediately after his words settle in your brain, you’re not a very wasteful person, and knowing that food was prepared—or more likely, ingredients were prepared and would be used over the week—and were then not used makes you feel uneasy. “I’m sorry, I wasn’t aware…”
“Of course you weren’t, it was a surprise,” Zhou said and walked into the back of the restaurant, the girl behind you left as well—and momentarily you were a bit lost as to what you should do, was the conversation over? Are you free to go?
Hesitantly walking past tightly spaced tables and into the kitchen, you just manage to see the short old man duck under a flaming pan with two other people preparing for lunch. “Now look at you, like a wet rat.”
Though a bit exasperated by being scolded so much—especially when you just came out here to get some tasty food—having a elder berate you is a bit nostalgic. “I’m sorry, master Zhou, can I repay you for the foods you had prepared? I hate to hear it went to waste.” The kitchen is steaming hot, with one of Zhou’s daughters working at a broth and another person you haven’t seen before taking a jar that’s been prepared to ferment what’s inside, though already sealed, so you can’t see what.
“Waste?” the old man popped up again, and suddenly plopped a fat, heavy dough wrapped in a dry bag into your arms—you barely had time to put your basket of ordered… and likely going cold, food aside on a clean surface to catch it. “Little Ming Hui gobbled it up like a starving beast, she didn’t let anything go to waste.”
It was a relief that nothing went to waste, and you’re not exactly sure how you would repay him—you didn’t bring a lot of mora with you.
“That’s good,” you hum, but feel a bit out of place—you had got a taste of the kitchen-rhythm and were very self-aware that you were standing in the middle of it, possibly about to be in someone’s way any second. “Eh… why am I holding this?” you ask hesitantly, it smells a bit like dumpling-dough, and fresh at that.
“Repay you can! Now come here and cut that dough into even pieces, I’ll teach you how to make my dear wife’s favourite,” he suddenly appears behind you, having rounded the tiny kitchen in seconds without knocking into a single thing, and is now pushing you through the tight space. Pots, plates and other dishware stack up to the ceiling on both sides, and you can really see why they decided to name the place “Thousand Pots”, you couldn’t begin to count them.
“O-of course, but, my food—” you start to protest. It’s not that you have important places to be, but what about that lovely smelling basket you just got?? How do you keep getting roped into such things?
“Bah, Shi Hao can make you more later, put the dough on the counter before you drop it!”
You feel as if the strings of fate have been forcibly guiding you into kitchens a lot recently, doing hard work with dough… and you feel like you’re really starting to get a hang of it too, though having to take frequent breaks to rest your arms has slowed your progress quite a bit.
Heat emanating from behind you where Zhou’s daughter is steaming some vegetables makes you feel as if your clothes are sticking to your skin, you wipe your hands after stuffing another bun and look over your shoulder to find the old man, to tell him the buns are ready for the steamer—but your name is called before you could even open your mouth.
“In here,” Zhou walks back into the kitchen with a familiar man in tow—Morax ducks under the flaps at the entrance to the kitchen and lets his eyes wander over the pot-filled space before landing on you. “Ah, done already? Well done! Let’s get them ready,” the old man nods eagerly and scoops up about five buns at once from in front of you.
For a moment, you thought you were hallucinating—no one else seems to greet or notice him there, and you’re unsure how to test this hypothetical illusion… you kick the counter before you, and sure enough, despite the sting in your poor toe, Morax remains.
His eyes lower down to your foot, and then raise up to meet your eyes again with swirls of confusion. “Are you… experiencing jerking symptoms in your leg?”
His confused and rather innocent question makes you feel a bit bad. “No, I just—it was an accident, my legs are fine,” you quickly say, wiping your sticky and flour-covered hands on your pants. “Why are you here? Er, I mean—are you here for any specific reason? Or, is it a coincidence…? No…” you started out too harshly, then got too specific and ended up asking a strange question. You need to socialise with wider circles on a more consistent basis. Maybe you should find a council to join and relearn how to be polite in a manner you won’t fumble so easily.
Morax simply waits until you finish talking, no longer seeming confused or concerned—despite the fact you feel that you’ve been around him quite a bit more than many, at least many mortals like yourself, you still struggle to understand his expressions… or perhaps he’s the one who struggles to form them. “I was searching for you. Ming Hui told me that you had gone to taste young Shi Hao’s new menu, and the little ones outside told me you were put to work.”
It’s a little embarrassing that he had to search for you, but you can’t be blamed too much—you got roped into kitchenwork, you can’t exactly abandon half-cut dough.
“Searching for me? What for?” your fingers still feel sticky from the dough, and you look around for a washbasin or towel, but find nothing that seems to be for washing your hands, perhaps it’s behind the middle counter where the broth is being made. It must be somewhere—it’s a kitchen after all.
Morax notices your mild discomfort, searching around subtly—or so you think—as you wipe more at your clothes that are already powdered by flour. He chooses not to comment on it nor inquire what you need. “It is best discussed with more privacy, if you… have finished here, I would like you to accompany me.”
You immediately nod. “Oh, of course.” but as you glance to the heap of chopped and worked dough next to you, a small part of you feels like you’re leaving a job only half-done.
Thankfully, before you can either ask the god before you to wait a moment or that you’ll come to him later—Zhou behind you calls that you’re done for the day, and that you can leave if Morax needs you. “I’ll save some buns for you! Come back later!”
The air feels cold when you’re back outside, you didn’t realise how stuffy the kitchen had become until now. The fresh, cool air almost makes your teeth tingle as you follow Morax, his long feet allowing him to outpace you quite well.
The walk is silent between the two of you, but the streets are alive and loud with people as the afternoon brings them out from work and obligations, you have to shoulder past a few to keep in pace with him as you pass through a busy street and almost feel that you need to grab ahold of his clothes or arm to not lose sight of him—though the thought is equally as terrifying as it would be embarrassing would he turn with question or discomfort.
You refrain, you don’t make a habit of touching people anyway—surely you could just give him a shout and he’ll wait by the nearest street corner?
Thankfully you manage to follow Morax through the crowd until the two of you reach the high streets leading towards the palaces, where he looks over his shoulder to see whether you were still behind him—and upon seeing your form still trailing behind, he tilts his head slightly and turns back forward.
“Were you enjoying yourself?” Morax suddenly asks as you begin to ascend the stairs towards the palaces, he climbs them so easily it seems as if he were merely gliding upwards—meanwhile you have to fight to keep up with him, and hope he doesn’t hear any heavy breathing.
You take two steps at a time to try and catch up to his side. “In the kitchen? I don’t know,” you admit. You just did what you were told, kneading was a bit straining—and not the most interesting thing you’ve done, but you were too focused to get too bored. “I don’t mind cooking, or baking. But I don’t spend time perfecting the craft…”
He hums, golden eyes faced forward as you finally seem to match his pace. “Your dedication to your work is admirable.”
You almost stumble face-first onto the rocky stairs, your poor toe impacting the step you intended to push onto too early. With a lack of grace you manage to steady yourself before cracking a tooth, or possibly breaking your nose on the ground. “A-ah, thank you…”
The sudden compliment startled you, weren’t you talking about cooking? You suppose the reason you haven’t learnt the optimal ways of making your favourite meals and opting for the quicker route instead is because you are often more focused on getting back to whatever you were doing before dinner time… maybe you’re not as hard to read as you expected, or hoped.
You’re not sure what to say, and he doesn’t offer any more words as you continue to climb the stairs—should you offer a compliment in return? It doesn’t feel right to just leave it at that, but you haven’t directly done so before, wouldn’t it feel too forced?
“The Guili Assembly has always been home to me, and I hate to see the people suffer unnecessary sickness,” you add. To have a healthy body, a fate unburdened from illness—and have it forced upon you by conflicts out of your control… how can it be fair?
You hate to see the pallid skin of a person who climbed a tall mountain to collect flowers for their love, the foreign ichor that crawls beneath their muscle and steals life from it. You wish for them to be healthy and whole again, as they are meant to be. Without the interference of a godly war for territories and strength—
You hear your name spoken in front of you and realise you fell behind, a good eight steps between the two of you. Morax is staring at you, considering your words. “It is a noble thing, to devote oneself to easing the pain of others.”
A second acknowledgement, your heart feels a bit too noticeable in your chest—beating too firmly against your ribs. He seems like he wants to say more, but as a cool breeze pushes at your side, his eyes flicker from your face when a leaf flows between the two of you, breaking your eye-contact and he quickly sets a foot to the next step. “Come, I wish to show you something.”
You’ve never been at the top of Morax’s palace, it’s mostly bare compared to Guizhong’s well decorated and pretty hallways. The wood is elaborately cut and polished, of course… but there’s a distinct lack of… soul within it. No artwork, no artefacts or curtains. You can’t help but wonder why as your gaze finds his back again.
The room you step into is shaped the same as the one Guizhong called you into a while ago, but whilst her was a blend of an office and workshop, Morax’s seems more of a war room. There is a map on a table at the centre, the Guili Assembly is outlined at the centre, the vast oceans to the east and the mountains that warp into a swirl to the southwest—many mapped lands that you have never set foot in, and some you have only heard of and never seen on a map.
The windows are tinted and closed, casting the afternoon sun onto the floor as unlit lamps hang from the ceiling. You feel like the air is a bit heavy, it could do with an open window…
“He Shan disappeared into the western highlands, I did not manage to trace his exact location or where he has chosen to hide himself,” Morax says as he closes the door behind you, he moves past you and approaches a large cabinet sat against the wall to your left. It’s large and has a lot of different doors to it—you could imagine scrolls and small artefacts could be kept inside each one.
Opening one, Morax reaches inside and takes out an object wrapped in a cloth, golden lines shimmer atop the covered item as he taps it twice. The centre of the seal quivers before disappearing into particles, floating into the air and disappearing above your heads. As he unravels it, the object looks like a stone slab of some sorts. You approach the war table as Morax does, he sets the object down and your nose scrunches as a terrible stench emanates from it. “He leaves behind traces of himself, this is a chipped piece of his scales, likely torn from his body when moving around the landscape.”
A scale? Well, part of a scale, the serpent was so massive you imagine one scale is half the size of your body—or at least the size of your torso, this chipped scale fits into your palm. “Why does it smell like this?” you ask, you don’t remember such a stench filling the air as the demon emerged from the mountain, only the oppressive weight of his resentment.
Morax is silent for a beat, before he turns the scale around—and beneath it is an inky, writing mass. It gleams as if it’s wet, but it doesn’t stick to Morax’s gloved hands, not leave a damp imprint on them. “In two villages I visited while following his traces, I found that their waters had been turned to sludge—they could not use the rivers to wash nor drink.”
You looked at the mass on the inside of the scale again. “Is it safe to touch?”
“Briefly, to my knowledge. But I have not tested prolonged exposure with mortal hands,” he says and gestures to the map on the table, his finger tapped on a dotted spot to the west of the Fangyuan mountains. “He moved from the mountains and west, past this village, as well as the town north of it,” Morax’s finger glides along the highlands separating the Guili Assembly from the deep forests further west. “I traced him to Tianqiu Valley before my path led to a dead end.”
Your fingers curl at your chin, a hum leaving you. “Surely a serpent so large can’t just… hide?” it’s hard to imagine, he spanned so many kilometres you’re unsure how he would rest without leaving his tail in the open somewhere—or perhaps gods don’t require rest? You’ve never seen a god sleep, or an adeptus for that matter.
“Unfortunately, were he to hide further north there is too high of a risk to send scouts into foreign territory,” Morax shakes his head. “This scale, does this resemble the miasma you encounter during cleansing?”
You eye the squirming mass, trying to gouge it from sight alone—you don’t really want to touch it, but just looking at it isn’t giving you much. It’s certainly more solid than the usual foul energies you pull out of people, miasma feels… slimy and wet, but not like you’re clenching a rat in your palm, even when it fights your pull. More like trying to grasp thick mist.
Reaching your hand out, you lay your palm over it—careful not to touch it as you feel for the energy. It’s much warmer than the usual miasma, but doesn’t shirk away when you get close… it’s definitely not the same, but has a similar tinge in a way that’s difficult to explain. “It is… different,” your brows pinch and you lift your hand away from the scale to see that the mass had lifted upwards and then deflated as soon as you moved—like bread being uncovered when it’s set to rest while making it.
“Different?” Morax moves the scale slightly, he didn’t quite like how it raised towards your palm.
“It’s got a similar aftertaste,” you wipe your hand on your clothes, it didn’t touch you, but you get an uncomfortable tingle from the thought of it. “Since he’s a demon, wouldn’t his energies be inherently different than the ones that infect the lands?”
You’ve only dealt with a demon once before, and you didn’t stay long enough to get to know it properly—personally or in nature.
“Not necessarily,” Morax said. “The beings whose remains leave poison behind are all very different, many are classified as gods by mortals—it can be difficult to differentiate between them. Even Guizhong and I are very different in nature, but you would simply see the two of us as divine beings. Demons are similarly different among themselves.”
You nod along as he talks, it’s surprisingly easy to listen to his voice when he’s explaining things to you. You did know that gods are very different in nature, rarely are gods one and the same. “I see… and we need to understand what kind He Shan is?”
He nods and takes the scale from the table, wrapping it into the pale cloth again. “General Huang has extended contact to Mei Lan, it would greatly speed the process if she were willing to divulge their history. Facing the demon head on without any information of his nature is too dangerous.”
After closing the cloth around it, the seal seems to close itself without his interference, Morax offers it to you. You blink at him, eyes moving between his expression and the scale. “... why are you giving it to me?”
“The affinity you have for foul energies can be utilised for more than cleansing,” he says and takes your wrapped arm from your side, lifting it up and placing the wrapped scale in your palm. “Keep this in your bedroom, not by the nightstand, but on the desk.”
Your fingers instinctively wrap around the clothed scale, but your eyebrows furrow. “Is it safe?”
“I would not place this burden on you had I any doubts,” he shakes his head, and his warm hands leave yours. “Every evening, feel for its energies and move it from it’s spot every other night. When you wake, try to sense it across the room.”
The pieces in your mind start to align as he gives you the instructions, clicking together in realisation. “You want me to be able to track him?”
“My senses cover a large distance and can find a target’s location across the land,” his expression pinches as he talks, eyes narrowing slightly. “But as I reached Tianqiu Valley, his essence seemed to scatter, and each time I approached; it evaporated.”
Some kind of trick, no doubt—you’re unsure how exactly you’re the solution to it, but you trust his foresight. “I see… you must forgive me, but I’m struggling to understand how I can be of assistance if you couldn’t find him.”
You wince at your own words, maybe you could have worded it better—but can you be blamed for doubting yourself compared to him?
Morax doesn’t seem offended by your question, he moves towards a shelf and takes a book from it—it looks old, the cover doesn’t shield the spine of it and is made of a thick material you’re unsure what it is made of. “Many demons are proud beings,” he turns back towards you and holds the book out for you to take, you accept it with your free hand that isn’t clutching the uncomfortably warm scale. “They… over and under prepare simultaneously. You are not preparing for battle, do not worry overmuch,” an everso small tug lifts at his lips, so faint that you wouldn’t notice if you were not used to seeing his expression so lacking of one. “Tracking and cornering He Shan is the difficult part, but not the most dangerous. I will handle the rest swiftly afterwards.”
You look down at the book, it seems to be a collection of old folktales, though they exaggerate, they can help give you an understanding of how demons behave around mortals.
Morax is asking much of you—that he knows well, to ask you to risk your safety to assist him. Defeating demons is mostly a game of mind, the physical battle will be a smaller feat for him; Morax has defeated many demons in the past. “If you are not willing, I will not force this task upon you,” he says, a mild concern touching his gaze by your silence.
Raising your head from staring at the book, you shake it. “I am willing. If it will prevent harm and disaster upon innocent villagers and townsfolk.”
The small touch of a smile widens briefly, a gentle expression gracing his face—you truly wish he would be more expressive, every smile and soft gaze makes your palms sweat slightly, but they warm your chest as well. It might also make it easier for you to talk to him without feeling that you’re overstepping, or sounding silly.
“Very well, then I employ your assistance with this task,” Morax nods. “You will of course be well compensated.”
Payment is always nice, but you hope he knows that you’re sincere when you say that you want to assist for the safety of others. You’re sure he’s only being formal. “Thank you. Is there anything else I must do other than… sleeping with this thing around?” you lift the clothed scale for emphasis.
“Yes,” he turns to the map beside the two of you again and meets your eyes briefly to ensure you’ve followed his movements before he gestures to the two villages he mentioned before along the western edges of the Assembly. “I did not manage to stop for long when I was tracking He Shan, the waters are likely still infected and must be cleansed. I requested supplies be sent from nearby towns to assist them, but it will not last for long.”
It’s not too long of a travel distance, but you stay silent to let him continue. Surely you won’t be going alone? Not that you can’t, but what if the serpent decides to slide through again?
“I cannot accompany you just yet, but I will convene with you in a few days.” Ah, as you suspected—you suppose it’s not so surprising, Morax must be very busy… He Shan is just one among many threats that the Guili Assembly faces in these times, many of which you are unaware of. “I will ask that Indarias join you, I suspect that He Shan’s potent energies will attract smaller demons that mistake it for remains.”
You just nod along to his words, you don’t know who Indarias is but if they’re going to be joining you specifically because there might be demons about, then you suppose they must be capable. “When will we set out?”
“Two days,” Morax straightens again, turning away from the map to face you completely again. “Indarias has been tasked elsewhere, but she will return quickly once summoned. I suspect two days will be enough—will you require longer to prepare?”
“No… but…” a thought suddenly strikes you, something you hadn’t considered as you were discussing everything. “I lost my tools in the south, they were blown away at the start of the conflict,” you scratch your cheek awkwardly. Finding or getting cleansing tools isn’t a simple task, much less so crafting them from scratch, they need specific qualities and material to be effective.
Morax’s lips part slightly. “Ah, I see. I will speak with Ground Mender and see if she has any solutions, I will find you before you depart…” he pauses for a moment. “They were well used.”
They were, well used and loved by your family, your grandmother before you and many before. You always promised to take good care of them… you swallow your saliva and just give Morax a nod. “Yeah, it was used by my family for a long time. It’s impressive how long it lasted, I suppose it was an eventuality.”
Silent, Morax doesn’t seem to know what exactly to say. “I am sorry that you lost a family heirloom… it will not replace what was lost, but I can commission new tools for you. It will not do to be without.”
It won’t be the same, but you will need new tools either way, you bow your head slightly. “Thank you, I’m grateful for your consideration.”
You feel something touch your head—familiar and warm, a tinge of déjà vu prickling your mind. Morax had set his hand atop your head, giving it a small pat before retreating it again. “No need, it is my duty.” you gingerly raise your head again, head tickled a little from the touch. “Please use it well to continue your good work.”
I have cured my bout of temporary illiteracy and now the Melanie King x Reader fic exists!!! I’m trying my hand at multi-chapter, and though I do use y/n designations here, I’ve kinda trespassed into original character territory. Also the first time I’m writing in third-person.
Anyways!
Y/N in this case is a 20-something working a dead-end job, who (for some reason oooo character backstory foreshadowing) has no active social connections from either her past or present. Until, of course, someone shows up, and insists on reliving versions of themselves they were convinced they had both killed for good.
[Post episode 106, where I’ve just kind of inserted a storyline where Melanie leaves and tries to find some comfort in a past that exists no longer. You, my dear reader, are indeed that past! It doesn’t seem that you’re very happy about it at the start. But I suppose there’s always a time for a change of heart, especially given more chapters are to come!
That’s assuming, of course, I don’t forget how to write again…]
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The snow had been threatening to end for days, now.
Every few hours, a new cloud would begin falling over the horizon, which would gently dissipate from when she turned her back to pick up the phone - “Hello, Goodwin Solutions Law Firm, this is Miss [Y/L/N] speaking.” - to when she heard her hand press the receiver down.
Old-fashioned phones were still the way. Getting hired to this place, she had lied entirely about her experience in organization, overstating her way through the years she spent meandering about local county fairs. She still got a bit of a laugh out of the notion that the press-and-click piece of junk she was meant to use was her ‘work phone’. At the very least that meant that it did not ring past her leaving the building. She could never quite get the hang of being available at all times. Dust bunnies hid underneath her unread texts.
Walking home on Wednesday (doesn’t matter whose month claimed it) she mourned the loss of old habits. She had once, as a child, been robustly healthy. Her cheeks were once chubby and cherubic. She clutched her image in the damp, filmy old window of foreclosed storefront, the skin of her face like the sandbanks upon which she had once tresspassed as a child. Her acne scares pocketing their way across her face grew deeper like rill erosion upon sandbanks. She could hear the run of water by her feet, slush painfully dislodging the concrete of the road.
Soon enough, we’ll have to have a third word for whatever falls from the sky over here, she thought.
She didn’t know why she said things like that to herself. The cadence of a joke, despite the lack of humour or punchline, had always comforted her. She replicated the chatter of people whose habits of speech she had never quite gotten the hang or handle of, as a child deprived of language nonetheless hums to keep alert.
Concrete stands out against snow, she had learned that this past year. Uncannily, it had not melted since first taking hold in September.
Back in school, she would every day come home to find that the makeup she brushed into her face during the morning had not evaporated, or even moved, but the stale air of the building had rendered it putrid, stuck to all the holes and hairs on her face like the scum at the bottom of her shower. Speaking of, she had meant to clean her shower when she got home.
From her kitchen she looked out to the mucky mid-winter, and littered some frozen hashbrowns (tasteless, low calorie) on an unevenly ripped piece of parchment (waxen, very noisy).
She had begun chewing her nails, again. The disgust in her mother’s eyes was enough to get her to stop the first time around. It wasn’t exactly a vice, but slowly the suspicion that she would in fact explode somewhere intangible, internal, would build slowly until there she was: chewing.
Except she never did chew, only let them grow long enough so that they wouldn’t interfere with the ridges of her instruments and folds of her body, but would also wedge in between her two front teeth. Her mother once convinced her she would give herself a gap-tooth smile if she kept it up. She had an artist she liked as a child who had one. Pretty sure, like most of them, she had been revealed to be a predator of one sort or another, though now her life had taken her far enough away from the Internet that she couldn’t be arsed to look it up. She knew enough dickheads in her time to believe that the rich and famous were no exception, especially as it was concerned in the music sides of things. She had become, at some point, convinced that anyone who attempts to make themselves known online had something very, very wrong with them.
A few decent melodies will give someone an awful lot of balls, she thought to herself as she shoved the potatoes in the oven.
At least one more than what I’d call medically normal. It smelled still vaguely of chemicals from when she hired that cleaning service. She was pretty sure that she had hired the wrong one, or missed some insinuation in their slogan, since the small Slavic woman who greeted her as she came home offered her condolences on whomever it was that she lost.
She tried to count the people she lost track of in the past months. Very few. Past few years? More. None were dead, and certainly none had had the indecency to show up in her life again just to die on her carpet. She had said thank you. The cleaning woman replied tonelessly, “appreciate”.
The world had been feeling darker than it ought to have.
The winter forces a vagueness of the boundary of two emotions. Of course seasonal depression takes the largest slice of cake, in its fashion and nature, though there was a level of despair that followed her hands and feet as she attempted to accomplish the simplest tasks that had not let up with the same ease that a few good vices and runs in the lung-burning air hadn’t cleared up before. Very rarely in life will one’s head truly be above water, but a certain implicit panic comes from watching the surface freeze above your forehead. Perhaps that was why she kept having to hold herself back from smashing her head into any number of surfaces she brushed past on a daily basis.
Once upon a time, this feeling followed her through exams and then levelled haunts at her with the taunts that she could never truly relate to anyone she was friends with, her life was an act in going through the motions. It certainly felt true, then, but she had never been terribly alone. Even in her own imagination, she had about 20 worlds at a time she was living in. Her friends would come to her with barely concealed admissions that they were really considering it this time, or that had relapse from whichever substance got to them before the age of 13, or which ex-boyfriend [Y/N] really did not want to hear about again. The carefully calculated and off-the-hook tailored answers she would give were about as real to her as the career she led as a musician in her head, an unusual character in the industry who somehow managed to make the viola punk.
Her inability to scratch past the surface in all of her friendships made her into a good enough law student. She had been taking a break from her studies, going back in a year or so. She thought privately maybe that was what had spurred on her depressive episode. She would then always retort that the only way she’d ever really figure that out was if she went ahead and signed herself back up for the next semester, which would kick her income to the curb and put her back in the same exact position she had been in previously.
The potatoes were done. Brownish, smelling like nothing but the vague notion of carbohydrates. She fancied herself thin, now, like she had grown up wanting to be. Realistically, she was average, flabby in the fatless way, and nutrition had become a wary subject for her ever since she quit it with those roommates years prior. There was a sort of grossness, putridness, almost, that had developed in the layer past muscle in her body ever since she lost all that fat. She heard once that scurvy made all the wounds you once had come to the surface again. She looked to the stretch in her skin. She dragged her cracked toenails against the kitchen floor. She turned off the oven and stared at her hands.
Caluses on the fingertips, vaguely manly, though serving her well. There is a grace assumed of a musician’s hands that didn’t follow through with her. Crackle nail polish had been such a fashion when she was back in school. She remembered she taste of it, and the way it unfortunately would always make its way, thick and chipped, into the intersection of her canines like a chemical corn kernel.
She ate absentmindedly. With every bite that dropped into her stomach came a splatter of acid reflux in the back of her nose. She had to resist the urge to hyperventilate or delude herself into thinking she was dying every time she swallowed.
She had been enjoying sleeping more than usual, recently.
A simple sip of the stupor that awaits us all. She snorted and tilted her head back as the back of her nose flared.
Don’t be so melodramatic.
In her bedroom down the hall, she could see that there was a brief flash of light. She wished the landlord hadn’t painted everything so grey.
Though a cellphone wasn’t a part of her office’s budget, a shiny laptop was, and she couldn’t bear to stand up and watch the notifications go by. She briefly considered closing her eyes, opening her email and closing the lid of the laptop, but nothing that played out in her mind seemed to ever make it to her muscles. It struck her, then, with a potency she had been staunchly avoiding, what a profoundly unmoving person she was becoming. A large part of her thought this must just be adulthood, and that lazy excuse she gave herself worked fine for the rest of dinner. After half of her serving had gone down, she had even managed to entirely forget about the emails, and her computer went back to sleep.
She would help herself into the shower, tonight, at the very least. Losing that habit was more of a snowball than others. Flossing, she could do without. She may even sleep without her retainer. But she had found that greasy hair turns into greasy pans in the sink and alarms on snooze and expensive takeout and cheap wine and stern emails from her boss and her sister.
She put on gloves to do the dishes, just like her mother did. She didn’t quite see the point in that, never had the sensory sensitivities she did, but she was able to turn the water as hot as it would go, and despite the money she watched leak from the tap, the steam blowing into her face, the pooling light onto the street a few floors down, this calmed her senses in a manner she rarely experienced anymore.
In her daze she heard the constant hum of traffic below her, the twitching LEDs and the scalding of the oven as one, a familiar nighttime routine, which felt always like a minor, temporary and prolonged failure to thrive, or rather a reveal of a sort of avolition that she was warned she would develop if she didn’t simultaneously live half a dozen different lives.
She ought to be a socialite, a something-or-other Prize winner, a homesteader, arm candy for one of the more successful young tradesmen from her hometown, a lawyer and the new Shalom Harlow, by now. The future - wasted and washed up, or either already smudged into a long line of women who lived sorry, painful and mundane lives in her gene pool - knocked at her door wondering why she hadn’t put anything on for dinner yet.
Her lips were dripping with the steam pooling in the large ramekin she had eaten the potatoes out of.
The knock repeated itself.
The lines in her forehead bunched together. She wiped her upper lip with the sleeve of her bodysuit, thick cardigan lying in a confused ball on the tight red couch.
She looked through the glass, seeing only the top of a dirty blonde scalp. The part in her hair lay flat, curls bunching by her ears. She had heard about Girl Scouts before, but she had grown up too far out of the city to have ever had any walk up. She stepped back.
Do they go away if you ignore them? Should I get my wallet?
The blonde knocked again, and stepped back with a pained look on her face. What [Y/N] had thought was the thin layer of bumpy oils that tends to cover most children, was actually the head of a rather short but adult woman who had been splashed rather aggressively with the freezing rain. [Y/N] hadn’t even registered the sound of it starting.
The woman’s eyebrows did what they always did when peevish, but which was very hard to replicate given the sheer size of them and also that she had a bit of an odd - not special - but particularly indescribable bone structure to her.
The woman outside could hear a thin clop of flats on linoleum, then the slam of a cabinet, and smiled to herself. [Y/N] stood shaking at the kitchen sink, staring at the cracked black spots in her vision and slapped off the gloves.
The blonde could hear two locks being unlatched.
“Oh! Hi?”
Her laugh sputtered like the rain outside. She was shivering. “Hi, I- God, I’m so sorry. It’s just, I don’t have anywhere else to go, and-”
She did not make any gesture of ushering the visitor in, just let a few seconds pass and then tilted her head when she didn’t move. [Y/N] looked terribly struck by something. The tips of the woman’s hair were a faded blue.
“Are you going to come in?” was [Y/N]’s response. Completely deadpan, almost to the point to caricaterise herself.
“I couldn’t impose-”
She cut herself off when [Y/N] walked further into the apartment. The other woman swore she heard something to the effect of ‘likely story-’ whispered. In a moment, [Y/N] had the water turned back on, and sounds of scratching against a metal pan could be heard from the doorway. [Y/N] didn’t put the gloves back on and the steam was billowing at her chin. She did not move from her task when the blonde finally decided she had enough of politely waiting for a proper greeting in the doorway, but called, “Lock the three that I have there, King.”
Melanie’s face was soaking, and the eyeliner had disappeared from only her right eye, though around the bottom rim the makeup had been washed away to reveal a reddish tint that puffed under her lashes.
“I’m sorry that I’m imposing.”
No response. Once [Y/N] had finished with the dishes, and placed them to air-dry on a rack she kept beside the right edge of the sink, she quickly walked into the bathroom without a look towards Melanie and came back only to say, “You’re real filthy, you know.”
Melanie diffidently tried to agree with her, but it didn’t seem to leave a mark on the tired, placid set of [Y/N]’s jaw. “I’ve got towels and anything I expect you need in the washroom. Feel free to use anything you find in the drawers and stuff. I had my outfit for tomorrow on the counter, I think it’ll fit you. It’s clean, at the least.”
Melanie’s face went as visibly pink as could be possible through the thin, soupy grime covering her hair and leaking down into her face. [Y/N] shook her head sharply once and put a stop to the beginning of another thankful rant.
“I don’t worry about you snooping. I keep my drugs somewhere smarter than the washroom.”
Melanie laughed nervously, but went ahead anyways after a few certain but distant nods from [Y/N] as she looked over her shoulder. As soon as [Y/N] heard the shower hiss, she quietly turned on the stove.
[Y/N] cringed as she heard the unbuckling of the, admittedly, comically oversized belt bukle Mel always wore. She had the nail of her index finger stuck between her teeth, the heaviness of her breathing hidden by the rolling boil of both the kettle and the pot she leaned over. She had in her mind the image of a trail of snowy hair trailing up to King’s belly button, dusted like flour on uncooked sourdough.
“[Y/N]?” She could hear coming from down the hall. She refused to turn her back, and simply made a vague noise of acknowledgement.
“[Y/N], I can’t find the towels. Did you say they were in a cabinet?”
[Y/N] felt a strange tingling between her shoulderblades. Slyly, clandestinely, she tucked her chin to her shoulder and from the corner of her vision she could see Melanie’s face against the stark white paint of the door and frame. The acid reflux appeared again.
“Wait,” was all she commanded, and walked to the hallway closet, nestled just beside the bathroom. The door opened in such a way that she would not be able to walk over without exposing herself. [Y/N] grabbed two towels, and then a third small one. For good measure.
Melanie still had her cheeks smushed in the door, her body tilted out of the cast of the LED lights. The opaque darkness of the hallway exaggerated the outlines of [Y/N]’s form, as the warmth of the kitchen clawed at her back. She looked down at Melanie, and hesitated a moment before stepping back slightly and holding out the three towels. She did so just far enough that Melanie had to readjust and push her dripping body fully flush against the door. She was, in a moment, in a blurry darkness again, and heard a thank you from the other side of the wood.
[Y/N] could not, for the life of her, figure out why she did it.
In seven minutes, Melanie came to the small circular kitchen table to a plate of pesto pasta. [Y/N] had spoken no more than three words in response to any conversation Mel would attempt, but equally refused to stop staring at her.
Was she trying to scare her away? Unlikely. She was already scared, it seemed. At one point, [Y/N] turned on reruns of IT Crowd, and Melanie flashed her teeth. She seemed to take it as a sign of an albeit unwilling friendship rekindling.
[Y/N] was trying to ignore the ghost of her fingers Melanie’s soft jawline. Her face had been cold, the way your blood chills in the British winter. It was a less brutal, and more brooding sort of thing to survive. “So, England finally kick you out again?”
Messy green eyes, wide-open and veined like a drained pond looked up in surprise. Oil pooled on a crease in her lip as she softened. [Y/N]’s breathing picked up in pace as she struggled to make eye contact and the blood in her neck froze. “Quite the contrary. They’ve been trying to get me back since I left.”
“What, your old mates, the British government?”
“Don’t be ridiculous. I’m talking of course of my good friends, the Windsors.”
“And how long ago did you evade their company, then?”
“Month or so. You know, it’s been a good long while since we’ve spoken. Do you even check your phone?”
“Don’t have one, anymore. I guess I forgot to delete my number.”
“I’ve sent you emails.”
“Usually people accept hints when so obviously given to them.”
Melanie’s plate was empty, now. She pushed it away and pulled her knees up to her chest. “I only need to stay the night. I can take a train or whatever somewhere else. I know other people in this country.”
“That makes one of us.”
“So I’ve heard.”
“From who?”
Melanie’s face faltered at the sight of a strage heat in the eyes she met. [Y/N] was aware of the bridge she was setting alight, but felt much more embodied than she had much of this year, and the last.
“I remember you smiling a whole of a lot more, [Y/N].”
“Alright-” she noisily got up from her chair and shut the TV off. “I’m off to bed. Sleep on the couch. You can figure it out.”
“Wait-”
“No, alright, I get it, okay? I get it. This isn’t something we have to discuss, we’re not going to fix anything by going over it, we’re just- We’re done. We have been for a while.”
[Y/N] could make out every freckle on Melanie’s face as she stood closer. She could tell which of her perfumes she had chosen to use.
“Mel? You’re- you’re standing just a little close-”
She stepped away like she had been hit and shook her head. [Y/N] went back to knitting her eyebrows. She chewed on the inside of her cheeks to be sure she made no expression.
“Well, at least we both managed to make an ass of ourselves-”
“Look, I’m sorry [Y/N], I don’t know what I was trying to-”
“Go to sleep, Mel.”
In her room, [Y/N] took two shots of vodka and sat upright in the dark for hours. She heard the kettle go on again at 4am. The clumps of snow fell audibly in the street, and the blue light on cinderblock neighbourhoods was a melancholic sort of calming agent. She could have sworn she saw a bat’s eyes watching from the corner of her window, which sat across from the foot of her bed. It watched her take a third shot and fall asleep, dreaming up memories of her year with Melanie King, who used to have the darkest brown eyes you’d have ever seen.
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[Tagging people who commented on my original post: @thef4gnusarchives @chocolate-flora @necromancers-incorporated]
